#DISHONOR ON COFFEE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!

[thecoffeelorian]

I...I accidentally called Captain Gregor "Commander"  😭

I am such a goof  😭

[elisabethdenis]

11 days of productivity

First of all, you should know that I held a guilty feeling in my poor little body for not posting my productive activities everyday since I started the 100 days challenge. As if not posting meant not doing. How evil are those thoughts? 

To be bruttaly honest, my sheets have turned to a shroud. My body feels numb, I have no desire to do much, my motivation is hiding under the carpet. It is spring in New-Zealand and the rain is inevitable. My hair have been washed twice with lemon and almond oil to hydrate my scalp. I bring coffee to my lips 1-3 times a day for a bigger push in the butt. The laundry cycle seem infinite but I’m okay with it because I enjoy looking at the clothesline slowly moving in the wind. I bought 3 jars of ice cream and a few tablet of chocolate. My favorite treat was $140 worth of books. Moroccan and Brazilian literature. And the yellow Grapefruit book of Instruction by Yoko Ono, what a gem! 

This country is finally catching up on other continent. The division is real and that could partially be the reason why gliding in the unknown is getting harder and harder. I can still hear myself say a year ago: oh, I don’t mind lockdown, I’m a hermit anyways. Let me take it all back today. I miss sitting at cafés and being held by all of my friends. I miss not being pointed at because my choices are different to others. 

Japanese anime and oversea correspondences are softening most of the disaster. But I’ll still need a few plasters. My status of ‘illegal immigrant’ in this country is the cherry on the top. The process is taking the time it needs to take and I try everyday to learn to wait well. These words were written on a piece of paper on my friend’s wall the other day: If you have to wait, wait well. I’m trying. This is the closest to being deported that I have ever been and the reason being is: immigration New-Zealand do not think that my relationship is credible. What a pinch on the heart. My partner and I will keep on fighting to prove the purity of our love. This is insulting, mostly very sad and it makes me want to jump over the border and get the fuck out of here. I waited 4 months so far, I can wait another one. 

Oh, and I can’t go to an artist residency I was very much looking forward to go to, because I am not double jabbed. That was quite heartbreaking to find out.

In the midst of this storm, I’m attempting writing my very first manuscript. My goal this month was to achieve 8 draft pages. Which I have, yippy! 4249 words. While I’m writing these fictional stories which are taking place in 4 different countries in Africa, I got very interested about the continent as I never set a foot there. I find it extremely difficult to write about a place I have not been. My curiosity lead me to speak with an author from Ghana (Prince Mensah), which helped me so much in terms of giving me directions to dig deeper into the Liberian civil wars and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He took a genuine interest in my poetry and my short stories which was very flattering. Small victory for me, a pet in the back! Following our conversations, I watched ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and ‘Shooting dogs’ - both about 1994 Rwanda genocide. Last night, I watched ‘Pray the devil back to hell’ which is a documentary about the ladies who have brought peace back to Liberia after the last civil war. Such atrocities made me look around my house thinking, fuck I’m such a brat. My vaccine and immigration worries are nothing compared to a husband being butchered in front of his wife while his daughter is getting raped. My heart goes to the thousands of people who got hungry, displaced, dishonored, burned, mentally assassinated and killed. 

Danielle Foster is my creative mentor for the next 9 months. She has a master in contemporary arts and works for Creative Waikato. Each month, we pick 4 small goals for me to tick off the list, to eventually, achieve my 4 main goals (manuscript, exhibition ‘think twice, it’s not alright’, walk the walk me with to me, repeat ‘geodynamic slumbers’). I write these in keywords because they are still brewing... Once they come to life, I’ll totally expose them on social platforms.

 The end of the month is right here and my 4 task are dead and gone: write to my uni teacher, write 8 draft pages, get the texts from my 6 model-gals, get an interview on the phone with 4 people living in the 4 countries I’m writing about.

My current 2 penpal friends are located in Canada and the other is in Japan. I’m writing to both of them with my favorite Japanese pen: Pockey. I have no idea how I will send my next letters because all of the post offices here are closed. It is quite special to get to know someone a little better every month, from a piece of paper with words on, and small gifted objects. Human connections are everything to me. They keep me going. 

This is goodbye for now, I shall return in a few days, I’m afraid it will be impossible and unwanted, to write everyday. 

Hugs xoooooooxx, we all need more of them

[thescourgeofdarkness]

Character Sheet

General Info

Name: Meta Knight

Titles: Scourge of Darkness, Galaxy's Greatest Swordsman, Star Warrior

Gender: Identifies as male

Race: N/A

Age: Between five thousand to eight thousand years old

Appearance

Height: 3'0

Weight: Very light

Skin: Royal Blue

Eyes: Glowing Yellow

Clothing: Silver mask, steel pauldrons, plate gauntlets, violet dimensional cape, sabatons

Personality

Temperament: Introverted, polite, reserved, formal, altruistic, self-sacrificing, combative, strategic, deceptive

Moral/ethical beliefs: All sentient beings across the universe deserve peace, prosperity, and security. Injustice and tyranny must be opposed. Honor and a coherent code of ethics are paramount

Religious beliefs: Believes in supernatural forces and mysticism, skeptical of organized dogmatic religions

Hobbies: Voracious reader, brewer of excellent coffee

Habits: Staring, positioning himself on elevated areas, nocturnal

Quirks/eccentricities: Has a sweet tooth for candy and other treats, cannot bear to be seen without his mask

Likes: Honor, justice, nature, books, combat

Dislikes: Tyranny and injustice, uncouth behavior, cruelty, barbarism, lack of scruples

Fears: Intimate relationships, defeat, dishonor, losing loved ones

Strengths: Supernatural swordsmanship, super speed, super reflexes, enhanced eyesight, flight, stealth, dueling, centuries of experience

Weaknesses: Strength, durability, mass, dishonorable and pragmatic tactics

Short term goals: Gather new allies, root out darkness and corruption before it can spread

Long term goals: The scouring of evil forces across the universe, maintaining the title of the Galaxy's Greatest Swordsman, perhaps eventual retirement

Hopes and desires: To be capable of opening up to someone

Occupation: Star Warrior, Defender of Planet Popstar, Knight, Swordsman, Commander of the Meta Knights and Battleship Halberd

Skills: Swordsmanship, battle tactics, commanding armed forces, mentorship, brewing fine coffee

Secrets: His origins, his affinity for battle

Gear

Always has: Silver mask, gauntlets, pauldrons, dimensional cape, the sword Galaxia

Sometimes has: Personal single-seat Star Warrior spacecraft, healing items

[cascadedkiwi]

Finding out MC is a runaway (Eisuke - KBTBB)

Characters: Eisuke Ichinomiya (Kissed by the Baddest Bidder) [for now] Genre: Family, Drama

Kiyuki was happily serving the high profile guests attending this most recent IVC. She had long gotten over the nervousness and timidity that had plagued her for her first few months on the job and had quickly become a favourite among recurring guests with how attentive she was and how she always seemed to know the tiniest details that made their experience at Tres Spades better than anywhere in the world. All was well and good as she worked along with her coworkers, until she saw who Sakiko was giving new champagne to.

Not them. She ducked around a large couple surrounded by young men under the guise of picking up a trash tray, scrambling to get as far away from the impeccably dressed dark haired man and his spit-polished wife.

A guest called out to her, “Waitress, I’d like-”

“Pardon me! Apologies! I’m getting some more right away!” All that was on Kiyuki’s mind was Do not let them see me.

Escaping to the safety of the industrial kitchen, Kiyuki held the now cleared serving tray to her chest and took slow deep breaths. There was no way she was going back out there. These past five years had been challenging, but she wouldn’t give them up for anything in the world. And she would be damned if she let anyone take this new life she had so painstakingly crafted from scraps and ashes away from her.

It didn’t take long for Eisuke to notice Kiyuki’s disappearance. Ever since they’d met on that fateful night his eyes were always following her. She was so intriguing and devoted to her job for someone with the refined presence that she had. He could sense there was something below the surface of that love for domesticated work and service to others. One would almost think she was happy to hold herself back from all she seemed to be naturally capable of.

Tonight’s auction was running smoothly as any other so he left his seat - but of course not before he could be jabbed at.

“Bored without the pretty lady, Boss?” Baba grinned as Eisuke half-rolled his eyes.

“You don’t need me here,” Eisuke said. “I can attend to other things.”

Ota smirked. “Other things beginning with Kiyuki and ending with Kuroi.”

Eisuke didn’t deign them with a response as he made his way back up to the penthouse lounge. Clicking through the CCTV feeds, it didn’t take too long to spot Kiyuki hiding in kitchen, washing dishes of all things. What was wrong with this woman? If she didn’t want to work the floor she could’ve just come back to the penthouse. He paged her, unable to help the inner quirk of the corner of his mouth as he watched her jump on the screen, hastily drying her hands to reach in her pocket although they both knew he was the only one who could contact her that way. He sat back as she disappeared from one screen and zipped by a next, out into the hallway, on the elevator, in the penthouse hall. He cut the screens before she got to the lounge door.

“I’m not late this time, I know it!” She huffed as she burst through doors. “What’ll it be, coffee?”

Eisuke looked at her with a minuscule tilt of his head. “Answers.”

She furrowed her brow. “To…?”

“What were you doing just now?”

“...Helping out in the kitchen…”

Eisuke raised an eyebrow. “Are you kitchen staff?”

“No, but…”

“Did they ask for your assistance?”

“They appreciated it…”

“Not what I asked you.” Eisuke sat up. “Did something happen at the IVC?”

“No.” That’s why she went to the kitchen. To make sure it stayed that way.

“So you were avoiding something.”

Kiyuki stiffened.

Eisuke walked up to her, his presence alone forcing her to drop her gaze to the floor. “Look at me.”

Kiyuki looked off to the side and shook her head timidly, knowing he would make her do it regardless of how long he allowed her to stall.

“What are you hiding, Kiyuki?” Eisuke asked from directly above her lowered head. “It’s not like you to run away from your duties like that.”

Kiyuki closed her eyes, willing the unbidden images phasing through her mind to go away. She couldn’t go back to that. They couldn’t find her. She could only imagine what they would do if they found out what she had done with her life. Being connected with someone as elite and powerful as the CEO of the Ichinomiya Group? Those two demons in human flesh would think it was all part of some grand scheme to solidify her place among the elite - to prove that she wasn’t the failure they had been so disappointed to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars raising.

“Kiyuki-”

“My parents,” she admitted in a rushed squeak of a voice. “My parents are at the party and I didn’t want them to see me so I hid in the kitchen.”

