#Bat Quintet

[gravitycavity]

Sunshine (Pomni x Ragatha) Chapter 7 - Only Human

[Click here to read from the beginning on AO3!]

Cover art by @blukiar

A thin ribbon of carpet, stretching just as far into infinity as the narrow corridor itself, explored distant depths soaked in darkness. A never-ending chain of chandeliers spanned the ceiling, cracked bulbs flickering in and out as they pleased. The experience was disorienting, to say the least — cruel and unusual torture, to say a little bit more. 

There was but a single source of reliable light in the entire hallway: the unassuming windows staged on the eastern wall in neat little quintets. Each glass-paned portal hosted a pair of tattered curtains that fluttered carelessly with the rhythm of the wind. 

Assorted furniture was scattered along the periphery, breaking up the tiring monotony of it all. An odd, uncanny energy surrounded their existence. Nothing besides the occasional lamp was mounted upon the dust-caked tables, and only a handful of random knick-knacks found home on the bookshelves. Nothing seemed to be placed with any thought or purpose in mind, as if something non-human were desperately attempting to construct a convincing facsimile of a sprawling Edwardian mansion, but couldn’t quite get it right. It understood what to place, and where — but the why it couldn’t fully grasp. 

The subtle horror made Ragatha’s insides quiver — but, all told, it could have been worse. At the very least, she was here in Pomni’s arms, where the chilling bite of the unknown was soothed by the warm glow of her touch, where the steady rhythm of Pomni’s footfalls wrapped her up in a blanket of sameness and security. 

Step, step, step. 

Ragatha snuggled Pomni’s chest, her head positioned perfectly to hear the rhythm of the young woman’s heartbeat. It was racing. Pomni must have been so tired, so exhausted, so ready to collapse in a heap and call it quits. But instead, she persisted, pushing her body and mind to the absolute limit. All for Ragatha’s sake. 

The plain little ragdoll closed her eyes. She pulled deep, contented breaths from her core, pressing her forehead firmly against the jester’s chest. If only this adventure could go on forever. If only she and Pomni could remain just like this — a helpless princess and her dashing savior — until the day they finally escaped into the outside world, hand-in-hand.

Step, step, step.

Pomni passed by another quintet of windows. Ragatha shivered as a chilly draft snuck through a crack in the glass pane. Its whistling entrance, performing in duet with the tittering of bats, chipped the unbroken facade of silence. 

“Hey. Pomni…?” 

The jester kept on moving, but her stride was a touch closer to walking than it had been before. Her gaze flicked towards her chest — or rather, the big bundle of red yarn resting snugly against it. “Yeah? What’s up?” 

“I’ve just been thinking,” Ragatha’s finger teased little circles around Pomni’s back, “what are we going to get up to when this is all over?”

Pomni hesitated. “When we escape the Circus?”

“When this adventure is over.”

“Oh. W-Well, uh…” Pomni cleared her throat, “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well, I happen to have a few ideas up my sleeve…” Ragatha smirked. It was difficult not to swoon, or snicker, or let out one of those satisfied sighs that relieved the pressure built up by a love-swollen heart. “Since we’re so…close now, why don’t I show you around my bedroom? We could have a sleepover, just you and me. Does that sound fun?”

“Um…!” Pomni’s whole body turned five degrees warmer. “S-Sure! Uh. Yeah! Okay! That could be, uh, f-f-fun…”

“You have those big letter blocks in your room, don’t you?”

“Uh. Yes…?”

“Do you use them for anything?”

“Huh? Well, no. Not really.” 

“Are they heavy?”

“Pretty heavy,” Pomni replied, squinting. She glanced down, meeting Ragatha’s flirtatious gaze, “Why are you asking me this?”

“Well, I was just thinking. Maybe you could lend me some?”

“For what?”

“Well, we’re going to need something to block the door, won’t we?”

Pomni squeaked, pale face flushing red. “Huh!? U-Um…!”

“In fact…” Ragatha grabbed Pomni’s tunic and leaned in closer. A distinct hunger roared within her, begging to be sated. “I never got to finish my lesson, did I? What if you got in a little more practice before that?”

“More…practice?”

“Mhm…”

“A-Are you serious…?”

Ragatha practically purred. “Deadly.” 

“Well, uh…” Pomni subtly leaned away, “...now doesn’t really seem like a good time, does it? We’re going to fail the mission if we don’t keep moving — and besides, we’ve got to keep our guard up for whatever it is that’s hiding in this hallway. Remember what that weird ghost lady told us?

“Hmm?” Ragatha pouted. “Oh, come on. Just one quick kiss?”

Pomni sighed. “No, Ragatha.”

Ragatha’s steady breathing lagged; the unflinching seriousness of Pomni’s tone slammed into her like a runaway train. Her plush heart shriveled, and her stitched-on eyebrows crinkled in confusion. Uh-oh. Oh, god. She didn’t mean to…!

“I’m so sorry, Sweetheart,” Ragatha cocked her head, “I thought we were just playing around — I didn’t mean to pressure you. We’re not moving too fast, are we?”  

Pomni’s steady stride slowed to a halt. Her eyes brooded pensively at the floor, watching the hard sole of her boot rap softly against the carpet below. 

“No. It’s…fine,” Pomni eventually replied, “We can kiss if you want.”

“If I want to!? Do you want to?”

“I…” Pomni swallowed. “...Well, duh! You’re literally the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. What kind of idiot wouldn’t want to kiss you?”

“Pomni.” Ragatha deadpanned. The flattery tactic wasn’t going to work. “Be honest.”

“I am being honest!”

“Please. I can tell something’s bothering you—”

Out of nowhere, Pomni shoved her lips against Ragatha’s, decisively shutting the dolly up. She tore away the very next moment.

“There’s your kiss. Happy?” Pomni grit her teeth, glaring down the hallway. She sulked into the dark depths with aplomb.

“Pomni! What’s gotten into you?!”

“What’s gotten into me? We have less than an hour before this whole adventure falls apart with us stuck inside it! That’s what’s gotten into me!”  

Ragatha narrowed her eyes. She was the farthest thing from naive — not when it came to matters of the heart. Pomni had started acting noticeably off ever since they’d shared their first kiss, and Ragatha wasn’t going to just stand by without at least trying to get to the bottom of it, time limits be damned. 

“Pomni,” said Ragatha, “put me down.”

“What? You’re not serious, are you?!”

“We’re not in high school, Pomni — something’s going on, and we’re going to talk about it. Like adults.”

Pomni grumbled under her breath. Rolling her eyes, she started toward one of the many overzealous couches placed periodically along the walls — the tacky type with legs carved into the shape of animal paws. 

Gently, Pomni did as Ragatha asked, setting the ragdoll down on the silky cushions. Despite her less-than-peachy mood, she still took extra care to make sure Ragatha’s weight was well-centered, and that her shoulders were propped up nicely against the backrest — lest Ragatha end up sliding off and flopping helplessly to the ground. 

“That’s perfect, Sweetheart. Thank you.” Ragatha shifted around, settling into her seat. She looked Pomni in the eyes and patted the empty spot beside her. 

Pomni plopped down with a huff. Like a troublemaking kid stuck in the principal’s office, she crossed her arms tightly, flashing her boots a dirty look. 

“Now, if it’s alright with you…” Ragatha exhaled, hands politely nestled in the lap of her royal dress, “Tell me what’s bothering you. I’m here to listen.”

Pomni’s tightly-wound posture compressed even further. “I just…” she squirmed, making an indecisive sound that drifted back and forth between a guttural groan and a high-pitched whine. “You and me…!”

She shook her head. She flexed her soles against the carpet. She squeezed the century-old, crumbling stuffing out of the century-old, crumbling couch cushions, until…

“I just don’t get it!” Pomni snapped, “Why would someone like you want anything to do with someone like me?”

Ragatha sat up. “H-Huh!?” 

Pomni’s wilting eyes wandered about Ragatha’s body, settling on the freshest injury slashed across the ragdoll’s torso. “You’ve shown me so much kindness. You’ve protected me, you’ve made me smile, you’ve been a friend when I needed one,” Pomni sighed. Her glowering gaze retreated to the floor.  “Meanwhile, I can’t even keep a simple promise to keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe? What—” Ragatha swatted her hand over the winding tear, “—you’re talking about this? Oh, Pomni! So I tore myself up a little! It isn’t—”

“Isn’t my fault? Give me a break — I’m not stupid!” Pomni fanned her fingers across her chest, “You hurting yourself would never have happened if I hadn’t flipped my lid earlier! I don’t get it, Ragatha — why are you so afraid to stand up for yourself?”

“Pomni!” 

“Why would you forgive me after everything I’ve put you through? Why would you kiss me?” Pomni bared her teeth, eyes jumping from bad, to worse, to awful as she regarded the clumps of cotton bulging out of the broken ragdoll. “How do you not despise me?”

Stunned into silence, Ragatha placed her hand over her throat. She could feel it tightening, strangling her from the inside. 

All was quiet. 

For the longest time, Pomni just sat there, rocking back and forth, stewing in the dreadful silence. And when she finally did open her mouth to reply, she flinched as if the reedy sound of her own voice had caught her off-guard:

“Ragatha…?” she croaked, “Do you remember yesterday? When we stopped in that clearing, and that horrible tree monster attacked us?”

Ragatha’s face hardened. She nodded.

“When that…thing had me in its clutches, you didn’t run away. You fought for me. And you saved me.”

Ragatha stared at the shivering woman seated beside her. Now, it was her turn to bask in uncomfortable silence, racking her brain to think of something, anything she could possibly say. The uncertain silence stretched father, farther, farther, until she just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because. All this time,” Pomni wilted. “I’ve been wondering. Wondering why.”

“...Why I saved you?”

Pomni just barely eked out a nod. 

“I mean…do I really need a reason?” Ragatha couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “You didn’t expect me to just leave you behind, did you?”

White-hot shame simmered behind Pomni’s eyes. Head in her hands, she slumped closer to the floor, trembling voice peaking just above a whisper: “Did you expect me to…?” 

Ragatha snapped to attention, hand flattened against her chest. Pins and needles numbed the tips of her fingers.

So. This was it. 

Finally, they were talking about it.

Ragatha bastioned herself. She took a deep breath, and—

“You don’t have to make excuses for me,” Pomni croaked. She held her musketeer cap over her face, crumpling the wide brim beneath her fingers. “What I did to you…” her pupils retreated, “...it was awful. Just awful.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ragatha shook her head. “For all of that crazy stuff to happen on your first day? Before you’d even had time to adjust? You were in shock. You were terrified.  It wouldn’t be fair to judge your actions based on—”

“How did you convince yourself that your feelings don’t matter?”

Ragatha’s face fell flat. “...Pardon?”

“I know you’re just trying to be kind. Because that’s the type of person you are,” Pomni said. “But…you need to stop.”

“St-Stop?”

“I hurt you. How do you expect to heal if all we do is dance around it?”

“I…” Ragatha’s mouth slowly shut. She felt utterly transparent — and in the span of a single second, the mental house of cards that she had so carefully constructed for years came crashing down in a big, fluttering heap. 

‘How did you convince yourself that your feelings don’t matter?’ Pomni’s blunt words ricocheted off the walls of her mind. ‘How do you expect to heal if all we do is dance around it?‘

Ragatha wilted. She didn’t know the answer.

She was so accustomed to being the first one to offer a supportive ear, the first one to provide a firm shoulder to cry on, that her own feelings had long ago been exiled to a dusty, long-forgotten corner of her mind. 

Like everyone else, she wanted nothing more than to escape the digital insanity ward she found herself trapped in — but she wasn’t naive enough to believe that desire was anything more than a pipe dream. For now, and maybe forever, her weird little found family of co-prisoners was all she had. And she knew it.

So she had to keep the peace. She had to be the neutral voice of reason, the rock solid foundation that kept everyone bound together — and that balancing act alone was taxing enough. Why in the world would she want to foil that precarious peace with her own petty problems?

But it was…fine. It was. Ragatha had always been good at regulating her own emotions. All she had to do was bury any bothersome thoughts beneath a heap of questionable excuses, paper-thin rationales, and half-baked half-truths until the pesky voices didn’t pester her so much anymore. And just look at her! She was fine. 

Totally fine. No problems here. Nope. 

Shakily, Ragatha swallowed. Her head slumped. Who was she kidding, lying to herself like this…? Why was it so difficult to just be honest about the burden she carried — the pain, the loneliness, the emotional isolation that weighed her down further each day? And why, after all these years, was she just now questioning all of this?

Her heart beat just a little bit faster. Her breathing picked up to match. Her eyes brimmed with tears as, out of nowhere, the obvious answer whisked through her mind:

No one had ever cared to ask. No one besides Pomni.

A cozy sense of safety embraced Ragatha’s heart. She didn’t care to turn away, or hide her face beneath her hands, or wipe away her rolling tears. It was okay to cry here. 

Her wandering, watery eyes heeded the disheveled nest of hat hair that adorned Pomni’s head. They admired the unrelenting dorkiness of the jester’s forced-on musketeer costume. They beheld, as if in a trance, a lovely pair of pinwheels bursting with one-thousand-and-one emotions at once. 

She smiled, warmly and earnestly. So this was what it felt like. To be cared for. 

“Okay then,” Ragatha spoke softly, forcing her mouth to take the shape of the words. She couldn’t help but squirm, tearing open the door on feelings that she’d already worked so hard to lock away. “I’m going to be very frank with you — because I trust you. And I know you trust me.”

Pomni cowered behind her crinkled cap, fingers carving crude lines across the rawhide brim. Her pupils retreated meekly toward the floor. 

Ragatha bit her lip. “Back on your first day, when you left me alone with Kaufmo? Yeah. That hurt. I was confused, and scared, and angry, and…” Ragatha swallowed, “...a-and…”

“And what…?

“And I came closer to losing myself than I ever had before.”

Pomni’s cap wrinkled beneath the jester’s tightened grip. “Wh-what!? You mean…?”

Every jumbled line of code that comprised Ragatha’s digital body shrieked at her to stop, to be a good girl, to shut her big mouth and stop causing drama. Nevertheless, she made her story heard. “I’m not that strong, Pomni,” she said, “I’m just good at hiding my weakness. Probably too good, to be honest…”

“But…but that doesn’t make sense! When I came back to you, your body was all glitchy and flickery — but you weren’t abstracting!”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it. All of us have vastly different digital forms, — so, naturally, they abstract in vastly different ways, too. Whenever I feel myself slipping…” Another tear raced down Ragatha’s face at the thought. She crossed her bulky, dollish hands over her chest, “...it starts on the inside.”

Pomni lowered her cap to her chin, exposing her drooping face. “In your heart?”

Glancing away, Ragatha nodded. She stroked the back of her hand in a self-soothing gesture. “I could feel the threads fraying as soon as we opened Kaufmo’s door. The seams of my heart began to tear open, and this awful coldness spread throughout my body.”

“And…” Pomni hesitated, “...then I left you. All alone. And y-you almost…”

“Yeah. But, you know…” Ragatha met Pomni’s crinkled, shame-stricken gaze, and a smile — a real, genuine smile — put an end to her tears. “...I’m still here. Do you know why?”

“Well, I…” Pomni glanced here and there. Her hat sank further down to cover her chest. “Um…”

“You said it yourself, Sunshine,” Ragatha’s smile made itself comfortable, stretching wider and shining brighter. “You came back.”

 Pomni’s eyes were wide, “I...what?”

“You came back for me, Pomni.” Ragatha pressed her hands against her mouth; her grin grew and grew until it almost looked like she was laughing. “When I heard you plodding down the hall, worried sick, calling after me with that nasally little voice of yours—

“Nasally!?”

“Gosh, you sounded worried sick…” Ragatha giggled, taking Pomni’s hands into hers. “Pomni, just in the handful of days I’ve known you, you’ve proven yourself to be one of the most caring, most courageous, most selfless people I’ve ever met,” Ragatha said. Her thumb glided lovingly against the back of Pomni’s hand, “One mistake doesn’t change that.”

Pomni wasn’t looking back. Her chin quivered slightly, and her hands wriggled stubbornly in Ragatha’s grip.

