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animalkingdom-an0nymous · 3 years

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False God- Sean Wallace

Disclaimer: No gifs or photos are mine unless stated otherwise.

Warning: A violent, smutty NSFW Sean Wallace fic. What if that last day ended differently? What if Sean made it out with his wounds? And what if there was someone from his childhood who haunted him just as much as he haunted her?

Subject: Sean X Y/N

Growing up, Sean Wallace and I were one in the same. We liked the same jokes, ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut the same way- in triangles- and our only real difference was that I was an American. Our fathers, both legendary crime bosses in their own right, were great business partners and made each other filthy rich. We were dangerously similar.

Until we weren’t.

I’d been in America when Finn Wallace was murdered, and I’d stayed in America during the aftermath. My father had cared deeply for Finn, but the world we lived in was fucking brutal, cold, and my dad would never risk my well being by allowing me to go to the UK to be with Sean.

Hearing about all of it had been a nightmare, though. Hearing about murders and the carnage, communities and families wiped out when Sean locked the city down. My heart ached for the boy I once knew and feared for the man that was, and then, just as quickly as it all blew up, the flames went out. All was quiet.

Sean Wallace was dead.

Or so the world thought. My father, who had an in with Billy and Jac, knew the truth. The Wallace family had connections within the police force- cliché, right?- and when a few of their own found him lying in a pool of his own blood, bleeding out from his fucking face, they quickly pronounced him dead at the scene. I didn’t know the ins and outs, didn’t care to, because the life I lived now was so far from the life I was forced to live as a child. All I knew was they got him out of there and Sean Wallace, as London knew him, was dead.

I needed him to stay that way.

It had been nearly a year since then, nearly a year since I last had the nerve to ask my dad about him. I think he knew how I felt, knew I had gone to great lengths to distance myself from him and my mother and the hellish, brutal life they created. But that didn’t mean my dad didn’t love me. I knew he did in his own, twisted way, and I knew he caught on to the hurt I felt whenever Sean’s name was mentioned.

So he stopped mentioning it.

Billy and Jac were stateside and living under different names, that much I knew. I had yet to see them, but I knew they were close enough to drive to because my mother had made sure to mention in her last email that their “home was beautiful and they think it was quite rude of you not to come around and visit, Y/N.”

It was bullshit. Billy and Jac didn’t feel any type of way about me, we were never close. That was reserved specifically for Sean and me. And look how well that turned out.

I was haunted by the ghost of a man I didn’t even know anymore.

He was labeled as a terrorist and maybe that’s what hurt more than anything. I could never scream from the rooftops how much I fucking loved him because that’s crazy. Because who could love a terrorist? Who could love a man that had murdered, cheated, stolen to get his way? And if I did love him, what kind of woman did that make me?

It was a thought that had been in my mind on replay all day long, the musings drifting into the night as I drove towards my childhood home. I had made the agreement with my parents- namely my father- that once a month I would return home for dinner. It was nearly a two hour drive but one that I committed to because if I didn’t I knew they would show up at my apartment. And what twenty-something year old woman wants her parents showing up at her apartment unannounced?

The gravel ground under my tires as I pulled my all black BMW into the driveway. It was already dark and I knew my mother would have something to say about me showing up late, but at least I showed up. Sure, I was still wearing the navy blue pantsuit I’d worn at work all day and I usually changed whenever I had dinner with them, but my mind was occupied tonight. By thoughts of Sean. By thoughts of Sean getting his face blown off. Did it hurt? Did he remember? Would I ever know?

My father met me at the door. Six foot three and wide like a linebacker, the man was not to be messed with. He was no nonsense and the only people he smiled at were me and the people he was going to shoot right before he shot them. You can do what you want with that information.

“My little angel,” he said and reached for me, taking both my hands in his and bringing them to his lips. It was a simple gesture but one he did every single time. It was the one constant my dad ever provided me. “How was the drive up?”

“Traffic wasn’t too bad tonight, but I ended up getting out a bit later than I thought I would.”

He swung an arm around me as we made our way through the marble foyer, my heels clacking against the floor. “My art gallery owner. Your mother and I are so proud of you.”

I raised my eyebrows. He was feeding me bullshit, both he and my mom wanted me in the family business more than anything, but from the time I could voice my opinion I let them know. No. I would be taking no part in the family business.

Not that I didn’t know my shit. I knew my way around a gun shop and had a better shot than half the men my dad hired to protect us. I hit harder than my first two boyfriends and let everyone know that my last name was still my last name and not to fuck with me. I knew I was untouchable.

That didn’t mean I was embracing the lifestyle.

“Yeah, business is going great, I even hired someone part-time to help out.”

“Background check?”

I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Of course.”

“Family ties?”

“Her name is Mindy and she’s from a farm in rural Kansas.”

He paused and raised his eyebrows, one of the rare times my father ever looked shocked. “She doesn’t even know what our last name holds, does she?”

I shook my head. “Not a clue.”

He laughed his hearty, deep chuckle and stopped us at the bar cart outside of the dining room. As always, he grabbed two tumblers and threw a handful of ice in each before adding to fingers of whiskey. Our favorite. One of our few commonalities. “Proud of you, kid.”

“Thanks, dad.”

I was about to ask him how his week was when my mother’s voice drifted in from the balcony. She liked to drink her wine out there at night, before dinner. Just one glass, but it was a ritual she followed religiously. Her voice was somewhat raspy, a little cold, and I could hear her laughter as though it was wrapping around me like a vine.

But that was the thing; my mother drank her wine outside alone. That was her time. So who was she laughing at?

I glanced over my shoulder at my father to find him looking as though he was at a loss for words. It was so rare that he was speechless, a man of his stature always held a level of composure that was sometimes shocking. But not this time.

“Dad, wha-“

“You’re going to want to finish that drink, angel.”

My blood ran cold at his words. His tone was low, suddenly serious. The lighthearted moment from before was gone, something dark and heavy in its place.

I should have listened to him and finished the drink because as soon as I turned around I was met with the coldest, most pristine set of blue eyes I’d ever seen. Eyes that I once swore I would drown in someday.

Sean Wallace was standing eight feet in front of me. It was the first time we had seen each other in years, the first time I’d seen him since he was… dead.

His face was… fucked. Marred by the bullet that ripped through his left cheek on that fateful day. The skin was raised, almost burn-like, and left a medium sized indent in what would otherwise be a perfectly symmetrical face. His left eyelid held a little lower and it looked like he tried to cover up the other, minor scars with the facial hair that littered his jaw and around his mouth.

But even with the new, broken face, Sean Wallace was still the most breathtaking man in the room. His suit was impeccable and fit him like a glove, the stormy gray matching the storm that seemed to be raging in his eyes. His tie was a navy that matched my own suit and it felt like the universe was pointing at me and laughing. It felt like that bitch was having the time of her life watching me suffer.

“I…” I started, unsure of how to finish.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I know this” he held a hand up to his face “is a lot to take in.”

I already shook my head, my stomach turning at the thought of him thinking he was ugly. “No! No, I… I, I’m, I wasn’t-“

“Best private schools in the state and she still has that damn stutter.” My mother’s cutting voice ceased my own and I bit at the inside of my cheek. She came around the corner in all her glory, designer dress, perfect manicure and not a hair out of place.

She made me fucking sick.

“It’s nice to see you.” I finally managed to get the words out, although I didn’t know if I was talking to Sean or my mom.

“Jesus, Y/N, you couldn’t even change first?”

“I think she looks great.” Sean’s voice caught everyone off guard and even my mom turned to look at him. “Beautiful, really. You always looked great in a suit.”

I knew he was referring to my high school graduation. Sean was two years older and had flown in to see me graduate. My mom, ever the lady, was determined to force me into a nightmare of a ball gown while I wanted a simple, chic suit. Sean had been there for the entire screaming match, laughing at my mother as she tripped over the dress she had been hellbent on making me wear.

I couldn’t help the small smile that tugged my lips and nodded at him. “Thank you.”

He nodded in return and said nothing else.

“Let’s eat, shall we?” I felt my dad’s hand on my back as he ushered me into the dining room. My feet felt like stone blocks were attached to them as I walked, feeling Sean directly behind me with his eyes burning holes into my suit jacket.

We all sat in silence with the ghost of my past sitting directly across from me. Sean made no secret that he was staring at me and it reminded me of the ignorant young boy I once knew. Sean knew he was handsome, powerful, and could easily get his way. He held himself with the confidence of a man who had everything and it seemed a gunshot to the face didn’t change that.

“You’ve managed to stay under the radar.” I noted as one of the maids poured red wine into my glass.

“Y/N!” my mother scolded.

I raised my eyebrows and didn’t glance in her direction, my eyes holding Sean’s. “What? Are we supposed to sit here and pretend everything is normal? You want me to ask him about the weather?”

“Y/N…” my father’s tone held a warning in it.

“No, she’s right.” Sean spoke up as I took a hearty gulp of wine. “Facial reconstruction had me laid up for a bit. Reconstructing an entire cheekbone can be tricky. And expensive.”

I nodded. “Especially when the entire cheekbone belongs to a dead man.”

The room fell quiet with even the staff scurrying to disappear. My mother was glaring at me and I was sure my father was too, but I didn’t care. I’d spent my entire childhood and teen years caring about and loving Sean only for him to cut me off when he became Finn’s minion and then fake his own fucking death a few years after. He got so caught up in the Wallace life, in the life I thought we both hated, that he forgot about me. And I was angry about it.

“I deserve that.” His accent was the same as always. Smooth. Elegant. The best that private school could buy. “I should have reached out sooner as I knew my siblings were in touch.”

My mother, the martyr, was quick to reassure him. “Sweetheart, you don’t owe us anything. We’re just so happy you’re alright.”

She was so warm with him, a complete contrast to how she acted with me. It was a constant reminder that she always wanted a son and ended up with me instead.

My father opened his mouth to speak when his right hand, Marcus, walked in with a phone in his hand. His face looked pinched, stressed, and my father immediately stood. “Excuse me.”

Sean nodded politely and turned to my mother, but she was already standing and following behind dad, sensing his stress.

“Should we be concerned?”

I shook my head, my eyes still trained in the doorway. “I doubt it.”

Things were quiet then. Too fucking quiet. So quiet I felt like I was suffocating. I took a sip of wine. Then another. Another until my glass was empty and the bottle was taunting me from the center of the table.

“You have every right to be angry.”

“I’m not angry.” I was instantly defensive.

His smile was small, but it was there. “You always were a shit liar.”

“You were always a good one.”

His smile disappeared then and I was soon sitting across from the gangster that was always lurking underneath. Sean could do cool, calm, and collected. But he could only hide the angry, arrogant Wallace traits for so long.

“I… can’t remember the last time we were face to face.”

I shrugged my shoulders, suddenly uncomfortable. “Christmas. Six years ago. Kingston.”

His smile- God, that fucking smile- reappeared. “You threw a drink in my face.”

“You called me a spoiled fucking twat.”

“You were acting like one.”

Now it was my turn to smile. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. My early twenties were filled with vodka soda fueled arguments and boyfriends that my family- and Sean- hated. I was so different, that girl doesn’t even seem real anymore.

I was about to respond when I heard shouting coming from down the hall. My father’s office.

Sean and I stood at the same time, both of us sensing a certain level of danger. My father rarely ever shouted, it had to be something catastrophic for him to raise his voice like that.

Entering the hall, I quickly grabbed my bag next to the bar cart and produced my glock before tucking it into my waistband. Sean watched me silently the entire time. He was getting a little too comfortable with staring at me.

“Always prepared.”

“Family business, right?” I shot back at him over my shoulder as we neared my father’s study.

“No, no, fucking No! What do you mean they’re all dead? An entire fucking warehouse of people and they’re all fucking dead?”

My heart stopped in my chest. That was… impossible. The warehouses were untouchable, no one knew where they were unless they were part of our inner circle. Our microscopic inner circle. Which could only mean one thing…

It was an inside job.

“Fuck.” I spat. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Y/N, something’s happened.” My mother appeared in the doorway as we approached.

“Who did it?” I asked, getting straight to the point. “Any ideas?”

My dad was seated behind his wooden desk, a desk so large it was fit for a king. When I was a child I would spend hours in there reading on the stuffed leather couch while he worked silently. It was one of the few places I felt “safe” growing up.

“Kensington’s dead.” Our eyes met.

Rodger Kensington was my father’s longtime business partner and someone who was like an uncle to me. He’d been there at my prom, my graduation, and when I took my first steps. He was… family.

“Shit.” Sean’s word was quick and quiet, but then I remembered he knew Rodger too, and he knew what this meant.

“What about Sherry? The kids?” I was desperate to make sure their little ones were alright, they were all so young.

“They’re fine. They weren’t home, they-“

My father never got the words out as one of the staff walked in. I had turned at the sound of him entering the room, just barely meeting his eye as he raised his arm, a small handgun pointed directly at the man whose home we were in.

“Y/N!” My mother screaming my name like that would haunt my nightmares for months after.

A single shot rang out and my ears rang, a gasp leaving my lips as I reached for the gun in my waistband. But it wasn’t there.

The man was dead, a gunshot to the temple with crimson blood spilling all over the Italian wood floors. And then there was Sean, standing at my side with my gun pointed straight ahead, a dead look in his eyes.

It was all dangerously quiet and I could hear my own heartbeat, but only for a moment. Because as soon as I took a single breath, shit hit the fan.

My mother released a blood curdling scream, Marcus rushing to her side and grabbing her as she collapsed. My father, stoic, stood and walked over to the wardrobe near the window, swiftly pulling out guns and rounds of ammo. More security rushed in and I stood next to Sean, everything moving in slow motion. I could hear voices, hear my dad barking commands at his security who acted like his soldiers.

“There’s blood on my shoes.”

“What?”

What? Did I just say there was blood on my shoes? But it was true. My expensive cream suede shoes had blood splatter on them and I was ninety percent sure there was bone fragment near my heel.

“Blood. On my shoes.” My voice sounded far away.

Sean was suddenly in front of me and tucking my gun back into my waist while everyone shouted around us. “I’ll buy you a new pair. Bought them at the store on fifth, yeah?”

“How the fuck did you-“ I stopped, putting two and two together. “Have you been watching me?”

Sean’s face changed then and he straightened his shoulders. Our height nearly matched but only because of my heels, and I knew his gesture was dominant, authoritative. “I promise we can talk about that later, but-“

I pushed past him and walked towards my father who was barking orders into a phone. “Did you have Sean keep tabs on me?”

“Y/N, this isn’t the time for you to complain about your independence.”

I slammed my hand down on the wooden desk the same way I had watched him do it so. Many. Times. “Answer me!”

My father, all six foot three of him, stood tall and looked over me even with a desk separating us. “Watch yourself, young lady.”

“What the fuck is going on that you hired someone to watch me? That you hired Sean to watch me? What aren’t you telling me?”

He paused for the briefest of moments while everyone moved around us. I could hear safeties being turned off, my mom screaming down the hallway, and feel Sean standing close enough that I could smell his cologne.

“I’ve known for a bit that someone on the inside was giving information to Merkov brothers. Rodger and I spent months sifting through the weeds trying to figure out who it was. We had a break last night, I was going to tell you everything-“

“Four black SUV’s were spotted five miles from the property. Moving quickly. We need to go.” Marcus had appeared in the doorway sans my mother, his face wiped of anything sort of emotion. In fact, Marcus may have been the most emotionless man I had ever come into contact with. I would even venture to call him heartless.

“Shit.” My dad scrubbed a hand over his face. “I promise I will tell you everything, angel.” He looked at me, the desk separating us. “But right now you need to go and it can’t be back to your apartment.”

“Dad, I…” I had no idea what to say. I couldn’t go back to my apartment in the city, there was most definitely a hit out on my family, including myself, and Sean Wallace was back from the fucking dead. My day was going from bad to worse, my life blowing up in a twenty minute time span.

But I knew my last name, knew the weight it carried. I knew I had a certain responsibility to handle my shit and handle it well, with my shoulders back and my chin up.

“Where am I going?”

He was already on the move and I was on his heels, following him down the winding hallways of the home I grew up in. It was the same house that was sure to be shot to shit as soon as those SUV’s showed up.

“Harbor House.” He barked over his shoulder. “You can drive down there in the charger. Tinted windows. Marcus, have Anthony load a bag into the car. Ammo, guns, everything she’ll need.”

“No one knows where Harbor House is except us.” I reminded him. His business partners may have known about the warehouses and my father’s permanent residence, but Harbor House was for family and family alone.

“I’m not taking any chances, Y/N, not with you. Sean will accompany you and you’ll stay there until you hear from me. I’ll call-“

“What?” I cut him off. “Sean’s not coming with me.”

“I’m not taking any chances with you.” He repeated.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

Sean cleared his throat behind me and I refused to look at him. I knew he was offended by what I’d said, but quite honestly I was offended by everything he had done since stepping foot in my parents’ home that day.

“This isn’t about what you need or want, Y/N. He’s going with you.”

I was about to fully lose my temper when shots rang out through the house. I reached for my glock and turned the safety off, immediately ducking behind a marble pillar with Sean’s hand on my elbow, holding me still.

There was yelling and gunshots, some of the housekeepers screaming bloody murder from the second and third floors. There was no way those SUV’s were already on the property, no way. It had to be someone else.

Someone had burned our entire fucking family.

“Dad!” I yelled as a bullet whirred past my head.

“Y/N, go! Now!” I could hear him but I couldn’t fucking see him. Marco was beating the shit out of a man dressed all in black, ripping his gun away and firing off a round into his chest. The smell of blood and gunpowder burned my nostrils and I winced.

“I’m not leaving you!” I screamed so loud my voice cracked.

“Sean!” My father shouted. “Get her the fuck out of here! Get her out now, kid! Now!”

I glanced over at Sean, warning him with my eyes not to touch me, but it was too late. He ripped the gun from my hand and wrapped an arm around my waist, tugging me backwards.

“Sean, no!” I screamed, trying to pull away.

“We have to go, Y/N.” He dragged me down the hall while I fought him the whole way , dragging my feet and scratching at the suit clad arm wrapped around my waist. He finally stopped at the side door at the end of the hall and yanked it open before tossing me in.

I stumbled across the cold concrete of the garage and caught myself against the car I was supposed to be leaving in.

Sean locked the door behind him and turned to me, my gun still in his hand. “In.” He motioned to the car.

Still the same, bossy man he always was. Without responding, I turned and made my way across the expansive garage, shoving a table out of the way and yanking open the drawers of a metal cabinet.

“Y/N!” Sean was losing his temper and we were losing time.

“You took my gun!” I finally screamed back, practically growling at him as I picked up twin Berettas and tucked them into the back of my waistband. I grabbed a rifle to throw into the backseat, and one more Glock since Sean had unceremoniously stolen mine and left me empty handed.

He was staring at me as I made my way back to the car, his chest heaving. God, he still looked good. A gunshot to the face only amplified how rough and beautiful he was. Dumb fucking asshole and his dumb fucking face.

I grabbed the keys from the wall and tossed them to Sean who caught them with one hand.

Show off, I thought to myself sullenly as I got into the passenger side, my heart leaping out of my chest. I was about to leave my parents to potentially die. My childhood home was being torn apart, half the staff that knew me since I was a child were now lying dead in the same house they’d dedicated their lives to. It made me sick.

“Just focus on driving.” I told him as the garage door began to rise. I could already see the shadows of feet on the concrete leaned halfway out the window, my nine millimeter raised. One shot to the knee and a man fell, a second shot between the eyes and he was done.

The second man was smart, moved off to the side and just out of aim, and Sean floored the gas pedal while I kept watch.

“Your left.” I said quietly and pointed the gun in front of him, sending shots flying out of the driver’s side door, taking out the second man who had been waiting for us.

“Three of them in front of the gate.” Sean nodded towards the gate at the side of the property, all of them holding assault rifles and aiming at us. “Duck.” he commanded with the car still in reverse.

“What?”

“Duck.” I felt his hand grab at the back of my head he shoved me down, my forehead nearly knocking against my knee as he picked up speed. A loud blast blew out the back windshield and then there was a loud, violent thunk.

His wide palm was still resting on the back of my head, grip so tight it made my scalp prickle in a way that annoyed me. My body had no business getting turned on while in the midst of this shit.

When the tires squealed against the gravel and we went surging forward, I sat back up. I could see smoke coming out of the windows, bullet holes in the brick and mortar. It was a fucking war zone and we were on our way out, leaving behind my family and any shred of sanity I had left.

Fuck.

* * * * * *

The ride to Harbor House was almost completely silent. Sean, ever the Brit, would curse out other drivers every now and then even though ninety percent of the mistakes were his own. Maybe I should have insisted on driving, but at the time the only thing I could think about was whether or not my parents got out.

Although we were never close, I didn’t wish death on my parents. Sure, I resented them for bringing me up in a life of chaos and violence and I’m well aware they caused me a lifetime of trauma, but that didn’t mean I wanted them dead. Definitely not murdered.

It was nearly midnight by the time we arrived. Harbor House was in an exclusive neighborhood and every home had a gate. It had been years since I was last at the house, but it held the only fond memories from my childhood. Harbor House and the Wallace house always felt like home to me. Strange that I was sitting next to a Wallace and not a single shred of me felt comfortable or at home. It was strange, when we were kids he was always my safe space.

I punched in the code and black iron gates opened up, promptly closing with a loud clang behind us. The property itself was a sprawling estate with a two floor home as well as a large yard, pool, and separate guest house. It was on the edge of a cliff and overlooked the Atlantic. Isolated. Safe. Private. The kind of place my family relied on to keep us safe.

“Pull the car into the garage, we’ll get a rental tomorrow.” My voice was monotonous. I felt so drained of every emotion other than pure exhaustion. I was covered in blood, my clothes smelled like gunpowder and sweat, I needed a hot shower.

Sean silently pulled into the garage and killed the engine. We sat there quietly for a moment, so quiet I couldn’t even hear him breathing. If he had any blood on him, I couldn’t tell. From this angle he looked every bit the GQ model. It was only when he turned his face to look at me that I got a glimpse of the mauled left half and got angry all over again.

I was angry at my parents for birthing me into this.

I was angry at whoever burned us.

I was angry at Sean for disappearing from my life in favor of violence. But I was so fucking angry that he had let it go so far that the world thought he was dead.

I almost wished he was.

“There’s five bedrooms. I trust that you’ll find one far away from me?” I phrased it like a question but we both knew it wasn’t.

He gave a curt nod.

The house was exactly as I remembered it. It even smelled the same. Hardwood floors, light walls, French doors leading to a beautiful deck. A kitchen so modern it would make Gordon Ramsey cream his pants. It was the homiest home my family had. It was my haven.

Only now Sean was here to cast a shadow over it.

“There’s plenty of clothes in all the guest bedrooms. My parents like to be prepared for every emergency, you know that.”

Sean nodded as he closed the door that connected to the garage. He locked it and was quick to set the code. The code that he definitely shouldn’t have had.

“How did you-“

“Your father.”

I raised my eyebrows incredulously. “My father gave you the codes to Harbor House?”

He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, eyes narrowing. “He gave me the code for the gate too, but I was polite enough to let you do it. That’s something, innit?”

He was being a smart ass, pushing my buttons on purpose simply because he could. Or because he’d had enough of my attitude. Either way, I wasn’t having it.

“You must be so fuckin’ proud of yourself. You still have an in with my father even after the shit you pulled in London. My father, Sean, not me. You don’t have shit with me and you made that perfectly clear.”

He squared his shoulders and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as I sat on the edge of a beautiful cream colored sofa. I couldn’t wait to sink into it tomorrow with a good book.

I quickly fingered at the straps on my heels and kicked them off while mentally preparing for whatever speech he was about to throw my way.

“I’ve really had enough of you talking to me like I’m some shit person. Enough, Y/N.”

I stood back up, hating that I was smaller than him now as I turned on my heel and headed up the stairs. “If you hate my attitude so much then leave me the fuck alone and let me take a shower in peace.”

* * * * *

My shower was hot and relaxing and everything I needed. As soon as the steam surrounded me, I was able to calm down a bit, and once the hot water hit my skin I was able to sigh in relief. Washing off the blood and grime left me feeling like a whole new woman.

So new, in fact, I briefly forgot about the bane of my existence showering down the hall.

Sean. Showering. Sean in the shower with water dripping down his chest and into that perfect V of his hips. Sean’s hot, wet body pressed against mine. Sean’s-

“Can you not?” I said to my reflection as I ran a brush through my hair. Even when I was angry at him, violently angry, it was impossible to deny that he was attractive.