Eisuke furrowed his brows. She’d never mentioned her parents - or any family at all for that matter - in the year that he’d known her as more than one of his many hotel employees. With two fingers on her chin he lifted her face and his eyes demanded further explanation.

Kiyuki knew she couldn’t get out of this without digging a deeper hole for herself, but how could she possibly explain? To say ‘they wouldn’t approve’ would be both the understatement of the millennium and the tip of the iceberg. What would Eisuke say when he found out the truth about her? Surely he would call her foolish, ungrateful at the least, to do what she had done, but at the same time she had learned that it was ok for her to decide what she wanted to do with her life. And what she didn’t want as well.

She opened her mouth, still not looking at him. “I was tired of being a puppet,” she murmured. “I was born into the wrong family so when I got old enough - and rebellious enough, you could say - I ran away and haven’t looked back since.”

Eisuke contemplated what the meaning behind her reluctant eyes and sullen voice could be for half a moment before he straightened and pulled her by the wrist over to the sofa. He sat her down then sat next to her. “I need to know more, Kiyuki.”

She swallowed. “My parents are the Toyamas. You know them, long line of prestigious business moguls descended from an old Japanese royal family. Elite in every sense of the word.”

Eisuke blinked at her. Anyone who was anyone knew the power and influence the Toyama name held in the business world. “You changed your name.”

“I had to. There was no way I could escape them if I didn’t.” She looked at him with helpless eyes. “I was hopeless. All the etiquette training, the world-renowned tutors, economics studies… I couldn’t handle it. I always felt like I didn’t belong. Like I was wearing a mask, a marionette on strings just operating as I was manipulated to. Wake up every day, the fancy dresses and jeweled heels, so much makeup on my face I could never recognize myself in pictures or even in the mirror… everything was so fake. My brother and sister were stellar at everything and belonged. Me? I was always just passing the bar. I couldn’t stand all the eyes on me… judging me for what I couldn’t control down to the powder on my face.” Kiyuki looked down at her hands. “I had no control and no sense of connection to that world. So the night after my twentieth birthday gala… I packed a bag and ran.”

“You just left? And they didn’t look for you?”

“Oh, I’m sure they did. How much of a disgrace and a dishonor is it to the mighty Toyama family name that their youngest child disappeared without a trace?”

“How long after that did you change your name?”

“It took me three years to get it done. My surname was way too much of a hassle to try to live a middle-class life with. Everyone asked if I was related. My mannerisms often gave away my high class upbringing so I lived in shelters for a while to learn to act more common.”

Eisuke simply watched her as she spilled her story, his face giving away none of the numerous thoughts swirling in his head. There was a lot more he would need to know but for now, one thing stood out in his mind. “If they saw you, they would want to take you back.”

Kiyuki let out a dry laugh. “Most of the elite would disown a child like me. But they know that’s what I want so they wouldn’t do it.”

Wow. They truly want to torture her. “Where did you choose your name?”

“I adopted ‘Kuroi’ from a book I read about a boy couldn’t speak. I thought it was appropriate since I considered myself the black sheep of the Toyamas.”

“Do you miss your family?”

“You can’t think of me any less than you already do so I can admit that I don’t,” she sighed. “I always felt like my parents were out of reach and while I was closer to my siblings, we were more like classmates than family.”

There was a long moment of silence with her gaze on her lap and his eyes on her shadowed face. “I won’t make you go back out there,” Eisuke finally said. “But part of taking control of your life is not letting them keep you from what you want to do. You love to serve - which I’m sure would horrify your parents immensely-”

Kiyuki grinned along with Eisuke’s smirk. “My mother would faint on the spot. ‘A Toyama? A lowly waitress?! Good heavens, no!’” She placed her hand on her chest and dramatically fell over onto Eisuke’s shoulder where he looked down at her with the smirk in his eyes. “It’s unheard of.”

With his free arm he turned the security feeds back on. “Show them to me.”

Kiyuki straightened and looked up at him. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing, for the time being. But I need to confirm who we’ll be on the lookout for from now on. No one, not even your own parents, is going to take you from me.”

~*~

Written between April 19th and April 29th 2019 (10 days?!)

[ck90]

I Fell into a rabbit hole...

The Kastle rabbit hole. And of course, decided to do some follows because - pretties! I even made a playlist! Then I saw the post about #kastleweek2k19 and saw that day 2 was au-palooza. I knew it had probably been done (haven’t found it yet tho - lots of great fics to read) but wouldn’t it be cute if Karen was the bodyguard protecting Frank.  I saw the post last Thursday and thought, sure I can make a “quick’ fluff fic. It was supposed to be 5K. Then plot happened.

I See Heroes

AO3

Chapter 1: Bad News and Worse News

Click. Click. Click.

Very Special Agent, Karen Page, Level 6, but off the books a Level 8, took a long sip of her second cortado in an hour and willed the caffeine to refuel her empty tanks. It had been a flat white, macchiato, cold brew, cold brew, latte, cortado times two type of day. It wasn’t a bad day, per se. At least it wasn’t the flat white, espresso, double espresso, triple espresso and keep it coming, chocolate covered espresso beans all day, “I said triple espresso!”, “That was a triple!”, “I need more coffee!”, “Behold, Black Insomnia,” and she didn’t sleep for the next 73-hours, type of day.

“You’re thinking about Black Insomnia, aren’t you?”

Karen glanced at the pretty - no, that was too small of a word, too nice - stunning, yeah, that was better, the stunning woman beside her. Special Agent Crystalia Amaquelin, also officially a Level 6 but in reality a Level 8, was out of this world. Literally.

“Never,” Karen’s eyes narrowed, “demon-spewing portal of a hell dimension or not, give me that again.” She shuddered. “I still get the jitters.”

“That was six months ago, you drama-llama.”

They looked at each other and smiled. Good times.

“Okay.” Karen brought the cortado to her mouth again, absently rubbing the ten-inch scar on her thigh. “Maybe only for demon-spewing portals.”

Talia snorted, kicking her size ten tactical boots onto the table and leaning so far back that Karen was sure she was going to tip backward, but didn’t, and clicked on the mouse nearest to her.

Click. Click. Click.

Karen glanced at her own size tens on the other end of the table, it was why she knew Talia’s size. They’d worn each other shoes more times than she could count. It had doubled her shoe collection overnight. She now had Guccis and Louboutins, and Talia had Miu-Mius and Manolos. They'd ended up sharing a house for that reason alone. The fabulous shoes. Except they’ve been practically living in their tactical boots for the last month.

Karen bit off a sigh and ignored the various screens that surrounded them, focusing solely on the one in front of her. They were in a sub-sub-basement of one of S.T.A.K.E.’s subsidiary offices watching the world unfold in front of them. She swiped at the tablet on her lap, and the image changed.

Click. Click. Click.

Who names an organization STAKE anyway?

“Stark.” Another image flashed in front of Karen. “Special Threat Assessment for Known Extranormalities. Howard Stark’s idea of a joke because he stumbled onto Vlad, himself.”

Talia turned to Karen. “Was I thinking too loud?”

“What? Oh.” Karen blinked and shook her head. “No. Sometimes we are just on the same vibe. Versus the times you purposely shout images of your latest conquest.”

“One of us has to have fun.”

Click. Click. Cli—

Talia pushed the mouse away and eyed the other tablet near Karen’s foot. In the blink of an eye, the tablet was in Talia’s hands. Karen was jealous of that little skill.

“Sorry. You should have said something.”

“I would have. Sooner rather than later.” She grabbed the coffee again, sipped, then extended the cup towards Talia. “Would you mind?”

Talia touched the cup. “Hot, scalding or volcano?”

“More than hot but not quite scalding.” In half a breath, the steam swirled up and out of the container. Karen brought it to her lips and savored the fiery jolt of caffeine. She looked at her coffee. “Is 32oz still considered a cup?”

Talia picked up her own vat of caffeine. “It is in my book.”

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

“We all have our lots in life,” Talia said. “Mine is to heat up your coffee and share my shoes.”

“They are really nice shoes.”

“They are, aren’t they?” They shared fond memories of their shoe collection. “What are we trying next?”

Karen worried her lip for one long breath, tapped on her tablet and then pointed at one of the screens now showing a variety of shoes. “Prada?”

“That’s so last year. How about stilettos?”

“You would need seven inches to be taller than Thor and four to go eye to eye with Rumlow. And the last time you went higher than three, you nearly broke your ankle.”

“I still think I can lift Mew-Mew, given half a chance.”

“Me-awl-nir.” Karen’s hands enunciated each syllable like a conductor. There was a wicked sparkle in Talia’s eyes. “You do that on purpose, don’t you?”

“Mew-Mew.”

Karen chewed the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. It would only encourage the incorrigible woman. “And Rumlow? Reeaally?”

Talia’s eyes grew unfocused. Lost in a thought or a memory. Karen geared up for more salacious imagery to burst out of her partner. But none came.

“Talia?” Karen reached out of habit. She was a hugger. Always had been even as a child. A comforting touch. A gentle squeeze. Always tactile. It was part of her skill set. Who she was. In her nature to console and reassure. To soothe. Her fingers brushed against the bunched sleeve on Talia’s elbow.

The problem was that Karen’s power was dangerously out of kilter. She couldn’t control it or replicate the circumstances. It had happened under stress - her nails had dug into a meaty forearm of a hellspawn who grabbed her neck with the intention of separating it from her body - and in perfect calm - her hand had bumped against Mac’s when they were getting coffee.

It had happened six months ago when some idiot opened a hell-portal in Kandahar. And it had happened yesterday morning in New York. The hellspawn had dropped dead. As had any of its brethren that came into contact with her skin. Mac had only been knocked out cold. Luckily.

She got the hellspawn. It could've just been a surge of adrenalin. Fight or die. It wasn’t uncommon for some of the higher powered operatives to develop extra skills in the heat of a battle. But yesterday, there’d been no danger. She had just felt a sense of determination. Of right and wrong. Of honor and dishonor. Of exhaustion.

Weird.

Talia blinked and eyed the long fingers on her elbow. Karen flinched her hand back, but Talia grabbed it and put it on her bare forearm.

“Talia!” Karen tried to pull her hand back, but the other woman was having none of it and held on tight.

“We’re going to figure this out, Kare.”

Karen yanked her hand back. “I’m not taking any chances. Don’t do that again.” She couldn't control the fear in her voice. She couldn’t bear if something happened to her best friend or any of their team just because they touched her by accident. She couldn’t go through that terror again. The picture of a crumbling Mac would forever be forged into her memory.

