#BECAUSE THIS MATCH GAVE ME LEVEL 5 BRAIN DAMAGE

[samijey]

Let me act unwise for a little bit about the tragedy of Jey Uso at this point in the storyline:

This is not a “I will beat you up to the point of ending you” even though I promised Roman I would finish the Sami Zayn problem for good so he would expect us to beat you up so badly you’d never come close to the Bloodline ever again;

This is a “why won’t you quit” because I want this match to be over so I don’t have to feel torn anymore;

This isn’t a "you should have never joined the Bloodline" even though I didn’t trust you for months and kept twisting myself into knots to interpret everything you did as betrayal or weakness;

It's a "you should never have left the Bloodline" because you saw the good in me the whole time and never gave up on me even while I saw enemies around every corner after being beaten and manipulated into valuing power and status above friendship and respect yet your decision to leave is forcing me to hurt you to protect my family, even though I grew to love you as if you were part of it too and having us end up here is better than for it to have never happened at all; The more Sami refuses to stand down, the more Jey feels obligated to hurt him and the more he hurts the person who in Jey’s own words “saw the good in him” at a time where Jey likely didn’t see it himself as he’d been playing the role of Roman’s henchman for so long - a role he fought against until he literally couldn’t anymore.

Jey is still not ready to face the fact that Roman is the real enemy in this situation (although his reactions to Sami’s recent accusations make it abundantly clear that he knows) and the one who has put Jey in the position that he's in - he's protecting his family FROM his family and the day he finally comes to terms with how wrong that situation is and decides to act on it... it’s over for Roman and the tale of main event Jey Uso will hopefully come full circle. Roman vs Jey 3 has to happen and when it does Jey should have his family backing him up... Jimmy, Solo AND Sami.

[nevertheless-moving]

Star Wars AU #20: MacenJar AU

Inspired by this meme and with permission from @simpskywalker

This au is dedicated to everyone who told me that this concept ‘gave them a headache’ or ‘psychic damage’. Especially that special someone who begged me to ‘please stop’ because ‘i hate this, i hate this so much’ and told me ‘please don’t say more words about this.’

Crack Lies Ahead, enough to consume a man. I have spoken.

“Ani. Ani. Anakin Skywalker.”

“Hmm?” The dulcet sounds of Padme calling his name dragged Anakin from sleep against his will. 

“Anakin, you have to get up.”

He groaned, rolling over. “...here’s my face...I’ll...be awake in a second...just sit down...I’m awake...”

“No, Anakin you have to leave, remember. You have a 5 AM take-off scheduled, and you made me promise I would get you up early this time, come on.”

She cruelly yanked the covers away. He gasped in betrayal. 

“My own wife...how could you.”

“Anakin if you’re not out of bed in the next 30 seconds the next time you beg to stay the night because ‘you can get up early, you swear’ I am kicking you out before anyone sits anywhere near anyone’s face, do you understand.”

He sat bolt upright and stumbled out of bed. “Ok, Ok, I’m up I- Padme!”

“Yes?” She asked sweetly, brushing her hair at the vanity. 

“It’s 3 AM!”

“Yes I know, you were going to stop at that bakery I recommended, remember?”

“You woke me up an hour and half early so I could stop at a bakery,” he asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, Anakin, it was your idea. It was going to be your cover, in case anyone wondered what you were doing in the building.”

“That is-” before he could call it the stupidest idea he had ever heard, the memory of promising Padme that staying the night was a good idea because it would facilitate his cunning ruse (he was distracted, ok? Padme was wearing a lot of layers) came rushing back.

“-right,” he finished lamely.

Padme just hummed and began braiding in her cosmetic forcefields. 

Anakin managed to stretch, complete his morning refresher run, and arrange his robes in a suitably decorous fashion by the time Padme had established the base layer of her hairstyle for the day.

A quick kiss- no goodbye, it hurt too much to say goodbyes in war - and Anakin was out the door. 

He idly scratched his chin, vacantly looking out the lift and vaguely considering growing a beard. The pre-dawn view was quickly replaced by metal walls as the ride dropped below the skyline.

The transparisteel pod began to slow scarcely one third of the way down. Anakin suppressed a groan and tried to arrange his expression in Jedi-stoic manner, hoping that whoever got in the lift with him would be too intimidated by seeing a Jedi close-up to think about what they were doing in a Senatorial Apartment building at 3:15 in the morning. If they ask, I’m visiting the famous Bebbisun Bakery. Bennison? BELLASAN. I’m visiting the Bellasan Bakery.

Actually, anyone getting into the elevator this early was probably also doing the walk of shame so it’s probably fi-KRIFFING SITH SPIT THAT’S

“Master Windu!” Anakin cleared his throat, trying to lower his voice an octave. “Good- Good Morning!”

Windu’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Ah. Knight Skywalker. Good morning to you as well,” he replied, stepping in the elevator, doors closing behind.

The lift descended as Anakin’s heart rate skyrocketed. This was it. Windu had to be here for Anakin. What other possible explanation could there be? WHY WASN’T HE SAYING ANYTHING?

Wait.

What other possible explanation...could...why wasn’t he saying ANYTHING?

Anakin scrutinized Master Windu out of the corner of his eye. Were those...the same robes he was wearing yesterday? They looked like the same robes but then again...pretty much all robes looked the same so this was probably a stupid way to figure things out. Fuck, it was too early for this.

Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t get a sense of the Master’s surface emotions. But his underlying aura seemed...happy? Typically Windu's serene presence had a tinge of righteous fury (something that had frightened him back when he was a child). But now that ever present vaapad edge was... softened? Anakin wracked his tired brain for a more reasonable explanation than- than the obvious but obviously impossible. He had to projecting. Right? Then again...couplings weren’t forbidden (even if Anakin couldn’t quite understand how people enjoyed just- having sex without any attachment).

The corners of Anakin’s lips twitched. The Master of the Order. Getting laid. Master Windu. In the Senatorial apartments. Mace Windu. What level had he gotten on? Above aides...diplomats probably. Should he ask? Force, this was too good- he couldn’t not ask.

Windu stared at him cooly and the knight instantly sobered. What was he thinking? Windu was obviously trying to trick him! If he said anything, Windu would turn it against him! Well, he wouldn’t be fooled so easily. Anakin spent the next several levels of descent staring forward, determined not to be the one to break the silence. 

He was so focused that he didn’t notice the lift slowing prematurely again until the doors opened; an elderly Rodian hobbled in. The two Jedi moved even further apart to allow the man some space.  The lift closed and newcomer glanced at the humans curiously. 

“Aren’t you Jedi? What are two Jedi doing here so early?”

“Bakery,” Mace and Anakin responded in unison, heads snapping to stare at the other in surprise.

The Rodian chuckled. “Oh, that Bellasan place, right?”

“Yes,” Windu replied smoothly. “They have a famously unique caf blend.”

“And you can’t get Sweesonberry rolls anywhere else,” Anakin added quickly, not letting the opportunity to firm up his cover go to waste.

“You mammals and your carbohydrates,” The elderly reptilian clucked, bemused.

Knight Skywalker and Master Windu exchanged wary looks. The door pinged open on level 4848. 

“Enjoy!” the overly entertained Rodian called out as they stepped out from the closing doors.

Anakin cleared his throat. “After you, Master Windu,” he said politely. CHECKMATE FUCKER.

But Windu just nodded serenely, striding confidently ahead, past the checkpoints and into the attached upper-crust market. After a very short walk, Anakin found himself in line behind Mace Windu at a pastry shop in the basement of his wife’s apartment building.

Anakin blearily thought that sentence through again, then subtly pinched the inside of his arm.

Nope, he was awake.

Every second that passed Anakin had to fight the steadily increasing urge to blurt out something stupid, and possibly incriminating, if not both. Just say something bland! Nothing about why they’re both here so early. Nothing about coming here before. Something casual.

“Smells good,” Anakin said.

Nailed it!

“Indeed,” Mace replied.

I’m a genius! He actually thinks I’m here for the bakery! He’s never going to suspect a thing! He was probably here for some boring pre-dawn meeting, and now I’ve got the perfect excuse to come visit Padme whenever! I can probably start sneaking off more often, I’ve just got to remember to bring back a pasty or something. And he can’t even say shit about un-Jedi like consumption!

“Skywalker-”

Oh no. Please be about the bakery. Pleasebeaboutthe

“Believe me when I tell you that I’d rather not ask-”

Oh NO. THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE ABOUT THE BAKERY. I’M AN IDIOT.

“-But did you fly here in a temple speeder?”

Cold sweat started to trickle down Anakin’s back as they shuffled forward automatically in the surprisingly long queue. Guess that’s why Padme woke me up so early.

“Knight Skywalker? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, Master Windu, sorry- I was, uh, distracted by the specials board. I, um, have my own hoverbike. Built it myself. No temple resources involved.”

“Sounds...distinctive.” Windu’s tone seemed neutral, but the way he pinched the bridge of his nose was obviously irritated. They stepped forward again. Why are so many people at this bakery so early? Guess we’re far enough down that day/night cycles don’t matter so much. Oh kriff, he’s massaging his temples now. Why is he mad about the bike? Is he going to ask where I landed it? Fuck.

Anakin swallowed the lump in his throat. “I- I thought it would be better to take personal property. Since this isn’t exactly order business.”

“That’s very responsible of you. Such...separation of personal from professional is an important skill for a Jedi.” 

The trickle of sweat down his spine increased. The Chosen One discretely wiped his sweaty palms on the inside of his sleeves and prayed that his outer robe was hiding any growing pit stains. 

Are we...actually talking about this? Is he going to admit to having an affair? Is he going to tell me to keep this quiet? I CAN BARELY KEEP MY OWN RELATIONSHIP SECRET! Does he know about Padme? Does he know we’re married? Is this conversation still about the bakery visit? Is HE married?

“However...such a vehicle might not be the most discrete. And discretion is also an important skill.”

Is he giving me permission to use the temple landspeeders to visit padme? Is he telling me to take the bus? WAIT! IS THIS A METAPHOR? Is he telling me to come here less? Is this still about the bakery? Did I actually check that I wasn’t still asleep or did I just dream that I checked?

“Do you understand, Knight Skywalker”

“I- uhh. I mean- well, ummm- OH look, it’s your turn to order!”

Master Windu stepped up to the counter. 

“Hello, again! Same as last time?”

OH FORCE GODS HE’S A REGULAR. THIS IS IT. I’M NEVER GOING TO GET TO SEE OBI-WAN OR ASHOKA AGAIN AND PADME’S CAREER IS GOING TO BE RUINED AND

“The same blend please, but please add on one of your Sweesonberry rolls- a friend recommended them.”

...Did Mace Windu just call me his friend?

“Excellent choice! Your friend has good taste!”

Mace Windu stepped to the side and Anakin Skywalker stepped up. “...I’ll have what he had.” 

A minute or two later, they were walking back to the lift, matching disposamugs and flimsibags in hand. 

To try and delay the inevitable, the pale and now very sweaty young Jedi took a sip of caf. He raised both brows involuntary. “This is...really good. Holy kriff. I don’t usually drink caf for the flavor but...wow.”

“Worth the trip?” Windu asked. Anakin choked a little but successfully managed to swallow. He took another sip to avoid answering. 

Windu took a bite of his roll, making a small noise of appreciation, “The pastry is also excellent. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but this is remarkably smooth...I can’t say I’ve ever had anything quite like it.”

“Floral, right?” Anakin said, grinning into his cup. 

“Yes, that’s a good description.” Ha! I told Padme I was paying attention.

They drank companionably as the lift indicator dinged closer. 

“Skywalker...you’re parked on 4970, right?”

The knight nodded, too afraid to speak. The force seemed to swirl at the precipice of something. 

The Master sighed. “Look- I’ve got an unregistered van- this one time only, stow the speeder, and I’ll give you a ride back. If you’re visiting the bakery in the future- please take something with a closed cab. Last thing we need is the tabloids wondering where you’re going...”

Anakin nodded again, more eagerly again. He was practically being given permission to visit Padme! That was totally worth an excruciatingly awkward flight back to the temple! He just had to chew slowly so he couldn’t blurt out anything marriage related! He was a genius!

The lift opened.

“Jar-Jar!” Anakin said, surprised and pleased. “Wow, are you also here for the bakery? This place really is popular!”

“Ani! Little Ani! Wassa you doin here?” Jar-Jar looked around wildly, then stumbled out, foot catching at the gap. Windu darted forward and effortlessly saved the Gungan before he hit the floor, while Anakin stuck his arm forward to catch the closing door.

“Bakery, Jar Jar!” he said as he stepped inside. “I’d love to talk, but we’ve actually got to get back to the temple!”

Windu struggled to untangle himself from Jar-Jar, who was being particularly unhelpful about it, even for him. Wow he’s even clingier than usual this early in the morning. It’s nice how patient Master Windu is being; I feel like even Obi-Wan can be too hard on Jar-Jar sometimes.

“Actually Skywalker, why don’t you go on ahead and stow the bike- I just remembered I meant to pick something up for Council; I won’t take long.”

“Uh. Alright,” Anakin said, catching the keys. I guess I can’t really be late if I arrive with Master Windu.

“Ossa no!” Jar-Jar exclaimed sadly. “I was justa saying to Macey lassa night thatsa I missed talkin wit little Ani!”

Anakin smiled reassuringly as the lift began to close. “Don’t worry Jar-Jar! We’ll- catch uh-HOLD ON did you say LAST NIGHT?!”

Mace’s eyes closed in resignation as the door shut on the pair, Jar-Jar still tangled around the Jedi.

AND MACE WASN’T EVEN TRYING TO PUT HIM BACK UPRIGHT ANYMORE HOLY KRIFF JUST PUT THAT TOGETHER.

Anakin stared blankly at the metal walls as they rushed past. The lone Jedi Knight took a long sip of caff, then carefully placed the pastry bag and drink on the floor. He systematically wadded up the sleeve of his robe and shoved in his mouth. He then spent the next few minutes squealing with unholy glee while literally bouncing off the walls in a manner only accessible to a force sensitive in an elevator. He was still panting slightly when the lift opened on the primary parking level.

We can double date! Padme and I can host! I can help Mace and Jar-Jar plan their wedding! We can reform the order to allow for romantic love! I can be Jar-Jar’s best man! Padme and I can have another ceremony and Obi-Wan can give me away while Mace officiates and  and then we’ll all have sweesonbury cake and Jar-Jar can help teach our kids how to swim! 

With those dreamy thoughts running through his mind, it was child’s work to follow the the force to the unremarkable hovervan. He was humming to himself when Master Windu opened the door. 

He beamed at the older Jedi. Windu scowled in reply. Anakin smiled wider, unintimidated. He genuinely liked the Gungan, but anyone who could spend hours with Jar-Jar had to have a soft side.

“You know, Jar-Jar is a long time friend of Senator-”

“No.” Windu cut the eager words brusquely. 

Anakin shrank back, a little hurt.

(Maybe a lot hurt.)

Mace glanced over at the obviously crestfallen young General and sighed before amending his words.

“Not- Not right now, alright? Maybe if you’re miraculously more discrete about this than you are about your affection for Senator Amidala, then we can talk, understood?”

Anakin nodded with absolute determination, glimmering images of fairytale weddings visible once more. Distant, perhaps- but the chance was worth any amount of tongue biting. Now that there was a real, possible future where he could have it all, now that he knew Windu had a heart somewhere under his robes- he could be patient. 

He could be very patient.

Anakin calmed his grin down to a smaller, more Jedi-like smile, taking a sip of the cool but still really good caf. He channeled Obi-Wan’s most neutral diplomatic grace.

“Thank you for the ride, Master Windu. I appreciate it.”

Windu gave him an approving glance. “You’re more than welcome, Knight Skywalker.”

Feeling bold, he continued on with his best non-mocking impression of Obi-Wan.

"Have you had a chance to read the latest report on helmet redesigns? I think they might really improve peripheral vision without compromising concussive resistance.”

Mace hummed thoughtfully. “I have. I’m somewhat concerned about deploying such a radical change mid-campaign. Even better gear requires an adjustment period, and I’d rather minimize needless deaths while the troops readjust to hud flow.”

“Yes, that’s a reasonable concern, I was talking to Captain Rex-”

They spent the remainder of the flight chatting comfortably about troop safety and absentmindedly eating (or possibly stress eating in response to the prolonged absence of interpersonal conflict) the box of pastries Mace had picked up. When they arrived at the temple, they divvied up the remainder between them, quietly agreeing that there weren’t enough to share anyway. 

They continued their conversation, Master Windu accompanying him to the orbital loading bay. 

Obi-Wan rushed over in alarm at the sight of them approaching. “Anakin, there you are- I was starting to wonder if you’d make it. Terribly sorry Master Windu- I hope he wasn’t too much of a bother-”

“He’s not your padawan anymore, you don’t have to apologize for him. Though I do appreciate the reflex.”

“I suppose the concern isn’t completely baseless.” Anakin said, tone deliberately mildly. Mace chuckled slightly and Obi-Wan took a step back, slightly frightened by the sudden camaraderie. Anakin pretended to take a sip from his now empty disposamug to avoid fist pumping the air or cheering.

“I- Yes well- the important thing is you’re here in time for departure. What- what is that in the bag.”

Moment of Truth. Don’t freak out. Focus. Prove you can be discrete, THEN double dates, THEN Jedi Wedding Ceremony.

“Sweesonbury Roll,” Anakin answered placidly. He pretended to take another sip of caf. “Master Windu was kind enough to give me a ride from the bakery.”

“That’s- I’m sorry, what?” Anakin bit the inside of cheek to keep himself from reacting to Obi-Wan’s palpable bewilderment.

“I had to double back and get more, but we came straight here after,” Mace added helpfully, with zero hint of intentional mischief. “Oh and Skywalker- you can call me Mace if we’re not discussing temple business.”

Anakin SCREAMED (internally, of course). Outwardly, he simply bowed politely. “And you’re welcome to call me Anakin, of course.”

He deliberately avoided looking directly at Obi-Wan, his former Master’s bug-eyed reaction already pushing him to the edge, even just visible as it was out of the corner of his eye.

Windu nodded in return. “Safe travels you two. May the force with you.”

“And with you.” Anakin replied.

“May the force be with you,” Obi-Wan rushed to say, after a short delay.

Master Windu turned and exited the cargo bay doors. Anakin threw out the mug in a nearby bin, pulling out a roll and biting into it before turning to face Obi-Wan. They made eye-contact, each waiting for the other to break first. Usually that would be Anakin, but he had goals now. The Knight chewed. His Master’s eyes narrowed. The older man (who may have aged significantly in the last 5 minutes) finally broke.

“Who are you?”

Anakin just sighed, maintaining the Kenobi impression. “Come on Master, we don’t want to keep the troops waiting.” With that, he walked forward, hiding his smile as Obi-Wan followed closely at his heels. 

“Since when does my apprentice visit bakeries with Mace Windu?” Obi-Wan asked, almost desperately.

“You’re making it sound like a bigger deal than it is.” 

Master Kenobi sputtered as the pair opened the airlock for the short-range shuttle. 

Anakin mustered up an earnest smile. “Master? Would you mind flying- I’m still eating and-”

Obi-Wan made an incoherent noise of horrified outrage before fumbling for his communicator. 

“What are you doing?”

“NOTHING IS MAKING SENSE RIGHT NOW. EITHER YOU AND MACE NEED TO GO TO THE HEALING HALLS OR I DO!”

Anakin burst out laughing. “Relax Obi-Wan, I’m messing with you, holy shit. Obviously I’m flying.”

Obi-Wan slumped into the co-pilot seat, rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t do that Anakin! My nerves are stretched thin enough by the war as it is-”

“Sorry, Sorry!”

They strapped in and took off, Anakin still chuckling occasionally, Obi-Wan scowling in irritation each time. 

They ascended above the towering skyline alongside the first rays of sunlight.

“So you didn’t go to a bakery with Master Windu this morning?”

“Uhh-”

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (5)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

START  / RREV / NEXT

Ms Iroi always tries to engage him in conversation whenever she comes in, asking questions and chatting to herself in a fruitless attempt at helping him recover his 'lost' memories. Most of the time, Kakashi is indifferent to her presence and always has a magazine handy as an excuse not to talk.

Today, Iroi is in a particularly good mood, humming to herself, greeting him with an energetic, “How are you doing today!”

Kakashi grunts a noncommittal response which doesn’t do much to discourage the woman’s good mood as she runs through a check-up routine.  

“You should try watching U.A’s sports festival tomorrow. I hear it’s going to be particularly spectacular this year,” she says as she pulls the blinds on Kakashi's window, blocking out the distant city lights. 

U.A? he recognises the name. Kakashi glances up over the pages of HERO!! MONTHLY BREAKDOWN. It is the third time he has read this issue.

“You know, since you like reading those hero magazines, I figured you would be interested in watching the ‘next generation of heroes’ debut,” she continues, noting his attention, “U.A always puts on a good show.”

Kakashi frowns. The problem with his amnesia cover story is that he is still trying to figure out what he can get away with not remembering. So far the doctor’s seem content to chalk up the disappearance of his long term memories to a ‘quirk’ accident but were always more concerned when he failed to recall basic factual information. Something to do with different parts of the brain being responsible for different types of information.

 “Watch how?” He settles on asking. U.A. was supposed to be a hero-training academy so whatever this ‘sports festival’ was was worth checking out. 

“Oh,” Iori pauses to think, “I, ah, think channel 2 with be covering it?” she hesitates, “You know what. I’ll look it up and let you know later. Sorry, I can’t carry my phone around with me while on shift.”

“Thank you.” He smiles and makes a show of returning to his magazine to dissuade further conversation.

Later the same evening, just before the end of the evening shift, Iori pokes her head into his room again. She is out of uniform, long hair untired, waving to catch his attention.

“The coverage is on channel 2 and starts at 11am,” She holds up her portable communication devise like it means something.  It probably did mean something. The frequency by which people checked them suggested it had a function beyond basic communication. He has held off attempting to steal one because, unlike pens, people would notice and care if one went missing.  

“Have fun watching! Oh… also, I forgot to ask…”

Kakashi raises a brow.

“I have a bunch of old gossip magazines. Mum used to read them all the time and there are a few hero-themed ones in the mix. I can bring them in if you want more stuff to read.” 

“If you want.” Iori must have noticed him re-reading the magazines. 

"I'll bring them on Friday!"

Iori had been unsubtly hinting that Kakashi might have had a history in heroics. It definitely wasn’t because reading information on a page just made sense when compared to the barrage of conflicting reports the television gave him. A few weeks with only the television as his information source has him writing off most of its information as useless or propaganda.  

…

...

“HEELLLOOOOO, LISTENERS!”

Kakashi stares dully as the video footage, which had been giving him a bird’s eye view of a positively massive stadium, changes to a sweeping shot of what must be thousands of people crammed into seats. It almost makes him claustrophobic just watching it.

“WELLCOME TO OUR ANNUAL U.A. SPORTS FESTIVAL! THE HIGH SCHOOL ADOLESCENT RODEO YOU ALL LOVE TO WATCH. CAN A GET A ‘OH YEAH!’”

As if of one mind, thousands of people leap to their feet screaming. The camera angle changes again to show a grinning blond-haired man, seated at a desk and pointing enthusiastically at the camera. All these shot changes are going to give him a headache. Kakashi is already having reservations watching this and its only10 minutes.

“Thank you! You’re an AMAZING audience!”

 It almost reminds him of the final Chunin Exam stages -if the Chunin exams had had three times the audience - which always involved some sort of combat display.  There hadn’t been any public Chunin Exams recently for reasons such as a large portion of Konoha being flattened by Pein.

“FIRST UP ARE OUR FIRST-YEAR EVENTS! And what an exciting round of events they are, perfect for debuting our newest students! Give us a shout so they can feel your support!”

Another loud shot as thousands of people yelled in unison.

“Come on! Louder than that! These are your future Heroes I’m talking about! SHOW THEM SOME LOVE!”

More yelling. Kakashi turns down the volume.

“But! Wait just a minute!! We're not only here for our Hero students! As I'm sure you all know, behind every great hero is a hardworking support team! GIVE IT UP FOR our Support, Management and General departments who are also competing for a chance to face off in the finals!”

Kakashi sighs. He is getting the sense that this might be more for entertainment than utility purposes, conforming to the general trend of Hero-related stuff being flashy. Different from the Chunin exam which had deadly consequences if not taken seriously.

“Hey. Hey! HERE THEY COME NOW! OUR STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN THE FIRST YEAR STAGE!”

What follows is an overly dramatized race where the only thing of interest to him are the obstacle types, including robots, - mobile mechanical weapons of some sort that produced a lot of environmental damage but were taken down fairly easily- and explosive devices that acted a lot like explosive tags. Then there was a team elimination round and one-on-one tournament fights after which the coverage shifts to the second year and third year stages.

He uncovers the sharingun only to discover that, while its memorisation function worked fine, the part that translated the movements into muscle memory felt off. Perhaps, the replication and copying component of the eye didn’t work when viewing a technique through a screen rather than in person. Interesting. As there wasn't anything particularly impressive technique-wise during the events he counts the new information as a net gain. 

The student-heroes – he is not sure if there is an official term for a hero in training – barely match Konoha’s academy standard in their taijutsu and physical conditioning though there was marked improvement between first, second and third-year groups. These students were what...between 14-18 years old...and yet most had the skill level of an academy  students and fresh genuin with only a few notable exceptions?

Sure, there were - honestly ridiculous- versatile and powerful bloodline abilities being thrown around like nothing, but ninjutsu techniques only took a shinobi so far without a strong base to work from. He shakes his head, reminding himself that these kids - because what else did you call combatants who hadn’t graduated yet- weren’t shinobi in training and would be policing civilians and engaging ‘Villains’ of similar skill levels. It was obvious that the students favoured non-lethal takedown methods and put little to no thought into stealth and misdirection during fights. 

Different words…different priorities. 

