#it’s probably the pipeline effect I went through

[look-a-ghost]

i've gone through the Scott Pilgrim skeptic-to-fanatic pipeline (warp pipe?) and the trajectory was as follows:

watched the movie first and went "god why do people like this so much what the fuck am I missing"

read the comics and went "oh i guess this is what i was missing... yeah it's nice, but..."

binged tf out of Takes Off and lost my fucking mind at how good it was

I struggled a lot with my skepticism of the movie because despite me being firmly within the subcultural demographic (video games nerd who Got All The References; large fan of Edgar Wright) I could not truly bring myself to enjoy it without feeling residually icky. So honestly it weirdly felt like Takes Off was made to DIRECTLY address every single problem I had with both the movie and the comics... But in fairness to SP as a media entity, I do think that my viewing order was kind of skewed, as the movie shorthanded so much stuff and probably worked better as an encapsulation of the comics, and not so much as a full introduction to the overall story and characters (to me at least).

Within the first few minutes of the first ep of SPTO I was already feeling infinitely better about it

(MILD spoiler: what I appreciated most is that Scott actively places less emphasis on dating Knives, where I remember he was bragging more about it in both the movie and the comics, which immediately made me resent him MUCH less than I did),

so I knew for a fact the show was already moving in a smarter direction... little did I know that it would go absolutely batshit with being a fully meta, revisionist narrative to fix essentially all of the misgivings i had with the original source material, AND all while being a fucking blast to watch, no less. Hats off, a million salutes, holy jesus i don't think i've ever been cannonball converted so hard into rabidly loving a media series that i completely did not get at first...

more spoilers below to emphasize how super effective critical hit this was vs me personally

bro they even got simon pegg and nick frost to essentially be sgt. angle and pc butterman in this show like what the fuuuuuuck

even the movie didn't go this hard with the cornetto linking despite it being directed by edgar WRONG i am PERSONALLY UNDER ATTACK HSLJhbljdshbldfjh

[mamamittens]

The Only Choice +18

Spooktober Day 2!

Fandom: One Piece (Highschool AU)

Ship: Yandere!Ace X Petite!F!Reader (Ace is 19 and Reader is 18)

Warnings: Yandere behavior, possessive behavior, murder, Law does not survive, incredibly dubious consent/borderline noncon, coercion, manipulation, groping, kitchen sex, foreplay, nipple/breast play, oral sex (female receiving), aggressive sex, sex as a tool for manipulation, and creampie.

All the red flags here, I stg keep this in mind before reading.

Word Count: 5,231

To say Ace’s childhood growing up was rough would be… an understatement. While not exactly a feral child, the way he was openly encouraged to explore the mountain range to his heart’s content from a young age did jack shit to his social skills. Instead of learning how to share his blocks and manage his temper, he learned more… useful things. How to move silently at night among predators. How to stalk and hunt prey animals—and later the predators he emulated so well. Ace learned all sorts of important lessons in the heart of the forest.

Then Sabo came along and taught him the things he missed out on. How to hold a proper conversation—that eye contact wasn’t a sign of aggression. Basic social etiquette and behavior—he should not bludgeon competitors to death with a club in broad daylight. What personal space even was—snapping his teeth may be an effective way to clear up space but was undeniably rude. Still, he was incredibly rough around the edges. Really, it was Luffy that taught him how to behave like a more balanced young man, ironically enough.

Wrangling the embodiment of chaos sure does some things to an ingrained pattern of aggressive behavior. And Luffy was quite durable and forgiving for his screw ups, unlike Sabo who gave as good as he got. A perfect little pipeline for a terror of a mountain child to eventually be given to a chaotic family that taught him to embrace but control his wild urges. Whitebeard was indulgent of his behavior—but only to a point. And he was absolutely capable of bringing him back in line when needed.

So, eventually, Ace was ready to enter the school system without being a flight, fight, or tiny terrorist risk. Sure, he was held back a year, but to be fair… no one remembered to teach him how to read in all that socialization. But he worked hard and got back on track. And he would have probably half assed everything right up till graduation if it hadn’t of been for one thing.

His precious little sweetheart. You.

Having transferred in a bit late during their shared first year of high school, Ace had always been aware of her. How could he not? A sweet little thing in a sea of sweaty, hormonal teens. It took a lot of work, but over the course of three years, Ace steadily made his way into the highly prized position of being her best friend. Anyone that wanted to get near her went through him first. Overhyped football players, weak little twig boys, and unredeemable perverts alike.

And he did an excellent job of keeping the filth of the school far away from his sweetheart right up until he had to leave for a few weeks on vacation. Gramps lost several boxes of rice crackers to the ocean under mysterious circumstances for that, even if he did enjoy spending time with his brothers in peace. But look what happens when he leaves her alone! Gone for a month and some fancy fucking prick moves in on her!

What. The. Fuck.

He never wanted to hear a crack about his cowboy hat after seeing the spotted monstrosity Trafalgar D. Water Law wore. And he had the fucking audacity to put his hands on you? To think he was good enough to even hold hands in the hall—mother fucker didn’t even bother to look happy about it! Law just kept wearing that same smug look the whole time like Ace couldn’t see jack shit!

It wasn’t like he’d never seen Law before now. They had crossed paths in the hallways. Shared projects in English class on occasion. And Ace knew Law had a few science projects with you as well over the years. But Law had always kept his nose in his books unless he was required to or walking that massive white dog. Bepo, he thought. Although, is that really all Law had done?

Ace was your best friend. You wouldn’t suddenly date someone without telling him first! Not… not unless you were coerced. He could see it now. You, sweet precious thing that you were, taken advantage of. Lead astray to keep secrets like Ace wasn’t working tirelessly to keep you safe. With a sneer, Ace supposed that in such a scenario, it wasn’t entirely impossible Law nursed a crush in your delicate heart. Encouraging you to think of him romantically. Law wasn’t the most hideous man at their school.

And with Ace gone for a whole month well… a lot of things can happen over a month. He’d need to correct this situation as soon as possible. But first, he needed to know exactly what happened while he was gone. And if this had been brewing for longer than he expected. The punishment had to fit the crime, naturally.

He wasn’t a feral mountain child anymore, after all. Mostly.

Giving you his best smile, he slid over to your other side and beamed.

“Well, well, well. When did this happen? You didn’t tell me you were all grown up now!” Ace teased, ruffling your hair and ignoring your protests. You were smiling and laughing, which was all the go-ahead Ace needed. Law however, was still a smug bastard as he held your other hand, chaining you to his side. Like he had any right!

“Ace! Stop that!” You scoffed, smacking his arm lightly, “And uhm… we… we thought it would be nice to try it out, you know? Just to see where it goes.”

Ace felt his muscles tense with rage but maintained his pleasant expression. This fucker just wanted to string you along! And for what?! How long?! Until he’s taken everything you have that belongs to him—

“Ooo~, what little love birds you two are. Try not to make me gag too much, ‘kay sweetheart?” Ace winked, ruffling your hair again strutting to his class. Unfortunately, he didn’t share any class periods with you this semester. Something he was unable to rectify in time without looking suspicious. Still, it did provide him the space he would sorely need to plan how to get rid of this new pest.

He'd hate to let down Oyaji by allowing a little problem like this to bite him in the ass later. In the meantime,… he’d play nice.

Tigers never found success without stalking their kills first after all.

Still, it was hard for Ace. Watching you fall for Law’s tricks hook, line, and sinker. You both sat together at lunch every day, held hands whenever possible, went on dates when time allowed. And Ace grew to resent Law more with every passing hour. That damn smug look a permanent expression regardless of how cute you acted, hanging off Law’s arm. Ace should have given you the talk long ago and avoided this whole mess to start with. But really… deep down, Ace was a romantic at heart.

And what was more romantic than planning the perfect way to get rid of your soon-to-be-ex so he could sweep you off your feet properly?

As it turns out, it was actually not that hard to plan Law’s death. See, he was actually quite sickly as a child. Some sort of poisoned water situation in his hometown. Eventually he got better, but his internal organs were severely damaged in the process. Not enough to replace them entirely, but enough to require a careful diet for several years. Like, for example, his kidneys.

Honestly, Ace could almost feel bad about the whole thing. Law waxed on about his dream to become a doctor in the hopes of preventing his childhood disaster on several occasions. He was probably smart enough to do a lot of good for the world. If he had kept his fucking hands to himself first that is.

Who knew a few milligrams of mushroom concentrate could cause a total renal failure within hours? And who would have guessed the stoic Trafalgar Law would choose to keep quiet about his little ‘stomach bug’ as his guardians left town for the weekend?

Ace chuckled to himself as he crept away from the house, leaving no trail to follow. The fact that Ace had wrapped Law in a blanket with a gag in place to make sure of it was simply a happy accident. He wanted to tie Law to a chair but the bruises would look suspicious. And arranging a camping trip ‘just for the boys’ was too obvious, even if he fed Law to the mountain lions.

No, Ace was actually running errands for Oyaji all night! Several people can attest to that fact if questioned.

Which no one did.

Because poor Law, honor student and future doctor, passed quietly in his sleep after taking more pain medication for his sudden illness. An illness that proved fatal and swift. What was there to question with those facts in mind?

The toll this took on you, of course, was incredible. You were inconsolable for days, your tender heart shattered from the sudden death of your boyfriend. As much as Ace hated to see you cry—especially over that bastard—it was necessary. Like… removing an invasive species for the betterment of all. But Ace was there every minute he could be. Oyaji was very understanding as well, allowing Ace to stay at your house for as long as needed.

He was also quite proud of how Ace handled the situation on his own, but that little detail was simply icing on the top!

For the most part, consoling you involved watching old movies with your head tucked under his chin. Encouraged by Ace conveniently turning the air down slightly past your normal tolerance. Thinning frame cuddled in a blanket fort at his side as he encouraged you to cry it all out and eat something. Anything. The outside world didn’t exist as far as you were concerned. And while Ace definitely appreciated catching up on personal time with you… your health was something else entirely. This whole ‘mourning’ thing was taking too long. Especially for someone that didn’t deserve to be with you to begin with.

Thankfully, Ace had better tact than to say that… maybe he should have staged an elopement to make this easier for you? Too late now, really. A thought for the future perhaps. Not that there would ever be a chance he lets this happen twice. But how to ensure it? How does he help you move on from Law faster?

The answer came with a crockpot that Thatch provided—wonderful big brother that he was, honestly where would he be without his family or you? The crockpot held a hearty soup, perfect for broken hearts. The trick was getting you to eat. The little bites of crackers or ice cream you held down never lasted before a crying fit tossed them back up. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Law had also poisoned you literally. But he couldn’t hurt you anymore. Not with Ace here to keep a careful eye on your fragile, loving heart.

Ace pondered the dilemma as he waited for the crockpot to heat up. The house empty as your parents were at work and the two of you excused on ‘bereavement’. Well, you were excused. Ace simply had Oyaji excuse him for the time being to support you with the promise that as soon as you were more stable the both of you would have study sessions with Marco to catch up. There wasn’t any sense in letting tragedy derail your education, now was there? Law had done enough damage as it was.

A sniffle in the doorway alerted Ace to your presence as you shuffled into the kitchen. A duvet draped over your shoulders as you gave a weepy smile.

“Smells good… I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Ace.” You sniffled again, “I-I promise I won’t be a crybaby forever.” Ace rushed over, throwing his arms around your covered shoulders and rubbing your back.

“No, no, sweetheart! It’s okay! I’m not going anywhere. That’s my promise.” Ace consoled despite the sneer he hid in your hair, “Law meant a lot to you. It’s perfectly normal to be upset.” Slowly, he walked backwards until he was next to the counter and picked you up. Gently, he set you down on the counter and braced himself to lean over you, kissing your forehead softly.

“Thank you, Ace.” You whispered, moving to rub your eyes but he beat you to it. Gently wiping away your tears with a soft smile as you shivered. Ace frowned in concern and you shook your head. “Just cold. I… haven’t eaten a lot lately. I-I’m so tired, Ace. But I can’t sleep. I keep seeing Law… I wish I could forget. Just… just for a little while.”

Suddenly, Ace had an idea. A wonderful, brilliant idea.

“I hate seeing you like this too… Could… Could I try something?” Ace asked in his softest voice, “I’ll stop if you want me to but nothing else has worked so I thought…” You frowned, cute face scrunched up in confusion.

“Try what, Ace?” Slowly, deliberately, Ace cradled your face in his hands. Warm palms pressing against your cold cheeks. Not wanting to fuck up this soon, he kissed your forehead. Then your nose. Slow, lingering touches against your skin as you made a confused sound at the back of your throat. “W-What are you doing, Ace?”

“Warming you up… giving you something else to think about.” Ace brushed his hands back, threading his fingers through your hair with a deceptively light pressure to keep you still. “Just focus on me, baby. Nothing else matters. Let me help you forget… just for a little while.” Ace tested the waters by pressing a kiss to the corner of your lips. You didn’t move away from him, seemingly frozen in surprise.

He could feel you physically wavering, wanting to pull away out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to a dead man and lean into the creature comfort Ace readily offered. Ace held perfectly still for a long moment before pulling away. Just a little.

And you followed the motion, sliding your lips to press firmly against his own. Ace felt like screaming in victory—but the fight wasn’t over yet. He needed to wipe Law from your mind completely.

Ace sighed, just a little dramatically like he was relieved you didn’t slap him. Pulling open his lips to encourage you to do the same, tongue running across the narrow gap as you gasped. Chasing the sharp inhale eagerly. He slipped his tongue over yours and you pulled away suddenly with a sharp hiccup and tears.

“I-I can’t!” You shook your head, pressing your hands over your mouth as you sobbed. Desperately, Ace soothed his hands over your shoulders.

“Hey—hey, it’s alright. Everything is alright! You haven’t done anything wrong, baby.” Ace pulled you closer to him, ignoring how you tried to jerk away, “I’m sorry… I just hate to see you cry. I want to make you happy again—but I failed—I-I should… I should just leave.” Ace pulled away suddenly and started to turn around.

A cold, desperate hand grabbed his wrist and Ace smirked. You were too sweet for your own good.

“No! A-Ace, please don’t leave me too. I-I just feel so… so alone and cold. I-I don’t know how to make it stop!” You cried out.

Ace slowly turned around with a soft and understanding expression.

“I know, baby. I know.” Ace carefully stepped closer to you, like he was ready to pull away at any moment. “Trust your best friend to make it all better?” Ace leaned in close and whispered into your ear.

With a light sniffle, you nodded, wrapping your arms around his shoulders with a shiver. Thankfully Ace was here to make everything better again.

“J-Just don’t leave me.” You asked of him.

Like he ever intended to, to begin with.

“Never.” Ace swore, pressing slow kisses across your jaw, “Just… trust the process, baby. Trust me to make it better.” Ace reassured you.

“…Okay. I trust you.” You whispered, the words vibrating on his lips delightfully. Giddy, Ace started back where he left off. Your soft lips were just begging to be tasted properly. Gently, Ace titled your chin up and slipped his tongue back in again. Flicking playfully across your own. Slowly overwhelming you with his presence as your head lifted up for more with every pass. Soft pants slipping between your lips at his sufferance.

Ace kissed you deep, refusing to part from your lips until you were dizzy and gasping for air. Your eyes a slim ring of color around the pupils, lips puffy from his abuse. You were as responsive as he thought you’d be to his advances. Even with that… unfortunate distraction, it was clear you were meant to be his. Completely. And if he wanted to prove it, he’d need to get to work.

Softly, Ace caressed your skin, pushing back the blanket still curled around your body. Stroking up your arms and shoulders as he kept kissing you breathless. Slowly, like he had imagined hundreds of times before, Ace slipped his hands under your shirt. Grip firm as he made his wild fantasies a reality, one inch of your skin at a time. You jolted in surprise, a small noise of protest forming.

The sound muffled under his tongue as he moaned loudly, his vocal appreciation flustering you as he slipped even further under your clothes. Palming your breasts blindly, fingertips brushing over your nipples as a shy groan squeaked out. Ace pulled back, toying with the stiff peaks as a sly grin overtook his features.

“You’ve been so cold baby… are you feeling warmer yet?” Ace asked softly against your lips. Flustered, you nodded. A quick pinch forcing you to use your words.

“Y-Yes!” Pecking your cheek, Ace slowly pulled up your shirt and bra.

“See? We’re just getting started and I’m already making you feel better.” Ace cooed, encouraging you to lift up your arms so he could toss away the clothes. “Go ahead. Kiss me. Don’t be afraid.” Ace gently pulled your arms to his shoulders and returned to teasing your breasts.

Face noticeably warm, you were breathless as you leaned forward clumsily and pressed a damp kiss to his neck. Ace groaned in surprise, squeezing your breasts slightly as he struggled to control himself. His cock was straining in his pants and Ace was surprised he didn’t cum from that shy kiss alone. Fuck, he’d been wanting this for years now. And now?

He was so close he could taste it.

But he had to let you indulge first. Allow you to explore his body like he desperately wanted to explore yours. Carefully, Ace let one hand slide down over your stomach, teasing the waistband of your sweatpants as he pinched and pulled on one of your breasts. You moaned, mouth open as you kissed the underside of his chin. Humming eagerly, Ace slipped his hand in, enjoying the sharp gasp in surprise as your nails dug into his shoulders.

“A-Ace! W-W-Waa—hah-o-oh~!” Ace cut you off, his middle finger hooking in low to drag up your clit. The slight dampness wasn’t much, but it would do for now. Dipping his fingers deeper, Ace scooped up the growing liquid that pooled against your underwear and ruthlessly used it against you. Slipping between your folds in unpredictable patterns of fast and slow. Hard and gentle. Until you moaned, hips grinding down on his hand.

You were leaning on him almost entirely now, mouth agape as you panted, occasionally gathering enough of your wits to kiss his neck and chest. Leaning down to your ear, Ace whispered praises.

“You’re so beautiful for me.”

“That’s it. Make that pretty sound again, sweetheart.”

“Mmm… so wet.”

“Am I making you feel good?”

“I always keep my promises.”

“Focus on me. Who’s making you feel like this?”

“Go on. Cream for me. I want to feel you.”

You were crying. Good tears this time as Ace crooked three fingers into your wet pussy. Rocking you against his hand with his body, a mockery of how hard he wanted to fuck you. And you responded beautifully. Bashfully hiding your face even as your pitiful noises echoed in the kitchen. You were so small like this, curled up against him.

Ace wondered if he could convince you to a quickie in one of the school closets, the tight space would do wonders for seeing how creative he could get… but the prospect of anyone else hearing your moans killed the idea instantly. Only he would get to see you like this. Flushed and crying out for his hand. Unknowing how hard he was for you. Your heart beating against his palm as he continued groping your breasts with one hand.

“Ace!”

Suddenly, you keened, body freezing as your cunt squeezed his fingers hard. Trying to push him out. He chuckled softly, forcing them deeper into the soft, wet space. Fucking your cunt a little harder to pull out every last moan he could as you started to shake. As you came down from your high, Ace kissed you, stealing those precious sounds from your lips.

He wasn’t done quite yet.

“So beautiful. You did so well… but you could be even better.” Ace pulled his hand free and licked it clean. You tasted somewhat sweet and heady. The taste going straight to his cock as he moaned, much to your embarrassment. “Look at this mess, baby. How can I leave you so wet?” Ace reached down and tugged at your waistband meaningfully.

