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bewaretheidesofmarchyall · 4 years

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Soulmate Shenanigans Five: The Order Of The Shenanigans

Hey! Guess who has returned?

Me!

Just the March doing her prompt writing thing, as seen on previous episodes :)

Parts one, two, three, and four here!

Prompt #5

Any intense emotions your soulmate feels you will also experience

Warnings for kidnapping mention and gifted kid “potential” mention

Okay. Not going to lie, I kind of tweaked the concept, but I like how it turned out. The idea of the sides having sides in human AUs has been in my brain, and now it’s in yours!

World Building

At first, the symptoms of having a soulmate was seen as symptoms of witchcraft

It was a reasonable assumption to make, as seeing into someone’s head and emotions wasn’t really a thing that humans did.

However, as the population grew and communication across the globe became a thing, the instances of people finding their soulmates grew as well, and not everyone could be a witch (or, if they were, being a witch was simply being human).

It took a while for the culture around soulmates to shift, but shift it did, and people eventually figured out “Oh, that person is my soulmate, not my eternal enemy that I need to destroy via my demonic powers, which I totally have”

But people’s minds are kind of a lot, and it’s hard to process it all.

So, in modern day, people have learned to separate the pieces of their soulmate’s personality that they get bombarded with into different pieces, or sides

The sides are Logic, Morality/Emotions, Creativity (with there sometimes being a divide between dark and light), Self-Preservation, and Anxiety.

Characters

Roman: Roman is looking forward to meeting his soulmate so much!

Just...later.

When he’s a famous writer and people know about him and he’s evened out his insecurities and he deserves them!

Being perfect for them is going to take work, but most people meet their soulmates over 30, so he’s got at least fifteen years to prepare.

Until then, he was working on his fantasy story and dreaming of the day he’d get published or get the lead in a school play.

The writing club had been his idea, so you could say that everything that happens in the story was his fault. He’d just wanted to be around people who liked the same things he liked!

Roman’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Note: Names are hard. Aaaagh.

Magnus, his creativity, romance, passion, etcetera. Magnus is really the one who calls the shots around here. He’s just as goofy of a fifteen year old (if not more) as Roman, but he has the unenviable position of running a mind palace and being the ego of someone who hates himself.

This guy just wants to listen to Hamilton, but noooo, he had to have an evil reflection of himself and self-worth issues.

The Count, his self-preservation and pretty much Roman’s inner Roxie Hart/Velma Kelly. Randomly suggests poisoning their mortal enemies a lot (note: they don’t have mortal enemies).

The most like canon Janus out of any of the self preservations, except instead of “we live in a society” it’s more “fuck it, we’re going to be *famous*!”

The other sides will pay him to stop saying, “that’s showbiz”

The Medic, his morality and emotions. Sort of has a medieval healer thing going on (which means herbs in a satchel, not plague doctor mask).

A lovely person on his own, but when he and The Guard team up, it’s ✨Guilt time!✨

He has the question of “Am I a terrible person?” on his hands, so...good luck to him. He’s trying to hold the five of them into a cohesive unit, but it’s hard!

The Guard, his fears and anxious thoughts. He has a shield and a spear, and is kind of dressed like a (dark and stormy) knight.

No one particularly likes him, but it’s his job to recognize The Shadow, so they all need him.

He hangs around on the outskirts of the mindscape, ever vigilant.

The Alchemist, his logic. No one listens to the voice of reason in this house. Al isn’t really a fan of this, and being Roman’s logic, he thinks that if he can find a way to prove himself it’ll turn out okay.

The Shadow, everything Magnus discarded. You could call him dark creativity, but he’s a lot more.

They used to call him Rex, when they were kids.

Patton: Patton isn’t thrilled with having to move to a new school, but he’s keeping a positive attitude

The new town is creepy and making friends is harder than he thought, and he just wants to right a sappy love story about ghosts without feeling sad.

But if he keeps his chin up, he knows it’ll all be fine!

And hey, maybe he’ll find people who like him in this writing club thing!

Patton’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Patrick, his morality and emotions. Patrick feels all of the loneliness and desperation that Patton feels daily, but pretends he doesn’t feel it, since he has to be there for them!

Them meaning his family, meaning the rest of Patton’s mind, as well as Patton, since he’s kind of an older brother/role model to the guy.

Covering the full scope of human emotions isn’t great when the other half of your job is enforcing the sense of right and wrong (and the general consensus in Patton’s head is showing negative emotions = burden = wrong).

None of them can cook, but that won’t stop him from trying!

The Canary, his fears and anxious thoughts. Constantly popping up to remind everyone that they’re failing. It’s kind of his job.

Stress plays the piano when things get to be too much.

The Gardener, his creativity, romance, and passion. Conjures flowers a lot. Projects wishes for a soulmate into the sappy ghost love story, which he’s mostly in charge of writing.

Hasn’t split yet, but that’s mostly because nearly all of Patton’s negative impulses that would be considered “dark creativity” already come from The Miser.

Dr. Picani, his logical side. Knows everything about cartoons, and tries to be professional, but a complete sweetheart.

Secretly knows his name is Emile, but is waiting for the best moment to tell everyone.

The Miser, his self-preservation and deceitful side. No one’s a fan of him. Patrick is kind of his mortal nemesis (in the sense that Patrick claimed the title and he just kind of went along with it?)

Everyone else in the Pattonsphere refuses to curse, but he says many a “fuck” with ease

Trying to protect The Gardener from splitting by taking responsibility for most of the things a dark creativity would do.

Virgil: Virgil just didn’t want to join the yearbook committee.

It was irrational, maybe, to have a deep rooted hatred of the yearbook committee.

They were just trying to categorize things, design pages-it wasn’t malicious!

And yet, being in that classroom and seeing Amelia’s dead eyes and smile near rang every alarm bell in his system, so he needed a way out this year.

His parents weren’t going to let him not choose an activity, so he flipped a coin and ended up in some writing club.

He came into the club determined to fake some pretentious poetry about death. Just because they say the club’s about expression or whatever doesn’t mean that they can know anything about his comics.

Virgil’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Dante, his fears and anxious thoughts. Dante has too many eyes. Dante is lowkey a cryptid, but he’s sadly a cryptid in charge of life decisions.

There’s no way to dance around it. Dante’s a spider-human hybrid.

Dante would prefer they never be perceived by anyone for anything. He does not want to be seen, he does not want to be heard, he does not want to be perceived. Period.

But he’s a very conspicuous spider-human hybrid.

The Competent One, The One Who Can Actually Do Math, Steve, whatever you want to call him, he’s Virgil’s logical side.

His theories are just....

See that image? That kind of sums up his characterization.

Parker, his creativity, romance, and heroic side. He’s the one who got them obsessed with comic books, and is trying to write his own. If people don’t like the comics, he’ll probably just start screaming and never stop

He gets the purple eyeshadow!