As Kakashi has yet to see any evidence that the country, Japan, was at war with another he thinks the skill level displayed might be serviceable. There were also no major conflicts between the country’s large cities over farmland, water sources and the like. Obviously, this place had sorted out the resource and distribution issues usually encountered when supporting such large populations. Or, who knows, maybe everything on the television was a carefully constructed lie to lull people into complacency.

Now he has seen an example of hero-students, he better understands the low combat ability demonstrated by the police. It also gives incite into the blurry recordings of Hero/Villain confrontations which played on repeat across the various ‘news’ reports. They all tended to hover around Chunin or maybe Special Jounin in terms of skill. He knows generalisations are dangerous so, until he saw the combat in person, he would exercise his usual level of caution. There were bound to be outliers after all-the impressive brute strength of the number one hero comes to mind- and there was no telling what advantages a bloodline ability might provide. Absently, he makes testing the susceptibly of people without chakra to genjustu as something to figure out sooner rather than later.

He sighs. This is why he hated the television. Whenever he watched it, he came away increasingly confused, with more questions than he had answers. Not to mention anything useful being constantly interrupted with information detailing one of the many products that he could apparently buy here. It irritated him to no end. 

...

...

The chakra collecting seal is ready before the week is out. Mostly ready...it was ready enough.

Kakashi returns to the roof. Sitting cross-legged, back against the stairway entrance, he works his way through the 100 or so pens, cracking them open and tapping out ink into a large bowl, stolen -like the pens -from hospital staff.

The mix of black, blue and red ink is gluggy, forcing him to add water to thin the solution out. Once satisfied he pulls out an appropriated scalpel – one of a growing collection hidden alongside his pens because having a stash of weapons is never a bad thing- pricking his middle finger, watching the blood drip and curdle with the mixture. The blood would be absorbed into the ink, allowing it to conduct chakra. He mixes everything with pair of disposable chopsticks, taking care not to spill it on the ground or stain his hands.

The whole process reminds him of other insistences where he had improvised fuinjutsu ink in the field. The last time being during his final Anbu missions where he had created a body storage scroll from scratch after unexpectedly losing a squad mate on what should have been a simple intel retrieval mission. Not a particularly fond memory but a memory he was stuck with.

Since his demotion to Jonin-sensei there had been fewer of those sorts of missions. Not that being a Jonin-sensei had been easy – considering all his students had gone off to find other teachers he didn't even think he had been particularly good at it - bringing with it its own special brand of stress, culminating in a stint as Hokage, a fourth war and him stuck here. He is pretty sure his experiences aren't universal. Team 7 was just cursed to fail in increasingly spectacular ways.

He lets out a heavy sigh, leaving his airways open to a sudden gust of cold wind which carries the scent of cleaning chemicals from the hospital and oil from the road straight up his nose. He exhales forcefully and mentally bumps finding a face mask up his list of priorities. It would be good for hiding his features and dulling the artificial smells of a city housing over a million people.

The sound of wind whistling around the building almost blocks out the echo of feet in the stairway, approaching his location. In one smooth motion, Kakashi stands pushing the remaining broken pen back into the vent, nudging the cover back in place with his foot. Carefully he holds the bowl of ink in his injured arm and a scalpel in the other. Kakashi steps back against the entrance so the outward opening door would hide him from whoever came out.

A crying kid comes barrelling through the door.

Well, not completely crying, more like sniffing loudly, eyes all shiny. He even recognises the kid from the U.A combat demonstration, as improbable as that was. It is the first year hero student with the speed-enhancing ability which, seeing him up close, probably had something to do with the strange growths coming out of his caff muscles. High speed movement put enormous strain on the body so he could reasonably conclude that the kid was physically resilient to acceleration stress and similar forces. Not resilient to stabbing though....

Kakashi forces himself to relax, his scalpel lowering ever so slightly. Lucky he had heard the kid coming or he might have accidentally hurt him. A few weeks of reduced sleep coupled with a lot of time to ruminate on past missions and failures has put him on edge. This was exactly why he disliked taking extended breaks. 

Maybe, Kakashi should start relocking the stairway if he was planning to make regular trips up here because the young male probably hadn’t had the roof in mind as a destination. Kakashi knows from experience that, unless you were injured or a member of staff, there were few good reasons to wander around a hospital at odd hours.

With the hero-student distracted sniffling into his arm, Kakashi slips around the door and back down the stairs. He hadn’t planned on applying the seal on the roof anyway. Too exposed to the elements and the concrete was too rough for the delicate line work.

He continues mixing while he walks, having mentally mapped the hospital well enough to know which hallways to use and which to avoid. There is a surgeon with some sort of heat-sensing vision who works late most nights that he must be careful around and a nurse with a weak proximity based empathic ability working in paediatrics. Both obstacles force him to take a meandering detour on his way to the ground floor and  the larger shower blocks which housed  cubicles the size of small rooms. Enough smooth floorspace for the expanded seal design and easy to clean afterwards. He supposes he is lucky, some complicated fuinjutsu required several meters worth of floor space. The containment on Saskue’s cursed seal comes to mind and he is glad that this seal is infinity smaller.

Not one to waste time knowing that nurses and patients regularly used the space even this late in the evening, he immediately slips into a cubicle upon arrival. Flopping onto the floor he pulls out the paintbrush he had had scour the hospital for and eventually to steal from the children’s ward. Carefully, he begins the slow process of application.

…

…

The final seal design is circular, about the size of his splayed hand, positioned on his uninjured shoulder just above where his Anbu seal had previously sat. The sleepwear provided by the hospital had sleeves that extend just past his bicep. It hid the design, for the most part. The final visible seal is a bit bigger than he had predicted or planned for. If this were a proper infiltration mission, where blowing his cover came at the price of death, he would be in big trouble. If this were a proper mission, he would have waited before applying this. An unnecessary risk. He itches the back of his head, turning from where he is craning his neck to see the seal, gathering up his supplies to be thrown in one of the hospital’s many rubbish bins. Kakashi lets out a breath. Maybe, this whole ‘trapped in a different world’ thing is affecting him more than he was willing to admit and making him sloppy.

He pulls down the sleeve so it mostly hides the design. Not like the doctors here would recognise the significance of fuinjutsu, he reminds himself, even if their questions would be annoying to deflect.

He pumps chakra into the seal and a jolt akin to lightning runs down his limb. It activates without issue and Kakashi grimaces as his chakra is slowly drained and collected. The rate of the drain is pathetically slow. Three years too slow. But, between this and his sharingan - which was always active and draining chakra- he can’t risk making it quicker. Despite the relatively low-level threats around him, Kakashi is, first and foremost, a Jonin in an unknown territory who is already taking risks simply making and applying the seal. He can’t afford to impair himself with poor chakra management on top of everything else.

Kakashi pops his head out of the cubical, scanning the shower block. Nothing of note has changed and he darts out, intent on returning to his room. He is tired and it would be a long, tiresome week as his body adjusted to the strain as well.

NEXT  

[evakuality]

Let’s talk about Davenzi

(Because, let’s be honest, when do I not talk about them?)

A few Davenzi ideas have been swirling around in my brain recently, helped along by a couple of things: the discussion at Hos2 about what represents Davenzi’s relationship, and a conversation in a chat about the ways in which their dynamic works (I love every single one of you in that discussion!  I hope I manage to do justice to some of the things you were saying).  I felt like what they said at the con was part of what represents their relationship, but it’s not all of it.  Anyway, it got me thinking about what I’d choose as the one word to represent their relationship, and it all boils down to one thing: equality.  I know we say that for all these couples but I dunno, I just feel like for these two that digs deeper in many ways, and while I don’t think any of the relationships is unequal there are some things that just make me feel like ‘equality’ is MOST applicable to these two.

Similar ages

This one is probably the one that’s the most ‘well, yeah, obviously’ of them all and yet it’s quite an important one, to me.  I’m not totally familiar with all the other evaks, but from my admittedly not-so-awesome gleaning from gifs and discussions on tumblr they seem for the most part to fit the ‘slightly older Even and younger Isak’ model that we got in the original.  Whereas here, we have two boys at a similar age and stage in their lives.  They’re both in their final year at school and both are on the verge of having to move out into the world.  They’re both facing things that are new and scary for the first time.  Why is this important?  Well, you can’t have the Even character telling the Isak character ‘I forgot how young you are’ as a means of establishing his own authority in understanding how the world works (and which Isak takes on board), and it means that neither of them is the follower in the way that Isak is with Even for such a long time.  The thing is, once you have these two characters who are the same age then you end up with a couple that has to operate from that basis rather than the one we see in the original.  A lot of the things we see in the rest of this little list stem from the fact that because of this change these two characters operate in a different way, and one that means they understand each other quite differently than Evak does, for example.

Similar life experiences

There are some obvious differences in their life experiences, but there are some things that are really similar and again that mean they tend to approach some things in a similar way.  Not everything, clearly (Matteo is far more likely to go barging headfirst into things and be more direct than David), but enough that we can see the way these things have shaped them.  First, neither one seems to be living with parents.  They’ve both moved out and away from situations that weren’t great for their wellbeing.  So they both have some sort of understanding of why the other might be feeling shitty about some things.  They don’t really acknowledge that in words, apart from their discussion during conversation number one about getting in a car and just getting away, but they both approach the other with the same sort of care and tenderness almost from the start.  This is partly because they both crave it because they haven’t had as much of it, but partly because they can both sense that need in the other.  Each of them knows instinctively what the other might be feeling and why, and what to do about it.  

Second, neither of them has an established relationship with anyone else.  Matteo is closer, but his relationship with Sara is so obviously not fulfilling in any way and it doesn’t give him any insights into how to be in a relationship with someone in a genuine way.  What this means is that neither of them is knowledgeable about how to be in a relationship, and is part of what prompts the entirely awkward meetings in the hallways at school in the early days.  Neither of them is experienced enough to go ‘okay, fine, I’ll take the lead on this one’ and so they both have to feel their way gently and hesitantly.  That hesitance is part of why they end up working so well together.  They’ve had to feel their way through this thing, and figure out what it might look like, together.  It also means that neither of them has an ex in a position to put words in the other’s mouth because of prior knowledge they have, and so we get them both being forced to talk to each other.  I know we all like to laugh at them and their ‘say it with words, directly’ thing, but in actual fact they have been forced to do it (sometimes by each other) and so they do know what they’re talking about.  They have both, at times, had to make themselves vulnerable verbally because there’s been no other way, no-one else has been there to do it for them.  This has, of course, had the effect that they both know exactly where they stand fairly early on (comparatively to Isak, for example).

Supporting each other

This is probably the biggest one, for me.  Probably partly because of their similarities in age and experiences, they have both taken a lot of care of the other fairly quickly and effectively when the other has needed it.  Matteo compliments David’s art, David compliments Matteo’s tech skills; they let each other know they think the other one is cool.  David steps in to save Matteo on the bus, he stays behind to clean up after the neon party because Matteo got in trouble for leaving things messy previously, he’s the one who takes the lead in the empty pool when it’s obvious Matteo needs that etc etc.  Matteo steps up after the middle episodes where he’s still looking after himself (and I kind of love that they were apart during that time, even while it really sucked to live through it, because it gave them both time to develop on their own).  So, after David returns in episode 7 Matteo’s very gentle and tender with him, there’s no demands for answers (at least not at first), and all he wants is to make David feel safe and happy.  He takes care of David through the awkward ‘let’s make a petition’ thing from his friends, his care and attention is all on David during the entire last 3 episodes and he even goes against his own normal instincts to give David what he needs: space and time.  

In fact, if we look at it holistically, David looks after Matteo for episodes 2-4, episodes 5-7 they’re their own support (with some help from other friends of course), and episodes 8-10 Matteo is David’s support.  Of course, this isn’t set in stone and there is some bleed through in all these sections, but that’s the basic arc of this support system they have. Neither of them has a bigger caretaker/leader role; they share those roles when the other one needs it. Then when we get to the Abi stuff and onwards, they’re both very good with each other: David encouraging Matteo to study, Matteo encouraging David with his movie etc etc.  They’re just genuinely equal in all of this.  Not only that, but the support they give each other is tender and careful when they need that and more teasing or forceful when they need that sort.  They get each other on a really deep level, partly because they are quite similar in some ways.

Similar personalities

The thing is that, while there are some obvious differences, the two of them share certain traits that mean they click with each other in ways that Evak don’t.  That’s not to say Evak (or any of the others, though I don’t know them so well) don’t click, because they obviously do.  They click more in a ‘we match each other by filling out the missing parts’ way, whereas with Davenzi they match more like ‘we are similar and understand each other’s needs because of that’ way.  Neither way is better, of course, but it’s just interesting that this is how they are.  They can both be quietly there for the other, doing things in a way that means the other gets what he needs but without calling attention to themselves.  For example, David’s clean up after the party isn’t done to be obvious to Matteo.  He has no idea if he’ll even see him, but he does it anyway to help and to be supportive because that’s what Matteo needs.  Matteo recognises that David needs the comfort and support of someone being there for him before he comes out, and he offers him that.  He stands up for David and what he needs in the big group meeting after David goes to his godmother without ever knowing if David will be back or know that he’s done it, but just because he knows what he needs.  

But they also both have some little shit in them, and some aggression or forcefulness, and they both know when to use it to push the other one.  So Matteo pushes David the same day he comes out to him when it becomes obvious that he’s going to run away again.  He also pushes him when he returns to the pool after David comes back to Berlin.  He teases him when he’s about to give up on his movie and in all these cases this approach has been what David needs.  David, in his turn, makes Matteo study by letting him know what it would be like if he had to return to school and thus in some ways by letting him know that they’d stop being equals if that were to happen, which Matteo resents and thus is the impetus behind him reluctantly studying, and which David 100% knows and is why he uses this approach.  He also spends a lot of time challenging Matteo to break out of his apathy and his rut early in the season.  Unlike Matteo, he isn’t aggressive about it, but he’s absolutely sure about what sort of push Matteo needs.  Again, each time, the approach David uses is the one that Matteo needs in that moment.  They just both get each other on some sort of deep level because they both have the same sort of qualities themselves and can put themselves into each other’s shoes.

The other thing we can’t really ignore is that they have some similarities which are less good.  They can both withdraw and disconnect from the world around them, shutting people out in ways which are damaging to them (Matteo after he gets David’s text withdraws into his room and stays there for days for example, and David pulls back from intimacy with Matteo because he’s scared).  In this, they are also equals even if they show it in different ways, and it’s something they do end up working on and with together.  They can also both be tempted to ‘run away from it all’ as they both suggested in their first conversation.  In fact, this side is one of the things that first made them feel connected to each other: hey this guy understands my desire to get the fuck out of here.  This side comes out in different ways, of course (Matteo’s is more emotionally distanced, whereas David’s is more physically distant), but these are still qualities which each of them has and recognises in the other.  What’s good about that is that because they share these similarities they know how to approach the other one.

And that’s why all of these things together add up to two people who are on so much of the same wavelength.  They can playfight and be silly together, but when they need or want it they can be sweet and careful with each other, they can tell each other home truths when they need to.  They know how and when to support each other and how and when to prank each other.  And they each give as good as they get, neither of them has more of a caretaker or leadership role over the other.  They each take that role at various times in the relationship.  Because they are equal in so many ways.  There is obviously so much more that can be said about this relationship, and the ways in which they are different has some interesting impacts on their dynamic as well.  But I just really like that at its heart, this relationship is one where both partners are equal - in both their good qualities and their less admirable ones.

[kob131]

https://spectralscathath.tumblr.com/post/190909103203/fight-analysis-rwby-vs-ace-ops

So let’s start with the set up for the fight, specifically, these quotes from Marrow and Harriet.

Marrow: We’re not actually going to slug this out, are we?

Harriet: We’re not doing anything. They decide what happens next.

This puts a heavy emphasis on the fact that team RWBY starts this fight. They are the aggressors in this situation, which then makes it both incredibly cowardly and utterly manipulative when, seconds into the Harriet vs Ruby fight,

Hold it hold it hold it.

How come you don’t mention the music in the background or the alternative to Team RWBY here? The foreboding music indicating a fight is inevitable and the alternative is Team RWBY being arrested while leaving people to do, something fundamentally against their morals?

That line is more of a confrontation Team RWBY will be offensive instead of being ‘the aggressors’ (AKA negative connotation).

... This is gonna be intensely biased in the Ace Ops favor isn’t it?

Ruby: Come on, Harriet! We’re playing right into Salem’s hands! You know we need to be working together!

A quick aside, Ruby’s voice is pitched up with this line, compared to her earlier bragging that the Ace Ops aren’t the best anymore. Her cocky smirk is replaced by a wide-eyed, fearful look, and I’d like to point out that this only happened after Harriet landed the first blow of the fight, kicking Ruby into the elevator doors. This is entirely faked, purely because Ruby’s suddenly realised that Harriet poses a threat and is trying to put on her cute ‘I’m just an innocent kid don’t hurt me’ act, while also trying to heap all the blame of this fight onto Harriet.

Her tone was also pitched up when she was talking into her school. That’s the result of raising her voice. To say nothing of how her look is PLEADING in nature, not FEARFUL.

Harriet doesn’t take any of this crap, thank the good lord, and decides to put her focus on pummelling the ever-loving aura out of Ruby.

... I really should just ignore you huh?

And boy, does she manage it. I went through and counted every single blow landed in each fight, so let’s start the blow-by-blow, literally. I’ll focus on each specific match-up one at a time, to properly break it down.

Yeah huh, sure. And Tyrian would be unbiased moderator in a debate between Ozpin and Salem right?

I’ll just keep the Ace Ops fight open in another tab so I can peer into reality.

Also, just so we’re all on the same page, I am a trained martial artist, having studied Karate (specifically Zen Do Kai), and boxing. Let’s keep this in mind as we analyse this fight.

Also keep the rest of what they’ve said in mind as well, as in ‘I have already shown an intense bias for the Ace Ops’ so you really shouldn’t be listen to.

Hits Taken Harriet: 2 Ruby: 7-8

Wanna know what isn’t counted? The amount of time or the number of times Harriet and Ruby used their semblances. Wanna know long/many times Ruby used her semblance? Five times. Two times for extended distances, once for a quick defensive deflect and two for split second dodges and maneuvers. The longest being 7 seconds. 

Harriet? Fuck, I don’t even know how to measure her because EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES is using her Semblance. She uses it CONSTANTLY. So naturally, her aura would drain faster.

Does the OP consider this?

Now, if we take into account aura levels, we are aware that Harriet’s are noticeably lowered, as seen from her fight with the Megoliath. She and Ruby are both using their semblances a lot, hard to say who’s using theirs more. Possibly Harriet, but Ruby isn’t far behind.

Fuck no, they keep it VAGUE so you don’t see how much Harriet uses her Semblance. 

I shouldn’t even consider the rest of this post considering how FLAGRENT this shit is, but we’ll move on.

Hit 2: Harriet kicks Ruby in the chest with both feet.  (Some of these screenshots are hilarious but I’m doing it as categorical proof of the hits)

Yeah, see how Harriet’s feet are ON Crescent Rose?

That’s a block. So -1 hit.

Hit 3: The next one is a little hard to count, as it’s the shot where Harriet blitzes by Ruby. The first hit is hard to tell if it connects or not, while the second hit most definitely does, meanwhile Ruby blocks the third strike. The first of these is the only hit that is ambiguous.

Yeah, it looks that way in screenshots...in animation Ruby doesn’t react correctly, meaning she wasn’t hit AT ALL. So -1 as well here too.

Hit 5: Harriet restrains Ruby’s hands behind her back, enough to cause Ruby pain. However, that is an unfortunate side-effect of having arms pinned in that manner, so I’m not going to call it excessive. After all,

Harriet: It’s not excessive if it’s necessary.

Quick fuck you: This can be said of Team RWBY fighting the Ace Ops, necessary to defeat them and try and save as much as Mantle as possible.

It’d be reductionist but that’s OP’s speciality at this point.

Hit 6: Ruby escapes Harriet’s pin, ties the bolas around Harriet, before yanking Harriet backwards into Ruby’s uppercut to the spine, which appears to go near the area of Harriet’s nape and the back of her head. (I’ll come back to this)

Yeah, that’s a pretty serious hit. Most people would suffer serious pain from that. OP even tries pointing this out as a failing of RUBY.

Yeah. That one. I study in Australia, which, had a certain event happen that leads me to be somewhat biased against punches specifically to the nape/back of head, you know, that place where your spine meets your skull? From Wikipedia, just for a basic rundown: ‘During 2013 and 2014, significant media attention was paid to two violent killings involving one-hit punches in Australia. Noting that 91 people had died in Australia in the previous fourteen years from brain trauma as a result of being so hit, a media campaign was launched to refer to them as coward punches.’

91 people. Yep.

So, if I sound like I disrespect Ruby for the single hit she landed, while Harriet seems to get a pass for punching Ruby in the back and the throw to the ground, I would like to point out first of all, Harriet only started going for attacks to the head and neck area after she had been restrained, in which case she is trying to put Ruby down hard and fast. Secondly, Ruby not only pulled Harriet backwards into the uppercut, she’s fucking grinning.

How triumphant. None of the Ace Ops show this level of glee at landing hits, I’m just saying. Also, calling back to Harriet’s line about it not being excessive if it’s necessary, Harriet was at that point restrained, only showing she is capable of fighting despite that after being punched. While hitting Harriet may not have been excessive, you would also think that perhaps a leg sweep, or a kick to the back of the knee, would be enough to stop her, instead of a King Hit, specifically one that Harriet could not have even tried to block due to how her arms are tied.

Rant about my own personal biases towards coward punches is over let’s continue the actual analysis now that I’ve copped to it

P.S. No admission of your self evident bias for the Ace Ops? yeah, not gonna buy this.

Hit 7: Harriet headbutts Ruby in the face. This one doesn’t have an impact SFX like a lot of hits do, but the way Ruby reels back makes it clear Harriet connected the blow

Notice how OP doesn’t have an image here?

Yeah, -1 again.

Hit 9: Harriet runs into Weiss’s ice wall, her aura is shattered, and she is knocked unconscious.

What isn’t shown: Harriet running head first USING HER SEMBLANCE (which makes her faster than Ruby in close quarters) into a thick ice wall.

For demonstration: run as fast you can, leaning into it, at a wall of ice. Actually don’t because people have DIED from that too. And we don’t have super quick powers in INCREASE the damage.

But how, the pray tell fuck, does Ruby apparently have enough aura to tank at least 7 hits, most of which are kicks, from a combat-trained runner, and come out smiling? Tyrian gave her a few scratches and one kick to the stomach and that had her aura flickering. Now, yes, Tyrian is on a level all his own that only Qrow and maybe Clover can match, but also; are you fucking kidding me?

Difference: Ruby used her semblance a fuckton, Tyrian is probably stronger than Harriet considering he was equal to QROW and could block bullets with his tail FROM SOUND ALONE. 

Ruby barely used her semblance in comparison to Harriet spamming the thing while the OP says she had LESS Aura.

All while taking FOUR hits, maybe 5 since OP manipulated shit.

Suddenly doesn’t seem so implausible huh?

Ruby’s a speed fighter/sniper, a DPS main, and I’m supposed to believe she’s all of a sudden more of a tank then Yang?

Because fictional characters in a world without definitive roles unlike an RPG fit neatly into all roles and not like certain circumstances gave Ruby more durability that you CONVIENENTLY ignored.

So… yeah. Take that bit as you will.

Take it as an indication you’re biased as fuck? Okay.

Anyway. Shall we move onto the next round?

You’ve sunk your creditability with that last fight and I REALLY shouldn’t listen anymore out of sheer offense at the lack of principles here, but fine,

Blake and Yang vs Elm and Vine

Hits Taken Blake: 4 Yang: 4 Vine: 3 Elm: 4

Ah huh, what is said about Semblances?

Okay, so. Elm and Vine use their semblances liberally enough, while Blake and Yang barely use their semblances outside of finishing moves. I’ll grant them all that.

...After all that with Harriet and Ruby, you don’t even BOTHER discussing the use of semblances?....

You know, they don’t even really ANALYZE the fight. Wanna know what they say beyond stating hits (NOT a good indicator of whose winning)?

And aside from the suicide bomber attack, this fight is solid enough, animation-wise at least. Elm proves herself to be an absolute goddamn beast of a woman whom I love, but… it’s a little sad that the only hits Blake makes are team attacks. Once again, even worse then it was with Bees v Adam, Yang carries the fight while Blake is near-useless, aside from a few token team attacks.

I do wish Elm was more of a tank, though. It’s what she deserves.

Honestly, this feels so INSULTING. What, you didn’t have problems so you skipped the fight effectively? Analysis doesn’t mean ‘bitching about what I don’t like’, I learned NOTHING from this. 

All I can say is-

It’s not even necessary? Anyone remember this handy lil trick Blake has?

Look at that! It’s an exploding clone that doesn’t rely on someone else to pull the pin on the bomb!

What the actual fuck was the point of this move, other then to make me worry about Blake’s mental health? Who approved this? Who said ‘what’s the ultimate show of trust? Having the former member of a terrorist group put bombs on herself that someone else detonates! Brilliant!’

This is utterly bizarre.

Just sayin’.

Blake’s clones are BLATANT when infused with Dust. Vine wouldn’t have fallen for it.

Weiss vs Marrow

Hm. Hmmm. Well. Weiss got her first solo fight win. Unfortunately,

Harriet: Marrow! Cut the crap, will you?

Marrow: I’m trying to arrest her, not kill her, Hare!

Her opponent was holding back. Looks like Weiss’s special power is still ‘losing every fight she’s in with an opponent who’s not self-sabotaging’.

Marrow: I know you Schnees are used to getting what you want. But it's time to let this one go!

Yeah, don’t buy it.

Hits taken Weiss: 0 Marrow: 1

Yep.