Your eyes widened as you started to realize what he was implying. You shook your head.

“I-Isn’t that… I-I think this is good enough.” Ace smiled down at you indulgently, hands dipping under your waistband but sliding to your ass instead.

“But I want to make you feel even better. Let me take care of you.” Ace licked his tongue up your neck to your ear, nipping the tip. “I want to put my face between your thighs… lick that cute little clit. Press my tongue between your lips. It must be so wet and messy down there. I want to drink it all up. Let me in, baby. Don’t you trust me?” Ace enticed you, voice a low moan as his hands dipped lower.

You lifted your hips with a moan of your own, allowing Ace to pull your sweatpants down. Leaving you bare on the counter.

Ace, no fool, wasted no time shoving his tongue into your mouth in gratitude. Hands now free to spread your thighs. After moaning, low and deep into the kiss, Ace pulled his head back. Immediately placing one of your breasts into his mouth. Mimicking the motions he was going to make shortly. Flicking your nipple with his tongue and pressing the muscle up and down the supply underside. The sounds you made in shock were divine. You gripped his hair desperately, crying out and panting. Reluctantly, he allowed your soft tit to fall free of his lips.

Slowly losing control, Ace made good on his promise immediately.

Sealing his lips over your exposed cunt and shoving his tongue into your body. Sliding against your walls, eager to taste every inch. Anything you said went right over his head in favor of the twitching heat that surrounded his tongue. Ace was more turned on than ever before at the flood of sweet cream as he fucked you. Occasionally, he nudged his nose up to press against your clit, never failing to inspire a sharp moan from you.

“A-Ah! Ah! H-Hah—ohohoh—A-Ace—ngh! Please! I-I nnnn-ne-HaHn~!” You stuttered and moaned brokenly. Ace’s cock leaking precum as he forced your knees further apart against the force of your twitching thighs.

You yanked his hair suddenly with a scream hard enough to remove him. Ace only had time to glimpse your swollen cunt dripping fresh cum before he snarled and dove back in. Hands moving to grip your ass, knees over his shoulder, as he lifted you up to pin you to his face a few inches above the counter.

You screamed, cunt throbbing hard as you gripped his head, curling over him. He almost choked on the amount of liquid flooding his face, but he noisily sucked it up. Punishing you for pulling away by nipping your clit and triggering a weak splash against his chin. Unable to pull free, you moaned and twitched as he ate to his hearts content. Cock now almost burning against his pants, aching to be deep in your pussy instead of his tongue.

Reluctantly, he set you back down, pulling away just enough to shove his pants down. Cock bobbing free. You jerked back and Ace tutted, gripping your chin to look at him.

“Am I not good enough for you, baby? Can you feel how hard I am? I’m fucking aching for relief, I’ve wanted you for so long…” Ace kissed you, rubbing his tongue still thick with the taste of your own cum around your mouth. Forcing you to taste what had driven him over the edge. “I worked so hard to make your cute little cunt cream for me. To warm you up again. I-I want to feel you around me, baby. Let me have this. Please.” Ace begged softly, grinding his heavy cock into the slick mess between your thighs.

Your eyes were teary as you looked away, still rattled by your orgasm.

Slowly, Ace pressed his hips forward, letting you feel how his cock spread your pussy open. You inhaled sharply and shook your head.

“T-Too much! T-This is too mu—Ah~!” Ace thrust in, hips slapping into your thighs. Ace moaned into your lips loudly.

“O-Oh, I-I’m so sorry baby. Here—oh fuck you’re so soft and tight around me I w-w-want to just ngh!—L-Let me pull out—” Ace slowly dragged his thick cock from the vice grip your cunt had around him. The sudden empty sensation made you dig your nails into his skin and he purposefully slammed back into place. A shrill moan slipped from your lips as he moaned into your open mouth. Ace didn’t need to play up how incredibly turned on he was, gently resting his head on your shoulder and pressing soft kisses onto your skin. “Fuck! Sorry—I-I’m sorry baby—you startled me! T-This time I-I’ll leave you.”

Ace pulled back as reluctantly as he could but his cock didn’t even make it half way before you panicked.

“No! A-Ace—Oh Ace I-I ca-can’t—Y-You pr-prom-promised--!” Ace snapped his hips into your body again.

“Y-You mean it, baby? I-I can fuck you?” Ace whispered in that sad, pathetic voice that always made you tear up.

“Y-Yes! Yes! Ye—AH—OH F-FUCK AHN—Ace I-I-I ooohhhh~hng—ah!” You agreed and Ace wasted no time drilling into you. Slamming his cock into your body fast. Driving all thoughts from the both of you besides how thick his dick was in your cunt and how fast you were already squeezing him.

Just like before, your body was too weak to force him out even as you came. His hips overpowering you to keep fucking you harder and harder. Ace eagerly let every filthy moan and perverse thought spill from him as he worked towards his goal.

“Yes! Y-Your finally mine!”

“I’m going to fuck you so much.”

“Squeeze my cock, baby. I’m so close.”

“I almost came on your tits, you were so fucking beautiful screaming for me.”

“Do it again. Scream for me.”

“Is my thick cock driving you mad? Good.”

“I’m going to cum right here.”

“Remember how good I make you feel.”

“Only for me, baby. That’s right. For me.” Ace felt the electricity shoot up his spine like a live wire as his balls tingled. Every thrust accompanied by a lewd, wet sound from how hard he was slamming into your wet cunt. Nail marks burned along his back as you screamed for him, pussy pulsing around him.

Finally, with a hard thrust, he came as deep into your cunt as he could. The world faded out as his thick cum shot out in hot spurts. He could only faintly hear you crying against his shoulder as his hips made aborted thrusts to fuck his cock deeper. Shakily, Ace rubbed your back, panting into your skin.

It was only after he felt his cock soften that he registered you were crying. Leaning back but not removing himself from the warmth of your dripping cunt, Ace looked at your face.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Ace cradled your face gently, pressing kisses to your cheeks. “Let me make it better.”

“I-I-I… How could I?” You whimpered, shaking your head, “I-I betrayed him!”

Ace frowned, pussy-drunk mind slow to process. When it did, he nearly snarled. Almost threw you to the ground to fuck those stupid thoughts from your sweet, impressionable head.

“No! Baby, no you didn’t!” Ace whispered, kissing your lips softly as he made gentle thrusts to hopefully distract you. “He’d want you to be happy. He cared about you so much… and you’ve been so upset. You’ve lost so much weight. You can barely sleep. You haven’t done anything wrong. Put those nasty thoughts out of your head.” Ace slowly started fucking you again.

You moaned, conflicted but still not thinking straight.

“I-I shouldn’t be… It’s so wrong. O-Oh~A-Ace!” You moaned as you felt his cock begin to harden inside you, “I-I’m taking advantage of you—you’re my best friend!”

Ace chuckled, kissing you into silence.

“If this is taking advantage of me, you’re welcome to keep doing it.” Ace groaned, “I’ve always loved you, baby… I just want to see you happy again. Please…”

Ace’s thrusts sped up, disrupting your sobs with moans as the mix of cum dripped down both your thighs. Ace leaned forward, forcing you back and reaching a new angle that had you weak instantly, head slamming into the cabinet. Forcefully fucking you harder against the counter, Ace smiled. Ace grabbed your thighs and lifted you up, walking over to the kitchen table.

Ace shoved you flat onto the table, lifting your hips up to directly fuck into your body. Your tears of misplaced guilt were quickly replaced by pleasure as Ace drilled into you.

He had wanted to play nice and gentle. Let you slowly forget about Law.

But it seems like he needed to take a more firm approach.

“…Trust me.”

Starting with your inability to sleep.

Fucking you hard until you passed out on his cock seemed like a wonderful start on the road to recovering from your useless ex. One day you’d forget his name entirely. Ace was going to make sure of it.

[wisteriasakana]

This month I've been focusing on Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf, especially since the demo is in the pipeline. And so...

Soe does devlog strikes back - The return of a completely random series of devlog.

As already mentioned, the first part of May was explosive to say the least. Apart from the RL and my computer going argh, I had the idea of editing my itch.io profile and... Maybe I put too many links, because for a few days it was kept in custody to probably verify I wasn't a bot or a spammer. *lol!* Now everything is fine and my account is beautiful - Empty, sure, but beautiful!

Talking about the game. To my great and pleasant surprise, I found more than one kind person willing to betatest the English version. I've already received some very useful feedback! There are some small tweaks to do before releasing the demo. For example, the menu.

This is the menu I planned to keep for the game. However, it was pointed out to me that the color is too bright and that the RPG Maker base menu, in a game without combat, is very dispersive. So I fixed it!

This is the new version of the menu. Straightforward and essential! (It’s mjshi’s Non-Combat Menu, if anyone is interested-)

Thinking back to the feedback, I realized that the very first part of the game might not give a very clear idea of where the story is going. Probably because I didn't plan to make a demo. I had already taken into account that the demo would be 75% walking simulator and 15% gameplay but, story-wise, the pacing had an impact that I hadn't anticipated. I'll have to be more careful, gaming writing is different from novel writing! (BTW, a funny (?) detail is that I think the full version of the game has a decent balance between dialogue and gameplay-)

And, speaking of the full version, as I already said in the last post, I finally found a (I hope) good idea for the last part before the endings. Keep it simple, simple things are often the most effective! I've already programmed it, I just have to... Yes, write the dialogue. BUT, I still went ahead with other cutscenes. I'm not quite completely just absolutely totally stuck with writing!

One thing that was holding me back a bit about this story is that I thought of it in 2016. I don't remember if I ever said it (If yes, whatever, let's dust off the origins!), but Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf started out in 2016 as a short story. I decided to rework it as an RPG Maker game because I wanted to develop something short. Well... Short I guess it's short, it's my timing that's curious. *Look at Candy Apple* However, that's a seven year old story now. I've changed, I write differently, now I would do it differently. Maybe that's what stopped me so- No, that's not true, because I thought of Candy Apple seven months ago and I procrastinate it too. *lol*

I'm not going to get stuck in an eternal loop of perfectionism. We grow, we change, if you are slow like me you have to accept that you will have to work on something created by your past self. Just don't fossilize! Besides, this is my first game, this poor fellow has to suffer all my gameplay and writing experiments in this new medium. I really hope I can get through this block and be able to give Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf the ending(s) it deserves and be able to show them to others as well.

Yes, okay, so when will the demo be out?

As already said, I won't give a precise date for the moment. I have yet to receive feedback from other betatesters, so answering times and any changes to be made must be taken into account. My idea is the first week of June but, I repeat, it's just an idea.

Happy MerMay, that has nothing to do with all of this but it's one of the virtual anniversaries that I love most, and good luck with your projects!

[reesecomic13]

I DIDNT EVEN LIKE BARBIE AS A KID WHERE IS THIS FIXATION COMING FROM-

[junkworldusa]

belated book asks, thank you for indulging me!

1- What book are you currently reading? bros karamazov, 2/3s through atm.

i hate that i’m thinking about pathologic (video game) the entire time but i can't help it. the way characters are constantly bursting into people's houses & going "you’re an angel, you're the best person i've ever met, you're a saint" to someone they just met 5 minutes ago is so. distinct. i joked on twitter that the first half of the book is just alyosha running around completing sidequests, which i still think is true, but once i got to the grand inquisitor part i was like "Okay mr dostoevsky, you’ve got me."

2- What book did you recently finish? "selections from science & sanity" by alfred korzybski, recently featured in the gumby quotes. a while back i listened to a 6 hour long interview with robert anton wilson where he talks about korzybski & general semantics so i gave it a shot. it's an abridged version of a 900 page book & i definitely plan on reading the full work at some point, it's wild. if you’re interested in language, consciousness, the gap between words & meaning, and/or hacking your brain i would recommend it. he repeats himself a lot but that's a side effect of his pedagogy, the goal of which is the eventual re-wiring of your entire nervous system in order to achieve a more rational worldview/healthier reactions to things. (so repetition via words/sounds/actions is necessary 2 engage the organism-as-a-whole.) the most important takeaway for me is that everything & everyone you interact with is a completely unique object, and this necessarily extends to temporality-- Bob in 1999 is NOT the same person as Bob in 2010, and treating them as though they were is a harmful mistake. interestingly enough, im taking a class with J.F. martel (weird studies podcast, author of "reclaiming art in the age of artifice") & last night he said what amounts to exactly the same thing, except he was arguing for like, a soft animism (i-thou vs. i- it) & korzybski was arguing for a more "rational" & secular world. so fascinating.

3- What’s a book that’s been on your to-read list for a long time? ulysses. i know. i know. i have a copy but keep bouncing off of it. idk why, i liked portrait of the artist as a young man. i think i’m worried i’ll turn into this person:

4- What’s the next book you’re hoping to read? i just got "speech play: research & resources for the study of linguistic creativity" in the mail so probably that. i'm on a childlore kick rn & this is like... horizontally related 5- Is there a book you own, but aren’t planning on reading?

around 2 years ago i was walking home after a show high on E & i ran into a guy i had met at work a couple times. went over to his apartment because MDMA is like, "everything is SO meaningful and SO much fun." i barely remember our conversation but he ended up being like "you would like this book, here take it, i have 3 copies." so i now own a copy of "the eater of darkness" by robert m coates. i still haven't read it. the moral of this story is [???]

6- What was your favorite series as a kid? Would you still read it now? so many of you asked this question :P

THE TRUTH: i was obsessed with lotr from age 8 to 13 with a level of dedication that i've never known since. yes, i would still read it now. i reread the silmarillion last year & it was naturally a way more rewarding experience than when i was a kid! 8- Fantasy or sci-fi? i like & have read a lot of older sf/f (le guin asimov pkd etc etc) but im not actively into either nowadays. i read whatever reaches me from the queer sf/f twitter pipeline (like whatever's on wizards vs lesbians) but otherwise dont pay much attention. so the answer is "idk!!!”

12- Have you ever read a celebrity memoir? If so, whose was it? the only memoir i've read in recent years has been "memories, dreams, reflections" so if jung counts as a celebrity, there you go 14- Fiction or non-fiction? non-fiction in both quantity of books owned & what i prefer reading. i almost view them as 2 separate activities bc the motivation for & experience of reading them are so wildly different 15- Favorite fiction genre? i know i said im not "actively into" sci fi but 16- Favorite non-fiction genre? "philosophy" i guess. i also really love any phenomenological/experience-based studies of paranormal stuff, like "the terror that comes in the night" by david hufford or anything by jacques vallée. basically books that both a) take strange experiences seriously & b) examine/catalogue them scientifically (to whatever degree). 

22- How do you organize your books? “poorly” 26- What’s your favorite book? fav non-fiction book: “time loops” by eric wargo. what if freud's career-making "irma dream" was a premonitory dream about the oral cancer that would severely impede his quality of life in his old age? (fantastic blog entry by the author, serves as a kind of intro to this topic: http://thenightshirt.com/?p=4326 )

when i read “time loops” it felt like everything i had ever read (& will ever read future tense) was for the sole purpose of understanding it. “time loops” picks up where J.W. dunne's 1927 "an experiment with time" left off. i won't say too much more about it but everyone should read it. it's so smart & engaging & will totally blow your miiiind, maaaan speaking of "an experiment with time," in 1964 a guy named vladimir nabokov began an experiment of his own following the directions dunne laid out in his book. dunne encouraged readers to write down their dreams in order to test the theory that a later event could generate an earlier dream.

nabokov’s experiment with dreams & time strongly influenced “ada or ardor: a family chronicle” which happens to be my favorite novel. i first read it when i was 18, and i've reread it 3 times since then (with the help of ada online, my beloved http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/ ) i would not recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t already like nabokov & know what he’s about. it’s fucked up & self indulgent & i love it so much

30- What character do you connect with the most? when jung said he was bad at math? i felt that

[felassan]

Some MELE snippets:

In Canada, Mexico and the US, for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Steelbook is being offered again for preorders [source]

Idk if it’ll be of any help/use to people but here’s a few recent articles on stuff to do with pre-ordering: one, two 

One of the changes is that weapon appearance has been standardized aross all three games [source]

On Resetera, Shinobi602 commented on the Eden Prime skybox, saying “This was how it always looked, the initial reveal shot with Sovereign [in earlier MELE previews that we saw] just gave a slightly misleading representation. From what I understood before previews went out, the initial Eden Prime mission still retains some redness or progressively gets darker/more red the more you progress towards the end.” [source]

On Resetera, a member of the press who was at the press event where they did a breakdown of rendering and asset enhancements listed the following features: “bokeh DOF, improved volumetric fog, lighting engine pass, ambient occlusions, improved textures, improved skin tones and shading with subsurface scattering and added/enhanced Black hairstyles”. [source]

They also commented that ME1 has gotten the biggest upgrade so far, at least comprehensively, along with general QOL improvements like the new HUD. They say that ME2 and ME3 aren’t receiving changes to gameplay and combat in the way that ME1 has and will largely function like they always have. “And while both [ME2 & ME3] are also getting new assets, the approach as a whole is a bit different: full asset remaking is limited to very specific things (like character models), with additional work going into updating all textures and details where possible. Whereas ME1, as we've seen, has entire environments repopulated with new assets, effects, shaders to bring together a more content rich scene. ME2/ME3 AFAIK are not getting that attention. Asset quality upgrades, yes. Environmental remaking, no”; “the tech/engine upgrades are applicable across all three games. Anything in the rendering pipeline will be applied across the trilogy, which is great as it ensures bokeh DOF and ambient occlusions and all that stuff are uniform across the board. What I meant to say is that the approach to asset remaking is different between the two. The same degree of attention is being granted to characters and whatnot (we probably just see the improvements more obviously in ME1 due to its age), as is the attention to texture work (some textures heavily touched up, others simply churned through an upscaler). But the bulk of the heavy rework (gameplay tweaks, and remaking environments with entirely new assets) is going to ME1.” [source, two]

I think maybe the Presidium is now brighter in terms of lighting [?]

Not sure if it’s a consequence of changes to hair colors in general that they’ve made or something but Udina and Pressly’s hair seems darker now [?]

[sleevesareforlosers]

aaaaaaau hello I Love that analysis you did about ur twitterverse's themes of reputation/perception, that's 100% something I picked up on while reading it and it was one of my fav parts! I was also wondering though if you had anything to say about twitterverse cherri's relationship with waveriding? that was another element of the story I was enamored by just cause it seemed almost religious to it, which was in Huge contrast to how nearly every other character viewed waveriding. and besides just cherri's personal relationship/views with waveriding, I was Also wondering how it feels about other people's views on all that too? (is it only insulted on its own behalf? does it feel insulted on the sun's behalf as well? etc?)

okay ive been thinking abt this all day NOW im ready to go

so yeah, cherri does have a really different relationship to waveriding than even other waveheads. calling it religious is probably right, like when it thinks about the sun its "Her" and "She" and its always capitalized as a bit of a, if not worship then at least reverence type thing. She's important to cherri and it respects Her. I dont know how many other waveheads do that? like theres the same kind of physical effects, trance, etc, and that gets addictive, but the thing thats different is that cherri percieves its way of seeing with its eyes closed as a function of its waveriding. it thinks She took its ability to see in low light and gave it that instead.

