#and it's so complicated to try and not die to a guy who has rigged his game to be unfair

[booperbeanv3]

p4... well, i like the battles/dungeons and i like the days where you can just fuck around and do as you please, but the actual murder plot does nothing for me. maybe it’s bc i was spoiled and already know all the twists? i had a similar deal with danganronpa where i liked the class trials but i hated the actual mystery since i played the games long ago. damnit, maybe i shouldn’t have spoiled myself for a mystery game......... the whole reason i enjoyed dgs in the first place was bc the spoilers i got were minimal [just kzm stuff] and i could run through things without getting impatient

kanji has been thrown into the TV. i think the more i look at everything around [esp kanji and naoto] i just get reminded on how dated p4 is in terms of that stuff. in the grand scheme of things p4 isn’t that old, i know, but like, no way was 2008 progressive in any way lol. and tbh, i don’t care if a game is all hoemoephoebic or w/e if it fits the setting and makes sense to me. but... eh. doesn’t sit right with me

[pinlc-candy]

Not sent to me but I stumbled across this ask and my goodness, the anon says 'no personal opinions attached' then goes on to say some opinionated, bias nonsense. Like dang just admit you're a nae/gami shipper.

In chapter 4, which takes place after chapter 2 which Nae/gami shippers like to hold against TogaFuka shippers, Togami gets Naegi to open a door when they think it could be rigged with a bomb. In chapter 2, which is the same chapter Nae/gami shippers like to hold against TogaFuka shippers, Togami tells Naegi to his face to die. He tells him to die again on at least one other occasion.

^ This is after five free time events together. This is after you, the player, make Naegi hang out with Togami even though Naegi has said before that spending time with Togami makes him feel like he has to be prepared for 'extreme psychological trauma'.

At the end of school mode, where Naegi spends a lot of time with Togami, Naegi says 'Now my goal is to show Byakuya that the way I live *can* bring someone happiness.' That's not healthy.

I do think they eventually become friends, but acting like there is nothing toxic or unhealthy with the dynamic is like... weird. Togami going from treating Naegi like trash to treating Naegi like a friend/person isn't the win you think it is.

'If you make a universe where Toko becomes a better person and realizes her thing for Byakuya is not good and gets over it, and then realizes she has genuine feelings for Byakuya and he does as well after he accepts her apology and sees her differently, all the power to you, but canon Nae//gami is way healthy then canon Togafuka.'

This bit!!! oh my god. So Togami doesn't have to apologise to Naegi for how he treated him? Or is it okay how Togami treated Naegi? Is it romantic? Like you brush all that aside to harp on Fukawa's behaviour. Yes, Fukawa and Togami have been shitty. They have stuff to work through. But like... in DRAE, Fukawa goes from wanting to depend on Togami to wanting him to be able to depend on her. She decides to stay behind and help Ko/maru. She learns friendship/platonic love can be as important as romantic love. At the end of DR1, she literally states she's going to write their story (Togami+Fukawa) but let others be in it. Syo kills guys she finds attractive but won't kill Togami because she genuinely loves him. She shares feelings with Fukawa. Ergo, Fukawa genuinely loves Togami.

Togami's side is more complicated but he will tell her to go away and she does so. Surprise, there are times when he doesn't do that. He holds her portrait in the bad end. There are several hints that he may have had sex with her during the game. After Chapter 4, when he learns not to make light of others' emotions, he compliments Fukawa on finding a knife and appeals to her during the final trial instead of demanding she change alter. Also Togami says that the others may come to him for help - including Naegi! But also including the others, which some people seem to forget. He's not making special exceptions for Naegi. He's trying to be a better friend to all of them, though we barely get to see his interactions with Kirigiri, Asahina and Hagakure bc DR3 anime kiiinda sucked. Togami was also going to collect Fukawa from Towa City but that scene never made it into the anime. When Togami video called Fukawa in the DR3 anime, she ran to the computer knowing it was him. Which implies they do calls togegther. He can also sense her having a fantasy from a long distance, which is interesting.

TogaFuka has plenty of development but some people don't want to acknowledge it. We don't need to make up a universe where this stuff happens when we're already in it, unlike some nahgami shippers who have to make up a universe to fit their fanon.

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

Not to post about a YA novel that came out in 2008 but uh

Things I like about the hunger games why it’s genuinely good and not just another “young girl starts a revolution” novel.

1) have to start with this. They don’t actually have the equivalent of houses. Like yeah it’s fun to sort things and yourself into categories but this book didn’t go “your oppression is fun and quirky!” It went “this is what you are being used for, being killed for, and you have no say over it.” To try and make something similar to houses in Harry Potter would be like saying “what 1700s profession do you inherit from your parents?” There is no personality trait that magically saves you, you either are born rich or die

Speaking of which:

2) the socioeconomic issues. This one actually might take several bullets.

The way they have a system that’s “fair” but is less fair to the poor who are forced to put in their names many times. ALSO how the rich try and take that horrible thing from the poor for their own glory, kind of like gentrification or buying plus size clothing at thrift shops just to decimate and redesign.

3) the way the rich are being manipulated as well. We don’t feel bad for most of them, they’re the ones benefiting from the system, but they have as little say in their privilege as the poor. If they try to better things like Cena does, they still get punished. The system is evil.

4) that specific scene when the rich are inducing vomiting just to eat more and don’t understand why this would bug people who almost starved to death? My “had to steal hamburgers from the lunch line and then had to listen to my dad say that we weren’t poor and I had a normal childhood for years” ate that shit up!

5) the power switch which is similar to the witch hunts we see today. When people volunteer to leave lives of luxury to help, they get hurt. There are no gentle explanations that hey we need to ration that paper, showers as well as mobility are actively kept from them, and in the end the character who we are supposed to be rooting for votes to have more children be murdered on a regular basis. It’s so EASY to be bitter at people who have had it better than you, to say “I don’t want to help you become better, you’ve done enough and gotten enough help.”

6) the  inescapableness. She WINS. She gets away! And then she still has to come back, because the system is rigged against her! Not only that, but that  she would’ve been in the lime light watching children die for the rest of her life even if that wasn’t the case

7) this probably seems obvious that I of all people would say this but the parentification hit me HARD

8) the ptsd. Her and Finnick killed me guys im sorry. Like that’s not even from the revolutionary stuff that’s just from surviving in this society

Speaking of which

9) she didn’t want to start a revolution. All she did was NOT DIE and refuse to kill someone else

10) the solidarity made between these people. It kills me how it’s the small stuff that brings them together as they struggle.

12) on that note the trauma bonds. Her and peeta, her and finnick, her and gale, her and Hamish. I especially remember the whipping scene.

13) the love triangle isn’t the main plot. And the guys never fight over her. She isn’t sure about her own feelings, and they don’t matter for most of it bc she has to make the choice that will let her survive, and the plot treats her as her own complicated person who has a decision to make instead of a prize to win

14) on that note I hated the ending at first. I didn’t like that there was romance at all when I first read it at 12 but I especially hated that she ended up with soft bread boy instead of the person she had fought to survive with her entire child hood. I’m older now and I LIKE that. Her option isn’t someone who’s main connection to her is there trauma bonds. It even says in book one that her thing with gale was partially based off of the fact they saved each other’s siblings and had to grow up too fast. Without trauma there is no them. Yeah peeta and Katniss also met and bonded over trauma but he is kind to her from moment one, and when it’s life or death, he chooses no matter what to not hurt her, to go as far as to say “let me die rather than risk yourself.” His first interaction with her is giving her what she needs to live without involving himself. There is trauma, but there’s also a possible life for them that has nothing to do with it, where they are just soft and kind, I don’t think she could’ve had that with gale. They were both jaded in the exact same way.

[shirtlesssammy]

15x15 Bullet Point Rambles

A soup kitchen volunteer hears a mysterious voice from an alley and follows it. Great plan! Always follow those creepy alley voices, kids. He finds a teddy bear. It’s evil and talks! Oh, also this young man dies

Dean thinks he’s found Amara in Atlantic City, binging the keno games. He tries to reassure Cas that they can handle Amara because they “used to have a thing” (¬_¬)

Cas heads off on a hunt with Jack “I just graduated from CSI” Kline. THESE TWO asking about a laundry list of supernatural causes WE ARE TRULY BLESSED TONIGHT

Jack gets excited about “Marvelous Marvin the talking teddy” Which he has….for his stepson. Ronald. LOL

GUYS, CAS just put a picture of himself with a cowboy hat in a crossroads box. GUYS, CAS looked sooooo good in a cowboy hat that Dean took and then printed a picture of it.

Zach the crossroads demon is talking in an odd Crowley affectation and I am eating it right up. He’s also really into angels solving people crimes because he would WATCH that show. ISWYDT, show.

Another community center employee steals donations and then gets called by the same creepy voice. Dun dun DUN

Cas and Dean check in with each other. Dean is….super evasive about their plans to confront Amara and we’re kind of weirded out by it?

Boris: Why are they going into this without trying to talk sensibly to Amara? Literally Dean talked to her and saved the world! We want Amara to survive! She’s done nothing wrong! Team Amara Does Yoga and Eats Comfort Food!

Jack arrives at the community center and asks for kool-aid. BBY BOY (Boris: It was technically flavor-aid)

The woman wakes up tied to a chair. Someone’s writing deadly sins on the wall - for her, it’s greed. There’s a mechanical guillotine that chops off one finger and then gives her a countdown before another gets lopped off. EEEESH YIKES

Jack reaches out to one of the other volunteers and they bond over loss. “Well, I have more dads than most, and I feel like I’m letting all of them down.” AW, Jack.

SOMEBODY please make me an aesthetic of Cas sitting on this small plaid couch!

Cas talks with the pastor, who reveals that he’s made changes for a more tolerant church. “A saint is a sinner who keeps trying.” I love the BONDING!

Dean has “a process” for all-you-can-eat establishments. ME TOO, DEAN!

Amara shows up and asks Dean if he missed her. I shove Dean’s face away with my hand and step excitedly in front of Amara. WE MISSED YOU AMARA

Amara is entirely unimpressed by the boys, but she IS impressed by the idea of pirogues! Let this sunflower enjoy her food in peace!

Back in case-of-the-week land, the victim is still tied up. Still losing her fingers to a countdown timer. Meanwhile, Jack gets welcomed into the fold. HELLO!

Cas introduces himself to the prayer group. He used to just follow orders and follow the plan. He got lost when the plan fell apart…and then something changed. “Something amazing.” He found a family. He became a father. He rediscovered his faith and who he is! CRYING NOISE! This is so lovely.

Dean and Sam talk to Amara and confront her on the universe squashing truth. Dean suggests that Amara help them trap Chuck but she won’t go for it.

Amara tells him that they see a woman, they see Chuck as a “squirrelly weirdo.” But they’re ineffable, Amara tries to explain. She and Chuck splitting were essentially the big bang. They’re so much BIGGER than what Sam and Dean see.

Ah, I see Jack is a battering ram now? Ooookay.

Dean heads in for one more question from Amara. “Why did you bring her back?” (Natasha: YES WE CIRCLE BACK). He’s angry at the loss of his mother. GRABBY HANDS

Amara: I wanted two things. I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person. The myth you held onto where she lived was just a myth. The real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real. NOW is always better than THEN. You could finally start to accept your life. WHOA SOME SERIOUS WISDOM AMARA

Also, Amara thought having Mary back would put out Dean’s fire - his anger. Never! “Just another cosmic dick rigging the game,” Dean tells her angrily.

“Can I trust you?” Amara asks, considering helping them, and Dean flat out lies and tells her he would never hurt her. DAAAAMN DEAN that’s a dangerous game.

The pastor’s daughter watches her friend enjoy all the social media attention from the attacks and viciously STABS her. Damn, girl. Later, in her torture dungeon, she tries to attack her dad for all he’s done to change the church.

Cas frees the victim and heals her fingers. PHEW, THANK YOU CAS

Boris: Very intrigued by this examination of faith without the traditional structure of Faiths. There’s a thread of faith in this episode: Cas laying out his faith, Amara’s faith in her brother… WE could use another decade of this show to untangle more of this!

At the end, the human culprit is taken away, a family is torn apart. (What was up with the cross roads demon police officer taking her away, y’all?)

Cas and Jack talk about feelings in the truck, in the fine tradition of the Winchesters. Jack tells Cas that he’s going to die when he kills Chuck and Amara. Cas looks HORRIFIED and SO DO I.

Billie’s spell is turning Jack into some kind of a bomb and he won’t survive. “Don’t tell Sam and Dean,” Jack begs because HE’S JUST LIKE CAS and also the DEAN and AMARA SOUL BOMB PARALLELS YOU GUYS

Later, Dean hits up the booze in his dead guy robe because he’s coping GREAT

Cas and Dean reconnect in the bunker. Cas is going to look for “another way.” OH and he has something REALLY IMPORTANT to tell Dean in case he dies but he isn’t going to tell him until right no——

fade to black

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

This is the karma of Working Class white people.

"“Sorry, not sorry. These people are not worthy of any sympathy. They have run around for decades bitching about poor minorities not “working hard enough,” or that their situation is “their own fault.” Well guess what? It’s not so great when it’s you now, is it? Bunch of deplorables, and if they die quicker than the rest of us that just means the country will be better off in the long run.”

“Is it bad news or good news? Middle aged undereducated white Americans are Donald Trump’s base. They brought us this clown and ensuing insanity. It’s bad news they are dying off if you happen to love one of them or are one of them. But, it’s the welcome news of hope that without that demographic dwindling and eventually gone, our chances of another Trump are significantly less. Now that’s good news.”

“maybe they should takt the advice they used to give minorities, take responsibilty and pull up your boot straps,only when it’s your boot straps you find it’s not so easy as a sound byte.”

“Hey as long as those white people keep voting republican they will continue to die off….. How stupid could you be….”

“I don’t see much profit in planning on them ever voting democrat. However, there can be progress in forcing them to eat the shit they’ve been feeding other people for so long.”

“I for one have little sympathy for these despairing whites. If they can’t compete against people of color when everything has been rigged in their favor, then there’s really no help for them. Trump and his G(r)OPers will do little to elevate their lot. If anything, these poor whites will be hired to dig grave pits and assemble their own coffins.”

“They have every know advantage in America; culturally, environmentally, educationally, etc. There is absolutely no reason that they should be in such despair. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

“As long as it only affected minorities, whether it was jobs, drugs, or a decent life it was an non issue. We were told by these very people that we were being to sensitive and not really trying to get a job, or the worst bs of all that we just wanted to have a free handout rather than ever work a real job. Well you know what, karma is a bitch and if these people choose to continue to vote Republican and try to deny other from attaining the American dream, they deserve no better than what they are getting!”

“Wow! You’re really going to sit on your unearned perch of white privilege and tell us, US?, people of color that WE? are standing above them and “sneering down” at them. These people are the white racist who voted in a white racist as president. And you want us to look upon our oppressors as victims? And seriously you show your own arrogant racism with your whitesplaining ‘splaining?” comment. You’ve got some serious nerve trying to use our own terms against us in a blind bid to have us feel sorry for the vile racist oppressors of this so called society.”

“I agree it’s sad. And likely it is due to the collapse of the structure they built based on entitlement. Males of other races have had the same challenges the whole time, and have been told to suck it up buttercup. Time for these guys to take a dose of the same medicine they’ve been doling out for years.”

“Those numbers ain’t even real. They are made up by the white supremacist power structure to make the over privileged oppressors look like some kind of victim. It’s sick, and disgusting. It’s the same kind of crap they do with crime statistics. They try to make us, POC, the victims of white hate and oppression for centuries. Look like the criminal minded victimizers and the racist white power structure {ie the white population from top to bottom, upper, middle and lower class alike} look like victims.”

