#just there to be a total menace and steal your diamonds

[anq-art]

[terriblequalitymovie]

His Kitten

Pairing: Niragi x Reader

Rating: (M) for language and explicit sex

Summary: Niragi catches you with Arisu and Chishiya too many times for his liking and thinks you’re getting a bit too comfortable

Warning: orgasm denial, cursing, degradation, no aftercare

A/N: I don’t even know yall, what type of shackles does this (fictional) man have on me.

***

It started as a normal day at the beach. The loud music echoing through the resort, the smell of alcohol and weed mixing in with chlorine, sweat and sunscreen. You laid back on the reclining chair, soaking up some much needed sun. Two newcomers passed by you, reminding you of yourself. It had been maybe two weeks since you found yourself in Borderland, and about a week and a half since you came to the beach. You tried not to think too much about how you ended up here, it was a bit hectic and made your head spin. You were visiting Tokyo with a couple of friends, and had gotten separated from them while sightseeing. You headed into a cafe and the next thing you knew you were the only one around, being forced to survive by playing games.

Since then however, you’d come to slightly accept your new found reality. You chuckled, your friends were probably back at work and you were catching a tan. Just as that thought brought a small smile to your face, you felt someone’s shadow fall over. You frowned, sitting up. Glasses being pushed atop your braids, you locked eyes with Usagi.

“In five minutes, get up and come to the rooftop.” She said, and then disappeared back into the crowd. You looked around, and then laid back against the seat, wondering what that was about. But five minutes later, you found yourself navigating towards the rooftop, making sure there were no militants in sight. You wouldn’t mind seeing Niragi, although if he caught you that would end in a number of ways that seemingly all ended in you being bruised. That thought both excited you and frightened you and you picked up your pace.

Up on the rooftop, you were hardly surprised to find Chishiya, Kuina, Usagi and Arisu. They all turned to you as the door slammed shut behind you. You looked between the four of them, a bout of confusion in your mind.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here” Arisu said.

“Yeah probably.” You joked.

“The Hatter’s system is flawed, so we’re stealing the cards and figuring it out for ourselves.” Chishiya announced. Again, you looked at the four of them, your brow furrowed.

“Where do I come in? And how do I know you won’t throw me to the militants if we get caught?”

“That’s just a risk you have to take.”

You bit your lip, you agreed. The whole idea of collecting the cards solely for only the Hatter to return to the normal world was selfish and for lack of better word unfair. But would you be willing to die over playing cards? (Granted you could die at any given time in Borderland).

“Fine. I’m in.” You sighed.

After going over the plan, the five of you headed back inside. While Kuina and Usagi headed in one direction, you followed Arisu and Chishiya.

You were engaged in small talk, telling them where you were from and how you got there, when the Aguni, Niragi and a few of the other militants passed by. Niragi turned, sneering at the two men in front of you. His eyes met yours with a dark look, and another round of excitement and fear shot through you.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” You said, puckering your lips. Talking to Niragi like that, especially in front of Aguni was brave, even for you. He stepped towards you, the grip of his gun tightening, but the smirk on your face didn’t falter.

“Careful y/n, don’t want me to lose my temper.”

But you did, you wanted to push his buttons and see what would happen. However, in front of Aguni and the militants, along with the two new friends (or allies you weren’t exactly sure what to call it) wasn’t the right place. You stepped back and looked away but the smirk didn’t fade completely. He huffed. Brat.

The three of you went your separate ways, your mind still reeling with Chishiya’s plan at the forefront. That was until the music stopped. The eerie silence meant one thing, games night. You sighed, and found your way to the entrance. Arisu, Chishiya, Usagi and Kuina were already there, and you found yourself climbing into the same car that they were.

6 of diamonds. That’s what had you chained to each other by the ankles. A mound of keys laid before you. Simple you thought, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack, but with metal keys and there’s a two hour time limit that ends in death. There were ten players in total, and each person could grab a key. They could only pass the keys to the person directly on either side of them, and once a key was out of rotation it couldn’t be used again. Of course, there were newcomers who were panicked about how they ended up in Borderland and the significance of the game. And a few players who weren’t thinking of the bigger picture. However with Chishiya and Arisu’s quick thinking, you weren’t too worried. With that confidence in mind, you grabbed a key.

One and a half painstaking hours later, you were free of your shackles. And rubbing at your ankles. Your fingers reeked of metal and you’d much rather be in your room.

Upon returning to the hotel, you and the others were in a surprisingly jovial mood. You had your arms wrapped around Chishiya and Arisu’s shoulders. Kuina made a comment about Arisu being a ladies man, which caused his cheeks to turn a rosy color and had you in a fit of laughter.

You were still chuckling, when the militants passed by again. Niragi shot a menacing glare in your direction, mean to scare you and the company, but you only felt heat pooling in your core. However, you stood up straight, letting your arms fall by your side.

It took a while to get back to your room, but your shoulders instantly relaxed just seeing the numbers. The room was dark, and you were sure you’d left the light on. The curtain was open, letting in the moonlight. The door closed behind you with a thud and you stepped forward slowly. Something was off in the room, but you weren’t sure what. That’s when you felt it, warm and wet against your neck.

“Niragi.” You breathed.

“Y/n” he answered.

“How did you get in here?”

“The door.” He answered simply, and you could tell he was smirking.

“But tell me y/n, did you have fun today?”

“Fun? Sure I guess.”

“Make a lot of friends?”

Your eyebrows knit together, it was unlike Niragi to care about something like that. You were about to answer, when you realized why he asked. He was jealous.

“Oh yes. Chishiya and Arisu are great company.” You gushed. Niragi finally stepped into the light, pushing you backwards onto the bed.

“But can they make you scream like I can?” He asked, licking another stripe across your neck. You let out a shuddering breath. All the plans for a bratty reply left your head, as he lifted your shirt, turning it into a makeshift restraint. His tongue continued down to your stomach and both of your legs. Effortlessly, he pulled off your shorts and bikini bottoms.

Niragi bites your thighs, pulling a gasp from your lips. His mouth finds your entrance, already soaked. Niragi eats you out like a man starved, his fingers gripping your thighs. His tongue lapped at your folds roughly, the piercing cold against your core. You wanted to touch him, to run your fingers through his hair. That’s exactly what you did, freeing yourself from the hold of your shirt, and rooting your hands in his hair. Abruptly, Niragi pulled away from you, the night air sending a shiver down your spine.

“Hands off pet.” He warned, pinning your hands above your head. You pouted, but it melted away as he returned to his ministrations. You whimpered, as your high crept up on you.

Niragi could feel your legs beginning to shake and he knew you were close. He stayed a few seconds more and then pulled away, with a devilish grin.

“Something wrong kitten?” He asked licking his lips. You frowned.

“I was so close.”

“I know kitten, but do you deserve to cum?”

You pouted, but it only made him chuckle. He runs his fingers along your thigh, the skin still sensitive from his bites. He gets closer to your core but pulls away at the last second.

You heave a sigh of frustration, and Niragi slaps your thighs. You were buzzing now, the tension of a denied orgasm tingling through you. He wanted you to beg, to hear your neediness, your submission.

“Beg.” Niragi slid his fingers slowly back into your dripping heat.

“Please.” Your voice was barely above a whisper.

“Can’t hear you y/n.”

“Please!”

“Manners kitten, please who?”

“Please Niragi.” Niragi’s fingers were right where you needed them, his thumb rubbing circles into your clit. It didn’t take long for you to feel that tightening sensation again. He teased pushing his fingers in deeper, before pulling them out. You could practically taste it, the release that never came.

Niragi sucked his fingers, your eyes trained on the slender digits covered in your essence. He hummed, a popping sound could be heard as he pulled them out of his mouth. He was driving you crazy, and he loved every minute of it. You were practically trembling now, but you were at Niragi’s mercy.

The sound of his belt being unbuckled sends a shiver down your body. He pushed your thighs apart with his legs, dragging the tip of his dick against your clit. Niragi bent over you his hair falling into your face. His hand wrapped around your throat, and your back arched as he thrust into you all at once. He pulled back slowly, and before you know it he was fucking into you like his life depended on it. You couldn’t hold back your moans any longer, sure that everyone that lived in your hall could hear you. Niragi’s grip tightened around your throat his fingernails digging into your skin. The pain only pushed you further into pleasure. As you felt your orgasm approach a third time you wrapped your legs around Niragi’s waist, holding him in place. His name fell off your lips, the only coherent thing you could say, as your orgasm washed over you. You were breathless and tears streamed down your cheeks but that didn’t stop Niragi. He kept going, chasing after his own high. His teeth sunk into your skin, replacing his fingers.

“Fuck.” You hissed. His long tongue brushed over the broken skin, another hiss leaving your lips. Niragi’s thrusts grew sloppy and he pulled out, releasing onto your stomach. He wiped your tears, and squeezed your cheeks with his hand.

“So pretty like this pet, and all mine.”

[kurtty-drabbles]

Ocean au (Pool of Blood part 5)

N/A: Moving the plot forward. The heist is in the making.

@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @bamfoftheundead

Kokoro was training arduous as always when she sees Meggan talking in the cellphone is paying too much attention to what is being said on the device, which to be fair, is not exactly Meggan´s forte as she´s too airy when talking in the phone(Brian thinks is endearing and Kokoro won´t judge...much) but not today. As the conversation stops Kokoro is peering at Meggan for a solid minute.

"Columbina?"

"I´m not saying anything here"

"The means justify the ends. Ok. What does she want to steal this time? "

"A Pool of Blood"

"Come again?!"

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Gwen Stacy is not a woman who believes in romance, at least, not anymore. She married Norman Osbourne for money and is still receiving the "judgment" from everyone. A shameful woman who sells her soul and body for money will rot in hell. Well, Gwen can´t say it was a nice marriage, but, she knows she likes his money and in this capitalist world...this type of marriage is not a bad deal...if you have stomach for that.

Gwen Stacy does not believe in romance and would like to quit dating and love, sadly, fate has other plans for her and when she did meet Clark Rogers...she decided that maybe, just maybe, romance is not impossible for her. Maybe.

"I know who you are!" Gwen is talking blandly at Clark Rogers who took Gwen to a nice cafe shop in Metropolis. Whilst the ambient is very nice, Gwen suspects he picks this place because it has not a single soul that seems to reconize she was married to Norman Osbourne.

"Huh?" Clark responds intelligently. Still pretending as much one can imagine and Gwen folds her arms bemused. "Oh...I know, it was the glasses?"

"No, the voice. I get why the glasses work. I do, but, your voice is too similar to him..." Gwen responds and Clark is surprised by this small detail, really, when he´s Super Soldier or Clark his voice never changes and no one ever picks up this little detail.

"I also know who your friend is. No, I won´t tell because I know you won´t tell either...but, can I make a question here? Why you help a thief?" Clark asks without any malice, in fact, his tone is completely laced with curiosity. Gwen got a nice divorce deal and is pretty rich and Gwen, by the few weeks they know each other, does not strick the type of being greedy, so, why help a thief?

Gwen offers a small smile, almost unnoticeable. "Well, Heroes can help, but, they are bound to the laws...and sometimes, bad peoples can use the law to get away, however, Columbina does not follow such laws and well, to get an omelette you got to break some eggs" Gwen explains and for a solid minute she was expecting the old speech how superheroes must follow the law and how Columbina is a ticking bomb.

"Well, makes sense. Actually...I understand that 100%"

And Gwen drinks her beverage happily letting her smile reach her face and eyes. Of course, Clark understands, still, Gwen does not want to fall over her heels ...yet.

"Now answer me this, pretty boy. Do you plan to be your ''fursona" for how long?" Gwen asked using the word fursona as the waitress was coming this way and no one in Metropolis needs to know about Super Soldier´s secret identity.

"Well...that´s a good question."

The date went well and Gwen is back home, in New Gotham, Super Soldier super-speed is a nice power if you ask Gwen, and if you ask her again she´ll tell the man in question is too much of a gentleman in all the right ways.

Later, when Gwen is scrolling on her phone notification of a message from Columbina appears. Gwen read one time. Two times and finally, three times. And is not getting so she decides to call Columbina. "Hi, Pool of Blood? Are you drunk?"

____________________________________________________________________________________________

All the ladies of JLX slowly come to terms that Columbina is not exactly subtle, which if you think about her extra-curricular profession, is almost laughable. All the same, faces are present, but, no one can´t ignore the presence of Kokoro.

The Japanese woman does not seem to regard the White Witch in a good light and Wanda has no time to humour Kokoro by pretending she cares for her opinion. Sparrow and Felicia are more than amused and slightly afraid. Columbina has no real fear...and only a few people know why.

"Hello, Kokoro...do you want to steal a Pool of Blood?" Kitty asked nicely offering drinks to the others and the Japanese woman shakes her head and looks at Meggan as if hoping for some support, so far, nothing.

"No, I´m here to see what you´ll try to drag my sister-in-law this time...if this Pool of Blood is indeed a menace as you said then ...why steal it?" Kokoro asked and Columbina nods saying is a good question and she points at her dog, is Cosmo, and her cat, Jupiter, to explain the case. For a moment, Kokoro was sure the woman was joking...but...

"Hello, non-believer" the dog speaks and Kokoro´s world ruins in a few words. "Ok, let´s explain what is the Pool of Blood. It all begins with Mom" Cosmo´s tail wave happily and Jupiter makes some comments here and there. "So to sum up, Mom likes to make monsters and Jupiter´s father likes to use the Pool to make bad stuff...we need to relocate the Pool. Any question?" Kokoro sits down and shakes her head.

"Ok!" Meggan now speaks. "What´s the plan?"

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kurt Ryder was researching until by a sheer miracle the man decides to take a break. You know, in movies, thieves like Columbina love to leave elegant clues that certain place was robbed by them, however, in real life this is far from the truth.

"All of her robberies are unknown. By all accounts, she may have stolen the crown jewellery and no one is wise" Kurt explains more to himself and looks at the screen as he continues to finish his sandwich. It was a treat, a nice treat Kitty made for him and this makes a ghost of smile gingerly hits the corner of his lips.

Suddenly, as his sandwich is completely gone, and inspiration strick on his mind. "Let´s use math!" and he makes a calculous to put some numbers on his favourite unpredictable thief.

"If we could trace all the unsolved robberies from the past 5 years it could give me a tip. Now, let´s reduce this number for valuable things as diamonds or any other types of pieces of jewellery then...let´s compare this with the travels Kitty made along those ...now, let´s see...." and now he looks satisfied as the screen shows a different picture.

"Ok, now, Kitty Pryde...what´s your connection with Columbina?"

______________________________________________________________________________________________

"So...that´s the plan!" Columbina states and the ladies are muttering among themselves and once again Sparrow rose her hand. "Uhm, ok, you can speak!"

"How can we be sure the Pool of Blood will accept this deal?" she made this question thinking how untrusty a Pool of Blood who side with Chaos itself must be. In the corner of her mind, Jubilee is sure that if she was a Pool of Blood she wouldn´t honour any deal made by humans.

"A good question" Columbina states and she side-eye her furry companions for a moment. "however, Pool of Blood and many other things made by non-human's hands work in this logic: A deal is the baseline of their power. If they break the trust...they have nothing left" and this concluded her explanation.

Felicia raises her hand too. "And can Polaris truly lift that thing?" and Polaris, who was silent during the whole speech, now raises her head. "Polaris is here and I can control all the magnetic and metallic objects that exist"

"So...you´re Magneto´s daughter?" someone asked, it was Wanda, who is curious as she recalls a video where a younger Magneto spoke something similar.

Columbina and Polaris now speak in total unison. "What? No!" and Gwen is laughing at this. It´s a comical reaction and now Polaris is being more vocal about her parentage. "What do you mean I´m his lost daughter? No, I´m not...The fuck are you talking about?!"

