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plussizeappreciationfics · 4 years

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OS: The real one

Pairing: Yahya Abudl Mateen II x Plus sized reader

Warning(s): NSFW 18+only, unprotected sex (wrap it up before you back it up)

Word count:

Picture(s) found on: Pinterest/Google

“I need to stop this…” you whispered while shaking your head, feeling like an idiot for actually having acted like one. Your eyes were focused on Yahya, your boyfriend of four months. He gave you a disappointed look while shaking his head, the thick tension in the air making it clear that he was angry at you.

“This is an issue we need to discuss, [Y/N]” he said in a sad tone despite his angered emotions. He then joined you on the edge of your bed, his hand gently placed on your thick thigh while his eyes focused on your face. You avoided his intense gaze for a few seconds, feeling tears starting to form in your eyes but quickly blinking them away. Crying wasn’t what you wanted to do right now.

“Please tell me why you’re behaving this way so I can help you fix it. I won’t judge you, babe. I just need to know why you’re sabotaging our relationship” It was undeniable that Yahya was hurt, but he was more than ready to listen and learn why you had been doing the things you did because it was starting to take an ugly turn on your relationship and neither of you was happy about it.

You took a deep breath and looked him back in the eyes again, his beautiful dark brown ones making your heart flutter in your chest. You loved this man to pieces, but your ugly past relationships had caught up on you.

“The reason why I have been self-sabotaging our relationship is because I-…You’re perfect and I feel like I don’t deserve this. Every person I’ve been with has ended up breaking my heart…” the truth was finally out and you felt your heart pound against your ribcage as you knew that you needed to dive deeper into your bad experiences.

Yahya frowned sadly and took your hand in his, kissing the back of it before letting out a disappointed sigh. He had suspected that you had gone through some shitty things with your ex-partners, so finally getting the confirmation wasn’t too pleasant for him.

“I’ve dated people I loved so much that I was willing to change for them, take up new habits and make everything go their way. All that succeeded for a little while…but they eventually stopped making an effort in keeping the relationship alive. I had to give my 100% and get nothing in return.

I spent countless of nights crying myself to sleep because I knew that this would happen. With. Every. Single. Partner. It’s like they all disguised themselves as these perfect angles and the second I agreed to a relationship with them, they removed the façade and revealed that they were just vultures: sucking the love and happiness out of me and leaving me with no energy” you took a deep breath and let your shoulders slump in disappointment.

“It got to the point where I started to believe that I didn’t deserve true happiness, Yahya. That every single lover I’d meet would find a way to break my heart all over again. It took me a long time to realize that nothing of that is true. That I deserve all the love and happiness in the world just like everyone else.

But unfortunately, my old habits have come back stronger than ever since I met you. Because I’ve never felt so much love and joy with anyone but you, babe”. Yahya couldn’t help but lean in and sneak a quick kiss from your delicate, soft lips. “I feel the exact same” he confessed while feeling his heart flutter in his chest.

“You’ve never made me feel worthless, never disrespected me in any way whatsoever and never made me act a fool due to any type of stupid shenanigans. I am terrified because I’m so happy. I keep telling myself that something’s bound to happen that will leave me heartbroken so I started to act out on my feelings” you finished with a shameful sigh.

Ever since getting with Yahya, he had never failed to deliver the love, affection and security you needed and deserved. He was the first guy to ever really love and appreciate you and wish to plan your future together, no bullshit and broken promises. Seeing that he actually was dead serious about his plans with you, the frustrations of him not treating you shitty started to get to your head. When your frustrations hit the peak, you suddenly were a clingy and jealous mess, demanding Yahya’s location and accusing him of cheating on you when he wouldn’t respond to your text messages (because he was obviously working).

Today was supposed to be a date night, but Yahya cancelled it when you tried to pick a fight over a dream you had about him. He watched in great pain and confusion how you tried to explain that your dream was a sign that he was bound to do something hurtful to you. When he didn’t react the way, you wanted (or let’s say how your exes did by yelling and gaslighting you), you finally realized that you had taken things too far.

“[Y/N]” Yahya gently whispered and brought your intertwined hand to his soft lips again, kissing the back of yours while closing his eyes in pain. “I am so sorry for everything you went through. No one should ever go through so much pain to the point where they start believing that it’s what they deserve. No one.

I can finally see through you and I’m not mad at what you’ve done. I’ve shown you countless of times that I truly love you. I want to marry you, have kids with you and grow old with you [Y/N]. But you have to believe me, my words and actions…”

You nodded your head in agreement and already believed in your happily ever after with your boyfriend. Now was the time to stop assuming the worst and finally give into the indescribable emotions he made you feel.

“I’m so sorry for doing the things I did” you apologized and wrapped your arms around Yahya’s neck, feeling at peace in his strong arms. He wrapped his strong arms around your thick waist and nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck, inhaling your delicate scent and immediately feeling like floating on cloud nine.

“It’s okay, baby. I forgive you”.

Hearing those words made your heart swell in your chest, the tension quickly vanished from your body while your lover gently picked you up and threw you in the middle of the bed. The air immediately got thicker once you saw him bite his lip while positioning himself in between your spread legs.

A soft moan escaped your lips while you quickly tugged at your shirt before pulling it over your head and tossing it on to the floor. Your lover did the same with his, your arousal gathering in between your legs the second your eyes landed on his toned upper body. The tight muscles flexing while he then quickly moved to his own shorts and yanked them off.

“Gosh do I want you, [Y/N]” Yahya groaned when you slipped out of your sweatpants and underwear and then palmed his hard length through his boxer briefs. Feeling him twitching in your hand made you let out a soft moan, “Then have me”.

That was all the confirmation your boyfriend needed before he leaned down and placed his hand on either side of your head. The warmth his beautiful body was radiating onto you had your stomach in delicate knots. Feeling him so close and heavy on top of you was pure heaven.

“Look at me” Yahya groaned while removing his boxer briefs with one hand before placing his throbbing thickness at your already drenched entrance. “Please” you begged and grinded your hips upwards, dying to feel him buried deep inside you.

The actor chuckled deeply and then teased your swollen and sensitive clit with the head of his length, the intense feeling leaving you a shuddering mess while you wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and dug your nails into his skin.

“Yahya…” you whimpered while staring deeply into his eyes, not knowing for how long you’d be able to handle the delicate teasing.

“[Y/N]” he growled as he looked down and saw that his whole length was covering in your arousal, that being a magnificent look.

Without a further word, he surprised you by slowly sinking into you with one, deep thrust. “Oh!” you cried out and clenched your eyes shut, your inner walls being stretched deliciously. “Oh, baby” Yahya murmured before placing his head in the crook of your neck, a shiver running down his spine as you felt heavenly wrapped around him.

He gave you a good minute to get used to his impressive and throbbing thickness, the tender kisses he left up and down your neck being a beautiful distraction before you felt ready for some friction.

“Move” you gently spoke, making him lift his head and smile down at you. His bright smile made you copy his action while his hips slowly started to move against you, his strokes deep and steady.

The room was quickly filled with your loud love sounds, the delicate sensations of having your boyfriend buried deep inside you leaving you breathless and shaking. The two of only stopped staring at each other to share some passionate, French kisses or when the pleasure become too much, you had to clench your eyes shut and let it wash over you.

“Baby!” you moaned out loud and arched your back, your eyes shut and your legs shaking. Yahya’s throbbing length had just hit your weak spot and that immediately triggered the delicious knot to form in the pit of your stomach.

He felt your inner walls tense up around his length and he had to clench his hands into fists, trying his best not to cum right now in that moment. “I-I’m close” he growled before staring down at your beautiful face that was covered in a light layer of sweat.

He leaned down and captured your soft lips in a kiss so intense that it made your toes curl while the knot in your stomach only got tighter. You had no energy left to make a sound, just kiss the love of your life with the last strength in your body before feeling your orgasm wash over you.

“Ah…” you whimpered in a high note, the earth shattering waves of ecstasy washing over your body, your inner walls clenching themselves around Yahya’s now twitching length. A weak moan left his lips before he also was thrown over the blissful edge, his whole body shaking while he released himself deep inside you.

Yahya fell on top of you, his heavy weight being welcomed by you. Loud panting filled the room while you slowly felt your bodies recover from the breathtaking highs. He still was buried inside you, but you didn’t mind that at all. The moment still felt intimate and beautiful.

“I love you so much, [Y/N]. You’re my person” your boyfriend whispered in the crook of your neck; his arms now wrapped around your thick waist. “I love you too, my person” you whispered back happily, feeling his heartbeat slowly sync with yours while you slowly fell asleep in each other’s arms.

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-Emmanuelle 💋❤��

#Yahya Abdul Mateen II #Yahya X Reader #yahya x plus size reader #plus size reader

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d20owlbear · 3 years

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oh can you please share the grievances you have over twilight/ the vampires in it or what kind of research you did for your wip? how much blood would the cullens drink?

oh ur in for it now nonnie (thank you i love talking about my stupid lil research holes)

1) as we already kinda knew, the source material is... somewhat racist (please read the article here on how Twilight affected the Quileute tribe: https://studybreaks.com/thoughts/twilight-quileute-tribe/ and if you can donate anything to help them, this has been ongoing since 2017 to move to higher ground due to glacier's melting and moving the sea level up https://mthg.org/)

(as a note, all my opinions here are opinions and I'm NOT pointing fingers or blame at anyone who likes the franchise and story, you're allowed to like what you want, just like, look at it critically)

-- because of this a loooot of things are considered imperfections including but not limited to: scars and tattoos (cultural or otherwise). Both of these things are 'wiped out' or otherwise reversed by the process of being transformed.

-- Now, i get scars to a degree, especially in the source material and the wild mistreatment all the vamp characters have gone through (at least of the Cullens/Olympic coven, + some others I'm sure, god is it fucking b l e a k) but that brings up the next point:

2) THE SCIENCE IS BAD, now i know what you're gonna say; you're gonna say "Jam, why do you care about the science? It's a *vampire* story! It's fantasy and supernatural, why the science?" because, my dear nonnie, i have standards. and those standards include obsessively researching every single rabbit hole that comes up.

Now, I *know* you shouldn't have to research everything ofc, that's fine, even in published fiction, whatever, it's *fine* but we’re talking about MY issues and i get to choose what they are. And it is a personal affront to me because TATTOOS ARE **NOT** SCARS, it's why they don't *heal* like scars do. Sure they get less vivid over time but they *bleed* and blur, they don't get smaller or disappear entirely! If your tattoo scars, it means it was done wrong!!

(science time: tattoos keep their color because the needles pierce and mangle/kill the cells underneath while depositing ink—this is why tattoos *can* scarify if the wound is made big enough and it's why they're considered open wounds in the first place—and your macrophages (the thing that eats infection bits and things that don't belong in ur bloodstream and body, this is why you can't have the wrong kind of blood transfusion or it'll severely fuck you UP) eat the ruined skin cells in order to make room for new skin cells! EXCEPT it can't digest and get rid of ink! so, the new cells are created around these macrophages and *also* have the ink deposits. ink is however broken down by light and through sheer determination of your body over looooong periods of time, which is why you still gotta treat your tattoos nice) all of this just to say, wtf the tattoos should have BETTER staying power because the ink is no longer getting broken down by new macrophages and like, you're no longer vulnerable to UV or whatever through your skin. Common' StephMeyer you coulda had some real fucking hot tattoos in this world, some old school shit like Godric from True Blood. smdh

3) if you're still with me i applaud you cause here's another thing.. .why the FUCK do they kill every human and like animal they feed from??? OK, ok, like so, i get it, humans can only lose so much blood, animals too. (pls excuse my shitty math, i am NOT a math gay by all rights and i actively have friends whom i love that ruthlessly point out I forgot how to add things once. however, this is more or less right, the margin of error is gay just like me)

humans have: 4.5-6 L // 9-12 pints of blood lose to die: 4.5-6L // 4-6 pints?? of blood (this conversion killed me, no one tell me the right numbers if they're wrong) Generally, human stomachs have a volume about one liter, which is a little more than one quart (or 2 pints) tho it *can* expand to fit more none of the vampires are ever shown with or mentioned to have a distended stomach after feeding so we can assume that's not happening here.

"Hemorrhagic shock begins when you lose about 20 percent, or one-fifth, of your body’s blood or fluid supply. At this point, your heart isn’t able to pump sufficient amounts of blood through your body." (source)

-- this being said there's more blood that a human can *technically* lose than a human sized stomach can generally fit into it. HOWEVER you will die unless seen to very quickly and before hemorrhagic shock sets in. In twilight saga canon it's pretty clear they Do Not Do This. So like, whatever, super wasteful deaths sure, fine. Keep the vampires unknown, whatever, you do you boyos.

But also like... the Cullens straight up kill animals too, that's not *actually* what vegetarian means. BUT they don't necessarily ahve to, they apparently eat so messy that it's hard to tear any of them away from feeding and gorging themselves *every two fucking weeks*. They're wiping out the local herd of damn pigs and other big prey and/or predator animals, the fucking ecosystem is in shambles probably. that's right u heard me, 2 weeks which brings us to the next point:

4) they can only go 2 weeks, after *gorging* themselves full and killing an animal *EACH* until they ahve to do it all over again. holY SHIT THATS SO MUCH. that's so many dead people or animals, like that's over 100 animals and/or people a YEAR PER VAMPIRE needed to feed these people. And if they *don't* eat, their eyes turn black and they go just full fucking feral and kill someone anyway, possibly multiple someones.

christ, just do the math, i'm not a math gay but Meyer isn't gay and has no excuse. i'm begging you, one damn thought about the implications of what you're writing, just once. (once again, you're allowed to like this, these are my personal issues with the source material and the "clearly heven't thought through the implications of what you've said" is my largest pet peeve ever ESP in stories and worldbuilding)

5) the powers are cool but have no consistency and is built to take advantage of. Which i will. to give my boy FANGS like he goddamn deserves in this godforsaken au/fusion. Finally, and not least,

6) why the FUCK don't they have fangs this is a fucking vampire fic, it's a STAPLE for a monsterfucking reason damnit.

Anyway, dracula and gatsby are both public domain and i get to say how I'm writing them. Vladdy Drac is a bro and so is Jay Gatsby, Crowley's older than both of them in this, and they're all friends because he deserves nice things sometimes. Fuck it.

Look at it Meyer, you took a perfectly good gateway monster and turned it into a shiny de-powered superman human. terrible.