“One feels maybe a modicum of sympathy for those “white, poorly educated, middle-age Americans”. One does not wish for one’s fellow citizens to suffer. But, those same “white, poorly educated middle age Americans” need to own up to their responsibility, if not complicity, in their own predicament. This is what happens when you vote for Republicans to public office. Republicans are a disease, a pestilence, a cancer on the American body politic. Republicans do not give one goddam whit about “white, poorly educated, middle age Americans”. Republicans only care about their wealthy, corporate benefactors. Republicans only care about inflicting harm and suffering on everyone who is not elite or wealthy. Stop voting Republicans into office. Start voting in people who have your best interests in heart and at hand. Otherwise, continue to feel this despair white America. Republicans will NEVER help you overcome your economic plight.”

“In the 60 ‘s &, 70 ‘s these people didn’t have to compete for jobs .they got jobs because they were white even when blacks were more ,qualified. . Now it’s a knowledge economy and more minorities are getting higher education. .For years these same people voted against their own interests by voting Republican.. No they’re reaping what they sow.”

“Difficult to have any sympathy when My coverage is threatened because ignorant white trash are too stupid to know that the ACA and Evil Obamacare are the same thing. The factories closed down forty years ago. If you didn’t leave Detroit or Erie or Kentucky as I did to stay current you need blame no one but yourself.”

“This is where standing around basking in white privilege and chanting USA! USA! USA! when presented with differing and challenging opinions for decades has taken them. You have to go out and make things happen for yourself, change jobs and even move if necessary to make a better life sometimes. Nobody who wasn’t born straight and white fails to understand this. These people would rather project their own failures and shortcomings onto minority groups, buying into myths about non-existent welfare queens and trickle-down economics and all of the other snake oil sold by the right and wallow in nostalgia over how “great” (for them) everything was in the 1950s when they could pull themselves into the 21st century.”"

[leverage-ot3]

to all the leverage fans out there, I thought I’d throw out some recommendations of other shows that y’all might like

this is completely centered around the lgbt aspects of leverage (how none of the characters are straight, how there is a canon ot3, etc), because I know other people have recommended white collar and stuff but I haven’t personally seen that and I’m just a humble lgbt wanting to share more gay shows with y’all

1. wynonna earp (my sideblog is @angelicearps)

just renewed for a fourth season after two years (this feeling is very familiar to leverage fans)

the first episode of season four aired last night and IM SCREAMING the writers served us a five course meal

the main love story includes waverly earp, a CANON (officially as of 4.01) bisexual girl falling in love with nicole haught, a lesbian cop-turned-sheriff (that’s a slight spoiler, so sorry about that) and both of them are main characters

wynonna earp, another main character, has a complicated relationship with two different men and is not slut shamed for it and is never put down about it

I’m serious- the healthiest and most stable relationship in the show is between waverly and nicole, so wlw nation rise

wynonna and waverly are descendants of the great gunslinger (and demon killer) wyatt earp, who ended up getting a curse on his future generations. the story of the show is centered around wynonna being the chosen heir having to fight demons and try to break the curse for good

doc holiday is another main character- yes, that doc holiday. he’s one of wynonna’s love interests and he has such a pure and loving relationship with waverly. he’d literally die for her and move heaven and hell to make sure she’s safe (that’s literally canon)

jeremy comes in around season two if I remember correctly. canon gay. gets in a relationship with another canon gay character whose name I am blanking on. they are very loving and very pure

literally, in 4.01, when armed military men are breaking into the earp homestead and he doesn’t know what to do, he literally says: “gays only?” lol they didn’t respect that answer

the show has so many good quips and one-liners. so many hilarious lines. it can be an angsty show at times but they definitely balance it out with humor and wlw softness between waverly and nicole

wynonna has a baby in season two and literally calls herself a milf

it also made fans faint because they have been calling nicole “daddy” for like six years and nicole was referred to as daddy three (3) times in 4.01

this show is NOT AFRAID to say things like gay, lesbian, etc. at one point someone tweeted at emily andreas (the writer) asking her to amp up the gay energy and she responded that she would

literally, emily andreas is on the same level as john rogers with trustability and dedication to fans

emily andreas heard of the bury your gays trope and did us one better: unkillible gays trope. the gays are unkillable.

2. motherland: fort salem (my sideblog is @fortsalem)

(HELL YEAH I WAS ONE OF THE FIRST IN THE FANDOM AND I GOT THE HANDS DOWN B E S T URL)

au where during the salem witch trials a witches named sarah alder made an agreement with the government that witches would serve for the us army in exchange for not being systematically hunted down and killed

THIS IS NOT MILITARY PROPAGANDA. sorry, I just had to make this point early on because it’s not even though it might seem like it in the beginning. literally by the end of the season you see it’s very corrupt

since this is an alternate history of the united states, in this universe there are no heteronorms. literally, there’s literally no words for lesbian and bisexual that they use because it’s so normalized and common and accepted that there’s no need for terms like that

the main love story is of star-crossed raelle and scylla. raelle comes from a poor family and is a talented healer, and (this isn’t technically a spoiler because you find out in episode one) scylla is a member of the spree

the spree is a terrorist organization of witches that protests the compliance witches are forced into by having to join the military or die/be imprisoned

scylla is supposed to turn raelle to the “dark side” but falls so deeply in love with her that she can’t do it (THATS TRUE LOVE FOLKS)

the students at fort salem (the military school) are divided into groups of three: the main group being focused on is composed of raelle, tally, and abigail

tally craven is a pure-hearted baby and I’d die for her. she is very idealistic about fighting in the military (but don’t worry that’s fixed by the end of the season)

abigail bell weather comes from a high military family and is kinda really stuck up about it, but she’s humbled a lot by the end of the season. this girl has LAYERS (they all do, but abigail goes through a lot and goes from very stuck up and stuck up the military’s ass to questioning everything she knows)

the trio starts off rocky, especially between raelle and abigail, because raelle blames abigail’s mother for her mother’s death (her mother’s unit was led by abigail’s mother)

the beltane episode literally hits you in the face with how there are literally no heteronorms whatsoever. they do this sacred dance where by the end they will end up with the people they are destined to spend the celebration with (“trust the dance”). raelle makes friends with a gay guy and they spend the celebration making fun of the sex noises around them and become gay friends for life. abigail has sex with two (2) guys who kiss each other. a group of four girls went off together. a group of two girls and a guy went off together. and sex isn’t shamed. at all. in fact, it’s respected as a part of life. and y’all, literally this representation was OFF THE CHARTS

the witch’s most powerful tool is their voice,,, think about that for a minute

it’s an all girls school so there are like no guys whatsoever minus the beltane episode and a couple others

EMPOWERED WOMEN (of all ages and ethnicities too)

3. siren (my sideblog is @polymarinelove)

imma start off by saying that season three doesn’t exist. don’t watch season three. don’t do it. the disappointment is real

ANYWAYS

the central love story is between an interracial couple (a white guy and his black girlfriend that has a native american stepfather) that turns into a loving polyamorous relationship

maddie, the girlfriend, is amazing and incredibly smart and the first two seasons (and the beginning of the third) accentuate that and they never downplay her because she’s a black woman like many shows and movies do. she’s a smart stem woman and we stan her so hard. she’s also bisexual.

ben, the guy, comes from a rich family that are basically the hotshots of the town and own the fishing company that the community works for. his dad is hella untrustable. ben doesn’t trust him and neither should you. he is kindhearted and smart and respectful, and at one point teaches a merman about consent after being kissed by him (and he didn’t even #nohomo it which was AMAZING)

now to the mermaids

mermaids are apex predators. they are very dangerous. they are very strong. they’re also wickedly smart, canon smarter than humans

the story begins when donna, ryn’s sister, is captured by a fishing boat and carted off to a military facility. ryn comes to land to try to find and save her. (she literally choses her name because she sees a character on a kid’s tv show saying “I am ryn” which is also the first thing in english that she can say)

she ends up being helped by ben and maddie and legit is like these humans are hot imma learn english for them

there’s a lot of really cool and thought out lore as well as TONS of thoughtful marine biology science that makes sense

oh and transforming from mermaid to human? painful as FUCK. realistic depictions of having your body literally transform into something else

humans are wrecking the oceans and that’s a heavy theme of the show

oil rigs are poisoning the water (making them infertile) and killing mermaids with their sonic drilling

so ben and maddie lowkey commit an act of ecoterrorism but it’s chill

“ben and maddie are love” they’re poly, bitches

they come together in a natural, organic way

very healthy and communicative

ben’s alright but ryn and maddie are amazing

don’t watch season three if you don’t want to be majorly disappointed. the writers listened to the homophobic trolls on instagram and broke up the polyamorous relationship and I’ll NEVER forgive them for that. seasons one and two are amazing though. just don’t watch the third one.

[screamingatanemptyroom]

I Can’t Eat Love pt 21

Sorry for the long break guys, but here’s part 21!

Master post linked here

Enjoy!

__________________________

After I finished sewing, I said goodbye to Marile and walked towards the shop exit. I was preoccupied with my thoughts, and wasn’t focused on where i was stepping. Which led to me almost running into the young woman who was waiting  right outside the door.

I stopped just before slamming into her, taking in her appearance with a forced smile. “Hello, Edith.”

How had she found me? After a few moments of thought I quickly realized the answer to my question was easily found in my own home. 

I’m going to have to deal with Angela sooner rather than later.

Edith stepped forward, interrupting my thoughts. Her face was delicately pale, her smile complicated as if happy to see me but worried at the same time. It was very pitiful, and she looked more like a wronged heroine confronting her betrayer, rather than the villain that she was. “I missed you, Lenora! I wanted to visit sooner but I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me… after…”

Her voice broke, and she lightly dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, actual tears forming in her eyes. 

What a marvelous performance. I really felt like I should be applauding.

“After you ran around with my fiancé behind my back?” I tried unsuccessfully to hide the amusement in my voice. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

She was now sobbing loudly, catching attention from those walking past. “Can you not forgive me? I never meant to hurt you! I just… fell in love! I cannot help loving him!” Even in tears her face remained pretty, her expressions showing mild sadness while maintaining a noble look. I wondered idly how many times one would have to practice crying to be able to look attractive while convincing at the same time.

I sighed quietly. “I wish the two of you can be always together.” As long as you stay far away from me!

“Are we still friends?” She stopped crying her gaze hopeful. A few people had stopped to watch the scene, the mood clearly siding with the girl who was crying. I felt many angry stares in my direction and wanted to laugh out loud. How many of these strangers would realize that the girl who they thought was being bullied was the one who had done the betraying?

Feeling tired, I forced a kind expression on my face. “Of course.” I felt no unease agreeing to this. After all, “friend” was only a meaningless term. There was no reason to hesitate applying it to such a person.

I invited her into my carriage and with a cheerful laugh she agreed. All signs of her previous tears were gone and she once again was pretending to be the gentle supportive friend. I was honestly shocked at how quickly she had switched roles. If I had honestly been in love with the prince still, did she think I would be over it so fast? She was being even more shameless than she had acted in my previous life.

There must be something else she wants.

Hiding my curiosity, I smiled blandly at her, pretending to listen as she chattered on about the latest dance she had learned. Edith at least had enough tact not to bring up the Prince… or so I thought.

“So, I am holding a party next week.” She started fidgeting in her seat.

“I see.” I nodded, my mind wandering to tomorrow’s schedule.

“There… I will be announcing that the Prince and I intend to be married. “

Calmly, I looked up at her fake-timid smile and couldn’t help but ask. “So it’s official then? You are engaged?”

Obviously the stupid prince hadn’t told her he had proposed to me again. I felt a brief flash of optimism. Perhaps my rejection had been enough for him to disregard the King’s order completely?

“Well, not officially, yet.” Her lower lip stuck out as she pouted, whether at her words or at my lack of reaction I was unsure. “Ronan has told me to keep quiet about it for a little while to protect your reputation, but by then I’m sure it will be fine!”

Protect my reputation? I barely held in my laughter. Since when has he cared at all about that? I forced myself to nod seriously.

Edith reached out, grabbing my hands, not noticing my discomfort at the contact. “I want you to be there, to support me.”

__________________________

“Please be there.” Edith begged, her hands holding mine.

“I don’t know…” I trailed off, hesitant. It had been over a month since the engagement was broken. Mother had grown angrier by the day, Father had become increasingly withdrawn, anxiety etched on his features as debtors came to call day after day. I was still hurt over what Edith and Ronan had done, unsure if I wanted to subject myself to a party where I would show my support for the girl who had replaced me…

“Oh, but you must be there! We’re friends!” She cried bitterly, her tears making me feel guilty for causing her distress.

I was still afraid to lose her approval, even after everything that had happened. She was the only one who seemed to care about me. I hadn’t seen or heard from the Queen since, all my letters had gone unanswered. She obviously had lost interest in me now that I was no longer going to be her daughter in law. Edith was my only friend left.

And it was only a party.

“I’ll go.”

__________________________

 “I’ll go.” My simple words seemed to shock Edith, who was obviously prepared to argue longer. Shaking herself, she smiled happily, clapping her hands with excitement.

“That’s wonderful! It wouldn’t have been a proper party without you there!” She reached out and hugged me, “I’m so glad we’re still friends!”

“I’m glad too.” I smiled as I pulled back, glad that the slightly shadowy interior of the carriage prevented her from seeing my face too clearly. If she had, she might have taken back the invitation. She might have canceled the party and fled the city.

It would have been the smart thing to do. 

But instead she took my expression for genuine, and continued to talk happily about plans for the party as the carriage moved forward.

I kept silent, nodding occasionally, pretending to listen as my brain quickly began drawing up plans.

This party could be useful.

__________________________

 “The Prince’s staff have been trying to spread rumors all throughout the nobility.”

Rig paced back and forth, his expression showing his displeasure. Hallers watched silently from the sidelines, his face unreadable. “How idiotic is this man?!” 

I raised an eyebrow. “The prince? He’s an idiot, but this plan is fairly well thought out… at least for him.”

“But how is the prince lashing out like this supposed to convince you to marry him?” Throwing up his hands, the man slumped in a chair, shaking his head. “I can’t see this accomplishing anything but convincing you to stay far away from him.” 

“That’s because you think like a normal, decent human being.” I smiled, tapping my temple. “In the world of nobility, marriage is more of a business deal. As a Duke’s daughter, my worth is determined by my ability to tie my family to another.” Leaning back, I sighed. “Normally, I would have been completely taken out of consideration for a match after having an engagement broken with royalty.”

 Rig thought about that. “But your reputation was actually not too bad after…”

“Exactly. The Queen’s actions, my own reputation, and my wealth might have been enough to convince some of the braver families to try to ally through marriage. But now?” I shrugged. “With rumors that I was unfaithful, any man who tried to marry me would be thought to be the one I was cheating on the Prince with. Even if they avoided that, I would still be considered a loose woman, a stain on their reputation.”

 I laughed, a bitter sound. “No man would want his name tied to mine now. The Prince has ensured through this move that my only option to marry is to crawl back to him.” 

Rig and Hallers stared at each other. “I don’t think it completely dissuaded everyone…” Rig started to talk, a small smile on his face. “After all there’s…”

Hallers interrupted. “He’s not approved... yet.”

“I thought you liked him now?” Rig glanced over at me and then back to the butler.

“Liking him is not the same as approval for this role.” Hallers face hadn’t changed, but all of a sudden I found myself shivering from the coldness in his eyes, even as I struggled to follow their conversation.

Rig’s smile widened. “Of course, anyone trying to step up to the task would have to prove their worth. We can’t just give her up to anyone.”

Hallers chuckled, an evil sound.

I interrupted their plotting, trying to bring the conversation back to one I understood. “Not that any of the Prince’s plans matter.” I shrugged. “I have no plans to marry. So he can destroy my reputation all he likes.”