“Didn’t anybody tell you what happened after that? After I went to find Caine?” Pomni sniffed. “I found a door. I tried to leave. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else except myself, and—” 

“And I forgive you.” Ragatha said. She felt the jester’s shuddering grip tighten around her hands. 

“I’m trying to forgive myself, too.” Pomni glowered at the winding constellations of slices, holes, and cuts wrapped all around Ragatha’s body. She studied their shape closely, her face warping further with every newly-discovered fray. “I’m trying as hard as I can to make up for the way I treated you, but no matter how hard I try, you keep getting hurt. And I just…” she sighed. “...I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could have saved you.”

Ragatha sighed, looking over Pomni’s hands. The poor girl was being so hard on herself — it hurt just to listen to.

Letting go, Ragatha reached into her pocket and produced a round, palm sized box. The transparent lid revealed its contents: A needle, several spools of thread, and a worn-out, heart-shaped pincushion. 

“I…what…?” Pomni blanched. She fastened her cap back on her head. “What is this…?”

Ragatha pressed the container into Pomni’s hands. “You tell me,” she said.

“A…sewing kit?” Pomni held the box up to her ear and gave it a light shake. The contents rattled around inside. “Wait a minute — you just had this on you the whole time?!”

“Uh, well…” Ragatha forced out an awkward laugh, “...kind of?”

“So I did all that work for nothing?!”

“Trust me. It wasn’t for nothing.” Ragatha winked. It was cruel — all she wanted to do was reach over and smother Pomni in a great big hug, but she knew that doing so would only strain her stitches. Confined to her half of the couch, Ragatha gazed pleadingly into Pomni’s eyes, tugging the woman’s arms toward herself with a look that said ‘please, come closer.’

In no time at all, Pomni acquiesced, letting herself be swept into Ragatha’s embrace. Ragatha draped her arms over Pomni’s rigid backside, and rested her forehead against hers. 

“Pomni,” she said, “if you really want to give this a shot, you have to know that one of us is going to screw something up sooner or later. We’re only human, after all, and if there’s one thing every human is good at, it’s #%@$ing up.”

Pomni flinched at the rare curse word out of Ragatha’s mouth — and, for the slightest moment, she even cracked a wary smile. “Yeah,” she snickered, rolling her forehead against the dolly’s. “that’s true…”

Ragatha smiled brighter. “But I know we’ll be okay. We’ll learn from our mistakes, and come out stronger on the other side. Because I love you, and if there’s one thing adventuring with you has taught me…” Ragatha closed Pomni’s fingers around the sewing kit, “...it’s that no matter what happens, we’ll always be there to put each other back together again.”

The kit’s plastic casing whined in Pomni’s ever-tightening grip. Pomni sat in stunned silence — but her tepid breath pounded against Ragatha’s neck just as before. Butterflies swooped and swirled in Ragatha’s stomach as Pomni’s hand combed through the dolly’s cherry-red curls — pinching, petting, rolling frayed twists between her fingers. 

“Ragatha…?”

“Hm?”

Pomni swallowed. “D-Did you just say…” Pomni’s fingers traced a jagged line across the stitched surface of Ragatha's cheek, “...you love me…?”

Ragatha shrugged, casual as could be, “I did, didn’t I?”

A big, stupid smile brightened Pomni’s face. “I—” she stammered, resting her weary head upon the ragdoll’s soft shoulder. “I—” she stuttered still, her weak, wavering voice crumbling to pieces. “I love you, too...”

Ragatha’s heart sang with pure joy. 

She let out a mirthful laugh, squeezing her darling as hard as she could. Pomni squeezed back, and all at once, a wonderful feeling of belonging — of finally returning home after having been away for so long — warmed the ragdoll from her very core.  

“My beautiful little ray of sunshine…” Ragatha spoke through a shuddering smile, running her hands through Pomni’s chestnut hair, breathing in her breathtaking essence. “...I love you with all of my—”

Regrettably — or perhaps not, depending on who you asked — there wasn’t much room for that kind of sentiment between the lines of the Circus’s cold, uncompromising code. Whether or not its players were soulmates, shared the same star sign, or called each other cute little pet names hardly mattered. This heart-pounding adventure was falling apart, and fast. 

Another savage quake shook the mansion’s decrepit foundation. Bricks, metal fittings, and chunks of rotten wood fell like rain. Noxious plumes of who-knows-what poured down from the ceiling. 

Ragatha and Pomni yelped in tandem. And it only got worse from there. 

Instinctively, Ragatha pointed her triangular nose toward the rumbling ceiling — but she did so just in time for a sizeable chunk of falling drywall to clonk her directly on the snout. She cried out, suddenly and sharply, from the dizzying pain. 

The abrupt noise caused Pomni, who still clung to Ragatha, to flinch and lose her balance. She tumbled off the sofa and onto the dirty floor, dragging a wincing Ragatha down with her. They landed in a heap — Ragatha on top, and Pomni squished below. 

All around, rattling chandeliers swung to and fro like crystal pendulums. Antique bookshelves teetered and tottered, vomiting their dusty contents onto the floor. A cavernous fissure split the ceiling with a bloodcurdling crack, spraying forth needles of splintered wood like lethal confetti. 

“R-R-Ragatha!” Pomni ground her teeth, hugging her girlfriend tightly. The back of her head paddled violently against the vibrating floor. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” she cringed in pain…

…but then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling ceased. 

Pomni groaned, opening her eyes again. She blinked in the newfound peace, gawking at the woman laying precariously on top of her. Assorted debris coated the floor around the pair like a blanket of dirtied snow. 

“Oh my gosh! A-Are you—” Pomni hacked up a cloud of grimy dust, “— are you okay?”

“Aww. Look at you, all concerned for little old me,” Ragatha pecked Pomni’s cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m made of cotton. I’ve walked away from way nastier falls than that.” 

“Oh! Yeah. Right,” Pomni blushed. “I keep forgetting we aren’t exactly human anymore...”

“You’re cute.” Ragatha said with a freehearted giggle. She admired her partner’s dorky little hat, the brim of which was entirely covered in grimy mansion-dust. To be fair, though, her own hair likely didn’t fare any better — a fact which Pomni would confirm a moment later:

“Uh…by the way,” Pomni pointed to the left side of her head. “You’ve got a little something here.” 

“Oh, really? A little something?”

“Yeah. And also…” Pomni’s finger jumped around her head, “...here. And here, and here…”

 “Gosh, that’s an awful lot of ‘little somethings’...” Ragatha giggled. “To tell you the truth, you’ve also got something here,” she pointed to one side of her head, “and here. And…”

Ragatha’s voice trailed off. Deliberately, she lowered her head, eyes narrowing. 

The bank of dust atop Pomni’s musketeer cap was…moving. Spinning. All on its own.  Around and around, the miniscule particles ran an endless circuit around the cured leather brim, slowly drifting upward with each completed lap. Before long, the spinning particles had formed an upside-down cone shape — a tiny tornado of dust. Atop Pomni’s head. 

What in the world…? 

Ragatha could only stare, her mouth ajar. She watched through squinting eyes as the vortex grew tighter and taller, bending with purpose the way a blooming flower reached for the sun. She knew she ought to be used to this sort of nonsense by now, but miraculously, the deranged parade of oddities she encountered every day still managed to confound her, even after all these years. At least Jax wasn’t around to chide her for the stupid look on her face. 

“Uh, hellooo? Are you even listening!?” Pomni waved her hand in front of Ragatha’s face, derailing the redhead’s racing train of thought. “What are you staring at?”

Snapped back into the real world — or, at least, a convincing facsimile thereof — Ragatha’s gaze settled on Pomni. Words failed her, and so, she simply pointed.  

With a bewildered blink, Pomni’s eyes followed the slight downward curve of Ragatha’s finger. The jester’s shuddering gaze inched down the corridor, following the length of the swirling vortex until, at last, the anomaly disappeared into the distant darkness. 

Pomni balked, rubbing her eyes. “The #@$% is that…?”

And it only got weirder from there. 

A second whirlwind — sourced from a pile of debris on a nearby bookshelf — formed in the same way. It stretched down the corridor, fading into the pitch black just like its predecessor. A third, made from the dust coating a palisade of pulverized paintings, came next. A fourth followed suit, then a fifth, a seventh, a tenth, a twentieth — until the vast network of swirling arteries was far too numerous to count. 

Though difficult to make out in the dark, the endpoint of each vortex intersected at a single, unified point. There, an amorphous, filthy cloud began to form. It swelled larger — and larger, and larger — inhaling each and every speck of filth that had accumulated in the hallway. Then, like a mound of clay molded by supernatural hands, the cloud’s shapeless form gradually began to define itself:

A snaking, trunk-like body, made up of dozens of interlocking segments. A pair of gaunt, twitching appendages flanked each of these sections, sprouting one after the next like an infestation of wriggling weeds. A final segment, sporting two nasty spikes, capped off the end. A set of peering eyes, gnashing pincers, and twitching antennae distinguished the head. 

Ragatha whimpered, shrinking away from her worst nightmares made manifest.

It was a centipede. Filth and disease incarnate. A grotesque, fetid creature from hell, standing one foot taller than her and extending longer than her eyes could even perceive. 

The dolly’s patchwork heart seized within her chest. Jittering, black spots infested her blurring vision, dancing without a care as the narrow walls of the haunted corridor closed in. 

The hall was spotless now; every last speck of dust and debris had been funneled into the beast’s frightening form. And so, with its formation complete, the creature came to life.

“P-Pomni…!” Ragatha gasped, roughly clutching her chest. Something had snapped. Something inside of her. No. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. 

The centipede turned. Snap. 

The centipede cocked its head. Snap. 

The centipede creeped closer, and closer, and closer still, its long, slender legs chattering loudly against the floor. Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Pomni! P-Please…!”

The fragile seams of Ragatha’s heart popped one-by one, stretched out to their absolute limit. A cold, barren sensation slithered out of the organ with every stuttering pump, numbing all that dared to touch its toxic essence.

///

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[First Chapter] [Next Chapter - Coming soon!]

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[basedkikuenjoyer]

The Jojolands: Weapons-Grade Lovable Dorks

Had to get caught up on Jojo's with a little breaksky from One Piece. I know I've said it a lot but holy crap is this part drawing me in right off the bat solely off of the strength of the characters. Dragona is a total treasure, and it's cool because you don't see Araki doing cute a whole lot but he's doing it very well! We're eleven chapters in and I still want to watch this whole group develop. Jodio's a great contrast and it is refreshing to do more of a sibling Joestar dynamic, Paco's developing into a good heavy, and Usagi? Well, it isn't called Jojo's Mundane Adventure you know? He's a little freak and it's starting to come off as the right kind of scrunkly.

You are starting to see more of a distinct identity form. Steel Ball Run & Jojolion felt like they took a long time to get into that, and a big reason I love Stone Ocean is how fast you get to know exactly who Jolyene is. The siblings are very mission focused and they love their mama the lovely Barbara Ann, who breaks up the tense segment beautifully. All this stuff with the watch and trying to suss out the mysterious lava rock is just plain working for me. And hey! It isn't just Dragona, Jodio really sold me on himself in this stretch:

Is it anything hugely unique for Jojos? Nah, but you are a man of action and there's a lot of charm in how steadfast he is. He's kind of an idiot and I do want to have time to play with the idea he doesn't always know what to make of Dragona, but there's also a certain wisdom and clarity behind his actions. He's feeling more like a looser Giorno and that's a great niche for your lead to hit. The current conflict with this sand stand dude is shaping up into a solid showcase for the main quartet that may be growing into a quintet depending on how the next leg of this fight goes. Speaking of:

I adore the artwork for this dude. How he manifests through these perspective-warping illusions. Type of stuff that reminds you why this author got to be featured in the Louvre. Seriously, this is some of the coolest shit I've ever seen in a battle manga and I kinda hope we do keep this guy around for no other reason than thinking this is a cool stand. I also want Dragona to get the pretty $80k watch because Dragona deserves all the nice things.

So yeah. Not too much to say now, I don't intend to just get every chapter with this because it's Jojo's so why spend months picking apart a fight that can do anything but I'm still very much engrossed in the story unfolding as-is. Hawaii is a great choice of settings and it's fun seeing such a modern group. Kudos to Araki for staying hip enough the teens feel like modern teens.

[todaysbat]

round one: i don't know enough to be witty

Noibat and Noivern are bat Pokemon. Noibat is cute and purple with big ears and evolves into Noivern, which looks like a bat dragon with the classic color scheme of purple, black and green—and still has big ears. A+ bat designs here.

Ares is a large black bat of unknown species from the Underland Chronicles quintet by Suzanne Collins.

[heaven-s-black-box]

Tired- Jing Yuan x wife!oc & child!Reader

Return to File

Recovery date: April 19th, 2024

Description: Hello, I saw your story with the reader being Jing Yuan's child and it got me thinking about what happened before Jing Yuan and the reader's mother got divorced, when the reader was still a little baby.

Notes: This work was recovered in conjunction with an anonymous researcher, we thank them for their contributions. In the same universe as HCQ future gen.

Part: 1 2 3

Word count: 812

Back to directory

Jing Yuan was tired. So tired.

He found himself dozing off at his desk more often. He’d never been fond of the paperwork that came with being a Lieutenant, he’d joined the knights to avoid such boredoms in the first place, but it felt even more exhausting now.

Once, he would alleviate this boredom by calling upon his friends. He would spar with his master, or have tea with Dan Feng. Perhaps he would take a walk and make sure Yingxing had lunch, or sit in on one of Baiheng’s flight tests. Now they were all gone, exiled, dead, or locked up.

The Lieutenant let out a long sigh as he dropped back in his chair, head hanging back.

A gentle melody cut through the drowsy silence of his office, making him perk up suddenly and snatch his phone off his desk. The contact name and profile picture forcing him to smile tiredly. 

There’s a chim when he swipes to accept the call, and he’s immediately met with a soft face and drooly toothless smile. His baby babbles happily as his wife cheers them on in the background.

“My, my,” Jing Yuan chuckles once the babbles cease, “it sounds like you’ve been busy.”

Y/n squeals as their mother pulls them back to her lap and places a kiss to the top of their head. Jing Yuan turns on his camera, and he can see the way his wife’s eyes darken with worry at his droopy eyes and the dark bags. Her eyes weren’t much livelier, getting used to an infant was hard on them both.

He was grateful she’d been so understanding about his need to return to work.

Y/n seemed to be annoyed at their parents’ silent conversation as they started babbling again, making the adults laugh and prompt the child to continue.

Babbles turn into gurgles and Y/n spits up all over themself.

“Oh no, it seems like we’ve made a mess,” Jing Yuan coos, catching his wife's attention.

“Have we?” His wife responds, looks down at the baby. “Oh, we have!”

She grabs a nearby tissue and wipes up the spit. Y/n’s face twisted in annoyance, hands batting at their mother as they struggle against the clean up.

“How are you doing?” His wife asks as she balls up the tissue and begins bouncing Y/n on her knee. Her voice snaps him from the daze he’d re-entered in the silence.

“I hate paperwork,” he grumbles, “and… I’m tired.”

Yes, that was the only word he could think of, and it wasn’t just the lack of sleep or paperwork. He was tired of all the interviews he’d been subjected to on the matters of Jingliu and the attempted resurrection of Baiheng, he was tired of the scrutiny as people waited for him to follow in the footsteps of the rest of the Quintet, and yes, okay, the paperwork and newborn brain were not helping.

Seriously, he’d started rocking a bundle of swords he was running back to storage. The only good thing to come out of that was someone pointing out there was no way he could plan anything as elaborate as Dan Feng in his current state.

His eyes drifted to a stack of papers on his desk. It was a report he needed to finish asap, and one that he’d felt even more invested in since the birth of his child.

Perhaps they could be friends.

Dan Feng’s words drifted through his hazy mind as he zoned out once more.

This was unfair to his wife, he knew that. She was still recovering from Y/n’s birth and here he was trying to care for his friend's child, lost in grief, and back at work. He felt horrible and knew he needed to make it up to her, and yet-

“Let’s order in tonight.”

“No, you need proper food. I’ll-” Jing Yuan was cut off as he yawned, “I’ll cook when I get home.”

“Dear, you need to sleep. I appreciate you feeding Y/n in the middle of the night, and taking the late night diapers so I can rest but you’re just as worn out as me.”

