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star-ocean-peahen · 9 months

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After watching Cinderella (the original animated movie, which was my favorite as a child), it strikes me how it solves many common problems people have with this fairy tale. Like:

Why did they try to identify the mystery girl using her shoe size? Because the bullheaded king's only clue to her identity was the shoe the Grand Duke picked up off the steps.

Why didn't the prince recognize her by her face? Because his father wouldn't involve him in the process at all, and wasn't the one going around trying to find her.

Why did the prince want to marry a lady he only met that night? Because his father was going to force him to marry someone, and he genuinely liked this woman.

Why did Cinderella want to marry a man she only met that night? Because marriage was her best and most secure way to freedom. Fucked up, but you can't say it's unrealistic for the setting of a fairy tale. She also genuinely liked him.

If they're using the slipper to find her, wouldn't it be more sensible to search for the person with the other slipper? Yes. The King is purposefully nonsensical and the Duke is purposefully terrified enough of him to carry out his orders to the letter. Furthermore, they end up doing that in the end anyway, because the Duke's glass slipper is shattered, and Cinderella brings out the one she has to prove her identity.

Why didn't the stepmother and stepsisters recognize Cinderella at the ball? Because they were dancing too far away, and then left the party to dance in private, which was possible because the King wanted very badly for his son to hit it off with someone and tried to arrange the best conditions for that to happen.

Why didn't Cinderella save herself? Because in real life, abuse victims should not have to shoulder that responsibility, and usually can't. In real life, you need and deserve an external support system. Asking for help, in this kind of situation, is very important. She is saved by others because she is loved. Because she is not alone. Because she has friends who love her, and want her to be happy and safe and free. Because in real life, people who want to help someone who is suffering are like the mice. We can't pull out miracle solutions, but we can provide companionship and if we're in the right place at the right time, we can help the person find a better life.

Why didn't the fairy godmother save Cinderella from her abusive household, or try to help her sooner? Because she's magic, and magic can't solve your problems. Quote: "Like all dreams, well, I'm afraid it can't last forever." This (and Cinderella's dream of going to the ball) is a metaphor for pleasurable things in bad circumstances. An ice cream won't get rid of your depression, but it will provide you with momentary happiness to bolster you, as well as the reminder that happiness in general is still possible for you. Cinderella doesn't want to go to the ball so she can get away from her stepmother and stepsisters, or so she can meet someone to marry and leave with. She wants to go to the ball to remind herself that she can still have things she wants. That her desires matter. This is important because the movie does a very good job of illustrating Lady Tremaine's subtle abuse tactics, all of which invisibly press the message that Cinderella doesn't matter. While going to the ball and fulfilling her dreams may not be a victory in the material sense, it is still a victory against Lady Tremaine's efforts.

Why is Cinderella's choice to be kind and obedient framed as a good thing, when you are not obligated to be kind to your abuser? This one walks a very fine line, but I think the movie still makes it make sense. Lady Tremaine never acknowledges her cruelty. She always frames her punishments of Cinderella as Cinderella's fault. Cinderella is interrupting, Cinderella is shirking her duties, Cinderella is playing vicious practical jokes. Cinderella is still a member of the family, of course she can go to the ball, provided she meet these impossible conditions. Lady Tremaine's tactics are designed to make Cinderella feel like she must always be in the wrong and her stepmother must always be in the right. If Cinderella calls her stepmother out on her cruelty, or attempts to fight back, Lady Tremaine can frame that as Cinderella being ungrateful, cruel, broken, evil, etc. If Cinderella responds to her stepmother's cruelty defiantly (in the way she's justified to), she's not taking control out of Lady Tremaine's hands. Disobedience can be spun back into her stepmother's control. She wants Cinderella to be angry and sad and show how much she's hurting. So since Cinderella is adapting to her situation, she chooses to be kind. Not only because she naturally wants to be and it's part of her personality, but because it is a form of defiance in its own way, and it allows her to keep a reminder of her agency and value. Her choice to be kind is her chance to keep her own narrative alive: she is not obeying because her stepmother wants her to and she has to do what her stepmother does, but because she wants to. It's a small distinction, but one that makes all the difference in terms of keeping her hope and identity. (Fuck, I wrote a whole paragraph about how this doesn't mean you can't be angry at people who hurt you or that you need to be kind to deserve help, and then deleted it by accident. Uh. Try again.) Expressing anger and pain is an important part of regaining autonomy and healing. Although it is commendable to be kind while you are suffering, it is NOT required for you to get help or be worthy of help. If Cinderella's recovery was explored beyond "happily ever after" she would need to let herself be angry and sad to heal. Cinderella is not only kind because it comes naturally to her, but because it's her defense against the abuse she's suffering. Everyone's story and experiences are different, and one does not invalidate the other.

Bonus round for answers that aren't part of the movie:

Why didn't Cinderella run away? Where would she go? Genuinely, in hundreds-of-years-ago France, where would she go if she snuck out of the window with a change of clothes? With her step-family, she's miserable and abused, but she's fed, clothed, and in no danger of dying or being taken advantage of by anyone other than her stepmother and stepsisters. Even if she escapes and manages to find financial security, her stepmother might be able to find her and get her back.

Why didn't Cinderella burn the house down with them inside it/slit their throats in the night/poison their food/etc.? Because that's a revenge fantasy, and this story is a fantasy about being saved. There's nothing wrong with making Cinderella into a revenge fantasy. That's perfectly fine, as long as you acknowledge that the other type of fantasy is also a valid interpretation. (I mean, the original fairy tale features the stepsisters getting their feet mutilated and all three of them getting their eyes pecked out, so go for it.)

Why isn't Cinderella more proactive in general? Because she's a child who has been abused for the back half of her life, who has had to be focused on survival because. you know. she's an abused kid.

How did she dance in glass slippers? Gotta agree with you there man, that's weird.

#cinderella #cinderella (1950)#fairy tales

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catboybiologist · 7 months

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Hey, transfem who has only started to like her body about half a year ago here

As someone who takes a lot of pictures of themselves, do you have any resources/tips for angles or something that accentuates feminine features?

Also in regards to having a somewhat normal facial expression, like my eyes look so weird in every picture I take bc I don't know where to look

This response ended up WAY longer than I expected, and I think Imma add it to my pinned post- thanks for pushing me to talk about this! I don't think I'm really an expert here, but if people want to leave more advice in reblogs and comments, please do.

So when I say "I had two years of femboy experience before transferring to the related (and potentially overlapping) but separate field of trans womanhood" I'm only like... half joking. Selfie angles took a fucking wild amount of time for me to figure out, and guess what? The pictures I post are usually 1-3 in a set of about 20 that I take at any given time. I'm still unhappy with most pictures I take, you just gotta take a lot of them, and figure out for yourself.

That said, I think I have gotten a lot better over time. Behold, the first selfie I posted on reddit (warning for kinda cringe but I know y'all fuck with that):

(Damn, my thighs look good when I properly shave, gotta do that sometime)

(btw I'm 23 in this pic so feel free to simp if you so desire)

And another early one:

This was still selected from a bunch that were horrible, but you can really tell that my face is basically just covered in fabric entirely. My eyes look very dead in both. Compare that to:

^this one is still pre-transition, so don't blame the estrogen.

So what are my specific tips? Well, the classic "selfie angle" is from above. This angle certainly helps, but why? Personally I've found that its far less about angles are far more about lighting. Since most lighting is overhead, taking selfies from above means that you'll have a well lit face in those standard lighting conditions. Notice that in both the early selfies and the later one, the camera is actually positioned below my height level, and there's still a noticeable facial difference between them. The reason this is possible is good, forward lighting. Generally, you want a soft light source to be vaguely behind the camera, shining onto your face- but make sure its not too close, or too bright. This will ensure that harsh shadows don't artificially make your features look much different than they actually are.

Another thing that cannot be understated: DISTANCE between yourself and the camera, especially if you're using a phone camera. There are several reasons for this- notably, it'll help make the background be framed more pleasantly, as well as prevent the camera/phone itself from shadowing your face. But there's also a massive, insidious reason this happens- all phone cameras have some degree of fisheye to their lens to increase the field of view while still using compact optics. Multiple lens have helped a bit, but its still a problem on all of them. Higher end phones will algorithmically correct for this, but they also add a TON of other postprocessing "beautification" in ways that are sometimes completely invisible (insert entire rant here about how this is a deceptive marketing tactic to make a brands phone cameras seem better than they actually are). Sometimes, these edits are way off base. But I digress. The fisheye is killer because it takes any slightly more prominent feature and bulges them out, including the nose and chin. Conversely, recessed features, like eyes and the sides of your cheeks, are going to be less emphasized. Moving further away from the camera significantly reduces this. If you can get a small phone tripod and take selfies that way, it'll alleviate this. Unfortunately my living space is not large atm, and I have less motivation to bother my roommates in the common areas and use their hallways for picture taking, so this has been a little lacking in more recent selfies. It's also just a lot of work for a couple quick selfies, so its hard to do right- but it genuinely makes a world of difference.

Otherwise, my advice about eyes would be that your eyes show your overall facial expression, even if you're covering your mouth. Most of my pictures are taken while smiling slightly under the mask, and it shows in the eyes. If I want a scarier looking picture, I'm stone faced or deliberately make my entire face angrier, and you end up with the "glaring directly down the camera wanting to kill you" face. Referring to the pictures I just posted- the first two are both dead faced under the mask, whereas in the last one, I'm doing a smug, sultry smirk. The eyes then reflect that.

Don't focus on specifically trying to open your eyes wider. Change your facial expression and just let them be how they want to be in relation to that. Eye position should fully commit to looking straight into the camera, or be fully distracted with something else, imo (including the screen of your phone, if you're doing something like a mirror selfie). If you're taking a mirror selfie, look at the camera lens as it's reflected in the mirror. A HUGE takeaway is that cameras, especially phone cameras, straight up lie to you. They don't work the same way as the human eye, and have to compensate for that- but they'll never be a completely faithful representation of what you look like. Don't let your ego be affected by how you look in pictures, when all is said and done.

And of course, experiment, experiment, experiment! Figure out the lighting you can get in the space you have available, and the angles that work for you! Don't be afraid to delete selfies you don't like! Show off your style and your features in the way you want to! There are no rules for what's attractive, this is just what I do and you should develop your own style!

I guess I'll take this with both femboy and trans tags bc the selfies are pre-HRT

#trans #trans advice #transgender #selfie #selfie advice #femboy #femboy advice #femboy fashion #crossdressing tutorial

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tetsunabouquet · 1 year

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Miraculous KNB Headcanon

A/N: After finishing my first Hanamiya one-shot, this crack idea came to mind, forgive me! I've included every miraculous' power, for the ones who aren't a fan or quit watching before S4 (I don't blame you though). I will not actually pick users for the ladybug and cat miraculous, because with those two being the most important the leaders of the team would automaticallly be picked, and I feel like there shouldn't be an official leader.

Midorima

Which Miraculous? Snake, the miraculous that can reset anything, including an apocalypse. Why? Midorima is one of the best people to keep a secret, and would definitely be trustworthy with one of the most powerful miraculous' in the series. Costume? With Sass being a more turqouise green, and Midorima's shades of green, I'd imagine him picking a snake costume with various shades of green making up the scales of his suit, creating snake patterns. I don't see Midorima sporting a snake tail though. His eyes become green snake-eyes.

Akashi

Which Miraculous? - Bunny, the other miraculous of time that pretty much allows you to timetravel, even to the earliest point of human history but cannot to an apocalyptic reset like the Snake. Why? Because he's also a person that can keep secrets, and with all of the training he's been through for leadership he'd certainly handle responsibilities like this. Costume? I feel like he'll keep the white rabbit aesthetic including the bunny ears, but go for red undertones instead of blue ones. More like an albino rabbit then a normal white rabbit.

Kagami

Which Miraculous? Tiger, which gives the user superhuman speed, endurance, agility, stamina and strength. As well as making the user nearly invulnerable. Why? Alright, it's not just because his name. The more athletic the user, the better utilized right? Murasakibara isn't great outside of basketball, so I wouldn't see him as the best for a miraculous so well-suited for combat. Which leaves only Kise and Aomine on Kagami's level. Kise can copy, but he would need to learn how to fight beforehand so I would rather give it to someone who doesn't need to rely on others in the way he'd do in the beginning of his superhero career. That would leave Kagami and Aomine, and I think with the way the superheroes have to bounce between buildings, Kagami's skill for jumping would be a better asset to the skillset of the Tiger miraculous, compared to Aomine's agility which would only boost the Miraculous' already existing skillset. Costume? Red leather, dark red tiger stripes, which would fit Roarr's appearance perfectly. Kagami's probably the one who resembles his kwami the most with his costume. Includes a tail. He gains tiger eyes upon transformation.

Kuroko

Which Miraculous? Fox, which gives the user the power of illusion. Why? You're seriously going to question why the character who's best at magician tricks and is the king of sneak attacks would be getting illusion powers? Paired with his own invisibility, and his knowledge of his teammates he'd create very realistic illusions with no one catching a trace of the real Kuroko. After all, a common illusion tactic in battle is creating fake doubles. No one could do that better then the phantom 6th man. Costume? He'd go with an arctic fox theme, his suit being perfectly snow white with arctic blue undertones. I also see Kuroko having a tail and fox ears.

Koganei

Which Miraculous? Rooster, which gives you the ability to pick a superpower with its only limitation you cannot chose someone else's power. Why? The moment I thought of the rooster, I couldn't help but think of how Koganei is a jack of all trades. Something about that just makes me feel like he'll automatically adapt the quickest to whatever superpower he picks for the action. Costume? Koganei wouldn't want a cape or fake tail resembling wings and a chicken's behind. He's just going for a normal yellow costume, but with a hoodie that sports an orange comb like a rooster.

