#Steven was dealing with traumatic ass experiences | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bluebellravenbooks · 4 years

Text

A Great Distraction Masterpost

January has been gloomy as heck, so I thought it may be a good idea to put together a list of things that I read/watched/played since the beginning of the pandemic that managed to keep my mind off things. (I'm a doctoral student with anxiety and a 5-second attention span, so if this worked for me chances are it's Good Stuff.) Hope this helps!

Steven Universe

Set millennia after a kinda-failed alien invasion, this is a story of a half-human protagonist with a big heart who has to deal with the consequences of this long-ago war and learn what it means to be human.

The trope of a peacekeeper hero, excellently executed. Goes from cute to cute and rather dark, but still hopeful. Nice songs, lovely animation, interesting characters; you can tell that the storytelling goes from the hearts of the people who made this. This is a generally uplifting story; however it does have some discussion of war, mental illness and parental death, so tw for that. Also depending on where you live, this may be a bit difficult to track down across the streaming services... That said, this is undoubtedly one of the best shows I have ever watched.

Hollow Knight

You are a tiny badass with a sword and a mysterious past, travelling across a derelict kingdom and trying to make sense of what happened to it. And the more you learn, the more you suspect that you are here for a reason...

A 2D platformer game, doesn't require anything fancy from your laptop - not even a mouse. Previous gaming experience not necessary either. Beautiful visuals (I mean it!), a huge world to explore; exasperatingly difficult, which makes for a great distraction. I do have to warn that the plot of this game revolves around an infection, although it's not very reminiscent of Covid. As a plus, you get to kick its ass in the end!

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Four great nations are at war - have been for some time, actually, and things aren't looking great. The discovery of the Avatar - the peacekeeper with abilities from all the nations - offers a glimmer of hope; however it doesn't help that the Avatar is eleven years old and has spent the last century frozen in an iceberg.

Truly, a classic. I love the trope of the peacekeeper hero - both Avatar and Steven Universe explore it beautifully. Just like with Steven, I have to mention a tw for war, but this being a cartoon it's not explicitly traumatic. A great place to start if you're not into cartoons yet.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Murderbot is a half-organic, half-robotic being, serving as a security unit on interplanetary missions. It's much more sentient and independent than its company believes - but all it wants is for the annoying humans to leave it in peace long enough to watch one more episode of its current show. However when things go south on a mission, Murderbot has to deal with much more reality - and human interaction - than it would like.

Very fun and quick read; the narrator's voice is just excellent. Much less bloodthirsty than the title suggests, but still a tw for injury and death. (Not too much though - I hate gore and I was perfectly fine reading this.)

Folk of the Air by Holly Black

Elfhame is no place for humans - well, normal humans, anyway. Jude Duarte was brought up here with her sisters, and she is hell-bent on proving her worth in the fairy court she has come to call home. Few are happy with that, or believe that she can make it - but even Jude herself wouldn't have guessed where the political turbulence would get her.

Very well-written; politics of the fairy court stand to logic and offer plenty of exciting plot twists. True to the title, some characters can be rather cruel, so tw for violence and parental death; however most of the plot revolves around politics and not explicit physical trauma.

Cartoon Saloon films: Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, WolfWalkers

Some of the best modern animation plus Irish mythology. Each of these films explores a different myth/historical period, but they are similar in the magical atmosphere; I recommend each and every one of them. The plots being different, I won't list all the tw's here; there's nothing particularly gruesome going on, so just have a look at the plot description before watching to check for sensitive topics.

Gravity Falls

Dipper and Mabel are sent to a cabin deep in Oregon forest to spend the summer with their great-uncle. Sounds like a boring holiday - however it turns out that the town has more weird secrets than residents, and even their great-uncle seems to be hiding something...

Very cartooney, so the style might be a little off-putting at first - however I loved the plot, especially when the overstory started to pick up. This is a great exploration of family and what summer should feel like when you're an adventurous kid. Will probably get you into cryptography.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Adora grew up with the bad guys. That is, of course, she thinks they are the good ones - until one day she escapes from the camp and sees much more than she bargained for. Oh yes, and apparently some magical sword wants her to be a hero. Now on the side of the rebellion, she has to protect her new friends, deal with the old ones, and try to figure out what the heck is going on.

This show is fun, very diverse and full of positivity without trying too hard. For me it was a joy to watch something with a lot of strong female characters without having the dark gender issues discussed, not even once. (I mean, it's still important to have shows that explicitly discuss this - but a show where characters are just happy in their identities, no questions asked, is something I didn't know I needed.)

Carmen Sandiego

The young woman who calls herself Carmen Sandiego has a rather unconventional occupation. She was brought up in a school for thieves - but when she glimpsed the outside world, she realised that things weren't as simple as her teachers said. Now she uses her expertise to track her former schoolmates - and steal back their loot.

This is probably the most young-age-oriented item on my list, so there's not a lot of drama going on, and some plotlines are rather simple. That said, this series is good fun, I still found the story and the characters compelling, and the animation was really good as well. Honestly, seeing what modern 2D animation can do is a treat.

These things - and many other - helped me stay sane during this year; I found out that stories can be fun shameless escapism and really deep and satisfying at the same time. Feel free to add to this list - and I will keep it updated as well when more good stuff comes my way.

53 notes · View notes

spiritualgateway · 4 years

Text

You are your own creation

written by Steven Black:

At least since „Seth“, we all know the famous sentence: „You are the creator of your own reality. “

Fine.

But we usually overlook the most important point, namely the center of where everything happens.

OUR SELF!

The very personal kind of evaluations we make about ourselves creates our human personality. The identity as which we know and experience ourselves. This is how it manifests itself. Our stream of evaluations leads to patterns of conviction and to a certain belief structure. And with this we then identify ourselves, which sets a certain dynamic in motion through which we will attract and experience certain things.

The core of the center lies in what we believe about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and how we think about ourselves. This in turn is closely related to what kind of experiences we have already had. And how we have then judged these experiences. If we really want to understand the phrase – „You are the creator of your own reality“ – then it is valuable if we look at the stream of evaluation that we generate about ourselves throughout our lives. Second by minute, day by week for months for years and decades.

The person we are now is the product of many years of incessant evaluations and definitions about ourselves.

Sure, before we are born, we put together a kind of blueprint – with certain character traits, talents and inclinations, in order to be able to have certain experiences. And of course, when we come to Earth, we go through an imprinting process that will activate this Blueprint. We go through education by parents and the school system, learn cultural, social and societal collective beliefs and much more. In this way we learn to think in a certain way and to classify things, circumstances, people and situations – we adopt the definitions and evaluations that have been given to us.

In fact, it is only the basic training for being human at the moment, it is not the „wisdom last resort“.

Much more important for our human experience are our judgements about ourselves – which we make again and again (mostly very unconsciously) permanently. We constantly make comparisons and constantly generate our very personal interpretations about other people, life, our experiences and ourselves. And this, of course, first on the basis of what we have been taught.

All these interpretations, evaluations and definitions flow to what we call the subconscious and bundle there into beliefs (beliefs). This is called programming; this is how a program is written – and it is we ourselves who write it. Minute by minute for hour for day, months and years.

Beliefs become a program that works continuously without us having to consciously think about things. Belief systems are automatically formed after a certain amount or load of (good or bad) evaluations we have made about our experiences. Beliefs are nothing more than a condensation of evaluation streams that accumulate within us over time.

Each one of us is a creative soul, each one creates his own reality – without exception. And we create with the highest possible commitment: with ourselves.

However we evaluate ourselves, whatever beliefs and ideas we may develop about ourselves – we ourselves bear the consequences. Because we will then have to live this idea we have about ourselves.

We usually believe that it is only our experiences – the good and the less good – that influence our ways of thinking and acting. This is only partly true – I mean, of course experiences shape us. But much more important for the subsequent shaping is our personal evaluation of the perceptions and experiences we have made. For an impressive imprint a certain form of meaning is necessary. Meanings do not exist „just like that“, a meaning is created by weighting. By different evaluations within a certain context and by the feeling or an emotion that co-creates this evaluation. I have to evaluate things in order for them to have a meaning for me personally. This means that the meaning that any things, situations, people, and diverse experiences have for us is co-determined and shaped by ourselves.

Of course, when we are young and inexperienced, we will usually „blindly“ follow the definitions and evaluations that we have been taught. No matter how good, healthy, disabling, limiting or valuable they are. As we get older, we will probably realize at some point how many of these are not really ours. Then, at some point, we will probably make adjustments and think differently.

For example, if we often had the experience of being criticized as a child, we will develop an „inner critic“ over time. Considering the fact that there is a psychological study that says that a child up to the age of 5 is criticized about 40,000 times, we can safely assume that almost everyone develops an „inner critic“. The „Inner Critic“ emerges as a kind of protective function for the child.

He criticizes with the „good intention“ of sparing the child further criticism, which of course does not work. The Inner Critic is usually associated with a parent’s voice or that of another important caregiver. And what they say must be true, right? We quickly make the experience that we can rarely meet the requirements and so we develop additional feelings of guilt and shame. The heard criticism, together with the emotional reaction in us, leads to an often traumatic impact in our consciousness. The more often this happened, the more often we were criticized, the more often we felt shame about it, the more a conviction structure condenses and bundles itself in us, which approximately says: You are not valuable, you are not enough, you are … blah-blah-blah. We then believe that.

The vehemence and psychological scope of this „inner critic“ may vary individually, but the point is: You create a thought form that will accompany you and tell you unpleasant things about yourself until you start to stop and find a way to stop it. Because – you are hitting yourself …

In eastern spiritual traditions the „monkey mind“ has been blamed for centuries. The „stupid (monkey) mind“ that just does what it wants – as if it had its own life and its own decisions that have nothing to do with you. The solution to this problem was then – just don’t judge anymore. This is in my eyes a very immature idea, because the mind has no own ideas and no own consciousness – it is a function, like a kind of operating system, which does, repeats and executes what WE have given it to work. Our brain works with what it is offered.

And if we keep making devaluations about ourselves, what will keep coming up?

No matter how much other people may criticize you. No one can criticize you as badly, rob you of your own value and strength as you rob yourself. The consequence of this will be that we will be plagued by countless fears, physical tensions and insecurities – which will of course also be triggered by the outer world. The outer world always reflects our inner world in a special way. If you get criticism from the outside, it will most likely bring up the old shame inside you, which reflects the conviction that you are worth nothing. This in turn will throw up another chain of self-critical thoughts, which are usually suppressed as quickly as possible.

