#and the use of bureaucracy to aid in his running away

[thefandomcassandra]

Watch Saving Throw

I'm in the VODs rn but this scene grabbed me by the throat and said "hey maybe draw this?" and I said "o7 on it chief" and then did lmao.

Saving Throw is fun and I need to catch up lol.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

A lot of good sources linked in the original article!

By Bruce Mirken

As the dangers of Long COVID become more recognized, the country's going backwards on preventing new infections.

While I’m far from the only person worried about Long COVID and our society’s general inclination to look away and pretend it’s not there, people like me certainly feel badly outnumbered. It’s beginning to feel reminiscent of how people with AIDS and their loved ones felt circa 1986—and maybe it’s time for the same kind of response.

For those of you lucky enough not to have lived through that era, by the end of 1986, AIDS had killed nearly 25,000 Americans, but president Ronald Reagan had yet to speak the word “AIDS.” His press secretary had joked about it and the White House press corps laughed. While individual scientists were doing important work, the bureaucracies running the NIH and FDA seemed very much to be in business-as-usual mode. Because the casualties had largely been gay men and injection drug users, it seemed like no one with any power cared whether we lived or died.

So, a group of New Yorkers – mostly gay men – decided it was time to start raising hell. Calling themselves ACT UP, they disrupted the New York Stock Exchange and, as chapters sprang up nationwide, they staged protests that shut down the FDA and NIH. Eventually, people like Anthony Fauci began to see they had a point. I joined the Los Angeles ACT UP chapter in 1988 and ended up getting arrested half a dozen times in protests at the LA federal building, the County Board of Supervisors and the U.S. Capitol, among others. We won major improvements in HIV/AIDS care in the Los Angeles County health system, which cared for thousands of people with AIDS who had no health insurance. When I landed in San Francisco in 1993, I connected with ACT UP Golden Gate.

Here I am (with my late boyfriend Tim at the left) at one of the protests in that L.A County healthcare campaign. Most of my closest friends from that era have been dead for decades.

I get that COVID has played out very differently than HIV/AIDS. AIDS ramped up slowly and seemed not to affect “normal” people until it killed closeted gay movie and TV star Rock Hudson in 1985, and even then officials largely looked the other way. Only scientific breakthroughs in the 1990s finally stemmed the tide of death. In contrast, the much more highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 virus came on fast and furious, turning Americans’ lives upside-down almost immediately.

But now, we’ve arrived at what seems in some ways like an eerily similar place. When needed precautions to curb a highly infectious airborne virus spurred frustration and political pushback, officials largely threw up their hands and gave up. Even measures that don’t involve mandates or restrictions on behavior have mostly either been dropped or never happened in the first place.

LONG COVID’S GROWING TOLL

Unfortunately, the virus hasn’t gone away, even if the initial wave of mass death has receded. In August, as a summer surge peaked, US COVID-19 deaths exceeded 1,000 per week, though the latest September data suggests the numbers have begun declining toward pre-surge levels, when deaths were generally in the 300-400 per week range. That’s still equal to a 9/11 every eight to 10 days. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracking of SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater—probably the best data on US viral prevalence now that cases aren’t being reliably tracked—showed 15 states with “very high” levels and another 19 rated as “high” as of Sept. 19.

But COVID is not just a matter of cases and deaths. The disease’s long-term effects have disabled millions of Americans, and the numbers keep growing with each new wave of infection. An updated review published in Nature Medicine puts the current global number of Long COVID sufferers at 400 million and estimates the worldwide economic impact at a staggering $1 trillion.

We now have plenty of people experiencing repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections. The good news, if you can call it that, is that these reinfections may produce fewer new cases of Long Covid than a person’s first infection – but they absolutely produce some, and the Omicron variants circulating in the last year or two seem to produce more Long Covid than earlier viral varieties. Every time you get COVID, you roll the dice with your health – maybe for the rest of your life.

If I sound alarmed, well, I am. As longtime readers may know, I have some first-hand experience with Long COVID, though in milder form than many experience. My January 2022 infection left me with peripheral neuropathy—painful nerve damage—in my legs and feet. It’s incurable and nearly impossible to treat, as conventional pain drugs don’t help. I will likely never live another day without pain and walking more than six or seven blocks at a stretch is a struggle. I used to enjoy hiking, but will probably never do it again. Still, I don’t have the more debilitating symptoms like crushing fatigue or dysautonomia—disruption of the part of the nervous system that controls automatic functions like heartbeat, blood pressure, digestion and breathing—that afflict some Long COVID sufferers. Lots of people have it way worse than I do.

We know that COVID can have lasting impacts on many parts of the body, including the brain. A recent study of 52 COVID survivors—about half with mild to moderate initial illness and half with more severe disease—found that compared to healthy controls, both groups “had a significantly higher score of cognitive complaints involving cognitive failure and mental fatigue” 27 months after their original illness, with no significant difference based on the severity of that initial illness. On a series of tests, researchers found “changes in brain function” that may explain the reported problems.

Just as scary, a study of people aged 65 and up just published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reports that “people with COVID were at significantly increased risk for new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease within 360 days after the initial COVID diagnosis.” This review of the medical records of over six million patients found that the risk escalated with advancing age. As with many of these long-term impacts, the mechanisms involved remain unclear.

Survivors of an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection also have increased rates of high blood pressure, now documented in multiple studies. High blood pressure increases your risk of deadly cardiovascular complications like heart attack and stroke.

I can’t help but wonder whether these issues have affected me, but there’s no way to be sure. My blood pressure, well-controlled for a dozen years with a very low dose of medication, began ratcheting upward about a year and a half ago, necessitating three medication adjustments since then. I’m also definitely more forgetful than I was, mostly little things like walking into a room and forgetting why I went there. But those things can happen to older people with or without COVID, and it’s hard to know cause-and-effect in a given individual.

But I sure as hell know I don’t want to get this virus again and risk these and other issues getting worse. Unfortunately, avoiding it is getting harder by the day, and neither government at any level nor public health authorities seem to care.

PREVENTION? WHAT PREVENTION?

While there’s some evidence that the antiviral drug Paxlovid can reduce the likelihood of Long COVID if administered early enough, the results so far are mixed and not overwhelming. The best way to avoid Long COVID is to not get infected in the first place. As a society, we’ve pretty much stopped trying.

The government is still encouraging vaccination, as it should. But it’s been clear for some time that while the vaccines are very good at reducing the chance of severe illness and death if you get infected, they offer only limited protection against getting infected in the first place. “Vax and relax” can prevent mass death, but it can’t prevent mass infection and an ever-growing number of cases of Long COVID, even if most people get vaccinated. And vaccination rates have been declining for a while, with a new Ohio State University survey reporting that only 43% of U.S. adults have gotten or plan to get the new COVID-19 shot.

And in a bit of absolute madness, Florida’s Ron DeSantis-appointed Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has actually advised against use of the newly updated mRNA vaccines. In a post on Mastodon, Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves called this “beyond irresponsible. It is malpractice.”

Ladapo is an outlier, but even his saner colleagues around the country downplay the fact that we don’t have to limit ourselves to vaccination. It’s an airborne virus, so there are two main ways to stop it from spreading: 1) Get the virus out of the air, or at least reduce its concentration to a very low level, and 2) Protect yourself from breathing in any virus that’s in the air around you. We know how to do both.

Masking works, but the type of mask matters. As the Mayo Clinic notes, “Respirators such as nonsurgical N95s give the most protection. KN95s and medical masks provide the next highest level of protection. Cloth masks provide less protection.” Two and a half years ago, a CDC study found that those who reported regularly wearing an N95 or KN95 respirator in indoor public settings had an 86% lower risk of catching COVID-19.

Recently, during my first return visit to San Francisco after moving in early 2022, I met my nieces for lunch at the Ferry Plaza. It was a Saturday, Farmers Market day, and the place was jammed. In three-plus hours I saw no more than half a dozen people wearing any sort of mask, and only a couple were N95s. In my new hometown of Hilo, masking is only slightly more common. At the supermarket, I see barely 10% of customers and staff in some sort of mask. In some venues, it’s less.

A recent Ipsos survey found that half of Americans believe they’ll never get COVID again. Only 20% described themselves as “trying to stay as safe as possible.”

None of this is a surprise—people are simply responding to the messages they get from the people supposedly leading on health issues. The CDC promotes vaccination but barely talks about masking anymore; it acknowledges the value of indoor air quality but doesn’t seem to be doing much about it. In interviews, CDC Director Mandy Cohen regularly urges vaccination but almost never brings up masking or air quality and says little about Long Covid. Political leaders mostly talk about COVID in the past tense and pat themselves on the back for a job well done in prior years. The result is what you’d expect: Most Americans now treat COVID like a common cold, disregarding most precautions and not bothering to test when they get sick.

Back in 2022, when public policy on COVID was still relatively sane, the Biden administration published indoor air quality guidance and made congressionally-approved funds available that “that can be used in schools, public buildings, and other settings to improve indoor air quality.” It’s unclear exactly how much of that money has been used and for what, although some school systems have definitely made HVAC upgrades. But we’ve never had either enforceable indoor air standards or a coordinated plan to implement them. As Science noted in July, “The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown the vulnerability of society to the spread of infectious diseases. At the same time, with frequent outbreaks in elder care facilities and school classrooms, it became clear that it was a fatal mistake to largely neglect the recommendations of scientists and engineers regarding minimum standards for ventilation and indoor air quality.”

In any case, those federal dollars were aimed at schools and public buildings. It’s been left entirely to the private sector to do, or not do, anything to reduce airborne pathogens in supermarkets, theaters, clubs, malls and other privately owned spaces. Local groups like Chicago’s Clean Air Club and Austin’s Clear the Air ATX have tried to fill the gap by lending HEPA filters and other clean air equipment to arts and performance venues and other gathering places.

A RADICAL IDEA: DO WHAT WORKS

We know what to do. As Clean Air Club founder Emily Dupree and co-author Shelby Speier wrote in Sick Times in May, “We possess the technology to make public spaces safer. Studies show HEPA air purification and far-UVC lamps drastically reduce the number of airborne pathogens in a room and therefore lessen the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission. When combined with other layers of protection, these tools have the potential to finally make our shared spaces more accessible during an airborne pandemic.”

A key word here is accessible. Failure to address indoor air quality and other prevention measures makes public spaces seriously dangerous for those at highest risk, including the elderly, the immunocompromised and those with long-term health issues, including Long Covid.

Such simple, factual messages are rarely heard in official statements about COVID. “What I find the most frustrating about official handling of COVID and prevention is the lack of care, education, and honoring the science around COVID,” comments Clear the Air ATX founder and Long Covid activist Katie Drackert. “Telling people to ‘stay home when they feel sick’ for a virus that spreads asymptomatically? Well, they are just straight up ignoring science.”

Admirable as they are, the small, volunteer-driven efforts of groups like Drackert’s and Dupree’s are not remotely comparable to the scale of the problem. For now, people must take matters into their own hands. “In the year 2024, people still need to be wearing a well fitted KN95 or above for optimal communal and individual protection,” Drackert says. In the absence of reliable information about air quality in indoor spaces, she suggests getting a portable air quality monitor, which can be reasonably affordable. “High CO₂ levels indicate poor ventilation, which may lead to higher concentrations of aerosols that could contain the virus,” she explains. “Some air quality monitors track particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), which are small airborne particles. While COVID is smaller than these particles, high PM levels may indicate poor indoor air quality.”

Most of us can’t entirely avoid being in spaces with poor air quality, and that leaves us with masking, which the country has largely abandoned. Worse, we’re starting to see bans on face coverings in public spaces being enacted—for example, in Nassau County, New York, and North Carolina.

These laws typically contain exceptions for people masking for health reasons, but, as New Jersey’s Star-Ledger noted in a recent editorial opposing a proposed mask ban, “t leaves it up to the cops to decide whether someone has a legitimate medical reason for wearing a mask at a public gathering. “How will they know that? It’s subjective. And based on past experience, we know what that means: Police will disproportionately stop and question Black and brown people, who have also been the most likely to continue wearing masks to protect against COVID-19.” It’s hard to imagine a more demented public policy than making disease prevention illegal. And it’s not hard at all to imagine a COVID-19 prevention framework that would make a meaningful difference without causing a nationwide freakout: Encourage masking. Even if mask mandates are a political non-starter, there’s still plenty we can do. First, officials can talk about it and actively encourage people to wear high-quality protection like N-95s when in busy, indoor spaces. They can remind people of its importance—that COVID is not over, not just a cold, and that even a “mild” case can change your life forever. Federal, state and local governments could distribute N-95s or KN-95s free or at minimal cost. Get serious about indoor air purification. Build on what the Biden administration started a few years ago: Develop medically informed, enforceable indoor air quality standards and create a verification system so that people know when a building they enter meets them. Start with public buildings and the largest, busiest private venues, like sports arenas, concert halls and theaters, and move on from there. Give business owners generous technical and financial support in meeting those standards, and a reasonable amount of time in which to do it. While this program is ramping up, fund the local organizations now struggling with limited resources to fill the gap. None of this is that difficult. It’s not even that expensive when you consider that the federal government is in the process of spending $634 billion to upgrade nuclear weapons that with any luck will never be used. What’s missing is political will, and that won’t be there until people scream bloody murder. That’s why I think it may be time for a new version of ACT UP focused on COVID-19. The issues are somewhat different, but less so than you might think. While the original ACT UP focused a lot on research, treatment and care, it also addressed prevention. ACT UP chapters around the country started syringe exchange programs, handed out condoms at high schools, and sometimes succeeded in shaming the system into doing the right thing. And of course, there are issues to tackle around Long Covid research that I haven’t addressed here, but which I will try to cover in a future piece. The fundamental problem is much the same as people with AIDS faced in 1986: a system stuck in neutral, politicians stuck in denial, and a public closing their eyes, covering their ears and shouting, “I don’t hear you!” The first task must be to break the system–and the broader population, as much as possible–out of its present inertia, complacency and denial. I honestly don’t know whether ACT UP tactics like occupying the CDC and disrupting state and local health commission meetings will have the same effect they did decades ago, but at this point I don’t know what else to try. Nothing good lies at the end of our current path.

[g1deonthefirst]

do you think john specifically invited the *scions* of each house to become lyctors rather than, say, the best necromancers (or necro/cav pairs, though given john's track record i don't think he cares much about the cavaliers beyond their use as tools for their necromancer) as a power move in some way to reaffirm his control over the nine houses?

like, he knew the state of things in the houses was looking increasingly bleak. he hadn't been in direct contact with most of them in millenia barring those in the cohort. even though he was still revered as god and saviour, john had something to gain from this: lyctorhood is posed as a highest honor to follow in the saints' footsteps and serve god in the name of their house - the announcement brings him back into public consciousness in a way that frames him as both bestower of blessings and supplicant requesting aid, and gives him a direct in to the inner workings of each house if they ascend.

the houses themselves though don't get any real benefit from this particular selection. obviously john didn't expect 7/9 of the scions (or 6/8 depending on how you count coronabeth and ianthe) to be murdered or kidnapped, but even if none of them had chosen to ascend and all had gone back to their houses afterwards, having the rulers of all eight houses away from their people for at least a couple months creates a notable upset in power dynamics regardless of whether or not there are structures in place to run things in the scions' absences.

and if all eight of them *had* agreed to ascend, then that would put at least the fifth, sixth, eighth(?), and unofficially the ninth out of their active leaders, since lyctorhood at this point doesn't exactly allow time for occupations elsewhere. especially given the established reproductive issues prevalent in the nine houses, and the fact that all but the sixth house follow hereditary rule, this decision to take the next or current rulers seems particularly cruel, if not actively detrimental to political stability down the road, if a new heir can't be produced fast enough. (incidentally, all of these houses now *are* without their original leaders/heirs so that's another thing i'm waiting on in terms of impact on the fate of the nine houses)

additionally, while it worked out that the scions were all strong magicians (in part because they'd had the resources to dedicate themselves to their craft), there's no guarantee that those in charge would be the strongest necromancers the house had to offer - hell the fourth were barely teenagers. (i know the sixth could be argued here for having the master warden being chosen on exam-evaluated merit rather than blood, but it's still an exam focused on suitability to run the house which we know is full of tedious bureaucracy, not just pure necromantic skill).

or does john just not care about that? does he equate political power/social class with intelligence? (we know there are some hints of classism in his determination of who amongst his pre-res friends ended up a necromancer and who a cavalier). does he equate bloodlines with worthiness to rule? (what does this say then about his own self-appointment to the role of god?) was he just desperate and/or not thinking things through?

tysm for this ask anon, it's one of the many questions i have about john's whole plan in gtn and gave me a lot to chew on. wild speculation below.

i think there are a few reasons that john might've chosen the scions of each house rather than the strongest necromancer for each house:

1. it gives john more control and insight into the nine houses and it gives the houses increased reason to worship john and his lyctors.

ok, so first of all anon, i think you're right on the money about the scions of each house ascending giving john and his lyctors more political relevance. after 10,000 years without being able to return to the nine houses, john must feel in some ways distant from his subjects, the fact that he's present in the cohort and televised communications aside. if the scions ascend to lyctorhood, i think it reinvigorates the houses in a sense, gets them feeling all good and patriotic (especially important when both coronabeth and abigail, at least, seem to have had anti-cohort sentiments even before canaan house — doesn't really paint a perfect picture of the nine houses as a whole). it also gives john a better idea of what's going on in the houses and potentially some say over what they do next.

