#so once again a huge sense of urgency and vulnerability there

[keikoayano]

Thinking about how in The Horse and the Infant there’s a secondary beat that starts to play after he brings up Penelope and Telemachus, drops off once the other soldiers pick up in the background again (or becomes covered by the rest of the score and I can’t pick up on it as easily?) but then returns and stands out even more strongly against the rest of the music after he screams in pain and Zeus explains the vision. It drops off again while Odysseus is asking what threat an infant could pose, then comes back when Zeus is explaining he has to do this or his people will die/Ithaca will be in trouble (with another focus on Penelope) and it mimics the sound of a heartbeat

Bum. Bum bum. Bum. Bum bum.

[bill-y]

INURE

Peeta Mellark x Reader

[ We all know who Katniss Everdeen is, but what if Primrose hadn’t been chosen but another boy from another unfortunate family? YOUR family. ]

Info: This is basically a reader insert and I’ve changed a few rules, not ground breaking though. The reader is a bit bland for now but I plan for his actions to be different. Because he has different moral grounds from Katniss and such. Would appreciate feedback! FEEL FREE TO POINT OUT TYPOS. GRAMMARLY SOMETIMES DOESN’T DO MY DYSLEXIC ASS JUSTICE

Part four: Click here, rooroorara shooty shooty vang vang

Part five: You're right here, silly!

Part six: Click here, war criminal of 1878!

Wattpad acc: L0calxDumbass

The moment the anthem finished, we were taken into custody. It's not as if we were cuffed or anything; a group of Peacekeepers simply marched us through the front door of the Justice Building.

Each year, at least one of the tributes tries to escape; I've never seen one successfully do so.

Once inside, they put me in a room. It's the most prosperous place I've been to. With a thick carpet in the ground and a weird couch made of fabric, I've never seen before.

It was a strange texture, almost like the weird fuzzy stuff in deer's antlers. My father called them velvet; was this the same thing? If so, that's a bit gross.

Despite this, I still caressed the couch; it was oddly comforting. Almost like you're patting a nearly hairless kitten. It switched from smooth to rough each time I ran my hands through it.

Then I remembered that we only had an hour to say goodbye to our loved ones before leaving for the Capitol. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath in. I didn't want to cry at all; the cameras were trained on me. I'm sure the Capitol would eat my tears up.

The first people who came in were my mother and my brother. Kunal let out a sob as he ran towards me, practically throwing himself onto me. I hugged him, staying silent as he buried his face into my neck, afraid that if he let go, I would disappear.

But I needed to break it one way or another. "Mother," I called, my voice detached. Her green eyes met mine, her lips quivering. I gulped down my spit, taking another deep breath in. "Do you. . . Have any idea on how you'll support yourselves. . ?" I asked.

Her eyes landed on the thick, red carpet. "Not as of now," she answered grimly, "But Katniss' mother offered me some work at the apothecary,"

My arms around my brother tightened. Maybe Gale and Katniss could bring them some of the game as well, though I wouldn't count on it. Why would they help us when they have other things to worry about? It's not as if I could teach Nal how to hunt either. The boy's frightened by his own shadow.

All he's good for right now for picking flowers as much as I love him. A sigh escaped my lips, my chest falling slowly as the reality sunk in.

"Well, you must think of something," I told her, my brows furrowing. "I'm not going to come back; I won't be able to support you and—"

"No!" she barked, "No! You will come back, Y/n." she proclaimed, her eyes shaking. She clenched her, fists, "Swear that you will."

Bitterness rose within me. "Tell that to the Capitol, mother," I said coolly. "If I die, then I—." My words were cut short by the sobbing of my brother.

He sniffled, pulling away from my now wet neck. "You'll win, won't you?" he croaked, wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his reaping clothes.

I felt my heart stop; what was I supposed to say to him? "No, Nal. I will surely die, don't count on it,"  a lump formed in my throat.

My eyes landed on my mother, who gave a stern look.  It told me to lie, if not for her sake, then for my brother's. With shaky hands, I held my brother's shoulders. "I'll make it out; then we can— gather some flowers in Victor's village, yes?" 

Nal nodded, hugging me once more. I took a deep breath before I started explaining what they should do. With mother possibly getting a job at the apothecary, perhaps they have a  chance to survive, after all. Though I'm not sure, that's such a pleasant thought with the fact that I will die. 

Soon enough, a Peacekeeper was at the door, telling them their time was up. I gave Nal a hard squeeze before pushing him off. My mother nodded at me; her strawberry blonde hair bounced as she did so. "I love you both," 

The words were stuck in my throat; I couldn't say them. Maybe it was because of my strained relationship with my mother or because I hated the fact that I had just given my brother a false sense of hope. I simply watched as they walked away, hand in hand. 

Nal's watery blue eyes looked back at me one last time, a look of sadness. He knew I was lying. I sounded unconvinced when I told him. My posture slumped; I felt horrible. Our maker is siis merely, I suppose.

The next visitor was unexpected; Peeta's father, the baker. My gut churned; I was off to kill his son soon. Why has he come to visit me? Perhaps he has come to beg me not to kill his son? Not that I could either way, Peeta was stronger than me: it was clear as day.

He handed me a small piece of parchment. It was filled with warm cookies. A delicacy. He must've visited his son; after all, why would he just me cookies? I was about to die anyway; why feed a dead man?

I let out a huge breath, "How was the squirrel?" my voice pierced through the thick silence. He shrugged, "Alright," he answered. Then another wave of silence hit us. I sniffed awkwardly, the scent of fresh bread entering my lungs. 

I couldn't think of anything to say. What was I supposed to do? ApoloApologisebe, but I never really liked apoloapologisingee no need to. If I'm sorry, then I'll show it. We sat in awkward silence before the Peacekeepers told him his time was up. He stood up, clearing his throat.

"I'll keep an eye on the little boy, make sure he's eating," He stated before leaving. I felt the pressure lift from my chest. They may not like me much, but Nal was practically an angel to them. An angel born in a family of rebels, I'm guessing, is their thoughts.

The next guest then entered. Madge. Her expression wasn't weepy nor evasive, nor did she wear that bright smile she always had when she was around me. It looked urgent. She walked straight to me, the urgency in her tone quite surprising, "They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home, will you wear this?" she holds out a circular gold pin that was on her dress earlier.

My brows furrowed, "Your pin?' I said. Does she really to die wearing rich-people-things? That hasn't even crossed my mind. . . 

"I'll put it on your tunic, alright?" She said, not waiting for my answer as she leaned in and fixed the bird on my chest. "Promise me you'll wear it to the arena, Y/n. Promise me," She took my hand, her thumbs rubbing the back of my own.

Compared to Peeta's, hers was cold yet soft, almost as if she was nervous, worried. But why would she? I barely talk to her; she's the one who always strikes a conversation. All I do is nod and disagree at certain times. 

She leaned closer to my face; I gave her an uncertain smile, pulling away. "Thank you, Madge," I muttered. She nodded, letting go of my hands. "Please, stay safe," her voice trembled as she rushed out of the room. I was left standing there, confused. What was that? Why did she visit me despite my rudeness earlier?

Next was Gale and Katniss. I didn't hesitate to hug both of them before pulling away with a sigh. "Hey, you'll be fine," Gale reassured, patting my shoulder. I stayed silent, only nodding. Katniss gave me a pity smile, "I'm sure it would be fairly easy to get knives, Y/n."

A sigh left my mouth, "I know— I just— Don't want to—" I stammered, making a stabbing motion with my hand. Gale gave me a pitied look, "It's just like hunting, Y/n. You're the best hunter we know," he said.

"They're not animals. They think; they're armed."  I reasoned, my voice trembling. Why did I have to feel these emotions now? Maybe reality has finally settled in, the truth that I'll never see any of these faces again. On the off chance that I do, I'm sure they'll view me differently, a cold-blooded murderer.

"What's the difference, reale said grimly. Those words echoed in my head as they went away with the Peacekeepers. What is the difference? We're all just feral dogs forced to fight or cocks pit against each other.

I took a deep breath as I got called to ride a wagon to the train station. It was a relatively short ride. We never really had the luxury of these; we always had to travel by foot.  

I silently thanked myself for not crying; there were insect-like cameras trained onto my face. Thankfully, I knew how to act, to bite my tongue. If I hadn't, I'd probably be screaming profanities. My eyes glanced onto the television screen; I look bored. Which, I surprisingly was.

It was as if my spirit left me already.

Peeta Mellark, on the other hand, had obviously been crying. However, he didn't even try to hide it, which was quite odd. Was this his strategy? To appear weak and vulnerable to assure the other tributes that he was no threat? This worked for a girl from district 7. Johanna Mason.

She seemed frightened, a cowardly fool that no one bothered about her until only a handful left. She then killed them all, with no problem whatsoever. I remember watching this game, quite shocked. She sold her act to me, but then again, maybe I'm just oblivious.

This worked for her because she looked frail, weak. Peeta applying this strategy was quite odd. Not only did he not look soft, but he was also jacked. He just looked like a big doofus. All those years having bread to eat and hauling trays made him physically capable.

Annoyance rose through me when we had to stand by the train's entrance while cameras gobbled out images up. I was sure I no longer looked bored but rather pissed. It wasn't like I was about to put on a pretty smile for them. These jester-dressed-worms should know how I feel.

Finally, we boarded, and the train began to move at once. The speed took my breath away. It was going faster than I could ever think of. The scenery around us just blurred—a mix of the neutral colour palette that made up District 12. 

We were taught about coal in school. Some basic maths and reading before it circled back to coal again. Our district was used for coal mining, even hundreds of years ago.

Then there are the weekly lectures about the history of Panem, which never fails to annoy me. It's all blather about how we owe the Capitol because of the rebellion and whatnot.

I knew they're hiding something; we couldn't have lost that easily. I always think about this whenever I'm up in the trees, daydreaming, which is why I'm always the last one to arrive at the hill.

The tribute train was much fancier than the room at the Justice building. We were given our own rooms, a dressing area and private bathroom with cold and hot running water. We've never really had hot water readily available at home; we had to boil it.

Though I can't say, I like it, with all that effort I just end up not liking the bath. I much prefer the cold, flowing current of a river.

There are drawers filled with fine clothes, and Effie Trinket told me to do anything I want, wear anything I want, everything is at my disposal. Just be ready for supper in an hour. I peel off my father’s tunic and take a cold shower. I’ve never had a shower before. It’s like being in the rain, inky much tamer. I dress in a dark green shirt and pants, trying my hair to the usual, small pa

At the last minute, I remember Madge’s little gold pin. For the first time, I get a good look at it. It’s as if someone fashioned a small golden bird and then attached a ring around it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wingtips. I suddenly recognise it—a Mockingjay.

Funny little birds, my favourite creature in the forests, that's for sure. These were a slap to the Capitol's face. They genetically altered animals as weapons. Muttations as we call them, or Mutts for short. One particular kind was a bird they labelled Jabberjay, able to memorise and repeat whole human conversations.

Homing birds, exclusively male that were released into regions where the Capitol’s enemies were known to be hiding. After the birds gathered words, they’d fly back to centres to be recorded. It took people a while to realise what was going on in the districts, how private conversations were being transmitted. Then, of course, the rebels fed the Capitol endless lies, and the joke was on it. So the centres were shut down, and the birds were abandoned to die off in the wild.

But they didn't die; instead, they mated with the female mocking birds and produced this weird species that can replicate both bird whistles and human melodies. They've lost the ability to enunciated words but could still mimic a range of human vocal cords.

My father used to sing them a lot. I guess he passed that habit down to me. Whenever I'm not doing anything, I find myself singing to the hummingbirds, who surprisingly listen and replicate my Father's song. It was a simple melody, made of 10 notes at least.

It warmed by heart, especially at times where I miss him. I smiled, fastening the pin to my shirt, the dark green as its background.

Effie came to collect me. I followed her through a narrow, rocking corridor into a dining room. There's a table where all the dishes are highly breakable. There waiting for us was Peeta Mellark, the chair beside him empty.

"Where's Haymitch?" Asked Effie Trinket brightly.

"Last time I saw him he said he was going to take a nap," said Peeta. "Well, it’s been an exhausting day," said Effie Trinket. I think she’s relieved by Haymitch’s absence, and who can blame her?

Food came in courses. Though I barely touched the carrot soup, the chocolate cake, lamb chops nor the mashed potatoes. I wasn't going to eat this, not from the Capitol.

My jaw clenched as Effie told me to eat up, smiling brightly at me. I gave her a pained smile, slowly taking a bite of the lamb on my plate before swallowing it roughly.

A swirl of guilt formed in my stomach, was I eating really this luxurious food whilst Nal and mother struggle? I sighed, digging my nails into my palms.

Peeta looked at me oddly as he stuffed his face, he nudged my side and nodded towards the food. I simply shook my head, pushing the plate away.

Effie put her lips together at my stubbornness. She was muttering something about having no manners.

We go to another compartment to watch the recap of the reapings across Panem. They try to stagger them throughout the day so a person could conceivably watch the whole thing live, but only people in the Capitol could really do that since none of them has to attend reapings themselves.

One by one, we see the other reapings, the names called, the volunteers stepping forward or, more often, not. We examine the faces of the kids who will be in our competition. A few stand out in my mind.

A monstrous boy who lunges forward to volunteer from District 2. A fox-faced girl with sleek red hair from District 5. A boy with a crippled foot from District 10. And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Nal in size and demeanour. Only when she mounts the stage and task for volunteers, all you can hear is the wind whistling through the decrepit buildings around her. There’s no one willing to take her place.

Last of all, District twelve. It showed Nal getting called and me volunteering. The commentators weren't sure about what to say regarding the silence. I only smirked at this, crossing my legs in amusement. Just in time, Haymitch fell from the stage, earning a comical groan from the commentators.

Peeta silently took his place on the stage; we shook hands and then just cut to the anthem.

Effie Trinket is disgruntled about the state her wig was in. "Your mentor has a lot to learn about presentation. A lot about televised behaviour."

Unexpectedly, Peeta laughed. "He was drunk." He said. "He's drunk every year."

"Everyday," I added, finally breaking my silence streak with a smirk. Effie makes it sound kike Haymitch just had rough manners that could easily be dealt with.

"Yes," She hissed "How odd you two find it amusing. You know your mentor is your lifeline to the world in these Games. The one who advises you lines up your sponsors, and dictates the presentation of any gifts. Haymitch can well be the difference between your life and your death!"

Just then, Haymitch staggers into the compartment. "I miss supper?" he slurred. Then he vomits all over the expensive carpet and falls in a mess.

"So laugh away!" said Effie Trinket. And so I did, I barked out mocking laughter as she hopped in her pointy shoes around the pool of vomit and fled the room.

Word count: 2974

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@nin3s

[little-mad]

Little Jackpot Pt. 11

~ Last Part ~ Next Part ~

The first thing Ambry noticed when she began to regain consciousness was the fact that she very much was not on solid ground. In addition to a slight but persistent up and down movement, she could also feel a strong heartbeat that was not her own pulsing through her body. It was then that she noticed the spongy texture of the surface she was lying on.

With her senses finally together enough to finally fully wake up, Ambry’s eyes flew open. The moment they did, memories of the past couple hours began to flood in. She’d been abducted by Kole, stuck in his grasp, and then...then she’d done something drastic, something that explained why the surface she was resting on was so absurdly big.

Ambry swallowed down a wave of intimidation as she shifted into a sitting position atop Sebastian’s palm. She had been in the human’s hand before, but she had been quite a bit bigger then. Now her entire body easily fit into the cup of his palm.

With the massive black clad wall that was Sebastian’s chest blocking one side, and his right hand blocking the other, Ambry couldn’t see much of the world around them. From the glimpses she got though, she could tell they were outside, walking down a street in the city. Normally she would have considered Sebastian’s behavior to be smothering, but at that moment she was honestly grateful. She didn’t think she could handle experiencing the whole world at an increased scale right now.

“Ambry?” A voice softly called from above. Ambry had to tilt her head back quite far in order to see Sebastian’s vast facing staring down at her in concern.

The up and down movement she’d been experiencing, which she now realized had been Sebastian’s gait, came to stop, indicating he had halted his journey.

“H-hey.” Ambry greeted with an awkward wave. “I can’t believe how huge he is!” She thought to herself incredulously. Any natural, instinctual fear she’d had of creatures of human size now seemed to be on overdrive. Despite knowing the human holding her was a friend that would look out for her, Ambry’s increased heart rate and the nervous sweat developing on her brow told her that her body didn’t buy it.

“She’s awake?” Ambry jumped slightly at the sound of Adrien’s voice coming from somewhere out of her view.

“How are you feeling? Are you hurt?” Sebastian questioned, managing to keep his voice low and steady despite the urgency in his tone.

Ambry shook her head. “I’m fine, just a little lightheaded is all.” She called up to the witch, being sure to raise her voice so it would reach his faraway ears.

A small yelp slipped out from the pixie’s mouth when the hand she was sitting on suddenly began to move upwards. The movement was slow and careful, but still jarring for the tiny passenger. When Sebastian’s palm stopped its ascent in front of his face, Ambry hurriedly tried to compose herself.

Rather than saying something immediately as she had expected, Sebastian remained silent while his deep green eyes carefully inspected the pixie resting in the palm of his hand.

While Ambry liked being the center of attention at times, she did not like being an object of close examination. Having such a massive being drink in every detail of her much smaller form gave her a swirly feeling in her stomach.

A touch of red began to tinge Ambry’s cheeks. “Wh-what are you doing?” She asked, shifting uncomfortably.

There was a pause, in which Sebastian didn’t respond and instead continued to look Ambry over. Just when she was about to snap at him to knock it off, he moved the hand containing Ambry slightly down and away from his face. “Physically you look alright.” He noted, some of the tension in his face easing up. “Let’s just get you home, then we can discuss things.” Ambry gave a small nod of agreement.

With that, Sebastian returned his hands to the position they had been in when Ambry woke up before setting off again. While she still wasn’t able to catch sight of him, she could hear Adrien’s footsteps following behind Sebastian. She was once again appreciative of Adrien’s ability to know what a person needed without having to ask. Rather than get close to Sebastian and crowd Ambry, he had elected to stay back and out of view so as to not overwhelm her. She’d have to find a way to thank him for his consideration later.

The rest of the trip from there was brief. It was only a couple of minutes before they reached home. Once inside the house, Sebastian made his way to the kitchen. He pulled up a stool at the peninsula before very slowly lowering the hand holding Ambry down to the surface of the counter. Taking the cue, she rose to her feet and stepped off of the soft palm.

It was at this moment that Ambry finally started to take in the larger environment. As expected, everything looked even bigger and heftier than it used to. The countertop she stood on now was like a vast expanse of endless sleek white marble. Needless to say, she felt positively minuscule.

With cautious and measured movements, Adrien took a seat at the stool beside Sebastian. This left Ambry standing on the countertop with two absolute titans looking down at her. She gulped heavily.

“Your wings, are they ok?” Adrien asked gently. At their mention, Ambry’s wings gave an involuntary twitch. She realized Adrien’s question must have been brought on by the fact that she had opted to continue riding in Sebastian’s hand rather than fly herself. It was true that normally Ambry would have flown by now. And while her wings weren’t injured, they did feel heavy behind her back. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, she’d experienced it before after flying excessively and overworking herself. This time she wasn’t exhausted from flying, but rather from the size reduction process she had undergone.

“Yeah, I’m just exhausted.” Ambry admitted. “Which is why I passed out earlier.” She tacked on. She supposed it must have been alarming for the two humans to find her not only a couple inches smaller, but also inexplicably unconscious.

“Why--Ambry, what happened to you?” The intensity of Sebastian’s question drew her eyes to meet his. She could see the concern still tugging at his brows, and his pale lips were pressed together in that way they always did when he was fretting over something.

