#but also sort of keeping around him through blackmail on multiple levels
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Brothers anon, it makes me really happy and comforts me that you enjoy reading what I submit. It makes me really happy to write all of this and finally be able to tell someone my ideas. Thank you so much.
At first he kept trying to deny the father figure role, but when one night Jackie had a nightmare and came to him and ended up calling him dad, he stopped denying it and accepted it. And once he accepted it he did basically adopt all of them. Jackie and Grievous are literally chaos incarnate most days. They regularly love to prank the contestants and just act insane. Ran and Jackie just kind of hang around eachother, like Ran could be reading and Jackie training and they'd enjoy eachothers company. They do sometimes nap next to eachother, or play card games (which is a rare instance where Ran gets (playfully) rilled up and competitive). Grievous and Ran bonding sadly gets interrupted when Ranbob suddenly drops in, but before that Grievous would try to talk to Ran about what book he's reading and just try to make conversation with him.
Oh the height difference definitely remains. And its both terrifying and hailours to new people. It's even better when it's a 2v2 fight because Jackie has a habit of just climbing Ran like a monkey gym and sitting on his shoulders and its terrifying.
Well, since the drinking age is 3, I personally think the age limit is like 14 or something close. I believe I made their ages as Ran is 19 (almost 20. Maybe 4 months away), Jackie is 16, Watson is 30 something, Grievous is 22, and Ranbob is 28 (Ran is younger than his brother by 9 years) I have written down all their ages somewhere (and the ages where the events of Mizu took place) and if I got any wrong I will submit another ask with their ages. The other gladiators have managed to keep good relationships with most of eachother. A few like Grievous and Genevieve are close, Edward, Levi, and Watson are drinking buddies. Lagguis sadly isn't as involved cause he is sick and can't vist often at all. (I think I got everyone. Tell me if I missed anyone please, I cant check cause whenever I exit tumblr, tumblr deletes everything in my ask :') )
I dont have many rules for the Pit rn but I do have, no injuries that could cause long term or chronic damage, no sabotaging opponents, no teaming unless its a team round, no blackmail or anything of the sort to force an opponent to forfeit, and in order for a battle to end due to forfeit both sides must agree to it. But the Pit in general is a lot of things, there's fights for money, fame, and positions (like general). There's tournaments meant for nothing other than to show skill and just to fight your heart out. It's open to anyone above 14 and anyone under 80, to people from Subbin to those just passing through.
And there are different battles in the Pit, theres singles, the ones we saw in the Tales of the SMP episode. Teams, where teams of 2 battles against eachother. Free-for-all, where literally everyone fights against eachother. And Ion battles, battles where there are super powered weapons (like flame 2 iron sword. Or strength 3 potions) that spawn in the area at random. Typically Ran and Watson work best toghere, as their strategists and plan everything with back up plans, and they always call out warnings and watch eachothers back so its incredibly hard to actually hit them. And Jackie and Grievous work best toghere, with the two going insane and often taking people by surprise with their unmeasure and randomized movements and attacks.
At the start Ranbob was completely under Dreams thrall, not being able to really think for himself and even foregoing self care. When Ranbob starts to become himself again the fishermen are more than confused and hesitant, with Cletus especially stating multiple times that it may just be a trick. So it takes a while but Isaac actually is the one to suggest maybe it isn't a trick, and has to do with the mask that was found. This is later confirmed when the mask is brought to the group and Ranbob has a massive negative reaction that sets him back to how he was when they first met him.
Im honestly not sure yet, I think I want it to be a 'lets never go back' type thing but im not positive yet.
I dont have a solid backstory for the fishermen, but I know I want a little bit of it to tie to the story. Do you have any ideas for their backstory or nah? I do know I want them to have met eachother while they where in unfortunate situations and because of those they got family level close.
Ranbob doesn't take the little space well at first; staying outside when able too, even though that really upset Benjamin; and Ranbob has no idea how the outside works and has no idea how to read the weather or what he can and cant eat, but hey the enderman boi is trying his best to make up for everything he's done. And trying to build his own house to not impose on the fishermen (much like Ranboo did with Techno), but Benjamin wouldn't accept that and kept dragging him inside. It wasn't that hard for Benjamin, Isaac, and Charles to get used to Ranbob, already being used to sharing a small house, it was more Cletus with him refusing to leave Ranbob alone even for a second because he doesn't trust Ranbob at all.
The two groups actually get along surprisingly well! They like eachother and Watson once said, "It was like a family reunion. Or like long lost siblings finally found their way home."
I am once again not sure! Originally I planned for them to stay in Subbin and in the Pit. But the more I think about it the more boring that is and more I like the idea of the groups traveling toghere in the world.
I like this question! So enderman travel in groups called hauntings right? I personally headcanon the enderman in this group are basically family, biological or not. And ever since Ran and Ranbob lost their family they lost their haunting, which can be mentally damaging to a enderman. Once Ran found Waston, Jackie, and Grievous and started hanging around them more, he started feeling a connection ot them he hasn't felt on a long time. He's claimed them, as his haunting, his family. And he'll defend them with his life against anyone and anything. And then suddenly Ranbob came in, a enderman that should be part of his haunting but isn't, a enderman that killed his previous haunting. So Ran is incredibly defensive over his group, and is trying his best to keep Ranbob as far from his haunting as possible, to protect them.
Now Ranbob also got a haunting, his being Charles, Isaac, Benjamin, and even Cletus. So Ranbob is also defensive over his family. But unlike Ran, Ranbob still considers his brother as part of his haunting, his family (and yes, Ranbob did think Ran was dead when he first chased him out years ago, so he's shocked and relieved that his baby brother is still alive). And he sees how his family gets along so well with Rans family and then starts to even consider Rans haunting part of Ranbob's. Basically Ranbob has a big heart and is willing to accept almost anyone into his family, no matter what they've done.
Yep, the reason Porkius is so interested in Ran is because he's an enderman hybrid. And no one else is a hybrid expect for the two brothers (and Porkius, with him being a piglin hybrid).
Porkius is excited! He's excited to see what happens and is more than happy to agree to help as long as he is kept in the loop. Though unless he's directly asked to be involved he prefers watching from a distance at whats happening. Just so he doesn't get mauled by a pissed off enderman.
Sorry for any spelling mistakes (its late) and its so long! Im probably going to try to shorten them.
I’m glad you’re happy, it’s a nice thing to feel. Your ideas are really cool, and I hope I’ll get to see more of them in the future.
Now, can I simply say how adorable so much of this is? Jackie going to Watson when he had a nightmare, the Rans being protective of their groups, Jackie climbing Ran? I love that, it’s very heartwarming and cute, and it made me smile.
So Watson wasn’t really sure what to do with his new title at first, hm? And then Jackie called him dad? How’d he feel about that? How’d Jackie feel about the slip? Or did he even notice? He’s parenting them all, he’s gonna have a dad voice and everything. How do the adopted ones feel about him embracing it?
Jackie and Grievous, two people to truly fear when they wish to cause havoc. Tremble before them. Do they prank people, or do they just become absolute madmen on the battlefield? Or something else. Honestly, anything with these two just instantly makes me amused.
Jackie and Ran being chill buddies. very nice. Ran getting competitive over card games is a funny thought. Does he win often? Does Jackie? What kind of card games do they play?
Rather sad Ran and Grievous bonding is interrupted, but it’s nice to hear Grievous trying it. Hopefully they’ll get there someday.
Oh my god, it’s the height difference. Jackie getting on Ran’s shoulder sounds absolutely terrifying. Imagine being some poor new guy pitted against these gremlins and the short ones climbs on the tall ones shoulder-both look absolutely gleeful with the destruction they’re about to wreak, and you already know you cannot outrun them.
Jackie...Jackie...he’s da youngest. He’s small, and young, and you have no idea how much I’m laughing at this. I don’t even know why, it’s just really, really funny to me. Probably something to do with what a complete force of chaos we all know this boy is. Oddly fitting, but hilarious. How does Jackie feel about this?
How do the others? Are they a bit more protective over him? Does Ran like to flaunt his three years more over him?
Grievous and Genevieve are buddies! Very nice, they seem to have a good dynamic. Watson, Edward, and Levi also being close? Very interesting, has a lot of potential. I bet they share a lot of funny stories.
So we’ve established the basics of The Pit. Doesn’t seem too bad, for a fighting arena, to be honest. Seems pretty popular, actually. Do the gladiators live there? In the palace? Or do they just have a house somewhere nearby? What kind of establishments and areas are around? Food places, stores?
So Ran and Watson are the scariest team because of their strategy, and Jackie and Grievous are the scariest team because of their randomness? It checks out. I’m curious though, how do the other combinations work out?
Ranbob sounds like he has a less than fun time here, and the poor guy could really use some closure. What’s he like, free from the influence of the mask? He seems pretty close to Benjamin, so at least he’s got that going for him. Though he and Cletus don’t seem to have the strongest bond at first. How is that resolved?
And how does Ran feel about his brother’s new haunting, after everything? I imagine that he’s at least a little bit unhappy with it, for one reason or another-and there’s quite a few reasons for him to pick from.
How did that house-building attempt go, between Ran never being above water, and probably never building a house before? I can’t imagine too well.
Some ideas for backstory, well, hm. Isaac seemed dressed a bit fancier than the others, perhaps he comes from a richer family than the others? That’s about all I’ve got for now, sorry.
It’s nice to hear they got along, who clicks the easiest?
Possible road trip? Always fun.
So, the enderman hybrids have adopted their respective groups as their hauntings. You’ve mentioned Ranbob’s pretty cool with this, how does Ran feel? Obviously, he’s less than pleased with Ranbob, but what about the fishermen? Protective Ran and Ranbob! How protective exactly? Is it subtle, or overbearing at times? Actually, how do their instincts lead to them interacting with their groups overall?
Porkius must not see Ender hybrids too often, if he’s so interested in them. It’s nice that he’s willing to help out though, and his concern is valid. I wouldn’t want an angry enderman hybrid after me either.
Are hybrids not overly common, then, if there’s only Ran, Ranbob, and Porkius around currently, or are they just not mentioned a lot?
Thanks for the ask, a lot of it made me smile. I enjoyed reading it, and I hope you’ll be willing to send more when you have the time.
#dream smp#Brothers AU#dream smp au#tales from the smp#ranbob#ran#jackie#watson#isaac#charles#benjamin#cletus#grievous#porkius
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You can count on me (I will be there for you)
Penultimate chapter, here we go! Discoveries are made, and they’re not for the best. Hope you enjoy!
Special thanks to the lovely @theanxiouscupcake for helping me figure out the ending :)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | AO3
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Chapter 8
Ladybug helplessly watches Chat sink out of sight, and she knows he won’t find anything good, wherever he’s headed. It’s less of a gut feeling (what honest person has secret mechanisms lying around their house in fiction, not to mention real life?) than an informed guess based on what she’s holding.
She’d hit the jackpot in Nathalie’s room. The envelopes she found weren’t empty, but they didn’t contain blackmail destined to Ladybug; it was clearly targeted at Hawkmoth and Mayura. Given that they’d all been opened with a paper knife, she doubted that Nathalie had been on the sending end.
The Peacock brooch she’d found in her nightstand, along with Duusuu, had done nothing to help Marinette in her quest for an explanation that could disculpate her.
She knows she's found what she needed, but it really feels like a Pyrrhic victory.
“Chat Noir? Is everything alright?” Max’s voice over the comms snaps her out of her thoughts.
There’s a tense silence as they wait for an answer, which she decides to break after a couple of minutes, for her own sanity.
“So, what did you find?” She asks, eyeing Markov. The robot is holding a USB key, which is unusual, since Max generally uses him directly as a memory source when needed. She doesn’t doubt that he also carries a copy of the data they’ve found, meaning that the information must be very important.
“An annotated digital copy of a Miraculous book, very expensive and regular butterfly orders, Hawkmoth redesign costumes, and elaborate plans to defeat you and Chat Noir.” Her friend enumerates. It all checks out. “Oh, and some music videos starring Hawkmoth.”
“What?” She frowns.
“It’s very disturbing.” Max grimaces.
Her next question is barely formulated in her head when Chat Noir’s voice reaches them. “Guys?”
“Chaton!” She refocuses on him immediately. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve found something.” His voice is strained.
“Don’t move, we’re coming.” She runs towards where the platform had been mere minutes ago, looking around frantically for the trigger mechanism.
Max puts a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “Could you just tell us how to join you?” He asks.
Chat explains the steps in a monotonous voice that worries Max and Ladybug enough that they decide to ride the elevator together. It’s a little cramped, but the quicker they get to him, the better.
The tube quickly opens and they step out into what looks like an attic in a flutter of white butterfly wings.
Chat Noir has his back to them, his suit looking darker than usual in the backlight. He turns around from the truly impressive window he was looking out from when he hears them, a sad smile pulling at his lips.
“This doesn’t really look like a good guy’s den, does it?” He tries to joke.
“It does look a little suspicious,” she concedes.
“Did Adrien ever tell you his Dad was a lepidopterologist?” Max asks, a butterfly landing on his outstretched hand, as if he’s still trying to find a rational explanation for the situation that doesn't involve Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth.
“A what?” Chat looks at him, perplexed.
“A lepidopterologist,” his friend repeats. “Someone who studies butterflies.”
“Nope, I don’t think he has a clue.” He shakes his head and clears his throat. “But anyway, what did you guys find? Anything interesting?”
Ladybug hands him the envelopes and the brooch. His eyes fly over the letters’ contents, his expression indescifrable, while Max repeats his own findings.
“Max, what is the probability that Gabriel and Nathalie are just storing stuff for Hawkmoth and Mayura?” Chat asks gently, folding the letters again and giving them back to her. She sticks them in her yoyo for safe-keeping.
“I’d say about 0,0152%.” Max announces after a couple of seconds.
“That’s not very much.” He grimaces.
“Good thing Adrien didn’t come with us.” Ladybug whispers. “It’s… a lot to take in.”
“Sure is.” He sighs.
“Everyone, there seems to be another shaft here.” Markov interrupts them, flashing a red light to indicate his position in one of the dark corners of the room.
They walk towards him and study their surroundings, Max spotting the associated buttons first. Chat figures that it can’t bring them back to the study; it’s too far away from the first one.
“Multiple levels? What kind of evil lair is this?” Ladybug mutters.
“A professional one, that’s for sure.” Max replies. “Should we check it out?”
Ladybug looks at the time on her bug phone. They’re still doing okay, having been particularly efficient with their search. Or just very lucky that Hawkmoth and Mayura are bad at hiding compromising evidence.
She activates her microphone. “Nino, Kagami?”
“Yes, Marinette?” Kagami’s voice is prompt to reply.
“How are things going?”
“Not too bad, I think. Nino’s keeping Gabriel occupied, and I’m keeping an eye on Nathalie. They don’t seem to be in any rush to leave.”
“That’s good to hear.” She sighs in relief.
“How about you guys? Is Chat okay?”
“Right as rain.” Chat Noir chimes in. “We just have one more thing to investigate and we’ll be back.”
“Okay, cool. Keep us posted!” Kagami replies.
“You too.”
There’s a little static as Chat releases his microphone button.
“Right, so that’s sorted. I’ll go first.” Ladybug states more than she volunteers, calling the lift. She suspects Chat Noir would have liked to lead the way, but he’s a little pale for her liking, and Kwami knows what they’ll find on the other end.
“Are you sure?” He looks at her, contrasting emotions flickering in his eyes. On the one hand, he seems to be relieved that she’s taking charge of the exploration, but on the other hand, she knows he must be worried about her going first.
"You guys will be right down, it’s fine.” She smiles and squeezes his arm lightly, before entering the elevator capsule.
She’s surrounded by darkness for the first part of the journey, but the dim lighting of the lift is oddly comforting; she finds herself thinking that it might relieve Chat Noir’s claustrophobia.
The tube then transitions to transparency, and she’s suddenly looking out onto one of the largest and oddest rooms she’s ever seen, if ‘room’ is even the right word for it. The space looks like some kind of underground church, with its metal nave extending above a body of water and leading to a little garden, centred around a large tubular object. The latter is overseen by a large window that reminds her of the one up in the attic, except the panes are blocked off. It isn’t dark, though; a ray of light shines from above, and dim lights are regularly spaced along the sides of the room.
The elevator doors open and Ladybug steps out unsurely, not daring to venture too far. She feels very small as she waits for Chat Noir and Max, and a little uncomfortable, like she just broke into a sacred place. She untenses a little when they join her.
“What is this place?” Chat Noir lets out a low whistle as he takes in the grandeur of the space.
“It looks like some kind of underground crypt.” Max pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “We’re really not far from the Marais, maybe this was a church that sunk at some stage and was built over?”
Ladybug nods. It seems like a decent explanation.
Chat’s gut twists as he takes a couple of steps forward. He has an awful feeling about what lays at the end of the bridge, yet he’s inexplicably drawn to it. Ladybug and Max follow him carefully as he makes his way towards it.
The tube at the end of the way looks a lot like a coffin, they realise, and as they approach it, they must have triggered some motion detector, for its cover recedes, revealing a seemingly sleeping woman.
And not just any woman.
Emilie Agreste.
She’s dressed in a white suit, a slight smile on her lips, and holds a large bouquet of white and red flowers. She looks so peaceful, so beautiful. So like her portraits. Ladybug half expects her to wake up, green eyes twinkling as she welcomes them.
Next to her, Chat Noir’s breath hitches and his hand extends to touch the glass, a tear rolling down his cheek. It shatters as it lands on the coffin.
“You’re here.” He whispers.
Ladybug shares a look with Max, who encourages her to step forward with a nod. She does, lacing her fingers through Chat’s free hand and giving it a squeeze.
“I didn’t realise you were this close.” Her voice is barely above a murmur as another tear hits the coffin. Anything louder would feel disrespectful. Chat just nods in reply.
From this angle, she realises, Emilie looks just like Adrien; same fine features, same kind smile, same blond hair. She can’t help but understand why it must have been hard for Gabriel Agreste to look his son in the eye, at first.
“Um, guys?” Nino’s voice breaks the silence, making them jump. “I think we’ve maxed out the small talk. Kagami’s trying to hold off Nathalie but Gabe is just openly avoiding me now. Can we give them a bit of a breather?”
“Absolutely not.” Chat’s reply is icy as he angrily wipes his tears with the heel of his hand. “We’ll be right back, just need to call the police. Do not let them out of your sight, especially Gabriel. He might have his Miraculous on him.”
“Oh dude, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He takes a shaky breath. Marinette gives his hand another squeeze and takes her yoyo out. She spots Max taking out his phone out of the corner of her eye and turns towards him slightly, blinking gratefully at him. Chat doesn’t seem to be in the right frame of mind to call the police himself. She calls Rena Rouge.
“LB?” Her friend answers immediately.
“Alya? Are you in my room?”
“Yes, need anything?”
“Could you get the Bee Miraculous in my sewing box, please? I’ll send you the code.”
“Sure. Do you want me to go downstairs and give it to Chloé? Or should I stay put?”
“We’re going to need you downstairs, but make sure no one sees you yet. We need all hands on deck for this.” She takes a deep breath. “And make sure Adrien’s safe for me?”
“Will do.”
She hangs up just as Max calls his transformation.
“There’s a unit on its way here, and another heading for the Château. They’re warning the police officers who are already on site, they’re going to start closing off the exits. They said they’d take the evidence from us over there.” Her friend reports.
“Good.” She says, and she sees Chat Noir nod next to her, eyes still aimed at the coffin. “Let’s go, then.”
Pegasus invokes his powers and jumps through the portal. Chat Noir tears his gaze from Emilie and goes to follow him.
Ladybug holds him back before he can step through. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay, Chaton?”
“I just need to end this once and for all.” He smiles sadly and kisses her forehead tenderly, before taking her hand and helping her through.
He turns around and blows Emilie a last kiss before joining his wife.
#yes that was a reference to the hawkmoth rap#trying to provide a little comic relief#miraculous ladybug#the miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir#mlb#miraculous fanfiction#miraculous fanfic#adrienette#adrinette#ladynoir#max kante#markov#kagami tsurugi#nino lahiffe#alya cesaire#fake wedding#one-sided reveal#aged-up characters#inspired by fanart#elle writes#yccom
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Thelreads, Vigilantes 20, Replies Part 2
1)“Oh boy, seems like she has something in mind… See what you did Pop? You challenged her helping skills, and she decided to step up her game.
Alright, color me curious on top of idiot, what are you thinking about Makoto? And please don’t use the word “unmasking””- Well, step 1 involves blackmail, and getting the one hero Makoto already has wrapped around her finger to shill the concert’s virtues to his ‘adoring’ public- which is kinda poetic, given he wreaked the store in the first place. Steps 2 onwards are where Makoto gets devious.
2) “I feel the joke flew spinning over my head, I thought it was supposed to be Bowser, but by the name that person was about to mention it clearly isn’t.”- Actually, I think Bower’s design and powers may take some inspiration from Gamera
3) “Oh-
Oh wait shit, I got what the plan is. Goddammit I didn’t even thought about blackmail, it goes to show the high-level in which that girl’s mind operates on.”- Whenever Makoto want to achieve something, always remember that she’s the opposite of her brother- if Phelps would take the legal high road, Makoto will achieve her goals through the sneaky, morally-dubious low road. Even if she’s a good person in the end, she’s not as uptight as her brother about sticking to the rules- even if Phelps has 1 exception of his own to that.
4) “Oh Jesus those two X-Jojo bastards are everywhere, aren’t they? Although in this case I’m wondering if Makoto didn’t tasked them with keeping an eye on CC to make sure he doesn’t… make any mistakes that he’d regret…”- The vigilante squad are expanding into multiple teams, Guys like Koichi and Pop being the ‘face’ of the band, tackling trigger villains and Publicity-boosting events alike, Knuckle and temporary-partner Soga being the ‘wetwork’ men in the shadows, and the X-Crusaders and Makoto here managing CC and his publicity in the streets, expanding the ‘friendly’ hero’s support with the public whilst also integrating him better into the hero rankings and local law enforcement. They’re not class 1A, where everybody has some variety of fighting skills, but each team member contributes a little to the overall effort.
5) “What, the fact that those aren’t girls in miniskirts bothers you? Bo ho, tough luck big boy, those MAN are here to stay”- Maybe we could split the difference and have an entire cheerleading squad of basically Tiger cheering him on- That’d definitely perk him up, I bet
6) “Oh, laying the situation in front of him like a fancy rug that you’re going to use to roll up his body and throw him into the harbor. “- hmm, just realised that the villain he smashed into the department store resembled Godzilla, Mini-me version, and now he’s handling a knock-off brand version of Gamera- Is king Kong gonna get his shot at the captain next?
7) “I love how she asks his opinion about it, even though all involved know that he has no say on the matter. He can only nod in agreement and smile, no matter what she says, lest he wants to be obliterated by her… “-He made his own bed, now he has to stew in it for however long Makoto mandates- but at least she does give him advance warning of her intentions for him and how she’ll be using his image, rather than just going ‘ok, now we’ll be doing X,Y and Z in that order’ It could always be worse for him, and at least Makoto isn’t a complete slave-driver.
8) “Holy hell she’s good at negotiating, even if she basically went “we’ll provide everything you need, we just want some credit for it”. She’s going all in on this one, isn’t she? It was supposed to be a small event, what sort of monstrous thing will come out of this, since I know Makoto won’t be satisfied until there aren’t at least 1k people in there.”- Makoto’s vision is matched only by her ambition and managerial skills necessary to make said vison a reality.
