#there's still more than an hour of deleted footage

[saturntheday]

matthew, please just give us the 3 hour version of rwrb already

I want it like yesterday

[freedomfireflies]

I Love You*

Summary: The second part to Yellow* and One for the Money*

The one where you tell Mr. Styles you love him and you wonder if he'll say it back.

Word Count: 3k

Content Warning: 18+, smut, blow job, multiple orgasms, brief Daddy kink, Sir kink

I love you.

Three little words that feel so big in such a small room. 

Mr. Styles remains still. Unmoving. So quiet, you wonder if you actually said the words aloud or if you only thought them.

But you can feel his heart racing. Can hear the subtle hitch in his breath as the seconds tick by. And you know, undoubtedly, that he heard you.

You clear your throat. “You don’t…you don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know.”

There’s another long lull between your admission and his response. He shifts in your arms before finally he finally nods once.

And that suffices as his reply.

Truth be told, you feel relieved. You aren’t even sure why you said it at all, much less now. And after such an intimate scene. Especially when you knew he most likely wouldn’t say it back.

But you don’t blame him for that. Mr. Styles has never been the overly romantic, affectionate type. You don’t expect that to change just for you. You’re happy with the relationship you have. You like that you stay at his apartment more than your own. You like that he dedicates his free time to you. And you like that you work together and play together.

He’s more than just your partner and your boss. He’s…yours.

“Sir?” you whisper, and you feel his hand tighten around yours. “Are you all right?”

He nods again. Quickly. Strained. “I’m fine, Peach. Are you?”

You nod, too. “Mhm. I’m better now. Promise.” A beat. “Could we start the scene again?”

He lets out a sigh and finally looks up to catch your eye. “Maybe later. We’ll see.”

You pout and feel that anxious twist in your stomach return. You don’t want to end this moment on a sour note. The note where you had to safe word and make him stop only to tell him you love him and surely freak him out. You want to go back. Start it all over again. Do it right.

He notices your frown and tilts his head. “Peach,” he warns. “Don’t.”

“But—”

“I said we’ll see,” he repeats sternly. “If you’re good, I’ll consider it. But if you want to argue with me, you can sit here, achy and dripping, with nobody to touch you.”

You bite back a whine. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl.” He pats your hip. “I’ve got a few more emails to answer before dinner. If I go, will you be all right until I’m done?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He takes hold of your chin. Firm. “I want your honesty.”

“You have it.”

He hesitates. There’s a tension here, between you. An unspoken strain and an edge you’d give anything to smooth out.

You can tell he wants to resolve it. He’s a problem solver. It’s in his nature to fix things. And that’s how this whole arrangement was started in the first place.

But how can he fix what he knows he broke?

He kisses your cheek. Quickly. Gently. “Be good while I’m gone.”

And with that, he leaves you. He turns off the camera, puts his clothes back on, and disappears into his home office.

You spend the next several hours trying not to stare at his closed door. Or thinking about how it ended. What you said. You delete the footage off the SD card and vow to never speak of this day again.

He feels so far away, even if it’s only a few hundred feet. But there’s an ocean between you now and you are lost in his sea. 

Dinner is good. You order Chinese and it’s delivered right as he’s exiting his office for the night. You do your best to put things back to the way they were before. You talk—a lot—and he listens. He’s quiet. Nodding along without much commentary. He picks at his food and you know something is still on his mind.

You hate it.

He cleans up while you go take a shower. You take your time, allowing the water to wash away your regret. Make you clean again. Until each mistake has been swept down the drain.

The two of you will be okay. You have to be.

When you get out, you find him on the bed. He’s got his reading glasses on and a book in his hand and he looks…

Ethereal.

You’ve always been attracted to him. How could you not be, when he has a jaw like that and abs that could grate cheese? But somehow, he looks even better like this—relaxed. At peace. He’s still wearing his fancy slacks and white button up. But the sleeves have been rolled to his elbows and he’s left the first few buttons undone. 

You step further into the bedroom and he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s engrossed in his novel, glasses perched on the tip of his perfect nose as he flips to the next page. And you smile. Your insides already aching as you crawl onto the end of the mattress and allow your towel to fall away.

When the bed dips, he glances up. Briefly. He notices the feral look in your eye and the way you’re moving toward him. He knows what you want and thankfully, he doesn’t deny you.

He looks back to his book. “How was your shower?”

“Good,” you murmur. You reach for his belt and slip it through each loop until you can toss it toward the floor.

He’s quiet.

“How’s your book?” you ask and he hums.

“It’s all right. Not entirely helpful but I like the subject.”

You grin. You adore when he sounds studious. “That’s good.” You pull his zipper down and reach inside his briefs. 

Still, he doesn’t so much as flinch. He reads and he pretends as though you aren’t currently dragging your palm along his hardening cock. He pretends your tits aren’t mere inches from his grasp and he pretends that he can’t see the way you’ve already begun to drip.

You take him in your mouth. Your tongue is wet and ready and you swing your leg over his thigh in order to brace yourself against his lap and take him fully. He’s large. Incredibly large and you forget that sometimes until you feel the way he curves down your throat. 

You pull back and spit only to watch the way it drips down his length until you can smear it around the way you want.

“Peach,” you hear him say and you look up. He moves the book aside to see you. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” 

He reaches down and pinches your cheek. “Watch it,” he warns and he’s strict but somehow kind. “I thought I told you to wait.”

“I did wait,” you argue before sucking on his tip. You pop off and lick your lips. “All day. Couldn’t wait any longer.”

“Hm.” He moves his hand to the back of your head and tugs you away. “I’m not sure I should let you.”

“…why?” You straighten up. “I’m okay now. I want to do this. And you never got to finish—”

“Peach—”

“—which I know isn’t the point,” you amend quickly, remembering what he said before. “I know. But I want to make you finish. I want to make you feel good. Especially after what you did for me.”

He frowns now. Sighs. Takes off his glasses and sets down his book. “I’m your dominant and your partner. It is my job to take care of you. I don’t do it because I want something in return and my kindness is not transactional. I care about you. I want you to be okay. Always.”

I care about you isn’t exactly an I love you but it still makes you smile. Really, really big.

“I know,” you whisper. You squeeze his thigh. “But I feel…edged.”

He smirks. “Do you?”

“Mhm.” You dip back down and drag your tongue up from his balls. You notice his jaw tick. “And if you really want to take care of me and make sure I’m okay…you’ll cum in my mouth.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He considers this, fingers tapping over the hard cover of his book. Then, he nods once, and slips his glasses back on. “All right. I’ll let you have your way just this once. But once you’re through, you’re to get into this bed and go to sleep. Is that understood?”

You nod eagerly. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl. Go ahead.”

With that, you continue your sucking and fondling while he continues reading his novel. The bedroom is eerily silent except for the loud echo of your wet, enthusiastic lapping at the large cock sitting proudly on your tongue. And you wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if he won’t give you your own orgasm before bed, you’re content to have him just like this.

It doesn’t take long until he’s twitching in your mouth. He doesn’t look at you or watch the way your cheeks hollow or the way his balls look in your pretty hands, but you know he’s desperate to. You can tell by the way he turns the page. The way he grips the book and tries incredibly hard not to rip it in half as he moves to the next chapter. 

You don’t slow. You keep going, even as his legs flex beneath you. As his chest takes in labored breaths. You want to get him there and he subtly nudges his leg further into your cunt to feel your arousal smear across his skin. 

You do everything you know he likes, even though the camera is off. You suck and squeeze and give him everything you know he likes. Because this performance is just for him. The way you moan, the way you swallow, the way you bob and take more of him than you think you ever have before.

You’re his good girl. His investment, his toy, his.

And moments before he finally releases himself all down your throat, he tosses the book aside, grabs a fistful of your hair, and yanks you off.

“Get on,” he grits and tugs you closer.

You don’t need to be told twice. You scoot forward and line him up just so before he takes hold of your hips and helps you sink down. Things move quickly and he doesn’t have the patience to wait any longer. 

And it’s beautiful, this moment. The way he stretches you open. And even if there’s a slight burn from the intrusion of his thick cock, you revel in the pain. Both of you groaning the moment you feel it.

And you know he won’t be able to hold off much longer.

“How did it taste, Peach, hm?” he asks as he fucks up into you. “How did it feel to have me in your mouth?”

“Good,” you pant. You claw at his curls. “So good, Sir—”

“Yeah?” He slaps his hand against your ass and you mewl. “Like to take my cock, don’t you? Like to be my dirty little slut—"

“Yes—”

“Like to feel me down your throat…have me cum all over your tongue.”

You make too many noises and he reaches up to pull your lip with his teeth. He kisses you and groans into your mouth and this is what sex should be. Rough and hard but filled with adoration.

“What a fucking whore,” he groans. He tugs at your hips. Watches the bulge in your belly with every thrust. “Begging to suck my cock, wanting to make Daddy feel good…guess I don’t give your mouth enough things to do, hm?”

You shake your head and wilt in his hold. He rarely refers to himself with that nickname and hearing it now almost tips you over.

“So fucking wet,” he exhales and you look down to watch with him. “S’fucking pathetic, isn’t it? Didn’t even have to touch you to have you dripping.”

He’s right. He always is.

He pinches your clit. Takes your nipple in his mouth and lets his large hands scratch down your back—your shoulders blades, your spine, your ass. And you have never felt safer than here in this moment with him.

“Cum,” he says, and he nips at your skin until it’s littered in marks and memories.

“Cum,” he whispers, and he pulls on your hair and wraps it around his fist to bare your throat to his teeth.

“Cum,” he pleads, and he kisses you—hard—until the room is spinning and you finally let go.

You unravel together. A collection of moans and cries and tangled limbs as you make a mess of each other. And you don’t care—about any of it. About what was said earlier, about what wasn’t said, about the way he looked when you said it.

You cling to his strong shoulders and you kiss him hard and you indulge in the feel of him dripping from your cunt.

But he’s not through. He pulls you off his cock and flips you onto your knees until your ass in the air.

You feel his tongue. Dragging up your cunt, tasting the remains of his cum, your cum, everything. He spanks you—hard. Paints his mark across your skin and leaves it there just so he can admire it.

“Say it,” he hisses and you suck in a sharp breath.

“Wha…what?”

“Say it,” he says. He spanks you again and nips at your pussy. “Say you love me.”

You clutch the duvet and your thighs are shaking. Your mind feels fuzzy. “I…”

Another slap to your ass and you’re overstimulated and wildly sensitive. He fucks his tongue into your dripping hole and grunts at the way you keen and you’ve never felt this kind of beautiful confusion.

“Say it.” He holds your thighs open and nearly suffocates himself as he mouths at you. “Fucking tell me you love me. Tell me again.”

You shake your head. You don’t understand. “Harry…”

Wrong. He slips his fingers inside and fucks his cum back into you. Fast. Lewd. Loud. “Come on, Peach. I know you want to. Know you do….so say it.”

And maybe this is a trick. Maybe this is some cruel, sadistic game just to make you lose but you can’t think straight when he’s this close. When he’s bending your body to his salacious intentions and treating you like a toy.

“I love you,” you whisper. You screw your eyes shut. “I do, I love you, Sir.”

He curses. Groans. “Again.”

“I love you.” You fall onto the bed stomach first but he doesn’t stop. He flips you around and he looks at you as he eats you. “I love you, Mr. Styles.”

His lashes flutter. You reach for his hair and tug it with your fist and he moans into your cunt before drinking you down. Spitting on your pussy just to smear it around and thrust it back into you.

You arch. “Shit, I love you—I—”

You cum again and he enjoys every second of it. He pulls you as close to his face as he can get you and lives inside the sound of your strained whimpers.

And when you finish, he leaves your clit with a satisfied pop and licks his lips. You watch him crawl up your body until he’s settled atop your chest and you smile lazily as he reaches up to run his hand down your cheek.

“My sweet Peach,” he whispers and kisses you hard. You taste everything. You taste him. You taste the desperation woven alongside his tongue. He kisses you until you can’t breathe and he only stops so he can stare at you a little longer.

You brush your fingers through the damp curls along the back of his neck. “That was fun.”

He’s quiet. Studying you closely and you feel as though you’re being graded on a test you didn’t know you were taking. 

Then, he murmurs, “I don’t say it.”

