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unadulteratedsoulsweets · 7 months

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A DC X DP IDEA #22

Back in my day.

Imagine dis…

Alfred is a whole mystery to the Batfam that whenever he pulls out his shotgun we are in awe at this kickass badass British butler, on the other hand, we are always in the shadows of his past endeavors. We all knew he was a S.A.S. Armed Services, fighting in 15 different operations between ages 18 and 20. A skilled medical and front liner soldier who was decorated. He later joined MI5, as well as the secret forces of the Queen and later being knighted by Her Majesty.

He is silent as he comes by, he can out Batman the Batman despite Bruce learning from the greatest assassin of all time. He is calm, too calm for any situation to the point your subconscious asks if he had seen something wilder, more insane to consider an alien attack, a mutant crocodile attack every Tuesday is considered somewhat tame, or even the rise of global or universal threats that Alfred seemed to brush it off.

So, who is he?

…

Alfred Pennyworth had always been a mysterious figure. He had dedicated his life to serving the Wayne family and their caped crusader alter-egos as Bruce Wayne's loyal butler and the revered keeper of Wayne Manor. But Alfred had held a secret for decades, one that would finally come to light most unexpectedly.

Alfred was a teenager called Danny Fenton long before he donned the perfect suit and tie. He lived in the small town of Amity Park, which was riddled with secrets of its own. Danny was not your typical adolescent; he had a strange encounter with a ghostly gateway that had bestowed upon him unusual and otherworldly skills. He had protected Amity Park from vengeful ghosts and spectral threats thanks to his power to shift into a phantom hero known as Danny Phantom.

Danny had just recently been crowned as the crowned prince of the Infinite Realm a week after he had defeated the tyrant Pariah Dark who had attempted to rip off a space in the fabric of in-between just to suck in his little quaint town. It was determined by both the ancient and the Observants that it was better for him to finish his mortal life before he dawns on the crown, as he was still growing, he was still considered a baby ghost younger than Young Blood as his death was still recent.

But slowly the thoughts that he had kept behind his head are coming back to him. Jazz his beloved sister as well as the one who had raised her despite being a child herself who had no idea of raising a child, may analyze her all she wants but she could never sympathize nor connect with his inner thoughts of being one of the halfas. He died, he never really had the time to process it because he had to face the Lunch Lady just a few days after the accident.

His friends, now looking at them closely, have seen that they both have some sort of guilt in their eyes. They both have seen him die amid the electrician, he can’t help but feel some sort of longing at the cemetery the north of Amity Park, he is too alive to have a grave yet too dead to be alive.

He thought he was getting there, changing the views of the people. To show the world that his kind is sentient but the people kept whispering. Shadows cast long by the looming specters sent chills down their spines. Every eerie wail or flicker of a ghostly presence filled them with dread. Their eyes widened in terror as the ethereal figures materialized before them. A hushed silence fell over the town when ghostly battles raged in the skies. Parents warned their children to stay indoors when the ghost alarms rang. Fearful whispers of the "Ghost Boy" circulated, both a hero and a phantom menace.

The ghostly encounters left scars of fear etched in the minds of Amity Park's residents.

In the end, he was forced to leave his home dimension, why? It’s because the GIW have become more vicious more brutal at their hunting, With the sacrifice of both his friends and family they have shoved him into the portal, never to be seen again.

…

All bloodied and still injured he had landed in a period in the early 1900. He thought that he may have accidentally traveled back in time but when he saw too many conflicting events that he had learned during his high school days that didn’t happen during this time led him to believe that he had traveled a different dimension. Small ripples in the water created a tsunami of change in what he previously known as the past, when he was still in the streets gathering information, he had noticed that he landed in the middle of London during the early 1900s. Good enough that child labor laws are still not a thing so he can work with practically anyone without questions asked. The bad news is that his supposed great-grandfather's version in this dimension had already died, according to his family tree history during his science project in 4th grade his great-grandfather went to London to earn a few bucks before traveling back to America where he would meet his supposed great grandmother and have children. Since he died before he even went back to America the Nightgale-Fenton line died with him.

Luckily a barren couple took pity on him and took him in, since Danny can’t no longer bear his original last name, he embraced the new name from this nice couple who had taken him in. Danny may have felt guilty at the prospect or even the idea of replacing his family but he can’t help but think of it as a new beginning of his life. No one to hunt down his ghostly half, No GIW, and No fruit loop trying to turn him into his heir.

Alfred Pennyworth

During this time he did a lot of odd jobs, cleaning the inside of a chimney, mining, selling newspapers… etc. Sure, it was hard work and he can’t help but look at the children far younger than him taking in jobs far more dangerous just so they can shave something to eat. He can’t help but feel too blessed when he was back in his timeline. Warn food to eat under a sturdy roof to keep out the elements as well as education. Things that were too mundane, too common, that he now feels like a luxury.

Over time he developed an accent as well as new mannerisms and vocabulary.

So, when war broke out on the horizon his core ached at the notion of protection thus signed up in the military.

Sure, he became the most feared soldier in the fields due to his using some of his ghostly abilities subtly. His enemies who stand in front of him call him The Vengeful Orphan, due to his avenging every soldier who seems to die at the hands of their enemies.

Between the ages of 18 and 20, he served in the S.A.S. Armed Services, engaging in 15 different actions. A decorated medical specialist and front-line soldier. He then joined MI5, as well as the Queen's secret forces, and was knighted by Her Majesty.

…

As time passes by the ages, slowly but surely. He had already outlived his adoptive parents and friends of his. He still held the authority of being the officially crowned prince of the Infinite Realms. He had already explored the world experiencing the culture and history of this world.

At this time, he had already recovered enough ectoplasm to turn back to his ghostly prime and create a portal to the Infinite Realms. But something in him nagged, his core kept trying to tell him something when he was about to take a step inside the portal, but he didn’t seem to know why. His years as Phantom and Alfred Pennyworth taught him to listen to his guts, and it saved him multiple times, without looking back he stayed in this dimension until his mortal life perished.

It seemed that he didn’t have to find it for too long as he was approached by none other than Thomas Wayne with the preposition to be Wayne’s butler.

So, when little Bruce Wayne was born he couldn’t help but feel a little fond of the tyke. He reminded Bruce of himself when he was just a simple young boy before everything. When the fated, night came he tried to shield Bruce from everything, to have him resemble a somewhat normal life.

That night he tucked in a teary-eyed Bruce into bed who had just witnessed his parent’s murder. He faced the ghosts of both Martha and Thomas who had been with the young master since the incident a few hours ago and tearfully promised the two ghostly couple that he would take care of Bruce. Both couples seemed to be in shock at their butler who had seen them but felt relief that their boy was in safe hands.

…

When his ward Bruce Wayne turned into a crime-fighting vigilante, he can’t help but softly snort at his outfit. Sure, he admits he had a worse outfit when he started as Phantom when he was just a young lad but he is willing to take anything other than a furry suit that fights crime at night. He has no right to criticize either since his alter ego is just him with an inverted color without a mask yet people seem to make no connection between him and Phantom, in his defense he is a young teen whereas Bruce is in his 20s. He just raised an eyebrow at his outfit and Bruce immediately changed the design to be a bit more sophisticated than just a Halloween costume of a bat.

…

So when Bruce starts to bring in orphans he can’t help but smile fondly as the manor is slowly filled with such joy from each child that seems to find a home in the large manor. He can't help but reminisce if this could have been his life if Vlad had learned to forgive Jack or if his parents and Amity Park just accepted him if the GIW didn’t exist. He thought one day when he was drinking tea with Jason, Jason who died and came back different, never broken. His grandchild who experienced his death in a slow yet painful way died and came back later. He knew there was something different with his grave but he chalked it up in being his ghostly sense sensing the ectoplasm around Gotham. He just wished he checked the grave even though it holds so much sentimental value to the dead.

Don’t get him wrong the moment Jason came back to enact his revenge on B he was already aware something was in Gotham he just didn’t know at the time that it was Jason. He is more than happy to kill the Joker as he had taken mortal lives when he was serving the army but Bruce might notice and he still held fear at the idea of Dan.

After the entire revelation between his son and grandchild, he just welcomed back Jason into the manor as if nothing was wrong with the boy and prepared his favorite dish and snacks in the library whenever he visited.

…

Now it had been a long way since he entered this dimension, now the long table at the manor is filled with guests and children alike. His grandchildren are full of life despite what had life thrown at them. Dick was the first one to arrive and started, Barbara followed, Jason who took off the wheel, Tim with his brilliant mind with his worrying caffeine intake, Stephanie who fought with his father, Cassandra who started just to atone for the sin of killing her father yet became loyal and caring young lady and Damian who started to learn what humanity is like. Sure others had been emotionally adopted but all of them all have places in the manor.

