#The Lab Inspector's Daughter

[bruh-anator3000]

The Lab Inspector's Daughter

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Summary: You're a lab inspector. Boring job. But the little girl you took under your wing sure made it interesting. She grew up into a smart kid, easily finding her way into Piltover's finest Academy. She also decided she would double as a matchmaker.

Pairings: Viktor x gn!reader (the sound of heels are mentioned but they can be any heel, like on a boot or whatever)

Wordcount: 8.2k

Proof-read: Never

Warnings: cute family relationship, the Viktor and Jinx friendship I desperately want to see, reader is the supportive parent figure we all need, mentions of BPD and PTSD (and episodes), explicit language, slightly out of character Viktor? reader goes off on Viktor, he ends up kinda diggin it, Sky says it isn't her first time being held at knife-point, Jayce is barely mentioned and I feel kinda bad about it, I don't know what I'm talking abt science wise so just work with me here, main plot is more about reader being there for jinx and their love for Viktor is a side plot, I might make it into a part 2 for more romance but eh, we'll see

One fateful night, while in the Undercity running some errands for Heimerdinger, you heard blood curdling screams behind a burning building. Your initial reaction was to run away and call for the Enforcers but the cries were far too high pitched to be just anybody. It sounded like a young girl. You wouldn't live with yourself if you left a defenceless little kid in the alley of a burning building.

You remember that night like it was yesterday, the blue haired girl sobbing beyond belief. She was a mess, a dead, mutated man behind her as she clawed at the ground, screaming out for a Violet. You stood in front of her, bags heavy in your hands as you watched. It tore your heart up.

"Hello, sweetheart." You lowered yourself to her level, leaving your bags on the floor. "What's wrong?"

A lot was wrong with this scene but she was the only one alive to tell it. She was curled into herself, breathing ruggedly as she peered up at you through her hands. Her hair stuck to her forehead in the pouring rain. Your footing slipped out from under you when she rammed into your midsection.

"She left me!" She screamed into your hold, her voice raw with pain. Her little arms wrapped strong around you. Hesitant, yes, but you couldn't stop yourself from bringing your arms around her.

You never planned on being a parent. That night, however, left you with a daughter you would burn the world for.

...

"It's okay to be excited, you know." You smiled and finalized some paperwork on the clipboard in front of you, heels echoing through the halls.

Jinx let out an exasperated sigh from besides you. "Being excited is for children during the holidays," She tossed her long blue braid back over her shoulder. "I'm just joining you to get a possible interview to intern under the creators of Hextech, it's-" A giggle escaped her as she wrapped her arms into the crook of your elbow. "Okay, I'm really excited!"

You laughed, gently nudging her hip with yours. "I knew it. You should be excited, they're very fun people." Jinx gasped, her precious sapphire eyes wide.

"You've met them?!" You felt bad as you shook your head, watching her deflate into your shoulder. Her lips pulled into a slight frown.

"No, but Heimerdinger talks very highly of them." She nodded along, jostling your side with her head movements, her lower lip in a pout. "Now, you're sure your professor let you off for this?" You turned your head towards her, levelling her with a questioning look.

She gritted her teeth, blowing air through them. "It was once!" She pushed off you, making you stumble. "And he admitted it was his fault for poor scheduling! Not mine!" She crossed her arms over her academy vest, head turned from you.

"I know, darling, I just wanted to double check." Shaking your head with a fond smile, you stopped in front of two large doors. Turning to her, you fetched the lab key from your satchel.

Jinx stood to her full height, still shorter than you despite her confidence holding her high. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she bit back her smile. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, braided hair brushing near her ankles, she beamed.

Your heart clenched in proud sorrow. Jinx looked so grown in her academy outfit. Her pressed ruby shirt under her off white student vest, gold tie adorning, tying it all together. Her soft brown pants were held by a belt she couldn't keep her markers off of. Neon scribbles of whatever she felt like on the black leather. Her boots, polished to perfection the night before in preparation for today.

Her excitement on her sweet, soft face never changed from when she was a kid. Her curiosity and desire never faded.

You sighed, refusing to deny the urge to cradle her cheek. Jinx leaned into it, her bangs brushing against your wrist. "How are you feeling?"

"They're quiet today." She whispered and raised her hand, her thumb resting on your knuckles. Her blue and pink nail polish beginning to chip off. You returned her gentle smile.

"I'm glad." You stepped back and held up the golden key. "Remember, as long as you aren't actively trying to blow something up, they'll love you." With a flourish, you unlocked the doors to the famed labs of Hextech.

The rumble through your shoes felt far too familiar. Your hand that held your clipboard went to shield Jinx's face and you brought her close to your body. She tucked herself into you when you turned her around, having your back exposed to the loudest explosion you've heard in a while.

Smoke flooded the room, whipping through your hair. Coughing shook your ribs as you held Jinx closer, trying to block her from the smog. Two others joined in on the hacking before the pop of a window being opened was heard. And just as soon as it started, the smoke was gone.

"That was," An accented voice was interrupted with a harsh cough. "Not what was predicted."

"No shit, Vik." The man who was standing waved his hands through the air, trying to get the ashy air out faster. "That was a level 8 explosion, we need like... what? 6?"

"Try 4." Jinx pulled away from your grasp now that the danger was gone. For whatever reason, she was incredibly knowledgeable in the art of explosives. And for years, as long as she kept herself safe, you let her tinker and learn more.

However, you did not feel comfortable letting her walk over to the table where the two famed scientists worked, picking up the burnt pieces on the floor as she went. But she already went, talking as she did.

"I don't know what you're trying to do but level 8 explosives are pretty much illegal, and too large of an impact to keep anything alive." She held the blown gears out to the two. "The prototype made a set 5 - maybe 6 - explosive, amp it up and you could effectively kill yourselves." The two men gawked. They definitely weren't expecting a blue haired teenager to roast them on their profession.

Feeling like this was the opportune moment, you introduced yourself. "Hi, you'll have to forgive my intern but I'm here for your lab inspection. Jayce and Viktor, right?" You smiled and adjusted your shirt from how tightly Jinx had held onto it.

The brunette, Jayce, straightened from his hunched position over his co-worker. You guessed that was Viktor, who was still sat in his chair. "Wait, what? That's today?" He ran over to a stack of paper, quickly shuffling through it.

You gave a nod, joining him by his side. Casting a quick look to Jinx, the gears she held had been switched for a screwdriver as she pointed to something in front of the man beside her. He was leaning in just as much as her, nodding along as she spoke.

Jayce found the envelope he was looking for, his fingers digging into it. He pulled out the letter and his thick eyebrows drew together as he read it over. "No, see?" He showed you the paper, pointing to the date. "It says the twenty..." He trailed off, re-reading it. He whispered a soft 'oh.' It was, in fact, today.

You sighed softly. "We can reschedule, if we must, but I'm busy for the next few months. And, if Heimerdinger is correct..." Jayce sighed as you lifted up the pages in front of your calendar.

"We need the green light by the end of the week if we want to keep working." His large hand ran over his face. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he swore quietly under his breath. He shook out his body before turning to the desk Jinx and Viktor hunkered over. "Viktor! The lab inspection is today, shove things into drawers!"

You hid your laugh behind your clipboard, watching as the other man sat up straight so quickly, his back gave a few cracks. He fumbled for the crutch beside him and stood.

"You said it was next month, Jayce. Are you sure-?" He walked over, hands gesturing to the mess around them.

"Yeah, I guess I lied. It's today." Jayce sighed, leaning into the counter behind him. His hazel eyes turned to you. Looking you over, you noticed the spark most had when they knew they were in trouble. Jinx had the exact same look before she would butter you up. Often after she already blew up half the kitchen.

He smiled wide, a handsome tooth gap showing. His smile was award winning. Fitting for Piltover's golden boy. "I'm so sorry you had to catch us like this!" He crossed his strong arms over his chest, smile still wide. "We're usually much more professional, but some days we just have to take larger risks."

You could see Viktor beside him, fiddling with the crutch beneath his arm as Jayce continued to joke about how they were much more put together. You've heard them all before. Most scientists were actually terrible at organizing, these two no different.

As he blabbered on, you took their appearance in fully. Jayce was tall and had a strong, sturdy build. Charisma rolling off him as he talked with his hands. His academy suit switched out for a more practical lab wear. A dirted white tunic with eight buttons in front. Leather protecting his shoulders and his red slacks held up by a large gold and brown belt. He had a five o'clock shadow and a small slit on his eyebrow.

Viktor was quiet as ever, eyes cast to Jinx as she nodded her head along to an unknown tune. What eyes he had, sharp and as gold as the scrap metal littered around the place. His chestnut hair ruffled, slightly pressed down from the goggles on top of his head. His shirt was a reddish-brown, lighter stripes running down his sleeves. What you assumed to be a comfy knit sweater vest over it. He had a leg brace but not one you've seen before. Made you wonder if he had designed it himself.

He looked nice, but drained. His eye bags looked heavy. Your concern was derailed when you saw two adorable moles, one under his eye and another above his lip.

You felt embarrassed as a wave crashed over you, desperate to kiss them.

"So, considering all that, what's our mark at?" Your attention snapped back to Jayce. He had gone back to leaning on the desk behind him, crossed arms and bright smile in place. You sighed.

"Oh, you guys totally failed!" Jinx spun in the chair she took over, dropping the tools back on the desk. "2 out of 10, which is considerate despite almost blowing us up when we walked in." You held out your clipboard with the ratings for her as she skipped over.

Jayce tried to say something but Jinx continued.

"Lack of proper ventilation, no solid tool kit in sight, no cleaner for tools either," She tapped the pen against her chin as she read off the list. Jayce stared at you, mouth opening and closing like a fish. You smiled at him, nudging him with a nod to listen to her. "Not to mention, your research tactics are far below the board. You also have at least 3 uneaten sandwiches out, in a very chemical environment, that could be detrimental to everything."

You pulled out the 'denied' stamp and Jinx slammed it on the packet, making the two scientists jump. "Failed!" She handed them the papers.

"No... no, we need this lab!" Jayce begged, handing the papers to Viktor as he stepped in your space. "She's an intern, what does she know?"

"A lot." You took the stamp Jinx handed back. "And she's not done yet." You smiled. Jinx flipped through a few pages before pulling out yet another packet.

Viktor deflated. "Please, I don't want to be denied again."

"According to Heimdinger's official book of lab safety, section 10; untapped discoveries, you have passed with flying colors!" You handed Jinx your approved stamp with a huff of amusement. She hit it hard against the papers. The two flinched again. "Congrats! You get to keep your laboratory for another year!"

Jayce and Viktor stood before her, gawking yet again. They looked to you and all you could do was shrug.

"You do need to get that sandwich thing under control though, that's super dangerous." Jinx added and held the clipboard to her chest. "Or fix the ventilation so the chemicals can be more dispersed, therefore leaving your sandwiches alone."

Jayce gave a slow nod before turning to you. Brown eyes wide. "Why wouldn't you just approve us in the first place?"

"Heimerdinger insists. 'Unanimous vote,' He says." You gave yet another shrug. You had no real idea why Heimerdinger, the oldest on the council and in science, didn't just push his handbook as mandatory. But you had to follow it.

Viktor's free hand came to cradle his chin, nodding. "Yes, he does say that a lot. Council must've wanted their opinions first then double checked by Professor's requirements."

"Exactly." You breathed. You've read about Viktor when sorting files for the Professor. He was his favorite assistant. Besides the good looks, his attention to detail must've been why. "I'm very sorry, it is always a rollercoaster but, you know," You smiled. "Council rules."

Jinx handed your clipboard back. She gave a small nod towards them, eyes wide and waiting towards you. Their attention was stuck to the papers she handed to them. With a deep breath, you continued.

"You know, my dau-" You cleared your throat. No time for favoritism. "My intern is looking for a more hands on job in the labs." Viktor looked up, golden eyes peering into you. "I know you two have been looking for a second assistant, and as her employer, I can guarantee she'd be a perfect fit." You nodded towards the table they had been sitting at earlier. "Especially if you need help with explosives."

Jinx swatted at your shoulder. To anyone else, that may have not been a very good thing to point out. But these two built their industry on risk taking. You walked in on an explosion. They would be happy to have help with it.

Viktor looked at her, eyebrows pensive. Before he gave a light smile. "I would like to hear more about that theory you were telling me about." Jinx's face flushed and she couldn't keep eye contact, eyes darting to the floor.

"Anyone who can downgrade a blow up from an 8 to a 4 in just a few minutes is someone I want on our team." Jayce held out a hand. "What's your name?"

"Uh... Jinx! My name's Jinx." She quickly took his hand with a wide smile. Her eyes turned to you, shining with possibility. You gave her an encouraging nod. "I'm a second year student, my name and face should be easy to find on any roster." She beamed.

"It was great to meet you, Jinx." Jayce patted her shoulder. "We'll think about it, okay?" He offered. She nodded and you thanked them.

Jinx was bouncing off the walls when you closed the door behind you.

...

"Do you think they actually liked me?" Jinx paced behind you, nervously tugging on her hair.

"I don't think they would lie." You supplied, nodding to yourself as you looked over the Hextech lab review sheets. "They definitely appreciated your input earlier." She groaned behind you.

"No! No, they didn't say that!" You turned in your seat, ready to say 'yes they did,' when you noticed the far off look in her blue eyes. Her eyebrows were pinched together as she wrapped her arms around her. "They didn't say that..."

You scooted your chair closer, softly resting your hand on her arm. First, your fingertips followed by your knuckles. Placing your palm flat on her skin, you called her name, voice low and quiet.

"Whatever they're saying isn't true." You reminded. "They just want to make you upset. You're stronger than them." Jinx let out a shaky sigh.

"I'm stronger than them." She echoed. Her gaze still fixed on the wall opposite of you both. It was the bookshelves in your office. To her, you weren't sure what it was.

"You're safe. They can't hurt you." You stood and joined her side, movements slow so she could tell where you were going.

"They can't hurt me." She forced a deep breath. You held open your arms, giving her enough space to decide if she wanted the hug or not. She never did deny you, but some days the visions were too much and touching could send her over the edge.

She folded into your arms quickly, hiding her face in your shoulder. Her hair tickled your nose as you rested your chin on her head. Her nails gently scraped your back, her grip trying to stay light.

"They were impressed, I could tell." You mumbled into her hair, fingers playing with a few stray strands of her soft teal hair.

"You're just saying that." She sniffled, forehead nuzzling your shoulder.