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Ryder is finally on the corridor of his apartment and is ready to take a shower and sleep, and maybe, try not to think too much about Columbina and Kitty Pryde, however as soon he rubs his eyes all the ladies of JLX leave Kitty´s door and are chatting about something until they all saw him.

Meggan is there along with Kokoro and is really awkward. Sparrow and Felicia seem to be the only ladies who Kurt has a positive past, ironically, Kurt never hit on Felicia even when she was single and right now this is a blessing.

Kitty was talking with Wanda(he swore Wanda said something like "if your dog allows we can cast more spells tonight" and Kurt wants to know the context) in the background but stops once she notices Kurt and Meggan and Kokoro staring at each other awkwardly.

"Ok. Ok. That´s enough awkward enough for everyone. So, Kurt...this is Meggan and Kokoro, Kokoro and Meggan this is Kurt...we all had shit past, it will get shitter if we make more awkward" Kitty states and pushes Kurt to his door and bide him farewell.

Meggan and Kokoro seem to be relieved and starts to carry on for the elevator. Before Kurt even has the chance to ask why those ladies are here, and Kitty knows him enough to know he wants to make this question. Kitty beat him first. Metaphorically.

"We´re talking about selling Ivone´s cosmetic together" Kitty speaks and the other ladies vehemently opposed to this idea.

Wanda and Gwen speak together. "No, this is a book club. Ignore Kitty´s lame jokes"

___________________________________________________________________________________________

"Magneto...now that you locate your daughter, what shall you do?" Emma Frost asked still on the jail and Magneto has ways to communicate with the woman without anyone knowing.

"Me?" and she can see the smirk playing on his lips. Magneto is really that arrogant. "I´ll finish what I started and will finally kill Martian X"

"Good luck...is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Depends...do you want to stay on the prison forever?"

"...I´m listening"

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Winner’s Curse Ch. 8

CJ stalked the cold, gloomy alleyways that lined the street to the docks with a brazen whistle and jaunty step. A proverbial sore thumb compared to the adults and small Vks who scurried about with shuffling steps using the shadows as cover from the watchful eyes of the Coven.

“As if they would care about the doings of cowards and sidekicks.” CJ thought to herself. She had only been back in the Isle for a few days, possibly weeks, time was never a sure thing for CJ, and she had pieced together a little of what had happened when she was gone.

Some big name villains had gotten their magic back and were ruling the Isle with an iron fist, no one was allowed to do anything without their permission, children and sidekicks were punching bags for others, some sort of new hierarchy, etc.

CJ didn’t particularly care. She wasn’t going to stay here for long anyway. She was meant to live on the high seas and after seeing all the booty that she could plunder from places like Camelot Heights and Charmington, she had a growing desire to return to Auradon. A land filled with gold and magic and all sorts of princess to scare and seduce unlike this island of delusional madpeople.

And she was going to plunder and steal on the Seven Seas on the Jolly Roger. Her birthright.

Just as the golden compass that she took from its’ hidden, crocodile-ridden vault on Neverland that used to belong to the once glorious Captain James Hook, that Jolly Roger was another piece of her great legacy. It would aid her in her acts of treachery and it would be a sign to all her future enemies that her scourge was coming. iT would strike fear into their hearts even before they saw a glimpse of her.

She wanted to be the most vile, bloodiest pirate that ever lived. More dangerous than her father, more wanted than Calico Jack, people would say Blackbeard was the male CJ Hook. She was dangerous in her own right despite what these idiots on the Isle thought. She was always third. Behind Harriet even though Harriet hardly did anything but keep up the Jolly Roger and occasionally entered a bar brawl, and behind Harry who was practically Uma’s whipping boy.

Voluntarily Uma’s whipping boy and first mate. It was disgusting.

When she was young she had envied and idolized her brother for his fierceness and the hook he used to slash people’s throats for daring to not follow his orders. But ever since he fell for Uma and pledged his life to serve her, she lost her respect for him. Why be a first mate when you could be a leader and take the best share of booty for yourself.

It was a universal rule not to fall for anyone on the Isle. It made you dependent and weak. Yet Harry was clearly hook over his head devoted to Uma and that seemed to make him stronger. Harry fought like an untamed animal with Uma by his side whenever someone treaded on their turf or insulted their gang. People feared him more now than ever, not daring to speak a bad word about Uma or him. They said he was insane. They said he killed for fun, a true sadist.

She hijacked her way to Auradon, she stole a whole roomful of treasure, she’s been living the good life on the seas without a tie to anyone, a leader unto herself. And she was still second-place to Harry, a pirate who was no leader, just a first mate.

It was just like that when they were kids. Her father treated Harriet more or less with respect or left her alone since she took care of things when he was off drinking until he could see and defeat his hallucinations of Peter Pan. He more or less ignored Harry seeing too much of himself in the boy, seeing his failure in the future. Her, she was his favorite, she knew that. Sure, he didn’t like it when she talked to him, he wasn’t a fan of kids talking or kids in general, but he would treat her mildly better like teaching her the proper way to stab someone. But it was clear that he had no hopes for her to grow into her pirate legacy or any of her capabilities. 

Apparently, he thought her siblings had more raw skill and she had too much of his obsessiveness.

Fine, he was right she was obsessed. Obsessed with treasure, with being a pirate, with being great. She was going to get her own treasure. Steal it from her own father. Like a true treacherous pirate.

He would hate her.

Good, she hated him.

Hook was a greedy man. Wouldn’t be such a fearsome pirate otherwise. He refused to give up any of his possessions to his children. They hadn’t “earned” it. Or as he usually yelled at them, “You’re supposed to be fucking pirates! Get your own treasure!” That declaration led to the bitterest resentment in her piled near the times he forgot her existence in favor of talking to her siblings, doubting her, agreeing with the rest of the Isle. Placing her fourth behind the rest of the family.

She would prove them all wrong, and make them pay.

Her angry thoughts echoed with her pounding footsteps as she kicked the hollow wooden wall behind Madame Medusa’s casino that had formerly been the diamond plunder’s basement, now Lady Caine’s lair.

CJ would have liked to make a dramatic entrance, much like the one she did at the Auradonians silly Neon Lights Ball  but she sadly didn’t not see any vines or ropes to swing from so she settled for bounding down the stairs and brandishing a sword.

Brandishing her sword in a dark, empty room apparently, the only light coming from a small window.

The basement was much larger than she thought basements were supposed to be until she realized she was in a small entrance room and she had to go through another door. The door led through a stone hallways, it’s only light coming from the cracks of the wooden ceiling which CJ figured must be the floor of the casino. Some stones had been chipped and the place reeked with mildew and dust but it was also decorated to intimidate.

There were blood splatters and spare limb joints wedged in corners of the walls, rusty swords bent with decay that had been stuck to the wall and unable to be removed. Posters buxom female pirates and males with broad chests holding knives in their mouths were crudely tacked up alongside “Wanted” signs of Lady Caine’s gang.

CJ recognized some of the pirates from the stories Harriet used to tell. The heartless Blackbeard, the infamous Davy Jones, and CJ’s favorites, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Grace O’Malley, Ching Shih..

“Hmmm I like her too.” A female voice purred, sidling up to her side. It took most of CJ’s composure not to jump at the sudden presence of whom she instinctively knew to be Lady Caine and forced herself to smooth her face into a wicked grin as she faced the self-proclaimed “Queen of Thieves.” 

The older pirate was a bit shorter than her, reaching to her nose but that didn’t lessen her intimidating presence. In fact it just made CJ even more on guard knowing that it was likely Lady Caine would find a sneaky advantage like hitting her in the crotch or some other unprecedented move using the dagger at her belt. 

The rest of her body was less intimidating since toll of the Isle showed. She was skinnier than CJ so it made her corset look like it was hanging limply from her body rather than pushing up ‘the goods.’ Her hair was limp too, and straggly from lack of clean water and constant sea mist.There was an uneven spread of muscles on her arms tempered with some new and healed-over scars, one that even went through her skull and roses tattoo on her right shoulder. Her left leg was clearly injured since she favored to lean on her right and CJ could see the spread of blood seeping through her tent-canvas pants. The one piece of jewelry, a skull necklace was cracked and rusting over making it look more like a demented clown. 

What really brought the scare factor was Lady Caine’s face. Her mouth was set into an unnerving casual smirk. The kind that implied she was the type of person to arrange for someone ‘to swim with the fishes’ simply because she needed something to do to fill her time. Yet her smile didn’t reach to her eyes. No, her eyes were too guarded, menacing, immediately telling CJ that if she tried to double cross her, than Lady Caine would return the favor. Ten-fold. 

“Yes, she has quite the treasure chest.” CJ commented. 

“Heh, I meant I wouldn’t mind taking over her nine hundred squadron fleet to raise a little hell,” Lady Caine raised an eyebrow, her brown and shoddily red-dyed bangs brushed against CJ’s cheek as the older women got into her personal space. “But I can share your admiration for her figure too. Would she be any competition for that voodoo sorceress you’ve been with?”

CJ forced herself to breath normally through her mouth despite her sudden wildly thumping heart. Unexpected and unwelcome memories filled her mind, pushing the faded poster of Ching Shih away. 

Freddie’s dark lips, stained with purple berries that brought out the highlights of her kelp green eyes. Those same lips who created enticing and persuasive arguments with her ‘velvety’ voice coaxing new sounds out of her as they glided across her body. 

Her nimble hands easily able to pickpocket and grope with none the wiser than she, but CJ always knew because she knew that girl. Her tricks of trade, her facial tics, what sent her over the edge in the most pleasurable sense of the world.

That was until CJ had been totally blindsided when Freddie decided to become independent. She knew Freddie had a stubborn streak, which Freddie would retort that she wasn’t stubborn, she was practical, not carrying the obsessive Hook madness. But for Freddie to abruptly tear away from her to have her own dreams was something CJ never thought would happen. Freddie had always seemed to content in helping her with her own schemes, she said she found keeping CJ under control to be entertaining which would be followed by a night of dark magic and ecstasy.

“Of course not.” CJ barked out a hearty laugh and tried to move the conversation to safer, less complicated, emotional areas as well as keep her mind off the stunning spawn of Facilier.

“The girl is my sidekick. My pet. My Auradon pet since she insists on becoming a famous singing star for those goody goodies. She’s not at all like Ching Shih. What I would give for a nine hundred boat squadron which brings me to the important thing. How am I getting the Jolly Roger?”

“We’re getting the Jolly Roger.” Lady Caine corrected leading her toward a bigger room which CJ could tell had used to be used for storage due to the familiar musty smell of aged alcohol. The large boxes had been shifted and carved to form makeshift chairs, weapons were hung or stabbed haphazardly around the place and in the center was a wooden throne which Lady Caine lazily slouched upon, looking at CJ up and down with amusement.

CJ pulled out her sword again, glaring at Caine threw slitted eyes. “Not the deal. The Jolly Rogers mine.”

“Relax. I don’t want that ship, I have my own. I just have my own plans for your father once we steal it in front of bloodshot eyes.” Lady Caine smirked malevolently, “He still drinks, doesn’t he?”

CJ faltered a little when she realized that wasn’t a rhetorical question, “Uh maybe. I don’t associate with him. I’ve been Auradon.”

“I’ve heard about that. Now that is something people should talk about more. You got into Auradon on your own. No pitying help from Prince Furrball. No ‘turning good,’ turning their backs on us so we could rot in hell while their mushy goodhearted brains sleep on pillows. You lived up to your wickedness, CJ.” Lady Caine cocked her head, looking oddly at CJ. Her eyes glinted with a strange happiness and her mouth curved in a genuine smile like when Captain Hook envisioned himself killing that dratted green boy. So proud of his imaginary accomplishment.

Proud. That was what Lady Caine looked like. Not proud of herself but proud for CJ.

CJ’s staggering realization that someone was actually proud of her was tempered by the words sinking in, “No one talks about me and my accomplishments? I have stolen loot from Merlin!”

“Exactly. They still speak of your brother and his violence, but not your greatness. It’s ridiculous. Descended from two great pirates..well I’m a great pirate, your dad-” Lady Caine waved her hand as if she couldn’t quite describe the numerous fatal flaws of Captain Hook in words.

“Yeah…” CJ wasn’t sure how to continue, another odd feeling, she had always remained sure and in control most of her life, “How did-How are you my mother? Dad despises you. He has dreamed of you and Pan being crushed under his stern.”

“And I despise him as well. It’s complicated. I wasn’t in the right mind when I did it. I was drunk, we were fighting, his Hook slipped and instead of scratching me it kind of went the hot and sexy route..huh? That actually wasn’t very complicated now that I say it out loud.” Lady Caine shrugged, wiping a hand over eye and smudging her heavy eyeliner. It sort of reminded her of Harry. 

Truthfully as she looked longer at Lady Caine she found it difficult to see the resemblance between her and her supposed mother. Lady Caine’s brown hair matched more with Harriet and the eye-liner, totally a trademark of her brother. Maybe..just maybe if Lady Caine ate more and filled out, CJ would be able to see if they have the same slender figure, and if she wiped away the magenta lipstick, maybe they had the same lips.... 

“And you’re not Harriet’s or Harry’s-” “No.” Lady Caine vehemently denied, “I would remember if I slept with that son of a bitch more than once, especially if I was pregnant afterwards. Just once is enough for me. What else do you think the C in your name means?”

CJ hadn’t meant to look so shocked but she lost her control, her eyes bugged out and her jaw dropped, “The C is for Caine?!”

Lady Caine burst out laughing, getting off her chair and back to CJ’s side, “No again. Your dad named you and he would never choose something that referenced me. You should have seen the look on your face though. Ha!”

Once CJ’s heart resumed its normal rhythm, she managed a weak laugh, “Okay great. But seriously, the Jolly Roger. What’s the plan? I want that boat.”

Lady Caine looked like she was about to laugh again, but she refrained seeing the seriousness in CJ’s eyes. “There’s no official plan...yet. But you will be in charge of it since you know Hook’s turf better than I do.” A part of CJ’s gut pinged at Caine’s words. It felt wrong somehow. Too easy that the “Queen of Thieves,” known for her hard will and controlling way would just hand over the plan to CJ, even if she was her child. Yet CJ swelled with ambitious excitement. She was finally getting the respect her reputation deserved. She could totally plan and execute a way to take the Jolly Roger.

“What do you want with all this?” CJ questioned, giving in a little to her gut feeling and eyeing Lady Caine warily.

“Like I said, I have my own score to settle with Hook. And a small favor. I want to use the Jolly Roger to storm Corona.” “You see, CJ, long before you were born. Before Auradon or the Isle or any of this existed. I lived in Corona. My father was a petty thief that King Fredric jailed because he couldn’t stand any sort of criminal. Murderers in cells with domestic abusers and first time offenders. It was Corona’s own version of the Isle. The first one. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Beast took the idea from him.

My father died in that prison since he couldn’t compete with the big guns. I grew up on the streets which was for the best I suppose ‘cause look at me now.  

But that self-righteous King Fredric has the balls to send me with common criminals and louses all over again. Off with his head along all the rest of those do-good bastards.”

“Off with their heads?” CJ laughed, giving the moment some levity, “You sound like the Queen of Hearts.”

Lady Caine glared at her, visions of anger and blood quite evident on her face, “Tie them to the rack, firing squad, crucifixion. Whatever you want. The point is those Auradonians will suffer, and they will not live.” 

———————————————————————————————————

Jordan inhaled deeply before knocking on Ben’s office door.

This was it, today was the day, no turning back.

After getting those cliches out of her head, Jordan paused to make sure that the rumbling of her stomach was just hunger from being too nervous to eat dinner and not impending throw up out of nervousness.

Yet before Jordan could knock on the door, Ben flung it wide open. She was starting to wonder if Ben was some door opening psychic for the past five times she visited this week to go over Operation: Defeat the Coven (official more badass title still in progress), he always opened the door before she knocked. Either she was a very loud presence or Ben was always waiting for someone to bother him.

