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soulmate-game · 3 years

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Hawkmoth was a bitch, and Marinette meant that with every fiber of her soul. Fu was also a bitch, and Marinette actually had good memories of the guy. Not many, but she had some. The fact that the guy got two ten-year-olds to become super heroes and fight a supervillain for him kinda soured those memories, though. But with Chat Noir not allowed to leave his house? Yeah, even as young as they were it only took about a year to find out who HawkMoth was and another year to take him down.

Except, that left Marinette alone. The final battle took her mom away, and Chat had to move out of Paris after his dad was arrested. Luckily Jagged allowed her and her papa to move into his house in Gotham, and everything was…

Well, it was okay. For about a month.

Then her dad was gone too, and she had no way to talk to Jagged, and the police were scaring her—

Yeah, that was the basic order of events that led to where she was now. Pushing fourteen years old, ex-superhero, protector of a magical box of gods, stealing the tires off of a very nice motorcycle.

Marinette was tempted to just take the whole thing, she loved bikes and knew she could drive it. But the thing had more security than she knew what to do with, and the fact that it belonged to Red Hood… she didn’t want to deal with trackers today, thanks. So the tires it was.

Should she maybe care more about the fact that she was stealing from a vigilante with a violent streak? Maybe. Did she? Hell no. For all she knew, maybe Red Hood was a bitch too. (Yes, she was still learning English slang. She was fluent by educational standards, but learning how to curse in a foreign language was fun and she still had a little bit to go. Her few street friends were very happy to help).

A shadow dropped down in front of her, and Marinette’s hero instincts kicked in. The tire iron she was using cut through the air, slamming right into the side of Red Hood’s knee.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Hood,” Batman’s voice grumbled over the comms, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone else who was on the comms. It wasn’t as gruff as he usually sounded, in fact it almost sounded like… he was trying not to laugh?

“Did you get gassed by Joker?” Dick asked before Jason got a chance to respond. “Need backup?”

“No,” Batman responded, sounding a little more composed. “Not a rogue. But Hood, I need you to join me at my location as soon as possible.”

Finally getting the chance to talk, Jason responded a little warily; “Sure, B. Wait,” he blinked at the location that was sent to him. “Isn’t that where my bike is parked?”

Batman didn’t respond at first, only the sound of labored breathing— again, as if he was trying not to laugh. “Just get here, Hood.”

Sighing, but not too mad since the night had been fairly quiet so far, Jason decided to humor the old man and head over. When he could see the cape-clad back of Batman, he easily leapt over the last roof and sauntered over.

“Okay, B,” he had his thumbs tucked in his pockets as he drawled. “What’s the issue?”

Batman was grinning. As in, actually showing amusement. And he just pointed down, straight at Hood’s bike.

Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet, turning to look. At first he didn’t see anything amiss, until he saw movement and looked harder. Oh. Oh, holy shit.

“Is that a kid?”

“Yep,” Batman’s grin grew.

“Is she… stealing my tires?” Hood was so, so glad he wore a helmet that hid his expression. Because… wow.

“Yep,” Batman finally lost his composure, chuckling. “This seems like Karma, don’t you think?”

“And you just watched her so you could rub it in,” Jason groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation. Of course he would. Nobody knew it (except the other heroes who knew him) but Batman was a petty little jerk when he wanted to be. He bought the whole Daily Planet just to spite Clark, for crying out loud.

“Don’t adopt her,” Batman said as he stood up, patting Red Hood’s shoulder. “It looks like she’s almost done.”

“Shit,” Jason hissed, looking down to see that she was, actually, very close to being done. She had already had one tire completely free by the time he had arrived, and now she was only seconds away from getting the other one completely free.

He took a quick assessment— she was tiny, and really thin. Definitely a street kid, he thought, though he didn’t recognize her. He knew most of the street kids that stole to get by, nowadays, which meant she must have been fairly new. But even though she seemed to know what she was doing, her small frame made her take longer unscrewing the tires than it normally would have taken. Sure that she wasn’t a threat by any stretch of the imagination, he jumped down. His plan had been to startle her a little by showing up out of nowhere, but he didn’t want to scare her too badly. Just make her jump a little.

But he had underestimated her, it seemed. Without wasting a second, she jumped up and swung her tire iron at his knee. He cursed, she was a lot faster than her had been expecting. He was able to move so that the weapon only clipped the side of his knee, his knee pad thankfully taking the worst of it. She still hit hard enough to make him stumble and hiss in pain though, which was an accomplishment.

That’s when she abandoned her weapon and her tires, darting to try and escape only for Batman to drop down and block her escape. Though really, it was the grin Batman had that scared the girl most of all, apparently, making her slowly back away from him.

“Please stop smiling,” she begged with a faint French accent to her words. “It is not natural.”

That made Red Hood laugh, already recovered and right behind her. He plopped a gloved hand on her head.

“I know, it’s creepy right?” He joked. “What’cha doin’ stealing my tires, kid? I kinda need them to drive anywhere,” he was careful to keep his voice light and devoid of any anger. He wasn’t really upset, all told. It would be hypocritical of him if he was.

She looked between the two vigilantes for a moment, clear intelligence behind those bright blue eyes as she seemed to consider something. Suddenly she pulled away from Red Hood and stepped away from his reach, straightening up and trying to look tall.

“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said as firmly as she could. “My father was Tom Dupain, he was killed in a mugging three months ago. We were living in a house that our family friend leant to us after my mother’s death six months ago, and we moved here from Paris. I haven’t been able to contact him, and the police… I don’t trust them,” she admitted, clearly seeing this as the chance she had been waiting for. “I have been living on the streets since my father died. I am sorry for trying to steal your tires, Monsieur Red Hood. But it was a risk I had to take.”

“Did you expect us to catch you?” He asked, crossing his arms as he re-evaluated the girl. She was a lot stronger than he had assumed earlier, both physically and mentally. She seesawed her hand to indicate ‘kinda’.

“Even if you didn’t, I could make good money off your tires,” she justified with a shrug. “To me, I would win either way.”

“Who is your family friend? Can he help you now, take you in?” Batman asked, moving forward and kneeling down to be closer to Marinette’s height. Neither he nor Jason had missed the part where she was an orphan, but they had expected that considering what they had caught her doing. And they both knew that she wasn’t likely to take any apologies they tried to offer very well. It was best not to show pity, or she might get angry.

Marinette frowned. “... Our family friend is Jagged Stone. He lets me call him Uncle Jagged,” she told them, clearly expecting the disbelieving grunts they gave. “I mean it! You can call him, he might even be looking for me! I—“

“We know,” Hood assured her, now kneeling down as well. Man, she was short. “Calm down, we know you’re telling the truth. Jagged has made several public announcements about his missing honorary niece, we just didn’t recognize your name right away. And Jagged doesn’t have access to very many pictures of you, those he does have the Mayor isn’t allowing him to show because that spineless jackass—“

“Language, Hood.”

“—Cares more about keeping bad press off the air than finding a kid, even if it’s a world famous rockstar who’s asking. That’s probably why you haven’t heard anything, the mayor’s keeping it off the radio and not many reporters are brave enough to take the story and get on his bad side.”

“Oh…” Marinette took a deep breath, fighting the tears that were threatening to rise up. “He has been looking…” she sniffled, curling in on herself a little. “Can you take me to him?”

“I think we can do that,” Batman agreed, standing up. “I’ll contact him. Red Hood, can you handle everything here until I give you a place to meet up with Jagged Stone?”

Jason nodded. “No problem, B. Come on, little rabid pixie. Step one of gettin’ you back to your uncle is to help me fix my bike back up.”

Marinette sighed, shoulders dropping. “All my hard work, undone…” she playfully complained. But in the end she didn’t argue or fight against it, she just sat down and helped him reattach his tires.

All the while, Jason’s family kept teasing him over the comms. Clearly they were also thoroughly amused by the cosmic display of karma.

“...Monsieur Hood,” Marinette asked once they were done repairing the motorcycle and he had given her his too-big extra helmet. He tilted his head a bit to show he was listening. She squirmed. “Can… can we stop by my hideout? I have something really important I have to get.”

Jason smiles gently under his mask. She might not have been a street kid for very long, but she really did bring back some memories for him. He got on his bike and held a hand out to her.

“Sure thing kid. Wanna grab something to eat after? Can’t have a reunion on an empty stomach.”

She gave him a lopsided smile— not quite overjoyed, but definitely hopeful and thankful. Maybe this was the end of her streak of bad luck, she could only hope.

“Only if you don’t mind, Monsieur Hood,” she agreed before taking his hand and letting him help her onto the bike.

“No skin off my back, pixie,” he assured her. Then they were off. He followed her directions until they got to an abandoned building about three miles away, not in a good part of town at all but at least not in crime alley. Marinette easily led him through the building, skirting around other piles of ratty blankets and up broken stairs until they got to the badly-maintained top floor. She led him over to an almost invisible door in the concrete wall that pulled out to reveal what was probably a broom closet once upon a time. It was crowded with what looked like junk and empty boxes, along with a few blankets and two or three changes of clothes that were clearly her’s. A few belongings scattered around— a book, a small pink purse, and… Marinette came out of the pile of mess holding what had clearly been a very carefully hidden box. She also grabbed the purse and slung it over her shoulder, but didn’t seem worried about anything else.

Jason frowned at the box. It wasn’t that big, but it was clearly made of old wood. There were intricate carvings that were painted pink, in a symbol that was itching at the back of his mind. He recognized that symbol, but from where?

“Ready to go, kid?” He asked as he thought about it, getting a nod from Marinette. Twenty minutes later they were at a Batburger, sitting in a shaded booth that couldn’t be seen from the street.

She never let the box out of her sight. She kept it on the seat next to her, and Jason noticed that she tried to keep one hand on it at all times. But when she spoke, now her French accent stood out to him even more than before. But why—?

And then it clicked. Paris. Hawkmoth. Ladybug, Chat Noir, magic artifacts called Miraculous. Wonder Woman had raised a fuss when the heroes disappeared, declaring that something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Then the magic users they trusted were called in, and returned from Paris with the grim news that the former Guardian of those artifacts had activated a failsafe and passed the guardianship on to someone else while erasing his own memories at the same time. But nobody knew who he could have passed it on to, so Batman had been given the green light to do all the research he and his team could into the Miraculous box to try and help track it down.

And here it was. The carvings were in pink now, which might have been the “cosmetic change” that Constantine had mentioned might happen when the box changed guardians. He had found the box full of super powerful magical artifacts… in the hands of a newly orphaned street kid who couldn’t have been older than fourteen at best.

What the hell?

“...” Red hood reached into his pocket and pulled out an old receipt and a sharpie. He scrawled on the back of the receipt and handed to Marinette. The girl was halfway into a bite of her burger when he did, and blinked at him owlishly before swallowing and cautiously reaching out to grab it. She frowned at the numbers scrawled there.

“What’s this?” She asked.

“My contact info,” he explained. “I won’t ask questions about why you have that box,” he watched her instantly stiffen but continued as casually as he could; “but it doesn’t matter. You can call me if you ever need help with anything, kid. Help with that box, help if you get in trouble in Gotham again, or even if you’re having a bad day. You can call me for whatever, got it? I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, if you can’t talk to anyone else in your life you can always call or text me and I’ll do whatever I can. Got it?”

“...” Marinette sniffled for a second and looked down at the table in silence for a second. “... what if I want your motorcycle?” she joked, but the watery tone of her voice gave her away.

Jason laughed, patting her head. “I need my bike, but we can talk about getting you your own once you are old enough to get a license. You almost done? Bats says that Jagged is ready to meet you, I can take you to him right now.”

“Yeah, lets go!” she was newly energized and shoved the last bite of burger into her mouth greedily. “And Red Hood?” She asked as they headed out to where he had parked.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Thanks.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Permanent tag list (I remembered it this time!)

@rosalineandrosemary @neakco @justanotherfanficlovinbitch @trippingovermyfeet @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @bigpicklebananatree @fantasylover-92 @prongs-flowers @jumpingjoy82 @prettylittlebutterflie @queenz-z @literaryhiraeth @waffelyunsure @deathssilentapproach-blog @waiting247 @theirlmikan @unoriginalmess

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #dc x mlb #dc x miraculous #soulmate-game #platonic jasonette

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florrickandassociates · 3 years

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TGF Thoughts: 5x10-- And the violence spread.

So, that’s it for season five. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the season as a whole and Wackner’s arc. I’m hopeful that writing this will help me decide.

This episode has a Previously, and it’s rather conventional. I’m guessing it’s here to bookend the season, with conveying information being only a secondary objective.

Did we see Rivi scream, “You’re done, Wacko, you’re done! Canceled! Canceled!” in the last episode or is that new to this previously? I feel like I absolutely would’ve had things to say about a) Wackner being called “Wacko,” which has been RIGHT THERE this whole time, and b) the use of “Canceled,” which is a thing Rivi would never say but is VERY thematic (you know, cancel culture and also Wackner having a TV show and also this being a TV show that’s wrapping up* Wackner’s arc).

* The way things end this episode, I’d say we’re done with Wackner. The Kings have said they aren’t sure about the plan for season six, so never say never, but I think that if we see Wackner again, it will be as part of a different arc.

I went back to 5x09 and while we do see the same shots of Rivi screaming, whatever he’s saying in 5x09 is in Spanish. So either he was saying this in Spanish or the dialogue here is totally new.

I’m a little sad that I knew in advance Robert King had directed this episode, because I want to know how long it would’ve taken me to guess. I’d like to think this first shot, of Diane flopping down on her bed in a very pretty floral print dress, then Kurt flopping down in the opposite direction, would’ve given it away. We usually don’t get shots that are both striking and kinda balanced unless RK’s directing.

This also has some big season three opener vibes—the scene where Diane turns to Kurt and says, “I’m happy,” thus jinxing the entire season.

Diane and Kurt are about to go on vacation, which means, of course, that Diane and Kurt are definitely not about to go on vacation. I’ve watched 12 seasons of this show; I know all the tricks!

If I didn’t get it from the initial staging of the opening shot, the camera panning to Diane and Kurt’s suitcases and then back would’ve been another clue that RK directed. He ALWAYS has the camera in motion.

I love that Diane’s travel outfit is a dress you could wear to a fancy party and a statement necklace. Of course it is.

And if I needed evidence that RK and MK wrote this episode (which I didn’t; it is a finale so I knew they wrote it), Diane quoting Waiting for Godot is a clue there.

I really should read Waiting for Godot, shouldn’t I?

“Wow. Educated and a good lay,” Kurt responds. I know that the political stuff between Diane and Kurt can get more than a little murky, but banter like this reminds me why they stay together and why politics never drive them apart. Also, it’s really nice to see Diane and Kurt have some fun banter that isn’t about politics.

And Diane making kissing noises and asking Kurt to meet her halfway! This just feels like I’m spying on someone’s private life and I love it. Not in a voyeuristic way, since this is actually a little uncomfortably private, but in a, “ah, yes, these do feel like real people” way. This is the kind of “a little goes a long way” character moment I always want more of, and Kings episodes ALWAYS include stuff like this.

And there it is. The phone rings as Diane and Kurt are about to start out for the airport. Diane thinks the call must be for Kurt, but it’s for her. It’s a very flustered Liz, informing her that STR Laurie’s execs are on their way to the office for a surprise visit.

If the Diane/Kurt scene didn’t tell me that Robert King directed, I almost certainly would’ve gotten it from the sudden cut to Liz, walking through the hallways and doing a million things at once with a ton of background noise. No one loves chaos the way Robert King loves chaos.

This episode STRONGLY reminds me of the Wife season five finale. It is equally chaotic and also spins a ton of plates. But, mostly, the similarity I see between the two episodes is that they are both extremely fun and captivating to watch because of how much momentum they have, but everything just feels slightly hollow and not exactly focused on the thing you want to see.

(Shout out to my friend Ryan, who messaged me the 5x22 comparison before I could message it to him!)

I decided I should rewatch the first few minutes of 5x22. I am now 15 minutes into 5x22 of Wife and 2 minutes into 5x10 of Fight. Oops.

Apparently, STR Laurie planned a surprise visit because they heard RL was dysfunctional. You don’t say!

I felt like 5x09 concluded with STR Laurie being won over by Allegra and the RL team, so this is a bit of a surprising place to start the episode. But, since Diane seems surprised too, I’ll allow it.

Now Liz and Diane have 90 minutes to agree on a financial plan! Kurt’s on the phone with the airline before Diane even hangs up with Liz.

Diane is determined not to lose out on her vacation and asks Kurt to change the flight to 8:00. “Kurt, we are going on this vacation if it kills me!” is a line I would worry was foreshadowing on basically any other show.

The RL/STRL PowerPoint template is pretty ugly. They want to call 2021 their best year yet, thanks to the deal between Rivi and Plum Meadow Farms we saw last week. Even though we saw champagne and signatures, the deal isn’t done yet because Plum Meadow can back out if Rivi goes to jail.

RK also loves close-ups more than any other director on the show; I do not love close-ups.

The Plum Meadow deal is such a big deal that for the quarter, they go from $45 million to $5 million without it. They should just not say numbers. I can believe it’s big enough to take them from a modest profit to being behind projections or whatever, but I can’t believe that they have $5 million in other business and $40 million on this one deal.

It seems that Rivi was arrested. I don’t think it is ever said in this episode why. I assume the arrest relates to his behavior in Wackner’s court, since there were police officers there, and I suppose that Rivi is a big enough deal the police would actually take him to real court, but are we not going to address the weirdness of Rivi being arrested in a fake court where his employees are being tried, then taken to a real court by the same people who just an episode ago were disillusioned with real court? This seems like a plot point.

Carmen on a frantic phone call in the backseat of a car feels very 7x22.

Who is James that Carmen has in her contacts!? And why does everyone always put Liz in their contacts as “Elizabeth Reddick” when everyone calls her Liz?

Carmen calls Marissa to go argue in Vinetta’s court since she’s on Rivi duty. Carmen doesn’t take Marissa’s job in Wackner’s court seriously and then notes that this instruction is coming straight from Liz, so Marissa falls in line.

Wackner’s case of the week is about rural Illinois wanting to form its own state separate from Chicago. There’s a farmer who feels like his tax money is only going to the big city and he wants it to stay in his community.

They’ve just now added stage lighting to the set of Wackner Rules, dunno why they wouldn’t have done that earlier!

I don’t know what standing you’d have to have to bring a case about wanting to divide the state in two to court, or if this is even something a court would or should decide, but, sure, Wackner and Cord, go for it. There are no rules!

This map splitting Illinois into two new states that Cord is holding is a dumb prop because Galena, where this farmer is from, is in the same section as Chicago. Do I pause every reference to Chicago on this show and then google information to see if the writers bothered to look it up or pretend they’ve ever set foot in Chicago? You know I do.

“Secession!” the audience screams. Does the audience of Wackner Rules really want to see this?

A Good Fight Short! And it really is short: “Stop this obsession with secession and breaking up the Union. It’s boring and it’s dumb, end of song.” I feel like that’s the thesis statement for this episode, or one of them (that this episode seems to have about ten thesis statements is kind of my problem with this episode, tbh). This episode is very much about danger of things becoming too fractured—the COTW, the copycat courts, the firm drama—and I feel like the writers come around to just saying no, this is enough, we need structure and consistency.

But more on that later. MUCH more on that later.

Marissa is swearing more because “the world has required it.” She notes this to Wackner as she calls him out on the secession case. Cord barges in.

Take a look at the employee of the month poster on the back of the door at 5:39. Then at 5:40, look at what’s in the box just to the right of the center of the screen: it’s an employee of the month poster with Wackner on it! Cute easter egg. (Would Marissa definitely notice this and have questions? Yes. Is this here as a cute easter egg for eagle-eyed fans? Almost certainly.)

“Insane is just one step away from reality if you get people to believe, and you know what makes people believe? TV.” Cord explains when Marissa asks how they can possibly be litigating this case. That’s thesis statements two and three, folks. The first is that if you get people to believe, then anything is possible, which sounds like a tagline for a Disney movie but is actually super dangerous; the second is that reality TV is a way to persuade people and change opinions.

So we’ve got: (1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. Let’s see if there are more.

(Yes, these theses do kind of add up to a whole—The rules don’t matter, so if you persuade people, through reality tv, you get factions of people believing their own sets of rules and facts—but what I'm interested in tracking throughout this episode is how well the writers actually bring these theses together.)

(And this is setting aside that key themes in previous episodes, that I think many of us were looking for resolution on, included outlining the flaws with the extant “real” justice system and exploring the role of prison in the justice system. From this episode, I don’t think the writers ever intended to really tackle either of those issues. That’s fine—I'm not sure that TGF has something to say about prison abolition and I don’t want a thought experiment where the writers actually try to fix the legal system—but feels a bit disjointed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but 5x08 and 5x09 needed to do a better, clearer job of setting up this finale. The key themes of Wackner’s arc were always present, but they needed to slowly narrow the scope so the resolution felt inevitable and clear. Instead, we spent time on things like parking spaces (when we could’ve had a real plot about how Wackner’s court gains legitimacy through violence, incarceration, and playing on people’s frustration with the real systems) and Del’s focus groups (when we could’ve instead done a plot about Wackner gaining fans who wanted to use his methods to do ill). Everything I just mentioned in the parentheticals is in the show! It’s not subtext! We see it all! We see Cord use violence and prisons to enforce Wackner’s rulings; we see the cops turn to Wackner out of frustration; we see that the people drawn to Wackner Rules and to Wackner’s court are increasingly sounding more and more like right-wing populists! I can’t be too hard on this arc because, again, all these ideas are there. I’m not coming up with them on my own!)

I’m just saying: this ending would’ve been a lot clearer and a lot more interesting had the writers focused on what I mentioned above instead of the distractions of the last two episodes.

Whew, that was a ramble. Hope you’re ready for more rambles.

On a similar note, I’d like to reiterate my problems with how the writers used Marissa after the private prison reveal. I don’t have much more to say than what I wrote last week, but it’s another example of the same problem. Marissa objecting to Wackner’s court because she notices what it’s becoming and how Cord plans to use it for political gain (two Illinoises (??) changes the Senate and the Electoral College...) always was going to be part of the endgame. Marissa only seriously objecting after the fourth or fifth line Wackner crosses feels bizarre.

Cord does NOT like that there is another court, and wants to protect Wackner’s IP. Wackner, as we saw last episode, does not feel threatened by the other court. In fact, he seems to be excited by it.

I love Liz questioning Diane’s outfit like it’s unprofessional. It’s a little low-cut and showy, but I don’t think unprofessional is the word I’d use for it.

Now they have 45 minutes to decide The Future Of The Firm and Diane wants to be considered a name partner. Oh, that debate is still raging?! Every time I think it’s done it comes back, which should probably be a sign to Diane that her options are to leave and start something new, jettison Madeline and the others, or step down. Staying on as name partner and calling it a black firm is just not an option.

“Diane, there is a split in the firm that...” Liz starts, before asking some associates to leave the room. Ha! The reveal Liz and Diane aren’t alone is a pretty fun touch.

“The Black equity partners don’t want to be in your work group,” Liz informs Diane. “Because they think they’ll be punished by this firm?” Diane asks. “No, that’s paranoia. We don’t punish here,” Liz responds. “Of course you do. My fracking client. My union client. The Black lawyers who work on those cases—they're considered traitors” Diane says. “Because those CEOs are racists,” Liz counters.

Lots going on here, and I’m not sure I understand it all. Why would the equity partners—who are partners—feel like they’re being punished by being in Diane’s work group? (And also what does a “work group” mean and why haven’t they talked about it in the past?) When Diane starts talking about the lawyers who staff her clients, she’s not talking about equity partners; she is talking about associates.

And people are giving associates shit for working on Diane’s clients whom they happen to be staffed on!? That’s sad, though believable.

“So what do we do? Only bring in clients who can pass the racial smell test?” Diane asks. I mean, actually, yes. IF the goal is to be a black firm and to have that designation mean something in moral terms rather than marketing terms, then yes.

“It’s okay if you’re a drug kingpin like Rivi, but it’s not okay if you want me as lead attorney?” Diane says. Also, yes. Diane makes good points here.

“Diane, this is not about you,” Liz counters. Um, sure, but it has to be about something, Liz. Unless you’re trying to build a firm you don’t control that makes 88% of its revenue from a drug dealer (40 million out of 45 million this quarter = 88%; I told you they shouldn’t give me numbers) but happens to have black people in charge, you have to grapple with this question. I don’t think anyone who’s fighting for the firm to be a black-led (not owned, bc STRL) business is the type of person who thinks that having a black-led firm that does all the same shit as any other firm is in itself a good thing, so you NEED to address your client list. Madeline is anti-Rivi, anti-Cord, anti-Wolfe-Coleman (the rapist guy), pro-social justice, and pro having a black led firm.

“I mean, why... why do white people personalize this?” Liz asks. “Oh, now I’m just a white person?” Diane responds. I... don’t know what to do with this! Liz is right that Diane is taking this personally; Diane is right that Liz needs to deal with the rest of the client list. But no one is saying the things that REALLY need to be said: That all their decisions are meaningless in the shadow of STRL, and that deciding to be a black led firm isn’t the end of the discussion if they haven’t decided what types of clients they want to have.

“What happened, Liz? Last year we were intent on an all-female-run law firm,” Diane starts. Oh, THIS AGAIN! Diane never learns, does she? She never seems to realize that no one she’s approached with this idea is NEARLY as in love with it as she is. She probably still wonders to herself why Alicia—who partnered with her at the end of season seven basically just because it was the easiest, most frictionless thing to do—didn't seem more committed to their firm.

“Diane, there is history here that we are trying to...” Liz says, but Diane cuts in to note that women (women like Diane Lockhart!) have history too! In fact, she’s spent “35 years fighting gender discrimination to get to this position.” “And we have spent 400 years fighting racial discrimination to try and, you know...” Liz starts, before cutting herself off to get back to the ticking clock.

Sigh. Just talk about the actual thing instead of talking around the thing, guys. Diane is obviously deserving of A name partnership, in the abstract. This is an undeniable fact. And while Diane is definitely making this about herself rather than the big picture, I don’t think Liz trying to trump Diane’s 35 year career with the history of black people is going to win her any arguments? Like, just say what you mean and say it clearly. What Liz, I think, wants to express is that Diane’s individual accomplishments aren’t the issue here and everyone thinks she’s deserving (though Liz suggested Diane was not deserving a few episodes ago, which I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now). The problem is that Diane is trying to fight a battle that’s about something much larger than herself with, “but I'm a good lawyer!”

And that’s KIND OF what Liz is saying here, if I add all her sentences up and read between the lines, but, again, why not just say it?

“Alright, now we have 43 minutes to fix race relations, gender relations. STR Laurie’s gonna fire our asses, and you know it,” Liz says. I am curious what that would look like. Wouldn’t that just mean that STRL wouldn’t control them anymore? I’m sure being fired would be bad and all, but wouldn’t it free them from the contract they wanted out of last year?