"No, sweetheart. You're far more capable than you give yourself credit for." You took a hold of her shoulder, urging her away so she could see your face. "I know you never believe me but you got into the Academy because your intellect impressed Professor Heimerdinger. Not because I'm close with him, but because you're smart. You have ambition and you chase it. You are going to get that job."

Her eyes welled up and she hugged you again. Full of emotion, no longer afraid.

And of course, you were right.

You weren't surprised when she burst into the kitchen the next day. She was hyperventilating, mouth running a mile a minute as she recounted her day. You sat through her sidetracking, letting her get it all out of her system before she screamed out:

"I got in!" Jayce and Viktor apparently had pulled her aside from class and asked if she was still up for their internship. She readily said yes and they handed her some paperwork to fill out.

Which went straight into your hands given that you were the only one who could focus out of the two of you. And, despite her being old enough, you were technically her guardian for another year.

She rambled on about what they told her. How they would have to put her as something far lower than her skillset at first due to how the internship rules worked. They promised they would pull her up the ranks as quickly as they could because her ideas did not belong sweeping the floors.

They explained the rules of their workspace and insisted if she had any objections to them, she should say something so they could find a way to work around it. Their space was built on communication and working around each other, she had the right to find her fitting too.

She then promptly screamed, scaring you out of your chair, upon seeing the time. She made you get up and shoved you towards the closet. She promised them you'd be there the same night, for a "parent interview or whatever."

It was for reference, on how well Jinx was in the lab. Under pressure and dealing with dangerous items. It would've been unethical, you being her parent and all but when you told them your concerns, Jayce waved a hand in dismissal. He trusted you would be impartial. Jinx deserved this job, you were going to remain impartial, n matter how badly you wanted to gush on about how amazing your daughter was.

They remained professional, taking notes and nodding along as you talked about Jinx's work ethic. What scared you the most was when they asked where she grew up. You knew Viktor was from the Undercity himself but you still felt nervous. The jobs Jinx had been considered for were immediately shut down when they learned she was your illegitimate daughter from the Undercity.

However, Viktor seemed to smile. The conversation side tracked as he asked you why you decided to adopt a kid from the Undercity. When you gave them the clif notes on how you found her and ultimately decided she was yours now, they shared a smile. Viktor said he was happy to hear you were so welcoming of others.

They also did not seem off put by her PTSD nor her bipolar episodes, Jayce saying "You have to be a little crazy in our line of work."

You wanted to disagree, and clarify she wasn't crazy, she had a shitshow of a childhood. But Viktor nodded and another laugh fell over the two, you joined. It was light hearted. You weren't going to get overprotective.

The next three months flew by. Jinx came home with a new story every day. How Jayce showed her the hex crystals and how she almost let it slip how her and her sister stole something similar when they were young. When she got nap couch privileges. Or the time Viktor had fallen asleep during their research, so Jinx decided she could do the same. That was one hell of a debate when you told her she couldn't make a habit out of staying the night.

She told you about their other assistant, Sky, and how she couldn't tell if she was also from the Undercity or not. You didn't know what to tell her. She still hadn't figured out Viktor was from the Undercity, you weren't sure how to interpret her assumptions.

You would sometimes visit her workplace, to drop off the lunch she forgot to take. Jayce and Viktor never had any objections to your presence, no matter how many times Jinx said it wasn't allowed. They even would insist you stayed some days, just to drag out Jinx's obvious embarrassment. In that time, you got to know them.

Viktor was sweet, Jayce, too, but Viktor had something about him. He didn't mind showing you whatever they were working on, shushing Jinx everytime she protested. He took his time to explain how the machines worked.

Jinx would always say 'It's pointless to explain it.' Because she knew you never got it. And Viktor would always respond 'It's easier, that way, I won't have to fight anyone on my every word.' Before throwing a very pointed look her way.

Jinx was very fond of Viktor, that you could tell from how she spoke about him at home. In the lab, she followed him around and took in everything he said. They were comfortable enough to spit rude remarks at each other, knowing the other would only return it, with even more malice. A violent repartee. But they weren't actually angry, not at all. It seemed that their form of bonding was shoving each other around and Jinx telling Viktor his shoes were untied, only for her to hit the back of his head and run when he looked down.

It was sweet. It felt like she finally had the second parent you never could provide for her.

But each day, that sick sad pride overcame you. She was all grown up now, in a job she loved dearly. You were happy to see her enjoying herself. Glad to see her pursue her dreams. But it hurt. It hurt telling her about a lab review you did only for her to nod along, absent-minded, as she reviewed her own work.

She didn't get excited when you told her about the jobs you did. She no longer tailed behind you, begging to join you in hopes she could sneak in an interview. She barely cared when you said you'd be in Noxus for a week. They were having some convention and you weren't going to ignore a paid trip to Noxus.

But Jinx didn't care. She nodded and asked when you were leaving. You gave your answer and she went to her room to finish up a project, forgetting her dinner.

She did join you to the Hexgates, wishing you luck and love on your departure. She also slid you a list of art supplies she had her eye on. You couldn't say no to her. You didn't know how anyone could say no to her.

The convention was nice. Noxus was a beautiful place. You met Ambessa Medarda, almost died on the spot when she complimented your work. It was nice but you wish it went faster. You missed your sweet Jinx. You missed getting to visit her in the lab. Missed getting to talk with Viktor each time. You made sure to buy the pencils and markers she asked for, along with some truffles you thought she would enjoy.

You came home, hurrying down to the Academy to turn in your reports and see your daughter. You gave Heimerdinger no time for pleasantries nor explained much, dropping the packets off before running home. You adjusted yourself and bag before you entered, box of chocolate truffles under your arm.

"Jinx! I'm home!" You called out as you unlocked the door. Lifting the truffles up, "I got some good looking treats! Come try them with... me..." You trailed off, hearing muffled sounds. Sounded like crying. "Jinx?"

You let your bag drop to the floor and ran into her room. You found her curled into her side, tears streaking down her face. Her nails dug into her hair as she cried.

You fell to your knees in front of her, pulling her hands away from her face. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?" You cupped her face, thumb brushing under her eyes.

"It was a mistake! It was a mistake!" Jinx begged. "No, it was an accident- Sky, she just- No! It was a mistake!"

"I believe you," You moved to sit on the edge of her bed. "What happened, what mistake clouds you, honey?"

Sniveling, she pulled herself into your lap. "I don't know... things got too much and I tried to get out." You softly congratulated her. Getting out of stressful situations wasn't her strong suit. She often found comfort in the chaos. It was hard to unlearn it. "But they needed my help and it was just so much then Mylo- SHUT UP!" She screamed at the wall. "It was your fault! You told me to!"

You ran your hand down her spine. "Deep breaths. You're safe with me. I'm not leaving." She shuddered.

"I... I acted out, and they fired me."

"What?!" She flinched back at your raised voice. You soothed her, apologising. "No, no I'm sorry, I'm angry with Jayce and Viktor."

"You're not mad at me?" Jinx's eyes were wide and watery. "Because they are, so is Viktor." She pointed to the wall. "No, they're not mad, they're making fun of me. It's my fault."

You shook your head. "No, you tried to get out of the situation. Whoever kept you there is at fault." Jinx almost started bawling all over again as you stood up. You gently pressed her shoulder down, stopping her from following. "I'm going to talk to them, see what happened." She cast her head down. "It wasn't your fault. And there's some truffles to make you feel better."

"Did you get the paint pens?" You nodded. She hugged your arm. "Thank you."

...

Jet lag be damned, you stormed through the Academy halls, rage rolling off you. The students who usually said hi to you immediately looked the other way. They could feel it, the way your blood boiled over with anger. You've only felt this way once before, so consumed with rage. It was when some kid destroyed Jinx's rocket she spent weeks on. You did not care that the elementary school had forced you out, you were only glad that the other kid was kicked out too.

You forced a few breaths, trying to let the anger shimmer out. You couldn't get too upset on the off chance they would understand and give Jinx a second chance. Using the master key given by Heimerdinger, you pushed through the lab doors.

It was much messier than last time. Papers were scattered across the tile floors. Metal scraps among them, chairs cast aside like someone had too hard of a temper tantrum. Chalk pieces were broken and some dust particles still lingered in the air.

The only person in the room was Viktor. He was mumbling to himself and picking up papers from the floor. He kept a hand on the counter as he struggled to lean down.

You sighed, and picked up papers strewn around as you walked over. He didn't notice your presence until you held out a stack to him.

Viktor was startled when you handed him the papers. He straightened up with a small huff and set aside the few he gathered. Taking them from you, his fingers brushed over yours.

"I heard Jinx got fired over a mistake?" You didn't even bother to beat around the bush. He sighed through his teeth.

"If that was a mistake, I'd hate to see what an intentional attack is like." The papers hit the table with a harsh smack.

"She said she had a manic episode," You crossed your arms over your chest. Viktor shook his head.

"She caused the explosion that caused all of this," He gestured to the mess of a lab. "And then tried to leave." He leaned in, snarling in your face. "That sounds like poor discipline."

Your eye twitched. He was starting to push it. "She was stressed and tried to find a safe space to calm down. If you had given her a chance-"

"She held a knife to Sky's throat, you tell me how to give someone like that a second chance!" His grip tightened on the metal desk. He stood up and turned around, using the counter to help him get to a chair.

That part was left out on Jinx's side. You stalled before giving a stiff nod. "I didn't know about that, sorry. But could you try to talk to her? I'm sure she will apologize if you give her the chance to explain herself."

Viktor scoffed as he took a seat. "No explanation can fix that crazy result." Another twig snapped. You barely held it together, taking a breath as you forced your shoulders to lower from your ears.

"I thought you said you needed to be... crazy in this line of work." Hands tightened around your biceps as you said it. It felt dirty in your mouth.

"We said slightly crazy, not insane." He grumbled and hunched over some equations in a leather bound notebook.

That's it.

Like a fake blood capsule from a Halloween store popped over your eyes, you only saw red. The final branch had snapped. And with it, your ability to remain calm.

No one calls your daughter insane.

"Are you stupid?" You blurted out. Viktor looked up from his journal, golden eyes wide. "Jinx has worked here for 3 months and in that time, had only one breakdown. You're the scientist, you can do the math on how uncommon that is, can't you?" The words fell through your teeth. Like venom dripping from your mouth. "I warned you, she suffers from bipolar episodes because of the shit-fucked childhood she had! And you said it was fine! Something in this lab scared the shit out of her to send her into a spiral and your response was to make her stay and clean up? Are you dumb? How thick is that skull of yours for you to yell at a panicking kid?!"

Viktor's eyebrows narrowed. "She threatened a co-worker!"

You stepped forward, getting in his space. "Before or after you decided it would be so smart to yell at her?" He fell silent. "Exactly. You know, I thought you would be the most accommodating with her."

"Why?" He growled. "Because we're both from the Undercity?"

"Because you're both constantly undermined!" You threw your hands up, using your hands more as you got angrier. "I've read your file, Viktor. I had to when sorting through Heimerdinger's stuff. I know how horrible people treat you because of where you're from and what you lack. Every step of the way, you have been underestimated and yet you're here, one of the revered founders of Hextech!" Your finger was in his face by now.

"Jinx has been doubted, dragged and spat on every step of the way in her career. When you let her work for you, I thought she would finally feel comfortable and have a fair chance because I know you would offer it to her." He tried to scoot back but your hand caught the armrest of his chair, holding him in place. "I'll pay for the damage, I'll take the responsibility for it all, just give her another chance. Please. Talk to her and let her explain."

Viktor swallowed, staring up at you with large eye. You pushed him, watching the wheels on his chair send him back further than you meant. His elbows awkwardly stuck out by his side as he held the arm rests.

You shook your head. Once Viktor met your eyes, no longer any anger or fear in them, you left.

...

Jinx poked at her plate, pushing her pancakes around with her fork. Her free hand held her chin up. Her eyes were drained of her usual excitement, dark circles under the darkened blue irises. Last night ruined her.

You tried your hardest to get her ready for another school day. School always cheered her up, she loved being challenged and seeing the result of her hard work. Her intelligence had kept her in class longer as she discussed theories with her professors.

She didn't want to even try.

"Give it a few days," You tried to reason. You held her bag out with a sympathetic smile. "They'll come around." She shook her head, bangs moving with her.

"No, I messed up. Big time." Jinx looked to the side, tears welling up. "No one will ever want me again." You whispered a soft 'hey,' and placed a hand on her cheek. Letting her bag drop onto the empty seat besides her, you tugged her onto her feet.

A tear rolled down her face as you held her. "It's going to be okay. If all else fails, you'll just have to make your own lab. Your own industry." Her arms wrapped around your shoulders. "Like you always wanted."

Your hand went into her hair, the other tight around her torso. You rested your chin on her head. She was tucked deep into your hold, rubbing your shoulder with her forehead. Together, you gently swayed, rocking her back and forth. You took deep breaths, smiling when you heard her join you.

"If you really can't finish the whole day," You urged her to pull away. She did, crossing her arms over herself, eyes still cast down. You took a hold of her shoulders, easing them from the side of her head. Brought her face to look at you, pink lips in a slight pout. "You tell the professors you don't feel well and you can come home."

She nodded and picked her bag up from the chair. Her fingers traced over the neon drawing she made how many years ago? Her sapphire gaze reached to meet your eyes.

"I believe in you." You reminded, pressing a light kiss to her temple.

"I love you." She wrapped her arms around you in a tight hug before running out the door. You laughed and called your love after her, before sighing. She didn't say that often, she was afraid to. She was growing out of old habits. You couldn't be prouder.

You turned to the kitchen, hands on your hips. Now, you were going to bake her some chocolate chip muffins.

You didn't know how much time had passed when you heard the timer go off, signalling the muffins had been baked. Sliding your hands into the knit gloves Jinx made for your birthday, you pulled the oven door open. Heat flooded out, making you wince from the intense heat. With it, came the sweet smell of chocolate chips and vanilla extract wafting through. It reminded you of simpler times. When you would bake these for your Jinx when she scraped her knees.

A light knocking came from the door at the same time you pulled the metal muffin tray out. Glancing at the time, you sighed. It was a little past lunch. It must've been Jinx. The sight of muffins would cheer her up so you brought them along with you to the door.

"I made you some of your favorites," You sang out, unlocking the door. "Chocolate chip…" You trailed off, eyeing the man in front of you.

