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jeswii · 3 years

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Sinnam Kevu - Chapter 1- Questions

Summary: Random snips from my brain for the Trooper story about a trooper who grew up on a planet that in the last war was a constant battle ground between the Republic and Empire. She's been fighting the Empire since as soon as she could walk. Semi slow burn for F!trooper x Aric.

Chapter: 1/?

Chapter Summary: From the rookie in the team to the leader of the squad after the rest of the team's defection causes Aric to have some questions about the pull his new CO has.

Notes: The planet Sinnam is from, Trelin, is a planet I made up. It's located in the outer rim and is a popular trading hub that became a point of interest for both the Empire and Republic in the last war.

Cross Posted on Ao3

~~~~

The Senate Tower. Not somewhere Sinnam was excited to set foot in again, but this was where the hunt for Tavis and the others sent her. So far, she had avoided him. Up until the day she couldn't.

After neutralizing the nerve agents a city gang collected, she retrieved a call from the General. There were a few Senators that had uncovered what had happened to Havoc Squad and now are filing for an informal inquiry. She was mandated to speak there, but the more of her mission that was public, that harder it was going to get.

When she entered that room, she knew there was no coincidence as to who was there. One of the three Senator was a man she's been avoiding for years.

"Lieutenant Kevu, make yourself comfortable." He stated "On behalf of the Senate of the Galactic Republic, I want to thank you for appearing on such short notice for this informal inquiry."

She took a seat, not letting herself appeared fazed. "I'm just doing my duty Sir."

"I assure you we will not hold you from your duties any longer than necessary Lieutenant."

They asked pretty basic questions. Did she serve with them? Did they defect? Where they unstable? Could anyone have seen it coming? Did it have anything to do with Ando Prime?

Sinnam avoided most of the questions, trying to keep with damage control. Then she was dismissed.

But that didn't stop him. "Lieutenant," He said following her out of the conference. "I was wondering if we can have a word in private?"

Private. That was the only time they talked wasn't it? "Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Sergeant Jorgan. If you can't, then we have nothing to talk about."

He paused a moment "Congrats on the promotion."

"Thank you" She said firmly

A silent set between them. She wasn't going to put the effort into carrying this conversation. The man rubbed his beard "I know you couldn't tell me you were on Coruscant but since you're here and I know you're here maybe we can have dinner some time? You still haven't tried my cooking."

Cooking. As in they would be in his home. "I'm sorry Senator, I don't see much of an opening in my schedule right now and given your inquiry into Havoc Squad I'm not sure it would be appropriate."

"Okay." He cleared his throat "I'll likely see you later Lieutenant."

"Until next time Senator."

Aric had to hurry down the hall when that conversation ended. Sinnam's pace sped up to put some distance between them. She stopped at the refresher before going to Garza's office to get a minute to herself.

Grabbing the sink, she sighed. In the mirror she examined her own face. Half Zabrak. Half human. No one noticed the human part but she did. Her eyes weren't quite right. "Just one asshole Sin. Can't let him get to you."

The door creaked open and closed "I'll say." Aric commented "I don't mean to pry into your personal life, Sir, but he seems too old for you and given the inquiry it's not professional. I know you're young for a CO, but that's a big mistake. And that's all ignoring that he's a Senator and they always complicate our operations."

A laugh escaped her. She could berate him for being in the woman's bathroom right now but that wasn't going to help. "I appreciate the concern Sergeant, I'm afraid you're understanding of the situation is backwards."

He crossed his arms "Want to explain it?"

All the cheeriness in her expression dropped. "We have to report in. I appreciate the concern."

~~~~

The topic wasn't brought up again until they were on their way to save a senator from Wraith.

He took a seat across from her in the main room "You know, I reviewed your record before that ZR-57 op. Been meaning to discuss it with you. Been fighting the Empire since you could carry a blaster, running with a rebellion on a backwater. Did good there, running them off the planet. So you can kill Imperials, but that guerilla mentality won't cut it in the big time."

Sinnam shrugged "You saw how I handled things. I know what I'm doing."

Coruscant and Ord Mantel went to plan, he'll give her that. "Taking on that sep army single handedly takes guts, not leader ship. I saw you second guessing yourself about those cyborgs. A leader has to choice between completing the mission and loosing men. Completing the mission and civilian casualties. You have to have your head on straight and know where that line is."

Her jaw tightened as he talked. "I do"

"When this squad grows past you and me, people are going to have to trust your orders to the letter." He added "Not question them. They need to have their full trust in you and for that to happen you have to have full trust in yourself. A squad needs that kind of commitment to operate effectively."

Well this was going well then. "Are you saying you don't trust me?"

He shook his head "I will always give you a hundred percent. That's not the issue. Havoc Squad is the Republic's most elite outfit. We tackle the missions no one else can handle. Traitor or no, Tavis is a tough act to follow. You think you're up to it?"

"Certainly." She said firmly.

He paused a few minutes. Sinnam didn't mind the quiet, in fact she generally preferred it, but she was getting a bit weirded out. "Is something else bothering you?"

Jorgan nodded "That Senator. Arnus. You said I had it wrong. I didn't see another explanation until I remembered something strange in your service record. Your father wasn't unlisted, it was classified. Even for me before the demotion. Either he's high in the military or a senator with some pull."

A lump formed in her throat and she looked away from him. She could shut him down and not talk about this, but her and Jorgan were on the same team together.

She needed to trust him.

But she needed protect herself as well. She composed herself and looked back to him with a confident demeanor. "Jorgan, am I supposed to be connecting dots from that last conversation to this one or are these two different points?"

He shrugged "It crossed my mind."

That was one of her biggest worries. "Nepotism? Seriously?"

"He classified his name for a reason."

She rolled her eyes "Do you know how I met him?" She didn't wait for Jorgan to respond "Back when I enlisted in the Republic, in basic training, there was an accident and when I was being treated there were some medical complications. The doctor took a DNA test to try to find a match for my father. We found him, he sent records and a million credits for me to never talk to him again or tell anyone. It was an election year."

His brow knit together "What did you do?"

Years ago, she had shame for what she did. Now, after the fact, she knew she couldn't change it. Might as well stand in it. "I was sixteen. That was more money than I've ever seen and my home planet had been ravaged by the Empire. The Republic wasn't working fast enough for me. I took the money. Paid off my mother's medical bills. Gave my baby brother a college fund. Sent the rest to Trelin relief. Didn't talk to him again until a few years later."

"Sixteen?" He asked

She's come this far, might as well finish it "Yes. You can add lying on my application to the military to that report about suspected nepotism and incompetence. I'm two years younger than the Republic thinks. Couldn't enlist until I'm eighteen but fighting on Terlin had finished. We won."

He shook his head "I said it crossed my mind, not that I'm writing you up."

Sinnam got up from her seat and grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen that was in the same room they were already in "Such a fine line you walk. So it's just accusing me of nepotism?"

Her sarcastic comments weren't something he was expecting in private. When she arrived on Ord Mantel he had heard from her last commander that she was always professional. So far he'd seen it too.

Until now "Look, you've got a great record. From rebellion to enlisted, you've risen fast. You're just young. Apparently even younger than I thought. And the leader of the most elite squad is a lot of pressure for anyone. I just wanted to know. You could have done everything I read. Or someone might have overstated for a payday."

This could get messy if he really didn't trust her. "My biological father has nothing to do with my military career. Even if he cared enough to do it, the risk of someone exposing that is far too much risk for him. He doesn't want any tracible connection between us. Or did you not notice how he offered to cook? He doesn't want to be seen in public with me."

Now he was starting to feel a bit guilty "Alright."

She took a deep breath "Are we done then?"

Jorgan nodded "I'll see you when we arrive, Lieutenant."

~~~~

The Senator was safe. Wraith escaped. Garza sent them to another world. The journey there was two days long. The first full day was silent on the ship. The two of them avoided each other until a sparing session the two of them had planned before the tense conversation about nepotism. Basic hand to hand training to better understand each other's skills before they're relevant in the field.

Sinnam dressed down into a t-shirt and shorts. Jorgan had never seen her outside of uniform. There were scars that trailed up her neck and face that he saw but there were far more on her arms and legs. Deeper, older, and more intensive.

While she was stretching out, she saw him starring at her leg specifically. "An orbital strike on our holdout on Balmorra three years ago."

He remembered reading about it. Hospitalized it for five months. "They pulled out not long after that didn't they?"

Her head dropped. She could feel the heat across her body once again. "It was in Imperial hands by the time I woke up a week later. Only survivor of my unit and we didn't even help those people."

"That's rough."

She stood up straight and stretched out her neck "It's what I signed up for."

They nodded to each other and started circling the mats. "No claws right?" She asked with a smile

He shrugged "Wouldn't need them anyways."

A laugh escaped Sinnam as she took a shot at him. Straight for his hips. They struggled each other for control of who would hit the mat. "Sure about that?" She asked as she tripped him over her foot set behind his leg as he took a step back.

Jorgan fell to the ground and fought against a pin. In the situation he got himself into by not watching her close enough it was going to be hard.

After a few moments of struggling he tapped the mat.

Sinnam got off of him and helped him up to his feet. "Not bad Aric." He said with a heavy breath

He wiped sweat from his brow and stretched out his shoulder "Aric?"

"It's your name isn't it?" She asked with a smile "We're off duty for another thirty hours. No point to stay so up tight. We can have a bit of fun, actually enjoy each other's company. As long as you're okay with that."

"Sure. Off duty."

She laughed again. He didn't know he would like her laugh so much. "Is relaxing and making friends really that hard for you?"

He cleared his throat "No, it's not that. Just after what I said, I wasn't sure you'd want to be friendly."

Sinnam shrugged and grabbed a bottle of water "I figure if you're not sure about my rep, I'll just do what I do and you'll see. I got nothing to prove, you don't have an issue with me when we're on the job, and we're going to have a lot of time together. No point holding a grudge over something that I admit does look sketchy."

Tossing it over to him, Aric caught the bottle and took a sip. After, he tossed it back. "You did take his money."

She took a drink from the same bottle and paused "Fair. Want to go another round?"

~~~~

Nothing like a nice ache from getting thrown down on the mats a few times. Aric was stretching back out when they were done "Got to hand it to you Sir, I didn't think I'd go oh for three against you. I thought I'd at least get one."

She chuckled as she took a seat "Sorry Aric, one of us is a scrapper and the other spent half of his career as a sniper."

He threw a towel at her "Thanks Sir."

Pulling it off her face, she shook her head "Hey, you did pretty well for a sniper." She used the towel to dry her face "And you know it wouldn't kill you to call me Sinnam."

"I know Sir."

#swtor #trooper #aric jorgan #republic trooper #star wars #female trooper/aric jorgan #oc: sinnam kevu #my writing

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sciencenewsforstudents · 5 years

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When it comes to revealing when and how wild felines became couch kitties, the cat is starting to come out of the bag. Cats were likely first tamed in the Middle East. Later, they spread — first by land, then by sea — to the rest of the world, researchers now report.

Early farmers brought cats with them to Europe from the Middle East by 6,400 years ago. That’s the conclusion from looking at DNA from 352 ancient cats. A second wave of migration, perhaps by ship, appears to have occurred some 5,000 years later. That’s when Egyptian cats quickly colonized Europe and the Middle East.

Researchers describe how they came to these dates in a new study. It was published June 19 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Domestication (Doh-MES-ti-kay-shun) is the long and slow process by which people have adapted wild animals or plants to be tame and useful. Wolves became dogs, for instance. Wild ox became cattle. And wildcats became house cats.

Exactly where and when this happened to cats, though, has been a matter of great debate. Researchers had only the DNA from modern cats to work with. These data showed that house cats had been tamed from African wildcats. What was not clear was when domesticated cats began to spread around the world. Now, new ways of studying ancient DNA are pointing to some answers.

Eva-Maria Geigl and Thierry Grange are behind this deepest dive yet into the genetic history of cats. They are molecular biologists. Both work at the Institute Jacques Monod in Paris, France. Mitochondria (My-tow-KON-dree-uh) are tiny energy-producing structures inside cells. They contain a bit of DNA. Only mothers, not fathers, pass mitochondria (and its DNA) to their offspring. Scientists use slightly different varieties of mitochondrial DNA, called mitotypes, to track the female side of families.

Geigl, Grange and their colleagues collected mitochondrial DNA from 352 ancient cats and 28 modern wildcats. These felines spanned 9,000 years. They came from regions stretching across Europe, Africa and Southwest Asia.

Ancient Egyptians often depicted cats in paintings and statues. Cats were frequently first portrayed as hunters killing snakes. Later, they showed felines curled up under chairs (like this cat from a copy of a wall painting in the private tomb of a man named Nakht in Thebes). That progression may mirror the cat’s transformation from a solitary, wild hunter that captured vermin around ancient farmers’ grain stores to a sociable house pet, say researchers involved in a new study.

CREDIT:ANNA (NINA) MACPHERSON DAVIES © ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM/UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

About 10,000 to 9,500 years ago, African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) may have tamed themselves. They would have hunted rodents and scavenged scraps from the homes of early farmers in the Middle East. People probably encouraged the cats to hang around as a way for these farmers to control mice, rats, snakes and other vermin. The arrangement would have been “mutually profitable for both sides,” explains Grange.

No one really knows how friendly people and cats were with each other at the beginning of cat domestication. Some people may have been very close to their pet cats. Indeed, one person on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 9,500 years ago, was buried with a cat. Says Geigl, this suggests that some people, back then, already had close ties to cats.

Before early farmers started migrating from the Middle East to Europe, European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) carried one mitotype. It’s called clade I. A 6,400-year-old Bulgarian cat and a 5,200-year-old Romanian cat had a different type of mitochondrial DNA. They both had mitotype IV-A*. That mitotype was previously seen only in domesticated cats from what is now Turkey.

Cats are territorial and usually don’t roam far. This suggests people must have transported cats to Europe.

Wildcats and early domestic cats all looked the same with tiger-striped, mackerel coat patterns. Now, though, about 80 percent of modern domestic cats carry a mutation that gives a cat a blotched tabby coat pattern. New genetic data suggest this mutation first popped up in Southwest Asia during the Middle Ages. (Boxes in chart represent ancient cats sampled as part of a DNA study. Blue indicates mackerel coats and red the blotched tabby pattern.) The blotched look may have spread rapidly because it helped people distinguish their kitties from all the mackerel look-alikes.

CREDIT: C. OTTONI ET AL/NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION 2017

Mummies (and more) tell another story

Domesticated cats in Africa — including three cat mummies from Egypt — had yet another mitotype. It’s known as IV-C. Until about 2,800 years ago, that type was found mostly in Egypt. But then it began showing up in Europe and the Middle East. And between 1,600 and 700 years ago, it spread far and fast. By then, seven of nine of the ancient European cats the researchers tested now carried this Egyptian type of DNA. Among them was a 1,300- to 1,400-year-old cat from a Viking port far to the north, on the Baltic Sea.

Thirty-two of 70 cats from Southwest Asia also had that mitotype. That rapid spread may indicate that sailors traveled with cats, some of which could have jumped ship to find a new home.

The speedy spread of the Egyptian cats’ DNA could mean that something made these animals especially attractive to people, Geigl and Grange say. House cats aren’t much different from wildcats. The big difference is that domestic cats tolerate people. And the Egyptian cats may have been particularly friendly. They may have more resembled the type of purring pet found in homes today, the researchers speculate. Earlier house cats might have been more comfortable with people than wildcats were, but still have qualified as scaredy cats.

There’s not enough evidence to say that, counters Carlos Driscoll of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Working at its Laboratory of Comparative Behavioral Genomics, he studies the genetic bases of some behavioral traits. And Driscoll now suggests another reason why Egyptian cats got popular so fast: They may have lived along shipping and trade routes. That would have made hopping a boat to some new port easy, especially if they offered to work as mousers on the ship.

Earlier cats may have been just as popular, Driscoll says, but moving them would have been harder. Those early cats, he says, would have been “dependent on somebody putting a bunch of kittens in a basket and walking across a desert with them.”

#science #scied #sciblr #animals #cats #national cat day #genetics #DNA #domestication

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wordsnstuff · 5 years

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31 Days of Horror - Wordsnstuff October Writing Challenge

This is also available on wordsnstuffblog.com!

– The monthly challenges are back by popular demand! These are all a bit more detailed than usual so I hope you all enjoy this one. I look forward to seeing all of your guys’ responses here using the hashtag #wordsnstuffhorror and over on Instagram, where you can tag me @ writingandsuch.

This challenge begins on October 1st, but I thought I would give you guys some time to plan stuff out, because you may need to switch some days around to accommodate your schedule. You’re free to do one day’s challenge on another day if your schedule doesn’t allow enough time to complete that day’s challenge. Best of luck to you!

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☼ Prompt List ☼

Write a scene of a horror story with your 3 favorite actors as the main characters

Write a story in which the main character gets trapped within an uncommon object

Write about the creepy people who are buying your childhood home

After finally building up courage and killing your husband, you think life is going to look up. The night after you bury him in the desert, he shows up at your place of work looking alive as ever.

A biologist clones his daughter that tied in a tragic accident, but the person she matures to become is not his daughter..

A woman goes to bed with her child between her and her husband, only to wake up the next morning and find only a note on their side of the bed saying “you have 24 hours to right your wrong”

A serial killer volunteers at the local annual haunted house and is tasked with making props

All power in technology and machinery suddenly and mysteriously goes out, leaving the world in a planet-wide blackout

You are the first astronaut to find out what happens when you’re consumed by a black hole when your ship runs out of power and drifts for many years into the cold depths of space

A burglar attempts to steal from the cash register of a haunted hotel that is run by the sadistic ghosts trapped within.