“Let’s split the firm down the middle. I hire half the lawyers, you hire the other half,” Diane suggests. What does this mean? Why are you hiring your employees? Huh?

“You hire the white associates, and I hire the black associates?” Liz confirms. This seems like a very bad idea that would make things a lot worse and open them up to lawsuits! I also still do not know what they’re even talking about. And I don’t know why Allegra isn’t a part of this conversation.

“I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it’s what we’re left with. It's what we can agree on,” Diane says. I really wish I understood what “hire” meant in this context because I don’t understand why they have to split anything or why this has to be done now and I don’t understand why this would possibly be a good solution. Can you imagine the backlash when people realize all the white people report to Diane and all the black people to Liz and that people were taken off of the accounts they’ve worked on for years to accomplish this? And this must be something that the employees would know about eventually; otherwise they could just randomly assign half to Liz and half to Diane.

I’m sad Madeline isn’t in this episode because I feel like we needed to see more of her POV as well as the associate POV. I don’t really understand the divides at play within the firm or what the staff and other partners are asking for, but I suspect it isn’t this.

Hallucination Jesus is back, and at least there’s actually a point to him this time (he shows up when Jay is in Vinetta’s court and reminds Jay that Vinetta will rule based on her religious beliefs). I still dislike the hallucinations.

Jay advises Marissa, who is Jewish, to talk a lot about Jesus in her defense.

Charmaine Bingwa is really great as Carmen, and obviously she is not fluent in Spanish, but it’s so funny to me that the only time you can hear that she’s Australian is when she’s trying to say Oscar like she’s speaking Spanish.

"I know you’re hiding something when you speak English,” Rivi says to Carmen. Heh.

“Community court” is such a nice, unthreatening term for referring to Wackner and his copy cats. Thanks for that, Carmen!

It’s a smart plan to mention Jesus a lot, I guess, but Jay and Marissa both should’ve realized that Vinetta is too smart to tolerate obvious pandering. I’m a little surprised Jay doesn’t get up and argue since Marissa is, obviously, not familiar with the New Testament.

Marissa wins this round with facts and logic.

Why is the judge who was handling Rivi’s previous charge now in bond court? Make it make sense.

I like that Carmen calls out the ASA for swearing hahaha

Why... would this Matteo kid just casually mention he was holding a gun, omg.

In Vinetta’s court, you can be charged with murder and tried because... you had a gun and also there were murders at other times. Coolcoolcool no problems here.

Community courts for civil cases? Sure. That’s basically arbitration. Community courts for criminal cases? Bad, bad, bad idea.

Vinetta’s reasoning: “Those murders happened on our street, and the police haven’t convicted anyone because they don’t care. We care. This is self-defense. And how is it different from your court?” Aside from the whole imprisoning people in her basement thing, Vinetta’s not wrong. I almost brought this up last week but hesitated because I couldn’t remember the details enough to decide if I wanted to recommend it, but there’s a book I read a few years ago that seems relevant here: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Again, been a while so don’t take this as a wholehearted endorsement or anything, but from what I remember, the central issue at the heart of the book (it’s non-fiction) is that a poor black community (I think in LA?) doesn’t trust the police (in part) because the police don’t solve murders, and then with no way of getting justice through the court system, there’s more violence as a stand-in for justice. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy-black-crime

I’m not sure if that’s QUITE what Vinetta is saying but it seems similar, and it’s a decent point (though not a justification for her court). Why should she trust the system to improve her community when it’s ignored her community for years?

I like that the writers chose two very different, very understandable characters for their community courts. It’s easy to see why Wackner and Vinetta feel the need for alternative courts; it’s easy to see why others would trust them. This arc doesn’t really work unless there’s a legitimate frustration with existing systems...

Marissa calls Wackner’s court a “joke,” which she should understand by now isn’t the case. (Marissa’s smart; she knew it wasn’t a joke the second she saw David Cord get involved.)

Vinetta accuses Wackner of copying her court, which alarms Marissa. This isn’t addressed again, and I don’t know if it’s true! I could really go either way on this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that Wackner saw/heard about it, liked it, and did it himself without thinking much of it—and if this is the case, then the ending where Vinetta gets in trouble for violating Wackner’s IP is a lot more of a gut punch. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like the seeds for this were planted. We see Wackner innovate a lot and try new things and he has an explanation for why he does everything—how much of that is Vinetta? And Vinetta clearly watches the show and likes it or she wouldn’t have recognized Marissa, so it’s a little hard for me to just believe her claim when literally all I know about her is she has a court that looks like Wackner’s and she is aware of and feels positively towards Wackner rules. Also, Wackner knows about Vinetta’s court (from Marissa) and sounded excited about it last episode. Sure, he didn’t necessarily know which one it was, exactly, but I assume if he’d copied the idea and then heard about a case involving people from the exact same community where he found the idea... his reaction would be different. So IDK. My reasons for doubting Vinetta’s claim are probably based a little too much in things I’m not meant to spend that much time paying attention to.

“I fucked up. It’s in the same court, but now it’s a murder case,” Marissa tells Diane. I do like hearing characters admit when they fucked up!

Diane hears that STRL is delayed, so she heads out to help Matteo. When she goes to change into her pantsuit, she finds that she’s grabbed Kurt’s bag by mistake. “Of course. That makes sense,” she reacts.

Diane pushes her flight to the next day, also telling Kurt, “And yes, for some reason, I took your suit instead of mine, so fuck it.” I love it when the characters feel like real people.

I am not sure why Kurt is getting to the office when Diane is leaving or why Kurt is there—to pick Diane up on the way to the airport, maybe?

Carter Schmidt walks into RL at the worst possible time, threating to blow up the Plum Meadow deal. Another 5x10 to Wife 5x22 similarity: he’s in both episodes.

Liz heads out to help Carmen with Rivi, and then STRL arrives. Oops.

Credits!

One thing about Wackner’s court that should definitely be a warning sign even though it seems noble: he ignores just about every warning sign, like this rowdy crowd screaming WE LOVE YOU WACKNER or the potential interests at play in a case about secession, because he thinks his fair judgement can overcome these obstacles. If the world worked that way, there’d be no need for his court in the first place.

Is anyone representing the State of Illinois in this trial? If not, then... how is it happening?

Dr. Goat, some dude who claims to have some hidden historical document about how Illinois is actually two states, is clearly making stuff up and yet Wackner indulges him and Cord. I feel about this the same way as I feel about the Devil’s Advocate: That Wackner would not allow this to go on for more than five seconds before calling bullshit and therefore there is no reason I should have to sit through it.

Why is some guy screaming, “No taxation without representation” like dude you absolutely have representation. But of course, I’m expecting him to be logical, and the point is that he is not.

Dr. Goat’s Latin phrases—shock!-- don’t actually translate into anything like what he said. Even though this information is verifiable by a quick google search, the crowd starts screaming “Liar!!!!” at Marissa. If only I could say this felt unrealistic.

Wackner asks Dr. Goat to bring in the document.

“You look like you’re heading to the beach,” Vinetta says to Diane, who looks like she’s heading somewhere but definitely not to the beach. Vinetta asks where Diane was headed on vacation. Diane says she’s headed to Lake Como, and unnecessarily clarifies that “It’s in Italy.” She assumes Vinetta doesn’t know that... but Vinetta does.

“So you’ve been there before?” Vinetta probes when Diane says it’s beautiful there. “Just once. We don’t get away often. We thought we’d splurge,” Diane says. Vinetta stares at her and smiles, and Diane hits her head on a basket that’s hanging in Vinetta’s kitchen. If I just write out the dialogue here, it sounds like a perfectly average conversation, but everything about this conversation is so charged: Diane is afraid to look like a wealthy white woman; Vinetta’s pleasantness is pretty clearly also a way of sizing up Diane.

Vinetta shows Diane pictures of neighborhood children and young adults killed as a consequence of gang violence. You can see she’s not trying to do anything other than help her community, even if her methods are highly questionable.

Diane argues that Matteo should be given over to the police; Vinetta disagrees: “The police haven’t arrested anyone for those murders, any of these. Since the BLM movement, they’ve pulled back from our streets. No one’s coming to help. That’s why I started this court. It’s not a joke to us.” Wait I’m sorry did Vinetta just blame lack of good detective work in black communities on... the BLM movement?!?!?! Is there any foundation to this!? Why can’t it just be that the police weren’t actually doing a good job of policing/finding justice and were being antagonistic towards the community instead of being helpful and no one trusted them?? That explanation is literally right there.

Jay suggests the Jesus strategy, again.

“It’s women! We could just move on, install men,” STRL guy says. I don’t know if he’s joking, but ugh. Also, what is RL if it has neither Diane nor Liz? A bunch of lawyers who will all promptly quit when they see their bosses get fired and a few opportunists?

Kurt is watching golf in Diane’s office, and the STRL people love it. Of course Kurt accidentally makes friends with them.

Court stuff happens. It’s not good for Rivi, and then Liz and Carmen come up with a theory: Plum Meadow is stalling the deal so they can find Rivi’s more stable second and make a deal with them instead.

Wackner giving Dr. Goat a single point on his stupid little board, for any reason related to his obviously fake totally unverified document, is dangerous. Why would you signal to a crowd that’s clearly not interested in fact that they have a point? That’s basically egging them on.

I know Wackner’s judgment is obviously not 100% sound—need I remind you of the PRIVATE PRISONS?-- but I thought it was more sound than this.

Wackner shows off his knowledge of paper and proves that Dr. Goat’s document is a fake. Why... did he just give Dr. Goat a point???

Or is he moving the point from Dr. Goat to Marissa?

Dr. Goat sounds like a fake name I would call a character in my recaps long past the point of anyone other than myself remembering the joke. (See: Mr. Elk)

“The truth is ugly. The only thing uglier is not pursuing it,” Wackner tells Marissa. How is taking on a case about very obvious falsehoods, funded by someone with a vested interest in the case, that gets people riled up, some noble pursuit of truth?

STRL and Kurt are now drinking and discussing hunting, while Diane’s arguing for Matteo in Vinetta’s living room. Vinetta is—as was always obvious, sorry Jay—far too smart to fall for this patronizing bullshit. She screams at Diane and plays back a recording (on a baby monitor) of Diane coaching Matteo to lie about his faith.

Soooooo yeah no you can’t do that, that is bad, recording conversations between lawyers and their clients is not good even if it leads to you exposing their schemes...

Then Vinetta places Diane under arrest, which obviously isn’t going to end well for Vinetta.

Liz and Carmen suggest a post-nup to Rivi to see if Isabel is planning on turning on him.

“I’m going to have to kill her,” Rivi says sadly. I don’t think Rivi will ever kill Isabel because we already did that with Bishop.

I’m going to assume that Diane chooses to stay in basement prison instead of calling one of the many, MANY, MANY people she could call to get her out/take down Vinetta because she doesn’t want the situation to be publicized or further deteriorate. That said, it’s really not clear why Diane just accepts being sentenced to basement prison with a cell phone.

Love the STRL man looking at that picture of Diane and HRC. They’ve gotten so much mileage out of that photo.

Wackner’s court has no rules, but at least since it has no rules, I can’t complain about how its rules make no sense!

What is this, debate practice?! Ugggghhhhh I can’t deal with this case for much longer.

Marissa takes a breath, then decides to pursue a strategy she knows could blow everything up.

“Then why care what Judge Wackner decides? Why should you defer to him? Why defer to anyone?” Cord says that’s the point—the people have decided to trust Wackner. “So if you don’t like this court’s decision, you’ll just start a new one?” Marissa asks. “I guess,” Cord concedes.

“So then why does this matter? This court?” “It matters only insofar as we continue to agree that it matters,” Cord says. “So if you don’t like Judge Wackner’s rulings, you can just ignore them and create a new court?”

Good point, Marissa. Good point. (Does this count as a thesis?)

“I’m guessing that I will like the way the judge decides,” Cord says. Well, that’s basically a threat.

Wackner takes a break and heads to chambers—without Marissa.

Kurt goes to visit Diane in basement jail. He’s granted a conjugal visit, which means Matteo gets moved up to the bedroom so Diane and Kurt can have some alone time.

Diane is staring at an image of Lake Como in her cell. I thought it was odd she brought a printout of her vacation destination with her, so I LOVED the line where she explains that Vinetta printed it out for her. COLD. (You know who also would’ve done this if they’d for some reason had a basement prison? Bree Van de Kamp. You know what show DID do a basement prison arc I’d rather forget? Desperate Housewives!)

I love how Diane responds to basement prison by making jokes non-stop.

“I thought the craziness would end with 2020,” Diane says. Nope.

Kurt brought alcohol; Diane brought pot gummies.

I love that Kurt has never had pot before. I was going to say that I bet Diane’s had a few experiences with recreational drugs when I remembered we had a whole damn season of Diane microdosing.

Christine and Gary’s acting and their chemistry really bring these basement prison scenes to life. The writing and directing are really sharp, but it’s the actors who make these scenes something special. You can tell Diane and Kurt love each other a lot. You can tell they’re disappointed about their vacation and exhausted by the chaos of the day. You can tell they’re in disbelief over this situation but also find it funny.

Didn’t Rivi and Isabel have an adult daughter who died of COVID a few episodes ago? Weird she isn’t mentioned in this scene. Maybe from a different marriage/relationship?

Isabel called the SA’s office because she thinks Rivi’s a threat? I think this is a power play.

Heh, Carmen saying, “Shut a black woman up!?” in disbelief in court. Love it.

Isabel instead flips her story and supports her husband and fights for his release. With no intervention from Plum Meadow, this gets the judge to free Rivi. I don’t really understand what’s happened here or why. I get the resolution, but I don’t get why Isabel called the SA or why this went away so quickly. I still don’t even get why Rivi’s been arrested.

Diane and Kurt put up Christmas lights for ambiance and talk about how they never go on vacation.

“I wanna see the pyramids on this coast!” drunk & high Kurt insists, hilariously. “I mean hemisphere. I like the Aztecs. They, they care about people.” I’m not going to transcribe the rest of the dialogue because it loses its magic when you’re not watching the scene.

After some fun banter about travel and movies, Diane changes the topic. “I should quit, shouldn’t I? That judge upstairs? She looked at me like I was the most entitled white bitch on the planet. And that’s the way they look at me at work.”

Kurt tries to say that’s not true, but Diane knows it is: “Yes they do. I’m the top Karen. And why do I care? I mean, I... I could find another firm. I could quit. I can’t impose my will on people who don’t want me.”

YES. I see a lot of debate over what the “right” thing to do is here. But I think we are long past “right” and “wrong.” At a certain point, this stops being about absolute moral truths. If Diane doesn’t have the respect of her partners and employees, that is a very real problem for the firm and for Diane. How can she continue to impose her will on a firm that doesn’t want her, all the while claiming to be an ally? (The back half of that sentence is the most important part.) Forget whether or not Diane “should” have to step down. Forget what’s “fair.” If the non-Diane leadership of RL thinks the firm should be a black firm, and the employees of RL think so too, and Diane just doubles down on her white feminism, she’s creating an even bigger problem for herself and ruining her reputation in the process.

Kurt stands up on the prison cot and warns Diane she might make a decision she’ll regret. This scene is so cute. Why can’t other shows do drug trips where the characters just act silly and have great chemistry? Why does it always have to be some profound meditation on death whenever characters get high?

“I think I like starting over. I like the chutes and ladders of life. I mean, I want the corner office, but then I wanna slip back to the beginning and fight for the corner office. I mean, I think maybe it’s better that I don’t get the top spot,” Diane says. LOVE to hear her admit this. I’m not sure I would’ve come to this conclusion on my own, and it sounds like it’s a bit more about how the writers like to write (you know, the “we love our characters to always be underdogs”) than Diane, but... you know what? I believe it. I fully believe it. Diane LOVES to fight, LOVES to feel like she’s in the right, LOVES power plays and to be making progress. She LOVES winning. The fact that she isn’t just choosing to retire right now, even though she’s past retirement age and has a great reputation, is in itself enough for me to believe that she would find it fun to repeatedly start over.

Plus, it’s a fun new direction for the show to take in season six, because they’ll get the same sense of conflict without the actual conflict. This season’s arc was firm drama and resulted in a firm name change... but it didn’t feel like a knock-off of Hitting the Fan. Diane trying to work her way back into power (I assume by becoming a better actual ally, otherwise doesn’t she just end up in the same exact situation?) should also provide conflict without being repetitive.

Hahahahahaha Kurt immediately reacting to this serious statement by being incredibly silly and horny and then Diane singing “I Touch Myself” to him, man, I love these two. I want to know the story behind this song choice.

Wackner emerges from his chambers. The score is tied. Wackner calls Cord corrupt and notes that they can’t just decide to call Downstate Illinois a new state based on his ruling. Now it’s thesis time!

“I was taken by Mr. Cord’s arguments of individualism. So much of our country has been built on people finding their own way, not being held back by bureaucracy. Yet, if we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos. And that was not the point of this court. Or at least not my point. Judgment for the defense. There will be no Downstate Illinois.”

“If we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos.” is probably the clearest of the many theses of this episode. To recap, we have:

(1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. (4) Institutions only exist when we collectively agree they exist (5) Individualism = chaos.

But let’s put a pin in this for now and let the chaos of individualism play out.

The crowd does not like Wackner’s decision, and decides that an appropriate way to express their displeasure is to make anti-Semitic remarks towards Marissa and then start throwing chairs. What nice people.

As the crowd goes totally 1/6 on Wackner’s court (thanks for pointing this out to me, Ryan—I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection myself!), the door slamming into the desk finally pays off since Marissa and Wackner are able to use it to keep the crowd from reaching them.

They immediately turn to the police, or they would, if they could get service. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that as soon as things get bad, they want to involve the existing system.

Wackner Rules is, somehow, still taping in the midst of all the chaos. I don’t know if I think they’d air this, but someone certainly would. (I wonder if any of the cameras we see in these scenes are actually the cameras filming the other angles of the riot.)

Cord shakes his head and walks out, unharmed.

“You think they’ll kill us?” “I think they might,” Marissa and Wackner fret.

“My dad said the whole world would be a better place if everybody realized they were in the minority. ‘No matter where you are,’ he said, ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the exits, and make sure you’re closer to the exit than the Cossacks are to the entrance.’” Marissa says. Love Eli Gold coming through with thesis number 6 (and maybe thesis number 7).

“Your dad sounds a little paranoid,” Wackner says, correctly. Remember how I mentioned I accidentally wound up watching 5x22? Eli calls Alicia and responds to her hello with, “DISASTER!!!!” I miss him.

“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. He said, ‘Stay away from parades. They’re cute until they’re not. And don’t trust any pope who was Hitler Youth.” “What’s that law called?” “Godwin’s Law. My dad said anybody who argued for Godwin’s Law has never been near an actual crowd. Crowds love you, they hug you. Then they grab a gun and try to kill you.”

“Why? Why do they do that?” “I don’t know. Hate is fun. It’s clear-cut.”

I really like all of this. It is a little preachy, but it isn’t wrong and it’s self-aware. And, more importantly, it’s in character. I absolutely believe that Marissa would tell lots of stories about Eli in a moment of extreme stress. It’s nostalgic, probably comforting, and it also helps her feel like she’s on the right side with the right arguments. So, even backed into a corner, she’s still a winner: she has theory on her side.

Wackner speaks a foreign language (I do not know what language but I wish I did) and says, “A guy could get killed doing this,” which makes him and Marissa laugh as things crash around them.

Idk about you all, but I couldn’t really get myself to actually worry about their safety during this scene. Maybe Wackner’s, just a little, but I got the sense we were supposed to focus more on the chaos and destruction and monologuing than on the actual danger. That’s not to say the stakes didn’t feel high, but rather to say that this didn’t feel like an action sequence where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The point was to watch the court fall and think about why it fell, not to worry about if Marissa would live.

Diane and Kurt are woken up by sirens and loud noises. The cops arrive and are shocked to find professionally dressed white people in a basement cell. They let Diane and Kurt out with compassion, but scream, “don’t you fucking move” to the people on the floor.

“It’s okay, they didn’t do anything,” Diane says. This is, as I theorized earlier, probably why Diane just sits there until her punishment blows over instead of escalating things.

If the cops weren’t there to free Diane, why were they there? Why, because they like David Cord and David Cord has gotten Chicago PD officers to protect Wackner’s IP.

If I had to say one thing in favor of Vinetta being the originator of the community court idea, it would be that it’s SUCH a gut punch to watch Diane and Kurt walk away from their bizarre little adventure as Vinetta gets arrested in the background, and it hits ten times as hard if Vinetta’s only being charged because some white guy is claiming IP that’s actually hers.

(I think Vinetta is probably, at this point, actually being arrested for imprisoning people illegally, but, still.)

“Pfft. Some judge,” one of the cops who adores Wackner says of Vinetta. Racist much?

Marissa and Wackner emerge from the backroom. “I think I better get back to work,” she says, meaning her RL job. "Me too,” Wackner says, grabbing a Copy Coop apron. He’s an employee of ten years.

I don’t think this lands as well as it’s meant to. I think the point is supposed to be that Wackner’s just some guy—not a billionaire, not an academic, not a judge, not a lawyer—with an idea. But it’s a little too neat. And it doesn’t explain how Wackner financed his court initially, nor does it explain why he has basically unlimited access to Copy Coop space and resources. I’d buy it if he were the OWNER of Copy Coop, but I have so many questions about him being an employee.

Diane tells Liz she’s actually going on vacation this time, and they laugh about how Kurt bonded with STRL.

“I want you and Allegra to be name partners. I’ll be an equity partner,” Diane says. “Why?” Liz asks. “Five years ago, when I hit rock bottom, this firm took me in. So I don’t like the idea of splitting this firm in two. And I can’t lead if no one will follow.” “And your clients?” “We’ll manage them together.” YES! I love this. I don’t love it because I necessarily think it had to go this way, but because it’s so refreshing to see Diane say that she actually is willing to take a step back because she cares about the firm and the people there more than she cares about being a name partner. This isn’t something we usually see. When we hear “this firm took x in” it’s usually being said incredulously against someone who’s decided to leave and steal clients (cough, Hitting the Fan, cough).

It’s been pretty clear for most of this arc that Diane and Liz like working together and they like their firm, but that no one (other than Diane, I guess) is willing to let RL lose its status as a black firm, and that the employees and equity partners weren’t going to be satisfied until Diane stepped down. Diane really had three options: Stay and piss everyone off and claim the whole firm for herself, quit and go somewhere else and totally abandon the good working dynamic she had, or step down and put her money where her mouth is.

Also yeah the clients were never actually going to be an issue! They were only an issue because Diane intentionally went about informing them she was stepping down in a way she knew would make them worry!

“I think I need to prove myself,” Diane says. I’m not sure that’s the key issue or that she can ever prove herself fully, but we’ll worry about that next year.

“I missed you,” Liz says. “I’m here,” Diane replies. “I know. Thank you,” Liz says.

Diane decides she’s going to move downstairs so Allegra can have her office. I think there’s another office on this floor, since she, Adrian and Liz all had offices. This feels a little bit like Diane’s in love with the idea of making things difficult for herself and maybe hasn’t fully grasped the point, but, you know, I’ll take it.

Diane tells Kurt her decision and he asks if it was the right thing to do. She says she doesn’t know—but she says it with a smile. Kurt notes he’s going hunting next month with the STRL folks and will put in a good word for her. Ah, yes, because STRL still controls all of this and all of this is moot! Thanks for the reminder Kurt! Diane says she wants in on the hunting trip. Of course.

And the elevator doors close. Remember how closing elevator doors was a motif earlier this season??? It’s back!

Then we get a little coda with Wackner Rules airing a new episode that’s just violence and destruction. This sequence seems to straddle the line between being there for thematic reasons for the viewers and there to show what happened in the show’s universe, but I think it’s main purpose is theme, so I will not go on a full rant questioning why Del would want to air this.

A white blonde lady in an apron watches the destruction of Wackner Rules. She looks concerned. “That was violet,” she says with dismay. And then we see she’s holding a guy in a jail cell in her kitchen.

And then we see other courts, as America the Beautiful plays. One’s in a garage debating kicking someone out of the neighborhood; another is across the street about the same case. There’s one in Oregon about secession. There’s one among Tiki Torch Nazis deciding only white people can own property. There’s (inexplicably) one about pronouns. There’s one with arm wrestling, one that happens while sky diving, and a bunch of others. It’s pretty ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way. It feels at once like the natural extension of the Wackner Rules show and like an over the top parody you’d see on another show. Tiki Torch Nazis screaming “only white people can own property!” is the opposite of subtle writing. Tonally, this sequence feels more like the zany humor of Desperate Housewives or the insanity of BrainDead than anything TGF has done before (and TGF’s been plenty surreal), and it doesn’t quite work for me. It feels like it is trying to prove a point in the corniest, most on the nose way possible. It almost feels like it’s parodying its own plotlines.

On my first watch, this ending for Wackner left me stumped. I knew the writers were making an argument against individualism (Wackner’s speech + the repeated references to The Apprentice) and cults of personality. But I couldn’t figure out a real life analogue to Wackner’s court, and since this ending was so obviously trying to be About Something, that bugged me. Sure, that last sequence could be an argument against people making community courts, but WERE people making community courts? I didn’t see the urgency.

And then I talked to @mimeparadox. And as soon as he said that it was about factions and people playing by their own sets of rules beyond the justice system, it clicked. I’d been looking for Wackner’s plot to be a commentary on the legal system. It is much broader than that. It’s a commentary on the weakening of democratic systems (the Big Lie, etc.), more broadly, and Wackner and his common-sense approach are just a way to get liberal viewers to go along for the ride.

Now that I understand the point, or what I think is the point, I like this conclusion. Circumventing the system leads to chaos; that’s why we have institutions and bureaucracy, and I think the show is arguing that these institutions should still be respected despite their flaws. The many theses of this episode all come together to make this point (though the reality TV stuff is a little more tenuous and I'm a little shocked we got through all of this without any commentary on social media?): If we stop having a shared belief in institutions and instead follow individual leaders (whom we may learn about through reality TV), the rules will stop mattering and we’ll end up with a fractured country and widespread violence.

But, and maybe this is just about me being upset I missed both the obvious 1/6 parallels AND the point of the arc the first time through this episode (my defensive side feels the need to also note I first watched this episode at like 5 am when I was barely awake), I don’t know that I actually think this episode does a great job of driving its point home. There are SO many moving pieces to the Wackner plot and SO many references. There are so many threads we never return to from earlier in the season, and there’s so much that strains credulity (like Wackner taking Dr. Goat seriously for more than a split second). It’s pretty clear what the themes are—even though I’m saying I missed the point my first time through, I've hit on all these themes separately in past recaps and posts—but, I dunno, something about this episode just feels scattered. Maybe it’s all the moving pieces, maybe it’s all the moments where it sounds like the characters are voicing related ideas that don’t quite snap together to form one coherent picture, or maybe it’s that Wackner’s plot gets two endings (the actual ending + the coda) and it’s up to the viewer to put together how they relate.