Your heart skips. You don’t have to ask what he means. “I…I know. It’s okay. I don’t expect you—”

“I don’t say it because I’m afraid I can’t live up to it,” he continues. He ignores you. “Because the last time I did, I couldn’t deliver on what it meant. My love didn’t look the same as hers did. I said it. And she still left.”

Your other hand finds his shirt. You trail your touch over the exposed skin of his chest and you feel the way his heart races. “I know.”

His brows furrow. “I want to say it,” he says softly. “I want to. For you. Because I do. And I don’t want this to feel unfair—”

“It doesn’t,” you assure him. “I promise. I…I figured you wouldn’t say it back and I was okay with that. Because it doesn’t change the fact that I do.”

Another beat. “I’m worried you didn’t mean it.”

“What?”

He sighs and sweeps his thumb along your jaw. “You’d been anxious, and you were scared. You said none of your other partners had ever been kind to you in moments like that, and…sex is intimate. It can change the chemistry in your brain and maybe…maybe you didn’t mean it—”

“I did.” You grab his face and you make him listen. “Harry, I meant it. I still mean it. And I’ll mean it tomorrow, too. And the next day. And the next.”

His expression softens.

“And I meant it long before today. I wanted to tell you tons of times and I didn’t because…I don’t know. I didn’t want to scare you,” you admit and you both smile. “It is a big word. But it’s just a word. It means nothing without action. And even if you can’t say it, you show it every day. And that’s all I could really want.”

He dips down and nuzzles his nose against yours. “I don’t deserve you, Peach.”

“No,” you tease. “No, you don’t.”

You kiss again and his body feels good against yours. His heart feels good against yours.

Then, he exhales, "I love you."

And you don't say anything. But you smile. Because you know everything he's giving up just to offer you what you want to hear.

Minutes go by before you finally change the subject and say, "You know, I kind of wish we'd been recording all that. That would have been some great content."

He laughs, relieved, and the sound is so incredibly beautiful. 

“Next time,” he says and you grin as he holds you closer. “Tonight…your love belongs to me.”

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY CUTIES!!! Granted, this wasn't exactly a Valentine's blurb BUT LISTEN IT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH!!!!! ASLFJSF

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH and hope you're having the best day! No matter what it looks like or who it's with ♥️

~ Full One for the Money Masterlist

~ Full Masterlist

Credit for the incredible and perfectly peachy dividers to @firefly-graphics!!

Taglist: @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @keepdrivingkisses @swiftmendeshoran @tiredinwinter @straightontilmornin @justlemmeadoreyou @harrysdaydreams @tiaamberxx @peterparker1sgf @myfavfanficsever @littlenatilda @vamprry @fdl305 @tchalametishot @ssaama @indierockgirrl @likeapplejuicenpeach @vane28282 @lukesaprince @closureesny @lc-fics @0nlythrowharrybeaux @hannahdressedasabanana @iguessyourejustwhatineeded @dylanobandposts21 @butdaddyilovehim-hs @floral-recs @itjustkindahappenedreally @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @kathb59 @iamjustaholeforyousir @harrystylesfan2686 @cherryluvhobi @caynonmoondreams @daphnesutton @ilovec0lbybr0ck @definegirlfriendsx @allthelovehes @amiets2 @nega-omega @sucker-4-angst @hsgucci94 @gills-lounge @kennedy-brooke @avasversion @stylesfever @saturnheartz

[darkknightofficial]

Continued // Redrobinfr

@redrobinfr

Waking up a few hours later, Tim's head feels noticeably better, and he's much more aware now than he was earlier. He can see Bruce on the other cot, not awake yet. Glancing at his iv, he carefully removes it, no longer feeling like he ought to leave it in, and gets up off the cot and heads over to the batcomputer, which is still logged in. It doesn't seem as though Cass and Babs have gotten to the cave yet to look through footage, and Tim decides to leave that task to them.

But they had been told to look through all the footage, and Tim sits down, preparing to find the deleted cowl footage from Bruce and save it.

After all, there were several fail-safes on deleting content, because you wouldn't want to hit the wrong button and your evidence be gone forever.

[daryfromthefuture]

i'm on the train and bored and still have an hour to go, so TIME TO RANT ✨️

and i'm choosing to make a list of bttf scenes i would have done differently/things i would have added because i like disagreeing with bob gale as if i owned this franchise

this is maybe an unnecessary change, but personally, i would have preferred if there were more instances of marty trying to warn doc about his death in part 1. we see it when doc demonstrates the model and then later twice on november 12 (before he writes the letter and then before marty has to leave), but i feel like it would have been more emotionally impactful if he had tried it more than that and only at the very end given up and written that letter.

SHOW DOC PLAY SAX. LIKE BRO. they could have had a concert 😭 imagine doc crashing the dance and playing sax with marty on stage (take this bullet point with a grain of salt, i'm only half serious. but still seeing doc play sax would have been badass)

the most obvious point of all obvious points, add the goddamn lone pine mall hug. the entire fandom agrees it's canon, and i remember a post going around speculating that they did indeed record a hug and keep the secret footage somewhere at universal lmao. but all jokes aside, this hug was SO necessary. every sane person would be waiting for it when watching the movie. marty is literally on the ground, bawling his eyes out, thinking his friend is gone, and us heartbroken audience members don't even get a hug to soothe our souls. i haven't paid much mind to doc and marty's relationship when i first watched bttf, but even past me was expecting a hug. good thing bobby fixed it in the musical

MORE JENNIFER. don't knock that girl out for 75% of the movie, please. she deserved better, and i wish bttf 2 would have put more emphasis on her as a character and how she's like and stuff. i hate to see it, but she's such a surface character that we barely know anything about (in my opinion), and that's just sad. she could very well have gone to the cafe 80s with marty and kept him grounded and stuff.

honestly, i maybe even would have kept that deleted 1985a scene with dave. we don't get to see marty's siblings at all in that timeline aside from a mention from biff, and it would have been interesting to see.

this is quite a jump in time, but i wish bob gale would have expanded on the scene in bttf 3 in which doc tells marty that he wants to stay behind in 1885 because of clara. this might be my fanfic brain speaking, but i see so much conflict potential. it would have been wild to see doc and marty argue, maybe even fight for the first time in the trilogy, and picture the emotional turmoil both of them were going through. if i had been marty, i would have snapped, not gonna lie. like, yeah, i get that doc found the love of his life but after all the lectures he'd given marty and after all those times marty was willing to rip apart the fabric of time just to keep doc alive, that man just goes "sorry marty, i met a woman i fell in love with, thanks for saving my life so i can live it out HERE. you go back home and idk clean my lab" >:(. this will forever be a pet peeve hahahaha

WHY does doc just FLY OFF on that DAMN TRAIN? i have to admit, it is an epic ending and feels sort of celebratory, but how can he say that he had to get his dog BEFORE even MENTIONING marty, giving him a photo, shake his hand as if they were work colleagues and nothing more, and then LEAVE? WHAT??? at least talk to him for a bit longer, tell your best friend where you've been, whether he will see you again and that you cherish him for god's sake. if you already had to give him false hopes by getting on the train only to fly off on the hoverboard later 🙄

[just-horrible-things]

‘Verse: Resistance AU: Healer and Handler, co-author @whump-sprite

Who [ First | Prev ]

The overnight footage from Alex’s cell – and the whole block – has been deleted.

“System update fucked up the datetime on the cameras,” Peterson claims. “The rolling store got cleared early. Nothing I can do.”

It's absolute bullshit of course. Nowhere else in the facility was affected. But Peterson isn’t budging, and if the footage is somehow hidden rather than deleted outright, Ari doesn’t have the tech know how to find it.

She files an incident report for misuse of electronic resources. But unless Peterson's pulled this shit before she knows he won't get more than a slap on the wrist. Even if they don't swallow his “system update” story, he’ll say it was just a fuck-up and they’ll believe that.

She only has three suspects. She can't imagine any of those creeps putting a stooge up to it – there’s no way they’d miss out on the personal satisfaction.

So Ari spends about an hour – in between monitoring the live feeds and answering calls – trawling the recording from the closest untouched cameras, taking note of who enters and leaves the dead zone and when. Going by the blood on the floor this morning, the incident probably happened earlier in the night rather than later, but that’s not a lot to narrow it down by.

Unfortunately it turns out Frazier and Henson were both working last night. It shouldn’t be surprising, they probably talked each other into this petty little show of spite. Ari’s reminded of the time Riven spent a month stealing the ink out of one of the printers just to get under that one analyst’s skin.

She files another report, this one against Frazier. He's not supposed to have access to the healers anymore. But this isn't the first time she’s reported the same damn thing. They'll revoke his clearance, again, and in a few weeks he'll find another excuse to get someone to reinstate it. Probably Peterson again, the little rat bastard.

Probably not Peterson, she doesn't actually think he has that authority. It's just easy to be angry at his stupid smarmy face right now.

Frazier or Henson. 50-50 odds, but if she confronts the wrong one, she’ll look like an idiot. Better to be sure.

She might be able to get the answer out of Riven, he does like to run his mouth. But not today, because Frazier and Henson will still be asleep at home and they probably won’t have filled Riven in on their little ”prank” yet.

Back to Plan A, then.

She takes the time to pick up a plate of cafeteria food for Alex's afternoon meal. It'll be lukewarm by the time she gets it down to the cells, but it’s still better than his usual fare.

She hears the healer jump at the sound of the door. Sounds like he knocked a knee or elbow against the wall or floor. Hopefully not his head. He’s scrambling to get on his knees as she lets herself in.

He’d gotten less scared about that. Ariadne’s never punished him for being slow to get up, or even for skipping the formalities. But it’s no surprise he’s more hasty again with fresh stripes as a painful reminder of proper discipline.

Even though it wasn’t discipline.

“Easy,” she greets him, “it’s just your dinner.” She’s pleased to see his eyes widen with anticipation as he sees what she has for him. He’s not so miserable that he can’t be happy about a decent meal.

He reaches for his hot water first, like always. If she can convince them to change one thing about standard protocol it should be that – or turning the thermostat for the cells up. More heat getting into the healers, one way or another.

She forgot to pick up his sweater from the corner of his cell this morning. She was going to get rid of it, but Alex has struggled back into it despite the dried blood and the rents in the back and despite how much it must have pulled his back getting it on. Ariadne ought to take it off him – it’s going to start stinking soon – but she can’t quite bring herself to. Not while he’s eating.

It was only a couple of months ago she had to hold every bite to his mouth. He’d twitch at everything she said, and he could barely get a flicker of magic out without flinching and choking on fear. He’s doing so well for her. All it took was a bit of a gentler touch.

“I need to know which of them came in here and whipped you.” Terror is immediately stark in his eyes. “I won’t tell them you told me. I’ll tell them I got it out of security, okay? But I need to know. So that I can keep it from happening again.”

He doesn’t trust her. She sees it in his eyes. He doesn’t believe she has any interest in stopping them. Frustration itches, but she pushes it down. It’s a lot more to ask of him than trusting her to let him shower without raping him. He’s still doing well.

“This isn’t negotiable,” she prompts. It only takes the faintest hint of steel to make him flinch. “I’m s-s-sorry –” “I know. I’m not mad – not at you. But I need to know.”

He shrinks in on himself. Patience, Ari cautions herself. Her steady attention and expectation is enough. He’s just scared.

“N-Neil,” he whispers eventually. “I-I mean, F-Frazier, sir.” “Okay,” Ariadne agrees levelly, “Good. Well done.”

She makes herself take a deep breath and turn away from Alex so that he knows it’s not directed at him before she lets herself exhale anger.

“Jealous fucking creep. What a petty, insecure dipshit of a guy.” Alex looks shocked. But there’s something else too, something that could be appreciation or even humour just about edging out the fear. “I’d kick his teeth in if I had the chance,” Ariadne confides with a hint of a hard, conspiratorial smirk. Alex almost, almost smiles back. “I’d…” he starts, but he doesn’t finish the thought.

Ari grins at him anyway, just for a second before she turns serious again. “I will not be telling him that you told me,” she promises, “so don’t you go fessing up, okay? They don’t record audio from these cells, so it’s between you and me.”

The healer looks nervous, but he nods his head. “Okay, sir.”

She’s about to leave him when she remembers about the sweater. It's probably unsalvageable, but…

She crouches beside him and takes the hem to get a better look. As she thought, the blood’s the least of the damage. The fabric is practically shredded, not worth mending even if she was inclined to, which she isn't. Darning a healer's clothes would be ridiculous.