“Actually it’s not spreading well.” Rig looked at his own notes, confused. “For some reason, especially among the female nobility, the rumor tends to die out quickly, like they’re too afraid to talk.”

I smiled at that, repeating the threat that Marile had made a week past, and the other men smiled too.

“Simple, but effective.” Rig praised. “I like her methods.”

 “Well, it will really be put to the test at Edith’s party tonight.” I stood up at my desk, stretching. “We’ll see if they continue to hold off on then.” 

“Why are you even going to that? You realize she’s trying to use you to legitimize her relationship to the prince, right?” Rig rolled his eyes. “If you are publically seen supporting her, how can anyone else blame HER for her actions?”

I grinned. “Actually I’m going for two very different reasons.” I held up one finger. “First, as the Prince is currently under His Majesty’s orders to marry me, I truly am curious to see if Ronan will allow a public declaration of their relationship to happen. I’m actually hoping that she manages to do it.”

Rig laughed at that. “That would piss the King off, something awful!”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Then what’s the second reason?”

I grinned. “I have a plan to carry out.” Handing him a note with instructions, I watched his eyebrows slowly raise as he read through it. “Can you have it arranged before the end of the party?”

“I- I can, but why…?”

I smiled wickedly. “I was going to cause trouble anyways… might as well blame it on somebody else while I’m at it.”

__________________________

 The party was beautiful. The Countess of Erand was never one to hold back from extravagance, especially on behalf of her daughter. I took in the glittering ballroom with an appreciative glance, smiling as I noticed how many of the noblewoman were wearing gowns from “Prosperity” tonight. Edith’s party had granted my business a small fortune in orders. I wished I could thank her.

As I entered with Henry by my side, I heard a small amount of whispering, caught a few sidelong glances, but that was all. It seemed that even the men were restrained, likely by the hands of their wives who were terrified that Marile would hold a husband’s gossiping tongue against them.

“Terrible.” Henry muttered, looking around. At first I thought he as referencing the few gossiping nobles, but of course he hadn’t even noticed. “How could they treat the poor geraniums like this?!” He stared mournfully at the flower decorations, which admittedly looked slightly bruised and wilted. 

“Shameful.” I whispered, playing along. “Should we steal the decorations?”

“No, it’s too late for these poor dears… but I’m taking their bush with me.” His eyes were fierce.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

 “Nope. I’m saving it.” He spoke, his voice filled with righteousness and clear conviction. “I have no choice.”

I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “Just make sure no one sees you, please?”

He chuckled grimly, rubbing his hands together. “Of course.”

“What’s Henry planning?” Nate walked up, dressed up in a beautiful waistcoat, looking at my cousin’s face with suspicion.

“He’s planning to liberate their geraniums.” I muttered, grabbing the young man’s arm and studying it closely. 

“L-lenora.” He stuttered. “I - ..”

“What is this coat made of? This weave…”I pulled slightly on the sleeve, nodding with approval the softness of the fabric.

He sighed. “Should have realized.” Grumbling under his breath, he added. “Please, Lenora, release my arm before you cause a scandal, I promise to send my coat to you so you can study it.”

I looked around, realizing that this action would likely not have helped my shifting reputation, fortunately around the same time the prince had arrived, and it appeared that no one had been paying attention to me. 

Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked around for the food, my eyes lighting up at the sight of the table. It was filled with different pastries and other delicious treats, reminding me of the prince’s birthday party.

But I had a job to do. I felt my the corners of my mouth turn downward as I cursed my scheming ways. What if all the food was taken by the time I finished my plot?

 Nate, noticing my longing glances and sad sighs, chuckled. “I’ll get you a plate, Lenora. Go do whatever plots that need done.”

Startled, I looked up at him, taking in his complacent smile with confusion. “How did you…?”

“I pay attention.” He bowed politely, his hand on his heart and a smile in his eyes, before he turned towards the table, walking away.

I watched him move further away, my thoughts chaotic.

“Nate would be a good choice.” Henry spoke quietly, again causing me to jump. 

“W-what do you mean?” I felt a moment of panic, my stomach hurting briefly. “A good choice for what?”

Henry stared at me. “I’m going to recruit him to help me steal the geranium. What were you thinking?”

I shook my head, “Nothing. I wasn’t thinking of anything.” And with that, I escaped

__________________________

I walked towards Edith, a smile on my face. She saw me, and threw her hands out, delighted.

“LENORA!” Many heads turned towards us as we crossed the room to meet up.

As I moved closer, I bumped into a young lady, nearly losing my balance. I had to reach out and grab her, to stabilize myself. We smiled briefly at each other, before I moved on, apologizing with a single word and then continuing my course towards Edith. 

She and I embraced, and the whispers from the crowd around us increased slightly.

I realized the source as a single figure stepped out though the crowd towards us 

Ronan.

The three of us stood there, smiling at each other, each of us wearing a false expression.

What an interesting party. All of us plotting behind the scenes, none of us truly knowing the moves of the  others.

Edith, who was trying to use my good reputation to legitimize her actions and her relationship with the prince.

Ronan who was trying to destroy my reputation to force me to agree to an engagement with him.

And me. Who came for a reason that didn’t involve either of them.

Smiling brightly at the two, I hugged Edith once more, whispering. “Good Luck.” Before she could ask me what I meant, I stepped away.

 “I wish you both every happiness.” My voice was pleasantly neutral.

 Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think that you can…”

“Thank you.” Edith grinned, interrupting. “Your blessing means the world to us!”

“Does it?” I grinned, seeing Ronan fuming, and walked away.

“Done with your plots?” A plate was held out in front of me by Nate, and I took it, looking it over with appreciation.

“Good choices, thank you. 

He shrugged. “I asked Hallers, and was given very specific and detailed instructions.” Wincing, he added. “I have a feeling I’m in for a very long lecture regarding your preferences in the near future.”

“I’m sorry, I can tell him to hold off.”

“No need.” He held up a hand, smiling. “I told you I like cooking right? Might as well cook something I know you’ll like.”

I took a bite of the first pastry, savoring it. “This is amazing.”

Nate laughed. “Who knew that a pastry was all it took to impress you.” Pausing, he leaned closer, whispering. “So what was it you passed on to the young lady? 

I paused in my eating, trying to hide my shock. “To Edith? I didn’t…”

“No, not her.” He grinned. “The young lady you pretended to bump into on your way over.” 

“Was it too obvious?” I worried for a moment that my skills from my previous life had gotten rusty. 

“Only because I was watching closely. No one else would have caught it.” 

Breathing a short sigh of relief, I grinned. “Good. Otherwise there would be no point to coming to this party.”

“Food’s not bad.” Nate shrugged, picking a pastry off my plate and eating it, “Company could be better.” He pointed in the direction of the other half of the room, and I followed his gaze, sighing.

Edith and Ronan were standing closely together, flirting, smiling, toughing each other frequently. There were a few odd stares in their direction, but the pair didn’t notice, too wrapped up in their own world.

“Does it bother you?” Nate asked quietly

“Not the actions, just the indecisiveness.” I shrugged. “He wants me to marry him to appease his father, but he wants to pretend nothing has changed with Edith. He obviously has forbidden her from announcing the relationship, which was the entire point of this party for her.”

“Selfishness is a powerful motivator.” He watched me for a few moments. “Do you feel sorry for her?”

“Not really. They both value the position, the crown over the person they proclaim to love. It’s hard to claim one is the injured party when each other them is using the other.” I turned to Nate with a smile. “Let’s stay out of it.”

“Sounds good to me.” With that, Nate asked me to dance, and the party moved on.

I danced several times with Henry, ignoring his muttered plant related plots, and with a few other noblemen who had obviously not heard the rumors yet. The party was drawing to a close, when…

 “WHERE IS SHE?!” The Earl of Beral shouted, his face bright red with rage as he searched around the party.

I looked around the room slowly, and sure enough, Lady Erica, who had been dancing and socializing at the party, was nowhere to be found.

The Countess of Erand and Edith stepped forward in the sudden hush, the crowd parting to let them through.

“Perhaps she is taking a rest.” Edith’s mother tried to calm the man. “I’ll ask the servants to check…” 

“I’VE ALREADY CHECKED, SHE’S GONE! I BET YOU SHE RAN OFF WITH THAT TRAITOR FROM THE EASTERN GUARD!” He glared at Edith, his words laced with suspicion. “She spoke with you quite a few times tonight, what did she say to you?” 

Edith looked confused. “Nothing important, just fashion, the weather…”

“She couldn’t have done this alone, you helped my fiancé to run off!” He glared at the two women. 

Edith looked frustrated. “Why would I do that?”  

“Perhaps she paid you! I don’t know!” The older man threw up his hands. “But she just so happens to disappear from your party…. I know you had a hand in this!” 

Edith shot a pleading look over to Prince Ronan, who was watching from the sidelines, but he simply shook his head, refusing to speak. The Earl was extremely wealthy and well connected. He was also one of the Prince’s greatest supporters. Ronan wouldn’t risk alienating him. Not even for a woman he loved. 

“Coward.” Nate whispered under his breath. 

“I swear I had nothing to do with your fiance’s disappearance!” Edith then began to cry, her tears drawing sympathy from the crowd.

 The earl stepped back, his face bleak. “Very well. But I won’t forget what you’ve done tonight.” 

With that, he was gone.

The room collectively let out a sigh of relief with his retreat, but the mood of the party was definitely broken. As people prepared to leave, Nate grinned at me. “Strong work, rescuing a damsel in distress.”

 I kept an innocent expression. “I don’t know what you mean, I was just here to enjoy a party.”

“So I assume that’s where the travel papers I had made went to?”

I nodded, and he laughed.

“Starting a new store branch in Tilendria with an escaped noblewoman and a deserting captain… you never do things as expected do you?”

“Maybe not as YOU expect.”

“Well, at least now, you have a reason to come visit me in Tilendria.” His smile was bright, “You should at least check in on your store occasionally, right?” 

I held up my hands helplessly. “Tilendria’s a big country. Even if I go check on the store, I can’t guarantee we would see each other.” 

“That reminds me….” He passed me an envelope with a grin. I took it, feeling some exasperation.

“You and your envelopes. What is it now?”

“Information regarding land for sale in Tilendria.” He smiled. It’s in the Capital, right in the heart of the city, perfect for a business. You said you were opening up a new branch, so I asked around.”

I sighed. “You can’t keep doing me favors.”

“Oh, it not just a favor, this definitely benefits me, in many ways. After all, you’ll pay taxes right?”

“Yes, but what does that…?”

“Oh, there’s the signal!” He grinned, turning away. “It’s time for the flower heist!” 

Groaning, I turned away, and prepared to leave the party. Sensing an angry stare at my back, I turned to the side to catch Ronan’s gaze. He seemed bitter, likely upset that the rumors he had started hadn’t affected me at all. I smiled at him, allowing him to see the mockery in it, and walked away. 

In the carriage ride home, Henry clutched the large flowery bush, ignoring the wrath of Hallers at dirtying the carriage. I stared out the window, thinking things over.

Lady Erica had successfully eloped with her Captain. I was happy to have that out of the way, even more so that suspicion had been cast on someone else besides me. I remembered that man’s ruthlessness in my last life, and had no desire to face off with him again in this one.

I have enough enemies; let someone else deal with him for a change.

With the failure of the rumors to bring me around, I knew that Ronan would switch his strategy soon. My mind flipped through the possibilities, unsure of which route he would take. But i would get some sleep tonight and think about it further in the morning. 

But as I entered my house, and saw the stranger sitting in the visiting room, I realized that he had struck much sooner then I had expected.

[smokinholsters]

A Decision at the Crossroads

 A Heartland AU - Chapter 1

Back up to speed after passing yet another work zone and those ridiculous signs touting that this delay was brought to you by a slew of politicians ‘rebuilding’ Alberta and then he smiled as a new song hit the speakers and he happily joined in.

“On a dark desert highway

Cool wind in my hair

Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance

I saw a shimmering light

Head grew heavy and my sight grew dim

Had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway

Heard the mission bell

I was thinking to myself, ‘This could be heaven or this could be hell

Then she lit up a candle

She showed me the way

There were voices down the corridor

Thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place

(Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year

(Any time of year)

You can find it here

“Call from Amy. To answer…..”

“Hey sweetheart.”

“Hi Poppa, it’s Lyndy.”

“Hi honey, does momma know you have her phone ?”

“Of course, I’m helping.” Of course was Lyndy’s new catch phrase, neither he nor Amy had any idea where it came from.

“And how are you helping ?”

“Momma wants to know if you’ll be home by dinner.”

“I don’t think so sweetheart, I can’t go very fast with these horses, can I talk to momma ?”

“Of course but she’s helping JT in the bathroom so you’ll have to wait, are you singing with the radio ?”

“I sure am.”

“I like when you sing with momma.”

He heard Lyndy talking off the phone for a second before an obvious phone transfer, “Hello my love.”

“Hey sweetheart, what’s up with Jackson ?”

“Oh it was nothing, we were finger painting new pictures for the fridge to welcome you home, just some serious hand and face washing. No hope for dinner huh ?”

“No and they’re fixing the roads so there are detours with the trailer and the horses are still a bit skittish so I’m stopping to settle them often.”

“Well take your time and watch yourself with them.”

“Never mind me, how are you feeling ?”

“You mean aside from really missing you ?”

“That bad huh ? I love it when your pregnant.”

“Oh stop, it’s kind of fun.”

“More than kind of fun, anyway, I don’t think I’ll be that late but don’t wait up, you need your sleep.”

“Ok, we’ll see, Lisa’s making dinner, maybe I can catch a nap.”

“A nap would be great.”

“I promise to try, you stay safe.”

“I will, love you !!”

“We love you too sweetheart.”

There was no really direct route from Northern Alberta to the South so from Cold Lake down, with the idea of keeping the trailer on the most sound roads possible the rescues were transported in a weirdly circuitous path around large cities but at the same time keeping to at least paved roads as opposed to what sometimes passed as a numbered and posted road in Alberta, nothing more than dirt that two cars could pass together.

There was also the stopping, sometimes a quick pit stop for food, water or to use a rest room and sometimes just to see the horses and have them see him, check on feed, water and a gently pat and offer a calm word to settle them. They were mostly better from the medical problems stemming from their abandonment and lack of nutrition but mentally they were distrusting, skittish and somewhat unpredictable. Ordinarily they would have left the kids for a few days at the ranch with family and Amy would have come along but with her pregnant  and the unsurety of a trailer and transport they decided against it. Besides Amy wasn’t sleeping well and out of her first trimester they had decided that this was best, home at the ranch. It was a lonely drive but there was the scenery and the radio.

“You who are on the road

Must have a code that you can live by

And so become yourself

Because the past is just a good-bye.

Teach your children well,

Their father's hell did slowly go by,

And feed them on your dreams

The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,

So just look at them and sigh

And know they love you.

And you, of tender years,

Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,

And so please help them with your youth,

They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,

Their children's hell will slowly go by,

And feed them on your dreams

The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,

So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.”

Traffic was slowing again up ahead and the truck slowed and finally came to a stop. 30 minutes later following the other cars and trucks inching along he was exited onto yet another of the endless detours that seemed to plague this trip. Turning twice it seemed the detour included a terrible pot hole filled road that was mostly dirt at this point.

35 minutes later after brushing the dirt from his knees and wiping his brow with his sleeve he reached for his phone and dialed.

“Hey, you Ok ?”

“Cracked rocker arm on the truck I think, damned potholes, I was so focused on the trailer I must have missed it. The horses are fine but I’m going to have to get this trailer towed somewhere I can keep these horses overnight and get the truck picked up. Maybe I’ll luck out and there’s a Dodge dealership close that has the rocker in stock.”