Momoi

Which Miraculous? Pig, which gives the user the ability to gift someone an image of their deepest desires in order to cheer them up. Why? Like with Kagami, I am not giving her this Miraculous because it fits her (due to both her and the Kwami being pink themed). We're talking about Momoi, who's storyline is literally about supporting her loved ones and trying to cheer them up. On top of that, the magical being that gives her power, the pig Kwami, has a huge fondness for cute things. He'd want Momoi as his user over the boys because of their lack of cute appeal anyways. Costume? Her pink hair would become two twintails that curl like a pig's tail and she'd wear a pink costume with her waist being white. Kind of like she wears a pink crop top with matching pants. She'll sport pig ears and a tail too.

Sakurai

Which Miraculous? Goat, which gives the user the ability to make any drawn object real. Why? Because Sakurai is the only one with some decent drawing skills. The world would be doomed if we'd have to depend on someone like Imayoshi's drawing skills. Costume? He'd go for an all black costume with white lining. I don't think he'd keep the goat tail, but he would have the black horns.

Mibuchi

Which Miraculous? Dog, which gives the user the ability to throw a magical ball at an object to transport it somewhere else (fetching an object). Why? We're talking about one of the best shooters in the series so his skills at throwing said magical ball would be superb, and I feel like he'd really get along with the dog kwami. Costume? I feel like he would go for a tail. He'll keep it at a simplistic yet elegant grey suit with white linings, no dog collar. I can see him sporting the dog ears though.

Aomine

Which Miraculous? Monkey, which gives the user the ability to summon an item. If thrown at the enemy, their special abilities will malfunction. Kind of a debuff effect. Why? For one, Aomine can throw something from any angle, which is in this case important. Secondly, something just feels right pairing him up with the monkey kwami. It would be a very interesting dynamic. Costume? I have a feeling, that because Japanese history is the only class that seems to interest him, that he might go for a superhero costume with a few Samurai outfit details, like an uwa-obi. I don't see Aomine being entirely against a fake tail instead of monkey ears.

Murasakibara

Which Miraculous? Ox, which leaves the user invulnerable to both physical and magical attacks. Why? The ox kwami favors those with great physical strength, and Murasakibara's strong imposing figure is pretty much the ideal. Costume? He will be wearing a normal black leather suit and will sport horns a few shades lighter then his hair color. No tail.

Kise

Which Miraculous? Horse, which gives the user the ability to telepeort to whatever they think of. Why? The moment I thought of it, the moment I realized the horse kwami and Kise are probably a match made in heaven. The horse kwami can definitely put Kise in his place if needed, but they're also a bit elititst and prefesr their users to be people of status. Kise as a basketball prodigy and model, is someone of status and I'm absolutely convinced Kise has dreams of travelling. Vacations together? Those two are gone before you know it. Costume? Whilst his bangs will remain, his hair will grow and he'll have them little pony braids in his luscious blonde mane. He will wear a slightly flashy but elegant dark brown superhero suit.

Kotaro

Which Miraculous? Dragon, which gives the user the power over lightning, water and wind. Why? Remember that Kotaro is known as The Lightning Beast. Also, Kotaro has a certain kind of adherence to ranks and formality which fits the dragon kwami's character. Costume? I think Kotaro will go for a very pale gold costume, that almost shines. As if a flash of light. He'll also have dragon horns.

Riko

Which Miraculous? Mouse, which gives the user the ability to multiply which can also use a second Miraculous per each clone. Why? Riko is pretty much the queen of mutli-tasking if you consider her workload. She can handle having multiple selves, if anything it would be beneficial to her. Costume? She'll go for a mousy brown costume, with a hood that has adorable big mouse ears as well as a tail.

Mayuzumi

Which Miraculous? Bee, which gives the power to paralyze the opponent. Why? With a power like this, the enemy will certainly try to avoid getting touched at all costs. So the user has to be a sneaky person. Mayuzumi is the next best thing to Kuroko at sneak attacks. Costume? Mayuzumi's hair will turn black upon transformation, and have black bee feelers sprouting out from his hair. He will wear a leather black costume, with his lower arms and legs sporting yellow-black stripes. Like a bee.

Hyuga

Which Miraculous? Peacock, which gives the user the ability to manifest their own emotions into an actual being, a Sentimonster. Why? This is a Miraculous that needs someone who's mature and using it with the right intentions. Sentimonsters can be actual living beings with emotions, making them recklessly is like birthing a lot of children irresponsibly but having the magical power to uncreate them. Hyuga is one of the few characters in the show that showcases they can be mature enough and can take care of things. Costume? Hyuga actually wears a surprisingly classy costume, as he goes for a tailcoat with the tail obviously being a peacock's feather tail with a suit in the same peacock blue colour underneath.

Kiyoshi

Which Miraculous? Turtle, which gives the user the ability to create a magical shield. Why? I don't need to remind everyone of the Kirisaki Daiichi match, right? It's obvious why. Costume? He'll go for a light greyish brown leather suit, think the colour of Galápagos tortoises. He'll wear a big, dark green shield on his back.

Imayoshi

Which Miraculous? Butterfly, which gives the user the ability to recruit ordinary humans as followers and give them super powers. Why? For one, Imayoshi is the only student we've ever seen involved with recruiting. Secondly, there's an telepathic connection between the user and the followers, and Imayoshi is known as practically a mindreader so I couldn't help it. Costume? He'll go for a silvery grey costume. Similar to Hyuga's, only in his case the tail coat resembles butterfly wings. He'll also have silvery grey butterfly feelers.

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piraticoctopus · 1 year

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Froslass headcanons

Alrighty, here’s a condensed version plus some folklore stuff. (The WIP long version goes into way more detail on certain things because I can't control myself. Hopefully I'll get around to posting it eventually.)

(Sorry about the formatting, but I couldn't get multi-level bullet points to work.)

Solitary-living, mostly nocturnal omnivore with meat as an important part of its diet; Diet shifts to almost fully meat-based during the coldest months; (I like to imagine that “souls”/“life energy” are separate from physical calories; since they can and do also eat actual food)

Tend to inhabit more forested areas, whereas Glalie prefer open habitats; This reduces resource competition between the two

Hunting method: manipulate prey by various means to lure them in, then incapacitate them by draining "life force", body heat, or directly freezing (or some combination)

Employ different tactics based on target, and thus have to be intelligent enough to learn from experience and observation; Some tactics might fall under aggressive mimicry

May alter the terrain to passively direct prey (for example, by making the route of easiest travel lead toward their dens; easiest route is where Froslass wants you to go)

Notable moves learned by level-up: Confuse Ray (since Gen IV), Captivate (from Gen V until its removal from the games in Gen VIII) (note: only works on opposite gender), Draining Kiss (since Gen VI), Will-o-Wisp (since Gen IV) (I just think this one's interesting for an Ice type)

Prey availability varies by proximity to human-inhabited areas; those living closer to humans have more room to be picky (better variety)

Humans (usually) know better than to fall for their tricks, but aren't off the table; Actual documented cases of humans killed by wild Froslass are few, but missing people are often attributed to them anyways

Teeth built for crunching frozen stuff (see wolverines as a real life example); Base Attack and Special Attack are equal, and it has access to Bite, Crunch, and Ice Fang through Snorunt; However, usually rely on Special moves

The way their mouths work means they'd either have to use the middle part of the "mask" like a weird beak, or would have to always bite off to one side or the other

Extra/unfinished food is frozen and kept for later, but will be arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way; They keep durable, non-edible remains to use as decorations

Collect non-food-related items of interest, too, such as rocks or man-made objects

Have an eye for finding beauty in the morbid and grotesque; Understanding of visual balance might make them good at things like flower arranging

Possibly possess some method for detecting thermal energy (heat) (This one is purely speculative and has no basis in canon); Seen in certain snakes and in vampire bats (only mammals to do this!); Physical mechanisms of how it works in animals might align nicely with Ice-type traits (requires heat-sensing organ and surrounding areas to maintain a cooler temperature); The diamond shape on its forehead could function as a heat pit??

Red possibly serves as an attractant of sorts?; Presence of a visually-obvious color is irrelevant if being seen by prey isn’t a bad thing (in fact, if you’re trying to bring prey to you, perhaps it's best if they DO notice you); This possibly conflicts with Snow Cloak? (unless they make themselves completely invisible to hide); Conclusion: 🤷‍♀️

I imagine that they sort of have a “torso”, but that at least the lower half of their body is hollow

Temperament generally calm, level-headed; Introverted but not inherently “shy”

Limited emotional displays and minimal outward expression; Hard to read

Face mostly obscured; Hand over mouth is a common pose, which hides it further

Capable of feeling emotion, just don’t tend to show it (there’s no need to do so if solitary, and doing so may even be detrimental)

Solitary traits impact their social behaviors: Generally bad at communicating, prefer to avoid conflict when possible, likely to stay quiet when upset

Cohabiting with others can be hit-or-miss; Will often simply maintain acquaintance-level relationships with others, apart from select individuals they decide they like; Do best when given time and space for themselves

Value self-sufficiency and tend not to seek help; Relationship with trainer may take some work because of this, especially if not caught as a Snorunt (requires patience)

Froslass would likely consider chilling in the same area as someone else while doing separate activities or just zoning out to be “bonding” (no judgment from me, because same)

Pain in the ass to do field research on, because they’re aware of observers and (like many Ghost-type Pokémon) find amusement in messing with equipment like trail cameras

Wild Froslass do not occur naturally in Hoenn

The not-headcanons-but-other-stuff:

Pokémon as a series is full of chances to explore the dangers of anthropomorphism and I could talk about it for ten years; Pokémon don't have human morals, yet some of them operate at a nearly-human level of intelligence, which is kind of terrifying to think about

Froslass is based on the yuki onna of Japanese folklore (see here for a good overview); It seems to largely be inspired by two varieties that make for an interesting combination: 1) The forest-dwelling, soul-sucking ones from Aomori/Niigata/Miyagi Prefectures, and 2) the version first written by Lafcadio Hearn [x], (this is the yuki onna story, and is the one where the yuki onna marries a human man)

Specific Pokédex entries seem to draw from other varieties, as well

If the Pokédex is taken at face value, Froslass is out here selectively hunting down physically attractive human men to take them home and eat their souls; This is exactly the image the devs have been going for this entire time, and no one can convince me otherwise

If the “Traces of a Lost Village” quest in Legends: Arceus is taken as true (and there’s no reason to believe otherwise), it implies that Froslass (or at least the one in question) is not only capable of physically disguising itself as human, but also imitating human speech and behaviors convincingly enough to pull off said disguise for years; I have seen no one talk about this particular detail despite all of the things it could do with such abilities, and it’s driving me crazy

To make that clear: the game devs of Legends: Arceus looked at Froslass, which has been stated more than once to prey on/victimize human men in some way (including in said game), and gave it the ability to convincingly disguise itself as a human woman; Combine this with the previous point about the Pokédex and Froslass is now an even more dangerous catfisher than it arguably already had the potential to be

#pokemon #froslass #pokemon headcanons #OP #long post

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detectiveconnor · 1 year

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How does your Connor feel about hugs? I'm sure it varies on who it is and in which verse, but... how do we feel about hugs? (I'm not planning on hugging him I'm just v curious because my personal human connor would shut down and my deviant connor would likely be.... generally uncomfortable, unless they were very close. he just doesn't get the appeal. which is hilarious because i love hugs irl lol)

Physical touch isn't a language Connor is fluent in, it's a language he's learning because of his experience of... being in love with Markus @jericholeader. It's a language that started out as an intentional touch of Markus' shoulder or arm when he saw him, of tilting his head and reaching for people when he sees they could... use it. There are changes in the Connor I write which stem from the people whom he's spent his time with, and that's one of them: for a long while the way Connor reached out and touched people had the same quality as some of the words Connor uses sometimes, where he turns a new phrase or tries out some colloquialism and you can almost hear the "quotation marks" around it because it's the first time he's said it. "So you went 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'." (He would not say this to a burns victim but it made me laugh, sorry Connor.)

Sometimes you can hear the quotation marks as he works to take up space he doesn't normally occupy, linguistically. That's the same deal with physical affection, sometimes when he produces physical affection or physical contact, especially when he's first starting out, you can ... feel? The quotation marks.

When it comes to language in general, understanding always comes before production, this is true for anybody learning any language in any form. Connor's very exact and particular with his wording and he listens hard for hidden meanings (this is, sidenote, one of the most common ways to make Connor dislike you: an embedded meaning that's some major blindspot, and he's the blindspot, and he is very used to being invisible/does not care if you see him, so unless it becomes relevant he won't bother correcting you). In terms of physical affection Connor is still learning how to accept it in different ways, there are forms of it that startle him and parts which are so sharp they border on painful and could have come across as alarming, there are forms of intimacy that Markus gives him which Connor really could have withdrawn hard because of, except that they happen slowly and naturally and warmly and instead of being yelled at in a foreign language he is being loved in the ways Markus has of loving him. Particularly read around the first indented part in this post for commentary on how Connor's... evolved to... understand what that means. Understand how it matters.

Far and away I think that Connor's first language was silence, he uses it so readily and so effectively and so much by default (and this does not begin to touch on the way being silent and erasing himself was a survival skill trained into him the way you might train a dog to behave while you're in the room, not at all to mention the way this instinct toward erasing himself - see q11 here - was a survival tactic to reach the outside of Cyberlife tower in the first place). He is conscious of how to make silence companionable, how to make it stretch, how to hold it. Oh, Connor is very good at holding space, if that's what's needed. He bridges the distance as much in silence as he does in calling bullshit when he sees it (in as much as he does, by offering the truth, and all the truth he is able to offer).

