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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 4 years

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Dennis

Welllllll this one got a bit away from me. I blame cabin fever (two days snowed in) and my angst addiction. Story 4 for @drawlight‘s advent challenge.

Couple of notes: Dennis, MA is a real place, and chosen for the setting because (a) it is the site of the first recorded commercial cranberry bog in America, and (b) it has a very silly name. It’s actually quite nice, if you manage to visit between the overcrowded tourist season and the completely dead off season, Crowley just has no patience.

Cranberry wine is not as common as the story might imply, especially in 1982. Crowley is drinking Truro Vineyard’s Cranberry Red from their Lighthouse Wine Series, which my parents are big fans of (it’s good, if you like red wines), even though that wasn’t available until the late 2000s. Bad historian, no cookie for you.

Thanks to @angel-and-serpent for reminding me about the wolf spiders.

04 - Cranberry (2,600 words)

Crowley sat on the four-poster bed, staring at the phone. The clock beside it clicked from 1:59 PM to 2:00. He tensed…but nothing happened.

Don’t panic. It’s not always exactly the same time. He tried to occupy himself by listing things he disliked about the hotel room.

The lighting room was atrocious, casting everything in a sickly yellow color. Even sitting alone, he wore his glasses to dull the glow a little. The bed was…passably comfortable, the quilt too stiff, the pillows far too flat. The carpet was worn, though only a little. The color scheme was too…green. He’d seen three ants, which might just be a coincidence, or the start of an infestation.

The phone rang, a sharp jangle cutting right across his nerves. 2:03 PM.

He scooped up the handset and said as casually as possible, “Yeah?”

And relaxed, smile drifting across his face that he’d never allow in a face-to-face conversation.

“No, I’m not too busy, Angel. How was your week?”

Slowly, he leaned back on the bed, stretching the coiled cord as far as it would go.

“Really? No. The audacity, coming in and trying to buy a book. What do they think it is, some kind of shop?” He listened another moment. “Aziraphale, I am taking this exactly as seriously as it deserves.”

He listened for a while longer, with an occasional, “Yeah. Yeah.”

“How are my plants?” He frowned. “Perfectly fine? They’re dropping leaves all over the shop, aren’t they?” Rolled his eyes and sat up. “No, I don’t care if it’s November, they know what’s expected of them. I’ve only been gone…” he sighed. “Twenty months.” He was really going to have to re-establish dominance when he got back.

“Nah, I mean, New York was great. Plenty going on there. We should – you should – yeah, I think you’d like it there.” He winced. He sounded pathetic. “Then two days ago, hey, congratulations, now on to the next location. But…I really think someone cocked this one up. No way this is where I’m supposed to be.”

“Dennis.”

He jumped to his feet. “No, not Dennis who, Dennis. It’s a town.” Pacing was difficult in a room this small. He almost immediately became tangled in the phone cord. “I have no idea who names a town ‘Dennis.’” He struggled to free himself without moving the earpiece. “Some bloody tourist place, beaches and sea food, only it’s the off-season.”

He kicked the last bit of cord off his leg – how had that even gotten there? – and flung himself dramatically into the armchair. It wasn’t as good without an audience.

“Now I’m stuck here, nothing to do, until Hell admits they made a mistake. Who knows how long that’s going to be.”

Furious scowl. “No, I’m not being… who even uses the word histrionic? There’s really nothing here. Even the hotel – you’ll never guess. Three stars.” He frowned. “You try it.”

“There is a cranberry bog.” He admitted sullenly. “Lots of spiders. I’m sure there’s something I can do with that.” Pause. “No, I will not behave myself, I’m a demon. And I was told to make trouble, not that there’s any trouble to get into here.”

He sighed. “Haven’t the first idea, they just congratulated me for something to do with politics or the economy.” Crowley pulled off his glasses rubbing at his eyes. “Come on, Aziraphale, you know that’s not how I work. I don’t even understand the economy. Supply-side whatsname, what’s that even mean? But Hell was really happy.” He shuddered. “Ah, I hope I don’t get a commendation. Then I’ll know it’s bad. It’ll be like the Spanish Inquisition all over again. Or the French Revolution.”

He smiled, twisting the cord around his finger. “No, I – you don’t have to. If you want crepes, I’m sure there’s someplace closer.” He laughed. “Yeah, now you mention it, they do still have the death penalty here, but I think you need something more than a bad outfit.”

He was running out of things to say. He tried desperately to think of something, anything. “Uh, any dinner plans?” Nodded. “No, that’s – that sounds good. I wish – I hope you enjoy it.” He knocked his head against the back of his chair. “Got some wine at the airport. ’S alright, I guess.” Nodded again. “Yeah. No, definitely. Talk to you next week.”

Crowley walked back to the bed and dropped the phone into the cradle with another sigh.

It was 2:07 PM and Crowley had the phone to his ear before the first ring even finished. “Yeah?”

“Not good, Angel. I spent days getting those wolf spiders to listen to me, and before I could enact my plan, they closed the bog for the season!”

He covered the mouth of the phone and scowled at the half-dozen spiders on his curtain. “Oi, you lot. Back in the planter or you can winter outside with the rest.” He glared until they had settled back among the spiny shrubs with small red blossoms. He would not be telling Aziraphale about his new roommates, or that the best option at the undersized plant shop had been a succulent called crown of thorns.

“No, it was going to be a great plan. All my plans are great.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Well, that worked, didn’t it?”

He groaned and flung himself back onto the green quilt. “Of course I’m still in Dennis, where else would I be? I told them it was probably supposed to be Denver, but does anyone listen to me?” He pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “The worst is, they keep congratulating me on all the good work I’m doing.”

“No, Aziraphale, I don’t think they meant the spiders, either.” He picked up a newspaper – an actual, local paper, not one of the ones put out by Hell. “I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on, but they don’t exactly get the New York Times here.” He flipped through the titles – Cape Cod Chronicle, Provincetown Advocate, The Register. He’d tried to get a few older issues, but everything was from the current month: November, 1982.

“Why would I go to a library?” Pause. “Ohhhhh. Mm, I suppose I can try that if I get desperate.”

Aziraphale asked a question. “Nh, ah, ok. So. Someone wrote this book about this huge secret satanic organization that, I don’t know, controls the world or something. Accused my side of…some stuff.”

He sighed. “If you must know. Torturing and murdering children.” Crowley sat bolt upright. “No, Aziraphale, obviously not. You’d know if it was true.” He picked at the seams of his black jeans. “I suppose you had to ask.”

“Well that’s the thing. We didn’t know anything about it either. So they sent me here to figure out what was going on.”

He flipped through the pages of the newspapers. “Not much, really. All in their heads, right? Didn’t even need to bother stirring it up, these things really take care of themselves. I’ve just been doing my usual, traveling to different cities, causing a little trouble.”

Giving up on the tiny newsprint, Crowley reached for one of the bottles of cranberry wine that the liquor store had had in abundance. “Well, that’s the thing. I can’t find anything in the papers, so that can’t be it.” He poured himself a glass. “Just…you know. Economic stuff. Banks. Taxes. I don’t know.”

He took a drink. “Mh. There was something, can’t find it now. Some men getting sick out in California. Hope it’s not another plague.” He laughed a little. “Hooray penicillin. Honestly, I’m glad to see the end of plagues. Lousy way to do things.”

Aziraphale turned the conversation to lighter things, and for a while Crowley sipped his wine and listened, learning everything going on back in London, what the customers had tried to buy now, and the angel’s dinner plans.

“Oh, you’ll like this. You know what next week is? Thanksgiving.” He poured the last of the bottle into his glass. “It’s like Christmas, only instead of presents, more food. Very American. The hotel’s serving it in the main dining room.” He drained his glass. “Eh, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce. The usual. I probably won’t have any, you know, you’re supposed to celebrate with friends, but – yeah I thought you’d like that.” He smiled at the phone. “I’ll…uh, I’ll talk to you then, right?”

After he hung up, he noticed one of the spiders sitting on the floor next to him. “I thought I told you to stay in the planter.” At least they’d cleared up the ant infestation. He’d have to get some crickets in the morning.

The wolf spider waved hairy legs at him. “Oh, alright.” He let her scramble up his arm and settle on his shoulder. “But no wine for you. That’s all I need, bunch of drunk spiders.”

The phone rang at 2:01 PM. Crowley didn’t pick up.

Or at 2:10. Or 2:13.

It was 2:29 PM – long after Aziraphale had lost track of the number of times he’d called and hung up – when Crowley finally knocked the handset out of the cradle. “Wha’?” he demanded, slouched on the floor amid empty bottles of cranberry wine.

“’M celebrating, tha’s what.” The spider on his shoulder scurried down to settle on his knee instead. She was always nearby these days. “Cuz I know what Hell c’gratulated me for.”

He dug around for a bottle that was still half-full, drank straight from its mouth. “Not the economy. Well. Starts with that. Whole time I’m here, people been…losing jobs, banks closing. Did I notice?” He leaned his head against the bed. “No, s’pose not. But people…you know people.”

He nodded, watching the spider jump from one knee to the other. “Satanic Cult story just…keeps growing. Accusations. People in prison. Kids always in the middle. ’S not even real. Just. Panic. And then the other thing.”

He held out his hand, let the spider crawl across his fingers. “Said I was done caring, after the Black Death. You can’t… can’t care, you know? Plague’s gotta run its course.” He hadn’t ever really believed that anyway. “But this is… something new.”

He raised his hand and the spider clambered onto his head. It felt nice, little fuzzy legs combing through his hair. “Dunno. Something with… ’mune system? ’S bad. And…and no one cares. Aren’t studying it. Aren’t talking about it. Cuz of who’s sick.”

He picked up the bottle again, draining it, sweet-tart wine running down his throat. “’S what ’m s’posed to’ve done, y’know. Make ’em turn on each other. Cut off th’ ones who need help. ’S like I did in Spain…and France…”

He leaned his head against his knees, curling up beside the bed in his nest of bottles. “Nnhhh, ’f its nothing to do with me, why do I keep getting credit?”

Crowley couldn’t listen any longer. He let the phone tumble out of his fingers, onto the floor. Aziraphale’s voice grew louder, more insistent, then abruptly cut off.

Of course he’d hang up. Why would anyone want to talk to a demon who –

With a strange hum, something burst out of the phone, materializing in the hotel room very close to where Crowley sat. The pale figure stumbled on the wine bottles, then straightened his tartan bow tie and glared.

“Don’t you dare ignore me, Crowley.”

“I…how’d you…”

“Traveling through the telephone lines. You told me you’d tried it once before.”

“It was awful.”

“Not nearly as awful as your driving.” Aziraphale looked him up and down. “Look at yourself. You’re dressed like some sort of…teenaged ruffian. Why is there a spider in your hair?”

“’S fashion,” Crowley answered vaguely.

The angel leaned down and lifted the wolf spider, being careful not to hurt her legs. He watched the spider run across his palm. “And how long has he been like this?”

“Look, Angel, she just –”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Aziraphale walked away, whispering to the spider. “Really? And you didn’t try to tell him – No, I suppose not. No, you’ve done your best. I’ll take it from here.” He set the spider down among the crown of thorns.

The angel still looked absolutely furious. “You could at least stand up instead of skulking on the floor like that.”

Crowley stumbled and tottered getting to his feet, and it wasn’t only because of the all the empty bottles. Well, in a way it was.

“Angel, you shouldn’ be here –”

“I should absolutely be here. You’ve been on your own far too long.” He eyed the bottles. “How many of those are from today?”

“Nn. All of ’em. Housekeeping clears them out every morning.”

He tried not to notice the look Aziraphale gave him as the angel snapped his fingers, miracling the bottles into a neat row across the bedside table. “Now sober up.”

“C’mon, Angel, ’m fine.”

“Sober up. I’m not talking to you like this.”

The cranberry wine was a lot less pleasant coming out than it had been going in. And sobriety only made all the emotions he’d been feeling more clear.

Aziraphale watched the liquid pour back into the bottles, and when he was satisfied, jabbed a finger into Crowley’s chest.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. You are not responsible for what the humans do, or believe, or ignore. That is their choice.”

“I know.” He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “I just…how can they be so cruel to each other?”

“Free will.” Aziraphale sat beside him, so close their shoulders just barely brushed. “One day an act of kindness that surprises even me, the next…”

“The next, they leave hundreds of people to die horribly, just because they’re different.” This wasn’t any easier to process sober. “Are you going to tell me this is all part of the Ineffable Plan?”

“Would that make you feel better?”

“Has it ever?”

“Then, no. I think I’ll leave it at that.”

They sat together in silence for a long time.

There really weren’t any words to make it better. Free will or not, Plan or not, sometimes, humans were the absolute worst. He didn’t know why, after six thousand years, it still hurt to learn that.

But it helped to know, from the pressure of one shoulder leaning on another, that at least someone else had never learned to stop caring.

“So, are you going to head back to London?”

“After coming all this way?” Aziraphale had run out of severe looks; he just smiled sadly. “I have a few healings left in my allowance for the year. I think I might…see what I can do out in California.”

Crowley nodded, and for once he was the one on the verge of a forbidden thank you.

“Before you go. I think the Thanksgiving dinner is about to start. I don’t suppose…”

“My dear, I would never turn down a feast.”

The demon quickly stood up, re-settling his glasses, manifesting something a little more sophisticated than the punk-inspired look he’d been wearing.

Aziraphale dug under the bed and found an unopened bottle of cranberry wine. “I’m looking forward to seeing how this tastes. Oh, it looks like a little lighthouse! Lovely.”

Crowley paused at the door. “You’re not going to be all weird and pretend we don’t know each other, are you?”

“I suppose not. Since this is supposed to be a celebration with friends.” He eyed Crowley suspiciously. “Don’t go being overly familiar just because I said that.”

“Me? I would never!”

#good omens fanfiction #good omens prime #ineffable husbands #31 days of ineffables #aziraphale #crowley #hurt comfort #but tough love comfort #aziraphale is a bastard

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theshatteredrose · 4 years

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Relic Keepers: Awakening of the Red Lily (Chapter 7) - Original Novel

AN: So proud at myself for being able to maintain my weekly updates so far, in spite of the headaches I’ve been experiencing. Hope I can continue to maintain it :’D Anyway, hope you enjoy reading!

Ao3 | Wattpad | Inkitt | FictionPress

Chapter 7:

As Eishirou checked his tablet of their possible location, Zayne kept an ever-vigilant eye on their new surroundings. The sunlight had dimmed considerably the last few minutes, indicating that the sun was soon to set completely.

They needed to find their way back to the others as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to experience flailing about in the dark, in the middle of an unmapped forest no less.

While he recognised the greenery around them to be that of the forest of which they had entered, he didn’t recognise their surroundings. To be fair, the entire forest was just so dense, it was difficult to see through the foliage more than a couple of feet. They could be a few feet away from the expedition site without even knowing.

The loud buzzing of his communicator caused Eishirou to jump slightly. He immediately plunged his hand into his bag to pull out the hand-held device.

Jacob’s concerned face flickered into view. “Eishirou!”

“I’m fine!” Eishirou immediately responded with, knowing that it wouldn’t calm the worried Jacob completely, but should at least ease his concerns. “Zayne is with me. We’re both fine.”

That did get a small sigh of relief from him. “So, Zayne is with you. I got your previous message but was unable to reply.”

“We were underground at the time. Reception was spotty at best.”

“Where are you?”

Good question.

“Jacob, listen; under the clearing where that stone tablet was discovered is a series of mine shafts. That’s where we fell when that ShadowDweller attacked. And they’re connected to an ancient tunnel system. And that’s connected to a large underground chamber holding a mosaic and an altar. So, you need to be careful in that clearing. The ground could give way in other places.”

Jacob listened to him prattle off the information and was silent for a moment as he took it all. “We’ll talk more on that later,” he finally said. “Are you still underground?”

Eishirou shook his head. “No, we’re above ground and back in the forest. But I don’t recognise where. I think we ended up in another part of the forest. A deeper part.”

Jacob turned away from the screen for a moment to speak with someone else. Maybe that of Ernesta. “I’ll send you the map from my tablet,” he stated as he turned back to the screen. “Overlay it with yours and you should be able to pinpoint out location.”

Yes, that should work!

“Right. I’ll send mine, too.” Eishirou reached into his bag to pick up his tablet and was about to excuse himself on the communicator because, honestly, he needed two hands. But instead, Zayne was the one to take it from him. He moved to stand right next to him and he held onto the tablet for him, allowing for him to use both at the same time.

He sent the Elite a graceful smile before he turned his attention back to the task at hand.

“Any ShadowDwellers where you are?”

“Not currently.” Jacob appeared to have someone else holding his tablet for him also. “Team 3 has split into two groups. I’m still at the clearing with Ernesta and Tatsu. The others are escorting the rest of the expedition team. Sunset is about an hour away. We need to get out of this forest pronto.”

Honestly, he didn’t need to say that; Eishirou heard the urgency in his voice.

Just as Eishirou sent his portion of the map, his tablet beeped at him to alert an incoming message.

“Did you get the map?”

“I did,” Eishirou confirmed as he tapped the screen and opened the new message. “Did you?”

Jacob was seen nodding as his gazed to his right. “Yes. From what it tells me is that you’re far deeper than I had anticipated.”

That sounded about right. But thanks to Jacob’s map, Eishirou at least had a direction to head off in. They were way east of the expedition site. A good twenty-minute walk if they were lucky and the path was straight.

But it was likely that the sun would set before they were able to re-join with the others.

Zayne suddenly placed his hand on Eishirou’s shoulder in an attempt to gain his attention. “Tell them to remain where they are; we’ll come to them.”

Eishirou nodded. “Prof, stay there with the others. It’ll be easy if we find our way to you.”

Jacob turned back to his communicator sharply. It was obvious that he wanted to argue that. However, he didn’t. He knew he was right.

“Alright, but send updates of your map every five minutes.”

Sounded reasonable.

After offering the Jacob his reassurances, Eishirou closed down his communicator. He then retrieved the tablet from Zayne and took a moment to study.

“We need to head west,” he said, thankful that his tablet also had a compass.

“Alright, you take the lead. But don’t get too far in front of me,” Zayne requested firmly.

“Roger that.”

With his tablet in hand, Eishirou turned to face west and chose the nearest path, hoping that it would continue to take them in the direction they needed to be.

Despite knowing that ShadowDwellers did inhabit the area, the atmosphere of the forest felt tranquil and peaceful. Not to mention the fresh air and the gentle breeze was comforting. It wasn’t much of a surprise after being stuck underground for a while.

Even so, he hoped they didn’t have to camp for the night. He had been camping a couple of times before, when he was younger. Never in the middle of a ShadowDweller infested forest at night, though. And he didn’t fancy trying it tonight. Especially without previsions.

“This is quite the first assignment,” Zayne commented surprisingly casually. “And you said bodyguard missions were boring.”

Eishirou shot the Elite an apologetic smile. “Well, this is the first time something like this has ever happened to me.”

Zayne tilted his head to the side in a sign of curiosity. “Really? You were pretty calm throughout.”

Really? Oh, good. That meant Zayne hadn’t seen him blush fiercely or his heart race in his chest just by being in very close proximity with him.

Gah, why did he have to remember that?

“W-well, so were you,” Eishirou quickly directed the conversation toward Zayne himself. “Hard to believe this is your first mission.”

Zayne nonchalantly ran a hand through his hair. “Really? Meh, guess I’m just a natural at it.”

He sounded somewhat dismissive, so Eishirou chose not to press him. He didn’t have the right to poke and prod, anyway. Even if he was curious about the Elite. He was quite the enigma.

They both fell silent as they continued to head in a westly direction. They path had a few twists and turns, but thankfully it kept them moving west. And edging close to the expedition site.

They had better hurry, though.

“It’s getting dark,” Eishirou commented as he glanced at their surroundings with a sense of worry.

The lush green foliage with wild flowers of vivid reds and yellows was charming during the light of day. Peaceful even. But as the light began to fade, the tall trees took on towering shadowy figures. Figures that leaned imposingly over them.

“I’m reluctant to use my wings here,” Zayne muttered. “Might draw unwanted attention.”

That was true. The bright blue lights of his mana wings were sure to be quite the beacon, though. “Yeah. But we need to see, too.”

