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makeste · 5 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 290: It’s Touya Time

Previously on BnHA: Iida and Hadou showed up like a couple of Pennsylvanias and Georgias to bail Shouto out at the last minute. Ochako and Toga had an exceptionally strange fight which consisted of Toga being all “guess what Ochako, I used your quirk to murder someone, how do you feel about that”, and Ochako being all “I do not like that”, to which Toga was all “:(”. There was some doll-stealing and some bookcase-yeeting, and then Toga left in tears because Ochako was all adamant that murder has consequences. Anyway so I have absolutely no idea what Toga is thinking now, but I guess we’ll have some time to stew on it, because we ended the chapter by cutting back to the Iida+Hadou+Shouto VS Afomura battle, which was interrupted by Gigantomachia and the LoV showing up like a bunch of Floridas to ruin everyone’s nice day.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi hands the mic over to Dabi and is all “take it away, kid.” Over in Room 315 of Musutafu General, Rei is all “may I please watch some TV” and the hospital staff is all “sure”, and so she tunes in just in time to catch Todoroki Touya’s Peabody Award-winning documentary “Number One Hero, Number One Fraud: The Todoroki Enji Story”, which is being broadcast nationwide courtesy of Skeptic and his magic laptop. Meanwhile in Jakku, Dabi is all “I’M TOUYA, BITCHES”, and Shouto and Enji are all, “(゜◇゜ )”, and Dabi is all, “anyway so just to sum it all up, because of how much of a jerk Endeavor was, I am now Evil.” Everyone continues to be all “(ﾟoﾟ)” except for Dabi, who is all “└(˘▾˘┌ )≡ ( ┐˘▾˘)┘≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛≡┏( ˘▾˘)┓≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛” for pretty much the rest of the chapter. Idk. Just let the man have his fun, guys. He’s waited a long time for this.

y’all I have a confession to make. I am technically not spoiled for this chapter thanks to my robustly paranoid system of spoiler-tag-filtering, which is extensive enough that it pretty much will catch whenever someone so much as breathes something even remotely new-chapter-related. that being said, I like to think that I am capable of making basic logical inferences! and so the fact that for the past 36 hours, my dashboard has pretty much nonstop consisted almost entirely of this...

...has led me to conclude that MAYBE, POSSIBLY, PROBABLY, BUT ALSO DEFINITELY, a certain someone is finally going to reveal his ~secret identity~ woop woop. lmao

anyway so everyone, please remember to act surprised though, as we would not want Dabi’s feelings to be hurt at all. he has been planning this moment for the last decade or so and I wouldn’t want him to feel like all of that effort was for naught. so just play along, okay. OH MY, IF IT ISN’T THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS’ MYSTERIOUS DABI. WHATEVER COULD HIS ARRIVAL POSSIBLY BE HERALDING, I JUST DON’T KNOW

“Dabi’s Dance” lmao. I’m sticking with Touya Time myself. ngl I had this recap title planned out for at least the past year or so. just waiting for that day to finally come

anyway so some people in some building somewhere are all “TURN OFF THE TV IN ROOM 315” and idk. I’m guessing the LoV is hacking the airwaves to livestream the reveal, as predicted

-- oh shit. UHHHHHHHH

did she always have this TV or did she get it just recently?? jfc of all the times for the hospital staff to finally loosen up

um... so that’s... (・＿・；)

well but I mean, she was gonna find out one way or the other at some point though. like you can’t really just keep her locked up and isolated from all news of the outside world forever and ever and ever. granted, this isn’t exactly the ideal way for her to learn this particular bit of information, but it’s not really ideal for anybody else either! EXCEPT DABI, THAT IS. have yourself a day you funky little terrorist

oh shit what is this?? it’s not live???

over in Jakku, a red-faced, sputtering Dabi makes a frantic grab for Skeptic’s laptop. “WAIT, NO, JESUS, NOT THAT TAPE!”

lol. but seriously Dabi are you even wearing a shirt. like I’m not one to slutshame anyone bro, but it’s just, exactly what type of mood were you looking to set here??

anyway so we really are cutting back to Jakku now, and Gigantomachia is all, “MASTERS”! which, I wonder if he really did use the plural? that’s right Machia, both of them in one place now! that sure is convenient for you huh

lol what is this with all this AFO monologuing. you’re really gonna make me read through this when I’m sitting here all sleep-deprived from election week. JUST GET TO THE TOUYAS. WE WERE PROMISED TOUYAS!!

sigh

“tee hee it’s fucking hilarious how goddamn powerful I am now lol”

alas, in spite of myself I do have two serious takeaways from this. one is that AFO is still controlling most of Tomura’s body behind the scenes, which both does and doesn’t bode well for Tomura (like, at least he’s not dying, but the long-term implications of this for his free will and such certainly are not Good). and two is that this confirms that Ujiko did give Tomura at least one powerful mutant quirk, which explains why he was still so deadly and indestructible even when Aizawa was using Erasure on him (since Erasure doesn’t work on mutant quirks, just emitter and transformation ones)

MEANWHILE ON TODAY’S EPISODE OF “TODOROKI SHOUTO’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD LIFE”

I like how he doesn’t actually say that he can’t take on Gigantomachia. just that he can’t take on him and Afomura at the same time. that’s confidence, baby. that right there is why you always draft Todoroki Shouto in the first round for your fantasy team

HADOU!!!!

OOOH, TOMURA’S ALL “MAN, THIS GIRL’S WAVE POWERS AND THIS KID’S ICE POWERS ARE A SUPER-STRONG COMBO DAGNABBIT.” YESSS I LIKE THAT, TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW COOL AND POWERFUL THEY ARE

HOT DAMN LOOK AT THAT

um but not to take away from this exceptionally cool moment or anything, but why is Endeavor dying and shouting “RUN” down there in the corner um

excuse me. not to take away from How Bad This All Is, but!!

just a little, smol, IidaBaku for everyone. Iida, who apparently doesn’t know a damn thing about first aid and is all, “hmm that’s a pretty bad-looking puncture wound he has in his left shoulder there, I think I’ll just let his arm dangle freely like that and I won’t bother taking off his heavy gauntlets either. I mean. he’ll be fine, probably.” smh. at least Shouto probably cauterized the wounds

EXCUSE ME WHAT

TIME FOR MORE OF THAT GOOD OLD FASHIONED SHOUNEN RIDICULOUSNESS I GUESS LMAO. KACCHAN YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO. THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, AND YOU LOST LIKE FOUR GALLONS OF BLOOD, BUT SURE. “PUT ME DOWN” HE SAYS. FIRST OF ALL, PUTTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT BE CONSCIOUS, THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO DO, LIE DOWN AT THEM?? LISTEN, YOU SWEET IDIOT. TAKE HEED, BELOVED DUMBASS!!

ah well. I guess he gets to watch the Touya Show now too then lol

LMAOOOO now Machia’s lifting Tomura carefully in his palm like a broken action figure and Spinner is all “THE FUCK, YOU LOOK LIKE DEATH WARMED OVER”

“oh hey there Spinner. well let’s see, I woke up from my three-month coma and destroyed a city, had my body incinerated, and am currently being possessed by a diabolically evil potato. but please, tell me more about everything you've been through”

AW YISS AND THE FOCUS NOW SHIFTS TO THE TODOROKIS. EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING EXACTLY AS WE HAVE FORESEEN

Endeavor my dude. it’s as if you want to die here. also holy shit, that bit about his lungs definitely does not bode well for him either

MOTHERFUCKER

GO AHEAD AND SIGN YOUR OWN DEATH CERTIFICATE, WHY DON’T YOU!! FLAGS UPON FLAGS. JESUS CHRIST

meanwhile Dabi’s just waving at ‘em

lmaoooo please oh please Caleb please keep this ‘EYYYYYYY’, it’s fucking perfect kdlshk;hg

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: so as you will see very shortly, I completely missed this detail in my first read-through because I was so anxious to get to the reveal page, but THIS MOTHERFUCKER LITERALLY DOUSED HIMSELF WITH INSTANT HAIR DYE REMOVER THAT HE’S JUST BEEN CARRYING AROUND IN A LITTLE HIP POUCH APPRENTLY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. MOTHERFUCKER. I HAVE NO WORDS.)

IS THIS THE TIME. IS THIS THE MOMENT?! HERE IT COMES SLKFHS BRACE YERSELVES LADS

EYYYYYYYYYYYY

OKAY EVERYONE JUST LIKE WE PRACTICED!! SURPRISED FACES ON THREE! ONE... TWO... (•̪ o •̪) !! okay how was that

LMAO ENDEAVOR

at least Shouto looks properly stunned. Enji just looks like endeavor.exe just straight up stopped working

meanwhile Deku’s out here trying to do the math on this latest surprise family reveal! first Tomura is related to Nana, and now this. what’s next. who are you related to, Spinner. he rips off his boots to reveal engine legs and declares himself Iida’s long-lost uncle

oh shit Touya

it’s as if a million fanworks suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly jossed. who knew that all this time he was secretly sporting a crop top scar

also, THIRTY?! holy shit son you been busy

la la la two-page spread of Touya casually driving the dagger into Endeavor’s hero career and rocking the foundations of hero society as we know it la la la

la la la!!!

OH IS THAT THE END OF THE STORY THEN

almost got confused for a sec. there’s two monologues happening at once here. Endeavor doesn’t even know that his dirty laundry is being aired out nation-wide as we speak ffffff

btw while I appreciate the close-ups of Enji and Shouto here for sure, ngl I would also really love to see everyone else’s reactions right now. SHOW ME BAKUGOU AND THE LOV YOU COWARDS

is his hair actually turning white all of a sudden?? your hair dye just reacts on command??

(ETA: in all seriousness though, the hell kind of hair dye was he using? all he has to do is pour a bottle of that stuff and not even lather it in and it’s just gone just like that?? what the fuck would have have done if it ever rained lmao.

and this motherfucker just goes and leaves the dye remover in afterwards, too. I have never dyed my hair in my life and even I can tell you that’s probably not a good idea, Dabi.)

is this it. is this the legendary Dabi Dance in action. lmfao

oh hey what the fuck

so you figured you’d just murder your innocent younger brother to get revenge on dad, huh. well that’s nice

is that really all there is to the origin story though?? feels like we’re still missing a huge chunk of it. what was it that finally sent him over the edge? or was the trauma of being created as Endeavor’s perfect little hero tool and then being subsequently rejected by him enough on its own? because I’m still kind of confused on the part where he goes from “abused and discarded by his father” to “killed thirty people and was plotting the murder of his own brother” to tell you the truth

(ETA: lmao the initial fandom reaction to this did not disappoint. listen guys. people can be traumatized and shaped by awful circumstances that are completely out of their control, and grow up to be people they wouldn’t have grown up to be if things had been better, and all of that absolutely sucks, but. it doesn’t mean they get a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of their future actions, either! the tragedy of this situation is that terrible things happened to Touya, and he then went on to do terrible things himself. the tragedy of it is that this is exactly how the cycle of abuse keeps repeating itself on and on and on. maybe one of the people Dabi killed had a child who will now grow up traumatized themselves, and potentially go on to pay it forward themselves when they grow up. the tragedy is that the eye-for-an-eye justice that Touya is seeking out won’t actually make anything better in the end. the tragedy is that we understand why Touya is so angry, but that anger has basically warped him into the gleefully sadistic dancing figure we see in this chapter who has stopped caring about anyone else’s pain or suffering and just wants his own revenge.

anyway. basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s possible for the concepts of “Todoroki Touya was an innocent child and a victim of abuse” and “Dabi is a grown-ass motherfucking adult who killed thirty people and PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT” to coexist lol. like, y’all wanted your moral grey, well HERE YOU GO lmao, eat up.)

lol but LOOK AT THAT BOY DANCE HIS LITTLE HEART OUT though

Todoroki Touya confirmed not a fan of the Endeavor redemption arc huh. well we all saw this coming lols

anyways here’s a sexy Touya for y’all

you really are the most theatrical bitch I s2g lmao

also for real though, what is happening with his hair? anime team in shambles here. they’re probably just gonna double down and keep it red. too bad though cuz this is a surprisingly good look on him

SO MANY CLOSE-UPS OF THE TODOROKI FACES

friendly reminder that Dabi without a doubt REHEARSED this speech like a thousand fucking times. LET US FALL TOGETHER!! COME DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL. apparently if you fake your own death in middle school you will never mentally age past that point and will remain a permanent chuuni

OH LMAO THAT’S THE END

we really just gonna end on “DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL”, huh. very well then. you know what song to play, Horikoshi. one, two... YOU ARE MY DAD. YOU’RE MY DAD!! BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE

#bnha 290 #dabi #todoroki touya #todoroki enji #todoroki shouto #todoroki rei #bakugou katsuki #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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grayintogreen · 4 years ago

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I was not technically tagged, but at least two people on my dash were like DO WHAT YOU WANT NO ONE IS YOUR GOD, and you know what? They’re right and valid.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

96! And 90% of them are from just this year. Can’t wait to find out what the big 100 is gonna be. Any one of my WIPS could be Disney’s next 100th fic.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

455,024 (also mostly from this year...)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

In my entire life??? Since I was twelve??? I don’t even know, man. I wrote a lot of ooc crackfic and fic for cartoons when I was on FF.net, and then I was on LJ and wrote for a TON of different fandoms, but on AO3, I have written for Critical Role (so much CR), Yashahime/Inuyasha, Guardians of the Galaxy, His Dark Materials (TV), Steven Universe, Bleach, Alias, Supernatural, Dollhouse, Pushing Daisies (the last four were all transferred here from LJ, though)

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

- turning wine back into water (Critical Role, de-aging fic with plot, 30457 words)

I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE HOW POPULAR THIS FIC IS. It beat out two of my super popular GotG fics that have been up since 2017 BY A LOT. Apparently, there was a market for the Mighty Nein being adorable cocktail brats and saving the world. Thanks, Liam’s Quest!

It is probably one of the most wholesome fics I will ever write too. I love it.

- Sunshine Came Softly (Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket and Mantis friendship, 3188 words)

THIS FIC STILL GETS HITS EVEN TODAY. It was written right after I saw the movie so it hit hard and fast on the hype train.

- Mine Is Just a Slower Sacrifice (Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket-centric, 2248 words)

BOY YOU CAN TELL THESE FICS ARE ANCIENT BECAUSE I HADN’T DEVELOPED MY TITLE NICHE YET. where are the lower caps and Seanan McGuire lyrics!!

Anyway, this was written probably IMMEDIATELY after I saw the movie and had to process Rocket’s emotions during the last moments, because of who I am as a person. For what’s mostly a character study, it got some mileage on it.

- they drink dreamers up like brandy (Critical Role, 1625 words)

Back to Critical Role! I wrote this one when I was in a fucking blind post-finale haze and producing massive amounts of Kingsley content and I wanted to write a silly fic about Caleb being tiefling catnip.

- if adversity breeds character (we’ve character enough for two) (Critical Role, Beau and Molly-centric, 1824 words)

I feel like most of my most kudos-ed CR fics are Beau-related, which is funny because I never really wrote her EVER. I guess I need to write her more often. ANYWAY, this one got jossed immediately after 141, but I needed to write Beau and Molly bantering and I couldn’t get her flipping him off after revealing her card is Rumor out of my head.

(Incidentally my sixth most kudos-ed fic is my Fjorester next gen fic, WHICH I WAS NOT EXPECTING AT ALL. IT’S A FIC BASED ON MY OC FANCHILDREN!! I’M VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THAT!!)

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Usually!! There are times when I forget and then it’s been so long that I never go back, but I like responding to comments. They make me so happy and I want to make sure the people who take the time to comment know that I see them and appreciate them. Especially if they give me long comments. You long commenters know who you are and I value you and also flail incoherently in your direction.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

God, probably this church takes no conversions simply because, like, the whole ending scenes are MISERABLE AND FULL OF ANGST and then it has the hopeful ending that is actually a bullshit lie.

But second place probably goes to what couldn’t i offer, what couldn’t i give, which is just misery porn in disguise as a character study. Sorry, Cree.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Okay, so back in the day when I was a tineh fanbrat I wrote a lot of self-indulgent crossovers featuring my friends and I in true Mary Sue format being ~saviors of the world~ alongside our favorite fictional characters and after I grew out of that, I very rarely did it again, because as someone who can only write AUs if they’re high concept and can only write crossovers if the canon welding is pristine, it’s difficult.

I have ideas for some! I just haven’t written them yet. Or they’re sitting in Google Docs partially written.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not to my recollection, which is insane, because I’ve written some things in my youth that deserved it, but also I was a kid, so maybe I definitely did not deserve it. Don’t send hate to kids!!

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

The first smut I ever posted on AO3 involved some fucking American Gods flesh horror shit, so that answers your second question.

Basically, yes, but I write smut to facilitate character development in a way that regular story beats can’t, mainly with characters who are in some way deeply fucked up and have unbalanced dynamics.

So basically chances of me writing smut that isn’t Creecien or Lucigast? Very low. (I haven’t written Lucigast smut yet but I will. Inevitably.)