2. it could undermine the houses's political systems if he asked for people other than the scions.

now, i don't know if the hereditary ruling lines of the nine houses justify their rule with the mandate of god, but even if they don't, it might not look great if god just skips right over you for sainthood and asks for your house's "strongest necromancer." then there's the question of how the houses determine who the strongest necromancer is. only the sixth house seems to be a purported(!) meritocracy — every other house would either have to hold some sort of lengthy competition (which might be embarrassing for the nobility)...or they might just try to send their scion or another noble anyway, which could incite challenges from other necromancers in the house if word gets out. it seems a little messy.

3. aesthetics and tradition

considering that at least a decent portion of the original lyctors founded houses, john probably thought that it would be just lovely if they selected the rulers of those houses to be lyctors — especially considering some of them might actually be descended from those original founders. i don't doubt that some level of classism plays a role here too, considering that john seemingly implemented or encouraged this hereditary system to begin with (or at least he didn't discourage it).

4. john didn't think it would be that much of a problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the more i think about it, the less convinced i am that the scions ascending would've posed a real succession crisis, at least not on the level that john would've had to worry about it. we know it's a problem on the ninth house, but other houses don't seem to have a population crisis quite on that level. typically there's a line of succession in hereditary systems, and we know that at least the third has branch families, so most of the houses probably had someone lined up to take the scion's play (abigail certainly did). if they didn't, john or the newly-ascended lyctor from that house might have appointed someone. and insofar as it would've caused a succession crisis, it would've been on the order of political instability for a few years, which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to a guy who's 10,000. im not saying this instability won't play a role in ATN because i definitely think it could, i just think john probably underestimated the severity of the issue.

[david-talks-sw]

Ever wonder how much the Prequels aligned with the original backstory George Lucas thought up in the 70s? Let's take a look!

"Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew."

"But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match."

"So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic was rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside. Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic..."

"He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy."

"It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies."

"He promised to unite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic."

"Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official."

"Luke’s father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home, and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong...

... and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor."

"The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke’s mother suspects that something has happened to her husband."

"There was a rebellion in terms of the Senate against the Emperor...

... they tried to oust him legally and have him impeached."

"The Jedi Knights were alerted immediately and they rallied to the Senate’s side."

"But there was a plot afoot and when the Jedi finally rallied and tried to restore order, they were betrayed and eventually killed by Darth Vader."

"They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks."

"The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army and the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly.

"The Jedi were so outnumbered...

...that they fled, and were tracked down."

"Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace."

"[Ben] goes back to Vader’s wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi."

"Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him."

"Vader is all beat up [...] his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out."

"Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding."

"Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'."

"And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow."

I changed the order of some of it and had to use some deleted scenes but, all in all, I'd say what we got was pretty similar to what was originally thought out.

Obviously, most of it is shown in Episode III.

And it tracks, seeing as at Celebration III, George detailed that:

only 20% of his 7-page backstory was used for TPM (to lay the political groundwork, show how Palpatine rose to power and establish how Anakin joined the Jedi),

then 20% for AOTC (to show how Palpatine became a glorified dictator and how Anakin lost his mother and married Padmé),

and the remaining 60% is what was shown in ROTS (showing how the Republic becomes the Empire, how Palpatine becomes the Emperor and how Anakin became Vader).

Also I will point out that the bulk of the backstory material we’ve been shown is mainly oriented towards the political intrigue... Anakin's subplot is a close second. The Jedi aren't mentioned THAT much beyond trying to save the Senate and getting wiped out.

Sources:

Preface of Star Wars novelization, 1976

Story conferences with Carol Titleman, 1977 (transcribed in The Making of Star Wars, 2007)

Story conference, 1981 (transcribed in The Making of Return of the Jedi, 2013)

[xantchaslegacy]

It's no secret that MtG has a fair number of characters with BCGE (Big Catholic Girl Energy); Liliana, Thalia, Teysa, etc. For Easter, I'd like to spotlight one of MtG's earliest and lesser-known big catholic-energy girls: Helana, from the short story Dual Loyalties by Glen Vasey.

Helana is the adopted daughter of preacher who oversees a rural sun-worshiping church. She is an intelligent, well-read and devout (albeit sheltered) young woman who is steadfast in her dedication to the sun-goddess, her father, and the well-being (both spiritual and physical, via healing magic) of the small community they serve.

The tl;dr of her story is that her father is suddenly (though not unexpectedly) summoned by a planeswalker to aid in a fight against a rival 'walker, and during the battle ends up getting cast into hell (this is in keeping with a running theme of the short stories in Distant Planes, a book that could have been fairly re-titled as Oldwalkers are Sociopaths and Here's a Dozen Case Studies Showing Why). Helana, left in charge of the church, immediately takes off to find her father, armed only with gumption, faith, a few pearls of white mana (which the sun god and her nighttime counterpart, Gohrah periodically leave for the devout to find), and a celestial prism (which will turn out to be critical later on, since her knowledge of spellcasting is *extremely basic*, and limited to healing spells used to treat the church's small congregation).

(She's also accompanied in her journey by a flying miniature dog named Rorsa; he's not plot-critical, but a very fun element in the story)

At the battlefield where the 'walkers dueled, she meets Illith, a demon who was summoned for the same fight her father was taken away to participate in. Illith, needing a hostage to return safely to his home in hell (demonic bureaucracy, don't ask), but also fascinated and sympathetic to Helana despite himself, agrees to guide her to the castle of the archduke of hell who has her father prisoner. The exchanges between Illith and Helana are all quite interesting, and I've included a sliver below b/c I really like how their dialogue is done:

(Illith is, though never explicitly stated as such, clearly meant to be the demon depicted on the original art for Demonic Tutor, based on the descriptions of how he assists the wizards/ planeswalkers who summon his aid.)

What Helana does once in hell is nothing short of stunning. Starting with a group of dark dwarves, who she tranquilizes with a surgery-prep spell, she proceeds to take on several squads of black-aligned creatures using nothing but her instincts and a selection of white-aligned healing spells that do absolutely twisted things to the minions of hell. She uses a proliferation/virility spell to make a group of skeleton warriors copulate each other to pieces, a healing spell on zombies so their flesh grows back and causes them immense pain. A spell of charity to make a rag man give her its kneecap. A spell of compassion and self-reflection to cause (implied lethal) psychic damage to an archduke of hell.

The story ends happily, with Helana and her new demon frenemy having gotten what they wanted out of the foray into hell (she her father and he his previous scholarly position). Helana is left at the story's end to confront a new duality of loyalties that has blossomed over the course of the story - to the Sun, but also to Gohrah, Daughter of Night.

It's a very interesting short that touches on the complexity of B and W characters, as well as gives some fun illustrations on how different card mechanics would work in the in-universe fantasy setting.

Happy Easter ;)

[onyxscribbles]

Quirk: Lovesick

Yandere Hawks x reader

Content warnings: canon typical injuries, implied stalking, implied quirk related mental issues.

❤️

Okay but just imagine this: You're just some ordinary unimportant civilian going about your day-to-day life, until one day you take a quick shortcut through an alley home, and stumble across the unconscious body of the number 2 pro Hero.

You're a good person, or at least you try to be. So when you find Hawks unconscious you pull your emergency first aid kit out of your bag and get to work. He's not actually that damaged. A quick check over and a completion of his ABC's tells you that he's probably just unconscious from a blow to the back of his head. it looks like he got swatted out of the sky and fell into the alley. There's probably some pros looking for him, so you pull off your jacket folded up under his head and sit back to wait.

Whether it's because of how hard it is to track down a falling object, or because he wasn't hit particularly hard no one comes looking for him, and Hawks wakes up a couple minutes later still in the alley with you. He's sore. The back of his head is killing him, but this is hardly his first time getting knocked out of the sky. He's familiar with the after effects of falling.

What he isn't familiar with is the soft, sweet warmth of another person settled beside him. It doesn't take him long to notice that all of his wounds have been tended to, and that his head is cushioned on someone's jacket. Exercise open minutely, gazing at you in between his lashes to check if your friend or foe. What he sees as an angel in human form hovering over him radiating concern.

He knows that that moment that he's in love with you.

On your end your little concerned because his eyes have flown open, molten gold catching you in thrall, but the pupils are strange. Instead of the usual round black pupils of a normal person his are strangely shaped like little hearts. You've never paid too much attention to his modeling spreads, but you're certain you would have remembered hearing if he had heart shaped pupils.

Which leaves you concerned this is the after effect of a quirk.

"Are you okay?" You ask.

Hawks blinks up at you, still a little dazed, and then smiles. "Yeah, I'm fine. Especially when an angel like you has taken such a good care of me."

Well, if he's good enough to flirt he clearly no longer needs your help. You quickly stand up and offer him a hand. "Mmhmn. Well, your companions and sidekicks will probably be arriving soon. Is there anything more I can do for you." You ask.

"I'd love to get your name and number, Angel." He teases as he stands back up.

You reclaim your jacket, brushing it off, and sliding it back on. Your first aid kit is next. It's the work of seconds to slide it back into your bag. You don't take any of that flirting seriously though because you said enough rumors about the number two to know this is the usual behavior from him.

"I don't normally hand out my personal information to strangers. Even ones that are technically celebrities." You fire back.

Hawks laughs at that. With his hands comes up to ruffle the hair on the back of his neck only for him to pull it away with the hiss as the motion irritates his probably bruised scalp. "I completely understand that, but unfortunately I'm still going to need that contact info. Your a full name, address, and either a phone number or email we can reach you at. I need all that for my report."

Ahhh, bureaucracy, the lord and master of us all. You nod your head. He passes you a pain in the notepad out of one of his jacket pockets, and you get to writing down all the personal info you think he might need. That includes a description of the first aid you did for him, since that seems like the kind of thing that should go into an incident report.

When you pass notepad back Hawks gives it a quick read through before putting it away. "Thanks Angel! This will make my report writing so much easier. If we do have to get in the contact with you it'll probably be within the next 3 to 5 business days."

"Alright." You say. The nickname is a little strange, but you heard about how unprofessional Hawks can be. The nickname is probably an extension of his flirtatious personality, so you decided not to take it seriously. His pupils are still heart shaped. However, it doesn't seem to be affecting him any, so you decide not to bring it up. If it is a part of the physical mutation of his quirk it would be rude to mention it.

You head out after that. The walk home is the same as always. The streets seem a little better than usual, but that's probably from the villain attack Hawks was involved with. You get home and lock up for the night. A smart thing to do, is to put this whole incident behind you, and forget it ever happened. The chances of you running into Hawks again are really slim. Unless his agency contacts you for a more in-depth report you shouldn't be hearing from him again.

Hawks on the other hand has no intention of noting down the brave civilian who stuck by his side in that alleyway. You wouldn't get into trouble or anything because of it. He just didn't want the commission getting too interested in you. He just wanted a chance to get to know you without them hovering over him.

Even just thinking about you make him feel weird. His heart is beating fast, his hands are shaking, and the thought of you makes heat burn through his veins. He's never felt like this before. So this is love, how weird. He's known that love could make people act strangely, but he never considered that something he'd be at risk for. Now he can't seem to get you off of his mind.

Letting you go home was one of the hardest things he's ever done. Luckily he was smart enough to get all of your info, and would be able to track you back down later. He'd have to arrange so it looked organic as to not scare you. However, with all his training in espionage he wasn't too concerned about that. Indearing himself to you, and making you fall in love with him would be child's play.

When he was back at his agency writing up the report he remembered what had knocked him out of the sky. A strange quirk from one of the low level thieves he's helped round up. If it manifested in the sickly pink light the villain had tossed at him. Distracted with assisting one of his sidekicks Hawks hadn't flown out of the way quick enough. He remember the flash of pink, and then nothing until he opened his eyes to the perfection of you.

He wondered what that quirk had done, but he didn't seem to be feeling any after effects. He knew none of the sidekicks had seen him fall, or they would have come looking for him. They'd likely just assumed he'd continued on without them. He was kind of curious about what the court had been hit with did. Safety protocols that he should pull the villains file and look it up. Or at least report getting hit in the first place.

Then the thought of you flashed across his mind. If the commission was concerned he'd been compromised by a quirk they would have them in lockdown so fast. He didn't want to spend the next three days quarantining when he could spend them tracking down information on you.

They were a small time villain anyways. Surely it was nothing. Considering how it had knocked him on his ass, Hawks was certain it was some sort of sedative quirk. Useful for villainy and quick getaways, but nothing he needed to be concerned with. Especially with thoughts of you all alone at home and vulnerable tempting him.

He had your address. Surely he could just fly by and check in on you. It couldn't hurt to leave a couple of feathers around where you live. Or maybe, he could manage to slip a couple under your door and into your home. It would technically be an invasion of privacy, but he'd be doing it to keep you safe.

Yes, that's what he do. After all, if you love someone you'd do anything to keep them safe. And he wasn't too keen on having his Angel out of his grasp for long.

[circlique]

I love brotherly/ mentor mongolia and south korea! Can you that same platonic pairing for 38 or 10 (preferably 10)? Thank you!

10. “I think I twisted my ankle...”

38. “Let's take a deep breath..."

——

The last few decades had been...interesting...to say the least.

Yong Soo, of course, was not thrilled to be conquered by a foreign power. After all the bloodshed and destruction that the Mongols had cast upon his kingdom, there had been no choice but to submit or be destroyed.

Unlike the invasions, however, Mongol rule was not nearly so crushing. Nowadays, it was looking a lot less like a conquest and more like an annoying bureaucracy. The Mongol “takeover” in practice was a lot more lenient than he had imagined. Yong Soo’s sovereignty was mostly respected. His royalty still got to rule—they just had to intermarry with the Mongolian royalty and keep on their good sides—a comparatively easy concession.

It was almost like a complicated game of house. Korean princes putting on their best Mongol garmets and charming Mongol princesses with their best renditions of old Mongol stories. Even Khan seemed fond of some of the princes.

Likewise, Mongolia—Batukhan—reflected this firm, but fair rulership. Loyalty was prized above all else, and dissent was dealt with swiftly—but for the most part, he treated the young Korean representations as if they were his own.

Recently, Batukhan had been agreed to teach Yong Soo the art of horseback archery, after the boy’s incessant begging. Mongolia’s mounted archers were no doubt responsible for his Empire’s vast land holdings and conquests. They had range, speed, and flexibility, and were able to run circles around any unprepared opposition. It had been terrifying to face them, so of course Yong Soo held a healthy respect for their art. Part of him was eager to learn it for himself, if only so his own armies could one day use the Mongols’ strategies against them.

Batukhan did not seem concerned that his young pupil may one day use the art to try and drive him out and taught him just as he would have for any other soldier. Perhaps it was the fact that Yong Soo’s legs were still not quite long enough for his feet to sit comfortably in the stirrups that led Batukhan to offer up the knowledge so freely...

“You do well with a bow on the ground,” Batukhan stated, directing his horse to walk in pace next to Yong Soo’s. He had left all the body armor and extra equipment at home today and was wearing only a simple, white tunic. His hair was drawn into a loose braid, which swung lightly against his back with the horse’s steps. Without the full ensemble of his usual uniform, Batukhan seemed suddenly less scary and much more approachable.

“But that’s because you’re stable and only need to focus on the movement of your target,” he continued. “On horseback, you need to track your target’s movement as well as your own.”

Batukhan had set up a line of makeshift targets in front of them, old rice sacks stuffed with grass and twigs and painted with a target. He raised his bow, a sleek, curved composite of leather and horn, notched an arrow, and let it sail effortlessly into its target a few yards away. He urged his horse into a quick trot and fired arrows into the centers of the remaining targets in rapid succession.

“You must be strong in your core,” he said, gesturing to his abdomen as he lowered his bow and turned his horse around to face Yong Soo. “On the horse, that’s where your stability comes from. Don’t squeeze too hard with your legs.”

By now, Yong Soo’s horse had caught up, but Batukhan was already taking the horse’s reins and forcing him to turn back around.

“Now, you try,” he said, helping Yong Soo to direct his horse back in the other direction. He let go of the reins, and Yong Soo’s horse proceeded at a steady pace.

Yong Soo, eager to prove himself, raised his bow. He was quite proficient at it, on the ground at least. How different could it be?

He discovered very quickly that yes, it was quite different. Turning his upper body 90 degrees to face the targets immediately had him feeling off balance. Still, he was determined to at least look confident, so he bit his lip and let the arrow loose. As soon as he did, the force cause his upper body to rotate, his legs splaying out to his sides in an effort to keep his balance, and the arrow flew wildly off to the side.

“Strong core, Yong Soo,” Batukhan reminded him firmly.

