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bao3bei4 · 3 years

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what is going on in pixar cars: a manifesto

so this series of essays on pixar cars trilogy was umm. basically the first thing i wrote for fun! it’s very sentimental to me for that reason. i wrote it back in october 2018 :) but a lot of my friends have been talking about cars lately! so i thought i’d unearth these for public consumption. okay have fun :)

Chapter 1: Sally Is a Cougar

Sally is a cougar.

Lightning McQueen is an up-and-coming rookie in his debut season when we meet him in the original Cars movie. On the other hand, Sally Carrera, his love interest, has had time to go to college, graduate college, go to law school, graduate law school, achieve success as a lawyer, become disillusioned with said success, amass enough earnings that she could move away from Los Angeles, purchase a motel, renovate a motel, and become a respected community member.

She’s a rich older woman looking for a boy toy, and boy, did she ever ﬁnd one.

Further evidence:

ON MCQUEEN’S AGE:

The rookie sensation came into the season unknown...

ON CARRERA’S AGE:

Carrera: Well, it’s really pretty simple. I was an attorney in LA livin’ life in the fast lane, and—

McQueen: Oh, you were, were you? Were you rich?

[...]

Carrera: Yeah, okay. Well, that was my life.

Chapter 2: Auto Bodies 101

Car biology is a wild subject. So, let’s talk about a couple pressing questions.

First up, the question of car sentience: where does intelligence reside in a car?

The easiest answer to this is in the engine; after all, what separates Mack from the trailer he pulls Lightning McQueen inside? But this is complicated. In Cars 2, Miguel Camino “has blown an engine!” Clearly, then, catastrophic damage to car engines can occur without fatal repercussions.

Cars 2 delves deepest into car biology, and the case of Sir Miles Axlerod proves most illustrative. Tow Mater comments, in reference to a picture of Axlerod’s engine, “See how he’s had most of his parts replaced? And see all them boxes over there? Them’s all original parts.” Axlerod also comments in a later scene that he “can replace an engine block.”

This is a pretty unambiguous reference to that classic philosophy thought experiment, the Ship of Theseus, in which the question is posed: if a ship slowly rots and has its parts replaced over time until it no longer is constituted of its original parts, is it still the same object? Then, if the original parts are saved, later repaired somehow, and the ship reconstructed, is this ship the original?

While this perhaps diverts overly into car metaphysics, the problem here is far more biological than for the cars’ human counterparts: where can car intelligence reside that allows for sentient continuity amid dramatic repairs? More troublingly, are cars just the sum of their parts?

Cars 3 makes clear, however, that one cannot completely overhaul oneself. The movie traces McQueen’s inevitable decline as a racer as newer and more modern cars overtake him. Doc Hudson’s backstory, revealed in Cars reinforces this: Hudson, after a traumatic crash, took a leave of absence during which he “ﬁnally got put together,” and upon his return, was already obsolete.

Clearly there is some intrinsic “carness” (a car essence, so to speak) to each that does not allow for a true transcarism—a car variant of transhumanism—and cars are indeed constrained on some indeterminate level by their biology. They are not truly modular. It could also easily be some social taboo, but the process of car creation described in Cars 2 suggests otherwise.

Chapter 3: On the Origins of Cars

Car reproduction is best not thought about. Nonetheless, Agent Holley Shiftwell in Cars 2, in reference to Axlerod’s “aluminum V8 with a Lucas electrical system and Whitworth bolts,” describes it as “standard in seven models over a 12-year period. At least 35,000 cars were made with this engine.” These lines have staggering implications.

First, and most obviously, this implies cars are made and designed, rather than born naturally. Who is making cars? Who made the ﬁrst car? That cars must necessarily have had a creator lends credence to the theory that Cars takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting wherein cars are all that remain of human society. (This also helps put to rest the unfortunate implications of the Cars movies that Cars history has in any way mirrored real history via the existence of the Popemobile as religious figure.) But on a purely textual level, this question is unanswered and the existence of intelligent car design is taken for granted.

Secondly, it hints at immense scale to the world. For merchandising reasons, even the ensemble cast of Cars is diverse in make and model. Many are not even an identiﬁable single existing car, but an amalgamation of many to create the desired effect by the animators. Therefore, this also unsettlingly implies that the cars of Cars have upwards of 400 doppelgangers created a year—more, likely, as the car models described by Shiftwell were unlikely to achieve mass manufacture having “one of the worst engines ever made.”

Thirdly, this vastly complicates the existence of car children. Car children are shown throughout the Cars movies in crowds, with a young fan of McQueen (and later Cruz Ramirez) in Cars 3 most prominently displayed. If cars are manufactured, does that mean that they are manufactured to physically grow? Or have that car’s “parents” commissioned a designer baby to stay forever young, or perhaps to be laboriously updated?

Cars most certainly do age, as shown by the aging racers of Cars 3, but it is unclear if they physically age, or are simply made obsolete by technological progress. In Cars, the cast contains a multitude of cars manufactured from the ‘50s on, but only one truly old car: Lizzie, a 1923 Model T. She is a widow, her former husband the now deceased founder of Radiator Springs. She is clearly experiencing some degree of senility, further compounding the thorny question of car intelligence, but more relevantly, is clearly affected by the ravages of time beyond simply being less advanced in design.

Despite this hint, Cars movies boldly leave this question answered too.

Also, this means that when McQueen is revealed to have a tongue in Cars, someone, in universe, designed him that way for reasons as of yet unknown.

Chapter 4: Eugenics and You

Yeah. So.

Shiftwell’s observation is made supremely sinister by Axlerod’s motivation in Cars 2. In a villainous monologue (not dissimilar to this essay), Axlerod states:

The world turned their backs on cars like us. They stopped manufacturing us, stopped making our parts. The only thing they haven’t stopped doing is laughing at us.

Huh!??!

Axelrod asserts, and is never contradicted that the Cars universe practices car eugenics. Shiftwell, in fact, validates this claim: “Everyone involved in this plot is one of history’s biggest loser cars.” Certain models of cars are considered history’s biggest losers by virtue of their manufacture, by a government employee, no less.

These cars were manufactured, for over a decade, with inferior non-standard parts, (As Mater complains, “Shoot, them Whitworth bolts is a pain, tell you what. Them ain’t metric, they ain’t inches...”), until they’re phased out, and it’s their fault? Who is manufacturing them?

Moreover, and most ethically abhorrently, Axlerod’s claim that the nebulous “they” had “stopped making our parts” is also completely true. Mater comments that Axlerod’s multitude of replacement parts “ain’t easy to come by,” and Shiftwell conﬁrms this, noting that these are “rare parts.”

These cars not only were created with inferior parts, but shunned by society, the parts they require to live discontinued and then exorbitantly priced. Is Axlerod still a terrorist if he has a point?

Chapter 5: The L-Word

The luxury cars that make up the majority of the Cars movies’ cast are unconcerned with the plight of Cars 2’s antagonists. Axlerod lists the “terrible names” that he and his peers have been called by mainstream car society:

Jalopy. Rustbucket. Heap. Clunker. Junker, beater, wreck. Rattletrap... [dramatically] Lemon.

Out of these slurs and denigrations, the only one actually used by the onscreen characters is the one Axlerod views as most heinous: “lemon.”

Its ﬁrst appearance is in Cars, used by Lizzie, where she derisively calls Ramone a lemon. However, Lizzie’s name is canonically derived from “Tin Lizzie,” a euphemism for a lemon itself. It is unclear, therefore, whether Lizzie’s usage is a holdover of politically incorrect language in a relic of a car, or the jocular jab of a car who has come to terms with societal prejudice against her over her long life.

Cars 2, the movie most concerned with this uniquely car prejudice, contains the most use of “lemon.” Otis, a “broken-down sedan” is the ﬁrst to introduce the term to the ﬁlm, calling himself a lemon for his leaky gaskets after needing to be towed for the tenth time that month. He tells Mater, “You’re the only one that’s nice to lemons like me.”

This is a highly revealing line. Radiator Springs, the site of Cars, a movie about tolerance and acceptance, is actually a hotbed of car-racism. Otis completely unironically uses the language of his oppressor, having internalized his ostracization from the sleepy town. This is also important because it clearly sets up Mater, while run-down himself, as not a lemon.

Mater’s kindness, while set up in opposition to the entire town of Radiator Springs, is only as deep as his business interests. After all, he is the one who introduces the derogatory term to Agents Shiftwell and Finn McMissile, deﬁning it as “Cars that don’t ever work right.” He immediately contextualizes this judgment: “Lemons is a tow truck’s bread and butter.”

Mater is kind to Otis not out of compassion or empathy, but on a purely ﬁnancial basis: Otis, as one of the few lemons of Radiator Springs, is integral to his continued business. The minute Otis is offscreen, Mater demonstrates greater solidarity with the interests of non-lemon cars and teaches them the alienating language used to demarcate lemons as inadequate and perpetually “other.”

Moreover, Mater, with a thin disguise, inﬁltrates the lemons’ meeting on the spies’ behalf to learn that the lemons themselves are reclaiming this language, rallying under the idea that “their insults just give us strength,” that they will be needed, that they will ﬁnally be respected, and can live with their hoods held high—all with control of the world’s oil reserves, another deceptively heavy plot point.

But Mater responds to this, when his disguise is exposed and he is cornered by lemon mobsters, with trite platitudes—“I know what you’re going through. Everyone’s been laughing at me my whole life too, but becoming powerful and rich beyond your wildest dreams ain’t gonna make you feel better”—completely missing the point that the power and wealth is a means to an end: commanding dignity, respect, and the ability to pay for healthcare (albeit a means co-opted by a rogue capitalist).

Mater so dramatically misses the point here because he’s determined to conﬂate his own ineptitude with the societal oppression that he himself perpetuates and proﬁts from. Without lemons, does Mater have a business? Mater is parasitic, and so needs to maintain the status quo, hence his continued alliance with the state and able-bodied cars.

Ultimately, like Rod Redline, Mater is able to drop his lemonface—and limited empathy with lemons—he, after all, “was just wearing a disguise. You guys are stuck looking like that.”

Chapter 6: Fender Gender

Another bafﬂing part of the Cars universe is car gender. Cars clearly shows that cars self-segregate into car bathrooms. But what basis do cars have for gender, let alone one that even sort of approaches human conception of gender?

Cars are not born “naturally”, so they have no real need for sexual dimorphism, especially as the only visible signiﬁers of gender are eyelashes and voice. Yet the divisions are still rigid in pronoun usage, in gender expression, and in sexuality.

It’s also unclear what sociohistorical justiﬁcation there was for the establishment of car sexism, but it exists nonetheless. Louise “Barnstormer” Nash, contemporary of Doc Hudson, describes how, when she started racing, “The fellas in charge didn’t like the idea of a lady racer showing them up, so they wouldn’t let [her].” Nash details how she stole one, and never took no for answer, then asks River Scott if he agrees.

He does.

For that matter, Scott, while never explicitly given a race, from this exchange and by virtue of his voice actor Isiah Whitlock Jr, is coded as black. Therefore, there’s also car actual racism in addition to distinct car-based racism. Lit.

At any rate, Scott explains that “if we waited for an invitation, we might have never raced,” thus highlighting the necessity of their civil disobedience to integrate the track, which is excellent praxis for a children’s movie. But even all these years later, however, the cars are mostly male, for whatever male actually means to the cars, and Cruz Ramirez is an anomaly.

She confesses that at her ﬁrst race:

I didn’t belong. The other racers looked nothing like me. They were bigger and stronger and so conﬁdent and when they started their engines? That was it.

While Cars 3 deliberately depoliticizes the nature of this lack of belonging, Ramirez is explicitly car-Hispanic (whatever that means) and the ﬁrst signiﬁcant female car to exist independently of a love interest. Her experience is immediately juxtaposed against McQueen’s.

Ramirez asks him, “What was it like for you when you showed up to your ﬁrst race? How did you know you could do it?”

McQueen’s response is telling: “I don’t know; I just never thought I couldn’t.” So if you ever wanted conﬁrmation McQueen is a white guy? There you go.

(Mater’s conﬁrmation is that in Cars 2, he gets away with an attempted suicide bombing. That’s not a joke. He literally corners a billionaire, about to explode, wearing a live bomb in an attempt to coerce him into submission. He’s then knighted.

Cars 2 boldly highlights how any violence can be apolitical and legitimate if you’re white and committing it on behalf of the state.)

While Cars 3 refuses to outright state the reason for the pushback against Ramirez—it distills it down to “She’s a trainer! Not a racer!” and “You don’t belong here” and “costume girl”—it’s not an accident that the cars around her cast her as support staff, as an imposter, and as a “girl.”

McQueen in Cars falls into easy chauvinism with respectto his love interest Sally Carrera as well. While he recognizes her as an attorney, he immediately tells her: “Yeah, your job’s pretty easy today. All you have to do now is stand there and let me look at you. Listen, I’m gonna cut to the chase. Me, you, dinner.”

Racing, as in real life, turns out to be shitty to women.

And while McQueen ultimately grows beyond his courtroom proposition, how much of it is due to the fact that Carrera—for the rest of the franchise—does end up just “stand[ing] there”?

Chapter 7: The Piston Cup

There’s an odd tension running through the Cars movies between the series’ reactionary language and setting and its commitment to blurring certain lines.

Cars’ idyllic southwest small town setting (that somehow doesn’t have any non-white cars until Cars 3) clashes with McQueen, the “city boy.” McQueen abandons his decadent liberal elite ways and realizes the joy of simple, humble country living or other such blatant conservative propaganda.

Sally, who herself left fast-paced Los Angeles life for Radiator Springs, explains the history and appeal of the sleepy town, claiming the town’s economic fate is due to being “bypassed” by modern development and the new interstate, a clear metaphor for globalization and, dare I say, economic anxiety. Cars (2006) was before its time.

Sally bemoans the plight of her adopted home and idealizes it as a rustic throwback, ignoring car colonialism and the unfortunate romanticization of the Old West. Sally, our former high-powered HBIC, unironically sighes, “The world was different” then, bemoaning that things just quite aren’t what they used to be.

Nonetheless, there’s a certain raw sexuality shot through this children’s movie franchise. Speaking generally, Lightning McQueen’s name alone speaks to his subversive potential. Much of the naming in the series follows in this vein.

Consider the following car names:

Lightning McQueen

Jackson Storm

Strip “The King” Weathers

Brent Mustangburger

The Fabulous Hudson Hornet

Tex Dinoco

Rod “Torque” Redline

Luigi

Lightning as his ﬁrst name suggests an inherent virility and masculinity to natural phenomena of the “Mother” Earth, radically eliminating heterosexuality from his sexually charged (pun) name. However, his last name is the most obviously suggestive. “McQueen” is a corporate—Disneyﬁed, if you will—take on queen, long used to refer to gay men.

To elaborate, the addition of “Mc–” makes it more palatable to mainstream America in the following respects: it modiﬁes “Queen” to be more familiar to capitalist and democratic America, in its association with the McDonald’s franchise, a longtime stooge of Disney; it is another step removed from making the vehicular protagonist a “drag” Queen; the preﬁx codes McQueen as unambiguously white (likely Irish).

But beyond this, on a textual level, a queer reading of Cars proves illuminating. The intrusion of McQueen into a dusty throwback town in the middle of nowhere is suggestive of the perceived “intrusion” of real life LGBTQ people into mainstream America. Thematically speaking, the call coming from inside the house is not very heterosexual.

McQueen is basically called out—ahead of his time—for being a coastal elite, for being ﬂamboyant, for not understanding their simple rural ways, as commented on above.

Sally represents the hegemonic heterosexuality to which McQueen must succumb (“settle down”) for acceptance into Radiator Springs. She functions as his beard. But interestingly enough, Sally herself resists easy feminine characterization, having been associated with androgyny through every step of the design process.

Ultimately in their chase for sleek feminine lines, Pixar traveled far into traditionally masculine territory. Here’s Cars art director Jay Ward on Sally:

The original Sally was a Mustang, because we thought about the song “Mustang Sally.” The problem with the Mustang is, it has a very thick grille in the front that looks like a mustache on a female car. People say, “Why did you guys use a Porsche for Sally? That’s kind of a guy car.” A Porsche has a rear engine and no radiator grille in front, perfectly smooth, like you want a female shape to be.

Ward’s descriptions displays the tension real life cars experience between being signiﬁers of masculinity (in the macho drive for power and technical prowess) while being objects of male desire and ownership (how does a car handle?).

This tension is, incidentally, the actual source of the undoubtedly unintentional homoeroticism above. I am perfectly aware that most names in Cars are references to the names of real life cars and drivers.

Hot take: Cars is homoerotic because cars are.

This complication carries over to the movies and McQueen’s troubled relationship with masculinity. McQueen opens two out of three movies with his monologue, “Speed. I am speed...” and Cars 2, the movie that begins without it, still includes the iconic speech elsewhere.

This reinforcement of his body, his ability, his prowess, borders on delusional. McQueen doesn’t leave this speech behind in Cars, even as he grows into a fully realized adult car, but rather clutches to it as a security blanket in Cars 2’s high stakes races. It isn’t until Cars 3 that he mockingly asks “Did I used to say that?”

Therefore, it isn’t representative of simple immaturity, but rather the character of his masculinity, redirected from pseudo “husband” to pseudo “father” (the function of his masculinity).

But I digress. Nonetheless, McQueen’s sexual drive (pun) is the force behind much of the McQueen persona. To be a male, to possess a male, is inextricably bound up in car culture itself. Look, the plot of Cars makes the dude plow the entire town; what can I say? The absolute dudeliness of it all.

McQueen is the object of female car attention throughout the series, beginning with his fairweather groupies who scream for him wearing matching paint jobs, and continuing into Radiator Springs where the female cars of the town enjoy “watching him work.”

(Interestingly, the only car McQueen ever watches work is Doc Hudson, just a few scenes later, with a distinctly voyeuristic air.)

Even Lizzie gets in on the straight fun, sneaking a good peek at “that sexy hotrod!”

These overt expressions of heterosexuality are at odds with the decidedly not heterosexual ﬁlm at the thematic and aesthetic levels. This familiarity reassures the concerned parent watching along: boy cars like girl cars and vice versa, even though they’re cars who are functionally identical. But that’s Cars: the Gays Are Just Like Us.

Cars 2 is similarly unsubtle. For example, Eddie Izzard is the villain. And she wants revenge for the way society has treated lemons. Disney, in its usual tepid shorthand for civil rights, positions radical liberation as opposed to assimilationist survival tactics, and narratively privileges the latter. This is explicit: the Queen knighting Mater is a direct reward for positioning himself in league with mainstream society by putting down the lemons he turned away in alliance from, and in doing so, he enters the upper echelons of society.

