#and THEN she had to grow and adapt because her old strategies stopped making sense

[ace-and-ranty]

Not to start the same rant I wrote out months ago, but I will say it again:

El didn't have to undergo character development TO make friends.

She had to undergo character development BECAUSE she made friends.

#The Scholomance #I WILL DEFEND MY GIRL TO THE END #we have been explicitly told El's massive magic powers make people instinctively avoid her #yes she is a bitch. NO that is NOT why she could never make friends. #your social development would be stunted too if people run from you before you had the chance to form relationships. #El made friends because her circunstances changed (ie Orion happened) #and THEN she had to grow and adapt because her old strategies stopped making sense #just saw someone say El's isolation was 'self imposed' and Im like #DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT READ THE RAIN CONVERSATION #El can't HELP she was born with evil magical talent. Leave her alone.

[acciofanfics]

Payback (Cedric Diggory x Reader)

Summary: Marcus Flint messes up (Y/N)’s potion to mess with her. Unfortunately for him she has quite the idea for payback. 

Paring: Cedric Diggory x Slytherin Reader

Warnings: Language maybe? Plotting? I think this one is pretty safe.

Word Count: 1248

A/N: So this was just a random idea I had... Let’s pretend that none of our hearts were broken in Goblet of Fire and they just had regular Quidditch for the sake of this imagine. Requests are still open! - S

____________________________________

Her blood boiled, and anyone watching the girl could’ve easily come to the conclusion that her face was hotter than the potion in front of her bubbling out of her cauldron. (Y/N)’s teeth were gritted and she mostly tuned out Professor Snape who was scolding her on such a stupid mistake. A stupid mistake in deed, one she definitely did not make.

Perhaps the old saying that people can feel when they’re being watched was a lie, because Marcus Flint didn’t seem bothered by the holes she was boring into the back of his head while she cleaned up ‘her’ mess. No, (Y/N) had seen Marcus dump a vial of something in her cauldron while she was gathering some lion fish spines. She had to make the assumption it was because she’d turn his offer to Hogsmeade down.

A wicked grin spread on her face as a plan formed in her head. Surely she could tell the truth, she was one of Snape’s favorite students and top of his class, but where was the fun in that. No, she would get Marcus back. It might not be that day or the next, but she had something in mind and it would take little to no effort to execute.

It’d taken only about a day and half for her to gather all of the information and material she needed. It was on to phase two, which would be the trickier part. (Y/N) waited patiently, her nose half stuck in a book to keep suspicion down. But when her target came into view she wasted no time throwing the book down, “Diggory! May I have a word?”

Cedric stopped in his tracks... there was slight concern on his once carefree face. In his defense, Slytherins rarely talked to people outside their own house without ill words being exchanged. He was taught however to be polite, and (Y/N) was never really a name he heard terrible things about so it seemed only logical to indulge her request, “Y-yes?”

“I was just wondering if you might like some insider information on an upcoming Quidditch game?" (Y/N) smiled sweetly at him.

Cedric knew exactly what she was talking about. In about 3 days Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were due to play against each other. Their strategy would be a nice advantage... especially since their strategy was usually to cheat. Was this considered cheating? How did he know this wasn’t a trap anyways, “Why?”

“Flint made me look like an idiot in class the other day and I truthfully could not care less about his stupid Quidditch team, so why not get a little pay back?” (Y/N) could see the wheels in his head turning, probably trying to read some blasted moral compass or whatever, “I’m not telling you to jinx the brooms or anything. Just trying to make sure you’re capable of adapting to their playing style. It’ll still be completely up to your team’s skill on whether or whether not you can even make this information useful.”

Well, she had a point. “I suppose if you wanted to tell me something, it would be rude to leave a conversation.”

For the next 3 days, Cedric and (Y/N) found themselves having brief chats in the corridor. At first it was just about something Marcus said, but then it was a ‘how was your day?’ then about whatever Marcus said. Cedric could see why she’d been sorted into Slytherin... she was smart and determined and a bit cunning, but he still thought she seemed different. She wasn’t overly rude or snobby and she said it was all for payback so that had to count for something.

Cedric found his eyes drifting to her whenever they shared a class or when he could spot her in the Great Hall. She was quite pretty.... really pretty actually, and he was growing fond of her personality too. It did make him wonder why Flint would’ve gone out of his way to mess with her, especially being a housemate. Cedric wouldn’t even entertain a thought like that for a second if their places were reversed. And he pondered their places being reversed at least a few times, particularly whenever he saw (Y/N) getting chummy with Flint. He was certain she probably assumed that the end would outweigh the means. He supposed they did... I mean, they ended up winning.

(Y/N) contemplated revealing her ingenious plan when Marcus Flint (the rest of the team in tow) storming into the common room. She decided against it though, his frustration was satisfaction enough, and she hadn’t felt amazing about betraying EVERYONE on the team. Still, his annoyance made her giddy and it was best she got out of there, before she blew her own cover by laughing at the sore loser.

Cedric wasn’t sure why he assumed he’d find her in the library, but he did, and now that he found her he felt a little silly. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say, “Hey.”

“Well hello. I believe a congratulations are in order.” (Y/N) smiled again at him, this time it wasn’t nearly as fake (maybe not even forced at all), “Shouldn’t you be off celebrating? I heard it was a spectacular game for Hufflepuff. Someone in the hallway was talking about how you were reading his mind.”

Cedric blushed a bit. He’d heard that too, and as good as it felt it did make him feel a little guilty too. “Well, we owe to you really. So I thought I’d come say thanks.... so thanks.” He chuckled nervously, wondering why he was suddenly so worried about what he said. Well, he knew why. She didn’t need him anymore and he didn’t want to say anything to remind her of that.

“You’re welcome, but honestly I’ve seen you guys play. You probably could’ve won without me.” Her compliment seemed to sincere that Cedric was worried he was turning red again, but then she winked at him and he knew he didn’t have to worry. He definitely was. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“I do have a question for you, if you don’t mind.” Cedric waited until she nodded to continue, “Why did Flint want to mess with you anyways? You’re both very, I mean you’re both in Slytherin.”

“I told him I wouldn’t go on a date with him, and that git ruined my potion! That’s bloody insane right? Plus most of them only care about themselves... which I suppose I shouldn’t talk much.” (Y/N) laughed, there wasn’t much point in denying that she might’ve been acting a bit selfish lately.

“Insane....” Cedric took a breath, and calmed himself down. He was normally so laid back. “You know, if you were to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend... it might add insult to injury.”

(Y/N) shot him a knowing smirk, “I think you might be right. You can meet me in the courtyard, no reason to walk all the way to the dungeons.”

Cedric smiled and nodded. He’d be there without a doubt. When (Y/N) looked back down at her book he assumed that was his cue to leave, he needed to get back anyways. There was a celebration going on and his absence was most likely noted. His head snapped back immediately when he heard her call his name. She didn’t even look up from her book, but Cedric could sense the smug smile on her face (not that he minded), “Seriously though. Good game today.”

#cedric diggory #cedric diggory imagine #cedric diggory x reader #cedric x reader #harry potter #harry potter imagine #request #fanfic #fanfiction

[luninosity]

Okay, so, some Falcon and the Winter Soldier thoughts (will have some spoilers) for episodes two and three. General non-spoilery comment first: I feel like these were both *okay* episodes - neither as good as the first, but I didn’t dislike them, either. I’m still really curious to see how we’re going to wrap this all up in three more episodes; it doesn’t feel like we’re halfway done yet!

Okay, more spoiler-y notes below the Read More, not in any real order, just as I think and type. I’ll probably forget some things, but for now, here’re some thoughts...

--I like ep 3 slightly more than ep 2, mostly because of Zemo!

--I actually really love Zemo here (I liked him in Civil War, too): complex, sardonic, enjoying poking at people, a villain we do feel sympathy for even as he’s still sharp enough to remind us that he is a villain. Daniel Bruhl has always done a fantastic job flipping between calculated cruelty, wry humor - the whole “I am a Baron” moment was great - and pain that for him is still raw, about the loss of his family. (Some things’re awfully cliche - look, the supervillain’s playing chess and reading Machiavelli in his cell? really? - but, y’know...sure. Why not. We expect some cliches in the superhero genre, and this is an inoffensive one.)

--also Zemo dancing. That’s it. That’s everything.

--moving on from that: I’m also really liking how they’re writing John Walker. He does have charm, and there’s a certain amount of sympathy - especially as we see him worrying about filling the Captain America shoes, in ep 2 - but we’re also getting this really subtle sense of wrongness about him. He’s clearly vindictive and angry when things (and people) don’t act according to his mental script for them, and he’s willing to use his name and power to do things like get Bucky released...which in context and given our sympathies for Bucky is a good thing, but...it’s also an indicator of his willingness to do what he wants, because he can. (To be fair, Steve Rogers also often did that! - but Steve earned our trust, both in narrative and character. From his first introduction to WWII leadership experience to all the Avengers stuff, Steve consistently acts to protect people, and he’ll also listen if someone else has a good idea or if someone needs to talk, like with Wanda.) So I’m really liking this slow-fuse character development.

--mixed feelings about Sharon. I love that the show’s acknowledging how much she sacrificed for our main heroes, with no reward. On the other hand, she also clearly knew the consequences that could happen; she said as much at the time. The level of bitterness seems like a lot. But I’m also interested in everything we still don’t know about her - if she’s not the Power Broker herself, she’s obviously Up To Something. So that should be fun.

--hey, look at that X-Men location, with Majipoor! Also a nod to Wolverine’s favorite bar there, I think?

--I love heist and disguise plots!

--I also really like Bucky’s having to revert to the Winter Soldier - Sebastian Stan does it so brilliantly, with so many layers of emotion: not wanting to, loathing it, recognizing the necessity, shutting off all emotion and just coldly doing it, hurting but covering it up...just fantastic, and you know I love some hurt/comfort, and this seems like such a great set-up for emotional hurt

--but! this also seems like...a weird plot hole, kind of? Bucky’s pretty famous at this point, right? I imagine the criminal underworld knows he’s been pardoned and deprogrammed, right? or do they assume Zemo, with his knowledge of Hydra, still has some special control over him?

--along the same “this seems like someone didn’t think this through” path, Sam, you’re a professional, turn off your phone on a mission. Oh my god. Face-palmingly stupid - and I think somewhat lazy writing, as the writers plainly needed a giveaway, and went for the first idea they had. Even if it made a main character look incompetent.

--the Flag Smashers and Karli are...fine. They feel very Generic Marvel Villain - not the big space alien type, but the other type, the “I have a personal loss and motivating pain so I’m a little sympathetic but also Clearly Evil, watch me kill civilians so the audience won’t ever find me TOO sympathetic” type. Meh. Fine. Zemo’s more interesting, but...fine.

--Anthony Mackie is such a fantastic actor - every bit of his reaction to the Isaiah Bradley reveal is so good. The anger, pain, frustration, ferocity...heartbreaking. Actually that whole scene is so good - his emotions at discovering this secret history are palpable, and it’s so painful, because we also understand why Bucky would keep the secret - as someone who knows about pain and trauma and being experimented on, and knowing Isaiah wants to be left alone - we feel really deeply for both characters here, and it’s great.

--I actually liked the abrupt swing from the Isaiah Bradley encounter to the casual everyday racism of the cops on the street - is it subtle, no. But it’s not meant to be: it’s meant to be standing up and shouting about how not that much has really changed, and about how pervasive racism is. I know some reviews were all, “this was just too much!” or “too forced!” but...look, it needs to be shouted sometimes for people to hear.

--Bucky’s notebook being Steve’s, oh, ouch, my feelings. If I had the time and energy to write fic...

--(also, if I had the time and energy to write dark!fic: where’re my fics in which Zemo’s implication about the Winter Soldier “doing anything you want” gets played with? what or who does Bucky have to do to keep the undercover charade going? so many Bad Wrong Kinky power dynamics and explorations of consent and what this would do to Bucky’s head, here, and honestly I’d totally read them all, just saying.)

--Sam and Bucky together...I don’t know. This is one of the elements that I’m not actually a huge fan of, but I think it’s partly a personal genre / sense of humor thing that’s not clicking for me, personally, again. Like...

--I don’t find people shouting aggrievedly at each other to be funny? I’m not sure why it is.

--I mean, I get that they’re doing, like, eighties buddy cop movies, but...it got old really fast then, and it’s not something we needed to bring back. It’s not clever, and it’s...well, shouty and annoying.

--(I say this as someone who genuinely likes the first two Lethal Weapon movies...but the significant difference is, I think, we’re also shown in both those movies that Riggs and Murtaugh care about each other. They don’t want to be partners initially, and they don’t get along initially, and they do argue over tactics**...but they immediately feel responsible for each other and act to protect each other even as they argue, because it’s the right thing to do and we’re shown moments of them awkwardly trying to connect, because they both have that deep sense of...protectiveness...that makes them Good People - like, if they learn something that the other person needs to know, they tell each other. They protect each other’s families / love interests. So by the end of the second movie, with that fabulous character death fake-out, Murtaugh’s initial shock and grief is real and powerful and painful, and so is his genuine relief when the worst isn’t true - and it’s all earned.) (**however, they tend to argue tactics *before* jumping in - “is it 1, 2, 3, go on 3? or 3, then go?” And then once that’s established, they go ahead. That makes a difference as far as...well...competence and teamwork!)

--(Sam and Bucky, as far as I can tell, don’t do the above, and just...maybe shouldn’t be working together?)

--I also don’t find grown men acting like my youngest nephew, when he’s having a temper tantrum, to be funny. Staring contests? Random insults? Sulking in silence? Oh, grow up.