She was not going through that again. Even if she never touched another friend for the rest of her life.

Karen grabbed the full-length gloves that had been discarded because of the ridiculous warmth of the sub-sub-basement. Shaking fingers buried themselves into the unique fabric that Simmons had initially designed for Daisy. It had been meant as a temporary fix, but had become a permanent fixture on her body after Kandahar. Except for yesterday morning. Except for now.

“You're lucky I didn’t put you in a coma. Or worse.” Her fists clenched to stem the shaking. She refused to look at Talia. The wave of sympathy and love hit her like a comforting blanket. For someone who tried to personify a chaotic neutral personality, Talia Amaquelin was too consistent when it came to the people closest to her. She’d go through hell and back for her teammates. And she’d risk death to comfort a friend that was slowly dying inside from being so touch-starved.

Gloved fingers covered her lips in an attempt to quelch a strangled sob. Her hand fisted against her mouth.

I’m not lonely, Karen.

It was a fleeting thought. A will-o’-wisp. A hushed whisper from far away. So much emotion. So much left unspoken. But she heard it.

Again.

“Kare.”

Her whole body turned towards Talia. Blue eyes met green eyes like the old friends they were. Words were unnecessary. They’ve known each other for over five years. Worked together for over four and lived under the same roof for almost as long. A look was worth a thousand words. Talia grabbed a gloved hand and squeezed.

Yeah. They'd figure it out. But in the meantime, Karen wasn’t taking any chances. Gloves or not. She pulled her hand away.

“As for Rumlow,” Talia shrugged, “it’s complicated.”

Karen bit back a smile. Talia’s default distraction topic: Sex. “Complicated?”

“What can I say,” Talia turned her attention to one of the screens, tilted her head to the side, then moved on to the next screen, “I like living on the edge.”

Karen snorted. “That’s one hell of an edge.”

“I know right?” Talia rested the tablet on her lap and put her hands behind her head. “Sometimes I scare myself.”

Karen did not want to know the details. Of all of the dangerous men and women at SHIELD, Brock Rumlow was scary with a capital D for deadly. She was not going to ask. It was none of her business, and she didn't want to know the particulars that would make her blush anytime she was in the same room as that man.

Besides, Talia was a talker, and she’d spill it anyway. Any minute now. She tended to brag. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. It was almost charming. And one of them should have some fun. Especially now.

Except there was nothing but silence. Other than the low white noise hum of the computers. Talia was just looking at the screens in front of her.

Karen was not going to ask. Nope. Not gonna happen. She was just going to work. Her index finger tapped absently against her thigh.

Goddammit.

Karen dropped the tablet on the table and turned to Talia. “Spill. Details. Say it now so I can school my reaction next time I see the man. Rather than just having you spring it on me before a meeting.” Karen counted to three. “Wipe that self-satisfied grin off your face or so help me I’ll tell Coulson it was you who scratched Lola.”

Talia laughed. “We can’t talk about Rumlow, we’d fail the Bechdel Test.”

“Do you even know that is?”

“Of course I do,” Talia said. “I’ve lived with your nerdgasm for five years. It was bound to rub off.”

“Well, we can’t talk about work.” Karen gestured at the screens. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“What is Fury trying to find here?” Talia tapped on her tablet, and the screens changed. “I get that this is the new hub for vigilantes, but there’s no way that he doesn’t know the identity of the Devil. And that private investigator sure isn’t hiding. Neither is that big smoking hot dude in Harlem.”

The screens showed pictures of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and the glowing fist boy. But the images of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen were all dark and blurry. Only fleeting captures by surveillance cameras. No way to tell anything other than his suit was red, and it had horns. Ha. What’s next? Yellow spandex and gold armor? But Fury was Fury and Karen wouldn't put it past him that he knew exactly who it was under those horns.

“Maybe he’s looking for Spider-Ham.”

Silence. Even the computers stopped humming.

“Spider. Ham.”

It was the tone. Karen always looked at Talia when she pulled out that tone. “You know, the man-child dressed in red and blue who always hams it up for CCTV then realizes he probably shouldn't and throws that spider gunk at it as if it would magically erase the feed.”

Talia bit her lip. “Spider. Ham.” She tasted the words slowly. “I’m totally putting it on the next report.” She pulled out her phone and typed into it.

“Hello? Is this thing on?” A curly blond-brownish haired man tapped on a screen. “Oh, there you are. Can you hear me now? Can you see me?” He looked down, and suddenly all of the screens now had a real close up his face on them. “Is that better?”

“Not really,” Talia said.

“You’re on all of our screens, Fitz.” Karen bit off a smile.

“Oh,” Leo Fitz looked down again. “Is that better?” The image panned out to show more of the lab, but now only covered four screens.

“Not re—”

“It’s fine, Fitz.” Karen glared at Talia. “What’s up?”

“I have good news,” he said.

Karen straightened. Fitz and Simmons had been working on what the hell was going on with Karen’s power. Simmons from a biochemist angle and Fitz from the ‘engineering can’t hurt’ angle.

“Not really,” a disembodied voice pointed out.

Oh. Karen tried to hide her disappointment.

“Oh,” Fitz rubbed his head, “yeah.” He looked at Karen and deflated. “Sorry, Karen. It’s not about the—” he wiggled his hand, “sorry.”

Talia grabbed Karen’s hand and lifted it in a victory pose. “The gloves are totally working though. Not dead. Not even a little nap.”

Karen snatched her hand away.

“That’s great!”

“Fitz,” Karen said calmly, “What news?”

“Maybe it’s more bad news and worse news?” He looked at them worriedly.

“What’s the bad news, Fitz?” Karen had to wonder if it was bad news from Fitz’s perspective or hers. After all, what could possibly be worse than being stuck in a sub-sub-basement watching the world go by and not being able to touch another person because you’re afraid to kill them?

“Hi guys,” Jemma Simmons appeared on the screen and waved. “Don’t forget to bring some samples of that Hell’s Kitchen water.”

“We’re bringing it in us,” Talia answered.

Jemma smiled, then her eyes widened. “NO! Don’t drink it! You don’t know what’s in it.”

Karen bit the inside of her cheek.

“Nice one Jem,” Fitz said.

“It sounded normal in my head.” Jemma’s face contorted in embarrassment. Sorry, she mouthed.

“Why don’t you tell them Jemma?”

Simmons’ head snapped towards Fitz’s direction. “Noooo,” her head moved side to side until the last extended vowel. “He told you to do it.”

“But why would he tell me to do it?”

Jemma thought for a moment. “Because you were the closest to the door.”

“Oh.”

Karen loved them. Would stand in front of any hex or curse for them, face a horde of demons or gaggle of ghouls for either one without hesitation. They were an integral part of their team. Invaluable. But sometimes they drove her bonkers.

“Fitz. Simmons. Spill it.”

They both jumped.

“They are afraid to tell you that you’re still on Fury’s Shit List.” Daisy Johnson came into view.

“Still?” Talia made a face.

“If you know,” Fitz said, turning to Daisy, “then why don’t you tell them?”

“Nooooo.” Daisy held up her hands and took a half-step backward.

“It was an accident.” Four heads turned at the same to look at Karen who shrugged. “It was.”

“The two of you were playing keep the Tesseract away from the Flerken.” Karen resented the lack of understating in Daisy’s tone. It hadn’t been ‘keep away’ as much as how many tentacles does a Flerken really have.

“And he swallowed it,” Fitz said. “Again.” It’s not like it was the first time that “cat” had swallowed something he probably shouldn’t have.

“And we’d just gotten it back!” That sounded like an accusation coming from Jemma. As if it had been their fault SHIELD has lost the Tesseract in the first place. Again. For the fifth time?

Karen turned to Talia, who’s head disappeared between her shoulders as she dipped lower in her chair. “He gave it back.”

“Hurled, Talia,” Daisy said. “Hurled is not the same as give.”

“On the Director’s desk,” Fitz said. “Again.”

“And on his chair. And the floor. And that rug Fury brought back from Istanbul.”

It hadn’t been pretty.

Daisy turned to Jemma. “I think he had to burn it.”

“The smell.” They all said at the same time.

Yeah. That had been surprising. In a toxic dump, even the hazmat suits had come out of the room looking green in the gill, sorta way. You could smell it down the hall.

“He…also returned…some other stuff.”

It was surprising how much stuff could fit into such a little body.

“Hurled, Karen,” Daisy said. “Hurled is not the same as returned.”

“I think that huge mass of goo was a Chitauri,” Jemma said. “Or what was left of one.”

“Jemma, that’s not possible. The Chi—”

Karen tuned out the arguing scientists. She knew they’d figure it out. Her problem that is. If anyone could, it would be them. She just hoped it wouldn’t be another six months. Or longer.

“We knew this, though,” Talia’s voice was low and conversational. “It’s why we’ve been banished to Purgatory.” She waved at the screens. “To contemplate our misdeeds.”

Right. Karen nodded. “If Fury was really angry, he’d send us back to San Francisco.” Bad news and worse news. “Fitz. Fitz! What’s the worse news?”

Fitz picked up a tablet and started typing. One of the screens went black, then two pictures came up, side by side. Two men in Marine officers uniform. It must have been their file portraits. More images came up. The same men, but this time in fatigues, sitting and standing, but always together.

“He’s hot,” Daisy said.

Jemma nodded. “It’s the classic bone structure. The visual cortex recognizes that near-perfect symmetry. Rather pretty actually.”

Karen wouldn’t call him pretty. Not by a long shot. Not with a nose that looked like it had been broken more times that he could possibly remember. Not pretty, but there was something striking about those dark eyes, even in a photograph, that felt like they could see right through her. She couldn’t stop staring.

You were never in any danger …I wanted you to know that.

“Shh! Neither of you wanted to tell them so…shh. Perfect symmetry,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Are we assassinating United States Marine officers, now?”

Karen stiffened.

“What?” Fritz looked down at his notes, then back to Talia. “No. Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually.”

This guy is a war hero.

Karen started to relax. It would be a shame - a crime against mother nature - to have to destroy such a fine specimen of the male species.

“No. Nononononono!”

It was the repetition that unraveled whatever connection that was trying to materialize into this reality. Karen blinked and looked at Talia, whose face was now buried in her hands. She made herself replay the conversation she’d tuned out because of those devastating eyes she was now purposely avoiding. Then it clicked. Her eyes widened.

“NO!”

“Yes.” There was sympathy from Jemma.

“Yeah. Sorry.” And Fitz.

“You’re on babysitting duty.” Not from Daisy. Not even a little bit.

[thestuckylibrary]

Mod’s Reads: July 2017

Continuing our newest feature, here's the list of what the Mods have read this past month!