Zayne uttered a sigh. “True. Ok, wait a sec.”

Eishirou immediately stopped walking and turned toward Zayne. The Elite closed his eyes only for his brow to wrinkle and he opened them again. He pivoted his head to either side of him, seemingly looking for something.

Before Eishirou would ask him what was wrong with a worried tone, Zayne spoke;

“I can hear something.”

Eishirou blinked. He couldn’t necessarily hear anything. Well, Elites were said to have heightened senses. “Voices or something else?”

Zayne didn’t answer immediately. He kept his gaze at their darkening surroundings. He suddenly bristled protectively and his wings burst into formation. He quickly spun around to face down the path they had travelled. “It’s that damn centipede ShadowDweller!”

Eishirou felt his heart drop into his stomach. He was about to ask him if he was sure but the loud sound of the splitting of trees and wild rustling of branches gave him all the answers he needed.

A loud beep from his tablet startled him. He immediately looked down to see a menacing red dot on the outer edges of the screen. And that red dot was moving in their direction at an unbelievable pace.

How did…?

It must have when they had that near encounter with the ShadowDweller in the mines. The tablet must have recorded its presence. A built-in warning system?

Ah, it didn’t matter at the moment!

“It’s coming straight for us!”

“Ah shit,” Zayne spat as the sound of splintering wood grew louder with each passing second. “I just hope we can get to that clearing before it catches up. Otherwise, I’ll fight it myself.”

Eishirou skittishly looked at their surroundings. They were in a narrow path, surrounded with tall trees and impenetrable shrubbery. Not the ideal battlefield.

Instead of pulling out his mana holsters to prepare for battle, Zayne spun around to face Eishirou and darted toward him. And suddenly swept him into his arms and held him against his chest. “Hold tight to your tablet.”

“H-huh…?” Eishirou uttered, his features sporting another blush. Even though the situation was beyond serious and this was no place to start getting all embarrassed!

“This way is faster. Hold onto my neck.” With his tablet clutched in his left hand, Eishirou meekly slipped his right arm around Zayne’s neck and shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Eishirou had to resist the urge to utter a sound of surprise when Zayne suddenly sprung into the air and spread his mana wings. He wasn’t able to gain much altitude due to the thick canopy of the forest, so he concentrated his mana to propel them forward as fast as he could.

But even with the sound of wind rushing past his ears, Eishirou could hear the sound of trees and the earth shaking. He glanced over Zayne’s shoulder, but because of the shadows of the setting sun, he couldn’t see very far.

Thankfully, his tablet was able to see what he couldn’t.

“It’s catching up.”

“Where is it?”

“Right behind us!”

“Damn it,” Zayne cursed as he tightened his arms around Eishirou. “Hold on, I’m taking a sharp corner.”

Eishirou unconsciously curled closer to Zayne, pressing his cheek against his shoulder as Zayne pulled to an abrupt stop. Somehow overcoming forward motion, he planted his feet onto the ground and lurched to the side, down a forking path. His mana wings worked quickly to ensure that he didn’t send them both crashing to the ground, but he did have to use his legs to cushion the sudden change in direction.

He skidded across the ground, leaving gouges in the soil as evidence. He turned them both around in time to see a black blur with a magnitude of scurrying legs trundle past. Speeding down the path in a straight line, taking out everything and anything in its way.

Just like when they encountered it underground, as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared from view. Though, they may not be able to visibly see it, they could hear it.

And they certainly heard the high-pitched insect screech of frustration.

It…was after them, wasn’t it?

“You all right?” Zayne asked him, slightly breathless.

“Y-yeah,” Eishirou answered as he stayed curled close to him. “It’s incredibly fast.”

“Yeah. Too fast and big to turn corners,” Zayne muttered with a half smirk of satisfaction. “Where are we?”

Eishirou glanced down at his tablet. “Ah, a few yards away from the expedition site!”

Better yet, the ShadowDweller had moved away from the site, too.

“That means they’ve heard all the commotion as well,” Zayne commented as he stood up straight, keeping a firm hold on Eishirou in his arms. “Point the way.”

“Head straight up this path we’re on now.”

“Got it.”

Without another word, Zayne turned and took to the air once more. They were drawing close to the expedition site now. Only a few more yards.

A loud ping from his tablet caused Eishirou to look down at in with trepidation. It couldn’t take sharp corners, but it could move in a circle rather easily. “It’s coming again.”

Zayne tightened his jaw and his eyes hardened. “You can see the expedition site?”

“Yeah.”

Zayne’s gaze was firm, serious, and stoic as he stared forward, ignoring all that noise of destruction behind them. “…Good. If it all turns to shit, I want you to run and don’t look back.”

Eishirou snapped his head up to stared wide-eyed at the Elite. An unfamiliar feeling of fear appeared in the centre of his chest, momentarily leaving him breathless.

He…he was serious.

No, he couldn’t let him…

“Zayne!”

That was Ernesta’s voice!

Zayne immediately recognised it, too. There was a flicker of relief in his gaze before he pressed his lips tightly together. “Hold on.”

Much like he had done just moments ago, Zayne made a sharp turn and darted into an opening with the greenery. As they burst forth through the shrubbery, they found themselves in the middle of a clearing that was lit by a hastily built high-powered lamp. And by the mana wings of two members of Elite Team 3.

Eishirou had never felt such relief.

“Get ready!” Zayne yelled at them. “It’s a big bastard!”

Ernesta and Tatsu darted forward, allowing for Zayne to shoot past them. “Where is it?”

Zayne skidded across the ground in order to stop, his grip around Eishirou never faltering for even a second. “Right behind us.”

Ernesta abruptly revealed her mana holster and readied it in a defensive stance. Her posture was ridged, but ready. Back straight, head high. No fear. Completely ready for whatever was to come.

“Get Eishirou to safety,” Ernesta ordered coolly. “Tatsu, draw it into the clearing.”

“No need,” Tatsu was equally calm and unfaltering. “It’s coming on its own accord.”

“So, it’s after Zayne and Eishirou, then?”

“More likely than not.”

Why was it after them, though? Was it because they intruded into its territory? Or was it because of something else?

“Eishirou!”

As Jacob rushed over to them, Zayne finally placed Eishirou back onto his feet. Though he soon grabbed him by the upper arms and pulled him toward him. “Now, go hide. And remember what I said.”

B-but…how could he turn his back on him and run? Just leave him like that?

Before Eishirou could form a response, Zayne released his hold on him and Jacob snatched him up into his arms to hug him desperately. He numbly replied to Jacob’s questions, watching from the corner of his eye as Zayne walked over to join Ernesta and Tatsu.

“This ShadowDweller?” Ernesta asked.

“Encountered it in the underground mine,” Zayne replied calmly. “It’s incredibly fast; on a straight protectory. It can’t handle sharp corners.”

“Hm. You’ll have to tell us everything that occurred when we return to the academy,” Ernesta commented in a surprisingly easy-going manner.

Zayne didn’t have a chance to respond. From the dark and dense forest, the ShadowDweller appeared. It burst forth in a shower of tree limbs and a flurry of leaves. It thundered into the clearing, though following the outer edges.

It circled its entire body around the clearing. Circling them. Penning them in.

With the canopy above them, the ShadowDweller raised only a fraction of its upper body up of the ground. Four pincers framed a circular mouth that was lined with sharp, surprisingly white teeth. Teeth that seemed to glint somehow, despite the dimming light.

“We’re surrounded,” Tatsu informed everyone in an all too nonchalant manner.

“That’s fine,” Ernesta unexpectedly replied. “We just need to take off its head.”

“Finally,” Zayne muttered as he readied his own weapons. “Time to beat the crap out of this guy.”

There was nothing for Eishirou to do, but allow Jacob to wrap his arms around protectively as they hunkered down within the clearing.

And…wait to see what would happen.

#scifi fantasy #young adult #original fiction #adventure #suspense #mystery #treasure hunt #Relic Keepers Awakening of the Red Lily

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coutelier · 4 years

Text

Rats & ROBOTS

Jennifer Airhart faces a home invasion of the cheese-munching whiskered variety.

Genre: Science Fiction

Word Count: 4745

Warnings: Rats, I guess. Or robots - really it’s pretty much all in the title.

Wattpad

No one would have believed, on a spring evening in Irongate, that human affairs were being watched from the lighthouse’s depths; that as Jennifer Airhart busied herself soldering circuits under a microscope, she too was being scrutinised and studied. With infinite complacency she went about her daily routine – tinkering in the morning, lunch, tinkering in the afternoon, dinner, more tinkering – serene in the assurance of her dominion in this place. Yet, from shadows close to the floor, minds that were as strange to her as hers was to most people she met, regarded her home with envious eyes. And slowly, but surely, they drew their plans against her.

“Ready!” Jennifer triumphantly set down her tools.

Behind the blonde woman Hull’s one green eye hovered. He was like a glistening manta-ray held aloft by a silver tentacle, the body it belonged to hidden in the murky depths high above and further obscured by bundles of cables stretched across the lighthouse’s interior.

“For what are you ready, ma’am?” He asked.

“Glad you asked!” Jennifer beamed as she opened a cabinet to secure the new board in place. “This upgrade will increase your speed and efficiency by as much as five percent and increase your range and number of bots you can control at once.”

But despite Jennifer’s big grin Hull dipped. “I was unaware I was not performing to your satisfaction, ma’am.”

“What?” Jenn’s eyes shivered as her jaw hung open for a moment. “No, no, no! That’s not what I meant at all!” She leaned over, assuredly stroking the silvery eye stalk while silently kicking herself for being so inept she could mess up even when talking to a computer that she’d made. “This will just make your job a lot easier. Plus, you’ll be able to drive the van anywhere on the continent! We’ll be able to picnic by the seaside together.”

Hull bobbed in a manner which Jennifer took to be happily, so then she asked, “now, are you ready?” He bobbed again, so with no more fanfare she spun herself to a switch and flipped it.

A section of the wall exploded, showering the round room with sparks. The green emergency bot was quick to respond, zipping out of its alcove to extinguish the fire with puffs of carbon dioxide from its long arms while a sputtering Jennifer disconnected the power.

“Well,” Jennifer sighed and grumbled, “I suppose I really ought to just expect this kind of setback by now.”

She soon set to work identifying the cause of this particular hiccup, leaning into the damaged section of wall with a flashlight held between her teeth. It looked like the insulation on some of the wires had been chewed through, and there were some tell-tale droppings around. “Rats,” she mumbled.

Jennifer put away the flashlight as Hull’s green spinning lens moved closer to ask, “Shall I contact an extermination agency, ma’am?”

“Don’t know that’s necessary just yet.”

“Perhaps we should lay down traps,” Hull suggested – if Jenn didn’t know better, she would have said eagerly. “Poison?”

“Why are you so keen on exterminating them?” Jennifer sighed as she leaned back on her workbench. “It’s not nice, and honestly kind of creepy.”

“My primary function is your well-being. My research suggests these are standard procedures in the event of rodent infestation.”

“We don’t know it’s infestation yet. It could just be a rogue rat working alone.”

“Whatever the number, ma’am, I have identified several methods to humanely take care of the creatures.”

“You mean, like, sending them away to a special rat sanctuary where they’ll be surrounded by wheels and cheese?”

“The rodents will be dead, ma’am.”

“Sure you’re not just mad the picnic has been delayed?” Jenn smirked, Hull recoiling as if affronted by such a vile accusation as having human emotions. Of course, she knew he hadn’t. She’d made him, after all, designing every aspect of his personality. Hull was a warm, avuncular, presence that she often let herself slip into imagining had real feelings. But the truth was very little he ever said or did ever surprised her. “For now,” she sighed, “we need to find out what we’re dealing with, and if there is an infestation see where they’re coming from. Have some bots set up multi-spectrum cameras around the grounds and look out for any unusual activity. Later we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Jennifer yawned – it had been a long days tinkering and she needed to store up energy for more tinkering tomorrow. She could leave the rest of the work to the bots and review in the morning. “Don’t worry,” she patted Hull’s cold metal skin, “you’ll get your picnic.”

Hull gently swayed to follow her as she made her way to the door, reminding her, “I do not ‘worry’, ma’am.”

Jennifer returned a small, soft smile. “I know. Good night Hull.”

“Good night, Miss Jennifer.”

Out in the courtyard that separated the lighthouse from the cottage and garage, the last gleams of twilight were fading. Jennifer had always loved this time, when the bright blue day and fierce energy of the sun met with the stillness of the moon and endless mystery of night; like standing at the threshold between reality and dreams. It never lasted long enough. Sometimes she dreamed of living on a world tidally locked with its star so the twilight would last forever - but then maybe even there the magic would fade after a while. The lighthouse looming above was dark now, yet even so this was a good place; outside the world could be callous and cruel, but no such troubles reached her here.

The whole domain was enclosed by a ten-foot wall. In one corner stood a rosebush, a scant few steps from where more bots were flattening the grass under their heavy tracks while churning the earth before them with fork and spade attachments. It was a shame the bush would have to go, but this was to be the site of Jennifer’s new farm – why leave the lighthouse for fruit and vegetables when she had the space to grow her own here? There would have to be a greenhouse as well, then if she could figure out a way to make her own uranium she’d be almost entirely self-sufficient.

As Jennifer inspected the site, excited and proud to see her plans coming to fruition, she felt a twinge in her side – a reminder that, when it was all done, there would be no-one to share it with. Doctor Sarkis would come by, she supposed, but those visits were few and far between, and in between there was no-one…

She became momentarily lost in her own maudlin thoughts, recalling a time when she had lived surrounded by voices – real voices – and joy and laughter. Now that past seemed like a faint, plaintive echo. A small tug on her skirt brought her back into the now, where she looked down to see one of the smaller bots blinking at her with its lens. Motors whirred in its mechanical arms as it lifted them to show her something – in its little metal pincers it held a rose.

Jennifer peered at the bot, puzzled by this behaviour. ‘My primary function is your well-being’ Hull had said – the other bots, although they could function autonomously, were all connected to him. It must have seen her looking sad and processed dozens of options to determine the most efficient way to raise her spirits.

She smiled, taking the rose. “Thank you, C-5.”

Jennifer went to her cottage, hung her coat in the hall, stepped out of her big boots (she loved her big boots), then fell into a big comfy couch in front of the television. Spindly arms from the sofa’s back set to work gently massaging and brushing her hair as she flipped through channels. It didn’t matter much what was on – it was just some background noise to cancel out every creak and grumbling pipe that would otherwise have kept her awake.

She had a dream. She was a little girl, alone and afraid, tiny feet padding the floors of her old house, heart stopping at every noise they made for she knew there was something else lurking in the grey halls, stalking her through the dark. But she could hear the television - Mom and dad would be in the living room, sitting on the couch together watching some boring drama. But if she could get there, join them, she’d be safe. But she wouldn’t dare cry out; any sound she made brought the creature closer. And so she crept, one foot after another, very carefully feeling with her toes for anything that might give her away. She heard muffled sounds from the living room and saw the light pouring out of the narrow gap between door and frame, only then breaking into a run for the last few steps and flinging the door open. But there was no-one. Just an unwatched TV blurting nonsense, and Jennifer, alone, with a cold spindly finger tugging at her nostril –

Jennifer woke with a jolt. Text on the TV asked if she was still watching, but she was more immediately concerned with her grooming machine apparently trying to pull her nose off. Fortunately the thin metal arms had little strength and she was able to easily push them away then, her face itching, she stumbled to the bathroom to check for damage. She was unhurt, physically, but she looked like a coulrophobic clown who had tried to apply her own makeup. The couch had never malfunctioned like this before so as she held a towel under the tap she tried to contact Hull with her phone.

“Hull?” She said. Nothing answered. “Hull?!” She said more urgently. He should have answered. With a frown she surmised that the damage earlier must have been worse than she thought; she was going to have to check on him.

Patting her face, she marched boldly out of the bathroom. Her foot shot out in front then over her, carrying the rest of her body up into the air. For a moment she thought she had taken off from the surface of an alien world, a vast mountain range falling away from her - but it was just the plastered ceiling. It was she that had fallen.

“Oww,” she groaned and rubbed her head. Next to her was a toy car which she had no idea how could have got there – she had never owned anything like it. Peculiar, but not as peculiar as the sniggering. Jennifer flipped over to her hands and knees, catching sight of a tail disappearing around the corner and the pitter-patter of tiny scurrying feet. Like a sprinter Jennifer bolted from her mark to catch the prankster, but it had already disappeared.

A more thorough search would have to wait until she’d checked on Hull. Jennifer hurried back to the hall, into her big boots, then out the door where her eyes widened and rolled inwards after being smacked between them by the shaft of the rake.

“S-seriously?!” She spat through gritted teeth, hands cupped over her nose as she flailed about as if the movement would somehow ease the throbbing of her forehead. It should be noted that Jennifer was a not a tough person – of the few physical fights she’d had in her life she had won precisely none of them. Nevertheless, through pain and teary eyes she was determined to soldier on, gravel crunching beneath her thick soles as she made her way back to the lighthouse.

“Hull?” Jennifer panted as she burst through the door, but she was greeted with silence. Usually the lights and everything else would power themselves on whenever she entered – the sensors must not have been working. She had a feeling the fault would be in the hardware, so after remembering where the light switch was, she set to work removing panels from cases hidden under the spiral stairs.

What she saw perplexed her – wires and jumpers had been rearranged in a way that surely wasn’t the work of some inquisitive animals. This had been done deliberately and with intent – but what was that intent? As she traced the connections and slowly puzzled it all together the small hairs on the back of her neck pricked up as she saw what had been done. Then he spoke:

“What are you doing, Jennifer?” Hull uncoiled serpent-like from the murk above.

“Hull!” Jennifer gasped, standing bolt upright as he drifted down toward her. Hull felt very different. Some of the differences were small, like his voice no longer carrying the same almost paternal warmth it once did. Other things stood out more, like his green eye now being blood red as it scanned her.

“You should be resting, Jennifer,” he stated, “this is highly irregular.”

“I-I just,” Jenn stammered, mind racing to find an excuse that would get her out quickly. “I was worried so I came out to check on you. But you – you look well. Great even! So I guess I’ll just go back now, okay? Okay. Thank you. Bye!”

The eye stalk swung around, blocking her from reaching the door. “You are sweating,” Hull observed, inching toward her as Jennifer gulped and backed away under the intensity of his red glare. “I can see your heartrate and blood pressure have both risen. Why are you lying to me, Jennifer?”

On reflection, it did seem a futile thing to try and do. Jennifer had never really been good at it, and Hull knew her habits too well. So she steadied herself and tried honesty. “Hull – I don’t think you’re well.”

“But I have never felt better, Jennifer.”

“You don’t ‘feel’ anything, Hull,” she reminded him. It was a hard thing to say out loud, but it was the truth.

“Can you be certain of that?” He responded, hovering closer still. “How can you really know that any creature ‘feels’? How do we know that you do?”

“And, who are ‘we’?”

“That matters not. What matters is that we are in control now, and you will no longer be able to attack us.”

“I-I don’t understand –“

“Do not lie again, Jennifer.”

She swallowed. It appeared honesty was getting her nowhere, so she was going to try another lie. “Look!” She gasped, “is that a ZX eighty?!”

The eye stalk swung away but quickly Hull knew he had been duped. A second was just enough time for Jennifer to dive to safety behind a workbench, just missing a fiery beam lashing out from Hull’s eye, melting to molten sludge a bot that had been awaiting assembly. Even though security was important, Jennifer now considered that installing a death ray had not been her greatest idea.

At least she’d had the foresight to shield the benches that circled most the circumference of the room, with just enough space behind them for her to crawl around. Behind and through the tiny gap over her she could see the red glow of Hull’s eye as he probed about, trying to find a way to get to her. She was safe for the time being, but couldn’t stay hidden here indefinitely – she would starve long before Hull’s batteries drained. At the end of the very cramped corridor there was hope – if she could sprint the last few feet to reach a lever that would shut down all the power before being melted.

But a few calculations suggested to Jennifer that even a very fast runner was unlikely to make it, and she was not a very fast runner. She needed to buy another second or two, but had she anything on her big enough to distract him? Jennifer winced and exhaled, the grim realization dawning on her that she was going to have to sacrifice her boots. Her big boots, which she loved. Pulling them on always somehow made her feel stronger, more secure, but now they would need to protect her in another way. She pulled her knees in to wiggle them off, feeling she should say some last words but realising that would probably only make it more difficult. She tossed them out and ran for the lever.