Ambry blew out a sigh. It was time to unveil the pixie secret. While there were no rules or laws in place restricting pixies from revealing their hidden ability to humans, it was something of an unspoken rule that it not be brought up unless necessary. Given that Sebastian had just witnessed Ambry shrink before his very eyes, she figured it was pretty necessary at this point.

“Every pixie has the natural ability to decrease their size at will.” She started, instantly earning wide eyed stares from both of the witches sitting in front of her. “But, because of how draining it is, on top of how fickle and unpredictable it can be, we rarely ever use it.”

“Fickle how?” Sebastian pressed.

Ambry shrugged. “In various ways. For one, it's easy for a pixie to end up shrinking more or less than they meant to.” She explained. “It’s also completely impossible to control how long we remain at our reduced size.” This was the bit that most nagged at the back of Ambry’s mind.

“You won’t stay this size forever, will you?” Adrien inquired.

“As far as I know, a pixie will always return back to their original form eventually. It could take a couple minutes, or a couple weeks.” Ambry had only personally known one pixie who had ever used their shrinking ability. He had done it just to test to see if it would actually work. It had taken four days for him to go back to normal. Apparently there were stories of pixies who had been stuck at their reduced size for nearly a month. There were even some legends that claimed it was possible to stay reduced forever, but those were mostly dismissed as old wives tales.

“So it’s essentially a waiting game.” Adrien concluded.

There were worse things than having to be so small for an indeterminate amount of time, still being in Kole’s hands came to mind. Yet Ambry couldn’t help but be filled with dread at the prospect of potentially being stuck this way for weeks on end. It would be like starting her adjustment to the human world all over again. Not to mention how much more vulnerable she was at this size.

Ambry was forced out of her worrying when she noticed something large steadily approaching her. She instinctively cringed back when Sebastian’s finger got near to her. However, when the fingertip big enough to cover her whole face gently touched her cheek, she found herself surprisingly not pulling away.

His skin was warm, and she could feel the ridges of his fingerprint on her cheek. It was an overwhelming comparison between their individual sizes, and while there was that part of her that was completely intimidated, it was quieter than usual. As Ambry locked eyes with Sebastian, she, in a strange way, actually kind of found his gesture comforting. Sebastian wasn’t particularly good with physical displays of affection or consolation, so for him to even attempt this was shocking in and of itself. But the fact that it was actually sort of working was even more shocking.

“If we have to wait, we have to wait. We’ll do it together.” The white haired witch assured her.

“Yeah, we’ll do whatever we need to make you more comfortable.” Adrien put in, a soft smile on his lips.

Were Ambry one prone to cheesy emotional displays, she would have teared up then and there. But as it was, she opted to choke out a quiet “thank you” instead.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Fractured Ice - Ch. 5/7

Xue Yang whisks a nihilistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right? AU where Wei Wuxian never came to Yi City and Xue Yang is still running around post-canon disguised as Xiao Xingchen.

Lan Xichen in an agony of suspense, hands shaking as he pulls Liebing from his qiankun pouch and puts it to his lips.

Xue Yang bites his finger and traces symbols on the sarcophagus in blood, breaking the seals.

Lan Xichen holds his breath.

Nothing happens.

XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M - Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3  Ch. 4 Ch. 6

Ch. 5: damn right, you should be scared of me

Lan Xichen feels dull and heavy as they pass through the gates of the Unclean Realm.

“We were not expecting Zewu-jun!” babbles the Nie chamberlain as they arrive. “Please excuse the lack of reception; we received no notice of the Clan Leader’s arrival—”

Lan Xichen glances at him dispassionately, then dredges up a small smile and ducks his head at the chamberlain, almost overbalancing and falling forward thanks to the weight of his forehead ribbon.

A-Yao never would have been unprepared like this when he served in the same role. Never would have shown it, at the very least. Would have made the guests feel welcome, his quick mind adjusting to the new circumstances with alacrity and grace—

“My name is Xiao Xingchen,” says Xue Yang. He puts his hands together and bows deeply at the chamberlain. He’s fully back in his Xiao Xingchen role, all gentle refinement and forceful softness and slight _ otherness _, as if he’d learned social graces somewhere outside of normal society. “Zewu-jun and I have come to see Clan Leader Nie on matters of grave urgency. Our visit is to be kept secret.”

The man glances at Lan Xichen for confirmation. Lan Xichen nods.

Another bow. “Please follow me, then, Zewu-jun. This way. Thank you.”

Xue Yang winks at Lan Xichen as they follow the chamberlain through a series of side passages to the reception hall. Lan Xichen gets the idea that he’s hugely enjoying this farce. In another life, he feels, Xue Yang, might have been an actor.

Lan Xichen, on the other hand, feels his sense of dread growing as they near the hall.

Any hint of color in the Unclean Realm is swallowed by the overwhelming sense of grayness. Slate gray walls. Slate gray floors. Gray ornaments, gray ceilings, gray fixtures and furniture and sconces and statues and carvings.

Exactly like a tomb.

Lan Xichen keeps one hand out, just in case the stifling walls begin to move, to crush him, as he’s convinced they will at any second.

“One moment, please.” The chamberlain bows low at Lan Xichen and disappears through a door. Slate gray, with black accents, set in a dark gray frame.

He returns a few minutes later. “I regret to inform Zewu-jun that Clan Leader Nie is in an important conference, but he would be happy to meet with you tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow—”

Lan Xichen backhands him into the wall with his full Lan strength and pushes open the door, locking it behind him and Xue Yang.

Nie Huaisang hops to his feet, dropping his paint brush. “Zewu-jun! What a pleasant surprise—”

“Some conference,” says Xue Yang, glancing around at the empty chamber.

Nie Huaisang gulps visibly. Lan Xichen can almost hear the ropes and pulleys creaking in his head as he decides whether to fall back on his old Headshaker routine or acknowledge the fact that Lan Xichen is onto him.

He goes with the former.

“What can I do for Zewu-jun?” he asks, bowing deeply and seating himself on his throne-like seat. He seems to make himself smaller as he does so, as if well aware of how the seat dwarfs him and wanting to play up the impression of smallness, of helplessness, of innocence and vulnerability. “And, of course, our venerated cultivator friend.” He rises again, bows at Xue Yang with a flap of expensive silver sleeve. “It is a true privilege to meet Xiao Xingchen once again.”

That’s right; Nie Huaisang met Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen at the same time A-Yao and Wangji did. Lan Xichen hopes that Xue Yang, remembering this, will reign in the theatrics.

Xue Yang bows a bit too low. “The honor is all mine, Clan Leader.”

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Nie Huaisang is wearing one of his after-all-it’s-not-as-if-_ I- _ can-be-of-any-help-to- _ you _ looks, and Lan Xichen is seized by the sudden urge to rip his quivering little face off—

He blinks the thought away, a bit unnerved at the idea that Xue Yang might be having more of an influence on him than he’s thought.

Nie Huaisang, in turn, looks even more nervous than usual, as if he’s aware Lan Xichen is not quite himself.

_ Good. You should be afraid of me, you murderer— _

Lan Xichen looks away from Nie Huaisang, eyes roaming over the familiar room. He’d spent many hours here visiting with Nie Mingjue, and then, later, playing guqin opposite A-Yao—

Had A-Yao truly killed Nie Mingjue?

Nie Mingjue had tried to kill A-Yao more than once as his mind deteriorated, but Lan Xichen doubts A-Yao could have done such a terrible thing to their sworn brother in return. If there was one thing A-Yao had proven, it was that he could bear up under repeated slights. He can’t remember if A-Yao confessed to Nie Mingjue's murder at Guanyin Temple, but it doesn't matter. He’d confessed to killing Qin Su, and Lan Xichen himself had watched her commit suicide, witnessed A-Yao’s grief. A-Yao’s guilt and self-loathing, it seemed, was all-encompassing at the end, smothering him, choking all rational thought and pushing him to shoulder every impossible sin in the face of the united wall of hatred that faced him in Guanyin Temple.

_ Not me, _ Lan Xichen wants to say. Will be able to say, soon enough, if all went well. I _ never hated you— _

“Brother Xichen?”

Lan Xichen pulls himself out his thoughts. “We have come to pay our respects to Chifeng-zun,” he says.

Nie Huaisang looks alarmed. “Mingjue?”

“It has been a year since his entombment. I thought it only proper to pay my respects now that I am able to travel again.”

Nie Huaisang picks up the fan he’s painting, using it to hide the lower half of his face. “I’m—I’m afraid that’s not possible, Brother Xichen.”

Xue Yang bows low. “And why not, Clan Leader? Zewu-jun has traveled long to get here.”

“I—er—”

Lan Xichen wonders if Nie Huaisang received a message from Lan Qiren, something about keeping Lan Xichen in the Unclean Realm until the Lan cultivators could arrive. For all that he doubts his uncle would have taken Nie Huaisang into his confidence, the signal could have gone out the second he’d stepped inside the fortress’s gates. Or perhaps Nie Huaisang simply sensed something wrong on his own.

“It’s like this,” says Nie Huaisang, emitting a nervous little laugh from behind the silk fan. “Er—you see—Da-ge is resting in the eastern family tomb.”

“Meaning?”

“Er—well—that’s where we keep our more—how should I put it?—problematic dead.” His eyes dart over to Xue Yang, as if he’d rather not air clan laundry in front of a near-stranger, no matter how distinguished. “There are many seals on the tomb, many—er—dangerous areas—”

“The tomb is booby-trapped,” translates Xue Yang bluntly.

“It’s perhaps not as safe as one might have liked—”

“Like the sabers’ Stone Castles?” asks Lan Xichen. Even before Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s little adventure, he’d heard stories from Nie Mingjue.

Nie Huaisang blanches. “Nothing like that! These spirits aren’t dangerous—it’s simply a precaution—”

Lan Xichen can almost see the calculations in Xue Yang’s head—how fast the cultivator could pounce at the clan leader, snatch his stupid fan away, grab him, _ force _ him to help them—

Lan Xichen shakes his head at Xue Yang warningly. “Your brother was my friend, Huaisang. I have a right to pay my respects, as I was in no condition to do so when he was entombed.”

Nie Huaisang’s tone changes to one of pathetic flattery. “You won’t hold this against me, will you, Brother Xichen? Please understand, Brother Xichen. You know how I value our clans’ friendship, Brother Xichen; but I just simply cannot. Nobody in a hundred years has stepped foot inside the tomb unless it’s to bury a body; even I pay my respects from outside the tomb—but not _ too _ close—”

Xue Yang smiles as if about to make a comment about there being one more Nie body to bury if Nie Huaisang keeps this up, but for once his mouth remains shut.

Nie Huaisang hops off his oversized seat and scurries over to a side door in a funny little trot. “I’ll call the chamberlain; make sure you have comfortable rooms made up!” he says, and he darts out.

Xue Yang smirks. “He certainly lives up to his reputation.”

But Lan Xichen shakes his head. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

By request, Lan Xichen and Xue Yang eat alone together in Lan Xichen’s quarters, the same ones he used to stay in when he was a frequent guest here.

“This food is as bad as the Lan junk,” says Xue Yang in disgust. “What did they put in here? Haven’t they ever heard of salt? Meat? Chicken? Honey? Are these raw carrots and leaves stewed in fucking barley water?”

“They prepare it specially for me,” says Lan Xichen absently. He can’t bring himself to eat. He paces the room, trying to ground himself with the firmness of the hard gray stone beneath his feet, the solid smoothness of the walls under his palms, but he’s drifting and he knows it.

“So we can blame you for this inedible garbage? At least at the Cloud Recesses they know how to prepare the stewed leaves properly; this, however—” Xue Yang frowns suddenly. “You don’t look so good, my friend.”

Lan Xichen has sunk to the bed, leaning forward on his knees.

“Zewu-jun?”

“I’m fine.”

“Not worrying about the Lan popping in? I'd say we should get moving, but you don't look great. ”

Lan Xichen glances up. He'd forgotten about the Lan since leaving Nie Huaisang. “I thought we decided my uncle would never trust Nie Huaisang with the truth, and you told me you asked around and were told no Lan cultivators were seen heading here—”

Xue Yang shrugs. “I’ll admit, I half expected to be arrested the second we stepped foot in this metal box. Glad we got an opportunity to eat instead, if you can call this food. I'd figured you could fight us out, maybe take out the Headshaker in the confusion, do the Nie Clan a favor while getting a bit of your own back—”

“I wouldn’t hurt Nie Huisang, no matter how much I wanted to.”

Xue Yang raises an eyebrow. “Never?”

“I am not a murderer.”

“Murderer, killer, same thing.”

“We’ve been through this. It is not at all the same thing.”

Xue Yang makes a face and puts down his chopsticks. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll be right back.” He slips out of the room. Through the door Lan Xichen hears him sending the chamberlain out for different food, but he doesn’t pay attention to the actual words. He’s been here many times before, he knows this guest chamber like the back of his hand, but suddenly the room is unfamiliar. A flash of alarm, as if he can’t remember how he got here even though he can clearly remember the past two hours.

At least he thinks he does.

He lies down on the bed, taking deep, meditative breaths. Stares up at the ceiling. Familiar gray ceiling with familiar stone carvings, but the memory of when he last saw this ceiling is hazy. Hard thin mattress—was it always so hard?—“a warrior’s bed”—who had told him that?

A faint brush of memory: a shared meal—a war conference—a blade flashing beside his—but all that stands out is the sound of guqin music, played in duet.

A sensation of floating, of expanding, of being outside himself, reaching through the walls, feeling the wetness of the rain that has begun to fall—

He opens his eyes. He hadn’t realized they were closed. Xue Yang is just finishing up his meal, watching Lan Xichen with an almost worried expression he just manages to hide as Lan Xichen sits up.

“We leave in five minutes,” he tells him.

Xue Yang grins. “To the tomb?”

“To the tomb.”

* * * * * *

They fly out over the fortress walls.

“I counted a dozen sentries on the parapets,” says Xue Yang as they land. He returns Jiangzai to his qiankun sleeve. “They definitely saw us, despite the rain.”

“Your knocking out the chamberlain did not help matters.”

“He was in our way.”

“He was bringing the dessert you ordered.”

“He had it coming.” There’s a new bounce in Xue Yang’s step, as if he’s happy to be _ doing _ something, _ after _ something. If Lan Xichen didn’t know that there had been nothing but vinegar-water at supper, he’d think the delinquent cultivator had been bending the elbow too freely. “You should have seen the look on his face when I asked for extra honey for my dumplings. As if none of these musclebound Nie ever—”

“Xue Yang, we haven’t the time.”

They hadn’t flown very far, needing to preserve their spiritual energy for the booby-traps and ritual at the tomb. They hurry down the road, expecting guards to be following them at any moment, but the night is quiet save for the pattering rain.

“You do know the way, right?”

Lan Xichen nods. He knows where all the many Nie tombs are thanks to the many internments during and after the Sunshot Campaign, but he hadn’t known which one contained Nie Mingjue and A-Yao or he could have spared them the afternoon’s charade.

“The Headshaker, I feel, is someone I could get on with,” says Xue Yang, who seems to feel it his duty to fill any silence with conversation despite the fact that silence would serve them far better. “Squirrely little bastard, isn’t he? Never boring around him, I’d guess. Always something to laugh at.”

Lan Xichen ignores him. Barely even hears him. He’s outside himself again. He tries to bring himself back into his body, focusing on the drenching wetness chilling every inch of his skin and the muddy squelch beneath his feet as they cut through a hardscrabble little farm, but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s bobbing above his body, watching a tall blue figure and smaller green-and-black figure slog side-by-side though the rain.

Without consciously deciding to, he embraces the feeling.

He’d spent the better part of a year like this. It’s familiar. Welcome. A cushioning cocoon of numbness.

And yet, still somehow sharp. Focused. Clear.

A part of him somehow knows that it’s a blessing, how a few hours in the Unclean Realm undid all of the changes of the past month. Knows that he needs the old version of himself to do the things that will need to be done to bring A-Yao back.

Besides, he’s happier this way, on some level.

It’s almost dawn when they arrive, drenched and shivering, at the tomb.

Outside the tomb are seven Nie guards, which explains why nobody has come after them.

“You!” Three of the guards converge at the sight of the intruders. “Oh, it is—begging your pardon, Zewu-jun—”

Lan Xichen reaches inside his qiankun pouch, removes his guqin, and blasts them into the tomb’s outer wall with a single arc of blue light that illuminates the falling rain like lightning.

Xue Yang nods approvingly at the three bodies lying prone at unsettling angles. “You tore through them like rice paper.”

“Captain! We heard—” Four more guards run up.

Four more guards flung into the wall with such force Lan Xichen has Xue Yang check to make sure none are dead.

Not that he cares. Nothing is real. Nothing matters.

But just in case.

“All breathing,” says Xue Yang. “Do you think you could teach me that technique? No?” He glances at the tomb door. “How about using it to open the door, then? Preferably without the blue light giving everyone and their great-aunt our location.”

Lan Xichen’s heart is pounding so hard it’s a miracle the countryside isn’t roused by its thunderous beat.

This is it. Inside is A-Yao.

His A-Yao.

Waiting for him to rescue him—

He summons the awful, wonderful energy swelling within him, focuses it, releases it through his guqin in an explosive blast of energy, rocking the thick stone door off its hinges.

Xue Yang grins delightedly. “I was wrong about you Lan,” he says. “What you lack in pizzazz you make up for in power.”

Lan Xichen strides in. Xue Yang follows, Jiangzai out and resting across both shoulders in a way that, if he’s not careful, might result in his severing the tendons in his shoulder.

Xue Yang takes a torch from a wrought-iron sconce on the wall and lights it with a touch of his finger, a trick he’d learned from the Wens. The light and warmth are welcome, but Lan Xichen is still soaking wet and chilled to the bone. The chill goes deeper than mere autumn coolness. It’s a chill he thought he’d gotten rid of but had in fact just burrowed deeper, to be excavated in the Unclean Realm.

That’s fine, though. He likes the cold. It keeps him awake. Keeps him on his toes, despite his detachment.

Sharp. Focused. Clear.

“No booby traps,” says Xue Yang as they step into a chamber a bit bigger than the Nie reception hall. “Do you think the little chipmunk lied to keep us out?”

“Undoubtedly. Lying is his specialty.”

“Same decorator as the Unclean Realm, I see. All gray stone and ugly monster carvings. At least the Unclean Realm doesn’t reek.”

Lan Xichen ignores the overwhelming musty smell. “There. This one.” He rests both hands on the lid of the sarcophagus. A faint hum can be felt through the thick stone. They had sealed off Nie Mingjue’s ghost, immobilized it, but he can still sense the power of the two spirits, locked in eternal battle. How metaphorical of a battle still remains to be seen. “What next?”

Xue Yang is pulling materials out of his qiankun sleeve. “First of all, we have to be prepared to fight a ghost once we open that coffin—”

“We are not fighting Nie Mingjue!”

“He’s not exactly going to want to sit down to tea, though if we had tea it might we worth a shot—”

“We immediately suppress him.”

“Not liberate? Xiao Xingchen was always keen on setting them at rest.” His tone is dismissive, but Lan Xichen senses the effort it takes to mention Xiao Xingchen so casually.

“His spirit is too far gone for that. The kindest thing would be to put it out of its misery.”

Xue Yang shrugs. “You’re the boss, Zewu-jun. Don’t mind me. I’ll work around you. Actually—” He bows, suddenly deferential “—I will need a drop or two of your blood.”

Lan Xichen doesn’t bother asking him what it’s for. Doesn’t matter at this point, as long as it can help.

With surprising delicacy, Xue Yang pricks Lan Xichen’s finger where it won’t interfere with using his flute, guqin, or sword.

“And now,” he says, removing something from his qiankun sleeve with a flourish, “we prepare the accommodations for our guest of honor.”