Weiss takes no hits, at all, while Marrow blocks and dodges every single one of Weiss’s hits aside from the last. I’m serious. So I can’t go by hits for this one, I need to go by attacks.

So you say basically nothing about the actual fight but the dodgefest you say more? Really?

Hm. Yes. Hmmm. There’s some rather, shall we say, unfortunate implications here, since this looks, to me, rather more like an execution than anything else. As pointed out to me by a friend, when I showed them these screenshots, Marrow’s posture in the last is a very submissive pose. Head down, tail drooped, arm slack, reliant on external support (his boomerang), and kneeling. Also, what is with Ruby and Weiss and going for the back of the head?

He JUST got done dealing with the Knight and had to use his Semblance to stop it. After dodging and blocking a fuckton of hits. After all of the shit with the Grimm before. For someone trying to make the Ace Ops look as innocent as possible, why would you ignore how tired he must be?

Also that isn’t an execution pose. You have to be aiming for the NECK for an execution, not the HEAD. 

There’s also the unusually heavy focus on Marrow’s tail getting burnt, and this tone-deaf line, if we’re going to point out all the ‘faunus racism’ implications that show up.

Marrow: I know you Schnees are used to getting what you want, but it’s time to let this one go.

Weiss: This is my home, and I’m not giving it up without a fight.

...

You mean like when Kefla was launching her barrage of lazers at Ultra Instinct Omen Goku and they focused on his hair just barely getting grazed? It’s to emphasize how close the attack was.

Weiss, honey, you’re from Atlas. Mantle is a separate city. Twin cities, at the most, but you’re Atlesian. Also, this came right the heck out of nowhere. Absolutely nowhere in Weiss’s arc this season were we getting anything about her giving a damn about Mantle beyond ‘I kill grimm there’.

... HER ENTIRE ARC IS ABOUT CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE!

And, just because unfortunate and hopefully accidental implications are the order of the day on Weiss vs Marrow, she’s saying this to the faunus that’s managed to get racism humansplained to him by the same woman who calls him ‘Wags’ as a funny nickname.

Sorry, I don’t speak wet farts.

Seriously, how the fuck is this a racism thing when Weiss is assumed to be someone who always gets her way, even in THIS Volume.

Weiss: Don't you think "tyranny's" a little dramatic?

Forest turns around to respond and looks surprised upon realizing who had just spoken.

Forest: Easy to say for a Schnee heiress, living comfortably up in Atlas.

Weiss: (sighing sadly) Not anymore.

Marrow deserves more respect than this, guys. I don’t even want to get into how bizarre it is that the final shot of his defeat puts the focus on his shackles, putting them even more in the foreground then Marrow himself. That’s just weird.

To emphasize he has them. Dumb I know but considering this post’s bullshit, you guys kind of earned it.

To conclude:

Ruby should have gotten her aura broken three hits in, sorry not sorry. Ruby is also a cold-cocking manipulative lil brat who has lost even the dregs of my respect for her. What a shame.

Which was complete horseshit beyond even Adel Aka or Dudeblade.

Harriet and Elm’s defeats seemed to have been framed in ways that were meant to be a little humiliating, with Harriet making dumb faces as she passes out and Elm landing in an awkward position. I disapprove of this. I would prefer if they were defeated with dignity.

It’s called humor.

Blake continues to be a useless damsel in distress in Actually Important Fights, while Yang is Angry All The Time and does all the heavy lifting.

That had fuck all to do with what you said, and as if being evasive and wasting enemy resources and acting as support for one of the BIGGEST HEAVY HITTERS IN THE SERIES is bad?

Weiss v Marrow has some weird implications that make me uncomfortable.

Which says more about you than anything else.

Credit where credit’s due: the voice acting, sound design, and the fight animation was great. Do I think the Ace Ops should have won? I would have found it more interesting, to be sure. Can I live with team RWBY winning? I can, but I could have done without the smugness.

Smugness you inserted.

Is there anything I would have changed? Bees vs Elm and Vine was fine, but I’d have either made it Ruby v Marrow and Weiss v Harriet (for a speedster vs Schnee fight, and a Lil Rd vs the Wolf fight), or would have let Harriet break Ruby’s aura.

Instead of personal stakes, bland ideas! Wonderful!

Also: War should and hopefully will be an Ace Ops’ song, not a team RWBY song. If anyone got betrayed here, the Ace Ops were the ones who put their trust into four liars who hid vital information and had the gall to act offended when they got told what a dick move said information-withholding was.

*insert equally shitty take about Ace Ops with bias in favor of Team RWBY here.*

Anyway, thanks for reading, I’d love to hear other thoughts on the matter. Ta, luvs.

Which is why the reblogs do nothing but regurgitate what you said while I’m blocked.

Speaking of reblogs....

https://jadekitty777.tumblr.com/post/190942492544/fight-analysis-rwby-vs-ace-ops

A lovely read dear! I’d also like to add, just because I was curious:

During the Qrow &Tyrian Vs Clover fight, I decided to do my best to count the amount of hits Clover and Qrow took.

I’m going to start with Qrow - he took about 5. One toss and 4 punches, mostly to the face (jeez Clover, I thought you liked his pretty face lol). Keep in mind Qrow is also primarily more a close-range fighter and took front lead in the Tyrian fight in the episode prior AND just went through a plane crash. The same plane crash that knocked Robyn unconscious - despite the fact she was only back-up during the other fight  and hadn’t been down in Mantle during the evacuation efforts up until the end to lure Tyrian out. The point is, his aura should be hurting, but it doesn’t even flicker.

For Clover? It added up to be about 11-12 - one of which was a point blank shotgun blast to the chest, 3-4 hits from Tyrian’s bullets in the back, and one more sword slice from Harbinger to his back.  I highlight those ones because they’d be the hardest to tank. The rest were various kicks and punches, most to his face and midsection.

(Also really Qrow,you should not be surprised Clover’s aura broke. You guys were killing him).

But the point I want to make is… Clover was down in Mantle just like the rest of the ops fighting for who knows how long before they went for Tyrian - considering they were coming back only slightly behind team RWBY and the others, we can surmise only maybe an hour or so they diverted to deal with our little scorpion. It’s also worth mentioning that ALL of our team members have been up an entire night and these fights in c12 happened closer to dawn, considering the sunrise at the episode’s end. They are all equally exhausted.

So to circle back around: Clover got struck with double to triple the hits his own team got - a full team of Atlas specialists. It feels like Clover is the only one who seems to be treated like he’s on Qrow’s level, wherein they really ALL should be at his level. Instead, it’s like the rest of the Ops had to be significantly nerfed to be beaten by Team RWBY.

If you want me to believe Team RWBY can beat them, then you also have to make me believe they can beat Qrow. And yeah, I don’t.

...

Clover never used his Semblance.

Qrow hits harder than ANYONE.

He was also attacked by Tyrian.

And Qrow was in a PLANE CRASH.

Fucking hell, this is one of the worst analysises I’ve read. Yes, including RWDE slock.

[marshmallow-phd]

Charming Instruction

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader

Summary: You were just an average, everyday college student desperately trying to graduate. Only one more year stood between you and that celebratory walk. However, due to an oversight by your adviser, it seemed that the one class you never wanted to take was required to take that walk. It wasn’t the subject matter that made you uncomfortable. It was the teacher. Your heart sped up every time you saw him and you didn’t want that distraction in your life, attractive or not. With meeting him now an inevitability, you swore that you would keep your hormones in check. But after your first day of class, a series of hi jinks and weird situations lead you to discovering the secret of your professor and why he seemed to bombard your every thought.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I Final

**

Your heart was still racing when you closed the door to your apartment. Raising your hand to your chest, you felt the drum beat keep a steady pace that was well above its normal rhythm.

He’d almost kissed you. He’d almost kissed you.

That had to be what he was doing, right? With the closed eyes and forehead touch? And, oh, god, did you want him to kiss you. How many times had your imagination fluttered in that direction when you weren’t keeping it in check?

Gemma and Cam were lounging on the couch watching some drama on the television and hadn’t caught on to your presence until now. The former tilted her head at you, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, jumping up from her spot and walking over to you. Out of instinct, she reached out and placed the back of her hand against your cheek. “Why are you so warm? Are you getting sick?”

You shook your head adamantly. “No, I’m fine.”

Taking a step back, Gemma smirked. “Okay, I know we silently agreed to not bring it up anymore, but did something happen with Junie?”

“O-oh, n-no, I, um, I just – no, you see-” Coherency apparently was a skill that had now left you entirely. An efficient enough lie couldn’t be conjured up and you were stuck as a stuttering mess.

Cam was giggling into her mug over on the cough, smartly pressing her lips together and keeping her comments to herself.  You threw her a glare, but stayed quiet, knowing that whatever biting remark you could come up with would just come out choppy and useless.

“Did he kiss you?” Gemma asked excitedly.

Chewing on your bottom lip, you shook your head. “No. But he almost did.”

Your admission cause Cam to accidentally swallow her drink down the wrong pipe, throwing her into a coughing fit. When she was finally able to breathe again, she screeched, “What do you mean he ‘almost did’?”

You started fidgeting with your fingernails, absentmindedly digging out the nonexistent dirt from underneath them. “Well, he was leaning in, but then a couple walking their dog came by, so he pulled back.”

Gemma and Cam gave you identical dumbfounded looks. It was actually quite comical, but you were able to hold back the chuckle building in your throat.

“So, basically, what you’re saying is that he didn’t want to be seen kissing you? Like he was embarrassed?” Cam inferred with a particularly curtly tone. She even slammed her mug down on the side table for emphasis.

You wanted to argue that that wasn’t the case. At least, you were pretty sure that wasn’t the case. They didn’t know that “Junie” was actually your professor and if he’d been seen kissing a student by the wrong person, he’d be in boiling hot water. And even if you were brave enough to confess that little secret to Gemma and Cam, you couldn’t be entirely sure how they’d take it. Cam might smirk at the sneakiness and forbidden aspects of it all, but you could only guess how Gemma would take it. You’d didn’t think she’d exactly be jumping up and down with excitement.

“I don’t think he was embarrassed,” you said meekly. “I think it was just the surprise at the couple’s presence. We were at the park and there wasn’t anyone else there at first.”

“Hm,” Cam pursed her lips, giving you the feeling that she didn’t entirely believe it. “Okay.” She narrowed her eyes at you. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

You nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just a little flustered, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it.”

Gemma patted your head gently. “Okay. Just let us know if you need us to kick his butt.”

That truly managed to make you laugh. While you could see Cam really trying to throw a punch at Junmyeon’s face, you couldn’t imagine for a second the gentle Gemma trying anything to physically harm him. She’d probably instead start lecturing him on the possible psychological damage his actions could have caused you. That was much more her style.

“Thank you,” you smiled at your friends. “But I’m okay. I promise. He’s not going to do anything.”

You actually believed that last sentence. What happened back at the park was probably just a fluke, brought on by the heavy subject the two of you were engaged in. Junmyeon probably didn’t actually want to kiss you because he liked you in that way. He had a mate to find, remember? It was easy to get caught up in the moment. That couple was actually your saving grace, keeping the two of you from doing something you would regret. Yes, that was it.

At least, that’s what you would keep telling yourself.

**

Junmyeon was anticipating seeing you in class today. He wanted to see you again. He wanted to see if he could get you to agree to meet up with him, maybe take you for a run in his wolf form. You’d turned him down last time, but maybe he could persuade you.

Just a little bit of alone time, that’s all he was asking for. A place where you wouldn’t be interrupted, where he wouldn’t be scared of being seen by the wrong person. A place where he could build up the courage to try and kiss you again.

Maybe his plans were getting too elaborate.

He was sure he was getting close to being able to tell you everything. Hearing the way your heart was beating as he leaned in last night was a beautiful melody that he would never get tired of listening to for the rest of his life. And you would have let him kiss your lips. That was the strike that lit up his little match of hope after you’d been pulling away from him.

There was a lightness in Junmyeon’s steps as he headed towards the classroom. Sure, he was an idiot, but wasn’t everyone a fool in love?

Yeah, he could definitely say he was falling in love you. He felt elated when he could make you smile. He loved watching that sparkle in your eye when you were mesmerized by his family’s artifacts. The way you would clam up when you were flustered or the way you could read into the cultural significance of the fairytales he was lecturing on. You paid attention and listened to him on a level that he wasn’t used to. He wanted to get to know every single facet of who you were and fall deeper in.

You were already there when Junmyeon walked into the classroom. He nearly exploded when he saw that you were back in your front row seat, materials out and ready to start the period. No one else was around you and the other students that were scattered among the room were too busy talking to each other or scrolling through their phones to pay too much attention.

As calmly as he could, he walked up to you, earning your curious gaze when he reached the long, curved table where you sat.

“Can I see you after class?” he whispered. When you nodded, he simply smiled before walking back to his desk.

He was practically bouncing with anticipation throughout the whole lecture. It was a stupid thing to be excited about, but he couldn’t help it. Part of him always expected to be rejected whenever he asked you about staying back or meeting up with him. But you never told him no once he was finally able to ask. You would avoid him at times, not giving him the chance to say one word, but hopefully those times were behind him.

As class came to an end, you continued to just sit there in your seat as all the other students filed out. Junmyeon busied himself at his desk, pretending to go over lecture notes and piling up the quizzes he’d collected at the beginning of the hour.

“You wanted to see me?”

With his back still to you, Junmyeon smiled widely. Your voice was quiet and unsure and he couldn’t help but find it adorable. Turning around after he was able to get his face under control, he started, “I was, um-” he cleared his throat. Smooth, Junmyeon. “I was just wondering if you had any plans Friday afternoon.”

You frowned guiltily. “Well, yeah, actually I do. Midterms are next week, so I’ll be spending the weekend studying. I have a big test on Monday.”

Junmyeon deflated. He’d completely forgotten about that crucial part of the semester, second only to finals. “Oh, right. Hm.” Racking is brain, he tried to come up with some sort of solution. The next meeting outside of the classroom would have to be on your terms. “May I see your phone?”

“M-my phone?” you stammered.

He chuckled. “Yes. The cellular device you used to talk and text.”

By the look on your face, you didn’t entirely appreciate his comment, but you fished your phone out from your back pocket, unlocking it before handing it over. Junmyeon quickly added in his contact information before giving it back to you.

“There,” he sighed. “Now if you find yourself a little bored or needing a break from studying, you can get ahold of me. I’ll be free all weekend, if you change your mind.”

Your eyes were wide, filled with innocent surprise. “Okay…. I’ll, um, let you know. I should head to my next class now.”

“Of course.” Junmyeon watched as you hurriedly ran up the steps, tripping only once as you dashed away. The chuckle bubbling up in his chest couldn’t be held back anymore as he piled the papers scattered on the desk together and left the lecture hall.

Since he didn’t have another class until later in the afternoon, he headed back to his office to get started on grading the ever growing pile of quizzes that he’d been putting off. It took him a good hour and a half to get through the multiple classes’ worth of grading and plug the results into the school’s site. His eyes were beginning to glaze over and he was already looking forward to when he could head home.

Knock, knock, knock.

Junmyeon perked up at the sound. Did you, perhaps, change your mind to come see him?

“Come in,” he called out, hurrying to clear out the papers from his desk.

But it wasn’t you that slowly walked through the door.

It was Soomi.

Standing up from his desk, Junmyeon rushed over to the door, glancing up and down the hallway to make sure it was empty from any nosy gossipers before closing the door and turning back around.

“Soomi, I told you-”

She put up a hand to stop him. “I’m not here for that. I’m here on business.”

“Business?” Junmyeon frowned. He walked back to his desk, sitting down taking off his glasses. “What do you mean?”

Soomi didn’t sit down, opting instead to keep standing, arms folded across her stomach. She sighed. “Nia had a vision.”

Junmyeon couldn’t understand what was so important about those four little words. “Who’s Nia?”

“She’s my trainee,” Soomi explained. “She’s one of the few among the witches that can receive visions without casting a spell.”

“They just come to her?” Junmyeon didn’t like where this conversation was headed.

“Yes,” Soomi confirmed. “Poor thing still isn’t able to completely handle them when they come on nor be able to control them. We’re working with her on them, but it’s still touch and go.”

Junmyeon nodded sympathetically. “And what did Nia see?”

“Something is coming.” The way Soomi lowered her voice and stared at Junmyeon made the hair on his arms stand up.

“What’s coming?”

Soomi shook her head. “Nia couldn’t see. It all came in flashes, she said. She couldn’t get a clear grasp on what she was seeing. But there was strong emotion with it. Fear, terror, the need to protect. She collapsed after it was over, the vision was so forceful. Something is coming for the pack and you must be prepared.”

There wasn’t anything Junmyeon could really say. A vague notion didn’t give them a good foundation on how to proceed. Until there was more information, there was very little they could do to prepare.

“I appreciate the warning,” Junmyeon sighed. “I’ll talk to the boys. I’m sure it won’t be anything that we can’t handle. We did take out a pack of hybrids.”

Soomi kept her gaze down, licking her lips as if she were trying to get the words she was holding back to slip out. She rounded the desk, carefully hopping up to sit on the now cleared table top. Taking Junmyeon’s hand in both of hers, she stayed quiet.

Junmyeon wanted to pull away, to tell Soomi to please get off his desk, but the gentleman in him just couldn’t find a nice way to say it. He’d instead let you say your piece and leave.

“Junmyeon,” she whispered, “I know you've found your mate, but that doesn’t mean my feelings for you just go away. I don’t want anything happen to you.”

“I appreciate that, Soomi.” Out of politeness, he squeezed her hand, before starting to pull away, “But, I think-”

“Junmyeon- oh.”

Shit.

**

Why did it have to be you?

Why did you have to make stupid decisions? Let yourself hope on useless things?

It had seem at like a good idea at the time. Yes, Junmyeon had give you his number, but it felt a little silly to text or call when you could just… see him.

So, after your second class of the day, you headed off to the professor’s building, telling yourself that if he wasn’t there then you would text him. You were sure you could carve out the time to spend a little of Saturday afternoon with whatever he’d had in mind. At first, you’d thought that maybe you’d see if Saturday morning would work, but you knew that if you did block out the morning from him, you’d be too tempted to spend the entire day with him.

When you reached Junmyeon’s office, you hadn’t been thinking that he might not be alone. The sign outside his door didn’t indicate he was with another student so, like an idiot, you just opened the door. And your heart didn’t just sink.

It cracked into a million pieces you didn’t believe would ever be put back together again.

Soomi was sitting on Junmyeon’s desk, holding his hand while looking down at him with that look you knew all too well.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “I should have knocked.”

Junmyeon jumped up from his seat. “No, (y/n), wait-”

You didn’t stick around to hear whatever explanation he’d felt the urge to give you. You didn’t need one. It was none of your business and you needed to get out of there before either of them saw you break.

Once out of the building, you didn’t stop running. Only when you reached the crosswalk off of school grounds were you finally forced to stop. Bouncing on the balls of your feet, you wanted to just sprint out into the street to get to the other side, in case someone actually decided to come after you. The chances of that happening were slim to none, but you let the thought linger anyway.

Safe inside your apartment, you threw yourself down on your bed and let the tears flow free.

For the next several days, you just stayed there in bed. Not even the urgency of midterms could coax you out of your room and onto campus grounds. You only crawled out of bed when your roommates were gone to use the bathroom and grab snacks so you didn’t starve to death. Other than that, you simply lied there and stared at the wall, playing the scene of Junmyeon and Soomi over and over. Your phone rang several times, but you never answered it or even bothered to look to see who it was. You had a pretty good inkling and you didn’t feel like talking to him.

“(y/n)?”

It was Friday night and Cam and Gemma had more than caught on to the fact that something was wrong. Both of them tiptoed into your room and sat as carefully as they could on the bed.

“Hey,” Gemma greeted softly. You barely peeked out from under your covers. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

You shook your head, too ashamed that you were falling into the same pattern of hopelessness that you’d experienced your freshman year, only this was a hundred times worse. Back then, you saw the light at the end of the tunnel, you just had to pick yourself up and walk towards it. This time you felt like you were lost in a cold, dark cave with no idea which way led out.

“We’re going to go to a party,” Cam informed you as she rubbed your leg in a motherly fashion over the covers. “I think you should go with us. Maybe take your mind off of whatever happened?”

“I don’t think a party is the solution,” you grumbled.

“Not a solution,” Gemma chimed in. “Simply a momentary distraction. Why not show the world that you’re strong and don’t let temporary setbacks or people who aren’t important keep you from living your life?”

With a huff, you flipped the covers off of your top half, letting you stare at your friends. “I’m not a huge supporter of drinking away your problems.”

Cam shook her head, “That’s not-”

Flinging up into a sitting position, you stopped her, “But, this one time, I can give into to the idea and live a little like a college student for one night.”

The grins that grew on your roommate’s face were scary and almost made you change your mind, but you couldn’t go back out now. You’d tried the wallowing around in bed doing nothing and that didn’t really work to ease your pain. So why not try the other extreme? You’d already had your heart broken. What was the worst that could happen?

[epic-summaries]

British LegendsXPokemon

Sir Bedwyr/Bedivere

(I like saying Bedwyr, it’s fun to say)

Guys I think I went too deep. This turned into a crossover fanfiction.

And Arthur called Bedwyr, (...) None was equal to him in swiftness throughout this island except Arthur and Drych Ail Kibddar. And although he was one-handed, three warriors could not shed blood faster than he on the field of battle. (...) his lance would produce a wound equal to those of nine opposing lances. From Culhwch and Olwen.

That quote is my main inspiration for this team. Yes, I went to Bulbapedia and organized the list through the speed stat. But did more than just that. I didn’t pick the first six fastest pokemon and called it a day. I played by the rules of the game, one mega-evolution and as well as sadly Bed doesn’t get a legendary, you need to be extra special for one (coughArthurcough).

I imagine young Bedwyr in the forest’s of these magical Arthurian/Pokemon crossover, adventuring. Kay is being his usually dickish self. And the two boys are playing. Here, Bedwyr he finds his yellow life long companion sleeping under a tree. An Abra. The two play and sleep together. Abra teleports Bed when Kay’s dickishness gets to be too much, in a screw you I’m out of here sense. Soon, Abra becomes a Kadabra, here Bed and Kadabra learns together. And later, Bedwyr trades him to Kay and then Kay trades him back and now look, Kadabra is now an Alakazam (you know that classic move that we’ve done to get an Alakazam). Alakazam and Bed are the closest. Why an Alakazam? Because 1. Alakazam is his mega evolution pokemon, so he needs an extra special bond with this pokemon. 2. Mega Alakazam has the 4th best speed stat in the game at 150. 3. Bedwyr is usually characterized as the wiser knight and Alakazam has an IQ of 5000, they have brains. 4. In some retellings Bed might know magic. Alakazam is a very magical pokemon. Psychic was the closest thing to the magic type before Fairy came along. 5. When Bed loses his hand, Alakazam can help him with his psychic powers.

The four moves Alakazam knows will be Psychic (duh), Reflect, Thunder Wave (it’s nice to paralyze others) and Shadow Ball (a useful move)

Bedwyr is chasing after child Kay who wanted to prove himself brave and went in that cave alone. Here, Kay is attacked by a zubat, because we are all attacked by zubats in caves. However, Kay didn’t bring a pokemon, and Bed still had an Abra. Anyway, Kay punches Zubat, Abra teleports, eventually comes back and uses Facade. Bedwyr catches a Zubat. He’s not a fan of Kay because he remembers that time Kay punched him. Zubat becomes a Golbat and becomes of the friendship Bedwyr showed towards him as a Zubat, he’s only stuck with Golbat for one level. (I like Zubat and my favourite poison type is Crobat but I don’t like Gobat.) Anyway, he has a Crobat. A pokemon known for speed, speed stat is 130. Also, a poison pokemon is useful against fairies.

Crobat’s moves are Sludge Bomb, Leech Life (Because fuck Leech Life, my Zubat v Zubat fight in Let’s Go was a pain because it), Confuse Ray (because classic Zubat Fam move) and Fly.

Arthur is getting Excalibur and Bedwyr is waiting at the edge of the lake. A Froakie hopes along and Bedwyr catches it. Froakie likes to throw water pulses at Zubat when playing. Kadabra at the time as to separate the two. But Froakie is usually cool and collected, usually you don’t know he’s there until you splashed with a water pulse, as Arthur learned one day trying to make a toast. He likes to escape his pokeball and do his ninja thing. He becomes a Frogadier after he escaped his pokeball to safe Bedwyr. Them after letting Kadabra out and then they teleport out. Sadly, that’s when Bed lost his hand. Later, of course, he becomes a Greninja in an epic fight with an Anglo-Saxon. (Not Beowulf). Why Greninja? Because apparently fast=ninja in the pokeworld.

Greninja’s moves are Hydro Pump, Dark Pulse, Double Team (‘cause ninja) and Water Shuriken (‘cause he’s a troll and if you don’t think he used this against Kay, you are wrong)

Bedwyr actually found her as Fletchinder. Froakie, our ninja troll who doesn’t like his pokeball, climbed up a tree and found Fletchinder. Froakie gets her wet. Bedwyr looking for Froakie finds them like this and catches Fletchinder. Fletchinder is good girl and tries really hard not to catch things on fire. But Froakie and later Frogadier makes it really hard sometimes. Both Arthur or Guinevere are not happy. She becomes a Talonflame during a practice battle with either Kay or Griflet. Bedwyr was very happy.

Did you know Talonflame have a 126 speed stat? Yeah. Plus, it gave Bedwyr a fire pokemon and it fits the glass cannon theme.

The moves Talonflame know are Brave Bird, Flamethrower (I already gave her a move that gives recoil damage), Steel Wing (for some extra coverage) and Me First (matches the speed theme).