As long as we are still unconscious, we will devalue the other and call him an asshole because he makes us feel that way. But it really hits us, because deep inside of us there is a conviction that correlates – even if only a little – with this criticism. That’s why it hurts, because something in us says – that’s right. No matter how wrong that may be. It is inside of us. The person in question may still be an asshole, but he is not responsible for how I feel about it. The statements trigger and activate the content, which we ourselves have already evaluated countless times in this or similar ways (for whatever reason) and also hide it from ourselves. If this is touched, it hurts. If we had no subject with it, it would not hurt so much.

But you only check it after you have worked your ass off on your topic. Not before – as long as we are only focused on the outer world and its dynamics, we are more likely to make classifications and evaluations that are based on a victim and perpetrator spiral. Me, the poor victim and the evil perpetrator.

Sure, from the outside it looks the same in its EFFECT. But there is always a complex dynamic behind it that has unfolded. We can either learn something important about ourselves from it or we simply repeat and repeat and repeat this dynamic. And we will repeat it if we are not aware of it.

I know this has been a very strong example of how you create your own reality. An example that can show us that the esoteric idea that everyone creates their reality quasi-consciously is quite unrealistic. We create a lot of unconscious dynamics and weird behaviors because at some point we just didn’t know better. Because basically nobody taught us how to deal with ourselves. And so it is in most cases, life is based on trial and error dynamics when we know very little about how our own system operates.

As long as we do not deal with our own consciousness and inner world, we simply take for „God-given“ who we are and how we think about ourselves. So much mindfuck accumulates there and also the images and ideas we have about relationships, success, money, politics and thousands of other ideas are based on various evaluations and definitions that we have very rarely questioned. Most of the time they simply do not apply (anymore).

As you can see, we are actually deep inside the topic of „self-love“ (whatever that may mean).

Namely: How do I deal with myself?

How we think about ourselves, how we evaluate ourselves and how we feel with ourselves has an enormous importance for our personal development. It also has a great influence on which connections our brain synapses develop, which ones we expand or whether some of them are broken at all. The state of our brain and all its connections correlate closely with our thoughts and emotions, as well as our actions.

The axis of meaning

We cannot do without ratings!

I have to rate something as great, exciting, important, boring, euphoric, insignificant, desirable, aborting, likeable, good or bad (etc; etc.) in order for it to have this meaning for me at all. Through evaluations, like „yes, I like“ or „no you, don’t bother“. Evaluations, how difficult or easy the respective situation is or was for us to cope with. Ratings, how to deal with it in the future – acceptance, affirmation or avoidance. These evaluations are made on the basis of permanent comparisons between past and present. And they are extrapolated to future developments. This feeds our expectations of how things will happen in the future …

As mentioned above, there are of course also meanings whose context has been shaped by other people or society. Because they are simply taken over and regarded as „given facts“. Every meaning has a kind of weight. How heavy it is depends on how important we consider those who taught and taught us various meanings. But a really strong weight they get from us, if it really concerns us and we make an experience about it. Until then, it has more of an abstract meaning, the weight of which has been shaped by others.

The weighting of a meaning is usually only given when we have experience with it and have repeatedly given the same or at least similar evaluations of it. OR relatively quickly, as soon as we are violently „hit“ by an emotional wave – positive or negative in nature.

EMOTION IS A RESPONSE TO WHATEVER WE BELIEVE IS TRUE

Every emotion and feeling is a reflection of the energy of negative or positive judgement that we have defined and put into it. Emotions are reaction patterns that show us what we believe in. We condition the way we feel. And this means that a feeling or an emotion does not necessarily have to be true. But it feels very, very true. Sometimes so true, so devastating, depressing and depressingly true that you get stuck in it for a long time. You can also forget about the highly praised „gut feeling“ – because that too is based on resonances that have a connection to any kind of meaning and judgement. Sometimes they are correct, sometimes they are just avoidance, rejection or fear. Also „gut feeling“ is something you can only rely on if you are emotionally relatively clear.

Emotions contain a certain definition, the core of which is a wide range of evaluations that have formed into a conviction. This is the origin, the root of all emotions and also the reason why emotions can sometimes be violent and so overwhelming. The content cascade of countless mental and emotional evaluations is so extensive that we can feel overwhelmed by the respective charge of emotion. Emotions are the first and fastest reaction of our system to flush content – i.e. information from the subconscious – upwards. Imagine if all the thoughts and evaluations we have ever made on a topic suddenly appeared in our waking consciousness – I think that would be much more confusing.

That is why I never tire of emphasizing the value of feeling work. When I am „buried“ by emotional things, I sit down and sit with the emotion – I follow it to the center of (my own) hell. At some point the tangle of meaning unravels and I understand the definition behind it. And then I have the opportunity to see – is this now REALLY true? If so, is it still true now? Very often there are unresolved issues that reach far back into childhood. An emotion that hits you now can be an original situation or experience from childhood, with all the definitions given to it, some of which have – even if only slight – similarities to the current situation. The similarity is enough to trigger the emotional field.

Knowing the definition allows me to make a new assessment – either to reinforce and respond to it or to add a new perspective. This allows me to update my emotional content and my evaluation stream. In order for this to work, I have to sit with the emotion in question until it is halfway discharged. Charge = all of the given evaluations and received feelings. Sometimes this happens quickly, sometimes it can take months or even years. If energy has been put into something for years, it does not dissolve overnight.

Our assessments are rarely made by purely cognitive, logical or clear, sober conclusions alone. We judge situations not only by factual and cognitive criteria, but also how we feel about them. How we feel with it in turn directly reflects our underlying thoughts and beliefs. And the respective emotional perception will in turn lead to certain thoughts and evaluations about them. In this way, our beliefs are condensed. All of this flows incessantly into our „subconscious“, this is how we write our story.

We not only evaluate, we also evaluate our evaluations and our emotions in addition. This reinforces the whole pattern even more. So most of our evaluations have become „self-runners“. We do not question them. They simply continue.

We evaluate almost every perception, every thought, every feeling, every emotion:

The sky is blue – feels good. It is raining – rather bad. It is hot – shit. It is cold – shit. I have to go to work – fuck. The neighbor – is friendly, sexy, annoying, exhausting, cheeky, creepy – whatever. I am in a relationship – super. I’m in a relationship – my god, what was I thinking? A look in the mirror shows – I’m too thin, too fat, too big, too small, have too big/small breasts, have too little/too many muscles, everyone else looks better/worse than me.

I like Rock ’n Roll music/all brass music lovers are morons. Classical music is for snobs. My boyfriend/girlfriend has left me – my god, it feels so shitty/ jeez, I’m so glad about that. I have no money in the bank – my life is boring. I have no money in the bank – at least I don’t have any debts.

There are thousands of different evaluations we make about ourselves and things. The beliefs we have accumulated over the course of our lives are so deeply rooted in us that we are not even aware of them. This happens so fast within us that we are very, very rarely consciously aware of it. We simply take them as a given reality and overlook the fact that we ourselves formed this reality. With our evaluations we condition our personal reality and the kind of person we are. How we evaluate ourselves forms the personality we perceive ourselves as. The personality that we are attracts certain experiences because of their belief patterns. So yes, we all create our own reality …

As we evaluate, so do things appear to us. No matter what kind of beliefs we have, they tend to confirm themselves. We always find confirmation of what we believe.

Of course, we always have the choice to say – „well, I don’t like my reality and I’m going to sit in my corner defiantly, it’s not my fault“. Mostly, however, life forces us to continue learning, to adapt and to change. Sometimes in an absolutely unpleasant way – through pain, trauma or we are confronted with difficult diseases. With everything that gives us the opportunity to pause and realize that we have to go INSIDE to face the many challenges of human existence. Mostly we will only emerge stronger if we redefine ourselves.

No matter why we get stuck in something – we ourselves are the root. Only from there change can happen. If we do not change ourselves, our life, our reality, cannot change.

Alright! Then I just start to think differently!

Good luck with it.

Will not work.

Forget it!

I mean, if you don’t have a big issue with it, if you don’t have a serious emotional charge attached to it – then, yes, it can work. At least it’s a small start. But if that’s not the case, you will just have many and long „discussions“ and arguments against one of your „inner voices“. You will not win this fight this way. This is war with yourself and will only aggravate your inner condition.

Our evaluations are a decision from which perspective we choose to see things. Of course, this means that we can make and give other, new decisions, i.e., new evaluations regarding EVERYTHING. But as long as we have not discharged „the old“, as long as we are not clear about the definitions we have made – about whatever – we will be maltreated by the „old stuff“ of our old creation. That is the incredible power we have, we make LIVING and experiencing what we believe. And what we believe in, comes about through our very personal stream of evaluation.

The experience of our human personality is a flowing process that is never really complete, because there are so many possibilities and perspectives that we can experience ourselves again and again. We are not a rigid, fixed matter – it sometimes only appears that way. There is a lot of room to readjust or change that. It is possible to make new, better, clearer evaluations about ourselves. But sometimes this is one of the hardest transformation processes one can undergo.

Refine your inner world and you refine your reality

Basically we are never „finished“ unless we stop learning.

Until next time same station

DISCLAIMER:

Nothing you read here is THE truth. It is my truth, my perception and how I see things – now, in this moment.

THE INFORMATION SPACE

#creation #spiritual

77 notes · View notes

half-man-half-lime · 5 years

Text

On why being dark makes Worm a good power fantasy

Okay I have a tendency to pointlessly and circuitously ramble so I’m just gonna leave a TL;DR up here: Worm shows that the most powerless people in the most hopeless situations can still make a difference through perseverance.

So here and there I’ve seen posts going around (not gonna search and link the various posts I’m referencing in this post, it’s 2 AM and I’m lazy) about why everyone should shut up about people liking lighter works, and how Steven Universe is a great work of escapism because it lets people experience a world where compassion can win wars and make the world a better place. I’m not gonna argue about whether lighter or darker stuff is better, the point of those posts is people can like what they want (also see that one comic I’m not gonna link where stories are balloons and someone makes a heavy iron balloon and drops it into a pit and someone stuck in the muck grabs a hold of it; you know the one).

But that stuff HAS been making me think about why Worm is a good escapist fantasy in a number of ways. My analysis of the Parahumans stories has been kind of sidetracked by the amazing analysis by the We’ve Got Worm/Ward podcast, all that stuff about characterization and themes and shit, it’s great, but all that stuff plus the YBUTTing (You’re Being Unfair To Taylor, basically dismantling her moral justifications and pointing out the negative effect her moral choices have on her and those around her) kind of make you forget the childish, sadistic appeal of a story about a girl who cuts people’s eyes out and is Completely Justified in doing so and also Extremely Clever like a seasoned D&D player. And that stuff is fun, even if it gets less so after too many rereads. (Seriously, I’ve listened to the audiobooks so many times now, I’ve lost count.)