#my twilight opinions #my opinions #this is very much a humor rant #with some science #pls don't put too much stock into it #but I'm happy to take questions about how i got where I'm at here #or about lore ig and how I'm gonna be redoing the world building while skirting *technically* still canon for twilight

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rhiminee · 4 years

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Therapy Sessions: Track by track feels

So ok I’ve had time to listen to David’s new album *mumble hundred* times since it came out earlier this week and I think I finally am ready to share my thoughts and feelings as I listen to each song. Sorry this took a few days. I’ve had some personal things going on and I wanted to be in a clearer state of mind before I wrote all this down. :) Here we go!!!

Track 1 - Paralyzed

This song. This song is like a whole different side of David. I honestly don’t usually have favorites of any album but this song is such a favorite of mine. I almost don’t think it’s fair because this is the only song off the album that I’ve seen him perform in concert and that’s a huge factor for me. He SLAYS this live. It’s been out since last August and it’s so next level. It’s almost like it comes from another universe??? Not that there’s a single thing wrong with the rest of the album it’s just that this song is WOW. Its like its own entity. It’s a banger and an anthem and I could listen to it 24/7. David wails on it and you feel every second with a sense of urgency. Honestly one of my favorite things he’s ever done. Wait. Change that. It’s my favorite song he’s ever done. Period.

Track 2 - You Worry

This title is such a false lead! lol. I thought ok this is gonna be about trying to control your worries and how to be positive, etc. But spoiler alert: David Archuleta is a sneaky cupcake. DON’T YOU WORRY BOUT ME. icu what you did there David. This song is just such a mood. It starts off kinda slow but then it kicks up after the first verse and you know David is messing with you. It’s almost got a reggae type chill vibe to it with the ya-da-da-da-da and the melody. Or maybe that’s just me. “I’ve got my reasons why I am the way I am, so don’t you worry me”. “Living life in a bubble still comes with it’s troubles, I’ve still got a lot to learn about me but that’s ok.” This reminds me of a more mature version of Other Things In Sight from his last album. Like he was a bit bothered in OTIS but now he’s just like whatev. lol. I love it!! One of my faves from this album.

Track 3 - Ok, All Right

This is the 2nd of 3 songs on this album that we had already heard when the album was released. This song is fun and a good mantra for 2020 to try to keep ourselves sane. We need it. I like the sassiness of this and the unexpected changes in melody! David did an acoustic version of it during his launch party that I’m fully 100% in deep love with. Check it out if you get a chance.

Track 4 - Patient

Oh hi, song that I love! I don’t know why I love this so much but I would put it in my top songs on the album. Maybe it’s the stutter singing (is that what you call it??? Le-le-le-le-le-let me know) it makes my heart feel joyful. “I tell myself remember, remember to breathe, I’m trying to be patient, so won’t you please be patient, be patient with me” “Jump the gun, tend to run off at the mouth, I see that it’s in your eyes” “Find the beauty in the letting go, hurry up and learn to take it slow”. It’s almost got a bit of an R&B feel to it. Is that just me?? Maybe it’s just me. I have a pure love for this song. It just makes me so happy listening to it.

Track 5 - Need

This one of only two slower tempo songs on the album (Just Breathe is the other). David uses his lower register, especially in the first verse. Honestly when this song started I was like...is this a duet? Who is singing? Lmao. It was David. In addition to it being a lower register there’s almost a bit of a slurry quality to his pronunciation when he sings here. Or maybe it’s an overlay for the song? Idk. His voice just sounds different to me here. I’m gonna be honest and say this is my least favorite track on the album. Maybe I need to listen more. It’s not a bad song, just not my vibe and the vocals throw me off a bit. Listen and let me know what y’all think!

Track 6 - Brave

This song is such a change of pace from the previous one! It’s got an intriguing percussive cadence in the beginning, fast singing with short phrases and then bursts out into long soaring notes in the chorus, braaaaaaaaaaave!! It’s also has the honor of containing the lyric “bit me in the butt” and I laughed so hard I had had to start the song over. I really like this one!

Track 7 - Good in the Bad

THIS SONG. I wasn’t sure what to think the first time I listened. My brain was like, do I like this? Then the second time I was like, ok yeah. Then the third time and the next 500 times I was like, hi you are my true love. Seriously my level of obsession with this song now. If Paralyzed wasn’t on this album this would be my favorite song. I don’t think Paralyzed should count because yeah it’s a phenomenon and should not be compared to anything else. So. This is my favorite song on the album. I love love love love it. I can’t stop listening. “When it all goes wrong and you’re having a moment, you got to go all out, go bring back the sun out. And if it all goes wrong and you’re living in darkness, well that’s the only way the stars can shine” YES SIR “Fear is like a magnet that keeps pulling you down, so take another look because yeah it won’t take you long, give a break to your mind”. I don’t know why this song speaks so much to me but it does. Maybe because I tend to get stuck worrying about worst case and bad things that could happen and have happened. I know you can’t just ignore that stuff but idk this song just hit me different. Also the cadence and beat really drives the message. I just love everything about it.

Track 8 - Switch

Omg yep. #2 fav song after Good in the Bad. This is such an earworm! Honestly very radio friendly song. “why do i do that why do i do that” that hook. I always hit the switch and the tables start to flip, then the walls come up again, the beginning starts to end. why do i do that. Y’all. I feel that on every level. You need this song in your life. Along with Paralyzed it’s one of only two songs on this album that’s just plainly stating here’s my problem without offering a solution or “hey it’s ok we’re all like that”. I appreciate that David offers these songs too. I know and completely understand that for him music is about offering a message and hope and help to others. That’s one thing I love so much about him. But I also like that sometimes he just says here’s my issues. The humanity jumped out, that sometimes we’re just critical of ourselves without positive thoughts. Sometimes you just wanna be sad or mad at yourself. There’s time later to re-focus. It’s ok to just claim that personal honesty for a bit. If that even makes sense. But yeah. Love love this song. It’s a true jam.

Track 9 - Just Breathe

This song is like a bath in warm silk after you’ve been cold and lonely. It’s an experience. It’s like meditation in song form. Refreshing and hypnotizing. ‘I am not weak I am strong, there is still more I can offer. Someday you’ll see the better version of me. When it all stops spinning, when it all slows down. I was swimming deeper but I didn’t drown. Just breathe. So I open up to the flow and learn to love you as we go, until I don’t think I just know.’ It’s like a midsummer night’s dream in song form. <3

Track 10 - Future Self

So true and surprisingly funny! This is such a quirky song. Any song that references reddit and smash bros gets an A+ in my book lol. I was surprised because a lot of times the last track is kind of a throw way imho but this one had me smiling and bopping! It’s a love letter to finding yourself and being kind to yourself.

Final thoughts:

You guys are gonna laugh because I feel like I say this anytime a new album comes out but I honestly think this is my favorite album that David has ever done. It’s cohesive and fun to listen to and says a lot without being too heavy. It’s so awesome to see the progression in David’s music but even more so to know it’s a reflection of the progression in his life. He’s not afraid to say he’s got issues but he has been working hard on facing those and making strides. It shows in his music. I feel a sense of joy I haven’t heard before. This album is so good. The production quality, the vocals are on point, the beats are stellar. Please check it out if you haven’t already!

http://lnkfi.re/TherapySessions

#david archuleta #therapy sessions #this album is amazing #thoughts and feels #lots of words #my wrists got sore typing all this

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chaoflaka · 4 years

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Top 5 Zims in the Zimvoid

After seeing Stella/Krizland do her top five Zims, I may as well do so myself. Note that I barely hate ANY Zims whatsoever for those who’s favorites are lower. If anything, I doubt there such a thing a “most hated Zim” since I LOVE every single one of them. In my viewpoint, when I say “top 5 Zims”, it would mostly be the ones that I love them to the point where I think,draw, mention them....ALOT. And note that I will be counting down from #5 through #1 so nobody gets confused.

So without further ado, let’s get started:

Number 5: Number 1

This character might be THEE BEST antagonist Invader Zim comic has ever made. Not only because of how threatening he is and look, but because of his background and his motivation.

As far as we know, as I post this, Number 1 is the most mysterious character in the arc. So much so that make fans create tons of theories about him. And the more we learn about him, the bigger the theories get. The more we learn about him, the more interesting he becomes. He’s not only a villain, but very likely a victim, as his condition is horrifying beyond any Zim and Dibs’ imagination. Whatever his motivation is, you can get a sense that it’s not good. There’s just a vibe to him makes you both scared of him yet pity him.

If this is what Sam is aiming for, than he knows damn well how to make a great villain.

ISSUE 49 UPDATE: I take it back. He’s not a victim. He’s just straight up evil and insane.

Number 4: Number 2

I always imagined what the Number 2 Zim would look like before we were introduced to him. And let me just say that once they finally revealed him, I was not disappointed whatsoever. Sure I sort of expected him to be this huge and scary bodyguard of Number 1. But I think that’s what I love about him. That it turns out he’s really not. In fact that’s what I love about 1 and 2’s appearance. They don’t NEED to look too threatening in order to make them good antagonists.

Number 2 is an average looking Zim in which his only difference is that he is taller than our own Zim and wears a purple cloak that is suppose to be a mixed representation of a monk and an assassin. Which very well represents his connection to the Elite Zims’ ego. In fact he has both the representation of a worshipper/follower AND a lead soldier. Followed with him often calling the Elites his “brothers” as well as giving them extremely strict physical training. It doesn’t help that he is pretty much plays the role of Number 1’s eyes outside of his room, given he makes sure the elite’s system is stabled.

As of right now, we don’t know yet if he knows of Number 1’s true identity. But one thing is for sure is that he will do ANYTHING to please the leader so that he can become a powerful Zim as him.

Number 3: The Elder

I don’t know why, but I love him. There’s a thing about him that gives him the teacher/father/grandfather figure kind of character. And the fact he’s one of the first Zim to enter the Zimvoid and that he is responsible for forming the Resistance makes him more interesting. I would REALLY love to see if he has an interesting backstory. Like...the WHOLE story of his experiences in the Zimvoid.

If they don’t do that than hell! I can make one myself!

Also, I can expect him being the type of grandfather figure that cares for each one of his members (specifically 2K and Palindrome) who would like bugging them or tricking them just so they can learn a lesson as well as playing around with them. I don’t know, I just love those types of teachers/parents.

Number 2: 2K (Number 2000)

Ok. Go ahead. Bonk me. This was honestly the toughest thing to decide though. Yes, he’s baby. And don’t we all love babies. But it’s not the only reason he made it this high on the list. I think there’s more to that. Like...Sam could have honestly made 2K just a whiny and helpless infant who wants nothing more but attention like...a typical baby would do. And I wouldn’t mind whatsoever if Sam went this route.

But when you are going to make him the major character of this arc, he needs to have a PURPOSE on being a major character. Therefore, Sam was able to successfully do this by making him sort of the lead of the Resistance. Ok, I wouldn’t really call him the leader (even though he kind of is), given its already stated the Resistance has more than one leader. So I would more likely say he plays as the navigator of the gang. As well as the one who encourages the Resistance to give out their full strength in order for every Zim to succeed in taking down Number 1 and getting back home.

I also love how his character is more detailed with the fact that he is still a ZIM regardless of being a baby. This is proven with the fact he always tries to stay self-confident. Along with the fact that he’s willing to prove someone, including a Dib, that he can still be a good competitor despite his fragile looking appearance, which makes him different from his partner Palindrome.

I guess his only flaw to his character would be his....selfishness? Yes, I’m aware he is a Zim. But I still find it odd that one issue, he’s willing to join a fight and then in the next one, he decides to just hide behind the door while the rest of the Resistance are fighting. Maybe it’s a huge war he can’t handle? Who knows.

Regardless, I can’t hate him for that because of how well detailed his character is. I think his interaction with Palindrome is what also makes him a great character. I don��t think either of them would have been a great character without them being together.

—————————-

Honorable mentions

Number 100/2004/Big Zim: honestly, i can’t imagine that they would make a character from going threatening looking to someone who is just a sensitive and lovable muscular teddy bear. I just...I love him. Just...protect him at all cost.

Number 500: I honestly love that they made a Zim that is sort of a bookworm. It just would have been a little nice if we learned more about him but I can see myself reading a good fanfiction about him if someone does so.

Number 501: he’s sort of like Number 2 which is why I loved him so much before 2 entered the picture. I always see him as the one in charge of the guard and I could sort of see him playing the antagonist role in issue 46-47.

——————————-

Number 1: Palindrome (Number 2002)

He is not JUST an older brother figure to 2K. He is THE EMBODIMENT of a older brother AND parental figure (mostly towards a Gir in my opinion). It’s also surprising that out of all the Zims we seen, he is the one who acts the least like....A Zim.

Like...it’s funny. Just like every Zim, he is attempting to conquer Earth and has his Dib as an enemy. And yet, he’s almost the complete opposite of our Zim.

He’s very quite, he not too confident (note the times he complained about his water, missing previous experiences/encounters etc.). And one thing. ONE important thing that makes him the complete opposite of a Zim is that he BARELY hides his EMPATHY.

As far as we know, OUR Zim would BARELY EVER show a sense of empathy. Examples like showing any sense of emotions towards his Gir (yes we have seen him show a sense of empathy to Gir few times. But he’s able to hide it to the point that it’s barely recognizable). Palindrome straight up gave a heartfelt and happy expression towards Gir for TWO panels (even excitedly and happily saying hi to Gir) before trying to brush it off by saying he didn’t miss him whatsoever....which in my opinion I totally doubt it after the reaction he just made a second ago. 2K, Our Zim, and all the other Zims barely showed any reaction towards Gir’s presence whatsoever.

And one thing our Zim would never do is to comfort someone or show a sense of lending a helping hand (you saw him abandoned people in trouble multiple times without hestitation as far as I know). The moment Pal saw a Zim crying, he went up to him to share the feelings he was going through as well as show a sense of comfort at the same time.

I think that’s what makes me love Palindrome so much. It’s not that he’s NOT a Zim. He’s a Zim but in a completely different manner. And he might kindest and calmest Zim were EVER gonna get. Not to mention....he’s adorable. He’s straight up a fish in a scuba-diving suit. If I were to imagine the kind of Zim I would create, Palindrome would be the closest to it next to 2K. Both him and his partner...they are perfect. They’re design is just perfection.

—————

And there you have it! Let me know in a reboot of what you think and if you like, tell me what YOUR favorite Zims are. Have a good day! X3

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marvel-lous-things · 5 years

Text

Promises

AN: reposting because tungle.hell is a little bitch that messed up the read more link on this and doesn’t deserve rights.