“I’m – sorry sir.” Alex’s voice is suddenly choked, giving away the tears in his eyes. “I – I didn’t have time t-to take it off…” “Hey. It’s okay.” “I would’ve – I d-didn’t want to ruin it but he didn’t –” “It’s not your fault. Hey, listen to me. I’ll get you a new one. It’s no big deal.” His throat bobs as he tries to swallow his tears. “Thank you, sir,” he manages. “I’ll get you a new one,” Ari repeats. “It’s okay.”

She can’t even pat his shoulder. Fucking dipshit Neil. She pats the healer's head instead. His curls are starting to grow in again. He sniffs, and wipes his nose on the back of his hand.

When she leaves, Ari’s careful to close the door softly. She changes the code on the lock again. Frazier’s clearly getting his buddies in security to sort it for him, but it’ll slow him down. It’s an obstacle in his way. And if he’s going to be fucking petty, two can play at that game.

Finding Frazier's shift pattern is a little more work than finding Henson’s. He's on nights all week, so Ariadne could catch him tonight by staying late. She doesn't much feel like rising to the bait though, not when she has nothing to use against him and it'd only be giving him the opportunity to gloat.

Before she goes home, she spends another while crawling the security feeds, trying to figure out the options that she doesn't usually have any reason to use.

If she knew how to have the cell footage make a second copy of itself or something, somewhere those assholes couldn't wipe it… but it would probably be an infosec breach if she did.

She'll find something. Frazier clearly doesn't realize what thin ice he's on after the last round of allegations. He doesn't get to mess with Ari's healer.

[postsforposting]

all the weird time in go s2, e1-3

I am working off a 2k display, so if someone else has a 4k and wants to take a look at these timestamps to get a better reading, or has better photo editing skills, have at it. Almost all the time the "hour" hand is at the wrong spot, ie at 650 it should be nearly on the 7, not directly on the 6. I will say when it's correct. Timestamps means "this is where in the show it happens", also shown with "t[number]".

Rewrote some of this after reading this post about the clock hands being backward: what ought to be the hour hand is the minute hand on the big clock next to Az's desk, and I grabbed some time pictures I missed. I'm putting this in chronological order within each episode rather than show order. I did try to include both ways to read the clock, reversed and "not reversed". I think using the short hand as mintues most of the time makes sense.

I will edit this as more stuff comes to light, ie we get more shots of time stuff or realize things.

Jim showing up seems to mess with time, even before the hiding miracle--though idk if the hiding miracle can reach back through time to change things? Delete the memory of him being there? That would be consistent with how "deleting time" works, ie jumping it forward.

Episode 1

1. Crowley meeting Shax in the alley at timestamp 19:27 in s2e1: an hour discrepancy between his phone and his watch. Watch has normal/correct hour hand placement. The watch says it's 11:35am and the phone 10:35, aka six hours prior to the scene where Az meets Jim. Crowley hasn't learned anything about Gabriel or the book of life at the time we see this discrepancy except that "something is up", and in all later scenes the hour hand of the clocks is incorrectly placed/time is "fake". This missing hour is something different than the rest of them? Crowley either doesn't notice the missing time, or he already knows what it is. He has an analogue watch, presumably he knows how to read time, and would know when his hour hand is not behaving correctly/doing fake things.

Was Gabriel doing something on earth for an hour? That the hiding miracle deleted from everyone's memories? That wouldn't desync the clocks though, and should not affect our heroes who can still recognize him. I did try to look at Gabriel's eyes in the elevator in e6, they did look purple still, so I think he didn't remove his memory until after he got to earth--but that doesn't make sense with how Saraqael says she "can't find his memory anywhere", implying he already took it out in the elevator. I do not think they waited an hour for him to "clear out his desk". I tried to run the symbols on the angel security cam footage through Google translate, but no dice.

2. Az gets Maggie's note about the rent, we see a tiny clock behind Az at timestamp 8:18. One hand is just before 12, the other seems to be on the 4? We can see where the 9 and the 8 are, so it looks like the other hand should be on the 4, not the 3. It's easier to see if you watch this in the show, you can see the clock face appear and it looks more clear if you watch from about 8:16-19. This clock says either just before 4pm or it's 11:20am, because that looks like the short hand near the 12. I don't know if this clock should be read backwards like the big clock should. (Edit: this clock is the big one by his desk, we're seeing it through a gap in the bookshelves, it's not sitting in the bookshelf.)

2.5. We can see Maggie's watch when he goes to forgive her rent, after getting her note. seems like it says 11:25-27, t1008. Crucially, this is supposedly less than 21min before Jim shows up.

3. t1441, Jim knocks. When Az gets up to answer, we see this on the clock next to his desk, behind him, it's definitely 4:20 no matter what weirdness the hands are doing. It is now 5 hours later???

4. Time seems to stand still while Az talks to Jim for the first time, as the clock never moves from 4:25 (520 not reversed), but the long hand ought to be further along if that's the real time. Time is not stopped as you can see people moving outside the window. t16:32-19:26,

and picking up again timestamp 20:18 after he gets the box, it is 4:30 (620 not reversed),

Crowley says he'll see Az in two minutes, and then Nina starts to close down because it's nearly 5:00 (7pm not reversed), which makes sense.

5. t26:51, meeting Jim with the feather duster. The hands are either both on the 5 or one's on the 4 and one on the 5. It was already 430pm, so surely it's not 425 again, it must be 525? Either it's been an hour when Crowley said "two minutes" or we've gone backward in time. As we see in the apology and miracle scene though, clocks get weird around jim, so we very well could have gone back in time. They have a fight and Crowley does his lightning, etc.

6. stolen from the "hands on the clock are reversed" post, timestamp 38:47, time is 2102 aka 9:02. this is when crowley releases nina and maggie from being locked in the cafe.

7. the apology scene. If we say Nina closes at 5pm(maybe 7?)....time is just fucky in this scene, idk man. Time seems to run fine, around 9pm, except when Jim shows up. Did he do something to himself before he went to earth? But if so, he would have screwed up time when first talking to Az too. When did he alter himself, though, if Saraqael couldn't find his memory? Did whatever or whoever was involved in the Big Miracle also reach back through time to change things?

If changing your identity means you never existed, maybe did Gabriel invent time, hence him removing his memory....removed him from reality, so now time is fucky? What would be the point of going through all this though just for that though???? Did the damn fly have miracle powers and perform a miracle at some point??? If so then why didn't it register as his memory when Saraqael was looking? If he could hide simply by being on earth, there would be no point to putting himself in the fly.

Episode 2

1. It appears to be 10:40am in the scene where Jim is singing, where Az gets the Clue right before the angels show up in e2 at timestamp 6:05. It seems that the hour hand is correct, between the 10 and 11? IF we don't read it backward, then the hands are not correctly positioned and it's 652am.

However, the clock when the angels are in the shop appears to say something in the realm of 845 or 945? t1348

But while we're talking to the angels, we see the clock again at a very different time, what appears to be 954am, t1422.

But at t1516, it looks like a different time? Short hand on the 8, long on the 10, so 10:40 again (or 750am, not reversed).

There does not seem to be a hand directly on either the 55 or the 9, they seem closer to the 8 and the 50. I don't know if there's even a hand anywhere but the 8/9 though.

2. The angels leave, Az and Crowley go to the pub, then go back to talk to Jim. Time stays at 4:29, t2058; (620 not reversed, but the hands would be in a really bad placement).

After the Job flashback at t4016, the clock now says 630 regardless of weirdness.

It looks like there are two short hands, no long one? Why?? Timestamp 4016. The double hands stay in every shot, pretty obviously, until we leave the scene. Crowley also leaves, and either it's only been ten minutes or it's been two hours and ten. If it's only been ten minutes, that's not something he usually does. Az goes to get Crowley to ask for the car, and his watch says....

Definitely not 630. This is at timestamp 4324. No clue if his watch should be read backward, but in the first episode it was read normally and its hands were correctly positioned.

Episode 3

1. Timestamp 2:30, Muriel shows up. Clock seems to say 10:50, regardless of weirdness. I think this is directly after the previous scene of asking Crowley for the car. It should not be four hours later.

2. Whlie Az is out Cluing, in the bookshop the time says 3:30 at timestamp 1638, and it appears that the long hand is in the correct position between the 3 and 4. It's 617 if we don't reverse it, and the hands would be in the wrong position.

When Az uses the guy's phone in the graveyard at t3451, it says 1750 aka 550. Obviously something is wrong because it can't be way later in the bookshop than it is where Az is. There are not multiple timezones between London and Scotland. This is confirmed at t3511, where we see Crowley answer the phone in the shop, and the clock says 525. It's blurry here but at t3624 we see a moving shot of the clock behind Crowley's head, and it does say 525 clearly (regardless of weirdness). There's another shot of the graveyard phone at t3639 but I can't read the time off it.

It cannot be 525 in the shop and 550 on a phone. That's half an hour of time missing. Notably here, Nina's shop is still open, so either her closing times are not consistent or there was a whole lot more time missing in ep1 to make it later than the clock said it was.

[jess-moloney]

I'm probably thinking too much into this but the interaction with Jamie and Jess with her post in June seemed off to me….Jamie showed no effort to reveal that Jess was with him (it was her idea to go see him I bet) except for a tweet he made about making an announcement while going to the airport and then abruptly deleting it (probably realized what he said). Even weirder is he was not posting her but himself and not even in a post but a story (and ofc she can't help herself and post herself in the same spot 1 hour later) and when he did an actual post when he was with her, he posts about his CMFSG merch. (crazy timing on that) Nothing of Jess. But yet Jess posted what she could of him and tagged him. He didn't repost nor comment in the photos she tagged him in and obviously avoided being in pictures with her and the only good one she got was when he wasn't paying attention, I find it weird that before she came to Atl, he removed her pictures, and hasn't acknowledged her, posted that alarming tweet about “gripping on when trying to do the next right thing” but yet still let her come see him in ATL while he shows no effort of being seen with her (probably wasn't enjoying his time with her off camera either) repost/comment on the post but liked it…. It is all too odd.

It is very odd. He's not been seen in a photo with her since June. She only came out to visit that one time. If I recall right there was a point where it seemed she only flew out there to go on a hike with him then was back in L.A immediately the next day with those tennis photos (though no actual footage of her playing tennis). Was that the same time?

Everything about this has been bizarre, especially her going private for seemingly no reason other than to unarchive photos so people will think I'm a liar or something...even though there was no reason to go private to do that. It also cost her thousands of followers so if her plan was to unarchive these photos to get more followers that didn't work. I have no idea what's going on with him or her at this point and trying to figure it out hurts my brain.

[tanglepelt]

Run Ghost Run 10

A03 prev next

What have Sam Tucker and Jazz been up to?

Sam was panicking. Danny had left for a council meeting this morning. It was now around 5 p.m. Those meetings never took this long in the human realm.  

The longest had been three hours. For them.

Danny says they feel super long back in the realm. With Clockwork as a long-standing member, it wouldn’t be hard to see him messing around. Then again nobody enjoyed these meetings.

Every member hated the meeting except the Observants. They always went the same way. Parties never changed minds most meetings solved nothing, and everyone left without a solution. Only to have to come back for the next meeting for the same thing to happen. Time is nothing for immortal beings, all would rather not sit around doing nothing. That was the observants job.

Once, Danny, has his coronation majority will fall on him. The council was only formed when Pariah was sealed away. A group of ghosts of different backgrounds to keep balance. Danny hadn’t told her the full details, honestly, he probably hardly listened. Danny tended to zone out on those things.

The whole king thing was odd.

Trial by combat isn’t a good way to choose a king.

Only the powerful would be able to lead. Those often only want to get stronger. Absolute power corrupts, a whole leadership based on the premise was doomed.  

It was 5:17 on the dot when she got a message.

The council wanted war; Danny said he tried to get them to listen. They didn’t. Danny thanks to clockwork convinced them to give a warning. To the GIW of all people.

The government was going to be the death of them all.

She’s been saying it for years.

At 5:45 p.m. they all glow green. Sam and Tucker had been alone in the theater room. A text to jazz and it happened to her as well. Thankfully she had been in the bathroom.

At 7:15 p.m. the ghost alarm goes off. Lockdowns now mandatory. The GIW and “mayor” masters had made sure they were enforced. Tucker and her at her house. Pretending to have a movie night.

