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bamfdaddio · 3 years

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X-Men Unabridged: Hellfire (1980)

The X-Men, those often stripsearched mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 129 - 131) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne

Since I think Scott, square extraordinaire, would also say: “I know squat about rap, but this Vanilla Ice dude is excellent,” I’m not putting much stock in his musical opinions. (X-Men 130)

Before we finally reach the apotheosis of the Phoenix saga, we’re going to take it a little slowly by focusing on the first three issues of 1980. They are basically the ramp-up to the end, putting all the pieces in place for the X-equivalent of the Red Wedding, the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm or the explosion of Alderaan. But, before smashing the board, Claremont introduces three new queens to the game. Here they are, in order of Awesome:

Emma Frost, or The White Queen; a telepathic HBIC with ambitions beyond dressing up in lingerie;

Kitty Pryde, or Sprite (Shadowcat, these days);

Alison Blaire (Dazzler), a disco dolly with light powers who unfortunately starts out as a relic of time gone by.

But before we can expand, Claremont shrinks the cast: Banshee, who sold his voice to a sea witch has injured vocal chords, stays behind on Muir Isle, retiring officially. (It’s gonna be a while before he returns to the X-Family in any true capacity - I think it might be the 90s?) It’s the first time since Thunderbird’s death that the core cast changes, and it’s not that surprising that Sean gets the shaft: Banshee, who has been positioned as the older, more experienced member of the team, has had very little to do (and Claremont has seemed reluctant to flesh him out the way he has the rest of the X-Men). Sean is essentially a decent, upstanding man who has mastered the use of his powers: there’s very little way to go without breaking him down or changing the course of his character. (If you’re a fan of him, go read the Phalanx Covenant and 90’s Generation X: it’s the best use of Sean.)

Polaris, Havok and Jamie also stay in Scotland, choosing a quiet life without superheroics. (For those familiar with X-Factor, this is where you laugh and laugh and laugh.)

Jason Wyngarde, meanwhile keeps fucking with the Phoenix, using his psionic fantasies to unleash her darkest self.

Jean��s darkest fantasies amount to little more than a Victorian bodice ripper, which is adorable. (To be fair, if I were trapped in a lusty prison of my own design, I´d probably dream up my own Downton Abbey soap opera where I was sleeping with all the hunky house boys, so…) (X-Men 129)

Scott, meanwhile, reveals the sheer depths of his repression by admitting that he never let himself feel the grief for Jean’s death.

If you think it’s weird that Jean falls for a sleezeball like Wyngarde, remember that the love of her life is a man who is so repressed that it took him 5+ years to tell his friends he had a brother. Her taste in men is questionable at best. (X-Men 129)

The whole “I accidentally picked up a stray thought” has to be such a bullshit. It’s like your sister claiming that she heard from a friend of a friend that you like someone, while she actually just read it in your diary. Telepaths are snoops, Jean, own it.

Speaking of telepaths without boundary issues, Professor X is back from space! He immediately slips back into a stupid, patriarchal role and treats this X-Men team the same he treated his X-Men in the sixties. Scott is like: dude, these aren’t the same dumb teenagers we were, but Xavier won’t listen. Their squabble is interrupted by Cerebro, alerting them to the existence of two new mutants! One in NYC, one in Chicago.

Somewhere else, the Hellfire Club is revealed to be listening in: they have bugged the mansion a long time ago. While most the Inner Circle is featured in some way in this arc - we finally get to see Sebastian Shaw’s face! - the main villain here is the White Queen. She’s coordinating the attack on the X-Men and is looking to recruit Kitty for her Academy in Massachusetts.

It’s kind of bizarre that it took so long for this plot - an emerging young mutant is an object of interest for two competing factions - to be a main plotline, considering it’s such a staple for the X-Men mythos as a whole. (See, for example: the New Mutants, Generation-X, the Young X-Men, but also Rogue in the first X-Men movie and the whole of X-Men: First Class. Hell, X-Men Evolution’s first season was practically built on this trope.) It is kind of fitting that one of the mutants introduced this way is Kitty Pryde, the first X-Man that would be completely Chris Claremont’s creation.

While teacher’s pets Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler can go to New York, Xavier takes Colossus, Storm and Wolverine to a suburb in Chicago (“to monitor them in the field”, fuck you too, Chuck). In the Windy City, we meet plucky YA-novel heroine Kitty Pryde, who’s being tormented by headaches.

The KISS-poster in Kitty’s room is fortunately the only crossover we’ll have between the X-Men and the KISS-comics published by Marvel. (X-Men 129)

Just after a certain Ms. Frost has pitched her Academy to the Pryde parents, the X-Men arrive. While Charles works the parents, Ororo takes Kitty to get some ice cream, letting slip the secret of the X-Men.

Wolverine reading a titty mag in an ice cream shop while both Ororo and Charles are trying to convince people they run a legitimate school is a hilarious mood. (X-Men 129)

Kitty’s appearance is supposed to have been inspired by a young Katherine Hepburn, which is particularly evident in these panels.

Anyway, they are promptly attacked by Hellfire droids, who spook Kitty into jumping through a wall. Finally, her powers are confirmed: Kitty can become intangible, ‘phasing’ through objects. When the X-Men defeat the droids, Emma Frost comes along to finish the job, psychically overwhelming Storm, Wolverine and Colossus. She abucts them, not realizing Kitty has stowed away in their… floating… hovercraft… thing. She also manages to abduct Xavier.

I love how Emma’s to-do-list was:

Abduct the X-Men

Strip them naked (X-Men 130)

The Inner Circle and their motivations are slowly fleshed out: they’re all in it for power, money, glory. (Emma would love Lana del Ray.) But they’re not a united front: Wyngarde considers Phoenix the road to power, Emma believes in raising (and controlling) the next generation of mutants and Shaw… Well, Shaw is a clever opportunist, not afraid to sell out his own kind. (It’s heavily implied the Hellfire Club helped fund Lang’s Sentinel program.)

Through Jason, we pick up the thread in New York, where Jean and Scott visit some shady club downtown. Nightcrawler is stationed outside. Inside, Jean enjoys the relative perversion of the clubbing crowd, until Jason shows up and twists reality, shunting her to ‘their wedding day’.

It’s never made explicit, but in between the lines, it’s highly probable that Jason seduced Jean, violated her body and mind. That, combined with the whole BDSM/Marquis de Sade atmosphere of the Hellfire Club where the men are fully clothed and the women prance around in lingerie amounts to a whole lot of ick, ick, ick. (X-Men 130)

In Chicago, Kitty skulks around the compound of Frost Enterprises. She manages to creep up to Ororo’s cage, who gives her a number to call. Before she can do anything else, Emma sees her, calls all her henchmen cretins and orders her to get that pigeon kitty. Kitty flees and manages to get a call in.

Kurt picks up the phone in their limo (which feels super swanky for the eighties!) and Kitty delivers her warning. Kurt is then promptly attacked, as are Phoenix and Cyclops. Together, they make short work of their attackers, with the aid of Dazzler. Introductions follow:

Dazzler’s “nope” tells you about 80% of what her character is about. (X-Men 130)

It’s funny to see how relatively unknown the idea of mutants still is. Kitty doesn’t even consider it, even though freaky shit is happening to her, and Dazzler hilariously doesn’t give a figgin where her powers come from. (Though she may just be in denial. Anyone who wears a disco ball around her neck can’t be accused of good common sense.) In ten, twenty years, I bet there’s tons of teenagers in the Marvel Universe who get headaches or weird growing pains and fear that one morning, they might wake up a mutant.

It’s odd how Cerebro picks up Dazzler as a ‘neo-mutant’, even though it’s obvious she had her powers for a while. It might have to do with the fact that Dazzler wasn’t created by Claremont and Byrne, but by Tom DeFalco and John Romita Jr. However, because editorial wanted to Dazzler’s debut to make a splash, so they added her to their best-selling book and she had to be shoe-horned into this plot. She was originally intended to be closs-platform - there were plans for albums, Bo Derek would star as her in movies - but since Marvel had the keen foresight to introduce her just as disco was dying all of this got shelved. After a solo series, she’ll become a pretty solid B-Lister X-Man in a couple of years. (Should I be covering her solo series? It’s only very tangentially X-Related. Sound off below!)

Cyclops, Phoenix, Nightcrawler and Dazzler Trojan Horse their way into Frost Enterprises and make quick work of the White Queen’s cronies while Emma is creepily making Storm her personal plaything. Kitty, meanwhile, manages to free Wolverine by phasing through the electronic lock. Jean recognizes the Hellfire Club from her (fake) memories with Jason, but doesn’t connect the dots quite yet.

Emma, frustrated that her plan is falling to pieces, takes out her ire on Storm, threatening to lobotomize her. Jean… does not take this lightly.

“I understand you call yourself something of a telepath” is absolutely the most badass line Jean has ever uttered. Fuck yeah. (X-Men 131)

With the White Queen defeated (rumors of her death are greatly overrated), the X-Men can briefly regroup. Dazzler does not join the X-Men, being too into the idea of becoming the mutant Madonna, while Kitty is delivered back to her parents. To prevent a nasty scene, Jean casually alters the memories of her parents, removing the memories of Kitty’s involvement with the kidnapping of the X-Men. This also neatly prevents her parents from realizing what a horrible idea it is for a 13 year old to join a superhero squad. (Even if she has a defensive power.)

This arc ends with the two people who love Jean the most voicing their concern:

When you look up ‘muhahahaha’ in the dictionary, this picture of Jason Wyngarde will be the definition. (X-Men 131)

Hold onto your butts, people. We’re almost there.

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icycream-catqueen · 3 years

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Kindling (When You’re Burning Low)

Cinder would rather burn herself out than risk a low grade; fortunately, Neo knows how to make her relax.

Rating: T

Tone: Some angst, lots of supportiveness, and a fluffy ending

Word Count: ~5,000

Important Tags: College AU, Established Relationship

I was gonna post this before now but I had problems with writing it and I was nervous about participating in a ship week especially when I only have something written for one prompt, and also my cat was sleeping on me for five whole hours earlier tonight while I was trying to finish up and as everyone knows it is a crime to disturb a snoozing kitty cat. I hope it still counts. ^_^;

Considering it’s pretty long, I only have an excerpt (the first scene I wrote for this fic, actually) on this post; the whole thing is, of course, over on AO3!

On this fine Saturday afternoon, Cinder was taking advantage of the lounge in the dorm suite. The coffee table was half-claimed by various books and notes while Cinder herself was settled at the same end of the couch, her laptop perched on the arm of it and her right side pressed closely against the suede upholstery as she struggled with the perfect phrasing for her essay. Failure was never an option for her, and even the slightest error would lead to it when it came to this class. She was running on pure caffeine by now, from a supposedly unhealthy amount of coffee. This was her third or fourth solid day of being awake. After the first night, she’d moved her setup from her room to the lounge to help her stay more alert. Winter and Emerald had both tried to tell her what was best for her wellbeing, but she’d firmly shut down their arrogance; she knew her own limits, and she needed to get this stupid project done. Neo, thankfully, had been out of town from Thursday morning to last night, and when she’d come back to the suite, she’d trudged straight to her room and shut the door. Cinder had only seen a couple brief glimpses of her since. Just as well, considering Cinder couldn’t intimidate her into letting her be like she could to Emerald and Winter.

At the moment, Emerald and Winter were both out of the building. They’d each probably told her what they were doing, but she hadn’t bothered to remember it. Neo was apparently still asleep, which was a bit odd but not enough so to risk seeing the pitiful kicked-puppy expression that appeared when her sleep was disturbed. Still, if she wasn’t up and about in two hours, it would be worth it to check on her mental and physical health.

Speak of the devil, Cinder heard a door open behind her. She didn't bother to look, though, until she realized the shuffling footsteps were approaching the couch instead of the kitchen, bathroom, or shower. She took a brief glance, then did an immediate double take because Neo looked absolutely miserable. Her hair was unbrushed and her eyes were dull. The oversized black sweatshirt (which Cinder recognized by the fiery orange phoenix on the front as one of her own that had mysteriously vanished a few weeks ago) and the brown and pink plaid pajama pants were probably what she'd worn to bed the night before, and she hadn't even bothered to put on socks. It was worrying to see her in such a state.

"You certainly look worse for wear," Cinder commented. Neo pouted at her as she slowly made her way to the couch and sank to the cushions. Before Cinder could react, Neo flopped down, squirmed to lay her head in her lap, and rolled onto her back. "I'm busy," Cinder told her sternly.

Neo's response was a soft and pitiful keening sound. She fumbled to grab Cinder's left wrist, staring up at her with pleading doe eyes.

"Neo. I'm busy," Cinder repeated. Neo whined and tugged on her wrist, so Cinder rolled her eyes and stopped resisting, curious about what she wanted. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she was definitely taken by surprise when Neo gently guided her hand under the hem of her sweatshirt and pressed it against her lower stomach.

What is she trying to accomplish here? Cinder raised an eyebrow at the woman in her lap. Neo let go of her wrist to sign something at her. The odd angle made it hard to translate, so it took a few seconds for Cinder to understand what she was asking for and why.

"I suppose I can take a short break, if you're really in that much pain," she relented. "You're lucky you're cute," she added as she carefully activated her Semblance.

The reaction was instant. Neo sighed with relief at the warmth, eyes full of soft gratitude and affection. Cinder rubbed slow, small circles over her stomach, feeling the smaller woman go languid under her touch. After a few more seconds, Neo's eyes fluttered closed.

"Is this warm enough?" Cinder asked. Neo nodded, a content smile playing across her lips. "Just ten minutes."

Neo opened her eyes and pouted at her.

"There is a reason I've been awake for," Cinder checked the time on her laptop, "about eighty hours now." Neo looked positively outraged.

"You need to sleep," she signed—easily decipherable now that Cinder had gotten a little more time to adjust to her current perspective. Not that the message was very appreciated.

"No, what I need is to finish this ridiculous project so I can move on to my two remaining essays, do all the work for a 'group project' because the rest of my assigned group are immature and unmotivated idiots, and study for my three exams this week," Cinder retorted.

"When are your essays due?"

Cinder elected not to answer, since admitting the due dates were two and three weeks away respectively wouldn't help her against Neo's accusatory glare.

"Your group project?"

