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resolutepath · 1 day

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[ pat, for achi ] "I'll love you as long as I breathe," it was a phrase he said after a long and passionate kiss, the type that left him and his lover breathless, the type they had shared countless times and would share again infinite times. They were new recruits then, so young and unaware of the horrors of war. He gently moved one of his lover's strands of hair aside, so it wasn't falling on their face.

"I'll love you as long as I breathe," it was a phrase he said quietly, ghosting over his lover's forehead after kissing them goodnight. It's been nearly a decade since the war started, and neither of them are young and naive soldiers hoping to ascend ranks through their feats in the battlefield. He carefully lifted one strand of their beautiful, long hair to kiss before lying next to them to rest.

"I'll love you as long as I breathe," it's a phrase on the tip of his tongue when he meets their gaze, but then they both immediately look away. He doesn't know what scares him most: seeing hurt and betrayal in those beautiful eyes, or seeing the same love despite all. The war hasn't ended, and they aren't at the frontline, but it still feels like they are. Their beautiful long hair is gone, and he no longer has the excuse of wanting to rearrange a wild strand to get closer and kiss them.

The words are soft in his ear as he has had the very breathe stolen from his chest and Achilles cannot help but let lips curl in a gentle smile as a shudder runs down his spine. He is a warrior, a spear born for battle and bloodshed, yet here, in the hands of Patroclus he is soft and loving, a reed in the wind, malleable to his lover's affections, weak to his touch. He cannot help but forget the war that is here and is coming, the horrors they will endure, with the way fingers brush his hair and ghost against his skin. "And I you..." he breathes is a solemn vow before he leans in again to chase another one of those kisses, to consume what love will be given, to drown himself in everything that is Patroclus. The new day may bring them horrors, but for now he can bask in this, in them, and worry only that his words will never match the vow Patroclus has made because his brain cannot string a phrase together when they are like this.

---

The words are a ghost this time, a faint impression of lips against his forehead long after the other side of the bed has gone cold as he wakes with a start to realise he is alone. Alone. It is panic that draws him from the bed, to find the dogtags that sit at the side of his bed, the metal chain curled atop a note that only reads Let us meet again someday. Someday. Meet again. It is a choked sob that escapes him as he dresses haphazardly, throwing on enough to be presentable as he hurries from the room to check the usual haunts, to search for a ghost. But ghosts cannot be seen and he is alone, all alone. It is only when he is in the dirt that he collapses to his knees, clutching at the tag so hard that it embeds itself in his skin and he sobs once, twice and howls. This war has taken so many, he had been prepared, he thinks, for them to be separated in battle. But not like this, never like this. This war has taught him what it is to have something stolen from him and he burns with the rage it ignites. They will pay, he vows as he crawls from the dirt, a shadow of himself, now more akin to the Keres as he pulls his loose threads too tight and goes for his armour, his weapon. He will eat the world raw if needed for everything that was soft or beautiful or bright about him is gone, gone, gone with Patroclus. Later in the space of his room he takes a knife to his hair and hacks because he cannot bear the whisp of it against his neck giving the illusion his lover's touch.

---

To see each other again was not something Achilles had anticipated happening in his lifetime, let alone to be in the same room without something exploding. Him, it will always be him, the live wire, the volatile threat ready to detonate. Yet here, he simply finds he cannot hold Patroclus' gaze, finds his own drawn to the ground in shame for the horrors he has committed. Neither of them move, they are frozen in their motion and war still rages, their war, Belobog's war, the universe's war if you listen to Destiny's Slave. There's so much that they have done, that they have become and he knows Patroclus has moved past him, has grown past him.

But the dogtag still sits against his chest, a weight tethering them together, their shared love still here. He can see it.

Perhaps its selfish, but for a moment a glimmer of the old Achilles enters the room, as he looks back up, crosses the space and reaches for Pat's cheek. His hands tremble, he doesn't know what he's doing, but he's lost and lost and burned and he needs something different. It's time to be honest, time to recognise that there is more to their story than this tragedy so he forces their gazes to meet more tenderly than he has touched any in recent years and he presses their mouths together. It's messy, a little rushed and unpracticed, but the affection is still there and though the kiss is short it still leaves him as breathless as their kisses back then. He draws back then, his thumb stroking over a cheekbone, and voice hoarse as he speaks. "I'll love you as long as I breathe..." he echoes and then turns, moving away so he does not see the rejection form on Patroclus' lips nor the rejection in his gaze.

He just needed him to know, and now he does. That's enough, it has to be.

#caemthe #muses. [ achilles. ]#source. [ f.ate. ]#source. [ h.sr xover. ]#bond. [ caemthe; patroclus / i’ve been cold since you left; make me feel like i am breathing. ]#( i well achilles made a choice here dfjsdjfjkhs )#( but your ask was beautiful and i adored it honestly )#( i love the way you write pat's love for achi and everything about this tbh )

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autumn-foxfire · 3 days

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I'm up to episode 61 so I think it's time to watch the first movie for the series. I know they're technically not canon but I still want to watch them in a way that sort of matches the series.

I could have probably watched it sooner but I kind of got a bit too hooked on watching the series when I could XD

Isn't Conan known as Shinichi's cousin in later chapters? In fact it's Yukiko who calls him that, right? Makes sense why this movie has it so Shinichi "doesn't know" Conan and Shinichi has to pretend he's just remembered his name.

There is something to be said that Shinichi picks Ran's favourite colour because he knew it was her favourite instead of actually picking a colour that would make him happy like she intended. It's such a small lie but it's one that really does give us more insight into their relationship (yes, yes I know this is non-canon but still the non-canon movies still make there relationship dubious because that's how it's depicted in canon).

Also, she also picked a movie that is clearly something for her, for Shinichi's birthday. That would be like me picking a horror movie to watch for my boyfriend's birthday even though he doesn't like them but I love them. It's inconsiderate. These are such basic romantic gestures and even the writing team can't get them right.

Maybe you wouldn't have to worry about turning Ran down if you had just told her the truth and then you two could have gone together without all the goddamn hiding but nooooooo.

Shinichi, that probably wasn't the best way to tell kids they were playing with a bomb but I get it, you were panicked.

One of the many times being Conan has actually helped him with criminals, everyone underestimates him as a child.

Awww, Shinichi caring about the property he stole even though he did it for good, what a good boy. Shinichi you also haven't done anything good for your rep by letting "Conan" handle the bombs XD

I do love how protective the movies make Kogoro of Conan. Even if he's also still pretty arrogant about it.

LMAO I forgot the Detective Boys just keep getting near the bombs by complete accident.

Sonoko, please go, you'd be a better date for Ran than Shinichi will ever be.

The train bombs is such a good moment in the movie. Just the tenseness of them not knowing if Shinichi is right as they divert the trains. How all the employees conducts themselves to help and the relief and celebration when they succeed. It just's really good. It's something the movies do really well.

The fact that Kogoro is actually on the right track but came to the wrong conclusion T-T

That poster art looked really, really bad. Ran are you sure you want to see this movie. Maybe it's a good thing the building gets blown up.

Symmetry is overrated-

As an artist, I totally understand the urge to get rid of old work you don't want anyone to see anymore, so mood. I too, would blow up a building to get rid of them.

Don't you just hate it when your detonator has no batteries because a gremlin stole them?

Megure treating Shiratori as his pokemon: "Shiratori attack!"

Ran's dead. I'm sorry, she got crushed. There goes Shinichi's love interest.

They really just let Shinichi run off with the bomb schematics, didn't they T-T

Yes, Ran, Shinichi is incredibly unreliable to you and doesn't trust you so WHY DO YOU LIKE HIM?!

Ran, it has a clock on it, what do you fucking think it is?! Shinichi did not have to tell you that. Come on girl, you're both "in love" with and live with a detective, you can't be this dumb.

Sorry that was mean, she is in a tense situation. I apologise Ran, that was unnecessary.

Shinichi don't call her an idiot! SHE'S DISARMING A BOMB. Yes I do realise I am a hypocrite.

It's a good thing Ran is a hopeless romantic that Shinichi does not deserve at all.

There's no red thread because you two are terrible for each other <3

#dcmk #foxy's dcmk commentary

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lipsticksandheartbreaks · 2 years

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my favorite devil fruits in one piece

Horo Horo no Mi

user: perona

meaning: hollow

type: paramecia

ability:

• the creation and the control of ghosts

• these ghosts can drain the morale, self-esteem and will to live out of anybody

• creation of a ghost network for surveillance

• this allows the user to spy on enemies

• the ghosts can also duplicate themselves into more ghosts

• the user can also make her ghost leave her body which makes her intangible

• her ghost can also levitate and change the size of her body

weakness:

• she can‘t attack her opponents while her ghost leaves her body

• while she levitates or changes her bodysize, her true body remains unconscious and vulnerable

Unnamed Fruit

user: jewelry bonney

type: paramecia

ability’s:

• the manipulation of the aging process

• the user can freely make themselvs or other people older or younger

• the user can use this power to disguise her/himself as well as cripple opponents by rapidly aging their intended targets into their senior years or regressing them into little children

• this ability also works on animals

weakness:

• any of the targets still retain all of their memories and cognitive abilities

Ope Ope no Mi

user: trafalgar law

meaning: operation

type: paramecia

ability’s:

• to manifest a spherical space in which the user can manipulate the orientation, movements, and physical configuration of anything and anyone (themselvs included)

• the fruit allows the user to perform miraculous surgeries, cure intreatable diseases and circumvent physical disabilities

• the fruit can also grant another person eternal youth

weakness:

• in order to grant eternal youth to a person, the user has to exchange their own life

Hana Hana no Mi

user: nico robin

meaning: flower;bloom

type: paramecia

ability’s:

• the fruit allows the user to replicate and sprout pieces of their body from the surface of any object or living thing

• the fruit's powers are capable of affecting many opponents simultaneously

• For defense, the user can conjure traps, shields or barriers to capture or repel incoming dangers with a multitude of her limbs

• sprouting eyes or ears in strategic places, the fruit's powers can also be used for gathering intelligence

weakness:

• the fruit has the weaknesses of having any damage to their sprouted body parts transferred to their real body

Buki Buki no Mi

user: baby 5

meaning: weapon

type: paramecia

abilitys:

• this fruit gives the user the ability to change their body parts into weapons, which lets the user become a Full-Body Weapon Human

• While transformed into a weapon, the user does not take any damage inflicted as a result of the weapon's impact, such as detonating while in the state of an explosive

weakness:

• the user remains vulnerable to the generated weapons if they are aimed at oneself, voluntarily or otherwise

Ito Ito no Mi

user: donquixote doflamingo

meaning: string;thread

type: paramecia

ability‘s:

• the fruit allows the user to create and manipulate strings, making the user a String Human

• the user creates thin, razor-sharp strings to manipulate people’s movements by connecting the strings to their spines

• this fruit also allows the user to practically heal themselvs. example : emergency stitching their heavily injured internal organs which rescues them from an eventual death

weakness:

• the user can‘t travel mid-air when there are no clouds in the sky

• the strings disappear into thin air if the user loses consciousness

#anime / manga #one piece #monkey d luffy #nico robin #donquixote family #one piece doflamingo #baby 5 one piece #trafalgardwaterlaw #perona #roronoa zoro #sanji vinsmoke #boa hancock #jewelry bonney

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acidbodywoman · 1 year

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profile

( links connect to more in-depth explanations )

...