“So what’s the plan ?”

“I guess I’ll call the local vet first and see if they can recommend someplace that can isolate these three. Maybe even a garage that can deal with an emergency and we’ll see where we are first thing. I’d hate for someone to have to drive up.”

“We’ll hope for the best, but we’ll all miss not having you back tonight.”

“I know, kiss the kids for me, I’ll call later once I have some idea of what’s going on.”

“and for goodnights.”

“And for good nights. Love you.”

“So much in love with you.”

Once the horses were picketed out between the woods and the trailer, hay spread and water supplied he checked his phone and dialed.

“Nelson Lake Veterinary Clinic, your call is important to us, please hold.”

“Nelson Lake, this is Dr. Burton can I help you ?”

It took a few minutes for introductions and to run  the sad tale by Dr. Burton who understood immediately.

“How about this, stay put and I’ll call my tech and get him on board and then let the sheriff know you’re out there. Once that’s done we’ll see about the truck, I’d like those horses off the road.”

“I’m all for that, you have my number ?”

“Yup, just fine, call you back in 10.”

The Police cruiser pulled past the trailer and truck and onto the side of the road a respectful distance from the horses so as not to spook them and walked over to introduce himself.

Immediately after greetings and introductions the phone rang.

“Go ahead, that’s probably Kelsey, uh Dr. Burton” the officer who had introduced himself as Matthew Connolly told him “Alright if I say hello to these three ?”

Answering the phone he nodded at the officer and then covered the phone “tread lightly they’re rescues.”

The plan wasn’t that complicated, the clinic’s vet tech would come in the clinic truck with the wrecker who would disconnect the truck from the trailer, hook the clinic truck to the trailer and then follow the trailer back to the stables that would house the horses. In the morning they would get the truck off the ground and see what was up and move on from there.

“Should be 20 minutes or so, you don’t have to wait.”

“I’m going to turn around and park behind you, I don’t like the horses open like that, they see my cruiser they won’t do something stupid like pull an air horn.”

“I hate to take your time but I do appreciate it.”

“I’m fine so where you hail from ?”

“We have a small ranch down near Hudson.”

“Hudson ? Whereabouts is that ?

“Let’s see Okotoks?”

“Oh sure, you’ve got a herd ?”

“Two actually, White Face, my wife’s family has a herd we’re partners in, they’re just down the road, and we’ve got a herd at our place, best beef in Alberta.”

“And the rescues ?”

“My wife’s business is horses, training, rehab, you name it.”

“Kids ?”

“Two, girl and a boy and one on the way.”

He swiped his finger over the screen and handed the phone to Officer Connolly.

“Nice looking family, that’s your spread behind you, looks inviting.”

“I love it and them, pretty idyllic if you ask me, our family almost sold it a few years ago, don’t know what we were thinking.”

“Young and stupid like the rest of us.”

Two chairs were pulled from a side storage locker on the trailer and there was an almost fresh thermos of coffee the young officer offered.

“Always wanted to be a sheriff, police work ?”

“Oh yeah, my Uncle Pete was a Mountie, that was awesome.”

“No serge for you though ?”

“Bum knee from hockey, fine for a sheriff but not a Mountie. No complaints, I live with the people I serve and I like it. I guess you’ve always wanted to be a rancher.”

“Early on for sure and now I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I did a stint in the Army and when I came home was off to the oil fields but I met my wife.”

“Guys go off to the field and back to the army and have wives.”

“Not me, marriage is a commitment, you don’t mess with that. Small trips and the like fine but 4 month commitments away, doesn’t seem right. Besides I don’t think I could be away from her, the kids or the ranch for that long.”

“That’s nice though, you know, the way it should be.”

“Before the kids and sometimes if we get volunteers for the kids we do trips like this together, it’s why we bought this thing. How about you, married ?”

“Soon enough, engaged, can’t wait, we have a down payment on a small place with a bit of property, she’s a teacher but we both wanted some land, maybe get a couple horses.”

“Some nice country for riding around here, not a bad way to spend time for newlyweds.”

They stopped and got up leaving their empty cups when the pickup pulled behind the cruiser and the wrecker pulled up in front of the trailer rig.

“Matt, how’s everything ?” The younger man asked walking up and then a second later the second, an older man also walked over. “Matt, Ty” he said smiling.

“Dwayne Coolidge, Ty Borden” this is Mitch uhmm.”

“Cutty, Mitch Cutty, thanks to both of you for coming out.”

“It’s what we do” Dwayne said, “Ok, let’s crank down the trailer and see if we get lucky and it frees the truck.”

“Mitch, you have papers for these guys I can see ?” Ty asked “Sorry but the cops are here so, you know.” He finished with a smile at Mitch and the officer.

“We’ll start on the trailer.” Matt said walking around the truck to the jack handle assembly on the other side of the rig.”

Ty leaned against the trailer as Mitch reached in to grab the leather folder where he kept the important papers for the trip. A minute later he handed Ty the three stapled sets of papers and the vet reports.

“Well they’re clear medically, and let’s see Saddle Road Ranch Corporation, Hudson, AB. I know that area a little from years ago, can’t say I know the name, is it new ?”

“I’m 4th generation.”

“Guess not then,” Ty said filling out a form off the papers.

“How’s this going to work ?”

“Ok, well, once the trailer’s free and the truck’s out of the way we’ll hook it up the vet truck, load up the horses and head over to my place. The clinic has a four stall isolation barn there. I also run a small bike shop, mostly vintage repairs and restorations so in the morning we can look at your truck and figure something out. You can sleep in the house or hook up outside the barn, looks like a comfortable ride. Up to you.”

“I’m fine in the trailer and all set up actually if you’ve got a hose and a plug.”

“There’s actually a trailer hookup out there, I stayed in one while we got the house fixed up.”

“We ? Married Ty ?”

“Not yet anyway, we is Kelsey, or the clinic and I, we share ownership and I’m paying it off so eventually it’ll be mine. I’m finishing vet school next year so we have an agreement. By the way she’ll be stopping by in case you want to give them something to calm down after all of this.”

“No worries, I have some herbs that’ll do the trick, we try to steer clear of the drugs if we can, keep ‘em healthy and they stay that way.”

“Can’t argue with that philosophy I guess, consider the option though, one’s sure fired and one’s not.”

Mitch sat in his fold out chair in front of a small fire he had started in the fire pit. Dr. Burton had stopped by and took a quick look at the horses. She was satisfied that Mitch

was confident in his herbs and wished both he and Ty goodnight. Ty offered to share a take out order with Mitch declaring he’d have done it anyway and they settled on pizza which was delivered.

They ate and sipped a couple beers that Mitch supplied.

“If you don’t mind my asking, aren’t a bit old to be in vet school, take a break ?”

“Got sidetracked a few years ago and took a break in college, worked out Ok I guess between the bike work and vet work I’m doing well. You ?”

“After high school I did a stint in the military and went to school at the same time, electrical engineering mostly power line work. After I came back ,my folks were talking about selling the ranch and I had the idea of doing some oil work, change of pace kind of thing.”

“And ?”

“And, I met a woman, fell madly in love, kept the ranch.”

“Kids ?”

“Two, one on the way.” Mitch said finishing his beer. “I’m out.” He said placing the empty on the small table.

“I’ll grab a couple from the house” Ty said getting up as Mitch’s phone rang.

“Just in time” Ty said standing and turning as Mitch answered.

Ty caught the first of Mitch’s conversation, stopped for a second, shrugged and moved on.

“Hey Lyndy, you and JT call for goodnights ?”

[wreckofawriter]

Prompt list

Ok so I got bored and made a prompt list. Some are things I've seen online and some are just shit I came up with. I'm bored as fuck right now so feel free to request.

No, it's really not that complicated. He’s a bad person.”

“Hey...What's wrong with your face?”

“How could you do this to me?”

“You’ve got ten seconds to tell me what you are doing here.”

“I know this is hard to believe, but I'm on your side.”

“Never seen that used as a murder weapon before.”

“Just sit around and cry, then. I don't have that luxury.”

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“Well that's the nice thing about telling the truth, there is a lot less to keep track of.”

“That's the least of your worries.”

“You look a lot different than your profile picture”

“Do you trust me?”

“What? I meant it as a complement.”

“Who put this in my pocket?”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“You think your so good looking, but deep down your that kind of ugly PhotoShop can't fix.”

“I know you did your best, it just wasn't enough.”

“Even if I could stop, I wouldn't.”

“You have got to see this.”

“I try not to think of myself as a thief.”

“I can't believe I used to think he was attractive.”

“Well this contest is not going to rig itself."

“I cant believe I'm about to tell you this.”

“I thought we were friends!”

“Thanks, I hate myself.”

“Depression is not a great look on you."

“I know you're here, your terrible at being quiet.”

“I will break your jaw if you finish that sentence.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I didn't even recognize you.”

“I told you not to read that.”

“Wait, are you banned from that Wendy’s, or every Wendys?

"Wait…. So you aren't dating him?"

"Do you have any idea how many rules we're breaking right now?"

"Go on then! Leave! See if I care!"

"You really have no clue who I am?"

"Its pathetic, I can't believe I still care."

"You left this, I just wanted to return it."

"Do not use me as an example, I am a terrible person."

"I'm crying on the floor of a bathroom, how do you think I'm doing?"

"Are you still pouting?"

"Can't you see I'm in love with you?"

"How can you love him/her? After everything he/she has done."

"You belong with me. Not them."

"Shut up and take it."

"Are you seriously scared of this?"

"Wow, great self control you've got there."

"I'm so sorry, I panicked!"

"I've met goldfish that are smarter than you."

"I am about 7 seconds from stabbing you."

"Sorry, but I don't dance, it's against my principles."

"You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair" (john mulaney thank you)

"Are you that blind. Can't you see I'm in love with you?!"

"You speak to me again, I will skin you alive."

"Sleep, I just want to sleep."

"Fuck me." "You're quite forward, but I'm game."

"Why are you lying on the table?"

"How long until you leave?"

"I have salsa in my bra."

"Wait if your here then, who's over there?"

"You did all of this on a dare?"

"I bet you say that to all the girls/guys."

"My brain contains barley enough information to keep me alive."

"I would personally like to use the stairs so if you could move, that'd be great."

"I'm not a baby, I am at least a child!"

"Do you not know how much of an asshole you are or, do you just not care?"

"If you wanted to be babied you should have asked yourself."

"You can't sleep here so get up and get out."

"Some say revenge is a dish best served cold. I believe it is best served hot, hot enough to burn your tongue off."

"That only happened five minutes ago! Why are you acting like it happened five years ago!"

"Oh, so my food just got up and walked away then."

"You still think that you can change me?"

"I don't do positive baby, I'm just a, 'the glass is full of poison' sort of person."

"I don't think I've ever seen a human digest that much coffee before."

"Do you like annoying me or is it something you just can't help?"

"I hope they haunt you. The things you have done."

"I might be drunk. Orrrrr, I'm actually a giraffe."

"This is illegal isn't it."

"Ow! You nearly hurt me!"

"Okay, your friends are fucking crazy."

"I hold grudges because they are all I have left."

"I will face god as I walk backwards into Hell."

"Better bury me deep, you don't want me back do ya?"

"Am I the only one in this whole place to make a single good life decisions?"

"Why would I share my feelings if I could just bottle them up and eventually die?"

"You got a tattoo? OF WHAT!?

"You said you knew where you were going." "Yeah well, I lied."

"FUCK YOU AND YOUR MONOPOLY MONEY YOU WORTHLESS WHORE!"

"You know I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of taking this personally."

"Uh-uh I do not fuck with spirits, you guys have fun getting possessed."

"Are you kidding! There's TWO of you!"

"Love is a fucking scam, try eating a mango instead."

"For a nerd, you're quite stupid."

"You'll pay for this!" "Put it on my tab."

"I think I just speed ran the five stages of grief."

"Why do you have tattoos, you wouldn't put a sticker on a nice car." "I'm at best a 2003 Corolla."

"I'm gonna be honest, I thought you were gay."

"If you call me cute again I will rip your eye out and make you eat it."

"You do know not everyone wants to fuck you right?"

"I can't believe I actually thought you were capable of loving someone.

"You do know how fucking terrifying you are right?

"Me? Overreacting? Probably."

"Its okay. I'm not mad…. Ok you know what, I've changed my mind you can go burn in hell."

"No no, you see that sounds like a responsibility. I want no part in it."

"Ohh um I'm not good at advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?

"I may seem like an angry person on the outside but buried deep inside, I'm even angrier."

"Huh, I wonder what it's like to know what the actual fuck is going on."

"I'm sorry but you must be at least friend level 5 to unlock my tragic backstory."

"I have the best story, once upon a time in a place that is clearly not here, you weren't such a little bitch."

"Emotions? Ha! Those are for people who aren't mentally scared and or broken."

"Just you wait until I graduated top of my class form the Hogwarts, school of bitchcraft and misery!"

"Why am I living in a Stephen King novel, everyone's either dead, dying or wish they were one of the above?"

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT Retrospective (4/7)

[Note: This was originally written on January 13,2013.  I embedded YouTube videos on each part, including several Evanescence AMVs, but Tumblr won’t cooperate with that for some reason.   Just look them up yourself.]

Today I'd like to talk about the Super 17 Saga.  It sucks, but it's short.   Man, there's an Evanescence AMV for this too?  I'm starting to see why that Daredevil movie was so poorly received.  Starring Ben Affleck!   Soundtrack by Every Fifteen-Year-Old on YouTube!