She had a feeling it was the latter since he was King of Auradon and all, which seemed sad. She knew she would go crazy if she had people constantly knocking on her lamp all the time asking to fix some crisis or other.

Well, people used to do that to her lamp, but after sending those people off in a sandstorm, almost everyone learned to leave her alone. Just how she liked it.

"Hi, Jordan! Are you ready to beat some baddies?" Ben enthused, sounding unusually chirpy and breathless.

"Baddies? Really? No wonder you got caught so quickly on the Isle." Jordan shook her head with amusement.

"Yep, that's me." Ben said, pushing her back so he could close the door behind him, smiling way too brightly and nervously swishing his bangs out of his face as if that would make him look more casual.

Yeah, he was hiding a girl, or he was watching porn. She had seen Aziz act with this sort of bad nonchalantless plenty of times whenever she popped by his room unannounced. And since Ben was way too innocent to even know of the dark side of the internet and he did possess a girlfriend, she could bet he and Mal were having some alone time.

Ben leaned firmly against the door in a move that would prevent anyone from being able to open the door without getting through him, "Do you need any last minute supplies?"

As he said this, Jordan finally spotted the tell-tale bite mark on his neck that confirmed her suspicions.

Jordan was tempted to make a comment about how it looked like a certain purple dragon had marked him as part of her hoard, but refrained. Auradonians were still on edge about Vks even though they had been around for a year, and even more were up in arms about Ben promoting Mal to be his future queen. 

If anyone had gotten wind that Mal was in Ben's room, alone, giving him love bites and who knows what else when he was supposed to be doing kingly duties, the scrutiny would be worse than ever on Ben. She might as well let them have their private moment.

Even though that private moment just showed how relaxed Ben was about Operation Defeat the Coven while she still wanted to throw up.

And that's exactly why she needed to talk to Ben. It was clear he had too much faith in her and her abilities and so he needed to be given a reality check of how they could all die and the world that they know it would be taken over by every villain on the Isle imaginable.

"Ben, I promise I'm not backing out. I mean, it is really too late for me to back out anyway so I can't. But I don't feel prepared for this at all. I'm a genie. I'm a sidekick. I don't really make tough decisions, I just entertain people with my magic powers, not fight them. The Coven have a millennium of experience over me and in dark magic which a completely different sort of power, and-"

"I understand how you feel." Ben put a comforting hand on her shoulder while her mouth dropped rather unattractively.

"You do?"

"Hey, I turned king when I was 16. I read a lot about politics and policy making, but it is completely different when I was thrown into ruling. It was like everything I studied and read meant nothing at all when it came to dealing with people and trying to listen to all their problems and think of plausible solutions on a deadline. I can't say I know what I'm doing most of the time."

Well that was very reassuring knowledge.

"But one major thing I have learned when it comes to leadership is that we all develop our own style. You can't prepare for it, you can't learn it. It just comes to you as you learn and grow. You just have to take your time."

"But I CAN'T take my time!" Jordan retorted, "This mission has a short deadline with snap decisions. I can't grow from this."

"It's adventure. People always grow and develop during an adventure like all our parents in their stories." Ben answered back with irritating calmness.

Jordan felt her eye twitch. She should have known that knocking some reality into the eternal optimist wouldn't work.

At least the eternal optimist had eyes so he could see her clear annoyance and distress because Ben said something else, "Besides Jordan, you may be the leader of the mission, but you have your friends to help you. That's why I have a Council. I don't know everything, but I surround myself with people who do and who will help guide me to making the right choices. You're not alone in this."

Jordan exhaled, surprised by how that little nugget of advice actually eased some of her nerves. She did feel pretty confident about her team. Aziz and Jay were excellent with parkour and other athletics so they could be counted on in the case of an attack, and Calix had the magical skills to go up against the sorcerers with her. Plus she had adventured with Aziz and Calix enough times to insticively know when to act in sync. It was too bad Jay was left in the cold in that respect, but he knew his way around the Isle so he had an advantage over all of them.

Additionally, Ben, Carlos Jane and Evie volunteered to alternate in keeping contact with them via magically-enhanced ear chip so they could research useful information in the library if needed.

She trusted them to know what they were doing, and she supposed with so much back-up if she did make a mistake then they could resolve it quickly before any real damage ensued.

"Thanks, Ben. I think I'm ready to go." Jordan said, brushing his hand off her shoulder.

"Right. I'll meet you there. I should go get Mal." Ben said, fixing his collar and rushed into his room.

Jordan sing-songed to the door before leaving, "Ben, I'm pretty sure Mal's room is on the other side of the castle."

She walked quickly to the front of Auradon Prep by the Beast statue where Evie, Aziz, Jay and Calix were already waiting and the moon was high above them all.

Since Ben had arranged the excuse to FG that she, Jay and Aziz were taking a field trip to Agrabah for a week to research illusions in connection with desert mirages so the two boys were dressed in loose pants and shirts that concealed the thick leather body armor underneath as well as the shafrah and scimitar strapped to their legs.

She had copied that look in a flowing black sundress with a two straps filled to the teeth with daggers criss-crossing her chest.

Truthfully, she never used a dagger before, but like with leadership, she hoped she would catch on. How hard could it be to stab someone?

Calix, on the other hand, was looking far too casual with a one shouldered toga that showed off most of his chest and no way to hide weapons anywhere on his body. Apparently he ignored her lecture that you can’t flirt someone to death in mortal combat. 

"Good luck." Evie hugged Jay once she saw Jordan arrive. "Avoid Harry and the Gastons. And any of your exes."

"I don't have exes. We didn't date on the Isle, remember." Jay said, mock punching Evie on the shoulder, "I just have enemies that I slept with and never talked to again."

Ben and Mal joined the group before anyone could comment on that topic, not that Jordan knew exactly what to make of that piece of information, and they started their official goodbyes.

"We're only an ear chip away." Evie said handing each of them a small metallic chip that Carlos had made to place in their ear drum, "All you have to do is press and it turns on and off, and since Mal spelled it. It is guaranteed to work even when you close the barrier."

"Alright. Now where are we going first? Maleficent's castle? Ursula's fish and chips?” Jay clapped his hands together, clenching his fists for the undoubtedly upcoming fights.

"The jungle." Aziz, Calix and Jordan said in unison.

What?" Jay, and Mal looked utterly confused by the answer.

"Do you not check the group messages?" Jordan snorted derisively, "Anyway, we are going to the jungle first to fix some of the holes in the barrier. Since Evie said the jungle is unoccupied by humans, we won't be noticed and attacked by the Vks immediately. Calix and I will fix the holes so the Coven won't be able to have an escape route. Then we'll work our way inland to the Coven's laier and do battle."

"Oh, okay. But you’re wrong though on the jungle being unoccupied. Some people live in the jungle. Mainly hunters who wanted some fresh meat rather than the leftovers you give us." Jay corrected.

All the Aks tensed at that and Ben looked shamefaced to the floor.

Jay hadn't said the comment in a bitter or accusatory way, but matter of factly. Which made it sound worse. It was simply a fact of the Isle that if one got tired of rotten and disgusted food from the overprivilged that you had to face the dangerous wild jungle and kill for raw meat.

"You’ll fight those VKs off we meet them." Jordan instructed after an awkward silence. Then nodded to the others. "We're going now."

Aziz took the cue and rubbed her lamp that was snugly strapped to his hip. She hated the fact that she had to bring it to the Isle, but she had no choice. While she could do magic to in transporting herself places, when it came to performing magic on others it required a wish.

"I wish to transport to the jungle of the Isle."

Shimmery pink smoke enveloped them, wind rushing past their ears and moving their bodies even though it felt like their feet were still firmly on the ground. Once the smoke cleared, all they could see was shades of green and brown.

The green came from the leafy canopy and thickets of thorns that blocked the view of the sea while the brown was the dead grass that crumpled underfoot, the dead trees that fallen over to their left in a small pile and the holes of dirt.

Jay crouched by one of the holes, studying the edges. Standing up he informed them a hyena probably created it.

"Are hyenas nocturnal?" Calix eyed the hole nervously, looking around as if to find some sort of protective cave even though there was nothing but trees.

"Yes, but I wouldn't worry. Usually the leapords take care of them." Jay said ignoring Calix’s more distressed look and motioned for them to follow him into the trees. "Since we are near the coast, the cliffs should be close by here."

And so their journey began. 

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 93: Alone at Sea

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?”

Something I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before is that both of my parents are ministers. I myself am not religious (not because of trauma or anything, my folks are great), but I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a mom and dad who often saw things through a “hey, that could be in a sermon!” lens, and that tends to rub off on a kid. Not to oversell the value of these posts, but it’s not lost on me that I ended up writing something to share with people every Sunday. I can think of worse people to emulate.

So it’s hard for someone like me not to notice that Gems take crucial steps towards becoming Crystal Gems through some pretty baptismal circumstances. I’m not saying the symbolism is intentional, because neither aquatic rituals nor the show’s crew are uniquely Christian—Rebecca Sugar, for instance, comes from a Jewish background—but we’ve yet to see a Gem fall in love with Earth without being reborn through water. Peridot first bonds with Steven in the rain. Ruby and Sapphire land on solid ground together in the rain. Pink Diamond and Pearl first realize they need to rebel as a storm brews.

And then there’s Lapis Lazuli. 

Lapis literally entered the series because Steven broke a mirror, so it’s no wonder she’s misfortune personified. Bad things happen to Lapis. Bad things happen because of Lapis. And sure enough, she might control the same waters that herald rebirth for other Gems, but she’s also consumed by them. Her old life can’t get washed away because she’s still submerged. So an episode about Steven trying to reconnect her with water is bound to be a bit more complex than a joyous scene in the rain.

Alone at Sea takes us to a dark place for Steven Universe, even compared to its preceding episode, the harrowing Monster Reunion. Plenty of bad things have happened to our characters, but for the first time since the Week of Sardonyx we must confront that one of our characters has herself intentionally done a bad thing. Not day-to-day meanness or misguided acts of loyalty to Homeworld, but something truly awful. Almost as if we’re priming for some big reveal about a core character’s moral ambiguity at the end of the season. 

This isn’t to say that Lapis, who also entered the series by stealing the ocean and battling the Crystal Gems, is a stranger to doing bad things. But there’s a gulf of difference between seeing magic antagonist stuff and the learning that she was abusive to her ex. Not many kids are gonna cause marine catastrophes, but way too many kids are gonna have to deal with abusive relationships one day, so Alone at Sea can’t help but feel more raw.

The first moments of the episode show that Lapis is more than her suffering; she’s capable of having genuine fun, especially with Steven. She hints at her deeper issues by insisting she doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely, but she’s just as quick to snort with laughter. And even after boarding the rechristened Li’l Lappy, she’s willing to give happiness a shot. While she’s uncomfortable about dipping her toe in the water, she still finds moments of joy (particularly when it comes to horns). But more often than not, this positive outlook is hindered by her crewmates.

Greg, bless him, hurts more than he helps. He introduces himself as the guy whose leg Lapis broke, his discomfort around her water powers stifles her floundering self-confidence, and he bores her to death with regular fishing. Likewise, while Steven means well, he’s overbearing in his attempts to make Lapis happy. As awkward as it is, I’m glad the show acknowledges how easy it can be to mess up when trying to cheer up a friend in the dumps. Despite Steven’s apology about pushing too hard, we don’t get an explicit lesson about paying attention to how your friends are feeling instead of steamrolling them with fun. This isn’t a criticism: it’s okay to not get explicit lessons all the time, and it’s a nice change of pace from the show’s recent string of episodes that outright tell us the moral, even though these morals are sound.

Everything comes to a head when the rudder is thrown off, veering Li’l Lappy and her namesake off course. Steven gives that apology, but Lapis reiterates that she doesn’t deserve his help, and this time we learn why: as brutal and bullying as Jasper is, in some twisted sense Lapis learned to love their toxic relationship, using it to take all her grief and rage out on Jasper. We saw a hint of her aggression in Chille Tid, but in Jennifer Paz’s best delivery of the episode, Lapis reveals that she misses Malachite. And right on cue, the opportunity to fuse with Jasper again reveals itself.

Jasper’s last lines that weren’t just shouting “YOU!” at Steven were all the way back in Jailbreak, but Kimberly Brooks is worth the wait. Her hungry correction that she was “looking for you” instead of the crew as a whole is perfect (the woman knows her way around second person pronouns), and she manages to become even scarier when she transitions from menacing to begging. All at once we see that Jasper is still monstrous, but has been changed by Lapis. Not in the way she’s saying when trying to convince Lapis to fuse again—there’s little indication that Malachite would be any healthier if she came back—but in the way this massive warrior is on her knees pleading to essentially be made a prisoner again.

From her debut, Lapis has been the most powerful being on Earth by a country mile thanks to her mastery of its most abundant resource. She effortlessly bested the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem, and had the mental fortitude to overcome Jasper’s iron will and wrest control of Malachite. But only now, in Jasper’s pleas, does a character finally acknowledge Lapis’s power. It speaks volumes to their relationship, because it’s not just about control and manipulation: at some level, beneath all the toxicity, Jasper understands Lapis in a way others don’t. It’s not enough to make them a functional couple, but it shows that there’s an uncomfortable level of nuance even in relationships that are obviously bad. It would be much easier to write either Jasper or Lapis off as totally rotten, but Malachite wouldn’t work without a hint, however small, of real affection. 

Malachite made both Jasper and Lapis feel stronger, but they weren’t strong in the real way: they were suffering, and instead of trying to fix this problem, they each learned to like the suffering. And it might be easy to place more blame on Jasper than Lapis, because even here we see how manipulative and violent she can be, but Alone at Sea doesn’t shy away from Lapis’s complicity even when presenting her in a more heroic light. Steven doesn’t call her out on her behavior, but he doesn’t exactly correct her when she reveals how terrible she’s been.

Back in It Could’ve Been Great and Message Received, we got a taste of uncertainty in terms of Peridot’s future. Sure, a promo spoiled that she was staying with the Crystal Gems, but otherwise there was no telling whether she was a temporary addition. Lapis has the same quality, but amplified to a thrilling degree due to her rockier stance with the Crystal Gems. When I first watched Alone at Sea, I legitimately didn’t know what would happen next. Lapis was such a new and tenuous ally and had so much baggage with Jasper that it wouldn’t have shocked me if she had gone back to being Malachite, especially considering how underused Malachite ended up being. It gives the episode way higher stakes than, say, the Week of Sardonyx, where despite the turmoil you could pretty much guarantee that the Crystal Gems would come out of it okay. Lapis is fundamentally not okay, so anything could happen.

And that actual chance of returning to Jasper makes Lapis’s rejection so much more triumphant. She seems to sincerely consider Jasper’s offer, even when she sounds sickened by the prospect, but when given a true choice she’s able to see past her longing for that life. Malachite began with Jasper’s forceful “Just say yes,” and she can’t come back if Lapis says no. It might be alluring, but unlike Jasper, Lapis refuses to take the bait. 

I haven’t gushed about Aivi and Surasshu for a while, have I? I’ll be honest, a big part of that is that with the release of Steven Universe’s first soundtrack, the composers stopped releasing background tracks on the internet, and only several years later have these tracks finally popped up again. Access to their music got scarcer and scarcer, but I’m so glad that before it dried up, we got the instrumentation of this final sequence, because it’s really something.

As the clouds gather and she talks about her time fused with Jasper, we hear the buildup of Lapis’s darker theme, and the moment she reveals that she misses being Malachite, the fusion’s ominous two-note motif clangs just once. The track is soon overtaken by Jasper’s synth drum war march, with only hints of Lapis’s celesta leaking in (just like in The Return), but as Jasper begs to fuse again we get the very first quiet version Malachite’s motif (at 1:49, it’s so easy to miss); the fusion’s theme is no longer a force of nature, but a desperate plea. 