Mod Blue

tin soldiers by idrilka  Dishonor On Your Cow by mandarou That Is Not A Cow by mandarou  'Til the End of the Timeline by mandarou In the Carcass of the World by Speranza More Than This by concavepatterns Field Studies by concavepatterns Harm and Foul by concavepatterns Except it Abide in the Vine by spitandvinegar (restricted) I have crawled out of my cobwebbed tomb in the midnight gloaming by spitandvinegar The Long Road Begins at Home by owlet The Pugilists by ipoiledi the future's so bright (I gotta wear shades) by KiaraSayre this is not a drive by by plutos All Those Things You've Always Pined For by LavenderProse Ready Player Two by perfect_plan  warm me up and breathe me by caelestys We Can Work Out The Rest by onethingconstant AKA Superheroes Anonymous by onethingconstant persistence of memory by hollimichele  Fluff by MoreThanSlightly (cadignan) A Pretty Boy with a Bird Tattoo by Kryptaria, rayvanfox

Mod Julia

Dirty Pics by lillupon 

There’s this one guy Bucky slept with three months ago who still sends pics of his ass whenever Bucky asks. What can he say? Grant’s got an ass that just won’t quit. 

In the Carcass of the World by Speranza

"Post-apocalyptic AU. The idea I had while drawing was that the end of the world happens some time after WS or CW, Steve and Bucky are looking for Tony so he can make a new arm for Bucky, and Natasha, Clint and Sam are looking for them so they can stop Hydra from taking control of what's left of society. That or quiet slice of life, except in a post-apo world." 

Fourth of July by ChettaDrabbles (KOranges) 

Honestly, Steve hadn't thought going to the bathroom was going to be all that exciting. 

Group Projects Suck by youngavengerfeels 

Bucky gets paired with a guy who never shows up to class for a group presentation. 

Three, and Not Just Two by CoraRochester 

Steve tried to take a drink of water from the glass on his bedside table, but there was definitely already a three-inch long piece of dog hair in it. The ice hadn’t even melted yet. 

Gunpowder Ice Cream by Defiler_Wyrm 

“You keep that up you’re gonna end up with a pudgy midway,” Steve teased.

Bucky didn’t even glance over. He just squirmed down deeper into the blanket and licked his spoon.

“That’s right. I’m gonna get fat,” he declared, to all appearances ignoring Steve’s sputter of laughter. “I’m gonna stop doing a thousand crunches a day and let my belly get all soft. What’re you gonna do then, punk?”

Renascence by hitlikehammers

When they tell him, he freezes. Steve feels his bones seize and his blood go cold and slow and snag on spears of ice that catch, that flay him alive.

We’re in the final phases, Captain. He'll wake within the month if we’re lucky.

A Thousand Men by merkkat

He has killed many men, but he will kill a thousand more to keep his freedom and his Steve.

Government Man-Date by velvetjinx

Bucky Barnes is interning for congressman Steve Rogers during his reelection campaign. Sparks fly between the two of them, but how will their relationship affect the campaign?

Moosebumps by rohkeutta

Steve feels like he’s in some wild fever dream as he walks closer and says, “Hey, you all right?”

107 looks up. He looks even prettier up close, even (or especially, Steve’s mind supplies unhelpfully) with his cheeks flushed with the exercise and sweat beading on his forehead. He does look a little crazy, though.

“Huh,” 107 says, looks down Steve’s body, then up again. “I know we just met, but your dick looks like it’s getting strangled.”

Short Circuit by Chiyume

Something is obviously wrong with Bucky's arm, but he still refuses to let anyone look at it. Steve suspects foul play, and goes to confront his friend about it. Only, when he finally finds Bucky, the truth turns out to be much, much worse than Steve ever suspected.

Slip of the Tongue by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)

When Bucky transferred to the new location he was expecting he'd have to get used to doing things differently. They were all part of the same coffee shop chain, but every store was a little bit unique. He wasn't expecting Steve, six foot plus of blue-eyed muscle who worked at the local bookstore and doctored his coffee with enough sugary syrup to feed an army of hummingbirds, or that getting used to him was going to feel so much like falling.

Mod Dee

for you, i give my soul to keep by samoosifer

Steve stared at Bucky curiously, a dragonfly floating past in the sun. The sound of the river floating by, the soft breeze and the calmness that Steve felt made him feel truly relaxed like he'd never been before. He trusted Bucky. There was something terrifying about him but deep down, Steve knew that Bucky wasn't going to hurt him.

kicking down the door by layersofsilence

Getting married is surely an unmistakeable gesture of romantic love between two people. Even if those two people are men, it can't be that difficult to understand, right?

(Wrong.)

Mod Karin

And Shadows Will Fall Behind by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)

The world was full of things no one could have expected.

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes never expected to fall from a train into decades of torture and killing.

HYDRA never expected their perfect Winter Soldier's programming to shatter.

And Bucky, who'd once been the Winter Soldier, who was now an auxiliary to the Avengers, never expected to look down from a rooftop in New York City, where he was keeping watch over the world's most ineffectual aspirant supervillains, and see a tiny ball of angry sunshine. Fierce and fearless, he loosed feelings in Bucky that he'd thought were gone forever.

Bucky was determined to see him again. The better thing would have been to introduce himself. Not to stealthily follow him as he leapt across the rooftops, strong and agile, feet touching down like he was doing gravity a favour.

The world may have been full of things no one could have expected, but Bucky probably shouldn't have been surprised when his tiny ball of fierce, angry sunshine dumped him on his ass.

après nous le déluge by tomorrowsrain

After us, the deluge.

Steve and Bucky break, mend, and try to find their place in the world without the mantles of Captain America or the Winter Soldier. AU, post Civil War.

(i won't say) i'm in love by jamesbuchanan

Five times Steve said he hated Bucky Barnes. (And the one time he admitted he didn't.)

If it brings you homeby Kalibear

After six months of searching for Bucky, Steve asks for help from Tony, Dr Strange, and Reed Richards but the portal that was supposed to send him to a 'where' sends him to a 'when' instead.

Instead of finding the Winter Soldier, Steve finds 19-year-old Bucky.

Leannán by charlesdk

Leannán /ˈʎɛn̪ˠan/ ;    noun | lover, sweetheart. From Old Irish lendán, lennán (“(male) lover, sweetheart, beloved”).

“Steve Rogers,” he says and holds out his free hand to Bucky, putting on a kind smile while simultaneously ignoring Cassidy climbing onto him.

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky says and shakes his hand. But he isn’t looking at him. No, he’s looking at where Cassidy is planting one of her feet flat against Steve’s hip and hoisting herself off the ground. There’s a smile on his lips and a soft expression on his face, and Steve tries really hard to ignore the urge to ask for his number.

Oh boy. Not good.

OR – In which single father Steve Rogers meets and befriends kindhearted asshole Bucky Barnes and falls in love despite his best efforts not to. It’s a slow and challenging journey thanks to his past but eventually they get their happy ending. Together.

Moosebumps by rohkeutta

Steve feels like he’s in some wild fever dream as he walks closer and says, “Hey, you all right?”

107 looks up. He looks even prettier up close, even (or especially, Steve’s mind supplies unhelpfully) with his cheeks flushed with the exercise and sweat beading on his forehead. He does look a little crazy, though.

“Huh,” 107 says, looks down Steve’s body, then up again. “I know we just met, but your dick looks like it’s getting strangled.”

Once Upon Some Bullshit by machine_dove, Sproings

Bucky really hated magic. He had always hated magic, ever since the first time he'd been forced to believe in it, back in the trenches in occupied France.

He hated it even more now.

A beautiful white swan was standing where Steve should have been, and Enchantress was fucking giggling like the asshole she was.

In which magic is terrible, Steve is sick of this bullshit, and True Love Conquers All

The Joy of Little Things by obsessivereader, Sealcat

"Do you want me to eat you?"

“No, but—” Steve broke off his instinctive response. All his life, he’d believed in doing what was right… he was not about to stop now. Wincing at the prickling pain in his feet, he straightened up to his full height. “Yes. If it means you’ll leave this place.”

"But you don’t look very filling." The tip of the dragon’s tail twitched. "I don’t suppose you’re a virgin?" he asked hopefully. "I’ve heard they taste better."

Steve gritted his teeth and refused to answer. The dragon could very well find that out for himself. He stared at the dragon. The dragon stared back. Then the dragon got up, turned around, and went back into his cave.

"Well? Come on, tribute."

or, how Steve ends up working for a dragon with a very odd sense of humor

Three, and Not Just Two by CoraRochester

Steve tried to take a drink of water from the glass on his bedside table, but there was definitely already a three-inch long piece of dog hair in it. The ice hadn’t even melted yet.

....

Bucky "liberates" a Chow Chow and brings it home. This means, in no particular order: special shampoo, dog hair, googling "can dogs eat apples??", more dog hair, and learning to share your boyfriend with the dog.

Steve's none too quick on the uptake that it's his dog, too.

Inspired by the artwork of silentwalrus

Where You Lead by mambo, tuntekorpp

“That was before I saw that you were on a date,” she says. “Date?” Steve asks, confused. "The man you were holding hands with,” Peggy says. Steve shakes his head. “No, no, that’s not a date. That’s just… Bucky. He’s Bucky.”

Steve is a single dad who manages the local inn. Bucky runs the local diner. Steve loves Bucky's coffee, but definitely not Bucky. Except, maybe that's not so true. Well, it's true about the coffee. Steve definitely loves Bucky's coffee.

(A Gilmore Girls-inspired AU that doesn't require background knowledge of Gilmore Girls to enjoy, and a Captain America Reverse Big Bang offering from mambo and tuntekorpp.)

[fabriziofusco80]

Saying Goodbye to My MotherPart Two

I've been journaling daily about the journey of helping my mother through the rebirth we call death. Although these moments are intensely intimate and personal, I am sharing them publicly (with the permission of my mother, who before she stopped communicating clearly, told me If it helps others, use anything about my story, my illness, and my death in your blog, in your books. If I'm going to leave this planet, at least let my life and my death live on through the hearts of those who might learn from it.). Mom even said, Maybe I'm dying so you can learn how to help others fall sick and die with trust in God. The other day, she said, I have a synapse to God. You have a synapse to me. We can bring others along with us.

Many who are following this journey on Facebook have said, There are so many who are about to experience this journey with loved ones, who might benefit by your sharing. I know that losing a loved one is a private, deep experience of the most intimate heart, but it is also a universal human experience. So I share this process with you all, in case it helps you deal with your own grief, your own illness, your own journey through the death of a loved one, or your own fall into grace. It comforts me to trust that such deep, universal human experiences blow open the heart, if we can simply stay present with the full adventure.