Remy, his self-preservation. He mainly just wants Virgil to just...rest

Nap. Sleep. Take a self-care day. This is Remy’s goal.

Also to continue to have the most style out of anyone in the Virgilsphere

Remy has a talent for never being anywhere at the right time, and then popping up at the worst moments, caffeine in hand.

Tam, his morality and emotions. The most into the emo phase out of any of them, since he feels all angst!

Sometimes just hovers and screams. Everyone’s pretty used to this.

Logan: Logan was trying to ignore the things he’d seen

Logan was a scientific guy. He knew that magic wasn’t real, that the fae were just stories.

So, clearly, the nightmarish things he’d seen that night were just that: nightmares. Just nightmares caused by stress over his academic struggles.

That was the immediate problem at hand: academic struggles. Logan was always the top of his class his whole life, and words like “gifted” were thrown around. Lately, however, things have been harder to keep up with and pay attention to, and it’s a bit of a mess.

Logan joined the writing club because he thought it might help him with English class, and he did like speculative fiction.

But, more importantly, he joined it because he thought it would be a simple task he could easily ace, so he wouldn’t have to keep being told that he wasn’t trying.

Logan’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Mimir, his logical side. Mimir is pushing himself to take care of all academic matters and keep Logan afloat.

Mimir is over his head, but doesn’t really have anyone to talk to (or so he thinks), so he’s just putting Warby Parkers over his panic and faking cold distance to make everyone think he’s doing okay.

Alastor, his moral side. Half of his job is repressing Logan’s emotions, which isn’t a great thing to be doing, but he think he’s doing it for a good reason.

Kinda strict and blaming Mimir for everything going wrong. He does care about the others, he’s just bad at showing it.

Cassandros, his fears and anxious thoughts.

This dude-

He’s basically just [puts feet on coffee table] “Hey, did you know everyone hates us?? I made a PowerPoint that proves it!”

He’ll get character development, though.

The Chessmaster, his overdramatic self-preservation.

Tries to be clever, walks into walls.

The Detective, his creative and fanciful side. He wants to swashbuckle, but instead he’s restrained to geometry.

But now he has a project in the writing club! He has something to do!

And The Mad Scientist is trying to ruin it!

The Mad Scientist, Logan’s dark creativity.

They never used to care about the creative side one way or another. There was no need to make a dark side when it was already looked down upon.

Now, however, there are things in Logan’s mind that he’s trying not to think about, and so the Mad Scientist has joined the fray.

The Actual Plot

This is going to be an actual fic that I write. So, I’m not going to fill out the entire plot here.

I can, however say a few of the plot lines

Plot One: Everyone’s sides are in a state of constant screaming and must learn to communicate.

They also need to let their main guys figure out they have soulmates, because they’re all repressing that information for their own reasons.

Plot Two: LAMP in a writing club, falling in love and being disturbed by first drafts!

Plot Three: The fae are kidnapping people.

And everyone needs to get them to Stop.

I guess you could call this a trailer??

I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA

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liemonyellow · 4 years

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this is a gift (it comes with a price) - chapter 5

read on ao3

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven

Summary: A wild Remus emerges! (Finally!)

Chapter Warnings: disturbing descriptions and imagery (bugs/insects, mentions of blood and injuries, mentions of murder and gore), innuendos, cursing, panic attack

chapter 5: remus

Remus was on vacation.

He was still technically on the job, of course, but he was letting Thomas have a bit of a break from all the worst parts of himself, especially after all that fuckery with Janus and the wedding. He couldn’t resist sending along some of his juicier suggestions to Thomas, but he’d mostly refrained from following up with them. It wasn’t hard, since he knew he’d come up with much better ideas later anyway. That and he’d forgotten half of them already. Remus had been working so much harder, better, faster, and stronger ever since J-Deceitful decided to shake things up like a jar of very angry, exploding bees with the whole courtroom thing. And now that all of that was over and Janus had convinced Thomas to listen to him for once, the snake had asked Remus to lay low for a bit to let them all recover. He agreed, though not before taunting him a bit about evil twins and slimy serpents. The pained, shaken look he’d gotten in return was delicious.

Remus wasn’t actually all that angry - he’d been trying to get Janus ‘Classy’ ‘Nothing Is Black And White’ Sanders to call him ‘evil’ for years, to little success - but tearing down his brother with it? Not cool. Only Remus got to do that.

Besides, Remus felt he deserved the break. Steering clear of everyone who was pissing him off, likely to piss him off, or might piss him off was probably for the best, and the intrusive thot was trying to enjoy his freedom and solitude.

Or at least, he was, until last night.

There he was, in full Dukey regalia underneath a neon pink bathrobe, curlers in his hair, wearing a stylin’ pair of Warby Parker shades, reclined on a lounge seat on a glittering beach littered with the carcasses of washed-up sea creatures and rotting algae, sipping on his drink (he’d been craving so much alcohol lately), and watching the turbulent waves wash ashore in the moonlight. He was particularly enjoying the way the seaweed swayed within the water, like hungry tendrils of some eldritch beast waiting just beneath the surface, ready to seize and consume whatever unwary prey came too close, when Roman stormed in just after midnight, only to stop in utter bafflement when he stumbled into the sand and saw Remus. It was a great look on him. Then he had to ruin it by demanding a duel.

Remus had raised an eyebrow at him then. It was an unexpected but not unwelcome interruption, and Remus was starting to get bored anyway, so he snapped his fingers, returning his room (and himself) to its normal state of perfectly organized chaos, and they began to fight.

It became quite clear from the ferocity Roman displayed in their ensuing sparring that his brother was letting off quite a lot of pent up emotion. Well, that, and the very loud thoughts that Remus could hear clamoring through his own head.

Oh, Roman. Thank god you don't have a mustache…

Raging.

otherwise,

Resentful.

between you and Remus...

Relentless.

I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.

Red, like fresh, hot blood spilled on white snow. Remus snapped his fingers. The blood disappeared, and Roman’s wound was healed, but the red lingered in his mind.

Now, Remus wasn’t unaware of the particulars of the last episode. He thought Roman was being a drama queen, as per usual, and it wasn’t like it wasn’t obvious which of them Thomas actually thought was evil. Still, his brother wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind at the best of times, so Remus had kept his distance. It wasn’t like anyone would miss him. And if they wanted to seek him out, god forbid, they knew where to find him. And Roman had.

They fought for a good couple of hours, hardly taking breaks and healing their injuries with another snap of the fingers. Perks of being a figment of Thomas’s imagination, Remus supposed. Remus changed the scenery every so often, sometimes mid-swing, just to keep Roman on his toes. Roman didn’t seem to notice much.