It’s the spirit-trapping pouch he’d given to Lan Xichen and long since taken back, its brown sides smooth and blank. As Lan Xichen watches, riveted, Xue Yang uses Lan Xichen’s blood to cover the bag in intricate, entirely foreign symbols.

Xue Yang hands it to Lan Xichen when he’s finished. “Just one moment; I need some...grass from outside. I’ll be back in a second.”

He lights another torch and leaves, returning soon with a handful of grass. He scatters it on the coffin and sets up the rest of the ritual, humming to himself, drawing an intricate array around the sarcophagus in red from a jar he has with him. Red paint, Lan Xichen would have assumed had he been paying even the slightest bit of attention to anything but the spirit-trapping pouch. After all, where would Xue Yang have found so much fresh blood?

“All right, then,” says Xue Yang, straightening up and rinsing his reddened hands off with water from his canteen. “Step away from the sarcophagus, Zewu-jun, if you please. We have work to do. I’ll need the pouch back, please. Thank you.” He waits until Lan Xichen is a safe distance away before putting his hands on the side of the sarcophagus lid. “Sword out,” he reminds Lan Xichen. “Or flute, or guqin, but don’t just stand there.”

Lan Xichen shakes himself out of his reverie. “Do you truly think he might attack?”

“I just know that that fan-waving little prick would rather torment your friend’s spirit than set his own brother’s spirit at rest. After a year of being confined in there like that—”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Lan Xichen has to admit. It had been explained to him once, the rationale for leaving both spirits like this, but he can’t remember the details right now.

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “I’m sure it isn’t. Now, places, everyone.”

Lan Xichen in an agony of suspense, hands shaking as he pulls Liebing from his qiankun pouch and puts it to his lips.

Xue Yang bites his finger and traces symbols on the sarcophagus in blood, breaking the seals.

Lan Xichen holds his breath.

Nothing happens.

Frowning, Xue Yang pushes the heavy stone lid off the sarcophagus.

Black smoke roars up from the sarcophagus, spinning furiously in a tight vortex. It rushes Xue Yang, flinging him into the wall before he can react.

Lan Xichen begins to play battle music.

Nie Mingjue is one of the angriest spirits he’s ever encountered. But though Lan Xichen is not the man he used to be, tonight he’s committed.

Sharp. Focused. Clear.

Xue Yang is back on his feet, Jiangzai drawn, but he’s smart enough to stay put as Lan Xichen plays.

He channels all of his remaining spiritual energy into Liebing, channels the affection he bears for the man the spirit had once been, channels his feelings for the man whose spirit this man is tormenting, and with the sense of something rupturing, Nie Mingjue’s spirit dissipates.

“I told you it was sheer spite, keeping him in there,” says Xue Yang, spitting blood. “If you could do it, anyone could.”

“Not everyone can do what I can.” Lan Xichen isn’t bragging; it’s simple fact. He glances over anxiously at Xue Yang, who stands looking down into the sarcophagus. “What now?”

Xue Yang turns away and draws unfamiliar symbols in the air.

The array glows red.

At the sight, Lan Xichen goes entirely numb. He’d swear he’s as faded as Nie Mingjue, as vague and amorphous as his birth name, Huan—“to dissipate”—a handful of vapor, a human-shaped patch of nothing so focused on Xue Yang’s next words that it’s lost all sense of self.

Xue Yang turns back to Lan Xichen. In his hand is the spirit pouch.

The symbols on the sides are glowing with a touch of the array’s eerie red light.

Grinning, he tosses it to Lan Xichen.

“He’s all yours,” he says.

* * * * *

Up Next: Xue Yang and Lan Xichen pay Chang Ping a friendly visit in a desperate bid to bring A-Yao back.

Or: Don’t try this at home, kids.

Chapter 6

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hello!!! i am a big fan of your writing & how you depict very raw emotions, i always feel like i'm right there in the moment :}}} i'm writing a whump series & i wanna glean as much advice from as many good writers as possible!! advice as to how to write better (effective) panic attacks, especially if its from a stoic used-to-punishment whumpee who doesn't express a lot Emotion?? i appreciate it!! (p.s. are you open to getting asked writing advice in general?) thx!! - newbornwhumperfly

CW: Frank discussion of panic attacks/anxiety/PTSD

I actually get a lot of writing advice asks! You can see my answers to other questions here on my #writing advice tag!

I think people tend to rely heavily on a certain kind of panic attack, including me - obvious panting or breathing hard, curling up into a ball, covering vulnerable areas. Racing heart, shaking/trembling, racing thoughts, disjointed or disconnected thought processes that jump quickly

That may not be the kind of panic attack that suits your whumpee, though! Consider writing them growing outwardly calmer and more capable, even as a sense of pure impending doom settles within their chest. Especially with a stoic whumpee who is used to suppressing any outward emotions, it may not come naturally to them to show panic, and what may happen instead of an internal monologue that is just [WORDLESS SCREAMING] while outwardly they continue to function at close to normal or even become hyper-effective and efficient to cover up their mindset.

Symptoms of panic attacks include but are not limited to:

A sense of impending doom (this is such a specific emotion/physical sensation and it is such a huge anxiety thing. You literally physically feel as though everything is about to fall in on your head RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU ARE GOING TO DIE GO GO GO only nothing is actually wrong and there’s nowhere TO go)

Fearing that you’ve lost control of your own body or you are going to die right now now now now

Rapid heartrate, pounding heart

Cold or hot sweats, feeling sweat break out even in a chilly place or cold room

Trembling, shaking throughout the extremities or body

Chills and/or hot flashes, a sense of sudden temperature change regardless of the actual temperature of your location

Nausea/vomiting

Abdominal cramping or chest pains, often sharp (many people believe they are having a coronary event/heart attack when they have panic-attack chest pains)

Headache, either dull and throbbing or sharp or stabbing both can happen

Dizziness, lightheadedness (NOT the same as dizziness!), or feeling faint

Feeling numb, or like your limbs are tingling/fingers or toes feel tingly

Dissociation - a feeling of unreality, detachment from the world or environment around you

Intrusive thoughts - these don’t show up often in lists of panic attack symptoms but I know that during my worst panic attacks, I start to get really bad intrusive thoughts that cycle over and over again until I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. While they don’t go away entirely during my daily life (I still struggle with intrusive thoughts as part of my anxiety disorder), I am more able to deal with them when I’m not actively in a panic attack. During a panic attack, though, I am totally at the mercy of whatever doomsday scenario my brain has started to feed me.

Repetitive behaviors - this is another that doesn’t show up on a lot of panic attack lists, but it’s something I have seen in myself and others. Especially with PTSD-related panic attacks, you may see someone falling into behaviors they learned in, say, the military or another situation in which a coping mechanism becomes muscle memory. An army vet I know, for instance, would often find himself essentially patrolling his yard during panic attack because he couldn’t calm himself down unless he did. 

Panic-stims - listen, stimming to soothe during a panic attack is honestly a fairly widespread thing that we often call a “nervous habit” or something like that when explaining it to ourselves or others later. But consider - rocking back and forth, chewing on their fingernails, insistently pulling on hair or twisting a button back and forth or rubbing fingers over its surface. Self-soothing behavior during a panic attack is incredibly common. Danny, for example, rubs insistently at his scars when he is panicking to soothe himself. Chris (who is autistic) falls into self-harming negative stims if his panic is pushed too far, like scratching at himself or hitting his head repetitively into a wall. 

On the other hand, going very very still! Often, people who are panicking aren’t immediately recognized as doing so because they DON’T have an obvious response. Nate’s panic attacks sometimes simply equal him going very very silent and still, which is easy to miss. 

One thing I do, since I tend to write in third-person character POV (I write, for example, “Chris thought” or “Danny thought” but only write one person’s perspective per drabble most often, so it’s not omniscient or all-knowing) is start having my POV character’s thought fragment, become broken or run on endlessly, cycling past the same thoughts (intrusive, usually) over and over again as they begin to break down. 

Speed up their thoughts, scatter sentence fragments. Write with the same urgency and speed as the individual who is panicking. If you write someone panicking in a stately, slow pace, it won’t read as panic. It won’t read as something genuinely happening to your character. Pace is everything when it comes to writing a breakdown. People fall apart, as they say, slowly and then all at once. But in our own minds, it can feel like an avalanche, and it works best I think, personally, when written as an avalanche and not a slowly running river. 

Hope this helps!

[starwarsfic]

Hunters

Originally posted September 25, 2020

Summary: Some monsters are made, some are born.

Details: Jango/Obi-Wan. Sithspawn!Stewjoni verse. Monster!Jango.

CW: Kinda cannibalism. Huge consent issues. Implications of future noncon.

xxxxxx

The scent-feel hit Obi-Wan the moment he stepped into the cycled air of the compound where he'd been directed to land on Kamino. It was completely unfamiliar, but made every instinct within him bristle.

It wasn't the Kaminoans, not any he met, but when he got into the room with the clones he had his answer. Whatever they were--or at least whatever their template had been--was no more human than Obi-Wan himself was.

His guide confirmed it, that they’d taken the “beneficial” parts of their template’s genetics and tempered the others. They’d be stronger, faster than most of the sentient species (and the implication the Kaminoans didn’t think of these clones as sentients was very clear), but still obedient.

To the Jedi. Who they were supposed to serve.

Obi-Wan had no idea how he was going to explain this in a single data packet to the Council.

***

Eventually he managed to get the Kaminoans to agree he should meet the template. The walk towards his rooms had the uneasy feeling increasing steadily. From the way the Kaminoan’s emotions shifted, he thought it might be the same with them, too. It wasn’t just from the Force or Obi-Wan’s instincts, there was something more at play.

His whole being felt tense when they reached the door, only his training as a Jedi keeping it from showing. When the door opened, it was to a human-looking figure recognizable from the form the clones had taken.

Fett. A Mandalorian name. That helped to narrow things down, even if it didn't clarify everything, and Obi-Wan tried to analyze what he knew as he ran through an introductory conversation on autonav.

There weren't many native Mandalorian creatures left, the Taung had hunted many to extinction, most of the rest were killed off in the Mandalorian Excision. But there were some that had been sentient and had been integrated into Mandalorian culture enough to survive.

None of them were what the humans considered pleasant creatures, many classified by the Republic in some of the same categories as the Stewjoni.

From the blur of light around Fett, Obi-Wan guessed he wore some sort of illusion--one that sharp eyes and Force senses couldn't break through, even. Which was odd, since his Force presence was...so indistinct. If Obi-Wan wasn't looking at him, he might even miss he was there at all.

He stiffened, realizing he actually might know what Fett was, although he'd only ever heard them spoken of in legends.

"I thought the hoda'nynii were all gone," he said as casually as possible when they were finally left alone.

Fett's eyes sharpened and Obi-Wan could guess that he was suddenly putting together all the little clues that had confused him when a person who seemed so human showed up at his door. He moved closer, as though stalking prey. Obi-Wan had to keep himself from responding negatively, especially as Fett began to circle him.

There was no other outward sign of physiological responses, but there wouldn't be--the hoda'nyniise were experts at illusions and it would not break until Fett was dead or dropped it himself. When he concentrated, he could feel something brushing against him, which he imagined must be Fett's tail, a deadly weapon in itself if the legends held other truths.

"La'ar'striilii," he finally stated and it took Obi-Wan a moment to comprehend it was the Mando'a for Stewjoni. "What happened to you?"

He stopped at Obi-Wan's back, hands hovering where the graceful crest of spines would have been. It was all Obi-Wan could do not to hunch into himself, feeling vulnerable at the reminder.

"Not everyone can trick others into seeing what they want."

Fett made a noise, more shrill than the soft trills of Obi-Wan's people, but he decided it might simply be a thoughtful sound. When he walked around to face Obi-Wan again, there was no warning before the illusion dropped.

One moment, there was a human-looking figure, the next there was a hoda'nynii straight out of the stories the Mandalorians would tell at night to scare each other. A dark, smooth exoskeleton was and a face full of teeth and pedipalps was what Obi-Wan noticed, first. Then the thick, serrated tail rising up behind Fett, not quite pointing at Obi-Wan, but still a threat.

Every instinct--Stewjoni and Jedi-trained--was screaming at him that this situation had turned deadly. And intellectually he knew that, too, because why else would Fett reveal himself so obviously?

"Is it true what the stories say, that your kind heal by feeding?" Fett's voice matched the noise from earlier, but was more, crowding Obi-Wan's ears.

He tilted his head to the side, deciding that he'd play along if Fett wished it. "Yes, though it depends on how strong the prey is in the Force."

The face he watched wasn't one for the human expression of a smile, but Obi-Wan thought that was what answered him.

There was a momentary shift, Fett's tail swinging towards him. Obi-Wan dodged, calling his lightsaber to his hand, not getting the chance to ignite it before it was knocked away. His opponent knew something about fighting Jedi, it seemed.

Fett's room was more cramped than Obi-Wan liked for combat without his lightsaber and he'd never encountered something like him before, was tripping over illusions as he dodged and attempted to strike back with fists and feet.

The Force found Fett too slippery for any sort of throws, sliding off of him the way a weapon might his exoskeleton, but that shouldn't have affected the warnings it gave Obi-Wan. Yet, it did, because the danger remained too low, lacked the urgency that a life or death situation always had.

It was only when Fett knocked into him, his body slamming Obi-Wan to the floor, that he spared a moment to wonder if maybe there was no plan to kill him.

***

Obi-Wan woke up somewhere else. His senses still buzzed with the unsettling feeling of the clones (they couldn't be actual hoda'nyniise, he didn't think, instead some sort of hybrids using characteristics that the Kaminoans liked, even if Fett was possibly using them for re-population).

But closer, much closer, were two Kaminoans. Barely conscious, already bleeding. Injured as he was, Obi-Wan let out a few notes of Song before stopping himself.

"Please, there's no need to refrain," Fett, back under the illusion, said from what looked to be some sort of observation room. "Help yourself."

Looking around, Obi-Wan had the sinking feeling he wasn't going to get out any time soon. Not until he gave Fett what he seemed to want. The only door was clearly reinforced and if he had to bet, he’d say this was some sort of training room, everything designed to take heavy weaponry without a mark.

He licked his lips and looked back at the Kaminoans, tracking the waves of Force around them. Despair, fear, confusion. The sense of their lives was strong, they wouldn’t be dying any time soon.

Could he outlast this? Not if Fett truly meant to do this. For all he knew, there was a way for him to just keep dropping people into the enclosure until Obi-Wan’s instincts overrode his common sense.

“What do you want?” he asked, needing a delay to collect himself.

He didn’t think the pause was caused by Fett thinking it through and more likely that he was up to something else and away from the internal comm.

“I want to see you, not this human creature the jetiise made you.”

A traditional Mandalorian of any sort didn’t normally favor the Jedi, he could understand a hoda'nynii liking them even less. But the Jedi had taken him in and kept him safe and it aggravated him to think that anyone would think so poorly of them.

“Do you know what a young Stewjoni is worth on the slave market? A young force sensitive? A young Stewjoni force sensitive?”

“You aren’t young anymore. A grown Jedi can take care of themselves, especially one with your unique abilities.”

He turned his attention to the Kaminoans when one of them moved, tracking every shift. Jango had done just enough damage that he’d want to heal.

“And what I want doesn’t factor into this?”

Obi-Wan waited, thinking perhaps Jango was done talking, but then the answer came, “You can’t know what you want. I’ve seen the jetiise at work, I’ve studied them and what they do. None of the children they take could resist indoctrination.”

He’d heard enough of this sort of nonsense on his Mandalore mission and in other sectors of the galaxy where resentment ran high. He knew there was no easy way to counter it without making Fett double down.

He could feed, could suck the life from the Kaminoans, let the energy unleash itself against all the grueling work done on his body. After, he might be able to lull Jango into giving him more freedom. Or, at least, ignoring him once he’d seen what he wanted to see. Just because no one else was in the system didn’t mean there weren’t other Jedi around.

After collecting his thoughts and mentally preparing for what would happen, he crawled the short distance to the Kaminoans, Singing softly into the Force. He waited until they had relaxed, soft noises of pleasure escaping them.

Then he leaned over the first, lips nearly touching, eyes locked, and pulled. He twined their life into a ball inside of them, twisting and turning it together, before he brought it up to himself, sucking it down.

Obi-Wan gave a full body shudder, tipping to the side, as the meal filled him. He’d never eaten like this, never taken and taken until a body could give no more. The energy filled him, racing underneath his skin, and he could feel things shifting and changing already.

“Both of them, you can do it, mesh’la,” Fett ordered.

He was upon the second Kaminoan before he’d registered Fett’s words. This time he sipped and savored, on and on, dizzy from the overload of energy and the healing that was being done.

When he was done, he fell back and away, scrambling at the permanent lenses affixed to his eyes and pulling them out when the pressure got too great, tracks of blue blood following in their wake. His ears itched, his back burned, even his claws, with so few changes, hurt in their own way as they grew thick and healthy again, long and sharp.

At some point, everything stopped. There was energy left, flying over his nerves and soothing some deeper part of him, but it had done all it needed to do to heal him. When he shifted around, turning to lie with his front on the cool metal floor, he realized the energy had even destroyed the parts that had been added to him to help him pass.

“Mesh’la,” Fett said again, from within the room this time, and his tone made it seem as though he was surprised to find Obi-Wan so beautiful. “I had heard stories, I had not realized their extent.”

His hand brushed over the side of Obi-Wan’s tall spines and he felt them swaying gently, no longer familiar with how to move them as he wanted. He turned his head, tracking Jango against the bright colors of the Kaminoan style walls.

He needed to get away, he knew that, but he was exhausted and off kilter, on a planet full of hoda'nyniise, or whatever the clones counted as. Fett didn’t seem the type to give up control, must be playing everyone involved in this, and now Obi-Wan was one of them.

Claws stroked ever so gently over his body, a rumbling like a purr buzzing through Fett, making Obi-Wan’s skin crawl. “Are you going to tell me why you’re doing this?”

Fett gave a semblance of a chuckle, a sound that had the familiarity of a noise mimicked and not natural. “The Jedi will die,” he stated, with the simplicity that someone might say Kamino was a water planet. “A treasure such as you shouldn’t be lost with them.”

It was a trap.

Obi-Wan would find out how to stop it. One way or another.

xxxxx

Mando'a: hoda'nynii - made up from hodar (deceive)/hodasal (camouflage), nynir (hit/strike). Plural is hoda’nyniise. la'ar'striilii - made up from laar (song) and striil (a dog-like anima)/striilir (track/trail), the Mando'a word for Stewjoni Mesh’la - beautiful

[itzagothamcitysiren]

Welcome to the Family

I’m going to do the same as last time and post two chapters in a row because I suck and waited so long to update again. I’m not sure what it is about this particular story that has been dragging my feet with writing it lol. I only have the last chapter to write out so I’m going to try to finish it tonight. It won’t be long like my usual chapters, but be more like a epilogue of sorts. 

Love Is a Burning Thing and It Makes a Fiery Ring pt.4

           The first thing that had come to Halley’s senses when Bruce found her was the cold; her body left in the warehouse, laying on the concrete floor below her. The second thing that came to her senses had been a voice; Bruce’s voice. It was gruff but showing concern. Where is Robin, he asked her as he finished administering the antidote to the Joker venom into her system. Where was Jason, she questioned, her mind blurry as she felt the needle leaving her arm. The last thing that came to her senses was the pure adrenaline and dread that snapped her back to her senses completely as she and Batman raced to his bike.

           The wind whipped Halley’s hair across her face, the cold night air making her come out of her foggy state as the seconds dragged. Her grip on Batman’s waist tightened as he took another sharp turn, the beeping of the tracking system on his bike echoing in her head. She closed her eyes just to open them again as if trying to blink away the rippling anxiety pounding within her. She winced as she was once again jerked from another harsh turn, her muscles still sore from all the laughing.