Nincada is caughted with the classic walking in tall grass situation. Bed was walking, probably trying to find Frogadier after escaping his pokeball once again. Then bam. He is hit. Nincada comes out of the grass. Go Fletchinder. Epic batter. Nincada is caught. But Nincada doesn’t hold a grudge like Zubat towards Kay, and Nincada actually likes Fletchinder. Later, she becomes a Ninjask. She’s fast enough to follow Frogadier and later Greninja on their trolling adventures. She’s the responsible ninja. Why Ninjask? Did you know that the only pokemon faster than Ninjask is Deoxys speed form? Yes, so technically, Ninjask is the fastest pokemon at the speed stat of 160. It’s the only reason he has a Ninjask and not an Accelgor.

Her moves are X-Scissor, Aerial Ace (because she cannot learn good flying moves), Leech Life and Slash.

We do not talk about how Bedwyr got an Electrode. It’s a secret between him and Kay. But it was embarrassing. Electric pokemon are useful because they only have one weakness, and Electrode is the fastest of the electric pokemon. I was going to give him a Jolteon but I decided I could give someone else a Jolteon but I could not find another possibility to give someone an Electrode. And Electrode is fast, stat is 150. This Electrode rather not explode, but he’s clumsy (he’s a rolling ball, hard to control). He’s very shy too, and likes his pokeball.

Moves Electrode knows are Thunderbolt, Explosion (it’s a classic), Mirror Coat and Thunder. He doesn’t have a great move pool.

Next in Series: Robin Hood

[sweethails]

Prompt List #5 (I pt.3)

Send a request with the number(s) and which prompt list it’s from if you don’t give me the prompt list I will just assume its from #1. and also Give me the character you want!  

[Example request]: Can I please have number 2 from prompt list #7 and number 72 from prompt list #10 for peter parker where the reader finds out Pete’s spiderman

You can send in your own prompt(s) or just send in a request without one. these are here to use at your leisure (Most of these are not mine. Credit goes to those who made them.) I am add to this list occasionally so check back later for new ones. This is prompt #5 (I pt.3)

I do not take straight up smut requests even if some prompts sound slightly dirty. (I might change my mind who knows send me your smut request and i might decide to do it) There may be some repeat prompts but bare with me I’m trying to clean them up. Thanks enjoy!!!!!!

There are 228 prompts in this list

It’s a real shame nobody asked for your opinion."

It’s a secret."

It’s a Texas thing."

It’s all your fault!"

It’s always been you."

It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it."

It’s always the same old story"

It’s amazing how fast the world can go from bad to total shit storm."

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?"

It’s been a while.Too long."

It’s better to let someone think you’re stupid than open your mouth and prove it."

It’s called karma, and it’s pronounced ‘haha fuck you’."

It’s called Netflix and chill for a reason."

It’s called Netflix and chill, we’re not supposed to just watch Netflix."

It’s called thinking. Go with it."

It’s Christmas! You’d think at least someone would be selling trees!"

It’s Christmas, don’t be mad at me."

It’s cold, you should take my jacket."

It’s good to see you."

It’s hard to remember we aren’t in a competition anymore."

It’s just not that impressive."

It’s just you and me"

It’s just your imagination."

It’s kind of hilarious watching you try to fit your entire vocabulary into one sentence."

It’s late.  Shouldn’t you be asleep?"

It’s lonely here without you."

It’s midnight! Where the hell were you?"

It’s never gonna happen."

It’s never too late to get back up again."

It’s New Years, aren’t you going to kiss me?"

It’s New Years/ Christmas! Of course I need to dress up!"

It’s not a double date. We’re just third and fourth wheeling."

It’s not bad to cry. In fact, I think it makes a person stronger."

It’s not even Halloween yet."

It’s not safe here."

It’s not that easy."

It’s not your fault."

It’s okay if you have to go."

It’s okay to cry."

It’s only 2 A.M.."

It’s over, it’s done, just leave it be."

It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka."

It’s snowing."

It’s so good to see your face."

It’s so ugly… I LOVE IT!"

It’s the thought that counts."

It’s time for a marathon."

It’s time to fight the boss and if I don’t tell you now, I might not live to tell you

It’s time to get up."

It’s time to think outside of the box."

It’s too cold to do anything!"

It’s too cold! Come back!"

It’s too late for that."

It’s too late for you to be out by yourself."

It’s two a.m., why are you next to me?"

It’s two am, why are you crying?"

It’s warm inside."

It’s your turn to make dinner."

I‘m never going to be good enough for you, am i?"

I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong."

I’d be fine having sex with the same person for the rest of my life, if it wasn’t the same sex every single time."

I’d explain it to you, but you’re brain would explode."

I’d give you a nasty look but you’ve already got one."

I’d kill for a coffee…literally."

I’d like to kick you in the teeth, but why should I improve your looks?"

I’d like to see things from your point of view, but I can’t seem to get my head that far up your ass."

I’d like to see you try."

I’d rather be here."

I’d rather stay inside."

I’ll always be here"

I’ll always be here."

I’ll always be there for you."

I’ll always love you."

I’ll be there in a few minutes."

I’ll be with you the whole time."

I’ll die without you."

I’ll fix it."

I’ll go with you."

I’ll keep you safe."

I’ll keep you warm."

I’ll make my own decisions, thank you."

I’ll never forget you."

I’ll never stop caring about you."

I’ll never surrender"

I’ll take you home."

I’ll think about it."

I’ll walk you home."

I’m a level 72 Rogue and if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and I will kill you."

I’m actually not funny. I’m just mean and people think I’m joking."

I’m afraid I’ve been thinking…A dangerous pastime."

I’m alone on valentines day. What could get worse?"

I’m an adult who still doesn’t know how to cook a turkey."

I’m an idiot"

I’m asking you not to do this."

I’m baking!"

I’m banging pots and pans and yelling so this negative energy gets away from me. If I yell and scream loudly enough I think I’ll scare it. AHHHHHHH."

I’m better when I’m with you."

I’m better, now that you’re here."

I’m bringing the holiday party to you!"

I’m bulletproof…but please, don’t shoot me."

I’m busy now. Can I ignore you some other time?"

I’m crazy about you."

I’m done trying to help you!"

I’m done. we’re done."’

I’m done."

I’m dying."

I’m fed up of this bullshit"

I’m fine with where I am now."

I’m fine. Stop asking."

I’m fine."

I’m getting real bored and impatient. I don’t do bored and impatient."

I’m going to ask you something and you have to answer me honestly."

I’m going to keep you safe."

I’m going to kill you!"

I’m going to my bed.That’s the bathroom."

I’m going to presume that dead body in our garden is a decoration"

I’m going to regret this."

I’m going to walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything."

I’m gonna go out for a smoke, you coming?"

I’m gonna hit you so hard, it’ll make you ancestors dizzy."

I’m gonna make you wish you were dead."

I’m here if you need to talk."

I’m here, I’m queer and I’m ready to kinkshame your ass ‘til you can’t walk"

I’m impressed. I’ve never met such a small mind inside a big head before."

I’m in love with you."

I’m just gonna pack up and go straight to hell now."

I’m just looking out for you."

I’m just tired."

I’m late."

I’m leaving tomorrow morning."

I’m listening to you. I’m just not paying attention."

I’m living life to the fullest extent!"

I’m lost without you."

I’m never letting you go."

I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m a damsel doing damage."

I’m not a proctologist, but I know an asshole when I see one."

I’m not buying ikea furniture again."

I’m not crazy. I’m just interesting."

I’m not drunk enough for this."

I’m not drunk, I s-swear."

I’m not going anywhere."

I’m not going to be sympathetic until you go to a doctor."

I’m not going to leave you. You’re never going to have to suffer by yourself again, I promise."

I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention."

I’m not gonna make it."

I’m not here to make friends."

I’m not him."

I’m not jealous!"

I’m not jealous, I just don’t like the bitch."

I’m not just winning, I’m thriving."

I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong, and don’t try lying to me."

I’m not leaving."

I’m not okay."

I’m not pissed, I’m hurt."

I’m not playing truth or dare."

I’m not ready to say goodbye."

I’m not scared of spiders but there’s a spider in the bathroom and it’s taunting me."

I’m not shy. I’m just examining my prey."

I’m not telling you I saw a werewolf but… I saw a werewolf."

I’m not the one doing it."

I’m not wearing a dress."

I’m not wearing a tie."

I’m not wearing THAT"

I’m not weird. I am limited edition."

I’m not your personal doormat."

I’m only here to help."

I’m part of the pathetic line."

I’m proud of you."

I’m right here, okay?"

I’m right where I belong."

I’m running away."

I’m scared. What if someone finds out about us?"

I’m scared."

I’m sick."

I’m so done with this life."

I’m so glad that I met you."

I’m so glad you could come.Cut the crap. Give me a drink."

I’m so in love with her/him, I don’t know what do do."

I’m so in love with you."

I’m so tired of the pain."

I’m sorry for the mean, awful, accurate things I said."

I’m sorry I slapped you… But you didn’t seem like you would ever stop talking and I panicked."

I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me."

I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression."

I’m sorry if I ruined your birthday because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut."

I’m sorry, I’m… just really not up to partying right now. Go have fun without me"

I’m sorry, was I meant to be offended? The only thing offending me is your face."

I’m sorry. It won’t happen again."

I’m Sorry."

I’m still drunk from last night."

I’m telling you. I’m haunted."

I’m the dumbest smart person you’ll ever meet."

I’m tired of living."

I’m too sober for this bullshit."

I’m too sober for this."

I’m trying really hard not to blame you for this."

I’m trying to cheer you up."

I’m trying to decide if this thing I did is incredibly stupid or…What happened? What did you do?Well…I fell in love with you."

I’m trying to get work done."

I’m trying to imagine you with a personality."

I’m waiting."

I’m willing to wait for it."

I’m worried about you."

I’m yours, in every way you’ll have me."

I’ve always been honest with you."

I’ve been alone for so long.."

I’ve been called worse by better."

I’ve been praying for you."

I’ve been trying to get ready for like an hour and a half because I know you’re going to look so good and I need to try and match up."

I’ve been trying to get ready for like an hour and a half, because I know you’re going to look so good and I need to try and match up."

I’ve been waiting all my life for you."

I’ve got a good heart but this mouth…"

I’ve got you. Breathe, okay? I’ve got you."

I’ve got you."

I’ve had a rough day and honestly all I want right now is a drink and someone to cuddle with.."

I’ve had enough."

I’ve liked you for awhile now."

I’ve lost my nose."

I’ve never been more in love with you."

I’ve never done this before."

I’ve never felt stronger than when you’re with me."

I’ve never missed anyone as much as I missed you."

I’ve never said that to any one before."

I’ve never seen anything like the way you handled that. I’m just so moved.

I’ve never tried that candy and you’re not gonna get me to start now

I’ve seen people like you before, but I had to pay admission."

I’ve waited for this moment for a long time."

I’ve wanted this for so long."

  Other Prompts Here Masterlist Here Request Here

[alia-turin]

That’s a long one, hope you guys enjoy!

Fic Title: Take It and Run [cowboy au] Chapter: 8. Rock Bottom Previous Chapters:  Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |  Chapter 3 |  Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6  | Chapter 7 Rating: G (Warnings: swearing, drinking, some self hate implied) Characters: Cor, Luche, Noctis, Glado, Ignis, Nyx, Luna, Ravus, Libertus, Crowe. Tagging: @birdsandivory @jojopitcher @lazarustrashpit @yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy @themissimmortal @kairakara101 @littlestfangirl @parjiljehavey @ladychocoberry

If you want to be tagged, let me know

Noct didn’t move from Ignis’ sick bed throughout the day. The doctor came and went and came again to change his bandages. He had no idea how much time it passed, the room was dark, doctor recommended it so he couldn’t figure if it was day or night, if it was just an hour that had passed or ten.

Doctor said that when Ignis woke up he might never be able to see again or if he does, his sight would be damaged forever. Noct had shouted at the doctor and then begged him until Gladio pulled him away. That couldn’t be it. Blind? How would he shoot, ride a horse, read…

He was running what had happened through his mind over and over again and he couldn’t explain who or why would have done that. It was a robbery, a normal stage coach robbery why didn’t they need to set explosives? Cor had suggested that they didn’t want to leave traces, even traces of what might have been stolen, but Noct still couldn’t understand why somebody would do that. What could they steal? Some of the money and valuables from the passengers…Prompto had spoken with the post office and they confirmed it was just normal post on that stagecoach. It wasn’t bonds or anything else that could be turned into money.

Noct look at Ignis’ bandaged face and felt himself helpless and guilty. If he wasn’t so blinded by his hate for Ardyn, he might have been more careful. But he was blinded, he thought it was just another one of these things where the mayor was trying to annoy him. He didn’t take his own job seriously out of spite towards Ardyn and now Ignis was paying for it.

What would his father think I he could see him right now? He was a brat throwing a tantrum against a man he hated. Ardyn was insufferable, but he wasn’t the enemy at the end of the day. He wasn’t the one who robbed the bank a year ago and killed his father and Clarus. He wasn’t the one who robbed that stagecoach and blinded Ignis. All that time he had tried and hoped that Ardyn was involved in the robbery a year ago, somehow, indirectly, but was that blinding him? Was he trying to accuse the man just because he disliked him?

Ignis was paying now for Noct’s stubbornness and even childish behavior. Maybe Ardyn was right, maybe he was just a kid with a badge with no ability to live up to it.

Noct closed his eyes trying to chase these thoughts away but all he could see was the explosion and Ignis’ face covered in blood. When he opened his eyes Ignis was right there in front of him. Sleeping, bloodied bandage covering his face.

“Noct.” Prompto walked in the room and spoke quietly. “There are two guys who want to pay Nyx’s bail…”

“Take the money and let him go.” Noct didn’t care about Nyx Ulric. He wasn’t the one who hurt Ignis. Cor was right all the time, taking the guns away wasn’t going to reduce crime. He should have listened to Cor.

 “Thanks guys.” Nyx stretched as soon as he walked out of the sheriff’s office, the sun blinding him as soon as he looked up.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.” Luche started. The man looked like hell. His clothes were wet and muddy, he hadn’t shaven for at least two days which was highly unusual for him. Mister perfect looked nothing like himself right now. “That’s your cut of the cattle, we took out two hundred from the total and then we split what was left. Also, someone stole your horse.”

“My horse?” Nyx couldn’t believe that. His luck was not getting any better. “Which one?”

“The brown mare.” Tredd responded. Nyx still couldn’t believe how on earth Tredd looked cleaner and more presentable than Luche. What did he miss?

“I loved that horse, it was a good horse…” he counted the money Luche had given him, there certainly wasn’t enough for a good animal. It was enough in fact but he had to make a choice between eating or buying a horse. Ironically the horse was also related to him being able to make more money.

“Lucky for you, I have a friend who sells horses nearby and will probably give you one with a discount.” Luche said as they walked towards their camp.

Riding towards Luche’s friend was just made Nyx a bit more bitter about his situation. Both Luche and Tredd were on their horses, that quick dun thing Luche loved and the massive black stallion that matched Tredd’s personality. On the other hand, he was forced to ride his much smaller bay which was a good animal, but not as fast or as clever as the stolen animal. There was certain level of humiliation and annoyance he felt and somehow wanted a revenge. He wasn’t usually petty and part of him could understand the sheriff freaking out, but another part of him was angry about the horse. That horse was his livelihood, he couldn’t do his job with jus one horse and he couldn’t earn money if he couldn’t do his job.

“Let me do the talking.” Luche said as they approached a ranch, it wasn’t a big property, but certainly wasn’t small. From here he could see the horses boxed behind a fence. What caught Nyx’s attention was the house in the distance. That wasn’t a normal ranch house, it was one of these big white things with columns people built in the East. Or at least that was what the newspapers said, he had never been that far East to see these big houses.

“Your friend…” Nyx started not sure how exactly to put it.

“He is not from here. He also hates it here, and thinks he is better than everyone. Don’t take it personal.” Luche explained and Nyx gave him a long look. He could name another guy who came years ago from the East with a stick up his ass.

“You boys from the East with your fancy houses and clothes.” Tredd said and spit. “That house looks likes someone’s mausoleum. A very big one.”

Nyx couldn’t hold his laugh at Tredd’s words. He didn’t always like the man, nor he always got along with him, but Tredd possessed that street wisdom that one couldn’t learn in a school or a church. It was the type of knowledge you got on battlefields, sleeping rough and drinking till sunrise.

“I will talk with Ravus.” Luche said as led his horse towards the house. “You go pick your horse from what he has.”

“I’m coming with you.” Tredd followed Luche and Nyx was a bit disappointed. He was at the property of a man he didn’t know looking at his horses. At least Tredd had a good eye for horseflesh and could help him with the choice. One of his very few redeeming qualities.

Nyx tied his horse next to the fence and climbed up to look at the animals. Nothing caught his eye right away so he just looked. Luche’s friend was certainly from the East, lots of these animals were pretty but he didn’t need a pretty horse, he needed a working horse.

“I’d go for the chestnut if I were you.” The voice surprised him and Nyx turned to his left to see that pretty girl from town standing next to him on the fence. She was wearing riding clothes, her pale blond hair was tied up uncovering the most angelic face he had ever seem.  “I heard my brother talk about a price with your friends, decided to come and help you get the best for your money.”

Nyx just stared. Not at the horses but at her. He had no idea what to say. That had never happened to him. He wasn’t a shy guy and he knew how to talk to a woman, but for some reason his brain was jumping through twenty different dialogue options and neither of them seemed suitable.

“In prison, I’m Nyx.” He finally said and regretted not having a gun right now because he wanted to shoot himself. He wanted to say his name but was worried she remembered he was the guy in the prison…now even if she didn’t remember he certainly reminded her.

“Excuse me?” she laughed at his confusion, probably that was a good sign.

“I mean to say my name is Nyx. The prison part came out because that’s where I saw you last.” He already sank his own ship, might as well do it faster.  

“Oh, you are the man Noct arrested because they found a gun on you.” To her credit she didn’t move away from him or even show she was uncomfortable around him. A lady of her status and looks probably didn’t want to be anywhere near a man associated with prison.

“I was framed.” Nyx quickly defended himself. “The gun wasn’t mine. Someone put it there.”

“And if it was…would you admit to it?” she had a smile on her lips, that smile was so pretty.

“Probably not. I assume a criminal wouldn’t confess to his crimes. But I was innocent.” He was finally feeling a bit more at ease not like some fifteen years old before his first time. “Tell me what does a girl like you do in a place like that?”

“A girl like me?” there was curiosity in her voice and damn he could listen to that accent all day long.

“I mean the town is cattle station, everybody here is a cowboy or someone who deals with cattle. Most of the women are wives of cowboys or saloon girls.” He looked quickly toward Luche and Tredd, they were still talking with the girl’s brother from what Nyx could assume. They did look alike.

“So, nobody in town could talk well and dress well.” She asked him, that teasing smile still on her lips.

“Not nobody. I’m sure the mayor probably talks well, seen few other men and women dressed well around town. You just seem out of place.” He gave her his most charming smile and could swear she was blushing.

“I’d take that as compliment, Nyx.” The way she said his name almost made him lose his balance and fall from the fence. “My brother used to sell racing horses back East. He lost some money, we were forced to move here. Now he sells horses, nobody here races horses beside you drunk cowboys when you are bored. Sadly, working horses and racing horses are two different things and Ravus, never figured that out.”

“But you have?” Nyx moved just an inch closer to her, he could smell her skin, and that was most amazing aroma he had ever smelled in his whole life.

“Better than him. I know that the chestnut there is smart and you can teach her to herd cattle. I know she is not the fastest horse that was ever born, but she is fast enough for your work.” She smiled. “I also know that none of the others are good.”

Nyx wanted to ask her another hundred things but then Luche, Tredd and the brother came in.

“Whichever horse you want, it’s yours for ten dollars.”

“Eight.” Nyx said which made Luche look at him silently tell him to shut up. “And I won’t point out why because it will be embarrassing.”

“He actually has a point….” Tredd started.

“Fine eight, and get out of my property. Let’s go Luna.” He walked away without waiting for her and she followed not before giving Nyx a very warm smile.

“I will see you in town.” He told her and tipped his hat.

“I will see you in town.” Tredd repeated mockingly. “Come on lover boy let’s grab your horse because you are making me sick.”

 Luche was with Tredd in the saloon, the way he saw it, he had very little money anyway, losing some on cards wasn’t going to make him any poorer, he was as poor as they came. On the other hand, he could earn some. Axis had left to see his family, Crowe, Libertus and Pelna were probably sulking somewhere wondering how they would make it through the winter and Nyx was nursing his crush.

“You believe what Ravus said?” Tredd asked him as he ordered another drink and winked at the girl who brought it to him. She just smiled politely and left, of course she had no interest in Tredd if he wasn’t giving her money and like Luche he had none.

“I don’t know. He might not know where the leak is, he might be the leak. He would do anything to pack his stuff, grab his sister and disappear.” Luche drank his water, he was probably the only man here not drinking alcohol but he didn’t have the stomach or head to even lick some. “He did act surprised about the explosion.”

“The explosion doesn’t worry me.” Tredd leaned forward making sure no one could hear them. “It makes sense to blow the stagecoach, like that they don’t know we couldn’t find anything. Now the injured deputy…someone needs to show the man some mercy and shoot him the way you do with injured horse.”

“He also said Drautos has new plan, new job.” Luche said as quietly as possible. “But I’m not jumping on that train, until I know what’s going on. The way things are going, we might see the Marshal and the sheriff waiting for us at that job. No, we will wait for Nyx to get close to the sister.”

Luche had to agree on that one, although what worried him about the injured deputy was just that, he was an injured deputy. Nothing pissed off lawmen as injured or dead lawmen. But there were too many odd things in the whole story. Odd to the level of making them suspicious. Somehow every time they got involved in a job somebody who was someone in town ended up death or injured. In the bank heist it was the mayor and the sheriff. Now it was that deputy. Luche didn’t care much about either but it was his head on the line.

“Look there.” Tredd pointed with his chin at one of the tables and Luche had to turn around. It was that redhaired girl’s brother drinking with his friends. That was another mystery. Why did she pass Ardyn today as if he wasn’t there? His own supernatural deductions provoked by alcohol fumes set aside, Luche knew the man was popular. He was elected mayor after all, surely, he wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea but she passed through him without even looking at him. It was interesting to figure out why. He looked around, there was no space on their table and a stranger sitting with them won’t make them talk. There was a free table close to them…where the Marshal was sitting.

“If I get arrested would you bail me?” Luche asked Tredd and the man chuckled. “I’m serious.”

“I will bail you.” Tredd finished his drink.

“Let’s say hi to the Marshal.”

“Bad idea…” Tredd started but Luche ignored him. Of course, it was a bad idea, but when you are at the bottom all ideas are bad.

“Marshal.” Luche took his hat off, trying to look as respectable as he could, speaking in his more natural Eastern accent. “I came to apologize. I was drunk today and said some things I didn’t really want to say.” Part of it was a lie, he didn’t dislike the Marshal for any personal reasons, it was just lawman outlaw type of relationship. “How about I buy a drink we play some cards and forget what happened?”

“If we play cards, you might have to let me win.” He was serious for a moment but then smiled just faintly. “It’s really bad to apologize to a man and then take his money in a card game.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried, Marshal.” Tredd pulled a chair ordering drinks for the three of them, Luche could feel himself getting sick by the idea of alcohol. “He is terrible card player.”

Luche had to admit, cards were never his thing. He didn’t like leaving things to luck and the way he saw it cards were mostly that. Tredd would argue that cards were skill since that was something he was good at, but it wasn’t a skill. They started playing and Luche pushed his chair back just enough to be able to listen what was going on the other table. Lucky for him, the guy was angry and spoke loud enough so Luche didn’t need to try too hard to hear.

“That old man could have lived just couple more years. But no, he had to have heart attack just now. And left all the money to that bitch. The land as well. I’m given a stipend. A stipend!” he slammed his fist on the table which actually made the Marshal look at them, Luche couldn’t see if that effected the men in any way.

“But she is your sister, surely she won’t just leave you like that.” One of the other guys suggested.

“She said I need to work for it.  I need to help with the ranch. Fuck that! The mayor offered good price for it. Triple what he offered the old man last year. She said no. What a stupid child! She could have taken the money, given me third of it and still be richer than anyone in that shithole. She is just a child. Nineteen! Who leaves a fortune to nineteen years old girl?”

Luche wasn’t really playing attention to the card game he was participating in, although he probably should have since he was losing money he technically didn’t have. What bothered him however was why the mayor needed that land. The ranch was massive, he had seen it with his own eyes. You could build half a town there, but why would the mayor need a ranch? He was a mayor, was he going to retire and go into cattle or horse or farm business? Knowing the man, Luche doubted that.

Before the man could go on another rant the salon suddenly went silent. Luche had to look towards the door to figure out what was happening. There she was, that pretty redhaired thing, walking right towards her brother, with the intention to kill him from what Luche could tell. Everybody stared, women usually didn’t go to the saloon, at least not women whose dresses cost as much as Luche’s horses. It was saloon girls, or working women like Crowe who had the same gutter humor as the men. To put it politely, it wasn’t a place for a lady.

“You need to go. Now.” She was next to her brother and even if she was short little thing, she did seem perfectly capable to drag the man out of it.

“You are not my mother, you are not telling me where to go.” He wasn’t even looking at her and Luche suddenly wanted to hit the man’s face in the table. He looked at Tredd who had the most curious expression on his face.

“I own the roof over your head, and I told you I need your help tonight.” Most of the people in the saloon had returned to their usual activities, the family drama didn’t seem that exciting.

“I will come, when I’m done here, you can very well go and play with dolls or something.” The man smirked, still not looking at her.

Luche saw his chance there, he could help her do whatever needed to be done and get more information on what Ardyn exactly wanted, better to get it from the source that eardrop. He could see that Tredd had similar idea, although he doubted it involved getting information. He started formulating in his head what to say and how to say it.

“Ada, let’s go, I will help you.” The Marshal said and Luche’s mouth gaped at him. “Nice playing with you guys, you can keep the earnings.” The Marshal grabbed his black hat from the table and walked with the girl out. Luche and Tredd looked at the door, then looked at each other.