9) “I admire your willingness to go the extra mile, and your enthusiasm for it, but my go Makoto you have no idea of how much harder you made this… The Captain will get a boost, and Pop will get more fans, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that, while before she was reluctant to go up there at the stage, now she’ll definitely be 110% against it.”- The downside of Makoto being a high-levelled, ambitious visionary is that she doesn’t quite realise that others might now be thinking on the same wavelength as her. She heard Pop getting nervous about the event size and her immediate thought was to increase the number of participants and make it into a bigger show. Sure, stuff like this and facing your fears is how you become a more confidant person, but still is does show that Makoto isn’t used to the idea that some people might be happier in their smaller comfort zone, rather than getting out there and showing the world what they’ve got.
Granted, given the hero society they live in is all about putting yourself out there and flaunting your talents and skills for the public, it might just be a societal mentality thing- people expect others to want to make shows and events the best they can be, perhaps unaware that some people might not be comfortable with such a wide stage in comparison to their skills.
10) “Bless your heart Makoto, you heard her complaining about the size of the event and you completely missed the point of it. “- On the other hand, this could also be a major confidence-boosting event for pop, an opportunity for her to reaffirm that her own skills and talents don’t necessary lose out to Makoto’s just because they specialise in different areas. Given how Makoto does seem to have a knack for people reading, she could be boosting the event in an attempt to galvanise Pop into realising that she’s on the same level as her, if given the right opportunities to prove it. It’s just that Makoto already knows how to get out there and create said opportunities, and even improve them in advance whereas Pop is used to more minor events and working with what she’s got to hand.
11) “And it seems like she’s a bit anxious, but is handling it fine, nothing too dramatic, reality hasn’t settled properly, so she’s just on the calm before the anxiety storm. Oh, this will be terrible once it hits…”- Anxiety is like jumping off a cliff- Imagining the fall in advance is actually way worse than experiencing it, but you’ve got to overcome your inner demons to make certain that your initial leap is a graceful as you can make it
12) “BAD MOVE KOICHI, SHOULD’VE GONE FOR THE HUG”- Poor Koichi- smart enough to know pop needs helps, kind enough to offer it, but too dense to figure out what kind of help she’s really looking for- though pop’s tsundere nature doesn’t help the communication barrier between them.
13) “My god girl, I do hope that they deal with the thing inside of Knuckleduster daughter’s head before she decided she needs another puppet, because we certainly don’t need another… whatever the hell that scene even was… Why does this series already has two fucked up scenes happening on alleyways? God I hope this does not become a pattern.”- Well, I mean, the entire point of the series is that some truly twisted stuff occurs whenever heroes aren’t around or able to protect other people In need, or aren’t able to witness them being in imminent danger, hence the reason for people like Koichi and co existing to fight back against these hidden criminal acts, so if anything, I think a great many pivotal moments and fights will likely continue to occur in alleyways and such, to explain the reasons why heroes don’t officially get involved with the Vigilante’s opponents- if they ever did it’s a sign that the scope of the problem has escalated beyond the capacity of Koichi and his team to handle on their own.
14) “FOCUS L! It’s time for a family reunion, not to be admiring that sick-ass binoculars.”- Well, not likely just yet. Knuckle may have finally got sight of his quarry, but he’s not prepared for a direct confirmation yet, given her likely high supply of trigger drugs on-hand for distribution and the numerous civilians around them, so Knuckle’s best chance is to sit back and wait for an opportunity to confront Kuin alone, without any bystanders in the way, so she can’t use her favourite tactics of creating a drugged-up distraction and heading the other way.
His only advantage against a quirk-using villain who fights mainly with smart, tactical use of the advantages afforded by her unique powers like Kuin is that she doesn’t know he’s aware of her location and mind-set and thus he’s able to best prepare all the ‘minor’ tricks and tools he can get to best confront her without any unexpected variables. Knuckle’s best plans when in an immediate fight is to use his body and his pragmatist streak to end the fight quickly, but when he has the advantages of time and surprise on his side, he’s got more options available to best prepare the correct tool for the job, as well as the appropriate setting and geographical advantages..
@thelreads
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Jihoon’s backstory
The symbol of the Star
Basic Information
A/N: This isn’t edited because it’s currently 6 am where I am and I did not sleep teehee. Also it’s a lot longer than I intended
Warning: Slight angst, parent neglect, friendship, small grey’s anatomy reference if you squint, mentions of violence, use of the word torture, scenes that you would see if you read Seungcheol’s backstory, and a very rushed ending that I will probably fix after sleep
(GIF not mine)
- Jihoon’s mother thought she was one of the lucky few
- When Jihoon was born, he showed no signs of being one of the affected
- His mother and him moved away from their mostly abandoned neighborhood and into the country of the unaffected
- She laughed at the poor saps who had the affected as their child
- She couldn’t believe that any child could be as monstrous as to have some sort of extraordinary power
- Jihoon’s mother thought she was so lucky
- So, she was in almost complete denial when Jihoon started talking in full sentences when other babies were at the age of babbling out syllables
- She pushed the thought to the back of their heads when Jihoon started reading when other kids were just learning the alphabet
- She did whatever she could to keep her vision of having a normal child
- But Jihoon was just good at everything
- All of the kids around him were amazed and impressed, they always asked him for help with their work and everyone wanted to be his friend
- He had everything that a kid could want, but all he really wanted was his mother’s approval
- It seemed that no matter what he did or how good he did it, his mother just became more and more disappointed
- So he tried harder
- Of course, what he didn’t know was that that was exactly what caused his mother’s disappointment
- So one day, when Jihoon was five, he ran home from school
- His eyes were gleaming with pride and joy as he ran into his home
- “Mom! Mom! Look, an upperclassmen gave me a worksheet and I got it all right!”
- Jihoon’s mother took one look at her child’s beaming smile and snatched the worksheet out of his hand
- “Disgusting”
- That was the last time that Jihoon smiled for a long time
- Everytime Jihoon tried to show his mother his accomplishments, she would just get more and more disgusted and disappointed
- So eventually, he gave up
- Jihoon stopped showing his mom the things he did
- He stopped smiling
- And that was when his mother finally accepted him
- He wanted nothing more than to give into his mother’s toxic love, but he was smarter than that
- He knew that he was smarter, he knew that he was different
- So the fact that his mother tried to change him made him lose hope in humanity
- Eventually, the end of the year test rolled around
- Jihoon didn’t bother to mention it to his mother
- He flew through the questions with ease, being the first to finish the entire test
- Since he was the first one done, he sat back and read a book that one of his upperclassmen lent to him
- (He had only made friends with the older kids because he did their homework for fun)
- When class was finally over, Jihoon started to walk home
- When he stepped into his home, he didn’t expect there to be soldiers carrying big guns standing in his house
- “What...”
- The general stepped forward, a hard look on his face
- “Come peacefully and no one has to get hurt”
- “What?” Jihoon looked around and spotted his mom standing behind two officers
- “Mom, what are they doing?”
- Jihoon stepped towards her, but two soldiers grabbed onto his arms and started dragging him away
- The entire time, he kicked and screamed, trying to get his wrists out of the soldiers’ strong holds
- “Mom! Mom help!”
- His mom didn’t spare him a single glance
- He clung onto the door frame
- “Mommy, please! Tell them I’m your son!”
- His mother gave him one look before giving out a scoff
- “I don’t have a son.”
- With her words, Jihoon flinched and loosened his grip on the door
- The soldiers pulled him away and tossed him into the back of a cargo truck, and he didn’t fight back
- When he got to the facility, he was brought into a building where they gave him uniformed clothing
- The soldiers took him into a different room and tied him down to the chair
- They took out their needle and started to tattoo the star into Jihoon’s arm, holding him down every time he struggled from the pain
- When they finally finished the stroke of the ‘I’, they grabbed him and threw him into a cell with multiple kids in it
- Since the stars were the least dangerous of the affected, the only guards with them were the worst and weakest of the soldiers
- Most of them were forced into work until they grew up to be scientists
- So, they became prisoners of the facility
- For years, Jihoon kept to himself, seeing no point in socializing with others even if they were at the same intellectual level as them
- All he did when he wasn’t working was sulk in the corner of his cell
- The other stars knew to steer clear of him because of the deadly glare he gave to the one poor kid that tried to talk to him
- So, for a long time, Jihoon didn’t talk to anyone
- Until...
- A couple other stars were pushed into Jihoon’s since more and more of them were being added into the facility
- Amongst them was a particularly friendly boy
- No one could understand how someone could be so cheery in his situation
- But no one could resist him
- So when the boy approached Jihoon in his corner, everyone was worried about what the sulking boy would do to the small ray of sunshine that made everyone’s day better
- When the boy approached him in the corner, Jihoon snapped around and shot him one of his infamous glares that sent chills to anyone else that was watching
- But the boy was unphased
- “I’m Hoshi, what’s your name?”
- Jihoon’s eyebrows just shot up and his slitted eyes widened
- “Ah well, you don’t have to tell me.” Hoshi took a seat in front of Jihoon, “But I did want to ask you something.”
- Interested, Jihoon stared at the boy in front of him and cocked his head to the side
- “Well, I’m a senser so I’m not really as smart as all of you brains. And I heard that you went to actual school before you got in here, so I was wondering if you could teach me some things.”
- Jihoon kept his face blank, though he was thoroughly shocked at how far this conversation had gone
- Hoshi sat in silence, obviously not leaving until Jihoon answered
- Eventually, Jihoon cracked and finally spoke up, eyes averting to the floor
- “What makes you think I’m going to help you?”
- Hoshi thought for a second before his face lit up with an idea
- “I’ll trade you! My powers for yours; you can teach me with your intelligence and I can do whatever you want. If you want to me ward off other people, I’ll do that. If you want me to keep you away from that big sun guy, I will! And if you want to hear all the gossip and blackmail, I can listen in for you.”
- Jihoon weighed out the options. If it were anyone else asking, he would have said no immediately, but there was something about Hoshi that got to him
- “Fine. Whatever.”
- A smile etched onto Hoshi’s lips and Jihoon peeked up at him
- “And call me Woozi.”
- As time went by, Jihoon taught Hoshi the basics of math and science and reading and languages.
- In return, Hoshi would help Jihoon with whatever he needed
- And eventually, Jihoon would ask Hoshi to help him sneak out of their cell
- Jihoon had taught himself how to pick a lock, so all he needed was for Hoshi to tell him when the soldiers weren’t paying attention or just weren’t there
- While enjoying their small bit of freedom from their cell, Jihoon would scour the facility’s layout, finding all of the blindspots
- The two of them got closer and closer as the years went by
- They had a bond that no one else could understand
- Jihoon and Hoshi would have conversations that no one would expect them to have, laughing and joking around about the strangest things
- They made fun of all of the soldiers and even that young sun that watched over the stars as if he was so much older than them
- One night, they snuck out of their cells with Hoshi’s senses and Woozi’s lock picking skills
- They laid on top of the roof of their cell’s building and Jihoon taught Hoshi as many constellations as he could find
- At one point, they both quieted down and enjoyed the peacefulness of the night
- Jihoon never thought that he would end up like this, he always assumed that he’d be on his own for his time in the facility
- But nonetheless, he was glad to have Hoshi in his life
- So, when Hoshi turned to him and asked about his name, Jihoon explained everything
- He told Hoshi everything about his life before he got to the facility
- He explained that his mother was disgusted by him and abandoned him at the last moment, so he didn’t want anything that connected him to her. He wanted a fresh start
- So, Hoshi explained that he thought the same thing
- Hoshi revealed his dark and twisty tragic origin that gave Jihoon a new perspective of him
- And at the count of three, they both revealed their birth names
- “Lee Jihoon”
- “Kwon Soonyoung”
- Though Jihoon cherished his friendship with Hoshi more than anything, he also appreciated how much it benefited him
- Hoshi had brought Jihoon out of shell and helped him meet more people
- He would teach more and more of the affected, something no other ‘brains’ could be bothered to do
- But, he did have a small price; for education, he would trade the affected anything that they had or could get
- They were small miscellaneous objects, but to Jihoon, they each had a different use for him. They were parts of a bigger plans
- So throughout the years, Jihoon was teaching more and trading more
- His collection started to overflow and eventually, he was caught with a couple of them
- The soldiers took him away from his cell and threw him into a separate room in the west building
- It was an old and dirty cell with shackles attached to the corners of the wall
- The room had obviously been used before with other prisoners with the dried blood scattered all over the place
- The soldiers threw Jihoon into the corner, giving him a small flash of a memory from when he was first captured by these people
- He was shackled to the corner of the wall and the soldiers beat him like they never had before
- When the soldiers were done with him, his whole body ached and he was spitting blood out of his mouth
- There were bruises all up and down his abdomen and on his face. Some of the soldiers had some sort of rings on their hands that placed cuts all over his face
- He was sure that they had broken-or at least bruised-a couple of ribs
- They left him shackled to the corner for a few days before finally unlocking the shackles and throwing him back in his cell
- Hoshi immediately came to his aid with worry all over his face, but Jihoon assured him that he was fine
- Months later, when Jihoon’s bruises and cuts were mostly healed, one of the soldiers decided to pick a fight with him while working
- “Wow, so the little star is all healed and ready to work, isn’t he?”
- Woozi kept his eyes on his pickaxe since they were working on construction that day
- “Hey, pipsqueak! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
- Jihoon continued to swing his pickaxe, ignoring the words of the soldier with a blank look on his face
- He knew it wasn’t the smartest idea, but he couldn’t just give in to what the soldier wanted
- “I said look at me!”
- The soldier grabbed a fistful of Jihoon’s shirt and pulled him towards his face
- “Tch.” Jihoon smirked slightly. “I didn’t know you wanted my attention this badly.”
- “Why you little-”
- And suddenly, the soldier gasped and let go of Jihoon, turning his body to the side
- Jihoon turned to look in the direction that the soldier was standing and saw the sun that he and Hoshi had made fun of so many times
- The sun’s hands glowed as he manipulated the soldier to grab at the baton at his belt and swung it around at his colleagues
- Jihoon was bewildered
- Why was the sun helping him?
- He wanted to say something as a soldier crept up behind the sun with a syringe in her hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to move
- So, Jihoon watched as the sun’s glow went away and fell limp into the soldier’s arms
- As they dragged the sun away, Hoshi ran over to Jihoon’s side
- “Are you alright? Why’d the sun defend you like that?”
- Jihoon stared after the soldiers as they dragged the body away
- “I have no idea”
- Weeks passed and the sun was nowhere to be seen
- On one of Hoshi and Jihoon’s nights outside of their cell, Hoshi stopped in his tracks as they passed a building
- “What? What is it?” Jihoon hissed, ducking down and looking around for any soldiers that could possibly be around
- “I can...I can smell him. The sun.”
- Jihoon relaxed and rolled his eyes, “Okay, so what?”
- “I think you should thank him when he gets out. He stood up for you, and no one in his ranking has ever done that.”
- Jihoon scoffed. “As if”
- Another week passed and the stars were stuck with cleaning duty in the halls of one of the facility’s buildings
- Hoshi had badgered him and lectured him on and on about why he should thank the sun and how he was probably exactly like the two of them
- Of course, Jihoon shot down any attempt that Hoshi had in making them talk to the sun
- Jihoon was smart of course, so he knew better than to fraternize with the very people that could have him killed
- And he didn’t want to admit it, but Jihoon was kind of scared of the sun
- He saw firsthand what the sun could do and didn’t want that to happen to him or Hoshi
- But of course, Hoshi knew of Jihoon’s fear.
- And Jihoon knew that he knew, which pissed him off
- So, when Hoshi then threatened to stop talking to Jihoon for a month unless he thanked the sun, Jihoon quickly gave in
- He wanted to show Hoshi that he wasn’t so scared of the sun
- And he also couldn’t stand a month without Hoshi
- And so, when they saw the sun again, Hoshi shoved Jihoon towards him
- The entire time he walked towards the sun, Jihoon mumbled about how it was a horrible idea, fully aware that Hoshi could hear him
- When he finally got to the sun, he stared at his mop, an expression with a mix of embarrassment and annoyance on his face
- “Hey.”
- He waited for the sun to answer, but was only met with an unsettling glare
- Jihoon gulped slightly and turned to face the sun, realizing that he wasn’t going to get an answer any time soon
- “I just wanted to uh...say thank you.”
- When there was no answer, Jihoon turned back to his mop, cursing out Hoshi in his mind
- “For you know...that time.”
- He hated how he stuttered in front of the sun. He hated how weak and awkward he sounded. He hated Hoshi for making him talk to the sun. (Well not really)
- The only response that Jihoon got from the sun was a simple grunt and nod
- This guy...how the hell can he be so pretentious?
- Jihoon’s blood started to boil and he let out a scoff before mopping away
- When he looked back and saw Hoshi talking to him, much to his dismay
- Jihoon internally groaned and inched closer to the two, listening in on their conversation to make sure the sun didn’t do or say anything bad to Hoshi
- Listening in, Jihoon learned that the sun’s name was Seungcheol, but he told Hoshi to call him S. Coups, giving him a slight sense that maybe the sun’s situation was like his own
- Hoshi was being his usual self, which gave Jihoon some small sense of pride
- Until, S. Coups uttered the words that Hoshi had only bitterly admitted
- “Kwon Soonyoung.”
- Hoshi was obviously taken aback, making Jihoon’s anger rise
- “W-what?”
- “That’s your name isn’t it?”
- Any fear that Jihoon had of S. Coups disappeared and was replaced with rage
- He kept his composure as he walked over to the pair and stood in between them
- Shooting an icy glare at S. Coups, he spoke in the coldest tone he could muster
- “His name is Hoshi, just like yours is S. Coups.”
- He turned to his friend and grabbed onto his wrist
- “Come on, Hosh, I told you this was a bad idea”
- Jihoon dragged his friend away and continued his work like nothing else happened
- That night, Hoshi was helping Jihoon brainstorm different ways to distract the soldiers for his plan
- Jihoon was barely listening to him drone on and on until he mentioned S. Coups
- The two got into a slight bickering argument about how Hoshi wanted to make friends with S. Coups, but eventually, Jihoon gave in
- He watched from afar day after day when Hoshi tried to talk to S. Coups at any chance he got
- Even when he wasn’t the one guarding the stars for the week, Hoshi would manage to find the sun and start conversations
- Eventually, Jihoon got roped into it and realized that S. Coups wasn’t as different as he had previously thought.
- The more time that passed, the more close Jihoon and Hoshi got with S. Coups
- Though, making friends with the higher ranks did come with it’s price
- Jihoon and Hoshi were under close supervision by the soldiers, and were sometimes even hit just for talking to S. Coups
- They were accused of scheming, but they were loyal to their new friend and defended him even if he didn’t know it
- But each time they were hit for something they didn’t do, Jihoon was getting more and more fed up with the place
- Any other time, he would have just accepted it, but now that his escape plan was falling into place, he was just impatient.
- He just needed the push to put the plan in play
- So one day, it was meal time
- They were all in the dining hall and eating their one tray of food
- While the amount of food they were given wasn’t nearly enough, they still tried to sneak some to S. Coups since they knew that he was a bigger guy and needed more food than them
- Jihoon was a slow eater and Hoshi was always faster, so it was normal for Hoshi to stand up and discard of his food before him
- What wasn’t normal was for Hoshi to bump into one of the soldiers
- Jihoon knew that Hoshi was never clumsy and had faster reflexes than anyone else, so how could he just bump into some soldier?
- His grip tightened on the table as he watched the soldier take Hoshi away, too blind with rage to think any more of it
- Jihoon saw S. Coups walking by, tugging at his gloves with the same feeling of rage painted all over his face
- It was then that he realized it...
- This was the push
- A wave of frustration washed over Jihoon as he realized that he was just outsmarted, but he just let out a small chuckle
- Of course Hoshi would be the only person who could outsmart him
- So, in a quick movement, Jihoon grabbed onto S. Coups’ wrist and tugged him back, only to have him yank his wrist away
- “You’ll make it worse.”
- “Then what do you suggest we do”
- Jihoon’s eyes shifted so slightly that only Hoshi would have been able to see it
- It was time to set the plan in motion
- That night, Jihoon searched through all of the things that he collected until he found exactly what he needed
- He stuffed the pack of matches from a healer and a small water bottle of vodka that he got from a water elemental into his pockets as well as a couple of bobby pins from an air elemental at the collar of his shirt
- When he looked out the one window high up in their cell, he saw by the stars that it was 1:30 am
- Jihoon went over to one of Hoshi’s senser friends and tapped on him
- “Could you do me a favor and tell me if you can hear Hoshi anywhere in the south wing?”
- “Yeah, hold on.”
- The friend walked over to the window and closed her eyes, trying to focus and listen for Hoshi’s voice or breathing pattern
- After a moment, the friend opened her eyes again
- “He’s not in the south wing, he’s in the west.”
- Jihoon’s eyes windened
- The west was where the punishments for bad crimes were...why would they send him there for bumping into someone?
- When it was time, Jihoon made his way to the cell door and picked at the lock, looking around to make sure no soldiers were around
- He slipped into the shadows, carefully walking through the path that him and Hoshi took with the most blind spots
- He finally got to the meeting spot and waited a couple minutes for S. Coups, timing the pattern that the soldiers were walking
- When S. Coups finally arrived, he waited for the soldier to turn and yanked him onto the path that he mapped out
- They finally got to the tree that was Hoshi’s idea to use as a distraction
- Jihoon grabbed the bottle of vodka and started dumping it all over the tree before lighting a match at it and running with S. Coups
- The entire time, his mind was on auto drive. He had gone over the final plan with Hoshi over and over again, so he knew exactly what to do down to the number of steps.
- His only focus, though, was to get Hoshi out of the torture cell
- He led S. Coups into the west building and found Hoshi shackled to the corner of the room, letting out pained screams as the music that played in the headphones got louder
- Jihoon knew what they did to the sensers when they were punished. He knew that the soldiers used their own powers against them. And Jihoon was infuriated
- How dare they do that to his closest and bestest friend?
- Jihoon picked at the locks of Hoshi’s shackled and got his best friend out
- “W-Woozi, is that you?”
- “Yeah Hosh, me and S. Coups. We’re here.”
- “Get me...get me out of here.”
- The fear and desperation in Hoshi’s voice was something that Jihoon never wanted to hear again
- So, the three of them ran out of the building with Jihoon leading the way
- Hoshi was just recovering from his senses being compromised, but he was still able to warn the two when soldiers were around
- When they got to the front gates of the facility, Jihoon told S. Coups to go into the control room to get the gates open
- Once S. Coups was out of sight, Jihoon whirled on his friend
- “Hoshi, why did you do that?” Jihoon’s voice was aggressive. He was so frustrated as to why his friend would get himself tortured. “Why the hell did you do that?”