Yong Soo bit his lip and readied the next arrow. Strong core. He tried clenching his abdomen, but it still did not feel right. It felt like his lower body was ungrounded. His feet, though they could reach the stirrups, did not quite settle into them firmly. Yong Soo rocked side to side, stretching his legs to try and make them go further, but it didn’t seem to help much. He flexed his core again, trying to keep from also squeezing his legs, and let the second arrow fly.

This time it at least landed close to the target, and Yong Soo spotted it sticking up from the ground near the target he’d intended to hit.

“Better,” Batukhan said from some distance away. “But you’re still not stable. You need to be rooted in your core.”

Third time’s the charm, right? Yong Soo thought to himself. Stability, stability. It was so easy on the ground. He shifted in the saddle again, stretching his legs down as far as they would go, until the foot on the same side as the targets settled more comfortably into the stirrup. Now Yong Soo felt he could settle his weight into it and—yes! Much more stable now. His confidence returned, and he readied another arrow, drew it back, flexed his core—and let it go.

At first, it seemed that Yong Soo had finally figured it out. The arrow embedded itself in the target, not in the center but at least not in the ground, but the backwards force of the bow on his arm knocked him off balance. He felt his weight shift first towards the horse and then overcorrected. He was leaning too far forward, all his weight pressed onto his forward foot as the foot on the side opposite completely lifted out of the stirrup. He felt himself slipping from the saddle and dropped his bow, his hands scrambling for a hold, body twisting back towards the horse—but it was too late. His stomach turned as gravity betrayed him, arms flailing out to his sides as they searched for the ground to break his fall. He held his breath waiting for impact and—something cracked.

The impact knocked the breath out of him, but the pain in his ankle, tangled in the stirrup and twisted unnaturally—would have done just the same.

“Yong Soo!” came Batukhan’s cry of concern, and he quickly dismounted his own horse to run to the boy’s aid.

Yong Soo’s horse—a well-trained, obedient creature, thankfully—had stopped and turned its head to nudge at the panicking Korean curiously with its nose. Yong Soo clawed at his leg, trying to free his twisted ankle from the stirrup and gasping as the movement only elicited more pain.

“Yong Soo!” Batukhan said, kneeling down and taking Yong Soo by the shoulders.

“I—I think I twisted my ankle,” Yong Soo panted, his voice shaking as he looked up at his leg, his stomach turning at the sight of his toes facing the wrong direction.

“Yes, yes you did,” Batukhan said matter-of-factly, wisely positioning himself so that his body blocked Yong Soo’s view of his injury. He gently pushed Yong Soo’s upper body down to the ground. “Now, let’s take a deep breath.”

The Mongolian drew in an exaggerated breath, held it for a moment, and released it. At first, Yong Soo could only think of the pain in his leg, throbbing harder with every heartbeat. But Batukhan repeated his exaggerated breaths a few more times until he had Yong Soo doing it along with him.

“Right—now I want you to take the biggest breath you can, Yong Soo,” he said. “And when I count to three, force it back out as hard as you can, alright?”

Yong Soo nodded, and after a few shallower warm up breaths, he sucked in as much air as he could. His lungs burned with the pressure but he kept trying to breathe in more, even as Batukhan took Yong Soo’s injured leg in his hand, holding it in a firm grip just above the ankle. Pain shot down Yong Soo’s leg and he held the breath, grimacing.

Batukhan finally started counting.

“Let it out on three, alright? One, two—three.”

In one swift movement Batukhan popped the twisted foot out of the stirrup, and Yong Soo let out the breath with a strained cry of pain.

“Good,” Batukhan said, slowly lowering the leg down to the ground, though he had to gently push Yong Soo back when he again sat up, trying to get a look at the injury.

“Ah—no need,” Batukhan said. “How will looking at it help you? It will heal itself without the help of your eyes won’t it?”

Yong Soo frowned and laid back with a huff. His ankle throbbed, but it was slowly subsiding, no doubt as a result of the accelerated healing that beings like him were blessed with. After a few more breaths, he felt a bit stupid for being so panicked.

Batukhan sighed.

“You were cheating,” Batukhan said with a knowing tone.

“I wasn’t!” Yong Soo protested.

“You were!” Batukhan said, standing and reaching out a hand for Yong Soo to grab. Yong Soo took the hand and shifted his weight onto his good leg as Batukhan pulled him into a standing position.

“You know how I know?” Batukhan went on, letting Yong Soo lean on him for support as he walked him over to a nearby tree. “Because I left the stirrups unadjusted on purpose. You must be able to stabilize yourself without relying on your legs. If you were doing it correctly you would not need the stirrups at all.”

Yong Soo pouted, then winced as he stubbornly tried to put weight on his not-quite-healed leg.

“Sorry...” he muttered simply, the embarrassment of the whole fiasco now starting to settle in.

Batukhan let out another sigh as he helped Yong Soo sit down in the shade of the tree. Once Yong Soo was situated, Batukhan knelt next to him and began to wrap the injured (but now, thankfully, untwisted) ankle in a strip of leather for stability.

“It’s fine,” he said, his tone betraying a hint of softness. “It’s only your first day, after all.”

[kumeko]

Title: shadows of the past

A/N: For the Yona Tarot zine. I really need to write a Hak/Yona/Su-won piece.

…

…

…

…

Son Mundok didn’t like going to the capital these days. No, that implied he liked visiting at some point, that he’d once found it anything but an annoyance. That was a blatantly untrue fact. The capital was filled with headache-inducing bureaucracy, obvious brown-nosing, and miles of red tape. He hadn’t liked it as a young man and he certainly didn’t like it now that his hair was grey.

Grimacing, he stared up at the castle gates. Despite the changes in emperors throughout the years, this view had remained the same. Imposing steel gates stared down at him, slowly opening only once he’d announced himself. Mundok had once hoped he would never see these gates again, barring a wedding celebration or two.

Life, it seemed, had a way of making plans go awry.

As he strolled onto the castle grounds, a woman called out his name. “Chief Mundok!” He looked up in time to catch a young, energetic woman running down the stone path toward him, eagerly waving her hand in the air. Her yellow robes flowed behind her like a bird’s feathers. Panting as she came to an abrupt stop in front of him, she gasped, “T-thank…you for…coming.”

Mundok chuckled. Clearly, she was new to this. “Take your time.”

Her expression turned sheepish and she took a deep breath. Straightening her posture, she clasped her hands and bowed her head slightly. “Chief Mundok, thank you for coming. I know it was a long journey.”

Ah, there was a title he’d hoped was gone forever. At this age, he was supposed to be comfortably retired and spoiling his grandchildren, not watching them war with one another. Scratching his jaw, he replied flatly, “I’m not a chief anymore.”

“R-right! You handed over the title last month.” Flustered, the woman turned red. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear apprehensively. Gathering her wits, she tried again. “Ex-chief Mundok, the emperor has been expecting you.”

“Of course he is.” Mundok snorted and raised a brow. “He’s the one who called me.”

“T-that’s true.” The woman clasped her hands in front of her and nervously scuffed the ground as she considered it. Troubled, she shook her head. “Well, um, it’s good you got here safely.”

Good for who? Eyeing her, Mundok sighed. That was unfair. She was probably Yona’s age and the whole affair felt like bullying a child. “What’s your name?”

“Me?” she squeaked, surprised. When he only gave her a dry look in response, she fiddled with her fingers. “Min-Ah.” She bowed deeply. “My name is Min-Ah, ex-Chief Mundok.”

It was all very polite and he never thought he’d long for Hak’s missing manners, as crude as his greetings were. “Min-Ah, when did you start working here?”

“Just a few months ago.” Min-Ah straightened her back and puffed her chest with pride. “Just after the Emperor’s coronation.”

“Is that so.” He glanced around the courtyard. The guards were a mix of familiar and new faces. How many were involved in the coup? He had drunk with some of them, trained others, had treated them like they were part of his clan. Which ones had pointed their spear at Hak? At Yona?

Which ones had stood up for them and quietly disappeared in the upheaval?

Mundok was no stranger to war, no stranger to its consequences. That didn’t make this betrayal hurt any less. He really was getting too old for all this nonsense. A sense of fatigue washed over him. “Where’s the emperor? Might as well get it over with.”

“Oh!” Min-Ah rubbed her neck, her brow furrowing. He could almost see the candle lightning up when she got an answer. “He’s in the garden.”

Mundok brushed past her as she turned to lead him. “I know the way.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He looked down the path he’d threaded hundreds of times, flanked on both sides by a grumpy Hak and a chatty Su-Won. In the summer, flowers lined the route, filling the air with a sweet fragrance. Mundok had never considered this place home but it had felt as comfortable as one. “I’m fine.”

He had never considered this place home, and now it felt as alien as a stranger. His shoes clacked against the granite slabs, a solitary sound. Now that it was fall, wilted plants were all that remained and his fingers brushed against a yellowing rose, the petals crinkling before falling to the ground. As he strolled past buildings, his mind assigned them meanings that no longer existed.

Here was where Hak lazed about, faking idleness while keeping guard. Here was where Yona fell asleep in his arms. Here was where Su-Won had whispered in his ear, Thank you, gramps.

Here was where the three played, fell sick, loved one another.

Part of him expected to see a flash of red in the corner of his eye, hear a chorus of childish voices call his name, to feel a small hand slip into his. However, he hadn’t seen red once while he’d been in the capital and perhaps it wasn’t only him who was having problems adjusting to the new status quo.

As Mundok turned the corner to the garden, he spotted a familiar mop of light brown hair. A young boy dressed in blue turned and smiled bashfully, hoping for praise. Yet the boy was a man now, dressed in the royal yellows of royalty, and the smile was a sad one. “Chief Mundok,” Su-Won greeted him.

“I’m not the Chief anymore,” he corrected, looking away. The Zen garden was as idyllic as it used to be. Oddly shaped rocks jutted out of sand pits and calm pond, promising a peace of mind. The only thing missing was a kind, middle-aged man.

“My apologies.” Su-Won lowered his gaze, his lips a thin line. His hand curled into a tight fist before releasing. “You picked a successor.”

“For the second time.” Su-Won flinched at his words but there was no malice behind them, just a simple truth. “I am not picking a third.”

Su-Won shook his head. “I’m sure you won’t have to.” He gave him a wry smile. “Tae-Woo is quite capable.”

“So was Hak.” Mundok grunted in response. He didn’t miss how Su-Won’s jaw tightened in his response, the shadow of grief that crossed his face. “What did you call me for?”

“I needed your assistance on some matters, particularly those pertaining to our borders.” A gentle breeze stirred, playing with his tresses, and Su-Won pushed the stray hairs out of his face. “Tae-Woo will not have your knowledge on these issues yet.”

He couldn’t deny that. Surviving three different emperors left him more intimately acquainted with the country’s politics than he liked. “Fine. Let’s get on with it.”

“We’ll discuss in the planning room.” Su-Won smiled. It held none of the radiance of his youth. “The aides have set up several charts for us to go over.”

Without another word, Mundok turned around. The sooner they got there, the sooner he could leave. If he was lucky, it would be a simple in and out operation. Unlike Fuuga, the air here felt stifling and suffocating.

“Mundok.”

The tone halted him in his tracks. Glancing over his shoulder, he found Su-Won looking up at the sky, his arms crossed. Softly, Su-Won asked, “Do you hate me?”

There was a faked nonchalance in his posture, a sense of detachment in his words. As though his fingers weren’t trembling, as though his jaw wasn’t clenched. As though a sense of sorrow didn’t pervade his every word.

Hate. Mundok closed his eye. If only it were so simple. If only he could divorce the young man in front of him from the cheerful boy he’d watch grow up. There were some emotions that love and hate couldn’t cover, some feelings that went beyond description.

“Does it matter?” he asked instead, studying Su-Won.

Su-Won looked at him now. For a brief, unguarded moment, his expression turned troubled, before smoothening back into his usual calm expression. Shaking his head slowly, he gave a depreciative laugh. “No, I suppose not.”

Part of him wanted to believe in that sadness. The other part of him knew better.

Son Mundok didn’t like going to the capital these days. It was filled with too much heartache.

[chandelier-s-notebook]

If anyone wants to be part of a taglist of the Vigilante AU, feel free to message me/send an ask.

Taglist: @sleepysnails @causeimfabulous @anty-kreatywna

Reminder: 12-11-04 = TimeDeo 93-10-01 = Tommy

Ao3 link

----------------------------------------

“93-10-01 v. 12-11-04!”

Tommy and Deo both stood and made their way to the ring.

The gong sounded.

Tommy started circling Deo. Sure Tommy had told Deo that they’d be playing with each other, but he could see that Deo was guarding for the drop.

Tommy spread his arms out wide. Deo threw a right hook. Tommy ducked.

This continued for a while and Tommy kept an eye on the crowd. He saw 5up twirling his gun, like a rich boy with all the confidence in the world. Which he kind of was.

Something slammed open.

Tommy grabbed Deo and shoved him into the ground, shielding him with his body.

“Ouch!” he said indignantly.

“Stand down!” a female voice shouted. “Everybody freeze.”

“Oh. Salvation?”

“Pretty sure.” Tommy picked himself off of Deo and they both look around. “Guns.”

Deo turned around and motioned for the other kids to duck and cover if there weren’t already. Tommy stayed forward facing watching the room. The watched the business men rush to leave and the wait-staff try to get out of the way.

“Our guys or the other guys?” Deo seemed content to trust Tommy.

“Both.”

“Well fuck.”

Tommy caught 5up’s eye. He man nodded before shooting out of his seat towards to exit. Tommy watched his fist bump one of the obviously vigilantes and he relaxed. “We’re finally getting out of here,” he breathed.

“Heroes?”

“Deo.”

“Everybody down!” the lady shouted. “Right where you are. Stay put.”

“Vigilantes?”

“Vigilantes.”

Deo turned to the chaos. “Can we trust them?”

“Yes we can trust them!” Tommy said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Look I know you’re used to heroes saving the day, but it’s been three months. If you don’t like vigilantes than just be thankful you’re getting out.”

Deo looked a little distressed, but he swallowed it down. “Yeah yeah okay.”

- - -

xChocobars and Aipha separated from Alpha Team and pushed to the ring.

“93-10-01?”

The blond one responded. “Yes?”

“Hi I’m xChocobars. This is Aipha.”

“District?” Tommy asked immediate, stepping in front of Deo.

“66.”

“98.”

“Plushys sister?”

“Yes!” XChocobars clapped her hands once. “Is she okay?”

“Are any of us okay?” Tommy deadpanned.

xChocobars smiled ruefully before slipping into no-nonsense mode. “Do you know where the level 1 fights are being kept?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“And you are 12-11-04 correct?”

“Yes Miss.”

“Could you round up all the kids in the main room? Pokimane is going to come and extract you guys while 93-10-01 takes us to help the level 1s.”

Deo glanced at Tommy. If Tommy trusts them then he had too as well. “Yeah I can do that. Who’s Pokimane?”

Before xChocobars or Aipha could explain Tommy dropped his head in his hands. “How do you?” Tommy asked before shaking his head. “Pokiame’s from District 50. 50-10-01 will point her out.”

“Got it.”

Tommy feigned a punch at Deo and ran off, xChocobars and Aipha following him to the level 1 cells.

The thing about vigilantes is that some of them are people with powers who didn’t want to be part of the bureaucracy that comes with being a hero. While others were just regular guys who want to do good in their neighbourhood. xChocobars and Aipha were the former. XChocobars could move metal and Aipha had super strength.

xChocobars twisted her wrist and the locking mechanism opened with a click.

Tommy grabbed a lock pick from Aipha before slipping into the hall. “Hey Crumb,” Tommy said softly into the first cell.

“Tommy?”

“Hi.” Tommy started to pick the lock. “We’re getting the two of you out of here.”

“And everyone else?” Crumb asked.

“Two?” xChocobars asked. She looked in the cell. There were two girls. “Cells are doubled up?”

“Yep. Yes Crumb, and everyone else.” Tommy put his ear next to the lock to wait for the click. “I have a single, but Deo, 12-11-04, has a triple.” The door swung open and Crumb came running out. Meri followed her into Tommy’s arms.

xChocobars and Tommy started to open up other cells and Aipha hits his comm. “Rae?”

“Rae here.”

“Are you in the wing yet?”

“Yes. Tell xChocobars we found her sister. She’s helping us around here.”

“Mhm.” He filed that away but needed to get to his point. “There are more than two hundred kids.”

“I know. Plushys had a roommate.”

“Have you alerted triage?”

“Not yet. Can you? They’re a little violent and scared over here.”

“Yep. Aipha out.” He switched frequencies. “Tina are you there?”

“Tina here!”

“How many cupcakes do you guys have?”

“About 25 hundred? Niki make a lot, just in case people wanted more than one.”

“Okay good, because there are more than two hundred kids here.”

“How many?”

“Uhm.” Aipha turned to the blond kid and his little group. “93-10-01?”

“Yeah?”

“How many kids are here, do you think?”

“50 rooms per level. Level 1 and level 3 have double cells. Level’s 2 and 4 are tripled up. Mostly.”

Aipha did some quick mental math. “Like five hundred?”

“Shit. Okay, copy. We’ll make do.”

“Also some of these kids look bad, so make sure you guys have enough first aid stuff.”

“Got it.”