Words:

Relationships: Family fluff, Pepperony, mentions of Peter’s crush on Harley

Prompt: “Every month everyone has a get together at the pepperony cabin and they have dinner together. Happy grills cheeseburgers for the kids (Morgan, Clint’s boys, Peter, Lila, Cassie, Harley) and they play outside until it gets dark, the older kids giving the younger ones piggy back rides and everyone eating juice pops. Steve is inside, bantering with Bucky and Sam, like the old times. Pepper wishes Tony would be here to see it all.”

—-

It was tradition, at this point, for everyone to meet up in Pepper’s old cabin (she had since moved to New York) on the first Sunday of each month.

It had begun with a miscommunication. Steve had texted Bruce that he’d be visiting Pepper to check on her and Morgan, on that fateful day a little over a year ago. Somehow, Bruce had interpreted that as “Gather the whole gang, we’re gonna collectively show up at Pepper’s cabin with 35 assorted presents.”

It was a little odd the first time round, what with Bruce apologizing profusely for goofing up, and the cabin being too small to hold everyone while also allowing them some personal space. But she’d decided she liked having them all around. Might as well do it again.

14 months and 14 barbecue meet ups later, everyone looked forward to driving out there for a nice evening of grilled food and banter. And the occasional explosion. To be fair, when you throw two brilliant, reckless, science-loving teenagers and an equally brilliant, reckless, science-loving little girl together, explosions can (and will) occur.

Which is why Happy was very loudly arguing with Harley over using his “new and improved” grill rather than the usual one from Happy’s garage, which was decidedly safer and less daunting to use. To top it off, the damn thing was shaped like a nuke.

Elsewhere, the younger kids were having their own argument, except theirs had a little less to do with barbecue grills.

“Morgan,” Pepper called out, noticing the commotion, “it’s Cooper’s turn now, sweetheart.”

“But mom-”

“Give it to him.”

“Just a minute!”

“Morgan.”

The 6 year old turned around, gave her mom the most heart-achingly adorable pout, and begrudgingly handed her brand new nerf gun to the older boy (a very well received gift from May). They’d been going at it all evening, shooting empty soda cans off rocks, tree branches, and at one point, Peter’s head.

Steve smiled, watching Barton’s kid shoot a can off Harley’s bike from 10 meters away. And then immediately panicking after realizing the can was actually full. And probably belonged to Harley.

“Kid’s good with a gun, Clint,” Steve noted.

“Scared he won’t take after his dad?”

The glare he received from the arrow enthusiast was borderline terrifying.

“We’ve just got killer aim, Rogers, it ain’t about the weapon. Hand me a gun, stand across the lake, and I’ll show you.”

Pepper laughed, throwing Clint a grape flavored juice pop (his favorite kind).

“Nobody’s murdering anybody in my house, alright?”

Just before Clint could catch his dessert, though, a web shot out from behind the couch and snatched the sugar infused stick of ice right out of mid air. The web then proceeded to disappear as quickly as it came.

“Well, actually, Pepper,” said a youthful voice, no doubt belonging to the pop thief,

“the murder would happen outside the house, so technically-”

“Peter Benjamin Parker, you give that back right now or you’re grounded for a month.”

Peter winced. Busted.

“He can get himself another one, May!” He tried (in vain).

“There’s a whole freezer full of em right outside-”

“Peter.”

May raised her eyebrow at him. Ah, there it was. The look of devastating disapproval. A look nobody could stand to receive, let alone Peter “I cried watching Big Hero 6″ Parker.

“Alright, alright.” He sighed, back flipping over the armrest; a completely extravagant and unnecessary move that was only carried out in case Harley was watching. Peter had been trying his absolute best to get Harley’s attention off late. He told May that it was because he wanted to prove that “he’s the alpha” (May thought her disaster of a son simply wanted to impress his crush. She was right).

20 lazy footsteps and an annoyed huff later, the juice pop was slid across the kitchen counter, right into Clint’s open hand.

When it was, regrettably, immediately snatched away by Lila.

Clint blinked. “Can’t catch a damn break, can I?”

Laura laughed, planting a reassuring kiss on her husband’s cheek. She’d learned over the past year that Clint had turned to vigilante justice to deal with his feelings of anger and helplessness. She couldn’t have him hunting down members of the Ukrainian mafia over popsicles.

“Calm down, drama queen, I’m sure there’s more in the ice box-”

“WHO TOOK ALL THE DAMN GRAPE JUICE POPS?” Captain America yelled from outside. A sound that was immediately followed by a very ungraceful pterodactyl-like screech, and Clint putting his head in his hands.

“…or maybe not.” She winced.

That was the exact moment Bucky took to walk down the stairs. a sticky purple mess gracing his face. He stopped abruptly when he noticed everyone’s eyes were on him, and just this once, he was sure it wasn’t because they were admiring his beauty.

His eyes darted around the room, making note of Clint’s deep resignation, Pepper’s terrible poker face, May’s grimace, and Steve nearly falling off his chair in sheer amusement.

He wasn’t fully sure how to proceed.

“Uh…”

He looked around the room again, hoping it would give him answers.

It didn’t.

“…what’s up?”

Steve actually did fall over at this point, prompting Peter to scream something about senior citizen needing help, followed by Cassie dialing 911 on Morgan’s old toy telephone. Neither of which helped him make sense of what was going on. Although, he had to admit, it was a little funny.

Bucky’s question, however, was answered when Sam entered the kitchen with the force of a very disgruntled wildebeest. He looked around wildly, until his eyes fell on Bucky and his incredibly purple grin.

“You,” Sam glowered.

“Me,” Bucky replied sweetly, slowly wiping the purple dye off his mouth with his sleeve. Which, of course, only served to drive Sam further up the wall.

“YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE GRAPE!”

“True, true.” Bucky shrugged.

“I do love pissing you off, though.”

What followed after was Sam chasing Bucky out into the woods, brandishing his shield and yelling something about how “this shield ain’t only for defending, I’ll star spangle whoop your ass you dick, come back here.”

Clint followed a minute later, on a quest to avenge his stolen popsicle

(This was after they were pointedly told by Pepper to take their battle outside, they’d lost enough vases over the year to the kids’ antics as it were).

Steve eventually found the strength to get back on his chair, and throw an apple in Harley’s general direction. Which was warranted, because the kid kept yelling “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” in this ridiculous (and frankly, offensive) “old man voice” while Steve did, in fact, struggle to get up.

He briefly wondered how pleased Tony would be to see Captain Perfect struggling with real, human issues, like achy joints and a sore back. Almost as if she’d read his mind, Pepper voiced his thoughts.

“Tony would’ve loved to see you dealing with elderly-man problems, you know.” She laughed. “The number of times he’d complain that ‘Steve goddamn Rogers’ doesn’t suffer from a single grey hair even at the age of 100, while he did even though he was only 50.”

She made air quotes around the “only.”

“Took a lot of convincing for him to let it grow out, you know, instead of hiding it behind dye after dye,” she rolled her eyes, “he looked at me like I’d told him to give Morgan up for adoption.”

Steve laughed softly. “A herculean effort, I’m sure.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”

Pepper remembered that conversation clear as day, like it had happened just days ago. Partly because she’d never had to convince someone who was once labelled “Sexiest Man Alive” by Times magazine that he would still be attractive with grey hair, until that strange, strange day, and partly because the method of convincing she’d opted for was… unusual, a little unexpected. But not unwelcome, for sure

(He’d told her as much the next morning, wearing a stupidly lopsided grin, but no shirt)

Washing the dye off her fingers had been a pain in the ass though. She couldn’t believe he’d actually agreed to letting her color his hair grey. Morgan had shrieked seeing her daddy with “weird hair” (her words), which was not good for the case Pepper was making. But she had eventually warmed up to the new look. She even told Tony he looked nice, of her own accord. After which Pepper had walked in on Tony hugging his daughter and her struggling to get out of the death grip he had on her.

Pepper was snapped out of her reverie when Steve spoke up again.

“Who’s to say he isn’t seeing it, though?”

Pepper blinked. She wasn’t one to space out often, but when she did, she was disturbingly thorough.

“Sorry?”

“Tony, watching us,” Steve took a deep breath, “laughing at me struggling with weak hipbones, watching over you, Morgan, Peter…” He looked down at his mug of coffee, that had long since gone empty

“You never know.”

Pepper couldn’t quite place the look on his face just then. Somewhere between sad and hopeful, she supposed.

“You never know,” she repeated under her breath, more to herself than to him.

Steve heard it anyway, and smiled softly at her, before turning to look at the picture Pepper had framed on the living room wall. A picture of her, Tony, and Morgan, taken at the beach. Morgan was on his shoulders, maybe 3, 4 years old then. His right arm was wrapped around Pepper’s shoulder, her left arm around his waist. All three wore contented smiles, Tony’s and Morgan’s achingly similar.

No Iron Man, no arc reactor, no intense, murderous stare, like the hundreds of pictures that had graced every magazine in existence, for a month after his death.

Just plain, good old Tony Stark. The part of him he kept hidden from the world, reserved only for the people he loved.

It was the only picture that did him justice, Steve thought.

“I wish he could see you now, Pepper,” he turned back to her, half his mouth upturned in a small smile, “see how well his two favorite girls are doing.”

Pepper chuckled, gently placing her hand on Steve’s.

“Oh, he knows,” she nodded, twirling the ring that still adorned her finger.

“I promised him we’d be fine.”

xxxxx

my adhd ass jumping from prompt to prompt: parkour

anyway, thanks for reading

#i hate this website #endgame spoilers #marvel #endgame #avengers endgame #tony stark #pepper potts #pepperony #steve rogers #peter parker #morgan stark #bucky barnes #sam wilson #marvel fanfcition #mcu #sam attempts writing

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cllynchauthor · 5 years

Note

That post you made was a mess, just fyi. 1) I went through the thread you linked, and I found the authors reasonable and respectable. The playwriter's worked with people with disabilities for 10 years, and it's clear he cares about the issue. 2) The fact Lawrence is a puppy isn't automatically pejorative. That's how art works. I haven't seen the play, but it's probably a metaphor for the teen's lack of agency or something like that. Also writing something a certain way doesn't mean you -

“- approve of it. Have you even seen the play? 3) Please stop pretending anyone represents the autistic community and that you guys speak with one voice. It’s seriously dehumanizing to think a large and diverse group of people shares the same views. In that view there is an autistic man who loved the play - I guess his voice doesn’t count because he disagrees with you?”

I love this anon message because it contains pretty much every argument that people are using against the autistic folk protesting this play.

Like, I’ve been watching #puppetgate unfold since day one, read the reviews, read the responses from @allinarowplay. You think I haven’t heard these points before?

I’ve read them so many times now in tweets and reviews that your message just looks like one of those ransom notes that are made from cut and pasted words out of the newspaper.

But since Tumblr is new to #puppetgate, SURE, let’s address them!

First of all, my #puppetgate summary was a truthful, if flippant, tl;dr of the past two weeks’ worth of Twitter drama.

I apologize if my brief humorous take on a complex and nuanced debate didn’t meet the standards of a random stranger on the internet.

Let’s discuss it in more serious detail.

1) You can care about an issue and still handle it really poorly. No one doubts this playwright’s intentions. But, as you say, he was a CARER for 10 years. That doesn’t mean he understands how it feels to be autistic and in fact, ableism is built right into ABA and other therapies used by carers.

So yeah, he cares. And he still made an ableist play.

Also, the thread you mention was BELOW the video I linked to wherein the puppet designer says, and I quote:

“Laurence is non-verbal, and the power that puppets have is that they explore movement and with a turn of their head or a small movement they give life and character that you wouldn’t achieve with a human actor.”

Which is why I snidely summarized their position as

“ This puppet is going to be SO MUCH more like an autistic child than a human could ever be!”

https://twitter.com/allinarowplay/status/1092410318960148481

Also, there is a brief shot of their script in that video at 2:19 and if you pause it and look at it you can see that the parents are joking about how their kid is like a puppy.

“Shits wherever he wants” is clearly visible.

This is the stuff the positive reviews consider funny, honest, and brave.

According to reviews, the child is present in the background throughout most of the play. Which means they talk like this IN FRONT OF HIM and this is never brought up as an issue/problem.

In fact, non-autistic reviewers don’t even seem bothered by it, probably because they share the common misperception that non-verbal high needs autistic people don’t understand what is going on around them. So…. yeah. I don’t care how well meaning the playwright was.

The playwright consulted the National Autistic Society and they told him they couldn’t support the play “due to its portrayal of autism, particularly the use of a puppet to depict the autistic character alone.”

But he didn’t change his mind about the puppet.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/critics-say-new-play-that-uses-a-puppet-to-portray-an-autistic-boy-dehumanises-those-with-the-condition/ar-BBTk5kC

So again - sure, maybe he cares. But he also wasn’t willing to change his vision despite the warnings of the Autism organization that he was hoping would endorse his play.

2) Of course a puppet isn’t inherently pejorative. For one thing, the autistic community is very positive about Julia, the autistic muppet on Sesame Street.

The outrage involves a lot more nuance than that. First of all, it’s the choice to make the puppet grey and ugly. This was obviously an artistic decision. The first version of the puppet has black hair too and no eyes, just dark sockets like a skull.

Not exactly Julia.

And even with that, I was on the fence and willing to wait for the reviews to come out before I made a judgement.

Like you, I thought perhaps it would be made clear in the play that his puppet-ness and greyness represented lack of agency. And maybe the designer was thinking that way.

But if that is the case, it does not come across.

In fact, the reviewers who enjoyed the play repeatedly dismiss the controversy by saying that the play “isn’t really about Laurence.”

https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/all-in-a-row-review

“The production is also about the situation, rather than about Laurence himself.“

https://www.thereviewshub.com/all-in-a-row-southwark-playhouse-london/

“sadly the grey-faced puppet adds nothing to the production that a living actor – adult or child – could not have provided.”

I’ve read a LOT of reviews of this play by now.

Reviews from mothers of autistic children who feel a kinship with the stressed, unhappy, dysfunctional parents.

Reviews from people without a connection to autism who feel like they learned something.

Reviews from autistic people and disabled allies who cringe at the ableism.

None of them - NONE of them - allude to any kind of symbolism or thematic point running through the play which justifies or explains the puppet or its weird appearance.

And the reasons for the puppet given by the playwright, director, and playhouse make very little sense.

In that promotional video I linked to they say that the puppet can communicate better than an actor could. I disagree. So does a non-verbal autistic mime who commented in the thread below.

