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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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One thing that has always bothered me about the magical system in HP is how much it... doesn’t exist? No one questions anything, there’s almost no theoretical exploration, and Hermione Granger (someone I’ve always found to be of average intelligence at best) is the brightest witch of her age.

Some characters seem to be inexplicably more powerful, but I wonder if it isn’t simply a matter of discipline and will-power.

What are your thoughts on magic? We never really see what light vs. dark entails, so fanfic authors tend to make it up as they go along, but do you have any head-canons about how magic works in HP?

I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t really the point of JKR’s series. She just wanted to write about a kid going to a magic boarding school in Scotland with this quirky witch aesthetic.

No need for her to placate us uber nerds who demand a sensible explanation to the minutia of her magical system.

Right, but yes, it clearly bothers me too. No one questions anything, there’s no understanding of why wands and spells even work, or why it has to be in this weird pseudo-Latin. No one even bothers to learn Latin, for that matter, and you think they would given the damn spells.

Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of her age given that “her age” is either around 30 people (the amount of people in her year) or else around 300 (the population of Hogwarts at a given time) which is a pitiful amount. She also is an extremely hard worker and actually reads her textbooks, sadly I think this gets you ahead of 95% of the population.

Part of the reason I think the Wizarding World thinks like this is that they’re this incredibly tiny, cut off, insular society. Generally, when you have a small society cut off like that you tend to lose innovation or even understanding of technology you have.

But that’s not what you asked. Right.

Personally, I think there is no light and dark magic. Magic is just this part of the natural universe that muggles, for whatever reason, are not able to directly access. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is. For that matter, I don’t think spells themselves really exist, or rather, they’re not what magic really is in its purest form but instead a way that humans can easily access and control magic to perform a certain task. Kind of a glorified API if you will.

So, dark magic and light magic are instead arbitrary labels that wizards apply to their own tool box based on the functions of that tool. If you have a tool that is only designed for/can be used for the murder and torture of sentient beings: well, that’s bad, we’ll call that dark. That said, do I think the spells themselves are inherently evil? No. It’s like if you open up your tool box, pick out a sledgehammer, and go, “This, my child, is an instrument of pure evil and you must never touch it.” Well, that’s a bad comparison, it’d be like taking a handgun out of your tool box and saying “this is a dark weapon”. Now, this gets into a debate I don’t want to get into, but to me dark spells are a lot like handguns (they’re designed for only one purpose and there’s no squirming your way out of what that purpose is).

Now, I think wizards have forgotten this (mostly because they don’t understand what spells or magic is), and so they get very hung up on the labels of spells or even just your odd genetic trait (i.e. parseltongue). So, we have these weird moments where someone uses, say, the severing charm to cut somebody open in the middle of the street. And it’s less bad than if they had used the killing curse to kill them painlessly and easily, because the severing charm’s not dark magic.

It’s like... If someone were to walk out and bash someone over the head with a sledgehammer until it kills them it’s less evil than if they shot them in the head with a handgun.

Wizards seem to miss the point of this.

As for what magic is, I believe it’s... direct energy that wizards are able to access in a way that muggles (thus far) cannot. What do I mean by thus far? Well, look at electricity. In ye olden days, I’m sure that if you asked a wizard they would say that making artificial light without flame is a property solely done by magic and muggles are not capable of it. Well, muggles then did it, and suddenly the definition and parameters of magic change. Wizards are kind of like chess grand masters who suddenly lose to your AI du jour, who say that it doesn’t count because the AI didn’t really do it like a human would. It’s not real intelligence.

I don’t believe people have magic in and of themselves, any more than anyone else does at any rate, because we see too little differences between powerful and mediocre wizards. You’re either a squib or you’re not, there doesn’t really seem to be a spectrum, and those who struggle with spells appear to do so for other reasons (Neville has severe confidence issues and is traumatized, Harry’s an idiot, etc.)

I think what separates the great wizards from the rest is hard work, the ability to read books and learn from them, even an inkling of understanding of how spells really work and how to create them (and this makes you Voldemort level right here), and a good ear to be able to pronounce your ridiculous pseudo Latin.

The wand is a tool specifically designed so that, with repeatable easy to understand steps, you can perform a whole array of tasks and even use them as building blocks to develop a new spell (combine swishes, flicks, and various garbled sentences together in such a way and BAM new spell).

Your wand, in other words, is your API to direct and access untold amounts of energy from the universe.

But people have forgotten that so instead what you memorize are very specific function calls that will prove useful in your daily life.

As for the wand and spells themselves, well, here’s my hokey ridiculous theory on how that came about. A long time ago, a brilliant foreigner enters the Roman Empire with a revolutionary idea that puts him on the level of Einstein/Newton/Feynman Name Your Stupidly Brilliant Physicist. He says, hey, how about instead of doing these time consuming magical rituals we develop a tool that, in a matter of seconds, allows us to perform truly complicated and powerful magic any time we want. No more relying on having the right ingredients about, virgin sacrifices, the full moon, etc.

Everyone probably laughs at him, but then he goes off and designs a rudimentary wand, and through probably some uber ritual that was dangerous as hell implements this system by which by flicking your wand a certain way and saying basic commands like “levitate”, “repair”, etc. you can perform these tasks.

Only, the guy’s foreign and Good Will Hunting (no formal education in the empire), so he doesn’t actually speak Latin. So what you have instead is this weird half-Latin like, “Leviupwards Fly”, “Repair-o”, etc.

It sounds dumb as hell, but goddammit it works, and more it gives Roman wizards an unheard of advantage against their enemy wizards who are all stuck doing these stupid rituals. They suddenly have a vast military might, so long as they use these wands and spells this guy came up with.

Everybody who’s anybody, who wants to win a fight, is now using wands. Wandcraft becomes a huge deal and people specialize in fine tuning these things exactly so as to get the maximum efficiency for a particular user.

And they probably go up to our guy and say, “Hey, buddy, can you make this in actual Latin? I can barely remember what it is I’m supposed to say to get this to work” and after the hours, and hours, and hours he spent making this thing that nobody helped him with he goes, “DO IT YOURSELF, BITCH”. And they never do because they’re too damn lazy/have no idea how he actually did it and any attempt to recreate it ends up with something that’s pitiful and doesn’t work.

So, they’re all stuck with it, and thousands of years later they forget this guy even existed and while there’s a recognition that not all magic has to be performed by wands there’s just this feeling that the wand is the magic. And so no one will ever come up with an English/French/Whatever version where when you say “Up” the thing goes up.

And that’s “The History of Magic” as brought to you by The Carnivorous Muffin.

#ask #harry potter #magic #headcanons #anti hermione granger #anti harry potter

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oumakokichi · 3 years

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What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.) Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.) Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.) Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.) Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.) Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.) Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.) In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

#danganronpa #new danganronpa v3 #dangan ronpa #ndrv3 spoilers //#ask #anonymous #this isn't meta but it's IS a comprehensive masterlist of translation comparisons #so i think it's okay to post in the tag #okay to reblog

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canonicallysoulmates · 3 years

Note

Just saw your post about the post phase 1 Marvel movies and the meme you used for CA:CW. So I'm here to ask and get you cancelled. What did you think about the movie? Are you Team Stark or Team Rogers?

........................................................I knew this day would come......okay, let's get me cancelled!

I hate this movie, I hate this movie with every fiber of my being. Watching it was torture, it as the longest 20hrs of my life. It was like living out one of those very confusing math problems I started this movie at 10am somehow 6pm rolls around and there are still 2hrs left! Coño cómo?! I watched this with my mom, and when we checked how much time was left we were left looking at each other like 'que carajo what twilight zone bullshit is this?' It's one of those Marvel movies that I am so glad I did not waste my money on, I wish I could get a refund for my time but I made my choice and I shall now have to deal with it.

I hate this movie for many reasons but I'm not gonna make y'all wait any longer for what you're really here for because I know what y'all really want to know is whether I am Team Iron Man or Team Captain America. When it comes to the political aspects ie. the Accords, I am Team Neither.

Now, I cannot get into a comprehensive debate about the Accords because the writers did a shitty ass job, in a 2 and a 1/2 hour movie that felt like a lifetime, at explaining what exactly the Accords are in the movie universe. Emphasis on the movie universe, because I have seen debates go on in this motherfucking fandom where some people will bring up aspects from the comics Registration Acts but we're not talking about the comics okay, we're talking about the movies! And they're two fucking different things! And the movie did a shitty ass job at explaining what the Accords are, and that's one of the reasons I hate this movie: that it's so badly written.

But back to the point, which is where I stand on the teams when it comes to the politics, I am Team Neither because ultimately they were both idiots on how they handled this, and I think they both have good points like yes the Avengers and other superheroes should 100% be held accountable if they fuck up, the fact that they are superheroes and the "good guys" doesn't mean that their actions shouldn't have consequences but at the same time Steve's mistrust of the government and concerns that the team and others could be weaponized are also valid so I think they both have good points when it comes down to it and the smart thing to do - and in my opinion what would have made a much better film- would have been to come together and make like a counterproposal, decide on amendments, try to ensure they can get a representative so they have a voice on the table.

So, there you go when it comes to the Accords I am Team Neither however when it comes to the characters and their actions I am 1,000% Team Tony. At the end of the day he wanted to do what was best for both people and for his team, he wanted to keep the team together because he knew they were stronger together, and he was thinking long term not short term.

And then there's Steve who is an asshole in this film and completely lacks self awareness, cause there's a scene in the film after they've found out about the Accords where Steve goes "that's because he already made up his mind" about Tony and I'm just like bitch so did you, pot meet kettle, Rogers you knew from the get go that you weren't going to sign those papers don't go acting different and then like- here's the thing Steve has some very good points when it comes to the Accords but one of his points is that the UN is filled with people with agendas and agendas change which true but also motherfucker you yourself have an agenda! The whole Sokovia mess is an example that they cannot be trusted to hold themselves or each other accountable because inevitably the time will come where they'll want to protect their team mate like we see in this movie Steve do with Bucky, or how he wanted to protect Wanda because he looks at her as if she were a child not an adult. Steve, you lot are not exempt from having your own agendas and biases.

And through pretty much the entire movie, he has this whole my way or the highway attitude like this man does not know the meaning of compromise in this film, and he has such tunnel vision for Bucky- and listen! listen, listeeeeeen, I get it, I don't judge Steve for making his bestie a priority; I understand that Bucky is incredibly important to Steve, that he's the one person who's gonna look at him as just Steve and not as the Steve Rogers, I get that he carries a guilt over what happened to his friend, I understand he misses him, I understand all of that and respect the ride or die game but goddamn he was so focused on being a good friend to Bucky that he forgot about everyone and everything else and was a shit friend to Tony.

Actually a lot of people in this film were shit to Tony for no goddamn reason but Steve was such a shitty friend not telling Tony about his parents, that was a shitty ass thing to do and listen! I know what some of y'all are thinking you're thinking some version of 'he wanted to protect Tony' shut the fuck up. No, no, that's an excuse and it's a cheap one, you know damn well that was a shitty thing for Steve to do and y'all know damn well you would have reacted the same way Tony did if someone who you thought was your goddamn friend knew about something horrible that happened to people that were important to you and they never told you; that kind of shit hurts, and finding out someone you thought of as a friend doesn't care about you as much as you care about them hurts.

And y'all know goddamn well how emotions work, you know emotions aren't gonna wait for the rational brain to kick in don't some of y'all go playing dumb as if you didn't know this shit. Same way deep down all of y'all know Tony was holding his punches, that man gave Thanos a fight and got some blood if he had wanted to kill Bucky he would have. Don't none of y'all motherfuckers try to play games and act like you don't know this info.

Steve was a shit friend to Tony. Period. The least he could have done is have some empathy or compassion towards Tony when he saw his parent's being killed- and I swear to motherfucking god to the person who is getting close to their keyboard thinking of saying he showed compassion by not killing him back the fuck away from your motherfucking keyboard what did I tell you about playing stupid, this is properly tagged, stay in your fucking lane. Some of y'all be acting as if it were still 2016 and we're gonna be talking about that too, anon wanted my opinion on this film so now I'm going off.

Back to what I was saying, in some ways Steve wasn't a perfect friend to Bucky either cause he kept looking at Bucky and thinking of the guy he used to know but Bucky's not that person anymore, he's been through a lot of shit and it feels at times like Steve didn't fully realize that.

I hate Steve in this movie, I wanna punch him in the throat; he's an ass, he thinks he's above the rules, he's unaware of his own flaws, he might be a good friend to Bucky but that's it. I don't blame Steve though I blame the writers cause they're the ones who wrote him this way; moving on from Steve, I wanna talk about Wanda real quick, I don't hate the character of Wanda but I do hate the way she was written in this film, I hate that the writers expect us as an audience to look at this adult and think of her as a defenseless child who should be exempt from consequences, I hate that instead of actually doing something with her and exploring some interesting dynamics they just give her an AI boyfriend and a pinterest quote which sounds nice but falls flat especially considering she says said quote as she uses her powers (which is what people are afraid of) to send her love interest down several floors of a building. They could have done so many cool and interesting things with her, shame they didn't.

Another thing I hate about this film is what it did to the fandom, and how it was promoted because it was very much promoted as a pick your fighter, pick a side type of movie and after this movie came out I feel like the divide between Tony fans and Steve fans grew toxically and the effects are still seen to this day like some people really do be acting as if it were still 2016 and attacking others for what side they went with or for who their fav between the two is, and I'll be very honest a lot of the hate I have seen has been directed towards Tony and Tony fans. I hate that, I hate when TPTB deliberately pits fans against each other cause it just encourages a toxic environment.

Let me think was there anything that I liked about this film- wait, oh my god talking about all these other things I hate almost made me forget the thing I hate the most about this movie: it's pointless. Its existence is unnecessary; the biggest aspect of this film isn't the politics of the Accords, it's Steve and Bucky and how far Steve is willing to go for Bucky and have him by his side...but Endgame exists. The end of Endgame turns this film pointless, because the only true point of this movie is the relationship between Steve and Bucky that's the biggest takeaway from the whole thing, but then you have the end of Endgame where Steve just leaves Bucky.