10/25/17

My daughter Siena and her father Matt left my dying mother's bedside this morning so Siena could get back to school and life. Last night, as she was going to bed, Siena shared with me the Nana Mojo Grief Tips that Mom shared with her before she stopped being able to communicate. The first in a long list of How to Gikuyrieve advice was that she wanted Siena to give herself permission to feel good, that grief comes in waves of sadness, but that between the waves, we're allowed to be happy, to do fun things, to feel good. Siena took that to heart. She has been such a trooper, staying in the intensity of the grief, being so present with her Nana, crying, laughing, feeling instead of running away from the intense emotions. And then laughing, playing, gathering fall leaves with me last night on our walk to create an art project with the bounty of autumn color.

I have watched in awe as my daughter has spent hour after hour, sitting-undistracted-beside her Nana in patient silence, just watching her beloved grandmother's raspy breath. Few adults have the resilience and strength to do what my 11-year-old is doing. She will be quick to heal because she is not fighting what life is offering to her and she has no barrier to the love that is all around her, now and always.

I will miss having Siena here as we wait for my mother to transition. My little Buddha goddess has been a breath of fresh life as we usher another life out. In her last moments, she asked to be alone with her Nana. From behind the door, I could hear her whispering her last love stories to the grandmother she adores and weeping her grief into her Nana's cheek. I can't remember crying that hard in my whole life. When she felt complete, Matt and I held each other and opened our arms to her, the three of us still family, resting in each others embrace.

After Siena left, I opened my mother's closet to get a sweater, and I was struck, as if with a thousand bricks, with the horror of seeing a closet full of Christmas boxes and realizing that my mother would not be around to distribute the hundreds of Christmas gifts she insists on buying every year. (The purchases usually made six months to a year ahead of time!) I sorted through a box of things I'm sure she intended to put in my stocking, as she has done for 48 years. This will be the first year of my life that my mother doesn't stuff my stocking. It sounds so trivial to my mind as I write this. Such a small thing, the discovery of the stocking stuffers, and yet, if you knew my mother, you would understand that such things were not trivial to my mother. Her love language is gifts. It frustrated her that she raised a family of minimalists.

This is what grief does, I suppose. You walk around, just living your life as if everything is normal, drinking your coffee, tending to the dishes, answering emails, and then you stumble upon something that humbles you to your knees. And you breathe. And you surrender to the emotion as you breathe. And you beg for mercy from what feels like unbearable pain, and yet you know you can't skip it. You know the only way to get to the other side is to go all the way through it without bypassing one bit.

And then, just as a labor contraction passes and you feel relief when you're giving birth, the grief passes, and the sun comes out, and there is love all around, and you find gratitude in everything that's still here. Unspeakable joy is only one or two breaths away from the agony of loss.

A sign on my father's memorial in my mother's home says, Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. I say-go ahead. Do both. Cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. Hold the tension of the paradox and open your heart to how deep being human can go if you let it.

10/26/17

Last night, I curled up in blankets and looked at the stars over the lake at my mother's home. I remember my mother teaching me about all the constellations when I was a little girl-and how excited she was to show me the Southern Cross this past April when we were in Africa on safari together as her bucket list trip after her terminal cancer diagnosis. Mom and I were alone with our safari guide in the Land Rover, all curled up in the freezing cold under heavy wool blankets. Our guide turned off all the lights so we could gaze at the most magnificent African sky-an enormous show of shooting stars and constellations I don't recognize, set to the soundtrack of African bush animals.

This time, Mom is sleeping in the bed where she will die in her home and I was on the deck, feeling a jumble of emotions-gratitude, grief, joy, relief, tenderness, impatience, love, sadness. It brings to mind Rumi's poem The Guest House.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

10/27/17

As a doctor, I have attended many deaths, and as a woman, I have been with about a dozen people who were dying outside of my work. Sometimes, as when my father passed, it is a peaceful, transcendent place. The death process itself is a holy meditation for those who witness it. This is not so much the experience I'm having with my precious mother. The between worlds place my mother is inhabiting isn't so rose-colored these days. When the inevitable time comes to lose a parent, we pray it will be quick and easy, a time of angels and tunnels of light, of professions of undying love, a time of transcendence. But it isn't always that smooth.

There is deep love at my mother's bedside. There is humor, as when my mother, eyes still closed, did a glorious fist bump after my aunt told her that my adorably messy sister, who lives with my mother, finally cleaned her bedroom. There is a lot of music. We spend most of the day singing to my mother, and she still sings along with us when she can. I think I sang the entire John Denver repertoire to her yesterday. Annie's Song made her smile the most.

But I don't want to sugar coat what is happening here at my mother's bedside either. There are agonizing moments, moments I can't un-see, moments that haunt me when I close my eyes to go to sleep, wondering if she will still be with us when I awaken. Last night, my beautiful mother put her hands to her face, like a child playing hide and seek. Are you in pain? I asked. She shook her head. Then clear as a bell, she said, I'm really hating this.

Tears. Helplessness. I feel so impotent. I want to make it better, but there are only so many John Denver songs.

My mother Trish thinks there are bugs biting her. At one point, she said, We're infested with mice. I told her that could never happen because she's the Trishinator. (We always joked that no bug or rodent could possibly survive her presence because she's always bombing the house with all kinds of scary poisons intended to get rid of everything but humans!)

Mom is busy in her mind, making to do lists, asking me what the schedule is. When I asked her if she's excited to go to heaven, she nodded, but then she added, I'm anxious. Hospice added some medication to help calm her nerves and settle the hallucinations that often accompany end of life. I succumb to their guidance, but like my mother, I really hate this. I think we overmedicate everything painful. I'm fine with optimizing Mom's pain medication, but I hate tranquilizing my mother in her last moments. I want her to be fully present for what is about to happen, but then, this is not about me. This is my mother's journey, and of course, I would never want her to suffer needlessly.

I told my 79-year-old mentor Rachel, who is also a physician, that I'm having a really hard time staying present with all this, that I have a strong (though I'm aware it's also pathologic) impulse to make it better, to ease her suffering, to DO something. I've spent 10 years in therapy interrupting my Savior Complex, so this feels like the ultimate pattern interrupt. I cannot save the woman I would most want to save. In fact, any attempt to do so dishonors her and disrespects her autonomous journey. But jeez, this is an intense initiation.

The death watch is brutal. Unlike a birth, which has a due date and a past due date, there is no due date on death. The waiting-breath by precious breath-is part of the journey. Rachel said, Alas the due date here is shrouded in mystery but no one dies on the wrong due date no matter how it appears to us. I believe that everything that happens in this period has deep meaning and value and is a profound learning in response to the events and conditions and beliefs of this lifetime or, even more likely, a learning related to a previous lifetime. I often wonder if the events of someone's death are even a service to others and final teaching transmitted to others in unforgettable terms. My own mother said that people die only when they are complete. We may never understand that completion, but it is profound, no matter how it looks to us. It is very very hard to watch but it does not need to be fixed. Our way of death of all things is not meaningless any more than our way of birth. As painful as it seems, it is in all probability a gift/teaching to carry forward to a better lifetime. Hard to be a doc at such times, isn't it? And even harder to be a daughter. I have really come to believe that control may not be the ultimate offering here, but your love and your trust of the unknown probably is. As long as she is not in pain or alone, all is well dear Lissa.

Rachel's words comfort me. My opportunity here is to simply be present with my mother, to resist the impulse to distract myself from what is so hard to witness and feel fully, to find meaning and joy in the moments of deep connection, to bask in the plane of love that washes over me every few moments and fills me with light and gratitude. Rachel says my love and my trust in the unknown may be the ultimate gift I can give my mother. This I can give. I trust the Great Mystery. I do. I never doubt it, not even on my darkest nights. Divine Beloved, this journey is yours. May whatever is aligned with Your will come to pass.

Love,

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[arwenkaboom]

Day 3: Darkest Moment

It was really going to be a bright moment, but yeah here we are.

AO3 link maybe its easier to read it there 

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11317119/chapters/25345842 

Sara was enjoying her morning coffee in her room on the Tempest. Looking at the stars passing by as they were in FTL. Her eyes gazed at the little dots making long lines, she remembered that one of them has her name. She’d just leave Kadara and already she missed him too much.

“Good morning Pathfinder.”

SAM startled her as she was deep in her thoughts remembering all the sweet moments up on that mountain. Her coffee almost spilled on her as she shook.

“You have a new email Pathfinder, I advise you to read it at once.”

Sara raised her eyebrow and nodded. Her omni tool opened and she felt fear in her guts as she read the email. It was from Keema she urged her to come back to Kadara because there’s something wrong with Reyes. Keema didn’t go to detail and maybe that’s what scared Sara so much, not knowing. She left just two days ago, what could have possibly happen to him. Was he sick? He looked fine back then, more than fine.

She didn’t dwell on it for too long, whatever it is, she is going back to Kadara.

“Suvi, Kallo! We are changing the course for Kadara right now. We need to get there as soon as possible.”

They both were confused as they had clear mission ahead of them. But Archon will have to wait, even though she wanted to find him before he did more damage to Heleus, her heart was telling her to go back to Kadara.

She paced around bridge like a caged animal, mumbling something to herself, distracting everyone around her.

“Are you okay Sara?” Suvi stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Something is wrong isn’t it? That’s why we are going back. Did the bad boy do something?” She asked her calmly, like she expected trouble from him.

“No, no… I don’t know. I got an email from Keema telling me there’s something wrong with him. I’m fearing the worst. I sent her back an email but she is not answering.”

“Sara, you should go lay down, we are still far away from Kadara, you can’t pace around here for two days.”

Suvi pleaded with her as well as threating her with calling Lexi. Sara complied, not willingly, but she knew Suvi was right.

Back in her bedroom Sara was eyeing coffee that went cold by now. How did this happen? An hour ago I was happy and now I don’t know what is going on.

“Pathfinder, you have received an email from Keema. Maybe she will shed some light on the situation.” SAM informed her.

Her mind spinning, she felt slight weakness in her hands as she was opening it. What am I going to find? I hope he is alright, please don’t let him be hurt, I wouldn’t handle it. Sara’s mind running hundred thoughts at once.

 -----

To: Sara

From: Keema

  Ryder,

  Reyes is in his room, refusing to come out, or speak to anyone.

  He had an argument with someone at Tartarus last night, that’s all i know, and   since then he is acting weird.

  I have never seen him like this.

  I’m hoping you can kick some sense into him.