Surrounded by people with extraordinary powers, the “Acid Body Woman” is an exception. Despite her moniker, she has no power of her own. Indeed, “her” power to avoid death- no matter how taught the thread of her life is pulled- is the effect of another’s power known as “die Kette” The Chain, thrust upon her.

The gun pressed to her head jams, the bomb strapped to her body doesn’t entirely detonate, the vat doesn’t dissolve her in her entirety. And, in the most drastic of situations, a miracle occurs: what was taken, what was lost, appears once more ( why else would she be the most desirable universal donor? )

It’s possible that the absence of suicide- how it never seems an option to her- is a mental effect of “Ich warte hier”.

Those so inclined would say it allows her to defy fate itself. Which is ridiculous. Nothing is predestined. It just happens.

She calls it a curse. Some say it is a gift, and still she would agree. It is indeed a Gift.

...

This second-hand power also makes her useful for missions which would otherwise be considered suicidal. When it started doesn’t matter: it’s been her life for so long. Her wounds and bumps say as much.

Someone needs her, so she’s there. Another person decides they need her more, so she’s taken. She never protests because it’s useless; but escaping isn’t.

Being one who avoids death, she hears many, useful things. Not all the time, though.

Most people don’t bother addressing a monologue to a dead body, no matter what books would have you think.

Still, it doesn’t stop people from trying.

...

Despite her involvements, it’s impossible to keep her in one place. Allegiances, loyalty, friendship. They all seem to be irrelevant to her. Indeed, if one were to look up “turncoat” in the dictionary, her photo... would not be there, but you thought of her when you read the description, didn’t you?

Some might argue that it isn’t accurate. Things do not have allegiances. They’re used by what owns them. If they’re lost or stolen, then used for something else...

You need her, not because you want her, but because someone else does.

...

As death avoids her, she finds other ways to pass the time. She likes looking at pictures- storybooks, photographs, maps. She’s never seen so much colors outside of her body.

...

Something like her, raised to provide and nothing more, finds it difficult to come to terms with “being” a “person”. Without an education, or even time for her to exist within herself, deeper thoughts have been out of her grasp for many years.

She was aware that the other things around her, doing things to her, were similar to herself. They were serving different roles.

But... well, she doesn’t understand. Everyone is so apart from her.

Out of everything in the world, the only thing she’s sure is real is herself.

Is that what being a person is?

...does it even matter?

...

She has a fondness for children, especially the very young. Indeed, there is a fluidity to her movements when she is around them. They feel real.

Dear things; ornaments of the soul.

( the scar feels like it’s going to burst open bleeding all over again. )

...

Power does not corrupt; power reveals.

When you give someone the power to do what they always wanted to do, you see what they always wanted to do.

A woman who, no matter how badly hurt, always comes back brand new... everything is revealed to her.

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knightinoldarmor · 2 years

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@detonizing asked:

4. do you prefer to plot a ship, or would you rather “wing it”? 12. do you ship any rarepair? 31. do you have a favorite memory when it comes to rping a ship?

SHIPPING QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN - SFW EDITION!

4. do you prefer to plot a ship, or would you rather “wing it”?

Plotting sometimes doesn't work out: what we have in mind doesn't always work with our muses ( assuming we don't have control over them but they have control over us, if you get what I mean ). I've had plenty of experiences where plotting didn't work out as expected ( for better or worse, sometimes something even greater develops or it ends up not working at all ), but I've had some great plotting experiences too. My point? I prefer either winging it or discussing the intent to ship our muses together. But most times through writing the ship takes the form it's supposed to have.

12. do you ship any rarepair?

I'll stick to Shoto answers since he's the one you're familiar with. And I do. My favorite, Iida and Shoto: Iida ships seem not to be much popular I admit ( and Iida in general ) even if I think he's one of the most interesting characters and his bond with Shoto is one of the most deep. Iida is saved and moved by Shoto's words back in the Stain arc and their friendship develops into something very deep as we see the two of them and Midoriya spend time together and support each other. The ship isn't much popular but in the latest chapters Horikoshi is finally giving us more ‘screentime’. After the reveal of Dabi's identity, Iida is there to support Shoto ( Iida's older brother is his hero while Shoto's the criminal he's responsible to stop ) both emotionally and in his battle against Toya, something that melts my heart who absolutely adores the two of them. Finally, they have the attention they deserve.

31. do you have a favorite memory when it comes to rping a ship?

Hm, for Shoto specifically I don't think I could decide on one. I've written some great ships with some incredible writers in the years I write him, and to admit, I've been lucky enough to write too much todobaku. The first Bakugo writer and the first I wrote Shoto with, my friend Elijah (@wonderspectacles ) who used to write Bakugo, a wonderful Dabi/Bakugo writer I sadly lost contact with ( and I'm looking forward to writing more with you, your writing is just GREAT! ).

Special mention to my active Shoto mains, Madi ( @ofsavior ) who made me love todomomo as we've been building their relationship for years, Mona (@withsorrowandregret ) and her wonderful Izuku I've been searching for so long, Trist (@ofdetonation ) who writes one of the most accurate portrayals I've read, and Dandi (@ofstowaways ) who is herself a day of sunshine and so is her Ochako to my Shoto.

One more special mention to @luxaeterna and the million threads we've been writing all these years, the most amazing Eren to my Levi who has helped me in developing him when I was about to give up on him, their Bakugo to my Shoto, Shota to my Toya, Giyuu to Mikaela, Haru to Daisuke, Erwin to Levi I MEAN??? If there's a ship to write I've definitely written it with him, who's been providing me with the most wonderful threads to make me melt every time. If there's a partner I've written the most ships with, that's him and I love him for all the love we've written together, the delicate sentiments we have explored in the many different interactions we've tried together.

#( thank you!!! )#detonizing #— (tag tba) bnha.#— (tag tba) ooc | dashboard commentary.#— (tag tba) ask.#— (tag tba) ooc | ask.#— (tag tba) shoto & tenya.#—× lightbaund / todoroki shoto.#( i wasn't planning to tag everyone in order not to bother you but i think it won't hurt to be reminded once again of how much i adore you)

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my-weird-news · 10 months

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🔥 Oppenheimer: From Nukes to Trending! 😮