           She looked at the buildings as they passed by, almost counting them to distract her mind from the fear of what was happening beyond their eyes. She barely remembered Jason being so foolish and offering himself off to the Joker. Who knew what the clown was doing to him? She tried not to think about it as they rounded another snowy street corner. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She knew that they wouldn’t just find Jason tied up to some chair waiting for them. No, the Joker would want to put on a show; he would want to give them something to see. Something to provoke Batman. She knew Jason was going to be in rough shape and she couldn’t wait until he healed already just so she could slap some sense into him. She had healing powers for crying out loud, she would’ve been the logical choice for Joker to take.

           They had just reached the building where Jason’s tracker led them when she jumped off the bike. As she flung her leg over the other side, she wasn’t expecting for the next couple of moments to pass her in slow motion but appear to end in a flash at the same time. The instinct to wait for Bruce before proceeding long abandoned as relief and urgency bubbled in her chest; those feelings were short lived though. In a matter of seconds she was torn backwards and away from the building, letting out a huff as her body roughly hit the rocky and uneven ground. She hadn’t even had time to learn the reason why she was thrown away from Jason and instead found herself being shielded by Bruce, heat overcoming her and not just from the body hovering over hers.

           It clicked together as Bruce’s hold on her grew tighter and she found herself clutching just as tight onto his shoulder.  She didn’t realize the scream she let out and felt no comfort as she felt Bruce pulling her closer into his chest protectively. The breath was taken from her as the air got hotter, flames sparking and cement and ruble crashing felt and heard from behind the dark knight's cape. The cape was the only thing keeping them safe, the fibers strong and heat retardant but Halley could care less about their safety right now. She pushed against the older man when everything seemed to settle or settle as much as it could.

           She heard Bruce’s harsh voice ordering her to stay down as he began to rise but she didn’t listen. She heard him tell her a second time but she still didn’t listen. Her breath was shaky as she stood up with him. Bruce looked away from her now just as silent as her. He looked up and around, trying to get a grasp on what just happened. Just like her he was speechless. He knew what happened, the evidence around him was clear enough but he just couldn’t believe it. But how could he not? Did he really think the Joker wouldn’t go this far? The burning remains of the building surrounded them telling him that yes, the Joker would go this far.

           “Stay here.” He said for a third time as he moved forward, his voice trying to keep its sternest but for once failed.

           All she heard was a buzzing in her ear from the explosion. Her breathe stopped shaking as she sharply inhaled, only to cough from the smoke around them. Her eyes were wide as Bruce began to make his way through the wreckage, the depth of the damage now fully hitting her. Halley could feel the walls starting to close in as she felt her right foot stumble forward into a step.

           Jason, she thought feeling a lump grow in her throat.

           She watched, unable to move a step further as Bruce began to move different chunks of debris away as if he was searching for something. She knew she should help, but Bruce did tell her to stay put. She was good at following orders; she always followed orders but she found herself incapable of as he moved another piece. She moved forward, suddenly in denial because there was no way he was looking for Jason underneath all of that. No one would have survived the blast from inside and there was no way Jason was gone.

           Gone.

           The word repeated in Halley’s mind like a plague: it was like a death sentence. No, Jason wasn’t dead, she repeated, he just wasn’t. It was a joke being played by the Joker. He wanted them weak, he wanted them vulnerable and what better way to do that by making them think one of theirs was dead. They were wasting time here, they had to go; they had to go find where Jason really was. This was a huge waste of time, she thought, her mind racing as her eyes grew wide.  

           “Bruce?” She pipped up, finding somewhat of a voice. “We need to go. We need to find Jason- Joker-,” she couldn’t finish speaking, feeling her throat clog up with fake optimism. “Joker must still have Jason. This isn’t real. It’s a trick.” She muttered, now talking to herself more than to Bruce.

           The man looked at her sadly, taking in the look on her face. It was the same look he wore the night his parents were killed in front of him. He gave her the same look he wore when he witnessed Dick’s parent die. He felt his own mind start to go afire with what ifs but he knew this was no joke. He knew the outcome of this situation. He knew he was too late. He kept pressing forward knowing that he had to ignore the girl’s desperate pleads to leave. He had to find his son.

           He found himself successful and couldn’t help but feel bitter as being so. His blank face showed emotion as he regrettably looked down at the boy now thrown down messily below him. Once the wall fragment was out of the way he knelt down,

           “Jason,” he whispered, unable to hide the pain he was usually so good at keeping hidden. Capturing the sight of the broken boy that had been caught underneath the rubble, Bruce reached down. He carefully lifted him into his arms, staring down at Jason’s empty face. “No.”  

           “Bruce?” Halley’s voice approached him.

           Bruce rushed to try to shield her view but failed; she was too quick. The moment she saw him drop to his knees she found it in herself to rush forward, knowing that Bruce was surely mistaken. It was a decoy and she’d prove that to him, she decided as she pushed to look over his shoulders. But even she had to begin pulling herself out of the forced doubt the moment she caught site of Jason’s form. Her body kicked into action with a strangled cry escaping her lips. She rushed to sit in front of Bruce as she still clasped onto the thought of it being some twisted joker desperately.

           “Jason!” She shouted, her hands grasping at his face before practically tearing the boy out of Bruce’s grip the moment he didn’t stir awake. Her eyes traced over the countless cuts and burns scattered on his face. “No, no, no, no-,” she kept saying in a seemingly never ending cycle.

           Bruce reached a hand to pull her away; she didn’t need to see this. He gently called out her name, placing a hand on her back when she wouldn’t budge. She only responded by swatting his hand away from her. She let out a chocked out sob before giving Jason another look, the walls fully closed in. The tears fell down freely as she collapsed onto Jason’s chest. Hearing no breaths of air escaping him from the impact rocked her body even harder as she now gripped onto the tattered uniform for some form of comfort.

           She begged for him to wake up, her words starting to fade into madness as they twisted to make no sense and became barely coherent. Bruce looked down at the two teenagers for a moment, his own heart begging for the situation to be staged. His mind drifted to vengeance, thinking to the Joker and how he was long gone by now and Bruce once again let him get away with murder. He brought down his hand again, placing it back onto Halley’s back as the other rested underneath’s Jason’s head.  

           Halley hadn’t known how long they stood there like that. She was huddled against Jason, clinging onto him as if it would bring him back to life as Bruce simply let her. But Bruce knew that they couldn’t stay like this forever. He had to get them out of here; he had to think of how he was going to explain this. Oh god, he found himself full of dread, Alfred, how was he going to tell Alfred?           He struggled to bring the pair of them to the Batplane, the girl stuck in a haze and Jason’s body weighting heavily on his mind instead of his arms. Once he placed the boy’s body down on the plane, he found the strength to call Alfred.

           Halley started to feel as if the Joker venom was still surging through her veins and if the antidote had no affect after all. She watched as Bruce took his cowl off after placing Jason down, seeing how truly lifeless he was. She sat across the way, plopped against the wall unable to move or think straight. She simply couldn’t believe what she was seeing, long stopping her tears but eyes still burning from them. She covered her mouth with her hand, completely ignoring the blood that she still had on it. Jason’s blood, she noted as she felt it rub onto her skin. She let out a laugh; this wasn’t real.

           Her body felt numb as it did for the days that followed. She and Bruce barely spoke, both unsure what to say or how to comfort the other. She even ignored Alfred’s attempts. The old man was having a hard time coping himself which only made her feel even worse. He tried, he truly did, knowing that Bruce was in the same boat as her. Sure, Bruce had helped Dick cope with his parent’s death but this, this was different. This was Jason; this was his son that was now dead.

           She vaguely remembered Bruce telling he put the Joker was back in Arkham but she didn’t care. Bruce was a fool if he thought telling her that would make her feel any better when he should know it would only make her feel worse. The damage was already done and that monster would just break out again anyways. She just glared at him after he told her, asking if that was supposed to make her feel any better. He stood silent, knowing that of course it wouldn’t; of course he knew that.

           She barely acknowledged as Dick arrived at the manor upon hearing the news and tried to comfort her. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about it or even begin to find the words to describe how she was feeling. Dick understood though and let her quite literally use him as a punching bag one night when he found her over exerting herself in the cave. Bruce had refused to let her go out on patrol and she was furious. If he was ready to go out so soon than she should be too.

           Her body ached as she delivered one last punch towards Dick’s chest, finally realizing what she was doing to him. Her fist stood pressed against his firm chest, the punch being the weakest she’d ever delivered.   Her face was contorted and scrunched upwards as she found herself trying to hold back tears. Dick saw past her wall and pulled her fist away, using her extended arm to pull her forward into a tight embrace. When her face was buried against him she let down the walls that she enclosed herself in for days crumble. Crying, she allowed Dick to carry her up and out of the cave, bringing her to his room and settling her into his bed and allowing her to cry herself to sleep against him.

           The funeral was excruciating to say the least. It was private, allowing the family to properly mourn without putting on some guise over what happened. To Gotham and the world, Jason Todd died in a skiing accident during their vacation in Bosnia. Who the fuck even vacations in Bosnia, she swore as Dick and Bruce informed her of the insulting cover story they made up. Jason didn’t die in a pathetic skiing accident. That was almost disrespectful; Jason died at the hands of some mad man.

           A mad man who was still breathing, she thought as Jason’s coffin lowered deeper into the ground. She felt something flash within her, as she thought about it.

           He was still breathing for now.

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Without Question (3)

Steve Rogers x Reader

Content: Little fluff, angst

Warnings: None.

Word Count: Do not take the days when you are healthy for granted and do eat vegetables. Please.

A/N: Feedback is always welcome. Let me know through any means (ask/comments/reblogs/messages) if you’d like to be tagged in the fic.

MASTERLIST

Your room is silent again. The fear laden breaths now calm.

What the hell was that about?

The nightmare felt real. Way too real inside your head.

You looked around your room again, moving your fingers over the white sheets covering you, trying to absorb the silent reality through your skin by feeling the soft cotton under your tips before the surface changed to a coarser material.

Your jeans.

Even though the Avengers facility’s staff had provided you with all the amenities within your room, somehow a change of clothes for the night had slipped their mind.

Not their fault, really, you think to yourself, I wasn’t even supposed to wake up for two months. Missed some quality sleep right there.

Well, at least your brain was the usual weird self.

Taking a relieved sigh your hands involuntarily move to your throat pulsating with thirst. You turn towards the side of the bed to look at the empty glass bottle resting there.

Right, I’d filled up Stacie’s bowl.

Despite the gruff feeling inside your throat, your body sits still under the sheets only to finally throw your head back into the pillow as you rub your tired eyes and groan.

“Fuck,” you erupt into the air around you before getting up, sliding your jeans over your dry legs and picking up the bottle. Stacie sleeps by the edge of the bed, clearly tired from showering you with all the love in one night as she does not even budge when you get up from the bed and move away.

With one final deep inhale, you twist the door handle and step out into the corridor.

Soft lights overhead mark the path for you- as if someone had dimmed the brightness for the night, which amazed you even though you knew whose home this was- making it watch your step. As much as you wanted to call out to Friday to know where the kitchen- or the nearest place to get drinkable water in this fabulously furnished labyrinth- was, you are scared of disturbing someone who might have been up at this hour.

Registering the weight of your phone in your jeans, you pull it out to look at the time. Nearly twenty minutes to two in the morning.

The entrance to the corridor where the elevator stood comes into your view, making you take long strides in its direction and open it with urgency.

The reflective insides of the mobile space greet you after a ding, making a cold wave rush through your entire body as you are reminded of the recent nightmare. Immediately your eyes revert away from your reflection, taking a one-eighty turn as soon as you step into the elevator.

Forests and open space, you repeat to yourself.

Forests and open space.

The elevator buttons have different letters for different floors except for the first floor, which you are sure led to anywhere but the kitchen. Picking the first thing that clicks in your mind, you press TF.

Why? Why would you choose that?

A tiny voice calls inside your head.

I don’t know, woman! My stomach read it and all I could see was The Food. The Food!

Sigh.

You really should’ve just slept.

The elevator opens to a similar large hallway that goes down into a corridor. You step out cautiously but not before there’s a tinkle of a tiny bell that makes your heart jump.

It takes you a moment to realise the sound is from the bracelet half-hanging from your pocket out of which you pulled your phone just moments ago.

Don’t lose that, Y/N, you scold yourself, as you remember safely tucking it in your pocket before you’d decided to plant the cherry blossom in your backyard. Carefully stretching the intricate red threadwork, you slide the bracelet over your fingers and around your left wrist. The little silver bell chimes again. Feeling the sound won’t be much to wake someone up from their sleep, you walk down the corridor to find what you came for.

This labyrinth turns into a hallway of blue walls with glass standing on one side at certain intervals that emanate nothing but darkness from the other side unless you stop and look closely enough to make out shapes of different pieces of equipment kept in there that the soft glow of the light above you tries its best to outline- without turning off any alarms inside your head- for your tired eyes.

Thump.

A sound comes from somewhere in front of you making you stop and evaluate your senses.

Silence.

A tired and frustrated exhale leaves your lungs.

Thump, thump.

You freeze again.

The repeated thumping slowly takes you down a turn like a piper, making you forget the looming darkness overhead as the periodic lights that once lit your way now lie dead in this hallway.

The walls are blue here too; relatively a tone darker and cold to the touch of your fingers lightly grazing over them. The thumping grows heavier as you see an opening come close to you, lit up by a fluorescent white light on the inside.

Coming to a halt by the doorway, you peek inside to find it opening to a room- larger than the area your house covered- filled with workout equipment and practice rings with safety mattresses laid out in places. The walls are covered with every type of gear one at the Avengers facility can come up with. But none of this is what catches your eyes.

A low grunt escapes the man who tortures the punching bag with his fists repeatedly, his black tee drenched in sweat from the back while his dark hair glistens in its presence under the harsh light.

The source of that unsettling thumping you've been hearing.

Your brain makes a subconscious decision of holding your breath as you see every muscle on his back under the black cloth outlined perfectly- while the exposed pale skin glistens, wet from the sweat from the heat the punches have been building up inside- flexing at the movement of the bulky arms ready to rip the fabric at any moment while his legs try to keep him in place with a stance that does not help the guilt rising in your stomach as you admire the perfectly shaped rear from where you stand.

Mother of all shapes, you hear your mind speak.

As if your thoughts had spiked the air around you, the punches on the bag stop with the last one ripping the leather apart, allowing the sand to scatter on the ground, bringing you out of a dizzy trance and making you cross the distance to the other side of the doorway before you are noticed by the man.

You stand there, breathing as slowly as possible, waiting for any sounds from inside the room that may be a warning of having known your presence.

Did he see me?

A clank and a thump followed by another clank answers your question with a negative.

You breathe out with relief and walk down a few steps towards the end of the hallway marked by a window that is letting the moonlight in with all its lustre, to take a turn only to find yourself at a dead end.

No kitchen?

Even though it was obvious a few steps back, your shoulders still slump in defeat at not finding what you were looking for in a training area and your body turns around to go back and start the search all over again only to slam into a hard wall. Or someone that feels like one.

Dark blue eyes penetrate your skin with the iciest glare, making every tiny hair on your body stand up with fear that gushes through every strand of your nerves. The glass bottle slips from your cold sweaty fingers but is caught by a pale hand before it can even reach halfway to the floor. You back away from the figure only to run into the window behind you, forcing your insides to scream, the first reflexes of your body as it drowns in the sensation of fear. The brooding face comes a little closer, poetically lit partially with the moonlight- just showing the eyes while everything else is shrouded by the darkness surrounding both of you. The eyes of a beast, with a hint of a familiarity within them.

And that's when you soak in the presence of Steve Rogers towering over you, nothing like the man you saw a few hours ago as the beastly glower in his eyes sends all the worst signals inside your mind.

This was not the man you met earlier. This was someone else. This was something else.

The familiar scent drenched with the odour of sweat flares up your nostrils, making you weak in the knees, not in a good way whatsoever.

You try to gulp down the uneasiness in your throat only to be reminded by the pain of why you were seeing this in the first place.

"I," you hear your voice tremble under his dead stare, "I was looking for..." Your voice trails away into oblivion as you weakly point at the bottle that now looks so small in his huge hands.

He doesn't move.

Tiny beads of sweat line up his brows, his forehead, his cheeks, and a liquid line smoothly glides down from the side to his jaw, moving further down his neck till it mingles with the black fabric that has been seeing it for some time now. Even in this gut-wrenchingly crude aura that surrounds him, he seems no less than a God; a God who was disturbed at his most vulnerable.

What disturbs you more is the languid rise and fall of his chest at this moment when you just saw the strength that ripped apart a body that definitely weighed more than you.

Is he even human?

You finally see a movement in his eyes.

He looks away from your shaking gaze to something a bit more lower from his field of view, lower than your face even.

A sudden cold sensation over your exposed skin makes you flinch and back into the window with a loud thud, making you close up like a sensitive bud before you realise what just happened. The bell on your bracelet chimes mid-turmoil- a warning for ships heading for the rocky shores during the stormy night.

Steve's icy fingers come for your shoulder again- only this time you're ready- roaming smoothly over the marks running on the entire right side, covering the space above your collarbone. Sparks run through the wounds on his touch down your body, your exhaled breath shattering in that second. As if that wasn't enough to break the strings of strengths holding you on your legs, his exhaled warmth breath smashes over your neck and jaw, the close proximity building up the time-and-again forgotten ache inside your throat.

"Does it hurt?"

If that bottle was still in your hands right now you could swear on ever tightened muscle inside your body that it would've cracked and pierced right through your skin the moment those raspy words left his mouth and teased every one of your senses.

Your eyes close themselves; shutting out your surroundings being their best bet to survive the daze setting inside your brain.

His fingers still feel the tiny red troughs over your uneven surface as if they are trying to memorize every little indentation, every last mark, every inch of skin that was ripped apart.

"Only when I've forgotten about it," you hear yourself say.

You open your eyes to face him. The beast still lurks behind the sapphire blue that glints under the moonlight as it meets you, waiting for some undisclosed moment to come out- neither sooner, nor later.

But for now, it goes away, melting into the warm ocean that is somewhat recognisable.

__________

"Just let Friday guide you if you need anything next time."

Steve leads you back from the floor solely dedicated to a kitchen, dining room and an evening lounge- something you deem as a waste of space for people you'd dined with, in the living room while sitting on couches, watching The Addams Family as they gorged on takeouts from their favourite places.

"I'll remember that next time," you agree, holding the now filled bottle close to your chest, watching the broad shoulders in front of you and thinking how many soldiers must've followed him into battle with this view of the captain walking with a strong resolve, his gait so effortless and easy to be mesmerised by as he leads you to his room.

Wait. What?

You see him open his door, knowing full well yours is just down the hall, the very last one, in fact.

No, he's just going to his room. He's not taking you in there, woman!

"Goodnight, sir-captain, I mean!" You babble before quickly turning away, your heart coming up in your mouth as you felt your cheeks heat up.

"Wait," he calls out, instantly making you stop and turn back while your free hand goes up to scratch some unseen itch on the back of your neck.

You watch him go across the room and open his closet. As he is taking out something, a shirt falls down on the floor, which he ignores as he comes back to you.

"Here," Steve hands you a pair of his sweatpants and a sweatshirt, "we only brought your dog in a hurry. We can go back in the morning-"

"Yeah, I'll go with you," you announce, nodding your head in agreement. "Thank you-"

"Please, like I said, call me Steve."

The warmth in his voice melts your tensed up heart rate.

"Thank you, Steve."

"You're welcome, Y/N."

