kingdom come

catalina ximena de los reyes —- 23 • media • staff reporter girls like her were born in a s t o r m. they have lightning in their souls, thunder in their hearts, and chaos in their bones.

[nikitamearsgifs]

[ravensandrocks-deactivated20200]

She had a mind like a box of fireworks and hands that played recklessly with matches.

Michael Faudet (via michaelfaudet)

[technicallity]

[larmoyante]

Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.

Josephine Hart, Damage (via idiotarps)

[catalinaximenas-blog]

catalina + lysander

[catalinaximenas-blog]

lysandercho:

The screen’s lag betrayed no rescue yet, but Lysander believed her. There would be no point in lying after all. He would find out sooner or later. Right now, it continued to bounce, as though the person holding it were jogging - which was in fact what was happening. Then the screen went black, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if a finger covered the lens or it had broken. 

“So it’s working just fine?” he questioned, holding the phone to his ear using his shoulder and jotting down some report notes on a piece of paper in front of him. 

Then the screen went orange and shaky again. A blessing and a curse, really, all that movement was making his head hurt, but at least it meant the camera was functioning. And that was the important thing. 

“How did you get it back?” But the monitor changed again, now it didn’t move as though he was running, but as though he was being beaten. Lysander couldn’t help but smirk, slowly spinning his chair from side to side with one foot. “You’re quite the little firecracker,” he commented lightly.

Quickly darting out of the alleyway and leaving behind the unconscious body, Catalina gauged her surroundings before continuing on her way. The area she ended up in seemed to be relieved of the riots currently plaguing the streets a couple block away from her. At least it was a breather. 

“It’s working just perfectly,” she responded without missing a beat, turning on the camera once it was balanced in her hand. “A bit scratched, but still functioning. Why don’t you see for yourself?” The cam was hooked up to a live feed at Network 54, and any of Cho’s doubts would be answered as the screen flickered back to life.

“I knocked him out,” was her quick, bright reply. It had been far too easy to sweep him off his fast; the poor guy never stood a chance. No wonder he had tried to run. “Shall I spare you the messy details?” At the remark, Catalina grinned, wide and sharp. “So I’ve been told. I like to think of that as a compliment, yeah? Definitely means I’m not boring.”

[catalinaximenas-blog]

one-eyed-q:

 “No see the adventures I was talking about always have a prize at the end,” he grinned with that same lazy confidence, “gold or something a little more personal, someone.” Q chuckled quietly a slight shake to his head, “just Q,” there weren’t many that would call him by Quin never mind his actual name. “Catalina,” he mused as if testing the name on his tongue, he’d forget that later, “well Catalina, can I buy you a drink?” 

 “Whatever you want,” he grinned knowing full well there was still a healthy stack of bills in his coat pocket from his last job.

"Oh, really? Many people don’t like to be thought as prizes, you know. Agency and independence and all that shit,” she countered with a languid shrug, flashing him a serene smile. “Well, just Q,” he was definitely lying through that crooked grin of his, “since you’ve offered so nicely, how could I say no?” If Q hadn’t ended up buying her one, then she could easily find another patron to charm into paying for her liquor. Old habits die hard. 

Brushing her hair off her shoulder, she glanced back, her eyes scanning the bottles of alcohol behind the bar and the brightly colored drinks being mixed. “Why don’t you surprise me? You seem like you have good taste. Or, at least, you’ll come up with something interesting. Try not to disappoint.”

[catalinaximenas-blog]

♦

♦ - Emotional headcanon

For all her blithe nonchalance, Catalina is brimming with emotions. She’s nearly explosive with them; she is furious, ecstatic, angry—- sad. Oh, she’ll say she isn’t (god forbid she’s ever caught crying), but tears fall too easily from her eyes, fists pressed up against her face. She was told not to cry, that crying meant weakness, and weakness was never something her family could afford. 

They can afford whatever they want, now.

Her emotions are made of fireworks, easy to light and quick to fade; a capricious girl, she stopped putting a lid on her feelings long ago. She’s brilliant smiles and loud laughter, furious swears and wild gestures. She’s all or nothing---no one was never there to monitor her, to tell her that she was too much.

Passionate.

----That’s what she is.

[catalinaximenas-blog]

Send me a [ ✗ ] and a color and I will describe it without using the name of the color

[catalinaximenas-blog]

catalina de los reyes + text posts 1/?