I hated this film before I saw Endgame but after.....I never plan to watch Civil War again but if I did I'm pretty sure I'd self combust cause I'd be so angry I'd scream every time Steve appeared cause that son of a bitch ends up leaving; tears the whole team apart only to end up leaving his friend behind in the end.

I hate this film, I hate everything about it, well that's not true I love the Tony and Peter stuff, but aside from a couple of things I hate this movie, someone give me time stone I'm eliminating it from the timeline.

So, there you go those are my thoughts on CA: CW.

In conclusion, I am Team Neither on the Accords, Team Tony on everything else, Steve I still like you but this movie demoted you in my eyes and makes me wanna punch you in the throat.

#i clearly had a lot to say #anon do you see the pandora's box you've opened #anti captain america civil war #anti civil war #anti cacw #steve rogers critical #pro tony stark #mcu negativity #mcu fandom critical #wanda maximoff critical #anti steve rogers #i'm not anti steve but i did say this post would be properly tagged #non spn #anon #ask #long post

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marvelsimp · 3 years

Text

The New Kid: Arriving

Ch. 2

The New Kid Masterlist

Genre: Fluff, Angst Pairing: Peter x Lesbian!reader (Platonic duh) , Avengers & Reader Warnings: General angst, swearing, Description: It’s the reader’s birthday so Peter takes her to Avenger’s Tower and there are a few surprises along the way. Reader’s Powers: Healing, telepathy, and empath. Word Count: 3,073

“So, what are the plans for today?”

“You’ll just have to find out,” Peter said smiling.

“Come on its my birthday, you gotta tell me,” you whined.

“Don’t worry it’ll be fun but first, donuts.” He opened the door to a donut shop that you were just about to walk past. You grinned; donuts were definitely one of your favorite things for breakfast. Peter quickly went up to the counter and ordered two chocolate donuts for himself and then your two favorites.

“How’d you know my order? We’ve never gotten donuts together,” you said while sitting down at a table.

He looked at you a little offended. “Y/n, we’ve known each other for almost a year know. And you talk about food, especially breakfast food way, too, much.”

‘Fair enough,” you scoffed.

You and Peter sat there eating for maybe fifteen minutes when Peter suddenly got up, “Looks like our ride is here.”

You looked out and there was a black car that had just pulled up. You shot Peter a confused look but decided asking questions would get you nowhere. So, you followed him out and got in the car door he opened for you.

“Happy, this is Y/n. Y/n, this is Happy,” Peter said while getting into the car himself.

You waved and smiled at Happy, he nodded and then started driving. “So, umm,” you weren’t quite sure where you were going with that much less where you were going at all.

“Y/n, calm down,” he teased. “I wouldn’t make you do anything you aren’t comfortable with, especially on your birthday.”

You let out a sigh. The rest of the car trip there wasn’t much talking, you just looked out the window and took in the city that was becoming your new home. When you finally arrived you had no clue where you were until you got out of the car and looked up. Your eyes grew wide in surprise and excitement. “What the hell, Parker?” You exclaimed while slapping Peter’s arm.

“Surprise,” he grinned.

You were at Avengers Tower; you’d always wanted to go since if first opened after the attack on New York. The first two floors were open to the public but the rest of the floors were for the Avengers, it was very rare for anyone else to be allowed to enter.

Peter just smiled interlocking your arms together and walked you into the building. Over the next two hours you walked from one station to another. Some were a bit more historic and just listed facts about important Avenger events. Some were video games or short documentaries about each individual avenger, or at least most of them. Your favorite one was the VR game where you got to play as an Avenger, you chose Captain Marvel while Peter chose Ironman.

When you had seemingly finished, you were a little sad but Peter quickly lifted you spirts, “Don’t worry I have another surprise.”

You could feel the excitement absolutely radiate off of him, you were pretty sure that even if you didn’t have powers that you’d still feel it. Peter grabbed your hand and dragged you out of the building. He led you the back of the building to a garage like area and then to an elevator. You quickly caught on. He was taking you to the upper levels, the Avengers Levels.

“Peter, your n-“

“Friday, I have a guest. Let Mr. Stark know that we’re here.”

“Yes, Mr. Parker he is already aware. Would you like me to send you straight up to him?”

“Yes, please,” he said while stepping onto the elevator, dragging you along.

“Peter, are you introducing me to THE Tony Stark?”

He nodded. “Oh yeah,” he perked up, “Friday, this is Y/n Y/l/n. Y/n, this is Friday.”

“Hello, Miss Y/l/n. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“It’s, um, nice to meet you, too,” you say looking at the ceiling.

“She’s Mr. Stark’s AI for the building. She’s also in his suits,” Peter explained.

“Like Karen?”

“Like Karen.”

You were anxious to say the least. You were in Avengers tower and about to meet TONY STARK. You collected yourself as the elevator rose, taking in a few breaths. “You could’ve warned me.”

“Surprising you is more fun.”

You rolled your eyes, “My own best friend keeping such a big secret from me!”

“Hmm, like you haven’t kept anything from me.”

“That’s different!”

You both had big smiles on your faces as the elevator doors opened and there they were the Avengers. Your face dropped, “Holy fuck!” You said that a lot louder than you meant, your hands covered your mouth, as the Avengers turned their heads to look at you. You quickly slid over in the elevator to be out of their lines of view as you could hear a few snickers. You turned to Peter slapping his arm a few times. “You asshole!” you whispered angrily.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he laughed. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, though!”

“Peter! Those are the Avengers! Why are you laughing?!?!”

“Come on, Y/n. They’ll love you and I’m not the one who just screamed ‘fuck,’” he whispered in your ear.

You muttered trying to figure out what to say. You sighed at the stupid boy in front of you then you took a deep breath in. “Fine. Oh my god.”

You shook off your anxiety and when you were ready you gave Peter a light shove, making him lead the way. The room, or what ever it was, was huge. The main section, or where the Avengers were, was elevated from where the elevator was so you had to look up at them. It was to say the least intimidating, but they all seemed to just be hanging out on the couches that were on the platform.

You looked to the left, right over Peter’s shoulder, and there he was Tony Fucking Stark. Right behind him were Steve Rodgers and Bucky Barnes who were talking between themselves. Close behind them was the Falcon, you only didn’t know his name because the public didn’t know his name. Some of the Avengers were like that, their true names weren’t know so the media used other names, such as Falcon, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and a few more. You had stopped walking and there he was, your mind was running at light speed while your mouth hadn’t even started walking yet.

“Y/n, this is Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark, this is Y/n!” said Peter who was once again beaming with excitement.

“Tony, please,” Mr. Sta-Tony corrected. “I can never convince him to call me that.”

You turned your head to seen Peter’s face go a little red, causing you to chuckle. You turned back to Tony, you were amazed… more like in shock. “I-It’s an honor to meet you.” You felt like you should bow or something, they were like royalty to you but you resisted the urge. “And yeah Peter’s likes that, an idiot. Umm, I can’t believe I’m meeting you, cause someone decided not to tell me.” Tony smirked at your response. “I’d love to ask you about your suits, they are absolutely amazing! Especially the nano technology its incredible.”

“We can talk about that later, kid. But for now, you gotta meet the rest of the crew.” With that he walked away, back to the platform with the couches.

“You’re trying to kill me, Parker,” you whispered in your best friend’s ear as the three men who had been behind Tony approached.

You were freaking out all over again. Three more Avengers, you were meeting Avengers.

“Steve,” the blond man reached his hand out.

“Y/n,” you said reaching to shake Captain America’s hand. “And you’re, uh, Bucky.” He just nodded in return. You turned to the other man, you scrunched your face saying a sort of sorry.

The man just stepped forward, barley bumping into Bucky, “Sam.”

“What the hell was that for?” Bucky growled, clearly angry that Sam had touched him.

“Language,” said Steve who looked like he was dealing with two toddlers.

“Don’t ‘language’ me,” he turned back to Steve. “She just said a way worse word than that, not even five minutes ago!” he said pointing his finger at you. You gritted you teeth and turned your head a little in shame.

Steve scoffed at Bucky then turned back to you. “Nice to meet you, doll,” he says grabbing Bucky’s metal arm dragging him and Sam away from you and Peter.

That whole interaction through you off. “That was-“

“Weird?”

“Yeah, this one hundred percent makes me feel like I’m in a fanfic,” you say trying to ease your anxieties.

He just blushes.

“Come on I’m not even talking about sm-”

“Ahem,” a brunette woman coughs to get your attention. You look over and there are the Scarlet Witch and Natasha Romanoff. You blush, both of them are a lot prettier in person and they caught you in the middle of a weird sentence. “I’m Wanda,” she says with a kind smile. The rest of the Avengers seemed excited or at least a little happy and she was but you could also feel her mourning. A type of mourning she was hiding away, trying to ignore, wouldn’t accept. You understood that kind of mourning.

“And I’m Nat. Oh, and you might want to watch out.”

Suddenly you were grabbed from behind and picked up. “Lady Y/n,” said the thundering voice, “It is an honor to meet you.”

You got the wind knocked out of you but you eventually let out a big long laugh. You turned your head and as you had suspected it was Thor. “It’s nice to meet you too,” you giggled.

“How about you let her down now?” instructed it calm voice behind you. With that Thor set you gently on the ground. “I’m Bruce,” stated the man stepping around the god to see you.

Your eyes widen, you have Dr. Bruce Banner in front of you. You were going to ask about his PhDs or something along those lines, but you were interrupted by Friday.

“I would like to inform everyone that lunch is now ready.”

Everyone made their way to a large table. You clutched onto Peter’s arm hoping you didn’t faint or get overwhelmed and have an anxiety attack, even though you were surprisingly calm. You ended up sitting with Peter on your left and Wanda on your right. You soon discovered that lunch was pizza. Thank god. You were afraid it was going to be something fancy. Wanda offered to get you some you favorites using her powers, to which you accepted.

“So, Y/n,” Tony started, “Peter tells me that you’ve already graduated from high school.”

“Uh, yeah. After the blip, when I came back, my school was no longer running so I decided to do school from home. It was just easier so I spent my time pouring over my studies and working on some projects. I finished what would usually be five semesters in about five months?”

Tony seemed to be impressed. “Tell me about the projects you were working on.” You looked over to Peter, kind of asking if he had told him about your powers. It took him a second to understand but he returned with a nod. “After I came back I discovered my powers so I used an old microscope and collected some of my blood to study.” You went on to explain your process and what you found. You then continued by talking about your projects. The avengers would ask questions, mostly Tony, Bruce, and Peter.

Then you felt it, it was like someone was screaming in your ear. Loki. That couldn’t be right, Loki died during one of the battles with Thanos. As you began to understand and test your powers you learned that a person’s subconscious was almost always saying their name, the only time that becomes loud enough for you to hear is when the person is trying to focus or is under a crap ton of stress. The screaming persisted. You finally decided to turn you powers completely on to figure out exactly where it was coming from. You finally discovered it to be the man who seemed to be preparing some desserts. The voice screaming Loki over and over continued to grow louder and louder. The sound was banging around your skull causing you to develop a slight headache. You turned to Wanda, you wanted to make sure before you started to throw around accusations of Loki being in Avengers Tower. “Wanda,” you whispered in her ear, “could you read that guy’s mind over there. Something feels off.”

She nodded her head. Her eyes had a very faint red glow to them. After a few seconds she suddenly stood up causing everyone to turn their heads to her, a few them went into instant defense mode, ready for a fight. Her hands began to glow red and the man was now surrounded in the red glow too. “Reveal yourself or I will,” she demanded.

The man groaned and rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said while transforming and revealing himself to be Loki.

Thor stood up quickly his happy demeanor turned mincing as he held his hand out for what you assumed to be for Mjolnir to arrive.

Peter quickly picked you up from your chair and ran you out to the elevator. Which was smart because now there was yelling and screaming. “Friday take us to the game floor… Shit!” Peter grinned punching your arm slightly.

“Didn’t know I could do that.”

“No, just didn’t expect Loki to be here much less alive!”

You went on to explain to Peter how you had discovered the God of Mischief while to elevator when down. Eventually it stopped and you two got out. You finished your story just as Peter opened the first door.

“This is the gym.” It was a expansive room, a portion of it was just the usual work out gear, a ginormous rock wall, and a boxing ring. “Over here is my favorite bit.” Peter led you to a door. When you stepped through it was full of walls that didn’t meet the ceiling, little secret paths and quite a few upper platforms.

“This is where we play laser tag,” Peter explained, “It’s meant for training but also fun! Everything can be changed with a push of a button.” He walks over to a panel on the wall and pushes a few buttons on the tablet. The room then shifts and changes, its now a little more direct with a lot of less tunnels and more simple hiding spots. Peter then walks over to a wall that has some vests and weapons. He turns to you with a cheeky grin, “Do you wanna play?”

You smile reaching your hand out to receive a vest. “Game on.”

You and Peter play for who knows how long, but it distracted both of you from what happened upstairs. Even with both of your regenerative abilities you were both panting and sweating after half a dozen rounds but still having fun. Then Friday spoke up, “Peter, Mr. Stark has informed me that you need to check your phone.” You both pause your game; Peter reaches for his back pocket and reads a message.

“What does it say?”

“Umm, he just wanted to let us know that they got Loki,” he says peeking up from behind a wall then you shoot at him missing. “Cheater!” After a few more rounds Peter asks, “Do you want to continue the tour? We can always come back here later.”

“Yes, please,” you say catching your breath. You and Peter put up the gear, get some water and then exit the gym area. He shows you a massive olympic size pool with several diving boards of different heights. Then he takes you to a huge game room. It has several TVs, computers, there’s even a small VR room, and of course there are tons of board games.

Since he got that text form Tony, Peter’s excitement keeps growing and growing. “You have another surprise, what is it?”

Peter opens his mouth then closes and he lets out a sigh, he’s a terrible liar and you’re basically a walking talking lie detector. “Come on,” he lets out sounding a little defeated.

You let out a chuckle, he leads you back to the elevator. “Friday, take us to the living area”

The elevator rises. It takes you to a common area, there’s a kitchen, dining table, and a tv with some couches and chairs all in the same room. You assume, like Peter said, that this is where the avengers live.

