#also I have no clue why everyone else is so grainy

[obsidiancreates]

Gus Knows Shawn Knows That He's Telling The Truth

(So note: I have that thing where I can't picture images in my head, so I have no fucking clue how it works for people who actually can picture stuff, so uhhhh if I describe memories/imagination weird, that's why.)

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"Come on, that's not right and you know it! I just can't see it when I play it out in my head."

"Gus, play it back in your brain, I know we saw the same thing."

"I just don't see it playing out that way, there's something more here."

It's years of these comments before Gus finally asks, "Okay, what do you mean by that?"

"Hmm?" Shawn looks up from his laptop. "What, the camera grain thing? I told you they swapped to digital on season 4, Gus, you didn't need to google it to believe me."

"Not that, and I still don't believe they'd disrespect classic film like that. I mean the way you talk about remembering and imagining things."

Shawn sits back, eyes fully off his laptop. "How do you mean?"

"I've just never heard anyone talk about that kind of thing the way you do. Like it's a movie or something."

"I mean, it basically is," Shawn says with a shrug. "What, yours isn't?"

"No, Shawn!"

"What is it like, then?"

"I don't know. When I imagine something it's not like watching a movie, though. I have to work at picturing things, at least a little."

"Huh. Weird. Half the time I just see things, literally in front of my eyes." Shawn waves his hand in front of his face. "Literally, when I remember something I stop seeing things around me and see the memory. Same for when I piece things together, I stop seeing things around me and see what I imagine happened."

"Wait, what?" Gus sits up straighter, brow creasing. "You stop seeing things?"

"Again, you don't?"

"No! People don't literally see memories, Shawn, that's crazy."

"Huh." Shawn looks thoughtful. "Must be the eidetic memory thing, then. I thought everyone could literally rewatch things they saw, just, in worse quality. Sort of fuzzy, a little grainy. Sometimes things are highlighted."

"You're not pulling my leg, are you? That's really how your brain works?"

"How else did you think it worked?"

"I don't know! You know it's almost impossible to verbalize the inner workings of the mind and imagination!"

"I think I just did it pretty well, actually."

"Whatever, Shawn. I'm looking this up online, and i I find out you're messing around again, you owe me ice cream."

"And if you discover I'm telling the truth, you owe me ice cream."

"Deal."

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"Told you." Shawn flicks his balled-up candy wrapper at the trashcan and misses.

"But it doesn't say anything about stuff being highlighted, so I still win."

"No, that doesn't count. Clearly that's just a side effect of The Sweetness mixing with the memory."

"And it's only near visual, it doesn't say anything about literally being unable to see the things around you."

"So mine is just stronger, probably because Dad had me sharpen it. ... Damn, I just gave him credit for something, didn't I? pretend you didn't hear that."

"Plus, it only applies to actual memories. You said it also happens when you imagine things. Check and mate."

"It does! Well, not always. Usually just on a case, or when I try pulling the psychic mojo out."

"Nope. Internet says you're lying about that."

"Well, then the Internet is the one lying. Which one do you believe, Gus? Your best friend for your whole life, or some random person with a laptop and love of lying?"

"You also have a love of lying, Shawn."

"... You've got me there."

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"Thanks." Gus hangs up, and looks over at Shawn's desk, smiling smugly.

"Well, that's not good." Shawn checks his drawers for pranks, but nothing. "Alright, what'd you do? Am I about to stand up and have paint all over my butt or something?"

"I called your mom."

"You know her new number?"

Okay, that's can't go unaddressed. "I got her business number from the web. You don't know her personal number?"

Shawn just shrugs.

"Your folks are messed up. Now I wish I hadn't called her."

"I do too. Why'd you do it if we both agree it was a bad idea?"

"To talk about the memory thing."

"Again? Gus, I thought we dropped this last week."

"We did. And then you said that you just couldn't 'see' my suspect doing it on our last case."

"So perfectly normal phrases are cause for interrogating my parents now?"

"Yes, because, she said that's not how it works."

"Hers is only sounds, Gus."

"She said it's still not how it works, even with visuals. Your imagined wrap-up scenarios shouldn't be as vivid as your actual memories, and you shouldn't be unable to see the actual world around you when you remember things. She was really worried about that until I told her you were messing with me."

"I'm not!" Shawn leans forward. "Here, I'll do it right now." He puts his fingers to his head, and Gus rolls his eyes.

"Shawn, I've seen you do it a million times."

"Yeah, but get up and do something while I do this."

"You can just say you didn't see what I was doing."

Shawn yanks his hands down and clicks his tongue. "Man, what do I have to do to convince you that this is how my brain works?"

"I hope you can't, because then that means you have hallucinations all the time, and I know you wouldn't go to a doctor about it."

"Hallucinations," Shawn huffs with a humorless laugh. "That's totally different, man. I'm not seeing or hearing things that aren't there around me, I'm using things I know to make a scene in mind and playing it out."

"But it's directly interfering with your perception of the current reality." Gus's smug look slides off as Shawn doesn't make any jokes back. "... You're really serious about this?"

"Oh, now that I might have something wrong with my brain-"

"No, Shawn, I didn't mean it like that." Gus stands up. "But you're serious? About seeing stuff like it's really happening, right in front of you?"

"Not always in front." There's a seriousness to Shawn's voice that Gus doesn't hear often. It's not angry, it's not upset, but it's not lighthearted either. It's... genuine. A little vulnerable. "Sometimes off to the side or behind me. It's clearer when I have more information or a solid idea to play off, and I'm not there. Not usually, anyway. It's more like TV, like I said, and I'm the camera, but I'm not a person."

Shawn glances up at Gus for one second before quickly looking away, searching his desk for something to fiddle with. "You're sure that's not how it works for everyone else?"

"Pretty sure." Gus sits in the armchair closest to Shawn's desk. "Shawn-"

"Did you ask my dad?"

"What?"

"If he sees things that way."

"No."

"So maybe it's from him." Shawn hunches back over his desk to keep doodling pineapples. "Probably some kind of trick or technique he drilled into my head."

"But-"

"I'm not seeing things." The sudden defensiveness makes Gus snap his mouth shut. Shawn balls up the paper and tosses it into the trashcan without looking. It goes right in, dead center. "Look man- it's enough that I can't just walk in a room or go on a date without all of this going on."

Shawn waves his hands by his head. Gus thinks this is the first time he's heard Shawn complain about his gift themselves, and not just the way his dad always pressures him to use them.

"If I'm hallucinating on top of that, I just don't want to know. So let's drop it."

"... Okay." Gus looks out the window. "You want some peanuts then?"

It works, Shawn's body language relaxing again. "Not today, I saw him sneeze into his hand and then fill a bag without the scooper yesterday."

"What?!"

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Gus snaps his laptop shut, but it's too slow. Shawn's mouth quirks at the corners, like he's so overwhelmingly, evilly gleeful that his face can't process it yet.

"It's not what you think."

"Gus." Shawn puts a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Gus, buddy. It's a lie, remember? If you need me to explain my process more just say so."

"I was just looking, Shawn."

"At How TO Tell If You're Psychic websites? Come on, buddy." Shawn pats his shoulder again and drops a packet of powered doughnuts onto the desk before sitting down in one of the window armchairs. "At least try to come up with a good backstory man. Wait, let me guess."

"No-"

But Shawn already has his eyes closed. "You came in today and sat around for all of five minutes before looking it up, because you're a fool."

"How'd you know-"

"The sweetness. Plus you had like a million tabs open already."

"Yeah, well." Gus adjusts himself in his chair, refusing to feel ashamed. "These websites say you're not alone."

"They all say that Gus, they're about ghosts."

"No, with the way you see things. Most of these are just random garbage, but some of the dinkier ones actually say the same as what you described when you imagine stuff."

"Gus-"

"I'm not saying you're psychic, but I'm saying that based on what I've found, you're not the only person who thinks like that. In fact, based on what I read, your eidetic memory and detective training work hand-in-hand with what you've got."

"What I've got?"

"And overactive imagination and out-of-body experiences."

"Great." Shawn stands up and grabs the doughnuts back.

"Hey!"

"People who psychoanalyze me don't get doughnuts, Gus."

"I'm not psychoanalyzing you! You seemed upset that I thought it was weird-"

Shawn scoffs. "When has that ever upset me? I'm proudly eccentric."

"-so I wanted to show you it's not that unusual. I was trying to be nice, Shawn."

"Well, you did it poorly, because now I know my brilliant mind works the same as people who think they can actually speak with ghosts."

Gus tsks at Shawn and opens his laptop back up. He goes back to reading the page, and glances up at his friend from behind his screen. "... Hey Shawn?"

"Yeah?"

"You think the peanut guy is still sick?"

"Nah, he should be fine." Shawn pulls out some paperwork from the station and groans. "A fi- really? We're filing things away now? Why'd you have them send this over?" He reads it. "What is this, a witness statement? Gus."

"Nothing to do with me."

"It's got a note from Buzz stapled to it that says 'Here's what you asked for, Gus, have a good day.' Look, he added a smiley face. That's adorable."

Stop calling full grown men 'adorable'."

"He's not a full-grown man. He's a full grown Labrador that turned into a man, and you can't prove me wrong. ... This is from our last case."

Gus starts to sweat.

Shawn narrows his eyes. "This is the statement about the thing with the van..." He looks up. "Gus... why exactly did you ask me to explain that deduction to you in as much detail as possible?"

"Just curious, like I said then." He knows it's a bad lie. Even a non-Shawn would clock it.

"Oh, Gus. Buddy, you're not seriously thinking I'm psy-"

"Why're you checking the mail anyway? You never do that."

"I felt like checking it today."

"Why? Felt important?"

"Oh my god."

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"I can see it, clearly!" Shawn shouts, hand to his head as he stands atop the picnic table in the park. He swivels around, pointing among the crowd of soccer moms gathered for their now ruined potluck. "You, June, despised Carol for her status among the neighborhood! The best barbecues, the best garden, the best book club picks-"

"This is absurd," June spits, looking frantically at Jules and Lassie. "You can't believe him!"

"AH!" Shawn stumbles back, squishing a plate of lasagna under his shoe. "Oh, sorry, um- it was all veggie anyway, it's-it's not much of a loss. Ahem. Oh, OH, OH! I feel it! I see it and I feel it! You and Carol were both looking to become head of the PTA, and you knew she was a shoo-in! It was just one more in a long line of titles you wanted that she took!"

"She didn't even want to ban the right books from the classrooms!" June backs away. "She-she flaunted everything! She was tacky!"

"You couldn't stand it." Shawn points at her. "You just couldn't stand it, any longer! She got the house you wanted, her husband got the promotion over yours, she got the parties and the gossip and all you got were passive-aggressive pies!"

"Those stupid pies," June seethes.

"That's what she's most upset about?" Jules says, not whispering but not shouting.

"It was the final straw. You went to her house and you gave the pie back, but she laughed at you! She told you it wasn't a big deal!"

"SHE DID!"

"And so you took that glass pie dish and you slammed it over her head! You did it over and over, until she couldn't. laugh. any. more."

"Yes," June sobs as her fellow soccer moms collectively make a wide berth around her. "Yes, I did! She didn't even try! Every pie was overcooked, every decoration in her house was the wrong color for the walls, everything was wrong! She was ruining my LIFE!"

"Sure," Lassie says as he cuffs her. "Four bedroom with no mortgage to pay off, seems like she really dragged you through the mud."

"It's only two full bath," June sobs as she's lead away. "The other two are only half-baths, it's squalor, it's a slum-"

Shawn hops down from the table and wipes his heel on the grass. "I'm reminded yet again why I'm not a homeowner, Gus."

"You're not a homeowner because you don't make money, Shawn, not because you chose not to be."

"I've heard it both ways."

Gus's eyes flicker over to June sitting in the squad car. "So how'd you know Carol laughed at her?"

"Oh, not this again."

"What?! I'm just asking a question, Shawn!"

"No, you're yet again digging into my head because you have somehow gotten sucked into the lie that you help me fake!" Shawn whisper-yells.

"All I asked was how you knew she laughed!"

"I knew because that's what people like this do! They laugh at each other and make fun of stupid things until one of them snaps!"

"Did you see her laughing?"

"GUS!" Shawn grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. "Snap back into the real world, I am begging you!"

"Get off of me!" Gus slaps Shawn's hands off. "Fine! What else have you seen through this case?"

"What?"

"What other things have you seen?"

"Why are you asking?"

"If anyone is here right now that you 'imagined' something about, we can settle this by asking them."

"This is ridiculous."

"Scared I'm right?"

Shawn takes the bait. He looks around and, with a huffed laugh and sly look, takes off. "Hey! Debbie!"

The woman looks up from where she's packing up the potluck. "Oh, not you again. Don't you have more ghosts to speak to?"

"I do. In fact, one is bothering me right now." Shawn elbows Gus. "The spirit is asking me to verify a vision I had of you. It was fuzzy, and possibly a malicious spirit trying to deceive me. I need to check."

"Fine. You have until I'm done bagging this up."

Shawn raises one hand to his head and presses his middle fingers fingertip to his temple. "Early in this case, I had a vision of you doing your dishes and seeing June and Carol's husband arguing on their front lawn."

"You already asked me about this."

"Yes, I did. But the spirits are insisting there are details that were cosmically tampered with." Shawn gives Gus a smarmy look, which is odd, since he's trying o prove something he thought is wrong. "I... I heard you humming, yes. I believe it was... Livin' La Vida Loca."

He looks at her with a face that says he fully expects to be wrong. But her jaw drops.

"Y-yes. How-how did you know that? I don't even like that song, it just-it came on while I was driving earlier that day."

"Oh, um... well, that-that's good, then. That that part was right." Shawn takes a second, and then nods. "Um, I also see the detail of you opening your window to hear it better. You thought it could be interesting gossip for... a lunch with your sister?"

"Yes!"

"Really? ... Okay, um-" Gus nudges Shawn to get him to keep going, because Shawn is visibly losing his nerve. "I also see..."

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter. "I see... you dropped a plate when you heard June accuse Carol's husband of insider trading. It was a... blue? Plate? One of those ones that's more of a bowl, really. And it chipped."

"Yes." Debbie hasn't been bagging food for a while now, staring at Shawn with complete awe. "Yes, and-and I thought I should stop listening then."

"But you didn't." Shawn blinks his eyes open. "Even though you told us you did the first time we did this, right?"

"... I-I didn't want to be considered complicit if it turned out true... oh, I-I didn't- tell the spirit I'll report her husband-"

"No need, ma'am," Gus says soothingly. "He was investigated already, he's clean."

Debbie deflates with relief. "I didn't mean to lie, I just... I was scared."

"It's fine." Shawn turns on his heel and speed-walks to The Blueberry, visibly rattled. Gus lingers for a moment to give Shawn some space.

"Thank you for clearing that up, his visions can make it difficult to tell what's relevant and what's not sometimes."

"I-I can't imagine. How does he manage to live, with that in his mind all of the time?"

"I'm still figuring that out too, honestly." And now so is Shawn. "Have a nice rest of your day, Miss Debbie."

Gus jogs to The Blueberry. As soon as he gets in, the puting Shawn beside him speaks up.

"That doesn't prove anything. I probably saw the chipped plate when we talked to her."

"You didn't go through her cabinets."

"Could've been in the dish drainer."

"Was it?"

Shawn doesn't answer. Only he can conjure up an image clear enough to re-examine like he's right there in the room in real life, so Gus can't say for sure if the plate was put away or not. But Shawn knows.

And his silence says everything.

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"I'm not entertaining this, man." Shawn tosses the ball up and nearly misses the catch on it's way back down. "It was a couple of weirdly good guesses. Besides, it was all tiny, irrelevant details. I still got our last case wrong half the time."

"We've checked with witnesses for our last three cases, and you were able to describe details you shouldn't know for all of them."

"I do that all the time."

"But you can't explain how you got those guesses right. Come on Shawn, guessing that the kid who only wore pastel floor-length dresses was a hardcore hip-hop fan? There was nothing about her that should have tipped you off."

"Some of what I notice is subconscious, you know, I'm not always aware of every little thing my brain picks up on. That's what a gut feeling is, man."

"Sometimes, for sure. But sometimes it might be psychic visions."

"If these are real psychic visions, they're the most useless visions of all time. Do you really want to be friends with a psychic who can guess the shoes someone was wearing last Tuesday but can't find a murderer until the fourth try?"

"All the websites and books-"

"Why do I talk to you?"

"-say that the less a psychic practices seriously, the more they get wrong."

"That's just a way to cover their asses when other fakes get caught."

"Or, you just need to practice, and we can stop making fools of ourselves with false accusations."

"So that's what this is all about? You just want me to accuse fewer people? That's how process of elimination works, Gus!"

"We're trying it again, right now." Gus wheels his chair over to Shawn's desk.

"I'm not doing this."

"Yes, you are." Gus thinks for a moment. "Try to tell me what your dad said to me after that birthday party where you caught someone trying to steal the cake corner I wanted."

"When we were nine? How do I know you'll even remember that well enough to say if I get it right?"

"Trust me, it's burned into my memory." Because it freaked him out.

"This is stupid."

"Just tell me what you think happened after you left. He scolded you for tackling the kid as they ran away, and you left, and I wanna know what you see when you imagine what happened after that."

Shawn shrugs, face scrunched with hesitant frustration. "I-I don't know Gus, something like-"

Henry kneels down and pats Gus on the shoulder. He gives the child a sharp smile, looking at the door Shawn had just stormed through. "Just you wait, Guster. Someday you'll be able to tell people your best friend is the perfect cop."

"-or something." Shawn opens his eyes and pulls his hand down from his head. He locks eyes with Gus-

Who's mouth is open and eyes wide as they can get.

"What?"

"That was word for word, Shawn!"

Shawn blinks, and then scoffs, a crooked grin spreading across his face and his leg beginning to bounce nervously. "Okay, I just happen to guess what my dad said to you decades ago-"

"No, no," Gus moves closer, pressing one hand to the desk as he fully rounds it and then putting both on Shawn's shoulders. "Dude, I mean the whole thing was exactly like that. The kneeling to my eye level-"

"That's just how he used to talk to us."

"-and the weird smile-"

"All his smiles are weird, it's something I thank the universe every day I didn't inherit."

"-the way he said 'perfect' that made me a little worried he wanted to replace you with a robot-"

"Because he probably did want to."

"Shawn!"

"Gus!" Shawn slaps his best friend's hands off of his shoulders. "I am not psychic! Come on, I thought if either of us was going to forget that one day it'd be me!"

"Well I think you are!" Gus stands and puts his hands on his hips. "You know, this is actually making a lot of little things make sense to me."

"What? No, don't pretend you've always thought this." Shawn shakes his head. "This is going too far, okay?"

"I haven't always thought it, but now some things make sense! Like when you told Nigel St Nigel to stop smoking before you did your noticing-things squint at the electric box."

"I just didn't want the man to have holes in his lungs."

"How about you getting on board with your own joke theory with the Frazen case?"

"That was just me being even better than I realized, and the day I vowed to never dismiss my own jokes again."

"Uh-uh." Gus steps back and points at Shawn, making Shawn cross his eyes to watch his hand bob back and forth. "No, I know this is real. Do it again."

"Gus, it doesn't work like that."

"How does it work then?"

"I don't know, man! Sometimes I just get an idea in my head and it plays out! This is kind of insulting, honestly!"

"How?!"

"You're saying all of my hard detective work is just because some spirits told me something!"

"I'm not saying that at all! I know most of it is just you figuring things out, but I think you really do have some psychic abilities! You're always guessing what I'm gonna say like you can read my mind-"

"Because we've known each other our entire lives!"

"-and you always end up being onto something even with your wildest theories-"

"That's called luck-"

"-and you always manage to get us into the right places at the right time to come face-to-face with the bad guy!"

"Those are bad situations, so that would mean the spirits hate me. Do you want a psychic friend who's being lead into death traps by ghosts?"

"Shawn-"

"Gus, I'm being serious about this. I. Am not. Psychic. So drop it."

"Nuh-uh, no way. I'm getting you to believe it."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

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"Really?" Shawn looks at Gus, completely unamused.

"The websites say they work."

"Crystals." Shawn gestures at his desk. "You have covered my entire workspace with crystals. This is getting sad, man."

Gus shrugs. "They're supposed to help open the third eye and hone psychic abilities."

"You sound like a hippie."

"You sound like a guy in denial."

"I'm not doing this." Shawn opens a drawer to shove the crystals into. "Really?! The whole drawer?!"

"All of them. And I put some in the kitchen."

"This is a problem. You, have a problem."

"Yes, and it's name is Shawn."

"What is this- did you sign me up for a meditation class?!"

"This Friday."

"You signed your completely unmedicated ADHD and hyper-observant friend up for a meditation class. I'm going to end up torturing that poor teacher, Gus."

"If you genuinely try at it, I'll buy you a year's supply of corn nuts."

"... A whole year?"

"A whole year."

"One for each day."

"I have the check from our last case set aside just for this."

"Fine. But when I'm still not psychic by the end, you're not allowed to go back on this deal."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine. ... These crystals are actually kind of cool. Dammit, I might take some home., look at this. This one is shaped like a butt. ... You found the cool ones on purpose, didn't you?"

"One looks like a pineapple."

"Which one- oh, yeah, look at that! This, is delightful. But this, as a whole, is still a problem."

"We'll see."

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Shawn sits at his desk, staring at the wall, as Gus does a little victory dance behind him.

"Yes, yes, we are finally in the clear-!"

"Gus." Shawn buries his face in his hands. "Please give me at least one minute to process this? Should I be the one celebrating having actual superpowers?"

"You're not the one who thought we'd get caught!"

"We still might, it-it's barely even actual visions." Shawn looks at the board of their latest case, the one solved in the morning and the one solved in record time, the one solved thanks to a very small detail and a gut feeling.

And the one irrefutably, undoubtedly, solved by a psychic vision.

"It still happened!" Gus continues his dance. "I told you those crystals and classes would show you! What, what?" He fans himself. "What?"

"This is the weirdest turn my life has taken," Shawn mumbles, rubbing his face. "Of all the ways to find out, it had to be a vision like that? It wasn't even cool."

"Cool is getting paid, Shawn, and it made that happen!"

"But a vision of the victim's flu symptoms? That's- Gus, that's just lame."

"Lame? You knew the guy never had clamminess, that was the whole key! He never had clammy hands, so he never lost grip after falling off that balcony, he was pushed. That was the entire closing argument, Shawn, the killer confessed right away!"

"I could've found other evidence." Shawn sits back in his chair, arms crossed. "Something better than 'Oh, he wasn't sweaty!' What kind of wrap-up is that?"

"Shawn, seriously, what's up with you? Why aren't you more excited about this? We're not lying to cops anymore, you've got actual superpowers, and we can probably solve cases twice as fast."

"Because, Gus, how would you feel if you learned you had superpowers your whole life and just never noticed, so now you have to go back and think about everything you've ever done to try and find out what was you just being an awesome genius and what was some kind of metaphysical interference?"

Gus stops his dancing. "What?"

Shawn grinds his jaw.

Gus sits down.

"... Am I even actually a good detective? A good shot? Have good instincts?"

"Yes, you are. We both know you are."

"Do we? We didn't know I can have visions for three whole decades, so-" he laughs, sharp and bitter.

"... Well, I think it all just goes together." Gus picks up a pencil and starts writing down ideas on how to help Shawn hone his newfound skills. "You can have visions and use your detective skills to examine them way more effectively than a psychic without could, and you can recall each one perfectly. All of the website I read talk about how frustrating it is to have a vision that only become relevant weeks later, and by then it's hard to remember. You don't have to deal with that."

"... That is pretty cool, I guess."

"Plus, they say mind-reading is possible once you practice enough, especially with people you're already close to."

"We already know I can do that." Shawn's mood sours again. "We don't know each other so well I can, I just can."

"I think it's both. You've never practiced it, so maybe we've just known each other so long you managed to do it anyway."

"Are you saying... it was the magic of friendship?" Shawn cracks a smile. "That's adorable, man, really."

"You know that's right." Their friendship is adorable, and he's proud of that fact. "Besides, you realize what you can do once you practice having clearer visions?"

"What?"

"Confuse your dad."