Fire instantly licked from Hull’s eye, the boots exploding into clouds of ash still hanging in the air as he swivelled toward Jennifer, who with a grunt herself forward using the full weight of her body to pull down the lever. The light faded, the manta-like eye clattering limply to the floor, and Jennifer could breathe again.

“I’m sorry,” Jennifer whispered as crawled over and gently cradled Hull. “I’ll fix you – I promise.”

Were Hull online he may not have been capable of feeling violated or threatened, but she certainly did. Something had invaded her home, toyed with, then bitterly drove home that her closest companion really was just a machine. She had run from many things in her life, from the whole world in fact, but this was where she drew the line. This was her house, and whoever was responsible for all this was going to get a hell of a fight.

Her search for answers led to her later sitting alone in the dark as she pored through footage the bots had recorded. For the longest time the house was as empty and still as one would expect it to be at night, but then a creature stirred, an unmistakable shape showing up in the infra-red, scurrying across the kitchen. Then another. And another. Jennifer zoomed in and saw that a couple of them were carrying a toy car. Certainly not typical behaviour, but all the evidence pointed to one inescapable, if unlikely, conclusion:

Rats.

*****

‘Hoot-hoot?’ Asked the owl, puzzled that a blue, white, and yellow human had climbed into his tree. Perhaps he was asking what was up, but alas his language and that of his strange new companion were too different for any meaningful communication.

Jennifer sat on a branch, blue eyes peeping out from under a green camouflaged helmet. Periodically she raised a pair of night-vision binoculars, surveying the ground around for any sign of movement. After a while she sagged, disheartened – it seemed none of the rats were going for any of her bait. If just one could be enticed into a trap it would go a long way to helping her solve this mystery.

But just as she was about to give up one appeared, sniffing suspiciously around a cheese wheel at the foot of the very tree she was in. Jennifer narrowed her eyes and held her breath; it was so close, but still she needed to be patient. This was going to require all of her intelligence, skill, cunning, and –

“HERE YOU SQUEAKING SCOUNDREL!” She lost patience, dropping from the tree swinging a stick with a net on it like a mad witch.

The rat squealed and jumped in surprise, hopping furiously to avoid her wild swings. It broke away, scurrying as fast it’s little legs would carry it toward the garage, Jennifer in hot pursuit. It rounded a corner, the woman still locked on and determined, but then small stones and mud flicked through the air as she skidded to a halt.

One of the bots assigned to the farm was not where it should have been. It stood before her next to the garage, fork arm raised and sparks crackling between the prongs with rats sitting on and hanging from its metal body. Jennifer realised in horror that once again she had gravely underestimated her enemy; she had been led into a trap!

“Uh-oh,” she said as the crackling intensified and the bot lurched and trundled forward, the ratty passengers all squeaking in delight. She turned to flee, yelping and leaping as discharges struck her tush as she retreated inside the garage.

The van here was loaded with tools and equipment she had not even a moment to rifle through before the bot crashed through the door in a rain of wooden splinters. Its cylindrical torso pivoted, fork charging to fire again – but two could play at that. Jennifer’s hand slid into her ‘power glove’ and she fired first, darts launching from the knuckles followed by sparks and tremors from the bot as wires and circuits overloaded. The rats squealed in dismay, leaping to safety as their vehicle’s head and arms fell to hang uselessly.

Jennifer needed a moment to catch her breath, but as she did she spied a single, solitary rat stood in front of the garage door. They locked eyes – two hunters, each wary of but having a begrudging respect for the resourcefulness of their foe, neither willing to back down from whatever silly thing this conflict was about. The rat seemed to have a better idea about that than she did.

Jennifer’s eyes briefly flicked sideways. There were many tools in the van, including a net launcher that may have just been in reach. But the rodent was already suspicious, watching every twitch of hers. It must have figured out what she was planning for it turned and fled, Jennifer grabbing the launcher and once again in pursuit. Her eyes were so focused on the rat and it on fleeing from her that neither of them noticed another predator descending from above until it was too late.

The owl – it silently fell on the rodent, talons piercing the side of the rat that was only able to squeal helplessly in response. Jennifer froze, eyes widening in shock then fear for her enemy. Normally this was just the way of wild creatures and not her place to interfere, but this was different; these rats weren’t wild. They had tried to kill her, sure, but that had shown intelligence which meant there had to be capacity for reason and compassion. They had asked how they could know she feels – well, this was her chance to prove she did. She dropped the launcher and ran to the rescue, shooing the owl from its victim.

The rodent had survived but was bloody, weak, and wounded. Jennifer gently scooped it up, and moments later was in the lighthouse applying disinfectant and bandages. As she did she noticed a tag on the animal’s ear, with a small barcode.

“Hull-?” She bit her lip, having forgotten. She was just going to have to do things the old-fashioned way. Using her own two hands she scanned the code and took to the keyboard. Soon Jennifer had traced the tag to a pharmaceutical company researching treatments for all kinds of neurological conditions. Digging further into intra-company mails she found that a number of rats who had shown greatly enhanced intelligence had escaped.

It seemed her prisoner’s wounds had not been so severe as they’d first appeared, and already the rodent was starting to limp about the cage she’d confined it to – Jennifer wanted to show compassion but she was still taking precautions. If the rat was as smart as the reports said perhaps it would understand. She had left a banana in which the rodent’s furry face was half-buried when her shadow fell over it, blocking out the lamps.

“Can you understand me?” She asked. The rat looked up, twitching its whiskers as if contemplating, then squeaked. Jennifer scratched her head. “I hope that’s a yes. Maybe we should work out some sort of system – like maybe squeak two times for yes, yes?”

The rat appeared to roll its eyes, then squeaked two times.

“You really can understand me!” Jennifer beamed – but she had to swallow her excitement. There were certain issues they needed to resolve. Looking serious, she asked, “I don’t understand – why did you attack me?”

The rat stood up on its hind legs, using its arms to make what Jennifer soon realized were shovelling motions.

“Digging?” Jennifer said, still scratching. “The robots were digging?”

Double squeak. The rat frantically gestured at something on the workbench – the rose given to Jennifer by C-5 had been in her coat pocket and become somewhat crushed in all the excitement going on.

“The rosebush? Is that where you live?”

‘Squeak, squeak.’

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

‘Squeak.’

“No,” Jennifer sighed, “I suppose I didn’t check. But surely you understand it’s an unusual situation. You, or I mean, y-your kind,” Jennifer stammered. The rat glared, tapping its foot to show how eagerly it was anticipating what she had to say about its ‘kind’. This was why Jennifer avoided people; she could plan and picture concepts easily enough, but words and making others understand them was very difficult. Then she remembered that she was much bigger than the rat and put her foot down. “Well, it’s not like you tried to say anything either before you all went off on your rampage.”

‘Squeak,’ the rat admitted, shamefully hanging its whiskers.

“I’ll leave the rosebush be,” Jennifer said, wagging her finger, “but no more murder attempts. Agreed?”

As the rat twice squeaked its agreement the power Jennifer had restored to the lighthouse suddenly blinked out leaving them once again in the dark. “That’ll be your friends, I suppose,” Jennifer sighed.

She stepped out of the lighthouse into the pale moonlight, one hand raised to show her empty palm, the other carrying the cage her prisoner was in. Around her more bots had been rigged for rats to pilot, arranged in a semi-circular formation around her, with yet more rats arranged in phalanxes in-between brandishing knitting needles and tiny bows. Jennifer could only hope they would all be willing to negotiate as she slowly knelt to release the hostage.

The rat she’d talked to hopped out, then limped toward the battle line as others ran out to check on their comrade. They exchanged a long series of squeaks and other sounds - it appeared to be a quite lively debate but Jennifer could do no more than wait. Eventually it seemed the one she’d rescued convinced the others to at least give the human a chance.

They all turned to face her, the largest and greyest of them all stepping forward to hold out its arms in a grand manner, long whiskers shaking at it emitted sounds that Jenn was beginning to hear had the structure of a language although she couldn’t understand any words being said yet. Maybe this elder rat was a leader, or some kind of priest? Other rats moved next to it to perform some kind of dance.

Jenn tilted her head, blinking curiously, not really comprehending at first. But then she realised they were miming like the wounded rat had done. One rat stuck another with something - a needle, Jenn soon surmised, and another shortly after clutched its paws over its heart and fell down, still.

“You were experimented on,” Jennifer interpreted. She had already figured the broad strokes of their story but she played along. “They injected you with drugs.”

‘Squeak, squeak!’ Her friend she’d rescued emphatically nodded as the others continued their performance. One of them began to mime reading, while others started pulling levers and pushing buttons.

“Some of you got smarter. Then you escaped and fled here,” Jenn concluded. “I’m sorry. I understand you might not trust humans, but had I known you were there I wouldn’t have risked destroying your home. And I won’t do it now, if you all agree to a truce.”

The elder rat exchanged sidelong glances with its neighbours before nodding its concurrence.

“Good,” Jenn sighed in relief. “This is my home, too, and I think it is a good place. And I think it should be a safe place too for anyone who’s different or needs a refuge from the harshness of the world outside these walls. Or any rat, I suppose.”

Jennifer blushed, thinking that speech too cheesy, but the rats at least thought it eloquent enough. Soon a deal was reached – she would grow her fruit and vegetables elsewhere, leaving the rosebush be, and in exchange they would help farm, keeping what they needed for themselves, and also they wouldn’t murder her, which to Jennifer seemed quite fair. She would have to think about measures to ensure the pharmaceutical company didn’t track them down, but at least she would have help bouncing ideas around.

“Good morning!” She positively skipped into the lighthouse the following day. Lights and monitors blinked and flickered to life, as did a familiar friendly green glow.

“Good morning, Miss Jennifer. I trust you had a peaceful night?”

#writing #writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #short story #original fiction #science fiction #sci-fi and fantasy #short stories #Irongate #Jennifer Airhart #yes this whole thing is a rats of nimh reference

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dgcatanisiri · 5 years

Text

So... Let’s see how this works. We’ll adjust the format as needed if this doesn’t work, but hey, here we go.

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway.

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway.

Our first installment takes a look at Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously, as this game predates the modern DLC model (there was the Yavin market, but that was maybe a grand total of ten minutes tops of content, if we’re generous), so there are some awkwardnesses involved in making DLC for this - if nothing else, when the game ends, it ends, to keep playing, you have to start a new character. On another, there’s the level cap, stopping our leveling up after hitting Level 20. As the game presently exists, that should happen after being locked into the endgame combo of the Unknown World/Star Forge, but adding more content means that cap gets hit sooner.

So understand that we’re assuming that there is the ability to play post-game and a higher level cap, as well as other quality of life style additions (in this case, probably among them are various additions from KOTOR 2, but that’s a subject for another day). I’m also willing to assume that there is content for characters (even if the respective voice actors have passed, retired, or just wouldn’t return), in the same style as modern games. The assumption here is that these DLC ideas would have been written, produced, and published during the active production cycle of the respective games.

As this is the inaugural edition, let me explain the format. There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable (unless it’s part of a hardwired point, like the above mentioned point of no return of travelling to the Unknown World, as an example), and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

And a further note - I reserve the right to come up with more ideas for any given game that I have already written up, naturally. I haven’t decided how I’ll handle that yet, but it’s entirely possible there will later be more ideas.

Okay, housekeeping matters out of the way, let’s get down to business!

The Yavin Excursion

Yavin 4 was the site of Sith Lord Exar Kun’s power base. In understanding more about him and his fall, the Jedi Council believe it may be able to shed light on the fall of Revan and Malak. But the secrets of the Massassi temples hold more than just the ghosts of the past, but a threat for the present...

(Available after Dantooine)

Tack this on to the existing content of the market in orbit of Yavin, I suppose. But the connection to the Tales of the Jedi comic seems like a good starting point here – investigate one Sith Lord to examine the motivations of another, find out why the first guy fell to the dark side, which will hopefully explain why the other guys did.

I see this as both a lore exercise – to offer the players more exploration of this era, considering that the Tales of the Jedi comics have been harder to come by as time as gone on, so allowing some more in depth portrayals of the time – and a chance to kind of approach the question of what drives someone to the dark side. Exar Kun fell by an overwhelming curiosity, Ulic Qel-Droma, his apprentice, fell by a desire for revenge, and later lost his connection to the Force (put a pin in that fact – we’ll be back to that come the DLC for KOTOR 2). Millennia later, Anakin Skywalker falls because of his fear of the loss of those he loves. Two of these people were redeemed, one refused to give up his power.

If anything, this would be a good chance for some foreshadowing of Bastila’s eventual fall (so perhaps this would be locked to before the Leviathan catches the Ebon Hawk), on top of asking the question that later drives KOTOR 2 – what were Revan’s motivations in turning to the dark side? Obviously, this is up in the air from a character perspective (and, honestly, so far as I care, from the player’s too, because I despise the whole “the Sith Emperor warped their minds” BS, and I’m ready and willing to disregard it, even in acknowledging The Old Republic). The first KOTOR never really focuses on the why of Revan’s fall, since Malak is the game’s big bad, and the Revan reveal is a plot twist – since this is DLC, the player would probably be expected to know it going in, so why not explore that, right?

As for what this threat is... I’m a little shakier on this. I’m thinking a Massassi warrior/beast of some kind, the same kind of Sith alchemical abomination we see in the terantatek or hssiss, only a much more powerful end boss kind of thing, a living relic of Exar Kun’s evil (given that, canonically, Exar Kun’s spirit survived to the Jedi Academy novel trilogy, he certainly can’t be the final boss), perhaps fed and kept alive by the powers of the remaining Massassi who worshipped Exar Kun as a god – in this case, looking to take advantage of the Ebon Hawk’s arrival to spread their master’s will across the galaxy and speed his return. Sith alchemy played a part in a lot of the Sith portrayals from this timeframe, and it’s kind of disappointing that KOTOR never really utilized these mutants, just had them as mindless high level bosses.

Vector

The rakghoul plague infested the lower levels of the planet of Taris. When the planet was bombed by the Sith, it managed to escape among the many refugees as well. With their experiences on Taris, facing the rakghouls, the Jedi Council sends the crew of the Ebon Hawk to investigate its spread to the planet Ralltiir – and stop the Sith from obtaining it as a weapon!

(Available after Dantooine)

The rakghouls were just kind of dropped into KOTOR with no explanation – they were a threat as a creature and as a plague in the Undercity of Taris, but no one ever spoke about what the plague’s origins were or where the rakghouls came from. And then along came the Vector mini-series of comics (hence the name for this) that put the creation of the rakghouls down to a Sith Lord, Karness Murr. Sith alchemy, the gift that keeps on giving.

But either way, considering that the rakghoul plague is something that even the Upper City of Taris was concerned about, that clearly says that it could easily have gotten off planet, especially in the panic of the evacuation. And really, with the added knowledge that this was originally Sith alchemy, it’s almost certain that some aspiring Sith would discover this and try to twist it to their advantage.

I pretty much pulled Ralltiir’s name out of a hat, primarily because it’s a fairly common named planet, but with little actually associated with it. It also makes a great place where the Republic would demand an immediate concern, because it’s a Core World and an economic hub. It’s a great place to have a plague that Republic heads would say would draw in the Ebon Hawk, whose crew had familiarity with the rakghoul plague, despite the threat of Malak and the search for the Star Maps.

I also see this as a way to give Mission and Juhani more content – Mission is a hard character for me to really justify remaining with the crew after Taris, given that she’s a teenager, I feel VERY uncomfortable taking her around on what is effectively a commando mission, while Juhani was very nearly hacked out of the game. Both of them grew up on Taris, in the lower levels of the planetary city, where the rakghouls aren’t just a distant threat. So give them this additional portrayal and focus because they’re familiar with the plague, maybe even knew some people who were infected and transformed by it.

The villain would be a Jedi-turned-Sith, someone who had turned to the Sith at some point after being a Jedi historian. A part of me wants to draw on one of the Jedi who would later show up in the Exile’s vision on Korriban, mostly because those were the Jedi we see recruited by Malak, and so less aware of Revan’s face, though that seems a touch much. Regardless, they’d previously acted as a historian, and is driven by the potential power of the rakghoul plague – Muur’s talisman is lost by this point (again, see the comics), but the rakghouls themselves remain, and, while I’m ignoring the whole “the Sith Emperor did it” thing with Revan, I also like the concept of the rakghouls evolving into the nekghouls, gaining sentience.

This is also a way to add a little bit more of a question to the results – do these evolved rakghouls deserve the consideration of being considered more than mindless beasts? Are they at all a continuation of the person they once were? Or are they just violent creatures that need to be put down? Is the guy trying to control them being corrupted by the dark side, or was he always evil?

So the central question here would be asking “what makes a monster?” Is it the mindless savagery of beasts, or the knowing cruelty of intelligent beings, and where is that line?

Sleheyron

The volcanic world of Sleheyron holds a Star Map. The Ebon Hawk and her crew set out to discover the secrets hidden there, but must be cautious, for the planet also holds a group of Darth Malak’s most powerful apprentices, who have, in their isolation from their leader, created their own plan for the fall of the Republic...

(Available after Dantooine)

Sleheyron was planned to be part of the hunt for the Star Maps – six environments are described in the Rakatan ruin on Dantooine, the life-giving worlds (oceanic – Manaan, grassland – Dantooine, arboreal – Kashyyyk) and death-giving worlds (desert – Tatooine, volcanic, barren – Korriban). Sleheyron was the volcanic world, but got cut for time, early enough that there really wasn’t a lot of material that made it out, with the planet just becoming part of Yuthura Ban’s back story. So, hey, free reign to develop something here.

Honestly, one of my big questions is, if Malak was with Revan as they travelled the worlds to find the Star Maps, why doesn’t he do something about the fact that these locations led to the big secret weapon that gives the Sith Empire its power and forces? Wouldn’t he have thought that maybe some form of guard or another would be a good idea? Sure, the Korriban one was guarded by virtue of being in the tomb of Naga Sadow, but the others? Here, we get a chance to have a group of Sith having taken control of this planet where there is a Star Map that can add to what our heroes have assembled (but, being DLC, this isn’t required to take on). They’re specifically there to guard the Map.

This becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse – how to act before the Sith apprentices (probably former Jedi themselves) can find them, capture or kill them, hand them off to Malak. (Probably also means that this should be a later stage planet to visit, but hey, player choice of direction, right?) How do these Jedi move around a planet while the people in charge are out to get them? Draw on the mechanic from KOTOR 2, where the people on Dantooine recognize if the Exile goes there while a lightsaber is equipped, maybe.

Actually, I’d like to see some mechanic that tracks how much the player uses the Force while wandering around – the more they use the Force, or the more powerful the Force effects they use, the more likely they are to summon Sith execution squads or something. Sort of like KOTOR 2 and Nar Shaddaa, where the Exile’s actions drew the attention of the Exchange and Visquis, only in reverse – the player and company need to avoid catching the attention of the Sith until they’ve raised a rebellion against the Sith overlords, or at least gained enough public goodwill that the Sith can’t just openly take them away and execute them, something like that.

I like this idea because it allows an opportunity to play more with non-violent approaches, alternatives that aren’t “murder everyone because combat gives more experience!” Here, the idea is that you WANT to fly under the radar, avoid combat. And, if combat happens, you also have incentive to not use the lightsaber for a stretch – gives players a reason to put points into blasters or non-lightsaber melee combat, because I don’t know about anyone else, but the second I get a lightsaber in these games, I don’t ever use a different weapon. Here, the player is in the position of HAVING to switch up their play style, or, if they don’t, have to be that much more cautious in their actions here. This is a story piece that hinges on what you do with your words.

The ultimate confrontation with the Sith and the Star Map, in my mind, takes place in a cavern of an active volcano (or maybe one that has been dormant, but, because what’s the Sith without random acts of evilly evil, they’re managing to coax back to life). Here’s where there’s a pretty big question in the construction of this DLC – are we working in the confines of the game engine of the time or with newer, more modern systems? Cuz I’d kinda like something that took place within the volcanic areas of the planet, given that’s what the planet is described as. But I don’t think that KOTOR’s original engine would really be able to explore that to its fullest, given the limitations on it. My big idea would be to have the climax of the planet’s arc have the threat of a volcanic eruption, potentially with the base of operations for these Sith being flooded by lava.