A piano rendition of Lapis’s theme drowns out Jasper as she considers her options. Strings build to the same fever pitch that we got when Lapis first agreed to dance, but they fade to a quiet conclusion as she refuses to go back to Malachite. Jasper’s drums make one last appearance as she lashes out at Steven, but Lapis’s counterattack is as musically calm as her rejection. Lapis could have gotten loud, dramatic variants of her theme for her one-two punch defending herself and then Steven, and it would have sounded awesome, but instead both big moments show that she’s shunning loudness for peace. Tying all these musical themes together is impressive enough, but that restraint ties the whole scene together.

Jasper is about to dominate the final arc of the season in a story that has nothing to do with Lapis, but everything to do with Lapis. It’s safe to say Jasper doesn’t handle their breakup well, and her collection of Corrupted Gems is less a matter of a soldier raising an army and more a jilted lover looking for acceptance after being abandoned for what’s likely the first time in her very long life. This is the first in a string of blows that knock Jasper down more than her fight with Garnet ever did: it’s one thing to lose, but it’s another to be rejected, and until Jasper learns to make a change, rejection is the only future she’s got.

Lapis goes right back to being an angsty teen after this, despite getting more comfortable around Peridot. But Alone at Sea makes me appreciate her eventual abandonment of Earth when the going gets tough again, because while it’s not the right thing to do, it makes sense that a character with massive unresolved trauma would follow the most defensive instincts possible to avoid further pain. I’m not huge on the show just saying Lapis did something awful and not following it up with much soul-searching, but she does plenty of work outside of Jasper and perhaps it’s for the best that she focused on less toxic parts of her life for self-improvement.

The big bummer of Lapis and Jasper’s story is that it never really resolves: even when Jasper halfway reforms, she and Lapis will never share a screen again, let alone have a conversation. I’m not saying I want a reconciliation, but apology is good for the soul, so I hope that someday Little Homeworld sees a moment where Lapis says she’s sorry for her part in Malachite’s agony, even if Jasper was worse.

Still, seeing Lapis refuse to re-fuse still works as a resolution to the episode, if not the arc. And she does work on her issues in other ways, even if Jasper doesn’t. But even though this is their last interaction in the series, admitting your mistakes and choosing not to repeat them is itself a noble step.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

She’s not even in the episode, but Pearl and her swim cap are the winner of this entry. Does nobody else care about their hair?

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is our second excellent feel-bad episode in a row. We may not ever get an acknowledgement about the abusive nature of Lars and Sadie’s relationship in Island Adventure, but at least we have this episode addressing the issue.

(Bear in mind I’m not champing at the bit for more abusive relationships in children’s media, but if you’re going to have them, I just think it’s irresponsible not to use them as an educational tool, is all.)

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[mst3kproject]

608: Code Name: Diamond Head

 This is probably the beigest movie I’ve ever seen.  The cars are beige.  The costumes are beige.  The landscapes are beige.  Even the actors are beige.

Johnny Paul is a wealthy, carefree bachelor living it up in Honolulu – when he’s not doing the government’s dirty work as Agent Diamond Head.  His new assignment is to track down rogue agent and master of disguise Sean Donovan, code-named Tree, who has come to Hawai’i to steal a deadly bioweapon.  By posing as a Colonel, Donovan is able to sneak into a secret research facility and find the formula.  Can Diamond Head, with his fellow agents Tso Tsing and Zulu, stop him from leaving the island with it?

If you were curious, Diamond Head is a reference to a 1963 film of that title, which starred Charlton Heston as a rich asshole living in Hawai’i.  France Nguyen was in that one, too.  I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure it deserved better.

Beyond that… this is another movie I’m gonna have trouble finding anything to say about. It’s pretty blah.  Part of the reason was probably because it was so obviously made for tv (complete with built-in commercial breaks) and they were trying to sell it to a network by making it as inoffensive as possible.  The result attempts to appeal to everybody and therefore actually appeals to nobody, except for people who are interested in unappealing movies.  Even then, I’m gonna have a hell of a time filling two pages with my thoughts on this.

Much of the reason it’s so bland is because for a film in which the fate of the world is at stake, Code Name: Diamond Head is remarkably lacking in any sense of urgency.  It feels like a business-casual movie: the people in it may be saving the world, but they’re doing it because that’s the job they’re paid to do, and that’s all.  Even Tso Tsing, who supposedly wants revenge for the deaths of her family, doesn’t look all that committed.  Actress France Nguyen looked way more into it when she was playing Kitty Tsu in Dimension 5 – in Code Name: Diamond Head she just looks bored.  At the end, even the villain just gives the fuck up, which is disappointing and yet so totally appropriate for this stupid movie that I feel I should have seen it coming.

The movie also makes Hawai’i look extremely shabby and unappealing. This is perhaps intentional, a dark-side-of-paradise thing, but it’s not a menacing type of unappealing.  Instead, Honolulu just looks like a giant trailer park.  The buildings are old, the hotels are cheap, and everything looks like it’s in various states of disrepair.  It just feels like a place you wouldn’t want to go, where there’s probably a lot of crime and drugs, never mind all this espionage stuff.  I guess that would have given Diamond Head plenty of work to do in future episodes.

Nothing in the movie is at all impressive and parts of it are barely even competent.  The music is mostly unremarkable, although it sometimes does weird things like break into a funky bassoon track, or just bang on the piano like a three-year-old when the goons show up.  There’s only one special effect, when vegetation melts into a mass of goo on contact with the gas weapon, but that’s just red lights superimposed on footage of rocks and it looks like crap.

I guess this movie has some kind of point to make about the arms race. What the scientists call the ‘Gold Cross’ was created by combining two of nature’s most finely-honed weapons – cone snail venom and some kind of poison gas – into a single substance that dissolves any living thing on contact.  This weapon is so terrible that even the people who developed it are all in favour of destroying it so it can never be used.  Instead, it’s stolen for use by terrorists or something.  As metaphors go it’s pretty blatant and not really worth analyzing.

This horrifying weapon was just about the only interesting thing in the film, and the fact that we only see it in action the once was definitely the most disappointing.  There were enough clichés in Code Name: Diamond Head to make me expect that the villains would be destroyed by the very weapon they sought to possess, and even though I knew it was gonna look stupid I was all ready to see it.  As Paul, Zulu, and the Salty Old Sea Dog chase the villains out onto the ocean I was channeling Mike from The Incredible Melting Man by shouting, “just blow up and melt!”  Instead, the stuff was recovered safely and that was a terrible letdown.

A villain who’s only in it for the money and gives up as soon as the situation becomes truly life-threatening is a terrible villain, anyway, because it retroactively sucks all the life out of the film up until that point.  Donovan was never a real threat, because he wasn’t actually fighting for anything besides a payday.  The only time this works in a movie is when the weaksauce quitter villain then rats out whoever he’s working for, allowing the heroes to go after the real bad guy.  Maybe this would have happened if Code Name: Diamond Head had been a series rather than a movie, but it wasn’t, so we’re left with this.

In order to be credible, action movie villains need conviction.  They need a cause to believe in so that we know they’re just as determined as the good guys. If they’re going to surrender, it should be either a trick or because they know they’re thoroughly beaten – in The Avengers, Loki does both.  Having your bad guy just give up, right when we’re expecting a big fight scene or a superweapon explosion, mostly makes it look like the writers couldn’t figure out what ought to happen next.  It’s like ending a story by having the protagonist wake up and realize it was a dream, or the narrator announce that suddenly, there was no monster.  It’s a cop-out.

Alternatively, a surrender could be part of the villain’s character development.  Maybe he realizes that he’s on the wrong side, maybe he’s changed by developing a relationship with the hero, all kinds of things could happen.  Darth Vader realizes that Luke is right and there is still good in him, and switches sides to throw the emperor into a bottomless pit. That’s character development.  That’s Luke Skywalker succeeding in what he’s been trying to do ever since he learned that Vader was his father.  When Donovan gives up, we haven’t been inside his head enough to know if he’s had any development over the course of this story.  He just throws in the harpoon and goes, “eh, fuck it.”

I’m sure this sort of thing happens in real life, when criminals decide that lying to the police just isn’t worth it.  In fact, I can think of at least one instance when it did, when serial killer David Berkowitz was arrested for a parking violation and decided he might as well just tell them he was also the Son of Sam.  It doesn’t make for good action movies, though.  Real life can run on coincidences, but we don’t like it when fiction does.

Is there anything in this movie that didn’t annoy me?  Well, I do have to admit, it avoids those Glamorous Secret Agent tropes I complained about in Secret Agent Super Dragon and Danger!! Death Ray.  Johnny Paul does seem to hang out with beautiful women when he’s undercover as a hip bachelor, but he doesn’t go around sleeping with co-workers, enemy agents, and random passers-by.  Instead, interestingly enough, it’s Tso Tsing whom the movie implies has multiple lovers, at least some of whom may have paid for the privilege according to Donovan.  The movie has no opinion on this, never even bothering to say whether it's true or not, and Paul seems to trust her to be romantically faithful to him even if not sexually, so that’s refreshing. It's also nice that Tso Tsing is around forty and looks it, but is still the movie's 'pretty girl'.

There are also no stupid death traps.  When Donovan decides Paul needs to go, he has a buddy sneak up on him and gas him in the face with cyanide.  Paul survives mostly by luck.  Later, Paul and one of the mooks beat the shit out of each other with whatever they have to hand.  It’s much less contrived and frankly, much more exciting than a death trap.  When the hero is strapped into a death trap, we know he’s got lots of time to get out of it.  When somebody is actually pointing a gun at him… well, he’s still gonna get out of it, being as he’s the hero and all, but there’s more adrenaline when there’s less time to think.

Code Name: Diamond Head really does feel like an episode of a tv series you probably watched once and weren’t interested enough to come back for next week.  The characters are dull and the plot feels pretty half-assed.  The other secret agent movies on MST3K were pretty dumb but they were at least amusingly dumb, ridiculous enough to make you want to keep paying attention.  This one just left me feeling like I was going to fall asleep.  If Danger!! Death Ray is the best of MST3K’s spy movies, I’m pretty confident I can declare Code Name: Diamond Head the worst.

[archetype-online-blog]

Archetype’s Great Choose Your Own Villain Adventure

You’ve finally done it — you have written an amazing hero.

She has all of your own best traits: kindness, bravery, stubbornness, cute glasses. You don’t know if you want to be her or marry her. Readers will see themselves in her and dress to match her style. Critics will fear her. And best of all, she is wholly, undeniably, ready carrying the weight of your complex plot.

But now you need to craft your antagonist. And this fellow really needs to measure up.

Don’t worry, though—in this post, we’ll break down some of the many tools you can turn to when creating someone to foil your protagonist’s plans.

Just how bad is bad?

A.  An Evil Villain? This villain has no morals, or if she does, she buried them deep down a long time ago. She’ll sacrifice her family, friends, and everyone’s free will for eternal beauty, unlimited power, or world domination. Think the Evil Queen from Snow White or Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

B.  A Disgruntled Opponent? This villain's had a lifelong streak of bad luck. His parents were killed by someone eerily similar to the hero, global warming flooded his lair last week, and the hero spilled coffee on his pants while saving a cat from a tree this morning. Really, all he wants is a nap—if he has to chain up a few good guys for some peace and quiet, it’s no more than he deserves. Think Luke Castellan from the Percy Jackson series.

C.  A Good Person with Questionable Goals? Rational people presented with the same situation won’t always agree, because at the end of the day all people, even equally good people, have different values and morals. If your hero wants to flip the switch and save five people on the train track but your antagonist doesn’t think the one man on the other side should die, you’re probably going for this dynamic. This is Captain America: Civil War through and through.

Just how serious are they?

A.  Funny and exaggerated? A villain like this is there to put a wrench in your hero’s plans (and probably provide lots of comic relief), but not seriously threaten anyone with bodily harm. They may think they’re irredeemable and say they couldn’t care less about another person, but they’re either confused or wildly incompetent. Think about it: nobody believes Dr. Doofenshmirtz is going to do anything more than mildly inconvenience them.

B.  Menacing and exaggerated? Your villain shoots lasers out of their eyes. Their knuckles are embedded with knives. One whiff of their breath causes paralysis. One word from their mouth has civilians leaping off cliffs. They wear only black, and their evil lair says “Evil Lair” on the front door. They also probably have a lot of henchpeople. Basically, everything about them screams Bad Guy, to the point where it’s definitely not realistic. A good example is Gru from Despicable Me.

C.  Spookily realistic to the point of goosebumps? The world is a scary place, and sometimes it’s important to represent that in your work. Antagonists can be made all the worse by the fact that they’re just regular people doing reprehensible, unforgivable things. Think Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame or Mother Gothel in Tangled—attempted sexual assault and child abuse are no joke.

Was your antagonist …

A.  Brought into being because of the actions of your hero? Some villains might have been a cashier down at the 7-Eleven if it wasn’t for that chance encounter with your hero all those years ago. Now, though, they’ve sworn to get revenge for their slighted pride—stupid heroes and their ego, right? Buddy Pine, AKA Syndrome from The Incredibles, is a great example of this.

B.  Morally transformed by a dramatic life event? Sometimes good people do bad things when they’re under a lot of stress, especially if they’ve been traumatized. Have they been forced to make an impossible choice with consequences that haunt them? Tortured because they were good? Watched their family die? Depending on who you ask, the Punisher falls into this category.

C.  Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Sure, your antagonist stole the diamonds and fired a warning shot at the reception outside the gala, but the real baddie is holding her wife hostage at home. Your hero would have done the same thing—right? Think the origin story of the Hook-Handed Man from A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Killmonger from Black Panther.

On a related note, does your antagonist …

A.  Have a history with your hero? In many cases, the protagonist and the antagonist go way back. Maybe they were once friends (this has tons of potential—do they know each other’s weaknesses? Have certain pet peeves they’ve sworn never to exploit?), or maybe they’ve just fought about this issue many times before. Have they dated? Were their parents friends? Think Catra from Netflix’s She-Ra reboot.

B.  Fear your hero’s reputation? This antagonist knows your hero is coming, and as much as he tries to deny it, he knows he’s not ready. Maybe there’s a prophecy. Maybe the hero just has a really good PR team. Either way, the villain is going to try to shoot first—and if he misses, he probably won’t get another chance. Voldemort.

C.  Have no interest in your hero whatsoever — the hero wants to stop them, but they don’t think the hero is a threat. There’s always a chance, though, that your villain doesn’t even think your hero is worth the time of day. Maybe they’ve heard of him, maybe they haven’t—what does it matter when they’re not going to be stopped either way? This villain feels toward your hero what Irene Adler feels toward Sherlock Holmes—totally unbothered, and maybe occasionally amused.

Other fun questions to ask:

Do they have a sidekick? Why does that sidekick serve them?

Do they have an accent? Is it real or for effect?

Do they have powers? Do they wish they did?

Do they have a color scheme?

Does something dramatic happen every time they come into the room (lightning strikes, mirrors crack, a woman screams, etc.)

If left in the room with a wailing baby, how would they handle it?

If left in the room with a barking dog, would they handle that differently?

What are they afraid of?

Things to be cautious of:

Excusing appalling behavior via redemption.

Some things are just inexcusable—or at least, they should be, if we don’t want to contribute to the negative energy out there in the world. So ask yourself … has your antagonist beaten their wife? Sexually abused someone? Harmed children? Acted extremely racist? Gleefully supported fascism? Brutally killed their own father in cold blood?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, think really carefully before planning a redemption arc.

If you want your villain to turn to the good side by the end, they can still do villainous things. They can lie, they can betray those who are close to them, they can plot world domination, they can even kill. But there are lines you probably can’t let them cross if you don’t want them to be hated by your other characters for all eternity. Let’s put it this way—Aladdin, whose worst crime is stealing bread, is redeemable. Loki, who was supposedly being mind-controlled during the first Avengers film, is questionable. Hannibal Lecter, who eats people, is a lost cause.