Okay, so maybe it hadn't technically been assigned yet and was scheduled to be due in a month and a half, but all the information was in the syllabus. Cinder's class was full of imbeciles, and somehow she always got stuck in a group with some idiot or another who didn't understand what a lesbian was, so she was getting it out of the way to avoid interacting with anyone.

"Are all three of your exams actually this week?"

Two of them, and one of those barely counted more towards the final grade in the class than a small quiz. Her continued silence was answer enough; Neo knew her too well.

"You're going to burn yourself out again." Neo's eyes were unbearably sad, so Cinder looked away.

"I'm fine," she dismissed the concern. A hand grabbed her chin and yanked her head down so her eyes met Neo's again.

"I watched you collapse in the middle of campus last year, and I almost got in trouble for pulling a knife on the paramedics to make them let me stay with you. I got a scared video call from Winter four months ago because you fainted in her fancy rich-person hot tub and nearly drowned," Neo reminded her. “Do I need to go on?”

"I can handle it this time," Cinder insisted, growing agitated. Neo took a calming breath before responding.

"No you can't. You always say it but you never can. You end up in an exhausted daze. You work yourself into a frenzy. You get into fits of rage...which honestly scare me."

"I would never lay a hand on—!" Cinder was cut off when Neo pressed a finger to her lips.

"Not for myself. I'm scared you'll lose control and take it out on yourself again," Neo corrected her. "You haven't in a while, but..." Neo trailed a hand down Cinder's left arm, tracing her scars.

"I just...I need to...I have to keep working. I can't let myself fall behind. I can't..." Cinder faltered. Neo sighed.

"I know," she acknowledged. She knew about the past, knew why Cinder relapsed into these desperate attempts to excel, to stay ahead. "But it's pointless if you destroy yourself trying."

"I've only ended up being sent to the hospital three times since I started college," Cinder argued. Neo was unimpressed.

"Congratulations! And you've managed to barely avoid hospitalization how many times now?"

"I—that isn't relevant!" Cinder hissed. Neo scowled.

"Really? It's not? How many times have you ended up so exhausted that you were bedridden for days? How many times have you gone into a mental decline because you were incapacitated? And how many more times are you going to make me watch you suffer like that?"

"If you want to leave me, just get it over with!" Cinder spat bitterly. Neo's eyes widened, hurt and shocked. Cinder flinched, realizing she'd crossed a very important line. "I didn't mean...I don't know why I said that."

"An abandonment complex, emotional instability, a mess of insecurities you mask with your ego, previous girlfriends who couldn't handle you or only wanted your body...and like I've been saying, you need sleep,” Neo replied, recovering. "Also, my cramps?"

"What?" Cinder realized she'd subconsciously deactivated her Semblance at some point and quickly remedied that. "Oh. Sorry."

"I'm going to make a deal with you," Neo informed her abruptly. Cinder raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"What kind of deal?"

"The 'ridiculous project' you're trying to finish. Tell me about it, and I'll explain," Neo replied. Cinder clenched her teeth at the mere mention of it.

"It's an assigned experiment, a five to ten-page report on it, and an oral presentation. And the professor hates me. He goes out of his way to make every class, every test, and every assignment hell for me. I have to work harder than anyone so he can't get away with failing me out of spite. If I make even one mistake..." she growled.

"When is it due?"

"The day after tomorrow. It was assigned two weeks ago, but three days ago he realized he 'accidentally' gave me the wrong experiment. In other words, he's making me do a two-week project within five days—after I'd already finished the one he previously assigned me."

"Watts," Neo guessed. Cinder had come back from his class angry enough times that it wasn't even a question.

"Yeah," she confirmed anyway. Neo wrinkled her nose.

"I already hated that guy, and I hated him more and more every time you came back from his class in a bad mood, but this shit he's pulling now is the final straw, so I'm going to get him fired," she declared. Cinder let out an amused huff.

"And how will you do that?" she asked. She didn’t expect an actual answer but Neo didn't even hesitate.

"It may include breaking and entering, small and well-placed incidents, a flat tire, some bottles of the expensive alcohol he isn't supposed to have on campus, a sedative, and if we're lucky, a little inadvertent assistance from gravity and Ironwood."

"Just how long have you been planning this?" Cinder was taken aback at the immediate response. Neo considered.

"The time you locked me out of your dorm after his class because you were so furious you wanted to hit something, and you were worried you'd see so much red you might accidentally hit me in blackout rage. You've never told me what happens in his class to make you so angry, or even if it's actually him or just another student—though I was pretty sure it was him—so I planned for both situations."

"I'm impressed," Cinder commented. Neo smirked. “Now what was that ‘deal’ you mentioned?”

"You finish the report for your project, then eat something more substantial than coffee and whatever quick snacks you've been living off of for the past few days. And then we go to my dorm and you get some damn sleep."

"How did you know I'm working on the report right now?" Cinder was taken aback. "And how do you know I haven't been eating?"

"Because I can see it on your computer. And once again, you've done this before, so I know you don't take the time for more than the minimum amount of food to keep hunger from 'distracting' you," Neo pointed out, almost accusingly.

"I haven't even started working on the oral presentation. I'll do all that after I'm completely finished."

"Nope. You can start that part when you're well-rested. If you make me physically drag you to bed while I'm on my period, I'll make damn sure you regret it," Neo threatened with a scowl.

“Fine,” Cinder gave in reluctantly. Neo smiled brightly, and dammit, it was nigh impossible for Cinder to stay bitter in the face of such genuine fondness, joy, and relief. She wondered when she’d gotten so soft—even if only a select few people got to see that soft part of her—and realized she didn’t even mind anymore.

#spicecreamweek2021 #spicecream #cinder x neo #fanfic #rwby #cinder fall #neopolitan #college au #oneshot #mentions of trauma #mentions of past self-harm #fluff #cuddles #established relationship #tl;dr cinder neglects self-care so neo makes her take a nap #i could have just done a link like normal people but i wanted an excuse to use the spicecream graphic i made

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wingsofninewheels · 3 years

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Diamond Farming Guide

After several months of stam hoarding, I cannot recall which Nikki tuber(s) have suggested Debbie-format as the cornerstone of dia farming, but I can tell you that day 1 of skipping the Debbie-format suit in favor of the NPC’s sweet sweet diamonds yielded me about 550 diamonds--and I haven’t even cracked into my comp box stockpile yet. (This stuff is probably a fusion of wisdom from both Effie and Viv in the past year, but I follow at least four Nikkis on YT, and they all have great gameplay input and tons of experience.) I’m just so impressed with the efficiency of it, that I wanted to do a write-up for it!

Hoard stam and Competition vote boxes. (Optional, but also helpful for accumulating even more stam and dia: Lots of Corridor voting, too.) Anytime you participate in a Hell event that drops stam, keeping it for later is a great base for hoarding, ‘cause it typically works out to several hundred per suit.

Skip a Debbie-format suit that you’re not 100% in love with. Thus far, they always return for crafting/store. Instead of accumulating the currency to exchange for the suit, give it all to the NPC. (Optional: Hunt easter eggs. I don’t do it, so I don’t have a breakdown on how to. Many players swear by it, though, and there’s lots of tutorials out there.) If you don’t have things to farm crafting materials for--though I can’t imagine many are lacking for things to craft right now, ‘cause V2:Ch6 is so huge--Maiden V1:7-7 is ideal for decomp purposes, as it can drop a ♥♥♥ and a ♥♥♥♥, often both: and you’ll always need more Earrings & Necklaces.

(Alternately, of course, you can always finish a Debbie-format suit, then continue this farming guide as normal. Depending on your V-level and how much stam you tend to hoard, you’ll usually get at least a day and a half to two days of dia-farming on top of acquiring the suit, if you so desire.)

Use the extra gold from the NPC and stam usage to buy pull 100s in the Pavilion of Mystery. Now couldn’t be a better time to do all the extra pull 100s you can, because 95% of the crafting materials for Starsea can come from the Mystery House, and we’ll likely (hopefully?) be getting the Starsea recolor on LN server sometime this year? I usually keep around 500k-1mil on hand for crafting purposes and spend the rest.

Decomp everything extra. (If you were farming V1:7-7 that’s Lampwick Brown hair and Silent Rose coat.) Revel in dozens of decomp chests, which can yield Tarot pieces, dia, dyes, star coins, and gold--and doing so doubles as Reconstruction suit farming, so you’re likely to get massive progress on any you’re working on.

If you want to be extra thorough, you can weed out all the Mystery House recolors that you’ve already finished. The ones I find easiest at a glance are from Tower of Zen: the “lucky red” pieces and the gold ♥♥♥♥♥ pieces. (I compiled a full list below, for if you’re ever feeling like cleaning up your wardrobe dupes.)

There’s a hyper-intensive third degree of decomp where you assess whether you’ve crafted every single thing an item might be used for, then decomp them from that point on--but it takes hours upon hours of cross-referencing on Nikki’s Info, and I’ve never in the three years I’ve played completed a full inventory purge. It’s not necessary, but it’s a major extra push for decomp chests if you’re so inclined. (I once saw Viv decomp over a thousand items this way.)

If you’ve got a surplus of Mystery House currency, you can always spend it on pieces you can buy, then turn around and decomp those too. I see lots of people cash in their Cinderella Shoes for decomp material, for example, if there’s not any Lifetime suits they’re saving up for. I personally always aim to complete all Lifetime suits (and eventually, all their recolors... except Grice, that restored Yoke can stay in the bin RIP) so I keep my Cinderella Shoes, where I prefer to buy extras with my 150-dia pav currencies, if I’m doing this.

I’ve also seen people during pick-and-choose Debbie-format events spend any surplus currency last day on whatever item(s) they can afford, for extra decomps. Ideally, though, you’ll never have that much leftover on the last day, following this strategy.

Following this strategy during a Debbie-format event, you essentially get dia from your dailies, from voting in the Competition and Corridor, from the NPC, from decomp chests, and from completing suits. It all racks up very very fast!

If you’ve found this useful, I'd super appreciate a like and reblog. Share it with your fellow Nikkis. You’re free to link to this list elsewhere! Just make sure to credit me, please, as this write-up took several hours. I don’t have a Reddit account, so it’s totally cool if anybody wants to cross-post!

♥♥♥♥♥♥ Enjoy swimming in dia, lovely Nikkis. ♥♥♥♥♥♥

(If I’ve made any errors or missed items, totally let me know so I can edit this!)

Below the cut is a breakdown of the Mystery House items that have recolors, sorted by rarity and tab. Anything you have finished all the recolors of is prime decomp fodder--you are almost guaranteed Recomp jewelry drops from them. (The way I usually go is, skim through Customize with a list like this one, and write down anything that has a “Get” on it. Anything you still need to color something of will show at the very top of the list, without a “Get” on it. Then, I take the list I compiled, and apply that to the Decomp menu.)

Hair

Autumn • Gold ♥♥♥

Traditional Bride • Brown ♥♥♥

Evergreen Flower • Black ♥♥♥

Resonance ♥♥♥

Cresent ♥♥♥♥

Countryside Girl • Brown ♥♥♥♥

Dynamic Summer • Silver ♥♥♥♥

Cute Animal ♥♥♥♥

Dark Tomb ♥♥♥♥♥

Messy Cute ♥♥♥♥♥

Fine Creation ♥♥♥♥♥

Holy World ♥♥♥♥♥

Bond in Distance ♥♥♥♥♥

Emmy ♥♥♥♥♥

Young Warbler • Verdant ♥♥♥♥♥

Light Tone ♥♥♥♥♥

Pinky-white Curls ♥♥♥♥♥

Dress

First Encounter ♥♥♥

Kapok ♥♥♥

Elegant Dress • Beige ♥♥♥

Bright Future ♥♥♥

Star Shadow ♥♥♥

Pink Gauze Dress ♥♥♥

Teddy Bear • Brown ♥♥♥

Sentimental Regret ♥♥♥♥

Jade Yard ♥♥♥♥

Cloud Dance • Red ♥♥♥♥

Pastoral Pearl • Red ♥♥♥♥

Light Feather • Gray ♥♥♥♥

Flower of Sin • White ♥♥♥♥

Docile Alpaca ♥♥♥♥

Snow White Kitty ♥♥♥♥

Stygian Death ♥♥♥♥♥

Auspicious Clouds ♥♥♥♥♥

Phoenix of Genesis ♥♥♥♥♥ GOLD

Dragon of Apocalypse ♥♥♥♥♥ GOLD

Pearl Girl ♥♥♥♥♥

Fairytale Stars ♥♥♥♥♥

Chocolate Teddy ♥♥♥♥♥

Coat

Duo Moon ♥♥♥

Silk Coat • White ♥♥♥

Lace Coat • White ♥♥♥♥

Iron Rose ♥♥♥♥

Cloud Flower ♥♥♥♥

Nice Pistil ♥♥♥♥♥

Gentle Care ♥♥♥♥♥

Flourish Peach ♥♥♥♥♥

Revival Sound ♥♥♥♥♥

Top

Fortunate Flowers ♥♥♥

Cloud Blouse • Blue ♥♥♥♥♥

Sweet Dream ♥♥♥♥♥

Bottom

Lucky Star ♥♥♥

Star Shatters ♥♥♥

Sandal Branch • Red ♥♥

Elegant Rendering ♥♥♥♥

Cloud Pants • Blue ♥♥♥♥♥

Fantasy Sleep ♥♥♥♥♥

Hosiery

Radiant Joy ♥♥♥

Teddy Footprint • Brown ♥♥♥

The Rivulet ♥♥♥♥

Soft Socks ♥♥♥♥

White Kitten Tale ♥♥♥♥

Sweet Garter ♥♥♥♥♥

Snowy Night ♥♥♥♥♥

Honey Star ♥♥♥♥♥

Shoes

Peep-toe Heels • Gray ♥♥

Running Shoes • White ♥♥

Cradle of Snow • Blue ♥♥

Smooth Career ♥♥♥

Bloch’s Labyrinth • Brown ♥♥♥

Rubber Boots • Pink ♥♥♥

Kimi’s Rose • Black ♥♥♥

Black Patent Leather ♥♥♥

Obedience ♥♥♥

Pastoral • Brown ♥♥♥♥

Blue Porcelain • Shoes ♥♥♥♥

Pale High Heels ♥♥♥♥

Cute High Heels ♥♥♥♥

Glamour - Brown ♥♥♥♥

Oceans Conquer • Blue ♥♥♥♥

Dream Envoy ♥♥♥♥♥

Propitious Buckle ♥♥♥♥♥

Phoenix World ♥♥♥♥♥

Emperor of Universe ♥♥♥♥♥

Stars • Pink ♥♥♥♥♥

Sweet Teddy • Black ♥♥♥♥♥

Accessories

Scorching Sun ♥♥♥

Auspiciousness ♥♥♥

Gold and Jade ♥♥♥

Goodbye to Nian ♥♥♥

Joyful ♥♥♥

Embrace ♥♥♥

Shining ♥♥♥

Lonely Star ♥♥♥

Fireflies ♥♥♥

Red Riding Hood’s Bracelet ♥♥♥♥ (after crafting Tender Charm)