At some point Y/n had dozed off against their mother, a little bubble of spit forming and making the tired Lieutenant smile.

“I’ll pick something up on the way home.”

“And ask for some time off please?”

“I’ll try to take the weekend off.”

“Good.”

Jing Yuan lets out a weak laugh as his wife smiles.

“I’m going to put them down,” his wife said softly, cradling the baby a little closer so she can stand up. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Alright, rest well little sparrow,” he addressed the sleeping baby, “and I will bring you the best take out I can find.”

“That sounds perfect. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[guizhongballista]

may time wait for us [ jingren xianxia au ]

summary: what happens to legends after their tale is told? jing yuan lives a content and comfortable life as a highly respected cultivator in this age, long after the days of the glorious high cloud quintet. as its last living member, he finds that the echoes of the past do not fade so easily.

pairing: jing yuan x blade (ren) but it's mostly just sad jing yuan

word count: 2k

a/n: my second fanfic ever and it's still really bad but !! after not writing creatively for three years (endless oc ramblings only) and finally sharing my first fic back in august, i think i am slowly improving... feedback is always appreciated and loved <3 thank you !

special thanks to: @apopcornkernel, twt/Mushuroom1109, twt/fierycree, twt/naihilan_ for beta reading and comments !!!

*accompanying art will be shared later, I am a slow artist hahahh

read my one (1) other work on ao3 (nagazora kiamei pain 700 words)

---

glossary

xianren 仙人 - celestial or immortal

laoban 老板 - shop owner

xiuzhe 修者, xiuzhemen 修者们 - cultivator, cultivators

jianbing 兼并 - traditional street food with a savory filling, similar to crepes

baozi 包子 - steamed bun with a filling, can be savory or sweet (i had savory ones in mind for this fic!)

xiaqi 下棋 - play chess

ganbei 干杯 - to drink to a toast but literally means "dry cup" because you're expected to empty your cup after (or try to)

shifu 师傅 - teacher or master

---

When the clouds guarding the mountaintops parted, it was always a good day to visit the bustling town at its feet. The sect members would often head down between their studies and training and do everything from enjoying local delicacies to picking up imported goods to simply relaxing.

For one blonde-haired cultivator, though, the highlight of the town was an antique shop. Nestled in a quieter part of town, it boasted an ever-changing selection of fine swords and general weaponry from all corners of the world. Yanqing could chat with the laoban for hours about each sword’s story, and he tended to leave with a lot more than he’d bargained for. As for how he acquired the funds… it was usually thanks to the sect’s resident xianren, a certain white-haired man.

After much convincing, Jing Yuan decided to accompany the youth down the mountain today. Quiet moments in the sect were hard to come by, so when most of the sect members were out and about, he made the most of these moments by partaking in certain leisurely activities. Yanqing was particularly insistent today; Jing Yuan himself hadn’t been to town for a while, so perhaps a change of pace was in store.

The quaint shop was located in the eastern part of the town, a decent walk from the path leading to the sect. Jing Yuan, fan in hand, took in the familiar and unfamiliar sights as the pair made their way through the streets, with Yanqing leading the way.

As with every visit, most things stayed the same. Yet there was always something that had changed.

A new face in town, recently moved in. A new store owner who’d taken over a longstanding business. A new flyer advertising the “best eats in town.”

Or—new things that were now old. An old bulletin forgotten and vandalized. An old kite, beyond retrieval. An old road, still dirt where the others were paved stone.

Such was the passage of time.

The antique shop’s laoban was sitting idly at a table near the shop entrance, polishing a small blade. He brightened up when he saw Jing Yuan and Yanqing approaching, then got up and made his way to them, clasping his fist in greeting.

“Xiuzhemen, it’s been a while.”

Jing Yuan smiled and returned the greeting while Yanqing tried to strike up a conversation immediately off the bat.

“It has! I’ve—ah!” Jing Yuan tapped Yanqing with his fan, and the boy quickly repeated the greeting. The laoban simply laughed.

“We’re all friends here, no need for such formalities.”

Jing Yuan shook his head. “If I let one of our sect’s finest cultivators slack off, what would everyone else think?”

Yanqing rubbed his head, pouting slightly. “Well, as I was saying, I’ve heard really good things about new additions to the collection from my friends. You already know I want a look, and you know what I like!”

“That I do. Please, follow me.”

Yanqing looked up at Jing Yuan cautiously and chuckled abashedly. “Hehe…”

He nodded with a small sigh. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

The man took a seat at the table where the laoban had been and took out a scroll. But he soon found his attention divided between reading and the hustle and bustle of town just a few streets down.

Chatter and laughter mingled with the yells of street hawkers. Delicious aromas wafted toward him—Jing Yuan made out roasted sweet potatoes, jianbing, and… baozi? He smiled. Maybe he did miss freshly steamed baozi after all. He was also sure he’d spotted a vendor selling drinks on the way, specifically zhenzhu naicha. A blend of milk and black tea, plus a chewy tapioca topping. It was very popular among the younger cultivators. The drink had quickly become one of his favorites too, but he would never admit it. After some consideration, Jing Yuan finally put his scroll away. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to look around, if only for a moment.

He began to meander toward the town center, and more and more people filled the streets as he got closer. Soon, he was moving in and out of a sea of townsfolk. Conversations flowed like currents beneath the surface.

…What had he come here for again? The smell of baozi was overpowering now, but Jing Yuan found himself caught in the tides of life, just observing. Everything was constantly moving, constantly shifting; blink, and you would miss something. Life did not really change for one such as him, and so he stood unmoving, as a stone in a river would, mourning the vicissitudes of life. Sinking into mundanity with each passing year. Slowly, yet surely, eroding.

To always want to do something and to not do anything, to have that choice, as opposed to having eternity laid out before oneself and realizing that one can only walk this lonesome path to nowhere for so long.

Everything was constantly moving, constantly shifting; blink, and you would miss something.

A familiar face, one out of dozens, perhaps unremarkable to most, save for crimson eyes that pierced through the soul. A familiar voice, a familiar laugh, almost lost in the thunderous waves around them. At that moment, if Jing Yuan blinked—he feared this would all be but a dream.

It had to be him.

The lone white-haired man was the first to pause in his steps as they strode past each other. “Pardon me, xiuzhe. Have we met before?”

The lone dark-haired man walked a step further before realizing he was being addressed, then came to an abrupt stop. A moment’s hesitation. “No.”

Disappointment flashed imperceptibly across Jing Yuan’s face. “My apologies, then. You… just look like someone I used to know.”

“I see. Good day,” he replied. And there was nothing more to it. The other continued on his way. Time began moving again. The dream shattered.

A quiet sigh escaped Jing Yuan’s lips. As usual, nothing changed. He who had many names, from Yingxing to Ren, and lived many lives, would only remember one life, ever. What was he hoping for? He dared to allow himself this hope—that time could, perhaps, wait.

He had no reason to hope. Time did not wait for him centuries ago, at the precise moment Jing Yuan left everyone behind. Or, did everyone leave him behind? Death is a normal part of life; all would be courted by death someday, though some felt its embrace far too early. And some would never feel its embrace at all.

The same lingering regrets rose to the surface once more. One day, if the man remembered, Jing Yuan would tell him everything, from the long overdue apologies to the dreams they once shared. Let’s xiaqi later, it’s been forever. You owe me that rematch. I’m sorry I cannot be with you now. I haven’t forgotten. The glaive you made for me, I got to show it to heaven’s best swordsmith, and I told them your name. That you were the greatest blacksmith to ever walk this earth. I’m sorry I cannot fulfill our promise.

A promise, made many lifetimes ago, to meet again. The then-white-haired man had made Jing Yuan promise, but at death’s door, he seemed to have forgotten it would always be a one-sided promise.

The cycle of reincarnation wiped one clean, for better or for worse, save for their debt. He who had escaped the cycle watched his friends repay their debt over and over. How cruel of the heavens to spare him.

So he mused bitterly, as Yingxing—or Ren, or whatever he was called now—walked further, and further, and further into the sea. Leaving him behind. It didn’t bother him. He was used to it by now. Used to living through memories. One of the few things he could take solace in was how the choices that the five of them made would never leave him. For better or for worse, he remembered it all. The triumph and defeat. The elation and despair. The way they shook the heavens centuries ago had gone down in history. They were hailed as legends. But even legends die.

Jing Yuan was about to turn around when his eyes fell on a few other familiar faces encircling Yingxing, and his heart skipped a beat.

A young lady with red eyes smiled softly, as she listened to another young man bicker with a fluffy lavender-haired woman. The young man seemed to be motioning animatedly, only for the woman to bat playfully at him.

Their weapons were at their sides. Two swordsmen, an archer, a spearman.

Some things didn’t change after all.

More memories resurfaced now. A call to ganbei, as Baiheng laughed. Frequent sparring sessions with Dan Feng and Yingxing—they were always a delight. Jingliu’s intense gaze and strict training, which often left him panting but exhilarated. Once upon a time, he had made promises with them too. They were all carried away by the currents of time, one by one. When the waves subsided, Jing Yuan found himself completely alone for the last time.

At least in this life, then, they found each other again.

The moment of reminiscence dissipated as their forms blended into the crowd. He became vividly aware of himself, standing in the busy street, as people weaved around him.

This was time. Unceasing, unrelenting, unforgiving. If he didn’t move, time would move regardless.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice shout for him and he turned around. He blinked; he hadn’t realized how far he’d wandered. The town’s busiest street was a far cry from the quietude of the antique shop.

“Shifu… shifu!! I… finally caught up…” Yanqing burst out of the crowd, panting heavily.

Jing Yuan raised an eyebrow at the items in the youth’s arms; they weren’t there before. “Who told you to run off and buy swords?”

“But I didn’t! You were the one who said you weren’t going to go anywhere!” Yanqing pouted. “Besides… these are one-of-a-kind!”

Jing Yuan chuckled but faltered as he observed the swords.

The boy gestured to one sword in particular—gleaming ebony with golden cracks. Its tip was crimson, as though it were frozen in the state of creation.

“The laoban said this one was crafted centuries ago by Yingxing! That famous blacksmith! I’ve read all your scrolls on him. Why do you have so many? Anyway, it had to be re-forged, but it’s even more beautiful now… if you ask me,” Yanqing explained as he beamed proudly. “I can’t believe my luck! I’ve always wanted one of his swords.”

Jing Yuan finally smiled again and ruffled Yanqing’s hair. Yes, he was very lucky indeed. His gaze lingered on the weapon.

This was time. Unceasing, unrelenting, unforgiving. If he didn’t move, time would move regardless.

So he moved, and the hand that penned the past stopped. He’d come back to it later. He always did. It was a history worth writing, a proof that he and his friends were not just legends, but that they had lived, too.

But for now, he had new promises to fulfill. New histories to write. New legends to make.

As he and Yanqing began navigating the sea of people, the curious boy posed one more question.

“Shifu… maybe it’s not my place to ask, but what were you looking for?”

Jing Yuan considered his next words carefully.

“I just thought I saw some old friends.” He would say nothing more. “Come on, you’re too slow. That’s what you get for buying so many swords.”

Yanqing groaned as he picked up the pace. “I know…”

The duo, too, eventually disappeared within the sea.

Time… truly waits for no one.

[sparklecryptid]

Still want to write that ‘Dan Heng and the others on the express get YEETED back into the high cloud quintet era and DAN HENG IS HAVING A FUCKING TIME OF IT pretending to not be who he is or what he is while Dan Feng and Not-Blade and Not-His-Jing Yuan hover and try to figure him out’ fic

(Stelle in the background: *sees Dan Feng*

Stelle: *raises her bat*

March: *firmly* no we can’t hurt Dan Feng

Stelle: not even a little bit?

March: not even a little bit.)

[valiantwarriorsquadroncomic]

MISSION 7

The airfield that held APOTHECARY’s bunker continued to rattle as the HCA’s aircraft continue to strafe the base. any and all aircraft that hadn’t been shot down had been destroyed on the ground. The pilots ceased their runs and proceeded to circle the bunker surface like vultures over potential prey. Nathan became surprised as several HCA copters hovered above them

“No way, we’re getting come actual, tangible back up for once from the krauts?” Nathan said, giving the others the go ahead to advance. Joseph’s scars flared up for a moment, he felt an almost euphoric sense of cruelty wash over him as he dowsed APOTHECARY. A cruel smile cracked across his face as he and his comrades charged. He then shook himself out of it, remembering that he was here for JUSTICE, not revenge. As the VWS arrived to engage the ALA’s American soldiers, its American mercenary auxiliaries, and the shattered remains of Prospera’s MUERTA BLANCO faction, panic had begun to spread. The VWS met a small platoon of QM commandos, who both then approached a mediocre barricade guarded by more MUERTE BLANCO commandos, all looking horrified and exhausted. “Hold your ground.” Nathan said in a casual manner. “Stay here, we got this covered.” The neo nazis hands trembled as they shot at the quintet with worn handguns and civilian rifles. Their bullets bounced of laleh and her vest as the rest made their way from cover to cover. The neo nazi’s commander, a white american man, pointed his finger at the vws.

“CHAAAARGE!” he bellowed, blowing into a whistle. The MUERTE BLANCO operatives didn’t budge, only moving to turn towards their commanding officer in complete disbelief. One of them was so shocked that he dropped his weapon. The commanding officer snarled at his platoon’s insubordination. “I KNOW DAMN WELL EACH ONE OF YOU UNDERSTANDS ENGLISH, GET OUT THERE AND STOP THOSE COALITION CIRCUS FREAKS!” It seems that weeks of poor rations and rest, having to survive in the unforgiving Prosperan jungles, and incompetent leadership leading to unnecessary casualties had begun to take its toll. “DON’T MAKE ME TELL YOU AGAIN!” yelled the commanding officer.

“You won’t have to.” Whispered an especially haggard looking MUERTE BLANCO operative. He drew his weapon and shot the commanding officer in the chest. He crumpled to the ground. Veronica poked her head out of cover, her yellow eyes slowly becoming offwhite. The sitation had devolved into a bizarre stand off as one of the MUERTE BLANCO soldiers dropped his tarnished assault rifle. He turned slowly to the rest of his own soldiers. “If you stupid assholes want to die in this hellhole, be my guest.” He ran off into the the cracked walls where the jungle lay. After murmurs and whispers, the remaining MUERTE BLANCO soldiers also fled from their post. Nathan snapped his comrades out of their disbelief.

“Let’s go everyone, we got a bastard to apprehend.”

“My god…it certainly appears that the ALA could be falling apart faster than anticipated.” Fritz whispered. A small distance away, ARACHNEA, observed veronica and began to feel pangs of guilt and failure. She couldn’t contain her disbelief that the bumbling group of greenhorns that she was sent to monitor had become an increasing thorn in the ALA’s side. The hideous, screeching bat thing that she almost blew to kingdom come was now tearing through her troops. She observed several other locations outside the bunker via her command posts. The tv screens showed imagery that could’ve been mistaken for a horror film, if it weren’t live feeds of their soldiers getting slaughtered. American mercenaries getting torn to shreds by the erasure unit, ALA soldiers and a small contingent of europra’s fury soldiers getting blown apart by E-12. In her final recon sweeps, she witnessed more of ALA operatives fleeing from their positions and into the jungle around them. Several of their jets were destroyed by HCA private air-force fighter jets.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE, KEEP SETTING UP DEFENSES!” she bellowed at the combat engineers, who were already running low on material and on the verge of collapse. She flicked on her personal radio to communicate with ALPHA KOMMANDO’s commanding officer. “WE’RE LOSING MEN FAST, I NEED REINFORCEMENTS.” The radio crackled as a calm voice rang out.

“UNFORTUNATELY, WE CANNOT AFFORD TO PROVIDE REINFORCEMENTS AT THIS TIME, YOU ARE TO HOLD OUT AS APOTHECARY IS EVACUATED FROM THE BUNKER.” No sooner had he said that, APOTHECARY was dragged out of his barely disguised prison to the last dinky jet that was being guarded diligently by several poltergeist commandos. Another crackle went out as SGT. Gustavo interjected once again from his own bunker.

