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husbandohunter · 3 years

Note

Dottore with short drabble “You only ever brought me pain and I’m sick of it.”

Something angsty pls? Thank you!

Tainted Glass [Dottore x Reader/Genshin Impact]

Synopsis: Can you escape the prison you made?

(A twisted Cinderella story. The girl was covered in cinders because she was fatally addicted to drowning in flames.)

Warnings: angst, emotional abuse, violence, death

(A/n): To be honest anon, I didn’t know what the word ‘drabble’ means until I googled it. I uh...hope you don’t mind the length :>

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

You fell back against the cold hard floor with your arms bent and head turned sideways. The stinging pain spreads across your cheek. It burns. But your mind was still trying to register what had just came into fruition.

Why?

The thought was so foreign somehow as if you could hardly believe he was doing this. But then the scene plays in your head again. You froze, your gaze enlarged and clueless while staring at the pale ground as it slowly begins to darken in the seeping movement of his menacing, haunting shadow.

"Insolent woman, you wretch!" He spat in a disgusted tone, "How dare you speak to me in such demanding manner? Have I already told you, only talk when you have something important to say?"

You didn't respond, rather you merely let the strands fall in front of your vision as you gingerly pressed your hand against the place where he hit you.

I…don't quite understand…

Dottore glowers down at your hunched form. He was never a man known for the virtue of patience. This man, the one who calls him your husband, you learned a long time ago to not meet his eyes as they would signal a hint of dominance amidst his authority, especially during moments like these. You came to feel his eyes instead, they were usually intense and full of wrath, sometimes crazed and curious while looking at his finest creations. He always loved experimenting in his labratory. After all, it was the only thing that could truly make the madman smile.

What is it that I'm missing? Where did I go wrong?

And you would do anything to obtain at least a fraction of the love he had left in his heart.

He marches onward with heavy footsteps, paying no mind to your well-being, "Tch get out of my sight. I don't have the time to entertain with anymore these theatrics."

At the sound of him leaving you darted your attention towards him, "Wait, come back. Come back, " you plea softly, "Hector…" But he ignores your call. The back of your fiance disappears behind the door and slams it with a resounding thud. He was gone. You couldn't save him.

"No," As a result, you burried your face into your palms and cried.

“I'm sorry.”

…

What is love?

Being raised in one of the most prestigious bloodlines of Fontaine, a life filled with riches since your parents were well known scholars throughout Teyvat, they provided you and your family with everything you needed. From exquisite dishes to priceless jewelry, yet even among those riches you never did find an answer to your question. They were tangibles and short-lasting, eventually leaving you with nothing until the glass of your heart was filled empty. They seemed to have cared more about their fortune along with the brightest child of their family line, your brother, a male heir, someone who fulfilled their expectations where you couldn't do so. And because he was able to give them what they wanted, he was loved.

I see, love is conditional.

Realizing that you possessed no talent to achieve what your brother had accomplished, you came to accept that you were undeserving of their love. Love was for the smart. Love was for the gifted. Love was for everything you are not. There was no place for your kind and thus you locked yourself up in your bedroom chambers along with your fragile heart where no one would try to find you, picking up the books upon the shelves and getting lost in their fantasies.

They told you many beautiful things about the world and many reasons why it was so tragic. Because they weren't real. The story begins with a princess who was a kind-hearted soul, deprived from the care of her evil stepmother and dreams of marrying a prince from a land far far away. They often end on a happily ever after with the princes finding her one true love. You've never seen anything like it. Where two people, despite the struggles they went through, loved each other unconditionally.

Unconditional love only exists in dreams.

Or so you thought to believe.

One day a man marched right at the doorsteps of your mansion. He was a student coming all the way from Sumeru Academia and had high hopes of building a business partnership with your father. The man was declined of course, you watched from the garden bushes as he was sent off back into his carriage. He stops abruptly and turns his head ajar to catch your figure, his inquisitive eyes were both striking and sharp. Like thorns of a rose that was ready to prick anyone who dares to come close. Even so, they made a very lasting impression.

Red eyes.

It was the first time that someone had looked your way.

Couple of months later, the government had arranged a grand ball where all nobles would gather and commit to building their social circle. Useless events. There was no reason for you to engage. While your parents were occupied with the latest gossips and your brother surrounded by fathers who were eager to marry their daughters to him, you snuck outside to the balcony and hid away from the crowd. Quiet at last. And as things should be. The moon was your only friend because she was just like you; half empty. Maybe that was why you still had a glimmer of hope for the other half to be filled.

Part white, you inquired, pristine and untainted. From far away it looked similar to snow.

"My, how pleasantly surprising."

While the other part was stained with black cinders.

You glanced over your shoulder to see a man leaning against the pillar. His mint coloured bangs were slicked back in a trendy fashion, complimenting the white suit he adorned himself with. The golden chains hanging around his ebony boots dangled and clanged with each step he took forward until the light finally reveals his face.

"You seem familiar," you say while squinting your eyes, "Are you the person my father rejected back in February?"

He quirks one brow and you were afraid if you had offended him. But before you could utter an apology, the man splits his lips into a toothy grin and bursts out into a maniac-like laughter. He was completely insane, you thought to yourself. Though he paid no mind to your discomfort and continued to dwell in his amusement, "Hahaha straightforward, I like it! So what if I am? Is it a requirement to be a noble for me to simply have a chat?"

"And if I may ask why?"

"Hmmm, why?" The man reaches for the balcony and presses his back there. He threw his head backward before drilling his ruby gaze into yours, "I too am not fond of annoying crowds. Those snobbish fools thinking they're above everyone else just because they have a couple of mora when that is all they are worth. It's almost too hilarious for my own good."

You could tell there was disdain in his tone. Mainly towards your father who were one of the many unkind nobles of Fontaine and was only liked because of his success. Gripping your hands upon the stone railings, you looked down at the distant trees below while the wind rustled them apart, "I can't deny that," you say dissapointedly, "It's common for nobles not to associate with lower classes as it could potentially ruin their image. Though I may not have been there but I'm sure you had much to offer in terms of your brilliance, erm, Mister…?"

"Hector," Hector placed a palm on his chest with a polite bow following suit, "Hector Dufour-Lapointé. It is a pleasure to make you an acquaintance Lady (Y/n)."

"You know my name?"

"How could I not?" Hector smirks lazily as he danced around you, "I saw you before hiding behind the rose bushes back in your estate. Quite curious why you didn't attempt to say hello."

He even remembers that too. You fiddled with the fabric of your dress, "My apologies. I'm not use to socializing so much."

“Is that so? I think you're not giving yourself enough credit," he complimented while shrugging, "This is much more entertaining than hanging in that insufferably crowded room, it was an unexpected occurence to meet you here of all places. However, I must say time can fly if I'm able to enjoy myself."

You shifted away from his stare, "You flatter me. We've only been talking for a few minutes."

"I have yet to realize it then" Hector's cheerfulness remains at stance despite your gloomy response. He leans forward like a curious child and tosses you a question, "Then allow me to ask, what brings you out here Lady (Y/n)? I don't see any reason when your family are such highly respected people of Fontaine."

"I'm not like them!" You retort instantly, causing the man to glance at you with skepticism, "I mean, I have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with me. That's just how it is. They already have Clement after all…"

Why am I telling him this?

"Ah your brother I assume. Yes so I've heard much about his genius mind. There were a few instances where he and I collaborated at Sumeru Academia," Hector speaks as if regarding to his unpleasant memories, "Although he never said anything about having a sister."

"We're not that close. And I'm not very fond of him," you confessed bluntly.

"Neither am I," Hector agreed with a scowl, "He claims his position using the knowledge derived from history books but never tries to think beyond the norm. That ignorant mindset of his will surely be his downfall one day."

"Ignorance can lead to anyone's downfall. If they turn a blind eye to the truth, so much can be taken from them," you paused shortly from rambling too much, "That's what I read in books at least."

"As expected of your lineage," he sighs whimsically, "Such avid readers."

"Well my family prefers documents and research. I've gone through them too but I will always love reading fiction."

"Ha! Seems you really are trying to be different from the rest of your family."

Seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours, you had already forgotten about the cold breeze despite your dress being less than ideal for the outdoors. The man, although he can be a little to blathering at times, was more than what seemed to be on the surface. At first you thought of him as someone here to take advantage of your relations to your father but he seemed so sincere when listening to your stories, so eager while expressing his thoughts and even made you laugh a couple of times. You didn't realize that the clock had already struck twelve as the guests were preparing to leave but you just weren't ready to do the same.

"Until next time (Y/n)," he takes your fingers and pressed a kiss on top of them, though you were more struck by how he addressed you without honorifics, "I look forward to speaking with you again."

A warm smile graces your lips as you cursty, "Likewise Hector. Thank you for listening to me. I know I must have taken a long time."

Hector sneered but you already learned that it was simply his way of expressing amusement, "Hardly. I was thoroughly entertained."

When your parents found out about your meeting with him, they made it clear that you would never see him again. Hector Dufour-Lapointé is what he calls himself but the real name behind this man was Hector Valliere who came from a village hidden in the west of Fontaine. Rumours said that he was chased out of his hometown by an angry mob, claiming him to be a madman conducting unethical experiments on humans. Shortly after his arrival in Sumeru, he abandoned his past identity and replaced it with a new one in order to enter the academy under legal supervision. Associating with a man of a suspicious reputation would only cause harm to your family's name. Though you could barely care much about their reputation. There was nothing for you to benefit from it.

Few weeks have passed and you evetually gave up on the thought of hearing from Hector. They were only fleeting moments, nothing more. Your routine would stay the same as you kept on plucking more books off the shelves, killing whatever time you had. However the activities you used to enjoy somehow lost it's flair and there would be a slight pain in your chest whenever you turn to a page with the princess as she is surrounded by her friends. What exactly changed? Your family still treated you the same. Did you suddenly grow bored from doing the same thing everyday? Why is it that you feel much more lonelier despite being alone for so long? It was hard to tell in a singular perspective. If only there was someone here to give you some insights on things you couldn't see…

A silver bird lands by your front window and you nearly fell out of your chair as it flapped their wings violently. A machine?! They dropped what seems to be an envelope within the thick bushes before taking off and buzzing into the evening sky. You switched off the lock and lifted the glass within a single movement, snatching the piece of paper so that the wind wouldn't blow it away. Hastily you opened it. Both curious and cautious of why would anyone send you mail in such a discreet approach.

Chère Mademoiselle (Y/n),

I can only imagine the shock of your expression once reading this letter. I'm only writing to you since I assume that your father had already told you those nasty rumours about my past. No matter. I trust that you have a good head on your shoulders to not prejudge people using such miniscule details. I wish to speak with you again. Unless you have other plans staying in that stuffy room of yours, meet me behind the clock tower at 11:00 p.m. Don't be late.

Bien à vous,

"It really is him!" The happiness spreads all across your features as you clutched the letter to your chest. For some reason, your heart wouldn't stop racing. It was a simple yet thoughful action on his part but despite how short his greeting was, every word held the weight of a thousand sparks, "I…I can't stop smiling."

And without hesitation, you prepared to leave. No one noticed your absence.

-------

It was only halfway where you realized that Hector didn't give many details redgarding why he planned this sudden event. You caught sight of him standing under the roofs with his hands hidden behind his back. He had on his signature lopsided grin, brows uneven as he glanced at you casually.

"How very punctual, were you so eager that you couldn't wait?" He teases.

"I was surprised when your bird knocked upon my window," you inform, "Is it something urgent?"

"Not at all. I merely wanted to catch up with old times," Hector tilts forward to emphasize his suggestion, "Care to indulge me for a bit?"

You crossed your arms, "Then what is it that you're hiding behind your back?"

"Hmm?" He hums, "You mean this?"

"Ah!"

Roses. A bouquet of bright red flowers were presented to you, nicely wrapped in fabric. In the language of Fontaine, recieving them could mean multiple of things and you couldn't help but feel hesitant despite his thoughtful gesture, "Why are you giving me this?"

"Is it so wrong for me to be a gentleman? I thought it would be best to prepare you a gift after you put all that effort to come out in such a late hour," Hector mused to himself, "Especially when you had to make sure no prying eyes would catch us."

You let out a small laugh before accepting the bouquet, "I wouldn't go as far to say that."

"Oh?" Although it was hard to see, Hector managed to catch a glimpse of your flushed cheeks hidden behind the flowers. A darken smirk climbs onto his face at the inviting thought of what it could mean, "Tell me more."

The whole night you both spent walking around the empty plaza with only the stars as your guide. They paved a silver path reflected in the horizon above, free flowing like one of the many watercolour paintings hung in your chambers, uncertain where they may lead but you followed them regardless. If it weren't for Hector's inivtation you might have never known about the parts of your city due to the restricted lifestyle you lived. He listened to every one of them. The stories you had to tell when there was no one for you to talk to and the complaints about your brother whenever he wanted to snitch on your actions just to get the praise out of your father. You expressed your frustrations when speaking about your incompetences, joy after reading a good fairytale book written by your favourite author, there was so much to say that you were worried if Hector soon grew tired from them.

"Go on. I'm listening."

And your heart flutters again. Suddenly everything felt so light with each step you took, it was as if you walked across the stars in the sky rather than the heavy pavement of the ground you called your home. But even if happiness was a bliss, it tormented you. Because companionship made you realize how poor your were all along. That you had everything yet you had nothing, slowly withering away like the roses you held in your hand. Convinced that your existence was worth nothing more than nothing itself. Doomed to be dismissed and forgotten. Rotting away...Hector stays by your side as you cried softly into the night.

From a distance the bell rings and echoes just like the time before during Fontaine's grand ball. Hector shows you a secret route so that no one could find you.

"Will you write to me again?"

The request was so innocent, purely from genuine intentions and devoided of anything he had in mind. Hector would always laugh in these situations when things have gone unexpectedly yet pleasingly his way but held back knowing that it would be foolish to waste such a priceless opportunity. And so he gave you his smile, one full of secrets where you had mistakened it as a promise, "Of course my dear."

Every night you could no longer fall asleep since he had occupied your thoughts completely. Sometimes you'd dream of him and their tales would unfold similarly to the ones you have read. It gone to the point where the maids would have to wake you up during late afternoons due to the dramatic change in your sleep schedule. Though, you didn't care what they did to you. As long as no one found out about your secret rendezvous.

You never thought that there'd be a day where you would voluntarily give up reading your beloved fairytales. They were now replaced by a stash of his letters that have been accumulated over the past few months. You read them each day, pacing back and forth within the walls of your room, whispering his sentences as if he were the one saying them to you. He made you feel special. You were addicted to this feeling. Eventually you managed to memorize his words by heart.

The pages of your diary were filled with notes. Like your very own fairytale carved into reality. From the rose petal, now dried, to the hairpin he snatched from a distracted merchant and a single strand of his hair you found within your cloak after a warm embrace, all of these items, a remnant of the man you loved were taped up in these pages. Sometimes you could even feel his prescence because it was all you needed. It didn't matter if Clement threw insults about how worthless your existence was, your parents could lock you in this prison if they wanted to but they shall never take away Hector from you. Never. You swear it. He was your whole world and the prince who saved you from a life made of aching emptiness. You would do anything to keep him by your side. Anything to gain his affection.

Anything.

"I had a feeling that you were the culprit dear sister."

Your arms stutters as they clutched tightly on the scrolls you took off from the shelves. The light crept into the room like arms reaching out to clutch around your ankles, warning you for trespassing. You turned around dreadfully to see Clement pressing his shoulder against the doorframe with his arms folded and a wicked expression aimed at your pitiful state.

"Why…Why are you still awake?" You say in disbelief, "I thought everyone was asleep."

"Please. Not only are you shameless but hypocritical as well. You truly are a dissapointment to our family."

"Wait," taking a step forward, you stopped him before he makes his exit, "I'll put them back. Just don't tell father about this."

But like your parents, your brother was unkind. Clement doubles over and hugs his torso, cackling through his teeth, "Is that how it is?" He swipes his arm up and you see a parchment paper held between his fingers.

"No!"

"Ma chérie (Y/n). I must say all this tenacious effort of sneaking in my letters to your window is becoming more and more tiresome. But of course, you are an exception. I want the scrolls you've mentioned the other day at my lair tomorrow evening. Make sure no one discovers this. I'm counting on you. Cordialement! Hector."

"No…" you whispered, feeling the weight of the world fall upon your shoulders as it shattered apart. Hector. If possible, you hoped that the pieces could just crush you right then and there. Your knees felt weak and a fright takes over but despite your turmoil, Clement didn't show a shred of sympathy.

"So this is why you've been acting odd lately. Pathetic," he flaps the paper tauntingly in his grasp, "I can't decide if I should be impressed or baffled by your actions. A secret romance with a criminal and the bloodline of Fontaine's most respected government associates? Even though you've hit rock bottom, you still decided to dig deeper."

"Clement you don't understand!" Stumbling upon your footsteps, you desperately tried to convey your predicament even if it meant feeding his ego, "Hector is not the man you think. He was shunned by the people of his hometown, treating him as if he were nothing. They…They ignored him! All this time he needed someone to recognize his brilliance, someone to understand." Shakily, you brought your tensed arms to your chest and screamed a silent whisper, "Someone to listen but no one did. He must have felt so alone…"

Clement flinches when you suddenly clutched onto his biceps. When he looked into your eyes, a shiver ran down his spine.