Shawn blinks. And then grins. "Gus. You mad genius."

Gus bows a little.

"He'll never know what hit him! Oh, that'll drive him nuts! He'll never be able to figure out how I'm figuring things out!"

"And now when Lassie says you're a fake, you can hit him with real psychic information."

"Holy- Gus! Why didn't you point this out form the beginning?! I would have totally gotten on board! Show me those websites right now, I'm about to psych it uppppp!"

#psych #psych 2006 #psych usa #psychusa #shawn spencer #burton guster #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

[damienthepious]

so ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ummmmmmmm ahhhhh. megamind fic that hasn’t been updated since 2019. sdfsdffsdlfjadslfkaskdfjdfalksf

Die Clean and Pretty (chapter 3)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ao3]

Fandom: Megamind (2010)

Characters: Megamind, Metro Man, Roxanne Ritchi, Minion, Brainbots

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Fake Character Death, Not Really Character Death, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, (this will… have a happy ending SOMEHOW. even if i don’t currently know. where the fuck it’s going), Megamind Makes Bad Decisions, (also i tagged this as gen because i have NO CLUE what relationships are gonna happen here if any.), (roxanne is likely low key in love with megamind), (and megamind is p much canonically and perpetually in love with roxanne), (but i don't know if the romance will actually feature heavily), (so i'll just change the category if anything changes), Suicidal Thoughts, very indirect descriptions of a body

Summary: What if Megamind had the bright idea to fake his own death before Metro Man did? Turns out, the author who struck upon the idea would cry a lot and then inflict it on others.

Chapter Summary: Roxanne is not coping. Because Roxanne does not need to cope. Because Roxanne is fine, actually. She's just busy.

Chapter Notes: okay look okay look okay look okay. look. we don't need to talk about it. we don't. it's. fine. i'm posting megafic on lizard kissin' tuesday and it's SAD SHIT. it's. FINE.

~

Roxanne can’t stop thinking about the explosion.

That’s perfectly normal, a part of her mind murmurs. It’s the part that sounds like the grief counselor the station insisted she talk to when she came back to the office this morning, and that thought makes her scowl.

It’s not a trauma thing. She glares at the footage, grainy and a little too distant, and she watches for what must be the thirtieth time as the fire curls out of the center of the suit, as Wayne disappears into super-speed, as he rockets back in alarm and collides with the pavement, as the suit itself detonates completely. It all happens in less than two seconds, and Roxanne could play-by-play those seconds down to the pixel by now.

There is nothing at all in the footage to indicate anything amiss, to indicate that anything else happened besides exactly what Roxanne already saw.

There is nothing at all to suggest that Megamind could have survived.

Still, though.

Roxanne rewinds the footage again. She plays it at half speed, for all that it helps. She gets a better picture of Metro Man’s trajectory, but little else. She plays it again. She scowls, and leans closer, and plays the footage again.

(Hiding in a meeting room with her laptop and footage no one wanted to give her, because everyone keeps looking at her like she's fragile, like she-)

Something just feels wrong about all this.

Obviously, that same part of her mind murmurs again. He’s dead. Of course it feels wrong.

She grits her teeth, and plays the footage again. It’s not that. It ’s not just the idea of him- it’s not just that. There ’s something about the whole damn situation that doesn’t sit right with her. Something that pings on her radar as an investigator. It’s not personal-

… Okay, so that’s too much a lie to excuse. She can’t pretend that her reactions aren’t personal. This- losing- the game altering so dramatically- of course it’s personal. It’s basically her entire life, and every part of it is going to change, now. She can’t pretend that isn’t a factor.

It’s personal. But that isn’t why something feels wrong.

She rewinds the footage. She plays it again.

She watches Megamind die, again, and she looks for any sort of crack, the smallest seam that she can pry her nails into.

~

Maybe Roxanne isn’t sleeping. Maybe. Honestly, she doesn’t know how anyone could expect her to sleep. Metro Man is still missing in action; he’s back in the atmosphere somewhere, but no one has seen him since he careened back down to earth. Roxanne suspects that he’s gone home, but she doesn’t know Lady Scott well enough to justify calling her. She doesn’t know what the Lady thinks- thought of Megamind, she can’t imagine what she would say, how she would approach asking-

Is your son there? Is he coping alright? Is he coping at all? Does he blame himself? Would he let me see him? Is he okay?

(Wayne is her friend, he's her best friend, and he hadn't even let her touch him, he'd slipped out of the timestream to stop her from comforting him, he'd left the planet, and he hasn't come to see her and he-)

(Where is he?)

She isn’t sleeping. She can’t sleep. She closes her eyes and-

She isn’t sleeping. She doesn’t bother pretending after the first hour or so. She rises from her bed again and pulls on slippers and a robe and goes to sit in her kitchen, wide and cool and empty, and she plays out the clip in her mind again, plays out the moment as she saw it from near the press line, plays it out frame by grisly frame in her head.

She gets up after a few minutes, restless, and starts pacing the apartment. Nothing for it, really. Nothing for it. She goes to fetch her laptop, setting it on the island and half-leaning on one of the barstools as she starts searching through the local news outlets, the police response, social media chatter.

(She ignores her own report from the immediate aftermath. She knows what she said. She knows how blank and flat she looked with her ash-dusted dress and her heat-singed hair, her voice running on autopilot in its Professional Reporter tone as she ran through the facts of the situation. She knows the way her face twitched when Leah back in the studio said something limp about Roxanne not needing to worry about being kidnapped anymore, the way Leah had immediately tried to backpedal when Roxanne hadn't managed to say anything at all in response, leaving an uncomfortable chunk of dead air between them.)

(Nothing useful for her in there.)

Much of the immediate response, beyond surprise, seems to be a sort of shrugging well-it-was-bound-to-happen-eventually sentiment, which- Roxanne's jaw hurts a bit, from clenching her teeth. Because.

Failsafe after failsafe after failsafe and no, actually, this was not fucking bound to happen. Supervillain is a dangerous position, sure, fine, but Megamind is-

Megamind was. Megamind was always so careful.

... not to say that Megamind didn't make mistakes. His battlesuits frequently had glaring weak points that Metro Man could exploit (which Roxanne privately thought may have been intentional- an extra safety precaution, even. Safer if Megamind knew how the suits would be dismantled, allowed for easier exits if need be, but- that's a hunch. A theory. She doesn't have any proof of that). He often thought too quickly, too, and failed to remember crucial logistics when it came to the timing of death rays and traps for the hero, but-

Once, only one time, Roxanne had been hurt during a plot. Fairly early on, Metro Man had misjudged a sweep with his laser-vision, slicing right through a weird swarm of mechanical flying fish and accidentally carving though the ceiling above Roxanne's kidnapping chair, too.

She had managed to tip herself sideways before the bulk of the debris could hit her, and Minion had moved faster than she'd ever seen him move to help shield her from the worst of it, but a laser-sharp shard of a beam had still caught her in the thigh. Not so bad as it could have been, but-

She remembers that Megamind had been terrified. He had shouted, a wordless exclamation with his eyes so wide on her, and then he pressed a button on his communicator watch that had (she learned later) made a noise at a pitch that stopped Metro Man short, just long enough for the villain to point out what happened and scream at him to get Roxanne to a hospital.

At the time, Roxanne hadn't exactly been in the best state of mind, what with the adrenaline and the pain. She vaguely remembers trying to say something about being okay, she was okay, it wasn't that bad, but she'd been too busy putting pressure on the wound to really protest as Minion carefully lifted her into Metro Man's arms before he shifted them into superspeed and then- the hospital.

Megamind had been quiet, for a while, after that. Roxanne had been back on her feet in less than a week, completely fine in two, but- Megamind hadn't kidnapped her again for nearly a month. And when he did, she remembers noticing-

(Roxanne isn't as smart as Megamind, of course. No one on the planet is. But Roxanne is observant, and she pays attention to Megamind's inventions. She's gotten enough monologues on their functionality over the years, of course, and honestly they really are brilliant, even if the applications border on insanity. She's done plenty of her own research, too, and she knew-)

There had been new failsafes, after that. Subtle, yes, but not subtle enough to escape Roxanne's notice. There had been more brainbots in the vicinity, perched and watchful and quiet, and new mechanical sea-urchin-looking mechanisms arranged carefully on the ceiling, on the support struts, on the columns holding up the ceiling of the abandoned warehouse Megamind chose for this particular plot, and Roxanne-

Roxanne knows Megamind's technology. She knows that spikes mean a situational force-field, and considering the number of spikes per urchin, and the number of urchins-

He hadn't been taking any chances with something like that happening again.

Roxanne scrolls, and scrolls, and scrolls. Something in her stomach does a weird lurching pulse when she notices a few genuinely mournful sounding social media posts.

So. Yes.

Megamind was careless in the ways that really didn't matter, careful in the ways that did.

Which is why none of this makes sense. Even if there had been some sort of mechanical failure so as to allow the very predictable turn of Metro Man using his laser vision to cause a real fire, there should have been at least three failsafes in place to eject, to douse the flames, to auto-dehydrate Megamind into one of those near-impenetrable cubes. There should have been something. There should have been. There should have been.

Articles from later in the day discuss the reactions, not only of the populace (Roxanne skims; she does not want to read people gloating, celebrating- supervillain finally defeated-), but also- the brainbots.

The brainbots are clever things. Roxanne has paid a lot of attention to them over the years, too. Of course she has; Megamind is- Megamind was clearly more proud of them than almost anything he's ever made. From the different reports around the city, they must have all gotten the news at the same moment, falling into confusion and dropping whatever their current jobs had been to chatter their little mechanical chatter and then fly off in a way that, now, almost seems... coordinated?

Maybe that was the protocol, if anything ever happened to Megamind. Drop what you're doing and go...

Go home?

Roxanne frowns, tugging out a pen and a notebook from her laptop bag.

That's where they would have gone, right? Home? She skims a few more articles, taking notes, trying to pay attention to-

Okay, yes. The ones near Midtown had all swept away to the east, a group by the river had all gone north... she pulls up a map of the city in another tab as she goes through another article. And the ones in the park at the edge of the bay- yeah, okay. Southeast, following the coast of the lake. She angles her pencil, tracing the general routes, and the hunch at the back of her mind resolves when every brainbot trajectory aims at least arguably towards the industrial area on the waterfront. Which-

Roxanne has suspected for years that Megamind's lair must be in one of the old warehouses down by the docks, so she isn't all that surprised. She's been in the lair a few times, but Megamind doesn't like to have Metro Man invading his space unless strictly necessary, unless the deathtrap was too big to build anywhere else, or unless he wasn't actually planning on confronting the hero directly. She knows, from those few times, very little, but- she knows that it's near the water, knows the architecture is old, knows that it's big, and very little else. The industrial waterfront just makes sense.

(Roxanne starts printing off a blown-up map of the area; it'll take quite a few pages and she'll need to clear some wall space, but-)

Next. The morning after the- the explosion. She had been pulled into a meeting with the grief counselor for the better part of the day, despite her best efforts, and so she couldn't really keep an eye on what was going on in the city until later. They'd insisted on keeping her from reporting on anything else to do with the "incident," citing it as a conflict of interest, despite the fact that no one at the station has ever had a problem with Roxanne reporting on Metro Man or Megamind before. What, it's too real now? Please.

Anyway. While Roxanne had been busy.

In the early hours of the morning, just around dawn, a small pack of brainbots and, maybe unsurprisingly, Minion himself had broken into the morgue and stolen the- stolen Megamind's body. Before the autopsy, before-

(There was supposed to be a sample of Megamind's DNA (equivalent) on file, but- it had been misplaced at some point within the last year. Missing.)

(Roxanne's instincts ping at her. Aggressively.)

They stole the body from the morgue, and disappeared again. Which-

Maybe there's some sort of cultural funerary traditions that a human morgue would have violated. As far as Roxanne is concerned, Minion has every right to take- to take Megamind home.

(Minion. Minion. She can't let herself think about Minion too hard, can't let herself acknowledge that part of things, she just- she can't. She can't.)

She swallows, forcing the lump in her throat back down into her stomach again. She's too busy to stop and address it, just now.

She takes a few minutes and a number of thumb tacks to put the map up on the wall adjacent to her wide window, arranging them and then plotting the loose trajectories of the brainbots to get a vague idea of which section of the industrial waterfront might be a good starting point, if nothing else. She returns to the laptop, then, systematically plotting out the buildings' owners and associated businesses. It takes a few hours, yeah, and a lot of flash cards and sticky notes, but it's not like Roxanne was sleeping, anyway. It's not like she can sleep.

Nothing stands out immediately, which isn't terribly surprising. This is Megamind, after all. His lair isn't going to have giant neon arrows pointing towards it, and just because Roxanne is familiar with a handful of the shell corporations Megamind owns or owns by proxy, she wasn't expecting to see any of those names involved in a way she could find in a search engine. No, he's smarter than that.

She crosses off the buildings she knows aren't right, the ones where there's no way he could hide his lair. Warehouses and factories that are still operational, mostly, as few of those as there are still in the area. She crosses off a few more, owned by Scott Enterprises (or its shell corporations). It would be funny if Megamind's lair were tucked away under Wayne's nose, but... it doesn't make much sense, to her. He'd want his lair to be free and clear, safely his own. She marks off buildings that are too dilapidated, as well, broken walls and caved-in ceilings, or buildings that are too small.

She steps back, rubbing an eye and looking at the whole of the map.

Half the buildings ruled out. A good start, at least, but... not enough to get her anywhere. It's still too many buildings to try to check individually, especially without attracting any attention. The brainbot trajectories had been too distant and too vague to pinpoint, too. At least-

From the news reports, they had.

Roxanne turns back to facebook, twitter, local message boards. Searches for mentions of the brainbots, searches for videos in particular. Tracks down three or four from closer to the waterfront, watches through and matches the landscapes in the videos to street views.

The brainbots all seem to move in very straight lines. Which is convenient.

She narrows her circle further, reducing the possibilities, and then she goes through the remaining buildings again. Ownership records. She knows when Megamind was officially designated a supervillain, she focuses on finding any buildings that changed hands in the five or so years around that date. Narrows further.

And one building sticks out.

(Not in any way a sane person would notice, Roxanne thinks. But-)

An old power plant, abandoned for a number of years before a startup development firm bought the place at just about the right time, and then proceeded to sit on the land. The same firm, she notices, also bought up three buildings directly surrounding the plant in the decade after, failing to develop or sell any of them.

It's big enough, there shouldn't be any thru-traffic from the other functional plants and warehouses that would make the are even passingly busy, it's close to the water, the timeline matches up...

She zooms in on her laptop, changing to satellite view to get a better look, noting the fairly recent date of the pictures, and...

There's nothing incriminating. No smoking gun, so to speak. No neon arrows.

Roxanne has gotten far, though, trusting her gut. And her gut tells her that she's right.

She checks the clock, checks the window and the grey pre-dawn light creeping across the city skyline and bleaching out the limited handful of stars that pierce the light pollution in Metro.

And then she turns to pull on her shoes, and her coat.

#elle's fanfic #oh god fuck um. #megamind #die clean and pretty #shit. fuck. hell. damn. ugh. #oh im archive locked now. but seriously message me if you need an ao3 invite!

[pedropascallovebot]

Let's Kill Tonight

summary: You're a bit out of practice, but being entrusted with the retrieval and return of Helmut Zemo shouldn't be too hard, right? Even if he is your old sorta-boss and you still are nursing unfortunate loyalty towards the team. You can manage. And him being... slightly more attractive than how you last left him won't be a problem.

Right?

warnings and a/n: i have.... no clue what this is if not a complete rewrite of mcu canon purely for self-indulgence. reader has a kinda shady past and in result will talk graphically about violence in later chapters and there's lots of gun action in this one. very fun, very cool! alright. i hope y'all enjoy teehee

—

The weather where you're at doesn’t usually vary much from a sunny sky, but alas, you’re absolutely drenched by the time you step inside the diner. You hadn’t expected the rain. Your usual five minute walk to work turned into a hike through muddy sidewalks and water droplets that kept hitting your eyes, and by the time you tied your apron around your waist the day felt over before it even started. Your boss gives you a closed-lip smile and glances at your empty section of tables, and you just know you’re going to be late on rent again.

For what it’s worth, Lüleburgaz isn’t the worst place to slip under the radar. It’s not underpopulated by any means, but it makes it perfect to blend in with the crowd as best you can. Honestly, you're just trying to make it a day without a proper therapist. Your roommates are great listeners, don't get it twisted- but all they really know about you is you're Sokovian and they don't really need to hear about the stuff that happened before your country was crushed by some guys in tights and iron suits. They don't ask you much, and you're grateful.  After an unfortunate five-year gap in employment (which isn’t your fault- it’s kinda hard to find jobs when you’re reduced to dust unexpectedly) you were lucky to find somewhere that was willing to hire you without a legally issued identification card and that was also willing to pay in cash under the table. You broke out the books and attempted to learn the language as best as you can, and while you're struggling a bit, you can at least understand the menu and what a customer is ordering. It was far from ideal- ideal would be completely erasing any trace of memory regarding you and your… history, so to speak, from anybody who has the potential to be a threat to you. Ideal could also be an island somewhere, maybe Praslin or Nassau, where you could swim in clear waters and drink copious amounts of fancy fruity drinks instead of whatever liquor your roomies had hiding under the counter. But until that happens, being on the sorta-run for some questionable past career choices seems to stick.

Said questionable career choices led you to be introduced to a network of interesting people, some less horrible than others, but all of them carried the same unmistakable signal of danger displayed in flashing lights above their heads. When you hear the bell to the restaurant door jingle, signaling the arrival of someone new, that weird gut feeling activates and your eyes flicker up to see a pair of high heels and sunglasses, even though the sun hasn’t been out all day. Everyone else eating their food don’t even spare a glance to the door. This should comfort you, it should tell you that you're fine and that there's nothing to worry about, but it absolutely doesn’t and suddenly you’re inconspicuously making your way to the back, muttering something to your boss about taking your break early. Ripping off your apron, you throw it to the side and let it land on the ground next to you, and you lean your head against the brick wall behind you. Your fingers are twitching as the pressing issue of impending doom continues to rise in your gut. You barely register the creaking sound of the back gate opening.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Suddenly, you’re in fighting stance as an unfamiliar voice speaks less than a foot away from your ear. You don’t recognize this new face, but she looks expensive and entirely too out of place for a diner that receives in its eggs already prepared and frozen.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” she continues, and fishes a lighter and pack out of her coat pocket. “Good choice. These things will kill you- and so will this godawful food you serve here. What a relief that after today you won’t step foot in this place ever again, huh?”

Your mouth opens to say something, but you decide against it. Instead, you slightly lower your fists, keeping your eyes trained on her seemingly unbothered expression. She takes a long drag of her cigarette before giving you any more information. The silence is deafening, and you mentally take note of the clear path you have through the open fence and towards the street if you chose to run. Something tells you this lady didn’t arrive here on foot though, and she probably had an expensive vehicle waiting out front waiting to catch up to you if you chose to make a break for it.

“You’re jumpy- probably a little bit out of practice from the whole ex-assassin thing, right? I can work with that. I have to applaud you: as far as hide and seek spots go, this wasn’t horrible. We’ll have to improve your people skills, but-“

“Who are you?”

You grow increasingly frustrated as it starts to sprinkle again, leaving you cold and wet as your company opens an umbrella she had previously stored away in her coat.

“I don’t like being interrupted, so let’s not make it a habit, hm? My name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and you’ve become annoyingly important to my cause. Come on, we’re leaving.”

She begins to walk towards the gate, but you stay put, beginning to toy with the idea of unsheathing the knife stored in your boot.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, lady.”

This makes her turn around and sigh in frustration.

“The way I see it, you have two choices. Go back and finish bussing tables so you can make an extra couple dollars, or come with me so we can talk real business. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only one between the two of us that poses a threat. I’m not the one with weapons hidden in my clothes, am I?”

Your eyes narrow, but you don’t argue. Instead, you hesitantly join her in her path towards a gaudy car (you knew it) that looks way too out of place to be in this parking lot. For a split second you consider going back and giving your manager somewhat of a notice of your absence, but Valentina’s walking so fast that you don’t really have time to continue considering.

“By the way, I distinctively said my name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine- I don’t like to repeat myself, don’t make me do it again.”

-

You barely have time to sit down before Valentina is barking directions at her driver and scolding you for getting rain water in her backseat. You remain silent, and a little bit uncomfortable as Val finishes her cigarette completely before bothering to inform you of whatever the hell she’s got going on.

“Tell me what you know about super soldiers,” she finally gives, crossing her legs and glances at you expectantly.

You search her face for any kind of indication that she’s kidding, but she seems serious. It kinda feels like your soul is being stared into and you want to look away but you can’t. What does she not know about super soldiers that she can learn from you and not from literally anywhere else? Admittedly, all you know is what clips of newspapers would give you. Something about rogue experimentation, something-something Winter Soldier, and then, most recently, the Flag-Smashers and the rumors flying around that they've got some serum floating around. All of this seemed to be public knowledge though. Nothing a woman who’s willing to corner people in the backlots of their jobs couldn’t find out from a simple Google search.

“I asked you a question, didn’t I?”

“I can’t say I know much.”

For what feels like the millionth time in the span of twenty minutes, she sighs, bringing out her cell phone and starts punching some buttons.

“And what about this man? Does he ring a bell?”

You do your absolute best to not look as tense as you feel when out of the corner of your eye you see a familiar face in a tiny, grainy picture. She shoves the device in your hands, and right there center of the screen is-

“Zemo, right? That was a trick question. Hard to forget the face of your old boss, I’d assume.”

Suddenly, you’re upright in your seat, the earlier feeling of danger settling right back into place. Valentina, of course, just lets out a laugh, while you’re planning on swan-diving out the damn window.

“The Colonel isn’t my boss,” you protest, and a burning sensation makes its way to your throat.

“Isn’t he though?” Valentina is now fully turned towards you, her hand reaching to grab the phone back. More buttons are pressed, and she’s reading your name from an official looking online database. “It says here you’re wanted in a lot of countries, huh? I wonder why that is- oh, look at this, would you? Seems like your name and EKO Scorpion are mentioned in the same sentence at least three times just on this page.”

Your eyes narrow, and you waste no more time in grabbing your gun from your coat pocket, and Valentina seems to have the same idea, the phone  in her hands is now replaced with a much newer and nicer pistol than you’re carrying. It’s silent in the car for a few seconds, and the driver in the front dares not move a muscle. Val is the first to break, and she lowers her weapon with a shit-eating grin you’re growing tired of seeing.

“Let’s start over. You’re associated with an elite death squad assigned to defend the interests of a country that’s no more than a pile of rubble and dead memorial flowers on the ground. You never had an official invitation, but they paid you good enough money for you to get your hands dirty for them. Too bad that without a leader, your little syndicate fell apart, didn’t it? Unfortunate, what happened to him really. And how inconvenient it must have been for you- I’m sure the law doesn’t usually side with individuals associated with terrorists. Luckily for you, you had a five-year break from being on the run.”

The urge to fall back into old form and pull the trigger at the slightest sign of trouble starts to rear its ugly head, but you take a deep breath and try to align your focus to your current situation. This doesn’t have to be deadly. She knows your history, she knows your name. She could just be blackmailing you. Easy fix, offer her better information on individuals that are far, far away from you. You’re sure you can think of something juicy enough to entertain her and fray her interest in you. This doesn’t have to end in a gunshot. She has access to all of the shit you’ve done. You don’t know what she knows. She could be from the American government. Kill her, and lessen the risk of being thrown in a prison cell to rot.You’re desperate, and you’re scared, and it’s making you vulnerable. You take another deep breath in, and lower your gun.

“What do you want?” Valentina falls back into her seat, clearly very amused by the entire situation now that guns weren’t drawn.

“The Flag-Smashers are becoming increasingly difficult as they’re forming alliances with seemingly every gang of mercenaries for hire. The serum belongs in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it, don’t you think?”

This lady is clearly out of her mind, but you’re too far in now and you don’t feel like questioning her on her morals or the ethics of this situation.

“I don’t want any business with Morganthau, and I don’t care about super soldiers. If that’s all you need me for, you might as well find someone else.”