And if Remus had decided enough was enough and his taunts and teasing gradually became advice on how to silence unwelcome, intrusive thoughts, well, whatever worked. Eventually, they slowed, then stopped, and Roman had asked him a question.

Remus answered him.

Roman left.

Hours later, Remus lay in his bed, thinking. Judging by the light of the Mindscape outside, Thomas was awake now, and there were things that needed doing.

Time to get back to work.

Something else was bugging him, wriggling like maggots under the skin of his mind. Remus finally paid heed to some of the other thoughts drifting like seaweed through his mind. Most of them were standard fare - what do you think would happen if you woke up dead tomorrow? - but there was one voice that felt… loud. Well, louder than usual.

They’ve lost any respect they ever had for you. They don’t actually care about you. Really, you want to have another drink now, before you’ve even had breakfast? They’re lying. They’re lying. They are lying.

This is all your fault.

Smooth and sickly sweet, like honey-drowned larvae, weaving silky golden thread in loops, around and around and around, until it chokes.

With a beleaguered sigh, Remus hopped to his feet. Time to go fix things between his brother and his one remaining best friend (even if Janus was an asshole sometimes). Possibly Virgil, too. Or.... he could make them worse. Eh, he’d decide when he got there.

Well, he would have if he hadn’t gotten distracted by a slam from the hallway and the sound of angry footsteps passing by. He stuck his head out of his own door and, what luck! It was Virgil.

Who jumped about a foot into the air at the sudden appearance of Remus’s head, held up by the hair like an executioner presenting his most recent victim.

“Holy shit!”

“Oh hi there!” Remus grinned widely.

Virgil drew back in horror, a disgusted look on his face. “Dude! Put that back!”

Remus grinned, unblinking, as he replaced his head. He cracked his neck for extra measure. Virgil winced.

“So, where are you going so early in the morning? Aren’t you usually falling asleep to your emo shit by now?” Remus exited his room to stand in the hallway, the door, eerily quiet, closing itself behind him.

Virgil shrank back and hissed. Remus put a finger to his chin in mock contemplation.

“Ooh, I know! You finally decided to-”

“No. Whatever fucked up thing you’re about to say, no. Go back to your room and leave me alone.”

“How about I don’t?”

“Gah, whatever,” Virgil said as he turned and kept walking. Remus followed him, leaning forward with hands held behind his back and eyes wide as he stared at Virgil with a little too much interest.

“C’mon, Virgy-poo, you can tell me! Aren’t we friends?”

Virgil froze for a second, then continued stomping with renewed vigor.

Right up to Janus’s door. Virgil had some excellent timing, all things considered. Remus was getting all his little ducks in a row without even trying, but now he had to consider how he was going to bash their heads in. With words, and not his morning star. Very important distinction, he’d discovered.

Virgil stopped in front of it, glaring at the pale yellow wood, decorated with some fancy, swirly bronze stuff. Though it seemed more like he was trying to burn a hole through it than admire it. He exhaled sharply. With a clenched fist, he hammered the wood with unexpected force.

He kept beating on the door until it opened, mid-swing, and Virgil barely caught himself before he smacked his fist into Patton’s nose.

Oh, my.

Virgil was taken completely by surprise. “Patton?”

Patton gave what Remus assumed was supposed to be a smile but looked more like he was extremely uncomfortable and was trying really hard to pretend he wasn’t. “Oh hey, Virge! And... Remus.”

“Heigh-ho, Pattoncake! How’s it hanging?” Remus leered.

Patton almost took a step back, but didn’t, and glanced over his shoulder quickly. “Look, it’s not a good time right now, can you maybe come back later?”

“What are you doing in Deceit’s room?” Virgil asked.

“Having a party of two with Double D, daddio?” Remus waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“N-no! We just- I mean- I wanted to... have a... sleepover?” Patton cringed at the lie. Remus could just see Janus pulling a face at how bad it was.

Remus’s eyes and his grin widened even more, if that was possible. (It was.) “Oh, worm?”

Patton did take a step back at that, giving Virgil enough space to push past him and into the room. Then he stopped suddenly, glowering darkly at Janus, who stood there pretending to examine his fingernails as if he wasn’t wearing gloves. Remus slunk into the room after him, grinning at Patton as he passed by.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Virgil growled.

“More like who the fuck,” Remus muttered, spotting Logan standing with a palm applied directly to his forehead, clearly already at his limit with everything. And it was only a quarter past eight in the morning, that had to be a new record.

“Nothing at all, Virgil. You know how I just love having uninvited visitors barging into my room in the morning.”

“Cut the bullshit, Deceit. I don’t know what you’re planning, but I’m putting a stop to it.”

“And what makes you think you can stop me?”

Virgil’s expression darkened and his voice deepened even more. “Roman told me what you said,” he snarled. “About him being evil.”

That shut Janus up. Remus watched Janus’s hands clench, trembling, as he straightened his back, eyes widened in anger.

Oh, Roman. Thank god you don't have a mustache. Otherwise, between you and Remus, I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.

The words rang loudly in Remus’s mind, just as they did so many countless times last night in Roman’s, just as they did in Janus’s now, drowning out everything else in a fever pitch. Remus smirked. Looks like the show was finally about to begin.

“Virgil-” Patton started to say, only to be silenced by a sharp, maniac glare from Remus. Oh, how he enjoyed this power. He wondered if Janus got a similar thrill from it. Who was he kidding, of course he did, have you seen the way he acts and dresses?

Virgil didn’t notice any of it, incensed as he was. “Fuck you. At least Thomas needs Roman. Unlike you.”

Janus paled, his anger disappearing like a bucket of chum in a sea of starving sharks. His trembling became much more obvious. He blinked rapidly, eyes shining.

Remus’s grin was starting to hurt. “What’s wrong, Jay-nus? Can’t take what you dish out?” he said quietly.

Janus seemed to notice him, then. His eyes took on a terrified glint, as if he’d stumbled upon a fresh corpse at the foot of a murderer in a horror film. He took a step back. Then another. And another, where he hit the bedframe. Virgil followed him step for step, teeth bared in a snarling growl, only to stop short when Janus slid to the floor and clutched his head as if in pain.

Your face ruined my day.

Janus’s breaths came in shorter and faster as he hunched over, holding himself tightly. His other arms came out to wrap around his knees and head, blocking out the rest of the world.

Lying is already bad enough!

Patton and Logan rushed to his side.

Why is he still here?

“Janus? Janus, can you hear me?”

I don’t want to be a bad person.

"Give him space, Patton.”

Did you forget that he’s evil?!

“Janus, just- just breathe, okay?”

Thomas doesn’t need you, snake.

Remus watched his best friend suffer through a panic attack with hardly a twitch. It was thrilling, in a way. He’d never seen Janus like this. No one had. Janus liked to seem unflappable and in control, even if he ruined it with his own inherent dorkiness, but he’d never broken down like this where people could see.