- - -

xChocobars was so cool. She was moving metal bars with her hands. Tommy went further down the hall and was using the lock pick. Even though he was slowed, two sets of hands were better than one.

“93-10-01?”

“Yes Ma’am?”

“At the end of the hall there’s an exit door. Take these guys out. The field is southbound.”

“Left or right?”

xChocobars bars huffed a laugh. “Towards the field.”

“Helpful. I’ll find my way.” He took Crumb’s hand in his. “Can I come back and help?”

“Yeah, start at the other end if the hall. Take them out in groups of about 15.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“93-10-01?” Aipha called before he left.

“Yeah?”

“How many kids are here, do you think?” He gestured to his comm.

Tommy wracked his brain for what he knew. “50 rooms per level. Level 1 and level 3 have double cells. Level’s 2 and 4 are tripled up. Mostly.”

Aipha did some quick mental math. “Like five hundred?”

Tommy nodded, but he was already back in his conversation on the comm.

Tommy took his charge and they got to the end of the hall. Tommy kneeled down at the lock. He picked at it until the click. He turned the knob. He smiled at the others. “Coming back for you guys,” Tommy said to the other kids still behind bars.

He opened the door and ran out.

Tommy took a big breath of clean air. Thankfully it was night so his eyes didn’t need to do any adjusting. But fuck if the outside air wasn’t nice. Tommy let out a loud whoop.

Time to find the triage centre in the field; where the fuck is south?

[screamting]

 Dick’s first day of school snuck up on them.

 Bruce drove him down in a rusty small blue honda civic from the 1990s. They’d picked it up off the lot for under 3,000 and were using it as a way to ferry themselves to the junkyard to pick up parts for their      special    car--but for now, they were using it to drop Dick off at school.

 Drop Richard Malone off at school.

On paper, Alfred paid for Dick to attend Gotham academy. A private school. It had both boarders and day students. Dick would be a day student, so long as it was feasible. 

...on the first day of school, Bruce drove Dick down to his alma mater (which translated to ‘place you never wanted to visit again,’) and dropped him off outside the gates.  

“Want me to walk you in, Chum?” he asked, despite it not being any  Malone’s alma mater yet, and Dick glanced back at him and shook his head sharply, mumbling a quiet “see you later,” before going off towards the gates. 

Bruce turned to drive home and realized, belatedly, that Dick had never  not been homeschooled. 

He waited for afternoon to pick Dick up again, and resolved to remember to pick up milkshakes on the way back, so he can ask how the day was with a backup plan. 

--

“It is not the right time of year to prune,” Alfred told him. It was far too close to school starting. Far too close to fall. “But, I suppose, it isn’t  impossible . It will just be a good bit trickier to know which branches need it.”

Bruce obligingly bought a new plant from a chain store--a nursery would’ve properly pruned it weeks ago, but chain stores didn’t have that same attention. Alfred brought it home in a little green planter: a tiny bush cut into a lopsided circle.

“This isn’t, in fact, how to do it,” Alfred said, setting it beside Bruce on the patio table. “Can you tell me why?” 

“..it doesn’t target the dead branches,” Bruce said, and Alfred gave a nod. 

“It’s indiscriminate. And  quite sloppy.” 

He handed Bruce a pair of pruning shears. 

“With it cut like this, it’s a little difficult to find the dead branches, but you’ll manage.”

...after a moment, Bruce shoved his hand inside the bush and just… gripped one of the little branches that didn’t have any leaves on it between his fingers. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded obligingly and gave a smile that felt far too much like it was meant for a child. 

“How far back do I cut?” 

“As far back as you can.” 

Bruce nodded and pushed the shears in. And snipped.

The metahuman had power over plants, the paper the day before had said. She argued she’d been acting in self-defense. Her children were crying out for help. And so she helped.

(“‘ I is hearing the scream of a flower as its stem is twisted from the ground,’”  Dick read aloud by Bruce’s bedside, trying to work through the recommended reading list for his level. One year behind his age level wasn’t bad for three years on the road, but it was a lot to catch up on all the same. “‘  I is hearing the soft moan of the old oak, like an old man dying, weeping, when it is felled.’ ”)

As the state of New Jersey did not recognize plants as people or her as the property owner, her appeal was denied. She would spend several years above minimum in Belle Reve for aggravated assault.

(even though the one she assaulted wasn’t there. Bruce hadn’t stepped into court. Bruce hadn’t said a thing. There was one phone call, and a woman, naked, trapped outside on a Gotham street, and then  five other people stepped forward, claiming to be someone she’d attacked. 

And he didn’t know what to think about that. If what everyone said was true was true, or if it was just falling into the fallacy of mob mentality. If it was easier to accept what was said as true. Even if he'd seen the violence first hand, it was  him  being attacked, that was  different--)

He kept his mouth shut, and reached for the next dead branch, and clipped. 

“...and how would I trim something that’s not dead, but it might… be overgrown? Or the wrong height?” 

“Hmm,” Alfred said, still watching him. “Well, first we will need to get you a proper ladder.”

Justly imprisoned or not, the metahuman--a former botanist called Pamela Isley--would be in Belle Reve for several years. 

Maybe he could change something in this town while she was gone.

Therefore, Mr. Malone came to the Gotham Parks and Recreation office, asking if when he got this 501c3 approved that he be allowed to enter Robinson Park and clean up the place.

And the budget-starved Parks office said  fuckin’ do it if you’re brave enough, man , and sent him on his way. 

It was… much easier than he expected, really. But perhaps the Parks department carried so little influence no one had even bothered to bribe them to keep people out. All the same, he’d listen to that backwards warning. 

He drafted the papers in two days. He worked over it at dinner, trying to fill the gap that had once been occupied by discussing with Dick where to travel next and how to best avoid a million impending dooms. He had a free consultation with an attorney in the morning who looked up at Bruce over his glasses, eyebrows up, and reminded Bruce that the park was where mob deals went down and that grassy lady attacked a fella the other day. 

Bruce said that was fine. He knew. He wasn’t here to cause a ruckus.

Legal documents. Articles of Affiliation. Mission Statement. It was helpful to have a second pair of eyes that actually expected the little bureaucracies innate in law, things that Dick and Alfred preferred to grumble at rather than knot through. Not that Bruce had been trained in law himself, but his school friend, Harvey Dent--

(was still in the hospital. Burn ward. He’d stabilized, but wasn’t often conscious--)

...Bruce submitted the paperwork after the Parks commission met with him, and then all he had to do was draw up a budget and wait. Alfred ‘lent’ Mr. Malone the startup money to establish a paper trail. After the initial donation, Bruce could make periodic donations to himself in various names; have miraculous windfalls whenever cash grew thin. Even without any backing or campaigns, he could make this startup impossible to fail.

--

...the problem is, Bruce has long proven his judgement is impaired.

When Dick returns from school not sniffling but  vibrating with stress all the same, Bruce’s first thought is to run and start over somewhere else. 

He thinks it might be an averted suicide response. The need to pack up and leave the current problems behind. With a hardline against being able to die, his mind latches onto another option. A fight-or-flight response that only hits  flight when the problem isn’t something that can’t be physically fought off, like a tween coming into the car and sitting down in the passenger seat with a deep sigh. 

...Bruce asks how his day was. 

Dick says it was fine. 

Bruce doesn’t ask if he wants a milkshake. He goes through the drive-through and buys some anyway. They go home and work how to install tail fins on the car frame slowly coming together in their garage.

--

...the ‘suicide’ response isn’t the only thing that lingers. Bruce isn’t really sure ‘lingering’ is the right term, actually. The flight response only arises when things can’t be handled directly in front of himself anymore, but the fight response--

Bruce has impaired judgment. 

He proved it as soon as his first ‘suicide’ response sent him to the League of Assassins, and he decided to not flee the moment they made it clear nothing would continue until he took a life. He proved it when he wasn’t able to avoid dragging a literal child in the middle of a personal crisis into his mess, rather than leaving him somewhere safe and far, far away from him. He proved it with each near-death experience from Deathstroke in Metropolis to Isley in Gotham. 

And yet, here he was again, finding himself cleaning up the Batman suit long after Dick was put to bed, adjusting it with better material to withstand a bullet’s penetration. 

The people at the parks department weren’t wrong. It would be dangerous to work the area while the mob still operated widely inside it, and he would not cooperate alongside the mobs for protection. The alternative was therefore relatively obvious: get rid of the mobs. 

Mobs weren’t  exactly like a snake, but they did function well enough like one. Cut off the head. And like a hydra, if new heads sprouted--smother them. 

...that, at least, he knew how to do. Kidnapping and recon, and finding information. Find proof of a mob boss’ wrongdoing and get a prosecutor not so cowardly to be bribed. Hand the information over. Don’t let them fail the charges. High profile dangerous people wouldn’t be kept in a local jail, but would likely be transferred to a higher-security prison, circumnavigating the cluttering, and with a focus on high-priority prisoners rather than most random people out on the street, they would be moved through the system more quickly, hopefully at least stalling out their operations in the meantime, if not shattering the whole system beneath them with the sudden departure. 

This was the best plan he had, and it relied far, far too much on too many external variables--finding a clean court, getting a jury that felt safe enough to actually put their foot down, finding witnesses willing to testify, a prosecutor who wouldn't be bribed--

(fuck) 

--and dealing with a Commissioner whose good graces he might’ve worn out. 

…

But the alternatives were to allow this to continue growing, complicit by his own inaction. 

(he was already complicit enough in too many crimes.)

(How did you clean up a world that you yourself aided in the destruction of?)

--

Prosecutors that couldn't be bribed?

They ended up like Harvey Dent. 

--

Batman appears without Robin that evening, because it is a school night and Dick needs to sleep. He stops what crimes in progress he comes across and starts watching Robinson Park more closely. 

He doesn't interfere inside it. He just watches. Plants cameras in the bushes and on the branches of trees, and zips his way out, to watch the footage and get to know the day and nighttime patterns of the area. 

It… will take time. That's something he's not used to. Dick and he worked fast on the road, and even before that he was either handed his information by the ones lower down the chain or only spent a handful of days doing legwork to verify things that'd been missed. Instant gratification, he guessed he could call it. Just… dealing out a death and being done with it. 

(And somehow, he'd drawn the line at known violent mobsters and Deathstroke.)

...he had to do a  lot of meditation to get through the park video feeds. He had a lot of work stacking up between tracking down faces from the feeds. Police database of mugshots helped more than he expected. He started a tally of how many people in the mugshots were brought in bloodied and who brought them in to look into later. 

After all, if Gotham was going to get rid of its mob problem, the police force would need some pruning, too. 

--

Gotham recidivism was above 80%. Bruce gargled his coffee and tried very hard to not spit it out somewhere, because somehow, he was more tired by this statistic than shocked. A bit of, ‘oh, I knew it would be high, but  really?’

No fucking wonder there weren’t enough cells in the world. 

(What do you do when you can’t put anymore garbage in a landfill?

Learning what a  fucking recycling program is might be a good first step.)

It's okay, though. He's totally got a handle on this. He's already been looking into what makes recidivism lower, and the difficulty of access to jobs for felons seems like a big one. Lack of change to living situations that caused pettier crimes like reselling material or shoplifting. The inside prison situation has an effect, according to Norway, which has a prison system Bruce isn't even hoping to replicate, even if he were a living millionaire with a clear conscience. 

Reading other people's’ writings on recidivism has… definitely helped clarify things for him, even if all he can think of for the worst of criminals is still to lock them in a cell far away from  everyone or until the death penalty finally takes it out of his hands. 

But it is one thing to lock up a murderer who sabotaged a family performance and killed in front of an audience, and children, and  child … versus locking up the child who killed trying to protect their family from an abusive partner. 

They’re different. They have to be. 

If Bruce has any right to be alive, he has to be able to believe in gray areas. 

--

Bruce drops the first of several Maroni forerunners on Gordon's desk in the northern precinct. When he finds the precinct desk vacant, he pays a visit to the commissioner’s house instead. 

The thought process is that it would probably be best to clarify that the dropoff isn’t an attack on the commissioner's authority. It’s an opening for compromise. Bruce will be mindful of the incarceration rates, but he won’t be leaving Gotham and he’d like cooperation from the police when it came to prosecution.

Unfortunately, he proposes it in the form of a paper note (written in his off-hand) slipped onto Gordon’s bedroom table where the man will notice it as soon as he returns for bed, which is much more threatening than he fully realizes.

(He doesn’t imagine Gordon’s daughter will find the note first and replace it just as she found it after reading. Then again, he doesn’t ever find out it happened, either.)

--

The county’s defense office wants to cut a plea deal with the gangster brought in, because no one wants to be the next Harvey Dent. The Assistant DA, a woman named Rachel Dawes, seems willing to try, but the department is extremely reluctant to support her, even as she steps up to take Dent’s place until another election can be held.

In the precinct, Bruce’s audiobugs catch officers he’s tracking placing bets on how long until someone finishes Dent off in his hospital bed.

Bruce decides he needs to be more aggressive.

-- 

Twenty-seven aggressive anonymous tipoffs and two synchronized FBI raids half a month later, and Bruce is startled when the door to his bedroom opens and Dick walks in. Bruce doesn't really jump in surprise anymore-- it’s more of… half reaching a position to fight, and stopping in a split second as he realizes the threat doesn't exist.

“Ah,” he says, “do you need--?”

“I was at school,” Dick says, answering the question in an odd way. He didn't need anything, he'd just come back from school--

Bruce’s neck snaps up to look at the clock, while the other part of his brain realizes that it’s nearly dark outside. 

“Did Alfred--” he says, a panicky shame he’s not used to rising up within him. 

“No,” Dick says, shrugging his backpack off and slumping onto bed. “When I realized you weren't coming I walked home.”

Bruce's throat feels tight. “You should've called.”

“Figured you were busy,” Dick says, watching the ceiling, “you've got more important stuff than school.”

Bruce remembers, the pain less raw with years, the slow agony of a school day, knowing there must be more he could do than sit through the farce. 

He remembers that agony of adolescent uselessness clearly, pain dulled or not, but he’s also wisened to its falsehood over the years. There was little he could manage at the time.

“...I’ll set an alarm next time, but school isn't unimportant,” he says, keeping calm and controlled for an extra moment, before doing a double-take on the thought he’d had just a moment before. 

Adolescence?!

--

School is over a month in. Dick’s anniversary is coming up soon. Bruce has gotten the Feds back in Gotham and an internal investigation into the police force for corruption. His nonprofit is finalizing some paperwork and looking into how to hire nonviolent offenders and start training them for small-time landscaping and cleanup by contracting with a local pre-established landscape crew that mostly does the outer and northern Gotham estates. Harvey Dent is conscious but minimally verbal in the hospital. And Dick is thirteen, officially a teenager. 

Bruce does not know how teenagers are different from younger children. He does not recall being any different than he is now at either age. Only morose haze interspersed by flashes of overwhelming tension and temper. 

Harvey once knew him at that age. Not that Bruce could talk to Harvey--not… as himself. The man Harvey knew was long, long dead, (or, it would be simpler if that man was dead, and Bruce as he was now was a new man entirely--) and it’s not as though Bruce could ask advice anyway. 

Still. Maybe he will send Harvey some flowers they’ve started in the backyard...

Once the Justice League gets out of his living room. 

Aside from Superman calling over the phone whenever he seems to please, once a month Martian Manhunter seems to show up, posing as just another social worker or lawyer or family friend, here to check in on how things are going with adoption, or the 501C3, or the�� latest cookies out of the oven. 

And if it’s not Martian Manhunter helping Dick sneak cookies off the cooling rack, then it’s Wonder Woman, which is somehow even worse. 

There are not a lot of situations when Bruce would rather a mind reader with incredible telekinetic powers who could mentally and emotionally cripple him with a thought be in his presence, versus just a very strong lady who could rip him in two by breathing. 

Diana Prince has made that situation a monthly occurrence.

She came this time while they were in the garage, putting together a much-overdue car engine. Alfred had insisted on dinner before business. Diana Prince stands in his house for over an hour by the time the rope finally came out and they got down to business. It is an hour too long. Bruce doesn’t think he’s had more than a few words of conversation with her since they moved into Alfred’s townhouse late summer, but he has heard the same questions out of her mouth far too many times. 

“Have you been hurt lately?”

“No,” Dick says, because he only patrols on weekends, and Bruce makes sure he’s kept well away from anything that looks like it will have guns.

“Are you being treated well?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you happy?” 

“Y…”

...Bruce blinks for a second, before he realizes that Dick’s teeth are clenched tight and his face is turning faintly to another color. 

“Dick…?” Diana says, before Dick gives into the rope, and says the truth.

“No.” 

He’s not sure if anyone else can hear the air leave the room, but it does, and Bruce feels his lungs collapse in the vacuum left behind. His stomach shrivels into a ball. 

He wants to run from the room, but his feet are too heavy and slow to move, so he just crosses his arms even tighter, and digs his fingers into his ribs.

“...why is that?” Diana asks. She doesn’t even glance back at Bruce when she does it. She doesn’t even glance away in the first place, even as Dick is screwing his eyes shut. The color his face has settled on is red, and blotchy, and fast. 

Dick drops the rope from his hand and hiccups. 