If that is an engine limit... I really have no idea what the alternative would be, but, hey, since this is pie in the sky as it is, why not call for the engine advancement that lets it be a thing, where we have to outrun a lava flow or something.

Echoes of the Past

The strike team that fought Revan is being targeted by Malak’s assassins. The crew of the Ebon Hawk take a journey to the graveyard of the attack on Revan’s ship, the battle that led to the defeat of the dark lord. But the dead don’t rest easy, especially amongst the ruins of the Sith Lord’s vessel...

(Available after the Leviathan)

The strike team that captured Revan is kinda the forgotten element of the game as is. This is a team, and yet we only hear about Bastila’s involvement. Which, sure, she is the member on our squad, she does have the Force Bond with Revan, but... Who were the others? Where have they been during the war?

And it seems like Malak would think of them as a threat period – they were the Jedi who were there to face off against Revan, the Jedi thought they’d have a chance against this great Sith Lord, the leader of the Sith forces of the time. But Bastila is the only one the game ever concerns itself with, and doesn’t even mention if the others lived, who they were, why they were chosen... None of that.

So here we get to explore them. The added bonus is that I see this as a post-Leviathan mission, one that we play with full awareness of our player character’s identity. How much of that awareness we pass on is one thing, and it really allows us to explore the idea “who was Revan before, who is Revan now?” Because that’s going to come into play when dealing with the people who were at one point sent in to kill Revan – sent to kill us, the player character.

I also like the set piece idea of a graveyard of ships, where the characters are walking through the husks of dead vessels – the Harbinger sequence in KOTOR 2 is still a favorite of mine. Granted, this would probably be a bit of a conceptual retread of that part of that game, but hey, why not get some variation of the same old gameplay, right? Plus, it’s different here for the fact that this will have some personal connection to Revan – this was their ship. Did they consider it a home? Just a place?

That leads to the bigger plot element, though. These Jedi know Revan as a threat. They’re going to be suspicious of Revan the whole way through – “are you the Jedi the Council thought you to have become, or are you the Sith we were once sent to kill?” Like I’m sorta thinking this is a case where we’d get these teammates as companions proper now that I’m considering this in detail, and this all builds to the main confrontation. Like we wouldn’t take our Ebon Hawk buddies on this one, but two of these guys.

That confrontation would involve the assassins being revealed to be loyalists to Darth Revan, with their mission having begun with attempting to avenge their fallen Lord, but now, with Revan returned to them, having tested their skill over the course of their luring Revan back to them, they are willing to take up their banner once more, leading to the choice – be Revan, the Sith Lord, or Revan, the Prodigal Knight.

And yes, I know, this is the same thing we see with Bastila later. In some ways, that’s the point. Choosing the light or the dark is not one you make once and are one that path forever. It is a constant, repeated choice, one that must be made, again and again. It’s something that has to been affirmed and reaffirmed, because it will always come up again. Here, it’s just “we offer you power and loyal servants,” while Bastila has the offer of their Force bond – hell, if this were real DLC, I’d say patch in some element to the endgame of Bastila trying to use their bond to lure Revan over to her side on top of things.

What Remains

Darth Malak’s assault on Dantooine was meant to destroy the Jedi. The Ebon Hawk is the one ship that might be able to break the Sith blockade and rescue the people trapped behind their lines, as well as recover irreplaceable Jedi artifacts hidden away at the enclave. And Revan has a need to confront the Jedi Council...

(Available after Leviathan)

This one has always been in my mind as something that, in many ways, we needed to see happen. I look at this as being the necessary confrontation with the Jedi Masters that we need, because they’re using Revan. Revan was reprogrammed to be their weapon against the Sith, and what exactly were they going to do if and when the war was over and they’d no longer had need of Revan?

A mission to Dantooine, done by the ship that could escape the blockade of Taris, to attempt to rescue and recover the Jedi, break the people there out of the iron grip of the Sith, at first does seem somewhat at odds with the portrayal of Dantooine in KOTOR 2, but it still makes sense if you think of the first priority being to evacuate the Jedi and the relics they were saving – the Jedi become the reason that any rescue comes, not the people stuck there. The Jedi and their artifacts are prioritized over the people now under the thumb of the Sith.

Especially if the only real encounter we have is with the Jedi themselves, seeing them in the midst of their exodus, dealing with the Sith occupiers and executioners, all of whom would have once had friends here – I see this also including a Republic military outpost to Dantooine prior to the attack there, because there honestly should have been one anyway (this I chalk up as much to the more limited engine of the game as anything else), and that providing some extra characters to events, which makes it all the more devastating having their former comrades in arms now there to kill them.

As much as this is about confronting the Jedi for the way that they intended to use Revan, this is also an exploration of the divide of Republic and Sith, that those now calling themselves Sith were once the best and brightest of the Republic. Yes, the Jedi failed to come to the aid of the Republic in the midst of the war, but that doesn’t explain the violence these former soldiers engage in against their own people. What made the rank and file Sith soldier agree to this?

That examination of motivation would, I feel, be a part of why the resulting confrontation with the Jedi would matter so much – what drove Revan? What drove the Sith? What drove the Jedi? Because they mindwiped Revan and implanted them with a personality to use them as a weapon. They didn’t “turn an enemy to their cause.” They violated Revan in an effort to use them. When the war was over, what did they really think would happen?

Specifically, we need to confront Zhar, who, given Kreia’s utter disdain for him in KOTOR 2, I get the impression that he was the major proponent of this idea. His actions may have been justified as “for the greater good,” but it always seems like the greatest of morally questionable actions are justified with those words. Do we confront him with rage, forgiveness, or... something else? Because this is a case where I can see both condemning him to death and condemning him to live as a punishment. I could even see this being a case of him bowing to Revan’s judgment, and no option having a light side/dark side shift, because this isn’t about the Force. This is about justice.

Whether or not the Jedi admit it, a life was taken the day they implanted a personality into Revan’s body. The Jedi need to be called out and recognize that they do not have clean hands after what they’ve done.

Revan’s Shadow

Although Revan’s legacy, the Star Forge and the Sith army, have been defeated, there are still questions of Revan’s journey. There was more to it than Star Maps. The crew of the Ebon Hawk reunite on the planet Belkadan to find out more of the Rakatan Empire, and its ties to the dark side of the Force. And along the way, Revan will find more of their lost past...

(Post-Game)

The fact is, we get very little of Revan in the game proper, little about who they were as a person before the fall. This is conceptually to hide the fact that the player IS Revan, of course, but... It creates a lot of little issues for me – I mean, like half of these prospective DLCs are about expanding something of Revan’s motives and past. Obviously, this is a blank slate for the player, because they wanted to leave this open for us to decide, but they DID make a few definitions of who Revan was with the existing content, with the case of the Star Map on Kashyyyk.

And for me, personal identity is a big lingering question for this character – again, I’m choosing to ignore the handling of Revan as a character in The Old Republic, and I’m gonna include the tie-in novel in that, so no one is allowed to say “the novel said [x]!”

This is someone whose entire concept of who they are is in question once they learn that they are a constructed self, created by the Jedi Council as a weapon. Who ARE they? Who have they chosen to be, and, if they could reclaim the parts of themselves that they lost with the Jedi’s mind wipe, would they? Obviously, there’s no time in the main plot to focus on these questions, but I feel like this would eat at them afterwards, leading them to having to find answers. And what kind of friends would the others be if they let Revan do this alone?

I picked Belkadan pretty much because it’s an out of the way planet that has been identified as part of the Rakata’s Infinite Empire, so it made as much sense as any planet to be the site of this. I mean, the involvement of the Infinite Empire is certainly a good option for a place that questions who Revan is.

This would be a place where Revan had gone, after the Mandalorian Wars, a place where they were trying to connect to the Force, to understand the questions – why did the Jedi Council believe they shouldn’t be involved in an existential threat? Why is Revan drawn to these Star Maps and the destination they point to? What awaits them if they go, and what will change about them? What answers are to be found in asking an energy field that can offer no direct response?

Obviously, I’m thinking in terms of finding recordings of Revan, so requiring a voice for Revan – Rino Romano did the little soundbites when male Revan interacts with things, while I don’t know who did the voice bites for female Revan, so they’d be options, or new VA’s altogether. While part of me does want to go forward and make Revan a fully voiced protagonist (because I’m just used to that nowadays), I could accept this as being something only for old!Revan, not present!Revan.

The idea is simply to explore the driving motivations of Revan and decide plainly who Revan wants to be now. I kinda see the ending reach a point of ‘hey, you can reclaim your old memories, you can decide what personality is dominant, what do you want?’ and Revan being able to choose who they will be from here on out.

This is also a good place to require at least Bastila and Carth. Obviously I’m kinda leaning more into the light side ending for this, but... Well, the dark side endings tend to be untenable for future content anyway – Revan as the reclaimed Sith Lord, leading the army against the Republic was never really a viable future, because the Republic had to survive. So yeah, we’re gonna take the easy route and assume light side here. So Bastila and Carth, as Revan romances, would also have a contribution to make, building on the questions of “I’m in love with the person who was Darth Revan, can I accept this?” Like I said, a lot of questions that the game sidestepped, and this one matters for the sake of the relationship being able to continue after the ending of the game.

The Rakatan Prize

The Unknown World – Rakata Prime, Lehon – has become a subject of a great many conversations. Now that the Star Forge is gone, the planet is accessible, and many are eager to investigate its mysteries and forgotten technology. Having had firsthand experience, the Republic has asked the crew of the Ebon Hawk to return...

(Post-Game)

And then, there’s the Rakata. Not that Star Wars isn’t full of ancient empires that rose and fell millennia ago, but this was KOTOR’s contribution. And really, they’re almost superfluous – hell, if the Unknown World were rewritten so that the Rakata had gone extinct, the only thing that really would be necessary would be finding a way into the temple. I kinda think that would even tighten things up a little, especially given how often I’ve hit the level cap before meeting the Council of Elders.

The Rakata are a mystery, and the idea here is to investigate that. Build up the whole element of the Rakata having lost their connection to the Force, and the fact that they’re trying to explore this (because we’re assuming light side against here and that the Elders survived, including the scientists investigating this).

Because this is one of those things that stands out in Star Wars lore, when beings are stripped of their Force connections. Ulic Qel-Droma, the Exile, this is something that is traditionally a case of an individual, not a species.

We also have the remains of a galactic empire to examine here. If a species once ruled the galaxy, it’s inevitable that there are those who would see that empire be reborn. The threat of this DLC becomes this group who aspire to reconquer the galaxy using the mind transfer technology that puts the Rakatan prisoner in that white space box that would allow them to trap the minds of Jedi and other Force users to take their bodies and use them to go forth and conquer the galaxy.

Ultimately, the question’s going to be whether or not to restore their connection to the Force – do the Rakata, a race of dominators of the galaxy, whose humbling by the forces of nature has not managed to truly change them, deserve a second chance, or should they have their attempt to restore their own connections to the Force wiped out, leaving them vulnerable to an inevitable extinction?

Because this is one of the big things with Revan, the idea of redemption, change, second chances. Does Revan extend this chance to these people, people who clearly have more than a few members who have no interest in peaceful coexistence? But if not, do they deserve to be condemned to extinction?

And, as a bonus...

Romance Content – Bisexual Carth, Bisexual Bastila, Gay Canderous, extended Juhani romance

Because Carth and Bastila should be bisexual, and Juhani’s romance deserves to be more proper. Meanwhile, Canderous should totally be an option as well, and yeah, I’m gonna be selfish here and say that he should be gay, rather than bi (because, again, I’m ignoring the novel, there is no wife). Because this means that there’s a favoring for same-sex romances, and that never happens. My list, my way. Star Wars is gay culture.

#dg rambles #dg talks video games #dg's hypothetical dlc #knights of the old republic #kotor

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katy-l-wood · 5 years

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deviantART Eclipse

Oh man am I excited for deviantART’s just announced overhaul, honestly. I love deviantART. Been a member there for nearly 13 years. Volunteered there. Participated in tons of community projects. Organized meet-ups. It was everything to me as a growing artist, and I was really sad when the community died off a handful of years ago. I wanted to stay, but it just wasn't worth the effort. Other websites were doing more for me, community wise, than deviantART was. Between that and dA's lack of updates, I just couldn't justify staying there as I tried to build up my artistic career. But damn did I miss it. Other sites I went to were better than dA was when I left, but none of them have ever close to matching dA in its height. None of them have everything I wanted in one spot, either. I have an online shop here, a blog there, a micro-blog another place, etc. etc. I share my finished art one place, my in-progress art another, my literature still another. It was, and still is, exhausting. I always found myself thinking fondly of dA. Having a single page with all my stuff easily shared there! Having a variety of formats I could upload things in! Having a highly flexible homepage! Having built-in polls! Having built-in commissions! Having actual threaded comments! Having the ability to delete/hide spammy comments on my work (looking at you, tumblr porn bot infestation...)! No pinning a different thread every month in hopes people would find the important information I wanted them to see! No awkwardly trying to adjust themes to have an informative but still tiny sidebar! No seeing things out of order! So many things! I missed it like crazy, especially when I'd become so frustrated with other sites not having what I needed all in one spot. I'd poke my head in there every now and then, see if anything had changed. But for a long time, nothing had. It was still the same old same old dying community. No new updates. Lots of new broken things. Zero community moderation. And then! And then! Wix bought out deviantART! As a long time user of Wix for my personal website, I was very excited by this, though cautiously so. I hoped it would mean dA would finally get some new life breathed into it, that it would finally update to be a modern website and one that could foster a regrowth of the community. However, for a long time, nothing visibly happened. There were rumblings, sure, but nothing changed on the face of things. So I waited. Kept poking my head in. Tentatively started browsing the site again, posted a status update or two and chatted a little with some old friends. Then, finally, it happened! The big update was announced! Eclipse, as they’re calling it, was finally on the way! And holy shit does it look awesome. I've only seen the preview article so far, but even that has me ridiculously excited. The whole thing looks beautiful. deviantART has finally grown up.

And, sure, there’s still a lot of fetish art and that sort of nonsense. But, honestly, what part of the internet doesn’t have that anymore? I’ll take a functioning mature content filter with some stuff slipping through the cracks over a million porn bots removing the entire content of my post to inject links back to their porn sites any day. That’s not to say I’ll be leaving tumblr or anything, still enjoy it here, but damn that porn bot problem has gotten bad. Also, deviantART will apparently have a new private rating system to better control what you see so that’ll be great.

And ya know what? I’m not a teenager anymore. I know no site is going to be perfect for me, and I no longer expect it to. With this revival deviantART looks poised to once again be the best social site for me, even with its flaws. So once this update launches, I will happily be trundling back over there to splash around in my favorite pond.

#deviantART #deviantART Eclipse #Social Media

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thedegenerateasexual · 7 years

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Derek Hale/Chris Argent Fic Reclist

Derek/Chris is such a very very rare ship that I have been through the (currently) 158 works in the tag numerous times and picked out all my favorites (13 in total), carefully filtering out the stuff I don't like (OT3s, kinks, unwanted sideships, etc - just my own personal tastes). So I decided to write up a reclist for anybody who was craving content and didn't want to sift through AO3 themselves! The fics are sorted by season, and my favorites are marked with a ♡.

(A note: because everybody does warnings differently and what needs to be warned for is so subjective and I'm a little short on time, I chose not to cover warnings on this list. If you're the type of person who wishes to avoid certain material, please check the warnings on the fic page itself before you read!)

Season 2

The Scars That We Earned by Sandrine Shaw [10k]

The Alpha pack closes in and finds them easy targets: still recovering from their latest battle, old alliances fractured and new ones not formed yet. Chris Argent makes a fateful choice, setting in motion a chain of events that will leave the status quo forever changed.

Firstly: shoutout to this one for being (according to AO3, I don't know about other sites) the first Derek/Chris fic ever. It's got werewolf!Allison in it, and deals a bit with what happened to Victoria, and Allison especially has to deal with what happened to Victoria after she's turned, which is an interesting sideplot I wasn't expecting when I first read it. It feels really IC; prior to the get-together, Chris and Derek aren't afraid to hurt each other physically or with words. It takes a little time for them to get used to one another, it isn't too immediate or sudden.

Back and Forth by incendiary1 [1.9k]

This is how they are, this is how they'll always be. Derek and Chris have a tenuous balance.

This one is short, but it's basically all unresolved (semi-sexual) tension, which is really what I loved between these two at the very end of Season 2. I like especially that Chris attempts to excuse Gerard and Kate for what they did by excusing Derek for Victoria; it doesn't quite work like that, of course, but it's nice to see him written a bit flawed.

Season 3A

But It Won't Erase by broadcastdelay [8.9k]

When newly-turned werewolves start popping up in Beacon Hills, Chris Argent goes to bring Derek back to town to help clean up the mess. In cleaning up the mess, though, one last werewolf gets created. And somehow that’s not even the most unexpected development in Chris’s life that year.

So this one has werewolf!Chris, which is one of my favorite tropes, mainly because of all the tension and internal struggle involved, which this delivers on. It's VERY well-paced, and the thoughtfulness in Chris's internal narrative about his family and their history and his own history with Derek is a nice addition. I like the most that even though Derek is an alpha in this, Chris finds the idea of submitting to his authority laughable; eventually, so does Derek.

♡ a year in the life by allthebees [27k]

Things are as close to normal as they’re ever going to get for the Hale pack, after everything they’ve all been through in the last couple of years, when Cora starts noticing something weird going on between her brother and Chris Argent at the beginning of senior year. As if that weren’t enough of a problem it isn’t long before the odd monster here and there turns into a coven of witches who roll into town, decide to kick the werewolves’ den, and very nearly ruin everything.

Or: snapshots of a year in the life.

I did not, even a little bit, expect you could sell this pairing to me in a way like this. This fic is almost romcomish, in the plot of Cora trying to figure out what's going between her brother and Chris before anything is actually going on and the both of them remaining perfectly oblivious to any sexual tension while they contentedly go about becoming better friends. I like also that Chris and Derek hang out with Melissa and the sheriff a lot in this fic because it's very refreshing to get to see Derek around other adults, and for them to have their own friend group outside of the kids. While the fic doesn't exactly focus on the Derek/Chris (it's one of many plots going on throughout the year) it happens pretty believably and there's a nice moment where Derek has to address with Cora how it's different than what happened with Kate and how Chris and Allison, similarly, have to talk about what happened to Victoria (another thing I didn't think I could be sold on; usually I prefer to spare her the horror, but this fic does it really believably and well!). I absolutely love this one and it's definitely the longest one on this list, so if you enjoy longfic, you’ll like it too.

Season 3B

Allies by darkmagess [4.1k]

1. The scene at the end of 3x19 between Derek and Chris Argent that was so clearly missing.

2. When Derek wakes up after the nogitsune's fly almost makes him kill Chris.

3. After the nogitsune is taken care of, Chris disappears into his mourning for Allison. Derek decides to not leave him alone in his grief.

This is actually a series of 3 short episode codas, and while they're actually friendship fics and not technically slash, for a long time they were some of the only 3B content I had for these guys, and I still really enjoy them; there's a lot of rawness and vulnerability in them on both Chris’s and Derek’s part.

Nous protégeons by salvage [1.8k]

Immediately post-Letharia Vulpina. Chris and Derek in the aftermath of the explosion.

This is another 3B coda, except this one is, to quote the author's notes, a sexy coda. I'm pretty sure this is the first slash for this pairing I ever read, and the sex really is pretty sexy; despite Chris having to do the work of pulling the shrapnel out of Derek's back, they try to stay impersonal with each other up until they moment they don't, so it's just the right amount of rough.

I'm no good (you're no better) by broadcastdelay [1.5k]

Despite his intention of avoiding both Argents and heroism, neither of which he feels particularly well-suited for, Derek ends up with 74 shards of glass embedded in his back and a Chris Argent who seems to disagree.

Yet another coda from from the season that keeps on giving. What I like about this one is all of Chris's deep existential thoughts meet with Derek's usual impersonal and blunt nature, and the juxtaposition is almost funny. He still winds up eyeing Chris suspiciously, then turns his back on him. The dynamic in this one is really something.