“THEY’RE COMING CLOSER, I NEED EVACUATION IMME-” the radio went dead silent as a loud bang went off on the background.

“I NEED FIRE SUPPORT NOW!” She yelled into her intercom. There was no answer except a panicked report from another American ALA operative.

“THERE’S THESE TWO GIANT BITCHES TEARING US APART, WE CAN’T HOLD ON FOR L-” he started before an especially loud shotgun blast silenced him. She knew that E-12 had been seen deployed in the area, but she could never dream that the bunker’s rear barricade would fall so quickly. She tried flicking through multiple channels before connecting with someone.

“WE’RE TRYING TO GET SOME MORE ARMOR TO THE BUNKER, BUT WE’VE BEEN AMBUSHED BY THOSE MARXISTS AND THEIR FREAKS.” He announced as a round of gunfire seemed to almost graze him. “Wait what the HELL is that?!” The operative continued as a helicopter above him had gotten struck by some sort of anti-aircraft round that was shaped like an arrow. He screamed as a large crash finally silenced him as well. She was soon met with her lieutenant.

“Ma’am” He started “ your effective obstacle and defense placements have killed 10 CSTF soldiers, and 12 QM soldiers.” He winced as his shoulder was recently shot, poorly treated with a cloth rag rather than a bandage. “We also have reported your mines knocked out a tank from the Prosperan army.” He winced again. “I’m afraid I do have some bad news, our combat engineers have run out of mines and plastic explosives.” He continued as he gripped his shoulder “the scarred owl has also been scene on the battlefield, and the CNGS and its proxy forces are breaking through our defenses.” From far away, Ted and Sergei were keeping tabs on the ALA troop movement, killing ALA snipers, and tracking down any ALPHA KOMMANDO members.

“Nathan, it looks like they’re pulling out without informing their other soldiers.” Sergei announced. “I figure they’re just using their remaining useful idiots as bait to flee for their lives.” Ted looked at the chaos through his scope as high ranking ALA field commanders were boarding apcs’ with their abomination soldiers and experienced ALA soldiers. They rapidly fled the area without notifying their mercenaries or MUERTE BLANCO operatives. Some of them began to realize that their superiors were leaving them to die, causing some of them to jump on the fleeing armor, banging and screaming out of fear or anger. Some officers ordered their personal guards to kill any mercenaries and their own infantry who came too close.

“They’re pieces of shit for joining the ALA, but I almost feel bad they’re bein’ used as human roadblocks.” Sighed ted, noticing a flock of tropical birds in the distance. He was momentarily distracted by their beautiful plumage amidst the fire, blood, and carnage. Meanwhile, Joseph and Veronica were instructed to get into a sniping position. Joseph spotted a large abandoned tower being guarded by several abominations, whom were left to hold the line as their superiors fled into the jungle. Veronica’s eyes turned yellow in delight for an easy kill, but Joseph stopped and hushed her. Offended, she placed her hands on her hips as he crept towards them. He grabbed a small batch of rocks and spotted an technical truck far away. Taking careful aim, he threw several of the small rocks at the vehicle, which loudly bounced off its hood. The abominations opened fire at the truck, making Joseph’s eyes bulge in horror, who was merely expecting them to investigate the sound. The truck exploded as the abominations rushed off to the burning scrap.

“FIND THE CORPSES.” Said an heavy abomination officer. “TEAR THEM APART AND SHOOT THE REMAINS.” The rest of the abominations began firing into the truck some more. “GOD KNOWS THAT OUR HUMAN OFFICERS WONT, AND THEN SOMEHOW BLAME US…AGAIN…” the officer continued to grumble. “THIS IS THE EIGHTH GODDAMN TIME WE’VE HAD TO STOP AN AMBUSH WHILE UNDERSTAFFED.”

“Holy shit.” Whispered veronica as she and joseph crept into the unguarded building. Joseph gave her a quiet thumbs up, letting her know he it was clear to enter.

“Now we don’t have to waste time getting into a firefight while this… ARACHNEA lady slows down or kills our allies.” At the top of the building, veronica unzipped her pack and assembled the large anti material rifle. Joseph looked like he was going to vomit at the sight. “Pretty sure a regular rifle could do the damn job just fine.”

“Before you complain, our orders were to make sure any and all ALPHA KOMMANDO operatives are dead, PERIOD.” She assembled the barrel quickly. “You can’t get much deader than an anti armor-round through the skull!” she hummed as joseph observed ARACHNEA. “Also, the ammo in this thing is pretty expensive to make, so don’t miss.” Joseph’s scars flared as saw the glare of a sniper rifle from opposite his position. The enemy sniper was erratic, constantly changing position, and firing at pretty much anything moving in their direction. The ALA also weren’t playing anymore, and wanted him dead. Though the sniper didn’t detect his position, Joseph observed that he had his face covered by a balacava. His gaze then zeroed in on veronica, who had an extra sniper scope that fell off her person, alongside a makeup mirror. The scope was dirty and unusable, but still reflected light. He noticed the empty room, and a metal pole broken off a bathroom wall.

“I got an idea.” He said as she tilted her head in confusion. “You got any extra helmets in your pack?”

“Well yeah…” veronica said, fumbling with the pack. “I brought some extras and I didn’t wanna fumble with cleaning.” The two sat beside each other as he loaded the rifle, the plan formulating in his head as gripped the scope.

“I don’t know where he is yet, and sticking our heads out to get sniped isn’t an option. He took the helmet from her and motioned jamming the metal bar into it. Veronica tilted her head to the side again, until she suddenly understood his idea. She nodded her head vigorously.

“How marvelously devious!” she cheered, giddily taking out a piece of rope. Meanwhile, ARACHNEA’s command pose was in chaos, the communication experts desperately tried to unjam their equipment. They panicked as they ran, trying not to trip over the giant cables and wires.

“Call me nuts, but it feels like high command underestimated what a pain the scarred one can be…” said the ALA lieutenant as he brought up his field glasses, searching the woodland for the glare of a sniper’s scope. “Who would’ve thought that an inferior, non-white species of subhuman would be so much trouble to deal with…” ARACHNEA saw APOTHECARY being rushed to the jet via her own binoculars as she tried to process the situation. He suddenly saw the glint of light shining off a glass lense. “THERE!” he screamed at his sniper on the roof. “GUN THAT FOOLISH UNTERMENSCH DOWN!” the abomination sniper almost stumbled as he took aim and fire into the glaring lens in a decrepit building. It shattered upon conact, causing the sniper to cheer at seemingly killing Joseph. His joy turned to unbridled terror and confusion as he looked back into his scope and noticed that there wasn’t a body, but a sniper scope tied to a helmeted stick, jammed into the rotted wood of the windowsill. Before he realized he was duped, his head was partially blown off by a sudden bullet.

“How BRILLIANT and CUNNING!” Veronica said, praising Joseph’s idea to bait the other sniper. She clapped her hands like a young girl. Joseph could sense ARACHNEA’s presence within the building and took aim, noticing that she appeared to be completely stationary.

“My god, I don’t nearly have enough men or material to stop them…” ARACHNEA whispered as her radio began to crackle, her second in command in hysterics as his sniper was slain.

“THIS IS HIGH COMMAND, THE RESIDENTIAL AREA IS LOST, YOU ARE TO ACT AS A ROADBLOCK FOR APOTHECARY AND OTHER WNM6 OPEARTIVES TO ESCAPE.” ARACHNEA fought through nausea and disbelief to muster up a rather unkind choice of words for her superiors.

“WAS I JUST SOME SACRIFICIAL LAMB TO YOU?!” she screamed into her radio.

“WE SIMPLY NO LONGER HAVE THE RESOURCES TO WAGE WAR IN PROPSERA PROPER, AND THE CNGS HAS INSIDIOUSLY PULLED THE STRINGS AND UNITED OUR SEPARATE ENEMIES TO FIGHT AGAINST US.” ARACHNEA became choked with disbelief as she swore she saw a person stir within the shadows of the residential building. “YOU SHOULD BE HONORED THAT YOUR DEATH SHALL ASSIST IN THE COMING OF THE ARYAN PARADISE.” High command finished before ceasing contact with her. The second in command laid his head against the building one last time as he saw the scope glare, a wound on his shoulder mounting.

“He took out out best sniper…did they just…assume he wasn’t a threat because he’s a racial untermensch…? A loud BANG erupted from a giant rifle. An anti-material round ripped through ARACHEA’s skull, reducing it to a crimson paste splattered on the wall, her cranium reduced to a large blossom of crimson before her body fell in the ground. Her limbs contorted and twisted as her nervous system ceased to function, and her body finally fell limp. The building was filled with screams of the ALA soldiers. Within his sniper nest, joseph took shallow breaths. Veronica smiled with delight behind her helmet.. Joseph’s hands trembled as he held the great rifle in his hands.

“IS THE ALPHA KOMMANDO OPERATIVE LIQUIDATED?” asked MacMillan. Joseph breathed a deep sigh of relief as he continued to fight the joyous glee of life being extinguished.

“Affirmative.” He whispered, quietly returning the giant rifle to veronica.

“Quite the shot!” she declared, noticing Joseph’s grim expression. Her tone quickly changed “You have to remember they’re monsters now.” She emphasized in a much softer voice.

“Maybe.” He said, loading his carbine and gently giving the rifle back to her. “That doesn’t stop me from the overkill putting a bad taste in my mouth.” Joseph’s scars flared as he sensed several footsteps running up the hall. “THE BEASTS ASCEND!” he screamed ominously.” He began firing through the walls, with veronica following suit until the footsteps stopped. Josephs scars flared again as he used his a burst of his sudden human agility to jump from the window. Gunfire tore through the opening he slid further into the building. Veronica vaulted behind an iron bookcase as more gunfire rocked the inside of their snipers nest. Joseph popped out as the abomination reloaded, and pointed at a certain part of the floor. “RIGHT THERE!” he screamed.Veronica nodded as she sprayed return fire where joseph pointed. A loud scream and gurgled cough echoed, followed by a loud thud. Silence followed, only the distant gunshots in the ensuing raid opposite of their position could be heard. Veronica stood near the spot, and looked towards her comrade. Her finger was now back on the trigger, despite the sudden silence. He nodded, prompting her to unleash a torrent of fire again. One of the abomination’s bullet managed to graze Joseph’s vest amdist the chaos. A second scream wasn’t even heard. Joseph pointed again to the other abominations he could sense through the building, prompting the giant bat like woman to open burst fire again. He sighed as he gave her a thumbs up. “Bastards heard us, and even tried to play dead.” He whispered. He looked out the window with his scope, sensing APOTHECARY, he stared him down as he attempted to run towards an escape jet. “CAPTAIN, HE’S MAKING A BREAK FOR THE JET NEAR THE RED HANGAR!” the two dashed downstairs, but not before Joseph halted. He prepped his bayonet. “No more surprise.” He told her before stabbing the dead abomination through the skull. Veronica saw and opened fire on the bodies.

Within the abandoned building, Nathan instructed Fritz to apprehend the fleeing APOTHECARY. Fritz saluted diligently and barreled out of the building. Laleh dove infront of her captain as two poltergeist abominations burst through the ceiling. Nathan was able to kill one with his handgun, however, the second commando threw a flashbang at the two, leaving Nathan to flee to cover, and laleh to take the brunt of the impact. Her head flew back as bullets impacted her helmet, and the abomination stabbed her in the chest. Her eyes bulged and foam spewed from her mouth. Her gloves ripped as her claws unsheathed. However, she took a deep breath, accepted that her anger was a part of her, and grabbed the abomination by his neck before throwing him through the building. Nathan popped out of cover.

“Jesus christ.” He remarked. “Are you ok?”

“A lot better the last time this happened.” She replied breathing deeply and regaining her control. “Counseling helped me a lot, now let’s go help fritz.”

“Great fucking idea, laleh.” He replied with a smile. He took cover in the door way and used his handgun to shoot the downed poltergeist commando. His face grew hot with rage as thoughts of N.1685 crept through his head. He quickly regained his own composure afterwards, Laleh fearfully noting her captain’s self hatred. As the two flagged down an erasure unit vehicle, Fritz closed the gap, making temporarily slowing down and avoided debris and the corpses of ALA operatives he took out with burst fire. He noticed WRAITH in the distance riding an armored vehicle with another E-12 member in an odd shaped mask. He adjusted his internal radio within his helmet.

“This is CASTRATI!” said the armored bat like man as he made sure to slow down when crossing area full of debris. “I’ll be assisting you to apprehend the target soon.” The soldier he reported to, WRAITH, answered back.

“Not really keen on getting assistance from a monarchist, but OK.”

“Listen, I know our factions have indeed have some quarrels, but we need to band together for the sake of justice against the fascists.”

“That’s nice.” Answered WRAITH. “I want revenge.” Fritz could hear the buzz of an engine in the background. “Just stay away from that jet unless you feel like getting caught up in the fireball.” Gunshots rang out as the small abomination guard shot at several E-12 soldiers who began to advance on APOTHECARY. He was wracked with horror as the last of the remaining ALA soldiers near him were being routed by the combined forces. Any and all substantive ALA forces near him were either dead, fled into the jungle, or deserted.

“EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!” screamed an Australian ala operative. “THIS WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY’S A DEATH TRAP!” He threw his gun to the ground and fled the scene as APOTHECARY’s remaining bodyguard futilely tried to hold their position.

“LOOK OUT!” APOTHECARY screamed as he saw WRAITH burst out of the jungle on an armored car being driven by another E-12 member. Using her enhanced reflexes and superhuman balance, she slapped a large parcel of plastic explosives on the jet as she and her driver sped off into the jungle. APOTHECARY dived for cover as the jet burst into flames, metal and flames swept over the abominations. APOTHECARY cowered in terror as the ringing in his ears died down. Suddenly, he spotted fritz bounding after him. Instead of terror, it was a sudden wave of relief that washed over him. The coalition would have no choice to take him alive if he surrendered. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the armored car WRAITH was riding shotgun in. The car ran over foliage and metal signs as her driver took out a submachine and gunned down his abomination guards. WRAITH didn’t even wait for her driver to stop to chase down the neo nazi. Her long fingers twitched as she drew a combat knife from her vest. Other E-12 operatives arrived to provide her cover.

“Don’t look, PHANTOM, I don’t want you to see this.”

“BEIRA SAYS HE MUST BE TAKEN ALIVE AND PUT INTO CNGS CUSTODY!” PHANTOM called out, leaping from the car’s driver seat.

“True.” WRAITH barked as she leapt towards her target, “BUT AT LEAST I CAN CUT SOMETHING OFF.” APOTHECARY tore off his various ammo pouches, knives, and hand guns.

“I AM ENACTING CNGS TERMS OF SURRENDER 575-Y, I REQUEST PROTECTIVE CUSTODY.” Fritz flipped APOTHECARY onto his back, and began to zip tie him. WRAITH stopped on her tracks, the heels of her boots dug into the immaculate,paved road.

“You’re just going to let that MONSTER into the CNGS’s neo-liberal prison system INTACT?” WRAITH hissed as she brought out her customized assault rifle. Fritz put his boot into APOTHECARY’s back, and stood tall and stalwart as wraith walked up to him face to face, for he would refuse to let himself be policed by a Marxist. Despite being almost two feet shorter than him, WRAITH refused to back down. “You have no idea what his abomination program did to ME.” She hissed again as PHANTOM was driven back in order to calm her.

“Hey…I think you need to stand down” Said PHANTOM trying to defuse the situation. WRAITH pointed to PHANTOM. “NO IDEA what it did to THEM.” She continued as APOTHECARY began shaking and praying for god’s protection over the increasingly volatile situation.

“I have no niceties towards this man, and I am simply complying with my CNGS allies.” Fritz spat back.

“That MAN is a MONSTER.” WRAITH retorted as she shot a single bullet 2 inches from APOTHECARY’s head. “HOW MANY OTHER TRAFFICKING VICTIMS AND POWS DID YOU DISSECT FOR YOUR LITTLE TOY SOLDIER PROGRAM?!!” She screamed as PHANTOM had to physically restrain her.