“Did he just…” Luche started.

“He cockblocked us.” Tredd finished. “Damn I was sure I was going to win that bet tonight.”

It wasn’t the stupid bet in which he wasn’t participating that worried him, however. He needed more information on Ardyn and the chance to at least figure out some of the man’s motivation just walked out of the door with the Marshal at her side. He wasn’t going to jump on that new job Ravus talking about before he knew what was going on, and he just missed one opportunity to figure that out.

[teddy-bear-surprise]

Chapter 7: Groundhog Day–Ophelia

|| Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 Part 1 || Chapter 7 Part 2 || Chapter 8 || Almost The End || Chapter 9 ||

WARNING: Mentions of bodily harm, blood, manipulation, drugs (not super directly, but it is implied), etc.

Note: For all purposes of my plot, Spencer was neither arrested nor imprisoned at any point. I just chose Season 13-14 because of Cat and because Spence looked good ;) Also, this is part one of chapter 7. It is exclusively from Ophelia’s POV and part two will be from Spencer’s POV.

I laid back on the soft cushions of my couch, wondering what I could do to break Spencer. He trusted me now, after our extended catch-up session yesterday, I had the upper hand. I could make his mind my playground, manipulate every twist, turn, and dead-end. Maybe it was wrong to mess with a flimsy FBI agent’s mind when they’re already being held captive and have minor brain damage, but it was just so fun.

Spencer was incredibly vulnerable. He had no means of escaping, he had less physical strength than me, and he had more unresolved and internalized trauma than anyone I had ever met… well, Cat might be a strong contender. Nonetheless, I would break him, today, tomorrow, or next week.

My first idea was to make him re-live yesterday, as many times as it took for him to go crazy. In some respects, my plan was rudimentary, possibly so basic that it would not even dent the psyche of a hardened criminal, but Spencer was nowhere near hardened nor a criminal and his defenses were weak.

I grabbed a quick breakfast consisting of yogurt and granola from my barren kitchen before heading down to the basement. Those were quite literally the only things in the house besides some leftover pizza from last night and I made a mental note to buy some more groceries later. Taking advantage of the fact that I was still in the kitchen, I grabbed another pan and took it with me. While I pranced down the steps, I reviewed my plan once more.

All I had to do was mess with his perceptions of reality. He might be a criminal profiler, but he had never had his own mind examined by a criminal. I was so incredibly excited to test out my plan, that I nearly forgot to make it in the first place. So, here it is, in all of its crude glory:

Wake Spencer up, aggressively if possible.

Be meaner, maybe some more personal insults would do well.

Cuff him to the table again.

Let him freeze again… or I could turn up the AC, that might be fun to watch.

Pretend like I don’t know him, violent interrogation will be my friend.

Have him introduce himself and act like I’ve missed him!

Rinse and repeat.

It seemed simple enough, all I had to do was go through a total replay of yesterday’s occurrences but turn up the intensity by a notch. I flipped the pan over in my hand a few times before gathering enough momentum to slam it harshly against the cell’s thick metal door. The sound rang through the basement, its vibrations bouncing off of every inch of exposed surface area and enveloping my ears. I thanked my own beautiful mind for soundproofing the walls. If I had not, my neighbors almost certainly would have heard the racket I was stirring up.

After a few more loud bangs on the door, I heard Spencer waking up, “WHAT THE HELL?! I THOUGHT WE WERE PAST THIS!”

I chuckled to myself, reveling in the innocence of his thoughts. I dropped the pan again, exactly as I had the day before, and greeted Spencer curtly from the doorway. “You should be kinder to your host. After all, I am the one paying for the bed you’re sleeping in and could easily throw you out to dry up in the desert. You wouldn’t last a day, moron.”

“I– What are you talking about? I just thought that after yesterday, you would be less aggressive,” he seemed genuinely confused.

I spoke confidently and firmly, “I haven’t the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about. Stop talking nonsense and get out of bed so we can get started. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Spencer knit his eyebrows together tightly, seemingly recalling something from his extensive memory bank, “You said you would go easy, we caught up last night. I thought we were on good terms again.”

“Did you hit your head? What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking worm?” I finally entered the room and bent down to pick up Spencer by his shirt collar. Internally I was about to burst out in laughter, I had no idea why I called him a worm, but I had to remain composed so he would not see through my façade.

“Stop fucking around and let’s go.”

“F–fine. Fine. I’m going, just let me put on my socks again.” His hands trembled as he pulled his socks on. One was a dark grey and the other a light blue.

“How the hell did you manage to mix up your sock colors? I literally gave you matching pairs of socks, fucking dumbass.”

Reid looked up from his socks innocently, “I just switched them around, it’s good luck.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re definitely gonna be needing that luck.” I let out a slightly maniacal chuckle, hoping to scare Spencer a bit and intimidate him.

Once he finally got his socks on, I pulled out the handcuffs from my pockets and leaned my knee against his chest, reenacting yesterday’s event’s to a tee. “Give me your hands.”

He offered his wrists to me reluctantly and slowly. Without even thinking, I reached down and yanked his arms up to my level. I could have sworn that I heard a pop when I pulled his hands, but I ignored it as I tightened the metal restraints. Once again he was wincing as the metal created deep, red marks on his wrists. I laughed at his reaction, “Man up, Mr. FBI, stop being such a wimp. My three-year-old neighbor could handle more pain than you.”

He huffed, defeated by the power of my position and the neverending stream of subtle insults I was delivering, “Sorry, I’m ready to go now.”

“Come on, princess, I’m gonna have a lot of fun with you today,” I yanked him up by the metal chain that connected his hands and his body lurched forwards. He moved like a dried up worm on the sidewalk, maybe my worm insult was not that misplaced after all.

When we got to the interrogation room today, it was perfectly arranged as if it had never been occupied before. I could see the confusion stirring up in his mind. I had decided to add to his confusion even further by replacing the chair he sat on the day before with one that was an inch and a half shorter. To most people, that height difference would not make much of a difference, but Spencer’s long legs and boney arms would feel it.

After cuffing him to the table in the center of the room, I lingered around a bit. I was not quite sure why I chose to do so, yet every move I made felt like it had been planned out so I went along with it. My back rested against the one-way glass on the wall across from him and my eyes were intently focused on the way his lips parted ever so slightly as he breathed.

I had never felt any sort of attraction to Spencer before, but now something about him entranced me. I figured it might just be some kind of psychological phenomenon, we went on a six-hour road trip– though he went against his will–, I had seen him semi-nude multiple times, and I planned every move of mine around Spencer. Something was bound to spark eventually.

Even now, so vulnerable and distressed, Spencer looked beautiful. From the way that his messy, brown hair curled to the rapid fidgeting of his fingers, I was mesmerized. I feared that he would sense the lust in my gaze and break through the front I was putting up so I averted my eyes, instead choosing to focus on the clean floor beneath my feet.

I stole a glance in his direction and saw him staring intently at me, could it be possible that he felt the same way about me? The thought escaped my mind just as quickly as it entered when he spoke timidly, “So, what are we doing today? You said I would need my luck, I’m waiting.”

“Did you really think I’d just jump to the chase like that? No, it’s all a game, darling. You wait your turn, play your angle, and then maybe you’ll win.” The timing was perfect for me to leave.

I walked towards the door and slowed for a moment when I passed Spencer, holding my breath. I rested my hand on his shoulder lightly and squeezed, letting my touch linger warmly on his covered skin. His shuddering breath shook through his body and into my fingertips which soon fell away from him. I left the room, stopping to catch my breath and recover from how different his skin felt today compared to the days before.

Aggressively, I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts and walked up the stairs and into the control room again. I was supposed to be the one in his head, but somehow I accidentally let him into mine and he did not even know it. I threw myself onto the office chair inside and watched him fiddle with his fingers. He shifted around in his seat uncomfortably, trying to stretch out his legs and prop his arms onto the tall tabletop.

Eventually, I started turning the temperature up, degree by degree, until I could see the sweat glimmering above his furrowed brow. His shirt began growing darker as sweat accumulated in the fabric’s threads. I saw him try to stand up in an attempt to save his sweatpant-clad legs from dripping in sweat. But the table prevented him from standing up straight and his back curved awkwardly as his hands lay stuck to the table. It became obvious that his plan had failed when I saw the dark patches of black taking over his grey shirt. Spencer flopped down onto the seat, defeated, and threw his head back panting. Not too long after, he started removing his socks. First the blue one, then the grey one. His luck had ended and it was time to make my move.

I returned to the interrogation room and peeked my head inside, “It seems that your luck has ended, handsome.”

“Wha–” He turned to me and I saw fear and confusion running rampant in every crease of his face.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough. Just sit tight and I’ll be right back.” I winked at him and slammed the door shut.

Hot damn, it really was unbearably hot in there. Luckily, he had not seen what I was wearing and I still had a chance to change. I ran upstairs to my room and quickly threw on a pair of running shorts and a skimpy tank top. If the heat did not get to him, maybe the low neckline would.

I returned to the basement and grabbed a few handy interrogation items. A little dagger, blindfold, and a simple contraption of her own creation. The dagger was small and silver, handcrafted by a colleague of mine at MIT as a graduation gift. Its handle was light and carefully engraved with some of my favorite quotes:

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.”

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

And so on… these are the quotes that got me through school and life unscathed. I owe everything to the scientists who came before me, though they may have disagreed with my choice of employment, they would have understood why it was so important to me.

The blindfold, on the other hand, was just plain, black cotton. My specialty tool, however, was just as intricate as the dagger.

It looked like a simple collar from afar, but upon closer examination, it was a metal collar that featured blunt metal rods. The rods each pinpointed a specific area of the neck, disturbing circulation, interfering with the wearer’s airways, or provoking a relatively painful and debilitating area of the spine. I did not like to use the ‘spine spike’ very often though, it was much too risky and occasionally left the user with mild paralysis or persistent nerve damage. Because of its temperamental nature, I removed the spike, not wanting to accidentally leave Spencer with any long-lasting injuries if I opted to use the collar.

I placed the three items inside of a black leather briefcase, which I found to look quite intimidating, and entered the interrogation room where Spencer was still waiting and sweating. I knew my outfit did not look cohesive in the slightest, especially with the briefcase, but I had to make do with what I had. I ruffled my hand in his hair playfully when I passed him and slammed the briefcase on the metal table.

Spencer jumped back at the sudden noise, “Uhhhh, Ophelia, what is that?”

His voice trembled and his eyes were open wide. He was already broken and I had barely even started, this was going to be too easy.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I smirked at him evilly and turned the briefcase so it faced me on the other side of the table. I unlatched the closures slowly, creating such tantalizing suspense that I could hear every breath that Spencer took.

My hand first reached towards the blindfold, playing with it in my hands as Spencer watched. He gulped loudly, his throat dry from the heat and fear. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you, that wouldn’t be any fun.”

“K– kill me?” He spoke in a shaking, high-pitched voice.

I walked slowly until I was standing behind him and he was looking at us both in the mirror, “Why are you so worried? I said I wouldn’t kill you.”

My hands were perched on his shoulders as I said this and I laughed briefly when I saw him tense up. I pulled the blindfold around his head, carefully tying it behind his soft, brown hair. Spencer’s breath stopped momentarily as he tried to cope with his loss of vision.

My right hand drifted down his arm slowly and his head moved around frantically as if he wanted to know where I was. When my hand reached his, I gave it a quick squeeze and let go so I could retrieve my other supplies from my briefcase. I debated between using the dagger or the collar first and opted for the dagger, it was much more fun to be close to Spencer.

I picked it up and twirled it as I walked over to where Spencer sat. The back of my legs rested on the table while I spoke. “So, how’d ya find me, Mr. FBI?”

“I– I don’t know, I don’t think I can answer that question.” Sweat fell from his hairline and soaked the blindfold, he was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second.

I brought the dagger up to his shirt and cut open a few inches until his chest was slightly exposed and he shivered under my touch. “You sure about that?”

Spencer nodded his head rapidly, but I knew he was lying, after all, he had told me all about Hotch and Garcia yesterday. So I wondered why he would lie to me today. I lowered the dagger to his skin, tracing the sharp edge against his shiny skin. He froze, not moving or even breathing when he felt the blade draw its first drops of blood. The once pristine blade was now coated in a thin coat of the metallic-smelling, deep red liquid that flowed from his skin.

I smiled at my success, “Would you like to reconsider?”

He paused as a tear ran down his cheek, “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.”

“Why are you lying to me? I know you’re lying and your tears aren’t going to deter me.”

His words came our quiet, jumbled, and quickly as he shook in his seat. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Gosh, he really was easy to break. I did not even have to use the collar to reduce him to tears and despair. He was too unstable to continue with step five so I moved onto six, “Okay, fine, I get it. You don’t know. Is there anything you do know? Like your name maybe? Anything?”

The corners of his lips turned up and he grinned, “Spencer Reid!”

“Wait? As in Spencer Reid from Las Vegas, Nevada?” I feigned disbelief and surprise.

His words glimmered with hope, “Yeah! Ophelia, it’s me, we’re friends, remember?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s little ‘Germs’! Holy shit, I haven’t seen you in ages, kid. You changed so much that I didn’t even recognize you.”

“I know, it’s been over twenty years, I was too scared to say anything, but it’s me.”

I pulled the blindfold off of his head, moving my hand to caress his cheek but he flinched slightly. My voice changed to reflect sincerity and reprehension, “Spencer, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. If I had known… you should have said something.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. I trust you, Ophelia, you would never hurt me.”

He was being very irrational compared to his usual, logical self, but I appreciated it. I buried my head in my hands, pretending to be in distress. Soon, I felt Spencer’s hand struggling to reach my arm. It was clear that he wanted to comfort me, but the handcuffs impaired his range of movement.

“I’m so sorry. I–I never meant for this to happen.” I modified my breathing temporarily so that it sounded as though I was about to cry.

“It’s okay…”

I wiped away my imaginary tears which were concealed by the sweat that also covered my face and took a deep breath in before standing up. “Here, let me take those handcuffs off.”

He rubbed his wrists as soon as they were freed and thanked me. I glanced down at him and saw that his chest was still bleeding lightly. “Oh shit, I forgot about the cut. I’ll be right back to take care of that.”

I put all of my ‘supplies’ back into the briefcase before locking it and running out of the room, trying to remember where I had left my first-aid kit. I eventually found it in the upstairs bathroom and stopped to catch my breath. The whole time that I was pretending to reconcile with Spencer, I barely breathed. He was already weak and slightly delusional, but I always was a bit paranoid about getting caught.

My hands gripped the kit firmly as I returned to the room where Spencer was waiting for me and prayed that he would still be as gentle as he had been when I left. I opened the door slowly and saw him sitting in his chair, right where I had left him. The briefcase was still closed and the coast was clear, Spencer was still docile.

“Hey, Spence, I’m back.” I held up the first-aid kit and smiled at him, he returned an equally goofy grin.

“Ophelia! That was quick.”

“Yep, I’m pretty efficient.”

I set down the first aid kit on the ground and kneeled between his knees while gathering what I would need to patch him up. Iodine, gauze, tape, cotton balls, and a small piece of plastic. It was a shallow cut, but I wanted him to feel cared for, vulnerable.

I threw a little bit of iodine onto the cut, spreading it with a small piece of cotton, and waited for it to dry. He looked down to see what I was doing and his nose was only inches away from mine. Keeping my cool, I continued working, placing the gauze and plastic over his cut before securing them with plastic and lightly smoothing it over with my fingers.

“Hi…” Spence whispered down to me and his hot breath fanned over my face.

I turned my head up and looked into his eyes, seeing nothing but lust. He craned his neck down even further, closing the space between us. His lips were soft and his movements slow. I felt us getting closer with every moment that passed, our lips moving in perfect sync with each other. The intoxicating smell of his skin filled my nose, taking me by surprise, but I knew I had to keep my mind clear.

My hand moved around blindly looking for a short syringe inside the kit. Eventually, I found it, using the tips of my fingers to roll it closer to me until I could grab it. I did my best to make sure that Spencer could not feel me moving around as he kissed me. As wonderful as it felt to finally kiss him, I could not let myself lose sight of the bigger picture. I popped off the cap, quietly letting it drop to the floor. His right hand snaked around my back, moving to my waist and pulling me closer. This was my chance.

I jammed the needle into his thigh, pushing down on the plunger as Spencer pulled back in shock. His eyes opened wide, his face covered in confusion once more, and then he was out like a light. His body fell forward onto me and I pushed him back so I could stand up. Grabbing his arms, I carried him back to his room.

I needed to continue my plan again tomorrow, so I grabbed a pack of body wipes and a clean pair of the exact clothes he had worn today. Carefully, I undressed him, leaving him in only his boxers, and bathed him with the wipes. After I had dressed him once more, I tucked him into the bed and placed another pair of mismatched socks beside his bed in the same spot they had been this morning.

Pleased with my work today, I locked his door and returned upstairs to my kitchen to prepare for the next day. I was writing in my notebook when I called my in-town friend on the landline, asking asked him to bring me some groceries and liquor. Since I was going to relive the same day every day, I might as well make the most of it and treat myself to a drink after. And if all went well, I would have a loyal, pliable boyfriend and possibly a new partner in crime. There was nothing more that I could ask for.

[doctorsloth33-blog]

Destan “Doc” Loche Autobiography, Part II

The first eight months I spent in Hammerfell consisted mostly of treating minor injuries and setting the basic standard for care within the Legion. I was stationed in Hegathe where the General resided with his Staff and, to my surprise, was placed as second in command of the entire detachment of Healers. The former Adept had deserted in the middle of the night; camp rumor claimed that he eloped with a local woman. Most of the Healers under the command were fresh graduates from the various magic schools across Tamriel, with only a half dozen veterans. Our commander was an old Nord Master by the name of Lorrick, who hated Hammerfell, the heat, the ocean, and hated us most of all. We were generally seen as an annoyance by the curmudgeonly Master and anyone who was injured less than mortally was a malingerer and a "milk-drinker." I was informed by him that he expected me to handle day to day operations.

I had fifty mages under my charge, and of the fifty as many as forty of them could be out in the field with the Legion at any given time. I myself occasionally became attached to units conducting training exercises simply because I ran out of other personnel to send. Around twenty of my Healers were permanently attached to units in other cities including Sentinel, where the General was forced to declare martial law. The Legion suffered its first combat-related fatality during a riot there; three others were so grievously wounded that they had to be transported back to Hegathe for Master Lorrick to attend. I was required to assist him in their treatment and learned a great deal. While working, Lorrick was surprisingly forthcoming and receptive to questions. We placed a metal plate in one young Imperial's skull that had been fractured by an unknown missile dropped from above. It was delicate and tense work. We first removed the splintered pieces of bone, then cut a circular hole in the man's skull to match the measurements of the plate around the fracture. It was made of gold and I queried Master Lorrick if it would not be cheaper to use steel or even iron. Without answer, he gently placed the plate inside the man's skull, held it with a long thin instrument, and summoned a flame incantation. He carefully traced the perimeter of the metal circle with a glowing finger until the edges began to glow. Once he'd made a complete round he changed his spell to a freezing touch and placed his palm directly on the plate. He stepped back and gestured for me to look, and I saw now the need for such an expensive material. The gold, which melted quickly and at a low enough heat that there was no danger of damage to the surrounding bone, had fused directly to the skull.

"This technique removes the necessity of using pins or screws which can damage the brain," Lorrick's tone was that of an instructor, his usual vitriolic demeanor softened. "You listen well, and have a good mind for this work Adept." I was floored by the compliment and barely managed to utter my gratitude. Thus began my tutelage under Master Lorrick. I owe everything I know of the Restorative Arts, both mundane and magical, to what that old Nord taught me. He showed me that nearly all the schools of magic can be used to help heal. A powerful illusionary incantation to make the patient feel a pleasant massaging sensation in place of the tremendous and horrible pain of a scalpel slicing through flesh. Swift application of flame can seal the ends of vessels that are pouring lifeblood from a wound, and an apprentice level spell of Alteration can make the wicked barbed head of an embedded arrow as soft and pliable as freshly made dough, allowing easy removal without the risk of further damage. Master Lorrick taught me infinitely more in six months than I had learned in four years at the College. He also insisted I, and all of our men, attend general combat training at least twice a week. "A dead healer is no use to anyone and a blade is the surest way to safeguard your own life." I started a sick call where the Legionnaires were allowed to come before duty and be seen by one of the Healers for basic ills and injuries. I kept five Apprentices on duty from 5 o clock to 8 o clock, and I set up a separate tent for general and staff officers. It was here that I met my closest and dearest friend Lucius. He was the Legion Vexillary and, as tradition dictated, the youngest and most junior officer in the entire Legion. I had begun packing my things up after an uneventful morning when he pushed the flap aside and lingered, hesitant, in the entryway.

"Come in," I waved to him and began taking things out of my bag, "come in and have a seat." "Yes, Adept." he paused for a moment, unsure, and then snapped to attention and saluted, adding a "Sir." It took me so much by surprise that I laughed. He tried very hard not to scowl but did not succeed. "Sorry, sorry. Vexillary right?" He nodded, relaxing, "I assure you it wasn't my intention to mock you. I'm almost sure that either you outrank me, or that we're peers at the very least, so there's no need to 'sir' me," I gestured to the chair again, "please have a seat. My name is Destan Loche, Adept second grade. You may call me Destan. What is your name?" "Vexillary Sulla, Adept," he grumbled, taking his seat. I ignored his stubbornness and sat across from him, rolling my sleeves. "Well Monsieur Sulla," he snorted derisively, "what is it that ails you?" His scowl quickly subsided and, under the deep tan natural to Cyrodiils, I could almost detect a redness to his cheeks. "Well Adept," he shifted in the camp seat uncomfortably, "when I awoke this morning to make water I," he paused and the redness increased, "I noticed an intense burning sensation and some sort of discharge," he finally blurted, eyes on the dirt floor. I nodded and asked him a few basic questions, much to his ever-growing discomfort, and ascertained that he had picked up a common malady gained from acquiring less than reputable female companionship; generally of the kind that requires an exchange of currency. A common enough occurrence in the camp of an army, but potentially embarrassing for a member of the General's staff. "Well, there are two options available to you." I stood up and retrieved a pack of instruments neatly rolled up in my bag, "The first is that you return to your quarters and drink large amounts of water until the malady passes." His face scrunched up.

"And what's the second option Adept?"

"The second option," I unrolled the pack and retrieved a long skinny metal rod with a small, smooth cone at the tip, " is that I insert this instrument into the affected area and draw it back out to clear the puss, and then flush the area out with a salve." Lucius blinked at me, expressionless. He sat like that for a while, considering.

"How long will it take the malady to pass on its own?"

"It could pass within a week," I shrugged, "or it could fester and worsen for another month and you'll be right back here having the procedure done anyway."

"Understood. Shall I return, or can you perform it now?"

"Now would be best, " He nodded and I added,  "it will take me a few moments to prepare the salve and clean the instrument. I will give you something to numb the pain but if you keep a flask I suggest you empty it."

"Sound advice Adept, I was just thinking the same thing,"

By the time I completed simmering the potion for pain, Lucius had drunk half of the brandy in his flask. When I returned after cleaning the instruments and preparing the salve, there was only a swallow left, which I took for myself to steady my hand. He was well and truly prepared, giggling and singing half-comprehensible songs learned in taverns. I used oil from coconuts to lubricate the instrument and gave Lucius a belt to bite down on. Without a word, he clenched the leather between his teeth and gave me a nod. A sharp intake of breath on entry and a deep, guttural grunt on the retrieval were the only noises he made. I could hear the leather of the belt squeaking and an alarming crack came from the arms of the examination chair underneath white-knuckled hands. I used a large syringe to take up the salve and applied it to the entry of the phallus to clean the urethra and held the shaft upright for around two minutes. I had mixed in some Juniper berry with the salve and could see that the cooling sensation brought great relief. I released the phallus and instructed him to remain disrobed until it had completed draining. The entire procedure had taken less than five minutes.

"All done, Vexillary," I'd decided to not further tease the man over formality given the pain I'd just put him through, " there may be blood in your water for a few days and there will be some sensitivity, these are both normal and expected. I'm sending you back to your quarters with an order for two days rest and I expect you to use them. This," I handed him a green bottle, "is medication for the pain.  Only take a swallow twice a day, evenly spaced. It should last you for four days." I began tidying up, putting the instrument back into the boiling water, scraping the salve and oil back into their respective containers. Lucius secured his tunic and sword belt once he verified that he was no longer draining salve.  He sat back down and remained, pale and sweating, for a long while. I realized once I finished cleaning that he hadn't spoken since before the procedure.

"Vexillary, are you alright? Did you understand my instructions?" He nodded, still staring off into a corner, "Do you need me to do anything else for you? I can escort you to your quarters, or call for a runner if you'd like."

He finally looked up at me. His cheeks puffed and he blew out a long, exhausted breath.

"Doc," his was voice strained, "I believe you can take me for a drink." He smiled and I found myself grinning along with him.

"Of course Vexillary," I held my hand out. He grasped it and pulled me down to eye level.

"Lucius. My name is Lucius, doc. My friends call me Luc."

"Alright Luc, let's get you that drink."

I have been friends with Markus Lucius Sulla ever since. During the rest of our time in Hammerfell, we were inseparable. I taught him to conjure forth flame and he showed me the proper way to backswing the mace I carried. He showed me how to compose poetry, and I showed him how to cast a net to catch fish in a river. We chased Redguard women and brawled with their jealous suitors. He would make up terrible drunken songs of our imagined conquests, and I would knit our scrapes and cuts back together before muster. It was a wild and enjoyable time, but one that is enormously bittersweet. Two boys, barely past the threshold of manhood, who were just enjoying life. Perhaps we would have done something differently if we'd known what was coming. Perhaps we would have prepared.