Cars 3 is probably a forceful screed on how heterosexual America has co-opted gay culture, even as it struggles to accommodate its less glamorous parts, with biting commentary on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, trans activism, and intersectionality even as the tension between McQueen and his young sleek rival Jackson Storm ratchets their seething attraction up to the next level.

Cars 3 rebukes the conformity promoted by the earlier ﬁlms, even as it fails to envision an alternative. Paul Newman may have died of lung cancer between ﬁlms, but his character Doc Hudson died of AIDS-related complications. Why? He’s the only aged racer to be dead; his racing persona was ﬂamboyant and purple; Scott and Nash, both trailblazing racers, include him in their comment that, despite their marginalization in the sport, “once we got on the track, we didn’t want to leave, and that’s how Doc felt too.” He’s the Fabulous Hudson Hornet. This chapter should have ended pages ago.

Chapter 8: Auto Bodies 201

Returning to the concept of car intelligence, this time concerned with intelligibility over its physical location, what makes a vehicle a car?

Cars depicts McQueen and Mater participating in the car equivalent of tipping cows—pushing over tractors. In response, the tractors moo plaintively, unable to get up on their own, and are protected by an even larger tractor, which McQueen and Mater have a narrow escape from.

On an intelligent vehicle—henceforth referred to as a car, regardless of its technical classiﬁcation—this would be clear assault. But, in the ﬁlm, is it acceptable because these are “animal” vehicles? Or are McQueen and Mater attacking cars with disabilities? If the former, what differentiates a full car from one deemed subhuman, or rather, subcar?

It’s not wheels—while the tractors, unlike the majority of cars, have three wheels—so too do the forklifts, which are cars. Bessie, the road paver from Cars that McQueen uses to ﬁx the road he damaged, proves an interesting case study.

She has no eyes and cannot speak. Bessie also cannot move under her own power. The only thing she does onscreen is toil endlessly without reward. Yet Cars expanded universe content reveals her to have an anthropomorphized personality beyond simple mechanical function:

Everyone agrees she’s a low maintenance gal, but more than one unsuspecting hitcher has learned her quirks the hard way. Doc likes to say laying asphalt with Bessie is more like dancing than paving. Fill her with kerosene, gravel, and tar, and she’ll produce the most beautiful ribbon of blacktop you’ve ever seen. But be careful! Don’t pull her too fast or get her steamed up. Bessie has two huge buckets of molten tar and she knows how to use them!

Is the basis for carhood utility? That is, are both the tractors and Bessie viewed as tools, rather than cars?

But trucks, in the Cars universe, whether their purpose is pulling (Mack) or towing (Mater)—and forklifts for that matter–are treated as full cars. Both Bessie and trailers cannot move under their own power, but tractors can. A car is clearly more than an assemblage of mechanical parts, but what is the missing piece? The whole concept between more and more unnerving for its lack of internal logic.

The treatment of cars without an able mind or an able body (the lemons) is deeply fucked up. They are excluded from full participation in society; they are assaulted and forced into labor. Disability within the Cars universe functions as an impenetrable barrier to civil society. Cars 2 portrays the lemons’ plight while condemning their struggle, and ultimately, no lemon is ever a main character throughout the entire series.

On a metatextual level, this is because Pixar couldn’t care less about ableism. On a textual one, this is because the Cars universe is so deeply concerned with predestination and ability. Cars, as previously discussed, are designed, not born.

While this is by no means a prerequisite for ableism (e.g. the real world), this is a huge exacerbating factor. Some engines are objectively better than others. Some cars are better than others.

Cars are continually “progressing,” in terms of both form and function. They grow sleeker, more fuel efﬁcient, more powerful. McQueen, once top of the line, becomes obsolete. The car medical system, the mechanics, is always concerned with returning the body to its ideal state, that is, its original. The Cars universe centers its main form of entertainment, racing, which is inherently—and eminently—concerned with the physical performance of the only true purpose of a car, driving.

Disability is an existential challenge to this world order. It must refuse to accommodate them. Why are cars still created with defects, inefﬁciencies, or differing abilities? These are core car fears: that the body is fallible and technological progress illusory. (Well, it’s either that or a subhuman underclass of cars is created for enslavement to exploit their labor, and is that preferable?)

A disabled car is McQueen’s antithesis, and their challenge to his security in his embodiment cannot go unpunished.

Disability reveals that the mechanical body of the car resists “order” nonetheless. Could this represent the human element?

Many cars are voice acted by race car drivers portraying their carsonas, hence the pun names that abound in the series. For instance, Michael Schumacher becomes both car and driver in the series. He is a car that moves himself, that possesses himself, that is the master of himself. Is this representative of the car effort to imitate that unmoved mover, that creator of the ﬁrst car? Who could say :)

Chapter 9: Revolutions Per Minute

We need to talk about Cars 2. There’s one question that must be asked: what?

Seriously, what’s in happening in that movie? It features a car being tortured to death and then exploding onscreen (rest in peace, Redline). What.

Genre aside for the moment—as well as minor nitpicks—the best part of this movie is its jumbled indictment of the oil industry and capitalism in general.

That’s right, the real villain was Big Oil this whole time.

They even needed to make an organized response to the movie in the Wall Street Journal:

“We understand movies need villains but hope people attending, children and adults alike, would come to appreciate the world needs oil as well as alternatives,” Bush says. “The beneﬁts of oil are enormous, and people in the U.S. oil and natural gas industry work extremely hard to provide oil products to Americans.”

Sorry, Bill Bush, spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, you’re the villain in real life too. But what exactly does Cars 2 have to say about the oil industry?

The plotline is foreshadowed in Cars: Fillmore, the hippie van, tells McQueen the reason he hasn’t heard of Fillmore’s special oil blend before is because “It’s a conspiracy, man! The oil companies got a grip on the government. They’re feeding us a bunch of lies, man!” I mean, that but unironically is both true and the thesis of Cars 2.

Axlerod articulates this problem in an early speech, as he advertises his alternative fuel Allinol:

Big Oil. It costs a fortune. Pollution is getting worse. I mean, come on. It’s a fossil fuel. Fossil. As in dead dinosaurs. And we all know what happened to them. Alternative energy is the future.

There is no credible alternative to fossil fuels in Cars 2, however. Allinol is actually regular gasoline the whole time. It’s just slickly packaged bullshit. We Live in a Society (bottom text). Or, as Sarge pithily puts it, “Once Big Oil, always Big Oil.”

The only reason McQueen doesn’t “explode in a ﬁery inferno” due to using Allinol is because Sarge “switched out that rotgut excuse for alternative fuel with [Fillmore’s] all-natural, sustainable, organic biofuel just because [Sarge] never trusted Axlerod...”

The problem of course, is that Fillmore’s alternative fuel does not exist. One must live entirely outside of the system one wishes to critique, dreaming of an impossible perfect solution. Unsurprisingly, as a children’s movie, Cars 2 prioritizes moral purity above all else. Either that, or they’re a bunch of anarcho-communalists (or both).

Oil is the downfall of the revolutionary lemons, as they end up “sitting on the biggest oil reserve in the world,” with governments from all over the world attempting to inﬁltrate.

The lemons see oil as a means to power, even as it leads into conﬂict with foreign powers. This is an unsubtle parallel to international intervention in resource-rich developing countries. After all, what happens to the oil at the end of the movie?

The lemons don’t get it, because their ringleader is exposed and likely arrested for murder.

Considering that Mater is knighted by the actual Queen of England, it’s highly likely that McMissile was able to seize the oil reserves for Queen and country. Props to the Cars 2 crew for unﬂinchingly portraying the mechanics of neocolonialism and state violence. No one is any closer to alternative fuel, the oppressed lemons are in even worse shape, and Great Britain stole even more from marginalized people.

Let it never be said that Cars 2 is not committed to gritty realism.

Chapter 10: Stock Cars

Some concluding thoughts on genre: how do the genres that Pixar seeks to integrate and reference in their children’s movies interact with the fantastical G-rated setting?

The problem of the car-that-drives-itself complicates calling the Cars movies, well, cars movies. Are they sports movies or car (road) movies? That is, are they movies about drivers as people or movies about the car as location?

The simple answer is that Disney is doing their take on the following: Cars a road movie, Cars 2 a thriller, and Cars 3 a sports movie. and that would be... true. But why and how?

Cars has a preoccupation with location. Radiator Springs is the site by which McQueen is able to interrogate himself, his feelings of alienation, and his struggle with his own masculinity, and journey, both literally and ﬁguratively. This interacts intriguingly with the traditional boys’ movie ﬁxation on emerging masculinity, the erotic, and the complex relationship between actual embodiment, anticipation, and fear (i.e. puberty).

This is context we have built in for cars themselves, as discussed in Chapter 7, but moreover is clearly visible in Doc Hudson’s initiation of McQueen into manhood. However, because it’s an animated children’s movie, it opts to convey this with a frenetic pace and McQueen’s unrepentant childish jackassery.

Thematically, it’s at odds with the adult appeal Pixar folded in for their signature all-ages-approach. After all, children have no nostalgia for the way things used to be; that reactionary theme is all for mom and dad. This is both a movie about moving forward and returning backward, which is, in itself, a decent way to sum up a road trip.

Cars 2, in departing so radically from its predecessor, proved once and for all the appeal of the characters. Even removed from the setting and the conventions of the ﬁrst movie, it still made bank (its box ofﬁce, at $562m, is the highest for any Cars movie). Such is Larry the Cable Guy’s inexorable attractiveness to the youth. This is the movie that opened the ﬂoodgates for the multitude of spinoffs.

Cars 2, however, is a movie bristling with tensions.

It’s a spy movie where the actual suave ladykiller spies are relegated to the sidelines in favor of Larry the Cable Guy. It’s an international globetrotter that responds to foreign cultures with bafﬂement and mockery. It’s cynical of the neoliberal world order as well as any alternatives that are presented. It’s aware of—and thinks of itself as sympathetic to—the untenable race relations of the status quo while simultaneously thwarting attempts to change it as illegitimate and disruptive.

What I’m saying is, it’s a prototypical small town country boy power fantasy.

These contradictions at the heart of this bizarre entry in the Cars canon are necessary. The thriller genre necessitates stakes of some kind. Cars 2 responds with murder, maiming, and torture. It’s still a G-rated movie. Cars 2 responds with its protagonist Mater to maintain stakes but increase levity by having the absolute waste of space be oblivious to them. And so on and so forth. And so Cars 2, tonal whiplash comedy thriller, is created.

Cars 3, in comparison to the other two, is incredibly straightforward. Mike Ryan explains how Cars 3 is Rocky 3 (or at least hits the same narrative beats):

The beach race [the two movies share] aside, it’s about a champ (Rocky/Lightning) losing to a better opponent (Clubber Lang/Jackson Storm) and having to ﬁnd a new trainer (Apollo/Cruz) after his old trainer dies (Mickey/Doc) and having to go back to basics after a new and improved training regimen doesn’t work—then eventually facing that same better opponent once again.

So, it’s a straightforward sports movie that mines its predecessors for inspiration.

Chapter 11: Cruz Control

Cars 3 has an interesting subversion that elevates it beyond a simple anthropomorphic car Rocky tribute ﬁlm, though, in the role reversal of Lightning McQueen and Cruz Ramirez.

This is, in no small part, because Cars 3 is the result of Pixar’s ongoing attempt to take on its “girl problem.” Brenda Chapman, director of Brave, for instance, was originally brought on to ﬁx the unrelenting vapidity that is Cars’ female characters. (She was also ultimately unceremoniously replaced in Brave.)

Despite this clearly being motivated by that sweet, sweet merchandising cash in the wallets of parents of daughters, props for effort.

Why? Because Cars is a series that, up until Cars 3, could have eliminated all its female characters with no narrative repercussions, while being completely unintelligible without its male characters. Cars did not give a shit about women.

It’s about bros, it’s about male friendship and homosocial bonding, it’s about dudes just pal-ing around, driving fast. Cars 3 ﬁnally clues into the existence of the girl demographic, but fails to learn much else.

Cars 3 may be about a girl, but it’s not for girls. Cars 3 is tapping, instead, into the potent narrative force that is dadliness. McQueen becomes a coach-cum-father-ﬁgure. In what may or may not be news to the good team at Pixar, I don’t care about being asked to identify with fathers. This is the same thing that happened that happened with the boys club of video games, and now is happening at the boys’ club that is Pixar: men are having daughters and are making stories about wanting to protect them.

Ramirez isn’t a true Cars protagonist. After all, she doesn’t get a poorly developed love interest she has no real emotional connection with. Moreover, Ramirez, unlike her eminently bro-y predecessors, is never actually wrong. The lesson she learns is that it’s wrong to doubt herself.

You might argue that girls might need different Teachable Moments than boys. This is where the motivation of dadliness becomes relevant, however. The surrogate—or actual, depending on the ﬁlm, game, or book—daughter must never be culpable in her own plight. Maybe there’s a zombie apocalypse, or she’s been abducted after stranger danger online, or she’s been beat down by the haters, in the case of Cars 3. Whatever it is, it’s unimportant and interchangeable.

Even as Pixar becomes more progressive in its Latina (car) protagonist, it’s still regressive. The ﬁlm’s “innovation” of role reversal isn’t quite that new: a young woman telling an older man what to do? That can’t be what she really wants. She just needs her father to show her the error of her newfangled ways and she’ll ﬁnally be able to achieve her childhood dream.

This is unfair. But I’m also so deeply skeptical of the paternalism that characterizes male depictions of female leads in recent years. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this plotline. But in context—in 2018, after years of pitched dadliness; in Pixar, noted boys’ club; in the Cars franchise, noted cesspool of masculinity—is Ramirez that much of a move forward? She deserves to be a Cars protagonist—a real racer, as she’s always wanted—to have the world meet her on her terms. And she doesn’t get that.

To pose an objection: you can’t erase McQueen from the movie! He’s a big deal! Of course Ramirez would be deﬁned in relation to him!

Counterpoint: Cars 2. That was the Mater show, through and through. McQueen was a sidekick.

This is a problem inherited from Cars 3’s inspiration, Rocky 3. In Rocky 3, Rocky is still the main character and still ﬁghts the new champion. In Cars 3, it’s revealed that you volunteered to help others but you were the one who was really helped the whole time.

So McQueen and Ramirez end up co-protagonists. This irrevocably subordinates her character growth to his. This is where the Rocky 3 problem becomes evident: Apollo isn’t really a co-protagonist in Rocky 3.

Therefore, even as Ramirez is theoretically promoted, McQueen’s bloated plotline (containing his dead mentor angst, his fears about aging, his new feelings of parenthood) makes little to no room for her. As a result, both her characterization and her story arc suffer.

Unlike McQueen in Cars or Mater in Cars 2, she can’t be genuinely unlikable or unsympathetic: 1) McQueen needs to like her enough to let her race, 2) she doesn’t have enough screen time for recovery in her underdeveloped character arc, and 3) dadliness. And so, her greatest ﬂaw is her self-doubt.

As noted above, this isn’t an inherently bad idea. But she doesn’t have, like, actual anxiety. It doesn’t really hold her back. She’s shown to legitimately enjoy her training job and to be good at it—she just has a vague sense of unfulﬁllment that most people who aren’t rock stars, sports players, or the unholy combination of the two that racers are in Cars have—and she always is able to perform.

The moral of Cars 3 is that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Which... Okay?

On the beach, her self-doubt doesn’t show up. In the demolition derby, she wins by accident but she wins (for reasons unrelated to self-doubt). When practicing with McQueen in Thomasville, she beats him handily. Her self-doubt doesn’t arrive onscreen until the midnight hour in the ﬁnal stretch of the race, and with a few pithy references, she wins. The only time her fear ever prevents her from doing anything is at some nebulous time in her past that set her down an unglamorous career path.

Each of these events has far greater signiﬁcance for McQueen than for her. This is still McQueen’s ﬁlm, sure, but see Cars 2. The ﬁlm also doesn’t necessarily have to be about Ramirez. She’s a female character who is actually relevant, even integral, to the plot. This is ostensibly what I wanted.

But she’s the ﬁrst big deal female car, and she has... no character arc. This is poor execution.

Much like real women trying to inﬁltrate boys’ clubs, she can’t have any ﬂaws and that’s a shame!

IN CONCLUSION, THE CARS MOVIES AREN’T THAT GOOD, I GUESS.

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

NOW: here are a couple of appendices i wrote to the original piece. they’re basically just pitches for cars fanfiction. you can skip them... or NOT!

APPENDIX 1: C 4 R S

So by the unofﬁcial Cars movie pattern (normal movie, batshit movie, normal movie...) , we’re due for a doozy of a movie in the hypothetical Cars 4.

Here are some genres and concepts that it could take on:

POLITICAL THRILLER:

The Queen of England is back, and has credible information on a threat to Car America’s upcoming election. The gang heads on a road trip across the country, with tons of scenery porn and charming local ﬂavor, to secretly protect and investigate the candidates stumping through swing states.

They soon learn they’ve been tossed into a den of wolves with far more happening below the surface. Can any of the candidates be trusted? This installment seriously contends with the series’ reactionary rhetoric, as Mater accidentally becomes President, in a thinly veiled Trump allegory about white America and its fears and desires, as well as the collective declining trust in politics.

HORROR:

Sally’s old friend from Car LA needs someone to house-sit her huge McMansion. However, what she doesn’t tell them is that she’s actually skipping town. There’s a menace on the streets of Car Beverly Hills nicknamed “The Mechanic”, and it already has a body count. What does it want? Money? Chaos? Revenge? But the neighbors aren’t talking, and Sally seems to know more than she’s letting on.

The crew defends the house, as good cars are picked off one by one, with plenty of good ol’ body horror. It’s still G-rated because they’re mechanical! This movie grapples with questions about small town America’s insularity, the fear of the “other” in suburbia, and how exactly cars die in the ﬁrst place.

SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE:

In a strange accident, when out for a drive late one summer evening on Radiator Spring’s backroads, Lightning McQueen returns home... almost 70 years earlier. There, he meets The Fabulous Hudson Hornet: young, angry, and recently sidelined with an injury that may or may not be career-ending. As he struggles to see the man he once respected in the young punk, he begins to see someone entirely new.

Lightning isn’t sure how he’ll get home—or if he even wants to. But as the lies pile up and time ticks on, he needs to decide. This movie delves into the complexity of a crossgenerational relationship (on multiple levels!), the emergence of a gay consciousness in America amid the social mores of the ‘50s, and actually talks about the importance of found family in Cars. (Like, no one has any parents!! Or family! What’s happening?)

