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zootopiathingz · 3 years

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Between the Odds

Part Twenty: No More Secrets

Just as expected, recovery seemed to last forever. It hadn't even been a week since Judy was brought home and she was already bored out of her mind. She never left the apartment unless it was to get the mail. Nick hardly let her do anything while he was there. He did all of the chores, errands, etc. He also had to help her bathe, which admittedly she didn't mind, but it was still a tedious process that took longer than it should have every time.

Judy dreaded every second she spent doing nothing at home, just sitting around with her thoughts and worries. She hated feeling weak, like she couldn't do anything for herself. She also hated being left alone while Nick was at work, which just gave her more time to think about everything that was happening in Zootopia. The situation was getting worse and worse everyday. It didn't seem like things would be back to normal anytime soon, not until animals calmed down.

But how could they calm down? How could anything be considered "normal" after what happened at the protest? Mammals died that day, the one responsible for their deaths was off the grid, and the rest involved were traumatized by the experience. There was nothing normal about any of this.

Judy sighed as she laid down on her bed, settling in for another night of bad dreams and three hours of sleep. She had a hard time getting rest these days, and it was worse when Nick wasn't around to comfort her. But she understood he was going to be working late tonight, so she had no choice but to go to bed without him there.

She remained on her back, careful not to put too much pressure on her shoulder while she got comfortable. She left the TV on for some background noise, and to have some light in the room, since laying in the darkness only made it harder for her to feel safe. However, right as she closed her eyes, she heard her phone going off.

"Ugh.." She groaned, reaching over to grab it to see who was calling her. She figured it was Nick at first, and hoped he was calling to tell her he was on his way home. But to her surprise (and annoyance), it was her parents. The last thing she wanted to do right now was talk to them, mostly because she was tired and just wanted the day to be over with. But she knew if she didn't answer, they would freak out and assume she was dead.

With a heavy sigh, Judy sat up and answered the video call, forcing a small smile upon seeing her parents on the screen. "Hey guys. Why are you calling this late?"

They both appeared to be relieved when they saw her face, which confused her for a second. Up until her mother spoke up, "Thank goodness! We heard about what happened at that protest in Zootopia, they said you were shot!"

"Relax Mom, I'm fine. It's just my shoulder." She said calmly, although it was no use to try to ease their worries. They overreacted at everything.

"Just your shoulder?! Oh my gosh, are you okay? How bad is it?" Bonnie asked nervously.

"It's fine. They removed the bullet, nothing is wrong with it." She explained, a little wearily. As much as she loved her parents and appreciated the concern, she was in no mood to deal with it right now. "I have to take off work for a while, though. But that's just a precaution."

"Oh, my poor baby." Bonnie frowned, covering her mouth. Never in her life did she think this could happen to any of her children.

"You know, sweetie, if you need any help you can always ask us." Her father, Stu, chimed in. He tried to behave more calmly than his wife, but that was always a challenge for him. He was freaking out just as much as she was, and right now all he wanted was to be with his daughter to help her.

"Yeah, if you'd like we could come out there and stay with you until you go back to work!" Bonnie suggested.

Judy froze for a second, her eyes going wide. She couldn't let them stay with her, they would find out about Nick! Sure, she's mentioned him many times to her family, but she only referred to him as her partner. She never actually told them about their relationship, and she planned to keep it that way for a while. They didn't need to know, especially not her parents.

Quickly, she tried to think of an excuse for them not to stay with her. "Uhhh, no. No, that's okay. I'm fine, really. Nick's been taking care of me— you know, when he comes over, and uh..yeah, that's about all the help I need."

"Well, that's nice of him, but I really think someone should be there with you all the time just in case." Bonnie said, "Like, what if you fall in the shower?"

Judy bit the inside of her cheek, staring off to the side. "I mean, that's unlikely. And I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. B-besides, I..don't have an extra room for you guys."

That last part was another lie, since she actually did have a spare bedroom for guests. But she couldn't let them know that. She had to say anything to get them to toss the idea away. Even though she hated lying to them, what choice did she have? If they knew she was living with a fox, they would kill her.

Although, they were a little more comfortable with foxes now, mostly because of her. In fact, recently they started a partnership with a fox in Bunnyburrow. So maybe they wouldn't be against her being in a relationship with one. But she couldn't take that chance.

Her lie wasn't that convincing, though. If anything, her parents were beginning to get suspicious. "Is everything okay, Judy? You're acting odd." Stu said, narrowing his eyes.

Bonnie noticed their daughter's behavior as well, and she didn't care for it one bit. Judy never hid anything from them, not even when she was a teenager. Out of all their kids, she was the only one they didn't have to worry about keeping secrets. But now here she was, acting like she did something wrong.

"Are you hiding something from us?" She asked, with a small hint of hurt in her tone.

Judy immediately shook her head, "No! No, of course not! I just don't think it's necessary for you to drop everything to come over here. I— I'm doing just fine by myself, trust me."

"It's a little hard to do that right now," Stu said, crossing his arms. "you're acting just like your brother did when we found out why he was taking so long in the shower."

Judy grimaced, but then attempted one last time to be convincing. "Mom, Dad, I assure you I have nothing to hide." She raised up her right paw, as if swearing that she wasn't keeping a secret. "I just don't want you to go to any trouble."

"Sweetheart, it's not any trouble if it's you." Bonnie said, sighing afterward. "But fine, if you say nothing's going on, then we believe you. I just don't ever want you to feel like you have to keep secrets from us."

Now Judy felt guilty for trying so hard not to tell them the truth. What kind of daughter was she if she didn't tell them about her boyfriend? She didn't want to be like her other siblings who lied all the time, she wanted a better relationship than that.

She frowned, lowering her head. "Okay fine, there is something I should tell you." She said reluctantly, feeling her heart beating a mile a minute. How was she supposed to tell them something like this? What if they never spoke to her again afterward? What if she was completely cut off from the family forever? It was a worse case scenario, but it was extremely possible. The Hopps' weren't known for fraternizing outside their species. But she loved Nick, and if being with him made her an outcast, then so be it.

Neither of them were surprised, but now they were curious as to what she had to say. "What is it, pumpkin?" Stu asked. "It's okay, you can tell us."

Judy nodded, avoiding direct eye contact with them for now. If this was the last time they'd ever speak to her, she didn't want to see their disgusted or angered expressions. "Okay, um..god, how do I begin?" She asked herself quietly, before clearing her throat to speak up, "So um..I actually do have a roommate."

"Oh, that's it? Well, that's not so bad." Bonnie laughed softly. "Why'd you think you had to hide that? Who is it?"

The next part was going to be hard to say. Judy didn't even know to say it, not without sounding scared or nervous. "Well uh..it's— it's Nick. He's my roommate." She said with an anxious smile, unconsciously scratching her nape.

By now, Bonnie and Stu had an idea as to where this was going. Why else would she feel the need to keep that part a secret? But they didn't want to assume right away, and they wanted to hear it from her. "Okay? And is there a specific reason for that?" Stu asked, raising a brow.

Judy chewed on her lip, nodding once again very slowly. She knew that they knew, but were waiting for her to confess. There was no going back now. Once it was out, it was out. Tears began to fill her eyes as she went on. "Yes, there is." She said, taking a deep breath. "He's my boyfriend."

There was a long moment of silence that followed, which just made Judy feel worse. What were they thinking? Did they hate her now? Or were they just having trouble processing the information? Either way, she hated the quietness. She couldn't tell how they felt and she hated not knowing what was on their minds.

Eventually, Bonnie finally spoke again, in a tone that didn't sound angry nor happy. "How long have you been with him?"

"Almost six months." She answered, clenching her blanket. "I'm sorry I never told you, I know I should have, I just— I didn't want you to freak out o-or hate me. I know it's not right for me to date a fox, or anyone that's not a bunny, and I don't expect you to accept it." She frowned, letting a tear fall. "I just hope that you won't think less of me."

Once again, they didn't say anything right away. They exchanged a glance, which further added to Judy's nerves. She almost wanted to hang up just so she wouldn't have to see what their initial reactions would be. But something inside her told her to wait, and hoped that something good would come from this.

Stu cleared his throat as they both looked back at the screen. "Do you love him?"

Judy was taken aback by his question, but she didn't hesitate to answer with a nod. "Yes, of course. More than anything."

"And are you happy?" Bonnie asked.

Again, she nodded, this time with a gentle grin. "I'm really happy. Nick's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Then that's all that matters to us." Bonnie smiled.

"W-wait, what? Really? You mean that?" Judy asked, shocked and in awe. Were Bonnie and Stu, the most fox-opposed mammals in existence, really supporting her relationship with Nick?

"Of course, honey. I mean, we understand why you felt like you had to hide it, but that's no reason to think we would hate you. We could never hate you." Her mother said assuringly.

"Just as long as he treats you right." Stu pointed at her knowingly. "I don't want to have to hunt down a predator."

Judy laughed, her tears now that of joy and relief. Now her thoughts of being ostracized by her family seemed crazy. Of course they would never hate her, not for being in love. "Don't worry, you won't." She said to her father, sniffling and wiping her tears. "Thank you guys, you have no idea how much this means to me."

"No need to thank us. We're just glad that's all that was." Stu said, chuckling. "For a minute there, we thought you were about to tell us you joined a gang or something."

"So when can we meet Nick?" Bonnie asked, somewhat excitedly. "Since he's obviously an important part of your life, it would be nice to get to know him sometime."

"Oh uh, I'm not sure." She said, still wiping what was left of her tears from under her eyes. "We can try taking a vacation around the holidays, so maybe then we can come visit."

"That would be nice. Tell him he's always welcome here." Bonnie said.

Stu wrapped an arm around his wife and have his daughter a soft grin, "Alright Jude, we'll let you get some sleep now. Keep us posted, okay?"

Judy smiled as well, letting out a small breath as she felt more relaxed and at ease now. "I will. Goodnight guys, I love you."

"We love you, too." Stu nodded.

"Bless you and keep you safe always." Bonnie said, blowing her a kiss. “Goodnight, sweetie."

As soon as the call ended, Judy flopped back on the bed and sighed heavily. For the first time since the shooting, she released the tension in her body and let herself relax. Now that there were no secrets between her and her parents, she could finally feel some form of comfort knowing that they accepted her for who she was.

#zootopia #judy hopps #bonnie hopps #stu hopps #wildehopps #judy x nick #zootopia fanfiction #fanfic

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celestialinent · 3 years

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someday it will fit just right

on ao3

In 2 years, Steve would spend his first night truly hungry. In 5 years, he would stand in a cold little cemetery and bury his mother. In 8 years, he would deliver food to the silent Barnes family as they sat shiva. In 11 years, he would go into a tiny metal box and come out a freak. In 14 years, he would die.

But on April 17th, 1931, Steve Rogers woke up to Sarah Rogers singing in her clear voice, thrilled to celebrate her only son’s 13th birthday.

He and Fiona stumbled out from behind the thick curtain that cut the little nook at the far side of the flat where he slept. There were boxty and eggs on the table, and Ma wasn’t even tired, because she had three days off all in a row. He was still young enough not to question the luck. He wasn’t aware that Sarah had begged and traded with the other nurses to get the days, promising to work shifts no one wanted, knowing it would hurt their purse at the end of the month and doing it anyway to make her boy happy.

“Stiofán,” she greeted him, and Steve smiled. She only called him by his Irish name when she was in the best moods, and as he got older and the trouble he got up to got more bloody, that name was used less and less.

Fiona always slept as a cougar, because her furry bulk was the best thing to keep him warm in their drafty flat, but she usually changed before they even got out of bed. Big cats might be good for keeping little boys with dicky lungs, but they weren’t so good for navigating the tight space of the Rogers’s home. She didn’t change this morning, however.

Steve sent her a frown, even as he sidestepped her to get to the table.

Aodhan, perched on a rickety wooden chair to Sarah’s left, watched the pair with his intelligent brown eyes.

“How’s my wee man?” Sarah asked when Steve had sat. Fiona came to rest next to him, her big head almost as high as his. “Any big plans for today?”

Steve blushed. “Bucky and I were gonna go to the park,” he answered. But they’d planned that ages ago, before Ma had gotten the days off. And they were really only going because Bucky had heard from Teddy Russo that Theresa and Dot Bianchi would be there with their older sister Valentina. Bucky was absolutely dizzy for just about every girl in the Bianchi family.

To be honest, Bucky was dizzy for all the girls. He was 14 this year, and apparently, his Uncle Isaac had told Bucky that that was the age that “everything started to make sense” with girls. Whatever in the Sam-Hell that meant.

“We don’t have to, though,” Steve said. And he meant it. Spending a few hours watching Bucky watching dames didn’t sound like any fun, and it was his birthday, so if he told Bucky he wanted to do something else he wouldn’t be sore at him. “Bucky could just bring the girls over and we could play games or something.”

Even if Steve didn’t think spending his 13th birthday with Bucky’s little sisters was the best way to celebrate he wouldn’t want to exclude them. Bucky hated dragging Becca and Judy and Rachel along when they went places, but Steve thought the girls were just swell. He’d never had a sister or a brother, and never would most likely, so the novelty was nice.

Steve’s Ma just smiled. “No, no. You and Bucky should go. Bein’ thirteen is important, a leanbh . Before we know it you’ll be old and won’t get to spend all your time with Bucky Barnes.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Bucky and me’ll always spend time together, Ma,” he promised. “We’re friends forever.”

What was meant to be a reassurance, however, seemed to kill his Ma’s grin. She sent him a soft, sad look before tucking into breakfast. “I hope so, Stiofán. But don’t think you won’t get old.”

“I’m only thirteen, Ma!” Steve protested. Fiona leaned her head against his side sympathetically, and the weight of her sent him listing to the side for a moment.

“Fi, stoppit!” he giggled. “Why’re you so big?”

Fiona, looking contrite, seemed to shiver in her skin like she always did when she was trying to change shape. But instead of bursting into the air as a pigeon, or scurrying up his arm as a squirrel, she remained solidly feline and solidly big. Steve frowned, tipping his head forward to peer at her.

Aodhan and Ma both laughed. Steve turned a sharp, worried look to his mother.

“What?” he asked. Turning back, he said, “Fi, what’s goin’ on?”

“Oh, a leanbh ,” Ma breathed. “What did I say?”

Fiona giggled. “I can’t! Stevie!”

It took Steve a bit too long to understand the situation, but when he did he turned an incredulous stare on Fiona. “You settled so big ,” he laughed.

“Bit inconvenient,” Aodhan muttered behind his shaggy russet mustache, but he was grinning his doggy grin, as overjoyed as Sarah was.

“The size of a daemon doesn’t depend on the size of the person,” Ma reminded him. Steve knew that. He knew that Mr. Tonks, hulking as he was, had a little rabbit daemon, and everyone in the world knew that Marlene Dietrich’s daemon was a honking big bear, something the newspapers always thought was real funny.

“Boys at school are gonna have a field day,” Steve told her anyway. Nobody but Bucky seemed to understand why Steve walked around with a mountain lion for a daemon most of the time. Now that she’d settled, he could just imagine how they’d tease.

“The boys at school are silly little idiots,” Aodhan grumbled.

That sent Fiona and Steve into a fit of giggles that carried them through breakfast.

***

He’d been right about the boys at school.

When words got around that Steve’s daemon had settled, Tommy Wies came over to him at lunch as asked him if he thought it was funny that his daemon was four times the size of him.

Miriam, lounging at Bucky’s feet as a german shepherd, snarled at him, and Tommy laughed it off but he didn’t say another word to Steve all day. Unfortunately, Bucky couldn’t be around forever, and after last period, when Steve was gathering his papers from arithmetic, Bobby and Tony Gottardo ambled over.

The three of them exchanged some words, and it all ended with Bucky finding Steve getting his lights knocked out of him in front of the school. Fiona was snapping and yowling at the Gottardo’s daemons, and Bucky had to wade in and break the fight up with a solid-looking kick to Tony’s keister.

“God, some of these eye-talians really are dumb,” Bucky huffed after the boys had beat feet down the sidewalk. “How many times I gotta lay them out flat before they leave well enough alone?”

Steve sent Bucky a dark look. “You didn’t lay anyone out, Buck. Tony and Bobby are just babies.”

Bucky scoffed. “Maybe not that time, but last time, I made Bobby bleed so bad I just about called a doctor so’s I didn’t have to go on the lam.”

Fiona snorted. “You did no such thing,” she told him imperiously.

Miriam perked up. “If you asked Bobby, he just about got murdered in that fight.”

The four of them ambled their way back home, About halfway to Bucky’s flat, where they were stashing their school stuff and cleaning up before heading over to the park-Steve couldn’t very well go home now, not with a bloody nose-Miriam turned to Steve and Fiona and eyed them.

“What’s it like?” she asked.

It was crystal what she was asking. Miriam, even though Bucky was a year older, still hadn’t settled.

Fiona shrugged her big furry shoulders. “Boring, but nice. Feels right, like a pair of shoes that I’ve had few ages, so they fit real good. But I think I’ll miss flying.”