I really don’t know. At the end of the day, I think there was a little too much going on with Wackner and that the writers needed to use the episodes between the private prison reveal and the finale to narrow—not broaden—the scope of what they were trying to do with Wackner. But I also think that what they were doing with Wackner was really, really smart and original. I don’t think I can overstate how impressed I am that the writers took an idea that sounded, frankly, awful when I first heard about it and turned it into something captivating and insightful that I was happy to spend nine weeks watching.

Overall, a few bad episodes aside, I thought season five was the strongest season of TGF yet. I haven’t seen this show be so focused in... well, maybe ever. Having two overarching plots that received consistent development and felt like they were happening in the same universe at the same time REALLY helps make season five feel like a coherent whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch it.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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theturnaboutbegins · 3 years

Text

Chapter 1: Turnabout Newbie

[July 18th, 9:45, Outside the Courtroom]

Rebecca’s heels clacked against the linoleum as she ran down the hall to the courtroom. It was her first case and she was not going to be late. She saw her mentor, and waved at them.

“Boss! Boss, I’m not late!”

“I can see that, Rebecca. Almost late, though.” Cass looked at their watch.

“Not late means I wasn’t late!”

Cass laughed and pet Rebecca’s hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Rebecca pouted before sighing. Jeez, how did you end up being so late, you failure of a human being?! Cass thinks you’re unfit for this, and you know they do!

“I don’t like what you’re thinking.”

Rebecca looked up. How did they know.

“I can see it on your face. You can do this, Rebecca. I have faith in you.”

Rebecca smiled. “Thanks. I got this… I’m fine!”

Cass covered their ears. “I’m surprised I haven’t gone deaf, yet. You always shout in the office.”

“Sorry.”

“Rebecca!”

The young woman turned to her friend who ran up to her. Rebecca pulled her into a hug as she cried and shouted. Cass gave them a look.

“You know your client?”

“Yeah. She and I are friends.”

“Huh. I hadn’t known that.”

“It’s not something that’s well known.”

Cass nodded before walking away from them. Rebecca gave her friend a reassuring smile. Or at least… it was supposed to be a reassuring smile. Ndesah Jones frowned even deeper before pulling away.

“What’s with that look?! Do you really I killed him?!”

“No! I promise! I’m just really bad at reassuring people who have been accused of murder.” Rebecca’s tone was flat by the time she finished her sentence.

“Yeah, that was obvious. Alfred’s really worried about the outcome of the trial, y’know?”

“Yeah, of course I know. But!” Rebecca jabbed a thumb on her chest. “I’ll get you off! I promise!”

“That’s what he said.”

“Nice to know you’re still in there.”

Ndesah was taken by the bailiff and Cass walked over to Rebecca.

“C’mon. Trial’s starting.”

[July 18th, 10:00 AM, Courtroom #17]

The two walked into the courtroom, and stood on the defense’s side and looked across, seeing the prosector. Rebecca gulped in fear, and Cass patted her shoulder.

“Calm down. You can do this.”

Rebecca nodded. “Yeah…”

The judge banged his gavel, gathering everyone’s attention. “The trial for Mrs. Jones will begin. Is the prosection ready?”

The woman standing across the room from Rebecca nodded. “The prosecution is ready, Your Honor.”

“T-The…” Rebecca lost her voice for a second. She was really nervous. You’re fine. Yell out you’re ready! “The defense is also ready, Your Honor!” Rebecca bellowed, scaring everyone in the courtroom.

“Counsel, are you okay-”

“I’m fine!” She shouted once again.

“R-Right…” the judge cleared his throat, “Um, p-prosector, your opening statement?”

The woman cast a glance at Rebecca. “Yes, Your Honor. The prosecution will prove that Mrs. Jones was the one who brutally murdered the poor Mr. Vargas.”

Ndesah winced and Rebecca nodded. This prosecutor means business. She’s so intimidating. But also… seems kinda weak.

“The prosecution would like to call Detective Stormy to the stand.”

Detective Stormy took the stand, looking out at everyone. “Good morning, courtroom.”

“Good morning, Detective.” The judge greeted.

“Please state your name and occupation for the court.”

“Stormy. Occupation: Detective.”

“So, detective. Explain the crime scene.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am. The scene was simple. One man and bullet hole through his eyes. There wasn’t a gun found at the scene or the surrounding area, but Mrs. Jones was found across the street from where he was killed-”

“OBJECTION!”

Rebecca banged her fist twice on the desk. “That’s not enough to say my defendant did it!”

“QUIET!”

Stormy banged the witness stand. “Actually, Mrs. Jones was also found with a gun as well. And the bullet matched her gun.

“Did you look at Mrs. Jones’ hands?”

Ndesah, what the fuck where you- oh, it was probably Alfred’s gun. Alfred, why the fuck do you own a gun?! Rebecca was screaming internally. She sighed thinking about all the facts.

“What?”

“I know Ndesah personally and she doesn’t really like wearing gloves. While most people would to keep their fingerprints off the gun, I doubt Ndesah would since I think her husband’s would’ve been documented accidentally. Did you see any gunpowder or test the gun for prints at all?”

Stormy’s face flushed. “Um…. no. We did not. We assume everyone uses gloves.”

“WHAT?!”

Stormy cowered behind the stand. “It wasn’t my decision! It’s the forensics team’s decision to do that!”

“OBJECTION!”

Rebecca frowned. Dumbass forensics team. “Fine. But you still don’t have enough evidence to convict her!”

Everyone was directed to the prosector. “We actually have an eyewitness who says he saw Mrs. Jones commit the crime.”

Rebecca groaned loudly and Cass patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry Rebecca. You got this. You really believe your client is innocent?”

“Yeah?”

“Then fight. Fight till the very end and keep on fighting to make sure the court also believes she’s innocent. Got it?”

“Yeah… I got this!”

Cass smiled. “Let’s tone down the random shouts, yeah?”

“Sorry.”

“The prosecution would like to call our eyewitness.”

A man joined Stormy on the stand and Rebecca immediately noted his unruly eyebrows. He wore a dull army uniform and his blonde hair was messy.

“Please state your name and occupation for the court.”

“Arthur Kirkland. I’m a chemistry teacher.” The man had an English accent.

“Please tell the court what you saw.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “I was walkin’ past the room when I saw her. She had the window open, shot once into place where the man was, killin’ ‘im instantly! I ‘eard the glass shatter and everything! I ran away and called the police!”

“I see this as open and shut. Therefore, the defendant is-”

Rebecca placed a hand on her chin. Damn, that was an airtight testimony. But… it’s weird… Right!

“OBJECTION!”

Rebecca banged her fist twice against the desk again. “Something doesn’t line up here! Detective Stormy!”

The detective jumped. “Huh?! Yeah?!”

“Was there any glass on the floor where the victim was?!”

“Uh, n-no. Jeez, newbie, why’re you shouting?”

“Volu-” Cass started, but they were cut off by Rebecca shouting once more.

“So then, Mr. Kirkland has contradicted the detective! He couldn’t have heard the glass shatter since the window was open! Wasn’t it, Detective?!”

“Ah, y-yeah, it was. Jeez, you’re loud…”

“-ume.” Cass finished.

“Huh?” Rebecca looked at Cass.

“Volume, Rebecca. You were loud as fuck.”

Rebecca looked around. “Ehe… sorry.”

“Well, you’re right counsel. Mr. Kirkland? How do you explain this?”

“Oh, well! Um… well… you see… bollocks. Um, I remember! Someone down the hall had knocked over a vase down the hall! I heard the shattering of that glass!”

Shit. This is bad. He’s got a good testimony. Rebecca groaned and slammed her face onto the desk. Cass jumped and patted her back.

“Rebecca. What did I say.”

“Fight, fight, fight… why not just lie down and accept that I’m not winning this?”

“Because do you really think she did it?! Fight to get her off the hook!”

Rebecca raised her head up. “Mr. Kirkland…”

“Y-yes?”

“I have to ask… Where did you see Mrs. Jones?”

“Apartment 35.”

Rebecca’s eyes shot open and she stood up straight. “Room 35?! Mr. Varga was a floor above her! She couldn’t have shot him! Detective Stormy said it was a straight shot!”

“That it was,” Stormy informed.

“So, she couldn’t have done it if she was in Room 35!” Rebecca shouted louder than she had ever shouted, making everyone in the courtroom cover their ears in pain. “Um… sorry again.”

“Right…” Stormy sighed, “I think Miss Rebecca is right, there’s no way Mrs. Jones could’ve-”

“SHUT UP!”

Everyone looked at Arthur who looked pissed. He breathed in deeply and punched the witness stand several times.

“I’m telling you, she did it! I saw her! And what I saw is the only damn thing that matters!”

“Mr. Kirkland!” Rebecca banged her fist against the desk. “You should know that conclusive evidence is the only evidence the court accepts!”

“But I’m a bloody eyewitness, goddammit! I know more than anyone else in this courtroom!”

“You also should know that Mrs. Jones lives a floor below you as well! And since you’re a floor above her, it gives you a perfect straight shot into Mr. Vargas’ room!”

This statement caused Arthur to fall back, and glare at Rebecca. She glared right back, and before Cass could calm her down and stop her from shouting even louder, Rebecca was talking again.

“This is what happened. You shot Mr. Vargas and knew that it would be hard for you to get away from it so you framed your downstairs neighbor. You called the police and said she did it and you were hoping that the court would see that you were the perfect, innocent witness when it was all a lie! Isn’t that what happened?!”

Arthur lowered his head and looked at the ground. He was silent for a second before he yelled out, making Rebecca and Cass cover their ears from how loud he was. Rebecca screwed her eyes shut and when he finished, she slowly opened her eyes.

“Are you done sir?”

“Yes… and I must admit… I thought I was going to be able to get away with it. I suppose that might’ve been a bit too ambitious.”

Rebecca took a second to realize what she had just heard. “WHAT?!”

Cass pushed a finger into their ear. “Wow… no blood and I’m still able to hear.”

“Sorry, Cass.”

“It’s fine.”

“Mr. Kirkland are you-”

“Yes, I killed Feliciano and tried to frame Mrs. Jones. Lock me up and throw away the key, officer.”

He turned to Stormy who was still surprised. “U-Um. Yeah.” Stormy pulled out a pair of handcuffs and proceeded to handcuff him and take him out of the courtroom.

“Well… it’s not everyday that we have someone arrested within the courtroom.”

Rebecca and Cass nodded slowly. The judged cleared his throat, banging his gavel.

“Well… this is a formality at this point, but the court finds Ndesah Jones not guilty!”

Rebecca sighed out a breath of relief and dropped her head on the desk. She felt Cass pat her back and when she looked up, they had a smile on their face.

“Nice job, Rebecca. Especially for your first trial. Very impressive.”

“Thanks boss.”

They left the courtroom and saw Ndesah and Alfred hugging each other.

“You’re not going to jail! I’m so happy!”

“Yes! Yes! It’s amazing!”

Rebecca smiled at the scene and walked over to them. She tapped Ndesah’s shoulder and when she noticed Rebecca, she hugged her as well.

“Thank you! I knew picking you was the right choice!”

“Yes, thank you, Rebecca!” Alfred pulled her into a tight hug.

“Ack- Alfred! Thank you for the hug, but it’s too tight!!!”

“That’s what he said,” The couple spoke at the same time.

Rebecca sighed and wriggled her way out of his hold. She breathed and watched the couple cooing at each other. Rebecca walked back over to Cass and when they saw Rebecca, they ruffled her hair.

“Great job, kid! You’re really something! I can see great things for your future.”

“Really?!”

“Of course! In a single trial you got a not guilty verdict and you revealed who the real murderer was! That’s way more than what I’ve done in my 5 years of being a lawyer. And I know that my first trial wasn’t like that.”

“Really?”

“Uh, hell yeah! You’re fricken amazing, Rebecca! And trust me, you’ll do amazing things. And I can’t wait to see them all.”

“Thank you, boss.”

Cass patted Rebecca’s back once more before holding up their wallet. “You wanna get some drinks? My treat. You did win your first ever case.”

“I’d like that! Let’s go!”

@lucifers-golden-bitch-apparently @notajerusalemcricket @nagytoe @strawberry-lemonade @suck-on-my-jingle-bells

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anxiouslyfred · 3 years

Text

The Day Started in a Cell

Summary: Virgil knew he might be swapping with his soulmate soon. The day had been coming up. He still didn’t expect to wake up in the cell of a police station and only hoped Patton would be okay meeting his soulmate when he went around to check on them.

Warning: spider mention, breaking in

/\/\

Virgil had woken up from sleepwalking in all manner of places, but usually that was confined to his own home and during times when he was stressed. The only thing Virgil had to be stressing about currently was the chance he'd swap places with his soulmate today.

Hopefully the swap taking place was the true reason for where Virgil found himself, because the room he woke up in could only be described as a cell. There was too much noise outside the room for it to be an actual prison though so he was fairly confident this was a police station holding cell, with only the lack of any others being kept in there with him casting doubt on that.

It wasn't sensible to ask though. Everyone knew if the soulmate swap occurred while someone was arrested the force would not treat them kindly and could use everything to arrest both soulmates under the charge of assisting with an escape. Even if Virgil had no context for who he now had the body of, he wasn't going to mention it.

The morning passed smoothly, Virgil managing to learn that his soulmate was called Remus Dolally and he'd been apprehended on suspicion of vandalism. Since the station hadn't got enough evidence to charge him that day they were just waiting for a relative to pick him up. How the police already knew the number for one of Remus's relatives Virgil decided not to ask, but hoped he'd be able to once they arrived.

“Remus, your brother's here. Get out and actually stop getting arrested this time, or I'll make sure you go to jail for your next offence.” One of the sergeants ordered opening the cell door and waving down the hallway.

Nodding, Virgil hurried through, immediately looking at the person near the desk in concern.

“Remus, one of these days I'll decide being your brother is more trouble than it's worth.” The man sighed, shaking his head for a moment and leaning down to sign a form before turning to leave. “Let's get you home.”

Staying quiet and following what was said had kept Virgil safe so far so he just carried on following, getting into the car, Remus's brother unlocked.

Only once they were both in, with seatbelts done up did Roman look at him again. “Remus would never be this quiet. Are you his soulmate?”

“Yes? I'm Virgil. Does he do this often?” Virgil squeaked out, sure he could get in trouble for admitting it.

“More often than I'd like, but usually his chaos is harmless. I'm Roman, by the way.” With the introduction said Roman started the car and pulled away. “If I was in your position I'd have been asking a million questions the second someone got me out of the cell.”

Virgil nodded after a second. He'd been frowning out the window, trying to confirm where he was since some of the landmarks were recognisable. “Sorry, just trying to remember where this is. It's definitely a town close to mine but I'm not sure which.”

“It's Anstey. Does that mean my brother is likely to turn up here a-” Roman's question broke off as they turned a corner. Virgil could see Patton's car parked outside a house not far along the road, and given his morning, could only assume that it was his bum sticking out of a window on top of the porch.

“Well I did ask Patton to pop over in case I did swap with my soulmate on my birthday.” Virgil muttered, beginning to wonder just what his soulmate would be doing next.

He didn't have long to think though since Roman was storming out of the car the instant he'd put it into park. “Remus Dolally get the hell down from the roof and if you've broken that window then you are either paying for it, or paint purely to sell until it's paid for! Do you know what you've put me through this morning? What you've put your soulmate through?” He screamed up at Virgil's body, getting Patton to come shuffling over.

“Hey Pat, I'm guessing you've had as interesting a morning as I have.” Virgil muttered, still watching the brothers and just hoping he wouldn't be injured when their bodies swapped back.

“Kiddo thought I rescued him from police cells and then locked himself in your bathroom for ages before even thinking to ask where we were.” Patton nodded. He looked a bit shaken and very stunned just thinking through how the morning had gone. “Far be it from me to criticise your soulmate, but he's either a pervert or just completely lacking any impulse control at all.”

Virgil snorted. “Wow, must have made a really bad impression. That's the closest I've heard you get to criticism in a while. How long were you here before he decided to break in?”

“As soon as he opened the door of the car he was climbing onto the roof. Did you really wake up in cells?” Patton asked but when Virgil went to reply his name was called by his own voice.

Roman hadn't gotten Remus off the roof yet, but had got him to the edge, which if he'd remained upright would have been good. Instead Virgil was now looking at himself, hanging upside down off a roof and feeling the chances that he'd be uninjured by midnight reducing every minute. “If you're so upset with me being your soulmate your going to risk my life with stupid stunts I'll go do something you'll definitely get a life sentence for.” He snapped, hurrying over and glaring up at Remus.

“Beautiful, I'm just doing what I do, and it ain't going to kill you. I need to hear some of the noises this body makes from the outside before I'd allow that. Trust me, I already know the best ways I can pleasure you.” The leer was almost enough to make Virgil ignore it would only hurt him in the end to throw something at him.

“So far I've woken up in a cell, had to have your brother get me out and then found you trying to break into your own home. What is there meant to convince me to let there be any kind of relationship between us, never mind whatever depraved acts you're thinking of?” Virgil hissed up, not caring if the words would be heard or not.

The question and glare must have been enough to convince Remus to at least back off for a while since he was flipping to be upright and actually climb down off the roof finally. “I'm guessing the soulmates thing isn't as much of a motivation for you as it would be for Roman? You've got a good spark though, telling me off just gets me all shimmery. You know I'm Remus already then?”

“Der. I wasn't going to say anything when I woke up in that cell and given it was empty except for me, pretty obvious who the officers meant, Dolally.” Virgil snapped, rolling his eyes when all the reaction he got was a shimmer bringing Remus that bit closer to him.

The move did make Virgil smirk though. Now he could be certain that he actually was taller than his soulmate. That would be very useful once they swapped back, especially if he had to prevent Remus from climbing onto roofs at some point. “I'm Virgil and as soon as that body is mine again, your days of breaking into places are numbered.” He pointed out.

“Meh, it's the least interesting mischief I can get into. Come on in and I'll share my plans for world domination with you.” Remus reached forward and grabbed his wrist before he could move it back.

“Why does this feel like I'm being recruited to make sure you don't get killed or incarcerated? I already have anxiety, how is having you for a soulmate meant to help that?” Virgil protested but didn't actually fight being pulled in. He was mostly being dramatic because a glance backwards showed Patton still looking uncomfortable and concerned.

Roman had headed over to talk to him now though, so hopefully he'd be able to comfort him a little. He'd even unlocked the door already so Remus didn't have an excuse to try breaking in again either.

Remus was cackling as he pulled them through the house. “I was born with the intent to cause problems on purpose and that includes for you. Hope you don't mind spiders. They're the octopuses of the land and we can't in good conscious keep an octopus as a pet!”

The declaration turned yell at least had Virgil expecting it when he saw a tarantula roaming freely in a fenced off corner of the room. “Spiders are brilliant. Just don't let Patton up here. He's got a phobia. What's this guy called?” He asked, crouching down to look a little closer at the enclosure.

“Tarantuknife. I'm still working on getting him to attack or shove knives at people though. He will hiss as police badges. Down with the police state, y'know.” Remus shrugged, throwing himself on his bed while Virgil looked around.

“Fine, you've got me interested enough to see where knowing you leads.” Virgil decided after a while of looking around again, seeing some delightfully dark artwork and even more things to look after Tarantuknife than he'd originally spotted.

Remus bounced up at that, beaming. “Good cause I think some of my plans to keep you from leaving would have your friend trying to call the police on me again.”

“Nah, he wouldn't do that unless I asked. We hate the police too, wouldn't call them on my worst enemy unless they really did something extremely bad.” Virgil waved off the words, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to ignore the fact it was still bouncing with Remus's movements.

“So what actually increases your anxiety to really bad amounts, and what are others able to do to help?” Remus asked, diverting the conversation from where Virgil had thought it would go.

At the genuinely interested and hopeful look he began to explain anyway, mentally wondering if it was because he wasn't currently in his own body that so far today he hadn't panicked at all, despite everything that had happened.

#dukexiety #soulmate au #virgil sanders #remus sanders #creativitwins #roman sanders #patton sanders #platonic moxiety #spider mention

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chayacat · 3 years

Text

Devil’s Sweet Star (23)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut

***

Wealth. There is a lot of meaning for this word. Of course, the first thing that comes to people's minds when we talk about wealth is the financial side of the term. And that's normal! As we say, it's money that makes the world go. Because without money, we don't have anything. No house. No food, no clothes, no care, no access to knowledge... Absolutely nothing. Some manage to acquire a great wealth honestly, by working with the sweat of their hands, by continuing the family tradition or by starting his own business. Others acquire this wealth dishonestly, stealing, lying and cheating the work of others to take credit for it. And in some cases... money can solve many problems. This is how some people avoid prison, paying justice to corrupt them. Not just justice for that matter...

There is also the wealth of knowledge, which is essential to our survival and evolution. Knowledge has allowed humanity to evolve and gradually reach places and stages that until now was impossible. The thirst for knowledge and the wealth it provides can get you out of very dangerous situations. Because knowledge helps to identify what is deadly or not, how to save lives, think about a strategy that can save as many people as possible, build solid buildings, pass on this knowledge to future generations so that they can perfect it even more.

And finally... there is the wealth of the heart. The most beautiful wealth in the world. The richness of the heart is that which one acquires by being good, generous and always ready to help others. Sometimes all it takes is a kind word, a friendly smile or an outstretched hand to feed that wealth. Many people forget this wealth there in favour of money. Money doesn't really make you happy. It is to be with those we love that makes us happy.

But back to the financial aspect of wealth. As I said, money solves a lot of problems when you are rich. But sometimes she can't save you from the media pressure. And currently for a certain Hoggins... Money cannot save him from the scandal that has just erupted about him. The newspapers of the region were getting their hands in gold since the "stock market scam" as they called it in their article, had been updated. And in Roseville, the newspapers were sold like buns, rumours and debates about it filled your coffee.

“Do you realize that? This rotten Hoggins makes money by stealing and destroying its competitors illegally! this guy has no Honor or fucking dignity!” said a man, throwing his newspaper on the table.

“The worst part is that he denies it! while the evidence is there! he can't lie and say that this e-mail he exchanged with his accomplice is fake! And there he is, free to move as he wishes, saying that he has never done anything and that all this is just bad luck! He struts around like a king!” said the woman in front of him.

“He will eventually fall... one way or another. And if this goes on, he's even going to get shot. In a way it wouldn't be any worse. For once if Ghostface could slaughter him and McKellan... It'd make us less shit in this country.”

“Yes, you’re right, for once, I Hoped that Ghostface kill them... Let them pay for what they have done.”

You listen to people argue and see how hateful they are towards the rich of this world. To want Hoggins dead to the point of praying that Ghostface would kill him.... That means everything. It’s true that he deserves to be punished but... not to the point of wishing him death. If Ghostface were there, and if he’s there among the customers, he must rejoice, lick his lips, enjoy himself from these words. Melina entered the café at the same time, with a big smile on her face. She heard the conversations but didn't pay attention to them.

“Hey there Beauty! How are you? Not too busy?” she said with a big smile.

“It's fine, it's fine. I don't have a lot of people right now. But hey it's only the beginning of the day ... The biggest one is coming. How about you?” You respond posing on the counter.

“The whole newspaper is in a state of boiling between the Ghostface murders, the Hoggins scandal... It's a real furnace, we're running everywhere! Sometimes I dream of being on a beach.... in a sun lounger... a cocktail in hand. But I have to stay realistic for now and focus on the work.”

“Haha my poor Melina... Courage, once he is arrested, tried and thrown in jail, you can breathe a little more... even if there are still the Ghostface murders. But for that there is Jed to write them …"

“Speaking of Jed! Did you transform him with a magic wand? He arrived, his hair loose, in a short-sleeved t-shirt and with a much more confident look than usual! well he still has his glasses in his nose and sometimes he is shy but damn! I feel like I've seen a stranger at work!” She replied, surprised and smiling.

“Well, I just made him buy new clothes so he would change his wardrobe a bit... But I didn't think it would have that much effect...” you respond embarrassed.

“I don't think it was any new clothes that did that. It must be good for him to have found the soulmate he had been waiting for so long. You see I told you: You were meant to meet you both. You were related! It could only have happened that way.

“Yeah, you’re right...Same as usual?”

“Same as usual.” Melina said with a wink.

As you turn to prepare Melina's order, you hear the door open and the bell ringing. When you turn around, you see Jed, and as Melina said, he was really more serene than usual. He made you his usual angelic smile heading towards you and Melina, the latter giving him a little punch in the arm. Jed laughs, rubbing his arm before turning to you.

“Well... when we talk about the wolf... We see his tail. We were just talking about you. And you confirm Melina's claims by your presence.” you said.

“I haven't taken off the glasses yet. And then I thought if I didn't put on my new clothes, you'd sulk.” He responds smiling, before kissing you.

“You're really cute both... My heart is melting. Is it still running in the office?” Asks Melina.

“Yeah, Everyone's in a rush with the murders and everything else. Even the boss runs everywhere. We didn't think this scandal would get so big. And the worst part is that this is just the beginning. Imagine if we find out anything else during this case.” respond Jed.

“In any case, public opinion doesn’t need more to judge him, they want him dead. Some even say that for once, they would be happy if Ghostface killed Hoggins...” you said, looking at Jed, who froze immediately upon hearing that.

“Wow... At this point? Oh, really? let's not forget that Ghostface is a murderer not a hero. He's not much better than Hoggins. He's even worse than him, he kills while Hoggins steals from other rich people.” Said Melina.

Jed didn't say anything. You notice a strange smile on his face, a smile you've never seen before. He was looking into the void. You finish preparing Melina's order before you give it to her. The latter greeted you before leaving the café. This strange smile had not left him. What could he think of? He ends up sighing as he shakes his head before turning to you, and making you that beautiful angelic smile of his own.

“What are you thinking?” you ask.

“That either the world has fallen very low... Either he goes crazy to asks a murderer to kill someone. Even if he is a rich asshole who deserves it, I think that justice is still in the care of doing its job... At least I hope so.” Jed responds.

“You hope so?”

“You know how the rich are. With good arguments and a good lot of money... a case can be quickly closed. But I believe in justice. I mean, with all the evidence that's been updated... if Hoggins gets away with it...”

Suddenly he got a call. It was his boss, Mr. Hembrook. And in view of Jed's face... it looked very serious. You didn't dare disturb him and once the conversation was over, he turned with a serious look.

“They found McKellan's body. It was one of the guards who discovered him in his office. Apparently, it had been several days since he had given any sign of life.” He said.

“No one has worried about it before??” You ask.

“It seems not, McKellan only calls his guards when he goes out or when it's an important meeting. But otherwise, he lives alone and no one comes. Looks like Ghostface hit a big shot. I have to go right now with Mattew. Have a good day, my love. I love you.” He replied before kissing you and leaving quickly the café.