( all caps from here )

[damnedcowgirl-deactivated201306]

Put one (or more) of the symbols in my inbox and I’ll make a specific headcanon

■ - Violent headcanon

♦ - Emotional headcanon

✿ - Happy headcanon

● - Sad headcanon

♠ - Painful headcanon

♥ - Love headcanon

♡ - Sex headcanon

☆ - Appearance headcanon

☠ - Death headcanon

♒ - Family headcanon

☮ - Friendship headcanon

▼ - Childhood headcanon

∇ - Old age headcanon

★ - Education headcanon

[catalinaximenas-blog]

electric city | catalina & xavier

[catalinaximenas-blog]

xavierkelada:

          His jaw twitched. Catalina’s carefree remark had touched his nerve. I’m not going to fucking die. It was easy to feel invincible here, he supposed. Death must seem like a faraway thing, an abstract notion that didn’t deserve much attention until you were old and gray. He’d thought so, too. He’d thought so despite his childhood spent inside electric fences, listening to the ground thudding as soldiers marched in boots. Caskets wrapped in American flags. Kids leaving school early with broken sobs upon hearing their parents’ death. Private Cooper, who’d taught him soccer tricks and told him funny stories about his tank crew, not returning to base one day. Despite all this, despite all these hazy memories colored with sorrow and loss, young Xavier hadn’t stopped to think just how imminent death was.

          It had all changed once he fought his first battle as a soldier. War was dirty and revolting and utterly devastating. It shook you to your core and you came out as a different individual. Shaken. Disillusioned. Wary. There, death was not a number on the news, not tear-jerking stories of a parent never coming back to their child—death was a dead human lying on the ground, head blown off and limbs twisted grotesquely like some sort of a twisted doll. Dead people by mass production, their images scorching into his brain. That was death. That was death, and the worst thing about the war was that you got so used to it to the point of cold indifference. It was more efficient that way. An emotional soldier was a bad one. (What a fucking joke he was. If anything, Xavier’s fatal flaw was feeling everything too intensely.)

          But nothing could have prepared him for the bombing. Oh, how he had screamed and wailed, drowning in crimson with his limbs torn off—how his comrades had stayed tragically silent. Dead. I’m not going to fucking die. “Tell that to the rest of my battalion,” he spat with unanticipated coldness. He could almost feel the ghost of blazing thermal waves tingling his skin.

          A loud, abrupt crash of glass shattering brought Xavier to his senses, and his rigid shoulders sagged like a deflated balloon. He was being unnecessarily harsh—it wasn’t fair. Catalina was a reporter for God’s sake. It wasn’t fair of him, expecting her to comprehend what it was truly like to face death by multiple thousands. The man pursed his lips, annoyed with himself, annoyed at how affected he still was. He sucked in a long, deep breath in an attempt to calm down. When was his next session with Dr. Chen?

          “—I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. You’re just doing your job,” he admitted, weary but defensive. “But you aren’t letting me do mine.”

          Tell that to the rest of my battalion.

            She bit back a laugh, harsh and hollow and humorless, because war was not something to laugh about. Soldiers dying was not something to laugh about, war in all its gruesome glory was not funny. Perhaps she couldn’t understand the magnitude of what Xavier had seen and experienced---had lived through while others hadn’t been so lucky---but she had enough tact not to laugh. It was a shame laughing was a defense mechanism.

           Death was not something to laugh about---yet she still did. She laughed in the face of death because that was all she knew how to do. She’d lost family to those street gangs, cried with her brothers (never her parents, never them), with her cousins and aunts and uncles. She’d screamed at her friend, seventeen with not enough money to pay a debt, for almost getting himself killed in a knife fight, only for her to land in the exact same situation two days later. The grim reaper constantly loomed over her shoulder, yet she still hurtled through life with reckless abandon. She really did have a death wish, didn’t she? Nonchalance was surely going to be her undoing.

           “Me cago en todo----” she muttered hotly, kicking at a broken bottle in frustration, sending it rolling across the pavement. Life was so much easier when she didn’t give a shit, but guilt had decided to eat its way into the pit of her stomach. Fucking fantastic. Then there was the guilt for the anger that spiked at pangs of regret in the first place; after all, she’d been the one that needed damage control every single time. Was this the foreign concept of actually taking responsibility for one’s actions?

           She ran her hands over her face and through her hair in exasperation. “It’s not. But I’m not being fair, either,” she admitted. How could they reach a compromise when neither of them were willing to budge? Both of them were good at what they did---too good. After another moment of frustrated silence, she pointed at him before folding her arms across her chest. “Okay, fine, tell how the hell I’m supposed to let you do your job while I can still do mine.”

[runner-dex]

43 | Dexter & Catalina

[catalinaximenas-blog]

runner-dex:

Dex just about picked up on the slight whistle of words, he stiffened because he was entirely sure that she’d just pocketed his money. Jaw clenched to prevent him from saying anything, not that he would, not happy that she’d taken liberties like that even if she’d saved him. Safe, a foreign concept in a city like this no doubt especially when he’d not once ventured much further than the sprawl of the combat zone, “my apartment is around the corner”. It wasn’t far and even if she didn’t take him all the way if he got just close enough to find something that felt familiar then he’d be okay.

If she was gonna take his money like that it was probably best they didn’t go all the way, not that he had much to take although some of his tech was worth a fair amount these days. A lot was considered vintage, technology had moved on since the first cyberdeck he ever owned. Hadn’t bought it, been a piece of junk Athena had salvaged for him now it was worth a few hundred Eurodollars, it seemed laughable really. He was starting to consider purchasing a weapon but just the mere thought made him grimace, and besides he was only allowed to own one piece of cutlery. God forbid he wanted to eat his food with anything but a spoon.