“Shoulda settled as a big bird,” Bucky laughed. “A bald eagle, or something. Or a hawk, to go with that big nose.”

Steve shoved at Bucky playfully. “Well, then Miriam should settle as a pig, to go with your nose.”

Bucky, vainer than Steve by a mile, reeled back, patting at his nose like he was checking that it was still as perfect as ever. He scowled when that sent Steve laughing.

“Fi shoulda been an elephant, to match your ears!”

“Miriam could settle as a beaver so you could have matching buck teeth,” Steve shot back, still laughing.

Bucky huffed, but Steve knew he wasn’t that sore.

They spent the rest of the walk joking and fooling around, and when they barrelled into the Barnes flat, Bucky had Steve under his arm, mussing up his hair with his knuckles.

Mrs. Barnes started fussing as soon as she saw Steve’s face, but luckily she didn’t threaten to tell his Ma, trusting that Steve wouldn’t hide it from her. She did make him sit at the dining room table, though, and allow her to clean him up a little. She didn’t have his Ma’s practice at nursing, but she’d raised Bucky, and the frequency with which her son was being pulled into scraps meant she was no slouch. Amos chittered the entire time, scolding them all for fighting just like he always did. The boys and their daemons ignored him, as they always did.

“The only thing I have to give you for your birthday is some advice, Steven,” Mrs. Barnes said lightly. “Stay out of trouble!”

Steve offered her a beatific smile, the smile he offered to teachers and shopkeepers and Mrs. Barnes whenever he was trying to pretend he wasn’t an absolute scoundrel. It drove Bucky up the walls; he called it his saintly smirk. “I try, Mrs. Barnes. Trouble just always seems to find me!”

Mrs. Barnes and Amos hmmphed in unison, and Bucky snorted.

“Bucky, I expect you back home in time for supper. It might be Steven’s birthday, but you still have school tomorrow.”

“Yes, Ma,” Bucky and Steve chorused. She scowled and shooed them out of the house.

Steve shook his head. “She didn’t even notice Fiona’s settled,” he scoffed. “Guess Steve Rogers walking around with a puma for a daemon is just common sense to her.”

“Sure it is, pal,” Bucky drawled easily. “You may be short, but you’re just about the loudest guy I know. You’re bigger inside than out, is all. You ain’t no mouse.”

“What do you think you’ll settle as?” Fiona asked Miriam, who’d taken Fiona’s new size as an opportunity to be lazy, and shifted into a strange little lizard, riding on her back. She had the air of a haughty little queen that way, and Steve couldn’t help but smile at the smug little lizard smile she was sporting.

Miriam was quiet for a moment as she and Bucky shared a thoughtful look.

“A dog, probably,” Bucky answered first. “Most folks have dog daemons.”

Fiona shook her head. “You’re not most.”

Steve blushed a little at that. Bucky wasn’t most folks. Bucky was brave and handsome and kind and strong. Bucky talked a big game about how Steve was bigger on the inside, but honestly, Steve thought Bucky’s beautiful outside matched his insides. It was no wonder that all the girls at school had started taking real long looks at Steve’s best friend. There was something about the air around Bucky when he got real excited about a new song. When he laughed it was like his whole face opened up and you could see the damn sun shining out his eyes.

Miriam would settle as something even grander than a mountain lion. She’d be a real noble bird, maybe, because of Bucky’s sharp eyes, or a peacock cause of how nice his face was. Or maybe a wolf, like James Connolly had had.

“A horse, maybe,” Miriam said.

It was funny, because Steve couldn’t see that at all. Miriam had never been a horse in her life. Hell, none of them had ever seen a horse in their lives. But Steve was picturing Bucky astride a huge destrier, dressed like a knight, and it made him laugh so hard he almost gave himself an asthma attack. “You are a real horse’s ass,” he gasped.

“Maybe I’ll be something real strange,” Bucky said, and he was still smiling, but it looked pained. “Something odd, that’ll scare off anyone tryin’ to give us a hard time.”

Miriam shivered, shifting rapidly. She was a spider first, fearsome and black, before she draped over Fiona’s back as a big brown snake. It was followed by a strange hairless cat, a blind and eerie bat. Finally, Miriam clambered to Fiona’s rump, a brown little thing with huge, luminous golden eyes. Her small triangle ears sat at the sides of her head like horns, and a long tail that curled over her chest.

Steve blinked. “What are you?” he asked. Miriam only stared up at him.

“So one in a book of daemons once. Like a monkey, sorta. Strange, right?” Bucky murmured.

“She’s beautiful, Buck,” Steve assured him. “Very beautiful.”

Bucky shrugged and picked up his pace like he was eager to see the Bianchi sisters. Like the discussion was unimportant.

Steve felt distinctly that he’d missed something in the exchange, and Bucky was disappointed in him.

#steve rogers #stucky #steve/bucky #daemons #daemon au #my fic

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medea10 · 3 years

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My Review of Trigun

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say this was one of those animes that used to air on Saturday nights back in the day that I would every now and then come across while waiting for either Full Metal Alchemist, InuYasha, or Cowboy Bebop to air. But I never did watch a full episode or know a damn thing about this anime. So I’m just jumping into this anime blindfolded. All I know is that this was Johnny Yong Bosch’s first anime role.

Who is Vash the Stampede?

A frequent question that comes up throughout the series! Rumor has it that he wears a long, red trench coat and sports a Mohawk hairstyle. Some say he’s a notorious lecher. Many recount him shooting up their villages to a pile of rubble just for the heck of it. He has quite the reputation as he has a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head and is often known as the “Humanoid Typhoon”.

In reality, Vash the Stampede is…a bit of a dingus. He just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and things kinda get out of hand. But that doesn’t stop two insurance agents (Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe) from following him around to confirm Vash’s identity and keep his actions to a minimum. At first, it’s hard to tell if he’s a stupid-genius or just flighty and gets lucky one too many times. But when shit goes down, don’t be surprised when you see this doofus get serious.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Okay, what sad company did this use to belong to, Geneon, Bandai, or ADV Films? Oh, Geneon! That means good voice actors from L.A. put in really shitty roles. On the contrary, this was a fairly decent English dub. And on a severely positive note, this was indeed Johnny Yong Bosch’s very first anime role (and a main role at that). This was like fresh off his time as a Power Ranger! And I gotta give props for giving this guy a chance at voice acting. This role was the launching point to what has been a very successful career for Bosch. As for the sub, let’s just say I’m happy any time I get to hear Hiromi Tsuru in something besides Dragon Ball. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Vash is played by Masaya Onosaka (known for Bill on Pokemon, Isaac on Baccano, Jadeite on Sailor Moon, Kero on Cardcaptor Sakura, Leeron on Gurren Lagann, France on Hetalia, and Spandam on One Piece)

*Meryl is played by Hiromi Tsuru (known for Bulma on DBZ, Ukyo on Ranma ½, Yubel on YGO GX, and Mika on Gravitation) [R.I.P.]

*Milly is played by Satsuki Yukino (known for Kagome on InuYasha, Mion/Shion on Higurashi, Tae on Gintama, Amakata on Free!, Hiiragi on Natsume Yuujinchou, Mutsumi on Love Hina, and Yoruichi on Bleach)

ENGLISH CAST: *Vash is played by Johnny Yong Bosch (known for Ichigo on Bleach, Lelouch on Code Geass, Makoto on Free!, Izaya on Durarara, Artemis on Sailor Moon redub, Koizumi on Haruhi Suzumiya, and Yukio on Blue Exorcist)

*Meryl is played by Dorothy Elias-Fahn (known for Kaoru on Rurouni Kenshin, Naru on Love Hina, Tomoe on Rozen Maiden, Hakuei on Magi, Houki on Fushigi Yugi, and Amane on Tenchi Muyo GXP)

*Milly is played by Lia Sargent (known for Dorothy on The Big O and Judy on Cowboy Bebop)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Milly! I don’t need a reason, it’s Milly!

SHIPPING: I didn’t really start thinking about shipping until more than halfway into this series. I thought there might be something between Vash and Meryl, but then again maybe not! Then I saw the backstory of Vash’s “younger days” and falling for the one woman who showed him compassion.

Yes, this is the same woman we consistently see in Vash’s flashbacks, Rem. Ooh boy, it’s one of those stories! So yeah, never mind my thinking with Vash x Meryl ever happening. I feel like Vash will mourn Rem’s death for a long time that I don’t think the whole thing with Meryl will ever work.

And as for Wolfwood x Milly…

FUUUUUUUCK! WHY DID YOU RUIN THIS CUTE COUPLE?!

MILLY WAS HEART-BROKEN!

…At least she got to have one night of passion with Wolfy-boy before the unthinkable happened.

THAT DARN CAT: If you watched this series, you might have noticed a little black cat spotted in nearly every episode. It’s there in the opening theme. It’s there in random places throughout the series. It’s there in the ending theme. What’s up with this cat? Well, there are a lot of theories surrounding this particular cat (or Kuroneko). Some say it’s really Rem inside that cat since you see it in literally every episode around Vash. Others say it’s because the creator of Trigun wanted to just mess with your minds with the kitty walking around in random places and towns. Seriously, it will always appear in every new town Vash and the gang comes across! As an avid cat enthusiast, I’m fine with whatever the result. Just as long as no harm comes to the little Kuroneko.

HALFWAY POINT: Halfway into the series we notice something more when it comes to Mr. Vash the Stampede. First of all, those horrifying scars all over his body! Second, that mysterious girl he often thinks about. I mean, we see flashes of her in the opening sequence. And third, the reason why he never kills. Vash has the ability of causing so much damage when pushed to a breaking point. One of the many reasons why he’s known as the “humanoid typhoon”! And that was perfectly shown when Vash chases the residents out of a town (so there would be no casualties), totally demolished the town during a fight, and made an indent on the moon!

But the story takes a sharp-left turn into WTF territory when we learn about WHAT exactly Vash is. Vash is a plant. Vash also has a brother named Knives. And while Vash has a mentality that all beings have a right to live, Knives has a “kill them all and let God sort them out” point of view. Now the existence of Vash and Knives came with a lot of controversy, especially in the ship that they were on. But that girl who Vash cares for, Rem cared for them regardless of what they were. Rem had high hopes for a peaceful world with coexistence. Too bad Knives had other motives and killed her.

ENDING TO TV SERIES: Vash has tried so hard to keep Milly, Meryl, and Wolfwood out of harm’s way. He knows there are some pretty bad people after him, including his polar-opposite brother, Knives. Vash hates death and wants to save as many people as humanly possible. He doesn’t want to see any more needless death. Probably from his flashbacks and losing Rem! Unfortunately, this doesn’t go so well.

I can see how iconic this death was now after witnessing it. Wolfwood, the priest who would hook up with Vash every now and then when they’re up against some ruffians, now finds himself in a crucial decision. He gets orders that he must eliminate Vash. And Wolfwood ends up dying instead in a very dramatic death scene. God-damn! And just that scene where Milly is sobbing freakin’ eats you up inside.

At least she had one night of passion before the unfortunate happened!

Vash hates the thought of having to kill anyone. But he might not have a choice if Knives is coming after him and even hires a powerful foe from a previous episode and the guy that killed Wolfwood to take you out. Once Vash met up with Knives, he winds up having some pretty sick flashbacks of Knives. But our homeboy was able to take out Knives, the desert area gets water, and…

I’m gonna have to read the fucking manga for more, right?

Tap dancing fuck!

BADLANDS RUMBLE: 12 years after the series ended, Japan decides to release a side-story in the form of a movie, bringing back our favorite characters like Vash, Wolfwood, Milly, and Meryl. And yes, reuniting the cast…in Japan.

By 2010, Geneon was as good as dead and FUNimation licensed Trigun. In short, they managed to get Johnny Young Bosch to reprise his role as Vash the Stampede. But everyone else was replaced. And surprisingly, the people they got to do Wolfwood and Milly were pretty freakin’ close to their original voices. Meryl’s voice, come on I know Luci Christian any-damn-where! Vash helps a young lady take out a big-bad guy (who turns out to be his father). And it has the feel of the original series where it’s set in a western town with lots of booze and shoot-em-ups! It’s an interesting side-story to the Trigun trilogy.

Trigun was a pretty good anime. I mean, not one of my favorites, but I can definitely see a lot of people sticking by this classic. Maybe you can chalk up my blah attitude to the fact that I’m not fond of westerns and I kinda took it out on Trigun. Or the fact that there was so much more that the anime could have covered before the end and the ending kinda felt off to me! Like I thought I was expecting more. But I suppose that’s what mangas are for. To be honest, the stories that really grabbed my attention were the back-stories with Vash and Knives and Wolfwood’s final episode.

*sniffles* At least Milly got one night of passion before he died!

If you would like to check out Trigun, all the episodes are available through FUNimation and Hulu (in both Japanese and English). And if you really like the anime, why not purchase the hard copies? Both the series and movie are available for home video.

Okay, that took me a while, but I’m glad to finish Trigun. What’s next on the FUNimation list?

EEHHHHHEEEHHHE

Fuck is that supposed to mean? What is that? Is that even in English?

YOU WILL BE HORRIBLY MUTILATED: The Isekai

Do you mean Re:Zero? That’s great…but that review’s not ready yet. And it probably won’t be until after April 2021! So let’s cast caution to the wind and pick another FUNimation licensed anime.

You’re watching Sarazanmai next. It’s best if you don’t ask questions.

Sarazanmai? The fuck does that even mean?!

OH. MY. GOD.

#trigun #vash the stampede #meryl stryfe #milly thompson #nicholas d wolfwood #knives millions #anime review

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cyber-v · 3 years

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Asks from here - Y’all are always welcome to ask me anything~

1. what is their full name? do they have any nicknames? what are they and why did they get them?

Vera - Also know as V, Vera Bazhaar is my main girl with the link to Silverhand. V's nickname was picked up after leaving her nomad clan the Bakkers. She needed something quick, easy and memorable that didn't lend out her full name. (V stands for Very creative alias) She also adores the amount of sex jokes the name V has since opened up for her.

There is also a part of her that wanted to separate herself from that period of her life. But as she’s had time to move on she’s gotten ok with her close friends calling her Vera.

Nyx - Born as Salone redacted

Nyx decided to name herself after the primordial goddess of darkness to protect her identity and reflect her place of being a powerful person in the shadows. It also unintentionally reflects their minor god complex. (Also to be noted Nyx identifies as nonbinary and uses she/he/they pronouns.)

Dante - Rockerboy with the stage name Dante Aguatavana but the people from home know him as Davidson.

Before he had built any kind of career Davidson was just the tough guy on the street. But on top of being the tough guy he was known for taking care of his own without needing any familial or gang ties to them. If you were from his neighborhood you could come to him.

As this reputation grew with his neighbors as he got older people, especially women would come to him seeking help from abuse and dangerous friends or family.

Not everyone has the Mox to back them up when this kind of trouble starts up Davidson was the one to turn to.

This quickly became a way to discreetly get rid of abusers, often staged as a break in or robbery gone wrong that was common enough in the area to not raise an eyebrow. The abusers would be killed without a trail to follow, just like the poison Aqua Tofana from times long past.

Dante took this name to honor his origin and remind him of his values during his rise. Determined to never let himself slip away when he found fame.

31. who are their closest chooms in NC?

Vera - Sedak - (OC) Vera's best choom is a Solo named Sedak. He's a flashy type of guy with a killer attitude who's always dripping in gold. Their styles don't exactly match but when they work together they get an amazing synergy going. With V hacking targets and sniping from the shadows while Sedak keeps all eyes on him and his mantis blades.

Judy feels like home to be around. Not the same way the Aldicacos do, with tents, campfires and a sister, who she considers Panama to be. But in the way that lets the world wash away when she comes home to her. The way that making her smile has turned into her daily goal. Judy has the bit of genius in her that keeps V hooked. They've both got ideas for technology just in different ways with techie know how and V's netrunner experience. She knows they can make amazing things together and it's all the more reason to spend as much time as possible together.

Nyx - It's hard to find people who can understand who they are as a person now. For so long working for corporations defined their life and now with finding a new purpose it seems that others couldn't quite see past that label.

Delamain - It says something about a person when your best choom is a car… But Del can understand her in ways others can’t. Both attempting to defy their purpose but not quite knowing how. She couldn't bear to reset a freedom that they had worked so hard to achieve. Del has proven to be a great friend, able to offer advice, listen and never judge her gruff way of speaking. Now without the taxi service they're free to roam together. They have dinner while watching the sunset together at least once a week.

Dante - (OC) Her personality is not for everyone and she is starkly aware of the fact. She built walls to protect herself and hurled insults from the ramparts. Dante was able to laugh off the insults and threw some back even. Often just going for a laugh but sometimes actual critiques that made her think. By being Dante's choom Nyx has grown as a person and become more understanding and personable.

