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stardusthuntress · 2 months

Text

Five for Fives

FivesLivesAU!

Fives x female!reader (pronouns only)

Word Count: 3.6k

Summary and A/N: Read a fic the other day, and I wanted to read more similar stories, but there weren’t really any more like it… so I wrote my own! Inspired by this fic by @deewithani who kindly was totally fine with letting me add the inspo link here! I felt like we all needed something happy to read and Fives has been on my mind lately… so hope at least one person enjoys this too! Just sorta cranked it out because I was inspired and wanted to see Fives get a chance to have a life after war filled with love, with Echo, and with Rex, and I wanted a future for the little clones we know exist but who never fought in war because they hadn’t been out of their grown tubes very long… so have some cuteness and cuddles!

PS this is a different Fives Lives AU than my other fic from a few weeks ago

TW: not much? Uh, Fives lives, has a long-term partner, and this is set as though he and Rex and Echo are leading the clone resistance we see beginning in the Bad Batch. Added in a few references to characters I couldn’t fit in the fic too! Could be read as though it’s just Fives and the Reader and Rex and Echo are the best friends of the family, or it could be read as though it’s poly, totally up to you as the reader to interpret it however feels right to you! I just wanted to make sure the 501st trio wasn’t cruelly separated anymore, so have a cute little family fic! Just cuddles and cuteness and fluff! Though it is still a bit suggestive (it's Fives, that's totally unavoidable), so still NSFW, tho I surprised myself by actually avoiding writing smut in a Fives fic... but still enjoy the snuggles and cuteness and suggestive fluff!!!

blue dividers by @/djarrex! banners are my own!

“How are we gonna tell Echo?” Fives asked, gazing happily at the 5 small, peacefully sleeping faces scattered across the room like spilled tookas.

You, the woman in his arms grinned, “Leave that to me!” You kissed his cheek with a grin.

Fives nuzzled into your shoulder. He loved the way you balanced him out and always remembered to consider Echo in your plans as well, especially now that the war was over and the operation to rescue all their brothers was underway.

“He’s gonna tell us 2 is more than we can reasonably handle.” Fives comments.

“He was also a cadet with a squad of 5 once, remember? He knows the bond you boys have. He might protest, but we will make him understand. Besides, they’re too little to separate them, that would have only traumatized them for life, and I couldn’t do that. You saw their eyes when they looked up at us and asked if they could stay together. You couldn’t say no either,” you poked him comedically.

Fives chuckled, and hugged you tighter to his chest. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t change it for the whole galaxy!”

They stand there, just watching the small sleepers for a few minutes.

“How old do you think they are?” Fives asked, excitedly.

“They can’t be much older than 4, in normal years. They have well developed language skills, but they’re still working on hand-eye coordination. So… probably about 2? Likely decanted not long after the war started… maybe around the time you and Echo shipped out for the first time?” You reasoned.

“Not long before we met you,” Fives kissed your cheek playfully and you giggled quietly, squeezing the strong hands wrapped around your middle.

“We’re gonna have to get beds for them tomorrow,” you whispered, eyes glazed over as you worked through the logistics of having 5 new additions to the family.

“Mmmmm, sounds like a tomorrow problem then,” Fives whispered, whisking you off your feet, “They look comfortable where they are, they’ll be fine for tonight.”

“They’re on the floor, Fives,” you chuckled lightly, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“They’re used to it, we all slept anywhere anytime. At least they’re all sleeping at the same time.” He told you, closing the door to your bedroom behind him as he carried you to the bed. “And you were so good with them, Cyar’ika. I could barely resist you all day.” He breathed into your chest as his lips trailed across your skin, sighing hungrily. “My turn!”

As Echo strolled across the base on this beautiful evening, a noise in the hanger bay caught his attention. Odd, no one should be in the hangar bay at this hour. There were no surprise missions that he was aware of, though they had just rescued a large quantity of clone cadets from an Imperial facility the day before. The little ones were supposed to have all been shipped off to Alderaan and Pandora, but perhaps they miscounted? He’d have to comm Fives and let him know if he found one still here. Fives and his girlfriend had been so excited to get to rescue young clones.

He followed the continuation of the noise, and discovered it changed from the drumming of what was presumably small running feet, into the sound of larger stomping strides accompanied by a lot of giggling.

The noise led him to the ship Fives and his partner had claimed as their own.

Echo called to them from the open ramp, “Everything alright in there?”

“Oh, Echo! Is that you?” A woman’s voice answered him over the laughter, “Come in! We could use a hand right now, actually,” she giggled.

Echo hurried into the ship, worried. You never asked for help, but then again it sounded like you had been laughing at the time? He rounded the corner and froze.

Well, that was the last thing he’d been expecting to see, but in hindsight he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been expecting it. Fives always had been good with kids, and so were you.

The room was filled with commotion, mostly in the form of Fives, in full gear, stomping around and growling like he was pretending to be a big, scary monster, while trying his hardest not to burst into laughter. He was happier than Echo had ever seen him.

Fives had 3 small cadets clambering on him. One on his back, giggling wildly, and one wrapped tight around each of Fives’ legs, both squealing with joy.

Fives was laughing hard, especially as he made eye contact with Echo across the room, but it only lasted for a moment as one of the cadets lost their grip on his knee and tumbled to the floor, still giggling.

“Oops!” Fives chuckled, swooping the small puddle of giggling child off the floor and up into the air. “Aaaaaand UP we go!”

Echo could barely process what was going on, as you turned to him from the table behind where Fives and the 3 little ones now played.

There was another one in your arms, Echo noticed.

You beckoned Echo to you, and he obediently trotted over, though he was vaguely aware that it was an autopilot response from working so closely with you for so long.

The delightedly confused look on Echo’s face as he approached made you laugh too.

“Here, hold this one for me,” you instructed, depositing the one that had been on your hip into Echo’s arms.

Echo took the proffered child. It stared up at him with wide, familiar eyes. This was definitely one of the clone children you had all rescued in the days prior. The child nibbled on a large cookie as it stared calmly up at him. Echo blinked at it for a moment, content to just watch the child, unsure what it would do, knowing it could see that he was so different.

He and Fives had been this small once. He didn’t remember it, but knew it was deep in his past somewhere. He felt like he could see his own memories reflected in the wide, curious eyes of the child he held. But he wondered how he looked to a kid now, so many metal parts adorning his body, but without those parts, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to rescue and now hold this child today. Echo could feel the conflict within him flickering in his eyes as he watched the smol bundle in his arms.

After a moment, the child seemed to decide he was an acceptable pillow too, and it nestled into his shoulder and went back to watching their brothers goof around the room.

Echo looked up, for you, vaguely aware that if you needed him to hold this one that meant there was something else you were up to.

He spotted you standing on the counter, fetching yet another child from atop the conservator, where it seemed, it had been breaking into a box of cookies.

“Hey Echo, Fives, I need you to—“ Rex rounded the corner, and reacted much the same as Echo. He froze, eyebrows raised, as he watched Fives tumble into a big cushy chair in the corner while being careful not to smoosh any of the kiddos clinging to him as they all laughed joyously.

Rex’s gaze continued around the room to Echo, standing behind Fives with a child in his arms, scomp securely tucked under its small bottom, hand rubbing up and down the kids back as it drifted to sleep on his shoulder, half-eaten cookie dropping from its hand onto the table Echo had strategically positioned himself next to. And then Rex spotted you, in the galley of the ship, another child draped over your arm in a dramatic pout, its conquest - a box of cookies - clutched tightly in its little hands as you clambered off the counter.

Rex shook himself to his senses and scrambled to protect you and the kid on your way down.

“Thanks, Rex,” you smiled up at him, patting his cheek, a happy grin like he’d never seen before on your face.

Your attention quickly turned to the child in your arms, as you put your other hand on your hip and gave it a playfully, scornful look. “You gonna eat the whole box yourself, little one?”

It paused for a moment, seemingly thinking through the situation for the first time.

Rex laughed, he remembered a similar lesson in his past. He knelt down to look at the kid when he spoke, “Always make sure you think things through before just running with it, kid. That way you know exactly what you want before you get there.” He chuckled.

You, Fives, and Echo all laughed hard at that.

“Oh, look who the mischievous uncle turned out to be!” You chided, laughter still ringing from your lips as you shifted the kid in your arms into a more comfortable position on your hip, facing outwards, but gripped in both arms.

The kid’s eyes lit up and he shoved a hand back into the cookie box and produced yet another cookie, but this time he held it out to Rex.

“Awwwww! That was very sweet of you, Moxy! There ya go, pay off Uncle Rex for his mischievous advice! Already learning how bribes work! You’re definitely related to Fives, that’s for sure!” You laughed.

Rex laughed too, taking the cookie with a small thanks as heat rushed to his face. He hadn’t meant to be that Uncle, but then again, after working with Skywalker, Kenobi, and Tano, and the entirety of the 501st for so many years, maybe their bad habits had worn off on him a bit.

Fives appeared at your elbow, one child under his arm, one still clinging to his leg, and one perched on his shoulders with its hands on his cheeks and hair, braced by his other hand at its back.

“See, they could totally pass for being our kids!” He grinned playfully, humming seductively as he pressed a long kiss to your cheek and then one to your neck.

“EWWWWW!” The kiddos chorused.

Echo and Rex laughed as you stole a kiss from Fives’ lips as he grinned, wildly.

“Well that’s good, because they are our kids, now!” You winked back at him.

“That’s my girl!” Fives cheered.

“How are you gonna care for…” Echo paused to doublecheck his headcount, “five cadets?”

“Children, Echo, they are not cadets anymore, they’re kids! And I’d say it’s a darn good thing we generally have at least 4 adults in here to handle it, don’t you think?” You returned, pointedly, but still smiling and laughing.

Echo just hugged the child in his arms tighter. Resting his cheek on its little head as he turned bashful. He knew Fives had chosen the right woman, she always remembered the things that were important to Fives, including Echo. And she wasn’t afraid to put her children in the arms of a man with 3 out of 4 metal limbs. Echo was grateful for her trust, for it made him trust himself more too.

The little one on Fives shoulder let out a big, long yawn, unaware that its hand had made its way to cover one of Fives’ eyes. But Fives had no intention of protesting, he was too delighted to find himself surrounded by kids of his own.

Rex chuckled, and reached up to lift the child off Fives’ shoulders.

As soon as it was in Rex’s arms, it immediately snuggled into his shoulder, trusting him instantly after seeing him interact with the other adults in the room so easily. Rex melted.

You and Fives exchanged a glance. Fives was glad he’d let you handle this part and that you’d let it just happen naturally. And you were right that the Fett line did seem to have a soft spot for children.

You and Fives exchanged a glance as he scooped up the child wrapped around his ankle, the two of you moved instinctively towards the comfy chair he’d dropped into with the kids earlier, collecting pillows and blankets from around the room on the way to it. Echo and Rex imitated you, recognizing the all too familiar nesting pile habits of their battalion.

Instinctively, all 3 men gathered to nestle around you, creating a circle for you and the little ones to snuggle into.

To your surprise, Fives found a way to nuzzle into your shoulder, despite the two small ones he had in his arms.

“They are darn cute, I’ll give ‘em that,” Echo muttered, watching the one that was still clinging to him.

“That’s Zed, we call him that because he’s always sleepy,” a tiny voice mumbled from Rex’s chest.

You all laughed again.

“And what’s your name, kid?” Rex asked, quietly.

But the only answer he received was a soft snore.

“Mmmm, now I’m hungry from all that playing around,” Fives lifted his head, and peered into the box Moxy was still clutching where he lay on your chest. “Anything left in there?”

You lifted your head to look in the box too, “Might actually be half a box still! I thought he’d eaten them all. Grab me one too, while you’re at it?”

Fives reached into the box and held up a cookie for you so you didn’t have to take your hands off the kids splayed on your chest and snuggled between you both.

You took a bite, and he shoved the rest of it into his own mouth.

“Thanks, Love.” You giggled and pecked his cheek, before returning your attention to Echo and Rex. “How are you gents doing? Content to snuggle there for a while? I’d rather not wake them if we don’t have to, or they’ll be running up the walls for another few hours just because they want to stay awake.”

Rex and Echo exchanged delighted glances and hummed their answers, nestling in for the night.

You turned back to Fives, “See? Easy!” You told him, kissing his forehead.

He laughed. “Which part? Telling Rex and Echo, or handling 5 kids?”

“Well, now that we have Rex and Echo here, both!” You told him, victoriously.

Fives stole another kiss from your lips.

A rustling noise and a shifting of the box in the small clone’s arms as Fives smiled against your lips told of his real plan: hiding a cookie theft with a kiss.

He broke away from your lips only to triumphantly stuff the entire cookie in his mouth.

You scoffed at him, playfully.

The box rustled again, and you raised a brow holding eyecontact with Fives.

He returned the look, puzzled, half a cookie still sticking out of his mouth as he tried desperately not to sprinkle cookie crumbs into the hair of the small brothers in his arms.

You both looked down to find Echo’s hand in the box.

He looked up at you sheepishly, eyes wide at getting caught, blinking owlishly at you. And then he broke into the same mischevious grin Fives had worn not five minutes before and retreated with a cookie of his own.

You were trying desperately not to laugh, else you’d jostle the numerous small heads and three adult ones currently leaning on or near you.

“Would you like a cookie too, Rex?” You offered, producing another one from the box.

“Well, I’m not gonna say no,” Rex teased.

“Good, as long as you boys all get the extra large quantities you need, we’ll be in good shape.” You giggled, handing over the tasty treat, and fetching another one for yourself too.

The three men exchanged sheepish looks.

“I know, you boys all eat more than the average person. And I’m glad of it. Food rarely goes bad around here. But we might need to find a steady supply of large quantities of food so we don’t have to go shopping every single day.” You could already imagine it, not only would you enjoy the view of each of the handsome men crouched in front of the conservator day in and day out just like you had since you joined them, but more than likely, they’d always share the space with a smaller version of themselves each time now too. The thought put a smile on your face as you stared deep into Fives’ eyes, more than happy with your joint, spur of the moment decision to keep a whole squad of cadets.

Echo hummed next to you, “I’ve got a few ideas already,” he yawned. “Never fear, Uncle Echo is here! Hmm, I like the sound of that. Uncle Echo. And Omega is gonna adore these little guys…” Echo leans over and kisses your cheek too.

Fives laughs at that.

“Hmm, then maybe I should try to be less mischievous, you lot already have that covered,” Rex also uses the opportunity to kiss your hand, and you bite your lip.

Fives steals another passionate kiss from you, grinning into it. “Maybe Omega can babysit when we need a night that’s just the two of us on occasion,” Fives nudges your cheek with his nose.

Echo laughs into your side. “I think Wrecker and Hunter would be delighted to help her wrangle the whole little squad. I’ll bring you to Pabu in the morning so they can meet them.”

“We haven’t even had the kids for 2 full days yet, Echo,” You chuckle.

“We have a big family, we can’t help it,” Fives answers. ”I want all the guys to meet them. We’ll do Pabu in the afternoon. Let them take around this base in the morning. It’ll be fun,” he mumbles, sleep starting to take hold of him too. ”Howzer promised to give me some tips he learned from the Twilek family he worked with for so long tomorrow. Pabu can be a dinner thing.”

“I’ll tell Hunter we’re bringing dinner tomorrow then,” Rex yawned.

Suddenly Echo held out a datapad, over the bundle of sleepy faces. “Smile you three, we need a holo of this.”

But you and Fives could only look at each other, with the biggest grins as you pressed your foreheads together in a keldable kiss, proud of your little family.

“Could you two get any cuter?” Echo nudged you playfully.

Zed, nestled between you and Echo, stirred in his sleep.

“Shhh, sleep time now, gents, we can finish planning in the morning,” you instructed, secretly admiring that you had just surrounded yourself with identical faces of men and boys you very much adored. You hummed contentedly.

“Just one more kiss,” Fives whispered mischievously, sneaking a peck at your lips before snuggling in for the night.

Omega gasped loudly, bouncing on the balls of her feet when she saw Echo, Rex, Fives, and Fives’ partner exiting the ship together, wrangling a whole miniature squad of their own at their knees and bundled in their arms, and boxes of what appeared to be take out in various bags and hands.

“Baby brothers!” Omega gushed, scooping up the nearest one.

Wrecker scooped her and the little one up into a big hug, and carried them over to the tree in the middle of the square, then picking up the small ones clinging to his belt to put them up on the grass beside her.

Echo decided to take a page from your book, and just straight up handed one of the kids to Hunter without saying anything.

Hunter took the kid and just watched it in awe for a moment.

“Are you a brother too?” The kid asked.