In any case, Connor is exceptionally good in showing up and making that distance between himself and someone else a little less, but there are ... increasingly there are moments where Connor has physically reached and brushed someone's hair out of their eyes, or touched their shoulder to steady them, or provided his presence in that way, and those are learned traits. Those are learned things that he has learnt to offer because it makes it easier to breathe sometimes, he is aware it makes it easier to breathe sometimes, and he does not intend to withhold that if he is able to provide it. He is not fluent, but he is learning.

All of this to say that there is increasingly an appreciation in Connor for the ways that people reach out to physically touch him, when they do, in positive ways (or vice versa). Largely Connor wasn't touched in a positive way pre-revolution and largely people still handle him with gloves post-revolution, they assume he isn't interested in physical contact and he doesn't request it. But, say, at the beginning of writing Connor there was a moment where Lt. Anderson was injured (badly) and he almost hugged Hank upon his waking, and then didn't, because I thought, he wouldn't. And if that were to happen again, he probably still wouldn't because they're manly men who are manly and male, but he would touch him, physically, when he says, I was scared.

The people who do touch him, and who do not act like he's going to explode (dangerous) or like he's going to break (fragile/naive), are some of his favourite people. Especially shouldering, elbowing, foot-stomping, especially! throwing things at him: he thinks it's all in good fun and he likes it a lot, he likes to be included. Hugs? He has accepted hugs from typically younger-model Androids, Androids who need someone steady to hold onto for a little while (people he's just helped to free from oppressive areas), colleagues whom he likes (and maybe Henry??? I don't remember if he's ever hugged connor, RIP), I also think he'd accept a hug from Jonah if Jonah ever wanted to hug him. This isn't even touching on Sumo's hugs. Oh my gosh and Nathan probably has hugged him sometime before to be obnoxious and Connor tolerated it, he's certainly not adverse to it.

It is not a sensation he is particularly accustomed to, but Connor is generally happy to be the recipient of physical affection, if it's offered his way. Madison kissed his cheek once and Connor was a little bit flattered. He is still learning to offer physical affection in return, or to offer it first, but he's a part of his community and likes to feel included in it, you know? There isn't an aversion for my Android!Connor, at least, and human!Connor I think has even less hesitation with it. He's - human!Connor's - not very touchy, but he would hug Hank if he were in a hospital bed. Human!Connor is freer than Android!Connor in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons, the most significant being that he never had to be an Android who was enslaved and constantly underestimated, erased, ignored, talked over, dismissed, demonised, or reduced.

And sometimes, from specific people (Hank, Markus, at this point, those are the two it's ever happened with), he does yearn for hugs. Especially to bookend traumatic experiences, that's one way he has learned to categorise something as "over", it is over if he is hugged. If he has time to stop for a hug. Sometimes he wants one quite a lot, and doesn't always have the words (actions) for it. It just isn't his native tongue.

#about connor #headcanon #thank you for asking!#tl;dr: nah he quite likes hugs but they do surprise him and it's not guaranteed he's going to reciprocate #you will have to give him a second #on the other hand: the post-credits hug with hank he responds to basically immediately

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mr880fan · 10 months

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How Traffickers Recruit Their Victims

Image credit to the original creator Whenever we picture what a trafficking situation involves, there's a stigma that it's done by strangers through kidnapping. That a young girl goes to a foreign country and gets taken. Hollywood and the media certainly give an interesting version of what human trafficking entails. However, these perceptions are untrue. Most cases of human trafficking don't involve kidnappings and aren't done by strangers. Traffickers use nefarious tactics that make their crimes untraceable to the ordinary human eye. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, and anyone can be a trafficker. Traffickers get their victims through manipulation. Instead of using violence, they use mind games. In the recruitment phase, traffickers rarely use violence to get a victim. There are a few main recruitment tactics when it comes to trafficking individuals for sexual exploitation or forced labor. Boyfriend This term is exactly how it sounds. A trafficker will appear as whatever that child or adult needs them to be: a friend, parent, girlfriend/boyfriend, or mentor. "Boyfriend" is how a trafficker gains that person's trust, by giving them whatever they need. Money, new clothes, constant attention, flattery, promises of a happy life, the list goes on. Traffickers always target people in vulnerable situations. Children in foster care, a woman who just escaped an abusive boyfriend, drug addicts, or homeless. It's like your vulnerability is an invisible target on your back that abusers and traffickers can find. An example comes from Stop Modern Day Slavery. An interviewee and survivor, Kimberly Blitz, shared how she met some man when she was 14 (after dealing with personal loss and moving to a new city), and that man eventually became her trafficker. Kimberly shared, "I thought things were great between us until our first fight where he ended up hitting me. I remember thinking how wrong it was but at the same time justifying it. The next day he showed up with flowers, crying about how he never meant to hurt me. And then he said the three words I was craving to hear: 'I love you.'" Boyfriend is probably the most common way traffickers recruit their victims. By using psychological and emotional abuse, it makes it seem impossible for their victim to leave, let alone tell their family or law enforcement. By pretending to care or show love, a trafficker gains power over their potential victim, because that person thinks they cannot live or survive without the trafficker. False Advertisements Traffickers will tell people or post online about some well-paying job, travels, or modeling/acting gigs. Traffickers ensure the advertisement looks legitimate, so there is no doubt surrounding your mind. People who are desperate for money or a job will view the advertisement and think it is legit, only to learn the hard way it was a lie. If it involves travels to another country, that person or persons involved will seize documents and essentially hold you captive, forcing you to do horrendous things. Such was the case for Jane Doe, in an article shared by Fight The New Drug. This Jane Doe would become another victim of the GirlsDoPorn organization. She was told that she was auditioning for a fitness modeling job. Instead, she was flown out to San Diego, where she was forced to sign a contract, fed drugs and alcohol, and forced to perform for a porn video. She was raped for six hours. Many other women experienced similar situations from GirlsDoPorn. The GirlsDoPorn founder was wanted by the FBI and was caught in Spain back in December. He is currently being charged with "sex trafficking, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments." Others involved in the company were caught and charged with sex trafficking. False advertisements are commonly used by traffickers. Familial trafficking This is exactly how it sounds. Many people think human trafficking happens between strangers, but in many cases, traffickers target someone they know personally. According to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, these are the statistics of people brought into trafficking by someone they knew in 2020: - 42% were brought into trafficking by a member of their own families. (Sex trafficking) - 39% were recruited via an intimate partner or a marriage proposition. (Sex trafficking) - 69% were recruited by a potential or current employer. (Forced labor) - 15% were recruited into trafficking by a member of their own family. (Forced labor) - 5% by an intimate partner or marriage proposition. (Forced labor) Polaris Project shares several stories (which you can read or watch) of survivors of familial trafficking. It's easier for traffickers to target someone they know since they already have that individual's trust and love, which they can manipulate against them. In the story of Sam, he explained the reason he never told anyone of his father trafficking him. "I loved him and I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to love me as unconditionally as I loved him. To get that, it was my job to do what Dad wanted me to do – and not to tell anyone. That was how I would have a father-son relationship." Conclusion Human trafficking doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not a black-or-white issue. As you can see, it's very easy to be manipulated by people who claim to have your best interests at heart. It's important to be aware of these recruitment tactics, so we can know how to recognize if this is happening and prevent it from happening to ourselves and our loved ones. Source link Read the full article

#how #interest #recruit #their #traffickers #uncategorized #victims

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tea-twords · 2 years

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Group #2 for Windtrace headcanons!

In this group: Arataki Itto, Barbara, Beidou, and Bennett

Arataki Itto

Oh boy

Ohhhh boy

He was introduced to windtrace through the Travelers, and really wanted to try it

He loves games like Hide and Seek, so he was super pumped for this

Sakoku decree is over yayyy

People can travel yayyy

I'm just trying to make some sort of sense for Inazumans in Mondstadt

His first game consisted of Aether, Lumine, Himself, and Thoma, with Him as the Hunter

He played several rounds with just about anyone he knows after that

He's a better Hunter than a Rebel, but doesn't mean he isn't naturally great at that too

As a Hunter, watch out

He will find you

And he will wreck you

He can scan the area pretty well, but his favorite and most used way to find a Rebel is to try making them laugh or make some kind of noise

That sounded a little spicy, these are not spicy headcanons

Common things he'll do is joke around, start trying to scare random things thinking it's a person, and of course tease whoever may be around

"BOO! Aw, guess that ones not you..how about HERE! Nope..."

"I'm gonna getcha~!"

"The tickle-oni's coming for youuu!"

You make even the slightest sound and he's fucking bolting straight at you

It's literally the scariest thing ever

He is Kazuha and Thoma's worst nightmare

Such a tickle monster when it comes to this

Rip Aether, Kazuha, Thoma, Gorou, and Yoimiya

He's caught almost everyone at least once before (Including Liyue people!) It's not uncommon for people from different regions to play together here

There's only one person he never and could never catch

And that is Sayu, literally a professional ninja who specializes in being sneaky

Damn this is getting long, I gotta talk about Rebel now

As a rebel, he always picks a good hiding spot and disguise

He's won countless games of hide and seek before, don't take this guy lightly

He used his power-ups to the best of his ability when trying to hide

Sometimes, if he knows he's about to get caught, at the last second he'll come out of his disguise and scare said Hunter by yelling "BAAH"

Still knowing he'll be caught

Yoimiya has fallen victim to this too many times

One time he even managed to get away from her after scaring her

He's just so good you know

He mainly loves playing with the travelers, and his Inazuman people (Ayaka, Thoma, Kazuha, Gorou, Yoimiya, and Sayu)

Lowkey likes playing with Kujou Sara and even Ei sometimes

He challenges Sara a lot as like a "rematch"

He usually loses, but he's definitely got a few wins against her

Akakshd I love this guy

Ok moving on

Barbara

She's not that great at it lmao

BUT she still loves it!

She's better as being a Rebel than a Hunter, because she dosen't have to do much

As a rebel, she usually pick a hiding spot in which would blend in with the setup around her

I feel like Barbara's the type of person to stay in one spot, and make some bold moves if the Hunter gets too close

Like if she knows the Hunter figured out where she is and is coming for her, she'd use the power-up where you go invisible for a few seconds to get away

It's worked a few times for her, but usually the Hunter can hear her giggling about it after she hides

Speaking of laughing, after she gets caught, she'd be non-stop giggling (even without tickling) because she's just having so much fun! Even if she did just lose lmao

As a Hunter, she's not completely awful, but she's not the best at it

She's trying her best though!

She isn't good at spotting movement very well, but she's got good ears

So a little like Itto, she'll try getting people to make a noise as her main tactic

Which includes teasing, if she knows the person well enough

Which she probably will, with her status and all of her fans, she may not feel comfortable playing with just anyone

So whoever she does play with, she's comfortable

And probably comfortable enough to tickle them once she finds them, if she manages to

Some people she loves playing with are Jean especially, Klee, Diona, Noelle, Bennett, Fischl, Sucrose, Amber, and Traveler!

But she loves playing with a lot of people

She really likes meeting and playing with people from different regions too!

She loves Xinyan and Yun Jin, exploring other types of music is fascinating!

Also because she loves their personalities too lol

She really likes Chongyun, Xingqiu, and Xiangling as well!

And of course Thoma, Ayaka, and Yoimiya when they came to see Mondstadt

Just let me have my crossovers

Out of everyone she's played with, the person she catches the most would be either Sucrose or Chongyun,

Probably Chongyun but who knows

She plays the most with Jean, however, because she's always working, and Barbara gets worried for her often

So what better way to destress than a game of hide and seek with your little sister and some of your friends?

Actually in the real world that's not very true but it is here so just go with it

In conclusion, Barbara isn't very good at windtrace but is super caring and still has a lot of fun!

Moving on!

Beidou

Beidou my second Queen (after Amber)

She's heard about Windtrace from whenever she sailed to Mondstadt for trading a few times, but never had the time to play

She does now

And she's a natural

A naturally skilled Rebel, and even better Hunter

When she went to Mondstadt, she happened to be giving Xiangling a lift as well as to get the trade stuff done, and figured she join her to play a few rounds

Beidou, Xiangling, and the Two Travelers played for a while, and both Beidou and Xiangling learned how skilled they were

Beidou's really good, she found out

As a Hunter, she's literally almost like a female version of Itto

I feel like she's such a big tickle monster when it comes to this

She definitely uses her senses when it comes to finding people, but often resorts to teasing them into laughing or making a sound

Just like Itto

Will wreck anyone she finds

Just like Itto

ESPECIALLY Traveler and Kazuha

Just like Itt-

Such a big sister figure to everyone

Just lik-

Lmao sorry

But yeah even Xiao likes playing with her

And may or may not see her as the kind of older sister figure she is to lots of people

Despite him being a couple thousand years older lmao

Everyone loves Beidou

As a rebel, she's also pretty good

Choosing her hiding spots and disguises very carefully, Beidou can be pretty tough to catch

Not saying it's impossible however

Shenhe's managed to catch her a few times

As well as Kazuha

And Ningguang

But she's still really good

Her favorite people to play with are:

There's a lot of people I can't list everyone by name

But probably the Liyue kids (Chongyun, Qiqi, Yun Jin,), Liyue Adults (Zhongli, Shenhe,) Liyue Adepti (Ganyu, Xiao) Liyue people in general, Kazuha ofc, Thoma, A whole lot of the Mondstadt people, Travelers,

I cant list everyone there's too many

She loves the game and loves a lot of people

Aghhh

She would be so fun to play with I can't stress this enough

I think that's everything about her, so next person!

