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makiema · 3 years

Text

finally finished writing about how much stormbringer enhances the skk dynamic which was at a nascent stage in Fifteen and anticipates the developments which happen later and culminate in Dead Apple where the faith they have in each other is absolutely remarkable! the fact that i said i’d do this in a few hours yesterday but it took me like 24 hrs to finish i have an attention span of a whole 2 minutes 💀

my favorite thing about stormbringer is that it actually builds up on the concepts/themes introduced in Fifteen so it's a glimpse into what has changed in dazai and dazai & dhuuya after one year of being together. As much as it's about chuuya confronting his past and his identity this is also about dazai’s development from who he was in fifteen. chuuya and rimbaud both left their marks on dazai and in Stormbringer we see him, actually trying to emulate or follow in a sense a way of life, that chuuya and rimbaud represented. Stormbringer is not just about chuuya, abt his test of humanity, or he coming in terms with who or what he is. it's about dazai too. it's about dazai developing or at least attempting to develop what he calls “boyish”/ “ordinary” in Fifteen. its not about chuya having an identity crisis. in fact what we understand from Code 04's last section is that chuuya never considered it as his crisis and neither did dazai. so to dazai “saving chuuya is important, human or not doesn't matter” and when dazai gives chuuya time to think abt what the operation will cost him chuuya doesnt so much as flinch form his purpose. This goes on to show unlike verlaine he doesnt care about memory and certainly doesnt consider it as the only determinant of someone being human. He cares more abt yokohama and his friends and in that, in caring abt his “family”, he is just as human as the next person. whether he’s factually human or not comes secondary to his desire to save people. This is a message that the quality of being human has more to do with embodying human qualities or humanity than having memories and lineage. so yeah stormbringer is essentially about embracing humanity but this happens on 2 levels: both chuuya and dazai embrace humanity. Going back to the boyish or ordinary bit, im talking abt this segment:

here dazai is shocked because he assumed everyone “gangsta” and everyone crazy powerful delighted in homicide, in deliberately indulging in the macabre. but he is proved wrong. He logically concluded that anyone with power more than average and belonging to the underground would kill people and delight in that because it’s a given they lack any kind of moral understanding. To that end, they’d be exalted at the prospect of relentlessly shooting a dead body, mutilating it and dishonoring it. The mafia code (any general mafia code) works in a way where honor and death goes hand in hand. So only the lowest of the low would do that to a dying person, who even when faced with certain death is loyal to his own organisation. This really shows that even within the mafia dazai is the only person whos like the devil incarnate. So yeah dazai at this sate far lower than even a mafia member. But chuuya who actually embodiess the mafia code and is incredibly loyal to his organisation and “family” [ putting family in quotes bc he himself calls his friends family 🥺] ofc kicks the gun away. From dazai’s pov chuuya being as insanely powerful as he is should also do the same. But chuuya comes along and suggests that even enemies should be shown respect where it’s due. And that is what an ordinary person, oblivious to mafia life (mafia life as in waht dazai makes of it) thinks. So in undermining the binary between “ordinary” and “mafia” chuuya proves that being mafia doesnt necessarily mean selling your soul to the devil and giving up the last smidge of humanity. In fact by embodying qualities like compassion and kindness and mutual respect, you can make the mafia a better place for yourself and for the other members. Now in Stormbringer, we see how this affected dazai. here dazai is introduced as someone mercilessly killing to set up the channel.

Now to expand the channel one would need to keep doing it right? To mercilessly kill ppl and stuff but instead what he does is hand the channel over to chuuya bc he knows chuuya wouldnt handle it like him. im not suggesting that dazai miraculously becomes v good or anything with dazai the key words is “try” or “to some extent” like in Fifteen when Chuuya asks “do u wanna live” he’s like “ not to that extent”. similarly its not to say he doesnt kill people anymore. it is that he tries to lessen the number of casualties by handing over one of the most troublesome channels to chuuya who would manage it in a much more humane way. That dazai draws from his friends/at least tries to is smth we’ll see again later on when he deals with akutagawa. He talks about odasaku and ofc its baffling to him that a mafia member as powerful as him would be taking acre of orphans. and dazai says but he cant afford to be that kind and proceeds to shoot akutagswa but again does so in a calculated way such that he doesnt end up killing him ( im NOT justifying dazai’s abuse not at all im just saying that its hard to believe he coincidentally knew the exact no of bullets that aku could block. and had odasaku’s words and his way of life not been in the back of his mind he could’ve ended up killing aku) coming back to chuuya and dazai we also see him avoiding further conversation on the jewelry channel thing as he says “leave that for now”. He does a similar thing again when mori brings up the concept of double suiciding with chuuya.

Its a HUGE thing for him to digest that him suiciding would inevitably spell the doom for chuuya. this puts an unimaginable responsibility on him. And he avoids further discussion on this. Now we know dazai is the rambly type. Even in the most dire moments he goe son with his LOONG monologues so really he is the last person who’d avoid a conversation but he deliberately does it in these 2 instances because its hard for him to grasp these things. That he can go against his nature and do a conscientious thing by handing over one of the most grisly channels to chuuya (i dont think dazai’s nature is evil. Or even if it is, its a a social construct keeping in mind the war ravaged times or its mori’s construct because he does exploit dazai to the hilt. but dazai ofc thinks of himself as non-human, devious. perfectly devilish...etc.) And also the fact that someone as suicidal as him is actually responsible for the life of someone else is really too much to take in. a whole 10 seconds pause indicates just how much he was thrown off when mori opened his eyes to the reality of things: if he dies, chuuya inexorably dies as a consequence. also i dont think the “wow” here or the next bit :

is something jokey. if it was like haha double suicide with chuuya is the worst haha wanna do it w pretty lady kind of a deal. that pause would have been unnecessary. dazai’s immediate reaction would’ve been whining and shit. the use of “froze” too implies the gravity of the situation. so ofc what is “wow” is how much meaning his life has for someone else. and for some so much....better than him. and what is unacceptable is this sad, sad truth that his life (to which he ascribes no value) would be so inextricably linked with someone else’s and hold so much meaning to them. it is like when a suicidal person at the brink of suicide understanding his life is not his own. his life and death holds consequences for ppl surrounding him. so both of these are huge things to grasp and at both these times dazai is visibly shaken up so much so that he doesnt want to do his favorite thing- ramble in a condescending tone. smth he does in so many instances. this really is a testimony to the fact that things are changing in him. the redemption process has begun. he’s no longer the kind of maniac he was before he encountered chuuya. when zuko underwent his transition in atla he was so shaken up after one (1) right decision he had a fever. i think this is true for anyone who’s trying to change. change is after all a huge thing for everyone. ofc he’ll be unsettled. so anyways this is proof that he has indeed come a long way from being someone who revelled at the prospect of meaningless bloodshed.

now coming to the concept of love he assumes he’d get sick of love and die:

and that death is the singular goal worth chasing after because it makes you feel more alive/get a fuller picture of what living entails. but here he is erring by supposing love is something that’ll bore him/have no meaning. and it cant provide him that “something” he’s looking for. at this point he hasn’t loved so he doesnt know whether he’ll be sick of it or if it'll have no impact. And yet he’s morose and regretful. this is a kind of self-imposed constraint hes putting on himself. he cancels out the v idea of love because hes convinced it isnt worth it. he hasnt even been in love okay scratch being in love that sounds romantic and i really dont mean love in a romantic sense here...its just love. in general. any form is cool. anyway so dazai is not familiar with any kind of love. He is entirely alien to the concept. he doesnt even know what a friend/partner is so he doesnt know what love is. this is cleared out here when rimbaud confesses he did everything for paul and dazai is unconvinced:

chuuya ofc admonishes him and shuts him up for good, he says dazai has no right lookind down upon smth he doesnt understand. he doesnt understand friendship, love. or loyalty. or how important those feelings are at this point. now this situation is turned on its head in stormbringer. but before we go into that let’s look at the message rimbaud had for both of them. ik he specifically asks for chuuya to “live” but there’s purpose behind including both of them in the frame. it’s a message they should both take to heart. and at the end of it its implied both are changed after hearing it:

and in this message the first bit is for chuuya. what he says is basically memory doesn’t make u human... ”you are you” just a frame or not doesnt matter. and even if hes just a frame, he is still beautiful. beauty actually is a v important concept in literature starting right from Plato to Shakespeare. i’d not bring this here but because bsd is so deeply rooted in literature i feel like the reference to beauty, and later on to soul and even warmth and also the universal tone of this message carries some meaning. so the thing is both Plato and Shakespeare were endorsed the idea of love as a force awakened in the world by beauty which then leads the soul to perfection. so humans and by extension, all life are beautiful frames that can inspire love. this concept is also there in Romantic poetry like Keats and Wordsworth all of them talked about loving beauty in nature and how that can elevate the body mind and soul. so essentially in telling this to chuuya what ehe basically means is that chuuya just by being him, by being a beautiful framework can inspire love and warmth in others and thats a great purpose! how much chuuya understands of this purpose with his one (1) braincell and his low self esteem is questionable but he gets some sense of belonging. now this is a two way relationship so ofc dazai has to be factored in. he comes in the next part:

these are from 2 different translation so the disparity im sorry ;-; but anyway, this last part abt the world being a cold place. then paul. then “warmth” is a message to dazai who’s been introduced to us as cold-hearted and having like no bearings of a human being. this is the reason why its important for both o f them to be there. now going back to chuuya being a beautiful framework, the framework can be beautiful in so far as its beauty is appreciate by someone and inspires warmth and love in someone. this again is the whole beauty/beholder nature/the romantic concept that is there in shakespeare and in Romantic poetry where both are a part of a codependent relationship. so what rimbaud implies here is that dazai can have that kind of a relationship with another person (chuuya) just like rimbaud had with paul which makes him warm and the world doesnt feel cold anymore. rimbaud has no regrets about what he did because. so the idea is that dazai and chuuya can share the same dynamic. also after this, the narrative says that their hearts are now changed and wont return to what they were before....and even their souls are refined in a way. but in Fifteen we dont have a concrete proof of how this happened bc the novel ends at this point. Instead, Stormbringer shows exactly how deep the impact of those words is:

this is the third instance of dazai showing hesitation and once again this has to do with chuuya. the seed of the dynamic that rimbaud was talking about is already germinating in him. his reactions, his fidgeting, his hesitancy, in response to chuuya’s situation is such a big contrast to his cocksure self when he’s conversing with adam and verlaine. after this of course we have:

not only does he clearly express his concern but he gives chuuya 2 whole mins to make a decision and based on that he’s prepared to overturn the operation. the success rate of an alternative plan will ofc be lesser than the og one but that doesnt faze dazai. he’s ready to turn the tide for chuuya’s sake and if this is not development idk what is. just a year ago, he was someone to whom the concept of rimbaud going thru all that trouble for his friend was a lost concept. ironically enough, now he finds himself doing something that is along the same lines. he puts chuuya above his mission. to him, chuuya is more important than getting a satisfactory result. another bit that i wanna talk abt is that one controversial section where dazai says he’ll save chuuya, human or not, and then the justification is:

i think a lot of people got mad bc of this and honestly at first glance i was peeved too. as a chuuya stan some of the shit dazai has done so far did rub me the wrong way. i love skk obv but still those were moments that kind of left a bad taste in the mouth. i’ll discuss them later on bc stormbringer helps allay that feeling. coming back to the “i wanna see chuuya suffer” part firstly context is important. ofc someone like dazai cant be expected to be upfront about his feelings with ppl (or AI) he barely knows. so what be relays to adam, is only partly true and its actually a kind of a twist in concept. the things is, and this is smth dazai knows all too well is that ppl suffer simply on account of being human. human suffering is brought on because humans, by virtue of being humans, feel. so when he says he’s willing to acknowledge chuuya as human despite what N and Verlaine said he’s already admitting that chuuya suffers. so there is really nothing “new” to see for him. he knows chuuya suffers already and he does too because they’re both humans trying to make it thru their messed up lives. also chuuya “ceasing to be human” is a p huge concern for him bc he himself is like that. just like with the suicide thing, it bothers dazai when someone else shares his situation/his fate like as long as his life is his own, he has no problem ending it whenever but the situation is complicated when someone else’s life span is determined by that decision. and similarly, as long as he is “no longer human” its not that much of an issue because he’s like resigned to a doomed fate but someone like chuuya ceasing to be human or worse yet never getting to know if hes human or not are pressing matters. so anyways what he actually means here is that in saving chuuya, he saves someone who suffers just like he does and in their case, even the cause of suffering boils down to a shared psychological conflict: what essentially constitutes being human and if im human or not. now this sharing of pain and suffering is the foundation of forming a connection with someone, which makes life a little better. here again, what rimaud imparted to dazai and chuuya is driven home. also dazai’s key anxiety is not finding meaning/anything. this “anything” can be assumed to be something that justifies life. so all his anxiety and frustration stems from the fact that there really is no discernible meaning to be found in the mechanism of life. so it is an empty pursuit because it is true that nothing can explain why feelings of pain and suffering are exponentially heavier than feelings of happiness or why after getting to experience one (1) free day we’re back to square one where life is grueling. these are questions that really dont have an answer so every time dazai like gazes into the abyss and says he didnt find anything, he is not so much asking if he’ll ever find anything as swallowing the hard truth that there is nothing to be found, no singular entity exists that can magically justify everything. again drawing upon literature or philosophy more specifically, there’s a concept called Absurdism which says the only philosophical truth so to say is this that life is absurd and looking for meaning is futile. instead what we can do is accept that it is absurd and deal with it in the best way possible, by finding little sources and moments of happiness, and strewing them together so we feel somewhat content. even if it is just for a fleeting second. and this happiness/contentment amidst a wretched life (altho temporal) can be found in friendship, in sharing, and even in having fun with people you’re comfortable with! this is actually why dazai wants to save chuuya and now it may seem like im interpreting his words through the shipping lens but thats not so and it can be corroborated by looking into dazai’s words to odasaku. after chuuya, dazai’s next attempt at friendship was odasaku who he found “interesting”. now when odasaku sort of like threw hands and chose death over having to live a life without the orphans, dazai tried to stop him not by saying stuff like life is good. and things will def change for the better. but instead he admits that living is hard and the sense of void is ubiquitous and yet he doesnt want him to up and die because then he would be sad. because the little comfort that he got from odasaku and something he probably assumed odasaku also got from him would be gone. [how much odasaku considered dazai a source of comfort remains unclear. in fact the reason odasaku gave up and died was because he did not have this. this feeling of sharing in someone else’s suffering and seeking comfort in friends in the real world. instead he was too vested in his ideal world. his over reliance on an entirely idealistic concept is actually what pushed him over the edge. and this would have been the case for dazai too had he not encountered and sought comfort and companionship in chuuya and eventually in odasaku ] so this again goes on to show how rimbaud’s words changed dazai’s heart. and in a way dazai really has been doing this unconsciously form the v beginning like by teasing chuuya continually in Fifteen. you dont expect someone as cold as him to indulge in friendly bickering and taunting so often but he does. that there is significance and even happiness in that is something he learns over time, after rimbaud’s words to him. although these things seem futile on the surface they give a moment’s respite. so although chuuya spinning dazai on a rope in stormbringer might seem weird to everyone, they still serve a purpose:

what shirase puts forward is particularly relevant here because neither dazai nor chuuya is fully aware of the extent of their feelings (or even what those feelings are like they dont know what label to put. so typical oblivious lovers) for each other or what they stand to gain just by driving each other nuts but there is something intangible but satisfying to be felt. a kind of contentment that helps him continue. one day at a time. there is no one great “thing” that can make him like wake up one day feeling like he doesnt want to die ever again. but again like i said before, the key word for dazai is “extent” so, these little things to some extent contribute to a sense of fulfilment which helps him keep death at bay. thats why he’s bent on saving chuuya bc he knows they can share in their suffering and make life better for each other. its not like he wants chuuya to suffer. chuuya will suffer nonetheless like every other human. but in suffering together there is something to be found so he doesnt want him to cease being human.

this covers more or less the intertextuality between Stormbringer and Fifteen. i just wanna talk a bit more about a couple other moments in Stormbringer that i feel are p important because they put some things in the series in perspective and also made the dead apple moment 10x more emotional 🥺 one thing that really strikes me is the absolute fanon level of comfort that dazai and chuuya share in Strombringer. its like scenes form k-drama lol.

so yeah this stuff. compare this with dazai’s reaction @atsushi when he drops im not saying that its not just a joke and that what im saying should be the right way to look at this contrast. its not like that at all. but what this does is give an estimate to the readers just how close and comfortable dazai feels when its chuuya. and this plus everything i rambling on abt for so long also gives us an estimate about the sincerity of dazais feelings. now 2 things always bothered me : the fact that dazai actually left chuuya and the fact that after the fight against lovecraft he actualy deserted him (this again can ofc be construed as just a humorous bit but still it did leave a bad taste in my mouth) dazai leaving the mafia is ofc something he had to do to fulfil oda’s dying wish but it still dint sit right with me that he would abandon chuuya. just like oda levaing is harder on dazai, dazai leaving is harder on chuuya. its always harder on the one left behind. so anyway, these sorts of things sometimes made me doubt dazai’s feelings but now that stormbringer clears it all up i do think there is a larger motif at work here. when mori offers dazai to come back to the mafia in s2 we see him saying that it was mori who kicked him out and that he did so because he was afraid dazai would usurp his position. so he set it up in a way that dazai would be forced to leave but on his own accord. now more than usurpation i believe what mori really did fear is that dazai had no allegiance to the mafia (which is actually true) bc he doesnt have that sense of loyalty and that to him his friends were more important than swearing allegiance to mori. (which again is true). so by getting oda killed, the message that mori seemed to be giving out was if dazai didnt leave he would do it again. and if we consider ango’s betrayal which had already transpired at that point, the one mori would next target to sort of get at dazai would inevitably be chuuya. this is only conjecture but still, i do believe this might as well be true because then it would explain why dazai didnt carry chuuya back to the base after their fight [something he was v comfortable doing in Stormbringer. in fact in the first case he carries chuuya back to the billiards bar and not to the mafia’s base so he could hear albatross’ last words 🥺] its because mori needs to know unlike dazai, chuuya is absolutely loyal to him which regrettably he is. it kinda becomes imperative therefore on part of dazai to make it seem that way to mori. that they really are at each others throats and that dazai is insignificant to chuuya. and that the mafia comes before dazai. (which is not true bc we see chuuya protecting his friend [shirase] while also staying loyal to the mafia in Stormbringer)

mori also in his own way tries to provoke hostility b/w them like in Dead Dpple when he was all like yeah so dazai is the star and chuuya is merely bait. so it kinda makes sense if dazai left the mafia not only to like do good work but also to protect chuuya from mori. also the fact that chuuya did the same thing— left the Sheep and joined PM to protect Shirase from the mafia makes be believe that my speculation is plausible given all the parallels we find between dazai and chuuya.

and the last bit is about the brilliant Dead Apple scene and how much added context it gets in light of Stormbringer.

in this scene dazai first says: “you used Corruption believing in me?” and then the translation is “how beautiful” which is an okay translation but the exact thing dazai said was “nakasetekurerune” which literally is : youre gonna make me cry you know? now my knowledge of japanese is like duolingo level but i do know “nakasete” has to do with crying and “kureru” is used by the receiver to indicate he’s receiving a feeling/object from someone close. so basically chuuya trusting him is something so beautiful that it could almost move him to tears. now lets look at dazai’s intro in Stormbringer:

dazai, being dazai, ofc would be able to tell genuine trust from fealty out of fear so ofc the fact that chuuya has this kind of blind faith in him is overwhelming for him. also stormbringer really expands on the sight effects of Corruption in full detail. its so PAINFUL and to think that chuuya would jump into it right away for dazai’s sake.....no wonder he is so soft when deactivating him. and then he proceeds to flirt for a little bit with the Snow White and the kiss of life reference. but this flirting doesnt seem even a little out of place now. it doesn't feel like smth meaningless or smth that dazai is just saying as a joke. that there is absoluetly no subtext to making a statement like that. instead that kind of flirting feels like smth inspired from a deep, deep familiarity with someone who really shares his heart and soul. when he talks to chuuya abt the problem of not knowing whether he is human or not, it is a problem that is as central to him as it’s to chuuya. not feeling fully reconciled to a human identity is a problem thats fundamental to both of them. I don’t think familiarity gets any deeper than this where you share the exact same psychological problem. so its really wonderful how we can trace the skk development now: what starts out as a crush on part of dazai or not a crush exactly rather, a feeling of perplexed admiration because chuuya is breathtakingly beautiful inside out, eventually gain all these layers and develops into something meaningful where they have so much faith in each other and where they literally help each other live. knowing someone out there shares your exact issue so you’re really not alone in this is perhaps the greatest comfort in the world. also now its clear how both of them would have turned out had they not met each other and had they not taken in rimbaud’s advice. chuuya in his desire to learn about himself and frustration at not being able to do the same would have perhaps spiralled downward and ended up becoming like verlaine. he is his double here after all. and had dazai not seen chuuya up close being the wonderful person he is, he too would have probably ended up developing a god complex and becoming like fyodor. dazai is there to save chuuya literally from dying a monster and chuuya is there to remind him he too can try and mend his ways and embrace his human side. after all chuuya has so much trust him in! (despite him having questionable methods) for both of them, it starts out as an attempt to be more human, then establishing a fruitful partnership, and finally coming in terms with their feelings to some extent. for dazai, he’s comfortable enough to engage in occasional flirting at this point and for chuuya it’s playing along with dazai’s antics (well with the ones he get 💀 pretty boy has half a functional braincell) and openly showing his concern for him. so really by confirming their feelings what strombringer does is enhance the skk development in a way that Dead Apple doesnt seem like fan service anymore. the fact that dazai would casually flirt or be comfortable with chuuya landing on his crotch 💀 all that isnt as ridiculous as it first seemed because stormbringer lays the groundwork and anticipates all the intimate/flirty skk moments that have happened till now and ig will happen again soon.

#bsd #stormbringer #soukoku #dazai osamu #chuuya nakahara #bungou stray dogs #stormbringer spoilers #bsd meta #bsd analysis

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damienhaasbaybee · 4 years

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Figured it out 😂 for the let's get personal, can I request that you do them all?

I DID IT BAYBEEEEEEE.

* 1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

I’ll Be There For You and Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi, In My Head by Ariana Grande, I Believe by Jonas Brothers, Air Force Ones by Nelly, and Chasing Pavements by Adele

* 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Harry Styles or Damien Haas so they can fall in love with me.

* 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“me that it was a sometimes temporary paralysis that causes damage”

* 4: What do you think about most? the fact that I have nothing to really work towards

* 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“I’m tireddd”

* 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

without most of the time

* 7: What’s your strangest talent?

number and address recall 🙄 its embarrassing sometimes lol

* 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

girls go to college to get more knowledge boys go to jupiter to get more stupider

* 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

fuck no lol

* 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

um... today.. in the car

* 11: Do you have any strange phobias?

raw chicken.

* 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

a piece of ice so i could pierce my nose.

* 13: What’s your religion?

christian

* 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

um... if its for pleasure... swimming.

* 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

behind lol

* 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

of all time... linkin park or one direction

* 17: What was the last lie you told?

that I’m fine lol

* 18: Do you believe in karma?

v much so

* 19: What does your URL mean?

um... i am damien haas’ baybee and he is also my baybee

* 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

weakness, helping people until I die strength, i am honest

* 21: Who is your celebrity crush ?

james marsden, david dobrik, zac efron, miles teller, damien haas...