SPACE OPERA:

Okay, there’s Planes, there’s Cars, and now? There’s Rockets. The privatization of space travel has accelerated the new space race to dizzying heights—and depths. After a highly public crash, although with no fatalities, Space WreX needs good PR. So they send global racing celebrities Lightning & Co. up for the space gala of the century.

Once in space, though, geopolitical tensions on Earth heat up far above. The race cars are the only ones high-tech enough to pilot the experimental space mecha. It morphs into an Evangelion ripoff aesthetically. This movie grapples with Cars 2’s consistently iffy take on Japan (and generalized orientalism), Hollywood’s love affair with the military and its aesthetics, and the dangers of CS guys who don’t take any liberal arts classes.

APOCALYPSE:

The world is ending because, yknow, Allinol scuttled alternative fuel in the Cars-verse. Global warming doesn’t slow, spiking global temperatures, destroying habitats, and sending global climate refugees all over etc etc. As society begins to collapse, Lightning and his fellow racers ﬁnd themselves the face of all that’s hated on apocalyptic Car Earth: the decadent self-absorbed racers whose glamorous gas guzzling ways doomed us all.

But as the collapse of the world comes with a mysterious plague, the band of survivors in Radiator Springs doesn’t know who to trust. A splinter faction, led by Fillmore and Sarge, who both anticipated the crisis (for very different reasons), emerge as a threat to Lightning & Co.’s hold on the town. Can Radiator Springs survive its last ﬁght?

APPENDIX 2: AU Where Cars 3 Is Good

Welcome to my Cars 3 fanﬁction. Don’t like, don’t read!!!!!!! Canon divergence!!!!

I actually think Cruz’s plotline could be mildly redeemed if she had lost at Thunder Hollow, and big, due to her performance anxiety or whatever we’re calling it. So you get all the exposition as is, but when it’s just Cruz and Miss Fritter?

Cruz: gets wrecked. Lightning is forced to pretend to be a functioning adult for 30 seconds, and has a Serious Talk with her, like “hey Cruz, you were zooming at the beach, having a good time. What’s going on?”

Cruz explains her backstory, this time focusing heavily on her fear of being judged for not being good enough at something she likes. She’s still struggling with imposter syndrome or whatever is canonical (she’s a high achieving WOC in a macho profession; this is an acceptable character detail), but this time it’s going to actually be a legitimate ﬂaw and not totally valid.

At any rate, she’s demoralized; Lightning still comes off as a jerk, but this time his frustrations are more valid and not just an inept bro-y temper tantrum. He also demonstrates a little more initiative than he does in canon. Cruz literally has to beg him to ask about where she’s coming from, which is not a cute look. I mean, go Cars 3 for addressing the fact that Lightning is a major tool, but also, this version of Cars 3 isn’t completely devoted to his manpain.

This version also achieves more in the same timespan. As is, it’s all about him: he’s putting her down due to his inadequacies, he hurts her, and she responds to that hurt. But that’s been their dynamic. He’s been an open wound of confusion and manchildery this whole time. So this, in the movie, is supposed to be his wakeup call in noticing his emotional bodycount.

But I think it’s more useful, characterization-wise, in having them both be changed by each other in their short amount of time together: Cruz is unexpectedly vulnerable, which he’s never regarded her as (no less someone with emotional depth), and he responds to that with a surprised, helpless sort of “This is the socially appropriate response” and realizes that maybe it/she isn’t so bad.

Change number two: Thomasville. So, ﬁrst, the whole “Cruz’s Jackson Storm cosplay” is emphasized a bit more. Because this time, more narrative emphasis is placed on how Cruz feels at any given moment. So, this digs into how becoming Jackson Storm in character allows her to express her competitive nature in a safe environment.

Actually, make Cruz a little bit of a bitch here. Maybe she loves roleplaying as Storm a little too much. Give her some grit beyond bubbly and earnest and mildly anxious. She’s got a trash-talking alter ego. You can’t tell me someone who’s internalized as much as she has hasn’t been coping with a metric ton of resentment towards the racing bros who get what she dreamed of handed to them.

Finally, when the whole gang splits off for some moonlit racing, just like how Lightning got his new paint job peeled off by branches? Cruz’s Jackson Storm slapdash paint comes off too. She beats them all handily, as she does in the movie, just yknow, with a bit more aggression.

When she realizes she won, she tries to play it off with a Storm joke, worrying about Lightning’s chances at the Cup. Lightning again gets a big growth moment when he tells her that that race just now? Was all her. She’s been more than a Jackson Storm impersonator for a while now. The lead up for the Cup is her trying to cope with this.

I also think that Lightning, in my version, is already seriously considering having her sub in. He obviously still wants to try his last race, but he’s already giving her signiﬁcant looks. In the original, he literally comes up with the idea mid-race, and I’m not a fan. At any rate, when Lightning taps out of the Cup as he does in canon, Cruz is going to have the hiccups she originally does. But I think they should be subtly different.

Because Cruz has the theoretical game down. I mean, understanding race theory is her day job (wish I could say the same ig). Lightning coaches her through her nerves (that arena goes quiet from Cruz POV shot is nice) and offers insight as an experienced racer. Dealing with actually racing against other cars on a real track? That’s ﬁne.

But I want this to dig into Cruz’s strengths more—she has more to offer than just a more modern body. Make it clear she does remember the lessons they’ve learned. Because the current scene focuses on, to her detriment, Lightning’s recall of the movie’s takeaways. She chimes in, but never initiates.

Jackson goes in for the mindgames. But this Cruz also pushes back—just differently. I understand she can’t be legitimately mean in a kids’ movie, but also, canonically she wins by annoying him the way she’s annoyed Lightning inadvertently. This Cruz has more anger. She’s also been ﬂexing her trainer cred this whole race, once Lightning helps her adjust. So, instead of just ollying on out the way she does in the OG scene (although that was fun and can be kept in), she gets in his head too.

What scares Jackson Storm? This version makes him a little more dimensional too—he won’t be another body tossed on the pyre of Lightning McQueen’s stunted development. He becomes more than just Young Lightning to be cast against Lightning’s early douchebaggery. Now he’s Cruz’s foil explicitly. He has the same fears as her, but ofc has grown up expressing them differently.

So she throws back every fear of not belonging—he is an aloof asshole—every fear of not being good enough—he does have an awful lot of bravado—every fear of being disposable—the whole movie is about how racing and celebrity commodiﬁes you and denigrates your authentic desires—and asks him what it means that someone who’s just a costume girl can take away everything he’s worked for so easily.

And then she does the ﬂip.

Now she’s an unrepentant asshole, just like all the Real Cars protagonists.

Anyway, Jackson Storm starts crying and she tells him since he’s only good for his body anyway, she’ll take him out for dinner sometime. That’s how romance starts in Cars, right? Negging? Okay, maybe not this bit.

I’m not going to pretend I’m a Writer(TM), or that the people at Pixar aren’t competent writers. But I think I have a stronger vision on how to make Cruz a character worth caring about. Not as a pseudo daughter, not as a plot device, not as a generic Female Character. But as a ﬂawed but lovable car who can stand as a Cars protagonist in her own right.

#x #cars spoilers

235 notes · View notes

lovelylogans · 3 years

Text

puppy love

roger: do you want another cup of marriage? anita: excuse me? roger: tea? another cup of tea? anita: you said marriage. roger: uh, marriage? anita: yes, that’s what you said. i—i mean, you meant to say tea... but it—it came out marriage. roger: oh, i’m sorry. uh—do you want another cup of... tea?

—101 dalmatians

warnings: misbehaving dog, misunderstanding that might cause secondhand embarrassment, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, offscreen patton/janus

word count: 2,732

notes: this is for day four of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “alternate universe” and i have decided to write a "i think my dog likes your dog” au, based off the introduction of anita and roger in 101 dalmatians! please enjoy!

⁂

Logan would have named his dog Tesla if the name had not already become popular due to the brand and if he did not have a deep-seated dislike of Elon Musk, but as it has, and as he does, his dog’s name is Nikola instead. He had finally given in and adopted her after his brother, Patton, had been wheedling him to adopt or foster one of the animals for years from the shelter he serves as veterinarian.

Nikola is a very intelligent dog. In the two-and-a-half years he has had her since she was a puppy, he has taught her a variety of tricks—the usual things, like sit, shake, stay, but also more unusual tricks like fetching him water bottles or tissues or any number of things that she knows the name of and is within her reach. She is a mix of two intelligent breeds—rottweiler and German shepherd—and as such learning and practicing tricks helps keep her from being bored.

She has a surplus of enrichment toys. She never rips up shoes or furniture. She keeps an obedient trot at his side on hikes and runs ahead if he tells her to. She waits after he throws something for her to fetch until he says to run, and she has learned to sit before they cross the street. She is a very well-trained dog.

Which is why it is so surprising when, as soon as he crouches to unleash her at the dog park they go to on Sundays, weather permitting, she snatches his baseball cap meant to keep the spring sun out of his eyes, and goes running off as if he has told her to fetch a tennis ball.

“Nikola!” He calls, out of being startled more than anything, before he starts to jog after her.

Nikola runs, just a black-and-brown streak of fur with the navy blue of his cap clamped between her teeth, and Logan is really quite fortunate that he spends most Saturdays, weather permitting, hiking, and weekday mornings on jogs besides. This habit has kept him in shape, however, it has also contributed to keeping Nikola in shape, and as such she is a very fast and athletic dog. He wonders briefly if he’ll catch her before he makes too much a fool of himself.

But just as suddenly as she’d started running, she stops at one of the benches installed around the dog park, dropping his cap on the bench and then immediately moving to the dog sitting beside her owner, Nikola wagging her tail and panting and looking quite pleased with herself, with eyes only for the other dog. The other dog, all black excepting the white splotch on her chest, looks at Nikola curiously, but does not crouch in a playful posture or otherwise react.

“Nikola, really,” he scolds, picking up his cap and jamming it back on his head. Then he looks to the man sitting on the bench with the dog that Nikola now seems enamored with, intent on apologizing for disturbing him or his dog, but his mouth goes dry almost immediately.

The man with the dog sitting calmly at his side is very handsome.

He’s brown-skinned and black-haired—he’s Latino, Logan thinks—and in the middle of reading a book. Logan isn’t sure what book, based on the way his hands are placed, his long, elegant fingers covering the title. He’s also listening to music, as evidenced by the white wireless earbuds placed in his ears.

It’s likely that Nikola’s tomfoolery hasn’t disturbed him at all. The man only gives Logan a look—his eyes, which are a stunning shade of brown so dark they’re practically black—and returns his attention to his novel.

Logan clears his throat awkwardly, jams his cap back on his head, and turns to Nikola, who is still trotting around them, seeming very pleased with herself, wagging her tail, looking every inch a pompous showdog.

Sometime in the middle of watching Nikola, the exceptionally handsome man has closed his book and stood up, and Logan tries his best not to pay him any mind as he walks away.

“Helena, come,” he says, with a deep, lovely voice that hits Logan somewhere in the sternum. He has an accent—Spanish, maybe? Portuguese? Logan isn’t very familiar with romantic languages outside of English, other than the Latin he took throughout high school and college. Nikola is still looking very excited, but the black dog—Helena—stands and follows after the man.

“Nikola, really,” he repeats weakly, and crouches before her, gathering her leash in hand and preparing to let her loose so they can, perhaps, play a game of fetch, or something that does not involve Logan running after her like a madman.

But of course not. Whatever mood Nikola’s in persists, as she suddenly pulls forward, forcing Logan to get up off the ground lest he be dragged in her wake, and he really does not want to be dragged along the ground at the dog park, so he does, scrambling after her and trying to regain his balance.

He doesn’t notice she’s looping her leash around the man’s knees until it’s too late.

Which brings him to notice that she is also backtracking to loop around his knees.

He cannot help but notice when Nikola pulls tight and it brings Logan and the man colliding forcefully, chest-to-chest.

“Oh!” The man grunts. His chest is warm and broad. Logan would quite like to curl up under a nearby rock and never come out and also, if Nikola understood human terms, she would be so grounded. As it is he is absolutely revoking treats for her behavior today, even if the man is now putting a hand on Logan’s shoulder and it radiates warmth through his shirt.

“I beg your pardon,” Logan splutters, “I’m so sorry, please excuse me, I’ve no idea what’s gotten into her—”

At the same time, the man is saying “What the hell, oh my God, what—” and trying to push them apart, Logan stumbling with it.

Which makes the man stumble, which makes Logan stumble a little more, and very suddenly, they’re overbalancing, and Logan lands on top of him, the man wheezing as his back meets the ground, surely knocking the wind out of him. Even with that, he puts a hand at Logan’s waist to keep him from falling off of him into the dirt.

“I’m so sorry,” Logan gasps, and looks over—Nikola and Helena are side by side, Helena still haughty, Nikola still seeming very self-congratulatory.

“Nikola, bad girl,” he scolds. She doesn’t even have the decency to look chastened. “I swear she’s never like this, I really am so sorry—”

Logan manages to loosen the leash from around their knees and rolls off the man, apologizing all the while.

The man manages to sit up, eyes wide, and promptly Helena comes trotting over to him, leaning heavily into his side.

“Uh, that’s,” the man coughs, “that’s okay. It—it wasn’t your fault. Um.”

He threads his fingers throughout Helena’s long fur, and Logan whistles sharply. Nikola at least has the good sense to return to his side.

“I am very sorry,” he repeats and stands, offering a hand to the man. The man hesitates before he releases Helena and takes it, allowing Logan to pull him to his feet.

Logan picks up the book—oh, he’s handsome and he has good taste, too, he’s reading On Beauty by Zaydie Smith, of course he had to go and look like an absolute buffoon in front of him—and holding it out for him.

The man takes his book back, eyes wide, before he looks to the dogs.

And then, of all the things to do, he starts to laugh.

Logan looks, too, and he feels his face crack into a grin.

Nikola is wagging her tail eagerly, staring at Helena, and Helena, at last, seems to look back at her. Her tail, almost grudgingly, starts to wag, too.

“I think your dog has a crush on my dog,” the man says, amused.

“I can’t deny that observation,” Logan admits. Sure, Nikola will play with other dogs, but she’s never been so sweet to another dog before. Even if he is irritated with her for running off, he can’t quite hold onto his sense of annoyance as Nikola makes doe-eyes at Helena.

“Like a regular Romeo,” the man says, then makes a face. “No, scratch that. Um—”

“She’d be a Juliet, regardless,” Logan interrupts.

He relaxes his shoulders. “Good. Romeo’s overused.”

He catches Logan’s confused eye, and explains, “My brother’s name is Roman. He crushes on people a lot. It was an easy joke growing up.”

“Ah,” Logan says, waits a beat, before he says, “It’s odd I know your dog’s name and your brother’s name before I know yours?”

“I have another brother named Remus,” he offers. “And, now that you know my family tree except me, I’m Virgil.”

“Well, I have a brother named Patton, and a brother-in-law named Janus,” Logan says. “I’m Logan.”

Virgil’s brow crinkles up. “Not Janus Ophidian?”

“The same,” Logan says.

“Small world,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “He’s a pain in my ass.”

He immediately blushes, as if he did not mean to say that, but Logan laughs before he can stop himself. Virgil blushes deeper.

“Uh, sorry,” Virgil says. “Sorry, he’s your—”

“No, you’re quite right,” Logan says affably. “He is a pain in the ass, he’d be proud to hear you say it. How do you know him?”

“Coworkers, of a sort,” Virgil says.

“So you’re a lawyer?” Logan says curiously.

“No,” Virgil says. “He’s in immigration law, right?”

“Correct.”

“I’m a translator,” Virgil says. “They hire me on retainer, sometimes, for clients who speak Spanish or Portuguese and not as much English. Or Catalan, or Aromanian, or Asturian, but those are way less common.”

“Interesting,” Logan says. “You’re a polyglot?”

“Six languages fluently, and three enough to make conversation,” Virgil says, then, “Aw, look at that.”

Nikola is nosing at Helena, and, after waiting a moment, Helena noses her back, their muzzles pressing together in a facsimile of a kiss.

“Well,” Logan says, unsure of what to really say to that, because it really is quite adorable. Then, “I suppose they’d like to spend time together. Would you like to sit back down on the bench to talk?”

Virgil smiles at him, more a quirk of his mouth than anything, and Logan’s heart flutters in his chest.

Please be single, please be single, he prays to no one in particular as they sit down together.

“So, what do you do for a living?” Virgil asks, ensuring that he has marked the page (his bookmark advertises for a small, local independent bookshop) and closing it, setting it aside.

“Oh,” Logan says, then, because his actual job title is quite long and unwieldy, he says, “I’m an astrochemist.”

“An astrochemist,” Virgil repeats, sounding intrigued. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that. What do you do all day?”

Logan brightens. “Well,” he begins, and off he goes.

He knows he can be something of a rambler, especially when it comes to topics he’s passionate about, and especially when it comes to astrochemistry, a combination of his two most favorite scientific disciplines of study. It only takes someone five minutes of listening to him ramble to discover he’s passionate about his work and the discoveries they make.

But he can’t help it. It’s the best thing in the universe, what he gets to do—use radio telescopes to detect the electromagnetic radiation that’s given off by objects in space, establishing what substances are in space and in what quantities, which can potentially come to tell the story of how the universe was made.

He gestures frequently with his hands, his voice rising in volume as he talks about the significance of his work, the knowledge he’s helped discover, the theories they have. He sweeps a wide, expansive gesture to the sky, and points in the approximate direction of the various planets and stars of study. All the while, Helena and Nikola move to chase each other in circles, and all the while, Virgil alternates between watching the dogs with a soft look, and then looking back to Logan with genuine interest shining in his eyes, along with something Logan can’t quite name—well, he did just meet this man, he supposes that isn’t unreasonable.

Whatever the look is, though, it increases the excitement of lecturing about something he loves to someone who wants to learn, something in his stomach fluttering, his heart beating loud in his ears.

He’s about to start explaining the use use theoretical models as well as computer visualizations to help them explain their observations in terms of known physical and chemical principles, and how it helps them study the origins of extraterrestrial bodies and the chemical processes that have shaped their present forms when he stops, abruptly aware of how long he has been talking.

“Goodness,” Logan says, suddenly shy, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’m so sorry, I’ve just talked away a good portion of your afternoon. Um. That’s the—that’s the sum of what I do on a daily basis. Which is what you asked.”