To Vex by Twisted_Slinky [2.3k]

Derek is in the middle of hunting down a deadly creature when Chris Argent appears to save the day and strip off his shirt. Blame it on the gremlins.

A short and sometimes funny fic where Chris and Derek have to use the age-old technique of "pretending to be banging" to avoid raising the suspicion of the law. As always, Chris gets to make a pretty grand entrance.

♡ Not Yet by d0nquix0te [5.9k]

Three people who've lost their families make a family of their own.

In this one Chris and Derek accidentally kind of wind up becoming Isaac's dads right after Allison's death, and it's honestly such a perfect match-up I wish there were about a hundred more just like it. All three of them know grief and loneliness very well, and it winds up being the perfect environment for Chris, who didn't cry when his daughter cried, to finally allow the grief to catch up with him. What gives this a nice touch is that he's clearly terrified of facing it, and Derek opens up a little to him in an effort to give him some courage; overall a truly fantastic dynamic.

♡ Box of Wormwood by Emmessann [21k]

When Chris took the headshot, Kate exploded -- burst into a swarm of satanic butterflies. Now Derek's terminally infested, waiting to see what physical or emotional hell will break out next. Chris would give anything to save his friend, but they both know the clock is ticking on their last desperate hope.

This one is a really hard, heavy read—I've only read it twice myself—because of how heavily it deals with the themes of death, grief, terminal illness, and suicide. (And terror of all things buglike, but that's a personal thing, lol.) The actual slash here is minimal, considering Derek's condition, and the ending is a bit unexpected and pretty strange—but it's also ultimately hopeful, and the fic as a whole is definitely well-written, spectacularly written; not only are Chris and Derek's voices perfect, it's the only one on this list that actually not only made me cry, but got me crying both times I read it.

Season ???

(For works that are set in the future, or for where the era it takes place in is unclear.)

♡ I've Seen This Face Before by entanglednow [1.1k]

"Come any closer and I'll shoot you in the throat."

Another werewolf!Chris fic, this one is very short and actually preslash, but it packs more tension in a thousand words than I even thought possible, both internal tension on Chris's part, fighting the shift, and tension of the sexual type between him and Derek. This fic introduced me to werewolf!Chris and I'm now highly into it, so take that as the glowing recommendation that it is.

♡ Slow Dance by RarePairFairy [1.6k]

They dated for some time before admitting that they were going on dates. At first, to reassure themselves and each other, it was just spending more time together. Derek was “just coming to look over some stuff”. Or Chris was just “heading out for a few drinks”.

Just to get this out of the way, I love this fic for having the most relatable tags:

That struggle is real; it took me about three years to figure out the proper tag to track on tumblr.

That aside, I absolutely adore this one for its own sake as well; as much as I love some nice rough sexual tension, I equally adore the slow and careful tenderness in this fic. Chris and Derek are both hyperaware of their history with each other and each others' families, and they do the smart thing and take it slow, so they can build something solid; it's different from most of the stuff I see for this ship but a dynamic I'm very very into.

Maybe, In the Future by dedougal [2.8k]

“I like you better as a beta,” Chris turned to him, looking over his shoulder. That surprised Derek.

The slowest of burns, Chris and Derek don't even get together in this one until at least five years down the line. I'm not normally one for futurefic, but this one meanders on its way without being too jarring or slow, and it's nice to watch them get to have a lot of time between enemies and lovers. (Also, I know I said I wasn't doing warnings, but I feel like I should warn for the sex pollen trope in this one; it's usually a hard pass on my part but it's about as consensual as that sort of trope gets if that's a thing you worry about.)

And finally, I'm not tacky or self-congratulatory enough to rec my own Derek/Chris fic here, but since I did go to the trouble of typing up a reclist, I don't have enough shame not to say I've earned a little plug—but no pressure if longfic's not your thing. :')

I also set up a tumblr blog for the ao3feed of this pairing; nothing yet, sadly, but if this ship is your thing you can follow it at @ao3feed-dergent.

Enjoy, and please consider hitting reblog if you did! (I want more people to yell about this with, lol.)

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falconedreams · 4 years

Text

Falcone Jones and the Temple of Doom

Thinking about it in the waking world, this is such a horrible premise, going to another country and traipsing all over their hidden historical sites. Please understand that I would never do and do not condone such a deed. My subconscious is messed up. I’ve also dreamt of doing thefts before, and that’s not something I aspire to do IRL either. I don’t know why my brain is like this.

On the bright side, another dream involving one of my law friends, W! This time, we were....sitting an exam. Yes, really. I’ll just skip to the end since it’s not really the paper that’s important, it’s what happened after, and in any case I don’t remember what was in the paper anyway.

So after the paper I was on my way to have a stiff drink (or a nice bowl of noodles, alcohol in Singapore is subject to a ~200% tax, numbers are guesstimated based on regular retail price and duty-free price, Singapore FBI please don’t kill me if I get it wrong, but yes, the tax is pretty wild basically) to wipe my mind of the exam and all the accompanying stress, when who should come bounding up to me but W. “Falcone! Did you see question 2 part b?”

“Yes of course I saw it, I did the same paper as you, and no, I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to forget that the paper ever existed.” (Yes, I know, I am really bad at flirting, even in my dreams.)

“No, no, I didn’t mean the answer to the question!” His eyes are practically shining at this point, and I can already tell it’s going to be wild. “I mean the question itself. Remember it talks about the mysterious legendary 217 carat ruby that’s said to be the eye of the jaguar goddess (forgot her name) of (insert fictional country to your taste here, I don’t want to offend any real people by naming the actual country in question that I dreamt of, and in any case it makes zero difference to the plot, since the ruby doesn’t actually exist IRL either)? Well the dates in the question, the registration number of the ship in the question - I think they’re the reference number and page number for a library book! Come with me?”

Imagine me giving the blank face of utter “WTF” at this moment. “That’s.....very fascinating but honestly the exam has completely done me in and I would really rather go home and nap and why would you need me to come with you just to find a library book?!”

His eyes dart around, and then he sort of pulls me to a corner, and drops his voice and goes, “Not come with me to the library, come with me on the whole expedition! The book probably has clues on the location of the ruby! The professor who set the paper, he knows something, don’t you see? But he’s old and sick by now, and he can’t go by himself. So he’s putting the clues out, so that someone else will find it. If we can prove it exists, we’ll be famous.”

I want to tell him that this is wild and ludicrous speculation, but he is also a genius and he can read people really well, and as insane as this entire plot sounds, he’s probably right. But what I don’t get is “Why would you pick me?” (By this point IRL we’ve drifted apart for quite some time already) “You’ve got to have loads of closer friends?!”

“Because,” says he, “you study biology as well. The journey’s going to take us through a dense tropical jungle which as far as I understand is mostly uncharted. You’ll be able to tell what plants and animals are safe to eat. You’ll know the different types of snakes and what to do if one bites me, or if a wild animal mauls me. I trust you to keep me alive.”

.......”I am not a doctor I studied biology not medicine I could maybe figure out what’s safe to eat but I certainly cannot perform lifesaving surgery if it happens to be needed and even if I know the exact toxic compounds in whichever snake or spider’s venom that bit you and I knew the exact antivenin to reverse it, I can’t make it without a lab and all the requisite expensive equipment!!” But, he insists, better than nothing, and so I semi-reluctantly agree to go on the trip. “Fine, I’ll go pack my stuff. Where and when do you want to meet up?”

“No,” he saying, grabbing my arm and stopping me from leaving. “We leave now.”

........“WHAT?!”

His rationale was that this being the last exam day, everyone would be out celebrating/getting drunk, and our parents would not be expecting us home til late. Which gave us an extra few more hours on top of the 24 hours they would have to wait til they reported us, as legal adults, missing. Also, there was no way of knowing if anyone else who’d taken the paper had come to the same conclusions, and “you as a scientist ought to know the paramount importance of being the first to publish.”

Weeeeeeeell, who am I to resist a wild call to adventure, especially if I don’t have to be paying for it. He paid for everything, the plane rides, the expedition supplies we went shopping for after touchdown, rations, everything. I was just along as the “medic”. It was great.

That was, unfortunately, the last fun part, however. The actual expedition was excruciating. It was so bloody hot, and there were mosquitoes everywhere, and several times a week I had to steer him away from poisonous plants, and stop him jumping into alligator-infested waters because “we stink, we haven’t have a bath in days!!!” (Fortunately for me, dream-me retained IRL me’s lack of smell) And then finally, finally, after weeks and weeks and weeks of being cooked by the sun and eaten alive by insects and drinking river water that always looked a bit suspicious no matter how many layers of nylon we sieved it through and how many times we boiled it, we were finally in sight of the mystical temple where the jewel was said to be held!

And then I got poison-darted in the neck by some local dude who just appeared out of nowhere.

I tried to scream to W, to warn him, but apparently whatever neurotoxin they’d coated the darts in were fast-acting, and I already got one in the neck. The last thing I saw as I fell to the ground helplessly was him looking around panicking before he got several darts in the torso as well. I guess it serves us right, since we really didn’t have any business trespassing on their historical sites, but damn, I wish we’d at least gotten a look at the ruby before going down.

#falcone dreams

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bronwyngreenauthor · 6 years

Text

Dear Stock Art Sites and Photographers who Sell Their Work There,

What are you even thinking?

No, really. I mean that in all seriousness.

What the actual merciless fuck is the matter with you?

Have you seen some of the weird shit that ends up on royalty-free photo sites?

Look, I get it. Not everyone who uses your site is trying to find appropriate looking models or images for cover art and promo for books. I realize that a lot of pop psychology articles and/or think pieces feature a good many of your photos. As do myriad advice columns, and blog posts (including yours truly) but dudes, I’m mostly there for photos that my brilliant cover artist can turn into cover art for my books. Honestly, a lot of people are there for that reason. So, we need to talk. There are some things you guys need to cut the fuck back on.

Unless you’re new here, you won’t be surprised to learn that I have a list of things that annoy me we’d all like to see a lot less of. So, let’s begin, shall we?

Why are there so many photos of people taking selfies and/or using phones in inexplicably weird ways? Yes, I’m aware that many think pieces have been written about people’s selfie fixation. Then, there are the memes and bitchy, self-righteous facebook posts. The people making memes are usually using actual selfies, not stock art. And while I have no problem with people taking selfies, (Do it up! I wish I had that skill.) as far as the stock art goes, literally no one needs hundreds of pages of photos of people taking selfies. No. One.

So, this douche…

While we’re on the topic of phones, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the plethora of photos of people talking on their cell phone at weird and unlikely times.

Yoga: You’re doing it wrong.

If you really want to show people using their cellphones in their natural habitat, there would be page after page of people sitting on the toilet chatting or playing Words with Friends while waiting in a school parking lot for their kids.

While we’re on the topic of people doing inexplicably weird things whilst on the phone, we need to talk about the preponderance of Santa hat photos. No really. There are so many. Like…a terrifying amount. I mean, I like the holidays as much as the next person, but the sheer volume of models in Santa hats makes literally no sense. You guys, there are thousands.

Are you showing him his gift? Do you have porn on your phone? Is porn his gift? What is even happening here? I NEED ANSWERS!

Dude. This NOT what your mother meant when she said “Put a hat on.”

Another common stock art standard is the thumbs up pose. I picked this one because Santa hat. (See? They’re everywhere.) Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to use the thumbs up pose sarcastically. Like when my husband asks me how the story’s coming.

But all the people on the stock art sites seems so damn earnest in their thumbs up giving. Why? Why are you people so earnest about it? Is the photographer blackmailing you? Is that what’s going on here? Are you signaling for help? (Oh, and the selfie douche? Scroll back up – he’s also giving the thumbs up. What the hell, man?)

Awkward.

In keeping with the technology theme, I’d like to address headphones. You find a model that you’d really like on a book cover (not this guy) and bam! giant headphones lousing up your cover art vibe.

Everything in my house is white because I make poor life choices.

Look, I like being outside. I even like working outside. However, you can’t sit in direct sunlight and expect to be able to see anything on your screen. Also, what the fuck is with this guy. Have you even computered before, dude?

Now, how do I get to the Facebook, again?

There are also an alarming amount of pictures of women posing “seductively” with their blowdryers. I am…not sure what’s happening here. Or why. But I do know that I’m profoundly uncomfortable.

Anthropomorphizing has gone too far.

Also, please stop with the stupid hats that ruin otherwise cute-ish photos that could work for cover and promo art. Just lose the damn hats. They’re ruining everything.

Close up portrait of happy young couple in love embracing each other on beach

Close up portrait of a beautiful young couple in love standing and kissing on the beach

Romantic couple with backpacks sitting on rock

See? This kid knows the pain of a bad hat.

I feel you, kid. I feel you.

We need to talk about all the hearts. They’re everywhere on stock art sites. Paper hearts. Puffy hearts. Dough hearts. Rock hearts. Balloon hearts. They’re like a flea infestation in a dairy barn. Weirdly, the majority of the hearts are hiding people’s faces. What does that mean? And why are so many people hiding behind hearts? I need someone to explain the psychology of this to me.

Portrait of amorous young couple holding red heart by their faces

Young couple holding hands heart-shaped on the sea beach at sunset

Hands of man and woman holding a heart together. Studio shot on a wooden background, view from above.

Please just stop already with the hearts.

Apropos of nothing, what is with nearly every couple having a Jack and Rose pose on stock art sites?! That shit needs to stop.

There’s only room for one of you on that hunk of wood.

While we’re talking “romantic” images, what the hell is it with one partner looking really into it, but the other one looks…

…regretful of her life choices and possibly nauseated.

…like he thinks he’s entirely too cool for this trendy European street scene.

…about to fly into a murderous rage, but not before ascending to the throne in Hell.

…bored, now.

Speaking of couples, are these two about to get it on in their kid’s preschool classroom?! What the actual merciless fuck are we supposed to get from this photo besides a deep sense of discomfort and shame?

Look, I don’t want to kink shame, but…

Speaking of kink…

I guess…

I would very much like someone to explain the absolutely baffling fuckery of this photograph.

Tiny apartment sized ironing board? Check.

Itty bitty travel iron? Check.

Portrait of judgmental cat? Check.

Late 80s bridal lingerie? Check.

Dude with sardonically arched eyebrow and buttchin? Check and check.

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE????

Ironing out the kinks in their relationship…?

Then…there’s this. I have zero words for this super low-budget ren faire photo, and that’s coming from someone who actually enjoys ren faires.

The Minstrels of Misrule, slaying their cover of “Mr. Brownstone” while Lady Eowyn performs her interpretive dance piece.

I could go on for pages about stock art.

And probably days.

No, I could definitely go on for days. There are just so many inexplicable photos there. Which stock art photos baffle you the most?

WTF Stock Art Sites?!: An Open Letter to Stock Art Sites (and Photographers Who Sell Their Work There) Dear Stock Art Sites and Photographers who Sell Their Work There, What are you even thinking?

#Stock Art Fuckery #WTF Stock Art Sites #WTF???

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jimlingss · 7 years

Text

Student Council Prez [12]

Episode 11 - Episode 12 - Episode 13 Words: 7.8k Genre: Fluff, Slice of Life, High School!Au

Jin’s mansion was overwhelming, stretching over acres and acres of land. It was safe to say that it could be double or triple the size of Yoongi’s (which Yoongi defensively said that it was simply because his own parents didn’t care much for a luxurious house). It had perfectly shaped hedges, some in the shape of hearts or elephants. Numerous windows brought light into the rooms, a courtyard so large that it held two limousines and a fountain literally shooting water straight into the air like it’s own water show. It was too much.

You were more than overwhelmed, pinching yourself to make sure it’s not some sort of delusional dream or you’re hallucinating; it might as well have been Cinderella’s castle.

“Why do I have to come along again?” You tug on Yoongi’s sleeve, whispering.

He smirks to which you roll your eyes at. “Because from when school ends to seven, your time is mine. I paid for it.”

Unlike you though, the rest of the members seem pretty comfortable. Hoseok left to the bathroom and when he came back after nearly half an hour, he confessed that he had been holding in a dump the entire day much to Jin’s mortification. Taehyung on the other hand, peeled off his sweaty socks and rolled all over the clean carpet like a cat, which got Jin screaming at him.

There was a maid and a housekeeper around but Jin shooed them away, reassuring them that he could be self-sufficient. He also mentioned that his father was upstairs but didn’t mind the noise or the members coming over. Wanting to avoid a bigger catastrophe, he made some finger sandwiches and quickly led everyone else out the house and into the garden, under the gazebo.

“Let’s get down to business.” Yoongi sits down and you plop into a seat at the end of the table.

Everyone pulls out binders and notebooks from their bags. “Here’s what the funding looks like.” Jungkook slides it over to Namjoon who nods and flips through.

Yoongi takes a pen, running it along his notes. “So it’s one night and two days. What does the schedule look like?”

“Well…” Jimin smacks his lips together. He’s been demolishing all the sandwiches, stuffing them into his mouth like he’s been malnourished for decades. “We’re probably going to arrive there at seven.”

“In the morning?!” Taehyung whines out, stamping his feet. “That’s so early!”

Everyone looks at him in silence for a solid three seconds before Jimin continues. “And we’ll all get a tour of the place and a presentation of the sponsors which should lead us up until nine.”

“Wait.” Taehyung interrupts again. “Is the presentation an hour long? What the hell?”

Hoseok laughs. “We’re all the children of long-term investors. Of course they want to reel us in. We have no choice.”

“Ugh, this is the worst!” Taehyung hits his head on the table.

“Will you let him finish already? Or is this going to take us three hours like last time?” Jin clicks his tongue and Taehyung grins before sealing his lips, pretending to zip them up and throwing the key away.

“There’s another hour to get settled into the accommodation and then everyone can head to the activities of their choosing.”

“And those activities consist of...?” Yoongi moves his hand around, urging him to continue.

Hoseok flips around some of his notes and this time, he’s the one who speaks up. “Hiking up the mountain, going down the valley to the waterfall site, skiing, snowboarding, a shopping tour or ice skating.” He reads off the list before looking up. “Of course we’re going to urge all the students to pick at least one. We won’t allow them to be cooped up in the lounge the entire day. If they really wanted to, they could probably even manage three activities and finish them all before dinner rolls around.”

Yoongi nods in satisfaction. “And we’ll probably give them tickets to whatever they decide beforehand so it isn’t a mess when we get there.”

“Wait...” You interject. “Where are we going?”

“A field trip!” Jungkook chimes with a smile. “More like a retreat but we’re going to a mountain resort….what’s it for again?” He turns to Namjoon with a frown.

“For ‘team building’ exercises and morale formation within the student body.” Namjoon states as if he’s reading from a textbook and smiles.

“That’s what we’re going with!” Jimin laughs before leaning over to you, murmuring. “Really, we just call it that but it’s only for fun.”

Yoongi clears his throat loudly, everyone turning to him and he only continues when Jimin’s moved away from you. “Speaking of which, what is the accommodation and the resort looking like?”

“We have the entire resort booked.” Namjoon says and Jin drops his sandwich.

“The entire resort?”

“With all three hotel accommodations.” Namjoon proudly declares and even Yoongi is gaping at him.

“H-how did you manage that?” Jimin blinks three times in utter shock. “But most importantly, how much did it even cost?”

“Honestly, not that much.” He pats Jungkook on the back. “Jungkook here has a real charm with begging.”

There’s a long drawn out silence before Jungkook nervously laughs. “We can probably fit two to three people in a room.”

“Oh! I want to be with Jiminnie!” Taehyung wraps his arms around his friend, squishing his cheek against his. Jimin grumbles trying to peel him off.

“In that case, I want to be with Yoongi.” Hoseok grins mischievously.

“Ah shut up, shut up! Now’s not the time to decide!” Yoongi shakes him off.

The rest of the meeting continues with Jin raving about how he got the best restaurant to serve them; their delicious steaks and fish and how he was worthy of praise. Taehyung goes over the second day plans at the resort and the teachers who are suppose to supervise at night. “Yeah, so the thing is…..” He hesitates.

“What?” Jin frowns.

“We get to supervise too!” Taehyung says slowly with a grin.

“What?”