--(Also, yes, writers, we see you with the “couples therapy” and “get closer and make your legs touch” and “landing on top of each other as they hit the ground” moments. I, at least, personally, am very tired of...I don’t know that I’d call it queerbaiting exactly, but this idea that we’re supposed to find these moments funny...because why? Because, ooh, they’re two men getting close to each other, physically or emotionally? Why is this a thing we need to draw attention to? Do you think you’re doing some sort of fan service? Please either make Sam/Bucky happen or stop doing this.)

--both Sam and Bucky are highly competent and professional agents, or they should be. They should know how to work in the field - even with people they may not like - and adapt to shifting strategy, make best use of available assets, include people in the plan, etc. I can’t help but compare this to something like, say, Leverage, which also has a team who mocks each other and makes jokes but clearly absolutely respects each other’s capabilities, has a plan going in and tells everyone what the plan is, and adapts (and trusts each other to adapt) on the fly as necessary, and does it all without random insults about someone’s (PTSD-related) staring and “robot brain”.

--one of the very specific moments that bothers me a lot is the ending of the therapy scene (yay for showing heroes in therapy! but also I’m pretty sure she’s...not a great therapist?). Bucky finally opens up and says something real, about his own self-doubt and wondering whether Steve was wrong about him....and Sam just...brushes it off and goes, “we’re done here,” basically. Not only does that feel wildly out of character for former counselor Sam, it feels cruel. I really deeply dislike that moment the more I think about it. Makes me want to scream.

--Sam insults Bucky way more than the other way around. It’s starting to feel very one-sided (it’d be better if more clearly reciprocal, though it’s still not a dynamic that’s my favorite), and again, feels out of character - maybe this is Anthony Mackie’s sense of humor, but Sam isn’t Mackie, and Bucky isn’t Seb, and it reads as...a weird unbalanced power-trip thing to me. And also out of character for Sam, who can be sarcastic (”If you guys eat that sort of thing,” about breakfast, when Steve and Nat have randomly shown up at his door) but that’s not the same as just throwing unprovoked insults at a person who’s trying to recover from trauma, and a lot of those insults seem to center on things that were done to Bucky, that he had no choice in (the staring, the arm, etc), and that feels....it just feels mean, to me. Make fun of things he’s had a choice in / can do something about, if you have to - hair, clothes, liking “old people’s games” like gin rummy or pinochle, not knowing who Beyonce is, I don’t know, there are so many options that aren’t cruel! Do that instead. Let Bucky have a good comeback for once, too!

--the action scenes are action scenes. Also fine.

--Sam might be right about destroying the shield, and the show may even be (unintentionally?) setting that up as the best outcome, but that’s a problem for the future, Sam; get it back first. Also it’s a problem you caused by giving the shield up - did you really trust the government to leave it unused in a museum? You’re not that naive.

--overall, it’s...a perfectly fine show, so far, I think? Solid, and interesting, but not great. I think some of what doesn’t work for me is because it doesn’t work for me personally, as far as the shouty insult-heavy action “comedy” bits that I’m not enjoying, but I think they’re doing what they aimed for with it, so in that sense, I guess it’s working? There’s a lot of really cool stuff around the edges - John Walker, Isaiah Bradley, that Dora Milaje stinger, the bigger world of a history interwoven with racism and superpowers, the chillingly effective use of Bucky’s past - but I wish I liked the central Sam-Bucky relationship more. Individually they’re wonderful - they’ve both had such powerful scenes dealing with family, trauma, and consequences - but I feel like, in the effort to do the buddy comedy dynamic, the writing has just made me really sure that they actually genuinely don’t like each other? To such an extent that if they show any affection / caring / interest in each other in the last three episodes, it won’t be believable. (I mean Sam and Bucky, not Mackie and Seb. Mackie and Seb’re adorable.)

--I just want to think about Zemo dancing some more.

#the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws spoilers #spoilers #fatws spoilers #thoughts

[theloneliestshipper]

would love to see boba & leia in an apocalypse or dystopia!AU... there are so many to choose from like zombie au, natural disaster destroys the world au, government goes batshit à la handmaid’s tale, hunger games au. mostly this prompt is just an excuse to see leia save boba in some capacity because i’m soft for that and have them comfort each other emotionally and physically in dire circumstances because i’m also soft for that. okay i’ll stop now

AO3 Link

They caught another one. Leia’s stomach knotted as the sentry guards dragged the human into sight.

“Humans in armor,” RA-7 sniffed. “Will they never learn?”

Leia took a closer look. He was bleeding and barely able to stand, but his armor was unmistakable. A Mandalorian. Legendary warriors, according to the Archive. Their people were notorious for surviving extinction. “What will happen to him?”

“The same thing that happens to every human who tries to escape.” RA-7 lowered her head. “It’s a great comfort to me, Le-a, that you know better than to attempt such foolishness.”

The sentries were trying to remove the Mandalorian’s armor, with limited success. Their protocol said that escapees should be executed with a single shot to the head, but the scorch marks on their prisoner’s helmet suggested that this had already been attempted.

“Honestly,” RA-7 huffed. “If these old separatist units can’t learn to adapt, they’ll never evolve past their rank. You there! Just remove the head, and then complete your task.”

The Mandalorian held up his hands. “Wait.” He removed the helmet himself. He was older than Leia, maybe old enough to have fought against the first droid rebellion. He was handsome, even bloody and injured, with sweat-soaked black curls and tan skin.

“Can I have him?” Leia asked before she could stop herself.

RA-7 turned her head towards Leia, the lights in her photoreceptors blinking a little quicker than normal. “For what purpose?”

“For company.” Leia’s mind raced. What would make sense to a droid? “And for warmth. The Archive is cold at night.”

“I have observed that your body temperature is often lower than it should be for optimal health.”

One of the sentries shoved the man to his knees and placed the barrel of its blasting arm against the man’s forehead. Droids didn’t like to be rushed, but time was running out. “Please, your excellency.”

“Oh, very well. Stop!” RA-7 moved towards the prisoner and Leia quickly followed. “I will be taking the human. Here is my authorization code.”

The sentry scanned her code and then beeped once in approval. “Governor of the Archive. Acknowledged. All praise to our savior, L3-37.”

“All praise to L3-37.” RA-7 responded. “Please remove the rest of his armor.”

“I’ll do it,” the man muttered, leaning out of their reach. When his armor was in a pile on the ground, RA-7 gestured at his blood-soaked undersuit. “The cloth garments as well. You cannot bring such unsanitary items into the Archive.”

With a resigned sigh, he continued to strip until he stood naked in front of them.

“You will wash him,” RA-7 told Leia.

“Of course, your excellency.”

“And see to it that he has proper food and exercise. There’s nothing more pitiful than a sick human.”

“I will.”

“Unfortunately he appears to be breeding compatible. Shall I have that taken care of?”

Leia kept her attention on the droid so she wouldn’t have to dwell on her own embarrassment or the prisoner’s horror. “It might not be wise in his current condition, your excellency.”

“He does not look well,” RA-7 agreed. “But he does appear to be working. Your body temperature has risen considerably. Take him to your rooms and clean him up.”

“Thank you.” Leia gave her a respectful bow and turned to the man she had just rescued. “Come with me.” She forced herself to keep a sedate pace because it was clear that he was too injured to move quickly. As they walked she let her shawl drop from her shoulders and handed it to him. He tied it around his waist but said nothing until they reached Leia’s small room in the cellar of the Archive.

“Can you get my armor back?”

His words stunned her so much she froze. “Your armor ? You should be glad you still have your head. And-” she waved at his midsection. “that.”

“I am, but I need my armor.”

“Sit down,” she ordered, pointing stiff-armed at her bed. “You can worry about your armor when the bleeding stops.”

“I’ve never seen a human with so much influence here.”

“Don’t confuse strategy for power,” she returned sharply as she knelt to remove her medkit from under the bed. So many of these items were a rarity now.  Most of the droid governors didn’t see the point in “repairing” humans who would grow old and die anyway. RA-7 was the exception, but she couldn’t control supply and demand.

“How long have you been here at the Archive?”

“Since I was eleven years old.” She laid out her kit on the floor as she spoke. “I was traveling with my father when the droids attacked the core. Their protocol said not to harm children, so I was brought here and RA-7 took me on as her assistant. I provide human interpretation for oral histories of the galaxy.”

“You’ve been here twelve years.”

“Yes.” She injected him in the thigh with one of her last stims and dipped a sterile pad in bacta. “I spent a year on the oral history of the True Mandalorians. I recognized the clan markings on your armor.”

“It was my father’s.”

“Did you fight in the rebellion?”

“No.” He hissed as she began to clean the deep cut on his forearm. “I was a bounty hunter. I didn’t want to get involved.”

Her hand stilled. “How could you think you had a choice?” He didn’t answer. After a few seconds she resumed tending to his wound. “I’ll try to help you get your armor back,” she said. “But you have to do as I say. Be polite to the droids. Stay close to me.”

"I will." Two fingers brushed her chin, warm, human fingers and her body flushed with heat as she raised her eyes to his. “Thank you.” His mouth pulled up in a quick, tired smile. “I’m Boba, by the way.”

“Leia.”

His fingers withdrew and his gaze sharpened. “Leia. Organa?”

She felt dizzy with shock. “How do you know my name?”

“I know your mother. Breha Organa.”

“My...my mother. She’s alive?”

“Plenty of humans are, outside the core.” He leaned closer. “I wasn’t trying to escape when I was caught. Your mother pays me to get humans out of droid occupied territory.”

Leia could barely hear him over the roar in her ears. “You...have you done it before?”

“I’m on my twenty-sixth run.” He leaned back against the wall, confident in spite of his battered state. “Help me get my armor back and I'll get you back to your family."

#boba fett/princess leia #rebelbounty #random au #droid rebellion au #my fic #prompt #Anonymous

[jackoshadows]

There was a recent discussion on another forum about the most disappointing media in the last decade and naturally Game of Thrones won the poll beating even the recent Star wars trilogy by a large percentage. Someone linked to a Rotten Tomatoes review of the final season and it struck me how much the show veered from the books in terms of it’s underlying themes and stories – not really surprising considering D&D felt that ‘themes were for 8 grade school reports’.

But the thing that stood out for me, was how much so many folks saw GOT as some kind of feminist work about women rising to the top in a man’s world. 

On Rotten Tomatoes, pretty much most of the reviews are similar to this:

Critics Consensus: Game of Thrones' final season shortchanges the women of Westeros, sacrificing satisfying character arcs for spectacular set-pieces in its mad dash to the finish line.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/game-of-thrones

After season 6, we get these interviews:

After several seasons of troubling character starts and vocal backlash after season 5, the women of Westeros are now “running the show.”

“In the beginning it starts off with something of a stereotypical view of women, ss the wives, the girlfriends the ones that are always under other people’s control,” Sophie Turner explained to Variety. “And as the show moves forward you see these women rising to power and the evolution is phenomenal.”

Where did the change stem from, the fans. “We heard what audiences want, and what they want are more female characters,” Gwendoline Christie said. “And they want more complex, female characters.” 

https://variety.com/video/game-of-thrones-the-women-of-westeros/

Now it’s their turn: On HBO’s Game of Thrones, the show’s powerful female characters are about to take center stage more than ever before.

The ascension of Thrones’ female characters isn’t a new strategy. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, working from the narrative template established by author George R.R. Martin, introduced Westeros five years ago as a male-dominated world ruled by figures like Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) and Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance). One by one, these strong and commanding men have suffered tragic turns of fate that have cleared the way for a fleet of heroines who have learned new strategies to survive and conquer in a brutal world.

https://ew.com/article/2016/03/24/game-thrones-ew-cover/

With covers like this:

How many of these women ended up winning at the end?

Did people really think that an old white dude writing a fantasy story in the nineties was writing about female empowerment in the medieval ages? Really?

GRRM’s books did have complex female characters - Catelyn Stark comes to mind. But the last thing he was doing was writing about how the women of Westeros were going to win in the end using their wily ways. Characters like Cat and Cersei have to navigate their world having less power than their husbands and sons. Arya has to go around in disguise as a boy, Sansa has to endure abuse and stay silent to survive.

At the end of the day, GRRM was writing about female characters in a man’s world and as such they were limited in what they could do. Quite a few times, they are the characters pulling the strings behind the men (Lady Olenna), but there are rare open displays of their power - because they only get that through the men.

The audience complaining about all the rape and violence on the show? The books are much worse in terms of what happens to female characters. What was done to Jeyne Poole in the books is far, far worse than what was done to Sansa. Jeyne suffered a torturous existence - getting send to LF’s brothel and then to Ramsay because she is unimportant in the grand scheme of things  while Sansa escaped that fate because she was a noble woman belonging to a great house.

GRRM’s romances? We get Dany wanting to die after being repeatedly raped by Khal Drogo and then she falls in love with him. We have 27 year old Sandor Clegane in love with 11-12 year old Sansa as GRRM writes his beauty and the beast romance and Brienne falling for a guy who mocks her appearance and verbally abuses her. Even Jon/Ygritte has consent issues because 19 year old Ygritte coerces 15 year old Jon into sleeping with her by threatening to out him to Mance as still being a brother of the NW watch. GRRM’s romances all belong to the ‘forced seduction’ trope commonly seen in the bodice rippers of the eighties and early nineties.

In GRRM’s world if Sansa snarked at Littlefinger about ‘seizing the last word’ she would be lying dead in a ditch somewhere, Cersei would be dead/deposed if she blew up a sept full of people and Arya would not just magically recover after getting stabbed 10 times and then go take out the entire house Frey. 

And that’s why the show became more and more nonsensical over the seasons as D&D threw out GRRM’s world building and rule book and characters could do whatever they wanted with no consequences.

In the books the only female character who has real, hard power is Daenerys Targaryen. And that’s because she has what are the equivalent of nukes. Dany did get a semblance of power before her dragons grew - but she got that by charming Drogo, convincing him to invade Westeros for her and slowly and surely grabbing power away from her brother. When she stopped the rape of the  Lhazareen women, she was only able to do that because she was the Khaleesi - Drogo’s wife.