"Hector is counting on me. I'm the only one who can save him. No one else. He needs me Clement, he needs me!"

"Tch."

An ear-splitting scream of his hand against your face echoes across the room. It knocked you out of your stance and you bumped into the table, grunting while the scrolls to tumbled to the floor.

"Crazy woman, I'm embarassed to be related to you!"

While you were still trying to regain your balance, your brother had already ran off. It wouldn't be long before he alerted your parents, the clock ticking away like sand until the final hour leaves you with nothing but an empty glass.

"No," despair swallows the strength away from your legs and you crawled towards where he used to stand, "Don't take him away from me…I need him…"

I can't live without him.

Tears begin to form by the corners of your eyes as you clenched your teeth. This was no time to cry. Balling your fists, you sprinted out of the room, pushing whatever stood in your way as if you were running for your life.

And if you considered everything else, it wasn't that far from the truth.

-------

"Hector! Hector are you there?" After arriving upon his house, you began knocking on his door aggressively. The lock clicks and you were greeted by an evidently annoyed man gnawing his teeth together.

"Tsk. There better be a good reason-"

"They're coming for us! We have to go. Now. Before it's too late. My father is probably already waking and making arrangements for you to-"

"Enough, I can't even catch what you're saying," He pinches the bridge of his nose while you were still stuck in a frenzy state. He takes a step back and opens the door wider, gesturing for you to come inside, "Get in already. I have a feeling that this will be a long night."

Hector observes intently at the words you tell him.

Not out of concern but akin to the way he watches the insects react when he exposes them to a different environment.

He was a scientist after all. A madman in which you deliberately fell in love with, so much to the point that he was able to feel pity for once. How you trusted him wholeheartedly with all of your vulnerabilities, emotions and secrets like handing him your parts just so he could put you back together again. Tinkering was always one of his favourite hobbies and he couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of pride at the thought of you being completely wrapped around his finger.

Perhaps that was the reason why he loved you. Because he didn't love you. He loved you in parts.

"It was only a matter of time," Hector sighs. He sneaks his grasp into yours, knowing how much it affects you and puts on an invisible mask of deciet, "I already knew this day would happen long before anyone could have predicted it."

"You did?" With worried eyes you gazed at him, "What shall we do then?"

Knowing he hit the target, his lips begin to curl up towards his ears, showing his sharp white teeth that shone against the dim-litted room. Hector asks, "Do you love me?"

A silly question. You didn't hesitate to answer, "Of course I do. I've said it many times."

"Prove it to me," Forcing his forehead against yours, Hector commands in a dangerously low tone, "Kill your brother and only then you can truly be mine."

Your brain sutters, trying to absorb what he had just said. Kill? As in to take a life? It sounded wrong. But...was it wrong if the life belonged to someone who ruined yours?

Dumbfoundedly, you glanced into the bloody orbs of your lover, his black pupils thinning into knives while burning in the hellfire of his true colours. Hector runs a hand from the scalp of your hair, down to your cheek before gingerly sliding his fingers at your jawline. He pulled you close and whispered into your ear.

"Are you scared?"

Ah, this wasn't about your feelings. This was about him and your future and there could be no future you without him by your side.

You let your eyelids drop and leaned into his touch, "I could never be scared of you Hector. Whether it is within my power or not, I will make sure no one gets in our way. I swear it."

"Good," he continues to have you feed on his affection, "I knew I could count on you."

-----------

The news of your brother's death filled every headline Fontain had to offer. He was driven off a cliff while making a trip towards Sumeru. No one survived. The remains were so crushed to the point that authorities had trouble identifying their bodies. The only explanation they could come up with by observing the leftover tracks was that the horse must have gone out of control and ended up dragging the carriage along with it.

Ha. Serves him right.

Food poisoning. The vial Hector made was very effective. You made sure to bury it away from your mansion.

With no other choice, you became your family's next heir. Hector notifies you that he would be away for several months to solidify a unique connection with a man hailing from Snezhnaya. You didn't think he would arrive at your doorsteps with so much authority. Fatui soldiers followed from behind as the staff paved a way for them to enter. Your father was clearly displeased by his outrageous approach but he knew he was in no place to deny.

"Upon the agreement between Fontaine and Snezhnaya, Lady (Y/n) will become Harbinger Il Dottore's wife," the Duke announces, "This news will be publicly announced at the end of October."

Dottore? Is that what he calls himself?

As if claiming his victory, Dottore shoots your father a devilish smile. You could feel the dining table shake when he kept pressing his fist against the smooth surface, begrudingly congratulating you both for the new engagement. Your mother bursted into tears.

Was it worth it?

You watched both of your parents mourn silently in their own manner. Perfectly knowing that you were the main cause. But you weren't able to feel any sadness because in the end, you now had everything you've ever wanted.

The inheritance.

Their attention.

But most of all, him.

And when you were convinced that this was your happily ever after, that fairytales were not just beautiful lies for the sake of comfort, you didn't realize you were already living a life made of beautiful lies conjured by your own mind for the sake of your own comfort.

"You're nothing without me."

Dried and calloused hands squeezed around your throat as you flailed your legs against the soft fabric of the carpet floor. He encases you in a straddling position, enjoying the sight of your tortured and clenched face. Hector…no, Dottore hated it when you disobeyed him. He despised it when his creations don't work the way he wanted them to and he had no use for things that are broken.

"G-hka--k..-"

"How many times do I have to remind you to not use my birthname. Do those ears of you even function properly? Or must I fix them myself?"

You gasped for air when he relaxed his grip. Vision a blur, you coughed a few times before he pulls your arm so that you lay flushed against his chest.

"Don't forget who saved you dear (Y/n). Because of me you were able to escape that miserable life you've despised for years. I expect the utmost gratitude on your part at all times, it is only fair that I punish you for not meeting my requirements, don't you agree?" Dottore lifts his hand up to pinch your cheeks, pulling your head to stare at your eyes, "After all, there is no one else in this world who can put up with you…but me."

His words were poison in which you drank like a woman starved. It made you feel numb to the pain the more you drowned in their alluring scent, the taste was sweet, a remedy for the bitterness of reality where the man of your dreams was nothing but a cruel monster. You came to believe that the reason why he treated you so harshly was because he was scared of losing you. You were caught in the trap of what seemed to be love and devotion when truly, you were just a toy to be used at a means end. He breaks you and he puts you back together, over and over again, filling in between the cracks formed in your glass heart with the phrases you loved to hear. Just like how he filled the other holes of your life where no one else did. You called it kindness. He saw it as entertainment.

Most people pay attention to the flower's beauty but they never acknowledge the thorns hidden beneath it's blossom. That is why they bleed. They get hurt. Though, you didn't mind shedding blood if it was for his sake.

Because you would do anything for him.

You would do anything to bring back the memories of Hector Dufour-Lapointé and save him from the Harbinger that ruined his life. Your life. It wasn't his fault. You knew you could change him to what he was before because you were in love with him, that he might still in there. Somewhere.

Right?

…

Please come back.

Time continues to flow like the tears of your dying heart despite yearning for it to turn at the past. Dottore already left the room a long time ago but you didn't. Raising your head away from your hands, you peered at the door in front of you, begging desperately through a chanting record of despondence.

Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back.

Images, they slipped through your fingers, slowly becoming more distant until your mind began to see them as illusions. Dreams. Things that were not real. Telling you that your life was a lie.

"Come back to me…Hector."

Because the man you loved was withering in your memories and you couldn't do anything to save him.

A dry croak robbed you of your breath as you turned to look in the mirror.

Worthless. You were always worthless, it was what your parents told you since birth. It was what you became when he wasn't at your side because without him, your existence was worthless. You lied for him, you stole for him you, took a life for him. You destroyed yourself for him to point that it was hard to believe you were even looking at yourself.

Worthless. It's who I am.

And despite it all, you couldn't obtain his love.

(Crack).

Worthless things don’t deserved to be loved.

(Crack. Crack).

But what if it’s because I’m worthless, that he won’t love me back?

(Crack).

Your eyes jolted open, causing you to gasp sharply. When the sweet lies dispersed in your head and cleansed you of deceit, everything started to make sene. You came to realize why your wish was impossible all along.

Dottore...no, Hector, the reason wasn't because he didn't return your feelings. Neither was it due to the fact that he hurt you through his actions. Nor when he made you cry or scream for help before feeding you with more lies, thinking he would never hurt you again. It was none of those things.

It was because the man you loved this whole time was someone who could love no one but himself.

"Ha...haha," sucking in your breath, a sinister laugh escapes your mouth, "Hahahahahahaha.....!"

Everything was worthless.

You grabbed a nearby hairbrush and threw it at the mirror, watching yourself shatter into a million pieces.

There was only one thing left to do.

------

"Ugh, where is it?!"

It was late into the night where every staff had gone to sleep. The Harbinger fumbles with his keys while standing at the door of his basement as he was too busy proceeding with his research rather than considering the thought of rest. Usually he acted upon them on his own will, performing various experiments for enjoyment. However, ever since the Snezhnayan court had requested him to look into the ancient arts of alchemy, Dottore was forced to carry it out before the deadline approached. Otherwise his position as Harbinger would be revoked.

"What a bunch of self-centered blockheads. Can't they understand that it take quality time to get quality results?"

Most of his important documents were stored on the otherside. Half of it came from his father-in-law's library. He had you to thank for that.

"Ah finally," he mutters, though still dissatisfied, "I should have a word with my butler for misplacing them."

Dottore shoves the key into the lock but instead of twisting the knob he noticed something strange. It was old and had yet to be fixed but somehow he didn't have any trouble adjusting his wrist. Then he saw there were a set of freshly made fingerprints upon the smooth metallic surface. However, the only person awake at this time would be him-

An intruder!

Dottore drops everything to the ground and yanks the door open. He skittered down the stone stairs while cursing under his breath. Using the delusion gifted by the Tsaritsa, the Harbinger activated his lazer-like pillars as he took advantage of their glow to light up the unlit room.

"What in the abyss...?!"

Except it wasn't dark.

"All of these scrolls, I recognize them," without sparing a single glance, you spoke nostalgically towards the bookshelves, "It brings me so much memories..."

Dottore clenches his teeth together as his eyes shone an angry red, you were holding a torch dangerously close to his hard-earned collection, "What do you think you're doing?!" He fumed, "Put that out, AT ONCE! Don't make me repeat myself!

"They're precious to you aren't they?" You finally shifted to face him, "More than me."

"What has gotten into you?" He was about to hurl at you until he saw your torch lowering, causing him to retreat. You were strangely noncholant and he couldn't help the feeling of disturbance. Accepting that he didn't have the upperhand, Dottore decided to use a different approach, "(Y/n)."

The sound of your name falls from his lips. You faltered.

"I'm sorry for what I have done. I know I was dishonourable to you, as your husband and lover, and that you didn't deserve to see me so aggressive. You have every right to express your anger, my dear. I was in the wrong."

It was only a mask. You knew it well. But seeing him with softened eyes and a tone so comforting, made you desperately wanting to run into his arms so he could wipe away your sorrows just like once upon a time. To live happily ever after.

Hector.

Dottore runs his fingers through his hairstrands in frustration and sighs, "However the Tsarista needed me to do something very important and I can't seem to fulfill her request no matter how hard I try. It angers me. If I don't finish this, there would be no place for us to stay."

"Hector..." you sniffled quietly. He looks so much like him right now.

"Can't you see I'm doing this for you?" He consoles, yet his weapons still remain, "I only intended to make you happy and there's nothing I won't do to achieve that. How about I show-"

"Enough."

Dottore froze upon your sudden command. He didn't sense a hint of subjugation and it seemed that you had perfect control of your emotions. How very inquisitive. Did you grow immune to the style of his voice? In such a short period of time? The facade he had on was now replaced with a growling animal-like expression. You looked at him dissapointedly. His Harbinger self returned. Hector was no more.

"Ha, you're the same as always. Even before the time you became a Harbinger. The same man that I fell in love with but it is me who will never be the same again," For a moment you averted your gaze as if trying hard to swallow your own words, "Remember when we first met at the balcony? That I told you my favourite books to read are fiction? I knew they weren't real but deep down, I wanted to believe in them anyways. And you know what? They did come true, to some degree..."

As the memories come flashing back, he defenselessly watches your expression contort from sadness to a calm contemplation and finally, enraged disgust, "But you only ever brought me pain and I'm sick of it!"

Swaying the torch to the side, Dottore flinches forward but he didn't dare to come close when your current state was unpredictable to him, "I JUST WANTED YOU TO LOVE ME," you wail, I just wanted to be loved, bringing a clawed hand against your forehead and trembling upon contact, "It's all that I ask for..."

Dottore narrowed his brows. Perhaps he may have gotten too far.

"But I know it's impossible. The world is a cruel place and there's no point in trying anymore. That is why I'm going to set us free."

"...What do you mean?"

You shut your eyes closed and tossed the flaming torch to the ground. A horrified expression takes over his features. It didn't take long for the fire to begin spreading amongst the room.

"NO!" Dottore yelled powerfully, he frantically darts his gaze at all directions as they continued to flicker and blend into his precious documents. You stood still and watched him grab the ones that were intact, savouring the most he could but they slip out of his arms every time he moved. Dottore glances behind him to see a rising cage of hellfire. Then he turns to you.

" 'Til death do us part!" you laughed maniacally.

The madman looked back with angry dismay, "You're out of your mind!"

Abandoning whatever he held in his hand, Dottore spins around towards the staircase. He covers his face with his sleeve and did whatever he could to prevent the fire from touching him. However, he accidentally stumbled on his footsteps and something fell off the heights, knocking him in the face. He grunts painfully.

"That will leave a scar," you smile while he clutches at his injury, "I can break you too.”

Just like how you broke me.

Knowing that you've managed to leave a mark of your existence on him in someway, you peacefully watched your lover wobble between the hell you created. But the hell you knew was not made of scorching heat and thundering flames. Hell was empty. Hell was a void. This feeling was far too gentle to be considered hell. If he can't return your love, then at least let these caging arms bask you in the warmth you’ve always desired.

Lifting your head, you looked towards the ceiling and closed your eyes.

Ah, this cannot be death.

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qingxin-s · 3 years

Text

༉₊˚✧ꜱᴏ ʟᴏɴɢ : xɪᴀᴏ x ꜰ.ᴀʀᴄʜᴏɴ.ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

synopsis: [y/n], the goddess of hydro, is adamant on fighting in the archon war- desperate to protect her people and nation. xiao however grows to regret letting her take part

genre: angst to fluff

word count: 1,195

warning(s): mentions of injury + blood, mentions of character death, not proof read fully so may be some mistakes

taglist: @senkuwu-chan

◈ ━━━━━━ 2,000 years ago ━━━━━━ ◈

Wind tapped against the silk curtains, causing them to billow around her figure as she stood on her balcony- looking out at the region she adored so much. But it wasn't the same. The crisp smell of salt water that fluttered through the air had been replaced with the stench of charcoal. The lapis sky had been replaced with dark clouds. Every time more damage occurred to the town, it felt like part of her broke along side it.

"Madame, your weapons are ready" A low voice spoke, breaking her out of her thoughts and causing her to turn her h/c haired head towards them. It was one of her assistants, a large polearm placed on a pillow in their hands.

"Thank you, my dear. I'll be ready in a moment" She smiled in return, walking over to pluck up the weapon. It was light, but she could tell it would pack a lot of punch.

"I've never fought in a war before" She murmured, her e/c hues flickering up to her open window where a figure now stood. This had become the usual thing, she learned to recognise his presence. He huffed in response, taking a few steps inside.

"I still think you're being idiotic, (Y/N). You have no experience, you can't protect them forever" He huffed as his yellow eyes narrowed, and she smiled sweetly in response. By the tone of his voice, she could tell he too was anxious. There had been a rise in the amount of demons spotted in the areas around Liyue, and he was constantly overworking himself to fend them off. She adjusted the polearm in her gloved hands as she stepped towards him.

"You worry too much, Xiao. I'm going to be fine, Fontaine will live to see another day" (Y/N) sighed as she looked back out the window, not noticing his tensed physic. The two had become well acquainted shortly after he was dispatched to fend of the demons, and their bond had only grown since.

"It's not Fontaine i'm worried about. It's you, and you know that" Xiao growled, but she was quick to place her palm on his cheek- which he instantly melted into. He didn't mean to snap like that...he was just worried sick. He didn't want to lose her.

If he lost her, he'd lose part of himself.

"I'm going to be okay. I promise you" She whispered, her palm curling slightly and her thumb brushing over his cheek. Her touch was warm, comforting. Xiao didn't notice that his hands were balled into fists, it was only when he looked down at the floor to avoid her gaze that he realized.

"I'll see you after, Alatus" (Y/N) said softly as she broke away from him, and he so desperately wanted to reach out and throw his arms around her- preventing her from leaving. But all he could do was watch as she walked away.

◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈

The war raged for days...and days...and days. And the more she fought, the more she realized the Yaksha was right. She had no battle experience whatsoever, and the most she had ever used her powers for was healing her people. So she was completely and utterly exhausted. Not to mention...she was injured.

A cry left her lips as she collapsed to the sand, feeling numb to the waves of salt water that washed over her as she curled up. Decarabian had gotten the better of her, his attack impaling her and injuring her gravely. He was here to gain yet more power, just to hold over his peoples heads like bait. He was a monster.

Normally for any injuries she may receive, she would just heal them. It was simple and always incredibly effective. But as her life slipped away from her bit by bit, so did her ability to heal. She spluttered as a wave hit her, the water turning crimson as it mixed with her blood. This is what she got for fighting in her human vessel...and for being weak.

"Xiao..." She coughed as the pain she was experiencing melted away, her eyes feeling heavier and heavier with each passing second. Images of the yaksha flashed through her brain as she rested her head on the gritty sand, and a smile graced her chapped lips.

"So long"

◈ ━━━━━━ Now ━━━━━━ ◈

Not a day passed when the yaksha didn't hate himself with every fibre of his being. Not a day passed where he didn't think of the hydro archon. Where was she to calm him down? Where was she to progress through life with him?

Why did her life have to be taken? Why was he the one to come across her lifeless body?

Fontaine seemed to have moved on quickly after her death, even welcoming a new person to take over her power. How dare they? It happened so long ago, but the rage still bubbled inside him like it happened yesterday. The only ones that seemed to care about her death apart from him was Barbatos and Morax- but even then, they didn't fully understand.

They didn't fully understand why he distanced himself, refusing to talk to anyone when he could avoid it. Refusing to take breaks from his work of purging demons off the face of the Earth.

"Xiao, you're scowling" Verr Goldet spoke as she wiped down her desk, causing him to knit his eyebrows even more. All he wanted to do was eat his almond tofu- it was one of the only things he had left to remember her. She had taught him how to make it one day when she was feeling hungry, and it quickly became his favourite thing. He pushed it around with his fork, staring down at it intently. If he ignored the boss, maybe she'd leave him alone.

"Excuse me, I hope i'm not too late. I was wondering if you had any rooms available" A kind voice asked, and his heart skipped a beat. Why was this voice...so familiar? He was just overthinking things, after all- he was just reminiscing on their time together. He heard the boss shuffling around as she flicked through paperwork and finally, he heard the noise of a key.

"Of course. Please take the staircase up next to the young man over there, it's the first room you see" The boss bowed, and he could hear the mystery girl express her thanks. He heard footsteps approach him as she walked towards the staircase and without meaning to, his amber hues looked up- and his body froze.

He was greeted with the same h/c haired hair he loved so dearly. The same e/c orbs that he could get lost in. The same kind smile that guided him away from darkness. How could this be? Her eyes met his, and she sent him a grin- and he quickly jumped up from his seat. He wanted to reach his hand towards her, to hold her in his arms and breath in the salt fragrance he adored so much.

"(Y/N)!" Xiao called as she walked past him, and she froze in her tracks. Slowly, she turned to him- tears rolling down her face as he stumbled towards her.

"I haven't heard that name in so long"

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin impact fanfic #xiao genshin impact #xiao x reader #xiao x you #anime #fanfic #oneshot #x reader

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rapturerecords · 3 years

Text

BioShock’s Soundtrack Timeline Quirks and Hiccups

Here’s a question customers have posed while shopping around in this record store: “Is the BioShock soundtrack historically accurate?”

The short answer is no. This is of course including a presumption of a distinct cutoff year. If on the other hand, you would consider the reverse, “Is the BioShock soundtrack historically appropriate?”, well we shall see.

So let’s briefly break down the soundtrack of each game.

In the first Bioshock, the game opens with the year 1960 before taking us down to the underwater city of Rapture. However, Andrew Ryan had cut off contact with the Surface some time before, coupled with the Rapture Civil War officially starting on New Year’s Day in 1959. Granted several songs in BioShock were recorded in that last decade through the 50s including “Danny Boy” (1952), “Papa Loves Mambo” (1954), “It’s Bad for Me” (1955) and so on.

Frank Fontaine’s smuggling operations could account for the fact of the very late 1959 release dates of Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” and Noël Coward’s “20th Century Blues”, however Fontaine allegedly died in September 1958 according to the newspaper article in the Rapture Standard.

Even with Fontaine’s shenanigans, it doesn’t account for the 1966 version of Patti Page’s “Doggie in the Window” or the 2004 version of Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top” as seen below. Other songs include the assorted instrumental tracks recorded in the 1990s such as “The Ballroom Waltz”, “And All the While I’m Loving You” or even the 1966 song “Academy Award”. Lastly, there is still the mystery of the numerous instrumental guitar and violin songs supposedly performed or inspired by Django Reinhardt used in BioShock.

Creative Director Ken Levine obliquely mentioned the problem of using re-recordings and alternate versions of songs in a 2007 interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly.

...Or I would research on Wikipedia or talk to my dad, and then I would go and listen to little snippets, and I'd ask myself, "Does this feel like it belongs in Rapture?" [Dealing with this era of] licensed music... is a very complicated process, because generally you're dealing with people who are dead and their lawyers are dead. The rights are often very complicated, and so a lot of times we'd want a song and we wouldn't get it. We'd have to find another person who performed it, or another version of the recording or something like that. We had to be fairly flexible.

Overall, BioShock 2 does have the most historically accurate soundtrack of the series, excluding the songs reprised from the first BioShock. The game ostensibly takes place in 1968, or 10 years later from 1958 according to the opening titles.

All things considered, its only soundtrack transgression is using the 1976 version of “Daddy’s Little Girl” as seen below.

Aside from that, its newest songs unique to the game are 1945′s “Dream” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. Many songs trend older towards the 1920s and 1930s, reflecting the older portions of Rapture seen in the game with some of the oldest tracks being 1929′s “Daddy Won’t You Please Come Home” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”.

BioShock Infinite and the floating city of Columbia introduces time as central plot point and with it some interesting soundtrack implications. Keeping in mind the setting is 1912, its soundtrack can be broadly divided into three categories

Modern covers of existing period songs were recorded especially for the game such as “After You’ve Gone”, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, and the Scott Joplin rags.

Deliberately anachronistic songs are provided as a plot point courtesy of Messrs. Albert Fink and Scott Bradlee rearranging modern songs to sound period such as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, “Fortunate Son”, “Tainted Love” and so on.

Lastly there are the period songs meant to evoke the flavor of the 1912 setting. While some are authentically of the era including some very old Edison cylinders, quite a few bleed into the 1920s and 30s including “Ain’t She Sweet” (1927), “Button Up Your Overcoat” (1929), and “St. James Infirmary” (1930). Bessie Smith manages to crossover to both cities in both BioShock Infinite and BioShock 2 with “I’m Wild About That Thing”, “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”, and “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl”. In addition, several recordings are presented “live” in the game, but were recorded much later such as the prison work song recorded by Alan Lomax, “Black Gal” in 1959 and “Shake Sugaree” recorded in 1967.

Lastly, Burial at Sea features a coda. Both Patsy Cline songs “She’s Got You” and “Back in Baby’s Arms” were recorded in the 1960s, well after the 1959 date of the events of the game. However in a tragic twist of fate, she would die shortly after recording the songs in a plane crash.

Creative Director Ken Levine again mentioned the problem of finding music “that sounds great to the modern ear” in a 2012 interview with Wired magazine.

But one of my favorite parts of my job is choosing the licensed music. BioShock Infinite is set in an interesting time because it’s right at the beginning of jazz and blues. Music before jazz and blues is not very listenable. I mean popular music -– it’s really kind of awful. You know, the John Philip Sousa marches and stuff. And then you get jazz and blues coming in, with the early stuff like ragtime.

It’s much more challenging to find music from that era that sounds great to a modern ear. BioShock was set in 1959, so we had this huge slate of great music to choose from. But here we don’t have all the chord progressions, and the things we like didn’t exist or had just started to exist. So finding music has been a really interesting challenge...

The most important thing is that you get people to feel things. I’ll give you a hint: There weren’t flying cities in 1912 nor were there underwater cities and genetic technology in 1959 (laughs). So, yeah, you play a little fast and loose. You could argue that this is Columbia and we do things a little differently.

You’ve already heard some of the strange musical things in the game...

Less discerning record customers may have grabbed the wrong discs and are surprised to find the recordings don’t match what they’ve heard.

I have taken the liberty of conducting a synchronization of a number of the more unusual re-recordings which the games use instead of the originals. These are presented in the new stereophonic sound format, be advised it is recommended to have two speakers far apart to get the full effect, or at the very least avoid having two speakers that are too close together.

The original older track is on the listener’s left while the newer one used in the games are on the listener’s right.

Some of the more fantastically-minded among us down here in Rapture might be tempted to simply blame the above on those newfangled Tears. But it is the records that speak for themselves.

youtube

Patti Page’s “The Doggie in the Window”

1952 Mercury Records version (original)

1966 Columbia Records version (used in BioShock)

youtube

Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top”

1934 Victor Records version (original)

2004 version with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks (used in BioShock)

youtube

Mills Brothers’ “Daddy’s Little Girl”

1950 Decca Records version (original)

1976 Ranwood Records version (used in BioShock 2)

The original versions of the songs are featured occasionally here with the addendum that they were not actually used in the game. They are marked with the RRR for Rapture Records Recommendation.

There are number of other instances where an artist recorded more than one version of a song, typically well before, such as Noël Coward’s 1959 “Party’s Over Now” and his slightly longer 1932 version. But that’s left for another revolution of the record.

#video game music #ludomusicology #bioshock music #bioshock #bioshock 2 #bioshock infinite #burial at sea

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971)

I’ve been meaning to get to this one for a while. It was directed by Al Adamson and stars Lon Chaney Jr. from Indestructible Man in his last and worst film. Also featuring appearances by Greydon Clark (director of Angel’s Revenge), Forest J. Ackerman (the comic book guy from Future War), and Jim Davis (the grandpa from The Day Time Ended, not the guy who invented Garfield), and generally being one of the shoddiest and most confusing movies I’ve ever sat through, it is a mystery to me why Joel chose Carnival Magic and just left Dracula vs Frankenstein sitting there. Maybe it was the widescreen thing.

It’s hard to say what the hell is going on in this movie but I’ll give it a try. Under the cover of a carnival freak show, mad Dr. D’Ray is decapitating nubile young women and then sewing their heads back on, because… uh… because. One night, his work is interrupted by none other than Count Dracula! The Count reveals that he knows D’Ray’s secret – D’Ray is really the last surviving member of the Frankenstein family, and Dracula has recovered the body of the original Frankenstein’s Monster and wants D’Ray to help him bring it to life, because… uh… because. Meanwhile, a woman named Judith Fontaine is looking for her sister, Joannie, who was last seen on the beach near Dr. D’Ray’s Creature Emporium. Judith and her boyfriend Mike eventually find their way into D’Ray’s lair, and the doctor and his various deformed assistants (obviously he has deformed assistants) are all killed as the couple attempt to escape again. What Judith and Mike don’t know is that they’re not safe yet. They still have Dracula to deal with!

That outline actually only represents a fraction of the madness in Dracula vs Frankenstein. There’s a rapey biker gang and a bunch of noticeably over-age hippies who seem to think they’re in a very different movie. There’s D’Ray’s hunchback Groton and his pet puppy, and Grazbo the Angry Midget. There’s the stunningly unhelpful detective who’s supposed to be looking for Joannie. D’Ray brings the Frankenstein Monster back to life with the help of a magical comet. The idea that creatures like Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster actually exist is treated as obvious and commonplace, and the climactic fight between the two is over who gets to feel up Judith. It’s a mess.

The reason Dracula vs Frankenstein is such a mishmash of incongruous ideas, at least according to El Santo of 1000 Misspent Hours, is that Adamson filmed for a while, then ran out of money and had to set the project aside while he raised more. During this intermission, he got a bunch of new ideas, and had to shoehorn them in with what he’d already shot to turn his original sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll film into a monster-versus-monster piece. It should therefore surprise nobody if the results are about as graceful as a giraffe on roller skates.

The two title monsters are astonishingly shitty. Frankenstein’s Monster looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy gone horribly wrong. He looks like his head got stepped on and they couldn’t afford to fix it. The first time you see him, when Dracula digs him out of a cemetery, you can barely tell you’re supposed to be looking at something’s face – it looks like a mass of home-made play-dough that’s been left out in the sun. He has claws for some reason. That sequence of similes still doesn’t do justice to just how absolutely terrible he looks, and yet, shockingly, he’s less stupid than Dracula.

Oh, god, this movie’s Dracula. His face is slathered in Observer makeup (though his hands aren’t, probably because it would have gotten all over everything) and he wears bright red lipstick and fake fangs that don’t allow him to fully close his mouth. His vinyl cape almost definitely came from Party City. His voice echoes like he’s talking into an empty garbage can, even when he’s sitting in the back seat of a car. He has an incredibly funky goatee and a ring that shoots fire. Everything he says and does is deeply, self-consciously dramatic and it all comes to an absurd crescendo in the series of priceless faces he makes as he turns to dust in the sun.

On a scale of absurd theatricality, Dr. D’Ray is only shortly behind him. The mad doctor dresses like Colonel Sanders, has some classic evil facial hair, and spends much of his screen time monologuing… but nothing he says ever makes a lick of sense. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is literally indescribable so I’m going to have to give you some examples:

Rambling in his lab, D’Ray describes his work as follows: “human blood is the essence from which future illusion may be created, but the secret is not to have the blood at rest. No, the circulatory system must experience a traumatic shock, one that is inconceivable to the human mind. The idea of trauma is not a new one, but I am sure I am the first such experimenter to incorporate the horror of an actual decapitation into later rejuvenation of a human body!” This is evidently supposed to be a justification for the sewing-heads-back-on thing – it ‘activates’ the blood and allows D’Ray to make his ‘serum’. He then injects that ‘serum’ into Groton, who transforms into an axe-wielding maniac. Later, Dracula claims that the same ‘serum’ would have made him invincible. I, uh… what?

Sorry, I was talking about D’Ray’s monologuing. When describing his Creature Emporium, D’Ray informs some guests, “the greatest mysteries in the world are not mysteries at all, unless we take time to become familiar with them.” Isn’t that the opposite of how mysteries work? It’s easy to believe in, say, the Loch Ness Monster, until you familiarize yourself with the history of the ‘evidence’ and realize that it’s almost all complete bullshit.

When Dracula shows up, D’Ray declares, “I am too old and too sick to be interested or surprised by anything, but when a man comes into my house and casts no reflection on my mirror, and on his hand wears the unholy crest of Dracula, there is no scientific answer to anything. Now, what is on your mind, Count Dracula?” Honestly, this nonsense is spoken with such conviction that you almost don’t notice that the end of the sentence has nothing to do with the beginning.

The movie has two things that might qualify as a ‘special effect’. One is Dracula’s zappy fire ring. It’s crummy, but you can tell what they’re going for. The other is the ‘comet’ that is instrumental in giving life to the Frankenstein Monster. This is represented by a slow pan past a flickering light bulb against a black background. Even having just heard Dracula talking about the importance of the comet, it took me a minute to figure out what I was supposedly seeing – it’s that bad. This might be halfway forgivable if the comet were somehow important to the plot… if the Monster, for example, had to complete some mission before it sets or something. But it’s totally gratuitous. They could have taken that out, avoided a distractingly awful effect, and made the movie a little bit shorter!

As for meaning anything… Dracula vs Frankenstein does not, and indeed seems to go out of its way to avoid it. The events that unfold are remarkably meaningless. Judith finds her sister Joannie, who is not dead but neither is she alive, and then the story just forgets about Joannie and gives her no resolution. Hippie girl Samantha is saved from being raped by her angry ex and his biker gang, but then she, too, is entirely forgotten. D’Ray and his henchmen die in a series of contrived accidents that serve no purpose but getting them out of the way so that Dracula and the Monster can fight uninterrupted. This is particularly anticlimactic because so far, D’Ray has been presented as our main baddie. Dracula disintegrates Mike with his magic ring and then the movie rushes to its climax without giving either Judith or the audience time to deal with it. Dracula, the movie’s actual main baddie, just turns to dust in the sun.

There are a couple of moments that are probably supposed to be social commentary, but they have nothing to do with the meandering main plot. One is the scene where a hippie guy says to his girlfriend, “let’s get ready for the big protest tonight.” She asks, “what are we protesting this time?” and he shrugs and replies, “I dunno, but I bet it’s fun.” Later we see this protest, which does seem to have a major ‘party’ component and features some very unspecific placards being waved. In another sequence there’s a druggie bar with the walls covered in graffiti that say things like POT and SOCIETY SUCKS.

Boy, I bet Adamson was really proud of sticking it to those angry young people.

Dracula vs Frankenstein is mesmerizingly bad. Usually the best bad movies are the kind where you can follow the story a bit, so you aren’t wasting time wondering what the hell is going on instead of appreciating the nonsense dialogue and unconvincing effects. Dracula vs Frankenstein is a singular exception. You never have any idea what anybody’s doing and yet somehow it doesn’t matter… the movie gives up on making sense very early, and just forges merrily ahead, dragging you along behind it. What’s actually happening never matters enough to distract. I honestly don’t know if this is a point in the movie’s favour or not… but it would have made a hell of an MST3K episode.