Viktor looked down at the tray of muffins in your hand, leaning against his cane. His lips curled into a soft smile, pulling that cute mole up. "Those look delicious." He raised a slender hand.

You yanked the tray back. "They're for Jinx." Your words fell out like bricks, boring and plain. He gave a short nod and dropped his hand.

"Fair." His crutch shifted under his arm. His chest expanded with a deep breath. "I eh... wanted to... say sorry for acting so brash with Jinx." You perked up. His amber eyes took in your expression. The hand on his cane shifted with a crinkle.

You looked down, surprised why his cane sounded like plastic. A small bouquet of flowers were held out, awkwardly making him lean on his cane as he held them for you.

"Oh! I- thank you." You smiled and took them with your free hand. Taking a deep breath, nose hovering over the mix of pink and white petals. They smelt sweet, like the irreplaceable truth of Mother Nature. But you halted. "Shouldn't you give these to Jinx?" You raised a brow.

Viktor laughed, sultry and sweet. "She insisted I give them to you." He readjusted his crutch, sighing as he finally stood right. "I did talk to her and she explained everything." You nodded. "And you were right. My anger only scared her more, making her feel the need to threaten a life in order to escape."

"Thank you, for giving her another chance." You opened the door more. Tilting your head to the side, you silently invited him in. "I know there isn't ever a good reason to threaten others, and I'm working on that with her, but thank you."

He nodded and tentatively walked in. "She's a bright kid. And, if I truly made her upset, I wanted to at least offer an apology."

You pointed him to a seat near the kitchen table, moving to get a vase for the flowers. "I need to apologize too," You sighed and put down the tray of muffins. "I had no right to-"

"Oh, please, that was fun." He gave you a light smile as you slid the dishware in front of him. You cocked an eyebrow. He shrugged. "No one ever has the gull to yell at the poor disabled Undercity kid. Less so now that I'm a 'revered founder of Hextech' " He made air quotes as he sat down. "Those who do only insult me for the leg I don't have." You tried to offer a soft sorry but he continued. "Being told I have a thick skull in my own laboratory was eh... very entertaining experience." Viktor laughed softly, placing his head in his hand as he watched you, molten gold irises scaling your entire body.

A blush overcame you as you grabbed a vase. The neon animals scribbled on it reminded you to take a breath. He was enjoying this. You might as well.

"Are you telling me the revered founder of Hextech likes to be degraded?" His face erupted with pink as he sat up a little straighter. You laughed, filling the vase with some water. "Want a muffin?"

Viktor swallowed once. Then twice. With a deep breath as he sat back, he nodded. "I would like one, yes."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Hextech." You plopped the white and pink flowers into the colored vase with a smirk. His eyes followed your movements, that pretty pink still on his high cheekbones.

"Viktor, please." He corrected softly.

You pulled down a plate and slid it over the counter. "Sweet milk?" You offered and he perked up once more.

"You have that?" He nudged the plate closer when you placed a muffin on his dish.

"If I ran out, I'm pretty sure Jinx would die."

Viktor's shoulders sagged. "Must be an Undercity thing. I would die without sweet milk, too." You shared a laugh.

Like a demon spawning by the call of her name, the moment was broken by a loud shrieking laugh as Jinx kicked down the door. She rammed right into you, her excitement vibrating off her.

"You were right!" She screamed and held you close. "Viktor came by and talked it out and I got the job back! And I went to Sky to apologize and she said that it was nothing, that she had been held at knife point before for more serious reasons and I got my job back and-"

As Jinx rambled into your shoulder, you cast Viktor a look. He was sitting there, watching the two of you with lifted brows. Curiosity shining in the honey pot of his eyes.

Slowly, you peeled her off as she continued to talk. You slid her a glass of sweet milk and a napkin with her muffin on top. Her body responded by picking the items up but she wasn't mentally aware of what she was given, she just held them as she spoke.

"Jinx, sweetie," You tried, gently cupping her face. She hummed, eyes wide with glee. You tilted her face to the side, showing her that there was a guest in the house.

Instead of stopping, or maybe even trying to continue talking with Viktor, Jinx screamed and threw her muffin at him. The baked good hit his chest with a sad thump and fell to the floor, as your daughter hid behind you.

You sighed. "He's real. Not a vision." She peeked over your shoulder.

Viktor wiped off some of the chocolate that got on his vest and brought it to his lips for a lick. "I would say I'm pretty real, too."

Jinx stopped functioning. Her breath stalled as she peered at him. You gave her head a soft pat, like a restart button, she finally stepped back with an awkward laugh.

"Whoops, sorry. Got a bit carried away…" She twirled a stray strand of hair on her finger. Viktor gave a soft smile.

"I'm only surprised you forgot it was your idea I visit, given how insistent you were about the flowers." He leaned back into the palm of his hand. He was gentle with Jinx, reminding her of earlier events in a quiet tone. It made your heart flutter, seeing someone treat her well.

"Right… Right! And that you should ask them on a date!" It was your turn to short circuit.

"Eh, Jinx!" He sat up, red covering his face. She let out a soft 'what?' "I was going to do that… on my own time."

"You say that all the time though!"

"You've been wanting to ask me out on a date?" You turned to Viktor, watching his face get beet red.

"Maybe-"

"Ever since you made him lunch along with mine," Jinx proudly answered for him, earning another glare from her boss.

"That was at the beginning of your internship…"

"Yeah, he's been trying since then."

"I'm about to fire you again, Jinx." Viktor grumbled and ran his hands over his face. She gasped.

"Wait, no!" She turned to you, firmly gripping your shoulders. "Y/n, Viktor hates you and doesn't want you to ever speak to him again."

"Jinx!" You and Viktor both shouted, voices tinged with embarrassment. You cleared your throat and pushed her off. "I think you need to go to your room. Or back to- did you skip class to tell me this?"

Jinx laughed, patted your shoulder, gave Viktor a very obvious wink before bolting back out the door. She definitely skipped class.

Slowly, you turned on your heel and faced Viktor. He leaned back in his chair, long fingers drumming the table. His gaze was stuck on the vase of flowers he had filled earlier and a bright blush on his face.

Breathing out, "A date, huh?"

Viktor sighed, slumping. "I uh, yeah…" You couldn't stop the smile that spread on your face. "I was planning on asking you soon but… well, it seemed a tad inappropriate to ask you to dinner after I apologized for yelling at your daughter."

You chuckled and crossed your arms. "That's thoughtful, thank you."

"You don't have to, I'm sure you're very busy… and I am not… the, well,"

"Dinner sounds nice." Leaning forward on the kitchen counter, you tilted your head. "Are you free after work tonight?"

Viktor's face erupted into that same pink. He gave a slow nod, "Dinner tonight works."

"Great, it's a date." His lips broke out into a wide smile. Sitting up straighter, he opened his mouth to speak.

Your shoulders were near your ears to block out the loud pop that shook the room. Colorful confetti burst over the entire kitchen. Paper purple, red, and blue streamers fell over your head

Jinx stood proud with her newest invention, 'a confetti cannon' in hand. Ashy smoke blew out from the barrel as she beamed, smile so wide her precious tooth gap was on display.

"Date match: success!" She sang out with a loud whoop. "I knew the plan would work!"

"What plan?!" You and Viktor both asked, over the loud ringing of her newest explosion.

"The plan that got you a date!"

"So… you purposely got yourself fired by threatening Sky so we could date?" You narrowed your eyes.

Jinx lowered her cannon. "No, that was a mistake." She shook herself out before beaming again. "The plan was to get you to bond over yours truly." She gave a bow, blue braids falling with her.

You ran a hand over your face. Of course Jinx would pull this. She was the common denominator in her formula of love. You began to rethink if her plan started before she was even interning for them.

Viktor's laugh broke up the silence. He was shaking his head, hand on the table as he stood while he laughed. "Jinx, you are insufferable." He grabbed his cane from the back of the chair and walked over to her.

She stood tall, the cannon strapped onto her shoulder dropped as she tucked her hands behind her back. "Better get used to it, candy cane." Her hand stuck out to point at you as she stared up at him. "Because we're a packaged deal."

"So are your explosives." Viktor brought a hand to her hair and he pushed her head down with a scoff of a laugh. "Get back to class before I tell Heimerdinger this is your third time skipping."

"Third time?!" You gaped. Jinx blew you a kiss before bolting out the door. You and Viktor walked to the door to watch her. To make sure she was actually running to class, not hiding behind the door with her cannon reloaded with more confetti.

You looked behind you. Paper pieces and little glitters were everywhere. Even in the muffins. And in the glass of sweetmilk left out. You sighed and slumped against the door.

"I am so sorry." You offered, slightly embarrassed by your daughter's hijinks.

Viktor only smiled. "I hope her pushing doesn't deter our date. Whether or not we have developed feelings due to her meddling, I would still like to get to know you more personally over dinner."

You watched his face closely. His bright gold eyes were crinkled at the edge by his smile. His high cheekbones were tinted with red. And those adorable moles tempted you still.

You smirked. "She's right, you know." He quirked a bushy brow. "You want to date me, Jinx is non-negotiable."

He returned your dark smile. "The real concern is, can you handle two insane scientists?" He lifted your hand to press those surprisingly soft lips to the top of your knuckles. "Meet me outside the labs tonight?"

This sudden confidence had you floored. "Yeah… can't wait." With a wink, he walked out of your house.