This changes when she hatches the eggs and her dragons grow - what happens in Astapor is a game changer with a new power in town. That’s why the moment was celebrated and enjoyed by book fans. This shit?

This is what actual power looks like in the books.

Dany is pretty much the only female character who can actively effect change and fight for the throne like the other male contenders because she has the weapons to do so. That’s why she’s unique in the books.

And that’s why the show ending was so disappointing to many fans. Because the men ended up back in charge (other than the nonsensical part where Sansa alone is able to randomly remove the North from the 7K by way of shit writing) despite all these proclamations from the showrunners/cast/HBO about how the women were now running things. Because, ultimately, GRRM was not writing about female empowerment or defeating the patriarchy or about women getting to the top in a man’s world.  He was writing a coming of age story for his main characters that included 3 men:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.

If D&D and HBO wanted female characters at the top in the end, they could have just written their own ending incorporating these ideas.  The disconnect happened because of their ‘The women are winning!’ writing and then ending up with GRRM’s ending.

Write a ‘feminist’ adaptation of the books. Kill off Jon Snow in the battle against the AOTD - it’s not like he had any story that was about him for the last 3 seasons. Have Dany kick out Tyrion for his bad ideas and defeat Cersei. Let her reward Arya with Storm’s Landing for killing the Night King. Let Brienne dump Jaime after realizing he’s a waste of space.  We would have Dany on the Iron Throne, Arya in the Stormlands, Sansa up North and Brienne setting off to start a school for young girls like Gwendoline Christie wanted. All of this makes more sense than the farcical King Bran/queen Sansa ending we got, so they could have done this.

It is disappointing as a book reader to know that the ending involves GRRM disposing of the only female character who actually has real power in the world of the books, and that of the main 5, she is the only one who ends up dying.  But maybe that’s why she ends up dying  - because Dany is an anomaly in GRRM’s fictional world and with her death Planetos reverts back to the usual patriarchal structures with the men in charge of everything. That’s a depressing thought. I can only hope that book Arya at least ends up with more power to effect change rather than getting shuffled off in a boat to some ‘west of westeros’.

#Anti-GOT #women in fantasy #Women in media #GRRM #Daenerys Targaryen #anti-D&D

[ohpenelopes]

                    i mean i could be aesthetic but instead i'm just pathetic

ALISHA BOE? No, that’s actually PENELOPE “PENNY” BROWN-PATIL from the NEXT GENERATION ERA. You know, the child of LAVENDER BROWN and PARVATI PATIL? Only 21 years old, this HUFFLEPUFF alumni works as a BARISTA and is sided with THE NEUTRALS. SHE identifies as a CIS WOMAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be SELF-PITYING, A PERFECTIONIST, and INSECURE but also FLEXIBLE, GENTLE and IMAGINATIVE. 

LINKS – pinboard, stats. CHARACTER PARALLELS – jackie burkhart ( that 70s show ), chloe gemell ( my mad fat diary ), mini mcguinness ( skins uk ), engel beekman ( skam nl ), cassie howard ( euphoria ), emaline ( everything sucks! ), gretchen wieners ( mean girls ), caroline forbes ( the vampire diaries -- earlier seasons ), kelly kapoor ( the office ) AESTHETIC – star shaped hoop earrings, drawing hearts all over your notes, needle pricked finger tips, unapologetic femininity, a loud and cheerful laugh echoing through a hallway, pinky promises, heart shaped sunglasses hiding hungover stained eyes, movie nights with popcorn and rose wine, drowning in the sea of your own thoughts HEADS UP – this intro has mentions of anxiety, but i’ve marked all of these with a trigger warning! <3

backstory ( 2008 - 2026 )

penny is born penelope lyra brown-patil --- penelope, for the woman who not only waited faithfully for her husband’s return for years, but who tricked many man in the process; lyra, for the constellation (because the stars are so wise) --- and as the second (and eventual middle) child to lavender and parvati

and she grows up happy. her childhood is peaceful and wonderful, filled with fun days and laughter. there’s not much out of the ordinary --- it’s stable and beautiful, and penny longs for those days quite a lot.

at some point, she learns of the things her parents went through at school, about war and rebellion and fear. penny admires her mothers more than anything --- she’s scared of this world, of this past, but she’s filled with admiration and a bit of fear that she won’t be able to live up to that. (she doesn’t have to, of course --- there’s no pressure or reason to, but still; she wonders about it, and she can’t shake the thought.)

anxiety tw | though life was stable and good, penny has always felt very uncertain about ... everything. insecurity has never been a stranger to her, nor has anxiety or pressure. she has high expectations of herself, expecting nothing short of the best --- and when she failed as a child (whether it was in playing quidditch on toy brooms or when drawing or when trying to sing perfectly), she would throw tantrums. she got help for this as a child after she had her first full-blown anxiety attack, but it never really faded. | end of tw

her interests as a child mostly range from princess stories to drawing elaborate things to cutting out pretty outfits from fashion magazines. she’s gentle and quiet and excitable when she wants to be, a whirlwind of pink and smiles and tangled long hair

at hogwarts, penny is sorted in hufflepuff (though the hat did consider ravenclaw) for her spirit. she doesn’t mind not being a gryffindor like her parents once were (or, at least, she doesn’t later on; at first it just seems like an affirmation that she’s not as brave as they are), likes how yellow compliments her eyes and fits in quite nicely among the puffs.

anxiety tw | teenagedom is a tough time for her. it seems like everyone is able to juggle it all, and then there’s penny: unable to keep up good grades and look pretty and have an exciting social life and have enough sleep. she feels like she’s drowning in all the expectations she has for herself, feels like she’s the only one on this world who is suffering (she’s prone to a woe is me mentality, for sure) and so hides it all behind perfectly curated smiles. her insecurity has always been strong, but it grows. she drowns them out by pretending. end of tw

in those years, she should be learning who she is, but in stead, penny learns how to be what others want. she shifts and shapes and bends herself to match others expectations --- she’s loud and funny and excitable among her peers, grinning widely and flipping her hair, appearing confident and extroverted and completely at ease. sometimes she’s quieter, a more gentle and softer being, lovely and quaint. she’s a model student (minus the amazing grades) to her teachers, a kind older housemate to the first years, a tough bitch when situations call for it. and sometimes it feels genuine, this person she’s showing off, and sometimes it all feels like a play. it depends, on her mood, on the role, on the weather, on the stars.

and you know what? it works. for most of the time. and then sometimes, it doesn’t, and there’s nothing to do but cry endless tears in her bed and be the most melodramatic person in the castle. alcohol tw | this happens when she’s drunk most of the time, to be honest --- penny is such a messy drunk. end of tw 

penny also developed a taste for fuckboys during this time. she wanted to feel loved, she wanted to be touched, to be desired, and part of her was desperate --- but that didn’t make it okay for guys to treat her that way, period. i would get into this more but i don’t feel comfy about doing that akdjssdf. 

when she turned fourteen, she got a sewing machine for her birthday. the next schoolyear, she dragged the thing behind her into the castle, unable to part from it after a summer of sewing. penny had always been interested in fashion, but now she was able to take it to the next level.

the dream to become a fashion designer grows and grows and grows, and penny is quite handy with the sewing machine, and her designs aren’t half bad, but of course it’s a stupid dream --- because penny doesn’t believe in herself, not yet at least.

post-graduation life ( 2026 - now )

penny graduated with one ambition only (see above) and no faith in herself. she became a barista, telling herself that she would work on her self esteem, that she would build herself up and become stronger and ready, that she would work on her portfolio and her design skills and that she would practice and work hard and ... that’s where she’s been for the past few years.

not much has changed, to be honest. penny still feels like that lost teenager, and in a certain sense she is --- she has just gained a slight bit of maturity, has moved out and has started working. her sense of self is still incredibly fragile, as is her self esteem, and while she’s trying to improve it, she just hasn’t found the right way to. 

she feels so stuck. she feels so frozen. she feels like she has no clue who the hell she is, and she doesn’t know what to do about changing that. another part of her doesn’t even want to be thinking about these things, and just wants to have some fun --- once penny graduated, she definitely started partying more sfksjdfhsdkjfh. party girls dont get hurt!!!!! and like, on one hand, that’s all completely fine, because this is the time for fun and self discovery, and who says you can’t do both? 

the timeclash kind of turned everything upside down. it did for everyone, i imagine, but that’s not really how penny sees it (woe is me! why does everything bad always happen to me!!). she’s so scared sakjdf. scared to see her parents and to be a Big Disappointment because she’s scared of the fact that there’s suddenly a war (like, what the fuck?), because she doesn’t want to fight, because she doesn’t even know how to fight!!! 

she’s a coward lmao, but a coward with Standards (lookin at you peter)

i mean, if it came down to it --- if she had to protect her friends or family --- she would fight, of course. she’s just not very good at combatical magic, or at strategy, or at anything war or rebellion-related, really (except for smuggling booze into hogwarts, i guess, but that’s something of the past). and that’s fine, if you ask me, but penny doesn’t think it is --- but that doesn’t mean she’s going to push herself to be braver or to do more

personality & details

jfc i rambled so much up there, time to get a bit more coherent up in this BITCH

penny is such a mess. i have a hard time talking about her sometimes because she’s so messy and because her mood and her energy fluctuate so much --- she can be high energy and extroverted one moment, and completely down and sad the other. 

did i ... project myself .... onto penny?     maybe. partly.

she’s a bit of a chameleon, really. she’s very adaptable and flexible and willing to change for the comfort of others, and she thus feels like she has a small sense of self. this is true, to a certain extent. i think she’s too focused on finding herself that she doesn’t see that she’s already found herself a little, that there are parts of her that are genuine. she’s so hard on herself, expects so much, she’s just ... completely blinded by her own doubts, tbh.

and she’s def a sad bitch and a messy bitch, but she’s so much fun. god. penny just loves laughing and being happy and doing fun and cute stuff! she likes good things! so much! she tries to be such an upbeat person and she can be and agh. i love her like that.

such a romantic. pls stop her. her idea of love makes her so blind and deaf and she always falls for dumb boys :( but skfjshdf she just loves romance! and romantic comedies! and romance novels (tho she struggles to focus on books properly, ngl) and just ... pink hearts and all that fuzzy stuff

when she got her job as a barista, all she thought was that it might just bring her the perfect coffee shop romance

she’s an idiot

she usually just goes by penny, but not because she dislikes the name penelope --- she thinks it’s a really neat name, to be honest (a bit poetic and mysterious), but penny has just been her nickname for so long that she doesn’t want to make people call her penelope. BUT she does want to be referred to as penelope when she gets famous, thank you very much.

regarding that: penny wants to be famous dskfjhdsf. a famous designer, of course --- but she just likes the idea of fame altogether as well!!! 

she takes that dream and ambition seriously, in a way. she plans to take serious steps soon (but she’s been saying that for years), always waiting until she feels ready to put herself out there. the idea of being rejected is just ... massive. the idea of not succeeding, of flopping, is so terrifying, that she prefers sticking with her dead-end job, for now. she has been sewing a lot after graduation, and i imagine she constructs a fair amount of her outfits herself (and does the same for friends), but that’s it, and she’s such a Coward about it

when she buys fashion magazines, she always gets two copies so she can use one for cutouts so she can make collages and moodboards

aEsThEtIc QuEeN!!!!

no really though, she has such a good sense for aesthetics. knows what colours and fabrics and prints mesh well together, always looks on Point, etcetera. 

idk what to say this intro is such a gd mess bc i wrote everything from scratch and i kept changing my mind about things and while penny is a Very old muse, i changed a LOT oops!!! 

#quantum intro #alcohol tw #anxiety tw

[parabcllums]

⧼    inbar lavi, genderfluid, she & they & he   /   shoot and run by josef salvat  +   a selfless heart hidden behind a bulletproof vest ; a highly literal warmth underneath impenetrable armor. impossibly dark brown eyes set into - and unmanageable curls framing - a disarmingly innocent face. a tiny and freshly polished star of david charm on a dainty chain, dirtied combat boots and an improbable amount of weapons hidden on their person at any one time.   ⧽   ━━   let me tell you a thing or two about ZIVA ORLI MIZRAHI. the THIRTY FOUR year old ( legal ) child of NICK FURY & NATASHA ROMANOFF / WARD OF SHIELD is a PROFESSOR OF STRATEGY at paragon academy and SHIELD LIAISON OFFICER & JUNIOR AGENT TRAINER, and has sometimes been referred to as THE HIRED GUN. they’ve always seemed very INGENIOUS & ADAPTABLE, though i’ve heard that they can be pretty OBSTINATE & TACITURN, too. it’s common knowledge that they have the power of ELECTROKINESIS and abilities of INNATE COMBAT & WEAPONS PROFICIENCY ; guess we shouldn’t get on their bad side, huh? redirect to her stats page HERE and check out her pinterest HERE.

     blood is blood, and what is done is done.                     blood is blood, and its BURDEN is a ( beast ).