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that anyone’s told me, but one time when I was a teenager someone ripped off an entire group messageboard RP I was in and tried to pass it off as a fic they wrote.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that anyone’s told me!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I tried and it did not work out, because of (non-wanky) reasons, but it’s just not something I’d be very good at. I was the kid who wanted to work alone on group projects. I’m bad at group work.

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

That I’ve WRITTEN??? Because that at least narrows it down significantly. Sesshoumaru/Rin hands down. It’s a good dynamic and they’re fun and sad at the same time.

My self-indulgent ass does also enjoy writing Creecien though. I’m putting it out there because I want it.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

GOD POOR SUPERNOVAS OF ALL SOUND AND LIGHT. THAT FIC COULD’VE BEEN A CONTENDER, but I unfortunately posted it RIGHT BEFORE the White Diamond episodes aired and it became so jossed by canon so fast that I gave up on life with chapter two half finished. I need to delete it but I can’t bring myself to bury my shame.

15) What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and meta-narrative and character-specific stuff. I go into every story with CHARACTER FIRST mentality, which is how I end up writing so many damn character studies or why my word counts explode. I’m just out here naval gazing because I love character stuff SO MUCH.

I’ve been told I’m good at fight/action scenes too, which... Shocks me, but I think watching and playing a lot of D&D stuff has really improved how I write fighting and action sequences.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

[whispers] too much naval gaze. dial it back, bitch.

I get really caught up in character stuff and forget to do important things like ADVANCE THE SCENE OR DESCRIBE THE SCENE OR LITERALLY ANYTHING. I also don’t think my prose is all that great, but I’m pretty sure every writer feels that imposter syndrome bullshit, so /waves hands. All I’m saying is I have seen some writers on AO3 who are writing some fucking vivid imagery and stringing flawless sentences together and weaving introspection and description together like beautiful baskets and they are stronger than any US Marine and I salute them and wish to be them.

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Iiii try not to. There’s times where I want to throw in, like, a little Zemnian for Caleb flair, but I try to stick to things that are either untranslatable (like German compound words), common phrases (like please or come here), or insults/curses/ pet names. Things that I don’t think Google will fucking lie to me about.

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think it was a Sailor Moon crackfic about Haruka being forced to enter a beauty pageant which was just a blatant rip-off of Ms Congeniality and oh my god was it awful. I don’t even wanna talk about it.

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this church takes no conversions, probably BECAUSE it’s my little red-headed stepchild of a fic involving so many things that are just never going to make it popular (backstory fic, fic that is almost 85% headcanon, doesn’t involve popular characters, etc.), but godDAMMIT I love that fic so much. It was fun and I use every bit of that headcanon in almost everything like it’s my job.

shattered stage is a close second, because it was such a crazy concept for a fic that I PULLED OFF SOMEHOW and is this wonderful mix of crazy plot and character and lore and my three favorite tieflings having to work together. And also Jayne Merriweather as the main villain.

A lot of love went into both of those fics and they are my babies. this time next year we’ll see if I add Creedemption and shoot at fate to this list- probably. All of my epic long fics resolve to be my babies because I spent so much time on them, and I have to love them and cherish them because I raised them into gigantic wordy attempts to write a doorstopper.

#writing meme #my writing #shattered stage #this church takes no conversions

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chaoticdazefire-new · 4 years ago

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Morning guys! Today I'm finally getring back to posting my It Lives fics. (Sorry for the delay) Im posting 2 parts today since the first one is kind of short and its been a while. In todays chapter, its the morning after you and your friends performed the ritual that finally brought Noah back, and you just get a call with a new lead on stopping the Power. But before you go to get some answers, you take the time to catch up with an old friend. You can go to part 16 here. @it-lives-in-westchester @anxietyismyspiritanimal @ouleye I hope y'all enjoy it!

The following morning, you rub your eyes wearily as the suns rays shine through your window and hit your face. You check your phone to see it's only 8:30 and groan. Given you only got roughly four hours of sleep last night, you're not ready to greet the outside world just yet. Just then, Luna stretches at the foot of your bed and walks up to you, gently headbutting your arm and purring. You scratch her head for a few minutes until you're interrupted by a phone call from Connor.

You answer the phone still half asleep. "Hello?"

"Woah, sorry, did I wake you up?" He asks. You chuckle a little bit and sigh. "No, I actually just woke up. What's up?"

You can hear muffled voices in the background, one sounding like Jocelyns. "I'm pulling a shift at the hardware store right now, but Joss just came in here with some pretty solid information about the um... Situation."

"Really?" You ask, "like what?"

"She said she found-" Connor suddenly stops mid sentence and you can hear the phone drop, and in the distance you can hear Connor yell "put that back Joss it's just a display!" You pinch the bridge of your nose, and after a minute of more muffled talking, Connor picks the phone back up.

"Heh, sorry about that."

"Are you sure Jocelyn is the one who found actual information?"

You hear Connor give a small chuckle over the phone. "I'm sure. It's pretty busy here today, so maybe it's best if you just come here."

You flop your head back down on your pillow and scoff. "But I don't want to get up yet."

"Well, when you are ready to get up, you know where we'll be."

"Yeah yeah, I'll be there soon."

You hang up the phone and lay down a little longer, cherishing the comfort of your bed before getting up and running around for the rest of the day.

Before leaving, you make sure to take care of Luna, then head to the shed to check on Russel. As you step into the backyard, you take a long look at how destroyed it is. Branches from your tree have been broken off and scattered throughout your yard, dirt has been picked up and tossed around, not to mention the tire tracks in the grass leading up from your driveway to the tree where Connor slammed the vine bear.

Well, this is a mess.

Surprisingly, despite a few cracks and loosened boards, your shed still remained intact. You step inside and spot Russel nestled up in his nest, easily startled at the sound of the door creaking open. He puffs his feathers and caws, but once he realizes its you, he giddily jumps up and hops along the table as you approach.

"Looks like someone is happy to see me." You hold out your arm and he quickly leaps onto it, cawing with excitment. You gently stroke the feathers along his wings for a moment, until he suddenly puffs up and caws aggressively at the door. You feel your heart race as you carefully set him back in his nest, not taking your eyes off the door. You grab your bat and grip it tightly as you slowly approach the door.

You take a deep breath and place your foot between the door and the frame, then YANK it open! You charge out of the shed with your bat held high ready to swing- but no one is there. You look around skeptically but see no one around, and slowly lower your bat. You look back at Russel, who is still cawing from his nest, and then you hear a strange sound coming from your pond. You raise your bat once more and begin to cautiously advance towards the pond.

As you slowly approach the pond, you can see a torrent of bubbles shooting to the top of the water, and you feel your heart pounding in your ears. You can feel your legs begin to go numb as you are only a few feet away, but you keep on moving.

Then, as you finally stand right before the pond, the bubbles disappear in an instant. Bewildered, you cautiously look into the water and only see your reflection. Just as you are about to look away, you spot a face appear right behind you in your reflection. A face that you've only seen in a drawing you discovered at Coras: Redfield.

Immediately, you spin around and swing your bat as hard as you can, and see the figure just dodge it by a mere inch, their long brown hair brushing in the wind. "Hey!-"

"Noah?!" You drop your bat and feel your entire body shake as your heart drops like an anchor at the sight of him, relief washing over you. "Jeez, you want me gone again that bad already?" He asks, his arms still covering his face like a shield.

You roll your eyes and he grins. A small smile tugs at the corner of your mouth and you pull him into hug. After hesitating for a split second, he wraps his arms around you as well. "What are you doing here Noah?" You ask, still locked into a hug. "Trying to get my head taken off apparently."

"No, seriously," you say strictly as you pull away. "It's not even 9 o'clock yet, how did you even know I was in the backyard?" He shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets. "Well, I knocked on your door first but you didn't answer. Then I heard your bird in there making all sorts of noise, so I figured I'd come out back to see if you were out here. And then you tried Lucilling me."

You can't help but shake your head and laugh. "You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were-" you cut yourself off, thinking back to the face in the water. He raises an eyebrow at you as you remain silent. "Thought I was... what?" You shake the thought off and look back at him. "I thought you were something else."

He looks at you, eyes wide. "Something that involved using that?" He points to your bat lying by your feet, and you pick it up. "I...I just thought it was something from the woods."

"Hey, look around." He scans your entire yard with his hand and looks back at you. "There's nothing here now. Its just us." You look around yourself without seeing a hint of anything suspicious. "Yeah, you're right."

But I know what I saw...

You take a long skeptical look back at the pond, then turn back to him. "Connor actually called not too long ago. He said him and Jocelyn might have found something new about the Power but they're stuck at the hardware store. Want to take a walk there with me?"

He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. "I might as well, since you clearly need a bodyguard." He grins as you playfully punch him in the arm. You set your bat back in the shed and you and Noah head out into town. But as you're walking away, you swear you can feel something watching you from the trees. Something that makes your blood run cold.

******

The walk into town is long and quiet, giving you and Noah time to catch up.

"So, how does it feel?" He looks at you with a raised eyebrow. "How does what feel?" You lightly nudge him in the arm. "You know, to be back. To be you again."

He looks down and stares at the ground as he walks, thinking before answering you. "I'm not sure how to feel about it honestly. For three years I was trapped as some shadow monster, now all of a sudden I'm back," he looks at his hands, studying them. "And it's like I never was that monster."

You walk in silence for a minute as you take in his words, and think of how to respond. "I wouldn't necessarily say you were a monster." He looks at you as if baffled. "Then what was I?"

You shrug your shoulders. "You were just... You. Just with a new look." He scoffs, but with the hint of a smile on his face. "And telekinetic powers? And the ability to go through walls? Not to mention a terrible speech problem."

You both burst out into laughter, the first time you've seen him laugh in years. You can't help but stare at the smile on his face, the happiness he hasn't felt in so long, even if it's just for a moment.

You look forward as you can just see the town in the distance. You look over to say something to him, but realize hes no longer walking next to you. You turn around to see he's stopped a little ways back, staring down a long street. You make your way back to him and follow his gaze, and you know exactly what he's looking at:

His house.

You look at his face and see the pained expression, the joy he had just felt disappeared, as if it were never there.

"Do you... Want to go? And see her?" He doesn't speak, nor does he look at you, his entire focus still locked on his house. "Noah?" He shakes his head as if coming out of a trance, and looks at the ground. "No. I can't." He kicks a pebble by his feet and watches it skip into the grass. "I'm not ready for that. Not yet. And I don't think she is either. Not after thinking I've been dead this whole time."

You put a hand on his back and rub it soothingly. "Hey, there's no rush. You've been through so much. Just take it all one step at a time, okay?" He still doesn't meet your gaze, but nods his head.

"Now come on, the town is just up ahead." He slowly starts walking with you, taking one last look at his street, guilt stricken across his face.

When you finally reach town, you notice him looking all around, at all the people, all the buildings, even the birds flying above. "Enjoying the scenery I see?" You say jokingly. He gives a small smile, still looking around. "Just taking in what I've missed the past few years."

You smile and look forward, and see the hardware store in the distance. You keep walking until he suddenly puts an arm in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

"Hey-"

"Do you have to be there right away?" He asks. "I'm not necessarily on a schedule, why?" He nods his head and you notice he's stopped you in front of the cafe you sat down at the day he followed you from school, where he told you the story about when Jane chased after him when he ran away as a kid.

You look at him grinning from ear to hear as he meets your gaze. "It's been a long time since I've sat down and had a blueberry muffin." Rolling your eyes with a smile, you both walk inside.

"Go ahead and find a place to sit, I'll get us something to eat." You look at him with a sarcastic smile. "You're treating both of us to blueberry muffins?" He smiles. "Technically, Dan is treating us." He pulls out a ten dollar bill from his pocket and walks in line as you find a seat by the window. After a few minutes, he sits in the chair across from you and hands you a muffin. You take small bites from it like a mouse while he scarfs his down.

"So, you still never told me why you were at my house at 8:30 in the morning." He looks up at you with a mouth full of muffin, and holds up an index finger while he finishes eating.

"I assumed you'd want to play 21 questions with me about everything, so I figured we might as well sit down somewhere and talk about it." He picks up whats left of his food and admires it before finishing it. "Plus, I really wanted a muffin."

You raise a mischevious eyebrow at him and grin. "So, you wanted to take me out on a date is what I'm hearing?" As soon as the words leave your mouth, he nearly coughs on his food. "What? No! Nothing like that-"

"Noah, I'm kidding."

He eases up and sits back in his chair. "Oh, good." He looks out the window, his cheeks a shade pinker. You both sit in silence for a minute and he clears his throat. "So um, what do you want to know?" You gaze out the window, so many questions racing through your mind, deciding what to ask first.

"How much do you remember? From being like that?" He huffs and looks at you, "all of it." He looks out the window, watching as people walk by. "I remember floating through the woods night after night, day after day, just feeling lost. Like I had no idea who I was. I remember being alone for so long, just thinking to myself how much I deserved it." You look at him, pained as you take in his words, and then he looks at you, his eyes lighting up a little bit. "And I remember the day someone I thought hated me came barging right into those ruins calling my name like she had no fear." He smiles at you and you smile back.

"Well, I wouldn't say she hated you. But she did have a little fear running up in there." You go to take another bite of your muffin and you can still feel his eyes on you. You look back up at him to see his smile has faded. "What?"

"...Why?" He asks. You tilt your head at him. "Why what?"

"Why did you come for me that day? At all? After what I did?" He swallows hard, and you can see the guilt across his face.

"I had a dream. That you were at the ruins, begging me to come help you. You told me I could save you." He looks at you, confused. "So, a dream made you go out there, where I could have killed you for all you knew?" You shrug your shoulders at him. "I knew the risks I was taking."

He looks at you as if struck. "You were really willing to do that? Even after I-" You cut him off before he has time to finish. "It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do that night Noah. You didnt deserve what happened to you. I promised you before I wasn't going to pull away again, and I'm sorry it took me two years to keep that promise."

A small smile spreads across his face, and you smile back. After smiling at each other for what feels like too long, he clears his throat. "So um, we should probably get to the hardware store and see what Connor and Joss picked up."

"Oh, right, of course." You wipe your mouths with a napkin and toss out your trash before heading out. But as you're heading out the door, you get a weird feeling in your gut.

You look around the cafe and see everyone is paying no mind to you, yet you can't help but feel like someone- or something- is nearby, watching you.

#it lives in the woods #noah x mc #noah marshall #ilitw fic #ilitw

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shadowsong26fic · 4 years ago

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Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month (and year. Thank every known deity in the universe.)

...ahem.

Yeah. It’s been a...well, 2020. But it is now officially a new month and year, and time for a Coming Attractions post!

The big news, obviously, is that I actually finished Precipice. \o/ ...well, the first seven arcs, anyway.

As I’ve discussed before, and explained in my very long author’s note at the end of the final chapter on Ao3, the next steps for this AU are a series of seven one-shots which will be released as ‘Preludes,’ covering the six-year timegap before Arc Eight. These mostly deal with Rebels characters (although I’m slightly rethinking one of them because I should probably include Mara Jade in it...), as well as Sidious’ fifth apprentice and possibly Maul.

I’ll also be starting the sequel, entitled either Protectors or Promises (it’s been Protectors for a while, but now I’m waffling? IDK). Anyway, that picks up with arc Eight, Escalation, six years after the end of Precipice. I’ll probably post a preview snippet sometime this month because Why Not.

There will be a hiatus (an actually Planned one this time, lol...). I’m aiming to start posting in April, but we’ll see how things go.

Anyway, moving on to other plans!

Other Star Wars Projects:

our faces like a mirror

I totally planned to start posting that this year <.< On the plus side, I don’t...think the Siege of Mandalore arc (or the stuff from the Mandalorian) really Jossed anything I had planned? Especially given the fact that it’s set from 5 years pre-TPM (I recognize that Lucasfilm has made a timeline decision but given that it’s a stupid-ass timeline decision I have elected to ignore it) to about 5 years post-TPM, so I wasn’t really expecting it to, but it was a vague concern of mine. Anyway, I’ll rewatch to be sure before I post, probably. But, yeah, I’m all the more excited about my girl Bo-Katan now, so hopefully I’ll get some momentum on this.

2021 SWBB:

I finally figured out a general shape of the plot, lol! And I have about...just under 4k of miscellaneous text in this AU (like, actual Story text, not just random notes and scribbles of which I have. A Lot). I need to get another 2k by Sunday, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s going to be in four parts, plus prelude/interludes/coda, because that is the Structure that my brain at like 4AM gave me the other night, lol. While I don’t know the details, I have a general idea of What Happen in parts one, three, and four; except for tying in some Mandalore stuff and making some Decisions about who I want to draw in at various points. Part Two is also up in the air. I know how it needs to end to set up part three, but not so sure about what should actually go in there. Possibly I’ll end up cutting Part Two and just having a three-part story, but eh, we’ll see.

Anyway, I’m having fun with this, especially since I’ve discovered the Plot, so we’ll see how things go from here :)

Other SW Fanfics:

I am...hoping??? to resurrect Distaff and/or the Ventress outline at some point this year, because I’m very fond of those AUs and they deserve some more love. Possibly also another Devoted story. We shall see.