…

His grandchildren as well as his pseudo son kept throwing him curious glances every time, He managed to seemingly appear behind them to notify them of dinner. He can also feel the envy of walking silently from the assassin-trained children. He can feel Bruce’s stare whenever he raises an eyebrow at some classified cases that are supposedly secured. He can hear their whispers as they exclaim to one another that he supposedly knew everything, of course, he knew everything the manor became his new haunt after a few years.

…

He already raised an eyebrow at the simultaneous alarm from every vigilante at the dinner table but imagine his surprise when he joined in looking over the Bat computer as Oracle barked out orders and instructions, as a familiar opponent showed itself.

A green glowing monster is wreaking havoc throughout Gotham it came from Central City and marched its way here to Gotham which became even more powerful due to the ectoplasm in the air. There is already notable damage from both cities as the rest of the heroes seem to work together to evacuate and stop the creature. The JLD attacks seem to have some effect but it was useless due to its minions that kept them occupied. Oracle is so focused on the situation and doesn’t notify their pseudo grandfather to disappear from behind her.

…

The entire JL is starting to feel hopeless as the green creature seems to raze Gotham as if the stone road is made out of water. Every magician and heavy hitter have been called but no one was able to put damage to the creature.

When all hopes seemed lost, they all heard a loud bang from a shotgun.

Alfred Pennyworth is standing on top of a rubble of concrete and metal, the butler of Batman, the pseudo father, and grandfather of the entire bat clan, also known as Agent A. Carrying his signature shotgun and a thermos that seems to strap to his hip like a belt.

He kept firing round after round from his trusty old shotgun and pausing for a second to reload. He glanced at the heroes around and seemed to raise an eyebrow at the absolute massacre that he had just done to the creature’s minions.

As he paused to take another reload, he paused at movement and looked at the space in front of him and waited. The creature appeared roaring out in fury but seemed to pause the moment it laid eyes on Alfred. The creature seems to shake with uncertainty and fear. Every vigilante and hero present could see its eyes growing wide from shock and fear as well the cold sweat as Alfred raised an eyebrow at the creature as he slowly walked towards the creature with annoyance with every step.

Some heroes who had enhanced hearing could hear Alfred muttering about, back in his day blob ghosts were these cute and harmless things but now some up-start wannabe newly formed one seems to think he is all hot shot.

He proceeds to scold the creature as if he had just caught one of his grandchildren sneaking their hands on the cookie jar and proceeds to take out the thermos and effectively catch the creature. As if the one responsible for the mess never existed in the first place.

Now the bat clan has rules when they are in the manor or the presence of Alfred and one of those rules is that there will be no swearing when he is around, but there is one word that seems to resound from each hero's mind.

What the fuck just happened?!?!

…

Now as you know I started to post less, now it is both from writer’s block and class being in the way.

PS: If someone out there wanted to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

#dc x dp #dc x dp prompt #batman #ghost king danny #dp #batfam

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pokeberry5 · 10 months

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i'm not really sure what the main thrust of this post is, but this yj98 arc has been haunting me literally since I read it months ago, so I've put together a brief(ish) overview of the salient points and the questions it's left me with

aka

that time young justice was sent to a literal intergalactic war front

aka

young justice has even more complex ptsd than you probably thought!!

yj98 #35

the premise is that there's a global war against imperiex, spearheaded by president (blech) luthor. as minors, they can't be drafted into it

(i hunted around and apparently Our Worlds at War, with Imperiex as the big bad, is the broader context, which i didn't feel like reading for this)

instead, they're going to be attached to a "sort of super medical unit" called the "paradocs"

the way they're persuaded to accept their role (instead of?? fighting on the front lines?? jeez kon) is to conceive of themselves as saving active-combat superheroes for their children they're leaving at home (creating an implicit distinction between those children and themselves, which i find sad)

yj is specifically a "search and rescue team"

with a civilian cissie king-jones as their qualified emergency medical technician (so her public persona is an olympic champion, actress, and volunteer veteran of an intergalactic war???)

is cissie the only one performing medical services then? do any of the others pick anything up from her, if these missions last long enough? (do tim and cissie bond as the only non-powered people they know going into a space war?)

yj98 #36

they've run "a couple" successful missions behind enemy lines: what does this mean for the duration of this role?

(i'm not sure if reading Our Worlds at War would help determine how long this all lasted, but if someone who has read it has answers, i'd love to know)

also, were they in space the whole time or going back in between? (i also really really want to know what batman thinks of his protégé being part of a space war. related, did cassie tell her mom??)

---

Superboy Vol 4 #91: War Letters gives some context to this

(kon putting on a brave face!!)

but also:

even as paramedics they were participating in active combat, fighting off scavengers

the lack of specifics, the mention of the fact that he's met "a lot of interesting cats in the field," and of "things" he's seen—there's a sense that he's seen a lot but not enough yet for it to no longer be shocking. or, that what they're seeing is so savage that it never ceases to be shocking.

this also implies that they've met and rescued a slew of people from across the universe. does yj have intergalactic connections? do random alien soldiers remember this small group of earth children that saved them?

this panel also shows kon (and likely the rest of them) amidst recovering jl members. what does the broader jl think of this group of kids in an acknowledged war zone, seeing them beaten down like this? (it's unclear whether kon actually went and rescued kyle rayner here or is just helping him around the medical area, but there must be some sort of lasting impression from this)

they get diverged from their rescue mission and end up on apokolips

bart experiences death when one of his "scouts" is killed—this has a lasting impression on him (addressed later) and kon blames himself, since it was his decision to chase after steel that landed them here. do the two of them ever talk about this? (they don't in yj at least)

---

yj98 #36 contd.

kon's accusation shows that this arc happened right after the drama between batman and the jla during tower of babel (the secret contingency plan drama)

and after batman's betrayal of tim's identity to spoiler (rip tim being betrayed on multiple fronts)

(tim putting on a strong front :'))

i find it interesting that tim considers his state "a world of grays" in contrast to kon's "black and white" attitude. balancing a multitude of considerations is a "world of grays?" anyway, tim staring death in the face and admitting he's scared :')

and then tim gets to watch lil lobo die (he does technically come back but!) and says explicitly that another part of innocence he didn't know he had died with lobo. this can't be his first time witnessing a death given gotham's everything, so is it because this is the first time he's watched a comrade die (and so brutally too)?

yj98 #37

and then! we get extended(?) mental torture on apokolips, enough to drive to tim to attempted homicide (both in the dream world and out of it)

(he was made to watch kon and cassie get murdered brutally in front of him jsyk)

and once he's out:

(does this ever haunt tim? that he almost broke batman's one rule? also parallels with dick beating the joker to death later on tim's behalf)

yj98 #38

the fallout:

we see that after experiencing his scout's death on apokolips, bart's been left with a fear of death strong enough to get him to leave yj (i don't actually know how this gets resolved?? it must happen in his solo bc he just sort of reappears a few mini arcs later...)

("i quit for a bunch of reasons ... but not a single one of them had to do with being afraid i'd get killed," cissie you're sooooo well-adjusted. she doesn't think bart's valid rip)

this is the moment where tim quits yj because he can't deal with their lack of trust (oof) and because“i don’t need the grief of young justice,” referring to everything else going on in tim's life (batman betraying his identity to spoiler)

(he'll lose them later on anyway—does it haunt him that he came back?)

(it's sweet that kon has someone he feels he can talk to and ask advice from)

i'm not sure if tim ever gets that apology

tldr: i kind of want one or more of yj to end up as a paramedic

#also i lied it's not brief #dc #yj #yj98 #tim drake #conner kent #cissie king jones #cassie sandsmark #anita fite #greta hayes #lil lobo #red talks #also this is def biased in its focus on tim but hes my favorite what can you do

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diejager · 6 months

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Scar

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader

Cw: angst, blood, infanticide, murder, threat, hostage, tell me if I missed any. wc: 4.7k (A/N): request by @ishii03

Whoever this Doc Ock was, with his darker clothes and broodier expression, was an annoyance. He was vicious in his words as he was with his attacks, his arms latching onto the walls of the building as he tried reaching for you. He was brutal but slow - at least compared to yours - his swaying arms mere seconds behind you. Swinging from side to side, webs sticking to every surface, you worked a cage around him. He was too blinded by his anger to see your trap, too blind to see thin, silk-like material that glimmered under the cool, winter air.

He wasn’t dressed for this kind of temperature, his coat too thin and his boots too short, the snow crawled up his calves and buried him in deep snow that hindered his movement. It was clear that he wasn’t from your world, or that he’d never seen this much snow with how unprepared and unfamiliar he was with your New York. It was something you weren’t going to let go of, using it to your advantage to string him up, trapping him in hundreds of webs of your making.