A really, really phenomenal example of a villain doing sometimes-okay things and yet not being excused for his misdeeds is Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events—both the books and the Netflix series. There are genuine, emotional reasons he’s a terrible person, and he even does halfway decent things every once in a while. And yet, he’s not forgiven by the characters or the narrative, and he’s treated as the villain he is until the bitter end. Actually, A Series of Unfortunate Events is great at this all around:

Charles: You have to understand, he had a very terrible childhood. Klaus: I understand. I’m having a very terrible childhood right now.

A less great example is Severus Snape from Harry Potter. When it’s revealed that he loved Lily and occasionally didn’t have it out for Harry by the very end of Deathly Hallows, it’s like the narrative wants us to forget about his bullying, bigotry, attempted genocide, child abuse, pet-murdering, deception, and every other foul thing he gets up to for thousands of pages.

Queer coding. There’s this thing Disney does that you might be familiar with. Let’s pick a few examples and see if you can pinpoint it.

Simba vs. Scar

Hercules vs. Hades

John Smith vs. Governor Ratcliffe

Ariel vs. Ursula

That’s right—male villains tend to be more effeminate and delicate than their tough heroic counterparts, and female villains are hell-bent on corrupting sweet, innocent princesses. Even if the characters themselves aren’t meant to be read as gay—even if they don’t appear gay at all, aside from the coded traits—there’s a history of this being used to reinforce negative stereotypes.

That’s not to say that you can’t have gay villains—make everyone LGBT+, if you want. Goodness knows there are enough straight characters out there to last several lifetimes. But if only the villains are gay, and all the heroes are straight, you’re getting into the dangerous territory of suggesting that the traits that villains have are traits that only gay people have, and vice versa.

The same thing applies to race—if all your antagonists are black or Asian or Jewish or Romani and all your heroes are white, what does that say about how your readers should view good and evil? And if all your villains are disabled or mentally ill and your heroes are able-bodied, might you end up spreading the wrong message?

Writing diverse stories is amazing and so, so worth it! But it’s definitely going to take extra sensitivity and care—so make sure you’re fully committed, or you risk doing more harm than good in the end.

Questions? Concerns? Send us your thoughts at contact@archetypeonline.org or leave us a comment!

[somaybeimbiased]

Listen to this while reading c;

SHINee 5- Mafia

“ Can I get a shinee mafia au (You should throw in some backstory in there) (also could you mybe add 2min and jongkey in the backstory too??) thanks! also I love your blog “ -Anon 

Seoul, South Korea; a place over-run with organized crime, the most powerful being the SHINee Mafia. The 5 men known to be in charge of this mafia are known as the SHINee Five.

Lee Jinki ‘Onew’- The Boss

Born into the family business

Definitely knows what he is doing

Goes by the alias ‘Onew’ because is sounds more menacing than ‘Jinki’

Really dedicated to his business

Willing to do anything to keep them at the top

Including agreeing to an arranged marriage with this girl from another group.

Very careful and proud of their reputation

“WE ARE HEARTHLESS”

Definitely isn’t heartless

Tough love on all his underlings (Except Taemin)

Really clumsy though, like sometimes people wonder if he actually does have two left feet

Scary good aim with a shotgun though, like, don’t mess with him and his shotgun

Or his chicken

Loves his job and his friends

Sometimes wonders what it would be like to live a normal life

Kim Jonghyun- Mr.Slick

Met Kibum on Grindr when they were young

He has been with him for a couple years

Got into this business by accident.

Followed his boyfriend to work one day

And Surprise! Hey! Hello There!

He did not know his boyfriend was in the Mafia

They sat him down and asked what he could do.

Mind you, he was like, 20 at this point.

“Umm well, I think I might be good at sneaking around places like a spy kinda, maybe, or stealing things? but I’ve neve-”

“Great! Youre in!”

His only experience were all the video games about spies and grand theft auto.

Surprisingly good?

Like, he can slip in and out of a building without a word.

Has a new love for the jewels he steals. (M: Jong, you can’t name that diamond Jennifer, it’s worht more than you J: Don’t talk to me and Jennifer like that!)

Names them regardless of what Minho says

Glad that that’s all his job consists of becuase he hates blood

Also hates this job.

But he wants to make sure Kibum is safe, so he deals with it

Kim “The Key” Kibum- The Interrogator

Jinki’s childhood best friend

Recruited right after Jinki took over

“Hey, wanna be apart of my Mafia?” ….. “Yeah, okay.”

Got an eyepatch for work, because he thought it would be cooler

“It’s an intimidation factor!”

Sometimes he will switch which eye the patch goes on.

Takes it off in public, becuase he has to keep a low profile (T: Low Profile doesn’t mean wearing gucci everywhere)

Really good with words though.

Always had a knack for getting the gossip and getting the answers he wanted to hear from people

Calls himself the golden tongue

Jonghyun does too

Plays both the good and the bad cop

Lowkey prefers being the bad cop

Really good at using a knife to his advantage

Was pissed when Jonghyun followed him to work

Felt bad bc the poor baby thought he was cheating

Did not approve of Jonghyun joining

“No babe, you’re like a puppy they’ll eat you alive”

They didn’t not eat him alive… yet?

Choi Minho- The Wingman

No, not, the the “Right hand man”, The wingman

Because Jinki loves chicken, and chicken have wings

Bitter about it.

His dad was Mr.Lee’s second in command

He has been training for this job his entire life.

Really excited when he heard Jinki was taking over

“Who cares if I’m still in highschool? I can totally help run a Mafia”

Quit sports for the business

There is a never ending debate among the underlings over who is more dedicated,  Minho, or Jinki?

He does everything Jinki doesn’t

So he kind of just stands there, glaring at other people during ‘business’ meetings

He is also pretty persuasive and charming (Can’t beat Key though)

He keeps an unloaded handgun on his belt and shows it to people as a scare tactic when his charm isn’t working

It works

Head over oxfords for Taemin

They almost caused a civil war within the Mafia when they announced they were together

Thank God Taemin is Jinki’s brother

Lee Taemin- The Hitman

Need someone to disappear?

Need something to explode?

Need to have someone lead an ambush?

Call this kid.

Onew’s little brother

The youngest, but also the deadliest

No one actually thought he would be of any use to the family business

The Taemin pulled out a gun and shocked the hell out of everyone

Don’t mess with this kid

He loses guns literally everywhere though (K: Tae, why was one of your guns in my underwear drawer? T:*shrug*)

Also likes setting things on fire?

One time him and Jonghyun got caught in an ambush while they were trying to steal back some money and Taemin made a flash bomb out of some Tequilla, a paperclip, a sock, shoelaces, and a ziplock baggie

How?

We don’t know.

Gets rid of people Jinki needs gone.

Leaves blue roses for the innocent

Business may be business but he still feels bad sometimes

Only stayed in the business because of his boyfriend

Totally in love

Wont admit it though,

“I AM HEARTLESS”

Isn’t

Like brother, Like brother.

A/N I hope this covered everything you wanted! I’m glad I’m getting more requests for these things, becuase I LOVE doing them. And I also really love this Mafia AU, so if you want more, let me know! I might make another post to focus on the relationships in this AU (2min Jongkey, Onchicken Onew and the girl from the other Mafia (idk who yet) Thanks guys!

[ecotone99]

[RF] A world beneath your own

Do you ever feel like you're missing out? Like everyone else knows something you don't?

Maybe you're walking down the street and you see two people laughing and time slows down as you pass them, and they look at you like you're a freak. Or maybe you're driving down to Aldi to get the weekly shop, and you glance out of your driver's window and see a young couple holding hands - a girl you might have fallen in love with. Or you spy a family through a living room window watching television, or at the dinner table joking and discussing.

And sometimes you find yourself in this strange, isolated world full of tall pine trees with their middles illuminated by cutting street lamps. And nothing feels real. And everything speaks the language of concealed danger, and the shadows claw through the sunlit days like demons waiting to be set free. Of anger. Of hatred. Of revenge.

That is the world I live in.

I never go on Reddit, or online to speak. I think it's all just a way of escaping. It's not real. It's all just a sick fantasy world; lost people running away from the dark and the cold outside, pretending the four walls they're currently confined to isn't a prison. Denying the fact that they're a wild animal caught in a trap.

If you get past the gloss and the glass and posters of people smiling and all the sparkly high heels, what you're left with is the mud and the soil. The concrete and the grey and the dog shit.

I make myself laugh.

The thing is, God is dead. Nietzsche said it, and now it's all true. There is no meaning. Nothing matters. It's all sex and money, and the rest is just a distraction. Even though, there are some of us who feel something else. That power matters. Dominance. Control. I am one of those select few.

You may have seen me walking around somewhere in the middle of the night once. You may see me buy a sandwich from Tesco on a Friday night, or on Tuesday getting something else to eat. Maybe I'll eat a pizza, or cook myself a lasagne. I'm a bad cook though.

Sometimes I make myself laugh.

It's difficult to snap yourself out of a delusion. We all have them. Sometimes it's hope: I will be happy one day. Someone will come. Someone will see me in pain. Someone will love me. Daddy will come home. Mummy won't drink anymore. And sometimes it's a cynical view to distract you from your will to power. Whatever it is, it is all a delusion, a distraction from raw reality; raw truth.

Raw truth isn't nice. It's actually pretty ugly. See what I did there?

People prefer to be comfortable, and I understand that, but as I say, some of us want something more. Some of us don't want to watch Netflix and go on Reddit and be distracted. Some of us want to seek the truth no matter what the cost. Even if it means death, and I admit, that is scary for anyone. Death is the unknown. The world beyond.

I knew a girl once in my secondary school who committed suicide. I was in love with her. We used to look at each other in the hallways and in class. I was obsessed, and I cried for weeks because I was too shy to talk to her. It was painful. Then I moved away and two years later I found out over Facebook that she had taken her own life - her hair mysteriously dyed an out-of-place orange. She hung herself using a belt and a door knob. I'm still uncertain how people do that. What was she thinking? Where did her mind go?

Sometimes I crack myself up.

Freud was clever. He wanted to seek the truth. That's why he invented his theories. The unconscious. That sneaky clandestine aspect of the brain. All the things we do in dreams. The jealousy and the huge monsters and the infinite corridors. The tornados and the massive tsunamis and the destruction and the chaos. The terrifying potential lies dormant behind the eyes of consciousness, festering away like rotten fruit, attracting flies, creating bad smells. Polluting the world.

It's a fucking strange world we live in today. Such a lonely world.

I told myself when I was 19 that I had to murder someone. A vision of me appeared beside my bed - a vision of the man I knew I could be; my self-actualised manifestation. He told me that I was weak. That I was succumbing to depression and nihilism. He told me what I needed to hear, but didn't want to acknowledge. I needed to kill someone in order to feel in control of my life again. And not just anyone.

The thing is, about murder, it's a lot less glamorous in real life. Murderers aren't particularly evil people or smart people or even sneaky people. Anyone can go out in the dead of night and stab a homeless person, or a prostitute, or shoot a jihad dead in the dusty plains with a rifle. They're easy targets. That's not how you achieve control and self-actualise.

Some of the most notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, they murdered out of a sexual fascination. It was also about power, but polluted with delinquency and sexual degeneracy. Not pure. Not righteous.

I don't necessarily have an interest in being righteous, but the idea of killing for sex or of killing an easy target doesn't excite me. I feel like killing for justice, for raw truth, for ultimate power over someone else too weak to seek the truth, that is the pinnacle of masculine achievement. That is how you reach the divine state of being. Some call it enlightenment. It's different for everyone.

The mind is like an onion, and reality is just an image of what you project based on the level you happen to be on. Once you've peeled away all the layers, all you're left with is black. You become blind. You lose all your senses except smell. You smell everything; the sweat, the shit, the snot, the rain, the lights, the darkness, the kitchen, the eyeballs, the skeletons.

People lose their personalities and become primates. They lose their faces. Their skin melts away along with their identities. They then become objects - physical manifestations of matter that interact with other bits of matter. Almost as if they could have been splurged out by some white matter gloop machine and painted by a Warhammer nerd. Porcelain dolls. Rag dolls.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and laugh at my handsome face as it contorts into something that manages to scare me.

Before I decided to kill someone, I used to steal, and vandalise buildings. I'd wake up at 2AM and instantly jump out of bed with my pre-assembled rucksack equipped with a spare set of clothes and big rocks. Then I'd take the pitch black footpath to the town and, with my hood down, hurl the rocks at WHSmiths, McDonald's, Wilko's. And then I'd leave a message to the police: "I am the Zodiac... You will decode this message if you wish to find me... If you do not post the details to your Facebook page, I will strike again... And do something different."

You may have seen me before. Me and you might have shuffled past each other on a crowded train once, or maybe I asked you where a specific item was in a supermarket three years ago, or maybe you taught me at school, or maybe I am the friend of a friend of a cousin that you've never heard of. And maybe you have some connection to me or my victim. Part of you wants to reach me and talk to me. Part of you is as lonely as I am.

When you drop a plate and it smashes on the floor, you feel defeated. But what if the plate drops you on the floor and feels defeated, and you smash into 50 ceramic chunks? What if my mind is broken? It's not. Sanity doesn't exist. That's just another lie people tell themselves as they flick through Twitter or post an ironic meme on Reddit.

I can pinpoint exactly at what age when I fell down the rabbit hole.

I was 17. My only parent, an alcoholic mother who abused me, neglected me and treated me like shit, decided to abandon me, so I left home, aged 16. And then at some point I stopped denying. Living on my own in supported accommodation with rats, literally and metaphorically. I stopped picking my nose and I started picking my brains. I started imagining my mother burning alive, her flesh reappearing only to disintegrate again as she screamed in agony.

I gazed upon the abyss; the singularity. Pure, unadulterated truth: pain in its most horrific form. Boundless anxiety and primal fear - loss - terror - horrific depression - burning rage - hypochondria. Then total despair. I wrapped myself up like a newborn baby in my duvet and weeped into the carpet floor for hours. I couldn't take it.

I had been mistreated. My childhood had been tainted with lies and lost opportunities. I would never recover.

I looked through Facebook and saw pictures of people laughing; knowing what I didn't the whole time. Knowing a sense of security and not doubting themselves and who they are. "Ha, fuck their stupid comfortable little identities." I was jealous, deep down, but there was no way back. Not anymore.

It was at this point a sense of odd peace descended on me; a moment I termed the Dawn of My Awakening. The eye of the storm. I thought back to everyone who had ever wronged me, made fun of me. It's not like I was bullied heavily in school, but after school, the people in the social housing, they were so horrible. They ripped me up. I was nothing from that point onward.

I thought I'd cried all the tears I could. I honestly thought I was a psychopath.

Sometimes I make myself laugh.

That is when I entered the next layer of the onion. Those people I walk past in the street - they are murderers. All the smiling people, and even the ones who don't - the inwardly serene people. It's subtle, you have to catch it. You see it in the ease of their actions, the minor flourishes of a hand or the lack of twitching lips. Stability. The foundations of which cannot be anything but the fulfilment of unconscious desires: the sex, money, power part of the brain that ticks and chimes like Big Ben. The private resounding in the brain. The reptilian.

The reptilian sentinels with their menacing diamond-shaped pupils and cold personalities that allow them to walk all over humans like me. The lizards with their slippery elongated tongues with lisps that lash out like cracking whips. The screaming children and the reversing cars that shield them in the sunshine halls of suburbia. I hate them all.

I hate the parks and the children and the houses and the cars and the volleyball players. I hate the computers and the iPhones and the sunglasses and the law degrees and the depressed parents who yell at their children outside community centres. I hate the warm days when it's so easy to pretend everything is going okay, and I hate the posters of the smiling people. I see behind their eyes the neglected skeletal figures of Hell. I hate the adverts about shampoo and sitcoms like Big Bang Theory. I hate the fashionistas and the pretentious Starbucks employees, and the fat girl who works as a cashier who is always laughing way too loud.