AtLA Fanfic Projects:

As I’ve mentioned a few times over the past few months, I’ve fallen back into this fandom (which was my primary fandom for...like...four to six years????) And I definitely want to write more in it. I’ve already done one AU outline, and I have plans for a couple fulltext fics (...discounting the super-self-indulgent crossover stuff I don’t super plan on sharing outside a very small circle lol). I don’t have much actual, uh, Text on anything yet, but I’m hoping to start posting one or more of those at some point this year, too.

Project One is an Avatar Zuko AU; Aang is around for reasons that do get explained in story; Zuko finds out a couple months before the duel with his father when accidental water or airbending happens (he’s in a sailboat, there’s a storm, I haven’t worked out the details yet). He decides That Clearly Didn’t Happen and proceeds to ignore it...until he manages to accidentally waterbend again when in the infirmary post-duel. At which point he decides he Does Not want to be just...used as a weapon. He figures he has about three and a half years before the comet, he can use that time to figure out what to do next; maybe come back with the comet and Prove his Worth at that point.

He goes to the WAT first, to see what he can figure out about airbending from any texts/mosaics/whatever that are still there; then he heads to the NWT; then he’ll probably pick up Toph because I love their dynamic. He plans to spend a year on each other element (not enough time for mastery but that comet deadline looms large). Obviously, over the course of those three years, his plans change.

And then things get thrown even more off the rails when Aang emerges from the iceberg before Zuko’s year of earthbending is up.

There will be a fair number of OCs hanging around (both to give him someone to talk to at the WAT and I think he’s going to learn from a less-prominent master than Pakku when he gets to the NWT), as well as Iroh trying to find his nephew, and various other familiar faces from the show.

Project Two is about Lu Ten, and a lover he had during the Siege of Ba Sing Se, and what happens to her (and her daughter) after his death. I’ve talked about that one in a little more detail in other posts, I think, hence the comparatively short summary, lol.

Original Stuff:

I am hoping to get more origfic posted this year than I did last year. I’ve got these universes I love exploring, and I feel like they should get more attention, lol.

...I think that about covers it! At the end of last year, I set myself some Goals, which were. Well. 2020 happened, soooo...

Anyway, because I am an Optimist, I’m going to set goals again for this year. And I guess go over how well I did on the ones I had??? A lot of my goals will probably be repeats from last year, because...yeah.

2020 Goals

1. Finish Precipice; complete Arcs 8 and 9 in Protectors/Promises/Precipice II; put out some level of Arc 7.5/Preludes content. I did finish Precipice! I did not do the other things. 2. Write at least 10k of origfic content. Not quite--I ended up with 8,129 words. 3. Start posting OFLAM Nope, that did not happen. 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic (i.e., Distaff; Auxiliaries; Phoenix!Verse; one of the BSG fics I keep meaning to go back to if I ever actually sit down and rewatch the series; if I add an actual sequel/companion to Deja Vu… that probably counts…) Did not happen. 5. Finish updating Lux and Farglass Cycle archives; keep them updated through the end of the year as new content gets added. Nope. 6. At least four AU outline installments of some kind; preferably including a continuation of Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience and actually writing up the main part of Let’s Go Steal a Crossover; but any outline will count. I did put up one AtLA outline, as mentioned before; and I also posted a massive timeline for the Jedi of Valdemar AU, but nothing else. 7. Complete BB submission and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges. Did complete BB, and one giftfic exchange over the summer. 8. Write at least one holiday fic (Valentine’s Day; Mother’s Day; Father’s Day; Halloween; New Year’s; etc.) and post on the appropriate day. Did not do the thing.

2021 Goals

1. Post Arcs 8 and 9 in Precipice!Verse as well as at least half of the Preludes stories. 2. Write at least 10k of origfic content. 3. Start posting OFLAM. 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic; preferably Distaff; but Auxiliaries or Phoenix!verse or one of the BSG fics would also count (Serenissima, Other Battlestar, For Sorrow Sung rewrite...) 5. Start posting at least one AtLA fulltext fic. 6. Finish updating Lux and Farglass Cycle archives; keep them updated through the end of the year as new content gets added. 7. Find a title and set up an archive for Untitled Intrigues Story 8. At least four AU outline installments of some kind, preferably including a continuation of Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience 9. Complete BB submission and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges. 10. Write at least one holiday fic (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s, etc.) and post on the appropriate day.

#coming attractions #shadowsong26fic #miscellania

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adamwatchesmovies · 4 years ago

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Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Although Avengers: Age of Ultron doesn't contain the history-making wow factor of the first and its plot isn't as tight, you'll be pleased with it. We get spectacular action sequences, ample character development, its numerous tie-ins and worldbuilding moments give it great re-watch value, and the whole thing is brought to life with terrific special effects. The film perfectly captures the feel of an epic comic book run.

Set after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers - Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) - now work in seamless unison. When an android named Ultron (voiced by James Spader) appears, he makes it his mission to bring peace on Earth by ridding it of all wars and sources of conflict, starting with the heroes. To help, Ultron gathers allies in the form of Hydra speedster Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and powerful telepath Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).

The first Avengers didn’t need to introduce any new characters. Loki was already an established villain, Black Widow had been in Iron Man 2, Hawkeye briefly in Thor and even the Hulk had two previous feature-length adventures on the big screen. The entire film was about bringing the team together. This sequel has the herculean task of showing them together again and introducing several characters. In addition to the Ultron plot, each character gets a story arc, and colossal action sequences too. When combined with the plot points that'll only pay off in later films, it can be overwhelming.

This also means it's packed with entertainment. Age of Ultron integrates every previous chapter in the franchise perfectly. Everyone shows up at the party and the references/Easter eggs are plentiful. The quiet scenes add weight to the combat sequences. You see how each conflict has shaped these people's lives. It shows that writer/director Joss Whedon and everyone looking over his shoulder cares about the integrity and consistency of this franchise.

Not since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man has a film captured the feel of opening a comic book like this. The explosions and punches aren't merely double-page spreads, they're foldouts that span three or four pages and can only be properly viewed on the big screen. Having seen the film a second time now, I still feel like I’m still just starting to see all there is to see in the action segments.

As the villain, Ultron isn't as memorable as some of the ones we’ve seen before but he does stand out. The android brings an unexpected humorous personality to the story. While he isn’t as fleshed out as you'd like, there is ample character development for the Avengers and the other human characters. With so many players in this big adventure, you'd think the less popular ones would be left either incapacitated early (as Hawkeye ended up in the first film) or flat-out ignored. That’s not the case.

Avengers: Age of Ultron moves quickly, it delivers the spectacle you expect to see, and fits perfectly between the other stories you’ve come to call your favorite. It takes the time to make the superhuman characters feel like people. You’ve got everything you'd want from a sequel to Avengers, except maybe for a really meaty villain. Ultron is good, but he’s not great. He really needed to be introduced earlier and THEN turned into a villain to give us some much-needed breathing room. This flaw will feel bigger than it is and for having the "audacity" of not being as good as the first, it'll be unfairly criticized. Give it time to sink in. You'll realize that it's a pleasing follow-up. When you do see it, stick around for the credits, there’s a little scene about halfway through (but none at the very end) hinting at what's coming next. (2-D Theatrical version on the big screen, May 23, 2015)

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adamrevi3ws · 4 years ago

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League (The Snyder Cut)

The so-called “Snyder Cut” of Justice League (2017) is finally out, and I have seen it!

For those of you that haven’t been constantly harangued by its online presence, Justice League had a very messy behind-the-scenes, hindered by a lot of studio meddling and the fact that its original director, Zack Snyder, left mid-production due to studio conflicts and a massive family tragedy. Snyder was replaced by the now-infamous Joss Whedon, who conducted several reshoots and was later accused of workplace misconduct and harassment, especially from the actor who played Cyborg, Ray Fisher. Many have attributed the problems with the theatrical cut to its behind the scenes chaos, and this theory, combined with the fact that other movies by Snyder have been vastly improved by their director’s cuts (see: Batman v Superman), has caused outcry from a very small but loud group of fans, demanding Snyder’s version of the movie. This basically started right after the movie itself came out, and confused many due to the……mixed… opinions on Snyder’s directing, but somehow WB caved in and gave Snyder an absurd amount of money to finish post-production and film a new scene or two, finally releasing a full four-hour director’s cut on HBO MAX this past Thursday.

Although I had some intense skepticism, I think the hype was overall worth it. Yes, I’m biased because I initially liked the movie in its crappier form, and also generally liked Snyder’s first DC movie, Man of Steel, but trust me on this one. The directing is overall a massive improvement, and unlike the original, it doesn’t look so damn ugly. The CGI is actually finished, and it has this rough and detailed quality that reminds me of the visuals from Man of Steel. Another improvement from the theatrical version is the humor, which feels much drier and thinly spread out (and less sexist), therefore giving its funny moments a lot more value. I think one of the BIGGEST improvements of the film is its character work, delivering much better pathos and characterization. While it’s no Logan, the Snyder Cut delivers some level of heart and soul to an otherwise soulless genre. I think the biggest example of this is with Cyborg, where in the original film he was in maybe two scenes, but in the Snyder Cut, he has a very fleshed out and detailed character arc. It’s very easy to understand why Ray Fisher hates Whedon and WB so much. Even without god knows how much of a toxic environment he had to deal with, literally most of the scenes he got to actually act got cut out of the original movie. This and his extended edition for Batman v Superman are only further proof that Snyder excels when he’s able to add in all the scenes and details otherwise removed by the studio, allowing his movies to be so much more coherent, compelling, and fleshed out. With this extra space, he even gets to go all out with this Chekov’s gun mentality, in which many major details and minor plot points brought up, in the beginning, are often referenced or in some way resolved in the end. Even though I nearly forgot about half of these, it’s a very rewarding experience for attentive viewers. Speaking of attention to detail, Snyder’s greater room to breathe allows him to have the film organically connect to and reference other DC movies, cementing its role in the universe and smoothing out any plotholes of the original. He even adds in a couple of extra DC characters and references to the universe, so you got to admit, this man loves comics, even if you don’t think it’s for the right reasons. This love is exactly why the Snyder cut excels, finally allowing the director to bring his grandiose and mythological vision of the DC universe to the small (but intended for big) screen. Oh, and the scenes with Darkseid are pretty cool.

Despite these clear improvements, the movie itself is still pretty flawed and makes a lot of clear sacrifices for its improvements. The first one I’d like to point out is its lack of filter. It doesn’t really justify its four-hour runtime, and while a lot of the newer scenes are necessary, a good amount feels like they go on for a bit too long and could be trimmed down a bit. The first half of the film is the biggest culprit in this, taking a bit too much time for setup and having a lot of scenes that felt like they didn’t even need to be in a specific order. While the film benefits a lot from adding, idk, nearly every scene they filmed, that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any discretion whatsoever when it comes to editing down its content. The movie really should have been three or three and a half hours instead of a full four, because it was very easy for me to space out in this. I definitely recommend watching it more like a show than a movie, since it’s conveniently divided into “chapters” anyways. Much of my other gripes are pretty standard aspects of Snyder’s work in the DC universe and others, such as the fact that it sacrifices the color of the original for something more detailed yet… monotone (it’s almost all in this sleek, charcoal shade), the fact that Superman is a bit more of an asshole than he should, and weird soundtrack choices. Finally, the ending is a bit strange and also kind of drags, where it would be much more fitting for its final scenes to be separated into a post-credits sequence, but alas, I don’t know if that works as well in streaming.

Even though it’s definitely still a flawed product, I have reached the conclusion that the Snyder Cut was very much worth making, and definitely worth watching, if you can stomach a four-hour superhero movie. I give it a 7.9/10.

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jaxsonharry1 · 4 years ago

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League: 5 Biggest Changes Shown In The Trailer

A new trailer of Zack Snyder’s Justice League reveals a lot of changes for this version when it drops on HBO Max. Many people thought that Zack Snyder’s Justice League would be the same as the previous Justice League film, but they all were proven wrong after the release of the trailer. According to the trailer, this film is going to be a four-hour-long film and has been showcased as a completely different film, and it will be making its debut on March 18th, on HBO Max. The trailer also includes an incomparable Snyder footage, which has already been seen by the viewers. Apart from this footage, the trailer also features various new footage that includes several new characters, which are completely different than the 2017’s version of Justice League. In this article, we have discussed some of the biggest changes that have been shown in the latest trailer of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

The Death Heard ‘Round The Universe

The starting of the trailer shows a dying Superman from the events of the film Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. This footage is a new slow-motion shot of Superman suffering from a wound in his chest given by Doomsday. A wave has been sent all over the world because of his screaming, according to the trailer. The monologue of Lex Luthor is running in the background, and this scene depicts that Apokolips’ forces have been brought to Earth.

The Bat-Tank

The Bat-Tank is one of the most iconic vehicles that have been depicted in DC comics and in Ben Affleck’s Batman as well. The Dark Knight Returns shows the fight between Superman and Batman along with the War Machine, which is also known as Bat-Tank. A major impact has been left because of the early work of Frank Miller with Batman. It has created a revolution in the world of comics and has been an inspiration for various Batman stories that are yet to come. This is the primary reason for fans waiting to see the Bat-Tank on the big screen.

The Tone Fits

The 2017 version of Justice League never felt the same as a Zack Snyder movie, and it has been considered a big problem. From the starting of the movie till its end, the film Justice League seems very family-friendly and way different from the earlier films. It was the result of tampering and reshooting the entire film by Joss Whedon. If the new trailer depicts the final product, it will become very close to the feeling like Zack Snyder’s trilogy’s third chapter. It is epic and dark.

The Knightmare Continues

In the film Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, fans only got to see small footage of the Knightmare – an apocalyptic future. In this world, Darkseid rules, and his general is Superman and Batman leads a resistance. Zack Snyder had plans to make a three-part trilogy of Justice League, and one part would be in the world of Knightmare. Since Zack Snyder’s Justice League might be his last involvement with the DC Extended Universe, it would be possible that Snyder will be making this entire movie on the timeline of Knightmare.

The Speed Force

According to one of the teasers from Zack Snyder, it seems that Zack’s Knightmare film may have had Barry Allen’s Flash going back in time in order to save Justice League from killing by Darkseid. Barry has been seen in the Speed Force while traveling through time in various unclear glimpses. In one of the most popular deleted scenes, Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen has been shown saving Iris West.

This article concludes some of the biggest changes that have been shown in the new trailer of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Source: Zack Snyder’s Justice League: 5 Biggest Changes Shown In The Trailer.

#Zack Snyder #trailer

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silentauroriamthereal · 5 years ago

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Writer meme

I was tagged by @ligeiasand! Thanks for the tag!

ao3 name: SilentAuror

fandoms: Just Sherlock. I’m a one-fandom-at-a-time kind of person!

number of fics: 86 in this fandom, working on #87 as we speak. Closing in on 2.3 million words now. :)

fic i spent the most time on: Hands down, Against the Rest of the World. It took me four solid months to write that beastie, writing literally every single day. The average chapter length is 7,585 words and I posted a new chapter on average every six days. I lived, breathed, and dreamed in that universe for months, finishing it literally two days before the mini-sode Many Happy Returns aired and immediately jossed it with new canon, lol. Doesn’t matter; I got it done!

fic i spent the least amount of time on: I don’t know, honestly. I’ve written some fics in VERY little time. Possibly the most impressive given its length might be Deductions of a Lesser Mind, which I wrote, edited, and had posted within 24 hours of His Last Vow airing. It was my first series 3 fix-it fic and is 25,700 words long. That said, I think my really short ones, like These Four Walls (1,590 words), took me maybe half an hour?

shortest fic: I don’t really do short fics, lol. But one of my few exceptions is Unspoken, written the night before The Sign of Three aired. It’s 1,130 words.

most hits / most kudos / most comment threads / most bookmarks / highest total word count: Most hits: Best of Three: currently at 124,909 hits. Most kudos: Also Best of Three: currently at 5,423 kudos. Most comments: Against the Rest of the World: currently at 1,919 comments. Just comment threads? Also Against the Rest of the World, with 655. Most bookmarks: Best of Three again, currently at 2,284 (1,618 of which are listed as public). Highest word count: Against the Rest of the World, with 151,704 words (20 chapters).

favorite fic i wrote: This is like having a favourite child. There are definitely stories that are closer to my heart... man, out of 86 stories, it’s really hard to say!! Can I choose five? In no particular order (really!), if there were five stories of mine that I always really want people to read, they might be: Against the Rest of the World, The Wisteria Tree, Bridging the Ravine, The Unfinished Letters, and Vena Cava. GAH, now I feel like I just sold out the rest of my stories! (I’m sorry, I love you guys, too!!)

fic i want to rewrite/expand on: I’m a big believer in leaving a finished work alone. That said, I still have vague plans to write a sequel for Isosceles, wherein Sherlock and John go to LA to visit Corey Graham. :)

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on: Hmm... why don’t I just give you the opening bit of my current project?

Interesting, that soldier fellow. He could be the making of my brother. Or make him worse than ever.