You skipped left and right, panting softly in your graceful dance around him. Your body twisted under his arm, leaping off the ground and into the air, every step you did was calculated, acts you planned to push him deeper into your snare. You were a spider and he, your prey, acted on instincts to catch whatever landed in your web. When he realised his predicament, it was too late, his arms were caught awkwardly, bent and twisted around silky webs that made moving around impossible unless he wanted to find himself in a worse situation. His body fared the same, his clumsy and lumbering form giving you an ease to slip beside him to lay your grounded trap, webs grasping onto his clothes.

He swore and cursed, his lips turning blue and limbs shaking from the cold. It was idiotic to think he could win against you on your own turf, he came unprepared for the weather while your suit had been built to keep you warm even on the coldest nights in a land where the ice age was more of a foreseeable future than global warming. He struggled but got himself stuck deeper, glaring at you from under his black goggles. You watched his mouth open to spit out an insult when his face paled - paler than it was, if it were possible - the crackling sound of something ripping sounded behind you.

Your sense hadn’t tingled, no warning or signs of danger so you hadn’t found the need to turn around. People dropped into the snow, and curses in both English and Spanish rang softly. It must’ve been the others, from your many speculations and hypothetical ideas, they were your counterparts in the other universes, the vast expense that made your world.

“'m guessing he’s yours?” You asked, crossing your arms, peering at them from over your shoulder.

“Yes, but it looks like you’ve got it under control!”

She had a voice that fit her character, caring and nurturing with a hint of sass that all Spiders had in some way. She looked familiar to you in a way, like a person you’d seen walking down the street with her child by the hand and her husband by her child’s other side, sounding as lively as she had that day on the warmest season of the year. Beside her was a rough-looking Spider, self-deprecating and woeful words slipping from his mouth like a waterfall, he seemed pathetically hilarious, with a hunched back and muscular build. He didn’t seem familiar at all, neither his voice nor his character, he was a completely unknown variable to your world.

Behind them were a dozen of Spiders all dressed and painted in different ways, bright colours and strong accents to their own world and culture. You liked that, the personality in their suit, something to be proud of. They all held something in their hands, some with small, metal cases and others had big, heavy-looking tech. They stood out in your bleak city, monotone greys against the vibrant reds and blues, even compared to your suit, a mix of light blue, white and black to fit your snowy world, but what stood out the most was the imposing figure leading them.

Stock with muscle on muscle, his shoulders broad and his hips slim, his limbs were round and strong, highlighted by the nano suit he wore, gleaming, red lights and a dark navy that made the red pop out even more. He moved as if he owned the place, leg strutting after the other with wide steps for his big stature. He seemed the most out of place in your grey world.

With a single motion, the woman by his side barked orders to the rest, they scurried around, setting machines on the glitched part of the buildings while the giant Spider-man marched towards Doc Ock. He raised his chin, eyes narrowed when he caught the sudden gleam of your webs, and then he saw the hundreds that branched across the walls, the intricately built trap the anomaly was caught in. Perhaps it was in admiration or curiosity, wondering how you could produce so much web. He threw something at Doc Ock’s feet, it burst open with an orange light, forming a triangular cage.

It cut your webs, the loose strings falling apart before it disintegrated into specks of sparkling dust. He stared at it, watching it fade from existence within seconds as if you were never here. He ignored the spitting scowl on Doc Ock’s face, peering down at you with a strange expression on his mask. It looked like he was going to speak, pondering over the words he would tell you.

“He’s an anomaly, I’m guessing?” You cut off any thought he had worked on, tilting your head questioningly. “I’ve had some theories and alternate universes never seemed that far-fetched.”

He huffed, crossing his arms at your blunt tone, that nonchalant way you spoke to him. He was probably used to a certain level of respect seeing that he was leading the Spiders, the need to have someone look up to you after being stared at as a leader for so many years.

“You handled it well,” the Spider-Woman jumped in, her voice ringing out like an enthusiastic voice in the strained tension between you. “This isn’t your first rodeo, is it?”

“First anomaly? Yes. First attack? No.”

She chuckled, raising a hand to you, shoulders loose and body relaxed. You shook her hand, giving her a soft grip and a nod. She called herself Spider-Woman, but her name was Jessica Drew. You gave her your surname, taking the title you were dubbed: Snow Spider. Jessica worked wonders with a man as stoic and strained as him, acting as the buffer in conversations when she saw that it was too tense, but that didn’t seem to bother the man, he shrugged and handed you something. It was a watch, the smooth surface opening up to a screen with different coordinates. It was high and advanced tech you could only dream of in your world, something enviable.

“Miguel O’Hara.”

He was curt and simple, as much as you were cold and blunt, then his mask disappeared, the small nanotechnology retracting to the neck, unveiling him. You knew that face, those high cheekbones and warm, caramel tone, his warm eyes and pouty lips. It was-

“Miguel! Please!” You pleaded with him, palms facing him and fingers splayed in an attempt to coax him to surrender. “Please let go of her!”

Your heart rapped against your ribs, the muscle beating loudly in your ear with an erratic pulse that sent your adrenaline skyrocketing. You stood by the door, blocking the path to the hall with your body. You faced him, teary and dazed over eyes staring pleadingly at your husband who had your little girl in his arms and a knife in the other.

You feared that a single step would make him act out his threat, to plunge the newly-bought knife down into your daughter’s flesh. Terror filled your every pore, filling you with existential dread and harrowing sadness. How could it have come to this? You were a loving family, a working couple with dreams, but never once had you imagined that your little girl would end up under a knife by her caring father’s hand. You had everything, a beautiful family, your dream job, a perfect relationship and powers that could save many with the right actions.

You took a step forward, small and hesitant, but Miguel screamed.

“Stop! Don’t take another step! Stay there!”

You stopped, but you had to get closer, to get into range to take the knife out of his hand and your little baby away from him. You tried reaching him through his eyes, you tried searching for the loving husband you fell in love with, you wanted to see him, but all you saw was the psychotic gleam in his eyes, that deranged monster that seeped into his mind. It was rooted so deeply that it seemed like the Miguel you knew never existed.

“We ca- can we talk this through, Miguel?” You persisted, shuffling forward slowly, hands still raised in surrender. “Can’t we?”

He growled, pushing the knife closer to Gabriella’s throat, the sharp side cutting her soft skin. You watched in horror, the drop of blood that rolled down the knife, tainting the clean metal in a sheen of red. Just a little more and you could bolt towards her, ripping Gabriella from his arms with the strength you recently got.

“Please, Miguel.”

His eyes shone with a knowing and chaotic thought as if he knew what you were doing, what you were attempting. With a sneer, he pulled the knife off and in a swift movement, slashed the throat of your precious girl. You screamed, tears falling from your eyes as you rushed to her. Blood spewed from her wound, gurgling out your name in sadness and fear. She was calling for her mom. You cradled her in your arms, hand applying pressure on the wound. It was useless, her blood slipped between your fingers, wetting them in that rich ichor that first gave her life.

You wailed and shook, staring at Gabriella while you muttered comforting words to her. She didn’t deserve this, the card that life handed her. Her life was cut too short and you were guilty of failing her.

“Oh, it’s okay, sweets. Don’t worry, mom’s here,” you hushed, ignoring the looming figure behind you. “Just close your eyes, mom’ll be there with you.”

You solemnly watched her eyes glaze over, the light in her eyes fading as she did as you told her to, closing her eyes to sleep. It’d be her last dream, her last memory, her last happy smile as you sang her to sleep. You dreamed that you were singing her to sleep in her plush bed, watching her smile and giggle under her blue blanket. You dreamed that you weren’t covered in her warm blood or that you were cradling her on the blood-soaked floor. You dreamed that your husband was holding your hand, his arms wrapped around your waist, kissing your shoulders with sweet promises rather than looming behind you with a bloodied knife.

You dreamed of so much, but none was your reality.

“You- you bastard-”

You turned abruptly, fist aimed at his face. He raised his arm at that moment and slashed down as your fist collided with him. You screamed, blinded by the splitting pain. He crumbled, limp from the hit on his ribs while you backed away, hands cupping your bleeding wound with tears.

“WHY!? HOW COULD YOU?!”

Miguel didn’t - couldn’t - understand you at all. You were blunt to a fault, words coming out with little emotions and reaction to any Spiders, even to bubbly, little Mayday who made even Miguel break his stubbornly-put stoicness. You stared stoically at Peter when he made a blunder that usually made others laugh, you were left unbothered by Lyla’s smile cracking jokes and sassy jabs, and the rambunctious group of teens and young adults were unsuccessful in pulling a reaction from you, even the slighted shrug or a slight flinch.

Another thing he couldn’t understand was the illogical need to keep your face covered at all times and the tenacity you had to always have it on. He, as well as other more serious Spiders, took almost every chance they had to take it off, the reminder that they were a hero and not another human being. You wore your mask as if it were your lifeline, the mask to hide your scars and the pain you lived, the monster you became to live this vigilante-like life for how long you’ve been working.