- Hoshi gave him a pained smile, the one that Jihoon hated the most
- “You needed the push”
- When the gates started to open, S. Coups sprinted out and the two followed
- Once they were out of the walls, Jihoon couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face or the laughter that slipped from his lips
- They were finally freed
- Eventually, they started a new clan and Jihoon became the mastermind behind everything
- This clan became his new family, and he knew he wouldn’t need to fight for their approval
#lee jihoon#lee jihoon x reader#woozi#woozi x reader#jihoon#seventeen dystopian au#seventeen x reader#seventeen imagines#seventeen angst#seventeen backstory#kwon soonyoung#soonyoung#kwon soonyoung x reader#jihoon x reader#hoshi#hoshi x reader#hoshi x woozi platonic#choi seungcheol#choi seungcheol x reader#seungcheol x reader#scoups#scoups x reader#seventeen kpop
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Kidnapped
Darkiplier + Daughter!Reader (Obviously familial)
So I just found this while going through my Docs. It was supposed to be posted last year, but I wasn’t happy with a big chunk of it so I put it aside and totally forgot about it. Whoops.
Well, here it is now! And it’s based off of @justwritingscibbles bullet fic about being Dark’s Daughter! Hope you guys enjoy!
It was one thing to have a protective father, and it was another to have an overprotective father who just so happened to be a demon of sorts.
You loved your father, you really, truly did. You just wished he would ease off on the protective level a bit. Having to tell him every little detail on where you were going if you were going out and dealing with having either Dark himself or some of his essence in your shadow just so he could keep an eye on you, or even ordering The Host to go with you, was beyond annoying. You knew he only did this because he cares for you and just doesn’t want anything bad to happen, but you just wish that he could trust the world enough to leave you alone.
One day while idly staring at the ceiling to your room while laying down, you decide to do something daring; sneak out to go to the mall without telling your father. Sure you’ve attempted this multiple times before and failed every attempt, not getting too far before he realized what you did and drags you back home to give you a good scolding, but you were sure that you would be able to successfully sneak away and get to your destination without him dragging you home!
Coincidentally, your friends planned to go to the movies tomorrow and you wanted to join them, and as it turns out, tomorrow was also the day Dark had to attend an important meeting that would probably last all day. This was perfect; not only was your father going to be gone all day, but you had a reason to sneak out! You just hoped he wouldn’t use his powers to check on you while you were gone…
The next day quickly arrived and you were ecstatic. Dark, sensing your excitement, asked you what you were excited about out of curiosity and you explain to him that you and an online friend were gonna stream some really old public domain films and mock them. He knew how you loved to watch things with your online friends so he believed you, thankfully.
“Are you going to be okay while I’m gone, Y/N?” Dark asked, straightening out his suit.
“Of course I will be, father! Besides, I’m gonna be on my computer all day today, so I won’t really be leaving my room that often until you come home.”
Dark chuckled and pat your head. “Just remember to take care of yourself. I’ll be home by dinner.”
“I will! And you try to not hurt the other Ipliers during the meeting!” You giggled and he rolled his eyes. “See you later, father!”
“Goodbye, Y/N.” He smiled and promptly walked out the front door.
You watched from the window as he left to the Iplier HQ and, once he was out of view, immediately ran into your room to change your clothes. It was time for things to be set into motion! You text your friends to ask what time the movie started, what time you should arrive and where should you meet them. As you awaited their reply, you made sure you had what you knew you’d need: a jacket, house keys, wallet, phone and pepper spray. You were only going to the movies so you didn’t need much.
Once the reply from your friends came to you, you frowned as you saw that the movie was in four hours. This meant you’d have to wait for at least three hours before leaving that way you guys wouldn’t be wandering around aimlessly for too long. After the agonizingly slow three hours of waiting, you put on your jacket and quickly made way for the exit. After locking the door, you began to run to where your friends told you to meet up. You were sure that you attracted some looks from strangers due to running, but you didn’t care. You were going on a movie day with your friends without Dark’s essence, or himself, in your shadow and without Host! And this time, since Dark was gonna be gone all day, there was no chance of getting into trouble!
You had to admit, it was so odd being out in the open without any hint of your father nearby, yet it was refreshing all the same. You knew that you still had to be careful because of dangerous people that roamed the street, but you figured that since you were Dark’s daughter and that you hung out with the other egos (or tried to, anyway), you were prepared to defend yourself should someone try to do something to you.
As you got closer to your destination, you heard someone call your name. You stopped in your tracks and looked around. It wasn’t a voice you recognize and it sounded like it was right next to you, even though there was no one there. Shrugging, you take a few more steps before hearing your name being called again. This time, however, you stopped in front of an alleyway where a hooded figure rested against the wall. You looked at them, and judging from how the hood moved, they looked at you back.
“A-Are you the one calling me…?” You hesitantly asked them.
“Yeah, I am. Tell me; what’s Darkiplier’s prized possession doing out in public without him?”
“Prized possession..? Wait, how do you know about my father?!”
“How do I know him? Heh, who doesn’t know him? He’s one of the most feared beings around, although I think he’s grown soft thanks to you. Come on, kid, you should know that.” They pushed themselves off the wall and faced you, the shadow from the buildings hiding any noticeable features about them.
Your hands began to shake and your heart was pounding. Something about this person unsettled you and you felt the strong urge to run away right then and there, but your legs were practically locked in place from fear.
They took a step towards you. “Tell me; what do you think will happen if one of Dark’s enemies finds you and senses that he’s not around, hm?”
“I… I don’t know…” You gulped.
In truth, you did know. Oh boy, did you know. The first time Dark caught you sneaking out he made sure to tell you what could happen if he’s not around to ensure your safety. He even drilled the possibilities into your head by using his powers to show you, even if he regretted scaring you by doing this.
“Well then, missy.” Smiling, the figure disappeared and quickly appeared behind you, grappling you with a tight grip and holding a knife to your neck. “Let me show you~”
You screamed at the top of your lungs to try and get someone's attention, but it was all for naught as he glitched away with you still in his grip.
Anti finally had a way to make Dark do what he wants.
---
The Host’s head snapped up as he felt a strong disturbance flow through the air. He sensed that something bad had just happened. Something so bad that even he hesitated to quietly narrate it. Everyone in the meeting room looked at him, knowing that him snapping his head up like he did was a very rare occurrence and it usually meant something bad had just happened somewhere that would affect one or more of them.
“Host, what’s wrong with you?” Wilford questioned.
The Host opened his mouth to speak, but found that he was too scared to talk. Upon closer inspection, his lip was trembling.
“Out with it, Host! We don’t have all day!” Dark growled.
“T-The Host… is scared.” He muttered. “A-And requests that everyone else leaves so he can talk to Dark in private... “
Everyone glanced at each other and then at Dark, who nodded as permission for them to leave. Slowly they got up and exited the room, leaving the narrator and demon alone.
“What is the meaning of this?”
The Host gulped, trying to pick his words carefully. “...Y/N is in trouble. The Septic ego Antisepticeye has kidnapped her and plans to use her as blackmail so you do what he wants.”
Immediately, Dark’s aura flickered as his shell almost shattered completely. The entire room lost its color and ringing could be heard throughout the entire building.
He was enraged.
How dare Anti put his hands on his beloved daughter and plan to use her as blackmail.
How dare Anti think he could do this and get away with it.
No, he was going to pay dearly for this.
“How? How did he get her!?” He growled, causing the Host to gulp.
“She left the house approximately three hours after you left to come to this meeting so she could attend a hang out day with some friends of hers without any trace of you with her.”
If Dark wasn’t twitchy already, he certainly was now. He warned you about what could happen if you went somewhere without him around in some way, he fucking warned you, and yet you didn’t heed his warnings. In a fit of rage he punched a hole into the table and stormed out of the room, exploding into cloud of shadows and began to make his way to the Septic’s house.
He would scold you later, but right now he had to focus on making Anti pay.
---
“Wakey wakey, devil’s daughter~” Anti giggled, his hand under your chin and lifting it so you were facing him.
You had fainted after being glitched away with him, allowing him to easily tie you up in a chair in his basement. Opening your eyes and meeting his gaze caused you to close them again, praying that this was all a big nightmare and that soon your father would wake you up for breakfast. You prayed and prayed but to no avail, as you still felt the man’s hand under your chin and felt the chain restraining you from moving.
“Awww, is the little girl scared?” He continued to giggle. “I’m surprised. Being Darkiplier’s daughter, I thought you would be an emotionless bastard like him.”
Not giving him the satisfaction of responding, you instead try to bite his hand, which results in him pulling away and slapping you on the cheek. You yelped and tried to hold back any tears that might have started to form. You had to stay strong until Dark arrived.
“You better watch it. Remember who the powerless hostage is here.”
“What do you want from me?”
There was a sadistic glimmer in his eye,“What do I want? Hehehe… Well, I want to see Dark suffer. And what better way to do that than to hurt the only thing he cares about?”
Anti grabbed his knife and placed it on your cheek. Feeling the cold metal on your skin petrified you. You had to resist the urge to turn your head to look away so you wouldn’t get cut. Anti smirked at seeing your terrified expression. He kept the knife there for a few more moments, even pressing it against your skin slightly, before taking it away. He was going to have fun with this, oh yes.
“W-Why do you want to hurt my father?!” You managed to ask.
“Why? Isn’t it obvious? There’s room for only one powerful ego in this world, and that’s ME.” He hissed. “But don’t worry. Once I get rid of him, or at least make sure he does my bidding, I’ll make sure that you’ll be fine. Just don’t try to escape, or else...”
You gulped at his last sentence. Something happening to Dark because of you was the last thing you wanted. You struggled. Despite Anti’s warning, you still had to make an attempt to escape.
He giggles. “Are you really trying to escape while I’m still here? You’re not very bright are you? Then again, you’re Dark’s daughter. I should have expected as much.”
This creature was getting on your nerves. Now you understood why your father despised him so much.
“Ohhh… Just you wait! Once my father gets here, you’re in for a world of trouble!” You declared, doing your best to sound intimidating like Dark.
Glitchy laughter filled the room. It was obvious that Anti wasn’t taking you seriously.
“Oh trust me…” He glitched behind you to whisper into your ear. “I won’t be the one in a world of pain when he gets here~”
He promptly gagged you and once again disappeared into thin air.
Panic immediately began to set in now that you were alone. Was Anti really going to hurt your father? Did Dark or Host even sense that something happened to you? Was Anti going to kill you as a way of hurting Dark?!
All these thoughts running through your head cause you to start struggling even more than before. You had to get out. You had to escape. You needed to get out of there before you put your father in danger. Even if he was a powerful creature, you didn’t want to risk losing him.
You don’t know how much time had passed, but you ended up tiring yourself out. Instead of struggling to escape, you cried in fear. If only you had listened to your father. If only you had stayed at home where it was safe. Why the hell did you think that going somewhere without your father was a good idea?! There was a reason he was being overprotective dammit!
As you sat there in silence, you hear something. You feel something. Lifting your head, you begin to look around. It was dim in the room so you couldn’t really see anything, but you sensed that something was nearing you. It wasn’t Anti; he had a different feeling to him. Then you notice something; the shadows were seemingly moving and you heard a very loud, high pitch ringing. That only meant one thing.
“...Father?” You thought to yourself.
On cue Dark manifested from the shadows and, without hesitation, took off your gag and started to undo your bounds.
“There’s a reason I’m overprotective, Y/N. This is that reason.” He growled.
You gulped. What were you supposed to say that wouldn’t anger him? ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ came to mind, but that could wait until you were both home.
You both were still in danger, after all.
Once the bounds came off, you went to wrap your arms around him but stopped mid-motion. Your eyes widened at the sight behind him.
Anti had glitched behind Dark and was about to stab him.
Reading your actions, your father immediately turned around and punched the glitch in the stomach to knock the wind out of him. It worked, but caused him to glitch away and reappear next to you. Anti grabbed you and placed his knife to your throat, planning to threaten you in order to get Dark to back down from any further attack. He wasn’t able to get a single word out before Dark used the shadows to pull his arm away from you, then used more shadows to pull him away from you entirely.
You used this opportunity to flee behind your father. Despite the painful negative energy flowing throughout the room thanks to his aura, you didn’t want to leave his side.
Dark, however, had different plans. You may not have wanted to leave his side, but he wanted you out of the building so he could deal with Anti in private. He brushed his hand against your arm and glanced back at you.
“Wait for me outside.”
Hesitantly nodding, you do as ordered. You don’t get too far before you hear the sound of intense fighting commence. Covering your ears, you run out of the building. You normally weren’t phased by fights, verbal or physical, but since this one involved Dark and his greatest enemy you didn’t want to risk hearing any painful grunts coming from him.
The sun was set by the time Dark finally emerged from the house. You look up at him and see that his normally perfect suit was ruined and that he had a few cuts across his face and chest.
“F-Father…”
“Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay…” You mumble, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Good. Come, let’s go home.”
Opening a portal, he grabbed your hand and led you through it. His grip on your hand was tight, and it was hard to tell if it was from anger or fear.
After he closed the portal, he let you go and put his hands behind his back. “Y/N, after you get a snack and go to the bathroom, meet me in my study. I need to have a word with you.”
His voice sounded calm, but you knew that underneath that calm demeanor was a hidden rage he was trying to hide from you. Yes, he was angry at Anti for kidnapping you, but he was also angry at you for lying to him and leaving the house without telling him.
You nodded and quickly walked away. You ate your favorite snack, drank some water, and went to the bathroom. You even changed into more comfortable clothes.
Now here you were. Outside of Dark’s study and too terrified to enter. His anger was certainly something to be feared. You’ve only ever seen a fraction of it since he always does his best to hide how angry he can truly be, but you were certain that you were going to face a lot more than you were used to.
Taking a deep breath, you proceed to enter his office and walked to the center of it. Dark was staring out a window, now in a new suit, and remained motionless even when you came to a halt.
Neither of you said anything, creating a thick layer of tension. Both of you were looking for the right words to say. You didn’t want to anger him anymore than he already was, and Dark didn’t want to scare you anymore than he knows he will.
The silence between you two continued. The only sounds in the room came from a clock on the wall and the ringing his aura created.
Finally, Dark spoke up.
“Why did you lie to me, Y/N?” He asked, not moving from his spot.
You gulp. “I… Because… I wanted to go to the movies with my friends.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Because…” You hesitated to say it. “I… I wanted to feel what it was like without either you or Host watching me.”
Dark remained quiet for a moment. “...Why do you think I do what I do, Y/N?” He turns to face you. “Why do you think I make sure to know everything when you leave the house?”
You remain quiet, not wanting to say an answer that will anger him.
“It’s because of bastards like Anti. He’s not the only one who would be willing to kidnap you to try and use you as blackmail against me. He’s not the only one who would be willing to kidnap you for even far more heinous acts!” Dark moved in front of you. “And if it wasn’t for the Host, I wouldn’t have known about your situation until much later. And yes, I did sense that something had happened, but I assumed it wasn’t as bad as it really was. I will admit that was my fault and I won’t be making that mistake again.” He twitched, trying to contain his cracking shell. “And yet despite all my warnings, you still disobey and lie to me. Why?”
You open your mouth to speak, but no words come out.
“...Answer my question, Y/N. WHY?!”
Tears started to form at the corners of your eyes as you looked away from his gaze. “B-Because… I wanted to go out with my friends alone… a-and thought that everything you said was exaggerating.”
“Do not look away from me, Y/N.” He growled.
You looked back at him, hesitantly. His eyes looked venomous and you feared your upcoming punishment. You already had a horrible headache thanks to the ringing in your head and his negative aura, but your father was feared for a reason. Sure, he had never hurt you, and he especially always tried to keep his aura and shell in control, but you fucked up badly this time. Honestly, even if you feared your upcoming punishment, you knew you deserved it.
You disobeyed and lied. It’s only right that he punished you.
“I give you anything you could ever want. I take you EVERYWHERE you want to go. The least you can do is be honest with me and never disobey me. Especially when it comes to leaving the house while that glitch bitch is still alive.”
He turned around and walked over to his desk, putting both hands down on it. You can tell from the multiple forms of him screaming off to the side that he was only getting angrier. He was trying to contain it, but was having great difficulty. You’ve never seen him at his worst, but this was new and pretty bad.
He started taking quick, deep breaths. His other forms creeping out from his shell got worse and the air in the study got heavier, making it difficult to breathe comfortably. Your head started pounding as the ringing became deafening and the negative aura felt like another heavy blanket on top of you. Suddenly, he yelled and punched a hole into his desk. The suddenness of it caused you to flinch and take a step back. It’d be a lie to say you weren’t scared by that alone.
Dark stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity before the ringing started to subdue to a more tolerable level and his shell seemed stable again. During this time, you didn’t dare say anything. You still didn’t want to risk angering him more.
Finally, he turned to speak to you over his shoulder.
“...Go to your room, Y/N. Leave all your electronics outside your room. You’re grounded from using them for a month.” He grumbled, just loud enough so you could hear.
“Yes, father…” You said in a hushed tone.
Leaving his study, you take a deep breath and start walking to your room, processing everything your father said. It was a lot to take in, but you learned your lesson, that’s for damn sure. Never again would you lie to Dark, and never again would you try to leave without him knowing.
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Marvel Teen Romance: Solo Boys Edition
Romance in today’s superhero comics sucks.
There are two categories of love interests when it comes to teen boys in romance in today’s Marvel.
First category is shared with the women: two characters on the same team. This is easy and standard for superhero teen on teams and is not covered in this post.
Second is for exclusively characters with solo books: one dimensional love interests who only serve to fill in a role.
Very few of the romance in male character’s books work today because the romantic partner is not defined. They are placeholder roles. Their depth is written with the same amount of enthusiasm as a person filling out an application in the cases of characters that aren’t in team books only which is completely different for males in teen books.
This is partly because most of the characters with solo books do not have a lot of time to give the supporting cast depth so love interests often turn into one note characters that could best be defined as “This is so and so’s girlfriend.”
This is extremely prevalent in Marvel teen boys solos and you want to know how you can spot how this is happening? When you the character does not have a last name or their name is not mentioned upon introduction of said character.
Yes, this happens a lot for the teen solo male characters to which I personally had to dig just to find out who these girls were. And yes, they are all in mlw romances canonically. There is no canonically openly gay male character with his own solo book.
It is frustrating because there is no excuse. You are Marvel. You literally created Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Reed Richards and Sue Storm. You have an entire goddamn cinematic universe with well-defined romantic subplots but somehow when it comes to solo characters, fuck actually giving romantic love interests depth. Peter Parker probably has the largest love history in Marvel but almost all of them have a fucking last name. For fuck’s sake, even his supporting characters have better defined romances almost all of the characters on this list.
Warning: the reason I put a “?” for a lot of these characters’ sexual orientation is because I am not going to assume. They have to earn any confirmation of being straight from me by doing three things: when the idea of romance is brought up they always think girlfriend, actively deny being interested in the same sex, or call themselves straight. Only one character has done that on the boys side.
Miles Morales aka Spider-man
Orientation: Heterosexual
Love Interests: Barbara Rodriguez(current), Starling, Lana Baumgartner, Rachel Leigh, Katie Bishop, Tomoe the Technogolem, Spider-Gwen, Olivia
Miles Morales is the exception to the flaws of today’s teen male heroes for Marvel because of all of his love interests are actual characters in which he has unique relationships with. None of them are one note characters and they are diverse in ethnicity, race, and background. They range from his best friend’s having crushes on him(Lana), bad girls who want to tempt him into turning bad(Katie Bishop, Rachel Leigh), super powered girlfriends(Spider-Gwen, Starling), and fully fleshed out girlfriend who does not know that he is Spider-man or knows but has not told(Barbara Rodriguez).
Most importantly, they have a relationship with Miles through either his being Spider-man and just him or both.
Just like his predecessor, Miles’ love life starts and begins around his identity as Spider-man. And that is intentional because as much as Peter is probably one half of the most prolific comic book romance in history, he is fucking terrible at giving advice. Peter Parker stupidly told Miles not to tell his loved ones that he is Spider-man because villains target them all of the time. Mind you, this was 616 Peter Parker who told him this, not Ultimate Peter Parker because Mary Jane was the first person he told about his being Spider-man. Miles does not know that Peter has a guilt complex the size of the Australian Outback so he stupidly follows his advice until he meets one Katie Bishop.
How or when Katie and he hooked up is unknown, but we can say that it happened during Miles’ brief retirement from Spider-man. When Miles eventually resumed the mantle, he felt bad about lying to his girlfriend so he tells her.
Oh...this didn’t work as well as he thought. Gee I wonder what the problem is?
One problem: Katie Bishop is part of Hydra.
And this is why you should ask political affiliations should be major criteria in partner searching: one minute you are dating and watching movies, seems to really hate Inglourious Basterds for some reason. Then after making out awhile and becoming serious, they slowly reveal things about themselves. All of sudden, you realized that you have been dating a Nazi.
So after that disaster ended via “New Universe, who dis”, Miles is actually terrified about telling any love interest about his dual identity and fervently clings onto Peter Parker’s terrible advice that further complicates his relationships going forward because he misinterpreted the situation with his relationship with Katie. He should have learned that keeping secrets from each other is bad all-around because Katie never told Miles that she was a card carrying Hydra member because that would turn him off from her(I mean he is black for fuck’s sake). Miles, while having no reason to share his past with her while they were dating because he was no longer Spider-man, should have not completely abandoned his superhero sense, Neither of them trusted the other enough so the relationship was doomed from the jump.
This is where Barbara Rodriguez, Lana Baumgartner, and partially Spider-Gwen comes in.
Spider-man (2016) is an awkward jumping point because Bendis no longer had the Ultimate Universe as the backdrop for Miles. If I could advise anyone who was interested in Miles Morales comics, I would tell them to skip most of 2016 run because Bendis was over the place. He introduced a lot of bad ideas like Miles moving away from the Spider-man identity, the Venom web strings thing replacing web shooters, Miles becoming a secret agent, and etc. Just a lot of dumb shit. But one thing that Bendis did establish was that Miles is a hormonal teenaged heterosexual boy who has girls on the brain all of the time.
It is a over arching subplot of both Ganke and Miles trying to get girlfriends. Ganke keeps shopping Miles out to girls and Miles kind of indulges him. Until Miles goes to Earth-65.
Gwen Stacy knows Miles is Spider-man, but she is from another dimension and while they share the same mantle, Gwen’s attraction to Miles is dubious because every dimension she has been in up to the point that she met Miles, a Gwen Stacy is either dead, miserable, or evil. The one alternate reality that she has seen where she is happy is that she is married to Miles Morales with children. All of this on top of the fact that Gwen is being blackmailed by her worst nemesis as well as her father being in prison equates to Gwen is stressed and is desperate for any sort of comfort. She does not have any feelings towards Miles that go beyond platonic and it helps that of all the Spider-people, Miles is one of the few that don’t resemble Peter.
And you shouldn’t trust Miles’ feelings because he is a horny teenaged boy who spent the majority of Bendis’ last run pining after every girl who just so happens to smile at him. No really, Miles had crushes on Kamala, teenaged Jean Grey, Cassie Lang, some girl that broke up with him before they started dating, and Spider-Gwen. He was just happy to kiss a girl but not really because she is from another dimension. And right after that, he gets into a thing with Lana and Tomoe the Technogolem so really, it is not really a thing, but the movie felt compelled to make it so in spite of spitting in the face of every goddamn Spider-man theme ever created.
Lana Baumgartner aka Bombshell, however, at least is in the dimension Miles currently resides in and also is one of the two who has been in both the Ultimate and 616 universe when Miles made his switch. Now I am not sure how much is still canon with Bombshell making the switch over to 616, but her relationship with Miles is a lot like Peter’s and Black Cat’s in that she used to be bad, but now she is good and Miles is like her best friend. Regardless, aside from Ganke, Lana is one of the few people who Miles can confide in and Lana, in spite of going to Midtown, relates to Miles on multiple levels.