You carefully hold his clothes in your hand as you start to walk away before turning back to him but he's already gone inside, walked across the room again to pick up the shirt that had fallen down as he aimlessly throws it on the grey loveseat by the window before reaching for the one he wore from over his head, pulling it over his back in one effortless move, exposing his worked up muscles to your curious eyes.

You can see the faint marks on his upper back, almost like nails digging into his skin and the thought sends the most frantic shivers through your core as you trespass into sacred grounds and step inside the prohibited waters when you imagine yourself being the one to leave them.

And just as you do, another image hits you, making your eyes go wide in horror, your hands go cold while your legs rush to the safety of your temporary abode.

You close the door behind you before allowing your mind to unleash the forgotten horror.

You did hold Steve like this before.

You did dig your nails in him at the very places where the marks still show. You did hold him within inches of you, grabbing him with everything you had.

All of this, you did in your nightmare this morning when you saw the black blob with fangs come for you.

Your nightmare, it seems now, was more than just a hallucination.

TAGLIST

Permanent

@greenarrowhead @magiclolipopqueen @choke-me-sweet-pea @classy-swiftt @smexylemony @hazzastyles2471 @lokis-lady-death @lokixme @l0kisbitch @bambamwolf87 @tarithenurse @hiddlestonstansworld @itheoneofmanyfandomsi @nalokoniloki @fuckidontknow @qualitynerdwasteland @cryinglots @unipanda1006 @literalangels

Taglist

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(Send me an ask if you would like to be tagged in future fics/chapters or even if you just feel like chatting/telling me how the chapter made you feel. Feedback is forever welcome. xx)

[lubdubsworld]

Yours, Truly.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 

“Well, that’s that I guess.” I watched the men from the creditor’s office load the last of the crate into the huge moving van, while the man himself gave me a sympathetic smile, signing off on the cheque. 

“We tried to make this as easy for you as possible, Miss. Yoongi ssi told us about your situation and while there’s nothing we can do about it, in terms of the apartment, we do intend to reimburse you the difference from the valuable items you just sold off, once the debt is paid.” 

I waved him off. 

“you can put it in my bank account, though we both know it’s not going to be much.” 

My phone rang again and I frowned at the name on the contact list. Lee Shin. 

Shin was Wonho’s immediate boss, and a sleaze by every standard. I hadn’t enjoyed any of our previous interactions, partly because he made it abundantly clear that he was interested , and partly because he was just extra touchy in general. Wonho had never taken my complaints seriously, asking me to take it as a compliment instead of raising flags over it, always claiming that he couldn’t risk his position in the company.

which was ridiculous when i thought about what he’d gone ahead and done. I pushed the thought behind. The past week had been a very torturous kind of hell. I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Wonho or his lawyer and a part of me just wanted to storm in and shake some sense into him. But a part of me had always known that this would happen, or so it felt.

Wonho had always been easily influenced. Even during our marriage he seldom argued with me, always going along with whatever i suggested. At the time , I had chalked it up to him being crazy in love with me. Apparently , it was nothing more than a lack of backbone.

 Wonho was a coward and he had ruined my life. 

The phone kept ringing, drawing me back to the present. 

Groaning a little, I picked up the phone. 

“Y/N? Is that you?” 

“Yes, Mr. Lee.” I said, keeping my voice even. Somewhere behind me , i could hear Yoongi rattling around in the back of his car, which now had three suitcases worth of my clothes and a small box of stuff from my childhood. I’d tossed the rest of my stuff away, not in any urgency to remember all the ways I’d failed at my marriage. Seven years down the drain. 

The more i thought about it, the more I wanted to claw my ex-husband’s face off. 

“..... So , what I was saying is that , you’re welcome to move in with my wife and I, until you get back on your feet. What do you say to that, love?”

I grimaced , Yoongi catching the tail end of my expression and raising an eyebrow at me. i waved off his concern and turned around to refuse when a sleek white Porsche rolled over to the parking space of my apartment building, A familiar company Logo etched on the hood. i stared in surprise as the driver skillfully parked the car before sliding out from behind the wheel. 

I blinked in disbelief as Kim Taehyung straightened, slipping his sunglasses off his face and tucking them in his pocket before looking around. He smiled wide when his eyes met mine, waving cheerfully as he locked his car and began making his way over to me. 

“...... Love? You there?” The man’s voice in my ear shook me out of my shock and I hummed in confusion before shaking my head.

“Uh.. No sir. That wouldn’t be necessary at all... I do have a place to stay , but thank you for offering.” I said , just as Taehyung stepped up to me, his beautifully crafted brows rising to his hairline as he tilted his head curiously at my words. 

I smiled helplessly.

“No, no. i absolutely refuse to take no for an answer, my love. i know Wonho did you dirty but you should know, not all men are like that and I , for one, think that a girl like you.....” 

“who’s the guy?” Taehyung said loudly, startling me as he leaned in , pretending to listen in and i drew back. 

“It’s nothing... I... Mr. Lee. Like I said, i don’t need a place to stay for the night....and...”

“Wait, Lee Shin? Wonho’s boss?” Taehyung’s jaw hardened. 

i nodded and the next second, the phone got snatched out of my ears, Tae pressing the speaker button as he frowned.

“Come on, sweetheart. That bastard didn’t know how to appreciate a good thing when he had it. I’m not like that. i could take real good care of you, you know... In return for a little bit of your company. If you’re good to me, i could be persuaded to be very generous.....” The man’s voice filled the air and i felt my entire body flush in disbelief and offence. 

“What the fuck did you just say, you nasty son of a bitch?!!” Yoongi’s voice came loud and angry next to me and I flinched when my best friend reached for the phone but Taehyung shook his head.

“Mr. Lee. This is kim Taehyung, your CEO. I’ve recorded your phonecall to Y/N and trust me, this is going to play key evidence in the hearing you have scheduled tomorrow for harassing your secretary. I don’t like predicting outcomes , not without all the facts but something tells me that you’re going to lose your job and/or go to prison . So maybe you could tell Wonho about your opinions , in person?” 

I heard Mr. Lee splutter over the line before Taehyung hung up, swiftly blocking the man’s number too , before smiling and handing over the phone. 

“You’re like a loser magnet, aren’t you?” He said brightly and I grimaced. 

“Is that why you’re here?” i shot back and he chuckled deeply, his voice low and warm. Taehyung’s voice was one of the best things about him. It reminded me of hunting cabins, tucked into the woods, with a warm blazing fireplace and soft rugs under my bare foot. 

“Fair enough. I just wanted to check in on you. It’s been a week since we talked and i thought you may have changed your mind.” He said softly.

I shook my head swiftly.

“i really don’t think ... i don’t need .....Well, I’m fine. For now.” I waved my hands a little wildly and he hummed.

“Are you sure i couldn’t convince you? i’m kind of in a real fix right now. “ He sighed deeply. “ I really need someone to help me out. My sister is going in for surgery on Thursday and i’ll be having both the twins and the new baby with me for the next three weeks. Yeon Hee is ...well she’s not really a kid-friendly person and i have a bunch of meetings too. I have no experience with babysitters and i was really hoping that you could stay over at my place. it would be a huge help.” 

He turned huge brown eyes at me, limpid and soft .

I groaned.

“This is unfair., You’re taking advantage of the fact that I love your sister and i love babies. You’re playing dirty! ” I protested and he grinned wider, boxy smile setting my heart on fire as he waggled his brows.

“Shamelessly.” He agreed. 

Yoongi finished locking up the bootspace of his car and slowly sauntered over. 

“As long as you pay her , she’s available.” He said teasingly and I shoved him a little. 

Taehyung chuckled but his eyes were still vaguely desperate.

“Please, angel. I know you aren’t comfortable with it but i really wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t desperate. Jooheon is too young to be with some un-vetted sitter and there is no one in the world i trust more than you.”

I stared at him for a second, shaking my head gently.

“You always know the right things to say, don’t you?” I sighed. “ Fine, but how long are we talking about? I can’t agree to something indefinite...” I said firmly. 

“Why don’t we talk about it over coffee?” Taehyung prompted. 

Before i could respond, Yoongi snorted.

“And, that’s my cue to leave. Sweetheart, you’ll be coming over right? I’ll get the guest bedroom set up okay?” He kissed me lightly on the cheek and i nodded. 

Taehyung gave him a half hug and we both watched as he pulled away from the curb and drove off.

“So.... coffee shop in the corner or Starbucks? “ I said softly and he hesitated.

“I have an espresso machine in my condo.” He said softly and I hesitated.

“Tae...”

“It’s all good, angel. No funny business , i promise. It’s just ...the paparazzi’s been after me ever since I revealed my relationship and I’d rather not have you bear the brunt of it.... you know...if we get spotted together....” he shrugged his shoulders lightly, the movement causing his shirt to stretch out across his broad frame . 

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that and i nodded absently. 

“Excellent... Come on... Let’s go...” He stepped down the few stairs jumping over a small puddle of water at the base of the stair , on the pavement. But,  before I could follow, he turned around, grabbing my waist with both hands and lifting me off the stair. I fell forward into  him, his chest pressed right up against mine , impossibly warm and hard underneath me. I gasped in surprise, gripping his shoulders in shock .

His eyes were as wide as mine, as if he had just realized what he’d done.

“Taehyung, what on earth-?” I said sharply and he recoiled like he’d been burned, his long fingers leaving my body quickly.

“shit,.. i’m sorry.. it’s just...there was water and i didn’t want your shoes to get wet..... I’m sorry, angel that was out of line . I apologize.” He held both his hands up and i couldn’t breathe , let alone respond. I managed a weak nod and stuttered, “ It’s alright...” before wrapping both arms around myself almost protectively. I suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed, raw and gullible. 

I couldn’t even meet his eyes because my heart was pounding so hard inside my chest. i kept a decent distance between us as he walked to his car but I couldn’t stop the way my  insides twisted with sudden , hot and intense attraction. After all these years, i still wanted Taehyung with an ache that was fierce and impossible to ignore. 

He came here to find a babysitter , not a girlfriend . He already has one of those. A 5′10 supermodel who happens to have the face of a literal goddess........You’re so out of his league here , it’s not even funny, Y/N.

I let him open the door for me, slipping into the heated leather seats. I froze up again for a second, when he put my seat belt on for me.

“Hey...uh... You okay?” He said softly. I managed a weak smile. 

“I’m fine, Tae. It’s fine. Really craving that coffee now.” i laughed nervously watching him come around and climb into the seat net to me. He started the car quickly and flashed me another smile.

“You’ll love my sister’s kids. They’re dying to have a cool aunt.” He winked. Something curled inside me.

“Well, they have a supermodel for an aunt. Can’t get cooler than that....” I said shrilly. His smile faltered for a second but he schooled his features quickly. 

“I’ve told them all about how you used to sculpt... They love art.” 

“I’ll be glad to paint with them.” I said honestly, giving him a little smile and his eyes were so full of warmth , I had to look away. i also realized, what I’d just said.

Taehyung picked up on it quickly.

“So this means you’re going to do it then? Move in with me ?” 

He grinned before reaching out and throwing an arm on the back of my seat, before turning around to look as he backed out of the spot. i tried not to stare at the way his large hands looked gripping the steering wheel. Tried not to think about how they’d felt gripping my waist. 

“Well, uh... i’m not sure that’s how you should be phrasing that to your girlfriend.” I said weakly and he frowned.

“You’re more worried about her than you should be. Me and Yeon hee...we’re.... it’s nothing serious. We’re friends more than lovers and its a really casual thing.” 

I tried not to fidget.

“I’m sure that has nothing to do with me.” i said quickly.

“Y/N...”

“Tae, I’m serious. I just... I just divorced my husband of seven years. I’m not up for these games....”

“These aren’t games, angel...”

“You know what i mean, Tae. I’m still emotionally in a lot of pain...and I know you always hated Wonho ....”

“Damn right I hated him, he took the one thing i wanted in the whole damn world.” Taehyung snapped.

I shut my eyes. 

“Taehyung...”

He groaned .

“I’m sorry. You’re right.. it’s just... it’s hard for me to see you ... being upset because of that bastard after everything he did....” He said softly. “He shouldn’t have ever come near you if he wasn’t going to love you right....” 

I stared at him. It had been over a decade but he still reminded me of the boy I’d left behind. I could read Taehyung like a book.....

And i thought about Wonho , about how different he had turned out to be, about how easily i’d been fooled. I’d thought I’d known him well, too and look how that turned out.... 

I didn’t know Taehyung, no matter how achingly familiar he felt. 

“ Can we not talk about this...?” I said softly.

He hesitated before nodding.

I sighed and sank back into the seats. It was going to be a long night. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note : This is short but I hope you guys liked it,.

[shitsuji-hcs]

Elizabeth Midford, Dull Swords: Part 1, Building a fight scene

Despite Black Butler’s massive popularity as an anime and manga, by film standards the movie falls far beyond what the fandom would have expected. The first live action was received with heavy negative criticism and it would seem that ‘Book of the Atlantic’ fell somewhat in the same way. In less than two weeks of the Japanese release and the three days of US release the film earned less than $5,000,000 combined - in comparison, the highest grossing film of the year, ‘Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter’ earned $11,749,652 alone on its opening weekend.

These two movies can’t be compared, due to the huge differences in the plots and narratives yet… Black Butler’s production team could learn a thing or two. The greatest fault in ‘BOTA’ was its “so-so” action, that was also said to be a fault in the previous movie. Knowing this, I’d like to analyse Elizabeth’s famous fight scene and look into why the series has been known for poor action scenes despite the great action depicted in the manga.

Long post so the rest is under the cut.

For anyone who would like to watch the fight as they read the analysis, the full fight is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LfH_MLe7jI

An important thing to know about writing fight scenes is that a fight alone is not interesting. It is the weight behind that fight that makes things interesting. Superheroes fight to save the world and villains fight to accomplish their own goals. The start of this fight is not interesting because it begins with Grell wanting to fight simply for the sake of fighting - this is just Grell’s character. We know that one of her main roles in the series is to block Ciel and Sebastian from attaining their goal. Our protagonists, Ciel, Sebastian and Elizabeth want to avoid this fight instead, giving us more of a reason as to why this fight should be done with as soon as possible. This fight does however have one purpose - leading up to Elizabeth’s exposition as the swordswoman she is.

When creating a fight scene, interest is added by raising the stakes - the more danger there is of losing something, the greater the emotional payoff and tension - each fight should be a gamble that makes us feel that the characters we root for have to win. Even if they’re bound to lose, the chance that they should win should at least tempt us. Toboso changes this with how she portrays Sebastian.

Usually when Sebastian engages in battle, we expect him to win every fight, since he’s put forward as this amazing force that always succeeds his tasks. Fighting against two reapers should mean nothing to him. Yet, the extra baggage of protecting two children raises a problem. By separating them, Toboso then creates the possibility of “only one can survive” - Sebastian would choose Ciel in priority over Elizabeth. In this instance, we start to fear that Elizabeth is in danger.

Given that Ciel would “do anything to protect his fiancee”, we trust that he’ll be able to reach out to Elizabeth in her time of need. With an injured leg, Ciel is then rendered useless in his state. The fact that Ciel is pictured as further away from Elizabeth in the manga, shown by how Ciel is not in the frame, highlights her vulnerability against the Dolls that are drawn enormously in comparison to her size. Not only is he unable to protect her, but he’s unable to protect himself if Sebastian can’t shake the reapers off of him. 

In the film, Ciel is pictured relatively close to her, removing this aspect of fear for Elizabeth’s state. The film makes it seem as if either one of them was able to stand, they could make it to each other in less than a few seconds. Since the idea that Ciel will always protect Elizabeth has been referred to in the film numerous times already, we believe that if she makes it to him he’ll do what he can to protect her. While one may argue that this puts Ciel in danger as well, Sebastian could come in soon and save the both of them - the distance between them in the manga is important in exaggerating that the matter of a second could literally result in Elizabeth’s death. 

The manga shows her sluggish movements to get up while Ciel calls out to her quite well, since the distance between her and the Bizarre Dolls is much closer to make it seem as if they’re closer to grabbing her than they really are. 

The fact that when the camera cuts to Elizabeth as she’s already propped herself up removes the aspect of vulnerability that’s shown in the manga. The way that the film only shows their legs in the foreground does play with the whole compositing of the scene, making them look larger than they are, but it ends up losing the sense of urgency that the manga had as they seem close enough to touch her.

In the manga, we don’t see Ciel whip out his gun and cut straight to him shooting. This already is far more effective than how in the film we see him pull the gun out (rather slowly considering the situation) and then shoot. This panel is effective as it shows the speed of his fire - he wants to kill them as fast as he can and the futility in it shows it. The film only shows the first shot then switches to focus on Ciel shooting, rather than the targets he’s aiming at. To improve this, perhaps a shot showing his perspective as he watches Elizabeth try to scramble away with his shaking hands in the frame as shoots would be more effective.

Not to mention that as the first Doll lunges to bite Elizabeth, for some reason it gets launched sideways instead of being fired back by the force of Ciel’s gun. If you slow it down enough it even looks as if the image of the Doll being shot was just dragged across the screen instead of actually flopping from the force of the shot. 

The next image of Ciel shooting is relatively basic. The team might as well have just made a gif of Ciel shooting those three shots or so and it could look the same. There lacks any variation in those few moments that we see. Comparatively, the single image in the manga of Ciel shooting at the horde without showing the Dolls being killed right before Elizabeth is much more effective. It’s made evident in the manga that this boy is in full panic as we see the large group towering over Elizabeth, once again with the distance exaggerated as much smaller to create the sense of danger. The open space around Ciel in the film also takes away from how much tension there was in the manga - while you can argue that this shows his isolation, having this sort of shot in this perspective loses the image of danger that threatens Elizabeth. 

In the manga, we truly see Ciel’s terror as he realises that his gun is out of bullets because of the closeness of the panel and the tightness of the frame which follows the positioning of his arms. Not to mention how the gun is so centred in the panel, showing how it’s the centre of his focus.

Ciel’s expression in the manga shows fear by a wider mouth and the more dramatic shading over his face. In the film, his expression is much more frustrated. This choice is obviously understandable. It’s a pretty shot and all, but it does take away from some of the drama because the position is far less dynamic.

The sequence of events leading up to Elizabeth’s reveal changes, which arguably makes it less effective. In the manga, switching perspectives between Sebastian, Elizabeth and Ciel adds to the chaotic nature of this scene. Everyone has different opponents but they all need to survive. Seeing Sebastian dash towards Elizabeth emphasises that even he might not be able to save her, shown by how close the Dolls hands are to Elizabeth. The manga is able to use action lines to show and highlight the focal point of each panel. Such a thing would be harder to animate. Though used heavily in sports anime like ‘Haikyuu’ and ‘Ballroom e Youkoso’, in a setting such a ‘Black Butler’ which tries for elegant and refined style, rather than artistic interpretation, these sort of lines don’t fit as well.

Arguably, the most important part for this build-up is how Ciel reacts to believing his fiancee is about to die before his eyes. The order of focus is especially important in this. In the film, Elizabeth starts to talk, turning around just as the feet of the Dolls come into frame. This is a relatively good shot. Here, the director chose to show Elizabeth’s vulnerability more by emphasising the height disadvantage. On the floor, she lacks the escape means. In the manga, she may be sitting down, but the danger is shown in the form of hands. What the film shows is the immense force that is about to strike down on top of her. The manga does this as well, but I would give this a pass.

On the other hand, the manga highlights the panic that the both of them feel in this situation. In the film, Elizabeth is already smiling as she talks to Ciel, and then we see Ciel’s reaction, rather than how Ciel in the manga realises first and then we see Elizabeth’s struggle to hold in her tears. The film chose to show Elizabeth in a state of acceptance, which again is very powerful, making the audience think that she’s resigned to her death.