This was going to be fun.

~~~◇◇◇~~~♡♡♡~~~◇◇◇~~~♡♡♡~~~◇◇◇~~~♡♡♡~~

Check out my Masterlist!

[superslothpants]

You know I always had this AU in mine about Inspector Gadget I call The MAD Fox AU

In this AU Inspector Gadget is actually a Mad Agent in disguise spying on HQ for M.A.D

He is actually very clever and has an IQ of 200 but a psychopath/ sociopath underneath (I don’t know which is more dangerous so you choose)

And when he was young his parents group of scientists took him apart and replaced his body parts with his gadgets yet his parents always treated him like a lab rat. Things got worse when his younger brother was born because he was actually treated like a human being by his parents and one day Gadget almost gourde his baby brother’s eye out with his gadget.

So his parents threw him in a asylum for the insane and completely disowned him

Gadget stayed there for the half of his life everyone in the asylum feared him and whoever was a roommate with him would die in a gruesome way

Until one day a new patient admitted to the hospital and by fate he was roommate with Gadget that roommate was Claw of course at first weeks they were together they didn’t talked to each other Claw out of fear and wanting to live while Gadget simply didn’t want to but after a while Gadget and Claw became closer to each other and became good friends and became even more…

Turns out Claw and Gadget was similar as they thought before,

The reason Claw was here was because he was abused at home and bullied at school and one day he snapped (I don’t know what else I could add to the backstory but something similar to Gadgets) and because of his tragic past he wanted to take over the World!!!

Gadget supported Claw’s dream but he knew they had to do something to help his lover achieve his dreams so he did the only logical thing left

He sat The Asylum on fire and left everyone inside to burn while escaping with Claw turns out Gadget had a chance to escape but never did because he had nothing to live for until he met Claw

So the two escaped together and started MAD with Claw’s leading skills and Gadgets IQ they made M.A.D the biggest crime organization ever but of course they needed to hide their identity and Agent Names, Claws obviously was Dr Claw while Gadget’s was The Mad Fox (I chose that name because Foxes are very sneaky and clever animals and stuff) and one day Gadget heard the news his brother and wife died when a robber entered their house and the only survivor was their daughter Penny and out of pity Gadget took in Penny and raised her as his own while handling M.A.D in the side

But as M.A.D grew the police took more notice

So they needed a spy on the inside and Mad Fox decided to vaunter as the spy

So Mad Fox joined the force as A Happy Go Lucky man with Gadgets with a niece to raise his plan was entering the police force as a useless officer but a very good at people to get info for M.A.D for a while it worked but as Penny grew not knowing anything about the truth of her and truly believing he is an idiot Penny decided to help his uncle with his cases and unfortunately that made Gadget promoted to Inspector which irritated Gadget so he tried acting like an actual idiot which backfired, tried getting a puppy to his niece to distract her it backfired again but killing her was not an option because of his niece would suddenly get killed it would be suspicious so Gadget took dangerous missions on purpose hoping Penny would die in one of them

While working for M.A.D

Sooo how is the AU?

Honestly I really dig that AU.

I love the idea of Gadget faking being an idiot but working with Dr.Claw too is the icing on the cake.

I also dig the fact that this man really set an entire asylum on fire just to escape that's actually diabolical.

I also love how Penny could possibly be a conflict of interest like I can only imagine how things would turn out if she got older and wiser about these things.

So I guess my only question is basically does Gadget like obviously check in with Claw a lot to tell him what he knows about HQ etc etc.

Because honestly this is a pretty impressive way to not only have an au but also have it in a way that it fits the show's status quo

[thegreatsaiya-z]

My contribution for a DBZ Secret Santa, for the wonderful @sonohban​

Golden Turtle Ants (Cephalotes saiyani) use a novel hormonal mechanism to alter the structural composition of their chitin exoskeleton in response to  threat

By: Gohan Satan-Son and Logan Entos PhD

Department of Natural and Environmental Sciences, West City University, West City, Compass Country, 05084

Correspondence to: gohansatanson@westcity.edu

Careful…careful. Keep your hands steady, tamp down your ki, exert only the barest of feather-light touch. Extend the tube, closer, closer, and-

Squelch.

A broken capillary tube pierces through the abdomen of the practice ant. Reflexively, Gohan twitches, and just barely catches himself before he continues to massacre the poor thing.

Pre-trial number 23-another failure. It’s a good thing Dr. Bacti mentioned working on run-of-the mill Cephalotes atratus ants before attempting any finicky bits of dissection, because, well, this is just disheartening. 

“You know, I would be sympathetic, but you chose this. You could have looked at their chitin structure. You could have focused on aggressive inter-species interactions pre defense-mechanism activation, or behavioral triggers. But no. You had to focus on the trigger mechanism, and now look at you. Ivan’s going to laugh so hard if it’s just adrenaline.”

Gohan sighs, and resists the urge to shift guiltily. “We don’t know that, technically. This type of defense mechanism is something that’s never been seen in any other species before, ant or not-” At least, not fully from Earth, he amends internally, “-and I’d really rather not make any assumptions. Imagine the possibilities!” Beyond the involvement of ki, which is eye-wateringly difficult to observe in creatures as miniscule as ants, and widely considered only slightly above pseudo-science in most circles. Super Saiyan has to have some sort of physiological trigger (which he’ll get around to looking into! Eventually. When he has the time) if it’s species based, just like Oozaru does, so it’s not illogical to consider that these golden-glowing ants would have one as well. 

Even focusing solely on Earth species, instead of aliens with a random convergence-therianthropes have hormonal triggers, in addition to pulls of magic and lunar convergence, and the trigger hormone does vary based on shift-type. So do most other monster-types, for that matter. It makes sense, it’s just-annoyingly delicate work. For anybody, even excluding the super-strength.

Atra arches her brow, and he coughs self-consciously, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn’t make it sound too personal, right? Super-normal, he is so normal.

“Yeaahh,” She drawls. “Sure. For science! You still decided to work on the trickiest possible bit of the defense mechanism, on top of the taxonomy report we’re corroborating on, and your house got blown up!” “Er,” Gohan said, “-technically, the inspector said it was a sinkhole, asfarashecantell, and it was only less than half my house that fell into it.” His voice only wavered slightly, even as his face burned hotly. He is getting so good at lying.

Bonus: They actually had (reluctantly) called a befuddled inspector, so he wasn’t even technically lying. Strictly speaking. According to the documents. And sure, maybe the inspector had been befuddled by the fact that the crater was impacted, ground fused into rock for no apparent reason, but it wasn’t like ‘accidentally destroyed my house by crushing the floor around me when my daughter was kidnapped’ was a logical leap to anybody outside of their circle, so. Sinkhole. 

“I’m just saying,” she replies flatly, “You could work on your time management skills a little. Learn to relax. Try to avoid stressing yourself out on purpose.”

“I’m not!” Gohan denies fervently. He just- hyper-fixates on work, sometimes, and has a secret double life. “Besides!” He splutters, “We’re aiming for our doctorates! All of this-” Gohan gestures to the somewhat ramshackle lab that is their corner of the entomology sub-department, and the many, many ant colonies and ants in various stages of dissection strewn about the room, “-is precisely because of that! Some stress is to be expected, I’m sure!” Even without counting fun additional stresses like kidnappings, or the mockery-revival of a foe who still caused him to wake up in a cold sweat in the moon-brightness of the night.

Atra squinted suspiciously. Gohan does his best to grin angelically.

“...Sure.” She concedes, supremely grudgingly. “Doesn’t mean that you, specifically, aren’t approximately five minutes from breaking down in tears over your practice ants.

“That’s what therapy is for,” Gohan replies almost-cheerily. Such a good response, suns-blessings for Erasa.

She squints harder, pulling the container containing one of the so far-unofficially named Cephalotes saiyani ant colonies closer as she thumbs up awkwardly around the plastic.

“Good for…you? I…need to make sure all the colonies are doing well, so good luck with your dissections, ‘Han.” Atra replies, walking backwards into the adjoining room.

A few moments later she backtracks, poking her head back in. “Or! If you need a break from that, Dr. Entos told me to remind you that we need to proofread the taxonomy report.”

Gohan winces slightly, but waves a hand in affirmation. Oh, his poor, long suffering laptop. It’s a miracle it’s still limping along while Gohan puts off buying (asking Bulma) for one.

He cracks his knuckles loudly, satisfaction muffled by the nitrile gloves he wears to ‘observe proper lab safety protocols’ (or, as Entos puts it, to avoid the righteous fury of Lab Coordinator Mika Scopi). 

He could dissect a cricket, he could do this. He could dissect a cricket, he could do this.

Once again, from the top.

Inhale, exhale. Concentrate. Careful, careful, and tamp down your ki.

[joyfuladorable]

A continuation of the the spot is peni's dad au please I want to know what ha next?.

Continuation of this? Sure thing!

Okay, so, there’s two divergent possibilities here:

1) Peni’s dad has enough sense of mind to calmly approach Miles and ask for help

Or

2) He doesn’t, and tries to Force Miles to help

I’ll address both under the cut cuz I have a feeling this is gonna get fairly long, lol

So! Option One: the Peaceful Approach

Miles is approached by a Mysterious Figure during a patrol. This figure cannot remember his name and cannot control the dimensional holes that appear over his body and the places around him. He knows that he is not of this world and that Spider-Man can help him return to his daughter. There is no hesitation from Miles to Help.

Timeline-wise, this figure approaches Miles weeks before he would’ve encounter canon Spot in the movie. So, Miles and this Figure (nicknamed several things but mostly called Blot) work together to experiment on making a gateway for Blot to return home (added bonus that Miles will finally be able to see his friends again). However, Blot’s unstable form complicates things in big and small ways, from misplacing things he needs to grab to holes appearing during crucial steps of experimentation that make them start over again.

It also doesn’t help that Blot can’t remember his past without experiencing pain and more instability. Something that Miles quickly realizes, so he knows to keep chatter light no matter how curious he is.

Blot cannot stay in Miles’ universe without glitching, so he takes regular, very reluctant, breaks in the endless space he’d been trapped in.

It’s during one long break that Gwen appears. Helping Blot has yielded the same concerns from Miles’ parents, so he’s still brooding in his room when they reunite. She convinces him to sneak out, they catch up, and Gwen explains the Spider Society.

Miles realizes they can help Blot (another added bonus that he gets to be with his friends if he joins the Society). Before he can explain, though, Gwen has to Leave to take care of some business. Miles follows.

During this time, Blot returns to their makeshift lab to continue experiments by himself. Frazzled by his time in the empty space and no friend to distract him with lighthearted chatter, Blot becomes unstable and sets off the machine they’re working on and is caught by the resulting explosion.

Gwen and Miles see the aftermath. Gwen scrambles to fix this, and Miles once again follows.

Blot’s been hopping from universe to universe, unstable and having trouble keeping his thoughts together and rambling about needing to find his daughter and unwittingly causing chaos with his dimensional holes. He’s confronted in Pavitr’s world and Miles puts himself at odds with the other Spideys and tries once again to explain. Blot is calmed somewhat by his presence but cannot stop himself from destabilizing again even more violently, causing a disaster that the Spideys have to manage while he slips away to another universe.

Miles isn’t shown a vision of Inspector Singh and his dad dying interposed with one another. He saves the Inspector despite that and is brought to the Spider Society. The Blot does not cause a huge hole in Pavitr’s world, so there’s less evidence for Miguel to tie Miles breaking a Canon Event as Bad (he’s still gonna be an ass about it though, lol). Miles is less focused on trying to be recruited as he is trying to find Blot and help him.

Canon Events are Not explained to him, yet. Miguel lets Miles interact with the Society so he can give information on the experiments he’d been working on with Blot. He’s brought to a lab where a bunch of Spideys are already working on tracking him down and gets another meeting with Margo and oh there’s Peni, too! And oh, she’s… why does she look so tired and sad? What Happened??

Miles continues to feel Out of the Loop and gets frustrated enough to Just Ask!! Peni, who’s probably been a bit dismissive to focus on calculations and stuff, relents and takes Miles aside, maybe with Gwen and Peter B, and they break the news about Canon Events.

Yes, his Uncle was meant to die. Yes, he Shouldn’t have saved Inspector Singh because a Police Captain important to a Spidey is always supposed to Die. And Miles gets quiet and says to them “My dad just became Captain…”

Now, he has no forewarning on What event could kill his dad, but he wants to go Home and Check. The others try to calm him down. Peni gets a bit nasty and says he should just cherish the time he has with him but they have More Important Things to worry about right now and turns away to keep tracking down Blot.

They work in awkward silence for a bit before Peni sighs and apologizes for her tone. She never had a chance to save her dad. She hadn’t even Known he’d been SP//dr until after he’d died. Since joining the Society, she’s done the math, and there’s really nothing she could’ve done (right?) for him nor for Addy or her Aunt May.

But Spidey can’t just give up, Miles thinks. There Has to be a way to save his dad!! But Peni’s right, he needs to Focus.

There’s a Ping on Blot’s location and lo-and-behold… he’s in Peni’s Universe.

Miles convinces the team Miguel assembles to take him with since he’d been mostly successful in calming Blot down last time.

Peni leads the charge in her new mech. Blot’s holes are once again causing Chaos. It splits the team up a bit trying to save folks while chasing him down. Peni realizes he’s heading for Oscorp and charges ahead with Miles to cut him off.

Imagine Blot shambling towards Oscorp, tripping though his holes and gaining distance in a jagged sort of movement. “I’m home I’m HOME” he mutters to himself. “Where is she? Where Is She??”

A wall of webs doesn’t stop him. He just keeps moving. Miles call out to him, and Blot finally pauses. He turns and recognizes Miles. He doesn’t recognize the mech but something in his head Tingles with a Connection.

Spider feels it, too. The little creature alerts Peni who narrows her eyes cuz no is supposed to be connected to Spider but her and-

Miles startles when he hears the mech cockpit open. Peni stares at Blot, no recognition on her face until he Speaks.

“Daughter…”

“…Dad??”

And now her world has Flipped and Miles realizes what this could mean cuz her dad’s death is supposed to be a Canon Event so what does that mean if her world hasn’t been affected by that for the years since his supposed Death??

Miguel is Definitely Not gonna like This.

I imagine this’d be a great and excruciating place for the movie to stop and leave it on a cliffhanger, lol

- - -

Okay, and Now: the Aggressive Approach

I think this would mostly play like the movie with a few key differences:

First, where meeting canon Spot was just a coincidence, Peni’s dad would actively be on the hunt for a Spider-Man. Maybe his dimensional holes would be causing problems for the neighborhood and Miles would investigate and be confronted by this figure.

Blot (name gained this time by citizens trying to describe the holes he makes) has more combat training than Spot so he’d probably give Miles way more trouble on top of being actively aggressive. He’d gain the upper hand at some point during the confrontation and demand Miles take him to his daughter which, of course, Miles is totally confused by!!

His lack of control over his powers would eventually kick him back into the Empty Space where he’d find that his hole can finally see to dimensions other that Miles’. He doesn’t need Spider-Man’s help. He just needs the Right Equipment.

Movie plays the same again for a bit. Where Spot had been seeking Alchemax labs to gain more power for revenge, Blot uses them as a jumping point to another universe because he keeps ending up in the Wrong Ones. He gets more and more agitated. He sees Spideys as villains for getting in his way because he Just Wants to get Home and see his Daughter.

Second main difference, when Miles clashes with Blot again, the vision he sees isn’t of Inspector Singh and his dad, it’s of a man holding the hand of a young girl wearing a backpack that looks Weirdly Familiar. He tries to reason with Blot, tell him that they could help him find his kid. But Blot’s too wrapped up in his own head to accept help at this point.

He’s been on his own for Years. He doesn’t Need Help anymore. He just needs to be Home.