“Who said anything about you dealing with Flag-Smashers? No, for you,” she starts, grabbing the phone once more and resuming that annoying clicking as she searches through various links, “I have a slightly less… hazardous task. No killing involved, sadly. I’m sure your lovely skillset will keep until it’s needed, but you will be finding Zemo for me, where I can pay him far too much money so he’ll kill the Flag-Smashers for me.”

It’s your turn to laugh, now. “In case you haven’t heard, Helmut Zemo is rotting away in prison for the rest of his life. How is he going to be of any help to you?”

Valentina doesn’t bother giving you a verbal response, just shoves that damn phone in your face again. You glare at her before your eyes skim over the article. Breakout. Zemo. The Falcon. Prison. You curse internally, and she lets her arm fall back to her side. You realize you haven’t been paying too much attention to where the driver was taking you both until you feel the vehicle holt to a stop, and you look up to realize you’re in a parking garage, and the faint sounds of airplanes fly overhead.

“As of now, you and I are a two-man team, but this won’t be the case for long. Zemo is with Sam Wilson and James Barnes in a safehouse in Riga. You and I aren’t the only ones looking for him, however, which makes your job a little tricky, but I don’t have much faith in the guy assigned in returning him to Berlin.”

“Who is he?”

“I assume the name John Walker doesn’t need an explanation?”

You shake your head.

“Walker can be of use to us, and we’re gonna need him- just not yet. What I need from you at the current moment is to make sure you get to these coordinates,” the driver is suddenly handing you a slip of paper with numbers scribbled on it, and you take it, “before Walker gets Zemo.”

You inhale, and Valentina gives you a look.

“I assume you have a question?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to get Walker on your side sooner? Maybe if you could say the right thing, persuade him to bring Zemo to us-"

Valentina cuts you off with a scoff. “What? That if we tell Captain America to hand over an international prisoner so we can extract information and hire him to kill for us he’ll do it? Walker wants one thing right now: he wants that serum. Coincidentally, your friend Zemo wants that serum gone. IF we get to him first, which you will, he’ll be more than happy to oblige. Walker is at a tipping point, but he’s not useful to us. Yet. We just have to wait until he's vulnerable.”

She takes your silence as an okay to continue. “Get to Latvia, find Zemo. Use that pretty face of yours to charm him into coming with you, maybe share some war stories around the campfire. I don’t give a damn how you get it done. Walker’s already halfway there by now.”

You are really starting to question how Valentina is getting her information, but before you can say anything else, she’s motioning for her driver to slide another piece of paper in your hand. Your eyes go wide at the numbers listed after a dollar sign.

“I assume this would be enough to cover your services?”

You look up at her, nodding your head slightly.

“Half now, half when you bring him to me,” she finishes, and the driver is unlocking your side of the car. “It looks like we’re in business then.”

#helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #baron zemo x reader #helmut zemo x you #fanfiction #complete disregard for canon #marvel #mcu #i wrote this when i should of been sleeping

[dregstrash]

Knife in the Back (ch. 3)

a/n: Here’s chapter 3 of the collab fic I did with @wafflesandkruge for the @grishaversebigbang. Definitely check out all the art that came with this in the first chapter! Hope you guys enjoy!

AO3 // Chapter 1

Anyone can make a mistake. 

That single thought spun in Inej’s mind as she drove back to the station after her brief meeting with Kaz Brekker. 

No one was infallible. Human error was always going to be a factor. Even self-proclaimed experts could make the stupidest mistakes. Brekker shouldn’t be an exception. It should have been simple to believe that he had taken off his glove after dumping the girl, and had thrown it away by accident.

If she could manage to believe that, and when Wylan was done analyzing the glove, she could have enough evidence to bring Kaz in with one concrete piece of evidence. It could be enough to prosecute him for this murder, and then tie that back to the unsolved murder from five years ago which she had always suspected he was behind. In one fell swoop, she could bring Kaz Brekker down. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to believe that someone as meticulous as him would ever just take his gloves off at the end of a job, and leave them out in the open. 

She’s spent the better part of three years following the murky and unclear path of Kaz Brekker, and if she knew anything about the Bastard of the Barrel it was that he always got the job done, and he always left no trace. Rumors say that he was a sleeper agent from Shu-Han, waiting for the right moment to strike against the Kerch. Others say that he was tied to dozens of murders of high dignitaries and ambassadors, and that if you ever wanted to make someone disappear, he was the best. Inej has spent countless hours pouring over the stories and the hearsays, but nothing could ever point to anything conclusive. 

And with this one perfectly wrapped crime scene sitting on her lap, it was hard for her to take it as it was. She pulled up to the police parking lot, and headed straight for the forensics department. Wylan had texted that he had something promising, and Inej was ready to hear about anything that didn’t have a massive question mark attached to it.

“Hey, Inej.” Wylan called from the back of the room as the sliding doors let Inej in her friend’s office.

“Wylan,” Inej greeted as she reached where her friend was hunched over his computer looking at a document that made Inej’s eyes swim. “You said you had something for me?” 

He looked up and his sky blue eyes danced excitedly, making his red gold curls appear more disheveled than usual. 

“Yes! You were right. The glove does match the DNA evidence that was found in your cold case from five years ago. So it’s definitely Kaz Brekker’s.” Inej didn’t even have time to be surprised before Wylan continued. “With the state of the body, I think you can probably guess to the cause of death.” He pointed to the bullet hole through the hear of the corpse. “But there was a significant penetration at her kidney that happened ante-mortem.”

“Torture?”

Wylan lifted his shoulders, “Most likely.”

Curious, Inej thought. The murder was almost exactly like her cold case, but while she was positive Kaz Brekker was the culprit to the former, she couldn’t be positive about him being responsible for the latter.

“What about the clothes? Did you get anything on those?”

At this Wylan’s eyes dimmed slightly, “Unfortunately no. I can only really tell you that they had been freshly washed. No traces of hair or any carpet fibers or anything. If Brekker really did this, then he was pretty careful about taking out any evidence that could even remotely connect him to this murder.”

“Except for the glove.” Inej reminded him.

Wylan tilted his head and nodded. 

Inej sighed, “It just doesn’t make any sense. How can all the evidence point to Brekker, but then not point to him all at the same time?”

Wylan shrugged, and ran his hands through his hair, the gesture making him appear younger. It was so easy to forget that Wylan was just a little younger than Inej. He was the youngest forensic expert to ever work in their precinct, and he was a kid genius on top of it all. If things didn’t make any sense to him then something truly wasn’t adding up. 

Inej stared at the glove sitting innocently in an evidence container and tried to iron out the doubts that were sitting restlessly in her mind. Forgetting everything else, if the culprit wasn’t Kaz Brekker, then who would it be? And why go through all the trouble to frame him?

Her thoughts were disrupted as she heard the sliding doors of Wylan’s office slide open.

Matthias appeared with his usual scowl, and Inej suppressed a smile at Wylan’s suddenly straight posture. Wylan would never admit it aloud, but Inej suspected he was still afraid of Matthias.

“The CCTV footage has been sent over.” Matthias told Inej. 

“Great.” She said. “Thanks for all you help, Wy. Let us know if you find anything else.” 

“Will do.” He saluted and turned to face his computer.

“Also,” Inej brought up before she could leave, “Try to lighten up on the coffee.” She gestured to the three empty coffee cups on his otherwise organized desk. It didn’t escape her notice that they all came from Brekker’s Brews. “That stuff will kill you, you know?” 

Wylan blushed a bright red at Inej’s insinuation, but he only offered a nod in acknowledgement. It seems that even if she had told him who was the owner of that particular establishment, it couldn’t quite keep their lab tech away.

“What did Wylan say about the glove?” Matthias said as he sat back on his chair, waiting for the grainy video to hint at any clue that could help them in their case. 

Inej didn’t turn to look at him, but she responded anyway, “He said that it could point to being Brekker’s and could link him to the murder that happened five years ago.”

“But you don’t think it’s him, do you?”

Inej sighed, “I don’t know what I think. I want it to be him. I want the evidence to be nice and clean and I can finally put his ass behind bars. But I’ve been on Brekker’s tail for a long time, and he’s not this sloppy.”

“Everyone makes mistakes.” Matthias responded. And while that was exactly her thought, she just couldn’t get herself to believe it, even if it came from her trusty partner. 

Inej was about to tell him her doubts when a movement happened on screen.

“Okay looks like we got something here.” Matthias said. 

There were two figures that entered the periphery of the camera. One was clearly shorter than the other, but built like a brick wall, while the other had the stature of a football player. Despite the grainy footage, Inej was still able to discern the faint presence of a tattoo on both of their forearms. 

She held her breath as they both looked over their shoulders, clearly looking on the lookout for something. The football player smiled and nudged his friend roughly. The other shook his head and shoved him away. He walked to where the body was found and made another comment to his friend. The shorter man walked off screen, and before the video could continue white static filled the screen.

“What--”

“The wires got cut around there, unfortunately.” Matthias sighed. “This was the only street cam facing the alley, and there was nothing that showed up on the closest street cameras. But did you see those tattoos?”

Inej nodded, “Razorgulls. Do you still have contacts in the gang unit?”

“No need.” He said. “I remember those guys from my gang unit days. They hang around the docks. If we don’t find them there, I know a couple more popular hangs for these guys.”

“Let’s go.”

By the time Matthias and Inej had caught sight of the two figures from the surveillance cameras, they were a little late. It had nothing to do with the fact that they had been scouring the city long enough for the true dark of the night to descend upon them. It had to with the fact that someone had gotten to the two gang bangers first. And that someone was Kaz Brekker. If that wasn’t bad enough, it looked like he was in the middle of beating them to death. 

“Hey! Stop! Police!” Matthias’s deep voice cut through the cries of pain coming from the two men. But it was like he said nothing at all because Brekker used the cane in his hand to swing down on a shin. Inej struggled to prevent her shudder as she heard the distinct sound of bone shattering. 

“I’ve told you all that I know!” The man screamed through his pain.

“I consider myself a good judge of character, Geels, and I know for a fact you’re lying.” Kaz opened his mouth to say something else, but Matthias was almost on him and he growled in frustration, “Looks like we’re going to have to continue this conversation later. That is if you can post bail.” 

Kaz broke for a run just as Matthias got within arms reach, and Inej had to hand it to him, for someone who needed a cane to navigate through the world, he moved faster than shadow. But unfortunately for him, Inej knew she was faster. 

“Matthias arrest those two,” She gestured to the two injured men, “I’ll take Brekker!”

She broke out into a run, and while Kaz had a head start, she would argue she knew this harbor better than anyone. Including Kaz. So when he had turned a left into a row of cargo containers in an attempt to confuse her though the maze of metal boxes, she just smiled to herself and climbed one with practiced ease. It took her almost no time to see his path and even less time for her to sprint and jump and land right on top of him.

His body cushioned her fall, and if her mind wasn’t so preoccupied with the bruise she knows she’s going to have on the knee that took some of the fall, she would have had room to ponder at the heat emanating from him, as well as the way she felt his muscles freeze in what seemed like panic when her hand brushed against the exposed skin of his wrists. 

“Kaz Brekker, you’re under arrest for the assault of two key witnesses in a murder.” Inej grunted reaching around her waist for her handcuffs. 

She waited for his inevitable comeback, but for the first time of ever talking to Kaz Brekker, he was silent. Inej studied him, and noticed the clench in his jaw and the glazed expression in his eyes. She’s arrested her fair share of criminals, and one way or another they had the same panicked, trapped expression. But Brekker wasn’t acting like a trapped criminal, he was a cornered animal that looked like he might pass out at any given moment. 

Is he okay? 

No sooner had she thought it, Matthias materialized at her shoulder breathing heavily.

“Leave it to the great Inej Ghafa to catch the most uncatchable killer.” He said. 

Inej wrenched her mind away from Kaz’s strange behavior and scrambled off of him after securing the metal cuffs.

Matthias grabbed Kaz roughly and had a tight hold on his shoulder.

“Watch his hands, Helvar. He’s a slippery one.” Inej managed, still puzzled by Brekker’s uncharacteristic silence.

Matthias nodded, but Inej’s focus wasn’t on him. She just watched Kaz get led to the police car, pondering the simple fact that the great Kaz Brekker seemed to be having a panic attack.

#grishabigbang20 #knife in the back #soc #six of crows #KANEJ #kaz x inej #matthias helvar #wylan van eck

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Riverdale 4x18 Review, Analysis and Theories

I’ve finally watched the episode and I’ve got alot of thoughts about it. To be honest it went pretty much the way I thought it would, mostly. We’ve been given some more information and a whole lot more questions. There were four plotlines in the episode, two main ones and two sideplots, so I figured we could go through each one and unpack them to see what clues we’ve been left this time. So if you want to read an analysis of the episode and get my opinions and theories then read on below the tag. As always these are just my own opinions you are welcome to disagree also there are spoilers obviously.

Jughead, Charles and the Video Tapes. 

So the first plotline I want to talk about is the one where Jughead and Charles are invesitgating the tapes. The episode starts out with Jughead showing Betty, Alice and Charles the newest videotape that he found at the end of the last episode. A couple of sidenotes here which aren’t all that relevant but I figured I’d mention anyway. I love how protective everyone was of Jelly Bean. Even Charles who stood up to block the her view of the tv. But also where was FP? I feel like this is something he should be included in so it was a bit odd that he was missing from the scene. They could have at least mentioned him like said he was investigating it from the station or something. Anyway getting back to it. Jughead asks Betty if she wants to help him look into the tape but Betty says she doesn’t want to get pulled into another mystery. This is when Charles decides to suggest that Jughead and he could investigate it together. I loved that Charles called Jug little brother. I just thought it was really sweet. Also I would like to see more of the Jones/Cooper/Smith family interactions. Whilst we’ve gotten a decent amount of Charles/Betty and Charles/Jughead sibling bonding moments we haven’t gotten as many with Charles and his parents and other than this brief one I don’t think we’ve had any with Jelly Bean and Charles so I wouldn’t object to seeing those relationships developed a little more. Also I would like to point out that while it was really nice that Charles is always offering for Betty and Jughead to help him out with the investigation, I can’t help but think that Charles has an ulterior motive for this. I mentioned in my theory post about Charles and the video tapes (which you can read here if you want) that I think Charles sees Betty and Jughead as loose cannons. When they first meet Charles he says something like ‘I hear you two are quite the detective duo.’ Or something along those lines. I actually think Charles keeps asking for their help so that he can keep an eye on what they’re doing and make sure they don’t do anything to mess up the FBI’s own investigation into the tapes. I mean think about it, if Charles gets them working with him then he knows where they are and what they are doing, so he knows they aren’t gallivanting around town getting themselves into all kinds of mischief, classic big brother move.   

Through Charles we learn that there are two drop off boxes where people can turn in the tapes they recieve. One at the Sheriff station and one at the FBI office. They are both monitored with cctv cameras but there are hours upon hours of footage so Jughead and Charles decide to make some popcorn and go through all the footage in the hopes they can find some clue as to who left the murder video tape. Also can I just say that this episode made me remember why I love Jughead there were just so many little moments that were, well I don’t know how else to describe them other than they were very Jughead. Like I don’t know what was funnier that Jughead’s response to facing hours of footage seraching for a potential killer is ‘do you have popcorn?’ or the fact that yes the FBI does have popcorn. Maybe its just me but I just got a chuckle out of that. Anyway while going through the footage Jughead does spot someone he knows and decides to follow the lead alone. Of course we learn that Ethel is the person he sees leaving a tape behind. But before we get into that I want to talk about something else I noticed. When Jug is leaving the camera pans down to show us Charles’ laptop with the cctv footage. Now they had to have done this for a reason there had to have been something in that segment of cctv that is important to the plot. The footage is very grainy and sped up but we see a woman enter the building. She walks down the hall, appears to stop briefly to talk to whoever is at the desk at the end of the hall, This person seems to gesture around the corner. The woman disappears around the corner and then a few moments later reappears, walks back towards the camera and leaves. I managed to grab a couple of screenshots of this footage. 

If you’ve read my last theory post where I talk about theories around both Charles and the Voyeur (the one I linked above) then you will know I have a theory that Donna is the one behind the tapes and also the one who is wearing the Betty mask. Now I know the image is really grainy but to me this looks like a female with long dark hair who is wearing a jacket and trousers very similar in style to what Donna wears. Her build also seems very similar to Donna’s aswell. I mean...

I’m just saying the woman in the cctv, the woman in the betty mask and Donna all look real similar to me. As for why Charles didn’t recognise her, well as we can see the image isn’t the best, it was sped up and he could have been distracted by Jug saying he saw someone he knew. We don’t see where he is looking so for all we know he might have been watching Jug leave and not at the computer screen, point is he could have just missed it. Also another thing worth noting is that right before the footage is shown Charles asks ‘do you recognise someone?’ Obviously he is directing the question at Jughead but it could also be the writers way of asking us the same question, do we the viewer recognise someone in this footage.

So Jughead goes off and talks to Ethel about the tapes and she says she was just dropping off the tapes that had been left on her doorstep, that they contained the same as all the others, static footage of her home. She gets upset when Jughead tells her that one of the tapes was different and asks if she knows anything about it. One thing I will say is her line ‘I’m just trying to make it out of Riverdale in one piece.’ really resonated. Like it really makes you think how much crap these kids have gone through with all the murders and cults. It is almost like its more of an achievement for them to reach adulthood than normal because so many of them could have been killed by one of the many serial killers that have rampaged through the town. Also I feel like a lot of the kids in Riverdale see college as being a way to escape from Riverdale. 

After talking to Ethel Jughead comes up with the idea that maybe the Voyeur is a film maker, so he and Charles hit the video store. I do love the store owners line when Charles asks if any of his customers were acting suspicious and he replies ‘they all act suspicious.’ I do think the writers might be having a little laugh with us here because its very true for Riverdale as a whole, like every character on this show acts shady as hell most of the time. The store owner gives them their records and they discover that Ethel has rented the horror movie Friday the 13th sixteen times. Charles then tells Jughead that he considers Ethel to be a prime suspect as she has a predilection for horror movies, was seen dropping off a tape and as per Jughead’s admission an obsession with him. But Jughead clearly doesn’t want to upset the progress Ethel seems to have made and points out that he doesn’t think she would have the equipment for it and tells Charles to drop it. When he’s next at school Jughead goes to the office to get info on the AV club, the members of which would have access to the equipment needed to make the video tapes. He not only learns that Ethel is the president of the club but that Charles had already been there asking questions and had already left with Ethel. Jug goes back to the FBI office to find out what happened from Charles and finds out that Ethel had somehow got ahold of the sex tape of him and Betty from Stonewall prep. Now I have seen some comments saying that they think Charles going after Ethel alone was really shady and that it could mean he has something to do with the video tapes. I’m not saying that he doesn’t have something to do with the tapes, its could be a possibilty, but out of all the shady behaviour we’ve seen from Charles in my opinion this wasn’t shady at all. I think because we see everything from Jughead’s point of view its easy to forget that its not a case of Jughead is leading an investigation and Charles is helping out but the other way around. Charles is the lead on the investigation into the tapes, he’s the FBI agent. So if he thinks someone is a suspect he’s not just going to drop that lead just because some teenage kid said he should, even if that kid is his brother. Also can I say that this is such a Jones/Cooper thing to do, they get told not to do something and then the next scene you find out they did the exact thing they were told not to. We see it with Betty and Jughead all the time so it was kinda funny to see the same thing happen to Jughead in a role reversal. It was a good thing he didn’t drop it too as if Charles hadn’t gone and searched Ethel’s home they probably wouldn’t have found out about the Scarlet Room. 

So speaking of the Scarlet Room it shows that there is an even darker side to Riverdale if that was even possible, this is a definitely x rated room in the back of the store where they have home made videos. The store owner says sometimes people sell the videos and sometimes they trade them. But these tapes consist of some sex tapes, rougher ones and weirder ones but also more sinister than that snuff films which Jug finds. I was able to catch some of the titles which could be clues as to which other murders might be re-enacted next. The one of Jason Blossom is called a Maple Murder which is pretty self explanatory. There is one called Black Hood Unmasked which I think could be Mr Svensons death. The Blackhood Diaries is another self-explanatory one. There’s another called Carrie the... I can’t make out the rest of the title but that one is clearly Midge’s death. Then there’s one called Pop’s After Hours which I reckon is from the Halloween episode where Veronica kills that serial killer in self defense. The curious thing about Jason Blossom’s murder being there though is that as far as we know there are only three copies of that footage. Betty has one on her laptop and Cheryl has the other on a USB. The third from what I remember was given to the police, I can’t remember what happened to it after that but I think the Blossoms asked for it to be destroyed? Sorry if I’m wrong about that. So if only those copies existed then how did one end up in the store. Well I do have one theory for that. We know that Betty gave Chic one of her old laptops, now I’m going to assume she wouldn’t have been careless enough to leave that footage on the laptop if it was ever on that one but you never know, we also know that Chic was in the house alot when Betty wasn’t there and he liked to sneak into her room. It’s possible that Chic found the video and took a copy to the store to get some extra cash. But the Scarlet room as a whole is a very creepy idea, that people including Students like Ethel are going in there and renting footage of people being brutally murdered, I mean no wonder there are so many serial killers in Riverdale cause that’s just messed up. On a side note I thought it was absolutley hilarious when the store owner came in and told Jughead that only over 18′s were allowed back there. Like dude you are being invesitgated by the FBI and they’ve just found your highly illegal collection of homemade sex and snuff films and you think telling them that only 18 and overs are allowed in this section is going to save you. So anyway the FBI confiscates all the videos so lets just say the FBI have now got a ridiculous amount of video tapes at that office what between these ones and the ones collected from the town residents. But I do feel like the Scarlet Room tapes are going to be important to the plotline in some way like they’ll find some kind of clue in them. 

The episode ends with Jughead getting a call from Cheryl who says she just got a tape. When he and Betty go over there they find out its the same kind of thing as the one Jughead found. Two people in masks re-enacting Jason Blossom’s murder. There is something I want to cover quickly before we analyse the tape itself but there does seem to be some confusion over whether these tapes are actually real or just acting. I mean Jughead calls the tape he got a faux snuff film and talks about how whoever filmed it went through the trouble of hiring actors. It also does seem like the person wearing Jason’s mask in the newest video is acting along. If they aren’t real it would also explain why there haven’t been any bodies showing up or missing people reported. Yet I get the feeling that these are real, I mean they look very real to me, particualrly the one with Jason. As to why it looks like the one wearing the Jason mask is acting well they either could be under duress told this is the script play along or else, or it could be that they didn’t know what was actually going to happen, maybe they thought that the gun was fake or that the other person wasn’t going to actually pull the trigger which is why they seem so relaxed and calm right before they are shot. I don’t know though maybe it is all fake? What do you think? 

But the discovery of this lastest tape raises some more questions. Once again we have two masked individuals which begs the question who are the people behind the masks? One thing we do know is that its not the same people as the first video. The attacker in the first video was definitely a woman and was much shorter than the attacker in the latest one. Also the murder victims in both are also definitely different people, the one in the first video who was dressed as Jughead was much more muscular than the one in the Jason mask who had a much slimer build. This could also maybe be evidence that its possible these really are murders going on. I mean if the first guy really was killed then obviously he can’t be in the second video. To be honest I don’t have any idea who could behind the Jason mask, at all.  

Ok but who do I think is behind the Cliff mask. Well here I do have a theory and it ties in another of the plotlines from this episode. The tickle ring one. I don’t think its a coincidence that its in this episode that Terry, the one who approached Kevin and who films them, suddenly turned violent. I mean up until now he’s come across as a decent guy by Riverdale standards. Now he’s threatening to break peoples fingers and issuing threats. Also it is worth noting that when Jughead says maybe the voyeur is a film maker the very next scene is the one where Terry comes out the room and pays Kevin, Fangs and Reggie. The writers are being very obvious with the message here I mean its like Jughead: Maybe its a film maker? Riverdale: Look its a film maker! I mean they couldn’t be more obvious if they put a neon sign above Terry’s head that said guilty. So is there anymore evidence to suggest Terry is the one in the Cliff mask? Well I grabbed some more screenshots. 