Well. Sometimes you had to break something to make it better. Remus was pretty sure he was the only one who really understood that.

Virgil stood there, stunned. He turned to Remus, who only raised an eyebrow at him, silently daring him to do something about the scene he’d caused.

The poor little emo looked so lost. And then he suddenly didn’t. He walked up to the trio kneeling on the floor.

“Hey,” he said, as gently as a chainsaw. He winced. Patton and Logan hovered protectively in front of Janus, uncertainty in their faces.

“Hey,” Virgil said again, softly this time, kneeling down. Patton hesitantly looked between the two, then stood up, pulling Logan with him. They stepped back several feet, ending up right next to the Duke, who crossed his arms as he watched, fingers tapping frantically on his sleeve like fleshy jackhammers trying to dig into his skin and find those maggots. Logan gave him a scrutinizing look, then, hesitantly, placed a hand gently on Remus’s shoulder.

Remus froze completely. His shoulder burned.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Virgil asked, his voice low. He reached out a hand oh, so slowly, waiting for a reply.

It was a moment before Janus nodded, face hidden in his lap. Virgil took one of Janus’s gloved hands and held it gingerly, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. “Hey, let’s just breathe for a bit, okay? Breathe with me?”

Janus’s breath stuttered as he tried to comply.

Evil.

“You’re doing great. Can you talk?”

Janus shook his head.

Ruined.

“That’s fine. Just- just keep breathing for me, okay?”

Janus nodded. Virgil shifted a bit, pulling a little away, and another of Janus’s arms shot out to grab the other’s sleeve.

Lying.

“I’m not leaving! I’m sorry, I should have said. I just want to sit down. Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

Janus tugged insistently on Virgil’s sleeve. Virgil let Janus pull him down next to him.

Why?

“Is this okay?”

Janus leaned into Virgil, loosing a couple of his arms to wrap around and cling onto the purple side. Virgil held Janus with the same intensity. They sat there, holding each other for a while.

Bad.

“I’m sorry. Really. I actually came here to apologize, if you can believe it. I know I wouldn’t.” Virgil said, his voice low. “I just- I guess I just panicked when I saw Patton. Assumed you were up to something again. Like, uh, like back when we were younger, you know? You and Roman had all those plans on how to make Thomas the coolest, most famous person in the world. They were pretty bad, but still. You two were always so dramatic about everything.”

Janus’s breathing was evening out.

Evil.

“I really am sorry. I know you’re just doing your job. Trying to look out for Thomas, in your own way. Even if your way fucking sucks. Shit, sorry.”

Janus’s form jostled a little as he gave a huff of amusement.

Snake.

“You know how I’ve been, like, hiding in my room? I was thinking. A lot, actually. And then, when I talked to Roman last night- This morning? Nevermind, it doesn’t matter- he said some things that made me realize how much I missed…”

Janus wasn’t moving but for the slow and steady rise and fall of his shoulders.

“He, uh, he told me Thomas accepted you? And you told them your name? I couldn’t believe it. You must have been pretty desperate to do that. And, yeah, that was a real wake-up call.”

The voices were finally fading. Not completely gone, not yet, but no longer so loud they drowned out everything else. Remus closed his eyes and let the peace linger. Logan’s hand was still on his shoulder. It still burned.

“I was so surprised. Why would they give him- give you a seat at the table? And then I had to ask myself, why do I think that you don’t deserve it? And that sent me down this whole other rabbit hole...”

The silence was deafening. Patton was fidgeting, eyes darting this way and that, never settling on a single thing for too long before returning to Janus and Virgil. Logan watched the proceedings stone-faced, but the slight squeezing of his hand on Remus's still-burning shoulder gave away his unease.

“Because you’re Anxiety, and I’m Deceit,” Janus said with a sigh, sitting up and pulling out of the embrace, tucking his extra appendages away. “Lying always made you nervous. And the way I treated you in the past didn’t help. I thought if I could keep you and Remus under control, Thomas would be happier. Fit in. Not be a target. Clearly it had stunning results.”

The corner of Virgil’s lips twitched. “Not for lack of trying.”

The room fell quiet once more. Janus sighed again.

“Virgil, I’m sorry. Sincerely. I know any confidence we had in each other is gone at this point, but I hope from now on forward we can at least try to work together without everything devolving into another shouting match. For Thomas’s sake, if nothing else.”

“Yeah,” Virgil said after a moment, “same. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have shouted at you first thing in the morning. I almost forgot how much of a bitch you can be.”

Janus chuckled at that. Remus rolled his eyes and yawned loudly, stretching his arms and shaking off Logan’s hand and the burning touch. It had been, what, fifteen minutes? Everyone else turned to stare at him.

“Fuckin’ finally! I thought you two would never kiss and make up!”

Virgil shot a disgusted glare at him. “Ugh, shut up, Remus!”

Janus chuckled again, shaking his head. He got up, offering a hand to Virgil. Virgil eyed it for a moment, eyes flicking up to see Janus raise a quizzical brow. He took it and let Janus pull him up.

Janus turned to Remus. “Remus.”

Remus looked him up and down, raising an unimpressed eyebrow and propping one of his arms on his hip. "Janus."

Janus took a breath. "I-"

"Gee, that's great, JD, but don't you have someone else to do first?" Remus asked loudly, pretending to examine the nails on his free hand. Maybe he’d turn them into claws later. Nice, long, sharp ones that could slice stone, cut diamonds, gouge out wide, yellow eyes...

Janus had stopped dead. He blinked, mouth hanging open, then, with a sharp exhale and a determined set to his eyes, he turned to Logan.

"Right. Logan. As I was saying before we were so kindly interrupted: I think I know what we need to do.”

Janus sunk out. Patton exchanged a look with a very tired Logan, who buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Virgil, hunched over, glanced up at Remus and quickly looked away when he met Remus’s eyes.

“Come on, guys. Let’s go talk to Thomas,” Patton said, sinking out after Janus.

"Oh, goody! A feel trip!” Remus said as they all followed him, wiggling as he went. Time to start bashing in some duck heads. With words. (And maybe his morning star.)

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@mimssides you wanted a tag?

#sanders sides #my fics #remus sanders #roman sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #disturbing descriptions/imagery #innuendo #cursing #panic attack #look i do not know how to write logan bc i know he definitely ought to talk more but like #it doesnt happen #the characters do what they want to do and apparently virgil decided he didnt get enough screentime before i guess #this entire fic had like one quasi outline and i just winged it from there #plantser writing in action lol #i have roman's chapter written but it's the last and the shortest and i think it'll be a good place to end the story #there's just janus's left and he's next but he's being very uncooperative and there's a lot to cover #i think i'll have to rewrite the whole thing bc what i have now is not working #i cannot believe i forgot to warn for the panic attack it was the most obvious thing like omfg #i knew i was forgetting something lmao

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profiler-in-courage · 4 years

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So I started writing a story about a police detective and pictured Claes Bang playing him and now I’m SIX chapters deep.