A spelunker travels to a rarely-explored cluster of caves and experiences some unexplainable events before falling and passing out. When he wakes up, he returns to his hometown, but quickly notices that the people are acting.. different.

You’re a diver for a laboratory that researches sunken ships as they deteriorate over time. You’re sent on the most dangerous mission of your career in order to bring back samples from a ship that sank 300 years ago, only to reach the depths and find it completely intact.

You stay in an old Irish castle with your spouse expecting it to be mildly haunted, but the staff seems to be trying very hard to look inconspicuous.

A man finds some old 16mm film of family home video and in every single one, there’s another little boy that he nor his family has any memory of knowing.

The whole town is gathered in a park to witness the eclipse, and when it arrives, everyone is amazed. However, the novelty has long since worn off by the third day in the dark

You’ve spent your career researching the titanic’s lost passengers, identifying who the victims of the tragedy were. You purchase a storage unit full of old artifacts that someone had collected from ship-wreck sites, and find a rusty old chest full of bones. When you do a DNA test on one of them, you find out it belongs to one of the bodies that had never been recovered.

You fall asleep in front of the TV one night and wake up at 3 AM to a loud sound coming from it. You open your eyes to see someone shouting at you through the screen, begging you to help them. Static abruptly takes over the screen.

It’s 1865 and you live in a small town. A man shows up in your small community claiming that his sideshow has an incredible attraction opening that night. You’re the only one to attend, and he promises that it’ll be a sight you’ll never forget.

You are stuck in a dream experiencing fairytales in the role of the princess, but you quickly learn that you’re in the Grimms’ version.

You visit a medium as a joke with your date, and you play along as she asks you questions. However, she grows somber all of a sudden and asks to see your hand, telling you that she hears something strange. When she grasps it, she begins to choke and dies.

A woman wakes up from a coma in a seemingly friendly hospital, but when she leaves her room at night and curiously peeks into some other rooms, she finds out that every other patient in the building is already dead.

Every child in a small town is affected by a disease unlike anything ever witnessed. Except your son.

You find a small metal object on a trail when hiking one evening, and you take it home to end up finding it in a new place every time you’ve left the house.

You enter a hidden room in the home you’re about to buy. It’s empty and the white walls are covered in tiny photos of people you’ve never seen. Thousands of them. You touch one as you’re examining them and you’re transported to that moment. You witness the people in the photo die, unable to do anything to stop it.

You find a CD sitting on your desk when you come home from work one day. When you pop it into your laptop, it plays a short video that quickly cuts out and crashes your computer. The next morning, you wake up to a note where the CD had been left saying “thank you for freeing me. I’m sorry for what comes next.”

A chain email is circulating around the internet like an infectious disease. 30 days after you first hear of it on the news, warning not to open it due to the image attachment being a graphic photo of a confirmed murder victim, mass murders begin to take place all over the world.

A new restaurant opens in your hometown and the owners are a sweet old couple who’ve dreamt of opening their own diner since they were young. People in the town start disappearing, and you, the town detective, notice that they were all last seen exiting that restaurant.

You wake up in a hospital and the first thing you see is a doctor holding a needle and squeezing your ankle. You try to move your hand but your muscles won’t budge. The doctor says “I’m very sorry for the pain you’re about to endure, but you must be awake for us to monitor your physical reactions to this procedure.” You have no idea what he’s talking about.

You enter your home one evening after work to see that your walls are covered In photos of you that you don’t remember being taken.

Your children are dressed up as various horror characters for halloween and when they leave for trick-or-treating, you breathe a sigh of relief that you have an evening of alone-time. However, as soon as they’re out of sight from your view through the window, you hear a knock on the door. The real characters from the horror movies they’ve dressed up as are standing on your porch, and they refuse to leave.

When your mother dies, you are left in charge of your childhood home along with all of her belongings. Going through the last few boxes in the attic, you come across a brick in the wall that’s knocked out of place. When you pull it out, you reach in and pull out the bloodied fabric of a man’s suit and a woman’s gown, and then a box that has photos of you as a kid.. but between two people you’ve never seen.

–

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 5 years

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Off Day: Five

Early snow started flying just as Bucky pulled into Char’s driveway. There wasn’t another car, but it was pretty likely she was parked in her garage. Especially if it was cold out.

Bucky zipped his coat and forced himself out the door. He didn’t want to talk to her. Didn’t want to look at her, but it had to be done. He couldn’t have her coming to your shop and starting shit. That was unacceptable, especially when you wouldn’t even answer his phone calls. Not to the shop or your phone. He sighed and made his way up the porch steps, knocking once before letting himself in.

He didn’t expect what he saw. His first instinct was to leave, but, honestly. When did he ever listen to his instincts. He leaned against the counter and pulled out a pocket knife, just quietly waiting. Some guy had Char bent over the arm of her couch and was plowing into her like he still had another 40 acres of field to go that day.

It wasn’t the most creative dirty talk he’d ever heard. “Oh fuck, uh yeah baby,” in a deep tone of voice that was almost as irritating as baby talk. Over again until he finally lost it. Amature, Bucky decided. Or a pick up artist. Probably both if he had to rely on that game shit.

“You know,” Bucky drawled as he watched the guy shove his now limp dick back in his jeans, “If you’re tryna pass that kid off as mine, it’s probably a good idea not to let me catch you with someone else hitting it raw. Especially when I know I never did.”

“Hey!” the guy said startled, starting towards him pissed.

Bucky caught Char’s eye and smirked, “Calm down, junior. I’m not here for you,” he said, ignoring the probably 19 year old.

“Listen Char,” he said, “You gotta leave Y/N alone. She’s not even interested in me.”

“Bullshit,” Char said.

“Char, seriously. That kid probably isn’t even mine. Even if it is I’ll give you money but. We’re done. I’ve had enough. So either you leave Y/N alone or I’ll let Natasha have you.”

The blonde pouted, “Buckaroo,” she tried.

“No. I mean it,” he said.

“Get the fuck out!” she said after staring at him open-mouthed for a moment. Gearing up for a tantrum.

“Okay,” Bucky said turning, shaking his head. He’d lay odds that wasn’t his kid. If she even was pregnant. But for now, he decided that wasn’t his problem. Until he had DNA test results in his hand, she wasn’t getting anything. Not if she was gonna keep fucking around. Especially not then.

He had one purpose right now, and that was to get back in your good books. Seeing Kaity had been a shock. He’d seen her a few months ago just in passing and she’d looked fine. But today, today had scared him. He was scared for you.

He remembered Kaity from school. Three years older. Popular. A cheerleader. A nice girl. Nice to everyone. You’d been her shadow. Meek and quiet. A weird kid. Kaity was the only person you really talked to. The only person you’d be funny with. Your best friend. It was clear that that was still the case. Kaity had straight walked into a room full of bikers and threatened to shoot someone. She loved you. And it was clear if you were back in town to help take care of her, you loved her too. And you were going to have to be without her.

The thought stabbed at him. Lancing through his heart and twisting as tears prickled at the backs of his eyes. He hated it. He hated that this was happening. After he’d pushed you out of his head, he’d not thought of you much. You were the one that got away and life had to go on. But sometimes. In the dark of his bunk in the army, when he couldn’t sleep. Or now, panting from a nightmare. That’s when he thought of you. Imagined how it could have been.

What it would have been like if he’d not been a pussy. If he’d let himself be soft for you instead of being such a fucking idiot and trying to impress you the way you impress girls like Char that think they’re hard. You didn’t need to be hard. Your whole life was hard.

He pulled into the parking lot of the shop and just sat in his car a long time, watching the snow. He thought back to a day a lot like this one. Early snow, Just before Thanksgiving. It had been a class trip to some farm or something. He and Steve and Clint had been being stupid. Lagging behind and making jokes about mating season for reasons he couldn’t remember. They were 15. It didn’t really matter why.

What he did remember was you. You were back at school with a butterfly suture on your cheek bone and limping a little. Keeping to yourself more than normal. Laying low, Bucky figured. Your dad was in trouble again and your mom was stirring shit up in town. Everyone knew you were living at Kaity’s again and that was the only reason you were on this trip. Or had money to buy a cup of hot cider. What you were drinking right now. Bucky didn’t care about what their guide was saying. He was too busy watching you out of the corner of his eye. Watching the snowfall on your hair. It looked like flowers. And he wanted to kiss away each flake that fell on your nose and cheeks. He’d looked away when you caught him staring. “You okay, Bucky?” you’d asked him.

“Fine,” he said, “Spaced out. Sorry.”

There were so many moments like that. Moments where he’d longed to just touch you. When you were little it was easy. He could play tag with you. Laughing as he chased you over the pea-gravel and grass. If he talked to Steve or Clint too much, the teacher would move his desk next to yours. Because he didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to bother you when you did your work. You looked so fucking happy doing it. Intently focused.

As he got older though, it got harder. Boys and Girls couldn’t play together and the teacher wouldn’t just move him for being a disruption. You got quieter and he had less reasons to try and talk to you. He started getting taller and getting muscles and girls, all kinds of girls flung themselves at him. He lost sight of you for a little while. But there was always some sense that something was wrong when you weren’t in class that day. And when he lost his virginity at 14 in the janitor's closet of the movie theater where he got his first job, he felt a vague sense of loss. Jeanette was a nice girl. Bubbly. Perky. But she wasn’t you, though it wasn’t, he didn’t realize until he was 17.

Until he was blackout drunk. Until he realized you’d almost been gone forever. What that sense of loss could mean.

Bucky watched the snow on the windshield and hardly noticed when Steve got in the passenger seat.

“You okay, Bucky?” he asked, a little worried.

“Have I always been in love with her?” Bucky asked after a long moment.

“Almost as long as I’ve known you, I think.”

“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that?”

Steve snorted, “Because you were a cocky little shit. You were a bad boy. You wanted all the girls. Not just that one.”

“Was a bad boy?” Bucky asked, half offended.

“Pretty sure you never were a bad boy. You’ve got marshmallow insides.”

“Fuck you, I’m tough.”

“Sure ya are, Buck,” Steve said, “But are you tough enough to actually go through with this?”

“Go through with what?”

“Getting your girl, you ass clown.”

Bucky turned his head to look at Steve and Steve held up his hand, “Look man, it’s been two decades of low key pining after this one little girl. Either go after her or let it all go.”

“I don't know if I can do either one,” he said letting his head fall back.

“Then you don’t deserve her at all.”

Steve got out of the car and left Bucky to think. Walking back into the shop and trusting Bucky to do the right thing. Trusting him to follow his heart.

Tags: @lancsnerd @stevieang @blameitonthecauseway @thorfanficwriter

#soft bucky #Bucky Barnes #biker au #biker!bucky #Steve Rogers #bucky x reader

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myherorp · 4 years

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THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on villain, chef.

get to know them !

faceclaim: kim seokjin

name: seong shik

villain name: chef

gender & pronouns: nonbinary | they/them

age: 30

association: anyone who pays for their services (evil or restaurant-related)

occupation: runs a small restaurant near u.y. academy called “Shaping Plates” | run for 5 years now | it’s popular with students, teachers, and civilians!

reputation: when a villain is in need of information or a hit that doesn’t trace back to them or even just a temporary secret hideout, seong shik is your person. with the proper payment and necessary ingredients, they’ll carry out the job no questions asked. most villains are wary of shik, though, because while they don’t ask questions, they are observant and seem to always know what’s happening among the villains and heroes. information is their bread and butter so villains know to hold their secrets close to them when around seong shik, but that doesn’t seem to stop chef from discovering them.

the quirk !

quirk name: food coma

quirk description: controls whoever eats their cooking

abilities:

when their cooking is consumed, the person’s will is taken over

it’s sort of like when someone goes into a food coma and they feel like they’re in a hazy dream

they can give orders and the victim has to follow until the task is complete or the trance wears off

if the dish is the person’s absolute favorite, the effect last longer (12 hours)

the dishes are created from a clay that coats their hands, all they have to do is shape the dish how they want and it becomes the food—tastes delicious too!

it’s a regular old dish that doesn’t brainwash if they don’t use the necessary ingredients (dna)

so they use their ability to run a restaurant when they’re not doing evil deeds

weaknesses:

needs the other person’s dna to incorporate into the dish (hair tends to be the easiest to use)—think poly juice potion from HP but for brainwashing

lasts until the food leaves their digestive system (about 8 hours)

if the dish is the person’s least favorite food, the effect doesn’t last as long (4 hours)

mutation: There’s a clay that coats their hands and turns soft when they’re using their quirk

the history !

triggers: violence, bullying

there was little in life seong shik wanted as a child—a roof over their head, food in their belly, stability, and people to share these things with. seong shik grew up to have some of these things…less of others.

born and raised among a poor family—their parents were always struggling to keep their children fed and clothed. often, shik had to fend for themself, finding food, maybe persuading pitying adults to give them hand-me-downs or scraps. they shared what they gained with their younger and older siblings, but more often than not, they left shik with nothing. shik was bullied by their siblings, classmates, and adults who saw the child and nothing but a nuisance or street brat.

all seong shik wanted was to have a full belly, nice clothing, and the world to leave them alone.

their quirk manifested in grade school when they were doing crafts. shik noticed that their hands were producing small amounts of clay as they were making a rendition of a plate of food with paper, glue, and cotton. instead of questioning it, they used the clay on their craft project—but a kid at some point decided it’d be funny to put a tuft of their own hair into shik’s craft.

shockingly, it turned into a real plate of food! seong shik was surprised, but it turned to alarm and anger when the same kid who messed with their project ate said plate of food! shik glared as a glaze came over the child’s eyes, looking exhausted all of a sudden.

shik, in their anger, demanded an apology—the child apologized immediately. they told the kid they needed to do better than that—get on their knees and bark like a dog if they really felt sorry. the kid did and shik was shocked, to put it simply…and very confused. they had only said it out of anger, not really expecting to demanding the kid actually do it. what was going on? shik looked at their clay hands, but no answers were forthcoming.

they played with their clay quirk in their free time and discovered it only took the shape of food, but that food was real and delicious and even better, free! their parents realized shik had an amazing quirk that would keep food on the table and less worry to have about their family. shik became the family’s provider, even going so far as to sell their creations on the street. their parents half-joked that shik should open restaurant when they were older.

to shik, it was no joke—maybe they would open a restaurant. no one would go hungry if they ate from shik’s kitchen. they’d make sure of that.

their siblings became jealous because of the praise and attention shik received from their parents and others—so they decided to get back at them. the children did what any bully does—destroy shik’s work.

they did the unthinkable, putting their own nail clippings and hair (one even spat) into shik’s half-finished dish. in a rage, seong shik took that same plate of food, finished making it, and then proceeded to serve it at dinner that same night. they made sure only their siblings had to eat it. after all, shik’s parents had done nothing wrong. with a sweet smile and earnest eyes, shik insisted their brothers and sisters eat every last bite—they’d worked hard on it and this family never took a meal for granted. with their parents’ encouragement, shik’s siblings reluctantly took bites from their respective dishes—and a glaze came over their eyes, just like that child from so long ago.

the siblings didn’t respond when asked how they liked the food, shik’s parents becoming concerned after heartbeats passed without so much as fluttering of eyelids. seong shik panicked, thinking they had accidentally poisoned their siblings. they pleaded for their brothers and sisters to say something.

“something.”

…was that a joke?

“that’s not funny,” their parents had chastised, but there was no response. a suspicion hovered at the back of shik’s mind and they decided to test it.

“apologize”

they did—interesting.