The Blot would very clearly make the Big Hole in Pavitr’s world and disappear again. Miles is taken to the Spider Society. The scene with Miguel plays out the same until…

Peni.

He sees her, exhausted and the light gone from her eyes, and he remembers her Backpack. He asks her about it, derailing the gravity of the situation he’s in. She has it on her, of course she does. Her Dad gave it to her.

Miles connects the dots. In front of Miguel and Gwen and Peter and Hobie and all these other Spideys, he blurts out the Truth. Eyes shift from him to Peni who is looking at him with wide and tear-filled eyes. Her voice breaks.

“He’s Alive? My dad.. he’s ALIVE??”

Miguel tries to clear the room. Things have become very Very Complicated and the Whole Society is going to know very shortly. He needs a moment to think, to talk to Peni and grill Miles about How He Knows. Peter (with Mayday) and Gwen stay, because of course they do. Jess stands by Miguel. Hobie sticks around because this is about to be a Whole Show and he’s gonna stick with his drummer and the new guy and the old dude with the anarchist baby and the kid with a punk rock soul.

Miguel’s belief in the importance of maintaining Canon Events stands, despite seeing the mirror in Peni and her dad and Gabriella and him. He repeats what he said to Miles. To him, there is no choice in this matter. Blot being alive endangers the Multiverse.

He still places the blame on Miles, the one who destroyed Fisk’s super collider, the one who didn’t stop Blot when he first made his presence known. Peni is the first to his defense. Miles has hope that he can save his dad; and now that she knows hers is still alive, she has hope that she can save him, too. Him being alive after all these years is proof enough that Miguel is Wrong.

A chase. A scramble for transportation to the right universe. Miguel needs two teams now, one to stop Miles and the other to stop Peni. The news has spread. The Spideys are split. Sides are chosen, and Miguel sees the organization he has so carefully built breaking apart.

Gwen escapes during this madness, realizing her watch has sent her to her dad and No Longer Works. She reconciles with him, gains a new watch, and gathers the Spideys she can to help in this coming conflict.

Miles realizes he’s in the Wrong Universe. Peni uses all of the resources of her universe’s Oscorp to locate her dad. And her dad? Well, he’s losing hope, sees all these universes without him or his daughter striving and happy and that’s Not Fair.

Why do they deserve what he could never have? He remembers parts of his former life, of a service that took everything from him including time with his lonely daughter. If he couldn’t have happiness, why should THEY?

There are holes in his brain, in his heart, a void that keeps growing and growing and he’s close to ready to letting it consume Everything.

[kitkatt0430]

There is a new episode of the Flash where apparently they're doing a mold inspection instead of just doing air quality testing on their own? Seriously? I know I'm not the only one going O_o at this setup.

Maybe the actual episode will make it work somehow? Time for me to find out.

And we're starting in 2123, so a hundred years from now. STAR Labs is the Flash museum with a statue of Barry out front. I can't tell from the angle of the opening shot but I assume the building's exterior still has not been repaired.

someone is poking around with flashlights, dressed mysteriously and headed for the weapons vault. This is clearly fine and normal.

There's an actual security response. Oh my gosh. I mean, its still ineffective, but wow. STAR Labs is gonna have security one hundred years from now. Finally.

Sorry, I think my sarcasm level may be extra high today, please bear with me.

The intruder escapes through a breach of some kind. And the camera closes in on the date the episode is set, which is foreshadowing the mold inspection going wrong, i guess.

It's weird that this is being sold to us as a mold inspection, though? The inspection certificate with the date on it is specifically having to do with the Department of Energy. Why they need a DOE inspection, I have no idea. Are they finally gonna use the pipeline to generate energy for the city or something?

I should just... watch, I guess.

Barry painting Nora's crib and getting all excited about being a dad is adorable. He's also super happy about getting Iris whatever food she may be craving, in this case ice cream. And then it turns out Iris tracked down a magazine that had once featured Henry Allen on the cover - science and medicine journal - and that's just so sweet of her. Barry has so little left from his parents after his mom's death and his dad's arrest...

This is West-Allen at it's best right here. Barry and Iris taking care of each other and showing how much they love each other. (Proof that when they work, they really work.)

Okay, so the mold inspection is because Barry is over-reacting to the whole wanting to make everything safe for Nora now, now, now. What a mold inspection has to do with the DOE is... *shrugs* I think I'm just gonna have to handwave this connection.

Apparently Khione is headed off to spend time with Carla, who wants to get to know this iteration of her daughter. Khione deserves to make family connections, so I hope this goes well. Carla messed things up with Caitlin, but did make inroads in fixing it, so hopefully she'll accept Khione for herself and get some catharsis over Caitlin and Frost's deaths. Khione is afraid of botching things, because she isn't Caitlin and not being Frost already made things go sour with Blaine. I wonder if we'll actually get to see their coffee meetup or if it'll just be discussed afterwards so we know it went okay.

Anyway, the mold inspector brings friends because asking for an inspection set off code alerts or whatever? I'm calling so much BS. That is not how things work. And since STAR Labs hasn't been operating as an active research lab, it doesn't really matter what else is or isn't up to code.

Bet Barry's regretting letting Chester have the day off now.

Iris shows up to join in the fun and rescue Barry from his bad decisions. And it's becoming more and more clear that these inspectors don't know what the hell they're doing. I mean, the electrician doesn't know what the breaker box is called?

At least Barry and Iris lampshade it.

And the temporal anomaly kicks in, herding everyone back to the speed lab repeatedly where a rather nice grandfather clock has appeared. Ticking loudly and ominously.

Barry - I can run to the future and find out how we fix this and then come back and... fix it. Iris - This seems like a bad idea. Barry - TIME TRAVEL!! What could go wrong? Iris - Everything, but whatever. Just bring me back a snack.

Barry once again jumps to time travel as the answer. *sigh* He never learns, does he?

So I want to like Allegra and Chester's date, but the jokes over scrabble feel forced. No one says 'za' instead of 'pizza'. Allegra's concerns about being found out as a meta are just kinda... not treated seriously before segueing into Chester rambling about how amazing Allegra is and how he's in love with her. Which freaks them both out. There isn't a second of that scene that isn't awkward or uncomfortable.

Back with the main plot, Barry uses the speed lab to get up to time traveling speed and some kind of wave changes Iris' outfit into this pretty blue dress with gold accents. She looks great. Barry's attempt to reach the future fails and watching him smack into a wall is hilarious.

Nice try, Barry. Fix this without cheating.

Looks like everyone else got new outfits too. Barry's is kinda Star Trek TNG/DS9/VOY era uniform looking, with a Flash symbol where the combadge would go. That had to be a deliberate choice. :D

And now Barry's been outed as the Flash to four new people. Secret identity made of swiss cheese.

At least the inspectors reactions are funny. Especially the guy who faints. And after some technobabling, we get the conclusion that one of the inspectors is the time traveling thief from the start of the episode.

My money is on the electrician, but she could also just be like me and sometimes just has words disappear from her vocabulary. I have definitely forgotten words I use every day before because my brain just blanks them out for a bit. But this is a tv show, so it seems more likely she's the culprit than the red herring.

Meanwhile, game day at Cecile's continues to be boring. This is the most awkward game of Catan I've ever seen.

Cecile - I'm gonna escape to the kitchen. Chester - No, actually you stay. I shall flee away, away.

Thankfully we're now back to the main plot and they're all speculating on who the time thief could be. Iris is having fun playing with the tech to clear everyone. And then one of the inspectors got replaced with a statue. Whoops. No closer to escaping yet, and the statue is one of those nude statues with the fig leaf.

Electrician is definitely the bad guy, she accuses Iris.

Inspector Dude #2 - Not Mrs. Flash!

lol, he's adorable.

Allegra's trauma flashbacks to Nash and Esperanza's death... *sniffle*

Show writers baiting me making me think that Cecile is gonna talk about her first marriage that failed... and then she doesn't. Hissss, I want back story, that's more interesting than the Allegra/Chester shilling.

Iris and Barry finally having that frank conversation they pretended to have in the first episode of the season is great. And I'm glad they're having Iris talk so frankly about how uncomfortable being pregnant is for her and how distressing it can be. She doesn't regret it, but the way it messes with her body and brain makes it tough on her in a way Barry can support her through, but not totally understand.

And their talk gives Barry the Eureka moment he needs to figure out who the time thief is.

Hehehe, Mrs. Flash, I love it every time he says that.

Barry - Blatantly making up bullshit about the electrical in the building. Electrician - Uhhhhh O_O I don't know enough to call bullshit because I'm not really an electrician.

Awww, two more inspectors down. :(

Lady Chronos... I can't get over her face. The makeup decisions were... interesting.

Barry - Oooh, I'm a lightning generator. I can power your belt. Lady Chronos - Working with the Flash. Ewwww.

Yay, resetting the time magnet reset the inspectors, this time with the real electrician. And the inspectors don't seem to remember what happened. Probably for the best they don't remember Barry's the Flash.

Khione - I could have told you there's no mold. Barry - ............ *expression says he feels dumb now*

So confirmation we don't get to see Carla and that Khione's coffee meetup with her went well. Carla managed to do what Blaine failed at, by wanting to get to know Khione for herself. Good job Carla.

At this point it seems like they're never gonna pick up on that plot thread with Carla gaining ice powers or her own frosty alter ego, which is a shame. But at least she's in the background trying to do right by Khione.

Allegra tracks down Chester to make things right. If nothing else, though I may not like their ship, I do hope the show will end with them happy.

Vibe-accinos. I'm so glad Cisco has a Jitter's drink. He deserves it.

The ending is more cute, domestic West-Allen.

While not the best episode of the season - either the heist episode with the Rogues or the previous episode focused on Iris and Nia are currently that for me - this was a solid and fun episode. It did much better with the temporal anomaly concept than the season opener and did a much better job of addressing Barry and Iris' different ways of dealing with their current circumstances, giving Iris room to voice her feelings without invalidating her or otherwise kicking the can down the road.

Since we're stuck with the Chester/Allegra ship, even though it's forced to the point of awkwardness at all times... Chester is adorable when he's happy. He's got such a lovely smile. And Allegra does deserve to have a relationship where she loves someone and not have it end with that person dying. I do like that the big loves of her life mentioned prior to Chester are all platonic/familial, making it clear that her non-romantic loves were just as important to her as her current romantic one.

The trailer for the next episode makes it look like the breather episodes are over and we're moving on to the final arc of the show. Bloodwork is back, as is Wally, Dig, Oliver, and the multi-verse.

Barry - *hugs Oliver* Oliver - I'm allergic to feelings, you're giving me hives. Stop it. Barry - *hugs more*

I'm guessing this final arc will have Khione come into her own as a hero? I mean, they haven't done anything that justifies killing Caitlin to create her yet, so they've gotta do that before the season ends. And this is a short season, right?

Finally... Barry's birthday was previously established as being in March, but now they're celebrating it in April from the looks of things in the trailer? *heavy sigh*

[zak-writes]

oc list because i need one

warning lights

Ada: he/him. korean-irish. early 30s. missing left arm and right leg, replaced with prosthetics that don't really work. also diabetic. "cyborg" hackerman who never goes outside. likes stalking people with traffic cameras

Shamrock: he/him. korean-irish. mid 30s. mastermind behind several elaborate heists. could break into fort knox given enough time. has a little brother named Tadhg

Electra Pankhurst: she/her. latina. early 30s. expert lockpick, restaurant owner, and only daughter of a (sometimes) dead mafia boss

Jack: he/him. white. mid-30s. getaway driver. does not know nearly enough about cars as he probably should. massive flirt

Yankee Bravo: they/them. hispanic. late 20s. better known as YB. musician by night, crowd control for Shamrock's elaborate heists by day. owns a club that the cops can't seem to shut down

Carolina: she/her. black. mid 20s. highly accurate sniper trained to kill. former cult member but if you call it a cult she gets upset.

eldwell island

Charlene Louise "Charlie" Riggs: she/her. black. 35. detective inspector. longest serving police officer in the history of eldwell island. has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the supernatural happenings on the island. is possibly a product of said island. dyslexic and hard of hearing (uses hearing aids)

Lorenzo Marino: he/him. italian descent. 28. detective constable. has three children. allergic to fairy dust.

Katrina "Kitty" Green: she/her. white. 30. detective sergeant. married. second longest serving officer currently on the force. Charlie's best friend

Chris Doyle: they/them. white. 40. forensic investigator/pathologist. not formally trained in either. member of one of the oldest families on the island. missing left leg from the knee down

Devon Dashner: he/him. black. 26. police constable. transman. recently immigrant from the mainland. big fan of unicorns (they are not a big fan of him_

Riley Williams: he/him. white. 22. missing, presumed dead.

space crew

Doctor Morchard: they/them. white. 21. medical "doctor". on the run from pretty much every law enforcement there is

whatever im gonna call this thing

Samantha-Amelia croft: she/her. 30s. lab tech turned pathologist. only person left alive at her lab. hates having her name shortened

Elyxyr Jones: they/them. 15. nonbinary who survived the apocalypse by blind luck. thinks samantha-amelia is the coolest person ever

Marcus: he/him. 50s. priest. looking for his sons.

[nikitasavla21]

Amaya: Time's of War

Concept - Wars in the Future

With the running time and technology, the world developed to unfold its magical advancement in the fields of sciences, culture, and humanity. Flying cars and mansions were the new symbol of riches, while those on the ground were the novelle societal backwards. The mankind sank a little and the robots appeared, with a heart more metallic and less pounding. The new life was a mix, cause the new citizens were more robotic and less human. With its vagitus, the human organs are replaced with robotic ones, to impart power and supremacy; human hearts were removed, discarded, and finally replaced with an arc reactor, mainly for the silver spoons. This new vertical dimension added layers of economic disparity globally. Similar was the situation in Gama Verse, the new superpower of the world.

On a normal morning of 2055, Feriha Palmar, the PM of Gama Verse, and a single parent was recharging herself and her daughter Melissa for the day. While feeding hard drivers for Melissa for her day at the nursery, the button on her wrist turned red and her palm rang. “Emergency! White House, now” it said. Escorted with 7-foot-tall weaponized robots, she flew to the White House. Greeted with trained faces of cyborg ministers with the most powerful abilities, there was panic in the air. They soon capsuled to a secret meeting room to find huge holographic displays telecasting the horrific situation at the city hospital. People groaning and complaining, red ambulances in the atmosphere, all in chaos and tumult, everything umbrellaed under the headline of ‘Verse’s worst outbreak: Children, a target of war, this time”. Seeing the situation, a meeting was set to discuss future actions of the government, with more emphasis on the immediate treatment of the kids and strengthening the medical system. Work was allotted and the authorities were on their feet, but Pablo, the assistant security couldn’t overlook Feriha’s lowered and knit-together eyebrows. He asked Feriha, “Who do you think it could be?”.  Immediately a small team of inspectors and investigators assisted with the most modern technology was set, to find the reason, source, and possible enemy of this situation.

With the passing days, people only panicked more, government spent sleepless nights decoding the outbreak and trying to arrange a good and large medical system. While things were still happening, the crisis was yet to hit harder. Little did anyone know how terrifying and dark the situation was at its root until after a week?