From what I've read, Episode 41 was supposed to have been the finale of Dragon Ball GT, but the show got renewed and so it chugged along for another 23 installments.  I don't know if the post-Baby storylines were rushed, per se, but it does sort of feel like Toei was caught flat-footed.   For one thing, the opening credits still kept using the same animations of Goku, Pan, and Trunks flying around in space, looking for Black Star Dragon Balls, and fighting Baby.  Well, the outer space adventures are over, the Black Star Dragon Balls are gone, and Baby's friggin' dead.  Hell, Trunks even gets kicked out of the main cast.   From here on out It's all Goku and Pan with a little Vegeta now and then.   Also, I think the Super 17 Saga feels like a kneejerk reaction.  "They ordered more shows, what do we do?   Shit... uh, let's just bring back all the bad guys from the old series!"   For a Dragon Ball Z fan, watching GT for the first time is like getting whiplash because they kept switching the premise around.   The whole point of the first two dozen episodes was that they were abandoning the DBZ formula and trying to do old school Kid Goku stories in outer space.  Then they spend another dozen episodes setting up a Goku vs. Vegeta fight with new power-ups.   By Episode 42, the series has given up any ambition of offering a distinct flavor or vision.   It's settled into a rut of doing lame comedy and watered-down superhero fights.   So first off, Episode 41 is about the latest World Martial Arts Tournament.   Goku used to compete in these things, but after he won the tournament he let everything that happened in DBZ distract him from the event, and during that time Mr. Satan became the multi-time World Champion.   The gag with Mr. Satan is that he has no super powers whatsoever, and while he's a brilliant martial artist, he only dominates the competition because all the super-fighters lost interest in the event.  By the end of DBZ, Goku and Mr. Satan's kids got married, so now they rig the tournament like some kind of kung fu mafia: Whoever wins the tournament has to fight Mr. Satan to actually claim the championship, and that person always agrees to take a dive.  By the end of DBZ, the Z-fighters are comfortable letting Mr. Satan serve as a figurehead hero to the people of Earth, while they do all the actual daysaving.  By the GT-era, Satan is now in his mid-fifties, and feels comfortable retiring and passing the torch to someone new.   He tries to rig the event so his grandaughter Pan can win, but she withdraws for fear that she'll be required to wear his ring gear and mustache if she wins.   Goku wanted to compete, but Mr. Satan convinces him to fight in the junior division because he's too short.   Ultimately, it's Uub who wins the tournament, but at the last moment he freezes and Mr. Satan actually eliminates him cleanly.  The reasons for this are complicated, and so I gotta explain Majin Buu.   The final bad guy of Dragon Ball Z was Majin Buu, a genie who could absorb the personalities and traits of his enemies.   This ability eventually caused him to split into two Buus, a good fat Buu and an evil version who went on to be the main villain.  The good Buu made friends with Mr. Satan, and was instrumental in preserving his stranglehold on the World Championship.   The evil Buu was killed by Goku, who wished that he could be reincarnated as a good guy so they could fight again.   Goku's wish came true, and the evil Buu was indeed reincarnated as a young human boy named "Uub" (get it?).   Goku quickly took the boy as his student so he could train him for a rematch and groom him as his successor.   You'd expect that Uub would have been a major player in Dragon Ball GT, but instead he barely ever shows up, and when he did finally make his big move to stop Baby he got his ass kicked.   Fortunately for him, the good Majin Buu stepped in and recombined with Uub, transforming him into "Majuub".   Majuub still got his ass kicked by Baby, but at least he made him work for it.   The point of all this is that Majuub consciously wanted to beat Mr. Satan for the World title, but unconsciously, the part of him that was once Mr. Satan's BFF wanted to let his old pal have the glory one last time.   This is sort of a problem with DBGT.  I meant the show has tons and tons of problems, but this is one that I think deserves more attention.   There's a certain fatalism to the series, because even if it isn't the final act for these characters, they're all older and half of them got 9-to-5 jobs and so forth, so it's clear that things are winding down.   To that end, it makes sense that GT would see the deaths of some of the major characters, but they're all kind of cheap death scenes.  Majin Buu doesn't die so much as he just merges with another iteration of himself.   Mr. Satan misses him, but only because he doesn't understand what's happened.   Piccolo dies, but it was a stupid and pointless sacrifice as I explained last time.   In any event, he shows up later on in the afterlife, so it's not like he's actually gone.   Then there's Krillin, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.   Mr. Satan retaining his title is a variation on the theme.    He talks about retiring, but when the moment arrives, he can't bring himself to step out of the limelight.   In a similar vein, one could argue that Dragon Ball GT should have been mainly about Uub and Pan as the successors to Goku and Gohan, but Goku just couldn't walk away from the action.   Anyway, with that business resolved, the Super 17 Saga can get started.   Basically, it's like the Batman stories where a bunch of villains break out of Arkham Asylum, except all the worst offenders in Dragon Ball are dead, so they have to literally escape from hell.  The plan begins when Dr. Myuu is recruited by Dr. Gero.  Again, it really feels like Toei was just trying to come up with something on the fly, and they decided Gero and Myuu's resemblance was a feature instead of a bug.    Myuu designed the Machine Mutants in the early episodes of GT, and Dr. Gero created the android villains in DBZ.   They're both doctors and they both wear silly hats and long, bushy mustaches.  Also, both of them were betrayed.   Gero was killed when Android 17 turned on him, while Myuu was killed by his creator Baby.   Gero's plan is to work together with Myuu to correct that whole "betrayal" thing that made Android 17 backfire.   Android 17 is still alive on Earth, but if the two doctors build another Android 17 in hell, they can.... harmonize their subspace... tachyons.... resonance.   Something.   All I know is they somehow managed to build an exact duplicate of 17 in hell, so apparently they have hardware stores in hell.   Dragon Ball has never been very consistent about how hell works.   In theory, a dead bad guy is stripped of his corporeal form and he languishes in hell as a disembodied spirit until he's finally allowed to be reincarnated in a new identity.    That's why Frieza can't just beat everyone up and conquer the afterlife.   But Toei always liked the idea of dead bad guys stirring up trouble, so they kept depicting them with their bodies in hell, complete with their full powers.  Dr. Gero was a cyborg, and I think they let him keep his robot body in hell, even though Frieza didn't get to keep his own cyborg implants.   Go figure.   For that matter, I'm pretty sure Dr. Myuu is purely mechanical, so I'm not convinced he'd even be in hell to begin with.    But somehow he and General Rildo are there.    So if Machine Mutants have souls, why isn't Baby there with the other villains?   He's the strongest one, so wouldn't it make more sense to rebuild a stronger version of Baby and use him in the big revenge plan?  Realistically, Toei probably left Baby out deliberately because they just killed him off, but that's why you don't do a story like this right after killing off a major villain. The point of all of this is that "Hell Fighter 17" and "Not Dead Yet 17" are mentally linked because they're basically the same unit in two bodies.   They both fire some sort of energy beam in unison, and this allows them to open a portal connecting Hell and Earth.   It's just sort of implied that the original Android 17 was mind-controlled for all of this, because he's the guy who sent Dr. Gero to hell in the first place, so I doubt he'd willingly endorse a plan to help him get out.   Gero and Myuu send a bunch of dead villains to invade Earth, and they issue a challenge to Goku: Come fight Cell and Frieza in Hell, or we'll send them to Earth too to make the situation even worse.   Goku is eager for a rematch with his old archenemies, even though he's gotten far, far stronger while they've been puttering around the afterlife all this time.   He stupidly flies through the portal, only for Gero and Myuu to close it from the outside.   So now Goku's trapped in Hell and most of his enemies are  causing trouble on Earth.   One of the first episodes of GT I ever saw was #43, because it came on a bonus DVD packaged with a strategy guide for a DBZ videogame.  This was the episode where Goku fights Cell and Frieza in Hell, and I guess they put it on the DVD because it seemed like the best possible choice to promote the new show to DBZ fans.  Cell's my favorite character in the show, so this has gotta be good, right?   Well I watched the episode and quickly realized that GT sucks ass.   First of all, it's been 43 episodes and Goku's still stuck as a child.   He can turn into a Super Saiyan 4 and blow Cell and Frieza away in one hit, but he never does this.   Hell, he could annihilate them in one of the lower Super Saiyan forms.    But this is GT, and GT-logic demands that any preliminary fight be fought in base-form.   Never mind that Goku had to go Super Saiyan the first time he fought these guys.   Now he's fighting them at the same time, with a smaller body, and he wants to do it in normal form.   Frieza and Cell act like they're gonna curbstomp Goku because they have scary new ghost powers, and they can't be killed themselves because they're already dead.   But the reality is that Goku makes them look like idiots because he won't even bother powering up to fight them.  Up your ass, Dragon Ball GT.   At one point, Cell tries to absorb Goku with his scorpion tail, which doesn't even make sense because Cell only absorbs Androids whole, and he doesn't need to absorb anything anymore because he's in his final form.   Goku simply forces his way out of Cell's ass.   Later, Goku defeats Cell and Frieza using a snowblower.   I wish I was kidding.  It's some kind of magic snow blower, designed to freeze dead people, but it's still stupid.  Cell deserved better.   Meanwhile on Earth, the other bad guys get their asses destroyed because they're all incredibly outclassed by the good guys.  Seriously, most of the villains from Dragon Ball were just mercenaries in helicopters and shit.   They were fine at the time, but now all the good guys can throw mountains and shoot lasers from their hands.  They're treated like cannon fodder, and rightfully so, but it kind of makes you wonder what the point of all this was.   I always appreciated the fact that DBZ villains have to die because they're obsolete after their first loss.  The good guys always train and get stronger, so if they were to come back for revenge they'd just be at an even bigger disadvantage.   It's kind of neat to see Nappa come back and confront Vegeta for killing him, except Vegeta's like a thousand times stronger than he was the first time he killed him.   The lame thing is that a handful of the villains might have had a chance, but Toei screwed them over.   Trunks and Goten shoot down Android 19 with hand energy.   Well, fine, they're probably strong enough to do that, except #19 was built with the power to absorb energy blasts.  If a good guy kicked his head off or something I'd be fine with it, but they went for the one quick-kill scenario that made the least amount of sense.  Captain Ginyu can switch bodies, so if he played his cards right he could trade up and be a contender again.   I don't think they even used him in the story, though.  A lot of these guys would have been better off running away from the battle and hiding out somewhere.   I mean, if you're a human bad guy, you could just slip away in the confusion and if you can stay out of trouble for a few days, you're home free.  You'd think most of these rank and file guys would rather have a new lease on life than revenge on some goofy kid they only met once.   Once the villain army is wrapped up, Gero and Myuu sic Hell Fighter 17 on Vegeta, while the original #17 wanders off and tries to seduce his twin sister, Android #18.   I'm not really sure what his motives are exactly, but he does some sort of hypnotic thing to her, but when Krillin snaps her out of it, he kills him, then attacks 18 when she objects.  Maybe Gero wanted to use 18 in his plan, or this was 17's personality trying to fight his programming, but whatever.   Guess how Vegeta fights Hell Fighter 17.   If you said "base form", congratulations, you understand GT-Logic.   Gero and Myuu summon the other Android 17 to the battle, and they combine them together to make "Super Android 17", a taller, more eyebrow-deficient version.   Super 17 basically no-sells everything, and his secret weapon is that he can absorb energy from his opponents, just like #19 could do, except it actually works.   Vegeta, Trunks, Goten, Gohan, and Majuub all take turns getting their asses kicked, then they finally power up and do it all over again.   I should point out that the original, non-super, one-at-a-time 17 was more than a match for a Super Saiyan back in the day, and yet they all had to try fighting him in base form, just in case it suddenly works this time.  The whole thing is a pointless debacle, because we all know Super 17 is too strong for anyone but Goku to fight, so we're just marking time until he can show up to save the day.   Fortunately, Piccolo has an idea to free Goku, but he's stuck in heaven because he's a good guy.   The guy in charge of that sort of thing refuses to send Piccolo to hell, so Piccolo starts blowing shit up to deserve the punishment.  Once he arrives in hell, Piccolo starts duplicating the Android 17 thing.   He and Dende time their energy beams just right, and that creates a polaron inversion that realigns the warp field coils, allowing Goku to jump back to Earth.  Piccolo is unfortunately stuck in Hell now, but he gets to spend all his free time beating up bad guys, so he's probably happier that way.   Goku finally comes to the rescue and shockingly transforms to fight Super 17.   The only beef here is that he starts out in Super Saiyan.........1, the same form Vegeta used when he got his ass kicked.  After a short warmup, he finally gets down to business and whips out SSJ4.   The weird thing is that Super Saiyan 4 was GT's signature thing, and yet they barely ever let Goku use it.   It's like they were embarrassed or something.  It doesn't really matter anyway, because Super 17 can just absorb Goku's energy no matter how strong he is, so Goku gets beaten just as easily as his weaker allies.   I should point out that, along the way, Super 17 turned on both Dr. Gero and Dr. Myuu.   In Gero's case, Myuu secretly programmed Super 17 to only follow his own orders, but then he later blows up Dr. Myuu in an act of defiance, so it probably would have come to that no matter what.   The only thing that stops Super 17 is his sister. 18 shows up at the critical moment and demands revenge in spite of the odds.  Her rejection of what 17 has become stirs his original personality, and he manages to sabotage himself just enough that Goku can use 18's attack as a diversion and defeat him with a Super Dragon Fist.   For no obvious reason, 18 tears her blouse during this scene.   GT.  Logic.   So the saga ends as it began, with a character taking a dive to let a weaker character win.  Not that I was rooting for Super 17 or anything, but it doesn't really make Goku look special when he can't even fight his own battles.   On the other hand, Android 17 is finally, definitively killed, after years of being in a sort of limbo where no one really knew what had happened to him.  It's really the only death scene they let stick, so I guess I have to give some credit there.   The interface of hell and Earth causes environmental problems, so Goku resolves to find the Dragon Balls and use them to restore the Earth and resurrect Krillin.  Unfortunately, all seven Dragon Balls are cracked.   These are the good old Red Star Dragon Balls, by the way, the ones that don't blow up the Earth when you use them.   At least, they used to be reliable... NEXT: Breakin' my balls

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘The Beguiling Man’ Review

"Their whole life they’ve been hearing a story about who you are. And you’re the enemy in that story."

In episode two of its second season, American Gods finds a reason to tell us the tragic story of Shadow's past. And it's... basically one of the less interesting episodes of Daredevil.

That's disappointing.

To be more specific, it's disappointing that they felt the need to devote half an episode to telling us the tragic story of Shadow's teenage years, because the story they tell here is essentially the same 'outsider teen moves to a new town and encounters local bullies' story that we've seen a thousand times before. It's The Karate Kid, in which the role of Mr. Miyagi is played by maternal cancer.

The underlying problem here is that there is just no reason for them to be telling this story to us in the first place, either in the metanarrative or the narrative sense. Mr. Town, played by the always welcome Dean Winters, has Shadow rigged up to a big ominous machine, and mentions Shadow's mom once. That's it. That's all the narrative justification we get for why we're being told this story at this time. Somehow that one mention of his mother inspires him to remember how his mom brought him back from France to live in Brooklyn, and how he got beat up that one time, she started dying of cancer, he got so upset about that that he went right out and beat up the guys that attacked him earlier, then she died and that was that.

And I hate to say it, but just reading that last paragraph gives you pretty much the same experience as watching it play out over twenty odd minutes of this episode's runtime. Which is too bad, because it's not like there isn't a lot of good stuff just waiting to be explored here. Olunike Adeliyi, playing Shadow's Mom – and how telling is it that she never gets identified as more than that – is actually really good when her dialogue stops being a stream of character information and 'deep meditations on the human soul.'  Watch the moment when she breaks from doing that to tell Shadow that she's going to stop for drinks with somebody named Jerry, and you witness a revelation. In that moment, she goes from being a mouthpiece for things the scripts wants to have said out loud and becomes an actual, interesting person. And I want to know more about that person, because she honestly sparkled at that moment and you could see why Shadow loved her. But we don't get to see more than a moment or two of that, because the script wants to make sure that we know that she's read Siddhartha.

It feels like a case of a screen writer not trusting the audience to understand the subtext, and this show is above that sort of thing.

Similarly, Shadow is mugged, he gets his CD player back and runs for it. And the Brooklyn cops see a black kid running with a portable CD player and arrest him, either instead of or along with his attempted muggers, it's not entirely clear. That's a huge moment that is way, way too true about America still today, but it gets completely thrown away because Shadow's Mom just wants to talk more about how much light is in him. Honestly, I wish that they'd either explored the more interesting stuff that gets sidelined here, or just told us through dialogue that Shadow's Mom had died of cancer and left it at that, because the story that they chose to tell here just ultimately didn't feel like it had anything in particular to say. I feel like I should add though that Gabriel Darku did a good job with the material he was given, and was believable as a young Shadow Moon.

OK, enough about that, because there's a whole other half to this episode and that's where all the good stuff really was.

When we left our heroes, the restaurant had been shot to Hell, Zorya Vechernyaya was dead, and Shadow had been spirited off into the night via helicopter. Here the show seems to run into a bit of a problem with not knowing what to do with all of the characters currently in play. They deal with the situation by generally having them all disperse in pairs on separate missions, which more or less works. Ifrit the Jinn and Salim ride off to the corn palace to fetch Odin's spear, not to be seen again this week. One can only assume that we'll catch up with them later, and how absolutely adorable was Salim, sitting in the sidecar and beaming at being allowed to come along. You two drive safe, we'll see you, presumably, later in the season. Probably right at the end, I would guess.

Wednesday and Mr. Nancy head off to Cairo, Illinois, although they don't get there this week, and I honestly struggled to remember where they were going every time the action cut back to them. They were basically in a holding pattern while other events got into their proper placement for what's going to happen in Cairo. But damn if it wasn't an enjoyable holding pattern to watch. I would tune in weekly for the road trip adventures of Wednesday and Nancy, even if nothing ever happened besides the two of them bantering. The entire exchange about the bucket of fried chicken, which I will not spoil here if you haven't watched it, was better than 95% of broadcast television.