You pulled yourself away from any social interaction, seeking the dark corners of the base to hide away and observe. Miguel had seen your faraway stare when he walked past a corner, nearly jumping at your figure shrouded by the strange darkness of your solace. You never spoke to anyone else unless you thought it necessary, appearing with this deathly silence to spook every Spiders when you spoke up, your soft but cold voice ringing in their ears like a whisper that they almost missed.

He - with his lack of Spidey-Sense - was as often a victim to your scares as the others, his ears having strained themselves to even catch the quiet pad of your steps or the breathing that your mask hid. He chopped it up to your suit being made for stealth, the colours and highlights matching the gloomy world you came from, to hide in the shadows and pounce like the hunter you were. He could compare you to a wolf spider, ferocious and solitary, stalking and hunting your prey like the arachnid would, stalking your hunt with steady steps and catching it with fast-moving webs.

Although they all seemed like red flags to him, he couldn’t deny that your reports were impeccable, your work and missions done in record time. You might’ve been uncooperative outside of missions, but when you were thrown into the fray with another Spider, you worked in harmony, as if you and your teammate shared one mind, one idea, one wavelength. The quick reaction and synchronised attacks between you, jumping and skipping around the enemy with the same technique, wrapping them in a prison of silk and webs. Every Spider who’s worked with you had taken this strategy to heart, using it whenever they could if the time, the place and the anomaly were right and if they were able to do it without you who’d mastered it.

Miguel got curious, an itch that bothered him incessantly to find out more about you. There was little you shared with Lyla when she first brought you up to open up a file in the archives, adding yours to the rest of the thousands of Spiders that they collected information from. To create a file on your person and your universe would help Miguel understand the vastness of the Spiderverse, to push the limit of the multiverse’s limit and unearth what he had yet to find.

“Lyla.”

She popped up with bright colours, her figure glitching with vibrant pink and blues. She stood beside him, a small body floating in the air beside his head as he gave his orders, her brows lifting and lips pursing in a mix of curiosity and confusion. Hadn’t he shown his distaste and irritability for you? That little annoyance he got from your silent approach and spooking presence that kept him on his toes, or the unresponsive and unmoving mask you always wore around him, those squinted eyes and furrowed brows were the only indication that a human wore the suit.

She swiped on her pad, holographic screens appearing from her hand, each showing some sort of text and reports you wrote to him after a mission or for Lyla to answer her unending list of questions, or captioned video of your filmed conversations when Lyla was cataloguing information about you for the archive. He looked through it all, re-reading your reports, committing to memory the way you wrote and ended your sentences, and watching your consented videos.

Nothing recorded or written down was useful, all data recorded were things he found inconsequential, your skill, your talent, your strategy, your enemies, your universe number, and your measurements. Anything personal or canonical was written down, about your life before your title, of your life during it, or of you as a person, as if you portrayed yourself as a robot and not a human, to detach yourself from the world.

“And from her universe?”

“I got a few, mostly headlines and-” Lyla blew up with a bright smile, excitement bubbling in her eyes as she brought up everything she found about you, some headlines and files about you from the Avengers’ system (your name, your occupation outside of vigilantism, your address and any personal information he would need), but her smile grew placid, grim with worry in her eyes. “Miguel, I think you should look at this… it would explain why she’s so off with people.”

That caught his attention, the grim line on his usually bubbly and teasing AI had him suddenly worried. Had she found a canon event that shook your life in a way no one had expected? Had she found something disastrous involving you? His hand swiped the screens towards him, swiping through grayscale images on the front pages of newspapers and recordings of the event - of the murder. He saw his name - Miguel O’Hara - following the ground-raising words: murderer and infanticide. He read through the first headline on his alternate’s killings, dread brewed in his gut when he saw his daughter’s name and another one, a familiar name, his wife’s. She survived, but Gabriella had unfortunately passed in a gut-wrenching: her throat roughly slit from one ear to the other, leaving blood dried on her neck, face and clothes she wore that night. He, Miguel O’Hara from your world, had killed his daughter and wounded his wife before he was killed in self-defence.

He quickly pushed it away, pulling the recording to his face, wide, bloodshot eyes and trembling lips as he listened to the reporter tell the story with a shaky voice (she probably sympathised with his wife, seeing as the reporter was a mother). He listened to her drone around while the cameraman focused on the scene behind her, two body bags and a small figure hidden under a thermic blanket from the paramedics, back hunched over with puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. Anger surged in his body, hands balled tightly, his lips parted-

“How dare you-”

He stood stock, flinching away with panicked eyes to see you standing behind him, listening on to the woman reporting on the crime. Your voice was raspy with silent tears and anger, your body trembling viciously as you stomped towards him. He hadn’t heard you come in, he could’ve saved himself from this confrontation if he’d remembered to lock the door, but he could’ve also saved himself from this if he remembered that he was waiting for you to report on your mission.

“You fucking- there’s a reason why I didn’t tell anyone!” You seethed, like lava boiling at the surface, threatening to melt everything in your path.

“He just-”

“Fuck off Lyla.”

She flinched at your venomous tone, gulping before she fizzled out of existence to leave you both on your own. She gave Miguel a small good luck, vanishing without a trace, her warm light leaving the room dark and gloomy.

“Tell me, Miguel,” you started, your harsh sneer visible from under your mask. “What made you want to pry? No, better yet, why do you want to pry?”

His voice stuck in his throat, his tongue too heavy in his mouth to reply. You spoke with so much hate and anger that it made him suspicious, which made him wonder why you reacted so strongly about this case involving another him, another Gabriella and another version of his dead wife. Did you have any involvement in this case? Or perhaps you knew them and felt undignified and mortified for them when his other wife couldn’t be. That might’ve explained why you had some sense of dislike for him, the simple mention of his name brought an unsatisfactory taste to your tongue. Your history with Miguel O’Hara could explain your quiet abhorrence of him.

“I don’t like being left in the dark,” was all he could muster in the face of your wrath, to quell his unease when faced with your vitriol.

“So you thought it smart to dig into my past?”

So you thought it smart to dig into my past? What did you mean by that? He figured you felt so strongly against him digging into this because of your connection to his alternate’s family because you wanted to protect the memory of the dead. If he connected the dots correctly, returning to the first files Lyla had found for him, going back to when he first skimmed over your registered file in the Avengers’ database. He had caught your name in a flurry of quick swipes and your blurry face, he’d also seen your suit in a smaller drawing with detailed remarks and data about it.

It hit him strongly, like fallen floodgates of emotions breaking through his body in waves. Your hate, your anger, your fear, your solitude and your silence spoke to him more than it ever had. How could he have ever hated you? How could he have ever been irritated and impatient with you? How could he be anything but happy and overjoyed when you were within reach, something tangible that he could touch and hold rather than watch from afar or risk the chance of crumbling your world?

He whispered your name, a low hush that lightly reached your ears. He spoke it with reverence, with love and devotion. You were the love of his life, the thing he wanted to give himself to until he withered to ash and dust. You were the light of his life that brought his little girl to his world, brightening it even more than it was. You were a second chance, to relive something he lost, to get back what he lost-

But then, he understood your fears, your terror and your apprehension of him, the alternate version of the man who you loved and the person who murdered your child. It wasn’t something he could force you into, to convince you to stop fearing, it was an instinct. Logic rang in his mind, the reason why you wore your mask as if it were your lifeline, it was, in a way. It protected you from seeing the demons that haunted your mind, it protected your softer, more caring side, it shielded the human part of you from pain and sorrow.

“Oh, corazón,” he slowly approached you, little steps so that he wouldn’t spook you.

“Stop,” you flinched back, voice shaky with something else, hesitation, anxiety or fright. “Don’t-”

You jerked back when he pulled you to his chest, body frozen in place while he locked hands behind you, warm palms holding your waist in a comforting embrace. He cradled you to him, your cheek resting on his pecks, listening to his fast-beating heart, the thud in your ear and the pulse that shook through both your bodies. His fingers drew soothing motions on your back, a grounding act that would stop you from panicking.

“Take off your mask, corazón, let me see you.”

You grumbled lowly, a guttural sound that seemed like a rejection, to decline his demand, but it was a demand. He moved on his own, fingers grasping your nape for the slip of your mask, a button that would make your mask vanish, pixels gleaming in activation as they returned to your neck. You looked older than he remembered, but so had he, ageing from the years of solitude and trauma. Your hair looked shorter, skin was still as healthy but with a tired tint to your eyes. You were the picture-perfect wife of his dreams.

He cradled your face between his palms, thumb running over the pinkish mark over your eye, the straight and strong line that ran from your brow to your cheek. It was a vicious and painful scar that tightened the skin around the scar, it pulled at your face whenever you smiled, you sneered or frowned. He cooed softly, watching you blink furiously, swallowing down whatever threatened to break through your sealed lips.

“Who did this?”