With her palm ringing again, Feriha knew that the news was going to be bad. Little did she know it would be worse. Picking the call, she immediately left for the hospital. Melissa was in hospital. Filled with tears Feriha reached the hospital to meet her only ‘alive’ piece of heart. She held her tight, but Melissa was too weak to give any kind of response. She too was slowly getting paralyzed. All of this, the thought of seeing her administration fail, people criticizing and most importantly her daughter and millions of other kids turning into stone for the rest of 500 years, leaving the nation without an active youth, gave her a chill down her spine.

In the meantime, her team had managed to decode a big question, ‘What is it that was making the kids paralyzed?’. They found a weird pattern amongst the kids in the hospital, all of them had just been inserted with the robotic parts, the kids who were more cyborgs were more severely infected and secondly, all of them were recharging themselves with this new inverter in town called Amaya. “Amaya! Means ‘The end’ in Spanish and Japanese.” Exclaimed Feriha. “Yes! The enzyme in Amaya when reacted with the cyborg blood in the lab, killed the blood cells from within, acting like a slow poison, and turning the body into a stone. And the only way out is, lowering our guards of metal. The human corpuscles are still able to fight this enzyme to some extent. To save the rest of the kids, we need to stop embedding the arc reactor or any other part in their body at least for the time being, maybe half of them survive through” were the words of Jereme Alisson. Feriha went live on her hologram, stating “The Verse is under a state of emergency, and I order the immediate pause of reactor insertion in the body of our kids!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Landscape - Flying cars and mansions were the new symbol of riches, while those on the ground were the novelle societal backwards. A new vertical dimension added layers of economic disparity globally. Riches were at the top, while the poor clung to the ground.

People - Cyborg. The new life was a mix, cause the new citizens were more robotic and less human.

Object - A heart, more lifeless.

[aftout]

Curious how Juliette and Elizabeth first meet bc I am very curious and interest in their little first meeting shjdjsbvdd

HELP MEEE I will try my BEST to summarize it.

Ok. Imagine you’re Juliette Shaw, aspiring author and the only daughter of Dr. Elliot Hobbes. He throws a big ol party, as he usually does, and this time it just so happens to be a masquerade ball. Now, let’s say that after this event, it’s revealed that someone broke into his lab and stole a bunch of unlabelled powders and chemicals that he was meant to research; which would be completely illegal to own if it weren’t for his license. This is no good! They get London’s best detectives on the job, but when Inspector Holmes for some reason marks you as a potential culprit you’re like “Hey this sucks? I might as well take matters into my own hands and do MY OWN sleuthing. Out of spite. And also because I love my dad.”

You’re reaching just as many dead ends as everyone else, and then one afternoon while your dad is out and you’re in the garden, you notice that he’s left the one window to his basement study open. Immediately alarms sound off, because Dr. Hobbes NEVER leaves that window open when he’s gone. So naturally, you do what any sane woman would do and arm yourself with a kitchen knife and set off to check for any intruders yourself; without warning your mother OR the house staff beforehand. When you barge in, you do find an intruder! Hurrah!

… This intruder just so happens to also be a very attractive woman wearing a suit, who insists that she is a “freelance detective”. You are immediately intrigued.

[mst3kproject]

Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks

This movie has a real all-star cast as far as us MSTies are concerned.  There’s Rossano Brazzi, who was Phineas Prune in The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t; Edmund Purdom, whom we know as Griba from Ator, the Fighting Eagle; and Salvatore Baccaro, the leader of the cavemen in Starcrash.  The film itself is absolute, irredeemable trash and I love it like my own garbage child.

We begin out of nowhere with a bunch of peasants beating a caveman to death.  What?  Where are we?  When are we?  Who are these people?  Why is one of them a cavemen wearing a fur loincloth and the rest are just normal people in pants?  Why are they beating him?  Did he do something that pissed them off, or do they just hate him because they’re, like, anti-Neanderthal racists?  What the fuck is going on?  We will never really find out.  We just cut straight to Dr. Frankenstein hauling the troglocorpse into his lab.

That’s how this movie rolls.  Don’t bother asking questions, just try to keep up.

Count Frankenstein’s daughter Maria has returned to her childhood home, bringing along her fiancé Eric and her friend Krista, who has an unhealthy relationship with polka-dots.  Krista is immediately fascinated by the Count and his work, and he with her in turn.  It doesn’t take long for Krista to find out that Frankenstein is carrying on reanimation experiments in his basement, but that’s actually the least of the bullshit going on around here.  There are more cavemen out there, but there’re also rivalries and love triangles among the inevitable gaggle of deformed assistants, and the local villagers are angry about a spate of grave robbing and determined to run the Frankensteins out of town.  The ‘monster’ (I’m not sure it quite counts) is kind of an afterthought.

See, Hans the Butler hates Genz the Dwarf (even though it’s actually Kregan the hunchback who is fucking Hans’ wife) so he gets him fired, and Genz swears revenge on the whole Frankenstein household. Wandering in the woods, Genz meets and befriends a second caveman, naming him ‘Ook’ and teaching him how to rape women in the hopes that he will do violence to Maria Frankenstein.  Ook, however, kidnaps Krista instead.  At about the same time, Genz sneaks back into Castle Frankenstein to free the first caveman, Goliath, whom the Count has been keeping strapped to a table after bringing him back to life, and who has also fallen in love with Krista as the latter assists the Count with his work.  Goliath goes on a murderous rampage, then follows Genz back to the cave where Ook is keeping Krista.  Sure enough, this leads to a caveman-vs-caveman battle for the girl!

Man, I would love to see earlier drafts of this script, mostly because I’m dying to know whether some prior incarnation of it actually had anything to do with Mary Shelley’s book or even with previous Frankenstein movies.  I mean, it starts with the servants digging up a corpse, and ends with a torch-and-pitchfork mob destroying the Count’s creation… the beginning and end of a Frankenstein movie are present.  In between those, however, it wanders off on this bizarre tangent about the local cryptids. As it reached the screen, the only thing Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks seems to have in common with its source material is the threat to the Count’s girlfriend, which was issued by the Creature in the original story.  Technically, even the grave robbing and re-animating have nothing to do with Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus – the book never actually says how the Creature’s body was created. The idea of piecing it together from corpses originates with the Boris Karloff movie.

Let me describe some more of the stuff that goes on here, in order to give you the flavour of the experience.  For starters, Salvatore Baccaro, playing Ook the caveman, is credited as ‘Boris Lugosi’ in the opening credits.  The first time I saw this movie I snorted water up my nose when that popped on screen.

Later in the movie there’s a flashback to that first peasants-vs-caveman scene, and it answers none of the questions I listed above. Why are there cavemen in these woods? I dunno, there just are.  What did the cavemen do to piss off the locals?  I don’t know that, either… they may have been stealing livestock, I guess, but they don’t seem to have been a threat to the people until Genz taught them about rape.  Kind of makes one wonder what happened to the cavewomen, since we never meet one and these guys don’t seem to know what women are, as illustrated by Ook initially thinking their nubile young captive is going to be dinner. Also, although there are two cavemen, they don’t know each other.  Genz has to introduce them!

There’s a bit where Genz is hiding behind a clock to watch Maria and Eric have sex.  The butler comes along and chews him out for it, sends him to his room, and then he stands there and watches them for a while.

In another scene, Maria and Krista go skinny-dipping in a mineral spring, and the longer it goes on the more the dialogue sounds like it’s going to break into lesbian porn.  I am particularly fond of the exchange where Maria says, “don’t worry, this dress is designed to be easy to get out of,” and Krista, impressed, replies, “I’ll say it is!”

The subplot in which the butler’s wife is having an affair with the hunchback has no effect on the plot whatsoever.  The butler never even finds out about it.  There’s a scene in which they run off to the barn to slap each other and smooch, and then the movie forgets about it.  Astonishingly, the same is true of the corpse the servants dig up early on.  They exhume the body of a recently dead woman, Genz cops a feel and leaves some footprints at the scene so that the villagers can figure out who was responsible, and… that’s it.  She doesn’t even hang around as a gratuitous zombie like the grave-robbed girl in The Atomic Brain.

According to Wikipedia, nobody will admit to directing this movie.  Like many Italian films, the director used a pseudonym, and the cast apparently disagree on even such basics as his nationality.  Some of them think he was Spanish, but Simonetta Vitelli, who played Maria Frankenstein, insists he was an American.

At the end of the movie, Ook is the first of the cavemen to be killed, and we get to see Genz weeping over his friend’s dead body.  Then he and Krista hold each other as the mob closes in on Goliath.  This is supposed to be a tender moment but it looks a lot like Genz (who is, you must remember, around four feet tall) is enjoying his faceful of boobs.  Since all alternative love interests for Krista are now dead, maybe we’re supposed to think she ended up marrying Genz.

Finally, as Goliath’s body burns, Edmund Perdom intones, “there’s a bit of the monster in all of us, especially where there’s fear.”  I’ll drink to that, my dude.  ‘Twas beauty killed the beast.  He tampered in God’s domain.

That probably is supposed to be the movie’s point. The villagers are depicted as suspicious, fearful, and quick to violence, while the cavemen seem to have been relatively peaceful types until Genz taught them how to rape.  It’s very much the Homo sapiens who are the monsters there. Frankenstein’s servants are all assorted shades of horrible, from Genz the necrophile to the nasty cackling butler to the adulterous hunchback and cook.  Count Frankenstein himself isn’t quite so overtly evil but it’s clear that he’s not very interested in the moral dimension of his work.

Even if that’s an intentional theme rather than just a pithy closing line, I don’t think anybody thought about it very hard. The rest of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is too much of a mess.  There’s no real plot, no identifiable protagonist, it’s sleazy and incoherent and at times it’s horrifyingly abelist… and yet, for reasons I cannot explain, it’s weirdly entertaining.

Maybe it’s just that everything in the film is so damn ridiculous.  So much of what happens comes out of nothing and goes right back into it… a series of mind-boggling what the fuck moments that surprise the viewer over and over.  The impression is that the writers are throwing horror concepts at the screen to see what sticks, but nothing does.

Maybe it’s that this is another villain-centric piece.  You know I like those.  I guess maybe Krista is the heroine?  She seems to do the fewest horrible things over the course of the story, but she’s not a good person, either.  She’s totally into the Count’s creepy reanimation experiments, and makes only a token protest about the idea of informed consent.  Edmund Perdom’s Inspector character is one you’d expect to try and do something about these goings on, but he never does.  Maria and Eric are only in the movie so it can have a sex scene.

Whatever the reason, the result is inexplicably charming. Between the easily distracted plot, the gratuitous breasts, the bad dubbing, the complete failure to either frighten or titillate, and the fact that it tries to tie itself to a lucrative franchise it really has nothing to do with, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is almost the perfect example of a bad Italian horror flick from the 70’s.

[vepiwrites-coisas]

Story

Fifteen years ago your sister, Melody, mysteriously disappeared. Since then you've established a career as a private investigator, solving mysteries and helping people in need. Now you have finally returned to your hometown, Hercchester, determined to solve the mystery that has plagued you for years. However, as soon as you arrive you meet an orphan girl named Iris, she says she wants to be your assistant so that you can train her to one day become a great detective. Solve puzzling cases with the help of your assistant as well as several other characters in Hercchester as you try to find the truth about what acctually happened to your sister.

Features

Play as a woman, a man, or a nonbinary person.

Train your young protegé and teach her how to be a great detective.

Four love interests with unique personalities. (Five, if the shadow watching you finds you interesting enough.)

Try to uncover the truth about your sister's mysterious disappearance fifteen years ago.

Use logic and observation to solve five different cases, or just guess your way to the answer.

Demo Link(soon)

Your Assistant

Iris Jones

Age: ??

Personality: Iris is a determined girl with a tendency of blowing situations out of proportion. She can be very deceitful and calculating, but if something doesn't go as planned she ends up getting lost. Iris refuses to use people's real names, giving them nicknames most of the time.

Appearance: 4'9". She has dark brown skin, brown eyes, and kinky voluminous black hair usually tied up. 

Romance Options

Charles Garcia: Inspector Charles, or Charlie if you want to annoy him, Garcia is the local Police Inspector of Hercchester. He is a serious man with a short temper and terrible social skills. Despite that, when investigating a case, he demonstrates a calm and rational nature, always following the rules and seeking the best for his community. He doesn't bother trying to hide his irritation when you start tampering with his crime scenes, however, he also doesn't deny the effectiveness of your methods when they deliver good results.

Age: 30

Appearance: 5’7". Tan skin, sharp jawline, black eyes with visible dark circles underneath, and a small scar on his left eyebrow. His dark brown hair is short and straight, and despite his best efforts, it refuses to stay neat. When out investigating a case, he usually wears a brown trenchcoat.

Leah Khan: Dr. Leah Khan is an outgoing young woman with an optimistic outlook on life(and death). She works as a coroner at the Herccherster Police Station. For her, death is not something tragic or disturbing but an important part of existence that must be studied and discussed. Despite her casual demeanor toward corpses, she genuinely cares for the victims and works hard to help solve their deaths.

Age: 27

Appearance: 5′10″. Deep olive skin and green eyes. Her curly black hair is usually pulled back into a bun. She usually can be seen wearing more masculine clothes and a pair of round glasses, as well as her lab coat inside her mortuary.

Isabelle/Isaac Snow: You initially meet “Isa” while working your first case in Hercchesters, they are the victim's former butler/maid. They're kind and hard-working, despite sometimes being a little naive. You help them after you start investigating the murder. Quickly they prove themselves to be efficient and essential to your new life. They care a lot about Iris and are always trying to support her.

Age: 25

Appearance: 5’9" for Isaac, 5′7″ for Isabelle. Blue round eyes, a heart-shaped face, and pale skin. Straight light blond hair short groomed back for Isaac, and in a long braid, wrapped around her head for Isabelle.

Arthur/Agatha Greenward:  During your childhood, you two were great friends. However, after the incident with your sister, you ended up growing apart and lost contact with each other. "A" is now a mystery novelist who has established a promising career. They can be a bit too serious at times and have a cold and distant disposition. They also have a daughter named Emma, ​​the result of their first marriage. She is the most important person in their life.

Age: 34

Appearance: 6’2 for Arthur, 6’ for Agatha.Rosy freckled skin, grey eyes, and medium-length wavy red hair. Arthur has broad shoulders, a square jawline with a short stubble beard. He keeps his hair side-parted. Agatha has a sleek body and a sharp face. Her hair is kept in a bob.

Supporting Characters

Samuel Kane: Your cousin. He is an irresponsible and unsuccessful artist(or, as he likes to say, an undiscovered talent) with a terrible habit of falling in love with women and immediately proposing to them. Sammy has a long track record of failed relationships and disastrous wedding ceremonies, but despite all of that, he still believes love will find its way into his life.

Age: 28

Appearance: 5’9". Light skin, green eyes, and wavy golden-brown hair, kept shoulder length. An average-built and a round face. 

Setting

Hercchester is your typical murder mystery town, located in an ambiguous place in the United Kingdom, with a community full of peculiar characters and a surprisingly high death rate. Explores the parks, shops, and all the other locations that seem to only show up in order to have someone be murdered in them.

[madexinxheaven]

@whoxyouxhate​ said: 🚼 - Does your character have or want kids? @ the mains

“I always figured it would happen eventually.”