“hop on one leg and bark like a dog.”

suddenly, the dining table was surrounded by barking children hopping on one foot.

at the pleading of their parents to explain what was happening, shik turned excitedly to their parents and told them what they only just now realized their quirk can do—brainwash! the look of horror their parents gave them wasn’t completely unexpected, but why were they so upset? the others obviously deserved it. they were always bullying shik and now the quirk they hated so much was making them look like idiots! shik couldn’t be happier! their parents scolded shik, telling them to release their quirk, but shik refused.

instead, they told their siblings to tell their parents everything they’d ever done to shik—maybe then their mother and father would understand, even praise shik!

it changed nothing, though.

or rather, it changed shik.

they discovered the limitations of their quirk—that the effects would wear off once the food had passed through the person’s digestive track.

their family turned on them—where love and pride had been only days before, now sat fear and horror. shik’s quirk no longer seemed as wonderful as they had first thought and shik…shik could not possibly be their child, right? none of the seong’s other children had such…sinister quirks and shik’s parents certainly had no brainshwash-like abilities. their powers were all similar—mineral-manipulation and production.

well, except for shik’s great-grandmother who had been able to do something similar to the child—manipulating the water in living things. she’d been a notorious villain because of it.

would seong shik become her?

they weren’t going to wait to find out

seong shik woke one year later to find their home devoid of their brothers, sisters, and parents; their clothes, car, and favorite toys missing in an otherwise untouched space.

seong shik was only 12 when they became homeless, getting by on their quirk (food coma, they decided to finally name it), though they made very little money from their small corner on the street. it didn’t escape shik’s notice that many heroes were quick to pity, but slow to help a homeless child struggling to survive on their own. they’d grown to realize heroes couldn’t be relied on.

shik knew they couldn’t survive like this—they needed to make money and fast. and seong shik had just the idea.

there was a local gang of small-time villains that often used shik as their personal punching bag—claiming the corner shik occupied belonged to them and shik refusing to relinquish the one space they had stayed since their family had abandoned them. they made good money, shik knew, based on their own loose lips, vendors in the area, and heroes who had made polite conversation with shik while waiting for the young child to finish making their order.

that day was no different—shik took the beating, but this time they fought back, aiming for the guy who was clearly more important than others as he always stood back and watched the violence with a sick grin on his face. it was all shik needed, managing to pull out a couple strands of hair.

shik made what they guessed was the man’s favorite food (they had watched him purchase hotteok from a nearby vendor on more than one occasion). they waited patiently until the goons’ head was seen making a trip to the hotteok cart. stealthily, they replaced the hotteok the vendor prepared with shik’s own quirk-filled treat.

and what a treat it was to watch the man take that first ecstatic bite, seize, and take on the same trance-like state as shik’s siblings had. it was easy after that to issue orders and gain access to the small gang’s bank accounts, wipe them out, swiping what looked like important documents for good measure—in case shik needed leverage to keep the jerks from killing them outright if the villains figured out what they’d done.

little did shik know that those documents held information important to a far bigger, badder, and more important group of villains. it took the villains a few years to trace seong shik, now 15, and attending middle school. the young person had used the money they’d stolen to pay for a small room in a low-end part of the city, sharing it with other struggling children. from there, shik started school again, determined to make a better life for themself. it was finally looking up again, only using their quirk when money was a bit tight and to keep their belly full.

when the villains caught shik on their way back to their shabby apartment, they had been watching the teenager for awhile, observing, and coming to the conclusion seong shik was more useful to them alive than dead. seong shik was offered a deal: become an informant, hitman, whatever they needed from shik’s quirk—and they’d give shik access to the best education and good pay. shik didn’t need long to decide—this was the opportunity they’d been seeking since being abandoned.

for the next decade, seong shik worked under this group of villains, earning themself a reputation among the villain community and even among some heroes for being a capable and elusive figure who’d do the dirty work…for the right price.

shik earned their freedom from the group after the villains had been caught by a group of heroes. shik had managed to escape, but not before covering their tracks so no one could figure out shik’s connection to the group. and it seemed the villains they’d tagged-teamed with for so long had also kept their mouths shut about the brainwash-quirk user.

with the money they’d accumulated from their under-the-table jobs, and having completed business school, seong shik decided to pursue their childhood dream—they opened a restaurant. they cooked meals for their patrons, garnering popularity and a steady stream of return customers, including villains, heroes, and nearby u.y.a students.

seong shik was widely known among the villain community and once their restaurant opened, many sought the brainwasher for dirty jobs—hits, robberies, cover-ups, espionage—and shik provided them the use of their quirk. heroes had some information on the elusive villain, “Chef” as they were known by, but no information on who they were or what they looked like or where they currently resided. funny since many heroes had come face-to-face with Chef, praising their skill in the kitchen.

present day, seong shik, 30, is flourishing as the owner of Shaping Plates, and is a successful villain too. they had everything they’d hope for as child—a roof over their head, food on the table, steady income…but nobody around to share these things with.

maybe…seong shik didn’t have everything they wanted after all…

the personality !

“chef,” as many refer to seong shik as, is known to many to be quite friendly on any given day. always prepared with a warm welcoming smile, many feel right at home in their presence…enough so that many feel they can tell chef all their problems. when they walk away, many realize they’ve told shik much about themselves and yet learned nothing about them. seong shik can charm anyone and that makes it easy to get their target’s guard down, easily using their food coma quirk to get the dirty work done for clients. shik is prideful and won’t take kindly to insults about their cooking, quirk or no. you’re expected to eat every last bite or face seong shik’s anger. while they have plenty of clients, shik is not one to have many friends. after all, they’ve worked hard to keep under the radar and out of the prying eyes of heroes; friends make it harder to hide who you are..even if shik desperately wants to have people to open up to and trust. this means holding secrets above shik’s clients’ heads so they keep their mouths shut and never allowing themself to become close to the friendly students, heroes or civilians that frequent their humble abode. it makes for quite a lonely life…one that shik often finds themself desperately wishing they didn’t have to live.

#myheroaccepted #myherofollow #bullying tw

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get-rammed · 5 years

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Beasttale

I'M TALKING ABOUT THE ORIGINAL BEASTTALE THAT I CREATED A FEW YEARS AGO, AND STOPPED DOING A YEAR AGO. This is aimed at the Beasttale tag, as I know a few have cropped up since I iced mine. So I don't want anyone to think I'm attacking them or the AU they like

A lot of my stuff has been removed from the Beasttale tag making it harder to find me and the things I made. It's annoying. Or been buried. So if this does go into the tag and anyone checking it out sees this, hi. I'm Ram and once upon a time I created a Beasttale and it used to terrorize the tag. It was the most popular version of Beasttale at the time and since has been laid to rest allowing different beasts to grow.

Anyone who grows curious about my AU. It isn't like the current popular one. Mine is unkind and violent. It has its soft moments with my boys. But for the most part it's not for the faint of heart. Don't go in looking for a gentle but scary Sans. You'll come out scarred 😂 Bomber was gentle at times, but he would 100% eat your guts.

I know the 4 of you left from my reign of terror are asking me, "Ram, why the f*ck are you doing this now??" Because I'm bored as f*ck and it's always bothered me that the story I wanted to tell, never came about.

So I'm going to basically explain what the story I had planned was. This will be confusing as I'm going to go over ideas I teased and or introduced, but either didn't explain well enough, or did nothing. Also some ideas I never talked about. I'll do some fun facts at the bottom about Boys that I designed, but never implemented, and some other odd ideas I had.

Tldr; Bomberboy (Sans), was an experiment of Gasters. He had a human soul shard (Perseverance) along with 4 other monsters in his soul and brain, which is why he's a mess. BB shoved Gaster into the CORE, which corrupted the dimension. It made everyone big and a little meaner. But not too far as at the time I was too scared to go too far on anyone but Sans and Alphys. After that it's just basic Undertale plot. I'd do it all differently now. Tone down the violence and edge a bit…but increase the beast design a bit. But not too much. I'll explain later.

I’m just going to warn everyone now that is about as professional as literally anything else I have ever written. Sorry. It goes from explaining sh*t to like, almost storytelling and whoops. I'm not very good at this. Imagine a lot of hand motions as you read. This is years of story that I've been sitting on. Just. Work with me here. A lot of these ideas are very very old. The original name for Beasttale was Testtale. Name got changed because me and a friend couldn't stop laughing because testicle. We're adults I promise.

This whole thing takes place over nine years in universe. So I condensed the sh*t out of my ideas and it's all very rushed and bad. Forgive me. This isn't supposed to be written like a story. It's supposed to be written like I'm explaining things at him point 😂

Alright, alright, alright. So to start off. After reading the entries you can find in the hidden lab, and the idea that Gaster wrote them, I came to the conclusion that he was a massive asshole. As you do. Which is why Bomber hates him, and why I personally made him a massive prick. I like the idea of Dadster, but like, I had edgy designs, I had to have a reason for them. I had to have a reason for the scars Bomber had.

After an unknown helicopter pilot crashed ((this character does not exist in the universe of Undertale. She was made for this AU)), and subsequently went into a cave for safety, only to fall into the Underground, she was killed by Asgore. She fought as hard as she could, but she could do nothing against the powerful monster. Her soul was safely harvested and stored.

Asgore made the lie about needing 7 souls, which Gaster said he would corroborate if he was allowed access to one of the souls as they had 6 at the time. ((Another perseverance SOUL bearer falls shortly after. Which is how there are 6 SOULs by the time Frisk rolls around)) Asgore had two choices. He could deny access, in which case, Gaster tells everyone that any boss monster could easily open the way. Or allow him access. Of course Gaster reminded him that if the soul goes missing, then Monsters are trapped longer, which is what Asgore wants. Soul goes “missing”, Asgore claims it’s due to a small leak in the container, Gaster gets his soul and his plan goes into action.

A lot of Monster children just wander freely around the Underground because it’s safe! Monsters wouldn’t hurt other Monsters. Right? Well. Gaster is his own kind of breed. He’s very jaded from the war. Mentally broken. Saw a lot of good Monsters slaughtered. Has no empathy left for anyone. He casually snatches two kids that wander too close to his lab. A little skeleton, Sans, and a small lizard with no arms, Alphys. Something of note. I liked the idea of Alphys being Monster Kids older sister. So she lacks arms for this first bit. This was literally never mentioned at any point and if I do DeltaBeast stuff, Alphys will lack arms. It was a mistake on my part to give them to her in the singular piece of art that exists at this time.

Alphys is locked away as Gaster focuses on the mouthy little skeleton. Experiments on the kid. See how much he can handle before he needs a break. Then push him further the next time. Gaster is trying to make a monster that can break the barrier, and destroy humans. Sans, or J-5, as he was called in those years trapped with gaster, was hopefully going to be that monster.

Basic details for this as the actual details of the experiments were never really thought out. But I guess they could include. Breaking his bones and seeing how long magic took to heal them. Forcing him to fight rabid animals and see what he would do (mind you Sans would have been 10 when Gaster traps him). He fights them to protect himself. Physical attacks hurt. He's got a lot of tiny scars from them. Force him to fight for his life against half melted monsters. These he doesn't fight. Mentally and physically beat it into the kid that he fights or Gaster will hurt Alphys ((Which during this time she was just subject to SOUL testing as Sans always offered himself for the harder stuff)). All to get him to a fallen state so he can alter his SOUL. Things get worse later.

Sans isn't considered a boss monster here, and Gaster knows this. Giving Sans a full human soul would just kill him. Can't have that. Gaster has put too much time and effort into this experiment at this point. It's been a good three year of nonstop tests and beatdowns for Sans. He's ready. Gaster pulls out Sans soul and tears part of it away, slowly, carefully. Then wedges the human soul in its place. The piece doesn't fit right, but Sans also isn't dead yet. But blah blah blah, he's not strong enough to hold it and he starts melting down. Perfect. Time for phase 2.

Experiments J-1-4 were all failures. Note. It varies on AU on how many extra monsters were added to the boys. The monsters inside is what defines their heat form. Anyone remember that post with their forms that had some floating heads around them? Yeah. Extra note. The four monsters in Sans do not have names. They have designs, but any personality or names do not exist. Nor will ever exist. None could hold a shard of the human soul. But. Five monsters together trying to hold a soul? It might just work. Which it does obviously. He's kept all the failures in a state of falling down but not dead. Similar to the abominations in the lab currently. Alphys followed Gaster on accident. Just in a nicer way.

Sans is unconscious the whole time and remains as such for a few days. Gaster now waits as the tiny skeleton is reformed. It's boring. He's going to start up experiments on him when Alphys basically tells him to f*ck off and leave Sans alone. Which is when he turns his attention to her.

Now he wants a fair fight for Sans when's out and about. Sans needs a watcher or guardian ot some form to regulate his ideas. So now it's Alphys' turn for the f*ckery. Beat the snot out of her. Pitch her against other monsters. See how well she fights. Similar to Sans, she refuses to fight. When she can't take anymore Gaster stops the fight. Casually pops her soul out and just as casually slices it up and wedges the little piece of Sans in. Forcibly bonding the two in a way no one else understands. It's not like a mated bond kinda thing. It's a connection akin to siblings on the same wavelength.

This finally wakes Sans up. The whole time he was stuck in a dream with the new voices in his head. They're all super unhappy and they all want to use Sans to get back at Gaster. The sudden added weight of Alphys' fear and anxiety gets him on his feet. Alphys can feel the terror and confusion from Sans. She can't feel the others, just him. Gaster f*cks about with her soul and essentially her DNA. She's got arms now. They're painful and new. She hates them. Gaster did what he set out to do that day and tosses Alphys back in with Sans. Mostly to see what happens.

Sans is on his feet, but he's lost and with so many trying to fight for control right now, he's basically stuck where he stands. He wants to move to comfort Alphys, his friend is crying and needs comfort. The way she comforted him every day. Every voice in his head is screaming to attack. But he doesn't. He's stronger than them. It's his body dang it. Comfort that crying lizard. It's like a mutual thing. She feels better, so now he does. Gasters happy. Alphys can still be used as a safety shield then. He lets them rest. The coming years have a lot in store.

Honestly he lets them rest for a few days. But when he thinks they've had enough, barges in. At this point Sans is halfway to his Meltdown form. A form that has never been posted or ever mentioned. So don't go looking. I might post art of old concepts if enough people are curious. Teeth growing out of his head, fur and slime showing up all over his body. He's beautiful to Gaster. It worked perfectly. Keep in mind a lot of ideas for SOULs I made on my own. SOULs would kind of be like their whole genetic code, but you can easily alter it if you know how. Which is what he was testing on Alphys for.

Alphys sprouted feathers where her spikes used to be down the back of her head. Sans is now considered a Boss monster and Alphys a significantly stronger monster.

Sans has the strength to pull out of Gasters grip. Which gets him chained up. Which is how he got the scars on his wrists and ankles. Sans can't really do much besides pull away or mutter. Too much noise in his head. He can barely walk and is basically dragged. Alphys is trying her best to break out of Gasters grip because she has no idea what the plan is. But she knows it's not going to be good. Both her and Sans are different now. She's terrified. Sans just kinda stops and this causes Gaster to basically trip and nearly fall. Loses his grip for less than a second and Alphys tries to take off. Gets her new much longer tall grabbed. Scars from that.

Yay finally testing room. Seat them both in separate halves of the room. They can see one another, but can't hear the other or get to them. Answer some basic questions. How are you feeling and sh*t like that. Alphys is currently mortified and can't speak. Sans just can't speak. He can't even focus on anything. The person asking the questions is told to be ruder, ask more invasive questions. Things to rile up either of them. Nothing. "What would your parents think of you now?" Alphys starts crying. Gaster is testing for something specific right now.

"Do you think they would recognize you?" Crying harder. "What do you think your little brother would say?" Now she's mad. Looks through the mirrored glass and tells Gaster to leave him out of this. Ranting. Years of pent up anger and frustration. Guards are coming in as she threatens the scientists and guards with her chair. Sans starts purring and chattering on his side. The panic is evident on what remains of his face. Alphys calms down out of her rant as Sans continues to calm himself. Gaster is mentally fist bumping himself. Perfect SOUL bond.

"They're both calm. Go back in and do what you have to, to get number five to break containment." Guards go back in and well. Sorry Alphys. Few more scars and another beat down.

Sans is pretty quick to get up. Easily nudging his scientist down out of his way. He realizes he can't break the glass or break the wall with physical attacks. But magic. He got that good burn in his gut and zoop. He's got the ability to teleport now. Not what he was aiming for but it works. Gaster is so excited he might just do a little dance.

Easily knock the guards out of the way and hiss at them. Then comfort friend. Gather her into his arms and scooch into a corner where no one can touch her. Gaster is pleased with the results found, but he wants to do some physical testing with J-5. Instead of like, asking him to come along, Gaster goes the harder route. Uses a hook he's used before to move experiments. Hook it on their mouth and pull them along. Well. J-5 is a little...soft inside right now. The hook slides through the roof of his mouth and just knocks right through his right lateral incisor. Which is how Bomber lost that tooth :) also why he's not keen on it being touched. It still hurts him a lot.

To the absolute horror of everyone in the room, including Gaster. J-5 starts bleeding. Blood just pouring from his mouth. Everyone is a gangster until a magic monster starts bleeding red blood. No one wants to touch him or the blood. Gaster basically grabs the broken tooth and acts like he didn't just internally scream. "Recontain them. Quarantine J-five. Decontaminate J-six and quarantine it as well."

Gaster does some testing and yeah, the blood is human and Sans' bone is partially human. So now he can survive at least some physical attacks from a human. Which funny enough. One just fell the other day. ((This Human has no name, and isn't important outside of the thing coming up)) The Guards are having issues locating the Human as they seemingly "vanished". Gaster literally just stood outside of Toriel's door and waited till it closed to grab them before the guards got there.

Sans is just tied to a bed. Chilling. Left alone with the new guys in his head. They want to dust everyone. They just keep chanting at him to kill. Kid is thirteen. He doesn't know what to do here. Maybe he should do as they're saying. Human in his head is like "dude. f*ck those guys. If you wanted to kill everyone you'd have done it. Just hang tight. We're all in this together now whether we wanted to be or not. We'll get out of this." Thanks dead human lady :D

Others don't listen. They're J-1,2,3,4. They've all lost it. They over power Sans internally and now he enters Meltdown mode. Full Meltdown. So he's an abomination of parts and teeth. He's f*cking strong. I mean, come on. Scientists had him held down with some cheap rope. Should be happy it held him down as long as it did.

Meltdown can't walk to save their lives. So they crawl. Large sticky arms that drag the dead weight of the legs and tail. Someone is trying to figure out how to leg while everyone else focuses on crawling to the door. Legs are moving. They use the door as leverage to help them up to their feet. Wobbly but they can move and attack efficiently.

First scientist spotted is blindsided. Meltdown crashes through them and immediately dusts them upon contact. Some others see this and the laboratory enters shut down. Gaster is alerted. Meltdown has killed a few more and is shambling around trying to find more to kill. There are thick plates going up their back. The ones near the tail are glowing purple. It's slowly traveling up their back through the spikes. I'm sorry but the effect looked really good in the most recent Godzilla movie.

Gaster finds and corners them when the glow is at the base of their neck. He immediately recognizes this is going to be bad and ducks out of the hall. Glow is all the way up and a purple laser beam shoots down the hall where Gaster had been standing. It hits a few people further down the hall and kills them. Melts through the metal at the end of the hall. This attack tires Meltdown out and brings Sans back to pilot his own body.

After that incident Sans is muzzled, chained, and monitored at all times. He's kept sedated until Gaster needs him. Like literally the day after the incident he throws Sans into a cage with the Human they had nabbed. Gaster tells the Human if they want to live, they have to fight the abomination in front of them. Sans tries to convey that he doesn't want to fight, but you know how people can be. Hits Sans pretty good in the head with a metal bar. The attack incites Meltdown. Which leads to a big laser beam, a very dead Human, and very shattered SOUL.