Fact of the matter is, the sun is the sun, like theres no power or anything that it has and other waveheads dont have that same benefit that cherri does. thats partly a phoenix witch/destroya thing, partly a just "cherri is a little off" thing, but it doesnt know that its alone in having this ability. thats why it can still See when its in the city and the sun isnt there and Her power doesnt reach into the city. theres other types of power in the city. but it doesnt know this, so its waveriding has gone from a purely physical sun trance/high (as it is with other waveheads) to a religious thing because of this association that cherri has given it. the physical effects are still there obvs and it is like. addicted to that, but even then it interprets its cravings as the sun "calling to it", not as what they really are.

I dont know if it would've developed/been given that seeing ability if it hadn't started waveriding. its a pipeline of the contracted pupils from the constant sun exposure -> straining to see in the dark -> the witch heals it when she sends it back and thing slip through sometimes. probably other waveheads Might even develop that if they also got more than one death but again, thats pretty much just a cherri thing.

as for how it feels about other peoples opinions is like. it doesnt care. after like. everything abt its life cherri's only affected by a select few peoples opinions and like. newsie and chimp never chastise it for waveriding, they just work around it and make sure its still taking care of itself and if cherri went to them and was like 'i need to stop waveriding' theyd help but they arent gonna push it. doc and pony are pretty similar, but also theyre more removed from cherri's life and when they are all together theres something more pressing than the matter of cherri doing something its been doing since it was like ten. and ofc i've already talked abt how kobra doesnt bring up the waveriding one way or another and even if he did, the jury's still kinda out on how much cherri would be affected by his opinion. (im saying be affected by instead of care about bc i think cherri DOES care abt its reputation and stuff but not in a way that would affect its self-image or anything, a reputation is a good thing to care about and cultivate in the zones)

to sum up! yeah calling it a religious thing is right but then sun itself has no power other than radiation

[populus-tremuloides]

Hey I noticed you linked the BLM website in a post but can you tell your followers not to donate to the organization

The donation link the website has is secure act blue and secure act blue funds democratic campaigns

So for the past 7 years all that money they collected over $1 billion probably none of that has touched the black community

Hoo boy so while I agree with the gist of this ask, there’s some misleading info here:

ActBlue is not giving BLM donations to the DNC, and this claim has been debunked multiple times by reliable sources. However, the BLM Global Network Foundation has faced questioning and controversy this year thanks to their nonprofit partnerships and a lack of transparency. I always advocate for donating as small-scale and locally as you can. I’ll put the rest of this analysis (with sources linked) under a read more, since it’s LONG (but it took me forever to put together so pls read thx ❤️).

ActBlue is an online fundraising platform that is not explicitly related to the US Democratic Party, but which only funds left-leaning and progressive candidates and organizations. It’s a tech company. It earns money by functioning as this service, so yes, your donations help fund it. Organizations and candidates pay ActBlue a 3.95% processing fee for donations, but the rest of the money donated does go to the organization or specific candidate. ActBlue is also registered as a PAC (political action committee) which is a whole can of Political Worms I don’t want to open, but that means it has to report to the Federal Election Commission/the IRS which is a positive because it results in transparency of conduit funding. 

So...96.05% of the money you donate through the BLM website SHOULD go to the BLM Foundation. It does NOT go to the DNC.  The person who started this rumor (from a since-deleted Facebook post which led to a viral video) is a member of a Students for Trump organization, and other conservative pundits picked up on it and posted it. It just isn’t true, and has been debunked many times.

HOWEVER there’s still a problem. It’s hard to say where the money donated to the BLM site actually goes, and that issue is directly related to tax laws and nonprofit organization status in the US. There were questions and lawsuits about this earlier this year. There is an interesting loophole in ActBlue’s policy that states that “contributions...which are not cashed or affirmatively refused will be kept by ActBlue and used generally to support its social welfare activities”. In other words, ActBlue will keep money that is not cashed by the organizations within 60 days and use it to “generally support its social welfare activities”. No, I don’t know exactly what that means--it’s probably used by ActBlue for program costs, or is reallocated to its general fund (which gives grants to nominee funds, the Flip the Senate campaign, etc) but it does mean that money doesn’t go to those organizations, even if it was donated to them, if the organizations don’t claim it. Then, in a Reddit AMA in June, a BLM Foundation organizer provided less than satisfying information about where the money they fundraise goes. It’s difficult to find that info online thanks to the way nonprofits function within American tax law. 

It’s important to note here that the BLM Foundation and BLM Global Network are not necessarily associated with individual community activist organizations, protests, or the general BLM social movement. There’s plenty of discourse on this you can research on your own if you want. Google is free.

What’s important here is that the BLM Foundation operates as a nonprofit with a “parent” charity. From 2016 to this year BLM worked with Thousand Currents, which “fundraises grassroots groups led by women, youth and Indigenous Peoples”. In July they switched to a “working relationship” with TIDES, which is a “philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice”. 

I’m not going to get into my personal feelings about large scale nonprofit organizations and the oxymoron of conscious capitalism (because organizations like this are essentially venture capitalists for nonprofits imo), but personally I think the larger and more decentralized the organization (or parent organization, in this case), the less effective your donation. More on that later. 

Essentially though, Thousand Currents and TIDES are organizations that focus on fundraising and infrastructure and then fund smaller grassroots groups that might not have the infrastructure or foothold to do that for themselves. This is not uncommon in the nonprofit world. I work for a nonprofit that ran though a university foundation and an established local nonprofit for ten years before we got our 501(c)(3) designation and started functioning independently. It’s not abnormal that the BLM Foundation works with an organization like that, given BLM is pretty decentralized by design and is also a fairly new organization (2013/2014). 

Thousand Currents and TIDES have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. It can be difficult for smaller and newer nonprofits (as well as nonprofits that function outside of the US but which rely on donations from the US or other countries outside of where they’re headquartered) to gain that status, so they often work under a larger organization. 501(c)(3) status means financial records have to be made public, which means anyone can access the financial records for Thousand Currents and TIDES. You can also find tax filings for the BLM Foundation, but it’s less comprehensive (the most recent I could find was Form 990 from 2017, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place). Anyone can request tax documents from 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

This is getting complicated, right? Welcome to American tax law and nonprofit organizational hierarchies functioning under late stage capitalism. i’m not trying to throw the BLM Foundation under the bus here, because honestly this is just how it goes with a lot of organizations in the US. I don’t think it means you shouldn’t support them. But it gets pretty twisted up. Maybe you made a $20 donation to BLM back in July and now you’re wondering where the hell it went. Here’s the pipeline: your donation goes through ActBlue (which takes 3.95%, or .79 cents of your donation) to TIDES, which then directs that money to BLM. They know how much money is coming to them for BLM because ActBlue differentiates fundraising campaigns--the BLM money going to Thousand Currents or TIDES is separated from the funds coming to them for, say, CLIMA or the Farm to School Network . However, Thousand Currents and TIDES probably take a cut to support their operating costs, too. I couldn’t find data on this, so this is conjecture and I’m not sure how much--this statement is just based on knowing how nonprofits and fundraising usually work. 

So, the money stream from you to BLM is like this: You------> ActBlue (takes a 3.95% cut) ------> Thousand Currents or TIDES (probably takes a cut, then directs the money to)------>  BLM -----> Whatever BLM uses it for. Despite that strange loophole in ActBlue’s policy, Thousand Currents appeared to be claiming the donations and directing them to BLM (as of 2018...will be interesting to see tax stats from this year since their move to TIDES after unprecedented donations). 

BLM does have a huge grassroots organizing fund that began this June in response to overwhelming donations following the murder of George Floyd. The fund provides grants up to $500,000 to smaller grassroots organizations and activists, as well as educational curriculum and political platforms. Their grant campaign is supported by TIDES, which provides the infrastructure and tax-exempt funding conduit needed for such a large scale effort. I’m guessing most of the money they’re fundraising goes to that fund. A chunk definitely goes to paying employees, running their website, and funding outreach and education. 

So ALL THAT BEING SAID, I would always say donate directly to bail funds, mutual aid funds, legal fee funds, and local activism organizations before donating to a larger, all-encompassing charity or organization. If you can Venmo someone you know and you know where that money goes, that’s always the best. 

Venmo accounts, gofundme campaigns, cashapp accounts, paypal accounts...that’s often what smaller scale organizations and activists are using on a local level and it’s generally collected and distributed more directly. The BIPOC and COVID mutual aid funds where I live are active on Facebook and Instagram and operate based on requests for help from community members that are posted on Google documents available to the public. Here is a good example of a grassroots COVID mutual aid fund that is directing A LOT of money locally and transparently--there are similar funds and organizations like this worldwide for COVID, BLM, and beyond. 

The biggest impact you can make always comes at the community level--you should do some research into figuring out what’s going on in your area. There’s almost always something nearby, even if you live in a rural area or smaller town like I do, and if there’s not, hey--you could start something! Engage in your community and put your money into that, or into other communities in need. Pay attention to stuff going around on Twitter and Instagram--a lot of community organizing is facilitated there. 

I included the BLM link in the original post because the website is a good place to learn about actions around the globe, organizing basics, and has a lot of up to date news and educational materials. I advocated for donating to bail funds, mutual aid funds, water projects, and local activist organizations and I stand by that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t donate to the BLM Global Network or other larger-scale foundations, but the conduit of money to cause is usually not as direct. I still don’t think it’s a bad thing to donate to them.

But ALSO don’t spread straight-up misinformation like this ask does. ActBlue is a fundraising platform and it’s not stealing the money you send to BLM and giving it to Biden or the DNC. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and this is a great way to dissuade people from donating money to progressive organizations who use ActBlue because it’s an easy, accessible online fundraising platform. Funny how right-wing pundits latched onto this so quickly, huh?

Feel free to correct me or add more info. I’m white and operating within US-centric organizing circles. But PLEASE give some sources if you do have corrections or arguments and PLEASE do a google search before you spread stuff like this. 

_______________________________________________________________________

TL;DR: ActBlue is a fundraising platform, it is not stealing your money and giving it to the DNC. The money you donate to BLM goes to that organization, though it is a meandering path from donation to impact. Donate to bail funds, mutual aid organizations, legal fee funds, local activism organizations, etc., over larger organizations. Invest in your own communities, and directly in black communities, and always do your research. 

[canmom]

Animation Night 40 - Live Action × Animation

Hello friends! It’s THURSDAY. You know what that means. Unless you followed me this week, in which case: it’s the day of the week where I stream animated films on Twitch.

(No good excuses for the lack of long essays on Lupin or GitS - at this rate I’ll probably end up doing a full Lupin writeup when we get around to our second Lupin night. Such is life!)

Tonight, we’re going to take a break from heavy contemplative artsy anime to go somewhere fun. We’ll be taking a look into a technique that has recurred throughout the history of my medium of obsession, which is compositing traditional & stop-motion animation with live-action!

Now, compositing animation in general with live action footage is now pretty much universal in films with any sort of fantasy elements. This is because 3D CGI is now very mature, to the point that paying a studio artists to go down the sculpt -> retopo -> rig -> mocap/animate [-> cleanup mocap] -> physics sim -> shade -> render -> composite pipeline is often a cheaper alternative than practical effects. Nowadays, you can get extremely good camera tracking and compositing even with free software like Blender (check out Ian Hubert’s tutorials if you want a quick introduction to that kinda thing!)...

Compositing traditional animation into live film on the other hand is much, much rarer, to the point that there’s only a handful of films that have tried it. The reason for this is basically that doing the camera tracking/perspective projection by hand, accurately enough to be convincing, is very very difficult, and therefore time-consuming, and therefore... expensive. Outside of a few one-off novelties which could be sold on ‘what if The Cartoons came to life’, it’s not been worth it for studios...

Well, those one-off novelties are our subject for tonight! Namely: Who Framed Roger Rabbit by ‘very famous old dead dude’ Richard Williams, Space Jam by Warner Bros in their heyday, and even a certain mr. Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World because we gotta give him a nod some time, right? (This may prove to be a mistake.)

So, let’s start with the big one in this arena: Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Richard Williams is a biiiig name in animator circles mostly because he wrote hands down one of the best books on animation, The Animator’s Survival Kit, which did a great job of exploring the nuances of what can be expressed in motion, and basically set the tone of animation pedagogy ever since as far as I can tell!

But, he’s also known for two major films. One is, of course, his passion project The Thief and the Cobbler, which like a more extreme iteration of Takeshi Koike’s Redline he pursued for more than three decades on and off since the 60s. Eventually the studio funding it got tired of seeing no return on their investment; Allied Filmmakers sent the unfinished parts of the film off to be finished as quickly as possible, and released in a hastily recut form to compete - rather unsuccessfully - with Disney’s Aladdin.

Subsequently, fanmade ‘recobbled cuts’ of the film aiming to recreate Williams’ vision became popular as a kind of cult hit among film nerds. It’s a troubling film to talk about because, for all its immense technical achievements in cinematography and composition inspired by Islamic art, it is overwhelmingly orientalist, featuring names like Vizier Zigzag and Princess Yum-Yum and an excuse plot in which these stock characters go through macguffin-oriented motions. This is a good description of a lot of Williams’ animation: incredible technical skill applied to deliver stories that are just, not very interesting...

It was in the wake of losing creative control on Cobbler that Williams went into a depressive retreat and penned The Animator’s Survival Kit; though some of his examples are clearly from that film, he never explicitly talks about it by name, and has avoided commenting too much, it seemed like it was a fairly sore subject right up to his death.

In any case we’re not here to talk about either of those; there’s enough Williams hagiography out there. Instead, let’s focus on his other well known film: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, directed Robert Zemeckis. This film elaborates on the common gag that animated characters are actors who, when off the job, live typical actor lives, imagining a ghettoised ‘toon town’ where the animated characters live that’s just a district in Hollywood. That it’s a metaphor for racialised capitalism in America is kinda obvious, right? But when I first watched it I was young enough that it went totally over my head, so it’s gonna be fun to rewatch with adult eyes...

The plot plays around with hardboiled detective tropes, but what really ‘sells’ it is the fantastic moment to moment gags and acting: the human actors doing a stellar job of acting around invisible cartoons (greenscreen tech not yet existing), and Williams and his crew (often working late from hotel rooms per anecdotes in Survival Kit!) doing an equally fantastic job of making their characters interact with the environment to make them all seem part of the same scene, knocking things over, casting shadows etc.

A lot of the film’s thing is to play on the different ‘rules’ obeyed by toons vs humans: instead of physical logic, toons play by a kind of emotive logic. Roger Rabbit’s a kind of Loony Tunes main character, and as such his interactions with the world are driven by the need to create laughs at all times; his wife Jessica Rabbit is a ludicrously exaggerated sexy girl character who kind of strains against this inescapable role. It’s a very clever film with a lot going on, and it’s no surprise it revitalised the animation industry in the States when it came out...

Ironically given how much Roger Rabbit built his reputation, Williams himself wanted to break from the slapstick funny animal mode that dominated American cartoons at the time (and still does! though now more CGI), trying to push animation into more varied, creative directions. He died while working on another passion project, a two-person project working with his wife playing on Greek mythology. The film tries for something really quite ridiculous, with every frame being a meticulously shaded pencil figure drawing; it is no surprise that Williams only completed a short ‘prologue’ before his death.

Williams is an odd dude; it’s easy to treat him hagiographically because of his immense technical skill, and he definitely did a lot to push this medium into interesting places, but he was also very ‘of his time’; I was immensely frustrated watching Cobbler that someone so creative with his visual inspiration could not also extend a little humanity to the people who inspired his film. Well, Roger Rabbit leaves the writing to someone else, and lets Williams handle the technical character-acting magic, and this is perhaps where he shines most...

‘What if you could fuck a cartoon’ does seem to be a recurring motif of this kind of animation/live action crossover, and that brings us to Ralph Bakshi and Cool World...

So. Ralph Bakshi is another one of those animation auteurs with a distinctive style who you have to caveat a little before recommending lmao. With a background as a very young Jewish migrant in Brooklyn, Bakshi soon became very embedded in American counterculture. He got his first jobs in animation right at the bottom rung, as a ‘cel polisher’ responsible for cleaning dust from animation cels before photography, but worked his way up until he was directing films. Not content to work in the largely kid-targeted ecosystem, Bakshi was one of the people who went hard on pushing the ‘adult animation’ model, including its fumbling early experimentation with ‘haha, sex’. Most of his films (with exceptions like Wizards and his LotR) draw on the place he grew up, typically using very abstract archetypal characters; sex work is a major theme.

This video essay covers Bakshi’s work from a much more informed perspective than I can. My impression is, well, at his best Bakshi will take you into some fascinating psychic terrain; at his worst he leans entirely on shock value. At the time of Cool World, which is afaik his only time compositing animation with live action, Bakshi had made a few early films, like... sigh... “Coonskin” which was a dubious attempt to intervene positively against the medium’s history of racism, or, like Fritz the Cat, a film about a horny student cat which in reptuation relied almost entirely on the shock value of talking about sex in an animated film.

Cool World doesn’t go quite as edgy as these, but it’s definitely not as far afield as he’d go later with films like Wizards or his Lord of the Rings. It also predates Bakshi’s interest in xerox-based pseudo-rotoscoping, which means the animation ages a bit better than say, LotR.

So, Cool World. This thing came out in 1992, four years after Roger Rabbit, and it’s honestly kind of bizarre that it did, because if the opposite were true I’d be like, oh, Jessica Rabbit is a parody of Holly Would (yeah we’re on like, James Bond film level puns here).

The plot basically hinges on the idea that a toon world exists in parallel to the real world as an alternate dimension rather than a physical place; a man called Frank gets isekai’d there during a traffic accident. In Cool World, he discovers one other human (or in the film’s parlance, ‘noid’) man has been transported to Cool World previously and used it to support an artistic career. Before long, Jack the cartoonist commits the cardinal sin of fucking a drawing; this transforms Holly Would into a real girl (or noid), and she attempts to find a way to remain in noid form permanently, threatening the fabric of reality and risking various people getting turned into ‘doodles’ themselves. Ultimately both guys get permanently turned into drawings, allowing them to stay with their waifus in the drawing dimension.

Which like, phew there’s a lot going on there! Naturally a lot of the like, setpieces hinge on the ability to create things through a drawing pen, and the notion of escapism into a world of like, heightened libidinal blah blah...

Some interesting tidbits from this film’s production include: Bakshi claiming he primarily made it to make money because his paintings were hardly selling; Bakshi clashing hard with the studio because he wanted to make it an R-rated horror comedy instead of something PG-13; and the sheer chaotic improvisational process of the film, wherein:

The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi to "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"[4]

It honestly kind of amazes me that this resulted in a film at all!

In any case the critics absolutely hated this movie, and it failed catastrophically at the box office, one of Bakshi’s least successful films. Almost seems like a disfavour to the guy to show Cool World as our first look into his work, but hey, there’s not a lot of examples on this theme. And I kinda want to see just how bad it gets w friends lmao.

Well, things were quiet in the compositing traditional animation front for a bit, but throw on four more years and we get Space Jam! While the previous films are the work of ‘big name’ animation auteurs, the main big name associated with Space Jam is actually basketballer Michael Jordan, who had discovered a very lucrative gig in lending his name and image to advertising, and now sought to make a big deal of his return to basketball after somewhat unsucessfully trying a switch to baseball. For reasons best known to him and the other marketing execs he was working with, he thought it wise to narrativise this career change through a feature film featuring Looney Tunes characters.