“I love you...” You simply said.

A lot of things jostled in your head. And to know that Ghostface had accomplished this mischief and that he had told you it was anguishing. Why did he tell you? Maybe because he knows full well that if you said anything, you'd be on board with him as an accomplice? Yes... he knows exactly what he's doing. By telling you who he has or is going to kill, he's preventing you from doing anything. Because if you tell the police, they'll want answers or worse! They'll guess you're seeing him and they'll get on board, before they throw you in jail. You're his best asset. Against your will.

Plus, as he told you... you'll owe him a "reward" for getting rid of McKellan. And that's what you wanted to push back as much as possible. Unfortunately, Ghostface has to decide otherwise. One thing's for sure, you can expect to see him at home tonight. It's full of worry that you spend the rest of your day at work. In the meantime, you start preparing a job offer to recruit an additional seller. Jed is right, you can't manage coffee on your own if its reputation keeps growing. After a while you will be overwhelmed by the influx of customers. An employee to support you would not be a refusal.

As you predicted, the afternoon was busy. And the sun was the cause. There's nothing like a good coffee or a cool drink to enjoy the warmth of the sun. The end of the day came, and something that made you smile, the customers don't get tired to come to your shop! and that's positive. The more you innovate in your recipes and the like, the more customers will come back. If only your parents could be there to see this... In a way they see it all from heaven. And they must be happy to see you safe from need.

You close the coffee after your monitoring ritual, do some shopping to fill the cupboards and fridge, and then you go home. You see Jed's van, but you decide to leave him alone for tonight, the poor man having to be overworked and probably exhausted. You turn on the living room light and startle when you see Ghostface in your living room, standing in front of you, making your usual little hand gesture while giggling.

“Goddamnit ! You could stop coming to my house like a... Fucking ghost?” you said by going to put your shopping bags down and starting to store food.

“Nice attempt but unfortunately you still have some progress to make jokes. It seems... People want me to kill Hoggins? I confess that when I heard this, I was...how to say.... surprised. But flattered.” said Ghostface, playing with his knife.

“And? Don't tell me you've decided to play heroes in search of repentance. You'd be the king of liars.”

“Hahaha me? A hero? No no my beautiful angel... the only hero I want to be... It's yours in bed. To hear you say my name while I make you discover a forbidden pleasure, to hear you ask again until the end of the night ... That's what I want. And I'm sure you'd like to see how God I am. Even Jed compared to me will be weak in front of my power and control.”

“Oh really? How can you say that? Have you ever seen him in action, while you masturbating from the building at the opposite? You can always dream.” you replied by finishing tidying up.

“But I'm already dreaming about it! and believe me, I don't lose a crumb. I enjoy every second of my dreams where you beg me to take you to heaven.” replied Ghostface approaching you from behind, sticking you to the wall, his hand descending to touch with a firm hand your ass.

You make a little moan at this gesture, which made him sneer. He passed his other hand in front to unbutton your pants and drop it to the ground. you hear the sound of a zipper before you feel his crotch sticking against your underwear. He began to make small movements back and forth, before accelerating as he went along. He put a hand over your mouth, so no one can hear you. You couldn't stop yourself from moaning and you try several times to get out, to no avail.

As you felt the climax coming, he recoiled and put away his crotch while sneering. You gradually find your breath, and you had only one desire, to hit him. You get dressed quickly to face him, and even if you don't see his face, you could feel his animal gaze on you, a look that scans you.

“I'm going to make you languish a little more... just for fun. You only had a little glimpse... maybe if you're wise... You'll get the rest. Good night my sweet little star... Have a beautiful dream.” He said, before vanishing.

You feel ashamed, defiled and angry. For him it's just a game. And he knows he's in his hand for now! What a bastard... You sigh before you go shower and change. Then you eat, watch a little TV before going to bed. The tension has not left you and it is with a ball in your stomach that you fall asleep.

He'll pay for it. Sooner or later, he'll pay for it.

And you'll enjoy making him regret it.

***

(Phew! I finished it! I hoped you’ll like it just like the others! and i see that you’re almost 50 to follow me! Thank you so much to support a little French potato like me! have a good week-end you all! See ya!)

#dbd fanfic #dbd #dead by daylight #ghostface #danny johnson #jed olsen

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alexiessan · 4 years

Text

Never alone - Chapter Twenty Three - Soulmate AU

AO3

Previous - Here - Next

Master List

Marinette didn’t sleep that night. Neither did Damian. She had spent the night in his arms, doing her best to not break down. Cloud had been there too, offering her hugs to comfort her. The dog had gotten so much bigger now, almost bigger than her own small frame, and fluffier than ever.

Having both her boyfriend and Cloud to hug helped her a big deal.

Damian made sure to make her talk about small things to distract her. They watched movies, and Dick joined them, worried about his future sister-in-law.

Marinette and Dick ended up singing along the characters when they watched Mamma mia, while Damian watched from the couch, obviously wondering what he was doing there.

But the Eurasian girl was a bit happier than she was the night before, so it was a win for the youngest Wayne. He knew it wouldn’t last, but at least, Hawkmoth didn’t get to take advantage of her emotional state.

They all fell asleep on the couch in the early morning.

Marinette didn’t have the strength to face Plagg for a whole week. It was only after a day at school when she talked to Adrien for the first time since he gave the ring up, that she decided it was time to have a talk with Plagg.

Adrien had seemed happy when she talked to him. She didn’t know if genuinely was happy or if he was really good at faking it, but he had an entire conversation with her with a smile on his face.

It was like he was a different person than he was a week ago when he had his existential crisis over his father being his enemy.

So, when she went home after meeting with Chloé for their group project, she put the ring on, its aspect changing automatically to her own taste, and Plagg appeared in front of her, a sad smile on his tiny face.

“Hey, bug,” he began and she could feel her eyes water when she heard the sadness in his voice. “Hey, none of that now. I know we’re both having a hard time, but it’s better that way, really.”

Marinette frowned. “What do you mean?”

The cat-like kwami sighed. “I’ve lost some of my chosen in the past. Some died. Others used the Miraculous for bad things and had to be put down or lost their Miraculous. Adrien chose to give the ring up so he wasn’t tempted to help his father by giving him half of the Miraculous he’s seeking,” he let out a wet laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t know the kid had it in him to do that. He can’t stand up to his father, but he still did the right thing.”

The fashion designer nodded, knowing how hard it must have been for the model to make this decision.

Adrien Agreste wasn’t the perfect teenager that everyone believed he was. He knew how to make it seem like he was perfect, but he wasn’t. Adrien… Adrien was a bit of an enabler. Being isolated by his father for years didn’t help in his social abilities, and his friends had to explain a lot of things to him. Like, what sexual harassment was, or why it’s wrong to let a liar get her way. Why it’s wrong to put the feelings of a girl he barely knows above the feelings of one of his closest friends. Why it hurt said friend.

Sometimes, if it wasn’t explained to him, Adrien wouldn’t understand, and wouldn’t put the effort to.

So, no, Adrien wasn’t perfect.

He had hurt her, both as Chat Noir when he forced his feelings on Ladybug, and as Adrien, when he told Marinette to put her feelings aside so a liar wouldn’t get akumatized, without a care about the designer’s own risk at akumatization.

He had hurt her, but she had forgiven him because he was her friend and she cared about him.

But, just like Plagg, knowing Adrien, his decision surprised her at first.

She felt bad for it, but she had thought, for a moment, that he was going to betray her.

Taking a deep breath, she scratched Plagg behind his ear. “I’m sorry you lost your partner,” she apologized.

Plagg let out another wet laugh. “I’m sorry you lost your partner.”

Pursing her lips, she gathered the black kwami in her hands. “But you didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

The kwami of destruction floating up next to her cheek, nuzzling against it.

“It’s okay. You don’t always get the luxury to say goodbye,” he floated in front of her face so he could look at her in the eyes. “We’ll be fine. And Adrien will be too. Now, we just need to end this whole thing, alright?”

Marinette laughed, but it was empty. “Alright.”

They waited a little bit before acting. They didn’t want to act so soon after Gabriel revealed himself to his son. If they acted and something went wrong, then the man could think that his son denounced him and could do something to him.

They didn’t want to risk it, so they waited until mid-March.

There were some Akumas during February but they were easy, which meant that Hawkmoth had plans for a much stronger Akuma later on. Hopefully, they would defeat him before he could act on it.

February has been a good month for them, and they enjoyed life a bit more than usual. Her project with Chloé was done and at the end of their presentation, they got a good grade. She was still seeing Chloé outside of school from time to time, beginning a tentative friendship.

She was glad to witness Chloé’s change.

Alya and Nino were doing better and remained friends. They even met Léa, Nino’s soulmate. They weren’t dating yet, but Marinette could see that they liked each other. She just hoped that when they started dating, Alya would be able to handle it. She had made so much progress in accepting her break up, she would hate to see her go back to how she was just after the breakup.

Damian and she finally got to spend their first Valentine’s Day together. They kept it simple, though, going out for dinner in a cozy restaurant, walking back to the Wayne’s apartment, and ending the night with a movie, cuddling with each other, Alfred the cat on their laps and Cloud at their feet.

She has been working on a dress for Damian’s prom and couldn’t contain her excitement. It amused Damian to no end and he would tease her about it and they would banter for a while.

Marinette was happy, and the sooner they got to defeat Hawkmoth, the happier she was.

Damian observed his girlfriend from the chair in her room. She was working on her dress, almost finished with it. He couldn’t wait to see her wearing it, knowing that she would be gorgeous in it.

He smirked, knowing that him going to prom with a date would shock everyone at school. It would amuse him for five minutes before finding it annoying, but he was good at ignoring the stares.

He hoped that Marinette would be able to ignore them too.

Looking around the room — with so much pink — he couldn’t help but think that a week from now, they would fight with Hawkmoth. He had no idea what would happen, but somehow, he wasn’t worried.

He had a feeling that everything would be alright from them.

Still, Marinette was being anxious over it, and he wanted to do something to help her relax.

Perhaps a weekend outside of Paris would help? They hadn’t left Paris ever since their little trip back in fall, and it would only benefit them to leave the city for a day or two.

Plus, it was getting warmer — too much, if he was being honest, and, wow, was the planet in danger — so they could go hiking somewhere.

Getting up, he walked to her, hugging her from behind. She leaned into him and he kissed her softly on the neck, going up until he was kissing her temple.

“I was thinking,” he began in a whisper, not willing to break the silence by being too loud.

She hummed in answer, leaning more into his chest.

“We should go somewhere this weekend, you know, to relax a little.”

Marinette sighed, but it was a happy one. “That would be great,” she admitted, turning around so she was facing him. “What were you thinking about?”

Taking her hand in his, he pulled her up and brought her closer to him so he was hugging her. She returned the hug, putting her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

It was something that she did often, and Damian found out that it helped her relax.

“How about we go hiking somewhere? I heard there are great spots for it in Normandie.”

“It’s beautiful there. A bit cold and rainy though, but we should manage,” she looked up, smiling at him and he found himself smiling back.

“Good. We’re leaving tomorrow?”

She nodded and he leaned forward to kiss her.

The weekend has been great, but too short in Damian’s opinion. He didn’t get to spend time alone with Marinette too often. There was always someone to tag along with them, and this time, they had been able to enjoy each other much more than usual.

This is why, on their way back in Paris, he decided they could take the next step in their relationship.

“I was thinking,” he began, making Marinette look away from the train’s window to look at him. She smiled at him, much more relaxed than two days ago.

“We’ve been together for almost two years, now,” he said taking her hand in his. “I was thinking we could take the next step, you know?” He saw her nod, still smiling at him.

Looking into her eyes, he felt relieved that she wasn’t expecting him to propose. Good, because with the way he was speaking, it could have seemed like it, but it wasn’t.

“When I get back to Paris for College, would you like us to live together?”

Marinette beamed at him, this smiled he loved so much on her lips.

“Really?!”

“Really,” he nodded.

And then, his arms were full of his girlfriend, who was kissing him.

“I would love to,” she exclaimed once she put distance between them.

They met halfway for a kiss, sealing this promise.

Then, it was time to confront Hawkmoth.

The day before, they went to the police and presented their evidence against Gabriel Agreste. They told them that they would act the next day and would appreciate it if they could wait in front of the Agreste residence to arrest the man.

After reviewing the evidence, the police easily agreed.

Marinette chose to put the ring in the Miracle Box. If things were to go south, then Hawkmoth would only have one Miraculous and not both.

It was better to be safe than sorry.

She was so nervous that even Damian’s word and touch couldn’t relax her.

But she didn’t have to worry at all.

Defeating Hawkmoth was anti-climatic.

She had always imagined a great battle. Blood, destruction, screams. Something messy that would attract the city’s attention and would be followed by everyone.

But it wasn’t like that at all.

Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sanscœur were the former’s office, working on whatever it was they were working on.

They weren’t expecting them at all.

Robin and Nightwing were very good in combat. Way better than she was, and way better than Gabriel and Nathalie were.

They didn’t have time to transform before Robin and Nightwing took them down.

All she had to do, in the end, was to restrain them and take their Miraculous.

“Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sanscœur, you used the Miraculous for selfish reasons. As the Guardian of the Miraculous, I declare you unworthy of wielding one.”

Without waiting a bit, she took their Miraculous, stocking them in her yoyo.

Gabriel and Nathalie were escorted to the police to be properly arrested, and Ladybug could only stare after them.

It was over. Hawkmoth’s reign was finally over.

Paris was free.

“Are you alright?”

Robin’s hand on her shoulder was warm and when she turned around, the warmth and love in his eyes made her tear up.

And then, finally, she broke down.

She collapsed in his arms, crying for the first time in years, not having to worry about her feelings being taken advantage of.

She cried in her soulmate’s arms, and he held her.

He held her until she stopped crying.

Tag List:

@bigpicklebananatree @animegirlweeb @crazylittlemunchkin @northernbluetongue @cutechip @justafanwarrior @iloontjeboontje @resignedcatservant @maribat-is-lifeblood @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @toodaloo-kangaroo @mikantsume @dast218 @amayakans @zestyzealot @lunarwolfspn @corabeth11 @marinettepotterandplagg @olynix @aestheticnpoetic @hot-neighbour-nextdoor @thehufflepuffranger-blog @k-poplunardreams @tis-i-beanbandit @bluesimani @laurcad123 @notmycupoftea26

#maribat #daminette #maridami #damian x marinette #ml x dc #mlb x dc #miraculous x dc

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argumentl · 3 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression Ep.2 - Ghosn escapes to Lebanon

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, this is the second installment of The Freedom of Expression. Um, Joe san, Tasai san, here we are again.

J, T: Yep *laughing*

J: Why are we laughing at that?

K: Well, somehow, while I was introducing you two, I was wondering whether I should also introduce the third, no, fourth person..

J: I see, I see.

K: I thought I'd leave it at that.

K: Yes, lets leave it there.

Kami: No, don't leave it there.

J: Ah, of course, we try to ignore him, he'll appear.

K: Ahh, but during the first episode, there were times without him, weren't there?

J: Sure

Kami: Ah, but I was just being quiet. I was waiting until the end to come in.

J: I see.

Kami: You played right into my hands

*everyone laughs*

J: We played into your hands? This god has a nasty personality, doesn't he? *K laughing* A god saying that?!

Kami: Of course you would tell me I have a nasty personality.

J: This god is surprisingly small, right? *K laughs a lot*　..saying such things?!

K: Okay, so lets get to the freedom of expression, the concept which we started on the radio and are now doing on youtube. Last time was our first try, how do you think it went, for anyone interested?

J: Well, just how DID it go?

T: Right, I'd like to know the reaction.

J: Yeah, I'd like to know. I'd like it to spread on social media.

K: Yes, me too.

J: Please, by all means, share this for us!

K,T: Yes

K: Right, well for our first item, over to you Tasai san.

T: Well, this is news from Tokyo Sports newspaper..

J: Oh, from Tokyo Sports? Like, is it a UFO or a monster kind of story?

T: Well, I know what you mean, but its not that today. Its about (Carlos) Ghosn.

J: Was Ghosn a monster?!

T:*laughs* No, no, no, its not that.

J: Really?

T: It was really big news at the end of last year. The news that Ghosn escaped to Lebanon. Firstly, what did you think about this, Joe?

J: Oh me? Well, Im one of those that thinks the Japanese judiciary system is terrible, so I thought it was convincing.

T: Ah, I see.

J: Of course it was an illegal thing, but for someone as rich as Ghosn, I think it was nothing.

T: Well, as for Ghosn, he is now in Lebanon, but its been said in the news that the recent worsening of relations between America and Iran will be really bad for him.

J: Can Tokyo Sports really report such a serious story? *K laughs*.

T: Yeh...We have to report this kind of thing.

J: Right

T: So, America killed Iran's number two, General Soleimani in an explosion, and with Iran calling for revenge action, the tension is such that, people are fearing WWIII breaking out. With the current leader calling on Lebanon's Shia military organization, you know the organization Hezbollah?...there is a possiblity that Lebanon could become a battle ground...in which case Ghosn would lose his place of saftety and he would have to flee from there, and might get arrested in a different country. Thats the story, how Ghosn might still be facing danger.

J: I see, direct.

T: Its really like a story from a movie.

K: Yes, thats right.

T: Hiding in a musical instrument case..

J: For sure!

K: A band came to his house right?

J: Yes, yes, he was having a party.

K: Yeh..and like hiding in the case...its interesting isn't it? *everyone laughs*

T: Its a case for a very large instrument, and the makers of it have issued a warning, that this case is not intended to be used in that way. *J, K laugh*

J: But there are not many people who escape overseas, its impressive!

K: Yeh, it really is like a movie.

T: Its great...there is even talk of making this into a movie.

J: Ghosn's story?

T: Yeh

J: Wow. Kaoru, have you any thoughts about this Ghosn news?

K: Well, while being quite simple, the scale is outrageous *laughs* I wonder how much it cost..

J: Oh, probably a considerable amount...its been said that it seems like his fortune has decreased..but it probably hasn't disturbed him too much.

T: On the issue of bail, he paid 15 billion yen, which was apparently further confiscated, but Ghosn probably doesn't give a damn about that.

J: Probably not

K: When he came out, he disguised himself right? Its also kinda interesting from that angle.

T: Oh, dressed like a cleaner, right?

K: Yes, yes, yes.

T: It seems like he thought it would work

J: Well, another thing is, the Japanese judicial system is said to be a so called 'hostage judiciary'. In Japan, the prosecutors have the right to charge people with a crime, but out of all charges made in Japan, 99.9% are found guilty. In other words, if you are charged, the court case is more of a formality, you will almost never be found innocent. It equates to one out of a thousand cases being found innocent. Now, as far as I know, the conviction rate should be a bit lower, ninety-something percent, but if you lower the conviction rate much, the authority of the prosecutors is suspected, as if the original charges were wrong. Its difficult, but a conviction rate of 99.9% is quite extraordinary. So with the fact that prosecutors have so much power, and with this 'hostage judiciary', so called criminals are pushed to confess. At first they are questioned without the presence of a lawyer, and there are many cases where foreigners confess to the crime, even if they havn't done it. The police will say to people, 'you are not leaving here till you confess'. Now, if you really didn't do it you could provide your evidence to the court, but in Japan, the court will take a self confession as the strongest evidence. So, in the end, once you've said 'i did it', you might as well have done. And even if you later say 'i didn't do it', it will only be seen as a lack if repentence, you will not be found innocent...and Ghosn must know all this. This court case is predicted to go or for 5 or 10 years, and say, if it was ten years, his life is already nearing its end. Whether its right or wrong, he probably arrived at the conclusion that he had no choice but to escape.

T: He can do it because he has money.

J: Exactly

K: Ah, its turned into that kind of conversation.

J: Eventually, yes. We are not all equal.

K: But, couldn't you say it would better that he had stayed in an orderly place like Japan?

J: Yes, yes, especially if the place he has escaped to becomes a war zone. Theres a chance that Japan might end up being the safest place for him.

T: Which do you choose, an approaching war with your freedom, or a safe place facing a court hearing?

K: Oh this is gonna be a movie.*laughs*

J: It seems likely...But who would play Ghosn? Who looks like him?

K,T: *????* 1*

J: He's the only one who could do it! If it was dramatized..

K: It makes you wonder how Japan could let this happen, Ghosn was probably surprised too.

T: So for people who are out on bail in Japan, they do sometimes make them wear gps locating device, or restrict thier movement. It seems like Ghosn has really thrown Japan into disorder.

J: Hmm, in Japan, whenever there is a happening, the measures taken against it are often 'too much'. So, if you talk to people in other countries, recommendations will differ. For example, in France or somewhere like that, a traffic accident happens, and someone dies...Well, i mean, if it was in Japan, they would install a pedestrian crossing and traffic lights, which is ok in itself, but if you do this type of thing too much, it starts to get inconvenient. But if it was overseas, a traffic accident where someone dies, they would just warn people to be more careful next time. Rather than doing sonething physical, just encourage people to be safer, and after that finish with it. In Japan, they would definitely either install facilities or place equipment, measures to prevent it happening again, but on the other hand if this is done too much, you may eventually end up with restrictions on you speech or movement, so thats something we have to be careful about.

K: Mm, if you blame other people or things, you may end up losing your sense of self responsibility.

J: Things primarily happen due to our actions, we need to remember that, but people will end up blaming other things, for a sense of security. This becomes a vicious cycle, I feel.

T: This has been excessive recently, funny stories about celebrities being criticized for saying certain things, and then nothing happening.

Kami: Um, is it wrong to be on Ghosn's side?

T: No, I think its ok.

K: Its a personal opinion.

Kami: If you were on his side, he might give you money if you ask him *everyone laughs*

T: What a wierd opinion for a god!

J: You really are working for money, aren't you!

Kami: Well, I just thought if I was rich I could be in control of everyone.

J: I see, I see.

Kami: Like if I told people to cooperate with me, they would say, yes, yes, and just do it. Like, I would say to Tasai san, can't you write a nice article about me, and throw over a bit of cash..

T: I would be quivering

K: *laughs*

J: If it was Hiranabe san, you'd have to take him to dinner.

Kami: Yeah, I've a feeling he would say, 'Ghosn was right!'.

J: I guess so.

Kami: I mean, even if the story in the media is a joke , if someone said 'I'll give you a billion yen if you do it', you would do it right?

J: Well yes..a billion.

Kami: The real god, wouldn't be like that of course...but I'll do it for small change. *everyone laughs*

J: How much would you help Ghosn escape for?

Kami: About 10,000yen.

J: So cheap!

Kami: Its because I know my capability.

T: Isn't god supposed to be all powerful, and all knowing?!

Kami: No, I can't do anything.

J: A god who, can't do anything, strange isnt it?

Kami: Its because no-one worships me.

J: Ah, I see.

K: Aren't you just a regular old guy then? *lots of laughing*

J: And here's me thinking we were getting somewhere deep!

Kami: I only know one deep thing about this. Straight after he was interviewed by the Juicial minister, the minister said that Ghosn will have to prove his innocence, right?

J: Yes, that was mistaken, wasnt it. Completely wrong.

Kami: The rest of the world media heard this, and thought Japan was in the wrong. It is in the wrong, right?

J: Well, that person was orignally a lawyer, um, I dont know if the youtube viewers are aware of this, a defendant doesn't actually have to prove anything. Its the prosecution side which has to prove the guilt. A defendant doesnt prove his innocence at all. So if a harsh sentence is given, that means the prosecutors did thier job, and if guilt isnt proved, that means the prosecutors couldnt prove it. There is no legal situation where a defendant has to prove thier innocence. So, the justice minister saying Ghosn must prove his innocence was probably seen as ridiculous by the rest of the world.

Kami: Well, it is if its said by the justice minister.

J: Well having that kind of person in such a high position, can the rest of the world trust this country? Its a wierd story, the world's mass media have been laughing, can that kind of guy really become justice minister? But as you said, maybe he's just expressing Japan's inner feelings about this. Oh, Kami is gone! * laughing*

Kami:*laughs* No, I was listening attentively. I was listening, and thinking, he had to run away from Japan.

J: Oh, right.

T: I see.

Kami: Yes, get away from Japan..consumption tax has risen too of course * everyone laughs*

J: Well, yes.

Kami: The Olympis will cost money too..

T: And theres that iternet tax.

K: You know a lot, dont you kami?

Kami: Ive been saving money *everyone laughs* I never have enough.

J: Are you a poverty stricken god?! *lots of laughing*

Kami *stifled laugh* Don't say that.

K: Ok, well lets wrap it up here, the second episode. Please tune in next time.

J,K, T: Thank you very much.

1* I don't know who they said here.

#the freedom of expression #dir en grey

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androgynousblackbox · 3 years

Text

Where Light gets a friend (Lucky Light AU)

The AU where Light has exchanged all his braincells for luck continues.

Light *trying to follow a video tutorial about how to tie his necktie, more or less getting the hang of it until the voice of his moms takes him out of it* Sachiko: Light! We are going to get late! What is taking you so long? Light: I am going! *realizing it was a lost cause, took a pre-tied neck tie and ran downstair, only to his mom to fix the collar of his shirt and hair* Mom… Sachiko: Not a single word, Light. Today is a very important day! You are going to be giving the speech for the new freshman! You must have worked so hard for that perfect score and that deserves be celebrated! Light:… It’s not that big of a deal, mom. I mean, I am not going to be the only one standing there. Apparently some other guy also got perfect score and is going to be reading his own speech, so, really, it’s not that impressive. Sachiko: But what you are talking about? Of course it is! That other student probably worked just as hard as you, but I bet you will get the better grades at the end of the year, right, Light? Light: Sure, mom. Sayu: Aww, almost so modest, Light! So modest that you will have no problema letting your little sister be front seat! Light: Hey, I didn’t say any… She is already there. Sachiko: Don’t worry, Light. Today I will have your favourite dish prepared for dinner. Today is your day and Sayu understand that too. Light *feeling himself sick* Great. *among the other students, Light feels like wanting to ran away until he feels a hand over his shoulder and he almost jumped on his seat at the fixed stare of some pale guy with black hair, who tilted his head at his reaction. He did know him, he had see him on the examination room, but still was surprised at suddenly having sit at his side.* L: I apoligize, maybe that was too abrupt from my part. Light: No, no, it’s fine. I am just a little bit nervous, that is all. I am supose to give the speech and, well, you know. It’s fine. L: I know. Light Yagami, son of chief of police Soichiro Yagami, perfect score out of everyone else. You helped your father years ago to stop a trafficking gang. Impressive for a young student. Light:… Thank you? I… that is a bit of an awkward introduction, huh? I am sorry, I don’t think I remember your name.

L: It’s okay, I haven’t said it *the other extended his hand to him, shaking it firmly and staring into his eyes as he pronounced the next words* I am L. Ryuk: Welp, that is new. Light *blinked a couple of times, still shaking the hand on a mechanical movement* What.