 So we have that same old problem of the qualtiy of the images in these tapes that are being left aren’t great, it does take me back to the good old days of vcr oh the nostalgia but I’m going off track. Despite the bad quality we can still get some clues from the image. Now it is a little differcult because of the lighting in the video tape is bad but take a look at the top two images in the grid above. As it was with my Donna behind the Betty mask theory its the hair that I think is the biggest clue here. There isn’t really anyone else we’ve seen in the show that has this style of hair where its longer on top and fades at the sides. I mean I don’t know about you guys but I do think the hair of the guy in the Cliff mask is very similar to Terry’s. Now obviously we can’t just convict a man based on his hair style. If we look at the two bottom images. I know it is hard to see the video tape image all that well but I have watched it over and over on slow motion and they do seem to be similar in build and height. The other problem we have comparing the two images is that while its useful that we’ve got a shot of Terry standing next to someone seated like the people in the tape, the sofa that Fangs is sitting on is much lower than the chair the masked Jason is sitting on, plus you have to take the height of the individuals themselves into consideration. But taking all that into consideration lets look at a bigger image...

As I said the difficulty we have is that Fangs is sitting on a much lower surface than the masked Jason. But lets have a bit of fun and do some estimations. Lets say the blue line on the picture on the right is the approximate height the seat of the chair masked Jason is sitting on. The black line is the length of Fang’s torso from his seat to his head. The green line is the height at which the top of his head would be if he was sitting on a higher surface. Now I know this is very much an estimation and not all that accurate its more just to give us an idea. But I think Fangs and the masked Jason seem to be of similar height so when we compare the two images we can see that the height difference between masked Cliff  and a seated individual is roughly the same height difference as Terry when standing next to a seated individual. Also something else that could suggest Terry might be involved is that he would be able to get the actors who are playing the victims. He already has a client pool he could pull from. It wouldn’t be that much of a leap to think that he might approach one of his tickle boys and say do you want to get a little extra cash? I’m working on another project if you’re interested. 

What if it isn’t Terry though. Who else could it be? Well the other person we are shown acting suspect in this episode is Mr Honey is shown to be someone who visits the Scarlet Room and it seems he does this regularly. I did think there was something about the way the masked Cliff moved that reminded me of Mr Honey but in my opinion I don’t think the hair style or height of the indivdual fits with Mr Honey as well as Terry. Also we know the person in the mask is imitating Cliff and so is mimicing the way Cliff would move which I think just happens to be similar to Mr Honey. However I don’t think that necessarily means Mr Honey is innocent and I’m going to cover my theory on that in a bit. The other person I thought it could potentially be is Bret. As I said in my theory about the Stonies having something to do with the tapes, we don’t know when these tapes were filmed or even where they were filmed. It could be that this was filmed before Bret was arrested. However while I think height wise it could be Bret the hair style is completely different from Bret’s who has much longer hair.   

Now going back to my previous theory post where I said I was pretty certain that it would turn out to be Donna behind the tapes, you could say that this newest tape derails that theory as there is no link between Cheryl and Donna. So why would she bother making a re-enactment of Cheryl’s twin brother’s murder? Donna might have had a motive with the previous video depicting Betty and Jughead its no secret she hates them both. But on the contrary I actually would argue that the appearance of this tape further confirms my theory. While it’s true there is no link between Donna and Cheryl there is a link between Donna and the Jason Blossom murder. When Jughead wrote his first draft for the Baxter Brother novel, the one that originally won him the contract it was based on Jason’s murder, it was called The Boy in the River. Later they tell Jughead that they don’t think its good enough after all and he starts writing one based on the Black Hood instead. But he finds his original draft based on Jason in a envelope saying ready for publish. He discovers that it has been rewritten but that it is the same story. Dupont later tells him that all of his classmates had a go at rewriting it, this includes Donna. This means that Donna became real familiar with Jason’s story. The premise of my original theory was that I believed that Donna was upset that she wasn’t able to commit the perfect murder. Especially as she was so close, I mean Jughead says himself that it would have been perfect if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t actually die. I think Donna then decided to have another go at the perfect murder. A do over so to speak. Like I said we don’t know when that first copy cat murder video was filmed. If it was quite a while ago then its possible that Donna believed she had got away with it and so she looked at other imperfect murders that she could make perfect. I mean if you think about it like Jughead’s attempted murder Jason’s murder was very nearly perfect. Cliff so very nearly got away with it, from killing Jason after he was already reported missing by Cheryl, to having FP clean up and then take the wrap for it. The only reason he didn’t get away with it was because of one tiny detail, the fact that the footage of the actual murder was out there and the USB was found. If my theory is right then I think Donna is only going to continue looking for murders to redo. I think she’s going to become addicted to it and we’ll start to see more and more of these copycat murders. Also I had a thought about why if these are real murders there aren’t any bodies. We’ve been told on a couple of occasions that you can dissolve a body with Lye. As Donna says to Betty ‘No body, No crime.’ It’s possible she’s been dissolving the bodies with lye so there isn’t anything to find. Also if she is picking the victims right then there won’t be any missing person reports espicially if she is choosing people from out of town and then releasing the videos in Riverdale. The authorities might not be making the connection. 

So if I’m sticking with my its Donna theory how do I explain that it definitely wasn’t Donna in the latest video. I mean it was without a doubt a male right? Well we know that Donna works with a group. She’s the mastermind but she needs her disciples. I think she started this with the Stonies where they released the videos of peoples houses, most likely this started out as a prank. We know that the Stonies liked to pull some pretty crazy pranks like locking people in coffins overnight, we also know there seemed to be a little bit of a rivalry between Stonewall and Riverdale high schools. We also know that they were filming their fellow classmates, it wasn’t just Betty and Jughead and Moose. There were tons of illegally recorded tapes it seemed like quite the extensive operation. We also know that some of those tapes ended up in the Scarlet Room. But Donna’s got a problem now. Her disciples have either left the country are dead or are in jail. So she needs to find new ones. I think she’s formed a new group and I think this group consists of Terry and Mr Honey. I think Terry helps out by getting the victims. He’s got a wide pool of employee’s who do films for him, he could easily get people from out of town who would sit down in a chair and be tied up and think nothing of it just assuming its part of some weird kink, because I refuse to believe innocent tickle porn is that only kind of video that man shoots. I also think that he was the one in the Cliff mask. As for Mr Honey I’m not as sure on what his role could be. But we do know that Donna has worked with a teacher for nefarious reasons in the past so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that she could be doing it again. He could possibly be the delivery guy. Maybe he’s the one going around putting the tapes on doorsteps now. It would be much less suspicious for someone to see Mr Honey about Riverdale than Donna or Terry. He could also be dropping some off at the Scarlet Room. Speaking of I do think this could be where they all met/ connected. I mean as a film maker it wouldn’t be unusual for Terry to sell some videos to the store. We know Mr Honey visits the Scarlet Room. As for Donna while Jughead assumes the tape of him and Betty was put there by Bret, Donna had admitted to seeing the tape so its just as likely that it could have been her that put it there. 

Maple Rum Snoosefest.

So I figured I’d cover Veronica’s and Cheryl’s Maple Rum storyline here as to be honest I don’t have alot to say about it. Unlike the tickle ring stroyline which could potentially have some relevance to the main plot, I just don’t see how this one fits in. To be honest I find the whole thing boring. I mean its just another plotline with Veronica being at war with her Father. Plus the whole Veronica thinks her dad has changed because he spared someone only for us to find out he had murdered someone. Like we get it Hiram is a horrible, manipulative git you don’t need to keep showing us that at this point. I suppose the purpose of it was also to show that Hiram’s illness is really starting to have an effect on him because he never would have been beat up like that before, its this idea that Hiram is finally starting to get weaker so we might be coming up to his downfall. Also I found the whole scene after the thugs break into the Maple Club and Cheryl is all like poor momsie and Veronica is all apologetic to Penelope absolutely hilarious. Like this woman is a murderer, you had her on trial a few episodes ago and then you locked her up and now have her in forced labour as punishment but all of a sudden we’re suppose to be concerned for her. We’re suppose to believe that these two girls are concerned for her? Really? Being brutally honest here I kinda feel the same way about Penelope as I do Hiram which is I just don’t care. I don’t care about the rum storyline, I don’t care that Hiram is ill and I don’t care if Penelope nearly gets beat up by thugs, I just don’t have any sympathy for either of those characters seeing as they’ve been painted as truly terrible people and parents so far so why is the show trying to get me to care about them now. Sorry but its just not going to happen.

Barchie 

Ok so the other main plotline and the one I think its the one most people are talking about. Now let me start out by saying that I don’t think for one second that Barchie is over. In fact I think this is just the beginning. The episode in regards to Barchie pretty much went the way we all thought it was going to go with Archie being much more willing to persue something than Betty. So lets go through all their scenes and analyse every little moment of them because you know its fun. 

We first see Barchie away from each other. Betty is refusing to get caught up in another mystery and while some of this might be because she’s got too much else on her mind with what happened with Archie, I do think some of it is that she is just tired of it all, she’s going to Yale in a few months and I think she wants to just leave all that murder stuff behind her and focus on her future outside of Riverdale. When we first see Archie we see him playing his guitar and it looks like he might already possibly be working on the song for Betty. While he is playing he flashes back to the kiss. He then walks over and looks at the form for the Naval Academy and then out the window towards Betty’s room. I do think this is suppose to show that Archie is torn. He’s torn about whether to go to the Navy and hes torn about what to do about his feelings for Betty. I also think the two are linked, he unsure of whether to join the Navy because of Betty. Also I think the writers have left another little clue for us in this scene. When Archie picks up the form underneath it are some dominoes. I do think this is symbolic of the situation they find themselves in now. That kiss was the first domino and  they’ve knocked it over, now thanks to the domino effect all the others are going to come crashing down too, its only a matter of time. 

After Archie looks out his window we switch over to see Betty in her room reading her diary. This entry is talking about the day she first fell in love with Archie and we get a flashback to Mini Barchie waving at each other through their windows so know we’ve got another iconic window scene to add to our gif sets. It’s worth noting that while reading this entry she is smiling so we know she is thinking of the memory fondly. Howver when Alice comes in and they start talking about the future and getting teary eyed, Alice asks what Betty could have to cry about it Betty flashes back to the kiss and gets teary. It shows that while Betty might be looking back on the past fonly she has lot of guilt and uncertainty about the more recent kiss. She’s very confused about her feelings. 

The next time we see them is the first Bunker scene. Here we see them laying on the bed together and they start out by telling the other where their significant other is at. Betty tells Archie that Jugead is with Charles and Archie replies that Veronica is with Cheryl. I think in this moment wher ethey are lying close together and its intimate and all these feelings for each other are welling up they bring up Jughead and Veronica to remind each other that there are two other people involved in this, who are going to be affected by this. It’s at this moment that Betty asks what they are doing there? She is trying to figure out her feelings and what all of it means, whether its real, she’s despesrately trying to find the answers. But Archie doesn’t have an answer for her as he as just as confused by situation as she is, there is one thing he is sure of though and that’s this feels nice. Betty then admits that yes it is but that they can’t do anything more than this. This is very telling because it tells us that not only is Betty thinking about doing more with Archie she clearly wants to. It almost like shes saying it as a caution to Archie and herself, she saying this is nice I like this but we have to be careful because it would be far to easy to get lost in each other and go further. I did think Archie’s response to this was kinda funny, he’s like we’re just hanging out. It is a typical Archie/ teenage boy response and again its very telling because it actually shows that one Archie is a little in denial here, there is obviously more going on here than them ‘just hanging out’. It also seems like Archie is trying to find a reason for them to keep doing it by painting it as being more innocent than it actually is. He trying to justify them being alone together by thinking well we’re not doing anything romantic or anything. But while it may seem fairly innocent, I mean they are just laying on a bed, on top of the covers, with their clothes on, the reality is they are both having romantic thoughts about each other and this moment is actually a very intimate moment on an emotional level. The might not be physically cheating but they are being emotionally unfaithful and deep down they both know it. I think this is why Betty says she loves Jughead at this moment. She needs to say it out loud because she’s getting overwhelmed by her feelings for Archie, she needs to remind herself of Jughead who she could really hurt. Archie’s reply is actually really interesting firstly because he pauses for quite a while before answering, his response doesn’t come automatically to him but also because all though he also says he loves Veronica he adds a but. Have you ever heard that saying that nothing a person says before the word but really counts? I think its from Game of thrones. I think that is relevant here Archie says he loves Veronica but this feels nice. So if we’re saying nothing before the word but counts then what Archie is really saying is this feels nice. He also adds a question to the end of it. This feels nice, right? Again this is important because it is telling us that Archie needs that confirmation from Betty. He needs to know she feels the same that he’s not in it alone. Although Betty doesn’t give a verbal response to this I do think we can safely say she does feel the same as we see her turn to look at him and they spend some time staring into each others eyes before taking each others hands. I think in this moment they needed to make some kind of physical contact with each other, their feelings are drowning them but they know that at any moment they could knock some more dominoes and cross the line. But handholding is safe right? I mean they’re just hanging out right?

The next time we see Archie he has gone to his Father’s grave. Like I said I do get this feeling that Archie is just really confused and at a loss. He talks about how he wonders what advice his father would give him. That it would probably something like follow your heart. Archie admits that he doesn’t know which way it is pointing and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He is at a crossroads right now. He’s got several paths in front of him that he could take and he doesn’t know which one is the right one, and even scarier than that he doesn’t know where any of them lead, what could be hidden round the bend? Does he stay with Veronica, something he is familiar with and a person he loves and has a lot of history with? Does he stay in Riverdale after high school and focus on the center and his dad’s business? Does he persue his feelings for Betty another person who he has alot of history with but who he now has new romantic feelings for? Does he join the Naval Academy and get an education? There are so many possibilties in front of him but so many unknowns too. Its no wonder why he’s really missing his dad right now as thats the person he would ordinarily talk this all out with. 

And then we were back with Betty. Again she is reading her diary, this time its about the proposal. She describes this day as the happiest day of her life, which is just super adorable. She again flashbacks to Mini Barchie and the proposal and can I just say that red heart ring is so cute and I do think it might pop up at some point again, they did take special effort to give us a close up of it and I can’t help but wonder what happened to it. Did Archie still give it to Betty anyway as a kind of promise ring? Did he keep and its in a draw somewhere? Who knows but I do think itll eventually end up with Betty. Kevin interrupts Betty’s thoughts when he asks if she ok and when she answers yes she was just thinking, he asks if she was thinking about simpler times to which Betty agrees. The thing is if we look at it from Betty’s point of view it really was a simpler time. Back then she was certain about what she wanted. She wrote in her diary ‘I know I want to marry Archie but I know we’re too young.’ Little Betty knew exactly how she felt and exactly what she wanted. There was no boyfriend whose heart she could break, there was no best friend who she could utterly destroy with her betrayal. There was only her and Archie. Fast forward ten years and shes in a very different situation then what her younger self thought. As a child she believed this was the time when she and Archie would be getting engaged, when they were 18 and in high school. Now all those feelings she felt then are back but its far from a simple situation. 

I don’t think its at all surprising that when we return to Archie he is working on a song. Archie has always tried to work his feelings out through songwriting and music. We can see him smiling throughout the entire process of wrinting this song. Now I was going to wait and talk about the meaning of the song later when going through the second bunker scene but I actually think we should cover it now. I mean if Archie has written a song for Betty then obviously we need to study every single line in great detail just because what else would we do with it? So lets first start with the title. According to the video I found on youtube its called ‘Carry the Torch’. Now if this is the official title then this is very intersting as the phase means to love something for a long period of time. Us Barchie shippers have been saying all along that Barchie never lost their feelings for each other and I do think this confirms that. The first line of the song is ‘There’s no warning when everything changes’, pretty obvious that Archie is talking about the sudden emergence of their feelings for each other here. I also think its interesting that for Archie everything has changed. Literally nothing is the same for him anymore, not his feelings for Veronica, not his plans for the future, his feelings for Betty, literally everything is up in the air. 

‘You let down your guard and I saw something strange, I thought she’s not made for this world and neither am I.’ The part about her letting down her guard I think is in reference to how previously in season 1 after he broke her heart she became more guarded with Archie to the point where when he tried to talk about his feelings with her in the season 1 finale she shut him down. Now though she’s let that guard down, she’s kissed him and she’s met with him in the bunker, she admitted she was feeling something for him. As for the part about seeing something strange and thinking she’s not made for this world I again think this is a throw back to how he used to see her. I’ve said before that I always thought a huge part of the reason why Archie rejected Betty in season 1 is because of how he saw her as this perfect girl next door and so much more than he ever would be. I think he’s now realised thats not true. That she’s not the same person anymore and neither is he. The line about not being made for this world is a little more ambiguos to me but I think he means they aren’t made to fit into a box, they both a little different. I mean I think they have had similar paths, they both have struggled with a dark side that was brought into exisitence by the same man, the black hood. Archie’s anger at the black hood lead him down some pretty dark paths, Betty got the calls from the black hood that also took her down a dark path.They were both manipulated by someone they thought they could trust. Archie was manipulated by Hiram and Betty was manipulated by Chic. They have both lost their Fathers suddenly. I think Archie is trying to say that whereas before he saw them on different levels now he recognises that they are on the same, that they match. It could also mean that they aren’t meant for the world of Riverdale, this world that’s steeped in blood and violence, Archie has always seen their relationship as being something pure, that childhood innocence, maybe he’s saying that their love is being blocked because of this world where they can so easily be corrupted. How he feels for Betty is so pure that it doesn’t belong in this world of evil and corruption its on another level it doesn’t fit in with this world, its just too good if I’m making sense here. 

‘Cause you make me wanna be stronger than I am.’ Another fairly obvious one Archie wants to be good enough for Betty he wants to be worthy of her. She inspires him to better himself and again we this alot throughout their relationship. She supports his music and encourages him to persue it, we know that story of how she helped him get caught up as children so he wouldn’t have to repeat a grade, we also know that she helped him with his schoolwork when he got out of prison. She always believes in him and he always listens to her advice and lets her guide him. The next line is ‘Maybe I’m reaching, misplacing a feeling. There’s no way to know but to try.’  This line is really showing Archie’s confusion. But it also tells us alot about how Archie is thinking. He recognises that isn’t certain of his feelings that he just be mistaking nostalgia but he also says the only way they can know is to try. This is kinda what I’ve been saying myself. The only way Barchie are going to get closure is if they explore their relationship otherwise they are always going to wonder, they’ll always be a what if. It seems from these lyrics that Archie thinks this too that he wants to try and see what they could be. 

Ok I do want to point something out real quick here. We know that Archie didn’t sit down and write this song all in one session. This song was written over a couple of days and as I said I do think Archie uses music to sort through his feelings. All of the lines above come from the first verse of two. Here’s the thing there is a huge change between the two verses. In the first it is very much about new, tentative and unsure feelings. However as you will see as we go through the second verse it is much more sure and certain. Archie has made up his mind about what he wants and its reflected in this second verse. “So give me tonight, I don’t know much but I knoww this feels right.’ Archie might be a bit clueless most of the time, he might make mistakes and he might not have all the answers but in all that uncertainty one thing he does know, beyond a shadow of doubt that what he feels for Betty is right. I mean if you compare the line ‘maybe I’m reaching mistaking a feeling’ with this line ‘but I know this feels right.’ This is such a huge turn around. Those lines couldn’t be more different. From the line give me tonight it does make me think that the first verse was written sometime after the first bunker visit but before he goes to see Betty and arranges to meet her at the bunker tomorrow evening. I think the second was written the next day when he knew that evening he was going to sing the song for Betty. In that time he had recgnised that his feeling were real and that they felt right. 

‘So give me tonight, If you carry the torch, I’d follow the light, I’d follow the light.’ Here again Archie repeats give me tonight. I think he understands that Betty is unsure and so he’s asking her to hear him out, to keep an open mind to come to this conversation he wants to have. It seems to me like Archie very much wants to talk about how they are feeling and have that conversation that lets be honest they should have had the last time they kissed. When he says ‘if you carry the torch I’ll follow the ligh’t this is huge. He is literally saying that if she says that she has feelings for him, if she wants him too then he’s all in. He wants to be with her, its as plain as day in those lyrics. Like without a doubt if she had said she wanted to be with him he would break up with Veronica and be with Betty and does come across as what he wants. 

One thing I will say real quick is that I do think Archie needs to break up with Veronica anyway. Irregardless of whether Betty is willing to be in a relationship with him or not if he is having feelings as strong as what he is portraying in this song that its not right for him to continue with Veronica. As much as it would suck for her and as much as I’d hate to see her hurting, I think Veronica is an amazing woman and person and deserves a heck of a lot better than to have someone settle for her.

When we go back to Betty the diary entry of the day is talking about how they used to listen to records together. Again I don’t think its a coincidence that right after we see Archie working on a song Betty flashes back to them listening to music, music has always been a predominant part of their relationship. Again child Betty describes it as the best day ever. Betty seems to be trying to work through her feelings by looking back at old memories everytime we see her shes got one of her diaries in her hand. What I do think is interesting is that while Archie seems to be looking forward, looking to their furture Betty has chosen to look backwards. I kinda get the sense that Betty is frightened of the future and so her tactic for dealing with that is to just not think about all the much. So she’s getting lost in the past. Archie then shows up and can I just say I love Archie he’s so adorable, like he literally spent the entire episode writing songs and trying to think of ways to hang out with Betty. When he says that he’s there to help her with the year book it is so obvious that he is looking for any excuse to be around her. Definitely had th esame vibe about it as ‘we’re just hanging out.’ Bless ya cotton socks Arch. Anyway Betty sees right through Archie and points out that he’s not there for the yearbook. This is when Archie confesses that he can’t stop thinking about her. She says that they can’t do this but then after looking at him for a moment continues with ‘not here’. Naturally Archie gets very excited at this little bit of hope and Betty admits she can’t stop thinking about him either. Now the next couple of lines of dialogue I think are very important. They arrange to meet at the Bunker but Betty doesn’t want to meet that night but the next. The reasoning she gives for this is so that they have time to think about it and ‘make sure this is what we really want.’ The reason why this is such a big deal is because of the implications behind it. Betty is basically saying that in this moment at least she wants to be with Archie, this means that in this moment she had pretty much decided she was going to leave Jughead for Archie. The intersting thing is that she asks for that delay. I think some of it is yes so that she herself can be sure that it is what she wants and that she isn’t going to change her mind. But more than that I think she wants to make sure Archie won’t change is mind. I mean look at it from her perspective he has broken her heart before. Not only that but after they kissed last time when she next sees him after that night he is kissing Veronica and its obvious their back together, we know that Barchie hadn’t talked about the kiss at this point and they shared a look when Archie spotted her and realised she had seen him kiss Veronica. This must have hurt Betty too its possible she hadn’t spoken to Archie yet because she was working up the courage, unfortunately Archie could have seen the fact that she hadn’t tried to talk about it with him as indifference on her part which is part of the reason why he goes back to Veronica. I think Betty is thinking ok he says he can’t stop thinking about me now but lets wait a bit and see if that cools off and it changes because if we start something up for real then not only have they hurt the people they care about for nothing but Betty’s heart will be broken again. 

Betty continues to read her diaries in the meantime and the next entry we get is acutally really telling given what comes next. In this entry Betty is talking about how much she hates Cheryl for kissing Archie. This is relevant because unlike the others this isn’t some happy memory of childhood love, in this memory she is remembering what it feels like to see someone you love kiss someone else. I suspect she is then recognising that this feeling is what Jughead and Veronica will go through if she does persue things with Archie. These thoughts and feelings are fresh in her mind when Cheryl comes in. This part of the episode does seem to have split some opinions in the fandom and caused a bit of a stir. Alot of people feel like it was really out of character for Cheryl to say that what Betty feels for Archie isn’t real and that she is in love with the idea of him considering she was the one saying that it looked pretty real to her just a few episodes ago. I agree with that I was very confuse myself by it when I first watched the episode. But since then I’ve gone back and watched the scene again and I’ve got a few things I think we should think about with this scene. Firstly we need to remember that Cheryl unlike the audience, doesn’t have all the facts. She doesn’t know about the kiss, she doesn’t know that Betty fantasized that dance, she doesn’t know about them meeting in the bunker. Betty straight up denied anything had happened between them when Cheryl asks. I think in these instances its really important that we look at it from the character’s pov. We can actually learn alot from studying Cheryl’s facial expressions during this scene. They are very subtle but if you look closely enough it can make you understand Cheryl’s thought process also it gives us an excuse to look at Cheryl’s beautiful face so its win win. This is Cheryl’s face when she first realises that she was right and Betty is having real feelings for Archie. 