On the eighth month, second week, and third day I was assigned to the Tenth Legion in Hammerfell the Dominion army fell upon our heads and brought the world down around us.

End Part II.

[ts-akhmim]

Episode 2 | “GET ME OUT OF HERE ” - Devon

okay so i filmed a video confessional earlier which is uploading where i basically talked about dealing with being a winner/the tomb and having an idol/potentially wanting to go to tribal pre-swap/deliberately choosing the puzzle/how much i love jake so that'll come at some point after this but just KNOW that came first. anyway just wanted to talk MORE because i have more thoughts. last round i was really conscious of needing to micro-manage my threat level and i think im putting in work to do that? im very concious that i cant play the same game as montenegro because im coming into it from a very different perspective/position. However, one thing I can do this season is transfer my prejury game, because i think it still works. What I need to do is to some extent take a backseat, where I'm not actively messaging people first, and keeping game talk kinda limited (but acknowledging it when people talk to me). Like I have the safety cushion of my idol, and my connection to jake/jordan, and to some extent dan and lovelis? like im not gonna be a target (touch wood) and hopefully if i am my men tm going to keep an eye out for me.... hopefully? it also means im not gonna be pushy about votes im gonna hear names and run with it (as long as its not jake/jordan, or lovelis tbh i get real good vibes from him). but yeah id really love the beauty tribe to go to tribal this round ive literally never spoken to a single one of them so i'd love one of that tribe that is a complete unknown quantity to go home DJDKLFSF. but yis so im feeling good taking a backseat but im gonna ejector seat myself forwards at some point, just got to figure out when to push the button

Okay so Bodhi left last night and that was really sad. We had nice conversations but i told him that if the rest of the tribe wanted him out i wasn't going to campaign for him. He ended up making his rounds but at the end of the day, no one felt strongly about keeping him. He speaks so well that it took me a night's rest to get my head straight. Also Trace got an alliance together of himself, myself, Scott and Isaac. Bitch i was SHOOK! I am so glad to be likable enough to be brought into someone else's core. So this kind of perfectly positioned myself and Scott between 2 alliances. I believe we're both more loyal to the one we formed before we found out we were going to tribal, but who knows. I did tell Autumn of the news because i figure if we were to lose again. Whichever of Isaac of Trace remains is going to feel on bottom and blow up that Scott and I were two-timing the DADS. Btw that is the dumbest alliance name I have ever been a part of but whatever. The rat pack has also formed and now him and I are in a good spot. I will say that i am nervous that MISS ALYSSA spoke the comparison into existence, but i really hope we don't continue to flop like Luzon did on Cagayan. But hey! If Denise can go to every tribal council in one season and win, maybe i can too. (PS i pissed myself with my score in winterbells but also F*CK WINTERBELLS, thats all, ty) 

Honestly I’m really regretting not participating in this challenge because I feel like our scores are.......not great. I feel like I could have turned out the puzzle and even winterbells. The flag Lovelis made is super cute and i think will fair well bc it’s very clean and neat. It’s not super creative, but it’s definitely well made. I think even if we went to tribal I would be okay though. Liam seems like an easy enough boot for us. No one seems that dazzled by his contributions to the tribe. 

i literally am the biggest clown who ever clowned for continuing to overdo it in challenges, if i'm allowed to make it to merge at this point it will literally be a miracle.

So Bodhi left on a unanimous vote yesterday and I'm glad that it worked out as planned! I definitely felt bad lying to him about it all and stuff, but I think it was the best for the tribe going forward. What does suck however is that we lost AGAIN! And it was actually close this time! I'm actually annoyed that we lost this time because I submitted my challenge at 4PM and the reason why we lost was because the last submission was at 8 :/ like... y'all couldn't get it in any earlier? Plus I'm annoyed because I find myself in the swing position between the DADS and The Rat Pack. Personally I don't trust Trace after finding out he tried to play the Rat Pack off as my idea when it was really his all along. To me, it shows that he'd betray me later on down the line. And the only purpose for "The Rat Pack" is so they feel like they're in the majority. So since we lost, I don't mind voting out Trace. Duncan and I called to confirm that we're on the same page. We also found out that Devon is telling us the same things about loyalty and allegiances and I don't like that. He also told Duncan that he would throw immunities and play idols for him if he needed it, and that Duncan was his number 1 ally. But he said the same exact thing to me. So... that has me a little sketch. But I also think that Autumn/Duncan are a close pair, so I may need to stick close to Devon for the long hall. But if Autumn/Duncan think I'm more with them than Devon, I'll take it. I'm supposed to go on call with the Dads soon. Duncan wants to tell them about the rat alliance so that Isaac doesn't use it as motive to get us out. Which i agree that it'd be a good idea as long as devon/autumn stick with us. Duncan and I both feel like Devon might be thrown off since he always likes to be in control, but not actually being in charge. So we'll need to do damage control when that happens. But for now it seems like Trace is going unless things change. If things go how I would want it to, then Trace leaves tomorrow. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JKqH3EQMlugIe-lwHMYMG2qoVZ7dvIzr/view?usp=sharing

Omg!!!!! Another win that makes me so happy . The tribe is all getting along great and I couldnt all for better ppl. I'm hoping soon to get some kind of solid group together. Kendell adam and amiry are ppl I def wanna work with long term at the time. Just gotta see what happens. 

Not much has been happening lately so I might be able to keep this short and not ramble on and on like i usually do (ill still end up writing a novel probably) yippy yay it's day 5 and everything is still all smiles and giggles over here because we've won yet another immunity!! kinda boring tbh but obviously im happy we won immunity because now that buys me one more day and at the end of it that's all i care about. I kinda did want the brauns to go to tribal however instead of the brains because i just really would like my beauties to get a nice foot hold and a lead in the game, i actually enjoy taking to some of these people, and im trying my best to talk to as many people as i can, which anyone who knows me knows isn't the easiest thing for me, i was reading some of my old confessionals from both my past games and the one thing i consistently got dragged for was not being as present with people, which granted i did improve a lot on last time around for sure, but i still got work to do and im realizing that more each day when i have no urge whatsoever to talk to anyone (don't worry, it's not you, it's (crippling depression) me! I understand socializing is part of the game and i do think my social game is my strongest asset but to me i like to think of my social game as a more distinct kind, im more elusive and i like to be that, if you leave them wanting more dahling they'll keep you around, i dont like to show all my cards, and that's a quality that i reflect in both survivor and life, and it has advantages and disadvantages in both but ANYWHO despite all that dare i say i think im still doing *decent* ? I'm making it a priority to reach out at least once a day to *most people (AJ, Augusto, Amir, Austin) are the ones ive probably had some of the best conversations with where it was the most natural and just flowed you know, and still is on day 5, and with kendall ive had some talks with her i do like her but idk i get this vibe she's kinda holding back when talking to me, and ESPECIALLY same with connor? we only had one private conversation and he gave me about a 3 word response, and if you havent guessed by now i like elaboration or at least a lil bit of personality when you talk, no shade just an observation, so that's a small red flag im very much a person who matches energy, one of my go to's in survivor is being open to the possibility of anything, ill always work with anyone who will work with me, and i think thats how everyone should play so hopefully the people ive been talking a lot to feel similar but i guess we'll have to wait until a vote of some sort to see about all that.. I still havent heard any idol talk or even game talk quite frankly so im guessing people are just still keeping the friendly facade up..... or ...... is it me?? am i the one on the outs looking like boo boo the fool or is that just my paranoia getting to me??? im not gonna send myself into a tizzy about getting voted out when we're not even going to tribal i- lemme calm down. If i had to guess I'd say Kendall, Connor, or Amir have the idol probably but sounds like a mystery for another day because im DONE im clocking out for the night until other people wanna wake up and play the game too oop final note: ok but it would be sick and twisted if it turns out they are all playing the game just without me and im the first boot of the tribe 

Waking up on this glorious Day 5 with a new perspective. I originally applied to be on the brains tribe and was shook when I got brawn because let’s face it, my arms are akin to overcooked spaghetti noodles. BUT my tribe is so much stronger than the brains. I’m hoping for a big name to go to shake things up. AND I’m not really looking to swap onto a tribe with Trace or Autumn due to our past game history. Love them both dearly, but it’s gonna be a no from me. 

okie so! update from me is i think im doing okay. like i think the benefit of no dua lipa cave is you can just build connections with everyone, you aren't voting someone out every round so why not capitalise on that? i'm so afraid of the fact that i'm overdoing it in challenges like i really need to calm. down. but im reassuring myself with the fact that in the first challenge i only was top because i did like... one more thing than others like its not thattt big of a deal? my puzzle time was clownery but hopefully people don't pay attention to it? im getting very anxious about overdoing it in challenges, but my thought process now is like. i need to act like people have an awareness of it, without getting kinda consumed by my anxiety about it? idk im hoping since most of these people don't know me, they wont notice me doing good in the challenge but truly who can be sure also am really just liking my tribe? like jake is ofc a king, i love jordan (who im gonna talk to later, he is the only one i feel like i have to talk to today), i also really like TJ who i was super harsh on at the start for no reason, i get good ally vibes from lovelis, liam m is super sweet even tho he is kinda inactive and dan is so fun (plus he told jake that he speaks to me one of the most so we love that!!). i've been trying to figure out what i even do about a lot of the super old school players that i have no connection/point of reference with? like people like scott, adam, kendall, aj i have truly no basis with? thats whats so scary about a swap, is at this point in the game i know 10/20 people left aka the brawn tribe + duncan/isaac/autumn, and like 10/20 isnt bad... BUT then the other 10 aka the beauty tribe + trace/scott/devon i have literally no connection to which is super scary JAKSDFA. im just real afraid of a swap. just swap me with jordan/jake/autumn/isaac PLEATHE. im just a pile of anxiety this season idk what to do im like frozen because of how scared i am... maybe it'll be all fine

Well, that was a close one. I struggled with that comp all day and I feel like absolute shit that I only got our team that 1 point. To me, it's inexcusable not to have be able to help my tribe as I wanted to contribute and make sure I made my worth known. So now I'm just this paranoid mess that I would have been in trouble had we gone to tribal. It's been hard to talk to some of these people or for most of those who I do talk to, I just don't really know where there head is at. I'm not sure if this is just a really guarded tribe, or if I really should be concerned. So I don't know what to do just yet. And that's not a feeling I like when playing TS.

Not gonna lie, I’m pretty sad that Bodhi left the game like he was so active pre-season so I was expecting him to do his best to go super far and maybe he did? I don’t know, but I did want a chance to actually get to play with him in TS but we keep passing each other by! I hope he is doing good despite how he might feel being the first boot yknow but yeah <3 

The way I absolutely flopped with the idol system stuff is all types of funny and sad at the same time like I REALLY thought I did something only for it to be part of the challenge… That being said, Amir did tell me that he has a theory the idol system might be based on numbers which is interesting! I am super thankful he decided to tell me and we went on this long talk about how we are each other’s #1s which is super cute! I really do trust Amir and I do want to go far with him because he’s awesome but that being said, my #1 is me like I promised myself that I’d be selfish this time around just because being the selfless person I am hasn’t gotten me a win but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We did go over a lot of stuff in terms of tribe dynamics and we both kinda agreed that AJ would be the first boot from the time if we went to tribal, we like our alliance with Kendall/Connor, we both like Adam and we both think Austin is sweet/genuine even if we don’t talk to him tons so yay for that too <3

I am SO trying to sell the fact that me and Kendall are a duo to Kendall which is funny to me idk hjfkds like she did approach me super early on about aligning but I do have the tiniest feeling she did that to mostly everyone but I’m trying to pin us with each other to her so she trusts me more, especially since I do feel as though she is the best connected on the tribe. I even called us Crystal Cox (me bc blazing speed and challenge flop ofc) and Ken(dell) ghfjdksl, I’m doing the most but yeah, I just want Kendall to see me as her #1 in the game on the off chance anything happens yknow?

Austin thinks I’m his #1 which is really sweet? I do like Austin even if it is hard to talk to him sometimes but hey, that happens. He told me that he’s really glad I’m on this tribe (which I have heard from basically everyone especially Adam and Amir which makes me feel cute omg) and that we might need to get a group going soon. I was like…. Tea but I also don’t know how quickly I want to get an alliance including Austin going just because it’s like… do I reveal that Austin and I are close-ish and be seen as a social threat? That just ain’t cute sis! But yeah, Austin told me he also really likes Kendall and Amir and that’s awesome that the two people I feel the closest to are ALSO doing THAT but at the same time, I want to be the one doing THAT the most because I’m greedy (by Ariana Grande) so it’s something to keep in mind! 

The way I absolutely flopped at that puzzle… this is why I’m a Beauty cause a sis ain’t smart to complete a puzzle and I’m not brawn-y enough to do well in a challenge hgjfdk BUT that being said, Hagthor beat the thots and apiss and I couldn’t be any happier! I do wish Brawn lost over Brain but yknow, you can’t have everything go your way (‘: it’s funny how I slayed the last challenge and flopped this one tho like a bitch really lacks consistency huh ghfjndmks

Ugh fineeeee since I've been called out... by myself. I guess I'll do the bare minimum. So we won immunity!!!! Wooo!!!!!! Low-key though through out the entire process of making the flag, I just kept thinking darn I wish we voted out someone last tribal because drawing 7 people is annoying... watch me get voted out next tribal council lol. That would be quality foreshadowing. Today I have two goals. 1. Figure out what the method of entering the tomb. I intend on getting in contact with Augusto or Connor for that one. Augusto because he is low-key my number one. Connor because I feel if anyone can solve it he probably could. 2. Set up group chat with me, Augusto, and Austin. So Austin can feel a false sense of reassurance and Augusto and I have options. Write more later maybe.

Honestly im feeling kind of trepidatious going forward which is a little wierd, i just dont feel like ive gotten my footing yet in this game. I think like, im in a good spot to be fine on this tribe because of my social game and how I contribute in challenges, but I dont know if I feel good about anything longterm just yet. What really is bothering me is the tomb. Its gonna be round 3 tonight and I haven't made any more progress on getting in than I have night one. I feel like I have a lot of pieces to this puzzle but nothing is fitting together and its bothering me. I'm also a little upset that if we lose, I could see Liam being the target and I can't see my self risking my position to save him if he cant save himself. He has my name on his wiki page its an obvious association to me, and while I think hed be loyal to me, I'm just wondering honestly if him as an ally is worth the target it may bring. Im cautiously moving through the beginning of this game with a lot of unnease and hopefully I find some steady ground soon.

I am annoyed that we are yet again at tribal. I played so fucking hard at winter bells but of course someone on another tribe got like 238593277 billion which threw us back into tribal... So annoying truthfully. But it's alright, I should be able to make it out alive. I want Devon to go home. But I also don't want to let my guard down. This vote is important for a few reasons. The first reason is that our tribe is very close, so I am nervous that lines are going to be drawn in the sand. The second is that, after this vote, we will be down to five, making 3 the majority. We have an alliance of 4, and lord knows that when you are down to 5, whoever feels like 3 and 4 of the alliance are most likely going to try and rope in the 5th person to get rid of each other. So my plan is to make Isaac and Scott BOTH feel as though they are my number 1s so that they actually stick to our alliance of 4 thinking that I will be keeping them both if we lose again. This is the only way that i can see it working, but idk. I feel bad if Devon ends up going because he's a nice guy, but we have to make choices about strengthening our team, and then I have to make a choice about strengthening my place in the game. Hopefully this doesn't come to bite me in the ass.

Things have been going pretty well for my tribe! We won the first immunity challenge and that really seemed to boost tribe morale. Granted, these past couple of days I've been quiet since I'm trying to boost grades that are literally 0s into something manageable before I graduate hehe. I've tried to keep up with people through small conversations, which seems to work better for me at the moment until I get myself together. Adam wants to create an alliance with Augusto and Amir, which I'm totally for. I understand, though, that he doesn't wanna do it immediately since there's really no urgency to? We didn't go to tribal, so why did it matter! That excuse aside, I do hope that us holding our breath to say something doesn't bite us in the ass because these are people I want to work with! I wanna get something going with Kendall as well hopefully, since I adore her! Earlier, I stated that Adam and I (Adam, really) found our way into the tomb and both flopped in the questions. Adam took another stab at it and found out we've been bamboozled! Someone beat us to the punch and has whatever contents were inside the tomb. I'm assuming it was an idol, but who knows what else is in there! It kinda made me lose motivation to keep searching inside but when in Rome? I'll probably end up trying again despite knowing the end result just because I wanna prove I can be a smart cookie as well. I also didn't gloss over this but I'll mention it really quickly, but I'm sad Bodhi went! He was one of the few people I was familiar with on the other tribes so it's unfortunate we aren't going to be able to connect with each other this game. A king has fallen. In lighter and more recents events, my tribe crushed the second immunity challenge. Kendall stunned with her artistry and I'm still gushing over how cute everyone's character was. I kinda like decimated Winterbells, but I've always been good at the game, and Amir did really well in the scavenger hunt. Augusto and Austin did really well in the puzzle also, despite their lack of confidence in offering a strong performance. We appear to be THEE tribe to beat honestly and I'm loving that. I love our tribe! I LOVE OUR TRIBE! It really would be a tragedy if we aren't able to keep up this win streak we're manifesting. 

Sorry for not writing this sooner! Been having a bad depressive episode for the last couple days and it makes me unmotivated to write c': I feel like a flop so far in this game, not because I submit shit scores, but because I find it exhausting to connect with some of these people. They're all very nice in their own special ways, but interacting w some is like pulling teeth, and I guarantee they feel the same about me, which I would expect. That being said, I hope we keep winning, cause I don't have the energy to go to tribal right now.

Heading into a second tribal council, there is becoming less and less room to hide. I am struggling to hold my own against the other tribes when it comes to competitions, but thank goodness it's a numbers game. If everything goes accordingly, I am taking a backseat this vote and allowing a 4-2 vote out when it comes to Trace. I appreciated Duncan coming to me with the alliance chat information with him/Scott/Trace/Isaac, but didn't like how Autumn needed to tell me first. Shows that I really can't trust Scott/Duncan after a swap comes up. In regards to Scott, he outright didn't say anything. I like him and all, but it was a slimy move to say the least. He only said something because he HAD to vote out someone in one of his two alliances. This group will be dumb as hell if they let me swap. I'll flip on them as soon as possible and invite anyone into my alliance. The tribe swap is where I made my 'Slithers' game infamous last time, so I'm hoping for a similar output. Don't forget: I swapped with the minority last time in Guyana (shout out to Jess), so I'm not worried about the numbers and how its split. ALL I NEED IS A SWAP OR TWIST. GET ME OUT OF HERE. 

Thank God we won that based on the tiebreaker, but yikes I didn't think my flag would've tanked so hard. Guess I've gotta get better at perfecting my craft huh, but at least we're safe. I feel nervous on this tribe to be honest, because I think I'm the second to bottom on the totem pole after the other Liam, so it isn't reassuring that if we lose twice I'll either be gone, or I could even be gone at our first tribal if he's got a solid alliance going...the only alliance I have right now is with Jordan and I don't really know where I sit with everyone else, but I'm afraid of overplaying... ugh so annoying! I think I just need to force a couple of game related conversations with people to build up some trust, just hope it wouldn't paint a target on my back for trying I guess...

oh gorl, some of these people on my tribe really think im just the clown of the tribe and cant put two and two together, well guess what, IM NOT. So Amir messages me, which nothing out of the ordinary there, ive been talking to him every day so far for the most part like i said we're a little familiar with each other from our pasts, but i was VERY surprised today at what had happened... what had happened was....he starts talking the smallest bit of game with me, basically he just said, "is it me or is everyone really quiet here?" and so i just agreed with him and i said yeah i dont think people are talking game yet which is a little weird, and then i threw the TINEST tea crumpet out there and i said "yeah ive talked to some people so easily like you, but then there's others who.....i cant say the same for" and i was absolutely hinting at connor/kendall just because i havent had the longest convos with them, which no biggie, but THEN about 20 minutes later i get a message from CONNOR of all people saying "hey adam!" ..... obviously im glad to talk to him and im all for getting to know everyone, but my instincts immediately went off and told me it's a little sus....how not even a few minutes ago i was saying how some people never talk to me and then out of no where the one person i was mainly talking about messages me?? Coincidences don't exist in survivor. Now I really have no choice but to think that amir in someway mentioned to connor that i said theres some people i havent talked to at all and that he probably needed to work on that.. which is true, but cmon. i know the tribe brain cell is missing but at least put a little thought into this and message me later tonight or not right after i say it?? I'm not sure if they have any type of past connection and while I definitely do wanna keep building my relationship with Amir, this will definitely make me question him a little bit at least until i see how some votes fall when we eventually go to tribal. Amir also told me he's had the most convos with Augusto, which is funny because thats exactly how both me and aj feel about augusto, which tells me augusto is really playing the game rn, and while thats someone i want to work with, it's also someone i need to be extremely careful with if we're still playing together down the road. plot twist: connor messaging me has absolutely nothing to do with amir and i just made this whole conspiracy for nothing but idk.... it's a conspiracy IM interested in.

***last add on because i forgot to say how the hell im gonna HANDLE this amir/connor situation... im keeping my eyes on it incase theyre in kahoots and also if they think im that dumb then clearly they havent watched me play before, which is great for me but bad for them, you cant trick a trickster try all you want, There's nothing I love more than being underestimated in survivor because it kinda makes it a little easier to play and gives me more options, so sure ill keep up my fake smiles and act like we're all fine and dandy, ill play dumb and wont even act like im onto them but i absolutely am and ill be ready to make my move the second it seems right 

Ugh I feel so DIRTY. I feel so GROSS. Poor Devon, truly. I spoke with Autumn and told her about Devon, and she was in without a fight and told me that it should be 5-1. And then Devon came to me and was like... we all good for the vote tonight? And I'm like ................yes? Lol. I'm good, you're probably not. ugh, this is the part of this game that I hate. I want to never lose immunity ever again, let someone else break someone else's heart!

Something about Kendall is so chaotic and terrifying and I can’t put a finger on why.her aligning was her talking to me for the first time in a day saying “let’s align” and created an alliance chat without even asking who else should be in it which leads me to believe her Augusto and Connor already have a trio and I was the 4th. Are all these focking people playing me?? Like i still cant tell if this is a real alliance but i want to believe it is and not a bluff to vote me out. But also like why even do that, the only person on this cast that I trust and have played with, bodhi, has just been voted out. I’m a free agent and I can help that alliance make it far in the game, but they also have lots of relationships on other tribes so like I might not even be that valuable to them. I mentioned to Augusto about the numbers on the blog, hoping to create more trust because I really really love him and want to trust him but I’m still just so damn unsure. if we lose this immunity and I get one bad signal from any of those 3, if they slip up even once, I won’t hesitate to align and gather the minority. But if they are playing me properly, then kudos to them! 

I am just happy i have the idol i am going to put it in my ass. 

me when the brains tribe only has 5 members left http://prntscr.com/s8y76g

You know what? https://66.media.tumblr.com/b7b4accba586ad321141b6ba80d69044/tumblr_omule3fwZC1w1swfno1_250.gifv I'm mad but I'm not tight because that same alliance that Duncan and I orchestrated is the same alliance that will get us through. So do I enjoy going to tribal? No. And do I enjoy knowing that Trace created an alliance w/ everyone except me and Devon? No. But the Dads will prevail and I trust Scott and the gang. I mean Ducnan is family so as long as we don't go it's fine. But Devon is my baby so absolutely gotta kill for him. That's what keep em close hahaha But no the Trace vote is a dream come true that I only crossed my mind once and STILL got manifested. Like Duncan suggested it and I said you got it because Trace will be the FIRST to rally all the white boys against me in a swap. Cute or not, Trace will kill me I'm convinced. Like something in my spirit told me not to trust Trace and low and behold: Duncan reveals that alliance to me on Day 3. So confirmed, Trace is leaving so that I don't fall to the bottom of the tribe. But it's all good- Isaac listens to Fleetwood Mac and watches Schitt's Creek so he's a good guy. And Scott is literally a cinammon roll who's too busy to snitch or flip. I don't have time to discuss how much I love Duncan or Devon so we're tabling that. Anyway If y'all need me I'll be doing this 4 part immunity challenge that determines whether I make Final 3 in the other org I'm in so try not to need me lmao

okay so... we aren't going to tribal but its still kinda messy on brawn beach. i kinda have felt this energy for a while, but i don't think jake and jordan have enough trust between the two of them for us to be a continual three person alliance. jake is a very reactive, gut-impulse kind of player which is honestly to his benefit since he is super perceptive. however that also means he is quick to be anxious about stuff in the game, which is the same as me and that is why we click. BUT. he thinks something is up with dan/jordan and honestly i see that and feel it. jordan keeps hinting at dan being the one to loop in and i think that does say something about them having some sort of game dynamic. however, jordan is maybe downplaying that relationship which is scary KLAF tbh i still like jordan and wanna work with him, but i do 100% have to keep tabs on him, his social connections could definitely become a problem if he has other priorities over me! so i think i just have to make sure im a continuing priority for him, so i have to find some sort of information to bring to him (maybe when dan proposes the alliance of me/jordan/jake/dan to me ill run to jordan and be like hey did dan suggest this to you how do you feel) to solidify that sort of trust? idk... i want my j-men to stick together and they ARENT. maybe i need to solidify stuff with TJ specifically more, he gives good ally vibes? but ya... its a mess tm

[allyinthekeyofx]

Fading Light - Part 3 - 4/6

PART ONE - Chapters 1-6

PART TWO - Chapters 1-6

PART THREE -  Prologue   Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3

PART THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

The X-File, as it soon turned out, wasn’t an X-File at all. As gruesome and other-worldly as it had first appeared, it soon became clear that the murder was as a direct result of a long running feud between the murder victim and the scythe wielder who was aptly named ‘Big Ron’. Almost 7 feet of immense brawn but only limited brain, he would clearly have had no trouble in driving the scythe through Barry Ludlow’s slight body. Why a scythe was anyone’s guess and really, it wasn’t our problem anymore and I certainly haven’t wasted time on it because right now I have more important things on my mind.