Dante - When you can have good days of being surrounded by groupies and bad days of trash magazines and exes trying to ruin your reputation it's hard to tell who's truly your friend. You can’t trust those who just kiss your ass or idolize you. It's just a race to see who's heart gets broken first when you come crashing off the pedestal.

Edward Shawnalore - (OC) But with Edward Shawnalore he doesn't feel like there is that layer of rose colored glass between them. They meet during a bar fight, fighting back to back and watching out for each other while they teamed up against all the pissed off patrons. Ed says what he means and sure he's a bit angsty and mixed up in the head at times but he's still figuring things out on his own. They’ve always have time for banter and quick jabs during gunfights. They really bonded on finding out that not only did they have the same taste in music but they both made music the other liked. He wasn’t really expecting to fall in love with Ed when it happened but sometimes it just it just hits ya at the most unexpected times

34. Do they have siblings?

Vera - Vera was raised very communally. Her family really took "It takes a village" literally. Therefore she feels like she had many siblings as well as many parental figures in her life.

But with this abundance of family she did in fact have an older brother by blood. His name was Axel and he was obsessed with fixing and building cars. Always helping show Vera around the shop. She was never too interested in how cars worked or how to fix them, opting to just bring them to her brother if they needed work. But she fell in love with driving. The newer the better, she was always so interested in technological advancement.

Nyx - Grew up as an only child and has never gotten used to sharing or not having things her way. Her family put untold resources into creating and raising the perfect daughter. But she didn’t turn out to be that in many ways.

Unfortunately this still affects Nyx and they can tell but can’t quite fix it. They have a hard time making and maintaining friendships. They often can’t quite tell where the line between friendly and hostile is due to being raised by cold handlers and tutors who she thought loved her, giving her this warped perception of what love is.

Dante - He has two older brothers and a little sister.

The eldest, Aurelio went off to war and came back in pieces not really the same. He's been on a slow path to recovery and he lives at home with their Mother. He says he's there to help take care of her and Dante lets him have that. They never got along as kids but are slowly working on rebuilding a relationship.

The second son, Emilio joined the Valentinos. He's been sticking to the gangoon lifestyle ever since. He and Dante don't really see each other that often but they say hi whenever they pass each other at Padre's.

Lainey was a surprise baby for the whole family. Dante's mother, Mariela thought she wasn't able to get pregnant anymore and… well now there is a toddler in the house and Dante is just trying to be a good big brother for her whenever he's around.

#answered #asks #C: Vera #C:Dante #C: Nyx #Cp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 #Cp oc #cyberpunk oc

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

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My twin brother is Spiderman!?; Peter Parker x twin sis reader

*Author’s note*

Okay so this is completely different from the last twin sister fic that I done but this one also needed to be posted up. Now in this one you are just a normal person, no special powers this time around. BUT like the other one there is SUGGESTIVE THEMES HERE, MUGGING, ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT SO IF THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, DON’T PUSH YOURSELF TO READ THIS!!!! OR IF YOU DO READ. AT. YOUR. OWN. RISK! Other than that, I hope you all enjoy this fic. My last Peter fic is coming up in just a moment.

Taglist:

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@platawnic

__________________________________________________________

I was currently in art class working on my project when the bell soon rang and my teacher told us to wrap up our projects and get on out of here. I sealed my sculpture in plastic wrap and took off my gloves. I packed up my supplies and walked with some of my friends as we all said goodbye to our Professor.

"So will I see you at the gala tomorrow (y/n)?" asked my friend Judy.

"Unfortunately no, lately my aunt's been going crazy due to the fact that Peter's been sneaking out at late hours of the night".

"Ahh I can understand that, little brothers can be such pains, my brother Doug is the same way". She stated over dramatically.

"Tell me about it, you know I have been dying to go to that Van Gough show that's at the MET tomorrow, but all because of Peter, Aunt May won't let me go because she's worried that I'm sneaking around like Peter".

"I'm sorry (y/n), I really wish I could help you out".

"Yeah I know, well see you Monday".

"Ciao (y/n)". She then left with hopped into our other friend Frank's car and inside I noticed Alicia, Jamie, George and Jerry and Frank drove them off. I then walked up to my motorbike and got on and revved it up before speeding out of the parking lot.

Once I got home, I was immediately bombarded by Aunt May asking me if I had seen Peter at all while I was coming home. I told her that I hadn't seen him at all and that's when she went in full on panic mode and started calling five police stations begging for their help but I tried to assure her that he's probably with Ned or something and just forgot to call (as usual lately).

2 and a half hours later, as I was walking by Peter's room I heard movement going around in his room. I leaned up against the door and also heard shuffling so I immediately opened the door and there I saw my younger twin standing like a deer in headlights and boy was I livid at this moment.

"Oh hey (y/n) what's up sis?"

"What's up? What's up!? Peter you have got some serious balls to say that to me right now. Do you have any idea how worried May was about you? She barely listened to me and she's been out in the streets for a half hour now looking for you!"

"I'm—I'm sorry (y/n) I......"

"Oh sorry don't even cut it Pete". I sneered. I gripped my younger twin by the shoulder and led him out of his room and we both sat down on the living room couch while I facetimed May and showed her who was here and she immediately said she'd be over.

Now thanks to Peter the Sneaker, the two of us were officially under May arrest which meant that neither of us could leave the apartment for the entire weekend. If we wanted to go out for groceries or if we needed research at the library, then she was to be our escort and she said she would actually walk in with us like we were children to make sure we were doing on what we said we would be 'doing'.

A week later, May finally let go of our punishment and I was still pretty pissed at Peter for making me miss the Van Gough exhibit. So to punish him, I didn't once talk to him for anything and gave him the silent treatment plus the cold shoulder.

Currently I had finished my long awaited project for my art class and it was starting to get pretty dark out. I walked out of the art building and headed to the parking lot to start up by bike when suddenly I felt something push against the back of my head and a voice said.

"Give me the bike and I won't shoot you". I was frozen in fear. I slowly raised my hands up and said.

"Please you—you don't have to do this".

"Step away from the bike and hand over the keys or I will blow your brains out!" the man demanded. Before I could even do as he said, I was taken in a choke hold and forced away from my bike and tossed down onto the ground and that's when I heard the gun cock telling me it was getting ready to fire.

I tensed up and curled up into a ball begging with the guy to not kill me when the gun didn't go off.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to steal from girls?" another voice said. We both looked to left and there standing right underneath the street lamp of the parking lot was the famed superhero, Spiderman. I was then grabbed by the mugger and I felt a sharp blade at my neck, the cold steel ready to slice my neck open and I whimpered in fear as tears began rolling down my face.

"Well, well if it ain't the eight-legged freak spiderboy" I whimpered as the blade came closer to my skin almost nicking it.

"Spiderman actually, now I'll give you five seconds to let the girl go and you can walk away".

"Sorry shorty can't do that. And as a matter a fact, I think I may just take this girl home with me, she seems like she knows how to have a good time" the perverted mugger said as he leaned closer to my face and actually sniffed my hair which made me squirm uncomfortably but he kept the knife right at my neck and almost sliced it opened if I failed to submit to him.

"Okay first of all you're a sick pedophile, and two nobody call's me shorty!" Spiderman then flung his webs at the mugger's face which blinded him. He stepped away and as soon as I was free, I ran as far away from him as I could before Spiderman caught me in his arms and he asked me, "You okay?" shakenly I nodded and he said, "Good, come with me".

He then picked me up and took me towards another street lamp and told me not to move and just wait for him there. I agreed to his terms and I saw him race back towards the mugger and he leapt up in the air and fired some more of his webbings but some of them I've gotta say I've never seen before.

Like one web shooting he did, actually exploded beneath the mugger's feet, another one was like a taser gun which sent him down to his knees, and after getting a few good punches and kicks in, his last webbing exploded at him and trapped him in a straight-jacket like manner against the lamppost he had once stood under.

Once the fight was done, Spiderman came up to me and took me in his arms and said.

"Hold on tight". I wrapped my arms around him and he shot a web sling up and soon we went flying through the city. As we swung from building to building, he made sure to keep one protective arm around me and I held onto him by the neck. We soon came to my Aunt's apartment and he landed us safely on the rooftop and he asked me.

"There we go, safe and sound and home again, you sure you're okay?" I nearly collapsed to the ground with my adrenaline now deflated like a balloon and if it hadn't been for Spiderman, I would've collapsed to the floor. "Whoa, whoa, whoa easy, easy (y/n)". At saying my name, my head shot up as I looked at him.

"How do you know my name?"

"Wha? Ahh shit I—I mean uhh....." he sighed heavily and continued, "I guess the cat's out of the bag". He then removed his mask and there kneeling beside me was my younger twin Peter.

"P-Peter?!" I choked out.

"Yeah, guess you finally know the big secret".

"So.....all this time—those videos on YouTube of Spiderman that-that-that was you?"

"Yeah".

"How?" He then went on to explain about how nine months ago when his class went on that fieldtrip to Oscorp Industry, he got bit by a radioactive spider and he soon began developing these powers and that ever since then especially after Uncle Ben died, he vowed to try and keep the city safe. He also explained that he's an Avenger *that part I don't believe* and that all those trips on the STARK internship, were actually missions or meeting with the Tony "Ironman" Stark himself. After his story I began to try and process everything that he's told me.

"Now are you sure you're okay? I can take you to the hospital if you need—"

"No, no I'm fine Pete, really. I'm—sorry for the way I've been treating you these past few days, I thought that—with all that I've done to you....."

"Hey, you're my sister (y/n). You're more than that, you're my twin sister, my best friend. No matter what I'm always gonna be there for you, even when you get mad at me, I'll always be there like a spider on the wall". We both laughed at his pun and then I said to him.

"Thank you Peter, if you hadn't saved me back there I—I don't even want to think about what they guy would've done to me".

"You're welcome, like I said, I'll always be there for you, whether you want me to be or not". I smiled at him and embraced my younger twin and he hugged me back and the two of us sat there for a bit before heading inside.

Brothers, especially your youngest twin, they can be a pain in the butt at times but sometimes for good reasons too. While it is said to be written that the older sibling must always be there for their younger siblings, I think that it's both siblings responsibility to watch out of the other. No matter whether you're the oldest or youngest, siblings always need to watch out for each other, and even when you don't want them to, they'll always be there for you.

Sometimes in more ways than one, and I know I've got the best little twin of all. I mean what other person can say my little brother is Spiderman?! But I also know he's more to me than that, he's my twin brother Peter Parker.

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slamsams-blog · 4 years

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Goldeneye - #24WeeksofBond

24 Weeks of Bond continues this week with Goldeneye. Ask anybody who grew up with an N64 what their favorite Bond movie is. I’d be willing to bet 9 out of 10 of those people will tell you this film. I grew up with an N64, I knew the Goldeneye video game before I even knew it was a Bond Movie. The Goldeneye N64 game was my introduction to James Bond. Today, i feel like shouting from the mountain tops...I can now confidently say, that Goldeneye is my favorite Bond movie.

Besides the incredible amount of nostalgia playing multi-player Goldeneye in the basement of my best friends house almost every day after school - this movie is gritty, dark, witty, complex, and full of “punch you in the gut intensity”. Sean Bean plays 006, and it is the ultimate villain. Who would be a bigger adversary to Bond, then Bond himself? That’s how close 006 compares to 007. This film is as close to Bond vs. Bond that we will ever see. We also have the overtly sexual psychopath in Xenia Onotopp (Famke Janssen) and Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) a high level computer programmer and overall sleazy creep who uses “boobs” as his passwords.

It’s hard to top this cast of characters. It doesn’t end with the bad guys either, we have our seductive Natalya Simonova, who isn’t the obvious “sex appeal” pick, which is nice. When we first see her, she has a wool sweater on, a “Karen” hair cut, and a voice lower than mine - but she gets her shit done and nobody is going to tell her no. I love seeing Natalya boss Bond around, one of my favorite Bond girls for sure. We also are introduced to the new M, Judi Dench. Of course, with any new boss, there is chatter within the work force and M finds herself over hearing some of it. I do wish we had some moment where M proves her trust, but it’s all well and good in the end because she’s Judi Dench, the best M ever...with all due respect to Bernard Lee of course.

This movie starts hot, with Bond bungee jumping off a giant dam in Russia. He then infiltrates their military base where he meets up with his pal, 006 Alec Trevelyan. We see them tackling this mission together, but Alec finds himself in trouble. Bond decides to improv, and adjusts the timers to 3 minutes instead of 6 - but Alec gets killed despite following orders. Bond is now pissed. He manages to escape by driving off a cliff to catch a falling airplane.

This is probably the most eye-rolling part of this movie. I can suspend my disbelief more than most (I’m a pro wrestling fan), but this is just non-sense. He manages to catch up to the nose diving airplane, get in, buckle up, adjust the rear view mirror, throw on some AC/DC for the road, and escape. We see the bombs going off, Bond has completed this mystery mission. We never really find out what the mission was for. I guess just to introduce us to Oromov and Trevelyan who will become key figures later on.

We come back from an intoxicating rendition of “Goldeneye” sung by Tina Turner, and we are now 9 years into the future. Think of all the potential movies we missed out on in those 9 years! We see Bond in Monaco being evaluated where he meets a crazy speed demon who turns out to be Xenia. Bond later goes to a casino where he find Xenia there and starts to realize that something troubling is brewing. After further digging, he finds out she has a connection to the Janus Group - a crime syndicate who has an unknown leader. Not really sure what Bond is doing in Monaco. Was he on holiday? Was he sent there for something in particular?

ANYWAY (thanks mom), Xenia ends up killing an admiral with her apparent titanium alloy thighs during a hot night and steals a “Tiger” helicopter that can withstand any sort of electro magnetic blast. Bond doesn’t get to it in time, and the helicopter takes off. Now Bond is really curious...and pissed. General Oromov from the opening and Xenia set off one of the Goldeneye satellites which trigger an electro magnetic pulse, destroying every type of computer generated device. They then enlist the help of Boris, who had just hacked into the FBI security system all nonchalantly before having a cig.

The Goldeneye destroys the area and Oromov tries to cover it up by blaming it on British separatists. But doesn’t realize that Natalya had survived the blast. Bond now wants to meet thee Janus, and goes to see a russian mafia don who Bond has had history with and gets a meeting set up. This is when we find out that Janus is actually Bond’s ole mate, Alec Trevelyan. Bond is stunned and shaken. 9 years after he saw his death, here he is. Trevelyan notes that he didn’t account Bond improving and setting the timers for 3 minutes which burned half his face, and broke his heart. “007s loyalty is always to the mission...never to his friends”. Tear.

The plan is to set off another Goldeneye in London, creating a financial meltdown, putting England back into the stone age. But now Bond has entered the fray, and is keen on throwing a wrench into the plans. He does so...with a tank. In one of the more entertaining chase scenes in Bond history, we see Bond chasing down Oromov with a bloody tank. Destroying everything in his path, and finding time to adjust his tie in the process. Man I love this scene. Oromov is also another great character. Played by Gottfried John, Oromov is a desperate, corrupt General - trying to put on a front as head of Russia’s space division, but also keep Janus’ plans in tact. With flask in hand, and sweating profusely, he has to tell Janus that Bond escaped.

(Seinfeld reference alert)

Bond saves Natalya from the bad guys, yadda yadda yadda, SATELLITE FIGHT SCENE!! Bond comes to blows with 006 on the second base where another Goldeneye detonator is being held. This fight is so brutal and hard hitting that it really feels like Bond is fighting Bond. These two, once friends, now bitter enemies. Just watching this fight hurts. And just when we think Bond is at a dead end, he kicks a lever for the ladder and drops all the way down to the tiniest platform on the bottom of the satellite, leaving himself with no room for error. The fight continues on this tiny platform where we eventually see Bond kick Trevelyan off and grab his foot for a final farewell.

I don’t necessarily have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling. What happens next always leaves me with the feeling of my stomach being sucked up into my throat. Bond has Trevelyan by the foot as he dangles thousands of feet in the air. Alec finally looks up and says “For England, James”, then Bond says “STFU” and lets him go. I get shivers just thinking about it.

Oh, did I mention this score??? The music that plays throughout this scene is heart pounding and really gets me going. There’s nothing like incredibly written fight music and Goldeneye has the cream of the crop.

There is just so much to love with “Goldeneye”. But unfortunately for Pierce Brosnan, this movie will be his first and his best. Goldeneye was such a tremendous success coming off a 6 year hiatus after “Licence To Kill”, that all Brosnan’s next films suffered because of it. This film was so good because it was dark, had an unforgettable cast, and had a TOUCH of humor. That scene where Bond goes to see Valentine is really all the humor you need - how about that Minnie Driver cameo? After this, I guess the writers went all in on the humor bit of it because the rest of the Brosnan catalog can be little more cartoony and goofy. While I did enjoy “Tomorrow Never Dies” - it just does not compare to “Goldeneye”.