She is clearly excited and happy at the news. This is much more in line with what you’d expect from Cheryl after her comments about it looking real. However her demenour changes after Betty says she thinks a part of her had been in love with Archie for the last ten years and she suddenly looks alot more sombre and well sad to be honest... 

  So why the sudden change? Well her expression also seems really sympathetic to me as well as sad and her expression makes alot more sense when you see what she is seeing. She is looking at Betty in this moment and this is how Betty is looking at that moment. 

I mean look at her, she is so devastated, she is clearly hurting and struggling. Now again we have to look at this from Cheryl’s pov. While she might put on an act alot of the time and while its true she seems to enjoy chaos, she isn’t a heartless person. In fact on many occasions we have seen a softer side to her an example of this with Betty is when Betty suspected that her dad was a serial killer she went to Cheryl and she was supportive of Betty and gave her some really good advice. Well they might not be bosom buds Betty is still Cheryl’s cousin, her family. Again if we look at it from her point of view not knowing about the kiss or any of that then Cheryl likely sees it as Betty has started to have feelings and the idea of it is really upsetting Betty. If Cheryl did know about the kiss she might have given different advice but she doesn’t. It’s also possible that Cheryl may be feeling some level of responisibilty for Betty feeling upset now because she was the one who put the idea in her head that she had real feelings for Archie. I actually think Cheryl is trying to find a way to cheer Betty up, to comfort her when she gives this explanation that she’s just in love with the idea of Archie. 

I went to a body language class once and the guy told us that when a person lies or is trying to tap into their imagination they look up and to the right because its the creative side of our brians. If a person looks up and to the left they are trying to tap into the memory side of their brains. The interesting thing about Cheryl in this scen is she actually does both, her eyes flick from one side to another. Now I’m not an expert in body language I only ever went to the one workshop that covered the basics but to me this would suggest that Cheryl was searching for something to say here whether it comes from her imagination or a memory doesn’t matter she just wants to think of something to say that will cheer Betty up that will make it better. 

If you look at Cheryl’s face right before she says false and then goes on to explain that she’s in love with the idea and that what she has with jughead is real, to me it has that lightbulb look. You know the one I mean, when you’ve just had an idea pop into your head? Yeah I think this is Cheryl’s that’s it, that’s the solution to the problem moment. You can see it alot better when you watch the scene you can see the moment where it pops into her head. So I do think this was more Cheryl’s miguided way of cheering Betty up. I mean like I said she doesn’t even have all the information about the situation all she knows is that Betty is feeling hella upset right now. I think Cheryl meant well but that she didn’t give the best advice at this moment. Also there’ another much simpler reason for why Cheryl said this. The writers. I think they want to draw this Barchie storyline out and play on the angst a bit and so they are using Cheryl here to throw a spanner in the works and delay Barchie getting together. 

However that doesn’t mean that what Cheryl said doesn’t have some merit. In particular I think the line about being in love with the idea of the perfect romance is important. You know I actually half agree with Cheryl here. Only half though because I think this used to be true in the past. I think back in season 1 when Betty was more innocent and naive she was in love with the idea of the perfect romance with Archie. However now, when you think about it, it’s not possible for her to be. Mostly because she can’t have the perfect romance with Archie. By this point Archie has already broken her heart once, what’s perfect about that? They have already kissed and then hidden it from their significant others while pretending it didn’t happen in season 2, again what’s perfect about that? Now they’ve kissed again only this time its worse because they’ve actually cheated and now they know that if they do decide to be together alot of people are going to get hurt, yeah there’s definitely nothing perfect about that. My point is their relationship is already flawed, its already gone through the wringer and they already bear the scars from it, its not perfect so how can she be in love with the idea of a perfect love story with Archie? It not perfect but it is real. I need to point out as well that in this scene Betty admits that she has been in love with Archie the whole time. Yet when she talks about Jughead she says ‘I love Jughead’ not in love, love. I do think they’ve done this deliberately, this difference between the two phrases but I haven’t figured out what the significance of it is yet.

So now we’ve gotten to the second bunker scene. It starts off with Archie playing the song for Betty. What I do think is significant here is that whilst he is playing she flashes back to that scene where he was playing for them all and she gets overwhelmed and runs off. Like before when she was reading the diary entry about Cheryl she has remembered a time when she felt hurt and in pain because the person she loved had kissed someone else (Veronica in the cupboard this time) again she is thinking about how much that hurt her and how that’s how Jughead and Veronica are going to feel on top of that she’s got everything Cheryl said spinning through her mind and all just overwhelms her and she was to stop Archie. Another thing worth pointing out is when Archie asks if she doesn’t like the song she replies ‘it’s us, it’s us’ again here she is admitting that they are real, they are right because that’s what the song is about, so if she thinks the song is them that she must believe that. Yet I think in the end as she says she doesn’t want to hurt or lose Jughead. Ultimately that’s what it comes down to. It’s not that she doesn’t have feelings for Archie, its not that she doesn’t think they are right for each other, it not even that she doesn’t want to be with Archie, she just doesn’t want to hurt Jughead. She doesn’t want to face the consequences and so instead she just ends instead trying to convince them both that its just nostalgia and fear of things changing. 

The immediate scene after shows that Archie is still playing the song and his mother comments how it must have been written for someone special, she assumes that its for Veronica. This is the moment when Archie says that he wants to join the Naval Academy and says he thinks it’ll be best to just have a fresh start. I mean this poor guy is so heartbroken that he’s decided that the only thing left to do is join the Navy. I do think being in the Navy is going to drastically change Archie in some ways it might be good for him as it will give him more control over his emotions and discipline but it also might make him a much harder person. We won’t know for sure until after the time jump but I do feel like we should prepare ourselves for seeing a very different Archie. Again though we are being shown Archie looking forwards to the future as a way of dealing with his current situation. 

In contrast Betty is still focussed on the past, mainly on burning it away. But I do think its interesting that while one of them is obsessing over the future as an escape the other is losing themselves in the past in an attempt to deal. The thing is though neither one of them is focussing on the present on what’s going on right in the moment and so I feel like they are missing out. Its obvious that in this scene Betty still trying to convince herself that her feelings for Archie aren’t real. When her mother asks what shes doing she says she’s ‘exorcising her demons’ and then later after Alice points out that they are her childhood memories and that they are precious, Betty replies that they are just memories. I do think she is trying really hard to convince herself that what Cheryl said was true. I do think its interesting that its Alice in this scene that saves the last diary. I do think this diary is going to be an important plot point. I am very curious about whats in it. But I do find it ironic that Alice was the one in 3x01 who was trying to convince Betty to burn all her diaries but now shes the one trying to save them. Also it could be significant that Alice is the one to do this considering her past. When she was Betty’s age she too was in love with someone, FP. She too, like Betty is now, decided to not face these feelings and instead went for the safer option in Hal. As a result alot of bad things happened to her. While her life wasn’t necessarily terrible there was still something missing for her, the same can be said of FP. That decision to not face there feelings for each other had a direct impact on there lives. It had a domino effect. Like Betty and Archie Alice and FP had other opportunities to be honest with themselves and each other but didn’t. 

As I said before I don’t think that Barchie’s story is over yet. There are too many things left undone. We still haven’t heard the whole song in the show yet. I do think its possible that Veronica will somehow discover the song, whether because she hears a recording of it, or hears Archie playing it or becuse Mary asks her what she thought about it. Then one of two things will happen. Either Archie will be faced with the awkward situation where he either has to admit the song isn’t about her or pretend it is and play it for her. Or when she hears it Veronica realises right away that it isn’t about her. Maybe Jughead also hears the song and also gets suspicious. I also think that diary is going to come back into it, maybe Betty reads something in it that makes her realise Archie is the one she wants and so she rushes over to see him and tell him only to find that he has already left, she gets to his room and there is a letter for her on his desk. Inside the envelope is an explanation that he’s left for the Navy, a loves confession and the heart ring is in there too. Then we’ll have the 5 year time jump where we find out they’ve been longing for each other the entire time. Oh the angst. The other thing is that Jughead and Veronica still haven’t found out about the kiss and with these video tapes popping up all over the place its only a matter of time before that one comes out. Also its worth saying that technically Archie and Betty still haven’t had a proper conversation about their feelings. While they were better this time around and they did touch on the fact they couldn’t stop thinking about each other their conversations were more about what they didn’t want then what they did. They don’t want to hurt Jughead and Veronica. So at the moment they are kinda at a stalmate.   

Well thank you to everyone who read all the way to the end of this. I know it got real long, like I said a lot of thoughts about everything. Again I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. I’m not sure how much information we are going to get from the next episode as its going to be a revenge fantasy from a story Jughead is writing but you never know, either way I’m still excited for the episode. So until next time.                         

#riverdale #barchie #riverdale theories

[messymagician]

The Devil’s due

Sarah (Arcana OC) X Julian (Arcana) Follows the main plot story, with changes. Just shy of 4k words. ________________________________________________________________

Chapter 5 : Salty and bitter.

A gentle touch to the shoulder made the rather scruffy-looking magician grumble and gripe from her sleep. Scrunching up her little round nose as quiet chuckles roused her awake. "Mrrrrrmmmm…. What year is it?" She sighed sarcastically while lifting both palms to her face to squish the sleepiness from her eyes. Yikes she felt awful. Not mentally, just physically. Her knees were stiff and it felt as though both of her eyes had been left dry all night.

"I'm going to be heading out, I wanted to give you something before I leave." Asra soothed quietly, enjoying the sight of Sarah's almost childlike waking grumpiness. 

It had been longer than he could remember since he'd had such a sudden connection to someone. But something about her… it was familiar. In the best possible way. Like being wrapped in a warm blanket that reminded oneself of home; watching her little mannerisms felt like a long lost pass-time.

Her drowsiness setting aside eased him back into the present, taking her hand to deposit something small but sturdy into her palm. Standing up and throwing a long shawl over his shoulder. "For the shop. You're welcome to stay whenever you need to."

She didn't have much time to both process his words, investigate the item, and thank him so the latter fell to the wayside temporarily. Flipping the chunk of metal over in her hand before the light morning blindness set aside and she could clearly see what it was. A key. Chunky and unpolished.

Oh wait, this is a key to here?! Her mouth opens to object but the front door clicks downstairs and as she quickly scans the room for Asra it seems he's already outside. Leaving her sitting with her legs dangling off of the spare bed for a moment. A key to the shop. Wow. Her meltdown yesterday must've really had some kind of impression huh. She huffed through her nose, struggling out from under the covers.

It looked like it was just past dawn. Not quite midday yet, the sun still hanging low in the morning position. A few flocks of pigeons sat softly cooing to one another on the opposing roofs outside. She stretches out, feeling her shoulders pop, before getting up and immediately going to explore the shop. There are so many cool things to look at, most of which totally blew over her head last night. She fumbled down the steep staircase and dropped the last two steps in one jump, feeling the last of her dopey waking-up brain finally turn its lights on.

The sweet smell of tea and cinnamon from last night has faded. Leaving a colder, but much fresher, air in the room. Her stomach rumbled hungrily but it was eclipsed by eager out-loud reading of ingredient bottles stored behind the front desk. "Ground amethyst, acorn tops, charmed writing quill ink, powdered pearls… Asra must have collected these himself." She mumbled to nobody in particular while turning a vial of melted lavender buds over in her hands. 

An indeterminate amount of time had passed. Sarah, totally lost to the exploration of the shop's inventory, was startled by a loud knocking at the front door that made her jolt upright directly into the shelf above. Smoothing down her hair shortly after with a grumble. A customer? But she's not the store owner. Should she let-

"Sarah? Are you here? It's Portia- milady said that the other magician had you here last night-" a wave of relief made her eyes almost roll at Portia's little voice coming from behind the door. Briskly jogging over to pull it open, seemingly to the curvy woman's only brief surprise. "So you are here, I owe that new guy some money." She sweetly sings with a bright look to her rosy face. Portia was a lovely little hard worker, around Sarah's height but with just an absolute mountain of messy constantly curly hair tied back behind her head. If she didn't know her and Julian were siblings she probably could've guessed based on their hair alone. "We need to talk…"

"God, don't remind me. Julian was saying that all day yesterday." She cringed, stepping aside to let them in. Her words seemingly slipping Portia's mind as her little eyes got temporarily distracted by the sights inside.

"Wow, this is what the shop looks like? He wasn't lying huh, it really is a place for magical doo-hickeys." Her hands brushed along a crystal ball before she shook her head quickly and moved onto a long cabinet of herbs.

"...You said we needed to talk?"

"Oh! Sorry, Sarah. You're right." She swallows, placing a hand at her hip and cocking her head. "Milady wanted me to come check up on you. Um, see how you were doing on the investigation. You know with Ily- ...Julian." her cheery demeanour seems to diminish. Melting at the heavy weight of her love for her brother and her duty to Countess Nadia.

Sarah felt a sting of guilt and pity. This poor girl has Julian of all people as a brother. Being hunted down must be rough on her just as much as him. "Do you want me to catch him?" She asks gently, watching Portia's expression widen after being caught off guard.

"Me? Why would that matter?"

"He's your brother. And if Nadia catches him she'll…" The words struggle to come out. The both of them feeling sickly at what they already know is coming. "...He'll be hanged. Portia, are you really ok with that?"

"I-.... No. Are you?" She asks back innocently. As of trying to gauge Sarah's affinity toward her brother and her job. 

But the answer was clear even to a blind man. Her brows pinching and turning up in mild worry. "No." 

The previous unease in Portia's shoulders evaporates along with a long low breath. Like the concern never existed, a bright smile pierces her freckled cheeks. "Great! So we're partners then." She winks mischievously. Putting a smile back on Sarah's face too.

"Partners?" She echoes back as Portia's hair flops to one side over her shoulder 

"Well, we both want the same thing. Right? You don't want my brother to die. I don't want my brother to die." Hmm. That is certainly a way of putting it. Though Portia quickly rolls her eyes and looks fed up. "Now we just have to make sure my brother doesn't want my brother to die."

"We need to get him out of the city." The little Devorak starts, placing both hands comfortably in front of her in a streamlined way. "As long as he's in Vesuvia, he's in danger." And as much as the plan sounded good something gnawed irritably at Sarah's ankles.

"Is he really going to let us help?" She asked uncertainty, watching Portia pout enough to give her an answer without words. If last night was any clue, Julian wasn't easy to just 'help' without getting some fussy kickback.

"Sounds like you're talking from experience." She griped, watching Sarah's chest heave in a long sigh. 

"I am… last night-"

"Last night?" Portia quickly interjects, shushing her own surprise with pursed lips. It seems both siblings have a knack for trying to carry the conversation. It made Sarah smile a little despite the topic's contents.

"Yes. He… kept distancing himself. Trying to get me to go away, saying he needed to do things alone…"

Portia nodded firmly, rolling her eyes and flipping a small curl of fiery hair out of her face. "That sounds like Ilya, alright. Let me guess, he said it was to keep you safe?" Was he like this to everyone? Both his sister and the mysterious wizard, Asra, seemed to already know what would have transpired during last night's outing. It only made her more irritated that she fell for it and didn't fight harder. 

A soft look of recognition passes Portia's blue eyes. "He used to do that to me all the time when we were younger. Never let me handle anything… Always shouldering someone else's burdens, while lamenting how heavy the load is." A short pause let Sarah giggle at Portia's dramatic body language when pretending to be 'faint' from dragging the world's problems around. "I mean, it's nice to hear he's still my same brother. And now that I'm older, maybe I can finally help carry that weight. Ilya needs people he can rely on…" 

A spark intertwined between the two as they locked eyes. Some form of eager anticipation almost palpable in the fabric-scented air as Sarah pulled up the key to the shop and Portia grinned firmly. "He might need you. So let's go find him."

"Do you know where he went?" The obvious tone of both quiet challenge and mild intrigue made Portia head for the door. Already knowing that seeking out this Magician was a very good idea… for everyone's sake. 

"I think I might know where he is. Follow me."

___________________________________

A heavy scent of booze and old wood filled Sarah's lungs as the tavern door swung open with little resistance. Inside was well lit with candles that hung in old bird cages from greying ropes. Several very plain and very old looking metal tankards clapped against grainy wooden tables. The atmosphere seemingly inviting them in, a little prepared for trouble.

Low-grumbling murmurs and hushed conversations made the air feel alive. A big, almost stereotypically, burly man behind the bar stood cleaning his mugs. Only stopping for a moment to nod their way before going back to his work. Oh yeah. This is absolutely the place.

Portia also seemed sure Julian would be hiding out here. A firm and unshakable look of certainty to her blue eyes. "Trust me. I know my brother. He'd definitely hang at a place called The Rowdy Raven."  Her round elbow jabs playfully into Sarah's side, which she returns with a small nudge while their eyes scan the room in opposing directions. A semi-hidden spark of auburn forcing Sarah to double-take in it's seat. Sighing as she puts a hand on Portia's shoulder to get her attention.

Julian. Slumped drearily over a table with his face obscured by a thick tangle of indescribably frazzled hair. A tall glass mug in one hand and several more littering the table. All but the one he's loosely holding onto are empty. "Oh boy." Grumbles Portia from behind Sarah's arm. "There he is. Listen, when he gets like this, what he really needs is a good boot to the ass. You want to deliver it or should I?"

"A boot to the ass." Sarah repeats, with an almost cute scrunched up expression. As if she was trying her damnedest to look angry. Oh boy did she have the boot, she just had to stop feeling sorry for him first. He did this to himself and now they were going to drag his sorry boney butt out of it! 

"Alright, you're up then." With a final pat to the back Portia let Sarah approach first. Clearing her throat as loudly as she could manage while crossing her arms to look bigger.

"Julian."

The semi-wasted man seems to jump a tad at the sound of his name being addressed so clearly. Almost dropping the slightly swaying cup in his hand while hauling his forehead away from the table. Looking up with an obviously not quite focused eye. Dazed for a moment before it shot wide open. "Sarah!" His speech was a little fumbled. But then again…. When wasn't it? "You uhhh- you're here. In the Raven. In front of me." There was a note of unprepared disbelief before he could straighten a little more. The collar of his white flowing shirt crooked on one side. "What, uh. What are you doing here?"

"What are YOU doing here. It's the middle of the day!" Portia barks from behind her now taking point to Sarah's right.

"It's never too early for a glass of Salty Bitters. Bartholomew makes a grand one. Barth! Hey, Barth!" Julian yells over the barely talking crowd, making Sarah's cheeks go red with embarrassment. "Two more bitters, would you?"

"Julian!" She whines, quickly re-centring his attention on her. "This is stupid, you're liable to be caught, acting like this."

He sneers cockily, only making her frown. "Caught? Me, caught?" Though within a matter of seconds it dissolves. Leaving only a sad mope. "Mmmm. Good. I deserve it." Just as fast as his mood changed before, it swiftly changed again. Clearly influenced heavily by the bitters. Throwing his arms out in a dramatic fashion. Backhanding a chair on accident that wobbles precariously before settling back down. "You must be relieved. Even if you weren't last night, well. Just look at me now, hmm? I'm all…. I'm all washed up. You'd better get out of here, before I drag you both down too."

Armed with the hindsight of last time, and both Portia and Asra's unsurprised reaction to the story, Sarah feels her crossed arms tighten. Not this time you sad sack of fermented leech juice, she's not going anywhere. Sarah wasn't about to walk out on him drowning himself in drink and dramatic sorrows while he gets arrested. "No."

"I- er, what?" He spluttered, having almost put the mug back in his mouth to drink. Staring at her in disbelief.

"We aren't leaving." She reiterated firmly, glancing over to Portia who gave a small hidden thumbs up to relieve her tension.

Julian looked positively stunned. Sitting in confused silence for a while before groaning and flopping his head noisily back down onto the table. Pressing his cheek into the wood grooves while his eye closed. His voice now partially muffled and very quiet. A reluctant retry at the same shtick. "I don't want either of you two tangled up in this mess. I can't be the reason you get hurt."

"Oh drop it already." Sarah lowered her crossed arms, knocking Portia's shoulder as a signal to chime in. 

"We get to decide that, Ilya, not you! Stop trying to push us away."

"I-" His cheeks flushed red beneath the mop of hair where his face was. Lifting back up to look at them both in a dry-mouthed stupor. "Well, you both came all this way…" turning the charming less serious act back on with a mild smile. "Why don't you pull up a seat? Take a load off. Have a Salty Bitters. They're disgusting……….  I've had five."

His admission of guilty drinking was almost funny. Given any other situation, Sarah would have likely found that statement hilarious and joined him. This, however, was not the time to sit and wait. "Well… we have two options. We can either spend all day here, crying into our drinks-" She gestures down at his mug with her head, raising her brows a little despite the half-lidded glare underneath them. A quiet 'you should they're delicious-' mumbling from Julian as she continued. "Or we can find out the truth, and discover what really happened."

Before any answer could be made Portia jumped in with her own. "Or, third option, we get Julian out of town and figure the rest out later!" She squeaked in mild distress. Obviously not trusting either of them to keep Julian out of trouble enough to make sure he's not caught.

He sighs, running a glove up through his mess of hair. "I can't just run away, Pasha. I tried it before, didn't turn out so well. It's time to face the music.  

Looking exasperated, Portia rolls up her sleeves. "Fine, fine. So, if you didn't kill the count. Someone else must have, right?"

Julian's already red face seems to only get redder before he settles down. Trying to think through the hazy fog of one too many Salty Bitters. "I'm, I… didn't actually think about that. Either I did, or there's another killer on the loose." His charmed smile comes back after a moment. Considering the two little dumpling women in front of him with a silent hum. "Which is…. Bad. It's bad, if there's another murderer out there who isn't me." Catching his slowly rising concern with a side of sarcasm. "Though let's, uh. Let's be clear here. All signs point to me."

"If you mean signs as in; the fact you confessed, then yes. But other than that…. There …. Isn't really much evidence at all when you think about it." Sarah's hands lower from their crossed guard, landing squarely at her hips. The candle lanterns above, and quiet Rowdy Raven style music coming from a small band in the corner, threatening to unravel her seriousness with it's bubbly attitude. 

Portia jumping back in as she leans over the table. "We still don't know that, Ilya! Shouldn't we find out for sure?"

He sits in relative silence for a moment. Eyeing the two troublesome pains in his ass. "I suppose we should. But …" finally the tenderness in his shoulders. A sparkle of victory lighting up his verbal assailants eyes. "...I don't think I can do this on my own."

Yes! Finally! If only she'd tried this last night.  Though, Portia was a huge help too in getting him to back down. Both of their satisfied blue eyes met for a minute before they were grinning from ear to ear. "It's a good thing you don't have to, then! We can all figure it out together." Sarah's voice was restrained from being a shout, but she was clearly very excited. 

Portia interrupts once more, a hand to her lips in thought. "So, if we can't get Julian out of the city yet, what's the next step?" She asked with a little shrug. The loose shirt she wore slipping off of one of her shoulders.

Oh. Yeah. The plan was to get him out of town. They'd discussed it on the way here… but it seems that plan has quickly changed course. Sarah mulled over their options in silence, running through a few scenarios before nodding firmly. Julian's life and freedom was now hanging from a rope, like before, only now there were steps underneath to get him out safely. But how to reach them… what would be the first action to take in proving his innocence. A frustration settled in the pit of her stomach, realising that every which way this happened they would need both Julian's lost memories as well as him being in the palace. A place not easy to get into if you're well known for murdering the count.

With a reluctant wave of her dainty hand Sarah curled the nearby lantern smoke into a quick visualisation of the palace. Much to Portia's poorly hidden delight at the sight of magic but underlying worry on realising where it was. "We should start at the scene of the crime." She roughly pointed to the palace's smoky form. Her ocean eyes narrowing on where she knew Lucio's wing to be. "It might help jog Julian's memory."