For those of you that wanted me to post it, here is the first chapter. It’s long I’m sorry!

Chapter 1.

Emerson Woods sucked his hazelnut iced latte out of the green straw, while he simultaneously flicked his thumb over women’s Tinder profiles who were somewhere between 30 and 45. He was a hip cop.

Detective actually, 10 years. He had made detective when he was just 35 years old.

And look at me now, he thought.

Forty-five and single, he had somewhat ashamedly resorted to making a profile on a “dating” website. His niece had told him about it. Which to him was even more pathetic. His niece was 16.

He sighed as he closed the app. What was he doing?

He glanced out his car window and scratched the side of his face. If you wanted to get technical, he was sitting in his silver ’63 Karmann Coupe Porsche. No, not bought from a detective’s salary, an inheritance from his father.

Emerson was on what the movies call a stake-out, but what anyone in law enforcement calls boredom. It’s not like TV. Nothing ever comes from sitting in your car for hours in the middle of the night, at least not in his experience. And there weren’t even donuts.

Well, at least he had coffee.

There had been a series of disappearances in the Connecticut city of Creekmore. All had been women, all from different parts of the city, from low income to high-income parts of town. They had been different ages as well. The oldest fifty-three, the youngest four. It had been going on for a few months now. No leads.

Emerson sighed, debating whether or not to open up the Tinder app again. It was nearing 11 pm, and he was tired. And bored.

The Creekmore Police Department had officers sitting in every neighborhood in the city, wary that since the last disappearance had taken place a little over five months ago. Whoever was abducting these women was due to strike again.

He was stationed in a residential middle-class neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood he would’ve liked to live in. Once upon a time.

Trees lined the sidewalk along with painted white houses with dark roofs and watered grass. The typical picturesque street.

He pressed his thumb over the red and white app.

Kristy, age 39, occupation: elementary school teacher.

Among her list of things she liked to do was:

Hit the bar for a night on the town.

He swiped left. He didn’t drink.

Emerson thought back to the last time he had tasted alcohol. A year after his wife died, which had been eight years ago.

He hadn’t taken her death well.

Who takes death well? he thought.

He supposed a better way to put it was he took it with a bottle of bourbon every day for a year.

Lyla had been 32 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. It didn’t take long.

Every time he heard the term he felt a silent rage build up inside him. Cancer felt like it had escaped a life sentence because of a technicality.

Emerson gritted his teeth. Eight years later, he had made peace with the death of his wife but not with the fact that cancer was still incurable.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, flecks of grey scattered throughout it.

11:30 pm.

His hazel eyes flicked back down to his phone screen. He rubbed the side of his Warby Parker Haskell frames.

He had paused on a picture.

The image of a woman with dark brown hair and even darker brown eyes. He pressed on it.

Gwyn, 33, occupation: artist.

Her bio stated:

Please don’t use slang and conduct your sentences like you’re somewhat educated. If you want a response.

The corner of Emerson’s mouth tugged up into a smirk. It was something he could’ve written himself.

He swiped right.

He had a moment of regret only for a second when he wondered if 33 was too young for him. He mentally shrugged.

11:49

He was beginning to yawn now. Bored with sitting in his car, bored with his bachelor style life. He turned the keys in the ignition, about to press his foot to the gas pedal, but stopped.

He had to stay. He had orders to until sunrise. Though no one would know if he left.

You can’t, he thought.

However bored this stake-out was making him, his morals wouldn’t let him leave. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened. And with his luck it would.

He dropped the keys back into his shirt pocket.

His center console buzzed. His phone had vibrated. Gwyn had matched with him.

Emerson wondered if he should send her a message, or wait. His usual style was to wait. He had been using Tinder for a month and while he had sent the occasional message, the conversation had never gone anywhere. People didn’t know how to talk anymore.

Through the conversations that had gone on for more than three days, came dinner dates. Three women so far, all had led to nothing except him buying their meal.

Not that he was looking for casual sex. He wasn’t, he just wanted to find someone he wanted to date. And more importantly, that wanted to date him.

He’d found that a lot of women didn't fancy the idea of dating a police detective.

He didn’t know if he should find that concerning or not.

He swiped over to his own profile.

Emerson, 45, occupation: police detective, likes reading, people who know how to use their indoor voice, and the handful of people who take this app seriously. My niece says my style is professor-chique with a hint of cowboy.

The pictures he had of himself on there consisted of two selfies. One with glasses, one without. One clean shaven, one with scruff. Different light-colored button-up shirts. He figured he’d keep it simple.

He went to his phone’s weather app. It was currently 48 degrees. He could feel the cold settling into his car. The sweater and blazer he thought would be enough, apparently wasn’t.

His boots were doing nothing for warmth either but he had refused to go around wearing those clunky winter boots people on the East Coast seemed to love. He’d stick with his square-toed Ariats.

Probably should have went with hot coffee instead of iced, he thought.

To take his mind off the cold, he began running it over the case. The only thing that connected the eight women who had disappeared was that they were all female. The pattern in which the killer chose, was hardly even a pattern. One a week, age of the victim varied. Sometimes it was back to back adult women, sometimes a woman then a young girl. All from different areas, all different races. Frustrating.

He worried about his niece. If it were up to him, he would be sitting outside of her house. Headstrong, fearless, sixteen, no regard for her curfew. His sister had her hands full with Abigail. Detective Burnham, his best friend, was stationed around his sister’s neighborhood.

They will be fine, he thought.

Still, it didn’t stop his brain from depicting scenarios. He had experienced tragedy once, there was no rule that said it couldn’t happen to him again.

After Lyla died he had moved from San Antonio to Creekmore to be closer to his sister and Abigail. They were the only family he had.

He pulled up Abigail’s contact and typed a text message.

I’m assuming that since you are in high school, you are still awake at this hour?

The bubbles that meant she was typing popped up.

I’m safe in my bed, not abducted Uncle Emerson.

He smiled, she was intuitive. And for once not out partying. The stories his sister Eve had told him, it almost made him glad he didn’t have children. But not quite.

Abigail was typing again.

So…any new matches?!

Since she had persuaded him to download Tinder, she had amusingly become interested in his personal life.

He remembered her saying something along the lines of,

“Stop being a stereotypical lonely detective and get yourself a love interest!”

Emerson responded.

One. Go to sleep. School tomorrow.

He could picture her rolling her eyes as she read it.

His phone vibrated. Gwyn had sent him a message,

G: Hi Emerson.

That was it?

Though something about the simplicity of the message intrigued him. No one had said a simple “Hi,” to him on here, they usually began with,

“What’s up.”

Or,

“What are you doing?”

Somehow this felt more personal. More genuine.