Bruce can’t move to comfort him. 

...Diana looks between Dick, and the dropped rope, and pulls it back into the lasso loop. She stands. 

“...I’m going to head outside for a bit and give you two some privacy.” 

She turns and walks out to the garden, where Alfred is still watering the flowers. 

Dick hiccups again, and Bruce is a stranger in his own body as he sits on the floor cross legged, and pulls Dick into his arms. 

...he’s a lot bigger than he was when he was eight and curled into Bruce’s side, just minutes after his parents fell. Bruce puts his hand on the kid’s head, fingers running through the cropped dark hair. 

“...Dick?” Bruce says. “Dick?”

He doesn’t get a response. He sits there, uncomfortably rubbing Dick’s hair, until Diana returns some long minutes later, announcing it’s about time she headed out. 

“I’ll see you next month,” she says, mostly to Dick, who still hasn’t looked up. 

Even as Bruce wonders if it’s a threat, something in his chest loosens when Diana leaves and Dick stays behind. 

Eventually, they get up, and try to get ready for bed. 

—

Harvey Dent wakes up again.

The last thing he remembers is a gun being pulled on him; a court case that he  had to win, no matter what—

The nurses are alerted to his consciousness by the sound of his screaming. 

Bruce Malone has no reason to visit him. No clearance. No nothing. All he does is run a small nonprofit startup, currently sending out applications to the very criminals Harvey put behind bars. 

He doubts Batman would be welcome.

— 

Gotham elects temp-head Rachel Dawes to permanent DA to finish out Harvey’s term by seventeen votes. Bruce doesn’t rig the election, though he thinks of doing so. Instead, he spends the week beforehand trying to disrupt the bribery network connecting the ballot counters to the remaining mob and asking Robin to go make sure the paperless polls aren’t hacked the night before.

...Robin isn’t happy with Bruce going out on his own still. But they compromise, some. 

They send Harvey flowers.

They leave a note on Dawes’ desk. An offer, if she needs anything. They don’t want her to end up like her predecessor. 

—

In the morning, at the first hint of workable weather, Bruce has some on-parole inmates and recent-releases standing in the middle of the park, shivering, holding shovels and rakes. 

This is the first day they’ll be working together and training on the job. There will be a stipend associated with the work. Tools are provided. There’s just—they haven’t done this before. And neither has Bruce Malone, who failed to shake off his kid, Richard, who is sitting off on a picnic table not far away, arms wrapped around his snow pants and pouting furiously. 

...He stays quiet as Bruce starts showing the group what they’re supposed to be doing— first snipping the large bushes down to size, raking the sticks and leaves into piles, and then coming up the back with shovels to help define areas for mulch beds around the bushes. Generally they would not be pruning this early into fall, but… the bushes have to go. 

It’s step one (ignoring Bruce’s personal twenty-step plan midway through execution) to help keep the park safe and free-er of illegal activities: just being able to see into the damn park. 

Once they actually start working, Richard gets up from his perch and glumly takes a rake, helping follow along and pulling the old foliage and branches into a set of neat piles a couple feet out of the way. 

It would be one thing if Dick seemed to be having fun, but… he doesn’t really. He’s tolerant enough with the car (whose construction has largely stalled) but he’s never really had the kind of brain like Bruce’s which likes the simple, repetitive patterns of gardening, or kata, or math. 

(“I don’t  want to stay home,” Dick had said that morning. 

“Then wouldn’t going out with a friend be better?” Bruce said over breakfast. 

“I don’t  have any friends!”

Bruce did not respond to that, and had escorted Dick to the park.)

...they pack up in the later afternoon, when the sun is still high but before banks close-- Bruce gathering up all the direct deposit information for the ones who sound interested in coming back, and paying the rest with checks. Dick waits in the car.

When they drive back home, something big, and blue, and midwestern is already in their kitchen, and is talking to Alfred about pie crust technique. 

( Hell. )

Superman is wearing his full goddamn uniform as they enter. He turns and smiles when they come into the living room, raising up one big hand to greet them.

“Hey there! Decided I’d stop by.” 

“....You did,” Bruce agrees, while Dick seems to perk up, eyes widening at the very large and blue man leaning on the counter. 

Dick had  met Superman already. Spent a week at least on the same spaceship as him. Stared him down over Bruce’s unconscious body. Somehow, it wasn’t stopping him from having that bright excitement in his eyes, now. 

Maybe Superman was more exciting when he presumably wasn’t here to arrest anyone. 

Presumably. 

“Uh-huh,” said Superman. “And Mr. Pennyworth was telling me some about how things have been going for you here! Community service work. Sounds good.” 

Sounded  innocent was more like it. Sounded like prisoners in bright orange vests on the roadsides picking up litter for fifty cents an hour. Doing time, paying back society for all he’d done to it— yeah, he figured it would sound good to Superman. 

“It is,” said Bruce. 

Dick, maybe in a better mood now that they were out of the Gotham smog, saves him again. 

“Are you here for dinner?” Dick asked, not quite on his tiptoes—not on his tiptoes at all, actually. 

He’d grown again, Bruce realized. Now he stood almost to Bruce’s ribs, where once he’d had to stretch to reach. 

“No, I didn’t think I’d be  that  welcome,” Superman said, smiling sheepishly, and  good.  At least he  knew.  “I’m just the messenger this time. Because we  are going to have to start cashing in on that deal we made.”

For a moment, Bruce’s heart stills, and he feels Dick tense just a little bit beside him. 

(Is it wrong, for a moment, that he’s still glad that Dick tenses when they both know it won’t be him attacked?)

“Woah, woah, no scary faces—“ Bruce’s face had  not changed. “We just need your input. Information sharing, remember? Flash has had some weird things going on in his neighborhood and we thought maybe it’d be something you’d recognize.” 

...Right. 

Right. 

He was getting protection from This League in exchange for cooperation, not just his dignity. 

Before he could pull himself back into his body, Superman added, “and Robin too, of course.” 

“Robin doesn’t  need to—“ Bruce began. 

“—Robin would be  delighted ,” Dick said, raising his voice unnecessarily high and drowning out Bruce’s own. 

Bruce looked down at Dick, mouth flat. Dick stared back up at him, scowling and arms crossed. 

“You  hate busywork,” said Bruce. 

“It’ll be fine!” Said Superman,  suddenly in his face  , arms moving between him and Dick, pushing them apart, like they were  dangerous to each other— “Flash was just going to bring his kid, uh, flash along with him, and thought it would be good for them to meet. Should’ve led with that. Just, giving kids friends in their own age bracket.” 

Bruce had stood rock still, staring at the same spot Dick had been, now blocked by Superman’s arms. He did not look away. 

“Yes,” Bruce said. “You should’ve led with that.” 

—

...the next evening, his attempts at trimming his hair were interrupted by Alfred, who was quick to steal the scissors away and finish things himself. Soon, it was short enough he could slick it back for the first time in… a while. He pulled on one of his better dark turtlenecks. Business slacks. Dark shoes. Dark. Maybe too obviously a hide-away-in-the-background type dark. 

They met Flash… on the other side of a zeta beam. Bruce hadn’t ridden one since first being escorted from the Watchtower to Gotham. 

He hadn’t  forgotten how uncomfortable it was, but it was one thing to remember in the mind and another to be given a reminder in the body. 

Neither he nor Dick were in costume. There was no reason for Batman and Robin to suddenly be in Central. There would hopefully be no reason for anyone to suspect Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to travel so far away from their little safe haven and attack.

Flash, however,  did have some things to protect still, and so he waited on the other side of the zeta with his bright red costume made darker in the night, and an unfortunately bright smudge of yellow standing beside him. 

“Hey, Bats,” Flash said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you  nicely this time.” 

Bruce was really glad he hadn’t given in to breaking this guy’s legs. That would have made this reintroduction unbearably uncomfortable. As it was, he met the hand slowly, and enough of a sound for acknowledgement.

Flash didn’t say anything about it, turning instead to Dick. “And you! Also glad to see you’re doing fine; hooow’s the ankle. This is my sidekick, Kid Flash.”

There was no time to answer to the ankle before Flash had introduced and thumped the yellow teen him on the back, getting the very encouraging response, “I’m not a kid I’m a  teenager, ” which was too obvious to have needed pointing out, considering the cracks in his voice and the speckles acne surrounding his lips. “Don’t embarrass me!”

“I would  never do that.” 

(While Bruce remained cold in his skin despite the warm night, beside him, Dick let out a little bit of a laugh. Almost a few huffs of one, really. It was softening. It was enough to unfreeze Bruce some and get him going again.)

“You needed help with identification?” said Bruce, stepping forward to end the introductions. 

Flash’s expression changed back to serious in a… flash. At least he didn’t look disappointed. Or surprised. “Yeah. Follow me, there’s a place a little more private down the street.”

That place ended up being a deli bakery. One that had very much closed for the evening, and had shuttered its windows for good measure. This made very little difference to Flash, who pulled out a key from a very discreet pocket, and opened the staff door in the back. 

“They donate the day-old stuff to me,” Flash said, grinning, like that explained much at all. “Why don’t you kids go see if there’s anything set on top of the counters in the back?” 

The little yellow flash made a sound that wasn’t quite a whoop, but wasn’t quite quiet, either. 

And then the little hand reached out, grabbed Robin’s wrist, and pulled him through the door behind the counter.

“Woah, easy, chief.” 

Flash’s hand wasn’t touching Bruce, no, but it was  in front of him, ready to block and restrain in a movement as Bruce took a step forward to follow.

He turned to look at Flash, and met his same hard eyes looking back through Flash’s mask. 

“They’re just gonna look around and see if they can find some food. It’s fine.” 

Bruce  knew that was just what they were doing, of course. He just wanted to— check. Just to make sure. It was a closed up shop of people they didn’t know in a city that was too dark and empty at night, save for a few well-maintained streetlamps and a pair of teenage girls walking down the sidewalk to the seven-eleven, sticking close together in the Midwest fall—- 

“Let’s just get a seat and wait for them, and we can get started. How’s that?” 

Flash had removed his hand, and was gesturing now to one of the booth seats near the bar. Not by the windows. Maybe far enough from the windows that anyone who looked in and saw a book light on would just assume management was doing the books late.

(Bruce’s jaw was not  tight , it was just his teeth kept pressing down together. He sat down across from the seat Flash gestured to. It was better to get through work quickly, and head home.)

“Okay,” said Flash, suddenly in the booth with him. Bruce almost still felt the breeze of the movement as a book-clipped green folder was produced and laid out on the table. “So, this is a case that’s been going on a little while. Take your time and let me know what you think of it.” 

The file was pushed over to Bruce’s side of the table, and he took it quietly, removing the clip and flipping it open. 

He disregarded the notes and bios and instead turned first to the photos. 

...he did not  like  looking through other people’s photos. All he could think of was that he would have liked a  bit  closer look at the doorframe, or just a little bit out of angle, or frustration at someone’s focus being a little bit out. That was why you took  lots  of photos of course, but it was still a gnawing anxiety in him that they were going to just  miss something. All he had were his eyes through someone else’s lense and someone else’s word to take for it. 

Which he was very bad at liking. 

….but that was just what this was, he guessed. The case was from five years prior. A body of an older woman on the floor of an enclosed porch. Broken glass. Gunshot wound to the left shoulder, close enough to the heart she’d probably been dead within a minute or two, long before the first police officers had arrived. A bullet hole in the wall behind her. Fallen out of her chair. Glass window of the porch had shattered. A bullet had been extracted from the wall, looking like a .22– moderately furnished house with plastic sheeting over the couches. Wicker chairs. An expensive security system had captured what were rendered as stills of the moment the bullets entered the cameras view, and a man a minute or so later on the front door at the other side of the house, running inside, presumably to inspect.

There were other things. They seemed comfortably middle to upper-middle class, from the photos, and finally turning to look at the profiles confirmed it. 68. White. Retired with a moderate stipend. Married thirty years. No priors or connections that Bruce might consider linking to any of the people  he knew. Just things like public intoxication, driving violations, a few fines—

Her husband was found with her, and owned the same caliber gun that had broken the glass encasement, shot the woman, and knocked her out of her chair before lodging in the wall. He’d run in from across the street to investigate the gunshot, he said. He denied doing the deed, and circumstantial evidence was not enough to make a conviction on—

...Bruce flipped through the folder again, frowning. 

Flash, who had pulled out his phone, looked up. “Something?”

“...what is it you want me to say about this?” It was a neatly put together file. Very neatly. No real loose ends, if everything in it was true. What was he supposed to be catching, here?

“Just, I guess, your thoughts. Anything stand out?” He took the moment to arch his back and stretch his arms out a bit, one hand still holding the phone. Smiled a bit. Friendly. 

Bruce frowned while looking at Flash this time. 

“This is a test,” he stated, “and I doubt just to see if I’d throw out a name just to be ‘useful.’”

Flash blinked innocently at him, but he was still smiling. “I mean, haha, can’t blame us too much…? You found a  lot of trafficking chains, but, I mean—“

“The case has already been closed, and you’re certain of who did it,” said Bruce flatly. He flipped the folder shut and shoved it back across the table. “I’d rather see the scene myself, but if the numbers are right, the bullet hole is too steep an angle for a flat lawn if the husband shot from shoulder height. Someone half his height, or someone kneeling  or lying in the grass. He’s old enough to have trouble getting up from that position, much less from the edge of the yard, to run around to the front of the house and avoid grass stains from a new cut lawn. There’s not enough other information to know who might’ve had a motive to make it professional or not.” 

…

Flash blinked at him, leaning his elbows on the table to watch. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. Good.

“Yeah,” Flash said. Moved the folder off the table, to the booth seat, out of view. “Some kids were playing with their new .22 in the yard across from the house and accidentally shot her through the window. They confessed a few months ago.”

It was a small enough crime that news wouldn’t have made it to Gotham. Or been widely publicized at all, if ‘kids’ meant they were  still minors. That would make them thirteen at most at the time of the shooting—

Bruce wasn’t sure if his throat was full of acid or metal as he said, “Is there anything else for me to look over?” 

Flash hesitated a moment (an eternity for him, surely) and said, “Well…”

Bruce stood and made a  straight fucking line to the door Dick had been pulled in and not yet emerged. Flash called out, “Hey—!”

….even as the hand fell on his shoulder and tried to pull him back, Bruce had frozen in the doorway. 

On the other side, he could only see a bit— the doorframe was too narrow and he dared not step closer—but he could see enough.

He’d wondered, a little bit, why Robin hadn’t emerged when he’d begun speaking. Surely he was loud enough to be heard from the back room. They were only meant to be separated minutes. Just a quick mission. Now, he could see, though—

Dick, sitting on an industrial chest freezer, his legs kicking, not near touching the floor. 

He was holding a popsicle. One of the fudge ones. Partly eaten and the top of the stick beginning to show, and Robin didn’t see how it was beginning to drip down over the crinkled plastic wrap, and would soon run over his fingers. 

He was busy, looking at Kid Fash. Kid Flash squatting on the floor with a creamsicle, holding it up to the color of his suit, and visibly whining with an orange tongue, a pouting face—

And Robin ignored his own melting ice cream to laugh.

...Flash’s hand tugged on his shoulder again, this time gentle enough that Bruce felt it. He turned with the pressure, and headed back for the booth. 

He sat down in it, across from Flash and his already-solved case folder. 

“...this was not for case files, was it,” Bruce said, staring at the table between them, feeling very stupid and small. 

“I mean,” Flash said, looking almost as embarrassed as Bruce was shamed. “...we did want to know. But… we thought maybe my uh, my cousin could use someone who could relate to him.” 

Ah yes. For  Kid Flash’s sake. For the boy who they’d never seen publicized before, who was complaining about his outfit color as if he hadn’t chosen it, who didn’t know that in Flash’s ‘occasional empty diner hideout’ he was allowed to run off and eat before being told. 

Not for the boy that for the past month Diana’s pitying face had hung over, the boy who had eagerly asked to Superman to stay for dinner, and who Martian Manhunter would deliver sleeves of choco cookies to, even though they had more than enough money to purchase a box for themselves.

...perhaps Bruce should be glad Flash wasn’t the best at lying. Perhaps Bruce was too used to looking for tells, and mistook super speed masking for the truth. 

“I see,” was all he said. 

When he’d been a child, there had been plenty of others who knew death, and who had never moved him an inch for all their crying. He’d done his best to make that untrue for Dick the past few years, and now they knew each other’s grief inside and out. 

Bruce did not know what else to do from there. 

It was grief all the way down. 

“He’ll need to learn how to counter people who might actually know how to fight speedsters,” he said, watching the table. “There’s pads in the basement, if he’d like to improve sparring with Dick sometimes.”

Flash blinked at him again. Flash sat up straighter, grinning. “Oh?”

“Oh,” Bruce agreed, looking up to scowl. “But for fuck’s sake, bring more than one casefile next time.”

—

On Robin’s anniversary, a gang fight breaks out in the Diamond District.

Something gone wrong. A shootout.

Bruce isn’t sure if it could’ve been called a shootout before the police arrive. By the end of the night, the building is on fire, and a gas vein has blown. Heavy smoke drifting down the street causes a panic, and then a stampede— 

He doesn’t want to let Robin out tonight. 