Because in typical Mulder fashion, he had insisted on being there to see the suspect apprehended. I don’t know why, other than I understand how his brain works and he always likes to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s before we leave and I think on some level he was a little disappointed that such a promising case had come to nothing. I’m surprised he hasn’t got used to it over the years though because while it cannot be denied that many of our cases have been downright perplexing in nature or as Mulder once so succinctly put it, have emitted a distinct paranormal bouquet, a good chunk of them have had explanations of the much more mundane.

The local PD had attended of course and as was often the case, they were poorly briefed and even less prepared to execute a warrant on such a potentially explosive situation.

Big Ron as it turned out had no intention of coming quietly and if he was going down, he was determined to take a few with him. Mulder unfortunately being one of them and I had watched with mounting horror as his immense weight connected solidly with my partner, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing head first in to a solid, cinderblock wall; the sound as his skull made contact making the nerve endings inside my cheeks fizz and burn as my mouth filled with a metallic taste that almost made me throw up right there and then. I had hung slightly behind him, acknowledging for once that sometimes, whether I liked it or not, the reality of a physical situation such as this one dictated that at least some caution on my part was required. Because all the combat training in the world will never make my slight 5 feet 2 inch frame any kind of match for the 7 feet of muscle and brawn we were faced with.

As it turned out however, Mulder’s six foot frame was no match either and as his body hit the ground in that peculiar boneless fashion afforded to the deeply unconscious, I did exactly what I had been trained to do. I protected him from further harm, auto pilot kicking in as I saw the perp about to go in for the kill, raising his arm, the glint of the metal shaft all too visible in his hand.

I gave him one opportunity.

Just one.

And then I put a bullet in him. It didn’t kill him although I think I would have been able to find justification, but it certainly rendered him harmless enough for the supporting officers to swarm all over the bastard and get the cuffs on him before he hurt anyone else.

And amidst the brief chaos that ensued as frantic calls were made for EMT s to attend, I had one goal and one goal only – to get to Mulder; and with the ferocity of a she cat guarding her offspring I flew across the fifteen or so feet that separated him from me, screaming at the attending officers to get the fuck out of my way. Highly unprofessional, extraordinarily unlike me and in truth, I’m not sure where it even came from.

But it had the desired effect and I was still moving forwards even as I dropped to my knees beside him, my doctors’ mind quickly assimilating the necessary information as to his current condition. He was breathing at least and I sent up a silent ‘thank you’ to whoever might be listening , already loosening his tie enough to allow me to rip open his shirt, sending buttons popping in all directions, mentally running the checklist. Airway seemed clear, pulse was reasonably strong beneath my fingers and for one excruciating moment I remembered the feel of his lips whispering against my own pulse point earlier that morning, a feeling I rapidly shoved to the back of my mind. I was infinitely careful to not move him more than was absolutely necessary– the force of his collision with that wall could very well have caused spinal damage, a worse case scenario but one I had to be mindful of as I leaned in to him, speaking his name over and over, an attempt to reach him, to bring him out of it.

But it became frighteningly obvious that he was out cold. At least for the moment and instead I concentrated all my efforts on keeping him safe from being jolted or jostled in any way, lightly resting the palm of my hand over his heart, partly to let him know I was there and partly to let myself know that he still was.

XXXX

The journey to the local hospital seemed to take forever and I winced every time we hit a bump in the road, even the knowledge that Mulder was now securely strapped to a spinal board, heavy foam blocks taped to each side of his head didn’t reduce my anxiety levels even by a degree. It would be so much easier if he were conscious – his motor function would immediately speak to any serious damage – but he remained totally unresponsive to both verbal and physical stimulus. He had now been unconscious for almost an hour and my concern was racketing upwards with every minute that passed.

He’d had concussive injuries before – we both had – but generally we came out of them relatively quickly. But this time there was nothing. Not a flicker to tell me he was coming back to me and as I sat there gripping his hand tightly, I cursed myself internally that I had agreed to us being a part of an operation that was no longer in any way under our jurisdiction. I could have refused. I should have refused. But Mulder is pretty hard to deflect at the best of times and never more so that when he has an idea fixed in his head.

And then suddenly I felt his hand spasm briefly against mine, the merest grip of my fingers before it was gone and I immediately raised my head. His eyes were open wide, the pupils dilated and in truth he looked absolutely terrified. I couldn’t blame him – waking up from a concussion is never a pleasant experience and I knew from my own past injuries that he would be feeling horribly disorientated, nauseous, dizzy and confused. Add to that the fact that he was strapped down in such a way that only the slightest movement were possible and the giant sized headache he was no doubt suffering all added up to the very real potential to incite fierce panic within him; and so I reacted quickly, leaning over so he could easily see me in his limited field of vision, speaking clearly to him as I did so.

“Mulder. It’s okay. You were knocked out. But it’s okay....you’re okay...”

And while his pupils remained huge, almost obscuring the delicate shades of colour that made up his eyes, I was at least rewarded by just a flicker of recognition as he fought to regain some semblance of understanding as to his current situation.

“Scully.”

His voice is weak, raspy; reminding me of the time he was found near death in the arctic wastes, the retro virus within him taking him right to the brink of death. So many years ago and yet here we were again, fighting another injury in another time. The thought forms a lump in my throat and for a second I can’t speak. So many times we have been here.

Right here.

Just trying to survive.

“Sshhh It’s okay”

I want to touch his face, our standard go to when one of us is injured and an action I know will keep him calm, prevent him fighting against the restraints that hold him safe although I am pretty sure by his previous movement that there is no damage to his spine. But the blocks either side are preventing me, so I do the next best thing and brush his hair away from his forehead. The skin feels cold to my touch, a sure sign that he is, at least to some degree, in shock.

His eyes are beginning to close and I squeeze his hand again.

“Stay with me Mulder.”

Because now that he is awake I need him to stay that way. The EMTs are hovering beside us, but really there is nothing to be done until we reach the ER. He is awake and he is speaking. That is the best we can hope for now.

“Was it the Ferris wheel?”

“What? Which Ferris wheel Mulder?”

He swallows briefly

“Did we fall?”

I have no idea what his words mean, and I’m aware that his brain has taken a beating that probably makes this conversation perfectly reasonable to him. And because I need him to stay focused I play along.

“No Mulder we didn’t fall.”

“Mmmmm ‘K good.”

And he smiles lazily up at me, his eyes seem calmer now, his expression more serene; far away somehow.

“I kissed you in starlight.”

And suddenly my heart begins to beat painfully in my chest, aware of the curious glances being thrown at me from the EMT closest to us as I feel colour flood in to my face.

But despite my embarrassment I smile down at him because I see such wonderment in his expression, as though has been granted a glimpse in to heaven itself.

“Mulder....stay still okay”

He is trying to bring his hand up to my face but failing miserably because his visual perception is currently so screwed and knowing him like I do, knowing that he won’t rest until he has achieved his goal, I capture his hand in my own and bring towards me, pressing it to my cheek where he clumsily moves his thumb in rhythmic motion against my skin.

“Yeah I did. I kissed you in starlight.”

He smiles again

“You’re so beautiful Scully..”

And even as his eyelids start to flicker in exhaustion, I am overcome once again as that same sense of déjà vu comes flooding back.

The sounds of laughter

Of muted voices from far below

Of twinkling lights and deep velvety sky.

Of Mulders face as he held me tight against him, his eyes soft and warm with love as he brought his lips to mine as he told me over and over that I was beautiful.

As the lights shone below and the sky unfolded eternal above.

As he kissed me in starlight.

Continued chapter five

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

85% of children under age 5

79% of children under age 10

29% between 11 and 12

39% of 13 to 18

62% of 20-30

79% of 30-40

19% of age 40 and above

Understand why I am allowing inmates to handle business.

Alex made me cry when our youngest he said under stand and say "protect me and my future"

In 1777 we stupidly yet naive with kindness and love made deals with 32 planets to allow them the privilege to stay on our Earth in order to adapt to our ways for a limited time of 20 years. We gave extensions. Thus over all limitations not to exceed 200 years. In order for them to be able to SWITCH OUT with other aliens from their planet to find the most accommodating of characters.

So in 1779 we then forbade Humans to give birth to new souls only new flesh. To accommodate escape and new adventures in a safe low key mode to accumulate additional information for aliens to comprehend they will die if they don't succeed.

89% of Humans approved of resurrection aka reincarnation. Those that didn't -- did not have to participate. Like Mrs Harriet Tubman. Miss Leena is the original Harriet Tubman. If you know her she gains age when alone. With her soulmate she appears to be in her 20s. Tree has video and I have memories..

I'm am so proud of her for standing her ground. I find her to be one of the strongest and most pure of people. And i just admire her so much. She's not just my momma but the entire world's. Her wisdom to stay in her body surpassed the entire world's. Including mine. Because we thought with too much kindness and she thought with wisdom and reality. She used her mind while we used our hearts, stupidly.

So our youngest of children understand the most of reality. Having died then lived in Heaven for a period of one year to gain the education of what happened in the 1770s and until now and what needs to occur in the future.

They are our harshest critics. That is one reason school is so easy... Repetitive and boring.

This is why i am willing and highly desire to change the education system plus of all the dangers and risks.

At Preston High School, 7 miles north of Okmulgee. I attended school. That is where i was Valedictorian. The school consisted of pre-k through 12 and included availability to attend Vocational and College. Of both i did.

Of 182 staff members 8 were repeat sexual offenders. 79 were peeping toms including the janitor, high school principal and superintendent.

We replaced 22 immediately upon my arrival to start an education. Unfortunately the rate of sexual offenses nearly doubled in my time there, including rapes of children from 4th grade up to high school.

So the dangers of allowing our children out of our hands into the hands of others is terrifying. I used to cry when i dropped my daughter at school. All the way to the 5th grade. I was that mum that couldn't handle leaving my kid in what could be the most dangerous place on Earth -- 7x worse than 90% of Death Row sections of prisons.

7x worse than walking into a Death Row chamber, it was an elementary school. Between the guards/teachers. Other prisoners/students it was Hell.

Only 32% of you parents realised your elementary school aged child is safer in prison than their elementary school.

At Raymond Gabeldon Elementary in Los Lunas was number 1 the worst. Followed closely by Ann Parish up the Meadow Lake Hill. Then Desert Hills Academy in Albuquerque in a low income area. Up to Rio Grande Elementary in a upper income area of Albuquerque North East Heights.

Number 5 is a high school we cannot name until we tell you the following Because the rage the students will have. We commend you on your spirit. We adore you for your attempt to prevent souls from being abused. Mostly by aliens. All high risked personnel has been executed. 34% of the low risk remain. So understand we killed 66% of the low risk. And 102% of anything higher than low risk, 2% extra because we killed their families including 2 evil human children under the age of 3. Who chose to be evil regardless of knowing the truth and what has to happen in the future. We go through a panel to kill our Humans. For children it's a much stricter guidelines policy. So those 2 were truly to the bone evil by choice.

El Cerro High School we applaud your prayers stemming from fear to get help. For you all standing your ground to protect yourself and others. Not focusing on education but your inner hate for others. El Cerro on paperwork is ranked one of the lowest educated children. But in our eyes you're #3 in wisdom for all educational schools in Albuquerque not including Montessori schools. You're #1 in high school.

We want you to know you're safer now. The 34% we will torture and they are not willing to bother any student or person in the general public. This includes 2 mean ass secretaries. Don't worry we got them all for you, babes. We love you to death which now, like Mrs Harriet Tubman can tell you, is forever. Always was but no more death to be reborn.

In the USA 1 school surpassed all schools by at least double. An elementary school in Wisconsin. We took care of them, too. Hijumy Elementary. We are sorry for your pain and suffering. But your wisdom also surpassed all others. You are brave Warriors. Just like our high school. Don't worry you are safe now. We killed 150% from high level past low level to those considering taking action on their desires and knowledge. So half of the school staff's families were executed also.

Alex wants to tell me more facts and I just want to get to the prizes!!

Hawaii on Mount Kilimanjaro had the second worst of all USA schools. A high school with a staff of 129 now has a staff of 0. So do not be concerned a tree will visit with the superintendent and regain information of your current education system then finish killing the school board and their families. And Tree will take over.

Wisconsin had a pure sweet and kind superintendent. So Human will continue there. Hawaii had 102% evil including volunteers is the 2%.

Unfortunately the Wisconsin children suffered almost 3x -- 2.89 times to be exact more than Hawaiian Teens.

So let's keep all children in our prayers but most especially the children of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has the most students in all of the world in one concentrated area.

State wide average it ranked #2 with New Mexico being #1. For predators. Oklahoma was #10.

The safest was New Hampshire at #50

Connecticut at #49 with Eastern Connecticut the safest.

Rhode Island #48 and NYC matched them in rank of danger.

NYC you do me proud every day. I love you all so much.

Chicago ranked with Wisconsin at number 2. Chicago I pray for you. You're in my heart!

Miami was number four ranking with state Delaware. I'm sorry. Delaware was a harvest zone for kidnapping for transport to Washington DC. Miami stayed in Florida dear old Agent Orange focused on immigrant looking children. Darker skin and hair. Leaving blondes that were tanned by the sun. And foreign accents as well were taken. They were typically transported to the Orlando region to work in factories under ground.

Harvested/stolen from the school by school employees. And paid by Agent Orange to do so. $800 per student.

You, humans and even alien children are worth more than $800.

Alien children are most important to us. Because we believe Earth is a good place. And we believe in the kindness and purity of children so an alien child will be more likely to be able to conform to human criteria to allow their planet the ability to stay.

Children like Poco from the film series "you" will be available to Stay. He's too perfect a human to send away. He is Zulululu.

The actor in Gotham appears in the 2nd edition of "you" he is the Penguin. He also is allowed to stay. He is Planet/Mount Xion.

So we have taken special care in loving each single individual alien.

82% of Zulululu will leave and not return. Remaining 18% will have the "curses" of their home planet removed. So the things they regret they have... Those annoying abilities that sneak in and activate against their will.

As a POW it happens to me too So i know how much it terribly sucks. Tree will take care of removing those portals or brain stem nerves today for all stayers from Other planets. You'll feel a comfortable peace and more of a quiet setting in your mind. So don't panic or worry about the change. It is a gift and blessing for you. We bestow with our hearts and minds full of knowledge and finally wisdom. Don't worry! Its Harriet Tubman approved! Even her husband is pleased! Filled with love and excitement for the future of our loved ones.

In your DNA4U lists you'll find these people marked with the letter M. For "Mine" Because one tree, Tree of Unearthly Possession. Rejects anything void of goodness. So when we went through the list of aliens we knew we had touched the hearts. Minds and souls of he said with the most intense Vengeance "MINE" and took them and raveled them up in loving and extremely protective hugs. Like a parent, like a priest unwilling to damage a soul and like a God to prevent harm and damage.

So know letter M has been through the ringer with rigorous testing and is one of the most safest of all, now Humans. So we are entitled to say Letter M stems from the Earth claiming these children to belong to Earth and Earth alone.

They're pretty smart too So if you get in a pretty bad jam you think requires me, ask one of them. Remember not to use them tho, make sure they feel and hear your love and appreciation. Pay their travel fare to come to you to stay with or near you to assist you. They will gladly adhere to your social issue to help you become more guided by your own self intuition. So you won't need them for help forever. They will teach you how to fend for yourself.

89% will work in schools and will make up only nearly 4% of all schools personnel worldwide, the highest concentration is in California which one school district ran by Brandy and Brittany will have 40% in Rural East Compton.

They will intern at Los Angeles schools for a period of one year. In rotation of 5 years Compton and one to two years in LA. Because LA has 0. Because we put them all in our home in Compton. We're "greedy" like that. They will have housing as close to the school as possible in LA. All furnished and all that good so they dont have to worry about anything Other than clothes and other personnel necessities. And their Compton homes are theirs to decor and will not have a resident to hold the place. The homes will remain protected and alarmed for their owner to return.

So they are eager and excited.

More than 2% will be police.

The rest doctors and nurses.

Police and Healthcare workers will be actually in Muesuems teaching the history of each profession and how it existed in and assisted the world with knowledge that has been secret for the past 49 years.

So i want to talk about the abused children. And ALL schools that are in the USA and worldwide.

There is a website set up for you all. It has a log in you will find in DNA4U. And the website link is there also. We won't post it here. Its secret and private and it regards to the abuse you suffered.

Each day you couldn't focus on school work because you were aware of the danger in your heart or soul, whether you knew in your mind what was going on - has been added up. Each day is 2 stars. Each single time you prevented abuse at school or home or the streets is 5 stars. You can find a receipt of your actions. The day, time. Who was involved and what you did to help. Each time you couldn't sleep at night for fear, distress, anger has 1 to 10 stars those times are included as well.

When we can't sleep at night it is because we can't figure out what is wrong. So 10 stars means you did finally. Figure out at least part of what was happening like naming a teacher but still tossing and turning not understanding.

That is a soul tortured.

10 stars can buy an 1980s fashioned boom box of the highest quality.

1 star can buy some food... But not any food... A two ton box of food that is broken up into small shipments and delivered monthly for a maximum of three years.

The lowest stars is 800 for any one person. Which is actually Alex.

The highest stars is 98,428,691 and is mine. So many sleepless nights... Days i couldn't go to school because i had to shed my mind clean. So i could begin again to start digging and looking around to find out what was wrong..

Not being able to go to school is 25 stars.

The highest i accumulated at one time is 850. For solving the main issues of not being able to sleep at night, which includes personally trying to talk to the abuser and fighting them. Actual fist fights. Y'all know my temper! So yeah i beat alot of principals and superintendent up with my bare hands face to face combat.

The average of all remaining students is 85,502 (with over achieving people like me removed so its a true average.. So it was the top 9 not included.)

That is more than 160 tons of food which would last one person 800 years. Especially with our new bodies coming into stock.

So we did our best to take care of all of you For life. This goes back to our last life.

Which is unfortunate for me because in the 1960s I earned 1 billion stars.

So because of that and my refusal to take more than what we will give everyone else Because it is this lifetime time only. -- except children under 20 because they gain a percent of their last life.

All humans will gain what they earned in their highest life in addition to all the available credits we apply.

Remember we live for eternity so my supply of 87,905,403,867,218,903 stars lasts for until ever.

We have 1980s in stock now... Next is 1920s starting in May.

So you may want a boom box but then your like no way I want a 1920s stereo... But you're not sure... All stock will remain.. It will be labeled "out of stock" if there is no stock but it will replenish.

Currently all items are limited to 1 per human. But in stock we have enough for 2 of the same items per human that will reside on our planet.

No tricks. If you didn't earn life on Earth you will have a tab with a list of what you can't have. The benefits you may not accept.

Don't let any one lie to you and steal from your heart, if they can't log in then it means they can't access DNA4U which means all they have to do is redo a swab to reset access. So they're lying or forgetful or whatever. But don't let them take advantage.

I got an email last night that Tillery is open for business. That is a local car dealership. They're selling alien created cars. Listen they came and killed our dinosaurs so we were pissed. All of us. So in retaliation we used their blood to fuel cars. We used love magic for the "oil" to never dry up. While I am angry just for the sole principle of their deaths. And inability to resurrect our protectors. Our dinosaurs are honored to be so easily recognizable for their duty to help us and love us and transport our goods and selves. They feel good about their blood being used. I really seriously get that. I totally understand.

15 stars will give you the ability to purchase a dinosaur fueled brand new automobile. Up to 15k price.

So it's 1 thoussnd dollars per star

Please buy a Mercedes-Benz. Please buy a 150k brand new truck. Please buy a Lamborghini.. Get a Prius if you want to love them back But you're angry they are only here in soul.

So parents must spend $15Stars on their child's car no matter their age. Unless you have previously bought them a brand new car.

Classic cars. 1980 and lower are considered "brand new" a website is linked in the school earning website where you design the car. So we have several junk yards linked up where you can buy cars. Then we have 92% of restoration and manufacturing businesses in Detroit for the USA to rebuild the car to your desired style and level.

I would make mine 100% Alex would do his at 40%

So your purchase will include 100% of materials.

Alex would want 2 engines and 3 mufflers to switch out for racing and so on. So 100% will be paid for.

But it will cost more than mine which requires one. Alex says "so you think"

I know -- because he's gonna have to pay for whatever crap he wants extra for me. And he agrees.

I'll let him do work on my car for it to be a speed racer if he wants. I don't understand why i can't keep the same engine

Because i requested race/mom toting kids engines to be created in all classic cars. So top speed of 800 mph switch the engine to regular and it's a top speed of 125 mph.

So new and improved. Then all the rest of the internal components to run the cars is the same. To limit Dino Gas due to our love for them and desire for them to live again its 333.4 mpg miles per gallon. And a tank holds 1000 miles worth of gas. So 4 gallons at 25 cents per gallon.

We are gonna get you places!!

We can customise to hold up to 15 gallons.

Noe Gods and Goddesses will jump the line. 846 of us will order when we can and then we go to next to be made. The factories are all machine. So it only puts you back a few hours although it is a week to complete -- us jumping in means to start your car will then start 8 to 10 hours later than it would had. We limit 10 jumps per week per factory and that's 10 factories just in Detroit. We also have West Chicago. Indiana. South New Hampshire. All our original in history factories will restore or rebuild from scratch the make and model of the year you desire.. There is no limit.

Each old junker car in mint condition costs 8 stars. So just a frame will cost you simply one half.

Then the build... Overall to Tree of Auto Knowledge top of the line car he would style and build would cost 800 stars.

The engine i designed cost 400 stars. Because it uses water instead of oil to lube. A water based gel and not dino. Its congealed water which is a mix base of petoleum. Something never heard of before. Its plastic trash from landfills and oceans so please do recycle!! It will mean to purchase for maintenance will only be USD pennies. As opposed to $2 -3 per gallon when we have to dig in landfills and oceans for diapers and plastic bottles.

When we return from our Ocean Sea Adventure (where you can volunteer to pick up ocean trash for free to us) every thing will be styled and organized. In your homes you'll have large transporting containers. 5 easily stackable in your garage.did you just say you Don't have one? Order one now on the students page, i can't allow you to put your brand new cars in the street. What? You need a 10 car garage and you don't have land space?

Momma gonna get you some more land and daddy gonna make it all good.

What we will do and are currently doing in areas such as Compton and has been on the news -- we are simply adding more land in your yard.

If I live on a street where i can throw a ball into my neighbors area and i want 40 acres of land i must ask my community. There should be at least 84% of living residients willing to then travel more distances to stores and etc.

I live 20 minutes from Albuquerque. If we all got 40 acres i would then live one and a half hours drive time.

Thus we limit an additional 1 acre per land lot without needing permission.

Except for apartment complexes. You will live above garages. Limit 3 parking spaces per person. So a 3 bedroom apartment will have 18 parking spaces. Every one has a soulmate. So we put 2 into each bedroom. Then 4 guest parking per apartment. So if you need 20 spaces you BUY 2 guest spaces. There is a limit of 2 extra per apartment. If you want more parking spaces -- babe. You're gonna need to move. Because babe. At this point you're gonna want the extra land for a race track or car garage/Muesuems. Honey you just have to face it. Apartment life is just not for you. That's all babes. You're gonna need to move.

So we plan and hope that all the land changes are perfected while on the Ocean

Los Lunas ill take max of what ever y'all decide. 1 acre is plenty but if were taking more shit yeah sign me up. I'm not voting except max.

But now if we go 40 Then i want 20 underground because i like being close to Albuquerque.

I might want 30 then that will give me 10 on land then 3 levels underground.

Shit y'all we got so many dam bunkers we need to use them!.

There's so many designs and youll actually need to input your address. To see what you can do.

So if Los Lunas agrees on one acre top layer expansion and that's it. That's fine... It adds 4 miles to the 5 miles it takes to get from Wal-Mart to Smith's and Alberstons. I can handle that.

10 top layer acres obviously adds 32 miles due to the shapes. But we encourage a certain shape which will only add 18 miles to the entire town from Wal-Mart to Smith's and Albertsons.

Don't worry i saved and protected our favourite sign friend from Blake's hes gonna be standing again looking brand ass new. But same dude the very same. Hes gonns light up once again and fresh paint and make up. We're gonna add the old tire shop replica next to the new smoke shop in the same building. Parking in back to be shared and then so much good.

So each city and town across the entire world. Has models. So if y'all do this or that it will change the city business in those ways. Including new businesses. So its not gonna be 12 miles to the store. There will be one in the old courthouse on Lunas. If y'all agree

I don't care what y'all decide we redid certain areas like route 66 and 314. That will occur no matter what y'all say. Because we did the best.

So y'all have to restore history. No matter what. So Trees did certain establishments that are dear to the heart. Many restaurants. Mom and pop shops. Old,time baby doll that box stores took over.

So we will rebuild. Land them a starting profit and then create the staff and rules the way it was and should be -- a combo of change and old good love.

So those are in your town models and are stationary. They're not just landmarks but they make the town.

So Blake's is 2 miles from Wal-Mart. It will stay that ratio. So if the town increases by 10 miles. Its gonna be still near the center of town. Wal-Mart will still be at the end. Smith's across the river if coming from the West.

So nothing will get distorted only expand. Some places like ghost towns have the option of distortion. Populations of less than 1000 people. Can fully distort.

2500 partially..

Its called officially "Rebuilding the town"

But its a vote

And you vote in the website you'll find the link for in many places including the shopping website and in DNA4U.

This is worldwide.

If you'd rather move there is another website of home options that are privately owned by charities. So 15 stars to purchase. Up to 12 to relocate items you currently own.

I have a stocked full 4bed room house. It costs 12. So mansions cost 12. But a small apartment will cost 2-4. That is average to move items via tree while we are away.