The moment your fist touched his face, the bloodied knife he held skimmed your face, the sharp edge of the silver weapon drawing a painfully long line over your eye. You hissed, hands shaking as you hesitantly touched the open wound on your face, the skin broken and bleeding onto your fingers. It burned as much as it hurt, your face cut open by the knife that ended your precious girl.

You stumbled to him, half blinded, one eye seeing clearly and the other narrowed to a small slit, but all you could see was red. Red from blood and red from rage. You pushed him down, throwing the knife as far as you could with half the strength and the pain you were suffering through.

You wanted to do so much more than straddle him and hold him down until the authorities arrived. Someone had called for you - a neighbour, she was as sweet as candy and as soft as cotton, an older lady with no one to talk to besides you, Miguel and sweet Gabriella - when you were trying to convince Miguel to let your baby go. You wanted to take the knife and stab him where he slashed Gabriella, but you still loved him. He was your husband, you couldn’t hurt the person you promised your life to, so you screamed and cried.

“WHY!? HOW COULD YOU?!”

“You,” you rasped, memories rushing to the surface, eyes teary and tongue heavy.

You pushed him away, your sudden use of strength when Miguel thought you had softened surprised him, and he stumbled back. Colours erupted behind you, a tornado of vibrant shades that led to your universe. He watched as you shrugged the watch and donned your mask before vanishing into the spiral, the portal closing behind you. All he could do was watch in despair and hurt, watching his dream slip through his fingers a third time.

Wherever he went, whenever he was, Miguel saw you in everything. He saw you in the people he met outside of work, in the civilians he saw driving cars and walking the streets with children in hand. The ways the mother held their child’s hand and kissed their cheeks, small, loving pecks that showed them just how much their mother loved them. He saw you in his coworkers, the way they trapped the anomalies in their missions, shooting webs and stringing them around the anomaly. He also saw you in the pictures he kept, the few memories he still had of you.

He saw you everything, but none were you. He swore he could taste you on his tongue, he swore he could smell you in the air, he swore he could hear you in the room, he swore he could see you in the crowd, but it was never you. He might have an inkling of you in his world, in his reality. If he wanted to see you, to touch you and to love you, he could only dream and wish, to close his eyes and incision you in his mind.

Taglist: @yas-v @elliewilliamsbae @rinieloliver

#x reader #miguel o hara #miguel spiderman #miguel ohara #atsv miguel #miguel x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel spiderverse #miguel x you #spiderman 2099 #spiderman atsv #miguel 2099 #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel ohara x you #spiderman 2099 x reader #miguel o’hara angst #miguel o’hara x y/n #miguel o’hara imagine

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valleydean · 2 years

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Raise the Black - posting begins on 9/2/22

a deancas pirate au by valleydean (emmbrancsxx0) look out for this banner! playlist | ko-fi

SUMMARY: Nassau, 1717. Captain Dean Winchester of the Impala is a born and raised pirate, committed to disrupting commerce and civility on a global scale. After a battle at sea with the Royal Navy, Dean discovers a stowaway on his ship: Castiel Novak, an officer from Carolina with a secret. As their relationship grows, so does England’s determination to end piracy in the New World. This is the story of how men can become legends and how love can ignite a revolution.

READ THE FIRST SCENE:

Fifteen years ago 1702

The foremast was cracked, its splintering wood resembling jagged teeth. It had been the collateral of the first cannonball that hit the ship. A massive hole was ripped through the canvas sail, eliminating any prayer of outrunning the galley with its battered black flag shivering in the winds sweeping off the waves.

It wasn’t long before white smoke sat like thick fog over the deck, despite the sunlight winking on the sea. There was even less time before the pirate ship crashed into the starboard of the merchant vessel Castiel had boarded three days ago.

His father, mother, and sisters had waved to him from the docks in Charles Town as the ship sailed from the harbor, headed to England—a place Castiel had never been and had only heard stories about. But he was sixteen years of age now, and his father had been adamant that it was time for him to continue his schooling at the naval academy in London. As a soldier, his father said, Castiel could truly serve the empire.

As he’d watched the land sink into the wild blue depth, Castiel determined once and for all that he didn’t want to be in the Royal Navy, to fight for a crown and a country that was as foreign to him as the golden coasts of Africa and the forests of Asia. But his father was a navy man, as was his grandfather, and Castiel didn’t know what else he’d be.

“The sea is who you are,” his grandfather used to say. “It’s all there is.”

But, as the pirates with their painted bodies roared and chanted while jumping onto the ship, Castiel’s legs were still unsteady from the unfamiliar rock and sway of the waves. He wished he’d never left the land.

Shadows moved like specters through the smoke. The paltry crew of merchants unwisely put up a fight when they should have surrendered, most of them gutted for their efforts. Castiel heard their cries and shouts of the remaining English-bound passengers as they scattered—just as loud as the choking, gagging noises of the crew, the clanging of swords, and the ear splitting bang of bullets. All of it was so clear, unmuffled by the ghostly fog, and if not for that, Castiel might have been able to trick himself into thinking the smoke was a barrier. That all of it was happening on the other side of the wall, and he was safe from harm.

The quickening of his breath and the pressure over his heart knew differently. He stayed low, hidden from the pillagers as he made his way toward the hatch into the hull of the ship. He would go past the silks and tobacco stored there for trading, which is likely what the pirates were after. He’d find a place to hide in the afterhold.

Maybe his father would have been ashamed of him taking the coward’s way out, but survival seemed more strategic than failing to defend himself at the moment. He knew it the second the flags were raised on their assailants’ ship, and a shudder went through the merchant crew. “Black John,” one of the men had whispered in fear.

The newspapers detailed John Winchester’s crimes in detail. He was painted out to be more than a murderer; he might as well have been a kraken that had sprouted up from the deepest depths of the ocean. His crew was without mercy, without conscience. They never took captives, and they never left witnesses.

Castiel had often scoffed at the reports, calling them sensationalist attempts at vilifying pirates. However, right now, he wasn’t so convinced he’d been right.

A strangled shout came from close by, and a man stumbled backward before Castiel. There was a cutlass poking out of his gut akin to a stuck pig and he was coughing blood from his lips. Castiel froze, remaining crouched down next to the rail of the ship as the merchant hit the wood and slumped downward. The man wheezed, his glazed-over eyes searching Castiel beseechingly in an unanswered prayer. His head lolled. Dead.

Remorse bled through Castiel’s fear, telling him he should have helped the man. He should have been helping every innocent man and woman on that ship—whether it was brave or stupid or a little of both.

But all those people were as good as dead, himself included. Maybe the only brave and stupid thing to do was die. But the least he could do was take Black John and his crew with him.

He grabbed the cutlass and tore it from the merchant’s belly, the blade singing as it sliced through the air. The hatch wasn’t far, but the cannon and grenade smoke was thinning to let the light back in. He could make it if he moved quickly.

As swiftly as he could, he slid toward the hatch and slipped inside. He shut it behind him, the wood an inch above his nose, his feet planted on the planked stairs. Briefly, he allowed his eyes to slip closed, his breath loud against the hatch door. Beyond it, the screaming had mostly stopped. The pirates were calling for one another, some barking out orders, others with laughter in their tone.

He didn’t have much time.

Turning, he surveyed the barrels and trunks located in the hold. Oil lanterns swung from hooks, their flames no match for the dusty sunlight that streamed through the splintered wood where a cannonball had pierced the side of the hull.

He rushed to the first barrel he saw and used the cutlass to pry off the lid. A foul stench hit his nostrils. He covered his nose with his sleeve and looked in, finding a cask of whale blubber. It hadn’t been what he’d been searching for, but the odor meant it was old enough to be flammable and therefore would aid his cause. He pressed his back against the cask, heaving until it toppled over. The fat and sludge pooled sickly on the floor.

Panting, Castiel didn’t allow himself a moment to think. He caught sight of the barrels toward the back of the hull, away from any lanterns. A thrill of excitement and the stone-cold grip of dread battled inside of him. He snatched a lantern off its hook and made for the barrels nestled in the corner.

When he pried open the lid, his suspicions were confirmed. Gunpowder. There was enough of it to blow the entire ship to Kingdom Come.

Maybe he would never become a navy man like his father and grandfather. Maybe he’d never even make it to England. Maybe the ocean would be his grave, but he could swallow his fear.

Death by fire while surrounded by water. It might have been poetic.

“The sea is who you are,” his grandfather had said. Now, Castiel would never leave it.

Metal hinges creaked as the hatch opened up again. Instantly, Castiel’s bravado shirked away. He crouched behind the barrels.

His breath felt too loud in the small space as footsteps slowly clapped down the steps. In the patch of sunlight hitting the opposite wall from the cannonball hole, Castiel saw the shadow of a man. It stretched tall, filling the space like a painting on canvas. The pirate paused, likely seeing the toppled cask of whale blubber.