“BOTH OF YOU STAND DOWN!” yelled nathan from a microphone, the two whipped around to see Nathan in a CSTF light armored vehicle with the rest of his comrades, and stopping mere 3 feet in front of APOTHECARY. Laleh thundered out, her helmet cracked and her vest had three bullet holes in it. Fritz drug APOTHECARY to his feet, and tore off his hood, revealing a pasty older middle-aged Englishman with a full head of grey hair, face wet with sweat and tears. Nathan took APOTHECARY into his grip, Veronica pushed her way past the two men and placed herself squarely in front front of fritz, her arm outstretched to shield him from WRAITH.

“Don’t bother talking sense into that woman.” Veronica got into WRAITH’s face. “Threaten my brother again, socialist witch, and see what happens.” She hissed. WRAITH was then overcome by a large shadow, only to be met with Laleh’s gaze, her eyes furrowed into anger within her helmet.

“I’ve been informed that you were also a survivor of this terrible man’s experiments.” Her gaze then turned into sorrow. “I’m so, terribly sorry that you suffered such monstrous things, but I can’t let you bypass diplomacy.” APOTHECARY heard quiet footsteps approach him, he didn’t even need to bother to turn around to know who it was. Not even the agonizing tightness of the zip-tie that fritz used to bound his hands could distract him from the impending terror of facing his consequences. Joseph’s gaze met with his. “PLEASE, DON’T KILL ME!” apothecary screamed. The scarred young man’s mind ran a mile a minute, dark intrusive thoughts flooded his mind.

“The bayonet.” He whispered to himself as his eyes darted to the bloodied weapon he used to ensure the abominations that attacked him and veronica would stay dead. “Cut out his eyes, then his throat.” The young man’s thoughts filled with thoughts of sadistic glee. That was until he looked slowly towards laleh, whose big yellow eyes could be seen through her glass visor. Her brow was furrowed with concern rather than shock. He thought back about all the times they spent together, how she emphasized the importance of kindness in a cruel world, even if it seems useless. He backed off, causing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. Laleh’s gaze became less intense.

“Thank god…” APOTHECARY spat out.

“I’m not going to kill you.” Said joseph. “You’re going to live so you can pay for every terrible thing you’ve done to me, to other people…” he pointed to WRAITH and PHANTOM. “And what you did to THOSE two.” The two paused, almost shocked that CNGS operative were concerned for their wellbeing.

“We got him alive, MacMillan.” Reported nathan.

“Then the mission is over, drag his ass away from the airstrip and regroup with ACKERMAN near the clearing.” Nathan nodded as Fritz dragged off APOTHECARY like he was a heavy sack of garbage his captain’s position. Before Joseph lead his comrades to Ackerman for their pickup, he looked back at WRAITH and PHANTOM, who regrouped with more QM soldiers to continue the battle.

“What about them?” he asked. “We’re supposed to help our allies, right?”

“Our mission was to capture apothecary.” Nathan responded. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”He took one last sad, forlorn look at PHANTOM, knowing that they were upset by his presence. The VWS left the scene as the pair of super soldiers took a look at each other.

“She’s an odd woman.” PHANTOM remarked as they got back into the armored car. “Despite slathering herself in conservative and monarchist propaganda and symbols, she at least respects our identity.

“Fantastic.” Answered WRAITH as she entered the shotgun seat, ready to aid the QM soldiers. “Let’s give her a medal for doing the bare minimum and getting our pronouns right.” The two charged back into the fray to aid their comrades. Far away, the VWS-1 exited the vehicle and met with Ackerman. The clearing was eerily calm as explosions rocked the airstrip in the distance. Sergei and ted kept watch for any ALA reinforcements or stragglers. As the VWS-1 waited for Ackerman, APOTHECARY spoke up.

“Before I am imprisoned, I enact the CNGS addendum 3820 to explain myself. Nathan sneered before giving fritz the OK. The war criminal yelped as fritz twisted his arm and neck, and forced him to look face to face with joseph. APOTHECARY then attempted to plead for his life, finally scraping up enough gumption to once again face the young man whose life he destroyed. Joseph’s fist trembled in rage as APOTHECARY fought to take his eyes off his still bloodied bayonet. “I was put in charge of the abomination program, my superiors told me it was I that would singlehandedly save the concept of the Aryan paradise.” Joseph stood unmoved. “In my arrogance, I began to make mistakes.” He was yanked back from joseph when he attempted to move closer. “It was an accident, I had left the newer staff in charge of an experiment and I didn’t properly relay procedures… the chemical NEEDED for the serum is VOLATILE and DEADLY if not properly mixed and exposed to high temperatures!” APOTHECARY began to hyperventilate. “I didn’t MEAN to reap unnecessary casualties against young white men who had their whole lives ahead of them!” Joseph stood unmoved. “Racial untermensch that you are, you didn’t deserve to go through that transformation process or be torn from your family!” Joseph gently stroked his helmet where his scars would be normally visible. He slowly brought down his hand in a clenched motion, overcome with anger.

“I think you’re only saying that because I was your ticket out of the doghouse, if someone could snatch up RM 4, you could fix your mistake and go back to treating people like guinea pigs.” APOTHECARY’s jaw dropped. “You wanted me AND Logan, to turn us into your mindless weapons when you ran out of willing volunteers, then use our blood and skin to make more mass produced Renaissance men.” APOTHECARY tried to speak out again. “One bootleg Renaissance man just wasn’t enough for your freaks to fight the war that your sorry asses are losing.”

“Oh Christ , you knew what the Nfelhiem lab was conducting…”

“Yep” Said nathan. “Finally got Andrew to tell him part the real story after proper paperwork.” Nathan cleared his throat. “George smith, you are under arrest for multiple crimes against humanity, GROSS VIOLATION of COALITION HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION AMENDMENT NUMBER 455, unauthorized and criminal use of CNGS synthetic materials…” APOTHECARY began shaking again, tears falling from his face. Norman’s voice came over Nathan’s headpiece.

“I give you permission for vocal acknowledgment of the program.”

“And finally, continued, unauthorized production and use of the RENAISSANCE MAN EXTRA-IMPLENTARY SERUM.”

Ackerman arrived with a cadre of erasure unit soldiers and two mini-harris aircraft. APOTHCARY was ziptied once again and handed off to the erasure unit for further interrogation. He turned towards joseph, though his eyes were masked by the mechanical lenses in his helmet, he could feel his burning, hateful gaze. “IT’S NOT LIKE I KIDNAPPED THEM!” HE screamed, his face becoming slightly red with a mix of anger and sorrow. “I HAD NO OTHER CHOICE!” “THE ABOMINATION PROGRAM WAS TO HELP HERALD THE COMING OF THE ARYAN PARADISE!” he screamed as he was was escorted to an erasure unit VTOL jet. “THEY WERE TO ASSIST THE ALA AGAINST THEIR RIGHTEOUS WAR AGAINST THE VAST RESOURCES AND MANPOWER LIBERAL DEEP STATE, WE HAD NO CHOICE!” Several erasure unit soldiers struggled to place him the backseat. “THE MODERN WORLD IS A CESSPIT OF POLLUTION AND ECONOMIC DEAD-ENDS!” “I COULDN’T SIT BY AND LEAVE MY CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUFFER A LIFETIME OF HARDSHIP!” “TO LET THE PLANET BE DROWNED IN POLLUTION AND SEWAGE!

“Tell it to the judge.” Said nathan flatly. Before he was manhandled into the jet and had the door shut on him APOTHECARY went on one final tirade.

“Please believe me, I surrendered because I can’t ignore the blood on my hands…” Apothecary stopped struggling and allowed the door to be shut as he was secured to his seat. As the door closed and the erasure unit piled in, he turned towards the indifferent pilot. “Just take me from this nightmare.” He begged as the aircraft finally closed. Joseph’s stomach turned trying to process everything. Was he supposed to feel sickened that APOTHECARY used his family as an excuse to hurt and kill the innocent? How was he supposed to come to terms that this disgusting man had family members that he cared about? Joseph stumbled trying to comprehend it all.

“He might be in custody, but they’re all still gone.” He said to himself, remembering the final days before George smith killed them and his chance at a normal life. Veronica’s curt voice snapped him back from reality.

“Don’t let the prick get inside your head. She spoke coldly. “I’ve had to capture my share of ALA women’s brigade, I hear that same old sob story on how they had to join the neo nazi terrorist cult.” “It was the ONLY way to save themselves from the “scary trans people and refugees infecting their countries” she sneered. “Or protect them from black men who look at them funny.” Nathan motioned him and the rest of his squad to leave. Ackerman quietly avoided Laleh, remembering all too well of their last confrontation at the beginning of July. Before being escorted into he jet, Joseph looked into the battlefield with his own binoculars. Within the smoldering remains of the residential area, the only ALA soldiers remaining were the American branch and its mercenary auxiliaries, who either died at their post or fled into the surrounding jungle. Before takeoff, Nathan fiddled with the radio signal and happened to pick up Sgt. Gustavo’s feed. Veronica would usually invade his personal space and ask dozens of questions about who he was talking to, but she was too distracted by the Prosperan assault helicopters making one final missile sweep before the CSTF mobile cavalry began touching down and deploying soldiers to secure the airstrip. QM and its soldiers vanished into the jungle at a brisk pace. The giant batlike woman swiftly turned to Nathan as a screaming voice erupted from his ear-piece.

“WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?!” Gustavo screamed over what appeared to be a flurry of panic and evacuating soldiers. “ I’LL MAKE SURE YOU’LL ALL BURN IN HELL WITH THOSE MARXISTS!” No sooner did he announce that, another loud explosion rocked the facility. After several seconds, heavy footsteps echoed closer and closer towards Gustavo. “Oh Jesus.” He breathed. Veronica’s ear twitched as she listened to the incident unfold. “STAY BACK, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” Gustavo screamed, uselessly shooting whatever was terrifying him, the sounds of bullets ricocheting off metal were inter-spliced with radio interference. The low guttural voice of Charlotte rattled the radio.

“Once I get you back to base, I can finally get some peace and quiet for the first time in months.” Gustavo screamed as his radio cut out.

“Sounds like the VWS senior corps is just about done with their mission.” He said, putting his head behind his hands, and adjusting his seat to lean back. “Andy’s really pulling out all the stops for Prospera.” Joseph winced as he saw ARACHNEA’s lifeless body being loaded unto a sarcophogus like container with several other corpses of several abominations. The surviving ALA soldiers who did surrender were loaded into A special CNGS POW holding gunship as they took off. It appeared the CSTF and Erasure unit members were busy setting up communications, talking with their commanders. Two of them knocked an surrendered abomination soldier into the dirt after striking him in the back with the back-end of their assault rifles. The two roared with laughter before high-fiving each other. Joseph looked down as their aircraft ascended, and looked down at his feet, feelings of disgust and pity miring within him.

“Y’know, I hope we get a better looking medal for our accomplishments today.” Commented veronica, taking off her helmet. Her face was covered in sweat and several small cuts.

“Indeed, we’ve executed our objective with most of flying colors.” Chimed in Fritz, removing his horned mask-helmet as well. He smiled cheerily as joseph met his gaze. “Congratulations, we’ve apprehended that monstrous cur and had him groveling for your forgiveness.” Joseph seemed to be staring off into space, prompting veronica to speak up.

“You look so miserable, I would’ve though you’d be happy you helped tracked down the guy who killed your friends with his incompetence.” No sooner did she say that, she observed the sorry state that everyone else was in. The rest of her team were suffering from cuts to even bullet wounds. Joseph turned towards her.

“I know throwing him to rot in a cell wouldn’t bring my friends back, but…”. He tried to get the words out, but he began to feel his throat form a lump. Laleh reached out to comfort him, only to be beat out by Fritz.

“It’s true our mission isn’t over yet, but with APOTHECARY arrested, at least he will not harm anyone anymore. Joseph turned towards Fritz, whose usually intimidating gaze had softened. “Rome wasn’t build in a day, it was built one brick at a time.” While he was still upset, Joseph felt a little more forgiving of himself. The VWS flew away from the chaos of the airstrip, now swarmed by CNGS soldiers alongside the prosperan military. Nathan’s ear-piece crackled as they ascended higher.

“This is Sargent Nguyen, demanding to speak to Captain Nathaniel of VWS-1, over”

“Bian, it’s been too LONG since we had a nice heart-to heart!” called Nathan cheerfully from the passenger’s section. “What do I owe the pleasure of this call, over?” Sgt.Nguyen, nonplussed by Nathan’s attempt to flirt, continued her order.

“We have successfully taken Sgt.Gustavo into custody, as well as several high ranking ALA members. OPERATION:VENGEANCE was a success, over.”

“Hopefully he didn’t give you any trouble, over?”

“En route to capturing gustavo, we got blinded sighted by ALPHA KOMMANDO’s air force units, bastards almost took out the engine.” Before signing off, Cpt.Nguyen regaled a warning. “It seems like they’re rallying their special forces with a more competent chain of command and excising more aggressive tactics, your second in command getting shot down is evident of that, over. The rest of the VWS became as solemn as joseph. “Be alert and be cautious, they’re not screwing around anymore from here on out, over.”

“How’s the old gang doing, over?” Nathan inquired, trying and failing to lighten the mood. Sgt.Nguyen’s audio feed began to cut off.

“We can chitchat later once we’re out of hostile airspace, over and out.” Her feed cut out, leaving everyone with a cold, empty feeling. Half an hour later, the CNGS aircraft landed inside the Harris so a round of cheer and applause from the aircrew. Veronica sighed in relief as her personal guard had the RISENFLEDERMAUS back in their grasp. They even had already removed and began to repair the downed engine. APOTHECARY silently complied with being put into several more handcuffs and sent off to a holding pin. His demeanor was opposed to Gustavo, now disheveled and sweaty from being in a bunker, fought every step of the way. Joseph noticed Charlotte carrying what appeared to be a giant glass coffin. AKROPOLIS bathed in the applause of her own successful mission. The coffin her comrade carried didn’t contain an abomination, but rather a preserved, lifelike corpse with his hands folded in front of him. Without the giant scars on his neck, one could assume he was merely sleeping.

“GIVE HIM BACK!” Gustavo screamed as the CNGS military police restrained him. “GIVE ME BACK MY FATHER YOU FAT FREAK!!” the giant woman merely snorted as she continued to follow the other erasure unit soldiers and their sarcophagi to transfer their macabre cargo. “I’LL KILL YOU FOR MANHANDLING HIM!” He screamed at the lumbering woman. To his horror, she stopped, and turned towards him. Charlotte’s almost human visage was broken as she snarled, revealing large, animalistic teeth.

“I’ll manhandle YOU next if you don’t shut your mouth” She hissed, prompting him to finally be quiet. Joseph noticed a sign on the glass coffin, a small black serial code that read “IN LOVING MEMORY WNM6 ADMIRAL FERNANDO MIGUELA RODRIGUEZ.” He was then suddenly grabbed and directed into decontamination with the rest of his comrades. The hours seem to wiz by after suddenly becoming accepted by the Harris staff that treated him and the other VWS members as lepers, and given a very brief awards ceremony where they received another CNGS medal, which was basically the same medal but slightly bigger.

“Um…sir?” joseph asked Andrew with a respectful salute. “What the hell is WNM6, is that a thing I’ll have to wait to learn the Truth about?” Andrew stood there for several seconds, saying nothing.

“We will be informing you soon once the proper NDA is drafted and printed.” He cleared his throat as the Erasure unit on board cleared a small path for him. “CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB WELL DONE, VALIANT WARRIOR SQUADRON DASH ONE. He said in a loud, monotonous tone, as if he was trying to sound enthused. “OPERATION: VENGEANCE, THE COUNTER-TERROR OPERATION ON THE BEHALF OF THE PROSPERAN GOVERNMENT IS NOW COMPLETE.” Loud applause rippled through the Harris. “THE EX-DICTATOR AND THE PERPETRATOR OF THE NORTHERN IRAN BIOWEAPONS DISASTER WILL NEVER AGAIN HARM THE INNOCENT, YOU’LL RECEIVE FURTHER ORDERS ON CLEANUP OPERATIONS ON PROSPERA SOON, UNTIL THEN, YOU MAY ENJOY YOUR DOWNTIME UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Things only seemed to calm down after joseph was allowed to return to his barracks with Laleh.

“It feels odd to finally get some respect after so long.” Laleh said, touching her shiny new medal.