The first examples of Jordan collabing with Warner Bros were some Nike ads in 1992 where Jordan appeared alongside Bugs Bunny; these were apparently successful enough to convince Warner Bros execs that they could still make money off Bugs et al., and they greenlit a full film.

There’s a cute anecdote on Wikipedia about this:

One thing I heard was that [producer] Ivan Reitman, when they were thinking about going ahead with this movie, had phoned up Robert Zemeckis about Who Framed Roger Rabbit and asked, 'Do you have any advice on what we should do to make a movie like this?' And he said, 'Don’t do it, it nearly killed me.'

Reitman disregarded this advice, and they went ahead with the film, letting Bruce W. Smith - who had worked on Roger Rabbit - direct the animation. It soon became apparent that the project would be so difficult they had to rope in many different studios, despite many animators feeling pessimism about the ‘doomed marketing scheme’ underlying the whole thing. Smoothing the way a bit was the advent of computer tech that made the production less reliant on physical cels for compositing, overtaking contemporary CGI-heavy vfx movies like Independence Day for the number of composited shots.

While Roger Rabbit used physical sets and composited animation into them, Space Jam would take the opposite approach, filming the whole thing in a large greenscreen room with other NBA players taking the role of toons in the sports sequence. While the main characters are traditionally animated, CG was used for the backgrounds, drawing on camera tracking tech from the VFX industry. In those days, raytraced reflections were still too computationally expensive (how much things have changed!) so a lot of fakery had to be used; there were also some quite interesting developments in compositing motion blur and such...

And what is this technical stuff in service of? It’s a film about basketball! What is there to say about the plot? It’s pretty tropey; the main reason to watch is to well, see the Looney Tunes characters pretending to have physical presence, and the ‘sports anime’ meme-ness of a world where basketball inexplicably takes overriding importance over all affairs. The villains are a group of aliens who download the abilities of major basketballers in a scheme to abduct the Looney Tunes characters; the Looney Tunes kidnap Michael Jordan to try and win the crucial basketball game and avoid getting taken away to a space themepark or something. It’s an excuse plot, let’s put it that way!

You know exactly what you’re getting into there, and it’s become somewhat emblematic of 90s capitalist pop culture. In internet culture, it got kind of associated with the indie RPG Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam! Gaiden, which borrowed the theme for its trailer as part of its sendup of the whole 90s basketball... thing??, and more broadly the use of the theme in a remix meme.

As is often the case with this kind of meme from mostly white chan culture (c.f. also the use of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s opening theme in bait-and-switch memes), there’s an obvious tension there... it’s not a coincidence that it’s mostly Black guys who get this ‘comedic symbol’ treatment right? Though I gotta admit, with so many semiotic balls in the air, trying to evaluate what Space Jam is doing in the context of like, the origins of Looney Tunes-style slapstick cartoons in vaudeville and minstrel shows would not be something I want to attempt lightly.

It’s been quite a long long time since I’ve looked into anything Looney Tunes; I remember they had a pretty distinctive aesthetic in their more sci-fi episodes, so it’s going to be fun to revisit it again in the guise of a weirdly elaborate marketing exercise from when I was 5 years old!

...and that’s our main feature films covered, but we also have a handful of shorts to round out this exploration of live action/cartoon mixing. In the very early days of the medium, having live performers interact with cartoons was a favourite trick of early animators like Winsor McKay in work like Gertie the Dinosaur, and even earlier than McKay, we had examples of actors interacting with drawings through simple editing tricks like The Enchanted Drawing by J. Stuart Blackton:

...who would go on to create some of the earliest stop-motion animated films such as The Haunted Hotel, integrating animation with live action through editing rather than compositing. Stop motion would be used extensively in the VFX industry, most famously by Ray Harryhausen with films like Jason and the Argonauts but also in films like Star Wars, until CGI and animatronics came to supersede it with less headaches for the filmmakers.

On the other end of the timeline, @mogsk​ tracked down a delightful little MTV short combining stop motion composited shots with a segue into a uh, dream sequence using photos as a stop motion element, reminiscent of ‘pixilation’. I am going to throw this in even though it only kinda fits because it’s a cool short!

Honestly, it’s not a surprise that we don’t have many examples to pick from; all these films were enormously taxing on their creators and lean pretty heavily on the gimmick, which between them they pretty thoroughly explore! But I’m glad we have a few, and I think it’s going to be fun to explore them...

Animation Night 40 (four zero!) will commence in about 10 minutes (7:10pm UK time), streamed at twitch.tv/canmom, and I look forward to seeing you there ^^

[satoniko]

anyways i rambled

November was good, i started substance painter work. It was a tutorial but i learned the software and i think that kinda helped a lot even tho i forgot most of it already. It made me understand the differences between the different texture maps that existed and how you can paint onto each for different material effects.

December was 5.4 release, i didn't do anything. January was Savage tier raidng, i didn't do anything. February i continued raiding and i didn't do anything outside of some art jobs for which i got paid handsomely.

March i spent coping with the year long pandemic and the approaching end of my student status. I start panicking over my weak portfolio and that i need a job to sustain myself. i reflected how March 20 was rough due to my bachelor application and I basically lost the entire 2020 on bachelor panic and i came out with very very amateur work in the end. March April 21 is where i started to slowly pick myself up. I started to think what projects i could do, what i needed, but i didn't do my market research as i should've, and i lowkey wish someone would've just smacked my head and put more pressure on me to just get properly started but alas. In April i started building a Maya animation rig for my character. It went semi successful as the character mesh was broken up at many parts which messed up the skinning massively, but the rig itself is functioning and with okay-ish IK handles, facial rig and tail and ear rigs. I could not animate it in the end due to the skinning issues.

My priorities right now is a well-payed solid job position for at least a year or so to build my social identity as atm i am nobody in this society system.

I gave up on becoming a 3D animator at the start of May.

Throughout May played xiv again and enjoyed fanfest a lot. After fanfest i started raiding e12s daily, the hardest fight at the game at that time. I founded a beautiful raid group in the 2-3 weeks we raided together. June i had trouble with my family, i didn't do anything outside of raiding. I started checking the market possibilities more properly but i could not make the connection in my brain between the market and my skillsets. Jobstress continued on therefore. End of June i went on vacation for a week.

July I came back from vacation and immediately started to check my job possibilities. I started writing down what skills i was lacking for job positions with my titles, i started digging out documentations and tutorials on substance designer and blender as a result. I learned the ways of Substance Designer up to a solid intermediate level. I learned the interface and ways of rendering with Blender, up to a simple intermediate level. I found a mass of Material Art resources and source files that i am still digging through step by step every other day.

I was sure I could make it as a Material Artist or 3D Generalist like this, given that my bachelor project was focusing entirely around shader/material creation for artists to use, but it is hard to find junior positions in that area, and my general 3D skills are very limited around Shader/Material Creation and Level Design with a serious lack of fully self-created 3D environments without majorly relying on other 3D model assets.

I was invited to work at 2 other projects during July. One is a project with friends, the other is a realistic UE game project with old industry people that i used to meet when i still worked. I have started another project with a friend to create Unity assets for the asset store in order to get more environment pieces for both our portfolios done. I feel positive about the Unity assets, but insecure about the UE project as my experiences with realistic textures and models is scarce and very much amateur work. However the people in the UE project are industry veterans, and I learn a lot about optimization from them which prompts me to stay. They were also very understanding of my limited time situation which helped massively.

For now I very clearly want to be a technical person in the pipeline, so i figured that stopping my substance projects for now to refocus on UE VFX and blueprint scripting will definitely be a very good skillset to have on my folio

in the end i just wrote this to reflect on the past months that i've lived thru after my horrific graduation. I'm still upset there was no graduation ceremony, no handshaking,no congratulating. I got my thanks from my both professors over zoom and never saw them again, so the transition from student to graduate was very blurry and confusing. I have also spent a lot of time recovering from my stress injury that i've received throughout the past year, which is probably why i've spent so many months just gaming and resting big time. I was not in a state of health to continue on with work these past months, even though i wish i had just never suffered through this type of burnout so i could've entered graduate programs of different studios in time, but alas. It's still very hard for me to keep a routine up, but at least i know my boundaries a bit better now and I try to handle my limit while not disappointing with the volume of work i present as well.

I'm proud of myself for finishing my academic degree even though the skillsets that i truly needed to get a job have only been acquired through the past month or so. I'll try become a tech artist for now and get really good at UE's blueprint and VFX pipeline in order to advance further into this career.

[skinks]

mr wentworth yes i help my son with his goofy voices yes i am a dilf tozier has the salt n pepper hair of god (oscar isaac) and the sexy librarian glasses to match

god I had never even considered that... the range of this...

Went starts going gray at 32 when Richie is 5 and it’s all the church women’s group can talk about... indirectly, of course. Oh, but he’s so young. Oh, he’ll be balding next. Oh I don’t know, doesn’t he look... distinguished? Mrs Nash from just down their street sees him doing rock-paper-scissors with his son Richard in the grocery store to determine whether or not Richard is allowed ice cream, and Dr Tozier is laughing because he’s winning, and he’s winning because Richard doesn’t know his father can see his little hidden hand reflected in the freezer cabinet, tucked behind his back. Richard’s laughing too, even though he’s losing, and bleats, “Again! Dad again,” eyes shining big as planets with coke-bottle rings.

“Don’t you know what best two out of three means? That was four draws ago.”

“No! No, I’ll win!” The boy shakes his head so hard his whole body rocks from side to side, then clings up at Dr Tozier’s middle with sticky hands. His very... trim middle. Helen’s own Rory, God love him, he enjoys a sudsy six-pack too much these days to keep a middle like that. “Two outta three! Three ice creams please Dad please please Dad please watch I can count to a hundred—”

“Well, we’re not playing hide-and-go-seek right now, Rich. And I beat you, didnt I?”

“Yeah!”

“Right. So why don’t you go get Dad six apples instead, alright? If you can do a hundred, six’ll be pie.” Dr Tozier claps his big hands gentle to the boy’s round cheeks, until they goldfish.

“Easy as,” they chant together. Helen props herself up with the handles of her own cart, the can of little hotdogs going slack in her hand.

“Six apples, then come right back. You got that, doc? You pick the color.”

Richard nods like he’s trying to detach his own head. Dr Tozier puts one hand just briefly on Richard’s dark mophead hair, like he’s giving the boy a blessing for his apple adventure. His hand is really quite broad, thinks Helen, popped out square at the thumb-joint. Matches that jawline of his, something whispers darkly in her stomach. Then the boy’s off, tearing down the aisle on a squeaking chariot of scuffed-gray sneakers and babbling what sounds like a Bugs Bunny impression, repeated on a loop. What’s up doc what’s up doc what’s up doc, fading around the corner to the fruit. Peculiar. Helen once saw the Tozier boy eat a worm at the park while pushing her youngest on the swings, after another solemn-eyed little boy with a faceful of freckles had carefully presented it to him in the sand box. Most peculiar.

Dr Tozier watches him go, then turns back to the freezer cabinet, and sticks two cartons of ice cream into his shopping cart—the very sugary kind. And the man is a dentist!

Helen puts her hand on her chest to calm the trilling schoolgirl rush of her heart, and then stops herself at the sight of her own wedding ring. Get a hold of yourself, Mrs Nash! For Pete’s sake! She trundles her cart over for some chit-chat. Afternoon, Doctor, she says, lovely weather. A perfect neighbourly opener. It is lovely; bright and warm and clear and golden, like honey outside. She’s quietly smug about her new blowout. Dr Tozier is wearing a crisp shirt with buttons like neat soldiers and short sleeves, exposing lean forearms. Yes, a lovely day. Helen swallows.

“Yes, good for the lawn,” replies Dr Tozier.

“We missed Margaret at book club this week,” Helen hedges.

“Oh, that’s right,” says Dr Tozier, and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes when he grins are even more distracting without the facemask he’s usually wearing, when Helen drops in for her check-ups. He pushes his spectacles up the strong slope of his nose. They’re wiry like him, steely gray to match his eyes. “She meant for me to tell you, or Diana. Maggie’s been in Skowhegan for the week at her mother’s. My mother-in-law is a woman of... nervous disposition, shall we say. Maggie didn’t think she’d cope with two Tozier men at once, now that Richie’s started losing his teeth.”

“Ohhh,” Helen coos. That must explain the ice cream. She puts her hand near to Dr Tozier’s arm, then away, then near, then away again for good. A neighbourly distance. Margaret is a lovely, lucky woman, even if she does wear flared pants. Hippie to yuppie pipeline’s alive ‘n’ flowin’, Rory always grunts whenever the Toziers come up in conversation. Helen imagines a picket fence between their bodies, and calms. “My Wendy was the same, I’m sure you remember.”

“Yes,” says Dr Tozier mildly. “You brought her in six times as I recall it, Mrs Nash.”

Mrs Nash. Honestly, like she’s his schoolteacher. It’s a little rude. Admittedly he does look quite, quite young with his faintly curling weekend-hair, if not for the new gray blazing a trail back from his temples like virgin snow. Helen is undeterred, even if something quivers inside at the thought of the word virgin in conversation with Dr Tozier. Music tinkles tinny through the ceiling speakers, and it puts Helen in mind of potted plants, or elevators. This is a lovely chat. “Well, you hate to see them suffer, don’t you? I’m sure Richard’s the same, lots of tears—”

“No, actually, Richie keeps on finding things to hit himself in the face with and knock out more teeth,” Dr Tozier interjects. He raises his eyebrows and speaks hushed, as if this is a secret for Helen’s ears alone. The thought makes her dizzy. “It’s my fault, I made the mistake of giving him a quarter for the first one. That’s why he’s not invited to Grandma’s. Lot of antiques.”

“Oh,” says Helen, taken aback. She has three girls; little boy behavior is as yet mystifying. “Well.”

“I’m joking, Helen,” Dr Tozier says cheerfully.

“Oh. I—I see. What a relief.”

He opens a freezer chest to examine a bag of frozen peas. “Maggie’s mom is deaf as white cat, she’d never notice.”

Helen tries to wipe her clammy hands on her dress without being obvious. Her face is hot, but she hopes her cardigan conceals the effect that the chill of the freezer aisle is having under her bra. She also hopes that it doesn’t.

He really does have such a slender, pleasant face, always with an air of casual, amused expectancy hanging around him. Haloing him, like that bright yellow light above the chair in his practice, blocked out when he leans over and slips his fingers inside. Helen supposes that’s what graduating medical school must do to a man, what marrying and fathering young and having one’s own practice by the end of such a turbulent decade as the nineteen-seventies must elicit. The ability to put people at ease, to—to say open wide and know the people of Derry trust him enough to comply. To open themselves. Helen’s breathing catches. Dr Tozier idly checks his sensible watch, still smiling the unhurried smile of a man who very rarely does his own grocery shopping anymore. Everyone knows you pick up the ice-cream last.

Helen gathers herself. This is the longest conversation she has entertained with Dr Tozier without children or the squeaking of latex gloves between them, and she’s gripped by the terribly silly need to be interesting. “Speaking of white cats, I couldn’t help noticing your hair, Wentworth—”

“DADDY!”

Dr Tozier blanches, whipping around to scan the end of the aisle. He is a long line of tense instinct tuned to thrum into action at one specific frequency, knuckles white on the cart handle. His cart bumps into Helen’s. It is thrilling.

“Fuck,” Dr Tozier mutters, and that’s thrilling too, he swore, oh, the boy’s probably fine Wentworth, don’t go, why don’t we just stay right here with the frozen goods and—

Then Richard comes barrelling back down the aisle like a colt on new legs covered in old Band-aids, with his arms full. The fluorescent strip-lights gleam white on Dr Tozier’s broad shoulders and he sags, like snow dropping from a branch, with relief.

“Hey, lunkhead,” he says, sounding shaky, but Richard is only five and would never know it. He’s babbling again. Seems to Helen like the boy’s as a hydrant overflowing on a hot day; entertaining and welcomed at first, until it becomes a nuisance when you begin to understand it won’t shut off, and have to call the firemen.

“Nyyeeeeeah,” Richard greets his father, tousled and bug-eyed with clear adoration, breathing hard from his Supermarket Sweep. Then he makes the carrot-noise. Looks like Bugs, Helen thinks of the boy’s new adult front teeth, the beaverish jut of them exacerbated by his missing canines on either side. Then she feels abruptly un-neighbourlike for being jealous of a child for his father’s attention, good grief.

Dr Tozier regards his son for a long moment. Then says, “What’s up, doc?” in a spot-on Mel Blanc whine. Richard giggles so hard his too-big glasses start slipping. “How many apples is that?”

“Gotta apples and I was gonna put ‘em in a bag but I forgot and Dad, Daddy look, s’a dinosaur on the box for my dinner when Mommy’s at Grandma’s—”

Dr Tozier sighs, putting one hand on his hip and dragging the other over his clean-shaven mouth, watching Richard drop his armfuls everywhere, scattering the linoleum. He has two apples, four boxes of brightly colored cereal, a handful of pencils topped with cartoon-character erasers, and a kiwi fruit. For a moment, Helen sees the shining enamel of Dr Tozier’s everything-will-work-out-with-another-cup-of-coffee amusement slip, wear away to worry underneath.

“Rich,” he says, interrupting Richard’s blabbermouth, firm and patient. Helen’s thighs burn suddenly under her skirts at the tone of his voice, and she looks down, rearranging her own groceries. She should leave them to get on. She could offer to help. Margaret’s out of town, poor things, they probably haven’t eaten a cooked meal all week!

“Richie,” Dr Tozier says again. “Listen and pay attention when Mom or me ask you to do something, remember? How many apples did I ask you to get?”

Richard has to crane his neck to meet his father’s eyes. Dr Tozier is one of the tallest fathers in the Derry Elementary catchment zone, Helen has checked. “Six!”

“And how many’ve you got, Elmer Fudd?”

“Um.” Richard’s pale little face creases in thought, then brightens. When he speaks again his voice is strange, accented. “Twooo.”

“Some apple hunter you are, huh.”

“Sorry, Daddy.”

“That’s fine.” Dr Tozier stoops to gather Richard’s detritus, and Helen knows she has something to contribute, watching the boy stick one of the pencils up his nose.

“You know, apples are very good for you,” she says. Richard turns to her, slack-jawed, as if seeing her for the first time. “You should listen to your Daddy, Richard, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Richard stares for another few seconds. Then he bites down on his boogery pencil so that it threads through the gaps in his teeth, and hollers, “MY FRIEND BILL SAID THAT’S A PILE OF BULLSHIT.”

“No shouting indoors, Rich,” says Dr Tozier, still gathering. Helen rocks a step backwards, clinging to her cart like a life-preserver.

“Bill and my’s friend Eddie eats a thousand apples and sees the doctor all the time though Dad, and Miss Spiegel said if we eat apples we don’t have to see the doctors but Eddie eats them and—Bill said—”

“Pile of bullshit, yeah, I liked it. Bill’s an eloquent guy,” says Dr Tozier. This is the second time Helen has ever heard him curse in as many minutes. It comes out easy and amused as everything else does in his pleasant tenor. His legs and his jaw are so lean and angular that Helen can see the suggestion, the shadow of the shape of his perfect, swearing teeth through his cheek as he grins helplessly at his son, the fruit of his loins and someone else’s loins who isn’t Helen, and all of a sudden she feels a slick pulse of wet heat, up between her thighs.