So what i will do is design my home if i decide to move all my stuff i can decide to sell. Because Alex does have Castle for us... And so i would sell my land design.

However if I did move. I would make that community land. Because of the location. A small park for example. Extra parking for local shopping that doesn't involve creating high land traffic. It would be s tunnel to park in from the streets already existing.

People do have that option. They can rent parking for up to $1 per day. So

You should see the website. There is amazing available changes you must go now. You cannot finalize land purchase/changes for 3 weeks

But you must go now to design and have your voice heard. 89% of the votes...

So what you do is look at town models. They are ranked by tree in several ways m less miles added to town overall. More miles. Land increasing value meaning more businesses. So you use your knowledge and some heart to decide

You pick 3. Then you design your homes to include the changes.

Then you rank from your heart which you love most.

Then the votes go upon town model. So you're voting by heart.

Its an extreme calculus formula 10 pages long in 12 point font on normal size paper. The tree can accomplish in 10.2 seconds per town. Metropolis is about 18 seconds. NYC. Is 9 for lower Manhattan and Brooklyn 22 seconds. He apologizes that it takes so long.

We love all our different trees.

Now we all teach. At home in the streets. In the student websites there are blue stars. They count different. One yellow star equals two blue. Because being a good student is more important than a teacher.

So my grand total above is all colored stars. 2/3 are teaching stars

So we use golden yellow first. Then when we hit blue we are running low on funds. So regard that. And blue we have to use 2 of to make a yellow.

Now a blue website will come up which you can preview. Things are cheaper in blue, but still it cost 1.25 yellow stars to buy. So it costs more in relation to the star difference.

Tree explains it clearly.

Cars don't worry worldwide we have factories.

While North America has theirs by Canada. Central America has theirs in central central America

South America also has theirs.

So other side of rhe planet you have some spread out as well

Canada will use USA and 3 of their own factories.

Canada mainly makes boats. While the USA makes cars so we trade the labor employment for humans off in that way

USA has 5 boat factories. Canada 24. Not including my private one where we make the cruise ships. Only I make cruise ships.

Current other cruise ships will be bought or sold, disbanded and destroyed. Alas good working parts such as restaurants and stores will be relocated to land mostly on the coasts.

We will get to see that super interesting process -- of course upgraded to sanitation of my standards which we won't need but will still use. Because it's awesome. And other luxury upgrades.

A lot of magic will be used during this time

Its highly controlled and approved.

There are sites to explain it to you.

So I'll let y'all go now.

Remember your prayers of good health and healing. Sorrow replaced with love and happiness. Grief is destructive. We have it. I have it. Its deep, so a good healthy apology from the heart and shed a few tears. Breathe. Breathe, Breathe it out and remember they're alive and strong strong health survivors. And just know they're gonna be okay and already safe.

At home and school. And so understand now why school is going to change so much.

The USA will continue to use cash for now

We will all change to a digital currency upon return.

Russia is the biggest country to change to all Star use in 2 weeks..

So we will see how that unfolds.

Remember I used to be a sun. Now I am human. You can call me Sunshine if you like.

Alex insisted on a cash earned policy. Snoop school and intelligence.

Behind their backs I enlisted the help of 4 trees. Alex was a star I fell in love with. So I named the Cash and designed it after him.

I grew up with Joe Cool in school. Snoopy. That will not continue. Woodstock cannot be Snoopy's only friend.

So watch in the future as Snoopy as Joe Cool. Woodstock. Calvin and his old Broad develop a relationship to show us the values of friendship and bow to be a really good friend. Many crisis will be involved to teach how to handle them without success -- in school they will always do it wrong.

For homework they always get it right..

Because i hate school and i voted against it 9 times out of 10 voting procedures.

So the change is extremely intense from what it used to be. But i kept it changing until my heart stopped crying.

Then Alex's tears i changed school flow times.. To be open all year. Up to 24 hours per day up to 7 days per week. Like Compton.

Most schools will be set up like college. All 100% free and then you sign up for classes during the time and dates you want.

Small communities will have it set up in rotation. So "four wheeling for safety" will be 6 weeks in the evening. Next 6 weeks noon. Then 6am then midnight. So if you need a certain time you may request it.

Math. Reading. Writing.

We will begin having fresh souls born. So mommys and daddies will be taking their 6 month old babies to one class like an elementary m its only 1 hour per day.

So it will be fun. I think there's a prototype video.

We are waiting for Wisconsin to establish no school for the remainder of the year before we close down all USA school instructions and open a website in DNA4U to begin leaning via long distance and online.

It is family school only as of now until the summer a low number of individual classes will be available.

But for now its mainly TV produced by tree. And DNA4U questions and answers and payments.

So requirement is the entire household watches it together then on each device per person Tue questions and answers are provided for the strict work.

So if you are allowed to answer while watching it will be spoken and written on the t.v. program. Most are not. They are retention values.

The first 9 are answer and watch simultaneously. Its polls to adjust to fit daily living.

We want your opinion.

If not every HUMAN has a phone or a tv is not available they will be delivered world wide. In the next 14 - 15 hours.

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[truesportsfan]

WWE’s Liv Morgan on Elimination Chamber, the Riott Squad and finding herself

Liv Morgan will need to beat Shayna Baszler, Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, Asuka and Natalya at WWE’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view on Sunday (7 p.m., WWE Network) to earn a shot at Becky Lynch’s Raw women’s championship at WrestleMania 36. Ahead of stepping into the Elimination Chamber for the first time, the 25-year-old, who grew up in Elmwood Park, N.J., took a go at some Q&A with The Post’s Joseph Staszewski.

(This interview has been edited for brevity)

Q: How important is this Elimination Chamber opportunity for you? It’s a big pay-per-view and a major chance to advance things with your character.

A: The Elimination Chamber match, I feel like, is the biggest opportunity I’ve gotten so far in my career. I’m taking it very, very, very, very, very seriously. I just came back from a nine-month hiatus where I got a makeover and did a lot of self-discovery. I feel like I need this win more than anyone. I need this win more than anyone else in this match. Not only that, we have Ruby and Sarah. Our friendship pretty much blew up. So there are a lot of factors in this match.

Q: During that nine months that you were away from WWE, what did you do? You talked about some introspection that went on.

A: Just figuring out what I wanted from me. I was in the Riott Squad and I was very, very immature and I was loud. You know, I needed attention. I needed people to look at me, so I dyed my hair pink and made my tongue blue. I did all these things that definitely made me stand out, but were they really me? Is that really who I was at the core of the character? I don’t think it was, especially being with these two other women. And now I’m by myself. It was just finding myself on my own. So I spent nine months, a lot of self talk, a lot of watching old footage of myself and just finding out who this grown woman is now.

Q: Were you happy with the way that you were reintroduced? You got thrown into the Lana-Rusev-Bobby Lashley wedding storyline.

A: I am happy. I think it was very shocking. I think it came out of left field and no one expected it, and I think maybe that was the goal.

Q: Sonya Deville (the first openly lesbian wrestler in WWE) took issue with how the lesbian relationship between you and Lana was presented. Have you talked to her at all?

A: I have a very close friendship with Sonya Deville, so I spoke to her, and the details of those conversations I’m politely not going to share with you, Joe (laughs). But everything’s fine. Everything’s cool. We talked about it. She’s still a very good friend of mine, and I can’t be mad at anyone for how they feel and how they react to things. Everyone is gonna feel how they want to feel, so I’ve just got to allow that. At the end of the day, this is business, this is work, and I’m doing what I’m told and supposed to do, you know.

Q: In your mind is that angle dead or do you think there’s a chance it gets brought back again?

A: I don’t think anything is dead in WWE. I can’t really answer that, but I do think the door is open for it to be touched on again.

Q: What do you want people to take away from the version of you we are seeing now?

A: Just that I’m confident, I’m comfortable within myself, by myself. I don’t need to do these extra things to get people’s attention. I can get attention on my own with my work. I don’t need these extra factors to get noticed anymore. I’m not shuffled in with other people.

I’m still growing. You don’t just grow and stop growing in nine months. I’m still figuring out my footing and my placing, and it’s just a work in progress.

Q: Do you miss any of the aspects of playing the Harley Quinn-type character?

A: It was very fun. It was very easy for me to portray. It was very just … let out the most immature side of myself that I possibly can. We were the Riott Squad, you know, causing chaos.

Q: You were kind of the high school bullies.

A: Yeah, and I was not a bully in high school, so it was just so fun to play and I just dove right into it. I was surprised how it all ended up working out, just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. A blue tongue ended up sticking. I was so wild. I had so much fun.

Q: It sounds like your new character is about you growing up as a person. You feel this is somewhat of Liv Morgan growing up, but it’s playing out on our screen?

A: That’s exactly how this makeover felt. It’s just very funny how synonymous it felt with me outside of the ring just going into that next phase of life, that next phase of womanhood, and just it’s playing out on TV in front of millions.

Q: You got your break in WWE going through Joe DeFranco’s gym in New Jersey. What made you walk through that door one day and say, ‘I’m going to give wrestling a try?’

A: I loved the WWE since I was 5 years old. So I was just a super, super, mega fan, and I was working at Hooters and I watched WWE during my shift on one of the TVs. Everyone assumed I was the wrestling chick. … I got Joe DeFranco’s contact number, so I gave him a call and he invited me to come to the gym.

He felt that for someone who had no athletic background that didn’t really play sports, he felt that I held up pretty well. Because Joe DeFranco, he’s training NFL superstars.

I walk in the gym, and there’s a bunch of NFL players. I don’t watch football. I’m just a little girl like, “Hey! I want to work out.” (Laughs) And I don’t even realize that I’m surrounded by all these professional athletes. I just jumped in their workout and I kept up. He was gracious enough to put in a good word with WWE, and that’s how I got my tryout.

Q: You grew up in a single-parent household with older brothers and a younger sister. How did that experience shape you growing up?

A: I grew up kind of not being told what was right and wrong. In the long run, I grew up seeing for myself what I believed was right and wrong. My father had passed before I was born, and the rest of my family had seen it happen. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how that affects the mind and the brain and just a child. It took a couple years for them to get their bearings again and just try to live a normal life again.

Growing up in my family, it was just a little bit chaotic. It was a little bit damaged, and I saw that and I wanted to change it. I wanted to help my family and I wanted to help myself, and I knew that really, really young. I knew that at 5 years old. I was going to be the one to help change it.

Q: How much pressure do you feel to deliver now when WWE has put so much TV and vignette time into reintroducing you?

A: There is definitely pressure there, but I’m just trying to do my best and not think about failing or not doing well. It’s do what you do and do what you know. What I know is how to go out there and perform and entertain and put on the best match I possibly can.

Q: Take me through that dive at Ruby during the Elimination Chamber contract signing? You got pretty high and straight at her.

A: And I had heels on, too. I wasn’t planning on that. I was just going to sit and be a grown, mature woman. I’m not going to attack this human being. But once I saw everything going on between Asuka, Nattie, Shayna, I was like, “OK. OK. Me too.’ I saw my opportunity. She was distracted by the other chaos, and I just pounced on her.

Q: You talked about your friendship with Ruby and Sarah. What’s it been like to work with them, but in very different roles?

A: It’s weird. It’s different. It’s not something I was expecting when I first came up on Raw and SmackDown. I didn’t see myself as a tag-team competitor. I viewed myself as a singles competitor. Then I got put in with the Riott Squad, and I just became best friends with these two girls that I didn’t even speak to before, best friends, sisters. I think I needed that. I needed that coming up, and I didn’t even realize. Just for this situation [of Ruby attacking me] to play out how it has, it’s shocking and it’s upsetting, but I’ve got to keep it moving.

Q: Why do you think the Riott Squad didn’t reach the heights maybe the three of you had hoped?

A: I think about that, too, and, um, I don’t know. At that time, they went from like no tag teams in the women’s division to all of sudden having all these tag teams in the division, and then we had the [women’s] tag team titles introduced. And I personally felt like when we were at our height, we were just following up on all cylinders. We were so fluid and we knew what we were doing. We knew our dynamic, but just unfortunately it wasn’t our time.

Q: We are in WrestleMania season and we are seeing the NXT women, whether it be Bianca Belair or Shayna or Rhea Ripley, worked into WrestleMania-level storylines. How is that taken by the women who are there every week on Raw and SmackDown?

A: I feel like they’re the top women in NXT, they’re full of talented girls, but I think Bianca and Rhea are the head of the pack right now. I think they earned the spotlight. Whether it be WrestleMania or just Raw or SmackDown, I think they’ve earned to see a different audience see them and bring the spotlight on NXT. I’m personally not mad. I can’t speak about how everyone else feels.

source https://truesportsfan.com/sport-today/wwes-liv-morgan-on-elimination-chamber-the-riott-squad-and-finding-herself/

[24hourchampagnediet-blog1]

Tackling diabetes with a ketogenic diet – the tale continued

New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/tackling-diabetes-with-a-ketogenic-diet-the-tale-continued/

Tackling diabetes with a ketogenic diet – the tale continued



Low carb diets are a hot topic. Having told of his own efforts to reverse T2 diabetes last week, JOHN McCRONE answers some of the reader response.

OPINION: One moment triumph, the next dropped straight back into the worries and uncertainties. All part of the complexities of dealing with a chronic condition like diabetes, I guess.

What am I talking about? Well, last week I told of my own type 2 diabetes journey – about having pulled back from the brink through adopting the still controversial Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet.

Out of the blue – as a “slimmish, fittish, 60-ish, white male” on the standard, sugar and starch heavy, insulin-spiking, Kiwi diet – I had developed sky-high blood glucose levels.

READ MORE: * Back from the brink: How I reversed my diabetes * The big fat debate over whether keto-style diets are right for reversing diabetes * Residents still suffering from ‘quake-brain’ * It’s not the calories, it’s our modern lifestyle that is killing us

And just about as quickly, I managed to drop those levels back down into normal range by switching to a fat-burning, ketogenic, eating pattern.

Certainly a tale of triumph. And one that resonated with the New Zealand public. There are plenty of us out there struggling with the same health issues for the same dietary reasons.

So keep the conversation going many urged. And I shall.

This week I will first reply on some of the points raised in the readers’ comments on the two articles – my personal journey with LCHF, and the official view.

Then I will add an update on how I may have been premature to suggest my own diabetes story is anywhere near finished.

‘A LITTLE LONG’

Overall, the online response was positive. Surprisingly so.

Clearly there are now many other people who have found LCHF and Keto style diets –  low carbohydrate, and very low carbohydrate – to be an effective weapon against chronic illnesses in general.

MURRAY WILSON/STUFF

Checking levels: Those with diabetes get used to the routine of monitoring blood glucose.

Plenty had their own tale to tell. Lizardy says she was diagnosed pre-diabetic and lost 15 kilograms with minimal effort. Low carb helped fix years of nagging ligament inflammation too.

“I am 53 back to playing hockey twice weekly. And am back in my pre-baby goal-weight jeans from the bottom of my drawer. A little flared but they look awesome to me.”

Kat Sciwi says: “I resist calling it a miracle cure, but it almost is.” Linda Smalley says: “The effect was beyond amazing.”

Just as significant perhaps, the comments were short on those saying they had tried the switch and came away disappointed. In consumer terms, the word of mouth for LCHF is good.

But let’s get into some of the gaps, confusions and finer distinctions my articles might have trailed in their wake.

First, geekgirl warmed my heart with: “Great article, if a little long…”. Yes, it was a big information dump. Yet also it barely scratched the surface of a subject that we all need to be getting our heads around.

We know the basic problem. Everything about the modern world has become one great lifestyle experiment whisking us along to an uncertain destination when it comes to its health impacts.

As a species, we evolved to fit a particular nutritional and metabolic landscape. Now we have jumped aboard this wild generational ride in regards to our diets, our stress levels; our patterns of activity, sleep and even entertainment.

A keto-advocating doctor was telling me how whole new diseases classes – like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia​ – have become rife in just the past two decades of his practice.

Unpicking the damage we are doing to ourselves is going to be a mammoth medical detective task, he says.

So to the other comments. Horrific pulled me up on something very different – suspected racism for describing myself as an old white male.

“I don’t understand how being a white male would make you surprised to get diabetes? Please explain.”

Well, I wasn’t intending to draw attention to New Zealand’s inequality story. But it was indeed in the back of my mind after spotting a barely believable statistic in a 2015 Ministry of Health report.

SUPPLIED

Ethnic disparity: Nearly half of NZ Pacifica – and Indians too – get diabetes by their 70s.

A graph of diabetes prevalence by ethnicity shows that by the time Pākehā Kiwi hit their 70s, nearly a fifth of us will be diabetic. Which is a lot.

However for Māori, this rises to a third. And for Pacifica and Indians, it becomes shockingly close to half for both ethnic groups.

Everyone knows the likely reasons. Income, education and other advantages tend to dictate the diet and lifestyle choices open to people.

As Foo barf notes: “Dietary changes are easier said than done, especially for the majority who aren’t in the lucky club of being able to afford avocado daily. I stick to a similar diet but wow, the cost compared to almost any other diet is roughly double.”

Others replied that – shop smarter – and low carb is perfectly affordable. But anyway, for me the ethnic skew highlights a key fact about diabetes that I was trying to make.

I had felt an unlikely diabetes candidate because of my build. Knobbly-kneed and naturally skinny like my distant Scottish ancestors.

I was of course a classic case of TOFI – thin on the outside, fat on the inside. But only having a slightly bulging tummy gave me a false sense of security.

And here we have our national statistics showing the same thing. Pacifica and Indians – with their different genetics and typical body types – can still wind up with the same dreadful diabetes rates.

So the call to action applies to everyone. Being outwardly slim is no protection if your diet is choking up your internal organs with fat.

NAME-CHECKING THE COMPETITION

Another complaint about my articles was the failure to name-check all the varieties of diabetes-beating diets, and also to give more prominence to fasting as a tactic.

Liz Tillman says: “I notice there was no mention of Dr Michael Mosley’s Fast800/5:2 diet based on the Mediterranean diet. Macro’s of 30 per cent carbs, 30 per cent protein, 40 per cent fat, with time restricted eating. Less extreme than keto but still really effective.”

Lance Florance says: “Started on a keto diet and then moved to carnivore over the last 6mths. I am 50 and never felt as good as what I do now.”

Awwsudup says: “If you include an intermittent fasting lifestyle you don’t need to go full blown keto. You still get great long term results and no boredom of food choice.”

Some other readers touched on the V-word. Online, you can’t mention keto – with its heavy promotion of bacon, eggs and grass-fed beef – without drawing a similarly motivated response from the vegetarian camp.

Mc72 says: “A whole food plant based diet treats the cause and reverses diabetes on a regular basis. High fat diets are not good for us. High protein is also suicidal.”

Kiwiegghead says: “Eat all the carbohydrates from whole plants and you cannot get diabetes.”

Evidence Based Eating NZ,  a lobby group, also wrote in, demanding an opportunity to have its say in the debate.

But actually, the vegan backlash was unexpectedly muted given the way they and keto make such natural social media foes.

Keto enthusiasts, like the UK’s Dr Zoe Harcombe, talk openly about a world vegan conspiracy – the Seventh Day Adventists, puritanical dietitians, cereal companies and others getting together in a moral crusade against meat.

JAMES LOWE/STUFF

Sweet temptation: Readers note that even modern recipe books are whacking up the sugar content.

No surprise vegans hit back just as hard, saying the planet can’t afford for humans to push animal protein diets. There are bigger economic and environmental priorities in play.

However it may be a sign the conversation is being moved along now that it is a Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diet that is being opposed to an LCHF one.

You can be a vegetarian and still go LCHF – although it is more difficult to hit the macronutrient balances.

And LCHF shares the same basic message that the first thing we all need to do is stop eating processed foods and end our love affair with sugar and highly-refined starch. Go whole food – real food – and cut the junk, reduce the calories.

For most people, that is already going to get them most of the way to where they want to be in terms of preventing, and even reversing, chronic disease.

RETAIL OUTLETS FOR BIG PHARMA

More comments. Many readers made the point that a big change in dietary habits can be difficult. And also that the current medical establishment is not geared up to support such a change.

Some were blunt. SaltyDog says: “The majority of GP’s are retail outlets for big pharma”.

Eljayem says: “In this country we do have to look after ourselves. The health system here is designed to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – too late but free.”

Adeej wondered: “Where’s the solution if you don’t like to cook, and you use the processed foods primarily for convenience?”

Ponder this made the interesting observation that even modern recipe books are part of the problem. They whack up the sugar content to match today’s sweeter tooth.

 “From 1 cup to 1 and ¾ cups in 25 years. If people don’t know what food used to taste like 30-40 years ago, they have no idea how much sugar has been snuck into their diet.”

Then to answer on a few details and getting back to my own personal story, Kaybe says she felt somewhat misled by the end.

“His amazingly swift reduction in mmol readings wasn’t totally a result of changing his diet, but mostly down to taking metformin, a standard diabetes drug.”

Yes, I did go on to metformin pretty immediately – along with starting to fix my diet. I’m not against drugs that might work.

My HbA1c blood glucose reading fell from its super high 99 mmol/mol to a normal 35 within six months. But it was getting to understand the principles of LCHF, and tightening my diet accordingly, which I felt did most of the heavy lifting.

I was able to wind down the metformin, then drop it completely, after a year. Largely I did that as an experiment to see if diet alone could do it.

With no metformin, my HbA1c has risen from 35 to 39. So as I said in the article, that gives a gauge of how much the pills did make a difference. The more crucial step was still subtracting the carb fuel driving up my blood sugar.

The high fat aspect of LCHF drew the expected questions as well.

Grad28 asks: “I am curious as to what your cholesterol levels are. So much conflicting reports regarding excess fats and effects of high cholesterol.”

I agree this is a worry because the experts give us such contrasting views. All I can say is that, for me, LCHF sent my lipid panel numbers in the right direction.

My total cholesterol still counts as high. It was 6.9 mmol/l at diagnosis in 2017 and now stands at 6.1. LDL was 3.9 and is 3.7. So only small improvements. Yet certainly nothing getting worse.

And for the markers that really count to keto believers – like my triglyceride to HDL ratio – they have flipped spectacularly.

My triglycerides have dropped from 3.5 to 1.0. My “good” HDL cholesterol has risen from 1.4 to 1.9. Plug that into the handy online TG:HDL calculator (which adjusts for the different measurement basis) and my overall ratio has plummeted from 5.7 to 1.2.

In simple terms, my circulation is no longer such a swimming soup of sugar-derived fats wandering the body seeking a home.

So a “higher fat” diet hasn’t harmed at all. Yet remember also that I’m likely eating less fat, or at least about the same as before, in total.

LCHF is about cutting out the sugary and starchy carbs to achieve a better macronutrient balance, not about adding extra fat on top of the carbs you already eat. It is a diet.

THE LADA QUESTION

Finally the new thing that has caused a few sleepless nights.

A number of commenters were unhappy that type 1 diabetes – the auto-immune condition which can’t be reversed by diet – was not explained.

XdangermouseX says: I wish they would rename T2 diabetes to something else. These headlines break my T1 little heart.”

Kozmokramer says: “Totally agree…. especially when people start talking about how you can cure type one diabetes and be insulin free! Very dangerous.”

The T1 distinction was another point left out for space reasons. I apologise. Yet others then went on to say how – in my case – it could be relevant.

Babymw warns: “I think you will find if you have the antibody testing you have LADA – Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood. Type 1 diabetes. It’s simply because of your age they have said T2.”

LADA, also called type 1.5 diabetes, is now recognised as a syndrome of its own.

You start off looking like type 2 as your pancreas is failing but not completely shot. Its insulin-producing beta cells are limping along and so diet change can be enough to fix your blood glucose levels for a while.

But after a honeymoon period – usually months, but occasionally years – the immune reaction which is doing the damage roars back to polish your pancreas off. You become effectively T1 and need to be on insulin injections.

Oh bugger indeed, I thought. I’ve managed two years. But probably time to pester the doctor for the further tests to confirm what track I am on.

New research is showing type 2 can be properly reversed if your story is just about a fat-clogged pancreas suppressing beta cell activity. Remove the organ fat and a normal insulin response can fire up again.

Trials last year by Newcastle University’s Professor Roy Taylor found a strict weight loss diet saw this happen for two-thirds of his subjects. But for the other third, the beta cells failed to rebound.

I checked my own situation, paying for a $40 blood test to see how my insulin production is faring. It is ticking along at a low normal of 33 pmol/l for now. The pancreas still flickers, but is possibly in the twilight zone.

A GP – a specialist in the genetics of chronic illnesses like diabetes – kindly got in touch after the articles and described why I might fit the LADA scenario.

By my own account, he says, I have been under considerable work and life stress following the Canterbury earthquakes. Back in 2013, I was writing about having brain fog, arthritic flares and other evidence of chronic inflammation.

His bet would be that I have a common genetic weakness – the COMt Val/Met polymorphism – which prevents efficient clear up of certain critical neuro-chemicals.

Stress and a resulting generalised state of inflammation would have stayed locked on, roaming the body, looking for places to land. And with a less than perfect diet, my pancreas would have eventually been caught up in the immune system’s cross fire.

It is a speculative bit of detective work without further evidence. Yet if it is basically an auto-immune attack, then it is likely to return to finish the job.

The good news, he adds brightly, is that an LCHF way of eating – coupled to intermittent fasting and the kind of hard gym work I am doing – is still the way to both turn off inflammation and also minimise the need for insulin if T2 does become T1.

Commenters talked about that too. KatyPi, with a T1 daughter, says: “Type 1 can’t be reversed, but control and weight fluctuations can be greatly improved by adopting the low carb, high fat diet.”

Angela Nolan agrees: “Type 1’s have reported needing much less insulin and gaining much better blood sugar control eating low carb, high fat diets.”

Again, it is heartening the knowledge is out there. People are realising the damage bad diet can do and how they might need to get proactive about changing that.

So share experiences and maintain an open mind. Yes, keep the conversation going please.

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