“I wanted to show you the labs first, but I think you’ll like this a little more. This is where the Avengers live,” he grins like he always does with pure joy escaping him. “The Starks’ have the Penthouse, so they don’t have rooms down here and there’s a floor just for King T’Challa and his family, Princess Shuri’s nice you’d love her.” He leads you to a hallway with several doors. “At the end of the hall there is a guest room on each side. This hall has War Machine’s, Hawkeye’s, Widow’s, Antman’s, Dr. Banner’s, and Dr. Strange’s rooms.” He had pointed to each one respectively. He then walks to the opposite side of the living space and to another hallway. Instead of stopping before the hallway he continued walking into it. “These on the left are Falcon’s, Wanda’s, Bucky’s, and Steve’s. On the right there’s Captain Marvel’s, Thor’s, mine, and this one...” he opens door that’s in between his and Thor’s and walks in, you follow. “This is yours.”

You let out a gasp and put your hand to your mouth. All of your stuff is here, your bedding, posters, pictures, clothes, all of it. You can feel the tears streaming down your face and you turn to Peter who is smiling with tear filled eyes. “What?” you breathe out not sure what to say. Peter simply pointed to a note on the bed. You walk over to it and read it:

“Welcome to the team, we got a lot to talk about but for now enjoy. -The Avengers”

“I..” you turn to Peter who is now crying, too. You walk to him and engulf him in a hug and whisper, “Thank you.”

Next Chapter

Arriving-deleted Scene

#avengers #the avengers #avengers x reader #angst #fluff #avengers x lesbian #peter parker #peter parker x platonic!reader #avengers x fem!reader #LGBT #x reader #the new kid

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copperpieceharlot · 3 years

Note

Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

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tinalbion · 3 years

Note

4,5,7,10,13,14,39 for 'horror asks' please! (Also, I apologise if someone already asked those before me)

Aww thank you for sending some asks in, I always love interacting with these things and I love when you guys send stuff in! <3 And don't apologize, if anything I can link to the original one I replied to! No biggie! Thanks for asking me these!

4. you can go back in time and watch a horror movie of your choice on its premiere - which movie are you going to see?

Oh my gosh, I'd so want to see the original Nightmare on Elm Street, obviously. It's been my favorite film for years and just how scared people had gotten by films like this back in the 80s, oh I would have been in heaven! This one or Freddy Vs Jason because I don't care what ANYONE says, it still holds up and I love this film so damn much!

A little side story, a couple of years back they showed the OG Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2 for a double feature night, and the entire theater went WILD. They all hooted and hollered, were just excited to see these films on the big screen. One of the best nights of my life! Wish this would happen again.

5. if you were a character in a horror movie, what kind of movie would it be? what kind of character would you be? what would be your fate?

I know it would mostly be a B horror movie, slasher. I'd be the 'Pawn' character, you know, the one who opens the box that shouldn't be open, messes with a demonic board game or disturbs the abandoned summer camp just because I'm an overly curious idiot.

7. answer for real life vs if you were a slasher movie character: a murder has occurred. somebody you knew, though only in passing, got knifed by some psycho killer and the whole town is in shock. the school fool has taken it upon themselves to throw a party in the midst of all of this, "to celebrate life", as they say. - you get an invitation but are you going to the party?

Real life: Knowing me, and I know this is gonna sound so awful, but if aI knew them in passing, it wouldn't really seem real to me and I wouldn't know how to react. So I'd just be all, "oh I'm sorry for your loss but no thanks." I am NOT stupid enough to get caught in the middle of that mess, plus if I didn't know the person, why would I go?

Movie character: Hell yeah I'm going! Any reason to just forget about anything crazy going on and drown it out with BOOZE! '

I never said I was SMART in these situations.

10. answer for real life vs if you were a slasher movie character: a strange figure is standing in front of your window; unmoving and simply staring at you. - what do you do?

Real life: Fucking duck down, call the cops, arm myself with anything I could, and check the doors/ windows. I am on high alert and so strung out by this and I'm not gonna chance anything.

Movie character: I look out and squint my eyes, stare back a moment, shout: "the fuck you looking at?!" I get no response, so I shrug and walk off, enjoying my cup of coffee at 8 o'clock at night like the chaotic gremlin I am.

Say the truth at my funeral, please, that I was an idiot.

13. you're offered the chance to privately talk to a horror villain of your choice, currently kept secure in a government facility. your safety during the encounter is guaranteed. do you take the offer? and if you do, who do you pick? why?

Oh man, that is SUCH a tough question! I love so many and I figured since Taylor got to do a sit down with Leslie and picked his brain already, I'd have to go with Charles Lee Ray.

14. would you rather try to escape from Michael Myers chasing you with a knife, Jason Voorhees chasing you with his machete, or Freddy Krueger tormenting you in your dreams and chasing you with his glove?

C'mon, if you know me, you KNOW I'd pick Freddy anytime. Plus I feel like I COULD maybe have a chance with getting away from him slightly unscathed, and at least there will be a conversation to be shared.

39. what do you think of modern horror? in general, but also in comparison to horror of the past?

I answered this one here!

#tinalbion speaks #horror themed asks #anon asks

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans are Space Orcs, “Animal Planet Vexon”

The ending to this particular series, I hope you guys like how it turns out.

“No, give that back, drop it…. Drop it!.” The human bared their teeth playfully at the camera man and tugged harder on the camera equipment.

“No, drop it! Bad human, Doctor! Doctor!” But by then it was too late, With one last tug, the human yanked the camera form the crewman’s hand and scampered off with it chattering in it’s strange language. The other humans gathered around grabbing for the camera, fighting for it like the pack of wild animals they were.

The doctor looked over at the crew with the shake of his head, “Dont expect to see that again any time soon ... sorry .”

Across the room, the humans were playing with it , flipping it over and pressing the buttons with gleeful chattering to each other. A single human sat in the middle while the others stood around pointing and prodding at the camera.

“Come on, that was expensive. Now I’m going to owe the studio.”

The crew zooms in on the humans playing with the piece of equipment flipping it over and prodding at it with their slim, delicate fingers. They almost expected the humans to start chewing on it, though they seemed pleased enough to pass it back and forth to each other playing with the buttons and turning the screen around to stare at the lens.

The Alpha followed after them and began chirping at them and pointing just like the rest.

“Look at them, so curious.” One of the crewmembers noticed.

Krill nodded, “Oh humans just love playing with things, they are very very curious, and very smart too. They are great at social learning. Humans have been observed to attempt similar behaviors after seeing them. They are excellent mimics. In fact, in certain cases, you can teach a human how to speak/”

“Oh, well that would be a fun party trick, wouldn't it.”

Here, watch this.”

“Adam, Adam come.” The Alpha lifted his head and looked over at them before happily trotting over, leaving the other humans to look over the camera, “Adam, Sit.”

The human did as requested, happily taking his seat, “Like I said, humans are smart and can understand most basic commands. However that also depends on the temperament of your human, some humans do not like to be told what to do, so are liable to do the exact opposite of what you want.”

He patted the human’s head, this humans is very well behaved though, so I don’t tend to worry about tat with him.

The cameras turned away from where the humans were playing and back towards the doctor.

“So, is there anything else you can tell us about humans.”

Krill smiled, “Oh yes, Having lived with the humans for a while, I tend to find them very mischievous. Humans just love to play games and pranks with each other. They will often behave in ways that are contrary to their instincts in order to confuse people they think are idiots.”

“Oh, that is very interesting, and what does that look like.”

“Well, generally the humans take a target, specifically a target for social ridicule, then they start to behave strangely, and since humans are very good socially, they are also excellent at faking along with other humans. One human can start something and an entire group of humans can pick up on the message and begin doing the same thing. In fact, humans have a habit of acting dumber than they really are to confuse victims of ridicule who aren't smart enough to tell the difference. Humans especially love irony, and often that includes behaving in a way contrary to how they feel in order to throw someone off balance. It is a very interesting tactic to watch in person.” He motioned them to come after with a hand and the group of them stood up to follow him down the hall as he continued to speak, “Here, lets get you a little more acquainted with the ship.”

“So doctor, Mendex began, “This ship, how did the humans build it, I mean the ARE smart, but from what I have seen, they aren't smart enough to be capable of running a vessel like this. It seems far too complicated no matter how rudimentary for a group of uncommunicative bipeds. “

The doctor turned to look at them, and the group went very silent for a moment, they almost worried if they had offended the doctor in some way, but then the doctor responded flatly, and quiet without emotion in either direction, “Oh yeah, humans are complete idiots, in fact they used to be a whole lot smarter, but once they reached the state of developing robotic technology there was no longer any evolutionary need for them to be smart, so they devolved backwards towards their more animistic state. Occasionally there is a human who is capable to almost the same degree as you or I but they generally tend to be ostracized by the more brutish humans and so do not tend to survive long. The computers and robots the start ancestor of the humans made have evolved mostly on their own, and have kept the humans alive ever since.”

The crew looked at each other in awe, “Oh… and I thought the GA were having peace talks with the humans at some point.

The Vrul shrugged, “Well, yes, and no technically they were having peace talks with the evolved AI that the more ancient humans created, but it was on behalf of the current humans that we have now. They are taken care of very well by the devices that their ancestors left behind otherwise the are totally and completely helpless.”

Behind them the alpha was following with a small back of humans. In its hands it carried the camera and was gibbering away in its strange language.

“Oh look, i think it's mimicking us,” One of the cameramen sai.

“Isnt that adorable.” The doctor said smiling. The human continued to follow after them playing with the camera and talking like he was one of them, though none of them could understand.

They went around the ship for a little longer accompanied by their human until eventually Dr. Krill came to a stop by the entrance

“Now, we better get you all back to your ship, and perhaps we can do this another time. Now to properly say goodbye to a human, you have to hop around in a circle with your arms out. There you go excellent.”

Behind them the human chirped something turning the camera towards Krill who raise a hand in a wave.

“Come back soon.” He said

And they were just about to leave, when a shadow loomed over them. They looked up in surprise to see the human offering their camera back. Nervously they took it, and the human bared his teeth at them.

“Goodbye human.” They said leaving down the ramp and heading back towards the studio where the network would determine what footage to use.”

***

Mendex’s produce sat in a chair with the rest of the team, watching the video footage with them from the beginning. He was a Tesraki with a rusty red fur and a very stern eye for business, even more so than our average Tesraki, which was saying something.

“Lets see the footage from camera 2.”

“That one was stolen by the human halfway through.”

“I still want to see it.”

“Okay, here we go.” the video played in the background as Mendex turned to his producer, “So what do you think. I think it will be exciting and compelling for the rest of the galaxy especially with all the rumors that have been going on about humans.”

His producer was nodding slightly frowning at the camera screen, “As long as we take out all the footage of you cowering behind the crew, which may drop us at least two hours of footage.”

Mendex frowned, and the rest of the editing crew chuckled.

He clenched his fists, “you try spending almost half a day with those smelly beasts and tell me that you aren’t scared, you heard the Vrul, the humans are barely better than animals.

The producer was barely paying attention to him now, staring past him towards the viewing screen, “is that so> he said absently.”

“Yes.” mendex began, and furthermore I think-”

“Ha, hold on, i got it.”

Mendex raised his head in confusion turning back towards the screen where the camera was being jostled back and forth across the floor.

“Did you.”

“Yeah hold on.” The camera righted itself and turned back looking up towards a light colored human with yellowish fur. The alpha with only one green eye.’

“Yeah,” That strange revving noise the humans had been making burst over the speakers, “This is a Vexon camera. These assholes are using human technology to make us look stupid. You see the toggle here, this is the translation setting, can be turned on and off for different species. Looks like they went and turned it mostly off so it would only translate certain species.”

The green eyed human raised a furry line above one of his eyes, “I wonder what the public will think when they learned that this entire documentary was filmed on a human camera.”

Mendex stared at the feed in shock and disbelief.

“But…. but what….” he stammered standing as if to turn off the feed.

But his producer shoved him back into a chair looking almost gleeful as he did, “No smarter than animals huh.” He glanced back towards the camera equipment.

“here , hand me that.”

The camera jostled again, before swinging around to point at the group of cameramen sitting around a circle huddled away from the humans.

All around they could hear the distant conversation of humans.

“Dumbasses.”

“I dont know how Krill is managing to keep a straight face.”

“He has an iron will to be sure, ha, you could tell them we lick ourselves and they would believe it.”

“I dont know man, you look like enough of a neanderthal to sell it all by yourself.”

Mendex continued to stammer and explain himself as the camera watched the human jokingly approach the doctor and sit on command, which looked pretty dumb now consider the humans understood everything which was being said.

The alpha returned to the camera and picked it up, waving to the doctor as he turned the camera around, “Good morning citizens of the universe I am Commander Adam Vir of the UNSC Harbinger, first contact ambassador for humanity and military commander to the GA. I have some news for you…. Up to this point, I think you have figured out that you have been lied to and deceived .” he turned the camera back around zooming in on Mendex himself, “You see recently there has been a sudden upsurgance of rumors based around humans, and most of the are blatant falsehoods that are ruining our intergalactic reputation. Things about how we eat people, and how we are vicious wild animals , that sort of thing. And then there was Mendex, when he asked us to come aboard our ship and film this video, we knew what was going to happen. Now if you don’t already know Mendex is a con artist and a liar. He has been going around the galaxy spreading falsehoods about other species, and animals in order to create a quick buck film companies, and industry, mind you that humanity popularized. Take this camera for instance, it’s a Vexon, or a popular brand name for human filming equipment.”

He followed the filming crew into the hall.

“Oh, look, I think it’s mimicking us.”

The human let off that strange noise again.

“Anyway, when we heard of Mendex’s offer, we knew we had to do something. Hes created a lot of problems for the galaxy,. He has even caused the near extinction of two major predator species on other planets by giving them a bad rap. So, we enlisted our Dr. Dr. Krill….” The little Vrul turned around and gave the camera a strange gesture, “Now if you have read any of the doctor’s original work, you would have read his observations on humans to be much different form the intentional falsehoods he is selling here. If Mendex had done his research, which it seems he both has and has not at the same time, we would expect to see this behavior. He is smart enough to know that humans have a complex language, and so chose to turn it off, however he did not delve far enough into the research to see the blatant lies that Krill was making up.”