She squeaks. Flutters her hand to her face without knowing why, perhaps to catch the noise before Dr Tozier notices, just another quivering Derry leaf tossed along by his breezy manner. He looks up anyway, with a frown.

“Everything alright, Helen?”

“Just—fine, yes,” she manages. Dr Tozier is still down on one knee, kindly face level with her skirts. She can see right down under his starched collar from this angle, a slivering glimpse of smooth, dark hair. No undershirt. Helen has lain naked against Rory’s nakedness before without feeling this alive, in every part of her body. She feels like a heart, beating.

“Oh, hang on.” Dr Tozier says, eyes widening, and turns Richard by the shoulders to face her. One pencil for each nostril, now. “Apologize to Mrs Nash for cussing, Richie.”

“Sorry!” Richard shouts, sounding less like he’s apologizing and more like he’s just deemed Helen it during a game of tag.

Helen is still floating in a dazed state of mild panic. Like a prey-mouse, bewitched into slack compliance by her own body’s snaking desires. “That’s alright, dear.”

F-word, Dr Tozier had said. Maybe cussing could be quite neighbourly when applied in the right context, thinks Helen.

“You mentioned my hair, earlier,” says Dr Tozier, straightening back up with a knowing sort of arch to his eyebrow as he smiles genially at Helen. He tilts his head down at Richard. “There’s the reason. Every last one, sprinkled onto my head at the tender age of thirty-two by the great salt-and-pepper shaker of fatherhood. Especially this week, with Maggie on sabbatical. Had to bring you to work with me, didn’t I, buckaroo?”

Richard bites and swings and tugs on his father’s long arm, a tearaway kitten with a much obliging scratching post. Dr Tozier hardly seems to notice. “Yeah! Daddy’s got fishes at work!”

Dr Tozier grimaces slightly at Helen, but also as if he’s seeing right through her to some past unnamable horror. “I liked those fish. Calmed down the nervy patients.” He sighs again.

Helen wonders briefly whether or not the residents of Dr Tozier’s waiting-room fish tank suffered the same fate as that worm in the park, and decides she’d rather not know.

“Well, you needn’t worry about it,” she says, gamely. She watches her hand reach towards Dr Tozier’s silver-black brindle, then snatches it back from his bland expression to brush the tips of her own feathered-out hair. “The gray, I mean.”

Dr Tozier blinks.

“It’s very—that is to say, you look, it makes you look, I mean, I think it’s—”

Dr Tozier’s left eyebrow joins his right, raised up high.

A tidy little jet of hysteria shoots up from Helen’s knotting stomach to spin like a top in her chest. She hears herself stutter out the word, “Dashing,” and immediately wishes to flee the store, leaving her cart abandoned like so much collateral damage.

But Dr Tozier only barks a laugh, a short, smooth hah like everything else he says. Entirely unperturbed. “Well, thank you.”

Too unperturbed. Helen is struck by a sudden bolt of terror, at the thought of the things Dr Tozier must surely hear every day, when people are lulled by the hypnotically intimate environment of a dentist’s chair and a touch of the laughing gas. Oh, this is terrible. Her face is on fire.

“But they—they make products for men now,” she says, and why, oh why can’t she stop talking? “Hair dyes, I mean, if it really does bother you? I’ve seen them in Keene’s.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” says Dr Tozier, looking down at Richard then with a soft edge, at his bouncing noise and scabbed knees and gently curling hair like a black spaniel’s. Like his father’s. “I find I’m rather grateful for it, truth be told.”

“Plus,” he continues, as if Helen wasn’t already melting harder than the Tozier’s ice-cream, as if Johnny Kitchener the shop-boy isn’t going to have to come along with a mop and bucket to clean up on aisle seven, “Maggie’d kill me if I got rid of it.”

Then Dr Tozier winks.

Oh Lord, oh Lord, Helen’s whole ribcage is so tight she can’t squeeze out a reply, because who could blame dear, pretty, annoyingly friendly, lucky, lucky, lucky Margaret for that when Dr Wentworth Tozier DMD is so—

So f—

So fffffff—

So fiddlesticksing handsome!

“Well, we’d best not keep you, Helen. This one is in dire need of a bath before his mother sees him, and hands me a divorce on the spot,” Dr Tozier says, when another few moments have passed and all Helen can do is try to desperately smooth the creases from her breathing. He’s humming mild interest at something Richard is saying, knelt back down to the linoleum to tie the boy’s loose-worm laces presumably before he gives himself any more skinned knees, and they’re leaving. Dr Tozier is leaving, and Helen hasn’t done anything but act like a ninny this entire time. She doesn’t want him to think her a ninny, a simpleton. She wants him to leave this bright, liminal church of bold colors and jazzy waiting-room music and return to his lemon-yellow two-storey house thinking my, what a lovely chat I had with Helen Nash.

She wants to linger, as he lingers. Like an amiable spirit hanging over the women’s group at church, waiting to be summoned at a moment’s eager notice. I bumped into Dr Tozier at Palmer’s on Saturday, she’ll say to the other jealous ladies, with triumph, and we had such a nice talk. He called me Helen.

“And when—when does Margaret get home?” she blurts. A very secret part of Helen wants Dr Tozier to leave this conversation with Helen and his wife both, entwined by association in his mind. She tries very hard not to think about the Toziers divorcing, because that is un-neighbourly, and feels least neighbourly of all when a dopey, dreamy look crosses Dr Tozier’s face like a brief sunbeam at her question.

“Ah. Tonight. Not too late, hopefully.” He jerks one of his knuckley thumbs at his shopping cart, licking the other to wipe something unidentifiable from Richard’s grubby face. “That’s why we’re here, stocking up for her miraculous return. Like a couple of noble emperor penguins in Antarctica, eh Rich?”

“Penguins like from Batman! Ka-pow.”

Helen takes a peek into their cart, curiosity getting the better of her now that permission is granted. Dr Tozier might not know it, but looking into another person’s cart is bad grocery etiquette, especially in a town like Derry, where gossip grows like a fungus in every sweaty and close little huddle of people. Not that Helen would know about that. Anyway, there isn’t much to gossip about besides the unfortunately liquefied ice-cream, the severe lack of crunchy vegetables characteristic of a young man in 1981 trying to provide for a tooth-shedding son, and—

A little cardboard box. Tossed unashamedly between the Wonderbread and a magazine about sports. Prophylactics. Rubbers.

36-pack. XL

Helen knows her jaw is hanging open and strains to close it, the back of her neck and her shoulders feeling hot and tight and shuddery. She kneads a fist into her skirts. Crosses her legs at the ankles as demurely as she knows how, because the very last thing she needs is for frank, sensible Dr Tozier to see right through her with that easy doctor-patient-confidentiality smile, and know she’s soaking through her underwear at the sight of his Saturday grocery run, and all it implies.

Dr Tozier is laughing, nudging Richard in the direction of the register, or perhaps the apples. “Ka-pow is right. I’ll make sure to use that on Mom, thanks. Say hello to Rory for us, Helen. Have a nice day,” he says from over his shoulder, startling her. Holds up one long hand in a wave with a grin, and is gone, shadowing the boy’s haphazard attempts to push the cart despite not being able to see where he’s going.

Helen stands amongst the humming freezers, trembling. “You too,” she rasps, but Dr Tozier has rounded the corner, and is evidently going to have a nice day and a much nicer night, regardless of whether Helen wishes it for him or not.

All the bright little branded characters are watching her from their shelves, a silent jury. Helen Nash opens a freezer cabinet with a weak arm, and stands there for a while, staring at a leg of ham and thinking cooling, neighbourly thoughts.

[megaboy335]

Mega’s Top 2020 Anime

The year 2020 is finally coming to an end. It’s been an unusual year to say the least. Coronavirus more or less almost cancelled the entire spring anime season, which lead to a strange anime schedule for the rest of the year since delays have trickle down effects to what was in the pipeline. To be completely honest, this was not a good year for anime. I watched only a handful of very good shows, and the rest were mediocre at best. The top 5 shows I talk about here are definitely worth watching at least.

So with the introduction out of the way, lets get into this. As usual this list is just my opinions. Don’t take it too seriously.

1) Kaguya-sama Love is War? (Season 2)

The second season of Kaguya-sama took everything from season 1 and brought it up a level. The visual gags became more impressive, the voice acting was just as good, and the show is delivering sharper writing as we get deeper into the manga. 

Season 2 added two new notable aspects to the show. First, a new member to the main cast by the name of Iino. She adds a new angle to exploit for the skits as someone who adheres strictly to the rules. This often means Iino and Kaguya frequently bump heads. In fact how they interpret a situation can be entirely different, which creates numerous misunderstandings between them. Second, Kaguya-sama began expanding the skits into long form stories. There were a series of skits that form an arc spanning an entire episode, or in some cases multiple episodes. Episode 11 was the highlight of the season where Ishigami confronted his past to overcome the bad stigma surrounding his character. Additionally, the story added depth to his connection with Shirogane while making us realize there was more to Ishigami than meets the eye. Kaguya and Shirogane also both became a little closer as the tangled web of their schemes yielded unexpected results at times.

Kaguya-Sama has an ova and season 3 planned. I eagerly look forward to seeing what new crazy situations the characters find themselves in. 

2) A Certain Scientific Railgun T (Season 3)

After waiting 6 years since the conclusion of season 2, the Railgun anime finally returned to adapt two more arcs from the manga. 

The first half was a Railgun version of the Daissheisai Festival arc. This version focuses on a completely different event in the arc with a story involving Misaki, Misaka, and Dolly. It pulls us deeper into the story threads established in the Level Upper and Sisters arc of what the scientists were doing out of the public eye. We meet the original Misaka clone and how Misaki came to meet her which adds a new layer to the current Misaka and Misaki relationship that we never knew. We see how Misaki is also a victim of the dark experiments occurring behind the scenes in Academy City. The experiment to turn Misaka into a level 6 was a very hype moment. Railgun’s Daissheisai Festival arc definiely hit all the right notes.

The second half of Railgun season 3 was the Dream Ranker arc. Like in previous seasons, I found the 2nd cour arc to be weaker than the first half. Indian Poker is a fun concept, but didn’t cleanly tie into the overall story. I also found it weird how special cards that can exchange dreams suddenly exist out of nowhere. Additionally, this arc brought it characters from the Accelerator spin-off which I wasn’t familiar with. It had a few cool and funny moments scattered throughout. The final fight at least brought the conflict to a satisfying conclusion. The only thing holding back Railgun for me like always is my lack of knowledge of the greater Raildex universe. Hopefully this won’t be the last we see of Railgun in animated form because I picked up the manga and the next arc is pretty neat.

3) The Journey of Elaina

The Journey of Elania is an anthology-centric anime where we follow Elania on her adventures. The first episode is a prologue to how she became a witch and the origins of her ambitions. Episode 2-onwards follow a fairly straightforward template of Elania arriving at a new location. She notices something isn’t quite right or learns about something from a local. As the story unfolds, Elania often takes a backseat role and opts to watch things playout. An anime of this style always brings a mixed bag to the table with the kind of stories that are told within the universe. Each episode/adventure is only loosely connected through the main character Elania traveling to a new location, but otherwise they are mostly independent besides a handful of recurring characters. 

Naturally this format means there are both great and not so good episodes. There are bitter sweet tales, comedic, and even a few darker entries mixed within this show. In particular, there were a few standout episodes that cemented this show as something worth watching. Episode 7 was a comedy episode split into two halves. One half showed how two towns divided by a wall were ironically doing the same thing to the wall on each side. The second half recalled how Elania accidentally started a grape stomping tradition in a tiny village. Then there was episode 9, the darkest entry of the show so far, when Elania went back in time to help someone save their childhood friend. However, this person came to realize she hardly knew what her childhood friend was really like. Lastly, the last episode was unexpectedly deep where Elania met various alternate versions of herself and had to confront a dark version spawn from the events in episode 8. It showed how her journey can take all sorts of directions if events had transpired even a little differently.  

A high part of the appeal to me was never knowing what kind of story we would get each week. Was it going to be light-hearted? Serious? Would it focus on Elania or not? Her adventures were certainly full of unexpected happenings. The light novels are 17 volumes in and still going. I wouldn’t mind seeing more if they ever wanted to make another season.

4) Tonikaku Kawaii

From the prolific author Kenjiro Hata comes an anime adaptation of his newest work under the “Crunchyroll Originals” label. The story is simply about a guy who is head over heels for his new wife and can’t get over how awesome it is living with her. Tonikaku Kawaii is a simple show that chooses to highlight the little moments between our main couple Nasa and Tsukasa. We go through all sorts of everyday events with them such as the act of buying a ring, a new television, bedding, and meeting each other’s family. All the characters are so earnest you can’t help but enjoy their silly banter. There is little to no drama here to drive the story forward. You just get to enjoy a newlywed couple discovering new things about each other as they go through everyday life.

However, at the end of the day Tonikaku Kawaii is far from complete and is honestly the type of show that likely wouldn’t make my list most years. It hardly scratched its overarching story during the 1 cour run. The thing that put it over the top for me was simply how likable each of its characters were. They all present their emotions like an open book and you come to enjoy the little quirks of each one. I was slightly confused at how this show became a “Crunchyroll Original” when anything by Hata would have probably gotten an anime sooner or later. There are plenty of other Weekly Shonen Sunday series that could really use an outside force to help them get animated. I can only hope it did well enough for Crunchyroll to consider investing into more from the magazine .

 5) Ahiru no Sora

As usual, my list usually contains at least 1 show that began in the previous year. Ahiru no Sora is an anime that not a lot of people watched, but became one of my favorites each week. This is a 4 cour basketball series about a main character named Sora who is too short for basketball. Despite this set-back, he has a deep passion for the game imparted from his mother and wishes to someday find the same success as she did at the sport. The story begins when he enrolls in a new school and has to build the basketball club from scratch. However, the catch is the basketball team is basically non-existent. He ends up creating a team from a group of unlikely people: the ones who were bullying him. Ahiru no Sora presents a down to earth human side to the sport. There are no fantasy or supernatural elements found in this story. It follows a group of rough around the edges guys whose lives gets back in order through playing basketball together.

All of the main characters go through a decent amount of growth as their personal stories are explored, and Sora especially is taken through a series of events that allow his character to grow more than anyone. I was pleasantly surprised at how emotional it got at times. There was some real heart put into this series. In the middle of the show it genuinely felt the team had hit rock bottom. They lost a major game, the club room was lit on fire, and Sora lost his mother all right in a row. It was the recovery from that period and how each member matured from their experiences that solidified Ahiru no Sora as one of the top shows this year. The only thing holding back the show is that it's left incomplete since the manga is on-going (and actually on hiatus at the moment). I hope there will be an opportunity down the road to have more episodes.

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Disappointments of 2020

1) Deca Dence

I enjoyed Death Parade, Mob Psycho 100, and Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer was pretty good too. So I figured another original anime from Tachikawa Yuzuru would be something I would like, and yet Deca Dence barely resonated with me. I could never wrap my mind around the setting of the show where robots would enter an alternate world called “Deca Dence” for sport or how these robots had a human persona in the game. The humans were effectively NPCs in the game to the eyes of the robots. The show no doubt had a story it wanted to tell, and it certainly went through the plot beats it wanted to hit, yet I could never get invested in the show. I’m still looking forward to whatever Tachikawa Yuzuru does next. I’ll just consider this as something was not for me.

2) The Day I Became God

This show marks Jun Meada’s 3rd anime original project with P.A. Works. I understand that Angel Beats and Charlotte are flawed shows, but that did not stop them from being enjoyable for me. This unfortunately did not apply to The Day I Became God. At a base level it has many of the usual troupes you would expect from a Jun Meada title: the humor, baseball, an emotionally driven story. The place where this shows failed hard was having no backbone to back up the story it was trying to present. I enjoyed the comedy in the early episodes quite a bit and was somewhat intrigued by a subplot in the background that was slowly creeping up on the main plot. Ending each episode on a countdown to the end of the world helped to keep a looming sense of unease during the early part of the show.

Then in typical Jun Meada fashion, the plot of the show hit all at once. Episode 9 was the big climax where the subplot and main plot collided to send the show into its “true” storyline. The hacker kid who uncovered everything about Hina in the early part was poorly utilized and underdeveloped. So when he joins our main group in episode 10 for a short period of time, his presence makes very little sense. I can only describe that part as a 10 hour VN plot condensed into 10 minutes. The male lead Narukami has almost no personal stake in the story. Hina is hilarious in the comedy episodes, but lacks any sufficient character arc built up to carry her into the final section. Jun Meada is trying to sell this as a love story between Narukami and Hina, but I just don’t see it. Narukami spent at least half the summer trying to wow his childhood friend only to suddenly change at the last minute. It felt so haphazardly put together.

The Day I Became God is an extremely bare bones Jun Meada story. It goes through the motions of similar elements to his previous works, but comes out feeling emotionally hollow. While Angel Beats and Charlotte also felt rushed in the grand scheme, I can at least say he got the emotional aspect right. This will be remembered as one of, if not Jun Meada’s weakest title.

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Top OPs/EDs of the Year

1) Jujutsu Kaisen Opening 1 - The song is great, but it’s the visuals that really sell this opening. Each shot is brilliantly connected to showcase how everything in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen is layered. There is far more than what meets in the eye in our surroundings. Curses and humans co-mingle more than you might think.

2) A Certain Scientific Railgun T Opening 1 - There still hasn’t been a bad Railgun opening yet. Flipside once again delivers a song that once again never failed gets me in the mood for the episode each week. The visuals highlight some of the best action moments in the arc too.

3) Black Clover Opening 10 - Unlike the other songs on the list this year, this a slower somber song. It always makes me think of Nero’s backstory and how the story was leading up to the fight versus the devil. The black and white aesthetic with rain conveys how everything is laid bare for this major story climax.

4) Kaguya-Sama Love is War? Opening - Just like how this season is more character focused, the opening animation is basically a 90 second skit. It never fails to get to get me in the mindset for the hijinks that are ahead in the episode. The song itself is also a great follow up to the previous opening.

5) Rent-a-Girlfriend Opening - It’s a colorful opening that highlights the best aspects of each character. It completely conveys what the show is about with some nice music. I love how fun and upbeat this opening is. It definitely helped to set the tone for the episodes each week.

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....and so, that brings 2020 to a close. The North American anime scene is shifting once again with Sony buying out Crunchyroll. Hopefully the result of the merger keeps Crunchyroll as an entity alive. I’ll be curious to see how everything shakes out. In the coming year I am most looking forward to Chainsaw Man’s anime. The manga is quite an experience and anime viewers will be spinning their heads over learning how such a series was published in Weekly Shonen Jump. I think it has a good chance of being one of the most talked about shows in the new year.

Lets hope 2021 is a good one.

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Stark Spangled Banner Ch11: A Turkey Called Marv

Summary: Nat, Clint, Evans, Lawson and the rest of her SHIELD team throw Katie a leaving party once news of her resignation spreads across the Triskellion before Katie and Steve head to New York to spend their first Thanksgiving as a couple with Tony, Pepper and Bruce.