   - Keema

-----

Sara felt relieved and confused at the same time. It’s only some argument he had, he is fine. But with who?  Keema didn’t specify anything. Some Charlatan business maybe? Sloane’s outcasts making trouble again? No if that was the case Reyes would just act on it and fix it, this was something else, something personal. She feared it could some ex, what if… “No! Sara stop!” She screamed at herself. “You’ll drive yourself crazy until you land! Just go to sleep, he is not in danger at least.” Shaking her hands like she was trying to convince herself.

Sara managed to stay sane those two damn days spending it in a company of her crew, in hopes she could kill time and put her mind at ease. Some poker with Gil, this time she wasn’t in the mood to cheat. Exercise with Liam, which she really wasn’t in the mood for. She helped Cora to plant new sample they picked up on Kadara. Peebee asked her to join her in some zero-G adventure in her escape pod. And Drack would let her headbutt him, and as she was getting ready to do it, she heard Suvi over the comm.  

“Now orbiting Kadara.”

Sara ran to bridge, to see Tempest entering atmosphere. Her heart started jumping, pounding like she didn’t see him for years, not just few days. The anticipation is over, she can finally face whatever she is about to walk to. 

Keema was waiting for the Tempest to land, standing next to the door. Seeing her Sara rushed towards Keema.

“Come Ryder, I’ll take you to him.”

While they were walking Keema let out a few details about what happened. “One of the dancer saw them fighting, Reyes was furious. Seemed like a man that Reyes had fight with later got drunk.” Keema stopped for a second. “Ryder, please help him, whatever is going on.” Sara nodded and gave a reassuring smile. They approached the room and Sara was leaning on the door, hoping she might hear something... she pounded a few times.

“Go away Keema!”

Reyes was yelling his lungs out, Keema gave Sara a sad look right before she lowered her head, and went away. Poor Keema, who knows how many times she tried to talk to him.

“It’s me Reyes, Sara.. your... dancing star. Please open the door.”

Her voice shivering, but also longing. Door whooshed and he was standing there with his hands on the hinges, like he has seen a ghost. He couldn’t believe his ears at first, but now that he sees her, he was so surprised. She left four days ago, how come she is here? He let this thought go through his mind before realizing Keema probably called her. He pulled her close, kissing her soft lips and gripping her tight that she’d stop breathing for a moment. Oh did he love Keema for being so stubborn right now.

They came in and door closed behind them. Sara quickly scoped the room to see several items broken by the night stand, bed sheets all rumpled and twisted, thrown all around the room. The bathroom was letting out some sour smell. Did he puke? He got drunk? But he knew how to hold his drink. Has to be something else. Sara didn’t really know what to think.

She sat next to him on the couch, he buried his head in his hands and let out a loud sob that made his whole body shiver. Sara held her hand on his back stroking him at the base of his neck. She leaned forward. 

“Reyes tell me what’s wrong? Keema said you had a fight in Tartarus. Do you wish to talk about it?”

He raised his head looking at her, with a fear and sadness in his eyes.

“I did something stupid thinking it’s the right thing to do.” He stood up looking away from her, he shook his head. “Damn was the day I became Charlatan! Damn was the day I got the power!” He looked back at her, and fell on his knees in front of her, he carefully took her hand in his. He was ready to tell her the truth.

While he was in Aliance, Reyes met a guy named Hugo, a shy kid that ended up in the academy to please his parents. Hugo was an artistic soul, gentle, almost girly, but that was the bane of his family that held the honor of five generations of solders. They wanted him to toughen up. Reyes felt bad for him, because he himself was something else, no one could tell him what do, knowing what freedom tasted, how sweet it was, Reyes wouldn’t let this kid lose it completely so young. Hugo drew most beautiful landscapes and portraits and Reyes was more than willing to be his model. He’d hang a few in his apartment, specially the naked ones, ladies would go mad.

Out there in the field, he would keep a close eye on him, protecting him. When Hugo was shot by Vorcha, Reyes wouldn’t leave his side, he’d sleep on a chair for five days, until Hugo woke up, he felt responsible for him. If he didn’t give a damn, that kid would have no one. They developed a strong bond, a friendship that made Reyes a better man. It would make him care for this kid as his parents should. Love him.

As Reyes wouldn’t give up his womanizer role, back then he was very proud of it, it was bound that one day some mad husband is going to knock on his door. He just didn’t expect his commander to be the one. Reyes would curse a thousand time in his head. You had to be a gigolo at the New Years Aliance party. But damn was she irresistible in that red dress. After being dishonorably kicked out of Aliance, Hugo followed him, making his parents mad. Without jobs and money they agreed it’s time to move. The Andromeda Initiative was perfect opportunity.

“WHAT?!” Sara said in a surprise. “Where is he now Reyes?” She started piecing things together. Was he the one Reyes had fight with? He had to be. What was it about? Something important to hurt Reyes this much.

“He came with you, on Hyperion.”

Okay Sara your logic is dead wrong here, what the hell happened then? If not Hugo, who is the guy Reyes fought with?

“I just thought with an outpost here, and Kadara being as safe as it could be, he would enjoy the beautiful view, he could be someone here. I was greedy, I needed him, I was afraid when the time comes for him to wake up, I'd be old and not able to take care of him.”

Reyes stood up, almost mad. His muscles cramping. Eyes squinting. He started pacing and explaining, shaking his hands in short and firm motion.

“I told him not to write artist on his application! I told him soldier or pilot is better.” He would probably be among the first ones to wake up, artists were merely at the end of the list. “He wanted to start fresh, not to hide his true ambitions from anyone. He wanted to be someone else, someone he couldn’t be back on Earth. And I let him, argh! That stupid kid.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?! I can pull some strings at Nexus.” 

How could he ask that of her? Some eyebrows would rise and she could lose her respect, maybe even a tittle. No he would never ask that of her. She was better than to do that, to do.. what he did.

His watery eyes met hers and he looked at her like he is asking her to save him, to make it all go away. He sat in the chair, looking at her eyes, all so understanding, smiling at him, full of love, something so pure in them. How was he going to tell her this? He gathered some courage as he lowered his head down, not able to look her in the eyes anymore. Oh those ocean blue eyes...

“We smuggled his stasis pod of Hyperion…”

She gasped looking at him in disbelief. He did not do that. How could he?! Not to me. 

“…on their way here, they encountered a Kett vessel and… and his pod was damaged”

Reyes paused, his face succumbed to pain as he let out a loud roar.

“He died in that pod! Oh god Sara, I killed him!”

[robnosh]

#1-104 please (alternatively, you can just answer #25)

*cracks fingers* Ok let’s do this:

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say?- I’d ask how she even were able to get all the way here in the first place since she lives in Spain.

2. What’s going on between you and the last person you kissed?- It’s complicated….I’d rather not talk about it.

3. If your boyfriend or girlfriend was into drugs, would you care?- I would, I have a big personal opinion on drug use but if it’s medicinal and actually is prescribed as help against something I wouldn’t be opposed.

4. Is your last name longer than six letters?- Well nine is longer that six, so yeah it is.

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober?- Sober.

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up?- I think I have but I’m not sure.

7. What does your last received text say?- “Nice!!!”

8. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed?- Haven’t really counted but in all I suppose it was around 30 or 40 times in the 4 weeks we were physically together.

9. Where was your last kiss at?- At the Buenos Aires Airport in Argentina..

10. When is the last time you saw your sister?- A couple of hours ago.

11. What do you drink in the morning?- Milk or coffee.

12. Where did you sleep last night?- In my own bed at home.

13. Do you think relationships are hard?- Considering that out of the three relationships I’ve had only the last was an actual serious relationship I can’t really tell if they are hard or not.

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you?- There isn’t much I would change, some things would still be the same anyway.

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, any problems?- Awkwardness, possibly not talking to me at all or as little as possible.

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy?- Rainy, but then being inside myself.

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you?- Don’t have a middle name, though I know multiple people with my first name.

18. Are you wearing jeans,sweatpants,or pajama pants?- Undies, it’s night, I’m in bed and I’d die of the warmth if I were to wear a pajama. (I have a rather warm body temperature)

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now?- God I hope so.

20. Does anyone like you?- As far as I know, yes. A friend of mine. *squints at my friend pam in Spain*

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S?- Yup, was my first girlfriend Sarah.

22. Is the last person you kissed gay?- Well they are Pan so that would be the case.

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand?- BOY DO I?! An old friend of mine whom did something worth getting beat up for.

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?- I have but am still unsure about it, it’s the Outsider’s Mark from Dishonored for on my left hand (like in the games)

25. In the past week have you cried?- two days ago.

26. What breed was the last dog you saw? -Uhhhh…idk man.

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower?- Outside of the shower, still in the bathroom though.

28. Have you ever kissed a football player?- Nope

29. Do you think you’re old?- Nah, 21 is young.

30. Do you like text messaging?- I do! I like it, though I don’t really get texted.

31. What type of day are you having?- I’m having a night actually.

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced?- Nah, I’m not into getting anything from my body pierced.

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?- Cold weather, you can wear swearers and beanies and just be warm at the fireplace.

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?- There are a couple, all good friends of mine.

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling?- A relationship for sure.

36. Are you a simple or complicated person?- I think I’m rather simple.

37. What song are you listening to?- Currently nothing, but I did listen to Dance With The Dead - Kickstart My Heart a while ago.

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it?- Always

39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you?- Not a girl, but yeah there is a person that does knows pretty much everything about me.

40. What made you start liking the person you like now?-They were a funny, goofy and a somewhat nerdy/geeky person, like me.

41. When did you last receive a text message?- Around 23:00 - ish

42. What is wrong with you right now?- Can’t sleep.

43. How well do you know the last female you texted?- Good enough, have known her for quite a few years by now.

44. Does anyone disgust you?- I hope not..

45. Would you date someone right now if they asked?- Well If it’s a complete stranger not inmediately, if it’s someone I know then maybe give it a shot and see how that goes??

46. Are you in a good mood right now?- I’m in a tired mood.

47. Who was the last person you talked to in person?- My mom.

48. What color shirt are you wearing?- None, same reason as for the pants question, warm body.

49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear?- Not that I can think of.

50. Anyone you’re giving up on?- Nobody.

51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for?- No, I still like them actually.

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t?- I have not.

53. Do you like rain?- I do, I love the sound of rain on my windows at night.

54. Do you care if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks?- I don’t, however I do somewhat care about the amount. As in so that they don’t get sick or black out or anything like that.

55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them?- Nope, told them all I liked them at the time.