Nuclear Nonsense: A Comedy of Catastrophic Proportions Before the bomb, humanity's knack for destruction was like a sitcom that only non-humans were allowed to participate in. We're talking floods, plagues, and divine acts of cleanup on aisle Earth. Sure, we could picture Mother Nature throwing tantrums and nature's fury causing chaos, but when it came to ending the show, our role was more like a forgettable side character. No button-pushing villain who could bring down the curtain on the human race in a snap. Oh, but then along came nuclear power, and suddenly we were handed the detonator to blow up entire cities like oversized birthday cakes. Scientists, in their infinite wisdom, realized we could even accidentally set the sky ablaze while trying to flex our newfound atomic muscles. It was like giving a toddler a bazooka and hoping they wouldn't blow up the living room. And guess what? Pandora's box just threw in the towel. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brain behind the bomb, exclaimed, "I'm now Death, the cosmic party pooper!" (Okay, maybe he said it with more gravity, but you get the gist.) Imagine the shock! Anyone from Joe Schmo to Jane Doe suddenly had the potential to turn us all into cosmic confetti. Existential crisis level: expert mode. We're talking not just the fear of instant doom but also a sense that the universe had run amok. With a deity, you could kneel and beg for mercy. But human beings? We all know how stubbornly ludicrous we can be. Even if you tried to shove thoughts of global obliteration under the mental rug, you'd be stuck with a permanent itch of anxiety, like that one popcorn kernel wedged in your teeth after the movies. Speaking of movies, Hollywood's always been the ultimate therapy couch for our fears. The bomb and its bombastic world waltzed back into our cinematic spotlight, from "Manhattan" to "Asteroid City" to "Oppenheimer: The Sequel." But this is a dance that's been going on since forever. No surprise that during the Cold War, the era of bomb-tastic paranoia, filmmakers were on a destruction binge—like Black Friday shoppers at an apocalypse megastore. Take "Fail Safe" (1964), for instance, a film where technological fiascos and nuclear whoopsies lead to an explosion of international proportions. The characters debate if wiping out the world is the ultimate way to evict Communism from the party. But hold onto your fallout shelters, because computers mess up and suddenly it's raining nukes on innocent folks. Cold War cinema was all about serious pondering of human folly, but then there's "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), Kubrick's laugh-out-loud lesson that the end of the world might just be thanks to some very anxious, very, um, inadequately equipped men. Flash-forward to the '80s. Movies like "The Day After" and "Threads" kept the nuclear anxiety fire burning. Even Japan got in on the action, producing atomic-inspired epics like "Godzilla" (not the one where he battles a pizza delivery guy, though). Amidst all the doom and gloom, some films dared to tease the edge of sanity without tumbling into the abyss. "WarGames" (1983), a tale of teenage hackers and their accidental playdate with Armageddon, stole Reagan's heart, because who doesn't enjoy a little close call with global extinction? Back in the day, nuclear threats were as common as mullets, and kids did their nuclear drills with the same gusto as they practiced fire drills. Fast forward again, and we're in a world where nuclear nightmares are as rare as unicorns, or at least as rare as functional self-checkout machines. The Soviet Union vanished, and we stopped practicing the "under the desk" Olympics. The bomb's not completely forgotten, but let's face it, these days we're more concerned about tracking our steps on Fitbits than tracking thermonuclear warfare. Still, we've made a U-turn back to the birth of our atomic playground, perhaps to deal with our modern conundrums. We're living in Oppenheimer's world, the power of the gods in our hands. It's like giving your dog the car keys and hoping they won't crash into a fire hydrant. We're swamped in the feeling that doom's a-swirlin' around every corner, which Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" gets all too well. Bomb tests pop up like surprise birthday parties, just more explosive. And then there's "Oppenheimer," a movie that's less about biographies and more about the boom of power—atomic power, geopolitical power, power to make you question your own power lunch choices. In a nutshell, Oppenheimer's like an all-you-can-eat buffet of nuclear musings, a reflection of how we became the cosmic game masters. But here's the kicker: we tell ourselves stories about our atomic prowess that are as nutty as a squirrel on an espresso binge. We're terrified, yet we tiptoe around the dread like it's a sleeping bear. But, like any good show, the curtain must rise, and now we're caught in a web of apocalyptic worries, waiting for the grand finale. We're the gods and the end of the line, and the world's biggest punchline. 🍿🔥💣# Nuclear Nonsense: A Comedy of Catastrophic Proportions Before the bomb, humanity's knack for destruction was like a sitcom that only non-humans were allowed to participate in. We're talking floods, plagues, and divine acts of cleanup on aisle Earth. Sure, we could picture Mother Nature throwing tantrums and nature's fury causing chaos, but when it came to ending the show, our role was more like a forgettable side character. No button-pushing villain who could bring down the curtain on the human race in a snap. Oh, but then along came nuclear power, and suddenly we were handed the detonator to blow up entire cities like oversized birthday cakes. Scientists, in their infinite wisdom, realized we could even accidentally set the sky ablaze while trying to flex our newfound atomic muscles. It was like giving a toddler a bazooka and hoping they wouldn't blow up the living room. And guess what? Pandora's box just threw in the towel. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brain behind the bomb, exclaimed, "I'm now Death, the cosmic party pooper!" (Okay, maybe he said it with more gravity, but you get the gist.) Imagine the shock! Anyone from Joe Schmo to Jane Doe suddenly had the potential to turn us all into cosmic confetti. Existential crisis level: expert mode. We're talking not just the fear of instant doom but also a sense that the universe had run amok. With a deity, you could kneel and beg for mercy. But human beings? We all know how stubbornly ludicrous we can be. Even if you tried to shove thoughts of global obliteration under the mental rug, you'd be stuck with a permanent itch of anxiety, like that one popcorn kernel wedged in your teeth after the movies. Speaking of movies, Hollywood's always been the ultimate therapy couch for our fears. The bomb and its bombastic world waltzed back into our cinematic spotlight, from "Manhattan" to "Asteroid City" to "Oppenheimer: The Sequel." But this is a dance that's been going on since forever. No surprise that during the Cold War, the era of bomb-tastic paranoia, filmmakers were on a destruction binge—like Black Friday shoppers at an apocalypse megastore. Take "Fail Safe" (1964), for instance, a film where technological fiascos and nuclear whoopsies lead to an explosion of international proportions. The characters debate if wiping out the world is the ultimate way to evict Communism from the party. But hold onto your fallout shelters, because computers mess up and suddenly it's raining nukes on innocent folks. Cold War cinema was all about serious pondering of human folly, but then there's "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), Kubrick's laugh-out-loud lesson that the end of the world might just be thanks to some very anxious, very, um, inadequately equipped men. Flash-forward to the '80s. Movies like "The Day After" and "Threads" kept the nuclear anxiety fire burning. Even Japan got in on the action, producing atomic-inspired epics like "Godzilla" (not the one where he battles a pizza delivery guy, though). Amidst all the doom and gloom, some films dared to tease the edge of sanity without tumbling into the abyss. "WarGames" (1983), a tale of teenage hackers and their accidental playdate with Armageddon, stole Reagan's heart, because who doesn't enjoy a little close call with global extinction? Back in the day, nuclear threats were as common as mullets, and kids did their nuclear drills with the same gusto as they practiced fire drills. Fast forward again, and we're in a world where nuclear nightmares are as rare as unicorns, or at least as rare as functional self-checkout machines. The Soviet Union vanished, and we stopped practicing the "under the desk" Olympics. The bomb's not completely forgotten, but let's face it, these days we're more concerned about tracking our steps on Fitbits than tracking thermonuclear warfare. Still, we've made a U-turn back to the birth of our atomic playground, perhaps to deal with our modern conundrums. We're living in Oppenheimer's world, the power of the gods in our hands. It's like giving your dog the car keys and hoping they won't crash into a fire hydrant. We're swamped in the feeling that doom's a-swirlin' around every corner, which Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" gets all too well. Bomb tests pop up like surprise birthday parties, just more explosive. And then there's "Oppenheimer," a movie that's less about biographies and more about the boom of power—atomic power, geopolitical power, power to make you question your own power lunch choices. In a nutshell, Oppenheimer's like an all-you-can-eat buffet of nuclear musings, a reflection of how we became the cosmic game masters. But here's the kicker: we tell ourselves stories about our atomic prowess that are as nutty as a squirrel on an espresso binge. We're terrified, yet we tiptoe around the dread like it's a sleeping bear. But, like any good show, the curtain must rise, and now we're caught in a web of apocalyptic worries, waiting for the grand finale. We're the gods and the end of the line, and the world's biggest punchline. 🍿🔥💣 Read the full article

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coldauthorship · 2 years

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Action stuff

"I can't cast much more, either, but I can move the spells within me. I won't be entirely useless. Quick, now—go," he beckoned her, and Jess felt a little dizzy as he swept her forward. They held their breath as they traversed the desecration at the front of the room, nine bodies and poisonous flame partly obstructing their path. Jess' suit was, naturally, fire-retardant, but she worried for Felix as she watched him shuffle nimbly enough over the blazing massacre—until she saw him catch a little bit of flame and spin it fantastically off the tips of his fingers as he went. Showoff. Whatever was messing with her meta in this building, it didn't seem to be giving him too much grief.

“It’s no different out here,” Jess warned, testing her capacity for portals in the hall. "And more will be coming.” She saw Felix crouched already round a corner in the yellowed hallway, handgun drawn and back pressed to the wall. She couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed. She was supposed to be the one who was good at this. And she'd wanted to save his butt, really, but he was looking less and less in need of saving. The cane was tucked into his belt at the back, as if it had suddenly lost its utility, and she could sense that he was indeed threading magic through himself to keep his body steady. Jess knelt beside him, readying herself appropriately. She could hear additional voices and boot-steps pounding up the hallway.

Felix was trying to steady his center. He'd tested his magic on the flames, and found his new threshold since projecting the spell Jess had once lovingly referred to as Change of Fate, Lite. He was deeply irked by the current suppression, understanding there was indeed some technology afoot which could subdue the powers of Casters. How was this possible?

"They'll be expecting us in the stairwell, or the elevator," Felix whispered, interrupting his own thoughts. His heart continued to crash into his ribs.

"Wow," Jess hissed back, "still a genius. Which one will we take?"

"Neither," he answered, indicating with a tilt of his head the far end of the long hallway perpendicular to the one that was filling with the sounds of approach. Jess understood what he meant for them to do. Just then, gunfire exploded against the opposite wall.

"Oo!" Grated Jess, standing, and cocking several explosives. "These guys are thugs! That was not professional, at all."

She pitched, in quick succession, not one—but four of her bombs against the opposite wall, just where the gunfire had struck, so that the angle at which they ricocheted sent them bounding down the hallway behind and into their blind space. It was, it seemed, a well executed billiard strike; the explosions sounded, followed by convulsed cries and wheezing at the opposite end.

Felix retrieved a small hand mirror from his breast pocket. He wagered a careful attempt at using it to peer down the hidden hallway. Mercifully, there was artwork hanging on the walls, and the glass gave him a vague observation in their reflection of the goings-on at the farther end without spoiling his position. There was movement happening from where Jess' bombs had detonated. The soldiers were getting to their feet.

He understood by the patterns of their attacks – smoke grenades and warning fire – that their assailants meant to take at least one of them alive. Now that they had felled several of their men, their enemies' own detonatives would surely come. He saw Jess observing his strategy as he opened his mouth to speak. She had already read his expression, and did not delay.

#san francisco #fiction #Jessica Lee #Felix Miyazaki #Empire of Kings #original character #original story #reunion #writing #writeblr #my writing #cool action stuff #im trying

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assignmentimprobable · 2 years

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MI: Dead Reckoning Part I & MGS2′s Prediction of The Information Age

I rewatched the MI:7 trailer for um reasons (see: the smokeshow of a cast) and something stood out to me. Kittridge’s line, about how this was their chance to control the truth: the concepts of right and wrong for centuries to come. What’s so fascinating about it is its relevance in the digital age, where mis and dis-information is rampant. Where narratives of the truth are easily twisted and context is something you have to make an active effort to find when paywalls and the spin of corporate media are abundant. I thought back to another series, one that I’d say was more than influenced by Mission Impossible: Metal Gear Solid. Specifically its 2nd entry - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

To give a brief rundown of it for anybody who hasn’t played the game, at the core of the background antagonists are colloquially known as The Patriots. Using "Arsenal Gear", an advanced data-processing system built from a stolen Metal Gear, the Patriots seek to seize control of the "context" by monitoring and censoring content on the internet, while also having access to the country’s nuclear weapons cache. The problems of Nuclear proliferation and the manipulation of narratives are deeply ingrained in the lore of the series. See, what Hideo Kojima posited in 2001 was that this new access to mass-media and information would come with a susceptibility to narratives crafted for the sole purpose of disinformation - see: control. Controlling the narrative, and by extension the public’s perception through government construction of history, that construction will go on to reshape the climate by its mere existence. His answer to this was to suggest that we find our own context and define what it means to us, finding identity on our own terms.