“Hmm?… yeah… yeah I am, kid,” Hunter beamed.

The kid smiled and tucked himself into Hunter’s chest.

Hunter visibly melted, closing his eyes and cradling the child gently in his arms.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at a smug Echo.

“Told you, you had a soft spot for kids.” Echo patted him on the back and walked away to join Wrecker and Omega as they taught the kids how to climb a tree.

“That’s Zed, he likes snuggles,” You told Hunter from somewhere behind him.

Hunter turned to face you, and found you standing there with Fives wrapped around you from behind.

“And… they’re your kids now?” Hunter asked, incredulous. Looking like he would never be ready to give Zed back to you.

“Yeah, we’ve been tracking down where the young clones were taken when Kamino was decommissioned. First rescue was a few night ago. Two ships full of little ones ready for homes of their own went to Pantora and Alderaan the day before yesterday.”

“We couldn’t help but keep this lot when their little voices asked us to be their parents,” Fives chimed in.

“They asked you to be their parents?” Hunter seemed almost jealous, if you were reading him correctly.

“Do you want us to bring a batch here?” You asked.

Hunter just looked at the little one in his arms, content to be held as it watched people move around the square.

“That’s a yes,” Fives answered for him.

Hunter gave Fives a look. “I see why Echo calls you the mischievous one,” he comments, a brow raised.

Rex laughs loudly, “Oh. No. Echo is just as mischievous.”

“Like that?” A snide voice joins the conversation as Crosshair approaches, making sure to keep some distance from the kid in Hunter’s arms, as he jabs a toothpick towards the tree before returning it to his lips.

You all look over to discover Echo in the tree with the young ones, while Wrecker and Omega protect them from below.

“Exactly like that,” Rex agrees, shaking his head at his trooper's antics.

“Anyways, would you like to babysit them sometime?” Fives asks Hunter and Crosshair with a sly grin.

“No.”

“Yes!”

Hunter and Crosshair answer at the same time, Crosshair glares at Hunter.

“Come on, Cross. You’ll warm up to them eventually.” Hunter prods, pointedly watching the kid in his arms instead of Crosshair.

“Omega was different,” Crosshair protests. “Like us.” He states as though he’s trying to convince himself not to get attached to the small face clinging to Hunter’s collar.

“Uh huh,” Hunter is not convinced, he knows his brother too well for that.

…Later you swear you spot one of the kids gifting Crosshair a flower he picked from the tree, and you’re pretty sure Crosshair wears it in his shirt pocket all evening.

But it’s hard to say for certain, especially when Fives sweeps you off your feet and carries you into your ship, heading straight for the bedroom…

Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!

taglist: @cw80831 @deewithani

#fives x reader #arc fives x reader #zenith writes #fives lives #fives lives au #tcw fives x reader

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skyrim-said-that · 9 months

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do you have. mod recs. i need more mods and am having trouble finding ones which are not asscentric. my computer is shared i cant have ass mods.

ok i have a bit of time to do this, ill go alphabetically, but keep in mind that obviously most mods require SKSE and each have their own dependencys

and also that i play legendary edition so i have all the DLCs (Even tho i haven't played them rly). also they like. are allegedly all compatable because my game does still work, but if they fuck up yours uh. my bad. im also omitting a bunch that like. i have them but really they dont make the list

also i have a lot of food mods, dont ask why because i dont have the answer. green highlighted mods are my favs

About Horses

Makes horses look like real horses. my inner horsegirl shines on

A Skyrim Kiss - Smooch that fictional character!

A Skyrim Waltz - Dance with them too!

Ur gonna need FNIS for these two

Babettes Feast - Improved Cooking

Adds a bunch of different immersive recipes to the game, i really like this sort of mod when im playing with hunger/thirst mods

Bandolier - Bags and Pouches

this is such a good mod if youre a huge packrat. adds a bunch of craftable wearable storage options like belts and stuff that up your carryweight!

Better Vanilla Hair - Mesh replacement

Just a visual mod that smooths out the blockyness of the hair, without changing it too much. it still like. fits in the game

Beards - Beard texture overhaul

Bosmeri Cuisine - Meat Based Recipies

adds a bunch of recipes inspired by the Green Pact lore, stuff thats completely carnivorous like fried eggs, pemmican and more

Books of Skyrim

Adds a bookstore in solitude so you can hoard more books

Breezehome - Fully Upgradable

I love this mod, it makes it so you can majorly upgrade breezehome with more floors, a whole blacksmith setup, bathroom, and a ton more!

Combine Potions

Corners of skyrim - More structures

i love mods like this, it just adds like different little cabins and shit all around for u to find when youre exploring

Cooking Expanded

Common Clothes

Adds craftable regular clothes for playing dressup

Daedric Shrines - Sanguine

Adds a sexy man to my life

Flying Crows

Female Mannequins

Footprints - Adds npc/player/animal prints in the snow

Helgen Reborn - Rebuilding the hold

i have a thing for building mods, i love them. i dont know why but its so fun its like playing home improvement sim. but in skyrim. this one has a really fun questline too, its really fun and well written!

Ineed - Food, water and sleep

i mean, self explanatory again but adds a system for needs. I like that its really adjustable so if you find it harsh you can tone it down.

Immersive Armours

Self explanitory but also a really great mod! very immersive armors that look great!

Immersive Citizens - Ai Overhaul

Its like if the npcs actually were functional

Immersive Weapons

see above but for weapons!

Lanterns of Skyrim

ok technically i have the old version of this but im sure its the same, it adds a bunch of lanterns on the paths all around skyrim

Left Hand Rings

Lovely Hairstyles - Immersive hair

Marriage Mod - To have and to hold

this one updates the weddings so theyre a little more in depth as well as adds the options for multiple marriages. also adds a few quests!

Marks of Beauty - Freckles moles and more!

Racemenu - Player creation overhaul

I feel like most people have this one but if you love character creation this is the one, its so good and you can fuck with EVERYTHING

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul

Guys i really like this one, it adds a TON of dialogue for your spouses , followers, etc and they're all just ripped from existing dialogue so they don't sound out of place or anything! i love it

Sweet Mother - Night mother improvement

Sounds of skyrim - complete edition

i love these mods they basically overhaul the ambient sounds all over the game, i especially love how real they make the forests feel!

Scars of Time - a Landmark mod

more structures and landmarks across skyrim. im a whore for this stuff

Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim

SUCH a good mod. adds a whole bunch of shrines for the different faiths in tes lore, as well as different benefits for choosing them. its so cool like i cant explain it

#welp. have fun lol #skyrim #skyrim mod list #guys this took like an hour and a half to put together #and NO ASS MODS!#tes #i miss the old nexus mod manager yall

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neonartistycauseidk · 17 days

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Sooooo….. tell me about this rtc x catcf au of urs…. 😈😈😈😈

HOOOOOOOOGHH HUHUUUHUHHU!!! You’re asking for it!!!!

Okay, so, I’ve been thinking about this concept for the past couple months or so, and I’ve just finally settled on the roles (at least for the kids, Karnak is another thing in and of itself)…

Let’s go in order of song for the kids (in terms of roles):

Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg: Miranda Mary Piker

Noel Gruber: Violet Beauregarde

Mischa Bachinski: Mike Teavee

Ricky Potts: Charlie Bucket

Jane Doe: Veruca Salt

Constance Blackwood: Augustus Gloop

OKAY I’VE GOT SOME EXPLAINING TO DO…

Miranda Mary Piker is one of Dahl’s scrapped characters for the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” book and was originally intended to be the daughter of a school master who HATED the idea of holidays/breaks from school/work and wanted to straight up ban them. In the story, she “died” after ending up inside (I believe it was referred to as) “spotty-powder machine” and, assumably, turned into spotty powder. Coming out of the factory, Miranda had red/orange spots on her face…and even in some versions…began to laugh uncontrollably as beforehand, she was a very “no-funny business” girl.

That aside, in my headcannons for her, Miranda was heavily pressured by her parents to be “a winner” and “the best of the best.” This kind of mentality sticks with Miranda and is tough to break out of. With that being said, what role fits our little over-achiever better than Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg?

Now onto Violet…Idk…it just…sorta made sense to me? If I included Marvin Prune (another of Dahl’s scrapped characters) he’s likely fill this role—-but since he’s not, Violet was the next best option. It’s half because I headcannon her as a lesbian and half because I think she and Miranda would have a rivalry with one another (like Ocean and Noel), mainly because of their strict parents who force them into reaching the “highest heights possible” in life. Also, since she’d be a female Noel…instead of Monique being her alter-ego, instead it’d be filled by “Jean Gibeau”…a male version of Monique. (She’d also change into more masculine clothing for her song).

Okay, I think this next one shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise…I mean…“The angriest boy in town”? Who do we know who fits that to a ‘T’? Well, Mike, of course! There’s also, of course all of his dialogue revolving around his phone and social media so…I mean…yeah. I get why people would cast him as Ricky (due to him being imaginative/a literal genius) but…idk, this just makes more sense to me.

Next, Charlie…Your ideas for him as Constance work VERY well…however, hear me out on this one! Hear me out! So, what do we know about Charlie? He aspires to be an inventor/chocolatier just like Wonka and is INCREDIBLY imaginative…Now, what was Ricky’s title again? “The most imaginative boy in town”…LISTEN…I MEAN…ITS LITERALLY IN THE NAME. Many people also headcannon that Charlie’s a genius, like Wonka, so—-for me, at least, it’s not too much of a stretch for him to say all of those “groundbreaking/intelligent” lines. Also, just as a note, “Space Age Bachelor Man” would be re-written to better fit his character since…uh…the cat-love stuff isn’t really…Charlie’s forte, lets say. (I feel like the name should be changed to “Space Age Candyman”, thoughts? And yes, he’s still in space…Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator exists after all).

Now…Veruca. Listen, even though I think it’d make sense to have Miranda as Jane (due to her LITERALLY being a scrapped character, thus limiting who knows her story and name) BUT…In this universe, Veruca being Jane almost makes sense. See, many people headcannon that Jane/Penny’s parents were never really there for her, per-say, and who do we also know aren’t really there for their kid? The Salts. Sure, they spoil her…but spoiling isn’t love. If anything…it turns people into monsters. But in this au, Veruca doesn’t turn into an angry, fear-mongering little rich girl…in fact, it actually leads her to become lonely and feel she isn’t loved by anyone…So, naturally, at St. Cassains (lets just say the story takes place in Uranium, still) Veruca is outcasted and seen as “the weird girl” who comes from that really rich family that nobody really knows too much about other than their famous nut business. Also, can’t leave this out…in the broadway version (referencing “Veruca’s Nutcracker Sweet”) she is LITERALLY TORN APART LIMB FROM LIMB. That includes, of course…her head.

Finally, Augustus. Yes, again, Charlie and Constance makes sense…however, something about Augustus and Constance just…fits for me. In WWATCF specifically, there isn’t a lot of evidence leading to Augustus being a jerk or even a “rotten kid” despite his parents kinda just…giving him more food to eat and him being a foodie. In fact, I’d argue any bad behaviors of Augustus are just endorsed by his parents and never addressed because…well, they caused it. (The same argument could be made for literally any of the other kids and their parents…but I digress). Anyway, in this au, Augustus never had these types of problems with his parents (or unhealthy relationships with food)…and I think that without all of that? Augustus would be a very good kid. Not a Charlie, per-say…but a good kid with a big heart. And because of that? The title of “nicest girl (or rather boy) in town” works quite nicely. It’s the only thing he’s really known for, really. His kindness…and…well…thats about it. Oh, except for the fact that his parents own the best bakery in town, of course! (Yes, the butcher shop is changed to the bakery in this…AND IT STILL FITS). Also, also…I headcannon that Augustus and Miranda would eventually end up as close friends…perhaps even lovers (blackrose, anyone?) in the future…so, in this world…bestie Augustus and Miranda just works.

So uh…that’s my casting! For the kids, anyway…Karnak I’m stuck between it being Wonka or Mr. Wilkinson (from the 1971 movie)…I’m leaning more towards Wonka because of certain headcannons I have that would make this au…EVEN SADDER.

Any more questions? (You have no idea how happy I am that I’m getting asked about this!!! EEEEEEEEE!!!!

“I’ve waited YEARS for someone to ask me about theories…! Hang on, I made a model!!! :)”

#willy wonka and the chocolate factory #charlie and the chocolate factory #catcf #wwatcf #wwatcf au #ride the cyclone #ride the cyclone au #Miranda Mary Piker #violet beauregarde #mike teavee #charlie bucket #veruca salt #augustus gloop #Omg…I just realized how long this post got…Sorry Jellyfish XD

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randomnameless · 10 days

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Land 5 aka before the final boss done !

Albion...

Well, it has a city named Bordeaux !

Ça fait un bail que Bordeaux et l'Aquitaine ne sont plus aux mains de la perfide Albion !

What else can I say...

The final stage bgm was kickass, I loved the architecture and the "subquests" with goats and the character who turns ennemies green was... A thing lol. Still Nigel isn't a deadweight so that's something nice.

Plot wise...

Ugh.

If anyone got it better than I do then please help me lol, because from what I understood, the pope (hereditary title in this verse) got only one child (tfw your line is super special magical plot related but you only get one kid) and told both of his right arms, Nigel and Sanatio, that they should never speak of her to anyone, including themselves.

So... Nigel secured Scarlett far away (uh...) 6 years ago and didn't tell Sanatio, per the pope's orders, Sanatio knew Scarlett existed but since her existence must remain secret, per the pope's orders, he... Uh... Never knew where she was ?

So when the pope decided to fold against the evil empire, and subsequently later died (something Gharnef is pissed about, because the pope's line is the only one able to destroy mc guffins) Sanatio thought that he had to pretend the pope was still alive to make sure Albion and the Orthodoxy would not descend into chaos ?? Like, Nigel couldn't tell him that "I shipped Scarlett to parevia aka an island that is as far from Albion as the UK is from France, under her dad's orders some years ago, let's find her to both protect and mount a resistance against the empire ?"

I knew Albion was scrapped because bankruptcy and all, but damn if in a game where Gilbert, Virginia, hell Alain and to an extent Yunifi and Morad exist, this felt contrived as fuck.

Besides, I know you are technically able to go to Albion before doing bastorias, Drakengard or Elheim (Bastorias or Elheim must be done though) but damn if doing things in order paints Scarlett in a crap light, after Erigor and witnessing the elves zombies and learning about the occupation in both Cornia and Drakengard with mysterious plagues around, and we open Albion with Scarlett worrying about her dad (while she was there when Galerius told us he was dead !) and wanting to show Alain the place where she picked up flowers when she was younger.

Special mention to her former childhood friend Raelys (?) with whom she reunites and wants to go to their special flower field again... Only to be ambushed by Raelys because while childhood memories are nice and all, Raelys' younger brother was taken hostage and she wants to save him.

Then we have Fodoquia's backstory... And Scarlett looks like an ass, especially for someone who was basically supposed to inherit Albion, who never cared about her country and her people.

Still in the few subsequent chapters she expresses her desire to help the people of Albion and her care for them (with still the memetic "I always thought about you" to get childhood friend when a majority of her rapports so far where about Alain, her feelings for him and jealousy at the other female leads or fluff) so there's that.

Ultimately I believe this discrepency is both due to the game being short on money but also the writers having wrote Scarlett as the "ojou" archetype, when the elf twins, even with their 5 lines about the plot of their land, and to some extent, Virginia and Yunifi/Ramona are concerned about their homes and people and written as such.

Plot happens and it's revealed, the empire is actually full of body surfers who were banned to the shadow realm for having sacrificed an unicorn and their big plan is to transmigrate everyone in living bodies, Scarlett's line is special because her magical powers are the result of experiments on humans with blood/parts/powers (?) of an unicorn, the failed results were duds and gave birth to the feathered people (angels) but Scarlett's ancestor was a success, the Cornian royal line is also special because it was founded by a young woman who was the only one granted immortality and not banished to the shadow realm eons ago, so she got some magic powers but gave up her immortality, and the laguz were originally elves who decided to become laguz so their bodies couldn't be snatched, but they forgot how to turn back.

Anyhow, for all of the unicorn imagery Alain got, I found it cool that the "our line was founded by the Maiden in the Unicorn and Maiden duo" thing is/was referenced in Ilenia/Virginia's skillset, it sort of helped to lessen the "uwu Alain is the saviour and chosen one" thingie that hits especially hard after Drakengard and Gilbert's last convo where he confesses he and Drakengard in general have always been jealous of cornia, so learning only Cornia's king can be the "chosen one" to get rid of the evil ghost empire...