“I never really cared if the other staff members didn’t accept me, but it feels nice to be treated like a person for once.” Said joseph. This whole thing is such a blur, did you know that it’s almost august?

“No!” said laleh, shocked and flustered. “I completely lost track of the time!”

Suddenly, Joseph’s scars flared as he saw a person bound down the hall. It was his old friend and lover Logan, still slightly weak from his torture at the hands of the ALA, but nonetheless still full of life and hope. He almost tackled Joseph to the ground as he embraced him.

“You got him!” Logan cheered as he hugged his companion. “You fucking got ‘im buddy!” While he was still empty about the rest of the ALA to fight against, the warmth and accolades of his lover convinced joseph he still accomplished something. The fight wasn’t over, but he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose, and ready to move from his past trauma, and try to do good in his position in life. Logan had returned to the med bay to continue his recovery, however Laleh was able to take the night off as a second shift Medical expert would watch over him. The two got caught up with each other, and proceeded to have an enjoyable day off, with Laleh more chatty than usual. She went on and on to him about a new medical technique to treat bullet wounds in the public lounge, something she would have never done before. Occasionally, the two would get visited by other CNGS soldiers and staff, praising their accomplishment of capturing APOTHECARY. Some of the staff were people who visibly avoided them in public almost a month ago. Everything seemed to finally ease up for the VWS, that is until the two were walking to their dorm to retire for the night. Fritz was in the HCA private room, seeming to talk to someone in german. The voice was deep, and commanding. The two didn’t need to speak german to understand patronizing language. “DO NOT DISTURB” blazed in blood red letters in a monitor next to the room, so Joseph and Laleh simply kept moving. Soon, the two bumped into veronica, but her eyes almost pale yellow, her face almost just as pale.

“Hey, are you alright?” Laleh asked compassionately. Veronica, seeming to be in a world all her own, whipped around.

“WHAT?!” she blurted out “HAha, I’m just fine, I think I’m just a bit wired from today’s mission!” She said disingenuously.

“There’s something wrong with Nathan, isn’t there?” Joseph asked. She quickly became defensive.

“You DON’T know what he’s going through, so STOP trying to play therapist with me!” Laleh tried to gently comfort veronica.

“If you two are having problems, you don’t have to keep it inside.” Veronica tore Laleh’s hand from her arm.

“It doesn’t concern you at all, so butt out.” She hissed, as she entered the room with her brother. Within a secret, noise proof room, the two conversed.

“I’m so perplexed why he insists on acting like this for a man his age.” Fritz scowled.

“Well, you know how older people are, especially our guys.” Replied veronica. “Maybe it’s just a dad thing.” She furrowed her brown “first him, now NATHAN’s acting weird.”

“You would’ve thought becoming prime minister would stop father from being so brash.” Fritz continued. “I think he’s riled up over wanting Schmidt in custody as soon as possible…

“I’ve never seen Fritz or Veronica this upset” Joseph said as the two passed the restrooms. “It’s so odd to not be the one struggling emotionally for once.” Laleh nodded. As the conversation finished, Joseph was confronted by GHOST FANG since his rescue, fully recovered from his ordeal.

“Andrew wants to talk to you, kid.” Said the well built, masked man. He nodded as he left Laleh’s side. Within a dark room,he was greeted by BERSERKER opening a laptop, revealing Andrew Norman in a teleconference call. Joseph spied the current date. JULY 22ND, 2040. Through the stress and horror he had to survive since the fateful day in iran, the young man had simply lost track of time. “Congratulations, Mr.Baker” said Andrew with the regular, unchanging expression. “George smith will be interrogated and undoubtedly be given multiple life sentences.” Andrew took a small sip from a mug. “There is another matter we need to address with you.” Joseph tensed up as GHOST FANG gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Your terms of agreement when joining the VWS was tied to OPERATION:VENGEANCE, to apprehend several important ALA operatives in Prospera and undermine their occupation here.” The light reflected off BERSERKER’s mask, making his presence more foreboding. “With Gustavo and George’s capture, the operation is complete and you are no longer required to be a part of VWS-1.”

“Right…” remembered joseph. “It was to bring that bastard to justice.”

“I want to offer you something.” Said Andrew. “I certainly can’t return you to your parents, there’d be far too many questions and you could easily become a target for ALA spies.” Joseph once again shifted in his seat at the mention of his mom and dad. “However.” He said twisting the cap on his thermos, returning to a coaster on his desk. “If you no longer wish to be in VWS-1, we can find you a different occupation away from active duty, if you wish.” Joseph’s mind began to race and ponder what to do, until he remembered Logan and his father who was seduced by the ALA. He simply couldn’t waste his skills by not bringing the fight to them and assisting his comrades.

“I appreciate that, but the war isn’t over.” He answered. “The ALA needs to be stopped, and I just can’t sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs as they hurt and kill Innocent people.” Andrew cracked his knuckles.

“Very well.” He said. “You and the rest of your comrades will be assigned a new mission in 3 days time.” A part of Joseph regretted bowing out of the horror and trauma, but he would regret it more to leave his friends and leave them to endure. He decided that when he returned to Laleh, he would let her know everything. A small beeping alarm alerted Andrew. “You are dismissed, Mr. Baker, GHOST FANG will see you out.” Andrew cut out to a private direct message, to be notified by higher up CNGS personnel. “EAST VELEDOVIA IS UNDER THE PROCESS OF JOINING THE CNGS AND ITS PRESIDENT HAS AGREED TO BECOME A PART OF OUR UNION." "OUR APPEASEMENT DUE TO LOSING PROSPERA FINALIZED THE DEAL."

“Finally, it appears the east Veledovians have seen the light, and wish to join our cause.” He said slyly to himself. Before he got a chance to celebrate, he answered a call from a CNGS intelligence operative.

“Negotiations were a success, sir.”

“I hadn’t had a single doubt.” Andrew answered in his usual monotonous tone.

"We'll have both Veledovias united and under the CNGS's influence in no time."

Andrew smiled, his blank eyes seemed to flash with an enthusiasm that he never had in public.

“However, she has also confirmed an alarming amount of Europa’s Fury activity near several crucial government sites near the East and West Veldovian territory.” Andrew’s joy of another country joining the CNGS was immediately extinguished.

“How much time do we have to prepare for a counter-insurgency?” he whispered in a worried tone. Another, larger alarm went off, causing his eyes to widen. A direct message from his VPN protected message system produced another message “CNGS POW CONVOY ATTACKED AND DESTROYED, SUSPECTED ALA SPY ACTIVITY WITHIN CNGS-USA INTELLIGENCE HIGHLY LIKELY CAUSE. “Oh dear, god.” He wheezed.” Meanwhile, Joseph and Laleh were chatting as they made their way to their room.

“You don’t have to do this.” She said nervously wringing her hands. “You’ve already accomplished your goal.”

“I’ve got a new one.” He replied. “It’s my chance to actually make things less terrible in the world.” Laleh’s concerned gaze turned into subdued happiness. “We’re in this together.” In the back of his mind, the young, scarred soldier saw his friends struggling mental states, the gnawing possibility he would never see his parents again, and that any and all normalcy in his life was now effectively dead. The two fell into at least a peaceful slumber as the distant rumbling of thunder echoed in the great HARRIS stealth bomber. This was in contrast to the panic in CNGS intelligence operatives aboard the giant aircraft as they scrambled to an alarm.

“A CNGS DETENTION CONVOY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Read a robotic voice as hushed arguments and panic spread as alerts erupted across the server room. Off the eastern coast of CNGS-CHILE was a small island, a giant sign read “THIS AREA IS A CNGS AUTONOMOUS PROPERTY, TRESPASSING WILL BE MET WITH SWIFT AND DIRE REPERCUSSIONS.” The barbed wire fence was destroyed as the corpses of CNGS personnel and CNGS military police littered the area. a giant explosion rocked the highly secured trucks. From the wreckage, N.1685 appeared decked out in new armor. His tentacles had regrown, and now gripped two large combat knives, the size of machetes, as they seemed to snake and dance around him. Following him were a muscular, platinum blonde white man, whose fists were covered in blood, a large man in armor that seemed to walk in awkward, robotic movements, and three effeminate figures in the same armor. Finally, ARTIFEX appeared in a bright orange prison uniform. He dusted himself before allowing N.1685 to lead the charge towards their plane. The other CNGS aircraft were taken over by spies and double agents. Surviving CNGS personnel futilely tried to call for assistance, but the ALA spy ring had sabotaged communications and defenses. Several CSTF stationed soldiers, ones that survived the horrific sabotage fired at N.1685, but it was useless. His new armor absorbed the bullets like they were nothing. One of the soldiers attempted to shoot in from the back of his head, only for his tentacles to immeaditly snake behind him and take the round. N.1685 returned fire, shooting the bloodied and ragged CNGS soldiers to pieces. As the rest attempted to flee, he launched himself at several CSTF soldiers, and lashed out with his combat laden tentacles. A flurry of blood and dismembered limbs coated the ground as the rest imprisoned CNGS staff watched on in horror. ALPHA KOMMANDO boarded the plane, with N.1685 being last to get it in. He singlehandedly drove off entire platoons as their craft went airborne, using his tentacles to fling grenades, causing more property destruction and death. The aicraft was met with several ALPHA KOMMANDO jets, who were finished detroying any and all CNGS aircraft and naval vessels as they ascended into the cloudy skies. ARTIFEX was moved to a fancier part of the large jet plane. N.1685 reported to his ALA superior on his PDA, whose faced was blacked out, the ALA insignia blazed in the upper right corner.

“EXCELLENT WORK.” Said the ALA high command superior. “WITH ARTIFEX BACK AS LEAD ABOMINATION DESIGNER, WE NO LONGER NEED THAT FOOL AND TRAITOR APOTHECARY.”

“I have also bathed the prison convoy in the blood of CNGS dogs as you demanded, commander.” N.1685 replied in a deep voice.

“GOOD, THOSE SIMPERING LIBERALS WILL KNOW THE CONSEQUENCES OF INTERFERING WITH OUR PLANS TO USHER IN THE ARYAN PARADISE.”

“If I may be so bold to ask, my lord, I feel that I and my fellow abomination commandos were forced to carry the grunt-work of this mission.” N.1685 inquired. “Perhaps we could get better sup-”

“CONTINUE TO THE SAFE HOUSE AND MEET WITH VALKYRIE.” N.1685 could barely contain his composure. “SHE WILL RELOCATE YOU TO PROSPERA AFTER TRANSFERING ARTIFEX TO THE ESCAPE CRAFT TO AUSTRALIA.” The giant, monstrous man regained his nerve. “YOU WILL BE SENT BACK TO PROSPERA TO ASSIST OUR GROUND FORCES IN EVACUATING ALA HIGH COMMAND STAFF UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.” “NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS UNTIL THEN.” Said the superior, ignoring the grievance completely.

“I am truly Pygmalion and you are my walking, talking masterpiece.” ARTIFEX said gesturing to N.1685. “You were worth the $800,000 dollars for production fees.” N.1685 grew disgusted how he was treated like someone weapon or luxury. “I was skeptical at the white sovereigns utilizing our spy rings more offensively rather than for intel gathering, but I suppose the results speak for themselves.” He opened a bottle of celebratory champagne and drunk it striaght from the bottle. “No need to worry about me, my masterpiece.” He said, as if he was speaking to a small, frightened child. “The CNGS-Australian military and government, like the CNGS-American military and government, is in no short supply of our sympathizers, spies, and allies.” As ARTIFEX ceased his visual feed, N.1685 became filled with rage. He knew the abomination soldiers in Prospera where left once again to save the weak ALA soldiers or left to die for the sake of their superiors. One of the abominations who led the charge,was an ASSASSIN type abomination. The ASSASSIN, ALPHA KOMMANDO member, METZGERKONIG, noticed N.1685’s frustration. He fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper with a mysterious symbol and the word “SEVEIRENCE” on it. He quietly dropped at the large man’s feet, which prompted him to pick it up, observe it before stuffing it into the harness where he kept his combat knives. METZGERKONIG took a glance down in his book, before looking up again. His harness creaked as he met eyes with his N.1685. The masked abomination man paused, and nodded slightly to his fellow post-human.

“He’ll make a fine edition to our group…the master race greater than any aryan human alive or dead…” the ASSASSIN said internally as the plane gathered speed. The warning lights bathed the cabin in crimson red. A small light with the ALA’s swastika appeared to malfunction and dim as the light surrounding the abominations only seemed to grow brighter.

In a secluded area, the superior administration group WNM6 was filled with outrage upon losing several highly expensive investments; , ARACHNEA, and APOTHECARY. The head of WNM6 raised up his hand, silencing everyone.

“Run an internal investigation within high command, prepare ALPHA KOMMANDO for a rescue mission in Prospera…” The other shadowy figures saluted the screen of their leader. “And finally, prepare OPERATION: APOCALYPSE and OPERATION: RAGNAROK, I will NOT let my father’s vision of the Aryan Paradise die to incompetence…” he raised his hand again. “WE SHALL ALSO COMMENCE OPERATION: HARVEST, AS THE VOTES TO CONTINUE THE OPERATION HAVE COME IN, AND WE SHALL TAKE A MORE PROACTIVE STANCE WITH OUR WAR.” The white sovereign members cheered and hollered as this political victory.

“UNTERMENSCH BLOOD SHALL BE SPILLED!” cheered one member. “THE SPY RINGS SHALL FINALLY ENGAGE THE ENEMIES AS SOLDIERS, AND NOT SPECTATORS AND COWARDS!

“WHAT I’D GIVE TO PERSONALLY SEE THOSE SNIVELING LIBERAL DOGS WATCH THEIR PRECIOUS TOYS AND FACILITIES GO UP IN FLAMES!” cheered another. Another WNM6 member tried to hide his disgust at their bloodthirst.

“To think…” said the WNM6 member internally “They were just the south african branch of the ALA, now those MANIACS are on their way to putting a stranglehold on our operations….” Two ALPHA KOMMANDO members, decked out in body armor that resembled medieval knights popped up on a large screen.

“ROMULUS AND REMUS, YOU SHALL MEET WITH HEINZ SCHMIDT AND EVACUATE HIM TO AUSTRALIA AS WELL.” “WE MUST RESCUE SEVERAL WNM6 OFFICIALS LEST THE LIBERALS, MARXISTS, AND MONARCHISTS TAKE THEM FOR INTERROGATIONS.” Before he cut out, he had a final warning. “THOSE COALITION FOOLS MUST NOT LEARN OF OUR UPCOMING OPERATION CONCERNING MOUNT UNITY AND OUR INVASION OF THE TWO VELDOVIAS.”

“…As you wish, my new fuhrers.” Said the twins in a unified, quiet voice.

To be continued in Mission 8

[thesinglesjukebox]

(G)I-DLE - "QUEENCARD"

Time to find out once and for all -- like, for real this time -- who hates fun!