Enter Mission: Impossible - The consequences of Nuclear proliferation have loomed massively in the background of the 2nd phase of the MI series. Fallout is an extremely potent example of this. The arm’s race is gonna keep on arming, you know? Brinkmanship out the door, and through the opening comes the disillusioned agents of the state with a means to manipulate the social geography. Though back to our subject at hand, Dead Reckoning Part I and Kittridge’s line... What makes it so interesting, the convergence between the “truth” and the IMF’s desire to contextualize it for the public- isn’t that a natural extension of what they do? Real-time context manipulation through masks, movie style sets, deception. They are experts in the field of this, on a smaller scale. Increasing the payload is grounds for a *stamps file* disavowal! What Kittridge is suggesting, this wide-scale manipulation and redefinition of the truth, it’s being the pupil of a much bigger eye. Something that Ethan is going to have a contentious relationship with, to say the least, as an agent of that deception and also someone whose entire drive is acting in the best interests of everyone around him on HIS terms. Protecting the identity of the NOC lists inhabitants, not killing a Chimera infected Nyah (who stands to unleash a plague by staying alive) and racing the clock to give her the cure, taking down Lane’s Rogue Nation, preventing the nuke detonations. This thread is something that I think is going to be super relevant for the political climate we’re currently living in if the movie involves it in more detail.

I’m not going to presume anything about Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 because: A.) It hasn’t come out yet and B.) The trailer has only given us so much.

Butbutbut... I for one am looking forward to what McQuarrie and Co have in store for us. I really want to see what big conclusions the movie and Ethan comes to, if any.

#Mission Impossible #Mission: Impossible #Ethan Hunt #Eugene Kittridge #MI: 7 #mission impossible dead reckoning #Metal Gear Solid #IMF #stevie speaks

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whetstonefires · 3 years

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heavier than a mountain, lighter than a feather

[my take on @misskirby's not-prompt about obi-wan beating palpatine to death with an office chair]

Obi-Wan had once touched the cold-burning edge of the Dark Side to give himself the extra edge he needed to cut down the Sith who had cut down his Master. He had fought with rage pushing him, he had fought with all the fear that Qui-Gon lay expiring on the reactor floor, that he might yet win and find himself seconds too late to bring the emergency med-treatment necessary to survive a lightsaber to the chest.

(Not that it had mattered; all he’d gotten from his desperate, hasty win was a few seconds of farewell bereft of comfort, and the burden of Anakin hung around his neck, and oh, he wished his padawan was not a burden. There had been no option but to take him and thus taking him must have been right, but no one should take on a student they did not feel ready for, and he had.)

If he had fought that way this time, he would have lost.

The Sith Master would have done what the apprentice could not, and twisted the Dark Side within him as it rose, and snared him in it, so he could not find his way back to the Light, and used that grip to bear him down with Sidious’ greater power, because the Sith said the Force will free me but it was the way of the Dark to place one will over another by pure force, so even what narrow freedom there was on the dark path was offered to one alone. Even in the best case, he would have been overwhelmed too heavily to fight for more than long enough to finish him.

Perhaps he would not have been killed. Perhaps he would have been kept alive to be used as leverage against Anakin. But assuredly he would not have been able to win.

Obi-wan however had what he would have thought of, if he had allowed himself to think about it, a trick for using his attachments and the desire not to lose them as fuel without reaching into the destabilizing, consuming whirlwind of the Dark Side. It was a dangerous, stupid trick, really, at least the way he used it, although Obi-wan thought of that way as fundamental to being a good Jedi, which would have explained a great deal about him if anyone had known.

The trick was this: it was easy to push yourself to where your limits should have been and beyond using your attachment to a person, without falling into the hungry selfishness of the Dark Side, if you simply did not intend to survive.

When he was thirteen, he had tried to persuade Qui-Gon Jinn, who had not yet been his Master, to use the bomb in his recently fitted slave-collar to blow open a door, killing Obi-wan but allowing him complete the mission, which was not Obi-wan’s mission

It was not difficult to return to that place, that space in himself where serenity came easy because soon there would be nothing left to go wrong or to lose—Anakin had made it difficult, for a long time; Anakin he was obliged to raise and train. Anakin who needed him.

All his obligation to the war and the Council and all the men under his command had not pinned him to himself the way his duty to Anakin had, and—knighting him had been helpful. It had been a relief, to finally cast off that weight. There is no death, there is the Force was much easier to believe of oneself than of those one grieved, and some weeks Obi-wan breathed it in and out with every breath, and there was no fear.

He knew several things, as he entered the Senate through an entrance that was technically, perhaps, a window. One that did not open, at that. That the Chancellor had some kind of failsafe embedded in the GAR’s brains. That the Chancellor was a Sith Lord. That the Chancellor had been using his access to Anakin all these years to hurt his Padawan.

That if he took the time to assemble the rest of the Council and try to stage this as a proper arrest, word would have time to reach Palpatine of Obi-wan having been publicly informed, because Maul was the least subtle sentient Obi-wan had ever had the misfortune of meeting more than once, and that if Palpatine knew the jig was up he would use his fail-safe.

So Obi-wan needed to do this alone.

It was possible, of course, that it wouldn’t be difficult. Sidious was a creature of stealth and insinuation. He spent most hours of his life maintaining a posture of harmlessness. When could he have found the time to do regular lightsaber drills, let alone practice live combat?

But Maul probably feared the man for a reason. So Obi-wan was going to do this as quickly as possible, but he wasn’t going to be hasty.

Spring the trap.

He’d closed himself down in the Force before he got near the Senate building, jumping through the hole he’d sliced into the window with only his physical strength and no Jedi edge, and only when he got near the Chancellor’s office did he reopen his senses just a thread, to make sure there was no one in there meeting with Palpatine whom he needed to keep alive. The Force didn’t slam into him with a warning, which would have to be confirmation enough.

Obi-wan yanked the door open, hurled five primed thermal detonators in the direction of the great ship-like slab of an occupied desk, slammed the ornate portal shut again, and threw himself to the ground at the foot of the wall, as far away as he could get, head tucked under his arms. He was fairly sure he’d seen Mas Amedda in there, standing beside the desk as the Chancellor in his thronelike chair raised his head with a gratifyingly startled look on his face.

Pity. The Vice-Chancellor could probably have explained so much of what had been going on behind the scenes, all this time.

The blast left the office door half-shattered, belching smoke, but Obi-wan escaped with just one splinter, not terribly large, in the back of one calf. His robes and boots had absorbed the rest of the shrapnel that had made it that far. He tugged it out as he got up—no time to do anything more, it wasn’t bleeding much. He drew a deep breath of half-clean corridor air and dashed into the opaque ruin that had been the Chancellor’s office, senses fully unfurled now that the time for stealth was over. Though in the interest of not being an irresistible target, he did not ignite his lightsaber just yet.

The Force guided him through the smoke, and he brought his sword to light even as he swung it through the murk.

It stopped, humming, against a bar of red light that hissed into being at the last instant, and that felt equally inevitable.

“You.” Sheev Palpatine’s face looked like a Sith Lord’s now, twisted with hate and lit red from below. And, gratifyingly, somewhat scorched. His hair had sizzled from the heat, and his left arm seemed to have something at least mildly wrong with it. Obi-wan hoped the explosions had affected at least one of his legs, as well, since his own maneuverability was cut by the shard of door to the calf.

“Me indeed, Chancellor,” he said, taking advantage of his two-handed grip to bear down against the block with extra force. Palpatine bore up admirably, but as his snarl tightened it was clear that it was not without cost. “Or should I say, Lord Sidious?”

The smoke was starting to thin, leaking away out of the shattered room. Sidious was still behind his ruined desk with its weakly sparking console, which seemed to have taken much of the impact for him—he was standing, anyway, sadly. Mas Amedda’s corpse, on the far end of the desk from the one Obi-wan had circumnavigated, was one of the things that was still smoking. Most of the brocade and other decorative fabric in the room must have been thoroughly treated with fire-retardant, but he had not been.

“I thought you might have learned my true name,” Palpatine said, far too complacently for someone whose long deception had been uncovered and who was staving off death one-handed. “But what brought you racing here in such haste?”

“Well, you see, they used to call me Sith-killer because of Maul, and since that’s been proven regrettably in error, I thought I had better—” Sidious tried to fling him back against the opposite wall with a sharp jerk of his wounded hand, and Obi-wan had to push back with the whole of his will and stance to slide back only a few feet.

This had freed their lightsabers, though, and Sidious chopped low with a terrible speed. Obi-wan leapt clear, knowing the blood soaking into the pale fabric of his pants was betraying the weakness in his leg—Anakin had had a point, he admitted grudgingly, about black hiding all kinds of stains.

For better and for worse.

He tried to catch Sidious with an overhead slash while he was up, to keep that red lightsaber busy for the most part, and when it was intercepted used the force of that impact to somersault back in a momentary return to his master’s old Ataru style—not too far, though, at all costs he must prevent the Sith Master’s escape.

Sidious wouldn’t need to get far, just to a room with a working holo transmitter, to destroy everything.

He flung himself back in.

Palpatine sidestepped his next attack, parried another, stepped back with the third. His single arm was telling against him, and while he was regrettably fast his movements were stiff enough that he had clearly taken at least one other hurt. Probably somewhere in the right hip. Obi-wan stayed on the offensive—it was how he’d beaten Maul, after all, though he was at pains to avoid overreaching to the point of recreating Anakin’s loss to Dooku.

His attacks did more damage to the sparking desk, bisected the thronelike monstrosity of a chair, which turned out under all the gilt, padding, and chromium to be mostly of durasteel, got close enough to put additional charred rents in Palpatine’s ornate sleeves. Nearly a minute had passed since he threw those detonators, and Sidious was still alive. Too long.

“Really,” said the politician, dropping his stance to one that would allow him to parry more from the shoulder, his first hint of fatigue. His style was not quite Makashi even as he adapted to the one-handed approach that was clearly not his preference, but there were some notes to it that rang so strongly of Dooku they could come from nowhere else. “What do you hope to achieve?”

“You won’t have Anakin,” Obi-wan said, the plot that had been in retrospect laid so horribly bare with just a few sentences from Maul, supported by a few more from some of their most trusted troopers, put together with a hundred hints and oddities and he should have guessed on his own.

Sidious grinned, the amiable wrinkles of his face lying deeper and more correct, somehow, in this attitude of wild, infinite gloating. “Possessiveness, Master Jedi?”

“No,” said Obi-wan, and it was true because he had given Anakin up, given everything up before he came here. He was holding onto nothing, he was an object in free-fall but not falling, because he was at exactly the right place and momentum at the outer edge of a gravity well that would let him remain at a constant height.

Orbits degraded, given time, if not carefully maintained. And if they were disrupted sharply enough it meant a violent, flaming spiral down into explosive doom, or sometimes out into the fathomless dark. This was not a true, secure serenity like a Jedi should strive for. But it would serve. For today, it would serve.