Three years later, Sans is 16, and is basically stuck in the back seat of his own body. The other four have had the controls basically since the Human test subject. Gaster just wakes Meltdown up to test the laser, and take some notes. Then knocks them out again. Notes have been used to make the Gaster Blasters. They're not ready to be used. Get to that in a minute.

While Meltdown is unconscious, Gaster has been teaching Alphys her duties. She's basically there to make sure Meltdown doesn't have another, well, meltdown. There to offer energy and help if needed. There to keep the beast under control. She can be replaced is what he always told her. Reality is, she couldn't have been, because any more chunks of SOUL taken from Sans would have killed him.

With Alphys finally brainwashed, she had no moral support the last three years, he moves onto Meltdown. Alphys is the only person Meltdown will listen to and the only one they will not attack on site. She can easily get them in and out of testing chambers. Get them to cooperate and not hurt anyone. To Gaster they're almost ready. He just needs to finish up his weapons.

Next three years, both are 19, and are a lot calmer. With the both of them listening and cooperating at all times, Gaster is able to focus on his Gaster Blasters. He's got an ego. It took the past three years to build the shells and make sure the laser function worked. Once he was ready he did a test. Added what remained of J-2's SOUL to the machine. It worked, J-2 was within the Balster, and was awaiting commands. Perfect. But they didn't listen to Gaster. Instead stared at him until he gave up. Muzzled the massive skull and went to find Alphys.

The skull acknowledged her, but wouldn't respond to her commands. J-2 doesn't acknowledge or respond to Meltdown. It's highly annoying to Gaster as part of who is controlling Meltdown is literally in the Blaster. J-2 won't acknowledge anyone in the laboratory. Even tried a few civilians under the guise of it being to open the barrier. Nothing. King? Nope. His guards? Nada. Gives up for now. He has to do something else. These Blasters were supposed to be his weapons of mass destruction, but they listen to no one.

Except for when one little badger skeleton walks in. He heard about the big skull and he wanted to see what the fuss was about. Says his name is Papyrus, who is 17. J-2 responds to the name and acknowledges Papyrus. Doesn't listen to him, but it's something.

Gaster is very friendly with Papyrus. Trying a different tactic. J-2 follows Papyrus around, sniffing him, but still won't listen to him. Gaster decides to ask around. Having two little animal skeletons can't be just a coincidence. Asks around, and no one knows where they came from, and a lot of people have just been taking care of Papyrus when Sans went missing. Papyrus is treated like a guest not an experiment. Even helps Gaster produce three more Gaster Blasters.

Gaster takes a few more months to figure out that maybe he needs Sans, not Meltdown. Tries a kind tactic to help Sans become himself again. Both physically and mentally. Doesn't work real well. Sans has been just existing for the last 3 years. He's not strong enough to fight the other 4. Gaster figures maybe they want some revenge. Some dust. Gathers up some poor monsters and throws masks on them that match his own. Let's Meltdown loose. *jazz hands* lots of innocent monsters die in a pretty bad way. But Meltdown calms downs a lot after.

A lot of the extra monster bits melt back down and Sans looks like a human skeleton now. He's kept the sharp teeth, little tail and claws. Sans doesn't remember how to walk or talk anymore. It takes a few weeks to get him to walk again, and a lot more to talk normally. Alphys is very happy to see him and helps out where she can. She can feel that Sans is just playing along with what Gaster wants, waiting for his moment. She says nothing to Gaster.

Sans is very very unhappy when he finds out about Papyrus being there now too. Gaster of course has been very kind to Papyrus. Which helps keep Sans calmer. But now he really wants out. Gaster tries out the Blasters with Sans.

The Blasters listened to him. They did everything he asked. Gaster isn't an idiot, he's in a different part of the lab, and Sans is down in the CORE. It takes a few weeks, but Sans can control the Blasters almost perfectly. Power cuts out because another Human has fallen. Gaster of course books it down into the CORE. Bad move.

Sans is ready for him and ambushes him. Shoves Gaster to the edge of the magma, but he manages to save himself from falling. All the skulls are pointed at Gaster. Gaster taunts Sans and tells him he never had it in him to kill someone. It was never him who hurt anyone. He's too weak to finish this now. Well. Sans has had a lot of time, he has no issue shoving Gaster into the CORE. Gaster's claws just hit Sans' right cheek as he falls. Earning him his other facial scars. Very sensitive ones that hurt on cold days.

Gaster fell right as the human did. It f*cked with the code of the world. Gaster couldn't actually die. He's stuck in a forever melting loop. His hostility and actual monstrous form infected the code of the world. Everyone gets much bigger, much more edgy, and a whole lot more aggressive. Gaster is forgotten and the history of the world has changed. Since Sans was the one there the whole time, he forgot nothing.

Sans wakes up in Snowdin. Wearing a sweater he's never seen and pants he didn't like. He tries to find Alphys. He's terrified. She can tell and makes her way to Snowdin. He asks what's going on and she's very confused. Walks him back to the lab. It looks nothing like it just did for him. It looked so small from the outside. Inside was so tiny. There was nothing there but some robot parts.

He has a breakdown and Alphys hugs him close. When he's feeling better he explains what's going on. She stares at him for a few minutes just blankly. Her eyes saying she's reliving everything, but eventually she smiles at him and says she doesn't know what he's talking about. She can't explain her scars. What are you talking about, she's always had her arms. She offers for him to stay the night and have dinner with her. To see if he feels better in the morning.

Mettaton comes by. He's a super early model and has a few issues. Mettaton is offended Sans is there, but ignores him to whine to Alphys. Sans mumbles out what Alphys can fix to make the weight lessened. Everyone is surprised. Sans most of all. He's literally never worked in robotics. Mettaton laughs because everyone knows Sans is a lazy f*cker. No way he does robotics. Alphys shoos Mettaton away.

For the first time since he first ended up in the lab. He cried. Cried for all the years he was stuck inside his head as a passenger. Cried for everything that happened. Cried because he doesn't know where he is. Almost doesn't even know who he is. Alphys held him tightly the whole time. She doesn't know what's going on. He's never had a fit like this before. Small ones, but never this bad.

He ends up crying himself to sleep and Alphys makes him some food for when he wakes up. Checks his numbers while he sleeps. Yeah, what he said could actually lessen the weight a lot. Crazy dude.

To Alphys this is strange. Sans was his normal hostile and idiot self yesterday. Today he's intelligent and an emotional mess. She can't explain it, and just leaves it how it is. Reality is that Gaster is chilling behind her muttering things she can't hear out loud so she thinks a certain way.

He stays a few days until Papyrus comes and finds him. Sans doesn't feel much for Papyrus as for Sans, it's been years since he saw Papyrus. It's only been a few days for the tall now human looking skeleton.

Sans starts to realize over a few weeks that some days and moments seem to repeat. But he's still fine the whole time. Papyrus doing the same exact thing every morning. The people of Snowdin doing the same thing. He doesn't think anything of it until a big f*cking plant attacks Snowdin, killing everyone but him. He manages to keep the roots away with a stick when a little sh*tty flower pops out.

"Who in the sandy f*ck are you?" Flowey isn't super happy because everything is supposed to always be the same. There is no way in heck this guy has ever once been outside of his house during this attack. Flowey knows something is wrong. This guy isn't normal. Even when the world is paused, this skeleton is moving away from him. Time to f*ck with him.

Sans ends up dying a lot to Flowey over the next few months, which is just the same week on loop. Until Sans figures out, well sh*t. This guy has time powers or something. He's also had enough. He can't watch his friends die anymore. He has to teach this little brat that he's not the only one who can do neat tricks. Flowey pops up to greet him only to get laser blasted and the world resets back to the start of the week. Sans starts keeping a journal after that. Things he notices, things that don't change, things that do. Also starts seeing just how powerful he is. He's got plenty of time as Flowey keeps away from him now and is messing about with someone else now.

Sans figures out he can teleport on accident. He trips and accidentally teleports to the waterfall area. He thinks it's activated by severe panic. Until he starts experimenting a bit and realizes he can activate it whenever. First time was when he encounters the void. The dark space between areas. The stink of wet earth and whatever else I said the void smelled like. That's the first time he sees Gaster again. But the guy is now a pile of goop with a mask melted to it.

Gaster has nothing worry to say. So he just watches. Then in his left eye hole is a bunch of tiny eyes that open to stare. Which scared the ever loving sh*t out of Sans. More Gasters appear in the void over time and he starts seeing different versions of himself. He tried talking to one once, but the Gasters started shrieking. He doesn't stay too long in the void space after that.

Sans finds out about his gravity powers on accident as well. Papyrus falls and Sans tries to catch him, but misses. His power activates obviously. Papyrus is confused but also super excited because yoU CAN DO THAT TOO?! Papyrus teaches Sans how to properly use the ability. Sans finds out through this that Papyrus has anomalous abilities as well. Papyrus is able to defy gravity entirely and walk on air. But the biggest punch to the gut is that Papyrus can summon and use the Gaster Blasters. He doesn't like to because they're so devastating, but he will if he absolutely has to. Papyrus has no soul damage at all, so he just befriended the Blasters so they come to his aide.

Sans is unable to defy gravity as Papyrus does, but he can float just a bit. It tires him out pretty quickly. He finds that a lot of things do. Sleeps a lot of days. Finds out the hard way that he only has 1 HP left after everything that's happened to him.

Sans has been living for five years in this crazy loop thing. But it's only been 2 years in reality. He's 20 now. Going to be 21 soon. But he's tired. Broken down to the skeleton we know. He's got no fight left in him. Flowey is bored of him and bored of everything, so he finally let's time move normally.

It's September 15th and a human has just fallen. Word spreads pretty quickly. Sans is curious. He wants to meet this one. Mostly because he's never seen Flowey panic before. He wants to go inside the old ruins, but he's never met Toriel and from his understanding it's her home. It would be weird.

So he just hangs out in some trees outside the door, waiting. He finds out that his sense of smell is crazy strong pretty early on, but he didn't know he could smell humans so strongly. He recognized another scent on the human before they even made it to the door. Dust. This human had killed monsters on their way here. Now he's worried.

This human seems off somehow. Like they're not in control of themselves. He accidentally falls out of the tree making a fair bit of noise. Now he feels like he has to introduce himself because they're 100% staring at him rn.

He's super friendly and tries to be nice. But this kid is weird. Stares through him and doesn't take his offer at a hand shake. He sees them pull out a knife and easily dodges the attack. In a panic he attacks back. Which yeah. That early on a Blaster shot would kill Frisk.

He's reset to his home. It's the same moment from when the Human fell. Which it doesn't take much for him to figure out the kid has the time powers now.

And after a few attempted Genocide runs, a few attempted Passive runs, Frisk finally does the good ending correctly. Sans is pretty friendly through the whole thing as he doesn't fully grasp that Frisk can reset to the starting point whenever they want. Flowey only did week or month loops. Frisk does years. He can't remember exact things like he could in Flowey's days. He can only remember ideas and some people. He writes a lot of things down after that. Important information. Dangerous people and things like that.

He's happy and everything's fine until he wakes up standing on his porch in Snowdin one day. Frisk is doing a Genocide run and that's when Sans learns that there's nothing he can do. So he gets into a routine. Figures out how each possible ending goes. Sticks to a script. Gets a lot more aggressive and starts to lack empathy with each passing run.

Until he meets you on an off chance in a good run. It's random locations. Never the same. But something about you always draws him. Like you're something that can make him happy again. He's not excited about it though. It won't last. Frisk will just take it from him one day. Yet he still runs into you every good run somehow. He does get excited for good runs after a time just because he wants to see you.

And that's essentially the story I wanted to tell. The messy slapped down quick version anyhow. It's confusing sorry, but ahhhhhhhhh.

FUN FACTS (Aka I ramble about sh*t that is not actually fun)

Unorganized because that's my life.

The monsters that become J-1, J-2, J-3, and J-4 I'm aware I said this up top just hush do not have names or personalities. They have designs made up, but they weren't ever properly introduced literally at any point. GG me. Honestly at this point they're just aggressive blobs anyhow so….

So all the Beasttale's I saw in the tag have the Gaster Blaster heads. An now I know none of you care, but I'm telling you anyways on why I personally didn't do it. Keep in mind my Beasttale was created a few months after Undertale came out. At the time, there were no Gaster Blaster head AUs or if there were, they weren't popular yet or I didn't know about them. Bomberboy was originally a bara Sans. Which is why he was never beasty looking outside of the claws, teeth, and tail. Plus this bit*h couldn't draw animal heads at the time. For me now it seems like a cop out. Slap an animal head on and bam. It's a beast. That's no fun. For me it seems lazy but I understand why with beast in the name. I personally like the idea of beast being a more metaphorical thing.

Bombers design came about in an art trade. I didn't like the idea of just scaling Sans up to make a bara version, so I made my own. Used the design until I figured out his name and an arbitrary AU name to slap on him. At the time Beasttale was nothing more than a place to stick my own bara Sans. People started asking about him and the others, and so it expanded from there :’)

Bomberboy got his name from an unused AU idea I had about planes. Don't talk about it. He got his name from a bomber jacket...anyways I dropped the AU in favor of drawing large monsters. Bara Sans was popular at the time which is how I started.

I have literally no memory of why he was ever drawn with scars. I think to make him more intense maybe? Idk??? Either way they spawned the story I was aiming for but never got to.

The g*re/hard v*re aspect was never originally intended. I posted art saying something like ‘you have a 50/50 chance of dying when f*cking him’. I honestly don't remember why I added that comment, but either way everyone immediately hit me with that ‘OwO what's this?’ and it went downhill from there.

I never meant for Bomber to be as violent as he got. Again it kinda went downhill really f*cking fast. It'd be something that if I made him right now, I'd have scaled back on. I just wanted him to be an a*shole and he shot past that marker 😂 I did however make sure he was never r*pey, or physically abusive. He was a horny boy, but never super forceful. He was however mentally manipulative as at the time I had a lot going on. He's gross and he was designed that way.

There was a Glitchboy, who would be a BeastBoy of Error. His design was finished, and I fully intended on introducing him, but by the time I was going to, I found I didn't really care for the original, which made it hard to love my version. I think I was just going to do it to show how the power works in my Beast AUs. Which is why I was never attached. First to last created is how it works. First being strongest, last being weakest. Cherryboy (Beastfell), Bomberboy (Beasttale), Hotboi (Beastlust), Canine (Beastswap) and Loverboy (Horrorbeast) ((Canine and Lover were made too close together for me or Sil to remember who came first, so they are tied for power)), and finally Towelboy (Dancebeast).

I liked Alphys, and the idea of her and Sans being friends. Which is why she is featured heavily in the ideas for the AU, and why I've drawn the two together so often

Bombers distaste for other AUs comes from me. Some AUs I take a liking to, but after seeing some content I don’t really agree with coming out of most AUs, I kinda dipped on them. Which is why he can tolerate Beast versions, but not their normal OG counterparts.

I had started a comic for the origins of Bomber and Alphys, but if you’ve been here a while, you know I’m f*cking lazy when it comes to my art >:'D

At some point there were like, ancient versions of the main crew. They were Gasters friends and upon their death he turned them into Alphys, Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne. The idea was scrapped and the designs were reused for Beastswapfell.

Speaking of which. Beastswapfell was always intended to be an unstable weird AU. The regular fellswap or swapfell never appealed to me. Plus cross too many AUs and things get unfocused.

Frisk always in any Beast AU has red eyes and Chara has brown. Why? The one time we see Chara up close, they have brown eyes. When Frisk opens their eyes in the bad version of the good end, they have red eyes. I know it's to show them being evil or whatever. But it's more fun to imagine them always having red eyes

It annoys me to no end that Sans got the cool beast thing going but no one else did. But, no one came to me for a beasty Alphys or Toriel did they. We're all here for the chunky skeleton. It's actually why I had to create a reason for Sans being how he is. He's the only one like himself. Which wasn't the original plan, but by the time the heat form rolled around, I had so many different designs for so many different characters that I wasn't about to do that to myself…

A lot of stuff was created while listening to Lauren Bousfield and Andrew Jackson Jihad (AJJ for the newer fans). So like. Yeah.

Sans and Papyrus would have been animal skeletons as kids. Sans a cat and Papyrus a badger. Magic just kinda, gave some skeletons life. This plotline was scrapped forever ago. I don't remember why.

Bomber doesn't drink ketchup. He did it to f*ck with Frisk. Across multiple timelines because he's f*cking bored.

I made it canon at one point that Bomber can snap and will kill everyone before Frisk does if certain requirements are met. His fight is unbeatable then. He's LOVE 20. Frisk is 0. Fight doesn't go well.

The boys heat forms all vary because drawing 6 giant pointy skeletons is f*cking boring. Go big or go home.

Canine when in heat would have sounded like OG King Ghidorah. Love me some f*cking BIDIDIDIDI

When Sans or Papyrus die, the Gaster Blaster eye that correlates to them, will have an X in it. When looking directly at the Blasters, Gasters eye is in the center, Sans on the left, and Papyrus on the right. Gaster's eye has a pointy oval shape with a dot in the center at all times.

Monsters in this AU are incredibly lightweight. Sans would weigh all of 50 pounds. Monsters are made of magic, which has little weight. They have to eat physical things to gain some mass. Before the underground the monsters ate humans as a retaliation and because humans contained magic nutrition and physical nutrition. Older monsters still have cravings, but almost all current Monsters don't have any interest in humans for food. Sans is just ravenous and always hungry. He won't go out of his way to eat a human, but if the opportunity presents itself well...yeah.