* 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

* 23: How do you vent your anger?

i sing real fucking loud

* 24: Do you have a collection of anything?

one direction memorabilia lol

* 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

either works with me tbh

* 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

yes.

* 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

sound I hate: hearing others talk on the phone, sound I love: rubbing clean hands on a clean table

* 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

what if I’m just crazy and none of this is real

* 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes. anything is possible.

* 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

my comforter both times lol

* 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

a clean house lol

* 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

uhhhh Louisville

* 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

west coast because i have never been

* 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Harry Styles

* 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

to leave the earth better than I found it

* 36: Define Art.

art is everything and nothing that a person wants it to be

* 37: Do you believe in luck?

I do. circumstances create luck.

* 38: What’s the weather like right now?

pretty clear

* 39: What time is it?

10:08pm

* 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

yes and yes! I won’t say what it was but it hit ME.

* 41: What was the last book you read?

I tried reading Girl Wash Your Face but couldn’t get into it.

* 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yes

* 43: Do you have any nicknames?

yes I do... you can call me queen tho.

* 44: What was the last film you saw?

Legally Blonde

* 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

several ankles sprained severely on each side.

* 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

* 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

yes. damien haas.

* 48: What’s your sexual orientation?

bisexual, demisexual, pansexual????

* 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

yes. I was pregnant.

* 50: Do you believe in magic?

no.

* 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

yes, unfortunately.

* 52: What is your astrological sign?

cancer

* 53: Do you save money or spend it?

both!

* 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

a carwash for my dads truck

* 55: Love or lust?

both

* 56: In a relationship?

somewhat

* 57: How many relationships have you had?

two

* 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

* 59: Where were you yesterday?

home

* 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

yes, my water bottle

* 61: Are you wearing socks right now?

no, never

* 62: What’s your favourite animal?

polar bear

* 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

my hospitality (including dis mouf)

* 64: Where is your best friend?

idk, at home?

* 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

oooooo bisquett, thebasketcase101, persistence-ofmemories, creativegoof, and zanesgirlfriend

* 66: What is your heritage?

I am part native american and european as far as i know. i want to do a 23andme so I can find out. My skin tans realllllly dark even with tons fo sunscreen on so that makes me think I have more Native American than I thought.

* 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

I was definitely watching New Girl

* 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

idk... Jones?

* 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

biiiiitch of course I have.

* 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Yes. I may suck but I am loyal as hell and I’ll do anything for my friends.

* 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

save the dog, fuck that job.

* 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) yes b) spend it with family and write a book c) fuck yes. i am terrified of death all the time.

* 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

trust. love is nothing without being able to trust.

* 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

It’s A Great Day to Be Alive by Travis Tritt

* 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

1389.. not in that order.

* 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

honesty and communication.

* 77: How can I win your heart?

buy me food and show me that I can trust you with my heart. I sturggle to trust people. I also NEED to be called pet names.

* 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Yes.

* 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Quitting my toxic ass job.

* 80: What size shoes do you wear?

9.5

* 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

She did her best, even when odds were against her.

* 82: What is your favourite word?

I dont have a favorite but my least favorite is “creamy”.

* 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Love.

* 84: What is a saying you say a lot?

“ooooo bitch”

* 85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Always You, Louis Tomlinson

* 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

darkkk red and black

* 87: What is your current desktop picture?

bitch I aint been on there in so long, I have no clue.

* 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump

* 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

depends on who is asking, if its my family... asking my sexuality.

* 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Fucking scream and run.

* 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Mind reading.

* 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Seeing my dads face when I walked across the stage at graduation or him telling me how I looked in my junior prom dress.

* 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Watching my dad die.

* 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Harry Styles.

* 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

The beach, pronto.

* 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Not anymore

* 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

* 98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. I loved it.

* 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Love others like you would like to be loved and see where that gets you.

#not smosh #whippt for haas #thank u em #she got her 99 smooches

7 notes · View notes

spaceskam · 5 years

Text

inspired by a fic that i cannot find and therefore i feel I hallucinated. also apparently ballsy enough to post this when notifications are in hell

Summary: Different things that happen within the year after Max died.

warning: a lot of sad. happy ending though

ao3

Alex left Roswell two days after Max died.

“Please, please don’t leave,” Michael had begged him, “We need you. Maria and Liz–they need you. I need you.”

Alex had grabbed his cheeks and smiled all sad and beautiful. He’d kissed him and it felt like a goodbye. Michael didn’t try to stop the sob that cracked through his chest and left him aching.

“Is it because I kissed Maria? It wasn’t anything, I swear, I was just–”

“Michael,” Alex said softly, but stern. Michael whimpered at the sound of his name, rolling his forehead against Alex’s collarbone. “This is something I have to do to keep you and your family safe. I’m not angry at you.”

“I don’t want to be safe without you,” Michael whispered, crying harder and clutching tighter.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Alex,” Michael whined one last time, “I need you to stay with me. I can’t do this without you.”

“I’ll come home, I promise.”

“When?”

Alex didn’t give him an answer.

Isobel left Roswell one week after Max died.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Michael yelled, glaring with a level of anger he’d never been able to find for Isobel before.

“I need to get out of this hell hole, Michael!” she screamed back, face red with rage.

“Max is fucking dead! You’re just going to leave me to pick up the fucking pieces?! You’re not going to help?!” Michael followed her out to her car, still shouting at her regardless of what sort of scene they might’ve been causing. Fuck this. Absolutely fuck it.

“My husband was an abusive serial killer and my brother is dead! I need to get away from it!” she told him, slamming the door to the backseat.

“Are you gonna come back and help me?! Are you expecting me to just fucking fix shit?!”

“This isn’t about you, Michael!” she spat, shaking her head, “I’ll come back eventually, I need to get away from this!”

“When are you coming back then, huh?! When are you going to help?!”

“I don’t know!”

She drove off without saying goodbye.

Maria separated herself two weeks after Max died.

“Maria, forget about me and everything, Liz needs you right now.”

“And where was she when I needed her?”

Michael gulped and bowed his head. His hands were shaking, desperate to hold onto someone that he still could. Maria couldn’t run away from Roswell like the rest. He thought that meant he had a chance to try. Yet, even she was done.

“She’s sorry about that, we both are,” Michael insisted, “We’re sorry about everything.”

“You all lied to me about everything, Guerin, for decades,” she said. It wasn’t even bitchy, so he couldn’t even find the right words to defend himself. And, when he tried, she didn’t even let him get past opening his mouth. “Withholding the truth is the same as lying when it comes to this.”

“I know,” he sighed, slumping down further, “It’s just, Liz needs someone.”

“And she has you,” Maria said. When he got up the courage to look at her, he tried to look even more pathetic than he felt. He already felt pretty pathetic.

“You really gonna cut us off completely?”

Maria held her head up high.

“I have to do what’s right for me.”

She kept her word.

Kyle… tried.

“I can, uh, bring that heart monitor over when I get off, but I get off at five in the morning,” Kyle said, his voice muffled. There was something horrifically annoying about a man who worked 80 hours a week.

“Nah, it’s whatever,” Michael grumbled, shuffling the grocery bags from one hand to the other as he tried to make sure he had what he needed. He and Liz were pulling an allnighter in the cave again. “It’s not like we’re doing anything important or anything.”

“Hey, I’m trying,” Kyle argued. Which, he was. But trying was hearing from him maybe once a week. “Also, I’m flying out to search shit with Alex on my day off this weekend, I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

“You still talk to Alex?” Michael asked, feeling his heart ache all over again.

“Yeah, dude.”

“Cool, glad the resurrection of my brother is less important than anything else.”

“It wouldn’t be if he wasn’t such a jackass.”

Kyle kept in touch when he could. He helped when he could. It just wasn’t enough.

Liz showed up at the airstream at three AM two months after Max died.

“Mikey?”

Michael opened his eyes and looked up to the crying girl that had come to him in the middle of the night. It wasn’t too out of the ordinary for them to spend nights together, usually falling asleep in bunkers or labs after going 48 hours on nothing but energy drinks. They no longer had anyone to police them, leaving it to just be them two against the world.

Only, tonight was a little different.

Liz hadn’t cried since Max died. He wasn’t sure if it was denial or anger or what, but he’d liked that she was the only one who hadn’t fled. He didn’t like seeing her cry though, so he opened his arms and let her crawl up against him. It only made sense when she told him she was pregnant.

Michael considered breaking down then, considered screaming and cursing a God he didn’t believe in about why the hell they were being thrown another fucking curveball. Why, after everything, was this happening to them? He wanted to let himself break.

However, crying hadn’t made Alex stay. Anger hadn’t made Isobel come home. Guilt-tripping didn’t make Maria stick around. Being passive-aggressive didn’t make Kyle help. None of those would work now.

Instead, he chose to be strong. That seemed like the only option left. Nothing else worked and, at this point, they were all they had. So Michael didn’t cry. He held her close and stroked her hair and promised her that they would figure it out. They had this.

Michael held her as she cried and he held her when she slept. He held her when she profusely apologized for being so dramatic and he held her for a little while longer after that. They didn’t really budge for at least 24 hours. It was the most either of them had slept in months.

“Have you thought about what you want to do?” Michael asked her at some point the following night. It was so dark he couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her breathing against his shoulder.

“I’m weighing my options,” Liz admitted, her voice softer than it had ever been before. “On one hand, this is the actual worst time to have a baby. On the other hand, it… it’s Max’s. It’s what I have of Max. It feels wrong to terminate given the circumstances. And, and I know he’d be so, so angry when he woke up.”

“Yeah, he probably would be,” Micahel agreed. He tried to steer away from politics when it came to Max, but he could assume the way he felt about that.

“But then I remembered it’s my fucking body,” Liz said in a way that sounded a lot more Liz than she had since she came to him the night prior. He smiled.

“Also very true.”

“And then I’m left with the thought that I have no idea what the difference between a human embryo and an alien embryo looks like. What if it’s noticeably different? What if I go to get an abortion and they get freaked out and then I get turned into a science experiment?” Liz rambled quietly. He rubbed her arm and tried not to think about how terrifying that was. It would be scary at any point in time, but it was particularly scary when she was the only thing keeping him alive.

“We could get Kyle to do an ultrasound,” Michael suggested, “See if the difference is. And you’re, what, eight weeks along? You have a little bit of time to decide.”

“Yeah,” Liz sighed, nodding her head, “I just know I can’t give it up for adoption. I can’t put another child who might have powers, might not, into a situation like that.” Michael didn’t say ‘thank you’ but he thought about it.

“Whatever you do decide on, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you, Mikey.”

Liz decided to go through with it three months after Max died.

Michael watched her like a hawk.

Kyle did what he could to watch her, but it was mostly Michael. His focus pretty quickly shifted from reviving Max to making sure Liz was okay. As she crossed over into her second trimester, things began to get a little more worrisome. While the baby looked like a normal fetus and seemed to be growing like one, it was affecting Liz worse than it should’ve.

Normal pregnancy cravings became something intolerable. She couldn’t ever figure out what she wanted so badly and Michael had it in the back of his head that maybe it was nothing she could find on Earth. For a week or two, she became really attracted to the smell of acetone and Michael almost had a heart attack. The cravings would bother her, distract her, and some days she would sit in the corner of the bunker and just cry her frustrations out. Neither of them got much done on those days.

Even then, that felt like the easy part. She would get dizzy multiple times a day and she would get sick even more than that. While they tried to convince themselves it was normal, there was still the fact that it never seemed to stop. Worst of all, it was paired with pains. Liz had originally compared them to period cramps, but they progressively got more and more vicious with time. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed. At some point, she was unable to get out of bed anymore at all.

Michael moved in with her at that stage of things. They got a tiny one-bedroom apartment and slept in the same bed. She would wake him when she needed him and he never minded. She was what he had left and she was ill. He was going to do what she needed.

Each day, she looked worse. She stopped gaining any weight once she hit her third trimester, rather appearing to almost lose it instead. Her face was pale and she would sweat all day and night, consumed with hot flashes that left her a shaking and sweating mess. She was weak and she was in pain and she was hardly even Liz anymore.

“We need to do something,” Michael said, his voice leaving no room for argument. Kyle was coming by to do his weekly checkup and even he was struggling to hide his worry on how bad she was doing. “This isn’t okay, this is going to kill her.”

When Kyle didn’t deny that, it made things ungodly worse.

“What is making her sick, Kyle? What do we need to do?” Michael demanded, “Is the baby even still alive? Is it, like, infecting her or something?”

“Michael, I don’t know what-”

“Well, you need to know!” he snapped, “Liz needs to survive. You’re going to figure out what is happening and if you can’t, then I’m risking bringing her to an actual fucking doctor.”

He went back into the room to find Liz already asleep, her face almost as white as the sheets. It made him feel sick. He crawled up behind her and pulled her hair away from her neck and face, balling it up at the top of her head. He laid with her and tried his best to will her survival into existence.

At this point in time, he had decided he didn’t need anyone but Liz to survive. She was the only one that wasn’t going to leave and he wasn’t going to leave her. And that meant making sure she was okay.

Kyle returned a few days later and said a C-section was the best option.

Ileana Paloma Rosa Ortecho-Evans was born seven and a half months after Max died.

She was tiny.

Michael didn’t really know how to process just how tiny she was. She was the perfect size to fit in his palms and that’s all that was needed. He felt almost unworthy to hold her. Yet, he was the first one outside of Kyle who was allowed to.

He had looked her over extensively and, somehow, she was fine. He’d explained that usually babies born that early had issues breathing at the least, especially when they were that small, but she seemed to be fine. Because they didn’t want any other doctor or nurse looking at her too hard just in case, he gave Michael the assignment to watch her and alert him if he noticed any issues at all. He took it like it was the most important job in the world. And, honestly, it was.

She fit in the crook of his arm perfectly‒it helped that she wasn’t even the length of his forearm. He moved slowly back into the hospital room where Liz was still sound asleep. Already, she looked better. Color was coming back to her cheeks. Arturto sat beside her.

“I bet she’s excited to go back to work once she heals,” Artutro said. He didn’t ask to see the baby and Michael wondered if it was because he was just so focused on making sure his baby was alright.

“Yeah,” Michael confirmed, “She is.”

“And you’re going to help her?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Michael said without hesitation, gulping softly as the baby in his arm wrapped her hand around his finger. She held on tight. “I’m not going anywhere, I swear.” He wasn’t like everyone else.

Arturo nodded and kissed the back of Liz’ hand. “Thank you.”

When Liz woke up and got the first glimpse at her daughter, they both smiled for the first time in a long time. She was still weak from her surgery, but she managed to sit up a little and he sat beside her as she held her baby. It looked right.

“She’s so little,” Liz gushed, sniffling as tears brimmed her eyes. It didn’t even phase Michael anymore. He’d seen her cry so many times now that it was almost just apart of things.

“I know,” Michael said, smiling over her shoulder at Iliana. Her head was a little big and her eyes were even bigger and her skin wasn’t exactly a pleasing color, but, fuck, she was theirs. He couldn’t call her cute, but it took no time to fall in love with her.

Liz leaned into him and relaxed, breathing slow and steady. They both just stared at her for awhile. She was hard not to look at. All Liz’s suffering had ended in a person. It seemed unreal. Well, then again, everything in the last few months had seemed unreal.

“I wish Max was here,” Liz whispered to him a little bit later. Michael chewed on his lip.

“I know,” he said. What he didn’t say was ‘I do too’ or ‘I wish Alex was here’ or ‘I wonder if Isobel would want to meet her niece’ or ‘do you think Maria knows you had a baby?’ because none of those felt like comforting statements. They weren’t comforting statements. They were the ones he thought about non-stop though.

His body ached for the people he’d lost, but he hoped one day he wouldn’t care anymore.

Days passed, though, and things just went back to the way they were. Well, not really. They had a baby now. Iliana slept in a bassinet less than a foot away from Liz’s side of the bed, perfect reaching distance for her even on the nights that Michael was on baby duty.

Occasionally, Michael would lay in bed and wonder if he was doing the right thing. That dark little voice in his head said that he was too happy on some days and that he had forgotten about Max and that he had merely stepped into his shoes. However, then he’d look over to Liz’s determined face and he’d feel like he was going to be alright. Liz was his lifeline.

And, with time, Liz got back to her old self. She was walking around and holding conversations and outsmarting him. It felt like she’d finally come home and he couldn’t have been more thankful. Kyle slowly began to withdraw again once he was no longer needed, but it was alright. They had each other and a baby to focus on.

They were too busy with working and adjusting to parenthood that they couldn’t focus on reviving Max, but, somehow, they were remembering how to be happy.

“Ay dios mio, Mikey, look at that face, she is mean-mugging you,” Liz said as she held the month old baby while Michael shook up her bottle. He laughed at the little glare on her face that seemed to resemble the Ortecho sisters more and more each day, pressing a kiss to her head before handing Liz the bottle.

“You’re going back to work tomorrow,” he pointed out, watching her features morph into a broad smile, “You excited?”

“Listen, I love this, I love her, and I love spending all my time with you,” Liz promised, following it up with a sigh, “But I am so ready. Even if it is just imaging at the hospital, I’m here for it. I need something to do. Also I’m tired of living off a mechanics salary, no offense.”

Michael snorted, “None taken.”

“And you,” Liz prodded, kicking him lightly, “How are you?”

“I’m good.”

“Are you?” she asked, eyeing him, “Have you talked to Alex or Isobel recently?” Liz knew everything, every last detail about basically everything that had ever happened. She knew how he felt about Alex and she knew how badly he missed Isobel. However, she also told him he shouldn’t have taken a step away from Alex whenever he felt like he was crashing. She’d told him that was what scared her about her feelings for Max, but it turns out all she needed to do was to give in.

And Michael really was ready to give in.

“Nah, but it’s okay, they made their choice,” Michael said, brushing it off. He wasn’t angry at Alex‒Alex had left for a good cause and his lack of keeping in touch made sense. He was, however, unimaginably pissed at Isobel for dropping off the face of the earth.

“Okay,” Liz said, “You know you can vent to me if you need to.”

“I know, Lizzie.”

She smiled and scrunched up her nose adorably at him.

They went to bed shockingly early that night. Iliana went down at 8 and they were dead asleep before the clock hit 8:30. Michael had taken off the following day so that Liz could enjoy her first day at work without stressing which meant he was also on baby duty, so it meant he couldn’t bring himself to regret going to bed so early.

However, he still had to be kicked awake when Iliana woke up a few minutes shy of midnight.

“Mikey,” Liz groaned, kicking him not too unlike a child, “Your turn.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he breathed, dragging himself out of bed and going to pick up Iliana and take her into the living room to get her a bottle.

He shushed her softly as he held her to his bare chest with one hand, rubbing his eye with the other one. He flicked the lightswitch on and that seemed to assure her even more that she was going to be fed and she slowly quieted down more. He used his telekinesis to make her bottle which Liz had been vocally jealous of even if he used it to help her all the time.

“You know, you’re really lucky you have Uncle Mikey instead of your daddy on nights like this,” Michael said between a yawn, “‘Cause he used to lose it when I woke him up. Now, he’d probably be a whole lot nicer to you, but I’m just saying.”

He’d barely finished making her bottle whenever there was a knock on the door.

He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the clock, seeing it glaring a bright green 12:04 on it. There was actually no reason for anyone to be at their door this last. Michael did his best to keep his heartbeat still as he walked towards the door and looked through the peephole.

Alex returned to Roswell nine months after Max died.

Michael felt like he was hallucinating.

He opened the door carefully, regulating his breathing and trying not to jump to conclusions about what exactly was happening. Still, when the door was open, it was really Alex. His hair was longer and he was dressed in a way that screamed Alex. He had a nose ring again‒this time it was a stud on the side rather than septum, but still. He looked phenomenal. It took everything in him not to attack him in kisses.

“Hi,” Michael said softly. It took him a few seconds to realize that Alex’s eyes were trained on the baby he was feeding and then it took a couple seconds more to put together that he was probably jumping to conclusions. He left Michael when he was a mess and he returned to see him shirtless with a baby.

“Should I g‒”

“She’s Liz’s,” Micahel clarified. Alex’s eyes got impossibly wide.

“You and Liz‒”

“No! No,” he laughed, his hands shaking enough to get milk on Iliana’s cheek, “Max.”

Alex’s eyes formed sad realization and nodded. Then they just stared at each other for a minute. This didn’t feel real. Michael had been adjusting to a life with no one except for Liz and Iliana and it was weird to welcome someone home. But, god, it felt good to see Alex.

“Come in,” Michael said after a moment. Alex smiled and walked in, looking around.

“When Kyle said you got an apartment, I was impressed,” Alex said, “But now that I see you’re just staying with Liz it makes more sense.”

“Well, we live together, like, permanently,” Michael explained, sitting on the couch and adjusting the bottle in Iliana’s mouth.

“Oh?” Alex asked, sitting on the other side. Michael nodded and then gestured towards the baby. “Is she showing any signs of getting alien abilities or anything?”

“Not yet,” Michael said, eyes drifting off of Alex and down to the baby in his arms. She was still so small. “But Liz had a really horrible pregnancy and I think it was because she’s not completely human. I was reading, like, a ton of research on pregnancies and stuff and I think that her body was registering the baby as, like, a parasite and was sending antibodies to try and kill it which, then, made Liz extremely sick. We don’t know for sure or anything, but that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Fuck, that’s horrible,” Alex said, “She’s okay now though, right?”

“Yeah,” Michael confirmed, looking up to him with a smile, “She’s asleep though. She goes back to work tomorrow, though. Hope everyone’s ready for Iliana spending a whole lot more time with Papi Arturo.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think about that, how did he take everything with Max?” Alex asked, voice hushed. Everyone in Roswell was under the assumption that Max had just up and left. Arturo wasn’t any different.

“Fine, not like Liz really gave him an option to feel any other way. She basically just went up to him and was like ‘I’m pregnant and I’m keeping it and that’s all I have to say on the matter’. He hasn’t mentioned Max.”

“Man, it’s gonna real suck for him if you guys bring him back,” Alex laughed.

Things fell silent again as they just stared. It only broke when Michael propped Iliana on his shoulder to burp her and Alex seemed to remember he had other stuff to talk about. There was a million things to talk about. Michael didn’t even know where to start.

“So, uh, how is everyone? Isobel, Maria, Kyle, I guess,” Alex laughed. Michael couldn’t even manage a smile.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “Isobel left not long after you and hasn’t kept in touch, Maria cut everyone off, and Kyle is just off being Kyle, I guess. It’s basically just been me and Liz.”

Alex frowned, “I didn’t know that.”

“You missed a lot,” Michael said softly.

“I missed you,” Alex blurted out and Michael couldn’t take his eyes away, “Seriously, I missed you so much it hurt. I didn’t know I could ever miss you as much as I did when I was at literal war, but, fuck, I did. If you weren’t holding a baby right now, I would probably kiss you until I couldn’t breathe.” Michael smiled wildly, his cheeks heating up and his heart thudding. It was the best thing he’d ever fucking heard. “Sorry if that was too straight forward, but I’m so tired of wasting time. I miss you.”

“I missed you too,” Michael agreed, suddenly extremely eager to go put Iliana back to bed and make Liz take over, “But you probably shouldn’t make me want to put the baby down. She doesn’t really accept not being held until she’s asleep.”

Alex chuckled, “You guys don’t just let her cry?”

“Fuck no,” Michael said, “I don’t want her to ever think we’re not there.” Alex nodded with the same big smile.

“What’s her name?” he asked, leaning closer to get a look at her, “God, she looks like Liz.” Michael could smell his cologne.

“Iliana,” he answered, nodding his agreement.