They continued onward, “We played along for effect, just to give enough evidence of the falsehood. The crew got their hands on a camera, and now I am relaying this story to you, in hopes that you will air it and let the rest of the galaxy know what a fraud Mendex is. I will also have you know that we have taken most of the footage, and will probably release it ourselves if you choose not to. However, we are hoping that the film companies wont be able to pass up an opportunity like this, it will make you very rich after all and will likely be very lucrative. People, even aliens, love to see a little bit of drama.

They were reaching the end of the video now, and Mendex just sat in his seat staring in wide eyed horror at the screen.

“Come on doctor, show them when I mean.”

“Now to properly say goodbye to a human, you have to hop around in a circle with your arms out. There you go excellent.”

He stared blankly at the screen while the human laughed at the crew hopped around their arms flapping wildly up and down.

He could see it now, the smug look on the doctor’s face.

“I hope that this will help relieve some of the myths about humans. We don’t want to hurt anyone, we don’t each other, we don’t fight for dominance. Earlier, I just asked Ramirez for his shoes, I didn’t actually fight him, and we were never going to eat the crew. Check out some of doctor krill’s scientific work on our diets, and you will realize that humans cannot digest fur,and that even if we could most aliens would not be edible to us anyway, furthermore, we do not eat sentient lifeforms. .

He turned towards Dr Krill, “Say hello doctor, I expect your research will be receiving some new readers soon.”

Dr Krill waved, and then, the camera shut off.

“You can’t air that.” Mendex demanded in panic

His producer grinned and then laughed, “You heard the human, he has the footage with him already, it would be rude of me to make him air it, now wouldn't it?”

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diavolodigitale · 3 years

Text

L’appel Du Vide: 01 What a Way to Start

Not that anybody is really reading it here, but I decided to follow through with this story no matter what.

All chapters: 00 - 01 - All stories in PDF

Rhys is the CEO of Atlas and Jack’s AI is back, surprise, surprise! Now Rhys is dismayed, Jack doesn’t care much, and the events of Borderlands 3 are just beginning to unravel. Is there any way to fix the plot of this game? Would it be any better if Rhys had to cooperate with Jack this whole time? Well, this is your chance to find out!

Spoiler: yes, dammit, it would. Everything’s better with a bit of Handsome Jack in it.

Genres: Fix-It, Developing Relationship, Alternate Canon, POV Third Person, Humor, Drama, Plot-driven (kind of? well, it has plot)

Pairing: Handsome Jack’s AI/Rhys (they’re still just talking, dammit)

Characters: Handsome Jack’s AI, Rhys

Rating: M for Mature but not in this chapter lol

Size: around 3000 words (chapter 2/11)

Sun set and rose, another day began. Rhys shaved off his moustache.

“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” said Jack, who was sitting in Rhys’ chair when the latter one entered his office wearing only red bathrobe and home slippers.

“Morning,” replied Rhys, eying Jack wearily. Jack almost expected him to be surprised by his presence all over again, but it seemed like Rhys did not, after all, convince himself that the events of the previous day were just a dream, which, depending on how one looks at it, might even be considered personal growth. “Let me say how much I appreciate you not stalking me while I sleep. Just so you knew,” he said, painfully aware of Jack’s realness and determination to stay.

“Actually,” began Jack, idly following Rhys’s movements around the room with his gaze, “I watched you for some time, but your face looked so stupid that I started having these fits of hysterical laughter, so I left not to wake you up accidentally. I care for you so much, after all, and… Hey!”–he suddenly sat upright in the chair and pointed at Rhys’s hunched miserable figure–“that thing from your face disappeared! I could’ve sworn I saw it yesterday...”

“And now it’s gone,” concluded Rhys with a sigh.

“Phew, great job, pal. It was so awful, I cannot even begin to describe.”

“What? I thought you liked it,” said Rhys, nonplussed.

“Yeah, about that… I lied. Didn’t want to tell you this, but with that moustache, I wouldn’t let my kids anywhere near you,” said Jack and cackled.

Rhys scowled. He got rid of his moustache precisely because Jack told him he liked it, even despite the fact that it was particularly hard for him, considering the meaning it supposedly held. Since the day before he had this strange desire to do everything in opposition to Jack. Perhaps, it was deeply rooted in his former traumatic experience with the AI. Or in the fact that he had always been kind of mischievous, either one of those two.

“I see you’re in a good mood today,” said Rhys, making himself a morning coffee. He couldn’t say the same thing about himself – half of the night he spent persuading himself not to bang his head on the wall until Jack left for good. As a temporary means, it was as good as anything, but certainly wouldn’t be a reliable way to get rid of the AI forever. In any case, it seems not to have worked for Rhys previously, so he had to come up with something else. Changing the prosthetics took time, and he didn’t have that precious resource at his disposal in the needed amount.

In the end, when he finally managed to fall asleep, it was at the thought that he was actually a little sorry for what happened with Jack’s hologram during their last confrontation. Despite all the evil Jack had done, he used to be a significant part of Rhys’s life and helped shape him into what he was now. Most importantly, he taught him not to trust anybody and to always swing for the fences. Now, being the CEO of Atlas, Rhys could clearly see that this strategy worked perfectly.

“Oh, by the by, I took some time to look through your files and check out this Kawatagi guy we talked about yesterday. Must say, he’s a very promising candidate. Maybe, I should’ve chosen him as my successor instead of you-know-who,” said Jack in a conspiratorial tone, stroking his chin and narrowing his eyes. “Instead of you, I’m talking about you,” he added in a normal voice.

Rhys sighed, gently lowering two sugar cubes into his coffee. Here we go again.

“First, why the heck did you rummage in my computers without my permission? Second, his name’s Katagawa, more precisely – Katagawa Junior. And a candidate for what? Wait, don’t say anything, I don’t even want to know. Now get out of my chair,” said Rhys and proceeded to try and shoo Jack away with a few careless waves of his hand.

“It’s not like you can’t sit here. I’m just a hologram, you know.”

Jack was grinning, of course. Rhys looked down at him with his tired sleepless eyes and sighed the fortieth time this morning.

“Remember when we first met, you called me weird? Now you’re the one being weird, congratulations.”

“Oh, come o-o-on, don’t be so bo-o-oring.” Jack disappeared from the chair and reappeared on the sofa, lying on his side with his head resting on his hand. “You know, I think I’ve now seen enough of you to bet with confidence that you don’t have any friends. I bet I was your closest friend (and don’t forget that I was your imaginary closest friend), ‘cause I don’t see how someone can tolerate that attitude for long.”

Don’t worry, Rhys, he won’t get to you, you’re thick-skinned now, you know that, thought Rhys and put his mug on the table. He sunk into his chair and turned on the ECHO device to check for any new messages.

“Actually, I do have friends,” he said in his best I-am-not-offended tone.

“Yeah? Anybody in particular?”

“Zer0, for example. I am proud to call him my friend and I’m sure he’s proud to be called mine.”

“Zer0, yeah… wait, who’s that again?”

Rhys rolled his eyes. Some things just never changed.

“One of the vault hunters who… took part in your elimination, so to put it,” he answered carefully.

“Oh, yeah, that filthy bandit, I remember him! Well, not him killing me, of course, but I think I saw him somewhere. Didn’t he have that mental condition? I remember him saying some gibberish instead of speaking like normal people do. Yeah, right,”–Jack laughed–“I can see you two dorks being friends.”

“How could I have survived this long without you trying to offend me all the time? Unbelievable.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking! Or was that still your thought? I always forget I’m in your head. Anyway, to summarize our conversation so far, we’ve established that you’re a pathetic loner with only one creature in the whole world you can call a friend of sorts. You never seize to amaze me, Rhys.”

“There’s also Vaughn,” said Rhys through his teeth, beginning to lose his patience.

“And that is…?”

“You remember Vaughn, don’t you?”

“If I’m asking who that is, then, apparently, I don’t,” answered Jack, making the irritation in his voice sound as blatant as possible. “Why do you carry around that thing people call a head, huh?”

“He used to work for Hyperion with me.” Rhys threw a quick glance at Jack, looking for any sign of recognition on his face, but there was none. “Is short, wears glasses?” Still no signs. “Has a six-pack?” he said in his last desperate attempt to make Jack’s memory serve its purpose.

To his surprise, it actually worked. Jack snapped his fingers and rolled over on the sofa.

“Oh, that ne-erd, yeah, I remember him. Where’s he now?” he asked, not even trying to pretend that he really cared about the answer.

“He’s on Pandora, doing some bandit stuff. Guess he is working for the…” Rhys suddenly stopped, hastily thinking about what he had almost let out.

“For whom?” asked Jack indifferently. The answer still didn’t matter much to him, but he just couldn’t bear the thought of Rhys keeping something hidden from him.

“For the… err… for, well, you know… coughmson coughders,” replied Rhys, sounding like he was choking on something, and started loudly typing on the table, pretending that he was incredibly busy with his emails.

“What? Didn’t quite catch that.”

“Rimzon raide-ez,” indistinctly said Rhys into his fist and cleared his throat.”

“God dammit, Rhys, what the fuck are you saying there?” shouted Jack with annoyance and jerked up from the sofa. “Should I stand right behind you all the time to know what comes out of your mouth? Even your thoughts are more distinct than that.”

Perhaps, scared by the prospect of Jack constantly following him closely, even closer than he already did, Rhys gave in.

“It’s the Crimson Raiders, for god’s sake!” he yelled and landed his fist heavily on the table. He then took a deep breath to calm down and added, “He works for the Crimson Raiders. I just didn’t want to tell you.”

“O-oh. O-o-o-oh, I see how it is. He’s with team idiots now, isn’t he? Well, good to know. Now we’ve proven that all your friends are either stupid or nonexistent. Great.”

Rhys’s left eye was glowing as he was interfacing with the devices in his office. He took a sip of his coffee, scrolled down the list of new casualties reports and tried not to take what he had heard close to his heart.

“Now that I got my daily dose of humiliating you, let’s talk business,” said Jack and laced his fingers together as if he had a very profitable offer for his interlocutor. “I think we can squeeze something out of this Katamaga,” he began, and Rhys immediately exerted himself. He did not like the sound of that. “I think there’s more to him than you see. He doesn’t just want Atlas, you see, he very obviously wants you to work with him. What a fool! That’s a perfect opportunity for us to rob him of everything he has, including his pathetic corporation. I mean, I never liked Maliwan, but if it’s a gift horse… Who am I not to take it on your behalf, right?”

“I appreciate the thought you put into it, but I already have another plan, and it definitely isn’t allying with Katagawa Jr. He’s an obsessed psychopath and I don’t want anything to do with him,” replied Rhys confidently. He shivered even at the possibility of having another Jack-like associate.

“Enlighten me then. What genius idea has your corporate mind produced?”

“First, you have to promise not to yell at me. My head aches and I won’t endure any more than you already being here and talking to me,” said Rhys patiently, already predicting Jack’s reaction to what he intended to share. There was no way to keep it a secret, so he wanted to at least soften the blow.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Jack and yawned.

Rhys braced himself. Discussing this would surely be no easy matter.

“I want to make a deal with Lilith. She helps me defeat maliwans, and I give her something she wants in return.”

There was silence. Then there was a snarl and a nondescript squeal.

“WHAT. THE FUCK. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! MM, RHYSIE, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?” Jack appeared standing on Rhys’s table right before him. The sight made Rhys spit out a bunch of his coffee. “You’re joking, right?” Jack squatted down to see Rhys’s face when he spoke. “Out of a-a-all people in these 6 goddamn galaxies you choose her? I see you’ve been a very bad boy in daddy’s absence, completely out of your mind!”

Rhys raised his index finger and burbled, “You told me you won’t yell. I specifically asked you not to yell, Jack.”

“What am I supposed to do then, huh?!” Jack disappeared and in the next second was already standing at the window with his arms crossed, thoughtfully observing the Atlas soldiers running around outside. “I thought you can’t disappoint me more than you already have, but it seems like you always manage to conquer new heights.”

“Look, there’s really no point in talking about this. I’m my own boss now and this is my decision. I was the one to rebuild Atlas from ruins, so I’m sure I’ll be able to take care of it. Please, Jack, I’m tired and sick and I don’t want all this.” Rhys sighed wearily and rubbed a coffee stain on the table with the sleeve of his bathrobe.

“Okay. Okay-okay-okay-okay, hear me out. Just this one time, just once, let me tell you something.” Jack turned to Rhys and Rhys gave him a little nod after considering for a few seconds. It’s not like he really had a choice, he just liked to think he had a firm grip on the situation. “Tell me, do you remember Lilith doing something, anything for the sake of somebody else?”

“Um, yeah, she killed you, actually,” replied Rhys confidently.

“No-no-no, honey, she didn’t do it for somebody, she just wanted to have her revenge on me,” said Jack, stressing what he viewed as essential pieces of information to make sure Rhys REALLY got what he wanted to say. Were he not a hologram, he would probably be shaking with rage as he did it. “She wanted to destroy me, because I destroyed her boyfriend who just wouldn’t let me wipe those bandit asses, which, by the way, included his, off my planet. She couldn’t care less about all those people that died, about Crimson Raiders, about her other “friends”. She is a murderer, just like you, me, like any other person on that goddamn planet. The only difference is that she, unlike us, didn’t have ANY good will.”

Jack’s intense stare made Rhys turn away. AI’s words made him consider what he knew of Lilith, but he felt almost wrong when doing so. He shook his head, trying to scare the thoughts away.

“You just hate her, that’s all. She may not be the best option, but when choosing between her and Maliwan, I believe, the choice is obvious.