#mst3k #reviews #epsiodes that never were #dracula vs frankenstein #tw: rape #all carnival no magic #70s

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rubisaurus98 · 3 years

Text

Storybook Data: Zura Fontaine

Basic Info:

Full name: Zura Fontaine

Age: 54

Birthday: November 5, 226 AIE

Sign: Scorpio

Height: 175 cm (5′ 9″)

Weight: 145 lbs.

Voice (JP): Ami Koshimizu (Role: Beidou--Genshin Impact)

Voice (EN): Elizabeth Maxwell (Role: Ymir--Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan)

Affiliation Post: Water Element Instructor, Two-Handed Weapon Instructor, former Member of the 14th Demon Slayer Squad “Gladiolus”

Hobbies: Bailing Renata out of trouble, training young Summoners, honing my abilities

Likes: Key lime pie, the ocean, Ayame, Ayame’s family, seafood

Dislikes: Self-important people, talking about my past, food that’s too sweet, being woken up too early

Family: Father, mother, paternal uncle, goddaughter (Renata)

Respected Person(s): Owen, Grahdens, Makoto, Monika, Hakim

Stats:

Teaching ability: 7/10

Physical strength: 9/10

Ability to phrase things politely: 4/10

Ability of being critical: 8/10

Ability to keep living for her deceased friends: 10/10

Intro Paragraph:

In the Academy, she is the main Instructor for recruits with affinities for the Water element, two-handed weapons, and honing the Summoning Arts. She is a stern and stoic Instructor, but is never too harsh with students, although her surface attitude can turn some away. She is known to be very critical of the latest generation’s strongest Summoners, saying that while they are all strong, they all have yet to display true leadership in her eyes.

Personality/Characteristics:

She was a subordinate of the Elder Summoner Owen before creating the 14th Demon Slayer squad alongside its captain and lieutenant. From her earliest days as a Summoner to the tragedy at Dawnsmarr that occurred over 20 years ago, she was an aloof, vulgar, and sarcastic woman who enjoyed riling up and starting rivalries with her peers. But, it was her strength and unwavering reliability that won their respect. Following the deaths of her closest friends, Zura became more withdrawn and left the Demon Slayers as she mourned them. After her remaining friends and the Elders helped her back up, Zura became the stern and stoic Instructor many Summoners from the Academy know today, as well as a strong advocate for Summoners’ mental health, with varying degrees of success. Among her friends, she still has the attitude she met them with. Like the elder three Instructors before her, she is more often than not quite critical of the leadership abilities of those regarded as the younger generation’s best. Even at her age, she is still capable of keeping up with and even overwhelming those in that group. It is said that to be struck by her greatsword at full force is like being hit by a tidal wave. She continues to casually refers to her initial captain as “Old Bastard”, which he does not mind in the slightest, surprising a majority of the Summoners’ Hall. Long ago, she was in a romantic relationship with her Academy roommate, the woman who would go on to be the lieutenant of their Demon Slayer squad, but after her death at Dawnsmarr, she has stopped seeking another partner.

Relationship with Renata:

She was made Renata’s godmother shortly after Renata was born out of gratitude for staying by her mother’s side until her father returned from his mission. In the years following the tragedy at Dawnsmarr, she continued searching for Renata, but could not find her until she enrolled in the Academy. From then on, she was both Renata’s main mentor figure and the one who willingly volunteered to deal with trouble Renata was involved in until Renata turned 18 and began to calm down. Zura had some unease over Grahdens suddenly recommending Renata to be an assistant Instructor shortly after, but was won over after being reminded of Renata’s reputation with her juniors and was impressed with how effective Renata was as a teacher on her own. She was at first disappointed with Renata’s sudden arrest shortly before Lucius called her to Grand Gaia, which made a rift in their relationship, but it was healed over time and understanding conversation. She once attempted to bring up Renata’s parents to her years ago, but she was shut down immediately and that is why she hid the act she was Renata’s godmother until Renata became more open to the subject again. While she has imprinted the ability to be critical of the strongest of Renata’s generation onto her, she can be just as critical of Renata herself. She is one of Renata’s closest confidants, becoming more of a mother-like figure in times of great uneasiness, such as in the midst of the Ishgria expedition.

Quote:

“If this is the best of the next generation, then the Hall’s leadership is doomed.”

Trivia:

Miscellaneous Comments about Instructor Zura Fontaine from both Former and Current Students:

1. “Ah, Instructor Fontaine? Some of my peers were uneasy about how stern she is, but I say that she’s actually quite nice when you get past that! She taught me everything I know about Water magic.”--A. Volkov

2. “I-I don’t hate her...I don’t want to, b-but she just looks s-so scary! I-I try to avoid asking her for anything if I can help it...”--J. Klein

3. “...Zura was the one that taught me a lot about how to control my powers from that Water Spirit. Once, she...she called me one of her best students.”--N. Olstet

4. “I remember Instructor Fontaine from my Academy days. My only experiences with her outside of class has been when I’ve been roped into some kind of prank...I never really had her as much as other people I know did, but despite her appearance, they say she’s not so bad. I kinda wish I was her student more often just so I could see for myself, but I’ll take their words for it.”--E. Vedel

Comments from Others:

Renata: “What the hell do you want me to say? Aunt Zura...She’s...I’m...Th-Thanks for everything.”

Owen: “Ever since I met her as a young girl, she has always held such strength in her eyes. That is why I invited her to Akras when I encountered her.”

Seria: “I heard she knows Master Kate and was once Lord Owen’s subordinate...There are some things that I’d really like to talk to you about, now that I have a better picture of what I’d like my future as a Summoner to look like. That is, if you’re willing to give me a second chance after what happened back in the Academy with Ren some time ago.”

#Rubi says things #Rubi does a write #BF:LC #Zura Fontaine #Another birthday Data release!#And if y'all haven't made the connection yet: Zura reminds the Elders of Stein. That's part of why Owen's more lenient with her

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darkershining · 4 years

Text

Just watched episode 30 of Healin Good Pretty Cure.

The girls decide to spend the day at a zoo, and encounter a young boy who seems familiar with the place and offers to show them around. The boy seems fascinated with the girls getting along so well despite their obviously different personalities and interests, and notes that he doesn’t think he could do it as well. The boy’s father shows up, who the girls recognize as their homeroom teacher, Mr. Maruyama. As they’re all heading to see the different animals each girl wants to see, the girls learn from Kouta and Mr. Maruyama that Kouta had gotten into an argument with a friend. Mr. Maruyama tries to convince Kouta to reconcile with his friend later, but Kouta doesn’t want to. The girls have fun looking at the different animals.

In the villains’ lair, King Byogen talks about Guaiwaru and Daruizen’s recent Mega Parts experiments, and gives Daruizen in particular a bit of praise with his research into making more Tera-Byogens. Shindoine, who King Byogen didn’t even mention, gets quite annoyed, and Guaiwaru just rubs salt in the wound by noting that he won’t notice her if she’s not doing anything useful. Daruizen heads out to gather more Mega Parts.

While looking at more animals, the group happens to come across Kouta’s friend Shuichi, who is also visiting the zoo with his father. While the two fathers try to get the two to reconcile, the two boys just start arguing again over whether tigers or lions are stronger. After Shuichi and his father leave, Nodoka tries to get Kouta’s mind off of things by suggesting they take a break from looking at the animals and go get lunch.

At the café, Kouta takes note of the fact that the girls all ordered different things, which leads to the girls deciding to share bits of their food amongst themselves so they can try the different things. Mr. Maruyama once again tells Kouta of how friends with different interests and tastes can broaden ones perspective.

In the meantime, Shindoine is pondering how she can get King Byogen’s attention, when she spots the aura of a Mega-Byogen Daruizen just created from a plant at the zoo. She decides she too must think of a new way to use Mega Parts.

Latte starts to feel ill from the Mega-Byogen’s presence, and the girls quickly excuse themselves and run off. The girls come across the Mega-Byogen and Daruizen, and transform. People start fleeing from the zoo, and Maruyama tells Kouta to head to the exit and wait for him there while he goes to see if anyone else needs help. Cure Fontaine manages to scan the Mega-Byogen and locate the Leaf Element.

While headed for the exit, Kouta comes across Shuichi, who had fallen and hurt his leg. Shuichi initially tells him to just keep going, as he worries about slowing Kouta down, but Kouta refuses to leave him behind and helps him get to the exit. On the way, the two boys are able to reconcile.

Daruizen, wanting to give the Mega-Byogen a little more time to grow before he gets the Mega Parts, decides to briefly join the fight himself. After the Mega-Byogen grows a bit more, Daruizen harvests the Mega Parts. Watching from behind a tree, Shindoine is determined not to lose to Daruizen. With a Mega Part in hand, she notes that she isn’t sure what’s going to happen once she carries out her idea, but if it’ll get King Byogen’s attention, she’ll do anything. With that, she uses the Mega Part on herself.

Cure Earth manages to use her Sound Element bottle to help stun the monster, allowing the other three Cures to purify it with the Healing Oasis. Daruizen retreats with the Mega Parts he gathered.

Near the zoo’s exit, Shuichi and his dad offer to give Kouta a ride home, but Kouta tells him his dad should be catching up to him shortly. The other two leave, and Kouta wonders just what is taking his dad so long, when he is approached by a powered-up Shindoine. Shindoine decides to use Kouta as the first test subject for her new power, and sends a Nano-Byogen at him. However, before it reaches him, his dad finally catches up to him, sees the danger he is in and pushes him out of the way. Mr. Maruyama gets infected by the Nano-Byogen, while Kouta watches in horror.

Well, that was quite the cliffhanger. I feel like this show likes those. Anyways, it was another good episode, with the girls taking some time to have fun at the zoo together after everything that’s been going on in the last few episodes. And from the look of things, the Cures will be getting their next power-up in the next episode, as one would expect based on the number of episodes we have reached. Also, Shindoine’s new form looks pretty cool. With the different ways the Tera-Byogens have been testing the Mega Parts these past few episodes, I guess it was only a matter of time before one of them would try testing a Mega Part on themselves.

I’ll be looking forward to the next episode!

#pretty cure #healin good precure #healin good precure spoilers

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

Text

2019: Patrick Masterson

All photos by Patrick Masterson

I was late to Fontaines D.C., only picking up on them shortly before Dogrel’s release in April. By then, the Dublin quintet was already carrying with them the cacophonous buzz of a band on the rise — Steve Lamacq, KEXP, Rolling Stone, anyone with an ear to the pulse of indie Eire, witnesses who’d gone to see The Horrors or Idles or Metz or a casual SXSW night out and found something else instead, the chatter was fervent. Sure enough, their debut full-length was a smartly paced post-punk pastiche with a firm Dublin bent — from the doggerel of a little sha sha sha here to a spot of laconically recalled hurricane laughter there, the boys got you believing that the better land was actually the one they were in, not the one you talked about.

While there’s no denying a great deal of their appeal comes from hooks that mine rock’s rich history, Fontaines are at their heart a band of words. Their whole origin story involves pub haunts trading poems and Grian Chatten’s limited vocal range affords a listener the opportunity to think more on what he’s saying — sometimes wedged into corners that shouldn’t fit the count, other times repeated sparingly, but always to great effect. Their collective enthusiasm for beat poetry felt charmingly quaint in 2019, but I guess there’ll always be boys hungry for propulsive verse and attacking the problems of politics less directly, addressing the big questions by way of lived experience. As Dublin playwright Sean O’Casey once put it, the people view life through creeds, through customs and through necessities; the poet views creeds, customs and necessities through life. That mentality, one Fontaines share, was central to my favorite interview snippet of the year, wherein Chatten described his affinity for fellow Dubliners Girl Band: “The lyrics are colloquial and quite Dublin-specific — 'chicken fillet rolls' and stuff like that. They brought those things, for the first time, into Dublin music. Before that, the only way to sound Irish was to be fuckin’ ‘diddly-diddly-aye’.”

There was never a question of seeing Fontaines live, in other words. An early September set at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall was an ideal venue to observe the state of the band in the wake of their triumphant summer festival run, and what I found was an interesting dichotomy: In one way, the band was clearly doing the business. Songs flew by at a brisk clip and Chatten’s lyrics came alive as he delivered them with an assurance in places that the record, surprisingly, lacked. But in another, they’re still very evidently just kids, still trying to figure it all out: Conor Curley’s leather jacket, Carlos O’Connell’s mystic hippie energy, Chatten’s off-white Oxford perpetually half-buttoned, the economy of stage banter and lack of smiles, all of it half-baked and overdone, a gloriously tight, preposterous mess of crystallizing swagger only youth can offer with such sincere conviction.

Shall we tangle our thinking? Shall we give it a name? My favorite couplet of the year was an open-ended overture that left the response in little doubt. Live or recorded, it didn’t matter: Fontaines D.C. were a band I could believe bled the heart of present-day Dublin better than anyone else — and, perhaps more importantly, see something of myself in. The aura of a smirk in a booth at a dimly lit bar over a poet’s too clever turns of phrase, staring down the bottom of an empty glass and the infinite promise of the life of the world to come. Ah, that’s the spirit.

II.

About a month later, I found myself trudging through the rain after work to Beat Kitchen, another Chicago venue, to witness Girl Band play their first show in more than two years. I’d been a fan of the group since discovering (by way of Dusted, of course) their wonderfully faithful rendition of Blawan’s “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” sometime in the spring of 2013. I was really down the UK techno rabbit hole then and I’ve always had a soft spot for post-punk, but this was like a platonic ideal of what music could do: an Irish post-punk band covering the song of an English techno DJ who used a Fugees sample from “How Many Mics,” which itself contained samples of Ramsey Lewis and Corey Hart. Five decades of music covered in eight minutes that you could dance to if you really wanted. No surprise I still find it one of the decade’s best offerings, anyway.

The Talkies had only been released the week before, but while I’d like to tell you there was a palpable air of excitement around Beat Kitchen when I walked in, the truth is that the place was decidedly muted. It wasn’t just the dreary drizzle or that Beat Kitchen is a fraction of Lincoln Hall’s size; the buzz of this band is firmly in the rearview mirror. We have two EPs and, now, two albums by which to assess their worldview, and it’s at least ostensibly clear what that looks and sounds like. No fuckin’ diddly-diddly-aye is right.

I hesitate to use the word “established,” though. Girl Band carry with them an energy of extreme fragility, like everything they do rides the finest of lines between sweat-drenched focus on absolute control and the cathartic release of all-enveloping chaos. Part of this is literal — as we discovered at the end of their half-decade hiatus, whereby frontman Dara Kiely worked through panic attacks and other personal issues of mental well-being; that’s him breathing harder and harder on “Prolix” to set the mood, after all. But part of it is the music, which veers from deadpan, rhythm-driven rock to no-frills noise at the slightest provocation. Even their song lengths seem to come up on extremes of the pop music spectrum: The Early Years’ first single was 32 seconds, The Talkies’ first single “Shoulderblades” more than six minutes. There’s no way a band like this could ever be established. Stability is not on the menu.

Even so, that fragility makes them a fascinating act both to hear and see. I don’t know what form their songwriting takes, but the end result is an abrasive, practically rayonist reassemblage of familiar tropes. Easy lines can be drawn to The Fall, Public Image Ltd. and Liars in their emphasis on the rhythm section and willful disregard for conventional melodies, but sometimes I’m not sure even they know what they’re doing half as much as those bands did. That should be part of the joy and frustration intrinsic to creating art, but in watching their set, I became convinced that Girl Band are captivating because they don’t seem to understand their instruments the same way other groups do. I’m not saying bassist Daniel Fox using an empty glass soda bottle as a literal bottleneck slide at one point was anything revelatory; rather, it’s that I’m not sure he knew how to play “Going Norway” any other way. It’s easy to hear but hard to pinpoint. No one Dublinside or otherwise does it quite like them.

As the band took the stage and the crowd filled in every available gap Beat Kitchen had to offer, I realized the place suddenly had the air of a hardcore show. People were jittery and the crowd was ready to move. Whatever energy the weather had dampened was concentrated here, now, and ready to rupture (which it did, almost immediately). I don’t recognize the Dublin Girl Band exports and I’d wager most other people don’t, either. But that’s what makes their serrated grace so magnetic: There they stand at the edge of a rapturous precipice, knocking back chicken fillet rolls and daring you to trip with them into the disastrous whirlwind of the free.

III.

It’s Thanksgiving night 2005. I’m in a dimly lit pub packed to the gills with people somewhere in Temple Bar. My friend Peter and I are hunched over dark barside woodwork, tired and hungry for anything after a longer day than we’d anticipated. Being entirely of Irish descent, I’d wanted to come to Ireland my entire life and this weekend was finally it, the moment I could forget about maybe the worst breakup I’ve never had (a long, ultimately mundane story) and hang out with some friends in a city I fetishized very far from virtually everyone I knew. The benefits of studying abroad, you could say.