Then, after the short beat, the planks began to whine under the man’s boots again. Castiel bit down on his jaw, his fist tightening around his weapon. His heart skipped with every slow step the man took in his direction, as if he were true north and the pirate was the needle point of a compass.

He was close now, and Castiel knew he only had seconds before he was discovered. Until then, he had the element of surprise. He steeled himself in preparation—then jumped up, swinging the cutlass toward the pirate in an arc.

Metal hit metal with a reverberating clang. The pirate’s sword was locked against Castiel’s, and Castiel wasn’t certain if the man had it out already or if he’d been fast enough to pull it from its scabbard. Castiel hardly realized he was holding the lantern over the open barrel of gunpowder until time slowed.

The pirate before him was just a boy—around Castiel’s age, maybe a year older. He was tall, with short brown hair and freckles smattered on sunburned cheeks. There was blood splattered on his frock coat, on his neck and collar. But the first thing Castiel noticed was his eyes.

The sunlight cut a line across the pirate’s face, lighting his eyes up like treasured emeralds.

His gaze traveled to where their swords met, then flickered to the lantern Castiel was holding over the gunpowder. His hardened expression softened somewhat at that, like he was either humored or impressed.

Castiel tried to keep his arm from shaking. All he had to do was release his fingers, let the lantern fall. They’d all be dead. He kept himself steady, kept his face firm and threatening. He’d do it. He knew, deep down, he’d do it if he had to.

He should have done it already.

But then a slow, lopsided grin formed on the pirate’s face. His green eyes swept back up to meet Castiel’s.

It was unnerving. And something else, too. While he held the pirate’s stare, Castiel didn’t know how to place the emotion skimming over him like fingers causing ripples in a still pool.

Then, a booming, rough voice called in from the hatch, breaking the trance. A shadow suddenly blocked out the light from above. “Dean! See anything?”

The pirate—Dean—kept looking at Castiel with curiosity, but the smile snapped off his face. He pulled his shoulders back, standing straighter.

And that was it. Castiel was a dead man. His fingers twitched, ready to open his fist and blow them up.

But then Dean called back, “No.”

His voice was as gritty as sand, as big as the Atlantic.

Castiel’s grip tightened more around the handle of the lantern.

“There’s nothing down here!” Dean went on.

Castiel didn’t know if Dean was being sincere. He narrowed his eyes, trying to puzzle the pirate out.

“What?” the voice from above called, and Castiel got the creeping suspicion it belonged to John Winchester himself.

“Info must’a been wrong,” Dean told him. He winked at Castiel, some of his mischievous smile returning. Castiel’s chest collapsed in what he told himself was relief. “Hull’s empty. Guess they planned on loading inventory at the next port.”

There was a pause. And then, “Damn it. Alright, let’s go.” The shadow over the hatch disappeared, and Black John called out to the rest of his men: “Move out! Back to the ship…” His words were lost to the wind.

Dean stepped back, lowering his blade away from Castiel’s. Castiel dropped his sword arm, unaware until that moment how much tension his muscles had been under. His eyes flashed to the lantern before suspiciously moving back to Dean. He decided to keep the flame hovering over the gunpowder, just in case.

But Dean kept backing up toward the stairs.

Castiel wanted to stop him, to ask him why Dean had spared his life. Briefly, he wondered if Dean would ask him to join the pirate crew. Castiel had heard such stories: of pirates giving their captives the option to join them on the open sea.

Later, Castiel told himself the answer would have been a resounding no if he’d been asked. But in that moment, and for many years, he knew in the most secret part of himself that it wasn’t quite true.

It didn’t matter. Dean never asked.

When he was far enough away, Dean turned and rushed back up the stairs, then out of view altogether.

Above, Castiel became aware of the footsteps on the deck. He looked at the lantern, knowing there was still time to kill whatever pirates were left on board. To kill Dean.

He couldn’t do it. Dean had spared his life, after all.

And Castiel still didn’t know why. Maybe he would never know.

He lowered the lantern and listened until the footsteps petered out, leaving him alone on a hulk of a ship full of ruin and blood. Alone. But alive.

Part of him wanted to rush above deck and watch the pirates’ black flag disappear into the horizon. He wondered if he’d catch one last glimpse of green eyes.

/////

Tagged: @lovercas @donestiel @wanderingcas @wayward-angels-club @thetiredstuff @skella-bro @casthegrumpy @celestialcastiel @bluefirecas @jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets @that-one-fandom-chick @haru-park96 @alejandriaiqq @no-aesthetic-all-aethetic @amirosebooks @epple-benene @agus-likes @the-ship-haz-sailed @justkissalreadyforfucksake @madimoo31 @an-angel-in-love-with-a-hunter @gracelesstars @bazghetti @wayward-waffles @theojaxons @jenmishrob @all-or-nothing-baby @auttownblue @leftistdean @sargafust @wannabe-loser @jessalrynn @splicedthoughts @castielss @that-dumbass-on-a-horse @passionfruixts @fabreagab @princesswinchester100 @superduckbatrebel @hopefuldreamers-world@theangelwiththewormstache @casandeans @mylovelydame21 @confusedisaster @superduckbatrebel @destielwentcanonomg @highest-brightness @i-put-the-ayyy-in-asexual @darkacademiagay @imthedoctorlove @freckledean @youcanteverknowenough @chicken-kebabs @myguardianangelisatrickster @hotactiongirlcoded @wingsandimpalas @casandhumanity @tploz @dontsgotalifee389 @on-a-bender @castiel-mybeloved @siriusseverusdeservedbetter @doctorprofessorsong @castielshotgirlsummer @toomuchheartcas @paintdriesfaster @lesbiancowboyy @angelinthefire @transdeantruther @fluffy-alpacaness @rogue-cas-whore @winchester-derangement-syndrome @lizzybennettdarcy @kineticpassion @i-love-books-and-so-do-you @dascean @llamasdumpsterfire @psychicbouquetblaze-stuff @im-some-lionheart @charlie-bradburi @bunnymcbunnister @gothanna @afeelingsosweet @sinnabonka @artsymoth @cassandrablah @sweetpeaalena @goiwantamuffin @rauko-is-a-free-elf @jessalrynn @ungcl @highwarlockofinnsbruck @deancaskiss @caddy-coo @bloodydeanwinchester @hannibalsthembo @proudpigeon

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#let's GOOOOOO #destiel #deancas #destieledit #deancasedit #spn #destiel fic #deancas fic #spnedit #supernatural #dean winchester #castiel #cas #deanedit #casedit #castieledit #my writing #raise the black #my post

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chronically-ghosted · 3 months

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History of the American Dust Bowl

The series of intense dust storms, starting in 1930 and affecting the southern plains of the United States, has been called the greatest ecological disaster ever to happen on American soil. Over the next decade, tens-of-thousands of people were forced to leave their homes under apocalyptic conditions: rolling storms that blocked out the sun, wind laced with particles sharp enough to blind, dust filling up and choking the lungs of the young and old.

Starting with the trade embargo on Russia during World War I, the value of wheat in America and around the world sky-rocketed. The US Government made offers, real estate agents made promises, and an unusual wet season strengthened conviction: come to the prairie, grow wheat for our soldiers – there’s money to be made.

As large-scale farming expanded on the Prairies, inexperienced farmers or “sodbusters” replaced indigenous grasses with wheat crops. In less than ten years, over one hundred million acres of prairie land – overused by mechanized equipment and exacerbated by a severe drought – lost its topsoil and became an instant target for wind erosion. The country’s financial bedrock had been bled dry and now the land had been wrung out too.

In April 1945, on a day that became known as Black Sunday, around 4PM, a rapidly moving “black blizzard” hit Kansas. High winds at 100 miles an hour reportedly displaced 300,000 tons of topsoil. The rolling cloud was over 1,000 miles long, and covered 800 miles by the time it dissipated. Drivers were forced to take refuge in their cars, while other residents hunkered down in basements, barns, fire stations and tornado shelters, as well as under beds.

Folksinger Woody Guthrie, then 22, who sat out the storm at his Pampa, Texas home, recalled that “you couldn’t see your hand before your face.” Inspired by proclamations from some of his companions that the end of the world was at hand, he composed a song titled “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh.” Guthrie would also write other tunes about Black Sunday, including “Dust Storm Disaster.”

This was by far the worst storm suffered by those in the southern plains (an area reaching from the north of Texas, up the Dakotas and out to Kansas and Oklahoma), and as a result 17 people died, and three suffocated from the dirty wind. As a direct result of American greed and disregard for the natural world, the very skin of the Earth had been ripped up, leaving behind loose, dry soil – abandoned with no concern for conservation and regrowth. All of this, on top of a financial downturn that left over three millions of Americans without jobs, a home, or income.

For many, the Dust Bowl was the closest they ever got to the end of the world, nature’s apocalypse. Much of the Red Cross relief and FDR’s conservation efforts were focused on regrowing that topsoil and putting thousands of out-of-work farmers back on the land. By working in harmony with the land, the southern prairie was rebuilt, the dust storms died down, and the economy righted itself in the face of a new world war.