Tucker gets grilled by her parents. They didn’t want him there in a lockdown. They can’t do much.

So, she waits.

An hour passes. No word

Tucker finally escapes the grilling of her parents they wait some more.

It was 9 p.m. no word from Danny. It’s now after curfew. Still stuck at her house. Still on lockdown.

No ghost had attacked. None of their equipment had been set off. So why was the alarm sounding? Why did the Fenton parents set it off?

Stuck sitting here going insane. No word nothing.

Maybe he just forgot.  A call and text go unanswered.

Jazz wasn’t even home for them to check with her. She had been away for the night a tutoring session gone long. The parents offered her to stay the night when the ghost alarm went off. She couldn’t get out of there. Curse the curfew and lockdowns.  Not expected back until around noon the next day. Longer than 24 hours after he disappeared.

Still, they texted her.

Jazz was going to hit home when she could. The parents of who she was tutoring were guarding the door. Just like how Gram was watching them.

The night passed too slowly.

Jazz texted them back at 6:05. 5 minimum after curfew.

He’s not here.

They had to find him.

**

Tucker knows he’s a good hacker, good reprogramming, and a good coder.

He knows he can hack the Fenton stuff well. He often overrides their security to make Danny’s life easy. Disengaging the security system, wiping Danny’s ecto-signature from their devices, and general device management.

All his safety protocols had been removed. Danny’s ecto signature was logged back into the system. The Fenton parents had to of seen them. Any trace of him was gone. All the hints, the bugs anything he ever touched. Software once up to date now older versions. This had to have been an old backup. He had been found out and a restore had been done.

Any trace of the Fenton’s experiments and lab work is long gone.  

The security footage in the lab was wiped. All of it is gone. Deleted digitally and the SD card they kept for each day is gone. No record of anything that had occurred in the last week. Not for the nearly 24 hours they hadn’t seen Danny.

The Fenton parents never got rid of anything. Not after the portal incident, the one-to-many close calls with Danny always showed that. Tucker had to constantly loop the footage and change the time stamps. It was never deleted never fully gone. Not even the incident when Mr. Fenton got pantsed by a ghost.

The two Drs. had to have done something.

It was at 10:10 when he had to inform the group, he had nothing.

All he could do was wipe the little information remaining, the ecto-signatures. The items that are meant to track and hunt down. Those remained.

**

Jazz left for the infinite realm at 10:11. They would know if he made it back. She searched the house even calling her parents. The GAV was gone, and Danny’s room didn’t look slept in.

Was she wrong about their parents?

Her fingerprint unlocked the portal. She left with the speedster. Sam and Tucker staying to look for clues. Looks for his signature to see if they could follow him.

Pandora and Frostbite were by the entrance. Guarding it from Danny’s rogues, a promise they meant to keep. Preventing them from leaving the realm.  The two were worried, Jazz promised updates. She left the realm more worried than before.

Pandora and Frostbite wouldn’t stand by idle if they had no word.

There was a war now looming.

Knowing it was only a matter of time. Knowing Danny, the would-be king was missing. Knowing they’ll look for him if he doesn’t show up. Knowing her baby brother was missing.

It was 11:00 am when they went to the go bag. Pulling it from its hiding spot. Jazz made sure the med kit was stocked. Full to the brim with supplies. She put a note on the bag as well. Sam added some cash.

She knew her baby brother.

He’d run if something happened to him. Thinking it would hide the situation from prying eyes. The GIW would chase him down, they had enough force to spare. Ever since those acts, they only got more and more members. It would only be a matter of time before they’d nab a ghost inditing war… If they hadn’t to Danny.  

Hopefully, her note would get through to him.

She knew it wouldn’t, but she had to try.

The three regrouped at the nasty burger. Text and calls still going unanswered. The GIW was their next step. It couldn’t just be rushed into, breaking into government labs isn’t always Childs play. Not with the GIW seeming to have better weapons each and every day.

They planned and plotted. Only leaving the nasty burger when it became more crowded. Their tiny corner booth is no longer prime real estate.

Her parent's answer about Danny was concerning.  I’m sure he’s fine jazzicans. Just leave it be.

They had done something.

The three went to Tucker's apartment this time. Away from Sam’s home and away from her parents. She wouldn’t leave it be. It was her brother, and she would do whatever she could for him.

Tucker wasn’t having luck getting into the GIW security system. All the spyware they had managed to get in was non-functional. Nothing was coming live.

8:00 was curfew. They’d keep trying until then. At curfew, she would confront her parents. Since 4 p.m. they’d been telling her to come back home. That it was important.

She wasn’t ready to confront them. Not until they knew how to find her brother.

At 7:54 when the communicator went off. It was Danny. He was alive.

The communicator sat left behind at the meeting point. He left them behind just three letters at the rendezvous point.

Each envelope was labeled Jazz, Tucker, and then Sam.

That wouldn’t stop them from finding him. Danny was self-destructive. It was Jazz’s job as an older sister to find him and scold him. Well after making sure he was okay.

He wasn’t.

She knew that.

Jazz could hope he was safe.

The three would get supplies from the lab and head out. Some pure ectoplasm and ecto-dejecto. The specialty meds and thread was made just for him. Nothing else would work. They just had to get past her parents. Sam and Jazz had been bonding science the “girls” night. It would be too hard to believe they got caught up before curfew and all just went to the closest house.

Everyone played the system this way. To “trick” the system.

The Three would find him despite what he wanted. Hiding wouldn’t solve anything. Letters are hidden away in pockets.

They could read them on the road.

Jazz knew something felt off as they got closed. The air was tense. Things were wrong. She ignored it. So did the other two.

They shouldn’t have.

Immediately upon entering the house, the alarm system spoke.

Lockdown protocols engaged.

Her parents rushed up from the lab. Looking frantic and worried. Anti-ecto weapons in hand. The two looked feral and crazed.

“Good, it’s the three of you.”

“There’s no easy way to break this to you guys.”

Jack hissed out “Phantom had been possessing our baby boy for who knows how long.”

With a disgusted tone, Maddie agreed with him “That thing has been disposed of...”

Time froze for Jazz.

Jazz wasn’t listening anymore. All she could do was think about Danny.

What did they do?

There was yelling between Sam, Tucker, and her parents. She only caught keywords.

disposed

possessed

thing

What did they do?

Rage filled her as she thought of the past. Learning his secret, the picnics as kids, fending off dinner together, and all the botched holidays.

She was barely aware of the shouting and the struggle. That Jack was now restricting Sam and Tucker in a “hug”. That Maddie was approaching her.

“WHAT did You” Jazz spit out at them “to my little brother” then lunged at Maddie.

Jazz would like to say she put up a fight. The most she accomplished was pulling the blue hood off Maddie’s face. Only to ultimately have her hands forced behind her back.

Sam and Tucker were oddly calm in Jack's grasp.

The prick in her neck made her realize why. Some type of relaxant.

Brought to the lab a blood test for all. Monitors on their wrists. In case of an escape.

To the shock of none of them, all three of them were contaminated. They’ve known this for ages. Anyone with enough exposure to a portal of the beings of the realms would be exposed. What they have is ingrained into them, something that would never go away.

The majority in the town had exposure. A kind that would dissipate after a day or two of being overshadowed only an hour or two after a major fight. No one else in town that they were aware of where like them.

Jack and Maddie kept talking. It was hard to stay focused on what was going on. She heard them talk about texting Sam and Tucker's parents. A lie about being with Danny. Talks of how to cleanse them all. Talks of how they only had just a tad bit more than them. Talks of if they should hand them over to the GIW.

There was a flash of green. A green rip opened wide through the lab. The room now illuminated in green. 

Guards who attacked at the town hall meeting came through a portal. Followed by they eyeballs, the observants. They looked even creepier then Danny had described. Not the one that had been made. The one on lockdown is out of reach to them. 

Frostbite and Pandora looking beyond furious. Staring daggers at Jack and Maddie. Eyes that looked ready to kill.

A minor reveal from an observant of all things. The beings Danny always complains about. The know-it-alls who watch everything. The ones who casually mentioned watching Danny but not acting hoping he’d see their way and cease his rebellious streak.

Whatever they had done to him caused this. She didn’t know what.

What did they do?

She heard them talk about a new hunt. An ecto-signature had suddenly been hidden after leaving Amity. The one for Danny, the talks of rounding up those in this realm before they began. She, Tucker, and Sam were the first to be retrieved.  More would follow. Talks all around them like nothing was wrong.

Nothing could happen until all entities were found. They would follow the agreement that had been made. The capture of Jack and Maddie would be handled now. It wouldn’t change the results, while they can’t destroy anything they could be kept.

Jack and Maddie use a portable ghost shield to get away. The ghost couldn’t touch them as they left up the stairs out of view.

They’d be kept in the realm in the keep until arrangements could be made. As she was being brought through the portal. Out of the side of her eyes, she saw a figure leaving behind a green glowing sticky note. Hidden right by an ecto-dejecto.

[quietlyimplode]

different names for the same thing - part two

Part One (but can be read as stand alone)

Warnings: injuries/blood

Word Count: 2.3k (gif not mine)

Summary: Clint and Natasha finish a mission, exhausted and injured. All is not as it seems. Yelena holds out hope her sister can save her.

A/N: so you can thank @broken--bow for the continuation of this - mistakes are mine, there might be a part three (esp if your musings take you there) but take it as open ending for now.

Main Masterlist

…

Yelena stares.

Disbelief at what she’s seeing.

She knows that walk, that strut.

A strange mix of anger and love burns deep in her.

Natasha’s red head disappears as the man follows alongside her.

“Have you placed the charges?”

The call comes through her comms and she shakes her head to get rid of it.

Heading up the front of the building, she decides she’s doesn’t care about the cameras. She’ll delete the footage anyway, or someone will.

The benefit of working for an organisation is that they have enough self interest to cover her back so that no one comes after her.

“Sloppy,” she says out loud when she sees how Natasha and her partner have left the one charge.

She rolls her eyes and lays down two more, pocketing one for herself.

The red room doesn’t need to know she has her own cache of weapons, they know nothing about.

The magazines for the pistols, the C4, the throwaway identities; tantamount to death if they ever found out.

But still, Yelena lives in hope.

One day.

Maybe.

Things won’t be this bad.

Life might be different.

She hears them on the roof.

It seems like an idiotic move, set charges for a building to blow; and then go up, rather than run away.

Yelena leaves, only looking back to see them both abseiling down the building.

She counts down in her head.

At one, the charges blow, and even though she is almost a block away, the blow back of heat is still warm on her back.

.

The red room has power.

They are ghosts in the night, the baba yaga, they are everywhere and nowhere and Yelena hates them.

There’s nothing she can do.

There’s nothing she can ever do.

Seeing Natasha, the great Avenger, feels like it’s something though, maybe more anger, maybe something like hope.

What if her sister could save her? What if she could get her and the other widows out?

No more Dreykov.

No more training, or dogs, or handlers.

No more Red Room.

It’s a thought that sits with her into the night, as she stares at the lone block of C4, ready for her secret storage container.

There’s a plan that seems to be formulating in her head. A thought that makes her feel a bit nauseous in its ambition.

Placing the block away, she readies herself for bed; the last night before she goes back to the horrors. She knows she should be sleeping whilst she can, but even with the door rigged and cameras set up, she can’t sleep.

Natasha can’t save her.

But maybe she can push her to do something.

Even if she’s never shown any interest in doing it before, even though she has the might of super powered people, and she still hasn’t come for her.

Yelena doesn’t often allow herself to dwell on their relationship, it feels to fraught with what if’s.

What if Dreykov allowed them to stay together?

What if Natasha actually came for her?

Would they both still be alive?

Yelena doesn’t think so.

It’s likely they would have been made to fight each other, hate each other, kill each other.

She would like to think they would have tried to escape together.

And everyone knows how that goes.

Her mind flits to the mangled bodies of Katya, Polina and Nadia. Their escape attempts all admirable and more involved than the next.

But still.

Failures, all of them.

Who is she to think that she is any different?

The red room is a ghost.

Eyes everywhere and nowhere.

Yelena gets up and off the bed, checks the doors, windows and alarms again.

The feeling that someone is watching, is haunting.

She glances at the clock and groans.

2am.

If she goes to sleep now, she’ll have four hours of sleep.

Natasha can help.

Natasha will help.

Anger and love boil in gut again, but this time it doesn’t feel so caustic.

.