6.29

Kayla Beardslee: Dumb bitches assemble (affectionate). "Queencard" is kind of embarrassing to defend (you're going to bat for the boob and booty hot song? really?), but if you listen to it enough, it becomes impossible to deny that it's also kind of a banger. It would be a different matter if the production and topline weren't pulling their weight, but that bassline rips, and those line-to-line handoffs between all five members in the first verse get me every time. It also helps that this song comes from by far the best album (G)I-DLE has ever put out: when "Queencard" is placed next to the beautiful, dreamy B-side "Paradise" or the sinister-sexy "Lucid," its goofiness seems less like actual vapidity and more like Soyeon intentionally fucking around because she knows it's good to have a little fun and gas yourself up sometimes. Like, look me in the eyes and tell me it's not high performance art to release "Tomboy" and "Queencard" (and "Nxde"!) within a year of one another. I can get on board with a bit of silliness in exchange for the album I've been waiting for (G)I-DLE to make since I first discovered them -- which, as it happens, was when the Jukebox covered "Uh Oh" back in 2019. What a lovely and emotionally nuanced full-circle moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to twerking on the runway. [8]

Crystal Leww: MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT [8]

Katherine St Asaph: Vintage Fergie. [3]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Ridiculous. [7]

Tara Hillegeist: As an object lesson in one of pop music's golden rules -- "unfuckwithable production can save unforgivable lyrics every time" -- "Queencard" ticks all the bases. Embarrassing lines like "twerking on the runway" and "sexy like Kim Kardashian" that not even Meghan Trainor could've written with a straight face completely fail to dent that supple bassline and synth-bleep driven stomp of a beat. There isn't a single word of this song worth dignifying with a sincere analysis; there isn't a single word of this song that matters while the squelched-alarm bubble and squeak of a melody and irrepressible line delivery are still making the brain jiggle like so much excited jelly under their sonic assault. This is a missive from the same school of thought that produced "Song 2": a heady slab of music so thoroughly stupid yet sneeringly self-confident about it, hearing it excites the listener enough to mistake it for the work of a frustrated genius, instead. I cannot take its message seriously without taking insult. I can't stop pressing repeat. [7]

Will Adams: So many delightfully dumb lines, it's hard to choose a favorite. I wish the music had been equally as silly, as opposed to whatever Jonas Brothers purgatory it currently exists in. [5]

Alfred Soto: Elements from Pussycat Dolls and Meghan Trainor drift and fade with the attention span. [4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This quintet's energy is infectious enough to take "Queencard" (great title) to the finish line, but there's no getting past the backing track. Envision every Black Friday/post-Christmas/commercial on TV, strip the jaunty musical beds from their flatscreen-deal context, then paste them one after the other. I'm sorry, but GO TO PRISON!!! [2]

Nortey Dowuona: Pop rock as an aesthetic is actually a good thing to be pilfering from. It's not novel or boundary pushing in the slightest, but after the last decade of everything stealing from rap -- the structures, the adlibs, the flows, the kicks, snares, hi-hats and percussion, the poses, the clothing -- and miserably failing to even slightly capture the same lightning strike... maybe don't be bothered to try. I've been listening to What Had Happened Was with Questlove, and at each turn I grow more frustrated by the fact that neither he nor Black Thought ever cottoned on to the giant possibilities of being an actual band, only producing musical phrases to be looped in the least interactive or vivid way. And this song, which is a solid approximation of 2005 pop rock and 2011 piss-take raps, just frustrates me cuz it feels like Jeon So-yeon, the group's Questlove, has the same problem; being able to make poppy Shafiq Husayn records and settling for Max Martin throwaways. [5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: How long has it been since we've had an honest-to-god hook song? You could blame it on shifting musical trends, but ever since K-pop made it big in the West, lyrics have had to start making sense. This means we've been deprived of the joy that comes with wonky English. The lyrics are especially camp on "Queencard," but it goes beyond that: it's the total surrendering of a topline to phrasing and rhythm. Case in point: "My boob and booty" has syllabic parallels with "I'm top" and "twerking." There's also a slick maneuvering between English and Korean here, with (G)I-DLE selecting the words that sound best -- "ppoppo" is way more fun than "kiss," and "I'm cute" can be delivered with more sass than the same phrase in Korean. "Queencard" may not be a term the average American knows, but it doesn't matter: it's the sort of nonsense word that you can repeat incessantly, much like we all did with "gee" 14 years ago. To top it off, (G)I-DLE actually sound like they're enjoying themselves instead of delivering a Serious Message. We may never get a song like this again. [7]

David Moore: There's boob and booty and twerking in this one, sure, but the most exhilarating part of the whole thing is when the phrase "I'm a queencard" in the chorus devolves into uncanny syllables, like Jell-O starting to go runny in the sun, in a way doesn't just tell you what a queencard is, but really points to it -- this is a queencard. I'm reminded that K-pop isn't just multilingual, but often meta-lingual in the way that so much (all?) good pop is, refusing to let words get by as mere signifiers and forcing us to reckon with words at the phonemic, molecular level. How wild is it that the entire basis of our civilization is built on these funky noises we make with our mouths and tongues and lungs and noses and throats? I think that's neat. [8]

Kat Stevens: I worry that she's going to lose a lot of money at poker. [6]

Michael Hong: Look, Soyeon's English lyrics are often questionable, and it doesn't help that each member seems to drop syllables. She's exaggerated her "rapping" voice to be sharper and more piercing, and the lyric "look so cool, look so sexy like Kim Kardashian (uh) / look so cute, look so pretty like Ariana" fits awkwardly in the meter and is a bit reductive of each (but also your bad if you expected a nuanced feminist take from the group that brought you "Nxde"). And the entire thing is just a Valley Girl rip of "Song 2" by Blur. And yet, 4 + 4 is still: [8]

Brad Shoup: The pre-chorus is really interesting, how it teeters on the rim of Meghan Trainor maltshop-pop without ever falling in. It's a nice break from the spy-theme slink that dominates this. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Referencing Ariana Grande directly feels like giving away the game -- this is some real Dangerous Woman shit, a maximalist pop barrage that seems to operate on the principle that if you make enough baffling aesthetic and lyrical decisions it'll loop back to sense eventually. Joke's on me -- they're right! This sounds like how I imagine getting shot out of a T-shirt cannon would feel. [7]

Michelle Myers: Shuhua is a queencard. Soyeon is squeak-rapping like she's HyunA's daughter. Minnie is hosting a blue champagne party and doing her best Debbie Harry impression. Miyeon hard carries the pre-chorus. Yuqi is jamming the phrase "sexy like Kim Kardashian" into five syllables. She's top. She's twerking on the runway. [8]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: "I'm twerking on the runway" has got to be in the top five greatest stunt English lines in K-pop history. (G)I-DLE have always had oodles of talent and charisma, but "Queencard," like last year's "Tomboy," has the confidence of maturity and a rare sense of unfettered enjoyment. Nobody's had such a good time in a music video since GD and TOP went to the club. Speaking of YG party songs, of course this is reminiscent of that format---though as others have pointed out, it lacks the true YG party chorus to close. There are a few better precedents in Cube's own history, which are combined effectively with a vaguely punk rock sound and a sensitive handful of blog house references. Part of the magic has to be the judicious editing Soyeon has applied here -- "Queencard" is a blisteringly tight 2:41, far from the bloat often befalling her earlier compositions. It's fun, you can shout along to it, there's a funny little dance, there are at least three melodies I've had stuck in my head--it's some good fucking K-pop. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[jueying]

Nothing good ever came of an emergency meeting with the preceptors - truthfully, not much good came from a regular meeting with the panel either, but the results of today deserved more than his usual annoyed rub of temples. Dan Feng had not batted an eye when the formation of the High-Cloud Quintet occurred; a task force between all the various ships seemed an appropriate solution when the forces of Abundance and other enemies alike were waging a collective war against the Alliance felt like a smart solution. Already too, the tides of war seemed to be shifting after the coalition became solid, completed by the inclusion of Jingliu's lieutenant in command after she had passed her undoubtedly rigid review of his skills.

The well forged relationships brewing between everyone in that group had him forgetting about his own duties from time to time, eager to bask in the odd normality of their company. Jingliu had shown a surprisingly playful side to her outwardly stringent personality, Baiheng's sweet and bubbly nature had her weaving straight into just about anyone's heart and Dan Feng was deemed no exception. Yingxing's perspective as the lone short lived species was fiery and full of the life that long lived species seemed to lack - a vigor to his energy that Dan Feng found interesting and one that seemed to playfully butt heads with Jing Yuan the most of all. And Jing Yuan, the one he had known the longest second to Jingliu had etched a place in his own heart long before he was officially part of the High-Cloud Quintet. After all, it felt like he had never known what laughter truly was until Jing Yuan brought it to his shores, constant as the crashing waves were in his approach every day.

Maybe it was all these exchanges that had him forgetting about the tension between supposed tension between the vidyadhara and the rest of the long lived species, certainly borne from the fear that vidyadhara had for being unable to return to the cycle if they were to fall during battle. Points were made on both sides, it was unfair for the natives to take the brunt of soldier deaths when the Alliance didn't only consist them, but the lives of the vidyadhara were not a replenishing source - losses more permanent when a new egg on Scalegorge Waterscape didn't appear. So a solution arose there, undoubtedly made before consultation with him in yet another reminder that he was just another cog in the machine despite all his power and willpower.

An arranged marriage then, to an official of the Luofu. Vidyadhara could bear no children in general, beyond his body's own inability to do so period. The news almost drew an uncharacteristic chuckle from his stunned mouth, disbelief barely scratching the surface on whatever emotion kept tight beyond the mask of the high elder. All he could do in the moment was steel himself and pry into the web of intentions for more information on the matter - sigh leeching out of him when the only information they could provide was that this individual was a general and that they would 'surely pass any and all selection criteria that the preceptors themselves had'. Duty above all, the mantra hung heavily on his neck as always but more so today when the meeting was adjourned and he was left with his thoughts.

The thought of taking on a significant other was never a thought in Dan Feng's mind. His duties and burdens were unfair factors to bring into any relationship, less of all into one as intimate as romance. His dragon's heart agreed with that fervently - romance and emotions were liabilities that only hindered one when decisions needed to be made, complicating factors when the greater good was all that needed to be considered. At the same time, his human heart yearned for connection despite all that - warmed by the bonds that had been forged within the fires of opposition and strife; a beacon of sunlight to cut against the darkness of the moon that his soul was fated to carry through all his lives.

Fears mounted in the coming weeks and questions without answer only grew. Which general was he to be wed to? What did this mean for his coalition with the High-Cloud Quintet, could he expect to mean that he would continue on or would this so called general bask in the power of spouse instead? Surely one who had risen to the rank of general would understand the importance and the effectiveness that the HCQ had showed so far, but his years told him that people were always a variable that could never be accounted for.

Steadily, preparations for a festival began taking shape along with visits to the tailor shop to be fitted for what was undoubtedly meant to be his wedding clothes. At first, no one asked questions about his increasingly frequent partings from the group - everyone had their own responsibilities beyond those of the group so an unsaid understanding echoed through many decisions. It wasn't until Baiheng huffed a bit about how little of him everyone had seen in the last few weeks did the floodgates of questions arise and the discussion of his arranged marriage came to light. Hearing how miffed everyone was had set some light on his heavy heart after weeks of sinking, a rueful chuckle or two slipping from him when Baiheng let out another huff and Yingxing had crossed his arms in that truly annoyed way of his. Jingliu had sighed and only said that perhaps it was for the best that Jing Yuan was off the ship on a lengthy expedition once the truth was all out in the open and most of them agreed on the matter.

The issue of how to tell Jing Yuan was one that seemed to only spin in Dan Feng's head, fleeting touches and gazes held too long gestures that even he had done when it came to the other. He deserved to know in person, not over some roughened slip of paper delivered by a wayward bird but the high elder wasn't sure if he could stomach the heartbreak that was sure to show in his eyes. Jing Yuan, who had always respected his own devotion to his duties and never pushed beyond what Dan Feng was comfortable with despite the yearning that the elder could see in his golden hues, deserved more than what the fates had planned and for once he let himself feel how it pained him to be unable to be the one who could reciprocate the depths of his feelings.

The day quickly approached after that, news of a successful expedition blending in with the cheerful atmosphere that came with a festival.

"They still haven't told you who you're supposed to be married to? It's the day of already!"

"One would expect some kind of courtesy towards one in your position at least. The people would riot if they knew."

"You long lived species and your messed up customs... though guess it sounds like this isn't standard practice."

"It sure isn't! I still say we riot - they can't catch all of us!"

"Combined forces of the vidyadhara and the cloud knights would surely outnumber the four of us, even if I do appreciate the thought Bai'er."

Thankfully this conversation died down before someone finally came to retrieve him, talking about how his silks were ready for the ceremony over Baiheng's thinly veiled gestures to strike first before he bid them farewell for now. The silks were fine and comfortable against his frame, but did little to ease the chill that began to settle beneath his skin or clear the fog creeping up along his nape and back of his head. Bright and striking red filtered a muted crimson in his vision as his footsteps strained heavy on the backs of his calves when he made his way to a platform just below the grand stage in wait.

Two announcements, the announcer said with a voice loud enough to break through Dan Feng's trance before gesturing over to the other side of the stage - haze lifting from his senses when a familiar figure made his way up to the main stage...

arranged marriage || @celesticlnstcrs

[xkuja]

somehow a moogster has made it into the desert palace, leaving trails of “kupo” in its wake as it wanders the halls

The relentless kupophony that pervaded his domain yet lingered.

Before him stood the quintet of Black Mages he had dispatched to silence the interloper, yet the disturbance remained sorely unabated. "Would you care to inform me why the intruder's racket has not yet ceased, no. 37?"

The addressed mage blinked, perplexed. "I am no. 95, sire."

"Does it matter!?" Kuja retorted sharply, his patience fraying as he advanced on the mages. He had sent them to deal with the moogle that had somehow infiltrated his palace through the sand-trap, yet here they were, report unfulfilled. No. 95 recoiled, seeking shelter behind another mage, who then spoke up:

"We've combed every corridor of the palace, sire. No moogles to be found."

Kuja's expression grew icy, painted sneer sharpened to a dangerously fine point, when another mage interjected. "However, we did discover this--"

The mage set down one of the palace's many small cages, within which sat a white puff of fur, awaiting their Lord's inspection. He eyed the creature, flatly unimpressed by its appearance.

"And what is that supposed to be?"

"It was our hope you could tell us..."

"Given your vast knowledge..."

"... ...s i l e n c e ! I'm well aware of what it is. Dismissed, all of you. Go away. Shoo," Kuja waved them off with a flick of his hand, his attention momentarily diverted by the creature in the cage. The Black Mages, numbers insignificant, hastily exited, leaving Kuja to scrutinize the strange little thing more closely.

No larger than a loaf of bread, so fluffy it seemed to be made more of air than of any tangible substance. Two bat-like wings protruded from its back, folded neatly against its sides. A tiny, nose twitched as it sniffed the air, and atop its vacant head sat a single, antenna-like appendage that ended in a pompom.

...This really was a stupid looking creature.

[globalworship]

Lo Yisa Goy (Hebrew Song for Peace)

Lo Yisa Goy / לֹא-יִשָּׂא גוֹי / Lay Down Your Weapons Text - traditional, Isaiah 2:4 Music - arrangement for top video below by Lenka Lichtenberg, based on traditional melodies and Shalom Altman round

Composed for and performed by the Congregation Darchei Noam Adult Bat Mitzvah Choir in Toronto, Canada Choir director Lenka Lichtenberg

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לֹא יִשָּׂא גוֹי אֶל גוֹי חֶרֶב לֹא יִלְמְדוּ עוֹד מִלְחָמָה.

Lo yisa goy El goy cherev Lo yil'medu Od milchamah. (x2)

Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaish 2:4)

A nation shall not raise A sword against a nation And they shall not learn Any more war. (x2)

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Here's a live performance by Aquabella, a quintet of singers that I've followed for years: https://www.facebook.com/aquabellaacappella

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An arrangement by Susie Davies-Splitter with ukulele, percussion ostinati and 3 vocal parts.

+++

A button with the Hebrew text of Isaiah 2:4. https://www.bolerium.com/pages/books/206240/lo-yisa-goy-el-goy-cherev-lo-yilmdu-od-milchama-shalom-pinback-button

[denimbex1986]

'Depending on who you ask, the character of Tom Ripley is a Machiavellian criminal, a mastermind of deception, or a hopelessly deluded dreamer. Patricia Highsmith’s quintet of novels centering on the tortured, talented con artist have invited several cinematic interpretations, each with a different take on his slippery essence. Some actors might hesitate to step into the protagonist’s dubiously-acquired Ferragamo loafers, but Andrew Scott, star of the new limited series Ripley, had no such qualms. “Since I’ve been associated with the role, people say ‘Oh my god, that character,’” recalls the Irish actor, known for his subtle, precisely observed performances as the magnetic Priest in Fleabag and Adam, a lonely writer batting grief in All of Us Strangers. “People have a lot of preconceptions about Tom Ripley. It’s my job in some ways to ignore all that and create our own particular version of it.”