Paring: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: None for this chap, bar a bit of bad language and teeth rotting fluff

A/N: There is an accompanying One Shot to this called The Life Of Marv...

November 2013

News of Katie’s spectacular resignation spread like wildfire through the Triskellion. Evans, Lawson, Natasha and Clint had all been pretty upset but had understood when she had explained why she was doing it, even if Natasha didn’t necessarily agree. They had no intention of letting her go quietly, however, and the team took it upon themselves to organise a small Leaving do at Lori’s which was in full swing. Background music was playing, food had arrived and the drinks were flowing. Steve was talking to Lawson, Rumlow and Evans by the bar, leaning against it, an easy smile on his face as Katie stood with Clint and Natasha a bit further down the bar as Clint was talking to them about his latest home improvement plan.  

“So I thought about putting in a pool…” Clint said, “Now the kids are bigger I thought it might be nice to have one. Maybe even a pool house round it for bad weather…”

"That's ambitious." Nat quirked an eyebrow.

Clint grinned. "That's my middle name."

"Really?" Katie asked. "I always thought it was Robert."

"What?" Clint looked at her as Nat snorted out a laugh.  "Francis.  Why would you think its Robert?"

Katie shrugged "You look like a Bob."

"Wait… so it's not Ambitious?" Nat asked, winking at Katie. "How boring…"

Katie nodded, draining her glass.  "Bob would have been better,"

"Right," Clint started, pulling himself taller. "I hate both of you."

The girls laughed and Nat turned to Katie. “So what’s in the pipeline for you now Nova?” “I have no idea.” Katie said, and she didn’t. “I guess I’ll just get more involved in the family business.”

“You gonna move to New York?” Clint asked. She shook her head. “Probably spend a bit more time there but, I’m not moving back.”

“Nah, she can’t leave lover boy.” Natasha looked at Clint and Katie rolled her eyes. Truth is Nat had hit the nail on the head. No way was she leaving Steve in DC to move to the tower. Although they had only been together 7 months she had spent over a year of her life being 'with him' one way or another and the thought of not being terrified her.

“Nah to be fair Nat, they’ve been going out a while now. Things are probably starting to cool off.” Clint teased “Oh trust me, there’s no problems in that department.” Katie sniggered, looking at where Steve was stood.

“Oh would you look at that. I’m out of alcohol…” Nat said, suddenly “And so is Stark.”

"There's a bar over there," Clint pointed

“Cheers…”Natasha took Katie’s glass and handed it to him along with her own. Clint shook his head taking the glasses with a sigh.

“So… now he’s gone…” Nat glanced over at Steve then back to Katie “Gimme details…”

“Details on what?”

“Throw me a bone here Stark. I’m working on a few months dry spell.”

“Why are you so obsessed with my sex life?” Katie groaned “You’re constantly trying to get me to talk about it.”

“Hey, look, up until a few months ago I was convinced he was a virgin…”

“Well then you’re a dumbass.” Katie smirked “He’s Captain America, had girls throwing themselves at him back in the day.” "So he was until the serum?”

“I never said that…” she flushed.

“You’re such a shit liar.”

“Can we change the subject?” Katie groaned.

“Ok, answer me one question and then I’ll drop it.”

“What?” Katie said with an air of playful frustration. If she was honest, it was quite nice to have a girlfriend to chat to about these kind of secrets.

“Did the serum enhance…everything?” Nat wiggled her eyebrows.

Katie glanced over at Steve and smirked before she looked back at her. Fuck it.

“Well if it didn’t, I’ve no idea how he managed to stay upright before.” she smirked "I'm a lucky woman"

The red head threw back her head in a dirty laugh, a laugh that Katie had never heard from her before and it made her snigger at the sight of the normally composed assassin letting loose.

“What I miss?” Clint asked as he reappeared, handing them their drinks.

“I’ll explain when you’re older…” Nat said, patting his chest fondly.

The party went on well into the early hours of the morning and Steve had practically had to carry his girl home, not to mention holding her hair back whilst she puked up God knows how much tequila. She had a hangover to end all hangovers the day after and had hardly moved from her spot on his sofa bar to top up her glass of water and to find something crap to eat. They’d had a Chinese that night and she’d practically eaten everything on the menu before showering and crawling back into his bed, swearing she was never challenging Evans to a tequila drinking contest again which Steve had assured her was a pretty good idea.

Now, a fortnight later they were at the Tower in New York, and it was the night before Thanksgiving. Last year Katie and Steve had spent Thanksgiving as friends. This year they were spending it as lovers, and Katie was also excited to be spending it with Tony, although she would never admit that out loud.

Steve was also looking forward to it as well. Tony had mellowed to him somewhat over the past few months, especially when he had found out Steve was supporting Katie’s decision to quit SHIELD and not trying to stop her as he had original thought the Captain would. He was also looking forward to Katie’s damned fine cooking as well. Despite the fact that Tony had offered to cater in as Pepper was away until the very last minute, his girl had insisted on cooking it herself, especially now she had plenty of time on her hands.  

As such, Steve and Tony had left her in the kitchen area of the main living quarters at midday to head down to the lab to discuss some further upgrades to the Tower. When they left Katie had been surrounded by bags of flour and ingredients, and when Steve returned he found her at just gone 5:30 surrounded by 3 pies (one apple, one pumpkin and one blackberry) pans of vegetables prepped ready for the and a turkey in the oven ready for JARVIS to turn on in the morning. She was stood at the sink, gently humming, the kitchen now clean and the smell of her baking making his mouth water.

"What are you doing Soldier?" Katie asked, jumping a little as Steve's arms came around her sides, reaching for the sink, effectively trapping her between the counter and his body.

He laid his chin on her shoulder. "The dishes,"

“I’m only leaving the pie dish to soak.” she said, turning in his arms. “The rest are going in the Dishwasher.”

“Oh because God forbid her majesty would actually wash a dish…” he teased as he rest his chin on her shoulder.

“You don’t wash them much either.” she said, rolling her eyes “How many brushes did you break last week?”

“The plastic is bad quality.” he said, pouting a little.

“Nothing to do with your ridiculously large hands being too rough.” “You weren’t complaining last night…” he said, lips warm against her cheek. Katie could hear the smile in his voice before she swatted him in the face with a dishtowel, and he laughed out loud.

“Seriously though Doll face, are you nearly done?” he said, “You’ve been in here all afternoon. You do know we’re not eating till 3 tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah but the more I do now, the less I have to do tomorrow, and let’s face it, it’s not like I have anything else to do, on account of being an unemployed bum.” she said making Steve laugh again.  “Plus, I just want everything to be, you know…right.” she shrugged, and she did.

“It’s a dinner.” Steve said, chuckling slightly.

“It’s Thanksgiving” she pouted

“Yeah, and last years was pretty cool, remember?” he smiled

“Yeah but…” she trailed off, biting her lip. Steve knew that look well enough now to know there was more to this.

“What?” he probed gently.

“Nothing, just, well I never had a boyfriend over for Thanksgiving before. Or Christmas come to think of it.”

Steve smiled “I like being your first…” Katie grinned. The whole ‘I like being your first�� thing had started off by her saying it to Steve but they’d fast come to realise that they actually both had a world of inexperience between them when it came to relationships, and it was nice that they could be each other’s firsts in a lot of ways.  “Honey, tomorrow is gonna be great.” he smiled at her, tipping her face up to look at his “Don’t sweat it.”

“Did you seriously just say don’t sweat it?” she sniggered.

Steve groaned “I told you I spent the afternoon with your brother…”

She giggled and leaned up to catch his lips in a soft kiss.

“Getting kinda tired of catching you two making out in a kitchen!” Tony chose that time to waltz in and open the fridge door “You got your own floor, go use it." ******

Katie woke the next morning to find Steve's side of the bed empty and cold. It wasn't unusual for him to be up earlier than her, she knew he would either be out running, in the gym or making coffee. She climbed out of bed and walked to the blinds of the bedroom, instructing JARVIS to open them, the AI being one of the many perks about being 'home'. The New York skyline stretched below her and as she glanced down she saw the people gathered on the sidewalks, attention turned to the streets, obviously waiting for the Thanksgiving Parade. She had asked Steve if he wanted to go and watch it in person but he had said he would prefer to stay in and watch from the tower as he didn't fancy getting mobbed in the street. Being recognised by one person every so often was fine but in those crowds if one person spotted him then it would spread like wildfire. Besides, as he had pointed out, her floor had an awesome view so they could watch out of the window with a drink. Katie frowned as suddenly a large brown turkey shaped balloon floated in front of her eyes. The parade wasn’t supposed to start until 9 and that meant by the time it made its way to the Avengers tower it would be... she turned and glanced at the click and gave a yelp. She had slept in until 10. 

Steve heard her before he saw her, not that he needed super hearing to hear the loud yell of "how fucking late?" coming from the bedroom. Grinning to himself he turned back to the griddle on the island of the kitchen, flipping a pancake with one hand and drinking a coffee with the other. "Why didn't you wake me?" She grumbled to him as she leaned in the kitchen doorway, taking him in for a moment. He was freshly showered, dressed in a loose grey t-shirt and sweats, hair still a bit damp and spiked up in a way that made her smile. "Because you were up early yesterday and I thought I'd make you breakfast for a change." he said as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into the back of his shoulder. The smell of his shower gel mixed with the smell of the pancake mix, made her nuzzle her nose into him to inhale deeply. "You smell good." she eventually spoke again. "Good to know." A grin tugged at the corners of his lips at the fact she was still clinging to him. "I just saw a giant inflatable Turkey." she said, hands going to rub at his stomach. "What?" "The parade" she smiled at him. Steve smiled. "You know when I was a kid, the parade was the best part of Thanksgiving." "Still is" she mumbled, cheek still pressed to his shoulder.

"Me and Bucky used to come into Manhattan with his family and my ma if she wasn't working and stuff ourselves on popcorn and warm mixed nuts" He smiled to himself at the memory. They always picked out their favourite balloons, ate until they thought they would burst, and made Rebecca, Bucky’s younger sister laugh till she cried by pretending they were in the marching bands. But once the war started, the parade had ended. He had never realized that they started it up again until Tony and Katie had mentioned it last night as they had sat eating takeout. Part of him had wanted to go to the street to watch it but after seeing that morning how crowded it had been on his run he was happy to watch it from the comfort of Katie's floor. He turned to face her for first time that day, her arms still round his waist. Her hair was pulled up into a pony tail, face fresh, eyes bright and she was, as ever, in one of his shirts and not a lot else. He leaned forward to give her a quick kiss and when he moved away, she quickly closed the space to give him another quick kiss, letting her lips linger on his for a second. "I'll burn the pancakes" he murmured and she grinned, pulling away. "I'll make fresh coffee." she said, patting his chest and turning to the machine. "Hey JAR..." she spoke, "hit me with some Christmas tunes buddy" "The usual Miss Stark?" "As long as it has the Pogues on..." "Wouldn't dream of not doing" the AI replied and then the apartment was flooded with the sounds of Fairy Tale of New York. "It’s November." Steve turned to look at her, but she simply grinned to herself and turned around, singing to him. He couldn't help but laugh, he knew from last year that Christmas for her started at Thanksgiving and ended on New Year’s Day. Plus the fact that the previous year she had spent Christmas day fighting a bunch of exploding super soldiers meant that she was going to enjoy this year as much as possible. He shook his head, a low chuckle escaping before he turned back to his pancakes. They dragged the cushions off the couch and ate breakfast sat by the huge floor to ceiling windows of the penthouse, Katie sat between Steve's legs as they both watched the parade. Suddenly, a large green balloon floated by the window and Katie gave a loud squeal when she saw what it was. A Hulk float. An amused smile spread across her lips as she watched the balloon bob in front of the window, twisting to the sides in the air as it wrestled with the wind. "Oh my God!" Katie giggled again, gently tapping Steve's right calf but he had already spotted it. A massive shield was coming out, followed by Iron Man's mask, Thor's hammer, a bow and arrow, Natasha’s Red Widow symbol and her own Nova star. She turned to look at him, a little smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth and when he met her eyes the smile broke out across his features. Laughing in disbelief, he shook his head, turning his attention back look at the shield float bounce down the street. "That's pretty cool." he commented with an amazed sigh, and it was. If anyone had told him all those years ago that one day he would feature in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade he would have told them that they were mad. Yet there it was. He found himself smiling as he thought about how his ma and Bucky would have reacted. When they had finished eating, Katie leaned back into him a little more, slouching so that her knees were bent and her feet rested on the bottom of the window. His arms reached round her neck, and he kissed the back of her head as they continued to watch the floats, the gentle sound of Bing Crosby "White Christmas" now playing through the room, the two of them simply enjoying the closeness of one another. ***** Eventually it was time to head downstairs and join Tony, Bruce and Pepper for their dinner. Katie and Pepper left the men to it and finished off the prep before calling them all to the table. As was tradition, as ‘head of the house’ Tony carved the turkey with his usual, trademark drama and they took it in turns to give a few things they were thankful for. Tony was thankful for his friends, family and a decent brand of scotch he had in the cupboard for later, Pepper was thankful for being so fortunate and being surrounded by people she loved, Bruce was thankful for being welcomed into their family home, not just for today but since he had taken up residency just after the Chitauri Battle, and Katie was thankful for being in the presence of people she cared for, and for the last year being so much better than the previous 12 months. She shot a wink at Steve as she said that and he beamed before he realised they were waiting for him.

 "err…” he cleared his throat “I guess I’m thankful for being given a second chance, being welcomed by you all…and for, err, you.” he grinned at Katie who gave him a playful roll of the eyes but the flush on her cheeks told him she had understood.

“Awww.” Pepper said, as Tony made a gagging noise which resulted in Katie throwing a carrot at him. He pointed at her, frowning.

“No food fights on my floor, Kiddo.” he said sternly and she simply raised an eyebrow at him, taking a sip of her wine.

The food was good, not that anyone expected anything else. Both Tony and Banner managed 2 servings whilst Steve made it through 3. And then there was the pie. Steve managed a piece of each, whilst everyone else could only face one, but no one cared. And he found himself secretly pleased that there was enough left for him to scoff later on.

“I’m so glad I wore leggings.” Pepper sighted, leaning back and massaging her stomach.  

Katie nodded in agreement, also dressed in leggings and a long jersey dress. “Think I’m having a food baby.”

"Yeah, I gotta hand it to you Kiddo..." Tony said, leaning back in his chair, undoing the top button of his pants and massaging his stomach “That was absolutely awesome."

Steve's hand dropped to his girl's leg under the table and he gave her knee a little squeeze as she reached for her wine glass, before moving his arm to drop it round the back of her chair. "I certainly prefer the Turkey dead and cooked anyway" Tony added and Katie groaned. "Are you ever gonna let me live that down?" she looked at him. "No" he shook his head. "What's this?" Steve asked, setting his glass down. "Did she not tell you about the time she brought home a live Turkey one year? Katie sighed as Steve sat up, turning to her, smirking "No..." "I was 17 and going through a meat is murder phase." She waved away the comment with her hands. "I was in the way home and saw him. He was the only one left in the farmyard so I liberated him" "By liberated she means stole." Tony quipped, standing up to retrieve 2 more bottled of Rijoca from the bar as laughs rang round the table. "No one came looking for him" She shrugged. "Marv lived a happy life for 5 years in our back garden" "Marv?" Bruce looked at her, a smile creeping across his face. "After the character from Home Alone." She said simply

“You had a turkey called Marv?” the scientist deadpanned and she nodded.

"He was a great pet. Used to chase Tony around" "The bird was a fucking menace"  Tony frowned, topping everyone's glass up. Settling back into his chair, Katie noticed Pepper giving him a look and he started suddenly as if he was remembering something. He leaned forward and looked at Katie. "So I know we don’t do Thanksgiving gifts kiddo but I was thinking yesterday about something you said to me once, about having a vision for a publishing company."

Katie stole a look at Steve who simply shrugged. It was true, when she had first graduated she had thought about setting up a publishing company, but one that dealt with unknown writers. Her favourite books in the world were the Harry Potter series and during her degree she had been lucky enough to attend a small seminar held by JK Rowling, who had openly discussed her life before becoming a famous author. She had been a single mother, struggling to make ends meet, and even after she had written the books it took her years to get a deal, being rejected by 4 different publishers before Bloomsbury (a small, independent group) took a chance on her and it paid off for both of them. Katie loved the rags to riches story and since then had always harboured a desire to do the same thing for other authors but it had never really been much more than a pipe dream.

"It was an idea I once had." She shrugged, looking at Tony. "Then things went a bit crazy." "Well... how about we make it a bit more than an idea?" Pepper said. "What?" Katie frowned, looking at Pepper, then he brother who nodded. "I want you to put a proper proposal together, business plan, mood and story board that type of thing." He said, waving his hand in that Tony-esque manner "Then we're gonna look at what we need to set it up and take it to the board. Run it as a Ltd company under the Parent company of Stark Industries, but you'll be the Managing Director." "I..., I can't run a business!" She stammered. "Didn't you run the UK branch of SI for a while?" Bruce looked at her, smiling. Was everyone in on this bar her? "That was different." She pressed. "Why?" Steve asked. "Shut up Steven." She said without even looking at him.

There were a few chuckles round the table before Tony continued. "Look, you don't need to work." He shrugged "You have enough capitol behind you plus the revenue from the business as it to live your life out as an IT girl,  but we both know you'll end up killing someone if you get bored, and that's likely to be Cap seeing as you see him most so this is for him as much as you." "Thanks Tony." Steve tipped his glass to the Inventor who winked. Katie pondered. It really had been a dream of hers since leaving Uni, putting her degree and passion into her work and she would be lying if she said the thought didn’t excite her but it was a hell of a big commitment, and what if it all failed?

“I'll help you." Pepper smiled at Katie who was biting her lip. "I'll proof read the proposal and I'll be there every step of the way whilst you set up.” she leaned back in her chair. "The week before Christmas there’s another board meeting. I suggest we use that to pitch the idea." she concluded and Tony nodded. 

"I think this could be a great opportunity for you and Stark Industries." Tony looked at Katie "and you'll get full autonomy over it as you'll set up your own sub-board to feed up into the PLC" This was amazing. She looked at Steve who nodded encouragingly. “What is it you keep saying to me? You’ll never know until you try?” he smiled at her. She took a deep breath and looked around the table before throwing caution to the wind and letting out a huge grin. "Ok. Fuck it. Let's do it." **** After another half an hour or so of chatter, and a bottle of champagne to celebrate Katie's agreement to the business idea, everyone chipped in to clear the table before retiring to the plush living area of Tony and Pepper's floor for more drinks and chat. Then the alcohol  really did start to flow, Steve and Tony moving onto the scotch,  the soldier watching as everyone around him descended into that well recognised drunken haze. And then out came Drawing Without Dignity. A game he had never played before and frankly found vulgar, but couldn’t help but enjoy it. The game fast slid into chaos which was to be expected with an extremely competitive Super Soldier who had a natural advantage as he could actually draw, an equally competitive billionaire and a normally mild mannered scientist who also was quite cutthroat when it came to winning it turned out. Pepper and Katie spent most of the time sniggering at the bickering men, and at the point when they were laughing that much when it was their go, the 3 boys got so frustrated they banned them from playing. For that, the next time Steve asked her what one of the more risqué sayings meant (he had cringed at a fair few of them over the course of the evening) she lied to sabotage him earning her a full on Captain glare. "That was a pretty shitty thing to do." He grumbled at her as Tony and Bruce were both howling with laughter. "Not my fault Captain Sex Fiend doesn’t know what Rimming is!" Katie shot back, wiping away her tears. Steve had to bite back his own laugh at the ridiculous nickname instead he fixed her with another glare which she returned with a simple shrug of her shoulders. The game ended, and Steve and Tony called it a draw, which was probably the easiest thing to do since Pepper had stopped taking count and tallying towards the end. It was now well after 10pm and Steve looked around the room as Tony stood up, a little unsteady on his feet, teetering back over toe the bar.