July, she tries again.

Ten weeks after the explosion, she wonders just how to get the attention of the avengers, of Natasha or perhaps whatever Shield is using as it’s pseudonym these days.

She’s told no one, kept her head down and finally been sent out again.

It’s like Dreykov knew, maybe from the look in her eye when she returned. He’d put her into medical, into reprogramming.

It had felt like weeks before she had felt herself again. The cobwebs thick, as she’d pushed through to get back to herself.

She never lost the thought though.

Natasha.

Her only chance.

She can’t escape; she’ll die; but if Natasha rescues her….

Her first mission out is of course in America.

Las Vegas of all places.

It’s loud, and full of people.

She blends in easily, her American accent coming back naturally, as she laughs easily at the check in of the hotel.

“Thank you,” she tells the woman, taking her card key.

The MGM is a sea of people, hotel rooms and chaos - all the things she can use to help her orchestrate a plan.

Even though this is all she’s thought of, she knows it cannot be planned; because if it is, it would be pried from her mind.

The effects of the after mission debrief include the stock standard sodium pentathol concoction; and she knows that the more she believes the lie the easier it is to tell it under the effects of a drugged mind.

Sitting cross legged on the bed, she separates her own mission (a simple intel gathering), and the one she wants more than she cares to admit.

If she leaves a mark, they’ll know; but she feels it has to be obvious to Natasha. Obvious enough to know that it was her, or perhaps the red room.

She’s on American soil, so the likelihood of whatever she does getting fed up the chain is a good option.

Killing the mark, she supposes, does that, and it’s not against her mission parameters.

She wonders if she could make him swallow something first, so when they open him up, they have to take notice.

The more she thinks of it, the more she likes it.

She takes out the bag of pills they’ve sent her with, and she sighs. Nothing of use to harbor a message in.

There’s two things she can do.

Metal or plastic.

Metal seems like the better choice, sturdy, easy to carve into, and not digestible, no matter how long it stays in the body.

Plastic is the same but perhaps harder to make sure that whatever message is on it, stays.

Yelena sighs and stands, making her way to the gift shop. Everything feels like an effort lately.

A magnet is as good as anything.

She smiles to the woman manning the shop, walks around and walks out; the small magnet sharp in her hand.

Back in the safety of her suite, she stares at it, unsure what to do next.

An hourglass seems too obvious.

Their initials more obvious still.

Deciding carefully, she puts a set of coordinates, one’s she knows off by heart. Ones she swore she’d never go back to.

Lies, only lies live there, but still, maybe they’re good for something.

.

Natasha exits medical, the follow up from her concussion and broken arm. Thankfully it had been short, and the clearance easily done.

Though she had been cleared for four weeks, they had wanted to make sure the surgery from her arm had resulted in a full recovery; it had also meant low ball missions, talking to dignitaries, congress and consulting.

She’s bored out of her mind.

Clint and Tony had been allowed out together, even Steve had. Her anger had been palpable and she knows she had not been a good friend the last couple of weeks.

So much so, even in the shooting range Clint had avoided her, their fight over chicken nuggets the night before still fresh even though they hadn’t gone to bed angry.

Natasha feels her phone buzz.

“LA - mission request #67265 - investigation into the murder of Senator Erend. Your presence is required.”

She smiles.

Finally.

Heading to her room, she logs onto the computer for the full mission debrief and frowns.

She needs to find Clint.

.

“It can’t be.”

Clint stares at the picture, zooming in.

“It has to be.”

“And you’re sure of the coordinates?”

Natasha’s stare is enough for him to raise his hands in submission.

“Okay, okay, I was just asking.”

She takes back the tablet and zooms in, glancing at the picture again.

“It has to be her, right?”

“Or Melina?”

Clint shrugs.

“She’s dead,” Natasha replies.

“And just over two months ago, you thought Yelena was too.”

She sits, and stares at the picture, just as Clint had done, trying to find if there was any other information, anything that gave a clue about what the hell was going on.

Clint nudges her.

“Do you think it’s time to talk to Fury? Or even Maria?”

There’s a pit that sinks every time she thinks of what Yelena being here, and sending messages of distress, might mean.

“Do you think they’re back?”

Her biggest fear voiced in the smallest voice.

He takes her hand and squeezes it.

“I don’t know.”

They sit in silence as Clint thinks on the evidence that Natasha had presented when she had been fully cognizant. He’d dismissed it because of her concussion, the woman leaving could have been anyone; the larger explosion could have just been because of the placement of their c4.

Her evidence had been circumstantial at best.

This made it less likely that that was a coincidence.

“What do you want to do?”

It might be that she wanted to do nothing, maybe that she would just let this go and see where it takes them; though even as he thinks the words, he knows that’s not her.

“Can we talk to Tony?”

He pulls his phone out and dials, the picture of them both on the screen before Tony picks up with a frown.

“You rang?”

“You busy?”

“You want to do my work?” There’s a snark to his voice that makes Natasha slightly on edge, and want to answer snark with snark.

“We need some help.”

“Of course you do,” he bites.

“When’d you sleep last?” Natasha asks suddenly.

Tony mellows as he doesn’t answer straight away.

“I… uhhh… I don’t remember,” he sighs, rubbing his hand over his face and then looking into the phone for the first time.

“It’s okay, we’ll sort this, you get some rest,” she smiles, shallowly.

Tony visibly deflates at Natasha’s kindness.

Clint knows he wouldn’t have approached that the same, and he knows that Natasha’s ability to read people is better than anyone’s.

“No, no, it’s okay, how can I help?”

“I think the Red Room is back, or a Russian subsidiary posing as the red room but with all the same tricks and recruiting policies.”

She deadpans the words but Clint knows the pain behind it.

Tony doesn’t know, but he seems to understand.

“Um, okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Follow the money? If there’s anything happening, likely there’s some old money involved, maybe a company, or import/export business?”

Tony nods.

“Anything else?”

Clint looks to Natasha and she drops her head in agreement.

“I’m going to send you a sketch of someone, can you digitize it and do some facial recognition over Europe,” she starts.

“And Vegas,” Clint finishes, showing her where the senator was killed.

“Yeah,” she agrees, “and Vegas over the last seven days.”

Tony scoffs.

“Do you know how many people that is? How many hits you’re going to get?”

Natasha wipes her hand over her face, the motion mirroring Tony’s.

“I know, I know, it’s a long shot. We’re looking for someone.”

“Yelena?”

Natasha’s eyes narrow.

“You were concuss and spouting names, Clint gave me some skeleton details- in front of you I might add.”

She looks sharply to Clint, “I don’t.. remember.”

“You didn’t miss much,” he assures, “just me telling him that she’s your pseudo-sister and you were together for a while when you were little.”

She shrugs.

“I want to find her,” she confesses.

“Will you help?”

The enormity of Natasha asking for help is not lost on Tony and he seems to realise it.

He nods his head and smiles shallow.

“Of course.”

.

It’s up to Natasha, Yelena thinks.

The after mission debrief is nothing special. She’s drugged again and put under, but when she wakes she still feels the same sense of accomplishment she felt coming in.

There’s nothing in Ohio, even though she sent the coordinates.

But as Yelena settles in her cot, with the metallic cuffs around her ankles and the solid doors locking into place, she closes her eyes and dreams of a world where she’s free.

.

[thegentlesourcerer]

hi there! for this board of mine https://www.tumblr.com/talos-stims/736448930009808896/ i have just one gif that i haven't been able to find at all, i think i had the og post in my likes somewhere but op deactivated? since this board was in my drafts for a long while. any help looking for the source would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Hello! I appreciate you seeking out my services. ✨

I checked all the links on the stimboard you linked to me, and I found more than one misplaced source, therefore I will be providing both links below.

The blogger who originally posted this gif did not credit the original creator of the video with a link that led to the video itself, but here is the original source in which it has appeared on tumblr, as far as I know.

As for the source video, its location has quite literally vexed me. The Reverse Image Search engine had no answers. I scoured, and I mean scoured, instagram for hours, looking through all the big nail polish / paint maker accounts, going so far as to scroll through all of them to 2016 and before (as the board I linked was posted in 2016), to no avail. I then did something ingenious that should've happened much sooner in my process with finding this one - I checked the link on the original post. 🤦 I do have reason to believe the account linked on the post deleted the original video, since there is a large gap of next to no content between 2016 and 2021.

I researched a bit more and it seems Gif 5 is also slightly misplaced, as the source linked within the source you provided had been deactivated. It was originally posted by @/l0vey-d0vey, and here is a link to those gifs as well. The source I linked is likely the best one possible to link it for others, as it still exists on tumblr and I have reason to believe these gifs were made using the deactivated user's own footage.

Lastly, I would like to say I have been a long-time lurker on your blog before I even made this one, and your stimboards are some of the best I have had the privilege to see. Thank you for your lovely contributions to the stim community and for always being very diligent with your sourcing. You make this community a better place in more ways than one and I for one appreciate you greatly.

Thank you for visiting!

You have been visited by the Gentle Sourcerer. I hope your time with me was well spent.

divider by @/firefly-graphics

[philhoffman]

After a week away, we are BACK with this week's Monday Philm: Red Dragon (2002)! Celebrating both spooky season and the new 4k release of the film from Kino Lorber, which is jam-packed full of fun special features. Light spoiler warning for the rest of this post, if you haven't seen Red Dragon yet.

I've already written about the film itself and PSH's performance as the delightfully nasty, tragically foolhardy Freddy Lounds. So the special features! Unfortunately, as this is a Brett Ratner film, most of the featurettes revolve around Ratner himself, who is gross and annoying. The 40-minute A Director's Journey is a self-absorbed, egocentric documentary about him making Red Dragon.

The saving grace is two-fold—1. A couple wonderful shots of PSH on set in Baltimore, blocking and working through his first scene with Ed Norton and Harvey Keitel, which I've posted about twice already because Phil's laugh is so cute, and 2. The knowledge that they filmed another early Freddy scene 10 miles from where I was living at the time?? So I was less than 20 minutes from Phil for a few hours/days in 2002? When he looked like THIS??? 😭

But I digress. There's also a (semi?) deleted scene, which I included as the first and last stills in this post. It's Freddy reading Dolarhyde's note into a tape recorder—the actual scene was cut, but the audio was used in the scene where Graham and the rest of the FBI get together after, ya know, the fiery death.

The final featurette relevant to our purposes here is about the flaming wheelchair! At first I thought Phil might not make an appearance at all because that's more of a makeup and stunt department achievement than an acting job, but he showed up! Seems like they filmed Freddy's kidnapping the same day(s) they filmed the wheelchair, because it's obviously at the same parking garage and Phil is there, in costume.

Brief footage of Phil arguing having a spirited discussion with his director and stunt coordinators about how Freddy should look coming down the road. It's funny what a dirty mouth he has when he doesn't know/care he's being filmed :-) He actually makes a compelling case about flames and hot glue—but regardless, it's endearing to see how passionate he gets about his Freddy, wanting everything to be as accurate and realistic as possible.

[tomorrowusa]

For anybody still desperately clinging to Twitter/X in the empty hope that it may soon return to its glory days: IT WON'T. It's just getting worse.

The recent terror attack on Israel and the Israeli response have highlighted the continuing descent of Twitter.

[T]he platform now called X has become a vortex of false claims and doctored footage. It’s a fog-of-war machine. That’s been the unmistakable reality in the days after Hamas’ deadly terrorist attack on Israeli civilians—a land, air, and sea operation that has killed at least 1,200 people in Israel and led to another 900 deaths in Gaza following Israel’s military retaliation. Musk’s changes to the foundation of how Twitter works have not only rendered Twitter useless as a means of making sense of the conflict as (or even hours after) it unfolds, but made it actively counterproductive for users trying to figure out what’s going on. As Musk and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino have rolled back the platform’s rules of engagement and rid their ranks of the content-moderation teams and tools that actually keep X trustworthy, they’ve also put in place a system that fundamentally incentivizes the spread of misinformation during times of mass panic and confusion, in part because X is now a platform that pays for viral content. The end result is that Twitter, more so than any other platform right now, is fertile ground for a new kind of war profiteering.

A few debunkings – relatively minor ones. It would be an exhausting effort for somebody to keep up with them all. A problem with debunkings is that they can sometimes continue to spread the lies which are debunked. But here are some which don't do that.