Caitlyn’s affections to the idea of motherhood are born first from her family life; Being an only child to two VERY loving parents. And second from the mess that had become of the slums. From saving Vi and taking her in as her partner in the L.G.D to the lab experiments and kids saved INADVERTANTLY when she was just tryna rescue her parents... Caitlyn has and always will have a soft spot for kids. I mean, how could she NOT with memories of her mom rocking her on the way from Victoria? With memories of her dad teaching her how to shoot? With memories of them getting her very first RIFLE at eighteen? How could she NOT want to do that herself? For her own kids? Of course, nowadays, Jayce has disillusioned her to the idea. But maybe if she’d ever be able to find a love that DIDN’T burn out...

“Maybe there’s still time...”

“Me? Kids? I... Can’t say I’ve really thought about it...?” 

Honestly, she still felt like a big kid herself. Exusiai’s outlook on LOVE & LIFE was still very bubbly and immature, founded on hypermania and sociopathy. Sure, she was CARING & OPTIMISTIC ENOUGH, and would likely be good in the role of a caregiver. But... But could she actually be a FULL-TIME MOM? Honestly, she wouldn’t even know where to start. The idea made her feel SUFFOCATED. Fears that she’d grow BORED or FRUSTRATED or that she’d inevitably come upon a bridge she didn’t know how to CROSS. Oh, God, what if her kid needed ADVICE? What would she do then? Heart palpitations were going crazy at this point. God, there were no VACATIONS in motherhood. And no adventure either. And WAAAAAY too much responsibility. 

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready to think about that kinda thing...”

“W-Wait... You... Isn’t it a little too EARLY to be talking about KIDS?”

Makoto was still very much a kid herself. A fact her elder sibling seemed so determined to DRILL into her head. Freshly graduated and still in training for her DREAM JOB. Not to mention looking after her own big sister and being essentially still dependent on the older woman for stability and shelter. Yeah, Makoto really did NOT have enough years in her yet to open her mind to the possibility of being a mother. But maybe in time she could. Maybe she could pass down her Buchimaru collection? That’d be kinda cute, huh? But now was SO NOT THE TIME to think of that kinda thing. first she had to finish her training and actually prove to Sae Niijima that Makoto COULD make a career out of being an Inspector for the Lungmen Guard Department. Then and only then could she worry about everything else. Like...

“Whether I have kids or not, I won’t end up like my father...”

“Kids? What kinda crazy fuck would find the balls to ask that?”

Swire was, in every sense of the word, a SPOILED BRAT. She also just so happened to be one of Lungmen’s proudest patriots. And, despite all appearances, the girl took her role as Superintendent VERY seriously. At least, as seriously as one could with friends like Hoshiguma, Yushia, and CH’EN HUI-CHIEH. The girl had all the money in the world and no time to spend it. Not to mention all the bad run-ins she’d had with every single parents in this Godforsaken city. Lin was kinda cool, tho. But that HARDLY counted. Honestly, Swire just didn’t wanna end up like her Granddaddy. Didn’t wanna end up TERRORIZING her kids. Raising yet another generation of herself, Ch’en, Talulah and Yuhsia. Hadn’t they themselves been through enough? Wasn’t it about time those kinda tragedies came to an end? Way Swire saw it, if she could stay kids with the people around her? (As kiddy as they had done, at least.) Then that in and of itself would be a HAPPY ENDING.

“Yeahhh, look, here’s the thing: Adults suck. And I’m not about to be the villain in another kid’s story.”

“There are two necessities in this world. Good parents. And people to protect them.”

What a foolish question. What a foolish question, born of IGNORANCE and DISPARITY. Honestly, it was such a perfect exhibition of how MISALIGNED their realities were. Their outlooks on the world, cold and grey as it had always been. Talulah had been daughter to MANY a father. And yet, all of them, without fail, had fallen short of protecting her. And of the few who hadn’t abused her? Well, they themselves had no one to protect THEM from abuse. Such was life. The world had been allowed to turn for far too long without change. The corrupt held a MONOPOLY on FATE. And the poor pawns were crushed beneath them. Talulah had seen this countless times with her own two eyes to a point where she could no longer tell the DIFFERENCE. Perhaps, at one point, she had indeed wanted children. Perhaps, that girl in the photo, smiling as she clung to the shoulders of her EMOTIONALLY-ERRANT SISTER... Perhaps SHE could’ve been a mother. Perhaps she WANTED TO BE. But that girl was DEAD. And while Talulah’s name remained. She now knew, deep down, just what role she had to play in this terrible, GODFORSAKEN, world...

“...Some people are meant to have kids... But I’m not one of them...”

“Hah! Holy shit, you’re stupid. What kinda fucking question is that?”

Still despite all outward appearances, the question seemed to DISTURB something deep inside W’s chest. One that could very well have kept her up at night. For as long as memory held, she’d been holding STEADFAST to this story that she couldn’t even remember her own BIRTHDAY. Whether or not that was true was NO ONE’s BUSINESS except her own. But it did perhaps hold the first clue of what drove W forward as a person; Seemingly rushing toward the future with a CACKLING LAUGH, CRACKLING DYNAMITE, and a tendency to DESTROY rather than to CREATE, W definitely seemed to have far more to her than she’d ever let anyone know. And as for where children and normalcy fit into that story? Reality was... They really COULDN’T. Even if she wanted them. Even if she wanted love. Which she’d swear up and down ‘til it killed her that she DIDN’T, there was still a matter of fact that... She WAS a criminal. She WAS a terrorist. She WAS a MURDERER. And yet she was still so far away from her goals she couldn’t even BEGIN to think emotionally. 

“Have you even met me? I don’t think you’ve met. You can call me W. Now, please, fuck off.”

“Kids...? Hm. That’d be nice, huh?”

A novel idea and gentle question, if asked with a little TOO MUCH optimism. Yuhsia used to be like that at one point. So it wasn’t like she could hold it against the other. But the simple fact was... Yuhsia may just have been the furthest away from having kids than ANY of the above. And that was ESPECIALLY IRONIC considering she’d already had names picked out for her and Ch’en’s babies. Okay, that wasn’t ENTIRELY true. Look, she was a kid back then, okay? She had a stupid. Childish. Crush. Like, come on, people back then wanted to be SPACE ELVES and HEROES and CAT BURGLARS. None of ‘em actually meant it... Right? The name’s were Ryoko and Kuma, by the way. Which weren’t terrible creative, considering they literally stemmed from “Dragon” and “Mouse” respectively. (What? They were PRETTY!!) But those days were long past. Yuhsia was a GROWN UP NOW. She’d let go of those SILLY notions and that STUPID crush. And those sad reminders of what USED TO BE. (Used to?) And long come to terms with the fact that... Well...

“But let’s be honest here. If I have kids at this point. It’ll just be so father doesn’t run out of heirs...”

[bruh-anator3000]

Jericho's

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A/n: So as im re-writing part two, have a random, non-cannon snippet of the daughter Jinx and wifey Viktor brain rot. Something to fill in the time while i work :D

Summary: Jinx wanted to take a quick trip into memory lane. Viktor, however, is not a fan of what it serves. Literally.

Work count: >500

Warning: i love my derranged daughter and my slightly less derranged husband. Cute family relationship, Viktor stomach is strong, not Jericho strong. Unknown food but that's not stopping Jinx, like at all.

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Jinx scarfed down the grub before her like a homeless kitten finally given their first real meal. Eating like she was starved. Her body was on survival mode, the gasps between the loaded bites she took were manual, her body's airway forced into survival. The honey colored sauce dripping down her stuffed full cheeks.

Turning to Viktor, you watched as he cringed. Poking at the bowl in front of him, he seemed scared of the blue tentacles marinated in what Jinx said was the best sauce in the world. He pulled his finger back, eyeing as the thick substance stretched away from the bowl before snapping apart. He quickly wiped his hands off with a napkin.

"What is this?" Viktor leaned closer to you, eyebrows raised in concern as you both watched Jinx start her third bowl.

You shrugged. "No idea. But you never question Jericho." Hearing his name, the large creature turned around, beaming. His whole body rolling with his boisterous laugh. The large knife he held getting dangerously close to Viktor.

You smiled and gave a little wave back. "Jinx loves this place. I usually order out, so we can eat at home but she wanted to visit." Jinx gave a loud groan, eyes rolling back into her head as she thanked Jericho for his god like work. "Comfort food, I suppose."

Viktor nodded slowly, eyes slipping back to the bowl of what you were told was sea food. "Is it... eh, safe?"

"Definitely not above the board." Jinx filled in, mouth full. Jericho nodded happily and slammed his knife down to chop up more mystery meat.

"But, it's actually not that bad." You smiled softly. Viktor leaned away from his dish, mouth twisted in a frown. "You don't have to eat it."

He let out a soft 'oh thank Janna.'

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Check out my Masterlist!

[iheartsunset]

can I have some skip headcanons

Papa Louie Skip HCs

-Skip Festin (yeah that’s a ratatouille reference) is a 64 year old construction worker and substitute teacher who lives in Oniontown with his 13 year old foster daughter, Hestia, and his wife, Blanche. He used to coach football at the local high school and still continues to support his former students now playing in the big leagues. He’s most often seen alongside his rat, Pastrami, working alongside the street, happily engaging with his students, cheering at the stadium, or enjoying a nice sundae in the Scooperia.

-He’s a goofy guy who often uses dad jokes or crude humor, but he’s still an encouraging, yet strict guy who always keeps himself level headed (except when he yells at the tv during football). He uses stupid puns with his daughter and it makes her cringe, but she still loves them nonetheless. He and his wife are both huge sports fans and will go all out for tailgating. He’s really just like any other dad character I make hcs for since I absolutely suck at making personalities so many characters are basically the same person really.

-Papa Louie has many “workers” that are tasked to step in if one or both of the workers aren’t able to make it. Skip is one of them, and while Koilee and Carlo are sticklers for punctuality, Koilee often has exams or labs while Carlo never wants to miss a family gig. Along with Radlynn, Whippa, Mousse, and Sarge Fan, they help run the restaurant in either of their absences. He’s Carlo and Koilee’s favorite since he’s so fatherly and amazing (that and the rest of the alternates secretly scare them and Skip was the least likely to kill them in their sleep).

-Hestia had originally found a blind rat in the street and asked Blanche and Skip if they could keep it. Skip was going to say no, but he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he said yes. Fast forward a year later and now he and Pastrami are basically besties that go everywhere together. It’s actually illegal I think to bring a rat into any restaurant, but I think we all already know that Papa has the means and opportunity to bribe health inspectors. If money fails to work, Pastrami can always call upon other rats to tie up health inspectors and keep them in the pantry (for legal reasons, this is a joke, don’t Sue me Disney please)

-He once got so worked up over the Onion Town football team losing and before he knew it, he’d thrown his sundae at the tv and it fell off the freaking wall. Koilee and Carlo were absolutely shocked. I think Sarge Fan even started crying. Now Koilee and Carlo don’t let the sports channel on the tv anymore, they’ll just play anime or Asian dramas or even the Hallmark Channel.

-He likes to keep drawings on the white boards in the classrooms he teaches in. They’re not good drawings, but you can barely make out that it’s Dio or SpongeBob. It’s so heartwarming that the janitor becomes very sad when he has to inevitably erase it.

-He knows a whole bunch about Greek mythology and French media and culture, especially since his daughter’s name is Hestia. His favorite story is the one about Cassandra of Troy, he just likes it since it’s the least gruesome or sad out fo all of them. I mean the city of Troy was destroyed and that’s real sad, but I mean compared to everything else, yeah it’s not too horrible I guess.

-He will chase you with a jack hammer if you insult his rat, his family, students, coworkers, or the Scooperia workers. He’ll especially say “You’ve ratted your last tatouille”. He also has a cement truck and other heavy machinery that he’ll use if you’re a piece of trash.

-He always carries bags of cheese in his pockets for Pastrami or anyone who wants cheese.

-Skip is very squeamish and will faint at the sight of blood. This was pretty prominent when he had to sub for a both a health class and a biology class and he passed out during both.

-uh yeah, so skip exists and he’s pretty cool sounding, but he’s not really on my list of customers I love to death, he’s very precious though

[screensirenfic]

Black Leather - Chapter 1

Life had remained largely the same, despite the obvious overhanging changes over the last year. I mean; life had always been hectic; disastrous even, taking turns and downright derailing at the worst times. We’d experienced loss again and again, been chewed up and spat on, but got up fighting; because that was what being a Hopper meant, being too damn stubborn to die. It was in the genes.

Life had gotten weirder. The discovery of real, living and fucking breathing monsters had been a big ole’ “fuck you” to logic, but science seemed to back it up with the uncovering of Hawkins lab and whatever sinister experiments they were running there. Of course; that wasn’t a concern any more, considering old Uncle Sam had shut that down quicker than the health inspector at Benny’s; God rest his soul.

But even with the finality of the death and burial of Hawkins greatest catastrophe/mystery; it still left a lot of bodies in its wake, one of which I was currently adjusting to calling sister.

Eleven. El. Jane. Whatever people preferred to call her; she was currently sharing a home with Me and my dad, as we all played happy families in the darkened depths of Indiana woodlands. I liked the kid; I’d admit it. She was sweet in her own way, and knowing she could toss shit around with her mind made her much cooler than the average thirteen year old. Of course; all of that was a secret. Everything about El was; as far as the government knew, she didn’t exist. It was the price that had to be payed for safety, and God knew dad valued that above all else: including our sanity.

So instead we stayed shut inside that little wooden hut forgotten by time and space, sneaking in and out at the rising and setting of the sun, like criminals or bats in the night. It was enough to drive you crazy; and trust me, dad was already half way there. Tensions ran high all the time; higher than they had at the height of his PTSD, and God; sometimes I just wanted to scream. For someone to address that shit wasn’t normal, rather than sitting around and pretending that it is.

The only true bit of normality was school and work. Mainly just school, as the arrival of a new dependant meant my work hours were seriously fucked. Wasn’t the kid’s fault; dad was a workaholic, didn’t know when to call it a day, and that left me picking up the pieces. It was Sara all over again. At least back then things were normal. There was still trauma, but it was the kind normal families had. A missing parent; semi-alcoholic father; that was shit everybody had to deal with, but this. This was the stuff that only happened in B movies.

—————————————

God; sometimes I really loved having a motorcycle. The wind slapping your face like a Californian wave; that rush of adrenaline when you take a corner a little too fast, when death seems just moments away. It was like flying; soaring through the air without limits. No; it was more visceral than that. Like free falling; the absolute relinquishment of control as you hurtle through the ozone, the earth rising up at you as the void closes in; death approaching at a hundred miles per hour.

You couldn’t compare it to any other sensation. I’d seen kids trying to mimic it on tiny dirt bikes painted up like NASCARS; their little legs spinning the pedals like turbines as they tried to reach just a lick of that speed. To feel the breeze on their face; the closest you could get to freedom in the tiny township of Hawkins, Indiana. That rush didn’t touch the one I felt when I rode my Triumph, hitting 80 as I threaded through standstill traffic; the reaper breathing down my neck.

But like all great rides; it came to an end too soon, the nondescript flat roofed shape of Hawkins High rapidly approaching. I pulled into the parking lot, cruising through row after row of dusty cars; from the beat up old Pacard, to the shiny new Chevy.

I parked a couple of rows before the school, swinging my leg over my saddle as I finally accepted my joy ride was over and I’d have to land back on earth.

“Hey; Lola!” A familiar voice rang out as I pulled off my helmet, shaking my hair loose, less the dreaded helmet hair take hold.

Nancy Wheeler; Hawkins High’s very own Miss Perfect, the princess of Indiana. She was the daughter fathers dreamed of; pretty in a girl next door kind of way, well behaved, a high achiever; the kind to bring home boys who got her back by ten and kissed goodbye at the door. I got called other things. Jail bait, wild child; a lawsuit waiting to happen. Well meaning grandparents used girls like me as a cautionary tale to expecting parents on what too little discipline did to ‘nice little girls’.