Also, since you can skip Drakengard to reach that point and ignore her existence, I guess the "Alain saviour bcs he descends from the Maiden and has the magic ring" feels even weirder when Virginia is also in the party, but she can't equip the magic ring (granted if Alain were to die, would Virginia be able to equip it plot wise ?)

Fwiw, even if Gerard's infinity +1 sword can be used by Alain, I gave his magic ring to Virginia, his other grandkid by beating his ass with the Tricorns, plot be damned.

I mean, I usually dgaf about chosen ones plots, but when the second arc was all about a potential claimant/heir accepting to stand down and let their sib/cousin run the show, the game saying "only sib/cousin can save the world" feels a bit like a slap lol

Alain gave the "totally not-engagement ring" to Joseph, his dad in all but blood, and I rounded up several rapport conversations (wtf was Fodoquia and Bryce's lol) and mini quests.

Units wise... Ramona works well with the angels who have their discharge skill lol, and Bertrand spinning with his hammer will never cease to be hilarious.

I'm sure I'm not using Berengeria well though, because now she keeps on dying (ffs you have a giant shield can you just use it for once ??)... But Bruno makes up by hitting like a truck.

#Unicorn overlord stuff #Otherwise it's a solid game #The plot is standard but it's well told #Leah tried to take her revenge in the arena with a Drakengard team ft Virginia bcs why not #Virginia was the only one standing after Amalia's ssj transformation #Lol #Morad is a big softy I love him #He's upset bcs Ramona sew a cute lion patch in his armor #He does theater for the kids #We Stan a king lol #I'm still not over the 2k sandwiches in Albion

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bandtrees · 1 month

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tell me about milton the presidential pool boy

SEND ME A CHARACTER AND I'LL...

OFC <3 i will do these solidly in uh... the order i remember to :D yay. milt is the perfect character to do this with though because my highly specific headcanon realities for him in particular are UNMATCHED. UNDER A READMORE—

Sexuality Headcanon: BISEXUAL ICON. also polyamorous of course, and objectum - which is obviously not a feeling he has words for but it’s part of what drives his initial attraction to marla and callum, his attraction to the objects in particular while they’re a novelty. i figured it would be an interesting segue into him being desperate to keep his ‘human’ face if it already stuck out in their relationship - but in a way he finds hot, lol. til it’s not anymore of course.

fun fact, in my milton fic that lays out a lot of what i basically imagine for him, i scrapped a line during him and callum’s arguments that would have been, in response to callum becoming more obsessed with the dialup/innovation overall, him trying to reassure callum that he would’ve loved him even without his object head - but of course he wouldn’t be able to lie like that, and would hold his tongue. it would’ve been a parallel to the last milt/marla scene, buuut i couldnt find a place to squeeze it in, lol.

Gender Headcanon: plain ol cisgender gentleman 👍

A ship I have with said character: WHITE HOUSE POLYCULE MY BELOVED. i am so very fond of callum+milt+marla you have no idea the mental illness i gave myself with them. i am a huge sucker for polyamorous ships and the amount of tragic potential with literally every combination of these three drives me fucking insane.

A BROTP I have with said character: i am sure him and norm would have a lot to talk about if they ever were to personally meet, lol.

A NOTP I have with said character: ...well here’s the thing about that. jokes aside though, if i can cheat and say “an existing interpretation of a ship i do like”, i do love callum/milt a lot, but i am specifically really not into the interpretation that it was an affair situation. for a lot of reasons - only one of them is that i’m as attached to the polyamory headcanon as i am. for starters, dubious a figure as he is, i don’t think callum would Do That, both morally and because i think a lot of his personality revolves around the fact that he only really views his life in service to other people and i can’t see him being that underhanded unless it was for a cause he really thought was just. when i think the problem with him is that he abandons his personal relationships for those causes.

that and, like… it just sidelines marla in a way i don’t like. dialtown, all my love to it, kind of already has a problem with its gender ratios and such and i don’t think regaling the female character in the equation to a beard or “The Wife” or whatever is fair — not to say i think every woman has to be shipped, but i just find her having an active role in callum+milt’s relationship way more interesting than any alternative. let her fujosh it out smh. plus i’m bisexual and will always take a well-thought out m/f ship over m/m ships that are just kinda there.

A random headcanon: lax as he appears, especially compared to callum, he has a lot of resentment in that weird little heart of his. he has an obsessive attachment to his own humanity, in a “weathered and it’s all i have” sense — being in wars made it so he felt a lot of his body wasn’t his own, but he wasn’t prepared to ‘lose’ it to the dialup, either. in a world where callum managed to actually force him to get an object head, he still would’ve committed suicide… after taking crown down with him, of course.

i also like stylizing him as having a black censor bar in place of a face :] with his trademark lil hat visible ofc lol.

General Opinion over said character: I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY FUCKING LIKE HIM. both my insanely specific headcanons and the framework that dogman themself has put down for him. he’s very interesting and some of the bleakest dialtown’s story has gotten - which inherently intrigues me a lot. i think he has potential for a perspective on dt’s story we really don’t see that much of - that being how the dialup must have felt at the time, and how genuinely horrifying it would have been.

i also, for a while - and this is really ironic coming from me - really really did not like milton. not for anything to actually do with him - i just really liked callum crown and, before learning who milton was, was incensed that so many people seemed to be more attached to what i thought was a throwaway name than his actual lore, lol. now i know better of course. now i have become fucking insane, at that

⬆ I LIKE HIM VERY MUCH

#babbles #dialtown #milton r wallace

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jamneuromain · 2 years

Text

Mr. & Mrs. Levinson

Ari Levinson x Original Female Character (Anna)

Warning: Angst and Smut, Eventual Smut, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Domestic Violence (sort of), Cursing, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex.

A fusion of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Word count: 11k.

Summary: Being enemies saved their marriage.

3 p.m.

"How long have you been married?"

"Six years." "Seven years." They said at the same time, not forgetting to glance at each other when they heard the other's answer.

"Six or seven years." Ari chose what he thought was a compromising answer and cleared his throat, "Actually, we've been married for so long that this is just a routine checkup, you know? Similar to changing the oil, parts, or whatever for an airplane."

The marriage therapist kept his unchanging smile, gazing at the man as strong as a bear - and as hairy as a bear - and the petite woman beside him, "Sure, so let's pop the hood." He flipped open the notepad for his records and wrote something on it, "Let's start with the basics. How would you rate your marriage on a scale of one to ten?"

"Eight." "Uh, is ten is the highest score or...?"

Ari frowned and looked at his wife, who had been with him for six or seven years, sitting by his side: "He said one to ten, honey."

Anna leaned unhurriedly on the couch pillows, the very direction away from Ari: "I was just making sure. Don’t want to give the wrong answer, sweetheart."

The therapist cap the pen and snapped both of them back to attention, "That's okay, let's try again. Ten is the highest score. Are you ready? Three, two, one..."

"Eight." They both answered in unison.

"How is your sex life?" The therapist asked the next question.

Anna rubbed her fingers at the tip of her curly hair and paused for a moment upon hearing the question, "I'm sorry, is this a one to ten question or...?"

The therapist explained, "Just this week, how is your sex life? Oh, and feel free to rate it or just say how you feel about it."

Ari and Anna were uncharacteristically silent.

"Including weekends?" Ari asked, his furrowed brow not loosening.

"Including weekends."

Anna nodded thoughtfully.

They didn’t have sex this week. Neither did they last week. Nor did the week before.

How is one supposed to rate something non-existent?

She tried to remember the last time they'd had sex, which was about a month ago, and they'd both been drinking a little. She remembered they stopped midway. Why did they stop midway?

She remembered that she had gone to the training room to practice boxing before that and accidentally bruised her rear end. She asked him to turn off the lights in between kisses, and he thought it was no big deal, it wasn't like they hadn't seen each other naked. In the end, a simple question of turning off the lights made them break up the kiss and lose the passion to continue.

Ari always ripped orgasms after orgasms from her. It was all about passion and crude rough sex and it was fun.

It was.

Until the passion faded. And he lost his interest over a little question whether to turn off the lights.

Anna returned home, took off her silver wedding ring and put it away on the nightstand. She was fucking tired of everything. She promised Ari to try to see a therapist to salvage their marriage, but she also wanted to throw the fruit bowl in his face and tell him that marriage maintenance is not something she could do alone. She was tired of playing the good housewife at home while he came home some nights smelling of booze and women perfume and God knew where he had been fooling around. The only thing this jerk did well was that he never came home to her with signs of cheating on her: no hair, no lipstick marks, no nothing, as if the escort grinded on him and nothing more. She was tired of him always being the one making decisions, telling her what to do, even including this ridiculous therapy, which she thought was absolutely useless.

She wrinkled her apron, tossed clean frying pans and dishes into the sink to get them wet, then sat up on the bed and called for takeout.

She basically hadn't cooked in seven years of marriage, and she wasn't going to today.

At 7 p.m., Ari came home on time.

"Good evening honey." He greeted her without looking up as he returned the steady stream of texts with one hand. On the other end of the phone was his DHS supervisor, sending him some key information for his next mission.

Anna had the frilly apron on her and spatula in hand, wanted to open her mouth to greet him, but was furious at the way he greeted her without even lifting his head. She turned temporarily back to the kitchen and sprinkled more sugar and salt on one of the steaks frying in the pan to make sure it was cooked until it was overcooked.

Ari hung up his coat and wondered if the kitchen noise was too loud to muffle his greeting. He stowed his phone properly in his pocket and leaned against the kitchen doorway, raising his voice slightly: "Good evening, honey."

Anna flashed him an impeccable smile, "Good evening. Go wash your hands, dinner will be on the table in a minute." Only when he was completely out of sight did the smile on Anna's face collapse, the meat cleaver in her hand stabbing an inch into the wooden chopping board. A greeting without even looking up? Did his mother ever teach him manners?

At the dinner table, Ari and Anna engaged in some routine small talk, such as Anna asking him how his day went and if he encountered any tough problems; Ari asked Anna back if she had a good day in Wall Street.

Anna was a financial analyst on Wall Street, at least, that was her cover. True, her workplace was located in a tall building on Wall Street, but that floor was used for surveillance, analysis and operational planning by the NSA, of which she is a member. After years of hard work, Anna had successfully risen to the position of chief of operations for the NSA's New York State Division. Most of the time she sat in her office facing the computer as she would if she were a financial analyst, but there were times when she needed to be on the ground to solve some variables during missions.

Across the table, Ari sliced off a piece of beef with some brute force and popped it into his mouth. The sweet and salty flavor instantly overwhelmed all his taste buds and he choked and coughed. He spat out the unchewable beef and wiped his mouth with a napkin: "Honey, the beef is too salty."

Anna tugged her lips into a light smile, a smile she felt a bit sorry for Ari: "Really?" She immediately added, "I'll put less salt next time."

Ari was tempted to say you should stop cooking, you haven't cooked well in the past six years. But for the sake of marital harmony, he chose to swallow the words along with the sweet and salty taste in his mouth. He made do with a barely palatable selection of vegetables and mashed potatoes and ate his dinner swiftly. Barely palatable. That was his euphemistic comment.

Ari's long, thick fingers lingered on the keyboard for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Honestly, he wondered how much longer their marriage would last. Two months? Three weeks? Four days? Their passion was no longer there, replaced by endless tedium. He believed they still loved each other, yet every day of marriage life was a wear and tear on that love. What they need was not novelty, which no longer had any place after the first six months of marriage. What they need was something that will sustain their relationship for a long time, the glue that will hold their broken lives together. He had to admit that the lack of togetherness was also a reason why their marriage was coming to an end, but there was no way he could make his schedule change. After all, the mission wouldn't pick his “supposedly” working hours to show up. He had to find one excuses after another: a temporary plane breakdown at the airport, a nice weekend with his fellow mechanics, a farewell to a fellow who was leaving.

This fake identity of an aircraft repair mechanic was not solid enough, but it's the best he can do. Ari sighed and tapped down two or three lines of a mission report.

"Hi, sweetheart. I got your coffee."

Anna appeared silently in front of his computer with a steaming cup of coffee: "What are you working on?"

"Jesus." he was startled by her sudden appearance and hit Alt and Tab simultaneously, "Nothing, honey, just the schematics."

"Oh, okay," she walked around the mahogany table and put her coffee in his hand, her eyes glancing at the computer screen. "Yeah SURE." Her big brown eyes lost that glint of smile, "I'll leave you alone."

Ari stiffly turned his head to look at the pornhub interface he had fumbled to place on the main screen, which contained the video of a topless woman bouncing up and down on a rubber dildo. Ari had no fucking idea why it was here, nor had he any interest of watching a woman fucking herself with a toy - apart from Anna.

This is definitely one of his most embarrassing moments. He lied to her about work, only to let her “find out” he was watching porn.

Great.

Just fucking great.

He rubbed his face with his palm: "Wait, Anna-"

Anna left the study without looking back: "You’ll sleep in the second bedroom tonight."

Less than half an hour later, Anna answered a phone call.

"Sorry, some shareholders in Wall Street is holding an emergency meeting, I need to go check." She calmly packed her handbag, put on her coat and left in a hurry.

Only after she left did Ari remember the party at Gray's house next door in an hour. They had promised to go last week.

The text he sent instead seemed cold and indifferent: "Don't forget Gray's party at nine."

"Okay."

Her reply was even briefer.

"Your man?" Jennifer, dressed in plain clothes, joked about it before Anna pressed the lock button on her phone.

Anna tied her hair up, avoided the question:" Do you know any divorce lawyer?"

Jennifer thought for a moment, "I remember Natalie from the other department almost got divorced," she took out her work tablet and cross-referenced everyone's schedules, "I'll set up a meeting for you with her tomorrow at 10:30, I think she's free at that time. "

"Jenni-"

Anna hadn't actually thought about finding a lawyer. Marital property, prenuptial property, real estate ...... Gosh, they didn't have a prenuptial agreement. Now that she thought about it, it was an unforgivable mistake for them to get married.

At least not signing a prenup accounted for eighty-nine percent of the mistake.

She made that number up, but she quickly made up the remaining eleven percent.

Ten percent was his frequent disappearances.

One percent was their size difference.

"It's already booked." Jennifer arranged it without a word, "Besides, what could go wrong with just talking?" They spoke as they made the final adjustments before the mission began.

"The target is Friedrik Karls Vogelbaum, male, sixty-five years old. Our mission is to transfer a flash drive from the target containing information of a new biological virus, sufficient to destroy a half of the Earth's population. Note that Mr. Vogelbaum has just lost a deal with an international arms dealer Morian, so he will do everything in his power to protect the case containing the flash drive, and there may be multiple parties coming to seize it. I expect everyone to cooperate properly in recovering the high-risk item, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Everyone in the tiny camouflaged van responded in unison.

"Very well." Anna sat in the middle of the chair as electronic screens lit up around the perimeter showing various street-level surveillance, Anna adjusted her headset, "Agent Weiss, do you copy?"

"Very clear, Agent."

Anna switched the headset channel and methodically gave one order after another, "I want the traffic lights at 15th Street and Northwest Avenue locked so the target can't cross the street; standard follow up, one up front and one behind the target, don't draw any unnecessary attention. Do we have eyes across the street? Good. "

Inside the tiny van, the four mission support members of the operation team held their breath.

The plan was to set an agent to attract Vogelbaum's attention, followed by a second agent to switch the case.

Unfortunately, Vogelbaum held the case so tightly the entire time, that the team had to improvise a surprise by having someone on a bicycle run Vogelbaum over and then take advantage of their distraction to swap the case.

The mission went very well overall.

Except for Anna, who pretended to be a passerby to help the bike-riding agent out of trouble, which wasn't exactly pleasant. She had to pretend to be surprised by asking Vogelbaum if he was international movie star Mads Mikkelsen, asking him to pose for a photo and sign a napkin. Otherwise, judging by the way Vogelbaum grabbed the cycling agent and looked him in the eyes, it would not end well.

She took off the beanie she'd pulled off randomly on the street and Jennifer's big black-rimmed glasses and returned to the van. Jennifer handed her a tissue to help her wipe away the fake freckles and moles, temporarily dotted with a marker on her only mere seconds ago.

"Thanks." Anna smoothly put the marker in her pocket and borrowed some water to clean her face.

Agent Weiss and two others circled back to the NSA's New York headquarters and opened the case as the entire ops team watched.

The case was empty.

Max Grey is one of those typical neighbors you want next-door. If Max lives in some lucky neighborhood, then everyone not only enjoys a barbecue party every month or two, but also receives the occasional cake, cookie or pie from his wife.

Max and his wife, Loreen Gray, don't have any noisy children yet. Admittedly, they are preparing to have one, but not yet. That's something that makes them better neighbors.