Ciel’s expression in the film is much more akin to anger, a frustration in how he’s unable to save her. The manga’s choice shows Ciel in absolute fear - the lack of colour serves to dramatise this as well. Black Butler is known for beautiful eyes and just zooming in on the empty look of Ciel’s eyes shows the rawness of his fear. His gentler brow also serves towards showing more fear than the sharper brow in the film. This, coupled with the echoed gasp and sound effect, adds to the hollow feeling that Ciel would feel upon realising the possible fate of Elizabeth.

Once again, the lack of colour in the manga adds to the dramatic panic felt in this scene. During the entire scene, Elizabeth’s blazer was coloured black, as well as her eyelashes - pretty much everything has been turned to greys. As she cries over how she can’t be cute anymore, the softened lines serve to show her in the last angelic moment that she may well have. At this point, it’s hard to tell what are water droplets and what are tears as they run down her face. Her innocence is also highlighted by lighter eyes and shaded cheeks and lips in contrast to her tangled mess of hair. This is the last image that Ciel may see of his beautiful feminine fiancee.

I have less complaints about the image of her in the film. The camera panning up to her crying face emphasises how delicate she is while also keeping the Dolls in the background to keep their threat important. There’s far less detail and her eyes are drawn wonkily, but at least they tried to make this dramatic with the camera movement.

Sebastian finally manages to escape Ronald with simple movements, but that can be forgiven since he isn’t the focal point. Instead, we have the image of him running to save Elizabeth, but all that can be seen of her is her dress between the legs of the Dolls. At this point, the film tells you that it’s all over for her. 

I don’t want to pick up on this, but the way that Sebastian runs here makes me think of the spider gif. It really is a downer to what is a good scene but it had to be said. If this gif doesn’t work when I post it I’ll start crying.

Another flaw I’d point out would be Ciel’s final reach out to Elizabeth. The way this is done in the film feels far too smooth, rather than carnal and desperate - how one would normally react in absolute panic. It’s more like a dramatic flourish that someone would do in a high school play. Of course, his expression of panic is still great. Wide mouthed in a choked/silent scream. If this was animated with a greater sense of urgency, there’d be less of a problem here.

Frame tightness is especially important for the drama of this scene - the manga frame is tight and barely shows Ciel’s full face. This can symbolise how trapped he feels in not being able to do anything. His under eyes are also heavily shaded to show his distress. The open spaces and use of the background feels inappropriate for the close seriousness of the situation. The manga also showcases a look with greater desperation as we see how things are from Elizabeth’s eyes - her fiance screaming for her is the last image that she’d see.

The fact that we see Elizabeth once again as the shadows of the Dolls close up on her is a really good directorial choice. Here the camera’s closeness to Elizabeth’s form works. It almost feels as if she’s saying goodbye to her audience instead, the tighter frame making us form a more personal connection with her, making up for the lesser emotion that Ciel was drawn in beforehand. In opposition to the reactions of Ciel and Sebastian who see that they’re too late in the manga, having Elizabeth listen as her fiancee screams her name in darkness is really well done. 

The blackness that fills the screen is just as effective as in the manga to make one think that Elizabeth’s finally been killed. Letting this ring for two seconds gives the audience a chance to think that a death really has occurred. For an audience member who hasn’t read the manga, this would be effective enough to make them think for a second that she’s gone. These few seconds are good and there’s little I would change and I’m glad that the director actually chose to do this. This blackness serves as an equivalent to the page turn and makes it even more surprising when we realise what happens next.

As pernickety as this analysis has gotten over the build up, it’s important to look at it because this is how fights are built up. You don’t start out in any martial arts match with the massive axe kicks and what not. Tension is built up in every fight, whether an official match or in a fictional setting, by the fighters raring up to the bigger scenes instead of coming out with them straight away. Toboso wrote the build up to Elizabeth’s revelation well, which is why this had so much of a reaction for Japanese readers - far greater than Grell’s reintroduction.

Now, despite all that we’ve looked in to so far… we’ve only scraped six or so pages - 30 seconds if you want to talk about it in the films terms. You can see clearly that there are some great points that the film has done well to adapt the manga. It can also be seen that there are some areas of the film which are “so-so” because it lacks the same depth that the manga does.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this scene alone. I will be getting to the rest of the fight direction, where I believe things start to decline, but I can’t give too much away right now.

[lonelypond]

Casual Lunacy, Ch. 53

NicoMaki, Love Live, 2.8K, 53/?

Summary: Nico and Maki get some alone time.

Aftershocks: An Atonal Interlude

With as jumpy as Maki was during the day, Nico was always surprised to wake up and find the redhead so soundly asleep that not even Nico poking her, or shifting weight off her, or (most of the time) prying out a flung out limb from underneath the torso of a clingy girlfriend would stir the redhead. At some point, Maki had transformed back into human form, most of the bruises, scrapes and burns healed away. Maki snored as Nico eased her way out of bed, finding the t-shirt she’d pulled out of a drawer and a pair of fuzzy wool socks in the dark. After 3 a.m., no news from the parental Nishikinos, and Nico was restless, unsure of what had happened to Maki or her friends early in the evening, uncertain of how walking into the theatre and seeing Kashima would feel, just generally restless. And HUNGRY.  Nico knew as soon as Maki woke up, she’d probably be in search of a snack and both cooking and cleaning served the same purpose, calming Nico when there was too much to think about. So with a gentle breath of a kiss on Maki’s forehead, Nico headed downstairs to see what kind of pantry the Nishikinos kept.

Having accomplished the task of repurposing pancake mix to blueberry muffins, Nico had left them to cool, and invited herself into Maki’s music room, wanting to look at the music Maki had composed to Neruda again. Maki had written it for her, right, so surely no one could object if Nico pulled it out and played it herself. The Nico (and Neruda) by Moonlight folder was lying out on top of the bookshelf, so Nico opened it and sat on the piano bench, shuffling through the scored sheets to see if there was anything else Maki had been working on…

“How like you are to the longest kiss, Its fixed shock seems to nourish you, And its thrust of live coals, of fluttering flag, Goes…” Maki’s voice trembled nervously “throbbing in your domains…What if I was planning to surprise you?”

Nico glanced up, Maki was leaning in the doorframe, hair hanging down over her eyes, bathrobe loosely tied around her, but half falling off her shoulder. The werewolf was trying very hard to glare at Nico, but a huge yawn destroyed any non cute mood she’d been setting. Nico bounced off the bench and wrapped Maki up in a mighty hug, “Nico’s girlfriend is a genius composer.” Nico bopped a kiss on the end of Maki’s nose. Maki leaned into Nico’s hair and Nico could feel the smile.

“Nico made you muffins. You seemed like you’d wake up hungry.”

“I did. They smell wonderful” Maki nodded and looped her fingers through Nico’s, “Come watch me eat.”

The muffins were cool enough to just drop on the plate and Maki grabbed two for a start, to go with her mug of warmed milk.

“These are amazing.” Maki mumbled as she chewed.

“Nico had to unpancake them and spice them up...mostly cinnamon and crumbled candied ginger, since your kitchen has nothing…”

“We order in a lot. My parents go to a bunch of events every month and a chef drops off frozen meals.” Maki grinned at Nico, grabbing another muffin and wiping crumbs from her mouth, “This is so much better.”

“You could kiss the cook.” Nico teased, sipping her hot chocolate, glancing around the Nishikino kitchen, considering what she’d have to bring with her to make Maki a decent home cooked meal. Pretty much all Maki had was assorted caffeinated products, some candy, and a supply of candles.

“Later.” Maki winked, continuing to decimate the muffin fortress. “I’ve been so HUNGRY.” Maki groaned, “I lost track of how many transformations I went through. Everything was....” Maki pulled a muffin in half, “split...confusing.”

Nico, content to watch her girlfriend enjoying Nico’s cooking skills, let Maki finish eating before asking for anymore details.

As Maki swallowed the last bite, Nico put her mug down. “So what exactly happened to you?”

Maki grimaced at Nico's straightforwardness, taking a few seconds to stare sadly at the empty muffin plate, “Um…” Maki bit her lip, fang out, but her girlfriend was locked in too introspective a mood for Nico to get many clues.

More encouragement maybe. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to…but Nico will listen.”

Maki nodded her head, still staring ahead blankly, fingers rubbing at her temples as she tried to push into phrases that Nico could understand the dissonance that had confronted her senses. Maybe a painter could have shown all the levels but...Maki could hear Nico humming under her breath, it was something the future star of stage and screen had taken to doing when she was trying not to rush Maki with questions. But the humming had reminded Maki of a thought...

Maki stood abruptly, inspired, grabbing Nico’s hand again, dragging her back to the music room, leaving Nico standing while Maki pushed up the fallboard and began to play, her hands gliding over the keys at first, and pausing and then pounding across the piano, more drift, a lift from her seat and then diving into the keys to strike jarring, strident notes, then a quick trill, then a circular swing of the head into a pause to launch broadly ominous strokes with both hands, gentler touches and desperate strikes sounding with no real pattern…Nico twisted her own hands, she’d never heard music like this before, no way she was going back to sleep for hours as the notes, stripped of any familiar rhythm, bored into her ears. But watching Maki, radiating passion, unerringly precise, caught, completely absorbed in the storm she was creating, grace and melody warring with seemingly random lurching crashes of notes kept Nico from pleading with the musician to stop. When Maki did let her fingers fall silent on the keys and the quakes of music stilled, amethyst eyes, charged with emerald neon, swirling with haunted shadows, cried.

Nico couldn’t move, overcome with….reverence, like the deep of heart at prayer. Maki seemed unapproachable, aloof, so distant, face a pained carving in hard experience. But Nico needed to reach out, Maki was too alone, porcelain not marble...Hesitating, Nico spoke softly into the silence, which almost pulsed as it filled the places the music had painfully torn. “Did you…”

Maki shook her head, “Arnold Schoenberg. I learned it to study atonal music.”

“It was…” Nico debated whether to compliment the player or strike the truth, sliding next to Maki on the bench, searching the pain clouding Maki’s eyes, “awful.”

Maki surprised herself with a laughing grin, “Yeah, it was.”

Nico stroked Maki’s chin, gently, thumb teasing Maki’s lip, “You were brave.”

Maki gulped and nodded.

“You saved your friends. And Nico.” Nico shivered, remembering the stifling closeness of the coffin.

Reminding Maki of Nico’s peril was a misjudgement if Nico wanted her ribs unbruised because the werewolf jerked forward and threw her arms around Nico, practically driving them both off the bench, snuffling madly through Nico's hair.

Nico’s words were rushed as she tried to calm Maki, “Nico is fine, pretty girl, nobody hurt Nico, everything is okay, you’re home now, we’re home now, Nico is here…”

The Schoenberg still in her ears and the strange tingle of another existence lingering, Maki had a sudden fear she would wake up and be in a nightmare, again, alone, strange smells, dissonant sounds, no weight, no Nico…when the barrier had stopped her and there had been no trace of Nico anywhere in the strangeness she and Rin and Hanayo had been trapped in, Maki had felt a harder, scarring hit than any of Anju’s traceless attacks.

“Nico…” There was a frantic urgency in Maki’s voice as she threw her body into Nico, rolling them over and over as she kissed the sable haired dynamo desperately. Nico was trying to keep some control but when Maki took Nico’s hand and placed it over the curve of her breast pressing against Nico, whispering Nico’s name, kiss biting Nico’s lip in a the hastiest, messiest, sexiest way possible, Nico let her own primitive instincts take over, forcing the werewolf to stop long enough for Nico to regain control of their equilibrium, Maki’s neck no longer a moving target, but a bullseye Nico could hit with her eyes closed, nipping kisses that made Maki’s head roll back, mouth open, moans and whimpers filling the music room with a melody Nico preferred.

Nico had already gotten used to the feel of feather light, ticklish red hair sprayed across her face like a light mist of water. It did still occasionally trigger a near sneeze and as her face contorted, Maki rolled with laughter, pushing them both into the couch. Nico tenderly pulled Maki’s robe over her lover, the door was still open after all, but Nico knew werewolf hearing would have warned them of anyone’s arrival. Nico stretched out, one arm under Maki, thinking how nice it was to have this much space, to stretch, to think, to exist, without anyone crowding. Maki didn’t count, Maki didn’t crowd, Maki was a warm, gladdening weight reminding Nico of exactly how on top of the world she was. And that was a wonderful feeling after the frustrations of the earlier part of the evening, the idiocy of Kashima and company. Maki sensed Nico’s focus turning elsewhere and nudged Nico with her nose, human so not wet or cold, just a tickling tease to remind Nico she had an audience right there. Nico flipped up on her side, kissing the nuzzling Maki on the forehead, “All better, pretty girl?”

Maki nodded, a little shy, still uncertain about revealing so much vulnerability. Nico, head propped on her fist so her eyes were level with naked and nervous’s glowing amethyst emotional barometers, smiled softly, “You’re kind of amazing, Gorgeous. Nico still can’t believe how lucky she is to have you for her adoring girlfriend.”

Maki blushed and ducked her head. Nico held her closer, “Of course, Nico does have her own charms.” Emboldened by the way Maki melted into her, Nico couldn’t stop the self congratulatory train, “Maki would be lost without her Nico.”

Once again a wrong note, mixed with the brash smirk Maki found so irresistible, too close in time to the vision of a Nico not breathing and a small world of air that held no traces of Nico. Maki sat up, pulling up her robe, pushing off the couch to get to her feet, “You can’t just say that...why would you say that…” tears, so many tears from Nico didn’t know where, then a whimper as Maki shook her head, red flying everywhere, “I can’t do this…”

Nico’s heart started racing from panic, “What did I say, Maki? What happened?”

Maki was pacing, too fast, long legs flashing and distracting Nico from trying to figure out where the mood went wrong. Nico tried for an embrace, but Maki didn’t stop, one hand up. “Just don’t…”

“C’mon, Maki...tell me what’s happening....Nico was just teasing…” Nico forcibly adjusted her focus, watching Maki’s expression for clues, wondering what else she could say to maybe get a reaction from Maki that would explain what was going on.

Nico was just too close. How if Nico kept being so close could Maki process all of this? Nico joking about not being there, daring the universe with how fragile their connection was, the terror Maki felt at the thought of losing her, the fear now, knowing there were worlds without Nico and Maki had been there, needing Nico’s touch but not wanting to need it...if Nico was there, eyes full of a matching fear, an echoing future loss, fingers tingling even at the distance Maki was desperately trying to keep, the sanity of a solitude now impossible that Nico had blasted open Maki’s heart, pieces in every pore, skin rippling, want resonating. No, no, now music was resonating, Maki was at the piano, Neruda and Nico once again intruding in her head, taking over, driving out everything but impulse. Pounding impulse, pressing need, an absence ripped bare by Nico’s presence.

“Safe in the midst of Spring crazy with light in the cold, walking tranquil in the fire, lifting your petal weight in my arms as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if could not walk except with you,”

Then she whispered aloud, Nico’s presence forgotten as her fingers found the right notes, “as if I could not sing/except when you sing.” And then she played through the whole passage,

“Safe, crazy with light, tranquil in fire, singing….as if, as if never, never...except with you, except with you.”

“Never. Except with you.”  What had happened to the Maki before Nico? Before Neruda?

Maki wrote notes quickly on the score, then jumped when Nico’s hands dropped on her shoulders, “You would do fine without Nico, pretty girl. This” Nico tapped the sheet with her finger, “is genius.”

“It just happens.” Maki frowned, not looking at her lover, “I have to get it out of my head…”

“Good.” Nico played with Maki’s hair, keeping her tone deliberately light, “more room for fantasies about me.”

Maki almost shook off Nico’s hands, her obvious discomfort surprising Nico. Nico couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice, “What is wrong? What did I do?”

Leaning forward, Nico could see Maki’s eyes, the neon green an unsettling slow pulse around the werewolf’s pupils, mouth opening and closing several times. Then Maki took a deep breath and howled as effectively as she could as a human. Maki let her throat open and freed the fear, that this was the moment her need of Nico left bare the truth that she had no idea how to get back to neutral, to solitary Maki, to a Maki not lost in a swell of feelings and physical needs.

Nico tried to make sense of the emotions she could feel mashed up in Maki’s voice, the tension under her hands...there was withdrawal, isolation, uncertainty, searching...but here they were, both here together, safe, Maki had not even a thirty minutes ago, screamed out Nico’s name in cresting, crashing ecstasy...how had that become this, this feeling that Maki had taken herself somewhere else, somewhere Nico didn’t know and couldn’t find, but that wasn’t true, Nico would find Maki anywhere…not knowing what else to do, Nico hugged Maki as tightly as she could, whispering “Maki” over and over again, and waiting, feeling Maki’s hasty breaths as the werewolf tensed, possibly debating whether to stand or run or…talking was a new option for Maki, Nico realized, one the werewolf had yet to grow comfortable with. After several minutes of Maki’s awkwardnesss, the feeling that her girlfriend wanted to bolt, but...Nico let go and sat on the bench next to Maki, legs just touching.

“Sorry, pretty girl…I don’t know what I did but...” Nico pressed a long note.

Maki shook her head, hands clenched in front of her, “You’re fine...”

“What are you?” Nico questioned gently, choosing words more carefully than ever before.

A shrug, Maki’s head thrown back, tumbling curls of hair freed from gravity for a moment in a graceful sweep through the air, arms shaking out some of their tension.

After a minute of thought. “I’m tired, Nico.” She let her head fall on Nico’s shoulder.

“Yeah.”

Nico imagined a ghost of a smile. She wondered if she was right. So many things still to discover. But first, she needed to get Maki back to bed. And not in the sexy way.

“Nico will tuck you in.” Nico took Maki’s hand, glad to feel a warmth between their palms, as if the redhead had decided to close this sudden distance between them. “And sleep down here, if you want.”

“Let’s just stay.” Maki, head still on Nico’s shoulder, sounded years worth of weary. Nico needed to ask Rin and Hanayo for more details when she saw them.

“If that’s what Maki wants.” Nico reached across to stroke Maki’s hair.

“I do.”

A/N: This was meant to be a longer chapter, but no one wanted to intrude.

Take care!

[ralfstrashcan]

3x05 Malec Scene Analysis

I already gushed about this scene in my reaction to that episode but honestly, there is so much to this that it needs a separate post. Here we go.

He says this so flatly, the implied question “Why didn't you answer?” isn't even a question anymore. I feel there is slight accusation in his voice, betraying his nerves, showing how on edge he is, before the box-immortality-topic is even addressed. This shows that it's been in his mind all day, since he first peeked into the box and it hasn't left his thoughts ever since.

*“I've been busy.” (Damn, incorrect subtitles, driving me crazy.)

Sure, Magnus, so busy with accounting you didn't have time to answer your boyfriend. You're not fooling anyone. With the knowledge that Magnus already knew that Alec had looked through his things I think it's pretty obvious that Magnus has been avoiding Alec. Why? Maybe he was hurt and/or angry that Alec would invade his privacy. Or maybe he couldn't bear the thought that he'd talk to Alec and Alec won't mention what he did, will lie about it, even if it's only lying by omission. I think after that whole Soul Sword Debacle it's safe to say that Magnus is a bit sensitive about that.

I love that Alec is so honest, because this is who he is. Even with that Soul Sword Debacle, he immediately admitted that he knew when Magnus confronted him.

First off, I hope that Magnus would have addressed this matter himself if Alec hadn't, but since Alec did we'll never know. Second off, notice how Magnus busies himself with things to do? He is clearly tense about this whole affair, and this is the first indication.

“I had no right. It was an invasion of your privacy and I'm sorry.”

I don't need to say anything to Alec's apology except it's very Alec: short and to the point, very accurate, and not trying to find excuses for what he did. He's taking full responsibility for his actions.

“Apology accepted.”