It wasn’t until Miles left to avenge her getting beaten up by Hammerhead that Lana started actively pursuing Miles or stating that she kind of always had a crush on him which is not at all reciprocated because he correctly deduces that Lana is dealing with Florence Nightingale effect. Of course, he may have underestimated her feelings for her because from that point on, Lana keeps texting him and he keeps ignoring her.
And finally Barbara Rodriguez.
Barbara, unbeknownst to both Miles and her, is from the Ultimate Universe as well. Apparently when Miles made the switch, Molecule Man wanted to thank Miles and not revived all of his dead family members, he also made sure would be loved ones like Barbara were around. It is kind of like an alternate dimensional fated lovers thing and since Barbara is the last thing Bendis created before he went to DC, she is Miles’ Mary Jane Watson. Saladin Almed took over writing duties for Miles and under his pen, the relationship between Miles and Barbara has been the focus of his run.
Barbara does not have any superpowers and what we know is that she is an aspiring rapper/singer who at least half of her family is undocumented immigrants or not American. She is a hip-hop head, has a bit of a mischievous streak(she convinces Miles to skip school to go to a Hip-Hop museum exhibit), and loves to banter.
And she also knows that Miles is Spider-man but because of very stupid advise from one Peter Parker, Miles keeps lying to her. This puts a strain on the relationship which is worsened because Barbara feels indebted to Miles because him being Spider-man saved her. She just wishes that Miles told her instead of lying about it.
While Miles and Barbara are dealing with this melodrama, Miles meets another girl: Tiana Toomes aka Starling.
She is the granddaughter of Adrian Toomes aka the Vulture aka one of Peter Parker’s worst enemies. Miles meets her in the middle of Tiana’s One Woman Quest for Vengeance against Tombstone and they fundamentally disagree on how to deal with Tombstone.
After all Tombstone is dealt with, Miles and Tiana kind of connect except the obstacle of his need to preserve his secret identity gets in the way.
Miles fails to realize that his secret identity is there to protect not just him and his loved ones, but ensure that he has a normal social life. There is nothing to be gained in keeping a secret from friends about who you are especially if it puts them in danger. Yes, Miles is right in not telling Tiana, who is related to a guy who would gladly attack Miles to get back at Peter Parker in someway, and I am a bit annoyed that he even considered revealing himself to Tiana who he has every reason to not trust on that level, but not Barbara who he promised to share with once he felt comfortable. It is not out of safety that he doesn’t tell Barbara which is exactly the case when dealing with Tiana. He doesn’t tell Barbara because he believes he is keeping her safe and...he isn’t. It just shows that you don’t trust her.
Miles is the only male teen hero that Marvel has who has starred in a solo comic book and has an in-depth romantic history as well as in-depth and detailed love interests. He is the only one in a period of 20 years. That is sad.
Sam Alexander aka Nova
Gender: Male
Orientation: ?
Love Interests: Carrie, Jinin, Lina
And now we are shifting from character whose history is in-depth to another whose can’t be asked to give his romantic interests a fucking last name. The writers of Nova have no excuse. Nova unlike the majority of characters here has had at least 50 issues which is 40 issues too many to have a character who was present in the very first issue to not yet have a fucking last name.
Carrie appears in the first issue of Sam’s Nova where Sam is moping about his dad being picked on because his father is the school janitor. Carrie has very little depth, but there was enough depth that would amount to an introduction.Carrie is friends or at least hangs out in the same skater clique as Sam’s bully, Karl. Karl loves to rag on Sam’s dad working as the school’s janitor and honestly, Carrie kind of likes Sam, but she is friends with the asshole as well so it had potential of being interesting.
You’d think that after this introduction that she would be more prominent, but nope. Carrie’s appearances became more sporadic in Sam’s Nova in which Sam shows that he is as emotionally dense as the sunken Titanic. The series shifted away from Sam’s school life to focus on Sam’s quest to find his father and his mother and sister. Sam doesn’t see Carrie a lot so you as a reader can’t be blamed if you don’t know that she exists.
Carrie doesn’t appear until another 4 issues later(4 months) where she is hanging out with Karl and the skater clique in which she prevents Karl from spontaneously egging Sam’s home out of boredom. And of course, Nova appears.
In which, she immediately recognizes that Nova is Sam because girls who like boys are apparently more perceptive or at least Sam’s mask is nowhere near as concealing as he thinks with the whole mouth being visible.
Next issues she confronts Sam about it and of course like an idiot, he lies because apparently it is superhero 101 to lie to your girlfriends about who you are when it is really fucking obvious.
The lie is unnecessary because Sam’s villains or would be villains could easily track down Sam due to him being a Nova. They go beyond taking his loved ones hostage. It is honestly beneath them to do so and the closest that a character has done so in Nova was Kaldera and she didn’t need to know what Sam looked like or his name. Nova’s secret identity or need of one is useless.
Carrie confronts Sam again about the Nova issue and when Sam tries to pull a Spider-man, she completely chews him out for it.
From this point on, Carrie’s appearances were sporadic and carried a somewhat hostile tone with her getting sick of Sam’s shit and also the bulk of Sam’s adventures being away from school. Carrie becomes the babysitter for Sam’s sister when his mom is busy being a single mother and Sam is out in Space doing space shit. And again, not a whole lot of depth here. And then suddenly for no apparent reason and actual use of story telling...Sam and Carrie start randomly dating.
After this, she barely appears and then she is dropped off the face of the Earth. Now I would cover Jinin and Lina, but it is a waste of time. Both characters are one note and have fewer appearances than Carrie. Point is that Sam’s romance history is indicative of an overall problem with male teen heroes in the modern age. They don’t bother with making the romantic interest as an actual character. Their role is to essentially warm the bed and house while the hero is away.
Amadeus Cho aka Brawn
Gender: Male
Orientation: ?
Love Interests:Delphyne Gorgon, Lady Hellbender, Enchantress(Hulk brained consented without Amadeus being conscious...so rape?), Vision, Luna Snow
It took nearly 20 years to develop a love interest for Amadeus. 20 goddamn years. It wasn’t even developed. It just randomly happened.
Eventhough I was rooting for Cindy Moon/Luna Snow, I’m just glad that it happened.
Victor Alvarez aka Power Man
Gender: Male
Orientation: ?
Love Interests: Ava Ayala, Iowa Bryant
Victor is criminally underused. He should be tied to both Iron Fist and Luke Cage, but he kind of went the way of the teen hero in the 2010s: shipped off to any team that needs a token black guy. Before he went down that role, he was being mentored by Danny Rand for awhile. Anyone who knows Victor knows that him being mentored by a snooty rich white guy goes as well as Jason Voorhees and pre-marital teenaged coitus.
Victor goes to school, apartently he is a budding thespian and actor, and he can’t even focus because his head is in the clouds.
Dayyuuuuuuum. I mean she talks like she stepped out of the 20s, but I understand the awe. Iowa is probably the most peculiar of the love interests here because she has this flapper-esque dialogue that is just out of place. So out of place that Victor suspects her of being tied to the resident old timey bad guy that both he and Iron Fist are searching for.
Long story short: Nothing happens to this item. She is remarkable because at least she has a last name.
Next is probably a more popular character: Ava Ayala aka White Tiger. Victor joins the Mighty Avengers and his initial thoughts of the honorable and dutiful Ava Ayala...
Awww, he gets the mush mouth when he gets flustered around pretty girls. Ava Ayala and Victor’s chemistry starts slow as Ava is a bit of a tortured soul as she constantly wants to live up to her brother’s example.What with Gideon Mace killing her brother and Arcade torturing and killing some of her old teammates: she just wasn’t in the headspace of looking for relationships. When Gideon gets loose, Ava decides to let the Tiger out and the team had to stop her from mauling her brother’s killer.
Ouch...
White Tiger eventually gets put down by the team. Victor, being the dogged nice guy that he is tries to find a way to relinquish the hold the Tiger God has on his crush. Luckily, Ava puts the God-Spirit in check, herself. After this, the two continue to support each other and form somewhat of a bond. For Victor, it was romantic and for Ava, it was mostly out of camaraderie. But after a cosmic near world ending experience that involved all of the Avengers merging their minds together thus sharing each other’s souls to one another, they finally become official.
That is one way to undercut development and get straight to the point. I mean there is not a pick up line the world that equates to soul melding and fighting off the bad guy.
Anyway, they stayed an item for awhile. There really isn’t a lot of content.
Mighty Avengers ends, but they both get enlisted into the AIM Avengers. During this transition, they broke up because Ava is all work and no play. She is married to the idea of being a superhero so much that she doesn’t value her own health. Victor broke up with her.
They don’t get bac together btw. After AIM Avengers, Victor joins the Champions while Ava joins up with Captain America. He does try to make a pass at Ironheart, but that gets shut down quick.
Rayshaun Lucas aka Patriot
Gender: Male
Orientation: ?
Love Interests: Brianna
I am not going to waste my time or yours.
This is Brianna. He asks her out on a date, but then she gets promptly turned into a mindless vampire and that shit is a bigger turn off than cis straight men.
He joins the Champions and hits on the Red Locust, but she is kind of too gay Ms. Marvel to care.
Robbie Reyes aka Ghost Rider
Gender: Male
Orientation: ?
Love Interests: Lisa
Not going to waste your time and mine, again.
Lisa literally just shows up. No introduction. She just happens.
And this is from the first series. In the next series, written by the same writer, she just disappears. So nothing of note happens and you wonder why fangirls ship him with Amadeus.
So this all of them. No, I won’t do Alpha because...no. Anyways, the girl solo’s are next(we are talking Ms. Marvel and Kate Bishop) so it should be more fun and gay. And then we will get to the big team teen love fest bonanza which is super gay and super fun.
#Miles Morales#Spider-man#spider-man: into the spider-verse#Into the Spider-verse#Nova#Sam Alexander#Amadeus Cho#Brawn#Totally Awesome Hulk#Victor Alvarez#Power Man#Rayshaun Lucas#Patriot#Ghost Rider#Robbie Reyes#Spider-Gwen#Katie Bishop#Barbara Rodriguez#Starling#Tiana Toomes#long post#lana baumgartner#bombshell
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Honestly, I’m not sure if this gangster is meant to be a bee, or an ant, or some other kind of insect;
He’s got stripes like a bee, so I assume he’d be one, but you can never really tell with cartoon insects.
Regardless about the exact specifics of his species, he’s certainly meant to be a bug mobster. And with that in mind, here are some headcanons I have on his backstory;
At one point, there was a mafia syndicate operating on Earth; Perhaps in Harlem, for example. This crime family was ultimately headed by the main ‘queen’ of the mob, who desired order and structure in her community. Her influence in crime gave her control over her hometown, and while the police were frequently corrupt, her mafia provided a form of justice that the locals could rely on. Through her minions, the Mrs. kept crime to a minimum (excluding her own mafia’s, of course), with small-time local criminals unwilling to mess with the local mob. Mrs. would donate plenty to community projects and help local businesses with financial issues, taking good care of them when companies and banks wouldn’t. The Mrs. used her connections to provide food, shelter, and career opportunities to several people and families, and while her many other acts were questionable, her gang was nevertheless regarded as a true source of trusted authority. Drugs were definitely not allowed, with those who dared to encroach on this law severely punished, as the Mrs. had grown up seeing the devastation that narcotics had on her neighborhood. Abused wives and children could count on the Mrs. and her gang to protect them if they ever needed help.
Inevitably, the Mrs. died, and her legacy was carried on for generations by her descendants and other relatives. Many who’d later be inducted into the gang would regard the Mrs. as an almost saintly figure amongst the community and in the crime family.
Our Bug Gangster, pictured above, was one of those thugs, and he died in an unspecific shoot-out. Upon arrival in Hell, he quickly discovered that after the Mrs. died, she too manifested as a demon (For all the good she brought, she was also guilty of horrible murders, tortures, blackmail, extortion, hostages, backstabbing, etc.). The Mrs. quickly realized some of her deceased followers must’ve been in Hell as well, and regrouping with them, she re-established her crime family within Pentagram City.
This crime family, from there on, functioned as a form of law and order in certain parts of Hell. The Mrs., having acknowledged her flaws, nevertheless decided to keep operating as she always had, with some mind towards the difference in society that Hell provided. Inevitably, people crave order and structure, and the Mrs. was willing to use her mafia to act as a local law enforcement of sorts that’d keep neighborhoods safe and operational. She acted the same as she did, having her thugs patrol areas, ready to punish criminals; If someone was being abused, a gangster was sent to teach the abuser a lesson. Local business owners could appeal to the Mrs. for a few loans, and if they proved themselves trustworthy, she would be quite generous with the donations. Run-down areas were quickly refurbished with her funds of the Mrs. and her crime organization.
Naturally, The Mrs. had gangsters regularly posted around Pentagram City to peruse through regular arrivals, to see which ones were members of the gang she’d started back on Earth. Many of these new arrivals (The Bug Gangster being one of them), after getting over the shock of being in Hell, were quickly overjoyed to be reunited with old pals. Many rejoiced in getting to meet classic, respected figures of the crime family, especially the Mrs. herself, and just about all swore additional fealty. It was popular to boast that the Mrs. and her gang operated in both life and death. The gang even set up posters encouraging local demons to safely bring in any new arrivals to Hell who had been members of the family in life, in return for money; Of course, any attempts to bring in an impostor would be severely punished.
In Hell, the Mrs. and her gangsters are willing to hear out criminal cases and settle disputes, and some members have even held impromptu ‘trials’ to assess the guilt of an accused demon. The tactics of the gang, while undoubtedly brutal and at times invasive, are nevertheless appreciated by many in Hell. The gang even gives shelter to other demons during annual purges by the Exterminators!
As a crime family, the Mrs. and her gang inevitably have conflict with a lot of local mobs. Even in Hell, the Mrs. still maintains her livid hatred of drugs and has a brutal law set in place to keep them out of her territory, and thanks to demons’ nearly un-killable nature, torture-punishments can reach new levels. This has put her at odds with several crime families, especially since she’s ordered multiple hits on narcotics-makers and dealers; Angel Dust and Arackniss’ mafia family are bitter rivals with the Mrs., and her gang of insects regard the Spiders as ‘crackies’ due to their willingness to deal in drugs like cocaine. Even in death, mob violence is still a thing.
Like in life, the Mrs. still wields a brutal iron fist when it comes to traitors and encroachers. Despite her generous nature, she rarely hesitates to execute those who betray the family by dealing with drugs and will resort to using Exterminator weaponry to permanently kill traitors. Speaking ill of the gang and the Mrs. is not welcomed, and the Bug Gangster (drawn above) has beaten up many with his pals for such slights.
You can join this gang without having been a member in life, but doing so requires an extensive background search and interrogation by the gang before you can join. Generally speaking there’s a bias in favor of insectoid demons, and spiders of course are eyed warily.
In Hell, the Bug Gangster is a loyal operative of the Mrs., continuing to serve the family and proudly upholding his oath to follow them ‘into Hell and back’, now that he can prove it literally. He usually hangs out with at least two of his pals when going around, and they’ve been called upon to ‘gather funds’ whenever necessary, as well perform assassinations, provide protection, do investigations, etc. The Bug Gangster isn’t particularly impressed with Charlie’s ‘Hazbin Hotel’, because based on what he’s been taught by the Mrs. and her descendants, some people are just utter garbage and won’t change, and it’ll be best for the community to get rid of them permanently. The fact that it’s possible for Hell to have some justice and order (through the gang he’s so proud to be a member of) makes the need for redemption silly in his eyes, for what is there to redeem? Hell’s not so bad to him, it’s just a second life at this point.
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My Unposted Star Wars Story
Okay, @marvelousthronewars, I’m doing the thing. This is actually roughly a chapter and a half from my unposted story, I just really wanted to get to some of Poe’s POV. So this is...just over 7,000 words from it?
LIttle bit of background: this takes place roughly 3 years before the events of The Force Awakens and works its way up to it. It also relies heavily on the events of the book Star Wars: Bloodline, which details the events of how Leia left the Senate, formed the Resistance, and how the galaxy discovered that Vader was her father. Yes, it’s an OC story, namely another Solo kid, because we haven’t had enough of those, have we?
Admittedly, there is a lot of politicking in this. I may have mostly written this story for me haha. Writing politics is my bread and butter, and space politics even more so. This is why I love Game of Thrones so much, and I pretty much brought that love into the Star Wars universe, or attempted to at least. Lots of Star Wars jargon. By all means, ask if you are confused.
Again, this is a story I stopped writing a while ago, but people are curious, and I am curious about the reactions. Also, I came up with this before The Last Jedi, so there’s that tidbit too.
Shattered Balance
There were always two, no more, no less. The Dark Side and the Light. Brother and Sister. Ben and Elara.
It all started with a dream, and a man determined to keep it from coming true…
33 ABY
The Lower District
Republic City
Hosnian Prime
The locals called the area Bottom View. Much like its sister-planet, Coruscant, the lower one sank through the levels of Hosnian Prime, the more dangerous and decrepit things became. Bottom View was the last rung before the planet surface, with only an obscure view of the stars if the power grid failed, and if you happened to possess a pair of macrobinoculars, but the inhabitants prided themselves on what height they had achieved in the cityscape.
If the fall can kill you, you’re doing alright.
It was a phrase commonly murmured by the residents, one Prax Edo had heard his entire life. His father had used it as a sort of daily mantra, until he had succumbed to a respiratory disease, one often found in areas that lacked proper air circulation while having an abundance of chemical output. That was essentially anything under the Middle District, which was a good fifty stories over their heads.
Needless to say, the Rodian had become quite the pessimist.
His young life was filled with half-baked, get rich quick schemes, most of which resulted in barely breaking even. The rest left him in debt to people who stopped bothering to climb the ladder and still ended up better off than him. At times, he was almost tempted to follow his brother, who had stowed away on a ship bound for the Outer Rim. Prax had never heard back from him, but whatever happened was bound to be better than his existence in Bottom View. Even the prison on Hosnian Prime was higher up than he was now.
Prax took a swig from his drink. It burned a trail down his throat and tasted something awful, but he needed the liquid courage. He was staring at a plan that could set him up for life, if he played his cards correctly.
The man who sat across from him worked for a politician of some sort, or perhaps just a very rich man. Either way, it was clear neither individual knew anything of slum life. His clothes consisted of what any rich man would assume was the garb of the poor (namely a cheap tunic and the galaxy’s most conspicuous hooded jacket), minus, of course, any holes, mysterious stains, or suspicious smells. And those things were the whole point really. No one trusted a clean man, not this close to the surface, but they also knew better than to not listen to what he offered.
The lowest of the low took on all sorts of jobs to keep their lives afloat, from day to day commissions that brought hard manual labor and little pay to high-risk/high reward missions that would result in either incarceration or death if failed. The latter was the particular idea this rich man was pitching to Prax, or at least he was trying to.
“Speak up, would you?” Prax more or less shouted at the man. “No need to worry about prying ears here.”
They were seated at a corner booth in the local nightclub, aptly named Ataxia, overlooking the throng that crowded the dance floor. The sound was best described as tangible, which was a fancy word that told Prax that if he hadn’t gone deaf yet, he may never lose his hearing. As such, it was the perfect environment for the business’ other purpose.
Encircling the dance floor were multiple tables hidden in dark corners, much like their own, where beings clustered together to talk of trade and contracts, the flow of spice, illegal betting grounds, and other less than savory topics. The Senate had its gathering place, the Underground its own.
“My employer has a competitor who has exceeded her boundaries for far too long,” the man repeated, though he hardly raised his voice any higher. “She needs to be reminded of the working order of things.”
Intimidation. He’d tagged along on a few jobs like that before. The really good ones were meticulous in their efforts. They preferred psychological damage, using techniques that still made Prax squirm. He wasn’t as well practiced in the art of coercion. Clearly his client was of the stingy variety if he was coming to him for this rather than the others. Still, stingy to him was a lot of money to the poor Rodian, whose rent was two months late.
The man, whose features he’d never quite been able to make out under the hood, slid a datapad toward him. Prax noted how he did his best not to make skin contact with any surface in the club. He was half tempted to spit on the clean hand presented with the datapad, but thought better of it. What was the phrase? Don’t spit on the hand that feeds you?
Prax took in the image before him. It was of a woman, young, perhaps pretty by human standards, with dark hair and light eyes. She hardly looked old enough to have made much difference in the universe, much less garner the anger of well-funded individuals. Still, something about her felt familiar, which said something this far down.
“I assume the compensation is to your satisfaction?”
The Rodian read the number just below her face. He suppressed a noise in his throat. “Very.”
Suddenly, the table shook.
Prax looked up from the datapad to see a crossed pair of boots sitting in front of him, attached to a lounging woman who looked oddly like the picture he had just been staring at. His client, he noted, had gone white as a sheet.
“Funny, the people you run into in unexpected places,” the woman said, sinking deep into the cushions of the booth. “It’s Darek, right? Senator Prost’s aide.”
Prax blinked. He looked the woman over again, a picture of calm amid the chaos of Ataxia, with her feet on the table and an arm outstretched to the side, nearly reaching him (unlike Darek who was nervously looking around the room and pulling his hood even tighter). She sported a short, brown jacket, which did nothing to conceal the blaster at her hip. A hand in fingerless gloves rested on it, not taut, but prepared nonetheless.
This was who his client was worried about? She looked better suited to a life in Bottom View than any place a richer person would be found. Was she a jilted lover? Illegitimate daughter? Maybe she had some blackmail on him.
“What brings you so far down, Darek? This place certainly isn’t the kind of nightlife you’re used to.”
“The same could be said about you, Senator,” Darek managed to squeak out. “If word got out, it wouldn’t bode very well for you.”
Wait, did he say senator?
“I wouldn’t know why,” the woman replied, waving down a serving droid. Moments later, three shots of some greenish liquid sat on the table. “I’m just enjoying a drink and a song.”
She took the shot, placing the empty glass upside down. “Aren’t you?”
His client eyed the drink for a half a second before turning his nose up at it. The woman chuckled, taking the glass for herself.
“Maybe your friend will be a little more conversational.” She turned to Prax, though not before eying his own untouched drink. “Elara Organa-Solo, by the way. And you are?”
In over my head.
Now Prax knew where he had seen her face before. Even in the outskirts of society, most people knew the name, and now Darek’s mention of senator made sense. She was a more outspoken politician, who was either loved or hated, never quite tolerated. Her family was chock full of Rebellion heroes, until the tree branch reached her grandfather. His father had spoken of terrifying acts that belonged solely to Darth Vader, things even an army could not accomplish. The fact that this beaming, young woman sitting next to him was related to that monster was downright unnerving.
“No one important,” Prax finally answered, standing. The aide looked pleadingly at him. He wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t been hired for protection, or suicide either.
“Don’t be like that. Stay.” The senator casually waved her hand. “I think you want to tell me why Darek was talking with you.”
Suddenly, all urges to leave stopped, and Prax sat back down as if he had wanted to all along. He wanted to tell her everything. She was a friend, a confidant, and he could not resist her beckoning. “He wanted me to intimidate you. His words implied by physical force.”
Elara raised an eyebrow, turning her gaze to the aide who had somehow remained rooted to the spot, and looked even paler for it. “Definitely not enjoying a drink, then.”