On the news, it looks like there are fights breaking out in the stampede. There are people lying down, specks of color on the ground as the helicopter news anchor tries to describe the scene. She’s pure professional. Cold eyes. Clear eyes.

The smoke momentarily engulfs the helicopter, and she begins crying. 

He does not want to let Robin out tonight.

He will deal with the outrage in the morning. 

—

(On Robin’s anniversary, Harvey Dent sees the fires and hears gunshots from his hospital room. He drags himself and his IV stand away from the bed, towards the window, and fumbles with the latch with ineffective hands. The nurses come with the heart monitor alert. When they sedate him, Harvey is still screaming “Burn it down, burn it down.” )

—

...as often as it happens, Bruce doesn’t think Gotham knows how to deal with tragedy. Wasn’t it common by now? Weren’t they used to it? But as much as the flags should’ve flown half mast and statues been erected, the world stood still— the next morning, school busses take the children to school, and their parents march out to work. 

Bruce has a distinct face, but with enough makeup and a red wig, he can seem to be a different person for a while. He can dress himself up as officer and with enough confidence and disdain walk right passed the caution tape and into the crime scene the next morning. 

Is it still accurate to call several city blocks a crime scene? Is it a crime scene at all? 

There’s caution tape around it. He knows what the words mean in his head. A shape, more than a real definition, with real letters attached— a block of space that has crumbled differently from the world around him. A depression of buildings, some with more tarps laid down than others. 

Most of the bodies have been taken to the morgue by now. Not all of them. But most. 

Is he going to sneak into the morgue tonight? Is he going to cut open an innocent person who gave no consent to him? To do more than what their family may have agreed to? Will he just steal the coroner’s report and assume they did their jobs properly? 

….it is Gotham. He will assume nothing until proven otherwise. Even now it feels like the police are more rattled than usual, like something has actually gone and bitten them and made them pay a bit more attention.

Inside the building where the shootout started, he starts to look for the bullet holes and take pictures. He looks for scorch marks to track towards the origins of the blaze. 

He doesn’t find a blown gas vein, no matter how hard he looks. 

There was a difference between a storage building and a warehouse. This was a storage building. It had perhaps had a secretary and some organizers. Someone in charge of keeping track of records. There had been unused parts of the building. Bare rooms without much beyond stripped light switches and unpainted walls. One or two empty office spaces, for meetings perhaps. For presentations. 

It was on the second floor where he found the lab. What appeared to be the remains of a lab, in any case. It had been shot up through the floors, and the papers had burnt up in the fire. Police hadn’t officially come up this high yet. The stairs didn’t seem stable. Bruce had not specifically used the stairs. As long as no one saw him slip back down, it would be fine. 

It seemed as if the lab had not been in use at the time of the shootout. Fortunate. The beakers were broken, but they were all clustered together near the sink, clean, and so presumably had all been put away after any use. There was nothing sitting out that seemed to have been mid-use. He would’ve believed a Bunsen burner might’ve started part of the fire, but there was none of that, either. 

...there  was one thing. A broken tankard in the corner that had caused most of the damage, to be certain. A high caliber round seemed to have punctured it, either from the floor below or fired from the hall outside. Otherwise, there would’ve been another body up here, or at least the remnants of one. But the sudden decompression seemed to have mostly left just… a badly scattered room and shrapnel damage on the opposing wall. 

He was about to move to the next room when he noticed the faint texture inside the tank and a matching sort of stain on the ceiling above. 

...he moved closer to the tank, holding his breath and not daring to hope (should he be  hoping  for something?) and investigated. 

A thin layer of green-ish white powder layered the insides of the tankard. An explosive cloud of the stuff must have also flown towards the ceiling and stained it during decompression. He’d assumed it was an oxygen tank. Assumed wrong. 

Taking out a few q-tips, he picked up a few wipes and sealed them away in an evidence bag, did another once-over of the room, now trying to double check everything and ignore his ‘assumptions’, but the burnt papers remained largely illegible, and the cleaned lab materials yielded nothing new. 

He moved on to the next room, and slipped out quietly from there to check the rest of the street. 

—

He arrived back home in different clothes just about the time that Dick (picked up by Alfred) returned home from school. 

The kid looks at Bruce as Bruce enters the front room, and a silent but perceptible drone passes between them. 

For a moment, Bruce simply looked back, wondering what it was he was supposed to say here. 

Eventually, he fumbles in his pockets and pulled out dust-covered q-tips. They’d done this lots of times on the road, hadn’t they? And it had been fun, then. “Want to help identify oddly colored dust?” 

Dick lets his head drop back with an open-mouthed groan at the ceiling, but he does come to the garage lab without… any other response than that sound and movement.

...Bruce was not sure what that meant. 

—

Who the  fuck was rigging exploding nitrous oxide cans to deliver green-dyed powdered LSD?

—

Monday, at the park, he tells the ones who show up they can stay and work in the park as they’ve been doing the last two weeks, or they can come with him to help clean up the areas damaged by the fire.  

Most of them, eight out of the ten, peel off to go help with the fire damage. He can’t say he expected that. But they wander out of the park, keeping together in a group, and spend the day with magnet sticks picking up nails and crooked metal and stacking bricks up out of the walkway. They hose down the ashes to stop dust and at Bruce’s insistence, scoop the ashes into garbage bags instead of just washing it all into the sewer. 

It gets him some weird looks, but no one is ready to argue with him after only working for two weeks, because these are the ones who  stayed  for that daily stipend-- there’s not a contract here; these ten are the ones who hate this work less than anything else they might’ve had available, so they break out two flat shovels and bag things up, wearing cotton masks to avoid inhalation. Bruce trots back to the park to get the truck and pick up all those bags for disposal.

He’s prepared for the ones they left behind to have skipped out early, unsupervised, but as he rounds the (now lower) hedges to look at their base of operations he finds… they actually have acquired an extra person. 

No, the shovels aren’t moving and the hedges don’t look that different from what they’d been like this morning, but that’s still not  abandoning a position. And instead they have some soda cans from the nearby vending machine, and are leaning on a termite-eaten picnic table, talking with rapt interest to Dick Grayson. 

Bruce paused to take it in a second time. Dick certainly clocked him coming into view even though the kid didn’t turn to look his direction. Dick was still there, though, sitting on the other side of the picnic table with a fizzy orange juice and his legs crossed under himself. It wasn’t Bruce’s day to pick him up, Bruce was certain, and yet he had a moment where he had to think of it again to make sure, and checked his phone, and his pocket schedule. But his instinct was right, and it was indeed Alfred’s day to pick Dick up from school while Bruce worked here in the park--

He started to walk over just as Dick turned and raised a hand in greeting, letting the recruits cue into his presence before he was close enough to startle them. And yet, they were still startled enough to look at their shovels and very obviously say “shit,” even when Bruce was still too far away to actually hear it. Then, one seemed to realize they had cursed in front of a tween, said “shit” again, and smacked themselves on the forehead.

Dick’s nose wrinkled up as he smiled. Bruce couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was a laughter snort. 

(He did not acknowledge his jaw untensing as he walked up to Dick who was smiling and sociable again.) 

He came over intending to smile and say words and have a nice conversation, and… then he was close enough and realized he didn’t know what to say. Did he tell them not to corrupt Dick? Would they take that as him implying they were poisonous to others? Would Dick take that as him being protective and spoil the mild good mood? If he told them to take the rest of the day off since clearly things weren’t going to happen, was that dismissal? Or was that chasing them off? Would it be a threat to their paycheck, even though he intended to pay the day’s wages fair as always?

Things seemed to be going almost well lately. The park was slowly being cleaned and Dick was in better spirits than he’d been for two days since the anniversary--

“Oh, he stalled out, don’t worry about it.” 

It is not  embarrassment, but Bruce does snap out of his train of thought and back into the present. “Sorry,” he says, and looks to the two grown men in their baggy jackets and laced up work boots and secondhand hats. “We’re just finishing cleaning up some of the ash. If you come help move the last bit, we’ll all call it a day.”

As they got up and started shuffling away from the picnic table, Bruce did glance at Dick, and after a moment of still confusion, say, “Coming?” 

...the expression Dick gives him was not a smile. But he did come. 

-- 

They throw the garbage bags in the back of the trunk, and pack it largely to the brim. Surreptitiously, before Dick can climb into the passenger seat, Bruce digs out a simple dust mask and hands it to him. With barely a second look, Dick puts it on and rolls down the window before settling in. It’s smooth, and no one asks questions or looks much askance, because he and Dick are good by now at not announcing  something is happening that is different than normal to the world at large. 

(And Dick has become very good at seeing through that with Bruce, but Bruce is… starting to wonder if perhaps, he has taught Dick too well to hide anything that would draw attention that something was wrong. Like a wounded animal could run on a broken leg, or a predator bleed from the mouth, and neither would ever make a peep.)

They drove the bags of ashes home to hide behind the house’s perimeter walls, and Bruce tried to explain. The dust, and the huge plume of heat and smoke that could’ve blown even heavy particles down the street, and the sort of cues that psychedelics took from the state you were in. How most people probably wouldn’t exactly get a good trip, surrounded by gunfire and smoke. And maybe there was something else he missed, in the ash, unsafe for casual disposal, how he wasn’t  certain he hadn’t missed something--

Dick laid his head back on the car seat, sighing through his mask, and Bruce stopped his mumbling.

Glanced over. 

“...maybe I can… arrange for Flash to take a look, if you want to come along,” he offered as they pulled onto their street.

Dick sat up a little straighter, a little light in his eyes.

--

...he wondered, maybe unkindly (but mostly tiredly), if Dick would rather move in with the Flash and his sidekick. He didn’t have any real evidence for this. Kids did tend to be fairly excited to see friends around their own age, and just because someone might enjoy a trip to a festival didn’t mean they wanted to live in one.

...yet, Dick probably would’ve been quite happy, adopted into a renaissance fair circuit.

Maybe it wasn’t that Dick needed more friends. Maybe the issue was Bruce.

But it’s too late to change that now, isn’t it? Dick drew his line in the sand in front of the Justice League, and Bruce had given him too many secrets to have to keep, and there was nowhere else to go. 

—

Bruce goes to Gotham Academy early. Very early. Two hours before pickup is meant to be.

Dick has gotten into a fight. 

The parents of the other kid are already there when Bruce arrives and is shown to the principal’s office (it is in the same place it has been since Bruce went here) and ushered inside to the sound of anger and snapping threats. 

The office is wood, with a centered carpet and a large mahogany desk at the center, and surrounded by three adults and two children, one of them his. 

Dick doesn’t have a scratch on him, unless you count a faint bruise starting to show on his knuckles. The other boy, who is bigger and taller in every way, has a tissue up to his nose and an ice pack on his ear, and is simultaneously shielded and towered over by his two parents, neither of whom have stopped arguing with the principal since Bruce arrived. 

He barely gets a chance to get to Dick’s chair by the wall when he is also pulled into the argument by a “Is  this little heathen yours, Mister Malone?” from the mother. 

Things are not going to improve from there, he’s pretty sure.

“What’s going on?” he asks the principal instead, who is a balding white man with age spots on his face and horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. 

“ Master Richard here has assaulted Master Reynolds--” the principal begins.

“--and we will be pressing charges if adequate disciplinary action is not taken,” says the father.

“But what actually happened,” Bruce says, and somehow the noise gets louder in the room. Not the physical noise of three or four people talking at once, but also the hot dissent from Dick in his corner, the hidden bloodied fear of the boy he attacked, the principal patting the desk with his hands over and over, trying to call attention back to himself. Fluorescent lights bright as static. Itchy polyester fake turkish carpets even though his shoes. The room is small and red-orange with wood stained to look like cherry, yellow copper accents on the studs of cushions and trophies and the frames of portraits and certificates hung on the clustered walls--

Dick is suspended three weeks. 

--

Dick is curled in the front seat of the car, furious that Bruce didn’t defend him enough and fight back, and get his sentence reduced or vetoed entirely. His body is balled up tight enough he’s no bigger than he was at eight, curled around the seatbelt in a haze of fury. 

“He was  picking on people  ,” Dick says in a way Bruce knows means Dick had seen it before, but this time it had crossed a line. “  He should be suspended.”

‘He’ is getting two stitches and a formal apology written (ostensibly) by Dick. Dick will not be the one writing it, even if it’s his name at the bottom. ‘He’ will be in school, not in trouble for bullying but now with free reign to his targets without Dick to stand in the way. If Dick was even in the way before at all. If being in the way without being physical meant anything in this case. 

“You’ll just have to be more subtle about it,” Bruce says, trying to be encouraging. Because Dick didn’t do anything  wrong to step in. Maybe it didn’t deserve a bloody nose, maybe it could’ve been handled some other way, but he still hasn’t been able to wrangle the exact story out of anyone but he is certain that--

Dick goes “RRR” and kicks the windshield hard enough that Bruce startles and slams on the breaks. 

Their seatbelts jerk tight and a car horn behind them blares. 

...there is the faintest tap on their bumper, but Bruce is already speeding the car forward again, heart pounding too hard to stop. 

There’s not even a scratch when they get out at their house later.

--

He goes to Dick’s bedside in the evening. Dick’s lying on top of his covers with the lights turned off in a darkening room, staring at the wall opposite the door. There was music playing before, but the CD player turned off as soon as Bruce turned the door handle. 

He sits by Dick’s bedside and asks if he’d like to go out for the evening. 

Dick agrees, but there isn’t much laughter that night, except the sort Robin scares people with.

The mood is still there the next morning.

--

It is Superman’s turn to check in. Apparently. 

The visit is unscheduled (and probably because of  Dick’s suspension) and today involves casserole, which Bruce is primed automatically to dislike. 

"Yes?" Bruce says upon seeing big blue and buoyant in their kitchen, hovering over the kitchen island with a glass dish covered in aluminium and Alfred looking over a handwritten paper beside him. 

"Oh, hey, good morning there," Superman says, as if he's surprised to see Bruce here when there was no other person for him to be there to  see . "I was just dropping off the casserole recipe Alfred wanted to try."

…one of the only people for him to be here to see. But Bruce still doubted a casserole was a real reason for a whole visit. So Bruce tries again. "Did you need something?"

Alfred looks up from the paper with a frown and without a word starts shooing them out of the cooking space if they're going to be talking business. "I dunno. Was there something you needed to talk about?" 

They make it to the couches of the living room, though neither of them sit down. 

"No," says Bruce.

"Alright then," says Superman, who Bruce is learning is an asshole. "I heard some stuff happened with Dick at school?"

Which is entirely unsubtle and a very clear sign that Superman is not leaving until Bruce asks  some  sort of question or resolves whatever this is. 

So fine. Bruce hasn't even had some fucking coffee yet. He'll ask a question. "What would you do if your child, who is aware that at nightime they can go out and punch abusers and rapists, during the daytime attempted to defend an underclassman, and as a result are threatened with criminal action or suspension while you are trying to lie low and causing a big fuss about it and fighting the decision will do the exact opposite of laying low, severely limiting their freedom regardless of if we win."

Like a coward, Superman's expression says he had been thinking of Dick as a kid who was not  Dick , and sheepishly says, "I guess, what would your parents do?"

Bruce thinks he feels it this time. The expression on his face turning colder. He feels it the same way Dick can always see the change. "I wouldn't know that, now, would I?"

...this was why he left in the first place, wasn't it. This eternal loop of days upon days surrounded by people who just  forgot or never could let him forget. It's been easier as an adult, almost-- it's normal now for people's parents to be dead. It's normal to not have people ask after them like limbs they can't see have detached. Even if Superman doesn't know his old name, doesn't know that stupid story about a boy billionaire and his rich family, its jarring to realize that even the most alien being on earth just assumes--

--well, of course. He would know  all  humans have parents. 

But the bite in Bruce's voice is cold enough, and the way Alfred's slight shuffling in the kitchen goes quiet, it's enough to get through apparently-- Superman's head is ducked down embarrassed and he says, "right, sorry," because perhaps Bruce returning to Gotham to the fucking Wayne Butler's House should've been enough reason to realize he didn't have any family left of his own. "The person who raised you…"

"Nothing they said," Bruce interrupts, "has ever done anything about this."

…

Maybe he's angry. He hasn't had any coffee yet. But he turns to end this conversation and walk out to the garden, and hears Alfred's sigh from the kitchen. 

But he's telling the truth. 

Even if Alfred had found something new to say in the years since Bruce tried to bite his therapist's face off, if he's tried to say it to Dick, it clearly hasn't been working. 

--

There is a thing like a piston beating up against his head. A hammering rhythmically at the front of his skull. One thing, then another, then another, then another, and when he wakes up the next morning to one more ring there will still be all the ones behind him, echoing through the halls still unresolved. 