“I think maybe we’ve had enough…” Pepper hiccupped slightly looked at Tony who had been reaching for another bottle of liquor, wheeled round slightly too fast causing him to stumble into the bar.

Katie cackled as Tony looked at Pepper “Shut up Mom.” he said, grabbing another bottle of scotch in one hand and the open bottle of Kristal the girls were drinking in the other. He walked carefully over towards the sofa, as he dropped down into it heavily, handing Katie who was on the floor in between Steve’s legs, her back resting against the sofa, the champagne. She took it and poured herself and Pepper a glass, quite pleased that she didn’t spill any.

“You know he… he can’t get drunk!”  Tony handed Bruce a now full glass, pointing to Steve.

“That’s sad…” Bruce surmised, taking a sip of his drink before Tony sat bolt upright, and pointed at the scientist.

“Hey, I wonder if Hulk can get drunk?”

“That’s an…that’s an…ex…exper-expediment I don’t think we should do.” Bruce shook his head, hiccups punctuating his speech.

“Absolutely not.” Steve shook his head as Katie cackled.

“But it would be for science purposes…” Tony pressed

Bruce wrinkled his nose and shook his head “No Code Green.” “Spoil sport.” Tony said.

They stayed for another hour or so, until Pepper fell asleep and Katie’s cheeks were flushed pink and when she asked for a bottle of water Steve knew it was time to go. After asking Tony if he needed help getting to bed, and the man declining, Steve stood up, surprised to find he actually felt a little bit of a headrush. Ok, so maybe the 3 bottles of that scotch had had a little effect after all, but he felt the fizziness ebbing away as he pulled Katie to her feet and she grinned up at him.

“Wanna carry me Soldier?” she asked.

He arched an eyebrow and in one swoop had her over his shoulder, causing her to shriek with laughter.

“Night!” she waved from her upside down position. Tony and Bruce waved distractedly from where they were now trying to mix some form of cocktail at the bar.

“You can put me down now…” Katie patted Steve on his back as they boarded the elevator. “Steve…”

He smirked to himself, ignoring her giggles and protests and didn’t put her down until they reached  the bedroom where he tossed her down on the bed and set about showing her exactly how thankful for her he was.

Tags

@the-omni-princess​

@momobaby227​

[saltybaltic]

Natasha Romanoff X Carol Danvers - SEVEN STEPS TO SUCCESS

Synopsis: Falling in love with someone doesn’t just happen over night, it can take a few important steps to get there. Set at the beginning of endgame (I say this because I’m not sure there’s any spoilers and dude you should have seen it by now, what are you doing? But it does centre around the plot of the movie in places)

Warnings: None

Words: 1879

800 FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION POST

Thank you all of you wonderful angels for the love. Have some Carolnat, the content of the gods. Hope you all enjoy, can’t wait to hear what you think ✌️❤️

One

Looking back on that day Natasha knows that if it hadn’t been for the severity of what was happening, she would have taken it all in differently. She would have noticed her breath catch in her throat at the sight of this literal fire ball of a woman as she landed on earth and looked at her for the first time. She would have savoured the way Carol’s hand had felt in her own as strong fingers gripped her palm and she introduced herself. If she hadn’t been so hopelessly distracted by the relief that flooded her system when the other woman brought Tony home, maybe she would have taken in that it was more than gratitude she was feeling.

Standing inside the compound as they discussed their next move, Natasha was too focused on the seriousness of the task at hand to take in that the new arrival had given her something she had craved for so long now: a sense of hope that maybe, everything was going to be okay after all.

The sheer lunacy of the fact she had boarded a space ship was far too consuming for Natasha to notice how her heart skipped when Carol tilted her head to laugh quietly at the bewildered faces of The Avengers. She probably should have taken in that the sight of Carol in her suit, pushing her hair out of her face as she focused on preparing for the impending fight, was something she enjoyed in a way that was definitely more than just admiration.

If she had been paying attention, Natasha might even have noticed that the other woman was looking at her in exactly the same way.

Two

A pile of takeout menus landing on top of her desk caused Natasha to near enough jump out of her seat, having been to consumed in reading through paperwork to pay attention to the fact that someone had approached her.

“What the hell?” Snapped Natasha, looking up from what she was reading to see who had interrupted her.

“If you’re gonna eat crap, at least do it properly.” Explained Carol, slipping into the seat opposite the red head. Dressed in a pair of grey sweat pants and an old band t shirt, Carol looked unusually casual and the sight had actually thrown Natasha. She allowed herself to scan over the blonde for a second as she propped her feet up on the desk and crossed one leg over the other. Natasha’s jaw clenched involuntarily when she saw the muscles in Carol’s neck and shoulders work as she shuffled herself into a more comfortable position, her hair tied up into a messy bun making it easier to admire than usual.

Looking down at the menus and then back up at the other woman, Natasha blinked and eventually kicked her brain back into gear, “What are you talking about?”

“If I see you eat one more peanut butter sandwich, I’m gonna throw it at you.” deadpanned Carol, nodding her head towards the plate on the desk.

“I like peanut butter sandwiches.” scowled Natasha, hand reaching towards the food on her desk.

Before she could grab her sandwich, Carol lunged forward and pulled the plate across the surface of the desk and out of Natasha’s reach, “I mean it, I’ll throw it at you.”

Natasha’s jaw slacked, staring disbelievingly back at the blonde as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, “Are you honestly holding my sandwich hostage?”

“No,” started Carol, dragging the word out slowly as she stood from her chair and picked up the food on the desk. Taking a few steps to her right, she tipped the plate on it’s side so the sandwich fell into the trash can at her feet, before looking back at Natasha. She was unable to hide a grin at the woman’s stunned face, “I’m offering to buy you dinner.”

Three

Carol left not long after that but you could forgive Natasha for not noticing the effect of her absence immediately. Not long after Carol left, it was Steve that moved out. He wanted to be back in Brooklyn, making a difference and helping people. Captain America couldn’t fix what had happened, but maybe Steve could help people move on. After Steve it was Bruce. He explained he had a lot of things he needed to figure out and he couldn’t do it at the compound. Natasha didn’t need any further explanation.

Slowly everyone seemed to be moving on, months went by and people tried to rebuild, change and adapt.

Natasha didn’t know how to do anything else. She kept things going in the compound, the loneliness only allowing her to fall even further into what she was doing. Even if all she was doing was communicating with everyone else and looking out for future threats, that was something right?

It wasn’t until four months after Carol had left that Natasha noticed how much she missed her. Logging into a conference call, the sight of her usual companions greeted her with one noticeable exception. Her stomach had dropped when her eyes had fallen on the area where Carol would usually be standing, seeing nothing but a dark, empty spot staring back at her. In that moment there was nothing she longed for more than to see the blonde smiling back at her.

Four

It was over a month before she heard from Carol again. With every conference call that went by, Natasha was unable to stop her eyes from darting straight to the other woman’s usual place in the group, and every time she had to hide her disappointment at her absence.

When Carol finally did connect to a call, she was greeted warmly by the others around her. It surprised Natasha that her initial joy at the sight of Carol was almost immediately replaced with annoyance. So she thought she could just disappear for a month and then waltz back in as if nothing had happened? She thought she could just ignore everyone and then appear again with that same wide smile like it was all okay? It was safe to say that Natasha’s irritation didn’t go unnoticed.

As the meeting ended, one by one the rest of the team disconnected but Carol remained, placing her hands behind her back and taking a step forward, “You okay?”

Natasha looked up from her desk in surprise. Having assumed that everyone had already ended the call, she hadn’t expected to see Carol’s hologram still standing in front of her. “I’m fine.”

“Clearly.” muttered Carol, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Natasha closed her eyes and exhaled slowly in an attempt to not just blurt out the first words that came into her head, “Its been over a month.”

“I’ve got a lot on my plate Nat, there are problems all over the universe.”

“And you couldn’t just let me know? You couldn’t take ten seconds to tell me you were going to be missing for a month?” Asked Natasha, dropping her hand from her face to look up at the other woman, “I didn’t know if you were alive or if you were planning on coming back. How would you like it if that was done to you?”

Pursing her lips in thought, Carol shrugged “You’re right, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t like it if I thought something had happened to you.”

Seeing Natasha’s brow quirk at her words, she quickly continued, “Or you know, if something happened to anyone.”

Natasha hummed in response, pushing some papers around her desk for no real reason other than for something to look at and to stop herself from just grinning at Carol like an idiot, “And there was me thinking you had a soft spot for me.”

“Hey you’re the one who’s been pining for a month.” teased Carol, shooting the read head a smirk.

Picking her pen up from her desk, Natasha launched it playfully towards Carol, both women breaking out into laughter at the fact she had just thrown something at a hologram, “Get out of here already.”

“I’ll speak to you next week okay?” assured Carol, the smile on her face one of someone trying to convey sincerity, “I have a little something in the pipeline that might come together, can’t really confirm anything yet but ... we can talk about it properly when I have a better idea of what’s going on.”

Nodding her head in mock understanding, Natasha batted her hand dismissively, as she turned her attention to her paperwork once more, “Yeah, yeah sure we can talk about it later once you have a clue what you’re saying.”

“Oh and Nat?” added Carol, waiting to continue until the red head looked back up at her, “I missed you too.”

Five

Working out had always helped as a way to calm Natasha down when she was feeling anxious or stressed. Unfortunately that was all she seemed to feel recently and the gym had become something of a home for her. She could spend hours just running on a treadmill, headphones in and eyes trained on the wall in front as she tried to focus on the burning of her muscles rather than the ache in her chest.

She had just finished wrapping her wrists, tearing off the end of the tape with her teeth and pressing it down before going to put her headphones in when she heard her.

“Wanna fight?”

Her head had snapped up at lightening speed, scanning the gym for the source of the question when her eyes finally settled on the warm, brown ones looking back at her. There was Carol leaning nonchalantly on her shoulder against the door to the gym, one leg crossed over the other and a wide grin on her face. She had obviously been back at least a little while, already changed from her suit into a pair of black leggings and a baggy vest. She looked tired but her smile didn’t falter as she stood up straight and started to walk further into the gym.

“What are you doing here?” Asked Natasha, hands falling to her sides as she stepped around the punching bag to face the other woman properly.

“There’s a couple of things I need to sort out.” explained Carol, taking a few more paces forward until she was standing just in front of Natasha, “I’ve been following a lead for a few weeks now, that’s why I’ve been so busy. Didn’t think it was going to lead me back to earth.”

“But why are you here?”

Looking down at the ground, Carol looked almost bashful for a second before shrugging and meeting Natasha’s eye again, “I wanted to see you.”

The words seemed to hang in the air for a second, a comfortable silence settling over the pair of them at Carol’s honesty. Finally a content smile settled over Natasha’s lips, allowing herself to give into what she was feeling just long enough to reach forward and brush her hand against Carol’s. Her thumb traced the length of the blonde’s palm before travelling up and over the top of her hand and down the length of her fingers. The action was quick and light but it had said enough to Carol; Natasha was glad she was here.

Six

It turned out that Carol had more than a couple of things to work out. Criminals all over the universe had been takin advantage of the mess that the snap had evoked. Theft was rife everywhere but it was the larger problems that had brought Carol back to earth. Preventing another war in all of the chaos was pressing.

In the most selfish way possible, Natasha was grateful. In the years leading up to the snap she had found herself surrounded by people she could trust and people she cared about. They worked together as a team and they were about as close a group of people you could find. Her time on the run with Steve and Sam and cemented her bond with the pair of them irrevocably and she had found herself feeling empty over the past few months in her solitude. Having Carol around had changed all that and she even felt a sense of purpose again. The blonde had asked for her help in her mission and Natasha had been only too happy, desperate to do anything that would be a help.

But it wasn’t just the working alongside someone that was making her feel whole again. It was everything that Carol had brought into her life. Having coffee together on a morning. Sitting quietly on the sofa and reading a book or watching television. Having someone to talk to about something as trivial as the weather. No longer eating dinner alone every night. Helping one another with training in the gym.

And the things about Carol that Natasha couldn’t get enough of? The sound of her laugh when Natasha would make a stupid joke. The way her eyes would crinkle closed sometimes because she would smile so wide. How sometimes Natasha would pass by the room Carol was staying in and she could hear the sound of the other woman singing. The way Carol always remembered how she liked her coffee. The tingling feeling she would get every time Carol left a lingering touch on her leg or her shoulder. How easily the two of them could fall into idle conversation and that there was never uncomfortable silences.

But the thing that Natasha liked the most about Carol, was that she never felt like she had to be anything other than herself. In the midst of a global tragedy it was unsurprising that things could get tense. Both women were guilty of sharing one or two harsh words in heated situations. The only thing that rivalled Natasha’s stubbornness was Carol’s ability to push her buttons so it was no surprise that they butted heads every now and again. But when things calmed down and the work was done, Natasha could still walk into the kitchen and find Carol pushing a mug of warm tea into her hand with a smile that said everything was okay and nothing needed to be said. She had never felt so completely and utterly understood by someone and the realisation that Carol wasn’t going to stick around forever, was something that Natasha couldn’t help but feel sad about.

Of course Carol noticed Natasha’s slight change in behaviour. Her smile didn’t seem as bright and her eyes didn’t shine with the same sparkle that they used to. Something was playing on her mind and Carol intended to find out what it was.

“Wine tonight?” Questioned Natasha, padding into the living room and gratefully accepting the drink that was being presented to her by the woman on the sofa, “What happened to our humble cups of tea on an evening?”

Carol shrugged, “I guess we’re celebrating kind of.”

“We are?”

Nodding her head, Carol took a sip of her wine as she watched Natasha collapse down onto the cushions beside her, “Mission’s nearly finished.”

Almost immediately Natasha stiffened and it was only in that second that Carol realised what had been bothering her recently. Letting out a long sigh, she reached to the side to place her wine down on the coffee table before shuffling closer to the other woman, “You think I’m just going to disappear again?”

“I know you have to go.”

Carol wet her lips, “If it helps, I don’t want to.”

“Definitely doesn’t help.” Muttered Natasha quietly, raising her glass to her mouth.

The blonde breathed out a laugh, “Can I just be blunt?”

“I’ve never known you be anything else.” answered Natasha, shooting a smirk over the rim of her glass.

The corner of Carol’s mouth curled as she reached forward to take the drink from Natasha’s hand, moving it to one side to join her own on the table. She shuffled a little further forward, sitting just an inch in front of Natasha so they were face to face. There was a pause where the red head genuinely wasn’t sure what was going to happen next and Carol wasn’t actually certain on what she was going to do, before she decided to just go with her gut. Pressing her hand to the side of Natasha’s jaw, she tightened her fingers against the back of her neck and leaned forward enough that she could press their lips together.

Natasha couldn’t help but sigh, allowing Carol’s grip on the back of her neck to pull them closer together as she parted her lips and deepened the kiss. It was soft and slow but somehow it felt greedy all the same, like this was something they had been deprived of for too long. Pushing herself further into the other woman, Carol nearly toppled the pair of them backwards and Natasha had to throw her hand out against the arm rest to keep them upright. The action caused both women the giggle, breaking the kiss as Carol sat back up properly but kept her hand pressed to the side of Natasha’s jaw.

“That was ...”

“Long overdue.” finished Natasha.

Carol laughed, nodding her head in agreement, “You’re right.”

Resting her hands on top of Carol’s thighs, Natasha tugged her legs towards her and smirked playfully, “Come back here and kiss me again then.”

Laughter increasing at Natasha’s words, Carol allowed herself to be pulled forward, settling properly into the other woman’s lap with her legs either side of her waist. Gripping Natasha’s face in her hands and reconnecting their lips, Carol decided that maybe their conversation about what was going to happen next could wait. For now, they had this.

Seven

Four long weeks passed after that. Carol had only been able to stay another couple of days before business took her off elsewhere and Natasha was once again left alone. Of course this time Carol called and left messages but now it was different. The sound of her voice wasn’t enough anymore when she now craved so much more. The feeling of Carol’s lips on hers, tongue slipping into her mouth, teeth nipping at her skin and bare flesh rubbing against her own was like a drug and Natasha needed more. Her body ached for the other woman in a way she hadn’t thought possible and she wanted nothing more than for each conversation they had while Carol was gone to be ended with a kiss or just a gentle touch, all the while knowing it wasn’t possible. Every time they spoke she wanted to ask when Carol would be back again but she never did, knowing that asking it would only make it harder for the both of them.

It was a quiet afternoon where for once Natasha had nothing to busy herself with. All of her paperwork was done, she had worked out until she was sore and she had done just about as much housework as she could face. She was just about to make herself a drink when she heard it. That loud, powerful sound that made her heart race at the possibility it could be her.

Natasha was moving before she could even think about anything else. Legs moving of their own accord despite the throb from her workout in the gym earlier. She took the stairs two at a time, hopping down the last four and breaking into a run at the bottom to head for the glass doors to the compound. In her haste she almost ran into the person she was looking for head on, the other woman already inside the building and standing in the foyer with much the same excitement written on her face.

She was still dressed in her suit, looking a little like she had travelled the world over in five seconds just to be here. But she broke into a broad grin none the less, opening her arms and tilting her head to one side, “Please tell me you missed me as much as I missed you.”

Natasha didn’t care about how pathetic she might have looked to an outsider, bolting forward in record time to wrap herself around the blonde and jump into her arms. Carol chuckled quietly, lifting the other woman off the ground with ease and snaking her arms around her waist.

Gripping onto Carol’s shoulders tight, Natasha pressed a lingering kiss to the other woman’s lips before leaning their foreheads together, “You have no idea.”

“I’m never being away from you for that long again.”

Natasha shook her head from side to side, moving her hands to grip either side of Carol’s face, “We can figure all of that out later, all that matters is you’re here.”

Smiling back at the other woman fondly, Carol raised her hand to brush her thumb over Natasha’s lower lip before moving to tuck a strand of hair out of her face, “You want me to show you how much I missed you?”

“You better.” Chuckled Natasha, tightening her hold on the blonde as she started to carry her further into the building and towards the stairs.

There was going to be a lot to figure out and there was still so much to fix. The world had it’s problems and they weren’t going to disappear overnight. Natasha knew that and so did Carol, both women more than aware that things were no doubt going to be complicated. But as Natasha wrapped her legs further around the other woman’s waist and felt Carol grip her harder in return, she realised that she didn’t much care if things were going to be difficult. As long as they had this, maybe she was right all along and things were going to be okay after all.

[vaulthunter426]

Borderlands 3 | What we know...