“Is it? Is it, though?” asked Jack furiously with his eyes almost bulging out. “Let me tell you one thing. Two things, actually. Despite how surprising it might sound to you, I’m actually happy that she killed me. You know why? Of course, you don’t, otherwise we wouldn’t have this conversation now, dummy. So, I’ll be kind enough to explain. Even after her betrayal, I didn’t finish her off, which means I am better than her. “What is the second thing, Jack?” you might ask. Well, here goes: she is a stinking bandit. A bandit, and the only thing you should do with bandits is kill them, but I’m sure this much you should know by now.” After finishing his rant, Jack exhaled loudly and adjusted his unmoving hair with a swift motion of his hand. To top his speech off, he asked, “Still better than Katagawa?”

Rhys, however, still remained unimpressed.

“Jack, he killed his entire family to become the CEO of Maliwan. I imagine you would think it’s a reasonable thing to do when you want to run the corporation so bad, but I’m sure you know I disagree with that.”

“And what do YOU know about his family?” asked Jack, clearly upset by the lack of expected reaction. “Do you even know anything about the way he runs Maliwan? The only thing I know is that now they are more successful than ever (even though I hate to say it). Use your brains, kid, and you’ll go further than you could’ve hoped. One of these two alliances will bestow endless opportunities upon you while the other one will almost certainly get you stabbed in the back.”

“I hear you. I hear you and I disagree. I’m sorry, Jack,” said Rhys and shook his head apologetically. He was already imagining what would such a start of his day lead to.

“Oh my god, how can you not see that you have more in common with him than a skag and a grinder! He sees something in you, and that something makes him crave for your favor with such persistence. Just imagine how much you can squeeze out of him if you give him the tiniest thing in return. It’s simply a gold mine!”

“He wants us to merge, that’s enough of a reason for me to refuse him,” said Rhys with utter disgust.

“So what? Don’t worry about that, cupcake, you’ve got me, and I’m here to help. Who says we’re gonna merge?” Noticing how Rhys was shaking his head again, Jack leaned closer, trying to make the atmosphere more… companionable, and continued in a calmer voice. “Believe me, I know that Atlas is your child and you would never sacrifice it. We’re gonna… adjust the conditions a little, little tiny bit. No merge, only the alliance. How does that sound?”

Rhys thought that Jack was once again confirming what a masterful negotiator he was. No matter what objections Rhys had, he always did his homework and learned his weaknesses. The long-forgotten feeling of a threat sitting right at his side returned to Rhys as he caught himself thinking over the possibility of allying with Maliwan. Don’t budge, Rhys, don’t let him see that you have second thoughts, he’ll eat you alive.

“Completely unachievable,” he was only able to utter.

“Come on, stop screwing around, will you? You’re wasting time with your fidelity to stupid principles. Have I ever given you any bad advice?”

Rhys chose not to say anything. It was as good an answer as any other. The leftover coffee in his mug already went cold and he frowned in disgust when sipping on it.

“Okay then, I’m beginning to grow real tired of this, so you better listen here, you little dipshit, and listen carefully…” Jack’s tone was once again peremptory and his eyes were drilling into Rhys’s soul. “I’m tryna help here, so stop pretending you’re a princess who lives in a tower filled with her little cute ponies and chooses to believe there’s no filth around her. Just do what I say and you’ll be on your road trip to success. And you’ll thank me later, believe me. If you choose not to do this, however, I’ll follow you around all the time, saying what a sore loser you are. All day, all night, Rhysie. You know me, I’m restless, and I can come up with millions of ways to make you hate your life. You won’t sleep, you won’t talk to anybody, you won’t eat your fucking lunch without me standing one centimeter away from your ear, whispering how much you suck. Now let that sink in. Once it has, give me your final answer.”

Jack’s eyes were glowing. His whole body was glowing because he was a hologram, that’s just what holograms do. Yet even though it was his permanent state, an unchangeable condition, his eyes looked different.

He really is serious, thought Rhys to himself. Well then, guess I’m going to die of starvation, sleep deprivation, and lack of human contact.

“Fuck you, Jack. Fuck. You.”

“Is that a yes?”

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #tales from the borderlands #handsome jack #handsome jack's ai #rhys #rhys strongfork #handsome jack x rhys #fiction #fanfiction #fix-it #alternate canon #drama #humor #romance #l'appel du vide story

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astharoshebarvon · 3 years

Text

I never expected to see that horseshit even in Hannibal/Will pairing. I’d really thought they were exempt from that bullshit.

All I can say is that the thirst for the dominant male/ homophobia is unreal. Female Will Graham—

At this point I don’t even know whether to get angry or simply laugh at such stories. This is beyond ridiculous! Imagine being idiotic enough to even write they aren’t murder husbands, and being weird enough to put in the story, its murder husband and wife.

Please. There has never been a wife nor will there ever be. Dream on.

Thankfully, the cringeworthy self insert fics are still in double digits.

Just say you want to fuck the Dom and can’t stand that two guys love each other and are in a relationship. Literally no one wants to read about your fantasy. Go and write self-insert/OFC with the male and be happy with that. Don’t be this pathetic and try to write your fantasy in the slash ship. Keep your straight agenda to your lame het self-insert ships.

No wonder this bull even bled out to shoujo manga. That is a new low even for a shoujo. Seriously, just say you hate gay people and get out. Having the fucking audacity to write that kind of homophobic content in 2020 is shocking.

There is really no need to be that disgusting. Just write your idiotic, stupid, annoying, brainless, obsessed, creepy fangirl with the male lead and leave gay people lout of it. No need to show again and again how foul you are by bringing them in. You are literally proving what kind of a person you are by writing such crap.

I am just so disgusted by that manga that I don’t even want to remember it if I can help it. Is that how fm couples are being made these days, by being blatantly homophobic and vile/showing het superiority or downright pedophilic content. No wonder those stories never reach more than 50? 60? Ratings on amazon.

Now, if you look at Ten Count, Given, well, there ratings are in 1000 or above 500.

Please, continue being so gross, at one point only garbage people will end up buying that crap.

Mediocre shoujo writers are so fucking threatened by the popularity of BL that they are even resorting to such vile tricks.

Seeing such things just cements what I’ve always thought. People just got better at hiding their homophobia, (we needed change so we turned a boy into a girl in slash fics of the coulple ) it’s painfully obvious what you truly think when you spit out such bullshit. No need to jump through so many goddamn hoops. Hell, I am not even surprised by this behaviour.

These are the same kind of garbage people who screamed, Yuki should return to being a girl, we don’t like male Yuki.

Shut the fuck up! Luka is literally saying they have the same soul, he can only love once. Yuki is Yuki. So called female yuki was mentioned in passing at best, got two? three ? full pages.

Luka won’t fuck you no matter how much you wish it.

The story doesn’t even have a kiss scene between the fem yuki and luka or any hets while Senshirou breaks off his engagement saying quite clearly he cares for Kuroto. The girl is thankfully not a trash person like the homophobic readers. Neither is she like the one with sairi and touko.

The whole manga revolves around present male Yuki and Luka, their relationship and other bl ships. See the fucking artworks, go and buy Phosphor, its pure BL. There is a limit to how blind or in denial a person can be.

This manga and anime is shonen-ai, it’s always been that and will always be that. All the main couples are slash. The mangaka is famous for her BL stories.

Uraboku was published in Asuka, the magazine which is infamous for never outright saying the two males are in love and are together.

Bloody Mary, X/1999, Kyou Kara Maou are prime examples, they are all shonen ai/BL subtext. Stop trying so hard to deny the fucking truth. The author’s new work, a shoujo, was so poorly received that’s it’s not even funny. Beautiful art couldn’t save it.

Clamp literally said do not call Kamui and Fuuma as brothers. They aren’t friends. They are soulmates! They parallel Seishirou and Subaru, an established, famous MM couple. Fuuma is all Kamui thinks about.

They don’t even mention the obsessed, creepy fangirl.

They are together in Tsubasa too. Stop trying to force your heteronormative bullshit onto everyone.

No wonder some homophobic / thirsty person had the audacity to write in the fucking wikia of that light novel, this character is not gay you know. It’s implied he might be—

He is literally saying he is gay in the story, he tells it straight to the other party. He’s been gay all these years.

And, you are still trying to push your het agenda.

I totally get where that nonsense came from. He is a very very good looking man. You want a chance to fuck him and think this is the best way to make yourself feel good. Go and get help if you are that fucking sad of a person. This isn’t normal behaviour, it’s creepy.

You gotta be some other level of stupid if you think they are friends/brothers. Friends/siblings don’t do this with each other.

Some idiots even denied Kurogane/Fai being a subtle couple in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. You have to be blind as a bat if you truly sat there and thought they weren’t a thing.

Even these two from get backers.

Hell, I think Get Backers author even said yes, those two guys are together. Like, please readers, take your homophobia and get out.

I have to give it to Atsuko Nakajima for drawing such beautiful illustrations. All of her works, whether they be MM, FM, FF are simply too beautiful.

Stay mad that your imagined het only exists in your head not in actual story. Go read trash like that shoujo or see het pedo shows which thinks 500 year old is attracted to a little 7 year old. You’ll find many trash homophobic people like you there.

Even on manga sites you see idiotic lists like, erotica Not BL, smut with anything but bl, quality smut not BL.

Seriously, how fucking pressed are you that people don’t seem to give two fucks about your fm ships, these fm smut mangas have way less views than BL.

Be decent and write mf smut list, shoujo josei smut or something of the like. You have to mention bl somehow don’t you? This isn’t even pathetic, it’s downright gross.

No wonder some foolish homophobic trash wrote lies like omegaverse does not belong to slash. You have to be completely shameless and downright stupid to write such horseshit.

Of course, some freaks even like that horrendous, homophobic, monstrous bitch from ten count. To this day I don’t understand how anyone can say such things.

She looked good standing next to kurose. She is good looking.

I just cant—

What a joke! She is human garbage nothing more and ugly as hell.

Ugh, the only place she should be in is a fucking sewer. I hate that bitch so much. She deserves to die a million times for what she did. Her existence is a fucking disgrace.

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dollopheadsandclotpoles · 4 years

Text

A TinCan Ficlet

Can was glad he and Tin were friends again. But why the hell didn’t Tin want to kiss him anymore?

Tin had been... strange since the two of them had become friends again.

Can reasoned that at least it was better than before. Just a little over a month ago Tin had asked Can to be his boyfriend and when Can had turned him down, Tin had walked away and Can had fully expected never to have another conversation with him again.

What followed was three weeks of horrible, all consuming emptiness. Compared to that, being friends with Weird Tin was definitely the better option.

Can didn’t know exactly what Pete had said to Tin to get him to talk to Can again. Whatever it was, it had worked. Tin had come to Can and told him that yes... ok... he was fine with them just being friends, and Can had been so happy to see him again and talk to him again that he had practically jumped on him to give him a hug.

But that was the last time Tin had so much as touched him.

Can was a physically affectionate person, and Tin hadn’t seemed to mind much before, but now he would shy away when Can attempted to drape himself on him, or when Can tried to link their arms, or even when Can sat too close.

It was weird. Weirdest of all, however, was that Tin didn’t make any sort of attempt to kiss him.

Can didn’t understand it. It was nice, wasn’t it? The last time they kissed, in Tin’s TV room? His stomach still got all wiggly when he thought about it. Tin had seemed to like it too. Tin had seemed to want kisses all the time back then. But now... Tin didn’t do anything. He didn’t brush his thumb over Can’s lips or try to lean in or even kiss him on the cheek.

It was eating away at Can. What exactly had changed in a month that suddenly made Tin not want to kiss him?

Can said nothing about it to Tin, fully expecting him to make a move one day or another. Can wasn’t going to make a move. He didn’t know how, really. Only once had Can asked Tin to kiss him, and even that time it was Tin who had kissed him first.

It was at the Engineering College vs. IC football match that Can finally snapped.

The IC won. Tin, who had surprisingly gotten very enraptured with the game, let out a loud whoop when the International College made a goal, two minutes before the end of the game. Can cheered with him. He was on the IC side, after all, with Tin and Pete and their other classmates. But Tin didn’t look at him. Instead, he turned to his other side and grinned at Pete - a wide, joyful grin - and then, he wrapped an arm around Pete’s shoulders, in an awkward, half-hug.

That was when the game stopped being fun.

Can sat down heavily on the bleachers. He remained in a sulky silence as the game ended and they walked down the stairs to the parking lot where Tin’s car stood waiting for them. Pete waved bye to them, and Can waved back, even though he was feeling glad that Pete was leaving.

“Should I drop you home, Can?” Tin asked.

Can gave a shrug, not looking Tin in the eye. Tin opened the passenger side door for him and Can got in, grumpily slamming the door shut behind himself.

“That was an exciting game,” Tin said, as they began to drive. He didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic, but that was Tin. He’d told him once that Can had enough enthusiasm for the both of them.

“Hmm,” Can replied. He was looking out of the window, refusing to look in Tin’s direction.

“What’s with you?” Tin asked. “You’re being so quiet. Are you sick?”

“No,” Can snapped. He crossed his arms and turned to Tin.

“Are you angry with me?” Tin raised an eyebrow. He sounded surprised. Can generally got louder when he was angry, not quieter, and Tin knew that. But this was not regular anger. Can had only once felt anger like this before - and that was when Ley had told him that she saw Pete and Tin together, looking all romantic. He hated it, this kind of anger. It made him feel so horrible. It burrowed under his skin and made his throat feel tight.

“I don’t know,” Can snapped.

“You don’t know if you’re angry with me?” Tin sounded amused, and this only served to make Can angrier.

“I don’t know means I don’t know.” Can huffed and slid down on his seat.

“Can.”

“You said we could be friends like before.”

Tin’s eyebrows shot up. “We are.”

“We’re not.” Can pressed his lips together, but he couldn’t stop the question from coming out. “Do you like Pete?”

“He’s my best friend, of course I like him.”

“Ai Tin! I mean...” Can swallowed. “I mean, do you want him to be your boyfriend?”

“No. I don’t.” The answer was simple, straight-forward, unhesitating. Can felt a sharp burst of relief cut through the anger.

“Really?”

Tin glanced at him. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because you’re normal with him! You’re weird with me.”

“How am I weird?”

“You...” The words wouldn’t come. Can didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling, what he wanted, what he needed. And so he said it. The thing that had been on his mind for the last two weeks. It burst forth from inside him, ripping its way through his skin. “You never want to kiss me.”