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warnings for mentions ( typically flowery language, no big details given ) of abuse, explosions, death, torture, weapons

her life began when she was six years old. this is the only truth she knows, the before a distant and increasingly faded memory. she adheres to this truth, but it has always been clear to her that while she may consider as much gospel, the agency that becomes home does NOT. there is a worry, there, about all the things she doesn’t remember, and all the things they fear she will. she’s a prisoner, in some ways, a caged bird they fear could rustle up a hurricane with one beat of two feathered wings. she’s a WARD, in legal standing, the responsibility of shield.

there is a hard to swallow truth, and there is a perfectly crafted lie. they blend together for ziva, but shield’s memory is long, and good. her mother was a seamstress ( her mother was a psychopath ) and her father was a scientist ( he was going to raze the world ). they loved their daughter ( they never should have brought a child into this world if all they wanted was to create another weapon ). they came from money, and ziva never wanted for anything ( the wealth was a wonderful distraction to the horrors buried inside that cold home, and couldn’t buy the affection that she so desperately craved ). extravagant parties filled the manor with happy music and happy faces, their circle of family and friends well trusted and warm ( secret meetings in the dead of night filled the corridors with heartless whispers, and no one dared to even try and leave ). joseph and shai and all their friends were COLLATERAL DAMAGE in the tragic, but random, explosion of november 12th, 1994 ( natasha had no choice but to pull the trigger - there was no other option, nick assured her, no possible alternative, not if she wanted to put an end to the plan and save COUNTLESS more lives ). she was left without parents, without a family, due to this random act of violence that shield could not have stopped in time, and she is turned into their ward because of it, their responsibility, for all they’d failed to do ( she was witness to it all, a tiny girl caught in the crossfire of an adult war, a liability for what she knew ).

she was brought to the states, and she was given a new life - and it comes with new papers. she was a WARD OF SHIELD, unofficially, destined to grow up within the walls of headquarters, but the names of the two agents who had a direct hand in how she came to be their responsibility filled in the blanks on an otherwise sparse birth certificate. NICK FURY & NATASHA ROMANOFF in place of father and mother. whether her name was ALWAYS ziva orli mizrahi is up for universal debate. whether she really was born in tel aviv or whether that was simply the place that her new life began and the little israeli hailed from somewhere else completely is ALSO constantly a question. she was never officially adopted, nor could they entrust her into the system so that she might have been. ziva was YOUNG, and even then in psych evaluations, struggled to recall the details of events leading up to the huge overturn of her life, details that grew foggier with every passing year and in every subsequent follow up - but shield couldn’t risk the fact that she might just talk. it was SAFER to keep her nearby.

christmas with the fury’s. her birthday with the black widow. easter, thanksgiving, the fourth of july - spent with whatever agents would take her. she might have grown to resent the constant back and forth, the never belonging anywhere other than wherever she was given a bed to stay at the time, but ziva was a CHAMELEON SOUL. she barely remembered the home she had, before ( she recalled that it was cold and that she rarely left her ROOM, amongst other, terrible things - but as years ticked by, she wondered how much she imagined and how much had a basis in truth ), and adjusted to the bouncing around better than anyone could have expected. when she WASN’T spending time with other agents, or her legal parents ( they could insist that they were neither to her all that they wanted, but there was a FONDNESS formed that blossomed into love over the many years they shared ), she was given the run of shield. she had a permanent bedroom in the temporary lodgings upstairs, decorated minimally, at first, and then decorated to EXCESS. she would eat meals in the mess hall and treat it like an ornate dining room. she would forgo watching tv in favor of observing the senior agents training the juniors in the lower level training rooms. she would entertain HERSELF by learning the ins and outs of that building, one loose ceiling panel and shaky air vent at a time.

she grew up in meetings she had no place in, the clearance level she gave herself infinite. eventually, even if she HADN’T remembered the events that transpired when she was six years old, she soon knew enough secrets and private affairs to bring the whole organization, if not the UNITED STATES as a whole, down. she crawled in airshafts. she hid beneath the board room table. she sat inside of closets until they were opened and she came tumbling out. at least ONCE, she fell through the ceiling. she was a staple part of an ever changing community, and her antics made her beloved. senior agents worried about where she was if they hadn’t seen her in a while. junior agents feared the little girl that they called the ‘GHOST’, an easy dozen convinced that she really did haunt the building.

she was given the best shield sanctioned education a girl could ask for from ages six to sixteen, privately tutored and attaining a multitude of degrees in her vast amount of free time. she wasn’t permitted attend a regular kind of high school, nor was she ever really outside of headquarters, unsupervised, so the mischief she got up to inside and the studies she threw herself into were really all she had. and in between it all, she became a shining example of what a golden girl shield agent could BE. natasha and nick taught her everything they knew, individually, allowing for her to mix two lifestyles and philosophies together to create what worked for her. a revolving door of different senior trainers woke her early each morning for gym and for lessons. it made SENSE that instead of attending a formal college - as if she ever could have - shield would accept her into the academy of operations, one of their youngest and brightest. she graduated in no time.

and she was a GOOD AGENT. the very best, even, tables turning as she came full circle from an unfortunate liability to a top tier asset. she had been essentially indoctrinated, after all - so all she cared for was SHIELD. she was a weapon of a woman, pure and simple, talents shining through the most when she was tasked with deep undercover - but the beauty of her was her versatility, as capable of long stints overseas wearing a new life as a mask as she was at joining a field team and getting the job at hand done in record time. natasha and nick had taught her WELL, and she was a credit to both of them, a once in a lifetime coming together of two legends to create ONE. and she had something else, too, something that made her even better at what she did ; hope. it was her motivation to be better, each time she went on a mission. this willingness to try and work each option rather than make the tough call, this capability of seeing the good, and the good that could exist, even if it was DIFFICULT.

back then, she was happiest. she was content with her job. she was content with her life. and she had someone to share it with, too, though at first it was once in a blue moon. she met theora trevor when she was YOUNG, is what she leaves it at, now. the truth was, she was young, but she was also in love. the first time she had EVER been, considering the minimal amount of people her own age she had ever really interacted with, before. she met theora while she was on a mission, and her first impression was that she was BEAUTIFUL. her second was that she was an absolute credit to whoever had raised her - strong willed and BRAVE. she told her she was a flight attendant, and she had to leave too quick… but she came back. over and over and over again. their relationship was on and off, but that did not say anything for how much ziva cared about the woman she had began falling in love with within hours of their first meeting.

two, almost THREE years later, she and thoera committed themselves to one another for what both thought of as good. she had told her what her job REALLY was, by then, and their relationship was the first of it’s kind that ziva had ever had. she experienced a LOT of firsts with theora, in fact. a lot of things she had missed out on thanks solely to how she had been raised, experienced with new eyes and fresh feelings with the love of her life. she had never had a real FAMILY before, and knowing she could come back to her girlfriend… well, for the very first time, ziva had something to fight for. MERE MONTHS LATER, the two married.

they were both heroes in their own right. they were both busy with their chosen lives. but there was so much love and care, there, that neither STRUGGLED - not back then. this was when ziva was happiest, she thinks now. when she was married to the first woman she had ever loved. when she was juggling the life she had been given with the life that she had chosen. they had some happy times. they had some tough ones. through it all, they had each other. and then… they didn’t. things became difficult after theora, acting in her role as hero, failed to save a GIRL. ziva couldn’t understand. she tried, but her job meant that sometimes, not everyone made it - and she struggled a lot to emphasize. she wanted to be there for theora, but the truth was, maybe she wasn’t there as much as theora NEEDED. maybe she didn’t fight hard enough. she blames HERSELF, and it’s a fair blame to put upon her shoulders - she couldn’t take the toughest time of all, and they divorced months later.

work became the most important thing in her life, once again, and ziva was happy for the distraction. she never stopped being a good agent. she never lost her edge. she was too long in the tooth, now, to allow herself be shaken by personal matters, and she continued to be a credit to the people that had raised her right up until her apparent death.

it was almost two years after the divorce, and ziva was pulled from deep undercover and sent on a MISSION overseas with a tiny group of fellow agents that she had rarely ever worked with, before. none of them KNEW they had a mole in their midst - a fellow agent turned traitor, selling shield intel to the highest bidder. the mission went sour almost immediately, the whole thing, COMPROMISED. ziva stayed with them all until the bitter, bitter end. she tried to HELP. they all did, but only one survived - and ziva, ward of shield, PRIVY TO THEIR SECRETS FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES, was the only one they wanted. she was taken captive and the area was burned, and mere hours later when the extraction team discovered the scene, bodies abandoned and a familiar set of dog tags buried in the ash, it was presumed that ziva, too, had perished.

neither natasha nor nick ever believed it. in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, they stood by the belief that they had trained ziva BETTER than that. shield gave it six months and then they officially ended any searches that had continued, holding a private funeral with an empty casket for their lost ward and a public memorial for the few she had known to pay their respects at. they emptied her locker, and the belongings inside and dogtags found were shipped to the last name on her contact list - theora trevor, ex wife. they wanted to clear her ROOM, too, but natasha fought tooth and nail to keep it as it was left. they believed she was alive, and they were determined to continue the search quietly, in private. they didn’t want her to come back to nothing.

ziva didn’t know of the sadness she had left behind. she just knew the pain of what she was living. what she went through i won’t elaborate on. the methods used in order to try and break her were archaic and CRUEL at even the best of times, and the trauma she went through at the hands of her captors will never, ever be forgotten. a strong man, ziva had once been told, could withstand WEEKS of torture before he broke. in the darkness of her damp and dark cell, she - a STRONG WOMAN - withstood months. her hope died quicker than her resolve did. she told them things, eventually. things that weren’t of importance that she hoped they would think WERE. she gave them all the inconsequential details to try and help herself, but she never gave them what they WANTED. she knew because it never stopped.

when ava was thrown into the same cell as her, ziva scarcely believed her eyes - and neither did the OTHER. after everything, she had almost started to forget that she had a life, once. had people who loved her. people who cared if she came back. she was HOPELESS, but she allowed herself the smallest modicum of it, with ava’s company, only for it to be seemingly ripped away when the other was saved and she remained, moved swiftly to a new space.

this was the beginning of the end.

back home, the world had moved on, and ava shouted BLOODY MURDER about how ziva was alive. natasha and nick had known it in their bones, but with renewed confidence, wasted no time in pulling together a small strike team and beginning the search at the vacant compound ava and ziva had been held in. it didn’t take long to trace them.

when ziva was saved - if she could even CALL it that, when death would have been a kindness - she was hours from her end. it had been two years PLUS since she had been taken, and what she had suffered haunts her to this day. but even on what might have been her deathbed, she refused the shield physicians. she refused any help, unless it came from THEORA. it was as much a new fear of everyone else as it was a want to make sure the woman she still loved - who’s face had filled her fever dreams - knew she was alive.

two years and excess. all that time. she had survived, in spite of it all, and she thought that she would be WELCOMED back - or at least given the smallest shred of respect. but ziva, cleared for active duty again within six months, returned to something she didn’t expect. the legend of shield’s ghost had turned sour. senior agents, the oldest of them all and the one’s who had been JUNIOR’S when she was growing up, they believed her. they believed what had HAPPENED. but the younger, newer, current junior agents… they BLAMED her. as the only survivor of that fateful event, ziva knew she stood equal chance of respect and suspicion, but it still stung. the younger agents believed she had sold the info herself. that it was the only explanation for her being the ONLY survivor. that, or perhaps she went rogue and killed the team herself. that, or…

well, you get the picture.

the rumor mill went WILD, and ziva, in spite of wanting to throw herself back into work, discovered quickly that she was limited, now. no one wanted to be her partner, lest she be the cause of their death, too, and no one wanted her on their team, lest what happened happen AGAIN. after months of only rare solo missions, ziva requested she be placed at paragon academy - and that, as they say, brings us full circle.

SECTION TWO OF THREE: HEADCANONS ( & SCENARIOS, WITH MANY CREDITS TO BLO )

ziva: pulling some shit. fell thru the ceiling. perhaps pranked nick fury junior agent: are they gonna KILL HER senior agent: nah that’s ziva she’s just here

little junior agents, watching in horror as nick marches her into his office. natasha is called in, it’s getting SERIOUS, they’re all literally holding their breath because she has to be leaving in a body bag. she comes out with a new spring in her step and they don’t realize until much later when chaos ensues that she definitely swiped a gun from nick’s desk while he and natasha were in the process of parenting her

junior agent: where did she come from senior agent: she’s been here since the beginning of time

senior agent: that’s the ghost junior agent: is she called that because she can kill a man without being seen- senior agent: no, it’s because we don’t know where she lives or how she gets around so quickly but she’s always right there

people genuinely believing she’s a legit ghost that haunts shield a junior agent with a lot of balls: so… how did you die… did you ingest chemicals or something… did you get phil coulsoned ziva, a young demon: the x-men killed me at least two junior agents soured against the x-men because of the avengers/x-men hate: we KNEW IT

shield: falls everyone: but what abt ziva

the senior agents have a groupchat that’s called who has ziva and it’s just a bunch of messages from people sending “me”

the junior agents have a groupchat that’s just them asking where she is at any given time junior agent: i last saw her at the coffee cart on lvl 6

junior agent: she told me my outfit was mismatched shades of lack today and i cried in the bathroom another junior agent: she stood outside and told me to go pee on lvl three because you were being a baby

junior agent: last week i got trapped in the elevator for three hours because she disabled it for laughs the same junior agent: she sat on top for the whole three hours singing sweet home alabama

ziva’s known alias’ are NUMEROUS due to her many stints undercover: however, her only known codename is ‘GHOST’. it carries with it a soft sort of nostalgia that doesn’t exist in any other aspect of ziva’s life, a reminder of who she was, and who she has always been.

her electrokinesis is not the result of experimentation done on her as a child - something her parents had hoped would turn her into the weapon they sought - but a direct result of being caught in the eye of the explosion caused by one errant bullet fired by natasha romanoff. had she NOT caused the detonation of their device, the world would have suffered the consequences of her parents convoluted grand scheme. ziva doesn’t know much, but she does now this - and as nat didn’t KNOW how near she was during the event, and didn’t until she found her the lone survivor, ziva doesn’t blame her.er parents choices. ziva doesn’t know much, but she does know this.

since being saved from captivity, ziva has been… slowly working on finding both her faith, and her identity. aside from the clothes on her back and a now worn teddy that she had been clutching, the only thing she brought with her from israel to the states was a golden star of david necklace that she had scarcely ever taken off. it was tangled with her dog tags and was amongst items given to her ex wife, and if she were aware of this, it is perhaps the only thing she would seek back.