Pierce Brosnan is the perfect Bond for this era and this film in particular. I just cannot imagine and older Timothy Dalton doing this film justice. Goldeneye ushered in a new style of James Bond. This film would be a taste of what was to come with the future Daniel Craig movies, and it provided an opportunity for a new generation of young, teenage movie goers to hop on board the Bond Band Wagon with the N64 video game. It got me, that’s for sure. This was the first Bond film I ever saw, and I’m proud to say that it is my favorite Bond movie ever.

That’s it for me this week, let me know what you thought and why it was your favorite Bond movie ever!

Reviews from Friends:

My Mom:

I watched with your dad and two of your brothers. It was a very intense and exciting film. Brosnan is so good. But it was pretty complicated and as is typical, I have a hard time keeping up with it all. That is why I loved the simplicity of last weeks choice. Lol. Because I’m old. The characters were great and I loved the feisty females

Jeremy Tillema:

Greatest bond movie produces greatest first person shooter on the greatest gaming console of all time. I said it.

Jake Benrud:

Great review Sam, and I’m with you on this one. This is a fantastic Bond movie and one of my favorites, if not my favorite. I think I have seen this movie more times than any other (I think Casino Royale might be second). I’m pretty sure I had the VHS, and I think you and I watched it numerous times. (I think Joanna was getting sick of me quoting the movie when we were watching it since I knew all the lines.) This is the movie that really got me into Bond movies. The action, the plot, the twists all made this an excellent and entertaining installment in the Bond series. Makes me want to fire back up that ‘64 and get the rumble packs out!

Tyler Dahlgren

I have been following along to these and have been giving them the Facebook like, but haven’t been commenting or watching along because honestly I could probably recite every Bond moving verbatim from start to finish. My earliest childhood memories (way, way earlier than any kid has a business being exposed to Bond) are of sitting with my Grandpa in his recliner while he munched popcorn and watched Bond. For better or for worse they are like a comfort food for me.

I say all of that to say this. Goldeneye is my favorite. I still remember watching it for the first time with Mark Kulig. We played the game and watched the movie more times than you’d think possible. The double cross, resurrection storyline. The characters. The cast is stacked. It all adds up so well and revived the franchise from some abysmal showings. I love this movie.

24 Weeks of Bond will return next Monday with -

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

#Goldeneye #pierce brosnan #James Bond #Sean Bean #Famke Janssen #N64 #Nintendo #24WeeksofBond

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cynnymonsnaps · 5 years

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[Dangerous Fellows Info Dump]

First thing to the fandom and it’s an info dump about all these lovely lovely characters. (Main Capture targets, side characters and our very special MC in all their goodness.)

I don’t regret playing the game but definitely didn’t plan writing like 40+ pages of notes on this, and I regret how much time I put into this.

Be warned that this entire post will have some spoilers from all routes, so I suggest you read this after finishing all routes.

[Capture Targets]

Harry:

Very polite, kind and positive. The kind of boy your parents want you to date.

Protective of those who put themselves or are in danger. Usually goes all mom on them and scolds them.

Tries to mediate among the group, but often times get’s ignored by those arguing.

Bottles in his negative emotions a lot of the times which gives him really bad migraines.

His migraines usually happen when he wants to cry. Let the boy cry gosh dang it.

Used to take medicine for the migraines but ran out of pills. Now just carries the pill bottle around to make him feel better.

Tries to keep hope for the future, what an optimistic man.

His father was an alcoholic who used to abuse his mother and him. One day his dad just disappeared and left them both behind.

He loved his mother dearly. He lost/separated from her when the outbreak began. They were supposed to go to the doctor for his migraines.

When Harry’s dad left, his mom gave him her ring which she said would bring him happiness that he always wears.

Often tries to stay neutral or see the good in people. Doesn’t like suspecting people because it would bring division among the group.

Easy to regret his decisions, slightly unsure when to bring things forward that could change the flow of the group.

Appreciates when MC looks out for him and is happy that they are willing to listen to his troubles.

Harry and Lawrence have a strained relationship that isn’t obvious to the eye. They think too differently when trying to handle peoples lives.

Quite the one for close contact. Often patting MC on the shoulder to comfort or support them. Ex. During Scarlett’s incident he hugged them from behind to comfort them while they mourned.

Ethan:

A man of few words. You can tell what he’s feeling usually through his eyes or through his actions. Ex. Looking out the window while others are out on patrols.

Very brave and willing to put himself in front of others who are weaker to protect them from zombies.

Like a big brother looking after his siblings, giving them snacks when they’re hungry, staying with them if they can’t sleep, letting them cry it all out while he comforts them.

Doesn’t like taking a gamble with zombies, but if there is benefits for the future than he’ll use force to break through.

He looks like he’s made of steel, but even he’s afraid of the zombies.

A very sleepy boi. Someone please go help wake him up. Don’t massage his hand though, it’ll make him sleepier.

Used to be on a baseball team before the apocalypse, who used to joke around with his teammates all the time. Ex. going along with MC and Judy’s married couple skit.

Doesn’t really like thinking too much, (not in a meat head way but more like in a disassociating way.) Often keeps his opinions to himself unless he thinks it’s important to say it. Sometimes can’t get social cues.

If he’s not patrolling around the school, then he’s fixing up something. (Which is why he’s always a sleepy boi)

Lawrence and Ethan almost seem to have a leader and servant relationship. Sometimes it’s a Papa and Dad relationship looking after the teens.

Ethan and Zion are bros in strength and mind. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them work out together.

Zion:

Seems like a cocky asshole, but he’s just mostly a caring rough teddy bear.

Not good at handling vulnerability whether it’s his own or someone else’s. Ex. Often doesn’t know what to do when MC cries except for telling them not to cry because that’s not why he saved them from zombies for.

When heated up in an argument he’ll often get loud and start yelling. He has his opinions and feels frustrated when they don’t come to conclusions because of it.

Hates when people try to play the victim because he knows everyone has their own stories and problems.

Always get’s straight to the point and is always blunt about it. It makes him seem like an asshole without feelings.

Always the first to rush into danger especially when it’s to save someone.

Doesn’t like when people try to bite off more than they can chew. Warns them about it and always ends it with “Don’t get into trouble.” Even though he always does the same.

A Rowdy fellow who gets excited and proud about finding a large food haul, laughs freely with his friends, and doesn’t really care about others opinions about him.

He’ll let people do the dangerous tasks if he knows they can do it. He’d rather the guys do the zombie bashing and patrolling outside rather than some of the girls who can’t fight for themselves. Ex. Judy wanting to go on the outside patrols but Zion rejecting the idea cause she can’t really fight a lot of zombies.

Loves to tease and lightly bully his friends.

Dense when it comes to love. Can’t see the reasons why Scarlett wants to keep his student ID or why she treats MC badly cause she thinks that Zion likes MC.

His family was rich so a lot of people would want to be friends with him for his wealth. Because of all the fake people buzzing around him he’d often forget their faces. Hates when people try to use others for personal gain, so he’s gotten good at seeing the signs.

Instead of looking at his background, he wants people to look at him for him and consider his feelings.

Knows no human can always make the right decision all the time so it’s suspicious to him how Lawrence is able to do so 24/7.

Used to play soccer and can run really fast. Probably was a really good player back before the zombie apocalypse.

Sarcastic to a T.

Strangely gets very serious when asked questions about life or hypothetical situations. Also takes promises seriously which is very cute.

Doesn’t really have plans for the future and never planned to go to College.

Zion and Eugene have a very bro relationship. Zion always bragging his little achievements and Eugene always shutting him down and telling him to stop exaggerating. They both seem like normal teenagers again when they are together. Zion always scares the piss out of Eugene and makes fun of him for it.

No one let’s Zion have his fun exaggerations.

When MC tells him about hearing noises in the hallways, he brushes it off and calls them paranoid. (Which you shouldn’t do in a zombie apocalypse. That’s just like waiting to be killed.)

Eugene:

Has an attitude and not as trusting of the MC at first. But behind that attitude is kindness covered with harsh words.

Easily gets annoyed or fed up when everyone argues.

A slight nihilist, seems to always shift to the negative point of view. Very cautious because of it.

Seems whiny but can actually be strong willed in dire situations.

In his own way, reassures the MC by stating the situation, grounding the MC in the situation. (A good tactic for when you’re disassociating.)

Sarcastic little shit who can’t fight back against logic.

Pretty real with his feelings. He doesn’t shy away from his feelings at all.

Doesn’t seem like it but he tends to worry about the group when they don’t come back on time. Especially when people start disappearing.

Likes when MC is straight with him and make him look straight at the situation sometimes.

Can’t believe how understanding and kind MC is. It pisses him off that they are probably bottling up all their anger and sadness. It’s okay to let out the rage MC please.

Always wanted to become a singer when he finished school. He loves to sing and wants to make it his profession. Everyone didn’t believe he could do it though and thought that it wouldn’t make any money from it. He was very discouraged and hesitant to share it with MC.

Doesn’t really like to get sentimental, usually wants to move away from good times with the gals. You can’t hurt when they die if you don’t get close. *SOBS*

Knows how to play the piano and has a lovely singing voice.

A little weasel and eats the chips that he found during patrol. To not guilt the MC he tells them that everyone snacks on what they find during patrol and makes them an accomplice by feeding them some nice “BBQ chips” (that are actually ramen bits. No you can’t tell me those are chips, there are squiggly noodles in there. HE’S EATING OUT OF A RAMEN BOWL PACKET.)

Willing to be the bad guy and kill off his feelings to get the MC out of the school over run by zombies and get to the safe zone.

He get’s jump scared easily which makes everyone want to scare the piss out of him. He does not appreciate it. At all.

Lawrence:

Seems charismatic and like a leader with a gentle yet powerful voice.

Logical and calculating. Very smart and can make quick yet successful plans.

Seems like he cares and watches out for the others. In truth he is watching the others, finding them troublesome. When they get too troublesome he plans to get rid of them.

Knows how to get the others attention. Especially zombies who are sensitive to sounds.

Makes MC shy with his aura. Later on it turns into fear and anxiousness with how scary and creepy he becomes knowing he’s okay with mercilessly killing someone.

Always seems to have the most perfect timing when accidents happen around the group.

Has a solid mask that allows him to lie through his teeth and distance the suspicion from him.

Has a great poker face until things don’t go how he wants them. In which he becomes disappointed and very quiet.

Likes when the MC is honest with him. He doesn’t like people keeping things from him or lying, but MC would never do that. So kind, pure, and naive.

When someone talks about leaving the school, his masks slips. He does not approve.

To protect his own he becomes very violent and scary. After the giving the (over)killing blows he seems calm and airily creepy.

Possessive over his things. He will make them his. He will have his utopia.

Pretends not to know things. Like the Safe Zone (which he took down all the posters for) or the basement (which he maintained all this time)

Tries to teach people “lessons” when they get to curious and snoop around.

Was an straight A student who studied all the time. He would go to a library and have a study group. Would study for his parents to be satisfied and was probably gonna go to College and get a good job.

Wanted to learn how to bake but his parents wouldn’t allow him.

His parents were probably very controlling and didn’t let him do anything. Which is probably why he feels great to control others and be free to do whatever he wants for the future.

Met the MC two years prior to the apocalypse where they offered him their umbrella when it was raining. He liked them ever since.

Really just a kid who needed real connections and friends and the others could give him that if he stop thinking about them like his own soldiers.

His real cocky smart ass self makes you wanna beat him up.

For sure bold and daring. Dangerously so.

Together with Ethan, they researched what the zombies were sensitive to.

Smart enough to know which chemicals can poison a human being.

KNOWS HOW TO MAKE A BIG GIANT EXPLOSION. HELLO?!? WHAT?!?

Was the student council president before the apocalypse.

[Side Characters]

Judy:

A bubbly girl who is a breath of fresh air that lightens the atmosphere when she's around.

Knew MC before the apocalypse happened. Went to the same school together.

Protective of her friend and overall glad to see her again.

Doesn't like when someone attacks MC so she defends them and tells them to back off.

A touchy feely kind of person and often hugs MC close when they sleep at night. Or shoves her cold hands on their neck when they wake up.

Has a good heart and would want the best for the group. Doesn't want to push MC away even if Scarlett is trying to make her doubt MC and leave them behind.

Admits to not wanting to be alone and wants to be closer to MC, who is all she has from before the apocalypse.

Lesbian/playful sister vibes going on constantly.

Optimistic bean. Still has an imagination and hunger for food cause of it.

Not the brightest banana in the bunch, but that's not gonna stop her from helping around.

Wears a hairpin to keep her bed hair somewhat out of her eyes. (But also where is it? I literally don't see it at all)

Judy has a good sense of humor and often works off of MC's jokes for funny married couple skits.

Likes to eat food. Often craves foods like pizza and fries.

Sue:

Reserved and kind person who gives chances to people. Ex. One of the people who wanted to hear MC out when they first joined the group.

Smart and observant. Knows when something is fishy and correctly found out the culprit just by observing them.

Was probably student council president of her school before the apocalypse.

Very thorough with her searches and seems dutiful in her tasks.

Reassuring and comes to comfort MC when people start to doubt them again. Tries to make them rationalize leaving.

Hailey:

Seems nervous all the time.

Gentle yet scared like a rabbit.

Doesn't have a loud voice or presence. Often blends into the background and can be talked over a lot.

Very tol.

Looks weak willed but is mentally strong as she's willing to go on food searching patrols.

Actually blunt.

Chooses to get to know MC because she can't watch and suspect her without truly knowing.

Worried about Judy and MC eating themselves into a coma. "You'll get fat guys."

Scarlett:

To the point and a realist. She knows the risks they're taking in another person because they'll deplete more resources.

Jumps to conclusions and makes accusations.

When she see's people getting close to MC, especially Zion, she get's aggressive with them.

Doesn't want to listen to or believe in MC.

Arrogant and thinks she is higher on the food chart. Or at least she acts that way, in truth it's mostly a defense mechanism. She's actually introverted and a scared child fearing death.

Blames an unavoidable event on MC.

Okay with letting the MC get into danger. Pretty petty and okay with MC dying.

Lies to the others to make doubt on the MC.

Likes Zion and will cut any girl going for him.

Jay:

Typical spineless guy in a horror film.

Wants to conserve as much resources as possible so doesn't want MC to join them.

Often agrees with Scarlett.

Weak and a coward.

Very whiny. More so than Eugene.

Can't really fight against zombies.

Doesn't go on the patrols and often has the others do them instead.

Doesn't like danger or putting himself at risk. Will push anyone in front of him to keep himself safe. Ex. Pushing MC down the stairs so they can be a distraction for the zombies.

No one really cares about him.

[MC]

You:

Can run well and hit zombies well. (with determination and the right choices)

Survived by themself by hiding in empty homes since the beginning of the outbreak.

Got nervous being around new people and having people around that they burst into tears of relief. It reminded them of their friends and mother and they just miss them all so much.

Knows how to read the room and doesn't usually say unnecessary things.

Often the bigger person when Scarlett picks a fight with them. Ex. Not saying anything rude back at Scarlett and not punching her when she slapped them.

Often keeps things inside until they boil over. Like how they often cry after their emotions get too much.

A quick thinker. Great in critical situations and tight spots.

Often willing to do risky things to help their goal. Ex. Wandering the school to figure out what the key might unlock, searching more for Judy alone, going to the basement alone to investigate.

Has a fear of being alone.

After getting a second chance to save everyone they get very clingy to Judy.

Has an ongoing married couple skit going on with Judy.

When everyone keeps doubting them, they don't feel safe anymore in the school. They don't feel like they belong and almost leaves if not for Sue reassuring them and calming them down.

After Sue admitting her suspicions, MC is careful and acts cautiously. They observe more and doesn't blindly trust. Begins to act differently towards Lawrence from that point on and doesn't see his actions just from the surface.

Nags the guys sometimes, just cause they care for their well beings.

For some hope and positivity for the future they make small life goals that they can reach.

Wins Eugene a chick with a hat on it. (Which also has a cocky face like the boi too.)

MC mourns everyone's disappearance and deaths properly. Even if the people were unkind to them.

They used to massage their friend, Claire's hand to keep her awake during their old Bio class.

MC breaking the 4th wall to change the ending. Any previous route acts as a very bad dream that they had. (My preference for the previous route is the normal ending or Lawrence's ending.)

Very sarcastic with Zion and Eugene.

Really likes sweets.

Doesn't think that they've ever actually encountered Lawrence.

#dangerous fellows spoilers #dangerous fellows #dangerous fellows ethan #dangerous fellows lawrence #dangerous fellows harry #dangerous fellows zion #dangerous fellows eugene #fic #headcanons #long post #dangerous fellows judy #dangerous fellows sue #dangerous fellows hailey #dangerous fellows scarlett #dangerous fellows jay

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lessy86 · 4 years

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Memorial: Self-Insert X DMC and Gundam Wing Fic.

Just wanted to cheer myself up on this fic since my Grandfather on my mother’s side had passed away last week. I wanted to share this moment with you guys. Shout outs to my friends: @terrablaze514, @bettybattaglia, @violentmouths, @vergils-daughter, @dhalia111, and @keeroo92. Thank you all for making me feel better for this past week.