L: I am L. I would have hoped that would warrant some kind of reaction, but maybe I overstimate things. Light: No, no, I did hear you. I am just… like L-L? The L? The detective L? That L? L: Yes. Light:…

Ryuk:…

Light: Can I get your autograph? L *this was the time for the other one to blink*… no. Light: Okay, okay, like but. Like… Oh, god, I am like… such a big fan of your work, if that is really who you really are! Like, that case on Los Angeles was so amazing, I must have read that book like four times and that is saying a lot, really! L has always been such a cool and misterious character and, like, I don’t know if you are joking or not, but actually getting to meet him would so amazing! Although that wouldn’t really make sense because why would L be here? Ryuk: He could be here to investigate you himself. Since you are a suspect and all, in case you forgot. Light: Oh… *realizing he hasn’t let go of his hand on all that time he finally released him* Sorry, I got a little too excited there. Are you really L? L: Yes. Light: Wow… The announcer: Light Yagami! Ryuk/L: They are calling you. Light: What? Oh, right, sorry!

The announcer: And the other student with the perfect score, please come to the stage, Hideki Ruyga.

Light *he instantly recognized the name, just like everyone else, when L came to give his speech while staring at a blank piece of paper* He is so cool…

Ryuk: You do know that he could find you out, right? Light *cover his mouth with his hand* I still have eyes and see he is cool. He was going to caught me sooner or later anyway. I already knew that. I just didn’t thought he was actually come to talk to me directly. Ryuk: You sound like your sister when talking about her idols. Light: Shut up.

*after the ceremony and greeting some friends, Light found L just as the man was walking to him* L/Light: Hey. L: You first. Light: Want to have something to eat? There is this really cool place nearby that has the best strawberry cake. L: Curious. I was just about to suggest you the same thing. Light: Then we should go! Do you like strawberry cake, L?

L: Yes. And would prefer if you used Ruyga Hideki, if you don’t mind.

Light: Sure, sure. Sorry, you are right.

*on the little place, Light points at a comfortable place close to the windows and they sat to make their orders. Light can barely contain his smile as he suggest L the best cakes and teas there are* Light: I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but somehow I imagined you were taller. Wait, it does comes out wrong, right? Sorry, I just… really can’t believe that you are really here. L:… To be quite honest, I didn’t came here merely for socializing. Ligh: S-sure. Right. Of course. You are here for the Kira case, right? L: What gave you that impression? Light: Well, it doesn’t take much to deduce that since that is the case of major profile right now and both Kira and L had this whole confrontation on TV. It was… so shocking to see that guy die like that. L: Mmm. You shouldn’t feel too bad about it. That guy had murdered her wife and three daughters before being caught and send to his execution. The only reason he accepted play that role was the promise of getting a full release in case he came out alive. He never expressed any regret for what he had done. Light: Wait, really? That… that is horrible. Still… L: Mmm? Light: He shouldn’t have died like that. And he shouldn’t have let be freed either, so I don’t know. I guess you didn’t had any other choice. L: Indeed. It provided important information about the way Kira kills. Light: Oh, and that is why the fake name, right? Ryuk:… you just now realized that?

L: Yes. Kira seems to need both a name and face in order to do what he does. I still have yet to figure out the way in which he does it. Light: You probably will. Sooner or later. Ryuk: Hehe, suddenly that cake seems to have make you sick, Light. L: I think so too *ate absentmindly the cake and then stared at the plate, the fork still on his mouth* Light: Good, right? I almost wish I knew how to bake just so I could do stuff like that and see people reactions. But I would probably burn it if I don’t burn the kitchen.

L:You should still try it. A intelligent guy like yourself could manage. Then send me a piece. Light:… being good at school doesn’t mean someone is good at everything, you know. You… you are smart. Really smart. If you wanted I am sure you could do all the cakes you want, exactly how you want them. I am just… lucky, I guess? L:…

L: You are way too modest. That is unexpected of someone with your background. Light: Not really? I mean, when you think about it, knowing what some text book said or marking the right circle on a piece of a paper is not as big as, say, knowing how to make cakes people like and can enjoy. I am sorry, I am probably speaking nonsense. L:… L: If you really feel that way, then that is all the more reason to attempt to do something you do feel more satisfied with. Light: You really only want more cake, don’t you? L: … maybe. Light: Alright. I will give it a thought at least. I don’t promise anything, though. L: Mmm. Fluffy. Light: Yeah, right? L: Changing subject. I imagine you have dedícated some thought to the Kira case as well. Having your own father on the investigation team could make it difficult to ignore. Light:Sure, but I think is difficult to ignore for everyone else with how much the news talk about it.

L: Fair enough. According tothe information we have right now, what conclusión do you make? Light: About Kira? Mmm. I don’t know. More than him I don’t really like the way people are treating the whole thing, but maybe it was inevitable. L: What do you mean? Light: I mean like Sakura TV calling him Kira-sama or people getting into fights deciding if they think is right or wrong. Again, it was more likely inevitable considering nothing like this happened before.

L: People are dying. That is naturally going to open discussion among the public. Light: People were dying before and nobody made that much of a fuzz then.

Light: I-I mean, um…

L: That is probably a fair assesment too. Although the way people are dying is note worthy. What do you think about Kira yourself? I am interested in hearing your thoughts about the way he operates. Ryuk: Ooh, you are being interrogated, Light. Better not lose your composture now. Light:Mmm. Light (FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, I AM FUCKED, I AM SO FUCKED, WHAT THE FUCK DO I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO ANSWER TO THAT, WHAT IS HE WAITING FOR ME TO SAY, DO I LIE, DO I SAY WHAT I THINK, THE FUCK DOES HE WANT, IS HE GOING TO ARREST ME NOW, WHY THE FUCK DID I OPEN MY MOUTH) L: Light? Light: I… This is probably going to sound too out there. It’s probably stupid.

L: Let’s see.

Light: Well… I am thinking about the fake L on TV. If we are to assume that L and Kira are two different entities, and not one person playing games in front of everyone, then it’s reasonable to conclude that Kira really wasn’t aware that wasn’t the real L and that L himself had nothing to do with the killing. L probably prepared it very carefully and has known for a while that the victims don’t die through any kind of poisoning or any kind of contact. The killing is always centralized. And as you said, he needs a face and a name, not just one or the other. If he is not touching them but they are still dying… Maybe there is a… uh…. Supernatural force there? There is something definitely weird about how all these criminals are dying. I don’t think it’s possible we will never understand his way of killing by normal means, and so try to capture him through that deduction is probably fruiltless. L:…

Ryuk: You have been reading the conspiracy theories forums about Kira again, didn’t you, Light? Light (SHUT THE FUCK UP, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING HERE)

L: That… makes sense. Light: It… it does? Ryuk: User KiraIsGood69 will be happy to hear. L: You are right, we have examined the bodes of many of the victims of Kira and found no trace of physical handling. Not to mention that the distance between the deaths and timing makes it impossible for one person to be present during for each of them. I am not really still at the point of thinking all rational explanations are off, but if the way Kira kill is so unique to him it’s not impossible to believe it’s a hability only him posses. Do you think Kira is human? Maybe a god like some have said? Light: Of course not. A god wouldn’t have made that mistake on TV. Besides, a god doesn’t really care about human lives. To them they are all the same, good or bad. Ryuk: Why are you looking at me? L: So it’s a human with a supernatural hability according to this theory. Inborn or given? Light (Wait, did I say a bad thing?) In-inborn, maybe? Because… if it was given, why Kira, right? What makes him so especial something would want to give him that skill? (Because a dumbass shinigami was bored and you were the idiot who caught the notebook, that is why).

L: Mmm. It’s a line of thinking, I suppose. But if he is human, as we both agreed on, then he can make mistakes and it can be stopped. What do you think about the times of death? Light: Well, they don’t happen all the time, obviously. Kira still has to eat and sleep. I haven’t followed on every case, but probably will get something out of seeing what could correspond with the times of death. L: Already tried that. We came to a conclusion that very quickly Kira turned down himself. How do you think that happened? Light:…

Light (Fuck): He… must have access to the investigation. How… horrible to think about. I hope no one that didn’t do anything ends up getting branded as a suspect *he put his hands on his lap when realized he could start shaking. L just then was talking with the waiter to ask her for another piece of cake for taking* L: We have a few names but I would say there is barely any porcentage of certainty right now. Light (don’t open your mouth, don’t open your mouth, don’t…) Am I a suspect?

L: You have a terrible concerned face right now, Light. You don’t have to get worried. We are still doing our investigation and whoever Kira is, we will catch him regardless. I won’t put anyone scrutiny unless I think there is a good reason for it.

Light: So yes. L:Yes, to put it briefly. Light:… well, makes sense. Can I ask something, though? L: Of course. Light: What will happen to Kira when he is captured? L: Once I gain definite proof of who he is and knows how he kills, I will make sure he is send to execution without any press ever releasing his name. With any luck he will forgotten by the general public and by the internet eventually. Die in complete anonymity, like Lyndon should have done. Light (That… is actually not that bad. If only that anonymity was extended to one’s family…) I see. It’s fair. L: Agreed. *he grabbed the box that the waiter brought for him and payed her* Well, was nice talking to you, Light. Hope to see you around the campus and maybe go to another place like this one if you happened to find it. Light: Really? Yeah! That sounds fun. Ryuk: And now you look like a happy puppy right after talking about your own execution.

L *nods and then walks outside as Light finishes his own cake, wondering what restaurants with good cakes he heard about* *late at night, Light walks with Ryuk behind, thinking. On his room again, and after Ryuk confirmed there weren’t more bugs, he sat on his bed as he throws Ryuk a new Apple he had bought on the way* Light: Ryuk. A question. Or two. I am sure yet. . Ryuk: Sure, sure, shoot it out.

Light: What happens if I want an out? If I don’t want to do this anymore? Ryuk: Well, you always can. Just give up the Death Note. But that would be kinda unfair for me, now that it was starting to get interesting. Light: So you will kill me? Ryuk: Mmmm. Probably. You told me to do it as soon your luck ran out. Did it? Light: No, but like… I just now I am realizing that when it does, it won’t just be me. If all happens behind doors I can imagine that papa won’t want to tell mom or Sayu what happened to me, but him… Fuck, why didn’t I think of that before? If I die now then I am still just Light Yagami, his son. Maybe it’s for the better. Ryuk:… Well, I can’t force you to change your mind. Are you sure? Light *nods* Ryuk: Say it then. Light *opened up his mouth when suddenly the voice of his mom cut him off* Sachiko: Light! A girl is looking for you! Light: Isn’t a little late…? *he comes down, to find a girl standing on the entrance, waving at him* Girl: I brought your notebook from today, Light! Hope you don’t mind the hour! *she pushed a black notebook to him and he took it without thinking, thinking he didn’t had any black notebook like that one before he looked up to a new Shinigami* Light: I-I-I.. thank you! Yep, very nice of you! *he closed the door, knowing Sayu and his mom were listening and walked to the girl a bit more, still whispering just in case* This is a Death Note. Girl: Yes! My name is Misa Amane and the shinigami that you see with me is Rem. You have no idea how long I have been waiting to meet you!

#lucky light au #death note #parody #i think i am not entirely sure if this is that

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akechicrimes · 4 years

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Hey crimes, feel free to disregard this tangent but, do u ever feel like P5 inadvertently or otherwise implied Goro was right with his fake “vigilante justice operates outside and the law and thus must be brought to heel” opinion? What with the fact that the Yaldabaoth confrontation implies the thieves work perpetuated humanity’s sloth AND THEN after an entire game showing us the hundreds of people who were at the v least COMPLICIT in shido’s machinations, a system which is (1)

ohhhhh this one is fun!! this is a super neat question, ty for asking!!!

hmmmmmmmmm

im going to try and break this down into parts, partly because persona 5 is such a convoluted mess with its own lines of thinking, so tell me if i dont do it right. the issues are: (1) goro definitely did say that operating outside the law was bad just on principle that you shouldn’t operate outside the law, and (2) persona 5 did definitely go on to say that all of the phantom thieves’ operations outside the law didn’t come to anything in the first place anyway, because they were only targeting individuals instead of mass systemic corruption/their presence was enabling people to become more apathetic.

i think what persona 5 is trying to get at is that it’s not necessarily that acting outside the law is bad, but that, like you said, targeting only individuals doesn’t work as a tactic. so vigilante justice (e.g. batman style of taking down supervillains) cannot compare to societal reform through collective action.

when i say collective action, i mean that i think persona 5 is trying to point out that “systematic” corruption is really just a corruption of many, many, many individuals working in concert--and that “reform” could just be said to be the opposite, which is activism from many, many, many individuals working in concert.

obviously the ending cutscene where akira;s social link network gets together to protest his arrest is the best example of collective reform, but i think one of the things that i rly like about shido’s wide-spread conspiracy is that it does a rly good job of paralleling akira’s social link network, and pointing out that in the same way that shido’s conspiracy is a collective effort of many many many people that make up a “system,” akira’s widespread social link network creates the opposite effect of a collective effort of many many people that make up a force for change.

which is why having the phantom thieves as a group itself just promotes more apathy--you get one group of people doing all the work for the rest of society, when if anything’s going to change, we need everyone on their feet.

which surprisingly correct, insofar as i’m aware. if society’s going to change in a substantial way, beyond just changing the hearts of a handful of abusers and letting the rest of the system remain untouched, everyone’s got to be involved. collective effort. do your part. wash your hands. stay indoors. don’t forget to vote. seriously, wash your fucking hands.

but when it comes to whether or not persona 5 says that you shouldn’t be acting outside the law...

i think persona 5 really really really really really doesnt want to be caught promoting lawbreaking while also being You Should Break The Law: The JRPG.

part of this trouble, i think, is just because they need players to actually like the characters in the game, and therefore all the character have sympathetic reasons for breaking the law. because persona 5 has to sell marketable characters, too, persona 5 itself makes it pretty clear that people who operate “outside the law” are usually not evil dipshit criminals who love sin. the people in persona 5 who act outside the law are usually people who dont have enough power to operate inside the law in the first place. akira, the pt, and goro all seem to have resorted to what they did because they had no societal power at the start, wound up with a persona (aka fast and easy power source), and wouldnt have been able to do anything about their situation otherwise. characters who operate outside the law (like takemi with her vaguely illegal practice, or kawakami and her also vaguely illegal sex work, or iwai and his vaguely illegal gun business) are still supposed to be waifus you are sympathetic towards.

(...i think i accidentally called iwai a waifu? hmm. on second thought, i’ll just leave that sentence as it is.)

and i really do have to point out that persona 5′s attitude of FUCK COPS is insanely strong. like. persona 5 HATES cops. and that doesn’t let up basically ever, at all, at any moment. for anything. persona 5 wants me to believe that makoto will become a good cop in the future, but if i wanted to find an existing good cop, i’d have to go all the way back to persona 4. like!! shit!! goro akechi is the closest thing we have to a good cop, and he has a pet guillotine for CEOs and his middle name is komaeda.

and that part of the big attitude with FUCK COPS is that it’s another way of morally exonerating the phantom thieves. i think... although the game ultimately concludes with “you should probably not break the law any more because the metaverse is gone,” it’s difficult to argue with the fact that persona 5 is a game in which it presents you with 10000000000000 reasons to break the law and feel Great about it.

(another tangent: i feel like one of the big undercurrents of persona 5, and especially the TV station, is that the phantom thieves are justified in their lawbreaking because the police aren’t doing their fucking job. like, someone’s got to keep people safe, and if the cops don’t like the phantom thieves, maybe they should get off their asses and actually get the criminals before the thieves do. akira literally was on live television and he was like ALL COPS ARE BAD and goro was like wow. anyone else think that was really sexy? @ the guy in the glasses in the back, call me later when you’ve leveled up your charm and knowledge.)

so atlus is in this place where they’ve pointed out that people break the law because they dont really have any other choice, and also persona 5 the game HATES cops, and also persona 5 the game cannot tell you that breaking the law is bad because it is literally A Game About Breaking The Law, but at the same time, they cant really go around promoting crime. from a doylist perspective i was 100% unsurprised that they came up with a fancy narrative reason to get rid of the metaverse and their change-of-heart abilities and just the phantom thieves in general, because all of those are a threat to the status quo. although the game might be right that relying on the phantom thieves to change society for the rest of the population makes the rest of the population lazy and apathetic, it’s pretty convenient that this means that the kids are now no longer able to break the law. so persona 5 really wants people to do things the kosher way, e.g. protesting and such.

hhfmgmhfmghfmgfmghmfhgg. taking this all with a grain of salt, because again, i do think atlus is trying very hard to avoid saying that people should break the law:

i think atlus wants to say that it’s not necessarily acting outside the law that’s not right, but the fact that just loading the phantom thieves with a ton of power makes people apathetic, and changing the hearts of a few individuals is Not enough to get rid of something like shido’s conspiracy. so instead they say, you shouldn’t break the law because it’s not effective without collective reform.

i think another thing that persona 5 wants us to believe is that for the most effective reform to be achieved, people both inside and outside the law/system have to be involved in the collective effort to improve society.

e.g., toranosuke wants to be a man of the people--someone who speaks for the people who are outside of the diet, but toranosuke himself is someone inside the diet. sae’s the other good example; the phantom thieves protest akira’s arrest at the end of the game, but sae, as the insider in the justice system, has to be there to hear and work with them. and this might just be because i watched haru’s s link last night, but i feel like takakura is a really good example: haru pushes back against the company’s shitty policies with her “outsider’s” perspective (quoted because she’s technically the largest shareholder, she just hasnt ever been really involved in how the company is run), but takakura, as the company president and most powerful person at okumura foods, has to be there to hear her request and agree with her, and make company changes based on her requests.

and it’s for this reason that persona 5 wants us to consider maybe lawbreaking isnt morally bad, just not effective.

i wish i could say that that’s more bad atlus writing, but it’s not. i’ve only really examined changing schools on an institutional level, but the best examples of institutional change in school administration have always been cases where the administration, parents, and community members all work together. in some cases, parents bring up requests for the school to accommodate their needs, and the administration listens and works with them. something something--everyone needs an advocate. the point of a lawyer is to advocate for you. the point of a politician/representative is to represent you and your interests. so on and so forth.

(and i also wish that it could be as simple as saying, “wow atlus said something right for once!” because that’s not true, either--acting outside the law can be outrageously effective. persona 5 trying to tell us that acting outside the law to get shit done isn’t effect smells like corporate trying to tell its workers that unionizing doesnt actually do anything.)

(and i also wish that persona 5 would have acknowledged that sometimes, it takes more than just an extremely moral person to change the world. take toranosuke, for example--i’m sure that if he gets elected, he’ll go out there and be a wonderful representative of the people, but at the same time, can’t we also simultaneously acknowledge that any politician who can make “politics” a career for profit will always be incentivized towards self-interest? in the same way that a military for profit will always be incentivized towards war?)

but insofar as whether or not persona 5 thinks that vigilante justice/acting outside the law is in and of itself morally bad--i’d say probably not. i think they want us to think that it’s not effective.

this is a slight tangent that kind of goes off the issue of whether or not persona 5 is concerned with whether or not breaking the law is moral or effective. i was going back through goro’s dialogue in the engine room--who knows if that’s going to be changed in royal--but i was trying to figure out exactly what the phantom thieves condemn him for. (fucking difficult as fuck considering how bizarre that dialogue was at places.)

the first one is murder, which goro is unimpressed with (LMAO. KING). the second is that he operated outside the law, to which he replies that they did the same thing (valid). the third is that his form of justice was “selfish,” in that it only served his personal need for revenge. at that point, goro changes the subject--which is not really surprising, since goro admitted long before the engine room that his quest against shido was for his own personal satisfaction.

that is to say, the phantom thieves can’t say that they don’t operate outside the law, because they do--however, if the phantom thieves can’t be legally exonerated, the phantom thieves are morally exonerated despite operating outside the law because they do it for the benefit of others. that’s actually not an incorrect statement from the phantom thieves, although i dont think they’re doing it for Society Writ Large. the phantom thieves in every single palace have taken on targets to help someone else: firstly ann and ryuji and shiho, then yusuke, then various shujin students being blackmailed by kaneshiro, etc, etc. i remember pretty distinctly that ann insists that she doesnt want to get involved with madarame just for drama or fame (whereas ryuji wants to pick a big target just for the sake of getting famous), but she agrees to get involved with madarame’s palace because she doesn’t want to leave yusuke to possibly kill himself like a previous student.

because the phantom thieves are not able to say that they haven’t operated outside the law in the same way that goro has, the dividing line between them is instead that the phantom thieves are doing so selflessly. but this is just an elaboration on the question of whether or not “is lawbreaking moral?” rather than necessarily “is lawbreaking effective?”

there’s an argument that nothing goro or the phantom thieves did was effective in the long run, and there’s an argument that sae is proof positive that working inside the system won’t be effective, either.

anyway, unions are effective. so maybe we should agree to wash our hands and join a union.

#mine #meta #clouis-loumentine

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writings-in-ebony · 4 years

Text

The Black Dahlia - Stucky x Black!Reader

Summary: You just wanted to board your plane but the two men following you have other plans. This is an AU based off of the show Carmen Sandiego, where you also play a female thief who escapes a corrupted organization of thieves.

Author’s note: Wow! Two submissions in less than 24 hours! Yeah but this might be a one-shot, it might be a series. Who knows. It’s up to you guys. I love the show Carmen Sandiego and wanted to add this concept to the Marvel Universe. As always, likes and reblogs are well received and I love comments and asks! Thanks again, everyone!

Word Count: 1704

Warnings: Bad language

The Black Dahlia

The airport was not too crowded today, mostly because it was a Sunday and the holidays had just recently ended. You were currently standing in line waiting for your luggage to get checked in, looking over the recent data Tony had sent to you that morning. It was a long list of things, but the flight would give you enough time to look over and analyze everything that you needed. Then, you could plan your next steps.

You moved up within the line and noticed something out the corner of your eye. There was a man, a thickly built blonde wearing a Yankees baseball cap and a tightly fitting t-shirt, standing over by the suitcase return. He stood with his hands in his pockets and the way he angled his face, you could decipher that his eyes were aimed straight at you under his thickly tinted sunglasses.

Wow, such an amateur move, you thought to yourself as you pretended not to notice him. The suitcase return hasn’t been activated recently which means he was standing there for nothing. Add that to the fact he was wearing sunglasses in a dimly lit portion of an airport. He told on himself and you had found him.

“Tasha?” you casually asked to the hidden earpiece in your ear?

“Yes, boss?” came a silky Russian accent.

“I’ve got eyes on a blonde over by the suitcase return. Very built and very noticeable,” you provided, stepping up yet again. You were next in line and you rolled your suitcase in front of you.

“Ah, I see.” There was a small pause. “He is definitely here for you. Can’t take his eyes off you. Is he one of your previous friends?” You did a small sweep of your eyes and smiled at the fact you couldn’t even spot Natasha. However, wherever she was, she saw everything. She was very good at her job and stealth was one of her strongest skills. It’s mainly why you hired her.

“Not to break up this chat, but uh…you have a second admirer too. Nine o’clock position,” came Clint’s voice. You darted your eyes to the left and searched. This one was harder to find, but you saw him. He was standing by the information desk, leafing through the travel brochures and informational pamphlets. He, too, was built, but slightly smaller than the blonde. It also didn’t help that he had on the same dark sunglasses. They really, and you meant really, needed to retire those.

You were called to the front by one of the attendants, a friendly-looking elderly woman. “How may I help you, Miss?” You placed your suitcase on the scale and smiled at her, making small conversation and asking the woman how her day was. All the while, the men in the background didn’t shift and watched your every move. It was funny how intensely they stared, yet you knew their efforts would be fruitless.

“All done dearie. Here’s your suitcase number to make sure you can keep track of it. Have a nice flight!” And with that, she tossed your suitcase on the conveyor behind her and you eased away from the counter. Now, you just had to get to your gate. But first, you had to lose Thing 1 and Thing 2.

“Tony,” you said into the earpiece.

“Yes, my lovely Dahlia?” You rolled your eyes. He was such a cornball, but he got the job done.

“Is there a way you can bypass the airport’s security measures and make a few changes for me?”

“What changes you need, babe?”

“I need you to look within the cameras and spot the two men tailing me. One’s blonde and wearing a tight blue shirt and the other is brunette with a large green jacket on. Can’t miss them,” you provided as you weaved through the thick crowd.

“Gotcha.” Furious typing could be heard, and Tony made a sound of triumph as he locked in on the two. “Oh, yeah, they’re definitely following you.”

“Great. I want you to use the airport’s new identification system to lock on these two men and expose them as threats. Make it seem like the police is searching for them. Once you do, airport security will immediately lock on them and we’ll be able to board our plane with no hassle. Got it?”

“Ooooh, petty. I love it,” Tony giggled maniacally.

You looked at your phone once again and looked up the airport’s emergency hotline. Immediately dialing the number, it took two rings before a woman’s voice piped up saying, “Airport Emergency, how may we be of assistance?”

You quickened your breathing, simulating panic and heightened the tone of your voice. “Oh, thank God. Hi. Um, I know this might seem like a pointless call, but I feel as though there are two men who have been following me throughout the entire airport. It’s really freaking me out and I just want to make sure they’re not going to harm me.”

The woman on the other line jumped into action and asked for their descriptions. “Um, one’s a blonde, very muscular, and has on a tight blue shirt. The other one is scarier with shoulder-length brown hair, a stubble, and a thick green jacket. Is that description okay?” You were really selling it and you could hear Clint’s snorting through the earpiece.

“Of course, ma’am. Let me look.” It only took a few seconds before the woman gasped. “Oh my.”

“What is it?!”

“These two men have search warrants out for them. The police are looking to question them on allegations regarding sex trafficking, coercion of a minor, and battery! Ma’am, please hang tight. We are deploying security right now.”

“Oh my God! Thank you! My flight leaves in about ten minutes, so I’ll just sit at my gate.”

“Okay. If you need anything, please call us again.” You thanked the woman profusely and hung up, a smirk crossing your face.

“Wow, Tony. Way to up the criminal offenses.”

“I had to make sure they were quick about it. You know how slow law enforcement is.”

You were about to reply when you felt a large hand grab your elbow. Trained to not react, you calmly looked up at the imposing figure beside you. It was the brunette, his face set in a grim expression as he looked down at you from the corner of his eyes.

“Why, hello, Bucky,” you smiled.

“Don’t ‘Hello, Bucky’ me. It’s the Winter Soldier and you know it,” he growled, hand squeezing the upper part of your elbow. “We’ve been tailing you for some time now and you really think you’re about to hop on that plane and elude us again. Well, you’re not Black Dahlia. You’re not going anywhere but back to the compound.” You didn’t answer and instead turned to the left to look at the blonde who was standing very close to you.

“Hello, Steve. Still wearing that same lame disguise?” His jaw tensed at the comment, but he didn’t reply.