56. Do you like to cuddle?- I love cuddling, makes me feel nice.

57. Are you shy?- I wouldn’t call myself shy.

58. Do you get along with girls?- I do get along with a lot of girls, pretty much all became friends of mine.

59. Have you dated the person you texted last?- I have not, but I wouldn’t mind at all (looking at you pam)

60. What do you carry with you at all times?- Phone, - wallet, - keys, - 2 usb’s - and as weird as it sounds, a small glass heart.

61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you?- I might do it, for the experience and come on, I can do a lot with that amount of money.

62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months?- Last one was almost 2 years so yeah I think I’ll do just fine.

63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship?- I was…and then I wasn’t anymore..

64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute?- Absolutely!

65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week?- My cat Jay was super cuddly with me.

66. How old are the last three people you kissed?- Right now they are 19, 19 and 20.

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself?- I’d pay someone to do it, better than me with zero experience.

68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print? -Leopard.

69. Do you have any stickers on your car? - I HAVE A CAR???!!!

70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne? - None of the two.

71. Blackberry, Anroid, or iPhone? - iPhone 5s to be exact.

72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?- Never, we don’t have a Pizza Hut in the Netherlands.

73. Do you like diet soda? - Nah man.

74. What color are the walls in your room? - White/broken white.

75. Are you 16 or older? - 21 my friend.

76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars? - No I don’t.

77. Do you have a job? - I work as a dishwasher at a restaurant.

78. What are your initials? - R. S.

79. Did you ever have braces? - Still have one on my lower teeth, to keep them in place.

80. Are you from the south? - I’m more a bit up north.

81. What does your last status on facebook say? - Uhhhh……crap, never check it tbh.

82. Do you still talk to the first person you ever kissed? - Used to yes, but we just got out of touch.

83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad? - Mom for sure, my sister is closer to my dad.

84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics? - Non of the above, I’m not that athletic.

85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters? - Valerian: The City of a Thousand Planets. Loved it since I read all the comics.

86. Do you smoke? - Nah man, no smoking for me.

87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops? - Heels if it’s in the sence of those fancy leather shoes, have a pair myself.

88. Is your phone touch screen? - Well iPhone is a touch screen phone yes.

89. Do you normally wear your hair straight or curly? - Naturally curly as it is my friend, long curly hair.

90. Have you ever snuck out of your house? - I have once when I was super young, I was still in the neighborhood tho.

91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool? - Lake, has almost no currents and definitely no chlorine in it.

92. Have you ever made out in a car? - Tried to but they were still too shy since they basically met me in real life about 5 minutes before that.

93. …Had sex in a car? - Nope.

94. Are you single or in a relationship? - Single and ready to die.

95. What were you doing last night at midnight? - Being at the birthday of a friend of mine.

96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks? - Earlier this month, people can’t wait for new years eve.

97. Do you like the camera on your phone? - I do, much better than the last one.

98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?- No

99. Have you ever passed out from drinking? - Never, I don’t drink that much.

100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate? - I hardly use facebook but no.

101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare? - Never.

102. Name your favorite Kesha song: - I don’t listen to her or even know the songs by name.

103. Do you have any tan lines right now?- None at all, didn’t go on vacation somewhere. Had to work on my house.

104. Would you ever wear cowboy boots with shorts? - Hahaha nah but that would look funny.

Ok wow that was a lot of questions. Took me a while since I’m on tumblr mobileThanks for asking! :D

[robertkstone]

War of the Worlds: Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor Performance vs Jaguar I-Pace EV400 HSE vs Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

“Randy’s just gone off Turn 2,” the walkie-talkie barks. I look up from my laptop. What happened? Our Jaguar I-Pace is most definitely in the wrong place and has come to a stop amid drifting dust.

Today is just getting weirder and weirder—Randy Franklin Pobst never goes off a racetrack. For all the tire marks that spaghetti away from the Streets of Willow’s racing line and loopily disappear at its broken edges, they’re never the graffiti of our resident championship racing driver. Randy is a model of consistency.

A walkie-talkie hisses for a moment, and then … “The Jag suddenly put on its emergency brakes and sent me off the track.” Wait, what? The Motor Trend testing staffers eyeball each other. For the past two hours, Randy had been chasing software curveballs. Even through the metallic fidelity of our Motorolas, the terseness in his voice says he’s getting a little weary of it.

“At least it wasn’t just us,” mutters a Tesla-hatted voice behind me. Earlier, the Tesla Model 3 Performance with Track mode didn’t exactly stop as planned approaching Turn 10, going straight off at 90 mph, then bouncing through the bumpy desert terrain and sagebrush before re-entering the front straight and rolling into the pits, with a blown left rear tire courtesy of its off-road excursion.

We expected some surprises today. Bringing together two trackable battery-electric vehicles to challenge the best classical internal combustion sport sedan in the world right now—the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio—would be the beginning of a battle for the ages. Who knew it would also wind up a battle in the sages?

Let’s rewind the clouds of dust to earlier this morning.

It’s 8 a.m. in the California high desert, and already the sun has our asphalt stage brightly lit. To our left is “Big Willow” with its white-knuckle turns and village of backstage garages and paddocks needed for Willow Springs International Raceway’s blockbuster, high-speed productions. This, though, is “Streets,”  its more intimate second stage. A more technical setting for our trio of performers.

Amid the hiss of tire pressures being adjusted by co-evaluators Alan Lau and Derek Powell—and the rattle-grrrrrrrrr of photo czar Brian Vance’s incessant coffee bean grinding—I’m staring at the cars and unable to piece together a good argument for why the Alfa beats the Tesla around the track or the other way around.

It’s easy to pencil out why the Jag is going to lag behind: Compared to the Alfa, its motors’ combined 394 horsepower falls 22 percent shy of the Giulia’s output, while its 4,946-pound mass renders it 31 percent porkier. Those SEMA-ready 255/40R22 Pirelli P Zeros the Jag is wearing won’t erase the high-heeled physics of its crossover height. The Jag seems a preordained but not dishonorable third place around Streets. But the tea leaves from our real-world testing of the Giulia and Model 3 point in contradictory directions.

Leaf One tilts toward Tesla: The 505-hp Alfa’s 0–60 time is 3.8 seconds; the 450-hp Model 3 clocks at 3.3—its dual-motor AWD launches it like a rail gun. Leaf Two, to Alfa: The Giulia clings to corners like sweaty underwear, pulling a 0.98 g skidpad compared to the Model 3’s 0.95. Leaf Three, pick ’em: The Tesla stops shorter—but fractionally so. Leaf Four, mox nix: Their figure-eight lap times are identical at 24.2 seconds. Time to ditch the tea and grab some of Vance’s coffee.

The cars are prepped, and Randy is good to go. The Model 3’s cooling system is screaming as it pre-chills the battery and dual motors. Belted in, attired in his black helmet, black racing suit, and ever-bright mood, Randy asks the Tesla engineer leaning into the cockpit, “What do I do to set the handling?” The guy taps the do-everything center screen’s icon with the words “Track Mode.” That’s it. Randy raises his eyebrows. The guy climbs out; I lean in to check that our Vboxes are powered up and SD cards clicked in, then give the passenger door a good slam.

The Model 3 whirs away. A minute later it reappears, slaloming past the apexes of the last four corners of Streets. Its tail is drifting dramatically, left, right, left, then it pitchy-hops midway around the last “skidpad” corner and tail-wags onto the straight. Everybody is watching—nobody has ever seen a Tesla handle like this.

Five minutes later, Randy climbs out, I grab the data cards, and Angus MacKenzie starts readying to try it himself.

The fastest EV ever at Streets was the Randy-driven Mitsubishi MiEV at a 1:10.90 … no, not the goofy Google-car you’re picturing but a sleek slicks-and-wings, Pikes Peak racing car we tested in 2014. The Model 3’s time appears on my screen—1:23.90. A production-car EV record. A blink quicker (0.07 second) than the Mustang GT Performance Pack 2. Process that. The Mustang GT PP2.

However, Randy needs to chime in: “It’s very easy to get understeer, the car’s handling is sometimes inconsistent, and there’s something weird happening when I lift off the brake.”

What Randy is feeling is a lingering deceleration after he releases the brake (before he’s moved his foot to the accelerator)—it’s the undepressed accelerator pedal’s heavy regenerative braking setting that’s confusing him during the transition. Compared to the car’s normal “heavy” rate of 0.2 g (matching that of the Jag), Track mode applies a more noticeable 0.3 g’s.

Angus rolls in from his hot laps: “It turns in quickly, especially with throttle lift, but there’s not a ton of feel from the front end. Get to the power too early, and the handling just devolves into massive understeer. The good news is a big lift off the accelerator will get the car to rotate. Roll on the power, and the Model 3 nicely drifts out of the corner. There’s never any sense it’s going to spin. Drive it like a rally car, and it’s fun. But for a traditional race driver, where smooth is fast, I can imagine it all feels a little discombobulating.”

The tall Jaguar goes out next and returns seven minutes’ worth of laps later. I pop out the SD cards from the Vboxes and open the file—a 1:27.00. No MiEV, but not bad for a 5,000-pound, five-passenger crossover that’s quicker than the Golf R and WRX STi. Geez.

“There’s a lot of understeer, and the brakes could be inconsistent,” Randy notes. Those two words—inconsistent and unpredictable—keep coming up during his Jaguar download.

Finally, it’s the big-dog Alfa’s moment to break the EV silence. We hear the Giulia’s bark and baritone as Randy warms the tires. Judgment time. Which will win? Twenty-one thousand gasoline combustions per lap, or software code swarming through silicon chips? The Alfa moves dartlike through the same corners the Tesla just drifted through. Randy pulls in wearing a smile we haven’t seen yet today. Mr. Consistency just laid down a 1:22.78. That’s 1.12 seconds quicker than the Tesla. “It just does exactly what you expect,” he says. “No surprises. Always predictable. Rear-wheel drive just gives me the control that I want.”

Then somebody notices the Alfa’s Pirelli P Zero Corsa AR Asimmetrico front tires. They’re asimmetrico, all right: Half of each tread block’s rubber is gone after two sets of three hard laps. The Tesla engineer points to his car’s Michelin Pilot Sport 4Ss that are at worst scuffed. “We could do that time if we were willing to destroy our tires,” he says. The Tesla’s rubber contains complex compounding across its tread for minimal rolling resistance but stickiness for corners (with foam glued into its interior to reduce noise). The technical investment in this tire—which can generate 0.95 g’s of cornering grip from a 4,078-pound car without significantly damaging the rubber and still deliver 310 miles on a charge—is remarkable.