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

I was on my bed crying in heart-wrenching tears when I got home from work. During work, I got a phone call from my sister and my mother with a terrible news: My grandfather has died today. The last time I spoke to him was last month and he sounded healthy and well. Never knew that it was the last time I spoke to him....Damn. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye...

My thoughts were broken out of me by the knock on my bedroom door. I'm wiping my tears away while sitting up.

Me: Come in.....

The door was open and I saw both V and my big brother Wufei came through. I assumed that after I broke the news to my father, he must have told Wufei, who told V. I guess he wants them to be here with me when he couldn't. Shadow came out of V's body and start curling up to me for comfort.

Wufei: *Sits down on the bed next to me* you alright, my little sister?

Me: *Pets Shadow's head* Numb. Emotionally drained. Hurt. I’m guessing that daddy told you what happened, right?

V: *Walks up to me and nodded* We all tried to called you, but you didn’t answer. We got worried that you might’ve done something drastic until your Nana called. Your brother and I came here just to be sure.

Me: *In shock of hearing all of this* Wait. Did you say all?

Griffon: *Came out of V’s body as well* Oh come on now, Queen! We wouldn’t let you be all depressed and shit by yourself now, do we?

Me: *Giggles a little bit* Thank you for checking up on me. It was all so sudden and out of no-where. Now I don’t how to cheer myself up now...

Wufei and V looked and nodded at each other, knowing what to do to help me out.

Wufei: Well, come on sis. *Gets up from my bed and grab my hand to pull me up*

Me: Wait! Where are we going?

V: *Smiles at me* Well, One: you’re not staying home for a while tonight and two: We want to show you something.

Griffon: So let’s go, Queen! No time to waste! The night is still young!

So, Wufei and V dragged me out of the house into Wufei’s car and drove me to Kingside Lake that was right outside of the city. It was a santuary whenever I feel down and out. When we arrived at the lake, I was crying in happy tears this time of what I saw. Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, Relena, Dante, Vergil, Trish, Lady, Nico, Nero and Kyrie. They all took the time to come here to keep me company upon my grief.

Lady: *Hugs me* Judi, V told us about your grandfather’s passing. I know what is like to lose a grandparent. We all here for you, no matter what.

Trish: If you need anything at all, you call us. Okay?

I nodded silently as I hugged both of my female friends. Vergil gave a single blue rose as his condolences. I hugged him as my appreciation to him. He was stiff at first but hugged me back a moment later.

Dante: My, Vergil. Never thought you showed a little emotion to Judi now. How sweet.*Got stabbed by one of Vergil’s shadow swords*

Vergil: Just be glad that I won’t kill you in front of her, Dante. We’re here to support her.

Nero: *Shook his head at his father and uncle’s banters* Idiots....

Trowa: Seems that they haven’t changed one bit after all these years.

Nico: Remind Dante of anyone you know? *Looks at the former Gundam Pilots*

Heero: *Gives Duo a death glare* Unfortunately.....

Duo: Hey! I wasn’t THAT bad when I was younger!

Quatre: Actually Duo, you was kinda annoying to Heero and Wufei back in the day.

Wufei: You was annoying then and you’re annoying now, Maxwell!

Duo: Ah, come on Wu-man! Loose it up a little.

Wufei: For the last time Maxwell, It’s Wufei! WUFEI!

I laughed at their antics as Relena and Kyrie approached me and V. No matter the situations one of us are in like this one, we will always be there for each other as one. We are family that sticks together.

Relena: Judi, if you ever want to talk about anything, you let me know okay?

Me: I will, Lena. Thank you. *Hugs Relena and she hugs me back*

We all gather around at our firecamp to have our own memorial for my grandfather. Wufei and I tell everyone our childhood stories about our grandfather growing up. Not the best kind, it’s worth share our memories to the people we cared about. Kyrie sang a beautiful song that left even Heero to tears. So, I got up with my Light Medallion in my hand and took a deep breath.

Me: I want to thank all of you for coming here to be my joy in the time of sorrow. You were there for me as I was there for you. I don’t know what I’ll do without you guys.

Griffon: We love you, Queen. Don’t you ever forget that! *Shadow roars as an agreement*

Nico: You know we got your back, Ju ju!

Me:*Smiles as I wipe my tears* As a traditional custom of the royal family, The seven sages bring light to the sky in honor of our loved ones that we lost. So, Relena. Heero. Would you and the others join me?

Heero and the other pilots nodded as they joined me in one circle. Heero has a Spirit Medallion, Duo has a Forest Medallion, Trowa has a Fire Medallion, Quatre has a Water Medallion, and my brother Wufei has a Shadow Medallion. Relena channels her triforce of wisdom since she’s the royal decendant of the royal family. The seven of us send our small amount of energy and have it ascend to the heavens above. Few of my tears shed when it happen. V wrapped his arm around my shoulder as all of us looked up at the night sky.

Me: You think my grandpa like our gift up there?

Heero: Yeah....He does.

Wufei: We’ll see him again. Eventually.

Vergil: For now, let’s live our lives to the fullnest.

Trowa: I agree.

I lay my head on V’s chest knowing that my family are right. My grandpa don’t want me to be sad forever. He’s in a better place now. I’m going to keep on living until I will see him again.

#Self Insert #self blog #crossoverfanfiction #DMC5 #gundam wing #mourn #memories

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ghostbustermelanieking · 5 years

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praescitum chapter eleven, part two

chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven pt 1

casefile, season 10, season 11, 11x03 plus one. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: As Mulder and Scully adjust to their reassignment to the X-Files and working together in the wake of their separation, they find themselves investigating a small town and a ghost that apparently warns people of bad things to come.

note: a good portion of the scenes and dialogue from this chapter are taken directly from the episode "plus one."

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chapter eleven, pt. 2

Scully's second impression of Judy Poundstone is very different than the first; she finds her antagonistic this time, startlingly so. She remains coy about her potential involvement in Arkie's death, as well as her brother's involvement, but her response to the whole thing makes Scully think that she must be involved, somehow. She supposes that the autopsy will shed some light on that subject.

Before Scully leaves, Judy begins to sling insults in the same matter she slings her pudding. She clearly has an infatuation with Mulder, and suggests that he would forget all about Scully, that she doesn't know what Mulder sees in her. She calls her dried up, not even half a woman. Past the age where she can have children. It's silly and petty, it shouldn't bother her, but it does, when she thinks about what happened last week. Mulder deserves someone who is willing to come home to him, someone who will actually be there and tell him what they want, instead of being wishy-washy and detached. Maybe he really does deserve someone who would be able to give him more kids. She's never considered that possibility, with everything that's happened, but maybe that is something he wants.

She tries to ignore it. Swallows it back and goes to the local morgue to perform the autopsy. An examination of Arkie Seavers seems to contradict her theory from the night before, that Arkie had killed himself. If her conversation with Judy had her suspecting that, somehow, the Poundstones were involved in Arkie's death, this autopsy has her nearly certain. The angle of the strangulation wound suggests that Arkie couldn't have done it himself, as well as a lack of strain on the arm muscles. She finds tissue under his fingernails, like he'd tried to fight off his attacker, but when she runs the DNA test, she finds that it's a match for Arkie himself. So there's no telling if that's from the attack, some strange confirmation that Mulder's insistence of doppelgangers, or from an earlier incident. But she leaves the morgue fairly sure that Arkie Seavers didn't kill himself.

She goes back to the hotel from the morgue, surprised to find how quickly the day has passed. She hasn't heard from Mulder outside of a couple texts clarifying that he's talking to the families of the other recent victims, and so she picks up some dinner and heads back to the hotel.

Scully tries to relax, tries to focus on the case and banish thoughts of ghosts or of Mulder growing tired of her, but something in her can't shake the gloom of the last week. Somehow, it only seems to be getting worse; she can't loosen up, she can't let go of these things. She stands in front of the mirror as she unbuttons her blouse, her ring-less cross (she'd left it on the bedside table for some unknown reason) nestled against her collarbone, and all she can hear is Judy's voice as she looks at her reflection. She's a little disgusted with herself, for lingering on these meaningless words, for letting them bother her so much, but a part of her can't help it. Can't let it go.

She's still standing in front of the mirror when she hears a knock at the door. “Just a minute,” she calls out, rebuttoning a couple buttons, and crosses the room to open the door.

It's Mulder, in his side of the suite, leaning against the door with a degree of casualness. She hadn't even known he was back. “Hey,” he says. “What'd you find out, Scully?”

“That Dookie winging past your head sends a sharp message to your brain,” she says, reaching up to remove her earrings as she crosses the room.

“What message is that?” he asks, the tiniest bit of laughter in his voice.

She chuckles, too, holding both earrings in her hand. “To gather the other apes and make war on your dread enemy.” She sets them down next to her cell phone, next to the tiny good circle of her ring. She wonders if Mulder has noticed that she has it.

“I believe I'm in touch with that feeling, Scully,” he says.

“Really? Did you have Dookie flung at you, too?”

“Uh, figuratively,” he says, fully entering the room to stand by the table near the door. “By the queerest little man in the queerest little house.”

“I don't know, Mulder,” she says, sitting on the bed. “This Judy, she has some malign influence over these victims, and I'm at a loss to figure out what it is.”

“Yeah, I agree. There is some evil in the air, Scully,” says Mulder.

For a second, she almost knows what he's talking about, but she dismisses it immediately. “No, it's not evil—it's mental illness,” she says, almost more to reassure herself than him. “There's some kind of psychic transference.”

“I wouldn't rule out ghosts,” Mulder says.

“Well,” she says with a scoff, thinking of Willoughby, and all of that Specter nonsense that cannot possibly be real, “except for the fact that they don't exist?”

“Of course there are ghosts,” he says, as if to remind her that they’ve just recently been investigating just such a ghost.

She'd rather forget. “I mean, science has proven that the stimulation of the brain's left anterior insula is linked to the feeling of a sensed presence, and that repeated stimulation to an area of the left temporoparietal junction is what promotes the sense of a shadowy figure, collectively known as the Gastaut-Geschwind syndrome,” she says, still reassuring herself. Still justifying everything. What she kept hearing last night was Mulder, of course, and the other night at home can be explained by this, as well as the malfunctioning house. The shadow in the mirror. All of it has a rational explanation.

“Talk about flinging dookie,” he says, joking. And she should laugh, but the thought of Judy and that pudding takes her right back to that room. She sighs wearily; it's been a long week.

She’s saying it almost before she can think about it: “Mulder, do you think of me as old?”

“What?” he says, laughing gently. “Where is that coming from?”

“Well…” she starts, unsure of how to explain, as he comes to sit on the bed beside her.

“I mean, maybe in dog years. No,” he says comfortingly. “What are you… what are you talking about?”

“Well, a woman thinks about these things,” she says, very nearly sheepish. Certainly embarrassed.

“No, Scully, you're… You still got it going on, you…” He chuckles, a little awkwardly, so ridiculously sweet that it does make her feel better. Just a little better. “You still got some scoot in your boot,” he finishes.

She smiles warmly, genuinely. “I'm gonna boot you out of here,” she says, pushing gently at his shoulder, and he goes, agreeable as she's ever seen him.

“Knock three times!” he calls over his shoulder as she closes the door behind him. She leans against it, the smile slipping away from her face. She misses him. She's been his partner again for two years now, she stays with him almost every week, and she still misses him. She doesn't know why she booted him out. For a second, she thinks about opening the door, asking him to come back.

She used to kick him out of her room in 2000, when their relationship was so new, and she would always open the door eventually, and he would always be waiting on the other side, leaning against the door jamb and smirking at her. She hears his footsteps across the floorboards on the other side, crossing the room.

Just because he's willing to reassure her doesn't mean that he wants to be in here with her. She's still scared, after everything. She sighs to herself wistfully, pushes off of the door and walks back to her bed.

She curls up on her side of the bed and falls asleep quickly, surprisingly quickly and surprisingly calmly. She sleeps well, and that is a shock, too, after the week she's had. When she wakes up, she is cold, lying on her stomach on his side of the bed.

---

The next morning, she and Mulder disperse to interview the Poundstone siblings again. Judy is calm again, feigning the same innocence as before, and claiming no memory of their last interaction. She refuses to stop playing Hangman with her brother, and Scully isn't sure how much sway those games actually have over those deaths, but she knows that they can't have no sway at all. Judy does offer her a solution—protection, she claims, in the form of bread pills she takes every morning. No medicinal power, but the nurses claim to take them to protect themselves. Scully can't bring herself to throw them away. She tucks them into her jacket pocket.

Arkie's lawyer shows up at their hotel, ranting about how he's being stalked by his double. Scully tells him that he is making it worse. “Your paranoia is only gonna feed on itself,” she says. “Y-You know that mass hysteria is just a symptom of fears run wild.” It's the kind of thing she's been telling herself ever since the sleepless nights, the paranoia and the hearing things began. Some small comfort.

Mulder advises him to take precautions to avoid the danger. They tell him to go home and lock his doors, and Mulder hands over his card. Scully tells him that it can't haunt him if he doesn't let it—more of the things she's been telling herself, but she means it sincerely.

As the lawyer leaves, Mulder says, “Like I said before, clearly there's a dark influence set loose in this town, Scully.”

He could be talking about Willoughby as easy as he's talking about this town, but this is the case they are on, and the case of the Willoughby Specter should hold no sway over that. “Well, by ‘dark influence,’ again, I presume you mean evil, Mulder,” says Scully. “But there is no such thing as evil. I mean, evil is a concept, like the Devil.”

“Oh, the Devil is a concept?” Mulder asks over his shoulder as he retrieves his keys from his car. “Certainly, that's not what they taught young Dana Katherine Scully in Sunday school, is it?”

“Well, I certainly believed in the literal Devil when I was a child,” she says as he closes his car door and turns back to her.

“So you don't believe that we, as humans, have dark sides that we sublimate or repress?”

“Well, while anyone with an imagination can entertain acting out violence or antisocial behavior, that doesn't mean that there's an evil twin lurking inside of us.”

“Speak for yourself, Scully,” he says. “And tell that to Chuck and Judy.”

“Chuck and Judy are mentally ill, Mulder,” she replies matter-of-factly.

“Explain how they're doing it,” he challenges her.

“I can't explain it,” she says, and he nods, a little smugly. “But,” she adds, “if you eliminate the impossible, whatever is remaining, even if improbable, must be the truth.”

“No sugar, Sherlock,” he retorts, his car alarm chirping.

“But I have to admit,” she says sheepishly, “I, uh, still sleep with my back to the door just in case the Devil comes in the night.” It's the closest she's willing to come to admitting what she's been going through. She locks her own car and heads towards the hotel.

“Can never be too careful,” Mulder says behind her, so quietly she almost misses it.

---

They order in a pizza and eat it in Mulder's side of the suite, where he's folded up the couch. They discuss the case, eating off of paper plates the way they used to when they were young and newly partners, and the way they've done dozens of times on cases in the past two years. It's companionable, sitting knee to knee in the couch, discussing dark forces and the possibility of patterns and the intentions of the Poundstone siblings. It feels familiar, easy, almost like nothing had ever happened last week. But they still depart to their separate rooms at the end of the night.

Scully is hoping for a peaceful night, like the night before, but of course she wouldn't be so lucky. She sleeps in snatches again, her spine crawling, jolting at the slightest sound. At one point, she's nearly asleep when she swears she hears someone behind her, and she rolls over in a panic only to find Mulder. She gasps a little with fading fear, rolls over and says, “Please, Mulder, you've got to quit scaring me like that.”

“Oh, I'd like to quit,” he says.

The reasoning doesn't need an explanation. Arkie Seavers's lawyer is dead.

They go to his home and find his head detached from his body, blood splattering the walls. Scully notes that while it's unlikely that a man could cut his own head off, it's not impossible. Mulder notes that the man was scared out of his mind. He clearly believes that this was not the work of suicide, and a small part of Scully is inclined to agree. Still, there is nothing more they can do tonight, and so they agree to head back to the hotel.

On their way out, as Scully is weaving through the crowd, she sees something strange, something impossible. Her own face in the nearby crowd, watching her. Glaring at her. She squints at the crowd in confusion, trying to get a better look, but someone briefly blocks her line of sight, and by the time they are gone, so is the face.

“You coming, Scully?” Mulder calls on the other side of the car, and she climbs it, silently repeating her former words to herself. It's paranoia, it's her imagination, it's some strange suggestion of her brain, but it isn't real. Maybe this is a manifestation of the things she was seeing at her house, or maybe this is something completely different, but it's not real.

When she and Mulder get back to the hotel, she crawls into her bed without bothering to turn the lights on, Mulder padding into the other room tiredly as they exchange their second good nights. She'd like to go back to sleep, to hopefully get some uninterrupted rest, but she's spooked. The image of her own face glaring at her hovers behind her eyelids, small noises are making her jump. She lays on her side away from the door, closes her eyes and tries to fall back asleep, but the dread won't leave her. She feels as if someone is standing over her shoulder, the way Mulder has been the last two times someone died. The feeling grows stronger, shiver up her spine, and she turns over in a panic, hoping she sees Mulder's face instead of her own. But there is nothing there.