Virgil has that same quirk to his mouth as before, and that look in his eyes that had made Logan so eager in the first place.

“I don’t mind,” he says, and scratches at the back of his neck. “Um, I don’t drink coffee, ‘cause I have anxiety—Helena’s my emotional support dog, actually—”

Her stillness and calmness at the start of the whole debacle makes sense, then.

“—but, um. There’s a café nearby with outdoor seating, would you wanna maybe go... get a cup of marriage?”

Logan blinks at him, mouth agape.

“Excuse me?” He manages to squeak out.

Virgil blinks right back.

“Tea?” He clarifies, as if he was unsure if Logan heard him over the sound of other dogs and humans in the park. Goodness, there’s other dogs and people in the park, when did that happen? When did it get so crowded? “Would you want to maybe go get a cup of tea?”

“You,” Logan says, certain that his face is flaming red. “You said marriage.”

Virgil blushes then. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, and at last he says, “Marriage?”

“Yes,” Logan says. “You—you said marriage. I mean, you meant to say tea, but it—it came out marriage.”

Virgil’s brow furrows. He thinks for a few moments. Then it seems to click, and he buries his face into his hands.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Virgil groans. “It was nice to meet you and you’re very attractive and also you were so excited about your work so I have started liking you in a friendly way but also in a I’d like to date you way but I just proposed marriage barely an hour after we met, so I’m going to go fling myself into the creek so I never have to see you again, I can’t believe I said that.”

Helena has untangled herself from Nikola and is currently butting up against Virgil’s shins, seemingly in an attempt to get him to calm down.

“No! No,” Logan says hastily. “No. Oh, please don’t do that, um. Tea sounds great. Tea sounds lovely. I also think you’re very attractive and like you in both a friendly and romantic sense!”

Virgil peeks out from between his fingers. “Really?”

“Really,” Logan promises. “In fact, would you like to go get a cup of tea with me? Right now? As a date?”

Virgil grins at him weakly. “I guess a date sounds more reasonable than marriage right off the bat, doesn’t it?”

Logan smiles back at him, as encouragingly as he can. “It does. I’d like to go on a date with you.”

Virgil’s grin strengthens. “Great! Okay. Okay. Um—follow me, then?”

They both pause to leash their dogs, sharing a bashful smile with each other, and Logan follows Virgil and Helena to the gate of the dog park.

Nikola’s strange sense of mischief has worn off; she’s trotting obediently at his side again. To think, he’d thought Nikola had just caused all this trouble for nothing, and now he’s going on a date with a handsome, intelligent man.

He sneaks her a treat as they exit the park, on the way to the café just down the street.

⁂

logan’s dog, nikola virgil’s dog, helena

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

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wr0temyway0ut · 3 years

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I know Caleb isn’t the type of villain who deserves any kind of redemption arc but I think it’d be a fun AU where he falls into the trope of a bigger, badder Big Bad (maybe the devil he made a deal with to get his powers?) arriving so he becomes a reluctant ally to the band

I imagine in this au the Big Bad took away his powers, maybe because he lost the band and Willie’s souls, meaning he failed to meet some quota or something

And he goes to the band being like look if you can defeat me you can probably defeat this guy and if you don’t he’ll destroy us all so truce?

And of course the band is like fuck no you tried to kill us and they send him away, but then Willie encounters the Big Bad and is like this guy is the Real Deal maybe we do need Caleb

But because Caleb is a trickster the band writes up a detailed contract and has no less than seventeen very confused lawyers look it over for loopholes before forcing Caleb to sign it bc contracts are the only sense of honor Caleb has

(side note tricksters are traditionally genderfluid and now i'm about to make a whole other post about genderfluid Caleb)

Caleb signs the contract bc he’s desperate and suddenly the band has this weird murder uncle who’s always hanging around and suggesting violent and devious solutions to all their problems

They get sick of this in less than twenty-four hours so Reggie, Ray, and Carlos are assigned to teach How to be a Good Person 101. Victoria joins them after the first lesson to translate into the aggressive language Caleb actually understands and to intimidate him into compliance

Eventually it sort of kind of works in that the band starts to see why Willie was so taken with him and the Club at first because he's sort of cool when he wants to be

After a few months of this (around the time Caleb starts handing out unsolicited (or sometimes solicited) Elder Queer Advice™) the band realizes with horror that they're actually just the tiniest bit fond of their weird murder uncle? And Caleb realizes he's the tiniest bit fond of his weird near-murder victim nieces and nephews? None of them will ever admit that though, they'll take that secret to their second grave

When it comes time to defeat the Big Bad Caleb sees an opportunity to take a loophole the seventeen lawyers missed and rejoin the Big Bad to get his powers back and either entrap the band or destroy them. He seriously considers it, but there's two rather annoying voices in the back of his head that sound suspiciously like Reggie and Victoria telling him to do the right thing, so he sucks it up and helps the band defeat the Big Bad

Maybe it turns out being free of the Big Bad is his unfinished business and he crosses over afterwards. He leaves the Club to Willie and Willie frees all the souls Caleb had control over but rebuilds the Club into a genuine community for ghosts who have nowhere else to go (bc that's how Caleb got so many of them in the first place)

#jatp #jatp au #julie and the phantoms #jatp hc #caleb covington

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thebooki3h · 4 years

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Harry Potter x Draco Idea

It’s years after the war. Harry is the DADA professor at Hogwarts. both to teach students because he loves it and to help students in ways that adults could not help him. He is head of the DADA club as well as the Wizarding world 101 club for those who grew up with muggles so they can better acclimate to the wizarding world. Hermione helped him set up that last one)

the DADA club is pretty self explanatory. harry teaches defense spells and those spells rank by skill not by year. he also teaches hand to hand defense because one day you many not have magic. (he emphasizes this part for the girls. he's been to the clubs and he hates how girls can be treated) he also emphasizes prevention. he talks about how to prevent another dark lord.

some days they don’t even practice defense they just talk about what bother them. those days can be sad. but their nice. ( that reminds him he should talk to Hermione about setting up mental health clinics muggles have those and his therapist has been very helpful)

Harry and ginny broke up shortly after the war because as much as they loved each other, they just weren’t right for one another.

Ginny becomes a famous quidditch player

Hermione becomes a Wizard lawyer. so she can put laws in place that would help prevent another dark lord from rising

she also has plans to tackle the treatment of magical creatures. (Dobby and lupin haunt her and visit her nightmares often) but there's only so much that one can do in a year and she does not want to repeat 3 year

She pushes for laws that protect children so no one has to go through what tom riddle or harry went through

she also moves for primary school for wizarding children so they get to socialize with others and learn about the muggle world and their science.

Hermione becomes minister of magic and incorporates muggle ideas like foster care and child protective services into the wizarding world because after she saw how Harry she could never in good conscious let other children go through that

Ron started auror training and became an auror for a few years because it is what helped him cope with Freds death. But after all of the death eaters were given trials and sentenced, he retired from the force and partnered with George to help expand the Weasleys Wizard Wheezes.

He even opens up a partner store in the muggle world. (getting their toys and pranks to work without magic was tough but it really helped bond them together.) It’s what Fred would have wanted anyway.

and ron and Hermione are still together because the war made them closer and when they were apart 7th year it was awful, but they don't get married no matter how much Molly wants them to. they’re in their 20s and they still have time

Luna is a well respect reporter. The Quibbler is now the Wizarding worlds most trusted news source. (especially after Rita skeeter was arrested for defamation of character) (something Hermione presided over with pride)

she is also the only reporter that any of the students at Hogwarts in Harrys year will speak to. Most other student who attended the school while harry was there (especially after seeing what happened to him during 4th year) will only speak to her anyway. but it is not as hard a rule especially if they didn't really interact with harry.

Harry formally adopted Teddy when he was 6 years old. Teddy had been living with harry since he was 1 and a half because Andromeda couldn’t take care of him anymore. but he wanted Teddy to give him permission first.

Harry makes sure to tell Teddy all about his birth parents and about how much they loved him and about how much Harry love them.

the day Teddy called harry dad. harry most definitely did not cry in for an hour after teddy left for primary school

Teddy lives with harry in the castle during the school year. ( because where else would he live. all of the other professors lie in the castle. and harry may or may not be very paranoid about something happening to teddy, but that is something he talks about with his mind healer and not you so shut up)

Draco goes to school to become a potions master so he can work at St mungos and help people.

he still feels guilty about the war and about how he treated others during his Hogwarts years. he quickly learns that no one wants to be healed by him. he looks like his father more and more every year.

he hates that he has done all of those awful things. but he is making up for them! it takes the public awhile to see it but the glares aren’t as bad anymore.

but his fathers actions haunt him. and he wants to separate himself from his father as much as possible. so he does the unthinkable and dies his hair.

at first he uses spells but he finds the muggle way soothing.

he eventually gets a job at Hogwarts when he is 24 as the potions master. (bc let’s be honest Slughorn was a temporary solution at best he was NOT supposed to be at Hogwarts this long)

it is at this point where he meets teddy. Teddy roams the halls and visits classes from time to time. so long as he does not disturb any of the teachers that is

he gets excited when he sees a teacher with bright purple hair. (he thinks he found another Metamorphmagus. so he follows them to their classroom. he’s never seen them before and he wants to get to know them)

Draco is shocked to see a small child in his class, but he was warned about teddy so he kept his infamous Malfoy mask on to hide his surprise

teddy is obviously disappointed that Draco isn’t a Metamorphmagus like him, but he asks Draco all about his hair and how he got it like that. Teddy’s hair may or may not match dracos for the next week, but he’ll deny it if you ask him.

teddy sits through all of dracos classes for that week as well. he does is school work and tries not to disrupt. (mcgonagall was very helpful in teaching teddy proper manners (so he didn’t take after his uncles George and Ron) so he knows when to be on his best behavior. )

uncles George and Ron may or may not send him Weasleys wizard wheezes every month. His uncle George also taught him how to pull off a prank and not get caught (especially by auntie Minnie)

even though auntie Minnie taught him manners sometimes he’ll get really excited and pull a Hermione and ask raise his hand to as a bunch of questions (because he is not old enough to do anything practical yet)

Draco answers all of teddy’s questions. (they are surprisingly good for an 8 year old so of course he does) he even mentions that his students could take a page out of Teddys book. (he hopes they don’t ask questions because that is not always encouraged, not because they are afraid of him)

the students had heard rumors about Draco from their parents, so they were a little afraid of him. they though that he would be like professor Snape. instead he is more like mcgonagall. he expects that his students respect that magic can be dangerous and that he is there to help. but he is also firmly kind. he never yells, only scolds. (and that is only when you do something that could have hurt someone)

harry hears a rumor that the new potions teacher is, as his 6th year students put it, H O T. he knows that it is someone from his years at Hogwarts, but he wasn’t really paying attention all that much. (he likes to get as much time with his son as possible)

speaking of his son, he hasn’t seen him in his class as normal. Teddy is usually in their rooms, in his classroom or with Minnie. (mcgonagall insists that he call her that. yes, it is very weird) teddy isn’t allowed in the greenhouses with Neville anymore after than sneezing incident.

So during one of his free periods ( that are usually reserved for helping teddy with math bc Hermione insists because “math is very important Harry!”) he takes out the marauders map and looks for his son. (completely missing Draco’s name because duh)

he finally finds him in the dungeons and he spots the new potions master teaching about sleeping draught and its properties to 3rd years. he is mesmerize by the (now midnight blue) hair. he doesn’t immediately recognize Malfoy bc the blonde hair is gone.

he just sits next to teddy (who is attempting to take notes like the other students, but is really just drawing stick figures with potions and random ingredients written down)

once the class files out teddy goes to introduce his dad to his new favorite professor (sorry aunt Minnie). once they realize who the other one is it’s kind of awkward bc they haven’t seen each other since harry spoke for him and his mother to exonerate them and give Draco back his wand.

but they bond over teddy and how well teddy seems to do in dracos class (even though he is 8) and thus began the weekly visits and lunches.

eventually teddy has to stop going to dracos class because they have begun brewing potions, and we don't want a repeat of what happened in the greenhouses. this really bummed teddy out so he insisted that they eat lunch together.

harry and Draco find themselves still eating lunch together, even when teddy has gone to nana molly’s house for the week to visit his cousins.

they already talked to each other in the halls once they had reconnected, but after that lunch without teddy they start having dinner in each others rooms instead

harry introduces Draco to something he calls movies and Draco talks about all of the wizarding pop culture harry never seems to understand

soon these nightly hangouts happen more than once a week. it has gotten to the point where Draco and harry have fallen asleep on Harrys couch in his living room on more than one occasion.

most of these hangout happen in Harrys rooms bc he is still a little paranoid

then right around Christmas time Hermione asks harry to speak at a fundraiser for something or another and it is last minute because the other speaker had to cancel “ I know it’s last minute harry, but you know I wouldn’t ask if I had another choice”

Harry doesn’t want to ask Molly because she has so much to do to prep for Christmas and he doesn’t want to be a burden, so would Draco pretty please watch teddy for the night. Harry will be home really late and he is so sorry that this is last minute and of course you can’t watch him and I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked

and Draco loves teddy so of course he’ll watch him! it will be like a sleep over won’t it teddy.

draco is shocked that harry would trust him with teddy for the night because of his past and he is freaking out inside but its fine and he is not going to mess this up he is not going to mess this up.

and harry goes and he os not as worried as he thinks he is but he is still worried bc parenthood y’know and he really doesn’t like going to these things because he is so over being the boy who lived twice and he just wants to go home a snuggle with draco and talk about movies while teddy is showing them how he can change his eye color now

and then it hits him that he included draco in the scenario and how long has he been doing that for. and then he finds out that he really doesn’t mind that and how long has he thought about draco being in his life and should he ask draco out he most definitely should ask him out

and draco going through the same thing but with working about teddy and knowing that harry really hates going to those galas and how he did too when he was a child and how much better it would be if they had gone together him harry and teddy

harry proceeds to panic about this new revelation to Hermione because she is always so easy to talk to and she always knows what to do and Ron isn’t there because he hates those galas almost as much as harry

Hermione proceeds to tell harry to just ask him out already you already trust him with teddy and you talk about him all the time in your letters and even Ron has noticed and he avoids talking about feelings as much as he can

so harry decides he is going to ask draco out

(draco is already invited to weasley Christmas and has a sweater already made bc mama weasley don't mess around)

the next day when harry goes to pick teddy up he doesn’t know what to say and neither does draco and then they blurt it out at the same time and start rambling (Bc that’s always cute) and then they get really quiet

and then teddy says finally bc he made a bet with his uncle George (bc uncle George always helps him with new pranks and he is so awesome and easy to talk to) and a couple other students about when harry and draco are going to ask each other out on a date

(and he doesn’t really know what that means but auntie Minnie says its when you want to hold hands and you love each other very much but not like brothers but like best friends but more. he tried to get her to explain but she said that was his dad’s job)

and draco and harry are both shocked bc teddy knew? and if it’s ok with teddy then why not give it a go.

then Christmas passes with everyone getting a new sweater (draco should really re-introduce his mum and Molly because they would get on like a house on fire with how much they love their kids and his mum could use a friend)

and the school year finishes with harry and draco becoming known as the cute professors how visit each others classes with gifts and hold hands when they think no one is looking

and draco spends most of his summer at 12 Grimmauld place ( harry spent the better part of a month renovating that house so it would be more modern and safe for teddy)

he also removed a lot of the dark artifacts and placed them in a vault at gringotts so he can study them later. the ones he deemed to be containable and somewhat mild he took for his upper year classes so they would know how to deal with those artifacts

and draco is basically moved into harry’s rooms by the end of the summer and he doesn’t notice until the school year comes around again and he has to pack and he finds that his flat in muggle London (yes he moved there. Hermione recommended it after the trials and he is so grateful to her because that really helped him break down all that he had been taught by his father)

but draco waits to see if harry says anything and harry does but harry takes to long so he says something, but its not the question he was expecting. he was expecting more of a well aren’t you moved in already sort of response when all harry said was you are welcome to be here and I love that you are here I just didn’t want to push you and I know you like having your own space

and draco is confused, but harry explains that their relationship is still new and he didn’t want to push anything unnaturally so he let draco set the pace because he loves him and he figured there was no harm in draco still having his flat because if he needed time it made sense

this whole conversation led to one about communication about needs and boundaries because harry has trouble with that still from the Dursley's and from the war and draco has trouble with feelings bc of his father and this whole thing just makes them stronger

they make the move in official but draco keeps the flat because it is still nice to stay in muggle London and harry doesn’t disagree.

and they also agree that draco should keep his rooms at Hogwarts just so that the students don’t get distracted by the professors living together even if they are together and boy is it nice to say that

also that way if draco needs to work on things for his potions class they can still keep teddy safe

and teddy still calls harry dad because harry raised him but he calls draco dray like his father does and that feels just as good as dad to draco. he doesn't expect anything like that from teddy because he became a father figure to him so late in his life and dray makes him feel so loved in a way he has never felt before

and their relationship only gets stronger as the years pass and eventually they do get married (it’s the summer after teddy’s 1st year and he couldn’t be happier)

teddy moving out of harry’s rooms and into the Hufflepuff tower was a weird transition for all of them, but it was comforting to know that he could go talk to his dads whenever he wants

and he thinks of draco as his dad at this point but calling him anything other than dray would be weird and dray feels as good as calling harry dad so why change it

that year draco moved into Harrys rooms permanently and left his other rooms for good. (the happy couple still go there sometimes since it is attached to dracos office and they get up to shenanigans there bc teddy doesn’t ever go into those rooms like he does with the ones he grew up in)

and in teddy’s first year everyone is like wow those are your dads? and he is like yea they’re cool and they were in the war but I have seen them dancing with a mop and a dustpan and they’re really not that cool you guys

and once teddy starts making his way up through Hogwarts the war seems so far away and the students come in with the stories they’ve heard from their parents about the great Harry Potter and dastardly Draco Malfoy and then like a 2 weeks into term they’re like these dudes are total nerds and super in love with each other and its adorable

then the Weasley kids start filtering through Hogwarts and harry and draco are in their 30s. teddy wanted to go to muggle university (which he can totally get into because Hermione is a real one lemme tell you)

also you’re gonna tell me she DIDN’T teach teddy all of the muggle curriculum he would need to know to get into college bc let’s be real Hogwarts wasn’t a challenge bc he’d been there his whole life so he def graduated early and still lived there with harry and draco while Hermione got him muggle books

also in their free time harry Hermione and draco definitely figured out how to get wifi in Hogwarts ( how would they live without their rom coms) in like a weekend

and George became the new charms teacher after flitwick retired and the students love him and his satires of pranks with his brothers

and in his spare time he still comes up with jokes for the joke shop and he even lets his students submit their attempts for items for the shop for extra credit (this eventually turns into an end of year assignment for each grade and former students of George love seeing their names on the tags for the toys in the joke shop)

and Ron who has a knack for business (who knew?) expands the WWW empire and he already has shops in America and he is thinking about expanding into Asia but he still needs to look into that market

but teddy goes to college and harry and draco keep living their lives and revolutionizing Hogwarts with Minnie (draco is still stunned she insisted that he call her that) they keep integrating muggle ideas, and it is easier in Hogwarts because the children are much more open to change

and now they are in their 40s and Hogwarts has a whole new branch of the school where children between the ages 5 and 10 can come in and learn about muggles and magic and math and science and why there is a giant squid in the lake

harry and draco are now a staple in Hogwarts like Dumbledore was but so much better bc they would never let kids return to abusive homes and they’re known for being so approachable and willing to help anyone with their problems

the students start calling them the dads of Hogwarts (teddy insists he didn’t start that but he totally did with George and Ron’s help)

and the name sticks and they not so secretly love it

and the war becomes a distant memory

until students start acting really strange and harry and draco think it is just them until George and Minnie and Neville come to them with concerns and they don’t know what is happening and as much as harry loves draco he knows he needs to call Hermione and Ron (Ron still will not touch a phone and if draco can use one why can’t he, but he insists)

he calls them because the last time he was this scared in Hogwarts they were there and he is a Grown Man but suddenly he feels like he just left the Dursley's again

draco calls his mother and he calls pansy and Blaise because they were there when he had to deal with his father planning and plotting and wanting Voldemort to return and they know what he felt like and he is a Grown Man but he feels as if he will never get his fathers approval even though he hasn’t needed that in years (and he doesn’t want it)

the word spread about harry calling for his best friends and draco doing the same and if they are doing that then they must be scared