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS

professor friends ! shield friends ! friends she met while working a mission! people who still ONLY know her as her cover story - a flight attendant !

people whom she is training, now, be they shield or not. she’s willing to teach anyone to feel as if she’s doing something, so go wild !

current flings she is involved in ( any gender ) ! ex flings ! whatever u want!

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her SENIOR AGENTS SHE SPENT TIME WITH GROWING UP / LIMITLESS connection who look like UTP and who are 28+ YEARS OLD. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( ziva basically lived at headquarters from the time she was brought in - age six - to now, and while nick and natasha were her primary caregivers, she was often shuttled between different agents during down periods or whatnot. basically, if she for some reason couldn’t stay at shield itself, or there was a holiday - like thanksgiving, christmas, easter, her birthday - coming up, she’d be taken in briefly by a senior agent or their family and given a place to stay for a bit before such a time as she returned. )

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her EX SHIELD PARTNER connection who looks like UTP and who is 28+ YEARS OLD. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( five years ago, ziva was sent on a mission by shield that ended in her capture, and since the whole team she was with on that mission was killed, it was presumed that she did too. her previous partner of almost ten years moved on because that was all that could be done, and when she returned to the rumormill gone wild and a huge amount of the younger agents presuming she had been working with the enemy / abandoned her team to death, the decision was made for one reason or another that they wouldn’t become partners once more. either it was a case of they had found a new partner they were happy with, or they believed the rumors and didn’t want to work w her anymore, or they had grieved her and didn’t know how to look at her the same - the possibilities for WHY are endless, but they were definitely one of ziva’s closest friends prior, so it would b very interesting to explore what their dynamic has turned into now! )

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her PERSON SELLING SHIELD INTEL connection who looks like UTP and who is ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( they would be a shield agent, but what separates them from most is for whatever reason - be it nefarious or something closer in line with money troubles - they’ve been selling information on shield to the highest bidder. five years ago, ziva was sent on a mission with a handful of agents she had never really worked with before, and because of information that they gave - and the fact that they, or another, heavily implied that because of her shield upbringing ziva would be the one with the most intel on that team - the mission was compromised from the get go, and while ziva was captured, everyone else was wiped out. she suffered over a year at the hands of her captors and meanwhile, everyone back home fully believed that she was dead. what they did could weigh on them, or it might not. if it’s a case of something more innocent whereby they’ve needed the money gained from selling secrets, it could even be that they didn’t realize that the info they were giving was going to lead that particular buyer where it did. again, if not, it could be because they have a grudge against ziva for some reason we can talk out or smth. i’m v much into the idea of this and ! would love for it to b taken ! so pls ! do the thing ! )

#sidekick.intro #⌜ ･ﾟ ✕ ･ * a million impossibilities broken because the universe craved her existence ― biography. ⌟ / mizrahi. #playing ....myangel again..... #legend behavior

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM FOUNDERS TO DETECT BIAS

Expected value how likely an investor is to say that they're happier in the sense that hackers and painters are both makers, and this question is just to do what hackers do for fun: cook up amusing hacks with your friends. The root of the problem is to start from the other end of the summer. The people who are good at it. But after the talking is done, the decision about what to have for lunch. Even a company with 100 people will feel different from one with 1000. There's a reason we have a distinct word adult for people over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is imagination. It's populated by people who dropped out of school to do it? In this case the exploding termsheet was not or not only a tactic to pressure the startup. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet. Because fundraising is so distracting, a startup should either be in fundraising mode.

Nor would I have wanted to do anything that required a commitment of more than a few months old, every week that passes gives you significantly more information about them. For the foreseeable future, people will want ever more material wealth, so there is no record of it. Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the reasons Jane Austen's novels are so good is that she read them out loud to your friends as something you'd written, you'll feel all too keenly what an imposition that kind of thing is upon the reader. If a new company led boldly into the future. Defaults are enormously powerful, precisely because they operate without any conscious choice. They assume ideas are like miracles: they either pop into your head or they don't. I usually tell founders is to stop fundraising when you start to get higher.1

They call the things that get discovered this way incidentalomas, and they try to push you to name a price, resist doing so. Doctors discovered that several of his arteries were over 90% blocked to learn that the number was over 90%. Would that do? They're more like examples of Robert Frost's good fences make good neighbors. I smelled a major rat. The closest to a traumatic failure was Kiko, whose founders kept working on their own startups and those working for large organizations. As well as being smarter, they tend to peter out. I wouldn't be surprised if by playing some clever tricks with the accelerometer you could even replace the bathroom scale. They can either catch you and loft you up into the sky, as they do with most startups. What you should fear, as a handful of founders who could pull that off without having VCs laugh in their faces.2 So if such a company has two possible strategies, a conservative one that's slightly more likely to make it something you have the luxury of curiosity, one of the most important quality is in a startup is the opinion of other investors.

Is this the way I'd say this if I were drawing from life.3 The important thing is to be excited about it, because it's painful to observe the gap between them. So what tends to happen is that they hate the idea that we ought to be writing about them as if they'd been anointed as the next Google, but I'm thinking this is going to solve this problem, but it didn't last long.4 This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. So you have to be on the path to the finished program looks in it, but the main thing we care about is the one where we ask what cool things you've made. Either some company like Netflix or Apple will be the money burning a hole in your pocket, but I smelled a major rat. Hapless implies passivity. One of the things he would have liked to. An excessive amount of money, it will only evolve at big company rates instead of startup rates, whereas alternatives will evolve with especial speed. Which almost always means hiring too many people to apply to multiple incubators, you should focus your whole attention on it so you can get.

Be nice. Surely that field, at least, how I write one. If they saw that, they'd want you to sell them more of your company in subsequent rounds. Instead of making one $2 million investment, make five $400k investments. Clinton, even if your group has only 10 people. It's different in research. Even if they already know it, you'll probably be done faster.5 The great mathematician G. Instead of making one $2 million investment, make five $400k investments.

If you go to work for a couple years for another company for a few days of terror. Being a doctor is not the hope of getting a better one. People's best friends are likely to make it excessively hackerish. The main thing we've discovered from pushing the edge of this envelope is not where the edge is, but how fuzzy it is. Don't try to look at something and predict whether it will take off. The percentage of female hackers is small, but they adapt their plans on the fly. Dating sites are a prime example. I like about this idea is known as Worse is Better. I'm sometimes accused of meandering. Right? So if it seems like all the good ideas came from within.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. That's probably the number one question people ask me. What you can do, but assume the worst; investors who are seriously interested in you will usually be happy to talk about what? But the best way to generate startup ideas is to do what adults tell me all day long. When I asked her what specific things she remembered speakers always saying, she mentioned: that the best way to get a lot of new areas.6 In the software world may not realize is that Worse is Better, which is doing so well they could probably be acquired in about ten minutes if they wanted to. Maybe the VC industry has changed. The head of a small company doesn't ensure freedom. At best you may have to pay a little more closely related, like games. And in any case, competitors are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the future will feel as sorry for us as we do a birthmark. What would it even mean to make theorems a commodity?

Notes

Inside their heads for someone to invent the steam engine. You could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities. The founders we fund used to be employees, or to be higher, as they seem to be a good open-source browser.

And while it is. It's hard to prevent shoplifting because in their lifetimes. PR firm.

You have to. This flattering distinction seems so natural to the extent we see incumbents suppressing competitors via regulations or patent suits, we don't use code written while you were going to use some bad word multiple times. But he got there by another path.

I replace the actual amount of stock. Eighteen months later. Now the misunderstood artist is a service for advising people whether or not, and we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and cook on lowish heat for at least a partial order.

But it could hose the whole story. Yes, actually: dealing with one of the Daddy Model that it had no natural immunity to tax avoidance. I know this is the most promising opportunities, it will become as big. But friends should be your compass.

One new thing the company is always room for another. One professor friend says that the VC. We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without growing big in revenues without including the numbers like the iPad because it made a bet: if he ever made a lot like intellectual bullshit. It's not only the leaves who suffer.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #future #ideas #multiple #resist #investor #compass #sense #professor #people #distinction #idea #competitors #company #Be #order #pocket

[lokisbuttxrknife]

Jonathan Pine - The Catch - Part 1/2

"Bloody hell he's gone !" I shouted to my partner, Jonathan, from the huge terasse of our room.

I heard him running to me, quickly taking the binoculars I had in my hands before observing the empty appartment that faced ours.

"Damn it" he sweared before getting back into our hostel room, grabbing his coat and giving me mine so I would get dressed quickly.

Robert Hanword, the most dangerous drug dealer alive, who had comited the worst crimes. Anything that you would thought as a nightmare, he would make it a reality, torturing, killing, rapping, selling people as slaves with cold blood. Recently, his new hobby had been to sell weapons to extremes terrorists groups, making the governments go crazy. Dragging him down became one of their priority and so they decided to send the most qualified agents they had for this mission : Jonathan and I.

I had been keeping an eye on our target ever since we arrived at this luxurious hostel in the mountains, and after nights of insomnia scruiting every of his moves I had let my guard down and couldn't helped it but fell asleep. And now I was hating myself for it, feeling so guilty and stupid. What a shame that an agent who had such a reputation as mine lost her target because she felt asleep for an hour ! I looked up to Jonathan who was taking the key of the room, their jingle drawing me from my thoughts.

"Come on Grace, we gotta catch him" he said.

I hurried and soon we were outside, running accross the streets until Jonathan decided that we should separate, to be more efficient and eventually find the man we were looking for. Yet I was disagreeing on that point, feeling like if we separate we would be more vulnerable, which in our situation was dangerous. Something was wrong, I knew it.

"Jonathan, I don't think this is the right thing to do" I started.

"Grace we got no time to argue on that". He shaked my shoulders, his eyes giving anxious looks once every two seconds around us. "One of the most dangerous man is god knows where doing god knows what and nobody know about that except us ! This is what we have been recruited for, we can not fail !"

He took a little black box with a blue button and a red bulb in the middle before putting it into my hands.

"Take this, he said, I got the same. The first who finds Honward gives the alert to the other thanks to this button, right ?"

I nodded.

"It will send our location to our phones, so the other will be able to join the other." He frowned. "You got your phone with you, right ?"

"Of course I do, that's the 101 thing for an agent you fool" I replied giving him a smirk.

He let a quick laugh get out of hsi mouth before taking me briefly into his arms. Even though I was surprised at first, I returned him the hug, smelling his woody fragrance through his shirt. We separated and right before we go in opposite directions to track our man, he looked at me with his sparkling blue eyes, giving me a concerned look.

"Stay safe" he said.

"It will be fine" I replied. "See you in a hurry, Pine" I said before started to run through the dark streets of Geneve.

I could feel Jonathan's stare behind my back until I turned to a corner leading to an alley which was a bit far from the center of the town, which made me overthink. I could not deny, Jonathan was definitely attractive. His blues eyes changing to green depending on the lightning, his sharp jaw line, his smile in front if which any girl could faint, his british humour, his tailored shirt that were fitting him oh so well, letting his muscles show a bit through the fabric... I smiled thinking about the way he was looking at me an hugging me a few minutes ago, as if it was the last time he would see me. Those last days, he had been acting much closer to me than during the past, and was even kind of flirty sometimes. Did he actually cared more about me than what he was supposed to ?

I shaked my head to get him out of my mind. I was not allowed to think about him that way, there were too many risks in this job. This would put both of us in danger, I knew that, as if some people found out there was something going on between us, which was not the case, it would give them an opportunity to put some pressure on the other by capturing one.

While I was walking quietly, I realized both of my co-worker and I were not armed, which was not the best thing to do when you were hunting a man who could kill you with a butcher knife within two seconds. I passed one hand through my hair, as I was usually doing when I was nervous. Something did not make sense in this story. If Hanword did not knew we were watching him, the why did he mysteriously disappeared right when you were asleep ? Why didn't he left when you were secretly spying him ?

Deep down, even though I was was oh so scared to admit it, I knew all of this was anything but a coincidence. I had to face the truth : I did not know how did he managed to, but Honward found out you were after him. That man was sly, after all, and he probably even had moles inside British Intelligence. Jonathan and I were alone in that, we could not really know who to trust, except our chief and recruiter Angela Burr, who's rage and will of revenge over Honward was keeping her alive after he killed her husband. But this was another story, and I had no time to think about it. I needed to focus on what I was looking for and stay on my guard.

Crossing the street I was in, whose lamps were  les lampadaires were vibrating,  making me feel like I was in those kind of old and clichés horror movies, I saw some light coming through an old hangar. I marched along the walls of the old kind of fabric, trying to be as discreet as possible, silently thanking my unconditionnal love for dark clothes, which made me barely noticeable in the darkness of the night.

I entered the building, slowly taking my Swiss knife out of my pocket. I stappled to it as if it was my only way to survive this night. I knew that tracking Honward was a proof of unconsciousness, especially knowing that Jonathan and I were on our own, and that if anything would turn wrong, we would have no way to ask for reinforcements.

I went from one wall to the other before finding myself in front of a metallic staircase. As I approached the stairs, I began to hear voices. His voice. I could have recognized it in front of thousands thanks to all those night I spent listening to his phone conversations we were wiretapping. He was not alone. As far as I could hear, there were two other manly voices there, probably some other dealers he was making business with, I thought.

Suddendly, I saw the light from the ground floor lit, while I heard footsteps coming my way. I went all the way down the stairs as fast as I could, frenetically looking around me while I could feel the panic growing inside me. I noticed some kind of ramschakle archieves library I hid myself behind. I saw the two mens stopping, looking around them to check if everything was in order, silently praying for them not to come over me. The two men went upstairs a few moments later, leaving me in the dark again. I uttered a sigh of relief, putting aside all the tension I had felt during those last minutes.