Just hearing the play-by-play, you’d think it was a terrible trip. I was supposed to come with three people, but two of them backed out literally as we were fetching our bags to catch a bus to the airport (a thing I still don’t understand), so instead it’s just Peter and me footing the hostel bill and cab fares. There was the two-hour flight delay for snow back at Luton. When we asked the bartender what kind of pub grub they were serving so we could have some semblance of a Thanksgiving dinner, he regretfully offered that they didn’t serve full meals but there were these half-tins of Pringles and would you like a few of them? So my Thanksgiving was a container of plain Pringles and however many Guinnesses I could get down. When we stopped in to see James Joyce’s House of the Dead the next morning, we were told the building — a building that had been there since the 1700s, by the way — was under renovation. Then we went to purchase ferry tickets for our return trip to England (one of the people who backed out didn’t want to fly both ways, so we compromised) and were told the ferries weren’t running as workers were on strike. We spent two hours of our Friday at a travel agency negotiating what would turn out to be an overpriced predawn Sunday morning flight. The sandwiches we bought beforehand were cold by the time we ate them on a bench overlooking the Liffey.

But there’s this redemptive moment I recalled every time I heard Fontaines D.C. or Girl Band this year and that I’ll probably always remember. It’s after dark and we’ve left the pub, pathetic Pringles and gallons of Guinness behind us. I don’t know what street we’re on, Parnell or Jervis or Grafton maybe, but there’s Christmas lighting everywhere and there’s a buzz in the shops and on the cobblestone despite the snow, despite bundled layers and flushed cheeks ruby from the knowing cold, despite Dublin city sky awash in shapeless cloudcover. A girl who looks our age and a group she’s with are passing us, and I only sort of hear them talking about the lights before she says in the most beautiful brogue I’ve ever heard, “Ah, don’t you love it?”

I grin to myself now the same way I did then, an involuntary nod at the thought. Before we fell from the mountaintop of poetry to the abyss of the people, before we got preoccupied with our insatiable thirst for trivial recreation and crude sensationalism, before we could afford to look too far back at what we tore away from that self who could do more, full of chequeless reckless exuberance and the thing I’m telling you about, that youth who could do anything but didn’t, we were just sort of wandering around Dublin aimless, putting mileage on our shoes and flushed baby faces, tender shoulderblades and exposed amygdalae not yet too clever to fall in love with strangers, alive with the spirited leap of infinite promise, smirking.

Patrick Masterson

#dusted magazine #yearend 2019 #patrick masterson #Fontaines DC #girl bands #post-punk #dublin

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lahuertas · 5 years

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Sunkissed

GET TO KNOW MY MC’S ASK MEME. / SUMMER KERSEY.

how tall are they?

she’s 5’7”, about three inches taller than alexis.

how do they tend to dress?

her style summed up in three words would be ‘beachy boho babe’. think lots of floaty dresses, lots of flowy/lacy off the shoulder tops paired with ripped shorts & floral beach kimonos, and lots of sunhats & sandals. tying into this aesthetic, she generally tends to wear more understated, lighter shades such as white, blush pink and baby blue.

do they like how they look?

yes! she especially likes her smile, which she inherited from her father; it’s normally the first thing people compliment her on besides her hair.

are they an only child or do they have any siblings?

alexis is her only sibling.

are they a morning person or night owl?

summer’s more of a morning person. whilst staying in turtle bay for summer break when she was sixteen, she got into the habit of waking up early, whipping up a mango smoothie and going for a morning jog along the promenade. this is a habit that’s stuck with her ever since.

are they a cat person or a dog person?

she likes both but tends to favour dogs more. growing up she had a labrador named skipper who she absolutely adored. summer was devastated when she passed away shortly before high school graduation.

got any favourite foods?

banana chocolate chip ice cream is her ultimate weakness. she can easily eat a pint in one sitting. she also loves snacking on potato chips and popcorn.

how about favourite drinks?

as I mentioned above, she has a real affinity for mango smoothies. she also likes caramel frappuccino’s.

what are their favourite movies/tv shows?

her favourite show is definitely gossip girl. her and alexis put the first episode on once when they couldn’t find anything else to watch on netflix and got so hooked that they ended up binge-watching the entire series in the span of a few days. for movies, she loves all the cheesy 80’s comedies that her dad made her watch as a kid, if for nothing else than the nostalgia.

do they have any hidden talents?

she can play the ukulele. she owns a teal coloured one adorned with various stickers and it’s her prized possession.

do they believe in love at first sight?

no. she believes in immediate attraction, but insists you can’t truly love someone until you have time to form a meaningful connection with them.

who is their love interest?

currently she’s keeping her options open. she figures that you’re only young once and she’s a natural flirt anyway, so at the moment she just wants to go with the flow and see what happens.

what are they afraid of?

she’s developed a phobia of hospitals since her dad got sick.

what are their guilty pleasures?

she’s secretly a huge harry potter nerd.

what was their dream job as a kid? is it still their dream?

she wanted to be a pro surfer. while she still enjoys riding the waves, it’s definitely not something she’d want to pursue as a career. her goal is to work in event planning.

have they ever broken a bone?

no, she hasn’t.

have they ever been in trouble with the law?

only when a house party she attended in high school got busted by the cops. her parents weren’t best impressed when an officer knocked on their door at 2am with a tipsy summer in tow.

+ three other random facts about them!

- her celebrity crush is victoria fontaine- she’s athletic. she was on both the swim team & the cheerleading squad throughout high school.- she has a nightly routine that she never misses. it’s only simple but it’s extremely therapeutic for her: she’ll make herself a mug of cocoa, put on a face mask and climb into bed to fill out her bullet journal for the day until it’s time to take the mask off.

#thank you for this!#*answered #*about my mcs #darley1101

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emybain · 5 years

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Danna and Celeste fluff, please

these two are literally adorable. I wanted to write more, as usual, but then decided to keep it short and sweet. in all honesty I didn't think people would care much about danna having a wife in that Christmas fic I posted forever ago, but I was wrong lol. I personally love celeste, and I really want marissa to at least hint at Danna getting a girlfriend in the third book bc after everything’s she’s been through, sis deserves one. also, side note, i apologize for my french bc 1) im a little rusty bc i havent taken a class in a while and 2) i tried to give context for when it was being spoken. anyways, hope you enjoy! it’s been fun writing this!

Also, as a note to everyone, if you like this fic PLEASE reblog! likes are nice, but reblogging really helps the work spread! always reblog other people's art/music/writing/etc!!!

summary: Danna is 19 and traveling across the world, learning about different cultures and customs. currently, she is in Lyon, France. her next destination is Paris, where she plans on seeing all the major monuments and artworks. however, a run in (literally) with a stranger may push back her trip to Paris a few days, or maybe even longer...

It was a rainy day in Lyon. Most days were rainy in Lyon.

Danna sighed. When she had first come to Lyon a few days ago, she was excited to see that it was raining. Other parts of France that she had visited so far were sunny, which was nice, but she loved rain.

But it had been raining for three days now, and according to locals, that was normal for October.

Danna pulled her sweater closer to her body, getting a sudden chill. In front of her sat her keyboard and tablet. On the tablet sat an open document with detailed notes and comments. For over a year now, she had been travelling the world, visiting country after country and learning new cultures. She wanted to write a book about becoming an active member in the community and giving a voice to people who didn’t have one. But Danna had a problem: she had no idea how to write a book, or even where to start. No number of how-to-write-for-beginners books had come in handy.

She sipped at her black coffee and tapped her stylus against the table she was sitting at. She was at a coffee shop near her hotel, Le Café, if she remembered correctly. She had been holed up in her hotel room all morning and afternoon, having visited most of the city in the first two days, and finally decided to leave in search of inspiration.

So far she had nothing.

Danna set down her stylus and rubbed her eyes. A notification showed up on the top of her tablet. She clicked on it, not even checking to see what it was for. Her messenger app opened, revealing her chat with Ruby. Danna tried to keep in touch with her friends in Gatlon, but the time differences made things hard. While it was currently just after five in the afternoon in Lyon, France, it was only eleven in the mid morning in Gatlon. It wasn’t as bad as when Danna was in Beijing, though. When she was eating lunch, it was still the previous day in Gatlon. Just to give an example.

She looked at the photo Ruby had sent her. It was of a passed out Oscar on the couch of their apartment. Danna snorted. On closer examination, she saw a plate laying in his lap that was scraped clean. Their cat, Craig, was sprawled out across his chest.

thinking of you! how’s france? also, is it okay if we video chat later? everyone’s coming over for game night and we want you to join in!

Danna mulled over the question. If she chose to play with them, it would be well after midnight. It wouldn’t be the first time Danna had joined in on their game nights, a tradition she had once been a part of before leaving Gatlon.

France is great! I miss you guys so much...thinking about a quick trip home. And that depends...what’s the chosen game?

Ruby responded immediately.

ooh yes PLEASE come home!!! craig misses you the most! and the game is your choice!

Danna chuckled. Craig was a good cat.

Will your fiancé be okay with me choosing?

Oscar was the usual game-chooser for game nights, as he knew some good games. He took it personally when someone else wanted to choose. It had since become a running joke in their friend group.

A large group of girls walked into the shop, chattering and laughing loudly. Danna took one glance at them and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. They were around her age, university students. She was sure they were nice people, but did they have to be so loud? In a coffee shop? Hopefully, they were getting drinks to-go.

he will be if i say he will be.

Danna laughed into her coffee cup, snickering silently. Ruby and Oscar had gotten engaged a few months ago. No one was really surprised; they weren’t even twenty yet, but they were the definition of soulmates, perfect for one another. She sent Ruby a laughing image and closed their conversation.

She sighed again, grateful for the distraction. For a few minutes, she just sat there, staring out the window beside her table. People and cars went by. It would be dark pretty soon. The aroma of pastries surrounded her, and her mouth watered. She checked the time, and decided she deserved a quick snack before heading out for dinner.

Grabbing her wallet and turning off her tablet, Danna stood from her table. Only to stumble back and clumsily fall onto her seat as she was immediately drenched in something wet. And cold. Very. Cold.

“Zut alors!” a voice gasped. Danna sat paralyzed, staring down at the iced coffee that was now all over her shirt she had bought in Vienna. “Je suis désolé! Je ne savais pas que vous-”

“Ne vous inquiétez pas à ce sujet.” Danna winced at her accent. She had learned some French when she was younger, but it wasn’t her strongest language. Thankfully, she could at least understand that the person was apologizing, and she knew enough to be able to tell them it was fine. “J’ai besoin de serv...” Her words died in her mouth as she looked up at the girl who spilled her ice coffee on her. It was one of the girls from the loud group of college students. She looked just as shocked as Danna was.

They blinked at one another, and the girl offered a shaky smile. “Serviettes?” she said softly, and Danna nodded numbly, unable to tell if it was from the cold or something else. The girl left and returned shortly with a handful of napkins.

“Merci.” Danna took a few of the napkins and began wiping at her shirt, but to no avail. Hopefully, it would come out in the laundry. The girl busied herself with cleaning up her drink on the floor, blushing furiously. Danna opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by one of the girl’s friends, who hollered at her from across the shop.

“Celeste! Allons-y!” The other girl waved for her friend, Celeste, to go. She and the rest of their group were at the door, waiting for Celeste to join them.

The girl grumbled underneath her breath, too soft for Danna to understand it. “Attends, Annette! Une minute!”

Danna grasped for something to say. After stumbling over a few words, she managed to tell the girl she could go, that Danna could clean the rest. But the girl just smiled and shook her head. Then, she turned her head to the rest of her party of friends and told them to go without her. She would catch up later.

“Est-ce que vous êtes Français?” she asked after her friends left, dropping wet napkins into her spilled cup. Danna shook her head and told her that no, that she was from Gatlon, headquarters for Renegades, and that she spoke English. The girl gasped and looked up at Danna, eyes wide. Danna’s heart lurched. She asked if Danna was a Renegade, and when Danna didn’t answer, she giggled.

“I am joking,” she said with a thick accent, smiling. “That’s not my business.”

“You can speak English?” Danna blinked, surprised. The only English speakers she had come across in France were mainly tourists and shopkeepers who wanted to be able to communicate with their customers.

“Yes. My maman is from Edinburgh, but my papa is from here.” She stood, finished with cleaning her spill. She grabbed Danna’s used napkins and put them in her cup. “I’ll be right back.” She went to a trash can near the order counter, then returned.

“Um...thank you.” Danna swallowed. “I’m Danna, by the way. Danna Bell.” She held out an awkward hand, not really sure why she was introducing herself to a stranger who was going to leave soon anyways.

The girl smiled brightly and accepted her handshake. “Celeste de la Fontaine. It’s a pleasure spilling coffee on you, Danna.”

“Iced coffee, too.” Danna managed to smile in return. “It’s October and freezing outside. Why did you order an iced coffee?”

Celeste giggled, and Danna’s cheeks grew warm. “I don’t like hot coffee. It’s better iced.”

Danna raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re one of those people?” she teased. Immediately, she was surprised how easy it came out. She was usually very stiff around strangers.

“You could say I’m rare,” Celeste retorted. She gestured to the seat across from Danna. “May I sit?”

Danna nodded.

“Your friend sounds like a likeable guy,” Celeste said, unable to contain her laughter as she took a bite of her pastry. “But also very stupid.” Danna had just finished telling Celeste a story about how Oscar had pranked Adrian’s dads and the rest of the Council and gotten away with it. The only people who were truly mad about the main lobby floor being covered from wall to wall in balloons were Thunderbird and Tsunami. Adrian’s dads and Blacklight were highly amused, probably because they knew who was behind the prank, and knew that his accomplice was Adrian, who helped by drawing the balloons. It was a better idea than the one Oscar had originally planned, which involved covering all the walls in papers stating a required inspection of all male Renegades concerning...something Danna would rather not repeat. But then Danna, Nova, and Ruby heard of his plans, and they all took turns in lecturing him on the stupidity of his prank, and how he could potentially offend or scar someone.

Danna snorted. “Yeah. Oscar’s a special one. He annoys me seventy-five percent of the time, but I tolerate him the rest of the time.”

They had been sitting in the coffee shop for over an hour, chatting and laughing. Danna had smiled more in an hour than she had in a year. There was something about Celeste that made Danna be so drawn to her. She was intelligent, kind, and was an activist like Danna, although she only had enough time to spread activist information via social media. She was also pretty, with brown eyes and dark hair and olive toned skin. But there was something else that made Danna’s heart flutter.

One of the workers approached their table and kindly told them that the shop would be closing soon. Danna and Celeste collected their things and threw out their trash. When they stepped outside, now night, they were met with a blast of cold air. Celeste grinned and pulled her jacket tighter around her frame.

“I love the cold.” She breathed in deeply. “Gives me an excuse to wear big sweaters.”

They strolled down the sidewalk, neither in a huge hurry. Danna shifted her bag on her back and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I meant to ask you earlier, but what happened to all of your friends?”

Celeste shook her head, nose scrunched up. “They were going off to some movie that I wasn’t really interested in. Some predictable romantic comedy.”

“So, you just used me to get out of it?” Danna bit her lip, glancing at Celeste, who shot her a full smile, white teeth showing.

“Perhaps.” Maybe it was Danna’s imagination, but she thought she saw Celeste drift closer to her. “Or perhaps I just wanted to stay and talk to you.”

They stopped on a street corner. Danna turned to face Celeste, both of their faces illuminated by the street lamp above them. Celeste’s cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright.

“How long are you in Lyon?” Celeste asked, voice dropping just slightly. Danna knew for a fact that she shifted closer this time. She took note how much shorter Celeste was than her.

Danna toed her boot against the pavement. “I was planning on leaving tomorrow, but I told myself I would stay a little longer if I found something really interesting.”

Celeste nodded slowly. “And?”

Looking down at the ground, then back up at Celeste, suddenly feeling a wave of embarrassment overtake her, Danna said. “I think I can stay for a few more days.”

They exchanged numbers and social medias, Danna promising that they could meet up again before she moved on to Paris.

But something deep inside of Danna told her that she wouldn’t make it to Paris for a while.

#renegades #archenemies #danna bell #asks #my writing #danna has a crushhhh #cuties #dont at me celeste is lana condor okay?#okay #cool #glad we are in agreement

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real-life-pine-tree · 6 years

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Leo Will Never Know: Surviving a New World (10/?)

In an alternate timeline, Yugi indirectly prevented the events of Arc-V from ever happening. But how could this small change have an impact on a few selected people? A spin-off of the Arc-V Aftermath series. Based on the hilarious comic by @justanotherotakuandartist. Co-written with @violetganache42.

Back in the Spirit World, night had fallen across the sandy terrain and the three suns were replaced with a single full moon that was like the on back on Earth. There hasn’t been a single Duel Monster ever since the Harpie Lady Sisters got destroyed, so it was safe to go outside for now. It still doesn‘t mean it was going to be a pleasant experience for everyone, unfortunately; even though a small campfire was lit on one of the school’s structures, the dread still lingered, as heard from a mix of whimpers and sobs.

An annoyed Chazz demanded, “There’s no crying at Duel Academy, so cool it, will ya?”

“We’re sorry, boss,” Ojama Yellow answered. “We’re just getting used to gravity is all.”

“And there are monsters out there,” Ojama Green added.