“That’s really pretty.”

“I know.”

“Can I hold you?” Alex asked her in a baby voice that Michael had never heard. It struck him to his core and he suddenly felt lightheaded. Michael slowly passed her into his arms.

Alex looked good with a baby. It was annoyingly attractive and Michael wondered if he even would’ve noticed that before Iliana was born. He didn’t remember ever finding someone’s maternal or paternal skills inherently attractive before, but seeing Alex rock her to sleep felt like the sexiest thing that had ever happened.

“Have you guys been working on bringing Max back?” he asked. Michael felt that attraction immediately bleed into guilt.

“Not recently. We’ve been just so focused on her.”

“That makes sense.”

Once she was asleep, Michael promised Alex that he’d be right back out. He placed Iliana on his side of the bed and created a pillow wall around her. He spared a look at Liz too and saw her out like a light. He wondered if she would be happy to see Alex in the morning. He hoped so.

When Michael came back out of the room, he found Alex only a few steps away. He looked serious and his face was illuminated by the bright kitchen lights. Michael hesitantly stepped closer.

“Are you home for good?” he asked. Alex touched him first, grabbing his arms and pulling him in close.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m home for good and I want us to work. I’ve missed you so fucking much, Michael. You don’t know.”

“We need to talk.”

“We will.”

Alex closed the space completely, kissing him like he was coming up for air. Michael kissed him back just as feverently, leading him back to the couch. He was reminded that, while he could survive with only Liz, he was never really living until he had Alex.

Maria listened to them ten months after Max died.

Liz and Michael had both gone to her bar before they opened and decided no wasn’t an answer. Except it made it a lot easier whenever Maria smile at the sight of them.

“Long time no see,” she mused. They both look at each other like they were waiting for the catch. “Look, I can’t hold a grudge that long. Well, I can, but it’s not healthy. I was just waiting for you guys to come see me. I gotta admit, I’m a little annoyed it’s taken so long but I’m glad to see you.”

“I know it’s not really an excuse, but I had a baby and I really lost track of time,” Liz said. Maria’s whole face transformed and she was on the other side of the bar in an instant.

“What? Oh my god, I didn’t know,” she gushed, hugging Liz. Liz folded into her the way Michael had seen her do with Alex a month prior. He always seemed to forget that they were basically inseparable at one point.

“Before you guys delve into the Iliana talk, I wanted to apologize,” Michael said. Maria looked over Liz’s head at him, still not letting go. “I should’ve been completely honest with you and I also should’ve told you what was going on with Liz. I couldn’t do anything about everyone else separating from us, but I could’ve reached out to you. I fucked up multiple times and I’m sorry.”

Maria breathed slow and steady and smiled. “You’re forgiven.”

“That easy?”

“Well, you both are going to have to pull, like, a lot of the friendship weight for a little bit just so I know you’re serious, but I think we’ll be able to get back to good.” Maria assured. Michael closed his eyes in relief.

And he smiled.

Isobel came back to Roswell eleven months after Max died.

“Hi.”

Michael just stared at her. He had never felt so much negativity towards Isobel in his life. Unlike with Alex and Maria, he didn’t feel that urge to hug her and ignore the problem. Because she was the problem. Michael had always gone out of his way to be there for her and, when they needed her, she was gone. He knew she had her own things to deal with, but she should’ve come to him. They could’ve healed together. Instead she was a new level of selfish.

“How did you get my address?” Michael asked. Isobel flinched at his tone.

“Michael, I‒” She paused for a moment and then sighed. “I got it from Alex.”

Michael turned up his nose. He was going to have to talk to Alex about that. It’d been two months of being back together and they were doing good, but clearly he didn’t know when to keep his address a secret.

“What do you want?”

“To apologize,” she said, “I shouldn’t have left.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t have left,” he spat, “We needed you.”

“I know and I’m sorry! I just… I needed to escape,” she said. Michael scoffed, shaking his head. Like clockwork, Iliana started crying and left Michael having to deal with his sister wondering why there was a baby crying.

“None of your business,” he said, closing the door a little bit so she couldn’t investigate, “You didn’t want anything to do with me or anyone else, so it’s none of your business.”

“Michael, I told you I was going to come back, I just needed some time,” Isobel sighed, “You don’t know what I was going through.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t even give me a chance to try. I have always been there for you, Isobel, and you just treated me like shit. I didn’t deserve that from you,” Michael said erestly, shifting from foot to foot as he tried to tune out Iliana’s crying. He hated that sound. He just wanted to hold her all the time so she never cried. But he also didn’t want to give Isobel the gift of seeing her.

“No, you didn’t and I’m sorry. I will be paying that price for the rest of my life,” she said sternly. He almost believed her. “Why is there a baby crying? Did you get Maria pregnant?”

“None of your business.”

“Michael, please. Will you just give me a chance to make it up to you?” she begged. He huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, I might’ve if you would’ve come home after a couple of days. You’ve been gone almost an entire year. Fuck that. I don’t need this.”

“Michael! Listen to me,” Isobel said, tears in her eyes as she put her hand on the door. For a moment, she looked like his sister and not the girl who abandoned him. “I think I know how to bring Max back.”

He froze.

“I have spent the last year trying to get stronger and I have. I think I know how we can do this,” she said and his stomach turned. He wanted to turn her away, to tell her no, to say he didn’t need her help.

But the fact of the matter was there was a baby in the next room who might have a chance to know her father if Isobel was being honest.

“I’m listening.”

The next month was full of trying to work with Isobel and not scream about how angry he was. Alex helped. Every time he felt like he was going to explode, he would soothe him. Liz was the best at it though. She also wasn’t too happy with Isobel, but she had mastered the art of being completely passive aggressive and bitchy while also accepting help. It was fun to watch.

However, Isobel really did have a point. She had honed her powers in a way that even Michael hadn’t. She could do all sorts of stuff and she didn’t struggle too much. She helped Michael got to the point he could heal. And, one day, he actually hugged her goodbye.

“Are you gonna forgive her?” Liz asked as they climbed into bed that night. Michael sighed and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly, “It feels like she’s really trying and it seems like she put her time away to good use, I just… There’s no reason why she couldn’t keep in touch.”

“I know, Mikey,” Liz said, patting his chest, “I support whatever decision you make.”

Michael stared at the ceiling for a long while, weighing all of the options that he had. It’d been one hell of a year and he was eager for a break, but it still seemed like there was major fuckery in the future. It didn’t seem like anything would ever end.

“Liz?” he asked in the darkness. He didn’t really expect an answer, but he got one anyway.

“Yeah?”

“If we do figure out how to bring Max back, what does that mean for us?” It wasn’t a secret that, if they were successful, there was no way they’d be able to continue on like they had been. They’d shared a bed for seven months now. Even now that Alex was home, Michael spent at least six nights a week in bed with Liz and Iliana. That wasn’t an option once Max was home. None of this was an option once Max came home.

That made him feel empty.

“I don’t know,” Liz replied honestly, scooting a little closer. She put her head on his arm and he just pulled her in all the way.

“I know she’s not my baby,” Michael whispered, “But I don’t want to go back to not taking care of her everyday. I don’t want to go back to not seeing you every day.”

Liz was quiet for a moment, her long eyelashes brushing against his shoulder each time she blinked.

“Maybe we can get like a three bedroom house,” Liz suggested softly, “One for me and Max, one for Illy, one for you and Alex. That could work, right?”

Michael huffed at the idea. “It’d have to be a big house to get either of them to agree.”

“True, but four paychecks‒we could do it.”

Michael sighed and nodded. He hoped they could do it.

And that hope extended to something greater whenever they stepped into the cave during the thunderstorm. Both Michael and Isobel were vibrating with a power-strengthening serum Liz had managed to concoct and they were about to try their hardest to get shit back to normal. Or, at least, normal for Roswell.

Alex kissed him good luck and Isobel gave a reassuring look. He decided he would give it a shot, even if they failed. He looked up to Liz last and saw her give him the biggest smile in the world. She believed in him. If no one else did, she did.

That seemed like the most important thing he’d ever had.

A year after Max Evans died, he took his first breath of life again.

#michael & liz #michael & liz fic #malex #malex fic #echo #echo fic #roswell new mexico #roswell new mexico fic #rnm #rnm fic #michael guerin #michael guerin fic #alex manes #alex manes fic #liz ortecho #liz ortecho fic

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lapixie · 5 years

Text

Ten Years Later Chapter 2

Part 1

Chapter 2

Tony doesn’t go right to sleep. Instead he goes online, and he looks up everything! He learns about the last ten years the best way there is, by looking up all the gossip and news. He learns that they still have not perfected the flying car, but they did shoot one into space. What the fuck Elon? Simpsons was still playing. Supernatural went away, then came right back. They were on season 22 now. Destiel was still not a thing.

Then he looked up his friends and family. Holy shit! Peter was gay...or well...bi...maybe pan? Whatever he was, he wasn’t straight. And the world knew that he was Spiderman? He didn’t go too deep into that, figured it would be best for him to wait for the kid to tell him everything about that. And actually, maybe it would be better for the rest of them to be the ones to give updates on their lives also. He finally falls asleep as the sun was coming up.

The next morning, everyone woke up to the smell of bacon, sausage, eggs, home fries and pancakes. Walking into the kitchen, they were all surprised to see Tony at the stove.

“Morning Mr. Stark, I didn’t know you could cook?” Peter asked, while adorably running his hands through his hair.

“Breakfast, the most important meal of the day!” He blustered, trying not to stare at Peters abs peeking out from where his t-shirt was rising up.

Pepper laughed out loud, saying “What he means is; Breakfast, you cook it for the girl you’re about to kick out so there’s no hard feelings!”

“Hey, no slander Pep! I did it to the boys too!”

Peter choked on his coffee he had just taken a sip of, sputtering “Boys? Mr. Stark, I didn’t know you swung that way…?”

“Yeah, no sense being a playboy if you’re gonna limit yourself to only half the population!”

“Oh.”

“Does it bother you? I didn’t think it would, the internet is full of photos of you with other people. Including Flash?! What the hell kid? Isn’t he the one who bullied you for so long?”

“People change Mr. Stark. The snap changed a lot of people. Some for the better, some for the worse. Flash was for the better. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve been a kid.”

Tony felt his eyes slowly sliding down Peter’s body, but snapped them quickly back up to meet his eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you’re not gonna answer to kid anymore, you better call me Tony.”

With a hitch in his breath, Peter answered “Sure Mr….Tony. Might take some time to get used to though.”

They joined Pepper, Happy and Rhodey at the table, where the others had already started eating. They took turns filling him in on the people that had survived the snap.

“What?!” he yelled, “Thor got fat?!” He couldn’t help but chuckle, thinking of the handsome alien god with a belly of pudge. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

“Tony,” Peter gave him a stern look “It’s not funny. His whole planet was destroyed, then Thanos killed most of the survivors, including his brother, then his snap decimated what was left. We’re lucky he didn’t kill himself! Besides, he’s still badass and could beat you one handed.”

“Kid!” He cried, clutching at his chest. “My heart! I thought you loved me!”

“I do love you Mr. Stark. Which is why I would never lie to you. Thor would kick your ass.” He deadpanned.

“Hey, what happened to Tony?!”

“What happened to not calling me kid?”

“Touche. Moving on…so you went to Europe and met Quentin Beck?”

“Yeah, I messed up. I trusted him. I was in a really bad place. You, May, and Ned had all just been dusted. SHEILD was pressuring me to be Spiderman more than I was willing to at the time. I just wanted a vacation, ya know? But even that had some world ending, cataclysmic happening. By the time we thought we were done with all that, I was just ready to be me. Just Peter. So I gave Beck EDITH. The last thing you had trusted me with, and I just gave it away…”

Seeing Peter’s face so contorted with guilt and grief was breaking Tony’s heart. He couldn’t believe that he had had a hand in one of the worst times of his life. “Oh, kid, I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to handle that responsibility so young!”

With a quirk of a smile, Peter replied “It’s okay. I made it right. It was really bad for awhile though. Mysterio told everyone that I was Spiderman, at the same time he told them all that I was a murdering psychopath. With video evidence. Long story. SHEILD stepped in and proved me innocent, but I had already been outed. It was crazy for awhile. I was dating MJ and scared for her. The bad guys were actually the least of the problems. It was the paparazzi. They wouldn’t leave us alone! Plus, I was still having panic attacks from being hit by the train.”

“Excuse me?! What by the what now?!”

“Yeah, Mysterio was messing with my mind. Anyway, Everything finally started getting better, everything calmed down. Me and MJ decided we were better off as friends after a couple of years. I had my great gay awakening. Dated Flash for about a year, we were better off as friends too. And that’s about it for me. Oh, and while searching for a way to reverse the snap, I found a couple of cures, including one that let’s Bruce choose when he wants to Hulk out, and lets him keep his mind. Almost like an animagus mixed with wolfsbane potion? No? It’s a Harry Potter thing.”

“Wow. That’s...a lot. Pep, how about you? Tell me your last ten years have been a bit...tamer?”

“Well, I had a baby, then another, ran away to Paris to get married to Happy. It didn’t work out, but we’re still great friends.”

“What? Seriously?” That was...shocking to say the least. He always thought Happy was gay. And he didn’t mean in the...haha...happy way.

Pepper laughed. “No, but your face is priceless.” She said while rolling her eyes. “Actually, most of my time has been spent putting out fires started by Tony Jr. over here.” She pointed over at Peter.

“Hey!” Peter cried, with a hand over his heart, a fake wounded expression on his face. “I resent that! I’m much worse than him!”

Pepper gave a little half-smile, half-laugh that Tony recognized from how she used to look at him. Just yesterday for him, but apparently an entire decade for her. It was finally starting to sink in. He missed ten years of their lives. He missed seeing Peter grow up. Happy and Rhodey were grey. Pepper had wrinkles. They had all continued living their lives. Without him. And he couldn’t even be mad. He was gone! They couldn’t exactly pause time to wait for someone to get him back.

“Mr…Tony, are you okay?” Peter sounded worried. He couldn’t do that to the kid, not after everything he went through with EDITH. Because of him.

Shaking his head, like it could remove the thoughts from his brain, Tony smiled and replied “Yeah, Pete, I’m fine. Just jet lagged. That’s a thing, right? If you can get jet lagged from changing time zones, imagine my jet lag changing decades!”

Everyone laughed, just as he meant them to.

“So Happy, honeybear, tell me, did you find a mad passionate love for each other in the ten years I was gone?”

Happy and Rhodey rolled their eyes simultaneously, which just caused Tony to laugh more.

“See?! You’re already in sync!”

“Tony, shut up. I’m actually still happily single, and Happy is not so happily single.”

Happy elbowed Rhodey in the side, mumbling that he was fine.

“Happy, who broke your heart? Who do I need to reign the might of Tony Stark down on?” Tony was joking, but he was also totally serious.

“Careful boss, you reign your might, you’ll be taking on a certain Spiderman!” Happy chuckled, picturing this.

Tony felt something cold in his chest. Happy and Peter? No. Peter was his! Well, not his, his, but his protege!

Peter was watching Tony, as if he was expecting him to laugh and say something like he could take him, but instead Tony just got real quiet.

“Don’t worry Tony, even if you went after Aunt May, I doubt I’d have to do anything! She’d tear you apart all by herself!” He would probably deny it to his dying day, but Peter totally giggled at that.

Tony’s head snapped up from where it had started to droop towards his chest, his eyes meeting Peters.

“Aunt May? I thought he meant ...so it wasn’t you?” The relief Tony felt was immense. And completely inappropriate. It was none of his business who Peter dated. He didn’t even know the kid any more. Case in point, not a kid!

Peter and Happy started laughing uproariously, so hard he thought they may just fall over.

“Me and the kid?! Are you out of your mind? He just got over his annoying never stop talking stage. And he relapses! Oh God, kill me if I ever even think about it! Also, uh, I’m straight, so…” Happy shrugged, like “what are you gonna do”?

“Yeah, Tony, no offense to Happy, but he’s not my type. If I wanted to be with someone who rolled their eyes and stopped listening anytime I was talking, I would have stayed with Flash.”

His eyes were warm as he said this though, like it was fond memories.

“Well Pete, if they don’t listen to you, that’s their stupidity. You were already one of the smartest people I knew, and you were a teenager at the time.”

Remembering the kid he was, looking at who he was now, made him sad. He missed so much of Peter’s life.

“Thanks Tony. Wish more people felt that way.” Peter was smiling while he said it though, so he could tell he wasn’t really upset.

“Okay well, for me it’s been less than 24 hours since you saw me last, so not much has changed.”

As they cleaned up from breakfast, Tony couldn’t help staring at Peter. When he raised his arms to put dishes in the cupboard and his abs showed under his shirt. When he bent over to put the pans away, and he showed off his amazing ass. Tony could feel himself getting hard. He had to nip this in the bud.

“Okay Pete, I think I might go get reaquainted with the lab. Dum E, Butterfingers, and U must be missing me. And Friday has been suspiciously quiet.”

“It’s not suspicious boss! I’ve just been letting you get re-acclimated. I was being nice! Last time I do that!” For an AI, it was shocking how much emotion you could hear in her voice. She was the most sarcastic, loving, AI in the world.

“Friday! Baby! I’ve missed you!” Tony yelled with a big grin on his face.

“No you didn’t boss. It’s been less than a day for you. But I appreciate the sentiment.” She drawled. “Now, come, your kids have missed you.”

With that, the elevator opened and sat waiting for Tony.

“Guess that’s my queue. Later Underoos!” He yelled, scurrying to the elevator, with his hands in a peace sign, hearing Peter yelling that he wasn’t Underoos anymore in the background. “You’ll always be my Underoos!” He called back with a grin. Man, it felt good to be back!

@stxrker-fan-xx

#starker #starker fic #tony x peter #peter x tony #au #ten years later

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christinaengela · 4 years

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Hello friends and fans!

Welcome to my 44th newsletter – August 2020!

On A Personal Note

The 17th of July was a terribly sad day for our family because of the death of one of our fur-children, Ming. She was my little writing companion who used to sit across my shoulders sometimes, or on my knee while I typed away on my laptop.

I love all three our kitties, but Mingy-moo as I used to call her, held a special place in my heart… and to be frank, I miss her presence in my life terribly, as does Wendy.

Lily – our giant white mommy-cat, and Nyx – our little black one, were clearly in mourning as well. Their behavior has changed since she disappeared so suddenly from our lives, and even after a week, Nyx still hovers around the spot where Ming sat the last day she was with us, and Lily still searches the house for the missing kitty.

Ming used to do little things the other two kitties don’t do – some endearing, and some outright naughty – whose absence only makes her loss that much more tangible. Somehow the house seems so much more quiet and empty. Something is missing, and for weeks the empty-nest feeling has hung over it like a pall. It will be a while yet before we lift ourselves up again, and move on.

Then, in the early hours of Friday 24 July, more bad news! Someone asshat with sticky fingers burgled our Golf! Fortunately they were unprepared and set off the alarm and fled, leaving the driver side door open. There was some good news with the bad – there was no damage at all. The enterprising individual must’ve used a ‘slim-jim’ or similar tool to lever the lock open via the window channel, so no windows or locks etc. were damaged. I figure they also probably tried to steal the wheels – and then discovered I had a lock-nut on each wheel, because the only thing the bastards seem to have got away with is one single, solitary wheel-nut!

That aside, on other, much happier fronts, I completed another two paintings since last time we spoke – bringing my total number of paintings to five – and then I returned to writing again! On that front, among the BIGGEST news items I have to share with you this time, is the release of the audiobook version of “Blachart” – it’s finally here – and after three weeks of availability, I’m happy to report that it’s doing very well! More about that below!

Art

I also indulge in painting from time to time – and no, I don’t mean walls! The following paintings are in my portfolio:

“Human Nature” 2017 A4 acrylic canvas

“Balancier” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“Rescuer” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“The Awakening” 2020 A2 acrylic canvas

“The Earth Wept” 2020 40x40cm acrylic on canvas

I completed “The Awakening” on June 5, and started “The Earth Wept” just a few days later. “The Earth Wept” is on 40x40cm canvas and I finished that on July 12. I’ve also since renamed “Untitled” to “Human Nature”.

You can read more about my art projects on the Art page.

What do you think of them? Feel free to let me know!

Music

Yes – I also make music from time to time!

A selection of music tracks I made using eJay and other similar apps between 1999 – 2008 are available on my YouTube channel.

You can read more on the Music page on my website!

Activism

For those of you interested in my activism-related posts and activities, you can follow them at “Sour Grapes: The Fruit Of Ignorance“.

Current Writing Projects

In the past few weeks I deviated from writing and went into art for a while, delivering four new completed paintings in a little over a month! In the meantime however, I made a return to writing by starting the long awaited next title in the Galaxii series!

Book 4 – still under a working title – is currently at a little over 18,000 words and growing by the day!

Editing

On the editing side of things, my friend Brandon Mullins has been getting me into a proofreading and editing sideline over at Moon Books Publishing, and I’ll let you have any news on that as it happens!

I’ve just received the first submission for a new project entitled “Captain Jockstrap and the League of Do-gooders”! Yes, it probably is as silly as it sounds – but that’s the idea!

In the meantime, I still have a horror anthology on my desktop, which still needs a couple more submissions to reach publishing length – and more than that wouldn’t hurt! There will be no payment to writers, but participation will help get your name out there. If interested, please send them along to [email protected].

Marketing – The Dreaded “M” Word!

Portfolio 2020!

I thought it would be nice if I could produce a neat, organized catalog of all my books that interested parties could download and browse – a free, distributable and shareable catalog, and so I created “Portfolio 2020!” – a listing of all my currently available titles!

Portfolio is more than that though, because it also contains a biography as well as synopses for most of my titles – and I have a plan to update it regularly, perhaps on an annual basis! Portfolio 2020 is available as a free download from my website.

Videos

In July, I made a new book trailer video for the audiobook version of “Blachart” – and so did Nigel Peever as it turned out!

youtube

https://christinaengela.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/blachart-video-by-nigel-peever.mp4

Aren’t they great? 🙂

Sales

Getting my writing available in audiobook format seems to have been the ticket I’ve been waiting for, and these are truly exciting times for me as a writer! At this stage I have only one audiobook out, my first, and with its first month almost complete, sales are really encouraging! For the past month most of my marketing has been aimed at promoting “Blachart” and upcoming new audiobook titles “When Darkness Calls”, “Malice!” and “Demonspawn”. With more to follow, these items really could be the thing that helps promote my writing and blow those doors open that so far have tended to keep me out!

Publishing

Under recent releases this month, these are the six books I’ve released so far this year!

July really has been a month of change. Not only was there a death in the family, but it’s also the month I closed my account with Lulu.com – the self-publishing platform I’ve used since 2005. Although I am angry with Lulu, and sorely disappointed in what they’ve done – and how they did it – I am grateful for what they did for me over the years. There’s no way I would’ve had the foundations in self-publishing I have today, were it not for Lulu. At one time, they were the ONLY self-publishing platform that would take on writers from South Africa – let alone being willing to accommodate paying us via PayPal!

Sadly, I simply couldn’t get to grips with the awful new changes Lulu inexplicably inflicted on loyal users that – in my view – rendered the platform unfriendly and totally useless. In the second week of July I redistributed the titles that were based on Lulu between Moon Books (publishing eBook, paperback and audiobook via Amazon) and eBooks via EBooks2Go, Draft2Digital and StreetLib. Frankly I think some of them that were available only on Lulu will have an even wider reach as a result. I sent Lulu the account deletion request on the 20th.