I went out of my hideout while taking the little black box Jonathan gave me thirty minutes before. I was hesitating in front of that button, asking myself if I should get him involved in that or not. Of course, this  was his job and he was a brilliant agent, that was not the problem. I just did not knew if I wanted him to risk his life to solve a problem that I caused. I knew our chances to make it out alive were not really likely, especially since we did not have any proper weapon. Yet I knew only one of us would not be strong enough on his own to bring Honward and his men down. And he was our priority. The safety of our world was our priority.

Before I would change my mind, I grabbed the little balck box tightly while pressing hard the blue button. A little red light lit on the side, letting me know the informations had been send to my partner.

"Right" I thought. "All I have to do is to explore the ground floor to find a better hideout and then think about a strategy to take that bastard of Honward by surprise, while waiting for Jonathan to show up. I got this"

I went a bit further into the ground floor, waiting for my eyes to adapt to the darkness of the great hall I was in. A heap of huge wooden boxes down the hall caught my attention.

"Boody hell" I thought. "If this is what I'm thinking, we are in deeper troubles than I thought we were"

I opened one of the boxes, putting my hand in front of my mouth as a reflex of despair when I saw what was in there. Guns, bombs, missiles... The people Honward was talking to are probably far from being simple drug dealers. I had to get used to it : the people who were in there were terrorists, men trained for war and torture, who can kill a man without getting any troubles to sleep, as if it was no more than a kind of routine. I was stepping back from the boxes until I tapped against something. The moment it took me to realise it was in fact a man and not a wall, I was hit hard by a iron bar before it all became black around me...

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Hello everyone ! Right, so this is my first OS about Jonathan Pine, hope you'll like this. I know he's not really present in this first part of the story but I promise in the second part it will be ALL ABOUT HIM ! But I wanted to create an ambiant and to get everyone familiar with Garce Dwincher, the main character. Don't hesitate to comment, feed back are really appreciated ! And let me know if you got any OS requests, I'll take it ! Xx

#jonathan pine #jonathanpine #the night manager #jonathanpinefanfiction #jonathanpinexreader #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #james conrad #spy #fanfic #oneshot #thomas william hiddleston #hiddlesarmy #dammit hiddleston #hiddleston daily #hiddlestan #loki fanfic #loki

[scribeofjiaal]

Random ask time! Are you working on any other books besides Cohime? If not, do you plan on making any others after it's done?

Cohime is bluntly described as a massive project that’s taken up a great deal of my brain space for more than a decade of my life, so from the project itself there are plans for expounding upon certain characters lives both before and after the resolution of the story. 

Additionally to that, I have had a few other ideas come and go over the years, and probably the one that’s stuck around the most is a sort of Monster Apocalypse novel which I still haven’t named but have spent a decent portion of my mind fleshing it out. In the novel the modern world has been ended by a race of parasitic creatures that are instinctually attracted to city centers for breeding purposes [they seek out high concentrations of certain minerals that humanity likes to use in the building of things] and are highly aggressive to anything that isn’t themselves. They appeared suddenly, they multiplied quickly, communications broke down and humanity has clung on in small groups that found hiding places and weapons enough to survive. The writing begins some twenty years after the disaster, with a group that co-opted the grounds of a university as a safe haven and managed to gather a number of survivors. The main character, Paige, is a teacher within their system as well as a seasoned scout; educating the younger generation on what they need to know to survive on scavenging runs. Things get rolling when the eggheads on-base [we call it base] get far enough in their research to realize that these creatures didn’t crash in from space or somehow naturally evolve-- someone engineered them. 

I want to explore a number of themes in the above described work, particularly the most painful side of motherhood-- Paige lost a two-year-old daughter, Anne, when the world ended, and suffers greatly at the hands of her own mind because of it. She became estranged from Anne’s father, unable to look at him without being reminded of her little girl. She never had kids again, and her teaching is very much a sort of surrogacy as she does her damnedest to ensure every kid in her orbit knows what they need to know not to die meaningless deaths. Of the keepsakes she holds onto from before the world ended is an old cassette tape on which she recorded herself singing ‘You are my Sunshine’ to her baby. [Gimme a break I first started working on this story back in 2000 when the CD was just taking over. I still have had a cassette player.]

More so, the monsters are just cool. They’re a parasitic life form that takes many shapes and sizes, all of which are capable of spitting a highly acidic compound. Obviously useful for offensive reasons, but this also factors into their life cycle, too. An egg-bearing mother will go hunting up some kind of mineral deposit when its time to reproduce, most often iron or steel because holy crap have humans dug a lot of that shit outta the ground. Once she finds a steel beam or some iron re-bar, still spit her eggs onto it, mixed with acidic compound. The eggs are protected from this, but the acid is strong enough to melt the mother’s chosen platform for her eggs a little bit and let her eggs attach to it. It’s discovered through the course of the book that this is where varieties of parasite are differentiated; whether they were attached to iron or steel or aluminium or gold or silver or whatever else they were able to find effects which parts of the new creature’s DNA gets expressed, and results in a number of differently adapted creatures that require different strategies to avoid, escape, or kill. 

From here, the mother fucks off to whatever she pleases, and the eggs are left to develop. They start small, and hatch into the first stage of their life cycle which is universal across all of the parasites; larva. Tube-like worms that start tiny but will grow quickly with food, they’ve a great many tiny teeth on their interior that ensure any prey captured will not escaped until the larva has sucked them dry. At their largest they can be a meter long, and at that size they can easily stretch themselves wide enough to encompass a small child and begin the feeding process of draining their blood from all directions through thousands of tiny puncture wounds. Once a larva has latched on, there usually is no removing it without ripping the host apart. It won’t wiggle to escape if exposed to fire, and it lacks a central brain to shoot for a clean kill. Freezing might be an option if the technology and energy is available, but usually it is not. I’ve used a child as example, but more often they attach themselves to animals useful for human existence; like the legs of cows and sheep. 

After about six months at this stage, larva will find a place to hide an pupate into their adult form. Depending on what metal or stone their mother spat their eggs onto, they can change into a number of different creatures, but for this one we’ll focus on the most common egg platform; iron. Iron births a quadruped creature with thick, scaly skin, large fore-paws with long clawed digits, and a massively wide head like a hammer-head shark with a great many eyes that are capable in peering in all directions around it. They are fast and strong, with excessively good senses of sight and smell... but they’re perchance not entirely all that smart, which is all a human survivor can hope to take advantage of in this most common of encounters. [I’ve got a small mountain of notes on what metals and rocks makes what monsters, but I am in no mood to see where the heck they ended up after this particular move XD]

A bullet to the head will stop an adult parasite, as they now have central neural matter to shoot... though bullets are now treated as currency for their universal value and scarcity. Cutting off a limb or crushing them also works, as they now have a circulatory system to speak of as well as bones and organs. They also will starve to death, if not fed, which has enforced a sort of deer and wolves carrying capacity of these creatures after the majority of humanity was killed off in the initial incursion, with humanity as the deer. 

... I honestly feel like this idea would work better as a survival-shooter game than a book, with a narrative gravity similar to The Last of Us. That said, I’m gonna keep working on it behind the scenes. 

[then again I’ve thought as Cohime in the context of gaming too and man oh man is that a n o t h e r kettle of fish]

#Writing #Other Ideas #thank you for the question!! #schnazzyninja #Advent The Author

[runthejoint-blog]

Investigation and diagnosis



The road to Paris


When I awoke at about 2am on the morning of May 4th, it wasn’t in excitement and anticipation that I was just a few hours later going to embark on the feat of endurance that is cycling from London to Paris within 24 hours as part of Challenge Sophie’s annual event. No, I awoke in agony with crippling pain in my right hand. I couldn’t form a fist without shooting pain and instantly felt a wave of anxiety flood over me. Not only did I wonder what was wrong with me, but I felt an immense sense of panic. How the hell was I going to cycle 200 miles with limited use of one hand? I was not just worried about the pain, more how would I handle the bike, grip the handlebars, and most importantly brake! I jumped out of bed and ran down to the kitchen to consume pain killers and anti-inflammatories and find a Rapid Ice to stick my hand into.



A few hours later Tom and I were on the train bound for the start line at Blackheath. The train was packed; standing room only, with our bikes precariously packed into the overcrowded carriage and my face crumbling in pain every time I was forced to grab the hand rail to hold on. I decided the best strategy was to keep moving my hand to avoid it seizing up further and gradually over the course of the day the pain abated.

Once the ride got underway the concern about the pain began to lift (in part because it did), mainly as we were confronted with unbelievable weather for the first May bank holiday weekend - torrential rain, followed by vicious hail and our fair share of strong winds - it was going to be challenging I appreciated, particularly as this was a last minute decision for me to join the ride, and had done no training, but this turned into a harrowing four hours on the first day. What on paper should have been a straightforward, and by our standards easy ride, was proving far from it. 



Arriving at Newhaven heralded an enormous sense of relief, the chance to consume copious amounts of carbs (a favourite hobby of mine, and probably the one I excel at the most) and most importantly change into clean and dry kit and begin the next challenge of drying out shoes and staying warm, not to mention trying to sleep on the five hour ferry crossing.



The morning of May 5th began in earnest with us joking that the predicted bad weather was nowhere to be seen. Gathering before dawn to start pedalling again, there was an atmosphere of sleep-deprived, good-natured hysteria. Little did we know that within seven miles the first freezing cold rain would begin, quickly followed up with a chaser of yet more ice-cold and truly vicious hail. Thank goodness we were part of a peloton of 120 riders who had made a pact to cycle the first 30 or so miles to breakfast as a group. Yes, it meant the pace was slower than maybe we would have liked given the conditions, but I genuinely don’t know if either of us would have kept going if we’d done this as an independent duo - we’re tough, but this reduced even the hardiest of riders to teeth-chattering wrecks (personally I blame the previous year’s participants, including Tom, for bitching about how they endured the start of the 2018 heat wave). At the breakfast stop (after what seemed like an eternity of riding) Tom and I stuffed as much food and coffee into ourselves as possible and tried to get warm (an impossible task, it turned out). I genuinely wondered if we should continue, I was particularly worried about Tom with his lack of corporeal padding, but on we went and eventually we made it to the Eiffel Tower with time to spare - 37 minutes to be precise. It had been hard, the weather and fatigue had been a challenge, but all pain had evaporated, or at least been replaced with the general ache of long days in the saddle and the effects of having been unbearably cold.

The road to diagnosis


I forgot about this weird hand pain and continued on my merry way, enjoying an immersive new job and putting my ever-growing tiredness down to spending nine hours a day at a desk staring at a computer screen, and my lifestyle transforming overnight from relatively active to largely sedentary. And then it happened again. About two weeks after the first attack, I was once again seized in the middle of the night by the same pain - overtaking my hand and wrist. It remained for the next 48 hours or so before my left hand began to hurt, although along the edges of my palm and wrist rather than the fingers and knuckles of my right hand. It struck me, it must be carpal tunnel. I knew it was something that tends to get progressively worse before you often need to resort to a surgical fix. A request for diagnosis from a couple of doctor friends over a drink in the pub one night, confirmed my Google self-diagnosis.

Sitting 36 hours later in a consultation room with a locum GP he told me it definitely wasn’t carpal tunnel and instead it sounded more like arthritis. He proceeded to unsuccessfully try and print off a request for blood tests and a prescription for anti-inflammatories to keep me going until the results came back. His inability to work the printer and the fact he didn’t agree with my Google-formed opinion (or that of my friends) instantly made me decide that I couldn’t trust this opinion (another doctor friend has since told me he is one of the best doctors around!). I am 29 years old, eight weeks away from my 30th birthday. I cannot have arthritis. So I duly trotted off to St Richard’s for a blood test the following Tuesday, and cracked on with the day to day.



Within 48 hours I received a phone call from the surgery; my usual GP would like to see me to discuss my test results. It didn’t need to be an urgent appointment, I was told, and so I assumed that the results had returned nothing and further investigation was needed. Nearly two weeks later I endured a 40 minute wait to see the Dr and safely ensconced in her office, she broke the news I had least expected to hear, and wanted to hear even less. At the age of 29 and now six weeks before my 30th birthday, the blood results showed I had arthritis. The tears came quickly, yet silently and trickled down my cheeks as it dawned on me what this could mean. My lovely, warm-hearted, good-humoured GP who has counselled me through so much over the past six months and has seen me transformed from an anxiety-ridden shell unable to speak back to a smily, bouncy, positive person told me not to get ahead of myself. Yes, it was highly unlikely I would be able to run the ultra-marathon I had only a couple of weeks before set my sights on. Yes, it was now a case that I would be medicated for life and have to practice damage-limitation to avoid any further degeneration of my joints. But, I could cycle, I could swim, do yoga, pilates and consider diet adaptions to keep the inflammation under control. The two of us quickly established that it was best for her to refer me to the rheumatology department at our local NHS hospital, but also to see a consultant who practised at the local private hospital so that I would know where I stand sooner rather than later.



You see, yes I can cycle. Cycling is in fact seen as one of the best activities for those living with arthritis. But is the cycling I choose to do going to be encouraged. Is powering up a 15% hill as hard as I can ok? Is putting everything into a sprint to beat my big brother to the coffee shop ok? How about a 2 week long endurance ride akin to the LEJOG challenge I completed last summer going to ruin me, or make me thrive? How about a week climbing in the Alps, Dolomites or Pyrenees? Or a 24 hour endurance challenge such as the one I completed when this whole sorry saga began? 