Bennett

EAH

He has so much fun he loves it

His awful luck messes him up at times (a lot), but other than that he'd be pretty darn good!

Makes a better Hunter than a Rebel, mainly due to his luck giving away his position lmao

As a Hunter, he's definitely good at it

He's not the best, but he has his fair share of wins and loses

Not really the kind of person to tease, because honestly he'd probably just get himself flustered more than the Rebel lmao

He has tried it before, when playing a 1v1 round with Amber

They are two of the most ticklish people in Teyvat, so teasing makes them both flustered, but Amber manages to stay quieter

He tried teasing her by saying "When I catch you I'm gonna tickle you~" totally not something she's done to him before but it came out like:

"When I find you, I'm gonna t-ti-...tic...tckl you!"

Save him

Mf actually managed to get Amber giggling at him, not because of the actual teasing, but the sad attempt to

Even though she lost that round, she still finds it hilarious

As a rebel, he would be pretty good if not for his luck

Being a good strategist comes with being an adventurer, and he tries his best to put that to use

Sometimes as soon as the Hunter gets free something would fall on top of Bennett, make him say "ow", and he'll fall out of his disguise

The Hunter can hear him like "UHHH"

Sometimes if they're nice, (Eula, Razor, Aether, Diluc) they'll be like "You need a moment there?"

"U-uhh, yeah! Sorry-"

"Take your time"

I find that so fckn funny

But if the Hunter isn't so nice (Kaeya, Albedo, Lumine, Sucrose surprisingly)

They're gonna dash for him

And he is gonna get his shit wrecked

Maybe not Sucrose, but I feel like she def has it in her

Teasing works so well on him omfg

His face would get bright red and he would start verbally keysmashing

Hhh I love him so much

His favorite people to play with are Razor and Fischl, and they've played countless games together

He plays with the Dragonspine gang (shadows amidst snowstorms) sometimes too

He loves it

It's so fun

Okay I think that's all I can think of

#genshin impact #windtrace headcanons #arataki itto #barbara #beidou #bennett #AHHH I love doing these💞

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lambourngb · 3 years

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a skeleton of something more [2/6]

previously here. malex wip fic. a short serial leading up the premiere.

spoilers for the trailer and promo, will be instantly AU. If I’m going to the trouble of writing a malex fix-it for the season 3 opener, why not fix 2x13 too?

**** THEN ****

After Alex closed Tripp’s journal, he met Michael’s gaze across the table at the Crashdown.

His golden-brown eyes were heavy with pain, the reminder of how his mother’s story had ended was still fresh between them despite the span of months since the fiery end of Caulfield. What had resulted in being the fiery end of them, even though Alex hadn’t known it at the time. The look of sleeplessness in Michael’s face reminded Alex, that outside of this small piece of Nora, he had the weight of Maria still in the hospital recovering from the pathogen Flint had released. The press of the Deep Sky ring in his pocket warred with the hesitation to place one more burden on Michael, would the abacus of their fragile friendship balance out?

He flashed to that last argument in Michael’s bunker, a disaster of his own making, thinking he could believe in his father, but thankfully harm was averted at Crashcon. That recent memory was motive enough for Alex to decide. Whatever happened next, he needed Michael on the same page with him.

As Isobel moved to leave the table, explaining to Michael that she needed to check on Max, Alex held Michael’s gaze deliberately. Then he folded his fingers down, until the last three fanned out in a downward W.

“After what happened with Maria, maybe you should come with me, Michael. You can help me shake some sense into Max,” Alex heard, tuning back into Isobel’s voice. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, a crease of suspicion wrinkling her upturned nose, as she stopped on him. “It’ll be a good distraction.”

Without looking at Isobel, Michael’s eyes remained trained on Alex’s hand. “No, thanks, I’m good here. I’ve had my fill of stubborn ass people who don’t want to listen to sensible advice from me, so I’ll catch up with you later, Isobel.”

She made a dismissive huff but did not argue, leaving with the barest semblance of a polite goodbye to Alex, but that was typical Isobel Evans. Michael waited until his sister was on the other side of the door, before speaking quietly, his gaze finally moving up from Alex’s hands to his face. “I haven’t seen you flash that sign to me in years.”

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten it.”

“You, making the ‘wait for me, I want you now’ signal? Nah, that’s been burned into my brain over the years.” Michael said it with a faint trace of bitterness. “I guess news travels fast, Maria only dumped my ass this morning.”

Alex winced and looked down, swallowing the surprise and spark of hope that welled in his throat at that disclosure. It was better to concentrate on the unique talent he had of stepping on landmines around Michael, than wonder about what had happened with Maria. It looked like he was still good at causing harm without intention, judging by the stung bite in Michael’s voice. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-”

“No, I’m sorry,” Michael cut off his apology firmly with a wave of his hand, calling a time-out. Alex waited, his teeth pressed into his lower lip as Michael rubbed his eyes with a weary half-smile. “I’m being an asshole right now, and that’s not fair to take it out on you. It’s been a shitty day already, and — anyway, … you definitely know how to get my attention, Alex.” He tilted his head, self-deprecation on his face, “for better or worse, you’ve always been good at that.”

It had been the sign they had developed whenever their paths had crossed over the years while Alex had been on leave in Roswell, but it had started that summer after high school. After Michael’s hand had healed poorly from Jesse, the last three fingers had been left frozen in a claw, it had been a shared fuck-you to his dad to use it to form their own secret communication. A three-fingered W, turned upward meant it wasn’t a good time, and he would find Michael later; turned downward, well, that meant it was safe to approach him, and it had often ended in a hurried blowjob in his car. Perhaps he should have used more care in using it now, but Michael wasn’t the only one running on the fumes of insomnia and stress. “Sorry, I needed to talk to you, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave with Isobel-”

“It’s fine, really. It’s not a bad memory either, remembering that we had our little secret language.” Michael wiggled his fingers in reassurance, his left hand still wrapped with a bandanna. “I can make that signal a hell of a lot easier now, too. But anyway, what did you need?”

There was still a voice inside Alex’s head that said ‘you’, no matter how long it had been. He shoved that down deep, along with his curiosity about Maria, and concentrated on his purpose. “Your advice on something, and then if it’s not too much to ask, your help.”

“Anything.”

Alex blinked, nonplussed by the easy acceptance.

Michael gestured encouragingly, “seriously, anything, just tell me what’s going on because the way you’re hemming and hawing, it is freaking me out.” Suddenly, all expression washed out of Michael’s face as a horrible thought occurred to him. “Did you get deployed or something?”

“Not exactly, not how you’re thinking,” he winced at the earned glare from Michael as he continued to stall while the words still tripped and fumbled around his mouth, heedless to the mounting frustration between them both. He sighed, and regrouped. Pushing the closed journal aside, Alex dug into his pocket and laid the signet ring on the table before Michael. “Let me start at the beginning, I found this in my dad’s things.”

“Jesse never seemed like a jewelry kind of guy to me.” Michael picked up the ring, examining it closely with a sarcastic smirk. “Other than parading around town with that wedding ring, when everyone knows your mom left him back during the Bush years, Dubya that is.”

“My father is all, was all, about appearances.” Alex placed the photo of the group on the table, sliding it over to him. “That ring marked his membership in this paramilitary group called Deep Sky. Every man in that photo worked at Caulfield, at one time or another.” He tapped his finger over the face of his father, then moved it to the right. “That’s my dad, and that is Ricky Long.”

Michael frowned, pulling the picture closer to squint at the faces. “Wyatt’s dad?”

“No, Forrest’s.”

“Nazi guy? Seriously?” He rubbed at his chin, the stubble longer than usual painting his jawline. Alex dragged his eyes away with effort as Michael considered that information. There was a reluctant understanding in his eyes, having recalled that Forrest Long wasn’t just ‘Nazi Guy’ to Alex, but someone who had expressed interest in Alex. Personal interest. “I guess that’s something you guys have in common then, dirtbag dads.”

He didn’t look thrilled to admit that to Alex, but it was a mark of how far they had both come as friends that Michael had said it anyway regardless. It was kind of him. It was the same type of empathy Alex had extended toward Michael, when he had expressed interest in Maria. Cut open, bleeding under his skin from all the ways he had squandered his own chances, he had said something similar to Michael once upon a time. That was what love was all about. Then he had kept saying it, until he believed it most days because wanting Michael to be happy was the easier ask.

It was a gracious sentiment that was entirely wasted by Michael when it came to Forrest Long.

“It would be, uh, something to bond over, if I hadn’t noticed that Forrest wears the same ring now.”

Michael’s eyes sharpened. “Family heirloom or do you think he worked at Caulfield?”

“I don’t know, but he is an ex-Army vet.” Alex tapped the photo of the members gathered together, “That was part of what I’ve been looking into, identifying everyone who worked at Caulfield right until the end. As for Deep Sky, I don’t know if it’s military service, Caulfield, or a family legacy that ties every member together, I just know that Dad kept in touch with those who were involved at the prison.”

“Makes sense, Jesse was able to get a hold of the atomizer and pathogen that Charlie developed from somewhere. For all of his strutting around at Crashcon with a uniform on, that didn’t look like it was an official use of government property.”

“Right, it definitely wasn’t, and before you tell me to leave it alone-” Alex began, remembering Michael’s response to the investigation into 1947. He had considered Alex’s actions back then to be an act of futility, something that could only hurt by being revisited. The past being the past, unable to be altered.

This time Michael cut him off, “No, I was wrong about that. I, um, I finally realized that just because I don’t see you connected to that place or the rest of your family, doesn’t mean you don’t. And while I wish that you didn’t, Alex, if digging into this gives you some sort of peace over it, then do it.”

Alex looked down, feeling the weight of relief that Michael understood. After his father’s body had been removed, after the questions and lies had been spun, he had spent the entire night sleepless over having been made into an effective weapon to force Michael’s compliance. Helena had known where all the weak spots were thanks to Flint, and had armed herself with a depowering agent. Once Flint was recovered, there was nothing stopping him from employing a similar tactic in the future.

“If anyone’s going to destroy me, it might as well be you.” Michael had once declared with a bold carelessness that had infuriated and terrified Alex at the time, but that was nothing compared to now having a lived experience to back it up. His mind had easily used the memory of Maria’s collapse after the faintest exposure at the Crashcon and had exchanged her with Michael, being torn apart molecule by molecule, by an invisible threat.

Give him an enemy that he could see any day, especially one that bled.

“I’ve been fighting so long, I don’t know what peace looks like anymore.” Alex held out his hand for the ring, and Michael gently laid it in his palm, brushing his fingertips over Alex’s skin. A lifetime of controlling himself kept the reaction off his face as he rubbed his thumb over the raised emblem of Deep Sky. “But I have learned recently that when something seems too good to be true, it is.”

Neither of them mentioned Jesse and his performance from the last few months, but Michael frowned again, “Wait a second, you think Forrest targeted you on purpose?”

“A member of a secret paramilitary organization just happens to ask me out after I was involved in the destruction of Caulfield? You really think that’s a coincidence?” Alex raised his eyebrow skeptically at Michael, before looking out the window to watch the pedestrians on the street.

“I think you’re the hottest guy in Roswell, so I’m not surprised he asked you out.” Michael flushed a little when Alex turned back to stare at him in surprise over the flattering comment. “Seriously, you’re a catch, but I will agree, it’s not a good look that he’s got that ring. But maybe it’s crap he wears because of his dad, and he’s got no idea he’s parading around?”

“You’re being awfully generous.”

“Isn’t that what you want? Because last time I checked, you were the one telling me that I should have faith in people, even if they give me no reason to.” Michael flattened his hands on the table, drawing Alex’s attention to the bandanna on his hand again. That damn fight kept echoing between them to Alex’s dismay, but Michael didn’t let him linger over it, “While I stand by what I said about Jesse, ‘cause he messes us both up, all I know about Forrest Long is that he is way too interested in Nazi history and he has good taste in guys.” Michael wetted his lips, nervously to tack on, “I also know that I trust you, and your instincts, so if you say there’s something not right about him, then I believe you.”

“There’s something not right about him,” Alex repeated seriously.

“Then I believe you, so what do you need me to do?”

“He wants to get close to me for some reason, probably related to what I know about aliens, so I’m going to let him. And I need you to back me up in case something goes wrong, and maybe use that lock pick you have in your brain?” Alex waited until Michael nodded in agreement, feeling the swell of gratitude at his support. Anyone else would probably think he was being paranoid, or that this was a delayed reaction to his father trying to kill them, but Michael, for all of his previous counter-arguments, had never truly believed in the good of humanity. Maybe in a few days, Alex would feel guilty in relying on that. Maybe in a few days, his suspicions about Forrest would be eliminated.

“He’s involved in running the open mike night at the Wild Pony with Maria, so I thought maybe I could perform a song or something? He drives a Prius, and while he’s listening to me sing, you could slip out mid-song and insert this into the code reader of his car.”

On the table was a small device that mimicked a thumb drive, small and black. It was the type of technology that Alex had used in the Air Force, tracking terrorists abroad. It had taken a fair amount of searching to purchase the equivalent stateside to have on hand. Michael picked it up curiously, turning over his hands.

“It’s designed to download the GPS history of his car,” Alex explained, before rubbing the back of his head in thought. “That’s how I uncovered what my dad was up to, first by tracking his movements. If I let Forrest take me home, I can gain access to his laptop and phone.”