But one thing Matt and Scott and the reddit commenters have discussed is the usefulness of horror story elements as a way of establishing stakes, which brings me to my point: It’s really fucking empowering to see a nerdy teenage girl take down invincible serial killers and bully god to death when she seems like she should have absolutely no way or right to do so.

Like, one of the reasons One Piece was always so appealing to me, something that sort of faded with the power creep and repetition of the same story beats over and over again, is how satisfying it is to see Luffy and pals take down warlords and tyrants a thousand times stronger than them through sheer force of will. What right does this punk-ass kid from the East Blue with stretchy powers have to take down a powerful Fish-Man, or a lightning-slinging self-proclaimed god, or a seasoned undercover assassin with a thirst for blood? But he does it anyway! He works out and trains and shit, and basically wrecks his body sometimes, and in the end, after a lot of screaming and punching, those guys are gone, and he’s still here! Because they had the audacity to hurt his friends, and he and his pals will fucking bully reality into doing what they want if it means stopping people who do those sort of things.

Now the thing about Taylor Hebert is she isn’t strong, not physically. This bullied kid never got super-strength or web-slingers to swing around on, nor the charisma to make quips and piss off the local mad scientists. She’s clever, but not enough to build a laser gun or a giant robot. She controls bugs. Wowee. Like the Stretchy Man, she should by all rights be underwhelming to deal with, but somehow she always seems to make it out alive, her enemies leaving without the eyeballs or prosthetic foreheads they came in with. (Don’t worry, they both got new ones, it just took a while. Well. Not Valefor.)

And that’s cool in a vacuum, but in the Parahumans universe? That’s an accomplishment. The Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine, the horror as stakes, they’re like an uphill battle against a bigger, steeper uphill battle. And Taylor has bugs. She can’t chop Leviathan in half, and if she tries (which she does, to a degree), she risks drowning, being crushed and paralyzed, and being thrown headfirst into a concrete floor all at the same time. So she slinks around the Endbringers, too far away to be stepped on, giving CPR to the fighters wounded in battle; she plots against the Nine and probes for weaknesses, even if it means risking herself and her teammates. She beats the shit out of the genius killer mannequin man, not with fireballs or hundred-ton punches, but with spiderwebs and glue, and in the end, after being wounded and exhausted, tens of people are alive because of what she did.

To compare this to Steven Universe, or the opposite side of Skitter’s coin, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (though sadly SU is a better comparison because on top of the positivity it handles things like abuse and trauma) (woe is me that I’m too lazy to write crossover or toneswap fanfic, between Worm and USG by the way, if you want to do that for me, be my guest (Also a Freaks and Geeks mashup, Worms and Germs)), it’s enormously encouraging that Steven is ultimately able to stop the onslaught of genocidal space empresses, not by punching them, but by appealing to their humanity, a task that his upbringing and challenges completely prepared him for. Doreen Green, in a world of angsty heroes and villains and murder and trauma, can befriend her enemies and stop them by suggesting more fulfilling career goals, or end centuries of interstellar war with a chalk board and a day or two of diplomatic negotiations.

And that’s appealing especially today because a lot of people feel tired of fighting and knowing that no amount of talking or empathy will stop transphobes and Trump supporters from making the world a waking nightmare. And plenty of people are tired of stories of Hopeless Bleak Despair, and want a little compassion in their lives. I get that, I truly do. I enjoy those stories for the same reasons.

BUT, Worm means a lot to me right now too. And it wouldn’t be the same without the pain and suffering. Scaring the Slaughterhouse Nine out of Brockton Bay wouldn’t seem like such an achievement if we didn’t see Brian cut to pieces, doomed to permanent PTSD, while the Undersiders lie paralyzed on the floor, subject to Bonesaw’s torturous whims. The defeat of Behemoth would seem a little more predictable and boring if the Avengers pulled it off in an hour, without hundreds of dead heroes (and thousands more who died in past fights), infighting, and the threat of an ally destroying all of India in a misguided attempt to stop the beast. Mannequin running away from a super-puncher or a fireball-shooter wouldn’t feel like the accomplishment it does coming from the scared teenage girl whose only weapons are some squishy bugs, a knife and baton, and some craft supplies.

Worm presents a world where suffering is everywhere, where the where traumatized, hopeless people can fight and fight and endure endless pain, lose loved ones and body parts, be given just little enough power by those that seek to exploit and hurt them that they shouldn’t be able to fight back, to leverage nothing but pepperspray and spiders against dragons, and, after all that struggling and fighting and pain, actually make the bad guys stop hurting people. (it’s like that Chesterton quote in Coraline that people misattribute to Neil Gaiman, about how fantasy shows us how dragons can be beaten.)

And it’s an upsetting and exhausting story to read, especially binge reading or listening, and it ends in genuine heartbreaking tragedy, yet somehow the victory seems like one of the most earned wins in all of fiction. Nobody should be able to defeat Grieving Golden Jesus or Superdense Hurricane Godzilla, and that’s why it’s so empowering when Taylor Hebert fucking does.

Isn’t that just as reassuring, in a world that seems so hopeless right now, when we all feel so powerless, so tired of struggling? I think so.

#Parahumans #Worm Spoilers #Mild One Piece Spoilers #Steven Universe Spoilers #Mutilation.;#Mild Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Spoilers

81 notes · View notes

organized-chaotic-disaster · 5 years

Text

SUF Spoilers (up to “Homeworld Bound”)

I wanna talk about Steven’s current issues and actions, as somebody who has experienced trauma at the hands of others

Steven’s been angry at his guardians/family a lot lately. He blames them (or appears to) for his problems. Greg for allowing him to live with the Gems and not enforce any hard rules or take him to school or the doctor. The Diamonds for... being the Diamonds, the way they were in the original series. White Diamond specifically for tearing out his gem. He has valid reasons to be angry at these people, but he’s also not handling his emotions in a healthy way. Here’s what I have to say about that, based on my own experience:

When you realize you’ve been traumatized as a result of the actions (or inactions) of others, you want to be mad. You want to blame them for your issues. And you do.

Some people say that Steven’s been acting like an asshole. And I agree that, yes, he’s been doing and saying some shitty things lately. But to those of you who think he’s becoming an ass... you have to realize that he has literally no knowledge of how to deal with these emotions. He doesn’t know how to deal with his trauma. He doesn’t know how to regulate his emotions in a healthy way. Speaking from my own experience... I had that. Before I experienced trauma (or at least the trauma I’m focusing on here), I had other mental health issues that I went to counselling for. I learned coping mechanisms to deal with my emotions. I found resources online with coping mechanisms. I talked to my loved ones about my problems. I surrounded myself in this “recovery lifestyle.” Steven doesn’t have that. He has no idea how to deal with this. All he knows is that he’s scared and confused and experienced trauma at the hands of others

Going back to Steven, he doesn’t want to talk about it to his loved ones because they don’t understand. They’ve shown to him that they don’t understand by their treatment of him. That’s why Steven effectively “cut” Greg out of his life by deleting the picture. The way Greg was treating the situation, both before and after the crash, proved to Steven that he doesn’t understand what he’s going through. Again, I’ve felt the same way. I haven’t properly told my parents about my trauma because it involves context that they would never understand. I don’t talk to certain people (again, my parents) about certain issues of mine because they don’t understand. Thankfully, I have other people in my life who do understand. But Steven doesn’t have that... or, at least, he feels like he doesn’t

On top of all this, Steven’s afraid of himself. Especially after shattering Jasper. He feels out of control with these Diamond powers. He is out of control of these powers. And training with Jasper, he finally felt as though he was getting some control... but even then, he lost it. Yet again, I can relate. I won’t go into too much detail because it’s extremely personal, but let me just say that there are aspects of myself that I am hugely afraid of. Terrified of. I often see myself as a monster. These feelings stem from feelings I had before and unrelated to my trauma, but my trauma makes it even worse

And now we have Steven, feeling like a monster out of control, angry at his loved ones but wanting to protect them from himself. He has no way to cope with his emotions because he doesn’t know how to

In short: the boy needs therapy

#long post #su spoilers #suf spoilers #su #suf #steven universe #steven universe future #I don't really know what else to say here tbh #a lot of what steven's going through is incredibly realistic considering he has no way of knowing how to cope #and considering everything else like his loved ones #I mean I probably definitely missed some stuff #but idk man I'm done for now

26 notes · View notes

donnerpartyofone · 5 years

Text

TL;DR - i finally got an MRI for my ear, which has been fucked up and constantly clogged since september and developed tinnitus in february, and apparently, supposedly, there is nothing wrong with it. so there’s nothing to do about it. so just like with my eye and my skin and my lung and my etc, i have a problem that i can’t do anything about, that i can’t even get the satisfaction of a diagnosis for, and i’m so pissed off about how much time and energy i’ve spent trying to improve things for myself when there was absolutely no point in doing so, that i just want to set my body on fire to really show it what i think of it.

i’m so, so mad. the last couple of months have been almost nothing but wall to wall doctor’s appointments, and with zero exception, they have all been a complete waste of time. it hurts because my body tortures me, of course, but it hurts worse than that because i convinced myself that i HAD to do this, that it was Mature to face my fear of doctors and generally the Right Thing to Do, when i absolutely didn’t want to do any of this at all.

i suffer a lot from an internalized impression of myself as being lazy, defeatist, and dramatic. it comes from a lot of places. i grew up in an environment where i was the only open depression sufferer, under one parent who definitely considered depression to be an antisocial behavioral problem, to be treated like any other shallow cry for attention. i also grew up in an environment full of obvious talents, all of whom would go on to be published, or even public figures, and not to be a complete asshole, but the idea that “you can do anything you put your mind to” is kept alive by people who have the baseline talent necessary to succeed at things they put their minds to. if you subscribe to the idea that success requires nothing other than commitment, then the implication is that all failure is a matter of laziness, petulance, and defeatism--never lack, never inferiority, never ordinariness. on top of all this, my personal interests--horror, sexually graphic media, comics, underground music movements, the usual roundup of morbid or antisocial cultural items--were considered pretty much...well, not very adult. so what i’m coming to is that if i can’t prove my adulthood in any way that has to do with who i am or what i’m capable of, then the very least i can do is Be Responsible. (and of course i get made fun of all the time for being an uptight rule follower but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, LITERALLY WHAT ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO DO)

one of the main ways you can Be Responsible, if you have the means that is, is to look after your health. the world is full of icky, boring, degrading, depersonalizing, and occasionally painful tasks that are necessary to keep the societal cogs turning. if you can’t make art or have ideas or be beautiful or become an athlete or whatever, you can still show that you’re alive and generally hygienic by going to the dmv, voting, showing up for jury selection, or going to the doctor. you can still grasp the final shred of integrity offered to you by doing things no one wants to do, but that we know are necessary for the vitality of self and society. so i’m extra good at doing stuff that people my age frequently shirk--the dentist appointments, the doing your taxes the second the forms come in, etc--because they’re sort of the only things i can do that prove that i’m not, you know, a complete piece of shit.