Papyrus can and will use the Gaster Blasters if Frisk does at least three genocide runs in a row. He doesn't know why, but he just knows he has to stop them before they hit him. So he lasers their a*s the second they enter his fight. Beasttale has unfair moves in the fights 😂

The world can glitch and you are able to fall down at the same time as Frisk. Because of plot, you override Frisk and their abilities. Which forces them to tag along you and your choices. Bomber is always hurt seeing you coming out of the ruins with dust on your pants. You don't encounter him until you're at the castle if you hurt Monsters on your way. No dust means he basically glued himself to your side. Partly to keep an eye on you, partly to get close to you.

Bomber and Frisk have a rocky relationship. He knows they've done bad sh*t, but he can never remember what. This distrust can be overridden with a few good runs in a row. He forgets. Or acts like he does. He's got his journal. Says on one page that Frisk aggressively ran in circles until Monsters checked to see if they were okay. Only to be attacked by Frisk.

The picture in that you can find in the game doesn't have whatever the speculation was. I think people thought it was the good end picture that Sans has. For Beasttale it's the four monsters that now reside in Sans, posing with Gaster. They're happy. Don't know what they're about to go through. There's an old picture on my blog somewhere that looks like this, but the picture isn't canon anymore as it has Sans and Papyrus. It follows a different plot point that was scrapped shortly after the art was made.

Less of a fun fact and more of a flex. I never got any hate or flak for my choices with my AUs. Which I mean, is super surprising. Seriously. Not once was I sent a hateful message in my whole time of having this blog. I feel like that says something about my followers then and now. So thank you for suffering through my AU with me 💕 I'm sure after reading this whole thing you'll feel like you wasted your time and you're welcome. I'm glad I can still waste people's time 😂

You know who's cute? The girl I forced to beta read this 👀

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stevefusedineen-blog · 5 years

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A colleague of mine, who was a group HR director of a global 500, was asked by his CEO 15 years ago, a simple series of questions. How much are we spending on training? Where is it working and where is it not? Where should we be spending less and where should we be spending more? Curious as to what the answer was, I asked and he responded, “Honestly I have no idea”. After lots of "Big 4 Consulting" he managed to finally arrive at somewhat of an answer. They were spending around £100m on this training, but he still had no way to measure what was having an impact and what wasn’t, and had only been given instinctive recommendations on where to better apply that £100 million. Today, I think if the current CEO of this global 500 asked the same question to his HR director or Chief Learning Officer, he would still get the same answer. Crazy that this is likely the last area of big business that spends this much, yet can’t provide a measurable value answer back to the CEO.

Fifteen years ago Marketing would have been equally as fluffy, but not today. New marketing automation software, new mindsets, skillsets and a laser focus on KPI and business value has made marketing today completely different. When I recently interviewed for Fuse Universal’s Marketing Leader, like most CEOs, I filtered out anyone that wasn’t able to give concrete examples of campaigns that they had led, which weren’t able to describe measurable business value. This is a minimum criteria to prove that a Marketing Leader has moved their mindset into the modern age of marketing, where having a data DNA, is as important as their creativity.

Gone are the days where a marketing leader would say “We assume it’s working or people feel good about it afterwards”, which crazily enough I still hear from Learning Leaders. Kirsty (our new Marketing Leader), like any good Marketing Leader, defines her campaigns and chooses the marketing weapons to deploy, based on which ones are most likely to achieve the KPI that campaign is focused on. Be it a number of sales qualified leads or top of the funnel new contacts. The mindset, skillset and toolset of a modern marketing professional today compared to 15 years ago is radically different but if you look at the world of L&D – not a huge amount has changed, but just as digital disruption came in the form of Fintech & Martech, next-generation learning tech is enabling modern thinkers and practioners, like TJ at Merck and Peter Stone at Catalyst to spearhead the same level of digital disruption that we have seen across almost every other industry. L&D may have been late to the digital disruption party, but we are now well and truly on the guest list.

One of the problems that digital disruption is going to solve, has been something many of us have kept as a quiet secret up until recently, and that is there is a whole lot of corporate training out there that offers almost zero business value. Worse is that we have hidden behind an untruth for a long time that “You can’t measure the impact of learning and training”. This may have been a historical truth as it was historically for marketing, but it is no longer true today. Now that access to rich data and rich data tools allows us to measure people performance, it is revealing the bigger more scary truth that corporate training is rarely designed for business value and often when it happens, it happens by chance and not by design.

...A small idea that changes everything; design backward from business outcomes not forward from learning outcomes

There is one way to make sure that the impact of a learning design will be far higher. By doing just one small but significant thing, we can change corporate learning forever. Our friend Rachel Hutchinson and her team at Hilti are doing just this, by “Deciding on the problem they are solving, being clear on the outcome and business impact they are going to measure, and most importantly being crystal clear on exactly how the measurement of business value will be achieved before any learning design is even considered." If the business asks for 2 courses on x or y and you accept, then it’s too late. Measurement of business value must come before learning design, as it impacts every decision on learning design thereafter.

In the case of Hilti, Rachel and her team hypothesis the impact that they believe they can make by looking at descriptive and predictive analytics, in order to forecast the delta of difference, a learning experience can make on every learning experience. If they conclude they can’t make a difference, then come to the conclusion that they don’t do it.

This one simple idea of designing backward from the business outcome rather than forwards from the learning outcome, will change everything in the learning design, because every choice becomes about shifting that performance dial, and anything else is secondary. In that secondary bucket includes traditional learning thinking and instructional design techniques, because they are all learning output focused, not business outcome focused. It’s time to blow them up and start again. If you do design learning that is actually designed with a business outcome in mind, it will allow learning professionals to talk the language of the CEO/business, and transition their transformation from someone you go to ask for a course, towards being strategic business partners that can directly help improve the performance of your team and company.

So how can learning be measured for business impact? The answer is in a multitude of ways. Here is one example: almost every role in every company has performance metrics – Sales may be the most obvious, but Marketing have theirs as do service agents, and within every company, there are high performers and average performers. If you map the behaviors, skills, and knowledge of the best people and design a learning experience that shifts the median upwards toward the best people, then the delta of difference is measurable, and the impact is measurable. In Sales this measurement may be conversion rates; for developers, it may quality of code, documentation and velocity. The key is to correlate learning data and performance data to prove the value that the learning is having.

A common excuse of learning professionals to avoid this new reality that our profession can be measured is to say by there are so many other variables that its impossible to say it was the learning that made the difference. A relatively quick way to prove it was your design and your hypothesis was right is A/B testing e.g run the learning experience the old way for a segment of the business and the new way for the other. It’s a popular marketing technique and provides a quick way to get data and move the myth that learning can’t be measured for impact. Its also a great way to get feedback quickly and iterate continuously.

A more advanced technique is working with the internal performance team to understand the variables and account for them. As an example, we did some work with University College London and Carpetright to test the hypothesis that bottling the greatness of the best people on selling one key product and giving that understanding would have around 10% positive impact on revenue. UCL looked at 3 years of Carpetright's performance data to understand variables such as seasonality and it showed as around 13%, not accounting for 5% seasonality, which was a useful start!

The data also hinted that simply doing a one-off event and not using follow up techniques such as social learning and performance coaching (which they are now turning on), meant the performance curve almost mimicked the forgetting curve. By asking the question of "How can this improve the business outcome?," the team at Carpetright are evolving the learning experience with performance coaching and social learning and they are measuring the impact.

Rachel and her team initial challenge, at Hilti, was how to bring down “time to competence” for new sales starters from 12 months to 6 months and the measurement they decided to use was "time to payback" eg the cost of salary, development, travel etc. They made the initial hypothesis that through the use of modern learning technology, micro-content, role-playing face to face and the team they had they could achieve this 6 months saving. This they did but after their initial success (because they were focused on business outcomes not learning outputs), they challenged themselves again with the question of “What would we change to shift that metric from 6 months to 3 months? It’s a great question and exactly why the business outcome vs learning output creates the right mindset to ask that question.

After some discussion they decided that helping their face to face trainers become more digitally savvy, may help reduce the time again as their trainers would transform from only using traditional classroom techniques to becoming more socially and digitally aware. This would enable them to be able to mentor new starters before their first face to face classroom session, giving them feedback on demo pitches they had recorded and uploaded to the platform. And it worked bringing the time down to almost 3 months!

Thinking backwards from the business problem, defining the outcome and using data & analytics, will radically change the learning experience design and allows a mature conversation with the business, that is no longer about how many courses they want for how many people but what problem can we solve, what outcomes are possible and what is the business willing to commit to together for. It may be a little uncomfortable at first, as is all change - but for those on the other side, they will never go back to the old ways.

Like Rachel, Siri Wikander and her team at Scandic, partnered with Sonja Prest and her team at Atom, came to the realisation that social learning technology could be used to enhance a daily learning culture, which would assist in people engagement and staff attraction. They would benefit hugely if the 20,000 colleagues in Scandic hotels were recommending friends to work in their hotels. They are now 18 months in and the data says the hypothesis holds true and with every hypothesis, the next one gets easier, as you have more historic data to predict the future with.

As Charles Jennings said in his recent video “We need to move from course takers to value makers.” Designing backwards from the goal, rather than asking how do we prove value after we designed a course, is the beginning of new world of measurable business value and L&D moving from the corner room to strategic partner.

More and more learning professionals are now switching their thinking from reactively building the courses they are asked to by the business and instead searching for business problems they can solve. They are learning continuously on what do more of, what to do less of and what value they are receiving from the budgets they get. Flipping the thinking of measurement from after to before seems small but it’s an idea that fundamentally changes everything in the learning design and makes traditional instructional design redundant as a whole new mindset for design takes over, which I'll cover in the next article (if you got this far :)

For those who are about to move from learning outputs to business outcomes for the first time, you will never think about designing learning in the same way again. Blue pill or red pill ?

Would you like to hear more?

Get in touch [email protected]

Or register to the Hilti webinar: " Can You Prove the Value of Your L&D Department?" With Rachel Hutchinson from Hilti & Don Taylor - https://fuseuniversal.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PsmpKkGPRiWhHe2dwqKCXw

#learning roi #social learning #corporatetraining

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uzumaki-rebellion · 6 years

Text

Black Boys Bloom Thorns First Chapter 20

"When my love comes down, I don't have to run around

I've got you and you know just what to do

to fulfill all my needs and satisfy me

But I'd like to know if the sexual healing is mutual,

do you feel what I'm feeling?

Do I please you? Do I fill the need? I know I might sound bold,

but I'd just like to know

Is it good to you? I want to know

Is it good to you? Oooh, I got to know, yeah

Is it good to you? C'mon and tell me, boy, yeah

Is it good to you?"

Tammy Lucas – "Is it Good to You?"

Damn near shit-faced.

That's how N'Jobu felt sitting around the V.I.P. table with his friends. Drinks flowed, the music was out of control, and it felt so good to curse with Birnin Zana slang without having to check himself. He had known these guys since he was six years old. They were loyal, discreet, and fucking funny as hell.

Once N'Jobu caught up with the current happenings in and around Birnin Zana, and who was screwing who on the down low and in public, the conversation took a turn when he discovered that it was Jax going through the pregnancy scandal with the newly divorced socialite and River Tribe noblewoman.

Tossing back more plum liquor shots, N'Jobu heard the sordid tale straight from the jackass's mouth.

"Like, damn, Jax. Why the hell didn't you use protection? Ngqundu wako!" N'Jobu scolded.

"I'm an ass? Masende kayihlo!" Jax cursed back grabbing at his balls to insult N'Jobu.

"Eh, my father's balls? Nyo kanyoko!" N'Jobu shot back using his fingers to tap his tongue as a counter insult towards Jax's mother's private parts.

The other guys laughed and balled their fists up to their mouths at the bickering of two best friends.

"She said she had it covered. What can I say? I was doing it and thinking she would handle all of that. She's a noble. Those women should know better. Plus, she just got divorced. Ikaka, it might be her ex-husband's," Jax said.

"She keeping it?" N'Jobu asked.

"She can't."

"What if she does? What are you going to do?"

Jax sipped on a bottle of beer.

"She's not having it. I'll make sure she doesn't."

"She can get a DNA test you know," N'Jobu said.

"Not my problem. Plus, I hear her ex wants her back."

"Man, still…wouldn't you want to know if the child is yours? I mean if she keeps it, and it's yours, won't your families want legitimacy?"

"Ohhh, noooo, don't try to put that marriage yoke around my neck. You're the guy that has to get tied down for King and country! Filial obedience!" Jax hollered, slapping N'Jobu on his back.

N'Jobu only stared at Jax in disbelief.

"How many of your choices came to that dinner tonight?" Jax asked.

"We are talking about you, not me."

"Let's stop talking about him. I don't think she's pregnant anyway. I saw pictures of her drinking here last week for a birthday party. Pregnant women don't drink," said Odwa, His twin brother Paki was nodding his head.

"I saw those pictures too. She's playing you Jax," Paki said.

A popular song blasted the conversation and Jax jumped up shaking his hips, his thin twisted locs bouncing around his head.

"This is our cue, gentlemen. Our Prince has returned from fucking American women…don't roll your eyes at me N'Jobu, we know you! Odwa, look at his face, he's sitting here trying to act like he's been a good schoolboy in America."

"I know your comm tab has been blowing up since you got home. Who has been calling you to split them open before you go back, eh?" Paki said.

"Let's go dance, this is the song!" Their friend Chisulo said, dropping his body low and twisting his feet to the massive bass rumbling throughout the club.

Sekani, N'Jobu's third cousin on his mother's side took a long drag from a bottle of peach vodka. He wiped his mouth after drinking and stared at N'Jobu, his bald head shiny under the club lights. "Cousin, let's go," he said.

N'Jobu stood up and followed them as they walked past several elite sections. As N'Jobu sauntered through, he felt eager eyes on him and saw people giving head nods out of respect for his presence. Before they reached the stairs, he had to stop and use the restroom.

"I'll meet you guys down there," he said.

His Dora Milaje were discreet, but still watching his movements closely.

After relieving himself in the restroom, N'Jobu circled around towards the stairs.

"Prince N'Jobu!"

N'Jobu's head snapped to his right and he saw Zinzi and a group of women sitting in their own section. He recognized several of the women, their parents had eaten with him at the palace earlier.

Zinzi wore white skin-tight pants and a white leather corset top that showed off her ample bosom. N'Jobu didn't feel any shame when he let his eyes dip low to check out her breasts. She wasn't shy about showing them off. Oba Oba's was the place to see and be seen. She caught his reckless eye-balling and smiled.

"Zinzi," he said, stepping to her. He reached for her hand and kissed it. The women with her watched him with fierce sparkling eyes.

"Hello Ladies, you all look amazing," he said, acknowledging them. The one sitting closest to him, a pretty woman with dimples and a baby afro who he didn't recognize, kept biting her lip as she gazed at him.

"How come you didn't come over to my section?" he asked, placing his hand over his heart and pretending to look offended.

"You looked like you were in deep conversation with your friends. I didn't want to disturb your reunion."

"You disturb me? Never! Come, dance with me," he said, clasping her hand in his. He felt her fingers squeeze his a little. Her friends looked gobsmacked by how familiar he was acting with Zinzi, his informal Wakandan inflections scandalous to their ears. She did ask him to be seen with her so that the gossip could get back to her lover.

"Sure, your Highness," she said.

"Ladies, excuse us please," he said.

He led Zinzi down the stairs and through a boisterous crowd of dancers. They both could feel more covetous eyes on them. Zinzi's fingers felt warm and smooth interlaced with his, quite comfortable in fact.

He could see his boys throwing down already with women who were serving them hips and dips. The music was funky and not for the rhythmically challenged.

N'Jobu wasted no time grabbing Zinzi's waist. She was already tossing her ass back at him in that slow teasing way that women from this part of town were famous for doing. One leg up and bent, then the other lifted, bent at the knee, tiny steps alternating left to right, hip twisting, ass cheeks jiggled in precise isolations. River tribe women were known for those type of moves, but a dance craze that caught on a year ago filtered over into Birnin Zana from that region. Now everyone was doing it.

N'Jobu had to create an artificial barrier between him and Zinzi. Yes, he was connected to a woman in the States, and yes, he was committed to being faithful to her, but he was also a man who had a body that reacted to fine women. And Zinzi was fine as Ethiopian honey wine. When her ass got too close to his groin, he made sure not to press into her.

She turned around and raised her hands in the air, and that was a problem because now he could not stop looking at her chest and the way her breasts bounced to the music. He quickly forced himself to keep dancing but focused his eyes elsewhere as if he were taking in all the sights and sounds of the club.

A popular song called "Zana Highlife" came on, and N'Jobu really cut loose with Zinzi. She was fun to dance with and actually kept up with him.

"You're good, Prince N'Jobu!" she said, moving around him.

He smiled at her as he worked his shoulders in time with his hips.

"Okay your Highness, I see you!" she called out, trying to match his moves.

They partied to five songs and then N'Jobu took her hand and walked her over to a bar and ordered drinks for them. All the drinks were on the house for him. He asked for two house wines, and when they arrived, he took them and had Zinzi follow him to an open table in a booth. The other tables near them were empty because people were on the dance floor. From the corner of his eye, he saw Yejide and Ometeko positioning themselves near him. No one would bother them at the table or in this section.

Sipping their white wine, N'Jobu kept eyeing Zinzi. She might actually be the one for his family's legacy. They got along so far as adults. He had known her when they were kids, but that was a long time ago. She was a woman now. An amazing one.

They did a little small talk about her current work organizing counseling for mental health and advocating for geriatric outreach. They spoke of his education and the excitement of the new royal baby. He showed her pictures of his friends in California on his comm tab. Always group shot photos, and usually he was in the back of the pictures trying to be obscure. He made sure not to show her any photos that he had of Califia and him together. Those were his private stash, mostly selfies of them kissing.