Just because I’m not sure the best way to present this information, prepare for a long list of new features in Borderlands 3 with my comments because.... well this is my blog. I will not be discussing the two Vault Hunters we’ve seen gameplay of in terms of their action skills and skill trees.

Quality of Life improvements!

Borderlands has aged quite well, BL2 more than BL1 but we can go back to games almost a decade (and actually a decade) old and they still feel great and are tons of fun. After taking about a year hiatus from all Borderlands games, I came back after the Mask of Mayhem trailer and I found myself trying to roll or slide out of the way of charging enemies and merely crouched in front of them. After so long of this, I knew what I wanted out of Borderlands 3...

Sliding, Grappling, Ground Slams - A feature that I was hoping for beyond almost anything else were movement upgrades and boy we got them. The sliding adds a whole new dynamic to fighting a mob of enemies and the grappling opens up a plethora of verticality options. Be sure to be looking up high for hidden chests! The ground slams seem to be an upgraded, more visually appealing version of the ground slams from TPS. Zane cocks back an arm with a Digi-claw before slamming his fist to the ground while Amara leaps into the air slamming both fists to the ground (not to be confused with her Action Skill).

Vending Machines - Instead of manually purchasing each ammo type by spamming our select key on them, we can now purchase the max amount of ammo by pressing a key as we approach the machine, without ever entering the UI.

“Claim Lost Loot” - A new “vending machine” in Sanctuary III collects all the loot we didn’t pick up and store them until we access the machine. Once we activate it, all the loot comes spilling out onto the ground in front of us for us to check out and make sure we didn’t miss anything. No more lost Legendaries!

Sanctuary III is the first hub in the Borderlands franchise that features a unique room for our Vault Hunters! Our room will be tailored to the Vault Hunter of our choice with possible customization options. The wall holds a number of “mounts” where we can showcase our favorite guns as well as a couple spots for a relic, shield, and grenade mod.

Loot Instancing and Level Scaling - Is your buddy ten levels ahead of you? No problem! If you join the game of a friend who is a higher or lower level than you, your damage output will scale accordingly so no one is over or underleveled! Along with this will be loot drops. If you open a chest to a blue and purple rarity pistol, they will be at your level and ready to loot. Your friend will also see a blue and purple rarity pistol, but different manufactures and at their own level. You both can take both pistols from the same chest. All of these options have a toggle feature if you preferred the previous games style.

Claptrap as a General of the Crimson Raiders - It’s nice to know that the Crimson Raiders are continuing on after the death of Roland, but their priorities may be a bit askew if Claptrap is a general... then again maybe his title holds no responsibilities... all about the ego boost.

Lilith as Commander of the Crimson Raiders - Not all that surprising although I was speculating that maybe she had ditched our friends to deal with some of that pent up anger post-Jack. It seems like she has been broadcasting across the galaxy searching for new Vault Hunters, and maybe even “broadcasting” directly into Siren’s minds as a comment by Amara upon meeting Lilith went something like “Oh so you’re the voice in my head.” Sounds like our Guardian Angel...

Marcus - I have no doubt Marcus will be buying and selling us guns, but we do see that in person he will be our go to for SDU’s. This go around the currency used is money opposed to Eridium, similar to our BL1 days.

Moxxi - She still has her bar, this time with four different slot machines, possibly activated by a unique currency each, or rewarding different pools of loot.

Tannis - “Tannis’ Lab + Infirmary” read the sign pointing us toward our old friend, which leaves a noticeable lack of Dr. Zed on Sanctuary III. Was he a fatality of the ill fate that befell Sanctuary 2? Or is he on Pandora?

Ellie - Ellie takes position as our lead engineer / car provider for Borderlands 3, as we no longer have our dear friend Scooter with us (nice decal of him on the outside of the ship though).

Unlockable Vehicles - It looks like we will unlock vehicles as we progress through the story, similar to the Bandit Technical in BL2, but there seems to be World Event / Side Missions that allow us to come across unique vehicles parked across the maps that we can get in and return to a Catch-A-Ride station so that they are available to use any time we like! This means if your vehicle blows up before you can get it registered, you may be out of luck!

Alternate Firing Mode- Initially inthough a couple of gun manufacturers would have alternate firing modes but it almost seemed like every gun during the gameplay reveal had an alternate firing mode.

Hyperion Shields- I’ve been wondering how the shields would work for the Hyperion weapon and it looks like they are ADS activated.

Unique Dialog for our Vault Hunters - A feature introduced during some of the DLC for BL2, as well as through the entirety of TPS was character dialog unique to each Vault Hunter. It is most definitely returning for BL3 and I couldn’t be happier.

Unique Looting for our Vault Hunters? - When Amara opened a chest (really a repurposed car trunk) she punched it open in a similar fashion to Kratos in God of War. Although punching a chest open definitely seems like Amara’s style, I wouldn’t say the same for the other Vault Hunters which makes me wonder if certain chests will have unique opening animations for each VH.

Location: Ascension Bluff - This was the location title card that was on the projection screen after got the initial reveal demo which makes me wonder if the Children of the Vault Propaganda center(?) is on a map called Ascension Bluff. I could be wrong in thinking that, however I’m pretty positive that all of that was on Pandora.

Location: Meridian Metroplex - Some interesting reveals about the city we’ve seen from the trailers! The Meridian Metroplex is on Promethea, and has become an Atlas controlled city. For some this is great, for others not so much. Maliwan seems to be attacking the city with their new ally...

Locations: So far we have Pandora and Promethea listed as worlds we can visit but I believe it was Paul Sage also confirmed an Asteroid(?) map that will feature low-gravity similar to (but not quite the same as) TPS.

Tyreen + Troy Calypso / The Calypso Twins- These two are fucking Borderlands equivalent douche twitch streamers. They’ve leveraged this position (or vice - versa?) into being Cult Leaders for the Children of the Vault.

They have broadcast stations scattered around the galaxy that we can destroy / turn off as a world event style challenge.

Tyreen is a Siren who can leech the life and power out of other living beings. Being a Siren, she’s convinced her followers that she is their God - Queen. Troy is merely piggy-backing off the fact that she has all the influence, or it seems that way to me.

Tyreen has streamed her ability of sucking the life out of beings to her many followers, and to the Vault Hunters who she calls her most loyal follower yet.

What’s a cult without its followers? Instead of our typical “Bandit” enemies, it seems like the main enemy faction of that caliber has been rebranded to Fanatics.

Tyreen has struck a deal with the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for Maliwan, a guy named Katagawa (some dweeb who hates / envies / is jealous of Rhys, but also makes sense why he wants control of Atlas) and so mobs of both the Maliwan Assault Troopers and the Fanatics will be fighting you at the same time.

Randy Pitchford has let on that Tyreen is using the bandits, and probably her Maliwan allies, as a tool to find the Vaults so that she can gain the power of the Vault Monsters.

Zer0 has left the Crimson Raiders and is working with / for Rhys under the Atlas corporation, at least while the money and weapons are good.

Crimson Lance became the Crimson Raiders after Atlas fell and they joined Roland’s cause in Sanctuary. Now that Atlas is being ran by CEO Rhys, they are called Atlas Soldiers.

New Element : Radiation - Irradiated enemies will take damage and are also more susceptible to other damage types. An irradiated enemy can spread the effect to other enemies surrounding them. Upon death, an irradiated enemy will reach critical mass and explode.

Barrels - Elemental variety barrels can now be melee’d to launch at enemies before shooting them and causing them to explode.

Pipelines -Certain pipelines can be shot to cause radiation spills, or oil slicks that can then be ignited to cause an AOE of damage.

Enemies / Mini Bosses - There will be more mini bosses in Borderlands 3, and the weapons they use against you can be dropped so that you can use that gun on future enemies.

NPC - Certain NPC’s will assist you on missions, like Lorelei and Zer0, and then can also be downed. You can revive NPC’s and they can also revive you.

Paul Sage (Gearbox Developer?) - Paul made the comment about the low-grav environments as well as stating that if you “beeline through the story” it will take around 30 hours. Upon questioning if the guns in the reveal were better than what we will find (because of the basically non-existant recoil) he stated that in the past they’ve worked there way up to really good guns in terms of level progression, but this time they wanted to know if they could “start good, and make it fucking awesome.” So yeah. Guns are gonna be fucking awesome.

And that wraps it up! A nice guide to catch you up on things you’ve missed or to remind you of some things you’ve forgotten. I make no claim to have covered everything we’ve seen, but these were some things that I took note of. Feel free to add your own bits and pieces I missed in the replies! Borderlands 3 looks amazing, happy hunting.

- VaultHunter426

[progressiveparty]

Bigger Than Bernie: The Other Progressive Challengers Taking On the Democratic Establishment (via Christopher Hass)

Our Progressive Candidates

Our endorsed candidates are running for office representing progressive values. Fighting for progressive ideas, for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, ending mass incarceration and deportation. It’s time to empower the voice of a new generation of Progressives who represent the people. A new generation of Progressives who will fight for solutions that match the need of the many.

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CANDIDATES CLICK HERE   Can not find your progressive candidate?

Year 2020 – Recognize a Progressive – Nominate a Candidate:

The Other Progressive Challengers Taking On the Democratic Establishment

By Christopher Hass “Today,” Bernie Sanders booms in his monotone shout, “we begin a political revolution to transform our country—economically, politically, socially and environmentally.” He marks each beat with his right hand, as if conducting with an invisible baton. Behind him, a lone seagull flaps its wings as it flies across Lake Champlain. The crowd of 5,000 that has come to Burlington, Vt., on a sunny afternoon in May to witness Sanders’ official campaign announcement breaks into a cheer. At the time, it was easy to dismiss talk of revolution as the rallying cry of a 74-year-old democratic socialist who clings too dearly to memories of the 1960s. Eleven months and more than six million votes later, Sanders’ call for revolution is harder to ignore. But what, exactly, would this political revolution look like? It’s not hard to imagine Sanders marching in the streets with the masses—he’s walked plenty of picket lines, most recently alongside Verizon workers in New York City last October—but that’s not the revolution he’s calling for. For Sanders, political revolution means shifting control of American politics away from corporate interests, convincing non-voters to go to the polls and attracting white working-class voters back to the Democratic Party, all while moving the party left enough to embrace democratic socialist policies. A political revolution of that kind is going to require two things: a wave of candidates committed to a bold set of progressive ideas and a mass of voters with the political will to elect them. There’s evidence both of these are already here.

Progressives are fired up here for a victory against big money. —Jamie Raskin read the full interview In These Times spoke to U.S. House and Senate challengers across the country who are very much a part of this wave. They are all outsiders to varying degrees, and all of them are running against the Democratic establishment in its various forms—from corporate donors and super PACs to the head of the Democratic National Committee herself. These challengers range from first-time candidates to experienced lawmakers, from community organizers to law professors. Each is balancing the individual concerns of the voters they seek to represent alongside the larger mood of the nation. None of them is running because of Bernie Sanders, but they clearly benefit from the enthusiasm and sense of progressive possibility his campaign has created. It would be a mistake to call them “Sanders Democrats” (and it’s unlikely Sanders himself would want anything to do with the term). Some have endorsed Sanders, others remain neutral or even back Hillary Clinton. But they are coalescing around a set of progressive policies familiar to anyone who has heard Sanders speak, including single-payer healthcare, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage and breaking up the big banks. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic platform more at odds with Bill Clinton’s centrist Third Way of the 1990s. More importantly, these positions increasingly reflect the popular will. Even after the brutal battles over Obamacare, polls show that more than half of Americans support moving to a single-payer healthcare system. Fifty-eight percent want to break up the big banks. Sixty-three percent support raising the minimum wage to $15. And Americans are nearly united in agreement (78 percent) that Citizens United should be overturned. What’s striking about recent polling, though, is not the support for these progressive policies (many have enjoyed widespread approval for a while), but the openness to new, radical ideas—especially among young voters. In a January YouGov poll, people under 30 rated socialism more favorably than capitalism. On the eve of the Iowa caucus, when asked how they describe themselves, 43 percent of Democratic caucusgoers chose “socialist.” Take a moment to let that sink in. This is what happens when you have a generation of young people whose central experiences with capitalism have been two recessions, a financial crisis, crushing college debt, flat wages and soaring income inequality. For young people, the devil they don’t know is looking better and better than the devil they do—and that sentiment is fueling insurgent challengers. Many of these candidates continually emphasize the need to purge U.S. politics of corporate money, starting with the Democratic Party. “It’s easy for candidates to say they’re for overturning Citizens United, but it’s really meaningless when they’re also taking so much corporate and dark money that they’ll never follow through,” says Tim Canova, who is running for Congress in Florida’s 23rd congressional district. “The Democratic Party has lost its way. It has gone corporate and Wall Street on so many issues that it has unfortunately turned its back on its own grassroots base.” And it’s more than a matter of principle: Many of these candidates believe that voters are fed up with how the corporate capture of the party has pulled it to the right. “The Democratic Party has been Lucy with the football and the voters have been Charlie Brown,” says Tom Fiegen, a candidate for Senate in Iowa. “Democrats have pulled the football away too many times, so the voters say, ‘Nope, I am not going to be tricked again. I am not going to have you lie to me and tell me you’re on my side, and then when I send you to D.C., you vote for the TPP or you vote for the Keystone Pipeline.’ ” Nowhere is this trust gap felt more keenly than among young voters. Sanders has won the support of young people like few politicians before. In each of the 27 states that held primaries or caucuses in February or March, he won the youth vote, often by more than 50 points. In his home state of Vermont, he defeated Hillary Clinton among voters under 29 by an overwhelming 95 percent to 5 percent. Tom Fiegen saw how this played out in Iowa. “In the conventions I went to,” he says, “there was probably 30 to 40 years difference in age between Bernie supporters in one half of the room and Hillary supporters in the other half of the room.” Fiegen himself has endorsed Sanders, and you can hear in his voice the same passion that has animated so many young people: “We are idealists. … We want a better world. We think we can achieve it. We’re willing to basically throw our bodies in front of the bus to do that.”

The number one lesson that everyone can learn from Bernie Sanders, and that I’ve tried to emulate, is: Tell the truth. —Tom Fiegen The challengers:

Tim Canova (FL)

Donna Edwards (MD)

Tom Fiegen (IA)

Lucy Flores (NV)

Alan Grayson (FL)

Eric Kingson (NY)

Pramila Jayapal (WA)

Susannah Randolph (FL)

Joseline Peña-Melnyk (MD)

Jamie Raskin (MD) It would be a mistake to overlook the fact that this year’s election is playing out in a moment when protest movements have interjected themselves into the national conversation in a way we haven’t seen in a long time. Black Lives Matter, Fight for 15, the climate movement and more have demonstrated the value of setting uncompromising demands and pushing the boundaries of what is politically possible. It’s no surprise then that some of these progressive challengers come directly out of protest movements. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state senator running for the 7th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, has a long history of activism and advocacy in Seattle. She founded the post-9/11 immigrant rights group Hate Free Zone (now OneAmerica), which has held massive voter registration drives. “The only reason I got into politics was because I believed it was another platform for organizing,” she says, “and that’s what I want to do with my congressional campaign. We’ve brought in thousands of leaders, young people and people of color and women who never saw themselves as part of democracy.” Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who is running for Congress in Maryland’s 4th District, says: “These movements give me hope for the future of our democracy. They show that the spirit that gave rise to the civil rights movement is still alive as people take up causes that matter and challenge the status quo.” Donna Edwards, a co-founder of the National Network to End Domestic Violence now running for Maryland’s open Senate seat, agrees. “I’ve always believed in outside movements,” she says. “Government doesn’t move effectively and elected officials don’t move effectively unless they have a big push from the outside.” Candidates like Debbie Medina, a democratic socialist running for state Senate in New York’s 18th District, are happy to be that push. As she told The Nation, “This election is just another rent strike.” Sanders himself is arguably the biggest protest candidate of them all. But a funny thing is happening: Many of the protest candidates are winning. By the middle of April, Sanders had won 16 states, as well as the Democrats abroad primary. Donna Edwards has led by as much as 6 points. Polls show Lucy Flores, a Sanders supporter running for Congress in Nevada, leading by 20 points. In Maryland’s 8th congressional district, Jamie Raskin’s two closest opponents are busy arguing over who’s in second place. For any new president to enact a progressive agenda, they’re going to need a new Congress. The establishment, however, is not going quietly. In Florida, where Tim Canova is challenging Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her congressional seat, news got out in March that the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) had denied Canova’s campaign access to the party’s voter file. His supporters created an uproar; the file is crucial to any campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts. The FDP eventually backed down in order to avoid, in the words of the state party executive director, the “appearance of favoritism,” but the policy remains in place for all other Democratic primary challengers in Florida. And not just Florida—Democratic challengers in other states are routinely denied access to this data or charged extra for it. “The DNC and state Democratic parties must stop favoring incumbents over insurgents in Democratic primaries,” Canova says. “We need to recruit activists committed to our progressive agenda to run for office, and that includes challenging incumbent Democrats.” Given that these candidates want to rid the party of corporate influence, it’s no surprise that many are going head-to-head with big money. In Maryland, Jamie Raskin’s two biggest challengers in the Democratic primary are a wine mogul named David Trone, who has already spent more than $5 million of his fortune on the race, and Kathleen Matthews, who once oversaw the Marriott political action committee and is now herself the recipient of more lobbyist money than any Democrat running for the House in 2016. “My major opponents here have no real history of involvement in Democratic Party politics,” Raskin says. “They are creatures of the big money politics that have overtaken our country.” He’s won the endorsement of both liberal groups and a number of Democratic state lawmakers, and—borrowing a page from Sanders’ playbook—has relied on a surge of small-dollar donations to remain competitive. “Progressives are fired up here for a victory against big money,” Raskin says. In Nevada, Lucy Flores faces a multi-millionaire, Susie Lee, who has loaned her own campaign $150,000. But as Jeb Bush will tell you, money alone only gets you so far, especially in a year when voters seem more interested in authenticity. “The number one lesson that everyone can learn from Bernie Sanders,” Tom Fiegen says, “and that I’ve tried to emulate is: Tell the truth.” Donna Edwards put it this way: “We should not run away from who we are as Democrats and the values that we share. … We lose elections because our voters stay home.” For a President Sanders or a President Clinton to be successful, they’re going to need voters to come out not just in November, but in 2018, 2020, and beyond. For any president to enact a progressive agenda, they’re going to need a new Congress, made up of people like Donna Edwards, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal and others. When Barack Obama first ran for president, he spoke frequently about how his election was not about him, but us. He may have meant it, but it was hard to shake the feeling that at that moment in American history, it was in fact very much about him and the qualities he possessed. Today, when Sanders uses the same language, you believe him—if for no other reason than it’s hard to imagine a wild-haired septuagenarian in a baggy suit as the catalyst for a popular movement. Clearly, something deeper is going on. For the most part, Sanders himself has remained focused on his own election fight with Hillary Clinton. He has avoided talk of the future. But in a recent interview with Cenk Uygur of the “Young Turks,” Sanders let his guard down for a minute, saying, “We need, win or lose for me, a political revolution which starts electing people who are accountable to the working families of this country.” There it was—“electing people,” plural, not a single president. That’s what revolution looks like. These challengers are also carrying the flag of the political revolution sparked by Bernie Sanders. This Piece Originally Appeared in Christopher Hass Read the full article