Unfortunately, due to Lulu’s short-sighted idiocy, I now have to edit and update “The Pitfalls of South African Self-publishing” as well – there’s an entire section covering how to self-publish a book via the system Lulu just casually chucked into the bin that needs to change. Frankly, I’m thinking I’ll need to base that portion on EBooks2go instead – since their system is far simpler and easier to use, not to mention less fiddly.

Also as a result, I’ve had to update purchase links on my website and social media accounts that referred directly or indirectly to my books via Lulu. If you find any I haven’t got round to fixing yet, please drop me a line and let me know! 😉

Hally Park Publishers

For quite a while now I’ve been working to expand my marketing reach, and in the spirit of that endeavor I recently contracted with Hally Park Publishers – a South African small press who also list suitable self-published titles on their website – to list my eBooks!

It’s taken a little time for them to appear on their website – after all, I’m not the only author they have listed, and I have just over 30 books – so I’m sure that was quite a job! Nevertheless, the first fifteen appeared on their site during the night (yes, I’ve been watching)!

The advantage of this arrangement – that is, listing my books on a local South African book selling site – is that it’s a new local market which already attracts its own traffic! Additionally, the prices are displayed in Rands, as well as my books being displayed alongside titles by other local authors – which should attract more local readers looking for some local literary South African flavor!

You can view my listing there by clicking on the link, or the screenshot below!

Audiobooks

“All That Remains” JEA (2019)

“See Them Aliens” MBP (2019)

“Blachart” MBP (2020)

I mentioned previously in my post “Coming Soon! “Blachart” – the Audiobook!” back in May – and in my newsletters for June and July that I’ve been eagerly awaiting the audiobook release of “Blachart” – and I’m sure you have too!

On the July 10th I got a notification that “Blachart” the audiobook was available on Amazon! As I promised in February this year, “Blachart” has (finally) been released as an audiobook! It doesn’t usually take this long to go through the production process, and I’m sure the current pandemic must’ve had something to do with it – but regardless, the eagerly-awaited finished product has arrived at last! And – WOW – what a product it is!

Narrated by Nigel Peever, “Blachart” – book 1 in the Galaxii series – is 10 hours 26 min long, and is nothing less than a rip-roaring sci-fi adventure! You can read more about it here.

I’ve also had to review a string of auditions for “Malice!“, “When Darkness Calls” and “Best Served Cold” – and I have to comment on the diverseness of the sort of voices, accents and personalities that sent their auditions in! Wow! For a writer, nothing encapsulates the diversity of one’s audience more than listening to a variety of people, male and female, reading words you wrote in a variety of accents! It’s even more of a compliment when you can hear them enjoying it as they do so! “When Darkness Calls” is narrated by Miciah Dodge, and Michelle Innes had me covered in goosebumps as she read an excerpt of “Malice!” in her Scottish accent! Currently, “Malice!”, “When Darkness Calls”, and “Demonspawn” are in production, and we’re still looking for a narrator to read “Best Served Cold”!

Coming Soon

In the meantime, here’s a look at the covers for the coming audiobooks of “When Darkness Calls” and “Demonspawn”:

Reviews

You can see all my previous reviews here.

Currently Available Titles

I now have 29 unique titles available in 4 series (not including books I’ve been the editor for, and my 16 free promotional items)! My books are available in three different formats: EBooks, Paperbacks and Audiobooks. Click the links or images below to view titles available in these formats.

Communication

Below are links to a few of my most recent posts and articles since my last newsletter:

Expand The Brand: Hally Park Publishers

Guest Writer #4: Lee Hall

Coming Soon: “Malice!” – The Audiobook!

Coming Soon: “Demonspawn” – The Audiobook!

“Blachart” – TWO Audiobook Trailers!

“When Darkness Calls” – Actually A True Story

A Visit To The Archives!

“Blachart” – A Writing Journey [cross-posted on Moon Books website]

Unleashed: “Blachart” – The Audiobook!

Free Download! Portfolio 2020!

Another Round At The Crow Bar #43 July 2020

If you want to see more articles, just click on the category links below:

Elements of Horror

FAQ Answered

Fun Facts

LGBT Heroes

The Tech Side

Secret Weapons of the Resistance

Writing Advice

Guest Writers

Newsletters

Interactions

Fan Mail, Reader Reviews & Honorable Mentions

I very pleased to have quite a few items to show you this month!

Parade.com shared one of my quotes in a listing titled “150 of the Best Relationship Quotes and Sweetest Couple Quotes That’ll Make Your Heart Flutter” on July 08, 2020. “Regardless of what language it is said in, ‘I love you’ stays beautiful, and two hearts beating together make the same sound. It is the language of Love.” – Christina Engela

The Satanic Church of South Africa shared my academic book “Satanism: The Acid Test” on their website resource page! (found on July 12, 2020) This is of course, what this book is supposed to do – educate people, demystify the occult, and relieve people of their ignorance!

Miciah Dodge, the narrator recording “When Darkness Calls” sent a message via ACX on July 07:

Jennifer Shepard really seems to have liked my article about “Blachart”! (July 11, 2020):

The audiobook version of “Blachart” received a gracious reader/listener review on the 5th of July:

On July 21, Brandon Mullins, CEO of Moon Books Publishing shared the following compliment for “Blachart” in a publishing group on Facebook:

On July 26, Scott M. Darrah gave me his opinion of the audiobook:

Miciah Dodge, the narrator for “Christina Engela’s Strangely Compelling Scifi Stories vol 1”, “When Darkness Calls” and “Duck Blind” sent me this nice email on July 26, 2020:

I display my Fan Mail, Reviews & Compliments with pride, gratitude and humility. You’re always welcome to have a look.

Hate Mail & Horrible Mentions

On July 17, somebody thought it would probably be hilarious if they spam bombed my inbox with email notifications for a fake account they created in my name – on an Asian Dating Site in Indonesia! Unfortunately for them, I left the factory with a warped sense of humor, so instead of being bent out of shape by their ‘ingenuity’ all they did was give me a few good laughs… I mean have you seen half the profiles on any dating site?? Anyway, I know how to filter and block email addresses – and the admins of said dating site were kind enough to delete the profile for me when I asked nicely, so – better luck next time, whoever you are!

I’m rather proud of my hate mail, and you can review my collection here – but be forewarned, don’t do it while eating or drinking, or you might choke while laughing!

Interviews

All my interviews are linked to from this page. If you would like to do an interview with me about my work, please do get in touch!

In Closing

Well, that’s all for this time, folks! 🙂

Thanks again for all your support, friendship and interaction!

Feel free to email or message me via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any comments or questions!

Until next time, keep reading!

Cheers! 🙂

Catch me on social media!

If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to [email protected] or use the Contact form.

Show your appreciation for Christina’s work!

Another Round At The Crow Bar #44 August 2020 Hello friends and fans! Welcome to my 44th newsletter - August 2020!

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cerezsis · 5 years

Text

Too Soon

Human AU

Summary: Winona Damon is pregnant with baby #3. All is going well… until it’s not.

WARNING: This story depicts blood, premature labor, and pregnancy/birth complications. Tread cautiously if you are bothered by any of those topics.

“Good morning, Mrs. Damon,” the young secretary greeted.

The 45-year-old CEO barely even nodded in response as she headed to her office. She was far too busy to bother with pleasantries. The new summer collection was due to launch in less than a month, and there was still so much to do.

Winona closed the office door behind her and immediately began shuffling through papers. She groaned internally as she caught a glimpse of the clock. She had barely a half hour until her first conference call. Normally she arrived to work at least an hour earlier than she had that day, but the small bump in her abdomen had caused her to run behind. This was her second pregnancy and third child, so she knew well all the ways it could slow her down, but this one was already causing her more grief than the twins had. Perhaps it was because she was much older than she’d been when she had Yvonne and Beatrix, but stars she was so much more tired this time around. It was bad enough that her unborn daughter had a habit of using her bladder as a trampoline, but add in the round ligament pains, and trying to sleep was impossible.

Just as she always did, Winona pulled herself together in time for the conference call. It was the usual talks of which rings should be the center focus of the commercials and which bracelets should appear largest in the print adds. About halfway through the call, Winona stood up from her desk to retrieve the file of sample earring ads, when she felt a painful tightening in her abdomen. A small cry escaped her lips, not unlike the sound one would make after stubbing their bare toe on a sharp corner.

Round ligament pains again, Winona rationalized, I stood up too fast.

The conference call continued as planned, but Winona wasn’t as focused as she’d been before. This tightness in her abdomen had never happened before, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of unnerve. The remaining hour and a half of the call could have been pure static for all she knew. She was too preoccupied with the persistent thought that she needed to call her OBGYN.

Winona started to breathe easier as the executives and heads of marketing and advertising began their words of departures. She had a few hours until her next meeting, which would give her plenty of time if her doctor thought her concerns warranted a trip to her office. Just as Winona was about to say a hasty goodbye, she was silenced by the feeling of something warm gush between her legs. Her immediate thought was that the baby had hit her bladder too hard, but that went out the window when she saw her white skirt rapidly turning red.

“Mrs. Damon are you still there?” an executive on the other line asked.

Winona had already slammed open her office door before the question had been fished. The intern screamed at the sight of her, alerting the sea of cubicles to their boss’s plight. Winona found herself unable to move as blood pooled at her feet. Her body was shaking and sweating as she felt the color quickly drain from her face. Half the room was frozen in fear, and the other half was rushing to her aid. The lights were getting dimmer. Her secretary caught her as she fainted.

Her last thought before completely blacking out was of the stillness in her abdomen.

“What do you mean you’re delivering the baby!?” Yvonne screamed at the attending nurse. She and Beatrix had been in school when they got word of their mother’s condition. Naturally, they’d left immediately for the hospital. Beatrix hadn’t stopped crying since they got in the car. “Mom’s only five months pregnant!”

“Ms. Damon, normally we’d try to hold off delivery for as long as possible, but the placenta has detached completely,” the nurse explained, “With the amount your mother is hemorrhaging, if we don’t deliver now, both she and the baby will die.”

Beatrix cried harder. Yvonne’s jaw clenched, and her hands were balled in fists.

“What’s going to happen to the baby?”

“We’re going to do all we can for her Ms. Damon, but in my professional opinion, 24 weeks gestation is far too early for there to be a predictable outcome. Her odds of surviving are anywhere from 30-50%.”

Yvonne’s jaw clenched tighter. She didn’t like those odds.

“We’ll notify you when your mother’s out of surgery,” the nurse went on, “If the damage to her womb is as bad as the doctor’s predicting, we might have to perform a hysterectomy. We’ll keep you two updated.”

Yvonne nodded. As the nurse hurried off, the elder twin turned her attention to her crying sister.

“It’s going to be ok, Bea,” Yvonne assured her as she sat down in the seat next to her, “You know mom. She’s going to pull through.”

“B-but the baby,” Beatrix sobbed, “Y-Yvonne, our b-baby sister…”

She couldn’t complete her sentence. Yvonne held her as she began to cry harder.

The sound of consistent beeping was the first thing Winona heard as she started to come to. She tried to recall what had happened and where she was, but getting her thoughts straight was like trying to navigate through a maze in a sea of fog. Opening her eyes, she could make out two tubes attached to her arm; one for an IV drip and one for a blood transfusion. Something attached to her finger was monitoring her pulse and heart rate. Still clouded in confusion, she tried to sit up, but was stopped by her attending nurse.

“It’s too soon Mrs. Damon,” she advised.

Right on cue, Winona felt a sharp pain spike through her abdomen. She hissed as she laid back down, instinctively placing her hand on what should’ve been her baby bump. It was then that it all came rushing back to her.

“My baby! Where is she?”

“She’s in the NICU, Mrs. Damon. You’ll be able to see her tomorrow morning.”

“You will take me to see her now,” Winona demanded.

“Mrs. Damon…” The nurse chose her next words carefully. “Due to the damaged caused by the placental abruption, we had to perform a postpartum hysterectomy. The doctor doesn’t want you out of bed until tomorrow.”

Winona stared blankly at the nurse. She wasn’t sure how to process that. She hadn’t planned on having more children after this one, but a hysterectomy…

She decided she’d have to figure out how she felt about that later. What truly mattered right now was her baby.

“What’s happening with my baby? Is she…”

“She’s not doing great, but it’s too soon to come up with a prognosis. Babies born at this stage are very touch and go.”

“So what you’re saying is my baby could die at any moment, and you’re not even going to let me see her?”

“That’s not what I-”

“No, let me finish,” Winona interrupted, her tone quickly shifting from one of fear to anger, “Do you know who I am? I’m Winona Damon, founder and CEO of Damon’s Diamonds. I could buy this whole hospital if I wanted to. I will not sit here and be told what to do by someone who’s worth less than my Porsche. Now, go do whatever you have to do to get me to my baby girl, or I will have your job!”

The nurse stood there for a moment, speechless. Finally, she walked out of the room without another word. Winona waited, impatiently, for her to return with a wheelchair and whatever else she needed to make her mobile, but instead she was greeted by an agitated looking Yvonne and a clearly hysterical Beatrix.

“How are you feeling, mother?” Yvonne asked, though her tone sounded like she’d rather be asking “Why on god’s green earth are you threatening the hospital staff?”

“Where has that nurse gone to?” Winona demanded.

“Mother, please,” Yvonne begged, she and Beatrix moving to stand at their mother’s bedside.

“You just had major surgery!” Beatrix added, “You need to rest.”

“What I need is to get to your little sister,” Winona protested, “Have you two seen her yet?”

“No, but-”

“We’ll go together then. One of you go get the nurse.”

“Mother-”

“Don’t you “mother” me! I’m the parent, you’re the child! You listen to me! Now one of you go bring that nurse back here or so help me I’ll-!”

“Alright, alright, mother!” Yvonne said, mostly out of fear Winona would end up reopening her wound if she didn’t calm down, “I’ll talk to the nurse and see what I can do.”

Winona was satisfied enough with that response. Yvonne left the room, Beatrix following close behind her. She didn’t like being alone with her mother when she was angry.

After much arguing with nurses and doctors, and having to sign several wavers stating she understood the consequences of disobeying doctors’ orders, Winona was finally wheeled down to the NICU, her teenage daughters following alongside. It had the most depressing energy out of everywhere else in the maternity ward, riddled with sick babies and scared parents. The Damon women were soon at the side of the incubator labeled with their family name. Beatrix gasped, Yvonne’s eyes widened, and Winona stared blankly at the much too tiny creature that was housed inside of the incubator. She was skinny, wrinkly, and hooked up to so many tubes and wires. Her delicate eyes were covered with a tiny eye mask, too sensitive for the fluorescent lights of the hospital. She was so still, the only indication that she was alive coming from all the machines she was hooked up to. The twin sisters looked at each other, communicating without words that this thing looked more like an alien creature than a baby.

“I’m sorry to say that I can only allow you to look at her,” the doctor explained, “She’s too weak to be held, or even touched right now.”

Winona was silent. Yvonne and Beatrix were silent. This little thing was so fragile. How could it ever fulfill the dream of the bright young heiress they all envisioned?

“Well, I’m assuming you’ve had time to examine her,” Yvonne said to the doctor, “What’s the prognosis?”

“As I’ve already explained, Ms. Damon, I can’t say for sure at this point. Things can change from minute to minute.”

“But what about this minute?” Beatrix begged, “What are things looking like this minute?”

The doctor’s expression dropped.

“Right now… I wouldn’t encourage getting your hopes up.”

The twins expressions dropped alongside the doctor’s. They’d expected as much, but to hear it out loud…

“Piper,” Winona finally spoke.

All eyes turned to the new mother.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Damon?”

“Piper. Her name is Piper.”

It had been three weeks since Piper Damon was brought into the world. Though she was on doctor’s orders to get as much rest as possible, Winona hadn’t missed a second of visiting hours. She’d been warned several times that her recovery time would be much longer if she didn’t take it easy, but, as she often did, Winona dismissed their concerns in favor of her own instincts. Nothing would keep her from her baby, especially not today.

Winona sat in a curtained off area in the NICU, little Piper in the incubator beside her. Unbuttoning the last button of her blouse, she watched in anticipation as the nurse removed the impossibly tiny baby from her incubator. At long last, Winona’s newborn was placed on her bare chest, a baby blanket provided by the hospital placed over them.

The mother smiled at the baby, who, though still connected to several wires and tubes, was finally where she was supposed to be; in her mother’s arms.

“Hello Starlight,” Winona softly said.

Piper’s eyelids began to twitch. She didn’t need to keep her eye mask on for as long of periods anymore, and just a few days ago she opened her eyes for the first time. Winona hadn’t been lucky enough to be there to see it, and Piper had still yet to open her eyes during visiting hours. Maybe now she’d finally get the chance to look into her daughter’s beautiful eyes.

Winona gently ran her finger down Piper’s pencil thin arm, stopping when she reached her impossibly tiny hand. The nurse had gone to tend to another family. It was just the two of them now.

“Baby mine, don’t you cry,” Winona began to sing, “Baby mine, dry your eyes. Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.”

Piper’s eyelids continued to twitch. She was clearly reacting to her mother’s voice.

“Little one, when you play, pay no heed what they say. Let your eyes sparkle and shine. Never a tear, baby of mine.

“If they knew all about you, they’d end up loving you too. All those same people who scold you, what they’d give just for the right to hold you.

“From your head down to your toes, you’re not much, goodness knows, but you’re so precious to me. Sweet as can be, baby of mine.”

As the song came to an end, Piper’s tiny eyes fluttered open. Winona smiled proudly as she held onto the baby’s doll sized fist. Her eyes were a bright blue, though were likely to change as she got older. Winona hoped they’d turn gray, like her own.

“There you are,” she quietly said to the baby.

As quickly as they were open, Piper’s eyes shut again. Though it felt too soon, Winona was so happy to finally see it.

“We’re all so excited to bring you home. We’re already almost finished with your nursery. Everyone’s told me not to get my hopes up, but I know you’re a fighter. You’re a Damon, after all. Soon you, me, and your sisters will all be together in the estate. You’ll have many toys to play with, you’ll want for nothing. Doesn’t that sound lovely, Piper?”

Though her view was obstructed by the breathing tube, Winona could’ve sworn she saw Piper smile.

#su #steven universe #my writing #white diamond #yellow diamond #blue diamond #pink diamond #human au #the great diamond authority #it's been too long since I've written something

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rancoeur-the-unfortunate · 4 years

Text

Pills (Chapter 24)

(5178 freaking words!!!!!!!!)

Michelle Baker smiled as she finished setting the up table for dinner. That smile, however, soon faded when she looked in the direction of her son's room. He didn't come out when she called out that dinner was done and she was starting to worry again. She hummed softly as she approached her son's door and knocked softly.

"Honey, are you ok? I haven't seen you since yesterday."

"I'm fine mom. Go away. I'll be down to get dinner in a bit." Her son called from within his room.

"Sweetie you haven't seen the sun in days. Are you sure you don't want to come out?" Michelle asked. She was a frail woman, a single mother with a single introverted child. She leaned against the door with a sigh.

"Yes, mom! Now leave me alone."

"Caleb ple-" She was cut off by her son's shriek.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

The woman sighed once more and gave up as she turned to walk back to the kitchen. This was a common occurrence with her boy, he just didn't have the time to eat with his mom anymore. That's when the door behind her opened and out came her little boy. Of course, he wasn't really little but in her eyes, he would forever remain her little Caleb.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you mom. I've just been a little stressed lately." Agent Callus fiddled with his fingers, despite his attitude he really did love his mom and forcing her to eat with herself didn't sit well with him.

"Oh, honey." She knelt and pulled her son in a hug.

Callus held onto his mother and relaxed into her embrace. He couldn't remember the last time he hugged his mom like this. It wasn't like he meant to, it's just that all this Zim stuff, he just kept getting tied up and he knew he made his mom worry.

Ever since his dad died passed away, Callus was all she had left and only seeing him now and again made her more worrisome and Callus didn't want that.

"I love you, mom."

Callus' mom smiled and ran her fingers through her son's hair, gently playing with the ebony curls. "I love you too." With that, she waited until he let go first before releasing him from her embrace, you never know how much a child needs a hug.

She stood and the two headed for the kitchen for dinner. It felt nice to eat with her son. He could be fussy and distant sometimes, but no force in the galaxy could ever stop her from loving her boy.

"Are you going to help?" Dib turned his head to face Zim while taking down the tent.

"I am," Zim answered from his crouched position in the grass. He had been there since Dib woke up and refused to show Dib what he was doing.

Dib rolled his eyes and began to pack the tent into his backpack. He made sure to clear the campsite of any trash they may have left behind. We don't litter in this house! Once he was sure everything was packed up, Dib stood up and approached Zim to see what he had been doing.

"Alright Zim, we got to go. I texted dad and told him I'd be home by 6."

Zim huffed and stood, up to finally show Dib what he was working on.

It... was a flower crown, made up of wildflowers of varying colors.

"It's not done." Zim hissed. "But since you're so adamant about leaving, you'll just have to receive it at the beta stage." The alien then snapped his fingers and pointed down.

It took Dib a bit to realize Zim had wanted him to kneel. He did so with a slight blush on his face and watched as Zim placed the crown lightly on his head.

Zim clasped his hands together and smiled at the site. His human, kneeling before him where a crown of flowers from his planet.

"Can I stand up now?" Dib almost chuckled at the site.

"You may."

Dib stood and made sure not to jostle his crown, partly because he knew if it fell off he wouldn't hear the end of it; but also because he kind of liked it.

"Ready to go?"

"Yes."

With that the two turned and left the campsite, walking down the path they took before. Zim throughout the walk kept his gaze on Dib. He couldn't help but feel a strange connection towards him. One he had not felt for anyone in a long time. Slowly his gaze moved from the human's face, down his arm, and to his hand. Zim looked at his own hand for a moment before quickly snatching Dib's and looked ahead.

Dib turned his head to face Zim in surprise but the alien refused to make eye contact. The teenager smiled a bit and turned to look forward and let the two of them fall into a peaceful silence.

2 hours into the trip, and Zim decided to break the silence.

"Dib-human?"

"Yeah, Zim?"

"I uh... Zim wanted to thank you for taking me on this 'camping' thing. I really enjoyed it." Zim refused to look at the human as he spoke.

"Oh? You're welcome, Zim. Yeah, I had a nice time too." The human couldn't help but giggle internally at the Irken's sudden shyness.

"Do you think the skool and your swollen eye thingy has forgotten about my pills?"

"Zim, the entire skool Populus has the attention span equivalent to that of a goldfish. They've probably forgotten that you even existed by now. Also, I hacked into the skool's webpage and deleted your name on the skool's victims list, so you won't have to worry about being targeted. The Swollen Eyeball, however, is another story." Dib's thumb brushed over Zim's hand almost in reassurance.

"Hey, if you could just remove names off the list, how come you never removed your own."

"I have, several times. But someone just keeps putting me back up. I just gave up over time."

"Huh. So what are we going to do about the Eyeball?"

"I'll think of something, don't worry." He tossed Zim a small smile, Zim returned it, and both of them went back to their comfortable silence.

The Doctor stood alone in one of the labs, Skoodge was off running some errand while he worked. He had been testing some chemicals to use for his collars. He'd been down there for days and was getting somewhere with this batch and he wasn't going to stop now.

He started up the burner under the flash and watched the liquid inside, bubble. He watched as the liquid inside went from green to blue. He turned off the burner and pulled the flask off. He began pouring the liquid only to see it had turned solid. He growled and set the beaker down. This happened, more or less each time. The liquid either evaporated, burned to a crisp, solidified, became corrosive or poisonous, etc. Despite how close he knew he was he just could figure it out, and despite his patience, he felt as though he was going to lose it.