so this year, at the start of february, i decided i was going to get a real handle on my health. i’d been going to doctors for various things already, of course, even though it was pretty much never satisfying; the only thing i can think of that ever got fixed or explained was the pathological growth of scar tissue over my eyeballs, which required some pretty fucked up surgery. but at this time, i had a lot of problems building up. my left eye developed a small spot, and a constant glare that borders on having double vision. my right ear remained completely stuffed up since i had a cold last fall, and began to ring constantly at the end of the winter. my right lung has felt alarmingly tight and weak for...years actually. the right side of my face is constantly beet red, like i go fresh with somebody’s wife, and i can see how it’s thickening and bending my flesh all out of shape, which rosacea will do progressively and incurably throughout your entire life. i decided that instead of quaking in fear of doctors, and also in fear of wasted time, i was going to straighten my back and go nip this shit in the bud. after all, when you’re miserable but not doing anything about it, people kind of hate you, and then you have THAT problem on top of all your real problems. sometimes you gotta give the people what they want.

so how did it all go?

my skin: since no insurance company considers rosacea a medical problem, which is actually complete fucking bullshit, i decided to take matters into my own hands. i researched what rich people do for their uninsurable problem, and decided to use my recent (traumatic) inheritance to take care of myself. i tried three different preposterously expensive topical treatments that i was told are a “magic bullet” for rosacea, and all of them made my face blow up like a fucking macy’s day balloon. then, after four rounds of extremely expensive, painful and scary laser treatments, i had absolutely no results other than that my face was actually MORE reactive for about a month after the last one. i’m fucked.

my eye: according to my optometrist and ophthalmologist and corneal specialist it’s “just” regular scar tissue from my terrifying surgeries, not the pathological scar tissue that i had to have removed via terrifying surgery and localized chemotherapy. this kind of sucks because it means i can’t just get it removed again, but at least there is a slight chance that my body will reabsorb it like regular scar tissue. (oh yeah? and what’s my luck USUALLY like?) my only “treatment option” is to use eyedrops four times a day, which is actually extremely uncomfortable, and which pretty much means i’m just not allowed to wear makeup ever again.

my lung: after two rounds of clear x-rays and a breathing test that only detected slight asthma, through two GPs and a pulmonologist, nobody has anything to say about why i have this chronic breathing problem. there’s some indication that it might be a “muscular-skeletal problem” that’s putting pressure on the one lung, so i guess i need to add a physical therapist or something to my endless list of specialists.

my ear: two or three trips to urgent care (i forget how many now), two GPs, an ENT, a fucking weird hearing test, and an MRI have done absolutely nothing for me. after a cold with a sinus/ear infection last fall, my right ear remained permanently slammed shut; if i pop it, it closes back up in seconds. i do not have the same problem with the other ear, it is clearly a physical problem. in february, my ear began to ring agonizingly and has not stopped for a second. in all this time, i went through round after round of antibiotics, antihistamines, anti-inflammatories, steroids, etc. nothing works. no one can see any type of problem. apparently i have the option of electing to have a tube surgically inserted into my ear, although i can’t quite figure out what the risk factor is, both for my tinnitus, and for my hearing in general.

and OF COURSE, depression: part of the stigma against depression is that it’s a choice, somehow. like fresh air and exercise and looking on the bright side are so effective that if you’re depressed, it must be because you LIKE IT THAT WAY, because otherwise you would use these simple and free cures for your so-called illness and it would be all over, right? anyway i kind of hate being depressed, and i’ve been working my fucking ass off trying to deal with it. i see a nutritional therapist (a licensed psychiatrist) who prescribed me a number of nutritional supplements that i do think help, but they are unthinkably hard on my stomach. i tried lexapro, and it made me feel so abnormal, and cut into my general quality of life so badly, that i didn’t keep it up. i tried a generic version of wellbutrin, and it made me violently sick to my stomach, and caused my ringing ear to ring deafeningly for days after a single dose. the brand name version wasn’t much better. then i tried lamictal, and felt totally great AND NORMAL for like a week, and then i got the rare and potentially deadly lamictal rash. sometimes this just indicates a basic allergy, and sometimes it indicates Stevens-Johnson Syndrome which causes something called TOXIC EPIDERMAL NECROLYSIS WHICH REQUIRES LONG TERM HOSPITALIZATION TO GROW YOUR SKIN BACK. i had to deal with this on the day of mandatory final exam presentations in a class where i was already struggling, and this was one of the darkest days i can recently remember. after this, my psychiatrist tried to prescribe me abilify, but after i started to hear about the side effects and personal testimony of certain friends, i decided i couldn’t handle it. very possibly, i just cannot be medicated for depression, unless i’m willing to sacrifice everything else around the depression too.

...this is all pretty much a retread of an experience i had for a few years, a few years ago, where i was having these abnormal paps, so they constantly had to drill painful core samples out of my cervix to keep checking up on the NOTHING that was going on in there, until one day they were just like...uh your tests are coming back fine now, and we don’t know why they didn’t before, and it just doesn’t matter, you don’t have to do this anymore PLUS you could have just been sitting on your couch jerking off this entire time and it would have done exactly as much good as this cycle of being humiliated and tortured by doctors in a while that leaves you curled up in a ball sobbing every time. i’m still pretty pissed off about it, if you can’t tell.

so like i don’t know why the fuck i’m doing all this. i don’t know why i do anything. nothing fucking comes from even my most herculean effort except a relentless sense of mystery that is starting to border on satire. i don’t know why i have so many problems. i’m 38 years old and i’m in ok shape. i don’t have generalized immune issues or anything. my doctor said i have some of the best lab work she’s ever seen. why the fuck does all this shit happen to me. i’m trying so fucking hard to enjoy my life. it’s hard to be in mental and physical pain all the time, the latter for absolutely no coherent reason. i mean i’d rather have a bunch of random problems than like, lupus or MS or something, for sure, but everything that happens to me is so meaningless and arbitrary, i’m starting to get that feeling like god hates me. it’s also hard to have the constant feeling that so many people think that failure to enjoy life is exclusively a matter of “not trying hard enough”, being a pill, looking for attention. i don’t know what to do anymore. i’m real pissed. i think what i need is a change of philosophy, which will be a long hard road. at least i know it’s the one and only area where i, and only i, have some level of control. wish me luck.

#long post

13 notes · View notes

tumblunni · 6 years

Text

OH FUCK U GUYS SHOULD I BUY ALL THE KINDGOM HEARTS IN A ONCENESS???

Holy jesus i knew they did hd ps4 ports of the playstation games but they ALSO added all the final mix content that engkishspeaking fans never got during my childhood? And they ALSO remade chain of memories entireky in 3d with Very Animated Ice Dad?? And they ALSO remade BBS despite it not needing it nearly as much as the old games and thet ALSO remade friggin dream drop distance which came out on a goddamn current gen console?? Like they seriously just made a non portable version?? Now all the spinoffs are on the same console at last?? Why did you not just do this in the first place?? I mean the psp and 3ds games were basically ps2 equivelant graphics and disc space anyway...

Oh and fuckin ALLLLSOOOOO

Also the final mixes of all of those! Also a movie version of the plot of khux! And also Coded and Days, which is a really big shame cos Coded is indeed sparse enough on content to deserve it but Days was my FAVOURITE GAME and it sucks its the only one that didnt get remade! I mean its in the same spinoff category as bbs and com, its not a cheapo mess like coded. Nothing else in the series deserves to be shoved in the Coded bin, even khux at least has better plot even if the backtracking and lootbox shit makes it harder to get to it...

Anyway ALSO a random new sidestory with Aqua going thru like one dungeon or somethin?? I dunno?? Its like a glorified tech demo for kh3, its just 'hey fuckin look what we can do visually on a proper ps4 game' and wow how have i never fuckin heard of this it looks so pretty!! I mean i dont know if its even more than 5 hours or somethin but.. Pretty!! And apparantly you get unlockable costumes for her or somethin? I hope they keep that feature in kh3! Itd rock if it wasnt just the main character too, and we could dress up riku and kairi and goofy and donald and roxas and axel and every the friends :3 new secret to how they defeat xehanort: slap a bow on his damn head

ALSO ALSO

All of this is available in one big bundle pack for £90 which ALSO contains literally kh3. THIS IS HOW THEYRE HANDLING PREORDERS?? THATS SUCH A GOOD WAY TO HANDLE PREORDERS!! Get a discounted price on this new game but while youre waiting for it you get to enjoy an (also discounted) giant fuckin 300 hours memory lane compilation of every damn thing from the last 15 years in one beautiful updated package. Holy fuck its like they made this for ME SPECIFICALLY!this is the perfect way to get people back into the franchise who dropped off in The Great KH3 Wait cos they couldnt afford all the damn million portables needed to gather that Dank Lore. God fuckin hell it cost more than the price of this bundle just to play any one of those games individually on some stupid retro machine i bought exclusively for that one damn game. THAT PSP STILL ROTS IN MY KITCHEN CUPBOARD YO

So so so so so

Guys

Please give me permission to buy this

Or like please convince me not to waste my money if you think i'd waste my money??

I really just DONT KNOW! ive been out of the fandom for so long and my last experience was really hatting BBS and feeling horribly out of place as everyone else raved about it being the best thing ever. And i know NOTHING about what kh3 is gonna be or whether its even possible for me to get back into the fandom and like.. Care about it at all again. I just got fuckin fatigued with it and my teenage years were like me clinging on to the edge of a cliff by my fingernails begging everyone to believe me that Its Still Good, Honestly, Its Worth It while square enix is up there all LONG LIVE THE KING and they push me off. Into a stampede of PSPs. Somehow.

And then aaargh i know i literally only came back to the fandom because organization xiii fuckin eternally holds my heart in their lil grabby hands. It was indeed a good nostalgic moment remembering how i loved them! And getting a new appreciation for Vexen and being blown away by how much he should have been my favourite but i just never got to play COM as a kid and then when i played it as an adult all the way after bbs i ended up quitting before even getting to meet half the org cos this one stupid 'defeat 99 shadows jn 99 seconds' mission kicked my ass. I'M JUST NOT GOOD AT ACTION RPGS OKAY!