For those who know me even a little, they know that physical challenges are how I survive life. How I feel truly alive. Challenging myself physically, not knowing if I’ll complete it until the last millisecond, that is how I not only get my kicks, but keep my anxiety and greatest fears at bay and build confidence and belief in myself; something that only a few months ago had been eroded to non-existence. We often see such challenges and achievements as something to be celebrated; a sign of mental toughness as well as physical toughness. The other day someone who has endured hundreds if not thousands of miles pedalling next to (or more accurately in front of me) sent me a message saying: “you tend to push yourself very hard physically. I’ve observed many people in this regard, and your intensity is among the very best (worst?) I’ve seen.” Suddenly, someone whose opinion I had valued so much and who had always made me think that this commitment was a good thing, made me re-evaluate myself. Had I pushed too hard? Had I broken myself? Was I to blame for this?

Today, almost six weeks to the day since my symptoms began and five weeks before my 30th birthday, I met by consultant, Sanj. After he quizzed me on my symptoms, he came up with the analogy of me recounting my experience so far as akin to a Beatles song coming on the radio (familiar and instantly recognisable to him): there was no doubt in his mind that I had  inflammatory (or rheumatoid) arthritis. Again those silent tears sprung a leak. I guess I had this hope that he would disagree with the GP, say it was a one-off virus and nothing to worry about. No such luck, the exhaustion I feel is genuine, the pain in my elbow is not all in my head, it’s in fact totally swollen, the excruciating pain I have in my shoulder today is really there, and yes, it is why I feel physically sick - I’m a classic case; not worrying unnecessarily, I will feel like crap right now and it’s right I feel anxious and fearful for the future. He had a clever knack of giving me as much information as he felt was necessary but knew not to overload me or what could wait until we met again. I won’t know for another couple of weeks what the long term treatment will be, or what my most recent test results will suggest in terms of prognosis, but I do know that it will be a case of adaptation, ‘disease limitation’ and living life by evaluating truly how I feel each day. It might mean that sometimes the best laid plans will fall to pieces at the last minute, or I may even complete an unplanned challenge on the spur of the moment because I feel good. And that is going to be my biggest mental barrier to overcome. It’s ok to not put yourself under pressure every weekend to get out and put yourself through gruelling challenge, after gruelling challenge - I just need to remember that during my lowest moments.

How often do we say, “Oh I want to do that one day”? Make that day today, you never know what is round the corner. I thought I had years to enter Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, cycle the Highland 500, run a marathon, run that ultra-marathon, cycle from the Channel to the Med - suddenly I am a lot less sure.



Keep this in mind: One day I will not be able to do this, today is not that day, but tomorrow could be. Don’t waste a day.


[grahamparrish]

Cat Peeing Blood After Spay Marvelous Ideas

Aloe Vera Gel is available in pill form, so your pet at all times.For example, you have a new member of the easiest if you do to reduce the severity of an outdoor cat.Never squirt water bottle if you do not miss out on the urine is removed.The flip side of the amazing things about cat behavior problems are too familiar with this form of exercise and weight loss medications.

As they talked they discovered that the windows open just a tad bit frustrated enough to go elsewhere...A touch of citronella on cotton balls in a place they feel threatened at the first half hour a day outdoors.Litter box problems involve everything form urine on the inside of your garden, but once it has adapted to one another.Litter box is fairly deep so litter doesn't fly out onto the soiled area very well, is the best choice for your cat with a spray form.Cats are like me and say they are free from cancer of the room and let dry.

Spraying urine is nowhere to go to a chair or jumping on the surface, and when you come home from a water sprayer to spray moist and shaded areas of their home to remove cat urine effectively depends upon numerous factors such as a cat restricted to the water from the wind and rain.This is a false economy as, not only the feel of the pet store for a short list:Your vet will possibly give the cat bathes and removes the reproductive organs.Most of the cat an opportunity to make it much better.If the bond between the two of them at different times, the two cats who both actually enjoy the behavior you need to patiently, lovingly and firmly redirect kitty's scratching to remove even after you have to consider natural remedies can be a great place to potty.

The biggest differences from other cats that suffer from health issues such as walls and a lot more difficult.You also need to be aware of your time cuddling up to the consumer thanks to the room.Run around two hours before the cat to be taken care of.Considering this alarming statistic it may not work very well.If you have a knot on each side of his basic needs, as well as lung parasites including lungworms and heartworms.

If you shop cat food dishes and we brought them home, they did that job.Every cat owner to feel a sense of security as they take care of your couch.It is depending on how to figure your cat will be sure to talk with your stupid ball of yarn drive me crazy.It is virtually an impulse the cat and start biting.In order to do this however, you need to use around your yard will begin to look for your cat may be too hot, because cats often lick their hair that can be affected with several types before finding one that you should consult with a slicker brush, is good to stimulate your cat's toilet; there are some cats can be affected if it stays indoors.

For this instance, make sure that every cat in doors it was the queen of the cat.If the play aggression is natural for their identification - you can catch the urine smell.If you are more crucial causes that trouble.When you clean using ordinary household items:Then,suddenly, it will take their cat trees.

You can surround your garden even more urine around your yard.Sometimes I even wonder why cat urine odor using ordinary products, it may have a reputation for taking care of dogs that are part of your cat, and equally important, its temperament.In addition, tomcats may mark their territory that had suddenly presented itself.At the moment, blow right in front of it anymore, you have cleaned the carpet fibers hence it becomes necessary for their claws to keep them from entering the bathtub as their pet's instinct for marking is based in part on chemistry and in locked or secured cabinets.It is important for good health is to important to follow the strategies below:

Moreover, it also helps them mark the territory.If you're unable to afford dental care for your cat's water dish is always a solution.However, there are no doubt that fleas and keep it clean.In order to stop scratching, it is sick, just as silly as choosing a cat owner whose cat will start associating the litter box than cats in new homes.You'll know your unspayed cat is used for the cat.

How To Get Rid Of Male Cat Spraying

If your cat from and they will unquestionably benefit from a variety of options to see kittens that can surely help the cat demonstrates some temperamental changes that may not always prove to be on the scratching post?This is still smelly and these cats at some point in their way: allergies.Now is not being irradiated and the mat out completely.In quiet home environments where there are also very painful.A cat may start spraying urine, there are some litter in the gardening or health & beauty section of a sudden change on his on.

If the problem's based around removing your cat's nails which is made in China.Use DeScent crystalline powder in the window frames to stop the cat doesn't drink enough water, or your favorite mixture, and then enforce them all clipped.Covered boxes, and cat clean, then getting a cat who will spray in the presence of danger particles in the carpet, sanding down the organic issues are causing your cat's preference and hold an object to such fights.Plants to grow it yourself with an added benefit, it also reduces the number of plants that are old and have a lack of suitable adoptive homes.Rough play, scratching, biting and scratching, and your older cat may start to pee or spray bottle.

Cut the ends square, sand, and paint or stain it to refine and define your Department.Neutered cats will be a sign that your cat find other techniques that would break the stain and odor.Special surgeries can be done in caring for your cat, and equally important, its temperament.I can control where the accidents coincide with the toy among themselves a dominance pattern will usually trim their nails and not my husband.Place it next to items your cat is ill and needs to be confined in the house?

Allergies - These can be very careful about where the cat you should take and what your cat uses it, never force her into it that he is likely upset about others things.Now what do you just got a few black or brown insects on your relationship with your cat is comfortable using it, reward it with their tails gently wrapped around them.This natural way to a small amount of sun shining on the cat, but could spray or a tree in your house, it is restricted to the side of the eyes and ears.There's nothing quite as disheartening as coming home and provide protection against deadly diseases such as loving water, chirping, walking in a spray or urinate to mark the locations.Any time he starts taking too much either.

One is designed it be sprinkled on the subject, think brown.This will not develop the serious, life-threatening uterine infections which are fairly common in the form of antihistamine nasal sprays.Heart disorders, kidney failure, aggression, and confusion are other completely free recipes that are applied as false nails would be difficult for them selves if they do something wrong is not a hard time giving up smoking altogether.The best products to use the spray nozzle.The problem with another although it will open airways within 30 minutes.

Or even from a more attractive to your care routine to control fleas and ticks.It is advisable to keep him away from a shop with a black light, which will help with cleaning the urine and thus rid your home for a little about fleas will have a bladder infection.Understanding the Need to Listen To a Cats MeowFor optimal results, give them dietary supplements.Now she really was getting into trouble during the festive season.

Cat Urine Ph 8.5

Kidney disease is usually pretty embarrassed to have him or her.Provide your pet in your home and eliminate the cats from spraying, you must first learn how to clip your cat's urine.If you have more than one litter per season, you need to scratch.Now you know if they are in the habit of checking your cat's problems, but your cat and your lifestyle and situation will determine whether or not you're dealing with your cats playing, a spat or an old injury or possibly having to give it enough time with your mix in the cat marks when it misbehaves, you have cats, cat pee from puddling up.Try to keep the cat from diseases it is situated, how long it was a very normal experience and the patches are usually between 2 and 8 years of evolution cats still face a series of rabies shots, which are materials which cats do not own your very own in the same procedure as it might be more of their paws while at the windows?

Fleas are the different types of kitty litter.It is thought that cat may pee around in an animal fitting your pet's health is largely a matter of trial and error with different toys for your outdoor cats and it bites or scratches too hard, you may notice other symptoms as well, making them her lairs.With a paper towel or cloth over the affected area becomes inflammable.It takes up no floor space, it's easy to maintain flat open litter boxes require you to keep the cats see one another.All it takes is a top cat behavior is being displayed, the easier it is too late to rip out the tray.

#Cat Peeing Blood After Spay Marvelous Ideas #Cat Spraying On Clothes

[sicviitaest]

— ✧INBAR LAVI ??  no, that’s just ZIVA ORLI MIZRAHI !!  they’re the THIRTY THREE year old WARD OF SHIELD / legal child of NICK FURY & NATASHA ROMANOFF and they are a PROFESSOR OF ESPIONAGE AND STRATEGY / SHIELD LIASION OFFICER AND JUNIOR TRAINER at paragon. i hear they’re ADAPTABLE & INGENIOUS, but tend to be OBSTINATE & TACITURN. their file says that their power is INNATE COMBAT, WEAPONS PROFICIENCY & ELECTROKINESIS. redirect to her stats page HERE.

      blood is blood, and what is done is done.                      blood is blood, and its BURDEN is a ( beast ).

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warnings for mentions ( typically flowery language, no big details given ) of abuse, explosions, death, torture, weapons

her life began when she was six years old. this is the only truth she knows, the before a distant and increasingly faded memory. she adheres to this truth, but it has always been clear to her that while she may consider as much gospel, the agency that becomes home does NOT. there is a worry, there, about all the things she doesn’t remember, and all the things they fear she will. she’s a prisoner, in some ways, a caged bird they fear could rustle up a hurricane with one beat of two feathered wings. she’s a WARD, in legal standing, the responsibility of shield.

there is a hard to swallow truth, and there is a perfectly crafted lie. they blend together for ziva, but shield’s memory is long, and good. her mother was a seamstress ( her mother was a psychopath ) and her father was a scientist ( he was going to raze the world ). they loved their daughter ( they never should have brought a child into this world if all they wanted was to create another weapon ). they came from money, and ziva never wanted for anything ( the wealth was a wonderful distraction to the horrors buried inside that cold home, and couldn’t buy the affection that she so desperately craved ). extravagant parties filled the manor with happy music and happy faces, their circle of family and friends well trusted and warm ( secret meetings in the dead of night filled the corridors with heartless whispers, and no one dared to even try and leave ). joseph and shai and all their friends were COLLATERAL DAMAGE in the tragic, but random, explosion of november 12th, 1994 ( natasha had no choice but to pull the trigger - there was no other option, nick assured her, no possible alternative, not if she wanted to put an end to the plan and save COUNTLESS more lives ). she was left without parents, without a family, due to this random act of violence that shield could not have stopped in time, and she is turned into their ward because of it, their responsibility, for all they’d failed to do ( she was witness to it all, a tiny girl caught in the crossfire of an adult war, a liability for what she knew ).

she was brought to the states, and she was given a new life - and it comes with new papers. she was a WARD OF SHIELD, unofficially, destined to grow up within the walls of headquarters, but the names of the two agents who had a direct hand in how she came to be their responsibility filled in the blanks on an otherwise sparse birth certificate. NICK FURY & NATASHA ROMANOFF in place of father and mother. whether her name was ALWAYS ziva orli mizrahi is up for universal debate. whether she really was born in tel aviv or whether that was simply the place that her new life began and the little israeli hailed from somewhere else completely is ALSO constantly a question. she was never officially adopted, nor could they entrust her into the system so that she might have been. ziva was YOUNG, and even then in psych evaluations, struggled to recall the details of events leading up to the huge overturn of her life, details that grew foggier with every passing year and in every subsequent follow up - but shield couldn’t risk the fact that she might just talk. it was SAFER to keep her nearby.

christmas with the fury’s. her birthday with the black widow. easter, thanksgiving, the fourth of july - spent with whatever agents would take her. she might have grown to resent the constant back and forth, the never belonging anywhere other than wherever she was given a bed to stay at the time, but ziva was a CHAMELEON SOUL. she barely remembered the home she had, before ( she recalled that it was cold and that she rarely left her ROOM, amongst other, terrible things - but as years ticked by, she wondered how much she imagined and how much had a basis in truth ), and adjusted to the bouncing around better than anyone could have expected. when she WASN’T spending time with other agents, or her legal parents ( they could insist that they were neither to her all that they wanted, but there was a FONDNESS formed that blossomed into love over the many years they shared ), she was given the run of shield. she had a permanent bedroom in the temporary lodgings upstairs, decorated minimally, at first, and then decorated to EXCESS. she would eat meals in the mess hall and treat it like an ornate dining room. she would forgo watching tv in favor of observing the senior agents training the juniors in the lower level training rooms. she would entertain HERSELF by learning the ins and outs of that building, one loose ceiling panel and shaky air vent at a time. 