She lifted her boots from the table, leaning forward on both arms to look Darek in the eye. “Is that the kind of game the Senate plays now? Disagree with someone and get beat up for it?”
“Senator Prost doesn’t think you can be reasoned with,” the aide finally said, though it sounded more like a whisper.
The woman scoffed. “That’s a lot come from a man whose first line of defense equates to plugging his ears and chanting about not listening.”
There was a pregnant pause. From Prax’s seat, he could see Elara playing with the blaster, deciding. He wanted to get up again, to run and never come back to this forsaken establishment, maybe just run to the next cruiser destined for anywhere other than the system he was on. But he was frozen to the spot, concerned that any movement on his part might also trigger her.
“Tell me, Darek, do you know why Ataxia is the place to come to for hiring shady characters?”
When the aide shook his head, Elara drew her blaster. She aimed at no one, didn’t even put her finger on the trigger, instead placing it on the table surface, though Prax felt like she had shot him in the chest anyway, the way his heart skipped a beat. And though Ataxia continued to move to the beat of the current dance song, all around eyes were watching.
“Do you see all these tables around us? They aren’t filled with ordinary patrons; they are the scum of the universe, the kind that people like you and Prost shake your heads at, the kind everyone says will amount to nothing more than unintelligent drivel at the wasted bottom of the galaxy.” She waited, letting Darek glance around the space with a keener eye. “You’re in the middle of their territory now. Tell me, does it feel like nothing?”
Prax knew it didn’t to him. Rich men could shake their heads at gangsters all they wanted, but when they were at the wrong end of the blaster, all their status meant nothing.
“Ataxia is what some would call neutral territory. So, not only are all these people criminals, they’re also rivals. Which means, with one wrong move-” She made a trigger pulling motion with a free hand, her wrist slowly arching back from the pretend kick. “-this entire place will light up like New Republic Day on spice, but I’m sure Prost was well aware of that before he sent you down here to do his dirty work.”
Darek gulped. “Yes, I’m…sure he was.”
There was a moment of silence, or whatever qualified as that in Ataxia. No one at the table moved, they all eyed the blaster. Prax wondered how far he could get before the crazy human got them all killed.
Then Elara holstered the weapon, and there was a collective sigh of relief.
“Your view of the galaxy doesn’t work in reality. I suggest you tell your boss to stick to his playing field. He’s not going to beat me in mine.”
As if some invisible string had been cut, the aide immediately fled the area, chased out by rough music and hoarse laughter from the other tables. Prax watched him go, the emptiness of his wallet weighing more than all the coin in the world.
“Sorry for the trouble,” Elara said suddenly, slamming down something on the table while simultaneously downing his drink. “I’m not a fan of it, but some things can’t be helped.”
She left then, disappearing into the crowd as if she had not been there in the first place.
On the table was a small card, which unlocked an account with 10,000 Galactic Credits.
. . .
New Republic Senatorial Complex
Republic City
Hosnian Prime
The room was a cacophony of languages, binary, and the occasional whoops of a politician whose point had been made. The bowl-shaped assembly, resembling the old senate with its deep build and endless rows of viewing platforms, only aided the chaos presented to the viewer. With that, many delegates found privacy in the din.
But in the midst of the commotion, nestled with the repulsorpods from the Ash Worlds of the Outer Rim, Elara heard it all. She took her time, using the Force to gently probe the conversations surrounding her, no more than a sentence or two at once, enough to gauge the topic of discussion. Most were trivial: family concerns, which systems distilled the best drink, none of the dramatic overtures that the space had grown accustomed to housing, and, more importantly, no mention of the growing threat that lingered in the Unknown Regions.
Pursing her lips, Elara leaned back, allowing the clear conversations to meld into a droning buzz once more.
It was growing worse. The Senate not formally acknowledging the First Order as, at the very least, a subject of interest was one thing, to disregard it completely was another. It was a battle she had been losing from day one, ever since she had taken her mother’s vacated seat four years ago. Many of her fellow politicians still saw her as a young child looking for emotional leverage, while others saw a warmonger hoping for vengeance for a home she had never seen. Of course, what they all saw, to varying extents, was Darth Vader. That was an image she had given up trying to shake. Ever since the provocative reveal in that very room nearly five years prior, it was hard to ignore for anyone. There had been no gentle easing of the truth. The bandage had been yanked off before the galaxy, taking skin and bone with it.
She had been with her father at the time, out on the race circuit, finding herself in a galaxy full of possibility. Han Solo had never been one to look ashamed, even his greatest mistakes he defended proudly, but to see the look on his face when his daughter heard the family’s darkest secret over the holonet, she might have sworn he was a different man.
“Disappointed, are we?”
Remembering her place, Elara’s hazel eyes shot across the pod to where Kaid Dexshi reclined, an annoying grin plastered on his face. The senator from Eredenn Prime (and benefactor of her home system of New Alderaan) was an older gentleman, though no less handsome for it. His graying hair was still cut to Republic Navy standards and his skin tone reflected a lifestyle of a constant outdoorsman rather than the cushy indoor life the average politician led. He was fit (more so than most men half his age) and he was cocky as hell. Most days Elara wasn’t sure if she liked or hated him. Some days she simply wanted to toss him out of the pod.
It was a complicated relationship, to say the least.
“If I say no, would you stop looking so pleased?” Elara sat up, smoothing out the wrinkles that had formed in the light blue fabric of her dress, willing them to turn into leggings if she were to be honest. “Surely you’re not going to tell me we’re all here to witness the failure of another vote regarding the First Order?”
The senator chuckled. “No need to worry, Elara. My entertainment at your expense is borderline cruelty at this point. I’ll not be the senator who violated the Galactic Concordance because of a woman.”
Elara sneered. “Then what horrible thing has you in such a good mood this morning?”
Kaid’s smile only grew as he moved to sit next to her, breath hot on her ear as he whispered. “Just be patient and pay attention. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
She barely repressed the urge to roll her eyes. Toss him from the pod it was.
After a few minutes passed with scarcely a change in the atmosphere, Elara was beginning to think she’d been had. It was not something she would have put past Kaid, although she had hoped he respected her enough to play such tricks in private.
Then the air shifted. Fear, anticipation, despair. Gasps and angry shouts brought her attention upward, where four Senatorial guards surrounded Senator Prost himself in his repulsorpod. Darek, she noted, was nowhere to be found.
The entire Senate watched as the man was arrested and taken away, before erupting in conversation and arguments. Her pod’s screen lit up as various politicians vied for the first chance to speak.
Elara dared to look at Kaid, whose ego would be unbearable for the next month or so. “What did you do?”
“Senator Prost has a terrible spending habit, and even worse encryption on his accounts. A hint here, a nudge there, and suddenly the Internal Investigation Committee has the answer to all the missing money from public spending accounts.”
“And what, may I ask, inspired you to even look into his spending?” Elara asked, scooting back on her seat so that there was respectable ‘working room’ between them. “Last I checked, you accused Prost of being worth about as much of your time as a five year old on a temper tantrum. You said a man that loud can’t have anything worth looking into.”
Kaid shrugged. “I got a tip. Some underappreciated aide talking about how there were things I’d probably like to look into.”
Elara had to smile at that. Perhaps things the previous night had not as been as bad as she thought.
Her colleague noticed the look on her face. “I had a feeling you might have had something to do with it. I wish you’d stop taking things into your own hands, though. Getting involved in the crime world will eventually do more harm than good.”
She managed to look sheepish. “You heard.”
“Heard?” Kaid practically laughed. “A Centrist damn near cackled after relaying the story to me. You’re on thin ice around here as it is, Elara. You shouldn’t push your luck.”
“So, you’d have me sit back and let these people play their little games with me?” Elara asked, ignoring how loud her voice got. “I wasn’t in Bottom View to cause trouble, but to prevent it. Prost was about to hire goons to attack me, for pity’s sake.”
Kaid put a hand on Elara’s shoulder, leaning closer, urging her to quiet. “You and I both know you have nothing to fear on that front, and I suggest you try harder to keep it between us. The aide was easy to bribe, but once word gets out about your abilities, no amount of money will keep the Senate from forcing you into self-exile like your mother.”
Elara took a deep breath, calming. Few people in her life knew about her Force sensitivity, fewer still her training. It was what managed to keep her afloat in a political environment that wanted nothing more than to be rid of her. She was, technically, an innocent in the disaster that was her family, but not many would be willing to forgive her wielding of the Force, not with Darth Vader’s memory still so firmly intact in their memories.
There had been days when she wondered if she had not been cursed.
“We have to play the long game here,” the senator continued. “It’s the only way to get anything done.”
“We don’t have that kind of time, Kaid,” she murmured. “The Resistance encounters stronger First Order opposition on every mission, and they haven’t even seen the bulk of their forces.”
At that, her friend frowned, looking very much his age at that moment. “You may be right there, Elara. When the aide said there was something I’d like, he wasn’t wrong. Prost’s spending only appears frivolous on the outside. Most of the accounts can’t be traced when you look deeper into them.”
“The Unknown Regions,” Elara added quietly, multiple ideas trying to overtake her train of thought at once.
“Precisely,” Kaid replied with a nod. “And if all this money went to them from one man, how much funding do you think a corrupted Senate could bring the First Order?”
. . .
The last time Leia had visited the complex, she hadn’t been entirely welcome. The Resistance was still in its early stages, back when the First Order was only a dark whisper with no name. She had appeared as nothing more than a traitor, a Separatist, who sought to plunge the galaxy back into civil war. Still, they had grudgingly allowed her to attend the induction ceremony. She was, after all, still royalty, and it was her daughter taking her turn at the political wheel.
There had been a lot of whispers, many shouts, and one man had dared to toss his drink at her, but she had stood tall and proud. Angry opposition was something she was used to.
Or welcomed, as Han put it.
But now the times were different. The dark whispers had a name and while the Senate may have been entirely too slow to act against them, it was obvious that many individuals saw the Resistance in a new light. It was an appreciation of sorts, but for their sacrifice or distraction, she could not say.
Her office had changed, she noted. It had nearly been barren when she occupied it. Her nose was always stuck in datapads so the bare walls never had time to bother her. She’d had a few trinkets, though, pieces of home that had survived, gifts from friends, and a few family possessions, enough to appear that she cared for something other than her politics.
Elara’s decorative take was…well, she wouldn’t say cluttered, but it clearly had her daughter’s touch.
Schematics lined the walls, from ships and podracers to small droids and thermal devices. In the center of the room sat a model of the Millennium Falcon, before Lando ruined it according to both father and daughter. There were also little holos sitting on shelves, which when approached produced images of other famous rebellion fighters, including Wedge Antilles’ T-65B X-Wing and Shuttle Tydirium.
That was the one she found herself staring at when Elara entered, her aide jogging behind her with an armful of datapads.
“This one contains the regulations of the proposed trade routes to the Outer Rim, as part of the New Republic Outreach Program.”
“Let me guess, high tariffs on the participating systems to counter the ‘risk insurance-’” Elara said without looking at the aide (a girl of maybe eighteen with intricately braided blonde hair). She crossed to her desk and picked up something from the floor behind it. An engine component, it looked like. Leia smiled. “-and import taxes that render the products virtually unaffordable in Republic space, because they’re ‘hard to procure.’”
“And that will be going in the ‘nay’ pile.” The aide put down one datapad, shuffling through the others.
Elara tinkered with the part, shifting pieces Leia could hardly see. “Senator Khardeen heads the Outreach Committee, yes?”
Her aide didn’t miss a step, not looking up herself. “I believe last month we agreed he was the committee.”
“Right, right,” her daughter replied, moving to the window, a pensive look on her face.
Leia knew little about Malastare’s new senator, only that he held a grudge against Dugs and was not the kind to play nice, as their conversation suggested.
“The Grand Prix is coming up,” Elara blurted suddenly. “No elected official would dare be caught not attending the podrace. Arrange for passes. I think a private chat with my colleague is needed.”
The aide tapped one of the datapads a few times.
Hearing her daughter play out the game Leia had once been so adept at left a familiar ache in her chest. She truly missed politics, but even when their current crisis ended, Leia knew there would be no going back; she was tainted, and the Senate was tainted for her. There was too much hurt, and far too many things had been broken, but it was good to see someone still upholding some sort of standard, even if she was viewing it from the skewed perspective of a proud mother. Although she had heard Elara was a bit more of a brute than she had ever been. She had Han to thank for that. Chewie, too, no doubt.
“Oh, and you have a visitor,” the aide said, so matter-of-factly, Leia almost missed the underlying joke.
Two sets of eyes turned to her.
“And here I thought Kaid had bought me another joke statue.” Elara smiled. “Hi, mom.”
It was such a simple sentence, but in person and free of the static of intergalactic communication, it was enough to tug at her heart.
Elara looked a lot like her, Leia noted, with her dress in the simple style that had defined Alderaanian humility and her hair wrapped in a braid that hung over her shoulder. It did not need to be pinned; it was nowhere near as long as hers had been or even was now. Her daughter hated excess hair, but she still respected tradition.
Her eyes, though, those were all Han’s, that hazel color that had the strange ability to light up or darken depending on her mood. The former did not happen as much anymore; the latter too much.
“You look busy,” Leia finally said, wondering why ‘hello’ was so hard.
Her smile was rueful. “Says the woman juggling the entire not-so-legal resistance movement.” She turned to the aide. “Go home, Kari. Tell your father happy birthday for me.”
The young woman grinned, bowing her head quickly before exiting the office.
“She knows you well,” Leia observed, watching the doorway.
“I’m pretty sure she is at least two steps ahead of me at all times,” Elara admitted, collapsing in her chair. Gone was the regal politician of New Alderaan, replaced by a twenty-six-year-old Corellian who had better things to do than talk to her mother. “What brings you back to Hosnian Prime?”
“Recruitment, actually. The recent skirmish on the border left quite a few disillusioned pilots. They reached out and we answered.” Leia paused. “Not that I’m telling you any of this.”
Elara put the piece on her desk and shrugged. “It doesn’t make much difference. The Senate is no closer to making any legal action on the Resistance than they are to the First Order. Chancellor Villecham’s afraid if the Senate makes a move on me, they’ll have to do the same for the other side, and so on and so forth. I think the term mutually assured destruction comes into play somewhere, so as of right now, it’s a standoff.”
Leia snorted. It was that same inability to make any movement that had contributed to her desire to leave in the first place.
“Although, Kaid did get Senator Prost arrested,” Elara added, “But I doubt even that is enough to cause a ripple. Even among Centrists, he isn’t the most popular."
“Senator Dexshi arranged that?” Leia asked. She never had liked the man much, nor did she appreciate Elara’s informal address of him.
Her daughter had a knowing look.
“Kaid is a frustrating laserbrain, but he is also useful, more so than anyone else. Populists are appeasers now.”
No doubt my fault too, Leia thought.
A silence fell between them. It was a more common occurrence than Leia liked. Things had changed between them, but so much had happened too, things that neither liked to discuss, but Leia knew the rift had started when word that Vader was Elara’s grandfather had reached her ears, and not from her own mother. Han had taken a hit as well, but in the end, it was not his secret to tell, only her own. She could not help but imagine how much easier things might have gone if she had just told her children. Elara might be more willing to open up to the past events, and Ben…
The office doors hissed.
Poe Dameron stepped through the threshold, looking like quite the respectable pilot in his new Resistance uniform, though she could tell he had been tugging at the collar. The boy would never know it, but he had just saved her.
“Pardon the interruption, General. We just got a message from base and I figured you’d want to hear it in person.”
He paused then, catching the eyes of her daughter, who had since stood up. For a moment, everything seemed to stop. They just stared at one another, neither moving nor breathing as far as she could tell.
Then Elara’s face split into a large grin, the likes of which Leia had not seen in an age. “Dameron.”
His smile matched hers. “Solo.”
“Afraid it’s Organa-Solo here,” Elara replied, gesturing to her dress. “Reminding the politicians you’re technically royalty tends to help.”
“And I’m sure you enjoy doing that.”
Leia watched the exchange, a complete outsider. She had no idea they even knew the other existed (particularly on Elara’s part), much less had enough of a relationship to share inside jokes. Back in the early days of the Empire’s collapse, Leia had worked with his mother, and through old war stories, she knew Han had fought alongside his father, but they had not seen either Dameron since then, not after they had moved to Yavin 4. From what she recalled, Poe’s mother had actually passed years ago.
Elara was giving Poe an exasperated look, but her smile had yet to fade. Leia felt her heart sink. In the mere seconds he had been in the office, Poe had elicited more emotion from her daughter than Leia had in years.
“As far as I’m concerned, Poe, you’re still the only person worth bossing around.”
The commander chuckled. “I can accept that.”
Leia finally found her voice. “I guess it’s not too much to assume the two of you know each other.”
She saw reality dawn in her daughter’s eyes, their hues darkening. “Oh, oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to just – Poe spent a season with us…on Dantooine.”
If Poe noticed the change in tone, he did not show it. It was the first time Elara had even mentioned the planet without immediately shrinking.
Leia turned to Poe, her curiosity overtaking the sadness blooming inside. “I didn’t know you were Force Sensitive.”
The pilot shrugged, looking oddly uncomfortable in the spotlight. “Hardly Force Sensitive is more like it. What was it your brother used to say? Enough to notice, but not enough to care?”
Had the room always been so cold?
Elara started to trace images on her desk with her fingertips. Now she looked small again, the young woman who had seen too much. Her hair had been much shorter then and her lightsaber had hung from her hip, a blue blade that matched the open sky. It had been so quiet, and yet hardly peaceful…
“Did I say something wrong?”
Leia jumped. “No, no, Poe, you didn’t. We just haven’t seen Ben in a long time is all.”
Her daughter’s face snapped up so quickly, Leia though she heard her neck crack. She would be answering for that later, hopefully over a long distance comm that gave her the option to walk away from it.
Because that would help repair their relationship.
“Well,” Elara started, interrupting the thick silence that had fallen…again. “If the two of you don’t mind, I will be taking off for the evening. I had a long night, an equally long day, and want nothing more than to be in something with pant legs.”
She picked up a datapad, the ‘nay’ pile one, and headed for the doorway. Leia figured she would run if she could.
“Feel free to use the space as long as you like. It’s not bugged as far as I know.” She paused, hand resting on the control, before turning back. “It was good seeing you again, Poe.”
And then she was gone.
General and Commander stood alone, both staring after her, quiet and lost in thought.
Poe was the one who started. “I’m sorry, General. I shouldn’t have barged in like that. I clearly interrupt-”
Leia held up a hand. “It’s alright, Poe. You made her smile. That’s more than anyone else can do.”
Myself included.
19 ABY
Jedi Academy
Dantooine
Poe looked around his bare quarters and heaved. He knew that he had agreed to come of his own volition (it was Luke freaking Skywalker after all) but the day was barely over and he was already feeling regret seep into his mind.
Luke was a great hero and an equally great man, but he was a busy one as well, and in the few moments Poe had been able to talk to him, all he mentioned was stuff about the Force. He’d described it as some kind of power. Sounded more like magic to Poe. Flying was a more suitable topic for the 16-year-old. After all, his mom had sworn up and down that Luke had taken the shot that destroyed the first Death Star. And without a guidance system!
Of course, when he even tried to bring it up, Luke had just given him that smile, the kind that adults gave to all kids when they weren’t going to answer their questions. It was usually followed by an ‘another time.’ The Jedi Master was no exception.
Poe huffed, flopping on his cot. It was slightly too small for his still growing frame and sat maybe three inches off the ground. Besides the duffels he had brought and one small chest, the room was basically empty. The walls appeared to be made of solid permacrete and there was one lone window, a horizontal slit he could not see out of without standing on something.
He thought this was some kind of school. Why did it look like a prison?
Time passed, and Poe was half asleep when he got the sudden nagging feeling that someone was watching him.
The room was still empty when he opened his eyes, though much darker. He fumbled through the space for a switch before slapping down on the door panel and coming face to face with-
Well, the air. The subject in question was several inches shorter, and female, and decidedly angry for some reason. She was eying him, hands on her hips, and all business. Like most of the other students, she, too, wore a plain tunic, though she also had a small, brown robe like Luke, and some sort of metallic cylinder attached to her belt.
“Can I help you?” he asked, not entirely sure he wanted the answer.
“Who are you?” she asked, high voice making the seriousness of her question kind of hilarious.
“My name’s Poe. Poe Dameron.”
She waved him off. “No, no, I know that, but who are you?”
He blinked. “…uh…a student?”
A single eyebrow lifted. “Yeah, and my dad’s a rancor.”
As if she owned the place, the girl walked right past Poe into his room. The boy, too stunned by the strangeness of the situation, simply watched as she investigated every corner of the place. As much of an invasion of privacy as it was, she, at least, did not attempt to look in his bags.
“Uncle Luke doesn’t personally escort anyone around here anymore; he doesn’t have the time. And he certainly doesn’t give the biggest room to some new kid.”
He didn’t know what was more surprising, that his room was the largest or that-
“Wait, your uncle is Luke Skywalker?”
She turned to him, face all ridicule. “Duh. Why else would I have full run of the place?”
Poe sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, his patience ebbing. “I don’t know, because a ten-year-old does what they want?”
Her hands were back on her hips. “I’m twelve, thank you very much.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he mumbled, unable to help himself.
“I’m short, not deaf!”
“Sometimes you’re both,” a deeper voice called from the doorway. And by deeper, he meant more masculine. The boy’s voice still cracked and sounded more on the childish side.
Poe raised his arms in the air. Now there were two of them!
“Who are you people?!”
The boy didn’t even seem bothered. “Name’s Ben. Short stuff over there is Elara.”
A brother, Poe guessed, seeing as how the newcomer was about as forthcoming with answers as his companion. He had the same dark hair and pale complexion, though his eyes were much darker than the fiery girl digging through his room. His outfit lacked the robe, but he still possessed the cylinder. A weapon, perhaps? He’d hate to think of this Elara girl armed.
“Why are you even in his room?” Ben asked, ignoring the blatantly furious looks Poe was sending him as he entered the room too.
“Looking for answers.” Now Elara was eying his bags. Poe slowly inched toward them. “There has to be some reason why Uncle Luke is so interested in him.”
“Have you tried asking Poe himself?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The girl huffed, looking up at him. “Do you know why Luke is so interested in you?”
“Um…” Even upon hearing their conversation heading in his direction, he was still caught off guard by the question. To be honest, he hadn’t paid much attention back home either. “Something about the Force…and maybe…a tree?”
She gave her brother a withering look. “That’s why.”
Ben rolled his eyes. ��He’ll tell us eventually. You don’t have to be privy to everything Uncle does.”
Now Elara looked offended. “That’s not what this is about and you know it!”
Things looked to be getting heated. He could feel the atmosphere change, something dark and cold lurked. Poe did not like it one bit.
“Uh, guys?” he said, stepping between the bickering siblings, at probably a much bigger risk to his health than he cared to know. “Can I have my room back?”
There was a beat. The anger simmered. Ben nodded and grabbed his sister by the long sleeve of her robe, dragging her to the entrance.
“I’m keeping my eye on you,” Elara managed to say before the doors hissed shut in front of her face. The last image he saw was her glaring eyes.
Why was that so intimidating?
With a sigh, Poe collapsed on his bed again.
It was going to be a long season.
. . .