He wasn’t made to live like this. How was anyone made to live like this? One thing after another and another and when he wakes up in the morning there are still more banal, useless things to do in a world that eats up and eats up and eats up--

How does the grocery store clerk wake up each morning? How does she go to bed at night knowing the same thing will happen the next day, but worse, and more tired, and less pay, over and over, for eternity.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Portland protests see clashes between far-right, far-left groups (Reuters) Protests by rival far-right and left-wing groups in Portland descended into violence on Sunday, as the opposing sides engaged in clashes and at least one man was arrested for firing a gun at demonstrators. Nobody was hurt in an exchange of gunfire—and by Sunday evening there was no word on any injuries in numerous other skirmishes that saw opposing sides brawling, dousing each other in what appeared to be bear spray and breaking car windows of rivals. Police Chief Chuck Lovell said during a briefing on Friday that officers would not necessarily intervene to break up fights between the groups. But he added that “just because arrests are not made at the scene when tensions are high, does not mean that people won’t be charged with crimes.”

Henri hurls rain as system settles atop swamped Northeast (AP) The slow-rolling system named Henri is taking its time drenching the Northeast with rain, lingering early Monday atop a region made swampy by the storm’s relentless downpour. Henri, which made landfall as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, has moved northwest through Connecticut. It hurled rain westward far before its arrival, flooding areas as far southwest as New Jersey before pelting northeast Pennsylvania, even as it took on tropical depression status. Over 140,000 homes lost power, and deluges of rain closed bridges, swamped roads and left some people stranded in their vehicles.

Classes starting, but international students failing to get U.S. visas (Reuters) Kofi Owusu occasionally waits outside the U.S. embassy in Accra to ask fellow students what they have done to secure a timely visa appointment. Classes for his master’s program at Villanova University in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start Monday, but his in-person interview appointment for a first-time U.S. student visa is still nine months away. It’s the second time the political science student from Ghana won’t make it to the United States in time for school. Visa processing is delayed as U.S. embassies and consulates operate at reduced capacity around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving some students abroad unable to make it for the start of the academic year. The wait and the hassle threaten both the country’s standing as a preferred choice for international students and their economic contribution of around $40 billion annually to many universities and local economies. New international student enrollment in the United States dropped 43% in fall 2020 from the year prior, months after COVID sent the world into lockdown. The number of new students who actually made it onto campus in person declined by 72%, according to an enrollment survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

FDA approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Bloomberg) The pioneering coronavirus vaccine made by pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer was granted full approval by U.S. regulators. The government imprimatur is expected to trigger a flood of mandates by municipalities, agencies and private employers that had been waiting for the Food and Drug Administration sign-off. Following the announcement, the Pentagon said it would make vaccinations mandatory for military personnel worldwide and President Joe Biden called for mandates by companies.

Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See Their Prices (NYT) This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers. The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost. They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing. But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden. It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test. And in many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all. This secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting “steep” discounts, while still charging them many times what a public program like Medicare is willing to pay.

‘A Beautiful Feeling’: Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes (NPR) Like most Americans, I learned to ride a bike as a kid. I still remember the glee after learning how to ride a bike on a subdivision road where I grew up in Florida. But girls around the world don’t always get to experience the joy of a first bike ride. In some countries, conservative societies frown upon women and girls who ride bikes—it’s not considered dignified or appropriate—and gives a girl too much independence. Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer and activist, recalls riding a bike as an 11-year-old in the capital city of Damascus. “For the people [watching on the street], and even for the children, it was shocking to them that I was riding a bike. They started to say, ‘Oh, shame on you, you are a girl riding a bike,’” Seif says. “It just wasn’t in our culture.” But it’s never too late to learn. In Germany, a nonprofit group called Bikeygees is teaching refugee women from countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria how to ride. Since the group first started, it has taught 1,100 women how to ride a bike, says founder Annette Krüger. “It is possible to change the life of a woman in two hours. It is really magical,” says Krüger, an avid cyclist. “It’s a beautiful feeling when a person is riding a bike,” one refugee says with a broad grin.

Gunfire at Kabul airport kills 1 amid chaotic evacuations (AP/Foreign Policy) A firefight at one of the gates of Kabul’s international airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said, the latest chaos to engulf Western efforts to evacuate those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country. The shooting at the airport came as the Taliban sent fighters north of the capital to eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts seized by opponents the day before and had surrounded Panjshir, the last province that remains out of their control. The tragic scenes around the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, in addition to the seven killed Sunday. Tens of thousands of people—Americans, other foreigners and Afghans who assisted in the war effort—are still waiting to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles. Meanwhile, Afghanistan faces a quickly deepening economic crisis, with financial hardships increasingly affecting those in Kabul and other cities. Banks remain closed, food prices are rising, and the value of the local currency has plummeted. The suspension of commercial flights to Kabul’s international airport has in some ways exacerbated the crisis, halting the flow of some medical supplies and aid.

US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy (ABC News) Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they’ve become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned. One informal group, dubbed “Task Force Pineapple,” began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal. The former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter at the airport, where he shouted the password “pineapple” to American troops at the checkpoint. Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him. Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself “Task Force Dunkirk,” a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut. Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country.

Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out (AP) Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel. Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point. The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral—a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away. The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.

China changes law to allow married couples to have three kids (NY Post) China will now allow married couples to legally have a third kid amid concerns that its shrinking number of working-age people will threaten the country’s future prosperity and global influence. China has tried for decades to control the population, beginning with a policy imposed in 1979 that strictly limited couples to one child. Couples who didn’t follow the rule faced fines or loss of jobs—and in some cases, mothers were forced to undergo abortions. A preference for sons also led parents to kill baby girls, causing a massive imbalance in the sex ratio. The number of working-age people, meanwhile, has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding more strain to an aging society. With growing fears that the country would grow old before it became wealthy, the family planning rules were changed for the first time in 2015 to allow two children.

Cases up down under (CNN) Australia, like China, New Zealand, and some other countries, has attempted to completely eradicate Covid-19 inside its borders. The strategy had largely worked until recently; Australia has just 44,026 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 981 deaths. But several major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, and the capital Canberra, are again under lockdown as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant. On Saturday, thousands took to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to protest the long lockdowns; hundreds were arrested, and at least seven police officers were injured during violent clashes. In an opinion piece published Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison hinted at an end to the country’s zero Covid-19 infections strategy, but warned Australians to expect a rise in infections as restrictions relax.

[tsarisfanfiction]

The Only Course of Action

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort Characters: John, Scott

John’s job is to watch and listen, but sometimes he’s also the last resort.

Another @badthingshappenbingo this time with the square “Cradling Someone in Their Arms” - featuring a non-Virgil brother (as requested by @melmac78​).

I’m still taking prompts for non-Scott TAG characters for the other squares!  I have at least one character per prompt for most of them now, but I’m always up for adding more (sometimes it’s that addition that gives me the spark I need!)

John was fully trained in the field, just like his brothers.  He had to be – flexibility was a necessity in a small organisation like theirs.  Like Alan, he specialised in space rescues, working in zero-g where one wrong movement, one accidental snare could kill him and the people he was trying to rescue in seconds, but he’d scraped up a respectable enough level of experience of Earth-based rescues, too.

That didn’t mean he ever felt as comfortable on them.  Experience was the greatest teacher of all, and when it came to experience in the field, he ranked below even Alan now.  Really, that shouldn’t matter.  His primary role wasn’t Earth-based rescues.  Those weren’t even his secondary role – space rescues took that honour, for when Alan needed a little bit of backup or the rescue was close and simple enough to Thunderbird Five that a little trip EVA would sort it.

No, John’s role in International Rescue was to watch and listen.  Calls came in and he answered them, reassuring distressed, anonymous voices (not so anonymous, he remembered the names and faces of everyone who ever called) that help was on the way as he mobilised his brothers.  Scott was commander, but John was dispatch – an arrangement that worked for both of them.  Scott was impulsive, too impulsive to make the cold calls on which rescues to attend and which rescues were a lost cause.  His elder brother knew that he didn’t mobilise them for every call that came through, of course, but John never gave him the details of the rescues they didn’t do and Scott never asked.

It wasn’t just the victims he watched and heard.  He watched over his siblings every time they launched, locating potential issues and sorting them out before those on site fell afoul of them, and most of the time, that was enough.

Sometimes, it wasn’t.

Alan was on an asteroid mine with Kayo, helping a panicked crew repair their life support while Thunderbird Three supported them in the meantime.  Thunderbird Two was in the Peruvian alps with Virgil and Gordon on board, assisting with a mudslide that had buried a village.  Scott and Thunderbird One should have been with them, but another call had come in from the Himalayas – a small party had found themselves stranded on the peak of a mountain – and John had diverted his eldest brother to help them instead.  The plan was for Scott to pick up the party, take them to safety, then go to assist Thunderbird Two with the long slog the mudslide would be.

John hated it when things didn’t go to plan.

“Scott!” he called, the direct line to his brother’s comm open.  “Thunderbird One, are you receiving me?”

He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t panicking at all. Panic was unnecessary, a hinderance in his role that he’d long since mastered.  Except he was, because Scott was alone, approximately halfway down Malaku, and had suddenly stopped responding after letting out a single cry.

“The line!”

His altitude had dropped sharply, there had been a heart-stopping crunch from Scott’s end, and now there was nothing, no matter how much John tried to rouse a response. The comm channel was still open – John could hear slow, too slow, shallow, breathing – but that just made it worse. It was one thing being cut off by technology; it was another entirely to know he was getting through but still hearing no answer.

Thunderbird Two was almost as far away as it was possible to be, over on the other side of the world. Even at top speed, leaving immediately, it would take Virgil and Gordon two and a half hours to get there, but they still had their own rescue to complete – a long slog of a mudslide that would keep them tied up for at least another hour, if not longer.  Alan and Kayo were even further away, time and distance wise, and likewise were tied up where they were until they finished the repairs.  Between the two rescues, there were over a thousand lives at risk.

John wanted to say Scott was worth those lives, but that was the scared little brother in him talking. One life, no matter who it was, was not worth a thousand, and such a selfish act from International Rescue would jeopardise everything they’d worked for.  None of his brothers would ever forgive him, Scott least of all.

He should contact the GDF, call in one of the many favours he had hoarded from Colonel Casey to get them moving, or even Lady Penelope and Parker, but the latter were in England and FAB1 would take too long, and the GDF – even with Colonel Casey on their side – couldn’t mobilise without a pile of paperwork and other red tape.  They, too, would take hours.

It was, at minimum, two hours before anyone could realistically get to Scott and the party he’d been trying to save.

Scott’s suit telemetry told him two hours was too long.  His heartbeat was too fast, his temperature too low, and red lights were flashing up all over the place, highlighting irreparable damage to the flight suit itself. He couldn’t get the full picture from it, but he could get enough to know that Scott needed medical attention urgently, and was highly unlikely to regain consciousness.

John’s role was to work as dispatch, surveying the availability of all personnel at his disposal and highlighting the most efficient solution from the options they had.  Thunderbird Two was, at minimum, three and a half hours away from being able to assist.  Thunderbird Three, ten.  FAB1, seven. The GDF, depending on the speed of their bureaucracy, two.  None of those were good enough.

Thunderbird Five, nine minutes to reposition, fifteen to descend.  Twenty-five minutes total response time, accounting for the time it would take to enter and exit the space elevator.

Acceptable.

“EOS,” he said, already moving for the controls to move his Thunderbird.  “I need you to take over space monitor duty.”

“Of course, John,” the AI agreed – her existence was a blessing; with two other rescues as well, one of which requiring constant monitoring, without her there was no way John would have been able to leave Thunderbird Five.  “How would you like me to address the authorities?”

“Use my face.”  They shouldn’t do that – it was dangerous, and Scott had forbidden her from ever impersonating him again – but it was better than letting her existence slip out to the wider world.

“Should I inform your brothers about the situation?” she asked, and John thought for barely a moment.

“Once they’re finished with their rescues,” he said.  “Or if they ask.”  They didn’t need the distraction.

“I understand.”

Strictly speaking, John should apply for permission to move his Thunderbird.  There were many other satellites also in geostationary orbit, mostly GDF, and the shift from Tracy Island to Malaku was reasonably substantial.

There was no time for that. He’d pull strings later to deal with the fallout once Scott was safe.  Thunderbird Five’s thrusters engaged.

He spent the nine minutes familiarising himself with the layout of the immediate area, memorising Thunderbird One’s current position, the location of the party, and his brother’s suit telemetry, before equipping himself with everything he’d need for the descent and whatever he’d find down there.  Helmet, with a full supply of oxygen.  Grapple lines, as many as he could carry.  Emergency first aid kit, Earth-rescue version.

All the while, he stayed on the line with Scott, trying to get some reaction from his brother and wishing he could ignore the ever more alarming readouts from his suit.

He continued to stay on the line as Thunderbird Five’s braking manoeuvres completed and he charged into the space elevator, instructing EOS to lower it as fast as possible.  The AI being Scott’s firm ally on anything regarding safety, it wasn’t much faster than his usual descents, but it was enough to cut a minute off of the predicted fifteen minutes as it latched onto a crag on the side of the mountain and the doors opened – only after some overrides, because it wasn’t designed to let him out anywhere that wasn’t deemed ‘safe’.  He was glad Brains had agreed to those as he fired a grapple at the cliff wall above him, another safety line latching him on the space elevator itself for added security, and let gravity take hold of him.

EOS had homed in on Scott’s location signal when she’d lowered him, meaning that the crumpled blue figure was barely twenty feet below and to the left.  Even for John, less experienced on Earth-rescues and general enemy of gravity, it was a simple enough feat to swing down onto the ledge where his brother lay.

Scott’s helmet was smashed open like an egg – one of Grandma’s eggs, where the shell went everywhere, rather than being neatly split in two.  Instantly, John could see that that had saved his life, although with the air thin, it had deprived him of valuable oxygen in return.  Blood stained the snow and protruding rocks.  Head wounds always bled a lot, and as John crouched down by his brother he could see that this was another case of it looking worse than it really was.

That scale, of course, was subjective.  There was still a large gash running along his temple and down his jaw, and a slight depression in the skull when John lightly probed through blood-matted hair with his gloved fingers.  None of that was remotely good, but Scott wasn’t dead, and John clung to that knowledge as he continued his assessment, pulling out the medical scanner.  He wasn’t Virgil, couldn’t diagnose injuries without the assistance of technology, but he was here and Virgil was the other side of the world, potentially still oblivious to what had happened.

Scott’s left arm was bent at several wrong angles, and even John didn’t need the scanner to tell him that there were multiple breaks.  His clavicle had also snapped, but mercifully his spine and neck were undamaged, according to the scanner.  His left leg had also broken – clean breaks to the tibia and fibula – but otherwise the flight suit had done its job well.

“Scott?” he called, scavenging a splint from his supplies to immobilise the arm and leg before he cautiously rolled his brother over, pulling him into his arms.  Blood from the gash had drenched the right side of his face and it was with trembling fingers that John wielded antiseptic to clear it away.  “Scott, wake up.”

It was an exercise in futility; Scott was well past regaining consciousness.  His body was limp against John’s chest, across his knees, and they needed to move.

“EOS, remote pilot Thunderbird One to my location.”

She didn’t respond, but the roar of the VTOL was answer enough, Scott’s beloved Thunderbird soaring into view. There wasn’t room for her on the crag John and Scott were on, but the fast response craft was small and nimble enough to land on a larger area, about a hundred yards away.

“Is that close enough?” the AI asked him.  “There is no closer landing location, but there is the option of leaving Thunderbird One in a hover closer to your location.”

John looked at the terrain separating them.  It was rough, but not unsurmountable.  Dealing with a Thunderbird One in mid-air, where the wind could gust around and dislodge her at any moment, was ill advised in comparison.

“That’s perfect, thank you, EOS,” he assured her.  A twist and he released the line still clipping him to the space elevator, looming above him but fundamentally useless at this point.  “Retract the space elevator and return to regular geostationary orbit before the GDF notice we moved.”

“F.A.B.”  The thrusters on the bottom of the elevator engaged, and John hunched over his brother as the clamps released their grip on the crag and the entire thing lifted up and away.  Now he had to get moving.

First priority: get Scott to Thunderbird One and finish administering emergency treatment.

Second priority: pick up the stranded group, thereby completing the rescue.

Third priority…  “EOS, find me a hospital for head trauma.”

“Yes, John.”

Third priority: get Scott and any other injured people to professional treatment as quickly as possible.

It was a simple plan, but the first hurdle was undoubtably crossing a hundred yards of craggy and snow-covered mountain with an unconscious brother to reach Thunderbird One and relative safety.  The route didn’t look too difficult, although the snow added an additional level of complication – Tracy Island had a wonderfully craggy volcano they’d all trained on, but snow just didn’t exist there.

Transporting Scott across the distance was the main complication.  None of his injuries would be exacerbated by being moved, but he was still tall and muscular – and John was straight out of orbit.  Still, there was no real choice and John was a Tracy, just like the rest of them.  Giving up wasn’t in his vocabulary, not in any language, so with gritted teeth he slipped out from underneath Scott’s limp body and repositioned himself so that he could slide his arms beneath Scott’s shoulders and thighs.

A grunt of effort escaped him as he straightened, staggering backwards under the weight and colliding with the mountain behind him before he managed to find his balance.  A trickle of snow slid down to land beside him, dislodged by the contact, and he froze, ears searching for any sound of further movement.  Larger, heavier movement, whether it be boulders or snow.