Shadow, we see, has been hooked up to the previously mentioned big ominous machine, which doesn't actually appear to do anything except hold Ricky Whittle up in a sexy and dramatic way, but I suppose that's a noble enough goal. It would be nice if we ever got any clear indication of what exactly Mr. Town wanted out of the situation. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to convince Shadow to switch sides and join the new gods, sometimes it seemed like he was trying to get information, and sometimes it seemed like he was simply torturing him for no particular reason. Unfortunately, we're not likely to ever get an explanation, since he appears to be dead either just before or immediately after the end of the episode. Ah, well.

But the real MVP, and the only real reason to ever watch this episode again, is the continuing adventures and burgeoning friendship of Laura Moon and Mad Sweeney. Pablo Schreiber and Emily Browning have great chemistry together, and both excel at playing broken, friendless assholes who make a connection with one another despite both of them trying as hard as they can not to do so. When Sweeney says, 'Is that how you ask for a favor,' you can tell by the look on his face that he'd pretty much die to help Laura and this point, and he'd definitely die before he'd ever admit it. Everything they do together is wonderful and complicated and they're by far the best thing the show has going on that didn't come from the book.

Quotes:

Wednesday: "Mama-Ji, you hear the battle cries. May I count on your blades?" Mama-Ji: "You brought the fight to my doorstep. I have no choice but to resume the lopping of heads, drinking of blood, and liberating of souls. That is, if I can swap my weekend shift with Arjun."

Sweeney: "…And God didn’t f**k up your life. You did a great job of that all by yourself." Laura: "Well, it was my life to f**k up." Sweeney: "Indeed it was. And you f**ked the shit out of it, didn’t ya?"

Bulquis: "Love and war may sit on opposite sides of a coin, but only so they may never meet."

Sweeney: "Last week you could have lifted an entire f**kin’ elephant. Two f**kin' elephants if my nuts are the judge."

Laura: "What do you usually drive, horse and buggy?" Sweeney: "Says the corpse who flipped an ice cream truck."

Bits and Pieces:

-- Apparently Bilquis was supposed to talk the old gods out of joining Wednesday, but didn't try that hard.

-- They showed us that Shadow was on a train early on, then wasted a lot of time having us watch Laura work that exact same information out. That's sloppy plotting.

-- I can only assume that Ricky Whittle was excruciatingly uncomfortable filming this week.

-- What is up with the restaurant owners and staff? They just got shot up and people died, and yet there are no cops on the scene, and the restaurant is somehow still serving pancakes for Sweeney.

-- Technical Boy's search for Media got a little further this week. Going to Times Square was a clever idea to find her what with all the screens. The show is still playing coy on revealing Gillian Anderson's replacement as New Media, though. All in all, that changeover has been very well handled. Looks like we get the reveal of New Media next week. Let's see if they stick the landing.

-- There's no way they could have known this in advance, but it was so very nice to have a respectful and peaceful representation of Islam this week.

-- What does Ifrit think of Salim's prayers and faith? I'd be interested to know.

-- Ricky Whittle is 37, and Young Shadow appeared to be about 17 or thereabouts. That would imply that the Brooklyn segments were taking place around 1999. I really dislike using the World Trade Center as a visual signifier for 'in the past,' by the way. It's a personal thing.

-- We were clumsily shown this week that Shadow doesn't know who his father is and his mother won't tell him. We pretty much all know where that's going, even if they had been remotely subtle about it. Which they were not.

-- Wednesday's eulogy for Betty the car, as he waits for Shadow's train to plow into her on the railroad tracks, is a thing of strange beauty and inexplicable dignity.

-- Seriously though, you need to stand a lot further away than that if a train is about to hit a car. I know this from experience.

-- Sweeney takes Laura through something he refers to as 'The Hoard' to get catch up with Shadow.  I'm assuming that that's 'hoard' as in a big collection of treasure.  They don't appear to have passed through James McAvoy.

I really hate to say this sort of thing, but the show just hasn't felt the same without Fuller and Green. The strange ambient noise and slow motion shots of fluid in motion are pretty much all gone, the storytelling is significantly more linear, and I really think the show is weaker for the change. But, of course, we're only two episodes in. I really shouldn't judge too much yet.

Two out of four buckets of chicken. Almost entirely due to Laura and Sweeney. Just fastforward to their parts, and assume everything else works out all right.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

“Actually, going public didn’t affect me either. In fact, not having to mantain two separate lives has actually been very liberating.”

Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2

“Well, I’m very glad for you guys, but by this moment, one guy found out who I am and killed my girlfriend, faked his death while he became a boss of organized crime/assembled a cult around himself in Europe, but only once he was certain his son would follow his lead as a super-villain with a vendetta against me, a particular shitty situation to be in since he was also my best friend (did I mention his son knew who I was, too, and used this knowledge to torture me by getting another villain to create androids of my dead parents, get me to love them and trust them, only for that trust to be the very catalyst for them to reveal their true colors and give me up, only one of them actually grew a conscience, so while I had to fight one of them as an enemy, the other one was protecting me and telling me she loved me, and both of them died violently in front of me?), arranged an extremely complicated scheme to make me believe I was a clone at the exact moment that I was the happiest since I had more to lose, tried to set me up against my clone (who, remember, at that moment I thought was the original, because of this guy) and, when that failed and we started to see each other as brothers, made a plan which involved killing all my friends and my brother right in front of me, in the hopes that that would keep me busy so I couldn’t be with my wife while she had the miscarriage that he had arranged, a plan which succeeded in everything except the killing all my friends part. After a while there, where I again thought he might have been dead (by my hand - you know my stance on killing, you know how all this must have upset me), he came back, blackmailed Jameson into selling him part of the Bugle and giving him a lot of authority over the paper, which not only made him my boss, it also gave him the power to manipulate the public’s opinion of me, started a campaign to clear his name, which inlcuded telling me to my face that he was dedicating all of it to my dead girlfriend who he killed remember that part from the beginning and many other volleys of that nature, then going into my house, which I shared with my wife and her aunt and tearing it apart in order to provoke, which led to that funny little video that made the rounds around that time of me beating up a “defenseless” citizen, who had already accused me of threatening his life, that being the reason he faked his death to the public, or so he claimed. As the very resourceful individual I already described him as, he also got a doctor to kidnap me a torture me psychologically through drugs, got the Trapster to kill a guy and frame me for it, lied about the time I hepled save his grandson and made it seem like I was in with it with the kidnapper who, oh, was some kind of misshappen clone that he created to dress up as the Green Goblin cast away any remaining suspicions that it was him. Yeah, he engineered his grandson’s kidnapping. He’s a revolting being, but right now we’re focusing on what he did because he knew my secret identity. Except for a few snide remarks at work and trying to force me to reveal my secret id when an elevator crashed with the both of us and two other people in it by not making any effort to save us and leaving it all to me because there was a risk that the security cameras hadn’t been disabled, he didn’t do much until he went through this ritual, the Gathering of The Five, which left him insane when he was actually looking for the power to destroy me, then he blew up the Bugle, my workplace. Oh, but before that I found out that my aunt, who had died in between all these events of natural causes, was alive because he had kidnapped her and replaced her with an actress, the woman I saw die thinking it was my aunt, to... well, make me think the woman who was a mother to me died. Then he drugged me (through my toothpaste) so I’d take on the Green Goblin identity and attack the people I care about, kidnapped me and tortured me for a week to try to mold me into a fitting heir for him, lotsa drugs and lotsa electrocution. When I still refused, he released a video painting me as my girlfriend’s murderer (including a nice little ‘if I was her boyfriend, I would hate Spider-Man), kidnapped a friend of mine, a recovering alcoholic, force fed him whiskey, put him behing the wheels of a complany truck and made him crash the school I work at, specifically my classroom, you know, targetting a place where children spend most of their waking moments, even if it was during the night. My friend ended up in a coma, he’s still barely responding to stimuli at this very moment. Although I won the ensuing fight, something seems to be wrong with him at the moment (idk, he’s just ooc) and now he’s killing innocent people, you might have seen him on TV today, with 18 hostages in a church demanding that I disembowel myself with a steak-knife.

His son, besides that lovely anecdote I just told you about making me think my parents were alive only to take them away from me, also rigged a bomb in our apartment, kidnapped two friends of ours and my aunt and put a bomb near one of them, making me have to guess as to which of them was in danger, then tried to fight me. A psychiatrist made him think my and his dad’s secret identities were fake. When he remembered everything, he went off the deep end and tried to kill me again, also leaving funny little messages form him to the people I cared about, reinforcing how much damage he can do as someone who not only knows my secret, but also is so entrenched in my personal life.

This other guy, when he discovered who I was, kidnapped me and went after my wife, possibly almost raping her through deception, and tried to hurt her, then disguised himself as me again and let me know that he’d fooled my aunt and she was defenseless against him.

Then there’s Venom, who went into my house with the sole purpose of scaring my wife, and threatened my loved ones in order to play his game by his rules. There’s also Daredevil. He might not be a villain but he keeps giving me supoenas to defend this guy who’s tried to murder me and my loved ones and succeeding in killing other people.

Also, consider that, as I just told you, I’m asking for help because my aunt has been kidnapped by someone who knows who I am. 

So can we... not? With the secret identity thing? Right now?”

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

The First Purge

There was another gif I was going to use for this but honestly I find the masks too disturbing - and isn’t that just a fine metaphor for what The Purge movies are really about? 

Hello, it’s me again, the reviewer who sees sequels in franchises in which she’s never seen the previous entries. I’m here to talk to you about The First Purge, the fourth in a series of movies about a 12-hr period that takes place once each year in which the U.S. government suspends the punishment of all laws, including murder, in order to “purge” all the anger and violence that builds up the remaining 364 days a year. This particular entry in the series focuses on, you guessed it, the first Purge and how it came about. It’s an isolated experiment, dreamed up by Marisa Tomei, a behavioral psychologist who claims that people need to release all these negative emotions they’re holding onto. The experiment will be held on Staten Island, and if successful, The New Founding Fathers of America (aka the NFFA, or the new political party that has taken control of the government and is super jazzed about Marisa Tomei’s idea) will roll out the program nationwide. Staten Island was selected for its diverse (read: POC) and socioeconomically-challenged (read: poor) population that would be more likely to participate in the Purge based on the NFFA’s financial incentive of $5000 for staying on the Island. And of course, additional financial incentives are offered for “more active participation.” So, as an experiment, does The First Purge stand up under scrutiny? Well...

Here’s the thing - I’d love to tell you it’s unrealistic but, um. I just can’t. Government-sanctioned and -funded violence against black and brown bodies is just not something that feels very far-fetched tbh. The one piece of cold comfort I can take is that the experiment is based on science (well...I mean, they believe it’s science) so clearly, the real-life U.S. would never enact any such policy because HA HA HA SCIENCE IS WITCHCRAFT. 

Some thoughts:

Ok, first of all, anyone who goes by the name of Skeletor is probably not someone you want to hang out with. Skeletor is the ritualistically scarred meth-head who does not ask to speak to the manager when he receives what he considers to be poor customer service - no, he takes a razorblade from under his tongue and tries to cut your throat. During the Purge, the victim of said throat cutting is invited to a “Purge party” because he’s seeking revenge and Skeletor might be there. Um. My guy. I don’t think Skeletor is the kind of guy who gets invited to many parties.

Not a fan of the recording contacts that all people in the Purge put in their eyes to monitor their level of participation. They make people look like Morlocks and it’s VERY UNSETTLING. Also why would they all be different colors? Wouldn’t you want your branding to be consistent, NFFA? I get it though, you’re trying to differentiate characters in the dark. 

Speaking of dark, holy shit did you film this inside a fucking cave? It’s like trying to watch a 1995 episode of The X Files in broad daylight, I can’t see shit.

I didn’t understand why every scene ended in an inexplicable quick jump cut until I saw that Michael Bay was an executive producer.

For a horror movie, we get more character development than most and less than some, but what we do get is to the movie’s credit. Our protagonists are Nya (Lex Scott Davis), an idealistic Black Lives Matter-type activist who is hustling her ass off as a community organizer and protest leader. Her ex-boyfriend is Dimitri (Y’lan Noel), a gang leader and drug lord in the neighborhood, but one of the ones who kind of has a heart of gold? Dimitri is an intriguing character who eventually becomes our Die Hard-style vigilante protagonist. He definitely is one of the most interesting parts of the movie, because he clearly knows that injecting his neighborhood with drugs, and therefore crime and violence, is not the best thing for his people. But he also knows that the drug trade is one of the only stepping stones to economic prosperity available to his people, and with that money his main goal is to protect his loved ones and his community. It’s a complicated liminal space and Y’lan Noel does an excellent job trying to show the turmoil he feels at the intersection of those identities.

Were the two older women who booby trapped all those teddy bears lesbians? It seemed like they were lesbians. Either way, their interpretation of the Purge is probably the only one I can condone. 

The social commentary at play here is a bit more than the movie itself can chew, and that’s not surprising. When your main objective is to showcase the highest body count possible, there’s not a lot of room for nuance. I appreciate the effort being made here though, because in spite of how on-the-nose it feels, that’s precisely why it’s needed. If life feels THIS MUCH like a horror movie, people need to do as Nya says, get off their asses, and do something about it. The system may be rigged, but that doesn’t mean we should stop fighting. 

[zrtranscripts]

Season 7, Mission 15: Long Train Running

Love it when a plan comes together

SAM YAO: You all right there, Colonel? Comfortable?

COLONEL SAGE: I'm fine.

SAM YAO: Cup of tea or anything? Twiglet? They're homemade.

COLONEL SAGE: I'm fine.

SAM YAO: Uh, right. Okay. Okay. So thanks to the tracker Five and Peter planted on the Riders' big rig, me and Janine have been watching what they do over the past few days. Turns out they're surprisingly predictable. Um, I mean, for anarchists, I mean.

JODY MARSH: Yeah. They really are. That's why we found their caches of weapons in the tattoo parlor and that.

COLONEL SAGE: And what have you learned on this occasion?

JANINE DE LUCA: They make a stop at least once a day at [?] Services.

JODY MARSH: And we've been talking to the ex-Riders from Fort Blackmoore, the castle. Turns out the Riders aren't just one big group. They keep absorbing little tribes of biker gangs. So right now, there are two enemy groups inside the Riders, the Hogs and the Frogs.

SAM YAO: Sounds like an Adult Swim cartoon which turns out to be a complicated metaphor about politics that I don't understand.

JANINE DE LUCA: The Hogs recently set fire to the Frogs' leader. The Frogs are consequently in a murderous mood.

SAM YAO: Hopping mad, in fact.

JANINE DE LUCA: Thank you. Runner Four, this intel will be of great help in carrying out Colonel Sage's plan. Colonel?

COLONEL SAGE: Yes. Well, to my regret, I entered into an arrangement with the Riders. A marriage of necessity, as they possess a mobile oil refinery. I supplied them with crude oil, they refined it into petrol. Until they attacked my convoy. So we will steal their refinery and frame the Frogs.

JANINE DE LUCA: Time is of the essence. The Riders generate so much noise that zombies are never far behind. We must lure the bikers away, and take the refinery before the horde catches up. Runner Four, Runner Five, this mission is ours. Let's run.

SAM YAO: Look at the size of that lorry! It's like a train! A train that goes on the road.

JANINE DE LUCA: That, Mr. Yao, is a road train. Half of its carriages are given over to the mobile refinery.

COLONEL SAGE: And half of the carriages are given over to the distillation of moonshine.