On Oct. 8, the day after the initial Hamas attack, an account called @AGCast4 posted a video supposedly showing a Hamas rocket attack in Israel. The BBC journalist and fact-checker Shayan Sardarizadeh debunked it: The footage wasn’t from the ongoing conflict or any real-life war but from the video game Arma 3. The account was—and still is—verified with a blue check mark. Two days later, the investigative outfit Bellingcat, known for its visual forensics work, had to debunk some fake news … about itself. A doctored “BBC” video was circulating on social media, claiming that Bellingcat’s journalists had confirmed Ukrainian weapon sales to Hamas. “We’ve reached no such conclusions or made any such claims,” Bellingcat’s official account wrote on Twitter. In a screenshot, Bellingcat showed that a Twitter account called Geopoliitics & Empire had shared the video. Like the account that posted video game footage, this account was also verified with a blue check mark. (The account owner deleted the post and called it an “honest mistake,” simultaneously posting a meme captioned “We are going to be famous.”)

Those blue check marks have lost all meaning.

But now anyone who pays for Twitter Blue—recently renamed X Premium—can just buy a blue check mark for $8 a month, along with the veneer that they are a notable person or a legitimate source of information. Just last week, X removed headlines from linked news articles, making the site exponentially more confusing to scroll through.

“There is a difference between platforms that take steps to mitigate harm, platforms that have not yet started taking these steps, and platforms that take steps to undo processes that mitigated harm,” Chinmayi Arun, the executive director of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, told me. “Users who are accustomed to a different version of X may not know how to process or understand what they are seeing now.” It’s been mere days since the war broke out, but European regulators are already peeved with what they’ve seen. In a posted letter to Musk, European commissioner Thierry Breton asked the X owner to comply with the continent’s sweeping Digital Services Act. He urged the billionaire to respond within 24 hours with assurances that he’s taking the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” seriously or face legal penalties.

I wish the European regulators luck. But the best move is for people to abandon Twitter/X. You feed the trolls and the disinformation machine by remaining there.

Musk may want to prioritize “free speech” and being “open source,” but millions of people rely on his platform for reliable information. And, as it’s played out time after time, there are often very scary real-world consequences when conspiracy theories and fraudulent stories are allowed to run rampant. The only thing that’s transparent is the owner’s inattention.

Seriously, those people need to stop treating Twitter/X as a news source. The best way to do so is to simply leave. Get the word out!

[justplainsalty]

How Soon is Now? 🌻

Me, wading through the angst muck like a pig in shit ☝️. I would not make this a song fic but it would be multichap and every chapter would have an epigraph with a section of lyrics.

[Insert footage of me deleting and rewriting this several times.] TIME FOR BULLET POINTS.

Tess falls pregnant in September.

Unfortunately, she does not realize this until early December. She had assumed she was pre-menopausal, and food has been scarce. She's happy to not have periods.

She and Joel have been busy, busy prepping for winter, doing as many runs as possible, stashing food away so they can survive until spring.

[More under the jump.]

She has an IUD. Had an IUD. It was due to expire anyway, but turns out it fell out sometime during her last two extremely hellish periods, when she'd been stuck shivering and groaning over the toilet for hours. (Thank god those only happen a few times a year.) She figures it all out when her breasts are tender and she can't feel the strings anymore.

Unfortunately part II, FEDRA requires pregnancies be registered, and bans abortions for people who fall pregnant from August through November. They have to keep up enough population to feed their supply chain, and the summer months are when resources are most plentiful for supporting births and families newborns.

Tess will have an abortion, one way or another. She refuses to be pregnant, refuses to go through that misery again, especially at her age, refuses to put their work on pause and leave Joel without a partner, refuses to risk death during the delivery process, refuses to bring a child into this fucking hellscape world.

She doesn't tell Joel any of this. She'll figure it out on her own, as soon as possible; he doesn't need the weight of this burden on his shoulders. And maybe, a part of her doesn't want to face what it would do their relationship. She doesn't know what the consequences will be, but she knows they'll show up if she doesn't act fast, and there will be a reckoning.

She starts taking more risks during their runs, and during their daily life -- drinking more, going out without Joel more, taking the more physically demanding route around and outside the QZ, provoking the people in the slums known to be happy to swing a fist at anyone so she can put herself in that path. She won't go to one of the dirty back-alley butchers with unsterilized tools. She'll figure this out on her own. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Joel calls her out on it one day, and it's the knock-down drag-out fight of a lifetime. He gets her backed into a figurative corner. And the truth comes out.

Joel turns white and storms out. Tess gives him a minute, and then snatches up a bottle of moonshine that was for trade and storms out in the opposite direction. She won't wait at home for him to slink back, shitfaced and having whatever reaction he's going to have. She's glad Tommy is gone, if he was still here, Joel would be tempted to tell his brother.

She stays out as late as possible, going nowhere in particular, just stalking their usual paths around the QZ, ducking the checkpoints. It's so much harder without Joel, she'd forgotten.

By the time she gets back, she's hammered. She lies down on the cold, refreshing, disgusting tile of their bathroom and hopes, just this once, not to wake up in the morning. Her arm and the tile beneath her are wet. She's not crying, is she?

Joel is back the next morning. They're both hungover, so prickly with each other. It's not forgiven, and it's not forgotten. Even if they somehow seem to be in consensus that this pregnancy is bad and should be terminated, Joel's reasons feel so much more personal. He never wanted to be a father again. He doesn't blame her for getting pregnant, but he blames her for not telling him until whatever date it is, late December or early January. She doesn't understand why it's the case, but somehow, for him, that's worse. And he blames her for the foolhardy way she's been acting. And probably, on some level, the anger is probably covering up for his fear, so it's particularly vicious. It's hard not to take it to heart. He's angry at her. She starts to withdraw, to lash out. To assume everything from him is said and done backhandedly.

They don't patch it up. It's approaching February. Tess is probably close to five months along. Her body is changing; it remembers her last pregnancy from a lifetime ago, when her son was born, and is trucking along fast enough that she's looking quite far into the pregnancy. She hates every single day. Time is running out for her, for them.

As with everything in their lives, the best luck and the worst luck seem to collide and happen at the same moment:

Someone she crossed has snitched. One of their regular FEDRA clients warns them that FEDRA is coming to pick her up, now, tonight, to put her in custody until she can be screened by an OB/GYN, and possibly to be kept in "protective custody" until her little parasite is born.

They're out at a drop. Someone has changed their mind, doesn't like the terms. Ammo has been scarce this far from FEDRA patrols, so no one has guns.

Someone comes barreling at Tess. Normally Joel would step in front. He meets her eyes, looking sick, and steps aside, faking a stumble.

He lets them hold him back, sagging in their grip. His eyes and face are dead. He has gone away somewhere else.

She wakes up in FEDRA custody. She hurts all over. That fucker was thorough.

There's a doctor, comes in with a clipboard and a falsely sympathetic expression. No heartbeat. Sick relief warring with strange and unwelcome shame. Not for what she'd done, but for the how. For the expression she'd seen on Joel's face. For the fact that she'd put too much stock in blissful ignorance and gotten pregnant in the first place.

The FEDRA fuck can't keep her mouth shut:

Her fetus, their child. It was a boy.

A son, an heir, of their nebulous and unstable empire, of things that could be snatched away at a moment's notice, of nothing in particular.

Send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it!

[saltpepperbeard]

Hi! Firstly, I love your gifs. Always makes my day when I see them on my dash. Secondly, can I ask how you get such good quality? I’m dipping my toe into gif making and am running into issues with quality. I pull stills from 1080p mkv videos. But is there some secret editing trick I’m missing?

Thanks. 😊

Aww, hi there, lovely anon! Thank you so much; I'm glad you enjoy my gifs! And I would be more than happy to share some of my tips and tricks with you! 💜💜

You've definitely got the first step down pat; anything 1080p or higher is great for maintaining the finer details in the footage. I've sometimes dipped into lower ranges like 720p and have managed fine enough, but 1080p and higher is always ideal.

But the little thing that bumps the quality up even more?

✨Sharpening Tricks in Photoshop✨

It's a seemingly inconsequential step that ends up making a huge difference in the long run! Let me show some examples with the man of the hour aka Mr. Costa Rhysca here PFFF:

The left gif is the unsharpened footage, and the right is footage with the smart sharpen and gaussian blur filters applied.

The left gif is the unsharpened footage again, and the right is footage with two layers of smart sharpen with different parameters applied.

The left gif is the unsharpened footage once more, and the right is footage with smart sharpen and high pass filters applied.

So, as you can see, a little filtering goes a long way lol! And playing around with different techniques/parameters can end up making entirely unique looks. All gif makers have their own preferences; some prefer to use heavier blur to give a smoother look, while others go very heavy on the sharpening/high pass to really make all the details pop. Some even play around with combinations of everything. It's really just a matter of playing around with things and personal preference! I personally go for the double sharpen, or the high pass if I want to bring out hair or details on clothing.

Now, in order to prime your footage for these filters, you have to turn all the frames into smart objects. To do this, you'll first want to select all the frames in both your animation window and your layers window. Convert your animation window to a timeline by pressing the button in the bottom corner:

Your frames will then disappear and turn into almost an after effects-y type timeline. You'll then want to be sure all the frame layers on the right are selected, and go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.

This should turn all your frame layers into a single layer like this! If you see this, and also have your timeline set, you're ready to begin adding filters! The three I referred to earlier are:

Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen

Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Filter > Other > High Pass

If you just want to start off with smart sharpening for now, since even just smart sharpening alone is a huge boost, these are the settings that a lot of gif makers recommend:

But you can play around with whatever you think is best! The cool thing about smart filters is that they're entirely forgiving, and you can adjust/delete them like you would with regular adjustment layers.

Anyway, happy gifing/sharpening, anon, and I hope I could be of some help! 💜

[hphmmatthewluther]

Back By Midnight: Operation BULLSEYE - Part 2/4:

The first chapter can be found here!

Taglist of peeps who might be interested (lemme know if you want to be added or removed!): @akaisenhatake​ @camillejeaneshphm​ @catohphm​ @fangirl-screaming​ @rosachaotic​ @ag907​ @nikyiscreepy​ @oseathepebble​

(contains violence, death, and use of guns)

Also, this story features a brief cameo from a character of @camillejeaneshphm 's, and the name for the WIW in this version of events comes from @magicapandora !

Two hours until midnight. That was the time limit that was bouncing through Matthew’s (now Agent Moon’s) mind as he approached the building. He willed himself not to look at the road as a white minivan drove by, taking a corner further down the road, adjusting the silver bracelet on his right wrist. This was the only thing on him that hadn’t been from Bill. He’d even asked about it, and Matthew explained that it was something he just wore for good luck and protection, not that it ever seemed to work..

“Not bad, New Moon. Most people on their first mission tend to look at the surveillance devices a little too much.” Agent Gaia said over the earpiece, a little muffled by the sound of traffic.

“Focus on the road, Gaia, I’m the one running interference!” Agent Terra exclaimed, Matt expecting to hear frantic keyboard typing, but only getting a few clicks here and there.

“Alright, you’re past the ID machine. Like Gaia said, it’s on the 28th floor, so you’ll need to make your way up unnoticed…which is exactly why you’re going in via the car park.”

Matthew darted around the side of the building, risking a look up at it. It was 30 stories tall, all of which was owned by Reflection International, as evidenced by the giant logo he was standing under.

From his own investigations, while they had never done anything illegal, there is certainly a lot of criticism for their practices, be it extreme markups of life-saving medicines, ruthless buying of patents, as well as lobbying governments. Still, as he approached the entryway of the car park, he found himself wondering just what a company like this could be hiding that required the murder of multiple Intelligence Personnel.

Before he went any further, he heard a door open within the car park. Ducking low, he shuffled forward until he had a good view. Out of the door came two figures: a woman with ginger hair and a suit, and behind her was a man who looked familiar. He was tall, with dark black hair, and was wearing a striking white suit.

“That’s…” Matt said under his breath, “...the guy who Bill talked to today. The executive.”

“Well spotted.” Terra confirmed. “That’s Ryuji Ketseuki, Vice Executive for Reflection International. Rose up through the ranks to become one of the youngest business executives of all time. Apparently they call him the “Wizard in White”. Blech.”

Matthew watched as the woman opened the door of an expensive-looking car and sat in the driver’s seat, Ketseuki getting in the back of the car, the engine soon roaring to life.