Beach Wristband ♥♥♥♥ (after crafting Rose)

Rose Necklet • Brown ♥♥♥♥

Garden Headband • Brown ♥♥♥♥

Goofy Face ♥♥♥♥

Warm Companion ♥♥♥♥

White Kitten Earrings ♥♥♥♥

White Kitten Gloves ♥♥♥♥

White Kitten Tail ♥♥♥♥

Blue Porcelain • Bag ♥♥♥♥♥

Rosy Dream ♥♥♥♥♥

Sweet Choker ♥♥♥♥♥

Bow Ribbon ♥♥♥♥♥

Auspicious Knot ♥♥♥♥♥

Bird Pilgrimage ♥♥♥♥♥ GOLD

Dragon in Heaven ♥♥♥♥♥ GOLD

Phoenix Crown ♥♥♥♥♥ GOLD

Great Heaven Crown ♥♥♥♥♥

Soft Pink Choker ♥♥♥♥♥

Flowers in Summer ♥♥♥♥♥

Star Hunt • Red ♥♥♥♥♥

Prince Teddy • Brown ♥♥♥♥♥

Makeup

Queen Saint Phoenix ♥♥♥♥♥

King Saint Cloud ♥♥♥♥♥

#love nikki dress up queen #lnduq #love nikki #dia farming #diamond farming #reference #mystery house #pavilions

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Jake Reviewcaps Stuff: X-Men Evolution: The X-Impulse

Two of the series most popular characters, and one of its’ more popular ships: Jean and Xavier try to lead kitty away from charming asshole Avalanche whose trying to use her for crimes, but have trouble due to having taken stupid pills before this episode. Meanwhile Kurt and Scotty follow Logan as he confronts Sabertooth for the first time and gets cars thrown at him. No really. Abusive Romance, Flying Cars, and probable Gilmore Girls refrences under the cut.

So yeah i’m doing another one already. This pace MIGHT slow eventually, as I want to get through the show faster.. but this episode gave me a ton of material to work with so I wanted to strike while the iron was hot. So as I mentioned last time the show started with slowly shoveling characters in one at a time, giving each time for focus and to breathe a bit. So with Nightcrawler and Toad out of the way it’s time for Shadowcat and Avalanche.. who happen to be one of the biggest ships for this show.. and also one some don’t like. Me, i’ll form an opinon as I go as I don’t remmeber much of them together other than him trying to join the x-men in one episode, so we’ll see. For now it’s time for some X-Impulse. Wait isn’t impulse dc? Is there a marvel character named that too?

Yup there is! Two in fact, but somehow one is x-men related. This is impulse a member of the Shiar imperial guard I entirely forgot about because there’s like 40 or 50 diffrent members and he’s not one of hte more promeinet ones. For those who’ve never heard of these guys there the elite superpowered muscle for the Shiar Empire, an intergalactic empire whose former empress Charles Xavier dated for a while after dethroning her brother and who serve either as allies to our heroes or people for them to beat up depending on if someone sane is in charge that day or not, and who often have members killed to show off some new baddy, hence why there’s been three impulses apparently.

Their based on the less military, more heroic and more fleshed out if still hugely sized, legion of superheros from dc, which Guard co-creator David Cockrum was one of the most famous artists for and originally actually CREATED Nightcrawler as a legionnaire, but he was rejected for being too demonic and thankfully recycled into the rougish religious elf we know today. The Guard were as far as I can tell made as a wink and a nod toward that and a gentle jab at the competition and is far from the first or last time either side would make characters based on the other side. I also bring up the Shiar because despite being a sizeable part of the X-Men mythos in the comics.. they’ve BARELY been used outside them. Cartoon wise only the 90′s series used them, though to be fair....

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Given Evolution had both hinted at exterterstials apparently, and was planning on doing the Phoenix Saga in season 5, so they MIGHT have used them eventually, but I somehow doubt it and WOlverine and the X-Men didn’t live long enoguh to even consider it. As for the movies they were considered too ungrounded for them and thus were basically exiled from appearing on film for 20 years. Now the Shi’ar aren’t perfect characters, the fact before he took the throne himself Gladiator would just obey whatever assshole took the reigns due to some misguided loyalty didn’t help, but they could be used intrestingly and the guard are at least intresting in a fight, so it is a shame they couldn’t be used till recently and hopefully with the fox merger the mcu will put them to use at some point. Also for those curious if they showed up in any other cartoons.. nope. According to wikipedia, their mentioned in Avengers; Earth’s Mighteist Heroes (Which will also be covered here some day) and Legion (probably too though also probably not episode by episode if I do), and show up in two of the video games, with Ultimate Alliance being the biggest role outside of the 90′s cartoon from the looks of it, having the well, alliance, head to shiar space to get the mkrann crystal and battle with the guard and deathbird. Anyway, i’ve spent enough time on this weird sidebar, let’s get on with the actual episode! We open with a pretty good scene. We meet Kitty Pryde, your average teen whose having a weird flying nightmare.. emphasis on weird as it is a bit wonky, but the idea is fine enough.. as is the result where she finds herself having fallen to the basement and FELT it, her panicked parents coming down and Kitty only being able to sob about having fell, her mom putting it off to sleepwalking.. until her dad notices her pillow and blanket fused into the celing above, which only makes the poor girl more upset. It’s a good, tense scene and a reminder that wether your mutant powers are benign or not.. having them awaken can still be traumatic as hell, and uses this world NOT having them be a public concern well: Kitty has NO IDEA what’s happening to her, no one to turn to and is understandabily terrified. For all she knows her body is breaking down and she might not be tangible again, not an unresonable fear given her comics counterpart once ended up in that very situation due to taking some heavy damage in battle from an energy charged harpoon.. from a guy named harpoon because even Claremont had an off day with names sometimes. My point is it’s a very good scene. Naturally Charles notices from cerebro.. and with a weird computer thing that somehow fully researchs who she is because tha’ts not creepy, but It is somewhat understandable. Cue the credits. We then get a REALLY pointless throwaway scene with Kurt, now having’ been at school for long enough to be late several times apparently, late again and running into Mystique, in her guise as principal before Scott thankfully rescues him. Why Mystique is confronting her son like this I dunno, but what I really don’t is why this scene is here at all. It could’ve easily been replaced with a throaway line about Charles only wanting to have one student miss midterms or not wanting to arouse too much suspcion with the facultiy by taking too many of the kids out of school. Instead we just get this scene to establish their home. And yes they could’ve just needed to fill out the episode.. but there’s plenty of ways, that i’ll mention later, this minute of screentime could’ve been used better and we really didn’t need a whole scene of them to set up that they’d be home for their subplot this episode. Back in scene’s that actually matter, Kitty is trying to sneak off to school but her mom stops her, with her family apparently having agreed to keep her home but Kitty just wants some normalcy and her family won’t even talk about it, so her mom relucntantly agrees. I can’t blame Kitty: even if it’s a terrible idea to go to school while she has no idea what’s happening to her and can’t control it as far as she knows.. she’s also a scared kid whose body is changing in ways she can’t fully grasp, and unlike puberty, which mutation is a mild metaphor for, there’s no deep years of study on it or how it changes a body: she has no idea what’s going on and just wants to grasp onto SOMETHING normal while she’s clearly not. It’s some well done character stuff. Meanwhile Jean and Chuck are on their way to what i’m assuming is that same old place, sweet home Chicago since that’s where Kitty is from in the comics and they had to fly there anyway. Jean questions why her.. out of the three junior x-men so far she’s the least intresting. Charles explains he thinks she can reach Kitty which.. makes some sense. Jean is uber popular at school, easy to get along with and endlessly nice, so she’s a good choice. Another likely part of it, and why not scott, is scott’s powers: it’s a lot easier to sell her parents on powers doing good with someone who can lift objects versus someone whose constantly cursed to never open his eyes, and this way kurt has his buddy back home so he dosen’t feel lonely his first time without his new dad. Now granted I question why STORM didn’t come with them, as she seems like a good choice and it’d be a nice nod to her bond with kitty in the comics, but I suspect it was simply easier to just have two x-men to focus on. Maybe she was busy getting Evan for two episodes down the line...

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So then we get.. Charles being really, REALLY dumb.. like out of character dumb. See in the comics when the X-Men came to recurit kitty, they all came in civlian clothes, though ironically Jean wasn’t with them for the initial meeting because even more ironically she, Scott and Kurt were split off into their own group to try and recruit Dazzler, and Charles was nice and polite about it and promoted the school as well. a school. Granted Kitty’s parents didn’t know about her phasing here and Emma Frost was also trying to recurit kitty for HER school for gifted youngsters.. but still, there’s NO reason for Charles not to use that sort of pitch to get into the door, especially since as we learn in the scene after this Kitty’s a straight A student, retaining her deep intelgence from the comics, so there’s an easy foot in the door before he drops the mutant part in. Instead he just casually mentions he tracked her that he’s diffrent and comes off really fucking creepy and naturally they say fuck no to that. LIke.. how do they know he’s not with the goverment or forming a teen militia or just a pedophile who happens to be a mutant.. they do not and their already scared. So chuck gets a well earned door to the face. And thus I get to introduce a new running gag: The Chuck, you Blockhead, Count,. Now granted the obvious name may be the xavier is a jerk count, which i’ll probably also do but that’s more for being an asshole, like he often is due to poor writing or currently pragmatisim in the comic. No no this is for when Chuck is just out an out an idiot. Plus I love a good Charlie Brown refence so Chuck, You Blockhead Count: 2 It’s at 2 since we also have last episode where Toad showed up with his own uniform, and attacked kurt.. and Charles did nothing and questioned nothing about that. And now I mentioned that other count Xavier is Jerk Count: 1 The Scott thing is more in character but for having his test be.. have a grown woman chase a teenager with Lightning. Storm was involved too but I doubt she’ll be an asshole as much so she’s safe for now. So having throughly botched it Xavier decides to have them split up, gang: Xavier will go to social services to find out more about lance since he’s an orphan, while Jean will infiltrate the school. Now while watching this I questioned why no one in school at all questioned a random teenager they never met roaming the halls.. but odds are jean just used her telepathy to either make anyone who saw her think she belonged there or masked her self from them seeing her, the latter being a signiture move of both jean and her teen self brought to the present because complicated bollocks, so fair enough. I also thought charles was just fucking off but accoridng to the wiki he was at social services, so he avoids another count and was doing something useful, checking on lance before he tries to offer him a spot: both to make sure he’s a good fit after last week’s debacle and figure out the best course to legaly take the boy in if so, and if not knowing charles still find the kid a home anyway because even if he’s not x-man yet, he’s still a child in need asshole or not and Charles is a good man. Such a good man he had to be told 9 timelines ended in utter disaster and ruin for mutantkind for him to even humor breaking from his dream according to recent comics, and according to Moira’s notes STILL took a good 15 years in universe of attempted genoicdes , 1 actual genocide and his people being reduced to a nub to finally cave and even THEN he admits he still loves humanity and wants them to be better. While I did put up an xavier is a jerk count just now at his best Charles Xavier is a good if flawed man who, while prone to ocasionally making utterly terrible decisions, loves both humans and mutants and just wants peace in our time and only created the x-men to foster it. Meanwhile back at the ranch her mansion, Logan.. senses sabertooth.. I mean even with Logan’s adept sense of smell, I question how he could smell him over the exaust of Sabertooth’s goofy metalic penis, aka his own motorcycle, but it IS part of his mutant powers. Either that or they just have a magic force bond like Rey and Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy.. minus the sexual tension and forced face turn for the latter.. maybe just minus the forced face turn. So Logan prepares to go fight his rival, and suits up for the first time. and while it’s in a black void for.. some reason it looks REALLY badass and really gives gravatas to seeing wolverine in costume for the first time. And since he’s one of ONLY two looks to look at this episode, since Kitty and Lance don’t get their uniforms this episode, let’s talk about it.

I fucking love it. Like Kurt’s it’s basically his comic’s costume but slightly modified.. but unlike Kurt it’s a diffrent costume than last time, going with his cool brown look that he wore for quite some time in the comics, though made a bit more orange. However it honestly STILL looks fantastic and I get wanting to go with a color that’s a bit more eyepopping in the more muted tones of Evolution. It just looks fantastic and i’ts nice to see a cartoon use an alternate costume for a character as their main look. Logan passes a returning from school Scott and Kurt, who decide to follow him and after debating which car, Scott gestures them to his.. which is scott’s sports car from bot the previous series and the comics. Why a 17 year old has this, I can only assume because Chuck is a really good dad, really rich.. and likely knows having a bunch of teenagers around means if one of them DOSEN’T have hteir own car they’ll be borrowing his rolls royce all the time and this way he can have his nights after training free to smoke a blunt with logan while they watch the next generation and eat a pile of cheeseburgers the children dropped off while crusing around out of his lack of hair, you know why you give your teenager a car in the first place.