They also say that it allows them to avoid being offensive or stereotypical, which makes little sense because they still had a grown man grunting and flapping on stage, just with a puppet sprouting from his waist.

They repeatedly argued that they couldn’t use an autistic child, as if acting wasn’t even a thing. They repeatedly argued that a human actor couldn’t do the sounds and movements, even though a human puppeteer was doing just that.

My favourite one was the review (linked above) that argued that “Laurence isn’t a character a person could play (neurotypical or not) as his autism is so particular and at times violent.”

...Has this guy never seen Titus Andronicus?

A person can play ANYTHING.

On Broadway I have seen human actors play cats, lions, baboons, and witches.

On multiple occasions a fine-boned actress has been used to play Peter Pan. I’m pretty sure you could cast a small actor to play a pre-teen boy. Then the play wouldn’t have attracted so much negative attention.

As for “writing something a certain way doesn’t mean you approve of it.”

True.

My fans can tell you that my main character spouts a fair amount of ableism. They’ll also tell you that this flaw is addressed openly and resolved as part of her character arc.

They’ll ALSO also tell you that the “villains” of my story embrace ableist ideals. So yes, I wrote ableist stuff. But you can tell by the waythese things are framed how the writer wants you to feel about them.

No, I haven’t seen the play because I don’t live in the same country as it and it would take 12 hours to fly there. But I read what people write about it and I draw my own conclusions.

And the fact that ableist jokes are punchlines does not endear me to the playwright or the puppet.

You say you haven’t read the play, and from the sounds of it you haven’t read many reviews either.

If you think it’s wrong for me to criticize it after watching all of this unfold over days and days, and reading a dozen reviews by people who loved it and people who hated it, then how is it right for you to defend it?

3) Aw, look at that straw man lying on its side! You did a good job there.

Nowhere in my puppetgate summary do I claim that 100% of autistic people feel the same way.

I was summarizing what has been going down on Twitter over the past two weeks. I know because I was there. Don’t believe me? Actually spendsome time on the puppetgate hashtag and the actuallyautistic hashtag and see what people are saying.

And of course less than 100% of #actuallyautistic people feel the same, but I want to point out that at the time of this writing, my #puppetgate summary post has nearly 11K notes, all of them expressing disgust at the idea of this play.

Autistic people are disgusted. Autism allies are disgusted. Even people with no connection to autism can often see why this is effed up.

Yours was the only message I have received trying to defend the idea of a play featuring a messed up family arguing, discussing bukkake, calling their child a “puppy” using language which results in the play being rated as 16 plus... all in front of their eleven year old…

But what really bothers me is that somehow people come out of there identifying with the parents and thinking that it is “brave” and “honest.”

They blame autism for what it has done to this family.

THE DAD SHAT ON HIS WIFE’S PILLOW AND BLAMED IT ON HIS OWN SON.

And the really sad thing is that your lonely messages in my inbox didn’t contain a single unique thought. I’ve been seeing those tired excuses and straw man arguments all over twitter for weeks.

They don’t stand up.

I’ve performed in theatre. I was willing to withhold judgement until more details about the play emerged.

I was hoping they would say something brilliant and profound about what life is like for an eleven year old child with autism who is being sent away because his messed up family can’t stand it any more.

But facts are facts… they didn’t.

All they are doing is telling audience after audience that it is funny to insult your autistic child in his very presence and that autism wrecks marriages.

You can understand why a LOT of autistic people would be a bit sensitive about that kind of message.

It doesn’t have to be everyone.

#puppetgate #actuallyautistic

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jacensolodjo · 4 years

Text

Pairing: Kinda Chakotay/B’Elanna

Characters: Chakotay, B’Elanna, other crew in very minor roles (Harry Kim, EMH, etc.,)

Warning: None unless you’re squeamish about minor injuries

Genre: Action, Drama

Summary: While on an expedition to explore what seemed to be the remnants of buildings but no actual intelligent lifeforms, Chakotay and B'Elanna find themselves crash-landed on the planet and far off course of the buildings they were planning to explore. The usual from bad to worse.

Notes: No definite timeline but around Season 5. This is for the @startreksecretsanta, requested by @kingstoken with the prompt "Chakotay and B'Elanna stranded on an away mission" but I kinda used part of one of the other prompts too haha. 1 1/2 for the price of 1 I guess. I had a hard time choosing cause ugh scotty/uhura too which honestly might come at a later date maybe.

-----------------------

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Chakotay,” B'Elanna said, and he could tell by the pronunciation of his name that she was worried, too. Her voice always lilted on the first and last syllables when she was feeling particularly stressed or annoyed. He had known her longer than her own deadbeat, prejudiced father, and he had always been good at picking up changes in speech. It helped, given his rank and position.

“Who said anything about worried? Voyager is still in the system and they aren’t about to fly off without their First Officer or Chief of Engineering.” Although, that was not quite true. He flashed briefly back to when he and Janeway had been ‘left behind’, though that had been on explicit orders.

B'Elanna gave him one of her patented unimpressed looks before brushing curly hair back behind her ears. Dark eyes studied their surroundings, with the banged up shuttle as the centerpiece. She had already given up on trying to fix the shuttle’s busted engine, instead choosing to cannibalize it for comms and shelter purposes. The front window and view screen had practically exploded upon impact and it was a miracle both ex-Maquis had gotten out with just some bruises and minor lacerations to the face, arms, and hands. Made for a nice cross breeze, though.

She would say that transporting was a safer bet, but honestly she knew the odds were always 50/50 no matter which way they explored a new planet. It was one of the inevitable truths about boldly going where no one had gone before: shit happened. At least she could be secure in the knowledge that it was never shoddy engineering work that caused it.

“At least we can use the husk of the shuttle for shelter. Only problem will be staying warm,” B'Elanna admitted and a shiver chose to wrack her spine to emphasize the problem. She had not dressed for any kind of inclement weather or massive changes in temperature. Neither had Chakotay, though.

Chakotay gave a low kind of grunt in agreement before stepping down from the rock he had been standing on to try to get a lay of the land.

“Whenever this happens I always imagine my ancestors laughing at me,” Chakotay muttered, low enough that B'Elanna wasn’t certain he had meant her to hear. So she did the 'polite’ thing and chose not to say anything, instead busying herself with pulling out the emergency blankets and ration packs. Maybe a couple years ago she would have teased Chakotay a bit more. But now they couldn’t afford any discord. She supposed she had Janeway to thank for her maturity.

When she looked up she could pick out the spot in the sky where the USS Voyager waited in orbit, waited for a proper solution to the issue that didn’t include just blindly flinging down another shuttle or trying to transport them through a hostile atmosphere.

When she looked back over, Chakotay was fidgeting, trying to decide on the next thing to do in the checklist crafted by Starfleet (with some Maquis… improvements) for just these occasions.

B'Elanna watched him as he paced, but eventually grew tired of seeing him wear a hole in the ground. Instead she took one of the emergency blankets and draped it haphazardly across the hole in the front of the shuttle. With a bit of tinkering with her phaser, she got it to adhere to the metal enough that it wouldn’t flap in a breeze. Pleased at making progress, she made sure to grab another of the blankets out of the four total that were usually stored in a shuttle.

“Hey, Chakotay, how is the whole all natural heat and light source thing coming?” B'Elanna called out as she stopped and bent to tuck the blankets against the wall of the shuttle with the least damage. She knew him, knew he would have been scouting and probably nearby again. However…

“I found a water source with a good amount of trees for the fire,” Chakotay reported over her shoulder, making her jump in surprise and swing at his face on pure instinct. Luckily, he had had time to get used to Klingon reflexes and caught her wrist before her fist made contact with his face.

“Chakotay! Don’t do that; I hate it when you do that!” B'Elanna huffed before yanking her wrist free. Chakotay merely smiled at her. At least he was still good at sneaking up on people. One point for Chakotay, grandfather.

“C'mon, the wood is heavier than I expected and without any of the carts on Voyager or even a rudimentary wheelbarrow it will take some time to get enough for a fire before the sun in this system goes down,” Chakotay explained, already setting off without her. The engineer glanced at their mediocre camp before hurrying after him and hoping there weren’t any indigenous beings around that would rob them blind at a moment’s notice.

Torres stared at the stream that Chakotay had led them to. After a quick check it was actually perfectly fine H2O, she quickly filled their canteens while Chakotay went to work felling one of the nearby trees. The sound it made when it landed on the ground was like thunder and shook the ground under their feet. B'Elanna shared a look with Chakotay.

“Heavier than expected, huh?” She asked dryly before getting to work at cutting the trunk into manageable slices and cords. Chakotay couldn’t help but laugh.

“Think of it this way, good training for your next PT exam,” he said, earning another unimpressed look.

To their advantage, night time wasn’t something that arrived quickly on the rock they had been stranded on. Unfortunately, the planet itself was not planning on doing them any favors. They had only been able to make two trips given the weight of the load when they heard what could only be described as a rattling howl. Chakotay narrowly dodged the latest load from landing on his foot as Torres dropped her end to remove her phaser.

“B'Elanna, it has to be over a kilometer away,” Chakotay said, exasperated over how jumpy she was.

“Remind me again how far a kilometer is?” Torres retorted in a low raspy voice, aiming her phaser at something over Chakotay’s shoulder. Chakotay opened his mouth to reply but was drowned out by another rattling roar that was definitely a lot closer than he had expected. He half turned before leaping off to his left just as Torres fired just a bit further to her left than where his right ear had been a moment earlier. Another rattling howl that was punctuated by a shriek of anger or maybe pain, Chakotay couldn’t tell and didn’t quite care at the moment.

B'Elanna fired again but the shot went slightly wide. The hulking creature that looked like it was half made of the trees surrounding them let out an even louder roar before bounding after Chakotay, completely ignoring the woman firing at its haunches.

Just once, Chakotay would like to not be considered the more tantalizing target.

“Chakotay, hang a left!” B'Elanna called out as she continued to fire. More roars were the response as well as the snapping of jaws that almost sounded metallic. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a phaser rifle right about then. Chakotay to his credit followed instructions and dropped down to slide under a partially felled tree. The creature, however, practically walked right through the trunk undeterred.

Desperate, Chakotay fired a couple times behind himself blindly. An acrid smell hit his nose before a shriek of what definitely had to be anger that time. He clambered up a slight hill that quickly turned into a cliff, nearly losing his footing three times along the way. But the creature didn’t miss a single step.

“Chakotay! You’re headed to a drop that has to be at least 100 feet high!” B'Elanna bellowed over the sound of the creature and her phaser. She did her best to keep herself from thinking about how impervious this creature was to phaser blasts and thus how useful it could be as armor. There would be time later, if she and Chakotay both survived the experience.

“I know!” Chakotay was now, in quite a cliche fashion, trapped on the very edge of the cliff with the creature grumbling forward every second.

As the creature swiped at him, Chakotay flashed back to his Starfleet training days, modified with boxing lessons. Then to the close quarters combat lessons for the Maquis. 'Use your opponent’s momentum against them’ was a tried and true method. Just not normally against creatures of this size. Looking at B'Elanna for what could easily be the last time, Chakotay ducked off to the side. The creature roared in confused rage as it quickly tumbled over the cliff. But its arm was still sweeping and managed to snag Chakotay by his uniform jacket. With a yell more out of surprise than anything, Chakotay joined the creature in tumbling off the cliff.

“Chakotay!” B'Elanna yelled, rushing forward to the edge without being in danger of falling after him. It took a short few seconds for her to hear the heavy thud of the creature landing, and possibly Chakotay too.

“Chakotay!” she yelled again, for all the good it could possibly do if Chakotay was injured or worse. She listened for a reply but heard nothing but the soft patter of debris falling into the relatively shallow water below.

Doing her best not to think the worst, she took the much safer route down the cliff and around to the water. She half expected Chakotay to be standing there with a stupid grin on his face and teasing her for being worried about him. All she could see though was the creature.

With phaser still firmly in hand, she edged closer to the creature.

“Chakotay?” she called out again, slightly softer this time. She heard a groan and jumped back, quickly aiming at the animal-plant hybrid thing. But as she watched it, there was no movement at all.

“Chakotay?” Louder this time as she skirted around the creature. Almost as if he had nestled himself there, Chakotay was in the crook of the thing’s arm–or leg, whichever it was. And again, for a second she was sure that Chakotay would pop up with a stupid teasing smile he seemed to reserve just for her until she noticed that half of him from the waist down was nowhere close to being in proper alignment.

“…Chakotay,” she mumbled, suddenly wishing she had the EMH with her. She knew battlefield first aid, but she also knew he outweighed her by a few dozen pounds.

Undeterred, she tucked her phaser away and used all the strength adrenaline and Klingon DNA gave her to drag Chakotay away from the creature and out of the water.

As she was getting to be halfway back to camp, Chakotay’s comm chirped and nearly startled B'Elanna bad enough to drop him, but managed to hold on.

“Voyager to Commander Chakotay. Chakotay do you copy?” Harry Kim’s voice filtered through, sounding a tad tinny from the damage the badge had sustained.

With a growl of frustration, Torres tapped her own combadge.

“Torres to Voyager. Commander Chakotay is unconscious right now,” B'Elanna explained, groaning halfway through the report as she returned to dragging Chakotay back as delicately as possible to prevent making his injury worse.

“B'Elanna? What happened?” Harry asked, voice instantly changing to one of extreme concern. Good old Harry Kim, worrying enough for the entire ship.

Another groan of strain before hitting the badge again.

“Well, Starfleet, Chakotay bet me he could make it to the bottom of a cliff faster than one of the native fauna. He lost. I won. Lucky me. I’m a few minutes out from our shuttle. His leg is looking really bad, like EMH needed bad. Any chance you figured out how we got swatted out of the sky and how to get us back?”

B'Elanna ignored the sharp intake of breath from Harry, having her own breathing to worry about as her strength from adrenaline began to flag.

“We think it was an almost invisible plasma storm. As you were going down we got some weird readings from the computer on the shuttle. We were actually hoping you could transfer it up to us…”

B'Elanna didn’t answer right away as she finally got to the camp and found a nice flat spot to put Chakotay close to the shuttle.

“Can it wait until I get Chakotay stabilized a bit more? Plus I have to find the data… the computer took a hit when we landed and what wasn’t fried went to comms.”

“Oh, yeah. O-of course. Captain says check in in 15 minute intervals,” Harry said, sounding even more exceedingly stressed and worried somehow.

“Is this working? Lieutenant Torres, this is sickbay. Do you copy?” The EMH’s voice suddenly broke in.

“Doctor, we talked about this–” Harry started.