I hate it all.

Don't infect me with your la dee dah land of grown ups. Don't lecture me with maturity you've constructed out of your own neglected ambitions. Don't fist bump me the hand you used to masturbate to girls on Facebook, or neglect your responsibilities as a man with a video game controller. I don't care about you, or /this/.

In truth, I am a lonely animal who lives off of small pleasures, so if you see me, offer me a friendly smile. Maybe open a door for me. Don't be angry at me. It's not entirely my fault. The dice of fate were loaded. If you are kind, I won't harm your children. I won't hunt productive members of your society. I won't hurt the economy. You'll do this for me. Otherwise we're going to have a disagreement. Otherwise, I'll think about taking action. But for now, I'm dormant. And I will stay that way. For now.

I take my job as a clinical psychologist very seriously. The days of feeling self-conscious when I don my dark-brown trench coat are long since gone. The imposter syndrome fades into the background along with the rest of the distractions.

I care about my clients I deal with, which are mostly young men dealing with aggression and depression. I feel for them. I relate to their stories and their pain and their anger. I wish I had a magic wand to make it all better, but I don't, and so I have to deal with reality. I tell them as much truth as I can afford. I tell them they need to get off their backside and fend for themselves because nobody else is gonna do it for them in this cruel life.

These are the children of alcoholics, abandoned by their fathers, by their families, by society.

I zoom out and listen to the silence and gaze up at the full moon in February. I imagine the waves crash against the cliffs as they once did in my childhood. The feeling of salty freshness bashing against my ears. That is just enough to soothe my anguished soul until the next big thing knocks me down like a sack of potatoes. Like a smashed dinner plate.

submitted by /u/BoredOnlyChild [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/33wss1l

[jamiekturner]

Best Arcade Games for iPhone and iPad

Arcade games are the first sources of 1970s kids entertainment and the following 20 years.

Later in the 1990s, arcade games saw a decline but today the devices are allowing you to play arcade games on your Iphone or iPad.

Here you can find some of the best arcade games to spend time on. You will find arcade games for iPhone and iPad.

Also, if you are a 1990s kid, you will remember the feeling while playing video games, electro-mechanical games, pinball machines, merchandisers and redemption games.

Candy Crush Saga

This has become a household name as you must have received at least hundred requests on your Facebook profile to play this game with your friends. The game takes you through wonderlands, mysterious places and meeting deliciously kookie characters.

Challenge your friends to score higher than you; the game is absolutely free to play. You can switch off the payment feature if you are asked to buy in-game items like extra moves or lives.

Temple Run

Temple Run is a favorite among kids. It is one of the most exciting running games on the App Store. Test your running skills while you are racing down temple walls and steep cliffs. During your run, you will find some obstacles which can be avoided with the swipe.

Buy power-ups by collecting coins and see how far you can go. Temple Run is popular as the best endless running game in the App Store. Enjoy the fast and frenzied iPhone experience.

Subway Surfers

Even the kids would love to play Subway Surfers on iPhone. Run as fast as you can and save yourself from the fast coming trains – this is the simple way to play this game on your iPhone and iPad. On your run, collect coins and other cool stuff to increase your score.

If you get Shoes on the way, it will be great fun to jump over the trains and other obstacles. Hoverboard Surfing is especially loved by kids.

Angry Birds

Arguably one of the best games for kids and adults alike to keep them busy. Angry Birds is a game that has around ten different variants – Angry Birds (Paid), Angry Birds Go!, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Star Wars Free, Angry Birds Star Wars II, Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Friends, Angry Birds Star Wars, Angry Birds POP! – Bubble Shooter, Angry Birds Seasons, etc.

In this free version, the story is about taking revenge on the green pigs who steal the Birds’ eggs. You will have 175 unlockable levels to unleash the destructive power of the Angry Birds.

Hill Climb Racing

Hill Climbing Racing presents eye-soothing background and colors that will capture your attention. It is about a young uphill racer, who is on a journey that takes him to a bumpy ride.

Defying the laws of physics, our racer Newton Bill will conquer the highest hills up on the moon. During the steep climbing of hills, you will face many challenges; if you can tackle the challenges, you will get bonuses and coins to upgrade your car and reach even higher distances.

Fruit Ninja

If the slicing fruit is your favourite pastime, Fruit Ninja is your game for sure. Go further and explore the nuances of three different modes like Classic, Zen, and Arcade; the last one is quite popular among users.

Want to swing your blades for multiple times? Go for the multi-slice Pomegranate or you can use power-ups and special bananas to the full effect. Unleash your power to swing your blade and enjoy Fruit Ninja!

Toy Blast

Toy Blast can also be slotted into puzzle game as the user has to match two or more blocks of the same color to remove the level and collect the stuck toys. However, this is not as easy as it sounds because your moves are limited.

The game can be addictive once you use your talent to solve puzzles. Just bust the blocks and enjoy this colourful adventure. You don’t have to crush candies, break diamonds, crunch cookies or farm.

Bowling King

This one is the best multiplayer bowling game that can be played on The Internet – it could be the only disadvantage of Bowling King. The game features intuitive tap and swipe control and beautiful bowling alleys from Las Vegas, New York, Sydney, Paris and other cities.

Display your class with more than 60 bowling balls, 27 pins, and lanes. While playing with your friends, you can win millions of chips; moreover, you can bowl together with your friends from anywhere, anytime.

Soccer Stars

Indulge in online table soccer matches all over the world! Soccer Stars boasts a simple gameplay and excellent physics to boost your competitive style. You can challenge your competitors in different tiers from different countries.

You can also play the game against your friends. You will be required to log in with your Facebook account to challenge your friends. If you don’t have internet access, you can play offline with your friend on the same device.

Jetpack Joyride

Jetpack Joyride is an award-winning game from Fruit Ninja. The game is now updated to support retina display of your new iPad. Jetpack Joyride takes you to a secret laboratory of evildoers who are developing a jetpack.

And the hero Barry Steakfries secretly enters the lab to take that jetpack. Once Barry gets hold of the jetpack, touch the screen to ascend and leave to descend. Save him from bullets, bubbles, rainbows and lasers.

Hook Worlds

Players try to survive as long as possible across four game modes, using grappling hooks as transportation. The game modes, along with unlockable hats to customize your character, complement the simply fun swinging gameplay.

Canabalt

This endless runner game, initially popularized on Flash before being introduced on iOS, is well-known for its perfectly-tuned gameplay. Do you try to survive when the game accelerates to high speeds, increasing the possibility that an ill-placed window or a sudden obstacle dooms you to fail?

Or, do you slow it down by cleverly utilizing the boxes in your path? The tradeoff requires more than reflexes, but strategic brainpower too.

The Blocks Comet

While playing Tetris, have you ever imagined you were jumping over the blocks that constantly descended down, down, down? Well, that’s what this game is!

Plus, enjoy a bonus mode that pays homage to handheld games of the past, and all the pixel art you can handle.

Whale Trail

This is one of the most pleasant endless runner games around. The music and graphics create a happy and charming world. The game is easy to play: Just hold down on the screen to fly upward and loop-de-loop.

Hitting bad cloud obstacles doesn’t mean game over, but it does reduce your score multiplier, so fly carefully and score as many points as possible!

Bit Pilot

Players try to survive while being bombarded by asteroids. A unique dual-swipe control system works great for trying to precisely navigate the asteroid menace.

The game boasts a rocking chiptune soundtrack, unlocks rewards accumulated throughout the game, and takes total advantage of the high-resolution retina display and iPad screens.

Super Crossfire

Fans of Galaga, Space Invaders, and other retro shoot-em-ups will love this game too. Players flip between both sides of the battlefield in order to avoid damage, and to attack vulnerable enemies. Despite new elements and modern twists, the game still features old-school shooting fun.

Forever Drive

Speed along neon-colored tracks in this endless racing game, while trying to unlock new cars and designs. All the tracks in the game are user-generated, so prepare for tracks with devilish twists and turns and amazing futuristic city scenery.

Pac-Man Championship Edition

This isn’t quite the Pac-Man you know and love. The basics are the same: Run around a maze and collect power pellets to eat ghosts. However, the maze constantly warps with each fruit that you eat, leaving players wildly attempting to survive!

Thousand Heroes

Formerly entitled 1000 Heroz, this running game presents a new challenge each day: courses fraught with new perils and new leaderboards to conquer. Part of the fun is the ability to join custom leagues and compete with friends.

Penarium

Help a character move across a dangerous circus arenas. Move on the platforms, jump over gaps and avoid traps. Get to the exit and don’t let the main hero die in a sinister circus.

Die with glory

Help a viking to go to his forefather to Valhalla. Travel across incredible locations together with a flying skull. Fight against monsters, destroy fortresses, make friends. Interact with surrounding objects and don’t let the hero die.

Toca life: Hospital

Take part in events happening at a big medical center. Cure patients, take care of them, rescue lives and complete other interesting missions. Apply modern equipment to make a diagnosis. Find a secret laboratory in the department.

Lanota

Start an exciting adventure across a magic world together with two courageous heroes. Explore local territories and find a rare magic element thanks to which you can recover the planet after natural disasters. Bring bright colors to dull locations.

Dragon’s Lair

Dragon’s Lair was another huge hit at the arcade. For its time, it had stunning graphics, and the embedded humor in the game made it a blast to play. But what really kept kids like me pouring quarters into it was the addicting difficulty of the game.

Like most games of that era, it was built around seeing how far you could get and how long you could play, but unlike games that racked up a score, Dragon’s Lair pushed you along because you wanted to see what would happen next.

The only downside of this HD version is the $4.99 price tag, which is a little steep for any classic arcade game ported to the iPad.

Street Fighter II Collection

When I was a kid, people lined up to play Karate Champ. It was the first fighting game to feature martial arts, and it was always a popular game. But it was Street Fighter that really set the mold for all fighting games to come and paved the way for classics like Mortal Kombat.

This collection includes the original Street Fighter II, the Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting, which is Champion Edition on steroids.

Double Dragon Trilogy

Talk about a blast from the past! Double Dragon did a double whammy on arcades in the 80s. Not only did it take the side-scroller to the next level, it revolutionized the idea of co-op game play.

Mostly, you had a choice between playing a fighting game or similar player-vs-player game or taking turns trying to hit the high score in Donkey Kong, but with Double Dragon, you got to team up with your best friend and beat the crap out of people.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Mortal Kombat is a game that needs no introduction. There are few games that have become so popular and are so recognizable. But despite its popularity in the arcades, the original port of this game to the iPad wouldn’t make it on this list.

It was a tad overpriced and had too many glitches, especially with unwieldy controls. In some games, you can work around bad controls, but in a game like Mortal Kombat, that’s impossible. Luckily, EA has patched it since its release, with the latest patches fixing a lot of the initial problems.

They’ve also reduced the price, making this one a good download for any fan of the series.

Midway Arcade

The Midway Arcade is the only arcade developer collection with a price tag, but you do get a nice selection of games for the $1.99. The price tag includes Spy Hunter, Rampage, Joust and Defender among several others.

You can also download some game packs, including a fantasy game pack that includes Gauntlet, Gauntlet II and Wizard of Wor. These were all favorites at the arcade, and with the game packs only costing $.99, they are a good deal.

The Namco Arcade

The Namco Arcade contains classics like PAC-MAN, Galaga and Xevious. The game features two ways to play: buy the game machine to play all you like or buy coins. Unfortunately, you only get 10 coins for a dollar, so that quickly becomes too expensive.

And the game machines are usually $2.99 , so of all the game collections, this one is the most expensive. Still, with the full-fledged Galaga game no longer working with iOS 7, this is the only way to play this particular classic.

Most of the games on this list support the iCade.

Activision Anthology

I’ve listed Activision Anthology last not because it is the worse app on this list, but because it really doesn’t meet the ‘arcade’ criteria. The Activision compilation is of games for the Atari 2600, which is close enough that I include it here.

Certainly, anyone interested in reliving their arcade past will get a kick out of getting some 2600 games as well. The anthology includes Kaboom! for free and has other activision classics like Decathlon, River Raid and (of course) Pitfall. You can buy game packs for $2.99 or the entire collection for $6.99.

Activision Anthology is compatible with iCade.

Growing up in the 80s, I have fond memories of dimly lit arcades, incessantly feeding quarters with reckless abandon. When you took control of a machine, you would line up your quarters, letting others know you’d be there a while.

I must have dropped hundreds of dollars over the course of a few years, all worth it. Nothing can bring back the excitement of first playing Space Invaders, my absolute first experience with an arcade game, but you can relive those moments on the iPhone. There are others, but these are the best 8 classic arcade games from the 80s for iPhone.

SPACE INVADERS

Originally manufactured by Taito and picked up in the U.S. by Midway, Space Invaders was basic, yet incredibly addictive. As you lay waste to the invading aliens, they would increase their march, reinforced by the game sounds and your heartbeat.

And when that spaceship would fly across the top, you’d forget about any strategy, as you sent as a stream of bullets trying to blow the mystery ship out of the sky. Now you can strap yourself to the laser cannons and fight this battle again, this time on your iPhone.

PACMAN

No one ever admits to liking PacMan in the same way they don’t admit to wearing parachute pants. Admit it friend, you did both and loved it. Chomp on those pellits, grab fruit where you can eat those ghosts while they are weak.

POLE POSITION REMIX

Prepare to qualify! How many times have you heard that echo into the corridors of the mall? In a remixed version of Pole Position, you race to glory using the tilt wheel controls of your iPhone.

Bring yourself back to 1983 with the game that set records for being the most-successful game of that year. Crank up Down Under from Men at Work and race to the winner’s circle.

FROGGER

Want to feel old? Frogger just celebrated its 29th brirthday. Still, after all these years, this frog hasn’t learned that busy streets might not be the best thing for an amphibian.

You can choose from the classics or opt for new modes that include turbo, night time inferno (in-app purchase required). Feel up to the task of navigating your frog past cars and trucks.

GALAGA

You are just one space ship, fighting a legion of ships. As you do battle, they send kamakaze fighters down forcing you to go one on one. Galaga sprung onto the arcade scene in 1981, developed by Namco.

Despite making it to the list, I cannot recommend buying this one, at least not yet. While it checks most of the boxes (awesome, retro, awesome), the developers have yet to update it for iOS 7.

So if you are rolling with a retro iPhone circa iOS 6, then go get yourself some Galaga. If not, just add this one to your wishlist and hope the developer gets on the ball. Despite this major oversight, Galaga was simply too important of a game to not make this list.

Atari’s Greatest Hits

Atari’s Greatest Hits features a collection of some of their best classics, like Tempest, Asteroids and Centipede. It also includes their library of Atari 2600 titles. Controls aren’t too bad, and the games are emulated pretty well.

The token system is pretty stupid, but if you spend $10 you’ll get all 100 games available to play anytime you want. Tokens? We don’t need no stinkin’ tokens.

Karate Champ

Oh, it’s so good … it’s sooooooo good. The original one-on-one karate game was a huge hit in arcades and it’s been faithfully ported over to iOS. It looks great on your iPhone, but wait until you see the iPad version.

Beautiful crisp graphics and responsive touch controls make every match just as intense and stressful as they were in the arcade. Now if only I could master that darn jump kick, I might actually get past the fifth stage.

Pinball Arcade

Surprised by my #1 pick? Who said the best retro arcade game had to be an arcade cabinet game? Pinball was just as incredible an experience as arcade games, and FarSight Studios has gone above and beyond with their faithful ports of Funhouse, Bride of Pinbot, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash and more.

New tables are being added every month, so the game is constantly being updated with the pinball classics you grew up playing. They even secured enough Kickstarter funds to get the rights to adapt the heralded pin The Twilight Zone.

If you’re an arcade junkie, you owe it to yourself to download Pinball Arcade. Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.