“That’s right. Real, big, scary, mean monsters,” Ojama Black agreed.

“Hello? You guys are monsters,” Chazz retorted.

Ojama Yellow laughed nervously a little because they were being somewhat hypocritical. “Oh, yeah. Good point, boss,” he said.

“Now let’s see if the three of you can still fly!” Chazz shouted, dealing a blow which sent all three Ojamas off of the building. They all fell onto the dunes, landing on a spot near where Syrus, Alexis, and Hassleberry were standing.

“This really stinks. What if it stays like this forever?” Syrus asked, sounding a bit worried. “Is this really how it’s all gonna end for us?”

“Don’t worry, private,” Hassleberry responded. “There’s probably a rescue team comin’ here right now.”

Alexis simply glanced up at the sky, lost in her thoughts; although she heard what they were talking about, she could tell it would be practically impossible for a standard rescue team to search for them. In her mind, she wondered, But where’s here?

At that moment, Ray showed up with Hope Dragon Flower. "Are you guys hungry?" she asked.

"A little," Syrus complained "But Dorothy said we only have a week's worth of food and water."

"I think I can help with that," Ray said. "Hope Dragon Flower, care to show off your special trick?"

"Of course, mistress," Hope Dragon Flower replied.

A pink aura surrounded the floral dragon’s body, indicating she was activating her special ability. The flowers on her body reacted to the glowing as they drank the energy the aura possessed and their petals curled outwards and sprouted open far wide. When the glowing coat dissipated, its reminants stayed behind in the now fully-bloomed flowers, ranging from roses, hibiscuses, and tulips to violets, lilacs, and irises. It felt like there was an endless variety of the floral plants draping all over Hope Dragon Flower. Normally, this would only occur when utilizing one of her effects during duels, but Ray had just discovered not too long ago there was actually more to it than she initially thought.

She told Hassleberry, Alexis, and Syrus to take any flower they like, so the three walked up to the dragon and picked off three of them. Thanks to the ability’s energy coursing through her, the three flowers that were removed started to bud and bloom again; of course, that was only just the beginning. Ray signaled the three to go ahead and eat the plants they were holding, adding a reminder to pull the petals off to obtain the best flavor. Syrus was the first to try out how edible the flowers were, taking a petal from a red rose and putting it in his mouth; a few seconds in and he was left mesmerized at how delicious it was. Alexis and Hassleberry grew more curious and decided to consume a couple petals from their pink lily and marigold respectively. They also relished in the delicacies with each bite they took. Ray explained she discovered her Hope Dragon’s trick back at the infirmary and how all these flowers have an excellent amount of filling in them, which helped her regain some of her stamina because the lack of food was one of the contributors to her fatigue from earlier.

"So your dragon can supply us with food?" Hassleberry asked.

"She can," Ray confirmed. "Even if we run out of food at the academy, Hope Dragon Flower can produce edible flowers for everyone. I also spoke to Bastion earlier and he told me how he was able to use Water Dragon to stay hydrated. Now we can explore this world without running out of food and water."

"Your Hope Dragons sure are amazing," Syrus praised. "Is there anything they can't do?"

"Well other than function in the real world, nope," Ray jokingly replied.

Back inside, a Duel Disk blade popped out and the Graveyard compartment opened up, resulting in a red light to glow. Very shortly after that, a deck of Duel Monsters cards were placed in the Main Deck slot. It was revealed to be Jim, who was arming himself with his deck in case more threats occur and was accompanied by Jesse as they walked down the hallways.

“Hey, is Adrian okay?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah,” Jim answered. “Miss Fontaine patched him good as new. After a good night’s rest, he’ll be right as right.”

“Hope so,” Jesse said. “Hey, does that croc ever get heavy?”

Meanwhile, at the library, it was still darkened and closed for the time being, which was a perfect time to see how the demon arm has been doing… But wait a minute. Where was the arm? The canister is now completely empty albeit the orange bubbly liquid. This was not going to be good for Adrian, and speak of the devil, he arrived at the library and found the capsule armless, baffling him.

“Huh?” He ran to the table where he left the capsule to get a closer inspection. The arm’s not in there, he thought with a scowl on his face. Where could you have gone? Did someone come in here and take you while I was away? I got to get you back here. He turned around and began running in the opposite direction, initiating his search with one more thought in mind: We had a deal.

He dashed down the stairs where he came up from, headed to his right, and passed the bookcases before reaching the exit. While scurrying down the halls, he continued thinking, I have to find it ‘cause if I don’t, everything would have been for nothing. It owes me.

As for some of the other students, they were all hiding away in the classroom with white blankets covering their entire bodies and leaving their faces uncovered. They were clearly scared and some of their complaints consisting of but not limited to how long they will be stuck away from the island, not wanting to be in this dimension, how scary it is, and wanting to see their mother made it more evident. Among the huddled crowd was Blair and her newfound friend Marcel Bonaparte; there were a few hiccups here and there upon their first meeting at the start of the year, but there were signs showing it was smoothing out…at least for now.

Not too far away from them, the orange ghostly spirit of Viper’s deceased son Pierre skipped down the halls, ready to begin a plan of its own. “I’m sensing a dark soul that will serve me well,” it ominously said. “I feel I’m getting closer. You can’t hide from me. No one can.” The demonic spirit stopped skipping and looked up to sense the source of the dark energy this soul presents. It rose up from the ground and soared to a nearby classroom door.

“He’s here,” it presumed. “I’m sure of it.”

"Hey, um... Marcel?" Blair asked.

"Yes, Blair?" Marcel replied as he lifted up his blanket.

"Will you, uh..." Blair blushed. "Will you come take a walk with me?"

"Where?" Marcel wondered.

"Just...down the hall," Blair answered.

"Don't worry," Marcel reassured as he and Blair left the classroom. "I had to go to dez twilet as well. At least there won't be a line."

"You're so funny," Blair complimented with a small laugh. "Got any other jokes?"

"Sure," Marcel answered. "Knock, knock."

"Who's there?" a nearby voice responded.

Meanwhile, back in Nurse Fontaine's office, Jaden had a hard time sleeping. As Winged Kuriboh cuddled up to him, he sat up in his bed. "Axel?" he asked. "You awake over there?"

Axel glanced at Jaden. "Oh good, you're awake," the Slifer Red student noticed. "Couldn't sleep, huh? I just wanted to say, what you did back there in the lab was really cool. So I owe you one, pal."

"You're welcome, Jaden," Axel replied. "Now get some sleep."

Before Jaden could get a chance to lie back down, Winged Kuriboh woke up and flew out of the bed. He had this strange feeling that something amiss is going on.

“What’s up?” Jaden asked. “Is something wrong?”

All of a sudden, there were two overlapping screams echoing not far from the nurse’s office; one was a boy and the other was a girl. Axel shot up from the bed as the screams subsided and asked, “Did you hear that?”

Jaden nodded in response and added, “Let’s go!”

The duo climbed out of their beds, with Axel heading for the side and Jaden dashing to the bottom to get his shoes. He wanted to stay behind at the infirmary to make sure Ray, Bastion, and Adrian would be fine by tomorrow but with the alert of a new danger, he needed to make sure whoever screamed will be healed up for as long as it will take. Once his shoes were on, he aimed for the door that leads out into the hallway to follow Axel.

As the door slid open, Axel turned to his right to find the source of where the screams came from. “This way,” he instructed Jaden.

With them now out of Fonda’s office, they dashed down the halls to see if any of the students that led out the loud screams got hurt. Surprisingly, in what felt like no time at all, they both caught up with Jesse and Jim.

"Hold up!" Jaden called out.

"Jaden!" Jesse remarked, glad to see his friend. "So you guys heard it too?"

"What, are you kidding me?" Jaden asked in response. "I think the whole academy heard that!"

"We better move it," Axel instructed.

"Right," Jaden agreed.

When the group turned around the corner, they were in for a surprising sight. "It's Blair!" Jaden exclaimed. "What happened?" He picked her up. "Blair, wake up..."

Blair groaned as she opened her eyes. "Jaden.." she weakly said. "It took him... It took Marcel... I tried to stop it, but...it scratched me with this gross-looking hand..."

"What do you mean 'it'?" Jaden asked. "What was it, Blair?"

"Look at that," Axel said as he lifted Blair's arm. "It scratched her. I tell you, I've never seen a scratch like that."

"Blair, hang in there," Jaden advised. "Ms. Fontaine will know how to fix this right up."

"Take her, and we'll go look for Marcel," Jesse said. "Sound good?"

"Alright," Jim agreed.

After everyone else agreed, they all parted in opposite directions; Axel, Jesse, and Jim continued their search to see where Marcel could be while Jaden strayed further away from the trio to heading back to the nurse’s office. He ran as fast as he could as he carried an unconscious Blair in his arms and an anxious Winged Kuriboh floated by to see how severe the peculiar, demonic wound was. In the approximately same amount of time to find her, questions have already flooded Jaden’s mind. I wonder if what attacked Blair is the same thing that attacked Viper on the platform? But why Blair and Marcel? And what’s with that wound?

Jaden inspected the state she was recently stuck in, knowing this wasn’t a natural injury, but hopefully something can be done to make it better. “We’re almost there,” he assured. “Just try to hang on.”

Elsewhere, a forbidding atmosphere was slowly budding in the darkened interior of the library. There was no source of light except for two candleholders on their individual small shelf, carrying three candlesticks each with newly lit flames flickering within the dense shadows. Their combined luminosity unveiled an elevated portion of the floor containing a table with six chairs around it and a throne where Marcel was seen sitting on; however, he had a more eerie appearance as shown by his spikier hair, a grayish-brown cape, and a more menacing glare from his eyes as he stared down onto the floor.

“Who’s in here?” a familiar voice interrogated.

He didn’t glanced up to see a figure of a cloaked Duelist walking up to him, noticing the unnerving change in the library before stopping to see who was sitting in front of him. “Aren’t you that kid Marcel?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” “Marcel” answered as his upper eyelids lowered. He moved his left arm from underneath his cape and rested it on top of the armchair to show him it has been completely corrupted by the recognizable demonic arm in addition to a distorted voice that took over his French accent. “Surprise,” he simply added.

Adrian gasped at this bold move the demon took. “But… I thought we had a deal,” he said before pointing directly at its vessel. “You promised to share your power with me! But now it looks like you got yourself a new plan, so what gives?!”

“Nothing has changed, Adrian. You have my word,” “Marcel” remarked as he stood up, still retaining his dark, evil grin and stare, which made Adrian a bit uncomfortable. “I can still give you the power you desire.” He raised his demonic left arm and made a gesture with his hand that suggests they should reach an agreement. “All I require is that you follow my every command,” he continued, with his voice becoming distorted again.

Adrian didn’t have a response to this per se; everything he heard the demon say rendered him speechless. Everything about its possession over Marcel, from the creepy tweaks to his hair, face, and attire to the transitioning deformity of his voice, was rather unsettling. At the same time, it sounded like it was a entity of its word. All it did was find a temporary host to use until it was satisfied with the results of whatever it has in mind, then it can move on to helping him achieve his personal goals, but…will it all be worth it for him?

Meanwhile, the other students were in line for food. Aside from the academy-provided meals Dorothy was handing out, there was also edible flowers provided by Hope Dragon Flower.

"It's chow time, everybody!" Hassleberry announced.

"Okay guys, come and get it!" Syrus announced. He handed a tray containing bread and a bottle water to Chazz. "Enjoy."

"'Enjoy'?!" Chazz repeated. "This ain't food!"

"It's all we have," Syrus explained.

"Hey Chazz, can we have some?" Ojama Yellow asked.

Chazz groaned. "Ever since you guys became real, all you are is hungry! Go ask them!"

"Sorry, you three," Alexis said. "But we have to ration our food, so you'll have to ask Hope Dragon Flower."

Next to the table containing the rations of bread and bottled water was another line forming for the floral treats provided by Ray and Hope Dragon Flower. After giving them out to her friends as a snack last night, she figured the whole school could use some of the flowers, and once Bastion feels better and gets cleaned up, he’ll join up with her and provide more amble supplies of water from his Water Dragon. The Ojama trio have heard about Hope Dragon Flower’s ability and how it can be used for survival purposes, so them falling down to the ground was good timing on their part; at least they don’t have to eat Chazz’s loaf of bread.

“Come on! Hurry up!”

Chazz turned his head to see three impatient Ra Yellow students standing behind him. The yelling came from the one in the middle, who had shaved brown hair, small, circular glasses, and a voice that sounds strangely and exactly identical to the protagonist of an easily recognizable and iconic ‘90s shonen action anime.

“It’s our turn! We got to eat too!” he continued.

Chazz simply turned away from them, much to their disdain. “We’re starving,” the grayish-brunette student added.

“Now move it, buddy!” the spectacled student demaned.

"Be quiet!" Dorothy spoke up. "We're all here together, so we can't run out of supplies. I hope you understand, but we don't even have enough food for Pharaoh." She noticed the cat nuzzling up against her leg. "No matter how he tries to butter me up."

Meanwhile, in Nurse Fontaine's office, Blair was sleeping peacefully. Thanks to Hope Dragon Bird's feathers and large wings, she provided a proper cushion for the Slifer Red Student.

"I'm worried about Blair," Bastion said. "The school doesn't have the proper resources to treat her. We must get back to our world before her condition worsens. I'm sure a real hospital would be more than capable of helping her."

"You're right," Jaden agreed. "But at least Ray let her borrow Hope Dragon Bird."

Blair stirred in her sleep, causing Hope Dragon Bird to nuzzle her. "I am glad to provide assistance to this young human girl," the dragon spoke up. "Any friend of my mistress is a friend of mine. However, I do not provide the proper healing supplies she needs, so I all I can do is make sure she is properly rested."

"You mustn't worry," Bastion advised. "It's clear that Blair appreciates your help."

"But there's gotta be something we can do," Jaden said. "Right, Ms. Fontaine?"

"Unfortunately we've run out of the medicine we need," Ms. Fontaine reported. She gave Jaden a small list. "Now unless you know where to find a first aid kit with all these medications, Blair's condition will only worsen."

Jaden looked at the list. "That's a pretty long list," he commented.

"Did she say 'first aid kit'?" Bastion checked. "The submarine! I saw one stranded in the desert. It must have a first aid kit on board!"

"You think Crowler will let us go?" Jaden wondered.

"Probably not," Bastion pointed out. "We better ask Ray to accompany us. Surely Crowler will let us go if she's with us."

Sure enough, he was right. Because she was one of his favorite students, there was no way Crowler wouldn’t let them go off in the desert on their own; besides, since there was a year difference between Ray, Jaden, and their friends’ ages, she is more than capable of being their chaperone.

"I see..." Crowler said once Jaden finished explaining. "Well as long as Ms. Akaba is accompanying you, I don't see a problem." He looked over at Ray. "But are you sure about this? Two of your dragons are currently busy."

"It's alright," Ray replied. "I still have Hope Dragon Wind and Hope Dragon Moon. I can duel with just them."

"Very well," Crowler decided. "Just make sure everyone comes back in one piece."

“Don’t worry,” Axel reassured. “If I’m with them, nothing’s gonna happen.”

“You got that right, mate,” Jim concurred. “You see, Axel and I have both recently taken dueling in the desert, one-on-one." He looked over at Axel. "Now show 'em what else we've got."

Axel took out some notebooks. "Student notebooks?" Syrus asked.

"Correct," Axel confirmed. "But once we've reconfigure their hard drives, we can use the notebooks as if they were global positioning homing beacons. Which will help guide us back to Duel Academy."

"Just don't take too long," Crowler advised. "It's bad enough the vice chancellor is fretting over one of the student's disappearance. I don't want any more students vanishing."

"It's alright, Dr. Crowler," Ray replied. "I'm sure we'll all make it back in one piece."

Moments later, the students departed the Academy and split up into two groups to carry out their mission. Jaden, Jesse, Ray, Axel, and Jim were all geared up and near the sandy dunes whereas Hassleberry, Syrus, Chazz, and Alexis were closer to the Academy’s entrance.

“So here’s the game plan: we’ll look for the first-aid kid and you guys guard Duel Academy,” Jaden proposed.

“Sure,” Chazz acknowledged. “If trouble comes looking for us, me and my Ojamas will handle it. Right?”

The Ojama trio cowered behind their boss, grabbing a hold on either his shoulder or resting on top of his spiky, black hair and whimpering out of fear. Unlike what usually happens when they tend to get like this, Chazz raised both eyebrows and had a surprised expression as his reaction; he should’ve seen that coming.

“I’m going with you, Jaden,” Adrian declared as he walked towards the group setting out to find the submarine.

“Okay, but I thought that you were hurt,” Jaden recalled.

“I’m feeling much better,” Adrian informed. “Plus, after Ray saved me from that Harpie, it’s the least I can do to say thanks.”

“Cool. Sounds good,” Jaden replied before turning his head to see Jesse. “We should head out.”

“Yeah,” Jesse responded as he nodded in agreement. “Let’s go find us a submarine.”

“You got it,” Adrian stated.

“Chazz, good luck,” Jaden encouraged.

“Luck is for losers,” Chazz retorted.