We never hooked up, not even when we were young. But there was always something there. We flirted. We toyed with each other. We got into nasty arguments. People noticed, my friends made comments. I always ignored them and played it off and said it was because we knew each other forever and just connected that way. They all argued that it was more.

I ignored them.

After changing into a comfortable pair of loose cotton pants and a long sleeved shirt, I made my way downstairs. The windows were open and I could hear the waves crashing against the cliff side. My favorite sound. It gave me peace. It soothed me.

The kitchen was empty and I grabbed a bottle of red wine with every intention of drinking the entire bottle. After pouring a rather large amount into the pristine crystal stemware my mother bought, I threw my head back and took a long, large sip.

Ugh. That’s better. I closed my eyes and took another sip, getting lost in the sound of the waves and the dark, cherry taste of the wine. A moment of peace after all the bullshit I had to endure tonight.

It was only when Sean cleared his throat that I realized I wasn’t alone. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing black sweats and a white t-shirt. Simple. Clean. Comfortable. If this had been a few years ago I would have been aching to curl up against him.

“Kitchen’s all yours,” I said as I grabbed my glass and bottle, preparing to go out back.

“You told me you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.” His words cut like a knife to my retreating back and it made me pause, not yet turning around. “You fucking told me you were done.”

I knew what he was referring to. The last time we spoke had been over the phone, maybe four years ago. It had been a normal night with normal conversation and normal “I miss yous”. Sean had truly been one of my best friends and closest confidants. And then the conversation turned ugly when he informed me his father was sending him out on a seriously violent, potentially fatal, mission. Our argument had gotten vile and I said horrible things. He did too, including telling me to “stop acting like a girlfriend because you’re so fucking lonely”.

That had been my breaking point. He reminded me so much of Finn then. He dressed like him, spoke like him, became a carbon copy of him, and I was having none of it. So I had told him to fuck off and lose my number, to never call me again, to pretend I was dead.

It was the one time Sean listened to me and the one time I wished he hadn’t.

To this day, I got embarrassed when I thought about what he had said to me. The way he screamed and the way he humiliated me. Maybe I was lonely, maybe it came off as clingy, but my intentions were always good and I never thought I was a burden to him. But after that last conversation I spent years telling myself that’s exactly what I was. A burden. I checked in too much, my double texting him probably got on his nerves. Constantly complaining about our families when I knew how fortunate I was to live such a lavish life made me sound spoiled, he got tired of it. I spent years convincing myself there was no possible way he missed me and I didn’t miss him either.

“Do you even remember our last conversation?” I turned slowly to face him. “Do you remember what you said?”

He took a step forward and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Of course I do. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it- you. I’d been out drinking with my father-“

“And then turned into him?”

“Oh, fuck off then.” He shook his head, his frustration evident as he rounded the marble island in the kitchen. An expert, he seemed to know where everything was. The glasses. The whiskey.

“I’m not wrong.” I defended myself.

Sean laughed and the sound was hollow, sarcastic. He took a sip of whiskey before turning to me with a cold look in his eyes. “And I wasn’t wrong that day either. Was I?”

I scowled at him to mask the absolute hurt I was experiencing. My heart ached. He’d known he was hurting me. He didn’t care. He remembered and he didn’t care.

“Oh, fuck you, Sean.” I whispered before quickly pushing through the french doors and stepping onto the deck.

“Oi!” Sean shouted as I slammed the doors behind me, taking off down the steps, wine glass in hand.

“I’m not done talking to you.” Sean was hot on my heels.

“The conversation is over.”

“Like hell it is.” I felt long, thick fingers curl around my elbow and then he was hauling me back against him. “You say what you want to say and then think we’re done. We’re not.”

I ripped my arm back and shoved my finger in his face. “I’ve waited four years to say this shit to you!”

“So have I!” He shouted back, the vein in his neck becoming prominent. The female part of my brain wondered what it would feel like to run my tongue along that vein, feel it pulse against my mouth.

Wrong time, I thought to myself and shook my head. “You fucked off for four years, faked your own death, and now I found out my father has had you following me. I don’t know what kind of weird, stalker fetish you’ve developed, but it’s really not doing anything for me.”

Okay, maybe that last part was flat out bitchy, but at that point I didn’t care.

I drained my wine glass while I waited for his response.

“Would you like to tell me about your fetishes?”

“Sure, they all involve watching you bleed out.”

“Should have been there a year ago then, yeah?”

I didn’t have a response for that. I zeroed in on the left half of his face, the scar on his cheek. His cheekbone curved differently, probably because it was handmade, and his scar disappeared into his stubble. He looked so vastly different from the Sean I used to know. He was hardened by life, by Finn’s life. Thirty and angry and alone and legally dead.

I ached for the Sean I once knew, but this wasn’t him.

“How long have you been watching me?”

“A little more than three months.”

“Three months?” I was shocked. I’d had a tail for three months and I didn’t even know it? How embarrassing.

“You wouldn’t have known.” It was as though he could read my mind. “I’ve always been better at it than you.”

“You’re so fucking cocky.” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or slap him, so instead I walked past him and back up the stairs, making my way back into the house to refill my glass. I knew he was following me, knew that the alcohol in my bloodstream was making me feel bold, more bold than I was sober.

Sean closed the French doors, the lock clicking with a tone of finality. I was too aware of it.

“You were shit as hide and seek when we were kids.”

“So that makes you a better spy?”

His tone was serious when he responded. “I was never spying on you. I didn’t have access to your flat. I didn’t follow you around with that ugly wanker with gray hair.”

“Leave Beckett out of this.”

“Beckett?” It was the first time his face had resembled something other than anger. He looked amused. “You’re dating a man named Beckett?”

I cocked my head to the side, narrowing my eyes. “We actually aren’t discussing my dating life, we’re talking about my stalker.”

“Stop saying that. It was to and from work. Only when you were out in public.”

“That doesn’t make it okay!” I finally shouted. None of what happened today was okay. Sean, my dad, the shootout. None of it was okay. “You don’t get to keep up with my fucking life when I have to pretend you’re dead!”

“Lower your voice.” Sean took a step forward.

“Fuck off!” I shouted even louder than before. “You don’t get to just come back and bark orders at me. This isn’t London, Sean!”

“Enough.” He took another step forward and I backed up, reaching for my wine glass.

He was so calm, so fucking collected while I was beginning to fall apart. I hated him for it. Fuck Sean Wallace, I wanted him to hurt the way I did. So, without thinking twice, I hurled my glass at him. Sean barely dodged it, whipping his head to the side as it soared past him and landed on the floor in a million little pieces.

He was a blur as he flew across the kitchen, growling as he slammed my back up against the wall. I cried out as searing pain sent shock waves down my back, but I was too angry to focus on it. My hands instantly went into fight mode and my fingers caught the tip of his nose as I swiped at him, but he pulled his head back, out of my reach.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He roared in my face. “Are you bloody mental?” His hands circled my wrists and he pinned them at my sides, effectively halting my movements.

Stuck between Sean and the wall, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. “Let me go.”

“The fuck I will.” He squeezed my wrists harder.

“Sean.” I shoved myself against him and he did the same thing, his face even closer than before. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, see the smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. God, he was a sight. “Fuck. Off.”

His eyes zeroed in on my mouth as I enunciated the words, nostrils flaring slightly. My breasts were pressed against his chest and I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, because suddenly we were staring each other eye to eye and I couldn’t look anywhere else. I was drowning the way I always imagine I would except this time I didn’t want it. I wanted no part of it.

“Don’t even think about it.” I whispered softly.

“Or what?” Sean’s remark felt snide and childish, something I would have happily said to him had he not leaned down and slid his lips over mine. It was a light touch, so soft I barely felt it. But I still gasped because it was Sean’s lips touching mine and I hated that I liked it so much.

At the sound of my sharp intake of breath, he smirked. “I fucking knew it.” And then he smashed his lips against mine, not letting up on the grip he had on my wrists.

Sean’s tongue pushed past my lips and slid against mine, weakening my reserve just a bit. He tasted good, his scruff scratched against the edges of my mouth and I reveled in it, loving how rough he felt.

He fucking engulfed my mouth, taking complete control of the kiss and demanding that I give him more. Forgetting the position we were in, he let go of my wrists in favor of cupping my face, wide palms against my cheeks.

I should have pushed him away, should have told him to leave, but the simple truth was that Sean Wallace knew how to kiss. He kissed like a man, held my face, stroked rough thumbs over my cheekbones, and swallowed my moans. He crowded me, stood so close our torsos were touching while we made out against the kitchen wall. Our tongues touched, teeth clashed, and when I sucked Sean’s bottom lip into my mouth the groan he let out was guttural. Animalistic.

But the noise was enough to bring me back to reality and I shoved my hands against his chest, pushing him away from me as hard as I could.

Sean stumbled back and caught himself on the counter. He was just as caught up as I was, his eyes wild, cheeks flushed red.

“You’ve got some nerve.” I cleared my throat and wiped my mouth, still tasting him on my tongue.

“Me?” He had the audacity to smile, still clearly fired up. “You were the one sucking my lip like it was my cock.”

My cheeks felt hot. The way he said cock with the accent and the smirk… it murdered me on the inside. It absolutely killed me how good it sounded. “You wish.”

“Every fucking night.” Sean stepped forward again. “I think about you sucking my cock every. Fucking. Night.”

His admission left me breathless. It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. The thought of Sean laying in bed at night and thinking about my mouth wrapped around his dick lit me up. I was hot everywhere.

“Sean-“

“Shut the fuck up.” He crowded me again, this time wrapping one arm around my back and pulling me against him. “For once in your life, please, Y/N, shut the fuck up.”

Cupping the back of my head, Sean kissed me again. I wanted to fight him, wanted to tell him to fuck off, but that would only prove him right. I really did have a problem with shutting the fuck up.

So, I kissed him back. I gave it my all, twining my arms around his neck and leaning against him. Sean tongue fucked my mouth as though he’d been dying to for years, and after his admission I wondered if he had. His body felt warm against mine and feeling his fingertips glide along the exposed area of my lower back made my knees nearly buckle.

He smiled against my mouth and before I knew it, Sean was sliding both hands down, gripping my hips and hoisting me in the air. My legs locked around his waist instantly, ankles crossing at the small of his back while he carried me through the kitchen.

Our mouths never stopped touching. I’d been waiting years to kiss Sean. I’d been waiting years to slap the fuck out of him as well, but right now the only thing I cared about was keeping our mouths fused together for as long as humanly possible. I felt drunk on him, on the taste of whiskey on his tongue.

I didn’t realize we were in the living room until Sean sat down on the couch with me straddling his lap. I took the opportunity to pull back slightly, his lips chasing my own, and I smiled at the way he leaned forward. I cupped the right side of his face, loving the way his scruff felt against my soft palm. He truly was beautiful, the red-brown hair and beard, the plump mouth that spent more time scowling than smiling. His freckles, God, when we were young I could have spent hours counting them.

And then there was that scar. That brutal, obvious scar. The trauma his body must have gone through made me sick and when I reached up to run my fingers over the jagged, raised skin, Sean was quick to grab my wrist in a bruising grip.

“Don’t touch me there.”

But I wanted to. So badly. But it was clear in his reaction, in the stiffness of his body, that he was serious. Of all the limits Sean DIDN’T have, touching the left side of his face was one of them and I had no choice but to respect it.

“Fine, how about you touch me then?”

It was all the incentive Sean needed and he flipped me onto my back, hovering over me with one hand braces on the back of the couch. Our eyes held as I slid my hands down his chest, his heartbeat pulsing under my hand as I slid lower, lower still until I gripped the hem of his shirt and yanked it up. He leaned back, only for a moment to rip the shirt off his head and send it flying.

Fair skinned with broad shoulders and a tapered waist, I itched to lick the V that disappeared into his waistband. He may have been injured, but he hasn’t been resting this last year. Sean didn’t have the body of a man who rested, he had the Jody of a man who was constantly pushing himself. He was strong in every sense of the word and it made me pathetically, desperately wet for him.

“Your turn,” he said against my lips, fingers playing under my shirt and sliding along my ribs. “You’re so fucking soft.” He whispered against the skin of my cheek.

Unable to help myself, I reached down to cup him through his sweats. Jesus… Christ. “You’re so fucking not.”

Sean laughed then, but I was dead serious. Either Sean was hiding a gun in his pants or his cock was just that fucking solid. And… thick. Even through his pants I could tell. I squeezed once and he let out a guttural groan, the sound sending shock waves between my legs. I wanted that sound on a loop for the rest of my life.

He pushed my shirt up and over my head, eyes zeroing in on my breasts. “Fuck me…” He trailed off, cupping one in his hand and giving a firm squeeze as he settled his eight between my legs. I could feel him against my clit even with barriers of clothing separating us.

“I always wondered what your nipples looked like.” He licked one gently and my back arched hard, my whole body tightening. “They’re so much better than my imagination.”

Sean fastened his mouth against my nipple and he sucked, flicking his tongue against the sensitive bud while I writhed underneath him. My nails scraped through his shirt hair, digging into his scalp and holding him against me. He said he had wondered what they would look like, but I spent the better part of a decade wondering what this would feel like.

Fuck, it felt good.

Sean’s hips ground against mine as he moved to my other nipple, hands roaming felt over my body, gripping my clothes thighs and sliding up my sides. Tracing along my collarbone, fingers tugging at the nipple that wasn’t getting any attention.

I felt like a horny teenager, aching to have him inside me as fast as humanly possible. My nails raked over his shoulders and he gave a delicious growl in return, leaning up and hovering over me again.

“I’ve thought about your mouth on my cock for ages, but right now the only thing I want is to be buried inside you. That okay?”

I was modding before he even finished speaking. Fuck a blowjob, fuck foreplay. I didn’t need that with Sean, not now. Right now I just needed… connection. I was almost desperate for it and it fucking terrified me.

Sean leaned back on his knees and hooked his fingers into my pants, tugging them down in one swift move and leaving me completely naked and sprawled out in front of him. His eyes raked over me and my breath hitched in my throat. He could see… everything.

“Fuck me… this body was fucking made for me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, wiggling my brows. “A bit cocky, yeah?”

“No.” His face was serious, eyes focused as they raked over my breasts, my hips, my legs, zeroing in on the spot between my thighs. Sean slid one long, thick finger over my slit and I cried out, my body stiffening. “I knew you’d be bald here.” He repeated the motion. “Been dying to see that tattoo on your thigh for ages.”

I’d gotten the tattoo when I was 20 and officially moved out of my parents house. It was one of those stupid young decisions, but I didn’t regret it. It was a snake that wrapped all the way around my right thigh, the snake’s tongue permanently engraved on my inner thigh like an invitation. Or a warning.

“And?” I asked inquisitively, rubbing a hand absentmindedly down my stomach.

“And I think this body was fucking made for me.”

His lips came crashing down on mine again and I wrapped my bare legs around his waist, loving the way his hip bones pressed into my thighs. He littered kisses over my cheekbone, an oddly sweet gesture, and then absolutely assaulted my neck, licking and biting and nipping at my collarbone until I cried out.

I reached down, yanking at his sweats and pushing them down his thighs with my heels. I was fucking dying for Sean Wallace to be inside of me, I couldn’t even breathe because I wanted him so badly. Needed him, needed to know what it was like to feel him.

“Sean.” I gasped as he braced one hand above my head, the other one gripping his cock and lining it up at my entrance. I gripped his bicep when he pushed the tip in, my nails digging half crescents into his skin.

“Sean.” I repeated his name, this time somewhat panicked because what the fuck was I doing? Was I really about to fuck him?

“Remember when I told you to shut the fuck up?” Sean’s eyes met mine and he gave one sharp, hard thrust and was suddenly inside me so deep I swore I could feel him in my cervix.

I didn’t even have time to gasp, my mouth fell open in a silent scream and Sean’s groan was something I’d think about for months. He was so deep I felt as though I couldn’t breathe, looking up at him completely frozen.

“Oh, fuck.” He finally breathed out. “That’s right, so good you can’t even speak.”

“I… hate you.” I finally managed, leaning up and catching his bottom lip between my teeth, tugging so hard he let out a groan of pain.

“You don’t hate me.” Sean pulled nearly all the way out before slamming back inside me, giving me no warning or time to breathe. But the yelp I let out was enough to make him smirk.

Cocky bastard.

Fine, I could play. Tightening my legs around his waist, I raked my nails down his back and watched his face change, jaw clenching tight. I licked his collarbone before sucking the skin there. I sucked hard and didn’t stop until I felt his fingers tangle in my hair and yank me back, forcing me to look at him.

“You’re not the fucking boss right now.” He practically growled the words, not letting up on the grip on my hair. He pumped in and out of me, my scalp pricking with a weird, pleasurable pain that left me moaning for more.

Sean’s thrusts got harder and I cried out when he hit that spot, so deep I could feel him everywhere. “Sean!” I cried his name, my breath hitching in my throat.

He let my hair go in favor of those perfect ducking fingers wrapping around my throat. His thumb pressed firmly under my jaw, I had no other choice but to look at him as he fucked me into oblivion.

“Fuck, I missed you.” He groaned, pressure on my throat tightening just a bit. “Thought about you every fucking day.”

I was instantly thrown back into reality. Everything that happened that day. The shooting. Sean coming back from the dead, all of it.

“Nope, stay with me.” Sean commanded, sensing my disconnect. He slowed his thrusts leaning down to lick at my lips lightly. It was oddly erotic and I found myself whimpering for more. “That’s it, relax for me.”

“I…” I started desperately. “I can’t. Sean-“

He squeezed my throat harder and I suddenly gasped, my air being cut off. “Relax.” His voice was oddly soothing. “You can still breathe.”

I shook my head.

He paused his thrusts, once again settling deep inside me with my legs splayed. “Yes, you can. I’m not squeezing that hard. Breathe.”

I took in a breath. It was shallow, but it was there. Letting it out slowly, I repeated the motion, Sean catching on and thrusting every time I exhaled. It all felt different like this, barely able to breathe and dripping wet onto the couch. I’d never wanted someone more and I was terrified, I’d never been “handled” the way he was handling me, treating me like I was his.

“Been waiting years to feel you come on my cock.” He groaned when he released my throat, leaning back on his heels and looking down at where we were connected. “God, you’re soaked. Made a proper mess all over me.”

I moaned because at that point words were not possible. My stomach felt tight, I felt like I was going to cry or laugh or scream. I felt like I was going crazy.

And then Sean rubbed his thumb over my clit, watching me jerk, and I knew I was done for. He did it again and again, giving me shallow strokes while he rubbed the little bundle of nerves that were certainly going to send me into a tailspin.

“Sean, please.” My back arched and I shouted, so fucking close, teetering on the edge.

“Come all over my cock so I can watch you lick it off after.”

My mouth fell open and I screamed his name, my orgasm hitting me like a ton of bricks. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling Sean lean over me and wrap an arm around my back.

He picked up the pace while I clung to him, whispering in my ear about how he’d wanted it forever, how this was his, how I was his. It was overwhelming, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than rake my nails through his hair and whisper his name over and over again in his ear.

“Fuck.” Sean’s groan was long and low, stroking into me one, two, three more times before holding himself still, his climax hitting him as hard as mine hit me.

His arms shook as he held himself over me, eventually collapsing onto my chest in a huff. We sat there silently, the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff side lulling us. Sean’s right cheek was pressed against my breast and his dick was still inside me. He was as close as he could possibly be but I somehow wanted him closer. I wanted to fucking absorb him into my body, keep him there forever and enjoy the weight of him on me.

“Sean?” I whispered, wondering if he was still awake.

“Hm?”

I ran my fingers lightly over the back of his neck and delighted in his shiver. “I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

He lifted his head then, searching my face for some sort of emotion, but I forced myself to remain stoic. It took Sean fucking my brains out for me to realize how much I missed him. How much I fucking loved him. But I couldn’t tell him that, I couldn’t give him that much power over me.

“Today was the first time in a year that I was thankful that bullet didn’t kill me.” Sean’s words were honest, quiet.

We didn’t say anything after that, we didn’t really need to. In that moment we were safe, together after years of being apart, and now all we had to do was wait for word from my father. Until then, I was going to enjoy whatever time I had with Sean and I prayed I would never have to pretend he was dead again.

#joe cole #sean wallace #gangs of london #gol #smut #fic

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dailylogyn · 3 years

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Logyn Meta: Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the Marvel Comics

Photo Source (by Sexy-Salmon): https://lokisergi.tumblr.com/post/70164902295/siege-loki-problems-it-almost-looks-innocent

Other Logyn Meta’s: https://dailylogyn.tumblr.com/tagged/logyn-meta

Did you know Sigyn was in the Marvel Comics long ago? Did you know Loki had a wife?

Oh...that’s probably because Marvel wanted you to forget their terrible writing mistakes concerning this great Norse Couple.

Let’s dive into this exploration of history where the Marvel writers realized they fucked up on telling a perfectly good couples story, and in the process, setting off a spark of rebellion that caused some retconning and a group of fans to demand justice for both Loki & Sigyn -- not just as a couple, but as their own individual beings.

#JusticeforSigyn #JusticeforLoki #JusticeforLogyn

Where it First Began (Meeting & Marriage of Lies):

In September of 1978, Thor #275 came out featuring the first appearance of Sigyn, Loki’s wife from Norse Mythology. She was introduced as a beautiful Asgardian Loki had randomly come across while looking into a crystal ball inside his castle, wanting to find some companionship to fill his loneliness.

However, when Loki came with riches and jewels to offer her in exchange for her hand in marriage, Sigyn outright rejected him, stating she would never take someone as vile as him, even stating she was already engaged to an Asgardian Warrior part of Odin’s guard -- Theoric.

Unable to accept this, Loki came up with a plan to have her fiancee killed during a mission, resulting in the Trickster taking on the disguise of Theoric in order to take Sigyn for his own. Despite having slightly suspicions of her lover being more romantic than before, Sigyn didn't notice that her lover wasn’t exactly who she thought he was.

Now comes the day of the wedding as Odin marries the happy couple. This was when Loki finally revealed his true self and what he had done. Odin tried to null the marriage, but it was against Asgardian law for even the High Father to do such a thing. Hence, Sigyn accepted her fate as Loki’s wife. This caused Odin to name her the Goddess of Fidelity.

Where it’s Heading (Cargo of Incantation-Fetter’s Arms):

Loki being Loki, he did some shit that ended up with him being imprisoned in a tree by Odin, something that infuriated Sigyn, resulting in her trying to take control over Donald Blake to use over the All-Father as a way to free her husband from his punishment. However, it didn’t work out, resulting in a bunch of other crazy shit happening and putting Thor on their trail.

After Balder was killed, Loki was put on trials for his crimes and received yet another punishment that Sigyn had to protect him from -- having burden over the fact she was “the evil’s wife.” Just like the classic Norse tale, she holds a bowl over his head, shielding him from snake venom and leaving to empty it momentarily when it became full, resulting in Loki cursing her.

Also, Loki and Sigyn had a child -- Narvi, but they died young, being used as the binding to imprison Loki (following the Norse myth too.)

Some more crazy shit happens and now Odin has shackled Loki to Sigyn so he doesn’t cause anymore trouble. Loki of course is not pleased about this one bit. Having had enough of this, he went to Odin demanding to be released, only resulting in him being banished to an outpost.

There Just Might be Hope????:

Some more shit happens again, resulting in Loki being stuck in an astral form and bound to a suit of armor so he could reside in Asgard thanks to Sigyn. A fight happens with Thor, Loki and Mephisto, putting Sigyn in danger. This is when for the first time ever, Loki ends up having a tender confession of love over Sigyn, asking Thor to save her since he could not.

It’s unknown if this is just Loki putting on an act or being real, but you know how the Trickster God can be.

After the battle, while Loki had released Sigyn from her marital vows, his wife swore to always be there for him when he needed her.

And that’s the last we see of Sigyn’s regular appearance in the comics in 1996. She makes a cameo in Avengers: Unleashed #1 in 2019, but it’s nothing more than a flashback to her time of helping Loki.

A Hypothesis & Notes on their relationship in comics:

The whole entire plotline consisting of Theoric and Loki killing him in order to obtain Sigyn is just something most of the fandom doesn’t like. Not only does it objectify Sigyn, but it makes Theoric a Pointless character to introduce anyway, only used as a tool for means in which Loki can get Sigyn, when honestly, he could have done so in a different way.