Apocalypse averted.

In 2023, global weather conditions are changing again due to man-made intervention and ecological carelessness. Year after year, heat records are broken and droughts last longer and longer. The earth is adapting to fit rising temperatures and expanding greenhouse gasses. It is evolving, much like a fungus, to meet its needs in a new climate.

Hopefully, this fic feels as foreign as an AU can, but as familiar as the show’s concern for global warming. There are no blind, clicking zombies in this fic, but there are monsters.

There are always monsters at the end of the world.

#lsyr #lover share your road

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youphoriaot7 · 6 months

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I'm bored and my brain is abuzz with theories so I'm going to transcribe the Evil Eye announcement from Purgatory D1—which you can rewatch here.

And so the blind rats scamper into the open jaws of the cat. Welcome, sinners, murderers, vermin. You know, this used to be a cute little place. I believe they called it "Egg Island?" I'm sure you all would have loved to be here. They were so kind to send you this way. Unfortunately, I despise each and every single one of you with every atom in my being. People like you [do] not deserve a pleasant little break from the stresses of your previous island life. So I have taken the liberty of changing this place. Welcome to your Purgatory. The rules are simple to follow: You will be divided into three teams. Every day, you will compete to determine who will get the big prize. Whatever team has the most wins throughout the following weeks is the ultimate winner. The daily winning team is decided by the following: - Activity (The amount of time your team has spent on the island.) - Global Tasks (You'll find these in the spawn area. I'm sure you're smart enough to find the right place.) - Lives (The least amount of deaths per day. The bar to impress me isn't high.) - Events (You'll see this on its relevant day.) Now, that's the boring stuff out of the way. I'm sure you're already hungering and dehydrating as you've been listening to me. Good. Whatever makes it harder for you to live. Oh, and every hour, a fun surprise will happen in the form of a devastating disaster that will make your days worse than they already are. Wonderful, isn't it? Oh, but I already hear you all crying, "What if we don't want to compete? We can work together to defeat you!" Naive and innocent, you all are. One team is cursed. If the cursed team loses, say goodbye to all your lives and eggs. What team is that? Can you figure that out? No. So make sure you do your best to win. But if any of the other teams win, they can pick some of the eggs to come back with you. Aren't I nice? I really shouldn't be. Everything that you will be doing from this point on is for the safety of the eggs. Disregard your friendships; there is no room for sympathy in this land. And before I leave you all to rip each other apart, the first important event will be on the 6th. Have a good time rotting beneath the earth.

QSMP Purgatory is designed for your entertainment. We kindly remind our viewers that all content is a work of fiction and holds no connection to real-life situations or individuals.

#qsmp #qsmp liveblogging #ev;purgatory #qsmp transcriptions #transcription

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worldbuildingwanderlust · 5 months

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Welcome to Alsahra

I suppose this is long overdue, but the time has come for me to reveal a world many years in the making! This has been a dear project to me, and a setting for many of my WIP novels and series. For this Worldbuidling Wednesday, I will share a brief general introduction to the world of Alsahra! Over the coming days and weeks, I will share more introductions of the nations, diverse people and their cultures, myths and religious traditions, pantheons, ect. Follow the tag #Tales from Alsahra for furture updates and past pieces I have written from this world. So without further ado...Welcome to Alsahra!

The world of Alsahra consists of two large continents, Sanghia in the west and Gau’yaenum in the east, and a cluster of islands in the south known as the Isles of Naradiyu. Though its official origin is a subject of much contention, collected histories have been (more or less) consistent for the last thousand years. Everything before that, however, has yet to be proven. Each culture has its own story, but one event of the past is certain: The Great Collapse.

Thought to have occurred just-over a thousand years ago, this global crisis likely followed some unknown cataclysmic event in the South Nara Sea. The fallout is believed to have created Leviathan’s Rest, the largest ocean trench in Alsahra, and decimated every civilization throughout the world. Over time, new nations formed, and memory of the old world faded to obscurity, kept alive only by myth and legend. Tales as varied as the stories of creation.

According to the Divine Deulic Church and the theocratic Deutorian Empire: The old world had grown too far from their “creator and one-true God”, Deuhiim, and began experimenting with forbidden magicks that brought about nothing but death, ruin, and despair. Angered by the sins of His creation, Deuhiim descended from the Heavens with righteous blade in hand and struck the planet’s surface, bringing about The Great Collapse. With His Blessing, enough survived to start the world anew.

According to the Leün of Xiulan, the mortals of the old world once lived in harmony with the spirits that permeate through and protect nature. The spirits would grant favors for the people and the people would, in turn, honor and respect these spirits and care for the lands and seas of Alsahra. Over time, mortals deviated from this pact and began abusing and defiling the planet, corrupting the spirits within it. These twisted spirits became so spiteful and enraged they tore through the etheric veil and took grotesque and vicious forms designed to exact revenge. Destruction of the betrayers who destroyed their peaceful forms. Saddened by the chaotic bloodshed and violence, Mother Goddess Gau’yama, the spirit of Alsahra itself, sacrificed herself by ripping out her heart, using the infinite magical energy to cleanse the corruption and sealed the etheric breach. Though this act caused the Great Collapse, it was all Gau’yama could do to save Alsahra from total destruction and restore peace between spirits and mortals.

Though these are but two of the many stories and theories behind the Great Collapse, they show how legends shaped new civilizations over the one-thousand and sixty-nine years since the old world’s end.

[This is previously published and protected work by me, its author]

#my writing #Tales from Alsahra #worldbuilding #fantasy #sci fi and fantasy #fiction #my world #fantasy world #my fiction #writeblr #writblr #creative writing #writers on tumblr

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whatifsandspheres · 2 months

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One of the things I hate about these recent conflicts in cultural terms, not in terms of lives lost or inhumanity, is the fact that instead of getting more people to question and stop believing in countries and nations it's gotten people to double down on nationalism and statism. Especially for younger people I had hoped the result would be a shift toward a new paradigm where even more people would-- together with the help of technology-- realize how outdated and backwards, uncivilized and inherently divisive borders and nation states are and how the state needs to not only be ripped from the nation, but that all its contrived organs of government be vivisected from its tumorous parasitic bodies and washed clean, some put into use, others discarded. When I say things like nobody deserves to live in the "holy land" it's not because the Palestinians don't deserve and haven't proven they deserve to live in their ancestral land, no. I say it because I know the hate and the fervor that the Zionists have and how they will perpetuate a Nazi-like trans-generational animosity toward whoever stands in the way of their self-entitlement. Just like before the official formation of the state of Israel and the attacks on Jewish communities in other parts of the world in order to artificially create migration of Jewish people to Palestine-- the Zionist hate resembles the Nazi hate. The divisions between Ukraine and Russia have always been present from what I've read, but Western Europe seriously exploited them. After this I see polarization, not union as there could potentially have been before 2014. The way the UN is handling these situations in failing to enforce ceasefires without any conditions, unconditional ceasefires, shows it hardly serves the global interests at all, and it exposes itself as a farce of a governing body for all but USA and it's favored partners. The Congo basin and surrounding countries are overflowing with violence and the world leadership seems to be more interested in securing a slice of the mineral wealth that those people are being massacred and genocidally slaughtered. Nobody is casting into doubt the state? The nation as a concept which has only failed and failed and failed even if it managed to drag civilization this whole way limping and leeching off of humanity? It's a vestige, it needs to be euthanized. We are a global species. Borders don't protect diversity, they nurse hegemony that's too lethargic and weak to compete with how dignified our cultures can coexist with each other when we aren't artificially pitted against each other with excuses and false pretenses. I'm disappointed in the youth, but it's the older generations like mine which are truly to blame.

#culture #industrial civilization #russia #ukraine #palestine #israel #zionism #jewish #statism #violence hierarchy #capitalism

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anthonybialy · 6 months

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Truth and/or Consequences

Israel getting attacked for minding its own business offers as easy a statement about good and evil as it gets. Naturally, the left is confused. Baby decapitators didn’t mean to provide such an easy choice. That’s Hamas and not Israel, for the record, which seems odd to those who claim to seek justice while doing everything they can to undermine it. Excusers for devilishness can’t be double agents, as that would take craftiness. Observations based in truth perplexes them the most. They can’t determine who good guys are but surely get everything right otherwise.

The same shrewd assessors of character who thought professional serial killer Andrew Cuomo was a prophet struggle to discern who’s right and wrong in a war where bloodthirsty intruders slaughtered anyone they could find who was Jewish. Struggling with trivialities like facts shouldn’t deter the pursuit for righteousness, so keep lecturing a country about avoiding inflicting casualties as it carefully targets those who did the precise opposite.