Anyways while Kurt and Scott buddy up and go on an excellent adventure, with Kurt even bamfing inside and god I love this dynamic. So fucking adorable. But anyways while that’s going on, Kitty is at school being mocked by two alpha bitches for being sad despite her grades then is shoved in a locker. When then meet Lance, soon to be known as avalanche and the other mutant at school who decides to graffito tag the place.. in the laziest but somehow still coolest way possible by just taking his spray can and spraing one long streak along the lockers. Not as neat as doing an actual tag but it does more petty dumbfuckery faster so fair play to him. Kitty begs him to let her out.. before her powers trigger again. She tries denying it when he comments on them being cool.. before he shows off his own, making the earth move under his feet, though not the sky tumbling down a tumbling down.. that’s Storm’s job. It shakes the lockers and Kitty rather than be impressed, runs like hell. But yeah, I get the feeling, even with him having evil plans for her right after.. that he does feel some attraction to her here. And as I made clear i’ts not shipping goggles.. the way he acts.. he’s elated to meet someone else with powers, to after likely being pinballed around foster care and treated like shit by his piers over it and then finding out he has a special power but is still seen as a weirdo even by his minons.. he’s elated. It’s what draws him to her: that for once he’s NOT alone, and there’s someone else to revel in the sheer power and joy he feels using his powers and even though she runs he vows he’s gonan rock her world. Since we’re where a commerical break would be, I figure now’s a good time to talk about Lance. In the comics he had a diffrent name entirely, and avalanche was more of a one note villian who later became a retired bar owner. Here he takes bits, the long metal hair and love of his powers, from Rictor, a more heroic mutant in the comics who only started out doing crimes because he was forced to and quickly joined the original x-men’s class of mutants the x-terminators before joining the new mutants and later x-force. He’s also , as you probably know, one fo the x-men’s most prominent gay mutants, but while hinted at in comics made before this series was fully canonized years after, and like iceman who came out even later, there was no way of knowing that at the time, so it made since to use him as partial template here. It also makes sense not to use the rictor name as while it makes more sense given the earthquake motif, Avalanche is an actual villian.. and you know the obvious fact that Lance is white and Julio Richter.. is not. Granted they COULD’VE made him latino, and used sunspot for spike to ballnce it out representation wise, but this was the early 2000′s and they cared about as much for repesentation as Jeph Loeb does. Hopefully Rictor gets an adpatation at some point outside of Logan, but I get why not here.

On with the show. Kitty shows up late for track due to thing one and thing two, and has to run first and trips, while on the nearbye rooftops Lance and his two goons try to break into the administration building to get test answers. They don’t as Lance notices an alarm, and while one of his goons asks why he dosen’t just quake a hole in, Lance points out the obvious: If there’s obvious tampering they’ll just change the test answers.. and since he knows about kitty now, he has a better way and when questioned rather than explain her powers, he just shakes rattles and rolls. He also makes one of Kitty’s bullies trip but it only scares her further. I”m getting. serious heathers vibes here jesus.. I mean Lance isn’t nearly as bad as Jason Dean but still jesus. I need to listen to more of that musical good stuff.

Kitty retreats from her admierer/stalker to teh autitorim, where Jean finds her.. given Jean again slipped in here without no o ne noticing and no one came after kitty , i’m thinking she use her telepathy to mask anyone from seeing Kitty come in and seeing Jean at all so she could talk in private. Granted Lance shows up right after, but odds are Jean didn’t notice him and thus didn’t think to shield him and probably isn’t up to Charles level where he can create a psychic blindspot in an entire crowd. Anyways Jean tries to comfort kitty who’s still angsting about her powers and again hard to blame her when the only other mutant she’s met is a budding psychopath whose idea of a romantic gesture is injuring one of her enmiies for her. Jean does try to calm her down, first showing she’s a mutant and admitting she was freaked out too when she got her powers.. and given most depcitions of jean getting her powers are far from plesant that tracks. She does however make the mistake of telling Kitty, already figuring this is some sort of trick and jean will throw a puppy across the room to also try and get in her pants or something, that she’s a telepath and Kitty screams at her to get out of her head. Jean truly is taking after her mentor in thef ucking up department. Lance then shows up as I mentioned earlier, and tells Jean to backoff and that’ she’s mine and you get it. Oh and as a side note Jean DOES admit to having read Kitty’s mind so she CAN read minds, and likely has gotten a surface level look of duncan’s thoughts which I feel go a little something like this mnus the actual context of when the song’s going on.

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Lance then finds kitty, whose changed into her regular outift and promises not to use his powers this time, admitting he too felt lost and scared, and wants to help her take control and help her.. and while it is partly for his own petty scheme.. I do genuinely think he means part of that, that he does genuinely wnat her and want someone like him by his side.. it’s just in his warped head doing crime and whatever he wants is the right thing to do, that control means using this power to knock down whoever’s in your way and TAKE what you deserve.

Jean instead phones xavier and both agree that if lance fully gets his hooks in her they might never reach her and Xavier tells him to stay on her and that she can overcome lance as an obstacle.. and then bemoans that some obastacles are more annoying than others as the social services building has a large stone staircas,e a nice quip and they beat the ulitmate universe to that joke by a few years.

Meanwhile our two best buds track Wolvie to a car park because fuck if I know why he decided to make his stand there. Probably because the writers had a cool action scene in mind as we’ll see, but it still comes off dumb though given how every other x-man has been acting this episode it tracks. Anyway Sabertooth strolls up on his demonic wang-shang-a-lang,

Seriously I mocked it before but it bears repeating. While Wolvie has a normal looking, if still badass, bike Sabertooth’s.. looks like something Skeltor would ride after he man. It Looks like warlock is horribly stucki n the form of a motorcycle. It looks like the kind of bike on some random asshole the bikers from sons of anarchy would beat up forposing. It looks like he stole it from the biker mice from mars. It looks like the polution from it’s exaust alone is the reason big bird die. it looks like Creed just brought it off the joker and remonded it. It looks like something the battletoads bought and regretted. It looks like ghost rider’s first trike. it looks like Tooth lost his dick in a horrible acciden tand is compensating with theree metalic ones. It looks like something the BAND creed sold to victor creed here. It looks.. bad is what i’m saying. As for his actual outfit.. it’s okay,b asically his movie outfit with osme of the skin missing. That look isn’t my faviorite of his but it works to sell him as a savage monster and fits good with the more tactical less comic booky looks of this shows costumes.

Creed, the man not the band though he does look like the lead singer of creed, charges at Logan who simply pops his wheel while tooth falls off the roof.. and then the most rediculous and awesome part of the episode starts.... right after Scott’s car gets hit with the bike because what else did he think was going to happen when the fighting started. Sabertooth , who apparently has really good super strength in this universe, starts CHUCKING CARS UP THROUGH THE ROOF OF THE CAR PARK UP AT LOGAN. Points to the team while the setting for this fight is nonseical, it is WORTH IT for this, with great action as Logan dodges the cars bursting through the roof. it’s rediclous, over the top.. and UTTERLY spectacular and not just in a so bad it’s good way. Logan eventually slips through a car hole, a sentence i’d never thought i’d say mostly becasue that’s the moe syslack approved term for garages but it works well here too, and into the garage before sabertooth RAMS him with a car, ranting about it’s their “destiny” only one is left. Which seems like some weird “applying highlander logic to former goverment weapon mutants’ bollocks, but instead is foreshadowing for the end of the season. Nice touch. Scott and Kurt arrive, in uniform since even if he’s a bit more personably here, Scott still is no dummy, and they sucessfully save Logan, whose pissy about it because it was his buisness and all, but Kurt thinks he secretly loves them and Scott sarcastically agrees. Not a bad subplot and it makes up for a weird choice of battleground on logan’s cart iwth utter insanity. Fun stuff. Back at not so fun stuff, Kitty finds lance outside the office and takes him up on his offer, and he admits they ARE outsiders, there is something wrong with them.. but instead of moping about it, they can do something about it and revel in it. It really ties into Lance as a character: He’s probably felt, due to being an oprhan and not having a stable home life likely buffeted around foster care and acting out as a result, that he really is an outsider and his powers not only proved it.. but finally gave him POWER over all the people that cast him out. The power to take what he wanted and return what he got. The power to move you. He finally had power and he was going to make them pay for making him feel like he had none and wants Kitty to join him. And for a moment it works, kitty joyfully breaking in with him and actually enjoying her powers for the first time. Meanwhile kitty’s parents showed up, Jean having called them and somehow got them to listen.. and this is what I meant by that one minute earlier. We COULD have built up Kitty’s parents guilt and fear by having Charles approach them again.. and with them panicked over her not returning from school, have him explain what happened and help her father see how wrong he’d been to hide from it or had her argue with her dad then storm out. Instead they just show up here for the first time in almost 20 minutes so we could get a filler scene of kurt being late.

Anyways inside Lance steals the answers and Kitty is horrified to find out that “Gasp” the juvinele delinquent who hurt someone to impress her is doing BAD THINGS. Lance tries to change her grades but she refuses.. and then Jean and the Prydes show up, with Kitty’s dad admitting he was wrong, he shouldn’t of hid fro her power and shoudl’ve been a better parent.. better than her comics dad who got in bed with gangsters i’ll give him that. But Lance not wanting to loose his new sorta girlfriend knocks a bookcase on kitty and abusively tries to drag her with him.. while jean says if you go with him now, her powers will be a curse like she thought earlier... even though Kitty’s pretty terrified of lance right now and dosen’t actually want to go with him. it comes off like this bit from final space played entirely seriously

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So yeah apparently I need this too...: God Dammit Jean Count: 3 The other two are for the telepath thing earlier and the duncan thing last episode. And given the duncan thing is going to be going on till season 3 yeah i’ll need this. I’ll probably also need a WHAT DOES SHE SEE HIM HIM COUNT, but i’m playing that one by ear. But yeah kitty does the obvious and breaks it off and phases out and Lance takes it well.. by trying to destory the entire school.. my god this really is heathers! Did .. did lance kill some popular kids before this? I have questions. Jean struggles to hold things up and worries about kitty, who falls under some ruble but charles assures her to focus: She can do this.. and as we seen Chuck likely sensed kitty who phases out and reuintes with her parents before rescuing them all. Kitty realizes her powers are a gift after all and says the x-men have her best intrest and heart and Charles finally decides to have an actual discussion with the prydes which had he had one might’ve helped this episode go faster. We then end on Lance, angry and hurt starring into the distance, when Mistque approaches in her principal disguise, saying there may be an opening for her and transforms ending with a great line “I have much to teach you, my avalanche”. Which ihs a better code name than Rictor when put like that credit where it’s do. And we’re out. Final Thoughts: This one was a bit of a step down as you could tell: The main core of Lance and Kitty IS really strong, being a good way to breifly touch on toxic relationships. If this gets better in season 2 I have no idea but it’s a compelling dynamic here, with Kitty being terrified of her power while Lance loves his and both are what prop this episode up alongside the fun car park fight and great dynamic with Kurt and Scott. HOwever what drags the episode down is EVERYONE but Kitty and Lance, who act in character, and Scott and Kurt, who had no idea logan was going into combat and were just curious what their cool teacher was up to acts like a fucking moron: Logan, rather than pick a fighting ground where he has an advantage chooses one where sabertooth can easily use stealth and gives him an opening too as well as a garage full of weapons that nearly ends him, Xavier decides just randomly revealing he knows where they live wiill impress scared parents, Jean decides telling someone she’s in their head is a great idea, Kitty’s parents think not talking about the thing tht just happened will make it disappear, which is at least realistic if nothing else, and Sabertooth thought that was a valid choice for a motorcycle. The climax is good but feels unearned and overall this episode could've neen fantstic but is bogged down by bits of stupid, but is still enjoyable thanks to it’s emotional core. Next time, whenever that is, another popular charcter arrives as we go Rogue. Until then, follow for more reviews, like this if you enjoyed it, send asks iwth suggestions for more shows and episodes to cover and until then, stay safe and stay mutant and proud.

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psychedelic-ink · 4 years

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Feelings in the wind(by lunna-star-8)

I was bored.

I was bored out of my mind!

Despite my injuries, my body was itching to do something, anything that felt remotely productive but I had promised Law that I’d be careful so my options were very limited. Very.

I sighed and leaned my head on the tree I was sitting against, looking around, everyone seemed bored too as they lied around the small patch of grass that Hancock and her warriors had reserved for us. I could tell that most of them were itching to get onto forbidden grounds and just go check out the village, consequences be damned, but Law was sitting by the opening that lead deeper into the island and let’s just say that every time one of his men stepped too close, he’d… How do I put this kindly…? Dissuade them? Yeah… Dissuade them by glaring at them in a way that made them regret all their life choices that lead them to that look.

I chuckled to myself, taking my eyes off the pirates and looking at my hands. What could I work on…? My power, maybe? What could I change? I could improve control, I guess? Air wasn’t the easiest of elements, it demanded freedom and free reign over the skies, so if you tried to control it, it fought back.

An idea struck me “Thanks Sabo.” And I rush over to the grouchy captain that’s eyeing another of his pirates like a leopard ready to pounce “Law!” I call out and he raises me an eyebrow, I can tell that he’s bracing himself for whatever terrible idea I just had, but I don’t give him time to speak up “Do you have some spare sheets of paper?”

He eyes me for a minute and I try to give him my best lost kitty look “Why…?”

“C’mon! Please! Please!” I insist “If anything, I’ll ask Hancock to get you some more later, yeah? Please!”

He sighs, seemingly too tired for my antics – he probably had a bad night again “My office, my desk, bottom drawer on the right. Use whatever you want.”

I basically jump to my feet calling out a “Thank you!” as I dash to the submarine.

“What are you doing, Sabo?” I ask as I peek over his shoulder.

“Origami.” He replies smiling “An old man at the Terminal showed me how to do it a while back.”

I nod even though he can’t see me “It looks cool!” I watch his fingers folding the paper over and over and over again and before I know it “It’s a bird!”

He laughs “It’s a crane.” I get off his back and stand by the table. My brother hands me the bird and I remember how awesome I thought that was “Why don’t you try making it float?”

My enthusiasm fizzed out “Last time I tried anything like that, I hit Ace over the head with his own pipe. He was furious.”

Sabo laughed again “C’mon, it’s just us.” He gestured around, Ace had gone hunting for dinner and Luffy had ran straight after him much to our oldest brother’s annoyance. I was still in bed rest after my little stunt with the tiger and Sabo had stayed to look after me “Plus, it’s paper it’s not like you can do much damage with it, right?” I wasn’t convinced “Tell you what, if you can make it float around the room, I’ll teach you how to make one.”

I basically jumped in the air and my tiger ears with me “Really?!”

He nodded “I wouldn’t lie to my little sister, would I?”

I grabbed a small stack of papers and ran back outside, sitting beside Law and starting to fold the paper in my hands. I could tell my tail had slipped out, I felt it swinging but I didn’t care, I wasn’t sure if it was for the opportunity of actually having something to do or for the memory but it was a nice feeling. I didn’t even notice Law eyeing me suspiciously as I stacked up origami cranes on the side.