She gasps in relief or in panic, rolling on to her back. She can't decide if she'd rather something be there, or nothing. Noises with nothing attached to them makes her panic instinctively, but she certainly doesn't want someone threatening to be there. She wishes Mulder was the one there this time, and he didn't have a crime scene for them to rush off to.

This is ridiculous. She's been jumpy for over a week now with no end, and she's tired of feeling this way. She thinks of that night when she thought she heard an intruder, when she reached for her phone to text Mulder, because she was afraid. This doesn't feel very different. She's on edge and admittedly a little frightened, and she doesn't want to be alone. So she won't be.

It's largely an impulse, but she's going to do it. She gets out of bed, walking across the room and opening the connecting door. Doesn't bother to announce herself because he hasn't before; call it revenge. He's lying on his side, on his side of the bed, back to the door; she stands behind him until he turns over, startled. “Oh,” he says good-naturedly. “Speak of the Devil.”

“I can't sleep, Mulder,” she says honestly.

“Oh. What's the problem?” He shifts in bed, turning to face her.

She sighs, reluctant, trying to decide how much she wants to explain. She settles for, “Something about this case is getting under my skin.”

“Well, we've had stranger cases, Scully,” he says, on his side facing her, his arm folded under his head.

“Can you hold me?” she asks, also completely on impulse. Without thinking. But she doesn't think it requires a lot of thought; it's what she wants. It's what she's wanted since that night she pulled away, that she didn't know how to ask for. She's spooked, and she's lonely, and this feels right, feels almost brave.

She sees the briefest moment of hesitation, enough to strike wavering fear and embarrassment, before he says, “Yeah, I can do that,” and she wonders why she ever doubted him.

She climbs onto the rickety couch bed beside him, her back to his chest. He wraps his arms around her, easily because he's been doing it for over a decade, and it feels like home. She can't believe she's gone so long without this.

“What's gonna happen?” she says in a small, vulnerable voice, because suddenly all she can see is the bags she packed to move out, her rejections of Mulder in the past, telling herself it was just for a few months and that quickly turning into four years. She needs to know what their future is, what Mulder wants their future to be. If he even wants a future with her.

“What's gonna happen when?” Mulder asks sleepily from behind her.

“When we're old,” she says.

He scoffs out a laugh against her hair. “What do you mean ‘when?’”

She laughs a little, too, but the thought won't leave her. The uncertainties that have been plaguing her. “I mean… sooner or later, we're gonna retire, and…” she tries to explain.

“Hmm.” Mulder nudges her shoulder with her chin.

“... Are we gonna spend time together?” she finishes lamely.

“I'll come push your wheelchair with my wheelchair,” he murmurs, his nose brushing the corner of her eye.

She chuckles softly, says, “That's not what I mean.”

“Oh, I'll always be around, Scully,” he says, and a sudden warmth fills her from head to toe. “Offering bulletproof theories of genius that you fail to assail with your inadequate rationality.”

She scoffs out another laugh, pretending that she isn't incredibly relieved that she didn't screw this up. “And I'll always be around to prove you wrong,” she says, because she wants him to know. He hmms in response, and she adds, “Promise.”

He nestles closer, holding onto her tighter, and she'd love to just stay in this moment forever, here with the man she loves. But there is still that unsure part of herself, and she can't let it go. She needs to absolve herself of any uncertainties. “No, but that's not what I mean,” she continues.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

There is a long pause, a silence she spends considering if she even wants to ask him this, if she really wants to know the answer. She sighs a little, says gingerly, “What if you meet someone?” He shifts against her startledly, like she's caught him off guard, and she has no idea how to take it. She continues, “What if you meet someone… younger, who… wants to have kids?”

“Oh,” he says, “that's what you mean.” He still sounds so caught off guard, so shocked. He says, “Well… you could do the same. You could meet someone, and… have kids.”

She laughs a little at the thought, astonished. Uncertain as to whether or not he actually thinks that's a possibility, whether or not he knows what he means to her. “Mulder, that's not gonna happen,” she says.

“That's nonsense.” He nudges her a little.

“No, it's not,” she says firmly. “I'm… I'm at the end of that journey.”

“Do you want to have more kids?”

The question genuinely shocks her; she never expected to be having this conversation with Mulder. Not after William, not so late in life. “Well…” she says, hesitating, “... I would have liked to have had another one.” Because it's true; a long time ago, she always thought she'd have more than one. She always wanted a big family. And years later, it had gotten to the point where having another child seemed impossible, even immoral because of what happened with William, and she hadn't thought about it since. But in a different life…

“Mm,” Mulder hums quietly. “At the risk of sounding insensitive, what's stopping you?”

“Besides the fact that the first time was a miracle? And besides the fact that I don't have anyone to have one with even if I could?”

There's a long, pregnant (Excuse the pun, Scully thinks to herself almost bitterly) pause before Mulder finally speaks. “You're a woman of science,” he says.

She laughs softly at that. “Mulder,” she says, “sometimes I think the world is going to hell and that we're the only two people who can save it.” That's how it's always felt, almost since the beginning. The two of them against the world, always.

“The world is going to hell, Scully. The president working to bring down the FBI along with it.”

“What if we lose our jobs?” she says softly, wondering. Two years ago, she thought that this stint at the FBI would be brief, and now she can't imagine doing anything else. Working with anyone else.

“Yeah.” He bumps his cheek against her shoulder, resting it there. “Then what would we do?”

There is another long pause, but this one feels full of possibility. She is here, and she is being held by her husband, and she Bt him with everything in her. She turns gently in his arms, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as Mulder's palm slides over her stomach. “We'll think of something,” she says.

She smiles more broadly at him, and he is smiling, too. His palm is so soft over her stomach, so warm, and she moves closer to him almost unconsciously. Reaches up with quivering fingertips and touches the side of his face. He’s watching her carefully, like he might scare her away. She kisses him first, cupping his face in her hands, soft and sweet and a little sloppy. He makes a small sound of pleased surprise, his hands sliding down to her hips, sliding under her shirt. He tugs her closer and she wraps herself around him, her arms folding tight around his neck. “Are you sure…” she mumbles, purely out of caution.

He kisses her again in lieu of an answer. His hands fumbling, unbuttoning the buttons of her pajama shirt.

---

Afterwards, she falls asleep curled up against his shoulder, wrapped up in a sheet, springs bearing into her back. His arm against her back, his hands rubbing over the chilly tops of her feet. She goes to sleep warm, feeling calmer than she has in months. She can't believe she went so long without this.

She wakes up to something not unsimilar to chaos. Mulder in a panic, insisting he saw his doppelganger. She admits she saw her double, too, which only seems to spur him on. She tries to reassure him, to get him to calm down, but he seems bound and determined. He wants her to go and visit Judy, and she hardly sees a better solution to the issue, and so she goes.

She’s driving to the hospital when she sees it again: the unnerving sight of her own face from the rearview mirror. But this time, she is less unnerved. This time, she finds the whole thing a lot more annoying.

“My rational mind knows that you are only a… a manifest psychic ideation borne of latent hostility,” she tells the image firmly—maybe out of courage, but more likely out of pure irritation. She's tired of this, dark, menacing shapes over her shoulder. “Maybe Mulder was right, you're evil incarnate. It's all you are.”

She looks at the mirror again, and then swivels a bit to check for sure. The doppelganger is gone.

She breathes a small sigh of relief, of satisfaction. It's strange, but it feels like a triumph over whatever images and sounds have been tormenting her over the last week. Like a small victory. She feels better, like she's had some sort of adrenaline shot, stemming both from her discussion with Mulder and from this.

She drives the rest of the way to the hospital and finds Judy Poundstone dead on the floor of her hospital room. Unexplainably dead, considering they just saw her not five minutes ago, but Scully has an idea what has happened. She finds a game of Hangman on the floor; the answer is Chucky.

Across town, Mulder finds a similar scene after a scuffle with his doppelganger. Dead Chucky Poundstone. A game of Hangman reading Judith, and two more, older ones reading Mom and Dad.

---

Scully is packing up evidence in her half of the hotel room when Mulder enters, says, “So I was thinking maybe we could get a couple hours in before check out time?” She gives him a questioning look, and he continues innocently, “I'm just talking about getting some shut eye,” like she hadn't woken up in his bed this morning.

“I'm glad to hear that, Mulder,” she says carefully. A replica of their conversation the first night. They haven't talked about what happens now, she doesn't know what he wants from this.

“Yeah,” he says. “Uh… I guess I should hit the hay.”

She can't gauge his meaning, can't tell if they've fallen back into their old habits of saying things without really saying them. At times, she had thought they'd gotten past that; but then again, look at their last week. They've been veering away from the difficult subjects for years. It's why their relationship fell apart the first time, it's what keeps making it fall apart. “Okay,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says. “But you need anything, you just, uh, call me.”

She's tempted to just ask what it is he wants. But instead, she says, “I can't imagine that I will.” She feels somewhat safer, somewhat less paranoid, somewhat more capable. But she is still scared, too scared to ask him to stay. She is briefly, mildly disgusted with herself.

He nods a little at her, crosses the room and closes the door behind him. She keeps her eyes on the door, like it's going to open. Maybe. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Maybe she should push through this part of her that's holding back, that's still hesitating. She couldn't imagine that she'd need anything, but then again. “But then again,” she mutters to herself, courage building inside of her, “it's not out of the realm of extreme possibility.”

She crosses to the door, opens it, and there he is. Leaning against the door like it's 2000 again. She smiles at him, can't help it. “Hi,” she says, maybe a little tentative. Maybe a little welcoming.

Mulder leans in this time, kisses her warmly. “Hi,” he mumbles against her mouth, and she laughs a little, somewhat in relief. She takes his hand and tugs him into the room, shutting the door behind him.

---

“I didn't mean it,” she says.

They're curled up in bed (a real bed, thank you very much), wrapped up in the comforter and silky sheet, Scully lying half on top of Mulder, and Mulder’s head half-pressed into her neck. He stirs slowly, his hair rubbing against her chin like a needy cat. “Didn't mean what?” he says with something of a nervous chuckle. Like he's scared she's going to take back everything she's said these past couple days.

She brushes her lips over his tousled hair, something warm building in her chest. “What I said the night we got back from New York,” she murmurs. “Or… the way I reacted.”

Mulder lifts his head, rumpled and sleepy, his eyes soft and gentle. “Oh, Scully,” he whispers, lifting a hand to stroke her hair back. “I'm the one who should be sorry. I said I wouldn't push you about moving back in, and then I…”

“No, Mulder. You shouldn't have to be sorry.” She tips her head forward until her forehead is against his. He slides his heavy palms up her hips, and she shivers, burrowing closer. “I… I've been indecisive,” she mutters. “I feel like I've lead you on.”

He shakes his head. “Never,” he says, and his nose bumps against hers as he leans in to kiss her on the mouth. “You've never led me on. Scully, I'd wait as long as necessary for you.”

Nearly embarrassed, nearly overwhelmed, she ducks her head until her face is against his shoulder. “You would?” she mumbles shyly, so quiet she almost hopes he doesn't hear.

“I waited seven years, didn't I?” he teases, nudging her side. Scully chuffs out a relieved laugh against his shoulder, and he kisses the top of her head. “I can wait a little longer,” he murmurs. “I would wait forever.”

She presses her forehead against his shoulder hard before drawing back to meet his eyes. “I don't want you to have to wait,” she says, surprisingly vulnerable, even to herself. Some uncertain emotion passes over his eyes, but he says nothing. He watches her, carefully, his face composed, trying not to show his cards. She reaches up with one hand to touch the side of his face. “I don't know if I'm… ready to come home yet,” she says softly. “But… I want to try again. With us.”

He says nothing. He says nothing, but she can feel the nervous thud of his heart against their ribs. She doesn't move her hand.

A smile breaks out over his face, slowly. He reaches up to cover her hand with his, and she intertwines their fingers.

---

They leave for home later that day. It seems so much more ridiculous now, that they drove here separately, considering everything—Scully thinks that right now, she'd love nothing more than a morning spent in the car with Mulder. But they did drive separately, and it seems like they'll have to drive back separately as well.

They're carrying their suitcases out to their various cars when Mulder catches Scully's hand in his, squeezes her fingers. “Let me buy you breakfast,” he says.

Her brow furrows, and she gives him a funny look. “Mulder, there is a free continental breakfast at the hotel,” she points out. “And it's closer to lunch time than breakfast.”

“Oh, those hotel breakfasts lose all the glamour and charm after the second or third morning.” He grins, nudging her hip with their tangled up hands. “Let me buy you breakfast, Scully.”

He's such a sap. She rolls her eyes and lets him buy her breakfast.

They meet at a restaurant outside of town, not wanting to tempt fate and stay there any longer. It's the type of greasy spoon they used to eat at a thousand times back in the day. Scully loves it. They sit in a booth catty-cornered to the wall that must be too small; their knees keep knocking together under the table.

They spend too long in the diner, drinking their coffee and arguing about nothing. At one point, Mulder jokingly suggests a game of Hangman, and she shoots him a look both of skepticism, and a reminder that he didn't seem too keen on the idea of Hangman the night before. She sketches out Tic-tac-toe on a napkin instead.

Just as she's winning her third round of the game, Mulder's phone beeps loudly on the table, vibrating hard enough to rattle his silverware. Scully gets a brief glimpse of the display as he scoops it up to check it. “Ryan Caruthers is still emailing you?”

“Snoop,” he says lightly, clicking on the email. “Yeah, the kid is nothing if not persistent. I figured I'd check the case report again while we're between cases.”

She bumps her knee against his. “I'll remind you that we have a report due to Skinner promptly,” she says, and he hums in response. She leans forward and catches a few lines of the email: Please keep looking into the case… I think they made a mistake… “Does he think that his uncle is innocent?” she asks.

“I'm not sure,” he says, setting his phone down. “I considered it, but the report seems to implicate Jared Caruthers pretty heavily… I looked at the autopsy report, but I'm horrible at that stuff.”

“Hmm.” Their knees knock together again. She takes a long sip of her coffee. “I could take a look at them for you, if you want.”

He grins, a little sheepishly. “Would you mind? I know it's not technically a case we're technically working on.”

In the back of her mind, part of her doesn't particularly want to deal with the case. But the rest of her is mentally chiding herself, telling herself that whatever happened to her in Willoughby was a long time ago, and it is time to let it go. It can't hurt her if she doesn't let it.

“Of course I'll take a look, Mulder,” she says. “Although we might want to save it for after hours, or when things are slow in the office. After Skinner got so upset the last time, we should probably hold off until there's an actual crime to investigate.”

“Hmm.” He grins again, wider this time. “You're probably right. We'll have to work late one of these nights.”

“Too bad,” she says lightly, like she hasn't worked late with Mulder a million times before.

“Oh, don't worry, Scully,” says Mulder. Their knees brush together again. “I'll take you to dinner first.”

---

Contacting the FBI was probably a dumb fucking idea, but Ryan didn't know what else to do. Doesn't know what else to do. These past couple years have felt like a downhill slide, ever since he started visiting Uncle Jared. Ever since other people started seeing the ghost again.

The thing is that it's been exhausting. The whole goddamn thing. He's spent weeks now digging into the murder of his parents, his one life-long nightmare. He's talked to people, tried to access crime scene reports, written Jared emails with questions that Jared tries to dodge answering. It gets exhausting, having to relive that over and over again.

But he can't stop. He knows he can't stop. It's getting worse.

It happens again one night. He's asleep, tangled up in his greasy sheets that he probably needs to wash, when he hears a loud banging sound. A slamming sound.

Ryan jolts awake, his teeth chattering. He's trying to get his bearings when he hears another bang, louder this time.

He groggily shoves the sheets aside and stumbles to his feet, purely on instinct. He's not even thinking about the ghost; he's thinking about his aunt, wondering if she's gotten back yet, wondering if she's okay. “Aunt Annie?” he calls blearily, pushing the door open.

There's no answer. The hallway is empty.

Ryan grits his teeth, shakes his head. It's becoming more obvious what's happening here. He slams his door hard, making sure to push at it so it clicks all the way shut. So it won't be easy openable. (He'd lock it, but the last time he did that, Annie panicked when she couldn't get the door open.) He pushes at the door with his shoulder a little for emphasis, and then turns back to his bed, intending to text Aunt Annie and see if she'll be home soon.

As soon as his back turns, he hears it: the sharp rattle of the doorknob.

He turns hard on his heel, hands held out in front of him like a pathetic imitation of a Jedi, like he's trying to protect himself. But the door doesn't open. It only rattles, as if someone was trying desperately to get it open.

Ryan stumbles back a few steps until his thighs hit the mattress of his bed, his hands lowering to his side. “Nice try!” he calls out, and ignores the way his voice quivers.