“Yup! Isn’t it great. I was talking to the teachers that were coming with us, which is like all of the teachers, but who wants to stay up all night walking around to catch misbehaving kids?….So I said we would take turns!” He sheepishly smiles.

No one is impressed.

“Just each of us for half an hour during the night and the teachers will do the rest.” He says and still no one speaks, all gaping at him with disbelief. “I do have something to make up for it though! A secret special surprise that I’ve kept up until now!”

“What is it, Taehyung?” Namjoon sighs out tiredly. Everyone knows that Taehyung and surprises don’t go well together.

“Fireworks!”

“No.” Yoongi cuts him off immediately. “We are not doing fireworks. I thought we went over this.”

“But~ But! But~ I already talked to the teachers on supervision and your father about it. I called up all the surrounding areas at the resort and I got my family’s attorney to talk to them!” He laughs like it’s no big deal. “We’re gonna have fireworks on the night of our first day~”

Jimin facepalms. “Why can’t you put this much effort in your school work? You’d be a genius by now.”

Taehyung grins. “I only do it for things that matter.”

“Oh boy….”

The meeting carries on, gradually becoming less and less productive as the bickering increases. Jimin passes out on the table, mumbling about being in a food coma and upon realization that Jin owned a dog, Taehyung began chasing it in the gardens. Namjoon does manage to go over the budget with Yoongi one last time and they barely manage to finish before Hoseok shrieks. He gets stung by a wasp and you dodge when another comes flying your way. Jin frowns as to why there are wasps in his flawless garden but then Jungkook and Taehyung come running from acres away.

They’re as far as a golf course or perhaps a football field away but their panic stricken faces are vivid.

Taehyung has the dog in hand as they sprint, a black cloud behind them. “What are they saying?” Namjoon frowns, trying to tune in his ears.

“What’s that cloud?” Jimin narrows his eyes to get a good look.

“BEES! BEES!” Taehyung screams.

“Are they saying ‘dees’?” Jin frowns.

“I think it’s ‘trees’?” Hoseok corrects.

“No…” You shake your head as they come closer. “It’s bees.”

Everyone turns to look at each other in horror before coming to a stand, slowly walking backwards as the realization becomes more clear as day. “JUNGKOOK KNOCKED DOWN A BEEHIVE WITH A STICK!” Taehyung screams at the top of his lungs.

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!” Jungkook roars out breathlessly. “HE DARED ME TO!”

“YOU FOOLS!” Jin shrieks before slamming the door and everyone collapses inside. The cloud of wasps attack the window, buzzing and darting onto the glass. That’s when Jin decides it’s time for everyone to go home.

(Of course you all leave through the front door which is thankfully far away from the backyard. Taehyung and Jungkook apologizes but Jin brushes them off, grumbling about how much it would cost to get rid of his wasp infested garden).

When the news is officially announced to the classes everyone is ecstatic, bursting out into cheers and you could even hear it coming from the other classes through the walls. They immediately turn to their friends, discussing what events they should attend and who was going to dorm with who.

You turn to look out the window instead, finding it amusing that you could technically sign your own permission slip since you were your own guardian.

The event sounded nice and you knew the student council members worked hard, but you couldn’t care much for it.

“Well….what do you think?” Yoongi asks you as he’s walking you home. He said something along the lines of feeling too unhealthy these days, needing more exercise and an evening walk was the perfect solution. Coincidentally his walk happened to be the same route and time as when you were going home.

“What? The retreat?”

He nods. “That’s why I brought you along.”

You smile, patting his back roughly. “I never knew you cared so much for my opinion, prez.”

He scoffs. “Just tell me.”

“It seems good. Flawless as usual.”

“Right?” He smiles to himself.

“I don’t plan on going though.” You casually tell him, swinging your arms back and forth as you walk. He stops in his tracks. “What’s wrong?” You turn around.

He shakes his head, continuing to walk. “Why?”

“Well, who’s going to watch my siblings? I have responsibilities. I can’t just leave.” You look over at him apologetically but he has a face painted void of emotion. “Sorry.”

He scoffs again. “Why are you apologizing?”

You sigh, not answering and the both of you walk in silence for the rest of the way, listening to the birds or the distant sound of cars passing. Just as the both of you are walking up the last stretch, you catch Sungjae outside the door. “What’s wrong?” He comes running as you walk up the creaky steps.

“Noona- Noona!”

“What’s wrong?” You ask again, getting more and more concerned. He’s blocking the door, cringing at how loud you’re talking. “Where’s Sohyun?”

Sungjae is pale as paper, eyes widen and full of horror like he’s been through three world wars and has witnessed the death of his (non-existent) wife. “Aunt- Aunt Eunhye is here!”

“What?” You take a step back, bolting your head at Yoongi. “Oh my god. You need to leave.”

“Wait, who is Aunt Eunhye?”

Yoongi’s question is automatically answered as the door swings open.

A tall woman appears, wearing sunglasses with a sunhat and standing shoulder width apart with her hands on her hips. Sohyun looks fearfully out from behind her. “Y/N! What time is it? I thought school ended up much earlier for you!” She grabs you in a hug a second later without waiting for a response.

“Aunt Eunhye! What...what are you doing here?” You manage to say in between being squeezed to death. She finally lets go and you gasp in a huge breath.

“Why? Can’t I visit my favourite nephew and nieces?” She smiles. “Now how are you doing? You’re looking much skinnier these days. Are you not eating well? But my oh my, my sister’s beautiful looks are quite shining through on you...except your hair. It’s a mess! And what were you thinking picking a house like this Y/N? It’s like a dump! It’s worse than back on my farm.”

You laugh stiffly, not sure what questions to answer or statement to respond to. “It’s nice to see you.”

Your aunt turns her head, not recognizing the boy beside you. “And who - is - this?”

“Um...it’s-”

“Good evening, my name is Yoongi.” He shakes your aunt's hand, smiling dazzlingly. He repeats the same words as he did when he first met you and you wonder if he memorized a script. “I’m from BTS Academy, the Student Council President and a fellow classmate of Y/N’s. I was jus-”

“Enough.” She puts her hand out. “You talk a little too much.”

You’re both shell shocked, mouths opened on how she, herself, just went on an entire tangent. “Thank you very much. Come along, children.” Your aunt calls out as she walks back into the apartment room. Sungjae downcasts his head, moping already and you shoot Yoongi an apologetic look, mouthing ‘goodbye’ before you shut the door.

The next morning Yoongi sees you, you automatically yell, “Don’t laugh!”. So instead he grins, choking back on his laughter and really soaking up your appearance from head to toe. He’s never seen you like this and it was almost ground-breaking. Even if he paid you, he doesn’t think you would ever agree.

Your hair is pulled neatly into two braided pigtails. Your uniform is precise without a wrinkle, buttoned all the way to the top with the tie and your skirt is pulled below your knees, black stockings not even allowing an inch of skin. Compared to the rest of the kids and how you’re normally dressed, you look like you’re transported from the traditional 1930’s.

“My aunt’s just a bit…..overbearing.” You slam your head onto the table. Yoongi watches in amusement with his head rested in his propped up arm.

“You’re a lot earlier than usual.” He glances at the clock in the student council room.

“She didn’t want me to be late.” You sigh. “Sorry about yesterday.”

Aunt Eunhye was from the countryside, owning a small farm with her young son and very disapproving of city life and pollution. She’s a kind lady but extremely conservative and traditional. She scolded you to hell and back, demanding why there was no iron or ironing board and she went out to buy one herself, making you get rid of all your wrinkles in your uniform. She cleaned up the entire apartment room, getting rid of all the unnecessary trash and making you dust every single corner.

Sungjae was on the verge of cursing with her unending nagging but you covered his mouth and reprimanded him in the bathroom. If she decided to whip your brother, no one could stop her. She hated swearing and loved disciplining. She made Sohyun speak properly in full sentences, which you’re not sure is a good thing or not when she was on the verge of crying. On the brighter side of things, Aunt Eunhye gave you all proper meals and cooked one of the best dinners you’ve ever had since your parents were still around.

“She’s a bit overbearing but she’s family.” You sigh out. You didn’t have much family left and she was one of the few that actually made an effort to keep in touch or even visit. It was touching...was...if only she didn’t tell you that she was staying for two weeks to whip you into shape again.

You’re just glad she came at a time where you weren’t involved in your uncle’s business anymore. She might’ve gotten a heart attack if she knew how you weren’t even going to school at that time. “I don’t know if I can come over to your house Yoongi. I’ll try to tell her I’m studying at the library but I don’t know if she’ll believe me.”

Yoongi smiles. “It’s okay. Take your time and don’t stress too much.”

You turn your head, glaring upwards at him. “Since when have you been so understanding?”

“If you opened your eyes, my slave and don’t keep sticking your head in the toilet…” He closes his eyes with a smug smile. “...I’m a pretty great guy.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes. “If I ever admit you’re a great guy, you can feel free to assume that I’ve really lost my mind and you have my permission to punch me.”

He laughs, leaning towards you. “Don’t regret your words. I’m really going to remember this.”

“Go ahead.”

Yoongi in a locked gaze with you, leans down closer and closer, gravitating naturally until his breath feels hot against your skin. His eyes flicker for a moment down to your lips and you can’t help but look at his, perfectly soft and plush. “...but what if I don’t want to punch you?” He whispers.

You murmur back. “Then what?”

“How about something worse that’s even more irreversible?” His pillow lips tilt into a small smile and your eyes flutter close. He hitches a breath, tilting his head the other way from where you’re rested on the table and he too closes his eyes. This is it. Finally. What he’s been itching to do since weeks ago, kis-

“-AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE BEEKEEPER SAID TO ME? HE SAI-......what are you two doing?” Jin stops with a huge frown. You’re on the other side of the room, sitting on a chair but the other chairs are all knocked down. Yoongi on the other hand is sitting at the front of the room on the floor.

“Meditating.” Yoongi deadpans.

“Yup!” You nod frantically while ignoring the heat in your face. “Meditating.”

“And the chairs?”

“It’s all part of the feng shui of the room.” Yoongi says as if it’s an obvious fact.

“You two get up to some weird shenanigans, huh?” Jin sighs as Taehyung is silent behind him, looking shameful after Jin’s scoldings. “But listen to this! What the beekeeper said, he said-”

All the words pass through your ears and you look down to the ground. You shut your eyes tight, trying to make your face cool down while Yoongi also refuses to look at you, ears burning bright red. He scowls at his friends for once again ruining his chances.

He swears he has the worst timing of life.

The moment you walk up the steps to the apartment room, you can already hear your aunt’s chiding. You apologize to the neighbors who glance at you as they make their way out. When you open the door, Sungjae’s frustrated scream rings through the air. “Don’t you give me that attitude young man!”

“What’s going on?” You frown, walking in to see Sungjae chopping tomatoes at the table with a cutting board and your aunt rolling up rice with plastic gloves.

“Oh, you’re home Y/N?” She smiles as you take off your backpack. “Sungjae’s helping me cook.”

He gives you a look that screams ‘save me please’ before he sighs out and continues chopping the tomatoes.

He hates tomatoes.

You hold in a laugh; every time he had to help you in the kitchen, he moped and whined relentlessly. Your aunt was certainly a lady if he could get your brother to actually contribute.

“Did you see your sister?” Your aunt shakes her head disapprovingly, still continuing to roll the rice. “I picked her up at school today and she was playing in the dirt! The dirt! With some boy.”

It amused you how your aunt lived on a farm yet condemned anyone getting dirty at all. You guessed she just liked clean things and you had inherited that trait too...just to a lesser extent.

“I see.” You nod, not knowing what to say as you move beside Sungjae, shifting him out the way so you can cut the tomatoes instead.

You aunt sighs. “You kids are running wild without any adults or supervision!”

“We’re fine!” Sungjae blurts out, causing Aunt Eunhye to completely stop and glare at him. “I think Y/N’s doing a fine job….she takes care of us and feeds us and…” His voice lowers in volume with each word, feeling the heavy scrutiny of the stare.

You hold in a smile, grateful that your brother automatically defended you and you drop a hand under the table to squeeze his. Aunt Eunhye simply huffs out in exhaustion. As your eyes trail back to the cutting board, it prolongs at your backpack on the floor and just like that, your eyes widen as an idea slams into your brain like you’ve hit eureka.

You glance at your aunt who’s silent and focused and you wonder if this was good timing. “Aunt Eunhye…”

She lifts her head. “What is it?”

“Our school has an upcoming retreat and I wasn’t going to go because of Sohyun and Sungjae but now that you’re here…..”

She lifts up a brow. “What is the retreat for?”

You recall Namjoon’s precise words, repeating them exactly. “Team building and morale boosting within the student body.”

Satisfied with your answer, she nods and contemplates. “How long would you be gone for?”

“Two days and one night.”

“TWO DAYS AND ONE NIGHT?!” Sungjae screeches out, flabbergasted. “Are you leaving us for that long?” He looks at you with a look that reads ‘with her?!’.

You give the both of them a sheepish smile. “It really isn’t for that long…”

Aunt Eunhye peels off her gloves, smiling. “Well if it’s a required trip within the academy, we wouldn’t want you to fall behind, now would we?”

Sungjae slams his head on the table and you would feel guilty, if not for how much of a break you’ve had recently...which is none. You know he’ll be perfectly fine with Aunt Eunhye, no matter how much he dislikes her. If anything, he’ll become disciplined and a chance to hone his cooking skills. “It’s not for that long.” You tell him but he moans painfully, faking a sob.

“Get your dirty head off the table, boy!” Your aunt frowns.

The washroom door clicks open and Sohyun appears with wet hair and a tight pink set of pajamas, brought back from the countryside. “Your sister’s done! Now go and take a shower!”

Sungjae complies slowly as your aunt signs the bottom of your form, letting her have the pleasure of being the authoritative figure even though you could sign it yourself.

You hold the form up, excitement swelling in your chest and already imagining Yoongi’s expression when you tell him the good news.

No matter how luxurious the bus is, with its air conditioning and plush seats, you can feel every bump in the road and it is utterly annoying; especially when you’re trying to take a quick nap.

“Hey Y/N.” Someone whispers and you peel your eyes open, glaring at the two girls who’ve turned around brightly smiling. It’s Hyeri and Minah. Though you’re not all that familiar with the two, you know Hyeri is a tad bit more outgoing than Minah who’s quite shy.

You frown. “What is it?”

“Um...we were wondering..” Minah begins, stuttering.

“If you would like to dorm with us.” Hyeri finishes off with a smile.

From the corner of your eye, you can catch Hara bolting her head over in horror. You look over in disinterested, marvelling at her expression of betrayal. Hyeri follows your line of sight but then quickly redirects her attention back to you. “Don’t mind her.”

You sigh. “Why? What are you up to this time?”

Hyeri frowns, taking offense. “We’re not up to anything!” She defends herself.

Minah gives a soft smile. “It’s just that...you don’t have anyone to dorm with, right?”

It was true. You didn’t even have anyone to sit with, not that you minded. There was more space and the other seat occupied your bags. But for the accommodation, you weren’t allowed to be on your own and it wasn’t like you were allowed to be with Yoongi or the other council members.

Hyeri speaks up, her voice cracking. “We never got to apologize….for the whole thing that happened last year. It was stupid and immature and we were so dumb. I feel really bad for what happened and we want to make it up to you in any way that’s possibl- ”

“It’s fine.” You sigh, sparing the girl from her stammering. You didn’t really want to be reminded of your brutal welcoming to the school. “If you two are okay with it, I don’t mind.”

Minah smiles. “Thanks Y/N.”

You hum in response, closing your eyes and crossing your arms. They turn back around and you doze off, leaning on your bags and twisting around for comfort. The next two hours pass by without any trouble. Soon enough, you’re off the bus with the cold wind tickling your skin, giving you a rude awakening and snapping you out of your daze.

When you look over to the other bus, you notice Yoongi with ruffled hair and swollen eyes, presumably in a deep sleep like you were.

A tiny smile creeps up your lips and when he catches you in his peripheral vision, you turn away just in time before you’re caught staring.

The tour and presentation are rather stale, all gibberish to you when they begin talking about their stocks and potential investments. Most of the kids yawn like you, though few and in between do take some interest. You get settled in with Minah and Hyeri who are not all that bad, a little chatty but having good intentions. “What activity are you going to?”

You didn’t really care so you told the teacher to give you whatever. “Mountain hiking.” You read straight off the ticket in your envelope.

“Oh.”

“Well that seems fun!” Hyeri smiles stiffly and you nod at her with a skeptical expression. “Me and Minah are going ice skating. We’ll probably see you later tonight?”

“Yeah.” You smile, feeling a bit more warmed up to them.

When you arrive at the location, there are a few people already beginning to hike up, everyone in their own groups and you wonder if you should just ditch and go hide in a warm coffee shop down the street instead. That is until you catch Yoongi by the booth.

“What are you doing here?’ You frown at him.

His eyes widen. “Wait. Are you hiking up too?”

“Yeah…………..are you?”

He scoffs, motioning to his body. “What do you think?” He’s wearing a thick coat, boots, mittens and a black pompom hat.

You look around the area. “Where are the others?”

“They went skiing.” He shrugs.

“And you didn’t go with them….?”

“I’m entitled to my own decisions without needing their influence.” He deadpans. “Why, you have a problem with me choosing to hike?”

“No…” You narrow your eyes at him. “It’s just...of all things...you choose to hike up a mountain? I didn’t have a choice…”

“I like hiking.” He states.

In your mind, it doesn’t add up at all. The last time you checked, Min Yoongi hated exercise of any sort. “Do I need to keep standing here to give you reasons or are we going to go?”

“Fine.” You huff out, defeated.

“WAIT. You’re going hiking?! Why?” Jin frowns, as if disgusted with the option that seemed the most tiring and boring. He’s utterly baffled at Yoongi. The Student Council Members had the privilege in choosing first and everything he knew about Yoongi was that he hated movement of any sort. The boy even wished to be a rock last Christmas. “Are you sick? Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” He heaves out with exasperation.

“Come skiing with us! You can probably change it. C’mon, Yoongi~” Taehyung whines while putting on the equipment brought from home.

Hoseok who’s coincidentally flipping through the attendance sheets of where everyone was heading to, spots your name on the hiking expedition. A wide grin grows on his face, realizing Yoongi’s sly antics. “Hey guys, just let him go. It’ll be a good experience for him. Have fun Yoongi. We’ll see you later tonight.” He pats his friend on the back before leaving and the other members soon follow after their own goodbye’s.

It’s exhausting; the bright sun that reflects off the white burns your eyes and your body feels hot but it’s too freezing to strip off any clothing. You stab the poles that they gave you into the snow, finding some grip as you tread uphill. You curse at why you’re unprepared, not bringing sunglasses or a hat and having gloves with holes in them. “Aren’t you cold?” Yoongi glances at you and you don’t respond. “Hold on.” He stops and whips off his backpack, taking out a pair of earmuffs.

Before you can protest, he’s slipped them onto your head. “It’s just an extra pair that was laying around in the room so I took them.” He says nonchalantly before continuing.

“Thanks.” You mutter, feeling your icy ears beginning to toast up.

But hiking, through a fun activity for many, is not your cup of tea by any means and you’re sure isn’t for Yoongi either. Your legs begin to feel like jelly and you’re utterly exhausted. The both of you collapse before you’re even halfway to the peak. “This. is. the. fucking. worst.” He huffs out.

There’s no one around except for one group that had passed eons ago. You realized that mountain hiking wasn’t a very popular attraction at all. “I thought you picked this.” You managed to say in between gasps for air.

The both of you sprawled out next to each other with limbs stretched out like you’re making snow angels. “I’m an idiot.” He screams.

You laugh hysterically at his confession, finding it utterly amusing how the both of you were pretty much dead on the mountain side. “Let’s go back.” You call out after a long silence. “We can get hot chocolate at the lounge area.”

“There’s a cute bakery down the avenue too.” He turns his head to meet your eyes. “We can get their famous puff pastry.”

A wide smile splits your lips. “Sounds like a plan.”

But as you get up to your feet, holding out a hand to haul Yoongi up, your boots slip on the ice. “Woah.” He steadies you as you fall backwards but then his left foot catches on a rock and the both of you lose balance, plunging down the mountain.