Michael furrowed his brow in concern, “You’re really willing to go that far? And what if he is involved in something shady, what then?”

“My father and brother both used me to get to you, there’s really nothing I wouldn’t do to keep that from happening again and if it means playing along with this guy, letting him lead me to the members of Deep Sky? Then I will.” If anything, his words only deepened the concern on Michael’s face, but Alex had been committed for a long time. Since the red level threat. Since the short ride to the recruitment office. Maybe as far back as his guitar going missing in the music room.

“I’ve slept with guys for worse reasons.”

CONTINUED HERE

#Malex #roswell new mexico #malex fic #alex goes undercover #not forrest long friendly #getting back together #Season 3 speculation

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slytherinnbitch · 3 years

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Day 18: Battle Axe

The first thing Harry notices when he enters the common room is Malfoy. It's always been that way, noticing the other or searching for them when they enter a certain classroom or the Great Hall.

But right now, even Ron stares at Malfoy in what could be classified as horror.

"Malfoy, what in Merlin's name is that thing?" Ron screeches before Harry can.

"A Battle Axe, of course," Malfoy says casually as if it's a very common thing to carry around a fucking battle axe around in the Eighth Year common room.

"Pray tell why you are sitting here examining one?" Harry asks as they come and stand infront of him. Ron then notices Hermione sitting in the chair infront of Malfoy, effectively making her almost invisible to anyone who enters.

"Oh I was actually on the process of telling Draco how Muggles used weapons in their wars because they didn't have any wands." Hermione explains. It's still weird to hear her call Malfoy by his given name. Not more weirder than both of them becoming friends though.

"But that still doesn't explain why he is holding one of the weapons. What? Were you giving him a demonstration?" Harry questions and frowns as he looks back and forth between the two of them.

"No, Potter. I merely summoned this beauty from the Manor. Hermione thinks that Muggles created these first and I'm telling her that they didn't."

"What do you mean they didnt?" Harry asks him and tilts his head.

"Before wands were created, and that was about two or even three thousand years ago. Weapons were what we used. Muggles got the idea from us, we used weapons not only to kill but also to channel our magic through it. Myth is that Battle Axe among a few others were thrown over hundreds of miles to kill the enemy. To create illusions and as such. Before proper spells were made and everything else. Ask Weasley if you don't believe me, he would know." And all three sets of eyes are upon him. Damn Malfoy for bringing up ancient history.

"Malfoy's right. Muggles stole our designs and ideas but couldn't do the same with our magic. We moved forward to wands and they, well they kept trying to replicate but came up with better weapons but not magic. All this was before the witch killings when Magical and Non Magical people lived together in harmony and knew about our community. All of that went downhill when the Muggles thought we 'refused' to share our magic." He looks at the three of them, Draco looks like he already knew all this, which is true of course. Harry and Hermione look surprised and super uncomfortable by the information.

"Why isn't all this taught in Ancient History?" Hermione demands.

"Because, Granger, everyone knows all this. All purebloods and halfbloods have been raised along these stories. It's not our fault that nobody thought about the Muggleborns." Malfoy's going to get hit any moment, Ron is sure of it by the expression Hermione is sporting.

But oh, Malfoy starts talking again, "Maybe we should do something about that. Maybe that's what we are lacking, education. Proper education on Wizarding Traditions and Customs. That is the main reason I still hate Muggleborns, not so much as before but still I resent the fact that they just come in our world, know nothing of it and don't even try. Maybe we should help them, that's it!" Malfoy's eyes lit up as if he just solved one of the bigger problems in his life.

Harry, who has been relatively quiet, stares at him for a moment before he blurts out, "Why do you always say things which make me want to kiss you so fucking bad?"

ATLAST!!!!!!, Ron shouts inside his mind and shares the look with Hermione. Malfoy, probably for the first time in his life looks dumbfounded. This moment should go down in history.

"Did you just-" Malfoy starts saying, at the same time Harry says, "Fuck, I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Ron says and pats Harry lightly on his shoulder.

"Well Potter, I always thought you were all talk. It seems you're just proving me right." Malfoy says and rolls his eyes. And that was a fucking wonderful tactic, although Ron isn't sure Harry got it.

"What?" Harry asks, bewildered. Yeah, he didn't get it at all.

Well, it's upon Ron now, isn't it? He leans in to whisper in Harry's ear, "Mate, that was permission to go for the kiss."

Harry makes a soft oh sound before he slowly leans forward and suddenly he sitting sideways in Malfoy's lap. Ron might have been okay with Harry and Malfoy dating but that doesn't mean he wants to see them doing that! He likes it as much as Harry likes watching him and Hermione.

Harry leans in slowly towards Malfoy's mouth and Ron can practically cut the tension with a knife, he doesn't want to witness this.

He just grabs Hermione and leaves them to it. They can come back later when the idiots are done doing their thing.

They meet Pansy and Blaise on the way out. "Oh hey, we were looking for you, where's Harry and Draco?" Pansy asks.

"Finally got their heads out of their arses and are in a heavy snog session which, trust us you wouldn't want to witness." Hermione answers and both of them whistle.

"Good for them, let's go study in the library then? I don't think those two would be free anytime soon." Blaise suggests and all of them start towards their destination.

Day 17: Love Languages || Day 19: Daddy

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yukisohmasmokesweed · 3 years

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I recently watched 1x10 for the pod and realized just how much of a peek-behind-the-curtain episode this is for Shigure. The episode does a great job breaking down Shigure’s motivations, agenda, and objective as well as exploring some of his morality and self-perception in a really subtle and nuanced way. I wanted to break down what exactly was said in the episode and what the subtext is showing us about who Shigure is and what he wants: an obsessive man who puts his selfish desires first, always, all while trapping himself deeply within the very curse that he is trying to break.

Motivation: The Dream

Each zodiac’s curse manifests in different ways. For example, Yuki experiences the curse through the lens of social isolation and self-blame, Kyo through familial rejection and projected blame, Hatori through resignation and grief, Ritsu through extreme guilt, etc. Shigure’s manifests as obsession.

This dream was something special to all of them, but it soured over time. The anime implies for Hatori that it was because of Kana,

but I believe that was the last straw in a haystack of crushing oppression for Hatori (see: having the ability to erase memories and being expected to carry out the task no matter who it hurts by the family as a whole, Akito, and his father, who also had this power). As for Ayame, he does not fit in with the Sohma’s traditionalism and conservatism and he never attempted to do so, and as an adult he has done everything he can to divorce himself from the Sohma image—going into a non-traditional and arguably taboo field of work, moving away from the estate, and keeping secrets from the family, even his own brother. Kureno is a special case and Ritsu was too young to remember this. For Shigure though, he became obsessed with this feeling, and because he didn’t have the bad experiences Hatori had growing up or chafe too hard against the family culture like Ayame, it became a life-long obsession that, over time, shifted from chasing that “feeling” to chasing Akito as an individual.

A note about the Dog: The Year of the Dog’s defining trait is loyalty, but they are also notably stubborn. This doesn’t speak to the authorial intent (Takaya added the zodiac aspect to the story late in the game, after their characters was set), but I also think that Shigure being the Dog is a great indicator as to why, out of everyone, Shigure’s curse manifests as obsession, and why he’s in love with Akito despite Akito’s treatment of him, the other zodiacs, and other people as a whole.

Agenda: Emotional manipulation

Shigure believes that the curse has weakened over time. The dragon was apparently not always a seahorse, which implies that the magic is weakening, and this is the first time in a long time where all of the zodiacs have been alive at the same time. Due to this as well as their closeness in age and the agitation present between Akito and the zodiacs, Shigure thinks that this is the curse’s last hurrah before breaking.

Shigure wants to speed up the process by exacerbating what he believes to be an already unraveling curse by turning the zodiacs against Akito, showing them that their lives have meaning and potential outside of the curse, and influencing them to start questioning the narrative around the curse as a whole as well as the ones around each of their individual zodiacs.

The curse’s most obvious effect is the physical one, but the emotional component is arguably much more significant. This is why Shigure is agitating the zodiac’s emotions. He often says things he knows will hurt them, but instead of hurling insults like Akito, what he says challenges the zodiac’s beliefs about themselves, one another, the curse, and Sohma family as a whole. He is aiming for their internal lives and beliefs in a way that makes his meddling seem almost invisible; he manipulates through influence instead of force, orchestrating it so that the zodiacs feel as if they have come to a new conclusion on their own. Here is how 1x10 shows us that tactic:

Shigure is trying to push Kyo into realizing that his feelings for Yuki are more influenced by the Sohmas than he thinks they are (implication of the word “duty,” that it’s not something Kyo chose for himself), and that if he takes a step back from the situation that he might see that him and Yuki have more in common than he thinks (”afraid of getting to know him”).

However, this doesn’t work, and it’s directly because Shigure has known who he is and what he wants since childhood. He has never had to struggle with his own personhood, identity, isolation, and blame the way that Kyo has—not to say that he hasn’t at all, but not to the extent of the Cat. Shigure logically knows why Kyo hates Yuki, but he can’t put himself in Kyo’s shoes because their experience with the curse are too different; Shigure fully embraced the curse, falling into obsession over it and making the choice to permanently attach himself to Akito, and that decision is rewarded for the most part. Kyo, on the other hand, has spent his entire life being rejected and ostracized by his family as well as being scapegoated for things he had no control over. Kyo’s issues with blame and isolation are not something that Shigure can empathize with, leading him to get frustrated with Kyo’s stubbornness and pushing Kyo too hard before he’s ready. All in all it’s not bad advice, but Kyo’s issues run extremely deep, and Shigure got impatient. This scene is Shigure messing up, indelicately going to the heart of the matter because his timeline of events is moving slower than he bargained for, and he accidentally shows his hand because of it.

Objective: Akito

Shigure’s objective is to be on equal terms with Akito and pursue a real relationship with them. The only way to do this is to break the curse, freeing Shigure from Akito’s power and taking Akito’s command over him away, as well as undermining the importance of the other zodiacs in Akito’s life.

The anime does a nice job portraying this to us subtextually by visually juxtaposing the relationships that are the main focus of this episode:

Tohru lowers herself to meet Kyo where he is, whereas Shigure positions himself physically above Akito. The former is a relationship built on equality and mutual trust, the latter one on an inherent and unavoidable power imbalance, resulting in jealousy, toxicity, and a constant struggle for power.

At first glance the shot of Shigure and Akito would imply that Shigure is the one with the power due to their positioning, but it is Akito who has the power. Akito doesn’t stand up to greet him, simply expecting Shigure to come to them and bend at the waist to accommodate their position. Shigure tries to assert his power here by being physically larger and looming, but Akito is so confident in theirs that they wordlessly watch as Shigure does the exact thing Akito wanted.

Morality: Always looking out for #1

Shigure’s goal is a selfish one, and he has leaned into that completely. He is gloatingly self-aware, which allows him to further his plans without any moral qualms in the way.

The inner circle of the Sohma family has a strong culture of pervasive cruelty. We see it over and over again—Kyo’s treatment by the people around him, Haru’s, Yuki’s, Hatori’s, Rin’s, etc etc. Cruelty is extremely normalized within the family, and you can see even in this fairly casual conversation that Shigure and Hatori take shots at one another (other scenes where this happens between them include 2x7, 2x25, off the top of my head). The line of what is deemed “acceptable” in a larger societal sense is much farther for the Sohma family, and this greatly influenced Shigure’s sense of morality and decency. He is intelligent enough to know that hurting others is wrong, but it’s what has been modeled for him his entire life and something he’s participated in before for various reasons. Hurting others is normal for him and of a small blip in his radar in the grand scheme of things.

Shigure’s morals are warped, but he is also extremely intelligent as well as in touch with his emotions. He is aware that if Tohru gets hurt that it will hurt him in turn, both because she is an outsider whose life he is playing with and because he can’t help but care about her (which is what makes her so good for his plans), but his end goal is overall more important to him than his or anyone else’s emotions in the moment.

Self-perception:

All the other zodiacs hold some level of resentment towards Akito and the curse, but Shigure doesn’t resent Akito. He resents the curse because it’s standing between him and a real relationship with Akito, but not Akito themselves. Since childhood, Shigure has been unapologetically obsessed with Akito, and the power of that obsession and the intensity of the bond has led Shigure to live a one-track life, disregarding the pain of people close to him to feed his own selfish desires, going so far as to willingly dirty Tohru, an outsider and a child, to enable his plans. The others live in misery that has been forced onto them; Shigure picked his poison and never plans on letting it go.

Conclusion: Shigure is a nasty little man

1x10 is an excellent look into Shigure’s inner life and ultimate goals. It very clearly shows us that he is motivated by a love that was initially the pure love of a child-turned-dark and desperate. His motivations are selfish, his actions hurtful and oftentimes callous, and his morality twisted by both the family culture and his own doing. This episode does an amazing job juxtaposing Shigure’s unique relationship with the curse against Kyo’s as two ends of the extreme: the former is trying to break the curse so he can have an individual, the latter desperate to be included in the curse so he can find acceptance from the group. Shigure is an underhanded character who very rarely says what he wants outright, but the subtext of this episode is full of great little moments to spell out what Shigure’s game is and how he plans on winning it.

#shigure sohma #fruits basket #fruits basket 2019 #fruits basket reboot #fruits basket meta #meta???#takes a huge bong rip

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walkerwords · 4 years

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“In Her Sights” F!Reader & Negan (Daryl x Reader Background)

Summary: You are a former special ops member. When Negan killed Glenn and Abraham you were on a run for weapons. When you learned of what happened, you were pissed, especially since Negan now had your husband, Daryl. When Negan comes for week one pick up, you are waiting for him, unseen and with demands.