The Levinsons showed up at Gray's door with smiles on their faces, even though they were late. The Grays were kind enough to let them join the house party, and Max shoved a cold beer in Ari's hand and invited him to sit on the “men's side”. Sometimes, Ari wished he wasn't so big. He looked like he's the boss of some notorious biker gang in his form-fitting leather jacket. And some obvious male psychology suggested that all the men in the room were trying for the Alpha position in the crowd. This meant most of the men would be hostile to him from the moment he entered the room. But his years as a secret agent have allowed Ari to blend in like a fish in water, picking up a few jokes, clinking glasses (or bottles, in this case) with the men around him, and showing a funny but not overly standing-out profile to the others.

He raises his beer bottle to his lips and looks across the living room to the "ladies' side," where Anna was with Loreen, sat among all the ladies with bubbly water. She looked a bit overwhelmed, he thought as he swallowed his cold beer.

Anna was indeed very overwhelmed.

For the love of the computer gods, moms and soon-to-be moms all around are fucking talking about having kids and raising kids and nursing kids. Anna was an only child and had very little contact with her bloodsucking relatives, and she was surrounded by partying and clubbing women - in short, no one had children, not her friends, not her family, certainly not herself. She also did not know how to raise children, this kind of topic she naturally did not have the slightest clue.

Mrs. Brown, who lived across the street from the Levinsons, needed to go to the bathroom. She handed Anna Teddy Brown, her one-year old son and rushed off. Loreen, however, gave Anna a chance to be a mom, which included ideas on how to hold the little one and how to make him laugh. The more she listened, the more Anna suspects that Loreen was partly encouraging her to become a mother. Anna's hand was free to poke Teddy's fleshy cheek, but Teddy flattened his mouth, lost interest in the toy and the stranger, and turned around to cry for his mom.

Fortunately, Mrs. Brown came back in time to take the hot potato away from Anna.

So much for having a kid and enjoying the domestic life.

"Why are you home late today?" Ari asked as they washed up before bedtime, spitting out a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

Anna put on a hydrating mask, smeared essence on her neck and said carelessly, "The shareholders were arguing about the final investment decision."

"So they finally agreed?"

"Can't tell you that, sweetheart," Anna braided her medium-length hair and her tone grew vaguely impatient, "I've told you. The BRC prevents people working in finance-related industries from disclosing relative information."

Anna's impatience stemmed not only from something Ari could never remember, but also from the fact that she had been scolded by her boss at the end of today's mission. Of course, she excused her team and took the blame for the problem. They had repeatedly gone over the surveillance footage of the mission, and found that every step of the mission was accurate, so it could only be that their intelligence had been faulty. Looks like another organization had targeted the highly dangerous biological information Vogelbaum was carrying and taken the flash drive before they did.

Her boss, Mr. Samson, also knew this. Yet the loss of the flash drive was concluded as the major failure in their mission, whether it was in the damn case in the first place or not. From that moment on, everyone had to work overtime to review frame by frame how and when the flash drive was lost.

If she hadn't said she had to go back to a neighborhood party and insisted it would help her keep her fake identity, Samson might have let her stay on this floor all night watching surveillance with everyone else.

"Go back to that party of yours, and next time don't let the your life get in the way of work." Samson waved his hand and dismissed her.

She muttered under her breath, "Soon it won’t be."

2:30 a.m. Ari tossed and turned in the second bedroom alone, unable to sleep. Not only was the bed here harder than the master bedroom, but there was no Anna nestled in his arms. He cursed in annoyance and got out of bed to try the master bedroom. Anna used to let him sleep in the second bedroom when she was angry with him. Although she would lock the door every time, Ari would quietly use the backup key to open the door in the middle of the night and go back to Anna's side in the master bedroom before he could sleep peacefully.

He unlocked the door with a click, but the next second the smile on his face faded when the door wouldn't budge at all. He got down and peeked at the bottom of the bedroom door and found a small door stopper taped to the inside of the door. Six years ago, when they were first married, Anna and he had a falling out. Using the key to open the door, he had unfortunately knocked over her bottle of expensive foundation in the dark. The next thing he knew, she yelled at him to fuck off.

Shit. He thought to himself that there was no way he could get back to Anna without her noticing.

He tried the bedroom window for the next hour, but also hit a wall. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he hit the lock, as the window was locked up. Even if he chose to break the window, he didn't think he'd be able to get back to Anna tonight. Shit.

Ari rubbed his overgrown hair and paced back to the study. His supervisor had just sent him a video of the street surveillance, asking him to carefully screen it for suspicious people. The overall blue-gray-toned video was watermarked six hours ago, about the same time when Anna went out for a meeting. He was also out, to carry out his mission.

His mission was to use the opportunity created for him by the other agents to steal a flash drive from the case of an old biology professor. The professor was sitting in the hotel lobby an hour ago after his deal with arms dealer Morian fell through, and DHS engineered a clumsy waiter to break six glasses on top of the hotel tiles while he entered the deciphered code to open the case, took out the flash drive, closed it and retreated. The whole mission took less than ten minutes, but he didn't tell Anna he went out. Sneaking out when she had something to do was not something honorable, yes, he would admit that. But Ari did not want to lie either, at least not to her hopeful eyes.

Ari casually pulled on his pajama pants and went to the study to open his laptop. He didn't bother to turn on the light, otherwise, it would have woken her up. Now, he didn't know the reason behind not turning on the light was whether he was afraid he would wake her up and they would fight, or he was afraid she wouldn't react at all to his outlandish behavior. He squinted against the harsh light of the computer screen, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sifted through suspicious characters.

He paused the video at the spot where Vogelbaum had been hit and stumbled on the sidewalk. Here Vogelbaum's suitcase was knocked off into the blind spot of the surveillance, not even a shadow could be seen. And the cyclist wore windproof glasses and a scarf covering his mouth and nose, so tightly covered that he simply could not get the technician to zoom in and extract the facial data. Vogelbaum grabbed the bicyclist and demanded an explanation, from the look of the video, and someone handed the furious old man the case from the blind spot. But the hand only appeared for a moment, while all other angles of the surveillance were high and fuzzy.

Another dead end. He sighed.

Pedestrians bustled past Vogelbaum, nothing out of the ordinary ...... His argument with the bicyclist lasted a few seconds, when a girl came from the other side of the street, grabbed Vogelbaum by the arm, pulled out her black cell phone, and took out a napkin and marker. The bicyclist took this moment to slip away.

Ari paused the video again by intuition. This beastly instinct had saved his life many times before in a hail of bullets. The girl wore large black-framed glasses and a beanie, and had a conspicuous black mole on her face. She showed at most half her face to the surveillance, but it was enough for picture refinement. There was a strange familiarity about this girl. It seems that the coat she wore was very similar to the one Anna owned. Ari's eyes fell on the corner of the surveillance video, where there was a small flash of light.

Ari reassured himself that he was overthinking it, and that Anna's phone was milky white. But he got up and went downstairs anyway. Tonight, Anna came back from a meeting and they went straight to Gray's house, where, as usual, her coat should be hanging by the door. As if to reassure herself, and to prove herself wrong, Ari quietly went to the door where the clothes were hanging.

He first saw the shiny pin on the collar. Nothing about this pin was fancy and delicate like everything else in this house was. He remembered that pin, he hand-made it as a gift for wedding anniversary. And then the bulge caught his eyes. It was unethical to look into his partners’ pockets, he knew that. But he reached his hands inside, and discovered a marker and a napkin.

Anna couldn’t sleep tonight. This wasn't her first failed mission, however, it was kind of her most frustrating one. It didn't feel good at all to have the drive taken away from her one step ahead of time. She got up and checked the new messages on her work phone in the faint moonlight.

"Jenni?"

Looking at the messages and ten missed calls from an hour ago, not the least of which was from her boss, Samson. She hesitantly called Jenni back.

"Anna, we checked the security footage from the hotel where Vogelbaum stayed a few hours ago." Jennifer's words had a shudder that was not easily detected, "We suspect he was hired by Morian when Vogelbaum's deal fell through. Ari Levinson is a false identity, Anna--" her phone was taken from her by Samson, his cold voice echoed her brain, "You have twelve hours to bring back Mr. Levinson to our New York headquarters. If you can't bring him back alive, interrogate him about the whereabouts of the flash drive. If you do not respond to our message in twelve hours, and not bringing back Levinson or the flash drive, then the NSA will use extreme measures against you. Do you copy, Agent?"

"Yes." She replied mechanically.

"Very well, I'll be waiting to hear from you." Samson hung up the phone forcefully and ordered the two agents beside him, "Put Agent in our holding cell." His indifferent face seemed to be a formulaic execution of the Agent Defection Manual, "Please understand, Agent., hand over your badge and sidearm."

Jennifer spread her badge and sidearm on the table, and before she was taken away by the two agents she said to Samson stubbornly, "I trust Anna. She's loyal to the NSA."

"That would be wonderful." Samson said grimly, "Then killing Mr. Levinson wouldn't be a problem for her if she had to, would it?"

Jennifer bit her lip. That was something she couldn't guarantee. She glared at the agent who shoved her and spat out, "I can walk by myself."

Anna rolled out of bed and removed her sidearm from the secret safe in her closet. Inside the safe laid her NSA identification badge, but she let it stay there. If Ari really was an enemy agent or a mercenary, it would be more dangerous for her to give him leverage.

There were also pistols strapped under the kitchen sink downstairs and at the bottom of the couch in the living room, both of which she'd better take for protection before confronting Ari. At this point, her mind was muddled: Ari? She had seen him fixing locomotives and trucks and planes. Was that a fake identity? Just his cover? She only had 12 hours, how could she subdue Ari, and get him to reveal the location of the flash drive? Or did he have the flash drive on him?

She opened the bedroom door as quietly as she could, not even noticing the second bedroom door was opened. Anna held her gun ready to fire. She never thought she would feel unsafe in her own house. She smiled bitterly, perhaps it would save the trouble of divorce. She stepped cautiously down the stairs one step at a time, the bright moonlight shining through the living room window on the Persian rug. The light brown, hard-to-wash, easy-to-stain Persian rug had been bought the year before when they had done a minor remodeling of the house. Their relationship wasn’t so bad then.

She took a deep breath and cleared her head. There's plenty of time for grief after this bullshit.

Geographically, with the kitchen pistol closer to her, she stepped down the last step of the stairs and turned toward the vast darkness of the kitchen.

"Good evening, honey."

Ari sat wide open in her usual spot, his right index finger firmly on the trigger of a pistol, the muzzle pointed right at her. He had put on his coat, but his unbuttoned coat could not cover his hairy chest.

At the sound of his voice, Anna's hair stood at the back of her neck, her whole body screaming for her to get away from the danger as soon as possible.

"Good evening, sweetheart." She tried to be as calm as she could, "Why are you awake?"

He seemed to find her question very amusing and cocked his head, "I was going to ask the same question."

Anna approached him step by step, but stood at a distance of nine feet from him. She hadn't even changed her clothes. DAMN IT. She was still wearing her nightgown, yet the bottom half of his body was likewise in pajama pants. Maybe that meant he'd just found out his own identity had been revealed not long ago, too, so he'd only had time to pull on his outerwear.

Ari's eyes flirtatiously glided over the lace-trimmed cleavage at the top of her nightgown that barely covered it. He would never admit that he had just been attracted to the view there for a second, it would be too unprofessional. His wife was going to kill him, he had to be professional.

"Did you take Vogelbaum's flash drive?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that." He threw the subject back at her as it was, his index finger tightening on the trigger. Anna saw the black muzzle and the dark silhouette of the gun and was beyond sure the bastard had removed the safety from the gun before she came downstairs.

He got up with a tight grip on the pistol, and Anna's aim followed his movements, aiming at his forehead or the bridge of his nose, a shot that would basically make his brains burst out. He spoke slowly: "Look, honey, I didn't mean for things to get this bad. Tell me who your employer is, and maybe I'll consider sparing your life."

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing. Whom do you serve?"

Ari was almost exasperated; his cute little wife was such a tough talker as always. Focus Ari, she had a gun. The flared hair made him basically a brown lion, retaining the ferocity of that predator hunting. He grinned. A jackal-like grin hung on his face as if he planned to tear someone to pieces the next second, "What, you want me to say, Jesus Christ?"

Anna knew exactly what was going to happen next, or the next few scenarios that could happen. In scenario number one, she succeeds in subduing Ari and escorting him to the NSA, five percent chance. In the second scenario, she dies in the process of subduing Ari, the probability is 20 percent - she knew very well that her fighting skills were only above the standard passing line, and she could say that she has no chance against Ari. In the third scenario, she is injured and captured in the process of subduing Ari, 60 percent chance- God knows how blood and violence will happen after this episode. In the fourth scenario, she is slightly injured in the process of subduing Ari and manages to escape, returning to the NSA and having them send agents after Ari, a fifteen percent chance, and her best option at this point.

Considering all four possibilities and her probability of survival, she chose the fourth one.

The place she was standing was close to the front and back doors, and if she could run into the garage, she could hot-wire a car and escape. It seemed like a good choice. But right now, she couldn't compete with Ari on who could fire their gun faster.

"Don't make me do this in the hard way." Ari furrowed his brows. He really didn't want their marriage to end this way, much less with a few rounds of ammunition and an interrogation room. If Anna had cooperated, he might have said a few kind words about her to his supervisor, even though he knew they would carry little weight, and even his supervisor would have called him “out of his fucking goddamn mind”.

It seemed that both Ari and she had chosen not to take the preemptive strike. She was curious if Ari would set up his own escape plan - focus, Anna, you no longer have a husband who argues with you because the meat displeases his taste. What else did she need? For hot wiring a car she'd still need a knife, to the kitchen then. She could break out the window with a knife in her mouth if she had to.

The kitchen was behind Ari, which was a bit of a problem. She gradually distanced herself from Ari.

Ari half-heartedly persuaded her to submit to him before more damage was caused. When he said "our marriage", the tears that had been building up in Anna's eyes finally fell. A beam of moonlight from above the stairs poured hazily over her face, and her tears seemed to glisten with light.

"Let's not fight, okay?" Ari meant it when he said this, reaching out a hand to Anna to hand in her firearm.

She lifted her head, her furrowed brows stretched, and a cold light flashed in her eyes: "FUCK YOU." She fired instantly, then rolled and ducked behind the couch. Ari's reaction was also very fast, as he switched his left hand to hold the gun and hit the couch with a couple of shots, but the dull sound of bullets penetrating the cotton of the couch and embedding themselves in the carpet meant that none of the shots hit her, and Anna has taken the opportunity to change her hiding place.

"You disabled yet, sweetheart?" Anna asked.

There seemed to be a flash of something in the dark shadows, and Ari emptied a clip, but only the sound of glass shattered. "To your dismay, honey, I fire better with my left hand." He cursed in secret as Anna's shot grazed an entire patch of skin on the outside of his right forearm. A five-inch wound that looked bloody and messy. Such a large abrasion, if not treated in time, could have ended with an amputation. He yanked off the covering cloth on the couch and wrapped it around his arm, tying a knot to prevent extensive bleeding and infection. But she was right, this wound was very effective in preventing him from shooting with his right hand.

Ari treated the wound and quickly switched magazines, loading all fifteen rounds into the pistol. It was so silent that only his own breathing could be heard, and the dark shadows enveloped the kitchen and half of the living room, so that nothing unusual could be seen. How come he hadn't noticed before that his little wife was so good at the game of hide and seek? He was careful not to let the moonlight shine on him and walked slowly against the wall.

Ari thought he had a vague idea of Anna's method of attack. If she was right, she was inclined to attack by sound, consuming all his bullets and energy before showing herself.

"Give up, Anna, surrender." He shouted.

"In your dreams." An unfamiliar voice ghosted behind him, and he twisted around to pull his gun, two rounds having been fired before he realized it was Siri reading a text message. But he already shattered the phone by then.

The sudden whistling wind made him take a few steps back to avoid whatever it was that was sharp enough to strike. He couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air as the shiny knife embedded itself in the door frame behind him. Anna let out a laugh as he dodged the knife, but the backward movement sent him into the moonlight. The ensuing flying knives cut his left arm in varying degrees and one small blade pierced his thigh.

Ari's face turned white with pain, and he ducked into the shadows, gritting his teeth and tying another piece of cloth around his thigh. She had avoided major blood vessels, but it was enough to make him less mobile - if that wasn't the explanation, then he'd gotten lucky. Given his greatly weakened combat ability, he needed to make this quick. Wasn't she hiding in the kitchen? He fired three tentative shots in anticipation of her hiding place. The china under the counter shattered inside the cupboard. There was no expected sound of hitting human flesh, and she did not make a sound.