“Yes, we did. As you are well aware all injuries must be reported to sickbay– that is, to me– immediately and communication with the away team becomes prioritized for the medical bay and–”

“Got it!” B'elanna cut in before Harry could reply. “Doctor, how do I stabilize Chakotay’s leg from the hip down?”

Harry wisely chose to fall silent for the time being.

“If it is from the hip down you will need to splint it for the time being from waist down to ankle. You will need a board or I suppose a thick stick would work but of course the preferred–”

“Splint! Got it, doctor! Thank you! Give me a bit!”

“I really wish people would let me finish a sentence some time…” the EMH complained before going silent.

B'Elanna stared at Chakotay a moment but was too afraid to ask if clothes could stay on or not. She assumed it would work better without the clothes in the way, not to mention checking for open wounds she may have missed thanks to the uniform color scheme, so as quietly as possible and as carefully, she slipped the man’s uniform off, wishing it wasn't a jumpsuit. It was the first time she’d seen him without pants in quite a while but she didn’t think much about it. She then grabbed one of the sticks that Chakotay had grabbed when they were bringing in the firewood and had made some comment about turning it into a spear or some such thing so they wouldn’t waste the battery packs on their phasers. All business, she lashed the branch to Chakotay’s leg. She was glad to note lack of blood, but there were some nasty bruises forming. The man moaned a little in his unconscious state but made no response otherwise. It worried her more than she wanted to admit.

’I swear if he makes me get out the medicine wheel again…’ she thought as she finished tying the last knot. She used one of the other survival blankets to cover Chakotay up.

“Torres to sickbay. Splint is in place. Now what? Chakotay is still unconscious, I thought he would wake up when the splint was getting put in place…”

“His brain may be trying to protect him from the pain. Nothing to worry about right now. In the mean time, find the first aid kit again and set him up with fluids while he is unconscious. Just because he isn’t bleeding doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to replenish his blood cells and hydration is always important anyways.”

She was starting to regret not paying much attention in battlefield first aid at the academy as she fumbled with setting up the fluids. Her pride kept her from asking for a step by step. When they started to infuse nicely, she figured she did it right.

“Please keep an eye on any swelling in the leg or even along the head. You said he fell. Just because you didn’t see his head hit the ground doesn’t mean it didn’t get traumatized from landing. And–”

“Sorry, doc, gotta interrupt you this one time. Captain says she and Seven found a way to neutralize the plasma storms to send a new shuttle down to you. But it will take another twelve standard hours to set everything up.”

So many things could happen in twelve hours. She grimaced.

“Is that the best they can do?” B'Elanna heard herself asking a tad too sharply.

Harry paused a moment, which just made B'Elanna feel like a jerk. But she was too worried to apologize just then.

“Yes, lieutenant. I’m sure it would go even faster if you were here…” Harry tried to smooth things over.

“Well I’m not, am I? Just keep me updated. Torres out.”

B'Elanna felt even more like a jerk and knew there would be some making up to do later.

With nothing really left to do except actually start a fire, B'Elanna focused on that instead of just watching Chakotay sleep. It took her enough tries she was glad Chakotay was unconscious.

B'Elanna was beginning to doze a little when Chakotay jerked awake with a surprised yell. B'Elanna couldn’t help her own small yell of surprise before rushing over to Chakotay.

“B'Elanna? What happened? I remember that tree dinosaur thing then nothing…” Chakotay brushed his hand along his throbbing thigh then flinched. Carefully he pulled the emergency blanket off, as if afraid of what he might find (or not find). He was relieved that he still had both legs (and other parts). His gaze fell on the splint, expertly tied if not placed. And he noticed his relative lack of clothing.

“Did you–”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before, Chakotay. Relax. You and I both know Maquis conditions meant a lot of getting to know each other more than expected. I’m just surprised you switched to solid colors,” she knew she would have failed not to smile so didn’t even try to prevent it. The look on her face made Chakotay roll his eyes and groan. He supposed he should be grateful, joking meant things weren’t as dire as he thought. B'Elanna didn’t tend to have gallows humor (about other people, anyways) or exaggerate.

“Anyways. The… tree dinosaur,” she supposed that was as good a description as any, ”grabbed you and yanked you off the cliff as it plummeted. Have to admire the philosophy of ‘if I’m going down you’re going with me’ also applying here in the Delta Quadrant. Kinda poetic. While I dragged you back, Harry got in touch. They’re rigging up another shuttle, this one is supposed to be able to neutralize the storm that knocked us out of the sky. Unfortunately it won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

Chakotay took in the 'sitrep’ then nodded thoughtfully.

“Ration bar?” Torres offered, holding out a brown bar that seemed to be made of granola and molasses. Chakotay made a face but took it anyways with a thanks, it was all they knew to be edible on the planet so far. After eating he pulled the blanket closer.

"I'm sorry the archaeologist in me got us stuck down here," Chakotay suddenly said. It was rare for him to take the blame like that. He was rarely self deprecating.

"Says the man with a leg that was basically turned into a number five," B'Elanna noted as she added a bit more wood to the fire.

"Who had to get here back to camp somehow and wouldn't have needed the help if we had never come."

B'Elanna knew that a younger version of herself would have probably chewed his head off about their predicament. And he almost seemed like he was expecting it. But, she was an adult...

"You're right but I think you have been punished enough for your curiosity, Cha-cat-ay."

B'Elanna realized a second later than Chakotay what she had said.

"Harry," they said together with a shared eyeroll. The junior bridge officer did tend to enjoy his wordplay sometimes. It was enough to break Chakotay out of his mood, however.

Now that she knew Chakotay wasn’t comatose, B'Elanna got up and cut up some more of the wood for the fire as well as setting up some minor defenses. She wasn't certain how long night would reign before they would get picked up in a new shuttle so they had to be prepared.

"I will take the next watch. You deserve some rest," Chakotay said.

"Torres to sickbay," B'Elanna said instead, tapping her badge.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

"The opposite actually. Commander Chakotay has regained consciousness."

"Wonderful, I shall log that immediately. Don't worry, Commander, once you are back on the ship we will fix your leg good as new again!" B'Elanna was pretty sure The Doctor was being sarcastic but at the moment didn't care.

"See you then," Chakotay called out.

"Torres to Kim," B'Elanna ordered next.

"Kim here!"

"Chakotay has regained consciousness and I have fortified the area as best I can. I have also turned on the tracking beacon. Let the captain know we wait for a shuttle off this rock as soon as possible."

"You got it. Glad you are back with us, Commander," Harry said.

"Thank you, Ensign."

The night felt far longer than the day had been, and neither slept perfectly especially when they heard what sounded like another "tree dinosaur" stomping its way towards their ramshackle base camp. Luckily it either seemed to change its mind or the planet really did defy certain laws about sounds.

The day dawned and shortly after what constituted a breakfast while on an away mission, the pair waited as patiently as possible for the call down to make sure the landing zone was cleared out. The call came in about the time B’Elanna was about to decide they might as well have lunch too.

“Y’know, I’m actually tired enough and hungry enough I’m willing to eat whatever Neelix has managed to make,” B’Elanna muttered on the shuttle ride back to the ship, trying not to flinch every time it rocked like the one that had crashed had done.

Chakotay laughed hard enough he flinched and grabbed his leg. At least it was just a break.

I still want to know what that creature’s skin was made of... B’Elanna thought as the Voyager came into view. But she was not at all willing to risk going back down to find out.

#Chakotay #b'elanna torres #B'elanna x chakotay #star trek voyager #my writing #i havent written either so i apologize for ooc bits #either of them before*#r: twisted sense of humor

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luninosity · 5 years

Text

Okay! Time for a slightly longer Avengers: Endgame thoughts post!

First, I do really, really like the film overall, so let’s get that out of the way right now: I had moments of wanting to cheer, tearing up, all that, and I want to see it again immediately.

Having said that...I do have Some Thoughts, which are not 100% positive.

Spoiler warnings, obviously! Only read if you’ve seen/don’t mind spoilers!

First, the AWESOME. OH MY GOD SO MUCH AWESOME.

--STEVE IS WORTHY OH HELL YES *screams in delight* And Thor’s genuine excitement about this! So perfect!

--STEVE ROGERS STANDING ON THAT BATTLEFIELD FACING DOWN THANOS’S WHOLE ARMY. This is a brilliant Steve Rogers character moment, it’s a brilliant narrative moment, it’s a gorgeous shot visually, it’s EVERYTHING -

--AND THEN EVERYONE ELSE SHOWING UP AT HIS BACK, YES YES YES, I WANTED TO CHEER AND CRY, LOOK AT THEM ALL TOGETHER AND FORMING UP BEHIND STEVE AND “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE” AND *screams more*

--Valkyrie getting to be king! She already has ideas for change! It’s a small moment but so satisfying, seeing where she is now versus her introduction in Ragnarok.

--”AMERICA’S ASS”

--actually everything about that Steve-on-Steve fight scene, Chris Evans’ delivery of every single line, the name-drop of Bucky being what worked

--I actually really love pretty much all the time hops, and Tony going with “Howard Potts” as his alias is both hilarious and heartwarming

--Morgan! Tony being a Good Dad! 3000!

--cheeseburgers, oh god my heart, this moment actually made me tear up

--Tony’s death felt well-earned, satisfying, and in-character, and that “I am Iron Man” - oh god yes, see above about in-character and also heartwarming and heartwrenching simultaneously

--Sebastian Stan continues to be very pretty

--Thor doesn’t magically get his old pirate-angel body back - I have a LOT of other less positive thoughts about this representation, which we’ll get into in a sec - the thing is, I do like this one aspect of it, because he doesn’t need to be magically “healed” of his fatness or anything like that; he’s chubby and damn heroic and still good at being a hero, and speaking as someone who always struggles with weight, that was actually really lovely

--Paul Rudd continues to be weirdly superhumanly likeable

--Gamora’s reaction to Star-Lord

--Nebula! Karen Gillan is fantastic throughout, and so central to the storyline

--Sam taking the shield! I love this - Bucky’s tired of the fight, which Steve knows; Sam has the heart and the will, and he deserves it, and Bucky’s clearly fine with that, and I’m so excited to see Sam Wilson as Cap

--just everything overall felt so fulfilling, like, yes, this is good, thank you, MCU, thank you

The Ambivalent (sure, yeah, okay)

--Clint and Nat: I actually really like Nat’s choice and sacrifice, doing it knowingly, and it also feels in-character for her as a dedicated protector; I don’t quite get why we’re pushing Clint to the forefront so much in this movie when he’s been so absent, and I dislike the implication that he somehow has more to live for because he’s got a biological family, versus Nat’s found family

--Thor’s killing of Thanos and the “I went for the head” and also the arm - yeah, look, you learned something! But also...it really just makes you *not* doing that in Infinity War seem...even dumber. But at least you learned, I guess?

--the Girl Power(tm) moment in the final battle. You know, the super-unsubtle obvious shot. Like, part of me went YES!! and another part of me cringed because WOW, that felt...not at all organic and incredibly staged

--Steve Rogers part one: I don’t actually mind that he took a side trip and saw Peggy and got some closure. It’s a nice nod to the end of First Avenger. And I love Steve getting to retire - not die - as Cap: he can still do so much as himself, maybe art or activism or support groups or all of the above, and he deserves a chance to find out who Steve Rogers is when not Captain America. Having said that, this is ambivalent because I really don’t like how it was done. More on that later.

--I love that Harley showed up at Tony’s funeral, but at first neither I nor Awesome Husband knew who the random person even was. We figured it out, but if you don’t know, it’s really unclear

--Carol. She’s wonderful and amazing in every scene she’s in, but also...weirdly...underused. Were they afraid she was too powerful?

--maybe I’m just kinda over Chris Pratt, I don’t know, but a lot of his dialogue didn’t land right for me? Clunky. Trying too hard to be funny? Maybe.

--I don’t really understand how time travel works in the MCU, but whatever, let’s just roll with it

--Loki! Fantastic to see again, also underused, but I’m very curious to see what’s next

The Not So Positive

--ALL the Thor fat jokes. This is a big one, and it pulled me out of the movie as I was watching it, as this kept happening. It’s obviously a serious manifestation of his trauma and PTSD, and yet pretty much every single character cracks a joke, and no one actually tries to support him. I’m...not a fan of that. (Side note: having just rewatched Infinity War, there’re fat jokes there too, about Quill. Do the writers/directors have an issue with fatness?)

--after Nat dies, there’s a whole lot of scenes of Rooms Full of Only Dudes, and Primarily White Dudes, at that, directing the narrative

--speaking of, how about a memorial service for Nat?

--Steve Rogers part two. (We’ll get to Steve and Bucky in the next point; this one’s about the time travel.) Like I said above, I don’t mind him wanting to take a side trip and get closure; he deserves that. And if I’m understanding MCU time travel right, he created an alternate branch, so “our” reality still all happened and everything. So. My first problem here is that we can assume he spent that alternate reality still Being A Hero - fighting evil, saving Bucky, getting into a happy triad of Steve/Peggy/Bucky if you want to imagine that - but we’re not shown any of that. We’re shown him...suddenly pining a lot for Peggy, which feels odd anyway: part of Steve’s arc has been him finding his place in this new century and his new found family. And then we’re just shown the dance. SHOW US STEVE AS A HERO IN ALL TIMELINES, PLEASE. But I digress. If this is a branching timeline, the way Steve shows back up on the bench shouldn’t work. He shouldn’t just live through all the years and wander over to the bench at the right time, because he’s not in the right timeline for that. (Maybe there’s something we’re not shown, like him tinkering with his time travel GPS? If that’s the case it needed to be much clearer.) There’s also no particular reason he needs to get or stay old (maybe he wants to experience aging, idk?) - we’ve established that we can de-age, for example, Scott. And Steve Rogers is a stubborn kid who will always want to be able to fight whatever might be coming - even if he’s still retiring as Cap, doesn’t he want another few decades with his current family - Bucky, Sam, Clint, Morgan Stark, everybody? Now he’s...much older than everyone, physically and mentally, and I guess that can still work but...it’s going to be a whole strange adjustment for him and for everyone...but anyway, the time travel as it’s shown seems to...break their own rules, and also I don’t like how suddenly emphasized his desire for Peggy is in this film, and I don’t like having to just sort of...guess about what Steve does in that timeline. (Also, side note: why is *only* Steve returning all the stones? Wouldn’t having a partner be helpful? In case things go wrong, as things so often do? AS WE’VE SEEN IN THIS VERY MOVIE.)