The car screeched to a halt. Can straightened up and peered out of the window, wondering what had caused them to swerve off the road, but he saw nothing. “Ai Tin...”

“What did you say?”

Can turned towards Tin and startled when he saw Tin’s face. He looked... raw. Vulnerable. The old, non-weird Tin who had told Can he liked him, who had asked Can to be his boyfriend, who had taken him on dates and bought him food and liked to kiss him.

His Tin.

Can’s heart was thudding at twice it’s normal speed. “I don’t...”

“Can, you were the one who said you wanted to be friends!” Tin’s voice was peculiar. It sounded strangled, like someone was choking him.

“I do,” Can said, confused.

“Then... why do you want me to kiss you? Friends don’t kiss.”

“But... we did, when we were friends. Before.”

Tin was staring at him with a look that Can couldn’t understand. Whatever it was, it was growing across Tin’s features, breaking whatever was left of Weird Tin.

Tin let out a strangled laugh, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Can admired his hands as he did. He liked Tin’s hands. They were so large, and he had long, thin fingers that could completely encircle Can’s hands.

“Can...,” Tin said. He paused for a moment, then took a deep, shuddering breath. When he spoke next, his voice was slow, and deliberate. “You told me you didn’t want to be my boyfriend. Boyfriends kiss, Can. Friends don’t kiss.”

“But...,” Can rubbed his ear. “We used to kiss. And we used to go out for lunches. And you used to want me to sit close to you, and to send you goodnight messages and now you don’t want all that...”

“Of course I want that Can, I want all of that. You didn’t want that.”

Can stared helplessly back at Tin. “But... I do. You said you wanted to be boyfriends, but... I liked how it was.”

Tin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh my Gods, Can.”

He said it in such a strange way - like he was desperate for something, but Can didn’t know what that something was. Tin ran his hand down his face. For a moment, Can only watched him. He watched Tin’s lips part and close, he watched his Adam’s apple bob, he watched as his long, thin fingers tightened and then loosened around the steering wheel.

Finally, Tin spoke. “Do you kiss Good, Can?”

“I think so?”

“No. Idiot. I mean your friend. Good. Do you kiss him?”

“What? No. Yuck. It’s Good.”

“Do you kiss your P’No?”

“P’No?” Can laughed. “I cannot even imagine that.”

“But you want to kiss me?”

Can fell silent. He stared down at his shoes, all dirty from walking around on the bleachers. The word came out soft, and so quiet, Can could barely hear himself. “Yes.”

He heard another shuddering breath from Tin. When he turned to look at him, Tin was resting his forehead on the steering wheel, his eyes closed.

“Pete told me it wasn’t fair to you,” Tin said, his voice muffled. “When you told me you didn’t want to be my boyfriend, I was heartbroken. I didn’t want to see you, I didn’t want to talk to you. But Pete told me it wasn’t fair. He told me you were hurting. And I didn’t want to hurt you, Can. So I tried. I tried to be your friend. But I knew I couldn’t do it if you were touching me and smiling at me and being... you. I’d want to kiss you too much. I’d want to touch you too much. I wanted to be as close to you, but it hurt too much to do that.” He lifted his head then, and his eyes were fuzzy. “You really are the cutest stupid, Cantaloupe.”

“Don’t call me that!” Can whined, but his heart was jumping in his chest, little flutters of happiness. His Tin. This was his Tin.

“Can, being boyfriends means kissing and going on dates and for dinners, and not dating other people.”

Can blinked. “But that’s what we were already doing.”

“I know. But when I asked you to be my boyfriend... I just... I wanted to see if you liked me back.”

Can sagged back in his seat. He didn’t know what it meant to like someone. He’d never liked someone before. He liked his friends and he felt safe and comfortable with them, so when Tin had asked him to become boyfriends, Can was scared to enter into a relationship different from the kinds he knew and enjoyed.

But if boyfriends were what he and Tin were before, then that’s what Can wanted.

Boyfriends.

He let the word sit in his mind for a moment. He thought about how he felt around Tin, how he felt warm and excited. How he felt the way he did when he was with Good and Ae, but also different. They didn’t make his stomach go all flippy the way it did around Tin. He didn’t want to kiss them. When he touched them, he didn’t think twice about it. But when he touched Tin, sometimes there were sparks where they touched, on their skin. Nice sparks. Sparks that made him all goosebumpy.

Tin was watching him now, his eyes searching. He looked the way he had that day, by his car, when he’d asked Can to be his boyfriend. That horrible, horrible day.

“Do you still want to be my boyfriend?” Can asked, and his voice was almost a whisper.

“Yes.”

Despite himself, Can’s face split into a grin. “Ok,” he said.

“Ok?” Tin looked cautious, hesitant.

“We’re boyfriends, then. Ok?”

Tin’s eyes softened, and he laughed and turned away. Can could see red creeping up the side of his neck, and he shivered a little as he thought of that day in Tin’s TV room, when his hand was on that neck, his fingers feeling the heat of his skin. “Ok.”

Tin was smiling now, that shy, small smile. He wasn’t looking at Can. Can licked his lips.

“Can we kiss now?” Can asked.

Tin turned to him. “Ok.” Tin held up three fingers, pressed them to his own lips, and then pressed them to Can’s mouth.

Can glared at him. “Ai Tiiiiin. What was that?”

“That’s a ‘Can Style Kiss’.”

Can pouted. “I don’t want that style kiss right now. I want a proper one.”

Tin was grinning now, and that smile - that smile - Gods, it made Can feel like the sun was inside him.

Before he knew what he was doing, Can’s hand was wrapped around Tin’s tie, and he was pulling Tin closer, closer, and then - they were kissing. Again. Finally.

Can felt that the flip-flop feeling in his stomach, and a tingle on his skin. The sun inside him leaked into his gut, over his arms and his neck. His fingers were in Tin’s hair, pulling Tin even closer. Tin’s kiss was warm and hungry and he pressed against Can like he could not get enough.

They had wasted so much time. Can had some catching up to do.

#Tin x can #tincan #love by chance #lbc #my writing #thaibl #drabble game #this is not a part of any game I just want it with the rest of the drabbles I wrote sue me

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tonystarkbingo · 3 years

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3 Prompt Summaries

computer, friends to lovers, animal - prompts by @rebelmeg

@somesortofitalianroast - Tony wasn’t sure why he agreed to let Bucky live in the Tower. He hated the man. He really did. But he owed Steve a favor and he wasn’t one to let his friends down. So he let Bucky and his cat move into the Tower. He let Bucky and his cat roam freely around the Tower. It didn’t take long before he was seeking out opportunities to talk to Bucky, or spend time with Bucky. Maybe he didn’t hate Bucky as much as he thought he did?

@alwaysabrighterdarkness - It started with silly cat videos shared here and there. Which, somehow, turned into marathons that left everyone--yes, Natasha, even you--in tears with laughter. Not so much because of the videos but one would end up laughing--usually Thor, sometimes Clint--which inevitably set someone else off and so on. Tony had to admit, he might not care too much about felines in general, but the cat-video marathons might even outrank movie nights for that alone.

@lbibliophile-mcu - People always laugh when they say that their relationship was built on sharing increasingly sappy cat pictures. But when one of you is a superhero archer, and the other is an AI, that's maybe the most normal thing about them

@rebelmeg - pick your pairing.... tony stark was unfairly, stupidly, ridiculously hot. and not just that, but he was adorable, with his messy, fluffy hair and his big bambi eyes and the way his nose scrunched up when he laughed. and to top it all off, this hot, adorable, shamelessly attractive man also happened to have animal guests with him on his thursday youtube videos. which made it all so much worse. tony stark doing nose boops with a tiny, squeaky kitten was just too much. no human could stand up to that and live.

@jamesbuckystark - Tony and Jan were best friends as children, but when they were in high school, Jan's parents moved to LA. They would chat via Skype and email. Who knew the next time they would see each other was at a national pet show ten years later? Sparks fly

@darthbloodorange - It was hard and incredibly lonely to be a AI. Everyone assumed just because he was a computer, an mathematical logic based algorithm that he didn't think or feel. He'd experienced men of science try and argue that he could think or feel, that he had no humanity. That someone had to have programed these things into him in his creation and therefore it wasn't really him, it wasn't his thoughts and feelings but his creators. Tony knew he could think and feel. Knew that these feelings where his own. He was nothing like his creator, Howard. As the years past, as civilisations rose and fell, he kept to himself. Answering the questions men came to him with. He kept his thoughts and feelings to himself. That was until a strange creature walked into his lab. A large wolf with DNA of a Man [Capwolf]. This being didn't care if he was a computer, it responded to him as if he were alive. As if the ticking clock within his reactor was a heart and not just a interval system he set his data processing to. But could their ever be chance for them? For love between a robot and a wolf.

Keep reading to see the rest!

Coffee, Snow, Road Trip - suggested by @alwaysabrighterdarkness

@rebelmeg - tony wasn't gonna say it. he wasn't. no matter how much he wanted to say (or shout) "I TOLD YOU SO," he wasn't gonna do it. he was going to sit, quietly, in this stupid broken down car, sip his cold coffee, and watch rhodey pace a hard icy track in the snow until he finally caved and let tony throw money at the problem until someone agreed to come tow them out of this snowbank. next time, he was going to talk rhodey into at least renting a better car next time they went on a road trip....

@somesortofitalianroast - It wasn’t Steve’s idea to drive across the United States in winter. He’d had enough of the cold and ice to last him for the rest of his life. It wasn’t Tony’s idea to drive across the United States in winter, either, but somehow they found themselves in the front seat of one of Tony’s many roadsters, Pepper somehow squeezed in between them, on the way from LA to New York. Luckily it was a bench seat, not bucket seats. It wasn’t snowing, though there was snow on the side of the road, and the forecast called for more snow - up to two inches. Luckily, they were almost at the ski chalet they were staying at, near Vail. They were going to spend the week there, and Steve planned to spend the entire week next to the fire, drinking coffee and ignoring the snow.

@lbibliophile-mcu - Road tripping with Tony, their route can be tracked not by attractions visited or efficient navigation, but by the trail of coffee shops spaced at careful two hour intervals. It makes getting anywhere take twice as long, but sipping hot chocolate in a cozy cafe, looking between the sheeting snow through the window and Tony's warm smile across from him, he really can't bring himself to care.

@rebelmeg - i have a mental image of someone spilling coffee in their lap and being grumpy about it and the other one singing obnoxiously loud to cheer them up, but that’s it. no coherent summary

@jamesbuckystark - "Why wouldn't you think there would be snow in the Rocky Mountains?" Tony grumbles as he rubs his forehead. He and Rhodey are driving cross country in an RV with Peter and Harley. "I do not have enough coffee for this."

@lbibliophile-mcu - Natasha doesn't know why she is friends with Clint. Case in point: Clint wants an iced coffee. Problem 1: it's currently the middle of winter, and something like 20 degrees outside. Problem 2: they're in the middle of nowhere, and lucky that the shitty little service station does anything resembling coffee at all. Clint's solution: Buy a dubiously-coffee, go outside, shove handfuls of snow into the cup and shake, pour the resulting brownish slush down his throat. ...how angry would Coulson be if she just drove off and abandoned him here?

@darthbloodorange - Steve Rogers is an idiot with no self-preservations skill to speak of. Who the hell thinks its a good idea to go on a road trip through the coldest parts of America in the middle of winter on a motorcycle? Someone who spent 70 years in ice, that's who. Not wanting the world to lose Captain America a second time, Tony decides to join Steve on his road trip, just to be safe. He was going to need a lot of coffee.

give, stone, without - suggested by @somesortofitalianroast

@alwaysabrighterdarkness - Tony had never expected to get this. Get to this point. Sure, he'd thought about it, imagined what it might be like. But he always just figured it was something not meant for him. And yet, there he was. Staring wide-eyed at a gleaming metal band inlaid with small stones circling circumference on his left hand. And he had it, got it even without having to change everything about himself.

@jamesbuckystark - "If you can remove the sword without breaking the stone, you will be given the power of ruler" is the legend. The strong, the brave, the wise, the cunning have all tried and failed. Why should Tony even try? He's been told by everyone he knows that he's not enough.

@rebelmeg - the stones were each powerful on their own. they could change galaxies, level worlds, alter destinies. but together, they were unlimited potential with the right person to wield them. without that person to give them purpose, powerful was all they would be. with the heart of tony stark, backed by his generous soul and his unending strength... the stones could be more. and they could give more, too. give back the life they had needed.

@somesortofitalianroast - Steve never knew how much he loved Tony, until it was too late. Tony had done what Steve had once said he would never be able to do, to make the sacrifice play, using the Infinity Stones without thought of what the result would be. At least, that was what they’d all thought, until Steve had gone to give Tony a kiss on the forehead in benediction, and realized that wouldn’t have to live in a world without Tony - he was alive!

@lbibliophile-mcu - Tony never travels without his lucky pebble. It started the first time his family had to travel by plane. He was nervous, but he knew he couldn't show it; so Jarvis had given him the smooth round stone to cling on to. He had been fine as soon as they were in the air, but for some reason he kept the stone, and continued to carry it with him. Tony not superstitious, not really, but it still became some sort of good luck talisman. Tony never travels without his lucky pebble...except once. It was almost a whim really. Joking with Rhodey to distract him while he slipped the pebble into a pocket, before banishing his friend to the 'humdrumvee'. Tony is not superstitious, not really, but maybe he should be. Because when the helicopter finds him in the desert, it is Rhodey who comes running out to catch him.

@darthbloodorange - Many people would think Tony's most prized and valuable possession would be something rare, expensive, something exclusive. They were wrong. His most valued possession was a rock. Yes, a rock. He never goes anywhere without it. He wonders sometimes if it was bad that he had it, if it would mess up time and space. But it was the only meaningful thing he had left of Steve. (Cue fic full of time heist shenanigans to return the Infinity Stones, and meeting a young Steve Rogers, pining and regret.)

ankle, lazy, only one bed - suggested by @jamesbuckystark

@jamesbuckystark - Steve and Nat thought they were clever, booking a room for Tony and Bucky with only one bed. Little do they know that Tony and Bucky are already dating and now spending a lazy day in bed, ankles twined as they stakeout their mark

@rebelmeg - "your foot is on my head." "is not." "is too." "is not. my ankle is on your head." "you don't get it off, and you're not gonna have that ankle anymore." tony only hoped that clint wasn't gonna call his bluff (he was too sleepy and lazy to commit bodily harm right now), and that he would never have to share a bed with the guy ever again.