Julian opened his mouth ready to point out the glaring flaw in that plan but Portia beat him to it. "It won't be a problem for us, but how will Ilya get into the palace undetected?" She whines, thinking Sarah hadn't planned that far ahead yet. "If someone sees him it's all over."

Admittedly the how of this goal was still slipping her mind. She tried to look reassuring while searching the wood train a in the table for clues before a little candle lit up in her head. If they saw Julian he's as good as toast. But what if…. They didn't see him specifically? What if he… didn't look like himself. Her brow creased with uncertainty. It was a risky spell to perform but she knew she could do it. She had used the spell a few times before… but couldn't quite remember when. "I know some magic…. That might help with that." She squinted, mulling it over before feeling a front confidence pickle at her sides. "A spell to disguise him, make it so that we can walk in without him being recognised."

"What, you mean I'd become another person?" Julian's hair bobbed with his dramatic head movement. Looking up at Sarah and finally letting go of his mug of leftover bitters. "But who would I become?" The question was a dreaded one. She needed someone relatively unknown but in her memory strong enough to look right. Not only that, but they needed to have a logical reason to be travelling with Portia and herself.

A single person came to mind. As much as she didn't want to betray the kind strangers trust so soon after meeting them it's the only conclusion that made sense after several mental retakes. She bites her lip uncomfortably, looking discreetly at Julian's sleeve while debating whether she should tell him who she had in mind. They seemed to know each other, he had guessed Julian's entire talk with her last night… "I can only think of one person but… let's change you outside. Out of sight." Sarah cringed, already feeling her fingertips tingle.

Moving the off-kilter doctor proved to be a hassle as he tried quite valiantly to stay upright. Swaying this way and that, occasionally tripping over his own long boots as they all went outside. The crisp air was clean and cold compared to in the Rowdy Raven but it was a very welcome breath of fresh air. The sky was nice and blue now that it had hit midday. The tumbling trio scuttled away to a damp corner. Dark and out of sight, exactly as they had been looking for.

Sarah felt her nerves knot and twist as the disguise spell came to mind. Taking a deep breath to centre herself and closing her eyes. She just needed to see him… the cloud like fluffy white hair. His shining purple gaze. The ever so slight golden tint to his skin. She could almost smell the shop again, hanging from his shawl. Not wanting the vision to fade she quickly fumbled into her pocket for a handful of indescribable powder. Grey and unassuming. Before blowing it directly at Julian.

The powder shifted in the before shimmering like glitter and fading. Settling onto his scrunched up face as he avoided inhaling for a second. It…. Worked. He didn't look like himself any more. No blood red hair, no silver moon eye…

Portia seemed staggered by the sudden change for a second, staring with vague familiarity. "Ohh, who's that? He's handsome!" She gasps, watching her tall brother twist and turn to try to see himself. Though it seemed to him nothing looked different. Only to them… "What, what? What do I look like?" After fruitlessly trying to spot the change he scuttled deer-legged over to a nearby puddle. Dropping to his knees and peering in with wide eyes. "Oh my god." He stares, stiff, at the image reflected back at him. Asra. Looking exactly as Sarah had seen him this morning. "I'm definitely too drunk for this."

Sarah had to hold her face on seeing his wide and very unwittingly dumb grin on Asra's pretty face. Only managing one surprised snort before shutting herself up to prevent giggles.

#Arcana #Arcana oc #Arcana Portia #Arcana Asra #Arcana Julian #The Devil's due #arcana fanfic

[plaidamoosette]

From the Darkness- Part 2

Eddie Brock/Venom x Reader

Credit to the Owners of the Gif, and Marvel for the characters of Venom and Eddie Brock. 

Outline: You’re an investigative reporter. You’ve been living in the shadow of everyone else for too long. Every lead you’ve gotten was always turned down or rejected, only to pop up under the bylines of another reporter. Mainly Eddie Brock. But that would change. You’ve caught wind of a lead, something too big to ignore. But as you follow the trail of bodies to your target, will you get too caught up in your story? Maybe some things are not meant to come out from the darkness.

Warnings: um, none yet, mentions of violence and murder, adult words. I know nothing about investigative reporting so... I’m winging it! Gang violence? And just my writing errors.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading and supporting, let me know how you like it, and if you wanna be tagged! Please be patient, the next chapter will be more exciting!

Word Count: 3500+

Part 1 •

“Ah, Miss (Y/N), ain’t seen you ‘round here in a long time,” a blonde-haired man chirps from behind a desk, smiling at you as you push the large door open, entering the San Francisco Police Department.

“Jake, it’s nice to see you too,” you smile, taking his hand for a firm shake.

“Now, I know you didn’t come all the way over here to flirt with me,” he jokes, winking at you, and you shake your head.

“How’s your boyfriend, Jake?” The man shakes his hand in the air, and laughs breathily.

“Still open to a threesome.”

“Okay! And on that note, let’s change the subject!” Your cheeks flush instantly, earning you another laugh. “I need to ask you for a big favor.”

“Is it for another case?” He asks, standing up and guiding you around to the back of the precinct.

“Yes. And... it may possibly be a little... illegal.” You fidget with your fingers, and he nods, taking you to the desk where his boyfriend, Adam, was seated.

“Detective Kane,” you hold out a hand, and the man in question slaps a folder shut to jump up and snatch you into a hug. 

“(Y/N)! Where have you been? I need you to help get me another big case, like the last one!” He jokes, and you smile.

“I think I have just the thing. But, let’s talk privately, okay?” You look around, and he vigorously bobs his head.

“Of course, sweetheart, anything you need. Come one, we’ll go talk in one of the interrogation rooms,” with that, the pair of them lead you to a cold room, motioning for you to sit at the steel table. The chair was icy, and goosebumps immediately rippled across your skin.

“Sorry, it makes the suspects uneasy, better for interrogation,” Adam apologizes, and you gesture that you were fine.

You quickly whip out your notepad and your phone to record, adjusting your position so you were more comfortable in the hard chair. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, and click the pen.

“So... I need to know everything you have on the creature that has been leaving bodies all around the city.” You jump in, a look of shock taking over Adam’s face. 

“Wow, okay, we’re gettin’ right into it, I see,” he chuckles, and then rises from his chair. “I’ll go get the case file.”

“What do you know about it, Jake?” You ask the blond, and he shrugs, resting his chin in his palm.

“Not much. He’s kind of hard to track- but we do know that he kills mostly mercenaries. About five months ago is when he appeared-- killed a bunch of mercs, and a few SWAT members. Ate some of their heads too. The coroner said that whatever did it, it wasn’t human. The teeth marks indicate something that resembles a lion, snake, or-- as he joked-- a freaking dragon.”

“Is there any connection to Life Foundation?” At this, Jake frowns.

“No, why would you think so?”

“Well, Carlton Drake returns with some form of ‘special evidence’ with one of his rockets, and then six months later was shut down because of illegal human experimentation. There was rumors that he was killing people with a parasite, and one of them got loose... not soon after, bodies start showing up. Can’t be just a coincidence, right?” You defend, and Jake looks down.

“I never really thought of that, I suppose,” he mumbles, and then a manilla folder smacks onto the table in front of you.

“That’s all we got on this thing.” Adam states, returning to his seat, and you eagerly open it up.

First, you see paper-clipped papers, holding a passport photo, with a coroner’s report sheet for multiple victims, all mercenaries. Then, you find a series of witness reports, and a very grainy photo of what looks like a vaguely human-shaped inky mass.

“That’s the monster?” You ask, trying to make out its face.

“Yeah. That was taken on the security camera from the outside of the Network Tower. Apparently, it climbed the top, broke into office 4210, and then when it came down, it was confronted by the SWAT... before it got away.” Adam informs you, his voice echoing off the concrete walls, you eyes trained on the image.

“Wait-- 4210? That’s my bosses office... I remember hearing about his windows being broken, but I never heard a reason why... why would it break into the Network Tower? What about the cameras inside the buildings, I know they’re there.”

“SWAT used Tear Gas and smoke grenades, gassed the place out before the cameras could pick anything up.”

This causes your brows to furrow. That places had cameras that could see every angle-- so how is it that they completely missed a creature that’s about the size of a Tahoe? It didn’t make sense.

“Thank you, Adam... I’m guessing I can’t keep this?” You raise a brow, and he purses his lips.

“Sorry sweetheart, no can do.”

You nod your head, and quickly scribble down as much of the info as you could. “Thanks, I’ll keep in touch.”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), you helped me bring down the Morales gang. That was the biggest case I ever worked on, and it bumped me up to Detective. If you ever need anything, you can always call me.”

You smile, and rise to your feet to hug him... and then you get an idea. 

“You just gave me a great idea!” You squeal, and squeeze the both of them once more before rushing out the door. “Thank’s a ton!”

Okay, so... maybe this wasn’t the best idea. You bite down on your lip once more, before slowly removing yourself from your car. You were sitting in the vacant parking lot of a long-abandoned warehouse, about ten miles outside of San Francisco. Your palms began to perspire, and your heart jumped up a few beats.

Walking up to the door, you clench a fist and knock as hard as you can on the large, industrial steel surface.

knock-knock-knock...knock-knock....knock-knock-knock

There is a brief pause, before the door slides open with a loud creak, and a pistol is pointing at your face. You put your hands up, and smile nervously.

“I’m here to see Little.” You pant, eyes trained on the weapon. The gangster in front of you shifts on his feet before speaking.

“And who’re you?” He grunts, golden teeth glinting in the sunlight.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N). He owes me a favor.” You announce yourself, and his eyes go wide.

“Oh shit,” he huffs, and then tucks the gun into the waistline of his jeans. “Come on in.”

You release a breath, and nod, following the thug into the rusty warehouse. You travel down a few decrepit hallways, and he holds back a tattered black tarp for you, showing you into the center of the building.

All around you, rows and rows of tables lined the room, full of lab equipment, weapons, and more, each attended to by ruffed up looking gangsters, who all stopped to stare at you. 

“Hey Little-- you got a visitor.” The man announces, nodding towards you as a large man slowly turns around.

He quickly cracks a smile when his eyes land on your face.

“Well, shit-- never thought I’d actually see you again.” The man’s deep voice bellows, and he lumbers over to you, towering over your frame.

Little was the exact opposite. He stood at a ginormous 6′10, and probably weighed about 400 pounds-- of pure muscle. He was pretty dark skinned, but had striking blue eyes, and he and was the leader of the Neches Gang. You had no clue why people called him Little. He was anything but.

“Follow me, we can talk in private,” he grumbles, placing a beefy hand between your shoulders and guiding you away, carefully steering you into a small office space.

He settles into the chair, which looked like it was about to break. He clasps his hands on the desk, and leans forward.

“What can I do for you, (Y/N)?” Little was eye-level with you, despite the fact that you were still standing.

“I’m working on a story and... I need to get a hold of some security footage.” You straighten your back, standing tall. You needed to look strong. It would impress him.

“That may take a while... where from?”

“Well, I’m looking for a creature... he looks like this-” you pull out your phone, and open the photo you took of the one from the SFPD Precinct, “it was first spotted around an apartment complex... it left a trail of bodies. Mercenaries. Although, I don’t know who their last employer was. It... also broke into the place I work... the Network Tower... but somehow this was the only image that could be found from it. I don’t believe that. That tower is crawling with security cameras, there had to have been something that saw it. Could you find it for me?”

“That’s a lot to ask for...” Little mumbles, his hot stare boring into your eyes. You had to struggle to hold your ground, and not look away. “...but after what you did for me... consider it done. I’ve got some strings I can pull.”

You sigh in relief and flash him a smile. “Thank you, Little. This story... it’s going to be my big break.”

“That’s what you said when I helped you take down my rival gang. What happened with that?”

“My editor...”

“I can take care of him for you too, if you’d like,” Little jokes, and you laugh. 

“As nice as that would be, I wanna prove him wrong myself. I’m going to rub this in his face when I get the story published. Just... get me that footage?”

“(Y/N), I owe you a lifetime worth of favors. Because of you, my business has flourished, and I just took on some more warehouses... if you hadn’t exposed the Morales, and helped the police take them down, my Gang would be dead. So thank you. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

“Thank you, Little.”

The two of you exchange numbers, and hand shakes, and he quickly ushers you out, thanking you again, before sliding the door shut behind you, leaving you alone outside.

When you investigated the Morales Gang, you quickly uncovered a large underground empire, and managed to expose it to the police in time for them to get taken down. 

And although it was a huge deal, your editor basically drowned your story with others. Eddie Brock’s article on Drake got more publicity, and found popularity among the little people. And although you won a few awards from your paper, not very many people recognized your name. After all, it was just another case of gang-related violence. Not exactly a record-breaker.

But if you could bring to light the monster that was plaguing the city-- no one would miss it. If there’s one thing you’ve discovered during your time as a journalist, it’s that people are obsessed with the macabre. They’ll scramble to hear any bits of juicy gossip, to learn more about serial killers and murder.

Society has always been fascinated by gory deaths, and have even romanticized it in films and books. If you could tap into that, by revealing the inky monster to the civilians of San Francisco, then you could really get your name out there. Maybe even go national.

At least, that’s what you had always dreamed of. You wanted to become a big name, part of you wanted to because there weren’t very many big female names in the journalist world-- but you were going to change that. The other part just wanted to prove that you amounted to something. Despite what your family could ever say, you were going to make a name for yourself. 

In the meantime, you were going to busy yourself with investigating the witnesses that were listed in the file you’d read at the SFPD. Then, your final stop would be the Network Tower.

When you were finished with the final interrogation, you found peaceful solitude in your car. 

Some of the people were rude and slammed the door in your face-- others complained about the damage that had been done to their property from the beast, and others were still just in shock. 

Overall, you didn’t really get much. 

Apparently, a man was being chased by a few Tahoe’s, and even drones. Although, many of the drones had exploded. The man was riding a bike wildly through the streets of San Francisco, but if this was true, there would have been a police report of the car-chase in the file you read at the Department.

Some of the names that you had in your list were no longer living at their recorded addresses, and others refused to talk to you.

There was something in the back of your mind that sent off the warning bells. Something about this wasn’t right. Something was... off. Everything seemed too... clean.

Someone had to have cleaned up their mess, enough so that they couldn’t be traced. Which only drove you more mad with curiosity. You stashed your notebook in your coat pocket, and then wove through the heavy traffic, heading back towards the Network Tower.

When you arrived, you managed to find a decent parking space. But, as you were entering the building, a man stepped in your way.

“Ah, (Y/N), I was actually about to call you--” Eddie Brock stopped you with a hand, and you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“Call me for what?” You hoped you didn’t sound rude, you had some important business you needed to get to.

“Well, I.. uh, we- I mean, I was wanting to ask you if you... would like to join me for dinner tonight, so we could talk about the Kasady story... I know Jack can be an ass sometimes, and he’s kept you in the sidelines but... I wanna ask you to be my partner. For this story, I mean. And, I thought we could talk over dinner.”

As usual, Eddie was sweating, beads of perspiration budding along his hairline the minute he opened his mouth towards you. You stood shocked for a moment, blinking, before responding.

“Um... sure... yeah... tonight?” You breath, and he smiles crookedly.

“Well, it is almost seven, I was hoping... now, if you’d like.”

“Oh, uh... yeah... sure. Can I just...” you pause, and then shake your head as a plan formed. “Sounds great! Let’s go.”

“Great, I’ve got a lot to go over with you,” Eddie chatters on, insisting that he drive the two of you to the restaurant, and you laugh, following him to his car.

After you place you order with the waitress, you hand her back her menu, before gazing back at Eddie. 

He’d taken you to a small diner, not too fancy or shabby. The place smelled like fresh burgers, and an actual jukebox was playing in the background, but the place was packed to the brim with other guests as they chattered about in low tones.

“So, I was going over some notes, and realized that I was missing a few things-” you hold up a hand, before Eddie could continue, a question burning in your mind.

“Before we start, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, yeah, anything (Y/N).” Eddie halts, waiting patiently.

“Um... remember when Jack’s office was broken into? And something broke into the Tower?” Your voice was growing higher as you spoke.

“Uh... vaguely, why?” Eddie clenches his jaw, shifting in his seat.

“I’ve just heard a few things... the Network kept that pretty quiet... what exactly happened?”

Eddies eyes flit around the building before he leans forward for a moment. “I heard someone was working on a story, and an active shooter got in there... had the SWAT called on him and everything. They kept it pretty tight cause the Network needed to protect the writer’s identity and everything.”

That didn’t make sense though... If that was true, there would be plenty of security footage on the shooter, and there would be a different police report... was Eddie lying?

“Okay, thank you.” You clench your jaw, and Eddie nods, leaning back in his seat.

“So, back to Kasady,” and with that, he continues with his proposition, asking you to recall details that he had missed during the interview.

Although, you had to fight to keep your attention on him. You mind kept wandering to the series of questions that were popping into your head. Why was Eddie lying? What really happened at the Network? 

Sure, you were just another writer for the Network, you know you’re not anything big, but for something like that, you should have been in the loop about information of an actual active shooter. You know your editor Jack had many enemies... but would he really lose the possibility for more money by keeping a lid on a story like someone breaking into the Network to come after him?

Your head was spinning in confusion, and really you just wanted to be home so you could take a minute to process it all.

“I know you’re not that into this... I’m sorry for dragging you out here.” Eddie stops talking, and you snap back into focus. You instantly feel bad when you spot his saddened eyes.

“What? No! I’m interested, I just... I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” You defend, and then smile apologetically.

“Are you working on another story?” Eddie thanks the waitress as she sets down your meals, and you nod.

“Its... it means a lot to me, and I want to make sure I’ve got it perfect before I hand it to our Editor... it’s just that... it’s pretty big. A lot of information to sort through.”

“Even bigger than having an exclusive interview with the most notorious serial killer of this millennia?” Eddie smirks, and you nod. “Oh... well... do you need any help?”

“No. I need to do this on my own,” you busy yourself with your burger, and he shrugs.

“I understand that... a writer’s gotta do what they gotta do... this is a risky business, and there’s a lot of competition... I admire you for staying around as long as you have, and how dedicated you are to your stories.” Eddie praises you, and you couldn’t help the rush of heat to your cheeks. 

“Uh... thank you. I didn’t know that that meant much. To you, I mean.” You don’t look up at him.

“I’m hurt!” He pretends to hold his heart, and you let out a small laugh. “It’s my job to be observant. I know you’re a great writer. I’ve always been in your corner. Besides, we’ve been partners for a while now.”

“Thank you. That... means a lot. Coming from you, that is. Eddie Brock, the man who brought down the Life Foundation, and exposed the crimes of Carleton Drake.” You speak around a mouthful of burger, and he chuckles, shaking his head.

“And you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), who brought down the Morales Gang.” Eddie practically shovels the fries into his mouth.

“Not very many people know about that, though.” You shrug, picking at your food.

“And that’s for the better. A gang like that will hold a grudge, and the gangsters may be mostly imprisoned-- but they still have connections. Having your name kept anonymous is for the better. It’s pretty ballsy, going after something like that. Not very many reporters would.” Eddie pokes your hand, and you nod.

“I know... Still, I worked so hard for that, I made a difference... and yet, I’m still scrambling for scraps, fighting for a story that will help me... help me to... I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve always had this dream of being an awesome reporter, with a full blown biography and books, maybe even one day running my own paper or something... But it’s like the stories I get are all just small things. I write them, and I’ve brought down corrupted mayors, brought light to dark deals and shady deaths, even uncovered that guy who was unlawfully evicting homes to make an underground casino... but I’m still not... known.”

“Why do you seek recognition so much?” You couldn’t find the strength to look Eddie Brock in the eyes. His voice was soft, hushed, you could barely hear him over the clamor of the diner.

Why did you? Eddie was forcing you to think about things that you preferred to keep buried. This was a side of you that you preferred for Eddie to not see. 

“What about you? What made you wanna be a journalist?” You quickly divert his attention, and he sighs, leaning back in his seat.

“I’ve always loved writing,” he shrugs, and then takes a bite of his burger, practically swallowing half of the whole thing. “Plus, its good pay, I’m damn good, and... I like bringing the truth to the people. The hard truths, even if they don’t wanna hear it. The people have a right to know, we can’t live in the dark with certain things anymore.”

He swallows hard, and you nod, your heart slowing down. You appreciated that he didn’t press the matter anymore, although you could see the glint in his eyes, the need, the desire that every reporter had, the urge to ask you for more information. But you weren’t ready for that, and he must’ve known. Maybe, he could even relate. All you could say was thank you. 

“Thank you for the food, Eddie. Although... I’m really... speechless to see you put away two whole burgers away like that... are you gonna get sick?” You poke his wrist after he careens back in his booth, belly expanded, puffing his cheeks full of air, sighing contentedly. 

“I eat for two.” He gives a crooked grin, and you share a laugh with him, shaking your head. 

“The Network doesn’t need its best writer dying early from high cholesterol,” you shake your head, and then slide the empty plate away from yourself, grabbing your sweating glass, and slowly sipping away at the water.

“Thank you. It’s nice to hear some praise, but... you need to praise yourself a little more, okay? You’re not going to get far if you hate yourself.”

“Okay, Dr. Phil,” you joke, and he glares playfully before rising to his feet, dropping a wad of cash onto the table top. He didn’t even wait for a ticket before practically pulling you out of the diner. 

Once you were safely back in front of your parked vehicle, you turn to face Eddie.

“Thanks again for the food, and the ride... and the advice.” You twist the keys around on your keyring, and he smiles, his soft eyes crinkling at the edges.

“Of course, (Y/N). Anytime, really, it’s no problem. Honestly... I just didn’t want to be alone tonight. But, hey, I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about my story, focus on your own, okay? I’ll let you proofread mine tomorrow, to make sure your notes are all correct.” Eddie stuffs his hands into his pockets, and you nod before unlocking your car.

“Tomorrow then.”

With that, Eddie waves goodbye once more before slinking off to his own car, practically flying out of the garage. Something makes your stomach churn a little.

Eddie was nice and all, but you had to stay focused. Flesh out this story, and then you could... deal with Eddie. You take a deep breath and start the car, anxiously waiting for a chance to review everything you had gathered.

Taglist:

@lowkeyofsassguard @daddy-hardy @lunamusamelark @randomshizzles101 @marydragneell @smilexcaptainx @ashisthresh @crazyminnesotagirl @nicimixerxoxo @coffee-burglar

#venom #venom x reader #eddie brock #eddie brock x reader #eddie brock/venom x reader #eddie #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #x reader #marvel fanfiction

[hallowedmuses]

𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭: 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞.

SUMMARY:  With little to go on regarding Daisy’s kidnapping, Deke brings together a ragtag team of agents to help him search for Daisy. Clues in the camera footage lead the team to unlock Natasha’s memories of a pervious mission gone wrong that proves useful in locating Daisy Johnson in there here and now. TRIGGERS: Manipulated memories, brain washing, violence mentions WRITTEN WITH: @oflokismischief , @ofdcniels , @oflemcns , @ronniestvns, @daisyljohnson (mentions of)

DEKE: So Daisy was a badass. Not just a badass, but the badass. But just because she was a badass, didn't mean she was invulnerable. Maybe not as vulnerable as the average Joe, but Daisy had her vulnerabilities nonetheless. He knew firsthand, having been in her body when he was. Having been in her body and gotten her kidnapped, that is. Now, having returned to their own bodies, kidnapped she remained while he roamed free. A shitty deal for her he'd wager. His memory wasn't 100% on all that had occurred, but he'd tried to gather what he could. Including the best agents and biggest badasses he knew (or had previously known of) all together to rescue the director of shield. "So Daisy... kind of super kidnapped right now. Kind of my fault." Super his fault. "So how do we do this-- the whole rescue thing." He was used to being kidnapped, not on the opposite side of the spectrum as the rescuer.