(they are so very tired of being afraid and so very tired of fighting)

but the must protect their students

so Molly (even though she is not as young as when her children went to Hogwarts her grandchildren do and she’ll be damned if anything ever happens to her family) arrives too with the weasley clan as ready as ever and Seamus and dean and even Oliver Wood (who is a world renown former quidditch player and even more famous coach)

when teddy gets there for his dad and dray they are suddenly so much more worried because he is their life, but he is an adult now and he is here for them

when their former students arrive harry definitely starts to cry (draco didn’t because malfoys don’t cry in public in front of their former students even if he didn’t really believe that now it was nice to hold onto to help keep some of his composure) and their students tell them that they are here now to help, to fight and that they shouldn’t have to fight anymore but if they must

their students say that Harry and Draco did such a good job and helped the wizarding world, helped them so much, and we know professor potter that we must be kind to others because no one deserves what tom riddle went through even if Voldemort was awful.

professor potter we know that you taught us that defense should only be used in protection and we should always be mindful and we are here to protect you

and professor Malfoy you were so kind to us and you were understanding and you encouraged our questions and you taught us to be curious and to never be satisfied with something at face value. you taught us to explore and we are here

and it feels like the war again but better because they are all on the same side and what ever this is harry doesn’t have to hide under the invisibility cloak and draco doesn't have to hide in the room of requirement and this new thing? this new thing that threatens the life they have made together their family? their friends? their students? it suddenly it seems so small because with the support they have nothing can ever beat them because Dumbledore is gone Voldemort is dead and they did their best to help those kids age be damned

There is so much more that I would love to add to this, and I could but I should get back to homework, unfortunately. I just had a thought and had to write it down. I would also like to turn it into a fic but time escapes me

If for some reason someone sees this and they want to make it into an actual full blown fic, please tag me bc I would live to read it.

I might come up with a part two, who knows

#harry potter #draco malfoy #draco #harry #au #hogwarts #professor #notaficbutitcouldbe #fix it fanfiction #george weasley #molly weasley #weasley #ginny #hermione granger #ron #harry x draco #teddy lupin #professor potter #professor malfoy

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tinyshe · 3 years

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Witchcraft 101

by Michelle Arnold • 7/1/2008 Catholic Answers

What springs to mind when someone mentions “witchcraft“? Three hags sitting about a cauldron chanting “Double, double, toil and trouble”? A pretty housewife turning someone into a toad at the twitch of her nose? Or perhaps you think of Wicca and figure that it is witchcraft hidden beneath a politically correct neologism.

Witchcraft has become a hot topic in recent years. From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books to self-described witches agitating for political and social parity with mainstream religious traditions, Christians have had to re-examine witchcraft and formulate a modern apologetic approach to it.

In an age of science and skepticism, it may be difficult to understand why intelligent people would be drawn to witchcraft, which encompasses both a methodology of casting spells and invoking spirits and an ideology that encourages finding gods and goddesses both in nature and within the self. In her “conversion story,” self-described Wiccan high priestess Phyllis Curott, an Ivy League-educated lawyer who was raised by agnostics, describes her journey from secular materialism to Wicca as a rejection of the idea that humans are made for mammon alone:

I discovered the answers . . . to questions buried at the center of my soul . . . How are we to find our lost souls? How can we rediscover the sacred from which we have been separated for thousands of years? How can we live free of fear and filled with divine love and compassion? . . . How can we restore and protect this Eden, which is our fragile planet? (Curott, Book of Shadows, xii)

These are indeed important questions that deserve answers, answers that can be found in their fullness in Christ and in his Church. In a homily then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave at the Mass just before his election to the papacy, he famously observed:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves—flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth.

Witchcraft has been around for centuries, perhaps even millennia, but is emerging once more from the shadows as one answer to skepticism, to materialism, even to self-absorption. It is, so to speak, the wrong answer to the right questions; it is, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “gravely contrary to the virtue of religion” (CCC 2117). Catholics should not discourage these questions but must be prepared to offer the only answer: Christ and his Church.

Witchcraft’s apologists like to claim that they are the misunderstood victims of centuries of religious prejudice. Unfortunately, all too many Christians make such claims credible when they misunderstand witchcraft and craft their rebuttals of it based upon those misconceptions. If someone you know is dabbling in witchcraft, here are five things you should know before starting a conversation with him.

Witches do not believe in Satan.

If there is one belief common to witches everywhere, it is that they do not believe in Satan and that they do not practice Satanism. Witchcraft’s apologists are quick to point this out.

Denise Zimmermann and her co-authors of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft emphasize, “Witches don’t believe in Satan! . . . The all-evil Satan is a Christian concept that plays no part in the Wiccan religion . . . Witches do not believe that negativity or evil is an organized force. . . . Neither do Wiccans believe there is a place (hell) where the damned or the evil languish and suffer” (13).

Christian apologists should acknowledge that witches do not consciously worship Satan and that they do not believe he exists. But this does not mean that Satan needs to be left entirely out of the conversation. A Christian apologist should point out that belief in someone does not determine that person’s actual reality.

One way to demonstrate this is to ask the witch if she believes in the pope. “No,” she’s likely to answer. “The pope is a Christian figure.” True, you concede. But there is a man in Rome who holds the office of the papacy, right? Your belief or disbelief in the papacy does not determine whether or not the papacy exists. Put that way, a person will have to acknowledge that something or someone can exist independently of belief in its reality. That’s when you can make the case that Satan exists and that he does not require belief to determine his reality or his action in someone’s life. In fact, disbelief in him can make it easier for him to accomplish his ends.

In the preface to The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis notes that “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

While it is true that witches do not directly worship Satan or practice Satanism, their occult practices, such as divination, and their worship of false gods and of each other and themselves—which they explain as worshipping the “goddess within”—can open them to demonic activity. To make the case though, it is imperative to present it in a manner that won’t be dismissed out of hand.

Witchcraft and Wicca are not synonyms.

Wicca, originally spelled Wica, is the name given to a subset of witchcraft by its founder Gerald Gardner in the 1950s. Although some claim the word Wicca means “wise,” in her book Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler states that it “derive[s] from a root wic, or weik, which has to do with religion and magic” (40). Adler also says that the word witch originates with wicce and wicca. Marian Singer explains the difference between Wicca and witchcraft this way: “Witchcraft implies a methodology . . . whereas the word Wiccan refers to a person who has adopted a specific religious philosophy” (The Everything Wicca and Witchcraft Book, 4).

Because witchcraft is often defined as a methodology and Wicca as an ideology, a person who considers himself a witch but not a Wiccan may participate in many of the same practices as a Wiccan, such as casting spells, divining the future, perhaps even banding together with others to form a coven. This can make it easy for an outsider to presume that both the witch and the Wiccan share the same beliefs. But, if someone tells you he is not a Wiccan, it is only courteous to accept that. The Christian case against witchcraft does not depend on a witch identifying himself as a Wiccan. (There are also Wiccans who reject the label “witch,” but this is often a distinction without a difference. Even so, use the preferred term to avoid alienating the person with whom you are speaking.)

Several strands of Wicca attract followings, including: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and Georgian, which are named for their founders; Seax, which patterns itself on Saxon folklore; Black Forest, which is an eclectic hodgepodge of Wiccan traditions; and the feminist branch known as Dianic Wicca after the Roman goddess Diana. Knowing the distinctions among these traditions may not be important for the Christian apologist, but he should keep in mind that there are distinctions and that he should not make statements that start out with “Wiccans believe . . .” Rather, allow the other person to explain what he believes and then build a Christian apologetic tailored to that person’s needs.

Witches question authority.

When dealing with self-identified witches, remember that no two witches will agree with each other on just about anything. Witches are non-dogmatic to the extreme, with one witch apologist suggesting “[s]ending dogma to the doghouse” and claiming that “[r]eligious dogma and authority relieve a person of the responsibility of deciding on his or her own actions” (Diane Smith, Wicca & Witchcraft for Dummies, 32).

Generally speaking, witches prefer to give authority to their own personal experiences. Phyllis Curott, author of a book titled Witch Crafting, puts it this way: “Witches, whether we are women or men, experience the Goddess within us and in the world all around us. I love what Starhawk [witch and popular speaker and writer] said about this: ‘People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply, Do you believe in rocks?’” (121, emphasis in original). In other words, witches know “the Goddess” exists because they can experience her by at least one of their five senses. Faith in such a material deity calls to mind the demon Screwtape’s longing for hell’s “perfect work—the Materialist Magician” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 31).

Throwing a bucket of cold water on a witch’s “personal experiences” will not be easy, particularly since one of the frightening.aspects of witchcraft is that some witches do have, and blithely report, extraordinary preternatural experiences. Incidents that could and should scare away many dabblers from playing with forces beyond their control are recounted by witchcraft’s apologists as affirmative of their path. Curott tells of a man who once dreamed of “being prey” of a monstrous creature; ultimately, in the dream, he was captured by the creature. Rather than taking this as a sign he should reconsider the path down which he was heading, he awoke “deeply transformed” by the dream’s ending because he believed “tremendous love” was felt for him by the creature. He eventually became a Wiccan priest (Witch Crafting, 154–155).

How can a Christian argue against a belief like that?

Ultimately, it may be that a Damascus-road moment might be necessary to sway someone that deeply entrenched in traffic with preternatural creatures. To those who are not as enmeshed, a Christian can point out that sometimes apologists for the occult have warned their readers not to be taken in by their experiences with spirits.

In a section of his book titled “Practicing Safe Spirituality,” author Carl McColman gives a checklist of “some common-sense precautions” occultists should be aware of “while meditating, doing ritual, reflecting on your dreams, or doing any other spiritual work that may involve contact with spirits.” The first item on the list is “Don’t automatically believe everything you hear. Just because a spirit says something doesn’t make it so” (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism, 129).

Witchcraft is an inversion of Catholicism.

Observers of witchcraft have claimed that it is remarkably similar to Catholicism. Catholic journalist and medievalist Sandra Miesel called it “Catholicism without Christ” (“The Witches Next Door,” Crisis, June 2002). Writer and editor Charlotte Allen noted that “Practicing Wicca is a way to have Christianity without, well, the burdens of Christianity” (“The Scholars and the Goddess,” The Atlantic, January 2001).

It’s easy to see why the assertion is made. Allen notes that as witchcraft cycles through its “liturgical year,” many of its adherents honor a goddess who births a god believed to live, die, and rise again. Fraternization with apparently friendly preternatural spirits is encouraged and eagerly sought. The rituals of witchcraft call to mind Catholic liturgies, particularly the libation and blessing ritual alternately known as “Cakes and Wine” and “Cakes and Ale.” Like Catholics collecting rosaries, scapulars, statues, and prayer books, witches have their own “potions, notions, and tools” as Curott calls them —some of which include jewelry, statues and dolls, and spell books and journals.

But to say that witchcraft has uncanny similarities to Catholicism is to understate the matter. Witchcraft is an inversion of Catholicism: Catholicism emptied of Christ and stood on its head. This is most readily seen in witchcraft’s approach to authority.

In his book Rome Sweet Home, Scott Hahn compares authority in the Church to a hierarchical pyramid with the pope at the top, with all of the members, including the pope, reaching upward toward God (46–47). With its antipathy to authority and its reach inward to the self and downward to preternatural spirits, witchcraft could also be illustrated with a triangle—every adherent poised at the top as his own authority and pointed down in the sort of “Lower Command” structure envisioned by Lewis’s Screwtape.

Witchcraft is dangerous.

In my work as an apologist, I have read a number of introductory books to various non-Catholic and non-Christian religions. Never before my investigation into witchcraft had I seen introductory books on a religion that warn you about the dangers involved in practicing it. The dangers that witch apologists warn newcomers about are both corporal and spiritual.

In her book, Diane Smith includes a chapter titled “Ten Warning Signs of a Scam or Inappropriate Behavior” (Wicca & Witchcraft for Dummies, chapter 23). Her top-10 list includes “Inflicting Harm,” “Charging Inappropriate Fees or Demanding Undue Money,” “Engaging in Sexual Manipulation,” “Using Illicit Drugs or Excessive Amounts of Alcohol in Spiritual Practice,” and “Breeding Paranoia.” Smith claims that such a need to be wary is common to religion: “[U]nscrupulous or unstable people sometimes perpetrate scams or other manipulations under the guise of religion, and this situation is as true for Wicca as for other religious groups” (317).

However true it may be that there can be “unscrupulous or unstable people” involved in traditional religions, most practitioners—Christian or otherwise—do not experience problems with these behaviors to such an extent that religious apologists see the need to issue caveats to proselytes. That Smith does so suggests that these problems are far more widespread in witchcraft than in traditional religion.

We noted one paganism apologist who warned his readers to “practice safe spirituality.” McColman goes on to caution that the “advice” of spirits “must be in accordance with your own intuition for it to be truly useful.” He goes on to say, “You remain responsible for your own decisions. Remember that spirit guides make mistakes like everybody else!” (Paganism, 128).

Catholics concerned about loved ones involved with witchcraft may not be attracted to witchcraft themselves, but there is danger for them in pursuing dabblers down the road to the occult in hopes of drawing them back. In preparing themselves to answer the claims of witchcraft, they may feel the need to read books like those mentioned in this article. If they are not fully educated and firm in their own faith, such Catholics may find their own faith under attack. Three suggestions are in order.

Not all are called to be apologists. If you are not intellectually and spiritually prepared to answer the claims of witchcraft, leave such work to others. Search out knowledgeable Catholics with whom your loved one can speak.

Prepare yourself. Common sense indicates that if you are about to rappel down a cliff, you do so with safety ropes firmly attached and in the presence of someone you trust who can help you if you are in danger. Don’t even think of rappelling down a spiritual cliff without seeking to fortify yourself intellectually and spiritually—particularly spiritually. Inform your confessor or spiritual director of your plans to study and answer the claims of witchcraft. Ask trusted Catholic friends to pray for your work. Regularly receive the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist. If you need to stop or take a break from this area of apologetics, by all means do so. And, most importantly:

Pray. Whether or not you are called to personally minister to those involved in witchcraft, the most fundamental thing you can do to help witches and other dabblers in the occult is to pray.

Saints whose intercession you can seek include Bl. Bartholomew Longo, the repentant former satanic priest who returned to the Church and spent the rest of his life promoting the rosary; St. Benedict, who battled pagans and whose medal is often worn in protection against the devil; St. Michael the Archangel (Jude 1:9), invoked especially by the prayer for his intercession commonly attributed to Pope Leo XIII. And, of course, there’s St. Paul, who reminds us: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).

SIDEBARS

The Catechism on Witchcraft

There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” (CCC 1852)

God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility. (CCC 2115)

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. (CCC 2116)

All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity. (CCC 2117)

Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Further Reading

Charlotte Allen, “The Scholars and the Goddess,” The Atlantic, January 2001 (Available online: www.theatlantic.com)

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (HarperCollins)

Sandra Miesel, “Who Burned the Witches?” Crisis, October 2001 (Available online: www.catholiceducation.org)

Sandra Miesel, “The Witches Next Door,” Crisis, June 2002

Catherine Edwards Sanders, Wicca’s Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality (Shaw Books, 2005)

Donna Steichen, Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism (Ignatius, 1991)

Alois Wiesinger, O.C.S.O, Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology (Roman Catholic Books)

#catholicanswers #catholic answers

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ahatintimestorybook · 4 years

Text

AHIT Twin AU- Sickness and Bullying

Here is the 2nd part of the bullying arc and minor TW: someone gets hurt

Enjoy!!

@winterpower98

MJ woke up to his alarm clock ringing. He picked up the clock and turned it off before getting out of bed to clean up and get ready for school. “Wake up Luka. We have school today.” MJ groaned. Luka moaned snuggling deeper into his pillow.

Once MJ got cleaned up, got his hair tied up into a ponytail and dressed he saw Luka was still in bed. MJ groaned and shook his little brother again. “Come on Luka, we’re going to be late.” MJ shook his little brother a bit harder until he heard something come from his brother’s mouth.

Cough

MJ stepped back when he heard Luka cough. Luka got up and coughed again harder, almost gagging. MJ went over to his little brother’s head and felt how hot he was. This scared MJ, he’d been fine with Luka getting sick before, but since the Lazy Paw trio started to bully MJ it scared him to go to school without Luka. Now that the bullies were in the same class as them it was ten times worse than it was in the past.

No. MJ was not going to school alone. He quickly went to Luka’s side of the closet and picked random clothes for Luka and threw it on his bed. “Come on Luka get dressed!” MJ yelled.