He sighed and reached into his safe and pulled out another syringe and began starting the process over again, making more adjustments this time. Everything was going ok at first. He set it on the burner once more, only for the liquid to turn red this time and solidify. The Doctor growled and threw the flask at the wall and watch it shatter. Just in time for Skoodge to walk in a shriek at the projectile to shatter right beside him. The little Irken was carrying a tray with one of the Doctor's cans on it as well as a small snack for Skoodge.

"Um, Doctor?"

"Yes? What is it?" The Doctor kept his gaze on the chemicals, both hands on either side of the table as he leaned over it.

"I got dinner." The short Irken stumbled as he walked in, trying to avoid the glass on the floor. He set the tray on the table once he was close enough.

"Thank you, Skoodge." The Doctor took the can and quickly opened to take a sip.

"Trouble in the lab again?" Skoodge tried to make small talk.

"You don't know the half of it." The Doctor snarled, not at Skodge but at his situation.

"Don't let it get to you." Skoodge offered a small smile. Don't him wrong, Skoodge hated this Irken, but if he appeared friendly he also appeared harmless. That's how he got the privilege of free-roaming the Massive. While the Doctor sent him on his 'errands', Skoodge was mapping the place out.

The Doctor avoided his gaze. "I just don't get what I'm doing wrong."

"Well, what are you trying to do?"

The Doctor eyed him for a bit as if contemplating whether or not to tell his assistant.

"You that...green stuff that causes my body to swell at times?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I am trying to create a neutralizer. Something to stop the cells from multiplying as fast as they do." The Doctor took another sip of his drink.

"Why don't you just remove the stuff? I'm sure you could come up with some sort of cure for whatever this thing is."

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head. "I wish it was that simple, my stumpy friend."

"Well, I can't help if I don't understand the problem." Skoodge crossed his arms in a pout.

The good Doctor paused once more then sighed. "Alright, you win. Follow me." He made a motion with his hand for Skoodge to follow him and began to head towards a deeper part of the lab; apart Skoodge was forbidden to go near.

Skoodge smirked internally and followed the Doctor's lead. This was perfect! A chance to learn about the Doctor's main weakness. Maybe even find a way to exploit his main weakness. Heh if Zim could see him now. Zim...

Well, that killed his mood.

Skoodge soon found himself following the Doctor into a pitch-black room, the darkness only being spat by florescent green tubes that were literally everywhere. Long pillars of the stuff rose to the ceiling lined a path for the two to follow.

Did the Doctor produce all of this?

At the end of the path was a door which led them to an even smaller room. This room was so dusty it was almost hard to breathe. In the center of the room was an only vidscreen with a box full of slugs beside it.

"What is this Doctor?"

"My curse. If you truly want to know the extent of my 'problem' then you need to know the origin of it." The Doctor grabbed the first slug from the box and motioned for Skoodge to sit down as he plugged it in.

The old Vidscreen lit up and a black and white commercial played.

A disembodied voice spoke while pictures of sick Irkens were being displayed.

"Tired of those pesky illnesses? Are you feeling like you might just give up on life altogether?"

A cartoon picture of an Irken with a face twisted in agony as he was removing his Pac was displayed.

"Bent antennae? Crusty eyeballs? Chapped hands? Well not anymore! Thanks to our amazing Tallest Zewya and ever knowable Control Brains we now have a cure for any kind of infection, virus, or disease you could ever hope to encounter."

Pictures of said problems were being displayed and when the names of the past Tallest and Control Brains their pictures were shone respectively. Zewya had long antennae that went past her shoulders, her left eye was crunched a bit, and from what Skoodge could see in the black and white picture she at least a foot on the current Tallest in regards to her height.

The next picture was in color surprisingly enough. It was a jar labeled 'The Doctor' it a fancy label and dark purple lid. It was also filled with that green stuff inside the Doctor.

"Introducing the new wonder cure! The Doctor! This little miracle can fix any old wound, scar, and as said before any and all kinds of diseases!" The cheery voice spoke as videos played of injured or sick Irkens rubbing that stuff on themselves and like magic all of their wounds were healed within minutes.

"Got an itch or rash? The good old Doctor works on that too!"

More videos of Irkens rubbing the jelly-like substance over themselves, and being cured of their problems.

"The Doctor cures and heals all, so what are you waiting for? Head on down to your local medical planet and get yourself a jar today!" The commercial cut off with the jar as its last picture and then it cut to black.

Skoodge looked to the Doctor with an understandably confused expression. Skoodge opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.

"I'll answer your questions once we get through these."

Skoodge closed his mouth and watched as the screen as the Doctor unplugged the slug and plugged in another.

This time instead of a commercial, there was an Irken in a lab coat with a nametag that read Dr. Weder. He sat at a desk with his hands folded in front of him, very formal. His desk had the typical stack of papers on one side and computer on the other. The doctor himself had bright blue eyes and antennae that rested at his shoulders. When he talked, Skoodge could see the guy was had a few capped teeth. Skoodge also noticed in the corner of his eye the Doctor was glaring at the Irken on the vidscreen.

"Hello, my Tallest." He dipped his head.

"My name is Dr. Tue Weder. I am the head scientist and researcher of project Delivering, Operations, Critical, Traumatic, Of, Resources or Doctor for short. I am making this video to document the process and eventual success of the project. We have just received your smeet donations and will begin testing as soon as possible. Once the tests begin we will start injecting the smeets with chemical [redacted]" Dr. Weder's voice was cut off by static. "...at different stages of their lives and with different amounts to see how much they can take. Once more I would like to thank you for this chance to take Irken medication to the next step. I promise not to let you down."

The Doctor pulled out the slug and pugging in another, this one was labeled 'Subject 1'. Whilst Skoodge's mind only filled with more questions.

The beginning of the video showed a picture of a smeet still in its incubation chamber. It had to be at 50% completion. It had antennae and legs but its arms were just nubs and it hadn't opened its eyes yet. Underneath the picture was the label 'Subject 1'. The disembodied voice of Dr. Weder accompanied the picture.

"Day 2# Subject 1 has been receiving chemical [redacted] for the past 2 days. It is looking healthy and is growing normally aside from that there is currently nothing to report. There is currently [redacted] subjects in our care currently, we plan to test each one with different amounts and at different stages of their life. I will continue to make updates on this one."

"Day 7# Subject 1 has begun showing signs of negative effects from chemical [redacted]."

A picture was displayed of the previous Irken but it was different. The color was off, instead of green, the smeet had turned yellow and had small lumps all over its body.

"As of now, we have yet to figure out why the growths have started appearing on Subject 1's skin. We have no reason to believe that these growths will cease and it is highly unlikely that the smeet will survive its emergence. We have decided to terminate it, hopefully, the autopsy will reveal the cause of these growths."

The next clip was of Dr. Weder, he was at his desk and was holding a stack of papers in his hands.

"Day 8# the autopsy reports just came in. It appears that chemical [redacted] did not agree with Subject 1's blood cells and its body tried to expel it. Causing the change in skin and eye color. As for the growths we have yet to find the origin of them. We will soon begin testing on subjects 2 and 3."

The video ended and like before the Doctor removed the slug and plugged in the next one labeled 'Subject 2 and Subject 3'.

Right away a new picture was displayed of two smeets in two separate incubators. The one on the left was at 70% while the one on the right was at 30%.

"Day 10# we have begun giving the subjects doses of chemical [redacted]. They both are receiving the same amount and have thus far shown 0 signs of change. We think that the results of Subject 1 are the result of subject 1's age. If we try to infuse chemical [redacted] with Irken DNA early on or later on maybe the blood cells will more susceptible to fusion."

The picture cut to black and then another picture of the smeets appeared. The one on the left had turned white with cuts and bruises all over its skin. The right side of its skull had completely caved in. It could have been more than 82%. The one on the right was looking a lot better compared to the other. It kept its green complexion and only had a few minor lumps on its body. It looked like it was at 50% now.

"Day 19# Subject 2 has died." The voice showed no remorse. "Chemical [redacted] had completely attacked the subject's immune and skeletal system. The autopsy reports tell us no more then what we already guessed. It appears that chemical [redacted] bonds better with younger cells as shown with Subject 3s growth. We think that if we start a little earlier say maybe 5% we might be able to create the being we're looking for. We will continue to study Subject 3 as it grows and hopefully, we can keep it alive long enough to emerge. Afterward, maybe we can finally figure out what's causing the bumps to form."

The next picture was of Subject 3 now at 78%. Its skin was bumpy but otherwise appeared healthy.

"Day 25# the subject appears to be bonding well with chemical [redacted] and with only a week left until emergence we're crossing our fingers."

The picture disappeared and was replaced with a video of Dr. Weder. He was at his desk like before still holding a stack of papers.

"Day 52# Subject 3# expired 10 minutes after being administered a Pac. We think it's because chemical [redacted] hasn't had any time to get accustomed to the Pac. Unfortunately, we can't give the chemical anymore to adapt due to the increased mortality rate the older the subject gets. We tried administering chemical [redacted] to Subjects: 4, 5, 6, and 7, while they were in earlier stages of development and it seems like 35% is the 'hotspot' as the others have begun calling it. To clarify, when we administer the chemical before or after 35% the subjects usually die within their incubators or die minutes after receiving their Pacs. But if they start to receive the chemical at 35% their mortality rate minimalizes as we have observed from Subjects: 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12."

Pictures were displayed of each smeet as they were mentioned, all at individual states of growth.

"However, none of the subjects survived a day after emergence. But we think we have a solution to this problem. We'll take the DNA of one of the subjects, the one that lived the longest, and use it to create more subjects. These subjects will already be bonded to the chemical and hopefully, the chemical will play nice with the Pac and the chemicals it induces to keep the subject's body alive."

The video cut off. Skoodge jumped in his seat went the voice of the Doctor cut the still air like a knife.

"It didn't work, you know."

Skoodge turned to face him. The Doctor was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and sipping his drink.

"The DNA wasn't bonded enough so they took the smeet that lived the longest and used that DNA to make more smeets." The Doctor walked back to the box and pulled out more slugs with different labels on them.

"Subjects: 13, 14, 15, 16, Subjects: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Subjects fucking: 34, 35, 36, 37." The Doctor was seething at this point.

"They got one to last up to two days after Subject 47. Subjects, that's all they were to them."

"W-what happened to the rest of the original smeets?" Skoodge squeaked out.

The Doctor turned with a harsh glare in his eyes. When had he taken his goggles off and were his eyes always green?

"What do you think?"

Skoodge looked away a little ashamed of himself.

The Doctor let out a harsh sigh before pulling out one final slug. The slug looked like it had been label once but the label had been heavily scratched out and replace with a white piece of tape that simply said REDACTED. The Doctor plugged it in and sat beside Skoodge to watch.

"Day 238# My Tallest I believe we have finally done it!" Dr. Weder was beaming as he appeared on screen.

"I believe we have finally succeeded project DOCTOR. Subject 237 shows great promise for this project. Not only did it survive its first week after emergence but it's also displaying some form of cognitive recognition. As we speak it can currently walk and babble like any other newborn smeet."

A new video appeared while the doctor's voice accompanied it. The video was of a smeet sitting on the floor wearing a hospital gown and had a tag that read 'S. 237 property of project DOCTOR' on its left antenna. Its skin was a healthy shade of green and its eyes were like emeralds. The smeet was playing with a rubber ball and seemed to be having the time of its life.

"The best news of all is that apart from the occasional mishap, the smeet has shown no signs of growing those growths that the other smeets had. Though that's not to say it's all pros. The subject like its shall we say 'relatives' can not properly digest Irken food and so we have come up with a concoction that carries nothing but the bare minimum. The subject seems to have been taking this well."

Skoodge found his eyes drifting the drink that the Doctor was holding and then looked back to the screen.

"We will continue to study the subject and hopefully with a bit more test and breeding, we'll finally be able to create the specimen we've been looking for and thanks to our previous findings we have finally figured out what has been causing the growths. The cells that mixed with chemical [redacted] multiply too fast and form cancerous growths over the body. With any luck, this will be bred out in a few generations' time."

The screen went black and for a moment Skoodge thought the video was over before the screen was lit up again with a video of Subject 237 in what looked like its room. The room was small but was enough for a smeet its size. It didn't have any windows but it had a bed and some toys. The smeet was currently on the floor stacking wooden blocks. It was chirping and clicking as smeets typically do. Once it used all of the blocks the smeet stood up and kicked the tower over and fell in a laughing fit. It was kind of cute until the smeet's right leg started shaking. Suddenly the smeet started to panic and scream in pain and worry. It cried not knowing what was wrong as its leg began to swell up. Doctors rushed in and tended to the smeet and tried to figure out what was wrong. Eventually, they decided to give the smeet a sedative so they could figure out what to do without a wailing smeet in the room. A small injection later and the smeet was out like a light. Meanwhile, its leg continued to swell. Eventually, the doctors decided to try and suction the stuff out like one would a growth. All they got in the syringes were plungers full of that green goo. Just Dr. Weder walked and inspected the syringes before smiling.

"I do believe that Tallest Zewya would be pleased to hear of this interesting development."

The video then cut to black again, this time of the smeet lying on a bed with tubes sticking out of all of its limbs. The poor thing looked extremely malnourished and would have a coughing fit every five seconds. It then looked at the camera and smiled as if recognizing the person behind the camera it weakly raised its hand to the Irken recording and a much bigger hand met it. Gently the hand caressed the side of the smeet's head, giving it just enough comfort to make the smeet forget where it was and all of its troubles. It squealed and held onto the hand like it was a lifeline. Suddenly a voice outside of view shouted at the cameraman.

"You're here to document the subject not play with it."

"Hey, he is a he, not an it" The cameraman snapped, most likely to the off-screen voice. Meanwhile, the smeet had fallen asleep, still clinging to the cameraman's hand.

"Back off it will ya! We got a job to do." Someone else said.

"Sorry." The cameraman said and gently pulled his hand away from the smeet.

Once more the screen cut to black and once more a new video played. It was a video of the smeet, he was looking much older now, probably an adolescent. He looked uncomfortable as he stood in front of the camera fully naked. He looked at someone beside him off-screen.

"Duwcter Wber, do I haf ta be naced?"

Someone spoke off-screen but it was too muffled for the camera to pick up. Whatever was said though visibly frightened the smeet and it flinched and went back to looking at the camera. He stayed there for a while, sometimes he'd get tired and sit on the floor for a bit before standing up again looking more visibly distressed and then finally whatever they were waiting for happened. Subject 237's arm started to shake and he soon began crying out in pain. He gripped his arm as it began to swell. Tears ran down the smeet's face as he looked into the camera as if calling for help.

The video then cut off. Then the last video on the slug played and just like before it was the smeet. He said in a chair wearing a hospital gown once more and sitting in a chair. His one, still swelling arm was strapped to the arm of the chair. There were monitors all around him and there was a long tube in his arm, suctioning out the liquid in his arm. The smeet looked exhausted and nearly fell over twice.

"Can I go to sweep now?" He asked someone off-screen. He must have gotten the answer he wanted because minutes after he laid his head down onto the other arm of the chair and fell asleep in what had to be the most uncomfortable sleeping position ever.

The Doctor then unplugged the slug and put it back.

"They discontinued the project a few months after that." The Doctor spoke offhandedly.

"Why?"

"Tallest Zewya died and the Control Brains had more important things to do at the time then foresee the project. So like most test subjects at the end of a project... I was to be terminated." The Doctor stared into the floor.

"Just like that. But one of the assistants, I think his name was Haeman, saved me. He started a fire in the lab and rescued me. I remember the day so vividly. Haeman was so kind to me. He was the reason why I had all of those toys. I am truly grateful for him, he raised him as his apprentice on another smaller planet. He taught me everything I know about medicine and chemicals. He snagged the recipe for my 'formula' before we left so he could feed me and for a while we were happy. Until one day we were found out. Haeman was on Irk, shopping when they grabbed him on the streets. He was recognized as one of the scientists from Project DOCTOR and they killed him. I was barely a teenager at that time. Haemen didn't want to name me, he said that would make it seem like he was my master. So I just named myself after the label on my tag, The Doctor. I ripped off that tag soon after hence my missing antennae." The good Doctor paused.

"That's when I decided to get back at the Control Brains. They were suffering from the sudden uprising of short Irkens and were looking for a quick and easy solution. So I gave them one."

"Y-you created the drugs?"

The Doctor directed his gaze to Skoodge.

"Yes. But I think you already knew that. After all, you were the second in command of the rebellion."

Skoodge gulped and immediately he tried to act ignorantly.

"W-hat are y-"

"Don't pull that with me Skoodge. I've known you long enough not to fall for that. Besides I knew you were off your meds the moment you got on this ship."

Skoodge gulped.

"But that doesn't matter. Because I have a proposition for you."

"Proposition?"

"Yes. We both want the same thing Skoodge. We both want to get rid of the Control Brains for what they did to us."

"Well, the Control Brains never would have wronged me in the first place if hadn't given them those pills." Skoodge glared.

"I needed to get them to trust me. Similar to you giving me fake sympathy so that you can figure out my weaknesses."

Skoodge went silent.

"Look, all I'm asking for is a truce. Help me take down the Control Brains."

"Why so you can rule Irk yourself?"

"We'll work out the details later. So what do you say?" The Doctor stook his hand out for Skoodge to shake.

"Partners?"

(Hello everyone! Thank you for reading thus far. In this chapter, I thought I'd focus a bit more on the side villain, some fluff, and of course our main villain. I read somewhere that the best way to give a character depth is to show a side of them that no one expects. I hope that shows for Agent Callus and the Doctor in this chapter. Thanks again for reading and have a fantastic day.)

#invader zim #Pills #zim x dib #zadr #Zim #Dib #the Doctor #Agent Callus #fluff #backstory #cute but dark

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britesparc · 5 years

Text

Weekend Top Ten #373

Top Ten Thoughts on Avengers: Endgame

Spoilers ahoy!

It’s the end of an era as Avengers: Endgame is finally upon us. As I write this, I’m less than 24 hours out of the cinema and it’s still all percolating within my brain. This Top Ten, then, will be an almost stream-of-consciousness outpouring of my joy, sadness, and occasional twinge of disappointment at what is unquestionably a phenomenal end to the Infinity Saga, a satisfying sequel to Infinity War, and a whole lot of fan-service.

Like I said: SPOILERS AHOY.

“Five Years Later”: it was a long film. Three hours long. but crucially, it does not feel three hours. It feels big, weighty, epic, but it does not feel long. to say it’s considerably longer than the previous Avengers movies, it just flies by. In this way, it’s similar to the Lord of the Rings movies; breadth and depth but still a lot of pace.

“Move on”: the five-year time-jump was a little bit of a surprise (I didn’t think it would be quite that long), but it helped sell a universe torn apart by the aftermath of The Snap. What I was not expecting was for them to live with it. Okay, so the departed people came back, but won’t that cause its own problems? This is not the world we entered in 2008 when Tony Stark was blown up in the desert; it’s not even the world we left in 2012 after a stunted alien invasion of New York. Some people will have tried to move on, perhaps forging new relationships, just to find their old lovers returned. Younger siblings will suddenly become older siblings. People will have lost jobs and houses. It’s rather fortunate that, from the looks of things, Peter Parker’s entire class was snapped out of existence and then returned, otherwise he’d be a lot younger than his co-stars in Far From Home. Anyway, not just undoing the time-jump was a brave decision and sets the stage for some potentially interesting stories going forward.

“It has to be me”: I went in expecting deaths, and I was surprised. I was expecting a bloodbath, and it was actually relatively muted. I was surprised that Vision didn’t get resurrected, less surprised that Gamora (sort of) did, astounded that Nebula survived, and blindsided by Black Widow. I don’t think it’s just because she’s got her own movie out next year, but I honestly thought Black Widow would become the lynchpin of a post-Captain America Avengers team. Hey, who knows? Maybe she will…

“I really tried to bring her back”: this is actually my mum’s theory (she’s a big Avengers fan), but what if Bruce was successful? When he snapped his fingers, he wanted to resurrect Natasha, but claims he was unsuccessful. What if he’s wrong, and she is back, somehow? Perhaps compromised, perhaps changed? Maybe her solo film will be about bringing her back to the light.

“I knew it!”: I was practically crying with giddy joy when Cap lifted Mjolnir. The fact that Thor had expected it, and was actually pleased by it, was just delightful. But Cap’s fight with Thanos, armed with both his shield and Thor’s hammer, was just a fantastic piece of fan-servicing fantasy cinema. I kinda wished they’d gone whole hog and given him his own Iron Man armour to boot.

“Your majesty”: Thor’s development in this film was interesting, as he was almost used as comic relief. His depression made total sense given not only that he blamed himself for not stopping Thanos in time, but also the scale of the loss he’d suffered prior to, and during, Infinity War. All the same, it was a bit of shame to see the character he’d developed in Ragnarok rolled back a little bit, even if it does set him up for some nice solo adventures down the line (perhaps he’ll feature in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and I really hope Taika Waititi gets to make another Thor solo movie too). But considering how Loki stole the show in the first Thor and Avengers movies, and how The Dark World and Age of Ultron were a little disappointing (in different ways) in regard to the God of Thunder, the strength of Thor’s story arc and what’s being asked of Chris Hemsworth in the role is a huge improvement and bodes well for the future.

“I am Iron Man”: if I’d put money down, I’d have said Cap dies for-real in the film, but Tony gets his own stand-alone Logan-esque swansong. That was not to be; Cap survives, sorta, and Tony really does make the sacrifice play and die saving the world. Whilst I’m disappointed he didn’t get to say goodbye on his own terms, as far as last stands go, that was phenomenal. A great call-back to one of the most famous moments in the MCU, a brilliant use of his OP armour’s capabilities, and just a really cool image. Totally Tony, totally Avengers, totally the end. Sob.

“You gonna tell me about her?” Steve Rogers totally deserved his happy ending, and if he hadn’t somehow ended up with Peggy Carter, then I’d have been a little bit disappointed. But I just don’t buy that Captain America would choose to retire. Did he get stuck in the past? Did he decide to fight crime in the 40s and 50s? And if so, did he try to do anything about Bucky or Hydra? Or did he know that that future was his past and so, as Bruce and Nebula explained, he was powerless to change it? Regardless, the fact that what we saw in the film was, essentially, Cap quitting, it left a slightly sour taste in the mouth, even though him handing the shield to Sam was a triumphant passing of the torch. Oh, and one more thought on this topic: in the Russo brothers’ first film for Marvel (The Winter Soldier), Peggy says something about how Steve was even instrumental in introducing her to her husband (I paraphrase); I wonder if, even back then, the endgame (ho ho) for Cap was always going to be “go back in time and marry Peggy”?

“That really is America’s ass”: let’s not get too mired in the mud here, despite my “Cap don’t quit!” niggles. Because as big and epic and tragic as the film was, it was also hilarious. I really didn’t expect it to be quite as funny as it was (I’m not sure why, all the previous Avengers movies have been pretty funny). I was quite pleased at how much humour Captain America was given; his exasperated “I know, I know” when his younger self trotted out the “I can do this all day line” was another delight.

“Assemble”: just like Cap wielding Mjolnir, there’s a certain geeky thrill just to hear him say those words. But the army of Avengers emerging from Strange’s portals was a phenomenal sight to behold, and it’s really exciting to see where the MCU goes from here. Captain Marvel has essentially declared her domain to be space; likewise, Thor is off with the Guardians for the time being; Black Panther is busy being King of Wakanda; Iron Man and Black Widow are dead. So who do we have, the next time the Avengers need to Assemble? Sam Wilson’s Captain America; the Scarlet Witch; Spider-Man; And-Man and the Wasp; The Winter Soldier, maybe; I guess Doctor Strange; perhaps Valkyrie? And then save the big guns for when they’re needed? Anyway, it’s just fun speculating at this stage.