Mycroft purses his lips and moves the cursor back to the start of the surveillance video, beginning it at the precise moment where John Watson rushes forward and begins to beat his brother to a bloody pulp. It’s not the first time he’s watched it. It’s not even the fortieth. He has every moment of it committed to memory, as he’s been thinking about it at regular intervals since the day it happened. He watches the scene unfold again with passive disconnection, then pauses the footage once Watson has departed, leaving Sherlock in a puddle of his own blood.

He leans back in his chair and folds his fingers behind his head, frowning in thought. The time has come to make a decision.

Tagging: All of you who write! I’ve tagged you, so now you have to do it, and say I sent you. Boom.

#writer stuff #sherlock #silentauror #my ficcage #memes and such

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positively--speculative · 5 years ago

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The MCU’s Strength is Also it’s Worst Enemy (and so is the fandom)

For years, there have been things bothering me about the MCU, and now that I’ve been taking a Fantasy Writing class, things are becoming a bit clearer to me.

Let me give you all a snippet of my notes from the chapter about revising and editing:

Are my characters acting in ways that are reasonable for them?

Your protagonist, especially, will need to follow a logical progression of character development based on what he or she experiences. If your protagonist is a king who learns he can’t indulge in selfish behavior, his development needs to fit with his character arc. He can’t indulge in selfish behavior throughout the entire novel, suffer no consequences, and then have a sudden discovery about how wrong he was.

And I think this is part of what I find wrong with the MCU. In the beginning, I think it was a strength to see different directors handle these characters, but over time, with the number of movies that got added to the roster, it likely became hard for directors to keep up with what has gone on with these characters since as far back as 2008 (twelve years ago now). To add to that, between 2016 and 2019, there were eleven movies released for the MCU by Disney. I don’t want to make this a DC vs Marvel thing, but I think it’s appropriate to compare the two within that amount of time, because in that same three years, DC gave us BvS, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam. On average, Warner Bros gave us two movies per year from this franchise while Disney gave us almost four (the calculated number is 3.6), and I think it stands to reason that releasing just a little less per year gives your writers and directors more time to examine what the franchise has already created and work to remain consistent while still putting their own creative touches on the products they’re assigned.

Of course, the DCEU is not perfect. I think it’s very difficult to find someone in the fandom that will defend Justice League. I mean, many of us did in the beginning, but I think that was a result of being in a fandom that is constantly crapped on than anything else. As time progressed, many of us began to agree it was not a good movie, and a lot of us agree that it was due to WB trying to cater to the wrong crowd of people who insisted the DCEU would be better if its tone matched that of the MCU and had Joss Whedon’s touch--which is i n c o n s i s t e n t with what the franchise had already set up.

And let’s look at the spacing for each DCEU release starting from 2016:

BvS--March 2016

Suicide Squad--August 2016 (five months later)

Wonder Woman--June 2017 (nine months later)

Justice League--November 2017 (five months later)

Aquaman--December 2018 (thirteen months later)

Shazam--March 2019 (three months later)

On average, WB allows for a seven month space between movies.

Now, let’s look at the spacing between each MCU release starting from 2016:

Captain America: Civil War--April 2016

Doctor Strange--November 2016 (seven months later)

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2--May 2017 (six months later)

Spider-Man: Homecoming--July 2017 (two months later)

Thor: Ragnarok--November 2017 (four months later)

Black Panther--February 2018 (three months later)

Avengers: Infinity War--April 2018 (two months later)

Ant-Man and the Wasp--July 2018 (three months later)

Captain Marvel--March 2019 (eight months later)

Endgame--April 2019 (one month later)

Spider-Man: Far From Home--July 2019 (three months later)

On average, Disney allows almost four months (3.9 to be exact) of space between its movies.

Now, anyone who has followed me for a while understands that I don’t just blindly hate the MCU. I actually enjoy a lot of the MCU, but that does not make it immune from my criticism, and I always try to make my criticism as fair as possible. And as much as I hate a lot of the creative choices directors like the Russos made for these characters, I can kind of understand why Endgame--to me--ended up being a complete mess of a movie. Here you have several directors working on several different movies with such tight deadlines. How can it be expected that all of these directors watch every single movie released up until the one they’re assigned and on top of that communicate with the director whose movie follows theirs about what they’re doing so they can stay consistent with theirs while watching all the same movies they are?

And right here is why so many of us are just getting tired of Disney, because it’s clear that Disney doesn’t care about quality, they care about quantity and making as much money as possible by giving themselves the most visibility in the box office, and it’s why others and myself have grown so exhausted with the most passionate of MCU fanatics. It’s just really clear that many are just loyal to the MCU and Disney brand and will refuse to give or take any criticism of the brand. And as long as these people continually consume this product, take any and all constructive criticism personally, and refuse to demand anything better, nothing is going to change and Disney is going to continue to grow into the monster its become.

#mcu critical #disney critical #writing #anti-capitalism #please excuse any typos #or small errors in numbers #I think they're right #but people were talking to me nonstop as I was writing this

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luckyjak · 6 years ago

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fic: Lover (1/3)

Sixteen years he’s gone without a lover, and it hasn’t really bothered him all that much. Now that he and Essek have started fooling around, however, he finds it difficult to go on for too long without touching him. A story about intimacy, trust, and the process it takes to care about someone again. Shadowgast. AO3 Link

A/N: This story was brought to you by Taylor Swift’s Lover on repeat for three days straight. It was also inspired by the fact that a lot of Shadowgast fic is mostly about them boning, and while their sexual tension is in fact breath-taking, some folks need time before taking that step, and I wanted to see what that looked like in fiction with these two idiots.

But then, of course, the plot fucking grew, as plots are likely to do, and so we have this rather large fic of mine. There are three chapters (maybe four--chapter three is *long*) but it’s all already complete: it just needs editing. My goal is to have all of it up by Thursday so it can be immediately jossed, but I make no promises.

Comments are incredibly encouraging.

Sixteen years.

Sixteen years, seven months, twenty-three days, to be more exact. Sometimes his eidetic memory was more of a curse than a gift. That’s how long it had been since he last saw Astrid, had last kissed her, had last been with another person, physically.

And he had been fine. Really. Sure, there had been lonely nights here and there, days when he longed to have companionship of a different sort, not better or worse, more physical than Nott’s constant friendship, Caduecus’s quiet company, Fjord’s charm, Jester’s warmth and laughter, and Beau’s cunning wit.

He had a right hand and a perfect memory: he could make due alone, to take care of any physical need he might have. He might’ve missed the afterglow, the intimacy of having someone close by afterwards to hold on to, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t live without. He was adaptable. Besides, he highly doubted he would ever have another lover again, anyway, given everything that had happened in his life.

Who could ever want someone like him?

Except he was wrong, of course, because the past three times he’d seen Essek Thelyss in the past two weeks, they’d ended up exactly like this: pressed up against one another, trading hot kisses, exploratory hands caressing against cloth and skin.

He wasn’t even sure how it had even started: they had been studying together, talking quietly about-- something. It had been important, he was sure, but then they were kissing , like kissing-kissing, like Caleb-on-the-floor-with-Essek-on-top-of-him kissing. Caleb hadn’t wanted to stop, but eventually Essek pulled off of him with a sheepish smile and a dark purple flush on his face, and said he’d have to see him again soon, and left.

And Caleb could have came right then, harder than he’d been in years and left wanting on the library floor in the Xhorhaus, but he pulled himself up and managed to make it to his bedroom, where he spent the evening thinking of little else besides the dark purple color of Essek’s face and the way his body had felt pressed against his own.

He slept well that night. Better than he had in a long time, deeply and fully, to the point that Nott had to wake him the next morning when his internal clock failed him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted so much. Being with Essek was like turning his brain off in the best way possible--better than polymorph, even, because all he could think about was tongue and mouth and lips and skin.

The next time they met had been at an official affair, a meeting with the Bright Queen with Essek in attendance, cool and formal and every bit the perfectly poised professional. He would have thought he might’ve just imagined their earlier entanglement entirely, if Essek hadn’t grabbed him after the meeting and shoved him into a nearby coat closet.

He then proceeded to have a rather excellent ten minutes, and would have gladly spent even more time with him, trading lips and tongue and touch, if Beau hadn’t come looking for him, forcing him to quickly try and detangle Essek’s mantle from where it had gotten hooked into Caleb’s mythril shirt.

He had insisted on a private bath in the hot tub that night, away from the others, with the door locked tight.

Their latest encounter was a more formal occasion. An invitation, sent via a rather beautiful raven, inviting him to an unknown location that must have been Essek’s home, in order to “continue the discussion they had before.”

He didn’t quite know what that meant; they hadn’t discussed anything the last few times they’d been together, unless you counted the way they immediately gravitated towards one another, their magnetism more powerful than any spell Caleb knew.

They hadn’t had sex yet. They had, however, made out furiously, every time they’d been alone in a room together.

Which meant that when Essek invited him over, Caleb showered, shaved, bought another new coat, and very seriously considered asking his companions for advice before deciding against it.

Gods, but he wanted him badly. He’d masturbated more this past week than he had in the past decade, or so it felt like.

He had barely made it into Essek’s house before he found himself draped across Essek’s lap, the drow either unaware of or uncaring about the weight of Caleb’s bony ass pressed against his thighs. Essek had one hand snaked around Caleb’s waist while the other had a deathgrip on his thigh, squeezing and massaging and trending ever higher up Caleb’s body. Caleb, for his part, was busy concerning himself with Essek’s neck, and how sensitive his ears were, and what lovely little noises he was making, and wondering just how dark a color he could make his skin go if he kept biting his neck, and--

He felt the cold of the alarm spell wave over him before he heard it. He groaned, loudly, and his only consolation was the fact that Essek groaned, too, before pulling away from him.

“No,” he moaned, trying to pull Essek closer to him, even as the drow protested despite Caleb’s mouth on his chin. It had only been--

An hour? Really? It hadn’t felt like it.

“Sorry,” Essek apologized, pressing several fast kisses against Caleb’s face. “I thought we’d have more time before I was summoned to the Council.”

“When will I see you again?”

“I don’t know. I’ll come by this evening, if I can get away.”

He hadn’t come back that evening. Or the evening after that. The day after that, Caleb was the busy one, stuck out in the Xhorassian wilderness trying to find some Cobalt Soul artifact for Dairon and Beau that had been abandoned centuries ago.

Which was fine, really. He didn’t mind helping Beau--gods know she had done enough for him and the rest of the group so far.

What he did mind was the cold, and the lack of privacy in the dome, and the Storm Giants, and the fact that he could not get Essek out of his mind, and he was pretty sure if he didn’t have sex with that man soon he might actually physically die.

Which was stupid. He’d gone sixteen years without sex before. He could do it again. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t a hormone-induced teenager. He could, in fact, wait. Patience was a virtue, or so they said.

...The fact that he convinced the group to return to Rosohna for a few days of rest before heading to Traveler-Con was something of a victory, however. Convincing Jester to cast Sending on Essek to find out if he was available that evening was even moreso. And by the blessing of some god Caleb didn’t really believe in, Essek was both available and had extended an invitation for Caleb to come over as soon as he got back.

Jester teased him horribly about it the whole evening, but it was fine. He’d endure whatever sort of teasing he’d get from Jester if it meant he got to see Essek again.

A quick shave and a change of clothes later, he made his way to Essek’s home, where he was invited in, led to the study, and then promptly had the door shut in his face.

“Wha--Essek?” He tried the door handle, but it was locked. A sense of panic began swelling in his stomach. Was this a trap? A trick of some sort? What if this was all a plot by Ikithon to get him to lower his guard and--

“I’m sorry!” The drow’s voice was muffled through the door, but it was still Essek’s voice. There was no mistaking his accent. “I just--I keep meaning to talk to you, but every time we’re in the same room together we end up kissing instead of talking, and it’s important that I talk to you. So...A door between us. So that we might converse.”

Caleb couldn’t help but laugh, the anxiety in his stomach lifting as he leaned against the door frame. “A bit of an overreaction, don’t you think? We’re both adults. We can--we can handle a conversation without kissing.”

“Oh, really?” Essek’s voice was smug to the point of pretentiousness. “So if I were to open this door right now, you wouldn’t kiss me senseless, despite not seeing each other for a week? How disappointing.”

There was a small click, and Caleb knew Essek had unlocked the door, but hadn’t opened it, instead leaving the hypothetical ball in Caleb’s hypothetical court.

A delicate situation: if he opened the door, he would inevitably want to kiss Essek senseless, thus proving him right for locking the door in the first place. On the other hand, not opening the door also proved him right, about neither of them having the strength to resist one another physically.

Clever man.

With a defeated sigh, Caleb turned around so that his back was leaning against the doorframe before he slid down it, so that he sat leaned against the door on the carpeted ground. “You may have a point,” he confessed, his head leaned against the door, his knees tucked under his arms. “You might’ve written a letter.” He offered, wishing that they had talked about whatever Essek wanted to speak about earlier, and not wasted the little time they had together by talking. Especially since talking verbally meant Caleb would have ample opportunities to put his foot in his mouth and ruin everything.

“I considered it,” Essek said. “But I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

That was intriguing. “What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

He could hear the hesitation in Essek’s voice as he took the time to carefully consider his words. “What--what are we, Caleb Widogast? Are we dating? Are we--are we just kissing for fun? Are you interested in me? Are you--Luxon above, are you courting me? I tried to do some research on Imperial courting practices but I didn’t get very far. Information about the Empire is...scarce, even for me.”

A fair question. One that Caleb might’ve thought to ask himself, if he had managed to think about anything beyond his libido for the past week. “I--I don’t know what we are,” Caleb confessed, running a hand through his auburn hair, a few loose curls coming out of his hair tie. “We never talked about it. What--what do you want to be?”

A small chuckle. “I believe I asked you first, Widogast.”

He considered being pedantic and pointing out that Essek merely asked for clarification, not a specific desire, but after thinking about it, he realized he did eventually want to kiss him again, and arguing about something ridiculous like this wasn’t likely to lead to that situation. “I suppose I want whatever you want,” Caleb confessed, feeling small pressed against the dark wood of Essek’s home. “I--I enjoy spending time with you, Essek. If you wish to have a--a relationship, I’m open to the idea. If you just want to kiss again without changing things between us, I’m okay with that. And if you want to stop--whatever this is, between us, I--would respect your decision.”

He would hate it, but he would accept it, if that’s what Essek wanted.

(Gods, he hoped that wasn’t what Essek wanted!)

“Hmph. A diplomatic answer.”

“What do you want, Essek?” Caleb turned the question back on him, a little frustrated that his own answer wasn’t apparently good enough. “Do you want a relationship? Do you just want a--a friend with benefits? What do you want?”

“I want,” the dark elf sighed dramatically. “I don’t want a--what did you call it? A friend with benefits? I can serve my own needs, thank you. If--if that’s all you are interested in, then I don’t see this working out, I’m sorry. And I think I’m too young to be courted seriously, especially by someone so--so different from me. At least right now,” Essek breathed in deeply, and while Caleb couldn’t see him, he could imagine that Essek was just a bit flustered as he spoke. “And I don’t want to stop kissing you, because despite all common sense and evidence to the contrary, I do rather like you, Widogast.”

“I can’t imagine why.” He said, in a dry tone of voice that could be taken as either a joke or seriously, depending. He meant it as a joke, but now that he said it, he was curious what Essek had to say in response.

“Is it so ridiculous to think that someone might like you, Caleb?” Essek questioned; Caleb didn’t have a response, feeling small and ridiculous. It took Essek a moment to continue. “I--you make me laugh, Caleb. And you treat me like a person, not just someone in a position of authority. And you’re so smart. I could talk to you about magic all the time and never get bored,” There was a slight pause as it sounded like Essek was readjusting himself. “And I suppose I find you very handsome as well.”

Caleb smiled warmly, a rush of butterflies filling his chest in a way it hadn’t since he was a teenager. “I like you too, Essek,” he confessed, surprising himself with his own honesty. He did like Essek: it wasn’t a lie or a ploy or a manipulation: just a genuine fact. The fact that they had kissed the last few times they had been together was just a bonus that came on top of a general appreciation for Essek’s company. “You’re charming and smart,” he toyed with the amulet he always kept around his neck, the one that kept him safe from scrying. “You’re always kind, to--to me, and to the rest of the Nein. That means so much to me. Most people in my life and in my past haven’t been very kind. And you are,” he breathed in deeply. “Incredibly attractive. I can’t even believe you would like someone like me.”

“What’s not to like?”

“I’m human? From the Empire? And there are so many more attractive men out there. Like, look at Fjord, he’s--”

“Not you.” Essek assured him, his voice soft and kind but solid, impossible to argue with. “And I like you , Caleb Widogast.”

He felt himself blush in the empty room. “I--I like you too, Essek.”

“Sounds like we like each other,” Essek teased through the door, causing Caleb to let loose a chuckle, the nervous swell in his stomach releasing. “I suppose we should date one another, then.”

“I suppose so,” Caleb agreed, moving his head off of the door, turning instead so that he was facing the door handle. He wanted to kiss him again. “Can we open the door now?”

“Just--one more thing. Two more things, actually.” Essek breathed deeply. “I don’t think I’ll get in trouble with the Dynasty for dating you, but I also don’t want to risk endangering my job. Does--will it bother you if we keep things subtle, while we’re in public?”