SAM YAO: Otherwise they'd sober up and start to think about what they're doing. Colonel Sage, did you say that you supplied them with crude oil? Well, where did you get the crude oil from?

COLONEL SAGE: My settlement is in the far northwest, not too far from where the Riders originated. We are situated on the coast, and on an offshore oil rig.

SAM YAO: Oh. Oh, wow. Well, that's handy in an apocalypse.

COLONEL SAGE: My colony has survived and thrived, as has Abel, because we have resources to share with those who wish to live as we do. I regret the alliance with the Riders, however. It was they who originally occupied the refinery which was the partner to our oil rig.

SAM YAO: Okay, so if we sort you out with this refinery, the whole country will be able to get petrol without dealing with the Riders. Mm, well, that seems good. Okay, runners. The Riders are all drinking in the little chef. Five, Janine, you'll have to disable the road train's gun turrets so Jody can lure the Riders away safely. We're in a blind spot here, so just run straight and you should be all right. Ready? Go.

SAM YAO: Okay guys, that's great work. Jody's hiding in position. Five, Janine, you haven't been seen climbing up on that road train. There should be a control panel somewhere. Can you see it?

JANINE DE LUCA: We see it.

SAM YAO: Okay, Five, open it up. [metal lid clanks] Good. Now, cut the um... uh, red wire? [pliers snip, gunshots] Green wire, green wire! [gun turret powers down] Jody, you're all set. Nip between the third and fourth carriages and the car park's right there.

JODY MARSH: Okey-dokey, here goes nothing. I'm, I'm putting on my helmet. One of the girls from the Frogs gave it to me. Deep breath. Here goes. I can do this.

SAM YAO: That is quite the helmet, Jode. With the big eyes, and the ears, you do look a bit like a -

JODY MARSH: Frogs rule, Hogs suck! Bacon is salty and delicious!

[motorcycles clatter]

SAM YAO: Maybe they shouldn't have lined all their bikes up like dominoes. It's asking for trouble. [Riders shout] Well, that's certainly got their attention. Jody, grab one of the bikes and head off. They've left the keys in most of them.

JODY MARSH: Good thing Ed taught me a few bike tricks. I'll lead them a dance, just like we planned.

[motorcycle engine starts]

COLONEL SAGE: Colonel De Luca, Runner Five, you cannot allow yourselves to be seen. The Riders must believe this to be the work of a rebellious Frog. Head up the hill to the tree line. Run!

SAM YAO: Okay, the Hogs are all on Jody's tail. And the road train's unprotected. Five, Janine, coast's clear. Run down from the trees and steal the road train. [truck engine starts] Oh.

JANINE DE LUCA: Mr. Yao, the road train is moving.

SAM YAO: So it is. Uh, let me just check. Ah. You know those zombies that follow the Riders around?

JANINE DE LUCA: I see them, as does the road train's driver, obviously. Goodness, that is a vast horde. And a horde of that magnitude -

COLONEL SAGE: May well contain a V-type. I've been reading your reports on them with grim interest, De Luca.

SAM YAO: Yep. And you won't know a V-type until you shoot it in the face and it keeps coming. Five, Janine, catch up with the road train and keep away from that horde. Run!

SAM YAO: Great running there, guys. You're gaining on the road train and losing the horde. Just keep going down that slip road. How are you getting along, Jody?

JODY MARSH: Woohoo! Frogs are the best!

SAM YAO: [laughs] Jody, you've really got good on that bike. Look at that [?] wheelie.

JODY MARSH: It's quite fun, actually. Apart from the bit where I might die.

SAM YAO: You'll be okay if you keep on the route we practiced. Wow, so many of the Riders in that horde are so young. I mean, I did some stupid stuff in my teens. Got pretty heavily into Bacardi Breezers, if I'm honest. But why would you want to join that bunch?

JODY MARSH: Yeah, I've chatted to some of the kids from the castle about that. Um, it's a mixture of stuff. A lot of them had lost everyone. Parents, their brothers and sisters. They just felt like there was no hope, so you might as well smash everything up, mightn't you? 

And the Riders seemed like they knew what they were doing. If you joined up with them, you could feel superior to all the people trying to build things up again. The Riders said there's no point, those people are idiots. Uh, it's a pretty convincing idea. 

[tires squeal] Whoa! One of them just threw a flaming chain at me! Five, Janine, is there anything you can do to help me get some distance?

COLONEL SAGE: I, for one, would like to see the famous McShell Maneuver in action.

SAM YAO: Good shout, Sage! Uh, Colonel Sage. Sorry. Please don't do that with your eyebrows. Okay, road train's taking the next exit. It's one of those roads that sort of loop around for ages, so we can help Jody and still catch up with it. 

Five, Janine, switch on your noisemakers and lure the hordes – [mutters to himself] Northwest! Then we'll McShell the zoms between Jody and the Riders. But keep your distance, okay? Run!

[noisemakers honk]

[noisemakers honk]

SAM YAO: Okay, guys. Jody and the bikers are coming in from the right. Look at them all! It's proper Mad Max stuff, isn't it? Witness me!

JANINE DE LUCA and COLONEL SAGE: Mr. Yao!

SAM YAO: Sorry. Carried away. Do not witness me. In fact, concentrate on your own jobs. Five, Janine, you'll have to slow down a little, let the horde get closer. Not too close. And Jody, more throttle. We need a gap between you and the Riders to McShell the zoms into.

JODY MARSH: Got you!

SAM YAO: A lot of fuss over a Frog, isn't it? Thought anarchists didn't have any rules.

COLONEL SAGE: To take a leadership position is often to abandon your principles, Mr. Yao.

SAM YAO: Right, yeah. Like you working with the Riders.

JANINE DE LUCA: Doing what is necessary and acting according to your principles are so often at odds.

COLONEL SAGE: Precisely. To lead is to make a series of impossible decisions. No one should want that. The only reason to lead is because you know that you can. Then it is your duty.

JODY MARSH: Wow! Yeah, Colonel Sage, I'd love to talk to you about that sometime. But okay, can we focus on the McShell, now? I can smell the breath of the Rider nearest to me.

SAM YAO: Okay, here we go. Janine, go left. Five, break right. Run!

COLONEL SAGE: Well, Colonel, an impressive technique, I must say. I'll begin training my own operatives in it at once. But with your permission.

SAM YAO: Yeah, the McShell worked a treat. The Riders are stuck inside that horde of zoms, and they've lost Jody completely. Okay, the road train's still going around that exit. Like trying to get a 12-seat sofa down a spiral staircase. 

Five, Janine, meet on the flyover. You can jump off the railing and land on the driver's carriage. Jody, get off on the next junction and circle back around. Oh, damn. Five, there's a few zoms still on your tail. Better run.

SAM YAO: Nice superhero landing, Five!

JANINE DE LUCA: Let me deal with the driver.

DRIVER: What the - ?

[JANINE DE LUCA pulls DRIVER out of the truck]

SAM YAO: Wow. That driver is... dealt with.

JANINE DE LUCA: Needs must. Runner Five, jump into the cab alongside me. Runner Four, continue to drive alongside. [door slams shut] Mr. Yao, where to?

SAM YAO: Sage, uh, Colonel Sage says there's an abandoned railway tunnel up ahead, so make for that.

JANINE DE LUCA: Are we clear of the Riders, Mr. Yao?

SAM YAO: Uh, should be, yeah. They're putting up a hell of a fight with the horde, though. One's jousting the zoms with a flaming spear thing. Makes you wish they were on our side. Although if they were on our side, they'd probably set fire to it. Wait, something's coming out of the tunnel. Is – is that a tanker truck?

COLONEL SAGE: That is our ringer. Proceed into the tunnel. Excellent! Now all that remains is to cover the entrance to the tunnel in foliage. My driver has prepared some for you.

SAM YAO: Very thorough, isn't he? Five, Janine, go get that foliage before the surviving Hogs catch up to you. Run!

[foliage rustles]

JANINE DE LUCA: That is sufficient camouflage, Runner Five. Excellent work. Well, that was quite the plan, Colonel. The Riders will believe the Frogs responsible for the heist, so we've cut off the bikers from their petrol and sparked a civil war in their ranks while we're about it. All in all – [explosion] Mr. Yao, what was that?

COLONEL SAGE: That was our ringer, Colonel. The tanker truck was rigged to explode.

SAM YAO: Wow! [laugh] This is a victory! An actual, unqualified victory! Come on home, runners.

JODY MARSH: Just a sec. We've got a refinery half full of moonshine behind us. Five, want to help me take a barrel back to Abel?

JANINE DE LUCA: I don't think - ! Well, maybe just a little. Very well. This portion of the road train is the refinery.

[door opens]

JODY MARSH: I, uh... [coughs] Wow. That does not look like any moonshine distillery any boyfriend of mine ever rigged up in my college bedroom.

JANINE DE LUCA: No. It does not. Look here. These boxes do not contain alcohol. They contain -  [rips open box]

JODY MARSH: Oh God! Those are the fake ecstasy tablets they were giving out at that rave! The ones that were laced with zombie blood!

JANINE DE LUCA: We've taken more than we thought from them. We have taken their weapon of terrorism! This is a major victory, runners. You should feel very proud. At last, there is hope that we can defeat the Riders.

[atemgirl94]

Pharaoh and Reincarnated Queens adventures pt. 7

After they parted ways, Britt and Hathor went straight back to the Game Shop. The girls went straight to bed but Britt couldn't really sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw what happened in the virtual world.

'It didn't count! It was virtual..He..He only did it because I was digitizing.' She thought as she didn't want to think it was anything more than that and after so long she did fall asleep.

The next morning the girls got up like normal preparing to go to school. Britt was looking in a mirror trying to get herself used to the skirt part of the uniform the one thing she didn't like.

'Why does this thing have to be so short!' Britt thought

She considered asking Yugi if he had an extra boy's uniform as she didn't care for the way the uniform was for the girls. Though she decided to just deal with it.

'Just remember, you're an exchange student and the boys won't bother you much.' She thought

Bre, Hathor and Nana had also been thinking the same as Britt but they knew it wasn't much they could do. It wasn't like the school would let them wear the other uniform thought the girls did consider it.

When they came out of their guest rooms, Mr. Motou was making breakfast. Yugi was there sitting at the table seeming to be waiting for the girls.

"Good Morning girls." Mr. Motou said

"Morning." The four of them said

Each of them took a seat as Mr. Motou brought the plates out and they each had breakfast before heading out. Britt was thinking about a lot when she heard his voice.

'My Queen, we need to talk.' He said

She didn't say anything, more or less she tried telling herself that what she heard and how he acted when he was out was too different things. She didn't believe she was his Queen and sometime soon she'd be back home away from all of this.

It was after that they were heading out as they were heading to school. As usual school was normal as usual but when it was break time Britt went out of the classroom to think. She'd made it outside where everyone was but she felt like she was being watched, turning around she came face to face with Yami."Pharaoh." She said to him

"are you busy after school?" Yami asked her.

Britt hesitated in answering his question but she came up with some kind of answer"Actually I have something important with one of my friends after school. They sent me a text that they had came to Domino City." Britt said to him.

"oh ok" Yami said

It wasn't much longer that they had to go back inside after that to finish classes then head out. Britt checked her phone as she was at her locker seeing she really did have a text from a friend of hers back in Egypt.

'Zoey and my friends really are here in Domino City. I only said that to avoid him..but they want to meet up.' She thought

Britt left the school, she walked with Yugi and his friends as they made their way to the gameshop but then she went to her guest room. Changing out her uniform she came back out in one of her normal outfits.

"You headin out Britt?" Joey asked

"Yeah, I am. A group of my friends came to see me." Britt said

Yugi had thought Britt had made it up, but the look in her eyes said otherwise as he seen she meant it.

"Oh wow, hey maybe you could have them stop by here. We'd like to meet them." Yugi said

"Maybe." Britt answered

Heading out she met her friends at a shop that had shakes, sitting at a table they each had ordered one. The group of girls all were smiling and laughing. Each having their own thing unique about them, their names were Zoey, Miranda, Nina, Olivia and Heather. Everything seemed so quiet and Britt enjoyed at as she closed her eyes.

Britt debated telling them everything, about the Pharaoh and Yugi and things that had happened. Her friends noticed how quiet she was though.

"alright, tell us what's on your mind?" Nina said seeing that something was obviously on Britt's mind.

Britt merely opened her eyes and looked at them as their shakes arrived. She took a sip of her chocolate shake trying to find the words she wanted to use. She had no way of telling them what was going on.

"It's complicated, I thought those things we heard five in a half years ago was Myth but..." Britt said

"Your Birthday is coming up, so technically it'll be six years." Zoey said

"Wait, does this have to do with the reincarnated Queen stuff?" Heather asked

"Has to be, or Britt wouldn't of mentioned what we all thought was Myth meaning only one thing." Miranda said

Nina and Olivia both gasped "The Pharaoh is real." They said at the same time

'well that made this easier then telling them myself.' Britt thought

Nina and Zoey leaned in towards her "Well, has he asked you out?" They asked in unison

Britt didn't say anything though she remembered he had talked to her at school. Her friends were the only ones who knew the real deal about everything she'd gone through besides her sister and cousin.

"Sorta, he asked if I was free to hang out this afternoon but I said I was meeting you guys." Britt said

"Wait! Whoa Whoa Whoa! You avoided the man you're supposed to be with to come see us? Are you crazy?!" Nina asked her

Britt didn't want to tell them about the virtual world thing but they could tell there was something she wasn't telling them.

"Britt, did something already happen?" Heather asked

"Uh...well we had to go into this virtual world game..needless to say I was with them until the final level. I lost then and was being digitized...and well..." Britt didn't know how to finish it as she blushed

"What happened?" Olivia asked seeing Britt blushing.

"He kissed me in the virtual world...but it doesn't count because it wasn't in real life." Britt said

All the girls looked at each other laughing and giggling before looking at Britt. "It so does count, you had your first kiss even if you didn't mean to." Zoey said

"First kiss in a virtual world, not my first kiss in real life...I always sorta imagined my first kiss being romantic." Britt said

Once the girls were done with their shakes, Britt went walking around with them. It was nice to get away from Yugi and his friends but with her friends wanting to meet the Pharaoh she couldn't keep avoiding it. She sighed and remembered Yugi wanted to meet them.

'well better do it now, better now then later.' She thought

'coming back my Queen?' she heard his voice

This made her shake her head knowing she was constantly hearing him. Her friends seen this and looked at her.

"What's going on?" Zoey asked

"he's in my head." Britt said

"Ah, well that bracelet has a connection with the puzzle. It allows that." Zoey said

Britt looked over at Zoey wondering how she knew that information. She didn't say much about that though as she led them around. As Britt was making her way to the game shop, Heather grabbed her arm and pointed to a building.

"Hey look at that." Heather said

Britt took a look and she gasped "Another game shop, but someone else's game shop." Britt said

She wanted to go see it but part of her told her it wasn't a good idea. So she went back to the game shop as she walked in the game shop the moment she got there.

"Britt, Welcome back." Mr. Motou said

"Thank you Mr. Motou, these are some friends of mine. They are duelists as well." Britt said

"Ah wonderful, if they need anything they can have a look around. I will let Yugi know that you are back." Mr. Motou said

Hathor came out first after Mr. Motou went back and told she was back. Hathor hugged Britt and looked at her "next time let me know you are leaving, you never know if a former enemy is out there." Hathor said

Britt rolled her eyes a bit but when Yugi and the gang came out she introduced everyone as they all spent the rest of the day at the gameshop.