Aaaagh thats another Big Worry, yknow? Like asa kid i was Bad, as an adult i'm Barely Better , and as a both i never enjoyed beat em up thingies of any kind at all. And on top of that i was never big into disney, i never saw them as any sort of 'childhood magic' but just some naff cliche shit retelling public domain fairy tales in the safest way possible with a bunch of obnoxious celebrity cameos. Also lion king and snow white terrified me as a kid. Also i associated robin hood with my dead grandma. Also as a kid i couldnt appreciate good artistic ability or voiceacting, i was all about the story, yknow? And most of kh's adaptations are really rushed and barebones versions of an already shoddy story, without any of the visual splendor. ALSO i never saw any of the darker or more emotionally focused stuff like Hunchback and Beauty and the Beast until way after i quit playing kingdom hearts, oddly enough. Wtf beauty and thebeast is actually real good and looks so far beyond its time!! Wtf hunchback has my goddamn evil dad in it!! Why did i miss the only good didneys!! Why did snow white traumatize me and those didnt!!

ANYWAY the point im getting at is that im not inherantly predisposed to like.. Any of kingdom hearts's appeal at all. I didnt know half the disneys and i didnt have any hype for the others. None of my fave final fantasy games made it into it until the sequel and then never again after that. CMON I CANT JUST DEAL WITH ONE VIVI CAMEO Y'ALL! And i haaaate the genre and its an uphill struggle to play a game like that with my stupid inelegant sausage hands. So i just came for the story and then everything after the first game has been conspiring to ruin it for me, sheesh! I felt so much for that short concise self contained first episode and then i fall more and more out of love as they establish this status quo of everything being retconnable so dont bother get attatched to it. Blablabla the entire worldbuilding is different now and everyone was secretly someone else and please memorize a bunch of shit from fifty fuckin spinoffs and also time travel and cloning suddenly exist and ALSO Grandpa Onlyblackmanintheworld is generic motiveless evil and everything was him even of it looked like it was actually a sympathetic villain. *insert dio meme face*

So yeah now im just.. In it for the characters?? And the cute art style and monsters and lovely animations and big fanfic oc potentials stuff. But man even tho i had Big Feel for those things i was able to completely drop it all and forget about the series for years, that was just HOW BAD the kh3 drought was. Steven universe hiatus eat your heart out...

So ffff i dont even KNOW if i'll be able to get feels'd for these characters again or if they actually hold up to modern bunni standards of huggable. And i know all the ones i want to hug the most got like zero sympathy and all died horribly and were also retroactively revealed to be clone oldmanvirus somethingy and aaaaaagh. But also something something people say they all came back and got cured?? And this is why?? I am here?? Again?? And buying?? The thing??

Like man fuck i am already building it up so much in my head aaaa what if i dont actually love axel as much as i used to love axel and i dont love Grumply Science as much as i always love That Character Archetype seriously MAN how was he like THE ONLY ONE I DIDNT GET TO SEE AS A KID

Aaauuuuaggh gahhh like maybe this will reignite my passion for the series or maybe i'll just be all critical and dumb and waste all my moneys

Guys... What do??

#tho i mean i did see the five seconds of vexen u get in days and i know generally what he's like from wikis and fanart #i just mean that i dont know how he really is in his actual starring game and whether any of the sympathetic dadness is canon #plz do #i wanna cry for dad #i mean u made me suddenly cry for saix and ship him with axel as soon as all that stuff was revealed in bbs #i also never finished bbs so i dont know how much we got to learn about apprentice era vexen and baby zexion #like is it actually canon that vexen was his fathee figure? do you actyally see them being cute?#or are people just theorizing?#its so hard to know whats theories in this fandom cos when u waited for a sequel for almost a decade there are a lot of theories lol

3 notes · View notes

tilltheendwilliwrite · 7 years

Text

Canadian Girl

Chapter Twelve

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC | Word Count:4515 Warnings: Swearing, mild violence, implied abusive former relationship, stereotyping of Canadians (I'm allowed, I am one)

A/N: For those who are familiar with, or have been to the Canadian Finals Rodeo please note, I have taken artistic license on a few things. I am aware that not everything portrayed is correct. That's why it's called Fiction.

Jonas was still reeling a few days later as he watched the two Americans unload the three bulls from the trailer into the pens. Matt, Natasha, and Kennedy were dealing with the horses, but watching Steve and Bucky was both amusing and amazing.

The two men knew absolutely nothing when it came to bulls. They were decent with the horses, but the bulls were completely new.

He’d warned them to watch out for the Brahma.

Cyclone had a wicked temper, wasn’t afraid to gore you through the fence if he could, and of course, he’d tried, but Bucky with that metal arm had simply grabbed the animal by the horn and given it a shove which had skidded the big bull backwards, nearly bowling him right over. Every day since Cyclone kept a wary eye on Bucky, and Bucky kept one on the bull.

Steve had had his own run-in with one of the old males, a breeding bull by the name of Jacks All In. It had charged him in the paddock, but Cap had only turned around and punched him square between the eyes. The massive black bull had toppled over stunned, gotten up, shaken himself off, and followed Steve docile as a kitten around the pen afterwards.

Thank the good lord the bull wasn’t one he needed to buck anymore, cause he doubted he would. Cap had punched the ornery right out of him.

They definitely did things differently, but, after the second day, he’d worried less about the men and more about his livestock. Long as neither of them punched one of his prize bulls, the rank ones no one could ride, they’d be okay.

They both sat a horse reasonably well. Diamond was quite taken with Bucky, and Steve had gotten up on Rocky.

He was struck with the fact that they would have used horses on occasion back during the war. After spending half a week with the two men, it was hard to remember they’d come from a different era.

Now, Natasha, on the other hand, was a little ball of fire. She really knew nothing about livestock, but Kennedy had taken her under her wing, and the two had bonded fairly quickly, much to his daughter’s surprise. It was no secret Kennedy was self-conscious, but between Steve’s constant attention – something he was so not ready to see – Bucky’s brand of teasing, and Natasha’s boundless enthusiasm, they were dragging her back out of the shell she’d hidden in.

Kennedy’s relationship with Carl stuck in his craw something fierce.

He’d known something was wrong there, had for months, hell, years before she’d finally come home after graduation looking like death.

She was a completely different person.

His exuberant, outgoing Kennedy had become a shadow of herself.

They’d had to practically force her to eat, and it had taken weeks for Mary to convince her to confide in what had gone down. All Kennedy had said when she’d come home was that it was over, she had broken up with Carl. Even now he was sure there were things she’d told Mary, Mary had never told him, likely to keep him from up and killing Carl.

But now she had Steve. Captain freaking America. Dear lord! If the man married his daughter, he was going to be related to a superhero! Hell, the wedding they’d have to throw because, holy jumpin’s, just how many other superheroes would show up?

Shaking his head, he pushed those thoughts away as too much, too soon. He refused to giggle like a fangirl at the prospect of getting to meet Thor! He clenched his fists to hold back the excited ‘eee’ which wanted to slip out.

Clearing his throat, he glanced around to make sure everything was still under control and turned his thoughts to Fury’s proposal.

The man had been one scary S.O.B. Between the black clothes and the eye patch, Jonas had taken one look at the man stomping his way towards the door and stiffened his spine. Yet, here too, he’d found a completely different person than what he’d expected, kind of like Stark, in that though he was gruff and a bit intimidating, Fury had a good head on his shoulders and had come offering them what seemed like an interesting idea.

With the size of the land and house, would they be interested in allowing the newly reformed SHIELD program to use their property as a base of operations. Nothing big, mind you, but a place to do wilderness training for the newer recruits, as well as possibly housing those agents who needed a place to recover after a severe traumatic event. They’d build a small training facility away from the house and barns but wondered if the Canadians would extend their hospitality to those who were injured, allowing them a comfortable and completely normal environment to spend their recuperation. Of course, SHIELD would pay them for their cooperation, stay as much out of their way as possible, and provide needed security for their family.

Mary had always wanted to run a bed and breakfast, and the boys had both been making plans to build their own homes on the property now that they had growing families, so the big house would have been sitting empty. He’d asked to think about it, talk it over with his family, but he was leaning towards saying yes. Hydra was a threat to all of them now.

At dinner a few nights back when all the family had gathered, they’d finally convinced Joan and Daniel it was time they moved out with them. While Joan’s medical was covered, it was getting harder for her to get around and Daniel worked from home more often than not. It wouldn’t be a hardship to transform a chunk of the house into their space, and this way all of the family was safe and the worry he saw in Kennedy’s eyes would disappear.

A clang had him snapping his eyes to the boys as Bucky shut the gates and Steve closed up the trailer. Matt, Kenny, and Nat were doing the same, and he clapped his hands together, turning toward George Malin, this year’s organizer of all things CFR. “There we go.”

George opened and closed his mouth a few times before peering at Jonas. “Jones is that… are those… are they…the Avengers?”

“Hm?” He glanced at the boys as Steve helped Kennedy down off the fence. “Nah! That would be crazy!”

The only one who could wear a cowboy hat with any confidence was Natasha, so Steve and Bucky had stuck to ball caps. Bucky’s long sleeved shirt hid the metal of his arm, as did the leather gloves he wore, while Steve had popped on a pair of thick-framed glasses.

He’d heard his daughter whisper something about how he’d made being a nerd sexy. He’d didn’t even want to know. Just like how he didn’t want to know Steve spent every night in his daughter’s room, or how he was staying in her hotel room either. Those were things no daddy needed to know about.

“Ha… yeah… what was I thinking?” George murmured. “What would the Avengers be doing at CFR, right?”

***

Kennedy’s hair was braided into two pigtails which stuck out the bottom of her hat.

Steve gave one a gentle tug. “Pretty cute, Doc.”

She had her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans, a belt with more glitter on it than he’d ever expected to see her wear, and a pink and white gingham shirt tied beneath her breasts over her white tank top. She was the epitome of a cowgirl right down to her sexy white hat.

He wanted nothing more than to squeeze her ass in those tight jeans but resigned himself to hands on her waist. “There’s my cowgirl.”

“You call me a filly, Steven, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes while Natasha laughed.

“I would never dream of it, doll.” He grinned down at her before ducking beneath her hat and kissing her mouth.

She’d made them all go shopping, a rather… interesting experience, kitting them out at a western apparel store, so they didn’t stick out quite so badly behind the chutes.