E: Hi Gwyn.

He had faith that sending an equally simple response wouldn’t stop her from sending him another message.

As another one from her popped up, his phone rang. It was his precinct chief.

“Woods, get to Wilshire as soon as you can. We have bodies.”

He clenched his teeth. He had a bad feeling.

Even when called to a homicide the chief always had some sly remark or joke about Emerson’s whereabouts and why he wasn’t already at the scene.

This time there had been nothing. Only a quick order.

He put his keys in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

As Emerson drove down the barren streets his stomach started to churn. He felt sick almost, like the sort of feeling you get when you’ve eaten something that’s been sitting out for a while.

That happened to him sometimes. Though only when something really bad was about to happen. It was like his own version of seeing the future.

It had happened the day his wife had told him about her breast cancer, the day his parents had been in an accident, but never before seeing a body.

He was good with crime scenes, even the really gristly ones.

So why did he have this feeling?

He pulled up to the yellow caution tape and walked out to where he saw the chief and Detective Rawley standing. Wilshire was on the outskirts of town, the street was in between two fields that went on for a couple of miles.

This is weird, he thought.

All of the other bodies that had been found had been in the city.

Just as Emerson was thinking they might not be victims of the town serial killer, the chief caught his eye.

No, it’s him.

“Woods,” the chief nodded in greeting.

Rawley looked up at Emerson in uninterested acknowledgment.

“Chief…..Rawley,” Emerson nodded to each of them.

He hadn’t even seen the bodies yet and Emerson was already in a bad mood. He couldn’t stand Rawley. Arrogant, rude, loud. All qualities he despised.

He stepped over the marshy parts of the field to get to where the tarps were covering the victims.

“What do we know?” Emerson asked, as he lifted up one of the tarps.

It was a female, white, blonde, age anywhere between 13-17 he would guess.

“First one is Halley Reece, age 15. Judging from the backpack it looks like she has been missing since school got out this afternoon,” said Chief.

Emerson lifted the tarp on the other. Female, white, brunette, same age range.

Chief sighed, “Her friend is Melanie Myers. Fifteen, also looks like she had been missing only since this afternoon. Both of their ID cards say they went to Creekmore High.”

Emerson’s eyes wound over their bodies, studying where the blood had pooled.

“Stab wounds cause of death?” he asked.

“Yes, different from last week,” Chief answered.

That was another erratic thing about the killer, his methods were all over the place.

One week it was stabbings, the next it was gunshots or strangelings. But always female. That was the only constant.

“Dude must have a bad ex-wife for him to hate women this much,” Rawley joked.

Emerson rolled his eyes.

“Do we have someone talking to their families?” he asked.

Chief nodded, “I have the patrol cops who found them handling it.”

That was the one thing Emerson did not miss whatsoever about being a beat cop, being the first to inform next of kin.

He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose,

“Have forensics been here yet?”

Chief let out a curt laugh, “Are you kidding? You know how long those guys take. I swear they intentionally wait 20 minutes before getting their asses out here.”

Emerson glanced at his watch, it was almost 1 am. He was tired and wanted to go home. If forensics hadn’t even been here yet and patrol were taking to the families, there was really nothing he could do right now.

And my stomach hurts

He couldn’t shake the doom feeling. He needed to sleep it off.

“Anything else Chief? I should get home and start looking over the case files, see if anything matches up.”

Lies

Chief said he could leave and he would see him tomorrow. Emerson quickly evaded the muddy puddles and headed back to his car before Rawley could say some gaudy remark about going home and fucking one of his many one night stands.

How the chief put up with him he would never know.

Emerson pulled into his driveway and just sat in the car for a moment. Thinking.

He still had that feeling in his stomach and he knew it was because of the killings.

They were speeding up. It had started as one every couple months, then went to one every couple weeks, and now it seemed like it was one or two every week.

With no leads.

The killer left absolutely nothing behind. No prints, no hair, no signatures.

Nothing.

At this rate, the whole city would be dead in a couple years if they didn’t catch him. The town was in a cloud of panic.

It was mind boggling. Stomach churning.

He grabbed his phone from the center console and went inside. By the time he showered and got into bed it was nearing 2 am. His stomach hadn’t stopped hurting yet either.

As he leaned over to set his phone on the nightstand, he remembered he had gotten a message from Gwyn right before Chief had called him.

He opened up Tinder.

G: Inside voices huh? What about when in bed?

He smirked.

E: If the bed is inside the rule still applies.

He saw message bubbles pop up.

G: Hmmm so you’re a whisper in the ear kind of guy? I like that. Takes the pressure off having to fake it, or having to scream, “YES ALL POWERFUL WIZARD WIELD THAT STAFF!”

Emerson raised his eyebrows.

E: Have you actually said that before?

While he waited for her reply he checked the local news. The story hadn’t broken yet.

G: Never let a friend drag you to a World of Warcraft singles mixer. Also, never sleep with someone from said mixer.

He scratched his nose, he wasn’t that great at banter but Gwyn’s easy going humor made it a little less challenging for him.

E: Are you not someone from said mixer?

This was certainly the most interesting conversation to come from Tinder.

G: No, I was dragged there, against my free will. Come to think of it, you should probably arrest the woman who dragged me there.

Emerson chuckled.

E: I would say I need a warrant but I think this is grounds for an exception to the law.

G: Thank you.

E: You’re welcome.

He could barely keep his eyes open at this point, and decided that discussing arrest tactics with Gwyn would have to wait till tomorrow.

His stomach felt better though

#claes bang #is this a fanfic idk #it gets better i promise #wait till he meets gwyn #im dying at them

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buzrushwelldeveloped-blog · 4 years

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years

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These ad execs have a venture fund they’d like to sell you

Mike Duda comes from the world of advertising. In fact, he spent 13 years at the renowned ad agency Deutsch, becoming the youngest partner in the company’s history until another creative, Brent Vartan, came along and stole the title. Little wonder that in 2010, when Duda struck out on his own to create Bullish (formerly known as Consigliere Brand Capital), he stole Vartan, later making him the firm’s second managing partner.

It isn’t that the two wanted to outgun their former employer exactly. Instead, the idea from the outset was to create an ad agency that also happens to be an investment firm. In a way, they stole a page from many Silicon Valley service firms that, beginning in the go-go dot com era of twenty years ago, worked for pay and, when the right opportunities arose, for equity.

It’s turned out to be a pretty good approach. Bullish, which is based in New York and works on a pay-for-performance compensation model, has managed to sneak checks into some of the biggest consumer new brands out there, including Warby Parker and Peloton and Harry’s and Casper, companies that have happily agreed to include Bullish as a syndicate partner including because of its advertising know-how.