Okay, there we are, ten thoughts off the top of my head. It’s funny sometimes that a movie can be so bloody good but the thing that sticks is the niggles (like, where was Lady Sif at the end?! And I feel bad that they couldn’t find room for Paul Bettany just so he could get a lovely little pictorial send-off in the credits). It’s such an achievement, the likes of which I don’t think we’ve seen before and I wonder if we’ll see again. Just in the same way that Avengers united several heroes who’d (mostly) starred in their own movies, and we got to see them join up and interact in a way that cinema hadn’t shown before, Endgame gives us an epic series finale of a film, one that is dependent upon the 21 films that came before it and the hours and hours of character development devoted to its stars. Where do they go from here? Which heroes get their sequels, which new heroes do they recruit? Will we ever see more of Steve Rogers? Will a new generation – Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, Ironheart – take centre stage? What will be the over-arching connective tissue that, in ten years’ time, leads to another epoch-shattering Avengers smackdown? And how – how, how, how – do they incorporate Deadpool, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men?! I’ve no idea (well, I’ve got lots of ideas but they’re probably wrong) – but it’ll sure be fun finding out.

Oh, and there’s still no sign of Death’s Head.

#top ten #marvel #mcu #avengers #avengers endgame #spoilers #avengers endgame spoilers

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idolizerp · 5 years

Photo

LOADING INFORMATION ON INDIGO’S MAIN RAP, LEAD DANCE NAKANO TETSUYA...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 24 DEBUT AGE: 20 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: Choreography

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): tetsu : short and cute, just like himw atermelon boy : gained from his special talent INSPIRATION: he and his friends loved dancing as kids, and he often sang along to songs where he could, but he never really considered it as a potential career – the people on the tv seemed alien and far out of reach. but during an inter-school dance competition in junior high school, he met a fellow contestant who had been scouted by a famous Korean entertainment company, and he began to think that maybe he could make a career out of it. and, well, dancing for a living sounded a lot more appealing than picking watermelons for the rest of his life. SPECIAL TALENTS:

eating a whole watermelon in under five minutes

freestyle dancing (primarily to girl group songs)

aegyo

NOTABLE FACTS:

is originally from Yamagata (there is a much longer story to this, one worn into the soles of his feet and the calluses on his hands that will probably never fade, but it’s a story for another time and place, not his public profile)

was part of the runner-up team in an inter-school dance competition in junior high school, which was also where he started becoming interested in being an idol

he has two sisters, both younger than him

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Tetsuya wants to branch off beyond the music that IndiGO make. He wants a chance to create his own style and image as a soloist, both as a dancer and as a rapper, but he’s limited by the image that MSG insist on pushing. He hopes to find a way to work within those confines to develop a solo career, although he isn’t especially hopeful that he’ll be successful.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

In the long term, Tetsuya wants to achieve greater creative freedom and less strict image management from the company – or at least a chance to develop an image that he can work with. He’d like to delve more into choreography and become He wants many things outside the scope of his career, too, but most prominently? He wants to go home.

IDOL IMAGE

A fifteen-year-old boy, alone and drowning in the complexity of this new life he’d chosen. That was what MSG Entertainment saw when Tetsuya arrived in Korea – and they took that image and used it to their advantage, making him into the shy kid next door, the one who was quiet but excelled at variety shows. It wasn’t a hard role for him to play. He’d grown up in the Japanese countryside, more than an hour from the nearest city, and while he was rapidly becoming acquainted with the new language in intense tutoring sessions every week, the concrete jungle of Seoul was strange and intimidating. Surrounded by towering buildings and confident native speakers, he shrank in on himself – unless he was on stage performing, where he could pretend he was in a familiar setting, or variety shows where the other members could do most of the talking and he could chip in occasionally – and show off his dancing. And even though he was now twenty and unable to believe that he’d finally debuted (maybe because it didn’t feel like it), the shy kid image was easy to maintain.

After RE᛫Group and during the company’s rebranding of IndiGO, they decided to change Tetsuya’s image to something more versatile that would allow him to make use of his much more fluent Korean skills and his growing confidence, as well as possibly appealing more to international fans – particularly from Japan – and enabling them to use him as a more engaging variety personality. It wasn’t a drastic change, really, just a switch from shy kid to boy next door – more excitable, more engaging, and a better fit for the twenty-two/twenty-three year-old. It was a successful change, and Tetsuya has become one of the most popular members in Japan. (Sometimes, when he’s homesick, he imagines his family telling everyone who will listen that their son is part of a famous Korean boy group)

This image change came with something that, to Tetsuya, is both a blessing and a curse. More chances to talk, more opportunities to participate actively in discussions during variety shows like Weekly Idol and After School Club, and his first few solo appearances on shows. While this is nice, it has also developed an image of him that doesn’t fit very well with who he wants to be or who he’s becoming. Tetsuya has tried approaching the company about the possibility of a solo debut, but the things he writes about, the experiences he would rap about, just don’t fit his public image. So ironically, while it gives him more freedom, it traps him as well.

IDOL HISTORY

一

31 January 1994. 5:29am. In a farmhouse covered in heavy snow, about an hour and a half from the nearest hospital in Yamagata, a child is born to the Nakano family. The first of three children, the only boy, he and his family have no idea what awaits him. He is named Tetsuya, 徹也, meaning devotion, and his parents swear that they will raise him as best they possibly can.

Tetsuya is homeschooled until he turns six. The nearest preschool is over an hour away, and costs far more than the family can afford, particularly after the poor yield from the harvests over the last few years. The boy is too young to understand these finer details, and he is happy enough to spend each day playing in the garden while his parents and grandparents work. Over the course of several summers he develops a tan that sticks around for years until one long winter and lots of time spent indoors let it fade back to a paler tone, and calluses begin to form on his hands as soon as he is old enough to use a shovel. He has no friends except for his sisters – Mari, who is two years younger than him, and Sayuri, who is only a baby – because the family live alone on their farm in the mountains. His parents worry that he will struggle at school because of this, and Tetsuya plays in the background, oblivious and content.

二

When he goes to school, Tetsuya learns that children are cruel. Because he has no friends yet, because he is from the mountains and speaks with a strong accent, the other children laugh at him. They tease him and make fun of his strong accent, which is a mix of his grandparents’ Kyushu dialect and his parents’ Yamagata one, and mock him when he stumbles over reading in class. But he ignores them, because that’s what his parents told him to do, and because as much as they mock his unusual speech, they themselves mostly speak with strong Yamagata accents.

He catches a school bus with five other students, all of whom live on farms like he does. It’s a surprisingly uncommon occurrence at their school. The six of them become close friends, despite being in different grades, and the other five defend him from the bullies. As they get older, they become five, then four, and then three – Tetsuya and the other two his age, Daiki and Nana. They begin to meet up outside of school, visiting each other during the summer and helping out with harvesting – watermelons at the Nakano farm, cherries at Daiki’s, and apples and pears at Nana’s. A week into the summer holidays between fourth and fifth grade, they come up with an idea. Well, Daiki comes up with the idea while hanging upside-down from one of the cherry trees on his family’s farm, but the other two convince him to keep talking about it. And over the course of several days, the idea blossoms into a plan. A plan to become the best dancers in the country, inspired by a TV show Daiki is an avid fan of. Although they’re far too young to enter any competitions, and those competitions are too far away anyway – to the three ten-year-olds, Tokyo is nothing more than a legend, the place that some of their classmates boast about being able to visit. But maybe it will be more possible in the future. In the meantime, though, there’s no harm in learning how to dance. So the trio spend their days watching re-runs of Daiki’s show, then replicating the dances they see. It’s difficult to get them right, but Nana has a good memory and Tetsuya has a talent for moving exactly how he wants to (which has often made him a formidable asset in school games of soccer or basketball) and Daiki is nothing if not passionate. And between them, they slowly begin to master the dances.

The summer between fifth and sixth grade is spent even more ambitiously – going down to Yamagata City whenever they can and finding people to perform for. Most people are uninterested, busy with their own lives, but some are curious to see what these determined eleven-year-olds can do. They leave suitably impressed, and the trio leave satisfied that they’re getting even better. This repeats as often as they can convince someone to drive them down to the city, which is most days, since Nana’s older brother can drive and their parents don’t always need him to help out on the farm. But before they know it, the school holidays are over and they’re starting sixth grade.

三

At the end of sixth grade, the trio part ways. Nana’s family move to Tokyo – farming is no longer profitable for them, and with her brother in university it’s hard to find the money to keep the farm going. Daiki stays, but his junior high school is at the northern end of Yamagata. Tetsuya goes to a different school, in the busier south of the city. They try to keep in contact, but with the post office so far from home the boys struggle – and the increasing pressure of school doesn’t help. Nana stops writing, whether because she can’t find the time or because she has nothing left to say, and her last letter just ends with I miss you guys. Tetsuya joins his school’s dance club, and quickly makes new friends (although they’ll never be quite as close to his heart as Daiki and Nana, who he misses even to this day). He’s changed, no longer the shy boy with the strange accent – for starters, he’s grown much more confident, but his accent has also become less distinct and more similar to the accents of his classmates. There are more people who live on farms in his new school, but from the other side of the city, so he catches the bus alone. It makes him miss the good old days of elementary school even more, the lengthy discussions the trio used to have on the bus – with the occasional comment from the bus driver.

Tetsuya is selected as one of the students to represent their school in an inter-school dancing competition in his second year of junior high school. He’s told to uphold the school name, then given a pair of reserved seat tickets for the Tsubasa Shinkansen and a Suica card to pay for his travel, as well as the name of the hotel where the students will be staying. Fortunately for the thoroughly bewildered and overwhelmed boy, his closest friend is also on the team and offers to meet him at the station on the appropriate day.

It is only when they actually arrive in Tokyo that Tetsuya realises just how out of his depth he is. His family do not own a television, they do not even have a landline phone – let alone a mobile one – and this high tech city full of people is strange and unfamiliar in all the worst ways. If not for Aiko, he would have been overwhelmed the moment he stepped off the train – but she keeps an iron grip on his arm and steers him through the crowds to the next train. And, miraculously, they make it to the hotel in one piece.

The conversation he and Aiko have in their floor’s common room goes something like this: Tetsuya explains that he’s never been on a train before – hell, he’s never left Yamagata before. His family don’t have technology. They live in a cramped farmhouse that’s starting to fall apart and is only being held together by his grandfather’s persistence and his father’s supply of nails. She stares at him for a good few minutes, then replies with “So the rumours were right. You are poor.” And, well, Tetsuya’s never heard it phrased like that. He’s heard his parents tell Mari she can’t have more toys because “money’s tight”, and his grandparents always complain about how they don’t have the money to hire farm help – but as a kid Tetsuya never realised the significance of all those little comments and all the little things that other kids at school could do that he couldn’t. Now he does. He knows now that the reason he hardly ever gets new school uniforms isn’t just because he grows very slowly (and his growth spurt is basically done and dusted), it’s because they can’t afford to buy uniforms unless they absolutely need to.

But Aiko doesn’t try to make him feel bad about being poor. She takes him out on their second night, after the first round of the dancing competition, and they go shopping. Her family are well-off, largely owing to her father’s successful investment in numerous cherry farms, and she claims that she enjoys spending money on other people and she would never buy anything otherwise. So, guilt at making her pay for everything assuaged, Tetsuya lets himself enjoy it and explore Tokyo with an expert guide.

The next day, the second round, is the first time Tetsuya has danced in front of an audience since those summer holidays before sixth grade. It’s terrifying but exhilarating, and he feels in his element. They progress to the next round, and the team are ecstatic – after a devastating loss in the second round of the competition last year, they have been hoping for an impressive success, and this team promises to succeed.

Before they know it, the only team from a Yamagata school are standing on the stage, ready to perform for the final round, which is between them and two Tokyo schools. Tetsuya, looking out into the crowd to calm his nerves, spots a familiar face in one of the other finalist teams, and dances like his life depends on it. And when all of them are finished and the judges are coming to a final decision, he slips away and goes looking for that familiar face.

It is the first time he has seen Nana in years. It is the first time he has heard Nana in years. But she is different, much like him, and so while they congratulate one another they do not say much more than that – although she tells him that she has been scouted by a Korean entertainment agency. It feels particularly odd, without Daiki there to share the moment with them, and it becomes all the more bittersweet when the winners are announced. Tetsuya wonders whether Daiki’s school even has a dance club, whether he’s joined it. He accepts the silver medal with a smile, and watches as Nana takes the gold trophy on behalf of her school, and thinks he sees their friend in the audience even though he cannot be there.

四

Later that night, in his room, Tetsuya stares at the ceiling and thinks back over his conversation with Nana. Earlier, he was still shaky with nerves from performing and distracted by the noise of the room, but now he remembers one thing most prominently. Her tale of being scouted makes him wonder – could he make a career from dance? He’s never thought this before, always seen it as an enjoyable hobby that could be used to win competitions and nothing beyond that, but the more he thinks about it the more sense it makes. After all, how else did the people they used to watch on TV get where they did?

When he gets back to Yamagata, Tetsuya begins researching. He uses computers in libraries, asks people on the street, and looks for advertisements in newspapers. And slowly, he begins to piece together a plan. It is thorough, careful, almost certain not to fail. For the rest of the year, he practices diligently and teaches himself solo routines when he has the time, learns the lines to the songs they perform. At home, he studies for school and helps out on the farm. He saves up what little pocket money he gets and tells his parents what he is planning. And once his final exams are over, Tetsuya catches a train down to Tokyo and auditions for MSG Entertainment. By nightfall, he is back home, pretending that he wasn’t shaking as he stepped into the audition room, pretending that he might have made it.

He does not brood over whether or not they will accept him. He does not incessantly check the mailbox, no matter how much he wants to. Instead, he throws himself into dance and school and tries not to think about anything beyond graduating.

The letter arrives a week before he finishes junior high school, when Tetsuya has almost given up. He has been accepted as a trainee, and they want him to arrive at their office in Seoul within the next month. He isn’t even sure if they can afford the plane ticket, but his parents insist that it’s no problem – they’ve been saving up since he first told them, and it’s just enough to afford a one-way aeroplane ticket to Korea. So once he finishes school, the family drive down to Tokyo to wave him off. There are many tears involved on everyone’s part, but especially his sisters’. Sayuri especially, whose sobs are almost audible even once he’s past security.

Three and a half hours later, he’s standing in front of the MSG building and wondering what will happen to him.

五

Tetsuya struggles as a trainee. He barely understands the language, though that begins to change through intensive Korean lessons, and it becomes evident to him that no matter how good he is, there will always be someone better. At first, he is insulted by other trainees for his tan skin, but the insults fade with the tan as he spends more and more time inside under the pale lights of the training rooms. While his accent remains strong in Japanese, fixed in place with age, his Korean improves daily and he works hard to make it something they cannot pick on.

There are three moments that stand out the most during Tetsuya’s training. The day that his grandfather passes away and the family buys a landline just so they can call Tetsuya and tell him the news is the first time that he is called into a higher-up’s office, and the worst. He can’t go home for the funeral – his family can’t afford the cost of that on top of the funeral, and the company won’t fund it. So instead he is allowed to Skype his second cousin, one of the few people attending the funeral who owns a phone or laptop. It’s painful, but it’s reality. And he is grateful that they let him do that much, even if he couldn’t go home.

The second moment that stands out is when he is sent to a rap coach instead of a vocal coach like he has been doing for the past year. One year into his training, the company decide that his voice is better-suited to rapping than singing. It hurts, to know that all the progress that he’s made in that time isn’t enough for them, but the coach is encouraging (a rare blessing in these difficult years) and with time he acknowledges that his potential in singing is limited. His vocal range has never been enormous, and his tone of voice and his accent lend themselves far more to rapping. Tetsuya has grown less and less bitter about this over the years, acknowledging that the other members are far better singers, and on occasion he still gets to sing.

The third moment is by far the most significant. The day that he is told for certain that he will be part of IndiGO’s final lineup was a perfectly average day in all respects until he is told that. He goes through his usual routine in the morning, attending dance lessons and taking a quiz in his Korean class, until he is called up to an office around midday. The man sitting behind the desk tells him that he has been chosen to debut in their next boy group, IndiGO, as the main rapper and lead dancer. Tetsuya, who has always felt that his true skill is dancing more than rapping, wonders why they made this decision. Of course he’s not the best at dancing – he never had a proper teacher until he signed with MSG – but it holds a special place in his heart. He dances as if it means the world to him, because it does. But he meets the other members, and he understands why he wasn’t chosen as the main dancer.

六

Training for debut is even harder than his earlier training. It is endless, relentless, and much harsher than anything else he has experienced. Tetsuya grows quiet, dealing with his troubles silently and alone as he works on the choreography for their debut song. He spends hours every night revising vocabulary and practicing translating the lyrics of their songs into Japanese. He does not collapse, not even on the hardest days, because he cannot be weak now. Not when he has made it so far. So he tells himself that it isn’t nearly as bad as spending all day out in the burning sun putting hats on watermelons and weeding vegetable patches, that at least his hands aren’t cracked and torn and callused like his grandmother’s. He’s in no danger of sunburn here, buried six feet underground in a practice room until ungodly hours of the night. These different hardships take a lower physical toll, he reasons – overlooking the mental toll in favour of success. It is easy enough to push aside the dull headaches from sleep deprivation.

七

IndiGO’s debut is met with lukewarm reception, a reaction that quickly fades into disinterest. They have few dedicated fans by their second comeback, and Tetsuya has the least of all. While the image the company crafted for him works well initially, people have grown bored of seeing him silent at the back of the group on television programs. And he grows bored too, with no active role in the group unless they are performing. So he takes up dancing more and more, spending more time in the practice rooms teaching himself other groups’ dances and learning how to freestyle dance. And he gets good at it, good enough that the company takes notice and starts letting him do that on variety shows. It helps, during their worst moments, when he doubts his ability to succeed the most, because he can bury himself in dance and imagine that he is still a naïve ten-year-old dancing with his best friends on a farm in northern Honshu.

When they get sent onto RE᛫Group, Tetsuya is genuinely scared for their future as a group. IndiGO hasn’t been successful, but he had never considered that they might be obsolete now. He does decently on the show, earning votes by shocking the viewers with the contrast between his appearance and his rap. But he is eliminated almost as soon as the competition begins to get genuinely difficult, though whether it is because of his skill level or evil editing he’s not sure. With no promotions to do and no guarantee of anything else in his future, Tetsuya begins to write. He’s not particularly good at lyric writing, but with a decent editor the things he scribbles down during that dark era could become songs – if they fit the image the company wants to push, of course.

八

After RE᛫Group, when they’re still figuring out what to do next, Tetsuya asks MSG to change his image. He’s not the naïve little kid anymore, and he wants a new image to reflect who he is now. The company, who have never seen the scraps of paper buried in Tetsuya’s clothes drawer, decide that an image change might benefit them as well, and they make him the boy next door, more energetic and engaging than the shy foreign kid. It helps a lot, but the image of Tetsuya as a bubbly person is one that limits him incredibly. He can’t be depressed or worried or express his fears and insecurities, because everyone knows that the boy next door is perfect and sweet and cute, not scared and lonely and homesick.

Tetsuya gets to appear on music shows and variety shows now. IndiGO are becoming more successful. His family are spreading the news all across town that the short, Japanese member of IndiGO is their son. His life seems idyllic – or at the very least, better than it’s been in years. But he misses his friends and his family, especially after Aiko came to one of IndiGO’s performances, and his bank account speaks volumes as to how well he’s really doing. What Tetsuya wants more than anything is to go home, but it will be years before he can afford a flight back to Japan. And even though he’s improved significantly in speaking Korean and Seoul is no longer difficult to comprehend, it isn’t home. Home is the tiny watermelon farm in the mountains near Yamagata City, far away from the harsh criticism and ruthless competitiveness of the South Korean idol industry, and it always will be.

#id.bio #id.indigo #id.msg #id.takada kenta

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creideamhgradochas · 6 years

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Thanks to the lovely @interestedbystanderwrites for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about lovely Cass, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

Ha! I was a teenager and it was Backstreet Boys – and smut didn’t exist the same way it does now but that’s another opinion for another day. What I wrote then was cutesy and romantic, probably because that was what I was daydreaming about, I guess. Just a reminder that my blog is NSFW if you’re under 18.

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I think I can get more depth from an OC but you also risk the Mary-Sue and you may pigeonhole your OC in race, sexuality etc. That can really open a can of worms with the reader, which is wholly understandable. Reader inserts are great in the way you can make it 100% person to the reader. They should imagine themselves (if that’s their choice) and not feel that the writer has alienated them in any way somehow but it is still difficult to please everybody.

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

I like fluff – I like things that make you smile at the end, give the reader a little cuddle to maybe brighten their day.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

One that never made my masterlist – a Spider-Man super angst titled “How Long Do You Want to be Loved?”. I thought it as okay, pretty good even – but I guess people just want Bucky or Sebastian smut haha I hear you all!

5) When is your preferred time to write?

Morning when the little guy is napping ☺ Evening is hard because it’s when I play adulting catch up… or try not to fall asleep on the couch.

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

I have a very overactive imagination, always have. And for most of my fics, I guess it’s pretty obviously the beautiful aesthetics of Sebastian Stan and to a lesser extent, Bucky Barnes.

7) In your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

Chapters 27 and 28 of TOFWYA – more so 28 as you get a pretty interesting insight into Sasha’s and Sebastian’s ways of coping when they’re out of sync. Long story short, they’re a mess.

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Luckily – none! The joys of a smolblog maybe?

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

I love writing for Buckster – he’s a complex devil and has a lot of layers to work with and a body to die for. Thumbs up for the material, Sebastian.

10) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?

As per mentioned before – Peter Parker. That fic scarred me.

11) How did you come up with the title for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?

It’s actually a song lyric as are the first few chapter titles: Belinda Carlisle – Valentine

I made a rule about you, I made a plan // For getting my feet back on the ground // Bury my face in clouds, for hours on end // But time only flies when you're around

12) How did you come up with the idea for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?

I was just writing some stuff, pissfarting around and all of a sudden I’d written something similar to what Chapter 22 ended up being and that’s how it all began. 150k words of nonsense really.

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Many – but there is a long Bucky multichap fic that deserves more of my attention. As his story has evolves via MCU, the story has changed a little.

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

I write one shots to TOFWYA, I don’t think I could write the sequel to it though. I’ve considered a full fic for Take Me to the Water but I doubt I will for an AU. Any sequels will be little one shots so at this stage, there is nothing planned.

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

I ended Next Year very kitsch – I regret the last sentence as it currently is: You gave him a small smile, overwhelmed by his words. “I love you too, Bucky Barnes.” Blurgh.

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

How much time do you have for me to talk about @whostheblondegirlwriting? Truly. My fandom soul mate. We are separated by far too many kilometres and time zones, but between her job and me mummying, we’re chatting at all hours of the day. She is a true gem and I adore her.

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Luckily, it’s not available on A03 or Tumblr, but it’s still online elsewhere because I thought about it a few weeks ago – it was a Lords of Dogtown fic… and it was not good. Saying that, anything before that I would cringe at anything I’d written anyway ha!

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Definitely music or the sound of the baby monitor that I find quite soothing.