Califia seemed to adore photos of them tonguing each other down. Kissing between them was almost as good as intercourse. It had turned into a necessary extended act of foreplay that he enjoyed very much, especially when paired with his licking her all over from her front to her back. They once had an intense kissing session on her grandmother's couch when everyone had gone to bed. Califia had worked him up so bad that when they stopped twisting their lips and tongues together after forty minutes, he had soaked a section of his pants with pre-cum and he thought he had ejaculated because the stain was so big.

"Any girlfriends out there in America?" Zinzi asked.

"No," he said sipping on his wine, hoping his face didn't betray him.

"But you are seeing women, right?"

"Yeah. I date. But school is pretty intense."

"I hear you're a top student."

"Always. That's an Udaku trait."

"Okay, I guess," she said.

"You and Captain Gcuma…?"

He was curious.

"You were great tonight. Thank you."

"So, what's the deal with that? Why don't you two just get married? I can tell he is into you. He looked shocked when he saw me stepping up."

"My parents. He's older. Divorced. No children. They think being divorced is a sign of bad character and because he never had children with his wife, he must be infertile."

"Who was he married to?"

"Wananeya Duzi."

"The Duzi family? Whoa. How'd he screw that up?"

Zinzi punched his leg.

"Be nice. He fell in love with me."

"You were messing around with a married man?"

"They were separated for three years before he and I…"

"I understand," N'Jobu said.

"I was finishing up my military stint. He was my commanding officer. He just…we just…"

"Easy, Zinzi. You don't have to explain. The picture is clear."

"To be fair, he is descended from the Oni family. His mother is an Oni. He has noble blood."

"But the whole divorce, and maybe him being a lot older is an issue, eh?"

"Yes. But I don't care. My family wants to be in the palace. You know this. But I'm in love. I just want to get married and make that man some babies."

"Does he want to marry you?"

"I know he does. But he's scared to ask. Scared of losing his rank if my family goes after him because they disapprove. That's why I asked you to be seen with me openly. I want him to see that he could lose me. I want him to get a taste of seeing me with someone else."

"And that's supposed to do what? Make him propose?"

"Yes!"

"Well, if I were him, I would say screw the military and elope with you."

Zinzi's face lit up. "Yeah?"

"Of course. Look at you. Beautiful. Smart. Funny. You remind me a lot of my…."

He caught himself.

"I remind you of what?"

He sipped from his wine glass. Her eyes got big.

"You have a girlfriend, don't you? In the States."

"Keep this to yourself."

Zinzi studied his face.

"What?" he said.

"I knew something was up with you."

N'Jobu quirked his lips like she was talking nonsense.

"No, really. I noticed something about you when you were at the dinner. You seemed preoccupied but in a good way. And the way you are in this club right now, with all these beautiful women? I know for sure that when I throw this ass back on a man, they try to catch it. Are you in love, Prince N'Jobu?"

He sat back in the booth seat and sighed.

"Yes. I am."

Zinzi smiled.

"Can I see a picture of her?"

"You must keep this to yourself," he said.

"I've told you my deepest darkest secret that I don't want anyone to know about. You can trust me. I'm not looking for trouble."

N'Jobu pulled up one of his favorite photos of him and Califia together. She is straddling his lap and looking up at his cell phone while he is kissing her cheek. His eyes are closed and his arms are around her and squeezing her tight. Her hair is a big thick ball of fury and her freckles are so vivid on her face. But it's her smile that melts him. Those luscious lips. Her teeth. That cheeky twinkle in her eye. The love of his life at this moment.

"My Bast, Prince N'Jobu. She is striking. No wonder…no wonder."

Zinzi is quiet and they both watch the crowd dance. N'Jobu can see his buddies still cutting up, the life of the party on the dance floor.

"Do your parents know about her?" Zinzi finally asks.

"No one. It's a new relationship. I've dated a lot over there. But this…this is something…I don't even know how to act sometimes. I mean, that girl…that girl has got me. What's crazy is, I wasn't even looking for this. I was happy just screwing around…and then, I don't know… something changed. I've never felt like this before, Zinzi. And it bothers me. It weighs on me. Because I can't keep her. I have fallen in love with someone for the first time in my life, and it's with a foreigner. I can never bring her here, and I can never stay there. I'm fucked."

He hadn't meant to lay all of that at Zinzi's feet. But it felt good talking to Zinzi. She made him feel open and trusting. She reached out her hand and cradled his fingers in hers.

"Your secret is safe with me. Although our situations are different, I do understand what you are going through."

"Thank you," he said, giving her a half smile.

"What time is it over there now? You should call her."

"It's around five."

"Call her," Zinzi said getting up, "I'm going to rejoin my friends for a bit."

She hesitated for a moment.

"Zinzi?"

"Before you leave, make sure we talk again. There's something I want to hip you to. A rumor you should be aware of."

"Okay. Is it about me?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Give me a few minutes. I'll come find you."

She nodded and eased back into the crowd.

Tapping his comm tab and placing his earbuds on, N'Jobu hit Califia's cell number.

"Filter background," N'Jobu whispered, and the earbuds worked on blocking out much of the loud music and background voices. It was pretty loud, but he hoped the noise reduction filter would do enough so he wouldn't have to move.

He almost gave up on the ninth ring when he heard her pick.

"N'Jobu!" she exclaimed, and the excitement in her voice made him close his eyes.

"Califia," he said, his voice a gentle whisper.

"How is everything? Is your family thrilled to have you back? What's the weather like—"

"Califia, I love you too."

The music in the background was still a little loud and he thought she didn't hear him.

"Baby?" he said looking down at his fingers. They were trembling.

"I wanted to tell you before you left. But I chickened out. I was going to wait until you came back home to me and tell you in person. But…it just came out like that, and maybe, I dunno, maybe I was scared to say it in person—" she said.

"Say it to me now," he said.

"I love you, N'Jobu. I love the hell out of you."

He released a loud exhalation of breath. He let his eyes drift across the dancers and the bright lights and the wonderful chaos that was his favorite club. His friends were at the bar lifting their drinks to him, their smiles wide and grateful that he was here with them once more. But at this moment, his heart and mind were far away.

"I think I have loved you since the first time I saw you, Califia. When you touched my hand that first time…when you were checking out my bracelet…you looked up at me and …and there was something in your eyes that just caught me. Baby, this is so new to me. But I will do my best to make you happy. Okay?"

"Yeah," she whispered, her voice trembling over the call.

"I'm going to be thinking of you every day here."

"Same."

"I'm hanging out with my friends right now. We're at a club, and it looks like we're about to hit the dance floor again. Or drink some more I'm guessing. They are holding up shot glasses for me."

"Get off this phone and go have fun!"

Her laughter thrilled him. He would survive this trip. He didn't miss the fact that she had said coming back home to her. She was home. She was where he wanted to be.

"My schedule is going to be a bitch, so I may not be able to get at you until a few days from now."

"Maybe we can face chat next time?"

"I'll try to make that happen. A lot of political stuff is happening and my family is involved, so my time is really messed up. I'm glad to be back. Everyone is well."

"Good," she said.

"Talk soon?"

"Yeah."

He heard her give him a big wet kiss over the phone and then the call was done.

A stirring of confidence filled up his chest and he strolled over to his boys with a serious dip in his step.

###

After spending time at the bar drinking, N'Jobu let his friends return to the dance floor as he bounded up the steps of V.I.P.

He found Zinzi talking with her friends in her private section and he spirited her away to his V.I.P. section where they could be alone together.

"Spill it," he said, fingering a glass of water.

Zinzi tossed her braids over her shoulder.

"There has been talk about you and Princess Bathandwa. The entire country knows your family wants an heir. Everyone also knows that your brother and sister-in-law have been trying for awhile to have a baby."

"So? What does that have to do with me?"

Zinzi's eyes went downcast. She fidgeted with an ornate ruby ring on her index finger.

"There's a story going around that when Princess Bathandwa went to visit New York last June with the Women's Delegation, you flew there to see her because a month after she returned, it was announced she was a few weeks pregnant."

N'Jobu thought back to June. Bathandwa was part of a global women's movement to help neonatal health in so-called Third World countries. They were having a big conference near the U.N. and Bathandwa was giving a speech on African women's progress in East Africa. It was part of Wakanda's political maneuverings in the outside world, feigning the appearance of being a struggling nation with health issues.

During that time, N'Jobu had been messing around with a dish water blonde who taught at Mills College, a professor who he met at a university mixer who talked so much shit to N'Jobu that made him think she was cool that he ended up rearranging her guts in her apartment until he realized later in the situationship that she had a fetish for Black men. Especially dark-skinned men like him who had prowess in bed.

He had screwed the professor and missed a flight to JFK airport where he was to meet Bathandwa and her delegation for a quick hi and bye over dinner. They never met up and she flew home right after her speech.

"We never saw each other," N'Jobu said.

Zinzi shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. She leaves Wakanda after years of trying and comes back announcing a baby on the way. People started talking. There's also your reputation too."

"What is my reputation, hmm?"

"Playboy. Heartbreaker. Party monster. Womb wrecker."

"Womb wrecker? Damn."

"Listen, the people love that about you. No offense, but Prince T'Chaka is like the uptight country Uncle, and you are like everyone's favorite city nephew. They're going to talk."

"How long has this rumor been going?"

"Honestly, at first, it was like a big joke, you know, the stuff people say to poke fun of nobles. But then it started gaining traction, and I am afraid it has reached the ears of the palace. I am quite sure your brother is aware of it."

N'Jobu drank his water and pondered her words.

"I noticed tonight that Princess Bathandwa is very affectionate with you."

"And?"

"You may want to be very careful of how you two interact, especially during this time of the coronation. I do not mean to be rude, but people are watching you closely, and not just because of the betrothal march. Some people really believe that her baby is yours."

"Great," he said sighing heavily.

"This will pass. The good thing is, you will return to the States, and once the baby is born, everyone will see that the royal couple finally received the child they have been praying for."

"Let us hope so," he said, "any other gossip I should know about?"

"Your friend Jax, he is not the father of the baby that Yasmin is having. Your other friend Odwa is."

"Oh, shit."

"I know. You did not hear it from me."

"Hey…I talked to my girlfriend."

"Good. How is she?"

N'Jobu beamed.

"She sounded great."

"You are so cute when you are in love. Just all teeth right now."

N'Jobu smiled wider, then stared at Zinzi with a more somber expression. He rubbed his chin.

"Can I ask you something else, and be honest with me?"

"Go ahead."

N'Jobu glanced around to make sure they were still afforded privacy.

"In your opinion, how are the people taking the change. Are they for or against my brother?"

Zinzi's eyes squinted a bit and she pressed her lips together.

"From what I gather, and this is coming from my parents and other nobles, the change is viewed as a good thing among people under forty. It's the older people who are not thrilled. They are accustomed to our Kings and Queens ruling until they drop dead. No offense, your Highness."

"None taken."

"People generally like Prince T'Chaka. He has a level head, but, some feel that his crowning should come later when he is more mature. How do you feel about it?"

"It seems fast to me. But I will trust my father's judgment."

"It lessens your time being a playboy I bet," she joked.

"Look whose showing teeth now," N'Jobu said.

"You know they weren't going to let you dangle out here for long."

"Lady Zinzi!"

Jax stepped back into the V.I.P. along with the rest of N'Jobu's crew. Zinzi stood and greeted all the guys.

"I'll see you later, Prince N'Jobu."

"I'll call you for lunch."

"Do that," she said, leaving their private space.

Jax and the others watched Zinzi's hips sway as she walked around to rejoin her party.

"Sekmet in heaven. Please tell me you are choosing her, N'Jobu," Odwa said.

"I have tried for years to get that woman to look at me. I think she's stuck up," Jax said, grabbing his crotch in a crude manner.

N'Jobu thought about asking his friends about the rumor, but if it were that serious, one of them would've pulled his coattails by now.

All he knew was that if what she said was true, and the rumor had reached T'Chaka, that may be part of his stress besides becoming King.

The guys were ordering more rounds of shots, and the music was getting hotter.

He'd worry about T'Chaka later.

###

N'Jobu rolled back into the palace way after six in the morning.

He sent his mother a message that he would not be joining the family for brunch, but would be sleeping in before attending the planned evening outing, the opening of a brand-new opera in the West Zana district. The royal family would be having dinner at a chic new restaurant so that the press and paparazzi could get pictures. One of his other top picks for the betrothal march would be joining them for dinner and attending the opera with the family.

Once inside his suite, N'Jobu showered, slathered his body in freshly made cocoa butter, and sat inside his sauna to let the rich body butter soak into his skin. His limbs felt sore and heavy from dancing long and late. He was proud that he wasn't hung over.

The heat softened his skin and he ran his hands up his thighs massaging his muscles. A viewscreen popped up on the glass of the sauna door, and N'Jobu stood up from the wooden bench of the sauna to check it. He forgot he had set a reminder alarm for himself to go jogging in the royal garden.

He reset the alarm for the next day, changed his mind, and set it for later in the afternoon. His wet fingers slid across the screen as he checked for messages. He opened an app for his computer and looked for his private Califia folder. The heat of the sauna woke up his skin. He ran his hand across his pecs, then double tapped the folder. He searched for a particular clip that he filmed with his kimoyo beads. He saw the thumbnail for the clip he wanted and tapped it.

Califia.

As big as life, projected into the sauna in full 3D.

She's on her knees facing him, naked on his bedroom floor. She has her hands on her breasts. He hears himself tell her to play with her tits, and she does, her eyes watching him. He feels bad for a second because it's the only clip he has of her face, and he wasn't trying to film it, he just got caught in the moment and he wasn't using his cell to tape, so the kimoyo beads captured everything.

N'Jobu stepped back from the projected image and just watched, his hands at his sides, the steam in the sauna causing Califia's image to look real. He watched her hands slide up her waist, circle around her stomach and then reach her chest. Her fingers toyed with her nipples first, and N'Jobu fought the urge to touch himself. He simply wanted to observe her.

She pushed her breasts together once her nipples hardened, and he felt his dick stir, blood rushed to help thicken it.

"Turn around, face down. Show me that ass," he said in the video.

Califia pivoted and crossed her arms on the carpet and laid her head on her hands, right on top of a pillow that was on the floor. Her ass sat up in front of him.

"Arch that back," his video voice commanded, and she used those dancer skills that trained her body to bend with complete control to pop that ass up higher. Her thighs parted and her ass cheeks separated enough so that her pussy was visible to him.

In the sauna, N'Jobu was weakened, his cock jutted out more as his eyelids drooped from the blessing that sat before him.

"Hhhhmm….baby," he slipped between his gritted teeth. The bulb of his cock was fully fleshed out. He reached his hand up above his head towards a shelf that housed a small black box. He reached inside the box just when Califia's right hand reached between her legs and rubbed tight counterclockwise circles on her clit.

"Oooooohmmm…" N'Jobu groaned as his dick bobbed. It felt so heavy.

"Let me see those hands," N'Jobu commanded on video, and Califia pressed her face on the pillow. Both her hands reached back and pulled open her cheeks. Her fingernails were painted a satiny dark maroon, and they looked so pretty against her skin.

N'Jobu moaned again when he saw her opening give a small spasm and he saw her tasty pink pussy gap open wider. This woman is fucking art, he thought. There should be paintings of this fat juicy vulva throbbing open on museum walls. This is why men waged wars for centuries. Just to have the power to control this pulsing, throbbing, dripping wet and divine thing. Looking at Califia, even in a digitized state, he knew what a living Goddess looked like.

"Babb..byy…" he stuttered, slipping his fingers out of the black box and pulling out the item he needed. A red cock ring.

He slipped the red band over his dick and rolled it all the way around his balls. His sack was very sensitive when he touched it, and when he released his balls, they felt massive hanging from him even with the new constriction placed on them.

"Jobu…Jobu…" Califia was panting out his name.

"Keep your hands where I can see them. Don't you let go," he said out loud to himself in the sauna as he stroked his erection, the shaft slick from the cocoa butter and steam, his stomach muscles taut, and his pecs flexing from the strain.

"Please….please…Jobu…fuck me…" she begged, spreading her cheeks wider.

"Shit…"

N'Jobu reached back into the box and pulled out a silver glans ring and twisted it around the girth of his frenulum. When he released it, he felt his glans swell more. He stopped touching his erection and just watched Califia begging for his dick. It was torture, an excruciating test of self-control. The more she begged for his cock, the more his dick jumped. He used his own muscles to make his dick move, the sweet pain of the cock rings constricting him building up his intense pleasure.

He watched himself slap Califia's sensitive clit with his hand, sharp strikes that made her yelp as he watched her own body's natural lubricant ooze out of her glistening center.

"Dammit," he muttered, watching her squirm and not touching himself.

He watched himself move into the scene and grab her waist, slowly sinking his cock into her pussy. N'Jobu found himself being even more turned on watching his own dick placate his woman who had been begging and pleading for that moment of entry. Now he was listening to her cry out in pleasure as he forced her to keep that back arched by pressing one hand down on her lower back.

"Jobu…huhhnn…s'deep…hmmmmnn…you in so deep…s'deep…fuck…DADDY…you in there…you in there…"

She was wailing and squirming harder, but he kept his dick deep inside her with a repetitive short slow thrust. The movement made his balls just smash softly against her clit.

N'Jobu began to stroke his erection, because now what he was waiting for was coming up soon. He watched himself jump from doggy to froggy style as he kept that agonizing deep thrust. Califia was lying back on her hands again, trying her best not to collapse from overstimulation and no release. His balls would press into her clit and she would wiggle to try and get the friction to offset her orgasm, but the swivel in N'Jobu's hips prevented that. He was torturing her on purpose.