Anna, who was hiding on the side of the counter, was very glad she had her chopping board covering her head and upper body, and the first of Ari's three shots hit her chopping board. Her heart was beating frantically, and rarely did training make her heart beat this fast. Calm down, Anna, she told herself. Cautiously, she picked up a piece of broken glass that had crumbled to her feet and used it as a mirror to look behind her.

There was nothing to see.

Of course, it was as dark as if the room spilled with ink.

The back door to the kitchen was close. So very close. In just three seconds, she could open it and escape.

Come on, Anna, fight for your life. She summoned up the courage to rush to the back door and turned the knob as fast as she could in her life-- and she did.

Except for the fact that the knob wouldn't turn.

It was fucking locked up.

The sound of the lock twisting caught his attention, and bullets came crashing in behind her, and Anna only had time to drop to the ground with her head in her hands and the knife in her hand. The bullet penetrated the upper part of the door glass, and shards of glass fell on her arms, thighs, and cheeks, cutting trails of blood.

"Can't let you get away, honey, I locked the front and back doors before you came downstairs." He closed in on her, the shards of glass shattering beneath his feet with a bursting sound.

She tried to get up and run, but it was too late. The warm muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead as Ari pulled the restraints from his coat pocket. His eyes lowered as if a lion was sizing up his prey, "Get your hands in there, honey, and don't make this any harder than it has to be."

She let out a breath and sat upright on the floor, “Okay. Can I stand up first?"

"No funny tricks, honey." He gestured for her to first tie the restraints around her wrists. It was much less likely to break free than the handcuffs.

Anna rested her hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and propped her knees up, "I've got my hands where you can see them, didn’t I?”

Ari was distracted from looking at her hands when Anna jerked the counter drawer open and let the wooden drawer hit his cheekbone. Ari let go and the gun fell to the floor, Anna saw the opportunity to kick the pistol away, but she wasn't fast enough to remove the taped gun under the sink before he pulled her by the ankle. The popped-out drawer was hanging outside and struck heavily under her ribs.

Damn, that's going to leave a bruise.

Both of her fists were stopped in mid-air by Ari. His large palm wrapped around her fist to reign in her force with ease, and he used the opportunity to force her arms behind her back. The corners of his mouth were cut and his cheekbone was red and swollen, but he didn't seem to care, flipping his hair out of his sight instead, "Come on, let's talk."

"Fuck your talk."

Anna squeezed the words out from between her teeth as she stomped between his legs, and Ari fell backwards, covering his crotch. She thought that would be enough for her to escape Ari's clutches, but Ari's pain tolerance proved to be much better than she had anticipated. Ari pulled her ankle again, but this time Anna was prepared, she wouldn't be caught up with the same move twice. She elbowed his spine and neck, until Ari was so concussed that he was dizzy and let go of her. Not even slightly relieved, she clenched her fist and punched him in the jaw. Even if it didn't dislocate him, it was enough to relish her anger.

She escaped his grasp and didn't feel safe until her back was against the kitchen corner. She didn't forget to pull off the gun stuck to the bottom of the sink and pointed it at his head.

Ari swallowed the rusty taste of blood and his lips were stained red. He grabbed the knife she had just dropped on the ground, and the hilt turned in his hand, forming a backhanded position with the knife. His jaw joint was vaguely painful, needless to say, came from her last punch. He was half crouched on the ground, his blood-soaked hand smoothing his long hair to the back of his head. A few strands of brown hair dripping with blood slipped down the side of his face, but he had no time to care whether he was decent now.

Ari could slit her throat if he lunged, or he could be pierced by a bullet a few times before he touched her. His dark blue eyes looked at the crimson glass shards that cut through her skin lying on the ground. They looked a bit like the blood diamonds he'd tracked down when he'd first joined DHS. Those blood diamonds were actually see-through and had been swallowed into the bowels of some poor man, staining themselves with the bright red blood of their victims. Since then he had some physical discomfort at the sight of diamonds again, which was why when Anna suggested the diamond ring and he persuaded her to buy the more expensive white gold ring. He deliberately came home at 7 p.m. sharp in order to maintain his cover, so she had to cook dinner for both of them, just because she came home a little earlier. Even the Persian carpet she complained about, which was hard to clean during the annual cleaning, was bought by him to cover up a piece of the floor he had pried up to hide the evidence.

He hesitated and distanced the marriage first. Her detachment was just a natural reaction to several unsuccessful attempts to win him back.

He didn't regret marrying her, but it seemed she had always been the one to back off in the marriage.

"I give up."

He said softly.

If she hadn't seen his lips twitching in his beard, Anna would have thought she imagined him saying that.

Ari tossed the knife into the sink and spread his hands, "I can't ......" His voice lowered, "Anna, I can't do this to you."

He looked straight into her eyes, and only her eyes were illuminated by a sliver of moonlight. Forgotten memories came to mind like a tidal wave: her smiling eyes when they first met, her happy tears when she got married, the temperature in her eyes lowered to the freezing point as she gave in again and again.

He was dying before he understood the failure of their marriage - no, he screwed up big time in the marriage.

It was too late when he understood. A faint red ring mark on her finger already spoke volumes about his failure.

He closed his eyes and waited for his end, whether it was a bullet in the head or endless interrogation and torture. He should not have given up as an agent until the last moment. But he chose to give up for the sake of his conscience and her future, and he only hoped that she would somehow spare him for the sake of his submission. For the first time in his marriage, he truly put the choice in her hands and waited for her decision.

Anna went through a million endings possible in her mind, but none of them involved him surrendering voluntarily and putting the choice in her hands. What would happen next? Would she interrogate him about the location of the flash drive and turn him over to the NSA, or would she ask for it and let him go? Or would she just hand him over to the NSA? Or let him go without further questions?

"Where's the flash drive?"

"It's in a safe place right now, but I don't know exactly where it is," Ari answered honestly. He was only responsible for stealing the flash drive, and he handed it over to his superior as soon as he got it. If his boss had heard what he said, Ari would probably have been benched for thirty years.

"You IDIOT!" Anna was so angry that she wanted to punch this idiot, "That thing can kill people if it got into the wrong hands!"

Ari looked at her confusedly, "Of course, that's why I stole it."

Anna was silent.

She was storming through her mind to calculate the possibility that she had married a dumbass.

"Wait, wait, wait," Ari held up his hands in surrender, "can I ask a question?"

"Yes," Anna said with no intention of answering him.

"Don’t you work for Morian?"

"I thought you work for Morian?"

Ari and Anna stared at each other for a while. At this point in time, there was no need for either side to lie. They both knew that the other was telling the truth, and they were sincere in their questions.

Ari couldn't piece things together for a moment: "Whom do you work for?"

"NSA, I'm the chief of Ops in New York. What!" She snapped.

"Why didn't you say so earlier!"

"You didn't ask! No, whom do you work for?" Anna asked rhetorically, her right eyelid fluttering, always with a bad feeling.

"...DHS, I belong to the Terrorist Activity Monitoring Squad of the Secret Service."

The National Security Agency bumped into the Department of Homeland Security. What are the fucking chances?

"Then why did you say Jesus Christ??" Anna went into a major meltdown, "We wouldn’t have to fight, genius!" She tried to clear her mind, putting the pistol behind her with the safety on, "You just said 'a safe place', you gave it to your boss, right?"

"Yes."

Anna looked even angrier than when they fought earlier, "Why don’t you just say so!"

"I thought you worked for Morian." He explained, a lame excuse, but one that was true, "Optimistically, we -"

"Then why didn't you ask!!!" She was so angry that she yelled at him, her cheeks flushed red - visible even in the hazy moonlight.

"I-"

"ARI LEVINSON you are the most fucking stubborn, stupid, egoistic maniac I have ever met!" She picked up the pistol behind her and threw it right in the center of his chest, followed by a melon and a pear straight at his body.

"Don't hit the wound, honey-"

"Don’t HONEY me!" Anna was shaking with anger, his pitch soaring two octaves higher: "You arrogant, self-absorbent little shit!!! We are getting a fucking divor--" Tears welled up from her eyes.

The familiar warmth gathered around her body, allowing her tears to soak through his coat.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, sounding a little pitiful.

Anna sniffled, her fists striking haphazardly against his back and shoulder. A number of them landed his wounds. On the one hand, she wanted to shoot Ari, but the pistol hit him just now and fell on the floor; on the other hand, she wanted to sink into the warmth of the embrace and never get up again.

She said reluctantly, "Your badge."

"What?" Didn't she say she was divorcing him for one second? Or he thought he would say at least something as cruel as "I hate you". He knew he deserve it though.

His word alone was surely not enough. She needed to see his ID badge, and she needed to call Samson to confirm the situation, as did Ari. "We need to record each other's ID badges and report to our respective supervisors." She kicked his calf, the tear not quite wiped from her face, but she was already thinking about what she was going to do for the next twenty-four hours.

Ari believed for a moment that they were going fuck. But she was right. Indeed, they had more pressing matters at hand that needed to be concluded.

4:30 a.m. In the car on the way to NSA's New York State headquarters, Anna looks at Ari, who has just finished a phone call to his boss, and smiled sweetly: "Have fun, Mr. Husband, you'll have to go over this whole story with my supervisor, Mr. Samson, later." Without even hearing the specifics of the call, she could imagine the shocked look on the face of Ari's supervisor when he heard Ari say that he had been subdued by his wife and the even more astonishing fact that she was an NSA agent.

But she could just as easily imagine that both the NSA and DHS would taunt each other with the other's failure to uncover the false identities of their own agents - or simply keep their mouths shut and put skeletons in the closet, which was probably best for both organizations.

Ari chuckled, choosing to let Anna have her moment of complacency.

"I feel like I should tell you, do you remember that old car we had?" Anna thought for a long time, tapping her fingers on the leather-covered steering wheel, her eyes glancing at Ari, whose long hair covered half of his face.

"Yes, why?"

"I didn't have a car accident. Drove it to the scene during a mission and ended up getting totally banged up by a dumb agent trying to put on a show of Fast and Furious. NSA even helped with a full news blackout at the time."

Ari's expression went from disbelief at first to gradual acceptance, "I told you that injury wasn't serious at all! You could have waltzed out of the hospital and still acted like you need a gurney at any second!"

"But NSA did pay for it, that's why we bought this car." Anna shrugged and took pride in her honesty (and in asking NSA for an extra amount for the damage to the vehicle).

"Fine. A bunch of terrorists once tracked down my, uh, our home address a few years back and started a mass shootout while you were at work - that's why I insisted on renovating the house, or you'd have seen the bullet holes sooner or later."

"You son of a bitch!" She exclaimed, but her tone wasn't quite angry, "You were the one who said that termites had infested the house that time. I was so scared I almost had to put pesticide under my pillow for a month."

"The lawn mower was a little crooked. I grabbed it when I was beating up those guys. I’m surprised you didn’t notice." He sighed.

"To be honest, you've been in charge of mowing the lawn, so I haven't paid much attention to it." She said bluntly, her pale fingers curling up and scratching the steering wheel slightly nervously, "I haven't done much cooking."

"You don't-"

"They’re mostly takeout."

"Fuck." It was Ari's turn to have a slight breakdown, "I never doubted it, just thought your cooking really sucks."

Anna looked into the rearview mirror, "You actually ate something I cooked once. I baked the cookies after the charity sale about four or five years ago."

"...You told me they were from the neighbor next door."

"Yes, after you thought it was too sweet. So I never made them for you again."

Ari caught the gist of the words and straightened his upper body from the car seat: “For me? You still make it yourself?"

"Occasionally, I make myself baked goods when I'm in the mood. But you don't have a sugar tooth, so you won’t touch it even if it's in the fridge." She glanced at him before adding, "My mom's a baker, and I've been helping her in the kitchen ever since I was a kid."

"You told me your mom died when you were a kid."

"Sorry, she's still healthy and very much alive. I think she’s sunbathing on whatever beach she's on. The guy holding me down the aisle at the wedding was an actor I hired - my parents divorced early on and I pretended my dad was dead."

"I told you I thought that guy looked familiar on Law & Order. I actually invited my own parents to the wedding." Ari felt deeply offended by the deception, "I was married once."

He immediately received a few slaps on the shoulder from Anna.

"What's her name and social security number???" She barked at him.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Ari had to raise his arms in defense, "She and I got drunk in Vegas back in the day. We signed divorce papers immediately when we were sober!"

"That's not a good reason either." She mumbled darkly, "I'm starting to regret being honest with you."

"It's too late, honey, you've opened Pandora's box." There was an unconscious note of mockery in his tone. He immediately regretted saying this, "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant, Anna."

"It's Diana. mom thought it sounded good when she gave me the name, but then needed to pick a less noticeable name for missions, so my fake identity became Anna. What about you?"

"Levinson is my mother’s maiden name. I used my father's name until I was eighteen, then I joined DHS and needed to completely cut myself off from my old life. One last question, do... did you love me?" He asked calmly, feeling an unmistakable chill burrow into his heart.

"Did."

Ari turned his head to look out the car window, a watery glow already piling up in the corners of his eyes.

The AC blew a whirring cold wind that settled to the floor and gathered at the ankle. Anna looked at the way his goosebumps cover his arm, reached out and turned off the central air conditioning, and opened the windows to balance the temperature inside and outside the car, "still is. Probably will continue to love the idiot who always forgets to turn off the air conditioning in the future."

The chill dissipated.

She slowly pulled the SUV up to a building on Wall Street, the car door unlocked but no one got out.

"Say, you don't have an evil twin brother or anything, do you?"

The slightly sad atmosphere was broken once again by her skeptical question.

"No!" He answered in surprise, raising his eyebrow, "Where did you get that from? I'm an only child."

She pulled out her car keys but didn't forget to close the window, "The plot of 365 Dni. It's always good to be careful." Anna picked up her phone and checked for messages, luckily NSA hadn’t rushed her yet, "That book has been sitting in the middle of the study in the very center of the shelves, haven't you noticed? I bought it last year."

"You speak Polish?"

"No. I purchased an English translation of the book."

"My God, the stuff you read..." He couldn't help but sigh, "It's a novel?"

"I just love dramatic cliche romance novels." She didn't forget to add fuel to the fire before she got off, "Aren't you an agent? You don't even know what novels your wife reads at home?"

At 6 a.m., Ari Levinson and his wife Anna were finally released by the NSA and DHS after an exhausting hour of cross-interrogation and simple wound treatment by the accompanying doctor. With assurances from both superiors, they managed to keep their badges and sidearms. The flash drive problem was handled entirely by the NSA and DHS, which was beyond their pay grade. Jennifer, who was unfortunately caught in the mess, was also released, and Samson gave her a two-day vacation. But Anna had reason to suspect that he didn’t like Jenni's behavior of standing up for her.

Natalie heard that Anna almost killed her husband and secretly slipped her lawyer's business card into Anna’s hand and gave Anna two thumbs up. Anna didn't really want to know what she heard, but according to Jenni, the word around the department now was that Anna beat her husband to ED, and several colleagues claimed that the version they heard was that Anna beat Ari to his knees begging for mercy.

On his knees, well ... pretty much; begging, true. Ari thought silently, draping a thin quilt over Anna's sleeping, curled-up body. She had done too much mental and physical activity overnight, and was so sleepy after leaving NSA that she fell asleep in the passenger seat. He drove home and carried her to the main bedroom. She was disturbed several times, but did not wake up.

Fortunately, the damage they did was not extensive to reach the upstairs bedroom and study. The kitchen was half ruined, as were the living room and entryway. The storage room under the stairs wasn't in great shape either, so he was going to talk to her after she woke up about whether to call in the renovation team. Or maybe she'd wake up and he'd have to deal with their divorce papers and the divorce lawyer with the gold-rimmed glasses.

Ari walked down the creaking stairs and sat down on the couch to pour himself a glass of whiskey. He preferred it on the rocks; however, the fridge was shot through last night. The spicy liquor warmed up his throat and stomach, but the darkness had passed and the temperature would only continue to rise as the sun rose. He leaned back against the couch, the lack of support from the soft fabric always made him feel like he was not lying on his own sofa.

Miraculously, through the thin layer of the floorboard, both of them coincidentally thought about their first meeting. As for Anna, she dreamt about it.

Six or seven years ago, in a rainy and misty southern Argentina, such uncommon precipitation weather naturally gave the intelligence agencies opportunities to take advantage of. Anna was an intelligence analyst at that time and was ordered to come to Argentina to assist a criminal informant to get out of trouble, but more importantly, to get information from the informant about the operation of an international crime syndicate. Something neither she nor her superiors anticipated were that the desperate informant first gave her false information and then defected to the crime syndicate, offering Anna as his proof of loyalty.