In the meantime, to keep the lights on as those privately held companies have continued to operate privately, Bullish has also managed to land more traditional big-league clients, including Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Nike and Walmart. It also counted GNC as a client and reportedly turned heads when it dropped it in order to invest $250,000 in the three-and-a-half-year-old vitamin supplement startup Care/of.

With Bullish now contemplating fund two, we decided to sit down with Duda last week to learn more about how the whole things operates, and where he and Vartan are shopping now.

TC: You’d spent your career in advertising. What circles were you traveling in that you were also seeing seed-stage startups — good ones — in need of funding?

MD: It was through outlier circles. Like, Peloton struggled to raise money, so it got104 angels to invest, including high-net worths, and us, who looked institutional, though I laugh at that now. [Founder and CEO John Foley] didn’t know how to play the VC game. He’d been the president of Barnes & Noble and he had this idea that people thought was crazy. He had a PPM for his fundraise — he didn’t have the [traditional] ten-page PowerPoint. So a lot of people in New York passed, and those same people now funding the Mirrors of the world and Tonals of the world.

It was a similar situation with Birchbox. It trouble raising money because its founders are women, and most of the guys they were talking to were like, ‘Well, my wife would get bored of this after a couple of months.’ But the target audience doesn’t have a seven-car garage in Palo Alto. It’s a mom of two in Cleveland who subscribes to the New Yorker.

On the agency side, we worked on Revlon for two years, so we get that a consumer doesn’t have to be like just someone we know. It isn’t, ‘Oh, it’s a product for women; let me ask my wife.’ We actually do focus groups to [find] consumer insights.

TC: So the pitch is that it isn’t just money you’re bringing but a full marketing group, too.

MD: A marketing group with people from places like Deloitte and A.T. Kearney and Goldman Sachs and RBC who try to understand what’s really going on among the says 330 million Americans out there – – not just in New York, San Francisco, L.A. or Boston, which are the hotbeds for consumer investment in VC. We look at stuff that could be disruptive for the normals, which is sometimes unsexy stuff like a stationary bike with a TV.

TC: A $3,000 stationary bike is for normal people?

MD: There were 1.6 million stationary bikes being sold in the U.S. every year [when Foley first began pitching investors]. Harry’s taking on Gillette before Dollar Shave Club came along [is another example]. The jeans I’m wearing are from a company called Revtown in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded by Henry Stafford, who was the North American president of Under Amour and [previously worked for both] American Eagle and Gap. So this was a first-time entrepreneur who had corporate experience was paranoid about raising too much money and promising investors too much too soon. And we’re attracted to entrepreneurs who don’t want to raise tons of capital before they build a profitable business.

That’s not the case with all of our investments, obviously. Casper and Peloton have both raised a fair amount of money, but their growth kind of followed suit.

TC: Why jeans?

MD: I think [Stafford[ was kind of ticked off and wondering why do people have to choose from either the Gap or a $200 pair of jeans. He wanted to build a great pair of jeans that sell for under $100 and that he can sell through great advertising. The pair I’m wearing right now is $75 and it’s a great pair of jeans. Not that I have the ability to stretch, but if I could put my foot over my head without them on, I could do it with them on, too, because they’re stretchy and durable and well-made. Also, from an operations from business standpoint, this is an adult who has built up businesses before and brings that sensibility so that we can get the scale right. Though a direct-to-consumer brand, it’s not too precious to go into physical retail earlier, either.

TC: Most direct-to-consumer brands are showing up in the offline world faster.

MD: DTC 2.0 is definitely going to be more about going where your customers are. When Harry’s went into Target, it was a genius move, because there are people in Overland Park, Kansas who may not see its digital banners, but they’re in a Target, and they’re like, ‘That’s new, that’s interesting.’ So it’s another form of marketing.

TC: What about social media? All the platforms are already saturated. Who’s doing really novel things out there, in your view?

MD: I’ll maybe start with the stuff that just annoys us. First, I think a lot of VCs and other people involved with early-stage companies think marketing is a customer acquisition cost and it’s not. If you have to rely on Facebook and Google, you’ll never grow because your [costs] never go down.

When we think of DTC companies, we’re looking for is, what can you do that gets talk value, not just at your initial PR launch but that [produces] advocates in a kind of flywheel talking about you. People do talk about this stuff. People like to be the one to discover something before anyone else and like to talk about it.

TC: What about TV spend? I’m always astonished to see fairly new brands spending what I’d guess is a lot of money on television ads.

MD: With digital marketing, the accountability is not there as much as people thought. And that’s why about a year ago, you started see the [men’s wellness company] Hims start spending $6 million or $7 million a month on TV advertising during March Madness. Was that a flawed strategy? No. TV works. That’s why you see companies that reach a certain size go to TV; it’s like some sort of validation that this a real company. TV is a storefront for companies that may not have one.

TC: I do wonder how these brands, many of which are great, deal with fickle customers. There are some old brands that I will always love — Patagonia, Hermes – – but a lot of newer brands that I love but I will throw over in two seconds for a newer, shinier brand when it also has a compelling product.

MD: It’s more like someone is probably not serving you well enough. They’re letting you forget about them. Is it Amazon’s fault that RadioShack and JC Penny are going out business? Probably not. They weren’t serving the customer. If you build a relationship with your consumer rather than advertising to her, you have a much better chance of keeping that person as a customer longer term. Patagonia makes great stuff, but so do other people. It’s that the company’s values are bigger than the product itself [that keeps people coming back].

TC: You’re going to start raising a fund later this year. How it will it be different than what you put together the first time around?

MD: We undershot our proposition the first time around. Being an executive at an ad agency, I wanted to be more conservative rather than sell the dream and not achieve it. It was actually harder to raise $10 million than what I was told it would have been if I’d been raising $25 million or $30 million. But we wanted to show proof of concept. Now, a lot of people have left the seed and pre-seed area as investors have raised bigger funds and we see a great opportunity, in a world where there is literally trillions of dollars in play, to get in as early as possible, then play pro rata defense [to maintain our stake]. And in our case, we’ll probably offer up later rounds to the [limited partners] who support us.

TC: A lot of seed and pre-seed deal flow comes to investors from Series A investors. Which are those firms in your universe?

MD: By and far, the most helpful firm to us was First Round Capital. Without their time, we wouldn’t be where we are.

I’m dating myself, but back in 2009, they did office hours. They were commercializing this angel VC investing thing. And I went to one of their office hours and [firm founder] Josh [Koppelman] spent 10 minutes with me and gave me his card and it was like a ‘Dumb and Dumber’ moment. I called my wife, and I was like, ‘He’s saying I have a chance!’ Then I flew to San Francisco to do another office hours . . .

TC: You flew cross country expressly for another of these office hours?

MD: Yes. And 78 people showed up. And it was like the land of broken toys. There were older gentlemen in three-piece suits, and a 19-year-old guy who showed up with a Rock’em Sock’em Robot and people who flew in from San Diego and Portland. And they just gave every one 10 minutes and I was like, ‘Here’s our proposition. It’s a marketing agency with a fund.’