--STEVE AND BUCKY. This is the other big one. We all know I am a Steve/Bucky fan, but honestly I’m not even factoring that in here. It’s not about shipping. It’s about the fact that Steve’s narrative arc, Steve’s character arc, has been so entwined with Bucky up to now - and here they barely interact. The person Steve lost - the person Steve keeps losing - is Bucky. The person Steve shares memories of couch cushions and moving in together and Sarah Rogers’ name with - is Bucky. We’ve had to the end of the line, we’ve had even when I had nothing I had Bucky, we’ve had (paraphrasing here, I know it’s not an exact quote) he said Bucky’s name and suddenly I was a kid in Brooklyn again, we’ve had all of Winter Soldier and the relevant parts of Civil War, we’ve established over and over, canonically, that Steve and Bucky save each other. Bucky knows Steve even through brainwashing. Steve fights to save and protect Bucky. They love each other. (Friends love each other. It’s okay to show that.) They sacrifice for each other. And that relationship - in a film that’s meant to be a culmination, a wrapping-up, and closure for Steve Rogers - is almost entirely absent. And I’m not okay with that, emotionally and also as a narrative choice for Steve’s arc - like, as a writer (and English professor!) myself, this legitimately bothers me. I don’t feel fulfilled and I don’t feel happy about it. Especially not - as in the article I reblogged a bit ago - when we’re given other reunions, like Tony’s joy at getting “the kid!” back, with real pathos. I know the film’s already over three hours, choices have to be made, etc. But we could’ve had fewer fat jokes and a few more seconds of Steve and Bucky interacting, y’know? I just...I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good or right.

Okay! Those are my thoughts.

Once again, I really really like the movie overall, and overall I am left happy and wanting to watch it again. That’s true. There’re just...some things.

I may or may not attempt to write my fix-it fic. There are so many already and I’m not sure what I could add that’s new, and I think I still don’t understand MCU time travel. But I also really want to deal with some of these emotions. We’ll see.

#endgame spoilers #avengers endgame #thoughts #avengers endgame spoilers

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laundryandtaxes · 5 years

Note

Sorry if you already talked about this but I saw you talking about gun controls and how making them more expensive is a bad idea wich I think I agree with. But i was wondering what you think we should do to control guns and mass shootings? Mandatory background checks on all sales?

"Mass shootings" and "gun violence" are very distinct issues with very distinct solutions.

The enactings of mass shootings only have a few things in common. They are often committed by men with documented histories of violence against women. They are often committed in places with large gatherings of presumably unarmed people.

1. Solution number one would be to federally standardize definitions of domestic abuse. People with domestic abuse convictions are already legally barred from firearms ownership under federal law and have been for my entire lifetime. People saying otherwise are uninformed. BUT that definition is fairly strict, and does not always cover partners who do not live with the people they abuse. Get rid of that distinction (sometimes called the boyfriend loophole) and create a solid appeals process for those convicted. Federally prioritize domestic violence, maybe through allocation of funds. I hate the idea of giving cops literally any money, but for the most part they'll do whatever you'll pay them to do and you can turn their head in any particular direction with funding.

2. Make the ATF actually do its job. Anytime someone becomes a prohibited person (a felon - which is bullshit bc not all felonies are violent but ANYWAY- or convicted of a DV offense, etc) that person, if records are properly updated, is prevented from buying firearms at any store in the country. But nobody knocks on doors to remove the firearms of people who've just become prohibited persons. Whatever is in the house stays there. I think that's dumb as shit- in the case of the Aurora warehouse shooting that just happened this was a guy state police knew was not able to own guns, but nobody wanted to put a body on his doorstep to remove them. I think the definition of prohibited persons should be tightly narrowed to only include violent crime and domestic violence offenses, so that people aren't getting their guns confiscated over theft or license plate issues or other nonviolent offenses, and I think every single prohibited person should be able to appeal and regain their firearms rights. In the Aurora case, Illinois state police didn't want to risk sending a person or unit in. Fair enough. But people ended up dead because of that.

3. I think there is a case to be made that universal background checks COULD help here, to prevent people who can't buy guns at stores from just buying one from other citizens. But the reduction in deaths I think you could expect to see from UBC implementation would be really minimal, if anything- most mass shooters have either stolen or legally purchased their firearms after passing background checks. I suppose that, if the DV changes I talked about were implemented, more would be prohibited persons and would turn to the private market. I do not believe there is any way to ensure that background checks catch every single potential murderer and firmly do not believe the FBI (which runs the bg check electronically) should have any access to mental health records without a warrant.

For general violence, we already know exactly what reduces violence, and I do think it needs to be discussed not as gun violence but general violence, because that allows us to implement things we know work for violence overall. Guns aren't magic. They're just tools that can be used to commit violence. We know that giving people jobs (yes I am suggesting just giving, like candy) reduces their likelihood of engaging in violence of any kind. We know that poverty increases violence. All we need to do to drastically cut homicides is spend some money to lift people into more stable and I think that, over time, cultures that encourage or revel in violence will follow suit simply because those who did not grow up in violence are less likely to enact it.

Things I do not even kind of support:

-Bans on "assault weapons." The term means nothing but any semi automatic rifle, meaning any rifle that fires one round each time you pull the trigger. Those kinds of rifles can look like this

or like this

(those are all mine!) but they operate using 100 year old technology that is no different in concept from how a standard Glock pistol works. Pull the trigger, it goes bang. Pull it again, it goes bang again. Rifles in this category are excellent for any number of things and completely suitable for self defense. An AR-15 style firearm is my bedside/ home defense gun.

Even if this wasn't all true, consider this. AR-15s contribute REMARKABLY little to overall gun deaths in this country. We are talking a drop in the bucket- we are talking 322 people killed with rifles of ANY kind in 2012. Out of 13,000ish annual murders, that is remarkably small. So small that you are about 15 times MORE likely to be stabbed or bludgeoned to death (I'm linking the FBI numbers here directly) than killed with a rifle of any kind.

-Magazine capacity limits. They don't even make sense on their face. First of all it only takes on bullet to kill one person- is 10 deaths an acceptable number? Second of all, I am a relatively untrained shooter and fully self taught, and it takes me less than 2 seconds to drop an empty magazine from a rifle, load a new one, and fire another round. The California response to this is, well, make it harder to reload. Third of all, if I have a right to self defense with a firearm, then I have the right for that firearm to be functional, and MOST handgun malfunctions (talking in the context of concealed carry here) are due to magazine malfunctions. If I ever have to draw my handgun in defense of my life, I should be able to quickly fix any malfunctions. To put it simply, I believe I have the right not to be cobbled unduly in my own self defense. Fourth of all, considering that cops generally stand outside mass shootings waiting for things to die down (remember Pulse? Or Parkland?) the idea that the 2 seconds it takes to change magazines saves lives during assaults strikes me as ridiculous.

This notion that we can just get rid of the bad guns and keep the safe guns and all be safe is nonsense. Any gun can kill someone with one well-placed shot. Any person who owns a gun owns the means to do absolutely horrible violence to other people. These are things you have to reckon with in a society where private gun ownership is a right. I also think we need to be realistic about how low we can get our numbers. Let us assume that all 14,000ish people who were killed with firearms in the US in 2017 (to get that to work, organize results by year, then in the cause of death area click "injury intent and mechanism" and scroll in the box on the right to find FIREARMS) were killed using different firearms, so no mass shootings or double homicides, etc. Divide that by the sheer MASSIVE number of citizen owned guns in the country (a LOW estimate is 350 MILLION) and you're looking at .004% of all guns being used in murders. That alone should put this notion that the US is so astoundingly dangerous into context. For a nation with this many guns, and this level of easy access to guns, to have less than 15,000 murders using them per year should tell us that the very very vast majority of firearms owners are not harming anyone and therefore it literally only makes sense to tailor solutions to problems in a way that at least seems like it would work.

Few clarifying points here.

To be clear, I understand that the pro gun control instinct is to compare the US not to Brazil BEFORE lessening its guns laws (it still has stricter gun laws and a homicide rate a good 4 times higher than ours last I checked) but to the UK or Australia, etc, and not to compare homicides per firearm, but homicides using firearms per capita. This is nonsense because the number of firearms in those countries doesn't even come sort of close to the number here, and that number will not decrease but will only increase over time given the continuation of the 2nd Amendment as currently understood. Secondly, none of those countries have a right to firearms ownership and therefore many attempted solutions enacted there are literally not legally allowable here, just as total bans on private ownership of handguns except for competitors. Thirdly, the ownership of firearms themselves per capita does not come close in any of those countries to that here. I'm not denying that more guns probably means more deaths when comparing countries, though it does noy seem to mean more deaths between states in the US.

Another clarifying note, you will notice I am talking about homicides and cutting out suicides entirely. This is for two reasons. First of all I know absolutely nothing about suicide prevention from a policy perspective and don't even pretend to. If you have any good sources there I would love to check them out. Secondly, it allows me to talk about "gun violence," as in the use of firearms to commit violence between different individuals, more clearly. Thirdly, the very vast majority of the most popular gun control measures don't even claim to impact suicide rates because most gun control groups use those deaths (which comprise 66% of all deaths by firearm in the country, almost every single year) to pad their numbers while not actually talking about suicide as a phenomenon.

I hope this clarifies some things for you and if you have any questions please feel free to ask. I also typed this at 4 am after work so please excuse typos. I also hope that you understand I've picked sources supporting my argument because that's how arguments are supported, not because I'm not open to looking at all into opposing viewpoints.

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tjovalboy · 5 years

Note

Marty and TJ rap battle

The FIghty FIght

Words: 2888 and I am so done

AO3 (please let me know what I need to improve)

Cyrus thumbed through the note document on TJ’s phone– his early preview given more because he begged for one than to give any critical input. “This is good, this is good,” he remarked. “I think you’re going to be fire out there. Absolute domination.”

“Okay, buddy. Easy there,” TJ chuckled, but he knew it was true.

TJ shoved his smartphone, in which he poured hours the past week perfecting his rhymed insults, into his back pocket. In an organized rap battle, the guy who doesn’t have his shit memorized is already ten times more lame than the other, no matter how good his lines are.

Cyrus punched his chest weakly, breaking him out of his thought. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face every time I’m gonna finish my baby taters this week, and hand her the check after I’ve finished every last crumb.”

He shook his head at him, then craned his neck over his shoulder to glimpse at their opponents. Marty Thupparty, a track star parallelling his finesse with the hoops, bobbed his head along to something Buffy Driscoll was explaining very firmly. It was probably something useless, anyway. It’s not like either of them had nearly as much experience as he did, which made this pairing an overkill.

The whole thing was Cyrus’s idea, really. He knew TJ rapped, and that Marty rapped, and that Marty was a little afraid of TJ at one point last year, so naturally, he thought a rap battle would be the sickest way to bring them together– a friendship ploy for Marty’s second initiation into the group since his absence from Buffy’s life.

The baby tater bet was to get Buffy involved for even teams. She only agreed to coach Marty if they bet that the losing rapper coach would have to buy baby taters at the Spoon for the winner the whole week afterward.

They were taking it a lot more seriously than he and Marty even were.

“We should get going,” TJ breathed after seeing their opponents start heading away.

The asphalt scorched the flat bottoms of his sneakers as he walked towards the court. It was like the entire world just decided to preheat on itself, he thought, as sweat began prickle his arms and the mass of excited chatter drew closer. He knew he didn’t make the decision to have an outdoor rap battle at three o’clock in the afternoon in June.

At Basketball Court Number Three, a large, but niche, clump of people had come to watch them rap. They had formed a space for both of them in the middle of the circle, in which Marty was already positioned.

“Alright, alright, settle down everyone! They’re both finally here,” announced Jonah Beck as some random little hands shoved TJ from the outskirts to the space across from Marty. There were whoops and shouts coming from directions he couldn’t pinpoint, and some were so close to his ear he didn’t know where to turn.

He eyed Cyrus and Buffy at most inner circle of the crowd and grinned as they playfully nudged each other, keeping fierce looks in their eyes. However, he couldn’t decipher what was going through his opponent’s head. He stood across from him with his hands shoved in his pockets as if he was watching a golf match, his face as flat as a brick as he alternated slight glances with the crowd, Buffy, and TJ.

“Most of you already know, but I’m Jonah Beck. I started walking home from school today, then I saw this crowd and stopped to say ‘hi’ to everyone, and now I guess I’m hosting this rap battle!”

The kids erupted in giggles, but TJ swore he was dead serious.

“On this side…” he stretched an arm out at TJ. “…captain of the Jefferson Basketball team, king of hair gel, and connoisseur of more redemption arcs than I can count– no really, I never learned how to count– my man, ‘True Jank Fruity!’”

TJ stuck his chin up a little higher and smirked. Jonah waited for the giddy chatter and whoops to fade before turning to Marty. “And over here– track star, lover of parties and, I think, country music; he saw me fall on my face once– ‘Eleven Point Yikes’!”

Marty ran his fingers through his dark hair, which was messier than usual. They stood so close that TJ could see his own frowning face in the reflection of his eyes. ”Ready to lose, Kippen?” he sneered.

“You wish,” he shot back.

Smartphones went vertical one after the other, waiting to catch every hard jab and mangled line between the two dogs, their fingers probably already on the ‘post’ button in hopes of garnering the most attention by sharing first.

“We’re doing two rounds, starting with TrueJank,” Jonah announced. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“You say you’re ‘Marty From The Party’ but you’ve never been invited

When I see the pics on Insta, your blurry head looked like I smudged it

You should take advice from pocket lint, maybe then, you’ll get some relevance

I asked who I was battling, they said, “Middle Schooler #100”

It’s 2018 and they really named you “Martin”

Popped you out the womb and remembered their fifty year old accountant

I think I scraped you off the wall last week, now that needed an extra napkin

Four classes with me and you were nameless? Bro, look around. The whole school had that experience.”

The “ohh’s!” loudened after his most powerful lines, preceding a much larger display of fist pumps and hoots (even from the ones he’d bullied) after the verse was over. However, Marty, surprisingly witted for a newbie, hushed the crowd before he could take in the music.

“Let’s get things straight, TrueJank, you sicken me.

You think shitty rhymes make them pity you for an apology?

You’re like the last day of October, all face with no sincerity.

At least the other ex-bullies use their heads, they differ “sorry” from stupidity.

Aw, but, I know you feel bad; got all this baggage weighing on you

You swing at the park because your mind’s got too many issues

But it’s time to skip the angst, skip the coldness and the frown

Your just plain scary, and JMS won’t let you live it down.”

The screams seemed about equal to his.