Caleb shook his head, then remembered that Essek couldn’t see him. “That’s fine. I can keep a secret. Can we tell my companions, or would you prefer to keep them in the dark?”

“I don’t mind if they know. It might be fun to keep them guessing, though. I’ll leave that decision up to you to tell them if you’d like.” Essek breathed in deeply, and Caleb could tell that he was about to ask something he was nervous about. “The second thing: I don’t want to have sex.”

That caused Caleb to pause. “...Like, ever?”

“No. Well, um, not for a while, I guess,” Essek laughed hesitantly, a fake sort of laugh that came mostly from nervousness. “It’s just the last two relationships I had, they both went--went too fast, and I ended up getting really hurt, emotionally, and I just--I want to take it slower, with you. Because I really, really like you, and if I end up fucking things up with you I’ll probably still have to work with you, because I’m the Nein’s liaison, and I don’t want to ruin things like I have in the past. And if that’s a deal breaker for you--”

“It’s not,” Caleb assured him, surprising himself with his own honesty. For all that he had touched himself since he and Essek had started-- this --he found he didn’t mind the thought of waiting, if that’s what his partner wanted. “We can take things as slowly as we need to. It’s--” he paused, playing with his necklace again. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with someone, romantically or sexually. Taking things slow is probably a smart idea for both of us.”

“It’s been a while for me, too,” Essek confessed. “And please, don’t think that it’s not that I don’t want you, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just, I want to do things right , with you.”

“Me too,” Caleb confessed. “Can I kiss you now?”

“ Yes ,” Essek laughed, opening the door behind Caleb. He was hovering at full height while Caleb sat on the floor, but he wasted no time lowering himself into Caleb’s lap, kissing him deeply but quickly. “Then you can take me to dinner, khalir. ”

They did make it to dinner eventually, though a bit later that they meant to. Kissing had taken longer than they meant it to, and when they had pried themselves off of one another it had taken a bit to straighten themselves out. They decided to disguise themselves while going out, and that had been its own moment of silliness as they discussed the pros and cons of various disguises. Essek had turned himself into another drow, a less attractive version of himself with longer hair, while Caleb adopted his blue tiefling disguise, looking very much like himself, if he had been born Jester’s twin.

They talked freely when they were out, holding each other’s hands and talking, getting to know one another in ways they hadn’t previously. He learned that Essek was the youngest of four siblings, and the only one of them that wasn’t a consecrated soul at birth. He learned that Essek wasn’t born into Den Thelyss, but had been adopted into it after they realized he had a talent for magic. Essek, likewise, learned that the last time Caleb had dated someone had been sixteen years ago; that Caleb liked the rice they’d had with dinner but greatly preferred bread, and that he’d only traveled with the Mighty Nein for less than a year, now, but that he considered them his family.

When Essek walked him home after dinner, they kissed on the front porch for twenty minutes, until Darion came out and shooed Essek away, like a parent might to a teenager who had stayed out past curfew.

The two days they were in Rosohna before Traveler-con, Caleb spent as much time as possible with Essek, which wasn’t nearly as much time as Caleb would like, because Essek still unfortunately had to work. But they had dinner together each night, and kissed for several hours afterwards, and talked almost as much as they kissed, and Caleb found he enjoyed both activities equally well.

Before the Nein left for the island, Essek had given him a gift. A notebook, blue leather bound, but sparked with the scent of the arcane. “It’s a messenger book,” Essek explained over Caleb’s puzzled look. “You write something in your copy, and it’ll appear in my copy,” he lifted his own book, a twin to the journal Caleb had. “It’s a way for us to keep in contact without using spell-slots.”

Like Jester’s sending spell, but written down, and something he could keep private, without the rest of the group nosing their way into his business. “I love it,” Caleb said, and then kissed his boyfriend, because he could. “I’ll write in it every night.”

“I hope you do. I want to hear about all of your adventures,” Essek kissed him back swiftly, before pulling away. “Am I teleporting you guys to this...island, right?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Oh, I mind. But,” he squeezed Caleb’s hand, letting their hands swing together between them. “I suppose I mind less now than I did previously.”

#critical role #shadowgast #more coming...tomorrow?#or tuesday #depends on how busy work is

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goldenmeme · 5 years ago

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Untitled Sanders Sides fic!

My fic got Jossed hardcore, so I’m just throwing up the first chapter as a stand-alone instead. It was originally titled “Five Time Deceit Told Thomas His Name (and One Time He Didn’t)” but like... obvs that’s not going to work now. So just imagine this snippet takes place sometime between Intrusive Thoughts and Putting Others First. No spoilers for POF.

Untitled, 2,200 words, PG-13 (Virgil says a swear), no pairings.

Summary: Thomas can’t sleep. Deceit wants to help.

"--then you'll say, 'Well, when you've seen one, you've seen them all,' and Patton will say, 'Yes but this one's eating my pizza!'"

Roman paused for the inevitable roar of laughter and adulation. None came.

"Thomas? Thomas. You're not writing this down. I'm giving you comedy gold and you're letting it fall through your fingers like sand through your... fingers…"

Thomas rolled over just enough to unbury half of his mouth from the pillow. "Roman. Buddy. It's almost 5 AM."

"Well we could have worked on scripts earlier, but you insisted on watching Parks and Rec until inhuman hours again. I need opportunity to create!" The bedsheets rustled behind Thomas with the force of Roman’s gesticulating.

"What happened to 5 PM, when I specifically set aside time to write and then spent an entire hour staring at a blank word document?"

The mattress dipped in a way that, even with his back turned and his eyes closed, somehow managed to convey the haughtiness of Roman’s shrug. "I wasn't feeling inspired at that time."

"Could we maybe try being inspired tomorrow morning instead?"

"I can't control when the muse strikes me, Thomas."

"You’re my muse," Thomas said. He rolled onto his back to starfish out, smacking Roman on the shoulder with one floppy arm. All he wanted in the world was sleep, but apparently Roman wasn’t going to let that happen. "Does my muse have his own muse? How does that even work?"

To Thomas’s right, Logan cleared his throat. Logan thought beds were no place for anthropomorphic personifications of facets of personality, so whenever they congregated in Thomas's bedroom his customary spot was sitting primly beside the bed in a utilitarian office chair he'd conjured from the Dreamscape.

He said, "As amusing as this musing on muses may be, I must remind you how essential it is to maintain a consistent sleep schedule for the--"

"Yup!" Thomas half-shouted. "Thanks Logan, I got it. We go over this at least four times a week."

"And yet you--"

Patton blindly batted a fuzzy paw at everyone and whined, "Nnnnnnnnn, s’sleepy time now." He was cuddled in a ball at the foot of the bed in his cozy kitty onesie. At night he also jammed an old-fashioned long stocking cap over the hood because he thought it made him look more, as he put it, "bedtimey", though the kitty ears distorted the hat and made his head look weirdly lumpy.

“Patton is correct,” Logan said. “It is, unequivocally, sleepy time now, so Roman, if you’ll just put a pin in your ill-timed inspiration--”

"But my witty dialogue…"

"--I promise we'll write your script first thing in the morning--"

Thomas squinted at Logan's silhouette in the darkness. Something seemed... off...

"—when we all have a fresh perspective and Thomas has gotten seven-to-eight hours of restful sleep.”

"… Deceit?" Thomas said.

"Hm," Logan said.

Like a flower blooming in fast motion, his silhouette sprouted a shadowy shape that coalesced into a bowler hat. Deceit pulled off Logan's glasses and threw them behind himself, where they crunched against the wall.

Roman smacked Thomas on the shoulder three times before pointing frantically, as if Thomas may have missed the transformation.

Deceit said, “I just love how much easier it’s gotten for you to spot my little dress-up games. What gave me away this time?”

“I always forget any ideas I have right before I fall asleep,” Thomas said. “Logan would tell me to write it down in my phone’s notes sooner than later, because if I just try to remember it Roman will keep me up for hours badgering me about it, and I’ll forget by morning anyway. If I make myself a note, Roman can be secure in the knowledge that his work won’t get lost in my brain over the next eight hours, and he’ll let me sleep.”

They’d worked that one out years ago. Thomas still had problems remembering the system if Logan didn’t pop in to explicitly remind him, because in the moment Thomas just wanted to sleep and it felt counter-intuitive to get out his phone and start writing instead.

“Curse that fool and his established systems,” Deceit said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I can’t just stop by?”

“Um. Can you?”

“I know you don’t believe that I have your best interests at heart,” Deceit said, “but I do. You wanted sleep. I came to shut the Prince up so that you could get it.”

“Hey!” Roman said.

“You didn’t have to impersonate Logan to do that,” Thomas said.

“Didn’t I? Would you have even considered heeding my advice, had I appeared to you as myself?”

Well…

Across the room, the closet door swung open with an ominous creak.

When Virgil had first started showing up in Thomas’s room, he’d lurked in the closet like the monster they all thought he was back then, glaring out of the barely-cracked door, only ever speaking when Thomas was on the very edge of sleep, and only then because he couldn’t stand to let the important questions the others never asked go unsaid. Questions like, “If you died right now, how long would it take someone to find your body?” and, “Where is your wallet? Do you remember having it when you got home today?” and, “Remember that time in chorus?”

Now that he and Thomas had found a workable equilibrium, Virgil still hung out in the closet (yes, the joke had been made several dozen times) because it was small and dark and comforting. Except now instead of hiding behind a mostly closed door, when the others were feeling chatty he’d sprawl in the open doorway, back propped against the frame and one boot braced on the other side.

He still liked to make an entrance, though. Thomas’s closet door didn’t creak when anyone else opened it.

Instead of sprawling in the doorway, today Virgil appeared sitting aggressively crisscross applesauce in it. “No. He’d have told you to fuck off, like he’s doing right now.”

Deceit smiled bitterly. “Oh good, Anxiety is here.”

“Guys,” Thomas said. “Come on, no fighting. I’m--just--I’m just trying to sleep…”

“And I am just trying to facilitate that,” Deceit said. “I had hoped to do so with as little fuss as possible, but evidently you’re getting much better at spotting me. I may have to retire that tactic.”

“Wait,” Thomas said, horror dawning. “How often have you impersonated the others without me noticing?”

“Why, never!” Deceit said. “You’ve managed to catch me at it every last time! Brava to you.”

“Somehow I do not find that reassuring,” Thomas said.

“Trust issues,” Deceit said, nodding sympathetically.

Roman said, “Only when it comes to you, Deceit. Are you even capable of telling the truth?”

“Oh I assure you, I am very… capable.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it. Say one true thing, right now.”

“Fine,” Deceit said. “RENT is overrated.”

“HOW DARE YOU—”

Thomas had to physically stop Roman from launching himself across the bed. “Okay, woah, hey, eeeeeasy big guy.”

“Thomas, did you hear what he said about RENT?!”

“Yes, immediately after we’d established that he in incapable of telling the truth. Think of everything he says as like… backward-land.”

“So… when he says RENT is…” Roman couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. “What he meant was that it’s an incomparable masterpiece of theatrical genius soiled only by the somewhat questionable staging choices of the cinema adaptation?”

Deceit caught Thomas’s eye from behind Roman’s back. Deceit rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “That’s definitely what he meant.”

“It’s as if you took the words right out of my mouth,” Deceit drawled. “Playful ribbing aside, of course I’m capable of speaking the truth. Why, I’ve made five true statements within this conversation alone. I simply prefer to play my cards closer to the chest than the rest of you bleeding heart goodie-goodie-goobers.”

Thomas said, “You understand that the constant lying makes it really difficult for us to trust anything you say.”

Deceit, surprisingly, actually seemed to think about that. He pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. After a moment’s thought, he said, “You’re right. How about, as a show of faith, you may ask me one thing, and I promise I will answer truthfully.”

Roman rushed out, “Say one nice thing about RENT!”

Deceit said, “Thomas may ask me one thing and I promise to answer truthfully.”

“Really?” Thomas said.

“On my word as a construct of your imagination.”

“What’s your name?”

“… That’s it? You get one, single, honest answer from me, and you waste it to ask my name?”

“Well sure. I know the names of all my other sides, and I can’t very well make you a Christmas stocking with your name on it if I don’t know your name, now can I?”

“Dear god. Your moral side is asleep, how are you still this unbearably saccharine? Fine. My name…” he took a deep breath and gathered his pride, “is Ethan.”

“Oh,” Thomas said. “Huh.”

“What?”

“No, nothing, it’s a good name! It… goes with everyone else’s names?”

“Naturally! Logan, Patton, Roman, and Ethan. Derived of course from Logic, Pathos, Romance, and Ethos.”

Roman gasped. “Thomas, you named me for romance?”

Thomas said, “I don’t… think I named you? You told me your name. I don’t really know how this works.”

Deceit said, “That’s right, Casanova, he did! Did you catch the emphasis I put on the no there? Casa nooooooo va… Anyway, yes, we’re all one big, happy family, all with names that fit tidily into one single convenient naming convention. Well. Except Virgil, of course. Ah, Virgil. Our little eternal outcast. Even his name doesn’t fit in with the rest of us.”

Virgil said, “What do you mean the rest of us? You’re not like them.”

“Hey, you can’t argue with etymology. It’s science.”

Thomas said, “That’s not—a science…”

“Um, it ends in -ology, sooo, yes it is.”

Virgil said, “Remus doesn’t fit that naming convention either.”

Deceit’s smile froze. “Ah. Remus told you his name, did he? I should have known the embodiment of zero impulse control wouldn’t be able to keep privileged information to himself.”

“If you think about it,” Virgil said, “only Thomas’s Good Sides fit that pattern.”

“So nice of you to finally acknowledge the fact that I am one of Thomas’s Virtuous Sides, and not an Evil Side like you, Anxiety.”

Patton thrashed suddenly in his sleep, swiping a velvety, kitten-pawed fist at an invisible enemy before mumbling something mostly illegible that might have ended with, “me or my son again,” and settling back into stillness.

Virgil had to force the fond expression off his face before turning back to Deceit. “Do you really think Thomas is going to buy that you’re supposed to be the embodiment of ethos?”

Roman leaned close to Thomas to whisper-shout in his ear, “Thomas, what’s ethos?”

“Uhhh,” Thomas said. He’d definitely known that once. Logan probably still knew it, but Thomas hadn’t consciously retained much of the Communications course he’d taken in college. “I think it has to do with… the ideals of a society as a whole?…”

“And isn’t that just me to a T,” Deceit said. He was already sinking down as he rushed out the final words, “Okay well it was nice to officially be known by you, good night now—”

“Wait,” Thomas said.

Deceit reappeared, already glowering.

“Your name isn’t Ethan, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Deceit said, voice dripping with… something. Whatever it was, it was not sincerity.

Thomas should have known. With all his other sides, learning their names had felt right, like it was knowledge he’d already had that he’d only needed to be reminded of. Deceit just didn’t strike him as an Ethan.

Roman said, “Why, you’re… lying!” like it was only just dawning on him. “But you promised Thomas an honest answer!”

“And there’s no possible way I could have been lying about that, too,” Deceit agreed. “Are you not understanding this—” he gestured to encompass all of himself, “--whole thing yet? It really is a good thing you’re pretty.”

The ire drained out of Roman in an instant. “I am pretty, aren’t I?”

“And so very quick-witted,” Deceit said. He gave Thomas a tight smile and sunk out of the room before anyone else could protest.

“You know, I think he’s not as bad as everyone makes him out to be,” Roman said.

Thomas rolled onto his stomach and buried his face back into the pillow. With Deceit gone, exhaustion was making itself known again, darkening the edges of his consciousness. It was sooo past his bedtime. “Good night, Roman.”

“Good night Thomas.”

“Night, Virg.”

Virgil’s response was the click of the closet door closing. Thomas couldn’t sleep if it was open, on account of monsters.

Sleep came quickly after that.

***

The next morning—well, afternoon, but Thomas had just woken up—Logan scrolled through Thomas’s phone while Thomas puttered around the kitchen singing breakfast songs to the appliances.

“This is my jam, this is my jam, this is my toast, this is my knife, and this is my jam…”

“Thomas, where did you put Roman’s idea?”

“Hmm? What idea?”

“My records say that Roman had an idea last night, but I don’t see anything in your notes. You couldn’t have forgotten. We have a system.”

Oh. Oooooh no.

#Sanders Sides #Fic #No spoilers #RENT is overrated though #fight me

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the-zodiacs-written-in-the-stars · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 23: Team Angel Fish

“Doctor Korrapati, it is a pleasure to put a face to the name.”

“Likewise, Mister Hancock.”

Savitri and Sander were smiling at each other as they shook hands and all Joss could do was stand next to them, watching them miserably. This was like out of a nightmare. His longtime crush and his girlfriend were shaking hands, all pleasant and nice. Naturally did Joss know they would meet at one point, considering both were prominent figures in Joss' life (at the very latest, Joss' birthday party, he supposed), yet he wished he could have delayed it all. And the circumstances of the meeting were quite less than stellar too. Aliens, superheroes, villains trying to take over the world (or at least Los Angeles). Before Joss could say anything, he was handed a glass of wine by Sonia, who rested a hand on his shoulder and steered him away from Sander and Savitri.

“Let them talk”, requested Sonia firmly.