Nevertheless, the conversation drifts toward imagining sliders on the Tesla touchscreen to fine-tune Track mode or tapping the names of tires you bring along to have their performance characteristics loaded. One idea I like: “Randy mode.” Ludicrous for the road racing set.

Track Mode

Four years ago, I drove our long-term Tesla Model S P85+ to Laguna Seca for a similar lapping day. When I arrived, I unloaded 17 bags of ice from a 7-Eleven along Route 68, plus a dusty roll of bubble wrap I found at Home Depot. We shoved the ice bags under the car until they were stacked up against the battery, then I encircled the car with bubble wrap like a floor-length insulating skirt, taped it to the bodywork, and waited for the car to charge. We had tried to lap the Tesla a few months before, but it couldn’t get to the hilly track’s Turn 11 before it self-limited its power output, due to heat buildup. This time it would start refrigerated.

Thermodynamic experimentation be damned, the Tesla power-limited at just about the same spot anyway. And our photo of the wrapped car touched a nerve with Tesla. The “Teslas can’t lap” rap has remained a thorny issue with Elon’s crew, so a month ago Tesla invited me up to Marina Airport after Monterey Car Week to finally sample its solution.

Rather than a vender-sourced patchwork of stability- and traction-control systems, Track mode is a holistic solution to enthusiast EV driving. It begins with a unified piece of clean-screen, Tesla-written software. Rather than look up tables of approximated data to pick a prerecorded response to steering and chassis angle, the system simulates each tire’s available grip in real time (it estimates the force on each contact patch from the car’s acceleration, braking, or cornering rate). The result is a higher-resolution picture of those patches, exploitable by each axle’s precisely controlled, fast-reacting electric motors; laterally, it’s vectored by individual brake dabs (the differentials are open). Track mode’s agility is like a cat with espresso in its water bowl—but it’s also alert to nervous-looking inputs and decreases the chassis’ cornering angles until they cease.

As to the heat problem that limited our early Model S lapping at Laguna, Tesla has a solution. Before the car heads out, setting Track mode tempers the overheating issue by launching into a (loud) coolant-chilling frenzy of both the low-temperature battery system and the high-temperature motors. Unlike in the Models S and X, both of the Model 3’s cooling circuits can be merged, allowing the hotter motors to briefly use the giant battery as a heat sink. For how long? Maybe four or five continuous laps. Weekend warrior Derek Powell makes a face. “Track sessions are normally 20 to 25 minutes,” he says, “and there are four or five sessions per day.” I don’t think he’s impressed.

We’ve figure-eighted the Model 3 Performance with and without Track mode. I did a 24.3-second lap sans assistance but a 24.2 with it. A teensy time difference, but to moi at the helm, the car’s cornering attitude suddenly became open to playful interpretation—almost to distraction. As Angus noted during our lapping at Streets, big, drifty angles are more about fun than fast.

Technology

If there were a book simply titled The History of the Sport Sedan, you’d find a dramatic picture of this exact blue Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio on its last page. The story line building up to it would ping-pong between Turin and Munich, and with every turned page there’d be episodes of engineers finding new ways to polish the sport sedan’s ingredients to a perfect gloss. Like this car’s twin-turbo V-6 engine, eight-speed paddle-shift transmission, multilink rear suspension, and 505 horsepower laser-beamed to two rear tires.

Tesla nods, closes the book, and places it on the shelf with the rest of automotive history. Park the Giulia next to the Model 3, and Leonardo da Vinci beside Robert Oppenheimer. The ultimate artist-engineer meets the calculating disrupter of worlds.

The other day, I read Bob Lutz espouse that “Tesla has no tech advantage, no software advantage, no battery advantage. No advantages whatsoever.” With all due respect, Bob, that’s bull. As I sat in the plugged-in Model 3 at the Supercharger station in a Valencia, California, parking lot, I watched a number grow on the car’s multitouch screen. That’s so cool. Just by plugging the charger in, the Supercharge from PerformanceJunk WP Feed 3 https://ift.tt/2NWW5WH via IFTTT

[castlehead]

I realize now, the only 'it' I have known ever has been the 'it' of GOD. If I believe nothing else I believe in creator/sustainer/what have you, rather than something that amounts to metaphysical poetry, as an abnormal platelet for people to see the wonder in themselves. Give power to the cosmos instead as unfathomable and sexless. Cannot stress that enough. Simply put a denial of this ideal I see as the only fathomable one to me; that is, a comfort in feeling sane for what should have remained a fear without an identity at all. An ultimate, personal meaning is for the namelessness, and if I can learn to separate namelessness from it's paradoxical and outdated ideal, I will have become the most human that I can be. Simply put, I have clogged my head forever with thoughts on---GOD---too much to perceive anything but an 'it' to be manipulated by theory. It has always inspired my imagination; moreover, there is a science there that is always of the words I see as diction. The unfathomable is my only Bible, and will always be. Whatever moral quandary I associated with hurting those around me, or thoughts on the loveliness of this theory of GOD I know I still have, as I am embedded in it enough to feel it's truth always---were only moral quandaries as regards what I, ie, him, did to her, ie the love of his life. Ascribe a sex to anything unfathomable and find that you are way too broad. I referred, to this end, my own personal comfort in the hopes that by giving---namelessness---all my pronouns, except the one I valued much in the 'it' that I left for myself to feel, knowing well, better, a sexless creator, than one that makes way too much of what it is and leaves nothing of it's dreams for what it wants to be, for people to have as their own---in naming what I believe should remain sexless. Add a sex to the diety and you destroy it via mere religious fears of whiplash. Men and women are hims and hers. Any god I could hope to percieve is not human, if but for the respect for those men and women. That I aspired to make the head of god as any sort of relatable muse besides the namelessness i have always needed it to be was and has been what has haunted me. But a personal GOD that one refers to as an 'it' is an utmost token of respect, if the diagram be totally conceived in the head already, which it always has been. No one can beckon GOD, not any system of fucking prayer. Why? Oh, you. Acid inserted the moral 'You' into my mind, maybe to my detriment. This picture of that Rift in the Void so long refused via a religion of assumptions that only in this generation have the possibility to be overcome, in remaining vicious towards that fucking voodoo. In my opinion it is way too moral to think humans are that way, way too horrible to conceive of humankind as being a vast pain of unutterables and confusion 'it' cannot escape from. Acid made the voice of this stranger-god of sorts way too concrete by having it be a literal voice, as in, a crazily imaginative interior voice, and not ever literal voices in my head ever. Deny this craziness and see the retro of societal standards of crazy. I hope you have perspective enough on my thought process and a devotion thereof to see---addressing 'it'-GOD---that that has been my sole spiritual and somewhat theoretical issue since I dropped bombs months ago. a devaluing of my ambition to prove a prouder god in removing 'it's' humanizing form. Whether you are able to see the devotion to a museless idol as being no sort of muse, as needing no muse but the crazy mysteries of time and space and the universe....if you think id need time to figure myself back into a no-human man or woman...well...no, no god, its fine, let this concretion settle, just a psychic hiccup in my head i deferred from a grotesque noisiness to something far more theoretical and worsened and contrived. no god can ever hear us: because all the answers blend, in freaky waves. The diction has always been the honesty and passion I saw in an ultimate expanse and virgin growth of something far the more, that humans would dishonor themselves and their own purity in relating the unfathomable to something human. Religion----is a grotesque, awful misconduct as to the worth of people, who put faith in rituals that empower belief. and that is the humanity for any addict of reliable comfort, one who is strong enough to believe anything, if it be restricted to daily rituals. my daily 'prayers---are ciggies and coffee personally. Anything to stoke the spirit, that's the spirit of the wideness of the universe. That's the wonder of a thing ceaseless in flux. And more than anything, I refuse reliable comfort and always have, and always will, regarding anything that doesn't kill me. But if I see one succumb to drugs for a similar sport, I know where it leads in one's morality, if they have any belief at all in the sustained rhetoric of even the word 'god' that is a perceived wisdom only because it has been accepted for thousands of years. Thousands of years, that is nothing to the nothingness, and Christianity has to be the most furiously squeezed out diatribe i have ever refused to listen to. Too much meaning in too little space, that is a matter of a compression of words, not lives. It's a matter of forming a thought, not a person. My god of thoughts is more one that is and was meant to be totally apart from Dan the Man. I like the distance I name by calling 'it' unfathomable because that's the ultimate scope anyway. I know unfathomable pain, but not the unfathomable pain of everything leading to grief in having no sure way to lead the universe, just myself and my identity. Who I am or who anybody is that I have ever relegated to thoughts on the page has really never had anything to do with them, which I like better anyway, because I know the endlessness of grief as applied only to my short timeline, not an infinite one. I'll feel the rest of death like everyone else, and that's my heaven. Lack of consciousness. Whatever---god-thing---that acid wanted me to see was nauseating banal, and I focused more on indulging the pain of it in indulging what to me acid had made a sitcom: a somewhat wry, crotchey creator----in the attempt to connect the identity of me to the identity of namelessness which I see as no part. Beckett put too much holy trivia in the diction of namelessness as to the emptiness of human life, but this works as an metaphor and nothing more. I see somewhat in How It Is a new birth in perpetuity that whatever IT could only ever not know of creating. And this indifference to the beauty and perhaps lascivious fascination with trivia for the sake of an outdated atom of morals given to man long ago, proves in my eyes that there is an unconscious empathy the universe would have at all in what is a mere hunger for fascinating thoughts that explain ITself. Morality made creator / sustainer / what have you a falsely human concept in assuming it stopped there. Time provides the measurement of value similarly, not morals. Whatever GOD there is I feel would have little problem then with loose ends communicated unconsciously, this ambivalence and chaos as no eventuality but merely on a larger scale---so as to save---something---from something----would become the more of an empathy in a paradigm of inexplicable relations that are the ultimate sonic boom thru the noise of icy cold space and nothingness. No dignity here for humans though. It's either good or bad, how limiting. And I am bound by that as well, the need to rectify so as to make peace with an ultimate fear. That the GOD that is is death. As in, the rest of death, without the rest of remaining an 'it in peace for humans to be blissfully unaware of so that they can give their alms to a 'You' in GOD that in the blink of an infinite eye means nothing but is left if only for the sake of keeping the deity warm, not this sincere, blue sphere of imperfection. So I say to this IT: take the compliment of your ineffability whom I, this dan of sorts, give you, as being my own version of empathizing with the more humanly moral alm-giving, just a diff way to pay respects. Loose ends are the utmost sublimity, and finished work, for a time when I know all the burrs in my head enough to get past every one of those millions of them.