I like that they stick with Sigyn being the faithful wife of Loki (that’s who she is), but they honestly don’t give her any agency in this besides that trait alone. The writers don’t even let Sigyn be her own damn person! She is SO MUCH MORE than Loki’s loyal wife. SHE IS A FREAKIN GODDESS! I know there is more we can do with her.

Instead of pulling the ‘woe is me, my husband is evil and I’ll just go along with it’ card, something else could have been done. LIKE LITERALLY, ANYTHING ELSE! We know Loki can be a troublemaker, but Sigyn knows how to deal with his shit. She isn’t some damsel in distress here! It’s another reason Loki likes her.

Couples can bicker in times, it’s normal in marriages and relationships, but to have Loki whining about how much of a burden Sigyn is is just....WHY? I mean, you went after the woman and killed another guy for her. This is what you wanted! *shakes head at writers*

I will give them kudos though for some of the stuff near the end when Loki actually starts displaying his true feelings of love towards Sigyn. And sadly we only got a little taste of that...and we aren’t even sure if it was an act or Loki being real.

THE FACT THAT SIGYN ISN’T EVEN IN THE COMICS ANYMORE SINCE 1996. She’s only mentioned, but it’s just as a tale, not as an actual person who USED to be his wife. They literally killed her off. EXCUSE ME! #JusticeforSigyn (We’re still waiting for her in the MCU...)

NORSE MYTHOLOGY TIE-INS:

There were some moments in the comics between them that they writers took from Norse Mythology with them. Thought It’d be important to list.

Loki’s Punishment of snake venom dripping onto him while Sigyn holds a bowl to collect it and shield him.

Narvi being Loki & Sigyn’s son who was killed and his insides used to bind Loki for his punishment.

Sigyn being Loki’s wife.

DIFFERENT WRITERS, DIFFERENT CHARACTERIZATION:

As is the case with everything out there, if you have different writers working on the same project, there is bound to be a difference of characterization and interpretation, resulting in OOC moments or just something completely different altogether. After researching and pondering on this subject, I FULLY believe this is what has happened with Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the comics. Let’s take a look at the evidence I’ve found:

For the comics Sigyn’s creators were Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tom Palmer.

Loki’s creators for the comics were Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, Violet Barclay, and honestly, many others.

My favorite quotes on them from the comics:

Wait? Despite the crappy writing, I actually have quotes I like from the comics? GASP! I call these the only positives from the comics of their relationship.

“My Sigyn-- the love of my immortal life...” — Loki, Thor Annual Vol 1 #19

“Aye-- For only Sigyn, of all in the realm eternal, feels love for Loki. And among all Asgardians, only for Sigyn does Loki feel...” — Loki, Thor Annual #19

“Sigyn loves me-- just as she is the only thing in the nine worlds that I truly love.”— Loki, Thor #483

Photo Source: https://www.zerochan.net/1262293#full

Fandoms Wish for MCU & Future Appearance Justice:

Fans would like to see Sigyn make an appearance, not only in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), but also the Marvel Comics once again. They would like to see Loki & Sigyn’s characters done justice with proper writing, especially regarding their relationship with each other.

This is why there is plenty of fans out there writing Fanfiction, making Fanart, Roleplaying and even Cosplaying them, giving their interpretation’s of what their relationship would be like. This is THE VERY REASON this blog and @sigynappreciation was created to help spread awareness and unite fans who feel the same way.

These characters are very near and dear to our hearts. Some of us even worship them in our religions. We would like to see their relationship grow and portrayed in a way that helps fill the pieces of the missing puzzle to how they came to be in Norse Mythology.

CONCLUSION:

Although their relationship in the comics usually leaves fans grimacing, at least we got to have it explored. Who knows if Marvel will ever touch anything with them ever again, but at least it’s brought together a small community that continues to go strong -- and honestly, that kind of unity is what Loki & Sigyn would want.

So imagine to your hearts content! Draw that fanart! Write those fanfictions! Dress up in that cosplay! Be those characters! But just remember, you have a family here to love and support you.

SOURCES:

Sigyn’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Sigyn_(Earth-616)

Loki’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Loki_Laufeyson_(Earth-616)

Sigyn on Marvel Universe: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/sigynthor.htm

Logyn on the Shipping Wiki: https://shipping.fandom.com/wiki/Logyn

Loki & Sigyn’s relationship through Media: https://www.alehorn.com/blogs/blog/norse-mythology-loki-and-sigyn

#logyn #loki x sigyn #loki and sigyn #Marvel Comics #Loki Laufeyson #sigyn #logyn meta #Constancy & Chaos (Logyn)#justiceforsigyn #justiceforlogyn #justiceforloki

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haunthouse · 4 years

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welcome to a meta that, in retrospect, seems glaringly obvious, but that has hit me like a freight train this morning. we’re talking about the lonely as a ghost story.

ghosts as an entity are inherently about disconnect. but kaylee, i hear you say, ghosts are dead people, wouldn’t that make them in the end’s domain? but when it comes down to it, death is a good framing device for ghosts (and yeah, it’s necessary to make ghosts), but people don’t tell ghost stories just because they’re afraid of death. ghost stories are told because ghosts are irrevocably disconnected from the living in a way that terrifies us — sometimes they’re intentionally scary, knocking shit around or yelling boo!, but a lot of the time they’re just... there. and that’s the terrifying part. something that’s there and shouldn’t be; something that can’t interact with the world around it and is completely, utterly, terrifyingly alone.

ghost stories are about isolation, about being a person without any of the framework that being a person requires, without society or connection or love. being unseen and unheard and unknown to all around you — and trying so hard to reverse all those un-words, to be seen, heard, known. that’s exactly the domain of the lonely!

and onto the meat of this meta: all nine lonely-centric statements (and the journey of one martin blackwood) through the lens of ghost stories.

(spoilers for mag170 at the end, but each episode section is clearly marked, so feel free to skip it if you haven’t gotten that far yet!)

MAG013: ALONE

the first lonely statement we get (and also the first in-person statement! which is such a good inversion of the lonely being about lack of connection! jon doesn’t do a great job of comforting naomi, but he does stay with her as she gives the statement when she asks!! that’s beside the point but it is something i really love), and right off the bat, the ghost vibes are off the charts.

truly i am feeling absolutely idiotic for not really thinking about the ghosts-lonely connection before now because this statement? peak ghost story.

naomi’s fiance dies. naomi has several near-death experiences (crashes her car, then is hit by another car and winds up in the hospital), which is also a staple in a lot of ghost stories; nearly dying is set up as a way to get the living closer to the realm of ghosts, able to interact with them more clearly. it was a dark and foggy night in a graveyard, and standing at evan’s (open, empty) grave, naomi hears his disembodied voice leading her home.

when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night. but when they’re told by someone close to the now-ghost, they’re love stories. it’s my grandmother hearing her father’s breathing one last time after his death, giving her a chance to say goodbye. it’s a familiar and loving presence, comforting you. that’s what naomi’s story is — the ghost of evan showing his love for her one final time.

MAG033: BOATSWAIN’S CALL

so, ships are meant to be places of community, right? ron @gerrydelano has a really good post about this regarding shanties. but ghost ships are an established trope of ghost stories: the inversion of what a ship should be, lacking all life and community, silently traversing the waters on its own.

the tundra is a ghost ship. it’s quiet (”very quiet... it was like they were doing everything in their power not to think about each other”) — the people there move around one another as if none of them are there, all so taken by the lonely. their cargo containers are empty. all they’re transporting on that ship is the ghosts of those aboard.

this episode falls into the trope of ghosts want the living to join them — though there’s still a mourning atmosphere when sean kelly is taken fully by the lonely, that final bit of life on the ship extinguished. (”no one said a word, but i could have sworn a few of my shipmates were crying.”)

MAG048: LOST IN THE CROWD

this one’s one of my favorites! andrea nunis’ statement deals with different kinds of loneliness — she begins it with explaining that she prefers to travel alone, but later, that loneliness is something terrifying. she’s in a crowd of unrecognizable people, unable to fit herself into the world she’s seeing — she’s completely separate from the rest of the world. she’s a ghost.

“it wasn’t italian being spoken ... or any other language i recognized. the more i listened, the more i realized it wasn’t a language. there were no words, it was just noise.” “their faces were a blur, each and every one of them.” and, the crowning point: “i tried to talk to them or to shout, to scream at them, but there was no reaction.”

by being taken in by the lonely, andrea’s been turned into a ghost. she cannot interact with or even recognize her environment, and that’s the real horror — it isn’t just being alone, it’s being surrounded by something that should be familiar; a crowd is something she’s been in a thousand times, as someone who travels a lot, and people are the most familiar thing in the world, like looking in a mirror! but it isn’t. everything is strange and she is outside of it all and that’s what a ghost is.

and her connection to her mother is what pulls her out. people have talked at length about how love is the antidote to the lonely so i won’t go on too long about that, but the connection between that & ghosts’ relationships to the living often being what keeps them around is sure something.

also, after getting out of the lonely andrea says “i made sure i was always in sight of at least one other person” — and there’s something to be said there about needing to be seen to be real.

chiara @red-reys brought up this feuerbach quote which fits very well: “that which i alone perceive i doubt; only that which the other also perceives is certain.” being the only one to perceive something (for example, a ghost), or the only one who is utterly unperceived, is a very lonely thing — it isolates you entirely from those who do not perceive it. being perceived, or having someone else see what you see, can give you an anchor.

wow i’m sure that won’t come back later!

also, far be it from me to talk about this statement without mentioning gerry keay. because it means something that he’s the one to give andrea the tools she needs to pull herself out of the lonely. gerry is someone completely lacking in human connection, who is literally haunted by the ghost of his mother and later is seen as a ghost himself. gerry doesn’t have friends; he tells jon “i always wanted my friends to call me gerry,” but in a tone that makes it clear he didn’t have anyone who could’ve. and of course he didn’t. a life so entwined with the entities and cut so short, a life so ruled by the cruelty of others that he certainly did not want to rope anyone else into.

though gerry’s never directly stated to be affected by the lonely, he’s certainly lowercase-L lonely at the very least, and he’s certainly got enough experience with ghosts to understand the lonely.

gerry is the trope of the helpful spirit. he’s the ghost who’ll give you directions on a deserted road and disappear when you turn around. he gives jon the information he needs to understand the entities, he gives andrea the information she needs to not become a ghost.

MAG057: PERSONAL SPACE

alright so this one is, admittedly, more cosmic horror than anything else, but if y’all’ve seen any of my comics you probably know i’m very passionate about space ghosts & haunted spaceships. and as such, i’m extremely interested in how the daedalus mission echoes ghost stories.

carter chilcott’s story pretty directly acts as a ghost story — unable to communicate with the others on the ship even when he tries, unable to interact with the world to the point of looking out the window at one point to find the world entirely missing. this is all stuff i’ve said already about the other statements, so i’m glossing past it, because what interests me more is the daedalus as malicious architecture.

because the daedalus was created specifically for this union between vast, lonely, and dark (all of which i think have significant ghostly tie-ins). everything about how the ship itself and the mission came to be is a mystery, even to those involved — manuela says “i don’t know how he convinced the lukases and fairchilds to help finance the project,” “i don’t know if they were working on rituals of their own,” “exactly how the launch was arranged, i couldn’t tell you.”

a piece of the traditional haunted house is a sort of timelessness, and mystery inherent in its building. hill house in shirley jackson’s haunting of hill house “seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders... it was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a place fit for people or for love or for hope.” the oldest house in the game control is malicious architecture at its finest, and it’s called the oldest house. it predates people. it exists as a giant piece of brutalist architecture smack dab in the middle of new york, but no one knows why or how it came to be. as a real-world example: the winchester mystery house is wrapped up in mythos about its creation. was sarah winchester just a lonely old woman with a hobby for architectural design, or did she create endlessly spiraling staircases and doorways with a steep drop into the yard to keep ghosts away? who knows! we sure do like to speculate, though.

yes, i’ve talked about this in tma metas before. highly recommend jacob geller’s control, anatomy, and the legacy of the haunted house for more of this content.

even manuela dominguez, the only person on the daedalus mission who actually knew what she was doing and wasn’t just there to be a victim of entities they did not understand, does not know how the mission came to be.

and the entire purpose of this spacecraft is to be malicious to its inhabitants! the very architecture is meant to make the people within into perfect snacks for their respective entities! the station is cramped (”so cramped that i could only fully stretch out in the section used to exercise,” says jan kilbride), but when the vast takes hold it’s suddenly endless — “a hollow pretense of a shell that did nothing to separate me from the void.” (cue me shouting about how much trust we put in the places we live, and whether or not that trust is warranted, how easily it can be turned against us!)

a few other bits of this statement that really echo ghost stories: “twice i was woken up by the sound of the door opening, only to find it as tight as it had ever been. throughout the daytime i would occasionally hear footsteps, which shouldn’t even have been possible in zero gravity.” and then the empty, ghostly spacesuit that floats past chilcott’s window — there are so many stories about disembodied wedding dresses or mourningwear walking the halls silently, so why not a spacesuit?

i started this section saying this statement was more cosmic horror than ghost story but i’m finishing it by saying this is actually one of the clearest representations of haunted architecture in the whole podcast. (other examples off the top of my head include upon the stair & a cosy cabin, the latter of which i actually already wrote a meta about.)

MAG092: NOTHING BESIDE REMAINS

the moment i started thinking about the lonely-ghosts connection i remembered this episode, because it’s so clear. complete disconnect, existing entirely alone in a shadow of the world you once knew, unable to interact with the living in any way.

very small bit but. “as the cab pulled away, it seemed to have no driver that i could discern” vs the theme of ghost carriages in older ghost stories. i am looking directly at it.

barnabas bennett can “almost think i hear the mocking joy of my friends, but there is nobody here.” he can see evidence that life continues around him, unseen — “i know that what is done by those i cannot see might be felt here — i have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before.” just as a ghost is unseen to the living, the reverse is true: bennett can see others having an impact on the world in small ways, and his letter is found by jonah, but he can’t really affect the world in any real way.

MAG108: MONOLOGUE

this one is so exciting to me because theater ghosts are a huge trope in ghost stories! theater people are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet! especially regarding ghosts having an impact on their shows — there’s the superstition regarding The Scottish Play™, the tradition of leaving a ghost light on onstage to appease the spirits. there’s that time all the kids in my production of brigadoon when i was in middle school circled around the makeup mirrors to play bloody mary and got thoroughly chewed out by the adults in the cast. theater’s full’a ghosts!

(i think it’s something about the intense amounts of history behind it — and how, in playing a part that a thousand people have played before, you’re echoing their exact words, becoming a repetition of those long gone. and on a stage, blinding lights in your face washing out any view of the audience — you could, technically, leave the stage and interact with the people down there, but it seems pretty entirely impossible when you’re up there. you’re being perceived but can’t see in return. you’re essentially a ghost putting on a show for the living on a loop.)

the statement-giver for this one, adonis biros, echoes a lot of those sentiments, actually. “your words heard by no one — and in that no one, an entire universe.” “have you ever had stage lights in your eyes? ...you can look out into the audience and see nothing at all. just you.”

i said before that “when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night.” the disconnect between the anonymous audience and the singular actor onstage makes the distance here extreme — so this is the sort of ghost story that’s unquestionably a horror story, focusing on the most chilling aspects of ghosts. their inhumanity, their anonymity. the theater masks adonis sees in the audience are “empty. it was a hollow shape of a man that had no life, no presence to it.” even adonis himself says he “had no doubt that what i had seen was some sort of specter or omen.”

he sees a “masked mockery of a human figure” in a window while walking at night. ghosts looking through windows is enough of a trope that once, when i went on a ghost tour in williamsburg, at least half the stories were about people seeing ghostly faces in windows, and i completely freaked out when i saw someone moving around in one of the houses before realizing, oh, some of them are still actually occupied.

this one’s undoubtably a collaboration between stranger and lonely, but i think that intersection’s one of the best for ghost stories — something not-quite-human-anymore, if it ever was, haunting you.

MAG150: CUL-DE-SAC

a lot of the bare bones of this statement are things i’ve already covered, so i’m not gonna go too in-depth on it. herman gorgoli’s statement is about disconnect (from alberto, and then from the rest of humanity), about isolation, about houses-gone-wrong (his and alberto’s house in cheadle, which he views by the end as a place imprisoning him, and the titular cul-de-sac).

we’ve seen the malicious architecture trope in the form of the daedalus already, but this time it’s on earth. it’s something that should, by all rights, be familiar. the houses in the suburbs are all the same, but it’s at least a sameness you know. but they’re all bereft of any irregularities, ghostly echoes of what a house should be.”there were no lights on in any of the houses.” he even finds a dead body in one of the houses — but the woman who’s body he finds is not the one haunting them.

it’s herman haunting the neighborhood, until his love for alberto brings him out. herman making his way through houses he cannot interact with in any meaningful way, whos details he cannot interpret. “how many corpses lay waiting behind the placid facade of this endless false suburbia?” he wonders, and i have to imagine he’s also wondering if he’s already joined their ranks, if he’s the haunting in a haunted house.

and connection brings him back and the houses are no longer empty, no longer waiting for a ghost to take resident in their hallways.

MAG159: THE LAST (& martin’s journey in season four, generally)

we’ve all analyzed 159 within an inch of its life but i’m here to do it again, with the context of martin’s whole journey into the lonely. because the lonely turns people into ghosts. the lonely takes away humanity and life and leaves a hollow echo in its wake.

literally the powers lonely avatars have involve turning invisible. what else is often associated with invisibility? ghosts. checkmate. i’m running out of steam a bit but i swear these are good points i’m making. trust me.

what makes ghost stories so good is that even if the narrator is not a ghost themselves, just experiencing a ghost puts them at a fundamental disconnect from society. it’s something disbelieved by so many people. (there’s parallels to be made with mental illness here, but i... don’t really feel like making them right now. they’re definitely there, as is the very potent lonely-depression connection that made ep170 hit so hard for so many of us.) in hill house, the more eleanor is wrapped up in the goings-on of the house, the less she’s able to relate to the other people there. the closer martin becomes to the lonely, the less he’s able to talk to the people around him — he’s told not to talk to them by lukas, but he’s also just... unable to relate. their experiences are different than his, at this point.

nicole @brunetteauthorette99 said something really good in our conversation about this, about ghosts “being stuck in... spaces that have moved on without them, reenacting their defining moments in life over and over again without the possibility of change.”

martin is stuck in the institute. he probably has an apartment, but we don’t see it, and i can’t imagine he as he is by season four has put much effort into decorating it or making it feel like a home. every place is impersonal — somewhere he exists without really living.

and the institute moves on without him. jon goes into the coffin and martin doesn’t know until he’s already in there. and martin can impact his environment only in small ways — leaving tape recorders on the coffin in an attempt to anchor jon home, leaving the tape of jon’s victim for melanie, basira, and daisy to find. he will not or cannot speak to or touch other living beings, just move objects around in a desperate attempt to get a message across, a ouija board of tapes and post-it notes. his moment of rejecting the lonely’s plans in 158 is dropping the knife peter has given him — another expression more through his interactions with his environment than any human connection.

martin says the lonely always had him, and with how much his story revolves around people who may as well be ghosts, that’s true. his father disappeared and left only the image martin had of him in his mind, only the echo he himself provided in the mirror, the ghost of someone who hurt him overlaid on his own reflection. his mother was only present so far as she could be malicious, disapproving; a vengeful ghost, taking out the revenging instinct she had for martin’s father on martin. and then everyone else martin cares about dies — sasha’s gone and not!sasha acts as her malicious echo for a while; tim dies; jon dies. and yeah, he comes back — but he’s different. a ghost of sorts. martin’s already pretty ghostly by then, too.

so martin is, essentially, a ghost throughout season four, and probably beforehand, as well. jon literally! asks martin! if he is a ghost! in season one! which brings us to 159: “are you real?” martin asks the first living person he’s really talked to in who-knows-how-long. because martin doesn’t feel real, so how could anyone else be? “nothing hurts here” may be a contradiction of the literal experience of ghosts we see in tma (gerry saying “it hurts, being like this”), but is a very real perception of ghosts in ghost mythology as beings beyond pain, beyond the suffering of being alive. sometimes they exist to cause others that suffering they can no longer feel, but a lot of the time, they’re just melancholy, having forgotten what it’s like to be a person or hanging on just enough to yearn to return to that feeling of life.

“i’m the reason he... i did this to him as much as you,” jon says. in ghost terms: martin died for him. of course his connection to jon, then, would be the only thing able to bring him back.

mag159 is an orpheus/eurydice story — people have made posts about that before, i’m sure, and i have too, how jon and martin invert the orpheus archetype by being saved rather than damned by the act of sight. and it feels obvious to state it, but for clarity: eurydice dies. orpheus, alive, tries to save eurydice from the underworld, where she is a spirit, a ghost, an echo of herself.

MAG170: RECOLLECTION — (SPOILER WARNING!)

this episode is the reason i’m making this post, but i may as well copy-and-paste the entire transcript for this section, because there is truly not a single part of it that doesn’t resonate as a ghost story.

the lonely house as a malicious location. the chairs are all uncomfortable, the house is large enough that just by wandering it (as a ghost might) martin grows tired enough to sit in them regardless. the decorations are wrong — all the rooms are the same and martin doesn’t like it, said he doesn’t know “why i’d decorate my house like this.”

it isn’t a small house. there’s a reason a lot of ghost stories take place in twisting mansions where you can never quite find your way back to where you started. ghost stories thrive on that isolation, that loneliness — if you see a ghost while you’re alone, are you sure you’ll be believed? doesn’t that just isolate you further? architecture can twist around those within it until they’re trapped, doomed to haunt it themselves. “it's such a - such a big house, my house, there must be other people!” martin says.

but the only others in the house are ghosts like martin.

“hundreds, thousands of lost souls, wandering the halls. hollow memories, with eyes full of tears. i’ve seen them. they’re all trying to remember.”

“i found someone else, wandering around. they were all thin and gray. faded. like they’d been here for ages.”

the ghosts cannot remember their names, why they are there, whether or not it is their house they exist in. they’ve become near-inseparable from the fog around them and the architecture that holds them hostage.

and the house itself, it takes all of that, and its quirks — the size, the chairs, the decorations, all of which martin openly does not like — are all made from the people haunting it. the house is wrong because the people within it can no longer change it. martin’s comment on the decorations sticks with me because it’s such a simple example of this: presumably, he could affect the house in some way in the past, but he no longer can, and he’s stuck with the results of his past mistakes, echoing over and over from room to room. the impacts remain even when the people have faded so far as to be practically nonexistent.

and once again: love is what makes him remember, over and over. he remembers jon, and then the lonely steals that memory — but the remembering is what’s important, because the act of loving anchors martin, and it helps him remember who he is, repeating his name over and over.

ghosts lack identity. whether it’s because they’ve been forgotten by all who knew them in life, whether it’s because it’s too painful to hold onto that when they can no longer do anything with it — we assign names to ghost stories, connect them to the living, but there’s always a disconnect there.

and that’s what helps jon find him, helps martin keep himself from fading out again. and even jon says “you were faint” upon finding martin. martin was a ghost haunting that house.

but not anymore.

the lonely is a ghost story. the lonely is about people who’ve become unmoored from human connection and their own identities, who haunt places, or who’ve been lured into places that are hauntings in and of themselves and have no choice but to take up residence as ghosts within those walls.

and ghost stories, often, are love stories. love keeps us tethered to life, and love is what saves people from the lonely, over and over again.

#the magnus archives #tma meta #martin blackwood #the lonely #mag170 #kaylee.txt #kaylee.meta #dfgkjngfd HELLO i didn't mean for this to get quite so long but ty if anyone actually reads it!!!!#this is longer than most fics i write. whoops.

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tinseltownie · 3 years

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Avengers Age of Ultron let’s go bitches

HAHAHAHAHAHHA SHIT LANGUAGE

I cannot express how young these bitches sound

Fuck Wanda forever for her Tony mindfuck it literally was his worst nightmare and he watched it come true

Remember when Clint wasn’t a murderer

I forgot the hulk and the black widow were supposed to be a thing

This movie’s first fight scene is beautiful and this is the only time the avengers were actually a proper team (not the only but whatever)

Lol @ the hulk wearing beats

I love these people hanging out, give me 12 hours of this

Fucking “revels”

“He’s fast and she’s weird” boyoooo

The avengers tower interiors are freaking sexy, Tony’s got good taste

Clint- “I don’t have a girlfriend” convenient

Science bros what’s upppp

Remember when AI was like a deep mystery thing and now it’s on our phones

RDJ sciencing is... hot

Omg the party scenes were glorious but like... who are all these people???