Luka slowly got up and held his head as it felt heavy. MJ saw Luka’s tired bloodshot eyes, sweat rushing down his face, and pale as a ghost. As much as MJ would want Luka to stay home he is not going to school alone. MJ went over to Luka’s bed and tried to drag him out of bed to get ready, but the moment Luka stood up he collapsed on the floor before coughing and groaning.

“I know your sick Luka, but I am not going to school alone!” MJ whined.

Soon MJ heard a knock. “Michael! Luka! Are you boys up yet?” Angela asked.

“W-we are!” MJ lied. “Just getting Luka out of bed.” MJ picked up Luka and set him down on his bed as he went and tried to change his little brother.

Soon Angela came in horrified seeing MJ trying to get his sick little brother ready for school. “MJ are you crazy!” Angela shouted. “Don’t you see your little brother is sick!” MJ gulped and rubbed his arm he knew, he just couldn’t tell them why. Angela sighed and looked at Luka. “Luka, baby are you okay?”

Luka groaned and shook his head slowly. “No.” Angela sighed and hugged her son before letting him lay back down.

“Rest well Luka. I’ll take your temperature after breakfast.” Angela promised. Luka nodded and slowly fell asleep. Angela then turned to her older son and took his hand. “You young man come down for breakfast we have a long talk before school.” Angela then dragged MJ out of the room leading him to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

“Ok mom.” MJ sighed.

At the kitchen table Angela told her husband, Richard about MJ trying to drag his sick little brother to school. Richard was upset, but MJ was already guilty about it. He knew Luka was sick, but he didn’t want to tell his parents why he tried to drag Luka along.

“MJ how stupid can you be!” Angela snapped. “Luka is sick, why would you bring him to school sick?”

MJ stuttered. He wanted to tell his parents what was going on, but he couldn’t. “I-I didn’t know he was sick.” He lied.

Angela and Richard looked at each other. Angela sensed something was wrong with MJ, when she arrived in the room she saw him try to drag his sick brother out of bed. She knew that MJ knew Luka was sick, but he tried to wake him up to get to school with him somehow.

“MJ I know you're not telling me the truth.” Angela said. MJ looked up at his mother. “Please could you tell me what’s wrong?” MJ sat there quietly not wanting to tell his parents about what’s been going on with him in school.

Luckily he was saved by the school bus. MJ sighed and threw away his breakfast. “I’ll tell you after school. Bye mom and dad.” Quickly before Angela could stop him MJ was already out the door. Angela sighed putting her hand over her face.

Richard frowned and put his arm around Angela. “It's alright Angie. We’ll ask him what’s wrong after school.” Richard reassured his wife. Angela gave a small smile and gave her husband a kiss. “Come on let’s go check up on Luka.”

“Right.” Angela agreed.

At school, MJ distanced himself from everyone. He did his class work in silence despite having to hear the snickers from the Lazy Paw Trio. Since they knew MJ was alone it was the perfect time to take down the twin.

When recess started MJ was about to walk towards the tree he and Luka would stay under, but was pulled away by Blake and slammed into the wall. The trio snickered as MJ glared at his bullies. “Look gang, Mikey doesn’t have his wimpy little brother around.” Blake mocked.

MJ growled and shoved Blake away. “Leave me alone!” He snapped.

The bullies glared and Scott grabbed MJ’s arm pulling him close before pushing him on the ground. MJ slowly tried to get back up but Robin and Blake held MJ down with their feet as Scott came close, chuckling at how defenseless MJ had become.

MJ struggled to get loose, but that made the bullies hold him tighter, chuckling evilly as MJ winced in pain. Scott formed his hand into a fist and it soon collided with MJ making the young boy scream.

Back at home Luka was having some soup for lunch. Turned out he was sick with a 101 degree fever, but with some rest, liquids and something warm he should be back to his old spirited self in no time. “Thanks mom.” Luka whispered.

“Anything for you, Lulu.” Angela replied.

Luka gave a small smile, but felt like now was a good time to tell his parents what’s going on “Mom, dad could I tell you something?” He asked.

“Sure what is it?” Richard asked in reply.

Luka opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. He promised MJ he wouldn’t tell, but after what his parents told him he needed to. “If I tell you this, would you promise not to tell MJ?” He asked.

Angela and Richard wondered if Luka was going to tell them the reason about MJ’s behavior early this morning. “Honey, MJ was acting weird this morning.” Luka’s eyes widened hearing this. Guess their parents were closing in on MJ’s behavior.

“We were going to wait till you were better for you to tell us, but if you want to tell us now. Fine by me.” Richard continued.

Luka sighed. “Alright.” He took a deep breath and got himself comfortable before explaining everything to his parents. “Well since 3rd grade, MJ and sometimes myself get bullied by these three kids called the Lazy Paw Gang.” He started. “They always make MJ so miserable. They call him names, throw things at him, corner him to the wall, and I stand up for him, but sometimes I end up getting hurt too.”

Angela and Richard were shocked. They didn’t know their sons, mainly MJ was being bullied, and this was going on for two years! “Honey!” Angela gasped. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She asked.

“Because MJ told me not to tell.” Luka replied. “If we told, it will make things worse for us because you're a lawyer mom. He didn’t want to use law as his protection.” Angela was taken aback hearing from Luka why MJ didn’t want to tell her. “Despite all the times we told the teacher and principal they got worse and worse.” Luka coughed hard and as he died tears started to come out of his eyes. “And MJ is scared of going to school alone.” He revealed.

Now Angela and Richard got their answer to MJ’s behavior this morning.

“If MJ goes alone he gets hurt badly. It happened before, remember when I was sick last year?” Luka asked. Angela and Richard nodded. “When MJ came home I found out the Lazy Paw Trio pushed him to the wall and he fell and no one stood to help him, everyone laughed at him.” Luka sobbed.

Richard went over to Luka and hugged him close. Angela herself was on the brink of tears. She didn’t know what MJ was going through for the past two years and was suprised he didn’t crack between the start of the bullying till now.

As Luka cried he started to cough harder, which made Richard rub his back hoping it would calm him down. “I wanted to tell you guys, but MJ told me not too because he didn’t want to make it worse. So I kept it a promise.”

“Oh Luka.” Richard sighed. “You should have told us this was going on.” He explained.

“Yeah Luka.” Angela agreed. “If you knew this was going on we could have helped you two.”

Luka sniffled and wiped his eyes. “I just don’t want to see MJ getting hurt.” He whimpered.

“MJ would have gotten more hurt if you didn’t tell us.” Richard explained. Luka looked up at his father and saw a mix of sadness and anger in his eyes. Luka looked down; he knew bright as day MJ was going to keep getting hurt even just to protect him, but he also didn’t want to make the situation worse.

From all the crying Luka felt tired again and slowly fell asleep. Richard gave a small smile and he ushered his wife to leave the room so their son could get some rest. As they left the room, the phone rang and Angela ran to grab it.

“Hello?” Angela answered. “Yes?” Angela’s expression dropped, almost dropping the phone in the process. “I-is he okay?” She asked. Richard quickly went over to his wife hoping to calm her down. Angela sighed at what the person on the phone told her. “I-I’ll head on over there myself. Thank you. Bye.” Angela hung up the phone ready to cry.

“A-Angela? What happened?” Richard asked.

“MJ got beaten up.” Angela cried. Richard covered his mouth in shock. Their worst fears coming true as a result of MJ and Luka not telling them about what’s going on. Angela tried to calm down, wiping the tears from her eyes but they kept falling.

“Is he?” Richard asked.

“H-he’s fine. He is in the nurse’s office and someone needs to pick him up.”

Richard nodded. “I’ll do it.” Angela nodded back as Richard went to grab his coat and hat before leaving the house to pick up his son. Once he left Angela cried that her little boy was hurt.

Richard made it to the school and quickly went into the nurse’s office. “I-Is he okay?” Richard asked.

The nurse looked up at Richard. “A-are you the father of Michael Prince?” The nurse asked.

“Y-yes.” Richard replied, but the nurse didn’t answer his question. “Is MJ alright?” He asked.

The nurse nodded and moved away, and what Richard saw left him in tears. MJ had a black eye, and had a towel over his nose getting a nose bleed from the bullies, he also had bruises on his arms thanks to Robin and Blake pushing their feet onto MJ’s arms.

“He doesn’t have a concussion, but he does need to go home for the day.” The nurse told him.

“Okay.” Richard replied. He found MJ’s stuff on a chair and picked it up. The nurse held MJ up and the older twin followed his father to the car. The car ride home was quiet, Richard wanted to start a conversation with MJ, but MJ turned away from him just facing the car window.

Once they made it home Richard didn’t get out of the car. “MJ. Luka told us what was going on.” Richard revealed.

MJ turned to his father and glared. “I told Luka not too.” He growled. “Why did he-” Richard cut off his son.

“Michael! I know you wanted to keep your secret, but look at you!” Richard yelled. MJ jumped back from his father’s outburst. He didn’t want to hear much of it and got out of the car, grabbed his stuff and went inside the house.

When MJ came in he heard more yelling coming from his mother. “Just three days suspension!” Angela shouted. “My baby got hurt! And only three days! Not a month or expulsion?” Angela saw MJ walk in the kitchen not looking up at her mother. Angela covered her mouth seeing her son’s injuries in person. Angela sighed. “Alright. Fine. Fine!” She snapped before hanging up the phone. She took a breather and sat down on the chair hoping to relax.

Richard finally came in and saw his wife distraught. “See.” MJ started causing his parents to look at him. “This is why I told Luka not to tell.” MJ turned from his parents and wanted to be alone in his room, but Richard stopped him.

“Now MJ.” Richard spoke up. “I know you wanted to keep this a secret, but you're hurt and we were worried about you this morning.”

Now it was Angela’s turn to comfort MJ. “Michael. We care and love you and Luka told us because he cares a lot about you.” She reassured her son. “If Luka was hurt or worse would you keep it a secret because Luka told you too, or tell someone?”

This question opened MJ’s eyes. MJ turned to his family and glared. “That will never happen! Because I’ll be able to know what’s going on with Luka and protect him before anything happens to him!” He shouted.

“And that’s what Luka is doing for you!” Richard shouted. “He told us because he was looking out for you!”

“One day, Luka will need you and it's your choice to tell us or handle it on your own keeping it a secret.” Angela added. MJ frowned and looked down tears coming down his face. Angela and Richard went over to MJ and hugged him.

MJ couldn’t hold it in and sobbed into his parents arms. “I hate school! I hated them! I hate how they hurt me! I wish I could use my magic and everything will be better!” MJ sobbed letting out all the anger and sadness he held in all these years.

Angela hushed her son and rubbed his back to comfort him. “It's alright. Let it out. Let it out.” She soothed. MJ’s loud cries turned into sobs as his family gave him the comfort and love he needed.

#ahit twin au #ahit au #MJ Prince #MoonJumper #ahit the prince #ahit moonjumper #Luka Prince #Angela Prince #Richard Prince #Tw bullying #Tw minor blood

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years

Text

Got7 As Occupations

Mark: Fireman

I don’t know why but Mark just gives me fireman vibes

HE CAN PUT OUT MY FIRE ANY DAY

ANYWAYS

He knew he wanted to be a fireman from the time he could talk

Mark loves helping people in any way he possibly can

He is also the biggest daredevil and loves a challenge

Wakes up early to exercise and prepare himself for the long day ahead of him

Literally everybody on the block knows him because of how kind and helpful he is

Don’t forget extremely attractive

One time he saved his neighbor’s cat from a tree

But he didn’t use a ladder or anything

The little shit climbed up the tree

His clumsy ass almost sprained his ankle but hey at least the cat was safe

Lets kids who visit the firehouse wear his helmet and sometimes even his jacket so they feel cool

Always offers to give tours of the firehouse to Jackson’s students because he loves informing people about the tough work firemen have to go through on a daily basis

All the women in the neighborhood swoon over him even if he’s covered in dust and sweat from work

Can you blame them though

Look @ him

An actual Greek God

Whenever there is a fire, he usually drives the fire truck because of how calm and collected he can be in stressful situations

Will risk his life every single time there is a fire just to make sure everyone else is safe

Gets scolded by Youngjae quite often because he isn’t careful and ends up getting burned a lot

Walks around the firehouse shirtless every day because he claims it’s hot when really he’s just trying to show off his washboard abs

Back to the fact that he’s very clumsy

Falls down the pole ALMOST EVERY SINGLE TIME

To the point where his coworkers made sure he takes the stairs

How can one be so muscular and fit and hot as fuck yet not know how to slide down a pole the world will never know

I was going to make a stripper Mark! but we’re pg13 in this household

Shows off his hose skills to the other firefighters

But ends up whacking himself in the face almost every single time

Honestly he’s the best

Gets promoted to the chief fireman after only a couple of months because he’s been getting a lot of compliments and praise from everyone in the community

Even if being a fireman can get hectic and dangerous sometimes

He wouldn’t change his job for anything else

Jaebum: Policeman

The idea of JB being a policeman drives me insane

HANDCUFF ME PLEASE

Becoming a police officer was the last thing JB thought he would do

But when one of his classmates got mugged and wasn’t able to press charges against the person

He knew he wanted to help out others and throw bad guys in jail

Has a tough and intimidating exterior

But he’s one of the sweetest cops there is

Only when he wants to be though

Most of the time he’s very rough and can get physical when he has to

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

If he makes his quota for the day

He does not give a shit about what happens afterwards

Literally

Someone can be speeding or jaywalk right in front of him

And he’ll let them go just because he doesn’t want to file paperwork

I know what y’all are thinking

Yes

He is the typical cop that will stop for donuts and coffee

The girls who work at the bakery always give him pastries for free because who wouldn’t want to give this man free stuff like come on now

And he’ll even visit pet stores on his break

Sometimes he’s a little too nice and let’s everyone go

One time an old man was speeding so he pulled him over

But his heart wouldn’t allow him to give the man a ticket

Holds a gun just for looks because of what happened when he first started training

Accidentally shot a coworker in the shoulder but he’s fine

Will put on his lights and speed just to go home early

Sometimes he’ll wear his uniform even when he’s not working just to make people nervous

And to impress the ladies

He also likes to mess around with people and chase after cars only to turn a corner and act as if nothing ever happened

His mom packs him strawberry milk with his lunches everyday because even if he has this scary and tough exterior, he’s still the biggest mama’s boy

Jackson: Teacher

After watching Jackson on “Let Go of My Baby” he gives me elementary school teacher vibes

And when he was a mentor on produce 101

You can just tell he loves being able to educate and give knowledge to younger people

And he really loves kids

I think he’d be an amazing teacher

His classroom would be decked out

He’d start decorating months before school even started

Spends more money on materials for his students than he does on himself

Will learn the names of every single student in the school

Parents feel very lucky when they find out their child is in his class

Very bright and bubbly

Some of the other teachers are jealous of how amazing he is with the kids

It’s 7 A.M. why are you so energetic my dude

He’ll skip lunch with the other teachers just to eat with the students

Even plays with them at recess

Will give his all in to every single lesson

When he reads a story to the kids

He will use motions and changes the pitch of his voice when needed

Stays after school if there are students who weren’t picked up by their parents

If there is a door contest

This man will make sure to win them and over decorate his door

Makes sure every single student is involved and that they’re all following along

always hands out goodie bags

for

EVERY

SINGLE

HOLIDAY

If someone doesn’t understand something

He’ll have 1 on 1 tutoring sessions with them

If he feels that the students are overwhelmed

he’ll have a free day where they can do whatever they want

Wants nothing but the best for his students

The best teacher 10/10 recommended

Jinyoung: Lawyer

I saw Jinyoung as a teacher too

But for some reason

He also matches being a lawyer because of how intelligent he seems to be

And how he likes to fight with people

also

look at that face

i’d do anything he’d tell me to

Gave up his social life to get in to one of the most prestigious law schools

Graduated with a 3.9 G.P.A which still haunts him to this day

Uses very high vocabulary so that everyone around him feels dumb

Will fight with anyone if he feels that they are wrong

One time he argued with a Starbucks employee because they got his coffee order wrong and started using words like inadequate, incompetent and inept

Poor girl just wanted to go home

Like JB, he wanted to throw the bad guys in jail

He was so good with his words that every single person he went up against went straight to the slammer

Even before the jury got to make their vote everyone knew Jinyoung was going to win the case

Some of the judges get intimidated by him just because they don’t want to upset him

One time a judge disagreed with him

Jinyoung didn’t hesitate to put the man in his place

Poor guy retired early in attempts to not have to deal with him again

Don’t get me wrong

Jinyoung is a very sweet guy and wants nothing but the best for his clients

But don’t mess with him when it comes to his job and work ethic

Reads at least 5 books a day to increase his knowledge

You will find him in the library or at a bookstore when he’s not busy working on a case

One of the top lawyers in the country

Sometimes the courtrooms are packed just because everybody wants to witness the perfection that is Park Jinyoung

Will take a shot before every court session to get rid of his nerves

No matter how intimidating he may seem

He’s actually very shy outside of the courtroom

He is so in to his job that he will go missing for weeks on end to focus on a case

His face alone can get the judge to side with him

Youngjae: Doctor

I feel like he would be the sweetest doctor

One time when he was 8 years old, he got the flu and had to be hospitalized

The in house doctor in the emergency room was so kind and patient with him and got him everything he needed

It was in that moment that Youngjae realized he wanted to take care of people and nurse them back to health

Also

His mom’s doctor was retiring

And he wanted someone he could trust to take care of his mom

So boom

Boy went in to medical school with his momma on his mind

Please Stan Choi Youngjae he deserves the world

Not gonna lie

There were days that the pressure did get to him

Poor boy has seen some shit

He had to sit in on a lot of surgeries

Refused to become a surgeon because he cannot stand the sight of blood

Makes the nurses give the shots to his patients

Even if he’s really young for a doctor, boy knows his stuff

Would constantly get yelled at by stupid people who thought that doctors were miracle workers

No matter how hard he worked

And how quick he tried to be

Some people just could not be satisfied

However

Seeing the smiles from his patients made the job worth it

In the beginning, he would work with people of all ages

But he decided he loved working with kids the most

Plus he didn’t have to worry about their health as much as he did with the elderly

However, he did still help out with patients of all ages if and when he had the time

All the elderly women would squeal about how sweet he is and how dedicated he is to his job

They would even try to set him up with their granddaughters but Youngjae was too busy being a doctor to get in to a relationship

He would always bring food for his receptionists and fellow nurses to eat to thank them for all their hard work

Would say hi to every single patient he saw

Always gave stickers and lollipops to all the kids in the hospital

In his spare time, he would visit those with disabilities and sometimes he would bring gifts like flowers or stuffed animals to brighten their day like the ray of sunshine he is