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Argh. “How Long Do You Want to be Loved” messed me up. Too many parental feels.

20) Which part of your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series was the hardest to write?

The proposal. I went over it a thousand times. I thought, should it be romantic, should it be grand, should it be this or that? How it happened, just a couple in love, in the city they love, being themselves just seemed to fit when it finally came together.

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I occasionally outline – but mostly I just write, write, write and then start toying with it afterwards. I’m constantly chopping and changing, but I’m not pedantic about planning. It isn’t that kind of fic. Other multichaps I put a bit more planning and emphasis on.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?

You’re only as good as your last fic and its reblogs. If you’re going to get hung up on likes/reblogs/comments, you’ll never publish something again. But it can be bloody disheartening at times.

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Time Only Flies When You’re Around? Haha busted my ass on that beast for over a year. It has the hits but likes and comments are encouraging when received. When. I always considered publishing it on Tumblr, but I don’t know. It’s freely available on A03.

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Smut talks – I think Heatstroke is a little silly. But it gets hits.

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Nope – any characters, inc OC’s are all fictional. I don’t know if I could handle people in my real life if they were like my OC’s!

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Any body that takes the time to leave a ‘yes!’, ‘omg’ to paragraphs of reiterating your story back to you – it’s amazing! Taking the time to leave a writer a comment makes our day.

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

It still makes me laugh when I read it, not quite verbatim but it was along the lines of ‘I loved this fic but it’s gone a total 180. I’ll see how you continue but you know, I’m probably out of here’. While I know you can’t please anyone, it’s a strange comment. I’m old enough to appreciate constructive criticism. This was neither here nor there, but still hilarious!

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

Back to my love, @whostheblondegirlwriting, we’re constantly taunting the other or beta’ing each others stuff when we have time to help the other (let alone write our own stuff!).

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?

In real life? No. On this hellsite? I have made some amazing writing friends!

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

Ollie in TOFWYA – she’s a completely stereotypical New Yorker, brash, in your face and on the other hand, Sasha’s best friend in the world and they’d do anything for each other. If you knew Ollie in real life, you’d absolutely hate her.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

People simply enjoying your work and letting you know is the most amazing aphrodisiac. I’ll never stop writing – whether it’s for myself or for other people to enjoy. Don’t ever be scared to let a writer know if you’ve enjoyed their work or if you haven’t, a writer should be able to accept your constructive criticism and will probably appreciate your feedback if you take the time to provide it respectfully! If you’re going to go on anon and talk shit, just don’t bother. It’s boring, childish and completely unoriginal. Shows true testament to your personality offline.

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

Friends to Lovers. THEY WERE FRIENDS AND NOW THEY ARE… LOVERS!

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

Not a clue – but will assume it’s Backstreet Boys-related!

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Smut will get you the hits but fluff is forever.

#milestone celebration #ask the author #interestedbystanderwrites

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imjustthemechanic · 6 years

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The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole Part 32/? - Prisoners Part 33/? - Arm’s Length Part 34/? - A Moment’s Respite Part 35/? - Ravagers to the Rescue Part 36/? - What Happened to Hiddleston Part 37/? - Haven Part 38/? - Steve Has a Terrible Idea Part 39/? - Can’t Be Choosers Part 40/? - Stan Lee Cameo Redux Part 41/? - Shipjacking

Time to get the Leviathan back.

There was one more person whose consent they needed before they went ahead with this. Steve turned to Musa. “I like to give people a choice when I can,” he said – although the Watcher was right, he wasn’t giving one to anybody else. “Do you…”

“I’m coming with you guys,” she said. “I get the idea that’s going to be the safest place to be. And if I can help save the universe while I’m at it, bonus!”

Steve suspected she had no idea what she was getting into, but he decided not to turn her down. They were therefore officially a party of ten as they passed through the broad metal arch into the port area. Upon arrival, of course they found another problem. The crystal captain had let some of his men go on shore leave, but he’d also assigned a group to watch the Leviathan. There were around a dozen of them with weapons in their hands, glaring at anybody who got too close to the two parked vehicles that Steve decided to call ‘dinghies’. The Leviathan was their prize loot, and they weren’t going to let anyone lay a finger on it.

The group ducked behind a row of vending machines – at least one of which was bumping back and forth as if its contents were not happy about their situation – to plan. “Now what?” asked Evans.

Steve glanced out at the guards. They were all large and fairly intimidating specimens of whatever they were. If he’d had a shield to throw, he could have taken a few of them out at a distance, but they definitely weren’t a group he’d have wanted to take on alone, or with inexperienced help. “How about lightning?” he asked, looking at Hemsworth.

“Too showy,” was Nat’s analysis.

“I don’t know if I want to use that on a space station anyway,” Hemsworth agreed. “I don’t want to fry the life support or something.”

Both good points. Steve leaned to peek out from behind the vending machine with the struggling cargo. The Leviathan was in the next docking bay up… and between them and it was the Ravager ship. Only one person appeared to be guarding that one.

He turned back to his companions. “Okay, I think I have another idea,” he said. “This time, it might actually be a good idea.” It was admittedly based on something he’d seen in a movie, and the movie had featured old-fashioned sailing ships instead of spacecraft, but it was something the Ravagers would definitely not be expecting. He told the others what he had in mind, and this time he was pleased to see Natasha smiling.

“Good idea?” he asked hopefully.

“No, still a Steve idea,” she said. “But you’re learning.”

While the rest of them continued to hide behind the vending machines, the Watcher put an arm around Musa’s waist and staggered up to the Leviathan guards as if drunk. “Hey, boyos!” he called out cheerfully. “Yo ho ho and a bottle of Uvan! I got me some booty!” He gave Musa a smack on the bottom.

She squeaked, then laughed. “Oh, you!” she said, pinching the Watcher’s cheek.

“I thought I’d give her a tour,” the Watcher went on, grinning at the Ravagers. “She’s never been inside a Leviathan, have you, dear?”

“Nope!” Musa shook her head.

The Watcher cupped a hand around his mouth as if to say something in secret, but when he spoke it was in a stage-whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. “She’s never had a Leviathan inside her, either, but she’s about to find out!” He then brayed with laughter, as if this were the funniest joke in the world. Musa joined in, giggling like a madwoman.

The Ravagers were not amused. “We picked you up in the Chi’Tauri brig, didn’t we?” asked the biggest of them, a beige-skinned thing with big curling horns like a ram. “You’re not a member of our crew.”

“You swore me in!” the Watcher whined.

While the guards were thus distracted, Steve and the others ran for the platform under the Ravager ship. The hatch in the bottom was open with the end of the gangplank touching the dock, and a stocky grayish man with no neck was sitting there, reading a magazine with a tentacled creature on the cover. Finding himself surrounded, he reached for his gun, but by the time he touched it Evans had already touched it.

There was only gravity in part of the docking area – below the walkways there was none, and the lower half of the docking area was full of junk just floating around. They pushed the unconscious guard off the platform to join it, and hurried up the gangplank into the ship.

In the cockpit they found another crew member. This one looked rather like a humanoid shrimp, but one leg from the hip and the other from the knee had been replaced with high-tech prosthetics. The creature appeared to be napping when they walked in, but quickly woke up and he, too, reached for a weapon. Hemsworth grabbed him by the face and zapped him, and his robotic parts sparked and smoked as he crumpled to the floor.

They pitched the shrimp-cyborg out the door, and Steve sat down in the pilot’s chair. It was slightly sticky.

“Okay,” he said, looking at the controls and instruments. “I… is there any particular reason we’ve decided that I’m the expert on flying alien spaceships?” he asked his companions.

“You did okay with the Leviathan,” Nat reminded him.

“Loki or I could do it,” Thor said, “but I thought your plan required flying it badly.”

That was true… they wanted the Ravagers to think the ship would be easily re-taken. “All right, then,” said Steve. He inserted a hand into a floating metal circle, and tilted it back, expecting that the ship would go up.

Instead, it went down. The nose bounced off the dock, and two of the vending machines fell over. The one that had been moving broke open, and a number of rust-coloured millipede-like creatures began quickly scrambling away.

It may have not been what Steve intended, but the accident certainly did get attention. The Ravagers stopped arguing with Musa and the Watcher and ran to try to stop him. One jumped onto the gangplank, which Steve hadn’t bothered to retract, while a couple more leaped onto the wings. Steve quickly moved his hand in the opposite direction, and the ship jerked sharply up to bang into some hanging girders. The pirate who’d run up the gangplank fell and was left floating helplessly among the garbage below the docks.

Through the windshield, Steve saw the remaining Ravager guards pulling out communications devices or moving to try to rescue their crewmates who had fallen or were still clinging to the outside of the ship. Musa and the Watcher, meanwhile, boarded a dinghy and got it started, dipping down below the Leviathan to dock.

The controls of the Ravager ship were far more delicate than those of the Leviathan, but Steve managed to guide the former ship over towards the latter in a series of awkward lurches. They were nearly right above it when a large, slimy-looking pirate climbed onto the windshield and banged on it with one fist, before pulling out the largest energy rifle Steve had seen yet and preparing to fire it right through the glass.

“Allow me,” said Thor. He reached over Steve’s shoulder and pushed a button, ejecting the co-pilot’s seat. The window pale blew off and the seat flew out, taking the slimy creature with it.

They were right over the Leviathan now. “Okay!” Steve ordered. “Everybody out!”

He kept the ship in place as best he could while the others climbed out the window and made the precarious drop onto the Leviathan’s heaving back. Evans nearly fell, but Johansson grabbed his hands and pulled him up again. Thor wouldn’t let Loki do it alone, and insisted Hemsworth carry him – Loki protested loudly even as Hemsworth lifted him off his feat and leaped out the window. Thor and Natasha went last, making the jump mere moments before another Ravager threw the cockpit door open.

Steve saw this happen in the reflection on the remaining window glass, and had just enough warning to duck down into the space in front of the seat. The pirate opened fire, and bullets – actual bullets, not energy pulses – shattered the remaining window glass and hit the control panel. Sparks went up. The chair Steve had been sitting in was torn off its base and fell to the side, and the entire ship tilted forward as its control systems failed.

Because he was firing projectiles, the pirate had to stop to re-load. Steve seized that moment to stand up and give the fallen chair a kick. It didn’t go flying like it would have if he’d had his normal strength, but it did go tumbling towards the Ravager, who had to move out of the way. Steve then climbed out the window, only to realize that since the ship was drifting forwards and down, the Leviathan was now behind them. He jumped over the windshield, just barely made it, and began climbing the steeply tilted hull towards the tail.

Halfway there, another pirate appeared in his way. This one was a turtly-looking thing with spotted skin and a great deal of natural armor. It took a swing and Steve rolled out of the way, only to roll right off the side of the ship and have to grab at one of its aerodynamic fins to keep from falling. His legs dangled over the junk-filled space below the docks. When he looked to the right, the cockpit of the Ravager ship was now on fire, and the pirate with the projectile gun was bailing out before it could crash into the wall. When he looked up, the turtle pulled out a very large, multi-pronged sword and prepared to bring it down on Steve’s head.

The only thing he could do was let go.

He only fell about ten feet before he was snatched out of the air by Musa, riding one of the dinghies. “Gotcha!” she said brightly, and angled up, towards the Leviathan. The others were already inside.

“Thanks,” Steve panted.

“No problem,” she said. “Christine says you’re in his body and he wants it back.”

They docked with the Leviathan, and scrambled up the tube into the Leviathan’s sinuous interior. “I got him! I got him!” Musa shouted, as they hurried towards the cockpit.

Steve couldn’t see out, but he could feel the motion as whoever was at the controls turned sharply and headed not for the airlock, but straight for the wall. He climbed the ladder to the cockpit – it was so good to be able to do that without pain! – and was just in time to see people on the floor hurrying towards the exits or activating spacesuits that appeared to be made out of bubble wrap. A moment later, they were no longer visible, and Thor pushed the controls forwards to pick up speed as they hit the wall and crashed right through. The atmosphere rushed out, and immediately froze into an enormous cloud of glittering microscopic ice crystals.

“We made it!” exclaimed Musa, clapping her hands in delight. “That was fun!”

The gravity had vanished the moment they left the station, and everyone was now floating again. Four in the cockpit had been fine, eight was too many, and ten was a crush – ten drifting around in midair instead of standing on the floor seemed downright dangerous. Steve caught a handle on the ceiling and cleared his throat.

“Okay,” he said. “Time for phase two. Essential personnel only.”

“We have a phase two?” asked Johansson.

“I think he means we’re back to following the first plan,” said Natasha. “He’s not very organized.”

“Watcher, you have to stay here to deliver the message,” said Steve. “Everybody else, either out of the cockpit or out of sight, we don’t want to give them any sort of hint that it’s a trick. You too, Musa,” he added.

The actors climbed down out of sight. Natasha hunkered below the control panel and Steve, Loki, and Thor lurked in the tubes so that they could each give signals and cues to the Watcher as he delivered the message. The watcher, his long mustaches floating on the air currents, activated the communications screen and let it enlarge in front of him. For a moment there was nothing but static, but then a Chi’Tauri in a complicated helmet, marking it as of greater rank than the soldiers they’d dealt with so far, appeared. Behind it they could see a room the size of a cathedral, with vaults and pillars and crystalline windows casting glittering lights over the walls and floor – except that where the proportions of a cathedral were based on mathematical proportions the human eye fund beautiful, this looked all wrong, alien and off-balance. Sitting in the middle of it, with a dozen tinier creatures crawling all over her and tending to her electrical burns, was the immense four-armed queen.

#fanfic #steve rogers #natasha romanov

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jayshq · 3 years

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Under the read more you will find the verses for all my characters, as my verses page is currently broken.

(DAN, CHUCK, & STEVE DON’T HAVE VERSES UP YET, BUT THEY WILL BE ADDED)

ALEC:

☆ 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁 𝒾𝓈 𝑒𝒶𝓈𝓎 | main : Alec Lightwood currently works as a Shadowhunter at the Institute in New York. (BOOK BASED)

☆ 𝒷𝑜𝓇𝓃 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇 | show : Alec Lightwood is Head of the New York Institute. (SHOW BASED)

☆ 𝓉𝑜𝓅 𝒹𝑜𝑔 | alpha : Alec is a shadowhunter and alpha in a world controlled by status. (used for all a/b/o threads)

☆ 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 | inverted : set in the “world inverted” universe from season 1, episode 10.

☆ 𝒷𝑒𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒻𝒾𝓇𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝒹 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁 | pre series : set before the events of the show and books.

☆ 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒 𝓃𝑜𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓁 | mundane : Alexander is currently studying law at NYU. He wants to be in law enforcement.

☆ 𝓇𝓊𝓃𝓈 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓌𝑜𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓈 | tw : Alec grew up at Idris, never moving to the Institute. After a nasty werewolf encounter he turned. His mother couldn’t stand to look at him properly after that and he eventually decided to leave. Having nowhere to go, he followed this strange pulling in his gut and found himself in Beacon Hills. (omega)

CLARY:

☆ 𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓅𝓅𝑒𝒹 𝒶 𝒷𝒾𝑔 𝓌𝒶𝓇 | main : BOOK COMPLIANT. Clary Fray had her life turned upside down when she was 16, discovering she was a shadowhunter and the only one who could stop this secret world’s greatest threat: her father. This is set during the events of the Mortal War and Dark War.

☆ 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒾𝓈 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 | show : SHOW COMPLIANT. Clary Fray had her life turned upside down when she was 18, discovering she was a shadowhunter and the only one who could stop this secret world’s greatest threat: her father. It seems her brother is also someone she must stop. ( this will be my main default for show canon only muses, but i am primarily book based blog )

☆ 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓁𝒹 𝒾𝓃𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓉𝑒𝒹 | alternate : Clary Fray is a normal girl, going to university, hanging with friends and spending time with her family. She has an amazing mother, a hilarious father, and a great older big brother. So, why does something feel off? (1x10)

☆ 𝓁𝒾𝑒 𝒹𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝑜𝑔𝓈 | team evil : Clary is currently with Sebastian and Jace, who were bonded together by Lilith. She is only there to find out Sebastian’s plan and save Jace. Whether or not she has the fairy ring connecting her to Simon will be decided on a case by case basis. (Jace, Simon, and Johnathan muses ONLY)

☆ 𝓇𝓊𝓃𝓈 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓌𝑜𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓈 | tw: Alec sent Clary to Beacon Hills when they got wind of some really nasty stuff coming from their area, smelling an awful lot like werewolves. She was told that the McCall pack was not to be trusted and has no reason to believe otherwise. On the note of Theo: they have laws that his crimes do not follow him back from the dead, she doesn’t agree with this, but knows she cannot condemn him for them or show prejudice.

☆ 𝒶𝒹𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝓊𝓅𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝓍 | mcu/dc : With the Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl, Superman and tons of others appearing the Institute has had to start making plans for aliens and metas. Clary is a representative for the Clave that Alec has put in charge of a lot of the affairs while laws are drawn up. The D.E.O. and A.R.G.U.S. are working with the Clave to keep everyone in line. Clary mostly deals with informing the others of the shadow world and helping when problems with demons arise.

☆ 𝒾𝓂 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓂 | rd : Clary Fairchild-Blossom is from Denmark. She was born as the golden daughter of Christopher Blossom, until it was found out she was actually the daughter of his affair to Jocelyn Fairchild when she was ten. The loving family she’d once known cast her aside as a disgrace. She cut herself off from them when she realized how shallow they were. She was sent to Riverdale after her mother’s passing, only to find out her cousin Jason had died.

☆ 𝒻𝒾𝓇𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝒾𝓇 𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒸𝒽𝑒𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉 | spn : Clarissa is an angel who fell in love with a demon and fell to be with him in Hell. She kept her grace and even joined in helping other demons. However, when her love died she left Hell, now both demons and angels hate her. She wants to return home but doesn’t know how to start. She’s currently trying to do good on Earth as penance.

☆ 𝒾𝓂 𝒶 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁 | ouat : Clary is one of the daughters of Duchess from The Aristocats. She ran away from her family in search of an adventure like the one her mom had always told her about. She eneded up sneaking onto a ship and landing herself on Neverland Island. She didn’t escape until a group opened a portal to Storybrooke. However, when she went through she was transformed from cat to human.

☆ 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒻𝒶𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓉𝑒𝓇 | seraphina : Sera was born in her mother’s arms next to her father and older brother. When Jocelyn ran not even a week later her mother lost her just a portal closed. Jocelyn came back for her not even 24 hours later, but Valentine had already staged the fire and left with his two experiments. She grew up along side her brother and is only too happy to whatever is asked of her by her father. She believes Jocelyn to be dead and she has avast interest in their surrogate brother Jace, where as Jonathan seems to dislike him despite never having met him.

MAGNUS:

☆ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓊𝓇𝑒 | main : Magnus Bane, 400+ year old High Warlock of Brooklyn. Fought in both the Mortal War and Dark War. Is happy to help a selective group of friends, and honestly wish the rest would just shut up. (Book Based)

☆ 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 | show : Magnus Bane is the high warlock of Brooklyn, ward keeper of the New York Institute, club owner, and apparently the shadowhunters on call warlock. (Show Based)

☆ 𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝒹𝑜𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓃𝓉 | inverted : (part 1)Magnus Bane, previous High Warlock of Brooklyn, now does parlor tricks for a living. With the shadow world having been quiet Magnus has resourced to living a mundane life. (part 2) Until a young girl named Clary Fairchild came calling. Now with his magic restored he vows to never lose it again.

☆ 𝓃𝑜𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓁 𝒾𝓈 𝒷𝑜𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔 | mundane : Magnus Bane graduated from NYU with perfect grades and a degree in fashion design. He currently works as a “closet assistant” for the Vogue Magazine office in New York.

☆ 𝓂𝒶𝑔𝒾𝒸 𝒾𝓈 𝓂𝓎 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒸𝒾𝒶𝓁𝓉𝓎 | hogwarts : Magnus is the potions professor at Hogwarts. He’s a Slytherin/Ravenclaw (partner dependent) alumni, and is also the Head teacher of said house. I also have a younger subplot to this verse where Magnus is still a student.

☆ 𝓁𝑒𝓉 𝓂𝑒 𝒷𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒷𝒶𝒹 𝒷𝑜𝓎 𝓅𝒽𝒶𝓈𝑒 | high school : Magnus Bane grew up in Indonesia, was shipped off to England at 16 by his step-father, moved to New York when he was 18. Magnus’ biological father has been attempting to contact him, but Magnus is trying to avoid it. His biological father has also sent him a large sum of money, and while Magnus had no intention of creating a relationship he’s also not stupid enough to turn his nose up at money. He’s in his last year of high school. He can’t wait to get out and go off to college. He plays up the bad boy act, constantly talking back to teachers, skipping class, showing up to school hungover. He doesn’t care what other’s think, and just wants to be left alone.

☆ 𝓇𝑜𝓎𝒶𝓁𝓉𝓎 𝒷𝓇𝑒𝑒𝒹𝓈 𝒸𝓇𝓊𝑒𝓁𝓉𝓎 | dark : Magnus decided to abandon the mundane world after he’d been hurt one too many times. He went to Edom, and with dark magic he’d harnessed was able to murder his father, taking his rightful place on the throne.

☆ 𝒷𝒾𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒷𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽 𝓅𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒 | disney : Magnus bane is the son of king Asmodeus or Edom. Edom is a cruel and unjust kingdom. Magnus never intended to take over, so he spent his time learning magic (due to the dark energy within him) and alchemy. He ran away at the young age of 16. Due to Asmodeus’ love of the dark arts Magnus had been made immortal. Asmodeus died many years ago, but Magnus has no interest in playing king to a kingdom full of greed and demonic presence. Instead, he travels the land, aiding those who need it with his magic, for a small price. He is feared by many, due to his ability to wage war with the snap of his fingers, though he’d never found a need to.

☆ 𝓅𝓊𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶 𝒸𝓇𝒶𝓏𝓎 𝑒𝓎𝑒 | firefly : magnus bane is a name known across many galaxies. he is an enemy of the alliance, and a business man. he deals in secrets and rumors. he knows things that are meant to be unknown and is vastly proud of it. he lives a life of luxury, and enjoys it highly. he is also the man to go to if you need anything the alliance has deemed illegal. the alliance knows what he does but has no proof.

☆ 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝒹𝒻𝒶𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 | mob : Magnus runs his operation out of New York, but it stretches across the East Coast of America. He is well known to anyone in the mob and gang scene, as well as the N.Y.C. P.D., not that they have any evidence of his wrongdoings. Magnus has legitimize businesses in both his club and a lot of real estate. He lives in a mansion with most of the trusted men and women in his operation. He’s leading in the New York scene, both because he never lies and because he is also the only one with access to Santiago approved drugs.

☆ 𝑔𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝑜𝓃𝒸𝑒 | cmbyn : Magnus has been a friend of Mr. Perlman’s for many years, the two having even traveled together for a time. However, he’s never come to stay with them on their summer trips to Italy, until now. Magnus is content to spend his summer enjoying the simpler things in life, instead of the hectic New York fashion world he works in year round.

☆ 𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝓊𝓈𝓉 | marvel : Warlocks have existed for at least as long as written history, but anyone that can feel magic will tell you it’s been part of the world since the dawn if time. They are an extremely rare breed, only a few hundred ever alive at one time. Most hide amongst the mutants, able to pass their abilities off as a mutation. Every warlocks magic is specific to them, and entirely their own. They draw most of their power from the Earth, but they are inherently magical and don’t need any magical focus, magic flows through them.

Due to such a low amount of warlocks, their is an underground network. The Warlock Network. It’s the easiest, fastest, and safest way for warlocks to get in touch with one another. It is commonly used as a market, a way to trade ingredients and information, but it is also how a warlock can send out an alert that they’re in trouble or that someone is gunning for warlocks.