Anna had no choice but to shoot the renegade informant. The sound of gunfire brought her trouble, as the police in Cordoba, on the payroll of the crime syndicate, started to investigate who killed the man. They were focused on foreign tourists who were traveling alone.

A few policemen tried to shake down some female tourists, and Anna was one of them. When they questioned Anna loudly in Spanish if she had company, she was relieved by Ari, who called her honey and helped her out. Ari said he was a pilot on a flight from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, even though he actually poisoned an Argentinean military official in collusion with terrorists before the police riot. He felt sorry for Anna's entanglement and bought her a drink. One drink soon turned into two and three, and then the pair soon fell in love and spent a few more days in Cordoba, kissing, dancing, and laughing.

They both returned to the United States. After a few more dates and three weeks of knowing each other, they announced to everyone around them that they were getting married.

Anna finished her nap and stretched in bed, but almost twisted her back out with the "good morning" from the doorway. Ari leaned against the door frame and grinned at the look on her face. He walked over to the bed and leaned down to kiss her forehead, "Good morning, honey." His warm kisses landed on her brow and the bridge of her nose, his lips eventually lingering for a moment above hers, his crystal blue eyes searching her face for any sign of resistance.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close for a deeper kiss. The kiss quickly ignited an unfinished flame between them that began with their anger but was not entirely made up of pure bottled-up emotion. The mutual revelation of their identities did not quench their thirst but only temporarily stopped the further spread of the flame that now swept through their souls and bodies, burning down almost everything.

He took off her pajama and took hold of her slim waist, brushing the patch of bruising skin with his thumb unintentionally, earning a soft whine from Anna. Ari regained a moment of sanity from the kiss and his eyes followed the strange touch beneath his fingers. The underside of her ribs was slightly swollen, no doubt from their chaotic encounter downstairs a few hours earlier. He had no strange fetishes, he had to admit, but Anna's bruised and battered body only made him pity her more and his desire to fuck her higher than ever.

"I'm sorry." He whispered his apologies, kissing every tiny cut and bruise beneath, a profound way to remind himself of the mental and physical damage he had inflicted on her. Ari's long hair fell down the sides of his face, sweeping over her body along with his beard. Anna's hands convulsed with his hair, slightly removing some of the itches, yet his soft beard left her squirming under him. There was nothing she could do. He lifted her legs and held her scratched legs over his shoulder, burying his head and kissing the soft flesh on her inner thigh. His ringed left hand rested on the outside of her flesh, the silvery-white ring touching her skin and bringing a cool sensation.

His overly exuberant hair brushed her pussy through her panties, which were soaked with her own juices, and the sensation of being tickled caused her to express her displeasure in a somewhat frustrated, thin moan. Hickeys crept up her inner thighs to the groin where they met her belly. She tried to keep her legs together, but his head was in between and she was afraid of crashing his skull. If he didn't do something to her soon, she really would do something to his skull.

"May I?" His blue eyes darkened. The heat in her body collided with the hot breath across her skin, burning the knots in her lower abdomen.

She lost her strength after just one look at him. Not to mention taking off her panties, these beautiful eyes could have made her tie herself up and edge her ten times over and she’d gladly obey: "Please."

Her panties were flung to God knows where, and that was probably the least thing on her mind right now. He started with a long lick at her slit, then the tip of his tongue went in to seek out the swollen, almost painful clit. "Fuck." His tongue slid around the edge of her entrance, muffled by the abundance of her juices. The vibrating sensation beneath her made Anna clench his hair, running her fingers on his scalp, stirring a few strands into one.

Six years of marriage had given him a good knowledge of the sensitive spots on her body. Ari rubbed his jaw over her mound, making her squirt and come all at once as she whimpered. "Cream on my face, honey." His brush-like whiskers gave her a tingling, intertwined sensation, the delicious beard burn generating soreness she could feel even days later. His whiskers glistened with her crystalline juices, and with a slight gasp, he moved up to kiss her lips, giving her a taste of her own.

Her fingers left the ends of his messy hair and peeled off his tank top and shorts, exposing his thick shaft. It took little time for Ari to get his cock at her entrance and penetrate her effortlessly, his arms gripping her thighs so that her pussy met his shaft without breaking the stitched wound on her body. Her warm, wet channel fluttered upon his intrusion. Her pussy was a constant supply of juices for lubrication, dripping out of her body, yet he felt strong resistance every time he thrust in. She was so tight that made him suck a breath.

"You are so fucking tight, honey, might come just this second." His teeth took her soft earlobe in and whispered filth in her ear, along with his muffled grunts burnt Anna's face. She pulled him down and bit his lips to shut him up, but Ari's hand somehow rested on her tits, pinching her nipple and making her scream. The tingling from her nipple, the warmth coming from her earlobes, her pussy split open by his demanding cock, the squelching noises, the lips grinding and chasing, the rising heat in the room, and the salty taste of sweat on his chin... she was lost in the multiple sensations and soon came.

They made love three times until they both lay exhausted on the bed, panting heavily, unwilling to lift another finger. It wasn’t fuck. The process was gentle and caring. And Ari, for the first time in his life, didn’t thrust into her like a horny teenager, but rocked slowly, allowing her to float in the blissful post-orgasmic fuzzy feeling, rather than passing out the second she had her orgasm. He came three times inside her, stuffing her pussy with so much cum dripping out of her entrance and smeared with her juices. She didn’t particularly enjoy orgasms ripped out of her body, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like to be stuffed full either.

Anna rested on his arm, keeping her back close to his warm chest. His firm arms wrapped around her upper body like chains from behind, while he pressed kisses (and tickled her with his beard) to her shoulder.

After a long time, when the sunlight peeked into the gap between curtains and landed on the dark floor and both of their ankles, Ari finally asked the question that was bothering him for hours, "What are we going to do next?"

A week later, at 3 p.m., the marriage therapist was very pleased to see the couple from last week back here. Many people didn’t make it through a session, but that was a topic for another day.

"Have you made any progress in the last week?"

"Sure." The Levinsons smiled from the bottom of their hearts. Ari caught one of her hands and rubbed her ring finger. Anna gave him an annoyed look but didn't pull back. It was a good sign that they had communicated well in the previous week, as they did not resist physical contact. The therapist took notes in his notebook.

Ari's eyes unconsciously glued to her face: "We ... ahem, we communicated, and we both recognized our shortcomings in the marriage."

"And we are fixing the problems in the marriage," Anna added, leaning slightly in Ari's direction, but only a little. Anna straightened her face, but could not stop smiling, "Oh, and we redid the house."

The therapist listened very carefully to their answers and nodded approvingly, "That's going very well. Marriage is all about communication, constant improvement, and constant bonding. It's a long-term process."

Ari agreed: "I'm not going to lie, I still sometimes want to …" his eyes are glued to Anna again, swallowing the few words that could get them back into trouble, "but uh - couldn’t take the shot. "

"Me too."

They looked at each other and then grinned. Both were a bit smug.

The therapist cleared his throat to regain their attention, "Remember it's the two of you versus the problem, not you versus the other person. So how will you rate your current relationship?"

"Ask us that sex question again," Ari interjected, causing Anna to slap him on the back of the hand with a disapproving look. Ari just shrugged and intertwined their fingers. Anna shook her head as if dealing with a 5-year-old, considering Ari’s smug smile and his clinginess, it wasn’t a bad metaphor.

"Well, -"

He held her hand and raised his smile triumphantly, posing "1" and "0" with his fingers and mouthed: "Ten."

Notes: I wrote this in June to celebrate Chris Evans' birthday. And it took me five days to write this stuff, in English, no less, which is not my first language. No beta'd, so there's gonna be typos and grammar errors. But anyway. Always appreciate comments and feedbacks / reblogs!

#ari levinson #ari levinson x original female character #ari levinson smut #happy birthday chris evans

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morethanaloveinterest · 9 months

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A Heartbroken Review of Leia's Costumes in the Sequel Trilogy

Let's talk about what our space princess wears in her final appearances.

We are first introduced to Leia wearing this jumpsuit in this trilogy. It is similar to her Hoth look from ESB but obviously with some changes to reflect being in a warmer place. It sets itself apart from her original iconic white dress and shows us that Leia is no longer the princess we first met in ANH. The jumpsuit is still a light color but with a darker vest - probably the darkest thing we've seen her wear before. Overall, it is a very practical outfit that matches her role as general of the Resistance.

Female representation: 10/10 Jumpsuits are always great, what can I say? She looks much like her colleagues in the Resistance and that is perfect for her. As a sequel to an old property, it shows a clear effort to indicate how she has changed over the years (without making her a crone or whatever).

Practicality: 10/10 Again, can't go wrong with a jumpsuit. I like the fancy belt buckle - she always liked belts, while otherwise being fairly plain.

This is the dress she wears at the end of the Force Awakens. I'm not crazy about the cutout in the bustline but it is nice to see Leia in a fancier dress, somewhat reminiscent of any of Padme's dresses. It's also a new color for her and definitely a flattering one. It represents the hope that the Resistance now has and matches the water world where her brother is hiding (as we see with Rey arriving at the end of the film).

Female representation: 10/10 Older ladies do not uh exist in many franchises, but they usually do not get cool dresses to wear when they do. I enjoy the jumpsuit but I also really like that we get a glimpse of regal Leia here, too.

Practicality: 9/10 Less practical than a jumpsuit but still pretty great. I am sure she is able to command the Resistance wearing this just as well as in anything else.

She wears this dress at the beginning of the Last Jedi until she is rescued from space. The color change from blue makes sense because things are much more dire for this film - they are fleeing the First Order and she has lost her husband. The simple design of the dress also makes sense for her (most of her dresses are of fairly simple constructions). The overdress adds a note of authority as she directs the Resistance from the bridge. She has added some jewelry, which is nice.

Female representation: 10/10 Absolutely a fantastic costume for an older lady to wear, and for our princess to wear as a mature woman. It still reflects the femininity of a character who mostly wore dresses in her younger days and conveys her status as a senator and head of the Resistance.

Practicality: 9/10 While it seems surprisingly practical for her time spent in space (it's warm, presumably), it is not as practical as her jumpsuit. It does not inhibit her movement, however, or expose her to the elements, so it's great.

This is the outfit she wears at the end of the Last Jedi. The collar is very dramatic and I love that we get a scene of her using it as such. From what we can see, the dress underneath is fairly simple and the overdress adds even more flair than the previous one. She has different jewelry on, and of course carries a blaster again, which is wonderful. Again, her color is gray because things are still a bit dire but there is hope at the end.

Female representation: 10/10 Again, these outfits are all fantastic. The neckline is a bit lower on the underdress than the previous one but she obviously pulls it off.

Practicality: 9/10 While she gets up to a lot more in this dress than the previous one, it can't be as useful as the jumpsuit.

Okay, I'm not sure how to really talk about this one since obviously it was using footage that wasn't used for the Force Awakens. But it is a dress that seems to be the same color as the one she wore on Cloud City, covered with a long vest. She still has the fancy belt and some jewelry. It's definitely in character and I like the cowl neck we haven't seen her in before.

Female representation: 10/10 I mean, I have Thoughts on how the movie itself treats her, but it's a lovely outfit that she would definitely wear in this current iteration of her. I just wish she'd gotten more than one in this movie.

Practicality: 9/10 It seems to be just as practical as the other dresses, while being just as lovely.

If you enjoyed this, check out my Star Wars for the Girlies Series (Leia episode out now!)

#leia organa #princess leia #costume reviews #may the fourth #hanleia #sw: sequels

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variousqueerthings · 9 months

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You're monsters. Here you are, hiding away at the end of time. Do you even know why? Because you are hated.

Hell Bent... and I think this will be a funny old rating after Heaven Sent.... I wonder if I need to at one point in the future once I'm a bit less inured with this era of dw go back and watch capaldi's era again with somewhat unblinkered eyes, because my confession is that... I don't understand a lot of what happened in Hell Bent, and I'm not sure if it's because it's a whole lotta nonsense or because I've maybe gone a little too hard on watching this era in a relatively short timeframe

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 7/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 2/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 7/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 6/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 4/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 7/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 3/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 5/10

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

this rating is so fuckn funny to me. really up and down the scale! still, for anyone who's seen me rate a M*ffat finale before, this is by far the highest rated one. fuckn. easily. and all you needed to do, was centre the Companion character. didn't even need to write a plot that made sense (clearly)

OBJECTIFICATION: leaving on a high note, Clara is Not Objectified! neither is anyone else. gosh my standards are low sometimes.

PLOT-POINT: Clara is Not just a plot point in this either! woo! it takes us awhile to get to her, but then she has some pretty strong opinions, which she does enforce, on how she should be treated, which I think is especially Neat opposite Time Lords, who often tend to see humans (amongst many others) as inherently unimportant in the grand scheme of things

this episode honestly single-handedly gives me a lot of what I'd been constantly asking for with Clara, and while it is... well, it's very very very late into her run, it is nice that she leaves on a highnote. this idea of not wanting to die, and fighting against that death until it's on her terms is far more how I read Clara-as-character as well, versus the whole Thing in Face The Raven. thiiiis is who I see her as, at core

COMPLEXITY: so I actually went and looked at the wiki rundown of this episode and it states this -- "Aided by the Gallifreyan military, the Doctor usurps and exiles Lord President Rassilon. Now the new President, the Doctor learns that Rassilon imprisoned him in the dial to force him to confess about the Hybrid, which is prophesied by the Time Lords to stand in Gallifrey's ruins and unravel the Web of Time."

and I'm like, yeah, that's... that's what I thought happened uh, which... is all really dumb, as far as I can tell. wh- how did the Doctor's Confession Dial get to Gallifrey? why did they trap the Doctor in there as the best way to figure out the "truth" about the Hybrid? why does anyone think the Doctor knows anything about this in the first place? oh gosh, there's stuff here that belongs on the "godlike" doctor point, so I'll skip the "aided by the military" bit for now, but also... is this post-Time War then (yes, because they mention the Doctor is war hero... sigh) but... is Rassilon still in charge? how was that so easy???? what is the Web of Time, did we learn about this earlier???

all of this kind of -- as far as I can tell -- happens in the episode in a sort of "you know, all of this naturally a progression from one thing to the next" kind of way, and it's... it's not a natural progression! I've said a couple of times this season that it feels like I've missed an episode, but oh booooy does this episode hammer that home.

and that's just the opening, what happens next???

ok so the Doctor has the Time Lords retrieve Clara at the moment of her death, this is fine -- I mean, I still don't know why he's on Gallifrey to begin with, how they brought him there, or why they're doing as he tells them, but the Clara part of this story is actually the part that I enjoy!!! this is Clara's strongest episode this season and it's her goodbye! (well, I'm glad her goodbye episode doesn't suck actually, I'm glad she gets a nice send-off)

anyway then the Doctor and Clara run around Gallifrey for a bit, because technically Clara needs to go back and die, the Doctor steals a Tardis, all of this middle section, great, my love T'nia Miller is a Time Lord!!!! aw yeah!

then they go to the end end end of the Universe I guess and stumble over... Me! Me is fuckn! Still alive!!!!!!!! not a fucking scratch!!!!!!! how??????? why??????????? what is your purpose!!!!!!!

no, her purpose is to give this counterpoint about immortality and the Doctor, there's a metaphor here on idk. being this long-lived I guess. it's been done better before, numerous times, better with Jack, better with that guy in Lazarus Experiment, better in The God Complex, better with a whole buncha Time Lords, better in The Three Doctors, and I'm sure a whole host of other Classic!Who episodes I have yet to watch

the thing about Me is that she's introduced halfway through the season, her first episode is pretty good, her second episode is fiiine -- I'd say good even, on its own/in connection with the first episode, and then her third episode hits and I kinda... oh she's there to be an antagonist, but in a mysterious way where you're not sure where she stands, except she's made a whole bunch of errors, which she's not really enough of a character for me to feel any kind of sympathy with. when she realises she killed Clara, and she apologises, I don't care because she and Clara don't really have a relationship that makes it land for me

when she talks about the difficulties in setting up that refugee society, I don't care because I know we're not going to get anything really about this society and it's not going to influence the rest of the plot, and it didn't

she's such a thinly drawn character, that her use as a metaphor or a parable or a comparison or whatever she's meant to be doing is too loose for me to figure out what it is. it sucks to be immortal? I... I guess?

and now the Doctor wonders if she's not the Hybrid (which is the plottwist when the Doctor says "the Hybrid is me," he's actually saying "Me" as a name, fuckn... get it???) but... I still don't get why this Hybrid matters outside of a sudden prophecy or how it affects the greater universe that's been built. it feels like a last-minute addition to this season that they very quickly gave a few key characters a line here and there to allude to and then hoped it would stick. it makes no goshdarn sense!

technically I like this episode better than I've liked any other previous M*ffat-era finale episode, because it feels far more personal than any of those -- it's really about Clara saying goodbye on her own terms and that I really like

but the plot to get there is, as far as I can tell, nonsensical in its own internal logic.

oh, ok, to return to said plot, they're at the end of the Universe and Me -- the most immortal of all the immortals... somehow..... -- is just hanging out there in the ruins of Gallifrey, which... how'd she get there don't even worry about it, because we won't know and we've already apparently brought Gallifrey back into the main Universe somehow and I guess she just instinctively knew she'd come across the Doctor here or... idk, idkkkkk... I don't know. so much in this I don't know

the Doctor has a cunning plan to get rid of Clara's memory so that the Time Lords can't find her (?) and Clara overhears and rightfully goes "nuh-uh-uh, that's fucked up dude" (sure is, also... don't understand why it would work), but then she goes how about we basically roll the dice and one of us loses their memory and the Doctor says that sounds fair, and they do that and the Doctor has some brief Clara-amnesia

I don't understand why they do this. actually this is the main one that has me scratching my head. was it so that Clara could run while the Doctor was an amnesiac, is that what it was? I genuinely feel like maybe I just missed something on this one, but anyway, yeah, the Doctor pieces it back together, Clara runs off with Me in their Tardis (which the Doctor stole earlier) which got stuck as an American diner, the Doctor leaves in his Tardis, which had all the graffiti on it that Rigsy did, which disappears as the Tardis leaves

I think I need to rewatch that ending, because I was unclear actually on whether the Doctor remembers her face or not. it's not something that really bothers me in the way the rest of the plot-happenings in this episode do, but it's just something I wonder. I think that ending is good. I think it's bittersweet. I think it's a shame that Me doesn't feel more drawn, and that Clara didn't have much to do this season, so that them running off together felt like a natural next step, but I will take it as something one can definitely work with

I think it felt very natural to what I do feel I understand about Clara's character, and I like that she left the Doctor behind to go off on her own terms (honestly I never felt like she actually valued the Doctor much beyond what he was doing for her, but that's another post -- not like an "anti" post or anything, more of a "so Clara's kind of a messy bitch" post, which from what I've seen in fandom is something that's pretty chill of an opinion and in fact features heavily in why many people do like her character)

but yeah that plot... what?