The hand on your elbow pulled you to the side, away from an incoming cart, but it kept its same grip. “You’re not getting away easily. We’re going to go straight out this airport and down to the car, with no problems. If you cause any, we’ll make sure you arrive back to the island with some difficulty walking,” Bucky threatened.

“No, you won’t,” you challenged.

“And why won’t I?” Bucky’s eyes widened at you, wondering if you had lost your goddamn mind. But you didn’t waver.

“Because you and Steve love me.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed and you could hear Steve intake a breath. “No, you don’t get to say that. You stopped loving us when you left us there. When you decided to go your own selfish way and leave us to fend for ourselves! So yeah, we did love you, but you made your choice and proved to us that we were disposable!” His voice rose above a growl, his anger clear as day on his face.

“I never stopped loving you,” you shot back. “I never stopped loving either of you, but I’m not going to give away my life to…to crime and hurting innocent people. That’s not me and I’d rather live without you both than subject myself to that moral torture!” You aimed a glare at Bucky, then composed yourself. It would do no good arguing in the middle of a crowded airport. Too much attention.

You eyed a passing clock, realizing you had five minutes before your flight took off. You also saw that men dressed in thick police gear were approaching from both sides. Now’s the time for your escape. “And while I would love to keep confessing our mutual dislike for each other, I really must catch my flight. And you and Steve must try to leave this airport without getting caught by the police and airport security. I think I heard from a little birdy that you both have arrest warrants for sex trafficking, coercion of a minor and battery.” The men stopped and looked at you, bewildered, then aimed their confused stares at the incoming police. “So, ta-ta boys and I’ll see you at a future date? If you make it out of here, that is.” And with that, you pinched a nerve in Bucky’s arm, causing him to cry out and escaped his grasp, disappearing into the crowd with ease. If they were smart, they wouldn’t follow you and by the looks of it, they didn’t.

You passed the armed men and headed straight for your gate where the flight attendants were preparing to close the doors. Making it just in time and quickly scanning your ticket, you boarded the airplane with ease and went to your first-class seat. Natasha and Clint occupied the two seats behind yours, giving you respectable smirks and a thumbs-up for your cunningness.

As the plane was beginning to roll itself away from the airport, you looked out the window and spotted two figures standing on the roof of the airport, staring at your plane. It was too late, and they knew it. They had failed again and would keep failing. The Black Dahlia never got caught.

#stucky x reader #stucky x black!reader #black!reader #Steve Rogers #bucky barnes #steve x bucky #poc!reader #bucky x reader

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kingofthenorth49 · 3 years

Text

Made in China

I don’t know about you, but it sure feels like we are living through the start of World War III.

Now before you scroll past and think my tin foil hat is on too tight this morning, hear me out. It’s not like this doesn’t make sense or anything, if you connect the dots it would appear that the next global conflict will look much different than the previous two.

Think about it. China has been posturing for years to become the next world superpower, and if you can see through the medias bullshit you can read the overtures that are being made in the Asia region along with the saber rattling in the Middle East, you can see that it didn’t take long for Biden to unravel almost 50 years of progress towards peace.

War is inevitable and necessary to the state, and if you ever read Sun Tzu “Art of War”, a Chinese war treatise from the 6th dynasty you would understand the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. He also said that the outcome of war is pre-decided and gave solid advice on the best way to conduct campaigns to conquer foreign powers.

Now before you get your panties in a bunch, I’m not accusing China of deliberately inducing a world-wide pandemic through the use of a genetically modified pathogen after spending years devaluating the US dollar using printed money (not like we have room to talk, but we also haven’t been on a buying spree like the Chinese have in say, Canada for example.), but if I were President Xi Jinping that’s what I’d do. The best war is one where you risk no resources.

Again, not saying the Chinese are attempting to destabilize the United States, not at all. Just saying if I were going to take over the world that’s how I’d do it, from a far, using disinformation and creating confusion and chaos in the streets of my enemy. Not like it hasn’t been done before.

See many of you see people like me as conspiracy theorists, people who are to be dismissed because we believe in things others’ think are foolish, things that seem farfetched and impossible to be going on in a frame of present reference. I just see myself as a guy who likes history and reads a lot of books that were written before Google came along and dumbed down our nations. Anyone who has ever read a book on the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1920’s Germany would understand completely. If you were to pick up a couple other books on how Hilter rose to power on the back of that party, you’d understand also how quickly people can be manipulated, and how the media and ideology can quickly create a firestorm of hate that makes it easy for societies to crumble. Read even further on how the German army used deceptive tactics to invade Austria and Poland so quickly they didn’t have a chance to prepare.

That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s history and we all know those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I guess watering down history is a good thing, right? Taking down statues, changing historical accounts in the name of political correctness, and not encouraging people to critically examine all aspects of history to learn from them helps us become a better society.

Let me give you the Cole’s notes version of how quickly things can go off the rails when the wrong ideology gains traction in a society where people intend to do evil. Again, not saying our current situation is remotely commensurate with our current situation, but it’s a good example of how quickly things can go from good to evil.

Here we go.

1933 - The Nazi Party takes power in Germany. Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor (or Prime Minister) of Germany. Nazis temporarily suspend civil liberties.

1934 - Hitler combines the positions of chancellor and president to become “Fuhrer” or leader of Germany. Jewish newspapers are no longer allowed to be sold in the streets of Germany.

1935 - The Nazis intensify the persecution of people that do not agree with their political philosophy. Jews are deprived of their citizenship and other basic rights.

1936 – Nazi's boycott Jewish owned businesses. The Olympic Games are held in Germany; Signs barring Jews are removed until the event is over. Jews no longer have the right to vote.

1938 - German troops annexed Austria. On Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass,” Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria and 30,000 Jews are arrested. Jews must carry ID cards (papers!) and Jewish passports are marked with a “J”. Jews no longer had businesses, attend plays, concerts etc. (maybe they were unvaccinated??) All Jewish children are move to Jewish schools. Jewish businesses are shut down; They must sell businesses and hand over securities and jewels. Jews must hand over drivers licenses and car registrations. Jews must be in certain places at certain times.

1939- Germany takes over Czechoslovakia and invades Poland. World War Two begins as Britain in France declared war on Germany. Hitler orders that Jews must follow curfews; Jews must turn in radios to the police; Jews must wear yellow stars of David.

Now I’ll stop there.

Those are all non-debatable historical facts, no subjectivity in my interpretation, just the facts m’am. Look how quickly one ideology took hold in a country ripe for change. At the time of the 1930’s German’s were desperate for change as they had just came out of world war 1 and were suffering from paying reparations for their conduct during that conflict and when Hilter came along he lit a fire under the German people by blaming the Jews for the loss of WW1.

Five years. Five years from the time a tyrant took power until he was able to start killing 6 million people.

Now if you are one of those types that believe “it can’t happen again” look no further to all the other genocides over the past 100 years, up to and including the Uighur crisis currently going on in China where they have over 1 million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps and they are mass sterilizing these people to the point it’s actually consider a genocide, as it’s reducing the Muslim population in the western provinces of China though declining birthrates. If these women don’t submit to forced intra-uterine devices or monthly pregnancy tests, they are put in prisons.

Put in prision because they needed to take a test, shot, or device and wouldn’t?

Say it ain’t so Joe, say it ain’t so.

Folks, some people are evil. Rotten to the core. They have no soul and are in the most desperate need of getting laid of any person on the planet. That’s reality. You can choose to stick you head in the sand and pretend the boogeyman doesn’t exist, but in truth the boogey man will always exist because humans are nasty evil creatures capable of the most horrendous conduct, and if you think ignoring them or passing laws to prevent them from doing things are going to stop them, well you are just stupid. Sorry, I can’t soften that up any because I owe it to you to be blunt in these times.

Now if you’ve made it this far I think you would agree that something is amiss these days, there’s too many conspiracy theories of the past few years that are now seeming to be true, yet no one wants to talk about where the end game is. I’m not sure what it is, but I have some theories, most involved China or George Soros, but the data indicates more towards the former versus the latter.

Trudeau loves China, he’s said so on many occasions to the point of gushing over their communist form of government. His father was a Marxist, and his mother loved communists. Literally. **bow chica bow wow**

Hunter Biden and the Big Guy are in bed with the Chinese in a different way that Margret and Fidel. We’ve seen the emails, the testimony, and the allegations. For them, it’s about money. Last week the Big Guy shut down the investigation that Trump started into the Wuhan lab. That’s now created a firestorm that will likely make 9/11 look like a traffic accident. Coincidence? I think not.

We recently had two Chinese scientists with ties to the Chinese People’s Army kicked out of our highest security epidemiology lab here in Canada after CSIS had concerns they were passing information back to the Wuhan lab (a lab so highly classified Canadian scientists have a hard time getting security clearances to access it), and Trudeau drew the ire of senior Canadian military personnel when he bullied them into allowing the Chinese to hold winter war games at CFB Petawawa. Why is Trudeau so moonstruck with China?

Dot, Dot, Dot.

Once again, I hope I’m wrong. I really, really do, but go back and walk that timeline again and ask yourself if you now understand why Netanyahu hit Hamas as hard as he did.

Never again.

Can you blame him Comrades?

Now as you sit here in North America today, especially in Canada, does it not seem eerily similar to what has happened before in history? Keep in mind that Jews were loaded onto boxcars under the premise to take them to safety from the angry German peoples.

I really do hope my tinfoil hat is too tight and it’s cutting off the circulation to my frontal lobe, I want the Canada back I grew up in, and the America I fell in love with. I just hope this really is just a bad bug that’s part of a cyclical pattern of virology and this isn’t the start of a global war to reorganize the planet power structure and de-populate the globe.

The dots just tell a different story.

Jim Out.

#ww3 trudeaumustgo wearesoscrewed enough

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doof-doofblog · 3 years

Text

"Hello, Sis!"

Tuesday 6th April 2021

Hello again everyone! Wow! Feels like it's been a while since I last posted, I had a very busy week last week and again this week being back at work! I'm sure you must all be happy regarding the lockdown easing ever so slowly! I've come to the realisation that now I'm back to the day job, my posts will have to be done in the evenings, so I apologise if some of them seem late from now on. I'm planning on possibly doing another blog post tomorrow and then a double on Thursday in an attempt to catch up! I know the majority of you have already seen last week's episodes, it seems I have a lot of catching up to do!

We know that things are supposed to be kicking off this week (commencing 12th April) due to the return of Nancy Carter and the possible outcome of Kush's trial? I do have a fear Kush may be killed off and become another victim of Gray's but I am hoping that that doesn't happen! But before we can even begin to get excited about it, I need to post about the episodes that you guys have seen, but unfortunately I haven't.

So without further ado, I'm going to begin chatting about Isaac. It seems that Sheree seems to have overstepped the mark regarding both Lola and Patrick. I mean of course she is acting as the concerned Mum and Wife, but she needs to realise that there are some things she can't interfere with. Patrick has been offered the opportunity to go on blood thinners as an experiment for stroke victims - (at least that's the jist I got from it anyway!) - but Sheree is standing her ground claiming she doesn't want her husband to take part in it, purely because she fears for his health. Again, I can understand her concern but she can't stop Patrick from doing something he may want to do, considering he's already suffered two strokes whilst on the Square, he'll want to do his part in helping other victims.

But also where Lola is concerned, Sheree is still interfering in her son's relationship, for a brief moment it looked as if she had scared poor Lola off! Finally Isaac has sat his Mum down and told her straight to stop interfering with everybody's lives, even claiming that some times she can come across as controlling, even though her concern comes from a good place. For the first time in a long time, Isaac is feeling ready to enter another relationship, and he informs her Mum that with Lola, it feels right, he's slowly falling for her and there could be chance that she is feeling the same and the relationship could become serious?!

As Isaac instruct his Mum to kind of back off, Lola appears to have escaped to the Vic. Oh and once again Peter seems it's necessary to poke his nose into business that has nothing to do with him! Urgh, I really don't know about any one else, but for me personally - Peter is one of the worst characters the soap has right now, not in the sense of villainy, but just as a whole - his attitude towards his family, thinking he's the big I AM, urgh I don't like him, I really don't! Something has to change with this Peter I think, what about you guys?! Do you agree or do you think I'm being a little bit harsh? Either way he insults Lola and manages to persuade her to tell him what's on her mind. Believing he's a trusted friend, Lola confides in Peter, informing him about Isaac's diagnosis - something I fear she will possibly live to regret. But after her meeting with Peter, she eventually meets up with Isaac in the club and he informs her to not let his Mother scare her off, Isaac has full control over his illness right now and there would be no way for Lola to trigger any kind of breakdown. Let's hope things remain this way, right? But something is telling me that with all this positivity and reassuring that Isaac is fine and he has everything under control, something is telling me that eventually Isaac will have some form of breakdown and hopefully EastEnders will be able to have an opportunity to portray what having schizophrenia is really like!

Oooooo and what is this?! A possible new love interest for Bernie?! It's about bloody time!!! So, I'm sure the majority of you know that the Taylor family have taken in a new dog named Banjo after finding him on the streets and assuming he was a stray. Unfortunately, since the dog has been in their possession, some flyers advertising the lost dog have been spreading around the Square. Mitch was the first one to notice them, but not wanting to break his young daughter's heart, after their new family member has brought her so much happiness, he disposed of the flyer and never said a word about it to his family.

Now after this young girl seems to catch her eye on the Square, denying to Bailey that she's does not have a crush on her, she claims that she was just interested in the girl's flyer's. As Bailey goads her to ask for one, Bernadette comes to realise what the girl is advertising. (Also just zooming through the end credits of the episode now, there happen to be two female names of who this young lady could be - "Clara" or "Molly" - It'll be interesting if she was to show up again!) Taking the flyer back home, Bernie sadly informs her Mum and Mitch that a girl is out there looking for her dog, who they happen to have living with them, and his name isn't Banjo, it's Ziggy!

At first it seems the Taylor's are in a bit of a denial, it's understandable that they've grown to love the dog, but when Karen calls him by the name "Ziggy", the dog automatically responds. Bernie claims that they have to do the right thing and return the dog to it's rightful owner, however Mitch is looking deeply suspicious as Karen realises that he knew about the flyer's a couple of weeks ago and never said anything. He claims he didn't want to break Bailey's heart after all the loss she's had in recent months. It's then that Karen happens to agree with Mitch and states that the dog will be staying with them. They instruct Bernie to call the girl up and give her false story about the dog. Poor Bernadette isn't one for lying, so it's quite funny and yet sweet when she attempts to make up a story about the dog being lashed into a van to the unknown female. But it seems the girl can see right through Bernie and claims that she saw the way she was looking at her in the Square and offers to buy her a drink. Even though Bernie is already hiding the fact that she has her dog, could this be the start of new relationship for her?!

Ooh yea, so Ruby and Lily are still at loggerheads with each other! After devastatingly realising that Lily has cut her deceased Mum's wedding dress to pieces, Ruby is demanding that Lily leaves the house. Even though Lily isn't Ruby's biggest fan right now, it's clear that she had no idea that the dress belonged to her Mum, but it turns out she might've known that it was a special piece of clothing as Ruby states the dress was kept in a box at the back of her cupboard.

As Martin sends his daughter upstairs to get changed out of Ruby's clothes, he begins to think of some kind of punishment for his daughter, informing his wife that Lily is simply just missing her Mum. However it seems that Ruby's day goes from bad to worse, after discovering the state of her Mother's ripped dress, she informs her husband that she got a call from the clinic. It turns out the Ruby could most likely have endometriosis and that their fears about not having any more children is more likely. Devastatingly, endometriosis is severe and it could mean that she may not be able to have any more children in the future, sadly the one she lost might've been her only chance of being a Mum.

Understandably devastated for his wife, Martin realises he needs to do something to cheer her up. As Lily recovers from changing out of Ruby's clothes, Martin informs Ruby that Lily's punishment is to give her no access to any electronics for a week, and in an attempt to make things up to Ruby, Lily "apparently" has offered to give up her birthday money if it means there could be a way to salvage the ruined wedding dress. Ruby is visibly touched by the kind gesture, claiming that she didn't mean what she said about wanting her to move out, she claims that being her Stepmother - she'll always have a place to stay with them. Lily just simply smiles.

As Martin informs his wife of bubble bath waiting for her upstairs, Ruby thanks her Stepdaughter once again and leaves the room. As Martin follows, giving her the thumbs-up, it seems as if they think Lily will be okay and there'll be no more issues, but from the look on Lily's face, she really doesn't seem happy. Something was telling me that maybe she was being forced to apologise to Ruby? She clearly didn't mean her apology, is she still going to make Ruby's life a living nightmare?!

Oh Jean!!! Poor Jean!! I know I mentioned it in the last post, but I'm going to mention it again, I cannot applaud Gillian Wright enough for her performance as Jean! Jean clearly isn't coping with having her daughter back inside again while she's suffering a terminal illness, all she wants really is to be back with her daughter. As everyone gathers and sees the commotion, Sharon comes to realise that the only reason Jean is acting this way and holding herself up in the vehicle is because she wants to be with her daughter.

In an attempt to get Jean out of the van, Sharon pleads to the police to let her talk to her softly. As she approaches the fragile woman in the vehicle, she explains that even though she understands how Jean is feeling, the actions she's currently doing won't help her in any way. Even though Jean wants to be arrested in an attempt to be with her daughter, Sharon informs her that if she was to get arrested and put in prison, there is no guaranteed chance that she'd end up in the same prison as Stacey, in hindsight the only thing she'd get out of it is probably a criminal record and a hefty fine.

Realising her mistake and that possibly her actions may not get her close to her daughter, Jean agrees to switch off the engine and leave the vehicle. Now the next scene between Sharon and Jean I found funny but really touching also, I don't know why but I've loved the friendship that they've begun to build with these two characters. Two women I never thought would have each other's backs, but it seems that they are both struggling with things in their personal life, and I just LOVED how they both fell about laughing about the outcome of things, Sharon realising she's a single Mother with no money and how Jean has almost corrupted her new gym business. I found the scene really heart-warming as both the women agreed that sometimes shouting out to life itself is sometimes the only thing they have left?

I just loved it, it was as if they have a mutual understanding of each other and they found some common ground. Jean opened up to Sharon and Sharon opened up to Jean, even informing her about discovering a long lost brother that she's still unsure of whether to contact or not. But as Jean claims that having family around you is one of the most important things, Sharon seems to see it as another man in her life who she doesn't really need and decides to bin the phone number.

However, later as Sharon unfortunately misses her date with Kheerat and ends up drinking alone, Jean excitedly approaches her new found friend, even though she appears excited she also seems a little nervous and jittery. Admitting she might've overstepped the mark, she repeats the fact that Sharon needs her family around her and considering she hasn't got that many members of her family left ..... ?! Sharon questions what Jean has done and it's only when they get out onto the Square they see a car pulling up and stepping out of it, appears Zack! Jean only contacted her brother! But the interesting thing that gets me, Zack greets Sharon by calling her "Sis!" - last time he saw her, he had no idea who she was, just another person who attended his Dad's funeral, does this mean that Jean informed about Sharon's true identity?!

Either way, I'm super excited to see what happens next, I'll be sure to follow up this post with another one tomorrow. I once again apologise for this being super late, I'm going to try my very best to catch up, regardless at being back to the day job! Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. Please feel free to leave me any messages or comments about EastEnders and I'll happily reply! Love you all xXx

#eastenders #isaac baptiste #sheree trueman #patrick trueman #lolapearce #bernadettetaylor #baileybaker #mitchbaker #karentaylor #rubyfowler #martinfowler #lilyslater #jeanslater #staceyslater #sharonwatts #zackhudson

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jokertrap-ran · 4 years

Photo

[Stand My Heroes] Case File:研究対象Sの記録 (Case File: Records on Research Subject S) Event Story: Investigation ①～③ Translations

*Master-list is in progress *MC name is retained default Izumi Rei

Part 1 / Part 2

--I might have been born into this world as a “Being”, but… I do not know the contact of “Others”

“Humans” are also something that I cannot comprehend due to how absurd they are.

That’s why…That’s precisely why, I—

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Interrogation Room ☆⋅⋆

Arakida: I’m asking you if you abducted and confined eight people in an underground facility.

Male Suspect: …I apologize for that. I just wanted to see how they’d turn out in the very end.

Arakida: --

Male Suspect: I mean, aren’t you curious about it too, Mr. Officer?

Male Suspect: Aren’t you curious about what they might be hiding? About the reason fuelling them to attempt escape from the underground facility?

Male Suspect: Is it family? A lover? Friends? Their job? Interests? Or is it a promise they made?

Male Suspect: That reason only exists because they’re “Human”. But what if you were only a “Being”? Isn’t fleeing an instinct?

Male Suspect: I was simply gathering reference material for my next new work under the pen name of “Benio. SF. Takeshi”!

Sugano: (Whew, this guy’s really screwed up in the head.)

Arakida: --Real name: Akao Takeshi. So, you’re admit that you’ve confined these people.

Male Suspect: Like I was saying! I’ve only done this all in light of attaining material for my next sublime masterpiece—

Arakida: …I know of such writers who do that, but you’re a totally different case.

Sugano: (Seems like this’ll be a long and gruelling process…)

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Investigation Planning Division ☆⋅⋆

Natsume: --Oh? They say that the writer “Benio. SF. Takeshi” has been arrested.

Aoyama & Yui: Benio…?

Rei: Is that a pen-name…?

Natsume: That’s right. Seems like hhis real name’s “Akao Takeshi (28)”

Natsume: Arrested on grounds of Kidnapping, Assault and Attempted Murder.

Natsume: He’s a pretty popular young author out there. He’s even No.1 Trending on Social Media.

Rei: Heh…Oh, you’re right. He’s even on the top when I search him up on the net.

I clicked on the records we had on him on my laptop. The words “Investigation Department One” entered my field of vision.

Yui: …I see. “New Generation Writer SF, someone who’s works can also be enjoyed by the Young Generation.”

Aoyama: This is the first time I’m hearing of him, though.

Imaoji: It seems like he first gained popularity through publishing a series of short stories on the net.

Natsume: His popular work’s a science fiction set in the near future where a guy eats the female as a part of the mating routine…ugh.

Aoyama: What morbid taste.

Rei: “His motive was to gather reference material for his new work, and he admitted as such during interrogation.” –Or so it’s written here.

Yui: Looks like the eight people he kept captive all managed to escape just fine.

Natsume: It’s also written here that one of the eight people held captive managed to escape and made it to the nearest Police Box in the area.

Imaoji: Wow.

Rei: The guy who escaped also provided his motive for escaping the place during an interrogation.

Aoyama: “It’s my Wedding Anniversary, so I absolutely had to get out of there”, huh.

Rei: That’s a pretty romantic reason, all things considered.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

The conversation ended with us coming to a joint conclusion; no matter what had gone down in that place, it was a good thing that all the victims managed to escape unscathed.

--A few days later.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Inside the Car ☆⋅⋆

Seki: I’m sure you must be tired from walking around all morning. Should we grab lunch somewhere before heading back? My treat.

Seki-san and I had spent the entire early afternoon investigating the area where a new drug was rumoured to have been circulating.

Rei: Thank you so much! I think I’m starting to get a little hungry.

Seki: We’ve been at it all morning after all; good work. We’ve managed to attain some remarkable information so let’s go get a good meal.

Seki: Is there anything you’d like to eat?

Rei: Let’s see…I think I’ll settle for something Japanese. A set meal, maybe?

Seki: Nice. Seems like there are lots of stores around here that sell those too.

Rei: That’s right. It caught my eye when I saw it through the car’s windscreen.

Seki: ----The one over by the traffic light seems like it has a carpark.

“Exquisite Set Meals, 700 Yen~” I caught sight of the flag sparkling under the sun.

Rei: I’m rather interested in whatever their Exquisite Set Meal is.

Seki: Shall we settle for that shop then?

Rei: Okay!

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Izakaya ☆⋅⋆

Shop-keeper: Welcome! How many people?

Seki: Two…

Rei: (It’s pretty crowded in here…)

The store wasn’t very big and one could see that it was a full-house at a single glance.

Shop-keeper: Sorry, will a shared seating be alright with you?

I met Seki-san’s gaze and affirmed him that “I’m okay with that” with a nod.

Seki: We’ll take that, thank you.

Shop-keeper: Thank you very much! Two people; shared seating!

I could hear joyful and enthusiastic calls of “Welcome!” from coming from the kitchen area as we headed to our seats. And then--

Sugano: --AH.

Rei: Ah.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Izakaya ☆⋅⋆

Sugano-kun and Asagiri-san were seated at the table we were led to.

Seki: What a coincidence.

Asagiri: Indeed. Feel free.

Saying that, they both stood up from where they were seated and moved further in to allow us space to join them.

Rei: Thank you so much.

We proceeded to seat ourselves at the table, only to realize that that said table was devoid of food.

Rei: Did you just arrive?

Asagiri: What sharp inference skills you have. That’s right.

Sugano: The Seasonal Set Meals here are really good and they change every season.

Seki: I’m guessing that that’d be the Fried Oyster Set right now?

Sugano: Yup. It’s crunchy and juicy and absolutely delectable!

Rei: Ahh…I can already taste and feel the oysters.

Sugano: Haha. But the Scallop and Ebi Mixed-Fry set is also a pretty bad boy!

Rei: Ahhhh…I can taste the Mixed-fry set already, but my stomach still has the oysters in mind…

Sugano: Haha!

We chatted for a while before an employee came by to serve us water and to hand us wet towels and the menu.

Seki: What are you settling for, Izumi?

Rei: Hmm, I’m still thinking.

Asagiri: I’ll take the Ramen Set.

Sugano: Tsukasa-san, were you even listening to my recommendations?

Asagiri: I’ve actually been craving ramen all morning.

Sugano: Actually, is there even a time where you don’t crave ramen…?

Asagiri: What a stupid question.

Rei: (He really like his ramen…)

In the end, Asagiri-san took the Ramen Set while Seki-san and I took the Fried Oyseter Set. Sugano-kun decided on the Mixed-fry Set and that concluded our order.

Sugano: Oh, come to think of it. There was that one guy in Benio SF’s short stories who loved ramen and was supervising a shady research facility.

Sugano: I recall that he was portrayed to be able to talk for days on end when it comes to anything ramen-related.

Both: ----

Asaigiri: Don’t go giving out investigation information at the drop of a hat like that— Or so, I’d like to say.

Asagiri: But that was something that had already uploaded onto the internet to begin with, isn’t it?

Sugano: That’s right.

Sugano: Rei and Seki-san, have you guys read it before? Benio’s light novel that’s been the talk of the masses recently.

Asagiri: A Science Fiction that takes place in the near future— It’s nice to hear and all but right now, it all boils down to being a criminal’s childish delusions.

Rei: A Science Fiction that takes place in the near future…

Seki: Is that the story that gave birth to his motive as a criminal?

Sugano: Yes…Oh, right. This shop is really thorough in their preparation of food, so it’ll take some time before our food arrives.