Death road to Canada

Become a leader of a group of survived under the conditions of zombie apocalypse. Get from Florida to Canada. Get food, resources and weapons to fight against walking dead and enemy bandits.

Look for the survived and add them to your squad. Destroy as many zombies as you can and try to survive!

Vive le Roi

Rescue the king of France from execution. Move across dangerous locations guarded by watchful guards. Penetrate the castle, remain unnoticed and rescue the king from execution. Pick up useful objects which will distract soldiers.

Mujo

Place tiles on the playing field in the best order to defeat monsters of Ancient Greek mythology. You will face Cyclop, Minotaur and other monsters. Join as many tiles with swords as possible to deliver maximum damage to beasts.

Ancient Greek gods and heroes will help you in the battle with the help of mighty power-ups.

Bethesda pinball

Play pinball on original pinball tables. Return the ball and score points. Fight against dragons, mutants and other beasts.

Each challenge will bring you bonuses and upgrades. Compete with the participants from all over the world and demonstrate best high score results.

Euclidean lands

Is an exciting journey across a hexangular world. Rotate the levels to move the main character forward. Help the warrior cope with villains wearing black overcoats. Think over every move of yours carefully in order to move and avoid attacks of enemies. Use teleports, tiles and other objects to reach the destination.

Ghosts’n goblins mobile

Adventures of a brave knight in a pixel world. Take the hero across dark forests, underground tunnels and gloomy castles full of monsters, ghosts and other evil spirits.

Move on the platforms, jump, dodge tricky traps and destroy opponents. Get to the den of villains and rescue the stolen princess.

Ellie and Max

Play as a girl whose name is Ellie and her faithful dog Max. They got into a unique cubic world by chance. Help the characters overcome moving platforms, unsteady grounds and other geometrical figures.

Turn locations and lay new ways. Use the found switches and useful objects. Take the characters home!

Cosmic express

Travel across endless cosmic spaces. Your task is to create routes along which an express will move from one galaxy station to another and pick up aliens. Lay rails in the best way, avoid obstacles on the way. Every passenger must get home!

Ball transformer 2

Roll a ball across tropical jungles and lands of Arctic. Avoid various traps and overcome numerous obstacles. Take the ball to the finish on each of the levels.

You will face moving platforms, swaying pendulums, sharp thorns, water barriers and other dangers on your way. To overcome obstacles use an original feature of the ball – it can become wooden, metal or paper.

Kingdom: New lands

Build your own pixel kingdom. Expand and fortify your territories and defend citizens from enemies. Use resources in the best way, build defense towers and other constructions.

Ride your horse and discover new lands. Be careful because many dangers are waiting for you on the way!

Summary:

Kids today would likely thumb their nose at this list and rightfully so. They are growing up games like Infinity Blade. While some of these developers have certainly used their historic cache to cash in, these apps have a place in arcade gaming history.

  The post Best Arcade Games for iPhone and iPad appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/tech/best-arcade-games-for-iphone/

[there-willbeblood]

Chapter 2: A World Ruled by Men

Graphic descriptions of violence in this chapter.

STEVE'S POV 

Ave Maria Gratia plena

Maria Gratia plena

Maria Gratia plena

Ave, ave dominus

Dominus tecum

Benedicta tu in mulieribus

Et benedictus

Et benedictus fructus ventris

Ventris tui Jesus

Ave Maria

I tuned out the first verse of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria  because to tell you the truth, I hated this fucking song. I had sung it every Sunday for twenty-five motherfucking years but a Rogers never missed church.

I sat in the front pew of Holy Name Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of the Holy Name. It's the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the largest Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States. It's also the parish church of the Archbishop of Chicago. I know that all sounds like religious mumbo jumbo but I was required to know it, being the "devout Catholic" that I was.

Total bullshit, if you ask me.

The whole church was a huge Gothic monstrosity, consisting of sparkling marble, strong granite, towering steeples and large stain glass windows. Among the sprawling high-rises of downtown Chicago, the church looked like a misplaced antique house, trying to compete against modernity.

To my left, were my parents Joseph and Sarah. I studied their regal statues and how they seemed to radiate joy. My father was on the verge of fifty but could pass for my age easily. With his short, golden blonde hair and piercing blue eyes along with his structured face and the body of an athlete, he could model for almost any suit company, making millions. My mother, with her honey colored locks and dark green eyes was the picture of perfection. Together, they were the best looking couple in church and everyone envied them.

Just by his outside appearance, you would never guess that my father was the hardest motherfucker on the planet. He was head of all Italian organized crime activity in Chicago and half of the country for that matter. Everyone was afraid of him. No matter who you were or what family you were from, the name 'Rogers' was synonymous with ruthlessness even though on the outside, we looked like the perfect blue-blooded American family.

In order to fully understand the dynamic of our group, you had to go way back.

According to the story, Great Grandpa Nicola Rossini stepped off of the boat in 1916. He was six and alone but he made it. I don't know how he got on that ship without the proper papers or documentation and he never told me the whole tale but I had a feeling that he had been doing illegal things all of his life. Stowing away on a boat heading for America was just another walk in the park for that badass. He was pushing one hundred now but still kicking, probably having the time of his life with some hot stewardess in France.

The second he stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, it was a fucking bloodbath.

He had no money, no family, and no damn clue what he was doing, but he was smart. He lived the streets for about a year and from his stories, got whatever he wanted just by giving his "scary eye", which he had mastered before he was five. No one else could pull it off quite like him but once you got the look, you knew you were in for a world of hurt. I had only gotten it once and my ass still hurt from the butt kicking he gave me, but I digress.

He was a motherfucking beast and still is.

One day, when he was seven I think, he was caught stealing from the most ruthless street boss in Brooklyn, Steve Rogers, who I just happened to be named after. Steve Sr., as he was called, threatened to cut off Nicola's hand, as per mob rules but like I said, he was smart.

They made a deal. A deal that started it all.

Nicola would work for Steve Sr., learning throughout the years and training to become somebody in this country. Steve needed someone to run the streets for him and Nicola was the perfect solution. Little did Steve know, he just made the worst decision of his life.

By the time Great Grandpa was eighteen; Nicola Rossini had become Nicola Rogers and he had taken over after Steve Sr. died in a "car accident". He later told me that he had planned the whole thing. That was the start of the Nicola Rogers reign and the beginning of our family's lucrative businesses.

Long story short, he married, had a butt-load of kids and the line went down to my father, Joseph.

It was strange to think of Joseph as the head of any crime family because of his gentle nature. That's not to say that he hasn't killed a motherfucker or two but he only likes using violence when it's necessary.

I was more like Great Grandpa Rogers. Ruthless. Menacing. Violent.

After Nicola conquered Brooklyn and half of New York, he packed up, moving to Chicago where he set up shop from there. This city was the place I thrived in. This was the place where my father was born, where I was born, where I learned everything I knew.

My father married my mother Sarah right out of college and they had been together ever since. After Nicola grew too old to run anything, he chose someone who could lead and someone who would do the family proud. Joseph's father, my grandfather was that person but he was murdered quickly after taking over. Thus, Joseph Rogers became the most feared man of the underworld with one wave of Great Grandpa's hand.

"Steve, pay attention." My mother leaned over and whispered to me, hitting my knee.

"I am." I shrugged and she gave me a steely glare.

"No you're not, I won't have you daydreaming in church."

"Is it a sin?" I asked with an eye roll.

"Yes as a matter of fact, it is." She snapped and leaned back in the pew.

I sat up straighter but let my thoughts drift more and more from church.

The OCD in me detected that something was off and I frantically searched for what it was. A small page from the Bible next to me was sticking out and I just couldn't have that. I quickly tucked it back in and re-straightened my tie.

I wasn't clinically diagnosed with anything but my habits and mannerisms were classic OCD related. No one really cared enough to fix it and with the work I did, it actually helped me stay organized.

I was the second biological son of my parents, but still the youngest after my bigger brother Thor and adoptive brother James.

Being Sicilian Italian, family came very important to the Rogers's.

As the second son of Joseph and Sarah, I would normally be in no position to take over but if you knew Thor, you would know why I was the favorite to rule our kind in twenty, thirty years. Whenever our father decided I was ready.

Thor was a huge guy, the size of a professional linebacker but under all the muscle and bulk, was a boy who never took life too seriously. That was part of the reason why Joseph was so willing to give second-in-command to me but don't let his teddy bear-like exterior fool you. Thor was soft yet powerful. He could take down a roomful of Feds with a ballpoint pen and a paperclip. I admired him for his strength but his brains weren't too much to praise.

My second brother, of sorts, was James. He wasn't actually related but you would never have been able to tell because he looked almost exactly like Sarah and he was just as much my brother as Thor was. My parents adopted him at the age of two, before I was born and the story was pretty twisted but we made it work.

James was originally the son of a rival crime family who was all but wiped out by Joseph's people. In any case, that left James without parents and Sarah refused to let him go into the foster care system so they adopted him on the spot. He wasn't given a chance to take over the reins since he wasn't technically family but he was happy to be a part of what we built.

The Rogers's were known as the toughest pieces of shit this side of Sicily and no one messed with us. Of course before we got to be top dogs, we had to beat everyone else down. The Irish, the blacks, the Japanese, Chinese, Colombians, Russians, Spanish, Brazilians. Basically we owned the Eastern seaboard and it crept into the Mid-West.

We had syndicates in London, New York, Miami, Tokyo, LA, Seattle, Hong Kong, Moscow and Puerto Rico but Chicago was home base.

We dealt in everything from drugs to illegal exports but the Rogers specialty was guns. I knew my way around a Colt .45 by the time I was four and could handle the kickback myself at the age of five. Although all three sons went to school for business, Joseph made sure we could handle any situation on the streets and taught us how to use a gun before we could walk.

Diamonds, cocaine and money were always going through our mafia connections, but the one thing we never touched was humans. Joseph wouldn't even entertain the idea of selling another person for money even though many of the other crime families dealt in it heavily.

Under him, my father probably had about two thousand people working all over the world. It was hard to keep track of them all and some say a mob family should be a small family or it will never work but no one stayed around very long if they weren't doing their jobs.

In the immediate family, there were about ten who made the decisions, starting with my father then moving to me, then Thor, then James.

We were a tight knit group that valued loyalty and secrecy above all else. If you didn't comply by the rules, well... use your imagination. We Rogers men were known for being creative.

"Steve, I mean it. Pay attention." My mother hit my knee again.

"I am." I groaned, but my thoughts couldn't have been further from the Lord.

Thor and James snickered from beside me.

"Pussies." I whispered under my breath.

"Dipshit." Thor shot back.

"Boys, I will not have that language in church. We're all going to confession before we leave." Sarah interrupted our fighting.

"Come on Ma, that priest is a fucking boy toucher. I can't even look at him." James shuddered.

"He doesn't do that kind of thing. Father O'Malley is well respected and you better be listening." She pointed at all three of us.

Joseph just shook his head with a smirk.

It was funny, actually laughable to see the Rogers's in church but it wasn't an option not to be, Nicola made sure of that. He said that the less inconspicuous you were, the less the Feds were on your tail so that was why we did "normal shit", as I called it. The weekdays were for the mob and the weekends were for the family.

Every Saturday, Sarah hosted a huge dinner at the house and we all ate with the entire family, which included about forty people. Some of them were blood related and others not but they were all considered family by Sarah. Sunday was church and then we would all get in the cars, headed towards the Rosehill Cemetery to change the flowers on Sarah's father's grave, no matter what the weather. After that, it was usually relaxing until we were back to hard drugs, money, and guns on Monday.

Of course, just because we were leaders of the mafia didn't mean that we didn't have legitimate businesses. Thor, James and I all went to Harvard for undergrad and Dartmouth for our MBAs, which our father insisted we have if we planned on going into his line of work. He never pushed us to join the family but it was common knowledge that we were all going to follow him.

In addition to our crime life, we all had a normal life as well.

I was in real estate, not for anyone but myself. I owned three high rises in Chicago and numerous other ones around the country. My brothers lived with me in one of them and we basically tore the place apart with our frat boy antics. I owned the penthouse obviously but Thor and James lived in the floors below.

James owned three clubs and some restaurants around the city that had basically become places of worship for young tourists and socialites. Thor and my father were the real businessmen. According to anyone not in the know, Joseph was a hedge fund manager.

"So congregation, I urge you to do something good for the week. Be nice to someone, do a good deed." Father ended his sermon, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen."

"Amen." The collective voice of over six hundred spoke.

"The Lord be with you."

"And also with you." We finally concluded.

I had never missed a Sunday of church but that was only because of Sarah. I would love to sleep in or go work out during the hour of eight o'clock mass but she wouldn't hear of it. Whatever my mother wanted, she got. She was the sweetest woman on this planet, living in a world ruled by men who dominated chaos. She was also the only woman I ever loved and probably the only woman I would ever love.

I didn't do love. That was for pussy whipped suckers who had nothing better to do. I didn't do relationships either. Never did, never will. The only one who had someone steady was Thor with his fuck hot girlfriend of a couple years, Jane Foster.

She used to work as Joseph's secretary and everyone knew that she and Thor liked each other but they beat around the bush for awhile. That was the difference between Thor and me. I took what I wanted, no matter what. If I wanted Jane, then I would have had her... and I did. Multiple times.

Of course that was before her and Thor got together and I didn't think he knew about all of that so we were going to keep it under wraps. It was just sex anyway, just like with every other girl I had met.

"So, what's on the agenda for today?" James stretched from his seat.

"I wish you boys would take a day off." Sarah said and hooked her arm around my father's.

"No time, Ma. We have things to do." Thor cracked his knuckles. Jane flicked her long, blonde hair behind her shoulder and I saw some of the teenagers in the pews behind us sneak a peek. They immediately straightened out once Thor shot them a glare.

"Well, we have to put some flowers on your Grandfather's grave and then you're all free." She said, "Just make sure you're at the house for dinner."

Sarah tried to get to my hair but I stopped her, "Ma, really? I'm a twenty-five year old man."

"I was just trying to help you out with your hair. I know how you hate it when it's out of place."

"Sorry, I was rushing this morning." I said as I ran my hands through it, making sure that everything was perfect. The family began walking through the crowds that were leaving. We slowly strolled through the church, towards the exit.

"Yeah, he was out with me last night." James hit my shoulder and I cringed from the touch. I didn't like people having their hands on me.

If the people in this church knew what James and I were doing last night, the whole place would burn down. I crossed myself for good measure, just in case and then did it again because odd numbers were a no go in my book.

"I don't know why you boys can't just sit at home once and awhile. Read or take a nice walk." Sarah said sweetly.

"Really, with the way they act?" Jane laughed as we stepped into the sunlight of early September. The blistering Chicago heat was oppressive but nothing that would keep us indoors. We all put on our sunglasses.

"Feds, three o'clock." James nodded to a black town car that was waiting down the street from the church. There were two fat ass cops, sitting, waiting, trying to be stealthy.

"When are they going to give up?" Joseph shook his head and helped Sarah down the stone steps of the church, "It's really getting pathetic."

"Well, if you were a legitimate businessman, they wouldn't be there." Sarah whispered.

My mother knew the horrible things her family was capable of and what we did but she tried to stay out of it. She never liked talking about industry stuff and rarely gave any input on situations that weren't legal.

"I still don't understand why they don't go home. I'm sure they have families to go to." Jane actually waved to them sarcastically. She could be a bitch when she wanted to be and we were all kind of scared of her.

"Let's go before you invite them to dinner." Thor pulled her down State Street where our cars were waiting in a discrete parking lot.

"Uh...son, I need to speak with you." Joseph clapped my shoulder, "Why don't we take a walk." He suggested like it was an option.

"Sure." I replied, "Let me put my coat up." I unbuttoned the coat of my navy blue pin-striped suit and shrugged out of it.

I left them standing, talking while I ran over to my baby.