“But why?”, asked Joss lost. “I already told Savitri most-”

“Yes, quite. Most”, agreed Sonia bemused. “Sander and I have a better understanding of the overall picture, all this... passing on of information like that... Sander is a good teacher, he will explain everything to her. I'd like to have a word with you though.”

“What about?”, inquired Joss curiously.

“You got your girlfriend involved, dear.”

“I'm... aware, Sonia?” Joss nodded, a little confused.

“I'm just... curious, my friend”, whispered Sonia gently, sitting down on the couch on the terrace, motioning for Joss to join her. “I've been well-aware of your... interest in Sander. I didn't quite expect you to turn up with a girlfriend, to be honest. And now you have gotten her involved in something bigger than you, me or anything here.”

“I... My crush on Sander is... just that”, grunted Joss stubbornly, glaring out into the garden. “My feelings for Savitri are genuine. And I didn't get her involved in this out of selfish reasons or anything. She is... one of the most honest and genuine people I have ever met, she is more than qualified for this responsibility because she won't use it for her own gain and she brings the care and attention that Libra needs after what he's been through with Carroll Lewis.”

“Mh”, grunted Sonia thoughtfully. “I just want to make sure that I'm not stuck in the middle of some classic, overused love-triangle, Joss. If you bring romance to the work-place, it tends to add unnecessary drama and I do think that what with the aliens trying to take over the world, we have enough drama going on.”

Furrowing her brows, Joss turned to look back inside. Savitri and Sander were sitting at the table, talking, Sander writing something down to explain it. Both were bent over, seemingly in deep, excited conversation. Joss couldn't deny the way his heart hammered in his chest at it and he couldn't quite pinpoint for whom that hammering was. They were both so... lovely? The way Savitri's thick curls fell over her shoulder, her fingers running through it absentmindedly in a cute habit Joss had been observing for a while now, whenever Savitri was deep in thought. The way Sander's glasses framed his sharp face, the smile pulling on his lips as it always did when he got to explain something – his passion for knowledge. As Joss watched them, he couldn't help but marvel at how they complimented each other. Sander, who loved to share knowledge, and Savitri, who was always so eager to soak up new knowledge.

~*~

Savitri adored Angel. The tiny blonde was an excitable ball of energy and joy; exactly Savitri's people, really. Pure sunshine and optimism. Also really very tiny. Then again, Savitri was a rather tall woman so it seemed even more prominent. Unlike most other short people Savitri had met, Angel didn't seem to quite mind comments about her height – the green-haired one however, she had bared her fangs and jumped up and down at Savitri's comment. Babs. Babara. That was the green-haired one – the cousin of Angel's boyfriend.

“Here's to teamwork!”, declared Angel, lifting her glass up high.

The four of them were at Angel and Sebastian's flat. Angelique Lamour, Sebastian Weinberg, Joss and Savitri. They were to be a team. It was odd, because Savitri felt like an afterthought. Sebastian and Angel were in a relationship, Angel was Joss' best friend and Joss was also close friends with Sebastian. Savitri was just the new girlfriend of Joss'.

“We will be one of the three teams then?”, asked Savitri softly before sipping her wine.

“Yeah. We got Team Lionheart – what an adorable name and quite fitting, considering that Scorpio and Leo started it out – as well as the... Unicorn Princess Squad, and I admit to enjoying the irritated looks on their faces at their own team name thanks to the press”, giggled Angel.

“What's our name?”, inquired Savitri curiously.

“That... is an excellent question”, hummed Sebastian thoughtfully.

“Lionheart's named for the two companions that shared a form and started out their team. We don't really have that, with an owl, a fish, an ibex and a jackal”, noted Joss with furrowed brows.

“Well, the... unfortunately named Unicorn Princess Squad is named for their leader's companion”, offered Sebastian after a moment. “Matteo's Sagittarius.”

“So... you proposing that we're... the Mermaid Goat Squad?”, asked Savitri with a grin.

“Mer--” Sebastian sputtered, nearly spilling his wine. “You, how dare you. A capricorn is not-”

“Mon amour, it is”, interrupted Angel, giggling and leaning into her boyfriend. “Capricorn is literally a goat with a mermaid tail. It's a mergoat.”

“First of all, he's an ibex, not just a regular goat”, grumbled Sebastian with a pout. “And second of all, I am not the leader of this team. I am the most involuntary participant of this team.”

“Aw, Bastien”, huffed Angel with a puppy-dog look.

“No, no. I do not want to fight, I do not want this mess, but most of all, I do not want to be responsible for it all”, argued Sebastian fiercely, shaking his head.

“Well then, any volunteers?”, asked Savitri looking around.

“I volunteer Angel”, offered Joss after a moment.

“...What?”, asked Angel, her eyebrows up in her hairline.

“You're the most enthusiastic, you're a very social creature, you are excellent at staying level-headed”, explained Joss. “You're good choice as leader, Angelique.”

Quietly, Angel stared at them, before she nodded slowly. “Okay. Sure. Yes. Why not.”

“And do you have a name-proposal?”, asked Savitri curiously.

“Mh... how about... Team Angel Fish?”, asked Angel with a mischievous smile.

“Wait that's a great pun!”, exclaimed Savitri excitedly.

“I kno—ow, right?!”, yelped Angel, high-fiving Savitri.

~*~

“Okay, let me recap this”, started Savitri slowly. “Sonia and Sander are in an on-again-off-again relationship, current status... off. He is the one you had... have... a crush on.”

Joss bit his lips and nodded sharply, cheeks feeling hot.

“The one in the tight leather-dress is Tanya, who used to date both James and Babara – not at the same time though. James also used to date Angel, who is now with Sebastian, who is Babara's cousin. Barbara is the green-haired one. Then there is James' sister Jessie, who is no one's ex. They're the ones with the freckles? You actually have not one but two billionaires though because Matteo di Girasole is part of this team. And his fiance Michael. And Michael's sister Melanie. Not only are both your bosses and a model from your agency part of this team, but also your friend the graphic designer, Elizabeth. How...?”

“How?��, echoed Joss confused, blinking a couple of times.

“I mean that I understand, Sander explained that every marble landed in the same spot – or roughly the same spot, some seemed to have gotten a little lost. But this... very interwoven group of people? Not the random drunkard in the corner, or the couple who happened to be on a date? I see that not everyone is connected with each other, but... there is so many connections?”

“You mean that we, or someone in the group at least, were specifically targeted?”, asked Joss. “We... have been considering the possibility, but honestly what... motive would there be? We're just normal people. Matteo maybe, but...”

“I don't know”, shrugged Savitri thoughtfully. “I mean, you can cross me, Angel and Sebastian off the list, considering that we were chosen differently.”

“Me too, because I was outside. The main group landed inside the pub”, noted Joss.

“And the pub, it... it belongs to the siblings, right?”, asked Savitri.

“James and Jessica”, nodded Joss. “So... those two...?”

Savitri shrugged. “Your guess is as good, if not better, than mine.”

~*~

“So what, you guys think that we're the targets?”, huffed Jessie amused.

She sat backward on her chair, arms crossed on the backrest. James was leaning against the bar, right next to her. The pub was still closed, though renovations were going rather well with the help of everyone. And what better time to bring up their theory than when everyone was together.

“Savitri suggested it the other day”, shrugged Joss, brushing her hair behind her ear. “It's as good a theory as any, since the gems came here, to the pub. And the pub is yours.”

“Do you... Do you think anyone could have it out for you?”, asked Mike.

He looked like a big, kicked puppy-dog as he stared at Jamie. It made Joss roll her eyes. Mike and Matt were so very obviously pining for Jamie that it was pathetic. However, Joss was not one with a right to judge, considering her own sad track-record. Still, looking at them made Joss understand why Sonia had taken her aside the other week and asked her if she was bringing any love-drama into this situation. It only complicated things unnecessarily.

“Why would we have enemies?”, asked Jessie incredulously.

Joss furrowed her brows as she watched the way James avoided eye-contact and didn't seem to have any input. This seemed like he was trying to hide something. She wondered what... and she wondered why Jessie didn't seem aware of this. Because Jessica seemed genuinely disturbed by the mere notion of it. Was Savitri's hunch right? Was there something in the Saint Johns' past that had led all of them to this situation...?

“Attacks have increased lately”, noted Lizzy after a moment of working in silence. “I think they're either not happy we took Libra from them, or they see us all gathering as the go-ahead for... whatever they are up to. That ominous 'they' is pissing me off.”

“We've been trailing Carroll Lewis to see if she can lead us to whoever is in charge of her, but so far, no luck”, shrugged Mike annoyed. “...Rick's getting super suspicious.”

Lizzy turned a little, looking guilty. Joss understood why; she was glad that she could share this with her girlfriend. Having to lie and hide such a huge thing from someone you loved? (Or liked a whole lot, because Joss wasn't ready to put the big l-one there just yet.)

“Just means we gotta take care of this fast”, declared Lizzy seriously.

Read here on AO3!

Previous Chapter <- || Masterpost || -> Next Chapter

#Own Story #Story: Written in the Stars #Project: Written in the Stars

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lovemesomerafael · 5 years ago

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Destroying the Planet to Save It Chapter 2: Another Damn Emergency

Chapter 1 Read it on AO3

“A what now?” Bucky cried.

Everyone in the back of the panel truck, including three Avengers, four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, seven Secret Service agents, two Presidents of the United States and a First Lady, started shouting. Tornadoes were rare enough in Washington D.C., and if Clint Barton’s eyes were to be believed, this one was a monster. As a result, Steve found himself amid a large group of people simultaneously and collectively losing their shit in an enclosed space. The cacophony went on for several minutes before the assault on his supersoldier hearing finally overcame his innate politeness and respect for authority. Bigtime.

“SHUT UP!”

Steve’s enhanced strength and lung capacity ensured that the ears of everyone else in the truck now hurt as much as his did. It didn’t even occur to him to be sorry. In the stunned silence that followed, each person heard whatever Natasha whispered in Russian over the comms.

“What is it, Natasha?” Steve asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

“Uh, I see it, Rogers. The tornado. It’s… Huh. Not sure I want to be here right now.”

Former President Lattimore whimpered.

Current President Everett Burke scoffed at him, his voice quiet but clearly heard by all. “Oh, for the love of… Pull yourself together, Adam. At least pretend you got a sack on you.”

Lattimore, an ostentatiously church-going Christian, gasped. Everyone else in the truck tried to look somewhere else.

“Natasha,” Steve said. “The tornado, is it between us and the jet?”

“No, and it’s not heading that way. No reason to deviate from the plan.”

“Then don’t.”

“Listen,” President Burke said to Steve, “There’s going to be a lot of damage. I need to get somewhere where I can do my job.”

“Sir, right now the best thing you can do is make sure you remain able to do your job. And that means letting me get you to safety.” Bucky hid a smile at the heavy dose of Captain America Steve pumped into his voice. “You can do anything you need to from where we’re going.”

“Which is where?”

“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air.”

Tony spoke up. “Sir, I can assure you, you’ll have everything you need.”

“I am the President of the United States! I can’t just haul ass when the Capital’s in trouble!”

“With all due respect, Sir, that’s exactly what the President should do in this situation.” This was Craig Thomas, the senior Secret Service agent in charge of security at the event they’d just fled. “I have to agree with Captain Rogers. Only difference between what we’re doing now and what we’d be doing otherwise is, the decoys will be on Air Force One.”

“And us? Where will we be?”

“I admit yours is bigger, Sir,” Tony smirked, “But I do know how to kit out a plane.”

President Burke grinned, giving in to the wisdom of the plan. “I’ll just bet you do, Stark. What kind of scotch you got on board?”

“You won’t be disappointed. I promise.”

*****

Sam looked around at what he could only describe as a bunker. The limousine they’d arrived in had pulled into what appeared to be an industrial park, but as soon as they passed the roll-up door from the outside, all resemblance to a normal building ended. The driver crossed the garage-like first room to enter a steeply-angled tunnel that took them what Sam estimated was at least two stories underground. He wondered how far away from the actual entrance the tunnel took them. It was impossible to know, but he guessed they had to have driven at least two blocks from the building they’d entered.

“The fuck?” He whispered to himself.

There were a number of vehicles in the cavernous space that opened up at the end of the tunnel. Sam saw another limo, two mid-range sports cars, at least five utility trucks of various types, and probably a dozen ordinary sedans.

“What, exactly, is this place?” Sam asked.

Jarman Arias swished a hand dismissively through the air. “Washington is a dangerous city. I like to have a place of safety. Just in case.”

Sam and Agent Herrera were all eyes as they were guided from the limousine to a door nearby, and Sam had time to wonder how wise it was to follow when he saw that the door was made of metal and wouldn’t have been out of place on a bank vault except for its industrial ugliness. The door was set into the thick concrete of the walls. Sam noticed other doors and a few concrete hallways leading off of the massive garage space. He had no idea what to think, and Herrera didn’t appear any less confounded. He swallowed his misgivings and stepped through the door into what, surprisingly, appeared to be a fairly ordinary conference room. Luxurious, but not quite so evil-villian’s-lair as the space they’d just left.

Once the group had shuffled in and Arias had taken a place at the large, mahogany table that dominated the room, he offered Sam a cigar. Sam wanted to refuse. He meant to. Had he chosen to, he could have rattled off half a dozen reasons why he should, without even having to engage his brain. But Sam knew a little about cigars, and when he saw what was in the small humidor Arias was holding, he found himself absolutely incapable of declining. Fuck it. The dude was either a crazed megalomaniac who could manufacture a tornado, or he wasn’t. Whether Sam accepted a once-in-a-lifetime cigar wasn’t going to change that. He saw Anita Herrera’s raised eyebrow and shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll give you one, if you want.”

She smiled at him again, and Sam thought he might be a little in love already.

The room had five doors, including the one through which they’d entered. A couple were open, and another was ajar. Again, they were all metal, and all fitted into the concrete walls in a way that let Sam know how thick those walls were. He was interested in the fact that this place was underground, just where you were supposed to go in a tornado. Had Arias known there would be one? From what Barton had said, the tornado was massive. Sam wondered how well the huge hotel they’d left would have withstood something like that. He scowled, deep in thought, as one of Arias’s lackeys lit Sam’s cigar for him. Shit, he thought as he inhaled a mouthful of delicious smoke. Arias may have been a complete choad, but damn, that was a nice stogie. He looked around and indicated the room with a sweep of his arm.

“So you’re seriously tellin’ me this fucking doomsday silo is just you tryna keep from gettin’ mugged? I don’t think so.”

“Mr. Wilson, I don’t believe I have to answer to you,” Arias said smoothly, putting his cigar back in his mouth.

“I ain’t say you do. I’m just… interested.”

Arias smirked around his cigar, but said nothing.

“You got cable or somethin’ down here?” Sam asked, seeing he wasn’t to get anywhere with straight-up questions. “I’d like to see what’s going on outside.”

The worst of the destruction was north of the city, around Bethesda and Chevy Chase, although as tornadoes do, this one had skipped across the landscape, done some heavy damage in Rock Creek Park and even touched down as far south as Adams Morgan. So far, there were only three deaths reported, but it was early. The tornado itself had been accompanied by serious winds which had damaged a lot of buildings, including the National Cathedral and a number of historical sites.

*****

Stark’s Gulfstream G450 was at capacity, even though Pepper Potts and three of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had stayed behind in Washington to deal with the threat. They’d put out the word that there had been a bomb scare, because that was the most plausible and the least surprising story. Tell people what they expect to hear, and they won’t ask questions. But Steve, Tony, and Bucky knew that nobody had any idea what had happened in D.C. Not really. Bruce Banner was still hard at work trying to make sense of the data. He would meet them in New York with Clint and Natasha as soon as they could get there.

In the meantime, President Burke was already talking on several phone lines at once, even as he sipped Tony Stark’s fine scotch. He was aboard with only eight Secret Service agents and the First Lady, which meant a fucking horde of functionaries were pissing their pants right now. The President simply did not get to leave Washington without months of planning and a 747 full of people with him.

“It’s the damn twenty-first century, Clive,” the President was saying. “You don’t need to see my face for us to get work done. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll text you a fucking selfie when we get off the phone here. Spine up, would you?”

Tony, sitting across from him at the small galley table, smiled and nodded, amused.

At the front of the cabin, Former President Lattimore and Agent Emerson sat in seats facing one another, with two of Lattimore’s usual Secret Service detail in seats across a little aisle from them. A healthy slug of very expensive gin had helped Lattimore calm himself, although the real reason he wasn’t as put out as he had been initially was the realization that he had been whisked away with the current President. Although Joss Emerson seriously doubted that was anything more than circumstance, she’d been the one to point that out, and encourage Lattimore to think that was due to his own continued importance, because it kept him pacified. She’d learned very well how to keep President Lattimore happy over the four long years of his administration. She’d voted for Burke more to make her work life better than for any political reason, and she had to stifle a groan at finding herself here, again, babysitting Lattimore. Thank God Mrs. Lattimore was basically a cipher. Her husband was enough work.