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: Clara is in suspension and will eventually die, but on her own terms. the Doctor is alone again.

Gallifrey is uh... still not sure tbh. that was confusing. Rassilon is deposed? is he? does it matter? I don't think it matters

I'll still rate this point highly, because it is another of the big switches in the story -- new companion will be coming up, let's see how these events affect the Doctor's relationship with her

COMPANIONS MATTER: Clara is more proactive in this episode than most any other of her run since... s7 I'd say. I'd have to double-check on that statement, but it has been a continuous Thing to me that Clara is there to talk fast, make witty comments, and either wait for the Doctor to give her instructions, or take matters into her own hands in ways that make her straight-up villain coded at times

in this one once she's on Gallifrey with the Doctor and they're running around in this spooky place, there's some Stuff she does, while the Doctor fetches the ersatz Tardis + she calls out the Time Lords for sucking, which is always winner behaviour

and then she decides when she dies, in the future... the long way round. still not sure about the whole mindwipe thing, but at least that's on her terms as well (although again... not villain coded but certainly unhinged and for what, that one)

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: there's this bit at the beginning that I find insufferable, where the Doctor returns to the barn they were raised in (I do think it's funny that s7 showed the barn and then s8 was like "no yeah they were literally raised in a barn") and all the Shobogans (I'm assuming?) gather around, whispering tales of this super cool basically mythological figure, and then Rassilon orders the troops to capture the Doctor and the Doctor simply sends them off by being so cool, and then at the end Rassilon goes "fuckit kill him" and the troops are all going "no, this guy's a War Hero" and join with the Doctor and depose Rassilon for the sake of how fuckn Cool this guy is

it's everything I dislike in Who boiled into like. what was it 15 minutes or whatever of television?

also the Doctor then just steals another Tardis and runs off again, why did we need this whole build-up, there were other ways to get the Doctor to the citadel (like just straight up capturing him, you're being depicted as a military state, wtf do you care if someone has a good reputation in a war, even your super special war, and also why is the Doctor banking on this reputation, what is this whole bit saying???)

ohhhhhhhh it's soo. urgh. for the rest of the episode, the Doctor doesn't actually take centre stage so much in my opinion. once Clara is back, yeah there's some "ooh the Doctor what'll he do now" but mainly it's Clara with a bit of Time War lore sprinkled in, and then the whole bit at the end of the Universe where they reveal... do they reveal the Hybrid? is it just "the Doctor did too much to help Clara and that was bad"? genuinely does the Hybrid come up again ever???

but yeah that beginning.... at least Capaldi actually does look cool, whenever they tried something like this with Matt Smith, I was like, why is everyone staring in awe at a 12yr old?

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: what is the Time War anymore but a way to make the Doctor's street cred go up?

there is stuff, like the Tardis looking like the 1963 Tardis, "reverse the polarity," the memory wipe references Donna, the Bad Wolf motif inexplicably shows up (I do wonder what that has to do with this episode) -- it's just the way that war is talked about makes my skin itch, otherwise relatively chill

“SEXINESS”: and thus, we send Clara on her next journey, happy in the knowledge that JLC, along with Capaldi, cured this run from terrible sexy dialogue

INTERNAL WORLD: Gallifrey as society? I hardly knew her. Military politics? dictatorship? Shobogans? idk, here's a barn, and now here's some. rooms. end of the Universe Gallifrey? uh. is also there

I think especially after setting up so many questions in the previous episode and ending it on that shot of the Citadel, this is kind of a let-down

POLITICS: so it's not really that political, but I did highlight the military element a few times, and I do think there should be more to it on this show than "this war guy good and that war guy bad because this is the hero and you're not." there has been more gravitas given to it than that, including in M*ffat's run so idk why... this.....

I also think the Doctor's own political relationship with Gallifrey is kind of not really a Thing in this -- and the Doctor has a more complicated relationship that "Time Lords Bad/Good" or even "always outside the Status Quo." The Doctor has done Status Quoing before, even though they're technically not a big fan of a lot of the setup in this place, but in this story none of that is really what's interesting

also a brief extra moment of "oh now I'm regenerated into a Woman, I realise that the other me was so full of Testosterone and Ego" that... ok we get it, you're trying feminism on for size. now we just need to get into the third wave, at least

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

AFTER ALL OF THAT, Clara leaves on a high. isn't that funny.

but seriously, there's so many questions I have, and if they do in fact get answered in the episode, mea culpa and all that, but uh. yeah, I was going "wait what's going on? why?" the entire way through

sometimes nonsense has gotta be gotten through in service to emotional pay-off, I guess. Au revoir Clara, hope you have a lovely time doing exactly what you've been doing before: getting into a toxic relationship with an ancient being in a time travel machine

(and next episode we say goodbye to River as well, lotta fuckn goodbyes happening huh)

similar question to last episode, why is it called Hell Bent? (I really need to get that list of questions together so I can do a concentrated search)

#im watching nu!who #im watching capaldi who #episode hell bent #the measurement

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ihopesocomic · 1 year

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Tbh I wish Proud was less of an asshole to justify his "It's just what a mane has to do to survive", to show how patriarcal societies, while much more opressive towards females than to males, are still toxic to men.

There is just no nuance. Every male is a sexist (sometimes homophobic because we can't have a story about LGBT+ characters without homophobia🙄) piece of shit who really loves Pride law even though it forces them to leave their homes and family to a world who gets harder to survive thanks to the longer dry season (Which is supposed to be happening but we don't see any evidence of it 🙄🙄🙄) , and gives a higher success rate to those who are monstruous enough to kill Fathers and their children.

I guess his name is a good indicator of how much he is practically the living incarnation of Pride Law (His name is fucking PROUD), which could just be a really bad way to show that he's Lite, but I dunno, I feel like it would be much better if the show made him more of a morally gray character to show how destroying the patriar- I mean Pride Law would be better not just for lionesses, but for manes as well.

I suppose what I want is Proud to be completely transformed into a whole new character because this dude right now is just the walking and talking embodiment of everything wrong in MP's world and I think that's boring.

Ugh you have no idea how much I agree with you on how this show was a completely missed opportunity to show how the patriarchy negatively affects men and it's perpetuation just further hurts the future generation, even if people can sit down and think about it and agree with how it's harmful. But then again it was a missed opportunity for many things, and considering how much this show revels in demonizing its male characters no matter how little sense it makes, I can't say that I would've expected them to handle such a complicated topic with any ounce of sensitivity.

One of Proudmane's biggest problems is he's just Quickmane But Worse™ so Quickmane could've easily just existed on his own as being the talking embodiment of everything wrong in MP's world. And Proud should have been something different, to present the opposite side of Pride Law of someone who isn't Fire, someone who's been out on their own for longer and the consequences of that. But he's not, he's exactly the same as Quickmane, right down to having the same exact purpose to his entire existence lol

Proudmane's other problem is, they literally set him up to be sympathetic right after setting him up to be an asshole, only to make him become an asshole in the end anyway (which begun the 'Quickmane may be ableist but he's better because he's not homophobic' conversation lol)

Even then the whole "Its just what a mane has to do to survive" is not only debunked by what we see with our own eyes in the previous episode, which is that he was in a big group of males and eating well, which even according to Fire was a good ol time. The statement is also directly contradicting what he did... seconds beforehand. Which was... what was it... oh yeah threatening to kill Nothing, who wasn't a hinderance on his survivability lol Pretty sure killing cubs is also not a hinderance to his survivability, since 1) This aspect of Pride Law isn't exactly reinforceable, and 2) This particular pride has no qualms about accepting a mane who doesn't kill babies, case in point, uh...... the first fucking episode.

That whole scene in episode 5 annoys me for a variety of reasons lol like Proud having a literal debate with Nothing about why he should kill her, when he could. I dunno. Just do it.

But let's pretend for a moment that being a no-mane/prideless (is there really a difference here? Do we really need two different words for males and females? lol I hate the word 'no-mane' it's so dumb) in this universe is as bad as everyone says it is. Let's pretend that being prideless is closer to being a death sentence.

We could've had first-hand insight into a typical male lion's life in this world. From learning that their father murdered someone else's father, and children, in order to have a pride (and that the feelings of the pride itself on the matter is irrelevant to one's own survival). The near-constant fear knowing that one day that same thing could happen to you and your siblings and father, and knowing one day he's going to have to do the same. Being raised to believe he's worthless unless he gains control of a pride, taught to treat lionesses like they're inferior. The traumas of being forced to leave his home, and be subjected to starvation and facing other dangers alone, and how being alone can seriously impact a social creature's mental health. But he believes that in order to survive he has to be just as horrible as everyone else, and his justification is Pride Law and survival. In order to live, you have to exploit everyone's weaknesses, because it's for your own good. And then he's going to raise his children the same way. Not only showing the cycle in real time, but that also could've shown that Pride Law doesn't in fact benefit males like everyone is told it does, and that in many instances they're victims of the system as well, just differently.

And that's where you'd bring in Fire or Feather to be his foil, to show no, you don't have to be awful in order to survive, and you should reject everything about Pride Law. (And Nothing could raise Feather that way, and/or Fire could come to his own conclusions since he was allowed to live in the first place, but only because his sister went against Pride Law from the start, and he either didn't think it an option to do so, or felt too scared to do it himself. Him being alive to this day should allow him to have new perspectives on Pride Law. Either way Nothing's sole duty was to end Pride Law, but the writers don't permit her to succeed lol)

But nah, its more dramatic and therefore more entertaining if you just have your villain be a homophobic sexist prick that the show tries gaslighting you into feeling bad for. Instead of having the villain be the patriarchy, it's just men who are the villains lol And if you're a nice guy, you die, sorry.

As a super huge lesbian, man-hating (intentional or otherwise) is not the progressive messaging people think it is. - Cat

#ask

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autisticjoshrusso · 3 months

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What are your favorite Josh headcanons?

its the way that im so incapable of shutting the fuck up about this guy but the moment i get asked directly im like UHHHH IDK. so apologies if this is kind of a mess <3 also i rarely think about cute and fluffy things i am always digging deep into trauma and such so uh yeah these are going to be on the heavier side.

The biggest one is obviously that he's autistic, shocking I know. Who would've guessed this would be a dearly held headcanon of tumblr user autisticjoshrusso. It truly makes me so insane and I'm incapable of like... properly summarizing it in its entirety so I am actually working on going through ep by ep breaking down my thoughts about it. So far there's just this one post, but I am slowly but surely working through a series rewatch and doing this along the way. So. Stay tuned? JKDFHKJ

I think he was very obviously Gay even as a child and that it definitely affected his ability to socialize throughout his entire childhood and adolescence. Like he's very much giving "only had female friends who may or may not have treated him like an actual human person and not their accessory GBF". And he still leans into that "persona" sometimes as an adult because it's an easy way to be liked <3 again its the autism but yknow.....

Speaking of childhood, he's giving only child to me. And I think his relationship to his parents is just... non-existent. He didn't deliberately cut contact, it wasn't any sort of dramatic abuse situation, they just... aren't close? It's that thing where they knew he was gay from the start but also never really knew how to handle it, never being fully accepting but not outright hateful, just a very awkward medium that made it difficult to form a lasting bond into adulthood. They text once per holiday and are friends on Facebook.

This one doesn't really have much of a canon basis but rather builds on my other headcanons, and that's that growing up being a Known Gay led him to well... his own kind of Buck 1.0 era, so to speak. Basically being the favorite secret hookup for every deeply closeted sports bro, which was horrific for his mental health but was like... scraps of attention/intimacy that he wouldn't get otherwise, so why not keep doing it? I like this one because not only does it make the whole trying to avoid a meaningless hookup when he rejoined dating apps thing more meaningful and hurt even more than it already does, but also adds a new layer of substance to his beef with Eddie that I think is really interesting.

The timeline of this show is all sorts of fucked so I've just decided that like... he either just turned or will soon be turning 40, and definitely has some feelings about that because when he was younger he did NOT expect he'd live to be that old <3 Not necessarily in an active ideation way, but more of a passive disregard for his life and just general queer pessimism? I hold that Sue saved his life twice, first in the fire and then by giving him a job that gave him an actual sense of purpose and direction for probably the first time ever. Every time he thinks about the fact he might actually end up being a proper Queer Elder he just?? surprised pikachu meme.

I was going to just do five of these but for the sake of not having all of these be sad as fuck, one last bonus one for you is that I think his main special interest(s) is celebrities and films and pop culture and stuff like that <3 like he WILL infodump about the lead actress' entire filmography before you can actually watch the movie.

Thank you for asking I love talking about my favorite special guy <3 Minor characters are my absolute favorite and I love to come up with deeper backstories than what we're given based on over-analyzing all of their behaviors <3

#my posts #asks #speaknowbuckley #911 abc #josh russo #911 headcanons #im SO normal about minor characters #sorry if u were hoping for fluff i am an angst goblin i bring only agony and trauma i live to torture my faves <3

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linklethehistorian · 4 months

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“Choose Violence” Asks: Ace Attorney fandom

Y’all asked for it, you got it. I have answered the entire question list for the Ace Attorney fandom; hope you enjoy!