NATASHA: She ran her fingers through her hair as she glanced at the team Deke had collected. She'd spent the morning questioning the kid and didn't get much. The list of people who had a vendetta against Daisy Johnson was long. Any number of people could've taken her. Deke didn't seem to know much about the people that had taken him while he occupied Daisy's body but he was able to give Natasha his last known location before the kidnapping and a rough timestamp of when the kidnapping might've occurred. "I pulled CCTV footage from various cameras around the location where Deke was taken when he was Daisy," she explained to the team. "We need to start cataloging it. Any faces that you see in the footage we need to identify because they could be potential witnesses. Pull license plates, even partials can be useful. Tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, presence of a limp, any apparent injuries...they can all lead us to witnesses or to the perpetrators themselves. It's gonna be a long day so be prepared to be here a while."

DANIEL: When Daniel had found out Daisy was missing, no... taken, he was furious and stormed into Mack's office practically demanding to be a part of the rescue effort. If i hadn't stayed in the other timeline I could have been with her... helped prevent this... he sighed quietly from his place against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he studied the screens. This was something he could do, look over photos- footage and mark anything important, he'd done it for years and it gave him something to focus on other than Daisy being tortured again. He turned his gaze away from the screens and over to the woman, Natasha, as he stepped closer to the group "Just point me where you want me ma'am. I'm not leaving until Daisy is back."

Loki: Was one of the first people to notice her disappearance, Daisy and him had schedule a couple meetings that she didn't attend. Being called to this little joint recuse mission was something he demanded to be a part of. He looked to Nat knowing she'd be ideal to lead this mission after having plenty of a experience. The Footage would be key in understanding who planned this attack any little thing could go unnoticed when it came to watching things. "I agree the CCTV footage would be our best route to figure out just who we are dealing with, with all of us cataloging what we noticed I'm sure it will be quite easy to piece together the necessary information that we can run against the SHIELD Database." He mused agreeing with Nat before turning towards the somewhat new face he hadn't seen since that time in the dinner. "Good to know Mr. Sousa, It might be a little fast paced for you watching live CCTV but if you require any assistance I am quite good at muiltasking"

Jemma was concerned. No one had any idea yet on who had taken Daisy and it had been at least a few hours. She looked around at everyone who was in the room unsure of what to think about them. She knew Daisy trusted these people but some gave her slight weariness.  She stood to the side of Deke listening as everyone spoke, finding that she agreed with the decision. "Have you already starting watching the footage?" She asked as her gaze settled on Natasha.

RONNIE: “Sorry I’m late.” Veronica apologized, sliding in to a chair next to Loki. She pulled out her laptop, listening to the conversation as she typed with great passion.  When heard from Deke about Daisy’s kidnapping she felt the need to help in some way. While she wasn’t close to daisy per say, she cared about her a great deal, hoping the two might become good friends someday. “I’ll get started on those background checks while Daniel reviews the footage. Surely there’s got to be some kind of lead there. My A.I. JUSTINE run background the checks as we pull suspects. We won’t rest till we find her.” She agreed. “Have we got any leads so far?”

DEKE: Being surrounded by these super spies and all around badasses was harrowing to say the least. It reminded him of his own mortality (his own uselessness... ) He tried to give them all he could, but his memory was limiting to say the least. It seemed Black Widow (Natasha) had already done more for the investigation than he'd even touched. She reminded him of Daisy as she spoke, so serious and so authoritative. Ma'am. As fun as it would be to make fun of the man out of time (much like himself) it was hardly the situation for such thing. "Me too." He sputtered a bit, struggling to keep up with all going on. "I could help look over the footage or anything you need me on-- I'll help." Help in any sort of way he could, he would give it his all. Maybe it wouldn't be enough, but if nothing else Deke was confident in his scientific mind. He could help that way at least.

NATASHA: "I've only had the opportunity to do a cursory overview of the footage. There's a lot of it. Six adjacent stores have CCTV, but Deke was able to narrow down the time frame to a two hour block window at least," she replied. She knew the kid was nervous. Truth be told, it wasn't entirely his fault. Daisy had a lot of enemies being the Director of SHIELD. Someone must've known she wasn't herself and taken the opportunity to grab her knowing whoever was in her body wouldn't see it coming. Natasha entered her credentials into the system and pulled up footage from six different CCTV cameras, all timestamped within the same time frame. She then shared the camera views with everyone in the room. "Deke, you're with me. We'll start combing through footage on Camera A and B. Loki and Daniel you can take C and D. And Veronica and Jemma you can take E and F. If any of the traces you run get a match, please let the team know."

Natasha watched as everyone broke out into their teams to survey the footage found. “Alright, lemon boy,” Yeah, she knew about the lemons. She did her homework on Deke Shaw. “I’ll take Camera A and you take Camera B.” Natasha pulled out two legal pads and a few pens to hand over to him. She pushed play on her footage and watched it go one loop around at 2x the speed. In the far right corner of the screen, see saw Daisy’s form appear. The footage wasn’t incredibly clear, but she knew Daisy well enough so, she slowed the footage down. Sure enough, a few minutes in, she saw a van pull up. The license plate was obscure from this angle, but she hoped maybe one of the other cameras would pick it up. As the men stepped out of the vehicle, Natasha slowed down the footage more and more. She zoomed into their faces but the faces were obscured by a mask and helmets. The helmet itself seemed familiar in a way. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a feeling she’d seen something like this before. She took a screenshot of the video, trying to get as clear a picture of the masks and helmets as she could, so that she could run a search for gangs that may use similar paraphernalia. It didn’t take long to get the results back. No match.

“This is weird,” she replied as she played back the footage in slow motion to Deke. She was sure she’d seen these helmets before. They were so distinct. “Do you recognize any of them?” she asked him. She could feel the beginnings of a throbbing headache developing. She wasn’t sure if it was the stress of the situation. Natasha was normally calm and collected on missions no matter who’s life was on the line purely because their life depended on her being calm and in control. But, right now, she could feel pressure building up in her temples. It was an odd sensation. One she hadn’t felt since...since deprogramming. It was the feeling of blocked memories. Her mind was grasping at old ghosts she couldn’t reach. Where the hell had she seen these helmets before? Why wasn’t it coming back to her?

DANIEL: He nodded at the direction before moving towards Loki "Sir. I assume the basic functionality is the same as what's used on the Zephyr? It's been a few years but I'm a quick study." Daniel sat in front of one of the stations trying to keep himself focused. He'd made promises to Daisy, and staying in the alternate timeline made him break them. He didn't want to stay, but someone had to... they couldn't just leave the chronicoms to run amok there after all. "I can review Camera D if you want to take C." he suggested after pulling himself out of his thoughts. Part of him was hoping that there wouldn't be anything useful on his camera, but he also wanted to see her... even if it was a grainy image.

After they decided on who would review which camera Daniel started scrolling through the footage, albeit a bit of a slow start as he figured out the way the device worked. It was much more advanced than what he'd been using for the past few years, even with working with Stark and Pym technology, the eighties could only do so much. He had to admit, looking for clues and suspects was easier when he could pause and rewind the footage this would have made for shorter nights at the ssr, that's for sure he chuckled quietly at the thought. As he scrolled he glanced over at the other male "How has she been? Apart from getting kidnapped I mean." he chuckled, eyes turning back to the screen "I'm not really sure what exactly I'm trying to ask. She hasn't been running into too many brick walls has she?"

Loki: he couldn't help but smirk at Daniel's response he was definitely going to take a liking to this new man out of time if he kept it up with the sass. "Ooh I love when you call me sir, but I'm merely offering assistance, It's been awhile since you've use equipment, don't worry boy scot I want her back just as bad as you do" he whispered the last part as he took to camera C before quickly running through a basic run through of how to work the buttons in his favor. He needed to find Daisy and stop this torture's he'd failed her once before back when they were an item he swore he'd never do so again.

It was always tiring reviewing camera feeds but anything little thing could've been capture that needed to be addressed so he watched the video waving his hand to have his pen magically catalog the women's movements before looking at the other it was almost adorable the way his worry leaked through as he put together sentence to come out and ask how she was doing. "Daisy as I'm sure you know is a very strong girl who if given a direction would just run full barrel. She had a little incident back with a breech of her trust, in the form of a hydra spy, nothing bad was leaked in term of information but safe to say her circle of friends have greatly stepped up and provide a protective circle around her." He mused knowing there was plenty more but most of it should be Daisy's story to tell all he could do was ensure this Daniel was true to his word. If he ever hurt Daisy like scarlet had no one would be able to stop the pain he'd bring down upon them.  "So all this interest, Do you have intentions towards Miss Johnson?" he smirked.

 JEMMA: Once the recordings were divided out gave a reassuring smile to Deke. "This isn't your fault. We will find her." She then watched him go off with Natasha before turning her attention to Veronica. Another person she didn't know but she supposed that if the  woman was here then she wanted Daisy back just like the rest of them.  "Shall we get started." She went to sit down to start looking through the footage.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

RONNIE: Veronica listened intently, all the while she continued to stare at her laptop, aside from the occasional nod or glance towards the others as teams were assigned with a basic strategy set into place. “Sounds good, best of luck with your footage everyone, we’ll find her.” Veronica added, a look of determination on her eyes. “We shall, the quicker we get through all this, the quicker  we find her.. I really hope she’s okay.” Veronica sighed, a worried look coming over her. “Oh! I’m Veronica by the way, Veronica Wayne. I don’t believe we’ve met.” She extended her hand to her new footage partner.

DEKE: It was intimidating, working with these top agents. Which was almost funny because he felt normal working with Daisy, May, Mack, other top agents. Maybe it'd been that he'd met them on his ground, in his world. Or maybe he just knew them so well that he couldn't bring himself to be scared. Well except maybe of May when she got the kind of pissed that made ever instinct scream RUN. "On it." He wasn't much of a good shot, nor was he particularly brave but at least he was smart. Deke was confident in that much. At least this was something he could actually help with, to which he was grateful. "Thanks Nana." He said, grateful for her confidence in his innocence that he himself sorely lacked.

Lemon boy. Despite himself, despite the situation, Deke couldn't help but feel a lightness at the fact Daisy had actually given such mention of him that Natasha knew his affinity for lemons. Or at least, he presumed Daisy had mentioned it. He tracked through his footage, eager to find Daisy's face (himself, technically, but her face), he looked for familiar looking surroundings as well. Maybe he could stir some memories of where he'd, as Daisy, been taken. Natasha inclined him towards her screen and- "Yeah. Those are the asshats." Though it felt almost rhetorical to say when it was quite obviously them. He wished he had more information to offer, but he'd given as much as he could remember already. Anything else was just wasting time and repeating things.

NATASHA: She sighed deeply, her features taking on a troubled sort of look. “The head pieces,” she replied as she tapped on the screen to magnify it. “I’ve seen them before but the database search is coming back with no results.” Where had she seen it before? Was it the Red Room? She thought she’d unlocked most of her memories from that time. Whatever this was, the feeling of the memory was more recent than her time with the Red Room. Natasha’s expressions grew more stormy. If these memories that she was struggling to grasp onto occurred after she’d already been taken in by SHIELD that meant someone inside of SHIELD had programmed them away. Was she surprised? No. Not everyone in the agency had good intentions. Even after she’d exposed HYDRA’s infiltration of the agency with Steve at the triskelion and even after the agency went through a period of reformation, there were still people within the vast organization that couldn’t be trusted.

Could she trust everyone here? Her eyes glanced around the room. Deke seemed genuine in his concern for Daisy. He came to Natasha directly when he returned to his body. If he wanted to harm Daisy, he wouldn’t have done that. Then there was Daniel Sousa, he was a living legend within the agency, but had time and his absence from the team changed him? Natasha eyed him momentarily and gauged that she could trust him. His concern held a genuine nature - it was hard to fake the kind of concern that his eyes shone whenever Daisy’s name was mentioned. Then there was Loki. Most would doubt the God of Mischief and his alliances, but not Natasha. They’d been through too much together for him to have been playing her this whole time. Jemma, too, had been a long time colleague and proven her worth time and again. Veronica was new to Natasha. She was family to both Bruce and Tony - they’d both vouched for her and from what Natasha could tell she was willing to step up to the plate even though she did not know Daisy as well as the others. Natasha decided that she could trust everyone on this team.

“Loki,” she leaned back in her chair to get a better look at him. “When Daisy and I were out drinking once, she’d mentioned how you helped her retrieve some memories that were taken from her. I think...” Natasha glanced at her screen and then back at Loki. “I think I’ve seen these helmets before but the memory isn’t clear. And I fucking hate the memory machine,” she frowned and made a face. It was painful and while she didn’t mind the pain, she’d very much rather take the alternative option. “You up for some mind spelunking?”

DANIEL couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him at loki's comment, the humor reminding him of howard before he met maria "i appreciate the help loki. even with working with stark and pym tech for a few years this is still miles ahead of what we had then." he gave him a smile, nodding before turning back to the footage. daniel wasn't sure exactly what was important so he was noting down license plates for cars that showed up more than once while listening to loki "that's daisy for sure, full of fight." he smiled slightly, shaking his head "i'm sad to hear that happened but i'm glad her friends had her back." his grip on the pencil he was using tightened as he watched the van pull up and grab daisy... deke? no, deke in daisy's body... god, he'd been right in thinking that the further forward in time the worse/weirder things got. he looked away from the screen, pausing the footage, to look at loki again "mack beat you to this conversation, but yes. i do have intentions towards daisy."

Loki: rather liked Daniel if things were so darier he could see himself getting to know the other merely to ensure he had the best intentions for their Daisy.  "You've quickly turned into quite the tech bug, I have to admit its pretty simply looking at footage, once you get over the amazment of the fact that yes we can record people" He mused looking through the footage as the other nodding his head "She is, sometimes even more so then she has the strength to give, she needs someone to catch her when she falls, not many people are like that in this world. So willing to give everything for those they care about, its easy to betray their trust, something I will never allow happen Mr. Sousa " he replied rather pointily before nodding his head 'We will always be there for Daisy, regardless of how hard she tries to push away, I love her dearly" He mused before looking at  the other smirking "Well then, Try to speed up that Courting? we aren't in the 20's anymore and I'm almost positive she likes you." He mused before turning his attention to Natasha as she spoke.

"Yes I did, its quite a process one that takes a very hands on approach to things. I did it for Daisy to help her recover using a tiny bit of information using it as a trail to follow." He explained looking at her screen taking slight notice of the helmets, it'd been awhile since he'd been inside of Daisy's head but he could feel something about the imagine that seem familiar like Nat had said. "My way is a lot less painful, but it gives me access to your mind, whatever we uncover I'll see as well and sometimes it can give you a headache with the rush of information. I'll see and feel everything you'll go through so it's best we ensure no one else tries to interfere or touch either of us." He mused looking at her "Always down if you are Nat."

Jemma gave Veronica a slight smile. "I'm Jemma. Glad you're here." She replied as she sat down next to the woman. Her focus then turned to the videos that they were looking at. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for but she picked out every detail out that she could about the car. Even though she was focused on her side she picked up the ending of the convo between Natasha and Loki. Her gaze turned towards them both. "Will that help?"

Veronica nodded, returning the smile towards Jemma. “Me too.” She agreed, her eyes following the footage. She was glad Deke had come knocking on her door, asking her to assist him with this delicate matter. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt something pulling her to daisy, like she was meant to help rescue the girl, and Veronica never was one to say no when a person was in need. aside from Wayne enterprises, Stark Tech produced the most advanced tracking equipment. Ronnie was the VP of one and one the board of the other so naturally it made sense he’d come to her for help. “Actually, that might be hold them key to finding daisy. I think we should we try it, if your sure your up for it Natasha.” Veronica perked up, both intrigued and excited to see what Natasha’s memories could offer in their search.

DEKE: He watched Natasha, the Black Widow, as she began to figure things out. He wasn't fully following, there was so (too much) he didn't know of. But, one thing he did know for sure, was that everyone here was someone who cared for Daisy. Who had her best intentions at heart and who only wished for her safety. That was all he needed to know. He'd keep watch, see where he could possibly offer his expertise. Though identifying those who had taken him (her, Daisy, technically) he didn't feel all too useful. "They used knock-out gas," It was shown in the video, so perhaps saying it was rhetorical. "So they have had a ton of info on Daisy, right?" There was still a long list of enemies, that didn't cut it down. It was clear this was something planned from the very start. He just wished he could offer something new, something helpful.

He stayed back as the other's went on. Natasha speaking to Loki. It was good that they had a lead, that they could have Loki go into Natasha's mind and uncover more info. Though, he did feel a pang of sympathy for Natasha and Loki both. From what he had remembered from his conversation with Daisy, mind stuff wasn't the greatest. And from the sound of it, it wasn't going to be pleasant for Loki either. Especially not for Natasha. He admired that they could do it without hesitation for Daisy, though he wished the situation hadn't occurred at all. At Loki's mention of no one interfering or touching either of them, Deke made sure to distance himself as far as he could while remaining in hearing range. He knew he had some clumsy tendencies, and he didn't want to risk screwing it up. Grimacing, he said. "Good luck guys." A pause. "Not that you need it because your both badasses and you could for sure do it and know what your doing but uh-" Yeah, he should just stop talking now. "Good luck." He repeated, lamely.

NATASHA: She sighed as she looked at the screen which was paused on the men with the intricate helmets. A design like this that generated absolutely no leads in any of the systems she had access to? It was beyond fishy. Someone was trying to hide something. Not only had they erased whatever it was that they were trying to hide from the computer systems, they'd also erased it from her memory. She was beyond furious. What else had been taken from her memories? What else might've been implanted? She hated this. She thought she'd been done with this phase in her life but here she was again trying to answer the age old question: what part of me do I own and what part of me is someone elses programing? "I was hoping my next surprise trip would be Greece, but I guess a trip down memory lane works just as well," she replied with an easy sort of calmness as she looked up a Loki. "Never mind the skeletons then."

 The method might've been new to her, but she knew the drill by now. She grabbed a few of the wireless heart rate monitor straps and secured them around her chest. Despite the stress of the situation, her heart rate remained steady with no signs of elevation. "Alright, gang," she looked at the team. "Guess that leaves you guys on make sure I don't end up in a coma filled with my worst memories duty. When I get out of this, someone remind me to demand a raise," she winked before taking a seat across from Loki. "This ought to be fun. I'm assuming it works like the memory machine? Focus on what I've forgotten and you'll bippity boppity boo your way through my mind like a tour guide?"

Loki: Had little issue using his powers to help find Daisy, this brand of magic took a lot out of him but if there was a chance at getting Daisy back by unlocking Natasha's Memories it was something he had to try. He looked at the other chuckling softly "They must enough to know not to take her conscious even if Deke was in her body he could've taken them down by mistake." He mused looking at the other this process would be hard on them both but this information proved that it was a hit by someone who know just what Daisy was capable of. "After this I'll take you to Greece personally, tell Clint we are on  recon mission." He teased looking at her "I've got you" He whispered only for her to hear.

He watched her get everything ready moving to take off his suit jacket knowing that he'd have to be pretty comfortable before moving to place his hands on either side of Nat's head. "Yes focus completely on that memory, and anything about it feelings, smells i need you to try and paint me a picture from there I'll find the cord to pull and we'll unlock this door. It's extremely important that no one touches me if something happens, if I break the connection I could loose Natasha" He addressed everyone in the room before looking at the other ensuring she was ready before closing his eyes as his hands glowed green waiting for Natasha to start remembering.

Jemma: She realized pretty quickly that although she would've been helpful with any medical issues that might surface, the process they were doing involved things that might've been beyond her knowledge,  at least for now. Magic was just science that they didn't understand yet after all, and while this would have been a prime opportunity to observe such magic and try to understand it better, she received a message that made her unable to stay. Fitz needed her help with Alya back at home. She would've felt guilty for not helping as much as she could with finding a way to save Daisy, but in this situation, her help wasn't really necessary until they knew what was in Natasha's memories anyways.

She walked over towards Agent Sousa. "I know this must all be very hard on you, arriving here in the middle of this," she said, keeping her voice quiet, so as not to break the concentration between Loki and Natasha. "I have to see to my daughter, but I'm sure we'll find Daisy soon. She's strong, and I imagine that reconnecting with you will make all of this a little more bearable for her. She'll be delighted to see you. Take care, Agent Sousa." She moved towards the door closer to where Deke was. "Fitz and Alya need me, but just call me and let me know what happens, please?" she asked him. "You did a good job organizing all of this, but don't let it get into your head that this is your fault, okay? Daisy will need everyone clear-headed for this, but I know you'll help them figure things out." She gave him a quick hug. "You'll do great. I'll see you later," she said before departing out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

RONNIE: Watching Jemma exit, Ronnie turned back towards Natasha and Loki, nodding silently as she stood up, going to man the door to ensure no one interrupted them. While she knew she couldn’t be of any real assistance,  she still chose to stay and offer moral support to Deke if nothing else. Plus, she was intrigued to see how Loki memory surfing with Natasha would go. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m recording this, strictly for the archives.” She pulled up the holo pad on her watch, setting the camera to record. “Hey, relax..” She looked at Deke, resting her free hand on his arm. “Natasha and Loki have been through this before, they’ll find something to help us get to Daisy.” She offered him a smile of assurance before turning back to watch.

NATASHA: "I'm not picky. If we can't go to Greece, I'll take Asgard." She was probably going to need to get nice and drunk after this. Knowing the fact that your mind and memory were manipulated was never an easy pill to swallow. She nodded when Loki said he had her. "I trust you," she replied as she made herself comfortable for what was sure to be an uncomfortable experience. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on the memory of the intricate headpieces. She could feel Loki's hands above her almost guiding her mind from memory to memory. It was like doors opening and closing in her head until her mind latched onto one particular memory.

The Kingdom of Latveria. She was here on some kind of mission. What was it again? Something off books, no doubt but not for herself. She remembered. Fury believed that Latveria and their prime minister Lucia von Bardas were supporting terrorism by equipping B-List super villains with high-tech equipment. So, he gathered a team that included both Natasha and Daisy and they broke into Castle Doom. Natasha could see it now almost as if she was relieving it. They were fighting their way through to get to Lucia, and then Daisy...Natasha gasped and gripped the seat of her chair as Loki pushed the memory further. He heart rate ticked slightly higher than usual. She could see Daisy with this glazed look in her eyes that Natasha now recognized as one associated with brainwashing. Daisy wasn’t in control, someone else was. She watched as her friend quaked the country and wrecked into near oblivion, presumably killing Lucia in the process.

When the dust settled, they turned on Fury. They were all rightfully angry at him for tricking them into being a part of this, but he didn’t want to face his own shame. Instead, he wiped both the records and the minds of all those involved, herself included. She never wanted to be a part of this and neither did Daisy. It looked like their involvement in it was now coming back to bite them in the ass. As the memory faded, Natasha felt herself resurface. The room came back into focus and she found herself staring up at Loki’s face. “Lucia von Bardas,” she replied as she sat up. “I need someone to pull up her last known whereabouts now.”

DANIEL: he didn't want to hover, it wasn't really his place seeing as daniel didn't really know natasha or loki, but they were important to daisy which, by proxy, made them important to him... so he wanted to hover and make sure everyone was okay. delving into someone's memories, in his extremely limited experience was not an easy task, but if daisy trusted loki to look in her head then daniel would trust that he had the knowledge to do it again. he forced himself to stay by the computer he'd been using earlier hoping he'd be able to look up anything helpful if the two discovered anything. daniel hoped what little he'd been shown on the zephyr combined with working with stark and pym for a few year and what he'd been shown so far would be enough for him to help. right now, being so out of his element, he felt a little useless but he wasn't going anywhere until daisy was back safe. hearing the name, daniel started typing "i have to say, this is a lot easier than going through files in some basement." he chuckled before opening the file that was pulled up. "ok, lucia von bardas. former prime minister of latveria... looks like she attacked shield hq and was focused on attacking some heroes. she was captured but broke out and stole a hellicarrier to make her escape." daniel looked over to natasha "i assume you and daisy were part of the group she was attacking."

Loki: chuckled softly at how jovial Natasha was being if anything it was good she was in a joking mood it helped to allow him access to her mind. "Fine by me, I'll have them waiting on you hand and foot like the princess you are" he mused nodding his head as they began his mind reading, he'd give her the lead it was always less painful that way when the one's who's mind he invaded lead them through the rooms that seem more familiar.  It was only when her memory tried to fight back did he have to push throw following the thread, who ever messed with Natasha's mind had done a piss poor job of it, he was able to unravel plenty missing spots from the memory of the latveria. The Brainwashing he wasn't surprised to find out it was Fury who done this to Nat, he never felt such rage until he learned just what this man thought he could do with his power. Once they'd learned what they needed he started bringing Nat out of her memories and back to the surface feeling weaker then he had in awhile as he let his hands drop away breaking their connection as he turned to look at daniel to ensure he got the information before making a glass of water appear in front of Nat "Drink it all before you return to kicking ass and taking names okay?" he replied a shared moment between them.  