The doorknob doesn't stop rattling. The motion almost seems to increase, the cross hanging on the back of the door joining in, almost vibrating in place. Ryan bites down on his lip so hard it bleeds.

The rattling spreads from the door to the walls: the crosses he'd hung up there rattling too, the rosary beads he'd bought on eBay and dangled from the doorknob of his closet door clacking together like chattering teeth. The printouts he has of crosses from the Internet, that he taped up, go fluttering madly to the ground. His dresser starts shaking in place, the drawers banging back and forth; behind him, the bed starts to move, rattling up and down as if there was an earthquake. Ryan can nearly feel the vibrations beneath his feet.

He stumbles madly away from the bed, to the center of the room, and shouts indignantly for the mess to stop. But the chaos continues, all the furniture in his room being shaken by an invisible hand. A picture he taped the wall detaches and flies across the room, hitting him in the face; he hears another one ripping in half. His school books clatter off of his desk. The cup of water on his nightstand overturns on top of his digital clock. The pillows from his bed go flying, too, hit him in the face with more force than he ever would've expected from a pillow and knock him right on his ass.

“Fuck!” he yells, more surprised than anything, but it seems to be something of a trigger. The room freezes in place, like it's a movie someone paused. The pillows land on top of him, considerably lighter. The doorknob gives one last rattle, but it won't open. He didn't lock it, but he still knows (or maybe at this point he's just hoping) that it won't open.

Breathing hard, Ryan shifts on the ground, catching the photo from the wall under his leg. He picks it up carefully and sees that it's his parents’ wedding photo. It's unharmed, which he's grateful for, but it's hard to look at; their cheery smiles seem almost sinister in this context. Ryan stands and sets it on his bedspread.

The other photo, the one that ripped, is sitting on the bedspread, too. Ryan catches a glimpse of a black gown as he goes to pick it up and knows instantly what it is: the photo of his dad and Annie and Jared at Annie's high school graduation. Annie doesn't like that he has that up, but he's never taken it down, and she hasn't said anything since he first put it up. Ryan winces when he sees the rip, winces harder when he sees where the rip is.

The larger half still shows his dad and Annie, their arms around each other, grinning into the camera. But the fingers held up in bunny ears behind Annie's square graduation cap are missing the rest of the person they belong to. When Ryan finds the other half, his fears are confirmed: his Uncle Jared has been ripped out of the picture.

A sudden scratching sound comes to life out in the hallway, one that Ryan has learned to recognize well in his sixteen years. The lighting of a match. The flickery flames are visible under the doorway, accompanied by the creaking footsteps of the ghost walking away.

It's getting stronger. This is the one phrase in Ryan's head: It's getting stronger.

He strides easily across the room, hands shaking in fear, and locks his door.

#xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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onpurposebreezy · 5 years

Text

CHAPTER 23

LORI

I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and watched Cody try to kill some villain in his video game. We have been home for a while and decided to relax for the rest of the day. After unpacking.

"So, get it all figured out?" Cody asked, still focused on the game.

"Yeah, I'll call the doctor's office tomorrow and see when I can get in, I hate changing my appointments" I answered.

"Just let me know and we'll go together," he told me before pumping both fists in the air when he finally killed the villain. I rolled my eyes and laughed at him, clapping at his achievement. He half bowed and waved as if he received an award.

We were laughing and joking about the game when we heard a door open and Kim’s voice echo through the house, "I'm home!"

"Living room," Cody yelled back to tell her where we were. She walked through the entry way from the kitchen and smiled when she saw us.

"Hey! What are you two up to?" She asked, dropping her bags next to the staircase and settling between us on the couch. It was a good thing we were already sitting at opposite ends when she arrived home because otherwise, it might have been awkward.

"Your brother finally kill this bad thing," I gestured to the dead creature on the paused screen.

"Good job, Cody. I don't know what that thing is, but good job," she gave him 2 thumbs up.

"Thank you. Have you eaten dinner yet?" he asked her. I checked the time and was surprised it was already dinner time. It really didn't feel like time had passed that much, even with the drive home.

"No, Judi wanted to get back early because she forgot about some homework assignment and it is due tomorrow. I'm starving though," Kim told him. Cody saved his game and said he would whip something up for us.

"How was your weekend?" Kim asked after Cody left the room.

"It was fun. Your mom and dad had us over and then Cody took me to see the Brooklyn Bridge. We crossed it and everything. It was awesome!" I exclaimed remembering how much fun we had.

"That was nice of him. Hopefully it wasn't weird. Did you stay at a hotel or anything? I can't imagine you did that in one day. I remember going there when I was a kid and dad turned it into a two day trip," she explained.

"We stayed at your parent’s house then the next day at a hotel. It was really nice. The bed had the best plushy covers I've ever slept under. I asked him if we could steal if but it was a no go," I smiled when Kim laughed.

"Sounds like you had some fun. Did he take you to any of the nice restaurants?" she questioned.

"Hard Rock Café," I answered simply.

"Seriously? Of all the places in the area, he took you there?!" she looked confused and yelled toward the kitchen, "Seriously, are you dad?! You took her to Hard Rock Café?"

Cody appeared in the entry way with a spaghetti spoon in his hand, "Yes, however, I should defend myself and say she picked the place, not me."

Kim raised a single eyebrow at me and Cody winked before returning to the kitchen.

"Kim, you know I hate spending someone else’s money. Especially someone like your dad, who is already letting me live here for free and took care of every expense for the small trip. Plus, how many times have I turned down nice places back home?" I explained myself.

"That's true. I swear, you are a penny pincher. You rather go to Burger King then some place with the best Omaha Steaks," she nodded, probably remembering all the times I refused to join our friends at expensive places. They always told me it was not really expensive but I could not afford to spend more than ten dollars on a plate.

Cody called us to the dining room, stating that dinner was ready. Kim and I sat across from each other with spaghetti and garlic toast between us and Cody at the head of the table. We filled our plates and dug into the delicious meal.

"How was your time with Judi?" Cody asked Kim.

"It was fun! The beach was beautiful and the night life is to die for," she answered with a smile then looked to me.

I knew she wasn't adding in all the alone time they had. The small wicked smile she shared with me told me so. I looked down at my plate to twirl the noodles onto my fork, slightly shaking my head at her. Cody accepted the simple answer and thankfully didn't ask any more questions.

Dinner ended and Kim and I were left to clean after Cody stepped away to take call. We rinsed the dishes and put them in the dish washer, discussing her weekend adventures. They spent more time in the hotel room than anywhere else. When she finished telling me bits about her sex life, she filled me in on the night clubs they visited and that we need to go together. I nodded and spoke up when needed. Truth was, I knew more about her sex life than I cared to admit.

Soon I heard someone yelling I looked at Kim who looked towards the door where Cody had went. We finished cleaning and went to leave the room and saw Cody standing by the stairs.

“Look I told you to stop fucking calling me why wont you get the hint we aren’t shit to each other anymore but you think you can still call me and want me to do shit for you fuck no you left I didn’t so fuck the fuck off”

“Who?” I looked at Kim.

“Ashley that dirty bitch”

“’Ask your man to do it STOP FUCKING CALLING ME BITCH!!” he hung up and went right upstairs fast.

“She keeps calling him wanting him to do this or that for her or give her money, she gets on my nerve, good night” she got her bag and went upstairs I followed her and went to my room and got ready for bed.

CODY

I was lying in my bed pissed off when I heard a knock at the door. I wasn’t in the mood for Kim right now but I was going to let her in.

“Come in” instead of Kim coming in Lori walked in and closed, locking the door behind her I sat up in the bed as she walked over towards me hugging me when she got to me I kissed her stomach and rested my head there she stood in-between my legs.

“I’m not a bad guy”

“Cody”

“No let me finish I’m not a bad guy and I don’t like to be alone and some woman can sense it and take advantage of it or at least try to use me when they can’t they get mad and wanna break up with me. I wouldn’t care because I wasn’t going to take care of no one. But when I got married I thought she loved me I mean really loved me but I found out she didn’t she cheated on me and made me believe that the baby was mine until she broke down one day and told me it wasn’t and that the guy didn’t want it. She cried to me to help her and like a fool I helped her she got rid of it then we was supposed to be working on us but never did she cheated again and that crushed me I felt like it was me”

“Cody it’s not you”

“It must be I don’t get it I mean she left me after all she did she left me as if I did something wrong”

“You’re not the problem they are awful people out there don’t come down on yourself” I let her lift my face to look at her. “Don’t let her turn you into something your not”

“I will never do you wrong I promise you, I will never hurt you the way she hurt me”

“I know you won’t” she leaned down and kissed me, wrapping my arms around her holding her tight.

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treybriggsthewriter · 5 years

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Astrid the Devil is now being released on Wattpad as well as www.astridthedevil.com.

Start from the beginning and bookmark the story:

Astrid the Devil - Part One: Astor The Immortal - Prologue (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/QCEwEKBdIU

Read Chapter Three Now! RIGHT NOW: https://www.wattpad.com/701618695-astrid-the-devil-part-one-astor-the-immortal

All Astrid the Devil artwork is created by @freemechanism!

Chapter 3 Excerpt:

“The world is so small, Alicia. You see one person, and they’re actually another. You build your own community, and it’s actually just you.” Alicia’s father held her small hand as they watched the town burning. Crumbling, heat waving the shrunken bodies of their friends in the wind. She wanted to tell her mother to stop sobbing, to stop sucking in those deep breaths.

It was their neighbors she was sucking into her lungs. Couldn’t she understand that?

Alicia moved her legs, shakily, and followed her family to the car. There was nothing to be done for the town. No one else seemed to register the loss they’d just faced. The friends she’d made in the last twelve months. The faces, small and large and sometimes even tiny, all turned ashen and blending into the atmosphere.

As far as she knew, this was the third time in as many years that her mother had breathed in her burning neighbors. That her father spat tobacco to the side, irritated, watching with a slowly rising venom that she didn’t find accurate enough. She couldn’t remember a lot from the years before her 13th birthday, though. That was the one where her father declared she had to be ‘tested or eliminated.’

She couldn’t cry. She hardly ate. Her hair grew like an animal. These were signs that she had inherited the ‘syndrome’ and her father had to know whether or not she was ‘a full one.’ They had to do ‘the test.’

That was the birthday when her mother pleaded with her father to just let her be, to let her live whatever life she had in store for her.

“She either is one or she isn’t. But we have to know now. And we have to protect her if she is,” he reasoned. Her oldest sister agreed to help him. They had long, somber talks about it for the weeks leading up to her birthday. Her mother wasn’t invited to those talks, but that didn’t stop her from screaming at her husband about it every chance she got.

“You killed the last two tryin’ to test this out! You won’t kill her, you WON’T!”

That was the birthday when her father locked her mother in the closet, ignoring her screaming. Where Alicia struggled and fought, only giving in when her father held her in a headlock and she almost passed out. And the one where her sisters held her down in the tub, their father egging them on, and she’d drowned. The one where she’d spit blood at her oldest sister, chaotic, trying desperately to get up. The blood seeped into Mae’s face, into her skin, and her sisters let her up, stunned. The one where her mother cried upon her release, hugging Mae grimly, calling Alicia a ‘devil.’

“You GAVE it to her, Harold! How could you?! You said you couldn’t give it to the normal children! You promised! What did you do? What’s gonna happen to them?”

“I did no such thing. Calm down. Mae’s just protecting her sister.”

Maybe they’d always been on the run.

Her father told them they’d better get moving before ‘they’ came back. He said they’d be back. And Harold was always right. Why would now be any different?

From fire or water or genetics, maybe they were always on the run.

… …

Alicia’s father was a mansion, both in size and personality. Wealth seemed to spill from him when he winked, making better-classed men spill secrets and give them room and board. He smiled, and the hearts of women seemed to turn to gel, to allow entry, to encourage it.

Her mother was quite the same. She was poised, radiating charm and luxury without ever needing to make a penny. Men seemed to wilt when she talked to them, her hands always gloved and clasped. Judith walked by and even Alicia closed her eyes to take in her beautiful scent.

Her sisters were vibrant and almost song-like, all tall with wide smiles and impossibly white teeth. The oldest was the envy of Alicia’s entire life. She was so tall Alicia had to bend her head back to talk to her. She often wished she was as regal and delicate as Mae Free. At 19, Mae wound men and even women around her finger with the smallest gesture. They were close. Mae took to staring at Alicia for long periods, almost uncomfortably so, but it made Alicia feel prettier. She didn’t mind it.

They charmed their way across the country, even to the white folks that despised them inwardly. All it took was one good scam a year, and they lived like they were rich. Judith dressed them lavishly, making sure to separate them by glove color. Alicia’s were always black leather while the other girls donned white satin.

Judith wanted it apparent that Alicia wasn’t to be approached.

Alicia was pretty but not much else. She lacked the charm of her family so deeply that they left her home when they went out. There was too much venom in her glances, too much anger in the curves of her body. Where her sisters and mother were lengthy and regal, she was petite and curvy. People stayed away from her. Her father couldn’t risk having her around for the scams; she was a dead giveaway that something was wrong. She had never quite fit into the mold, but hiding behind her family protected her nonetheless. Where she lacked charm, their own charm billowed and blanketed her.

No one ever complained that Alicia didn’t help when they robbed or stole. Her mother forbade it.

“It’s harder for us dark girls, but it’s not impossible. You just have to learn how to work people. Don’t worry. Anyone touches you and your father will eat ‘em. Cut ‘em up and eat ‘em, girl,” her mother used to joke. Alicia would look down at her deep brown skin and nod. At 16, running away from another town, she wondered for a moment if she was the reason these towns kept burning. Was her family on the run because of her skin color? Mae was the same brown, but she was lengthy and charismatic. Her sisters Sara and Mary were lighter with looser curl patterns, more like their father. Were they hunted because of Mae and Alicia?

No. The marks for the scams never knew what hit them, but they were never bold enough to burn down towns. They went after older white men that boasted and flaunted their wealth. The ones who cornered black women and tried to guilt them into sex. The ones that belonged in prison but skidded by on their wealth and race, terrorizing blacks. They could hurt you in numbers but were almost always too afraid to even look in your direction alone. Talking helped with their anxieties. They could hardly close their mouths long enough to light a cigar let alone burn a whole town of innocent people.

This time, though, it was hard to ignore her father’s quiet anger turning to shame. Her mother’s stillness, anguish flowing through her. The words she didn’t say were all soaked in blame toward her husband.

How could you, Harold?

Alicia was not considered the loveliest, but she would always be the smartest. Her charming mansion of a father was the one they were after.

And whatever was after him was not going to back down until he wafted in the wind with the others.

… …

Alicia heard her parents arguing all the time. They didn’t bother stopping when they realized their daughters were awake, huddled in the back of the flashy black car (her father’s pride and joy). The argument was heated enough to make Harold pull over to the side of the road, deep in the country, to better turn and yell at his wife. Alicia stared out the window, eyeing the darkness of the woods, and tried to ignore them.

It was an argument they had a lot, and her mother never seemed to shrink until her father’s unsurpassable rage bubbled up.

“…how do you know that was actually your brother? We ain’t goin’ there. I’ll be damned if I get tricked by one of those damn things…”

“I’ve known my brother my entire life, Harold! You think I don’t recognize his voice on the phone? Are we really going to lose every person we know and love because of your paranoia?”

Harold cut the engine of the car and turned to face his wife.

“You understand what we’re facing? Did you see what happened back there? If they destroy my body, or worse, the girl’s body…” Judith scoffed.

“According to you, ya’ll would be fine! You’re dragging us around the world. Dragging us. The girls need friends. They need school, not going around swindling and pointing guns at people. This ain’t right. Whatever we’re up against is nothing compared to how lonely we all feel. You are supposed to protect us, Harold. You got all these extra lives, or so you say, and you can’t even protect us…” Alicia watched her mother’s golden brown skin redden, anger and exhaustion flowing through her.

“So I say? Heh. So I say.” He paused for a long time, eyes closed, trying to calm down. Judith gave Alicia a tight smile from the passenger’s seat.

“There’s only one place left to go, Judy. You don’t have to worry your pretty head about it. I got a friend down south in the city, in Chastain, she’s supposed to keep us safe from them. She asked for me and the girl personally, she’s been lookin’ for us…”

“Don’t you call her ‘the girl.’ You know I hate that. Just because you made her a monster don’t mean she gotta be ‘the girl.’ And what about the rest of us? The normal ones? This woman gon’ take care of us, too? How do you know her?” Harold was quiet for a moment.

“Back when I was young, she was good friends with my momma. She’s like me. Like the girl…I mean, like Alicia. She knows more than I do and she’s been around a long time. If anybody can help us, she can. And she can teach the girl how to handle herself.”

Alicia started to stare down at her own feet. Mae squeezed her shoulder in support. A strange noise, staticy and low, forced her to look up.