Word Count: 2250

Warnings: cursing

Song I Wrote To: “Bloodlust” by The Phantoms

Note: some things are different, just go with it! :) Requests are welcome, go ahead and send prompts for everything TWD.

-------

The rumble of the trucks alerted the scouts on the edge of the perimeter.

Tobin immediately called in the arrival of the Saviors. You wasted no time in getting into position. Since you had arrived back in Alexandria and learned about Abraham and Glenn, the rage that you normally kept at bay boiled in your chest. Then Rick had told you about Daryl. You had destroyed half of your bedroom when hearing of that particular news.

The guilt was heavy in your heart. You were their wild card, the one that always kept them safe. You were the one who took out the snipers at Grady and even most of the Termites that threatened them when Carol attacked Terminus. It was your job to be invisible. You and Abraham were the two veterans of the group and while he took charge with war tactics, it was you, the former special-ops member, to take out their enemies unseen and show their true strength.

However, the night that Maggie was sick and needed to get to Hilltop, You were out on a run to a nearby Air Force base with Jesus. You needed a few extra trinkets to work on your weapons and incendiary devices. When you had returned home to the news, you swore you wouldn’t leave them undefended again.

You made your way to the vantage point in the trees. You and Sasha had managed to camouflage it perfectly with the help of Eugene and Carl. It was invisible unless you knew what you were looking for and it gave you the perfect view of the front gate and the hostiles that approached Alexandria. You readied your rifle, adjusting the silencer on it as well as the laser sight. Through your scope, you could see both sides of the wall. Rick and Aaron were waiting for your orders. Aaron on the ground and Rick hidden on the watch post. Two other weapons were at your side on the platform as well as three soaked sheets of Walker blood to detract the Dead from circling your hiding spot.

You trained your weapon on the approaching vehicles, counting the Saviors and gaining a perspective on their weaponry. While they may have more ammo, they didn’t know about you, and Rick was careful to keep it that way for as long as possible. The Saviors exited their trucks and readied their weapons as the boss finally made an appearance. You sneered as Negan strutted towards the gate. His leather jacket hugging his broad chest and his infamous baseball bat hitched onto his shoulder as if he was putting on a show.

“Little pig! Little pig! Let me in!” He bellowed and you switched on your laser sight. You aimed it right at Negan’s heart. Immediately, the man to his right pointed it out. The man with the pornstache, Rick called him Simon, pointed to his boss, taking a step back. Negan glanced down and anger filled his face. “What the shit!” he yelled.

“Aaron,” you said into your walkie and the gate slowly slid open. The Saviors all turned their weapons on Aaron who ignored them and walked towards Negan. He held out the walkie to the leader without saying a word. Negan stared at him, unmoving, so you raised the laser to right between his eyes. Simon grabbed the walkie and offered it to his boss, a warning look in his eyes. Negan snatched the radio and Aaron walked back inside the walls, shutting the large gate behind him. Aaron nodded to you and you then lowered your sight back onto the man’s sternum.

“What the fuck is this, Rick?” Negan said into the walkie.

“This isn’t Rick, asshole,” you said calmly into the radio. Negan looked around, trying to guess where the shooter was, but he would never find you. Even if he discerned where you were held up, you had activated traps around the tree. The Saviors would be blown sky high before they even got the chance to reach you.

“Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?” Negan asked, slipping back into his cocky performance.

“That’s not your concern,” you said, your teeth grinding together. “You know, we haven’t met, but I like to think we have something in common, Negan.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, gripping his bat harder.

“The whole ‘we are Negan’ bullshit. That’s how I work too. I’m everywhere you sick son of a bitch. The only reason you are still alive is because when you slaughtered my friends, I was out on a weapons run. If I had been in that RV, your first roadblock would be a pile of charred bones right now.”

“You’re real brave to threaten me, sweetheart,” he growled. “Why don’t you come on out and we can discuss this like grown-ups?”

“I prefer to keep my distance,” you responded.

“Sounds a bit cowardly to me,” Negan spat back.

“At least I didn’t kill an unarmed soldier and the husband of a pregnant woman who kneeled at your feet as she struggled to keep her unborn child alive,” you returned with as much venom as you could muster, feeling both Glenn and Abraham’s loss in your chest. Negan had gone quiet, looking at Simon.

“She was pregnant?” Negan finally asked.

“No, she just had a bad case of food poisoning. God if you were even still remotely human you would have asked what was wrong with her. Not that any of that matters now. Maggie is dead along with her son.” Negan hung his head slightly as he heard the news. You, of course, knew that Maggie was fine. The widow was now at Hilltop with Sasha and Enid as she finished her pregnancy. However, Negan didn’t need to know that. “Congratulations, asshole, you killed a pregnant woman.”

“What the hell do you want?” Negan fired back. “What game are you playing?”

“This isn’t a game, Negan, this is just how things are going to be from now on. I have some demands and you’re going to meet them or you die.”

“Again with the threats, darlin’,” he said, still searching the trees. It was silent for a moment. “Did you disappear on me?” You raised the laser sight to his throat.

“I know you have Daryl,” you said, your tone deadly calm.

“I do,” Negan said smugly. “What interest is he to you?” You watched as the man on his left, Dwight, you figured, glance back at one of the trucks. Even at this distance, you could see the unmistakable mop of hair of your husband.

“You’re going to release him,” you told him, “You are going to let him go and you will return both his vest and his crossbow or I start shooting.” Negan glanced around, nearly laughing amongst his Saviors as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Here’s a question for you mystery lady,” he said, taking a few steps towards the main gate. “Who is he to you and why shouldn’t I just put a bullet in his brain right now?” You flexed your hands around your weapons, trying to stay calm. Rick had warned you that Negan would try to get under your skin and that you needed to be careful. You were trained to control your emotions, but even you had to admit that this man knew how to get under people’s skin. It made you want to shoot him even more.

“If you even try to pull a gun on my husband, I will fill your body with so many holes that even your Walker body won’t be able to get up and walk again,” you threatened evenly. Negan nearly dropped the walkie at your words.

“Woah! Husband! Did you hear that, D? Your man Daryl has a goddamn woman to warm his bed!” Negan said to Dwight who was looking like a fidgeting weasel. “Well, shit, sweetheart, I didn’t know our Daryl was such a lucky man. Tell me, what it is that you find so fucking special about him? Cause if I’m being honest, he’s not much to look at, at least not since we’ve had him.” Negan sent a smile in your general direction, clearly enjoying all of this very much. However, you were tired of playing this back and forth shit.

“You have ten seconds to do what I asked or my rifle finds its first target,” you said.

“I have a better idea,” Negan said, “why don’t you take that rifle and shove it up your ass?”

“Fine,” you said and then quickly retrained your weapon, “Ten,” you counted and fired, shooting a Savior right between the eyes. The body dropped quickly. “Nine,” you shot another man. “Eight,” a woman to Negan’s left went down in a spray of blood. “Seven,” the man next to Dwight dropped.

“Stop!” Negan bellowed and your finger stalled on the trigger. Simon stared around in horror at the scene, seeing his four dead comrades creating pools of blood across the asphalt.

“Daryl. Now,” you repeated.

“Shit!” Negan cursed and then looked at Dwight. “Get him,” he ordered. Dwight wasted no time in running to the truck Daryl was being held in. You watched every move as Daryl stumbled out of the truck and besides a few bruises and cuts, he seemed to be in one piece. You would make sure Rosita took a look at the gunshot wound that must have still been bothering him. Dwight shoved Daryl towards the gate, past Negan who glared at him.

“And the vest,” you said into the walkie. Dwight shrugged out of the leather vest and shoved it into Daryl’s hands. Daryl approached Dwight, getting into his face. Leveling a stare that made the other man swallow hard. “I believe he wants his weapon,” you said, easily reading the body language of your husband. Dwight just stared back, being stubborn. Daryl took a few steps back and then raised his right hand hooking his fingers towards you. You adjusted your aim and shot at Dwight’s feet, causing him to jump a foot or so back.

“Dammit Dwight!” Negan yelled and Dwight grabbed the bow from the back of his truck and tossed it to Daryl who caught it easily. You then moved the laser sight towards Aaron and then back to Daryl and Aaron opened the gate. Daryl wasted no time in turning and walking back into his home, not even bothering to glance back at his captors.

“Great,” you said, “now, kindly fuck off because I still have six more bullets with Savior names on them.” Negan nearly crushed the radio in his hands.

“I’m going to kill you,” Negan promised.

“That’s funny,” you laughed, “my friend said the same thing to you.” You then turned to see Rick stand up and make himself known. Negan turned to the leader of Alexandria with a sneer. Rick stood on top of the gate like a king as he stared at the Saviors below. His hand was resting on his gun. Negan noticed that immediately. Rick smiled. “A friend recently made a visit to the Sanctuary while you were on the road,” you explained. “Don’t worry, Fat Joey is still alive, he’s just missin’ a few fingers.” Jesus had retrieved the colt only an hour before the convoy had arrived. It was just icing on the cake for your plan.

“Why don’t you just pull the trigger?” Negan said into the radio, but his eyes remained on Grimes.

“All in good time, Negan,” you said, recentering your crosshairs on him. “I want you to live for a little bit longer knowing that any point I can blow your brains out with a twitch of my finger. It makes me sleep better at night. So, you’re going to get back in your cars and leave Alexandria and if you come back, I will not only kill you, but everyone with you and then take them all back and let them loose on the Sanctuary and have your people fend for themselves. Do you understand?”

“We had a deal, dick!” Negan called up to Grimes, swinging Lucille around in his hand.

“She doesn’t make deals, Negan!” Rick called back. “Now go before I do kill you.” You didn’t wait for another witty comeback as you took aim and fired on another Savior.

“Six,” you said. Negan threw the walkie down on the ground and strutted back to his truck. You watched them leave, their vehicles disappearing down the road. You then turned the channel on your radio and called to Tobin and Carl who were on standby at the end of the drive. “You can release them now.”

————

A mile or so down, Tobin and Carl released two Walkers that stumbled out into the road.

As Negan’s convoy came across them, he slammed on the breaks. You and Rick had taken your time to perfect the art project. Both Walkers were male, dressed in biker boots, jeans, and leather jackets that they had found in the back of the closet of an empty house in Alexandria. Rick then had found two baseball bats and tied them to the Walkers’ hands. Letting them loose for Negan to see was Carl’s idea and you had loved it immediately.

Negan got out of the car much to Simon’s disapproval. He wasted no time in swinging Lucille and killing both of the Negan-Walkers. He smashed their heads until there was nothing left but red. He turned his face back towards Alexandria, roughly wiping the blood from his face. “I’m going to kill that bitch.”

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missmaxime · 3 years

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Thoughts on the Death flashbacks: Having rewatched the episode again I really do feel like these flashbacks are a lead-in to the end of Beth and Dean’s relationship. I think it’s important to note when the three flashbacks are placed in the episode: right before and or after we focus solely on Beth, like she is reminiscing these three moments in time with him. Times she has fond memories of for good reasons, but at the same time show us the cracks in their relationship that we still see now. What are these pivotal moments? - Beth meets Dean for the first time - Dean asks Beth to prom - Dean meets Beth in the hospital on Prom Night #1 Lead-in to this flashback is the moment just seconds before Beth meets Dean while he’s in jail. Everything between them is at an absolute low, there’s even physically a wall between them. I’m not surprised they counter their burned out relationship by the exact moment it once ignited. Beth tries to remind herself in this episode about the good moments, but I think it’s also very telling those are moment from the first months of when they met – and not, say, when they got their first apartment, or had their first baby, or got married. In the flashback Dean strikes up conversation with Beth while his buddies start a food fight at the diner (Dairy Queen) she works at – perhaps even with an ulterior motive of distracting her while they wreak havoc. He does so by asking for a refill for something ridiculous, because if you’re not Ikea who gives refills for ice cream? But he’s got her attention. And if that attention was genuinely geared towards wooing her he could even have gone the corny way of complimenting her eyes, or her bright smile – but he chooses to focus on the fact that she’s a cheerleader.