“Now’s your chance, Agent Moon. Wait for the right moment…” Terra said, as the car park shutters slowly opened. Ketseuki’s car rolled out and turned towards the main road, as the shutters started to close again. Taking a deep breath, he went for it, scampering a little to get his whole body past the shutters before they…well, shut.

“I’m in.” Matt said, allowing himself to smile.

“So am I.” Terra chuckled, as Matthew heard a few more clicks. “Since your earpiece is now inside the building, there’s way fewer checks on it than a computer outside it. Should help me delete any footage of you snooping around. Alright, get going.”

Taking a moment to breathe, Matthew set off up and out of the car park, towards the fire exit stairs. He’d have to make it across the reception of the building before he could get to the higher floors. Considering he was carrying several tools of espionage as well as a gun, he was slightly afraid of being seen as suspicious. Still, he figured, it was about the same anxiety he had when walking outside normally. He breathed in. He took a first step. He breathed out. A man in a business suit walked across a reception, past another giant Reflection International logo. It was 10:10pm.

“Wow, you’re a natural! You don’t look suspicious at all! No wonder M- er, Bill chose you!”

Finally, Matthew was able to slip past the crowd until he was near the lift and the stairs (he frowned at how the sign called it an elevator)

“Now, there’ll be cameras in the lift, not to mention other people, so your safest bet is probably the stairs, but keep the lifts in mind if you need to get somewhere else fast.” Terra pointed out. “It happens sometimes that the best way to get out of a sticky situation is to just - CAREFUL GAIA WATCH THE ROAD-”

Matthew stifled a laugh as he started to climb up the stairs. Through the windows of the doors, it looked like most people had gone home for the day, with half of the corridors being pitch black. Still, Matthew kept on guard, and it would just be his luck that when he got to the 28th floor he would find that a single light was on.

“Pants.” Matthew said, bluntly.

“I’m checking the cams now, hang tight.” Terra assured him, seemingly recovered from whatever Gaia had been up to. “Man, it’s like they want the data to be deleted easily, this is child’s play…ok! Yeah, looks like someone’s in there with the ID machine, but they aren’t working on it, which is good news.”

“I’m guessing the bad news is I’ll need to go in with him and pray he doesn’t smell a rat.”

“He kind of looks like a rat.” said Gaia, off-handedly, “hold on, Terra, gotta overtake here.”

“Gaia! That’s really rude!...Look, reporting you is probably the last thing this guy wants to do. Just act natural, be nice, and there’s no reason to worry!”

“I suppose…” Matt said to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. He checked his watch, and found that it was almost 10:30pm. He just hoped he had enough time to get this done. He couldn’t waste any more time. He had do right by Bill. Steeling himself, he opened the door labelled “Floor 28 - Research Division” and walked forward, not flinching when the corridor lights came on.

“Seems like the guy noticed the lights came on.” Terra informed Matt. He showed no reaction and kept walking until he came to the door.

“Should I knock?” he whispered.

“It would be polite.” Terra admitted. Shrugging to find a counter-argument, Matthew knocked thrice.

“C-Come in!” Matthew slowly pushed open the door, and glanced at the other person in the room. He tried to keep his face still. He kind of did look like a rat, just a little. He looked around the same age as Matt was, with short blonde hair and largeish blue eyes. He also, somehow, looked more nervous than Matthew normally did.

“C-Can I help you?” he asked nervously. Matt took a glance at the name on the desk. Ben Copper.

“Oh, no worries.” Matt reassured him, “I’m from the IT team. Mr Ketseuki asked me to do some work on one of the prototypes here.”

Ben’s face looked a little less nervous. “Oh, right, go ahead then, I-I was just burning the midnight oil really, had some work I needed to get done, that kind of thing…”

Matthew nodded and smiled softly, and Ben gave a nervous smile in return. With that, he was free to examine the rest of the room. There were monitors and computers here and there, as well as a few larger devices.

“There! By the window! You can’t see me pointing, but I am!” Terra said suddenly. Matt walked over, leaning over it. It was smaller than Matthew had been expecting, about the size of a home radio, with a circular screen on the left and a variety of buttons to the right.

“Brilliant work, Agent Moon. But we can’t just take it off of the table. There’s likely to be a tracking device in it somewhere that you’ll need to remove first.”

Matt made sure Ben couldn’t see his face before he winced. Of course it couldn’t be that simple. It never was for him, after all. He reached into his jacket’s pocket and took out the Swiss Army Knife. On closer inspection, he saw that it was decorated with a variety of constellations, the one standing out the most being that of Hercules.

“The device should be under the screen.” Terra explained, as more typing was heard, “you should be able to use one of the blades to pry it open.”

Matthew began to flick through the many utilities the knife had before finding one that seemed suitable for pulling up the screen. Slowly, he slid the blade underneath and pushed down. There was a click, and the screen was half-off of the machine, still connected by wires. Now all Matthew had to do was figure out what a tracking device looked like, and pick it out.

“Wait.” Terra said, Matthew picking up on the nerves in his voice. “...Don’t look up. Don’t even try to, just keep your eyes on the machine, and don’t say a word.” Matthew did as he asked, though felt the overwhelming urge to do the exact opposite as curiosity filled him. That curiosity vanished with Terra’s next sentence. “There’s a sniper trained on your chest from the building opposite.”

Matthew felt that fear wash over him. It was the same one he’d felt when the floor had caved in earlier in the day. Alarm bells were ringing in his head as his hands hovered over the machine. It couldn’t get worse than this, right?

Turns out, once more, his luck would once again kick him in the shin. “Hey,” Ben began, “Mr Ketseuki…he’s not upset that work had to be done on the prototype, right? I’d hate to think…” 

As much as Matthew floundered when it came to smalltalk, he somehow found it in himself to respond. “No, no, of course not. One of the others apparently flagged a small issue that needed outside fixing, so…here I am.”

“Right, right…thank goodness, that’d be the last thing I want, especially with a prototype as important as that.” Ben said, sighing in relief.

Matt found himself slightly more at ease, which was odd considering the circumstances. “Important? Is there a time frame on when this has to be ready by?”

“Oh, I’m not too sure. Apparently it’ll help with our global network, making the data a lot easier to find quickly.”

“I see…” Matt nodded, trying not to change his expression. Strangely enough, Matthew didn’t think he was lying, merely misinformed, which put even more questions into his head and almost distracted him from the knowledge that a gun was pointed at him.

“You’ve got to get that device out of the machine, quick.” Terra ordered. “Once you’ve done that, we can be a little more…loud, so to speak.”

Trying not to look conspicuous, Matthew put his finger under the screen to stop it falling back into place. Switching the knife over, he discovered a pair of tweezers within. Reaching in as slowly as possible, he found a small red circle that stuck out like a sore thumb on the green circuitry. Taking a breath, he pried it off of the circuit, seeing that the reverse of it had Reflection’s logo on it: A lone snake wrapped around a staff, with it’s tongue sticking out. Cautiously, he pulled the component out, making sure it remained behind the screen until he was able to drop it on the counter in front of him. Allowing himself to smile, he returned the tweezers to the Swiss Army Knife, returning the screen of the ID machine to its proper place.

“Nice one, but…looking at the corridor cam, you have another problem coming towards you…I guess the sniper tipped him off.” Terra sighed. As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Ben clutched his chest in shock.

“Who’s in there?!” barked a low, gruff voice, the owner of whom banged on the door again. “Get out here now!”

Ben looked at Matt, confused. Matt merely shrugged, as if he was as confused as Ben was. “W-What’s going on?!” he asked, the fear in his voice palpable.

“Security alert!” he replied, not showing any sympathy. “We know there’s an intruder in there. Out, now!” Ben stammered over his words, confused, and so Matt took over.

“It’s just us two! We haven’t heard anything about a security alert-”

“Shut up! You’re both a threat as far as I’m concerned! Now open the door before I kick it open!”

Matt remained where he was, and motioned the panicking Ben to stay put too. He placed a hand over the ID machine, waiting for a voice in his earpiece. After a few long, long seconds, he heard Gaia.

“Got a plan to get you out of this, but you’ll need to hurry. I’m coming up to the road between you and that sniper. When you hear the signal, drop down and take the machine with you. You’ll know it when you hear it, trust me.” she reassured him.

“I’m trying to get into their radio feed too, should help you get past this guy.” Terra added, as Matthew heard the van screech. “Get ready.”

Ben looked at him again, confused. Matt smiled, his eyes going back to the window. He dared not look at the building opposite, instead at the road. He watched as a white minivan sped up the road, before its horn blared out as loud as possible. Thankfully, Matthew was smart enough to know a signal when he heard one, and pulled the ID machine off the table and ducked to the floor.

Ben yelped as several bangs were heard, many from the door and one from the window. Matthew quickly scanned his environment: A bullet hole now marked the glass, with a few shards having fallen nearby. Ben had crawled under his desk, where he would hopefully be safe, and that guard was still trying to get through the door. What that meant, thankfully, was that he could talk aloud to his fellow agents again. “I’ve got to get past that guard. I can get to the door without being seen by the sniper, but once I do that guard will shoot me point blank.”

Terra cleared his throat, which crackled through the earpiece. “Right, right…sorry, a lot of people were beeping back at us. If you look through your pockets you should find a bunch of cuboid thingies with keyrings. You’ll want the grey and white one.”

Matt did as instructed, holding it in his hand. The word that came to mind as a result of the keyring was grenade, but that would draw far too much attention, which meant…

“This is a flashbang, right?” Matthew asked, as the guard outside resorted to kicking at the door, Ben continuing to whimper from under his desk.

“Well observed. Yeah, you’ll need to pull the keyring and toss it up at him. And make sure to look away. Here, I’ve got through to their radio line, have a listen:” There was some more static, and other voices could be heard. “Don’t worry, they can’t hear us.” Terra reassured him. “It’s a neat little bit of tech we came up with thanks to our tracking of outer-space signals…but I’ll tell you about that later.”

Matt crawled past the glass, keeping low, getting closer to the door as he heard the guard cursing over the radio. As he reached the point where he could throw the flashbang from, he saw Ben’s eyes glaring at him through the table.

“W-What’s…what’s happening…I-I…” he stuttered, his hands clutching at his hair.

“...Hey.” Matt whispered at him. “It’s gonna be okay. Trust me. Just stay put and you’ll be alright.”

Ben didn’t stop shaking, but was no longer on the verge of tears as he pushed himself further under the desk. Over the radio, the guard was still cursing, though he seemed more confident now. “Stupid fool…whoever they are, they will not be standing when I’m through with ‘em…I’ll shoot ‘em both, just to show who’s boss…here we go- AH!”

As the door finally swung open, Matt tossed the cuboid up, covering his eyes with the keyring still in his hand as the guard stumbled back. Matthew charged forward past the rapidly blinking Ben and the dazed guard, as he heard another gunshot fire out at the window, missing him by a fair margin. This time, however, he could hear the sniper’s reaction.

“Shitting Hell!” came a static-y voice. Matthew held the ID machine a little closer to his chest. It was one of the three people who had visited the building after the explosion, the first voice. At the time she had been devoid of emotion, but now she seemed rather irritated by the turn of events. “Get up! Hold him still before he reaches the lift so I can silence this little pest!”

Matt’s smile faded as he heard loud footsteps behind him.He hadn’t got too much of a good look at him, but he was pretty sure that this guy was a lot more muscular than he was. Thankfully, Terra chimed in. “I called the lift for you, but…he’s gonna catch up to you before you get there.”

Matt grimaced as he got closer and closer. He needed another idea that was just about crazy enough to work, and thankfully he got one.. “Can you open the doors now, but stop the lift on the floor below?”

Terra paused for the briefest of moments, but ‘m-hm’-ed in confirmation. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Moon…” he sighed, as the doors opened ahead of Matthew. In the seconds he’d been running, Matthew had made two calculations: that he would have a lot more options available to him on top of the lift as opposed to inside it, and that the surprise of not seeing the elevator would once again provide a sorely needed moment of hesitation. Gritting his teeth, and holding the ID machine close, he sprinted forward onto the lift’s roof, grabbing the cable and spinning to hit the still oncoming guard in the chest, sending him back a little. He had hoped that would be enough to stop him before the doors closed, but his pursuer put his hands on either door and forced them back to the edges, causing them to stutter in and out slightly. They weren’t closing anytime soon. He got a good look at this guard; he had shaved hair as well as a shaved face, and still had that gun in his right hand. But then Matthew heard something that he did not expect.