When I folded the last sheet of paper, I got up and took a deep breath feeling the air around me. I’m not a Logia, I can’t just make wind but I can control the air around me, shifting it in my grasp and bend it to my needs. I let the breath out and started to shape the air so it would lift the cranes up in the air, with little to no effort I raised my arms into the air and had them spiralling into the sky, once I got every single one of them off the floor I moved my arms down and with my right arm directed the cranes to fly over the bored crew. My control was wonky, some of them flew backwards or even upside down, I tried to adjust it by moving my fingers but it didn’t seem to do anything. Still, I kept it up, by the time I noticed, I had an audience – the crew had turned from their conversations to watch what I was doing and some of them applauded when I made the cranes flip around in the air in an attempt to control them.

Most of my tries to control the cranes were pointless, some of the even fell from my hold, the wind refused to listen to me more than it absolutely needed to, still, the Heart Pirates were loving it and it was nice to feel useful in some way again. I brought the remaining cranes back to me and got such a warm reaction out of the crew that I even bowed like a real performer, even Law grumbled out a “Nice trick” kind of comment, that seemed like a compliment…? I think? Shachi and Penguin were the most excited ones, by far! They ran over to me with stars in their eyes and speaking all over each other “She can’t understand you if you both say different things at the same time, idiots…” Law grumbled, still in the same position.

Penguin was the first I was able to understand “You can make things fly?!”

I nodded “Yeah…?”

“I thought you were a Zoan type.” Came Bepo’s kind voice from beside Law.

I turned to him and nodded “Mythical Zoan type, actually.” I explained “I ate the Neko-Neko no mi: Byako no Tora model. Byako is the mythical guardian tiger of the Eastern winds, so I get this extra trick.” I caught Law’s golden eyes on me, over that damn smirk he did, damn him, not even tired “What?”

He shrugged “Cat-Cat, huh?”

I narrowed my eyes at him “Tiger. Tiger! Do you miss that bit on purpose?”

“Whatever you say, scardy cat.” And his eyes were once again hidden under his hat.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a very puncheable face?”

He tilted his head but he was still smirking “Not in those exact words, but I guess the answer is still a yes.”

“Mythical Zoan types are super rare, aren’t they?” Bepo spoke up again before I could say anything else to Law, I shrugged at him though.

“I have… No idea?” I replied “I mean, it’s not like I’ve seen anybody with powers like mine though…”

I heard Law sigh like I was a child that needed to have the same thing explained to them a thousand times over, I naturally glared at him waiting for his ‘wisdom’ “Whitebeard’s First Division Commander has a mythical type power.” He said “A phoenix if memory serves me.”

I remembered the blue flaming bird in the war “I swear, his head looks like a pineapple!” Ace had said with a big smile on his face “Marco’s a cool guy though. If you ever meet him, don’t you dare say I said that!” “Why? What are you gonna do, tough guy?” “I might grab a big fluffy spider and put it over your sheets while you’re sleeping.” “C’mon! That’s not fair!” “Hence, I’m being a great brother and warning you beforehand.” “Mean bastard…” “Ah! Language, shorty!” “Who do you think I learned it from?!”

“That’s not important!” I didn’t realize I had sunk into my own head until Shachi’s voice pulled me back to the present. Law’s clinical gaze was straight on me despite the fact that the others didn’t seem to have noticed. I looked back at Shachi that was still beyond excited like Penguin “If you can make stuff fly, you can make people fly too, right?!”

I nodded again “Yeah—”

“MAKE US FLY!” they asked with stars in their eyes before I had a chance to say anything else, making me laugh “Oh! Please, please, PLEASE!”

“Sure.” I smiled “One at a time though.” Didn’t want to a) over do it and b) accidentally drop one in the ocean.

They played rock-paper-scissors for it and Penguin would be the first one in the air. Asked me to wait before he ran to the sub and came back out with a… towel? He came back out with a towel tied around his neck that made it look like a cape – an image of Luffy smiling like a kid crossed my mind as Penguin stood there smiling from ear to ear “All set!”

I laughed but tried to focus, feeling the air currents around him I plucked his feet off the grass and the moment his weight was off the ground, I could feel the strain on my wounds but I kept it to myself and took him to the skies. To say that Penguin was delighted was a major understatement. He was holding out his arms, kicking the air, making superhero poses. Shachi was cheering from beside me, the rest of the crew seemed to be loving the scene, Bepo was cheering too jumping closer to us, I could even feel Law’s eyes on my back like my wounds could snap at any moment and he’d have to jump in. I could feel it too, the strain this was causing on my weakened body, I wanted to be stubborn, to keep at it but that would be more than stubborn, that would be selfish. Impossibly selfish. Penguin had, consciously or not, trusted me with his life and I could barely hear the cheers of the crew over the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears. I also didn’t want him thinking that he had made my wounds worse or something, he seemed like the kind of guy that would feel guilty even if it wasn’t actually his fault.

Without much fuss, I brought him back down, trying to not look as exhausted as I felt “Me next! Me next!” Shachi piped up to my left but before I even opened my mouth, I heard a familiar voice right behind me.

“No, that’s enough for today.” I glanced up to see Law towering over me.

He was right, I couldn’t take Shachi into the air like I did with Penguin and I was about to tell him this, but it really bugged me that he felt the need to speak for me. It ticked my already injured ego and I couldn’t stop myself, I stomp my right foot onto the ground as I move both my arms up, creating a gust of wind that takes Law up in the air. Is it making my arms feel like they might come undone? Yes, it is. Did it stop me from grinning mischievously at his surprised expression? Hell no. “Too grumpy to play superhero with us, Captain Panda?”

He frowned at me and held out his hand where I saw a spiral form and then extent around us in a blue veil “Room!”

“I wouldn’t that.” I interrupt him, keeping him in the air with both my hands, he raises me an eyebrow “If you shamble me away, I’m gonna lose focus and you’re gonna fall on your ass.”

He grinned with golden eyes piercing my grey ones “You think I’ll go easy on you because you’re injured?” I didn’t have the chance to reply as he unsheathed his sword and I noticed that his crew had cleared out of the circle. I found it strange before I felt an odd feeling on my waist and turned back to Law, he was sheeting his sword which I didn’t understand since he hadn’t done anything with it… Had he? He still had that grin on his face and I felt myself rise up to meet him but I could also still feel my feet on the floor?!

I looked down to realize that my legs were gone?! I opened my mouth but then I remembered him fighting in Sabaody and of him chopping up those marines without actually injuring them with the cuts. I looked back to find my legs where I had left them, I was still wearing my sandals and could see my toes, I wiggled them and saw them move, getting a chuckle to make its way up my throat “That’s a really cool trick.” I looked back at him that was at my eye level now, which was something I wouldn’t be able to do if we were on the floor, but it allowed me to fully see the look of surprise on his face.

A surprise he quickly recovered from, going back to his grumpy self “You’re pushing your limits there, thought you said you were gonna be careful.”

“I am being careful.” I technically was “I haven’t ripped my stitches, have I?”

His look hardened at me as he pointed at the center of my torso “If this one ‘rips’, you die.”

I let the reality set on me for a moment, now paying close attention to the heat right under my skin and how holding Law in the air made me feel like my skin would tear apart, but my eyes never left his, even as I smiled “Show me another one of those cool tricks and I’ll put you back on the floor.”

“With my power, I could just get myself down.”

I shrugged, intentionally wobbling his rather stable air support “Can you though?”

It was like a game, see who could push each other’s buttons more and both too proud to back away “You wanna see a cool trick, huh?” he switched his sword to his right hand and pulled his left back “Mes!” his palm hit the top of my chest so fast and so unexpectedly that I lost my breath “Shambles.” I don’t know what he shambled, I know that I lost all sense of where I even was for a moment, I felt myself fall, cold hands on my arms, my knees hitting the floor as I was suddenly looking at the grass as I struggled to get my breath back.

I didn’t realize I had even stopped hearing until sound came back around me “C’mon Captain, that was a bit mean.” Bepo’s voice was the first to break through “She is injured after all.”

“She asked me to show her something cool.” Law’s voice was as steady as always “I did as she asked.”

“I think that was payback for catching you off guard, captain.” I heard Penguin trying not to laugh but he soon stopped, Law must’ve glared at him again.

“It’s also not cool, captain.” Shachi’s voice sounded now “Most people consider that technique of yours really creepy, you know?”

“I’m telling you, she asked.” Law spoke up again and I found that breathing had started to feel easier now, so I sat up to realize that my legs were once again attached to my torso.

I scratched the back of my head as I got to my feet “What did you do?” I let my eyes focus again as the air started to settle in my lungs, Law turned slightly to face me and I noticed what he was holding “Is that a heart?!” he smirked and I looked at my chest, where his hand had hit and where now there was a square hole “Is that my heart?!”

I looked back at Law to find him grinning and there, right there in the light reflected in his golden eyes, I could see the satisfaction of being able to hold someone’s beating heart in your hands “Oh yeah.”

I looked at my heart as I touched the edges of my skin where that was supposed to be. I looked at him, his golden eyes making me feel like small prey, like I should run and never turn back, like I should shake in his presence and I consider myself lucky to still be standing. I mean, what other reaction should you have when someone just pulled your heart out of your chest like a damn Jenga piece? I could feel his cold hand supporting my beating heart, I could feel how his grip wasn’t any tighter than it needed to be – I tilted my head as my eyes remained on my heart – soft even? I was standing right in front of him before I knew it, only one question in my mind “Can I touch it?”

“Eh?” the crew tumbled in surprise and even Law’s usually stern expression could be perfectly read as confusion.

“I know it’s my heart, but I don’t know how this works.” I clarify “I don’t want to touch it and die!”

Law glanced from me to the heart, like it could fix his confusion but as the heart simply beat normally, the pirate captain looked back at me with seemingly even more questions “Sure.” As soon as I got permission, I poked it and collapsed on the floor as I had done it a bit too harshly “WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN, MORON?! IT’S A HEART, YOU CAN’T JUST POKE IT!”

“You said I could touch it!” I argued from the grass.

“Touch, not poke!” he countered “And I figured you’d be more careful with your own heart!” I heard him sigh as the crew laughed exchanging various comments from how crazy I was to how this was nice change of pace for their captain. Whatever this was that they were talking about, I couldn’t say.

They made me forget what life was like at the moment, it was easy to push it out of my mind when I heard them laugh, the Heart Pirates were a good, fun crew to hang out with. They made me miss my own crew like crazy. Sabaody seemed like so very long ago…

My thoughts were interrupted by the cheers of the crew and I raised my head to see what they were cheering about, walking into our little corner of the island were a handful of Hancock’s warriors, all familiar faces – why did I have to be so damn close to the entrance? - As the men fawned over the warriors, Law came to sit beside me “What are they doing over here…?”

“Right, you and Ikkaku had lunch on the island yesterday.” He said “The same warriors brought us food yesterday at around the same time too.” I didn’t say anything as I eyed their movements, setting up little stands with food “Why do they make you nervous?”

I blinked a couple of times before looking between Law and the warriors and back at Law “What are you talking about? They don’t—”

He showed me my fast beating heart still in his hand “It picked up the pace when you saw them come in.” he explained “You might be able to control your facial expressions well enough but your heart rate is another story.”

I… Had totally forgot he was holding my heart “We met them when me and Luffy first landed on the island, they’re alright. The blonde one?” I signalled over with my chin “Her name’s Margaret, she was the one that hung out with us more.” I tilted my head in retrospective “And I use the ‘hung out’ term really loosely here. She saved Luffy, then was trying to hunt us, then Luffy kind of kidnapped her, then she tried to kill us, then she kind of helped us, then she tried to kill us again, then she tried to defend us, got turned into stone because of us, we saved her, she saved us… You know, the usual.” He raised me an eyebrow “Oh, trust me, that’s the short version.”

“Alright… But ‘usual’?”

I actually laughed as several moments like that crossed my mind at the same time “Oh, you have no idea.”

He looked back at the Kuja “I guess that might explain why she was the only one that came over to ask me about you two.”

“Yeah…” I said more in a sigh than in an actual word. Law turned back to me as I laid my head back on the grass “They all wanted to know and ask too… How are you? How’s Luffy? I’m sorry about…” I took a deep breath and let that hang in the air “I’m alright, thanks. It’s what I reply every time.”

“How many times did you mean it?” I looked at Law but he was looking away from me and my grey eyes move back to the blue of the sky.

“Not even once…” I reply honestly and there’s a minute of silence between us “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s nice that they care enough to ask but…” I didn’t know how to phrase that so I had to stop and think about it, Law didn’t interrupt me, he just waited for me to sort out the words in my brain “I wish they didn’t ask.” I finally say, feeling a tear slip from the side of my face that would be followed by more as I let my mind sort through everything “It still hurts to think about it all, it hurts to feel, it hurts to remember, it hurts to feel like I’m not doing anything, it just hurts. The day is to distract myself and I’m too tired to feel at night, at night it seems like a story that happened to someone else… I wish they’d stop asking.”

I’m about to rub my face with my hands when he puts his hat over my face “She’s coming. Don’t move.” Is all the explanation I get. It’s dark and my nose is overwhelmed by the fresh smell of mint that becomes all I can breathe in with the fluffy hat over my face, my cheeks felt warm as I inhale the smell once again and I blame it on the fluffiness of the hat on my face.

“Doctor?” Margaret’s voice makes me almost jump and I feel something cold softly caress my heart “Oh! Is that Luna?”

“She’s asleep.” Law quickly interjected with his usual calm voice “Fresh air is good for her but she got tired quickly due to the exertion on her body.”

“Oh… I see… But she’s doing better, right?”

“It’s too early to tell.”

“What about Luffy? How is he doing?” she kept asking.

“I still can’t say when he’ll wake up.”

“Alright…” she didn’t seem to have left yet “Thank you for looking after them.”

“I’ve told you not to thank me, it was a whim.” I smiled under the hat. A whim? Taking his crew into the middle of a war to pick up two ‘enemies’ as he put it himself? It’s called kindness, Trafalgar Law.

“Thank you anyway.” she insisted.

“MARGARET!” another of the Kujas called out to her.

“Going!” she called back “I better go. Do you want me to bring you a bowl of food?”

“Thanks, but no.” Law said “I’ll see if Luna wakes up before you leave, save us a bowl for before you go.”

“No problem.”