Present Day
Resistance Base
D’Qar
Beneath the canopy of his T-70 X-Wing, Poe couldn’t help but smile. He had met a lot of interesting characters over the years, many of whom were not the most innocent of individuals, but none ever managed to leave an impression quite as extraordinary as that twelve-year-old girl.
Of course, Elara had eventually been forced to give a proper introduction, at what may have been the closest thing to gunpoint that Luke Skywalker could muster.
BB-8, sitting his astromech slot in the back of the ship, chirped. They were about to land on base.
“That’s okay, buddy, you can bring her in.”
More beeps. He never engaged auto-landing.
“I know. I know. I’m just…distracted.”
And he was. Despite their relatively hostile introduction, the two had become fast friends. After his time on Dantooine had passed, he and Elara had messaged one another sporadically. Happy Birthdays. Congratulations on his graduation from the academy. Simple things. The last time had been…just after Vader.
A lot had clearly changed since then.
Elara Solo had looked tired. Not the logging more hours in the cockpit over the bed kind of tired, more of the weary soldier look, an exhaustion from battle and loss that no amount of sleep can clear from the system. He knew the look well, although it usually belonged to grizzled veterans twice her age.
Now, while Poe thought politics were about as soul-sucking as things could get, it was not the cause of his friend’s distress. Elara would have left a long time ago if that were the case. No, something had happened, something other than Vader, something that cut far deeper and had yet to heal.
As he reached to the chain that had hung around his neck, his mind drifted back to how mother and daughter reacted to his mentioning of Ben.
Had something happened to him?
The General never was one to talk about her family, but thinking back on their conversations, Poe could vividly recall her mentioning something her husband or daughter did, all off-handed things that she was reminded of at the time. She’d say them with a smile, though it was usually a sad one. There was not a single time he could remember her speaking of Ben. Had he not known better, he might have thought Elara was an only child. There were certainly a number of younger Resistance fighters who would have been surprised she was even married.
Ben was not his favorite person from his days on Dantooine, but he had been far from the worst, and thinking back on it, most of his negative feelings had come from that youthful competitiveness that afflicted most boys their age. There was not a single thing one had done that the other had not tried to outdo. It had infuriated Elara to no end, and yet every day she was there on the sidelines, watching the boys beat themselves up again.
They had been quite the trio.
A light rapping on the canopy shook Poe from his thoughts. Lowering his hand, the pilot realized his X-Wing had not only landed, but was also in the middle of cool down procedures. Outside, a brightly smiling Jessika Pava just barely blocked the sunlight.
“Good morning, Commander,” she said, looking very proud of herself. Behind him, BB-8 whistled. “Good morning to you too, Beebee-ate.”
Rolling his eyes, Poe pulled the canopy release, listening to the familiar hiss as it unsealed and lifted. “Can I help you, Blue Three?”
“Oh, it’s nothing really. The team and I were just wondering if you were going to debrief us any time soon or if you just wanted to keep staring wistfully at the horizon.”
Someone snickered below. If he had to guess, it was Karé. The two were tag-teaming menaces.
“I wasn’t staring wistfully,” Poe countered as Jessika lowered herself back down the ladder. “More…contemplative really.”
“Whatever you say, Commander.”
Poe stood up, getting his first chance to stretch his muscles in hours. He loved to fly, and would never want to do anything else for a living, but damn if it didn’t hurt a lot sometimes. Made him feel a lot older than he really was.
Below, a crowd of familiar faces had gathered. Snap, L’ulo, Karé, even Nien Nunb, were all standing at the base of his ship, desperate for orders no doubt. Things had been quiet lately, lots of missions that were scrubbed before the ships even left the flight deck. People were bored. They were also on edge. It was a dangerous combination.
“Shucks, guys, I didn’t realize you all missed me so much,” he spoke, removing his helmet and tossing it into his seat.
“More than our homes, Commander,” Karé joked. There were smiles, laughter, a nice break from his previous thoughts.
He smiled back, sliding down the ladder. “Alright, Black Squadron, how much trouble did you get into while I was gone?”
L’ulo placed a hand on his shoulder. “Not as much as they wanted. The First Order’s still quiet.”
The smiles were replaced with grave faces, looks that told more than words ever could. Pilots hated being grounded, none more so than his squad. These were people who volunteered because they were tired of sitting and waiting, and that was precisely what they had been forced to do.
“Wish I could give you guys better news on that front,” Poe said, placing his hands on his hips. “Republic Command is locked up tight. Whatever they might know, they aren’t telling, not even to the General. And as for the Senate…well, we know how that goes.”
Jessika made a face. “Half the kriffing politicians want the Empire back. We can’t trust them to help us.”
Inwardly, Poe agreed with his fellow pilot’s assessment. How else could he explain the madness of the Senate refusing to see the danger of the First Order? He had seen their Star Destroyers with his own eyes. That kind of firepower wasn’t going to idle in the Unknown Regions forever.
But he was the commander of Black Squadron, and giving in to that kind of talk was not in the best interest of the Resistance.
“If we lose hope in the Senate, we lose hope in the Republic, and the First Order won’t have to attack us then. We’ll have done the work for them,” Poe replied, crossing his arms. “There are plenty of Senators who aren’t about to sit back and let the remnants of the Empire take what we fought so hard for. We just need to give them time.”
Nien Nunb piped up from the back, his rapid Sullustese breaking up the conversation.
Snap nodded, and he wasn’t the only one. “He has a point, Poe. We don’t have much time left.”
Poe thought back to Elara, weary and frustrated in her office, doing what she could with what little the Senate had given her.
“Then we give them as much as we can.”
May the Force be with you, Solo.
#my gosh that was long#hope it doesn't bore you#i just really love political talk#there's still so much more left#fourteen thousand words?#i need to reread this
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Last rambly Magnus post for a bit. But goddamn, 126 gave us a lot to work with ...
I proposed in my other post that the big threat Peter and Martin discuss in 126 is the emergence of a new Entity, one that jeopardizes the existence of the Beholding and thus directly threatens the safety of Team Archives. Peter’s stake in this, aside from the prospect of Fifteen sapping fear from the Isolation, is that the Lukases have put a lot of money and resources into the Magnus Institute; they don’t want to lose the resource they’ve built. (Especially if I’m right that Fifteen represents fear of technology -- “Web Development” shows at least one other Power is interested in going digital, while Peter doesn’t eve know how to use Excel.) There’s also a “big picture” that Elias apparently doesn’t pay enough attention to, the metagame of different fears balanced against one another -- gaining Fifteen, especially at the expense of an established Entity, would upset the balance of terror that currently exists.
So what exactly is Peter going to do about the emergence of 15? And what exactly does Martin think they’re going to do about that?
I’m probably jumping the gun here for multiple reasons, some Doylist and some Watsonian. MAG is a serial podcast and we might well find out new information in a week or a month that casts all this in a different light. That’s not Jonny cheating us, that’s an artifact of the medium, and of each episode being part of a textual whole. In-universe, well, this episode was all about people using their “assistants” as tools, and Martin’s at least aware that he’s being manipulated and Peter isn’t telling him everything. However, I’m also going to assume, for now, that a) as writer, Jonny’s not going to mislead the audience without a purpose, and b) in-universe, Martin’s not dumb enough to go along with Peter’s plan without evidence, no matter how emotionally vulnerable he was when Peter proposed it. Peter is almost certainly misleading him about some things, but
In other words, this could be jossed but I don’t think it’ll be completely invalidated.
Here’s the key exchange from 126 that I’m focusing on, courtesy of @tmatranscripts and @justasmalltownai:
MARTIN
A- a simple 'hello' isn't going to make any difference to-
PETER
We've been over this. The sort of power you’re going to need relies on your-
MARTIN
(resentful) Obedience.
PETER
...Isolation. It needs to be you, Martin. You're the only one who could possibly balance between the two.
MARTIN
But if I could just explain-
PETER
And how do you think Jon's going to react to that explanation, hm? You think he'll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response?
MARTIN
That's not fair.
PETER
Or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash?
So one thing at a time. Martin need to “balance between the two” -- two what? Entities? My first thought was that he’ll be a balance between the Lonely and the Beholding, but I can’t yet figure out how that would be helpful for combating Fifteen, especially if it’s something that could potentially harm Beholding avatars. Then again, if Martin becomes some kind of double avatar, he might be able to resist that damage and anchor the Beholding as a separate Entity.
But then again-again, Martin doesn’t jump to “isolation” as the specific thing he needs to cultivate. So perhaps he’s not (knowingly/deliberately) pursuing the Lonely. In which case, “the two” might be referring to the Beholding and Fifteen itself. Of course, having Martin work on Excel sheets doesn’t seem like behavior that would cultivate the power of a tech-based Fifteen, but a) I could be wrong about its nature, or b) it might not be something Martin has to deliberately pursue, but rather, be ready to brace himself against.
Admin also doesn’t seem like behavior that would draw him closer to the Beholding, of course, but if the Beholding is itself in danger, Martin might be safer keeping his distance from it. He’s read enough statements by 116 that Basira calls him a “back-up Archivist” and Elias doesn’t dispute that; leveling up in monster any more might make him too vulnerable.
(That Martin goes straight to obedience as the thing he needs to practice in order to gain spooky power is ... interesting, and a bit Webby? But it’s still super unclear what the Web’s motivations with the Chelicerae forum were, whether it’s courting the Machine or trying to help the Beholding resist/incorporate it.)
(Insert here obligatory joke about how all the Powers want Martin to be their avatar/boyfriend.)
Next up, “You’re the only one who can do it” -- which smacks of emotional blackmail, but again, Martin’s not going to believe that without a reason. What would he believe makes him exceptional? Well, being honorary back-up Archivist might make him uniquely qualified to work with Beholding stuff. What could make him uniquely qualified to balance it with the Lonely, though?
Well, there’s a theory that Martin’s absent father might be a Lukas (if not Peter himself). That doesn’t guarantee anything -- as Gerry pointed out, the Powers care more about personal choices than breeding. But Martin wasn’t part of that conversation, and if Peter tells him his various failed relationships are the fault of the Lonely in his blood ... well, that’s a bit more appealing than “You learned bad coping mechanisms as an abused child and I’m recruiting you as a human sacrifice because you’re convenient.”
(Martin supposedly looks just like his father, right? And Naomi Hearn mentioned that all the Lukases she met at Evan’s funeral had a strong resemblance. So it’s interesting that nobody around the institute has yet seen Peter, much less Peter and Martin together...)
Finally, Peter digs on Jon, and gets Martin to agree that Jon would oppose whatever they’re planning and do something “rash.” About the plan, or about the threat of Fifteen? If Martin is so uniquely suited to “balancing” things, then Jon trying to stop him is of course counterproductive, whether it’s because Jon thinks Martin is an idiot (which Martin probably still believes) or because Jon doesn’t want to sacrifice anyone else (as he expresses in this episode). Other ways Jon could fuck this up: refusing to acknowledge that Fifteen is a threat, or acknowledging it but trying to form his own, not-sacrificing-lives plan for it, or acknowledging it but going to Elias for help after everything Martin went through to get Elias out of power. The man tried to kill a shapeshifting monstrosity with an axe once. He makes mistakes.
And finally ... what is the plan? How does Martin “balance between the two” and either stop Fifteen from coalescing, or at least stop it from destroying the Beholding in the process? And, just as importantly, what does Martin think the plan is vs. what Peter’s actually setting him up for?
I’m not sure about the former question -- maybe Martin thinks that just being a double avatar will protect the Beholding and keep the Machine from emerging, like an anchor. What I strongly suspect about the latter, however, is that Peter is actually setting up Martin to merge with Fifteen in much the same way Michael Shelley was tricked into merging with the Spiral ... and then leaving him trapped in the Lonely, cut off from any form of fear or worship that could feed him.
Which is absolutely an idea I stole from @copperbadge, but also makes a terrible amount of sense here. The parallels between Martin and Michael, and how much they cared about their respective Archivists, are pretty obvious; the Spiral is an ancient and well-established power, but Fifteen would be a vulnerable baby taking its first avatar. If Martin believes he’s got the power to balance out Fifteen and control it, he’ll give himself over to it willingly. And if he’s purposefully isolated himself from anyone who cares for him, there will be no one able to protect or rescue him from the Lonely, allowing Peter to seal away Fifteen, if not forever, then at least for a good long time.
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Emotional Bandwidth & Triage (Riverdale 2.04)
Although I quibble with some of the execution, I’m pleasantly surprised that Riverdale is exploring the ripple effects of the downward spirals within Jughead’s life caused by the socioeconomic collapse and gradual disintegration of his family. Because, not only is the show exploring how these changes and traumas are impacting Jughead, the start of season two also shows the cascading impacts on the other people in Jughead’s life, particularly his relationship with Betty.
You may find love in the ruins (but standing in the blast radius still sucks)
Jughead has a troubling pattern of hurting Betty either deliberately or as collateral damage: Jughead lashed out at her during the disastrous birthday in 1.10; lashed out at her again in 1.11 after he learned that Archie and Veronica searched FP's trailer; and hurt her by distancing himself both physically and emotionally in season two. Only one of Jughead’s accumulating omissions and lies this season has been revealed to Betty so far—that he sits with the Serpents for protection—but his dishonesty has hurt Betty and will continue to hurt her.
Lining up all these hurtful instances like this disturbs me.
I remain sympathetic to Jughead as a character because his behaviors are driven by a combination of trauma and legitimately terrible circumstances. Do I wish my aloof weirdo son had fewer problems and behaved better when facing them? As a doting fannish parent, yes, of course. But as a viewer? Not really. The show has dealt Jughead a spectacularly bad hand and, to me, it humanizes Jughead for the almost non-stop terribleness of his life to have created maladaptive behaviors that increase the difficulty he has in making good choices for himself and for his relationships with the people around him.
That’s not a free pass, but I can empathize with him or talk myself around to empathizing with him, which as a viewer is more important than agreeing with his choices. I wish the pacing for these changes hadn’t been so abrupt and that Jughead’s characterization between seasons 1 and 2 felt more consistent. But those are critiques of the execution rather than the direction of this overall storyline. And I’m still rooting for Bughead because this pattern of behavior is a problem in his relationship with Betty—that needs to be addressed—but it’s not a defining characteristic of their underlying dynamic.
Betty has been a fucking champ so far this season, offering Jughead unconditional support, being mature in how she reacts not only to Toni but also to Jughead's dodgy evasiveness about Toni, as well as supporting her circle of friends. Betty has been put in a series of no-win situations and has made hard choice after hard choice: to stand by Jughead even if it means watching him join a gang, to blackmail Cheryl, to tell Kevin’s father about his self-destructive behavior, to help her sister leave Riverdale—the list goes on. You can have an interesting debate about whether she was right to do any of these things or if she did them in the best way possible. But these are all traumatic choices to face without even touching on the terrifying new layer of learning that she is an object of obsession for a serial killer.
Jughead’s behaviors are impacting Betty, too. Betty’s reactions so far have been calm, understanding and mature, but she’s accumulated a significant amount of hurt over a series of painful interactions. At this point, Betty wants reassurance that she is important to Jughead, especially because right now he's not acting like she's very important to him at all.
I still believe that she is. But his behavior conveys the opposite message.
As far as we know, Betty deliberately didn’t signal that she was in trouble at any point during their communication or interactions, which is an interesting shift in their communication patterns. When she gets Jughead’s disappointing text that evening, she doesn’t clarify how serious the situation she’s facing is or respond at all.
My theory is that Betty wants to have Jughead’s attention and support without having to wave a big red "I'm in trouble" flag at him. The accumulation of hurt she is feeling reinforces this very human desire for reassurance that she’s important to him.
But with Jughead facing so many severe problems, Betty’s lack of clear communication is feeding into negative interactions that could easily escalate into a vicious cycle of poor communication, hurt, loss of trust and accumulating resentment that further reduces and degrades their communication.
The brutal art of triage (don’t worry, ma, I’m only bleeding)
Jughead is drowning: trying to figure out how to survive is consuming most of his emotional and psychological bandwidth. In addition, I think that some part of Jughead has successfully internalized Betty’s consistent pattern of support with the uncharming outcome of starting to take Betty more and more for granted in this period of intense stress. Unfortunately, the taking-Betty-for-granted behaviors and the traumatized-kid-with-trust-and-abandonment-issues behaviors overlap and mutually reinforce each other in fascinating but deeply fucked up ways.
Jughead has demonstrated on multiple occasions intense loyalty and that he values supporting Betty. But my theory is that, as long as Betty appears to be doing more or less okay, Jughead is functionally deprioritizing her in his life for both valid reasons and selfish ones. It’s not that Jughead doesn’t care about Betty or that he cares about himself more than her. But he is in an ugly sort of triage mode and—as far as Jughead knows until he finds the letter—Betty can be put in the “things that are kind of okay” group as compared with the “things that are bleeding out in front of me” group.
But, as severe as Jughead's own problems are right now, I can't imagine him ignoring Betty if she'd given him any sign she was in trouble, let alone in serious danger. I can't believe that Jughead would have made the same choices if she texted him even something as small as, hey I really need to talk to you, after the missed call.
You can’t always get what you want (but friends aren’t chopped liver either)
Jughead wasn't there for Betty. That sucks. But Kevin, one of her closest and oldest friends, was. And I was happy to see that, not just because I'm starved for Kevin/Betty friendship interactions and I’m glad to see them make up after their fight, but also because limiting your support to just your romantic partner is deeply unhealthy and inherently unsustainable.
This is the extension of an important developing pattern of Betty having to turn to her friends rather than Jughead for support. In 2.02 when saving Pop’s came up and Jughead said that he couldn’t take on anything more right now, Betty had to rely on Veronica instead to help organize saving Pop’s. (And, in all fairness, Jughead still shows up to help her work the actual event. He’s reducing the amount of support he provides, not abandoning her.) But Betty’s friends are an important part of her support network, too, and Jughead not always being the person Betty turns to isn’t a bad thing—in the context of an open, healthy, supportive relationship.
This is part of the reason I'm so proud of Betty's reaction to the situation with Toni. She's not trying to stop Jughead from forming relationships outside of their relationship. She is trusting him and letting him be his own person who has an existence separate from her. Jughead’s support network is much weaker than Betty’s and this is part of what makes him so vulnerable right now. Betty’s behavior is amazing and healthy and not as easy as it sounds, especially when you’re that young and still in the early days of an intense relationship.
One vicious cycle feeds another (positive interference is a bitch)
We'll never know what Betty would have told Jughead if he’d picked up. Betty has a pattern of keeping secrets when she thinks she's protecting someone or sparing their feelings, so there’s no guarantee she would have told Jughead everything. My gut feeling is that Betty had an intense initial reflex to reach out for help and wanted the person she got help from to be Jughead. Being tacitly rejected by him hurt and frustrated her at a time when she was already struggling with layers of those same feelings and gave Betty the opportunity to tell herself, Well that's probably for the best, as her own maladaptive communication behavior of keeping secrets kicked in.
As soon as Jughead figures out how serious the situation with Betty is, he goes to talk to her and supports her through the rest of the evening. They snap back to being that rain-bedraggled sleuthing couple we know and love. I’m still not sure that Jughead has connected the dots between Betty calling him and when she would have gotten the letter. Putting the pieces together seems like the sort of thing he would work out in normal circumstances, but a fundamental driver for problems in their relationship is Betty and Jughead both being in persistently high-stress situations with their psychological and emotional bandwidth largely focused elsewhere. None of the characters in this season are being their best selves. What we are watching is how these characters fray and buckle under enormous pressures.
The darwinism of relationships (change or die)
Betty and Jughead are being forced by their circumstances into a more serious, adult relationship than most teenagers and many actual adults. Demands are being placed on them beyond their levels of maturity. And that means we’ll continue to see struggle and failure more often than the handful of breath-taking moments when they’ve stepped up for each other in a big way.
Even lasting relationships wax and wane. People go through phases of being more supportive and more self-involved. That’s natural. The underlying question should be how healthy is the overall relationship, do roles shift between individuals in reasonably balanced ways and how sustainable are the patterns of behavior.
Unpopular opinion time, but if Jughead can’t work through some of his baggage and find a better set of coping mechanisms then they should break up because he’s not at a place in his life where he and Betty can have a healthy relationship.
Right now the patterns of behavior in their relationship aren’t sustainable, which means there’s a clock ticking down to either the dissolution of their relationship or significant change. I hope Betty and Jughead can repair their communication and come out of this conflict stronger. I hope we get the character growth arc instead of the breakup arc. Maybe we’ll get both. But I’m interested to see how the show continues to explore the ways the problems in Jughead’s life create consequences that ripple outward and negatively impact his relationships.
Interested and, yeah okay, maybe a little heartbroken.
#bughead#betty x jughead#riverdale meta#bughead meta#jughead jones#betty cooper#otp: we're all crazy#otp: on borrowed time#riverdale spoilers#riverdale season two#my meta#mine#by burberrycanary#how to fuck up a relationship#jughead jones flailing traumatize mess
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Not Just a Great Lawyer
At the tender age of 21 Harvey Specter storms into the Chilton Hotel, prepared to do battle. His weapons of choice are a well-tailored suit and a briefcase full of cat hair.
Word count: ~3k
Rating: G
Relationships: Gen
Written for @suits100, prompt 85-- “Role reversal: lawyer!Mike and dropout!Harvey.”
Mike Ross, Pearson-Hardman’s newest senior partner, is mildly bored by his associate interviews.
It’s not that he expected anyone to match him for sheer intellect, but there are other sorts of genius, other qualities that can catch his interest, and these cookie-cutter Harvard kids haven’t got any of them. He toys with the idea of asking Norma to screen them and kick the least promising out but hasn’t got the heart to actually do it, so he resigns himself to another six unremarkable interviews.
And if he starts replaying movies in his head every time a candidate starts reciting an obviously rehearsed answer-- seriously, Mike recognizes one word for word from a years-old Glassdoor thread-- who would blame him?
The second-to-last slot of the day is empty, so Mike busies himself into one of his current cases. He’s half-way through scanning a patent specification when there’s a knock on the door.
“Rick Sorkin?”
“Actually”—the door opens, and a man swaggers in—“I’m Harvey Specter, and I’m . . . You’re not Louis.”
Mike’s new to Pearson-Hardman’s office politics, but he never imagined someone would be upset to find him in a room instead of Louis Litt. Still, Harvey’s smirk is fading right in front of his eyes. Mike looks him up and down-- he looks young, more like a college kid than a graduate of law school, yet he’s dressed in the smartest suit Mike’s seen today, his hair carefully slicked back, a briefcase in his hand.
“No, I’m Mike Ross. I know Louis is typically in charge of hiring junior lawyers and staff, but since these are interviews for my personal associate I asked to handle them myself.” He frowns for a moment, trying to identify why he knows Harvey’s name. “You’re not in my stack of resumes, though.”
“No, I’m not.” There’s something sharp in how he says it, though his expression has turned utterly impassive. “I’m sorry I bothered you, Mr. Ross. I’ll show myself out.”
As he turns to go, Mike remembers. “You’re from the mailroom, aren’t you?”
“Hang on--” Harvey whips back around with widened eyes-- “the memory trick’s real?”
Mike stares for a moment and then bursts out laughing. “You sure you can’t stay for a couple minutes? I suspect you’re the most interesting visitor I’ve had all day.”