“My goodness, such a failure you are.” spat the sniper, the guard raising his hand up to his earpiece, the message clearly directed at him. “Can’t even chase a person down a corridor properly.”

The guard suddenly looked nervous, his rage replaced by fear. “High Pr-”

“Enough! You’re in front of our unwanted guest, after all. Listen well. I have my sight trained on the space right outside that lift. I will shoot whoever is thrown out of that lift, understand? A situation like this requires an itchy trigger finger, just as it requires a competent enforcer.”

“...Pants.” Matthew said. “...Y’know, she’s threatened the both of us, so…this is how truces tend to happen.”

“No…this is how promotions happen.” the guard grinned, before aiming the gun at Matthew. Instinctively, he kicked again, landing a hit on the guard’s shin. Taking the initiative, he kept up the offensive, jabbing with his free arm at the hand with the gun in it, letting it clatter to the floor and nudging it off the side of the lift with his foot.

Taking a quick glance at the space outside the lift shaft, the guard pushed forward, gripping Matthew’s arm and pulling, clearly trying to get him outside. Still clutching the ID machine, he willed himself to come to a halt, causing the guard to start stumbling toward him. The lift rocked a little, and the guard snarled, grabbing for the ID machine, but Matt was ready for him, somehow. Pushing up with his legs, he began rapidly kicking at the sides of the guard’s torso, before sticking his legs out and digging into the sides of his stomach. The guard yelped, letting go of Matt’s free arm. Sidestepping, Matt put down the machine. He took his silver bracelet and wrapped it around his knuckles. It was probably never meant to be used this way, but desperate times called for it. And what better protection than a good offence, right? Discarding the argument when he remembered his life was in danger, and that Bill had trusted him, Matt leapt forward, driving his silver-covered fist into the guard’s upper chest. At least, that was where he was aiming. But the guard, seemingly in desperation, had tried to go low, thus leading to Matt striking his head. The guard straightened out, clearly concussed judging by the glazed over eyes. He didn’t seem to have a clue where he was as he staggered backwards out of the lift shaft. Then came the gunshot.

It split through the windowpane and struck him through his chest. The force of the bullet stopped his movement backwards, before he tumbled to the floor almost instantly, now motionless. Matthew felt his mouth go dry as he returned his bracelet to his wrist, picking up the ID machine and cradling it in his arms. He flinched when he heard more voices on the radio.

“Kilo Sierra Delta!” the sniper said, as Matt heard more footsteps.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! Knew I should have stayed late…” Matt came back to reality upon hearing this new voice. It was another of the people in the building. The one he’d seen the most of.

“Terra, can you take the lift down?” Matthew asked, as he noticed something that had fallen out of the guard’s shirt, visible through the bullet hole.

“Oh, thank god, you’re alive. Ok, yeah, give me a second, the other people in the building are all headed up, you’ll have a more or less easy getaway once you get down to the ground floor.” Terra explained. “Crap, they’re coming though!”

Matt gazed down at the still rocking lift. He pushed on the wall so that there was enough room for him to jump down into the metal cube. He shimmied his legs down the gap, then his left arm, dropping the machine on the lift floor. Over the radio, he heard that slightly Scottish accent again. “I’m on the scene! Can see the body, along with…HEY!”

Matt should have ducked down, but instead he grabbed the thing that had fallen from the guard’s pocket before manoeuvring downwards. He heard loud footsteps overhead, but knew that all she would be able to see was his hand. Gripping the thing he’d taken with his thumb, he proceeded to wave two certain fingers at the person before pulling it down and closing the lift doors, his silver bracelet clanging against the metal as he did so. The woman above seemed, to put it lightly, upset at his actions.

“WHO WAS THAT?! I WANT CCTV FOOTAGE! NOBODY GIVES ME THE TWO-FINGERED SALUTE AND LIVES TO TELL THE TALE!”

“Calm yourself,” said the sniper. “The intruder cannot have gone far, nor could he have left the building yet.”

Matt once again sank to the floor as the lift descended through the building, suddenly remembering that he still had that gun on him. He’d never even thought to use it. “...I got the machine…how close are you guys?”

“ETA 3 minutes, Agent Moon.” Gaia said, “providing this arse in the Range Rover stops holding everyone up-”

He listened as Terra took over. “...Was that the first time you saw someone…”

“N-No. There was…another time, but…” Matthew sighed. “That was the first time it was that close to me. That I had…”

“Hey, you did what you had to, and you even tried to get the both of you out alive. One thing’s for sure, that guy certainly seemed to fear that sniper. What did he call her?”

“ “High” something or other.” Matt said, struggling to remember the details; much of it was a blur. “And then after she’d…yknow…she said, what was it, “Kilo Sierra Delta”, which…”

He was going to say he wasn’t sure what it meant, but then he looked at what was in his hand. It was a card, with the Reflection International logo on it, but this time the snake was not sticking its tongue out . This time it had fangs. He turned it around, and instead of a playing card, as he had been expecting, it was a Tarot card. It showed a knight on horseback, riding with a blade held high in the sky. The text below it read: Knight of Swords. “Kilo Sierra, perhaps.” Matt said aloud.

“Pardon?” Terra asked.

“I’ll explain when I see you.” Matt replied, standing up as the lift neared the ground floor. Sure enough, as the door opened, the reception was more or less empty as silent alarms flashed on the walls and ceilings. He looked around, before seeing the minivan through the window. Unable to stop the smile on his face, he ran for it, leaving out the front door once Terra had confirmed the sniper had left the building opposite. He quickly checked his watch. It was ten past eleven. He supposed it was just about his luck that it would end up being this close.

Getting to the minivan, he saw the back door open and clambered inside. Once there, he was greeted by two people who looked about the same age as he was, both South Asian with glasses and black hair, though one had her hair in a ponytail and the other had it cut short.

“Agents Gaia and Terra, I presume.” Matt said, smiling.

“Good to see you, Agent Moon. Sit down and relax, mate. You’ve done something amazing here.”

He gladly did just that, putting the ID machine down next to him as the car sped away. The adrenaline had caused him to more or less ignore any injuries he’d gotten as he went up and then down the skyscraper, but now he was starting to feel the pain in his shoulder, his hands, his legs, as well as general exhaustion.

“How’s he looking?” asked Gaia, still driving.

“Nothing serious, but he’ll need some help at HQ.” Terra reported back. “You’ll be alright, our people are top-notch.” He then found himself smiling. “Sorry, it’s just…Bill was right when he told us about you. You are a wildcard.”

Matt found himself going pink. “I mean…I couldn’t have done any of that without you two helping, so…”

“Doesn’t mean you did any less.” Terra pointed out. “You’ve saved a lot of good people’s lives tonight.” He moved across the minivan and sat down next to Matt, examining the machine. “I’ll get to look at just what makes this thing tick once we’ve reported back at HQ. I imagine it’s chaos over there, what with a transfer of agency and all that.”

“We’ll get to look at it.” Gaia reminded him, sighing. “We’re on track to make it, even with London traffic.”

“Brilliant.” Matt said, finally letting himself relax. “...so what happens now?”

“We’ll head to HQ and report back to the one who gave us this mission, Agent Galileo. She confirms it’s a success, we get a successful mission under our belts…and then I guess we figure out what happens with you.” Matthew suddenly found himself very nervous, something that Terra noticed. “Hey, it’s alright. Bill had to have a lot of trust in you to transfer agency, plus you successfully completed his mission, which all goes in your favour…”

Matthew twirled the card around. “I hope so. I really hope I didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“To be honest it’s been a lot of fun.” Gaia admitted. “It has been quiet for a while now, feels good to have some action this close to home.”

“Exactly!” Terra exclaimed, his eyes focusing towards the card. “Wh-where did you..”

“It…was in the pocket of that guard. I picked it up and when I looked at it, I thought maybe that’s what “Kilo Sierra” was referring to, you know, K.S.”

Terra nodded, raising an eyebrow at the snake image on the back. “And the guard referred to the sniper as “High” something…High Priestess, maybe?”

Gaia rolled her eyes. “Ah, the Tarot cards again. We’ve been hearing about a group using them recently and we have a theory that some sort of gang has been using them as a sort of…well, identifier, funnily enough.”

“We thought it could just be a cartel or something at first, but…killing so many agents, having a Reflection International building as a base of operations…”

There was silence for the rest of the trip, as Gaia concentrated on getting to this HQ place as fast as possible.

When they finally got there, at around 11:45 pm, they scrambled out, remembering to take the ID machine and card. “Quick, quick, we don’t have much time!” Gaia hissed, as the three made their way towards a largeish building. Matt followed the two agents, who seemed similar enough to be twins, as they ran past a sign which read:

THE MIDNIGHT FOUNDATION - Nam astra et quod est infra.

[beardedmrbean]

The mother of a 16-year-old girl allegedly beaten to death by security forces during protests in Iran has spoken of her continuing heartache.

In an exclusive interview that appears in a BBC documentary, Nasrin Shakarami says she "cannot forget for a second" what happened to her daughter Nika.

Nasrin was speaking to actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who fled Iran in 2008.

Nasrin also rejects authorities' claims about the deaths of protestors: "We all know that they are lying."

Nika's was one of the most high-profile deaths during protests in late 2022.

The protests have continued since then, though have become much less intense due to a bloody crackdown by security forces.

The unrest began after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died after she was detained by morality police in the capital for allegedly violating Iran's strict rules requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf.

Four days after Mahsa died, Nika was filmed at a protest in Tehran setting fire to her headscarf.

Videos posted online show Nika standing on a dumpster as she did so, while others are heard chanting "death to the dictator" - a reference to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In her interview with Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Nasrin says: "Nika was concerned about the injustice and discrimination towards Iranians. She used to think about it a lot.

"She was extremely adventurous and fearless. I was always worried about how bold she was. I was always afraid that something would happen to her."

Nasrin says she called Nika that day and could hear protesters around her.

The interview appears in a documentary, Inside the Iranian Uprising, alongside 350 clips from 100 hours of film, shot and uploaded by young Iranians.

Footage shot on 20 September shows Nika throwing rocks in the direction of the police. Another clip recorded that evening shows Nika still at the protest taking cover behind a car.

She disappeared after telling a friend during a phone conversation just before midnight that she was being chased by police.

One eyewitness told CNN last year that she saw Nika being taken into custody at a protest by "several large-bodied plainclothes security officers" who bundled her into a car.

That night Nika's Instagram and Telegram accounts were deleted. Her family began to search for her and asked the authorities to help, but Nasrin says: "No one was giving us any answers."

The family said they eventually located her body at the Kahrizak mortuary on 30 September and that they were only allowed by officials to see her face for a few seconds in order to identify her.

Nika's maternal aunt, Atash, said in early October that officers from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told her that Nika was in their custody for five days and then handed over to prison authorities.

A death certificate issued by a cemetery in Tehran, which was obtained by BBC Persian, states that Nika died after suffering "multiple injuries caused by blows with a hard object".

The authorities denied any wrongdoing and made inconsistent statements about her fate.

The Iranian government did not respond to the BBC's request for comment for the documentary.

State TV broadcast a video purporting to show Nika returning home after the protests. Prosecutors went on to say that she had later jumped or been pushed off a building.

Iran's Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says more than 530 protesters have been killed, including 71 children, and almost 20,000 more have been detained in a violent crackdown by security forces, which have portrayed the protests as foreign-instigated "riots".

Seven protesters have also been executed following what a UN expert has called "arbitrary, summary and sham trials marred by torture allegations". Dozens more have reportedly been sentenced to death or charged with capital offences.

"They are not taking responsibility for killing her nor telling us who did it," Nasrin says. "They are not pursuing the case. To whom should we complain?"

Nasrin has previously said Nika's aunt, who made a video statement while in detention in which she said her niece "was killed falling from a building" had been "forced... to make these confessions".

In the interview with Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Nasrin says: "I am a mother and I loved Nika infinitely. She was the love of my life. Losing a child like Nika is a tragedy.

"I personally have a lot of respect for Nika's bravery and free spirit. I believe that we are living in a specific point in history where such events are needed."

From the moment Nika was born, Nasrin realised that she had an "extraordinary energy", she says.

"I cannot forget for a second what has happened to Nika," Nasrin adds. "Even in my dreams I beg her to come and talk to me.

"I only have one hope… that the blood of our children doesn't get trampled upon."