Sugano: Shall we talk about his childish delusions as a makeshift way to kill time while we wait? This time in our own style.

Them: ----

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

--This facility was where the “Special Ability Programme” took place.

It also housed “Special Subjects” within its compound. This facility will be…

Watabe: We needed a “Special Communicator” in this place. That’s why I reached out to you with an offer.

Natsume: It’s nice to meet you, Number 1230.

Rei: Am I to be referred to my number at all times…?

Yui: There are a lot of subjects housed here. We’ve also got many communicators like you.

Yui: So it’ll be easier if we just referred to everyone by their serial numbers. It reduces the complications involved.

Rei: …Alright, I understand.

Rei: So…why was I called to this facility?

Yui: Allow me to rephrase your question. “Why is a normal Office Lady (OL) like me who works for an ordinary company-“

Yui: “Being scouted by the Special Research Facility that’s being funded by the National Budget?” --How’s that sound?

Rei: Thank you for translating…

Watabe: The answer’s—

Watabe: Who knows?

Rei: Who knows…?

Watabe: No, sorry. We don’t know what the requirements are when it comes to selecting a communicator.

Natsume: In other words, we only know what the job pertains.

Natsume: Communicators generally face the inmates, in other words you’re going to go up face-to-face with the subjects.

Rei: I’m going up against them? …How is it generally like?

Yui: It’s obvious, don’t you think? You’ll do so with your heart, body, and mind. Basically, you’ll be communicating with them.

Rei: Huh…? I understand the part about the heart, but…wait, what do you mean by body-

Yui: Exactly what I just said.

Rei: --!?

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

Rei: C-Communicating with them with my body…? Regardless if it’s on orders by the country, this is a little…

Rei: I can’t do it! I’ve never met them before in my entire life, and it isn’t even ethical in the first place and—

Watabe: Haha…

Rei: !

Natsume: You’re jumping to conclusions way too quickly.

Yui: Seems like I’ve taken this joke a little too far.

Rei: Joke…?

Watabe: There’s only one job for a communicator,

Watabe: To be chat buddies with the subjects since they cannot leave this facility.

Watabe: It’s a straight-to-the-point job with no questionable ethics in play.

Natsume: Well, you’ll still be eaten whole if you let your guard down in here, though.

Rei: Wha-

Yui: Have you not learnt?

Rei: Ugh…it’s a joke again, isn’t it?

Natsume: Sorry, sorry.

Watabe: You can rest assured. Everyone here isn’t all too different from us who lead normal lives.

Watabe: So you can just talk to them like how you do to everyone without base for suspicion.

Yui: Just treat them like normal humans.

Rei: (The more we talk about it, the more confused I get about what I’m even doing in such a facility…)

Rei: Why are the subjects inmates here anyway? What’s the motive?

???: You’ll best bring that up to the chief.

Rei: Huh…?

???: --

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

Rei: (Who are they…?)

Imaoji: Nice to meet you, No. 1230. I’m Imaoji, the supervisor of this facility.

Asagiri: I’m Asagiri.

Arakida: …Arakida.

Imaoji: We’ll be protecting you from everything and anything while you’re here.

Asagiri: I’ll bring you to the chief.

Arakida: ……

Rei: I’ll be in your care then…

Watabe: See you, No. 1230.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Chief’s Office ☆⋅⋆

Imaoji: --Pardon the intrusion.

Arakida: We’ve brought. No. 1230.

???: Right on time, I see.

Seki: Glad to see that you’re here. This is the Hattori, the Chief, and I’m Seki, the Vice-chief.

Rei: I look forward to working with you.

Hattori: Chief is just a title.

Hattori: The real Chief of this place is the one who created this place to begin with.

Rei: ?

Seki: This facility was built to isolate people with special conditions and to shield them away from the rest of the world.

Hattori: In the name of justice and love.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Chief’s Office ☆⋅⋆

Rei: ……? Special condition? Whatever do you mean?

Seki: I can’t divulge that.

Rei: Eh…?

Hattori: Well, let’s just leave the complicated parts at that—How about you go meet them instead and see for yourself?

Seki: Let’s bring you to a subject to talk to, where you can do your job as a communicator.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

I followed the supervisor with no questions asked as he took the lead before finally stopping in front of a door.

Arakida: --Here we are.

Imaoji: We’re normally stationed right outside of the room so we’ll be leaving you here.

Rei: I-I’m supposed to go in there alone…?

Asagiri: We’re able to tell whenever there’s an anomaly in the inmate.

Rei: …Alright, I understand.

Imaoji: Before you enter, there’s just one other thing I have to tell you.

Rei: ?

Imaoji: Having a relationship with an inmate is forbidden, so please do watch out.

Rei: I don’t think a relationship’s even possible, given the atmosphere in here…

Imaoji: Heh. Well then, feel free to open the door.

I sucked in a deep breath and turned to face the door.

Rei: (Behind this is a subject who has become an inmate…)

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Room ☆⋅⋆

???: --Oh! You’re here!

Rei: --!?

???: Come on, come on in. Let’s start~

Rei: (He’s way more cheery and optimistic than I expected…)

Rei: Pardon the intrusion.

???: Haha. You can just sit over there. Are you nervous?

Rei: …Yes.

Sugano: Aren’t you an honest one! Actually, we can do away with the polite speech. No need for that here.

Rei: …Okay, sure.

???: I can’t help but to be in high spirits since this is the first time I’ve ever got a communicator assigned to me.

???: I was so excited that I didn’t manage to get even a wink of sleep last night.

Rei: Oh, me too, actually.

Sugano: You too? –Actually, what’s your name?

Rei: Oh...I’m 12-

Sugano: Not your serial number.

Rei: --Izumi Rei.

Sugano: Rei, then. I’m Sugano Natsuki!

Sugano: Hey, Rei.

He suddenly turned to look straight at me, his gaze turning into one of utter seriousness, as if he had just turned into another person; a twin of sorts.

Sugano: Let me out of this captivity.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Room ☆⋅⋆

Rei: Wha-

Sugano: Please? I’m about to go stir crazy from being kept cooped up in this place.

Rei: But…

Sugano: I’ll become yours.

Rei: I’m sorry, what…?

Sugano: I’ll give you anything within my means if you help me.

Rei: Even…Even if you tell me that…

Sugano: ----

Rei: Urk…

Sugano: Just kidding~

Rei: --!

Sugano: I’m joking. It’s just a joke~

He mentioned the word “joke” louder the second time round. He turned to look up. Following his gaze, I could see a surveillance camera mounted on the wall.

Rei: (I suppose they’re listening in to all the conversation that goes on within this room too.)

Rei: (…Well, I suppose that’s to be expected. They are inmates, after all.)

Sugano: But, you know. I’m glad to see people who come in from the “Outside”. They’re always like a breath of fresh air.

Sugano: I do talk to people like You-san, but it’s usually pretty boring in here.

Rei: You-san?

Sugano: Hm? Haven’t you met him? The chief.

Rei: Ahh, you mean Hattori-san!

Sugano: Yup, yup. Pretty handsome, isn’t he?

Sugano: Actually, all the supervisors here have a pretty high facial deviation.

Rei: Now that you mention it…I think you might be right. But, I was so nervous back when I met them, so…

Sugano: What about me?

Rei: Huh?

Sugano: How would you rate my looks?

Rei: You’re…

Sugano: Oh, wait. I think I’m better off not hearing it. I think I might just pin you down if you told me that I was worth a 100 points.

Rei: ???

Sugano: Or are you that sort of communicator, little miss comm?

Rei: I-I’m not going to do it with my body!!

Sugano: Ahaha. That’s a nice reaction. It’s really…how do I put this? Hmm…

Sugano: Like a proper human, I guess?

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

I left Sugano-kun’s room as he saw me off with a farewell line of “Come by soon again!”

Imaoji: Good work.

Rei: Oh, Good work to you too.

Imaoji: I’ll see you to your room.

Rei: Thank you so much.

Asagiri-san and Arakida-san where no where to be found, so I ended up walking alongside Imaoji-san, alone.

Imaoji: How was your first job as a communicator?

Rei: I was a nervous-wreck, overall.

Imaoji: I understand how you feel. The job this time round came by so suddenly, I’m sure you must have it hard.

Imaoji: It’s almost unheard of for a communicator to be privately scouted and hired like you were, so we fully intend to aid you to the best of our abilities.

Imaoji: Do tell us if there’s anything troubling you.

Rei: Thank you.

Imaoji: You don’t have to thank me for it.

Rei: (Whoa…he really does have good looks and a good facial variation.)

For me to be able to think of such thoughts, I suppose my initial nervousness must have worn off. And this must be all thanks to Sugano-kun, since he was such an easy person to talk to.

Imaoji: --Oh?

Rei: ?

In direct line of his vision as he came to an abrupt stop was—

Natsume: I’m telling you, this isn’t anything dangerous at all.

Arakida: Then allow me to check it.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

Rei: (The two of them are…having a dispute over something?)

Natsume: It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s not like you have anything to lose anyway.

In his hands was something that resembled a Headgear of sorts, made up of increasingly bizarre and complicated machinery parts.

Arakida: I have. I lost 3 days to sleep…

Natsume: But that was Kotaro-san’s Nutritional Drink at work so that’s not my fault!

Imaoji: What are the two of you standing around here talking about?

Natsume: Ohh, good work.

Rei: Good work today.

I got closer to where they stood and lowered my head.

Arakida: --

Imaoji: Are you asking for experiment assistance again?

Natsume: He’s lumping my experiments together with Kotaro-san’s warped ones!

Natsume: Even though all mine does is to only measure your brain waves!

Arakida: Absolutely not.

Natsume: You seem pretty adamant about it.

Arakida: Tsukasa-san told me to never trust you lot from the Research Department whenever you dish out the word “only”.

Natsume: ……Tsuduki Makoto’s pre-release book.

Arakida: !!

Rei: Wait, you mean THAT famous author?

Natsume: He actually came down here not too long ago seeking data for his new work since it was something science-related.

Natsume: Tsuduki-sensei said that he didn’t mind showing us researchers his new work if we promised not to accidentally leak word of it.

Natsume: So I thought that maybe I could share it with you as thanks for your help.

Arakida: Urk…

Natsume: You heard me, No. 1230. You’ll be able to read it if you cooperate with me; how about it?

Rei: It’s a new work yet to be released to the world?

Natsume: Yup!

Arakida: Damnit…

Rei: But that Headgear…

Natsume: It really only just measures your brain waves. It’s absolutely nothing dangerous at all.

Rei: Then—

Arakida: Wait.

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Hallway ☆⋅⋆

Natsume: What is it; Arakida-san?

Arakida: ……I’ll do it.

Natsume: Huh?

Arakida: I’ll cooperate with you.

Natsume: But I’ve already passed it over to No. 1230-

Arakida: Ngh…

Rei: (I-If he’s making such a pained face over this, then I suppose…)

Rei: I’ll back out if he’s willing.

Arakida: --

Rei: (He looks really happy about it…)

Imaoji: Heh.

Natsume: Is that so? I suppose I’ll have to ask Arakira-san to do the honours then.

Arakida: Of course.

He took the Headgear and plopped it atop his head.

--And when he did, an AI spoke from the device, stating “Activation Complete”. …Suddenly, plumes of smoke started billowing from the device.

Arakida: !?

Imaoji: Smoke is…

Rei: Wait a minute, isn’t this…Isn’t this thing burning!?

Natsume: Huh? Wait, this brain wave measuring device’s…

Natsume: Ah! I accidentally brought the one that Kotaro-san prodded at!

Arakida: OI! I CAN’T GET THIS OFF…!!

Natsume: Oh no. Kotaro-san might be the only one who knows how to remove it.

Natsume: Please run to the Research Lab.

Arakida: THIS IS WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT…!

The both of them made a mad dash for the Laboratory and disappeared down the hallway.

Rei: W-Will they be okay…?

Imaoji: Of course. It’s a usual occurrence after all.

Rei: It’s something that’s normal…?

Rei: (Now I really wonder if I can survive in this facility…)

I rubbed at my eyes that had gotten slightly teary from all the smoke the device atop Arakida-san’s head had been emitting…

─────────────────────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

⋆⋅☆ Research Facility: Room ☆⋅⋆

Sugano: What’s with that! That’s so amusing! I want to be there too to see it with my own eyes.

Rei: You think so…? I didn’t see Arakida-san this morning.

Sugano: He might have just overslept. –Want to go pay him a visit?

Rei: Wait…Can you even leave this room?

Sugano: Sure I can. There’s a condition though.

Ran: A condition?

Sugano: You’ve got to put a collar on me.

Rei: (A collar!?)

───⋅𝕿𝖎𝖑𝖑 𝖓𝖊𝖝𝖙 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊…⋆⋅☆

#Stand My Heroes #スタンドマイヒーローズ #スタマイ #Sutamai #Translations #Otome #Case File:研究対象Sの記録 #Case File: Records on Research Subject S #Sugano Natsuki #Arakida Sosei #Natsume Haru #Imaoji Shun #Watabe Satoru #Hattori You #Seki Daisuke #Aoyama Itsuki #Yui Kotaro #Asagiri Tsukasa

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isaacdian · 4 years

Note

hope you don't mind me asking, do you have any Isaac and Miria headcanons? i'd love to read some from you. you appear to have a good grasp on the characters, and great love for them. :)

aw thank you so much for the ask, sure thing!

some of these will probably get into theory territory as well, because i’ve had the novels sitting in my mind for years now, and there are a few details i’d like to mention (beware of baccano light novel spoilers, just in case).

this could get a bit long, so you can read it below the cut:

i’ll write my headcanons/thoughts in no particular order. more people might have come to similar conclusions, but i don’t think i’ve seen any posts or had any discussions with anyone regarding these (at least in depth), so!

- i like to think that miria and isaac ran away from their then (seemingly) unhappy lives after they got to interact with each other for quite a while, and not spontaneously upon meeting for the first time.

there isn’t much evidence to back this up beyond some characters commenting that they “were probably runaways” or that “maybe they eloped”, so they might have escaped together on the spot, since we already know they can be very impulsive. however, i get this feeling that their bond took some time to develop, and i’d love to see some of their interactions as isaac dian —and— miria harvent before they ever became isaac & miria, if that makes sense.

i doubt they met too long before their string of robberies, though? this is such a weirdly specific and probably meaningless thing to pinpoint, but in 1935 miria asks isaac if he’s ever been to the circus, and he responds that he does remember animals, but he doesn’t remember if that was the circus or the zoo. this hardly means anything, but their circumstances overall don’t really make me think that they’ve known each other since they were too young.

- whatever optimism and general exhilaration regarding life isaac has is innate. on the other hand, miria has mostly acquired her own sense of hopefulness over time, with isaac’s help.

miria is a 100% confirmed literal ray of sunshine and this indisputable. it just hasn’t/doesn’t always come to her as effortlessly as it may seem. bloody to fair isaac and miria magic show color page.png

this is somewhat related to the next one (and also the last point i’ll mention at the end of this post):

- when isaac gets arrested and he and miria get separated in 1934, they’re both having an equally hard time dealing with this.

okay this one is like. obvious ksjksk. but i wanted to talk about how they deal with this situation, because at first glance it looks like miria got the shortest end of the stick here. and in a way, that might be true! i’ve already mentioned that miria herself has been shown thinking about how much isaac helped her to be happy, and narita has been deliberately vague regarding the nature of their silliness, on top of hinting at the possibility of their shenanigans being a kind of mechanism to escape the harsh realities of life from the rolling bootlegs (very first novel), if i recall correctly.

(btw:

i recall that somewhere in the 1935 arc, graham starts talking with the usual “let me tell you a sad, sad story” prelude. however, isaac and miria are upset by this, and they tell him that he shouldn’t tell sad stories, because if you do it, your happiness will run away. meanwhile, this part in cloudy to rainy living rent free in my head:

i have to laugh..........)

that being said, i couldn’t help but feel like isaac was having an equally bad time, even if he displayed it in a different and not so blatant way. while i was rereading the novels after i got to buy the official english release, i felt very strongly that something was definitely wrong about their separation, which, again, is obvious to us readers and to the characters who know isaac & miria. but it extends beyond that. there was this general feeling of knowing that whoever came across an unaccompanied isaac would magically feel like there was something missing. i don’t know how else to explain this. he’s still full of energy and optimism and he’s fueled by his desire to reunite with miria, but every time he’s shown hesitating or doesn’t reach a satisfying conclusion while thinking about a frivolous topic, it hits you like “oh... right” (firo didn’t help much on that last front, either, so miria and isaac must have had to discuss what exactly happens to fellas who don’t believe in fairies after their reunion... lol)

in short, he needs miria just as much as she needs him. this is something i’ve seen other people mention as well: isaac might be the “force” factor in their relationship, but that force won’t amount to much without miria’s “direction”, and viceversa. the lift each other up, and they keep each other grounded, too.

i’m also remembering isaac and sham’s conversation and just. there’s a self-esteem/confidence factor in there. Fun Game of Spot the Difference

and this is getting ridiculously long, so i’ll spare you from having to read my dumb thots about isaac’s (possibly real) fear of miria not liking him, as the narrator implies, which i subconsciously ended up linking to that one impossibly crack ending in the ds game, where you pick the option of him not knowing frankenstein’s monster’s real name, so miria leaves him after realizing how “cheap and uncool” he is LMAO

- isaac’s father might have been an academic of some sort, as well as a stern man who disapproved of his son’s flighty and childish tendencies.

???????? besides miria’s implied tragic backstory, the most we know about both of their pasts is that isaac comes from a wealthy family with whom he seems to have a bad relationship with, so even though i’ve tried to work out other details (his parents’ provenance for instance?) i can’t really elaborate on this. even if isaac’s knowledge on the topic is pretty scrambled (to put it nicely lol), he knows a lot about “the orient” as he puts it, and the “dian” surname is pretty unique so who knows!👀 i’ve only mentioned his father because isaac, too, has only mentioned his "old man” twice so far in the novels, if i’m not mistaken. in my opinion, it also speaks volumes how flustered isaac got when molsa apologized to him, because it was the first time someone older than him has done this. and this is pretty arbitrary, but if isaac started robbing and getting into trouble before he and miria even met and/or before he got kicked out/ran away from home, that whole deal about “being used to dealing with policemen” (in the unofficial translation i read back in the day it was something along the lines of “this isn’t my first time being interrogated by the police”) in 1934 would make sense, i guess, considering that miria didn’t realize what was going on at the moment even though she’s a fairly perceptive person.

anyways it’s too bad we don’t know that much about miria on this front, also!! i get the vague feeling that she might have also come from a wealthy family (probably not a good environment, though), since in 1935 it’s mentioned that the closest they’ve ever gotten to working/having a job was when they were digging for gold, apparently. that’s why i can’t really think of anything too specific regarding miria’s past and upbringing... i have a feeling that she might have felt alone, trapped and/or overwhelmed. let’s just hope that when she said her bruises would heal up fine with ice in 1935 it had nothing to do with this “i should have died” business :(((

- even though isaac and miria love their friends and would do anything for them, they aren’t particularly attached to anyone (or any place) besides each other.

this is more of an observation than a headcanon, but i find it really interesting: they would definitely do anything for their friends, and they do enjoy life very intensely, but that’s precisely why they don’t seem to be fixed in one singular spot? basically, i feel like they’re the personification of “home is where the heart is” taken to the extreme. they could go anywhere and do anything as long as they have each other, and they will never make any attempts to actively do things that make it easier to label their relationship, such as getting married, which is heavily implied by firo (i think) in 2002 bullet garden (i think!!). that’s also part of the reason why i’m sure they’d never find themselves commiting to things like taking care of a pet, or a child; it’s more like they instantly “adopt” everyone they run into, as if they’ve always been friends, even if they won’t meet again for months, years, or ever again. anyway, isaac and miria are extremely good and they are literally going to be happy together forever and ever! they don’t need to prove that.

that doesn’t mean they’re not sentimental, though! i like to think that they keep some meaningful objects that remind them of fond memories of their friends. and this is hardly canon because it shows up in the anime And in a background at that, but shoutout to the rocking toy horse in their california mine lol.

- miria knew about her own immortality (as well as isaac’s) before the 2000s.

THIS IS PROBABLY MY SPICIEST TAKE and i tried to back it up in the next point of this list. i still keep thinking i’m reading too much, into this but

i can’t stop thinking about the implications, folks

which brings us to:

- miria is smarter than isaac is and actually has a fairly good idea of when he’s making stuff up, but is happy to let him take the lead.

i won’t deny that isaac and miria dedicate a huge chunk of their day to doing moronic stuff, and they are pretty dumb, but i feel like people don’t give them enough credit for how perceptive they are. even though that’s true of the two of them, i feel like this mostly applies to miria.

among other things, we’ve learned that she knows ronny isn’t human and has supernatural powers (wow), which is why she comes to him for help after isaac’s arrest. she’s very good at paying attention to small details, such as the kind of programs ennis watches on tv, or chané’s feelings, when the two talk in 1934. miria also “really knows her way around japanese” and has been shown to --apparently?-- multiply large numbers in her head in 1935... while isaac was talking about how good of an idea it would be to use the martingale betting system. not to mention how isaac stated he “doesn’t know how to count money” earlier in this arc. my god ksdjgjks. i want to know what’s up with this, if anything.

so, yeah! there’s probably more stuff that i could mention, but i am exhausted lol. thank you for your patience anon, i have no idea how long this has been sitting in my inbox. always happy to get baccano questions <3 i apologize for any typos/errors and the like.

bonus headcanon: miria grabs ennis with one hand and chané with her other hand and they go out with their arms linked and excited and they learn more about having fun, as friends do. no printer just fax

#Anonymous #baccano #headcanon

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secondchancesfic · 4 years

Text

S.C Chapter IX

Superhero!AU

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: Parental Analogical, Platonical Anxceit. Sibling Roman and Remus, Logicality.

Tags/Warnings: Anxiety, panic attack, villain!Roman, villain!Remus, kidnapping implied, torture implied, violence implied, nightmares. Murder mention. (There’s fluff like... fluffy fluff and silliness)

Words: 6786

NOTE: You might want to read chapter VIII to have a refresher of what is going on jaja.

-Remy…-

-Yes?-

-Remy…-

-Aha?-

-Remy… What…?-

That’s the only thing Gregory could say while also pointing, incredulously, at the The Duke. How come all of the sudden this sneaky villain was soundly sleeping in Remy’s couch? From the call they had, it sounded that his friend was in extreme danger, so the confusion in the hero’s face was justified.

-Ok. So…- Remy began. -I came back from work-

-You have job?- Gregory interrupted as if that was an important thing to question at that moment.

-Yeah, shut up. Don’t interrupt me- The hero kept silence. –I came here to change into my outfit and do my usual round up. Nothing planned, I was just gonna see some friends and hang out. And while I was doing that, I didn’t notice this creep staring at me-

-What? How?!-

-To be fair, it was really dark and he was in a corner. He looked so fucking creepy. And before I could even scream he tried to choke!- Remy fling his arms in the air, completely indignant.

–Fortunately, as you can see, I manage to make him fall asleep… The problem is… I’m not sure for how long-

Remy smiled awkwardly. Gregory took a deep breath and passed his hands through his bleached hair. He stared at The Duke and thought to himself “This is extremely dangerous…”. The Duke without his powers is strong enough to take down whoever he wants, who knows how dangerously stronger he is with his powers intact.

-Remy… I need to take him in-

-No! You promised!-

-Why not?! Didn’t you say he was a creep? HE TRIED TO CHOKE YOU!- Gregory yelled exasperated.

-Well, yes! But… It wasn’t him-him, you know?- Remy lack of explanation made the hero even more annoyed and confused.

-What exactly do you mean?-

-Dee, his eyes are green. When he attacked me he had bright sky blue eyes. He wasn’t himself- Remy explained.

The hero was taken aback. Sky blue eyes are the only description for the mysterious villain. Between Remy’s previous description and Elliot’s, the only thing that seem to be the same are the eyes. Mind you, Elliot’s version said the guy wore a mask after the first meeting but still, the eyes shine through the eye holes.

Gregory explained the anecdote to Logan without saying where did he heard it, it brought a bit of suspicion from the older hero but he took it anyway. So far, no face description has been said, although The Duke might be what they need to get a clue of who this mystery villain is.

Also “He wasn’t him-him…”? That can mean a lot of things, but the easier one might be he was under the influence of this villain. Or even controlled.

-Either way, he has to come with me to the base.- Gregory said, getting an annoyed look from Remy.

-I won’t let your stupid grandpa crush brainwash another one of my friends- The villain said fiercely

-He doesn’t brainwash them!! And he isn’t a grandpa, why do you have to make it weird?!- Gregory snapped back

-NO! You are doing his bidding! It’s annoying! Where is the Deceit I knew?! The one who didn’t care for rules?! The one who did what he needed to be done!-

-Remy! This is above you and me! Whoever this villain is, he is dangerous! He is disappearing people! And now it seems he is disappearing villains too…- The hero looked at the disheveled villain.

-SO?! We don’t need this super morons to figure this out! Come on! We are smart enough! Don’t you remember all our grand robberies? Like the spotted diamond?- Remy smiled, trying to convince his friend.

-THIS ISN’T ABOUT STEALING! THIS IS ABOUT MISSING PEOPLE! God! I remember why I decided to go with Logan now, you are just a selfish, egocentric prick!-

Gregory’s anger got the best of him, the look of shock and hurt in his friend’s face was something the hero never thought he’d seen. Remy looked down and went to the kitchen, for the first time in a while he was completely silent.

The hero stayed in place and sighed, then looked at the unconscious villain to check him out. The Duke’s hair had a string of white hair and both that and his moustache were really messy. He had bags under his eyes, he seemed to be slightly malnourish, his costume was missing some parts and his sleeves where ripped. Around his neck there were a couple of marks, maybe of a type of collar of sorts. The guy might have been kept by the villain, he really did not look good…

Gregory then realized something: Remy wasn’t worried he almost got choked, he was worried because of how bad The Duke looked. He called him his friend after all.

The hero rubbed his eyes and forehead. Logan’s method can be helpful, however it could also be seen as forceful. Gregory was really grateful for what Logan did but maybe this villain might not want it. Something in the hero was telling him to go by the rules, rules he was repeated over and over again. It might have been his crush on the older hero that he didn’t realized how tired and bored he was of following him.

Maybe he was really doing Logan’s bidding, maybe he was doing it in a hopeless attempt of gaining the affection of a man who clearly didn’t see him the same way. Maybe he was getting a bit… well a very huge amount of annoyance of following dumb rules.

He shouldn’t totally break a couple of rules right now. Of course not mindlessly.

-Fine- Gregory said.

Remy turned to him slowly, rubbing his cheeks and eyes. –What?- He choked out.

The sound of his friend’s voice made him feel guilty. –I won’t take him to the base. He can stay with you-

Remy cleaned his face while running towards Gregory and pulling him into a tight hug. –I knew you’d understand…- The villain said, smearing his friend’s shoulder with old tears. Gregory returned the hug.