Fish don’t spot water. The inability to perceive truth is not a new delusion, which is why sufferers are unaware they keep committing violations. The same thorough reality fans urge you to enjoy a purring economy where you can buy every single item desired thanks to inflation’s irrelevance. Spot those who get experiments wrong by how they profess a belief in science.

A righteous entity fighting for self-preservation is ordered to delay with temperance by every smug lecturer who sees violence without bothering to check who went first. The type is crucial, too, as in how massacring festival attendees differs from collateral damage when attempting to eliminate festival attendee massacrers. There will be a ceasefire after every single Hamas operative has been sent to their eternal destination. They will be the only virgins.

As with the rest of liberalism, the fantasy works right up until something happens. Drama junkies have announced what they’d do if faced with a holocaust more frequently than vegans proclaim they CrossFit. They meant freaking out when Donald Trump ran off his mouth. By contrast, a mass extermination of Jews doesn’t move them. The Hamas Reich-inspired mobile extermination camp is as obvious a clue as possible, which is why they missed it.

Leftists must decide if they’re indifferent to rampant terror murder in the Jewish state, happy those they insanely and diabolically deem to be persecutors are suffering losses, or sad at the imaginary assault on Palestinian orphans that faces the technical difficulty of never happening. They’re accustomed to depriving options, which is why they’re baffled by choice.

Evidence of atrocities in real time is insufficient for self-proclaimed science fans. Seeing a free country attacked prompted reactions ranging from unprompted dubiousness to collaborator-style victim-shaming. This whole global network of sharing information on glowing pocket screens should shame them, and they instead find other awful idiots to amplify their lies about the world. Foes of civilization use instant communication to believe the Hamas Truth Squad claiming Israel cavalierly flattened a hospital.

People who know they’re better than you are divided between lecturing about how both sides are responsible and thinking the victim asked for it. The very nuanced approach to crime blames burglars and homeowners for burglary. Announcing the homeowner deserved it for hoarding resources that perpetuate inequality is the new complex approach to fighting lawbreaking by allowing it.

Settlers usually look for something useful, which renders the whole narrative of Israel ripping off land. There’s a strange fixation on possessing an otherwise worthless strip in a lousy neighborhood. Terror enablers didn’t want until Jews had it. Anyone with a simpleton of a sibling who dealt with jealousy over an item that would go unwanted were it not possessed by a nemesis. Extending rights to everyone within its boundaries must be part of their trickery.

Pretending the only tolerant country in the area is a terror state like America where everyone who’s not the preferred race or religion gets routinely repressed is a reflex for those who cheer from afar for the crudest Gaza-originated rockets. They’re not going to show support in person, as Yasser Arafat’s intellectual descendants don’t allow rainbow flags for some reason.

Wanting to be left alone is the most horrifying notion possible to liberals. A philosophy that doesn’t allow for dangerous concepts like doing your own thing is horrified by Israel sitting there and not bothering anyone. American business proprietors sympathize.

Nagging Israel comes naturally to meddlers. Not content with hassling successful entrepreneurs and law-abiding gun owners domestically, professional busybodies also look to irk abroad. The annoying tendency get exponentially sinister when they ally with nefarious forces who won’t let that one Jewish republic just exist.

The one religion that’s been persecuted more than any other sadly knows nothing on this rotten globe changes. Accusing Judaism of colonial cruelty is nothing new to a faith that routinely gets blamed for global ills. Wanting to live on their terms without hassling others is the conspiracy that’s true.

Twisted lectures about their need to protect civilians while pursuing human demons who actively targeted their own is merely a manifestation of wanting desperately to believe the wrong and awful thing. If that doesn’t make sense, you understand the left. It’s uncanny how readily professional Jew-haters wanted to believe Israel is dying to commit war crimes. The only thing missing is actuality.

Wrongly accusing Israel of awful things truly being done to it sums up its sane and decent foes. Seething loathing of an innocent nation valiantly fighting against the obviously guilty is not merely anti-Semitism, although palpable contempt for Judaism shows how ugly bigotry remains even as society’s trappings get prettier.

Israel represents the West, which is what genuine villains think is villainous. Brutality’s enthusiastic defenders express a vague sense that Israel is nothing but a band of invading oppressors, which is a common complaint amongst those who benefit from the natural rights and prosperity which follows. The class warfare front extends to thriving Jews. Anti-Semitism is just one more symptom of deranged resentment from life’s losers.

#Israel #Hamas #Israel-Hamas War #truth #rights

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denimbex1986 · 5 months

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'It’s been a long time since Doctor Who got to be outright goofy. Previous showrunner Chris Chibnall’s era was often an overly serious one, despite Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor’s reputation for being a cheery iteration of the time-traveling alien. But with the return of Russell T. Davies as showrunner and writer, and with the (temporary) return of David Tennant in the title role, Doctor Who is back to being a silly, goofy old time. And that’s never been more clear than in the campy, bordering on ridiculous, anniversary special “The Star Beast.”

The first of three 60th anniversary specials airing this year, “The Star Beast” is Doctor Who in full franchise mode, with writer Davies and director Rachel Talalay (returning to Who after helming the best episodes of the Steven Moffat-Peter Capaldi era, and in perfect lockstep with Davies’ particular brand of camp), scrambling to turn the show back into the bona fide blockbuster event it once was. And they mostly succeed! Reams of fan service and transparent franchise-building can be forgiven because of how wildly fun the whole thing is — even if clunky resolutions and cheesy narrative choices mean the episode doesn’t quite hold together.

Fresh off his mysterious degeneration in “The Power of the Doctor,” the 14th Doctor lands his TARDIS in 21st-century London, where holiday celebrations are starting to be underway. He immediately runs into Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), the same mouthy and brash former companion whose memories he was forced to erase to save her life. That mind-wipe was a fragile procedure dependent on Donna not remembering the Doctor, which becomes a problem since the Doctor looks like David Tennant again. Something seems to be bringing them back together — but what?

“The Star Beast,” a jam-packed hour of television that drops us into the action and rarely stops to take a break, doesn’t give us much time to ponder this mystery. The Doctor’s shock at encountering Donna is interrupted by a crashing spaceship, which sets off a series of events putting them both on on a collision course with a cute, furry alien named Beep the Meep (voiced by the inimitable Miriam Margolyes) and an army of alien warriors chasing it across the universe.

It’s all so immediately campy it’s almost jarring after so many years of Chibnall’s plodding pacing, but that camp is — even if his interpretation of the 14th Doctor is basically just a redux of his 10th Doctor performance. Tate gets to stretch some of her dramatic muscles once again, particularly in scenes with her daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney, warm and immediately likable in her Doctor Who debut), whose transgender storyline provides one of the episode’s more elegant narratives.

It could frustrate longtime Doctor Who viewers to learn that “The Star Beast” doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The special is almost entirely fan service, down to Donna’s quips, the Doctor’s catchphrases, and the many winks and nudges to Doctor Who history. But this is an anniversary special, after all, and it’s designed to look back, not go forward — even if its gaze backward falls disappointingly short.

But the special’s greatest shortcoming, but also its sneakiest strength, is that it is very much made with fans of the Tennant-Davies era of Doctor Who in mind. Apart from the plot, which is ripped almost verbatim from the 1980 Doctor Who comic strip by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons (credited in the special as story writers), “The Star Beast” feels frustratingly limited in its celebration of Whovian history because it’s so focused on the “Tennant is back!” of it all. But this also feels like a calculated choice by Davies, who made clear his intention to turn Doctor Who back into the global mega-franchise it once was. Tennant’s Doctor was the closest the show had to a superhero, so if Doctor Who is going to reach Marvel levels of blockbuster spectacle, it needs to double down on the most dashing aspects of its hero.

The obvious franchise aspirations of “The Star Beast” might grate at those who have been feeling Marvel fatigue for a while. But its quippy humor, campy high jinks, and many ridiculous scenes of the Doctor saving the day with a flash of his sonic screwdriver all bring the show back to the baseline of what made the Tennant/Davies era of Doctor Who so successful: It’s in on the joke. Davies was, and still is, intensely aware of the inherent ridiculousness of a show where a time-traveling alien did battle with tin robots and calls attention to it in the most ludicrous ways possible.

Is there such a thing as too goofy? Doctor Who often does find that oversaturation point and some of its best episodes deftly walk that line between silly and serious. But “The Star Beast” doesn’t walk the line as much as it dances a merry jig over it. And in its silliest moments, it never forgets that this is a show about an alien with two hearts and twice as much capacity for compassion. Yes, it sometimes goes overboard, but 60 years in, the show has probably earned it. It’s TV as cotton candy — it’s never quite filling or satisfying, but darn, does it taste good.'

#Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #The Star Beast #Miriam Margolyes #Beep the Meep #David Tennant #Catherine Tate #Russell T. Davies #Donna Noble #Rachel Talalay #Pat Mills #Dave Gibbons #Yasmin Finney #Rose Noble

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