He fell on Sidious again in a flurry of blows, pushing his physical advantage, but although the Chancellor was clearly straining to keep up this defense, his stamina continued to fail to run out or even noticeably decline, as though he had learned to subsist on some constant well of the Force alone.

Probably he had, because it was welling up out of him, filling the room, an endless pit of the Dark that had lain concealed like a trap under pinned canvas and scattered leaves all this time. He was drawing heavily upon the Dark Side now and that wasn’t precisely goodbut it was promising.

He was beginning to develop something that was not quite optimism or confidence but approached both by the time the progress of the humming, crashing process of the duel took them past the far end of the desk, back into sight of what had been Mas Amedda. Palpatine angled his next fractional retreat toward the corps, away from the cracked and blackened windows, avoiding the treacherous footing of a shattered vase that had probably been a valuable antique.

Obi-wan tried to take advantage of the change in angle in the next rapid, whirring clash of lightsabers.

Unlike every other time they had crossed blades this duel, Sidious simply—shut his off in the moment before contact.

Obi-wan had committed a little too much of his weight to the blow to abort it entirely. Sidious ducked away from the remainder with a sinuous grace even as he activated his weapon again, now on the inside of Obi-wan’s guard—trakata, executed with terrible excellence.

The need for the dodge was the trakata maneuver’s great weakness, and gave Obi-wan time to avoid the worst of the stroke, but even still the red lightsaber clipped him across the wrist—not a clean sweep slicing off the hand entire, but a glancing blow, that seared through the skin and flesh and took a significant bite out of the ulna.

Obi-wan didn’t try to repress his strangled scream, and Sidious leaned into it in the Force, pressing at the pain, stoking it and encouraging it to drag him down into the Dark, where he would be the Sith Master’s plaything. He was smirking now, more deeply and honestly than ever, a laugh rising into his mouth, for if Master Kenobi had had a slight edge in their fight with two hands to one, with the Jedi’s primary weapon-hand incapacitated, the Sith would surely dominate.

In that moment, Obi-wan moved to rebalance the odds. His blue lightsaber chopped down—not onto Sidious’ flesh, which it was clear he guarded with the preternatural awareness of a being whose own self was as valuable as all the Galaxy else, but to sheer through the emitter end of the crimson lightsaber.

It spat and burst but, unfortunately, tragically failed to explode.

As Sidious raised his eyes from the ruined weapon looking like he might explode in its place out of pure outrage, Obi-wan brought his sword back up to go for the decapitating blow now that the Sith had no weapon to block with, but in that moment Sidious’ burnt and broken hand jabbed up, and shot a gout of lightning into his face.

His back arced so violently it threw him off his feet, and it was all Obi-wan could do to keep hold of his lightsaber in his good hand and deactivate it as he went down, to avoid doing himself a worse injury than Sidious had yet managed. The lightning followed him down, scouring its way from just beside his left eye down every nerve ending he had in a screaming, jerking chorus of pain.

The deep lightsaber burn on his right wrist somehow hurt more now than it had to receive, but the force of his constant convulsions kept him from screaming again.

Then it stopped. He had no idea how long it had been, and wondered if Palpatine had become too fatigued to keep up the electrocution. There had to be a limit to how long he could maintain that kind of power output. His chest was heaving, trying with animal need to make up for lost oxygen. Smoke and the scent of dead Chagrian weighed down his sensory world, since his eyes declined to open and most of his body would only say pain.

The whisper of expensive Senate slippers crunched toward him over the rubble of the ruined office with a surefootedness that no one would have expected of the elderly Chancellor. At least he was still here; Obi-wan had angered him enough to bother sticking around to kill him rather than running off to activate the troops.

Or maybe he was confident he could spin this whole event to his benefit—Obi-wan had destroyed the security cameras that would have recorded his Sith activities, after all. Maybe he would say Master Kenobi had been tragically killed defending him from the dreadful Sith Lord. Maybe he would ask Anakin to become his constant protector in Obi-wan’s memory. Anakin would do it.

He was struggling to turn his lightsaber back on and raise it, though getting it between him and the next round of lightning seemed unlikely when he was exposed in a supine position, when Palpatine kicked it. Kicked his hand, actually, so hard at least one bone cracked and the lightsaber went flying.

This weapon is your life.

“Should I summon it back and use it to kill you?” Palpatine murmured, with a deadly, vicious good humor that suggested he knew very well Obi-wan had no backup coming, that the only interruption they could expect would be Commander Fox and his men in red, here to protect the Chancellor. “Or should I step on your throat until you breathe your last? Or should I keep you alive and put you on trial, and drag the name of the Jedi in the mud through you, so that when your Order falls it will be your name that the Galaxy uses to call the killing just?”

Horror twisted in Obi-wan’s chest and Palpatine chuckled, a whispering foul sound that still resembled his polite politician’s laughter. “Yes, very good. I’ll make young Skywalker believe you tried to kill me out of pride and greed and because you despised him, until he curses your memory. Everything that happens now will be your doing.”

The rage and the fear that he had left behind when he entered were flaming up now in Obi-wan, the orbit deteriorating, the gravitational pull of abandoning them and letting the Order down and ruining everything and too little, too proud, the same hopeless arrogant padawan and of that terrible, world-tearing no dragging him down to shatter in fire against them, like he had on Naboo all those years ago but so much more utterly and irrevocably and--this wasn’t all him.

He sucked in his breath, shaking through teeth still clenched too convulsively tight to pull apart for a witty retort to all that poison, and melted away inside himself.

Over him, Sidious frowned, feeling the Jedi escape his grip in the Force. “Are you dying already, Master Kenobi?”

He thought Sidious had mentioned summoning his lightsaber through the Force to encourage him to try it. It wouldn’t be impossible. He knew the feel of it in the Force like he did few other things in the Galaxy; he didn’t need sight to reach for it.

But it was too small, and too far away, and his senses were too scorched and blasted by that awful lightning. Long before his weapon could make it to his hand, Sidious could kill him, even with no working lightsaber of his own. He couldn’t win that way, or even (that far lesser goal) live.

Instead, Obi-wan grabbed for the closest large object he knew to look for that wasn’t a corpse: the sliced-loose upper half of that baroque monstrosity of a desk-chair, conveniently bulky and only a few long steps away, just behind the desk he’d fallen from behind.

It came, and in coming swept Palpatine’s legs from under him, knocking him not quite sprawling, and then the curve of it had smacked into Obi-wan’s outstretched left palm, jolting the broken bone which did not matter in the slightest, and he rolled up onto his knees, graceless but fast, the slab of steel and leather still moving with the momentum that had dragged it to him, and clobbered the sitting-up Sith Lord across the face with it.

One of Obi-wan’s many faults was his tendency to take a vicious glee in striking low his enemies, but he did not think he had ever taken quite the joy from any beautifully executed maneuver that he did from watching Palpatine knocked to the floor by a slab of office chair. Obi-wan lunged after him, not bothering with niceties like getting to his feet, and brought the chair-slab down on his face again, this time with the strength of both arms—his right hand was mostly numb but for hurting, only the thumb and forefinger would move at all, and it was very weak, but none of that interfered with placing his whole forearm against the upholstery and slamming the searing-hot, bare metal inner side down.

There was a crunch, probably nose, and then instead of diminishing the awful seething presence of the Dark Side rose like a hurricane, and Obi-wan felt his throat close as from a powerful phantom hand, cutting off all breathing.

This caused him not an instant’s hesitation, because he had come here fully intending to die.

He raised the sheered-off slice of chair, adjusted the angle so the sharp edge where he’d cut the durasteel was pointing down, and aimed for the throat.

The ensuing explosion threw him after his lightsaber, and he knew nothing after hitting the wall.

#star wars #my writing #obi wan kenobi #fanfic #darth sidious #blows up on dying #it's canon #i feel like this wasn't #quite the intended timeline #but anyway here we are #chairdeath au #i gotta logic things #hoc est meum #i love a fight scene #i wanted to make this one more acrobatic than it is #but logistics intervened

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cripplemagics · 7 months

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@painmon gets a starter from a liked call!

Night walks come often since they killed Elias. During that wretched time where he terrorized them, Jay felt trapped. Now they're beyond free. No Elias, no lab, no kid standing dazed in the middle of the sidewalk --

Who the fuck is this?!

"Hey!" Jay starts jogging, mind racing faster. "Hey dude! You okay?" To them it looks like he's having an absent seizure. No convulsions, blank face with vacant eyes, might be passed off as daydreaming. "Hey! Lets sit down, okay? Can you do that?"

#*/ give us more detonation ; threads.#*/ painmon.#painmon

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crossdreamers · 3 years

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What the TV series “It’s a Sin” tells us about the tactics of anti-trans activists today

Over at Twitter Owen Jones reflects on the way the history of bigotry is repeating. The new British TV series It’s a Sin reminds him of how the tactics once used against gay and lesbian people is now used against trans and nonbinary folks.

Owen Peter Jones is a British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist and political activist.

It's a Sin is a British television drama serial written and created by Russell T Davies. It is about the queer community in the 1980′s London.

Owen writes:

One of the most important themes in 'It's A Sin' was about gay/bi people and shame - caused by growing up in a society that saw gay/bi people as would-be sexual predators, violators of biological reality, threats to children, immoral, deviants, and generally undesirable.

While HIV rates remain significantly higher among gay and bisexual men, treatments now allow those with HIV to live healthy lives. Alcohol and drug abuse as a response to shame and trauma caused by homophobia is today a bigger problem in Western nations.

It's important to make this point because the evidence suggests that mental distress is even more acute amongst trans people, who are today the most marginalised and oppressed part of the LGBTQ+ world.

Anti-trans activists use the same arguments as the homophobes

Today, anti-trans activists play the exact same songs about trans people: that they are would-be sexual predators, violators of biological reality, threats to children, immoral, deviants, and generally undesirable.

Some of those anti-trans activists responded viscerally to being called out for enjoying It's A Sin. They are furious at being compared to the monsters who victimised gay people, even as they obsessively target trans people in the same papers that obsessively targeted gay people.

Some of them point to their past association with pro-gay struggles, or in some cases simply that they have been to gay bars before, as though any of this gives them a lifetime freedom pass to say whatever they like about other minorities.