All three had gotten a crash course in rodeo 101, and with Nat’s talents, she’d blended in beautifully. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if she got on a horse and ran the barrels.

He and Bucky were doing an adequate job of blending in, though they’d both refused the cowboy boots she’d wanted to put them in. The bottoms were just too slick to make for decent footing if something went wrong, and they had stuck to their combat boots. Both pairs were so worn down, so comfortable, Jonas didn’t think it would matter. Steel toes to work with the bulls wasn’t a farfetched story.

They’d be here most of a week, and Steve was finding the looser fit of the button down shirt he was in kind of nice. Currently, his was navy, Bucky’s was black, both had names of rodeo-related sponsors down the arms and across the shoulders. They’d been given jeans Kennedy said they were a necessity.

Apparently, if his ass didn’t say Wrangler, it would be some kind of rodeo faux pas.

Considering Kennedy had swallowed really hard when he’d walked out of the dressing room and couldn’t pull her eyes from his butt, he wasn’t averse to having his clothes changed.

“What now, doll?” he asked softly.

***

They were later in their arrival on that Tuesday evening thanks to the snow they’d come through, but the events weren’t due to start till the next day.

“Dad will want to visit with the other stock contractors and Matt while likely stay with him but…” She bit her lip and glanced at Nat and Bucky. “You guys want to hit the Roadhouse?”

The rodeo’s after-party bar would likely be up and running already for the competitors, even a day early, and they could go have some fun. It wasn’t all work when you came to these things after all.

“Roadhouse? Like the movie?” Bucky asked his grin a tad cheeky.

Laughing, Kennedy shook her head. “I guess it depends on how drunk everyone is.” As a girl, she’d adored Patrick Swayze, so she knew that title well. “It will be fun.”

“You do know we can’t get drunk, right?” Steve smirked down at her.

“But I can! I’m in!” Nat whooped and jumped up beside Jonas. “Hey, Uncle Jonas, Kenny’s going to take us to the Roadhouse!” Sweeping her hat from her head, she bussed him a kiss on his cheek and slipped a panic button in his pocket. “Push that if you need us,” she whispered in his ear, before giggling and looking up at Matt. “You comin’, cuz?”

Why she’d ever thought Nat was intimidating, Kennedy couldn’t remember. Formidable. Strong willed. Tough. Those were words which fit the redhead best. It was Nat’s confidence in herself which made her intimidating, and the woman had been more than willing to help Kennedy find hers again. Natasha was just… awesome, and had become an inspiration to Kenny in a lot of ways. She liked Nat, had found a friend, and the two of them were a bit more alike than she would have ever guessed. They liked to tease and joke and had quick tongues

Matt blinked down at Nat once and slowly shook his head. “My wife would kill me. I’ll stay with dad.” He glanced at Steve and nodded. “Do not let her drink tequila.”

“Hey!” Kennedy huffed.

“Do not make me remind you what happened last time.” Matt pointed his finger at her. “The words from that song suit you just fine, Kenny!”

“Rude!” she huffed.

Nat giggled, evidently having heard the song Tequila makes her clothes come off, but Steve and Bucky looked confused.

She was of no mind to enlighten them.

Chuckling, George tugged six passes from his bag. “Here’s your passes. Get you in where you need to go.”

Taking them from him, Nat smiled as she plucked out four, passing the rest to Matt. “Let’s go!” She jumped down and handed them off to the others.

“We’ll move this trailer and take the truck, dad. See you in the morning!” Kennedy chirped and waved, bounding around the front, climbing in to drive. The other’s followed suit and twenty minutes later, and one very cold walk through the parking lot, she was dragging them through the door of the loud and noisy dance hall. “I haven’t been here in years!”

Nat grinned at Kennedy and took her hand. “There’s a mechanical bull!”

Laughing, Kennedy nodded. “You should try it!”

Smacking her hand into Bucky’s abs, Nat snickered, “He should try it… and use the left arm.”

“That would be cheatin’, doll,” Bucky smirked.

“Besides, he’d pick up so many buckle bunnies we’d need to de-fluff him to take him home,” Kennedy chuckled.

“Explain buckle bunny?” Bucky asked, his grin smug.

Kennedy only looked at him. “No.”

“Ah, doll. That’s mean.” He pouted.

She only narrowed her eyes. “No skanks, Bucky. That’s just… ew.” She shivered in disgust. “We’d have to delouse you before you could get back in the truck.”

Natasha burst out laughing and made her smile.

“Don’t worry, baby. He’s just teasing.” Steve murmured in her ear and grinned at Buck.

She smiled back at Steven.

Late one night, he’d explained a bit about Bucky. How his friend had had his share of women over the years, but Bucky wasn’t like that anymore. He may joke and laugh about it, but the nature of Bucky’s time with Hydra had ingrained in him too many scars for the man to be comfortable letting just anyone crawl between his sheets. It was why he flirted and joked so easily with her.

She was, apparently, safe because she would scoff at him and wave him off as being ridiculous. She was safe for Buck to flirt with because nothing would ever come of it, but it gave him a sense of normality, a link to his past self. She’d silently vowed, then and there, to always be Bucky’s friend, and if that meant suffering his teasing ways, so be it.

“Guess you’ll just have to buy me a beer, doll face,” Bucky smirked at her and caught the keys when she tossed them at him. “What are these for?”

“Someone’s got to be sober enough to drive. As neither of you can get drunk…” She let the ending hang and dashed into the party hand in hand with Nat.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“This could be a really long night,” Bucky sighed softly, stalking after the two giggling reds.

***

It was more fun than she’d had in… Kennedy couldn’t remember how long. Being out of the lab, her project finished and not having selected a new one, gave her a freedom she hadn’t had in years. She drank, she laughed, she dragged Steven out to dance with her, both fast songs and slow. She’d taught Bucky to line dance, went through a line of shots with Natasha – a very bad idea – and managed to get Steven on the mechanical bull.

It was cake for the super soldier in the hat and glasses, but man. His muscles had been all flexy in his arms and legs. And that ass. So hot. Of course, when he’d dismounted like he’d been bull riding all his life, landing lightly on his feet, he’d been instantly surrounded by a host of fluffy women.

How shocked they were when he walked through them, up to her, and had taken her mouth in a possessive, nearly brutal, kiss. It was glorious!

She’d watched Natasha flirt her way through a line of cowboys, dance, drink, and she was nearly sure she’d heard her conversing with Bucky in Russian at one point. Not that she knew Russian, but Kennedy was pretty sure it hadn’t been English.

She’d dragged Bucky out on the dance floor too, learning his smooth, debonair included fancy footwork as well. It made her laugh when he’d dipped her, spun her, and two-stepped her around the room with ease. After, he’d had a host of dance partner’s offer, but he’d stuck to mainly her and Natasha. It wasn’t exactly difficult to feel the difference in his two hands.

A couple of times people came up and casually made mention they sure looked like Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Natasha Romanoff.

All three just played it off like it happened all the time. After all, what would the Avengers be doing at the Canadian Finals Rodeo?

It made people chuckle and continue on their way.

Now, a few hours in, she was hot, sweaty, and damn did she have to pee. Seeing Natasha heading that way as well, Kennedy was quick to catch up. “Well?”

“Okay. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun when it didn’t include guns, torture, or kicking a little ass!” Nat laughed happily, linking arms with Kennedy.

Taken only a little aback, Kennedy chuckled. “You’re kind of scary when you just throw that stuff out there, you know.”

“Meh.” Nat shrugged. “You’ll get used to it.”

Snickering softly, they rounded the corner to where the washrooms were when Kennedy jerked Nat to a stop so quickly it had the former assassin reaching for the knife hidden in her belt.

“Kennedy?” Nat asked.

She knew she’d paled to a ghostly white. All because of the man striding towards them. “Carl…” Kennedy whispered.

***

Natasha was quick to step between Kennedy and Carl, the whisper from her friend one of intense fear. Old fear. A fear which still plagued the doc.

“Well, if it isn’t Kennedy Jones.”

The man walked like a used car salesman, all rolling gate and slick smile. His cowboy hat was tilted back so she could see the eyes which assessed first her, then flicked past to latch on Kennedy.

She could say with honesty he was handsome. He had a chiselled face, square jaw with high cheekbones, and dark eyes which seemed to see right through you. Dark brown hair curled around the edge of his hat, a black one – fitting for a villain or so Nat thought.

Raking her eyes down his form, she smirked a little. Lean, strong with it, but no match for her.

Steve would break him in half.

It wasn’t a wonder why Kennedy had been sucked in by his pretty face, but he made Natasha’s skin crawl.

Unlike Steve, she knew a bit more about Carl and what the man had done to make Kennedy pull away from the world. Women talked to other women who’d experienced similar things with a lot more freedom than they would their lover.

This was a man who needed an ass-kicking.

Natasha was more than happy to give it to him. “Walk away, Kennedy.”

“Nat…” Kennedy crossed her arms, holding her elbows, shaking with each step he took toward them.

“Oh but Kennedy and I need to catch up, don’t we, Kenny?” He glared at her, but Natasha wasn’t about to move out of the way.

“There’s nothing to say, Carl,” Kennedy murmured, voice much weaker than Nat would have liked.

Sneering, he snarled, “But there’s so much to talk about, darling.” He made to reach past her.

Nat just smacked his hand away.

“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Kennedy’s friend and right now your worst nightmare if you don’t back the fuck up, buddy!” She could smell the booze on him. It wasn’t all courtesy of the bottle in his hand.

“Nat... don’t,” Kennedy said. “I’m not your darling, Carl. Not anymore. Not in five years.”

“And whose choice was that, darling? I sure didn’t say we were through. And just look at you. How you’ve let yourself go.” He tsked softly, taking his eyes over her body.

Natasha could almost feel her withdrawing, Kennedy pulling inside herself with each nasty word. “You do not listen to him, Kennedy! You’re perfect just the way you are. Just the way Steve loves you!”

“Steve!?” Carl looked shocked and betrayed. “You’re cheating now, too, Kenny? Whatever were you thinking? I’ll have to reprimand you for it.” His hand dropped to the big buckle on his belt and ran his fingers over it.

The implications had her seeing red. “Touch her, and it will be the last mistake you ever make,” Natasha growled.

***

That move would have once thrown her into a panic, but Kennedy wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she took a deep breath and thought about Steven.

He was so much more than Carl. Brave, strong, kind. He was a man she was proud to call her lover, and Captain America or not, he was a good man. He was nothing like Carl. He showed her every night just how much he loved her. He liked her soft and a little squishy. He liked how she was a little aggressive in bed and would feed his kink. He liked that she had sass and a smart mouth. And most of all... he loved her.