I miss Bucky goddamn

Please keep Josh Weirdman away from the black widow forever thanks

I hate when everyone gets mad at Tony. I’m so protective of him because his intentions are so freaking good and pure. Like is he a dumbass sometimes? Yes! Do I care? No.

Also he says “that’s the endgame”

They were supposed to lose together 😭😭😭

He’s right about the avengers being unable to work together they’re all stupid

The wonder twins parents story is so different from the WV tv show lolllll love inconsistencies

Oh hey Wakanda mention and vague bg music... nice

They keep calling W and P “enhanced” Disney didn’t own “mutants” yet 😂😂😂

Tony is the glue that holds this group franchise together in all forms

Ultron is f u n n y

Thor is not ‘immune to Wanda’ mighty

Idris Elba special appearance... even then Marvel’s contracts were air tight

Stop tryna make Steve and Peggy happen are they mad

Not Tony saving everyone from the angry hulk what a vibe

I liked when it was just the six of them that was nice

Tony’s lil wave to Laura and “these are smaller agents”

Thor just yeets off to Asgard is that possible??

Not Clint calling the avengers his mess... excuse you sir I am a mess

Steve’s pile of wood v Tony’s pile of wood is aggressively funny

Tony just wants to go home 😭😭 fuck everyone else he’s my hero

Chris Evans ripping wood with bare arms is... hot

Tony’s nightmare was that all his friends died and he didn’t and the exact opposite happens... just cruel.

Nothing but our wit— my life motto

Gotta love vague “destroy the world” villains. So vague and so boring

They used it to make a frisbee 😂😂 Yes. Yes we did.

Humour was on point this film

Why are they all separate I hate this... like Thor has a full infinity stones subplot what

The twins are weirdly affectionate it’s gross

The Audi integration is real

Natasha on a motorcycle is... hot

Yeah I hate Wanda in this one

Have I mentioned I love Tony

Banner saying “I’m caught in a time loop” lolllll

Remember when Joss Widiot wanted to show Vision’s penis that was fucked up

“Age” of Ultron... it was like ONE week at best

What is this “3 minutes” bullshit

A lot of these sets look familiar

Steve is a good speech giver I will give him just that

Okay I should just google this but is Sokovia a real place

Why don’t the avengers just... let global extinction happen? Like everyone dead at the exact same time and move on with your lives???

Who gave Clint the authority to make people an Avenger

That Nick Fury entry was CHEESY but boy do I love it

RIP pietro and all the ocean life lost in the rubble

Vision’s one liners have always been gooood

That one shot of Cap, Thor and Tony walking together making Thor feel better.... that’s some good shit

Tony DOES build pepper a farm I’m gonna die

WHY CANT THEY EVER HUG

Why do people hate this movie it’s freakin lit. Yeah the villain is lil basic but there’s some great character development that carries through the rest of the series, it’s consistently funny, the pacing is perfect, the avengers powers work very very well together, a hero actually dies which is actual stakes for once, they learn their lesson as a team, vision is created, neat future tie ins, cute lil happy endings and avengers compound montage.... Like what more do people want from a superhero film??

#avengers #age of Ultron #a:aou #iron man #black widow #hulk #hawk eye #tony stark #steve rogers #Thor #rewatch #captain america

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twiddlebirdlet · 4 years

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https://www.wired.com/story/chris-evans-starting-point-politics/

Chris Evans Goes to Washington

The actor's new project, A Starting Point, aims to give all Americans the TL;DR on WTF is going on in politics. It's harder than punching Nazis on the big screen.

It’s a languid October afternoon in Los Angeles, sunny and clear.

Chris Evans, back home after a grueling production schedule, relaxes into his couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. Over the past year and a half, the actor has tried on one identity after another: the shaggy-haired Israeli spy, the clean-shaven playboy, and, in his Broadway debut, the Manhattan beat cop with a Burt Reynolds ’stache. Now, though, he just looks like Chris Evans—trim beard, monster biceps, angelic complexion. So it’s a surprise when he brings up the nightmares. “I sleep, like, an hour a night,” he says. “I’m in a panic.”

The panic began, as panics so often do these days, in Washington, DC. Early last February, Evans visited the capital to pitch lawmakers on a new civic engagement project. He arrived just hours before Donald Trump would deliver his second State of the Union address, in which he called on Congress to “bridge old divisions” and “reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution.” (Earlier, at a private luncheon, Trump referred to Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, as a “nasty son of a bitch.”) Evans is no fan of the president, whom he has publicly called a “moron,” a “dunce,” and a “meatball.” But bridging divisions? Putting an end to the American body politic’s clammy night sweats? These were goals he could get behind.

Evans’ pitch went like this: He would build an online platform organized into tidy sections—immigration, health care, education, the economy—each with a series of questions of the kind most Americans can’t succinctly answer themselves. What, exactly, is a tariff? What’s the difference between Medicare and Medicaid? Evans would invite politicians to answer the questions in minute-long videos. He’d conduct the interviews himself, but always from behind the camera. The site would be a place to hear both sides of an issue, to get the TL;DR on WTF was happening in American politics. He called it A Starting Point—a name that sometimes rang with enthusiasm and sometimes sounded like an apology.

Evans doesn’t have much in the way of political capital, but he does have a reputation, perhaps unearned, for patriotism. Since 2011 he has appeared in no fewer than 10 Marvel movies as Captain America, the Nazi-slaying, homeland-defending superhero wrapped in bipartisan red, white, and blue. It’s hard to imagine a better time to cash in on the character’s symbolism. Partisan animosity is at an all-time high; a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic found that 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats would oppose their child marrying someone from the other party. (In 1960, only 4 percent of respondents felt this way.) At the same time, there’s a real crisis of faith in the country’s leaders. According to the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress behave unethically at least some of the time. In Pew’s estimation, that makes them even less trusted than journalists and tech CEOs.

If Evans got it right, he believed, this wouldn’t be some small-fry website. He’d be helping “create informed, responsible, and empathetic citizens.” He would “reduce partisanship and promote respectful discourse.” At the very least, he would “get more people involved” in politics. And if the site stank like a rotten tomato? If Evans became a national laughingstock? Well, that’s where the nightmares began.

It took a special serum and a flash broil in a Vita-Ray chamber to transform Steve Rogers, a sickly kid from Brooklyn, into Captain America. For Chris Evans, savior of American democracy, the origin story is rather less Marvelous.

One day a few years ago, around the time he was filming Avengers: Infinity War, Evans was watching the news. The on-air discussion turned to an unfamiliar acronym—it might have been NAFTA, he says, but he thinks it was DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era immigration policy that granted amnesty to people who had been brought into the United States illegally as children. The Trump administration had just announced plans to phase out DACA, leaving more than half a million young immigrants in the lurch. (The Supreme Court will likely rule this year on whether terminating the program was lawful.)

On the other side of the television, Evans squinted. Wait a minute, he thought. What did that acronym stand for again? And was it a good thing or a bad thing? “It was just something I didn’t understand,” he says.

Evans considers himself a politico. Now 38, he grew up in a civic-minded family, the kind that revels in shouting about the news over dinner. His uncle Michael Capuano served 10 terms in Congress as a Democrat from Massachusetts, beginning right around the time Evans graduated from high school and moved to New York to pursue acting. During the 2016 presidential election, Evans campaigned for Hillary Clinton. In 2017 he became an outspoken critic of Trump—even after he was advised to zip it, for risk of alienating moviegoers. Evans could be a truck driver, Capuano says, and he’d still be involved in politics.

But watching TV that day, Evans was totally lost. He Googled the acronym and tripped over all the warring headlines. Then he tried Wikipedia, but, well, the entry was thousands of words long. “It’s this never-ending thing, and you’re just like, who is going to read 12 pages on something?” Evans says. “I just wanted a basic understanding, a basic history, and a basic grasp on what the two parties think.” He decided to build the resource he wanted for himself.

Evans brought the idea to his close friend Mark Kassen, an actor and director he’d met working on the 2011 indie film Puncture. Kassen signed on and recruited a third partner, Joe Kiani, the founder and CEO of a medical technology company called Masimo. The three met for lobster rolls in Boston. What the country needed, they decided, was a kind of Schoolhouse Rock for adults—a simple, memorable way to learn the ins and outs of civic life. Evans suggested working with politicians directly. Kiani, who had made some friends on Capitol Hill over the years, thought they’d go for it. Each partner agreed to put up money to get the thing off the ground. (They wouldn’t say how much.) They spent some time Googling similar outlets and figuring out where they fit in, Kassen says.

They began by establishing a few rules. First, A Starting Point would give politicians free rein to answer questions as they pleased—no editing, no moderation, no interjections. Second, they would hire fact-checkers to make sure they weren’t promoting misinformation. Third, they would design a site that privileged diversity of opinion, where you could watch a dozen different people answering the same question in different ways. Here, though, imbibing the information would feel more like watching YouTube than skimming Wikipedia—more like entertainment than homework.

The trio mocked up a list of questions to bring to Capitol Hill, starting with the ones that most baffled them. (Is the electoral college still necessary?) They talked, admiringly, about the way presidential debate moderators manage to make their language sound neutral. (Should the questions refer to a “climate crisis” or a “climate situation,” “illegal immigrants” or “undocumented immigrants”?) Then Evans recorded a video on his couch in LA. “Hi, I’m Chris Evans,” he began. “If you’re watching this, I hope you’ll consider contributing to my new civics engagement project called A Starting Point.” He emailed the file to every senator and representative in Congress.

Only a few replied.

In hindsight, Evans realizes, the video “looked so cheap” and either got caught in spam filters or was consciously deleted by congressional staffers. “The majority of people, on both sides of the aisle, dismissed it,” Evans says. Many “thought it was a joke.” Yet there are few doors in American life that a square jaw can’t open, particularly when it belongs to a man with many millions of dollars and nearly as many swooning Twitter fans. Soon enough, a handful of politicians had agreed to meet with the group.

On the morning of his first visit to Capitol Hill, as he donned a slick gray windowpane suit and a black polka-dot tie and combed his perfect hair back from his perfect forehead, Evans felt a wave of doubt. “This isn’t my lane,” he recalls thinking as he walked through the maze of the Russell Senate Office Building. Here, people were making real change, affecting the lives of millions of Americans. “And shit,” Evans said to himself, “I didn’t even go to college.”

“This isn’t my lane,” Evans thought as he walked through the maze of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The trio’s first stop was the office of Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. “Which one is the senator?” Evans asked.

Coons, having never watched any of the Avengers movies, didn’t know who Evans was, either. But in short order, he says, he was won over by the actor’s charm and “very slight but still noticeable” Boston accent. The thing that got Coons the most, though—the thing that would lead him to pass out pocket cards on the Senate floor to recruit others, especially Republicans, to take part in the project—was how refreshing it was to be asked simple questions: Why should we support the United Nations? Why does foreign aid matter? Coons saw real value in trying to explain these things, simply and plainly, to his constituents.

“Look, I’m not naive,” Coons says. He is the first to admit that one-minute videos won’t fix what’s wrong with American politics. “But it’s important for there to be attempts at civic education and outreach,” he adds. “And, you know, his fictional character fought for our nation in a time of great difficulty.”

Evans stiffens slightly when people mention Captain America. The superhero comparison is, admittedly, a little obvious. But again and again on Capitol Hill, the shtick proved useful: Sometimes it’s better to be Captain America than a Hollywood liberal elite who defends Roe v. Wade and wants to ban assault weapons. When Evans met Jim Risch, the Republican senator from Idaho joked about catching him up on NATO, “since he missed the 70 years after World War II.” When he met Representative Dan Crenshaw, a hard-line Texas Republican and former Navy SEAL who lost his right eye in Afghanistan, Crenshaw lifted up his eye patch to reveal a glass prosthetic painted to look like Captain America’s shield.

Eventually, Evans loosened up—at least he lost the tie. Since that first round of visits, he and Kassen have returned to Washington every six weeks or so, collecting more than 1,000 videos from more than 100 members of Congress, along with about half of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls. Evans has conducted every interview himself. Kassen, meanwhile, managed the acquisition of a video compression startup in Montreal. About a dozen of the company’s engineers are building a custom content management system for A Starting Point, which is slated to go live in February. They’re running bandwidth tests too—just in case, as Kassen worries, “everyone in Chris’ audience logs on that first day.”

“We have to do this now,” Evans says. “It’s out there. We have to finish this. Shit.”

Back in LA, Evans pulls up the site on his iPhone. He hesitates for a moment and covers the screen with his hand. It’s still a demo, he explains, in the same bashful tone he uses to tell me the guest bathroom is out of toilet paper.

On the homepage, there’s a clip of Evans explaining how to use the site and a carousel of “trending topics” (energy, charter schools, Hong Kong). You can enter your address to call up a list of your representatives and find their videos; you can also contact them directly through the site. The rest is organized by topic and question, with a matrix of one-minute videos for each—Democrats in the left-hand column, Republicans on the right.

Early on in the development of the site, Evans and Kassen fought over fact-checking. Kassen, arguing against, was concerned about the optics: Who were they to arbitrate truth? Evans insisted that A Starting Point would only seem objective if visitors knew the answers had been vetted somehow. Ultimately he prevailed, and they agreed to hire a third-party fact-checker. They have yet to put their thousand-plus videos through the wringer, so for now I’m seeing first drafts. If they’re found to contain falsehoods, Evans says, they won’t appear on the site at all.

Kassen showed me a sampling of some of this raw material. Under “What is DACA?” I found dozens of videos, offering dozens of different starting points.

One representative, a Republican whose district lies near the Mexican border, describes the program’s recipients as “1.2 million men and women who have only known the United States as their home.” They go to school, he explains; they serve in the military; they’ve all passed background checks.

Sometimes it’s better to be Captain America than a Hollywood liberal elite who defends Roe v. Wade and wants to ban assault weapons.

Another Republican representative says, “So, DACA is a result of a really bad immigration system … We’re seeing record numbers of families crossing the border because a kid equals a token for presence in the US. All right? We have all of these people come over, we can’t process them, they’re claiming asylum. I just heard from the secretary of Homeland Security this week, about nine in 10 don’t have valid claims of asylum. Meaning they’re not political—there’s no political persecution going on. OK?”

These two responses (from politicians on the same side of the aisle, no less) illustrate some of the quandaries that Evans, Kassen, and their fact-checkers are likely to encounter. The first representative, for instance, says there are 1.2 million DACA recipients, when in fact only 660,000 immigrants are currently enrolled in the program. The higher number is based on an estimate of those who could be eligible published by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. The “nine in 10” statistic, meanwhile, is a loose interpretation of data from 2018, which shows that only about 16 percent of immigrants who filed a “credible fear” claim were granted asylum. But this does not mean, as the representative implies, that the other claims weren’t “valid”—merely that they weren’t successful. Nearly half of all asylum claims from this time were dismissed for undisclosed reasons. These are fairly hair-splitting examples, but even the basic, definitional questions are drenched in opinion. What is Citizens United? “Horrible decision,” says a Democratic senator in his video response.

Evans doesn’t want to spend time refereeing politicians. To him, A Starting Point should act more like a database than a platform—rhetoric that rhymes with that of Facebook and Twitter, which have mostly sidestepped responsibility for their content. He’s just hosting the videos, he says; it’s up to politicians to decide how they answer the questions. There’s no comment section and no algorithmically generated list of recommended videos. “You need to decide what you need to watch next,” Kassen says.

One of the assumptions underlying Evans’ project—and it’s a very big assumption—is that the force of his fame will be enough to attract people who otherwise would have zero interest in watching a carousel of videos from their elected officials. This, by all accounts, is most people: Only a third of Americans can name their representatives in Congress, and those who can aren’t binge-watching C-Span. “Celebrities bring an extraordinary ability to get attention,” says Lauren Wright, a political researcher at Princeton and author of Star Power: American Democracy in the Age of the Celebrity Candidate. But Evans, she says, is “not taking the route that a lot of celebrities have, which is: The solution to American politics is me.” It would be one thing if Evans were guiding you through the inner workings of Congress like a chiseled Virgil. But why would someone watch a senator dryly explain NAFTA when they could watch, say, a YouTube video of Chris Evans on Jimmy Kimmel?

Without its leading man in the frame, A Starting Point begins to look uncomfortably similar to the many other platforms that have sought to fight partisanship online. A site called AllSides labels news sources as left, center, or right and encourages readers to create a balanced media diet with a little from each. A browser plug-in called Read Across the Aisle (“A Fitbit for your filter bubble”) measures the amount of time you spend on left-leaning, right-leaning, or centrist websites. The Flip Side bills itself as a “one-stop shop for smart, concise summaries of political analysis from both conservative and liberal media.”

The underlying idea—that there would be a new birth of civic engagement if only we could wrest control of the information economy from the hands of self-serving ideologues and deliver the news to citizens unbiased and uncut—is an old one. In 1993, when the modern internet was just a gleam in Al Gore’s eye, Michael Crichton wrote in this magazine’s pages that he was sick and tired of the “polarized, junk-food journalism” propagated by traditional media outlets. (This was three years before Fox News and MSNBC came into being; he was talking about The New York Times.) What society needed, he argued, was something more like C-Span, something that encouraged people to draw their own conclusions.

But does any of it work? Not according to Wright. “We have many years of research on these questions, and the consensus among scholars is that the proliferation of media choices—including sites like Evans’—has not increased political knowledge or participation,” she says. “The problem isn’t the lack of information. It’s the lack of interest.” Jonathan Albright, director of the Digital Forensics Initiative at Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, agrees. “All of these fact-checking initiatives, all of this work that goes into trying to disambiguate issues or trying to reduce noise—people have no time,” he says. “Some people care about politics, but those are not the people you need to reach.”

Naturally, this sort of talk makes Evans a little nervous. But he takes refuge in what he sees as the core strengths of the concept. For one thing, he argues, snack-size videos are more accessible than text. Also, those other sites rely on a translator to interpret the issues, while A Starting Point goes straight to the source. It’s not for policy wonks. It’s for average Americans, centrists, extremists, swing voters—everyone!—who want to hear about policy straight from the horse’s mouth. (Never mind that most people hold horses in higher regard.)

Evans has all kinds of ideas for how to keep people coming back. He might add a section of the website where representatives can upload weekly videos for their constituents, or a place where policymakers from different parties can discuss bipartisan compromise. He talks about these ideas with an enthusiasm so pure and so believable that you almost forget he’s an actor. The whole point, he says, is giving Americans a cheap seat on the kinds of conversations that are happening on Capitol Hill. That’s a show that Evans is betting people actually want to see.

The worst thing that could happen isn’t that nobody watches the videos. That would suck, but Evans could deal with it. What gets him riled up most is thinking about what he might have failed to consider. What if the site ends up promoting some bizarre agenda that he never intended? What if people use the videos for some kind of twisted purpose? “One miscalculation,” he says, “and you may not get back on track.” (See: Facebook.)

Evans knows his idea to save democracy can come off a little Pollyannaish, and if it flops, it’ll be his reputation on the line. But he really, really believes in it. OK, so maybe it won’t save America, but it might piece together some of what’s been broken. A fresh start. A starting point.

“This does feel to me like everybody wins here. I don’t see how this becomes a problem,” he says, before a look of panic crosses his face, the anxiety setting in again.

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tortoisesforhire · 4 years

Text

The MCU Meta no one asked for

Part 1 (yes this is going to be a multi-part meta I am that petty)

So I’m very salty about how the Marvel movies have gone, for a variety of reasons and as they continue to churn out hot shit that I have to see on my dash every fucking day I decided to write a thing on it. Because fuck Disney and fuck Marvel for ruining something that I have loved my whole life. Now I considered several methods of how to approach this, where to even start unsifting the mega ton crap pile that is the MCU (no I will not apologize it is CRAP and I absolutely WILL explain why.) And I’ve decided chronological order is the best way to go. And the most classic, so here we go.

Everything Marvel Got Wrong In Order From The Beginning

So before I get those whiney crybabies who spit at me ‘Everything Exists in Its Own Universe it’s the Multiverse’ blah blah blah, I’m not gonna be talking about differences from the comics too much. Only in the sense of story structure and narrative. Because more than I am a Massive Marvel Comics Nerd I am also a writer and things like plot and story fucking matter okay. So don’t @ me with your bullshit ‘kay.

Narratively Ironman, the first movie, is more or less perfect. There are a few elements that really matter in a superhero movie and Jon Favreau really hit the nail on the head with Tony Stark and this had a lot to do with RDJ’s performance and passion for the role. A Superhero Movie needs, essentially, three things; Theme, Character and Adversary. Pretty basic yeah? Kind of. Superheroes and Superhero comics are about hope and conquering the odds and success against insurmountable failure. Tony Stark’s story is a story of redemption, and the belief that you can change for the better. Favreau really made us feel Tony’s fury at what he and his company had been made into. His righteous desire to be better, to clean up the mess that Obie and his father and his own foolish negligence had created. The theme was righteous redemption and they sold it to us wholesale and it worked very well.

The Character of Tony Stark, I don’t think would have worked as well as it did without the involvement of RDJ. He really knocked that one out of the park. He conveyed perfectly the juxtaposition of Tony’s arrogance and his self loathing. We as the audience understood his front of cocky genius was to cover his loneliness, his scars and his insecurities instilled by Howard. He was broken, yes, but redeemable and hopeful and essentially good which is really what mattered and we loved him for it.

Obadiah Stane, Anton Vanko and Aldrich Killian are probably the weakest parts of the Ironman narrative. And this issue stems from the larger issue with the Ironman movies which is it’s very clear that they didn’t know what they were getting into with this superhero business. They had no idea it was going to blow up as big as it did and a lot of what happened later was improve. Shoddy improve, I might add. Widow’s entrance in the second movie is overhand and poorly executed, Scarlet’s performance leaves absolutely everything to be desired (shut up I’ll get there) but the real issue I find with these films and the Ironman arc is the incongruity in the second and third film with tying in Howard and SHIELD. In both Comic and MCU cannon Howard is a founding member of SHIELD. And in both Comic and MCU cannon Howard is unrepentantly, indisputably abusive towards Tony to an insane degree. So the weird video where we’re meant to believe that Howard was merely a distant but loving father is discordant with the rest of the narrative and doesn’t fit the Tony we know at all. It certainly doesn’t fit with a man who would choose Obadiah Stane as his business partner. There’s also the matter of Peggy and the fact that Tony doesn’t seem to know her which also...doesn’t make a lot of sense. From all we’ve seen Howard and Peggy were friends. She was also very close with Edwin Jarvis who essentially raised Tony. But we’re meant to believe that she never met or had a relationship with Howards son? Why? Did they have a falling out? These questions are never answered to a satisfying degree. But sure we can just sweep these under the rug of a good action storyline.

Looking at the villains themselves, Ironmonger is a good first villain for Ironman to have. Lots of personal ties, good emotional beats, kind of reminds the viewer of a knock off Lex Luthor. It would have been a stronger choice to use Obie’s son Zeke, the actual Ironmonger and who has a sordid personal history with Tony as an abusive ex. But hey, this is Disney and God forbid we even suggest any of our superheroes could possibly be something other than straight. China might not like us then would they. (pretty sure they don’t like us now but it’s the dollars that count right). Whiplash is a fairly generic Ironman bad guy, Russian eccentric genius with a vendetta against the Starks? Yeah sure. They could have peppered in some more about Howard Stark the Abusive Dad just to avoid confusion but hey, whatever. The Mandarin however is a HUGE Ironman villain and I just...I could have done with some foreshadowing. Some tie ins in the earlier movies leading up to the big bad. It would have fit more. But like I said I understand they were making it up as they went along.

Getting into SHIELD and the inclusion of Black Widow, I don’t have a lot of issue with her writing in the second movie. Like sure, her being assigned as Tony’s new PA, makes total sense. Very Natasha move. But Scarlet Johansson is a terrible choice for Natasha Romanoff. For a plethora of reasons. What reasons are those? Oh I’m so glad you asked. First off the introduction of Natasha Romanoff in the comics was fucking brilliant because the reader doesn’t know it’s her until she decides to reveal herself. Before that all we knew of the Black Widow was that she was russian and had red hair. She was very nondescript prior to that. So Tony’s new PA had red hair, so what, so did Pepper he has a type. She was bubbly and fun and used to be a model and her and Tony’s affair fit very well with his history at that point. And then BAM she’s actually a russian killer lady. It was so shocking.