But as It's A Sin shows, a society which made gay people feel unwelcome - as burdens at best and as menaces at worst - inflicts terrible damage on gay people. The same is being done to trans people.

However those who, in some cases, spend a genuinely huge amount of their lives talking about trans people as would-be predators or threats to children justify it to themselves, they are inflicting the same injuries on trans people as It's A Sin underlined is done to gay people.

The quadrupling of transphobic hate crimes, the 48% of trans people who fear using public toilets, the trans people discriminated against at work, the quarter who've suffered homelessness, all of this is erased from the "conversation", such as it is.

Even the focus on contexts which don't affect 99.9% of trans people - but which are used to attack all of them - namely prisons and sports deliberately excludes questions like 'Why are there no trans Olympic medallists?' or 'How do we stop trans prisoners being assaulted?'

Inflicting the same damage

The hounders of trans people may hate It's A Sin being used to hand them a mirror. But the anti-trans faction, who operate strikingly like a cult, are not only singing the same tunes - they are inflicting the exact same damage on trans people as gay people have long suffered.

oh and I've set this so only people who follow me can reply because, although anti-trans activists have made a conscious decision to relentlessly and obsessively target me, and I can live with that, I don't want trans people to have to sift through their bile.

“Gender critical” parents who are harming their kids

Some other thoughts.

One of the most powerful themes towards the end of It's A Sin is Ritchie's mother being confronted by Jill for the damage she inflicted on her gay son, suggesting that the shame she instilled in him helped drive behaviour that led to his infection with HIV.

"Actually it is your fault, Mrs Tozer," says Jill. "All of this is your fault." Jill adds: "The wards are full of men who think they deserve it."

She was right. So many of the gay and bisexual men who died often lonely deaths in hospital wards were traumatised by their parents.

Today, most gay people have gay friends who have mental trauma which often leads to alcohol and drug abuse with absolutely catastrophic consequences. Many, all too many, have had friends who've died from suicide. The culprits? Society in general but often parents in particular.

It's A Sin showcased the LGBTQ family, of other LGBTQ friends filling a vacuum left by the absence of a loving family. A big role of that 'family' is to pick up the pieces because of the damage inflicted by parents on their children.

When parents refuse to properly accept their LGBTQ children for who they are, they insert ticking time bombs in many of them. That bomb may detonate in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, who knows, maybe in their 50s or 60s. But in many of them, it will detonate.

This is why there is a genuine horror watching self-described "gender critical" parents ranting about trans people on the internet. Because I can't help but think, oh god, what if they have trans children. What damage will be inflicted upon them.

In some cases, the bigotry of anti-trans activists - often radicalised by newspaper columnists, online rabbit holes, and somewhat perversely, Mumsnet - will collide with reality. Read this about an ex-'gender critical' activist and their trans nephew.

But in other cases, transphobic parents will stick determinedly to their guns and inflict the same damage on their trans children as homophobic parents have always inflicted on their gay children. We should be clear: homophobia and transphobia are forms of child abuse.

Hiding behind the argument of protecting their children

Both traditional homophobes and contemporary transphobes claimed they were protecting the welfare of children. As anti-gay campaigner Anita Bryant declared: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children".

Today's anti-trans activists use the language of 'safeguarding' and often suggest that parents know what's best for their children. This is clearly not always the case. Lots of children need to be protected from their parents. That includes many LGBTQ children.

So when this Times journalist attacked Mermaids, a charity supporting young trans people, for including an 'exit button', suggesting it was 'a major safeguarding breach'. Many LGBTQ children don't have supportive parents and need to hide their identity away from them.

Anti-trans rhetoric echoes anti-gay arguments

Anti-gay rights campaigners long focused on the danger posed by predatory gay men to vulnerable children, and pointed to scandals in, for example, the Scouts and the Catholic Church as evidence. Today, anti-trans activists similarly extrapolate extreme cases to make their case.

In the 1980s, it was claimed an all-powerful gay lobby was putting political correctness ahead of people's well-being. The same language is used about the objectively marginalised trans minority today. The second screenshot is from this weekend's Times newspaper.

That's why so many gay people stand up for trans people. Trans people, of course, are in our shared LGBTQ spaces, and their experiences do differ in important ways - but we see them going through the exact same things we've gone through.

It is, frankly, grotesque that gay people who for very obvious reasons stand with their trans siblings are then vilified as misogynists, or have obvious homophobic tropes about wanting to endanger children's safety thrown at them.

It's also perverse that many of the same people publicly cooing over It's A Sin are the same people trying to hound the LGBTQ allies of trans people out of the media (they can't really do this to trans people because there are very few trans people in the media).

LGB people attacking trans people

As for the LGB people who participate in the hounding of trans people. There have long been examples of oppressed groups who participate in oppression, often against themselves: women against the Equal Rights Amendment and feminism, right-wing black Republicans, and so on.

These anti-trans LGB activists are not only completely unrepresentative of LGBTQ people: many queer bars and spaces bar people who express their bigoted opinions for very obvious reasons: to ensure they're safe spaces for the whole LGBTQ rainbow.

Watching straight people try and foment a civil war within the LGBTQ world by platforming these completely marginal bigoted zealots is actually completely and utterly grotesque.

Finally (!) in the 1980s, almost the whole media was anti-gay, and public opinion was overwhelmingly anti-gay. Today, almost the whole media is anti-trans, but while transphobia is rampant, anti-trans sentiment is not as widespread as anti-gay sentiment back then. There's hope!

But it takes huge courage to speak out in support of trans people in Britain in 2021. One day, there will be TV programmes about the onslaught against trans people. Those who victimised trans people today will be portrayed in them. They'll go down in history as hate figures.

Sadly, it's too late to save all too many LGBTQ people who had ticking time bombs inserted into them both by society and by their homophobic and transphobic parents. They detonated. But we can save others from that fate. So speak up.

Read the whole thread with other comments here!

Read also Michael Cashman: Loss and anger raged in me after watching It’s a Sin – the stigma we faced in the 1980s is now being directed at trans people

Photo of Owen Jones: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

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#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtqa #transphobia #homophobia #terf #terfs #gender critical #lgb alliance

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notachicken68 · 2 years

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Character Sheet

Basics

FULL NAME: Martin Seamus McFly

NICKNAME: : Marty, Mar, Slacker, Chicken, Short-Son-of-a-Bitch

ALIAS(S): Cal, Calvin Klein, Clint Eastwood, Darth Vader (an extraterrestrial from the Planet Vulcan), Sonny Crockett, Harry Callahan, Michael Corleone

GENDER: Male

SIZE: 5’4”

AGE: 24

ZODIAC: June 12th, 1968 (Gemini)

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English

Physical Characteristics

HAIR COLOR: Cinnamon (Medium) Brown

EYE COLOR: Ocean Blue

SKIN TONE: Alabaster (White)

BODY TYPE: Lean / Skinny

VOICE: Tenor; bright, shiny; vocal range of B2-C#5

DOMINANT HAND: Right

POSTURE: Hunched (on most days), Straight (on good days)

SCARS: Calluses on fingertips (from guitar playing), brachial artery needle marks, healing laceration on right palm (from a broken whiskey bottle)

TATTOOS: None

BIRTHMARKS: None

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S): Short stature, ocean-blue eyes, smooth skin, unkempt hair

Childhood

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hill Valley, California

HOMETOWN: Hill Valley, California

SIBLINGS: David McFly (brother, 5 years older), Linda McFly (sister, 2 years older)

PARENTS: George McFly (father), Lorraine Baines McFly (mother)

Adult life

OCCUPATION: Unemployed; recently began picking up gigs at bars, clubs, and events around town

CURRENT RESIDENCE(S): (Depends on thread) No permanent home; a traveler; a wanderer

CLOSE FRIENDS: Doctor Emmett Brown, Einstein (the dog), Copernicus (the dog). . .

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

FINANCIAL STATUS: Previously homeless, occasionally able to rent a hotel room if he played enough gigs. Most of his income either goes to repairing the DeLorean or his vices.

DRIVER’S LICENSE: Hadn’t renewed it since his teens; expired

CRIMINAL RECORD: Public disorderly conduct, driving without a license, driving without insurance, criminal possession of illegal drugs and paraphernalia, larceny, terroristic threat (after drunkenly stating to a barkeep at a bar that he was in possession of plutonium and knew how to detonate it).

VICES: Lonely alcoholic, frequent user of marijuana and cocaine; rageful to his past but lazy to fix his future

Sex and Romance

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual - female lean

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE: Fiercely, fiercely protective

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE: Dominant - but accepts being submissive with right partners

LIBIDO: Shy but high; wants, but rarely the one to initiate

TURN ONS: Trustworthiness (for given his truth); acceptance (to hearing his truth and knowing who his is); being a shoulder for him to cry on, or arms to hold; any and all physical affection

TURN OFFS: Alcoholics (hypocritical, he’s aware); those that aren’t willing to give him an open mind; closed-minded people; those that don’t show their love physically; calling him any forms of “stupid”, “lazy”, “idiot”, “worthless”, “chicken”, “good-for-nothing.”

LOVE LANGUAGE: Very touched starved; will melt for even a single hug. Will never be the first to initiate contact - but accepting of any love anybody gives him. Also shows his love by writing and playing his partners original pieces of music.

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: There is nothing more important to Marty than making sure his partner feels like the best person to ever exist; will do anything to not to lose a partner.

Miscellaneous

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG: “Destitute And Losin’” or “Mr. Pretty Boy” (both by Grand Funk Railroad)

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME: Singing; playing his guitar; playing his piano; rebuilding the destroyed time machine using only a single half-faded blueprint. . . pretending he doesn’t exist.

MENTAL ILLNESSES: PTSD; Anxiety coupled with Depression and night terrors. Did not grow up in a loving home, and Doctor Brown was all he had for warmth, comfort, and a lifeline. Was a witness to Doc’s (apparent) demise over five times (last time seemed to be permanent). Hasn’t seen his parents or sister after learning of his brother’s suicide. Reminded of the presence of death literally everywhere he looks. Can and will spend hours sobbing before the corpse of the DeLorean. Sees only two ways out of his current life: fixing the time machine or. . . more drastic means.