And he was torturing his real self too as he watched. He gripped his cock tight. A thick stream of pre-cum spilled out in a long clear drizzle down to the sauna floor. His climax was in sight. He watched himself plunge down deeper into Califia and hold still.

"Cum on this dick!" his video self barked at her.

Califia's ass jiggled and then he watched her entire vulva spasm and pulse around his cock.

N'Jobu's eyes shut tight as he shot hot ropes of cum onto the glass door of the sauna. His voice bellowed and grunted freely in the soundproof space as he coated the door with so much cum, it looked like someone had thrown a glass of milk on it.

When his eyes opened, he caught the last part of the video where he pulled out of Califia with his jizz spilling behind him from the release.

He leaned against the glass and gulped in as much air as he could, but he had to exit the sauna because it wasn't enough to revive his breath with the heated air going into his desperate lungs.

He pulled off the cock rings and dropped them on the sink in the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror and saw his blown pupils gazing back at him.

"Shit!" he yelled out, trying to gain his composure as he gripped the edges of the marble sink.

He staggered into his room and flopped onto his bed, still winded.

He fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

Chapter 21 HERE

Read “Black Boys Bloom Thorns First” from the beginning here.

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chicandchaud-blog · 6 years

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N°61 • ‘Tea with Dreem’

After having had been on what could have been considered a super long hiatus, I’m glad to bring back to my blog what I definitely wish I could do more of – INTERVIEWS, or better known as ‘Tea Time’ to you guys. If you have no idea what ‘tea with...” is, you could definitely check out my past interviews with; Mai Bilavio, and Nova Faerye for some insight on what exactly entails in the interviews that I do on my blog. Typically I keep things peachy and sweet with creators, but that wasn’t quite the case with Dreem who allowed me to ask any questions that I dared, along with those that you guys wanted me to ask her. Considered the Queen of Second Life, Dreem sits and chats with me about a multitude of things, ranging from; drama, creating, and more DRAMA! Thank you so much for taking your time to read, and enjoy. *special thank you to Dreem Doll for trusting my pen, and having tea time with me.

alas, the interview:

J: First of all, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to stop by, I’m so glad to have you here considering your busy schedule. – How are you doing today?

D: I am fine, feeling blessed and highly favored. Thank you for asking.

J: That’s great! Well, as you know, I do mainly post fashion tips, and advice on my blog so I’d like to know who you’re wearing today so the readers can get Dreem’s look today *smiles*.

D: Well im wearing a shirt by Rowne, who I adore, I paired it with my pants which are the thermal leggings, by me. I accessorized with shades by Brotherhood, and fannypack by Majesty – which is my daughter’s store.

J: I love it, you look bomb! Well, since you’re here and I just snatched you up – what does a typical day in the life of Dreem look like?

D: Well, First and foremost I am a very family oriented person so my day usually consist of my family. I would have an entire day planned down to the T and would get online and end up totally not doing anything besides hanging with my family all day *laughs*. Besides that, I like to get some work done, alot of the time aswell so sitting on my platform is one of my biggest pass times. Everything else really just comes last after those things, so boys,drama,haters, etc.

J: Yea, every now and then I check your Instagram, and you’re always posting cool moments with your family or whatever have you – whether it’s drama related, store related, or boy-drama-related your Instagram seems to be kind of your outlet for everyone to see, with that, as a public figure or so, I’d like to ask you – being you, and being such a public figure, what are some of the challenges that you often times face?

D: One of the biggest challenges I face everyday is being a public figure, and role model to my family and supporters. Alot of times I am learning now that I have to step back and think.. "Well if I do this a certain way, how is everyone else going to perceive this" Alot of people look up to me for guidance and direction so it’s very hard to make sure I don’t disappoint or lead them down the wrong path. Having my life put under a spotlight for the whole internet to see was very scary, I would have randoms coming up to me like omg you’re such and such that did this and that and have my whole timeline and history down pack and at first that scared the life out of me *sighs*, but it also let me know I have the power and the platform to do and be better and set better examples everyday *smiles*.

J: I’d imagine that being such a huge influence could be quite nerve-wracking at times but it does have someee benefits *laughs*, and since you told me that you had people coming up to you, and mentioning things that have happened in the past, did you ever think to yourself that you’d be where you are now, in terms of your position on the grid having had transcended from IMVU to SecondLife.

D: Maybe not to this extent, but even from IMVU I have always been a household name and a public figure. SecondLife is a wayyy bigger and greater platform so, obviously it naturally amplified. I never expected it to be to this level though, kind of a blessing and a curse at the same time. Either way i am very grateful for it God makes no mistakes *smiles*.

J: Yeah, from what I’ve been told by readers, and your family that came from IMVU to SecondLife with you is that you were basically in the forefront of everything, and gave IMVU life in a sense. Do you ever miss IMVU, assuming that you still have family members that still play, or just fans that might miss you?

D: Definitely, IMVU made my whole internet persona. "Diiva”, which was my IMVU character, is now naturally embedded in my DNA. IMVU prepared me strategically for so much and just my outlook on the world in general. IMVU will always be my nest that i flew out of.

J: That’s good to hear, I’m pretty sure everyone feels like that for either IMVU or SecondLife, it definitely does teach you lessons along the way. Not to mention, you had a LARGE impact on IMVU and I’m sure there’s no denying that. However, you had a family on there as you do on here, – do you believe that your impact has transcended from IMVU onto SecondLife? If so, what solidifies that?

D: Yes, my leadership is something that goes everywhere and anywhere with me. Naturally I attract flocks and attention because thats just my personality. My realness, my loyalty, and my talents is what has kept me afloat for so many years and will continue to keep me afloat. Staying true to yourelf and pure hearted will put you through some tests but in the end it will always pay off.

J: You mentioned your talent, your loyalty, and realness help you stay successful, what do you believe contributes to the longevity of your family name?

D: Love, Loyalty, and Realness *smirks*.

J: Well, if that’s the case – I’m sure after having read some of your accolades readers would love to be a Killin, which is your family – what exactly does it take to be took in as a Killin?

D: I like to seek out my own family members, because usually when someone comes to you to be apart of a family they are seeking something or coming for the "clout" or the wrong reasons. However, when I seek out someone I feel like I’m getting the people who are busy in their own league, bosses, and leaders. My family is filled with marketing geniuses, so be a boss, and ofcourse be sexy! *laughs*.

J: Well, now they’re aware of what needs to be checked off on their checklist before they even think of applying for adoption *laughs*. Since we’ve talked about that, I’d like to drift away from family oriented questions for a bit, and ask you; If you could bring something back to the grid that you used to do that isn’t as popular, what would it be?

D: Slapping bitches, jk *laughs*, but I loved everyone hanging out together in world – like big groups of people actually role playing and having fun! Now a days everyone is busy securing our bags, and we can only do that once in a while but I do miss that!

J: That was always fun, it’s like everyone is in their own circles now – which definitely isn’t a problem, but gathering every now and then would be super cute. Since you mentioned securing a bag – you’ve secured quite a few given that you’ve done basically everything there is to be done in the field of creating. You’ve had an event, or two – along with store/s, and even solidified yourself as the queen. Would you considering yourself a jack of all trades, and could we expect anything in the future?

D: I am definitely the Proclaimed Queen. Wheter good, or bad you’ve heard of me, my name ring bells – I’m honestly one of the biggest names to ever hit the grid, and i have impacted in so many different ways. I proved I am a one bitch army, and can handle ANYTHING thrown my way. I proved I can have a huge successful store, winning over 10 awards for my store alone. My events all did amazing, and had really big name designers, and am also very pretty so thats always a win. You could expect alot more like ALOT.

J: Well, I would like to delve more into the topic of what we could expect in the future – but I won’t do that because I do loveeee surprises, and you surprised us with your recent release of newness from Sabotage just a few days ago. I have to ask, is Sabotage back, and is New Regime gone – is it a sub-brand or...?

D: Sabotage issss back, and I’m releasing a lot of newness very soon..*smiles* New Regime is a sub brand as of now, the difference with NR is that it takes a classier safe route, Sabotage is more of a wild ‘do-what-i-want’ type of style, which could be considered more risky. As far as what’s next with New Regime. – it’s not gone, New Regime is still going, New Regime is actually set to debut its mainstore on the new Vive Nine Sim coming very soon.

J: Niceee, I can’t wait to see all of the newness that you have in store with both New Regime, and Sabotage – since you brung up the different styles, I’d like to ask you what exactly influenced you to create in the style that you do considering that it’s quite original to your aesthetic, and brand.

D: Lack of originality on SecondLife is literally an epidemic, like a serious issue..*sighs* I haveee to think outside of the box, and bring fresh new ideas. I've always strived to be different – even with the orange.. No one was doing it, orange was always my least favorite color but i said why not take something like orange and make it a powerful, bold, and different statement.

J: You mentioned you being the first to use the color orange as if there’s someone else using it – what exactly do you think of those that try to imitate your aesthetic?

D: I am very flattered, now if your stealing my work thats a difference, but imitation is the biggest form of flattery. I also see alot of big store brands trying to do what i do and i love it, it lets me know that I am doing something right *laughs*.

J: Are you convinced that there is a lack of creativity amongst creators that bite off of smaller creators?

D: HELL YES! I wont even get deep into this, I am sure you guys can open your eyes and see the amount of non-creative creatures we have roaming around here. Its sickening.

J: I’m gonna brighten things up a bit before I go back into the topic of your brand – it’s style, and aesthetic, me and the readers would love to know what exactly put you on the map in the world of creating – in other words, which of your items sold the most?

D: My denim thongs was definitely my first hit, they’ve been out for over 3 years and are still selling like hotcakes. I think it has to do with them being a very risky and revealing piece lol, but yes the denim thongs put me on the map for sure.

J: I lovee those thongs, and a little birdy told me they’re soon to make a comeback when you open the doors to the new Sabotage flagship. Now, let’s talk about your circle – You’ve worked alongside many people and that obviously takes good communication skills, who would you consider to be your circle, whether they’re creators or not.

D: As far as who's designers that I am close to and would consider my real friends, and circle would be, Mishi from Blueberry we have a bond outside of secondlife which alot of people think is such a strange mixture, cause she is like the nicest sweetest person ever and everyone looks at me as the bad guy but, we mix so well. Even though we are very different we are very both real and I am glad God placed us in each other lives. I have learned so much from her that has formed me into a better person today. Vo from SEUL is my good good sis, Sanya from Vive Nine is also my sister who i love dearly, always looked up to her so it’s nice to be like yes i work with Sanya or aside her, and she's dope. Torei from Betrayal is my child, so I dont know if he counts but his store is something to look out for and we’re very close. Other then that i have cool friends that i know and respect, Such as Beusy, Ambush, Reveal, Foxy, DOUX, Represent, MOON, Kraftworks, MaiB, Wonton, and a few more. I can go on for days, and ofcourse ALL of my kids stores! 28LA, Nastygirls, WolvesByNature, Betrayal, Majesty, REIGN, PinkAcid, Bluprint, Björn, Fatal, Love, Etc.

J: You clearly have a handful of people, if not more, and that obviously comes with the public figure status – so does enemies, do you feel that people you were once friends with try to tarnish your name, and legacy?

D: Yes chile.....yes, but I just like to look at their lives now, and then look at mines and remember why God is so great *giggles*.

J: *laughs*, Well, another thing is that people often times associate your name with drama, why do you think that is?

D: I came here very open hearted, open minded, and very gullible to the SecondLife scene. On the urban side, people can be very ignorant. I never woke up and decided to come at or start with anyone, any altercation I ever been placed or involved in I have always been on the defensive defending myself, fortunately enough for me, I have a very loud bark and a very painful bite. I am war ready always have and always will be thats just in my nature, I wish that people can just get to know me beforehand instead of passing judgement on me. I love to LOVE and anyone who knows me will tell you that i am wayyy too nice but what the public use to see was always me lashing out in defensive, the only thing I am guilty of is not being able to walk away when drama is brought to my door, I always answered the door, why not? I don't bother anyone, I sit with my family, and work on my clothing there should be no reason anyone wants to pick with me call me g*ys, f*gs, and all sorts of disgusting things, and then cry when I strike them back. I give you what you give me times three.

J: That’s a good way to describe things, obviously something will happen to you if you mess with or do something to someone, that’s just how things work sometimes – sometimes however, problems can be solved with a simple apology or talk. Do you regret any of the things that you’ve done on the grid.. or that the grid has seen?

D: Yes, I regret caring about what everyone thinks of me, I also regret not making my ass clap in those sex tapes *blows kiss at the camera*.

J: *screams* Well, I wasn’t expecting that.. – when there is drama, there is also pet peeves.. what would you say is your BIGGEST pet peeve?

D: Trolls, people who sit online all day when their only agenda is to talk about other people to take away from the fact that they’re not happy, it’s so sad.. like people will literally sit down all day and discuss someone who never everrrr thinks about them, its mind boggling. Like, get a job and a hobby. Putting someone down will NOT rid your problems, when you get off the computer.

J: Trolls can always be a little annoying, just take them with a grain of salt – however in your position it could be a little bit different given that you have a title to uphold, let’s end this interview on a good note, if you could improve the grid in any way, how would you?

D: More black successful businesses. More urban designers in these big events. To give everyone a chance, so many people come to the urban side steal ideas, take it into these big events, and release them. Meanwhile, the original designer doesnt get any invitation to any of those events.. It needs to change and I will change that. To the creators who are just starting, never stop trying even when it seems like theres no future for your store or business. Keep it going, you will get recognition from the right crowd, and what you think may be the right crowd may not always be the right ones. Dont be discourage by events or sales. keep striving and be original because it will get you a long way.

J: Thank you soooooo much for having tea time with me Dreem, and I’m so glad you could give us insight on the different topics we discussed within this interview. I can’t wait to see you again! Any final statements?

D: Thank you for having me, it was my pleasure – anddddd just wait til’ you see what’s coming from Sabotage, and New Regime *smiles*.

Please be sure to keep up with Dreem Doll’s future releases on her social media, and shop at the links below!

FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / FLICKR / MARKETPLACE

#dreemdoll #dreem #sabotage #newregime #new regime #dreem doll #SecondLife #second life #Second Life Fashion #Second Life Blog #secondlifefashion #chicandchaud #chic&chaud #interview #SL #SL Fashion #slfashion

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ayearofpike · 6 years

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The Last Vampire 3: Red Dice

Pocket Books, 1995 193 pages, 17 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-87268-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Las 1995 OCLC: 32331239 Released March 31, 1995 (per B&N)

Sita has just ended the reign of terror of a horrible sociopathic self-made vampire, but his killing spree did not escape the notice of the military. It seems they already know who and what she is, as well as her unwilling accomplice turned against his will to save his life. When he’s captured, she resolves to save him before the military can do horrible things with his blood. This mission is all the more urgent when she realizes that the scientist leading the research efforts is an old friend. Like, a REALLY old friend.

It was about here when I realized that Pike didn’t actually have a single plotted story for Sita, that he was just writing her adventures as they came to him. I might be misremembering this, but I feel like we’d been led to understand that The Last Vampire was going to be a trilogy, like Remember Me and his favorite title-drop Lord of the Rings. (I have not been keeping track of LotR references, but there’s one in almost every book. Reread @mildhorror‘s recaps if you don’t believe me.) Getting hit with another “to be continued” was sort of a gut punch.

But beyond that, the way it puts an old character in a new situation made me aware that this was becoming a serial rather than one story. This book doesn’t really do anything new to tie up loose ends. That door was mostly closed in the previous one, when she dispatched the original vampire. But as soon as she turned a dude, it created new loose ends that Sita now has to shear off before the story closes up. It’s a perfectly fine self-contained story, if a lot more actiony and cartoon-violent than most of Pike’s work, but it’s not exactly clear how it belongs to the previous storyline (or whether it even does).

Let’s see if I can find or assume some context for how this book ended up getting constructed.

In 1995, the public at large had just been exposed to Quentin Tarantino’s stylized violence, with Pulp Fiction coming off a controversial Oscar loss and becoming a sleeper hit. Seeing how this was received by the teens who were ostensibly Pike’s audience, it makes sense that he would have wanted to incorporate some gory battle scenes. Especially as Interview With the Vampire had also just come out — I have no doubt Pike wanted to differentiate his cool-young-adult vampire from Tom Cruise’s brooding Gothic.

Spooksville would start in October of this year. I’ve mentioned this series before, but its importance to Sita’s story is that it tells semi-related juvenile horror tales linked to a handful of main characters living in a town where this kind of stuff happens. That is to say: the main kids are the only real common link between the events. I expect that he’d already started writing the series at this point, and that the structure affected how he told The Last Vampire stories (and probably in turn his love for Sita helped him define the structure of Spooksville; after all, Goosebumps didn’t have the same protagonist in every book.)

In any case, it’s both drastically different from the suspense thrillers and mysteries that Pike’s mostly written to date, and game-changing in terms of what we would now expect about Sita stories. I think I already made this analogy: The Last Vampire is Pike’s Final Fantasy, an inspired tale about the end of an era that would seize unexpected popularity and spawn sequels unto eternity.

So let’s try to blaze through the recap, because there’s not a whole bunch of plot. Sita wakes up the day after her battle with New Vampire with a tube still stretching between her and FBI Dude. She realizes she’s been out for nearly 24 hours because it was midnight when the fight started and now it’s still dark but her watch says it’s just before twelve. But also she hears police cars, and knows that they need to escape before they’re asked a lot of questions. (I have one: if they knew what she was, which they probably did, why wouldn’t they come at NOON?) Sita prefers to keep a low profile, because she knows that if someone suspects her supernatural abilities, she’s going to get tested and dissected and someone is going to try to make more (like the coroner’s assistant already did). She doesn’t need to be responsible for that.