Magnus himself leads a relatively calm life. He’s a fashion designer and wildly popular among the Upper East Side, despite his residing in Brooklyn. He lives off multiple fortunes he’s made over the years and works for fun. He also runs one of the hottest clubs in New York, Pandemonium. Living in New York meant that there was constantly life threatening occurrences thanks to the different superheroes that inhabited the city. Magnus never bothered to get involved. As long as himself and those he cared about were safe than the guys in tights could handle the rest. That doesn’t mean that Magnus’ status does not afford him certain super friends, however.

note: warlock marks exist but not every warlock has them

☆ 𝒾𝒻 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀𝓈 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 | thg : Magnus is one of the most sought after designers in the capitol and when it comes to the games he’s given to only the best of the best. Magnus was a victor himself but he refused to be a trainer. He has severe ptsd from the games. He is able to watch the games, but he has nightmares, can’t enter any desert areas (his arena was desert), and certain insect sounds will trigger him.

☆ 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒹𝓈 𝒶 𝓌𝒶𝓎 | jurassic world : Magnus Bane had never cared about dinosaurs. Sure, he thought they were interesting an he found it sad that so many generations had lived without them, but that was where it ended. Then he met Etta. She was perfect in Magnus’ eyes, and she just happened to be a medic at the Jurassic World theme park. For the first year of the relationship it wasn’t a big deal.

However, when the one of the old herbivore trainer’s retired Etta begged Magnus to apply. Despite not needing a job, due to the family fortune he’d inherited, he did it for her. Magnus had no formal training with animals, let alone prehistoric ones. Yet, he surpassed a lot of the trained applicants and got the job.

Magnus started with some of the herbivore attractions, then moved up to also training some of the younger ones, an eventually it was also added to his duties to help care for the infants. Thanks to all his time spent with Etta Magnus is also an on call medic. He isn’t licensed, but if he’s closer than the on-site medic and it’s urgent he’ll sub in. He’s proven himself multiple times.Etta was diagnosed two years later. They found the cancer in February and she was gone by April.

Magnus closed off. He let friendships slip away and made no effort to make new ones. He refuse to do shows for the visitors, only working with the younger ones and infants. If investors come to the park Magnus will instruct an intern to deal with them. He still does any medic work need of him.

Magnus fell in love with the majestic creatures within only months of working at the park, but Etta’s passing cause him to have an even deeper connection and love for the animals. Magnus is extremely protective of the dinosaurs in his care and if anyone even mentions the park in regards to revenue he will leave the room.

PARTNER SPECIFIC VERSES

☆ 𝑔𝑜𝓁𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝒾𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝑒 𝓈𝑒𝓉 | bytheanchor : set in my main verse. Magnus, Alec and Jace are all in a happy and committed poly relationship. I play both Magnus and Alec.

BEN:

;; before that night | ben: Canon Ben Solo. Teenage Ben is training under his uncle Luke to be a Jedi master, and is proving a talented student. He feels a pull to the dark side, but due to his teachings isn’t sure how to ask for help out of fear. He’s fighting to cling to the light that burns deep inside him and the force, sticking close to those he loves for good measure.

;; my birthright | tfa : Canon Ben Solo, this will follow through the events of The Force Awakens.

;; nothing stand in our way | tlj : Canon Ben Solo, this will follow through the event of The Last Jedi and all the way up to the Palpatine battle in The Rise of Skywalker. THIS IS NOT HIS MAIN VERSE, even though many threads will operate inside it.

;; finish what you started | main : Canon-Divergent Kylo Ren, the only main difference being that while he did give up an amount of his life force to save Rey he didn’t die. He was in the resistance med bay for over a week, but he pulled through. He is unsure if he wishes to stay with the resistance to hunt down what’s left of the First Order, or if he’d prefer to be on his own for the time being.

;; the conflict in you | light side : after killing Supreme Leader Snoke he accepted Rey’s offer and is now working along side her and the rebel alliance to take down Hux and his army of stromtroopers.

coming soon

POE:

𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓴 | main : (Canon Compliant) Poe Dameron is one of the most skilled pilots among the resistance.

𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓮 𝓭𝓮𝓶𝓸𝓽𝓮𝓭 | scoundrel : Poe Dameron is a pilot for hire and very well trusted in criminal circles to get the job done quickly and quietly.

𝓻𝓮𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓽𝓮𝓬𝓱𝓷𝓲𝓺𝓾𝓮 | dark : Poe was born to an ex-rebel pilot and First Order prisoner, but was raised by his step-father, a First Order general. He has been learning to use the force since he was ten years old and has been lied to about how the light and dark sides work. 𝓬𝓻𝓪𝔃𝓲𝓮𝓻 𝓼𝓽𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 | modern : Poe is a retired Afghanistan veteran without a clear path for his future.

𝓭𝓸𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓪 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓸𝓷 | nasa :tba

𝓵𝓮𝓽𝓼 𝓰𝓸 𝓱𝓸𝓶𝓮 | peace : tba

REY:

☆ 𝓹𝓮𝓸𝓹𝓵𝓮 𝓴𝓮𝓮𝓹 𝓽𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝔂 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀 𝓶𝓮 | tfa : Canon-Compliant. This verse will follow the events of the Force Awakens.

☆ 𝓼𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮 𝓶𝓮 | tlj : Canon-Compliant. This verse will follow the events of the Last Jedi and through the Rise of Skywalker until the Palpatine battle.

☆ 𝓲𝓶 𝓪𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓭 𝓷𝓸 𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓭𝓸𝓮𝓼 | main : Canon-Compliant. This verse is set after the battle with Palpatine. Rey has chosen Skywalker as her surname and is working with the resistance to take down the rest of the First Order.

☆ 𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓭 | dark : Canon-Divergent. When Ben offers Rey his hand in the Last Jedi she takes it with the hope to restore peace to the galaxy from the dark side.

v. 2: Canon-Divergent. When Palpatine offers Rey the throne, she kills him and ascends it.

☆ 𝓭𝓸𝓷𝓽 𝓰𝓸 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝔀𝓪𝔂 | smuggler : coming soon : coming soon

☆ 𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓮 𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓼 𝓪 𝔀𝓪𝔂 | jurassic world : coming soon

☆ 𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓼 | nasa : coming soon

#[verses.]#cw: long post

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haxorus-imp · 6 years

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Alien Affections - Villainous/Reader - Chapter 6

You groaned and mentally counted the spybots again. 34. 34 spybots were created in total. 'Well, it's easier than college. I got a job at least.' You flattened your brow in slight agitation. 'Though, I'm not getting paid for doing any of this crap.' You thought, snidely. 'Well, I am living off of Black Hat's resources. So, I guess this brings meaning to that "As in Rome, do as the Romans did. If you can't pay with money, pay with your body." saying.' You surmised. Ah, your boss. He was already proving to be a handful for you. It was quite obvious that Black Hat didn't like you. Not much, anyway. He probably just hates new people? You shrugged at the thought. So far, you've been polite, relaxed, and easy-going with little-to-no resistance. The man must be easily triggered by simple things if he's thatuptight all of the time. You think Flug needs to prescribe him some chill pills. Because he's the type of guy that really needs some. You let out an inner laugh at your lame internal joke. Stretching out your arms and back, popping them in the process, which relieved some pent up tension from within your bones. Allowing you to release a relieved sigh as the stress ebbed away from your joints. "Halfway finished!" You announced, catching the attention of Flug, as he was completing the internal work for the gamma ray gun on his opposite work station. "Ah. That's great (Name)! You're doing well!" Flug said, optimistically. "I didn't expect you to make so many within a short amount of time!" "It's hard work. But, at least I'm close to finishing up." You sighed. Leaning back in the work chair. Suddenly, you smelt something very putrid fuming up from below you. It confused you for a moment, until you looked down at your shirt. "Aw, man!" You wailed. Catching Flug's attention once more. "What's wrong, (Name)?" Flug asked, turning his body around to look in your direction in worry. "I got machine grease on my favorite pajamas!" You, still in your alien and UFO pajamas, complained. While, looking down at the ugly stain on the front of the glow-in-the-dark alien icon. "Worst yet, these are the only brand of clothes I brought with me! I still haven't changed out of them from last night...eck. I feel dirty now." You mumbled and got up to walk to the basin in the corner of the lab, next to a large machine with a lot of blinking lights and levers. Flug seemed to notice your conundrum and paused, appearing to be lost in thought for a few minutes, as you silently tried to clean the harsh grease off with some feverish rubbing of a damp rag from the lab sink. Mumbling profanities under your breath as you did so. "Oh! How about this!" Flug exclaimed suddenly, startling you slightly. "Tomorrow is when I go out to fetch supplies to prepare for next weeks' projects and restock up on food after we shoot the videos." Flug explained. "Basically, tomorrow is errand day. You can come along and see if we can find a few outfits for you to use while you're here!" Flug offered. You looked at Flug and smiled. "Really? Oh, thank you so much Flug! Heh. It's kinda funny. I feel like I've known you since my whole 4 years at college, yet I've only known you for about a day!" You gave Flug a warm smile. "O-Oh! You're welcome!" Flug replied, bashfully. "I must say, learning about your world has been a trip for me as well. So many things to hear about, stories to tell, and learning everything that goes on in the other side of the cosmos."

"It's actually fun to hang around with you, I'll admit it. You're so laid back, I don't see how you're NOT a nervous wreck from being so far from home! If it was me in your shoes, I would be shivering at every shadow...and would probably be deathly afraid of Black Hat all over again." Flug sighed. You blinked, looking sympathetically towards Flug for a moment. But, you shrugged it off. "Hey, while we're on this topic, you've never told me about your own world! It's mostly been about mine." You stated. "I also want to know what your planet is like! What's it like living on a world full of factions and people with superpowers or advanced technology? What's different about your world? How does it feel to know that super powers exist?! Oooohh~! So many things I want to ask you as well!" You grinned at some questions that passed though your mind. "Well, maybe if we go out to eat or have some time while shopping, I'll gladly tell you about my own home too. It's only fair." Flug responded, his eyes beaming happiness through his goggles. You bounced on your heels in excitement. "And just think! We're both the very first people to talk to other intelligent, and friendly, alien life! My world may have some action or drama every now and then, but your planet is beaming with so many new things! Different physics, geography, and even culture! We might even be the first ever people to contact life outside of our own planets!" Your eyes grew so wide, Flug could swear that they sparkled. "We can keep notes of each other! To take back home! Then I can show my cryptid-believing friend that I was right! Aliens WERE the right way to go!" You flailed a little in your excitement. "Maybe I can take back some evidence? Like a miniature ray gun? That'll show e'm I'm not a liar! I would have evidence that couldn't be denied! Utterly irrefutable!" You squealed. Flug couldn't help but chuckle at your nerding out episode. He could feel his own heart racing as he observed your escapade.

But, he knew why. Your excitement was becoming infectious. He couldn't blame you personally. The excitement of meeting someone from another planet was coursing through his veins as well. He was still curious of many things. Some that he hoped you held the answer to.

What technology did your planet hold? How do your people do things without any heroes? Without any superpowers? How does your race survive as a species?

Was the evolutionary route different? Or was something else at play here?

Even now, he can't wait until later to get back to studying the blood sample he took from you. He feels like there's something special about your blood. Maybe it could hold the secret to your evolutionary branch? He didn't know what yet, but he'll get there. That's why he's studying it, of course! He is a scientist and an inventor.

And he is excellent at what he does. "Well, I'm gonna hit the bathroom and clean up." You said, calming down from your high. Flug snapped out of his thoughts. "Oh! Really?" "Yeah." You nodded. "I'm gonna find 5.0.5 and see if he can wash my clothes while I clean up." You said, walking away from the sink and heading to the lab entrance. "See ya later, Flug! Take care!" You waved, exiting the lab. Flug just waved slightly as you left an continued to work on the gamma ray gun. His project, while still incomplete and untested, was close to it's final stages. Soon, he'll get his spare time to study the unique blood sample. -- The only sound that stated life was present in the pristine and elegant bathroom was the sound of the faucet turning on within the bath-shower hybrid tub. Warm water rushed out of the spout, coating your skin in warmth and gave you a soothing feeling of relaxation. You sighed as you rubbed your scalp clear of excess oils and loose hairs. It felt like paradise. Just letting the water run down your skin and into the drain. You weren't really a single-type of washing preference person. You would take showers some days and baths on others. Usually, it mostly depends if you need to shave or relax. Sometimes, you didn't even have a choice. It was either one or the other most of the time. Not that you complained. You are mostly glad to get cleaned in the end. You lathered up a rag with some soap, which had a nice fragrance, to cleanse your body with. While you did this, you let your mind wonder. Tomorrow was presentation day. The day of the catalog photo shoot. Which will be preformed and used to show off your creations. You honestly don't think you'll be present for the shoot. It'll probably be handled by Black Hat and Flug mostly anyway. You're more concerned with the world that you will get to explore tomorrow when you go run errands with Flug. You sighed, letting the foamy lather wash off of your skin as you put some shampoo in your hand. I mean, there are some concerns you have about going out into the city. What if people notice your differences like Dementia and Flug did? I mean, even Black Hat probably picked up on your strange appearances! What if you turn too many heads and make Flug uncomfortable? What if you and him get separated? Just...what if? You rubbed your arms, suddenly feeling something attached to one of them. You looked over and saw the bandage from last night. Still clinging to your arm and covering a wound that had stopped bleeding a long time ago. Steadily, you peeled it off of your skin and opened the door to the hybrid. Depositing the bandage into the bin that wasn't too far from the door and closed the hybrid door back. You rinsed your head clear of foam as you walked back under the flowing water. Pressing your forehead to the wall, you sighed. '(Name)...we talked about this. Everything is going to be fine! No need to stress yourself. Besides! Who cares about that worrisome stuff? Just throw those thoughts away like that used bandage. It's a whole new world!' You then paused and blinked to yourself. Then, you allowed a smug look to cross your face as an idea popped into your head. "I can show you the world~, shining, shimmering, splendid~" "Now, tell me princess, when did you last let your heart decide~?" You sang, albeit softly. Laughing lightly. You kept singing in a low volume, letting the motion of your hands and body fit your own personal imaginings. It was silly to sing in the shower, but with the stress that you have faced in the last 24 hours, you might as well sing heavy metal songs at the top of your voice. Just to release the tension. But, Black Hat would have your head if you did that. Dementia did say that she played guitar when she came rushing into the kitchen at lunch, apparently overhearing your talent-associated conversation with Flug. You would like to see her preform sometime. You bet she would play like a punk-rockstar. Seeing as she shared similarities to said-genre when one looks at her outfit. So, it would probably be safe. Probably. You hummed the chorus of the song playing in your head, letting your imagination drift as you rinsed the conditioning out of your hair. "A whole new world~" "A hundred thousand things to see~!" You sung, finishing up your cleaning session and preparing yourself to get out of the stream of water. By the time you finished the song, you had stepped out of the bath-shower hybrid and are currently drying off with a large and fluffy rose red towel. You hummed as you finished brushing out your hair to the beat of the final tunes in your head. Rising your mouth out with gargle, you still did not have a toothbrush, and spat it into the sink. You sighed peacefully. Cleaned, freshened up, and with the towel wrapped securely around yourself, you prepared to leave the refuge of the bathroom. Singing did help a little. It was mostly just a personal relief valve for you. You're not the best singer, but practicing during the times when you were alone sure did give you a decent pair of pipes. You unlocked the door and headed out into the hallway. Only to be surprised by a startled shout. When you looked over, you saw your boss, Black Hat. He was just standing there across from you, stiff like a statue. "Oh. Hey, boss." You greeted. -- Black was NOT expecting this. He was just on his way to 'check up' on Flug and you to see how progress was coming along, only to hear a door open and had himself become visually assaulted by nudity! Black Hat was standing in horror-filled surprise as you stood there in the hall with nothing but a large fluffy red towel to cover yourself and wet hair sticking to your skin. Without warning him, no less! "Why are you out wondering the halls dressed like that?!" Black Hat screeched. "...Because I just got out of the shower?" You replied, nonchalantly. "That doesn't excuse this large amount of indecency! This is a business! Not your personal home!" Black Hat scowled. Okay, now you're just getting mad at this bastards' accusatory tone. Whoa! Whoa! Slow down, (Name)! Two negatives don't make a positive! You took a steady breath to calm yourself and kept your face and body relaxed. You know he hates that. "I got some engine grease on my pajamas while working. Those, being the only clothes that I brought with me and that fit me, are in the wash." You explained. "That reminds me!" You exclaimed. "Have you seen 5.0.5 around? He probably has my clothes ready." You muttered, placing a finger on your chin. "No! I haven't! Just...for evils' sake! Follow me!" He growled. You looked at him in confusion, but followed anyway. It took a few minutes, until he opened a door to a bedroom. It had a goth-like theme to it, like the rest of the house. Yet, the bed looked like something fit for a mansion! It was a deep red color, with a few mixtures of dull grays and blacks. The blankets also had top hat prints on them. Which was a trend around this manor, as you seemed to notice a lot of things that had to do with top hats or had designs of top hats on them. Like the wallpaper for instance. You suspect that Black Hat literally has an obsession with the object. It also had a canopy with curtains that could be pulled or adjusted to your liking. Plenty of pillows and comfortable-looking blankets. You let out a whistle. "Nice room. Who does it belong to?" You asked. Black Hat just looked over and rolled his one visible eye. "This is YOUR room, you imbecile. This will serve as your room until you eventually leave." Black Hat stated. "Oh! Sweet!" You gaped. "Thanks, boss!" You smiled at him. "Stop smiling at me." Black Hat warned. You would'ave frowned at him in a huff if you didn't feel a nudge on your arm. You turned to see 5.0.5 behind you, big adorable eyes and all, as he was holding a neatly folded pair of alien and UFO pajamas out to you. You smiled brightly at the return of your favorite clothes. Using one hand, you fetched the clothes from his paws and opened the top to see, to your relief, that the grease stain was gone completely. You passed the clothes over to your hand that was holding the towel up. "Ah! Thanks 5.0.5! You managed to get that nasty stain out and saved my favorite shirt! You're such a good bear!" You rubbed 5.0.5's head affectionately with your free hand, as the bear rubbed its' own head into your palm. Loving the friendly attention you were giving him. The clearing of a throat broke the good mood like glass. Oh, right. Your boss was still here. You looked over to Black Hat with your eyebrow raised. "What? Do you want to be petted too?" You smirked. "Got two hands for the job!" You couldn't help but laugh at Black Hat's deadpan expression. "Oh, come now, boss! I'm just being silly." "More like stupidly childish." He grunted. "I'm taking my leave, get dressed, we have a big day tomorrow. Come 5.0.5!" Black Hat snarled, causing the bear to whimper. Black Hat reached the door and waited for 5.0.5 to scurry on by him. But, before he could close the door, you called out to him. "What?! Can't you see I'm busy?!" He snapped. You didn't let that get you down nor stop what you were going to say, you just grinned at him lazily. "Thanks again, boss! I'm grateful for your hospitality!" You thanked. Black Hat just snorted. "You should be." Before closing the door, albeit a little too loudly for your liking. You laughed. Yep, he hates the lazy smile. "Goodnight, boss!" You called out to the fading footsteps out in the hall. You then prepared the bed and changed into your alien-themed clothes once more. Pulling back the covers and worming your way underneath the blankets. It was as soft and as pleasant as you imagined it. Like sleeping on a cloud. That could possibly be the back pain from working hunched over a workbench all day talking, but you didn't care. You adjusted the covers slightly, turned out the light on the nightstand by the bed, and rolled over as a welcoming gloomy darkness fell over the room. Yet, it was not completely dark. The lights from the suburban streets outside lit a fairly decent amount of the room. A calm mixture of pale and dark lights. It felt like you were in a hotel room. Just like the ones you used to stop and sleep in on the way to your final destination on a road trip. You yawned and rolled over. You wouldn't be lying if you said you weren't homesick. But, everyone feels like this when they travel. You're probably the first person to travel farther than any other human being from your planet. Farther than any astronaut has, anyway. Neil Armstrong can eat his heart out. You chuckled to yourself. That's just what this is. A long vacation. Then, you'll go back with an alien souvenir and make your mark on the great wall of human history. Ha! That will show your cryptid-believing friend! Bigfoot is fake and aliens are real! You then closed your eyes to that thought and slowly drifted off to sleep. Silently preparing for another day of adventure. -- A sudden beam of light incinerated a wooden target that was set up in the lab for testing purposes. Flug held the gun with accurate skill, as he was currently taking notes on what needed to be tweaked tomorrow morning before the presentation. He muttered a couple of math fractions underneath his breath. Testing was a delicate process. As one malfunction could injure a client and give them a bad rep, or show a faulty product that Black Hat will have his head over. So far, everything worked out. The machine fired and didn't shoot off into random directions, which was great. It even hit the desired target. Which was also great. Flug sat the weapon down as he decided to call it quits for tonight. Turning the machine off and he began to clean his station, until the lab door opened. He turned around expecting you to return from your shower, but was instantly put on edge when it was Black Hat instead. "A-AH! Black Hat, s-sir! I didn't expect you t-to come down here so late! I was expecting it to be (Name)!" Flug scrambled to make himself stand to attention. Black Hat merely raise a brow at the spectacle. "(Name) went to bed in their assigned room." Black Hat said, bluntly. "O-oh." Flug muttered, nervously shifting on his feet. "How's the gamma rays' progress coming along?" Black Hat questioned. "It's m-mostly done. Just a few tweaks in the morning a-and it'll be ready!" Flug replied. Black Hat nodded, apparently pleased. "And (Name)'s progress?" He asked. "Well, they m-made about 34 spybots today. They said that t-they'll finish the rest in the morning." Flug stated, nervously rubbing and grabbing his arm out of habit. Black Hat frowned a little at that. "They need to pick up the pace if they are going to reach the deadlines in time." Black Hat hummed. Flug nodded and swallowed his anxious fears to ask Black Hat about (Name)'s apparent clothes situation. "Black Hat, if you don't mind me...uh, asking this." This caught Black Hat's attention. "But, (Name) is in need of a few outfits if they are going to be staying here for a while." Flug explained. "So. I need to ask you, if they can come with me into the city while I run my weekly errands and purchase some clothes for them." Flug said. It was silent for a few moments, putting Flug on edge for a bit. "....Fine." Black Hat caved. Flug sighed in relief. "BUT." Black Hat paused. "They can only have three outfits. Other necessities, like undergarments, don't count." Black Hat stated. "If they are going to get some, they can only choose three." Flug was flabbergasted. "B-But, why only three, sir?" Flug stuttered. "They got under my skin tonight, they're taking this as a lesser form of punishment. Only three outfits! No more, no less." Black Hat shrugged. Flug couldn't really deny Black Hat. "Understood, sir." Flug submitted. Black Hat then began to walk back to the exit of the lab, right before turning around and looking at Flug. "Don't stay up too late, Flug. It's presentation day tomorrow. Get out of the lab, get cleaned up, and go sleep in your actual room. Do not fall asleep in the lab cot this time." He warned, then departed. Flug gave out a heavy sigh. He was afraid that Black Hat would say something along that line. He looked over toward the fridge where the vile of your blood was being kept. He guessed that the testing will have to wait for some other time then. Just when he's not so busy. Flug fixed up his station and headed toward the lab door. Turning off the lights and exiting the lab. Leaving the dark rooms' machines to hum and beep all through the night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next> <Previous ~First~

#Villainous #Flug x Reader #Black Hat x Reader #Alien Affections #Fanfic

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