Now that is clearly what Jon Favreau is trying to do there. The way he writes her in, Tony’s interest, Pepper’s exasperation. It should have been perfect except for Scarlet’s performance being so fucking obvious you could see her from space. She’s a terrible spy. Her voice doesn’t change, her face doesn’t change. Her personality remains as blank as before. She’s not subtle. Because Scarlet is not subtle. She’s not a good actress. Just because you can convey emotion does not mean you can portray a character. In every movie she is in she’s just herself in a new outfit and it is very annoying.

Natasha Romanoff is supposed to be a world class spy. Like raised from the womb spy. Given a modified super soldier serum to increase agility and severely slow the aging process (she’s like 80 something fr). She blends in, everywhere. You don’t notice her until her knife is in your back. She should 100% scare the pants off the viewer in every scene she is in because you never know if she’s being genuine or not. There’s a reason her friendship with Clint is so anomalous and it’s not because people know she used to kill people it’s because people functionally can’t trust her. Scarlet only manages to convey that she’s hot and can kick you in the face. Whoopdie do. Her performance in Ironman 2 annoys me so much because it makes Tony look stupid instead of her look scary. Because only an idiot wouldn’t peg her as the spy the moment she flipped Happy onto the mat. Like come on, you can’t introduce a character as a super genius and then allow him to miss something like that, and then act shocked later when she shows up in a leather catsuit, like obvs Tony gd.

I won’t get into the inherit sexism displayed in the lack of effort given to Natasha’s character. Her writing was shallow, her casting was bad and her storyline so inconsistent and slap shod it actually hurts me. I won’t get into the in depth character study of Natasha and all the many ways Scarlet fails at being her here. Maybe one day, but not rn. Simply put her inclusion in the Ironman arc left a lot to be desired.

In part 2 I’ll dive into Thor, Loki and the first avengers movie. I’ll have to leave Cap for part three cause that’s a lot to cut into and it deserves it’s own part.

#MCU #meta #disney #marve #mine #ironman #rdj #black widow #scarlet johansson

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dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt · 5 years

Note

Odd :) numbers :)

You say you don’t care who I do but I’mma do Jesse and Vrox anyway XD

under the cut bc *insert vaguely angry but also just very affectionate ‘my son is a dick but I love him’ eyes here*

questions are from here, send me some if you’d like! :P please try to specify which character tho, less stress for me X’D

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Jesse: He’s actually very patient. He might jolt his bounce his knee a bit and twiddle his fingers, zone out/daydream. He’d probably have a nap after a while, he can fall asleep anywhere. He could last hours and hours if needed.

Vrox: You don’t leave Vrox alone in a room for a long time. Something will get broken, Even if there’s nothing in the room to break, something will get broken. About two hours at MOST before he starts getting annoyed.

June: They could last a long time if needed, though they would not be happy about it. They like to complain at the best of times.

3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

Jesse: Normally has a long shower and eats whatever unhealthy shit they have for dinner (normally cereal or take out) and then plays music low in the background to help him nod off, occasionally he’ll replace it with an audio book but he’ll put his earbuds in for that. He and Vrox are both big night owls tho so keep in mind this is usually at about 3AM.

Vrox: Drags Jesse into dancing with him, eats whatever Jesse’s bottomless pit stomach couldn’t hold, and works out for a while (where Jesse can see of course because he’s a show off.) Then he has a very short paranoid shower because his DICK BOYFRIEND used up almost all the hot water, and tumbles into bed. Not gonna lie he and Jess have sex most nights, they’re… incorrigible.

June: Soaks in the bath for a hundred years and refills it for every one of those years, then pulls on their super expensive silk PJs, does a facemask and pulls out whatever disgusting trashy knock-off romance novel they’re currently reading and pick it apart like the happy little vulture they are. They have a massive bed but they rarely ever sleep in it, most of the time they fall asleep on the couch until the sun wakes them up through the blinds they forgot to shut and they stumble into the bedroom cursing and go back to sleep till Taco wakes them up (they would sleep in all day if he let them.)

5. How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

Jesse: It depends on what you do. If you make a mistake, he’ll be fine. If you turn out to be transphobic or generally a dick then woop there goes his trust.

Vrox: hates everyone from the get go and that rarely ever changes, you don’t even have to try dude

June: Them?? Trusting anyone??????? *hysterical laughter*

7: What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

Jesse: Nostalgia for him is bittersweet. Music is the biggest trigger since his dad loved it and had a record player that was like his second child, he used to dance with Jesse’s mom to Let Me Call You Sweetheart. One time Vrox found the old record and played it for him and Jesse absolutely broke down. He tries to think of the good rather than the bad, but it all gets jumbled up a lot: being gay, trans and black in 1910s was not a good life to lead. He’s got to step carefully around his memories.

Vrox: Doesn’t have a lot of nostalgia, but he DOES get weird dream-memories sometimes of back in his ‘baby years’, when he was just a simple hellhound without sapience yet. Jesse always laughs his ass off when Vrox has one of those dreams because Vrox looks so confused and disgruntled - and annoyed and embarrassed when he remembers something humiliating.

June: 99% of their nostalgia is soaked in PTSD, so no, they don’t enjoy it. The sound of the ocean, the smell of roses and citrus, wearing heavy dresses, any kind of grating or grinding on their teeth, and washing clothes by hand are all triggers, they hate it.

9. Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

Jesse: Said “drat!” once and his mom made him wash all the dishes for three months straight. Needless to say, he doesn’t swear much even now. It gives it more impact when he does… unless in the bedroom, them he swears like, well, a demon.

Vrox: Fuck yes he fucking swears and he’d like any motherfucker to try and fucking stop him. Honestly the first word that came out of his mouth when he evolved was probably a swear of some kind.

June: Swears a lot. They’ll swear in front of you and your grandmother and your 6 year old, they don’t give a shit. They don’t remember their first one tho.

11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

Jesse: Definitely asks, he’s a responsible bean who’s mature and wants to know exactly what’s going on.

Vrox: Probably doesn’t care enough to ask, unless it’s just him and Jesse, then he’ll ask.

June: They’ll fake it till they make it or ask with a blunt “what the fuck are you talking about?”

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

Jesse: Looks fucking fantastic in blue and/or yellow and knows this. Vrox can’t stop kissing him when he wears yellow and it almost reduces his big scary boyfriend to tears because “you look so cute, what the fuck, how are you so cute?!”

Vrox: Red. He loves red. But blue brings out his eyes and suits him better, tho red is also good on him.

June: Black or a dark smokey grey. They know they look damn good. They’re highly allergic to bright colours, you understand.

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

Jesse: Is the chillest charasmatic person you’ll ever meet, amazing at putting people at ease and making lasting conversations or small talk. Master people person. He can still talk a little ‘weird’ for our time and some old slang slips out occasionally, but still very confidant. thus i have no idea how to write him LMAO how are you cooler than me i created you wtf

Vrox: No small talk, no rehearsing. He’s intimidating and doesn’t normally talk to people unless absolutely necessary, or he’s trying to pick a fight. Has 0 interest in making people feel at ease or comfortable around him, he wants to be left alone as much as possible. People think he’s got a weird accent when he does talk, one that’s pretty unrecognizable - he spent most of his life in hell, after all, not on Earth.

June: Clipped, concise, they get what they need out of a conversation and then conversation is over. They don’t rehearse, they’re blunt and don’t care about feelings. They have the faintest hint of a cockney accent that gets stronger when they’re drunk/angry/emotional.

17. Are they easily embarrassed?

Jesse: Kind of. And he’s easily scandalized, and sometimes not in a funny way. He still forgets that it’s okay for him to hold Vrox’s hand in public where people can see.

Vrox: Only Jesse can really get blushes out of him.

June: Occasionally, but they’ll get irritated faster than they’ll get embarrassed, and when they get flustered they tend to scratch so be careful with that.

19. What is their favorite number?

Jesse: 2.

Vrox: 666.

June: 43.

21. Why do they get up in the morning?

Jesse: Sometimes he doesn’t. Mostly because he tries to find good little things in every day that he looks forward to. Or because Vrox wheedles him out of bed with breakfast and kisses.

Vrox: Because somebody’s gotta annoy Jesse out of bed. Also because once he wakes up he gets restless and needs to move around, no peaceful lie-ins for him.

June: Because Taco won’t stop drooling and shedding on them, otherwise they wouldn’t. Sleep is like the only thing they enjoy... just not the dreams.

23. How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

Jesse: Gets a bit quiet but tries to feel happy for the person he’s envious of.

Vrox: Angrily. What did you expect. Tries to get the thing and if he can’t have it he tries to ruin it, or he just stalks off.

June: They get pissy and territorial and they sulk. A lot.

25. What are their thoughts on marriage?

Jesse: Likes the idea, definitely wants to get married one day. His parents were both people of faith (even if it wasn’t SUPER strong) and he doesn’t really like that they would disapprove of him living in sin, ironic as it is. And he just wants to get married as an intimate tie.

Vrox: Doesn’t give a shit but would do anything to make Jesse happy.

June: HhahahAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahAHAHA no.

27. What causes them to feel dread?

Jesse: Any kind of weird looks in public, people he cares about running late, having anything around his neck, sleeping in the same room as other people (asides from Vrox.)

Vrox: Not being able to contact his (admittedly few) loved ones for whatever reason, and really not much else. Vrox doesn’t dread a lot.

June: Literally anything to do with their past, being shown affection, knowing they have to go out to a public gathering bc they are a big introvert, knowing they need to sleep at some point.

29. Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

Jesse: He tries damn hard to. you’re doin great sweetie.

Vrox: Has no real ideals and still disappoints himself on a regular basis.

June: They don’t really have any ideas other than ‘be a snarky asshole’ and they sure live up to that.

31. Who are they the most glad to have met?

Jesse: Vrox. He kept him safe when he needed it most, supported him through everything, always encouraged him to kick ass and do what he thinks is right.

Vrox: Jesse. He taught him that it was okay to let people in and to be soft, that just because he was a demon doesn’t mean he has to let it define everything he is.

June: Dante. He showed them a way out and helped them build a life, always there to support them. And Taco, of course.

33: Could they be considered lazy?

Jesse: No. At worst, depressed. He’s definitely not lazy, not by a long shot, very active in human rights, painting, social activities.

Vrox: Not really, he’s somebody who always has to be Doing Something.

June: Absolutely. They enjoy it greatly.

35: How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

Jesse: Super hyped and into it, gonna be asking lots of excited questions and listening to every word.

Vrox: Might playfully tease but always encourages whatever it is

June: Will roll their eyes and put on a show of not being interested but you bet your ass they’ll be paying attention and they will care (and anybody who manages to get close to June would know this)

37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

Jesse: He’s got an okay memory but if he really needs to remember something he’ll scribble it in his sketchbook

Vrox: Is one of those people who needs to sing the entire ABCs while looking up a word in the dictionary. But he doesn’t really care.

June: Has a good memory, but if they forget something they don’t give a damn. If they forget somebody’s name they’ll just call them by a bunch of different insulting names and ignore the person trying to correct them.

39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

Jesse: It really depends on what the flaws are, but mostly he’s pretty chill.

Vrox: Is Vrox. Everything pisses him off, what do you expect. He doesn’t take shit.

June: If they care about you, they will tolerate a lot, though they won’t overlook them. If they don’t care about you, prepare to have all your flaws thrown in your face.

41. How do they feel about children?

Jesse: Not good with little kids and feels awkward around them, but he’s good with older kids/teenagers.

Vrox: Is very good with little kids and likes them more than his scarred angry ass will admit.

June: Loves kids but they make them uncomfortable so they avoid them at all costs.

43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

Jesse: “Gay, gay, very gay, have you even seen guys? Guys are great, I’m gay, I’m so gay.” (Vrox, in the background: “GAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY”)

Vrox: “I don’t care, if I like you you’re stuck with me.”

June: “The void.”

#alex--blue #asks #my OCs #Jesse #Vrox #June #this took me a whole-ass day to write PFFFFTTT #thank you for asking buddy I love you #<3 <3 <3

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SnK Chapter 108 Poll Results

The poll closed with 1,200 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,159 Responses

While 4’s outnumbered the 5’s for only the second time in a year, 85% rated this chapter good to excellent. The average score for this chapter was 4.08 out of 5.

dude the art in this chapter!!! i said it once i'll say it again, totally unreal. The art was on point, and just overall this was a breath of fresh air after the head swirling exposition flashback-extravaganza that 107 was.

So many things are going to happen and this chapter was not the calm before the storm but maybe like the storm before the hurricane.

Isayama binging Game of Thrones is paying off. This set of conspiracies on top of conspiracies, with so many parties involved, is just building up to an explosive finale.

First chapter since the suicide charge that’s made me cry.

Great chapter with misleading hints on the upcoming horror that awaits Paradis

It was a very great chapter that combined events from numerous sides perfectly. Wasn't too rushed or too slow either. Although the 104th development is very depressing…

As usual, another chapter with lots of answers and yet I feel like I'm more in the dark than ever. Damn, Isayama sure has a way to keep the questions burning and the plot twists coming!

Why can't answers ever be answers in this series?

Got me shooketh. Eren bb what u doin?

WE’LL GET TO THE DETAILS OF THE 104TH FLASHBACK IN A MOMENT, BUT ASIDE FROM THAT, WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE CHAPTER? 1,168 Responses

The 104th flashback was the favorite fandom moment! The crew blushing at each other got almost a quarter of the vote followed by the “who takes the titan” love fight. “All of the above except Zevi” came in a respectable third.

Christ Gabi's so gonna be mindfucked if she hears DauperGirl's backstory about how Sasha saved her and also Dark fucking Connie I asked for some relevant screentime for him but come on Yams nOT LIKE THIS

I didn't know I could love Jean more, but boy I was wrong

I'm just glad Sasha isn't forgotten, we always have flashbacks of her and now that Gabi and the girl Sasha had saved stumbled upon each other... Well i just hope that if someone gets killed in the woods it isn't one of Sasha's family

let me tell you how absolutely thrilled I am to see Armin driving that train. I am always into watching this boy devour new knowledge and apply that shit. Both his engineer parents would be so proud if they weren't, you know, dead and all.

Armin driving, the Springles dumbception, Mikasa carrying like six or eight times my weight's worth of railroad spikes, Mikasa's ponytail, Mikasa blushing!!

Levi pointing out his team-mates height was kinda funny.

The GabixFalco moment is all I live for

Why weren’t the guys all shirtless while working on the railroad?

Levi was holding a mug normally. unacceptable.

THE 104TH FLASHBACK WAS FILLED WITH SWEET AND SHIPPY MOMENTS. WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 1,160 Responses

30% of respondents got the warm fuzzy feelings over everyone’s interactions with each other in the flashback. 17% loved seeing the 104th protecting each other from inheriting Eren’s titan, and at a near tie, Springles arguing about who’s a bigger idiot and Eremika’s blushy glance came in third.

Eren confessing his love and being a cutie pie

Jean immediately settling down after Armin gives an explanation. LET ME LOVE MY JEARMIN MOMENT TOO OK

Eren telling everyone he doesn't want them inheriting the titan so they can live long lives

THEY HIT ME WITH SPRINGLES IN MY FACE AHHHH WHY

Don’t really care too much about it.

The glorious foreshadowing of commander Kirstein

I really loved the sweet blush moment between Eren and Mikasa. I thought that everything was lost and Eremika was only an annoying ship created by WiT. Now Isayama decided to give Eren and Mikasa a little more light. I doubt something will happen between them because of Eren's action, but I see that Mikasa is very important to him.

WHAT IS YOUR THEORY ABOUT THE WINE? 1,159 Responses

Almost half of respondents speculate that the wine has some of Zeke’s spinal fluid in it, with about a third believing that it’s poisoned. If anything, most of the fandom agrees that something is fishy with that bottle...

Oh, right. The poison. The poison for the MP, the poison chosen especially to titanize the MP so Zeke can play his 4d chess game, the MP's poison. That poison?

As much as I want to say "it contains shifter spinal fluid," wouldn't the shifter spinal fluid disappear when it makes contact with the air like other Titan spinal fluids? Yeah, I feel a bit skeptical to see the wine is poisoned with titan spinal fluid, but I can see why fans are speculating it in light of the recent events.

I didn't think anything was up with the wine at the time I read it, but I've seen all these cool spinal fluid theories drifting around and now I want in on that.

IN VINO VERITAS

Nicolo spit in it.

its filled with the tears of the fandom

IS THE PREGNANCY A FAKE? 1,166 Responses

“Fake idk, but all this is fishy as hell” sums up a lot of responses. Close to 60% of the fandom thinks the pregnancy is authentic, 8% believe it is a fake, 30% are unsure.

She may be pregnant, but obviously not in love with the guy

I wish it were, but I'm sensing strong "Ymir reborn" vibes from all this mess so I dunno.

Pregnancy fake? Nah. Daddy reveal fake? I think so!

I'm starting to think it was Eren who suggested it, but because he needed to extend Zeke's lifetime (I'm still convinced the jaegerbros have something wild up their sleeve).

We don't really have enough real information yet to understand her motivations. There is definately something fishy going on though because I just can't see Historia doing something like this out of nowhere. Giving birth puts her at risk of dying, thus leaving Paradis without a queen. Also surely she has not forgotten Ymir and the promise she made to live her own life. If the pregnancy is indeed real then I hope we get real answers soon because I am so confused right now...:/

IF HISTORIA IS PREGNANT, WHAT IS HER MOTIVATION? 1,150 Responses

Almost 1 out of every 2 people think Eren had a hand in Historia becoming pregnant. Nearly a quarter of all respondents think Yelena worked her voodoo magic and basically forced Historia to become pregnant to prolong Zeke’s life. 1/6th thinks Historia left the Greek isle of Lesbos and actually wanted to have a mini-me with farmer-kun. An even smaller part thinks she’s not even pregnant at all.

Eren doesn't want her to become a titan at all as it would pretty much repeat the entire thing that the Reiss family used to do with passing down the Founding Titan every 13 years, I think Eren wants to protect Historia from becoming a titan at all

Eren used the power of the Founding Titan to manipulate Historia to have a baby for an unknown reason.

I think *she* doesn't want to become a titan, ever, so she's using this as a delay until Eren can do something.

I'd say politics and delaying the inevitable.

She wants to be a hero of the Eldians and be remembered as someone who sacrificed herself for them

Imma be real with you chief... I can't say yet. Too many conflicting options, considering the possibility of a fake pregnancy

DOES HISTORIA HAVE FEELINGS FOR FARMER BOY? 1,144 Responses

With nearly 65% of the votes, most people do think Historia is using farmer boi, while around a fifth of all respondents thinks they are in fact working together and the pregnancy is just a ruse. A mere 10% thinks they are actually in love.

As much as I wished that they had at least become friends and agreed on the pregnancy for some secret reason, what we saw so far of Historia makes it look like it's much more likely that she is indeed using him.

He's a willing conspirator due to his old guilt, regardless of the status of the pregnancy

I don't think she is using him, but she is not in love either.

It's complicated

She is using him to hide that Ereh is the dad.

The only person Historia loved and felt strong bond with was Ymir. She may like the farm boy but I highly doubt she is in love with him.

these questions are hard.

Wouldn't that be the twist no one is expecting? Someone in AoT actually fell in love and started a family?

WHO IS THE CLOAKED FIGURE WHO APPROACHED HISTORIA? 1,137 Responses

Half of respondents believe that Eren was the hooded figure who approached Historia. 33% believe Rogue’s theory that it was Yelena. A small percentage believe that it could have been Hange. Armin, Levi, and Floch were also popular write-ins! Quite a few people are also hopeful the ghost of Ymir came to have a chat with her.

I have no clue, tbh. But I think it's someone we don't expect yet.

Creeper in the bushes! Red herring!

idk honestly. Probably a random MP spy we will never see again.

I DONT FUCKING KNOW AND ITS KILLING ME

I have a feeling the cloaked figure is a red herring, maybe just a random person working at the orphanage.

I like the idea of Armin being the cloaked figure but idk what to think at this point, we really need Historia's POV.

If Historia truly is pregnant, I think the cloaked figure is just Rogue's imagination. If she is faking pregnancy, I think the figure is Eren.

Isayama

Ymir's ghost

HOW IMPRESSED WERE YOU WITH NILE STANDING UP FOR HISTORIA? 1,163 Responses

We’re happy to report that more than 50% selected “Bless this man for existing” when Nile stood up in defense of Historia.

Nile Dawk is underrated

Rogue is a dick

It was nice to see Nile again :D

IF THE SURVEY CORPS HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO TRY A DIPLOMATIC ROUTE FIRST, WOULD THE ATTACK ON LIBERIO STILL HAVE NEEDED TO HAPPEN? DO YOU THINK WAR WAS INEVITABLE? 1,144 Responses

We’re a pessimistic bunch. 64.2 % believed war was inevitable, but the many of the write-ins expressed that the attack on Liberio was not inevitable and probably made a bad situation worse.

How can you go for the diplomatic route when you're too underexploited to be either steamrolled by Marley or colonized by Hizuru?

I think conflict would be inevitable but diplomacy would've mitigated the damage dealt. It would've sparked off but I think in a different manner.

I think war was inevitable and the strike was necessary but I don’t feel great about Eren’s unilateral actions.

Invitable or not choosing the war path before anything else is never and will never be the right way

Liberio may not have happened, but the world was never going to accept paradis anyway and would have eventually attacked

My heart bleeds bc I think Eren done fucked up but a tiny voice in the back of my head is like 'what if eren and zeke really have the One True Master Plan after all and just can't/won't share any of it to take the burden themselves h ah ah pain one can really know war is inevitable until it breaks out.

Probably. If War still happened after a surprise peaceful meeting, they may have gotten sympathy from the public.

There has to be some universe in which war is not inevitable. Nothing controlled by people should be considered inevitable until it's happened.

War was sadly inevitable, but the attack was not.

DOES HIZURU HAVE ANY REAL INTENTION OF HELPING PARADIS OR ARE THEY ONLY INTERESTED IN RESOURCES AND THE RUMBLING 1,155 Responses

“They are only in it for themselves” is the strong fandom consensus with nearly 70% believing Hizuru has no interest in genuinely helping Paradis. 28.8% believe there may be be a little sincerity in their offer of help.

Hizuru's to-get list: resources, rumbling, Mikasa.

We don't know her real motives but there must be something she's hiding or something she wants for her people in all of this. Everything comes at a price, maybe she'll ask something horrible in exchange for her help.

I think there's still more to Hizuru's intentions that we have not been shown. I still think Kruger and Kiyomi are somehow connected.

This is Kiyomi helping Paradis in the name of Hizuru behind the actual nation ruler. She has her Seacret plan.

They are in it mostly for themselves and I personnaly think that Mikasa is the only reason they don't sell them out

HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING, IF ONE OF THE 104TH ARE TO INHERIT EREN’S POWER, WHO DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THE BEST CANDIDATE? 1,148 Responses

Jean’s convincing arguments resonated with most respondents, with 54.8% choosing him. Armin was a close second, with folks wanting him to take on the quadrupel duty of holding 4 titans at once.

Eren cared, but he changed a lot... and that is here the possibility of someone eating him really soon ( i mean they gave us a flashback entirely focused on who will eat him, this is just a huge death flag to me).

I was honestly confused why Armin wasn't considered an option to inherit the titan, since Erens main concern is not shortening anybody's lifespan but Armin doesn't have to worry about that....

Depending on how the story develops, I think Eren would choose either Floch or Falco as the successor of the Attack-Founder Titan. Doubtful that he'll actually pass it on, though.

Theory: Eren doesn't want anyone to inherit his titan, he wants to get this whole war business over before his time runs out

Jean confessing that he'd eat Eren gave me life

WHO HAD THE BEST REACTION TO EREN’S CONFESSION? 1,159 Responses

Nearly half of voters enjoyed Jean calling Eren out for making the atmosphere awkward with his confession all the while blushing himself. 28% of respondents appreciated Mikasa’s knowing smile and blush.

Eren is wholesome. He and his squadmates are precious. I wish eternal happiness for them (Sasha in food heaven).

All good. All also gay. (especially the Erejean)

Eremika and Springles on one page oh my fucking god

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE FLASHBACK? 1,156 Responses

The responses are fairly evenly divided on this question, with slightly more than half saying the flashback was to show Eren still cares about his friends and reinforce his humanity. The other half consisted of those saying Eren changed, and a good portion of write-ins that felt the flashback fulfilled both purposes.

Both to show how much he changed, and to prove he still cares for his friends

To convey how serious the situations become that it's bringing if he cares or not into question

To. Make. Us. Cry. By drowning us in angst.