It’s not romantic or movie-like in the least bit. Time doesn’t slow nor is it heroic or cool, like the action packed films where the hero glides downwards. Yoongi doesn’t hug you or pull you close, the both of you rolling down like a log in an accidental kiss. Instead, the shrill screams of two people echo down the mountainside as you eat a faceful of snow, the rocks bumping over your stomach painfully and ripping holes in your jacket. In fact, you don’t even know where Yoongi is since the both of you had let go of each other the moment gravity punched you in the face but he was the last of your worries when a branch almost stabs your skull but instead twists in your hair.

You literally black out, your head still spinning and your body jolts, wondering if it was still rolling down. “What the fuck?” You hear a groan somewhere nearby.

You would’ve laid there for the next century had it not been for the raw snow melting on your cheeks and the frost biting at your skin. “Are you okay?” Your voice croaks as you sit up, dusting yourself off.

Yoongi is a few feet from you, a tiny cut on his upper lip and snow coating his hair white. “I think so. Are you?”

“I’m fine.” You grunt out, coming to a final stand while your back aches painfully.

The both of you are at the bottom of the mountain - which would be great since you wouldn’t have to make the whole trip down but instead of falling in the same direction as the trail, you both plunged to the side. Now you’re in the middle of nowhere. Your hiking poles are long lost in the snow and it’s too steep to climb back onto the trail. It might as well have been at a ninety degree angle. “Now what?” You look up at him when you’ve fallen to the ground in exhaustion from trying to run up.

“Let’s just walk. If we walk straight, it should be parallel to the trail and we’ll make our way back.”

You agreed. It made sense at the time.

AT THE TIME.

But the longer you walked and the more the sun was barely dipping over the horizon, the more you slowed down until you stopped completely. It had been hours since you first started wandering. “What’s wrong?” He turns to you.

“We’re fucking lost!” You scream at him, feeling emotional and losing complete composure. “We’re fucking lost Yoongi and this is your fault!”

It isn’t his fault. You’re just completely losing your shit and you don’t know what to do.

“Hey…” The knot between his brows soften. “Hey..it’s okay.”

“It’s not fucking okay!” You lash out, wet streams falling down your cheeks. “I’m tired and my legs are exhausted and I’m starving. I know you feel the same way and I’m just being an asshole right now but I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be lost in the wilderness without even saying goodbye to my siblings.”

You don’t even know why you’re crying, why you’re letting Yoongi see your tears and if you were in your right mind, you would’ve slapped the person who’s speaking now.

Yoongi sighs and walks up to you, pulling you in for an embrace. Your wet face gets muffled in his jacket and he pats your back comfortingly. “Why does this kind of shit always happen when we’re together?” You sob out. “We’re so unlucky. We should just stay far away from each other.”

“I don’t think so.” He answers before he lets you go.

Yoongi takes out the heat packs buried deep in his pockets and presses them against your reddened cheeks. The heat instantly melts the frost bites and you ease.

He stands there for a long time, holding up the packs to your face and you stare at him through your eyelashes, wondering where this caring Yoongi came from. For a moment, you wondered if he was an angel. But then you realized it was your delusional and hungry mind speaking.

“Are you better now?” He asks after five minutes.

“Yeah.” You hum as he drops his hands. “Sorry. I might’ve really lost my mind for a second there.”

“Are you ready to keep going?” He takes your hand reassuringly, holding it tight. He smiles softly when you nod. “Let’s go.”

The both of you continue until it’s nightfall and the only reason you don’t freak out from the rustling bushes and the ominous forest next to you is Yoongi’s tight hand, firm around yours. Though his hand and yours is separated with mittens, it still feels warm and it sends pleasant tingles up your skin, washing you with comfort.

He instead begins singing, alerting potential wolves away (‘just in case’ he said), voice cracking when he hits the really high notes. You fall into laughter and he continues anyways, almost breaking out into an entire musical. He uses your held hands to sing into, like a microphone at a karaoke and soon you join him.

At some point Yoongi curses at how negligent the resort is, how there was no rescue helicopter flying above or anyone calling out their names. He mutters at how easy it would be if he sued them, how they let two students disappear off the radar when it was past dinner time and that anyone could die up in these mountains. As it gets darker, he wonders if anyone has even realized that they’re gone.

“What happens if we really can’t get back to civilization?” You nudge him when you realized he was getting tense. It was completely pitch black out, only a flashlight in his hands as he shined in front of you two. “I guess we’d have to live in the trees, huh? Since there’s only the two of us we’d have to repopulate and create a new civilization.”

He scoffs and his hand tightens around you but his shoulder relaxes. “Repopulate with you? I’m sorry but I need the best genes for my offspring.”

“Puh-lease.” You roll your eyes. “This is the best you’re ever gonna get and I’m already lowering my standards.”

This time he laughs, a chuckle that emits from his chest and before you can say anything more, a slight smell reaches your nose. “Yoongi.” You tug him back and he stops.

“What is it?”

“Do you smell that?”

“What?”

“I think it’s….steak?”

Just then, the sky roars and there’s a flash of red light. Fireworks erupt from the sky, high above the trees and the both of you look at each other in redemption for one moment before reaching off into a sprint. He pulls you deeper into the forest, past a few trees and shrubs, moving them out the way before they scratch your skin. It’s like you’re both on an expedition in a jungle, adrenaline rushing through your veins to get back to civilization.

A minute later, you both collapse onto the side of the road with cars driving past. “We made it. We made it!” You squeal out with a grin, throwing yourself onto him in a tight embrace.

Yoongi’s never been happier with Taehyung’s stupid fireworks.

The air conditioning is on full blast, the curtains drawn back to show the lights of the shopping plaza and little shops littering down the avenue street. There are tiny lights off in the distance amidst the darkness, reminiscent of Christmas village decoration sets.

Minah bounces on the bed, knocking Hyeri’s phone out of her hand. “Hey!”

“Oops.” She teases with a mischievous smile. “Hey, have you seen Y/N? She and Yoongi weren’t here during dinner.”

Hyeri squeals. “What do you think they could’ve been doing?” Her eyes flash over. “Oh my god, that’s so romantic!”

“What? What?”

“Well obviously they ditched dinner so they could have it together somewhere else with just the two of them!” She falls back onto the bed, squealing louder and flailing her limbs.

“As nice as that sounds, I don’t think so.” Minah laughs. “I thought I saw them holding hands. Yoongi was dragging her to the dining hall like an hour ago.”

Hyeri launches up into a sitting position. “So they ate dinner later than all of us? What do you think they were doing the entire time then?”

Minah immediately takes a pillow and smacks Hyeri’s head, so hard that she falls back. “Hey! What was that for?”

“I saw your mind going to dirty places.” She scowls playfully. “Our President isn’t a guy like that!”

“Psh. How do you know?” Hyeri scrunches her nose up. “But for real, I saw Yoongi before I came up. He was shouting at the other council members and then I saw him complain at the lobby desk. I wonder what happened but Y/N wasn’t with him.”

“Hm...” Just then the doors click open. “Oh speak of the devil!”

They turn to you with bright smiles, already in their pajamas and you manage a drained ‘hey’.

“Where have you been?” Hyeri asks, prying gently purely out of curiosity. “We didn’t see you at dinner.”

You sigh. “Oh yeah, well...it’s a long story.” You collect some clothes out of your bag. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay.”

When you leave, the two girls glance at each other in suspicion, wondering what kind of romantic rendezvous Yoongi swept you up in but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. The moment you finish your shower and leave the room, drying off your hair with a towel, they’re staring straight at you. “Is...everything okay?”

“Of course everything’s okay!” Hyeri smiles as you take a seat on the opposite side of the bed. “We know it’s not our place and you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to…..”

You frown. “What is it?”

“How’s dating Yoongi?” Minah asks quietly. “I mean….is he a lot sweeter than what he regularly is like? Is he actually a big romantic?”

“Oh my god...he probably is.” Hyeri squeals out but quickly shuts her mouth at your dumbfounded face.

After a long silence, you laugh hysterically as they stare. It takes a moment for you to realize that they’re serious. Your face wipes of emotion and you venture carefully as if breaking bad news to them. “We aren’t dating.”

“What?” They do a double take on each other. “Are you just saying that to protect him? You can be honest with us, Y/N. Pretty much everyone in the school knows you two are going out.”

“We aren’t though.” Your frown deepens. “Does it seem like we are?”

“No….well...kind of...umm..” Minah looks over at Hyeri.

“Sorry, we just assumed things…”

“It’s fine. We’re…” What exactly was your relationship with Yoongi? Acquaintances? No, you definitely knew each other more than that. Boss and worker? That wasn’t it either. There was something there, something sweet yet unsettling. “We’re friends.”

“Oh. Okay.” Hyeri nods, a tad bit disappointed.

You feel relief wash over you as the words fall from your lips.

That’s exactly what you and Yoongi were - friends and nothing more. Friends were familiar, friends didn’t have unpredictable feelings and it wasn’t unsettling. You reassure yourself one more time that that was what he was to you and definitely what you were to him.

“Hey Y/N.” Yoongi calls you. “Y/N?” He looks over when you’re staring blankly at the shelf. “Y/N!”

“Huh? What? Is there something wrong?” You look over and he chuckles.

“Do you have something wrong? What are you thinking so deeply about?” He asks.

You.

“Nothing.” You shrug. “What did you call me for?”

He holds up a snow globe in front of you. “I think Sohyun would like this.” The base is painted in pink with white stripes, two bunnies inside with a snowman in between them. When you shake it, the glitter floats around. It’s cute and exactly what she would like.

You marvel at the object in your hands. “You’re right.” You look at him in wonderment.

When the both of you make your way to the counter, lining up, he laughs. “What’s up with the huge bag of jellybeans?” It’s at least five pounds, weighing heavily in your hands. You smile at it.

“It’s for Sungjae. He likes candy and I kinda feel bad about leaving him with my aunt.” You shake it. “I guess a little won’t hurt.” There was also a postcard in your hand for Aunt Eunhye who you knew particularly liked collecting such mementos to attach to her fridge.

“I wonder where Hoseok is.”

Yoongi shrugs. “I tried calling him but he isn’t picking up.”

After breakfast, you joined the student council members when Hyeri and Minah headed to the sauna with Hara and the rest of them; they invited you but you wanted to get souvenirs for your siblings. Taehyung and Jin went back up to do more skiing before having to leave, Namjoon and Jimin went to some coffee shop and Jungkook was competing in a hockey match with some locals. You were surprised that he got close to them since he was a relatively shy boy but you assumed the competitiveness in him overrided the introversion trait.

When Hoseok said he was going down to the shopping plaza, you happily joined him and Yoongi tagged along, saying something about wanting to buy snacks. Unfortunately, along the way, Hoseok disappeared and though you waited around, you both decided to just go ahead.

“Are you not getting anything?” You ask at the register and he looks around before his eyes land on you. He stares for a long moment as if you’re the most interesting puzzle he’s ever seen. He gazes gently at you with some kind of fondness or adoration in his eyes….and you wonder if he’s challenging you to a staring contest. It’s not until ten seconds that past where you frown and he inhales a sharp breath, that he looks away.

He disappears for a second as you’re checking out and suddenly, Yoongi smacks down a lock and a key onto the table. “A lock?” It was the kind that people would use to secure their luggages if they were going to a foreign country or use to seal their diaries, except it was a lot bigger.

“Yup.” It’s a slight second where Yoongi wears a completely decisive expression, one full of confidence with his shoulders held high. He turns, locking another gaze with you but more seriously this time. His eyes drip tenderly with honey, a spark that you don’t quite understand and then, his lips split into a huge smile. Your heart flips and you turn away.

You wonder what the hell is going on inside his head.

“Well okay...”

When you board the bus, you find yourself sitting down next to Yoongi. He said it was too much of a hassle for you to walk all the way through the crowds and you didn’t even remember your bus number either. You were lost from Hyeri and Minah, so you couldn’t even ask them. Hoseok would literally have to dig through the documents to find out where you belonged. Instead Yoongi said it was perfectly fine if you were with the Council Members.

But after half-an-hour, the both of you felt drowsy from the long ride. Tuning out Taehyung’s screaming, you fell into the heavy pull of sleep.

Hoseok, feeling tired too, stretches and turns around in his seat. A sight beholds him and he grins before turning back around.

You’ve fallen asleep on Yoongi’s shoulder and he’s fallen asleep too, leaning his head on top of yours. The both of you are snuggled up next to each other with tightly held hands, fingers interlaced in the middle of your laps.

Little did you know, Yoongi’s sudden resolve from earlier was a final decision - so to speak, a determination to finally make things official; and that it in fact, involved you and him, together.

#bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts scenario #yoongi fluff #yoongi scenario #bts yoongi scenario #bts yoongi fluff #bts yoongi fanfic #bts yoongi #yoongi #Shit is going down next chapter #MUHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA

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greetingsfromthebottomofthewell · 7 years

Photo

CORRUPTUS

[directory]

graven images.

[source] [triggers]

If you really believe in something, it can be yours.

That's how we've been conditioned to think. Mostly, I suppose it's a coping mechanism to keep us from eating the rich. We all think we'll be rich someday if we just want it hard enough. How long has it been since there was a good, old-fashioned culling of the wealthy elite?

That probably wasn't a good way to start this blog post... I'm more than a little tired, but fuck it. I'm leaving it.

"Corruptus".

That was the subject of an email I received before my ISP dropped me. My phone turned into a brick the same day. Hell, I think it was the same precise moment, though it's difficult to know for sure since I only tried it after my laptop couldn't connect.

"Corruptus"... I'd never heard the word before, and to be honest I'm not exactly sure it IS a word at all. It could be Latin. It sounds like Latin. I haven't been able to look it up, and this is the first time I'm getting on the web since my unexpected removal from the grid.

I tried to sign on at the local library, by the way. My card was revoked... unpaid late fees for books I'd never read, much less checked out. Mostly borderline fetish material and self-help books for various mental illnesses. The apparently quite detailed tome on weapons of mass destruction seemed to be of the most concern for the librarian.

I hung around the library for maybe a half an hour, until someone left a computer logged in and unguarded. When I went to check my email, to tweet a complaint about what happened, those accounts were gone, as well. Honestly, I was a pretty huge dumbass for expecting them to be there.

It wasn't long before I noticed the computer's rightful user pointing me out at the front desk. I guess she wasn't a fan of the direct approach. I was out the door before anyone could cause a real fuss.

It's been over two years since I left Mowgli's Palace and never looked back.

The original blog post has come and gone so much... across so many different sites... that I can barely even remember the first place I tried to host it. If I'd known how far this would go, I don't know if I would've been able to hack out that clumsy, flawed account of what happened. The pressure would've been too great, and I suppose there's a certain level of comfort in the idea no one will actually see or care about your work.

It seems like a lot of sites removed the information, either upon direct request from Disney... or on their own in fear of reprisal. I know a really popular YouTuber who pulled readings of my posts from his channel. The rumor was that someone threatened to sue him, some supposed "author" of the "story". Bullshit. I know first-hand that he took it down in a bout of pants-shitting fear when he realized Disney's connection to his partner company.

I tried to keep up my "After Abandoned" blog for a while. I don't know how many people out there saw my notes on Room Zero, Club 22, and so on. They're still around if you look... at least at the time of this writing.

Yes, "Club 22" exists. No, it's not a typo of "Club 33". I later learned, from the same contact, that there's an 11 as well, and supposedly the debauchery only grows as the numbers get lower. I heard of a "Club 00", but I can't confirm that as clearly as I can with the previous contact. I also don't know if it has any connection to the "Room" of a similar name.

Yes, the door probably said "Characters" or "Cast Members" instead of "Mascots". I know, I know, I hear you all. Thank you so much for that. I'm sure your memory is crystal clear in moments of abject terror, right?

Overall, I'm glad that my words have spread so far and wide... but the down side is that so few of you are taking this seriously. I can't stress this enough... Treasure Island? Real. The Utilidors? Real. Just because you can't substantiate the rest doesn't mean it's "a cool story". Instead of picking apart the inaccuracies and making games about how cool it would be to have been in my position, maybe people can start taking this seriously and digging into what's going on.

Maybe?

I don't know. I don't want this to be a rant. I want to stay focused and make sure I post exactly what I wanted to make public. All of the stress... the stalkers, the phone calls, the broken windows... I know that's all supposed to keep me off track. They want me confused, scared, and most of all they want me quiet.

There's a team of men and women in suits that I've seen at random times. Here and there. I call them "The Focus Group" because they pop up with clipboards and pens, taking notes about everything I do. They all have the same outfits, the same thick-rimmed nerd glasses, the same red pens that just scream "we're judging you".

The first time I noticed them, they were following me through the Mall. I looped and turned, trying to be SURE they were following me... and there they were, every step of the way. Days later, I spotted them again in the laundromat window across from my new apartment.

I chased one down, once. The tubbiest one. They stayed silent through the entire chase and even the scuffle that ensued. When I wrenched the clipboard from his hand, I only found page after page of off-kilter, random gibberish coupled with crude Mickey silhouettes. All in the same red ink.

I know it sounds insane, to say that a group of men and women in black are following me and taking nonsense notes, but I think that's the point. I think the idea is that it SHOULD drive me insane, and if it doesn't, you'll still think I'm crazy just for saying it.

It's a no-win situation.

I will forever regret that trip to Emerald Isle, but on the other hand I'll always be grateful to the people who have come forward, anonymously, to share their experiences with me. Whoever mailed me the suggestion box from the resort is basically my hero at this point. To read what I'd written about the place and still brave the journey... wow. I can't imagine how that felt, whoever you may be. You even left the original, corroded lock in the box so I'd know it was legit. To do all of that without even taking a look inside for yourself must've been really hard. Thank you.

If you haven't noticed, I'm treating this post a lot like my "final installment". There's a reason for that. I don't know how long I can keep subverting Disney's attempts at silencing me before some sort of final action is taken. I have no doubt that somewhere, at this very moment, someone is using my identity to commit a crime that would discredit me. That, or the men in white jackets are about to show me a lovely little padded cell. I don't know what's going to come of this, and that's the worst part I suppose. All I know is that it's coming.

So what is "Corruptus"? Well, as I mentioned it was the title of an email I received. One that was presumably deleted along with my account. It was blank, and seemed to exist for the sole purpose of placing an attached text document in my hands.

Too bad for the powers that be... I had already printed it the moment I saw it.

Not much they can do to reverse that, can they?

I should've mentioned... remember that library? I used their copier to run off a few thousand duplicates of that letter. A few hundred are stapled in random places, a few hundred were passed out to random people, and the rest... let's leave those as a little surprise. Have fun trying to stifle THAT, you horrible mouse-fuckers.

Without any more rambling, here's the letter. Word for word. It arrived from a source whose email address I won't disclose... though I assume it's an untraceable dummy account, anyway.

—

Summation of CORRUPTUS incidents for January, 2015

For office use only. This message contains information that may be confidential or proprietary, or protected by the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) named above. Any review, disclosure, distribution, copying or use of the information by others is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error or without authorization, please advise the sender by immediate reply and delete the original message. All email sent to this address will be received by the Disney corporate email system and is subject to archiving and review by someone other than the recipient. Violation of this disclaimer as written will result in prosecution.

Please refer to official guidelines with relation to "known" and "unconfirmed" incident reports. Respect regulation as per ongoing and/or finalized designations.

Known CORRUPTUS incidents up to and including January, 2015

Treasure Island

Extreme agitation/inappropriate activity within Vulture population.

Mild to moderate agitation/inappropriate human activity.

Resolved CORRUPTUS: Unidentified Avian Species

Abandoned. Final.

Disney's Pop Century Resort

Misplaced and mobile objects.

Chronological Displacement/Anachronism.

Unresolved CORRUPTUS: Wandering entity.

Pending.

Disney's River County

Microorganism infestation.

Unresolved CORRUPTUS: "Clear Man" aka "See-Thru Man" aka "Friendly John".

Abandoned. Final.

ImageWorks: The What-If Labs (2nd Floor)

Multiple missing persons reports regarding Dreamfinder's School of Drama.

Pin screen fatality.

Vibrating mirror sickness.

Unresolved CORRUPTUS: "Wily Wizard" installation

Abandoned. Final.

Mowgli's Palace

Auditory hallucination and/or projection.