NATASHA: She must've sat up too quickly because she was seeing stars. Being back in the here and now was jarring, but she tried to focus on what Daniel was saying. She nodded as he read through the details of the Lucia's last known whereabouts. Natasha remembered the attack on SHIELD HQ, but she wasn't in charge of the interrogation of Lucia nor was she there when the woman escaped. She now realized Fury had kept her out of that on purpose. He didn't want her to remember their infiltration of Latveria. Natasha felt Lok thrust a drink into her hands. She reluctantly chugged it before taking a seat at one of the computers. She pulled up the file Daniel was looking at and found the serial number for the Hellicarrier. If it was active, she could find it. She had enough of a clearance level to access the satellite feeds triangulate its coordinates. "There." She pointed on the map. "You'll find her there. We need a team ready for search and rescue efforts." She swiveled back in the chair to look at them. "Who's in and who's staying here to monitor this thing in case they decide to take it for a test flight." /

DANIEL: he stood from the computer, looking at both loki and natasha. there was a snowball's chance in hell that he'd be sitting this out, daniel was going in and was gonna help pull daisy out even if he lost his other leg in the process. "where ever daisy is that's where i'm going to be. i know you don't know me but i've got your back, whatever it takes." while daniel had no idea what he'd be walking into, even if he had 500 miles, he was going to help get daisy back. "mack can vouch for me and i'm happy to go through whatever tests you'd like."

Loki: He keeps his eyes on Natasha to ensure there wasn't any side effects to his mind reading so far she seemed alright which he was quite grateful for given how much he'd come to care about the other. He left her be when she downed the water without issue before following her to the monitor to look over the file Daniel had pulled it, it was exactly like the men from Nat's memories so he knew they'd finally figured it out.  He couldn't help but smirk looking at the other "It's been quite awhile since I've bathed in the blood of my enemies, I think I might try my hand at Field work" he mused looking around at the other, if anything they could handle the extraction without issues. "I will vouch for the fossil who hasn't wanted to see history come alive before." he smirked teasing the other.

DEKE: When Sousa mentioned Mack as a someone to vouch for him, Deke gave a look. "I could vouch for you too," He'd been there too, he'd seen the badass-ry Daniel was capable of. He remembered him carrying Daisy into the ship, remaining by her side all that time, all the googly eyes between them both. However he deflated at the realization perhaps his vouch meant nothing at all, Sousa was probably still pissed at him too so- "He is very badass on the badass scale. Killed lots of Chronicom." Maybe it went different in the other versions reality, but Deke remembered vividly the badassary of Sousa, Daisy, and Mack together after they rescued him and Nana. So, regardless of hos much it was worth, he put his vouch out there.

Deke knew he wasn't all too much good in a fight. Sure he was scrappy, he SURVIVED from being scrappy in his own timeline. But this timeline had a very different set of rules, and he wasn't nearly so as attuned to it. Regardless of that, like hell he was going to sit back and do nothing. "You'll need a science person in case you run into something science-y." Bullshit, and these very smart secret agents and god-like beings probably knew it too. "I could science." While survival in this world consisted of things he wasn't used to, it was also full of new things he never had access to. Things he could put together, take apart, and make into other things. If there was one thing Deke was confident about himself it was his ability to make something out of nothing. That was his life in a nutshell back in the light house. Now he had actual things to make stuff from. Maybe they didn't need him, but he would insist to come either way. Hopefully, he'd be of use. Worst come to worst, at least they'd have a human shield if they needed one. "Actually it's more of engineering, but I'm pretty sure that's under the science scope." He added, a bit sheepish.

RONNIE: “Oh, you bet your asses I’m in.” Veronica was the last to speak up, but her voice was full of willful determination none the less. This wasn’t her first trek into the unknown to help rescue a fellow agent, friend, of person of importance. She was agile, as well as tech smart, and could certainly hold her own in a fight. She felt she could be a good assistance in helping to rescue Daisy due to her multitude of skills, and she felt like she owed it to her boss to help save her. Looking around, she saw several friends and a few acquaintances whom she was sure would become friends by the end of this. . “No offense to Deke, but I think I should handle the Scientific part of all this since that’s more of my department, and you, my friend, can on the engineering aspects of all this.” Ronnie kindly suggested as she stepped forward to look at region Natasha was pointing at  meant not malice towards him with her words. “Shall we suit up now, or later? I’m ready when you are.”  

NATASHA: She'd made plenty of time for herself to do research on each member of the team whom she hadn't had the pleasure of working with before (what else was she supposed to do with her time when she couldn't sleep?). This included Daniel. She knew what he was capable of but it was, dare she say, cute seeing this many people vouch for him. "I believe you, blue shirt," she nodded and patted him on the shoulder. Loki and Veronica both seemed ready to throw down, but Deke was more reserved. She understood some agents weren't necessarily field agents. That didn't make them useless. Natasha was a field agent but she was also a handler. Her job was to assess the attributes of each one of her agents and determine where their skills best fit. "Actually, I'll need someone to be the eyes and ears. Ronnie, will you run communications for us? I'll need you to hack into the surveillance system of Lucia's helicarrier and tell me what's coming." She didn't like turning corners and being surprised by what she was met with so coms was the best assistance to avoid that. "Deke, I'm going to need you in medical bay. I don't know what kind of condition Daisy will be in once we get to her. I'll need you to have the Hyperbaric Chamber up and ready." She turned to address Loki next. "I'm going to need you to wake Clint up from his beauty sleep. It's time to work for a living. I'll go get the plane ready. Everyone meet me back here in 20 minutes so we can get started."

#discord chat

[himbowelsh]

I love how you write Philly crew. It's seriously my favorite thing in the world. How about College AU: Babe sees cute guy on campus (Gene) and desperately tries to find out who he is. His friends help him with investigation like they're on detective show. They try (and probably fail) to create perfect ask-him-out situation for Babe. Babe as grateful for their help as he's embarrassed. They do it all the way, hiding behind bushes, sneaking pictures, watching behind papers. Not subtle at all.

“This is an intervention.”“This is not an intervention.”“This is totally an intervention.”“Will you stop saying that?” Fran snipes, sending Spina an acidic glare. “We are not intervening in anything. We’re just… really great friends.”“Fuckin’ amazing friends,” Bill snorts out, arms crossed over his chest. Fran pats her boyfriend on the chest, grateful for the backup. 

Bill’s arms tighten around Fran’s shoulders, and she nestles further into his chest. It takes all of Julian’s willpower not to roll his eyes. Instead he focuses on the laptop screen in front of him, fingers flying across the keyboard. He has full access to his school's last yearbook, but no amount of hacking skills are going to help him identify someone whose name they don't even have a clue of. All Julian has to go off of is a single grainy cellphone stealth-photo, and he can only scour the yearbook for a trace of that familiar face.A part of him is convinced that Babe isn't even worth it. The last time he needed a favor from that guy, Babe took his laundry out of the washing machine and then left it in a pile outside his bedroom door. Who dumps laundry in the hallway? All he had to do was toss it on the ground in Julian's bedroom, but no. Babe doesn't deserve their help.He's doing it for everyone else, Julian tells himself. Mostly him. If he has to listen to Babe pine over the "really really hot guy who eats lunch in the quad every day" for one more second, he's going to tackle him through a window. (They're both skinny guys, but Babe has about twenty pounds on him, so Julian's not sure how well that'll go, but he'll do his best.) It's been four months of the same non-stop blabber. He's so gorgeous, his eyes are like the night sky, his face is a work of art, he reads all these medical books so he's obviously a genius...(At this, Spina pointedly cleared his throat, but Babe ignored him.)Julian isn't sure whether Babe's desperate or really that hopeless. He knows how his friend can get. He's been glued to Babe's side since the third grade. He's seen Babe's obsessive romantic tendencies in full force. He knows how hard and fast he falls, and how much it hurts when he has to drag himself off the ground again. It's been so long since he's been on a date with anyone that a part of Julian can't help but wonder if he's just projecting romantic feelings onto this romantic stranger.Babe had seemed dead serious when he came to them, however. He kept going on about how he doesn't even know his name, how there's no way he can ask because he'll just make an idiot of himself, and, well...It was like watching a stupid puppy trying to find his way out of a box. It was pathetic, and sad, and maybe a little funny if you like watching people suffer. (Julian muffled his snickers in his fist and did his best to seem supportive.)So, Fran declared it would be their task "as the world's greatest friends" to find Babe's mystery man's identity. As usual, when Fran gets an idea, everyone else just sort of went along with it.That's how Julian wound up here: hacking into his school's yearbook archive while Fran, nestled up in her boyfriend's arms, scrolls through social media profiles on her phone. She insisted her facial recognition app would get them answers, but she hasn't had any luck yet. Spina swears he recognizes the guy but can't think of his name, so he's texting all his med student buddies for help. Meanwhile, Bill...Is taking a nap. Typical."You could try to do something, you know," Julian snipes, barely glancing up from his screen. "Instead of just layin' on your ass.""I've got a very nice ass layin' on me, and I don't plan to move any time soon." Bill doesn't open his eyes, but his hand does creep between he and Fran, out of view. A second later Fran gasps and jumps in his arms.Julian swallows back the taste of vomit. Spina doesn't bother to hide his grimace.He can tell by the annoyed furrow to Fran's that she's been having no luck with social media. His own search through the yearbook also reveals nothing. He can't find a single face which matches the one in the photo. Babe's mystery man seems determined to remain a mystery.Then, just as he's ready to throw in the towel, Spina's phone buzzes. Their friend sits up straight, beanie slipping sideways on his head."I got it," he says.Julian's eyes swivel to him. Fran gapes. Bill doesn't bother opening his eyes. "Got what, the clap?""Don't mix me up with you," Spina shoots back without missing a beat. Then he brandished his phone in the air, holding it like a declaration of war. "Our guy. I found our guy."Fran sits up in Bill's arms, causing him to let out a grunt. "No way!""My friend Renée from Anatomy knows him. His name's Gene Roe... oh, get this, he's an exchange student from Louisiana.""You can't make this stuff up," Fran laughs, tossing back her head. She's beaming as if she's just won first prize on a game show. "That's perfect, Ralph. What else does she say?""Hmm... he's quiet, but nice. Real smart. Cares about people." Spina enunciates this last point, and they all exchange glances. Babe can be empathetic to a fault, so this seems like a brilliant match.Julian can see the cogs in Fran's head turning. She shifts one hand over to massage the muscles in Bill's chest, and the other tugs on one of her curls -- an unconscious habit whenever she's thinking hard about something. Her lips are pursed, eyes narrowed in focus. Behind her eyes, Julian watches a plan shift together."Okay," she announces. "I've got it.""The clap?" Julian and Spina say in unison. It's a standard reply by now."Hey, I'm not him." Fran lightly smacks her boyfriend's chest before turning a grin on the rest of her friends. Julian recognizes that grin; it's never anything but trouble. "I mean, I know how we're gonna get  Babe his boy."

He'll admit, later, that he feels a little ridiculous with a pair of binoculars strapped around his neck and his phone in hand, couched behind (rather, in) a bush.Julian doesn't know how he's the one who always gets roped into doing the most ridiculous things. If he had to guess, it's probably be the copious amounts of blackmail his friends have on him. Whatever the reason, when they need someone to look stupid, he's always the one pushed onto the chopping block.Spina is safely out of sight behind a tree. Fran and Bill are "pretending" to make out on a bench a few yards away. Only Julian is close enough to hear and film everything that's going on, so it's his job to preserve this moment for posterity.Babe slowly makes his way over to the bench, where Gene Roe has his nose buried in a medical textbook. He doesn't look up as Babe approaches. He doesn't even seem to notice until Babe sits down at the end of the bench and says, "Hey."

Roe looks up at him, blinks a few times as if Babe has just said something to him in Swahili, then answers, “Hey.”

Babe leans back against the bench. “Gorgeous day out.”

“It is,” Roe replies, looking down at his book again.

“I mean, so are you.”

Roe’s head snaps up. “What?”

“What?”

“I thought you said --”

“I didn’t say anything --”

“Oh my god,” Julian hisses, and has to refocus his camera when he nearly drops it from laughter. He zooms in on Babe, who wears the expression of a startled cat as he watches Roe blink at him. Slowly he inches back until he’s in danger of falling off the bench. He’s losing his nerve.

A rogue pinecone suddenly flies out of nowhere, sailing past Babe’s head by inches. It wasn’t a miss. Fran was star pitcher of her softball team throughout elementary, middle, and high school. She doesn’t miss. The next pinecone will hit it’s target.

Babe scoots back on to the bench. “Um,” he says, and Roe slowly closes the book in his lap. “You’re a med student, huh?”

“I am. Pre-med, actually.”

“That’s cool! So’s my buddy. Ralph Spina, you know him?”

“I’ve heard the name before.”

Julian rolls his eyes. Of course Roe has heard of their friend. Spina has the memory of a chihuahua on ecstasy. He can have entire conversations with someone and not have a clue what their name is, and his facial recognition is worse than Bill’s singing voice. He could have sat next to Roe all year and not recognizes him until Renée mentioned his name.

Babe is still trying to make conversation. It’s awkward, and a little like he’s drowning, but he’s trying.”So, uhh, you have to study a lot, huh? I’m an engineer, that’s not half the work, but it’s a lot of math and stuff. I’m good at math, but I can’t stand it. I always forget to do my work till the lest minute, then my friend Bill has to smack me and tell me to get my ass in gear, because he’s not helping me if I flunk out --- umm, uhh. Yeah. Math is weird.”

Babe’s face is steadily turning a bright shade of red. Julian can’t help but cringe, even as he zooms in on the brilliant color. He’s so sending this to everyone they know. It’s like watching a trainwreck.

Focused as he is on Babe’s horrified face, he misses the smile that quirks up the corners of Roe’s lips. He doesn’t see the way Roe leans forward a bit, or how his eyes soften in amusement. He does catch the surprise that flickers through Babe’s eyes, however; he can’t zoom out fast enough.

“You’ve seen me sitting here every day,” Roe says, confirming that he’s noticed Babe as well. “What makes you decide to talk to me now?”

Babe shrugs, running a hand through his hair. He’s the picture of bashfulness. Julian can almost understand why Roe finds it charming, but how he could be taken in by Babe’s rambling is anyone’s guess.

A crooked grin stretches across Babe’s face. “To be honest, my friends encouraged me.”

Roe smiles in reply. “Guess you have some great friends, then.”

When Roe turns his head to look directly into the camera, Julian yelps and falls backwards onto his ass. He’s too far away to hear the rest of his so-called friends snickering, but he can imagine their reactions -- until Roe’s head turns in their direction as well. The branches of Spina’s tree rustle, and Bill topples off the bench before Fran can catch him.

Great friends, Julian’s mind echoes mockingly. Babe sure better appreciate what they do for him.

#baberoe #john julian #frances peca #bill guarnere #ralph spina #babe heffron #eugene roe #the philly squad is the best #my writing

[reverseskydives]

15 Essentials to Creating a Trust-Boosting YouTube Profile Page

Did you know that more than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day?

That’s mind-boggling!

But here’s what’s really crazy.

In 2017, “more video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.”

These two stats demonstrate just how huge YouTube and video marketing in general have become.

And what I really love about video as compared to other mediums is the trust-building opportunity it presents.

Don’t get me wrong.

Traditional blogging, guest-posting and other text-based formats are great.

But they have inherent limitations when compared to video.

Someone can read one of my blog posts and get a feel for my personality, style, sense of humor and so on.

But watching even a brief video lets them see the whole package:

They can see me, hear my voice, read my body language and get a feel for what I’m really like as a person.

With trust being such an integral part of marketing, video is almost a necessity and should be a part of any well-rounded campaign.

This leads us to a very important question.

How do you create a trust-boosting YouTube profile page?

In this post, I’ll cover some essential elements your YouTube page should have as well as some practical tips for engaging your viewers.

1. Start with a customized banner

Here’s Gary Vaynerchuk’s YouTube page:

And here’s Pat Flynn’s:

Both have solid followings and are well trusted in their industries.

Once I land on their YouTube homepages, one of the first things my eyes are drawn to is their professional, fully customized banners.

They both pop from an aesthetic standpoint and lend an air of legitimacy to their channels.

I can’t stress enough how vital your banner is.

Not only does it need to look great, it needs to capture the essence of your brand.

That’s what I aimed for with my YouTube banner:

I suggest staying away from a generic banner and creating a customized image tailored to your brand.

Check out the YouTube Banner Maker from FotoJet for more on this.

2. Beef up your About section

Have you ever heard the term tabula rasa?

It’s Latin for blank slate.

And that’s how I like to think of first-time visitors to a YouTube channel.

They’ve probably never heard of you, have zero idea of what you’re about and have no clue what type of content you cover.

Your job is to quickly and succinctly tell them what your channel is about.

The description on your About page needs to be spot on.

Here’s a great example from Brian Dean’s YouTube page:

In just a few words, the opening line explains precisely what his channel is about.

From there, visitors can read on for more details.

But the first line immediately grabs the attention of most of his demographic.

Pat Flynn also does a great job of this:

Be sure you’re following this same formula with your About page.

3. Nail it with your “explainer” video

Whenever visitors first land on a YouTube homepage, they’re presented with an introduction, or “explainer” video.

This gives them a brief overview of the channel and informs them about the theme, subject matter, etc.

If you’re a big brand like TED Talks, you can slap up pretty much any video you want because you’re already established.

There’s already built-in trust.

But what if you’re a fledgling brand, trying to get your name out there?

You need to explain your mission and what you do.

This is how I approached my YouTube profile page:

Chris Ducker does something similar with his “YouTube Channel Intro:”

I recommend doing this with your homepage video because it will answer first-time viewers’ questions, spark interest and create some initial trust.

4. Record in HD

Presentation is everything.

The last thing you want is to create grainy, low-quality videos on your channel.

You need to record in HD.

In fact, a study analyzing 1.3 million YouTube videos found that “68.2% of all videos on YouTube’s first page are in HD.”

It’s a significant ranking factor.

These days, standard definition isn’t going to cut it.

If you expect people to take you seriously, you need your content to be in HD.

And if you need help making HD videos on YouTube, check out this video.

5. Record videos just under 15 minutes

One of the biggest questions new YouTubers have is about the length of their videos.

Some prefer quick snippets, while others opt for longer, more in-depth content.

According to research,

the average length of a video ranking on the first page of YouTube is 14 minutes, 50 seconds.

So just under 15 minutes.

YouTube even confirmed that video “watch time” is a definitive ranking signal:

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right length for everyone.

In fact, most of my videos are considerably shorter.

But it’s a pretty good length to aim for, especially if you’re just starting out and looking to build trust with your audience.

Just under 15 minutes should allow you to explain a topic in-depth without overwhelming your viewers.

6. Upload at least one new video per week

The other main question is, “How frequently should I upload a new video?”

Most experts would agree it should be at least once a week.

That’s the frequency Marie Forleo sticks with.

However, two or three times should work as well.

Your goal is to build your subscriber base by supplying viewers with fresh content so that they don’t forget about you or lose interest.

But at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm them by posting every day.

Creating one to three videos per week is a safe bet.

7. Encourage comments

Comments are one of the main forms of currency YouTube uses to decide where to rank videos.

Just look at how the higher number of comments correlates with higher rankings:

Comments can also boost your trustworthiness, especially when they’re positive.

Just think about it.

Which would you take more seriously?

A video with five comments or 5,000?

I know I’m a little skeptical when the comment section of a YouTube video is a ghost town.

If no one else cares, why should I?

My point here is you should get in the habit of encouraging your viewers to leave their comments and weigh in with their opinions.

Better yet, ask a question at the end of each video to spark a discussion.

8. Encourage likes and shares

Likes and shares are other key forms of YouTube currency.

Not only does this type of engagement correlate with higher rankings, it can crank up the level of trust the viewers feel toward you as well.

Of course, getting a high number of likes and shares is easier said than done.

But asking viewers to engage by using a CTA at the end of a video will help.

Here’s a really simple script you can use:

Thanks for watching this video. Be sure to leave your comments and like or share if you found this content helpful.

9. Bring in influencers

What if your brand equity is only so-so?

One of the quickest ways to elevate it is to feature a well-known influencer on your channel.

That’s what Pat Flynn did a few years ago:

This particular video was posted on Halloween 2014, back when Pat could still be considered an up-and-comer.

It obviously paid off and helped him elevate his brand and gain more recognition.

This isn’t to say that you need to feature someone of a Gary Vee status to make an impact.

Just try to find someone with a big enough following to make a splash.

Getting in touch with someone via YouTube is easy.

Just click on the “Send message” box on the About page:

10. Be helpful without ulterior motives

Content marketing differs from most conventional outbound techniques in that it provides value without asking for anything in return.

It’s more about helping the consumer than shamelessly promoting your product.

And this is why content marketing is so effective.

Most people are sick and tired of being barraged by ads.

Just look at the growth of ad blocking software over the past several years:

Adblock Plus, the world’s most popular ad blocking extension, has been downloaded over 500 million times!

The moment you blatantly try to push your product on YouTube viewers is the moment you lose their trust.

Instead, place your focus on helping and informing your viewers without having any ulterior motives:

Obviously, you’re looking to promote your brand, but taking this approach will boost your trustworthiness and ultimately lead to sales.

11. Redirect viewers to helpful resources

You can cover a lot in your videos, and your knowledge goes a long way.

But you’ll never have all the answers.

Often, it makes more sense to send your viewers to external resources, where they can learn more about the topic.

This is just another way to prove you’re genuinely invested in helping, which is huge for boosting trust.

12. Create an intimate feel

What I love about YouTube is that it allows me to connect with my audience in a way that isn’t possible with most other mediums.

When creating your videos, it’s super important that you achieve an intimate feel and come across as personable and approachable.

HubSpot pulls this off well.

Even though they’re a fairly big company, most of their videos are delivered in a direct, one-on-one manner.

13. Stick to your niche

I didn’t get to where I am today by trying to wear a bunch of hats.

My focus has primarily been on business and digital marketing, and I haven’t strayed from it.

Just look at the topics of my YouTube videos:

They all fall under that umbrella.

I’m not saying you should pigeonhole yourself into a single micro-niche, but you need to stay focused on your area of expertise.

This will enable you to be recognized as an authority and help you build trust.

Otherwise, being seen as a generalist can hurt your credibility.

14. Promptly respond to comments

A survey from Altitude found that

84% of consumers expect companies to respond within 24 hours after posting on social media.

But in reality, most people expect it even quicker than that.

I’ve heard that some people even expect a response within 30 minutes!

The bottom line is when someone takes the time to leave a comment, they want to know you’re seeing it and they want to be acknowledged quickly.

I realize it’s not feasible to respond to every single comment within minutes. That would require you to live on YouTube.

But you should try to respond within 24 hours.

It’s going to help you from a trust standpoint and can lead to some extremely loyal subscribers.

15. Live-stream a portion of your content

The concept of live video is fairly new.

But it’s blowing up like crazy, and YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and others all have their own versions of live streaming.

Not only can viewers watch you in real time, they can send in their comments and questions live.

For YouTube, you need to have at least 1,000 subscribers, so it’s not viable for tiny channels.

But if you have 1,000+ subscribers, I highly suggest doing live streaming for at least some of your content.

Just check out this guide from YouTube to learn more about live streaming.

Conclusion

The amount of trust you’re able to build with your audience directly impacts their receptiveness to your brand and their likelihood of buying.

That’s why trust building should be at the forefront of your mission.

Fortunately, YouTube is the perfect resource for building trust that can spill over to your broader marketing campaign.

It’s just a matter of zooming in on the right areas and following the essentials.

What makes you trust a brand on YouTube?

from Social Media Marketing http://ift.tt/2tUI7cF via Social Media Marketing

#Social Media Marketing