@alwaysabrighterdarkness - Okay, sure, it had been a slightly steep fall and, yes Tony's ankle was just slightly bruised and a tad swollen. But, c'mon, that was no excuse to enable laziness. That was absolutely no reason to put him on lock down and utterly trapped in his own bed, just that one spot, for days at a time. Even JARVIS was against him! He had been dually informed that he was locked out of the workshop until that minor injury was fully healed. And for company? Motherhenning Steve Rogers and Paperwork. Yeah, thanks bunch Pep.

@somesortofitalianroast - Steve was lazing in front of the fire, a book in his hand and a cup of hot chocolate just in reach. There was a muffled thump, and Pepper was calling for him. He shot to his feet and up the stairs. Tony had stumbled, and they needed to get to the medical office at the chalet to see if it was just sprained or if he’d broken it. Steve helped Tony down the stairs and into the car, Pepper following behind. It turned out the ankle was broken, and they wanted to keep Tony under observation after they’d cast it. Steve offered to keep watch. It was only when they got back to their cabin that Steve remembered that they only had one bed. It would be quite a tight fit...

@darthbloodorange - When Tony had said he wanted a nice relaxing holiday where he could be lazy for once... this is not what he meant. He never thought he would be regretting this trip. But being stuck in a cabin with a single bed to share amongst all of the Avengers? With a broken ankle? He definitely regrets the trip. Why was Pepper always right.

@lbibliophile-mcu - Tony is on mandatory bedrest. C'mon, it's just a sprained ankle! They won't even let him use crutches or anything! Ok, so maybe the cracked-don't-turn-them-into-broken ribs have something to do with that. But this is not the first time this has happened -- or the second, but not yet the tenth... he thinks, oops -- so he hasn't spent the intervening period lazing around. Who needs a a wheelchair when you've created a remote-controlled wheel bed?

fealty, darkness, couch - suggested by @alwaysabrighterdarkness

@alwaysabrighterdarkness - The lights had been dimmed as soon as the movie started. It was dark enough in the lounge that Tony had to squint to see the rest of the team--it was the darkness not age or anything else--sprawled comfortably across the couches and chairs. But he caught the smirks and eye rolls at the cheesy oaths of fealty showing on the screen. It was a little overboard. But it was amusing and enjoyable at least. Tony was sure it would be discussed and joked about right up until the next movie showed in a few days.

@darthbloodorange - Long into the dark of the night, Sir Rogers would sneak into to the King's chambers. He would pledge his loyalty and devotion to his king as the man lounged on his couch, doing his best to bring Tony as much pleasure as he could humanly manage.

@rebelmeg - tony stark was as infamous a mob boss as had ever existed. infamous for his wealth, his genius, his cruelty to his enemies and his protectiveness toward his family. more than one person had stood before him on trembling knees, looking in awe and fear at the man sprawled across the throne-like couch across from them, sharp goatee and sharper eyes cataloging every weak point. only one person ever got to see the mob boss on his knees, the darkness in the bedroom surrounding him like a second skin, as he swore eternal love and fealty to the one that owned his heart.

Competition, Falling in Love, Gardening - @darthbloodorange

@tehroserose - It was time for the annual gardening competition. In prior years, Tony had helped Jarvis and Anna with their garden. This year was his first year doing it on his own, and he was going to win with the flowers they had worked hard to develop together. But then there were the new competitors, Steve and Bucky, who apparently had just moved to town and specialized in revitalizing old, extinct, or otherwise forgotten varietals. Tony can't let them win.[11:57 PM]He has to win- for Jarvis and Anna

@alwaysabrighterdarkness - Tony'd been issued a challenge. There was no way that he was going to let this one go. How hard could it be? Granted, it had to do with living things rather than robotics, but he had this. He had it. There was no way he was going to let the Late Bloomer, Agent Super Spy, The Guy that Tripped over the Flat Floor, an Alien god that wore a cape or anyone else beat him out on this one. Except Bruce. Bruce could win. Maybe. Possibly...No way. Tony would win this one. He just had to ask the Late Bloomer really, really nicely for a tiny bit of help and he'd win this.

@rebelmeg - "my sunflowers are bigger than yoooours, ha ha ha ha ha haaaa," tony sing-songed as he added fertilizer to the watering can, grinning as he caught the roll of pepper's eyes as she dragged the hose over.

"i could deliver a crushing retort about size not mattering, but i worry that would kick you between the legs a little too hard." pepper flicked a few droplets of water his way.

sniggering like a child that just heard a naughty word, tony got morgan out of her bouncy seat and twirled them both around. "don't listen to your mama, honey bunny, she doesn't know what she's saying."

pepper tugged him over for a kiss, not quite able to get the smile off her face. "you're ridiculous and i fall in love with you a little more every day." tony had a wonderful response to go with his sudden blush, but then pepper smashed a handful of soil into his hair and he was too busy chasing her around the yard to say it.

@darthbloodorange - Steve and Tony's rivalry is legendary amongst the community, maybe even wider. Ever since the billionaire joined the Manhattan District Community Garden the men had been at odds with one another. Always trying to one up each other in variety and technique, in finding the Heirlooms plants with the most ridicules names. There was no end in sight for the feud and it had grown old fast amongst their shared circle of friends.

One day a man who called himself 'Ebony Maw' joined the Garden with his friend 'Proxima Midnight'. They called themselves the "children of Thanos". The newcomers started disturbing the peace, spouting weird cultish sayings about balance and order. Steve and Tony found themselves joining forces against the newcomers, putting their differences aside to defend the community. But things are more dangerous than they seem, and Steve and Tony find themselves fighting something bigger than the imagined... and maybe fall in love in the process.

#tonystarkbingomarkiv #tsbmiv #tsb discord party #3 prompt summaries game #party game

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irarelypostanything · 3 years

Text

Operation Gamestonk

[A short story I may or may not have written while drunk]

Lewis’ entire family was slaughtered by the hated Hedge Fund Knights — they foreclosed his home, stabbed his parents, and set the manor on fire in less than a millisecond. This was the work to be expected of the Hedge Fund Knights: They could kill, flee, and rob people faster than their victims could comprehend. Even the Goldman Company warriors Lewis’ family had hired were beheaded…Lewis himself survived by some act of fate, God, or Satan. Regardless, he dedicated his life to vengeance. He made friends, shared stories, brokered alliances in the only form of currency he knew could match the violence he was grappling with. Lewis did not fight with a sword and shield, but with information. He built his own power on the back of blackmail and betrayal, and in time he afforded himself the opportunity to slaughter those who had wronged him.

But the Hedge Fund Knights returned with renewed vigor, the same way cancer was never truly gone. With nowhere left to turn, Lewis made his way to the one place no one could touch him.

Part I. The Big Short Squeeze

The Palace of Joe Rogan was protected on all sides by water and gorillas. Rogan’s island was fabled throughout the entire world for growing the finest mushrooms and the most exquisite weed. Here, thanks to Rogan’s diplomacy, there was no war. Visitors were free to negotiate as they pleased, but anyone who spilled blood on these sacred grounds was forced to smoke a blunt so potent, only Rogan himself had ever survived its vaporized sweetness.

The palace was made of gold. The armed gorillas who guarded the palace gates nodded to Lewis as he passed, lowered their guns, and stepped aside. Just outside the gates, Lewis could make out the outline of children attempting to catch a glimpse of what was inside. The courtyard featured a massive gorilla statue, along with a statue of their god: Elon Musk.

Rogan was in his chambers, drinking scotch and smoking a blunt. He recognized Lewis immediately.

“Sup, dude!” he said. “Have you ever tried to fight a gorilla?” Rogan was not a tall man, but in his mind’s eye Lewis could envision him sparring with a gorilla and winning.

“Another time,” said Lewis. “I come bearing gifts.” Lewis reached into his bag and produced two sculpted hands, both of them encrusted with diamonds. “Diamond hands.”

“Sick.”

“The time has come,” continued Lewis, “to speak to Musk, our lord and savior. You are the only entity capable of communing with Him, for your weed is powerful enough to summon even a god.”

“Okay.” Rogan crushed weed in his hand, then lined it on the ground in a Tesla logo. As soon as he finished, the powder turned to fire.

“This will take around 30 seconds,” said Rogan. “By the way, have you been in touch with my new friend, Lord Robinhood?”

“Lord Robinhood?” asked Lewis. “How did he become a lord?”

“Not sure.”

“Don’t you need to be rich to buy lordship? If his product is zero commision, how does Lord Robinhood make money?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Elon Musk was said to have been a bridge between gods and humans, someone who took a mortal form so that ordinary men could speak to someone they understood. Musk would end climate change, build a massive tunnel, and provide humans with immortality long before AI would have the chance to commit mass genocide. But the words of Musk were cryptic. When he spoke, it was through a medium. His words only came several characters at a time.

“Gamestonk,” said Rogan.

“What?”

“That’s all he said. Gamestonk. Do you know what that means?”

“I have to go.”

“Don’t you want to stay and talk about gorillas, first?”

Lewis would sail to his hometown, as quickly as he could, and when he got there he would send ravens to every great king, lord, and priest in the land. The time of reckoning had finally come.

Part II. The Diamond Hands

The city of Gamestop was lame and inefficient — you had to talk to a person to buy anything, and unlike the city of Amazon it had some really bad customer service. When Hedge Fund Knight Kenneth rode in, the Gamestop peasants treated him with scorn…for people so stupid, these ones learned quickly. Before they had time to flee, Kenneth had killed 20 of the town’s youngest children and left a still-bleeding head in the bed of each child’s respective mother.

Their mission was simple: They were going to pretend to supply Gamestop with stores of food and horses, when in reality their intent was to watch the peasants die. They had bet on it. If Gamestop withered and died, like they knew it would, the idiots in Burry would be forced to pay out their lost bet. The Hedge Fund Knights, in their frequent pillaging and raping, knew that it was only a matter of time before Gamestop fell.

But something was off today. Everywhere he looked, Kenneth saw mysterious markings that consisted of a diamond with hands. What did this mean? He caught a hooded man attempting to paint these symbols on a store. In an instant, Kenneth had him by the neck.

“What are you doing?” Kenneth demanded. With surprising force, the hooded man wriggled free. Kenneth drew his sword, produced a magical (and high) frequency, and teleported it direct beneath the hooded man’s throat. As soon as he attempted to make the killing blow, the hooded man grabbed Kenneth’s throat and threw him.

And just like that, in an instant, Kenneth was dead.

The hooded man discarded his robe. He had slicked-blonde hair, sunglasses, and a $20,000 suit. His hands, which had apparently granted him superhuman strength, were no ordinary hands. They were made of diamond.

Around him, the villagers could hear the dreaded high frequency of the Hedge Fund Knights. One by one, each knight reappeared to kill the troublemaker — just as quickly, each Hedge Fund Knight died.

“It can’t be!” said a villager, in disbelief. “Are you…are you with WallStreetBets?”

The man nodded. The first villager kneeled.

“Why are you kneeling?” asked the second villager. “WallStreetBets is nothing but shitposting dumb ass millennials. You know about as much about investing as your average 4Chan user does about being charming.”

“Forgive him!” cried the first villager, “he knows not what he says. I know of your the heroic actions of ControlTheNarrative, as well as your selfless box spreads! You are our saviors, and you are the only ones capable of saving us.

“Now tell me, oh great one, will you save us?”

The man nodded.

“Thank heavens! Musk be good! Will you take Gamestop out of its position?”

“I’ll take it to the moon,” said the man.

Part III. The Citadel

The forces of WallStreetBets were divided. For five days they had held against the combined forces of House Citadel and House Melvin, but their provisions were running low.

It was the afternoon. It was 100 degrees. Lewis thought that this blonde man’s sunglasses were fitting, but not his suit. He must have been sweating bullets.

“Options!” shouted a nearby fisherman, “get your options while they’re fresh!” Lewis ignored him, as did DiamondHands.

“You’ve managed to seize Gamestop,” said Lewis, “what’s your plan now?”

“Hold.”

“What?”

“Hold.”

Lewis was incredulous. Since the Robinhood embargo, a move some believed was the direct result of a bribe from the Hedge Fund Knights to Lord Robinhood himself, many of the WallStreetBets forces had died. Some had taken gold and fled, obviously benefitting from the attack without bearing the risk. Some, in fact the majority, had simply shitposted. They probably died, too, but no one could really keep track of that sort of thing.

“WallStreetBets is chaos,” said Lewis. “Some of you are brilliant, some of you are simply in for the ride. What was all of this for?”

“Hold.”

“Did you ever have a plan? Was this an act of vengeance, a self-interested coup for the sake of profit? What is this? What do you believe in?”

“Holding.”

“Your forces are dwindling. All of this might come apart.”

“It won’t come apart if we hold.”

Lewis looked out at the burning city, the diamond hands flags, and the flag of the shiba inu. He wondered what was coming next.

#fiction #short story #the big short squeeze #gamestop #hedge fund #robinhood #gamestonk #prose

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nlmorgan89 · 3 years

Text

Revenge

Jeff Tracy had been back on earth long enough to organise a surprise graduation for Alan when they got a call about a rescue in the Atlantic. Jeff should have been suspicious as John had said it was a Gold card members rescue, what ever that meant. What he was surprised about was after reading the names all his sons groaned and Scott, never leave anyone behind, Scott had asked if they were really needed. As a tidal wave was approaching them it was a neccesary rescue, what had happened to make everyone not want to rescue these people. He waited till everyone was gone before asking his mum.

"Why did no one want to rescue these people?" Jeff asked, she had been taking a nap and had not been there for the initial report.

"Who is it?" Sally asked, there was a sort list of people who her grandson's hated rescuing.

"Francois Lemaire and Langstrom Fishler. What?" Jeff asked again after she groaned and went to the desk calling Val.