He was old enough to take care of himself but they still babied him, didn’t help his apartment wasn’t even that far away—he’d fought to get his own place for many many desperate months. Dex gave a curt nod followed by a, “yeah”. Some places in the city seemed to reek of death as if no-one had bothered to clean in the last millennia, most places in this part of the city were already burnt to the ground. His head jolted up, “thanks I guess,” he’d just about heard her compliment, “it’s a visual of a code I wrote as a kid,” another roll of his shoulders.

It was the most he’d talked so far, this was pushing it for him in all honesty he rarely spoke this much with his family. Sometimes he was in a particularly optimistic mood and almost seemed like his old self, majority of the time Dex was like this happy and content to be quiet. He liked listening. His hearing hadn’t become superhuman but his attention was often more devoutly focused on listening for the smaller details.  Things people usually missed when they were rushing apart their lives.

The bills were finally pressed into his hand and for a moment Dex might’ve shrugged off his prior opinions of the media, of her. It wasn’t a personal vendetta it was more of an overall distaste towards network 54. He didn’t have friends, not anymore he’d lost touch with his old companions just withdrew. Occasionally he’d reach out, mainly to pass on the information he collected—sell it to the highest bidder. “News,” he uttered, “a—friend watches the newscasts,” he didn’t.

He hated that he was asking this of a strange, of a media no less but he didn’t have a choice.

“I need your help.”

“Noted.” She nodded when he answered, casting a brief glance around their surroundings. He’d just gotten awfully unlucky, hadn’t he? Taking the wrong turn, ending up in an alley, getting jumped. Misfortune seemed to befall that walked the streets of Night City, she’d learned quickly. “Shouldn’t take very long.” They’d only need to walk straight and make a turn. Hopefully they wouldn’t get jumped twice, though she was sure she could handle it. For someone who had only lived in the city of a few years, she knew its ins and outs fairly well---she’d made sure of that.

Maybe she had ended up in one too many back alleys and been chased down one too many slick streets, but it was a method that served her well. She’d managed to somewhat solve the maze that was Night City, and her job only led her to its hidden corners and dark pockets (much to chagrin of practically everyone around her). But what was the point in standing around? That was so dull. Life was meant to be lived while it lasted, and she’d rather go out with a bang than fizzle out.

“Still. Impressive,” she reiterated with a lazy shrug. “Some of my tattoos are my own drawings, so I guess that’s...kind of the same. Maybe.” Her own tattoos were scattered across her arms, scars turned into artwork, a constellation of memories inked on her skin. The boy wasn’t very talkative, offering curt replies in response to her questions. She could work with that---she was a reporter for fuck’s sake. She could turn two words into a headline, into gripping quotes that captured thousands.

Relief seemed to wash over her features at his reply; not being on someone’s hit list was good news in her book. There were enough people that wanted her dead (not all of them were completely her fault). “A friend, huh?” she mused, raising her eyebrows in surprise. This guy seemed like the last person on earth who’d ask for more help than necessary. He’d insisted he was fine when he was clearly not, was hardly receptive to any prodding and poking---he was, in general, a very guarded person, hostility laced to his spine. And that was what she’d gathered in these few minutes.

“You need my help....Okay, shoot. What’s up?”

[catalinaximenas-blog]

catalina de los reyes + tropes

[catalinaximenas-blog]

kasumiwatanabe:

‘ i mainly carry it around for burning incense. religious reasons. ‘ kasumi nods as the girl gives her thanks. ‘ i must look like a smoker, since i keep getting asked for a lighter. ‘ she clicks her tongue, twirling the lighter between her fingers as her attention flickers back onto the brunette. ‘ …that doesn’t look like a normal cigarette. what is it ? ‘

‘ better reason than mine. ‘ catalina’s reply is swift and nonchalant, and she takes another drag on the not-cigarette. she turned her back on religion long ago. ‘ maybe they just want to say hi and you’re too intimidating to approach without a reason, ‘ she jokes, her smile widening good-naturedly. ‘ and that’s because it’s not. ‘ she lets the roll dangle from between slender fingers. ‘ my friend gave it to me; it’s supposed to taste like tropical fruits. ‘

[ravensandrocks-deactivated20200]

She had a mind like a box of fireworks and hands that played recklessly with matches.

Michael Faudet (via michaelfaudet)

[radtracks]

Visit Original Link

[catalinaximenas-blog]

radtracks:

suck it and see // arctic monkeys

your love is like a studded leather headlock your kiss, it could put creases in the rain you’re rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock and those other girls are just postmix lemonade

[catalinaximenas-blog]

“there is lightning crackling in your bones and you are bursting full with curiosity and hope. sometimes it feels like there’s not enough time to see and hear and feel everything. breathe. savor the moments you find yourself in; choose opportunity. the light in your eyes rivals those of any city you might call home. you are not and will never be a burden.” [x]