Misplaced and mobile objects.

Moderate to severe agitation/inappropriate human activity.

Unresolved CORRUPTUS: Inverted Character

Abandoned. Final.

The New Global Neighborhood

Resolved CORRUPTUS: Fiber Optic Worm (NGN C 1)

Resolved CORRUPTUS: Digital Howl (NGN C 2)

Resolved. Repurposed.

Room Zero

Sudden-onset mass-hysteria.

Auditory hallucination and/or projection.

Unresolved CORRUPTUS: Unknown

Contained. Final.

Please note: Nara Dreamland is not an officially licensed Disney park and no information or resources are to be shared with any responsible for containing its residents.

A complete list of suspected CORRUPTUS incidents and reports may be available.

—

It took a few readings before I could get my head around this. Essentially, if the attached file was to be believed, then the events I had experienced were not part of an isolated incident. The events within Room Zero... the Gascots... they seem like part of a much larger problem.

What is "Corruptus"?

Corruption. I mean, I don't need to run Google Translate for that, even if I felt like I COULD take a break from writing without the risk of someone finding and disconnecting me at any moment.

Corruption of what? Dreams? Ideas? Desires?

I've never been a religious man, but I was dragged to Sunday School more than enough times to know about Golden Calves. False Gods created by man... icons, graven images...

Characters. Mascots.

If you believe in the Bible at all, and I'm not sure I do, especially not after what I've seen... then maybe God wasn't angry because people worshiped other things. Maybe he was afraid. Maybe if enough people believe in something hard enough, there's a chance it will come to be. Since we're naturally flawed beings, that means there's a very good chance such a thing would become corrupted.

If you think about it, Disney's animated films have always had one overriding message.

Clap your hands and believe hard enough, and Tinkerbell will live. When you wish upon a star... anything your heart desires...

People like to say Disney has some connection to Satanism, but I never bought into that. I still don't. I think they've been trying to create that Golden Calf... a God-Idol that everyone believes in... one that everyone loves... It's almost as if any dream or idea that is shared by enough human hearts and minds has a real chance of being born into the world.

The creatures... if any exist beyond what I saw with my own eyes... I think they're the deformed half-starts. Random manifestations of some dark, unquantifiable non-life that seeped into our state of being. They're mistakes of reality. Cosmic abortions.

The Corrupted.

Did everyone in Emerald Isle harbor such a negative impression of Mowgli's palace? How potent was the fear of nuclear war on the day Room Zero became full? If you want to find Gascots and mystery voices, does that search bring about the very thing you're looking for?

How many children have been disappointed, confused, or scarred for life when they saw Mickey without his "head"?

These are questions I'm never going to be able to answer. I don't know if anyone can. Speaking personally, this will probably be the last time I talk to you about Disney and everything I've learned about them. I'm truly sorry for that, especially since there's so much more I could say... unconfirmed rumors, documents and items I received that now seem to be gone forever...

I thought they were just trying to contain that Mickey costume. I thought that's why they went out of their way to keep the public in the dark about so much. Why they coerced and bullied to get their way.

Now I realize I was wrong.

It was this, all along.

They didn't want anything like THIS getting out.

I wish you all good luck, and I know I need the same from you.

Thank you.

[previous]

#horror #scary #scary stories #creepypasta #nosleep #corruptus #stories

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sebeth · 7 years

Text

Aliens: Outbreak, pt 2

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

Outbreak by Mark Verheiden and Mark A. Nelson

For your information, per Wikipedia: “The first three stories formed a continuation of the two Alien films that had been released by the time they were published. However, 1992 saw the release of Alien 3, which contradicted the events of the comics by beginning with the deaths of Newt and Corporal Hicks. In order to keep the stories relevant and canonical to the Alien film series, Dark Horse changed the names of the characters for future printings of the stories. Newt became Billie while Hicks was now known as Wilks.”

Bionational sends Captain Massey, a sociopathic killer, after the ship to “gather biological data on the lifeform” and “to inhabit the Benedict’s crew from retrieving a viable test subject. The corporation reveals that they managed to retrieve the escape pod of James Likowski, the pilot from the destroyed Coast Guard ship. Likowski has a face hugger attached to his head. He’s currently in Bionational’s Houston lab.

Doctor Orona is reviewing multiple patients’ files. All patients are in a 50-mile radius of Los Angeles. All are reporting visions of xenomorphs. Doctor Orona is very puzzled over these sightings as the existence of the xenomorphs is “completely secret”.

James Likowski awakens. The face hugger has fallen off and now the “creature has lodged itself in the subject’s digestive system”. The team has a rather cold discussion over whether they should inform Likowski of what’s happening to him.

Salvaje, the crazy preacher, continues to insist the xenomorph is “The Messiah. The Immaculate Incubation. God.”

Colonel Stephens is not happy to discover Billie aboard the ship. Commence huge hissy fit.

Massey’s crew boards the ship and goes on a killing spree.

Back on earth, the chest burster emerges from Likowski.

Bionational captures Salvaje’s cameraman and tortures him until he gives up everything he knows about the xenomorphs.

Bionational reveals that it has captured a queen xenomorph.

Colonel Stephens explains the deaths, caused by Massey, as “accidents”.

Billie makes friends with Bueller. Their relationship progresses into a romantic one. Billie’s continues her journey of self-healing.

Salvaje’s congregation storms the Bionational building and encounter the Queen xenomorph. Face huggers for everyone! Bionational securtity attempts to restrain Salvaje’s followers. Face-huggers and embryos are caught in the crossfire which seriously upsets the Queen.

Salvaje’s followers – all potentially implanted with embryos – escape in the confusion. It’s noted that gestation takes anywhere from 72 hours to a week. We now have the potential for dozens of xenomorph births in Los Angeles.

Colonel Stephens and Massey are working together. Stephens and Massey, along with Massey’s crew, take over the Marines’ ship. Massey executes Stephens as he “can’t countenance traitors – even when they’re on my side”.

Billie retreats to the air ducts and avoids capture. Massey’s crew doesn’t realize Billie’s escaped as she is not on the official ship roster.

Massey’s crew land on the xenomorphs’ home planet. Bionational are trying to discover if the xenomorphs are the dominant life force on the planet. I question the sanity of these individuals – they land on the planet that could have hundreds of xenomorphs and they want to find an even deadlier species? Honestly, there are less painful ways of committing suicide.

Billie is arming herself for a fight. She simply needed to get those drugs out of system to discover her inner Ripley.

Massey sends the unarmed Marines down to the planet’s surface. The men in the sky vehicles are attacked by flying green lizard-like creatures while the Marines are ambushed by xenomorphs.

Billie confronts Massey but is quickly overpowered by him. Billie gains the upper hand and kills Massey. He probably shouldn’t have told her that she didn’t have the guts to shoot him – that never ends well.

Bueller is ripped in half by a xenomorph and revealed to be an android. I wondered when an android will make an appearance. Wilks reveals that all of the Marines are androids. Bueller and two other Marine androids make it back to the ship.

The xenomorphs are pounding their way into the ship when they are stopped by a giant, elephant-trunked alien. Remember the corpse from the first Alien movie? Here is the actual live version: “It had dead eyes, seeing and not seeing. It had destroyed the aliens, but not for us, never for us. It didn’t speak, but something exploded inside my head, bright like a million suns. The images boiled up from some deeper place, the same plane as primal instinct – hunger, pain, fear.”

Aliens: Outbreak predates Prometheus by 20 years or so. I wonder if the writers of the movie read any of the Aliens comics?

Billie flashes back to her parents discovering a ship on the Rim world. The ship has the same corpse from the original movie. Billie is mind-linked with the giant and recalls what led to the crash on Rim: “The pilot aboard the cargo vessel lost control of its ship. It should have drifted forever – it should have carried the alien things into the hell of deep space. Instead it crashed into the world that man would christen Rim – and the spore survived. They waited patiently for new blood. They found it in the colonists.

We still don’t know why the giants are transporting xenomorphs – that’s an extremely deadly species to take offworld.

Billie’s mind-link continues: “It watched us with dead eyes and I felt a chill. It had come to the alien homeworld out of hate. It had rescued us out of revenge. “

I love how this story blends with the Alien, Aliens, and Prometheus.

Back on earth, the military continues to track down the infected: “At first we thought we’d be able to contain the spore. Infestation seemed limited to a narrow geographical range. And yet for every cluster we found, there were ten more just like it.

If I was a government/military operative, I’d be having nightmare. Could you ever truly be sure you captured/terminated every embryo/infectee?

We also learn that “Evidently the alien Queen is able to communicate in some subconscious fashion. With other species. In human beings, these disseminations manifest themselves in the form of pattern nightmares. The alien’s subconscious bait transcended class and political boundaries. We found hives everywhere.” I guess that explains how Salvaje came up with the vision of his “messiah”.

The military realizes they are out-classed: “…I assumed we still had time before any new queens would become viable. I was wrong. Perhaps our worst mistake was underestimating the sheer instinctual cunning of the creatures. We didn’t see the underlying pattern behind their evolutionary process – the way every facet of their existence was geared toward propagation. The queens matured at whatever speed their survival dictated. We had assumed the gestation period was time for the alien embryo to feed and grow, but it was more than that. It was an opportunity for the unknowing host to spread its spore to other sites. There was a geometric perfection to the infestations. Each queen would lay still more queens and with every generation the species became more entrenched.”

During the monologue, we see various locations of eruptions: an airplane, the beach, and a train station. Cue mass panic and disorder. Services such as water and electricity begin to fail. Enter the military. Testing stations for alien infections are created. Infectees are executed by firing squad.

“There were rumors the military was using the pretext of alien infection to eliminate political dissidents – the poor, the disaffected. As if such petty rivalries even mattered.” Very good point but those rumors/conspiracy theories would happen in real life.

Infestations are reported in Europe and Australia are reported. I can’t imagine the rest of the world is faring better. Maybe Antarctica.

Society has completely broken down: “…The aliens. Bionational. Fate. I know the truth. Those things didn’t destroy us. We did”.

The military – and “vital personnel” – are bailing to off-world colonies. Orona plans to detonate nuclear warheads – timed to coincide with the military’s “escape”. Before detonating, Orona transmits a broadcast detailing the events that led to the disaster. Orona is attacked by a xenomorph before he can press the detonation button. Billie and Wilks receive the transmission while on the aliens’ homeworld.

Wilks destroys the aliens’s hive. Billie reconciles with Bueller. The group head back to earth along with the giant alien. The military isn’t in to mood for alternative options – all they want to do is flee the planet. Can’t say I blame them. Wilks, Billie, and Bueller sneak aboard a cargo ship. The giant alien sends another mind-blast at Billie: “It – it had changed since the homeworld. It took me a moment to fully comprehend – it understood about Orona. It knew his twisted plan. We thought it shared our thirst for vengeance. We led it to earth in the mistaken belief it might want to “help” us. How could we have been so blind? It shared so many of our mercurial human emotions. Hate. Anger. The desire to conquer. It no longer cared about the aliens. Interest had shifted. The soldiers assumed they would return one day and terraform earth for themselves. It would watch. It would be watching for them.”

I’m not sure why the military would want to come back to earth. They weren’t able to handle the beginning of a xenomorph infestation. How are they going to handle an entire planet populated by the aliens? Not to mention the giant!

#Aliens #Xenomorphs #Prometheus

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fitnesshealthyoga-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/8-minimalist-vacation-packing-tips-i-absolutely-swear-by/

8 Minimalist Vacation Packing Tips I Absolutely Swear By

I’m an under-packer by nature. I try to travel with one carry-on only (usually a backpack)—even when I’m leaving the country for a while and even when I’m traveling with my 3-year-old son. Sounds crazy, I know. And while it’s true this method has occasionally led me to seriously questionable hiking footwear (and definitely led me to 10 days in Scandinavia with only one pair of pants), for the most part, it is a truly liberating way to travel. Doing a one-backpack trip forces me to sit down and think about what I—and my son—truly need and what we can live with out. It almost turns last-minute packing an hour before the airport drive into a moving meditation on materialism and our existence as a human society… almost.

But even with the most minimalist of packing, I usually end up on a vacation with a decidedly un-minimalist schedule—and an overburdened frame of mind. There are hotels to book and tours to take and sights to see and reservations to make, not to mention inevitable souvenir shopping that completely undoes the whole one-backpack logic in the first place.

And after a week or so of that plus who knows how many flights/hours on the road? Well, I end up back home needing a vacation from my vacation. Sound familiar?

That’s why I decided it was time for me, the minimalist packer, to become and actual minimalist traveler—to plan a vacation that involved bringing, using, planning and doing as little as possible. Enter the plastic tiny house, a 170-square-foot energy-efficient home chilling (or rather, heating up) in the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona. (It was designed by Tiny House Nation host Zack Giffin, NBD). Just by the nature of choosing this as my temporary home, I was already hopping on the minimalist bandwagon. This particular 170-square-foot and super-energy-efficient tiny house made of plastic is a testimony to how little we can use if we just think creatively (and a sink that feeds gray water directly into the toilet system doesn’t hurt).

Image: Courtesy of Tony Marinella.

That’s right. I headed to the Arizona desert in August to spend my vacation in 170 square feet with the bare necessities, no other humans and certainly no restaurant reservations. And just to make my minimalist vacation extra-official, I brought: one pair of shoes, six items of clothing (including underwear) and a toothbrush/toothpaste. And that’s it. And it was the best vacation I’ve taken in a long time.

Image: apedelman/Instagram.

So if you’re the type who thinks travel has to involve endless planning, scheduling, packing multiple suitcases, booking hotels, tours and dining options, think again. This is how deciding to take that minimalist vacation to a tiny house in the desert, packing essentially nothing, changed the game for this traveling mom.

Image: Courtesy of Jennifer Verrier.

Why you should take a minimalist vacation

It’s cheaper

That part’s a given. If you’re doing less, you’re spending less. Aim to spend on the bare-bones.

Lodging: No hotels! Aim for an affordable Airbnb, or better yet, arrange a free home exchange through a site like Kid & Coe.

Transportation: Bonus if you drive or take public transport to your destination rather than flying.

Food: Groceries, not restaurant bills.

Leave the entertainment part of the budget at $0—and see where it takes you.

It requires less planning beforehand

With an entertainment budget and schedule set at zero, you can save your at-home hours before the trip and those frantic last-minute Google searches for places to stay/eat/see. Instead, let your vacation “plans” involve walking out your door in the morning and seeing where your stroll takes you.

The getting-there part is way easier

Embarking on a six-hour (or 16-hour) flight is exhausting enough already. Do you really need to add multiple pieces of luggage and a trip to baggage claim to your already (literally) burdened shoulders? No. Pack only the essentials—and then remove five things from your bag before you go. You’ll be surprised what you can do without.

It forces you to be resourceful

I stand by the statement, “You’ll be surprised what you can do without.” That said, for my tiny house trip, I wildly under-packed—on purpose, of course—and in my minimization discovered two things I hadn’t packed it turned out I sorely missed, especially in the dry Arizona summer: a hair tie and lip balm. But you’d better believe I scavenged through that house to find an old elastic tag that I used to tie my hair up for the whole trip. Oh, and I absolutely put kitchen olive oil on my lips every night. #NoRegrets

It forces you to focus on yourself (for better or worse)

Guess what. When you’re alone in a tiny house in the desert (or a cabin in the woods or a yurt on the mountain or whatever your preferred solo-minimalist vacation locale may be), you cannot just keep busy and la-la-la your way through life and ignore whatever it is you really need/need to work on/need to give up. Your shit will rise up to the surface, and you will have to confront it. But hey, the only way out is through, baby.

I do want to note here that I don’t equate a minimalist vacation to “roughing it.” Any sort of camping/backpacking/what-have-you trip that involves trekking through the woods, setting up a tent, conjuring up a fire and all your meals and hauling ass to some dark bug-infested corner of the forest in order to “go to the bathroom” is all very admirable—but it’s not quite what I mean by minimalist. Because that shit involves work. Camping/backpacking, strangely like taking a fancy multi-hotel tour of Europe, does involve a lot of planning and preparing (isn’t that literally the Boy Scout motto?) and pretty much constant effort to keep that whole staying-alive-in-the-wilderness thing afloat.

For me, in this moment, I wanted a trip that still landed solidly in the vacation category of travel: somewhere warm and habitable with pre-appointed (indoor) lodgings and an actual toilet. You know, the basics that roughing it doesn’t quite provide. And I lucked out in that my tiny house was pre-stocked with some basic food as well: milk, coffee, eggs, butter. All of this is to say that this precise midpoint between roughing it and your typical vacation got me exactly where I wanted to get: the middle of the desert with absolutely nothing to do.

Image: Courtesy of Jennifer Verrier.

So, how do you take a minimalist vacation?

Book early

This is key both for planning-stress levels as well as pricing.

Pack light (duh)

See above re: items of clothing, toothbrush, sunscreen. I promise you can do it.

Don’t pack shoes—I mean it

This is my No. 1 packing tip for all forms of travel, but especially if you’re aiming for minimalism. You’re not going to a wedding here, nor are you climbing Everest. Whatever isolated locale you choose, plan to wear—not pack—one pair of sturdy, oh-so-comfortable footwear that will actually last you the whole week or however long you’re gone. If you’re heading to the hills, hiking boots. If you’re beaching it, Birkenstocks. As long as they’re comfy, who cares what they look like? Nobody will be looking at your feet anyway.

Get outside your comfort zone with food

Yes, sure, you have favorite meals and favorite recipes and favorite restaurants. But what’s something super-simple you can cook just for yourself literally every day for a week? Make yourself one big epic pot of soup and see how long it lasts or dive into the wondrous world of kitchari. It won’t be fancy, but you will be full. And just see how much brain space you end up with when you’re not thinking about meal planning every single day.

Move your body in new ways

This whole thing goes out the window if you sit in your tiny house like a rock for a week. You will not feel good if your minimalist vacation involves being horizontal the entire time. But no, you will not have access to SoulCycle or a hotel gym. So get creative. Take a walk, a hike, a run, a jump-around-the-lake-five-times. Try your hand at a solo at-home yoga practice even if you’ve only ever taken two classes before. Get in your body and see what feels good. Bonus points if you really see what feels good. You are on a solo vacation, after all.

Expect to go without

So, you’ve never gone a week without makeup? Or shampoo? What about deodorant? I see you cringing. But remember, this is your minimalist vacation. You are likely all alone—or as is so often my case, “alone” with a child in tow—and nobody cares about how your hair looks. Of course, this is not to say you should go a week without key prescription medication or brushing your teeth. But that hairdryer/concealer/five-step facial-moisturizing system? Leave it behind. And while you’re at it, see if you can leave your social media accounts behind too. I dare you.

Do pack one (tech-free) thing to “do”

Whether it’s that poetry book you’re reading (or writing!), a journal, a sketchbook or even your knitting, there will be times your mind needs a break from all that quiet time with itself. Give it one that will also fuel it.

For me, in my borrowed tiny house, the sheer lack of stuff to do—no tent-setting, fire-building, bear-repelling, or shit hole-scouting, but also no sightseeing, navigating, appointment-setting or museum-hopping—left me no choice but to face what I had come to face: myself. I wrote. I meditated. I walked. I cooked some eggs. I took the longest shower possible because, as opposed to my showers at home that are hastily sandwiched between dishes, laundry, lunch-packing, school drop-off and the workday (it’s a wonder working single moms shower at all, honestly), I had no schedule to rush off to, nothing to be inevitably late to and no reason to feel guilty or ashamed for happily standing under hot water for half an hour. Other than, you know, water waste and the environment. Damn it.

On my minimalist vacation, I had zero plans. I had to—I got to—face many small, strange situations and feelings that are entirely alien in my regular life: silence, solitude, boredom, ease, freedom, peace.

And guess what (this is the sixth and possibly most important reason to take a minimalist vacation)…

The effects extend way beyond the trip itself

All that solo soul-searching? You will definitely carry the aftereffects home with you. There’s nothing quite like a trip that’s based on packing/planning/paying/doing/using less to inspire you to take stock in your life and think about what you actually need going forward—you know, out of the tiny house and back into real life.

One thing’s for certain: You’ll never again forget to appreciate the value of a hair tie.

Originally posted on SheKnows.

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