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED: Right

PHOBIAS: Seeing anybody’s timers in the 3 / 2 / 1 digits (meaning the person is close to death); the sheer existence of death itself, craves social connections but also fears growing a relationship with somebody (in his mind it could end no way but in loss and tragedy); being forgotten by the man he saw like a father (Doc Brown). Dying alone, without even a footnote to his name in the history books.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL: (projected) 5 - 6/10 (internally) 1 - 2/10

Tagging: Whomever wants to do this!

#notachicken68 #character info #character sheet #marty #marty mcfly #bttf #bttf rp #back to the future

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hoodedguitarist · 3 years

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Think you can Hide from Me? Part 2

Gif is not mine!

Pairing: Boba Fett x Reader

Summary: You’ve infiltrated into Jabba’s palace with Lando in order to rescue Han. Even though you hated being here, you were safely undercover as just another random piece of scum and villainy in the underworld… Or so you thought.

Warnings: 18+, slight knife play, choking, dom/sub, teasing, all that good stuff, one slight smidge of fluff to pull at the heartstrings at the end there.

Author’s Notes: It’s weird when other ideas grow off of a main one. But yeah, I love Boba Fett. A distraction to keep the plan safe and undercover, of course.;)

Part 1: The Infiltrator

Part 3: The Regret

Part 4: The Reunion

PART 2: The Distraction

The room was small but you were both away from prying eyes and criminals. You suddenly found yourself hoping Lando wasn’t looking for you. This distraction may be hard to explain later…

You thought getting his armor off would be the hard part, but he took care of it, his deft hands quickly removing everything that needed to be removed until he was only left in the clothing. Your eyes climbed hungrily along him as he did so, heart racing and muscles lightly quivering in anticipation. You weren’t going to try and help because you didn’t want to get in the way. He obviously knew what he was doing, and it made you wonder how many times he’d had romps like this, or if you just happened to be a special case, but your thoughts were cut off when Boba had you against the wall again.

“Take it off,” he demanded. “I know you have weapons, I want them gone as well.”

“Scared of a little knife, Fett?” You taunted. Sure, you’d been taught not to play with fire, but when it looked as good as him you just couldn’t resist.

“Are you, (L/N)?” He growled, his knife right back at your throat. Your head leaned back against the wall and a smirk was on your lips. His knife trailed gently down the center of your chest and your breath hitched in your throat.

“Not with you using it like that,” you breathed shakily, “but I’ll do as you say. I’d rather you not ruin my clothes. I’ll need them after.”

“That’s a shame,” Boba tilted his head, his eyes dragging down your form. He sheathed his knife and both of his hands were suddenly on your hips, gripping you hard. “I may want to keep you around for a while yet. It gets lonely between jobs, and you seem so eager for me…” He gripped roughly at your chin and leaned in closer.

“I didn’t take you as the sentimental relationship type,” you sassed back.

“I’m not,” Boba’s voice darkened and his bare thumb brushed across your bottom lip. “I’m the type that fucks you until you can’t walk. You’ll be screaming my name and begging me to do it again. Now take it off, or I’ll cut it off and leave you with no option but to stay.”

You licked your lips and swallowed the smartassed remark on the tip of your tongue. As excited as his words were making you, you couldn’t afford to stay here for that long. Just one good romp, one good fuck just to say you did him, and then you could get back to the task.

Slowly, you reached up and pulled the long, black, nearly thread-bear hoodie off of yourself and dropped it to the side. Your weapons belt was revealed, complete with your blaster, a knife, and two thermal detonators. Boba watched you as you carefully unbuckled it and laid it down on the ground, on top of your hoodie.

“You’re moving rather slow… Having second thoughts?”

“No, I-” but you were cut off as you were pressed hard against the wall, your breath taken away by another demanding kiss from him. You instantly wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him back breathlessly.

“A ‘no’ was all I needed,” he breathed against your lips, and you could only nod, seeing as how you were a bit dazed by him. Your fingers were in his hair and you yanked him back into another hot kiss. Boba’s hands were all over you, pulling at your clothes and running roughly along your curves. His hands slid under your shirt and you could feel how rough they were, but it only turned you on more, made a fire break out across your skin.

In an instant, the shirt was off and tossed somewhere. His dark eyes were trailing over your exposed skin, your bare breasts.

“Oh, sweet girl, where have you been hiding, hm?” His voice was low, gravely, charged with arousal.

“Not from you, I promise,” you breathed. His hands slid up your ribs and kneaded at your breasts, and your back arched as you let out a soft moan. Boba’s hot mouth was on your neck, then, leaving bite laced kisses as his mouth went lower. Suddenly, he grabbed your ass and hoisted you up into his arms and shoved you against the wall again. You were effectively stuck there now, and he was at a better angle to get his mouth on your breasts.

Another needy moan slipped your lips as you clung to his shoulders. He sucked at the sensitive skin, his tongue sliding over a soft bud before giving a small bite. Your hands were in his hair and clinging to him was all you could really do at the moment while he paid attention to your breasts. Your legs were wrapped around him and pleasure twisted in your stomach and pooled between your legs.

“Boba,” his name came out of your mouth in a desperate whine. “Boba, please… Take everything off, please,” you begged him. You could practically feel his smirk against your sensitive skin. He flicked his tongue at you one more time before he let you back down gently.

“I didn’t expect you to beg for me. Especially from you, (Y/N). That’s what I like to hear,” he tilted your chin up and hovered his lips over yours. Your hands still gripped at the fabric of his clothing and you leaned up to meet his parted lips but he pulled back, a dark chuckle slipping his lips. It only made you ache for him more, but it surprised you when he stepped back. You could clearly see how tight his pants had gotten, so what was he doing? “Take the rest off, and sit on my lap.”

You didn’t respond immediately, because you watched him pull his shirt off over his head.

Fuck why did I not do this with him sooner, you thought. Getting an eyeful of his muscled back, those arms, scars, his tan skin, that ass. You found yourself regretting having waited so long.

“Well?” He looked back at you, but a wicked smirk spread across his lips. “See something you like, princess?”

“Everything,” you breathed, unable to catch yourself right away. You blinked and blushed a little, biting your lip. “Don’t call me princess.”

“Well, I think I’m more inclined to now,” he reached down and began to take off his pants. “You can keep watching, or you can come join me. Either way, I’m getting off. The question is, do you want to as well? I promise it will be much more fun if you come join me,” and just like that, he pushed everything off and he was standing bare before you now. You felt another ache of pleasure streak through you and damn that ass…

“I’ll join you,” you answered. “It’s the whole reason I’m here isn’t it?” You watched him walk over and sit down at the edge of the small bed and when you got a glimpse, you suddenly found yourself hoping you could take it.

You regained yourself and began to take your pants and boots off. It didn’t take long until you were completely bare as well, and he’d been watching you the whole time. Maybe you could play this to your advantage, play with fire again. The burn always felt so good.

You licked your lips and walked over to him, curling a strand of your (h/c) hair behind your ear. You intentionally swayed your hips as you sauntered up to him and you noticed that predatory look about him, every muscle in his body tense as if he were ready to pounce. You stood before him, running a hand through your hair and down along your breasts, groping yourself lightly and trying to entice him, and it seemed to be working. You took it a step further and placed your hands on his knees, letting them slide up along his thighs as you leaned in to him. You parted your lips for a kiss, and just as his were about to meet yours, you smirked and pulled back and let your hands slide back along his knees.

“Oh no you don’t, sweetheart,” his hand shot forward and grabbed your wrist, then yanked you forwards. His hands slid around and grabbed your ass and pulled you down into his lap. His skin was hot against yours and chills broke out along your body. “You like to be a tease, huh?” He never broke his gaze from yours. “I think I may need to fuck that out of you.”

“You can try,” you grinned, sliding your hands down his chest and stomach, groping at his muscles as you went along until you found your prize. You leaned down and bit at his neck as you began pumping his length, stroking slow and hard. Boba moaned, which made you eager for more, but that moan soon turned into a growl and your wrists were back in his tight grip. You pouted. “What?”

He leaned forward and took your bottom lip between his teeth, gently at first, but then his tongue flicked out and he kissed you deeply, distracting you from any and all teasing. A weak, long moan rumbled from you and your hands were at his back, dragging your nails down.

One rough hand grabbed at your thigh, hard enough to leave marks, while his other hand palmed right between your legs. You couldn’t stop yourself from rutting against him, and he smirked and began to rub his fingers against that sensitive bundle of nerves. You broke the kiss and your grip on him tightened, a weak moan leaving you.

“You’re so wet for me (Y/N). How long have you wanted me to fuck you,” his question came as more of a command.

“Since I-I… Since I first saw you,” you barely managed to speak. “I wanted you when I saw you,” a desperation was in your voice like never before, and Boba was pleased. He slid two fingers into you easily, and you bucked against them a little harder. “Boba…” You whined for him and his lips began to trail up your neck.

“If you want my cock you’ll have to beg for it, sweet girl,” he bit your ear gently before surprising you with another finger. It made you gasp and moan loudly, your body tensing and your thighs quivering.

“Fuck, Boba, please,” your voice was shaky. “Fuck me, I want you to fuck me. I need to feel you inside me.” You leaned back and rested your forehead against his. “Please…” you brushed your lips against his as you begged for him shamelessly.

“You’re such a good girl, (Y/N). You’ve only begged like this for me, haven’t you?”

“Yes, yes only you. I swear it,” you promised. It was true. No one else had ever made you feel like this, or ever made you want to be so submissive.

You gasped in surprise when he wrapped his arms around you and laid you back against the bed. When the surprise wore off, you ran your hands along his muscled arms and down his chest, spreading your legs for him.

“That’s right, spread those legs for me sweetheart.”

He adjusted himself and your muscles tensed when his tip was at your entrance. He slid his hands along your body, kneading your breasts again before sliding up your arms. He pinned your wrists above your head.

“Take me, Boba… Fuck me, hard. Don’t hold back.”

“As you wish, (Y/N),” and with that, he pushed himself in. A loud moan was forced past your lips and your back arched slowly. He took it surprisingly easy on you, going a bit more careful to make sure you could take it all. You were stretched, that much was certain, but you were loving how he filled you up. “Damn, (Y/N), should have come to me sooner…”

“I know,” your voice was breathless. “Please, Boba,” you didn’t mind being such a slut for him. He leaned down, his body heavy on top of yours, his mouth wet and smooth on your neck, and he bucked into you and started at a rough pace already. His hands still held your wrists tightly as he picked up his pace, moving into you hard and rough and doing everything right.

“Say my name. Scream for me, princess,” he commanded.