This gets interrupted by his friends getting into the food fight, and Beth calls out for him to say something to his friends. In answer he joins into the fight and runs off with said friends, leaving Beth to clean the mess. A little later he returns (and with this, he also doesn’t lose face with his friends) to charm her with an apology and helping her out to clean the mess him and his friends made. Which, as we know, has been a recurring theme between them way into the future. (Not to fangirl out to much about this, but I’m living for the fact that Dean calls her Elizabeth at first, but when she correct him to Beth he goes with that. While Rio called her Elizabeth from the start, and she never corrected him on that.) It’s not hard to see why Beth falls for Dean here, even if we can see the patterns because we know the Beth and Dean from decades later. He’s handsome, witty, popular, the quarterback – and he’s interested in her. Sees her. While he’s the one who made the mess, he cleans it up, telling her that ‘he’s got it’. Something he can do now with spilled food, but we know he can’t when messes become grown-up messes. After the flashback we’re back in the jail, looking at Beth’s reflection in the glass as she stares at herself before Dean takes place in front of her. He’s understandably hurt and upset her actions got him there (and even more because she admits Rio was a part of the scheme all along). Even her voicing a desperate ‘I love you’ doesn’t make him stay, he’s done with her. She says she’ll ‘Fix it’ like Dean promised her in the flashback, but he’s not having it. In the final shot we zoom out, framing Beth with darkness – counter to the flashback where we zoom in on her smiling face. #2 Leading up to the second flashback Phoebe questions Dean, and tries to bribe him with some packs of ramen to tempt him into selling out Beth. She talks about the cheerleader she used to be friends with in high school, and how she got tossed aside when the girl didn’t have any use for her anymore when her Fake ID got taken away. Phoebe talks about how the girl is like Beth, using people and tossing them aside when they’re tired of them – Dean knows very well that’s not Beth at all, not in the context of him at least. In the flashback Dean comes to Beth’s house, where we learn he’s been leaving her a lot of messages. This is 1991 so we’re on analog phone time, not giving Beth an opportunity to see some caller ID, so if she doesn’t want to talk to Dean I don’t feel like it’s weird that Annie answered the phone to hear who’s calling. Annie’s obviously not a fan of him, but we don’t know whether that is because they’ve had some sort of fight or whether she doesn’t like the idea of Beth having a boyfriend altogether. I think this flashback really shows how both Dean and Beth are people who are very image-focused people, albeit for different reasons. Dean arrives in a flashy red sportscar to enhance his popular quarterback persona, Beth chooses to have the conversation outside to shield the outside world from the dire situation on the inside. Again Dean focuses on how Beth is not there for him. He called her five times, but doesn’t ask if she has something going on, or if she’s studying hard for a test, or if any of her friends are in trouble. He states that ‘she hasn’t been to any of the games’ – HIS games, not even shifting it to ‘I didn’t see you with your squad’. It’s all about him. His ‘I thought we were cool?’ entices her to come up with an excuse, doubling down with a ‘I don’t want to be a dick’, even if he clearly already is. Annie steps out of the house, visibly sporting yet another injury (she had her arm in a cast in the 2x08 flashback) and asks Beth about their mom’s meds. Two things Dean could just ask about, even if it’s just a flippant ‘oh, is your mom sick?’ or ‘did that monster hurt herself?’ because both could be explanations on why Beth hasn’t called him back. Yet he ignores all this and goes back to making her feel bad by putting the blame on him, casually working in the ‘oh I was going to ask you to prom?’ in a way like don’t bother if you’re not interested. It’s so unromantic the way he drops this, yet Beth latches on immediately because it’s a chance to do some normal teen stuff for a change and who can blame her if her days are spend taking care of her mom, raising her sister, going to school in the day and working a job in the evening. It’s a tactic Dean keeps using on her as an adult. Scene that comes to mind is that Dean already packed his bag, admits that he cheated on Beth with Gayle, and she’s like - fine, maybe don’t leave. Back in the jail Beth waits for him, but Dean has left a clear message that he doesn’t want to see her. #3 First we watch the girls wait for Eric to get arrested, but we all know how disastrous that ends. Her plan to frame Dean’s friend for her wrongdoings falls through, she failed him. Which piles onto the guilt that Dean’s in jail in the first place. It’s then she searches her brain for a moment when he was there for her, when she truly started feeling that he was going to be her rock. Beth’s waiting in the hospital, she’s not panicked or worried, rather annoyed and tired like this is yet the millionth time she’s here because her mother needed her stomach pumped. We still don’t know for sure what’s going on with the mom, but from 2x08 we know she spends lots of time laying in bed and needs meds, the stomach pumping indicates overuse of a drug (most common alcohol) – I’m leaning to depression combined with substance abuse – but we don’t know for sure. We also learn that the dad is not in the picture, or no one to rely on in the very least. It’s just Beth and Annie. Dean bribed Annie to tell him where Beth is – it’s prom night and he came to pick her up to go to the dance. Now there’s more than one way to read this scene. The first way is that Dean is genuinely concerned about this whole ordeal and he wants to be there for Beth, which is definitely the way young Beth must read into this. Another part of me thinks there’s some self-interest from Dean mixed in as well. If he didn’t go to Beth, he’d go to the prom, dateless – embarrassing for our quarterback star. But helping out your girlfriend with her sick mom is a great excuse to avoid that situation. We know how upset Dean got about being wifeless at the Spa Competition, Beth’s an asset to his image, her not being there breaks his image down. And I’m not saying he’s not interested in her, but from all the conversations we’ve seen them have in the flashbacks none of it really revolves around how Beth is doing. From the start their relationship has been around transactions. Image, deeds, quid pro quo. Even if you can read the ‘do you want anything from the vending machine?’ and the ‘your sister took all my money’ as something fun, it’s yet another reminder that he paid for her time. That she owes him, even if she really appreciates him being there for her. Back to Beth in the car with Eric and the girls, where our girl looks more than unhappy. Like Dean paid Annie to see her, she’s paying Eric to see Dean. Granted the stakes are immensely higher, but the juvenile situation carries on into the presence. While Eric comes up with even more terrible plans Beth’s getting increasingly emotional – which still could be interpreted many ways but I think she realizes that the normal from back then, the happiness Dean provided to her, it’s never coming back – plans executed correctly or not. Dean might still be that guy, but she’s not that girl anymore. Eric talks about how he’s invisible, and how that changed when Dean became his colleague. How beforehand no one saw him as him, but Dean made him feel like he was part of the work crew, called him by his name – it made him feel seen, made him feel like a real person. And that’s of course exactly what young Beth was feeling – she didn’t feel like a real person because no one saw her as Beth the teenage girl. She’s a caretaker for her mom, a mother figure to Annie – a cheerleader to Dean. But in the memory she can recognize that he made her feel like a real person. Eric proposes that ‘They don’t make ‘em like Dean Boland anymore’. And they don’t for him. But Beth also knows that the feeling wears off, that at some point Dean Boland won’t like you anymore when you don’t play the part he signed on for. Eric’s giving up everything to be a loyal friend, like Beth has for over two decades to be his loyal wife. And while she’s technically still his wife, she’s not loyal like she used to be – not financially, physically or emotionally. She doesn’t need Dean anymore to make her feel like a real person. She’s her own real person. --- Beth comes home to Fitzpatrick lounging in her kitchen like he belongs there, helping himself to a cup of tea. Our girl is already on edge what with the father of her kids possibly spending years behind bars, her plans miserably failing, and now this douche want even more of her time. She’s done playing a part to get what she needs, so she goes right to the point. Fitz touches on that she wants more out of her life, which is true. Unfortunately for him Beth has come to the point that no man – not like Dean did in the flashbacks – will do that for her anymore. She’s the one steering the ship, not some guy anymore. But while all these flashbacks Beth is experiencing might put some things in a different light to her, it doesn’t scrub away what Dean made her feel. Because he is the father of her kids, they are what will forever link them together, the connection they both care about deeply regardless of whatever troubled feelings they have towards each other. She might not be a true wife to him anymore, but they are parents to the same children. Her dad wasn’t there for her, but there’s no reason why Dean can’t be there for his kids. ---- So all in all I actually really liked seeing the flashbacks, especially because we experience them through Beth, and how they parallel with the now. In the final scene we see Phoebe looking at the perfect Boland family picture, the perfect image that they both crafted together. But hidden on the backside are the lies and the deceit, yet also Beth telling Dean how to take care of said family. Because she knows she can’t trust him to take care of it, unlike when they were teens and when she’d like to believe he could. Their real personas are on the table, and they don’t like each other anymore, can’t trust each other anymore. To me the final scenes read like the only thing they can still be: parents. I have no doubt they both love their kids, and those four humans will always bind them together, regardless of their relationship status. Beth is giving Dean the only genuine thing she can: her trust as a mutual parent, and the opportunity to enjoy the love of their kids. But it’s laced with melancholy, this is what’s left in the ruins, these four good things. Everything else is gone, and I think they both realize this.

#gg spoilers #4x03 #nbc good girls #meta #analysis #am i avoiding work #maybe?#beth x dean #also please end this torture #they both deserve better #or different in the very least #the fire has burned out

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braindeacl · 3 years

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Tidepool Glow | Eilidh & Adam

SETTING: Shrimp Hell. TIMING: Current. PARTIES: @walker-journal & @braindeacl SUMMARY: A hunter, a zombie, and a horde of shrimp demons from the depths of hell walk into a bar. WARNINGS: N/A

Adam drove the silver spear down again into a chink in the demon’s armored shell. The enormous pinned shrimp flailed, trying to reach the Hunter with its clays. The mouth of the creature's unnervingly human face opened far too wide as a long shrimpfish rostrum jutted out from its wailing throat. The spear-like protrusion retracted and shot out again as the demon tried to impale its attacker. But the Adam’s just twisted the spear, using his everage on the downed prey to keep out of the stabbing range of its horn. Eventually the thing’s spasms subsided and its paranormal signature winked out from the Hunter’s mind.

Adam knelt and whipped his spear off in one of the biolomunent tide-pools that seemed to extend endlessly in all directions. The ground seemed to be composed of colorful corals and shell-like structures that formed reefs the height of vividly hued mountain ranges in the far distance. The air was moist and thick with mist that occasionally glowed with the same bioluminescence of the tidepools. This luminous sea mist extended up into the sky, forming entire constellations of numinous flows and algae tides in the place of stars. Adam hadn’t witnessed any sun or day here yet, but the native life here gave off so much light that he had no trouble finding his way.

Adam felt a prickle of something paranormal of one of the reef hills, something much more intense than the general vibes that all this alien algae gave off. Thinking yet another of those people-faced shrimp were approaching, Adam readied his spear and sprinted up the ridge, boots crunching on weirdly colored muscles and polyps as he crested the coral hill and…

“Woah uh...sorry uh,” Adam said to the stranger below, pausing mid-motion of raising a silver-tipped metal spear over his head. “Hi I thought you were more shrimp…”

Eilidh had fallen. A curious peak turned disastrous, those swirling lights overwhelming. Beating against her temples. Balance lost, down she went. Opening her eyes, she was met with new light. Not the harsh type from the gateway—this was breathtaking. Where her body touched the water that seemed never ending, a glow was found. Outlining her form. Hugged by luminescence, and just as comforting. Fingers played against the watery surface—that same glow twinkled in the movement. She laughed, delighted. How wonderful! But when her eyes looked up to take in more of this new place, that laughter turned into a fascinated cooing. Shrimp! Shrimp? So much shrimp. They fell from the sky. They crawled around on the ground. At least, she thought they were shrimp. But they were far too large. And when they looked at her—something human looked back. The ones who met her gaze started to approach. Others were drawn by the sound of her laughter. Wonder was still clear on her face, but as the steadily growing swarm got closer, their speed increased in tune with their amount. With no signs of stopping on either accounts. She sighed. “Can’t ever be fucking simple.” She hopped onto her feet, brandishing a blade in each hand. Her teeth snapped together. Click.

Run. Slash. Run. Slash. A trail of death lay in the echo of Eilidh’s path. All the same, those shrimps remained in pursuit, dedication for her death never slipping, despite the death of their own. Reasoning through words or actions or fear would not work. This would be a long, long day. Or days if she wasn’t careful. She looked for that doorway back, but her searching gaze only found mist and more shrimp. As the blind scurry took her all over, a third option was found. Corals broke out from the water—misshaped and colorful hills surrounded by glowing valleys. Larger than would be expected. It was like everything here was too big to be contained in just this world. Finding a relatively flat-topped structure, she scurried up the rough texture. A shrimp was close behind, but it was met with a swift kick in the face. “Fuck off!” Another took its place, which was soon afflicted with a gash in its throat.

It was almost missed. Those sounds of a secondary fight. It blended well with her own, but as the wails and the gushes got closer, Eilidh realized they weren’t attuned to her own actions. She whipped her head behind, expecting to find another unfortunate soul. A flash of silver stole her attention. The weapon was cocked for a strike, unmistakably directed at her. She readied her own blades. A growl erupted from her throat. But his motion was quickly corrected, and they both gawked at each other. “…Was it all the pink?” She motioned to her attire: pink floral shirt with a skirt of a different shade of pink. Both covered in patches of a third, unintended pink: shrimp gut stains. “Who’re you?”

Eilidh eyed the kid: up and down, up again. The way he held that spear. Deadly weapon decorated with the remains of the slain. Clearly experienced. She kept her hold on each dagger tight. Her stare was finally broken, eyes darting to the side, then back to him. “Behind you.” Taking advantage of their distracted state, a shrimp creeped up from behind the other.

“I’m Adam Walker, a citizen from White Crest, Maine in the country of the United States of America on the planet Earth,” explained the young man in tactical gear, as if he fully expected to be potentially introducing himself to extraterrestrials and hadn’t yet ruled out the possibility that this pink frocked stranger was visiting from the andromeda galaxy.

A flicker of icy heat in his subconscious and Pink Alien’s warning gave Adam enough warning to drop down into a crouch on the coral’s damp coarse surface. A needle-sharp shrimp horn sliced into thin air where the Hunter had been a second before.

Adam rolled backward on the corals, wincing a bit as their sharp edges did a number on his neck. He drove the silver spear up into the less heavily armored underbelly of the shrimp- thing. The Hunter slowly stood, muscles taut as he applied leverage with mutant strength.The impaled crustacean flailed, spindly legs and swimmerets thrashing around the spear as Adam rose forced it onto it’s back.. Adam stepped onto the shrimp’s tail with a crunch. With merciless methodicalness Adam drove the spear farther and farther up the shrimps insides until frantic convulsions subsided into stillness.

“Hey thanks for the heads up. So why are you here in Shrimptopia?”