A couple of minutes passed before I felt the hat being taken off my face, instinctively I rubbed my eyes and cleared the tears away “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I turned my head to him and noticed that he still had his hand on my heart, I turned back towards the sky. We were once again in silence as I lied on the grass and he sat beside me. It was a comfortable silence between us as we heard his crew celebrating the presence of the Kuja warriors…

#lunna-star-8 #submit #one piece #one piece oc #monkey d luna #trafalgar d. water law #trafalgar law #submission

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nakunakunomi · 4 years

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Matchup for @doctorgerth

Here’s my info for ya, Hazel! - 23 - Heterosexual, into men! - INFJ - Cancer - Shoulder length light brown hair, dark green eyes, 5’9”, on the thick/curvy side - I’m assuming this is clothing? I’m usually a comfy cute/casual kinda style! Like shorts and a T-shirt or skinny jeans and a cute top! I wear baseball caps a lot when I’m too lazy to do anything with my hair lol - hobbies include writing (obviously lol), playing with my kitties, traveling, and watching cooking shows! interests include traveling (I just love going places), nature, animals, children, and eating! 😂 - uhhhh I have two cats lol and I can play clarinet - favorite food is pasta for sure, more specifically an Alfredo. my favorite color is light blue/pastel colors. my favorite animals include cats, foxes, and whale sharks! - I’m terribly afraid of heights and spiders. Also I’m a big people pleaser so I’m scared of letting people down. Though I’m going to be a teacher, I’m actually quite scared of speaking to large crowds lol little kids don’t bother me, but talking to a large crowd of people my age or older, yeah I don’t like that. I’ll do it if I have to of course, but not without internally panicking lol - My dream is actually in the works as I am becoming a teacher!! Other than this, I want to travel as much as possible while I can. If I can’t go out of the country, my dream is to visit all states in the continental US!! After getting everything I want to do done, I want to settle down somewhere, continue to teach, and have a family. ❤️ - As for extra stuff...as you can probably tell, I can be a bit overly emotional and sensitive, but that makes me very empathetic and loving! Introverted where I do like alone time but not to the point where I always want to be home by myself. I also love adventures like kayaking, or going to museums/zoos/aquariums, theme parks, or just traveling and experiencing new places! Very into stargazing and astronomy. I also love being on or near the water! I’m not the best at making friends just because I'm a lil awkward and anxious around new people. I prefer my small clique over having lots of friends, but I’m always friendly to strangers/others as long as they are friendly to me! I am definitely the mom of my friends, making sure they’re always safe, sound, and happy. People tend to compliment me on the fact that I’m easy to talk to. I may not ever have the best advice, but I am always willing to listen to someone vent, rant, or just talk about their feelings! I live for small get togethers with friends rather than large parties. I’m pretty low-maintenance, so I never expect fancy dates or expensive gifts! I’m always down for staying at home with movies and home-made dinners! Total cat mom, I love my and all fur babies. I’m also studying to be an elementary teacher so I love little kids! Big big heart for animals and children! All in all, I’m a really laid back person who loves deep, personal connections with people, and also my alone time every now and then! I tend to fall in love pretty easily and thus get my feelings hurt just as easy lol but when I fall in love I always fall head first, full force to make sure my s/o is happy! I definitely put my all when it comes to love in relationships. My love language is physical touch so my man (and friends to an extent) should expect lots of physical affection from me!! Kisses, hugs, cuddles, all of it! SOOOO excited for get a matchup from you, my darling!! Thank you for the opportunity! 💖

aaaa Coop! I am super hyped for this, I hope you like your match, I always love the wonderful ones you do 🐵! Although I will always ship Cooler, for a more realistic relationship I match you with...

OTP: Marco The Phoenix

Marco, as a pirate, is super adventurous, ready to take you on all sorts of adventures. But after all is seen and most adventures lived, he’s just as much ready to just settle down, start a family, whether it be furbabies, adopted kids or of your own. He takes after his pops, kids are definitely on the list!

You take care of him whenever he works too long and forgets to eat or sleep, he takes care of you whenever you feel like you need to unwind. Since you’re both easy to talk to and share the same kind of energy, you can just unwind by talking with each other, cuddling on the couch or in bed while you just relay your days onto each other, neither of you feeling like you’re unloading.

You surprise each other with small tokens of appreciation, such as homemade lunches with sweet notes, surprise visits whenever you thought the other one was working. You never go sleep without saying goodnight, and never leave without saying good morning, even if its just a kiss on the forehead of whoever is sleeping.

There are barely any fights or arguments. You both have certain maturity and know how to communicate with people. Whenever something does go wrong, you can settle for a mature discussion and even agree to disagree whenever it’s not a deal breaker. Willing to make compromises and working towards personal growth makes this relationship stable and healthy, even after the honeymoon phase is over, you still stay deeply in love, just because you connect so well.

Since you’re both busy working, you respect each other’s alone time and privacy, but at the same time plan in moments that are meant for just the two of you. Whether it’s actual dates (hiking trip, visiting a cool island nearby, walks on the beach, visiting your favorite restaurant or bar) or just spending a quiet evening at home where you both temporarily forget about work and enjoy each other’s presence and company. It’s the best way to keep your stress level down, and establishes healthy communication and best of all, makes sure that you’re never too long without stolen kisses, nice cuddles and all other physical touches you need to feel completely relaxed and happy!

Runner up: X Drake

There are quite the few places where X Drake checks off all the marks you need: adventurous, love for animals, stargazing while being able to tell you all the names of the stars and constellations that you can see that day, a certain maturity... You could make quite the good couple!

With Drake, most of your time would be spent outside, he doesn’t like being holed up too much. Hiking, being at sea, nightly walks under the night sky, walks around town, discovering new islands and doing some exploring... those will be your most frequent dates.

Drake is honest and straightforward, no beating around the bush. He respects you, your needs and your personal space and will do everything in his power to make sure you are happy and comfortable even in the most difficult times. Those are bound to happen because of his lifestyle, but he will do his best to make sure you won’t suffer under it.

why he is not your number one: Drake is.... not used to physical affection, to give a bit of an understatement. He gets flustered too easily and will tend to push you away, especially in public, but even in private he can get overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it may take a little too much time to get him used to your love language, you need someway to let out all that love!

BrOTP: Bepo

A little bit of an unusual friendship match, but Bepo and you have just the right amount of vibes in common to work out as great buddies! Both a little on the sensitive and softer side, you both are 100% there for each other when the other feels a little down or self-conscious. Comfort bear hugs? Incoming!

Bepo and you can spend hours doing whatever activity you feel like doing, mostly something semi-active to keep both your minds and bodies occupied, while you each talk about your friends, your families and crews. You help him feel a little more confident in his abilities, and both of you are amazing in helping each other out when someone has come to you for advice but you need an outsider’s perspective.

Even though you cannot spend an insane amount of time together generally because Bepo will 100% follow Law and wherever he goes, the moments you are able to meet up and catch up are worth it so much. It’s like your social batteries get reset, and you’re ready to take on everything in your life that was bothering you once again!

#naku no matchup #one piece #one piece matchup #matchup #Doctorgerth #500 followers event

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years

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Dragon Dancer IV: Cornered

I sighed and tossed my cards on the table. “I fold.”

“This is your third time losing, Fengchu...” Zihang looked at me pityingly.

“I said I don’t know how to play poker! On top of the fact that all my hands are no good.” I grumbled.

“You shouldn’t call her Fengchu. It’s not a girl’s name.” Mingfei gathered everyone’s cards and shuffled the deck.

“It means ‘Young Phoenix’. The military adviser Pang Tong was named it after his uncle realized he showed great promise.” Zihang explained.

“That’s like naming her Alexander Hamilton!” Mingfei tossed out cards to Nono, then to me.

“Hamilton is awesome!” I said.

“It’s not a girl’s name!”

From a mobile phone on the table, Fingel’s voice shouted out. “Deal me in!”

“You don’t have any hands. Be quiet before I lower your volume.” Mingfei growled, tossing more cards to Zihang.

After EVA’s reprogramming, an alternative mini-EVA activated on Mingfei’s mobile phone, only instead of EVA’s voice, Fingel was installed. Whoever had made the program meant to protect Mingfei and I had considered the possibility that her primary directive might be altered and had this AI back up to continue to support us, just in case.

From the bed, Ru’Yi lifted her head up and squealed.

“Yes, baby?” I asked, turning to her.

The door suddenly opened and in walked Crow. When he saw us all playing cards, he frowned. “Am I in the wrong room?” He tossed the food he had brought on the sofa. “I snuck into a charming little hotel, came into a room of two men and two women and opened the door to find them playing poker? Are you not aware that you’re wanted criminals?”

Crow marched directly over and scooped an eager Ru’Yi off the bed and gave her a raspberry into her cheeks.

“What are we supposed to do? Sit here and stare at each other?” Nono shrugged.

We had stayed in this love hotel for three days. Outside our windows, it was always raining. After doing nothing for a long time, we felt like we were starting to grow roots. Nono asked Mingfei to bring back some playing cards when he went out shopping.

“You could be entertaining the princess and not leaving her out here on her lonesome!” Crow said reproachfully, pulling a toy Hello Kitty from his pocket and gifting to her.

She threw it and it bounced off the TV.

“And they left me out too!” The Fingel Phone lamented.

Mingfei snarled. “Keep talking and I’ll give you to the baby!”

“Anything but that! I’m serving such cruel masters...” Fingel’s voice whimpered.

Crow’s smile didn’t fit his next words. “You have to leave Tokyo as soon as possible.”

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

He tossed a folder on the bed and Nono turned to get it.

Nono opened it. She pressed her lips together.

“Susie, code named Thunder, is one of the strongest members of the new generation of Executioners in the Academy. Her partner is Lancelot, code-named the Watcher, and is a strategic expert. Under their command is a very elite team. The team are all your friends, people who understand your behavior.”

My shoulders sagged when I heard their names. “I just... have such a hard time believing...”

The last time I saw Lancelot, it was at Johann and my wedding. He carried my palanquin. I looked at Mingfei and his expression was equally grim.

“Of course,” Crow continued, “You two claim you’re not the same people everyone remembers, so its possible that they don’t really understand you. According to our intelligence, there was a cargo last night for medical supplies that was unloaded in the suburban airport. Lancelot and Shinnosuke Fujiwara picked up the goods.”

“Who is Fujiwara?” My ears perked up.

“He’s my assistant. A new agent from the Academy to Japan.”

My panic flared. “The Academy! That guy is spying on you!”

His fond smile at me seemed condescending but before I could continue, Crow said. “Don’t you think I know that? He showed up after the wanted order was sent out by EVA. After Hydra didn’t respond quick enough to their call to action. This whole act between you and me was to pull the wool over his eyes.”

“Was he the one who delivered that video to you? With the fruit?” I asked challenging his calm. “It used that clapper sound... only Herzog used that clapper! Who says that guy’s not really Herzog?”

“Herzog is dead, deader than dead. We sent divers to Tokyo Bay and recovered some of his remains.” Crow said, raising his eyebrows. “You think someone smashed to pieces can be resurrected somehow?”

“Who says he needs to resurrect?” I asked, my voice growing shrill. “Isn’t it true that mob bosses still conduct business behind bars? Someone as driven as him might have found a way to conduct business from the grave!”

Crow looked surprised at my words.

"Answer my question. Did Fujiwara give you that recording?”

“Shinnosuke did. However, if you recall, Mingfei-Kun had no reaction when I first played it to Nono.” Crow stroked Ru’Yi’s hair. “It’s unlikely that Shinnosuke deliberately planted the ineffective video. Another video, higher-resolution, was sent to the broadcasting company direct. That was the one that had the clapper sound.”

“And where did that come from?” I asked.

“The Academy. And the video was sent to the Academy from the Gattuso family. They are sending an agent here too.”

Few names gripped me with as much fear as Gattuso. They’d been after me from day one at Cassell. The only reason they didn’t get ahold of my genes was because Herzog out bid them, but what if they didn’t outbid them? What if they funded him? I couldn’t help but think about what might have happened had I foolishly accepted Caesar’s offer to go to his mansion.

They might have experimented on me and Ru’Yi! Maybe even separated us!

“Fengchu?”

Zihang’s voice brought me out of my reverie. He looked at me with worry but I waved him off.

Nono spoke up. “The video was sent from the Gattuso family? With a video asking me to come home?”

“I only found that out after the fact.” Crow admitted.

Mingfei glanced up at her where she stood with the folder. “You think Caesar sent it?”

Nono tossed the folder in the garbage. “He would never use my father to send that message. He would come himself to get me. No... I don’t think Caesar is aware of this at all.”

I looked at Nono with wide eyes. “All it took was for them to get one step ahead and look at how close they came to us!” I turned back to Crow. “Surely they know by now that you’re protecting us. What’s to say they’re not following you right now to put a bullet in your head!”

“That’s why I’m here! This is probably your last chance to escape! What they pulled from that wreckage was no medical equipment! It was strange things. Likely Alchemy weapons to be used against dragons and hybrids!”

“What’s more, Kaguya is mobilizing all her computing resources to stop EVA’s invasion, but it’s only a matter of time before she’s breached. Once Kaguya falls, all your actions in Japan will be exposed.”

“All they have to do is broadcast that clapper sound again and you’re done!” Crow sighed with regret.

“There’s another way they’re tracking us as well.” Nono thought aloud. “Remember the time in Mongolia? We were blocked by people from the Russian branch.”

Mingfei nodded, but I looked between them in confusion.

Nono continued. “It stands to reason that we passed through no man’s land during that time. EVA should not have been able to locate us, but the people from the Russian branch knew to intercept our route in advance.”

Fingel chimed from the table. “How can those bastards guess the way I was charting? They’re cheating I’m telling you! I just haven’t figured out how!”

“Tell your roommate to shut up...” Nono said in a cold voice.

Mingfei picked up the phone and lifted his thumb to press the power off button.

“Wait! Wait I have important information to provide!” Fingel added.

Nono gave Mingfei a wink.

“According to my speculation, we may be carrying some kind of transmitter. This transmitter is very small and a limited battery capacity. It can only send out a signal every once in a while. The college uses this signal to locate us, so they know we went to Mongolia and Tokyo! But because we keep moving, they can’t find our exact location!”

“Oh my god...” I whispered, covering my face with one hand. “You can’t be serious.”

“We got rid of all our belongings... we even dumped our clothes!” Lu Mingfei exclaimed.

“Then there must be a spy among you.” Crow concluded.