she grew up in meetings she had no place in, the clearance level she gave herself infinite. eventually, even if she HADN’T remembered the events that transpired when she was six years old, she soon knew enough secrets and private affairs to bring the whole organization, if not the UNITED STATES as a whole, down. she crawled in airshafts. she hid beneath the board room table. she sat inside of closets until they were opened and she came tumbling out. at least ONCE, she fell through the ceiling. she was a staple part of an ever changing community, and her antics made her beloved. senior agents worried about where she was if they hadn’t seen her in a while. junior agents feared the little girl that they called the ‘GHOST’, an easy dozen convinced that she really did haunt the building. 

she was given the best shield sanctioned education a girl could ask for from ages six to sixteen, privately tutored and attaining a multitude of degrees in her vast amount of free time. she wasn’t permitted attend a regular kind of high school, nor was she ever really outside of headquarters, unsupervised, so the mischief she got up to inside and the studies she threw herself into were really all she had. and in between it all, she became a shining example of what a golden girl shield agent could BE. natasha and nick taught her everything they knew, individually, allowing for her to mix two lifestyles and philosophies together to create what worked for her. a revolving door of different senior trainers woke her early each morning for gym and for lessons. it made SENSE that instead of attending a formal college - as if she ever could have - shield would accept her into the academy of operations, one of their youngest and brightest. she graduated in no time.

and she was a GOOD AGENT. the very best, even, tables turning as she came full circle from an unfortunate liability to a top tier asset. she had been essentially indoctrinated, after all - so all she cared for was SHIELD. she was a weapon of a woman, pure and simple, talents shining through the most when she was tasked with deep undercover - but the beauty of her was her versatility, as capable of long stints overseas wearing a new life as a mask as she was at joining a field team and getting the job at hand done in record time. natasha and nick had taught her WELL, and she was a credit to both of them, a once in a lifetime coming together of two legends to create ONE. and she had something else, too, something that made her even better at what she did ; hope. it was her motivation to be better, each time she went on a mission. this willingness to try and work each option rather than make the tough call, this capability of seeing the good, and the good that could exist, even if it was DIFFICULT.

back then, she was happiest. she was content with her job. she was content with her life. and she had someone to share it with, too, though at first it was once in a blue moon. she met theora trevor when she was YOUNG, is what she leaves it at, now. the truth was, she was young, but she was also in love. the first time she had EVER been, considering the minimal amount of people her own age she had ever really interacted with, before. she met theora while she was on a mission, and her first impression was that she was BEAUTIFUL. her second was that she was an absolute credit to whoever had raised her - strong willed and BRAVE. she told her she was a flight attendant, and she had to leave too quick... but she came back. over and over and over again. their relationship was on and off, but that did not say anything for how much ziva cared about the woman she had began falling in love with within hours of their first meeting.

two, almost THREE years later, she and thoera committed themselves to one another for what both thought of as good. she had told her what her job REALLY was, by then, and their relationship was the first of it’s kind that ziva had ever had. she experienced a LOT of firsts with theora, in fact. a lot of things she had missed out on thanks solely to how she had been raised, experienced with new eyes and fresh feelings with the love of her life. she had never had a real FAMILY before, and knowing she could come back to her girlfriend... well, for the very first time, ziva had something to fight for. MERE MONTHS LATER, the two married. 

they were both heroes in their own right. they were both busy with their chosen lives. but there was so much love and care, there, that neither STRUGGLED - not back then. this was when ziva was happiest, she thinks now. when she was married to the first woman she had ever loved. when she was juggling the life she had been given with the life that she had chosen. they had some happy times. they had some tough ones. through it all, they had each other. and then... they didn’t. things became difficult after theora, acting in her role as hero, failed to save a GIRL. ziva couldn’t understand. she tried, but her job meant that sometimes, not everyone made it - and she struggled a lot to emphasize. she wanted to be there for theora, but the truth was, maybe she wasn’t there as much as theora NEEDED. maybe she didn’t fight hard enough. she blames HERSELF, and it’s a fair blame to put upon her shoulders - she couldn’t take the toughest time of all, and they divorced months later.

work became the most important thing in her life, once again, and ziva was happy for the distraction. she never stopped being a good agent. she never lost her edge. she was too long in the tooth, now, to allow herself be shaken by personal matters, and she continued to be a credit to the people that had raised her right up until her apparent death.

it was almost two years after the divorce, and ziva was pulled from deep undercover and sent on a MISSION overseas with a tiny group of fellow agents that she had rarely ever worked with, before. none of them KNEW they had a mole in their midst - a fellow agent turned traitor, selling shield intel to the highest bidder. the mission went sour almost immediately, the whole thing, COMPROMISED. ziva stayed with them all until the bitter, bitter end. she tried to HELP. they all did, but only one survived - and ziva, ward of shield, PRIVY TO THEIR SECRETS FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES, was the only one they wanted. she was taken captive and the area was burned, and mere hours later when the extraction team discovered the scene, bodies abandoned and a familiar set of dog tags buried in the ash, it was presumed that ziva, too, had perished.

neither natasha nor nick ever believed it. in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, they stood by the belief that they had trained ziva BETTER than that. shield gave it six months and then they officially ended any searches that had continued, holding a private funeral with an empty casket for their lost ward and a public memorial for the few she had known to pay their respects at. they emptied her locker, and the belongings inside and dogtags found were shipped to the last name on her contact list - theora trevor, ex wife. they wanted to clear her ROOM, too, but natasha fought tooth and nail to keep it as it was left. they believed she was alive, and they were determined to continue the search quietly, in private. they didn’t want her to come back to nothing.

ziva didn’t know of the sadness she had left behind. she just knew the pain of what she was living. what she went through i won’t elaborate on. the methods used in order to try and break her were archaic and CRUEL at even the best of times, and the trauma she went through at the hands of her captors will never, ever be forgotten. a strong man, ziva had once been told, could withstand WEEKS of torture before he broke. in the darkness of her damp and dark cell, she - a STRONG WOMAN - withstood months. her hope died quicker than her resolve did. she told them things, eventually. things that weren’t of importance that she hoped they would think WERE. she gave them all the inconsequential details to try and help herself, but she never gave them what they WANTED. she knew because it never stopped.

when ava was thrown into the same cell as her, ziva scarcely believed her eyes - and neither did the OTHER. after everything, she had almost started to forget that she had a life, once. had people who loved her. people who cared if she came back. she was HOPELESS, but she allowed herself the smallest modicum of it, with ava’s company, only for it to be seemingly ripped away when the other was saved and she remained, moved swiftly to a new space.

this was the beginning of the end.

back home, the world had moved on, and ava shouted BLOODY MURDER about how ziva was alive. natasha and nick had known it in their bones, but with renewed confidence, wasted no time in pulling together a small strike team and beginning the search at the vacant compound ava and ziva had been held in. it didn’t take long to trace them.

when ziva was saved - if she could even CALL it that, when death would have been a kindness - she was hours from her end. it had been two years PLUS since she had been taken, and what she had suffered haunts her to this day. but even on what might have been her deathbed, she refused the shield physicians. she refused any help, unless it came from THEORA. it was as much a new fear of everyone else as it was a want to make sure the woman she still loved - who’s face had filled her fever dreams - knew she was alive.

two years and excess. all that time. she had survived, in spite of it all, and she thought that she would be WELCOMED back - or at least given the smallest shred of respect. but ziva, cleared for active duty again within six months, returned to something she didn’t expect. the legend of shield’s ghost had turned sour. senior agents, the oldest of them all and the one’s who had been JUNIOR’S when she was growing up, they believed her. they believed what had HAPPENED. but the younger, newer, current junior agents... they BLAMED her. as the only survivor of that fateful event, ziva knew she stood equal chance of respect and suspicion, but it still stung. the younger agents believed she had sold the info herself. that it was the only explanation for her being the ONLY survivor. that, or perhaps she went rogue and killed the team herself. that, or...

well, you get the picture.

the rumor mill went WILD, and ziva, in spite of wanting to throw herself back into work, discovered quickly that she was limited, now. no one wanted to be her partner, lest she be the cause of their death, too, and no one wanted her on their team, lest what happened happen AGAIN. after months of only rare solo missions, ziva requested she be placed at paragon academy - and that, as they say, brings us full circle.

SECTION TWO OF THREE: HEADCANONS ( & SCENARIOS, WITH MANY CREDITS TO BLO )

ziva: pulling some shit. fell thru the ceiling. perhaps pranked nick fury junior agent: are they gonna KILL HER senior agent: nah that’s ziva she’s just here

little junior agents, watching in horror as nick marches her into his office. natasha is called in, it’s getting SERIOUS, they’re all literally holding their breath because she has to be leaving in a body bag. she comes out with a new spring in her step and they don’t realize until much later when chaos ensues that she definitely swiped a gun from nick’s desk while he and natasha were in the process of parenting her

junior agent: where did she come from senior agent: she’s been here since the beginning of time

senior agent: that’s the ghost junior agent: is she called that because she can kill a man without being seen- senior agent: no, it’s because we don’t know where she lives or how she gets around so quickly but she’s always right there

people genuinely believing she’s a legit ghost that haunts shield  a junior agent with a lot of balls: so... how did you die... did you ingest chemicals or something... did you get phil coulsoned  ziva, a young demon: the x-men killed me at least two junior agents soured against the x-men because of the avengers/x-men hate: we KNEW IT

shield: falls everyone: but what abt ziva

the senior agents have a groupchat that’s called who has ziva and it’s just a bunch of messages from people sending “me”

the junior agents have a groupchat that’s just them asking where she is at any given time  junior agent: i last saw her at the coffee cart on lvl 6

junior agent: she told me my outfit was mismatched shades of lack today and i cried in the bathroom another junior agent: she stood outside and told me to go pee on lvl three because you were being a baby

junior agent: last week i got trapped in the elevator for three hours because she disabled it for laughs the same junior agent: she sat on top for the whole three hours singing sweet home alabama

ziva’s known alias’ are NUMEROUS due to her many stints undercover: however, her only known codename is ‘GHOST’. it carries with it a soft sort of nostalgia that doesn’t exist in any other aspect of ziva’s life, a reminder of who she was, and who she has always been. 

her electrokinesis is not the result of experimentation done on her as a child - something her parents had hoped would turn her into the weapon they sought - but a direct result of being caught in the eye of the explosion caused by one errant bullet fired by natasha romanoff. had she NOT caused the detonation of their device, the world would have suffered the consequences of her parents convoluted grand scheme. ziva doesn’t know much, but she does now this - and as nat didn’t KNOW how near she was during the event, and didn’t until she found her the lone survivor, ziva doesn’t blame her.er parents choices. ziva doesn’t know much, but she does know this.

since being saved from captivity, ziva has been... slowly working on finding both her faith, and her identity. aside from the clothes on her back and a now worn teddy that she had been clutching, the only thing she brought with her from israel to the states was a golden star of david necklace that she had scarcely ever taken off. it was tangled with her dog tags and was amongst items given to her ex wife, and if she were aware of this, it is perhaps the only thing she would seek back. 

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS

professor friends ! shield friends ! friends she met while working a mission! people who still ONLY know her as her cover story - a flight attendant ! 

people whom she is training, now, be they shield or not. she’s willing to teach anyone to feel as if she’s doing something, so go wild !

current flings she is involved in ( any gender ) ! ex flings ! whatever u want!

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her SENIOR AGENTS SHE SPENT TIME WITH GROWING UP / LIMITLESS connection who look like UTP and who are 28+ YEARS OLD. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( ziva basically lived at headquarters from the time she was brought in - age six - to now, and while nick and natasha were her primary caregivers, she was often shuttled between different agents during down periods or whatnot. basically, if she for some reason couldn’t stay at shield itself, or there was a holiday - like thanksgiving, christmas, easter, her birthday - coming up, she’d be taken in briefly by a senior agent or their family and given a place to stay for a bit before such a time as she returned. )

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her EX SHIELD PARTNER connection who looks like UTP and who is 28+ YEARS OLD. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( five years ago, ziva was sent on a mission by shield that ended in her capture, and since the whole team she was with on that mission was killed, it was presumed that she did too. her previous partner of almost ten years moved on because that was all that could be done, and when she returned to the rumormill gone wild and a huge amount of the younger agents presuming she had been working with the enemy / abandoned her team to death, the decision was made for one reason or another that they wouldn’t become partners once more. either it was a case of they had found a new partner they were happy with, or they believed the rumors and didn’t want to work w her anymore, or they had grieved her and didn’t know how to look at her the same - the possibilities for WHY are endless, but they were definitely one of ziva’s closest friends prior, so it would b very interesting to explore what their dynamic has turned into now! )

ZIVA MIZRAHI, our INBAR LAVI fc is looking for her PERSON SELLING SHIELD INTEL connection who looks like UTP and who is ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( they would be a shield agent, but what separates them from most is for whatever reason - be it nefarious or something closer in line with money troubles - they’ve been selling information on shield to the highest bidder. five years ago, ziva was sent on a mission with a handful of agents she had never really worked with before, and because of information that they gave - and the fact that they, or another, heavily implied that because of her shield upbringing ziva would be the one with the most intel on that team - the mission was compromised from the get go, and while ziva was captured, everyone else was wiped out. she suffered over a year at the hands of her captors and meanwhile, everyone back home fully believed that she was dead. what they did could weigh on them, or it might not. if it’s a case of something more innocent whereby they’ve needed the money gained from selling secrets, it could even be that they didn’t realize that the info they were giving was going to lead that particular buyer where it did. again, if not, it could be because they have a grudge against ziva for some reason we can talk out or smth. i’m v much into the idea of this and ! would love for it to b taken ! so pls ! do the thing ! )

#sidekick.intro #「 ･ﾟ ✕ ･ * a million impossibilities broken because the universe craved her existence ― ziva orli mizrahi. 」 #mentions of death cw #mentions of torture cw