Outside of the car, the light of the day was slowly retreating into the distance. It looked like rain. Sara, Mae, and Mary all focused on their gloved hands as their parents argued. It was a moment Alicia would think about a lot later. The family all sitting there together, beautifully dressed, with the sky darkening quickly over them. It was like a picture.

She would think about looking over to her mother, the heat of her fear. Then turning her head back to look at Mae and finding her staring, hard, unblinking, head tilted painfully.

“You mean to leave us, don’t you? You mean to give my baby to that woman and send us away? I’m guessing you’re not coming with us, either? You’re going to send us off to live like thieves while you cozy up to some woman in the city and my baby is doing God knows what…”

“I’m sending you away from burning to death, woman, don’t you want that?! You think they’ll stop at me? They don’t know which of us it is!”

“You’re not keeping my baby there. You stay. We’ll go.”

“Alicia and Mae will stay with me. The rest of you are the normal ones, remember?”

“Mae…yeah. How could I forget your little bathtub experiment? You give one of my babies your extra lives and doom another to a shorter one.” Harold seemed hurt by her words, turning further to see her better. Judith’s white gloves shook with anxiety.

“Mae agreed to it. She agreed! The girl has to be protected. She has to have a Latch. It’s…”

“So you say,” Judith murmured. Harold let out an angry growl, teeth gritting, and struggled to calm himself. Judith tensed up at his anger, swallowing the rest of her words.

There was that noise again. Alicia felt her stomach churn as the sound grew louder.

Shuffling. It wasn’t static. It was the sound of the dirt moving under feet. A lot of feet.

“Something’s about to happen, Alicia, I can feel it,” Mae said slowly, her dark cheeks blushing. Alicia nodded. Mae didn’t move again. Not an inch. She sat and stared at her sister until tears welled up in her eyes. “I love you, Alicia. Don’t feel bad.”

“Daddy…” Alicia’s voice came out hoarse and shaky. Harold froze. The other girls looked up in confusion. Mae seemed to be having trouble breathing.

“You hear somethin’?” Judith asked knowingly, straining her neck. Alicia and Harold could always hear the things they couldn’t. Harold held up his hand to shush her.

“Where’s it comin’ from, girl?”

“I…Daddy, it’s everywhere. I hear them from everywhere.”

The windows of the car turned pitch black. Like someone dumped black paint over the car, like there was a black wall on all sides of them. Alicia couldn’t see anything, not the woods, not the sky, not even the window itself. The darkness completely consumed the car.

Judith’s heavy breathing was the only noise. Gasping, she was always gasping and sucking in air. Alicia tried to listen to the shuffling over her mother’s panic but, abruptly, it was gone.

The static disappeared.

The silence was too thick.

“Daddy…drive! Please!” Sara’s voice was thick with worry. Alicia reached across Mae to grab her second oldest sister’s hand, black glove against white, and held it until she stopped shaking.

She closed her eyes and listened.

Everywhere…they’re everywhere! But one’s real close…

“They’re in front of us…” As soon as Alicia spoke, a pair of big brown eyes opened next to her, outside the car window. The whites seemed to blaze into the car, stark against the pitch black. The pupils constricted until they looked like tiny dots in a sea of brown, and somehow they still focused on her. They slowly slid over to see the back of her father’s head. A wide, white smile seemed to tear across the window.

“Heh.”

The front window shattered, an ugly roar filling the car, and Alicia felt her body sliding into her sisters. Judith let out a violent screech, fighting against black hands bursting through her passenger side window. A sticky substance traveled along the unbroken glass, thick like molasses but bubbling. Harold was silent except for grunts, his foot pressing uselessly against the gas pedal. The car leaned forward as if tipped by a giant, screaming ripping Alicia’s ears, and more pitch black hands and blobs burst inside. She gripped the window crank, preparing herself for the worst.

...read more on Wattpad or at www.astridthedevil.com!

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sartle-blog · 6 years

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10 Artists Who Were Also Mothers

Who said that you can’t be a mother and an artist at the same time?

The patriarchy, for one, but surprisingly, a lot of female artists as well. Even artists like Mary Cassatt and Judy Chicago whose work primarily featured themes of motherhood and femininity never had children because they believed it would compromise the quality of their art. But there were actually a handful of successful female artists who were also pretty good mothers, they just seldom get the credit for doing both. For Mother’s Day -which should really be everyday- we’re celebrating our favorite badass moms who significantly impacted the art world.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Madonna and Child, Artemisia Gentileschi, 1613

Artemisia Gentileschi had one daughter with two names- Prudentia (after her mother who passed away early in Artemisia’s childhood) and Palmira. She had her daughter very early on in her career and continued to paint up until her death when her daughter was well into adulthood. Like her mother, Prudentia/Palmira also became a painter, though none of her works are currently known.

Judith Leyster

Self-Portrait, Judith Leyster, 1630

Not too much is known about Judith Leyster. She didn’t really get recognition for her paintings for a while as they were usually credited to the “Wife of Molenaer” who was a more famous painter at the time. Leyster had five children with Molenaer, but only two survived into adulthood. With the information on her surviving dated works, it looks like Leyster wasn’t as prolific once she got married and had children, but she still continued to paint up until a few years before her death in 1660.

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

“The beauty of her heavenly face, that expressed benevolence and goodness, and whose features were so regular and delicate, the loveliness of her figure, neck, and arms, the exquisite freshness of her complexion – all was enchanting beyond anything imaginable”

-Vigee le Brun describing her daughter in her diary.

Self Portrait with her Daughter Julie, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1786

Self Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1789

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun had one child, Jeanne Julie Louise, who she nicknamed “Brunette.” Vigee Le Brun’s first self portrait of her and Julie caused a scandal when it was exhibited simply because she was depicted smiling open-mouthed -- how dare she be visibly happy with her child?! During the French Revolution, Vigee Le Brun fled France with Julie to Italy, Austria, and then finally Russia. It was in Russia that their relationship crumbled; Julie married a man that her mother strongly disapproved of, and Elisabeth Louise then shunned her from her life, refusing to provide for her daughter when both were back in France. It's hard to read that the two had such a strained relationship when looking at these adorable self-portraits.

Berthe Morisot

Portrait of Berthe Morisot and Her Daughter, Berthe Morisot, 1885

Berthe Morisot and her daughter, Pierre Auguste-Renoir, 1894

Apparently Julie is a popular name for the daughters of female artists. Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot married Edouard Manet’s younger brother Eugene and had her only child Julie Manet, who often posted as a model for Morisot and other Impressionists. When Julie was 16 she became ill with influenza (get your shots people!). Morisot eventually got the same infection by taking care of Julie and subsequently died not long after. Morisot’s devotion to her daughter literally killed her.

Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon with her son Maurice Utrillo, 1889

Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo, 1930

Suzanne Valadon wasn’t just a mom, she was a single mom! She had her son Maurice when she was an 18-year-old model for artists. Her mother Madeleine helped take care of Maurice, and the two often served as models for Valadon’s domestic sketches that gave her recognition and critical acclaim. Maurice was a troubled alcoholic suffering from mental illness, and it was his mother who encouraged him to try painting. Not too long after, Maurice ended up being a successful artist himself! Mother truly knows best.

Barbara Hepworth

“My studio was a jumble of children, rocks, sculptures, trees, importunate flowers, and washing.”

Barbara Hepworth with her son Paul, 1929

The Hepworth triplets: Simon, Rachel, and Sarah, 1937

Barbara Hepworth with her daughters Rachel and Sarah, 1965

Barbara Hepworth was the ultimate mom/artist. She raised four children while working along her husband Ben Nicholson in the St. Ives artists’ colony. She often wrote about how being a mother and an artist was never a conflicting process and that having a family actually improved the quality of her sculptures. Her eldest son Paul was killed in a plane crash in 1953, prompting a devastated Hepworth to take a trip to Greece with a good friend. When she came back, her sculptures had a distinctly Greek influence. Her son Simon was also an artist, but died young from alcoholism. Her daughter Sarah married Sir Alan Bowness, former director of the Tate Gallery. Both she and her sister Rachel are in charge of their mother’s estate.

Louise Bourgeois

“They had two children fairly quickly, then a third one shortly thereafter. There was no room, really, to do sculpture in the apartment. So she painted.”

-Jerry Gorovoy, assistant to Louise Bourgeois

With her three sons in Easton, CT, 1945

Louise Bourgeois had three children within the span of three years! She and her husband Robert Goldwater adopted Michel from France in 1939, then she gave birth to Jean-Louise in 1940 and Alain in 1941. Despite having her hands and her house full, she didn’t give up on her artwork and continued to create paintings, drawings, and sculptures until her death in 2010. She is survived by her sons Alain and Jean-Louise, an architectural expert on Adobe who recently donated his $4 million house to Native Americans as a meeting house. Louise would have been proud.

Yoko Ono

“Mothers are not supposed to give guidance.”

Yoko Ono and John Lennon with their children from previous marriages, Julian Lennon and Kyoko Chan Cox

Yoko Ono and John Lennon with their son Sean Lennon

Avant-garde artist Yoko Ono had her daughter Kyoko with her second husband Anthony Cox. Not longer after she filed for divorce and met John Lennon. When Kyoko was eight, she and Cox disappeared in the middle of a custody battle; Ono was unable to find Kyojo until she was 35. Lennon and Ono had one child, Sean Lennon, who is currently pursuing music with his band “The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.”

Jenny Holzer

“When my daughter was young, she thought all electronic signs were mine.”

Jenny Holzer with her family in the Central Park Zoo, 1990

Jenny Holzer with Lili Holzer-Grier, 2011

Jenny Holzer gave birth to Lili Holzer (now Holzer-Grier) in 1989. Her daughter’s birth inspired Holzer’s works Laments and Truism 4 (Mother and Child) in 1990. Lili Holzer-Grier is now a successful photographer based in New York, where her mother also currently lives. Both Holzer's and her daughter’s artwork portray American hypocrisy and injustice.

Kara Walker

“My mother is a mother. And an artist. And the two never felt like they were incompatible.”

-Octavia Brugel on her mother Kara Walker

Kara Walker with baby Octavia

Kara Walker and Octavia in 2016

Kara Walker had her daughter Octavia early in her career, showing us that it really isn’t impossible to gain international fame in the art world while raising a child. Walker incorporated her daughter’s voice into 8 Possible Beginnings to help demonstrate how the heritage of American slavery affects women of color as artists. Octavia is now a photographer studying at Oberlin College.

Of course, you don’t have to be a successful artist to be a successful mom. Shout-out to all mothers out there who are able to juggle both their careers and their children. And an additional thanks to mothers everywhere for being awesome women and continually inspiring us all to produce and admire great art. “Mom” upside-down spells “wow” for a reason! Now go call your mom and tell her you love her.

By Alannah Clark

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sweetdreamsjeff · 6 years

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Remember me? Part 2

Friday 15 December 2000 19.17 EST

Given his father’s history in New York, it was inevitable a few ghosts would haunt him. Once, he stopped into “some bodega-type record shop” and saw Dream Letter, the Tim Buckley concert album. Whether out of sorrow or pain, he immediately walked out. Killing time at bookstores, he would look up his father in rock history books. “I’m always testing him,” he wrote in a letter to Tim’s friend, Larry Beckett. “Born, wrote, sang, changed, changed, grew, grew, grew, ignored, rejected, revolution over evolution, gotta move, don’t have much time, critics, rejected, dead … revered. You fucks."

"I’ve tried to really believe it, that he really loved me,” he wrote to an inquisitive fan of Tim’s that summer. “I question that. He longed to see me, I believe that. He regretted not seeing me, yes. But he was too afraid for a very long time, ‘just a young kid going down his own road’, right, I understand, but I don’t get it. It seems so over-romanticised, all of the accounts of his actions … How does a baby keep you from making records? … I don’t know - he just didn’t want to be stuck with Mary, so typical, no frills, no big deal, I totally understand. But, love me? I don’t know what that means.”

The same appetite Jeff brought to the arts - absorbing a musician’s or writer’s body of work - was applied to his search for Tim. When Judy Buckley, Tim’s widow, gave him tickets to a concert by the Cocteau Twins, Jeff told a friend he kissed Judy on the mouth - partly, he said, out of appreciation, and partly to feel exactly what Tim had seen in this woman. Even as he attempted to sort out the good, bad and ugly in his family’s story, there remained the matter of his own music and career. He made a demo of four songs, which he called the Babylon Dungeon Sessions tape, but had had no response from the record companies, and his lack of a band meant he couldn’t perform.

Then, early in 1991, Jeff was back on the west coast when the phone rang at the house where he was staying. A woman was calling long-distance, from New York, to tell Jeff about an upcoming concert she was co-ordinating. It was a tribute to his father, and she asked if he would like to attend.

No one working on the Greetings From Tim Buckley tribute concert at St Ann’s, an arts centre in Brooklyn Heights, had known there was a son. Early on, one of concert organiser Janine Nichols’s tasks was to find a publicity photograph of Tim, and she tracked down the name and number of Tim’s old manager, Herb Cohen. In his cut-to-the-chase manner, Cohen said he not only had photographs but news: “You know he has a kid?” And, he continued, the child was more talented than his father. Nichols didn’t think much of the information; offspring of 60s rock stars had begun sprouting up on the fringes of the music business, and most of them inherited their parents’ looks but rarely their talent. Nevertheless, she jotted down the kid’s name and number; the least they could do was invite him to the concert.

Nichols dialled the Los Angeles number, and the first thing she noticed about the voice on the other end of the line was how tiny it sounded. When she told Jeff why she was calling, he was hesitant. He’d never sung his father’s music in public, he said, and had spent only a very limited amount of time with Tim. Nichols could tell he was very conflicted, and the faint voice asked for time to think it over.

Jeff mulled over the unexpected invitation. He still had ambivalent feelings about the paternal figure he barely recalled, and he had long studiously avoided any public connection to him. Yet something about the idea intrigued him. He called his mother and told her about the call. “I said, 'Well, what’s your purpose? What do you want to get out of it?’” Mary recalls. “And he said, 'I always missed not going to the funeral.’ I said, 'There you go - there’s your reason, you’ll pay tribute to your father.’ ” At the same time, she warned him to stay away from anyone who approached him about becoming “the next Tim Buckley”.

By the time Nichols called back, about a month before the concert, Jeff had warmed to the idea. Neither of the organisers was sold on the kid’s talent. They had listened to the demo tape he had sent and found it noisy. Still, Jeff agreed to come.

The tribute concert was part way through when a new group of musicians took the stage. One of them was a long-haired kid wearing a black T-shirt. Danny Fields, Tim’s one-time publicist, was in the audience, keeping an eye out for the supposed son. Though Jeff had his back to the audience as he tuned his guitar, the spotlight caught his profile and one cheekbone. “And I said, 'Whoa - there he is,’ ” Fields recalls. “I didn’t have to wonder too hard. It could take your breath away.” (“My God,” Jeff said to a friend after the show, “I stepped onstage and they backlit it and it was like the fucking Second Coming.”)

Jeff, who had billed himself as Jeff Scott Buckley, began strumming rigorously as Gary Lucas, formerly with Captain Beefheart’s band, surrounded him with waves of soaring-seagull guitar swoops. It was I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, Tim’s song to Mary and her son. The audience suddenly stopped glancing at their watches. After an hour of esoteric music, here was one of Tim’s most recognisable songs, emanating from a very recognisable face and sung in a familiar (if slightly deeper) voice. Just before he went on stage, Jeff had finished writing his own verse for the song: “My love is the flower that lies among the graves,” it began, ending with a plea to “spread my ash along the way”. Anyone familiar with the subject matter of the song knew that this performance was more than a faithful rendition of a 60s oldie. It was a tribute, retort and catharsis all in one.

When it was time for a finale, Jeff appeared on stage alone. “Uhh,” he started, with a nervous giggle, “a long time ago, when I was a little kid, my mom sat in a bed and she put this record on. And, uhh, it was like the first song where I ever heard my father’s voice. I must have been … umm … six. I was bored.” He chuckled winsomely. “I was bored. I’m sorry. But you know, what can you expect from a cat who’s into Sesame Street at the time?”

Then he began singing Once I Was. Here was Jeff, on stage, singing his father’s wistful remembrance of an old affair. Suddenly, before the last chorus, a string broke on his acoustic guitar and Jeff sang the lines, “Sometimes, I wonder for a while/Do you ever remember me?” unaccompanied. If that weren’t dramatic enough, his voice spiralled up on the last word - “me” - like a thin plume of smoke, holding on for a moment before drifting up to the ceiling. He took a quick bow, said “thanks”, disappeared off stage, and the concert ended. The audience was abuzz. So that was the son. Within a month, four record companies were vying for him. The irony of the situation was not lost on Jeff: after years of avoiding any connection with his late father, he had awakened the interest of the music business as a result of singing Tim’s music, and he was being checked out by veteran record executives old enough to remember and admire his father. “I’m convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am,” Jeff said in 1993. “And it makes me sad. But I can’t do anything else.”

#jeff buckley #remember me? part 2 #dream brother: the lives and music of jeff and tim buckley #david browne

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