Straightening up, Kennedy let a shit-eating grin cross her face while placing a hand on Natasha's shoulder. “You should go, Carl, before you embarrass yourself. You’re nothing to me anymore. I have a man who loves me for me and isn’t afraid to show it. He’s so much more than you ever were.” Smirking, she made to walk past him because man did she have to pee.

Nat’s smirk was so proud it made Kennedy blush. Still, the redhead kept her body between them.

“Bitch! You always were a fat fuck, dead fish lay! I bet you found another fat fuck to hump you at night,” Carl snarled, stalking after them.

Turning her head, Natasha smiled. It was a look so potent, so clearly flirtatious, but so evil at the same time, it made Carl falter. It was her widow smile. The one that said she’d eat him alive for the fun of it. “Oh, I wouldn’t say Steve was fat, would you... Bucky?”

Kennedy froze before turning slowly around.

Standing behind Carl only a few feet away was Bucky, grinning madly, and a furious Steve.

“Steven...”

He was practically seething, his jaw was so tightly clenched it had a muscle ticking in it. “What did you just say about my girl?” Steve's knuckles cracked when he flexed them.

Carl’s eyes nearly bugged out when he caught sight of the two super soldiers who had appeared silently behind him. “I...”

“You’re going to want to walk away, right the fuck now,” Bucky said, his smile never faltering.

Glaring at the idiot, Steve stalked past him to pull her in close and cup her cheek. “Are you alright, baby?”

Nat’s miracle bruise cream had done wonders for the shiner she had sported, and makeup had done the rest, so she knew she looked okay, even if his eyes lingered.

“I’m fine, Steven.” She smiled shyly up at him. “Carl can’t get to me anymore. I’ve seen him for what he truly is.” She glanced at Carl, looking small in comparison to the two soldiers with her. “A small, pathetic excuse for a man. He's nothing compared to you. Nothing.”

The pride on his face was evident when he leaned down and kissed her. “Perfect, doll face. That’s my Canadian girl.”

Anger twisted Carl’s features as he lunged toward them. “Get your hands off her!”

Bucky plucked the bottle Carl had raised out of his hand, but it was Natasha who kicked him. Once in the gut and a second time square in the chest, knocking Carl into the wall.

“You want us to hand him off to security, Cap? Or should we just toss his stupid ass out in the snow?” Nat asked.

***

Steve had seen it coming a mile away, hadn’t even bothered to flinch because Bucky and Nat always had his back, but Kennedy had recoiled in a way which had his jaw clenching again. Just what hadn't she told him about Carl? “He never laid a hand on her, so the snow is your best option. Other than being drunk and stupid there is nothing to charge him with.”

“I’m on it,” Bucky said, grabbing the stunned idiot by the back of his shirt.

“Steven?” Kennedy whispered as Bucky dragged the protesting Carl away.

“Yeah, baby?” He gently stroked his fingers over her cheek, so proud of how she’d stood up to her ex.

“I really need to use the ladies room.”

He snickered before letting her go. “I’ll wait right here for both of you.” He nodded to Natasha, more grateful than he could currently express as Kennedy darted through the door.

***

Bucky thrust open the exit and dumped dumbass outside. Keeping his foot in the doorway so he could get back in, he crouched down beside the man who was clearly hurting from the power of Nat's kicks.

She sure hadn't been inclined to pull her punches with this one.

“You’re a lucky fellow, you know that?” he said to Carl, slowly beginning to peel the glove from his hand.

“Fuck... you,” Carl wheezed.

“How do I figure, you ask? Well, let me explain something to you. You see, Kennedy is a special girl, and my best friend loves her a hell of a lot. So much so that he wasn’t about to take away her victory over the abuser she escaped by taking matters into his own hands and beating you bloody.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out Carl had hurt Kennedy. Maybe not physically, but he'd scarred her emotionally for sure. Although, with the way she’d recoiled it was a fair guess the fucker had hit her at some point.

“Now me, on the other hand, if Kenny was my girl and I heard someone call her a... what was it? Fat fuck, dead fish lay... I’d a snapped his neck.” Flexing the fingers of his vibranium hand, he picked up the bottle Carl had tried to swing at Steve, turned it to pour what beer remained into the snow, and crushed it, grinding it down to little more than dust. “This will be your only warning. Come near Kennedy again, and it will be the last mistake you make. I am very, very good at my job.” Dusting his hand off on Carl’s shoulder, Bucky squeezed it tightly until the bones ground together and the man hollered. “You have a good night. Best you don't come back inside.”

Getting to his feet, Bucky tugged the glove back on and returned inside, making sure the door snicked shut behind him.

Carl’s pass had read rodeo doctor.

He’d be making damn sure to keep an eye out for Dr. Carl Stephenson. The man reeked of trouble.

Next Chapter

#canadian girl #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america #captain america fanfiction #avengers #avengers au #avengers fanfiction

137 notes · View notes

minijenn · 7 years

Note

89. The heroes' reaction to Lapis wanting to hunt down Bill.

Lapis let out a deep breath, her expression tight inunreadable contemplation as Mabel and Steven finished telling her the fullstory. As a heavy silence filled the barn, the blue Gem did briefly shift hergaze over to Dipper, who had been leaning against the entryway the entire time,silent and sullen and clearly wanting no parts of recounting his own traumaticexperience at the hands of the sadistic dream demon. And after a moment oftaking it all in, Lapis was quick to realize that she was going to have noparts in simply accepting it. “We have to go after him,” she said, her tonerigid as she rose to stand.

This bold statement alone was enough to stun Steven andMabel into silence as they exchanged a bewildered glance, but no one was moresurprised by the blue Gem’s resolve than Dipper. “What?” he finally spoke up,looking to Lapis incredulously.

“You heard me,” she said, her tone cold as she walked overto him. “I want to go hunt down that… that monsterand make him pay for what he did to you!”

For a moment, Dipper couldn’t even think of anything to sayto this ambitious plan, but when he did respond to it, he already showedinitial hesitation towards it. “Lapis… I… I don’t-”

“Now, hold on just a minute!” Ford interrupted as he rushedinto the barn with Peridot trailing not too far behind him. Though the pair hadbeen working on an experiment outside, but due to their close proximity to thebarn, they had been able to eavesdrop on most of the conversation well enough.And while Ford hadn’t wanted to get involved earlier, considering the nature ofit all, he had no choice but to intervene now. “Lapis, please tell me youaren’t serious. Going up against Bill by yourself would be a suicide mission,even for a Gem as powerful as you! Believe me, I would know; I’ve been at itfor years myself.”

“I don’t care!” Lapis argued fiercely, placing a firm handon Dipper’s shoulder. “Steven and Mabel told me everything! They told me howthis Bull guy tricked Dipper and forced him out of his own body! They said henearly ended up hurting all three of the kids. Who knows, maybe he would ended upkilling all of them if they hadn’t stopped him!”

“Lapis?” Dipper attempted to interrupt, but the blue Gemwent on regardless.

“And even now, Dipper’s stillhurting from it all,” Lapis seethed, her grip on his shoulders tighteningprotectively. “And I know what that feels like! It’s awful. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to feel like that, especially not him.”

“Lapis-” Dipper tried again, only to be cut off by Ford thistime.

“I understand that,” the author said, his tone as level asit could be. “Believe me, I do. But I also understand that you’ll never makeany headway against a being like Bill by being reckless and rash. You wouldneed some kind of strategy or plan to deal with him, and even then I wouldn’trecommend it. It’s just too dangerous!”

“So what if it is?!” the blue Gem retorted adamantly. “I’mmore than willing to do whatever it takes to put that demon in his place! Iwasn’t there to protect Dipper from him before, but I’m sure as hell going toprotect him now, no matter what I have to do! And from the looks of it, I’m theonly one who feels that way!”

“Lapis!” Dipper finally cut in before Ford could even offera heated response. Both the blue Gem and the author were silent as they lookedto him, quite surprised at just how upset he seemed to be. “Look,” Dipper beganagain, letting out a long, tired sigh as he shoved his hands into his vestpockets. “Lapis, I’m like, super touched that you want to go after Bill justfor me, but… you can’t.”

“What? Why not?” Lapis asked, her expression still bitter asshe raised an eyebrow at him.

Dipper simply shook his head, his tone intent and earnest ashe decided to give the blue Gem the truth. After all, if there was anythingthat they two of them had always been with each other, it was honest. “Because…because I don’t want you to! If you were right about one thing, it was that weall could have gotten really hurt because of Bill. And if any of us had gottenhurt… then it would have been all my fault since I was the one dumb enough tomake a deal with him!”

“Dipper, come on,” Mabel spoke up with a concerned frown. “We’vebeen over this like, a thousand times. What happened wasn’t-”

“It was my fault,”Dipper asserted, still clearly ashamed over the matter as he glanced awayguiltily. “And Lapis, if you went after him and he did something to you, thenthat would be my fault too. And… I… I don’t think I’d be able to forgive myselfif that happened…”

Lapis’ building fury seemed to completely melt away uponhearing this, her expression gentle yet crestfallen as she essentially tried tofight back tears. “Oh, Dipper…” she said, voice but a whisper as she knelt downand wrapped him into a tight, protective embrace, one that he weakly returned. “I’mso sorry… I couldn’t have—I didn’t know you felt like… like that…”

“It’s ok…” Dipper mumbled, even though it really wasn’t. “I guesswe’ll just… have think of some other way to get rid of Bill once and for all. Somethingbetter than just trying to trying to hunt him down without a plan or anything.”

“Right,” Lapis agreed with a small, weary, yet hopefulsmile, one that soon enough spread to Dipper as well. “Something better…”

(God what a fucking angst fest. And fucking LONG too? Still, I had a wonderful time writing it because GOD is Dipper gonna be going through a lot of heavy emotions after Sock Opera and of course as soon as Lapis finds out about all of it, she’s gonna go into Protective Mom mode and she’s gonna wanna kick Bill’s triangular ass for mentally and emotionally scarring her son like that. And it JUST FUCKING RIPS ME TO PIECES OK? THEIR BOND IS SO IMPORTANT AND I CAN’T WAIT TO KICKSTART IT LATER IN THIS ARC SO YOU ALL WILL UNDERSTAND WHY TOO! UGHHGHGHGHGH)

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED

#jen writes #drabble prompts #1500 follower special #universe falls #dipper #lapis #ford #peridot #steven #mabel #ANGST FOR YOU ALL #HAAHAHAH

39 notes · View notes

tishachaan · 6 years

Text

Have you seen a tall blond bearded guy ? (Part 4)

Summary : Thalia Artemidoros, ex-Champion of Sakaar, made a deal with Loki to come help Thor when he won’t be here anymore. Why did she agreed to risk her life for a stranger ? Well, that stranger’s cute, and what wouldn’t you do to get closer to your crush ? Here’s to finding Thor before he gets himself killed !