Even if hospitals are sad and scary sometimes

Youngjae makes things so much brighter

BamBam: Zoo Keeper

Hahahahaha

You know I had to do it to my boy after that one interview in America where he said he’d wanna work at the zoo if he wasn’t in Got7

I was gonna put him down as a fashion designer

But I feel like this would be so much more fun

Growing up surrounded by animals made Bambam want to be around them 24/7

And since there’s an actual job for that

He didn’t hesitate to become a zoo keeper

There were many ups and downs that came with being a zoo keeper which Bambam had to learn the hard way

Like cleaning up elephant poop

Milking the cows

Giving the goats a bath

But at the same time

He loved being able to help the cute animals

No matter how stink and gross their habitats were

One time he slipped and fell in to the hippopotamus tank

He refuses to feed the hippos anymore

He would love to see the smiles on all the kids faces whenever they would see an animal they liked

It reminded him of himself and why he got in to this job

For a while he was the one to close up the zoo and he did a pretty good job at closing down all the exhibits

Unfortunately being the irresponsible guy he was

One night he forgot to lock the tiger cage

So when he came in to work the next morning and there was a tiger nonchalantly walking around

He knew he was in deep shit

He also was scared as fuck because a tiger walking outside of its cage bitch I ain’t got the time

But the weirdest thing happened

Since Bambam was known to spoil the animals

This meant over feeding them when he wasn’t supposed to

The tiger knew who Bambam was and trusted him

Therefore getting it back in to its cage wasn’t too hard

He did get a few scratches but we ain’t gonna talk about it

Some days he would sneak over to the petting zoo

And play with all the animals

He would get really distracted and forget about the tasks at hand

If he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, his coworkers knew where to find him

He loved his job so much he found himself at the zoo on his days off

The rest of the guys stopped hanging out with him because as much as they loved their friend

They were sick and tired of the zoo

Bambam just really loved the animals and hated being away from them

Which is why Jinyoung found one of the monkeys sleeping in his bed and threatened to get Bambam fired but left when he saw how much the monkey meant to his younger friend

Yugyeom: Chef

As much as I wanted to go with a dancer

Because he is so amazing

One of the best don’t @ me

I wanted to try something new for a change

I don’t know why but I can see him as a chef

Boy loves to eat

At first he was very hesitant at becoming a chef

He loved cooking for himself, his friends and his family

And he didn’t want to hate cooking by becoming a professional chef

But it just sorta happened one day and here he was

He first started off as a busboy at his favorite restaurant

And worked his way up to being a waiter

But he knew he didn’t want to just be the wait service

He had a passion and a lot of talent

And he wasn’t going to let it go to waste

He became a line cook and just a few months later after a lot of hard work and practice, he became head chef

He loves being able to cook for people and use his talent for good

His cheeks warm up every time someone compliments him on his cooking

Breaks the rules and doesn’t wear a chefs hat because it “makes him look weird”

Constantly invites the guys over to the restaurant to try his food

Practices dishes at home so he knows what he can do better

At one point his cooking got really popular that the restaurant he was working at started getting busier and busier

People would leave if they found out he wasn’t working

One time Emeril Lagasse contacted him and boy was SHOOK

He didn’t want to sound big headed or anything

Yugyeom knew he was good

But not get contacted by world renowned chef Emeril Lagasse about a collaboration good

Always tasted his food before sending it to the customer because he wanted nothing but the best quality of food

He got so famous that he even opened his own restaurant

Still hasn’t told the rest of the guys about it in fear of them eating all of the food

Would give out left overs to the homeless people that vacated near the restaurant

Still doesn’t know how to react to the praises he’d receive from the customers

Has his own engraved knife set that Mark got him for Christmas and it’s his most prized possession

Honestly he’s the cutest little chef

#got7 imagines #got7 #got7 scenarios #got7 drabbles #mark tuan #jackson wang #Im Jaebeom #Im Jaebum #park jinyoung #choi youngjae #bambam #kim yugyeom #kpop imagines #kpop drabbles #my kpop therapy boys

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pluckyredhead · 4 years

Text

Daredevil 101: Cruel & Unusual

Hello, friends! I am back to fill up 10 minutes of your pandemic self-isolation downtime. Today we’re covering the storyline “Cruel & Unusual,” which ran through Daredevil v2 #107-110. Greg Rucka joins our usual team of Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark as a co-writer, which means a hardboiled dame investigating corruption, because Rucka has a #brand.

Content Warning: Severe violence against children is described but not shown; attempted suicide.

In the aftermath of what happened to Milla, Matt has sunk into depression. His friends are understandably concerned:

While Foggy pleads with him, Luke has a more assertive approach: yelling. Matt doesn’t take it well:

Yes, Matt breaks his hand. Yes, I laughed.

Anyway, Luke wants Matt to help him on a case, but Matt’s not hearing it, so Luke goes to the rest of Nelson, Blake, and Murdock:

MCU viewers will remember Big Ben Donovan from Luke Cage and Daredevil. They didn’t change much for the show, except that in the comics he sometimes beats people up in addition to being a super sketchy lawyer.

Anyway, he is currently on death row for decapitating three children - siblings, specifically. Not only that, he confessed to it. But Luke doesn’t think it fits his MO, and is hoping Matt - or barring that, Foggy, Becky, and Dakota - can do something to save Ben’s life. As they all agree, Ben sucks, but he doesn’t deserve to die for a crime he didn’t commit.

They try to get Matt on the case but he’s not interested. Dakota talks to a cop friend of hers, Detective Kurtz, and finds a few weird loose ends:

She then goes to see Ben in prison:

With Ben’s permission, she records his confession. On her way home from (I’m assuming) Sing Sing, she stops at a diner - and is attacked in the parking lot by a stranger, who beats her up and tells her to stay away from the Donovan case.

Furious, she goes straight to Matt and tells him to get his head out of his ass:

She wants Matt to listen to Ben’s confession and see if he hears anything off - that is, if he’s not too busy sitting around feeling sorry for himself. I know she’s coming off really aggressive here but the implication in the comic is that Matt has basically shut out the world for a worryingly long time by this point.

Anyway, Dakota storms out and Matt decides to listen to the recording - and realizes that Ben is definitely lying about killing those kids. So he finally pus on outside pants and heads out to do something about it:

Ben tells Matt the same thing he told Dakota - he did it, he has accepted his punishment, leave him alone. But Matt knows he’s lying, so he sees if the other Ben has any information for him:

That missing dad is still the loose end. Is he alive and thus probably the killer? Or if he’s dead, why won’t Ben (Donovan) confess to killing him too? Matt asks if Ben knows anything else about the dad, and Ben says he worked on the docks.

Meanwhile, Dakota continues to poke around and get in trouble, because that’s who she is as a person (I love Dakota so much). The same dude who beat her up before attacks her again, but this time she’s ready:

Also, surprise! He’s with the FBI. Which a) means there’s a cover-up happening, and b) freaks everyone out a bit because Matt and the FBI don’t have the greatest history with each other.

Matt, meanwhile, keeps digging and discovers that the missing dad didn’t just work “on the docks.” He worked specifically for this dude:

Eric Slaughter, one of Fisk’s early rivals! We haven’t seen him in a while but he was a regular foe in the early Miller years - here he is in the Guts Nelson issue. Anything, this can’t be good.

Meanwhile in prison, Ben attempts to kill himself and is stopped just in time:

(Please note if you read the comic that the attempt and method are shown on the page.)

This man is on death row, so why would he try to kill himself? He’s clearly terrified of the consequences of Matt and Dakota digging into this case, but why?

Meanwhile, Dakota’s father, a CIA agent, also shows up to warn Dakota off:

Dakota’s like, uh, how did covering up the decapitation of three children become about national security, and also why are the CIA and the FBI working on the same case? This is extremely stinky.

Meanwhile, Matt and Foggy go to see Ben, who is even more insistent that Matt drop the case, this time practically to the point of hysteria. It does a number on Matt:

Foggy is such a good friend! Matt is so sad! That is a very specific photo reference!

Back at the office, Becky gives Dakota some very good advice:

As I said, I love Dakota, but she is a liar liar pants on fire. LISTEN TO BECKY!!! She had a crush on Matt and got over it! She has survived for three decades (now four)! She knows whereof she speaks!

Dakota and her flaming pants head out on the trail of another lead Becky has dug up, this time up at Columbia:

Yeah. Big Ben Donovan has a son, and if he doesn’t take the rap for the triple homicide, whoever is actually behind it will kill his son.

As Dakota leaves the building, she is shot by a sniper. Meanwhile, Matt attempts to confront Slaughter and finds himself in a trap:

In an extremely Murdocky move, Matt escapes by leaping out the window and through the sniper helicopter outside.

Meanwhile, Dakota is taken to the hospital. Matt blames himself. Becky, who has witnessed five fridgings by this point, is officially Done With His Shit:

You tell ‘im, Becks! No but seriously, she’s completely right, because this is a Greg Rucka storyline: Dakota got shot because she’s a hard-nosed investigator whose personal demons won’t let her leave a case alone even when it puts her in danger. It actually has nothing to do with Matt except that he’s also working on the same case, and blaming himself won’t help her.

Instead, Matt tracks down the FBI agent who attacked Dakota, leans on him, and learns the truth: the children and their father were actually killed by Eric Slaughter’s right-hand man. Slaughter had ordered the father killed for stealing from him, and his killer went rogue and murdered the kids as well. But the feds are in bed with Slaughter, because they’re using his smuggling operations on the docks to track terrorist activity:

If Slaughter’s man got arrested for the quadruple homicide, Slaughter would stop cooperating with the feds. So they gave him a fall guy, figuring Ben was a shitty person anyway and an acceptable loss in the ~War Against Terror~. It’s pretty disgusting all around and depressingly plausible.

Matt’s like “Well, arrest the real killer and let Ben go or this ends up on the news.” And he brings Ben a visitor:

Little Ben is, unsurprisingly, rather touched to hear what his father was willing to sacrifice for his safety!

Agent North tells Slaughter that his free pass has expired:

With all the loose ends wrapped up, Matt goes to see Dakota:

Aw that’s nice. And hoo BOY that last panel is a Charlie Coxish expression if I’ve ever seen one. Can Michael Lark see the future???

Next Up: Greg Rucka leaves and the book gets lackluster again. But, um, there’s a lot of ninjas and more Milla-related ableism? Yay? Hold on to your butts, kids, it’s almost Shadowland time!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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elareine · 4 years

Text

In silence (Jason, Bruce)

The city speaks to him.

It’s not good or bad; it just is and has always been that way, for as long as Jason can remember. He’s eight when he first learns the word for it, ‘telepathy,’ and that he’s probably considered a ‘meta.’ Someone different. But Jason likes it. Having a secret is something just for himself, something he doesn’t have to share if he doesn’t feel like it.

He’s really more of an empath than a telepath, though occasionally, a clear thought comes through. It’s not like he’s dangerous or anything. Sure, sometimes it’s difficult to separate himself from anger his dad feels, from the fear his mother goes to sleep with daily, but surely that’s the same for everyone?

Being a meta doesn’t keep him from being hungry. The opposite, really.

He wonders, sometimes, if his mom possesses the same capabilities, if it’s that what she’s trying to numb. The other possibility is that she’s trying to forget about him. Neither of these is great, so he tries not to focus on that.

She dies either way, and Jason is alone on the streets, as alone one can be with about a thousand voices and feelings in your head.

He does not hear Batman come up behind him. It’s a total surprise when the hand clamps down on his shoulder.

Jason lashes out in surprise and disgust. What kind of person does not radiate any thoughts or feelings? Maybe it’s true, what they say. Batman isn’t human. It’s the only explanation for the sudden silence in Jason’s head.

Later, after he tried getting rid of Jason twice and fails, Bruce explains to him that he learned to silence his head in a monastery in… Tibet? Nepal? Wherever it is, Jason immediately vows never to go there. He doesn’t like the numbness that spreads through him when he meditates. It feels like shutting out a world he’s always been connected to. What if you miss out on the good parts because you want to avoid the bad ones?

He thinks Dick might agree with him if only Jason could talk to him about it. Bruce makes it clear he wants Jason to hide his abilities. And Dick is barely in Gotham, anyway, and when he is, he argues with Bruce. Jason gets that. It would just be nice to talk to someone who knows Bruce like Dick does.

As the years pass and he becomes Robin, other downsides of Bruce’s policy become apparent.

“Why are we not punishing them?” Jason is shouting. He knows Bruce hates that, but—he can’t. In front of him is a so-called human being who even now is preparing what to say to his lawyer so he can get out of jail and do all this again soon. How could Jason stay calm?

“That is not what we do.”

Jason thinks of the little girl back in that cold, cold apartment. “If you could feel her pain—”

“Emotions are not a reliable guide for actions.” Batman turns away. The discussion is over before it ever began.

Jason still hasn’t felt a single thing from Bruce. No anger, no pain, and certainly no love.

Maybe it’s time he starts looking elsewhere. He can’t deal with this anymore.

__________________

It takes Jason a long time to figure out what’s happening.

When he comes out of the pit, his telepathy is stronger. He can feel Bruce, now, know him and all the disgust he’s always felt at Jason; how he values the life of criminals more than that of children. He can feel how the rest of the so-called batfamily looks at him like he’s an animal that needs to be put down.

None of them deserve to call themselves Gotham’s protector. Jason has absolutely no compunction in treating them as if they’re barely a step above the criminals.

Until he meets Arsenal.

Roy… he’s so soothing.

Despite all the shit he’s been through, there’s still this light in him, and he generously passes it onto others. Here’s one person who even Ra’s cannot taint, and it breaks the spell.

Yes. Spell. Or rather, the way being in the pit with Ra’s had messed with his head. Finding out Ra’s tainted the one thing Jason thought he could rely on… It feels like more of a violation than having to dig his way out of his own grave.

Doesn’t feel great, knowing that he attacked people for no good reason. Even worse is the desire to do it again.

“That’s not on you, man,” Roy tells him. As always, it’s backed up by his thoughts, his feelings. Jason doesn’t have to consciously check anymore. He knows Roy means what he says.

Still he shakes his head. “I should have noticed.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like there’s a 101 class for you take. What the fuck does Batsy expect if he just tells you to not use a power you cannot switch off?”

Jason deliberately does not answer that question. “Introduction to Telepathy? What would that even look like?”

To his surprise, Roy genuinely considers the question. “Dunno, but we could find out. I know a telepath on the Titans, let’s start there.”

They do. Kori even introduces him to an entire alien race of telepaths. It’s great. Jason’s filters improve every day. He can choose when to listen, now; he can walk along a busy street without picking up on every stray feeling. Life is quieter but never silent.

Learning how to get a handle on his powers is one thing. Allowing himself to see certain things… that’s more difficult.

Gradually, Jason begins to trust that the replacement has never held more than some well-earned wariness against him. There’s even some respect there, along with a genuine offer to help if Jason wants it. Dick is confusion and the earnest, if occasionally misguided, desire to make things better. The others are a bit more difficult, but that’s okay. Jason has no intention of becoming family again.

He still doesn’t know if Ra’s manipulated his telepathy to the point that he received wrong signals from Bruce, or if it was just his own head, trying to replace the silence in Bruce’s mind with something more familiar. Honestly, at this point, it barely matters anymore. Jason has got to stop doing this to himself and move on.

With his friends’ minds glowing warmly in the back of his own, he thinks he might just manage that.

__________________

All Bruce ever wanted was to shield Jason from the horrors of his mind. Surely his own anger could only fuel Jason’s; his own sadness increase Jason’s; his endless thoughts on the unfairness of it all only drag down a child who has already experienced so much of it.

(He will not admit that he was ashamed. He was not. It was—it was just better that way.)

He knows he’s wrong, now. Arsenal was the one who spit in his face, who told him he isolated a boy who needed connection more than anything else and left him vulnerable to manipulation.

Bruce has never even considered that possibility. To him, it was obvious that the tendencies Jason already had as a child had been strengthened by trauma; that Jason was choosing to spit in the face of the values that Bruce worked so hard to instill in him; that he continues to do so.

Absurdly, his first thought when he figures out that something else went terribly wrong is: ‘Why didn’t Dick tell me?’

Because he didn’t know, Bruce realizes. None of his genius-level children figured out Jason, because Bruce never told them he was—is—a telepath in the first place.

Anyway, Bruce tells himself, it doesn’t matter what he did or didn’t say, because some apparent manipulation on Ra’s part doesn’t excuse Jason’s actions. He should have known better than to kill. And doesn’t he still walk around with his guns?

Still, Bruce vows to be better with Duke and tries to find a way for Jason and him to move forward.

“Show them trust,” Dick says in answer to a hypothetical question that they both know isn’t hypothetical, “and maybe, they will return it in time.”

So Bruce keeps his mind open. It’s a struggle, after all these years, but he does in the hope that Jason will see something there that will help him move on; that will get Bruce his son back.

But Jason never seems to look. It’s as if he can’t be bothered to; as if he has given up on Bruce.

Maybe he has. There is no way for Bruce to know. He’s not a telepath, after all.

#bruce wayne #jason todd #batfamily #advent calendar 2019 #elareine writes #sorry this is a bit late #way too tired yesterday

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klynn-stormz · 4 years

Text

Legally Swan Chapter 3

AO3: 1 I 2 I 3 I

CH 3

Emma looked around the small dorm room; it was bigger than she was expecting it to be, but still the size of a closet, a twin bed sat on side of the room, facing a small window, the closet made her cringe and think that it was a good thing she had packed light. She didn’t care much about the size, she’d slept in smaller accommodations before, and honestly, she had this gut churning excitement coursing through her. Here she was a Harvard, holy shit she was a Harvard, she had done it! She had hoped and dreamed about it, but she always had that sliver of doubt that it would not go in her favor. But she had done it and now she was here to prove herself. She thought back to her mom’s final words to her before she got in her little bug to drive cross-country to Cambridge.

“I know you have an idea of why you are doing this, but please try to put yourself first Emma. Make sure that you are happy rather than trying to make others happy.”

She understood her mother’s reluctance to accept that she was doing this for Neal, and maybe she was doing this for herself as well, she just needed to prove to her that Neal was worth it. Because he was, wasn’t he? Emma has met him her first year at UCLA, they had been together for a while and just seemed perfect. So what if he told her things she needed to fix about herself, he was just trying to help her be a better person. And sometime he was annoyed if he felt she had bested him on something, it as just his pride, it wasn’t a big deal when he put her down. She already knew most of what he told her was true anyway. She wasn’t the prettiest without makeup or good clothes, he just wanted her to look her best, there was nothing wrong with that. He thought she wasn’t smart, he had told her that before he broke up, but if she ever tried to show him she was smart, he would get angry and say she was just trying to one up him. She stopped trying to show him. The dumb blonde act wasn’t hard to keep up when people expected you to be that. She was certain that this would show him who she was and how perfect she was for him.