Joss’s mind was whirling. Of course, she’d known that S.H.I.E.L.D. was worried about something, and that whatever it was, it was serious enough, and strange enough, to warrant the unheard-of move to actually use the Avengers for security at tonight’s event. She had been well-briefed on the bizarre plan to evacuate if that threat emerged, and clearly instructed not to ask questions. Joss had been Air Force; she knew how to keep her head down and her mouth shut. But they couldn’t keep her from seeing, or thinking.

So Joss knew some things. She knew that this was no bomb threat. You didn’t need the Avengers to deal with something like that. She also knew that, like President Lattimore, she was only here on this plane through coincidence. Joss knew enough about the Avengers to know that, ever since they’d been back from Wakanda, Steve Rogers never went far without Bucky Barnes. If Captain America was tasked with protecting the President, he wasn’t going to do it without his Sergeant. Which meant that, when the threat they feared had emerged, Barnes had instructions to just bundle Lattimore and his entourage up and bring them along so he’d be on hand to help Rogers with the real mission.

She shivered a little. Although she would die rather than let him know it, Joss had always kind of had a thing for Bucky Barnes, ever since Captain America had defied the whole world to rescue his lifelong friend from Hydra. Sure, Steve Rogers was a gorgeous hunk of heroic muscle, the personification of bravery and patriotism and all that crap. She wouldn’t kick him out of bed. But Bucky Barnes? That man was an absolute filthy-hot badass. Joss’s kryptonite. She’d spent more time on YouTube than was perhaps entirely normal, watching video of him making impossible shots and fighting with that stupid-sexy metal arm of his, pulling knives out of God knows where and flipping them around too fast for her to follow with her eyes, let alone try to emulate. Joss found the whole package so ridiculously erotic that she was, at this moment, squirming in her seat. And it wasn’t only because of the damn wildly uncomfortable thong she’d worn because she’d known she was going to meet him tonight and fuck if she was going to do it wearing granny panties.

She didn’t fool herself that The Avengers would let her help save the world, whatever the threat was this time. But she was here with them in an enclosed space, and this was her one chance to be close to them, so she decided to find out what, if anything, they’d tell her. And maybe, just maybe, get a chance to see if Bucky Barnes really smelled as good as she’d always imagined he would.

Making her way back through the jet, Joss saw him standing with Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter in the little galley at the rear of the jet’s cabin. Both Steve and Bucky had shed their tuxedo jackets and their bow ties hung down their chests from unbuttoned collars. As she approached, she saw Bucky look up and notice her, and felt a dirty roll low in her body, accompanied by a shocking jolt of nerves as he grinned at her.

As soon as Bucky moved a little forward to talk quietly with the Secret Service agent he’d been partnered with, Steve moved a little closer to Sharon.

“You all right?” He asked quietly.

“Of course,” she smiled. “Plan worked flawlessly. The President’s safe, and we even got a bonus President. What’s not to like?”

Steve frowned a little. “A lot. It’s getting a little hard to imagine that the energy signature we’re seeing, whatever it is, isn’t causing these phenomena.”

“You’re saying you’re afraid somebody’s figured out how to cause natural disasters.”

“I’m trying not to say that. But after this...”

“Well, if it’s true, then Captain America will stop them. Like always.” Sharon smiled up at Steve, and he felt the thrill he always did when she looked at him. He was getting very fond of the seemingly unshakable confidence she always showed in him. At the same time, Steve wished he shared that confidence. Or that the responsibility to stop somebody with the power to cause earthquakes and tornadoes rested on somebody else’s shoulders. That kind of power was terrifying. Steve sometimes wished he could afford to be terrified.

“What’s that look for?” She asked.

“Ask me again when we get to New York. Or maybe when this is over.”

Sharon’s eyes clouded a little. “I will. You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know. Just… not now.”

“OK. Can I kiss you, though? You look like a man who needs a kiss.”

“I am most definitely a man in need of a kiss.” His half-shy smile gave Sharon delicious chills down her spine.

She stepped into Steve’s arms, noticing as always how warm he was with that supersoldier metabolism, and reveling in the feeling of his rock-hard body against hers. Sharon was sometimes overwhelmed by how absolutely, spectacularly beautiful he was. But it was so much more than that.

Sharon knew what the look on Steve’s face had been about. It was about the crushing weight of responsibility Steve carried with him every moment of every day. Steve did everything he could to keep anyone from seeing how exhausting that was. But Sharon could see it. It was why she had come back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Sure, she’d responded to Director Coulson’s request, and understood his need for Agents around him he could trust implicitly. But she hadn’t come back for Director Coulson. She’d come back because she was in love with Steve Rogers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was where she could be of the most help to him. She’d come back because, with the seemingly unhealable rift between the Avengers, Steve had needed all the friends he could get, and Sharon Carter was damn well going to be there for him.

She made no secret of her attraction to him. Hell, she was kissing him at this very moment. But Steve kept a wall around him that might as well have been made of vibranium. Theirs was the most casual possible dating relationship. Sharon had become Steve’s go-to when he needed a plus one for some event or other, but that was basically it. They had never even been on a real date. They’d certainly never slept together. They had meals together when they were both working in the same place. They talked, sometimes even about actual feelings and experiences and shit. But it was all so superficial.

She hated it, and not only because it was damn cold in the fucking friend zone. Sharon ached for how lonely and encumbered with his sense of obligation Steve Rogers was, knowing that he thought no one could see. That maybe he would be angry that she could see. She craved the chance to just hold him, run her hands through his hair and tell him it was OK to lay it all down for a while. To kiss him and caress him and make him forget, at least for a little while.

Sure, Steve had Bucky, and they were closer than brothers. But right now, Bucky was just beginning to integrate into the team, and even though his mind was clean again, his wounds weren’t something that were going to heal anytime soon. Steve would never burden Bucky with his own pain at a time like that. No, Steve would be there for him, lending him his own strength and doing whatever he could to help Bucky recover and build a life for himself, without any regard to what Steve needed.

Sharon wasn’t sure whether he would ever let her in, but she knew that whatever he needed from her, she would give. Steve was an icon of strength and bravery to the world, but to Sharon, he was a bruised, overtaxed man, trapped and tormented in a prison of his own making, feeling responsible for the safety of the whole world, and everyone in it. It frightened her, how much she loved him. She would give anything to be able to ease his pain, if only a little.

As she held back all the feelings she was so afraid to share with him, settling for a tender caress of his lower lip with hers, Sharon tried to will some of her confidence into Steve. She tried to pour some of her strength into him through the hands she splayed on his back under his jacket, sliding them across his bunched muscles with a little thrill. OK, maybe a larger-than-average thrill. Not that Steve needed strength, exactly. What he needed was the will to keep taking the fate of the world onto himself, crisis after crisis, day after day. Like today. Another damn emergency, Sharon thought. When he was already exhausted. When would he get a break?

“You get him settled?” Bucky asked Agent Emerson as he slid lazily onto the credenza just outside the galley where Steve and Sharon were having a moment. Joss sat next to him, willing herself not to lean in and press her nose to his neck. Because damn it, he did smell as good as she’d always imagined. Shit.

“He’s fine. Got a drink into him, started him telling Agent Thomas stories of his glory days.”

Bucky grinned. “You’re good with him, Agent Emerson.”

“Joss. Please.”

“Joss.” Ok, now she was wet. Bucky Barnes had said her name, just said her name, and that was all it took before her idiotic, miserable thong was soaked and she was ready to lay him out on the floor in front of the President of the United States. Two, in fact.

“So. What can you tell me?” She asked, taking a breath she hoped would stop the hormones flooding into her system.

“Not much. We don’t know much. Just enough to be concerned about the President at that event. What we were afraid of happened, so here we are.”

“And what was that? What were you afraid of?”

Bucky hesitated over his next words. “I’m sorry. I can’t say.” He watched Joss Emerson absorb that. She didn’t look any happier about it than he’d be in her place.

“Right.” She nodded stiffly. “Just… I know whatever the threat is, it’s not a bomb. And I know that I’m no Avenger. I’m not even S.H.I.E.L.D. But I am Secret Service, which means I’m trained and I know how to keep my mouth shut. It also means I’m sworn to protect him.” She indicated the President over her shoulder. “Just don’t forget I’m here. We, I mean. We’re here.” She blushed and indicated the other Secret Service agents on the plane with an embarrassed flick of her hand.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get him back to yourselves quick enough.” Bucky grinned. He could relate to her wanting to get these interlopers out of the way of her job. He’d have felt the same way.

“It’s more than that. I’m offering to help. With… whatever this is.”

“Well, I hope we won’t need it. But if we do, I know where to find you. And your two guns and five knives.”

“Three and seven, actually,” she said with a smirk that Bucky could feel in his chest. “I picked up a few on the way out of the ballroom.”

“Huh. I saw the MP5. What else?”

She looked at him for a second, then apparently decided he was serious and poked two fingers down into the thick French twist at the back of her head. And pulled a Gerber 06 from inside it.

Bucky broke into an intrigued smile as she handed it to him but, rather than look down at the folding knife, he watched her smooth out her dark hair again. He realized he really liked it. The way she was wearing it right now was all business, but he could tell there was a lot of it and he kind of wanted to pull out whatever was holding it and let it fall around her shoulders. In fact, now that he really looked at her, Bucky was suddenly struck by the fact that Agent Joss Emerson was actually a bombshell. And the way her brown eyes sparkled as she pulled a tac knife from her hair – a Gerber 06 switchblade, no less – suggested that she had a wild streak. Interesting.

But it was when she pulled a Benchmade Infidel from one of the cutouts at her waist that Bucky started to think this was a girl he’d like to get to know. He whistled low and took it from her, flicking the long, thin blade out the front. “Sweet,” he breathed.

“Yeah. It’s my favorite, actually.”

“The President know you have one of these? They’re illegal in some states.”

“You kidding? I’m sitting like this so he won’t see it. If he does, he’s gonna want to play with it some more.”

“I guess he was a SEAL. Probably isn’t afraid of a little steel.”

“Just the opposite. The press gives him a hard time about his guns, calls him ammosexual. Uh-uh. Man’s all about knives.”

“Speaking of SEALs, I just got this,” Bucky said, pulling his new SOG Seal Strike from a sheath at the small of his back.

Joss’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that is nice…” She took it from him and he watched her test the weight and balance. Just the way she handled it showed Bucky that this was a woman who knew knives.

“Wanna see the best one?”

“Yeah,” she gushed.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Joss could feel a point pressing against her ribs. She looked down to see that Bucky was holding an evil-looking, matte black push dagger against her. She wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that she hadn’t even seen him move, or the wicked grin on his face that made her heart stutter. Either way, she was pretty sure somewhere a cardiologist was feeling a disturbance in the Force.

“You think my switch is illegal? I’m pretty sure I’m not even supposed to be looking at that.”

Bucky liked her reaction. A lot. For the next ten minutes, they admired the small knife, meant to be held in a fist and punched into the body. Bucky had designed this one, and had a lot to say about it.

Aft of them, in the galley, Sharon bumped a hip against Steve and pointed at the weapons show and tell happening a few feet away. Turning, Steve took in the scene and raised an eyebrow, then laughed quietly. He was shaking his head when he turned back to Sharon, but his fond grin and the warm note in his voice belied his attempt to appear to disapprove. “Believe it or not, that’s flirtation for Bucky.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve chuckled. “Buck’s got a very particular type.”

The way Bucky’s grey-blue eyes looked at her over his wide, easy smile made Joss wonder whether they’d lost cabin pressure. She actually thought she might lose consciousness, the way her head was spinning. She realized suddenly that this might have been a mistake. Maybe she shouldn’t be sitting here, her leg actually touching Bucky Barnes’s knee, their hands touching repeatedly as they examined the custom push dagger. It was one thing to do a little bit of – OK, a not unobsessive amount of – fangirling over a good-looking famous dude. But this was The Job. She started to question the wisdom of offering her services in this situation, because she couldn’t be sure she would be able to concentrate the way she needed to with Bucky Barnes around.

When he saw her face change, Bucky figured the reason was fairly obvious.

“Listen,” he said, sliding the knife back into wherever he’d pulled it from. “I understand you wantin’ to be in the loop. Believe me. Nobody’s tryin’ to cut you out of anything; we got nothing but respect for you guys. It’s just… shit tends to get weird around us. Well, that’s not exactly right. We go where shit’s already weird. Anyway, the point is, you don’t want any of this.”

Joss nodded. “I don’t want anybody to fuck with my President, either, but if they do, I’ll be there. That’s all I’m saying. I’m here.”

“With an O6 in your hair,” he grinned. “Got it. If there’s a role for you, I won’t hesitate. Promise.” Huh, Bucky thought, realizing he actually meant that.

*****

Sam Wilson could be a charming guy. An entertaining guy. A guy who could catch the attention of a roomful of thugs and keep it, if the need arose.

The need arose.

He could see Agent Herrera looking around whatever this place was, and it was obvious from the way her eyes took in everything that she knew what she was doing. Twice now, one of Arias’s goons had noticed her basically casing the joint and rudely barked at her to sit back down at the table.

She never did. She’d stand there for a while, but Sam watched her in his peripheral vision and recognized her gradual, inevitable drift away again, always toward one of the doors. He decided to help her, launching into a long, somewhat fact-based series of stories about his early days testing the EXO-7 for the Air Force. The more Sam crashed, the more they laughed. Even Arias was diverted for a while. It wasn’t until he saw Herrera glide silently back into the room from one of the open doors that Sam finally stopped spinning tales. Her timing was good; he was running out of lies. But the look Herrera gave him told Sam that she’d found what she’d been looking for.

Two hours after arriving at Arias’s bunker, or whatever it was, Sam and Agent Herrera were chauffeured back to the hotel where the Presidential event was to have taken place. They sat next to one another on the back seat, saying little, and nothing important. Sam had no doubt that whatever they said would be recorded, or at least reported back to Arias. He also had no doubt that Herrera had seen something. She was almost bursting out of her skin, vibrating with excitement even as she schooled her expression to seem bland.

The hotel was unscathed by the night’s events, other than the unholy mess left behind by the herd of overgroomed assholes trying to push their way out when the evacuation began. Sam led Agent Herrera past the doors to the ballroom and down an out-of-the-way hall to a small conference room where a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent they both knew stood guard. They all nodded to each other, and the guard stepped aside to allow Sam to guide Agent Herrera in with a hand on the small of her back.

Sam didn’t even wait long enough to acknowledge anyone in the room. The second the door closed, he had a hand around Herrera’s upper arm and pulled her around to face him.

“What?” He asked, standing too close to her in his eagerness to hear what she had to say. She didn’t seem to notice, because she was just as eager to tell him what she’d seen. She was actually panting a little, her deep brown eyes shining with excitement. Sam’s body noticed. He was a professional, sure, but he was still a man, and… Holy shit.

“That place,” Herrera began. “Arias’s lair, or whatever you want to call it. It’s got an insane amount of power running to it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you notice all the pipes and tubes running along the ceiling in that underground garage? Some of them were for water, steam, whatever, but a lot of them – most of them, were conduits for electrical wires. There were way too many of them, and some of them had to have high-voltage electrical wiring in them. And those doors from that… conference room or whatever. Two of them led to corridors, just basically concrete hallways with more pipes and conduits running along them. It’s underground, and it’s concrete, right? So there’s no way to hide them, and why would you in a place like that? So I got a good look at them, and I’m telling you, that place has more power running into it than most skyscrapers. There’s something big and power-hungry down there to need that much electricity feeding it.”

As she was speaking, Natasha and Bruce had come over to listen. They both had questions that began general and very quickly got technical enough that they left Sam in their dust. He looked over at Clint, who was squatting on a table watching something on a monitor. Strolling closer, Sam saw that it was video of the tornado. He gasped.

“Mother of- Is that the one here?”

“Yeah, but don’t get too excited. As tornadoes go, it’s kind of a piece of shit. Only an EF-2, and it wasn’t on the ground for more than ten minutes.”

“Well, you sure sounded excited when you saw it,” Sam noted.

“I know, and it’s kinda buggin’ me. It looked big. I mean, it was dark and all, but with the city lights illuminating the clouds, I could still see it pretty good, and it seemed… I don’t know. Something’s off about it. Something about the whole storm just doesn’t look right. Bruce has some fancy-ass meteorologist working on it. She’s meeting us in New York.”

Sam watched the video, thinking that if this tornado didn’t impress Clint, he definitely wouldn’t want to see one that did. It looked wicked.

“Hey,” Clint said quietly, nudging Sam with his elbow and sliding his eyes over toward the group who were excitedly discussing the power lines Agent Herrera had seen in the underground facility Arias had called “Site B.”

“What’s she like?” Clint asked in an amused undertone, indicating Agent Herrera.

“She’s a professional woman doin’ a job, is what she’s like, you sexist shithead.”

“Uh-huh,” Clint grinned. “You got nowhere with her.”

“I wasn’t tryna… Man, shut the hell up,” Sam screeched, trying to stay quiet. He gave Clint the dirtiest look he could manage, then stalked back over to the group to rejoin the discussion of what Herrera had seen.

Clint just laughed.