“So you didn’t make my team. What a surprise.

I know you were out, and you were trying, but you tripped over every painted line!

I’d say go right, like Mario Kart you’d run zig zags like there was squid ink in your eye.

You got Buffy calling witness protection cause she so embarrassed she let you inside.

Two athletes in a fight, Wit to wit without the fouling.

I throw words, you shoot em back and think “I’ll end him with these similes.”

We running lines in the weight room, spitting verbs where we kick grovel.

From a rapper to a rapper, we playing for different leagues

You couldn’t diss me better than you wipe the dirt off your cleats”

It wasn’t until after spat his final lines that he could focus enough to hear his heart pound. There was nothing more he had to show, but the world seemed to slow as Marty returned with his own final verse.

“Your hoodies upon hoodies got style enough for Fashion Week.

The critics say “eclectic” cause it’s “he-don’t-leave-his-basement chic”.

Runway shots of your ‘do be like White Christmas with the gel that flakes.

Your name says it all, the only fashion show you running is the coach ordered jank from the sports teams.

Yeah, you’ve rapped longer but your rhymes ‘aint unique

Jock, bully, kinda dumb, and lives a trope like a bad movie

Put some shades, baggy shorts, fake chains, and you’ll almost be a rapper

I’m a newbie? Why am I hearing your MTV lines a decade after?

You’re unoriginal.

Your first date hears “Perfect” by Ed and shakes at all the horror.

He sees your cliche ass boombox blaring like you’re Dobler.”

It took a few moments for TJ to register that his mouth hung open. His classmates were breaking into hysterics and patting Marty on the back like he’d just single-handedly fought a war for them and emerged victorious. He could vaguely hear Jonah amongst the crowd declare Marty as the winner.

TJ tried to pick Cyrus out of the crowd, but he couldn’t amongst the blaring amount of chaos. Teeth gritted, he decided he would just wait by the gate.

TJ, feeling a little selfless, held his full tray out to Buffy and offered her some french fries.

“No, thanks,” she stopped sipping her milkshake to reply. “I have practice right after this and I’m already stuffed.”

He nodded, and offered the same next to him. “Cyrus?”

His friend shrugged. “Sure, why not?” He set the tray between them and they both dug in for a handful. The calm chatter and occasional sound of the bell atop the entrance door overtook them at The Spoon diner. After a few moments, he noticed Buffy grimacing at him.

“…and Marty?” she pressed impatiently.

Oh, right. He probably wanted to feel included, too. With his lips tightened, he gave the fries a slight push so they slid forward and stopped at the spiky haired boy’s milkshake glass where he’d accept the offer if he wanted. “Take some,” he said simply, and Marty rolled his eyes at him.

Buffy gave Cyrus a look, then turned back to him. “You’re seriously still mad you lost the rap battle?” she bursted, holding back a laugh. “That happened a whole week ago!”

“I’m not mad,” he muttered in reply, focusing very hard on the pedestrian activity outside the window beside them.

“You totally are,” she pressed. ‘You’ve been weird ever since it happened.”

Cyrus sighed dramatically and slumped down with his elbow on the table. “And I really thought my friendship-making plan would work! I guess I can’t fix everyone’s relationship problems.”

Buffy patted his hand lamely. “It’s okay, Cyrus. You’ll get ‘em next time around.”

He and Marty’s tension had been going on since the battle. He was just a little irked that “I’ve-been-rapping-for-a month-Marty” pulled rhymes out of his butt that shanked his bully boy reputation into little pieces. He may have ignored a few of Marty’s texts since it happened, which pushed Marty into ignoring him, and therefore, neither of them hanging out with the Good Hair Crew that week in fear of seeing each other. While their excuses were believable, it was more difficult to get out of plans Buffy and Cyrus made for all four of them after school.

He almost wanted to tell Cyrus that his friendship-plan wasn’t gonna work from the beginning.

“While you were both amazing,” started Cyrus. “Marty, your last line about TJ being so cliche he’d hold a boombox above his head on his first date was hilarious.”

Buffy snorted. “That’s the part people keep sending me videos of. Someone would have to slap me in the face twice if I actually saw you doing that, Kippen.”

TJ didn’t know how to respond and just shook his head playfully. His gaze flickered toward Marty, and while a corner of his mouth tugged up at the look, he broke away quickly and returned to his comfortable frown.

“Listen, TJ,” Marty had his elbows propped on the table and his eyes bordered on desperate. “If you wanna talk, then let’s talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about because I’m not mad.” He surveyed the contents on his table. “I’m gonna go grab some more ketchup,” he excused himself without looking anyone in the eye.

At the ketchup pump, he pushed the lever down with too much force and much of the red blob squirted onto the counter next to his paper container.

There was a snort from someone behind him. “Nice one.”

He almost chuckled, too, but bit it back when he recognized the voice. There’s no way he was staying here alone with him, so he began heading back without a turn.

“Wait, TJ, you can’t just pout and stomp away. You have to tell me what’s really up,” he pleaded sternly.

He glanced at Buffy and Cyrus who were both in some heated debate and didn’t even seem to notice their absence, and before he could process his thoughts, he was face to face with Marty again and had blurted, “The boombox line.”

Marty hesitated, like he wanted to know what he meant, but he couldn’t admit that he didn’t. “Um, what?”

Your first date hears “Perfect” by Ed and shakes at all the horror.

He sees your cliche ass boombox blaring like you’re Dobler.

“The boombox line,” he repeated with a breath. “I thought you said that was your favorite part of our first date– the way I ended it.”

“It was. I always tell you that,” he replied.

“Well, you didn’t have to make fun of it,” he argued. “Yeah, I know we both hated the song and the whole thing was part of an inside joke, but I did it for you to see. Not for the whole school to imagine.”

Marty’s face went red much like the way it did when he held TJ’s hand for the first time at the soccer game, and when he and TJ sprinted down the street filling the sky with their laughs when Buffy and Cyrus almost caught them together, and the Friday they agreed they would go on a date the next day and plan absolutely none of it; thus it finishing with TJ blasting “Perfect” in Marty’s driveway while he cracked up from the second story bedroom window.

They were already calling themselves boyfriends by the time Marty apologized to Buffy and she let him back into their group (which included TJ). They were clueless about the countless dates they had been on since that first.

“Well, sorry, okay,” Marty muttered. “Literally no one suspected it was you and me, though, so you don’t have to be mad. I would never really make fun of you like that.”

TJ’s stomach twisted. He knew he used to scare him before they really talked, but they were countless secret dates past that. “I know. It sounds ridiculous to me now that I’m saying it out loud.”

Marty exaggerated a shrug and put on a dopey grin, showing him that they were okay. “Apology accepted, Kippen. Glad my boyfriend is talking to me again.”

TJ stepped forward couldn’t ignore the smell of greasy foods frying from where they were standing at the back by the kitchen door. He didn’t mind, though, as they were used to meeting in odd locations to talk. “I had no idea you would win, though. I’ve been rapping for so long and you’ve literally been doing it for two seconds!” TJ said through a laugh.

Marty smirked, grabbing his hand and letting it dangle between them. “Maybe I was born with it.”

As his mind ran with ways to banter back, he remembered another one of his problems. “It sucks that Cyrus thinks we’re never gonna be friends,” he commented.

Five weeks was a long time to hide a relationship. In hindsight, they could’ve at least pretended they were friends, but the enemies trope seemed more safe.

Marty rubbed the back of his hand with his thumb. “It does. Even after you rapped about me being as irrelevant as a T.V. show extra and I called you out on your ugly clothes, we still hate each other in their eyes.”

“Their” meaning Cyrus and Buffy. Cyrus was TJ’s closest friend, and Buffy was getting to be Marty’s. After missing Marty all week, he began to wonder how long secret relationships were supposed to last. He caught Marty’s gze flickering over his shoulder at them. “I think we should tell them soon.”

“We should.”

“But how? When?” TJ furrowed his brows, and Marty stared at him like he just suggested that boombox thing from Say Anything was a good idea for a first date.

“Duh, we rap it to them!” he hissed.

Holy shit. His boyfriend’s brain!

“We both wrote awesome verses insulting each other in like a week. It’ll be great!” he continued.

“Four classes and you were nameless? Bro look around. That’s a universal experience.” did have a certain energy to it that would be perfect for a relationship reveal. He was proud when he thought of that while his mother dragged his with her to the bank. He already couldn’t wait or this collab. “I am so in, Eleven Point Yikes.”

“Just let me have some of your fries first, in like, not a passive aggressive way, and then we can start, True Jank Fruity.”

They unclasped their hands to whip their arms around for a painful high five, causing some people to turn their heads. They jogged back to their table, where Buffy and Cyrus already had their necks craned at them, and grabbed the rest of the fries out of TJ’s tray by hand and skipped out the door ignoring their questions. Cyrus probably assumed they made up, but he’d be even happier when they told him in a few days.

TJ would remember to thank Ed Sheeran, or the rap gods, later.

#andi mack #HE LOOKED BACK AT MARTY AT THE BEGINNING DID YA'LL CATCH THAT #i never say yall #tarty #this was supposed to be a plot twist l #i am learning

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buyonegetonefreeme-blog · 5 years

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Main Content

Archive of Our Own betaLog In Site NavigationFandoms Browse Search About Search Works

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Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

F/M

Fandom:

Game of Thrones (TV)

Relationship:

Jon Snow/Sansa Stark

Characters:

Jon SnowSansa StarkArya StarkRobb StarkCatelyn Tully StarkNed StarkTheon GreyjoyBran StarkRickon StarkRobert BaratheonMaester Luwin

Language:

English

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Published:2019-06-25Updated:2019-06-25Words:5961Chapters:1/?Comments:15Kudos:119Bookmarks:8Hits:922

sweet creature

Krewlak

Summary:

yet another salty teens story that no one asked for - that's it, that's the fic.

Notes:

i've been working on this on and off for a year now. i'm just posting part one of it just to see what people think so PLEASE leave all the comments. i will say the concept is 100% inspired by 'it's not a fairytale' by purple_angel. unbeta'd.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Father’s eyes are sad when he tells them the full story of his sister, of Jon’s birth, of the war that spiralled beyond anyone’s control afterwards. Sansa keeps waiting for them to fill with tears but it never happens. She’s sure that over the last seventeen years, he’s had time enough to shed tears for his dead sister and the child she left behind. There are most likely no more tears to shed.

“How?” Maester Luwin asks, gaining everyone’s attention. “How did this come out? You say only three people knew of Jon’s birth - yourself, Lord Howland Reed, and the birthing woman. If it did not come from you, my Lord, then who?”

“That I do not know,” Father says, shaking his head. “I have told no one save for those in this room and I trust Howland Reed to hold to the oath he gave me that day.”

“The missive came from the South,” Maester Luwin says, tapping his chin. “Perhaps the birthing woman was found. Forced to speak on what happened that day.”

“But why? It has been seventeen years,” Mother says, voice choking on the words. “Why say something now ? There has been peace, a thriving south - what is there to gain from spreading this knowledge?”

“That is something we cannot know,” Father says slowly. “The only thing we can do is prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” Robb asks. Sansa looks at him with wide eyes. There is sweat on his brow and his lips are trembling but he’s trying to be brave. For Father and Mother, for all of them and Sansa loves him for it.

“King Robert will not tolerate Jon to live. It is only a matter of time before word reaches King’s Landing. If it has not reached Robert’s ears already,” Father says slowly. Sansa cannot help the gasp that slips from her mouth as she turns back to her father. He waits for the shouts of protest from his children subsides before continuing. “The North is already uneasy with this news. There are too many who still curse Rhaegar for what happened with Lyanna - who curse the Targaryens for what happened to my father and brother.”

The silence is deafening and she finds that she cannot bear to look at her father any longer. The grief that was so close to the surface as he spoke of his sister spills over at the mention of the father and brother lost as well. She cannot look at Jon both for fear of what she will see on his face and out of loyalty to her mother that she’s clung to for so many years. She’s willing to give him what privacy she can, so she looks to Arya, Bran, and Robb.

They share the same look of fierce determination. Jon is their brother and they will not suffer anyone who tells them otherwise, that much is very clear. Sansa wishes, for the first time, that she had the same deep feelings for Jon that her siblings share. Sansa looks down at her hands and tries to find something inside of her for Jon Snow, some feeling other than quiet acceptance and second-hand hatred. There is no love. No anger at having lost a brother, a bastard half-brother but a brother all the same. There is nothing but the slightest bit of relief.

“It is not safe for him to stay here,” Mother announces in the tone of voice they all know well, breaking the oppressive silence that fills the room. It's the tone she uses when they’ve been arguing all day and she is calling an end to it. It’s the tone she uses when Rickon refuses to bathe or Arya insists on wearing breeches instead of dresses. It’s the tone that allows no arguing only obedience. “We must look to our family first.”

“He is our family!” Bran shouts, pointing at Jon. Sansa finally looks at Jon over her shoulder. She doesn’t think he’s ever looked so miserable. “He is our brother and you would have us cast him out?”

“Cousin, Stark,” Jon mutters. The first words he’s spoken since Father summoned them to his solar. “I am no brother of yours.”

“Bollocks!” Arya yells, jumping from her chair. She ignores the warning yell from Mother and launches herself at Jon. She wraps her thin arms around his neck and presses her face to his shoulder. He catches her easily enough and it’s only a moment before he presses his face to her hair. “You will always be my brother.”

Sansa is sure that she hears him mutter a simple aye in return. Not one to be left out, Bran is out of his seat a second later, latching onto Jon from the other side. His cheeks are pink from trying not to cry but Sansa can see the tears threatening to pour over. Jon releases one arm from Arya to clutch his little brother to him and Sansa feels her heart break for the three of them. She’s sure that if Robb were younger, he too would be clinging to Jon and shouting proclamations about their brotherhood. Not for the first time, Sansa is sharply reminded just how different she is from her siblings.

“What is it that you’re always saying, Father?” Sansa asks. The words are out of her mouth before she has even had time to think them. “When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. Is Jon not one of our pack? And is winter not coming?”

The room is filled with a tense silence as each member of her family turns to stare at her with wide eyes. It is not like her to defend Jon. She knows that. They all do but she won’t take it back. She may not have any love for her bastard half-brother turned a bastard cousin but that does not mean she wishes him harmed.

“It is a complicated issue, Sansa,” Maester Luwin says slowly. Father looks to his wife who does not meet his eye. Sansa wonders what harm this truth has done to their marriage. Seventeen years of a lie. A cruel lie that caused nothing but pain for her mother. Sansa cannot imagine that learning of Jon’s true parentage has come as a relief for Lady Catelyn. “We cannot defy the king.”