We all looked at each other. Finally, our eyes fell on the Fingel Phone.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Why are you looking at me like that? If it wasn’t for me to tell you a joke along the way, could you have had the strength to go on? If I want to betray you, I will just navigate you direct to the enemy!” The phone protested loudly. “I’m the youngest and the cutest of you. You can’t bully me like this!”

Crow huffed. “He’s may be the youngest but he’s not the cutest.” He looked down at tickled Ru’Yi’s ribs.

“Goddamn it, Mingfei shut him up.” Nono hissed.

This time Lu Mingfei firmly pressed the power off button. But he did have a point. Fingel Phone could have betrayed them a long time ago.

“Anyway, hiding won’t work much longer. If the transmitter really exists and we can’t find it, it will be picked up whereever you go. You just have to keep moving. Let those hounds chase you. As long as you’re fast enough, they can’t do anything to you.”

“That seems like a road to nowhere...” Mingfei mumbled.

“It’s really straightforward.” Crow sighed, rolling his eyes. “I must owe you a lot of money in a previous life.”

He cleared his throat. “Our opponent is a group of very experienced hunters. Among them are the finest tacticians and excellent Executioners, fully armed. They’re likely to know your location thanks to some sort of tracking system. But they are very quiet until now, why? Because it is not the time yet. They’re waiting for the most suitable opportunity! It is like a falcon flying in the sky, watching the prey running like mad. They want to catch you in one pounce!”

“So if we keep running, we’re sure to be caught.” Nono said.

“Yes, but in this hunt, although they are falcons, they are not completely reckless. You’ve proven yourselves capable of a good fight more than once!”

“What’s your plan?” She asked.

“Attack in our own defense! Before the wall is breached, strike them first and make good use of our home court advantage! It will be what they least expect!” He pounded his fist into his palm.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, “That seems like its asking them to come down on us harder!”

“Then why haven’t they already?” Crow asked me, a sly smile on his face.

I shut my mouth. Yes, why such a small team of personal friends? Why not bring down everyone they had? Even on the street of Tokyo, they had only sent one helicopter against Mingfei.

“Two possibilities. One, they haven’t shown all their cards and two their goal is not to hunt you at all, but to watch you and wait for reinforcements to arrive. If there are more reinforcements coming, they have no choice but to sit and wait.”

“But it doesn’t matter what their plan is if we take the initiative and force them to act outside their plans! Then you can leave Japan while they regroup. By the time the reinforcements arrive, you’ll be long gone!”

“Who can control Susie and Lancelot?” Asked Nono.

“Leave those two to me. Just pack your luggage. I will send the Crane team to handle them. They’re well trained and reliable.”

Mingfei looked doubtful. “Those are from the Japan Branch Executive Department. They’re not your personal soldiers. If you call them, it is the Hydra acting against the Academy!”

“I’ll act as scapegoat!” He pressed his thumb to his chest. “This will have nothing to do with Hydra! I will take the blame and resign and then be locked up by the Academy on a small island in the Pacific. They can’t keep me there forever...”

“Or they can kill you and make it look like an accident...” I said, looking away.

Crow’s voice held a gentle note I hadn’t heard before. “The party’s rule is not to kill except for dragons, Death Servitors, or out of control hybrids.”

“I no longer trust the Academy. Not without Anjou.” I pressed my lips together. “And there are fates worse than death.”

I looked back at him, unable to control the worry in my eyes. “Ru’Yi knows you now. But if you die now... she won’t remember you when she grows up.”

Crow settled Ru’Yi back on the bed, stood up, and walked toward the door.

“After you leave Japan, I will just run away. I’m not a patriarch, but just a second-rate character with limited ability. I’ve planned your escape route already. I just need to implement it and give you instructions.”

Mingfei took one look at my face and stood up from the table. “I’ll walk you out.”

#Dragon Dancer #Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Writing #Chen Moutong #Nono #Mingfei Lu #Lu Mingfei #Luminous

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the--sad--hatter · 5 years

Text

Name Calling (43)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU, DEADPOOL & X-MEN

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -

Vernichtung - Destruction, Annhialation.

It was what you were named and what you were supposed to be but the only thing you wanted to destroy was Bucky Barnes.

The ongoing and bloody war of words between you and Bucky turns in your favor when a disgruntled one night stand of his lets slip a secret when you run into her in the elevator… Now you have all the ammunition you need to destroy your enemy but you don’t plan on killing him quickly. Oh no, Bucky Barnes was going to suffer and you were going to enjoy every second. You just didn’t count on enjoying it quite so much.

But when your past catches up to you in the form of the mad scientist who made you, Bucky might be one of the only things that can save you from yourself. You can’t run from what you are but with his help, you can fight back.

Current Word Count - 119,431

MASTERLIST or Read on Ao3

Moodboard by @talesofakindredspirit

Chapter Forty-Three - Run Away

You wrenched yourself away from Remy with a gasp.

“No, no. I love Bucky.” You choked out.

“I know. But you needed to think of something else.” He smiled sadly.

“Doll?”

You looked up to see Bucky standing on the driveway, flanked by Tony and Loki. A blood soaked Logan stood up behind them, wounds sealing closed. A pathetic sounding sob escaped you and you half stood up and stumbled towards Tony.

Tony was the only solid thing in your crumbling world right now but to your shock and heartbreak he stepped away from you.

“It’s not me you need Kit Kat.” He said sadly.

Your strength abandoned you and you collapsed but you never hit the ground. One flesh arm and one metal caught you and you tentatively looked at Bucky.

His eyes were soft and full of pain.

“I love you, all of you.” He whispered and you fell apart.

He wrapped his arms around you and held you. Loki knelt in front of you and held a vial out.

“You both need to drink the antidote.”

“You haven’t had it yet?” You asked Bucky.

“No.”

“So when you said you loved me?”

“It’s the truth. I do love you and I’ll be here as long as you’ll have me.” He answered.

“I want forever.” You told him.

“Then that’s what you’ll get doll, forever.”

The cage in your subconscious snapped shut, Vernichtung once again locked safely away.

If you had Bucky, everything else would be alright.

“Kit Kat, you need the antidote.” Tony prompted you and Bucky took the vial from Loki and held it to your lips.

“We need to talk.” Logan growled.

“You may be hard to hurt but trust me, I’ll find a way if you don’t back off right now.” Tony snapped at him.

You nuzzled into Bucky’s shoulder and tried to block out the voices of your father and you biological father arguing.

“I thought you told her about Docherty. Because you didn’t I just got deathwaved on the front lawn and she almost lost control. We’re gonna talk now.” Logan informed him.

“No. Don’t blame him for your fuck up.” You snarled at Logan.

Bucky rubbed soothing circles on your back as you growled angrily at Wolverine.

“Barnes, get her out of here. Take that weekend trip early.” Tony instructed, tossing him the keys.

“Come on sweetheart.” Bucky said gently, pulling you towards the car.

“Wait.” You told him, pulling free and walking over to Logan.

He looked down at you.

“I thought you knew.” He said, his voice soft for once.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Did you... am I that big a disappointment?” You whispered almost inaudibly.

“You had a dad already, didn’t want to get in the way.” Logan told you.

“What was her name?”

“Anne.”

You nodded to yourself and silently walked away, getting in the car. Before you closed the door Bucky leaned in to kiss you on the forehead.

“I’ll be right back doll.” He told you.

You nodded to him to show you understood and he and left, Tony stepping up to take his place.

“He loves you. I won’t pretend I’m ok with it being him, I don’t think I’ll ever fully be alright with it but he does love you Kit Kat. So do I. So go away with him, lick your wounds and let him look after you. I’ll be here when you come back.” Tony said.

He wiped a stray tear from your cheek and looked at you with such tenderness.

“Don’t forget how proud I am of you.” He said.

Your lips moved and you managed to weakly whimper out that you loved him before he closed the car door. The drivers side opened and Bucky slipped in the car.

“I didn’t hurt him before you ask.” He informed you and you frowned at him.

“Remy. I didn’t hurt him for kissing you. I just reminded him who’s girl you are.”

“Yours.” You said.

“Mine.” He confirmed.

It was all too much for you, what had happened and your eyes fluttered closed as the emotional exhaustion kicked in. Despite it all, there was the smallest smile on your face as you drifted off because you were safe, you were loved and you had Bucky Barnes by your side.

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

“What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed.” Tony demanded.

“Ah but she once risked it all to save me. I owed her the same. Remy thought maybe he could bring her back from the brink, and it worked.” He explained with a shrug.

“Not in the way you were hoping. You just reminded her how much she loves the soldier.” Logan huffed.

“Listen to me Romeo, personally I would have preferred you but she chose him. I know several assassins who love my daughter almost as much as I do and if you ever try and get between her and Barnes again I will unleash them on you.” Tony threatened.

Remy’s smirk didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You don’t worry about Remy mon ami, he will not be a problem.” He promised with an air of sadness.

“And you.” Tony said, advancing on Logan.

“You don’t wanna pick this fight Stark.” Logan growled.

“Oh don’t I?”

“There was no right way to handle this. She’s my kid, now she knows it. And she’s made it perfectly clear what she thinks of that. Tore me to pieces, literally.”

“That’s my girl.” Tony said proudly.

“Yeah Stark. That’s your girl. Nothing like me at all.” Logan said sarcastically.

“Do not make the mistake of assuming that because she shares genetics with you that she will be like you. Her choices are her own and not dictated by her DNA.” Loki interjected with a dark stare.

“Well you sure as hell better hope she takes after me and not her grandfather. I’m trusting you with her because believe it or not I want what’s best for her. I want her to have a chance. I’m not the one to give it to her Stark and I know that but it doesn’t mean I don’t care. She needs to be better than me, she needs to be better than Docherty. Do not let her down.” Logan said furiously.

Tony was shocked. It was probably the most words Logan had ever said to him at one time.

“She is better than you, she’s sure as hell better than him, she’s better than me. She’s so determined to be good she broke herself. Her best chance doesn’t come from me or you, it comes from herself.” Tony informed him.

“And that’s why you’re her dad and not me.” Logan said, storming away.

Tony thought he understood the gruff man a bit better now and it was like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. Logan wasn’t rejecting you because he didn’t want you, he was doing it because he wanted you to be happy.

It was the same reason Tony had swallowed his pride and sent you away with Bucky.

They both just wanted you to be happy.

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

You shifted in your sleep, trying to get comfy as your legs got tangled in the sheets. Why were there sheets in the car?

You opened your eyes just as Bucky leaned over you.

“Hey you’re awake, I had to carry you in from the car.” He explained, brushing a lock of hair off your cheek.

“Where are we?” You asked.

“Well I know how much you like the woods and I thought you would find this place peaceful.” He said, smirking at you.

You looked around the room and gasped.

“How long was I asleep?”

You definitely weren’t in the city anymore.

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

I felt bad so I updated with this super short chapter. I don't think it's a spoiler to inform you that smut and romance are coming....

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@thejourneyneverendsx @thelostallycat @inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher @kendrawr-kitkat @phoenix-whiskey-tears @the–real-wombat @buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt @meganjonezzzz @dugan365@fluffeh-kitty@memanda17 @krystallynx @theonelittleone@piscesbarnes@free-as-fishes @tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard@dropthepizza346 @jaynnanadrews@likes-to-smell-books@drdorkus @life-wanderer@metalarmlover @animegirlgeeky@jsmith509

#hattersmarvelverse #bucky x reader #Bucky Barnes #avengers x reader

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nerdasaurus1200 · 5 years

Text

Now Kiss

Requested by @ ablaghafir. The idea came from @ fact-dogsarehappiness. In which Adrien and Marinette are oblivious idiots in love and the whole team is the fandom (aka, shipper trash and 1000% done with these two).

Alya has to admit-looking back, there’s a lot in her life that she never expected to happen. The first thing was becoming Rena Rouge, arguably one of the best things that happened to her. It gave her the chance to be a hero like Majestia, and help out Ladybug. Which reminded her, the one thing she never EVER expected was Ladybug being her best friend. That’s not to say she wasn’t pleased about it, although she’s pretty sure Marinette quickly got tired of all the questions. After that day, Alya was sure nothing else could surprise her. And then Nino let it slip to her that Adrien was Cat Noir. And neither Adrien nor Marinette knew who the other was. How Nino managed to convince her not to say anything to them, she’ll never truly understand. As the years passed, more superheroes joined Team Miraculous and more identities were figured out until eventually everyone on the team knew who each other was. Except for Marinette and Adrien. It was killing everyone, they were both so obvious. Marinette looked the exact same both in and out of the mask, and the only real thing Adrien changed as Cat Noir was his hair. As much as it annoyed them, they agreed not to interfere. They would have to tell each other eventually; they could wait and be patient.