But since she’s dealing with a baby vampire who thinks he can use the government bureaucracy to his advantage, they don’t get out. Instead, they’re thrown into an armored van with five armed guards (three in back with them, two in the front) and a driver behind bulletproof glass. This within a caravan of armored vehicles and under surveillance from a helicopter. Of course Sita has escaped from worse situations. She’s handcuffed and shackled, but her eyes are free, and that’s what she uses to hypnotize the guards into pointing their weapons away long enough to break the ankle restraints and kick two of them dead. The third she kills just by telling him to die, which is when she realizes that Original Vampire’s blood is starting to give her new and stronger powers. Because FBI Dude is squeamish, she knocks out the other two guards and then learns from the driver that they’re not going to jail, but to a high-security government facility.

This is where the book turns into an action movie. Sita has the driver crank a turn into a narrow alley and then floor it. They makes it across two streets before smashing into a fruit truck, which gives her enough cover to jump out of the van and start shooting. This clears out a police car from ... unidentified somewhere for them to steal, and they lead the chase into the basement parking garage of a tall building, where they hop an elevator to the top floor. Then Sita breaks a window and jumps across the street to the roof of another building, and roof-hops along that side of the street to one with a helicopter pad on the roof. She steals one and comes back for FBI Dude, and they take off into the desert. So much for that low profile.

The police (or government agents, or whoever it is) pursue them but don’t try to catch up or engage. We learn why when, as they cross over southern Nevada, they’re set upon by two military combat helicopters. More questions: why not a fighter jet? Nellis is right there, and a jet is faster and more heavily armed than a chopper. But anyway, they cripple Sita’s chopper, forcing FBI Dude to bail into Lake Mead, and before she can crash it and escape herself they blow it up with a missile. When she wakes up she’s pinned underwater by the helicopter’s wreckage, but her unconscious mind has had the presence to not let her drown. She surfaces in the middle of the lake to see what’s up, and sure enough they’ve caught FBI Dude again and are throwing him in another armored van. Frickin’ baby vampires can’t do anything.

She steals a truck from a nearby campsite and follows the new military caravan out to some secure facility in the middle of the desert. She watches FBI Dude get trucked out and displayed to a uniformed general, and it’s confirmed that yes, the military knows what they are and yes, they were trying to take them alive. FBI Dude gets shunted into one of the buildings, and Sita takes special note of the scientist that the general talks to afterward. Just one scientist, yes. He leaves shortly afterward, and she goes to follow him, but realizes something weird as she gets in her truck to follow him.

She’s glowing.

That’s right, all y’all that were pissed about Edward Cullen! Pike did it first! Granted, this is in the moonlight and not the sun, but STILL.

She decides to worry about it later and follows the scientist to a casino, where he loses too much money and drinks too much, then to his house just before sunrise. If she’s going to use this dude to get close and figure out how to save her buddy, she needs to redo her identity again. So she gets her secretive business manager or whatever in New York to set her up with new ID, new credit cards, new hair, new clothes, the whole shebang. Yeah — from here until the end of the book we’re supposed to imagine her as a redhead, which is hard to do because we’ve already got two books of blonde Alisa Perne.

When the scientist goes to work, she follows him to see where he goes in, and then breaks into his house and sees a strange model. It looks like DNA, but it has twelve strands instead of two. She recognizes it immediately — it’s the same as a model made by an alchemist she knew seven hundred years ago in Italy during the Catholic Inquisition, a monk who she took as a lover, to whom she revealed the secrets of her life and her history when he watched her heal a kid’s broken spine. So if this guy has a similar model, they must have another vampire and have already been researching, which means Sita has more to save and/or destroy.

She goes back out to the military compound to try to plan an attack, and the glowing skin makes her curious, so she takes off all her clothes and watches her body light up and start to become transparent and feel lighter. She assumes this is another unexplainable power conveyed by Original Vampire’s blood, but to what end? She doesn’t have time to figure it out right now; there’s a scientist to seduce! They gamble for a while, then Sita buys him dinner and they go back to his house, where he tells her just enough about his research to make her feel both sorry for him and further set in her need to rescue FBI Dude ASAP.

While everyone’s asleep, Sita finishes the woeful tale of the alchemist. It seems that he drew some of her blood and used it to heal incurable illnesses in combination with crystals and moonlight. But then he went too far and tried to use it on someone healthy — the boy from before, in fact, with full midday sun streaming through. This ended up creating a monster ruled by fear, and Sita had to kill him, and the inquisitors took the alchemist and she never saw him again.

This wouldn’t be a Last Vampire book without two things: drinking blood and Seymour. She gets the first from a hapless high roller, first by beating him at the card table, then insulting him, then inviting him to what appears to be a desert gangbang, then scaring off his bodyguards and mercilessly drinking her fill. Seymour comes in because she’s not sure what’s coming next with the scientist and the military and the moon-glow, so she calls him to get some ideas and assistance. He says that the only way to be sure they don’t keep vampire blood is to blow up the entire base with the nuclear bombs they probably have on site, this being a secret military facility in Nevada and all.

So now she’s got a plan, and she needs to figure out how to carry it out. When the scientists opens up about his concerns about their test subject and what the scary general wants to do with his blood, Sita tells him everything. Like, literally everything: what her name is, that she’s a vampire, that she’s five thousand years old, that she was turned by the original vampire who she just killed this week, that she knew Krishna, the whole nine yards. In return, he tells her where they’re keeping FBI Dude and the other vampire they’ve had for a month. Her plan is to sneak into the compound in the scientist’s trunk, pose as a tech on loan from the Pentagon, and somehow break out the two vampires.

It all goes according to plan, except there’s only one vampire in the cell. At least until Sita opens the door and goes to rescue FBI Dude, at which point the door slams shut and the scientist talks to her in Italian. Yep! The other vampire he had was her, way back in the thirteenth century! He used her blood on himself, although imperfectly, so in the last seven centuries he’s aged about twenty years. And now he’s got her right where he wants her, so he can keep doing his experiments and improving humanity through vampirism.

The general doesn’t care about any of that shit — he just wants to be stronger than anyone else. This is his weakness, knowing Sita’s power and being afraid of it until he gets it for himself. So she manipulates the guards into panic (more powers she didn’t have before, being able to hypnotize someone without even seeing them) and then breaks all the lights in the cell and starts pounding on the door. So they amass a whole fighting force and open the door, but of course Sita has used her magical vampire powers to ... hide behind it. She has to kill a guard slowly and messily to keep up the fear paralysis, and then she mows most of the rest of them down with a machine gun. All the killing is starting to upset her, or so she says, maybe because of Squeamish FBI Dude, because it doesn’t stop her from planning to nuke the joint.

The general is already upstairs, trying to escape, so Sita JUMPS THROUGH THE CEILING and shoots him in the leg so he can’t go anywhere. Then she gets him to take her to the weapons stockpile and arm a nuclear bomb with a timer, supposedly long enough for everyone to get away from the blast. She has to fry his brain with her hypnosis to get him to do it, but now Science Alchemist is in command and he’s got orders from the president to not let her get away under any circumstances. (Like he might have otherwise, right?) The nuke’s ticking down, and they’re in a standoff, but she finally convinces him to let the rest of the troops get out and away, so now it’s just Sita and FBI Dude and Fried General and Science Alchemist, waiting for the bomb to go off.

And Sita starts glowing again.

This time, she lights up all the way, becoming light itself, and floats off the ground and away in the wind, saying her goodbyes to the old monk who has stolen her blood and the new friend who she turned against his will and the military leader who she has effectively lobotomized. By the time the nuke blows, she’s long gone.

The next thing we see is Science Alchemist’s basement. No, Pike doesn’t explain how Sita reassembled her body or whatever after floating away as a being of light. No, he doesn’t spend any time on what it means or how she should use it. Yes, it would have been a perfect time to close with an epilogue about how she’s come back to Krishna and her life is complete, along the lines of the dreams she has throughout these books. But instead, she’s in a basement in Las Vegas, where there’s a complicated array of crystals and mirrors, and she’s going to turn human with Seymour’s help (and blood). So she falls asleep doing it, and when she wakes up, someone is pounding on the door insisting she let him in. And that’s it!

So, I have to say it, and you should imagine the clapping emoji between each of the words in the following sentence: THERE WAS NO PURPOSE BEHIND SITA TURNING FBI DUDE EXCEPT TO KEEP THE AUDIENCE HANGING. Seriously, his name should have been Plot Devicerson. He gave us a springboard into the third book, he gave Sita a reason to act throughout it, and now he’s fuckin’ dead. He’s not even a tie to her life before, any more than a divorce lawyer is a tie to a marriage. The whole book could have conceivably done without him, although it would have admittedly taken a little more thought to get her out to the military installation in the first place.

You know, I wish Pike would have called a spade a spade with this series. If it had been a stand-alone serial novel set called The Last Vampire, I would have been totally fine. The stories themselves and Sita as a character I don’t necessarily have a problem with. But they DO NOT FIT TOGETHER. And by now it’s too late to retcon this into another Baby-Sitters Club or Nancy Drew type of series, so he’s stuck attemping to link one unique narrative to another.

It’s gonna be another year before we see Sita again, so I have to deduce that Pike just couldn’t bring himself to kill her off even though he didn’t know exactly what she would be doing next. And it’s OK to keep that door open — if you just admit you’re doing a serial rather than a continuance. In retrospect, I think that’s what annoyed me so much about these books, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I guess we have to wait and see if Pike can save this series as a continued story, sometime in the next ... six books GODDAMMIT.

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bluereimovies · 3 years

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Blog Post 5 The Superhero Coven

Nox Wish is the anti-hero Coven. At first what they thought would be some regular testing to attempt to heal their cancer turned into them acquiring superpowers. They went into the doctor’s office and began to speak to the doctors about the testing and the procedure that was going to happen. Their Doctor, Doctor Nash had the same horrid sense of humor as Nox did and because of that they go together amazingly. This new testing took different animals DNA and made it an injection to try to heal the cancerous skin cells in Nox’s body. After the shot was injected into Nox, they had to sit and wait for a little bit to see if the injection worked since they were the first human to have this testing be performed on them. While Nox was sitting their skin begam to change colors and rapidly grow hair. It was like their body was fighting the DNA that was introduced into their system. The hair and skin color changing had vanished as fast as it had started. Nox had decided to keep this a secret because they did not want to be tested on if this did become a bad thing. All that Nox wanted was to be cancer free. Weeks went on and Nox did not have the reaction again until one night in her apartment when they were sleeping. They had woken up from a dream to go grab a drink of water and suddenly they were on the ground looking at their once normal sized bed. The bed they saw now was much bigger and it looked as if a giant slept on it. Nox then went to move and they saw they didn’t have hands anymore but in fact they had frog hands. They then ran to the mirror and saw they had turned into a tree frog. They were bright green with giant red eyes and long frog legs. As soon as Nox screamed in fear they turned back to their normal self as a five-foot six person with tan skin and curly long hair. Soon after the first time turning into a frog, they also figured out they could become a wolf, a cat, a dog, a bird, a black tipped shark, and an elephant it was the animals DNA present in the injection from the testing. When Nox returned to their doctors they had learned there was many others who had gotten this testing done and their cancer was not cured, yet Nox’s cancer was gone, the treatment worked, and they had beaten cancer. Before cancer Nox was any other normal 22-year-old. They did not have many friends, but Nox had their pets. Nox has a German Shepard Corgi named Lina and their orange cat named Ralph. The first time that Nox turned into a dog they were playing with Lina outside and all the sudden like a snap of fingers they were an Alaskan Malad. They had run into their house and saw again not very human like arms and legs. Nox also had their siblings and their parents. Nox had two sisters and one brother all of whom were adopted by their Dad’s Andy and Grant. Nox’s sisters were named Rain and Ray. Rain is 22 as well and Ray is 18 years old. Both of them still lived at their dad’s house while they are in college. Then there is the youngest, their brother Jasper who is 16 years. Jasper goes to high school and sees his boyfriend on his free time. Nox had attended a very prodigious veterinary school and now has a job at one of the biggest vet clinics and hospitals. Nox and their family live in their hometown of Salem Massachusetts. In high school Nox had only been focused on getting good grades and visiting the animal shelter where they had eventually adopted Lina and Ralph.

As Nox had grown up they continued to see the superheroes that were so popular destroy cities and towns trying to save people and be the “hero”. They did not believe that superheroes were very super, and they did not do anything but cause destruction. When Nox had been a child and had their biological parents, their parents had been in the crossfire of a superhero trying to save and in the end the building that their parents worked at had failed and Nox lost both their parents because of a hero trying to save the day. From the day Nox has lost their family they promised their self that they would never try to become a super. Many superheroes in 2030 made their own superpowers or they made super suits that gave them special powers. Many famous superheroes in the past like Ironman and Batman had built their own suits to become these superheroes with amazing powers. Some were like Deadpool who unfortunately got their powers similar to the way that Nox had gotten their powers. The worst superhero that Nox had seen is the superhero Cruizer. Cruizer was the superhero that had knocked the building down trying to save the city from the villain Perito. Perito luckily had been taken into police custody 7 years ago after a different hero had taken him down. Because of this experience Nox wants to save the world, but in a different way. Slowly as more population grows and less people care about the earth, the eco-system worsens. Nox had started a foundation to begin to help the planet heal itself so the earth can live for many more years. While Nox worked at their veterinary job they also go around the country trying to convince the world to become more eco-friendly. They want to see the endangered species in the world grow in population, so we do not lose any more wildlife due to humans being selfish. Many heroes only advocate for saving the city or telling people to stay safe and buy their t-shirts. The superheroes now a days aren’t like the ones in the past, none of them care about anything besides popularity.

Another goal that Nox has to is to get back at Cruizer for killing their parents. When that day had happened, the superhero did not even come to Nox and apologize for what had happened Cruizer just got the news to show up and take pictures of him being amazing for injuring the villain. As Nox learned their powers more, the more they would go out in the world as a bird or a dog and just enjoy life, something in the past Nox had struggles doing. As Nox worked more and because of these powers they had gotten better at their job because when alone Nox would turn into a dog or cat and could communicate with their patients to calm them down, something they recently learned was how to communicate with these animals as an animal. Slowly because of these powers, Nox’s life began to improve and they were becoming a happier person. Before Nox was a very depressed person because of the stress of cancer treatment and how their life was going to go if they didn’t beat cancer. Nox’s persuit of Cruizer is easier now than it was before. The only thing stopping them is that they have morals, and they don’t know what they would do with Cruizer even if they did catch him. As Nox began to develop their powers more, the media began to take an interest at the random wolf running around stopping random robbers and then disappearing. Nox wasn’t a superhero don’t get them wrong, but they did not want to see anyone get hurt by others selfishness, Nox was becoming one of the very first nonbinary anti-heroes. The media was writing about random animals you wouldn’t normally see around Salem helping people then running off and then were nowhere to be seen. They had caught Nox in their plain black suit homemade suit a few times, but they never got to figuring out who the person avoiding the cameras was. The only people that had learned of the powers was Nox’s family when they began to turn into different animals. Their family supported Nox’s decision in helping others yet avoiding the popularity and tarnishing their reputation as someone that was just there to help. Weeks went by and the media caught more of Nox but nothing became of it until the day of the big car crash. Cruizer was there trying to help people but there were too many civilians that needed help. Nox arrived to start moving empty cars to clear up the debris so Cruizer could safely remove people from the cars that were not empty. Soon the debris was cleaned up and Nox turned back into their human body and they slowly walked over to Cruizer to be polite. This was the first time Nox had worked with a hero and showed what they had looked like not like an animal. They had thanked Cruizer for the help and was about to fly away as a bird when the media stopped them. Nox had only said one thing “I am Coven the skin changer, I am not hero nor villain, I am not man nor woman, but I will not be what the media has turned superheroes into.” They then turned to Cruizer and said “Years ago you killed people very close to me trying to catch Perito and you still failed at catching him. If you do anything like that again now, I will do everything in my power to stop you”. Nox then turned into a bird and disappeared by flying with a flock of birds.

The media exploded because of this encounter and Coven then became the face of the LGBTQ community as Coven the nonbinary antihero. Coven may not be a fighter or a scary strong hero, but they fight for what is right and don’t feel the need to be in the spotlight. Coven did not want to be known as the person with great power that would kill someone in the blink in the eye, they wanted to be known as the great veterinarian and owner of a foundation. Many superheroes don’t have the same morals and they wanted to prove that not everyone with powers needed to be associated with the popular heroes that only have a good reputation because the media depicts them as amazing people when the heroes are actually killers. They don’t feel the need to be wanted by magazines for interviews or being the greatest hero there has ever been. Nox achieved in spreading their ecofriendly ideas and the world has begun to change into a better and healthier planet. Nox passed away in 2088. They had become one of the most revolutionary people as an advocate for an ecofriendly world, and with their success in their career. They had a beautiful family and got married to a beautiful girl. Nox and their wife adopted many children and eventually the foundation went to Nox’s child Wern. The legacy that Nox had created made it so they no longer have to worry about the earth becoming a toxic place. Nox was such an inspirational and well-known vet that they always had a big company CEO having their back or that the media gave Nox so much credit it was wrong to deny them their wish. Nox died happy to have a family and that they are able to protect their family if anything was to happen to them.

Nox is very similar to the antihero Deadpool. I found Deadpool as an inspiration because they didn’t care about being a superhero once acquiring their powers. Wade only wanted to save his girlfriend but eventually his morals changed and because of his loss of his love, he eventually had a family even if they were not all blood related. Deadpool gave his all in saving the child after his girlfriend died because it became the only thing that mattered to him. I find Deadpool to be inspiring as his morals became more human like and less to what everyone would call the normal.

#deadpool #superhero #coven #nox

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