“You’ve defied him for seventeen years,” Sansa says with a flippant shrug. “What is one more defiance compared to that?”

“Sansa!” Mother says, shocked at her disrespectful tone. Sansa feels her cheeks flush and she looks down at her lap in shame. She knows better. “There is more at stake than just our family. There is the North to consider. Do you think we could withstand the full wrath of Robert Baratheon once he knows that Rhaegar Targaryen’s son was harbored here? The son that killed his mother as she pushed him into this world? No. He would decimate every inch of the North that Jon Targaryen’s feet has ever touched. Starting with Winterfell.”

“Mother,” Robb begs, voice thick with emotion. “Please.”

“Your father decided seventeen years ago to lie to me,” Mother continues, her Tully eyes swimming with tears. Sansa can’t help but notice how much they look like the clear blue springs by the Weirwood tree. She wonders if they’ve always resembled the springs or if they changed after years of the hardness of the north. When she was Sansa’s age, barely a woman flowered and full of songs, did her eyes resemble the blue currents of Riverrun? “For seventeen years, I lived a falsehood. I have lived with a dragon playing amongst my children. I will not have it anymore. Not now. Not after the truth has come out.”

“I am no dragon!” Jon snaps. Mother finally looks to him, eyes wide with rage. She starts forward but Father lays a hand on her shoulder trying to calm her. “And I am no wolf.”

“Jon,” Father says and now the tears are falling down his cheeks. “You do not have my name but you have my blood. You are as much a Stark as any of my children.”

“But I’m not your child, am I?” Jon snaps. Father jerks back, mouth set into a thin line. Jon looks down, shame filling his face. “I am sorry, my lord. But I have the solution to this. I will be neither wolf nor dragon. I will be a man of the Watch. Like Uncle Benjen. I can cause no harm from the Wall.”

“No.”

“Ned!” Mother shouts, turning to her husband. “Let the boy go .”

“You are not my father, you cannot stop me joining the Watch!” Jon all but shouts. He pushes away from her siblings and curls his hands into fists.

Both Arya and Bran call his name in shock but Sansa knows the look on his face. It’s the one he gets when he’s blocked from feasts. The look he gets when Mother walks past him without a single acknowledgement. It’s the look of a boy who has never gotten what he wanted, a boy who has grown used to the taste of disappointment in his mouth. There is no reasoning with that boy.

“Are you of the North?” Father asks. He no longer sounds like their father. No, this is the Lord of Winterfell speaking now. They all straighten their backs and cast their eyes down. There is no other way to act in front of such a man. Jon nods but it’s not enough for Father. “You want to act as a man, then speak as a man.”

“Aye, my lord, I am a Northman.”

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putschki1969 · 5 years

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Harmony Magazine #5 ~ Wakana Solo Interview

Note: Here’s my translation of Wakana’s solo interview from the latest Harmony issue. Since this interview was done back in September, it mostly focuses on her symphony concert in August but there is some mention of her solo tour and her song writing experience as well. All in all, it’s quite nice and it provides some insight. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Fan club members will have received this issue shortly after the end of Wakana’s first solo tour. However, for this interview we will wind back the clock a little in order to get a proper understanding of how Wakana felt performing all by herself at her very first symphony concert. In addition to that we will get a glimpse at her thoughts and feelings shortly before the start of her solo tour.

The current condition interview

◆ We are doing this interview in mid September. You are in the midst of rehearsals and meetings for your upcoming solo tour? Yes, that’s true. For me it’s obviously the first time doing a solo tour but this is also a new territory for all the staff members around me, there are so many new things that come along with solo tours ... You simply can’t know everything on your first try. At first I was all ready to take a step ahead and I thought I should really try and experience this myself. Now I am at a point where I have lost track of what I know and what I don’t know *laughs*

◆ So a solo tour is really different? When the three of us were together it was Kalafina’s assigned role to bring Kajiura-san’s music to life with our singing and our harmony. In the beginning Kalafina was an existence of its own with an established image and then before we knew it, we had already debuted... that’s kinda what it felt like. For the three of us it was all about catching up with Kalafina, there was a strong sense of trying to live up to that image. But Kalafina was always ahead of us. I think in some ways we were just always pursuing that image of Kalafina. That was our challenge, it was our reason for being and it was also a constant guide. But now that I am singing aone, I can’t just take that image as it is and simply adopt it for myself. But I also don’t want to destroy the image that everyone has in their mind. On top of that I am in the middle of trying to find the right way for me, I am wondering which roads to take to embark on a new journey as Wakana.

◆ You are writing your own lyrics now, aren’t you? Yes, since around March/April I have been taking up that challenge. It was my very first time writing my own lyrics for a song so I am not 100% happy with the outcome. I kept wondering about things like, “which words do I best put into this short 5-note phrase?” For example, you might think "♪ I love you/Aishiteru" would fit well but I kept thinking, “do you really wanna sing these words right here at this point? Is this really the most suitable place for these words in this song? Wouldn’t they fit much better somewhere else?” All those thoughts kept spinning around in my head so I had a very hard time finishing the lyrics.

◆ So far it was the most important aspect of your work to express the songs you had been given with your singing. Now that you have started writing lyrics you have to create something from scratch all by yourself. You are expanding an already existing world, you are digging deeper, you are finding new ways of interpretation, I think this is on a whole new level of difficulty. I have really tried my best to put all the things I wanted to convey into words. The compositions that have been written for me as solo artist are all amazing so little by little I would like to work on them hoping to not ruin their charming nature.

◆ During your upcoming tour will we be able to hear some of the songs that you have written the lyrics for? I am in the midst of working out a plan together with my staff members who keep cheering me on. At the end of my symphony concert which was held back in August I got to perform “Toki wo Koeru Yoru ni”, the first song for which I had written the lyrics. In the questionnaires for that live I received lots of messages telling me, “I would love to listen to more songs like that!” That was very encouraging. For my concert in August I sang a lot of Kalafina songs, by doing that I think I was able to show myself and the audience how far I had come, it was proof of my past experiences and everything I had accumulated up till that point. But I didn’t reach my goal with that, I feel like my solo tour will be a crossover between personal parts that make me who I am and Kalafina.

◆ Well then, let’s go back in time a little, please tell us about the Symphony Concert that you mentioned earlier. Well....I was super nervous ～ !! It had always been my dream to perform together with an orchestra and I wanted to make this a really enjoyable experience for the audience so I felt like I had to do my very best! Because of that I was beyond nervous *laughs*

◆ How did it feel to work together with musicians of a foreign orchestra? Everyone was incredibly kind and openhearted. The conductor was very accommodating, he would tell me, “please feel free to make requests so our musical performance makes it easier for you to sing.” I am very grateful for his help. It was my first time singing alongside an orchestra so I had lots of difficulties. Since the musical performance would be following the lead of my singing I felt like the first thing I had to do was establish my very own tempo, a tempo I felt comfortable with. In the past when we were performing “bandstyle” most of our songs were all about synchronising, if a song was 4 1/2 minutes long then we would have to sing at a speed that would make us finish in that exact time. I realised it’s a completely different experience when you are performing with an orchestra.

◆ Each and every sound is created on the spot by a living human being. There are no technical devices intervening .... Well, I had a foot monitor and my microphone but aside from that, there were no electrical instruments.

◆ Speaking of which, I think you mentioned in one of your MCs that you didn’t use ear monitors that day. That’s right. I had removed them during my rehearsals and I realised I could sing without them so I wondered if I could also remove them for the actual performance. I decided I wanted to sing while being able to listen to the raw sound of the music around me.

◆ Was it easier to perform like that? It felt really nice to sing like that. You can really hear each and every single sound if you want to. When you are wearing ear monitors you don’t really get to experience the real balance among all the different sounds around you because your ears end up being overwhelmed by the sound that’s coming through the monitors. Sometimes my voice itself would become restricted because I would unintentionally adapt it to the sound ringing in my ears. This time around I was able to listen to the live sound because I was accompanied by an orchestra. It’s different when you are performing with a band and you have drums accompanying you. You can’t really sing without ear monitors in that case because your manner of listening to everything around you is very much affected by this “bandstyle”.

◆ Even though you performed in a classical hall, I feel like it’s probably difficult to focus when so many different instruments are ringing together.... Well, I had the conductor there with me and I was fine as long as I concentrated on the piano, I really tried to let the notes of the piano ring through my body. However, for some parts of “Ashita no Keshiki” the harp’s arpeggio was my only accompaniment so that was really hard! I would always be in too much of a hurry. The follow-up song “I Have a Dream” was also incredibly difficult. We had to practise these two songs again and again during rehearsal.

◆ Oh really? It was very hard but also a lot of fun. Since nothing technical was intervening, I was able to decide everything for myself, when to stop singing, when to pause for a longer time, when to start singing again, I was able to sing while having control over all these things, it was very refreshing to work like that. We as Kalafina did a similar thing for our 10th Anniversary performance of “Hikari Furu”, there were some sections where we were able to sing more or less freely but since we were three people we would still have to somehow adhere to the same tempo or it wouldn’t have made any sense. If you are singing at your own tempo the harmonies just don’t work.

◆ By the way, did you feel nervous walking on stage all by yourself? I was super nervous! *laughs* Truth is, I had felt so much anxiety on that day. After the concert I went to have dinner with two of my managers. We ate some delicious steak and various other things and we had A LOT to drink *laughs* I ate so much that I felt I was about to explode. Surprisingly though, when I stepped on the scale the morning after, I hadn’t gained any weight or body fat. Performances are always burning a lot of energy but this time around I wasn’t even performing all the way through...I guess performing on stage all by yourself consumes a lot more energy than expected...I was quite surprised. *laughs*

◆ It seems like this was a kind of pressure you had not experienced before? Right before the performance lots of people had tried to comfort me but I was just too distracted, I was there in body but not in spirit *wry smile*. You see, when you are standing on stage you feel like the audience is talking about you. *laughs* That is really not the case though! When you are too nervous you are just imagining all these voices.

◆ In the first section both you and the audience seem to have been quite nervous. True. I felt SUPER relieved when I was able to pass the baton to Ryuu-san after finishing my last song of the first section *laughs*.

◆ In the second half you appeared together on stage with Ogawa Mana-san, she was your guest vocalist and she sang together with you, right? It was a huge help to have Mana-chan there with me, singing together with her felt totally different from the first part of the concert where I was singing all by myself, I could literally feel myself becoming more relaxed, that weird tension I felt was slowly dissolving *laughs*. That particular part of the setlist was also really amazing, I was so happy to have this unique experience of getting to perform Hirahara Ayaka-san’s “Jupiter” - an adaptation of Holst’s “Jupiter”.

◆ I feel like there were lots of people in the audience who were listening to Kalafina’s songs and your voice for the very first time. I think you did a great job at conveying the splendor of Kalafina’s music. I am happy you think that way but honestly, after the live was over, I felt like I should have talked so much more about all these songs I sang and the people I performed with. I was way too nervous so I couldn’t really talk as much during the MCs as I had intended to. I really regret that.

◆ You are not just singing alone, you also have to do the MCs all by yourself. In terms of singing, did you feel anything special when you were singing alone? Usually my biggest strength is talking but since I was quite nervous all I was thinking about was my singing. All the power I’d usually use for talking went straight into my singing, I was actually very surprised at myself to hear such a voice coming out of me *laughs*

◆ You were singing in falsetto but you were also using a mixed voice, you reached some really high notes. Actually, this was my first time singing like that, I guess it’s because I am singing alone. When the three of us would sing together we would each have to sing with a powerful voice or it just wouldn’t have worked. When it was first decided that I would be performing together with an entire orchestra, some staff members voiced their concern, they worried whether or not my voice could keep up with all of that. They asked me if I wanted more supporting singers, they could have sung the main melody while I would have been able to focus on the chorus, they came up with various arrangements that would take some of the burden off my shoulders. But during one of our final rehearsals I had the arrangements changed again so I would be singing all the main melodies. In the arrangement they had previously provided for “Musunde Hiraku” I was only singing a small part of the song but I really wanted to convey all of it that’s why I made them change the arrangement completely. This way I would be able to sing each and every line. I was quite surprised that I was able to hold my voice throughout all these songs, I guess maybe it’s because it was such a small amount of songs, there were only 14 songs in total. It was a truly marvelous experience. It showed me that I could actually sing like that.

◆ But it's not like you never felt something similar when the three of you were still singing together, right? Absolutely. When the three of us were singing together we used our best voices so it felt good but those were the voices that would best suit the three of us. Now that I am singing alone I am able to discover new singing styles and a new kind of voice.

◆ it was very refreshing to hear you sing the medium and low range parts, you really managed to convey their depth. I am glad I got to hear that. In “I Have a Dream” there is a part that ends on a very high note and then it transitions into quite a low sections with the lyrics “♪Toki wa yuku～” When I was singing those lines I once again fell in love with this song, it is such a lovely piece. Whenever you hear someone sing this song there’s an immediate sense of comfort.

◆ During your encore you sang the previously mentioned “Toki wo Koeru Yoru ni”, it was your first time performing it, right? With an orchestra at that! *laughs* This song was co-written by a Swedish and Japanese composer (Shusui). That's why it has a slightly Western vibe. I was really happy I got to sing alongside an orchestra. But all the time I kept thinking, “oh no, I wanna change this and that part of the lyrics. Please let me rephrase that again! *laughs*

◆ Oh really? Yes. *laughs* At that point it was still a completely new song for me, I hadn’t even recorded it yet. Also, it was my first time singing my very own lyrics so naturally I was quite embarrassed but everyone in the orchestra was incredibly supportive.

◆ The lyrics were great. Depending on the listener, I think there are many different ways to interpret them, many different sceneries to unravel. I was really nervous to get the lyrics wrong actually, I was hoping I wouldn’t make any mistakes *laughs* Although I was needlessly worrying because no one knew the song anyways *laughs*. But I guess I just wanted it to be as perfect as possible when I sang it in front of the audience.

◆ I am looking forward to hearing it again. I also can’t wait to hear your other new songs. Back in March we had a Kalafina live, then our 10th Anniversary Film got released and we took part in a stage greeting event...since then it’s been more than half a year. Right now I am at a major turning point. From now onwards I want to steadily discover news aspects of myself by moving forward and doing my very best.

#kalafina #my translations #harmony magazine vol.5 #wakana solo interview #wakana #wakana in concert #wakana solo tour #toki wo koeru yoru ni

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