However, the more time passed, the more their patience was wearing thin. It all started when Adrien asked Marinette out. They were all very happy for the new couple, but they were a tad confused as to why they never told each other their identities. It confused them even more that they never caught on to why they always had to suddenly leave during a date when an Akuma attack happened. Chloe recalls one time during patrol where Adrien had asked her if she knew what it was like to love one person and then meet a whole new person and love them so much that you wonder if your previous love was even real. “Who’s the person you used to love again?” She asked. “Ladybug,” Adrien answered. “And who do you love now?” She asked. “Marinette,” Adrien replied as if it was obvious. “Just wanted to clarify so we can all have a good chuckle later,” Chloe remarked dryly. It got a little harder when Adrien and Marinette got engaged. Ladybug and Cat Noir couldn’t stop raving about how happy they were that the other was getting married. “When’s the big day?” Ladybug had asked. “September 1.” Cat Noir answered, and Ladybug’s face fell. “That’s the same day I’m getting married.” She said. Everyone held their breath. Would lead to the reveal?! It had to, there’s no way they couldn’t figure it out. What kind of friends have their wedding on the exact same day without knowing they’re marrying their friend?! “Well...we’ll be there for each other in spirit, won’t we?” Cat Noir finally said. “You’re right, kitty.” Ladybug replied, smiling. Everyone facepalmed at the interaction, their hopes once again crushed. Their anger over the lack of the reveal lessened once the wedding came. Everyone was practically bursting with excitement, Adrien in particular. The look on his face when Marinette walked down the aisle was one they would treasure for years to come. “Are you okay?” Kagami asked playfully. “Shut up, I’m fine,” Adrien muttered, earning a snicker from Kim. “Relax, dude, I’ve got your back,” Nino reassured with a playful smirk, holding up a tissue. “Thank you.” Adrien choked out, quickly grabbing the tissue and wiping his eyes. “And you said I wouldn’t need the tissues,” Nino commented to Max, making him roll his eyes. The rest of the night was a hoot and a half. Kim had managed to dare Kagami into doing the Macarena, Marc and Nathaniel became a drunk karaoke hit, and Adrien and Marinette couldn’t stop freaking out about how they were married now, and their irritation at the lack of reveal came and went. They couldn’t help but groan when Cat Noir complimented Ladybug’s new short hair when Adrien had seen it on Marinette earlier that day. However, their irritation came back with a fiery vengeance a couple years later, the day they found out Marinette was pregnant. The whole team was ecstatic to be Aunts and Uncles, and then it all went downhill from there on patrol later that night. “Ladybug you won’t believe what big news happened today!” was the first thing Cat Noir said, beaming as soon as they saw each other. “What a coincidence, I have big news too kitty.” Ladybug replied, also beaming. “Oo, let’s say it together!” Cat Noir replied, “My wife is pregnant!” “I’m pregnant!” Ladybug announced. Both of them stared at each other wide-eyed. “WHAT?!” Cat Noir couldn’t help but yell. “I can’t believe it!” Ladybug giggled. “YOU can’t believe it?! First I find out I’m gonna be a father, now I’m gonna be an Uncle too?!” Cat Noir replied. The pair laughed as they pulled each other into a hug, completely oblivious to the reactions of their teammates. “Nobody is this oblivious.”Roi Singe murmured gravely. “A-are they just...pretending not to know just so they can mess with us?!” Viperion asked. “That’s it. We’re doing what we should’ve done years ago. RABBIT HOLE!” Alix yelled. “Bunnix, no!” Rena Rouge yelled, gripping Bunnix by the wrists. “BUNNIX YES! IT HAS TO BE DONE!” Bunnix yelled back. “THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY!” Silene yelled. “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY!” Bunnix yelled. “I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t do this, Alya. I don’t have the strength.” Roi Singe whimpered shakily as he cried into Pegase’s torso. “...Okay, while Kim is busy having an emotional breakdown, does anyone have any new ideas to make our idiots figure out their identities?” Rena asked. It had been a year and a half after the pregnant incident, and Adrien and Marinette now had a little baby girl named Emilie; Emma for short. Instead of patrolling like they should have been doing, they now spent their Thursday nights coming up with ways to make the reveal happen. “Maybe we could trick them into figuring it out,” Viperion suggested. “Ooh, that’s a good strategy, snakey.” Empress praised. “No, that won’t work. Mari’ll see right through it.” Carapace said. “Maybe we could actually tell them?” Princess Piggy suggested. “Nope, too straightforward. Bound to go wrong somehow.” Alix shot down. “Operation Secret Garden 2?” Rat Gris asked. “It never worked then, it won’t work now,” Rena answered. “Well, there has to be SOMETHING.” Phoenix Hood said. “What if we just locked them in a room together or something?” Tigress asked. Everyone held their breath in thought. Would that work? “Max, probability of success?” Rena asked, barely containing the excitement in her voice. “Hmm, well if we did attempt to lock them in a room with the end goals being them both discovering each other's identities, then it would have to be after an Akuma attack. However, we do have to make sure that the door of the room we keep them in is reinforced enough to withstand their super strength. Then one of us will have to command Plagg and Tikki to detransform them. If we accomplish this, our chances of succeeding are...93.874383% with a 2.8128748% margin of error. In conclusion, we have a very high chance of succeeding if we attempt this.” Pegase deduced. “Then it’s settled, next Akuma attack, we strike,” Rena announced, and the others nodded in agreement. A week later, the day of reckoning finally came. An Akuma attack broke lose at Le Grand Paris Hotel, and Team Miraculous was on the scene within minutes. As usual, Ladybug and Cat Noir were dancing around each other almost the entire time. The Akuma was quickly defeated after Cataclysm and Lucky Charm were unleashed, also as usual. No more evil doing for you little Akuma. Time to de-evilize! Bye bye, little butterfly. Miraculous Ladybug! And then it was over. It was time to attack. “Well done, everyone. I have to say, you were all more efficient tha-hey, what the-?!” Ladybug started but panicked as Taurus grabbed her and Cat Noir and tossed them in the storage closet nearby. They didn’t have much time, they had to act quickly. Carapace and Rena Rouge rushed to the door to hold it closed before their leaders could open it. “Sword, sword, get the frigging sword!” Rena yelled, using all of her strength to keep the door shut. Empress drew her sword and placed it into the door handle, ensuring the door wouldn’t open. Tigress made sure to lock the door for good measure. “Tikki, Plagg! Spots off and claws in! That’s an order!” Rena yelled. They saw a flash of light from the cracks of the door but heard nothing except for a quiet gasp. “Guys, what the heck?!” They heard Marinette yell. “We’re all sick of your crud. THAT’S what the heck!” Silene yelled back. “Marc, you’d betray your own flesh and blood?!” Marinette yelled. “No, I’m doing my own flesh and blood a favor,” Silene said firmly. “This is for your own good!” Taurus lectured. “It was either this or I go back in time to Stoneheart and out you two. And SOMEONE said no.” Bunnix added, glaring at Rena Rouge. “For the hundredth time, it would disrupt the entire timestream!” Rena argued. “Alya, let us out. NOW!” Marinette yelled. “NO!” Rena retorted. “Alya Césaire, so help me, I will kick down this door!” Marinette threatened. “Girl, I would LOVE to see you kick down a door reinforced with a magical weapon that’s literally indestructible.” Rena challenged. Her dare was met with silence, but she took a few steps back and drew out her flute. “What are you doing?” Viperion asked. “This is Marinette we’re talking about. Even without her powers, I’d be really stupid to underestimate her.” Rena explained. A few seconds later, a loud bang and a yell of “OW” was heard. “That sounded like it hurt.” Tigress commented. “Oh, poor Marinette. We should go in and check on her.” Princess said, but Empress stopped her. “No, don’t open the door. If we do, they’ll escape and she’ll kill us.” The Dragon warned. “Well, we need to make sure she didn’t break a toe or anything.” Carapace protested. “I got it! The security cameras!” Queen Bee pointed out.

The team rushed to the front desk and crowded around the monitor that showed the closet their leaders were currently trapped in. Adrien was helping Marinette balance on one leg, and she was wincing in pain. “Here, sit down. I’ll take a look at it.” He said, helping her ease down. He took off her shoe as gently as he could and began inspecting her foot, but soon got lost in her eyes. “So, all this time, you were Cat Noir.” Marinette couldn’t help saying. “And you were Ladybug all this time.” He replied. A beat of silence and the pair burst into laughter. “Ten years, and we’re just now finding out.” She said. “Right? I mean, come on! We’re married, we have a daughter! Now granted, I got a little suspicious after the haircut. At least now I have a clear conscience about all this.” Adrien added as the laughter died down. “What do you mean?” Marinette asked. “What do you mean what do I mean? You’re my wife, Marinette. We made a vow to never hide anything from each other. I just...always felt so guilty hiding it from you for so long. It felt like I was lying to you. There were so many times I came so close to telling you, but then Plagg pointed out I’d just be putting you in danger, and-“ Adrien ranted, but Marinette cut him off by pressing a finger to his lips. “I felt guilty too. But there’s no need to worry. We both know we can handle ourselves. And even if something bad does happen, we’ll face it together. For better or worse, remember, kitty?” Marinette comforted. The look on Adrien’s face earned many ‘awws’ from their teammates, and they squealed as he pulled her in for a kiss. Suddenly, he pulled away. “Wait! I just remembered! YOU asked me to save YOU from Evillustrator!” Adrien realized. “And you tricked me into thinking you were showering during Simon Says! We’re even!” Marinette retorted. “Okay, yeah, I guess you’re right. Now, m’lady, allow me to transform back and Cataclysm this door so we can escape and get back at our teammates.” Adrien asked cheekily, making Marinette giggle. Crud, everyone thought as they looked at each other, their faces going pale. They forgot to take away their Miraculouses! The next second, the whole team was scrambling over each other trying to get away from the closet as if a bomb was about to go off. “EVERYBODY SCATTER!” Rena yelled. “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!” Carapace wailed. For a few short seconds, they had hope of survival, but that hope was quickly dashed when they heard the door crumble to ash.

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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House of X and Powers of X: Key X-Men Comics to Read

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We picked out some key books from Marvel's history to help you understand the big X-Men reboot.

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House of X and Powers of X have done the unthinkable: they’ve made having an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel X-Men continuity minutiae an asset. Now I have a reason to talk about Xorn’s brother Xorn who was posing as Magneto pretending to be Xorn OTHER than to make someone go away.

This is, of course, a joke. HoX/PoX is remarkably accessible for anyone with any level of background knowledge of the X-Men, from “I like Hugh Jackman” to “remember the time the Sentinels tried to kill the sun because it was causing mutations?” But there is certainly a lot in here that rewards deeper knowledge. And to help you understand it all, we put together a reading list that might help you see the throughlines from Marvel Comics history that help create the comics sensation revitalizing the X-Men books.

For this reading guide, we’re not only going to tell you what’s good and why we like it. We’re also going to try and piece together how it fits into what Jonathan Hickman and crew are doing in today’s series. Because of that, we’re slapping a big ol’ SPOILER WARNING here: proceeding beyond this point risks spoiling big twists from the first half of the HoX/PoX epic.

FOR GENERAL BACKGROUND: X-Men: Grand Design

Ed Piskor is the indie comix guy who, prior to this book, was best known for a webcomic-turned-prestige-series, Hip-Hop Family Tree, which told the story of the origins of the biggest genre in music (it’s fantastic, by the way). His acclaim for that book, where he would quite frequently homage superhero covers, eventually garnered enough attention from Marvel for them to take a risk on him. In a fit of uncharacteristic ambition, they allowed Piskor to rework thirty years and 300 issues of X-Men or X-adjacent comics into one miniseries. The result is absolutely stunning.

There are retcons involved, but Piskor manages to turn several eras of comics history into one coherent narrative. Retcons become plot points, characters move rationally instead of for post-hoc rationales and slow-burn payoffs are seeded even earlier. It’s all done with a distinctly underground style, which is refreshing and appropriate, since this is the era when the X-Men became counterculture iconography.

In other words, if you need the best X-Men comics history lesson imaginable, this is the book for you.

Pay close attention to: Anything with Moira Mactaggert. The revelation in House of X #2 that current Marvel continuity was the tenth time Moira had been resurrected and that she had been planning for six lives to protect the mutant race casts literally the entirety of X-Men history in a new light. So now any interaction with the Professor or his students, like, say, when she was watching Jean Grey become the Phoenix on Muir Island, has potentially new meaning. Grand Design is particularly valuable here because Piskor started before the planning for Hickman’s relaunch did, so you are reading source material that the rebooter himself was probably working off of.

read more - The Best Episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series

You may also like: For tone and craft, X-Men: Grand Design is unique. Despite countless reboots and cleanups attempted in the almost 50 years the X-Men have been published, nothing to my knowledge has been this comprehensive or accessible. However, if you like the characters and the idea of a modernized, streamlined origin-esque story, Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz’s mid-aughts series, X-Men First Class, which tells new stories with the original team of X-Men, is worth checking out. It’s a lot of fun, certainly a lot more fun than reading the original Silver Age issues themselves.

start with the first volume of X-Men: Grand Design here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE BIG THEMES: Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye

No, I’m not kidding. I am absolutely recommending an alternate universe Hawkeye miniseries in an article about X-Men comics.

On his way to destroying it, Jonathan Hickman was given space to play around with the Ultimate Universe, and he used it, writing a Thor miniseries and relaunching the Ultimates. Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye was the third prong of his overall story and it focused on a fictional country - the Southeast Asian Republic - as Hawkeye and a team of SHIELD agents arrive on site to deal with a civil war. We quickly find out that SEAR scientists have created a virus to eliminate the X-gene, and a serum that gives their own people a virus-resistant mutation. A “paradigm shift,” as one of the SEAR officials calls it.

That government unleashes both prongs of the plan and promptly loses control of the situation, setting up SEAR as a mutant haven for people taking their serum and thus one of the three prongs of a global conflict that plays out in Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

Pay close attention to: The Xorns. Not because they’re anything like the ones who have shown up in HoX/PoX - the ones in House of X have only thus far been glimpsed, and the millennial nihilist icon from Powers of X is a corpse in an alternate timeline (probably).

read more - Pryde of the X-Men: The Animated Series We Almost Got

No, we’re watching the Xorns in Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye because the idea of mutants as resources in a geopolitical struggle seems central to the conflict playing out between the Krakoan mutants and the humans in the X^1 timeline of today’s series. With all the talk of omega mutants and alignments, you should be able to get a very good sense of what is to come in the mutant conflict by reading this.

You may also like: Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Hickman and eventual Secret Wars collaborator Esad Ribic’s story of what else is going on in the world while SEAR blows up. That story is mainly concerned with SHIELD being woefully outgunned by the mutants on one side, and evil Reed Richards’ Asgard- and Europe- destroying hyper evolved Children. It’s really good.

read Ultimate Comics Hawkeye here.

FOR A SENSE OF THE TONE: “Days of Future Past”

“Days of Future Past” is right smack in the middle of what Piskor covers in Grand Design. So why read it separately? Because I strongly suspect this is the foundational text of what Hickman is trying to do with his story.

This is one of the all-time classic X-Men stories by maybe the most well liked team in the franchise’s history. In the far future of 2013, Sentinels have taken control of the US and are on their way to taking over the world, because they see human existence as the flaw causing mutation that they are programmed to wipe out. So they kill most of the heroes and round up the remaining ones into camps. Wolverine, Rachel Summers (in her first appearance), Katherine Pryde (not long after her debut), Colossus, Storm and Magneto all team up so Rachel can send Kitty’s consciousness back in time, take over her younger body and prevent the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (led by Mystique and Destiny) from killing Senator Robert Kelly, sending the future spiralling towards extinction.

These two issues function as an effective preview of the conflict that HoX/PoX explores. Humans are irrationally afraid of Mutants, who alternate between trying to be left alone and trying to dominate their progenitors. Meanwhile, the robots say “you both suck” and (presumably before falling into the sun in the case of Mothermold) just start killing.