Magnus forgives easily, this isn't news, but I feel like he should have tagged on an “if it never happens again.” I don't think Alec would do something like this again and Magnus probably thinks that, too, but. I don't know. I feel like it should be acknowledged from Magnus as well that what Alec did here was a serious breach of privacy and this is something huge. Even if it is forgiven almost instantly I imagine Magnus was pretty worked up about it when he first found out and he should communicate that, because I feel like he tends to gloss over how much stuff affects him.

“He.. must be special.”

I love everything about the way this line is delivered. The hesitance to ask (curling his lip, glancing around), his tone... perfect. On any other occasion I would think it insolent to talk about something you found out by looking through another person's stuff without their permission, especially because Magnus's reaction earlier left no doubt that he didn't want Alec to know what was in the box. But in this situation I can't really fault Alec, because the way this must have been invading his thoughts all day is so relatable. His tone is vulnerable, he sounds wary, as if he's scared to ask. And I think he kind of is.

“He was. A brave soldier. Like someone else I know.”

I get it. Magnus is trying to lighten the mood or maybe trying to convey that he cares for Alec, but this is like the wrongest thing he could have said, and I honestly don't understand why he didn't realize that. If there is a way to make Alec feel like he's replaceable or maybe even being the replacement, comparing him to an ex Magnus obviously cared about is the best way to do that.

This pained face says it all. Alec tries to credit Magnus's attempt to cheer him up, but he can't. The fake smile falls right off his face because the implications of Magnus's words, or at least what Alec understands from them, hurts too much.

I don't really understand this smile, to be honest. It's not an “Ah dammit, that fell flat”-Smile and Alec's :l-face really doesn't warrant a real smile, so. I don't understand it. Suggestions?

Especially because Magnus senses the fraught mood and tries to distract with cocktails immediately after this. He wouldn't do that if he honestly thought everything was fine i.e. he believed Alec's fake smile.

>>fast forward>>

I love this. I feel like half the time Magnus's No. 1 Coping Mechanism with issues is Ignore It Until It Goes Away. (Just remember the Soul Sword Debacle: “It's all in the past.” Wtf dude it was literally two days ago and it was a big ass issue and not talking about it is really not helpful... but whatever, that's not the point here.) Magnus had the perfect set up to ignore the issue at hand. If he'd gone and come back with drinks I have no doubt that Alec would have let it go, put on an unaffected face and faked his way through, acting as if this didn't eat him up inside. Magnus probably knows this, too. This is the moment Magnus realizes he can't do this to Alec, to them. And even though it's the harder choice he chooses to address it.

“You're not jealous, are you?”

Perfect.

“You were weird before, when I asked about moving in.”

I love how this isn't objectively an answer to Magnus's question, but really is. This isn't about some soldier guy or jealousy. This is about Alec wondering if he's the only one currently residing in Magnus's heart. I love that the box wasn't the only cause for his wondering; the Moving In Talk was a different incident factoring into Alec's thoughts. He didn't see the box and freak out – he's trying to piece a picture together based on two unrelated events.

Magnus. This isn't an answer. The way he delivers it, dismissive head shake and all, is (in my opinion) a calculated move. It really doesn't seem that way, but Magnus is a good actor. (He gets that form Harry. Hahaha ok sorry for that li'l punch through the forth wall. Shutting up now.) I get why he does it. He must have realized by now that Alec is feeling insecure, and going into how these people still mean something to him, and how he kinda in a way maybe still loves them isn't really the right conversation topic for now... but you can't tell me he would just shake off a past lover like that, like the fact that he's been dead for a century means he lost his place in Magnus's heart. Just remember the reverent way with which Magnus touched the objects in the box earlier. He wouldn't do that, wouldn't have this box at all if he really meant that head shake.

*“The man's been dead for over a century.” Incorrect subtitles strike again, trying to smoothen that statement. “The man”? You can't convince me Magnus would talk like that about someone he loved once.

>>fast forward>>

Again, perfect delivery. There's impatience, incomprehension and undeniable tension. He could have made sense of all the stuff being George's, but to keep all these things from different people.. he can't understand it or doesn't want to understand what it means, and it's clearly alarming him.

Damn. You can see the pain of memories, the melancholy in his eyes.

*“Why do you keep it?”

I'm not too sure what to make of that line, because it lacks the urgency from before. Alec seems kinda relieved to know that the stuff didn't belong to one person alone, tho why? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that he doesn't expect a relationship to have that much of an impact past its expiration date. Like Magnus's life is divided into different compartments and now that he's with Alec, all the past relationships he's had are in closed boxes (pun not intended) and don't interfere. It's probably a naive way of looking at it, but this is Alec's first relationship and even though he is very mature in most aspects of his life I believe there are some things you have to experience to extend your expertise past a certain point.

Okay, thanks for casually breaking my heart. As an avid fan of Merlin and Doctor Who I'm no stranger to immortality angst, but this is the one aspect I tend to ignore because it's too painful to deal with. Outliving everything and everyone you know is one thing, but forgetting them? And being entirely helpless to do something against it? To be honest I'm very glad I'm mortal.

>>fast forward>>

“Well. Now that I've seen some of that history with my own eyes...”

The way he looks, the way he closes his eyes for a second, the way he swallows. He's scared of rejection. He's scared this will turn out to be a thing Alec can't deal with. All honesty wouldn't have helped. It would have all been in vain, and he's bracing himself for that.

I'm not usually one for symbolism, but this, this even I couldn't miss. The shot shows Alec and Magnus in opposite sides of the frame, with a thick black void between them. This is their argument, this shows how they fail to communicate and reach one another at this moment in the conversation. (Keep this in mind for later.)

Yeah, well. That is the face of a person that has spend a lot of time thinking about that exact thing already. In general, in other cases, and about Alec.

So first off I wanna give a shout out to that facial expression because it's both hilarious and wonderful. Second off, Alec completely disregards Magnus’s perspective here, which is understandable since he's only just started thinking about that whole thing and is therefore fixed on his own perspective.

It makes Magnus's outburst all the more understandable. Because Alec makes it sound as if moving on will be easy for him. His frustration is palpable, because he's been in this exact same position often enough already to know that the outcome is always the same. He lives on, his love dies. And nothing can change that.

Also I love that even though Magnus raises his voice, probably for the first time since they know each other, Alec doesn't flinch back or anything. He just looks at Magnus, assessing him.

“I am immortal! It's not as if I have a choice. I can't change what I am and neither can you.”

And here they are now. Raw.

This is Magnus, full on pleading to let the subject drop.

The way he slowly walks up to Alec and finally holds onto his jacket. Alec can't deny him. He nods those little nods that you do when you know you have no choice but to agree, but at the same time you wanna curl up somewhere and feel miserable for a while.

Also, remember that stuff about symbolism? Here we have the second part. Magnus crossed the void and they are on the same side now. I wouldn't say that the worst part of their conflict is over, but they've decided to take a break from it for now, and that itself is a small victory.

Alec doesn't answer, he leans in and kisses Magnus, though that is probably answer enough.

And while Magnus keeps his eyes closed (the way he almost always does after they kiss) and seems to look at least a little peaceful, Alec is watching him and thinking sad, serious, alec-y thoughts.

“You're right. I love you, too.”

Yeah, I feel like that 'you're right' part only means Magnus's implied 'I love you.'

That line. It's so much. It's continuing Magnus's theme of staying in the moment, but at the same time it's an allusion to Alec's “I'm not going anywhere.” Magnus isn't exactly reminding Alec of what he promised, it's more like he's repeating it to himself, a reassurance. Because he's the one that was reminded of his pending loss by this conversation.

Alec smiles, and it does look genuine. Despite his dark thoughts Magnus can bring out his happiness.

But as soon as Magnus leaves we get this

and it's clear that this is far from over.

Also I feel like the theme that played in the background was the same as during those Scenes where Magnus was contemplating his past with his mother killing herself and he killing his father, so yeah. Great mood reference.

(Gif Source)

[raystart]

How To Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act

This article previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. It’s been updated with new information about the U.S. Paycheck Protection program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

  What cashflow-negative companies must do to survive

We’re in uncharted territory with the Covid-19 pandemic. But it’s increasingly looking grim.

Companies that outlast this crisis will have CEOs who can rapidly assess these new circumstances, recognize new patterns and opportunities, and act with urgency to take immediate action to pivot and restructure their companies. Those that don’t may not survive.

So here’s a five-day playbook to help CEOs of cash-flow negative startups, or ones about to go negative, assess the new normal and respond with speed and urgency.

Your Company Survival Depends on A Simple Formula Your company’s survival in this downturn can be captured in a simple formula.

Survival = (speed of your understanding of the situation) x (the magnitude of the pivots/cuts/lifeboat choices you make) x (the speed of your time to make those changes)

Notice that the word speed appears twice. This is not the time for committees, study groups or widespread consensus building. Even with imperfect information, the future of your company depends on your ability to make rapid decisions and start acting.

If you’re a CEO who can’t quickly bias yourself for action and if you wait around for someone to tell you what to do, then your investors, or more likely the market, will make those decisions for you.

Huge segments of the economy have shut down: travel, hospitality, restaurants. Any place with a fixed cost that relies on foot traffic will come under pressure. With millions of people out of work in the next quarter, it’s obvious that discretionary purchases like furniture, fashion, lifestyle will take a hit. But other businesses like law firms, contracting firms, real estate firms, will take hits, too. The ripple effects won’t be obvious at first. Your customers will no longer be your customers. Your revenue plans are no longer valid. To understand the state of things, you need to rapidly assess your internal and external environments going forward.

Day 1: Prepare An Assessment of the Internal and External Environment: What did the external and internal environment look like for your company today? What do you believe the world will look like for each of the next five quarters? For companies burning cash, such as startups, how much cash do you have? What’s your monthly cash burn at your new low revenue level? How many months of cash do you have?  Cut costs to stay alive for 24 months.

External Assessment

State of the economy

Unemployment %

Shelter in place yes/no?

Health of Your Current Target Market(s)

Actively buying? Not returning calls? Out of business?

Emergence of New Market(s)

Are there new opportunities?

Forecasted recovery date

Workers can return

Your customers start buying

Check if the the Paycheck Protection Program, (here and here) which provides 100% federally guaranteed loans to small businesses, can apply to your company. Also see if the the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program applies.

If you were raising money, validate whether your investors are still on board – with the same terms – or at all

Internal Assessment

Operating Numbers

Liquidity and likely cash-out date under your worst-case scenario

Accounts receivable, accounts payable

Sales pipeline/forecast

Marketing programs spending

Payroll costs/other variable costs

Sources of additional capital – For existing companies: debt commitments, and new lenders. Can the Paycheck Protection Program, (here and here) be a source of capital?For startups: source of VC money?

Don’t overthink this. And most importantly do not outsource this to your staff. Set up a war room and work with your CFO and C-level staff together until it’s done. That will start to get your team aligned about the size of the problem. The CEO should dial through as many of the largest existing customers to get a firsthand understanding of the magnitude of any revenue shortfall. If you were expecting angel or venture funding get on the phone to your investor(s). Some VC’s are walking away from signed term sheets. Others are cutting their valuations. The CFO should be on the phone to sources of additional capital. There is no market research that’s going to get it “right.” No one can predict how this plays out and for how long. All we know is that it’s going to be very different than it was a few weeks ago and likely going to be worse a few weeks from now.

Day 2: Iterate the assessment with your investors/board Whatever assessment you develop, you need to get feedback from your board and investors. While you’re seeing just your own company, hopefully they’re getting data from multiple companies across a wider set of industries. If you’re a startup you’ll also get a sense of how much of a nuclear winter the funding scene is for your market/company.

Boards need to insist on an immediate assessment and be actively engaged. I listened in on a board call with an enterprise software company this week, and when the CEO said, “Our VP of sales assured me our pipeline won’t be affected.” Board members gave her a wakeup call: there was either going to be a much more realistic assessment tomorrow based on her first-hand customer conversations, or a new CEO. Some CEOs can and will rise to the occasion by themselves but having a unified board can accelerate the process.

But what if you think the situation is more dire and you disagree with your board’s assessment? CEOs in this position are going to face a major career decision – go along with advice you think will damage/destroy the company – or put your job on the line. Remember, a year from now no one wants to be the CEO of a company out of business whose lament is, “I did what the board told me to do.”

Once you have agreed on what the world will look like, it’s time to build the plan for your new company. This plan has three parts: Pivots to your new business model, changes to your operating plan, and what initiatives you save for the recovery. The plan must also take into account that this crisis has exposed how vulnerable companies are to a single source of supply. CEOs of companies that manufacture goods in the U.S. are about to face a moral dilemma. China and South Korea are starting their factories up again. Going forward, do you move your supply chain from China or at least create a second source from other countries? Do you source/build things there while laying off people here? What does your board suggest? What do you think is the right thing to do?

Days 3 and 4: Prepare new business model and operating plan First, think about potential pivots. Ask yourself: Are there now new customers, new services and new channels to pursue? Which parts of your business model can now serve the new normal where business is booming – remote work/education, social cohesion over distance, telemedicine, home delivery, etc.?

For example:

If you had brick and mortar locations, how much can you pivot to Ecommerce (for basics), so customers can acquire goods without having to leave the house? Can you also offer specialized services?

Automated delivery services – the more people you can take out of the equation, the safer the product. Are there parts of your supply chain that can be repurposed? What about parts of your manufacturing lines?

Online/Virtual learning – schools will need to embrace virtual learning in a way they haven’t before.

B2B – cloud services, online meetings, virtual workforce management, collaboration tools. With more work from home happening, all of these services will see increased demand from companies

Virtual Travel/Tourism – how can consumers get out without leaving the safety of their house?

Remote Workforce automation – past the obvious conferencing tools, how do you maintain cohesion and coordination?

Remote health care – Can you do initial triaging/diagnosis online before having a patient come in?

Personalized Video Entertainment – VOD, AVOD, Short Form Social Sites, Twitch, etc. …

Next, plot out the changes to your operating plan. What cuts will you make to spending programs – marketing, service, manufacturing, R&D? What are your “lifeboat choices” – what layoffs to make, renegotiate payables, rents, leases, how to trade off cash management versus revenue growth? How can you shift focus to customer retention versus acquisition?

As part of these operating changes, make sure your heads of HR and finance recognize that they have entirely new jobs.

Your CFO now becomes the head of cash management. Draw down all debt commitments. Ask existing and new lenders for additional funding. Call all large vendors and ask for lower prices. If appropriate, offer to sign a longer agreement in exchange for lower cash payments in 2020 and 2021. See if your fixed costs are really fixed, or will they agree to defer some for higher payments at a future date. Make sure your CFO is familiar with the Paycheck Protection Program, (here and here) as a potential source of cash and to avoid/defer layoffs.

Nothing is more important than assuring the company can continue to pay its employees.

Your head of HR is now head of layoffs. He or she has 48 hours to grow into it, or you need to find someone else from the ranks to do it. Before layoffs, cut all salaries by 20%. Cut CXO salaries by at least 30%. Award equity to employees equal to the value of their reduced salaries. Try to protect the most vulnerable employees. Letting people go needs to be done with compassion and adequate compensation. And if you do it correctly, it will hopefully be done just once.

For those remaining employees, offer remote therapy to deal with the stress of working from home and pay for any equipment/network upgrades.

As you make these plans, remember: There will be a morning after. What changes in your industry will be permanent? If you have sufficient cash reserves, what initiatives do you want to keep in the lifeboat that may give you the ability to take advantage of these changes? To recover and grow quickly? Or to launch new products? Or if you have sufficient cash, now is the time to hire great people who were never available.

Although you prepared the internal and external assessment with just your C-level staff, now you want to rapidly engage the collective intelligence/wisdom of the company. Ask everyone in the company to suggest changes to the business model, operating plan and recovery plan.Your employees likely have ideas and see opportunities not visible in the C-suite. This will signal to every employee that now is the time for all-hands-on-deck and that you will be making decisions to quickly separate the crucial from the irrelevant.

You need to communicate, communicate and communicate some more to your employees about why you’re asking for their ideas. This is the perfect time to start a daily update from the C-suite. This is critical if your employees are working remotely. Let them know what you’re learning and then when you begin implementing changes, tell them why.

Day 5: Iterate with investors/board Whatever business model, operating plan and recovery plan you come up with, you need to get feedback from your board. Keep in mind they’re likely dealing with multiple companies rapidly replanning, so remind them about the assessments you mutually agreed on. Then walk them through why the changes you’re suggesting match that plan. They may have seen new ideas from other companies in their portfolio so be open to additional suggestions.

Beyond the five-day plan, I want to specifically address two of the most challenging parts of the new operating plan you need to address: Layoffs and culture.

Carpenters use the aphorism “Measure twice, cut once.” The same applies to layoffs. In every downturn I’ve lived through, there were CEOs who handled layoffs as “a death by a thousand cuts.” For example, in a company with 1000 employees, they’d layoff a 100 people the first month, another 100 the next month, then a 100 the third month to downsize to 700 people over several months. Rather than being productive, the constant layoffs were demoralizing and paralyzed the remaining workforce. Employees saw that the direction was a downward spiral with no end in sight. And everyone worried: “Am I next?”  I’ve watched other CEOs immediately layoff 400 people and have 600 left. If/when they overshot, they could rehire 100 people (including some of the same people who had been laid off). While the mass layoffs created an immediate shock, people adjusted. They worried but began to feel more secure. When hiring began again, everyone was relieved: “The worst is over. Things are getting better.” (Remember to investigate whether the Paycheck Protection Program can save some or all of those jobs.)

To begin adjusting the culture to this new reality, communicate these business model and operating plan changes to your employees. Offer relentless optimism for survival, but ruthless cost-cutting (starting with the CXO salaries.) Let them know that as CEO you are going to be micromanaging for survival and expect each of them to do the same. You’re going to be relentless, direct and clear that once decisions are made, there are no disagreements. And remind them that together you are all working to save the company and their own jobs.

At some point this crisis will run its course. Running this five-day playbook will help your business survive so when the recovery does come, you’ll emerge stronger and ready to hire and grow again.

Lessons Learned

CEOs need to take control and take drastic action. Be decisive and do it immediately

Survival = (speed of your understanding of the situation) x (the magnitude of the pivots/cuts/lifeboat choices you make) x (the speed of your time to make those changes)

Involve the board and the rest of the company

Communicate with all employees daily

Move with speed and urgency, you have days — not weeks or months

As painful as it might be, when you make cuts do it once

Assume you’ll emerge on the other side. What will you wish you had kept?

[drink-n-watch]

Genre: Everything that Irina Loves

Episodes:23

Studio: White Fox

It’s amazing how quickly something can seep into your normal. You repeat the same actions under the same circumstances a few times and just like that, it’s a ritual. Comforting and familiar. You miss it when it’s not around. Before you can even notice, it’s a little part of your life, and tiny little spec of what makes you, you.

Since April 12, 2018, every Wednesday evening I’ve come home to watch an episode of Steins;Gate 0, then I savoured it. I took it in my mind with me and let it settle as I drifted off to sleep so the next day, I could try to tell you all about it. I truly wanted to share the experience with you in an unvarnished, honest way. I wanted to give you all of my thoughts and feelings and to heck with pretence and pride. It often came out in a jumble of passion and directionless enthusiasm.

On Friday evenings I would relive the episode in stop motion form to capture images and put it all together, ready to publish by Sunday. Even after a long week, I enjoyed taking this time, screencapping away.

 Like most of my episodic posts, my Steins;Gate 0 reviews have had relatively modest success. But that’s fine too. It made sense that such personal and intimate posts would be seen by the few close readers that have gotten to know me best. That was comfortable…and familiar.

where have I heard this before?

 And so, for some time now, Steins;Gate 0b has become a part of my reality. It’s made a tiny mark on me. I’m the girl who looks forward to Wednesday evenings. The girl who’s a little quieter and pensive on Thursdays and a little too contempt on Monday mornings. The girl that mumbles El Psy Congroo under her breath and giggles in her head. I have come to enjoy being that girl. Today, I’m going to be that girl for the last time. I couldn’t have asked for better company.