“See ya,” Hassleberry and Syrus both said, which was followed with the former giving some quick advice. “Duel first. Ask questions later.”

With all said and done, Jaden, Jesse, Ray, Axel, Adrian, and Jim all set out back into the sandy terrains in search of the submarine Bastion saw; given the path he took when they found him reuniting with the Duel Academy alumni, it would hopefully give them some kind of clue as to where it would be. Wherever it is, the first aid kit was absolutely essential if they wanted to patch up Blair’s abnormal scratch wound and bring her fever down. There’s no telling what will happen to her if her condition worsens.

Shortly after they initiated their expedition, Adrian went back into his thoughts again, determined to make sure the others don’t find out about his true colors. This excursion is providing the perfect cover for me to find that sub and cover my tracks ‘cause if these guys find out about that card I’m after, my plans could be in serious jeopardy, he internally monologued while turning around to look back at the Academy. And I can keep him happy by watching Jaden’s every move.

On top of the school’s structures, the demon-possessed Marcel was standing behind one of the walls, peeking on Adrian as the six students trailed further and further away. Everything was going according to plan. “Watch them well, Adrian. You work for me, now,” he commanded in a low voice so that no one hears him. He moved the attached demon arm out of his cloak and angled it at around 90 degrees, causing it to mutate it appearance. Bone-like features ingrained within its composition surfaced on top and expanded outward to form a custom Duel Disk that looked nothing like the ones made by KaibaCorp or the ones at Duel Academy.

“Now to send Jaden a little welcoming present,” “Marcel” schemed with his mouth forming an evil smirk and his voice sounding distorted once again. He took out a card and placed it onto one of his Monster Zones, reading it with a briefly lit green light.

"What now?" Jesse asked after a bit of wandering around.

"Well Jess," Jaden replied. "Since our Duel Monsters are real, I thought we'd just fly to the sub."

"I can take it from here," Ray said as she took out two cards from her deck. "I don't want any of your monsters to get involved in accidental duels."

"You sure?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Ray insisted. "My Hope Dragons should be big enough to fly us over there." She activated her Duel Disk and put her cards on it. "Come on out, Hope Dragon Wind and Hope Dragon Moon!"

The sky increased in brightness for a short time, enveloping the three suns as trails of lunar energy soared from over the horizon and flowed to where Ray was standing. It may be daytime where they are right now, but somewhere within the Duel Monsters dimension, it is already night because the moon never leaves the atmosphere. At the same time, gusts of winter winds sailed across the land and blew from below her feet, forming large tornadic spirals around her that sent smalls chills up her spine. The combination of the lunar energy and the winter winds condensed into one glowing white sphere with a windy atmosphere, almost like Neptune, until it imploded on itself and bursted out cold air coated with stars and snowflakes. As the smoke cleared, Hope Dragons Wind and Moon hovered side by side in the spot where the sphere once was.

"You want us to use your dragons as transportation?" Adrian asked.

"Aw, don't worry about it," Hope Dragon Wind reassured as she and Hope Dragon Moon knelt down. "We can carry all of you with ease."

"But please slow down, sister," Hope Dragon Moon advised as Ray climbed onto her clawed hand. "You tend to be a speedy flyer."

"Geez, I know!" Hope Dragon Wind. "I know better than to fly my usual way with humans on my back!"

"Come on, you two," Ray said. "We can worry about that later. Time to find that sub!"

#Arc V Aftermath #Leo Will Never Know #yugioh arc v #Zarc (arc v)#Ray Akaba #ZarcRay #GenesisShipping

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queenbeyondthewalll · 6 years

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In Memory of Tina Fontaine

Over three years ago, in August of 2014, a fifteen year old Indigenous girl named Tina Fontaine disappeared from the hotel room Child and Family Services (CFS, the Canadian version of the American Child Protective Services, or CPS) had placed her in. She was originally from the Sagkeeng First Nation, a Reserve in Manitoba, not that far from Winnipeg, where I live. Tina had been through tragedy; in 2011, when she was twelve, her father Eugene was diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live. He didn’t even get that- one day, he got in an argument with two supposed friends (Nicholas Abraham and Jonathan Starr) and a fight started. The two men beat Eugene Fontaine repeatedly, for hours, and then dragged him outside to a shed and left him tied up, with no shirt on a cold fall night. He died, cold and beaten. It affected Tina deeply, as you can imagine. According to her family, she was unable to cope and began drifting away.

One of many tragedies in this whole thing are the killers; Nicholas Abraham was raised by violent alcoholics, experienced abuse from young childhood, ended up in CFS care for most of his life after both his parents went to prison when he was five. Jonathan Starr is even worse: he also ended up in CFS care, and was subjected to, according to his lawyer, “horrific physical and sexual abuse”. To top it off, he had rather severe Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, to the point where, mentally, he had the mental capacity of about a ten year old. I share this information not to excuse their actions, but to paint a picture of the kind of cycles of abuse, addiction, and violence Indigenous people go through.

Tina’s mother, Valentina Duck, lived in Winnipeg (Tina had mainly been raised by her great-aunt, Thelma Favel), and in June of 2014, Tina and her sister Sarah traveled to Winnipeg to visit their mother. They were meant to stay for a week, but Sarah almost immediately left to go back home. Thelma gave Tina a long-distance call card in case she wanted to leave earlier. Tina didn’t call, but she did run away, and during the next few weeks, Tina met both Cody Mason, an eighteen year old she began dating and who offered her a place to stay- his father’s house- where she did stay for about two weeks, and the man recently ruled not guilty in her death, fifty year old Raymond Cormier.

Tina’s involvement with authorities was when her great-aunt Thelma Favel called CFS on July 17th, worried because she hadn’t heard from Tina in weeks. CFS picked her up and placed her in the Capri Motel, where she left almost immediately. This might be a good time to say that since Tina, the practice of placing children in CFS in hotels and motels has since been banned in Manitoba, but before that it was very common. This led to many children and teenagers- especially those who had just been apprehended, many of whom didn’t feel they were abused or in danger, whether that’s true or not- being unsupervised and, as you may expect, many runaways. These were children and teenagers who were predominately already at the highest risk of going missing, being murdered, or being exploited. The reason they put kids in hotels- which other provinces still do- is because they simply apprehend too many kids to have places in foster or group homes for them all. I will say I know for a fact some people who are in various types of social work have called what’s been going on with the apprehended children, especially since the Phoenix Sinclair case (that is a whole other story and honestly too sad for me to do the amount of research I’m doing on this one), the ‘new residential school system’ or a ‘second sixties scoop’. But I digress.

Tina had been reported missing on July 18th, after she went AWOL from the motel. She was picked up by a social worker and taken to the Ndinawe group home on July 23rd. On July 26th, she missed the 10:30pm curfew and was reported missing just after midnight, although she showed up again at Ndinawe a few hours later. Around this time, Tina wanted to go home, according to a family friend. He and his girlfriend had recently had a baby, and were going to Sagkeeng for a visit. Tina wanted to catch a ride with them, but by the time she messaged them on July 28th, they had already left.

She missed curfew at Ndinawe again on July 30th, and was reported missing on July 31st, although her aunt would later say she had stayed with her from August 1st to 3rd. On August 5th, Tina phoned her CFS worker and was picked up by the police and CFS. August 6th, her boyfriend, Mason, flew back to his home community, St. Theresa Point First Nation, a reserve in Northern Manitoba. Upset, Tina rode a bike to the place Cormier was with two other people she knew, Sarah Holland and Tyrell Morrison. Some time that evening, Cormier borrowed the bike Tina had to go buy weed. He apparently traded the bike for two grams, which Cormier claims is what she and him argued about that night, and the reason Tina left around 10pm. Other witnesses, however, testified she left because Cormier was being inappropriate. They also told the court Tina had threatened to call the cops about the truck full of tools Cormier had stolen that day.

She did, in fact, call 911 about the truck shortly after she left. On the call, which you can hear here, Tina tells the 911 operator her friend Sebastian- the name Cormier had been going by that summer- had stolen a truck. As this was not an emergency, the 911 operator told her she needed to call the police directly, giving her the number and instructions on talking to a person. As she was on a payphone, and may not have had the change needed to call a non-emergency number, it seems like she didn’t. Robert Sango (a man who, in full disclosure, was on parole and living at a half-way house, but doesn’t seem to have any reason to lie) testified that he was near the payphone smoking when she used it, and after she hung up asked for a smoke and sat with him. He testified that Tina told him she had been at a friend’s house, but left because an older man was making moves on her. She said she was scared someone was following her and that she had no place to go. He said when she left, she headed in the direction of “a friend’s house”.

On August 8th, around 5am, police pulled over a truck that was “driving suspiciously”. Inside were the driver, a man with a suspended license who was taken into custody, and Tina Fontaine. The man later told court he had picked her up off the street after driving around, looking for a girl to “hang out with”. It doesn’t take a genius to translate that into ‘pay for sex’. Tina gave police two fake names before giving her real one, afraid she was in trouble. One of the cops told his partner, a new recruit, to search her name. The new recruit testified he saw that she had been a missing person previously, but didn’t see a current missing persons alert on her name, although at that time she definitely was. Tina didn’t appear to be in any distress, and as the new recruit had failed to notice the missing persons alert, they let her go.

A few hours later, security footage in a parkade show Tina taking shelter from the rain, lying down between two parked cars, and falling asleep. Half an hour later, around 10am, two people walking through the parkade saw Tina and went to alert security. When the security guard was unable to wake Tina, she called 911. Paramedics showed up around 10.30am and were able to wake her, although she seemed disoriented and was “struggling with knowing where she was and who she was”, according to the security guard, who also said she had what looked like either mosquito bites or cigarette burns on her legs which looked “awful” (having lived in Winnipeg my entire life, I would not be surprised in the slightest in there were mosquito bites, but this is speculation), and a blister on her lip. Paramedics took her to the Children’s Hospital, who contacted CFS. She was looked over by a doctor, who took blood and urine samples. The doctor was worried Tina was being sexually exploited, but Tina refused a physical exam and wouldn’t answer questions. The doctor testified “I tried to counsel her, get her to open up to me. I told her about the dangers she could be in. I tried to urge her not to run away from CFS.” Not long after that, CFS worker Kimberly Chute showed up and stayed with Tina until she was discharged.

Kimberly took Tina to McDonalds to get something to eat after they left the hospital in an effort to get Tina to open up, something she says she does with many kids in her care. Tina did open up some, telling Kimberly she had lost her bike, and that she had been hanging out with a much older guy she called by the name Cormier had been using, ‘Sebastian’, who she said used meth, who was going to get her a new bike. Kimberly tried not to make a big deal about it in an effort not to scare Tina off and get her to open up some more, and told her that CFS could help her get a new bike. That evening, Kimberly dropped Tina off at a Best Western hotel in downtown Winnipeg, where CFS had placed her. Tina told her she was planning on meeting some friends at Portage Place mall, a place where drugs commonly dealt and children and teenagers are known to be exploited. Kimberly tried to convince Tina to stay at the hotel, but there was no way for her to physically prevent her from leaving, and turned her over to a respite worker, Ngozi Ikeh, who also tried to convince Tina to stay at the hotel, but was also unable to convince her. Tina left soon afterwards. She was reported missing for the fifth and final time after she hadn’t returned by midnight on August 9th. Eight days later, on August 17th, she was found dead in the Red River, wrapped in garbage bags and a duvet cover, weighed down with rocks. She is believed to have died August 10th, the day after she was reported missing.

The evidence that Cormier killed her or was even just involved somehow, whether during or after the fact, are these: to start off with, he knew her. He was a fifty year old man hanging out with a fifteen year old, who Mason says gave them a place to sleep despite being homeless himself. Mason also testified that Cormier gave him and Tina pills- gabapenton, an increasingly common drug on the streets that’s prescribed generally for nerve pain and epilepsy. Cormier had been staying in a tent in Ida Beardy’s backyard that summer, and she testified that he had a lot of blankets (unsurprisingly, for a homeless person who lives in a city where there’s often snow six months a year and the temperature drops to -40) and both she and her daughter testified that one of these blankets, a duvet cover which he used to air out on her fence, matched the one Tina’s body was found wrapped in. The duvet cover was identified as one only sold at Costco, and furthermore one of only 100 sold in Winnipeg. Ida Beardy also says she told him to leave after he smashed her BBQ after his bike was stolen, demonstrating anger problems and violent tendencies. Although no one reported this to the police, and is not on the record of any kind, at least one woman had been attacked by him before. He is recorded saying he wanted to sleep with Tina, and got angry when he found out she was only fifteen. We know Tina and him fought a few days before her death, and according to the testimony of Robert Sango, Tina had left when Cormier made moves on her and afterwards, even away from him, felt afraid and thought someone was following her.

And, of course, we have the recording of him saying Tina “got killed because we, I, found out she was fifteen”, which along with his anger about her age, his concern about people thinking he was a pedophile, and his pursuit of her, really all add up to him admitting he killed her.

But between the river washing any DNA evidence away, the lack of eyewitnesses to the murder itself, and the relentless idea that because Tina- a fifteen year old girl- might have involved in sex work, did some drugs, and was a runaway, somehow that means her death was just what is to be expected, Cormier was pronounced not guilty.

Here’s the thing: it’s not just that Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people are more likely to be killed or go missing. It’s not just the Highway of Tears, or the fact that a volunteer group was started called ‘Drag the Red’ to do exactly that: these volunteer civilians- trained by volunteer forensic anthropologists and volunteer archaeologists- search the banks of the Red River and drag fish hooks down the bottom of the muddy water Winnipeg takes it’s name from, hoping to find bodies and/or evidence- every single person who lives here knowing there are bodies down in the zero visibility water (since the group has started dragging the Red, several bodies have been found, and while it’s not by them, they note that several times the day before the body was found they had been on the river and caught a snag on something heavy. They believe they’re dislodging bodies). It’s not teenagers writing letters asking to be buried in the red dress that has become a symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women if they were to be murdered. It’s not even the systematic, generational abuse and trauma Indigenous peoples have experienced in Canada for generations upon generations. Being forced onto Reserves, having their children stolen, active and passive genocide. It’s not just the huge, blaring things.

It’s the teachers I had in elementary school that called their students ‘stupid Indi**s’ to their faces. It’s my best friend in grade six not coming back from lunch, being missing all afternoon, and not a single adult questioning where she was- I learned the next day she was fine, she had found a dog running around and went along with the dog instead of going to school, meaning an eleven year old girl at a high statistical danger of becoming another name on the list of MMIW was wandering around busy streets for hours and not a single adult that was supposed to be looking after her gave a damn. It’s the flasher that stalked two of my Metis friends to school and back home for weeks when we were nine that, again, no adult thought to do anything about. It’s another girl I was friends with when I was seven who came to school with broken fingers, told the teacher her brother had slammed her hand in a door repeatedly, and was sent home (BACK TO HER BROTHER) because her hand was too busted to hold a pencil. It’s the numerous teachers who consistently put the Indigenous kids in lower level spelling and the non-Indigenous appearing kids in high level spelling, meaning while kids who could spell circles around me were being assumed to be uneducated by default and weren’t permitted to learn more than what they already knew, kids (like me) who couldn’t spell shit were assumed to be advanced.

It’s the crowdsourced taxi services for Indigenous women in Winnipeg because taxis are dangerous as fuck for women to get in here. It’s the Bear Clan Patrol, another group of volunteer civilians who act as a sort of safety patrol for the most dangerous parts of Winnipeg. It’s that the majority of Indigenous children from reservations only have two choices, when it comes to high school- drop out, or go to the city to attend school (imagine yourself, about to start high school; imagine any ninth graders you know, and imagine them leaving home for a much larger city all alone. Some have family to stay with. Some don’t). It’s that the Manitoba Museum had the body of an Inuit man displayed until someone- I believe in the 70s, or possibly the 80s- looked at that and realized it was fucked up to have a dead guy there’s no proof wanted to be an exhibit in a museum displayed like he was one and they gave him back to his family. I don’t know who the person to realize it was fucked up was. Maybe they worked at the museum. Maybe the family themselves did. It’s that Residential Schools- the schools opened with the express purpose to ‘breed out the Ind**n’ by forcibly removing children from their culture and beating them if they tried to speak their languages or practice their faiths or traditions- were open during my life time. It’s that Indigenous children in foster care sometimes get their hair forcibly cut, something very much against many Tribe’s culture and beliefs. It’s the quiet deaths of babies, children, and teenagers in CFS care. It’s the nine year olds hanging themselves, the ten year olds starting gangs for safety and the money to support families that don’t have an adult checked in enough to provide either. It’s the teenage girl that got kicked off a bus for wearing a ‘Got Land?’ shirt. It’s the addiction, and mental illness, and homelessness, and lack of support. It’s the bruises I’ve seen from police brutality. It’s the mural made for the 150th Canada Day painted over in the night with words of resistance which were immediately covered. It’s the statues of white men who led genocide being allowed, but Louis Riel still being considered a traitor by the Canadian government. It’s the small, insidious things that creep in and don’t let go, until your culture is gone, your children are gone, your land and tradition and religion and people are gone.

We don’t know the true number of MMIWG since 1980, but recent studies by the RCMP show over a thousand cases of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people going missing or their bodies being found murdered.