To show that Eren's not fully in control of his own mind. The WH and the Founder worked together to through Paradis under the bus 100+ years ago and now BOTH are in his head messing him up through P A T H S.

Both. Neither. I don't even have a red sunset as an excuse for my red cheeks. That entire scene was so adorable!

I think it was to show how much their whole situation has changed. It was also probably Yams adding some more salt to the wound. It'd be nice if he were less of a sadist.

DOES EREN STILL PRIORITIZE HIS FRIENDS? 1,154 Responses

78% of voters total believe that Eren still prioritizes his friends, however 41% of the total votes believe that it’s not with the same intensity as it was in the flashback. 15% of voters think Eren is no longer the Eren we knew and does not care for his friends anymore.

Not enough information to say one way or the other. Liberio indicates complexity in how Eren shows he cares

He cares about them as much as he did before and so he's willing to sacrifice everything for that sake, including their trust.

Yes, but he isn't the person he was, so his prioritizing will look different.

As already said, I think he is convinced he does, but loses the sight of the greater good.

Eren is a lost cause.

He cares about them even more than before. His time's running out, he sees them about to return to the old cycle, and he wants to settle things while he still can

I think *Eren* still prioritizes his friends. How much of Eren is still in there.... that I'm not so sure of.

He might still be doing it all to protect those he cares about, but he's now willing to put their life in jeopardy to accomplish his goals if he has to.

I Think he prioritises his goals but based on his reaction to Sasha’s death, I think he still cares for them but he is clouded by whatever his end-goal is.

yes...as sacrifices

i think he's being driven to madness. he's pressuring himself to a huge extent to keep everyone he cared so much about safe and out of harm, and it's literally driving him insane. i think he laughed at sasha's death simply because the pressure is making him crack to the point where he can't even cry about it anymore. he's become so desensitized to losing after a short period of victory at the start that it just seemed inevitable. of course he lost someone, of course he failed, he's going to die anyway what's it going to matter? we only hear from connie that he laughed as a response, so we don't know what was going through his mind at the time, but the long and short of it would be that yes, i do think eren still prioritizes his friends. however, he's lost his belief in himself to keep them safe and may have given up on their happy ending long ago now.

FROM THE PRESENT DAY 104TH CONVERSATION, WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS DO YOU BELIEVE ARE MOST LIKELY TRUE 1,159 Responses

Most believed there was a lot truth in the 104th conversation. The two options most people found fault with where “Eren is responsible for Sasha’s death” and “If Eren is against them, he should be replaced”.

Eren is on side that has the best chances of his friends ending alive, but that isn't his friends' side.

I'd rephrase two of those options. I believe Armin DOES want to save Eren, but unlike Mikasa, he has a contingency plan -replace Eren if he refuses to cooperate. I think Armin would keep that as the last option, and would only go for it if there literally isn't any other choice. So yes, he *is* trying to save Eren, because that option hasn't been barred yet. I also think Eren *thinks* he's on their side, whether or not everyone else thinks so or not.

Eren is so f*cked up cuz he has 3 titans. Being one of them the founder Titan complicates things.

I think Eren is & isn’t on their side. One of his goals is to protect them at all costs, but he may have to do some things they are against in order to achieve those goals.

Eren was willing to sacrifice his humanity for the lives of his friends

Eren is plotting a Zero Requiem and is willing to distance himself

I am neutral Switzerland.

WHAT DOES THE NEW 3DM GEAR REMIND YOU OF? 1,153 Responses

Nearly 50% of the people who answered this question refused to see anything phallic in this panel, and decided to call us perverts instead. To that we say: a dirty mind is a joy forever ;) Over 30% just had one question: But why? To the remaining 20%: you are our people. Thank you!

You polls people are perverted and I'm here for that.

Erenstans can suck my 3DMG 2.0

The new 3D gear is clearly a reference to the acclaimed Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon.

WHAT’S YOUR REACTION TO THIS PANEL? 1,156 Responses

32% of respondents just want someone to give Eren a reason to smile again, 30% are uneasy about Eren’s stare and believe he is no longer on Paradis’ side. 23% of voters would love to be mean-mugged by Eren all day and 13% of voters wished he would have been given shoes instead of a shirt.

Blushing Young Eren: A blushing baby who I want to adopt! Mean staring Adult Eren: Holy Bloody Mary on a pogo stick, he's making ME blush!

Is Eren wearing the same shirt as when he was a kid? Was he wearing it all the time?

Eren's prison bed is way too long

i'm tired of Eren's angry stare, I want to find out what's his deal, and him to go out from that prison, I swear to God, he spends like 30% of this manga either kidnapped or in prison, he is 19 and was 3 times arrested and 3 times held against his will by various captors.

I just hope that Eren can prove that he is on their side because I know he will always care about his friends.

WHAT’S YOUR REACTION TO THIS PANEL? 1,160 Responses

Reiner’s burst of motivation and drive has you all split - either for Reiner to go rescue the kids or for him to stay away from Paradis for good! (PS all of you that didn’t answer Pound Me are lying to yourselves)

All aboard the Paradis Feels Train, next stop Reiner's Suffering.

LET REINER HAVE CUSTODY BACK OF HIS CHILDREN.

Reiner is a sexi boi

REINER SAVE YOUR BABIES

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE REINER’S PRIMARY MOTIVATION IS TO RETURN TO PARADIS? 1,164 Responses

The vast majority thinks Reiner’s main motivation is rescuing the two little rascals, but 27% thinks he wants to face Eren one last time. A small part also thinks Reiner will live up to his role a traitor and will switch sides again. Then there’s the folks that believe Reiner stopped being suicidal. If only everyone would have such optimism.

His hands are overflowed with strength, his eyes are filled with resolve and will to live - what a great timing for Isayama to make a new round of suffering for Papa Braun

Reiner wants to return to paradis because it is a suicide mission.

I hope that this time Reiner is not going to cause more problems and fight to Eren and SC. I hope he has learnt something, understood his mistakes and is going to walk on the right path.

I can't wait to see Reiner becoming Helos

I really want a reunion of Reiner and the 104th kids ok

I wouldn’t be surprised if Reiner’s main motivation for returning to Paradis so quickly is to save Gabi and Falco, but then...I’m tempted to believe there’s more to it than that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there IS more to it either. Maybe he still wants Eren to kill him, or maybe he suddenly feels that he has to die on Paradis and he wants to get it over with quickly, or maybe there’s just some other shit on his mind that might surprise us at least a lil bit, I don’t know.

Papa Reiner just wants to save his children. He has no alignments anymore. He just wants to keep his kids safe and die already. I'm crying over mY SON REINER JUST LET HIM BE HAPPY.

Reiner please stop scarring yourself by putting yourself at war with paradis consistently omg

Reiner just wants to suffer

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES

Most people who took this poll primarily discuss the chapter contents on Reddit, while around 1 out of every five people roams on Tumblr, with Discord taking a distant third place. From now on we’re only going to allow one choice for this question, to see if we can find some major differences between platforms. Thank you for your cooperation!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

bitccchhh where do i even start

Really great chapter, felt like one of those that needs to happen so that you get everyone's perspective before something major happens.

No one knows what's going on except those damn Jaeger Bros.

Armin said Zeke and Eren had a jaegertalk but nobody knows what they talked about....so....that can't lead anywhere good

Save Gabi from Paradis? Please. More like save Paradis from Gabi, amirite?

Good chapter, I just wish it was longer. So far we've had every chapter consist of a mix between flashback and present time. While I appreciate the flashbacks, I hope we get back to more present time soon so the story can move forward at a quicker pace. I really wanna know the full details of Historia's situation and also when tf is Annie coming back for real it's been 4 stinking years…

It was absolutely great. The juxtaposition of the sweet moments the 104th cadets used to have just one year ago with the atmosphere of hatred and distrut towards Eren that dominates now is heart-breaking. Other than that, the father story is really fishy, especially because it was told from an outsider's perspective. as opposed to say, Historia's. I honestly believe the father is someone else and farmer-kun is just a cover up.

(About Eren's panel) he has been wearing the same shirt since he was 10

Loving the Paradis flashbacks after a year of being willing to sell my soul for them.

I feel it's a bit ridiculous to say that none of Eren is left in there. My interpretation of his character post-basement thus far hasn't been that far from his post uprising personality. The difference is that he seems more at a loss for alternatives and even more determined to finish things by any means necessary (if that's even possible). But, I do think he's got some secrets to rival zeke's.

I have high expectation on Gabi. Her arc began from a rather generic/metaphorical one yet it's become more and more emotionally relatable and unpredictable. I once thought Falco was the core of Marley arc but now it looks like he might be the one who is more of the story tool among them.

I cannot believe that something that happened like 70+ chapters ago (Sasha saving that little girl) will be pivotal for the ending. Sasha truly was the real MVP.

104th don't know that real meetings are done with chairs, not couches and armchairs!! Kids, that's not how you were thought to do things.

It was an interesting chapter. We had more explanation, but even more questions to ask: why is Historia's pregnancy fishy, who suggested her to do it, why did Eren attack Marley, what happened that made him even more angry, and turned him into a mass murderer, what is going to happen in sasha's house and how is Marley going to counterattack.(and where is floch) It's getting even more interesting, and I really can't wait to see how Isa is going to explain and unfold all this

I liked the Connie dark moment. He finally got some attention from Isayama. I thought that he was totally forgotten. I wish Connie shown his other sides more often. He is way too good, calm and pure.

I have my doubts about Armin's theory that "when Zeke and Eren activate the Coordinate, Eren will be the one in control," because unlike Smiling Titan who was mindless, Zeke is a Titan Shifter.

Really bummed with Historia's story right now. Why not have Zeke bang a ton of women instead?

EAST SEA CLAN CONSPIRACY THEORY INTENSIFIES AAAAAYYEEEEKKK

Eren brought this on himself. Getting devoured is only facing the consequences of his actions. I hope Mikasa is the one that kills him in the end.

Eren is not father, but cloaked figure is definitely him.

Everyone in this chapter is precious and people can fight me on this. And I'm looking forward to what Hottie Eren bun has to say!

Honestly, I feel like we as readers are still quite in the dark on character motivations, like Eren and Zeke's so a lot of these questions I am conflicted on. I mean that in a good way.

We still haven't heard a lot from Zeke and Levi present day, I really hope it's coming soon. And someone needs to go and talk to Eren! (other than Hanji)

I’ve already called it, but I’m calling it again for record keeping purposes: Historia is going to die in childbirth.

I'm very, very glad that some members of the SC and 104th are starting to wake up and realize that Eren isn't in control of himself and therefore dangerous. I'm fascinated to see which path this takes them down.

I think at this point, Eren is simply fighting for what he thinks is correct, period. It's black and white. Eren probably doesn't see them as right and if they aren't, they are obstacles to overcome. If that is the case, Paradis cannot continue to cling to him. Hence why I can understand Armin saying the things he did.

I honestly don't think Gabi and Falco's lunch will be focused on Gabi suddenly feeling sorry for Sasha after a sad story. After all, she has her own grudge (Zofia -who has the same hair than the girl-, Udo, the gatekeepers...). If anything, this dinner party is here to tell us how Ragako was titanized, and how Zeke intends to spread the virus through food. Enjoy your meal!

Still hoping to see Levi knee Zeke in the face

Isayama is trying to kill me. The eremin/ema talk next chapter, if we really get one, is going to kill me. I will be dead. By isayama's hand. Killed.

I'm betting my pizza, my cat, whatever that this freaking monkey is pulling a ragako 2.0!

One of the best moments was when Gabi asked Falco why he’s following her because HE doesn’t have to die. She genuinely cares about him.

Jean leaning back was the best panel ever drawn

Mikasa in the little ponytail reminded me about how gay I was

can Levi kill Zeke already?

Where is Floch???

All of the above except Zevi

That’s all for this month! Thanks again to everyone who participated. We’ll see you again for chapter 109!

#snk poll #snk polls #snk spoilers #poll results

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dcarevu · 5 years

Text

Batman TAS: Joker’s Favor

“She can't open the door and push it in all by herself! THINK!”

Batman the Animated Series. Teaching the dangers of road rage since 1992!

Episode: 22 Robin: No Writer: Paul Dini Director: Boyd Kirkland Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: September 11, 1992 Grade: B

Char’s main reaction to seeing this episode for the first time was, “My girl!!” She loves Harley (and Poison Ivy). For me too, it’s nice to finally introduce Harley Quinn to the DC Animated Universe. Of course, back when this episode initially aired, it was also her introduction to the world of comic books in general. Written to be a one-off henchwoman to the Joker, wow, who would have seen the massive Harley Quinn storm coming. I was working at Party City when Suicide Squad came out, and by far the most popular costume we sold to young girls and women alike was Harley Quinn. People who know nothing about Batman are at least a little familiar with her. Sometimes even more familiar with her than the Dark Knight himself. And good lord, have fun trying to buy a copy of Batman Adventures #12 for a decent price. Even reprints can cost you around 100 bucks. You know how annoying that is for someone who just wants to own a physical copy of the damn thing to read?

I can only assume that Suicide Squad was the major catapult for the hype surrounding the character. I don’t remember seeing her around nearly as much before. Although I’m sure the Arkham series helped a little bit too. And I won’t lie to you, I’m a little salty about it. Oh, believe me, it’s definitely petty “nerd rage”. Or maybe you could call it the “hipster effect”. What annoys us about liking something for so long, and then, much later, finding out that it suddenly blows up with admiration? It’s stupid, this should make us happy, right? But yes, to let the cat out of the bag, I really do love Harley Quinn’s character. At least, the DCAU version of her. I’ve never seen Suicide Squad, I’ve never read any of her comics outside of the DCAU tie-ins, and I’ve never seen any episodes of other Batman cartoons with her in it. Doesn’t particularly interest me (not that I’m directly opposed). But I know that in the DCAU she’s really interesting, she’s a lot of fun, and some of the best moments of the entire series involve her heavily. The Laughing Fish, from what I remember, is up there among my favorite episodes. And how about the flashback in ROTJ? That’s one of the best Batman stories ever told, period. She’s not my favorite villain by any means, but the show would definitely be missing something without her. Speaking of her roles in the DCAU, maybe that’s where that “hipster effect” comes from. Maybe we get salty when people are oblivious toward a character’s…or a band’s…or a show’s…or whatever’s…early days. Yeah, that’s gotta be it, right? When Pokémon Go was new, I saw people complaining because these kids hadn’t played the original Red and Blue versions. And no one would ever really get annoyed if an old album by Blink-182 suddenly spiked in sales. No, it’s only when someone discovers new stuff and isn’t familiar with anything before that. I’m not saying this behavior is rational, and I hate it whenever I feel this way (for the record, I defended those kids just getting into Pokémon through Pokémon Go who were being shit on by “gen-wunners”). But it’s a possible explanation. Maybe we feel that people are missing out or not putting in the effort to fully appreciate/respect a thing and why it is the way it is.

Even though Harley Quinn was an amazing addition to the series, she didn’t exactly start out that way. Ignoring her popularity, she doesn’t particularly stand out in this episode, at least, not to me. But she must have back then. Fans liked her so much, she started appearing in the Batman Adventures comics! But I won’t start complaining about Batman Adventures #12 again. At least, not yet… Of course, where this is the first Harley episode, it figures as such that Paul Dini is the writer. This episode shows us again that he knows how to write a great story to be taken seriously, but also knows how to inject a lot of fun into it. That seems to be what separates Dini from some of the other best writers. A lot of the most serious episodes are really damn serious, with virtually no fun to be had. But Dini throws in some cheeky bits. Harley, for example. Or Batman coming down with a cold in Heart of Ice. It’s certainly welcome, but honestly, I prefer episodes like Two-Face a little bit more. And that’s why I’ve settled on a B for this episode. Yeah, I know. Everyone raises this episode up on a pedestal and says how much of a classic it is. I won’t argue with y’all. It’s an important episode, and it is entertaining. But it’s not as entertaining as a lot of other episodes to me. I like it. I don’t love it. Sue me. Char actually felt the same way, so I’m not alone there. She loved the Joker, as usual, and loved seeing “her gurl” Harley, but as far as the actual episode goes, she only liked it. Strangely enough, I have virtually no complaints. For the most part it’s pretty flawless, unless I really want to nitpick at stupid shit (like when Joker points out Charlie’s hair-loss when he has the same amount of hair as earlier). Probably the only thing that actually made me scratch my head was during the scene where Charlie threatens Joker with one of his own bombs. Why did Charlie know it wouldn’t explode, but the Joker himself didn’t? The only thing I can really think of is that Batman was in on the joke, and rewired the thing. But that doesn’t sit too well with me either. Oh, and also the scenes involving the fight amongst the recreated temple was a little hokey, and didn’t match a lot of the flow. It was too random-seeming, plus the idea that all of these death traps would remain active is ludicrous. We do get the Joker at some of his best, though, and we even hear Batman laugh in-costume (a first for this series). If there’s one thing Batman shouldn’t do often, it’s use the bat-laugh. And the writers knew when to use it well. Just wait till Mad Love. As long as they don’t have Batman sing… I will now turn my head toward my Justice League Unlimited set and stare at it with a dead smile for a few seconds.

And what about the crime prince of clown himself? I think we get the most insight into his mind out of all the Joker episodes so far in this one. The first two Joker appearances were just sorta goofy romps that you would expect, and the next one (Be a Clown) was an episode of lesser entertainment value. Here, we take the best elements of the Be a Clown Joker and fuse it with the Joker we got more from the other episodes to create what I would consider to be the definitive DCAU Joker. Let’s go over it. Y’know those maniacs who chase you down the street just because you made the tiniest mistake while driving (sometimes it might even be more their fault than yours)? Well imagine if when they caught up to you, you saw that they were a psychotic, killing clown. That’s fun… After this happens to Charlie Collins, the Joker threatens to kill him, but ends up sparing him so that over the next two years, he can have a fun time of basically tracking, stalking, and keeping up with this man. I like this because, on one hand, it seems so silly that he’d want to do this simply because of a traffic incident. Like, doesn’t he have better things to do with this time? But also, the Joker knows that every day, Charlie lives in fear that the Joker will find and contact him. It’s the manipulative aspect that we saw in Be a Clown coming out. The Joker takes pleasure in ruining lives. We also have the whacky side of the Joker seen in The Last Laugh with how ridiculous the concept is. Going back to the hair-loss comment mention earlier in passing, I actually think it would have been really clever to start him out with a full head of hair, but then show him super bald later on, showing that the stress of it all had really taken a toll on him, despite his seemingly great life.

Well, then, the Joker has Charlie fly over to Gotham just to open a door for Harley. Yeah. Open a door. I friggin’ love this twist. He’s like an Alice In Wonderland character, having seemingly no rhyme or reason for anything, but you know it all somehow makes sense in his twisted head. We know this because of what he manages to pull off, and how dangerous he is. If he truly knew nothing, he wouldn’t escape Arkham time and time again or get away with nearly as much as he does. And then finally at the end, we have some moments of scary Joker-rage paired with the Joker actually yelling to Batman for help. It’s such a sudden mood change, and you have to question whether or not the Joker’s anger was real. If it is, that makes it scarier. He’s like a meth-addict. We also see the Joker shove Harley Quinn to the side so that he can get to the phone, a very early look at the abusive relationship that we don’t see in full until later down the line. Like I said earlier, Harley was supposed to be a one-off, so this likely wasn’t Dini’s intent to display, but in hindsight, it’s got a much different light casted on it. It shows how much care was put into these stories, making everything match up, even if it wasn’t the initial plan.

This opening shot looked pretty stilted, reminding us that it’s essentially a cell being moved to the right.

Our main character, Charlie Collins. I wanna know what kind of fashion statement that haircut is. The “vertical rat tail”?

That moment of realization. Great job of capturing that immediate regret. It’s like he was brought back to reality, but sent into the Twilight Zone all at the same time.

The Joker knows how scary he is.

This shot was kinda funky with how bright some of the Joker’s features were.

The Joker appears rather large when in comparison to the character who is supposed to be in front of him. This happens at least one other time in the episode. It adds to his threatening aura here, though.

“Oh please, don’t insult me.” the Joke retorts when Charlie assumes that he’s being robbed of money.

Been missing these guys! Haven’t seen enough of them!

Jim: “If anyone should be getting a testimonial it’s you!” Batman: “I’m just the nightshift. You deal with this mess 24 hours a day. That’s what those people want to honor.” The most endearing friendship on the show. He even then proceeds to ask Batman where he can rent a tux.

The Joker playing darts backwards. Throwing them at the commissioner.

Harley Quinn’s first appearance ever! Bruce Timm did an excellent job with her design. Also, another instance of Joker looking rather large. Apparently perspective isn’t Dong Yang’s strong suit.

And then the Joker proceeds to do a perfect backflip. Damn, he’s limber!

Me too, dude. Also the Joker was throwing darts right above this guy’s head.

Somehow a better license picture than any I’ve ever gotten. Also we have confirmation that, in the DCAU at least, Gotham City is in New York.

“Leave the sideburns.”

An unsettling shot as they circle around Don’s (Charlie’s) block, threatening his family.

“Any way I could sneak out with you?” Me too, dude. Lines like this add so much character that gimmicks or statements about them could never reach.

“Sir, I believe you may be needed inside.”

Bullock hitting on Harley. How does he look like even more of a sleaze when spiffed up for an event?

Montoya’s look of pleasure when Bullock gets whacked in the shin by Harley’s baton. Also, them cheekbones.

“...okayyy, we’ll tough it out here.”

Joker’s sudden mood-swings combined with his delivery from Mark Hamill are obvious callbacks to the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine.

Charlie, about to shove a bomb up Joker’s ass. “Batman! Batmaaaaan!” Actually, y’know what this reminds me of?

This great moment.

Joker, relieved to see Batman. “<gasp> How long have you been there?” We also get, “You’re no fun anymore, Charlie.” If there’s one thing Joker can’t stand, it’s getting upstaged when it comes to the crazy.

A solid episode for sure, but for those of you who only know about Harley from her more recent shenanigans (and you don’t have a genuine interest in watching a Batman cartoon), check out The Laughing Fish instead. And for those of you following along with me for the long haul, join us next time! …Crikey!

Char’s grade: B

Next time: Vendetta Full episode list here!

#harley quinn #joker #dc animated universe #batman tas #joker's favor #jokers favor #batman the animated series #the joker #batman #dcau

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mothmansmilkman · 5 years

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Big ol Information Sheet About My JJBA Part 5 OC That I Love (AKA I know im the only one who cares about this but i gotta put my self-indulgent shit SOMEWHERE)

TW for weapons, child abuse and endangerment, and other canon-typical Jojo stuff

Name: Rio (last name unknown)

Stand: White Room

Age: Unknown, but assumed to be 14 (celebrates the day she was discovered after her attempted murder like a birthday)

Height: 5′2″

Favorite Food: Cherry pastries

Favorite Movie: The Little Mermaid

Favorite Band: Nirvana

BACKSTORY

Rio doesn't remember much about her childhood, but she remembers living in a house with a loving mother and father.

Her life was changed one night when she was 4 years old. As her mother layed her in her bed, she told Rio that no matter what she heard downstairs to not scream or go down there.

A terrified Rio heard the sounds of her parents being murdered hours later. As the perpetrator was searching the house, he discovered Rio huddled in her bed. But, instead of killing her along with the rest of her family, he decided to kidnap her.

For years, Rio was kept a slave in that person's house. Only hearing of the outside world through TV, radio, and overhearing conversations between houseguests, she had begun to have fantasies of what the world outside the house must be like.

She would find out on the day she was murdered. In the middle of the night, her kidnapper took Rio to an alley armed with a Stand Arrow. Since a Stand Arrow leaves no visible wound after the act, he assumed that Rio would die and whoever found her body would assume she was a runaway that died from malnutrition or something.

However, Rio awoke hours after having the arrow stabbed into her abdomen. But strangely, the alley she remembered being in had changed into a pink castle. With the small bits of knowledge she had, she just thought to herself "I must be dead. So this must be what heaven looks like..." and went back to sleep.

Now Here’s Where We Get Self-Insert-y!

I’d like to imagine if Rio would end up in any of the canon Vento Aureo groups, she would be in La Squadra because

1. I want to see these dudes dealing with a literal child

2. There’s a line in the song White Room “She was kindness in the hard crowd” and I like when the musical references tie in to the character’s personality.