*****

The flight from Washington D.C. to New York was just over an hour long, but the general atmosphere among those who piled into the obscenely luxurious vehicle for the drive from the private airfield to Stark Tower was one of exhaustion. Joss wasn’t sure what to call this thing; the closest thing she could come up with was “Limo Bus”. Everyone from the plane sat on the plush, curvy seats that lined both sides of the vehicle, while Tony Stark offered them a variety of drinks from the semicircular bar – an actual damn bar - that curved out between two of the long seats on one side. Everything that wasn’t black was red and gold, including the neon light that poured out from under the seats and across the ceiling.

Joss must have shaken her head, or made a face, because Tony stopped his manic bartending and pointed at her accusingly.

“You don’t like my bus,” he snapped, keeping his finger in the air, directed at her, as he scowled.

“I’m expecting strippers any moment,” she blurted before she could think better of it.

President Lattimore, on her left, sucked in his breath in disapproval. “Joss, for heaven’s sake. The man is our host.”

Joss, appalled and mortified, began to sputter. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean to… I just… It’s… a lot.”

“I’m a lot, Miss Secret Service. And just for that, no cocktail for you.”

With that, he turned his head and began taking drink orders from those on the other side of the bar, dismissing her entirely.

Joss suddenly liked the red neon light very much, because it hid the deep blush she knew was the reason her entire face was burning. It didn’t help that she could hear Bucky Barnes snickering on the other side of President Lattimore.

The former President held his drink out to her, leaning in too close. “I’d be happy to share mine with you.”

“Thank you, Sir, but I’m on duty anyway.”

Joss didn’t say another word for the rest of the way to Stark Tower.

#The Avengers #Captain America #Bucky Barnes #Sam Wilson #Natasha Romanoff #Bruce Banner #Sharon Carter #Tony Stark #Clint Barton #Agent Phil Coulson

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boredsingaporean · 7 years ago

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Chapter 26: Good Feng Shui for Offices

I was having a very bad morning. Some critical issues with a new FX fund had surfaced suddenly and its launch date was around the corner. I had been on four conference calls with the Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and China country managers respectively for the past four hours, repeating the same things over and over again. Just when I put back my headset and took a first sip on my already cold coffee, my MSN Messenger popped out. I had got a message from Nicky. “hey, ur product got prob? u sounded exasperated on ur conf calls” “yeh, got surprises at the wrong timing.” “do u think everybody has been rather unlucky lately?” “is it?” “ur product got prob, Choi’s report was handed up late” “erm… Choi’s reports are always handed up late” “ok, Dawn’s project got stuck” “Nicky, Dawn’s project is never destined to be successful” “Sally has been scolded by Ju for a few times in a row this month” “it’s their event period. It’s normal” “ok ,Rose has been falling sick” “hmm… true. She has been having migraine quite frequently these days” “and my shares has been dropping” “so wat are u trying to tell me?” “i think our office’s Feng Shui has got prob” “are u sure it’s our office’s Feng Shui?” “yeh. I tell u wat. I’ll bring my stuffs here tomoro” “wat stuffs?” “my Feng Shui tools. I need to take a look at our office’s Feng Shui and see wat’s wrong” Geez, to Nicky, all misfortunes lead to Feng Shui. But he was not being too paranoid though. It was true that all of us had been down on our luck lately. Nothing seemed to work and anything that could go wrong went wrong. Maybe it was really the Feng Shui. As promised, Nicky appeared with an ancient Chinese Feng Shui compass, a.k.a. Luo Pan, in the office on the following morning. It was a small compass embedded in a huge movable copper disc with lots of Chinese writings on it and this whole thing was then housed in a red square box. There was even a tiltmeter with a liquid bubble inside a chamber that indicated if the compass was tilted. The only time I had seen this kind of compass was in a Chinese movie about zombies and Taoists. Nicky walked to our office door, turned and tilted his compass then noted down his reading on a piece of paper. He then did the same action at the other three corners and the center of the area that belonged to our department. “Dude, I was right,” Nicky looked at me solemnly. “Our office has got bad Feng Shui.” “Then why did it only affect us at the end of the year?” I was not convinced. “Because then it was not time yet. But now, my friend, the bad luck has finally surfaced. We need to counter it or else more misfortune will be expected.” If I was not standing in front of Nicky and looking at him, I would have thought that I heard those words from a Feng Shui master who was trying to tell me that we needed to buy some thousands dollars Feng Shui cures to end our bad luck. “And what are we supposed to do, our dear Feng Shui Master?” I teased. “Our office door is facing the West, which is where the Grand Duke Jupiter is situated this year. That is very bad because all the movements at the door have created too much noise.” “Oh, so this Mr. Grand Duke Jupiter is a quiet guy like KZ, huh?” “Beng! In Feng Shui, Grand Duke Jupiter is very well respected. And misfortunes will fall upon us if we create noises at where he is seated!” “Okay, so what’s the cure?” “We need to buy a Pi Xiu,” Nicky continued. “This Pi Xiu should be placed at our door and facing West where the Grand Duke Jupiter is. It’ll then get rid of the bad luck due to the conflict.” Oh, so that guy with a horn, a face that looks like a mix between a lion and a dog, hoofs at its feet, two little wings and a tail would scare that cantankerous and sour old soul away. “Will this Pi Xiu stops people from treating me as a receptionist as well?” asked Ju who sat at the desk nearest to the door. “I’m so sick of having delivery men and guests asking me where is who seated, where is the wash room and where is the exit.” “Erm… I’m not sure about this part.” Nicky admitted. “But I know that it’s bad Feng Shui to sit facing the office door directly. It means that you’ll be out of the company soon.” “Out of the company? Does it mean that some headhunters will look for me and some companies will offer me higher pay?” “Err… I’m not sure if it can be translated to that.” “Nicky! Maybe you should look at my Feng Shui problem as well!” shouted Sally. “You’re not under any exposed overhead beam, and your facing direction seems okay. What’s wrong?” asked the puzzled Nicky. “It is bad Feng Shui to face the copier machine right?” “What?” “You know, everybody who discovers that the copier machine is out of paper will turn around and ask me whether I have any papers,” Sally complained. “There was once, this guy even told me that the copier machine was spoilt and he just stood in front of me and expected me to do something about it! What did he expect? Do I look like I can repair a copier machine?” “Erm… Sally, I’m afraid I can’t help you on this. The Feng Shui books did not mention anything about what to do when you sit facing a copier machine.” Before Sally could ask him anything, Nicky hastily walked to the back of our department area. He looked at the vertical blinds covering the windows then turned to me and said: “I’ve found another problem.” “What’s that?” “The three of us, you, me and Choi, we are seated with our backs to the windows. That’s bad Feng Shui!” “Because there’s another disagreeable guy situated there?” “No! In Feng Shui, if you are seated with you back to a door or a window, it means you won’t have the support from your bosses and colleagues in work. No wonder Rose rejected my last analysis report!” “Err… Nicky, I heard that she rejected that report because you made some mistakes in some of your charts.” “Never mind, I know how to cure this,” Nicky ignored my comments and continued. “We can place a Dragon Tortoise here to give us the support that we lack of.” “Dude, is it a dragon or a tortoise?” “A Dragon Tortoise.” “Yah, so which one? Dragon or tortoise?” “A Dragon Tortoise! A Dragon Tortoise is a Feng Shui animal with the head of a dragon and the body of a tortoise!” explained Nicky, slightly miffed with me. Nicky then turned and pushed away the vertical blinds as he opened one of the windows. He stuck his head out for a few minutes, looking up and down, left and right, then came back in and closed the window. “I don’t really see any sharp corners or protruding parts outside our office windows.” “Well, that’s great then.” “But in order to play safe, I think we’d better increase the yang chi in our office.” I had heard this from a television program before. People who believe in Feng Shui believe that our environment is consisted of yang chi, which is positive aura, and yin chi, which is negative aura. When the yang chi is weaker than the yin chi in an environment, the people staying in that environment will be very unlucky. And when the yin chi in an environment is too strong, that place could be haunted. I wondered if that was the reason for Sally’s spiritual experience. “How are you going to increase the yang chi in the office?” I asked Nicky. “There are these five-coin amulets that are made of five I-Ching coins tied together with a red string. I’ll get five of these amulets and we can hang four in the four corners and hang the fifth one in the center.” “Hey bro! Since you’re at it, is there anything you can do to the Feng Shui here to make our wealth luck stronger so that we can win some lottery?” Choi asked. “Hmm… actually there might be a way.” Nicky walked back to his table and took out several Feng Shui books from his document bag. One by one, he flipped and read through some pages. A couple of minutes later, he put down a book and walked over to Choi’s desk. “Choi, there is one way to enhance our wealth luck. But it’s a bit troublesome though.” “Well, if I can win the first price for lottery, I don’t really mind doing something that is troublesome,” Choi grinned. “We need to take a porcelain bowl, put in five I-Ching coins and fill it with water. Then we need to place this bowl of coins and water at the corner diagonally to our office door.” “That doesn’t sound too troublesome.” “We need to change the water every week.” “That’s not a problem at all. I can do it,” Choi committed. “And we can’t use normal tap water.” “Then what? Use mineral water?” Nicky took a breath, and then said: “We need water from the heaven, from the sky to be specific. We need to collect rain water to fill the bowl.” Choi raised an eyebrow and said: “Forget it. It’s really too troublesome.” During lunch time, I accompanied Nicky to the Feng Shui shop that he usually patron at The Bencoolen to get the Pi Xiu, Dragon Tortoise and five-coin amulets. After we left the shop, Nicky mentioned that we needed to bless our Feng Shui cures in the Kwan Im Tong Hood Che Temple. “How do we bless these stuffs?” I asked. “Oh, just circle the cures three times around the main joss-sticks urn in the temple and ask the Goddess of Mercy for her blessings,” Nicky explained. “Okay, I presume that you’re doing that because you’re a Buddhist. But Dawn is a Christian. Will these animals and amulets protect her as well?” “Err… I’m not sure. It’s not stated in the books.” After we returned to the office, we could not place those Feng Shui cures yet. Nicky said that the only auspicious hour for that day was at five o’clock and we could only place those cures by then. Finally at five minutes past five, Nicky placed the Pi Xiu and Dragon Tortoise at their respective places while Choi and I helped to hang the coin amulets on the lamp holders. Dawn watched in amaze as we hung the coin amulets. “Hey, what are you guys doing?” Dawn finally could not control her curiosity and asked. “We’re hanging some Feng Shui coin amulets,” I replied the obvious. “What is that amulet for? What is it supposed to do?” “Err… bring us good luck.” “Okay… these coins look pretty eerie. Will it affect me negatively? I’m pregnant, you know?” “Erm… I’m not very sure actually. Why don’t you ask Nicky? It’s his idea.” Immediately, Dawn walked over to Nicky who had just finished adjusting the Pi Xiu’s position and asked him a series of questions. Nicky frowned as he tried to answer her questions and I could see that he needed to read more Feng Shui books. Actually, maybe Nicky should find a Feng Shui cure that could stop Dawn from bothering him.

#nanowrimo

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shadowsong26fic · 5 years ago

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Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month (and year!) so it’s time for a Coming Attractions post!

(As a note, this post will discuss/reference certain EPIX/Rise of Skywalker spoilers.)

So, I didn’t get quite as much done this past month as I’d hoped overall--I’d planned to get way more Precipice done and get a bigger/better start on my Big Bang project, as well as more OFLAM, but the presents I was making for family members as well as a Secret Santa fic took up more time than I was expecting them to. Also, I. Uh. I found a Banjo-Kazooie emulator and my inner child became Very Demanding <.< >.>

Anyway! Specific updates:

Precipice:

I went into a fair amount of detail about the game plan for this fic here, and that’s still my goal. Hoping to get the next chapter out tomorrow? Fingers crossed…

SPOILER DISCUSSION

With regard to Rey’s parentage/Palpatine’s canonical son--as of right now, I don’t have any plans to include him in Precipice or any other projects I have going on right now. As with all my plans, this may change at some point--it’s highly unlikely for Precipice, specifically, given some of what I have planned for Lavinia; but I do have some AUs percolating where I could fit him in if I so chose.

The other reason for this is that, apart from Masks and Jedi of Valdemar, I don’t really have solid plotting out far enough to reach the ST? Rey’s background is definitely different in JoV (in that it’s…not actually relevant and probably won’t ever be clarified; but if it is, due to the way Palpatine is set up in that AU, her father can’t exist), and if I ever do get back to Masks!verse, I technically locked my canon as of TFA, but I may restructure or go in a different direction there as well.

But, yeah, apart from that--most of my projects center around the PT or inter-trilogy period, ranging into or shortly past the OT to deal with some of the aftermath/rebuilding, so it’s unlikely to come up. If I do end up writing something apart from the two mentioned above that gets into ST-era stuff, I’ll make the call on a case-by-case basis. Though I reserve the right to change my mind if/when we get supplementary material about Rey’s parents, depending on how much I like them XD

Overall, I guess what I should say is--generally speaking, I tend to work in a blended canon, particularly for post-ROTJ stuff, which means I use a lot of the political/social/general post-war how-things-worked framework from Legends, throwing in characters from canon because I adore them (and some Legends characters as well; at some point, I’ll put up the full JoV timeline which will demonstrate XD). So…yeah, case-by-case basis, like I said. Pick and choose, blended canon.

Mostly laying all this out because--well, if you’ve read my stuff/been following Precipice at all, I’m sure you can guess why. My overall EPIX reaction post is here if you’re curious, but I’m more or less planning to stick to my Star Wars “home,” so to speak, as I’ve already found it in terms of the things I write.

END SPOILER DISCUSSION

our faces like a mirror:

I really, really, really want to finally debut this fic before the Siege of Mandalore arc with S7 of TCW. Not that I think it’ll super Joss what I have planned? But I’d rather get it out there. I have a fair amount of material, especially for the first half, so I’ll hopefully be able to keep up a fairly regular update schedule when I get started? But we shall see.

Other Fanfic Projects:

I thought my Secret Santa turned out pretty well! And my giftee liked it, which is of course the goal XD There were a couple bits that didn’t make it into the final piece (including a point where Luke asked about his mother, but it got tangenty and threw off the rhythm of all three scenes I tried to fit it in, so).

Like I said, I didn’t get a whole lot of other stuff done last month, but for January, I’m hoping to work on my big bang project (I just need to figure out what Obi-Wan’s going to do; I’ve mostly got Anakin and Padme’s threads worked out, though I might shift some things around and I need to figure out a couple details on Anakin’s end. I thiiiiiink how I’m going to work on it is keep the three threads separate (though, because I’m me, I’ll be jumping around and not writing anything in order lol) and then figure out how to braid them together later, but we shall see.) I need to double-check the due date for the draft, but I should be able to get things done if I get my butt in gear.

So, yeah--given SWBB and my Precipice and OFLAM plans described above, I don’t think I’m gonna be working on much else this month, unless something really jumps out at me. Or I decide to fulltext anything I’ve been playing with re: some of the characters mentioned in the Family of Spies AU, which is always a possibility XD

So, to end the post--last January, I set up some Goals/New Years’ Resolutions! So, let’s see how I did and figure out goals for next year…

2019 goals:

1. Finish Precipice and at least one full arc of Protectors/Precipice II …yeah, that didn’t happen. Whoops. 2. Write at least 7.5k of origfic content. Just barely made it with 7,681 words \o/ 3. Start posting OFLAM and/or Untitled ObiAniDala Epic AU …well, I actually did end up using the Untitled Epic AU as my SWBB last year? (Which obviously eventually got a title, The Devoted.) I even did a companion piece! But that may be cheating, since when I set this goal, I was planning to set it aside and do something separate, lol… 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic (Distaff or Auxiliaries or Phoenix!Verse) …I don’t think I even wrote any content on those three this year, let alone posted/properly revived it, whoops… 5. Update Lux and Farglass Cycle archives, and transfer tumblr archive to DW I didn’t finish the archive updates, but I did get a fair amount done, so yay! Did not transfer my tumblr archive, though. I should do that. Or at least re-download the backup… 6. At least four AU outline installments of some kind. I got two? So…half-credit! 7. Complete BB submission, and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges/whatever. As mentioned above, I did complete my submission, and I did a Secret Santa exchange! I possibly could’ve done more/kept a closer eye, but I did at least do something here, so, yay! Go me!

2020 goals (these will be…mostly repeats, lol…):

1. Finish Precipice; complete Arcs 8 and 9 in Protectors/Promises/Precipice II; put out some level of Arc 7.5/Preludes content. 2. Write at least 10k of origfic content. 3. Start posting OFLAM 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic (i.e., Distaff; Auxiliaries; Phoenix!Verse; one of the BSG fics I keep meaning to go back to if I ever actually sit down and rewatch the series; if I add an actual sequel/companion to Deja Vu… that probably counts…) 5. Finish updating Lux and Farglass Cycle archives; keep them updated through the end of the year as new content gets added. 6. At least four AU outline installments of some kind; preferably including a continuation of Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience and actually writing up the main part of Let’s Go Steal a Crossover; but any outline will count. 7. Complete BB submission and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges. 8. Write at least one holiday fic (Valentine’s Day; Mother’s Day; Father’s Day; Halloween; New Year’s; etc.) and post on the appropriate day.

#coming attractions #shadowsong26fic #miscellania

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