My matte black Lamborghini Aventador was my pride and joy, bought right after I graduated from Dartmouth. I would literally kill for this car. I unlocked the driver's side, butterfly door and put my coat behind it, folding it neatly like a delicate flower.

I didn't like creases and I didn't feel like dealing with the jacket later, tackling it with an iron.

I rolled up the sleeves to my white button down and made sure my hair was straight in the window before going back over to Joseph who was standing alone.

My mother was going with Thor and Jane while James was going to do God knows what with the rest of his day. I hoped they didn't forget that we had work to do later.

"What's this all about?" I asked and stuffed my hands in my pockets.

"Just keep walking." He said from beside me as we moved down State Street and over to Madison.

The heat was sweltering but I didn't sweat. I never sweat. I had trained myself to keep that under control.

There were a whole lot of people walking around us and even though they didn't' know my father and I, they felt to stay away. We gave off that kind of vibe.

Joseph and I had a weird relationship that was strained due to work but when we were relaxed, I got the old Joseph that I grew up with. He was loving and warm but there was little to no place for that in the crime world. When he was in business mode, you knew it.

He and I moved casually yet with a purpose. I didn't really know where we were going but at this point, I didn't question him. We walked to an ice cream vendor who was serving a group of kids.

"Two vanilla." Joseph pulled out his wallet. I cringed because I really didn't want to eat anything messy right now but if my father wanted me to shove ice cream up my ass, then I would have shoved ice cream up my ass. That's how everyone was with him.

"That will be five-fifty, sir." The man said with a thick accent that I detected was Polish.

"Wow, pretty steep for ice cream." Joseph chuckled heartily.

"I know but got to feed the family." The vendor said shyly, handing us our frozen treats.

"Keep the change." My father paid with a five hundred dollar bill.

We left while the ice cream man was staring, stunned at the money in his hand.

"That was nice." I said as I took a long lick of my cone, trying to get the moisture that was about to dribble onto my hand.

"I'll find out who he is, pay for his rent or something." My father replied.

"What's with all this? Am I in trouble?" I asked, slightly nervous but masking it well.

"Just keep eating. There's a big man, Thor's size, following us on the other side of the street. Don't look." My father snapped as I turned my head, "He's dark skinned, short black hair. You'll get a look once we sit up here on the bench."

I kept eating, per my father's command and didn't lift my head. The only thing that was taking my mind off of the man behind us was the glances of some pretty hot chicks who were eyeing me up and down a couple yards ahead.

I kept licking my ice cream, making sure they saw that I could use my tongue and was glad that they couldn't see my eyes behind my sunglasses because I would probably have been arrested for sexual harassment without even touching them.

"Steve, pay attention." My father brought my mind back, "Sit." He pointed to a bench in front of us, in a small park. There was a windy breeze that was flowing in the trees above and I enjoyed looking at the hustle of Chicago during this time of day.

This was my city.

We both sat down and I noticed precisely who Joseph was mentioning before.

"Derek Morgan?" I asked, knowing exactly who he was, an arch enemy of sorts.

"Keep eating. They can't read our lips." Joseph said, "He's a smart whippersnapper that's been on the force for a couple of years. He's been tracking us for a while but of course..."

"We're too good." I gloated.

"Don't get a big head, Steve. Being conceited never did anything positive for anyone."

"Sorry, sir." I shut my mouth, "Continue."

"He's going to be keeping a close eye on us for the next couple of months."

"Why? What's different now?" I already knew the answer to that. The truth was, I needed a challenge and Black provided that for me.

I knew something must have happened for us to be getting a more constant police detail though.

"Who did the Langer job? I told you to keep it quiet and only the husband." He got angry under his breath, "Then I find out that his wife was killed too and the evidence was everywhere. There was too much blood..."

"Uh...I handled that."

"Steve, get yourself together." Joseph said sternly, "We've been very lucky in the past but things won't be so easy if you keep messing up. I don't have time for mistakes."

"Sorry sir."

"How long?" He asked simply and to anyone else, they would have been so confused by our conversation but I knew his meaning well.

"One second." I replied and hung my head.

"It takes one second to say 'I'm sorry'." He repeated like he had since I was a child, "It takes that amount of time to cock a gun. You could be dead by the time you utter the words." He said calmly.

Since my childhood, he had always taught us that 'I'm sorry' was a phrase only to be used in the most dire of circumstances because I could be dead before I had the chance to say the words.

"Don't apologize to me." He crossed his right leg over his left, looking the picture perfect definition of calm.

"I wasn't thinking."

"It's no problem. I have everything under control but I just wanted to make you aware of our new tag-along." My father finished his ice cream.

"I know. Did you clean the mess up?"

"Yes, someone took the fall for a robbery. Apparently, a painting was stolen or something like that. The case is closed and was sealed off. Morgan is trying to get it back opened as a murder but the brass won't hear it. They're too busy trying to raise their arrest numbers to spend time working out a murder." He stalled, "The point of the matter is, I expected more from you. I can't keep cleaning up the mess you boys leave behind. I don't have time."

"I'll do better."

We stayed silent for a long minute as the breeze picked up. Just by smelling the air, I could predict a storm coming off of the Lakes and it would probably be here by nightfall.

I looked across the street and saw Morgan reading a magazine at a kiosk, plain as day. I couldn't help the crooked grin that was plastered on my face. Morgan and I had played cat and mouse for the past three years and he had yet to catch up to me.

The Langer's were just a small piece of the evil things that went down in the Rogers clan. By now, it wasn't an issue for me to walk into a roomful and just start unloading led into anyone who crossed me.

Martin was my target. He used to be my father's accountant or one of them at least and when I went over the books last month like I did every month, I found some discrepancies. There was about two million missing from an offshore account in Jamaica that my father kept as part of his drug running in the Caribbean. The money just vanished and that was something I wasn't putting up with.

I questioned Langer, he had nothing to say, and I let him go. Coincidentally, a very nice villa in Greece that cost two million dollars, sprung up in his name. I went over to punish him. I didn't get played, the money wasn't even a serious issue but no one made a fool of me.

His wife was just a casualty. She wasn't supposed to be home but since she was, she had to bear the burden of her husband's cross. I wasn't leaving any witnesses.

The blood was my own little touch.

It was a message. I knew that Morgan would be handling the case but wouldn't get anywhere with it... just like it always was with these things. I actually painted that shit over the room like I was Jackson fucking Pollock, flinging it over the walls, on the bed sheets, on the carpet. It was actually fun and I didn't usually do fun.

I was just trying to liven up the dry, boring affair that Morgan and I were having. He was so thick and stupid. He thought he was some hot shot over there at the Department but if he was really someone, he would have caught onto us years ago. No one ever did and no one ever would.

"He won't be a problem." I leaned back matter-of-factually.

"No. We're too smart for him."

I laughed, "I thought that being conceded was a negative trait."

"For you. I've earned it." My father grinned at me, "Let's get going. Sarah would kill me if we were late to the cemetery."

After an hour of driving and placing flowers on the grave of a grandfather I never met, I was free until I had to be home for dinner.

I decided to take a drive and let my Lamborghini stretch her legs.

I took Highway 61, past the University of Chicago and then the yuppies of Northwestern as I blasted out of the city. The tall trees surrounded me on all sides as I took the road at 150 mph. I had a proclivity for fast cars, hot women and dangerous situations.

That was who I was. Steve Rogers. No muss, no fuss.

Frankly, I was a monster, a vampire, a killer and I loved it. I was a torturer and a murderer, wrapped in two thousand dollar suits on top of five thousand dollar shoes. I lived off of cocaine and hard liquor although I wasn't addicted to any of the shit that I pumped through my body. I had limits when it came to drugs and mostly stuck to coke that came through our dealings but that wasn't to say I wasn't up for trying new things. I got pussy whenever I wanted and I didn't even try to act like I sought any kind of relationship with someone.

I had a few good qualities but they were mostly outshined by the bad.

I was possessive, jealousy ran through my veins, hatred lived behind my eyes, I had the temper of a bull and little patience for slow movers or people who didn't do what I told them. I had to be in control at all times and didn't take orders from anyone besides my mother or father.

I didn't have time to cultivate relationships or friendships because that was beneath me. Who cared if I didn't have friends? It was better to be feared than loved and that was the motto I lived by.

I wasn't even paying attention as I passed a fucking minivan on the highway and felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

"Rogers." I answered.

"Yo, yo bro!" Thor replied, " I just dropped Ma and Jane off at the house. When are we going to finish this thing? I don't have time after dinner."

I made a completely illegal and badass turn on the road, into the other lane, "I'm heading back into the city now. I'll meet you at the warehouse in half an hour?"

"Sure thing. I'll get Buck."

I ended the call without any sentimental conclusion and picked up speed as I headed back to Chicago.

I popped the bottom floor board of the Lamborghini in the passenger's seat and dug through until I found my second baby.

I pulled out the sterling silver, ivory handled, Desert Eagle that fit perfectly in my hands and had nearly molded itself to my body. This was my special gun, the one I used when I wanted to finish a job while showing off a little. It didn't have a silencer and wasn't a stylish assassin type gun although I used those as well, but my Desert Eagle was my go-to weapon. I had an identical one that was gold platted at home but I rarely used that. That one required a special occasion.

I set the gun in my lap and thumped my fingers on the steering wheel as I headed to the city and weaved through the early morning traffic.

I arrived at the south end of the city in no time. The wharf was huge and the place where all the big barges came into the city. There were warehouses and loading docks everywhere but the noise provided a great shield for the business that we were in. Joseph basically owned everything down here anyway so we could use this place to our advantage.

I kept up a constant speed as I pulled next to Thor's Mercedes SL65 that he and James were leaning against.

I stepped out of the car and my Italian loafers made a soft noise in the puddle at my feet.

"Shit." I muttered and tried to shake the dirty water off. I twisted my neck as the uneasiness of dirt seeped into my skin. I breathed deeply and didn't let the feeling overtake me.

"Can you slow down? My car is too precious to get damaged." Thor ran his hand along the slick, silver paint.

"Yeah, yeah." I huffed, "Let's get this over with. It's about to storm like a beast." I looked up to the sky where dark swirling clouds were rumbling above.

"What are we doing here again?" James muttered as we side-stepped puddles, going into the furthest warehouse on the left side near the edge of the water.

Thor pulled out his phone and scrolled through some information, "I think Dad wants us to question this dude about the dealings in Miami."

"He heads everything down there?" I opened the metal door.

"No, he's just a low level guy but he's shady as shit. Dad doesn't trust him. He thinks he's a cop or something."

"And what are we supposed to do?" James shrugged, "Let him stay undercover for all I care."

"We can't do that." Thor sighed, "He would know too much. We have to finish this."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the alarms were going off. 'You can't kill a cop, Steve!', but I pushed those thoughts out. I had done it before. Killing was like second nature to me. I already knew I was going to hell, no need to mention it again.

I shoved the Desert Eagle down my belt in the back after checking my bullet supply. I was good to go.

We silently walked into the warehouse that was practically empty except for a couple of crates pushed up against the far walls, some kind of plywood that was stacked high to the ceiling, a chair in the middle of the vacant space and a trembling man of about thirty sitting in it. There were no windows and only the front door. A soft light was on but didn't provide much to see with.

"Let's get dirty." I muttered and regretted my words but I knew I would be alright. Killing was the only thing I didn't mind getting dirty with. I loved blood as long as it was pouring from someone else.

We all approached the man casually, fanning out so that we looked incredibly scary.

Thor and James took off their jackets, flinging them over a crate before rolling up their sleeves.

I circled my prey like a vulture and took him in, assessing the situation.

He was a man with some meat on his bones who looked like he could be a challenge if I was someone weaker. His head was bowed and his hands were tied behind the chair in a thick rope. I saw the red marks on his wrists, signaling to me that he had tried on more than one occasion to get out of them. He was breathing heavily but I knew that was from his position in the chair, which was very painful.

He was shorter than I was, I could already see that even with him being seated and had nothing on but a pair of boxers. He was wet with sweat and water. I guess my father had already sent someone over to soften him up.

"What's your name?" I said from behind him, coolly and calmly.

"Markos." His accent was strong.

"Where are you from?" My tone was sharp and deadly.

"Croatia."

James, Thor and I silently looked at each other, our words went through our minds without leaving our mouths.

He's not a Fed. He's Eastern European mob shit.

"Who do you work for?"

"No one."

It happened so fast, I wouldn't have known anything was going on if Markos hadn't let out a yelp of pain that echoed off of the empty walls.

Thor slammed a piece of plywood across Markos' thighs, causing a loud sound to ricochet around us. The wood splintered down the middle from force but didn't crack completely.

"Damn, I wanted to see if I could break his femur." Thor pouted childishly, "I guess we need a stronger piece of wood." He went off to the stack near the door and spent a couple of seconds appraising the selection.

"I'll ask you again, who do you work for?" I circled until I was an arm's length in front of him, creating more dramatic effect.

That was all this job was about, drama. I could kill him right now if I wanted. No harm done.

"No one." Markos' teeth were gritted.

I swiftly removed the Eagle from behind me and blew a hole the size of a grapefruit in his left knee. With precision, the bullet ripped through the bone, causing blood and muscle matter to spray my shirt but I didn't flinch.

I retracted my arm, letting it fall gingerly at my side with the gun still in full view.

He let out a string of curse words and I could smell the salt from his tears as they left his eyes.

"Okay, okay." Marcos squirmed and I could see the tears falling from his face. His entire left leg would have to be amputated if he lived through this, "His name is Sergio. He's Russian and sent me to infiltrate."

I blew another hole through his left shin in two seconds. His screams were enough to almost deafen me but they were masked by the loud blow horns and sea birds outside. There was no need for a silencer. No one would hear us.

"You gave up too easily." I wiped some blood from the barrel, "If I was your mob boss, you would have already been dead for revealing that information. You didn't even put up a fight."

"I've been locked in here for a week. I haven't eaten and someone comes in every hour to beat the hell out of me until I talk. I don't have any fight left in me!"

"Pity." James said under his breath.

"There's no winning with you guys, is there?" Markos sobbed pathetically. I just rolled my eyes.

James united Markos from his bindings at my request and he fell to the ground in a pool of blood that was seeping from his leg.

"I want to know everything you took from us." James sat in the chair with his arms crossed.

"Nothing, I swear. I've only been in for a couple of months."

"You're stupid and lazy. You got caught because you were stealing the shipments out of Miami. Where were you sending them?" Thor asked coldly, all pretenses were gone from his voice. A business Thor could be very scary.

"Russia. Sergio wants to take you down. Everyone does." The accent was making it hard to understand him and along with the heavy panting, I knew we weren't going to get much more out of our good friend Markos.

"How much did you take?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Just a couple kilos of coke..." He didn't have time to finish his sentence before I put a bullet straight through his forehead. His neck jerked back violently from the force of the led that was ripping through his brain and came out the other end.

Blood flew like a gusher from the large wound out of the back and was now everywhere but somehow, Thor and James were clean.

"I have to change now before dinner." I chastised myself, not caring that a man was just obliterated by my own hand.

"You're always the messy one. It's embarrassing." James slapped his knee, "Look at me, pristine as can be." He held up his arms.

I flung some blood that was on my gun across his shirt, causing it to stain a deep red.

Thor was rolling with laughter so I got him too, which shut him up.

"Goddamn it, Steve. Jane can't get blood out of cotton and this was her favorite one on me."

"You are such a little bitch." I snickered.

He hit me in the shoulder with a piece of wood, not hard enough to hurt but just enough to leave a mark.

"I guess we've got to deal with this piece of shit." James sighed and pointed to Markos.

"We'll have the new guys dump him in the river." Thor patted his stomach, "Right now, I'm starving."

He grabbed his jacket before bounding out of the warehouse. James followed and I was the last one out.

I stuffed my gun back in my belt and shut the heavy metal door with a clang.

This was my life. Take it or leave it.