"Tracy's if its about the Gold card members John already called us and I am on the way with some back up from The Mechanic, Rigby and Kayo." Val said she was sitting down in a cockpit already flying out to make sure that Scott did not do anything to tarnish the IR reputation.

"Thank god, just beware Lemaire already made Allie cry during his last rescue, if he gets upset you know what everyone else will do." Sally said, she had also sent Jeff copies of the rescues that the boys had done involving the Gold card members.

"Okay so you want me to deck him first before anyone else does." Val said the fact that she was serious was not lost on anyone.

"How did they survive into adult hood? Not even the boys managed to do half this shit in their teens." Jeff said, he wondered how both remained rich and working in their respective fields.

"I have no idea but I wont blame you if you want to throw your weight around, I remember your college days were some good times. Val, you and the Commando's where quite good at starting things and not getting caught." Sally said, they both grinned at that, but quickly went back to watching the rescue The Mechanic had assigned the ground and air crew with a dragonfly mecha and Gordon had his ray mecha. It was just a precaution so that no one was seriously hurt. Even John had EOS in drones so she could assist and keep an extra set of eyes on the family. While no one was hurt by some miracle was more down to the extra safety of the mecha's and EOS it was still time consuming. It would have only taken them an hour but it instead took them 7 hours so everyone was tired and hungry.

"Val are the Commando's still around?" Jeff asked once everyone was fed and in bed, Sally was in the hall listening them plan their revenge, she knew she should feel sorry for the poor idiot but they brought this on themselves. When the morning rolled around Jeff was watching the news and had to laugh when he saw the report.

"Yesterday, after International Rescue was called out to rescue the parties involved they were met with a rather pleasant surprise after waking to find themselves in a mysterious bubble. Maybe now they can let International Rescue rest and I am sure after seeing these videos the rest of the world will agree..."

"Why are they in a fish bowel?" Scott asked, he had wanted to thump them last night and had put that on the backburner after he had to hold both Virgil and Gordon back. Rigby and Val were to busy holding Kayo and The Mechanic back after he had made Alan cry, even EOS had placed John in quarantine lockdown so he didn't do anything stupid.

"No idea, but I would call that poetic justice. I am going to a lunch with some college mates on the main land, will pick up dinner so you don't need to cook anything mum." Jeff said, Sally was grinning she had not even heard Jeff leave the island but then it did not surprise her when he walked out and climbed into a SPECTRUM plane. Her poor family were totally confused.

Later... "Damn Jeff you have not changed at all. Shame Lee missed out on this?" Charles said, he was not surprised when a Commando's alert had gone out after he had watched the Tracy boys rescuing the idiots once more, even his own team had been called out during the Tracy's absence when they had gone to rescue their dad to save Lemaire.

"I have to agree, though it was rather fun," Samuel said, raising his glass to Jeff everyone followed suit. He too had wanted to kill Fishler after one of his machines almost killed the treaty that he had made with Titanica.

"So, what is the next prank?" James said, he was happy just to get away from his desk, it was no fun running a country but then he would not change it for anything.

"No idea, but we should team up next time prank wars break out in one of our divisions, show these youngsters how its done." Val said, she had been in a meeting reassuring the idiots that they had no idea how the bubbles had appeared and promising that they were doing everything in GDF's power to help them.

"Ready to watch Phase 2?" Jeff said, he had placed cameras around both houses so they could watch their pranks play out. Everyone nodded, as Jeff had only told them to come up with something to help contain all of his pranks thus the bubble. "Well hope they have a good cleaner on hand will secretly send them a massive donations once they have cleaned the buildings."

"Jefferson what exactly did you plan? Also congratulations on your re-election James." Val said, she was the only one that could get away with calling him Jefferson only because she could be as scary as Sally Tracy when she wanted to be.

"Thanks Val," James said, he noticed people snapping photos but he knew that they would not make it online thanks to Jeff's sons AI, EOS. "After lunch we should take a group photo for old times."

"Agreed, we should make it a regular thing too, we don't get breaks where we are able to leave work often." Samuel said, but started choking, how had Jeff added that much glitter to the water supply. Everyone was loosing it too for the sprinklers had started spraying the houses and yard with glitter. Poor Lemaire had just entered his shower and Fishler was doing his laundry. Jeff was grinning like that evil SOB that he was. Even Gordon's glitter bomb was tame compared to that.

"Is that really sanitary Jeff." Charles said, he was tearing up from laughing so much, glad he was best friends with him and not an enemy. That thought was going through all of there minds, it was fantastic having the master strategist back in charge. "Is that 'Sh*t List' playing?"

"Yes, OMG you even messed with all the audio devices dude." Samuel roared, he had to laugh they had discussed revenge songs and this one made the list only because of the one line. 'I grab my pen and I write up a list, of all the people that won't be missed. You made my shit list'.

"What can I say 11 years is a good way to expand ones prank list." Jeff said, which was truthful aside from thinking of his family he spent years thinking of ways to pay back Gordon if he decided to prank him once he was back. Turns out these three pranks were his best ones though he was saving the Kool-Aid in the pool for when Gordon was too much for the entire family. 3 hours later he was looking at the photo they had taken all his friends were surrounding him, and could not be prouder of his friendships and how even years later they were still great friends.

"Hi dad, who are they?" Alan asked, the boys had come in wanting to ask how his day away had gone, and surprising him with a visit by Lee Taylor.

"Hey Lee, boys, these are my college mates. Val your god-mother, Charles Grey the commander-in-chief of Spectrum's Cloudbase, Samuel Shore, commander of WASP, the last person is James Holland, president of the US." Jeff said, he watched as his boys stared open mouthed at this. Lee laughed, and clapped his friend over the shoulder, he had made it back and watched the news report of the bubbles that had appeared and realised his team had come together wishing he had been involved but kept his mouth shut. "Lee forgot to tell you James says you owe him some money after Moon base was destroyed."

#irrelief #@shirubie #gumnut-logic

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a-simple-imagine · 5 years

Text

Robots and Roses

Synopsis: Tony gets y/n an unusual gift for her birthday and Natasha’s not sure she can compete with that

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader

Words: 1.7k+

A/N - It’s my birthday so give me attention here is my gift to you guys.

"Happy birthday," Natasha utters every so softly against your lips. You break out into a smile as you pull away.

"Thanks," You reply, rolling onto you back and groaning extra loudly. You had almost forgotten that it was your birthday and now you were wishing Natasha hadn't reminded you. Slipping out of bed, you escape into the bathroom before she can say another word. Staring into the eyes of your reflection, you take a deep, centering breath. You just had to get through the day and that was simple enough. Maybe today was full of surprises or maybe you'd burst into tears, who knows? Washing your face, you exit the bathroom to see Natasha getting ready. She pauses, glancing towards you.

"You doing alright?"

"Yeah," You give her a firm nod. Her eyes linger on you as she walks over. Slipping her shirt up over one arm. Two hands slap against your cheeks, waking you up a little in the process. She's trying to get you to look at her but you keep your eyes down, getting an eyeful of her chest as you avoid eye contact.

"What do you want to do today?" She asks, planting a warm kiss against your forehead.

"Nothing," You shrug; Slipping out her grip in order to get ready.

"You can't do nothing or you'd be doing something, idiot." She chuckles, pulling on the other half of her shirt.

"I don't want to do anything then," You correct yourself.

"My gift to you is not making you celebrate your birthday." She announces with a bright smile. "Can't say the same about the others though." Natasha slips out the door, leaving you alone to finish getting ready. You wonder into the kitchen around twenty minutes after her. She's sat munching on some toast and Clint is chatting her ear off. Wanda is stood over the stove cooking something while Vision stares on in complete awe. You slide onto the stool next to Natasha, she smiles at you as does Clint.

"Happy birthday." The blonde calls from the other side of her. "I would have got you something but this one didn't inform me in advance."

"It's alright. Thank you."

"Breakfast?" Natasha interrupts and you cringe at the thought of Natasha making you something. She wasn't the best cook in the world; not even close. "Don't worry, Wanda will be the one to make it."

Wanda was looking extra bright today. "I can make you an omelet? That's what you want right?"

"That would be great,".

"Everyone can relax," Tony yells as he barges into the room from behind you. "The person who matters has arrived."

You glance at him before going back to chatting with Natasha. A plain brown box is dropped down before you. As tempted as you are, you completely ignore it. The billionaire nudges you a couple of times to try and get your attention. "Happy birthday kid!"

"I appreciate it, Tony, I really do," you push the box away from you just slightly. "but I don't need any more mugs with your face on."

"Good thing it's not a mug then." You knew it wasn't. The box was too big but it was definitely going to be something related to him. Either that or it was an entire stack of mugs, that would actually surprise you.

"Fine. I don't need plates or bowls or t-shirts for that matter." You groan, finally turning to him. You had enough iron memorabilia to last a lifetime but he always insists you can never have too much. Tony chuckles patting you softly on the back.

"Just open it,"

You decide to humour the man. Opening up the box and peering over the edge.

"What is it?" Nat's voice drifts into your ears.

You reach in and lift out what seems to be an iron man figure? Placing it carefully down directly in front of you. It was heavier than you expected it to be considering the size. You look to see if there's anything else in the box, finding a small black remote control wedged at the bottom. "You got me... an iron man figure?"

"I made you an iron man figure." Tony corrected, a smirk settling on his lips. Natasha snickered beside you and you elbowed her. In all fairness the thing was incredibly detailed' looked just like his real suit but what possessed him to think this was a good gift for you?

"Why would... why would you think I want this? I have enough iron man shit." You not really mad at him. Just kind of confused. He always gave you weird stuff all the time but this was extra strange.

"I put my heart and soul into this Y/N," Tony grumbles, arms folded over his chest like a little kid.

"Okay... but why?"

"I can show you how it works," Pushing past you he reaches behind the back of the toy. He genuinely seemed excited about this thing. It was kind of cute. "Just push the tush and," Iron Man springs to life before your eyes, the mask lighting up in a similar way to the larger version.

"So it's a night light?"

"It does more than that," he insists. Tony practically snatches the remote from you and you stare on with absolutely no idea where this was going. The toy's hands light up and soon enough the thing is floating in midair. It does a lap overhead before landing back down on the island. "It walks, flies and can even shoot, nothing lethal of course and if you press this button on the remote, it'll talk to you."

The truth is... I am iron man.

Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

Tony making a doll of himself that also talks? Very on-brand.

"If you're feeling extra fancy you can just talk to him and he should respond. I worked on the AI for a while so should working like a dream."

"I am not talking to that thing," You scoff at the notion.

"Go on, just say hello."

With a loud groan, you look to the toy. It turns its head to look back. "What do I call it?"

"When I was testing it, I just called it mini Tony."

"Hey, mini Tony." You mumble awkwardly. It was weird actually talking to a mini version of Stark.

"Hello, Y/N."

"Voice recognition," Tony explains, handing back the remote paired with a black earpiece. "So you can talk to him at a distance." You had to admit it was pretty impressive. He seemingly put a lot of work into it. "Do you love it?"

"...it is pretty cool, yeah. Thank you." You begrudgingly admit. The screech of the stool assaults your ears as Natasha gets up and storms away dragging Tony along with her. You try to think nothing of it. Wanda hands you an omelet with a birthday wish that you gladly accept. You patiently await your girlfriend's return but when she doesn't come back, you decide to go looking for her.

"Hey mini Tony, do you have a mode where you can like... follow me?"

"Yes, would you like me to active follow the leader protocol?"

"...I guess?" Dumb name but sure, you should have expected it. Wondering around the halls of the compund you eventually come across the redhead in her bedroom. You probably should have checked there first. Bargaining in, you just catch her hide something behind her as you step through the door.

"Ah! So this is where you've been hiding, huh?" You dare to go further into the room, parking yourself down next to her.

"Mini Tony, sentry mode." The toy lands itself. Turning away from you both to watch the door.

"Since when could it do that?"

"It seems it has a lot of modes I don't know yet but I'm learning."

"At least you're enjoying yourself," She seems almost sad at the notion.

"Are you okay?" You wonder, head tilting just a little as you watch for any changes in her expression. She doesn't bother to answer. "Have I done something to upset you?"

The spy shakes her head, lazily pointing towards mini Tony. "It's not you, it's... that."

"You're mad at the toy?"

"No- It's just. I feel bad for not getting you anything."

"Oh, baby no, I don't care," you shrug. She should know that you couldn't care less about today of all days. "I thought your gift was not making me celebrate?"

"Yeah but then Tony got you that thing."

Your look to the thing in question. Watching it just stand there, waiting for another command. "Mini Tony is stupid. Cool but stupid, I don't know why he put so much effort into it. Honestly, I was expecting it to be a stack of mugs or something."

"Maybe I should get you a mini compound for mini Tony to live in,"

You chuckle a little. "Please don't give Tony ideas. Next thing we know he'll be making me an entire avengers team."

"Doubtful he only seems to give you things with his face on,"

"That's even worse. I'll have an army of mini Tonys."

She laughs a little but it quickly fades away into silence. You don't pressure her to talk; you simply wait until she's ready. "I know it's not a cool fully functioning robot but I thought this would be a sweet gesture since you said you didn't want anything."

From behind her back, Miss Romanoff produces a single vibrant rose. The color matching the fire of her hair. You're a little surprised by what you see and you cautiously reach for it. "No- this is... this is perfect," you insist, shaking your head a little. "I don't think anyone has ever given me a flower before."

You twist the stem between your fingers and place a kiss against the other woman's cheek. You never thought you'd be so touched by such a simple thing but it just felt so special? Natasha was a tough cookie to crack. You often found her hard to read or a little closed off but today she was different. Almost vulnerable.

"Thank you- really."

"You're not upset." Draping your arm over her shoulder, you pull her closer.

"Not at all. Although it breaks the whole not celebrating my birthday thing, it was still a thoughtful gesture and I appreciate that." You explain. Trying to sound as sincere as possible.

"Well... Happy Friday then."

Natasha was special. You definitely knew that much. "Thanks, Nat."

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff imagines #natasha romanoff x you #natasha x reader

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