And 75 of of the 78 people got 10 minutes, and two got 30 minutes, and one of them — me — got an hour and a half with Chris Fralic and Kent Goldman, who were kind enough to spend time with someone who kind of wanted to do what they do in a different way. Really, they’re the ones who gave me the confidence that this could work.

Photo above, left to right: Mike Duda, Brent Vartan. Courtesy of Mike Duda.

#TechCrunch

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bellabooks · 7 years

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Cat Grant is here to save us all in this week’s “Supergirl”

Where do I even begin with the penultimate episode of this season’s Supergirl? It was a wonder, wrapped in a Balenciaga scarf, tossed in a light dressing of our current political issues, and unrelenting badassery. CAT GRANT CAME BACK! And so did President Wonder Woman, who revealed a hell of a secret. It was magical. I will do my best to not make this recap mostly screaming and gurgles sof happiness. So, when we left Supergirl and the crew, Rhea had kidnapped Lena and brought her Daxam army to invade National City. They even have the nerve to attack the DEO. So while Maggie is battling Daxamite soldiers on the ground… via idanversalex.tumblr.com Alex is jumping out of buildings, doing this: via mzhyde48.tumblr.com Don’t worry, Alex is safe. Supergirl caught her. Now that’s some trust right there. Meanwhile on Rhea’s ship, Lena wakes up from one nightmare to find out she’s stuck in another one. Rhea wants her to marry Mon El. Same, Lena. via tmh-gloucester.tumblr.com Back at the local alien bar, the gang reunites to try and come up with a plan, and kiss. via dailysanvers.tumblr.com Lillian Luther strolls in offering a plan to help get Lena and Mon El back. She may be the worst, but she does love her daughter. No one wants to hear what Lillian has to say, but Supergirl’s heart tells her to keep her options open. Before you can say, “Those glasses aren’t fooling anyone, Kara,” President Marsdin infiltrates all the airwaves to tell Rhea she can suck it. She’s one Air Force One, jetting to National City and she has precious cargo. CAT GRANT! via tunneys.tumblr.com She tosses a few choice zingers Rhea’s way, but between that and the President’s demands, Rhea isn’t having it. She orders her soldiers to attack the plane. (It’s at this point, the Invisible Jet would have been a better choice.) CAT GRANT gets sucked out, and instead of fear on her face, she has a look like, “I can’t believe she disrespected me!” As CAT GRANT hurtles through the sky, she’s rescued by Supergirl. As they land at the crash site, they think all is lost until President Wonder Woman busts out of a piece of wreckage with a special surprise. via itberice.tumblr.com I’m with her. Back at the bar, while CAT GRANT chats with Madeline Albright and roasts Bill O’Reilly, President Wonder Woman explains herself. She is a refugee from Durla, whose family escaped enslavement by coming to Earth. And right now, she’s here to stop another maniac from doing the same thing to her adopted planet. She orders Alex to bust into the DEO and destroy Rhea’s ship with a positron cannon. Kara is freaking out because as she says, two people she loves are still on board. Alex plays it tough and acts like if Maggie were on board, she’d have to make the same call. Please, Alex, you are a marshmallow. You’d do anything to save your girl. Kara goes outside to take a breather and finds CAT GRANT, sitting near the dumpsters, which is the most unlike CAT GRANT thing ever. They catch up on what CAT GRANT’s been doing (living unhappily in a yurt) and CAT GRANT tells Kara that she went seeking happiness and a break from her loneliness, but she soon realized that it only followed her there. Love is where happiness lies, so it’s time to fly off and rescue the woman Kara loves… and Mon El. Kara zooms off, and Cat watches her like it never gets old. via ainokiseki.tumblr.com Naturally, Kara flies off to meet with Lillian Luthor and bust into the Rhea’s ship using some old Fortress of Solitude equipment. When Kara returns to share her plans, Alex runs to her and admits that she’d do the exact same thing if Alex was the one trapped on the ship. Because Alex has only a small window to get into the DEO and use the cannon, she begs her sister to do her part and do it quickly. via morepopcornplease.tumblr.com As Lillian, Hank Henshaw and Kara use the portal at the Fortress, Rhea is forcing Mon El and Lena to get hitched. How’d she do it? By threatening a Children’s Hospital. You are cold as ice, Rhea. Meanwhile, Alex and Maggie break into the DEO… via smolsawyer.tumblr.com while CAT GRANT reclaims her rightful position at CatCo. Sorry, James, I’m sure your new office will be super nice once they clean up all the wreckage. Winn tags along and they plan a diversionary tactic to throw Rhea off. If anyone can reach the American people in their time of need, it’s CAT GRANT. She delivers a rousing speech, which don’t tell me isn’t directly inspired by current events. It not only inspires the humans to fight back, it interrupts Lena and Mon El’s nuptials. via itberice.tumblr.com *shiver* I LOVE YOU CAT GRANT! Even Winn is like, daaaamn. Their moment is interrupted when Rhea sends Daxamite troops to kill CAT GRANT. Luckily, Guardian is nearby to bust a few heads. CAT GRANT is like, “thanks James,” much to James’ chagrin. James is all, how? And CAT GRANT responds, “I’d recognize those kind, thoughtful eyes anywhere.” Or something like that. I think this is a direct hint that CAT GRANT knows that Kara is Supergirl as well. A ponytail and some Warby Parkers aren’t enough to fool CAT GRANT. As Mon El and Lena fight back against the soldiers bringing them back to their cells, they run into Kara, Lillian and Hank. Lena runs straight for her mother, and Kara and Mon El have their moment. While that’s happening, Lena, Lillian and Hank bust out of there, leaving Kara and Mon El behind. Lillian gives Alex the word that all are safe, and surprisingly, Alex believes her and readies the cannon. Kara, being the Supergirl she is, already prepared for this and has remote access. She sends Mon El back, while she confronts Rhea with a chance to surrender with honor. Oh, Kara. As Alex gets ready to fire the cannon, Mon El breaks through and tells her that Kara is still on the ship. She’s horrified with the choice she has to make, and begs the insistent President Wonder Woman that she needs more time. Turns out they won’t need it because something destroys the cannon. What could it be? It’s the same something that punches Kara right in her pretty jaw when she tries to reason with Rhea. This guy. via tylerhoechlingifs.tumblr.com I haven’t trusted that dude since Batman v Superman. Obviously he’s under some sort of min manipulation, but we’ll have to wait until next week’s finale to find out how the heck! Wow, what an episode, right? CAT GRANT is back! No lesbians were killed! Why does this show make it so easy to ship everyone? What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments. http://dlvr.it/P8yS41

#Television #recap #Supergirl

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toomanysinks · 5 years