He offers his hand. Harvey considers it for a moment, shrugs, and advances to take it. The moment they touch, the latches on Harvey’s briefcase give out, dropping papers, photographs, and a baggie of cat hair around their feet.
Harvey doesn’t look down, doesn’t even blink. He just keeps his eyes on Mike’s and sighs, “I think I just proved it.”
“This is a solid case,” Mike remarks, poring over the affidavits and transcripts and other evidence that Harvey has arranged on the Chilton desk, “And it shows that he’s opened the firm to multiple workplace harassment suits. How come Jessica hasn’t squashed this behavior?”
“Because nobody tells her,” Harvey answers. “Harold and the other victims of Mr. Litt are understandably terrified of all the upper-level management in the firm, they’d never report anything he does. The reason they talked to me is that I’m basically the polar opposite of upper-level management.”
Mike touches a record, complete with pictures and a bag of the offending material, of Harold Gunderson’s ER visit following a near-fatal allergic reaction to cat hair, and he murmurs, “This kid could have died.”
“Yep. Everyone knows Louis is out of control, but nobody’s actually put together a case.”
“Except you.”
“Well, Louis would say a guy from the mailroom is nobody. Only thing he uses me for is being a fake associate.”
Mike blinks and looks up at Harvey. “What do you mean?”
“He planted me with the first-year associates when they started work, had me pretend to slack off on my assignments, and then he fake-fired me to scare the rest of them straight.”
“Jesus!”
“At least I got a good deal out of it,” he snorts. “He bought me this suit so I’d look the part, just before he reminded me that this was the closest I'll ever get to being a real lawyer."
Harvey says this matter-of-factly, as if it doesn’t phase him, but Mike still winces. “Why’d you go to the trouble of investigating him? This can’t have been easy to put together.”
“Would you believe it was out of the goodness of my heart?”
“Not for a second.”
"Why-- because I tried to approach Louis with the case?"
"Yep. If you just wanted him to change his ways, you probably would have gone straight to Jessica, and you definitely wouldn’t have tried so hard to make sure all your key evidence could be admitted in court.”
"To be fair,” Harvey says, “I was actually going to ask him to stop nearly killing his coworkers."
"Maybe, but that wasn't your main goal. You were going to blackmail Louis into giving you something else." Mike narrows his eyes as he figures it out. "A job. What position, though? Legal Document Services, secretary, librarian . . .”
“Paralegal.”
“Do you have official credentials? A degree in Paralegal Studies?"
"Didn't finish college. What I do have, though, is the ability to interview even reluctant witnesses, and organize evidence, and figure out strategy, and find precedent,” he says, pointing to papers on the desk that demonstrate each skill. "I've also gotten pulled onto doc review before-- long story, and I don’t think I can legally tell you most of it-- and I got last year's summer associate to pawn off frankly staggering amounts of his workload onto me."
"That’s fairly impressive experience, for someone supposedly confined to the mailroom.”
“I’ve done a hell of a lot more in this firm than my job title would suggest,” Harvey declares, voice warm with pride. “Unfortunately, nobody rational is going to willingly hire a paralegal who didn’t finish college, so I figured I needed the blackmail to give Louis a kick in the pants.”
“And what if Louis heard this entire case, and then he just fired you anyway? Would you have threatened Jessica next?”
“I like being alive too much to try that,” he replies immediately. A few moments later, he adds, “I like Jessica too much, too. I’d have just turned the evidence over to her in the hopes that she’d somehow be impressed enough to hire me, and if not I’d go . . . and move on.”
There’s something earnest in his eyes as he says it, as he claims that he’d never actually make good on his bluff and sue the firm, and Mike wants to believe him. Still, he knows Harvey might only be backing down from that possibility because his master plan’s going awry right now.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mike says, internally flinching as he takes a hard line, “because I’m not going to let you blackmail Jessica. Hell, I’m not going to even let you go back and blackmail Louis, though I do intend to let Jessica know of the complaints against him so she can deal with them. If you go against the firm to advance your own career, I can and will bury your suit and then bankrupt you with a countersuit.”
“You just said I had a solid case--” Harvey protests.
“--against most lawyers, sure, it’s solid. I’ve already found six, no, seven ways to tear it apart.”
“What openings did I leave?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“You could just be bluffing.”
“You’ve heard about me, my ‘memory trick,’ as you called it. When it comes to sheer legal prowess, I don’t need to bluff. And let’s just say the fact that you’ve explicitly put this forward for personal gain doesn’t do you any favors.”
Harvey doesn’t stumble or cower as Mike expected. Instead, he leans forward, apparently intrigued by the challenge. “If you’re going to turn Louis in, can I at least present the evidence to Jessica myself and ask for a job?”
Mike opens his mouth to answer that he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do in a situation like this, but then he notices at the clock. “It’s 4:02, where’s my actual interviewee?”
“Oh, about that . . .” Harvey shifts in his seat, trying to put on a guilty expression and not quite succeeding. “I met with him earlier this morning and paid him not to show up.”
“What?” Mike splutters.
“I figured I might need the extra time with Louis, and anyway it’s not like Rick Sorkin was going to get the job.”
“Why-- why would you possibly think that?”
“Well, if his GPA didn’t disqualify him, the fact that he settled for half of what I was willing to pay should.”
He says it so straightforwardly that Mike bursts out laughing. “I can’t believe I just heard that.”
“I can’t believe I walked into a fake job interview with a briefcase full of cat hair,” Harvey smirks, “yet here we are.”
Mike looks at him, takes a deep breath, and then shakes his head. “Really though, what am I missing here?”
“What do you mean?”
"You're obviously smart, motivated, good with people-- maybe too good-- and the fact that you're in the mailroom suggests you're also detail-oriented and well-organized."
"So how does someone like me end up a deadbeat dropout?"
“I was going to phrase it more delicately,” he grimaces, “but yeah.”
Harvey's jaw tightens, like Mike’s genuinely caught him off-guard for the first time. "Look, I wanna get places on the strength of my skill and intellect, not because I have a good sob story."
"You sure about that? I've been told I'm a pushover for sob stories."
"Oh, yeah, you are. You actually cared about Harold Gunderson, which is not something anyone else in this city has managed.”
"I especially like sob stories where people face despair and horror and pain and come out on top. I like stories about the human spirit--” he pauses-- “and something tells me you've got an awful lot of spirit."
Harvey watches him for a second. "Tragic backstory it is, then. I'll give you the short version. My dad died last year, when I was twenty."
Though Mike doesn't say anything, something softens in his eyes, and all of the sudden the words come more easily to Harvey. "I was just starting my junior year of college, on a partial scholarship, and there was just enough money to make things work. Then my little brother got diagnosed with cancer." Something gives in Harvey’s poker face, and his frustration bleeds through as he continues, "The insurance premiums shot up, but we have to pay them somehow. My mom's an art teacher, we can't afford it on her salary, so I needed to get more money immediately. I dropped out, started working in the mailroom. Not what I wanted out of life, but I'm not going to sacrifice Marcus just for some degree."
"Can you explain to me how the paralegal job fits into this?" Mike asks, gently as he can.
"I can't pay all my bills on the mailroom job for much longer. Either I get something better here, or I quit and work retail and wait tables 16 hours a day.” When Mike raises an eyebrow, he adds, “Anything’s possible with enough Red Bull.”
“So you want the paralegal job primarily for the money?”
"Pearson-Hardman does pay its paralegals pretty damn well, but that’s not the main appeal.” Harvey takes a deep breath before admitting, “I ended up working here in the first place because I wanted to be a lawyer."
"Wanted or want?"
"Want." He straightens up and raises his chin as he says it, no doubt or hesitation in his voice.
There’s a moment of silence.
Then Mike remarks, "Did you know I'm admitted to practice in nine jurisdictions? New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, all four New York district courts and the second circuit. I’m also a member of the patent bar, but I can never decide how to count that."
He sees Harvey’s initial confusion at the subject change, and then he sees that confusion morph into amazement. “Whoa-- why?”
"I don’t mind tests, and it's convenient to be admitted everywhere in this area. I took New York’s bar exam right out of law school, New Jersey’s exam wasn’t hard to pass a couple years later, and I was admitted into the Connecticut bar--”
“--on motion, because you already got in with New York,” Harvey finishes. “Why California, though?”
“California just looks nice on a resume."
"You took the California bar because it looks nice on a resume," he deadpans.
"Yep,” Mike says, smacking his lips on the “p” before murmuring, “I've been in good standing with them for . . . oh, five years, now."
He says it quietly, casually, but Harvey’s eyes widen. “Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”
“Depends. What do you think I’m talking about?”
“Division 1, Chapter 3, Rule 4.29 of the Admissions and Educational Standards of the California Bar.”
Their eyes meet, and suddenly Mike can’t repress a grin. “Per Rule 4.26, an aspiring lawyer can skip formal law school and instead enter the California bar by studying the law diligently and in good faith in a law office. Per Rule 4.29, Section B, the attorney with whom the applicant is studying must be admitted to the active practice of law in California and be in good standing for a minimum of five years.” He considers stopping there, but Harvey’s gazing at him like he’s walking on water and he decides to indulge and show off further. “He must also personally supervise the applicant at least five hours a week, examine the applicant at least once a month on study completed the previous month, and report to the committee on the number of hours the applicant studied each week, on the books and other materials studied, etc. etc.”
“You’d be willing to do that for me?”
“Hey, it wouldn’t just be hard on me,” Mike warns him. “This would be hard work. Long hours. Longer than usual when you throw in the studying, which I doubt either of us can count towards our billable hours targets, no matter how many loopholes we use.”
“You give me this chance,” Harvey replies, eyes bright and serious, “I will work to school those Harvard associates and be the best lawyer—law student—mentee you’ve ever seen.”
“You’d be a paralegal, my dedicated paralegal. If Jessica somehow approves this,” Mike says, pulling a face, “which somehow I really doubt . . .”
“Hey,” Harvey cuts in, “you’re a lateral hire, and an amazing one, too— I’ve seen the press releases. Jessica wants to show you off and keep you here, which means she wants to make you happy. Knowing Louis, she probably had to threaten to fire him to get you control of these interviews today, there’s no way he gave these up easily, and that already demonstrates that she’s giving you a lot of leeway.”
Mike furrows his brow. “I don’t want to take advantage of her—“
“So frame it as advantageous to her.”
“How do I do that?”
“First-year associates are utterly incompetent, you know that?”
“. . . I’m aware of this fact, yes.”
“Even the ones from Harvard, they by and large have no idea what they’re doing in a real corporate setting. I’m already better adjusted than a lot of them, with more applicable work experience, and that should make up for the fact that I’m not as familiar with law. All in all, you’re getting someone only slightly more useless than a first-year associate—“
“And at half the price, even when you account for my lost productivity.”
“Exactly. And if she still complains, just offer to take on some pro bono case as punishment.”
Mike squints at him, confused. “But . . . I like pro bono cases.”
Harvey just gapes back at him before groaning, “Please tell me you didn’t tell her that.”
“No, it hasn’t come up--”
“Good. Do tons of pro bono, but make her think you hate it and that you only do it to curry favour with her. She’ll love you forever.”
Mike leans back in his chair, chuckling. “Do you know why I’m hiring you?”
“I can make an educated guess.”
“Hit me.”
“You have two main reasons. First of all, I’m the only person you’ve talked today who hasn’t bored you out of your mind. Second, you love my sob story.”
“Both true—though how you manage to make the fact that I care about your family sound pathetic is beyond me—but there’s a third reason. I think you’re going to be a lawyer whether I help you or not.”
“That’s pretty unlikely—”
“Yeah, but you seem like someone who gets what he wants, hell with the odds.” Harvey smiles as he says it, and Mike knows he’s read him right. “And going by your investigation, and your deal with Rick Sorkin, and your advice on how to break this to Jessica, you’re going to be a great lawyer.”
He pauses, but for once the kid stays quiet, waiting.
“But,” Mike continues, “it seems to me like someone told you, at some point, that it’s not okay to deal kindly with people or to care. And so, for the public good, I think I should make sure that you become not just a great lawyer—“
“But a good one.”
“Yep. That’s why I don’t just want you strong-arming Jessica into letting you work for the firm, I want you working under me, and training to be as capable and ethical a lawyer as possible. That means, incidentally, that you’ll be assisting me on all my many, many pro bono cases.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Harvey says. He doesn’t put much effort into disguising the sarcasm.
Mike just laughs. “Well then, I’m emailing the firm I just found my new assistant.”
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Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series
Published by Microïds and developed in partnership between Pendulo Studios and YS Interactive, Blacksad: Under the Skin is a mystery adventure game derived from a Spanish comic album, Blacksad. The comic follows the fictional investigations of a private eye detective in 1950s New York, each volume dealing with a different political or ethical theme of the time period. Volume 2: Arctic Nation, for example, is primarily about racism while Volume 3: Red Soul takes place during the Red Scare. Under the Skin is no different, forming its story around the changing social landscape of the US during one of the most tumultuous moments in the country’s history.
Like the comic, Under the Skin features anthropomorphic animals as its characters, using the commonly associated traits of animals to create a surface-level context for each person. Arctic foxes, for instance, are typically calculating, cold-hearted white supremacists while raccoons, reptiles, and amphibians are all usually profiled as petty criminals. You play as a dark-haired cat, the titular John Blacksad, a black man struggling to make a living as a private detective. He’s sassy, cunning, and mostly keeps to himself, and his incredible senses of sight and smell help him make observational deductions that most others cannot.
In Under the Skin, you shape Blacksad’s decisions as he unravels a new mystery: a missing persons case. Sonia Dunn hires Blacksad to find boxing star Robert Yale, who disappeared several days before the most important fight of his career. Yale disappeared the same day that Joe Dunn, who’s Sonia’s father and Yale’s trainer, was found hanging from the rafters of his gym in what appears to be an obvious suicide. Joe’s death leaves the gym to his daughter, along with the heavy amount of debt it had accrued. To get the necessary publicity to keep the gym from closing, Sonia needs to find Yale and get him to fight.
As Blacksad, you’re free to explore a series of connected hub areas in New York in order to interview witnesses and suspects. If the preview demo is any indication, the game does not hold your hand for most of the story, forcing you to piece together where to go next and who to talk to without any sort of waypoint, only relenting by giving you a nudge with a notification that you’ve gathered enough clues to make a deduction. It’s at this point that you can arrange collected evidence in a way that you believe makes sense. Some of what you learn is useless though, so you’ll have to figure out what clues connect to what. And although certain deductions are necessary for advancing the plot, some seem to be optional.
You don’t necessarily need to tell the black boxer at Sonia’s gym which of his fellow gym mates wrote the very explicit racist slurs all over the locker room, for example. That small side story isn’t a part of the overarching mystery and choosing to ignore it doesn’t prevent you from moving on in the main narrative. That said, choosing to reveal the racist’s identity most likely alters the overall fate of the boxer, who angrily says he’s going to kill the scumbag next time they meet. The demo ended before we could discover whether he does follow through on that murderous intent, though, so there’s currently no way to know for sure. Revealing the racist’s identity might be one of those good intentions that backfire in the worst way, a common occurrence in the Blacksad comic.
In order to ensure the game would be authentic to the world of the comic, the studios behind Under the Skin went directly to the source. “We wanted to involve the authors as much as possible,” Microïds game producer Nouredine Saad told GameSpot. “When Pendulo got involved and we started to create the characters and original art, we involved [Blacksad’s creators] by showing them everything. And when I say everything, it’s everything–all the characters, the 2D and 3D designs. We showed it [all] to the authors. The voice-overs as well when we started to record. It was important for us to just involve the authors like that. They could say, ‘Okay, I’d prefer Blacksad have a deeper voice or I want a lighter voice for Weekly.‘”
Under the Skin takes place after the second comic album (between the aforementioned Arctic Nation and Red Soul volumes), and delves into a theme that hasn’t been heavily explored in a Blacksad comic before: corruption. “When we studied the ’50s for the story for this game, we noticed that there was, at this time, a growing issue with corruption in sports because of gambling and bets,” Pendulo Studios co-founder and CEO Felipe Pinilla said. “There were many controlled fights where you bet for one [boxer] knowing that he’d lose or win. And those [actions] make room for more corruption behind that, such as [drug abuse].”
Thus, Under the Skin is a brand-new standalone story in the Blacksad universe, and the studios behind the game want fans to view this game as the unofficial sixth entry in Blacksad’s story. “We have five, six characters from the comic book,” Saad said. “All the other characters are original to the game. The [world is] the same. We are in the ’50s. We are in the US. We have anthropomorphic animals, everything. But [this game] is the sixth album. We have five comic books and this is the sixth.”
Depending on your choices there will be several different endings.
This theme of corruption begins to bleed through the game’s story in its very first scene. The preview demo covers the first two hours or so of Under the Skin’s story, and the game opens with a confrontation with an angry rhinoceros whose wife believes he’s cheating on her. Through Blacksad’s internal monologue, we discover he already knows the rhino has been unfaithful and that there’s photographic proof. After the husband finishes pleading his side though, the game presents you with your first moral choice: tell the wife the truth, take a bribe and lie to the wife, or refuse the bribe but still lie to the wife. Your decision doesn’t have immediate consequences, though the effects of your choice begin revealing themselves about an hour later and continue to snowball.
“Depending on your choices, [Blacksad] can be a tough guy or a sensitive guy,” Saad said. “At the very beginning of the game, a rhino tries to give you some money. You can take it or not. You have moral choices.” Choosing to refuse the money, but also lie to the wife causes her to be grateful that her marriage, and thus her family, is secure, and when you run into her husband again later in the story, he thanks you for covering for him. However, Blacksad’s friend and sidekick who took the pictures, Weekly, will be miffed on losing out on some bribe money (if you decide to tell him about it, that is, as you can also hide the truth) and Blacksad himself will continue to wrestle with both the morality of what he’s done and his dwindling finances. Given how important the rhino, Weekly, and Blacksad’s financial situation appear to be to the overall plot, the consequences of that initial decision will seemingly continue to pop up as the narrative continues. And that’s just the first choice. The demo proves it is not the last.
“Depending on your choices there will be several different endings,” Pinilla said. “You’re Blacksad and the character will evolve depending on your choices, whether you are talkative or more quiet or whether you’re someone willing to be blackmailed. The main ending [of the game] will be the same, but there will be some difference in the outcome.”
“It’s important for us to involve the player and not just have Blacksad decide everything for you,” Saad said. “You, as a player, you can decide and say, ‘These are my decisions based on my deductions that I’m making. I’m solving the case and not Blacksad.’ If we let Blacksad [control] the game, it [wouldn’t be] your own moral choices and moral decisions.”
That’s part of the reason why you only play as Blacksad in Under the Skin, instead of both Blacksad and Weekly as was initially planned, Saad added. The studios felt that, for Under the Skin’s story to work, it’s important to focus the player’s sense of morality and willingness to resist corruption through one character with every other character having their own moral code. Seeing the game through multiple characters’ point-of-view would allow the player to be a puppet master and shape the story to an ideal conclusion. The hardest part of Blacksad’s life is that he’s a great detective, but he doesn’t know exactly what people are thinking. He’s not psychic. The player is no different, so at no point does the game switch to offer an alternative point-of-view so that it’s easier to make educated deductions that give everyone the best possible ending. You need to decide what’s morally right for yourself, and then live with the consequences of your choices.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 26.
Credit: Source link
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Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series
Published by Microïds and developed in partnership between Pendulo Studios and YS Interactive, Blacksad: Under the Skin is a mystery adventure game derived from a Spanish comic album, Blacksad. The comic follows the fictional investigations of a private eye detective in 1950s New York, each volume dealing with a different political or ethical theme of the time period. Volume 2: Arctic Nation, for example, is primarily about racism while Volume 3: Red Soul takes place during the Red Scare. Under the Skin is no different, forming its story around the changing social landscape of the US during one of the most tumultuous moments in the country’s history.
Like the comic, Under the Skin features anthropomorphic animals as its characters, using the commonly associated traits of animals to create a surface-level context for each person. Arctic foxes, for instance, are typically calculating, cold-hearted white supremacists while raccoons, reptiles, and amphibians are all usually profiled as petty criminals. You play as a dark-haired cat, the titular John Blacksad, a black man struggling to make a living as a private detective. He’s sassy, cunning, and mostly keeps to himself, and his incredible senses of sight and smell help him make observational deductions that most others cannot.
In Under the Skin, you shape Blacksad’s decisions as he unravels a new mystery: a missing persons case. Sonia Dunn hires Blacksad to find boxing star Robert Yale, who disappeared several days before the most important fight of his career. Yale disappeared the same day that Joe Dunn, who’s Sonia’s father and Yale’s trainer, was found hanging from the rafters of his gym in what appears to be an obvious suicide. Joe’s death leaves the gym to his daughter, along with the heavy amount of debt it had accrued. To get the necessary publicity to keep the gym from closing, Sonia needs to find Yale and get him to fight.
As Blacksad, you’re free to explore a series of connected hub areas in New York in order to interview witnesses and suspects. If the preview demo is any indication, the game does not hold your hand for most of the story, forcing you to piece together where to go next and who to talk to without any sort of waypoint, only relenting by giving you a nudge with a notification that you’ve gathered enough clues to make a deduction. It’s at this point that you can arrange collected evidence in a way that you believe makes sense. Some of what you learn is useless though, so you’ll have to figure out what clues connect to what. And although certain deductions are necessary for advancing the plot, some seem to be optional.
You don’t necessarily need to tell the black boxer at Sonia’s gym which of his fellow gym mates wrote the very explicit racist slurs all over the locker room, for example. That small side story isn’t a part of the overarching mystery and choosing to ignore it doesn’t prevent you from moving on in the main narrative. That said, choosing to reveal the racist’s identity most likely alters the overall fate of the boxer, who angrily says he’s going to kill the scumbag next time they meet. The demo ended before we could discover whether he does follow through on that murderous intent, though, so there’s currently no way to know for sure. Revealing the racist’s identity might be one of those good intentions that backfire in the worst way, a common occurrence in the Blacksad comic.
In order to ensure the game would be authentic to the world of the comic, the studios behind Under the Skin went directly to the source. “We wanted to involve the authors as much as possible,” Microïds game producer Nouredine Saad told GameSpot. “When Pendulo got involved and we started to create the characters and original art, we involved [Blacksad’s creators] by showing them everything. And when I say everything, it’s everything–all the characters, the 2D and 3D designs. We showed it [all] to the authors. The voice-overs as well when we started to record. It was important for us to just involve the authors like that. They could say, ‘Okay, I’d prefer Blacksad have a deeper voice or I want a lighter voice for Weekly.'”
Under the Skin takes place after the second comic album (between the aforementioned Arctic Nation and Red Soul volumes), and delves into a theme that hasn’t been heavily explored in a Blacksad comic before: corruption. “When we studied the ’50s for the story for this game, we noticed that there was, at this time, a growing issue with corruption in sports because of gambling and bets,” Pendulo Studios co-founder and CEO Felipe Pinilla said. “There were many controlled fights where you bet for one [boxer] knowing that he’d lose or win. And those [actions] make room for more corruption behind that, such as [drug abuse].”
Thus, Under the Skin is a brand-new standalone story in the Blacksad universe, and the studios behind the game want fans to view this game as the unofficial sixth entry in Blacksad’s story. “We have five, six characters from the comic book,” Saad said. “All the other characters are original to the game. The [world is] the same. We are in the ’50s. We are in the US. We have anthropomorphic animals, everything. But [this game] is the sixth album. We have five comic books and this is the sixth.”