At the time of Rio being discovered, I personally headcanon that La Squadra wasn’t fully formed, and the only members being there were Risotto, Sorbet, Gelato, Formaggio, Proscuitto, and Melone. (Illuso, Pesci, and Ghiacchio would be the more recent members) (Sorry if all this is wrong, i havent actually read the manga ;_;)

Anyway, one of the members would be concerned about a pink castle being where a pink castle would not usually be. And they would be more concerned when no one else on the street even payed attention to it, as if it wasn’t there. But, as if the Stand knew someone was there, a door appeared on the castle’s wall. Hesitantly, they opened the door, ready for a battle.

...instead, they saw a disheveled, malnourished, young girl curled up on the dirty ground. When she opened her eyes and stared up at him, she finally spoke.

“God? ...how long have I been dead?”

Eventually, the gangster would take Rio to their home and ask for her story. The original plan was to let the child take a bath, have a meal, and then take her to an orphanage. However, certain details made the gangster feel more pity, like how Rio didn’t know enough about her past to remember her own last name or birthday. But, as soon as she described her “death” via a gold arrow, the assassin realized something bigger.

If someone had access to a Stand Arrow, there was a chance they were part of Passione. It would be dangerous to leave Rio alone. This would eventually (after explaining the situation to Risotto), lead to Rio becoming a resident of the La Squadra safehouse.

Life With La Squadra

Rio would be hesitant at first to ask La Squadra for anything. Not just because they’re intimidating criminals, but because she was already grateful for everything they had done for her. They saved her life, but also bought her clothes and things a kid would need. They also figured out that she was probably 10 years old. Her only request upon being given permission to live in the safehouse was that she would be taught how to read.

As time passed, the walls, both mental and physical (White Room’s fault for the physical ones), between Rio and the other members began to fall. She had begun to view every member as a father figure, even referring to them as “Papa [name]”.

Learning to read also showed the members that Rio was intelligent along with being kind. She had developed a habit of checking out books from the city’s library and copying the text by hand into a notebook as she read it, giving her a copy of her own. While she enjoyed children’s books, she enjoyed non-fiction even more, because it gave her more information about the outside world.

The other members would actually be happy to take Rio out in public when they weren’t on missions. (Especially Formaggio because hed act like she was his real daughter to try and look like a dilf) It would always be entertaining to go from having an intelligent conversation with a booksmart 10 year old to watching them get excited over ice cream or a big teddy bear.

Rio’s favorite things to collect would be stuffed animals and warm blankets. Also books, but she copies hers from the library, so she feels no reason to want to buy any.

Despite being happy and calm most of the time, Rio still has trauma from her past. Certain triggers will suddenly end up with White Room suddenly appearing around Rio, with the memory in question being displayed on the walls for all of the members near her to see. When White Room fades, Rio has usually started crying, and needs a few minutes before she can speak again.

When Rio eventually started copying medical textbooks, she asked (because no one hid the fact that La Squadra killed people) if they could bring a corpse back so she could dissect a body herself. Sorbet and Gelato would be the only ones to say yes, and actually follow through.

Rio eventually learns about Christmas. On her first December 25th with the gang, she gives everyone a knife painted in their favorite color.

Since I headcanon Pesci and Ghiacchio as the youngest of the La Squadra boys, Rio would call them her Big Brothers.

White Room

The whole time she’s with La Squadra, Rio has been training White Room. Eventually, she learned her stand has 3 abilities:

1. It can create a room.

2. It can manipulate the room. The size, the color, etc. She can even display her own thoughts onto the walls.

3. If she understands something completely, she can create a copy of it that only exists inside the room.

Rio realizes she can use her stand for killing was when she was 11. A stranger trying to rob her while she was running an errand alone brought up a fight-or-flight reaction, leading to White Room crushing the attacker as if they were inside a trash compactor.

When Rio learns that she can copy items that she understands, the first thing she asks is to learn how a gun works. The rest of La Squadra had known she would end up as part of Passione someday, because honestly they couldn’t see her having anywhere else to go, but they were wary of letting her join THEIR part of Passione since there was a very high likelihood of death. However, Rio quickly learned the ins and outs of weapons. She proved herself to be worthy as a member of La Squadra when she completed a mission, killing a man by slitting his throat with a knife created by White Room. At 11 and a half years old (possibly because no one really knows how old she is), she became the youngest official member of Passione at the time (and possibly youngest ever).

Rio prefers to work with her father figures on missions rather than work alone. Her strategy is to secure the perimeter of the area with White Room, so the target can’t escape and no one else can enter. Then, she waits with a sniper rifle. She wants to have her papas and brothers backs, and act as support in their battles. It makes her feel like she’s returning the support they always gave her.

How Rio Would End Up In The Events of Vento Aureo

Rio would be 12 years old when Sorbet and Gelato die. As the picture frames were being opened, she would recognize a body part as something she saw in a medical book.

The realization that it was her Papa Sorbet’s body would click in her mind, but she’d refuse to believe it. As the members of the team place the frames in order, they all start to regret letting Rio be in the same room.

She later gets the news of Gelato’s death.

Rio openly weeps at the funeral. This was the first time her heart ever truly felt broken, since she wasn’t old enough when her real parents died to really remember them. It takes Rio a while to start acting like her old self again. Like the rest of La Squadra, she never forgives the Boss for this. Despite feeling anger when Risotto told the gang to just “Forget about Sorbet and Gelato”, she understood that any act of revenge that wasn’t thoroughly planned out would make her or worse, more of her papas and brothers to suffer the same fate.

AU Where Bucci Gang and La Squadra Team Up Because That’s What I Wish Would’ve Happened (Also i just dont want to write Rio dying like they do in canon)

Seriously tho if Giorno or maybe buccellati would've gone on the shopping trip this au probably wouldve happened

Rio would be 14 at the time Giorno happened and the events of Vento Aureo took place.

Rio would love having people closer to her age around. I imagine she'd become friends with Narancia and Fugo (because Narancia can have fun and can give her the childhood fun she never had, and Fugo because finally someone with brain cells). I imagine she’d see one of their study sessions one day and just join.

Tbh Trish and Rio need each other. They need other girls in their lives.

Rio is okay with Mista, but likes Sex Pistols more. Buccellati wishes it wasnt too late for him to adopt her

If the boat scene would still happen in this AU, I think Rio would go with Fugo. It's not that she's scared of fighting the Boss, it's because La Squadra doesn't know if they can handle her dying at such a young age. They tell Fugo that if he's leaving, to take Rio with him in order to track down any possible living relatives (or anyone who could possibly know Rio's true identity)

Before they leave, Rio tells the group to find her again when they come back. She had faith that with their numbers and combined abilities, the 2 gangs could take down whatever was in their path. Sadly, when Giorno reaches out after the events of VA, only a few survived.

Rio would, of course, end up joining Passione again like in Purple Haze Feedback. This last image is a design of an older Rio (maybe age 16-18)

#vento aureo #jjba #jjba oc #oc

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pixel-creates · 6 years

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About Me: Kingdom Hearts

Behold, my excuse to cry over KH with paragraphs for nearly each answer.

(shamelessly copied from @khfriendlyreminders)

Favorite Kh Game Overall: … I underestimated how hard this would be. I mean, I can't simply say I love all of them (even though I do), so... I guess it has to be

ALL OF THEM.

Least Favorite Kh Game Overall: Aside from nitpicks in story and gameplay, I don't have much to say against the KH games. ^^'

I understand perfectly well when people analyze the story and explain why certain parts just don't work, but unless it's something that just outright doesn't sit well with me, I find it hard to be critical of the games. Which is weird since I can be very critical of other media, but KH is kind of... hard to see or make criticism of. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it...

Kh Games I Should Replay: … ALL OF TH-

Okay but for real, I do have to repay them all for the sake of my fic since I'm basing the events off of my gameplay. Though, one I'd like to experience once again is 0.2. I only had the chance to play once at my older brother's before I moved and I feel like I need to experience it again to really understand where the story stands currently.

Most Played Kh Game: KH2 definitely.

Least Played Kh Game: Maybe Re:Coded, Days, and Re:COM. Re:Coded, while I do enjoy, is just not that fun to play on my dying 3DS. Also, I can't remember if it's just Re:Coded, but the camera was just really loose?? On my 3DS with broken left and right triggers, there was just no end to the frustration when those babies started going out. Days is a long game to play and my gameplay is either short and brief stints or finishing the entire game in a day. Right now, I'm in the short and brief stint gameplay mode since I need a new 3DS. On that part, Days and Re:Coded aren't at fault. Re:COM just scares me. Eveyone says that it's easy to get a handle on the card system, and it is but I don't do very well under the pressure of getting the cards together. It's gotten to the point where just looking at the menu screen makes me cringe. ^^' KHUX can count, as well. The game has a hella lot of filler quests, which are fine here and there, but wow those mission goals (“Defeat Every Enemy” has been seen in my nightmares). Not only that, but I'm not really that good at keeping up with games that often require constant/daily logging in for advancement.

Kh Games I Need to Play: I've technically played them all in one form or another, but I would very much like to try out the original GBA COM game at least once. GBA used to be my favorite system and finding out a KH game had been made for it is amazing!

Favorite Gameplay: This one is a tie between KH and KH0.2.

KH2 is just... fun. It's fun to play, it's fun to watch, and it just feels satisfactory to attack and explore the worlds. It might seem a little weird, but my favorite part was being able to 'Examine' everything with the triangle button. It was like Sora's (and Roxas' thoughts for a time) were given a place to exist outside cutscenes and gave insight into how Sora/Roxas were viewing the world. I dunno what anyone else thinks about it or if they even care, but I sincerely hope it makes a comeback in KH3.

KH0.2 is like KH2 in which we are given more of an opportunity to explore and interact with the world around us by actually creating change within the world through spells, hitting objects, or finding the lost memories. I absolutely love to freely roam in games, but it doesn't do much to bring me into the world itself if I can't interact with the world. That's why, as much as it creeped the frick out of me, the Dwarf Woodlands in the Dark World was my favorite world to explore even after the main story.

Least Favorite Gameplay: It's not my least favorite by far (in fact, it's really high up there), but I feel I do have to mention that in KH DDD, I felt really bad about using Flowmotion. It was like, I'd find my way up to several treasures, but then, it turns out, that you'd eventually make it up there by unlocking the way so that you could walk to the treasure. I feel like if there was a couple of puzzles that locked some treasures away and couldn't be accessed through mobile means, it'd balance out the gameplay a little more.

I also find the Dream Eater system to be... a little cool and also a little bad. A little cool because while I can adventure to who knows where and not get constantly freaked by Donald and Goofy teleporting right behind me. It felt like I was on a little solo adventure! Not only that, but the feature to import Dream Eaters from a previous save to a new/other save was a great feature. It was especially helpful when I replayed DDD went from Beginner Mode to Critical Mode. Did I mention it was y first time playing any KH game on a mode tougher than Normal?

A little bad because sometimes that solo adventure was just a bit too solo – and when just starting out (especially on Critical Mode), rather than being my allies, my Dream Eaters were more so the colorful Pokemon rejects I babysat so they didn't die after three hits. It became annoying pretty quickly to constantly keep them alive, only for them to wander away from where the enemies are or just simply not attack and once again die.

KH Re:Com as explained above, though I will admit that once I start to get into it, I feel a lot less pressured unless it's a boss fight. Other than that, the game just feels really repetitive and as someone who's gameplay style is 80% grinding until you simply can't die, it just really didn't feel that fun to play after an hour of just grinding for a boss fight that I felt really unsure about fighting because I'm sill having trouble with the card system.

Favorite Story: Yikes, another hard one. It's easy for me to talk about gameplay in the games because they're self-contained to a singular game within the series, but goodness the story.

I suppose out of all of them, I would replay KH2, DDD, Days, and Re:Coded for story reasons only. I find them to have the more interesting stories. Right now, I'm kind of side eying BBS for... reasons, and KH1 is kind of hard for me to say anything about. More on that in the next one.

Least Favorite Story: Out of the games, KH1 is probably the most consistent one... on its own. As the series progressed and the writers tried to fit more lore and story into an idea that... no one really expected would garner so much attention, it becomes more obvious how... out of place the first game seems in comparison. This took me years to realize and I only really understood why people made such a deal about it when Caddicarus talked about it in his review.

I can't bring myself to really blame the writers (or Nomura) too much for the inconsistencies between the first game and the latest one, but I will say there are some things I wish could've been kept consistent throughout the series, or just plain kept.

So, I don't think of it as my least favorite (since there are times I'll play it simply because I love the story a heck of a lot more than the gameplay), but it's question because of how out of place its story is in comparison to its children.

Favorite Character: Sora. I would fucking die for him – but he probably wouldn't let me. Why is he my favorite character? Probably for a similar reason why Naruto is – I am not a particularly outgoing or outspoken person. My voice is naturally soft and whenever I try to gear myself to ask people the simplest of questions or even to say hi, I chicken out at the last second. And then, we have this character who not only talks to people without an issue but easily has an active participation in not only social situations but in everyday life.

In a way, my younger self strived to be just a little but more like that, if only because I wanted to be surrounded by friends like Sora was. Not only that, but there's just the overall positivity vibe Sora gives off that I feel like I lack; I almost immediately assume the worst of situations, have trust issues, and stress horribly over situations that even I can admit are out of my control. And seeing this character go through what he did and still keep that positive outlook? How could I not want to be like that, if only just a little?

Least Favorite Character: I'll probably get shit on for saying it, but I really can't bring myself to like Kairi in any way shape or form. She's pretty much the only thing about KH that I can be really critical of and I'm not very proud of that. I can't get into her in canon and I can't get into her in fanon. I can detail point by point about why I just can't like her in any capacity and my own disappointment towards how she's written, and I really wish it was the opposite... but that's a whole other post.

For now, I'm more than content to ignore her.

Favorite Character from Main Cast: Aside from Sora? Roxas, Xion, Vanitas, Riku, Namine, and Ventus are in the ring competing for 11th favorite character since Sora has taken up the first ten spots. Aqua, Terra and Goofy are shoe ins for the next spots after them.

Least Favorite Character from Main Cast: Aside from that one chick? It's mostly as a joke, but Donald can rot.

#NeverThankDonaldDuck2018 Also, fuck Yen Sid.

Favorite Drive Form: Final. Fucking fite my vanilla ass.

Favorite Spell: While the Cure line is a staple, I'm going to have to go with the Reflect line. Late game KH2 often ends up with Heartless/Nobody encounters quickly ending as soon as it started with a single Reflectga. I really hope it makes some kind of comeback in KH3.

Favorite Keyblade: Kingdom Key. Call me vanilla, but I love it's simple design and the lore around it.

Favorite Summon: I've honestly only ever really used Tinkerbell and it's always for the Dragon!Maleficent fight in KH1. I always stress about using things with time limits, so I often just don't use them period. :,D

Favorite Limit: Okay, but if I rarely use Summons, then I really don't use Limits like ever. I hardly switch my party members out unless mandatory. Even then, I turn off the Auto Limit shit because I find it more important to make sure Sora has magic for Cure than pulling off an attack that will only hit like 3 times.

Aside from completion purposes (and Riku because how can I deny the beauty that is Sora and Riku's Limit), I don't use them in the main story.

Favorite Dream Eater: It's a toss up between Pega Slick and Me Me Bunny. While offering some pretty good abilities, I really like their aesthetic. Yoggy Ram and Aura Lion are pretty high up there, too.

Favorite World: Oooo~ How about we have fun with this answer?

KH1 – A toss up between Hollow Bastion and End of The World. The aesthetics for both just really agree with me and the map for Hollow Bation especially is really fun to explore. KH Re:COM – 100 Acre Wood for being the only world that isn't completely repetitive. Whenever I play Re:COM I use it as the 12th floor just so I can reward myself for sticking with the game. KH2 – Radiant Garden for being probably the biggest world in KH2, linking to worlds I really like (Space Paranoids/100 Acre Wood), and having an interesting story that was actually intertwined with the main plot. KHBBS – This one is a bit hard since I don't play any other story except Ventus' 90% of the time. It's a toss up between Land of Departure (aesthetic and story reasons), Disney Town (mini games are really great – except I Scream Beat), and Mirage Arena (Rumble Racing and Mono- Command Board ftw!!).

KH Re:Coded – Pretty much all of Hollow Bastion. While a re-hash of KH1, it still felt like its own thing, especially with the battle system since Data!Sora's Keyblade was destroyed. I also really liked Olympus Coliseum. It was my favorite place to grind. In fact... Re:Coded took a lot of risks in changing up how you could fight and/or navigate the world and, to me, they were all interesting takes and fun experiences. Except Agrabah. Fuck Agrabah.

KHDDD – I like La Cité des Cloches because of what it could have been... Actual worlds I like are The Country of Musketeers, The World That Never Was (Sora's story), and Symphony of Sorcery. KH0.2 – Dwarf Woodlands as explained above. KHUX – I honestly really like Daybreak Town. I wish we could freely explore it.

Least Favorite World: F U C K M O N S T R O

I have some bad memories with Monstro from KH1.

First off, there's a chance you will just plain miss the cutscene needed to get access to him. I once had to drive between Halloween Town and Atlantica six times to get him, and often require 2 or more trips around to get him to appear in general.

Second, in KH1, a game that actually would've benefited from the nowadays useless as shit map system, has a world where everything looks the damn same and has rooms literally titled 'Monstro: Chamber 1' and 'Monstro: Chamber 2'. Just watching Raisoren, someone who has played KH1 at least twice, try to find his way around Monstro was a headache in itself back when I first found out about KH. Actually playing it was a migraine.

Third, the aesthetic... just the aesthetic. I am very squicky about the 'insides' of things. I understand that the team went through lengths to make it not look realistic, but that ultimately failed since the main different between most of the rooms are ledges and the amount of barrels in a room.

With all that said, I bet many of you can guess my reaction to Monstro in KH:DDD... it honestly wasn't too bad. Unless I was grinding, I didn't have to spend as much time in Monstro as I did in KH1 and the layout was a lot more varied and easily distinguishable from each other.

And then I played it in Critical Mode. :)

Am I ready for Kingdom Hearts III: Very much so! I've been steadily getting more and more excited with each piece of news we get. I don't know what to expect, but as long as it feels like a KH game, I don't think there's a way to disappoint me.

#purikh #puri ponders kh

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sweet-taiyaki · 4 years

Text

Sin City Sour

Warning: Some violence, sexual themes, angst, gun violence, language

I was celebrating how I managed to smuggle in illegal drugs with my team. All of a sudden, I was approached by these men, that were armed. “Get dressed, we have to take a ride. The boss wants to meet you.” Oh, how romantic. Nothing like being blindfolded by a bag, hands zip tied, and legs strung together by rope. Unfortunately, I’m in this situation more than you think. Don’t tell the bad guys, but I’m actually a CIA agent undercover. My real name is Vincent Hawthorne and today I’m playing the part of Benito Salazar, a member of a Spanish cartel shipping an illegal drug to the States. I basically feel like an infamous citizen at this point by all the missions I’ve done. I barely even know who I am anymore.

The men tie me to a chair and remove the bag from my head. I can see my gun, my burner phone, and my speedo. There were two men on each side of me with AK-47s. They seem poorly built though. “The boss” comes out of the shadows and starts laughing. “Out of all the idiots in the world, this is the top Spanish cartel leader? ¿Cuál es tu propósito? (What is your purpose),” he asked. I stood silent. This guy seems like an amateur leader that just wants to move up in the cartel hierarchy. My job is to prevent that from happening. “Mi equipo no puede ser derrotado. Decidimos matar a cualquiera que se estorbo. (My team cannot be defeated. We decided to kill people that get in the way),” I said confidently. My Spanish is okay, well actually all the languages I’ve learned are okay. I just basically know the gist of killing people and it seems to work. His guys grip their guns. They seem pretty intimidated, or angry. I see my phone go off, Costa was the name of the contact. The boss looks at my phone. “Yo no respondería (I wouldn’t answer that),” I said. The boss answers it anyway. The first bombs go off as warnings. “Puta madre!” I bust out of the zip ties and run as I get shot at, but then I set off the second set of bombs that blow up the place. I jump into a properly timed CIA squad car as I peel away the prosthetics and got away before they could escape the building.

“Nice to see you again,” said Ivy. “Just because you are a princess that can’t break a nail, it would have been nice to have some back up,” I said to her as she rolled her eyes. Ivy was an undercover agent, but then she moved up to the head of Intelligence and Foreign Affairs, so now she’s my boss. “I’d love to sit and chat, Vince, but I have another assignment for you.” Spoiler alert, Ivy and I had a small fling when we were on an assignment together, and I think she still has feelings for me, but reading a woman is so hard. “Do you overwork me because you hate me, or you actually give a shit about these citizens? To be fair, I haven’t been called Vince in over 5 years by the amount of undercover work I’ve done.” “I put you on because you’re the best at it,” she said, “At the end of the day, you give a shit about saving the people in the end because you created a relationship with them.” Great. So, now I’m a superhero that comes and goes for people because they ask for help.

Ivy drops me off at my apartment. “See you at 7 am,” she says and drives off. I live in New York. I sleep in this crappy apartment, but the view at night overlooks the Brooklyn Bridge. You would think I’d date, but I can’t by working all over the world from bad guys.

I woke up at 6 am, showered, and stared at myself in the mirror. I almost didn’t recognize myself. The Spanish cartel mission lasted a year and I had my tattoos covered. I had a black wig, but my hair is brown. My nose and jaw were made of prosthetics and I wore brown contacts when my eyes were blue. I almost cried, but I got ready for work to meet the HBIC.

I sat down in a chair, drinking my coffee, then I was approached by this intern that seemed to be starstruck by me. This kid was almost on the verge of hyperventilating. “You’re Vince Hawthorne! I’ve heard so much about you and your work,” he said. I felt like I should play with the kid. “No, no, sir. My name is Fabio. Parli italiano,” I said. The kid seemed in shock. “Oh, I’m sorry, Fabio. I thought you were someone I read about.” Ivy stood up in front of the podium.

“Good morning, everybody. I’m sure you may have heard that the Spanish cartel has been shut down and have been taken into custody. However, we have another mission, and it’s gonna be a little different. This one will only last a month at the latest. Our citizen’s name is twenty-three-year-old, Hayley Fay. She also goes by the name of ‘Rosé’ since she strips on the side without her parents knowing. Fay lives in Las Vegas. She met a client that was acting creepy, bouncers kicked him out, found out he was one of the hitmen to kill her. The mission is to save her from harm and put an end to her creep stalker. Mr. Hawthorne will be with the citizen to keep her safe and I will organize a team to assist him in Vegas in 48 hours. Thank you.”

All the men approach me so they can go to Vegas with me. I immediately find Ivy. “Ma’am, with all due respect, please pick the right people with me. I don’t want these low life, creepy middle aged men working along side me.” She stopped in her tracks, “You really believe that I would do that to those girls, no way. I’m organizing a team strategically. You’ll find the results on your flight. Here’s your identity.” She hands me my passport and state id. Ryan Sparrow is my new name. “Thanks, I appreciate that you put in my love of Johnny Depp in there.” She smiled then said quietly “Captain” as she walked away.

I get on the plane and found out that I��m with the intern. I mean, he was younger than me, but I think the kid is 21. Of course, he sat next to me. “Vince—” “The name is Ryan. Nice to meet you kind sir.” I grabbed his hand and pull his ear to my face. “I realize that this is your first gig, but we are undercover. You reveal my identity, you die.” He was scared and intimidated. We lift off into the air and I took a nap. I woke up and the kid was still a deer in headlights. I roll my eyes, but I knew I had to do something. “Hey, kid. I’m sorry. I’m just in the mode and I don’t want any of us to get hurt.” He nodded and started to realize that this is the real deal and that people could die if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

We land in Vegas and check in to the Cosmopolitan. My team consisted of 6 guys, we decided to take a bachelor party approach. Jake, the groom; Chase, the best man; Hunter, the little brother of groom; Dylan, childhood friend of groom; Tyler, the kid and coworker; and myself, friend of groom. We got to our rooms and we had the view of the Bellagio Fountains. “Boss, did good,” Chase said. I get a call from Ivy. “Well well well, does this remind you of when we were in Paris,” I smirked. “Enough, Vince. I have cars for everyone that is in the garage. You’ll find the keys in your room. Everything you need for the mission should be in the car. I’ll be on the first flight there if anything goes wrong.” She hung up and we made our way down to the garage to find Mustangs in different colors. The guys got all excited, but these are nothing compared to Lamborghinis. We found burner phones to keep in contact, some pistols fully loaded, earpieces, beer and liquor, and some essentials. Ivy even gifted each of us a designer suit for the occasion.