He was from White Crest. Of course. Only someone from there would casually be dressed head-to-toe as if the end times were nigh. Or purposefully jump into a giant, glowing vortex that led to worlds unknown. Which… Eilidh would kind of—mostly—be guilty of. She watched the ensuing carnage from below. Assessing this new acquaintance. Only a fragment of the skirmish was visible from her viewpoint, corals framing the blood-soaked picture. Attention divided between the battle up above and her own. A new opponent emerged, shrimp daring to cross the invisible threshold. Her foot found its way on its face, and its legs found themselves into her own. It smiled under her shoe. Without a wince, she just pushed forward, plunging a dagger into the creature’s blue eye. It almost relented, legs losing grip. With the twiiiiist of her blade, the claws slipped out, and it tumbled down the course surface—taking one more with it. Her skirt possessed new tears. Her leg gained new gashes. Click, click, click went her canines, with a ferocity and velocity not seen in humans. But no matter what, the shrimps just kept coming. And coming. And coming. And with each strike upon her body, she felt more alive.

After slaying his own adversary, Adam spoke, and Eilidh’s attention shifted more his way. “You can call me Macleod. From not here.” Within the moment of brief tranquility, she continued their previous exchange. “And I could ask you the same thing, tough guy. Fell through a glowing door, too? In Nordica Theater?” She turned briefly to the seemingly unending horizon. Tongue licked her blade, burst of endorphins coursing through as pink flesh fell down her throat. She readied her hand again. “Know how to get outta here?”

“Heya Mac,” Adam said, wiping shrimp organ juice off the spear. “Not fell exactly,” he admitted. “I’m tryin to find a way to close these rifts so White Crest doesn’t collapse into a hellmouth,” the Hunter claimed with a tone that suggested this was a common architectural failing. “So I jumped into Bubba Gump planet here to take a look.”

At Macleod’s question Adam pointed his silver spear across the delta plain of bioluminescent tide pools. The direction of the spear’s tip indicated what appeared to be a volcanic caldera, except its slopes consisted entirely of vivid coral. “In that coral bowl thing in a glowy lake, and inside the glowy lake is a giant hell crab-cockroach thing, and inside the giant hell crabroach thing is a portal.

Adam turned back to Mac. “So we’ll need the Mega-crabroach to eat us. Which is a rough time because the coral bowl has pistol shrimp guys who can.” The mighty Hunter clapped his hands in pincer motions in Macleod’s direction while making ‘pew pew’ sounds, perhaps to indicate this subspecies of Shrimp Demon had the ability of terrestrial pistol shrimp fire sonic blasts from their claws.

Collapse into a hellmouth. Not exactly the words Eilidh would’ve used, but the fact that Adam mentioned it so casually, so factually, as if it wasn’t a doubt in his mind. It didn’t bode well. That had been a possibility, a dreadful conclusion that sprung into her mind during her running abouts. But it had just been a possibility. Until now. Still a chance remained that he too was wrong, and the search to decipher this puzzle wasn’t so urgent. But if not, she hoped to be outside the limits. It would be one hell of a show. “Learn anything enlightening here? Besides what would happen if a human and shrimp decided to fuck.”

Instructed by the silver tip, her eyes travelled the landscape until it spotted the distant volcano. Only the silhouette greeted Eilidh, the swirls of mist and algae that suffocated the area stole the details away. But vapors dissipated, and the embellishing coral poked out like the morning sun. Grounded sunset overtook her vision, such a sight—colors of plenty and shapes of all—had been missed in the tunnel vision of battle. Attention fully placed, she didn’t want to turn it away, expression lifting into delight. But distractions were without consequence in such a place, and an opportunistic shrimp skewered her flank. As its rostrum pierced her flesh, her blade pierced its own, their gore mixing into swirls of black and pink. It tried to remove more of her innards, but it did not have the same luxury as she to be apathetic to injury, and it soon succumbed to its own. As it let out its last convulsions, she removed the head. The rest tumbled down the coral branch, same as the others. Ending in a splat. With a cough the only response to the gash on her side, she looked back at Adam. “Ah, like a matryoshka.” She nodded. He seemed to know a great deal about this place. Could he even be trusted? She couldn’t detect any hidden malice, at least directed at her, from him. And she was quite confident in that sense of hers, despite how often she was wrong—a fact she didn’t like to be confronted with.

The finale brought a subtle tremor to each hand. Recalling how well that went last time—why the fuck do I have to get eaten again, fuck this—she wished she had remembered to replace her used Bliss. She craved the sweet apathy it brought. Maybe it was all speculation, maybe this kid had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, and the gateway wasn’t inside a giant, sticky, wet, cave, cave, cave, cave, cave, cave. Breathe in; breathe out. Time to get this over this. “Race ya.” With a departing wink towards Adam, Eilidh scurred across the temporary refuge. Feet contacted with water, and the explosion of bioluminescence enveloped her in the night sky. Then, she was off, heading for the crater above. She bit into the newly acquired head, teeth straining against the protective chitin. But as flesh finally reached her tongue, fell down her throat, filled her stomach, her pace quickened.

Adam sprinted across the coral ridges that surrounded the bioluminescent tide pools, wondering if his zombie companion, as Eilidh had definitely pulled a Professor Beck with that impaling back there, could feel weariness. Unfortunately, he’d had depressing answer to her question about man-shrip fuck land.

“Sorry, just shrimp demons and wondering how this glowy plankton atmosphere works,” he answered before getting to the follow up he’d been asking everyone thus far on his interplanar journeys.

“Hey,” he called over to her as he dodged grasping claws that lunged out of a tidepool and retaliated with a prodding thus of a spear, before sprinting onward. “Have you seen a sorceress out here? The name is Nell Vural. Five foot five, about a hundred and ten pounds, brown eyes, and straight brown hair. Maybe rides a hell dog?”

The race came to a head at the foot of a slope composed of multicolored corals and mussels. Alien table corals rose tens of feet in the air like prismatic forests of mushrooms, some bearing small flourishing tidepools on their flat tops. Giant brain corals pulsating with inner light like contemplative boulders. These and other polyps Earth had no name for formed a great caldera reef with a hollow center, as if some strange eruption eons ago had filled these damp plains with a literal explosion of bioluminescent life.

“You ready?”

Eilidh’s eyes tightened at the question. What was a Hunter doing looking for Nell? Eilidh could recognize those maneuvers, the way Adam slaughtered his marks, his targets. His attire had made her suspicious, but his motions gave him away. And the way this Adam asked, worry seeping into every word, beyond what a hunter-related gig would entail. It planted a seed of worry in her too. Nell was a tough lady. Certainly she would be fine. Right? “No. Why? Is she alright?” She wished she knew more, questions swimming in her head, that curiosity biting at her lips. If she knew anything beyond what he told her, those lips would be sealed, though. She just met the kid. Hunters were a tricky thing.

The two headed for the promised gateway, their spot at the lead in an ebb and flow like the water below. He may have adept strength, but she was blessed with short-circuited nerves. He was strong, but she would not be slowed down by the pain. And pain they faced. And pain they dealt. More of those bodies found their spots in the water, blood seeping into the porous surface of the corals. Becoming one. If an outsider followed this trail of death, it would lead them all the way to the top—to the sought-after exit. As the end came to a close, she had become so distracted she wasn’t even sure who stepped upon the rim first. Likelihood pointed to Adam—realization of his nature, his background, caused her to fall back, to study. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. An involuntary growl erupted from her throat. In another time, another situation, another day, Eilidh would’ve found the place magnificent. It was like nothing she’d ever seen—blooming with life so familiar but not, colors so evocative, all like honey to her eyes. She may never behold such a sight again. But… it.

It tainted the area for her. So caught up in the thrill of the race and taste of carnage, she had let her mind escape acknowledging the inevitable. Eyes traversed the wondrous sights, the wondering thoughts, and instead focused on the glowing lake. That alone would usually alight her eyes in amazement, as if she too had the same glow. But what lay below turned it all to ash. In those radiant waters, the “mega-crabroach” waited. The gaping mouth. The gaping cave. She would have to jump into that. Willingly. Last time—and it pissed her off to recall again that there had been a last time—it had been so fast, so forced, she just had to accept it. There had been no time for nerves, and when nerves came it was done. She was out. How long would it take for her to get out this time? Would she get out? Can she get out? Why was she listening to this kid? Who even was he? Fucking hell, what was wrong with her right now? “If this doesn’t work. I’m gonna make your last moments hell.” Words grumbled under tense breath. Physically shaking off her discomfort, some of it melted away. She patted the kid on the back. But it functioned more like an instruction. “Youth before beauty.”

“Nell got abducted into one of these Hell Dimensions and I’m out to find her,” was Adam’s utilitarian summary of the situation before he broke into a sprint over the caldera’s ridge. His boots crunched on corals and muscles as he lept over brain coral, chitinous ferns, and bioluminescent anemones.

A sharp cracking sound was Adam’s warning before a brain coral exploded nearby, showering the Hunter with soggy shards as a shockwave of pressured air nearly knocked him off his feet.

Adam scanned the reef slope as his ears rang. Sure enough, he caught sight of one of the shimp demons staring at him from a tide pool about a hundred feet away, one claw engorged to a size that made the other look vestigial.

Adam waved his way down towards the hulking thing sleeping in the caldera’s nadir, leave a cacophony of explosions in his wake as the resident pistol shrimp demons sent sonic blasts after him with a frenzy of snaps.

That didn’t sound good. Tension found itself on her mouth. “Giant caterpillar snatched her up with crystal ooze?” Eilidh emphasized the point by moving a hand to her forehead and flicking her fingers forward, as if something were shooting out—similar to that mysterious creature and its mucus-projectile appendages. She understood better than most how formidable such a being could be. While the creature behind the door hadn’t put too much of a fight, at least in her brief encounter, its sheer size had assured its superiority in an immediate face-off.

Snap. The sound was all consuming. Eilidh shoved her hands into her ears, but the sharp noise maneuvered around this barrier like it was nothing. Ringing followed. But ringing she was used to. Eyes snapped at the direction of the attack. A pistol shrimp looked at them—if one were extraordinarily large and had an angry baby mask strapped to its head. Snap. Invisible wall blitzed passed her, threatening to slam and skewer her upon a nearby urchin. The air was scorching—hot enough to bring a warmth to her indifferent nerves. More of those shrimps arrived. Ready to attack. Ready to snap. In the shadow of her footfalls, the corals below were littered with impacts that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

All this commotion awoke the slumbering giant. Vertical eyes peaked out from the water. Then its head followed, dripping with that bioluminescence, ripping apart that glow. Claws followed suit—lifting high into the air and crashing back down from the difference in gravity. Chunks of disrupted barnacle flung into the air, some striking those pistol shrimp, bludgeoning them to death. Adjustment came swiftly and those claws rose once more. Snip snip. They crashed down onto the surrounding area, but this time with deliberance. This time with a target. The two trespassers. Eilidh quickly sidestepped out of the way, barking out a warning to Adam.

An enormous claw bulldozed a furrow through the coral as Adam heeded Elidh’s warning, hurtling towards the mountainous blend of insectoid and crustacea as its forelimbs slammed down behind him. The Hunter vaulted onto the arm, letting the megacrab carrying him up. He stabbed the spear into a joint in the chitan to hold it fast as the world became a rushing blur of motion. Adam waited as the mass of chitin and many corded antenna swung its pincered arms wildly in an attempt to dislodge him. On the upward swing Adam caught a glimpse of the plains of tidepools stretching out beyond the Caldera like serene lakes of blue light beneath a numinous sky. The picturesque moment was broken by a stomach churning plummet back down as Adam’s bleeding knuckles whittened around the spear.

Adam made his move in the brief respite after the bone-jarring impact of the claw’s against the reef. The Hunter ran up to the shoulder joint, lodging the spear in a joint and pole-vaulting onto the flatter plain of the megacrab’s dark cerebral shell. Adam ran over the shell’s spinned frontal exterior and plunged his spear down into the crab’s eye. “Jump on in,” he shouted while hanging on against for dear life as the titanic crab mouth opened in panicked agony, a vortex of light churning at the back of its throat.

Where the mighty pinchers collided, craters formed, as if this mighty reef were afflicted by a concentrated meteor shower. There was always a delay, a second where the claw became one with which it destroyed, before returning to the air. Ready for another strike. And it struck yet again, as expected, and that second came to pass, as it should. But before it could return to the air, Eilidh hitched a ride. Feet struggled to find hold, fighting against the wet slick of the claw and the stiff twitch of the beast. As bearings were finally found, it no longer mattered—she was flung into the air. Her body whacked twice against the creature’s back before gravity drug it down, straight for the waiting abyss.

Hands replaced feet in that fruitless struggle. Blades joined the fray, but they banged helplessly against the uncaring chitin. Before she could slip into the water below, lost in that luminous pit, a dagger jammed into one of the creature’s old battle scars. Decent stopped. Feet found their footing much quicker, having learned from the previous ordeal. She ascended, following the streaks of her near plummet, until coming upon the head. Scream filled the air, and for a moment she mistook its origins for the creature. Its mouth too was wide with anguish. But its screams were silent. The sound was too familiar, too human. Eyes tore away just a moment to settle on Adam, the true source. He dangled just above–

The gateway.

“Don’t be a lil’ bitch.” Eilidh grumbled to herself, her nerves. Fear nearly froze her in place, with a tingling the only reminder she still lived, still breathed. But the constant bucks and thrashes of the beast thawed her limbs into action. Forced them to. Not giving her nerves the chance to trap her again, she jumped. Let gravity do its work on her as it did before. All she had to do was fall. Trajectory sent her straight for Adam, her shoulder colliding into his body. For just a snap of a moment the two were suspended in that tense air. But it was all too much for the creature’s eye. Pressure forced the puncture the spear pressed in to widen, and with that the traction was lost. The two fell. Back to the light. Back home.

#tidepool glow #chatzy #;— interactions #ft. adam w.#wickedswriting #whoo!

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