“Yes!” Your fists were balled up, knuckles white. Your eyes fluttered shut and you just laid back and let him take you like that. It was exactly what you wanted. He felt so damn good, his bites and kisses, the way his hips rocked into yours. The only sounds in the room were your combined breaths and moans, and the sound of skin against skin. “Boba… Damn, Boba I’m close!” You tried to warn him.

“Come on,” he growled in your ear. “That’s it, (Y/N), cum for me.”

“Boba… Boba!” Your orgasm had you in a vice grip, your muscles tense and you screamed his name. Your head tossed back, eyes shut tight, body arched perfectly and pressed flush against his.

Boba let your wrists go in favor of gripping your hips and he growled as he continuously pounded into you, loving that tight feeling. It didn’t take long for his orgasm to follow and the both of you were covered in sweat, breathing hard and completely satisfied.

He laid on top of you for a moment, and you slid your arms around him and rubbed your hands softly against his back where you’d scratched him earlier. Slowly, he pushed himself up to look down at you.

“So? Was that everything you wanted?”

“And much more. Fuck, you have no idea. Damn…”

It made his pride swell, you could practically see it.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime,” Boba said as he carefully pulled out of you. You both groaned faintly and you laid there for a second before shakily pushing yourself up to a sitting position.

“You don’t have to hold me here. Just say my name, trust me I’ll come running,” you smirked and winked at him. He smirked at you.

“I’ll remember that,” he moved over to get himself dressed again. “And…” he paused a moment and looked at you. “I’ll try to get you some work.”

You blinked and drew back a bit, mildly surprised. Damn, he’d fallen for that trick and he was willing to help?

“Wow… I, um… Thank you, Boba, really. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it. So long as you pay me back,” he let his eyes climb down you again as he said that, and you smirked.

“Always.”

Well, hopefully this distraction had paid off in more ways than one. Part of you felt kind of bad for lying to him, but touched that he was willing to help. You probably needed to get back to the main room… But this was going to be a hell of a story, and you were going to do your best to make sure none of your friends shot him.

Hopefully hate sex would be somewhere in the future once he figured out you were only there to rescue Han. All you could do was hope for the best.

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psalloacappella · 3 years

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SSM21 Day 2. Festival

Pairing: SasuSaku Prompt: Festival Title: sparks will fly, they ignite our bones Tags: AU - Modern Setting; First Dates; Wooing Lips burning against his, mouthing soft words in the detonation din.

(In which Sakura has the better aim.)

Ao3 | twt | full series link | @ssskmonth

“It’sa real date this time.” Each word’s punctuated by Naruto’s fist punching his opposite palm, driving home the importance of this. This being: Street stall smells rich and piquant, a smoky-savory blend; lights flickering in kaleidoscopic, neurotic brilliance; children wild as free foals escaping their parents, weaving in and out of adults’ legs clutching cheap prizes and sparklers —

and him, Sasuke, on an actual fucking date with a woman with cotton-candy-colored locks who has been besting him every game and measure of skill imaginable, and his dumb plus-one buffer, the best friend, now droning on about how he needs to win her something.

“Anything!” Naruto throws his arms up, dramatic and exasperated, the only gearsetting he seems to have. “Teddy bear, ugly fish, keychain — literally any shitty prize to show her yer not a complete waste of time.”

“Sasuke!” Both men snap to, pretending to have been watching the whole time as Sakura jumps up and down, pumping a fist in the air. “I won again!”

With shiny, wide eyes, she places both her palms out in giddy anticipation to receive a stuffed bear donning a baseball cap of the local (terrible) team from a surly booth operator with a permanent frown.

“She’s comin’ this way!”

“I can see that,” Sasuke hisses. “You useless idiot.”

“Did I hear ‘charming wingman?’ ‘Kay, I’m gonna find some food. Give you two some time—”

“Don’t say it—”

“Alone.” Some strange tone aiming for sensual manifests as choking pigeon, and Naruto skips away as Sakura bounds up to Sasuke, smiling so wide he can see every perfect tooth.

“Did you see?” So proud of herself, arms laden with prizes. Some she’s already given away to cute children passing by, perhaps the sole supplier of noisemakers and soft bears. For a doctor in pediatrics, the urge to make smiles comes second nature. “Where’s he going?”

“Food, or something,” Sasuke murmurs, trying not to look as constipated and irritated as he had ten minutes prior — another gem from Naruto’s unasked-for criticism. “He’s left us alone.”

“Finally.” Definitely slipped out by accident, and Sakura grumbles over her mistake, red prickling her cheeks and chest. “Not that I dislike him, of course—”

“I do,” Sasuke says, absolutely deadpan. It takes her a moment.

“Uchiha Sasuke, did you just make your first joke?”

Ears burning in the cool night air, it’s his turn to smother his embarrassment. In lieu of further slip ups, he awkwardly gathers the items in her arms, a mishmash of unidentified thingamajigs and whatnots that you only find in curio shops or carnivals, and gallantly takes on their burden.

“Walk with me?”

So sure his voicebox just sustained a hairline crack; he hates himself for being nervous.

Eyes, hers, brighter than all the psychedelic frenzy swirling around them both, caught up in the haze; she has the uncanny ability to fade the rest to black, toss the entirety of the world’s existence aside.

Seeking to link her arm with his amid the mess of wares won, she succeeds and presses closer.

“I thought I’d die waiting,” she whispers into his sleeve. “I’ve been wanting you to notice me properly all night.”

Meandering, conjoined, down the main road; carved out for the celebration, buffeted by snack scents and other couples, groups of friends, and plenty of pairs pretending they’re still just and only that. Along the way she unloads her many winnings, surreptitious, in part kindly trying to relieve his burden but also calculating the space in her single occupancy apartment.

She watches people and lights, and he watches her.

Sakura’s gaze snags on a particular booth, more specifically a particular prize. Of the stuffed variety.

“Did . . . something catch your eye?” he asks. Immediately thinks he sounds like an idiot. You know how to woo ‘em, and why does his inner voice sound like Naruto’s on this date, goddamn it —

Burying her cheek into his shoulder, she giggles and it threads beautiful, stringed tension in his throat and spine, symphonic, testing its own flex to see if she can orchestrate the rest of him. He wishes he could spin her around, lift her high in some filmesque climax, kiss her in the closing credits.

“Don’t laugh,” she says, “but I love slugs. Adore them, really. Gross, I know!” She raises her free hand and points directly at a giant stuffed slug on a high shelf behind the booth’s counter. “And honestly, I’d likely keep it in my office; the kids would love it.”

Sasuke knows, from what she’s disclosed, that these are sick kids, too. This ancient, gendered mating ritual is unavoidable and he’ll have to rise to the challenge. He must provide. Stupid, because she outstrips his earnings and likely will the rest of their life.

Says it like a throwaway, like no big deal: “I’ll have to win it for you, then.”

The game? Aim. Darts. Doable if he’s sober and with equally (un)talented friends; ranging from Shino the sharpshooter to drunk and stumbling Suigetsu, he’s decidedly somewhere in the middle, but it should be enough raw talent to beat a festival game.

Sakura’s eyes are on him, excited. She dances a little from foot to foot, ready to cheer him on.

Dropping the rest of the prizes on the ground and shoving a fistful of coins at the booth operator, he smirks. Born ready, all those forced childhood sports camps and instrument lessons finessing his hand-eye coordination finally stepping up to the plate.

Imagine failing miserably three rounds in a row, the last one bouncing off the dartboard so violently it narrowly misses the sleepy booth operator. Sasuke grinds his teeth, jaw tight, wishing it’d met its mark.

To Sakura’s credit, she’s completely unperturbed. Almost makes it worse.

She pecks him on the cheek, scoring him through hot and fevered where her lips touch.

“Performance anxiety,” she quips, but her smile isn’t unkind. “Let me give it a try.”

Each dart that lands in the board does so with gusto, embeds itself deep into the sisal cork. As each one hits, Sasuke reflects they might as well be piercing him. The most painful blow is watching her indicate the bluebacked slug, winning it outright without his help, and squeezing it half to death in her arms.

They’re walking again, sans the rest of her prizes — left them for the booth operator, and whatever kids wander his way wanting toys with which to annoy their parents.

“You’ve been so quiet,” she says, shifting her slug under one arm and linking up with him again. Sasuke shrugs against her. “I’m not sure what’s next with us.”

He stops, figures it’s better to rip that bandaid off now, give her an out so he can save some face. Of course they’ve stopped on some coquettishly romantic bridge, arched over the still summer pond, a popular viewing spot for the night’s end fireworks.

She watches him expectantly, searching him with her sharp green eyes.

“What do you mean?” Her question is slow, puzzled.

What he means to say is something gentile. Instead he says, “You’re great at darts.”

She seems to sway, a physical manifestation of being caught off guard. Laughs. “Surprised me too! But you gave my arms a rest, so they were ready to win.” Curls her arm to indicate muscle, grinning.

Steps closer, melting through an unseen veil of personal space. Cherry scent; smoke.

“Could be all the shots you administer.”

“I guess we can call jabbing kids with needles a calling.” Mirroring him, she steps in too, and there’s not so much space between them anymore. “Good practice. You could come around sometime, see my work.”

Another tiny shuffle.

It’s time to break this. Sasuke inhales deeply, letting it out in measured beats. “Sakura—”

“If you’re mad you couldn’t win this for me,” she interrupts, “you’re being silly. I don’t care about that, you know.”

He tilts his head, and in spite of himself his hand wanders, brushing a stray strand of pink out of her face. “Hm?”

“I don’t,” she repeats, and sets her slug down on the wooden bridge. Breathes deeply before saying in a low, threaded voice, “What I care about is all the waiting.”

Sasuke feels it all fall into place. Oh. Oh.

“So come on, Sasuke.”

And before she’s even finished saying his name he’s kissing her, the last vibrations of his name caught on their lips, locked, and though the timing is perfect and picturesque, film archetype material as the fireworks charge the air around them, each one set off drawing ripple designs in the water beneath them, this thrill is unmatched, the way she wraps her arm around his neck to taste him deeper, the way he lifts her up to rest him on his hips and there’s nothing, has never been anything, quite like this.

Real fireworks pale in comparison.

Lips burning against his, mouthing soft words in the detonation din.

“The perfect end,” she whispers, “to a festival.”

#SSM21 #sasusaku #psalloacappella:SSM21

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