Depending on your choices there will be several different endings.
This theme of corruption begins to bleed through the game’s story in its very first scene. The preview demo covers the first two hours or so of Under the Skin’s story, and the game opens with a confrontation with an angry rhinoceros whose wife believes he’s cheating on her. Through Blacksad’s internal monologue, we discover he already knows the rhino has been unfaithful and that there’s photographic proof. After the husband finishes pleading his side though, the game presents you with your first moral choice: tell the wife the truth, take a bribe and lie to the wife, or refuse the bribe but still lie to the wife. Your decision doesn’t have immediate consequences, though the effects of your choice begin revealing themselves about an hour later and continue to snowball.
“Depending on your choices, [Blacksad] can be a tough guy or a sensitive guy,” Saad said. “At the very beginning of the game, a rhino tries to give you some money. You can take it or not. You have moral choices.” Choosing to refuse the money, but also lie to the wife causes her to be grateful that her marriage, and thus her family, is secure, and when you run into her husband again later in the story, he thanks you for covering for him. However, Blacksad’s friend and sidekick who took the pictures, Weekly, will be miffed on losing out on some bribe money (if you decide to tell him about it, that is, as you can also hide the truth) and Blacksad himself will continue to wrestle with both the morality of what he’s done and his dwindling finances. Given how important the rhino, Weekly, and Blacksad’s financial situation appear to be to the overall plot, the consequences of that initial decision will seemingly continue to pop up as the narrative continues. And that’s just the first choice. The demo proves it is not the last.
“Depending on your choices there will be several different endings,” Pinilla said. “You’re Blacksad and the character will evolve depending on your choices, whether you are talkative or more quiet or whether you’re someone willing to be blackmailed. The main ending [of the game] will be the same, but there will be some difference in the outcome.”
“It’s important for us to involve the player and not just have Blacksad decide everything for you,” Saad said. “You, as a player, you can decide and say, ‘These are my decisions based on my deductions that I’m making. I’m solving the case and not Blacksad.’ If we let Blacksad [control] the game, it [wouldn’t be] your own moral choices and moral decisions.”
That’s part of the reason why you only play as Blacksad in Under the Skin, instead of both Blacksad and Weekly as was initially planned, Saad added. The studios felt that, for Under the Skin’s story to work, it’s important to focus the player’s sense of morality and willingness to resist corruption through one character with every other character having their own moral code. Seeing the game through multiple characters’ point-of-view would allow the player to be a puppet master and shape the story to an ideal conclusion. The hardest part of Blacksad’s life is that he’s a great detective, but he doesn’t know exactly what people are thinking. He’s not psychic. The player is no different, so at no point does the game switch to offer an alternative point-of-view so that it’s easier to make educated deductions that give everyone the best possible ending. You need to decide what’s morally right for yourself, and then live with the consequences of your choices.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 26.
Credit: Source link
The post Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/blacksad-under-the-skin-is-all-about-corruption-a-new-theme-for-the-mystery-series/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blacksad-under-the-skin-is-all-about-corruption-a-new-theme-for-the-mystery-series
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"This is what successful people do.”
Exerpts I found interesting from the conversation in the comments here. These paragraphs are all excerpted from longer points with multiple topics being discussed at once.
Linbo: What is a practical picture of boundary setting for women? – So say I meet Mark [...] So are you guys talking about boundary setting as boundaries around my own expectations, or around “Mark’s” behavior?
An example. Mark hates taking out the trash. He absolutely hates doing it and it makes him bitter every time the issue is brought up. Is boundary setting me saying “ok, I wont ask Mark to take out the trash because I know it would make the relationship so much more complicated.” or is boundary setting saying “Mark, you have to take out the trash, otherwise I don’t feel like you love me.” The first sounds like typical women behavior, and is definitely my tendency.
Donkey: You would have to decide wether or not it’s ok for you that Mark doesn’t take out the trash. Maybe he grocery shops and you don’t, so it would be fair if you dealt with the trash and you just decide you can live well with that. Or maybe you could negotioate some other sort of happy deal where it’s ok that Mark doesn’t take out the trash, then that could work too. If however, you’re not fine with Mark not taking out the trash, the boundary setting would be both to tell him this, *and to provide consequences that you’re in control of for if he doesn’t do it*. You can’t just tell him what to do. So you could tell Mark and follow through with, that if he doesn’t take out the trash, and if he’s not willing to negotiate some other fair deal, you will move into the second bedroom (thank you Lisa for this example) to make him realize that you’re serious. If this doesn’t shape up then, you can tell him that either he takes out the trash/negotiates another deal with you, or you will have to go to marriage counceling. If he’s not willing to do this, you have to decide if you can live with this, or wether you’ll now decide to leave Mark, or whether you can decide to still be a couple but not live together for instance.
Linbo: I have to be honest though, my knee jerk reaction to showing them we’re serious- like moving into the spare bedroom, or leaving the table (which I would do in a heartbeat if someone called me a derogatory name, and I wouldn’t even consider paying for my own meal- shoot yeah, I’ll stick him with the check in that case.) is that it would seem exactly like some kind of blackmail, or manipulation- and that moves people into defense mode.
Is there no other way?
Lisa Gottman:
Limbo,
You said:
“I have to be honest though, my knee jerk reaction to showing them we’re serious- like moving into the spare bedroom, or leaving the table (which I would do in a heartbeat if someone called me a derogatory name, and I wouldn’t even consider paying for my own meal- shoot yeah, I’ll stick him with the check in that case.) is that it would seem exactly like some kind of blackmail, or manipulation- and that moves people into defense mode.
Is there no other way?”
Well, hopefully if things are good in the relationship and he is a flexible open guy it can be resolved through discussion.
But often this kind of thing will be alien to many men because they haven’t seen it modeled or experienced it before. So it make take more dramatic escalation.
By the way this principle is from Brent Atkinson’s work based on Gottman’s and other marriage research. This is what successful people in relationships do.
The part I fail at is the attitude. People with good relationship skills escalate but with a very understanding attitude. Like “its natural for him to resist my influence”. “We all want to do what feels better for us.” They don’t put a black hat on the guy to make him defensive and resist even more.
They are understanding of the natural desire to not compromise but they also do not accept the unwillingness of the guy to compromise.
And they non-judgementally escalate until they are willing to compromise or go to counseling or or something else productive or decide they need to break up.
So hopefully you will not need to leave the dinner table or move into another bedroom to get him to compromise. And,of course, none of this should be done when you are in the heat of battle and full of stress.
How you set the boundaries will vary to what makes sense to you. I just threw out the bedroom thing as an idea of an escalation from just talking.
I am working hard on reducing stress levels and not making him the enemy in my mind. That for me is the hardest thing in setting boundaries. Not making a big deal of it.
Lissy:
I think that the first few times you talk about the dish or the trash. But once you recognize it’s going to be a long term issue, then you need to say to yourself, what’s this really about? And the sit-down discussion needs to start with “Hey, I have asked you several times to do X, or you have agreed to do X and don’t follow through. When this happens, I feel like you are telling me that watching TV is more important to you than I am. Do you realize that’s what your actions are communicating to me?” Because the real issue isn’t the dishes or trash-it’s what leaving the dish means to the wife.
I would think that a threat to move into the spare bedroom just because someone doesn’t take the trash out would only reinforce the husband’s feelings that the wife is just nagging about small meaningless things. And maybe this time he starts taking the trash out, but eventually slides back into the not-taking-the-trash out mode again. Because in this case, as far as he knows, the issue is the dish by the sink. And to him, leaving a dish by the sink isn’t a big deal….
But the “I am doing this as a physical representation of how serious this is to me” is great!
And when ladies ask what they can do to help their husbands “get it”, I would say that the best thing you can do is figure out the deeper issues of what you are feeling and why, and then make the conversation about that.
Lisa Gottman:
Lissy,
Good points! I didn’t do a good job in saying that I was assuming that the escalation only happens after you’re done common sense things. I like the way you said the “you said you’d do X conversation”
Clearly, you only want to have this escalation process after it’s clear the normal common sense ways aren’t working. And when a pattern has developed of not being able to work things out in a reasonable way.
The tricky thing for me is to figure out the difference for not making a big deal out of every little thing but also not accepting a pattern of just adapting to him not working things out with you. Even little things. Because if it’s a pattern it’s not about the content anymore.
I think the fear of being labeled a nag keeps a lot of women from setting boundaries. We just adapt and load the dish because we don’t want to be labeled or see ourselves as a nag.
They don’t continue on the topic of nagging, which is kind of a shame because it’s an important factor here; any time I bring up a general issue I have with household chores my husband’s response is always “But I’m happy to help you! Why didn’t you ask?” Of course the reason I didn’t was because I’d already tried asking multiple times before, and while I can be socially clueless sometimes, after about 3 Nos or I’m busys or empty promises to do it later (with additional ignored reminders) or not responding at all, I generally assume the person I’m asking isn’t willing to do the thing and I should stop nagging them.
#relationships#the complications we could do without#this tag was supposed to be ironic and has taken on a disturbing new meaning
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Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series
Published by Microïds and developed in partnership between Pendulo Studios and YS Interactive, Blacksad: Under the Skin is a mystery adventure game derived from a Spanish comic album, Blacksad. The comic follows the fictional investigations of a private eye detective in 1950s New York, each volume dealing with a different political or ethical theme of the time period. Volume 2: Arctic Nation, for example, is primarily about racism while Volume 3: Red Soul takes place during the Red Scare. Under the Skin is no different, forming its story around the changing social landscape of the US during one of the most tumultuous moments in the country’s history.
Like the comic, Under the Skin features anthropomorphic animals as its characters, using the commonly associated traits of animals to create a surface-level context for each person. Arctic foxes, for instance, are typically calculating, cold-hearted white supremacists while raccoons, reptiles, and amphibians are all usually profiled as petty criminals. You play as a dark-haired cat, the titular John Blacksad, a black man struggling to make a living as a private detective. He’s sassy, cunning, and mostly keeps to himself, and his incredible senses of sight and smell help him make observational deductions that most others cannot.
In Under the Skin, you shape Blacksad’s decisions as he unravels a new mystery: a missing persons case. Sonia Dunn hires Blacksad to find boxing star Robert Yale, who disappeared several days before the most important fight of his career. Yale disappeared the same day that Joe Dunn, who’s Sonia’s father and Yale’s trainer, was found hanging from the rafters of his gym in what appears to be an obvious suicide. Joe’s death leaves the gym to his daughter, along with the heavy amount of debt it had accrued. To get the necessary publicity to keep the gym from closing, Sonia needs to find Yale and get him to fight.
As Blacksad, you’re free to explore a series of connected hub areas in New York in order to interview witnesses and suspects. If the preview demo is any indication, the game does not hold your hand for most of the story, forcing you to piece together where to go next and who to talk to without any sort of waypoint, only relenting by giving you a nudge with a notification that you’ve gathered enough clues to make a deduction. It’s at this point that you can arrange collected evidence in a way that you believe makes sense. Some of what you learn is useless though, so you’ll have to figure out what clues connect to what. And although certain deductions are necessary for advancing the plot, some seem to be optional.
You don’t necessarily need to tell the black boxer at Sonia’s gym which of his fellow gym mates wrote the very explicit racist slurs all over the locker room, for example. That small side story isn’t a part of the overarching mystery and choosing to ignore it doesn’t prevent you from moving on in the main narrative. That said, choosing to reveal the racist’s identity most likely alters the overall fate of the boxer, who angrily says he’s going to kill the scumbag next time they meet. The demo ended before we could discover whether he does follow through on that murderous intent, though, so there’s currently no way to know for sure. Revealing the racist’s identity might be one of those good intentions that backfire in the worst way, a common occurrence in the Blacksad comic.
In order to ensure the game would be authentic to the world of the comic, the studios behind Under the Skin went directly to the source. “We wanted to involve the authors as much as possible,” Microïds game producer Nouredine Saad told GameSpot. “When Pendulo got involved and we started to create the characters and original art, we involved [Blacksad’s creators] by showing them everything. And when I say everything, it’s everything–all the characters, the 2D and 3D designs. We showed it [all] to the authors. The voice-overs as well when we started to record. It was important for us to just involve the authors like that. They could say, ‘Okay, I’d prefer Blacksad have a deeper voice or I want a lighter voice for Weekly.‘”
Under the Skin takes place after the second comic album (between the aforementioned Arctic Nation and Red Soul volumes), and delves into a theme that hasn’t been heavily explored in a Blacksad comic before: corruption. “When we studied the ’50s for the story for this game, we noticed that there was, at this time, a growing issue with corruption in sports because of gambling and bets,” Pendulo Studios co-founder and CEO Felipe Pinilla said. “There were many controlled fights where you bet for one [boxer] knowing that he’d lose or win. And those [actions] make room for more corruption behind that, such as [drug abuse].”
Thus, Under the Skin is a brand-new standalone story in the Blacksad universe, and the studios behind the game want fans to view this game as the unofficial sixth entry in Blacksad’s story. “We have five, six characters from the comic book,” Saad said. “All the other characters are original to the game. The [world is] the same. We are in the ’50s. We are in the US. We have anthropomorphic animals, everything. But [this game] is the sixth album. We have five comic books and this is the sixth.”
Depending on your choices there will be several different endings.
This theme of corruption begins to bleed through the game’s story in its very first scene. The preview demo covers the first two hours or so of Under the Skin’s story, and the game opens with a confrontation with an angry rhinoceros whose wife believes he’s cheating on her. Through Blacksad’s internal monologue, we discover he already knows the rhino has been unfaithful and that there’s photographic proof. After the husband finishes pleading his side though, the game presents you with your first moral choice: tell the wife the truth, take a bribe and lie to the wife, or refuse the bribe but still lie to the wife. Your decision doesn’t have immediate consequences, though the effects of your choice begin revealing themselves about an hour later and continue to snowball.
“Depending on your choices, [Blacksad] can be a tough guy or a sensitive guy,” Saad said. “At the very beginning of the game, a rhino tries to give you some money. You can take it or not. You have moral choices.” Choosing to refuse the money, but also lie to the wife causes her to be grateful that her marriage, and thus her family, is secure, and when you run into her husband again later in the story, he thanks you for covering for him. However, Blacksad’s friend and sidekick who took the pictures, Weekly, will be miffed on losing out on some bribe money (if you decide to tell him about it, that is, as you can also hide the truth) and Blacksad himself will continue to wrestle with both the morality of what he’s done and his dwindling finances. Given how important the rhino, Weekly, and Blacksad’s financial situation appear to be to the overall plot, the consequences of that initial decision will seemingly continue to pop up as the narrative continues. And that’s just the first choice. The demo proves it is not the last.
“Depending on your choices there will be several different endings,” Pinilla said. “You’re Blacksad and the character will evolve depending on your choices, whether you are talkative or more quiet or whether you’re someone willing to be blackmailed. The main ending [of the game] will be the same, but there will be some difference in the outcome.”
“It’s important for us to involve the player and not just have Blacksad decide everything for you,” Saad said. “You, as a player, you can decide and say, ‘These are my decisions based on my deductions that I’m making. I’m solving the case and not Blacksad.’ If we let Blacksad [control] the game, it [wouldn’t be] your own moral choices and moral decisions.”
That’s part of the reason why you only play as Blacksad in Under the Skin, instead of both Blacksad and Weekly as was initially planned, Saad added. The studios felt that, for Under the Skin’s story to work, it’s important to focus the player’s sense of morality and willingness to resist corruption through one character with every other character having their own moral code. Seeing the game through multiple characters’ point-of-view would allow the player to be a puppet master and shape the story to an ideal conclusion. The hardest part of Blacksad’s life is that he’s a great detective, but he doesn’t know exactly what people are thinking. He’s not psychic. The player is no different, so at no point does the game switch to offer an alternative point-of-view so that it’s easier to make educated deductions that give everyone the best possible ending. You need to decide what’s morally right for yourself, and then live with the consequences of your choices.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 26.
Credit: Source link
The post Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/blacksad-under-the-skin-is-all-about-corruption-a-new-theme-for-the-mystery-series/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blacksad-under-the-skin-is-all-about-corruption-a-new-theme-for-the-mystery-series
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186395687532
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Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series
New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/blacksad-under-the-skin-is-all-about-corruption-a-new-theme-for-the-mystery-series/
Blacksad: Under The Skin Is All About Corruption, A New Theme For The Mystery Series
Published by Microïds and developed in partnership between Pendulo Studios and YS Interactive, Blacksad: Under the Skin is a mystery adventure game derived from a Spanish comic album, Blacksad. The comic follows the fictional investigations of a private eye detective in 1950s New York, each volume dealing with a different political or ethical theme of the time period. Volume 2: Arctic Nation, for example, is primarily about racism while Volume 3: Red Soul takes place during the Red Scare. Under the Skin is no different, forming its story around the changing social landscape of the US during one of the most tumultuous moments in the country’s history.
Like the comic, Under the Skin features anthropomorphic animals as its characters, using the commonly associated traits of animals to create a surface-level context for each person. Arctic foxes, for instance, are typically calculating, cold-hearted white supremacists while raccoons, reptiles, and amphibians are all usually profiled as petty criminals. You play as a dark-haired cat, the titular John Blacksad, a black man struggling to make a living as a private detective. He’s sassy, cunning, and mostly keeps to himself, and his incredible senses of sight and smell help him make observational deductions that most others cannot.
In Under the Skin, you shape Blacksad’s decisions as he unravels a new mystery: a missing persons case. Sonia Dunn hires Blacksad to find boxing star Robert Yale, who disappeared several days before the most important fight of his career. Yale disappeared the same day that Joe Dunn, who’s Sonia’s father and Yale’s trainer, was found hanging from the rafters of his gym in what appears to be an obvious suicide. Joe’s death leaves the gym to his daughter, along with the heavy amount of debt it had accrued. To get the necessary publicity to keep the gym from closing, Sonia needs to find Yale and get him to fight.
As Blacksad, you’re free to explore a series of connected hub areas in New York in order to interview witnesses and suspects. If the preview demo is any indication, the game does not hold your hand for most of the story, forcing you to piece together where to go next and who to talk to without any sort of waypoint, only relenting by giving you a nudge with a notification that you’ve gathered enough clues to make a deduction. It’s at this point that you can arrange collected evidence in a way that you believe makes sense. Some of what you learn is useless though, so you’ll have to figure out what clues connect to what. And although certain deductions are necessary for advancing the plot, some seem to be optional.
You don’t necessarily need to tell the black boxer at Sonia’s gym which of his fellow gym mates wrote the very explicit racist slurs all over the locker room, for example. That small side story isn’t a part of the overarching mystery and choosing to ignore it doesn’t prevent you from moving on in the main narrative. That said, choosing to reveal the racist’s identity most likely alters the overall fate of the boxer, who angrily says he’s going to kill the scumbag next time they meet. The demo ended before we could discover whether he does follow through on that murderous intent, though, so there’s currently no way to know for sure. Revealing the racist’s identity might be one of those good intentions that backfire in the worst way, a common occurrence in the Blacksad comic.
In order to ensure the game would be authentic to the world of the comic, the studios behind Under the Skin went directly to the source. “We wanted to involve the authors as much as possible,” Microïds game producer Nouredine Saad told GameSpot. “When Pendulo got involved and we started to create the characters and original art, we involved [Blacksad’s creators] by showing them everything. And when I say everything, it’s everything–all the characters, the 2D and 3D designs. We showed it [all] to the authors. The voice-overs as well when we started to record. It was important for us to just involve the authors like that. They could say, ‘Okay, I’d prefer Blacksad have a deeper voice or I want a lighter voice for Weekly.'”
Under the Skin takes place after the second comic album (between the aforementioned Arctic Nation and Red Soul volumes), and delves into a theme that hasn’t been heavily explored in a Blacksad comic before: corruption. “When we studied the ’50s for the story for this game, we noticed that there was, at this time, a growing issue with corruption in sports because of gambling and bets,” Pendulo Studios co-founder and CEO Felipe Pinilla said. “There were many controlled fights where you bet for one [boxer] knowing that he’d lose or win. And those [actions] make room for more corruption behind that, such as [drug abuse].”
Thus, Under the Skin is a brand-new standalone story in the Blacksad universe, and the studios behind the game want fans to view this game as the unofficial sixth entry in Blacksad’s story. “We have five, six characters from the comic book,” Saad said. “All the other characters are original to the game. The [world is] the same. We are in the ’50s. We are in the US. We have anthropomorphic animals, everything. But [this game] is the sixth album. We have five comic books and this is the sixth.”
Depending on your choices there will be several different endings.
This theme of corruption begins to bleed through the game’s story in its very first scene. The preview demo covers the first two hours or so of Under the Skin’s story, and the game opens with a confrontation with an angry rhinoceros whose wife believes he’s cheating on her. Through Blacksad’s internal monologue, we discover he already knows the rhino has been unfaithful and that there’s photographic proof. After the husband finishes pleading his side though, the game presents you with your first moral choice: tell the wife the truth, take a bribe and lie to the wife, or refuse the bribe but still lie to the wife. Your decision doesn’t have immediate consequences, though the effects of your choice begin revealing themselves about an hour later and continue to snowball.
“Depending on your choices, [Blacksad] can be a tough guy or a sensitive guy,” Saad said. “At the very beginning of the game, a rhino tries to give you some money. You can take it or not. You have moral choices.” Choosing to refuse the money, but also lie to the wife causes her to be grateful that her marriage, and thus her family, is secure, and when you run into her husband again later in the story, he thanks you for covering for him. However, Blacksad’s friend and sidekick who took the pictures, Weekly, will be miffed on losing out on some bribe money (if you decide to tell him about it, that is, as you can also hide the truth) and Blacksad himself will continue to wrestle with both the morality of what he’s done and his dwindling finances. Given how important the rhino, Weekly, and Blacksad’s financial situation appear to be to the overall plot, the consequences of that initial decision will seemingly continue to pop up as the narrative continues. And that’s just the first choice. The demo proves it is not the last.
“Depending on your choices there will be several different endings,” Pinilla said. “You’re Blacksad and the character will evolve depending on your choices, whether you are talkative or more quiet or whether you’re someone willing to be blackmailed. The main ending [of the game] will be the same, but there will be some difference in the outcome.”
“It’s important for us to involve the player and not just have Blacksad decide everything for you,” Saad said. “You, as a player, you can decide and say, ‘These are my decisions based on my deductions that I’m making. I’m solving the case and not Blacksad.’ If we let Blacksad [control] the game, it [wouldn’t be] your own moral choices and moral decisions.”
That’s part of the reason why you only play as Blacksad in Under the Skin, instead of both Blacksad and Weekly as was initially planned, Saad added. The studios felt that, for Under the Skin’s story to work, it’s important to focus the player’s sense of morality and willingness to resist corruption through one character with every other character having their own moral code. Seeing the game through multiple characters’ point-of-view would allow the player to be a puppet master and shape the story to an ideal conclusion. The hardest part of Blacksad’s life is that he’s a great detective, but he doesn’t know exactly what people are thinking. He’s not psychic. The player is no different, so at no point does the game switch to offer an alternative point-of-view so that it’s easier to make educated deductions that give everyone the best possible ending. You need to decide what’s morally right for yourself, and then live with the consequences of your choices.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 26.
Source : Gamesport
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