Not that I didn’t like Nancy. She was nice, and Steve’s girlfriend too. Besides, being a princess was hard; a lot of expectations to live up to, a lot of hopes to let down. I never had that problem, and with her cotton candy smile; I couldn’t help but give one in return.

“Hey Nance” I chirped, placing my helmet on the back of my motorcycle and knowing damn well no one would dare touch it.

“Steve was just wondering if you’d take a look at his college application...” She began, and I could see the flustered figure in question trailing behind her.

“He’s been finding it hard to find the right words, and we know how you never get tongue tied.” She joked, and I took it at face value; I was getting A’s, despite the perception that girls like me were only good at one thing and one thing only.

“Is that so, Steve?” I asked, unable to hide my smugness as I stared at him, despite his insistence on avoiding eye contact.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than really digging into him. It was just too easy; to push all his buttons. Of course; he did the same in return, but who really had more to lose? The self proclaimed king of Hawkins High, or his leather clad sidekick?

“Yeah, sowouldyoutakealookatit?” He mumbled, rubbing his nose as if he could hide the words as you would a cough.

“I’m sorry, Steve. I didn’t quite get that.” I purred with all forced sweetness and sacharine smiles. I could never resist the urge to really twist the knife.

“I said, would you take a look at it...” he sighed; a visible strain on the admission of inferiority.

“Please...” He added, drawing a smile to my lips. Sweet, stubborn Steve; too good to ask for help, and  just desperate enough to need it; but then what are friends for?

“Sure thing Harrington...” I grinned, finally plucking the crumpled stack of papers from Nancy’s grasp. “Would love to.” I removed my gaze from him, savouring the rare look of humbleness on his face, and turned it upon the paper.

——————————————-

Steve Harrington was many things. Charismatic. Caring. Rich. Good looking. A great guy with almost endless good qualities, but smart wasn’t one of them. I’d spent the best part of a quarter of an hour troweling through his paper with about as much joy as a prospector in a dry well, but was yet to strike gold.

It really was garbage, and that was treating it nicely, but still both me and Nancy tried our best to revive a corpse; not because we felt there was anything worth saving, but because it was Steve, and we cared about his future; even if it was doomed to culminate behind a deep fat fryer in a fast food joint.

My eyes trailed across line after line of smudged ink; much of it crossed out and rewritten in the margins, trying to make sense of whatever it was he was trying to convey in a comparison between WW2 and a basketball game between us and Northern.

“And did you...” I said; pointing out a particular eyebrow raising line, talking about the all American value of victory.

“Yeah; that’s what I thought...” She agreed, picking up off my tone and honing in on the line in question.

“Uh huh” I mumbled reading onwards on what was a virtual mine field of badly used metaphors and poorly linked  stories.

Steve didn’t seem to fare much better than his essay, pacing restlessly up and down a small stretch of parking lot, reminding me distinctly of an expecting father in the delivery room. However; his midwives were much more willing to take our time perfecting the delivery of his academic baby.

“And don’t you think...” Nancy trailed of, redirecting my attention to a sentence circled in red marker. Another misused simile courtesy of the genius that is Steven Harrington.

“My thoughts exactly.” I concurred, knowing that we were both desperately avoiding as coming across as purposely nitpicky with his work.

A loud, impatient sigh interrupted our conversation as Steve’s nerves finally reached their limit.

“I’m sorry, but are you girls anywhere near done?” He asked, drawing our attention away from the paper and up to his signature Steve Harrington pose; hands perched on his hips.

“We were just trying to find some constructive criticism to give you...” She began her tidy little avoidance bullshit; the kind that came with years of forced diplomacy beneath the perfect four bed suburban roof. The kind of bullshit I couldn’t stand; let alone tolerate. I had to put an end to it.

I strolled up to Steve, shoving the proverbial toilet paper he’d used as an application to his chest in a way that told him loud and clear what the truth about his efforts were.

“She means your paper sucks, man...” I translated; my words holding none of her polish, but all of the dirty intentions beneath.

“I wasn’t going to say that. I was...” She said; already backpedaling the hard truth I’d spilt onto the table.

Steve just gave her a look. He knew she was lying; if only to save his feelings. He may not have been smart, but he wasn’t stupid.

“Okay; it’s a little suckish, but nothing we can’t fix...” She offered in consolation; a weak smile the most she could offer in her lie.

I was about to object, knowing the hole she was digging the both of us was deeper than we could deliver upon, when a grisly roar overshadowed all thought. I knew the sound well; all eyes turning to it’s source, the newest arrival to Hawkins.

A Chevy Camaro; older, probably fixed up by some dedicated hobby mechanic with too much time on his hands. I’d seen hundreds of them in the shop in varying states of rustiness; most beyond repair, but still, some insistent gashead would insist it could be done, sinking fistfuls of dollar into what was essentially raising the titanic.

“Nice car.” Nancy remarked, and for a princess like her to notice, it must be true. It was in good shape. Baby blue with just the slightest of wear on the paint; someone took a lot of care with their baby. Fuck; if I had one, I probably would too!

“Yeah, but I bet the backseat is a nightmare.” Joked Steve; insecurity seeping into what was meant to be a light dig.

Not the only man with a nice ride on the block now.

His dig fell short when the driver stepped out, hard rock pounding in his stead.

Pretty; was my first thought. Like his car, he had all the well tailored ruggedness that created the perfect balance between pretty boy and rebel. Blonde haired, blue eyed; think James Dean if he had a mullet.  His clothes looked good too; double denim that clung to him like a second skin, with a white t shirt that really left nothing to hide.

Smoking a cigarette with movie star casualness, if I’d seen him in a movie, I’d be drooling. But this wasn’t a movie; this was Indiana, and I’d seen too many of his type roll up to Charlie’s in pretty cars with prettier faces thinking it meant the world owed them something. That that something was hidden somewhere down the denim shorts I wore so religiously.

I’d had it with pretty boys. They could all go jump off a bridge.

And as if he was already decided to live up to the cliche, he went and cemented it when he strolled past us, dripping sex and arrogance; his eyes trailing up and down me like I was something to be bartered for, like I could be bought.

“What an asshole.” Sneered Steve, taking the words out of my mouth, and I almost smiled; because of course he’d be the one to say it.

But I didn’t; not when the new kid was leering at me with all the restraint of a hungry dog.

I watched him lick his lips; that’s right, lick. his. lips. Pink tongue peaking out past too perfect teeth, running across a full bottom lip. I tried telling myself it wasn’t sexual. That it was just a private little tick that he couldn’t control. But his eyes had never left me; a dark grin that promised any number of sins stretched across a heartbreaker’s face.

“Yeah. An asshole.” I agreed; the word rolling off my tongue automatically, but I don’t think my heart was in it. That frightened me.

That, and the small itch in my stomach that grew every time his bright baby blues met my green.

Finally; those blues relented, tongue disappearing behind white teeth as he shot me a smile that could’ve sent knees buckling. A quick wink and he was done, strutting into Hawkins High like a stormy breeze that was sure to rock the entire school.

“Hey Lo. You listening?” Came Steve’s voice through a fog of cigarette smoke and gasoline; the smell reminiscent of home, despite its cause being far from homely.

“Yeah. Sure...” I replied, tearing my eyes from where the newcomer had disappeared into the school.

“Let’s get to class before we’re late.” I said, shouldering my bag as if it was any other Monday morning. And it was.

Just another manic Monday.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

‘The cruel teachers. The pashes (bullying) on other girls. The gossip. The giggles. The awful food. The homesickness. The friendships made for life. The shivering cold. Outdoor plays in freezing cold. Games of lacrosse, hockey, and cricket. Midnight drinking under the bed sheets.‘ These are just some of the words described to me by my great aunts about their girls’ boarding school days in the 1940s. By modern standards, virtually every girls’ boarding school in Britain was completely batty beyond belief.

In one school the headmistress was a heavy drinker; when the girls were doing ballroom dancing on a Saturday night, she would sit drumming her fingers with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a glass of creme de menthe in her hand.

The girls had to dance with her father, who had lost both his arms in the war: sometimes, his empty sleeves would be pinned on to the girl with whom he chose to dance.

The school sport was rugby. The headmistress loved the rough-and-tumble. ‘Jump on me, girls, jump on me!’ she would say.

Soon, the teachers began to drift away. Instead of replacing them, the headmistress got the senior girls to teach the juniors. Another set of duties was to catch children – some as young as five – who tried to run away down the mile-long drive.

When the school inspectors were due, the headmistress made her put on make-up, so as to look old enough to be a teacher. The school eventually closed in the early Fifties. ‘It was rumoured that the headmistress had knocked out a girl’s tooth in assembly, when she didn’t like the way she was looking at her,’

Education was put on the back-burner. Back then, even the grandest parents – or perhaps especially the grandest parents – seemed to pick their daughters’ schools for all sorts of reasons, but education was rarely one of them. I’ve heard one friend of my great aunts say that her parents chose a school called Heathfield because none of the girls had spots,’ and another remembers her parents choosing Woldingham because she would be with nuns and would then learn to sew her own underwear.

These days, the brutality of some of the girls’ boarding schools would find their headmistresses carted off to court with sacks over their heads. ‘Do stop that silly coughing,’ said one headmistress to a girl who had asthma. At one smart school, the girls were made to wash their own underwear with Stergene and dry it in a freezing attic with broken windows. They had to break off the ice, rewash them and give them another squeeze. Sometimes it took a whole week for a pair of knickers to dry in winter.

No wonder the past two generations of my grand mother and mother feel that girls like me had it easy compared to them. In this they would be correct. Not that all the illegal and forbidden japes that we boarders got up to didn’t go on but outwardly at least the nature of the boarding school experience had changed.

Nowadays, parents expect their girls to be well looked after and to go on to university. Consequently, boarding schools have had to raise their standards. No longer are girls given a choice of cricket or dusting; no longer do they return home with feet and hands covered in chilblains.

For better or worse, today’s girls being carted off to English and Swiss boarding schools have all the mod cons: central heating, swanky new sports and drama centres, science and computer labs, sober, qualified teachers and even – yikes! – a marketing department and an ‘on-line presence’.

[labetalol]

psycho-pass s3e4 - summary + thoughts + analysis (spoilers)

again, i’m back to share what episode 4 was about for those who want all the spoilers!!!

synopsis: 

while kei mikhail ignatov is on suspension, yayoi kunizuka makes an appearance to help division 1. arata shindo is amazed to see her, as she made a name for herself as an enforcer who was able to rehabilitate into society and now is a journalist. more details come to light when yayoi sheds some interesting information on how people are being transported under the radar by knocking themselves out with drugs, basically simulating “being dead” then waking up when back into safe areas. this allows for latent criminals to travel without sibyl’s judgement. kazumichi irie takes the team to dr. kojo tsuchiya lab in an abandoned part of the city, where the late dr’s AI assistant tells the team about the dr’s project: the most advanced of AIs to date. the doctor had lost his daughter in the helmet crisis (season 1!) and he used neuroscience and technology to create an AI that takes thinking out of the equation. with his daughter’s death, he experienced too much of a “cognitive load,” thus wished to ease the burden of thinking by designing an AI that essentially does the thinking for you. THIS is the connection between the dr and karina komiya, as karina komiya (the pop star political candidate) wishes so badly to win that she has this AI wired to her during debates, speeches etc, which is illegal! a team of (unknown who’s really authorizing them) barges into one of the debates with karina and ma-karina, as they call the AI, with the intent to show the rest of japan how karina is using underhanded tricks to try and win the candidacy. division one + kei who “happened” to be there, despite being on suspension, beat up the bad guys, saving karina from death. the team discovers that it was enomiya, an ex-underground-wrestler who was supposedly hired by karina’s opponent to expose how she is utilizing an AI, meaning to dissuade people from voting for her. it all blows up and the secret organization that is the underlying antagonist of the series, Biofrost, wanted this all along, causing karina to win by a landslide. it makes the team, as they watch TV seeing how karina won, that in the end, whoever is most right by sibyl, aka, the AI, is the best version of a member of society. the episode ends with temma todoroki showing kei and arata a card with a signature fox on it, saying an ex-inspector who is now institutionalized is positive the foxes have something to do with a murder that everyone accepted was an accident. it finally cuts after mika shimotsuki tells the chief that she will flush out the foxes. 

thoughts + analysis:

ok so obviously my summary, as best as i could write it, is not really complete and im still kinda confused on the plot. its not the anime’s fault, its just cuz im not the best with watching tv shows! i usually have to watch it a few times to really get it, but this is as best as i can understand! the main things to highlight though in this episode are listed below:

-arata and karina’s relationship: there was a bit where, as arata was saving karina from the intruders during the debate, they were cornered and arata asked karina if she trusted him. she replies, “trust you? of course not!” and he, amused, states “i figured.” after he saves her, she looks to him, about to thank him, where he collapses from sheer exhaustion. she smiles softly, then later in the episode, asks to meet with him. they go on a ferris wheel together and talk, about ma-karina and how sibyl system accepts ma-karina’s role in politics. karina asks if she’s an evil person and arata asks her what she thinks of herself. she replies that she is an evil person and HE states he likes when people acknowledge their evilness. there’s an inkling of some sort of relationship here, as he says he voted for her. i just thought it was interesting to see their relationship dynamic and what it could lead into now that karina is safe and sound and governor.

-elevator scene with enomiya: so i guess the biggest thing im unsure on is Bifrost. i’m assuming there some hidden organization that pretty much runs society and they got bored and made a game out of it. so they make bets on who’ll win the governor position, etc... whoever loses can get into big trouble, maybe even as far as being killed. Bifrost ultimately is responsible for karina winning, using enomiya as a pawn. as soon as she fulfilled her duty on casting suspicion on the wrestler candidate (forgot the name), making him lose his standing as a candidate, she was killed. the guy, i dont know his name or even if it was given, but the one who watched enomiya fall down the elevator, he seems to be a pawn as well from Bifrost, maybe some sort of assistant or outside player, like a judge or referee. hmmmm

-irie x arata: ok i dont know why but i love their dynamic. irie was drunk as fuck and was very touchy with arata so idk! but drunk irie went outside and scared mika shimotsuki, to which she blushed and was surprised he asked for her to join the team’s little “party” as they watched the polls. i think irie’s character is developing really nicely, considering he seemed shallow and lame in the first episode, now he is loved be me!!!!!!!!

-akane and kogami???? so here we get a glimpse, at least i’m assuming, that akane is the institutionalized ex-inspector who became obsessed with the “foxes”, who are now the key focus of arata and kei. another mention of akane is by mika, when irie thanks mika for saving him from the slums, where mika replies that it was all thanks to akane, with a reminiscent smile on her face. i guess this ties in with kogami’s spiral down as he was so obsessed with makishima that it landed him as a latent criminal. akane, she probably doesnt have a cloudy hue but had to be institutionalized because with the stuff she knows along with hellbent on destroying these foxes, she might pose a huge threat to the sibyl system. 

questions I have:

-what exactly is sibyl system and Bifrost’s relationship? im thinking what i said above, but is that right? who knows!

-when the FUCK are akane and kogami gonna MEET!!?!??!