Answers below the cut both due to length, and for spoilers for various games. Proceed at your own risk.

the character everyone gets wrong

Unpolished ramble answer from livestream:

[Transcript from Linkle Plays: Persona 3 Reload (Live)] “I… *sighs* Offhand I only have a few…in mind; I’m sure that I could come up with…more than that when I actually write it out…but…at this moment in time… *sighs*

The character that I feel…m— a lot of people get wrong, in a sense, in Ace Attorney would be…*sighs* probably Athena Cykes, because….a lot of people…try to claim that’s she’s — well, at least a lot of people that don’t like her — claim to tend that she’s…just kind of a replacement for Maya and I don’t…really feel like that’s the case at all. I don’t think that they’re even comparable by means. I…feel like… *sighs* I feel like Athena, she…has an entirely…different vibe to her. …I-I — I know people miss Maya, and she’s beloved, but I gotta be honest; between the two of them —

*sighs* I’m not saying Maya’s not an interesting character, or that…the — or that…people loving her is unfounded, but, I feel Athena kind of has deep — deeper story from the get-go. I…very much enjoy her story in — in Dual Destines; I think that she’s…very strong — has very strong story, and…for me, the things that she went through — and…spoiler alert, if you haven’t played that, so uh…if your worried about the spoilers, maybe, mayyyybe mute meee…for a few minutes, but — I feel like, she — what she went through as a child, with…her mother experimenting on her and — and…her bonding with Simon Blackquill, and…then having to — despite her…issues with her mother and believing that she was…doing this and using her as a Guinea pig, when that is not the truth and her mother loved her very much, but I feel like…watching her mother die and, believing that she was responsible so much that she blocked this out, and Simon coming and saving her and taking the blame, purely to protect her, and her living her entire life trying to get him out of his situation because she believed so strongly he was not responsible, despite everything, I…feel like she had a much stronger and deeper and more well-written backstory from the very beginning, whereas Maya, she — kind of just was what she was; yes, she lost her sister, but…beyond that — I mean, come on, let’s be honest: she was getting framed for something every day of the week practically in most of the Ace Attorney games, let’s not even lie here — it — she was just kind of there to be…Phoenix’s reason for doing things, and…not so much — where Athena was more her own person, and…was separate from that, and…from the very beginning, and — yeah, I could definitely write about this better, but…I think that a lot of people don’t really give her enough credit, she’s really an amazing character and, I’ve always liked her? I don’t think that it’s fair to compare the two; I think they’re two very…very different characters, I…don’t dislike Maya — I think she’s very likeable, but…yeah. [/end transcript]

Polished answer:

Athena Cykes — not necessarily in terms of fanfiction and the like, which I feel like this question would usually be interpreted to mean, but rather just on a more basic, fundamental level of misunderstanding.

There is this really unfortunate attitude within the Ace Attorney community that Athena only exists as a stand-in and/or discounted replacement for Maya, and I honestly find it really insulting and diminishing towards her character and all that she is — not to mention just plain wrong.

Don’t get me wrong — I know Maya is a really beloved character to a lot of people in this fandom, and I’m not meaning to ignore or put that down in any way; I think it’s completely valid on every level, but…calling any female lead that happens to enter the scene “just a cheap replacement for Maya” is just plain absurd, especially when it’s a character like Athena, who from the very get-go of her introduction case and game automatically came with a clear unique personality, ability, and deep, complicated story, motivation, and narrative masterfully interwoven with the other characters within the game.

With all possible due respect to Maya and her fans, it is my personal opinion that between the two characters, if we are talking about a sense of narrative relevance and involvement and the complexity and depth of backstory, Maya by far pales in comparison in the vast, vast majority of her games to Athena in just her one singular introduction game alone.

While yes, Maya did lose her sister in her intro case and get framed for her death and that’s very, very sad — that’s about all the depth there is to her character for the entirety of the game; she was the sister of your mentor character, who unfortunately just happened to be visiting at the wrong place and wrong time and then somehow ended up tagging along with you from that point forward because her power to channel spirits came in handy. Aside from her first case and the last few cases in the third game, she didn’t really serve much purpose other than to be that character who is Phoenix’s silly, goofy, quirky sidekick and when the situation called for it, his motivation to put up with absurd circumstances — usually because she was either being framed for something, or kidnapped, or otherwise put at threat of serious danger if he didn’t; I mean, let’s be completely real here — lovable, iconic character or not, she was practically getting into trouble every day of the week like it was her fucking hobby. She was, in essence, his damsel in distress in need of constant rescuing like Princess Peach/Toadstool in the older Mario games.

And then, on the other hand, we have Athena, who is someone Phoenix took in initially not out of guilt but out of seeing sincere promise in her ability in a lawyer and passion for seeing her dream through — a deep, moving, endgame plot-relevant dream of saving the man who believed she snapped from her torturous experiments into her power and killed her (in her own eyes) cold and abusive scientist mother, choosing to shelter her and damn himself to take the fall for the woman’s death to the point of receiving the death penalty. We have Athena, who spends the entire game having blocked out the memory of what she supposedly did from the sheer trauma of that moment, and yet still believes so intensely in the innocence of the man she once called a dear friend that she continues to chase desperately after that dream and rush to become a lawyer and frantically search for a way to clear his name — even as the month and day draw ever nearer and all seems hopeless and without a single loose end to be found.

Whether you believe Maya to be the best female character in the series or otherwise (I personally do like her a lot, though I would never go that far), Athena is nevertheless not a mere cheap stand-in for her absence, but completely her own character with a unique identity and purpose all hers and hers alone.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Ron DeLite is SO not a top, and he would never top, and you cannot convince me otherwise. lol His wife, Dessie, has all the top energy that exists in that relationship and he just has absolutely none of it. He is very smol and timid and submissive — especially to her, and I think she adores that about him.

So yeah. I’m not saying Ron could never top anyone ever physically, but I just really don’t think he wants to, you know? I imagine Dessie is absolutely on top no matter what they’re doing, and I think he’s very comfy with that — with letting his wife have all of the control in the situation, since he loves seeing her happy and would do anything for her at all. He probably gets pegged sometimes, too, honestly.

I love them.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I’mma be honest; I’ve never been on Ace Attorneyblr, and I have no idea whether that is a blessing or a curse, but at the very least it means that I don’t have any horror stories from Tumblr to share with y’all.

As for a description of the worst take I’ve seen anywhere ever…well, probably just in general any of the takes that talk about any new character just being a discount replacement for one of the old ones, or Dual Destinies being the weakest game in the series…but we’ll get to the latter issue later.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I’ve never blocked anyone in the Ace Attorney fandom, and I’ve never really felt the need to, yet, either; all my disagreements with a lot of this fandom’s general opinions aside, I’ve never really had a bad experience in this fandom that ever inspired me to block someone. Lovely fandom all in all when it comes to respecting each other — from what I’ve experienced, at least.

Here’s hoping it stays that way.

5. worst discord server and why

I’m not in any Ace Attorney servers, so…sorry; I can’t really comment on this one.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

To be honest, I can’t really think of any ship fans in this fandom that are really particularly annoying on the whole… I mean, sure, there are some annoying shippers out there, but like…isn’t that just true of nearly every single fandom and even semi-popular ship that exists out there in some manner?

I guess if I had to pick out ships in this fandom in particular that have an at least slightly noticeable level of annoying people in them, it would probably be NaruMitsu and NaruMayo — but both for totally different reasons: certain NaruMitsu fans for allegedly sometimes bullying the NaruMayo fans out of ship rivalry (though this cannot be confirmed, as I’ve only ever heard about and never seen this happen firsthand), and certain NaruMayo fans for playing the victim card constantly about being oh-so-tiny and “not popular enough” and daring to tell others in and out of the fandom that “you’ve never experienced a small fandom if you don’t ship them”, when, in fact, they are basically the second biggest ship between the main characters of the first three games. -_-

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

As I said in my Legend of Zelda version of this post, I’m not really typically the type of person who can have a character or ship or fandom ‘ruined’ for them by association to something negative, so obviously, there’s no one in this series that has become hated by me because of such things.

I guess the closest thing I can say is just that although I do still like Maya as a character a lot, I do end up thinking a lot about the childish tantrums this fandom has thrown over her every time I see her. 😅

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Well, also like I’ve said in a previous post for a different series, I don’t believe that an opinion — if it is truly an opinion — can, by definition, be wrong; the very nature of opinions is that they’re supposed to be subjective personal feelings on something, so there is no such thing as right or wrong ones — merely different ideas.

However, there is such a thing as a false statement, and unfortunately many so-called “opinions” are actually this — something that regardless of anyone’s personal feelings, is just plain factually incorrect in terms of canon, so today I’ll just talk about those instead.

For starters, there’s the stupid widespread attitude where every new sidekick, main lawyer, or detective is treated as though they are just a weaker, more watered down bootleg version of the original cast from the first game; that’s just absolutely absurd.

I don’t want to get into explaining why they’re wrong about every single character that’s gotten accused of this, as this would get much, much too long if I did, but I’ve already given a very good example of what I mean back in the first question when I was talking about Athena Cykes.

Athena is NOT a cheap replacement for Maya Fey or Apollo Justice or Phoenix Wright; she is Athena Cykes, a character with her own personality, talents, well-written character arc(s), motives, and place within the series.

Trucy is NOT a cheap replacement for Maya Fey; she is Trucy Wright, a character with her own personality, talents, well-written character arc(s), motives, and place within the series.

Ema is NOT a cheap replacement for Maya Fey or Dick Gumshoe; she is Ema Skye, a character with her own personality, talents, well-written character arc(s), motives, and place within the series.

Bobby is NOT a cheap replacement for Dick Gumshoe; he is Bobby Fulbright, a character with his own personality, talents, well-written character arc(s), motives, and place within the series.

Apollo is NOT a cheap replacement for Phoenix Wright; his is Apollo Justice, a character with his own personality, talents, well-written character arc(s), motives, and place within the series.

They all have different personalities.

They all have different strengths and weaknesses.

They all have different character arcs and well-written backstories and motives for what they do.

They ALL belong, just as much as the OG cast.

And as for another major “opinion” this fandom is wrong about, it’s that Dual Destinies is the weakest game in the series.

Everyone is allowed to have their own preferences and opinions in regards to which is the subjectively best or worst game in the series, but when it comes down to calling Dual Destinies the “weakest” in the series, this is just plain untrue; love it or hate it, in terms of its main overarching plot, even from a purely standalone perspective, Dual Destinies is literally the most structurally sound and well-put-together story in the entire series, possessing the most and best-written foreshadowing throughout the entire game that any main entry in the Ace Attorney franchise has ever managed.

I could write an entire essay on that game — and someday I probably will — but seriously, calling it weak very simply is not correct, even if you for some reason absolutely hate the story.

Feel how you will about that game, but weak is not a word you can factually use to describe it. It’s just absurd, and I hate that peoples’ weird bitter biases lead them to claim shit like this.

9. worst part of canon

Definitely not a point a lot of people are going to agree with me on, but honestly, for me, it’s some of the very poor writing decisions in Spirit of Justice that bother me the most — from the fact that despite having Apollo recite the very most important parts of his life and the people in it to his adopted father, he somehow forgot and failed to mention his lifelong best friend who was murdered only just the prior year, to setting up an entire case merely so that you could pit Apollo and Phoenix against each other in what felt like a very ham-fisted and unnatural way.

10. worst part of fanon

I’m not really sure; I can’t say that there’s a lot in fanon that I hate enough to call it the worst, but I suppose the constant erasure of Miles’ long-since officially confirmed asexuality is a little frustrating.

I’m of the opinion that it’s perfectly fine to do whatever you want in AUs (though I will question at some point if you change a character so fundamentally why you don’t just create an OC instead), but a lot of people I’ve seen in general tend to act like Miles’ asexuality doesn’t necessarily exist in canon, and it’s kind of annoying. It’s very rarely acknowledged.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

None, yet; that could change someday, but for now, there are no words or tags I’m filtering when I search for something.

I suppose in this case, it’s because, aside from being a little loud in an irritating way from time to time, it’s definitely not the worst fandom ever to be in. Far from it.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Well, I already went on a long rant about Athena earlier, so I suppose she’s definitely on the list, but I think another one would be Pierce Nichody; while there are definitely some extremely human characters and even antagonists throughout the series, I think that Pierce is above all one of the most tragic antagonists to exist — slotted right alongside Godot, and certainly sharing his grief over a lost loved one, but quite unique from him, as well.

While Godot’s decision to risk his life to protect his late fiancé’s sister is definitely one of the forms that love and grief can take and infinitely healthier than Pierce’s, there is still something so compelling to me about the idea of grief over loss of a loved one being so intense that their entire world stops at the moment of said loved one’s death and they become so overcome with anguish and despair that they are willing to burn the world over that event and to try to “fix” things (whatever that mean for the individual character and circumstance), even though they may know it’s not necessarily the right thing to do or even what their dearest would want.

And Pierce’s pocket watch — the one belonging to his late fiancé, that broke on the day of her fatal accident — somehow finally advancing time again at the end of the trial to remind him that he could move forward and let go and that she would always be with him, and having him break down over that and the weight of his actions, is so absolutely heart-wrenching and beautiful.

There are a lot of other characters I could talk about, yes, but I think Pierce is definitely the one who deserves the most credit and appreciation and yet never gets it.

13. worst blorboficiation

*shrugs* Still can only guess what this means, but even then, I don’t think I’ve necessarily seen this in this fandom; usually when there’s a character being mischaracterized here, it’s because someone has a chip on their shoulder against them — not the opposite.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

NaruMitsu….? lol Other than that and a few other popular ships, not really much comes to mind as typical to see in an Ace Attorney fic — either positive or negative.

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

Again, just some typical ships: NaruMitsu, KlaPollo, for some reason Simon Blackquill x Bobby Fulbright despite it not being super popular outside of art… Beyond that, not a lot to comment on.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Spirit of Justice in general, compared to Dual Destinies; don’t get me wrong — SoJ did have some good moments and even good cases, and I don’t think there was anything wrong with it in concept overall, it’s just that…it’s quite weak compared to DD plot and writing wise?

My best guess is that it’s because Maya and Ema both come back — though especially Maya — in that one, and since people worship the ground those characters walk on for whatever reason compared to some of the newer cast, the nostalgia bias is making people prefer it, but really I just found it underwhelming.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Platonic (or hell, even romantic) ClaPollo and JuniPollo art in general would be nice to see, and I’d definitely like more fics that are written in the same format of the games (I came across one like that once and it was super awesome, though I can’t for the life of me remember which one right now), but at the end of the day, as I’ve said, people should really just write and draw whatever they’re inspired to — not what I *personally* or anyone else would like to see.

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Like I said, Dual Destinies in general, and also Spirit of Justice’s DLC case, Turnabout Time-Traveler — the latter of which not only is the case Pierce is in, but it’s also just an incredibly wild, plot-twisty, deep, and heart-wrenching ride altogether for a lot of the case-specific characters involved. Also Turnabout Stoyteller’s Athena and Simon dynamic with Simon on co-counsel; it is so fucking good and just…nobody appreciates it enough.

19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Simon/Bobby (once upon a time I actually knew the ship name for this, but I’ve forgotten and I’m too lazy to google at the moment lol), as a ship.

Like….I don’t ship it at all, personally, but I have to admit I do find the concept of it so appealing, considering how it would mean that Simon fell in love with this absurdly altruistic detective bent on saving him from himself and reforming him and getting him off of death row, only to later find out that the man he cared so much for was actually dead (potentially even before he met him — I can’t remember when Fulbright started hanging around him) and all along this has been an imposter essentially wearing his skin, who actually is the reason he was charged and put on death row to begin with, and is actively seeking to destroy him and the only other people in his life that Simon cares about. It’s just…a really cool and exciting and heartbreaking concept. So yeah, I get it, even though on one hand I can’t possibly bring myself to actually ship it or even see it as being truly plausible in canon.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

I don’t know… I guess Justice for All had some cases that were really kind of flops — especially the first Maggey Byrde case (2-1); they weren’t all bad, though.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

I guess just Maya Fey and Spirit of Justice in general, for the reasons I’ve already stated.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Not to repeat myself for the umpteenth time, but definitely Dual Destinies as a whole, SoJ’s DLC case, and the Simon and Athena dynamic present in Turnabout Storyteller.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

NaruMitsu — I was originally a NaruMayo fan back in the early days simply because I used to buy into the “if there are a male and female protagonist, they must be in love” rhetoric with no further basis needed, and I used to see Miles as so AroAce that he would never pursue a romantic relationship with anyone, but over the years and having seen enough canon evidence to the contrary, I’ve eventually stopped thinking that for me Phoenix and Maya really have that kind of vibe in canon, and come around to the idea that perhaps Miles may be Ace and on the spectrum of Aro, but Phoenix is an exception for him, though he hates to admit it.

I’m not sure if I actively ship it or not, but if I don’t I’m very close to doing so as it is and only very slightly bordering on indifferent whether they’re romantic or platonic. I definitely think Phoenix likes Miles, at the very least.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

I don’t know… I can’t really think of anything in particular at the moment, to be honest; this fandom is relatively chill overall.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Again, this attitude that in order for another lawyer character to exist, be they male or female, but especially female, they must be a replacement for another character.

Also the Dual Destinies hate, and Apollo supposedly “having three backstories because they couldn’t choose one”, when in reality what actually happened — aside from some moments of poor writing I can’t and won’t defend — is that he was a character that grew and was expanded upon over the course of multiple games, and none of what was revealed ever necessarily conflicted with or contradicted any other part of the backstory.

People are allowed to decide to expand on their characters further and add new details to their lives — y’all don’t need to take everything so personally.

Question List

Previous Answers for Questions 4 and 16 (all fandoms)

All Questions Answered (Legend of Zelda fandom)

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