Indigenous men make up about 3% of Canada’s population, but 25% of imprisoned men in Canada are Indigenous.

Roughly 170 Indigenous communities do not have access to clean water. Many only have running water in the too short summer. Some don’t have running water at all.

Indigenous children under fourteen make up over 52% of those in CFS care in Canada. In Manitoba alone, a province with 1.3 million people- 17% of which are Indigenous- Indigenous children make up 90% of the 10,700 in CFS care.

Indigenous people are almost six times more likely to get tuberculosis than other Canadians, and in Nunavut, they are THIRTY-EIGHT TIMES MORE LIKELY.

I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what more one can say to convince someone there’s a problem, a deep, embedded problem, dug into the stolen land we sit on. I don’t know what to suggest to fix these problems. Fix the train bridge to Northern Manitoba, help build the Freedom Road Shoal Lake 40 is building in an attempt to have access to clean water, since the water diverted for them makes you sick, put in place better supports for Indigenous families when CFS gets involved, force the police to care. There isn’t an easy fix. Not for any of it, really, without a lot of money and a huge shift in ingrained racism. But I think we could start off by actually giving justice to the people who abuse, assault, and kill Indigenous people, Indigenous children.

#Tina Fontaine #MMIWG #missing and murdered indigenous women #missing and murdered indigenous women and girls #Canada #various writings #Winnipeg

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heroesandvillainsofmbti · 7 years

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DS9 MBTI VIPs

DS9’s just bursting at the seams with memorable characters—the family, friends, and enemies that populate the corridors and make the station feel like a live, busy place. Not all of them spend enough time on board to provide material for a full profile, and most of them leave us just as they get interesting. So here’s a quick round up of some of the VIPs who have visited DS9, with my best guess as to their types.

(Note: I realized just I finished this post that all but two of these characters are dead by the end of the series. Well, two-and-a-half, depending on your perception of Opaka’s situation. DS9’s a nice place to live, but a dangerous place to visit.)

Tora Ziyal

It’s my theory that Ziyal actually changes type, because she was recast twice and reinvented just before her final arc.

Ziyal-A (Cyia Batten) is a young but tough girl who’s survived growing up in a prisoner-of-war camp, and finds herself in a weird limbo even after being rescued, thanks to her mixed heritage and the fact that her father is a monster. She’s guarded and naïve in equal measure, ready to fight but not quite steady on her feet. Kira sort of adopts her like a little sister, and I very much think she sees her younger self in Ziyal.

Ziyal-B (Tracy Middendorf) is roughly the same, observing Garak quietly from a distance before making the first move. She tells him she grew up alone and doesn’t need the company of another Cardassian, but he’s welcome to join her nonetheless.

Best guess for original Ziyal: ISFP

Ziyal-C is played by an older actress (Melanie Smith) to make her relationship with Garak less creepy (no dice), and she’s outgoing, chipper, and over-trusting. She’s a bit deluded about her father’s true nature, whereas original Ziyal understood but stuck by him because he was her only family bond. She shows great artistic talent (I really like Ziyal’s artwork, actually), but she leaves the art school on Bajor because she can sense that no one likes or accepts her. She really just wants her father and Kira to stop fighting and get along.

She is, by the writers’ own admission, an innocent puppy crafted specifically to gain the audience’s sympathy before they killed her off. A daughter-in-the-fridge, if you will.

Best guess for final Ziyal: Fe-dom, probably ENFJ

(I love original Ziyal to pieces. The actress was quiet yet intense. The next actress was okay, but was doing a weird accent. The third actress referred to her character in interviews as “Tora,” which sounds like no one explained how her character’s Bajoran name worked. She would have been fine in any other role, but lacked the interesting edge of Ziyal-A.)

Damar - ESTJ

Damar spends a lot of time in the background before rising to the occasion at the end of the saga. It’s one of DS9’s great magic tricks that he was cast early on with barely a line of dialogue in anticipation of a greater storyline down the road. Damar hangs back from the major action at first, acting moody and reserved because he’s drinking his conscience away—so I see inferior-Fi at work there.

Damar is otherwise a traditional family man and a loyal Cardassian, and once his family and his world are betrayed by their supposed allies, he puts down the bottle and leads a revolution. His leadership turns him into a legend almost overnight, but he does have a lot to learn from Kira about the new way they have to fight—rebel-style, not regular military. He eventually drives the Dominion off his planet, at the cost of his own life.Dominion off his planet, at the cost of his own life.

Bill Ross - ISTJ

Admiral Ross is a low-key, trusty old officer, one of the few higher-ups to break the “Every Admiral in Starfleet is a Crazy Person” trend. He does make a couple of dicey calls—helping a Section 31 operation and supporting the Romulans’ base near Bajor—but they’re all in service to his duty to the Federation.

Opaka - INFJ

I hate to go with the stereotype here, but Bajor’s great religious leader is a very obvious Ni-dom. The Kai sees everything though a spiritual lens, and bases her decisions on what she believes is her destiny—or Sisko’s. She makes a tough call for the greater good of the Bajoran people, sacrificing the life of her son in order to save many more, and she gives up her life on Bajor to help a planet of people she’s just met find peace.

(And I promise I’ll stop geeking out about the technically-non-canon post-TV novels, but her given name in them is Sulan, which I think is perfect and lovely.)

Bareil Antos - INFJ

Another spiritual stereotype, but it fits. Bareil takes a calm, spiritually-minded approach to life, and tries to help the anxious ISFP Kira calm down and see the bigger picture of her existence. Of course, he happily indulges in the sensual side of their relationship, too. He’s willing to take the fall for Opaka’s sacrifice of her son to avoid tarnishing her legendary reputation, and then he ends up sacrificing his own life by working himself to death helping Winn complete peace negotiations with the Cardassians.

Gowron - ESTP

The Chancellor of the Klingon Empire lives with a very damaged version of Se-dom. He’s more reactive than pro-active, constantly striking out at those that insult and threaten him (tertiary-Fe). He plunges his people into war based on a vaguely defined paranoia about Changelings (inferior-Ni), and seems to forget that Picard helped him gain his throne as soon as he has power, making up a whole new mythology about his ascent to leadership.

When Martok’s popularity starts to overshadow his own, Gowron takes over the fleet in the middle of the Dominion War and assigns Martok to dangerous missions in an effort to get him killed (tertiary-Fe again). He’s nowhere near the strategist or commander that Martok is (disorganized, damaged Ti-aux, probably not even in use since he’s most likely looping through his Extraverted functions), and the Klingons start losing badly.

Any parallels to real-life leadership are purely coincidental, but uncanny.

Gowron won’t acknowledge the reality of the situation, so Worf—who basically handed Gowron the throne many years ago by taking out his rival—takes Gowron down and hands the mantle to Martok.

Kurn – ESTP

Kurn is action-driven and wily, a hot-headed younger brother to the stoic Worf who’s nonetheless a strong commander in his own right. He boards the Enterprise under a pretense, provoking Worf until he’s sure he can reveal their family connection. The two brothers fight for their family’s honor, and Kurn reluctantly obeys Worf’s wishes to turn his back on him and pretend they’re not related in order to protect himself. Once they clear their father’s name and get to fight together, Kurn’s overjoyed and wishes they had been able to be brothers from the start.

He’s farsighted enough to see the dangers Gowron poses to the Empire, impetuous enough to want to kill him right away, but cautious enough to follow his older brother’s guidance and wait the situation out. Unfortunately, once Gowron dissolves their house, Kurn loses all hope for the future and tries to kill himself. Trying to start a new life under Starfleet/Bajoran military discipline does not suit him at all.

So (*ugh*) Worf wipes his memory and sends him off with a new family. Shortly before their house’s honor is restored again.

Sorry, Kurn. You put up a good fight.

Luther Sloane – INTJ

It’s hard to tell if the Sloane we meet in the Section 31 episodes is the real Luther Sloane, or some sort of crazy person who managed to put up an organized façade to carry out his nefarious schemes. Despite an arresting performance by William Sadler, he’s pretty much a standard INTJ villain, with plans worked out hundreds of steps in advance, with far-reaching objectives only he comprehends. His morality extends only to keeping the Federation safe and secure, by any means necessary.

Enabran Tain – INTJ

As the leader of the Obsidian Order, Tain’s another INTJ supervillain, but with mastermind chops that would have put Sloane to shame if they ever met. He sees the impending threat of the Dominion and comes out of retirement to put together a combined Cardassian-Romulan task force to pre-emptively strike at the Founders. He has a handful of old colleagues assassinated so that they won’t interfere, and is willing to kill Garak, too. He’ll never admit that Garak was his son, because a man like him can’t have that kind of emotional liability. When his secret task force is ambushed by an overwhelming Jem’Hadar fleet, Tain has a meltdown over his failure to foresee this outcome.

Vic Fontaine – ESFJ

He’s just an old-fashioned lounge singer, baby, with a hundred stories to tell about the glory days of Vegas. He’s always there with a listening ear and simple advice when someone walks in with a broken heart. Vic somehow understands that he’s a hologram, and transcends his programming to hop holosuites and manipulate Kira and Odo together in spite of themselves. He’s excited by the new, round-the-clock life Nog offers him, though it tires him out quite a bit. Raise a glass, and try to figure out how he exists as an actual human in the Mirror Universe.

Morn

He’s an Extravert, don’t you know? You can’t shut this guy up.

#MBTI #Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #Ziyal #Damar #Admiral Ross #Kai Opaka #Vedek Bareil #Gowron #Kurn #Luther Sloane #Enabran Tain #Vic Fontaine #Morn

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beauty-andtheblonde-blog · 7 years

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Hello lovelies!

Do I have some things to share! For those of you who may not be familiar, RuPaul is an Iconic drag queen who started making the art of drag a more mainstream and widely accepted community through means of being the first drag queen to land a cosmetic campaign (with MAC nonetheless), raising money for aids research, and more popularly known- hosting shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Drag U; shows that bring “undiscovered” queens with unmatched talent into the spotlight. Ru’s empire has been growing consistently since the start of his career, so a convention seemed like the obvious next step and DragCon was born!

Overview

DragCon has something for every kind of drag fan, which made for a diverse crowd. Meet and Greet’s were going on all day for those of us who had specific queens we wanted to meet (stay tuned for my post about meeting Cynthia Lee Fontaine tomorrow!). There were also dozens of vendors with all kinds of padding, jewelry, and costumes for queens that were in attendance, and there were a few cosmetic companies and other miscellaneous vendors as well! OCC, Jefree Star, Sugarpill, Ardell, Alcone, and Ricky’s NYC were all there, so I got to pick up some staple products and play with new ones! Each queen also had their own booth to sell their merchandise in, and there were some companies selling patches, pins, artwork, clothing, and pretty much anything else you can think of!

I will say, it was so crowded. This was great for all the business owners and vendors, but as a guest, it was so hard to actually do anything at the show. Lines to get into booths were crazy, which is expected. The length of the lines didn’t bother me as much as the lack of organization did. The last event I was at that was as crowded as DragCon had very distinct lines and labels. A lot of our time was spent asking what line we were in, and maneuvering around a line we accidentally got stuck in. It was just so difficult to get into booths; even the ones that weren’t that crowded. I really just felt like I was getting herded like a cow. Because the queens who had booths were doing meet and greets in their own booths, instead of a designated area, the situation only got worse as more queens came out for photos. If there was a designated area for queens to hold their meetings and take photos, I feel like the show floor would have been a lot less congested and things would have moved more smoothly. This being said, please don’t take this as me not liking the event. I had so much fun.

First of all, you could tell that everyone in the ballroom was so genuinely accepting of everyone who attended, and everyone there had some degree of love and appreciation for the art of drag. Seeing this kind of love and coexistence in such time of political unrest and social discrepancies made me feel like there are still good people in the world. You could literally walk into this event and find every kind of gender, race, identity, and orientation. I would bet money on the fact that not a single person felt out of place or underrepresented there. It always amazes me how the communities that are so often subjected to hate and discrimination, are the same ones to embrace whoever might stumble upon them.

As far as shopping goes, the booths I did some damage in on Saturday were Sugarpill, OCC, Ricky’s NYC, Strange Ways, Madame Whiskers, the DragCon booth, and Farrah Moan’s booth. Keep reading to find out what new thing I got to play with!

Day One- Shopping!

Sugarpill

The line for Sugarpill was bearable and pretty easy to maneuver; definitely not the worst line of the day! There was a show discount of about $2 per item. So, eyeshadow pans were $8 instead of $10, pressed shadows were $10 instead of $12 and so on and so forth. I picked up three eyeshadow pans and one liquid lipstick. I desperately wanted the shade Dollipop- a bright pink that happens to be Farrah Moan’s signature pink eyeshadow. But, unsurprisingly the shade quickly sold out. I did end up with Kim Chi (left), Velocity (right), and Poison Plum (center), as well as the Strange Love liquid lipstick. I definitely plan on using these shadows for day 2 so stay tuned to see what I come up with!

OCC (Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics)

OCC was having an awesome show deal and there was no line at all! The staff was super friendly and welcoming, and let you take as long as you needed to play around with samples and decide what you wanted to purchase (I was definitely having some trouble deciding what color glitters I wanted). I ended up with two glitters, a liquid lip, and a lip liner! Spoiler, I use this blue glitter for day 2 as well.

Ricky’s NYC

Ok, I told myself I WAS NOT going to spend money at Ricky’s since I go there more often than I’d like to admit. BUT, in my defense, everything in the booth was 25% off. It would be a sin not to take advantage of 25% off in a store that carries Lilly Lashes and House of Lashes. Sooo that being said, I am a proud new owner of a pair of Lilly Lashes in the style Mykonos, and a pair of House of Lashes in the style Iconic! I was going to pick up a few Violet Voss pairs as well, but I still have three pairs that are still in pretty good shape. So technically I do have self control when it comes to eyelashes. If I didn’t have any self control I would have bought the whole lash display.

Strange Ways

This was actually the first booth I stopped at, and I’m so glad I did! They had some awesome iron-on patches, some pins (including two Shea Couleè exclusives), buttons, and stickers! I wasn’t originally going to get any patches, but then I looked down at the denim jacket I had with me and instantly changed my mind. I definitely wanted something pink to throw on the jacket, and the fact that the “duh” patch was both pink and sassy, was enough of a selling point for me. I also went with the NYC patch because that’s where the event was, and it’s my home-city! The two buttons say, “I don’t care” and “I’m perfect”. Because who doesn’t love some extra sass and a confidence boost with their buttons? Then, because I spent $20, I got the brands pin and sticker for free! Check out all of their stuff riiiiiiiiiiiiight HERE!

Madame Whiskers

I am such a sucker for earrings, and especially ones that are not your typical gold or silver hoops. Madame Whiskers had so many original pieces of jewelry, varying from huge dangly ones covered in glitter, to unconventional studs. Shocker, I went with something pink again; and something that describes my mood about 85% of the time. I was so stuck between these hearts and rose gold glitter coffins, so I will definitely be ordering from them soon. You can find their Etsy shop HERE. The companies Socials are on the business card below!

DragCon Booth

I was so happy to find out that event merchandise wasn’t super overpriced. Yes, $25 for a t-shirt was a little up there, but $2 buttons and $10 keychains, among other reasonable priced items made up the majority of the booth. There was a $200 bomber jacket and oh my goodness I was so ready to sell a kidney in order to own it. And I will say, the DragCon T-shirt might have been $25, but it’s not your typical cheap scratchy cotton blend. It’s super soft and light!

Farrah Moan

So, as most of the queen’s booths operated, there were two separate lines. One to purchase merchandise, and one for the meet and greet. In order to meet a queen, you had to purchase a piece of their merchandise. From what I could gather, this was a pretty common practice among the show. It was a little frustrating having to wait in two separate lines, I feel like there definitely could have been an easier way to move the process along. Even though I bought a Farrah tank top, by the time I got there she was already done taking pictures, which was also frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, the girl’s gotta eat and take breaks, she’s a person not a machine. I’m not angry that she took a break, I just feel like there should have been a better way of communicating that information, rather than waiting until you got to the front of the line to tell you that you couldn’t actually meet Farrah until tomorrow. The ticket I got worked for the next day as well, so again, I was more agitated that I waited in a crazy long line when I could have been doing something else. BUT I actually ran into Farrah outside the show while I was walking to the Port Authority. She apologized but said she didn’t have time to take a photo, again- TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE. She was really sweet and looked gorgeous, as expected.

Wrapping it up and Headin’ Home!

A few other miscellaneous adventures included the red carpet photo-sesh; totally necessary. We also stopped at the VH1 booth for a quick photoshoot and metallic bag!

Day one was a huge success! I got most of my shopping done, as well as anything that required a crazy long line. I was aiming to do primarily shopping and waiting around on day one, so I could relax a little more on day 2 and really enjoy the show, rather than wandering around getting stuck in lines,

Day Two will be up very shortly! Let me know who your favorite queen is, and who you hope to see on all stars this season!

Love and lashes,

Katy

RuPaul’s DragCon Day One- Definitely What Unicorns Dream Of Hello lovelies! Do I have some things to share! For those of you who may not be familiar, RuPaul is an

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