 Steins;Gate 0 has been a ride! If you want a proper review, I’m sure you have plenty of options. This isn’t going to be one. I probably couldn’t write one even if I wanted to. I’m a little biased…

 WordPress’ digital editor always screams at me when I start sentences the same way. It’s an issue with drinking games… This is why I put this little buffer in before continuing. Steins:Gate 0 is a series that trades and relishes in nostalgia while betraying the expectations built upon those memories. I don’t think you need to have seen the original to enjoy this season, but it certainly adds a ton to it. In any case, although the story is different and the themes almost opposite, it’s pretty safe to say that it will likely appeal to the same audience. 

good pertinent cap, right? so proud!

This is a time travel story meant to take you back in time. Back to the original, which is still beloved by so many fans. It’s clearly pandering and I bought it hook, line, sinker, rod and probably part of the fisherman’s glove. This show was written for me. It did exactly what it was suppose to. It took me back to a time when I was a little anime lover and time travel otaku who had no friends to share those particular passions with and stumbled unto a fan patched version of the visual novel. To a time where I was completely engrossed in that world. For months, I live in Steins;Gate’s version of Akhibara.

I remember once overheating my laptop while playing and having it unexpectedly shut down and refuse to start up again. My only concern was that I might not be able to find the game and mostly the English language patch again. I couldn’t care less about the computer itself, everything else on it or my progress. The first time I found Steins:Gate, I found a place where all my disjointed passions came together in a format that was my preference. I found a home.

 A decade later, fearful and suspicious, I stepped back into that world that had meant so very much to me. I was suspicious and defensive. How can you possibly catch lightning in a bottle twice? And then, I was home. Only this time, for the first time, I get to invite friends over. 

little Suzu is the embodiment of adorableness

I told you this was not going to be a review…. OK this is the deal, Steins;Gate 0 is a lot like the original and also very different. By now, enough has been said on both that my post is unlikely to either sway or inform you. Instead,  this post serves as a place to hold all my feeeeelings about the season but also to tell you a bit about this final episode.

Shocker: I liked it. What can I say, I’m a girl in love. It’s not as if I’m completely blind though. I realize there were some issues. We never got back to the second Reading Steiner. Judy’s role was useless and a lot of the characters are dreadfully underdeveloped. Farris the great is lost forever in the folds of time. That’s just tragic. The darkest future lacked the narrative connective tissue to make the emotional impact it could have. Why was Moeka with Maho in the first episode? You can tell that in the editing process meant to adapt a multi branching VN narrative to a basically linear one, some plot threads where excised not quite a cleanly as they could have. I don’t care, I loved it.

And really, the final episode wasn’t perfect either. Those directorial choices were plain to see. This was a story cut down to fit the format and the director obviously had to pick what would stay and what would go. The action is streamlined and half skipped over. Only a few characters get to grab unto the spotlight. These were hard decisions but the fact is, if you want to get somewhere, eventually you have to pick a path. Steins;Gate 0 picked the prefect one.

cried when I watched it, cried when I got the screencap, cryin’ now…

Visually, the episode opens as a parallel to the ending of the first season. Okabe backlit and depressed in the streets of Akhibara. The episode itself twined around and intermeshed with the ending of the original Steins;Gate in one glorious Ouroboros. We finally got the full view of how both stories fit together, crossing paths for only one second and changing the future for eternity. Cynically you could call it a huge load of fanservice for fans of the original. At least at first sight. I call it beautiful.

Thematically though, it was quite different from Steins;Gate, and that’s what I adore about it. We never saw Kurisu again and Amadeus is gone forever. This time, the difficult choice is made. This is the worldline where love doesn’t conquer all. It’s also the worldline where decisions have eternal consequences. If Steins;Gate was about having it all, Steins;Gate 0 is about the importance of compromise. But closing one door in order to open another is a powerful gesture. There’s something deeply comforting about that. A sense of purpose and urgency that brought out the very best in everyone.

  only Mayuushi can save Mayuushi!

Mayuushi was a force to be reckoned with. This is a character that was essentially a walking, talking damsel in distress trope. And yet, our eternal little victim saved absolutely everyone through sheer strength of will and never faltered for a second. The damsel in distress was allowed to pick up the sword and become a hero. It took a decade to get there, and it was well worth the wait.

The unfortunately underused Moeka was given a sliver of agency and more importantly hope, for a second she looked like a real person and not a puppet. Moeka has always been one of my favorite characters and generally favorite villains. The idea of an average someone being so deeply broken that they willingly make themselves into a weapon as it is less painful than being a person, was as terrifying as it was sad. Her every appearance in Steins;Gate 0 send a shiver down my back. Giving her a chance at a different life, brought a smile to my lips.

As for Kagari, her trajectory is similar. In essence she’s also nothing but a tool. But Kagari had something Moeka never had. A mother who loved her.  As we bid goodbye to the season we also saw Kagari as her best self. A small child longing for her mommy. 

now that’s quite the ensemble

And Suzu… My dearest Suzu. It’s not that much longer to type out Suzuha but I always shorten her name. It’s a nickname, you see. We have a rapport Suzu and me. Few characters have endured more. It would have been easy to write her as an ultimate badass having sacrificed all emotions in order to survive. She tries to pretend sometimes. But Suzu did manage something amazing in the eleventh hours. She actually figured out how to be vulnerable without being weak.

This was an episode full of heroes.

Somewhere along the twisting and turning timelines…uhm worldlines… Steins;Gate matured. 0 is no longer the insecure kid that needs it’s leading man to be everything to everyone. It’s secure enough to spread the glory around. It can handle ambiguous relationships that aren’t clearly defined and long term friendships that don’t lead to dating. It’s also grown up enough to trust us, the audience. To let us figure out what it was saying without over explaining everything. That’s what happens when you get older, you learn to let go.

I think so too!

I adored that no one got the girl. In the end, there’s no real indication of who “the girl” even is. This time that’s not what it was about. Everybody got a turn at the wheel. For everything it failed to do, Steins;Gate 0 finally gave the little girls lost a chance to chose their path and find themselves. That’s worth a whole lot in my book

But where would Steins;Gate be without the Mad Scientist of the hour! Few characters have gone through as much growth and regression and regrowth as Okabe Rintaro. The man has his faults. Many, many faults… He can be frustrating, annoying, unbearably selfish. When he’s not being a cringe inducing doofus, he’s a complete downer. Who could blame you for being over the guy? But you still got to admit, that Hououin Kyouma’s got some swagger! 

 ‘Cmon, don’t tell me you did cheer out loud when his silhouette came into view at the last second. Now that was an epic Big Fat Hero moment.

I mean it… don’t tell me. In my worldline we all applauded and cheered, laughing loudly. We hugged and danced around the living room. Buddy watched us, confused. It was a great moment. Don’t take it away!

 I had a great time these past few months. I was really happy you were there too. If ever you want to take a stroll back down memory lane, you can relive the good times with me:

Steins;Gate 0 Ep1 – In Memory of Things That Never Were

Steins;Gate 0 Ep2 – Kindred Spirit

Steins;Gate 0 Ep3 – Little Girls lost

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 4 – Confabulation

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 5 – The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 6 – The Best of Times and The Worst of Time

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 7 – Strange Bedfellows

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 8 – Okabe And The Real Girl

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 9 – The Comfort of a Familiar Ache

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 10 – Space Time Oddity

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 11 – Anti-Thesis

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 12 – MEAMs

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 13 – Discrepancy

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 14 – The Disapearance of Kagari Shiina

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 15 – Hope for the Future

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 16 – Those Who Fail to Learn From History…..

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 17 – The Second That Lasts Forever

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 18 – Never Trust A Professor

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 19 – Meaningless Consequences

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 20 – The Once and Future Okabe Rintaro

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 21 – Going Back to Yourself

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 22 -A Nostalgic Sorrow

I’ve been reducing the number of pics. They slow down my site. Also Crunchy roll has recently changed making image capture much harder. Still I couldn’t resist this week. Here are a ton of pics. Doesn’t that Mayu and Suzu pic have slight yuri vibes?

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Steins;Gate 0 – Time Heals All Wounds Genre: Everything that Irina Loves Episodes:23 Studio: White Fox It's amazing how quickly something can seep into your normal.

[best-encryption-tool-blog]

How to encrypt whole disk in windows 8

Every single day there can be presumably many transactions constructed that require the exchange of private information. Naturally, those that give that knowledge would like to know that the details they ship is risk-free and protected. Via the internet, generating specifics protected is managed by encrypting the data ahead of it happens to be sent, and decrypting it once it reaches its vacation spot.

full disk encryption software(AES) is definitely a big worry while in the modern day IT period, principally as a result of crimes like data stealing, and data breaching is rising at an alarming level. Often, data basic safety delivers the thought of data Online stability. Thereby, a good deal is becoming done to help keep on-line data encrypted. But even the data in your pc really hard drives and external hard drives need encryption safety. Challenging drive encryption right away reminds of Idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption applications. This information talks how total drive encryption software package can retain your data secured.

Data Encryption is Imperative for Stability

Data encryption is rather a good deal pivotal for the security from the data stored on the really hard disk drives of personal computers used by people today, federal government corporations or company residences. Increase in data breaching or stealing is maybe the foremost reason for worry considering that one have to encrypt the file of each every and each delicate piece of info. Presently, for every thing you've gotten the password strategy, for example, password with the personal computer or password to your consumer accounts.

But passwords are economical in keeping the data safe and sound until finally enough time the data is on the very hard drive of one's desktop computer or server or until the password is simply not hacked. But if in some way the data will be stolen bodily or on the internet, or even the password receives hacked, then the password stability will get worthless. In such a circumstance, only encryption can save your material. Encrypted data is always dependable even if it is really correct there within the fingers on the completely wrong people. Which is because the encrypted data is rarely within a readable structure, and so not a soul might be in the position to examine it or find sense in it. So, aside from employing passwords, a person will have to have the whole challenging drive encrypted.

Thus, individual and company end users have got to make use of a instrument to have their data encrypted as the need of data safety cannot be overlooked. In case your data as part of your challenging drives has encryption stability, then you really obtain the best stability coverage and also the assurance that now your data isn't any a lot more easily available.

Idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption software- Nonetheless Secure to utilize

When the speak is about whole disk encryption, Idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption software package is actually a very preferred program. In just a short span of time, mainly following the discharge of Window 8, it flourished on the market to be a pioneer device of its model. This cross-platform resource also supports OS X and Linux together with Home windows. Millions of individuals selected this tool because of its protection performance, painless interface and cross-platform usability. Even if, working units feature the inbuilt encryption device, even now this full disc encryption tool is significant in desire as it simply overcomes the problems that other encryption processes place around the software devices.

It stands tall for the expectation in the people on parameters like value and fees, effectiveness implications, and critical administration matters. Many consumers and establishments give a next considered to data encryption thinking of the areas brought up earlier mentioned. But this tough drive encryption device is often a freeware utility, and its hugely dependable which will get showed up through the current market demand from customers for this web site.

You're going to be astonished to understand that in spite of its official connect with off by its owners, people nonetheless want the software program again. For a result of that there transpired the urgency to carry out an audit of the data encryption instrument. idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption software program is actually a also great software to tug its shutter down. Its entrepreneurs formally declared that they're no far more releasing updates for your software programs, and therefore it can be no even more safer to use. But on users' demand, NCC Group, an information safety consultancy team, performed an audit of the instrument to learn its vulnerabilities as well as the likelihood of its safe and sound use.

Buyers of the whole-disk encryption instrument shall be joyful to learn which the audit conclusions expose that the device is not going to have as such any intense stability flaws.

How Encryption Is effective

Definition of Encryption

Encryption will be the process of encoding data making sure that unauthorized get-togethers is unable to check out it. When file is encrypted, the data is primary handed by way of an algorithm and is particularly converted into cyphertext, that is the encrypted data. To accomplish the encryption, a important or code presented by you is used to encrypt the data, that can make the encryption tricky to crack.

There's two solutions implemented for encryption: Symmetric-key encryption and Public-key encryption (asymmetric). The subsequent area will talk about the 2 units.

Encryption Solutions

A symmetric-key encryption process takes advantage of a hidden secret crucial or code to encode the data. When the specifics is passed to a different home pc, the code is passed alongside separately. The next computer then makes use of the trick code to decode the data. A symmetric-key method is extremely fast but is simply not as safe given that the public-key technique. If somebody ended up to intercept the data additionally, the code, then they could very easily decode the data.

In the public-key method, there are 2 keys: a public vital along with a personal vital. A public secret's offered out by a secured desktop computer to any personal computer that desires to establish a protected interaction. When the data should be to handed from the client's pc, it is actually to start with encoded using the public major after which you can despatched for the secured home pc. The secured pc then makes use of the private major together together with the general public critical to decode the data.

Variety of General public Keys

So how many keys are possible for encryption? Everything is dependent upon the bit power from the encryption. The little bit strength in the encryption could vary including 40-bit or 128-bit. To receive the volume of keys, purely elevate two to the electric power for the bit power. To illustrate, for 128-bit encryption the number of likely keys is two to the ability of 128 or 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 keys.

However it may seem like finding out the correct key is unattainable, just bear in mind that pcs are finding even more powerful, so it's using a lot less the perfect time to identify the key by means of brute force. This really is not to claim that your data is not really protected, since it still will take a lengthy time and energy to crack 128-bit encryption, at the least with the position in which it could not be worthwhile.

Data security and safety may be a large issue inside modern day IT era, predominantly given that crimes like data stealing, and data breaching is soaring at an alarming level. Typically, data security provides the idea of data Net protection. Thereby, quite a lot is getting completed to keep online data encrypted. But even the data on your own laptop difficult drives and exterior very hard drives wants encryption stability. Hard drive encryption immediately reminds of Idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption software. This informative article talks how full drive encryption software programs can maintain your data secured.

Data Encryption is Very important for Security

Data encryption is quite a whole lot pivotal to the safety for the data stored in the really hard disk drives of computers employed by people, federal government companies or company homes. Rise in data breaching or stealing is perhaps the major explanation for issue thinking about that a person should encrypt the file of every every single and each sensitive piece of information. Today, for every little thing you've the password platform, for instance, password with the pc or password for ones consumer accounts.

But passwords are effective in preserving the data safe and sound until finally the time the data is about the very hard drive of the laptop or server or until the password is absolutely not hacked. But if somehow the data can be stolen physically or on line, or the password receives hacked, then the password safety gets useless. In this kind of situation, only encryption can preserve your data. Encrypted data is always safer regardless if it's suitable there while in the hands of the incorrect individuals. That is definitely as the encrypted data isn't in a readable structure, and therefore no-one are going to be able to look over it or find sense in it. Thereby, aside from utilising passwords, one will need to receive the total arduous drive encrypted.

So, unique and company end users need to make use of a software to have their data encrypted since the necessity of data protection cannot be ignored. In the event your data in your arduous

Conclusion

Mainly because it is formally no more safer to be used so, you'll find it considerably better to not use it for some time. But, the NCC team audit report is confirming the resource has no as a result protection flaws, and it will be dependable to work with. So quickly the device might turn out to be officially accessible for use at the time once again. But till that comes about far better use other various alternatives like VeraCrypt and CipherShed. This freeware has the very same Idoo Full Disk Drive Encryption applications code.

[jaychellouise-blog]

Melodrama as transcendence

When I first heard Green Light, I had to immediately play it again to make absolutely sure of what I’d just heard. The key change, the switches in vocal register, the urgency, all struck me right in the chest. The moment that truly blew me away, though, was near the end; when Lorde’s voice is swept away by that synth line into an inarticulate wave of pure emotion, too abstract and huge to be diluted into words. It’s the moment the song has been building up to, as relief comes as a moment of pure transcendence.

Transcendental pop is my favourite niche genre of music; it’s got none of the “replacing true authentic experience with an acoustic guitar”-feel of much alternative music, and often cuts more close to the bone. Truly great pop music takes those feelings which we’re told are frivolous, whiny and petty (aka feminine) and elevates them to a whole new plane, without any kind of pretensions to cool. Think Carly Rae Jepsen and her soaring saxophones in Run Away With Me; think the pure euphoria of Rihanna’s We Found Love. It’s this quality which I absolutely love about Lorde’s music.

A lot of Pure Heroine may seem nonchalant at first, as Lorde is tired of being told to put her hands up in the air and sneers through Tennis Court. But this is, I feel, a pretty bad-faith reading, and seems influenced by her young age; listen to Ribs and honestly tell me you don’t sense that rush of feeling, hard to pin down but so particularly emoted through the song. That album connected with so many people on the cusp of adulthood, who felt both old and impossibly young at the same time. All the anxieties of growing up at the same time as outgrowing your hometown were captured in those few songs – it was such a pitch-perfect representation of the modern teenage experience that it’s no wonder middle-aged music critics misread it.

Hence it is no surprise that Lorde has distilled this to perfection on Melodrama. Many writers will tell you it’s an album about partying, but I disagree; the party is there, but it serves only as a backdrop to the central theme of dealing with heartbreak whilst being young and old and scared and having the time of your life (you know – happy, free, confused, lonely, all at the same time). Setting it against a party is a great mechanism for amplifying the emotions until they reached truly melodramatic proportions – though not once, I might add, do they feel over the top or inauthentic, merely heightened, more concentrated. The highs soar and the lows are a sucker punch to the gut.

Something I’ve always thought Lorde did particularly well was making a collage of personal memories to evoke a larger emotion; her boyfriend bringing her orange juice in 400 Lux, or the chorus of Ribs: “the drink you spilt all over me/Lover’s Spit played on repeat”. These are such specific images but somehow, as a listener, they come together to make something you truly feel you can empathise with. “I overthink your punctuation use”, “I do my makeup in somebody else’s car” – these moments clearly have a particular meaning to Lorde, but they’re also fundamentally relatable and help to move the music away from the abstract and the generic.

Liability is another song which made me do a double take on first listening; it’s so vulnerable, both sonically and lyrically, in a way few artists would dare to be. If you haven’t cried listening to it I either a) don’t believe you or b) think you’re heartless.

A lot of credit also goes to how well the album is made. Vocally, it’s incredible; Lorde gives herself in every note, knowing exactly when to make her voice crack and when to make it soar (see in Green Light, when she drops from a casual low to a pleading high register between “and honey I’ll/be seeing you down every road”). She’s also not afraid to let it stand alone, her vocals thrust right to the front and centre. Whilst I’m loathe to give a man any credit for a woman’s work, Jack Antanoff has done a really great job with the production (tbh I actually really like Bleachers, fight me).

One of my favourite moments on the album comes at the end of The Louvre, when everything fades away except that one twangly melody line which then slowly builds to a soft sway. It’s that moment in the party when everything blooms; it’s full of an emotion which is at once ecstatic and heart-breaking, where the lights are glowing with an aching intensity and you feel like you could cry for no reason; it’s transcendental. That moment manages to capture such a vital quality, that I can only describe as being young and free and aching and not knowing or caring why, only sure of the fact that you are feeling and you are feeling with a burning intensity (“I’m 19 and I’m on fire”). I could write a whole essay on Supercut, which toes that sad-euphoric line in the same way that Robyn does so well. It drives forward with a neon sheen, with the promise that Lorde is finally moving on despite her attempts to cling to the past; the breakdown is beautifully raw and unrestrained, but the beat kicks in regardless and pushes her on. It eventually fades out; no matter how much she tries to cling on, all things must pass.

A lot of reviews of this album have said that Lorde has grown up, but that just seems to come from people who don’t value teenage girls properly. Lorde has grown, but this is an album very much on the edge of teenage life, revelling in the freefall.