-…I’m sorry about what I said…- The hero said.

-Oh, it’s fine- Remy pulled away and batted his hand in the air.

–Just buy me a burger and we’ll be even- Remy smiled and patted the hero’s arm. Gregory snorted and saw his friend walked towards the Duke.

-So… What do you want to do?- Gregory asked while fixing his hair.

-I… Have no idea- Remy stated, getting a groan from Gregory. –In my defense, I didn’t know I was going to convince you-

-Wow. As always, you half assed your way around-

-Hey! Improvising is our specialty, ain’t it?- Remy smiled and pointed between the both

Gregory sighed. –Yeah…-

The hero sat down at the feet of the sofa and started to plan. Remy looked at him and smiled before standing up to prepare some tea.

Back in the old glory days, Gregory was the one who’d plan in full detail how a burglary would go. Of course, there was always something that would go wrong since Remy was spontaneously and probably not intentionally trying to get both of them in trouble. His love for the dramatics always drove him insane and had to plan a way to safely get of any building before the police would get there to arrest them.

They learn to be really good at sneaking away from the law’s hands, although they were definitely amazing at not leaving tracks. (Thanks, Remy) Even so, most officers and heroes like Logan couldn’t even get the hang of them. Only by pure luck, Logan manage to catch Gregory. Well… Not catch him per say, if Remy didn’t want to make a statement by burning the bank they were robbing BEFORE they could be out safely, Logan wouldn’t have saved him from the collapsing building.

Remy walked towards him once he had the tea prepared, Gregory took the cup and blow it a bit before taking a quick sip. He stared at it for a moment before putting it down. He looked back at The Duke and Remy.

-Alright. First step. We’re are going to wake him up- The hero said.

-Uh… Yeah, I don’t know how long it will take for that… I did throw a lot of my sleep powder to his face…- Remy said while rubbing his neck.

-I think I can cancel the effects- Gregory looked at his hand but before doing anything he thought again. –Hmm… I still need some of the cancelling bracelets Logan created-

-What? Why can’t you just do it right away?-

-Because I can’t be a nanny 24/7-

-Sure you can! You can stay here and nullify his powers, ask what you need to know and set him free!- Remy said sheepishly.

-Yeah, I’m not gonna do that- Gregory stood up. –Keep him asleep. Tomorrow I will come by and bring the bracelets, then…-

-Then?-

Gregory sighed. -I know you don’t want me to bring him to the base…-

-Dee…- Remy begin to feel annoyed again.

-But, we have his brother with us…- Gregory said looking guilty. –Remember?-

Remy was about to say something but stayed silent and thought to himself. They stayed silent for a moment.

-Can’t you… take him out?- Remy asked smiling in a hopeful manner.

-…No, I’m already practically betraying Logan’s trust by doing this. I’m not going to dig a bigger hole for myself…-

Remy groan. –Yeah, I wouldn’t like you to get brainwashed again…-

Gregory snorted. Both man smiled nervously, this was a dangerous thing. The Duke could wake up and attack them at any moment. That is… if he was still under any type of influence.

They had a limited time though, remaining asleep for more than 3 days could potentially kill anyone. It shouldn’t be that hard to get a pair of handcuffs and coming back to Remy’s apartment, the main problems could be not looking suspicious for Logan and not telling Virgil anything. For some reason the hero felt anxious but also excited.

Sudden mumbles made both of them turn towards The Duke’s direction. He was turning around and sweating, something must be scaring him. A nightmare? The Duke began to gasp for air, as if something or someone was… choking him. His hands were on his throat desperately trying to get something off.

Gregory turned to Remy expecting him to do something but his friend stood there, frozen and confused while staring at the situation in front of him. He has never seen The Duke scared. The hero took a deep breath and exhale before walking towards the unconscious villain, he began to feel nervous due to what he was about to do.

Gregory went and hold the Duke’s hands to stop him from scratching his throat, he then moved the villain so he could sit and rest his head on his legs.

The villain was shaking and sweating, his eyes were tightly shot and he was still gasping for air even though there was nothing impeding him to take deep breath. Gregory was feeling nervous, he wasn’t usually one to give comfort. His years with Virgil did gave him an idea of how can he exactly comfort someone having some kind of breakdown. This was similar, right?

He placed a hand on the villain’s head, it felt as if it hasn’t been washed in weeks… Maybe even more so… It was a bit gross but the hero didn’t mind it that much, his focus was on trying to calm this mess of a guy.

-Hey… Uh- He begin speaking as if the villain was listening. –It’s ok… You are safe… Nothing is… hurting you?- Gregory was really not good at that, he look up at Remy who gave him both thumbs up.

The Duke’s hands were opening and closing while shaking violently, almost spastic. He turned and kept mumbling, Gregory continue talking to him and petted his head trying to convince him he was alright.

The villain started to breathe evenly but was still shaking. The hero thought it was process and smiled to himself, suddenly the villain went to grab his hand. Gregory felt flustered by the action but let him do it, maybe it brought some sort of comfort to the villain. It wasn’t something so bad, although he didn’t expected for the villain to slowly rise and turn towards him to look at his face. The hero stayed there frozen, the sky blue color in the villain’s eyes remain faintly before fading and turning into green. The villain looked drowsy and confused.

-You… aren’t Roman…- Was the only thing he manage to say before going back to sleep.

Gregory and Remy looked terrified at each other. No one could come up from the stupor of Sleep’s Powder. Not even the fiercest of villains or strongest of heroes could suddenly just snap out of it. Remy walked towards them and took Gregory out of the way before blasting the villain with more powder.

-Holy shit- Gregory said, freaking out. –This dude is stronger than I thought…-

-Don’t leave me alone with him! He might still want to beat my ass for keeping him high on sleep powder!- Remy said while holding Gregory’s arm.

-You know I can’t stay here. Logan could get suspicious, he also could look around for me…- Gregory stated

-Wha- Does he keep a leash on you or what?!- Remy yelled

-No, he’s just kind overprotective. Like a dad, you know?-

Silence fell upon them, Gregory looked at his friend who stared disgusted.

-What?-

-Dude, you’re crushing on your dad?-

Gregory pushed Remy while groaning very annoyed, the villain started cackling and curling in himself. The young hero blushed and rolled his eyes, landing on the unconscious Duke. This could either end really well or really, really bad…

NEXT DAY, AFTER NOON

Logan was excited to get out of his class, something he never expected to think. Don’t get the wrong idea, he loved teaching and helping his students, he would even stay behind if he thought it was necessary but right now he was hoping to meet Patton before he had to go to the base.

He had made sure his students understood the themes completely and gave them a well thought guide for the upcoming test. And as a special treat he didn’t left them homework, since he was in an extremely good mood. Everyone thought he might have forgotten but no one planned on asking Logan about it.

Once the clock hit 2 pm he stood up, said good bye to his students and before any of them he was already in the corridor. Elliot saw how their teacher was practically and desperately leaving, it made them snort.

-He’s gonna get some dick- Kai said non chalantly.

-Dude, gross- Elliot said while giving a disgusted glance to their friend who just laughed as a response.

Logan walked out of the faculty premises, he had told Virgil and Gregory he would be spending some time with Patton that evening to which he got a thumbs up and a “FINALLY” from Virgil and nothing from Gregory, he was probably still in class.

With everything looking good enough for him, Logan felt more than prepared to go out with Patton. They’ve only been talking through phone due to their heavy and busy schedules, besides the really awkward wave they still feel about the whole dating thing. They decided to see each other that day and manage to make some time in between their usual working hour.

Excitement and nervousness took over Logan, feeling his heart beat faster and faster, as he approach the park they both chose to meet at. It was perfect since it was the middle point for each other.

Once he got there, the teacher walked through a running path. He passed a couple people there who were doing exercise or just hanging out. He then went to a bench and sat down, fidgeting and looking directly in the ground.

It was a really pretty and well maintain place, to his back there were so many tall trees. It was like a small forest, full of dead leaves at the bottom and bright green ones at the very top. In front of him there was the running path and an open space full of grass, it looked like a hill. People were running around it, some were even falling and rolling. The giggles and the sound of the branches been moved by the gentle breeze gave him a bit of piece after pondering the whole walk why he felt so anxious: “was it because he hasn’t seen the bubbly man or because of the social interaction he had to make to be around him?”

-Oh shoot… where could he be…?- A recognizable voice came from behind and kind of startled him. Logan turned around and to his surprise a messy Patton was walking out of some bushes. He was wearing a pair of loose dark pants and a long sleeve shirt, both were stained with leaves and mud. Logan also notice he was wearing a pair of boots, the type explorers would wear for long walks.

-Um… Hello?- Logan said incredulous, confuse to see Patton just popping out of seemingly nowhere and looking a bit disheveled. Not like he looked bad, though… “What?” Logan pushed that thought back in the mental trashcan.

Patton look up quickly and blushed as he saw Logan, he tried to go towards him but slipped and fell to the leafy ground. Logan walked towards the man, wondering what he was doing. The teacher kneel down and let his hand out so the bubbly man could take it.

-Thanks…- Patton said embarrassed.

Logan smiled kindly. –No problem… If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly where you doing over there Patton?-

Patton shook his head and chuckled. –Nothing, it’s dumb…-

-Hmm… Well, you seemed to be dress properly for some… Search?- Logan question and waited for an answer, what he got was a shock glance from Patton and a big smile.

-Wow, you are very clever- The vet chuckled.

-I think the word you are looking for is observant-

-Why? Have you served any ants around here?-

Logan looked at Patton confused before he made the connection, then rubbed his face as the other man giggle at his horrible joke.

-Now, to give you a gay answer- Patton looked at Logan for a reaction, he notice the teacher was containing a snort. –I was…Um… I was kind of looking for frogs-

That spiked some interest in Logan. –Frogs?-

-Yeah… last night was really humid and it did rained a bit. This parts retain most of its moisture and I’ve heard some of them croak. I just can’t seem to find anything- The vet scratch the back of his head confused while looking around.

Logan thought for a moment, this was a peculiar interest but intriguing and entertaining none the less. He didn’t expect Patton to be the venturing kind. –Well, certain types of frogs will get close to sources of water, maybe if we find puddles there could be one-

The vet’s eyes flicker for a moment, excitement showing in his face.

-Will you help me find them?!- He shouted then paused and calmed before speaking again. –I-I know this might be a tad weird and not really… Up to your standard but I think it could be fun?-

Patton was waiting for a rejection, he knew some of his actions and mannerisms were not really usual for someone as old as him, but what was the point of being an adult if he couldn’t do what he wanted? Especially having fun! But Logan was too serious, way too proper, he came to the first date with a tie for goodness sake… Maybe they should go somewhere else…

-I would love to help you- Logan said, determination shining through.

It’s been a while since Logan did any kind of exploration of this kind, the only exploration he did was looking around the city for any suspicious activity. That was his job but it certainly was becoming a rather boring routine. This is not only helping him relax and be out of his office, it’s also helping him be closer to Patton.

-Well let’s go then! Oh… Wait… Won’t you get dirty?- The vet pointed out to Logan’s outfit; he was wearing black pants, a pair of black shoes and a navy blue dress shirt. Logan looked at himself and was thinking on turning the whole thing off just because he wasn’t dressed properly but… He was never as adventurous like other people. Sure, he would fight villains but his outfit was made for that, he was getting even more out of his comfort zone by getting dirty with this type of clothes.

“Screw it”

-It’s quite alright, Patton. This can be wash later, let’s go search for amphibians!- He proclaim in an attempt to sound valiant. This got a chuckle and a bright smile from Patton who walked through the messy terrain effortlessly, Logan made sure to step on solid ground but everything felt slippery.

The vet notices Logan having some troubles to walk around, he gets his arm out so the teacher could steady himself. Logan took it and thanked Patton, trying to ignore the clear blush he was feeling spreading around his cheeks. Both man started to walk deeper into that mini forest, looking around to several plants and insects.

Logan was fascinated and relax, even though the fauna and flora were common in the area, he admire nature in all its forms. He didn’t realize how a mantis landed in his shoulder until it was just walking around, this made Patton jump in surprise. Logan chuckled and hold it out in a tree with care. Looking how he was gentle to tiny creatures made the vet smile fondly, and might also made him fall a bit more over heels for the teacher.

They continue to look for puddles and looked at leaves, they confused a couple of those for frogs. It even made Logan fell when he confused a bunch of leaves for an animal he tried to avoid, earning a concern look from Patton and quickly acting to help him but to the vet’s surprise Logan laughed at the silliness of the whole situation. It was the most symphonic sound he has ever heard and wanted to listen to it forever.

He helped the teacher to stand up while chuckling nervously, Patton asked and checked Logan to make sure he was alright before the teacher reassured him. He was blushing deeply through the embarrassing situation, at least Patton’s concern helped him feel less dumb.

Both man finally arrived at what seemed to be a natural pond, pretty odd to the man-made forest. Patton gasped delighted by the sighted and tried to run over the pond, not noticing there was uneven ground and small hill. Logan tried to hold him back but Patton’s running start pulled the teacher with him and both man fall over. They ended at the feet of the pond unharmed yet really filthy. A fit of nervous giggles started from the vet. How humiliating.

-Oh gosh… I guess I got overexcited- He blurted out while giggling while fixing his glasses. Logan didn’t respond. The vet felt something under him and quickly realize he was above a really embarrassed and blushed teacher.

Patton himself began to blush a really deep red, and tried to move away as quickly as possible, but stumble clumsily. Logan himself was frozen in the spot not really knowing what to do or say. He snapped out when he heard Patton rambling apology over apology.

-I’M SO, SO, SO SORRY! I didn’t meant to do that! Oh my gosh.- The vet could only hide his face, he really just wanted to drop dead at the moment. His immaturity was always seen as annoyance, of course it would be annoying he should be acting like an adult! Logan will certainly think the same way after this stupid mistake. He could have hurt him! How irresponsible.

There was no anger, there was no reprimand. He only felt something taking his hand away from his embarrassed face. Logan was smiling.

-You really should be more careful, Patton- the teacher said between chuckles.

The way Logan said his name, so kindly and with no ounce of anger nor annoyance, made him calm down a bit. Patton looked at Logan’s eyes and felt like melting, the teacher was genuinely enjoying that weird meeting.

God, Patton was falling too much for him. The realization made him feel guilty and embarrassed since they barely know each other. They talked through their phones and exchange a couple of info about them but it’s different when you have the person in front of you, and not only that but getting that same person below you for a stupid mistake.

-I’m really sorry. Are you ok? Did I hurt you?- The bubbly man tried to amend whatever harm he could have done.

-I’m alright, Patton. Don’t worry- Logan said still chuckling, this sure was a strange way to know someone better. Strange but really fun. He doesn’t recall the last time he had fun with someone like this, or act silly in any way. He would act silly from time to time with his son but it was different with someone who wasn’t as close. This is just… The simple act of getting out of the metaphorical box and do something he wouldn’t usually do is…nice.

-Aren’t you mad?- The vet asked while looking at how muddy Logan had become

- Quite the contrary, I think I’m more amused than when we started- Logan said smiling gently while trying to clean his shirt.

Patton smiled and was about to help him clean himself when a croak made them froze in place. The croaking continued and both man looked at the pond and saw a couple of frogs, they were in different sizes and were moving around rocks and leaves. The vet gasp and his eyes sparkled with joy, for a split second Logan thought he saw his eyes turn another color. It was probably the messy glasses Patton was wearing. The teacher smiled by the excitement of the bubbly man and slowly stood up, giving a hand to help him stand up.

They slowly and as quiet as possible approach the pond, once they were close enough they crouch and stared at how the amphibians were swimming and climbing in the muddy rocks and leaves. Patton was delighted and looked peaceful, Logan looked at him and smiled to himself.

-Do you usually do this?- Logan asked while walking back to the park’s normal path with Patton by his side looking at the sky that was covered by the branches of the trees.

-What?- The vet question, he didn’t quite catch what he said.

-Search for frogs?-

Patton chuckled. –I search for more than just frogs. Animals are just so cute!-

-Can be dangerous as well- Logan stated

-Yeah, I know. But sometimes animals need help.-

Logan hummed as an agreement. They stayed quite for a bit before Patton spoke up.

-Did you know there are poisonous frogs? They showcase really bright colors as a way to warn other animals. With one touch, boom! You’re dead!- Patton said while smiling, happy to share information of his job and interests. Although quickly realize how macabre it sounded.

-Oh! I think I’ve seen those in a documentary. Really impressive creatures- Logan stated, he didn’t felt awkward or nervous. Conversing of this type of scientific topics made him feel a bit more in control on the situation since he was a living encyclopedia of knowledge. He didn’t know if he could keep up with the animal knowledge though.

-Right?!- The vet shouted. –They are so tiny and adorable yet they could just…- Patton stopped by what he was going to say, he then just went quiet. Logan looked at him waiting for the rest of the sentence.

Patton chuckled. –Sorry-

-Why are you apologizing?- The teacher sounded genuinely confused

-I just…- The vet hummed. -Sometimes I get so passionate, I guess… I really love animals but I know it can be annoying…- Patton said really flustered, as if his job and interest should be something to be ashamed off.

Logan stop in the path, making the other man pause in his tracks. He looked at the teacher who had a puzzling look, something was off to him.

-Logan?-

-Sorry… It’s just…- He paused for a moment before speaking up.

-You aren’t annoying at all-

The vet looked bewildered at him, as if those words were a sound he couldn’t recognize. It was odd to say the least. Patton felt his chest swelling, as if those words were what he always needed to hear.

-Just because you enjoy something, something you are passionate about… You shouldn’t feel ashamed. You should embraced it, no matter what.-

Rejection is something this two are familiar with. Logan has always been the outcast everywhere he went, even in the association the heroes don’t look at him as an equal but as a useless scientist. He had to make himself tough to not let the harsh words and looks hurt him. The idea of Patton being rejected or hurt the same way made his blood boil… Metaphorically. Logan couldn’t fathom the idea of such a sweet and kind man being mistreated in such a horrible way and just because he was passionate in rescuing or studying animals.

-Even if people…- Patton spoke –Just… Hates you for it?-

-Especially when they hate you for it- Logan continue, looking serious towards the other man. –You shouldn’t be punish just for being you…-

The teacher started to blush. –And… well… From all people… You should feel really proud of yourself, Patton. Being knowledgeable in a complex career to save very vulnerable creatures… It’s, on its own, a very noble and heroic decision- He looked away from Patton and tried to dissimulate his embarrassment.

-Heroic!?- Patton shouted and laughed, Logan’s blush deepened. –Oh! I’m anything but that! I’m just a clumsy moron!-

The harsh diminishing words made Logan look back at Patton, the vet was blushing and scratching his neck while looking at the ground with a shock expression. He seem to be getting anxious.

-Patton, I really mean what I said- Logan said at him, he was looking seriously at the vet and a bit of concern could be seen in his eyes.

Patton smile flickered, kind word are so odd to hear specially the way Logan said them so kindly and truthfully. He didn’t know exactly what to say at all, his mind was going blank. In an attempt to deflect any kind of conversation about him, he began to ramble.

-Come on, Lo… Sure, I help some cute critters and such, but real heroes are the ones who save the people in the city! Especially from the several villains who suddenly appeared- Patton continue, his tone began to rise. –Like, uh… Oh, I forgot his name… Ah, Syllogism!!-

Logan jolted at the mention of his hero name, trying to remain compose he made himself look way more serious than he should. –Wh-What about him?- He asked.

-Well, I think he’s truly the best hero there is! His creations are really impressive and I bet he could put them into service for the whole place to see.-

Logan felt the blush deepening, feeling really nervous and awkward although it would be lie if he said he didn’t felt proud of his technological achievements.

-Also! He manage to stop the Royal Pain duo! I mean, getting rid of The Prince? That was a relief!- Patton said it with a nervous smile.

Logan froze, instead of hiding a proud smile he tried to hide the horrifying chill he suddenly felt. Do people think he… killed The Prince? He didn’t meant to throw him from that building… The Prince isn’t dead though, he’s recovering at the base. Even if he had… murdered him, why would Patton be so… happy about it?

-I…Disagree, what Syllogism did… it was a horrible thing to do- Logan remarked.

Patton hummed and looked at Logan a bit more serious.

–Why do you think that?-

-Killing someone doesn’t stop anything. Whether a villain or a hero does it, it’s still wrong- The teacher said it in a factual manner.

-Hmm…- The vet stayed quiet. –Killing can be wrong, but if it for a greater good then some sacrifices must be done- He stated, getting a wince from Logan then he tried to backtrack. –Ok, ok. I know it sounds bad, but hear me out. Let’s take The Prince and The duke as an example… They’ve been destroying and hurting people all around the place, not only in this city. They exploded buildings, streets and hurt countless innocents. There was no sign they would stop, especially with The Duke. If someone got… uh… rid of them, wouldn’t that stop the harm they do?-

Silence fell on the both, Logan placed a hand on his chin and thought for a moment, he was rather confused by this type of mentality. Patton expressed a concerning thought before at their first date, “forcing others to be good so they stop hurting others” now it’s “if they won’t stop harming, then they don’t deserve to live”. He could understand that train of thought though, but it still was horrifying.

–They are well known thieves and have no record of actually killing anyone. I don’t think that gives them a death sentence. And even if they did, it’s still not in the hero’s jurisdiction to make a judgment nor execution-

-You didn’t answered the question- Patton said seriously. –Would the harm they do, stop?-

Logan sighed and looked down. –Yes, it would. But again, it’s not the hero’s job to do an execution -

The vet hummed. They began to walk again, staying silent for a moment.

-So…- Patton started again. –You think death is not a good punishment?-

-Of course not-

-What do you think it should be?-

-I believe some of them just need some guidance, so maybe… Get them help.-

-Oh frogwash!- Patton shouted. He placed a hand on his mouth before giggling.

–Oops… I mean… Do you think all villains can be… easily redeemed?-

Logan thought for a moment. –Well… Not everyone, I guess… If anyone still chooses the path of villainy the other option is to place them in jail. As I said, death is not a well thought option. Where’s the change? What about forgiveness?-

-Hmm… This people don’t deserve any kindness nor forgiveness…- Crimson was burning buildings, The Duke and The Prince were scaring and robbing people, Scarlet Mist made people blind for months, Meltdown almost destroyed the city…-

Patton paused for a moment.

–If heroes were as bold as Syllogism, there wouldn’t be as many villains showing up here and there. They have to keep taking the villains out like a weed-

Logan looked at Patton, he notice the vet looked rather shaken but he could also identify anger in his eyes.

–That statement doesn’t have a ground to stand on. If you…-

He got interrupted by Patton repressing a chuckle. Logan, confused, thought about what he said, after a couple seconds he made the connection: Weeds are on the ground. He sighed and Patton got in his giggle fit, at least Logan lighten up the mood.

-Sorry… That was good one, teach’- Patton said smiling lightly.

-It’s alright, Patton- Logan said as he gave a small smile at the other man. –As I was saying…That statement can’t hold itself. A weed might be taken out from the root, but there’s always going to be more weeds. Fighting violence with violence doesn’t stop villains.-

-What do you think it does…?- Patton raised his eyebrow and looked genuinely curious to what the answer might be.

-Comprehension and care. Like I said, maybe not all of them will respond to it. At end of the day, they have free will to decide whether or not to take the help but there is always someone who will, and that can make a bigger change than just mindlessly disposing of them-

The vet stared at Logan for a moment, not angrily, it was more like… concern…? Patton then lower his eyes, and looked at the ground and stopped in his tracks, which made the other man to stop. Logan waited patiently to see what kind of response he would get. The teacher began to worry due to how silent the other man was being.

-If…- Patton paused before continuing. –…If your son was…murdered and you knew who did it, wouldn’t you want revenge?-

That was not what Logan expected to hear. The teacher would do anything for Virgil, he would risk his own life to save him. But… Could Logan hurt someone else if they did anything like that to his son? He doesn’t think he could… He doesn’t believe in eye for an eye, but… Virgil is his world. Would he betray his son if he didn’t took revenge?

Why would Patton ask that?

Patton chuckled.

-Sorry… I got serious all of the sudden- His smiled seemed rather forceful. –You don’t have to answer. It’s really not important-

Logan looked at Patton, he wondered if… if that’s the reason he doesn’t have his own child… He wouldn’t ask right there and then of course, he doesn’t feel he has the right to know. Patton probably wouldn’t want to talk about it anyway. The vet notice Logan looking at him with concern in his eyes.

-Uff!- Patton shook himself –That was a bit too intense for my liking- He chuckled nervously

-Yes, it was- Logan reaffirmed, not knowing what else to do or say.

They remained in silence, it quickly became awkward but there was nothing to talk about. They continue walking, finally getting to the running path. Patton started giggling at the sight of Logan. Deep within the trees it was a bit darker, so they didn’t fully see the mess they both were. At least the imaginary thick wall of awkwardness had been shattered by something as wonderful as Patton’s giggles.

The teacher looked down on himself and smiled. He was covered in dried mud and a couple of leaves were stick in his clothes and hair. Patton didn’t look any better, his boots were indistinguishable from the ground and one of his sides was fully covered in mud. They laugh at the silly image, 2 grown man playing with mud and branches. How immature yet fun. This was, without a doubt, a very strange yet wonderful date….

Date? Was that a date? Logan begin to think to himself. He fixed his hair and embarrassed, debated in his head whether or not it was. Then the thought of asking Patton for reassurance seemed reasonable but he was too shy beside he could potentially hurt the vet’s feelings. How exactly? He doesn’t know but he still could. Yet, as if the other man had read his mind.

-Uh… So… Um… Do you…- Patton began mumbling. –Was this… a date?- He winced, as if he was waiting for negative reaction from Logan.

Logan just blushed while fixing his shirt. He coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. –I… Frankly, I’m not sure… But… I think it was?-

The situation was so dumb, it just made them smiled. Sure, the conversation from before became a bit too serious but it wasn’t a bad date for any of them at all. Logan and Patton don’t seem to agree on many things, but they still remain respectful at the end.

Logan’s goal was to learn more about the other man, and he got that and more. Maybe their relationship could blossom into something more, although, between friends or lovers, he didn’t mind which type would evolve. He was happy with any of those as long as Patton was in his life.

Meanwhile, Logan didn’t realize how Patton was completely head over heels for him already, and was already prepared to just jump into the romance wagon, yet he restrain himself so he didn’t scared the teacher off.

They walked the path all the way to the entrance of the park and parted their ways, they had to go back to their works after all. The day was sunny, warm but tolerable. A nice breeze came by to bring refreshing air, but also to bring a couple of dark and stormy clouds.

Prologue/ CH 1/ CH 2 / CH 3 / CH 4 / CH 5 / CH 6 / CH 7 / CH 8 / CH 9 / CH 10

I’m sorry again! I’m trying to be more productive this summer, now that I have stopped having classes. Hope you enjoy this chapter! I sure did!

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