(Written for @hollandroos Soph’s 12K Challenge <3)

Notes : First of all, thank you for your curiosity, I hope you’ll like this story ! I’ve wrote it choosing this prompt : “No, you’ll be okay, yeah? hold on for a bit longer.” Also, it’s the first time I actually write an entire story only in English (non native-speaker here, hello <3) and I ask forgiveness for my mistakes. I hope it won’t bother you too much !

Let me know what you thought about this first part !

Ps : you can also find it on Ao3 here

“She’s gone ? - I muttered, startled by the sound of my own voice.

“They’re all gone ! You idiot, you’re to blame ! You fucking brought half my crew to death on this fucking planet !

“But… They can’t be gone. How-

“Are you dumb, bitch ? I should have seen it coming, you’re only good when you have to murder someone for fun ! You’re a fucking brainless walking danger, the Hulk should have killed you ! I hate that the Grandmaster intervened in your fucking favor you cunt ! I-”

She shut up abruptly, eyes wide open, her mouth making useless sounds. After a last wheeze, she fell on the ground, unconscious. A good thing her kind had three hearts, it helped me relieve my nerves. What a pretentious fucker she was. I swiftly turned around Nike, wiping off the purple blood that was staining her, then sent a murderous glance at what was left of the crew.

“Does anyone wish to share their opinions with the rest of us ? - they all shook their heads negatively. - Good. Now take care of her and stay inside that damn ship, I’m coming back with our Champion and the culprit's head. Stay alert !”

On those words, I exited the ship, hands tensed around my shield and Nike.

I walked for a while, trying to gain the forest's edge. I met no one during this time and nothing, not even animal noises, could be heard. A bad feeling was creeping up my back. It was as if life itself had departed after those deaths against nature. What kind of being could held this horrible power ? What could of being would actually use it ? I did not had any answers yet, but when I would found out, it could not escape my wrath. Ker'i deserved more than this meaningless death. Hell, Xroexxit too ! Everyone deserved better ! What went to Earth to destroy half of its population, uh ?

Oh ! And what if Thor himself had disappeared ?

I stopped at this dreadful realization. If he had disappeared... I had lost Ker'i for nothing ! And the Champion ? Who could I bring back to Sakaar if there was no one to ? What would I say to the Grandmaster to justify my failure ? I started to panic : had a really made such a horrible mistake honoring my part of the deal made with Loki ? Why would he send me on this planet to punish me ? I had been nothing but a loyal ally, I had brought him closer to the Grandmaster ! If this bastard has wronged me...

I started to run, hoping to reach the city as fast as possible : I could not lose any time more worrying about their disappearance, I had to get a clear answer. In order to get faster, I changed my physical form, growing bigger and bigger until being able to gain its edge with only four steps.

Of course, it brought me attention : a committee came to me, weapons in hands, ready to fight again. I let out a sigh and took back a common height, thinking it'd be smarter to avoid frightening them. They had went trough a traumatic experience too, they could be a little... unwelcoming, to say the least. It seems I had the worst sense of timing.

“What are you ? - asked me a female human who seemed ready to stab me if I made any moves. So, a soldier, and a ranked one, if I could trust the fact she was the one to ask away. She wasn't speaking in English, the translator stalled a bit before finally giving me the meaning of her words.

“Tired, for starters, and also really angry. - I said, smiling despite my cold answer. They really shouldn't push their luck too much, I was this close to snap at them too. - But you don't have to worry about me, I only wish to speak with the captain Steven Rogers.

“What are you ? - she asked again, detaching each word and raising her lance to my face, which I did not appreciate. I rolled my eyes, took off my helmet so she could find comfort in my human-like face and went closer to her, pushing her weapon away.

“An alien, and yes, I get you won't appreciate it after what you've been trough, but I can't change myself in that way. I solemnly declare I come here in peace. I only wish to ask the captain Roger a question, could you bring him here if he's still here ?

She stared at me defiantly and I raised my hands, trying to adopt an innocent look. It never did suit me too well. She finally made a move and her followers let down their weapons while she talked to her bracelet. I waited. What else could I do ? If I pushed my way through, it would probably worsen the actual situation. Let's just be patient, even if I don't really have time to spare.

“Follow me, alien.” - she ordered me, turning around. Her men surrounded me and I had no choice but to do as she said. At least they would protect me from irritated compatriots wanting to unleash their anger on any alien they would find.

I entered the city and they guided me to one of the many towers, not bothering to give me any informations on our final destination. I really hoped the captain was still alive, or I would have to fight my way out in order to get back to my ship. Amii'lina would be a pain in the ass to deal with, but it would be nothing compared to the Grandmaster's deception. Perhaps his anger won't be directed toward me ? After all, I'm not the one responsible of his Champion's disappearance...

When we arrived in what seemed to be a throne room by the size, the arrangement and the decoration, we stopped. Many people were there, talking furiously over each other, all trying to get their arguments trough. I recognize some of them as figures I saw on the battlefield. They looked exhausted, but not wounded. Good fighters. However, not the most observing ones : they were too caught up in their argument to notice our arrival.

My guide waited respectfully until another dignified woman turned to her, intrigued by her presence. She then saw me, under her soldiers surveillance, looking like her people but wearing what must be to her a strange suit. For a split seconds, she held my gaze : I purposely let my eyes take back their real appearance. Like all the other alien races I’ve encountered, she was disturbed by them. Golden orbs set on them tended to make them uncomfortable. Lucky her, she only had two of them to face, my third one still hidden. As soon as she came nearer, I disguised them again. Her depart left the others silent, all suddenly staring at me defiantly. Some of them even set their hands on their weapons. I had the chance to look like a human, so they did not attempt anything against me, which was a relief.

“Who is she ?

“It's an alien, your Majesty.

“Another one ! What does it want ? Has it told you anything ?

“It is right here and it can understand your questions, your Majesty. - I interjected, insulted. She turned her gaze to me, surprised and worried.

“Then could you answer them ? What is your name ?

“Thalia Artemidoros, and I come in peace. Is there anyone in this place named Steven Rogers ?

“What do you want from me ? - a bearded man said, approaching us. I smiled, glad to have finally found him. He seemed to be important, since the other humans looked at him expectantly, as he’d knew what to do with me.

“Do you know where I can find Thor Odinson and the Hulk ? - I asked once again, growing tired of repeating myself. He frowned, looking defiant.

“Why would I tell you ? For who are you working for ?

“Goddesses, nothing will ever be simple with you humans ! I just want to reach Thor Odinson, I don’t care about any of you here ! Wolverine told me you knew, was he wrong ?

“You went to professor Xavier's School before ?

“Well yes, it's not like I have a tracker on him. - Or, to be more accurate, it's not like he kept it. I'm amazed he managed to tear it away from his skin, mine is still there and still activated. - Wolverine gave me your name, saying you were friends and told me you'd be fighting in Wakanda, so I came. I’ve seen you on the battlefield, my ship’s detectors got a signature that could be his. Did he came here to help you ? Was the Hulk with him ?

“Tell me who are you working for and I’ll answer.

“The Grandmaster En Dwi Gast, ruler of Sakaar, elder of the galaxy, Master of Games. I am Thalia Artemidoros, previous Champion of his Great Game, ex-prisoner 52. Loki Laufeyson entrusted me with a quest to find his brother. Will you allow me to honor his will ?”

He stayed silent, weighing both possible outcomes of this encounter. If he said yes, he wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. If he said no... Well, it wasn't as if I could just go back home empty handed. There would be unpleasant consequences.

“You said Loki, like the Loki God of Mischief ?

“Is it a common name on Earth ? You know another ? - I answered, impertinent. It earned me a non-impressed gaze from the rest of the audience. Seems like they're used to smart-ass people.

“Thor said he died in front of him. Is he... is he really ?

“Loki tends to die pretty easily for such a cunning man. Of course, I wasn't there, so it's only a supposition, however... I have good reasons to believe he is still alive, but in hiding.

“Yeah, that'd be like him... Sending other people to do his work too. What do you want to say to Thor and Dr. Banner ?

“Uh, Thor and the Hulk, captain Rogers. I don't know any Banner. And the message is destined to Thor's ears only.

“You can meet him. - this earned him a bunch of disbelieving exclamations from his counterparts. He felt the obligation to explain himself. - He needs someone like him, someone who met people he interacted with before this terrible mess. We can't help him, we have no clue of what happened to him in space, and the Dr. Foster won't be able to come here before tomorrow. If she can help him, why would we prevent her to reach him ?

“Lieutenant, guide her to Thor's room. - the woman they had called Majesty ordered to my guide, cutting short any counter argument they could have.

She executed a military sign of agreement before exiting the throne room, closely followed by her soldiers, bringing me with them. I flashed a thankful smile at Steve Rogers before following them, relieved to know Thor was still alive. And if Banner was the real name of the Hulk here on Earth, then I would be able to also satisfy the Grandmaster. Things were lightning up, let's hope bringing back Ker'i would go as smoothly.

I had to cross a multitude of corridors before finally be told I was in front of the right door. Nothing too fancy, I would never have guessed they kept a prince in here. Or maybe it was fancy for them, I just grew used to more outstanding decors living on Sakaar. Nevertheless, it lacked gold. I did not hesitate one second to open it, my patience having reached its limits.

Inside, I was greeted by surprised little man who looked nothing like Thor. Would I have to prove myself again before finally meeting him ? This started to really aggravate me ! As he asked me yet again who I was, I pushed past him, giving my name and the reasons which brought me here for what seemed to be the tenth time.

“Thalia Artemidoros, I come in peace, I want to speak with Thor Odinson only, in private, thank you for keeping an eye on him, I'll see you later.

“No no no, you- you can't just barge in, he's- he's really down, don't-

“It's fine, Dr. Banner, our Queen and Captain Rogers agreed with her, she can meet him.

“No, when I tell you he's down, I mean it, he really doesn't-”

Not caring about his words, I entered a second room and closed the door behind me. I stopped for a split second, delighted to see the man I was looking for, and this cost me my advantage.

The next thing I knew, I was choked against the wall, observed by one very angry blue eye and another cybernetic.

“Do we know each other ?

“Of course not, but you'll be happy when you do. - I managed to say, understanding I had to convince him right away. - Your brother Loki sent me.”

It worked and I started to breath again. Great, now it was time to find the right words !

0 notes