“Henry, are you ready to become a lawyer?” She asked her little dog, he perked up and barked at her, obviously agreeing.

When Emma had been with Ingrid for about six months, Ingrid had noticed she was showing symptoms of anxiety. It wasn’t until she witnessed a bad anxiety attack of hers that she finally convinced Emma to go to a doctor with her. When she was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder Emma felt even more broken than she had before. The doctor recommended medicine to help her through the attacks, and even suggested a service dog to help her during the attacks; she has shown reluctance to the first and interest in the second. Ingrid had immediately gone online to find the best service dog providers and with all permissions filled out she had gotten Emma dog who had recently completed training.

Henry didn’t seem like much, he was tiny and pretty scrawny, but Emma had fallen in love on site, and vice versa. Since then they were inseparable. It had been nerve-wracking trying to make sure that they would accept her bringing Henry to Harvard with her, of course by law they had to, but service dog laws were still minimal, and most people assumed that she was just using that as an excuse to drag her dog everywhere with her. Since getting Henry and finding the right medication her anxiety attacks had been reduced drastically. While she still had them, they weren’t as debilitating nor painful as they had been.

She was taken out of her thoughts by another bark from Henry, and she got to work on unpacking her room. It was two days before the semester would officially begin, all of her books were out, she was trying to make sure she had done all the reading required for each class before they began. A lot of the language was hard to understand at first, but she was starting to get the hang of it. Once she was all unpacked she relaxed on her bed to watch a few Netflix episodes she has missed, but after a few hours she felt restless. Maybe it was time to do some exploring around town.

---

It was a college town, so there was some nightlife, but it was tame compared to what she had dealt with at UCLA. She found a small bar at one end of town called the Rabbit Hole, it wasn’t crowded but it wasn’t dead inside either. After ordering a beer and finding a quiet booth in the back, she pulled out one of her textbooks and began going over the reading for her first class tomorrow, Law & Ethics. It was with a teacher named Professor Elsa Arendale, Emma had looked up reviews for her on a rate my professor site. She seemed harsh, cold even, with most of the students saying if you didn’t have the right answers she would kick you out of class. Emma did not want to be kicked out on her first day, and with her luck it would happen, so she was going to be prepared as she could.

“I don’t think studying is the best option at a bar on a Saturday night love.” A smooth British voice interrupted her studying.

“Not your love.” She replied automatically, not moving her eyes away from the textbook.

“Well then, I’ll need a name to call you by.” He responded; his cheerful voice seemingly not affected by her ‘back off’ tone.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood to deal with a man who assumes I need company when I'm obviously busy.” She sniped back, finally turning her eyes towards him.

Everything froze for a moment when her eyes met the most gorgeous vivid blue ones she had ever seen. He had a square, slightly stubbled jaw his mouth was stretched into a beautiful grin, one of his eyebrows was raised as she took him in. His dark hair brushed at his forehead, it made her want to run her fingers through it and see if it was as soft as it looked. Taken back by her thoughts she blinked and tried to focus.

“Well? Can I get a name now?” He asked. “I might just keep calling you love.”

“You’re going to stick around long enough? Really?” She asked, suspicious and not really liking his overall pushiness.

He shrugged before replying. “Not if you really don’t want me too, you looked stressed while reading and I thought I’d see if I could make you smile. I’d say I’ve almost accomplished it.”

She held back a small smile "And your way of doing it was to critique me?" She settled on staying annoyed with him. She definitely didn't need this right now.

"Well when you put it like that, you're right, bad form." He agreed. He grabbed her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. "My sincerest apologies."

She smiled and blushed a little at his actions. Emma hoped that the bar was dark enough he wouldn't see. "Since you seem intent on staying." She gestured for him to sit down

“Killian Jones as your service.” He smiled and again she was struck by just how gorgeous it was.

“Emma Swan.” She finally conceded, much to his apparent delight.

“Swan, it suits you. Now what in the hell are you doing at a bar on a Saturday night with law textbooks?”

“I don’t know you well enough to give you my life story, but I’ll tell you it’s my first year at Harvard and I’m trying to make sure I’m prepared, but I needed to get out of my room for a bit.”

“Ah, that makes much more sense. When I’m not saving damsels in distress, I’m getting ready for my final year.” Killian gave her a crooked smile.

“Hey, the only one who saves me is me. In fact I’d go as far to say that you are distracting me from my purpose.” She glared at him.

He put his hands up in placation. “Love, you were about to die of boredom or a migraine, I couldn’t very well let that happen! Besides, now that I’m here I can give you inside advice on the teachers you’ll be dealing with.”

Emma tilted her head at that, it would be nice to have some first hand information on the professors.

“Let me see your schedule.” Killian said, holding out his right hand. Emma rolled her eyes, but thought it would be nice to have a little more information from a senior who had probably dealt with most of the teachers she would meet. Pulling it up on her phone, she handed it over. He scrolled through, one eyebrow raising as he saw her classes. She already had it memorized:

7am-9am MWF-Ms. Elsa Arendale: Law and Ethics

9:30am-10:30am MWF-Mr. Isaac Print: Legal Research 101

11:15am-1:30pm MWF-Mr. Robert Gold: Complex Law & Politics

8am-11am TTH- Mr. Graham Humbert: Criminal Law Introduction

12pm-2pm TTH- Ms. Ruby Lucas: Civil Law

“Wow, you’ve got some good ones. In fact most of these will probably end up being your teacher through the rest of university.” He commented.

“So what can you tell me about them?” She asked, trying not to seem too eager.

“Well, Ms. Arendale is a hardass, she rules her class like a kingdom. Make sure you are over prepared for her, if not she’ll have no qualms kicking you out. She doesn’t tolerate people with no drive, so you’ll need to make sure you try to speak up every class. Mr. Print is, well, creepy. I honestly don’t know why he’s a teacher for law, he’s much more interested in news and politics than anything else, sit in the back in his class, he tends to lisp and spit.” He gave her a crooked grin, which she returned. “Mr. Gold hires four interns for his law office every year, so fight hard to make your case. He expects to see hard work, and likes a little blood in the water between classmates. Last semester he actually had a fist fight break out in one of his classes, he didn’t try to stop it, let them fight till one was unconscious. While the student was carried out by a few of her friends, he proceeded to lecture us about being prepared to go to war to prove your point. He doesn’t have any ethics, no qualms as long as he wins.”

Emma shifted uncomfortably as he related this information. He caught it and quickly backtracked. “He’s not the worst person, he’s just… well,” He paused for a moment to think about it. “he’s like a crocodile. Just waiting for some unsuspecting creature to get close enough to snap.”

“I thought lawyers were supposed to be sharks.” Emma joked.

“Oh most of them are, rest assured. But him, he’s different. Sharks go on the attack pretty fast, and most of the time their pray knows they’re after them. But crocodiles, they’re a quiet kind of dangerous. He doesn’t attack till he knows he can win. He has deep pockets and a lot of sources to keep him on top. Don’t let your guard down with him. And don’t give up on that internship, it’s the most coveted here, it pretty much guarantee’s you will have job offers when you graduate.”

Emma tilted her head. “Did you get the internship?”

“Aye, worked bloody hard for it too.” He spoke proudly.

“So how about the rest of the teachers?” She asked.

They got into a discussion about the rest the teachers she would have, which turned into recommendations for next semester, then his favorite classes. He tried to ask a few questions about her but she evaded them like a pro. It was getting late, time to go get some sleep, and Henry was probably missing her.

“I better get going.” She announced, gathered in books and standing up. He stood up as well and she was a little surprised that he walked out the door with her.

“May I walk you to your dorm milady?” He asked with that crooked grin, it made her heart stutter for a moment before she shook it off.

“Oh so now you’re a gentleman.” She asked, she wouldn't admit it was maybe a bit flirtatious.

“Darling, I’m always a gentleman.” Killian responded, his tongue flicking across his lips.

“I can handle myself. Thanks for the help tonight.” Emma said, and walked away.

“See you around Swan.” He called to her, making her smile at the nickname.

---

“I don’t have time to mess around Henry! I can’t get distracted by some guy.” Emma was pacing her room after returning from the bar. Henry barked and she rolled her eyes.

“Yes, okay, he was attractive.” Henry barked again. “Oh my gosh stop pushing! He was funny and interesting and maybe he didn’t see me as just a blonde. But none of that matters! I’m here for Neal remember? I’m going to prove to Neal that I’m good enough for him.”

She could almost see Henry roll his eyes. Great, she had no one to talk to but her dog now. She needed to sleep. Her room was all unpacked, she had studied, and she had had a fun night. Should could admit that to herself privately.

The next day was boring as well. Emma caught up on all reading for the classes, reading a few of the cases and quizzing herself to make sure she understood. She felt ready to go take on Harvard and show Neal who she was. Maybe she'd even run into the blue-eyed Brit a few more times.

#cs fic #Captain Swan #legally blonde au #cs ff #captain swan ff #legally swan

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viinchester · 4 years

Text

Prompts

How/What to request

Please comment or send an ask with the number of the prompt(s) you want + the character + more details you want to be included. I'm feeling really creative right now, so I might be able to do some of your requests.

1. "Did you bring us here to die?" - "Obviously." - "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not."

2. "You.. You are-.." - "Beautiful? A genius? Immensely talented?" - "Dangerous."

3. "All that blood looks good on you, it really brings out your eyes."

4. "You keep on pointing that gun at me and blabber about how much you've been wanting to kill me. I'm beginning to doubt your commitment."

5. "Remove your hand or I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it."

6. "I don't care if you're panicking - just do it quietly."

7. "How long have you been standing there?" - "Longer than you'd like."

8. "Keep your morals away from me."

9. "When did you become so smart?" - "Since I stopped listening to you."

10. "I remember kissing you.. Why do I remember kissing you?"

11. "I was just kind of hoping that you'd.. y'know.. fall in love with me."

12. "Well, that didn't end the way I expected it to, but at least nobody important died."

13. "You're going to have to tell people you're leaving eventually." - "Yeah, but how should I do it? Shall I shout it from the rooftops or send a mass e-mail?"

14. "I have never been so insulted!" - "You don't listen much then, do you?"

15. "What are you doing?" - "… Eating." - "We're being held hostage and you decide to raid the kitchen!?" - ".. They didn't say the fridge was off limits."

16. "Come over here and make me."

17. "I have a name and it's not sweetheart."

18. "I wouldn't miss you. Nobody would." - "..." - "No, wait! I didn't-" - "Fuck off, I hate you."

19. "I really wish you were never born." - "Well, me neither. But.. life be like that sometime." - ".. You're an idiot, you know that?"

20. "I'm dying and you can't do anything about it, so please just hold me. I don't want to die here alone.."

21. "You're bleeding! Where's your friend!?" - "Left me to die to save their own ass. Guess you were right, I really am not worth it."

22. "Did you really think I cared about you?"

23. "This is what I get from trusting you.. Everybody told me to stay away from you, but I ignored them.." - "Yeah, that was really stupid. You should've known better. And for the record: I don't regret anything."

24. "You lied to me! Everything you ever did.. It was all just a game to you!" - "You found out? What a shame.. I kind of enjoyed playing with you."

25. "This is a joke, right? Right!?"

26. "What are you doing?" - "Just what's long over due."

27. "I'm a monster." - "You know you're not."

28. "Listen, I believe there's good inside of you somewhere.. Just.. Just put that knife down, okay?"

29. "Sometimes you need to make your sarcasm more clear."

30. "Oh crap. That's your »I did something bad«-face."

31. "This never happened. Understood?"

32. "Can't you be happy for me for just five minutes?"

33. "You don't give a damn about me!" - "Frankly, I do give a damn about you, my dear."

34. "Innocent until proven guilty, my friend."

35. "You did what!?"

36. "I know I'm very drunk, but I want to kiss you so bad.." - "Excuse you?"

37. "Are you done?" - "Depends."

38. "I should hate you, but all I feel is love!" - "Well, I have that effect on people."

39. "I didn't do it." - "Then why are you laughing?" - "Because whoever did it is a genius."

40. "Was it really necessary to hit me with the corpse's leg?" - "Necessary? No. Hilarious? Yes."

41. "Oh, you're still alive." - "Don't sound so disappointed, I might begin to think you don't like me."

42. "Hold on, you died!" - "Yeah well, it didn't really stick."

43. "I think I'm having a feeling. How do I make it stop?"

44. "This is a beautiful place." - "What a shame you came from so far away to destroy it, right?" - "Not really."

45. "I don't like how that ended. Let's pretend it never happened." - ".. Life doesn't work like that." - "It does now."

46. "I didn't-.. I didn't mean to! This wasn't what I wanted!"

47. "Do you feel any remorse for what you did to them? For what you did to me?"

48. "Please, you have to let me make this right!"

49. "How long are you going to keep on blackmailing me?"

50. "This is going to sound controversial, but I think that went well."

51. "You know, you're adorable when you're mad." - "I could literally kill you."

52. "Well, this is a nice change of scenery." - "It's a prison cell." - "I was being sarcastic."

53. "Run! Run away as long as you got the chance!" - "Run away from what!?" - "From me!"

54. "Rumour has it, I make you nervous."

55. "I can't focus with your damn hand in my- ah.. Oh…"

56. "How are you mad at me, when I'm the one with the broken arm!?"

57. "Well, shit. I'll need a fucking lawyer."

58. "Are you enjoying the party?" - "Party? This isn't a party." - "Not until somebody almost dies."

59. "FUCK! You scared the shit out of me!"

60. "Don't. Move."

61. "You're bleeding on my carpet."

62. "Excuse me, but whoever stood you up is an idiot and a jerk."

63. "Call me that one more time and you'll see what happens."

64. "It's pitch black in here and I can still see you're blushing."

65. "Am I supposed to be scared of you?"

66. "Murder is kinda against the law, you know?"

67. "Bend over."

68. "Beg for it."

69. "I'll make sure you never see them again."

70. "If you relaxed, it wouldn't hurt so much."

71. "There you are. Did you really think you were gonna escape?"

72. "I love you, I love you so much and I'll make sure you feel the same." - "You-.. You are insane.."

73. "Let me out of here! You're a fucking psychopath! I won't ever bend to your will!" - "Now, why did you have to make me mad by saying something so inconsiderate?"

74. "See, now was that so bad?" - "We're in the hospital, you idiot!" - "Yeah, but we could be dead instead, so I consider us lucky."

75. "How do you even sleep at night?" - "Oh, just like a baby."

76. "It'd be a shame if I had to damage that beautiful face.."

77. "Stop struggling. It doesn't have to be painful."

78. "I killed my own blood. What do you think I could do to you?"

79. Person A is wrapped in christmas lights, their body bound tightly to the chair they're sitting on. Person B comes in and grins. "Oh boy, I must've been good this year."

80. "Why don't you ever listen to my orders!?" - "I don't like being told what to do."

81. "I'll go easy on you."

82. "You don't look like a professional criminal.." - "Oh sorry, let me just.. grab my Ted-Bundy-Mask and put on some bloody gloves."

83. "You don't have to stay. I understand."

84. "You don't have to fight me."

85. "Watch me."

86. "You make a sound and it's game over."

87. "I'm like 75% sure this isn't going to kill us."

88. "Uhm, I don't think kidnapping is legal.. So if you could just let me go, that would be great."

89. "Please, I'm begging you.. I will do anything!" - "Anything, you say?"

90. "Cooperate with me and nobody will get hurt."

91. "Shoot him/her. Or I shoot you."

92. "I'm not going to kill you, Y/N. You will kill yourself."

93. "Your life is completely in my hands, so don't test my boundaries."

94. "Why are you crying?"

95. "I could help you, but it will cost you."

96. "Oh, you mean you need.. this antidote?"

97. "Go ahead and pray. See what good that does for you."

98. "What did you do to them!?"

99. "If we get caught, I'm blaming you."

100. "Complain all you want, but hurry and help me hide the body while you're at it!"

101. Person A to Person B: "There's no way in hell I'm doing that!" *Five seconds later* Person B to Person A while watching them do it: "You were saying?"

102. "They don't make a card saying »Sorry for almost bleeding out on your two thousand dollar couch and completely ruining it«, so I got you this instead."

103. "I didn't ask you, because I knew you were going to deny. And I don't need your fucking permission to do anything!"

104. "I am the only thing standing between you and all those people out there wanting to kill you, so I strongly suggest you stop pissing me off."

105. "Why is everbody running around like the city's on fire? What did I miss?"

106. "Alright, so I'll do this ridiculous thing you asked me to do, but in exchange you'll have to come to family-dinner with me and pretend to be my boyfriend/girlfriend, because I've kinda been lying to my family about being in a relationship to get them off my back and now they want to meet my partner."

107. "That's a terrible thing to carve into a tree."

108. "This is definitely not as charming as you might think."

109. "But that wasn't the fucking question, was it?"

110. "You take me instead! Do you hear me? Give her/him/them back and take me instead!"

111. "You know I hear you talking, but I still don't have my coffee."

112. "Take one more step and I'll snap her pretty little neck."

113. "This is real. You're real, I'm real.. I need you to come back to reality with me."

114. "You shouldn't have seen that."

115. "Whatever you do, don't make a sound."

116. "I'd rather be spitting blood."

117. "You can't have her and it's killing you inside."

118. "I could hear you screaming, are you alright?"

119. "I was made to destroy. Not to fix or repare, but to break."

120. "I know how this goes. First, you buy me a drink, then you tell me how pretty I look and at the end of the night, you'll ask for my number."

121. "I'm drunk and I hate everything.. Wait, lemme correct myself, I hate everything but you."

122. "Put the gun down, please. You're starting to scare me.."

123. "I'm right here. I've been here all along. Please, just.. see me."

124. "Stop looking at me with pity in your eyes. Stop it. Stop fucking looking at me like that!"

125. "You took adventage of me when all I did was help you. Others would've left a long time ago, but I kept on believing in you. But you only ever saw me as an opportunity to get what you wanted.."

126. "You really don't know how to talk to women, do you?" - "There was no need to until now!"

127. "You already know how this will end. It always ends with my blood on your hands. I've come to terms with it, you should get used to the idea too. After all, you can't change destiny."

128. "If you want to keep me away, then tell me a lie that will hurt me so deep I'll never want to see you again." - "I love you."

129. "Go ahead, underestimate me. That will be fun."

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