Duke Devlin creator of Dungen Dice monsters had been a student at Domino High for some time. He impressed the ladies with his skill of rolling a dice in a cup though he'd kept watch on Yugi and his group of friends due to he held a grude against Yugi. For Britt as she watched Joey not liking the way girls were around Duke, he challenged him and while Watching she seen Joey acted like an idiot but to see someone outsmart Joey didn't surprise her but she had this feeling there was more to come..

It was after school, she went with Yugi and the gang along with her cousin and sisters to Duke's store. Britt and the other three were a bit worried for the worst but knew they had to be positive. They were led to a elevator where Joey was allowed to choose cards that were not his own.

'why would Duke want Joey to use cards he's not familiar with? Why doesn't Duke even have a dueling deck of his own?' Britt thought

The cards in general were ones never heard of so she wondered how much of it was rigged.

When they made it to the dueling arena, everything started out fine, but there was one little catch that if Joey lost he would have to do what duke said for a week. It sounded Humiliating to Britt no matter how much she didn't like it.

As Britt, Bre, Hathor and Nana were trying to encourage Joey to win. Keep his belief in the heart of the cards but Britt knew the truth. He was playing with cards his heart wasn't in. When it came down to the end of the game Duke had won. All during this duel he'd had three students from school as cheerleaders.

'give me a break. He's not that cute.' She thought

He snapped his fingers and one of the duke cheerleaders gave Joey a dog suit to wear. Joey looked at it and then so did everyone else.

"Put it on." Duke said

If Joey even said something back to him, Duke would hit him with dice in the head. Britt thought that was out of line, a bet was one thing but brutally hitting him with dice was another. After so long of seeing him in it and seeing how Duke was treating Joey, Yugi couldn't take it and Yami took over.

As the last die was heading towards Joey Yami caught it in his hand.

"Duke Devlin I challenge you to a duel!" Yami said

"Interesting, but we will play a game of my own. We will play Dungeon Dice Monsters." Duke said

Once decided Duke made the conditions where if he won Yugi would never play a game of duel monsters again and to swear on his grandfather's life, but if Yugi won then Joey was free. Yami had no choice in wanting to set Joey free so he accepted those terms. They were moved to a different room where the game could be played.

When the game started Britt had a bad feeling knowing neither Yami nor Yugi knew what was going on. They had to watch as some of the rules were explained and as the game progressed Yami learned more of the rules and how to use certain dice.

Through out the game Tea and Tristan kept talking but when Britt and Tea realized that Duke knew way more than Yami they decided to say something about it.

"You should of played fair and explained the rules before starting." Tea said

"If it was anyone else, yes. But the king of games should be able to figure it out." Duke said

"That's not fair." Britt said

"Don't you two worry my little cheerleaders in waiting." Duke said

That disgusted Britt for him to think of any girl in their group as his cheerleader in waiting. At one Point Britt wanted to say something but nothing came out.

'wait, if he loses what does that mean for finding out our answers to the past?' Britt thought as she started to internally panic. 'we'll be stuck with no memories of our past forever.'

He cannot lose, too much would be at stake. Brittania thought to Britt who knew her voice, she knew Brittania was quiet most of the time.

Soon Britt seen it was the final moves between Yami and Duke. She didn't know why but she felt odd, It wasn't just the fact she'd had a kiss with him in the virtual world but what her friend said to her about the bracelet and puzzle being connected.

'5,000 years ago, A powerful Pharaoh gave a gift to his Queen. The Millennium Bracelet...A bracelet I have now. So Zoey knows more then she's letting on.' Britt thought

As she watched she seen that Yami made the final move taking all three of Duke's heart points. It made her smile.

Later they were sitting with Duke in his office. He apologized for everything saying how sorry he was and Yugi smiled.

"Duke, Why don't we be friends." Yugi said

"What? But I tried humiliating you." Duke said

"Friendship is better, the game is over." Yugi said

"You both played well and we all would like to learn to play." Britt admitted.

Hathor nod a bit and smiled "it was awesome how you did all that." Hathor said, she looked over at Britt seeing her all smiling.

'how long will I be able to be the only one to protect her?' Hathor asked as she looked at Britt's bracelet. 'before she accepts him into her life...'

[stefandesofia]

Stories from the Unliving Ch 4

“So you’re the girl, huh? I have to say, quite a looker. I was really expecting worse, knowing the guy there, but hey, glad to be proven wrong!”

“I would really appreciate you not insulting me, thank you for that” said the young man. “She’s real intelligent and was very curious about meeting you”

“I bet! I’m not your run of the mill, pond-dwelling skeleton, that you meet in most other lakes. No, I also have some pretty fat fish too!”

“No need to be aggressive like that, she just wants to talk to you”

“Fine, fine, sorry. What did you want to talk about? ...... Hello?”

“She actually can’t speak, and uses her little writing board to communicate”

“Ah, sorry, my bad. But yeah, just write your messages and I’ll just work with that. ...... Ah yeah, I don’t know my name, don’t remember it any more. I already explained this to your friend here, but I��ve been alive for over 30.000 years, so a lot of the early stuff is gone. Stuff like who I was, family, friends, but after meeting soooo very many people, doing soooo many things, nothing gets left. It’s like, the more I learn, and experience, the closer the cutoff gets. The first thing I remember, at this point is when my flesh had just started to decay”

“He speaks the truth, but even still, he remembers so many others! He is a veritable academy’s worth of knowledge.”

“Sure, why not. ...... I mean, I live here, it’s my home, I don’t need to breathe or eat, or whatever, so I’ve made my home at the bottom of the pond here. I moved in here about 7000-8000 years ago, I had a house, actually, right over there, but decided that the upkeep on that is way more than I can be bothered with, so instead, I carved some stone furniture, and pushed it in the water, the house just degraded over time, and by now, the only thing you can see left of it, is that stone over there. That was my fireplace. Never even used the thing, it was just for aesthetics”

“I never realised you had a house here. I had assumed you’ve always lived in the pond itself. What made you go under the water?”

“Folk like you, actually. Or, I guess, how you were. Swords and armor, and ‘begone foul beast’ while I was just chilling on my porch. ...... I mean, I can’t die, so why would I fight back? Furthermore, I’m a pacifist, and I really try to be non-confrontational, sort of, you don’t mess with me and I don’t mess with you. And honestly, even if you do mess with me, as long as you don’t go too far, I won’t be doing much.”

“But what about your honor? Do you not feel the need to defend what you stand for? Why, if someone were to attack my home, I would pick up a sword and punish the person myself!”

“I’m sure you will. But again, non-confrontational, and I just don’t care too much. Obviously, you try messing with my fish, I will mess you up. I have stuff that you primitives can only dream of, and even then. ...... No offence, it’s just very high technological level. Even I only get the general idea of how it works. Something about deionizing your atoms, doesn’t ‘cut’ in the traditional sense, but more like, takes you apart when getting close to the edge. ...... Nah, haven’t used it in a long time. Last I did was for carving the stone furniture down at the bottom. It works on almost everything that the blade approaches.”

“It sounds like a mighty weapon! If that got into the wrong hands, it could mean disaster for maybe a whole kingdom!”

“I mean, yeah, but they have to actually come here, go through me, dive to the bottom of my pond, which isn’t very shallow, I’ll have you know, get the blade, and then still fight their way through to using it. ...... Nah, I don’t think I will, it’s perfectly safe where it is. I mean, only the two of you know about it, so if someone else was to find out, I’ll know who to blame.”

“I would never betray your trust like that!”

“It’s happened before, it will happen again. It’s human nature. But it doesn’t bother me too much. Always expect the worst and you can never be disappointed, I always say. ...... You’re dark! I’m a realist! And besides, I have my fish, and yeah, technically they mostly just are here for the food and the great environment I’ve created for them here, but they can’t betray you, since, you know. They’re fish. Yes, you Pete Liv! ...... Oh, this is Pete Liv. Say ‘Hi’ Pete Liv. ...... His called Pete, but he is the 54th Pete that I’ve had, so Roman numerals, that’s LIV.”

“What’s a Roman?”

“Errr, they used to be this real big empire thing a looooong time ago. I really don’t remember the details any more. I think someone stabbed someone else? Maybe the other way around? Who cares? Think it might have been over the throne.”

“Any good kingdom would never follow someone who took the throne by stabbing the previous leader! It’s just undignified and downright evil! The people will never trust a person who relies on violence to lead them!”

“Congratulations, you just discovered the basis for democracy. ...... That’s a way of governing people where basically, anyone eligible puts their name down on a list and the people get to choose who they like most. Supposedly it isn’t rigged, but there’s always someone paying for votes. ...... Well, if you’re the previous president, you’d want to keep being that, since you get quite a lot of benefits from it, and the pay’s nothing to shake a stick at. So, with your vast amounts of money that you have from, well, being you, you just invest a very small portion, and pay out enough people to tip the scales in your favor, so you keep staying in power, and you keep getting all the benefits and money, and whatever.”

“I am getting confused now. Is this system a good thing or not?”

“It’s complicated. You’ll get to it eventually, but from what I can tell you’re still pretty early in the development, so monarchy it is! ...... Well, I’m still alive, but I get your question. Don’t remember, to be honest with you. I’d guess we went through a bunch of different options. There was likely a monarchy, democracy, tyranny. Dunno, maybe some others. I’ve seen quite a few governments after that, that had all sorts of varied styles. I told your friend here about that time I was an evil overlord, and put forth an age of prosperity for all involved. Until I got bored, anyways.”

“It’s true, It was an amazing tale to behold!”

“There was just so much infighting, and the previous ruling class, hoo boy, they weren’t happy I overthrew them all and made them all potato farmers. Apart from me, literally, everybody else was equal. Everybody got an equal amount of food for free, everybody got an equal living space for free, equal pay, equal everything. Took a while to tear everything down, and the people with the big houses, they really didn’t like me. But you get used to conformity. It’s easy to have everything provided for you.”

“The way you put it, that reminds me a little of the tyranny that you mentioned.”

“It wasn’t like anybody was suffering, I had knowledge of past ages, of more advanced medicine, that I implemented, so everyone was unnatural healthy for the age that they were in. I remember, one time they brought in a guy that was bitten by an animal. Foaming at the mouth, super excitable, trying to break free, clearly rabies. And the people were basically asking me if they should let him in the woods so he can die without causing trouble for anyone else. I just laughed, took a syringe with the vaccine and injected him. Within a few hours he had calmed down, and within a few days, he was back to farming potatoes, or whatever it is he was doing”

“That was a very good thing to do, helping a man. We have this same illness in our time too, but we call it Mad Eyes, because of the look people get when they catch it. It’s amazing that you can heal it! You would be able to save so many people, if you wanted to!”

“Nah, not in the superhero business any more. I had that phase for a while, but got over it pretty quickly. Did you know everyone just expects heroes to do their heroing just because? And without any form of compensation? I didn’t really mind, since I didn’t need to eat or had the need for money, other than just fixing what was broken from my equipment, but someone that needed to eat, pay rent? They couldn’t keep a regular job because of all the time from it they’d had to miss. So that whole thing was short lived.”

“But you had the opportunity to save people, and do the ultimate good! Why would you give that up?”

“Ultimate good doesn’t buy toys! I didn’t just sit in some cave staring at the bats on the ceiling until I would hear someone calling. I had hobbies, and did things. And volunteer work doesn’t pay for a new graphics card. ...... Old technology, but somehow always gets inventent. Guess it’s real perfect in the way it works. I’m sure in, oh, I’d say, 7-800 years, you lot will also have those. too. But when I said ‘always gets invented’ that reminded me, did you know crabs have evolved over 15 times, completely separately from each other. It’s like nature really wants those things around. I just imagine Mother Nature being like this breen nerdy chick in an oversized turtleneck sweater, and she’s totally obsessed with this cute little crab picture with shiny eyes and everything, so she just keeps making them, just having crabs everywhere. ...... You don’t know what a crab is?”

“We’ve never heard of such an animal! What manner of mighty beast is it?”

“Ha, I wouldn’t exactly call them beasts, but picture these 2 large blacksmith tongs on its forelegs, and another 6 legs that look like spikes, 3 on each side, with a squat little body, and everything is covered in this real hard armor. You really never heard of them?”

“They sound terrifying, why, even I might be taken aback by such a foe!”

“Less of a foe, and more of a dinner, to tell you the truth. They were pretty good, as far as I remember, though I haven’t exactly tasted them in a very long time, so who knows. You know, I haven’t exactly seen any around either, so they might have gone extinct in the time I’ve spent here. Imagine Mother Nature grew bored of the things after some time, ha! But I’m speaking too much, you guys tell me something, how did you meet?”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful tale! I had just arrived into town, armor shined, and chin high. You know, this is my first real adventure, as I have only trained before.”

“That would explain you actually talking to me. All the old grizzled veterans really just went to kill me usually with a yell that is supposed to be scary, but honestly, it’s just stupid, flailing about like madmen.”

“Of course, noone benefits from a shout in combat and you would only distract yourself by doing so, it is the basics of armed combat.”

“I personally prefer the completely silent approach, where I just wipe the floor with the opponent, without so much as saying a single word. That way the victory is sweeter! ...... Ah yeah, sorry, you were saying?”

“Ahem, yes, and I was looking for work. At first, everyone would walk past me, not looking at me. Even in the tavern, I would only get single word responses from the owner. It was likely how young I look, and noone trusted in my skills.”

“I have to say, you do have quite the baby face”

“Well, I was getting desperate, and it was soon becoming night time. I had just stuffed my pack under my head and trying to go to sleep on a bench in the town center, when she walked by! She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen! Her hair - perfectly styled, the dress - waving behind her, her eyes - reflecting the street lights. My mouth was agape! Then I saw a shadow following her. It was a hooded figure, but it was clearly a man. I decided I would follow. The figure was just staying out of sight for her, and me - out of sight for him. Eventually, she was about to go home, when I saw the man rush towards her, taking out a dagger. I acted before I could think, drawing my blade and throwing it at the man, who got pierced, let out a loud yell, alerting everyone of his presence, and most importantly, alerting her. ...... Aw, think nothing of it, I would have done it for anyone, but for you, it gave me great joy to be able save you, as I did. But she was quite terrified, so she rushed inside.”

“And you just kinda, killed a guy, and happy end?”

“Not exactly. While I was cleaning my sword, some city watch arrived, and questioned me about what had happened. Apparently, the man was a well known tanner, and he was doing a good job at what he did, and I was just a stranger that had walked into town and had killed a person. Well, things were starting to get fiery, when she came out, and defended me! Using her little board, she explained to the guards what had happened, and how I saved her. They let it go, and took the body away, while she invited me over for dinner and she let me stay the night, in front of her fireplace, so I don’t freeze outside.”

“Well, that was sweet of you. He was a stranger to you, a guy with a bloody sword, essentially, yet you defended him. Not many people would do something like that... ...... No no, Just thinking out loud. Do you guys have any plans for the evening?”

“Yes, we will be having dinner in this eatery hall in town - The Black Goose. I’ve heard that they have this special type of roast, where they first boil the whole cleaned goose in lard and herbs for 4 hours, and then roast it on an open flame so it gets this well roasted outside, and I have just been anticipating going there.”

“What do you think? ...... Yeah, it does sound a little heavy, but maybe they have some vegetables they made in the lard. Good luck on your date!”

“I am not familiar with that word, but we will make sure to enjoy our outing, won’t we?”

“You do that! And tell me how the duck is tomorrow!”

“We’ll bring some back for you.”

“You do realise I can’t actually eat it, right? Like, I have no mouth”

“It matters not, as I like to say, what truly matters is that the people close to you, paid you mind.”

“A little clunky and long, don’t you think? Wouldn’t ‘It’s the thought that counts’ work better? Same meaning, just a little shorter”

“Hmm, I do prefer my version better, but I thank you for your input. I truly do value it! Well, we’re off! We’ll see you later!”