Anchored by Scott’s mercurial performance, Ripley is a finely drawn character study of one of the most beguiling creations of twentieth-century fiction. Helmed by DGA Award-winning director and Academy Award-winning writer Steven Zaillian, the gripping psychological thriller unspools over eight episodes shot in elegant black and white by Academy Award winner Robert Elswit. From a rat-infested flophouse in 60s Manhattan to a dolce vita gone sour in Italy, Ripley’s travels — and travails — come to life in noir at its most luxurious and complex. Its cinematographic lushness is haunted by ever-present threats of deception and violence and shot through with sly wit. “It’s just the way I write, intertwining drama and in this case, suspense, with humor, because that’s what life is like,” says Zaillian. “I’m always after what’s real in behavior.”

When we first meet Ripley, he is scraping together a living in New York’s underbelly when an offer arrives that few in his position would refuse. A shipbuilding magnate practically hands Ripley a blank check to retrieve his wayward son Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) from an extended vacation in Italy. Yet upon arrival, the mission takes on a complex and sinister edge as Ripley becomes dangerously infatuated with Dickie’s haute bohemian lifestyle and carefree cool. He grows possessive and jealous, raising the suspicions of his partner Marge Sherwood, played by Dakota Fanning. “Marge susses him out pretty quickly,” notes Fanning. “A lot of the other characters think that they’re playing Tom — and Tom is fully playing them.”

Zaillian sought out Fanning after watching her “expressive and eerie” turn as the Manson cult member Squeaky Fromme in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood: “I thought, This is someone who can go toe to toe with Tom Ripley, who is too smart to be conned, who can threaten his schemes.”

To find the perfect setting for Dickie and Marge’s Italian idyll, Zaillian and production designer David Gropman set about the rather enviable task of location scouting on the Amalfi coast. Amid the area’s swishy modern-day hotels and luxury boutiques, they discovered Atrani, a quaint village that seemed frozen in time with its lemon tree-lined streets, tenth-century church, and stunning vistas of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The costume department meticulously recreated the period’s fashions to outfit a supporting cast that brings richness to Atrani’s pensiones and vibrant life to its bustling Roman piazzas. Filming happened to coincide with a lull in vacationers, adding to the authentic feel. “This was during COVID, so there were no tourists,” notes Zaillian. “It made it feel all the more like we’d gone back in time.”

Despite its fidelity to the 60s setting, there’s a sense that Ripley is meeting the moment, reentering popular consciousness at a time of cultural fascination with real-life scammers such as Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Holmes. Even so, Scott bristles at the idea that the series’ protagonist is a mere grifter. “I think he’s very charming and not in a manipulative way,” says Scott, who rocketed to stardom playing a true literary villain, James Moriarty in the BBC’s Sherlock. “When [Ripley] comes to Italy and he’s exposed to all this beautiful art and landscape and beauty and food, he adores it. But the people that he’s with I’m not sure have the same appreciation or humility about that stuff that he does. So in a way, he’s very like us.”

Scott adds that Ripley’s unsavory exploits are motivated by fear, specifically the FOMO-like certainty that everyone else is having a fabulous time without him. “He’s a dark character and does bad things,” says Scott. “To me, what it’s about is feeling like you are not invited to the party. It’s about feeling like you’re ‘other.’”

It’s hard to blame Ripley for longing for what he can’t have. One early scene in New York sees him gazing admiringly into the window of a refined boutique while on the way home from a dingy dive bar, transfixed — taunted — by an upper-crust lifestyle that is inaccessible to him no matter the cash in his wallet. You can’t merely buy your way into the echelons of high society, or acquire the laissez-faire attitude to wealth that comes with it: Dickie shrugs on his made-to-measure Italian suits with the same careless ease that a dock worker tosses on his overalls. “Essentially, Dickie doesn’t want to inherit the rich kid status,” says Flynn. “In his heart, he’s a bohemian artist-poet, and he’s getting to imagine he is that, living in this reclusive place in Italy.”

This nonchalantly rakish dreamer-gone-adrift casts a particular spell over Atrani’s newest arrival. “To my mind, it’s all about love,” says Scott of Ripley’s attraction to Dickie. “I think he loves Dickie. It’s not really specified as to what the nature of that love necessarily is from Tom’s point of view. Do I think that it’s in some way sexual? Possibly.” Ripley doesn’t know whether he wants to be Dickie, or wants to be with him.

Scott is no stranger to getting into the bones of characters that subvert audience expectations. He recently scored an Olivier nomination for a tour-de-force turn in the West End’s Vanya, an audacious Chekhov adaptation in which Scott played every role. His Ripley is just as multidimensional, teasing out the humanity of a man who is certainly no hero, but is also too complex to quite be a love-to-hate-’em antihero. “I always think the great works of art are or should be about who we are and not who we should be,” says Scott. “I think we contain multitudes within us and all great art reflects that, that we’re both the light and the dark.”'

[jefferyryanlong]

Infinite Pau Hana - September 27, 2023

"jazz 101"

Hour 1

Dream Weaver: Meditation, Dervish Dance - The Charles Lloyd Quartet Cannon Raps / Capricorn (live) - The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Fire and Rain - Hubert Laws Borealis Dancing - Jaimie Branch The Promise (live) - John Coltrane The Mountain - Jaimie Branch

Hour 2

Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey - Freddie Hubbard The Inflated Tear - Rahsaan Roland Kirk Boogie Woogie (live)* - Liberace Sun Goddess - Ramsey Lewis Les Fleurs* - Minnie Riperton In a Silent Way - Miles Davis Basra - Pete La Rocha London - Angel Bat Dawid

Hour 3

Goin' Down South - Bobby Hutcherson Also Sprach Zarathustra - Deodato Rocket #9 - Sun Ra UFO - Sun Ra Plantasy - Resavoir Baby Daughter - Jeff Majors Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock Tessassategn Eko - Bahta Gebre Heywet Tezeta - Mulatu Astatke

asterisk - by request

KTUH - 90.1 FM Honolulu, 91.1 FM North Shore, ktuh.org

[leweekendrock]

A Le Weekend Retrospective - Part 2

Like the night sky, the band Le Weekend has been around more than 15 years. While the night sky lazed around and contributed nothing to anyone, the band used the time to write songs, play shows, and put out recordings at what couldn’t be called a breakneck pace.

Responding to a fantasy where there was popular demand to hear our story, please enjoy–or failing that, read–a retrospective in some number of parts.

This is the second part. It covers 2009 and most of 2010, in which we continued on as a trio and released our first LP at full price for half the material. If you missed (or suddenly miss) the first part, it’s here.

SOUNDTRACK: https://leweekend.bandcamp.com/album/dblscrt

DISCLAIMERS: 

The writing is mostly Matt. Bob’s unprecedented, all-platform social media ban has still not expired.

This isn’t supposed to be (slash hopefully isn’t) a nostalgia trip. Those are for things that are over. We’re just demonstrating some ongoing history behind this thing we do and keep doing for some reason.

I’ve tried to avoid the social media pose of pretending to be an Important Band. It’s hard to avoid entirely when writing anything (suggesting something is worth your time is already bold). But we’re merely a Good Local Band in the sense of all three words, and mean well.

Finally, if you’re looking for Salacious Details(!!), you’ve come to the wrong band. Here are the three most shocking excerpts from the whole thing:

The short-lived sales bump was chalked up to market confusion: there was a similarly named album by some howler monkeys that went on NPR.

The public story about what the initials stand for is well known, but during a quiet moment on the set he revealed it was "Looky Loo.”

Slowly returning to my senses, I dropped the baseball bat and stared blankly at the no longer moving body. Had anyone seen me and Santa Claus come in here?!

And they’re are all from Joan Cusack’s autobiography.

We found ourselves in the early months of what the kids used to call “a 2009.” As I told you last time, we had gone down from a quintet to trio upon the official release of our first recording in December 2008. It was sad to say goodbye to two of our founding members (Ben Ridings and Missy Thangs), but exciting to consider where we could go next with this relatively new project.

I couldn’t find a photo of us all together during this period, so here are two from the same parking lot.

(l-r: Robert Biggers, Bob Wall)

(l-r: Matt Kalb)

We had a definite ease of playing together--great communication--so it wasn’t as hard to rearrange some of our existing songs or to come up with a number of new ones as I’d feared. Revisiting our existing material got me thinking about the arbitrariness of seemingly “final” choices. (Plus I’ve always loved Slacker, so Should Have Stayed At Bus Station laying out the idea of multiple realities spawned by choices made and not made was probably in there, though not consciously). I saw potential to go different directions that were more or less equally great and equally fitting. Thus, less than two months into our existence as a trio, I fired off a too long, kind of bizarre email, which was a style at the time. It even had the subject line “DOUBLE SECRET.”

From The Mixed Up Sent Items of Matt Kalb, Jan 31, 2009.

When we work on songs…I've always been struck that things can work well in a lot of different ways. Since our songs are hard to learn, we don't end up getting to play with this much. What I'd like to do is record an album this year where we double the songs – record two different versions of each. What I DON'T want to do with this idea is make it about 'opposites' per se (where we have rules to follow, like if every song was done full band plus augmentations and then done again 'stripped down' in some way). I don't want it to be a formula where when you hear one of the versions you can predict what the other version will be. I just want to use different approaches such as…

[blah blah about the different approaches]

...The end result would be one CD with two distinct I'm-going-to-call-them phases where a version of all the songs appears in an order that works well, and then the songs are presented again being different versions and importantly not in the same sequence, etc. The phases themselves also reflect the idea—e.g. it won't be straight in one phase and weird in the next, or stripped down then lush, that sort of thing—those differences should happen internally in each. 

[snipping out a thing I don’t want to spoil about “Better Practice” and “The Story of Le Weekend Suite.” We’ll get to it]

That's what I've been kicking around for LW09.

When we reached out to Lincoln Hancock about doing artwork and graphic design for the CD, it turned out he was already exploring something similar in his visual art. Synchronicity! It was a quite different process, but there was a resonance between what we were each getting into. And needless to say, we got a great cover out of it.

(Art and layout by Lincoln Hancock)

In the meantime, we wrote a number of songs, then essentially wrote them again with different decisions. Then we approached Nick Petersen and began recording, this time at his house.

The most straightforward version of the doubles is the pairing of "Strwpr" and "Strpwr". There are no changes at all to chords or structure (except “Strwpr” has a brief outro), a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em changes to the lyrics, and a substantial change in arrangement and feel. The first is an essentially live, high energy rocker mostly home recorded by the trio--although sadly that backwards guitar solo required an overdub. The second is our version of lush, adult studio jams, with the trio stepping back in the arrangement to make space for a bunch of talented guest musicians.

Our Very Special Guests(™) on “Strpwr”

Chris Eubank (cello)

David Garfield (saxophone)

Jeff Herrick (trumpet)

Shannon Morrow (percussion)

Hank Pellerin (trombone)

Crowmeat Bob Pence (bass clarinet)

Alan Petermann (violin)

Carrie Shull (English horn)

Wendy Spitzer (oboe)

Bob also played the Rhodes. Essential.

The rest of the easily recognizable doubles explored the concept in less overt ways. Some were expansions/reductions of each other, some reused melodies over new chord progressions, some took energy levels to opposite poles. There were also many cases of home recording vs. studio. Still, it was always clear they sprang from the same material. The differences were the choices in how that material was presented and re-presented.

In contrast, the double relationship between “Better Practice” and “The Story of Le Weekend Suite“ (that thing I didn’t want to spoil from my email above, remember?) was much less overt. Each song was written before we came up with the “doubles” concept, but were a big part of what inspired it in the first place. “Like how PG-13 is because of Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” you’re probably thinking, “even though the movies themselves are just PG!” Sounds like you nailed it.

To me, the songs represented the two main approaches I take to songwriting. We’ll call one the “Better Practice” way: a journey through many parts that may not seem connected at first, and if not done right, ever. The second, or as they say “The Story of Le Weekend Suite” method, results in a song overly succinct by pop standards, around 60-90 seconds, but if done right it feels complete. “Better Practice” also recapitulates an aspect of the doubles concept by having various parts recorded in different ways and then sequenced together, while “The Story of Le Weekend Suite” was both, as the title may suggest, a story (or images from a story) about recording Suite and a double of the song “Le Weekend Suite” from that album. Notably, the song “Le Weekend Suite”, unlike the “story” of it, is very much in the “Better Practice” vein. Finally, for someone who started playing in the last century and still thinks in terms of “albums,” you can honor the best songs by making them the opener or the closer.

Of course we didn’t want it to be necessary for a listener to nerd out on these layers to enjoy the songs or the album. Some are extremely inside baseball, and even for the band about as much gets figured out in analysis after the fact (i.e. frames of reference that can be applied afterward, or not) than gets planned up front. We aimed for a good record, thinking these elements could help make that happen. We also didn’t intend for it to be reducible to a hook or gimmick, but at the same time understood it might draw people in. In any case, everything was meant to be very openly “hidden”–I mean, we called the damn thing DBLSCRT.

We got some very much appreciated local press attention for this one. This included a feature by Chris Parker in the Indy (which we owed to the music editor Grayson Currin’s interest), and a review by Brian Howe in Shuffle.

The Indy article came out just in time to promote our bad ass release show at the Nightlight. Ezekiel Graves (w/ guest Crowmeat Bob) and Eric Roehrig opened, even debuting an occasion-specific number that I’m sure Erie Choir breaks out now and again late in their set lists. Most of the guest musicians from the album were able to join us, with a pinch hitter on violin.

Chris Eubank (cello)

Ecki Heins (violin)

Crowmeat Bob Pence (bass clarinet)

Carrie Shull (English horn, oboe)

Jeff Herrick (trumpet)

David Garfield (saxophone)

Hank Pellerin (trombone)

For that night only, the core band was a four-piece, with the incomparable Wes Phillips (sadly, no longer among us) on various instruments to recreate some of the band’s overdubs. And Nick ran sound so we could make all these things happen. It took a considerable amount of planning and squeezing inputs (not to mention squeezing people together) to pull off 11 musicians with a mix of electric and acoustic instruments through the Nightlight PA of the time!

As if that wasn’t enough, throughout the evening Dave Bjorkback and David Nahm provided astonishingly well researched color commentary / heckling, like if Statler and Waldorf were given mics. They even had to trigger Robert’s Discman (™) at two critical points in the show, for no extra pay.

And Ben Spiker documented it all! Well, parts anyway, but those are parts...of it all! A good bit was linked above. Dive into the rest for more photos and videos.

(Screen grab from video by Ben Spiker. l-r front row: Hank Pellerin, Jeff Herrick, David Garfield; back: Ecki Heins [profile], Robert Biggers [at drum kit], Matt Kalb, Wes Phillips [upstage, seated], Bob Wall; not pictured: Chris Eubank [upstage of Ecki], Crowmeat Bob and Carrie Shull [both front row, left of frame])

One bit of trivia before we go: Dave Bjorkback arrived at the show with his copy of the Indy that he’d picked up from work. When he saw someone else’s, he realized some of the unusual artistic choices were added post-print.

(Indy Article With Contributions By Unknown Graffitist (2010), photographed by Ben Spiker)

During the time frame of this installment, we played these shows.

03/12/09 - Nightlight - DEBUT OF LW AS A TRIO w/The Antlers and Actual Persons Living or Dead

05/09/09 - The Pinhook - w/Grappling Hook and Minor Stars

05/14/09 - Tir na nOg - w/Sorry About Dresden and The Dirty Little Heaters

09/04/09 - The Pinhook - w/Savage Knights and Bicameral Mind

09/19/09 - Nightlight - w/Inspector 22 and The Summertime Whisky Band

10/25/09 - Live on WXDU

02/20/10 - Nightlight - w/Monsonia and Actual Persons Living or Dead

06/09/10 - Nightlight - w/Green Grocer and Secret Boyfriend

09/17/10 - Nightlight - w/Decoration Ghost and On The Take

09/30/10 - The Pinhook - w/Jeremy Blair From Effingham and Wembley

10/29/10 - Nightlight - CD RELEASE for _DBLSCRT_, w/Ezekiel Graves and Eric Roehrig, plus live commentary by Dave Bjorkback and DC Nahm

And that’s all you get! For now.

[la-rata-alada]

I find it funny that riddlebat haters tag their shit as riddlebat. Like haha my Riddler x Batman x Selina x Annika x Martinez headcanon go bRRr hahaha.

[arundhati-shah4]

Mini: Are you okay?

Aru: [finger guns]

Mini:...That's not really an answer, Aru.