Unfortunately, I’m the only one in the group that has been to Vegas, so the guys don’t really understand the lifestyle. Tonight, we plan to let loose, so they know the ins and outs of Vegas. Hopefully, they will remember it all. We pregame with shots of liquor, then hit the strip. The guys were in awe how women would just flirt with them. I got a table at a club, which is instantly a chick magnet. The guys picked a girl to flirt with and I went to the bar. “A Boston Sour, please.” The bartender seemed surprised. “Any preference on bourbon,” she asked. “Whatever you like,” I said confidently. She smiled and made the cocktail. “It’s nice to make something that isn’t White Claw or a vodka lemonade,” she said. “Now I know what to order next.” She laughed and served another guest. I do some surveillance of the club. There seems to be a good amount of security around the club, but then I found out that there was a table across the club that had men in suits that didn’t want any women at their table unless they stepped on the dancefloor. I looked away before they could notice me. The group of men left the club. I told the team that I would follow them through the earpiece.

At this point, I sobered up and was in the mission. I followed the group of men to a strip club, which happened to be Harley’s workplace. They went inside, but I decided to take a detour by going around to the back door. Fortunately, I found Hayley before her shift started. She worked the graveyard shift, midnight to 6 am. Hayley and the dancers looked over to me. “Ms. Rosé,” I said. “Out of all the girls, you pick Rosé,” a woman said as if she was insulted. “May I have a word? Just a few seconds, no favors or anything. I just want to talk,” I offered my hand. She took it, but she was kinda nervous. I pulled her out to the alleyway. “I don’t have much time to explain, but my name is Ryan Sparrow. There is a group of gentlemen that are here to kidnap and kill you.” She immediately got scared. “How do I know that you’re not one of them,” she panicked. “I like to think of myself as the ‘superhero’ character. Usually people don’t say that they will kill you. They just do. I’m hired to protect you. Do you trust me?” Hayley looked me and she nodded. I stuck her in my car and drove off.

The last few guys from the group of men saw that I took Hayley. “Ah, shit,” I said. The men got into their SUV and chased me. Of course, they were armed. I knew my gut was right about these group of guys. I tried calling my team to help me out, but the car kept shooting at me. No one answered. I tried to lose them by going through some alleyways and difficult turns, but they didn’t seem to lose their speed. I released some small bombs to pop the tires, but not injure the people around the car. It worked and all four tires were popped. It created a small explosion, but not enough to kill them. The guys continued to shoot at my car, but I ended up losing them, for now.

I got Hayley back to the hotel. She looked around to see all the technology I had set up. She looked at me and started laughing. “So, you must really be my superhero,” she said in a flirtatious way. “Kind of. I like my job and saving lives. I just want to make the world a happier place.” Hayley leaned into me. “Well, you came to the right place. How can I be of service for you?” She stuck her fingers in my pants and ran them across my waistline and crotch. “Hayley,” I said. She stopped and looked at me in shock. “No one calls me Hayley, but my parents. Did they send you to look over me?” She started getting angry. “No, I told you that I’m here to save you. I’ve never met your parents. My job is to get rid of the bad guys so you can be safe,” I said, pretty much like a father. Dammit. “At least your parents are alive. Mine were killed in front of me and I couldn’t react because it would have blown my cover and true identity. After years of being undercover, I don’t even know who I am. I became this robot to save people because I give a shit about justice and doing the right thing. It fucking sucks that I see people die and I can’t have any emotion when all I want to do is bury myself and cry. But I wasn’t put on this Earth to cry. I knew that I wanted to help people.”

I can’t believe I just confessed that, but I knew that it would reel her in and trust me. “I never said that to anyone, and I don’t want to lose you. So please, stay with me and I’ll keep you safe here and get rid of these men out to get you.” I got up as she looked at me and I looked back to her. “You’re gonna kill them,” she asked. I chuckled. “It’s either them or you, and it won’t be you.” She got up, kissed me passionately, and wished me luck as I left the hotel room, which was kinda unexpected.

It’s around 3 am. I get down to the lobby and I found my team completely wasted. I tried to keep my head down, but they recognized me. “Hey man!” They all shouted. I grabbed everyone by the bathroom. “Guys, seriously. Don’t enter my room, the citizen is in there. She’s quite scared so please just act professional.” The intern looked at me and knew that I was serious. “Don’t worry, Ryan. I’ll make sure no one goes in your room.” I gave him a pat on the shoulder and it looked like he was gonna cry. I moved them away and continued my mission to find the group of men.

Surprisingly, I was walking through the Circus Circus casino and saw one of the guys. I stayed hidden, but followed him to the hotel room, assuming the boss would be there. I knocked out the guy I followed after he got to his floor, out of the camera view. There were two big guys chatting outside a room with double doors. A group of girls came to the floor and saw the guy I knocked out in front of them. “Sorry, my friend can’t hang,” I said. The girls laughed and I smiled and winked at one of them. They were going towards the room with the double doors. I follow them and was stopped by the two guys. They closed the door. “No men allowed, turn the other way, pretty boy.” I knocked them out and snuck my way into the room. There was a party going on with a DJ, liquor bottles everywhere and another guarded door.

The guards see me and I make my way to them. “You wouldn’t want to traumatize these women, by a blood bath, would you? Kill me in private, or even take me to your boss.” They patted me down, found my burner phone, and let me in. The boss was covered in girls. All of them were laughing, drunk. I closed the door behind me and the room went silent. “Ooooo he’s cute,” said one of the girls. The boss took out a gun and shot her. The other girls ran out in panic and the boss came up to me. “Pretty boy with the mustang, huh. You tried to save your whore,” he looked me up and down. “She is so beautiful, and out of all the women I’ve bought as my slave, I wanted her. She would have been a great showpiece in my collection.” I started to get angry, but I knew if I showed any emotion, it would blow my cover. “Actually, Mr. Barsotti, I’m a man like you. I cum in girls all day. And when I’m your age, I’m gonna be just like you, buried in women, wanting me. I’m inspired by you and thought that you could give me some tips. No hard feelings. I just want the best and I knew the girl I got was the best.” He laughed and patted my shoulders. “Atta boy, you could be my apprentice. Would you like to join the team?” I nodded and he gave me an M-15. “Do you know how to use it,” he asked me. I looked at it nervously. He pulled a gun to my head. “Well now you do, go out there and—”

I heard gunfire outside the room. I dropped the M-15 and punched Mr. Barsotti. He fell to the ground and his two bodyguards pointed their guns and me and started shooting. I took cover, but I knew they were coming closer. I escaped through the vent to the other room. I saw my team in the room. They killed the door guards and started to help the other women escape. I go back to the room with the bodyguards and fought them. One of them had a knife and managed to slash my right arm. Thankfully, I have even strength in both arms, but both of them were too strong. My face is covered in blood and they wouldn’t stop beating me until they knew I was dead. I could barely move and I knew this was probably the end. I saw them take their guns and point them at my face. I closed my eyes and I heard four guns shots.

“Ryan, Ryan” I heard faintly. I was outside the casino with police cars and an ambulance early in the morning. “Are the girls safe,” I said. “Yeah, they’re safe and Mr. Barsotti was taken into custody. We thought we lost you, man.” My arm was bandaged, and my face had some stiches, but I was okay. “I couldn’t have done it without you guys. Together we gave those women a future.” They all smiled at each other.

I decided to go back to the hotel to pack up and leave. I brought some coffee and a fruit cup for Hayley. I got in my room and she was sound asleep, knowing that she was safe. I woke her up, gave her breakfast. “You’re free, you are safe now. The boss was actually holding women hostage as his slaves and we saved them. So it’s like a double win.” She sighed in relief as she rolled out of bed. “Thank you, Ryan. Do you mind if I call you for all my stalkers? Oh my God, what happened to your arm,” she panicked. “I’m fine, I’ll escort you to your house, if that’s okay.” She nodded.

I took Hayley to her parent’s house. They hugged her as soon she opened the door. I walked back to my car when I heard a ‘wait’. “Please, may I call you,” Hayley asked me. I laughed, wrote on a piece of paper, and gave it to her. She opened it. “Seriously, 911?” I laughed and said, “I can’t always be there for you, unfortunately. I have more people to save. I hope it inspires you to save people.” She turned around to her parents and looked at me, “Thank you, Ryan.” She got back into her parent’s house. “It’s Vince,” I said softly. I drove off and left on the first flight back to New York.

I got back to work the following day. Ivy approached my team and congratulated them on their success defeating Mr. Barsotti and his cartel. “Hawthorne, see me in my office, please.” I sighed angrily. I was not ready to take on another mission. Thankfully, this last one was pretty short and sweet, but I felt another long mission ahead of me. She closed the door behind me and I let loose. “Ma’am, with all due respect, I am exhausted—” “Stop, that’s not what I called you in here.” I was confused, if it wasn’t about work, then what would I be in her office for? “Vince, you save lives, plenty of lives. And I know that what you’ve gone through is definitely not easy. I know you can’t save everybody, but you definitely make the world a better place by taking the bad people to justice. With that, I brought you in today to be yourself.” I laughed. “Be myself, what kind of advice is that?” She rolled her eyes and I know she was trying to be genuine. “We are giving you three months of paid time off. You deserve it after being my partner years ago to now. You are an incredible agent and this is my present to you so you can get back to your normal life.” I contemplated what she said and I know her intention was sincere and caring. “Thank you, Ivy.” We got up and hugged each other. “It’s good to have a friend like you,” I said as I left her office.

I celebrated with the team at a bar. We watched some sports, got a couple rounds of beers. This was me. It just felt right. I saw Ivy come into the bar with a guy and saw her join a group of their friends. I saw there was a ring on her finger, and they kissed. She looked at me and I raised my glass to her. She smiled. Dammit. I lost her.

#las vegas

0 notes

aya-chi007 · 7 years

Text

Pickpocket the Stars - Ch.2: Polite

AFF A03

Yoongi sighs as she zips up the side of her skirt, taking care that her mint blouse is tucked neatly into it. Last day of work, have to make a good last impression. She laughs bitterly to herself, brushing back her bangs before picking up a small bow, clipping back her hair to keep it out of her face. She looks perfect, she looks normal, she looks employable, all of which she’s going to need since she’s going hunting for jobs after Jay’s finished with her.

Grabbing a black folder from the nightstand, she hurries out of her bedroom, heels clicking on the laminate wood that spreads through her entire apartment. She has to get to the office and get this all over with. Like ripping off a band-aid.

She steps into the hall, closing her door behind her and taking care to lock it. She’s had a couple break-ins while she’s been living here, she doesn’t want to make it easy for them. She slides her key out of the lock, slipping it into her pocket. Taking a deep breath, she turns, somehow managing to run right into someone.

“Hey, watch whe-” she stop abruptly as deep, rambled apologies drown out her own voice. Frowning, she takes in the black slacks, the pressed dress shirt, a tie decorated with Pokeballs, before finally reaching the guy’s face. “Namjoon, right?” She asks.

He nods sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Y-yeah. Sorry, I didn’t-”

“Shut up,” she cuts him off, rolling her eyes. Her eyes drop from his perfectly styled hair to the messenger bag hanging off his shoulder. “Work?” she asks as she starts walking toward the elevator.

In only a few steps, he’s already caught up to her. Damn, long-legged bastard. “Y-yeah,” he stutters, stepping into the elevator beside her once it arrives. He presses the ‘G’ button before straightening up. “Literature teacher at the high school uptown.”

“If you’re working uptown, why do you live in this hell-hole?” Yoongi asks, not taking her eyes off the numbers counting down to the ground floor.

Namjoon laughs, drawing Yoongi’s attention. He smiles, showing off his dimples. Dammit, he’s kind of adorable. “I’m broke as hell, so I thought it might be a good fit.” He smiles at her before looking away shyly to check what floor they’re at. “I just graduated last week.”

“Oh, I thought you were younger than me,” Yoongi comments offhandedly, “I’m only twenty-one.”

“Then I am younger than you.” At the confused glance, Yoongi shoots him, he clarifies, “I got my associate’s while I was in high school ‘cause of a program my school offered. I only had two years for my degree and did my certification while I was in college.”

The elevator helpfully alerts them of their arrival to the first floor. Yoongi practically runs out, tossing a quick ‘bye’ over her shoulder, barely catching Namjoon’s ‘see you later.’

Even though living in the worst part of town has plenty of downsides, one of the reasons Yoongi keeps living here is because it’s only a couple block away from where the office is located. It’s like walking through a real-life panoramic shot: the crumbling buildings and broken windows of the district she lives in fading into boarded windows and ‘closed’ signs’ until it gives way into the monochrome gray scheme that is downtown.

Downtown never fails to be busy at eight in the morning. Horns blaring from impatient drivers; pedestrians bustling up and down the sidewalk in their pressed suits, briefcases banging against their knees while they walk; jackhammers drilling into the foundation of a construction site that seems like it’ll never be done. Over all of this noise, Yoongi can’t hear her heels click against the concrete as she walks up the steps into a modern-looking glass skyscraper.

It’s like hitting the mute button on life. The only audible sound comes from the click-clack of her heels hitting the marble. It creates a sort of cadence that she marches proudly to, the sound echoing hauntingly around her as she makes her way to the elevator. If she was still into music, she might have recorded it, used it as a beat for a track.

The familiar ‘ding’ of the elevator reminds her that those days are gone as she steps through the open doors. The plain black folder tucked under her arm holds a neatly typed resignation letter. She tries not to think about it as she watches the numbers inside the elevator climb. She enjoyed this job, liked the work she did. Now she has to find another one.

Just before the lift reaches her floor, Yoongi smoothes down her blouse and takes a deep breath. She’s always stuck doing things she doesn’t want to do. When the doors slide open, she struts out into the office space, eyes flitting across the cubicles. She never thought she’d be one for the dull and mundane, but it seems like a paradise compared to doing Jay’s dirty work.

Her eyes dart toward her supervisor’s office, but she turns to walk the other way. A quick glance to her watch tells her it’s five minutes after eight. Her confidence drops as she walks. It’s carpeted up here, she can’t hear her heels. She turns into the break room, which is almost completely deserted, save for one person, who’s busy pouring himself a cup of coffee.

She really doesn’t want to do this. “Morning, Jimin,” she greets kindly, settling herself at the table where Jimin’s briefcase is set.

“Good morning, Yoongi,” Jimin greets with a bright grin, brushing his tousled hair out of his eyes after his sets the coffee pot back onto its warming plate. In two quick strides, he’s sitting beside Yoongi, hands wrapped around his mug. “So…” he drawls, his embarrassment obvious by the slight flush across his cheeks. “What time should I pick you up tonight?”

God, why does he have to look so happy about taking her on a date? “Look, Jimin, we need to talk,” Yoongi says, wincing when she catches the drop in his expression. “You’re a fantastic guy, you really are, and I would have loved to go on a date and see where things went. But the thing is…” she trails off, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She didn’t plan this far, oh god. She was expecting him to get angry, accuse her of leading him on then storm out, not to sit here and patiently hear her out. “I-I got a new job and I’m moving this afternoon,” she lies quickly. “I’m handing in my resignation today.”

“O-oh.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Jimin,” Yoongi whispers, as if the gentleness of her tone will negate the harshness of what she’s saying. “They called last night with the offer and I decided to take it.”

Jimin shakes his head, running a hand back through his hair. “No, it’s fine.” he tells her, “You’re doing what’s best for you and I respect that.” He lets out a self-deprecating chuckle. “I just wish I would have had the courage to ask you out sooner.

“Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty,” Yoongi murmurs wisely, resting a hand on his arm. “Thank you.” As she stands, she presses a kiss to his cheek. “Goodbye, Jimin.”

She walks out of the break room and pretends she doesn’t hear the sound of porcelain shattering in her wake.

Once her resignation is safely in her former supervisor’s hands, Yoongi leaves. She doesn’t want awkward questions or well-wishes from people she’s never even spoken to. It’s a kind of forced politeness that shouldn’t exist outside of grocery stores. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t even exist there.

Yoongi curses as she walks out of the manager’s office, loosening her school uniform tie. Yet another place not hiring. This can’t be happening, not now. She has a date to her senior prom, but no dress. Worst of all, if she can’t get a dress in the next two weeks, she’ll have to cancel.

She walks out of the grocery store, slowing down at the sight of two men standing awfully close to one another, speaking in hushed voices. Carefully, she approaches them, trying not to let them catch her trying to eavesdrop.

“-eed help,” one of the men is saying, glancing around frantically. “I’ve got sharks ‘n’ shit after me, he’s helped me before, I need to get in contact with him again.”

The other man flips his shaggy hair out of his eyes as he chuckles, the sound sending goosebumps down her spine. “You know Jay’s always willing to give out favors as long as you’re willing to do what he wants.” He claps the man’s shoulder, muttering that he’ll get a call later.

Once the first man has scurried off, Yoongi approaches the second man, her pulse racing excitedly. “Excuse me.”

He turns to look over his shoulder at her, showing off his strong profile. “Yes?” He questions as he slides a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Yoongi watches him place one of the smokes in between his lips before speaking.

“I need help,” she admits bluntly, taking a step closer to him. “I need a favor from whoever Jay is.”

The guy freezes, the flame of his lighter going out as he removes the unlit cigarette from his lips and turns to look at her fully. “You’re a kid,” he says in a rough low voice, staring at her incredulously, “Jay don’t deal with kids.”

Yoongi shakes her head, taking another step closer, lowering her own voice. “You said he’ll do favors for whoever is willing to do what he wants,” she reminds him, brushing her long, silky black hair away from her face. “I’m more than willing.”

“Hm…” he studies her for a moment. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Min Yoongi,” she informs him, standing up straight to make the most out of her petite stature.

He nods, the corner of his mouth curling into a wicked smirk. “I’m Kiseok. I’ll talk to him for you.”

Yoongi doesn’t look up at the sound of the bell ringing. She’s too immersed in a stack of pancakes covered in chocolate and strawberries to care about people watching right now. What does catch her attention is a familiar someone sliding into the bench directly on the other side of her table.

Sighing in annoyance, she drops her fork to look up at her company. “Did he seriously send you to make sure I had resigned?” She demands, rubbing the back of her head. The short bristles of her silvery hair scratch at her palm almost soothingly.

Kiseok just smiles at her. He almost looks exactly the same as when they met, except his jawline is sharper and his hair is shorter and actually styled. “It’s almost ten and you weren’t at his place yet. You know he’s not patient.”

“Sucks to suck, I wanted breakfast first,” Yoongi mutters, picking up her fork again so she can go back to tearing into her pancakes. If he’s not going to comment on her going to a diner on the opposite side of town from Jay’s place, she’s not either. She doesn’t look up from her plate until she hears Kiseok laugh. “What’s so fucking funny?”

“You,” Kiseok chuckles, shaking his head. “Look at you. Three years later and you’ve lost your sparkle, your willingness.”

Yoongi grits her teeth. “If you’re just going to make fun of me, get the fuck out. I’ll be at his place after I finish.”

He lets out a thoughtful hum before shaking his head. “Nope, I don’t think so. I have strict orders to drive you over there. You’ve already kept him waiting for too long.”

She doesn’t say anything else, just scarfs down the rest of her food before waving over a waitress so she can pay.

The atmosphere in the car is stiff and awkward. There’s some hip-hop album playing on the radio but Yoongi isn’t listening. She staring out of her window, trying to make a list of all the places she can’t go anymore so she doesn’t run into Jimin. It was bad enough to lie, it’ll be worse if he sees her again.

Too soon, much too soon, Kiseok’s parking the car by the curb in front of that familiar gray house. “You know the way in,” he tells her with a sharp grin, “He’s waiting for you.”

Yoongi just grits her teeth, climbing out of the car and slamming the door behind her with as much force as she can muster. She can hear Kiseok’s muffled laughter as she walks through the gate. Again, she doesn’t bother knocking, just barges through the front door. This time, though, he’s not in the living room.

Sighing, she walks back to the foyer so she can walk up the stairs to the second floor. If he’s not on the couch, then he’s…

Right as she reaches the landing, the door to the study is flung open, followed by a body being tossed out. She sighs, stepping to the side as two familiar guys march out of the office, each grabbing an arm of the man on the floor. If he’s not on the couch, he’s dealing with potential clients. “Hyukwoo. Sunghwa,” she greets the two men dragging the unconscious body toward the stairs, nodding at them. More forced politeness.

They nod back before they start their descent. Sunghwa glances back at her after a couple steps. “He’s not pleasant right now,” he warns her with a scowl. “Wonder who’s fault that is.”

It’s rhetorical, of course it is. Yoongi rolls her eyes as she walks through the open door of the study. Jay’s cradling his head in his hands, elbows resting on the dark wood of his desk. To some, it would be a sign of defeat. Yoongi knows better, can see the tremors running through his arms, the way his shoulders are tense as a strung bow, ready to fire.

Yoongi closes the door behind her softly and locks it before approaching the desk. His dark hair is falling out of place from where it has been styled. If she was a nicer, better, sweeter person, she would have brushed the hair back into place. Instead, she raises a hand and quickly, loudly, slams her palm against the desk.

Jay curses, jerking back at the sharp crack that’s still echoing off the office walls. He looks around wildly before focusing on her, his eyes narrowing. “You’re late.”

“No I’m not,” Yoongi scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “You just said come after I resigned. You didn’t give me a timeframe.”

“Always a smartass,” Jay mutters, glaring up at her, though she can see him fighting back a smile. Ugh. “Did you do what I told you?”

“Would I be here if I hadn’t?”

He ignores her question. “Well, since you don’t have a job, I guess you’ll have to move back in,” he suggests. “Your old room is still free-”

“I have money saved,” Yoongi cuts him off, glowering. “I have enough to make it a few months. That’s more than enough time to find a job.” She puts on a fake smile. “You know I prefer being independent.”

“You mean you enjoy your illusion of independence,” he corrects her, smirking as he leans back in his chair, eyes trailing up and down her body. “Is your next job also going to require the cute bows and pencil skirts? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, it’s really fucking cute on you.”

Embarrassment sends blood rushing to her face as she practically tears out the mint and black polka dot clip keeping her bangs out of her face. “Have to look the part somehow,” she mutters, finally dropping her gaze and slipping the bow into her pocket. “Can I go now?”

“Sure.” Jay shrugs at her, though that stupid smirk she hates so much is still on his lips. “Just don’t be disappointed if you can’t get another job and can’t make rent.” He takes to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. “At least you always have a home here,” he offers again with a grin, pivoting to look out the window behind the desk.

Yoongi sneers, her voice venomous as she fires off, “I’d rather die than live under the same roof as you again.”

She watches Jay freeze, arms dropping by his sides before he’s looking at her. Not, not looking. Glaring. He stalks toward her, but she not going to back up, she’s going to stand her ground. She keeps telling herself that until he’s right on top of her.

Stepping back, she shoots him a dark look, a vehement fuck off leaving her lips when he keeps approaching her. Finally, her back hits the door, leaving her to press against it to try to stay as far away from his as it will allow. Desperately, she throws a punch, trying to deter him. It doesn’t work, of course it doesn’t, she’s watched him work out, seen the strength he possesses that proves his physique isn’t just for show. He catches her fist easily, pinning her wrist against the door above her head.

“You’d do well,” he murmurs as he grabs her other hand and slams it against the door as well. His other hand shifts so he has pressure on both her wrists. “To remember that can be arranged.” He’s angry, oh he’s so fucking pissed. But Yoongi’s always had a bad habit of fanning the flames.

“Do it then,” she spits at him, “Make my fucking day.”

He laughs at that, the sound as cold and dark as his heart, as his free hand comes down to brush her bangs out of her face. “Now why would I give you what you want?” he asks innocently, resting his forehead against hers. The action is so intimate, so familiar that Yoongi feels like she’s going to throw up. “Especially,” he whispers as he moves back, tilting his head so his lips are hovering over hers. “When you won’t give me what I want?”

Yoongi doesn’t answer, keeping her eyes down so she doesn’t have to see the way he’s looking at her. It’s worse than anger. Jay smirks at that, cooing ‘good girl’ before pressing a kiss to her lips. She doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look up until he’s let go of her and moved away. Once she sees his back is facing her, she turns immediately to unlock the door, yanking it open and practically throwing herself out of the door.

She’s down the stairs in records time. She doesn’t remember if she passed by anyone on her way out or on the street. The next thing she registers is leaning against an alley wall, emptying the contents of her stomach. She coughs roughly, spitting out the last bit of residue in her mouth before straightening up. She has a mission now: go home, brush her teeth, go out and put in as many applications in as many places as she can.

She’s not letting him win.

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