There was none, and he dared to breathe a sigh of relief before looking down at Scott and readjusting him as best he could so that his head was cushioned against his shoulder rather than lolling limply, enslaved to gravity.

His head was still bleeding, fresh blood spilling over where John had cleaned the wound once already, and that was more than enough incentive for him to take a careful step forwards, staggering a little to keep his balance under the combined challenges of Scott’s weight and gravity, followed by another, and another. Hurrying wouldn’t do him any good at all; the terrain was treacherous and he’d proven several times at home that he could trip over his own feet if he wasn’t paying enough attention.  Falling, dropping Scott, would be disastrous, so he ignored the instincts screaming that he had to hurry, that they were in danger, that Scott needed attention urgently, and took his time.

His line to Scott was, somehow, still open, his brother’s slow, shallow breathing providing both background noise and something to focus on.  As long as he was breathing, he was alive.  John’s grip on his brother tightened, pulling him in as close as he dared as he kept his slow, staggering pace towards the silver Thunderbird.

With the possible exception of Thunderbirds Four and Shadow, Thunderbird One was the Thunderbird John had spent the least amount of time in.  Thunderbird Five was his home, and Thunderbird Three was often boarded for rescues, while Thunderbird Two was his ride whenever he did go out on an Earth-rescue, but Thunderbird One?  That was all Scott’s, all speed and responsiveness.  John was none of those things, had never cared for going fast or joyriding like his big brother did.

But for all that he hated gravity, he was surprisingly at home with acceleration – most likely because that was a necessary requirement to get into space in the first place – so in that regard, Thunderbird One didn’t phase him at all.  Therefore, it was with less trepidation about handling his brother’s Thunderbird and more concern about his brother himself that he staggered his way up the boarding ladder and called up a jump seat to situate his still-limp big brother in.

The jump seats weren’t designed for comfort, or indeed anything other than short hops when Thunderbird One had to take a passenger, but they did at least have additional straps that the pilot seat didn’t.  The Thunderbird couldn’t carry injured like Thunderbirds Two through Four did, with room for a stretcher and the full medical kit to go with it, but she did still have the basics.

Enough straps to keep the patient immobile, a rebreather to supply oxygen, and equipment for some field stitches to temporarily close wounds until the professionals – or Virgil – got at them.

Time was still vital, not just for Scott but for the party still in need of pickup, so John had to work quickly, mopping away the blood from the gash and cleaning it to make sure nothing had got in the wound before stitching it up and placing a large gauze over it.

Scott still didn’t respond, slack in the seat, and John swallowed once, allowing himself that one weakness, before he settled himself in the pilot seat and carefully brought them up into the air.  Contrary to popular belief amongst his brothers, he did frequently train on the sims – or at least, their Thunderbird Five equivalent – and while holographic controls didn’t feel like the real thing, Thunderbird One responded to him contentedly enough.

Scott’s plan had been to remote pilot Thunderbird One above the mountain while he himself grappled his way to the party to assist them in boarding.  John knew that he couldn’t do that – this rescue was not going to be as flawlessly smooth as perhaps the stranded people were hoping – so he was left with the slightly cruder option of taking Thunderbird One high up, until he was above the mountain, and lowering the cargo net.

Technically the cargo net wasn’t for humans, but there was nothing else in Thunderbird One’s arsenal that he could confidently use in the situation.  He wasn’t Scott – or Alan, or any of his brothers with their Earth-rescue experience – but he was a problem solver.  It was a bonus that none of the hikers complained about the unorthodox nature of their rescue – and that none of them were injured, just cold from the exposure to the elements for too long.  Some foil blankets, warm drinks, and reassuring words (easier done from space, but John just pretended they were holograms and not living, breathing warm bodies until the stutter vanished) and he was back in the pilot seat, glancing back worriedly at Scott before punching the fastest Earth-Thunderbird in the fleet towards the local hospital.

They were expecting him, thanks to EOS, although there was some minor confusion when they believed it was him they’d been talking to and John scrambled to pretend he knew what their conversation with EOS-as-John had entailed while the AI filtered a recording through his helmet.  The hikers disembarked under their own steam, being dragged inside by the kind doctors for assessment, but it fell on John to get Scott out.

It was easier to pick him up the second time around.  Thunderbird One was a far more stable place to be than halfway down a mountain, so John had less to worry about with his balance or feet, and Scott being in a chair made him much easier to slip his arms under him and lift him up.  He held him close, grip almost possessively tight as he carefully made his way down the boarding steps.

No longer wearing his helmet, Scott’s breathing wasn’t a steady sound in his ear.  Instead he focused on the sensation of breath tickling his jaw from where Scott’s head rested in the crook of his neck and the rise and fall of his chest promising that he was still alive.  A large part of John was reluctant to let go again, his hold lingering as he gently set Scott down on the offered stretcher; not because he didn’t trust the doctors to help Scott, but because letting go meant being left blind.

Normally when a brother was hospitalised, John was up on Thunderbird Five, obtaining access to the hospital’s cameras, systems, and keeping track of everything to do with his brother until visitors were permitted – at which point he either came down, if it was serious, or metaphorically handed over watch-duty to his family on Earth and began working out what had gone wrong and how to make sure it didn’t happen again.

John wasn’t on Thunderbird Five this time.  John was in Nepal, watching his brother being hurried into the building, away from him, knowing that there would be no more news for him for some time.  EOS was amazing, but John had always done that bit himself, and with her still handling two other rescues, hacking into a hospital would not be on her priorities.

Scott was taken inside, and John was left standing alone underneath his brother’s Thunderbird, unsure. What was the procedure now?  What did his brothers do when they were left alone, unable to follow?  Did he stay with the Thunderbird until someone else arrived, or did he go in and sit in the waiting room, closer but still too far away?

His comm sparked to life. “John!”  Virgil.  Worried Virgil.  This was something he could handle.  John took a breath and answered.

“Receiving you, Virgil.”

“EOS just told us about Scott,” his brother started, confirming John’s suspicions.  “What’s his condition?”

“His left arm, collarbone and leg are broken,” John reported, feeling some twisted comfort in being able to fall back on facts.  “He’s also suffered a head injury.  The hospital staff have just taken him in for treatment.”

“Conscious?” Virgil demanded, and John shook his head.  The worry on the holographic face deepened, frown lines clearly visible.  “Gordon and I are clearing up here.  We’ll be with you as soon as we can.”

“F.A.B.”  Two and a half hours until they arrived.  Two and a half hours of not knowing, of waiting in silence with nothing to distract him.

His glove was red. Scott’s blood.  He swallowed.

He definitely wouldn’t get any information waiting out by Thunderbird One.  Slowly, he walked out from under her shadow, bringing up the remote controls to lock her down and hearing the robotic hiss of the boarding ladder retreating before the cargo bay doors swung shut with a barely-there clunk.  Satisfied that the Thunderbird, at least, was dealt with, he strode towards the main door of the hospital.

IR blue was a language all on its own.  He didn’t even need to dredge up what little Nepali he knew without the help of a translator to explain why he was there or hope they spoke a mutual language.  As soon as they saw him, he was ushered through into what was clearly a waiting area, complete with a machine that no doubt served bad coffee.  John declined a drink before settling down in a corner, away from the doors but where he could see the entirety of the room, to wait.

Inactivity did not suit John at all.  While his suit had the most technological capabilities out of all of them, it didn’t lend itself to some of the less authorised access he liked to obtain, and even if he could, hacking into the hospital while he was in it was just begging to be caught, no matter how good he was.  Likewise, most of what he could do was based on the secret side of IR they didn’t let the public see, and even taking back mission control from EOS was inadvisable, leaving him with nothing to do but sit still and try not to stare at the blood on his glove.

In a way, he was glad that his younger brothers weren’t with him.  While he wasn’t Scott, didn’t distract himself from inner turmoil by big brothering anyone he could, especially his own younger brothers, there was still a mild compulsion to put on a brave face for them, reassure them that things weren’t as bad as things seemed.  On the other hand, if they were there, he wouldn’t be alone.

He didn’t even have his phone.  He didn’t need it on Thunderbird Five, his Thunderbird linked in to everything without the need for something that needed frequent charging and didn’t like a lack of gravity. No phone, no tablet, just the limitations of his uniform-based comm and blood on his glove.

He should probably wash that off.  Realistically, he knew there wouldn’t be any news yet; it took time to reset bones, never mind the brain scan and whatever would need to be done from that.  The maximum five minutes it would take him to locate a bathroom and clean his glove would not run any risk of him missing some vitally important news.

John didn’t move.

He was still there, staring at the blood, when the roaring engine that could only be Thunderbird Two came into earshot.  Virgil tore into the room a few minutes later, Gordon hot on his heels, and suddenly he was bracketed by younger brothers.  Neither touched him, but something warm settled in his chest.

Not alone.  He wasn’t alone anymore.

“No news?” Gordon asked, his voice telling John he already knew the answer.

“Not yet,” he confirmed. Gordon slumped, amber eyes flicking around the room as if hoping news would miraculously appear.

“Your glove,” Virgil said. He spoke quietly, his worry for Scott bleeding through, but his intent was clear.  John balled the hand into a fist.  “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

It was a clear demand, but it was what John needed to move, dragging himself to his feet and belatedly feeling the drag of gravity and his too-rushed descent.  His hip hit a table and he stumbled, but Virgil was there, holding him up.

“You okay by yourself?” Gordon asked, openly concerned.

No.  “I’ll manage.”

He made his way out of the room, hand trailing along the wall for stability, following the signs to the nearest men’s bathroom and sagging against the sink.  His reflection looked back at him in the mirror, gaunt and pale.  Nothing particularly unusual, considering his lifestyle.  A lack of both sun and regular sleep, on top of his naturally pale complexion, frequently left him looking sickly.  His brothers were reluctantly used to it.  John didn’t spend much time in front of a mirror.

Tearing his eyes away from his reflection, he slowly put his glove under the faucet, letting the water gush out as his movement was detected.  It quickly ran red, picking up Scott’s blood and swirling it away, down the drain.  He watched it, not interrupting, for a minute before beginning to rub away where it had dried and clung to the ridges in his uniform.  Only once it was clean did he stop, holding it out under the dryer to blast away the molecules of water clinging to it in the blood’s place.

News took another hour to arrive.  By then, Virgil had poured himself a cup of the coffee, making a face but drinking it nonetheless, while John had played it safer with a teabag and hot water for a passable drink.  Penelope wouldn’t have agreed, but John needed the caffeine.  Gordon had stuck with water, and seemed to have the cup in his hands mostly to have something to occupy them with.  The water was long since drunk, and the cup had been methodically torn to pieces.

“International Rescue?” The doctor’s English was halting but understandable.  He was looking at John, presumably recognising him as the one to bring Scott in.

“How is he?” he asked, pulling himself to his feet.  The doctor frowned at him in concern and he remembered the pale, gaunt face in the mirror. No doubt a point of concern for a medical professional.  To John’s relief, he refrained from commenting.

“He will be fine.” Beside him, he heard Gordon sigh in relief, both his younger brothers sagging in his periphery.  “We have set all the broken bones.  The cut is stitched and his skull repaired.  You can see him now.”

John knew better than to expect to see Scott awake, so he wasn’t disappointed to find his brother still unconscious when he was led into the room.  Behind him, Virgil made a beeline for the medical information stored at the end of the bed, but John left him to it, instead approaching his brother.

A large chunk of his hair had been shaved off, which John knew his brother wasn’t going to be happy about, and what remained stuck out oddly from the bandages, giving Scott a dishevelled look.  Stitches and gauze – no longer John’s field treatment, but professional grade – covered the gash down his face, while his arm and leg were wrapped in cast.

Somehow, he looked worse now than he had done on the mountain.  John wasn’t tactile, not like his brothers, but he found himself reaching out for Scott’s uninjured shoulder.  As he made contact, an arm snaked around his own shoulders.  Startled, he looked sideways to see Gordon, a small smile on his face.

“He’ll be fine,” Virgil said from his other side, and John glanced across at him before returning his attention to Scott, motionless on the bed.  “The brain scans all came up clear.  Once he regains consciousness it’ll be safe to take him home, and then you won’t be able to escape fast enough.”

Virgil wasn’t wrong; John much preferred to tackle a grounded Scott from the safety of space, where he could mute him when he got too annoying.

That was in the future, once Scott was awake and John was fed up of his complaining.  Right now, John was where he needed to be – by his brother’s side.

[seumadruga]

The Okash wolves

Chapter 3- An annoying thing about spirits

Sinag

An annoying thing about spirits was how they pretended that everyone had the same magic. Sinag had seen a story this morning about an academic who thought he was close to understand the basic rules of magic.

This was stupid, different kinds of magic had different rules. Yet spirits liked to pretend that everything was the same. What annoyed him the most about it was that they knew everything about humans. They were there the whole time, since the beginning, always watching.

- All right boys, the forms are ready.

Another annoying thing about spirits were how much they liked bureaucracy. Both there and in schools in the North and East it was necessary to fill out forms and documents for almost anything.

When Sinag sat in his chair he realized he had left his glasses in his bedroom. Desperate he hit his pockets to see if he hadn’t put them there, but it was in vain.

- I’m such an idiot.

- You really are.

Sinag rolled his eyes. He began to move his mouse over the screen to see if the screen reader had been turned on, But no sound came out. It was true that there weren’t many disabled people in the school, but he’d been there for years the lady should know he was visually impaired. She should have enabled the accessibility option.

He heard his friend’s chair approaching and then Batu’s coffee breath was on his face.

- Has the asshole tried to see if it works with the headphone?

Batu went back to his computer. By using the headphone Sinag was able to hear what was happening on screen. I’m sorry lady. He found the function that increased the letter of the screen and then began to fill out the form. He pulled a mind leaf out of his bad and started chewing.

Batu happily sighed and Sinag heard him drink the coffee noisily.

- Coffee is so good.

- Really? And here I was thinking that spitting in your coffee would spoil the taste.

Batu spat out the coffee he was drinking and coughed a few times.

- I can’t believe you did this. You’re going to make some coffee for me.

- Not possible, I have violin class right now.

Sinag lowered the source of the letters from the computer and took his cane. He knew Batu would pay back, but it would probably happen at night. He could relax for now.

Technically Sinag should be able to walk around the school without his cane, he studied there for over ten years. But there were some problems.

There were cabinets, tables and shelves that were in the hallways and to time to time someone would move them, which wouldn’t be a problem if the furniture weren’t as white as the walls. Besides, there were the kids who played in the hallways and left their toys scattered. And then there was that time he stepped on someone sleeping on the floor. So, he used his cane all the time.

Sinag needed to get out of the building, go to his room, pick up his violin and then go back to the building for the violin class. He sighed at the idea and could immediately hear his older sister’s voice in his head. Lazy, ungrateful, spoiled. And then it came the guilt he always felt whenever he thought in his family, especially Atay.

The guilt was quickly replaced by discomfort. There were many spirits around, he could feel them. There were always spirits all over the school, it was impossible for you to go into one place, and they weren’t there. But it was strange to have so many in one hallway. The weird thing was that it looked like they were following Sinag. He started sweating and fixed his shirt nervously.

He breathed deeply as he came down the stairs. His shoulders were tense. He hadn’t done anything wrong this time; he was sure of it. Arriving on the second floor the spirits disappeared, but this didn’t make Sinag relaxed.

He left the building and headed for the dorms. They were three in total, one for boys, one for girls and the last one for teachers and the staff. There was a path that connected the school building and the dorms, but it unfortunately had no tactile floor.

In the right side there was the cafeteria and the library. They were in the same building, with many trees around the building and gardens made by students. On the left side there a court and bleachers around it. There was always a group throwing something on the court. Sinag could hear people playing on it in the moment.

All building were circular and white with oval windows. The tallest building was the school one and the library was the smallest.

The dorms were the only place the spirits didn’t come in. Sinag knew it wasn’t for that, the spirits at the entrance would have followed him to his room. His sweaty hadn’t made holding the cane difficult.

Although the dormitories were separated it was common to see boys and girls prowling and even sleeping in the other building. That wasn’t a very strict rule.

His room was on the third floor, he shared it with Lali. They weren't friends, but they got along and that was enough. It was extremely difficult to change roommates, the process took months and dozens of forms needed to be filled out in the process.

Just before arriving in the room Sinag felt the presence of Ahfa. She was in the building and probably behind him. He tried to breathe and count to ten to calm down. It wasn't working.

The children who were playing had stopped and hurriedly packed their toys. The conversation in the hallway had become a whisper. Sinag hadn't moved yet. And then he could see the green glow coming his way.

Ahfa was an imposing figure. She was 1.90 tall and a serious, powerful voice. She had crowbar and two horns. Her clothes seemed to be made of feathers and her hair was like running water. And everything about her, from the eyes to the hair were grass-colored, even the clothes. She smelled like herbal tea. Once while touching her Sinag felt that despite being palpable it was almost as if he could overtake her. However, the strangest thing about The Ahfa was that despite touching the ground she made no noise when walking.

She came very close to Sinag, instilling his personal space. He swallowed it dry.

- Sinag, darling. I saw that this month you filled out two more forms than usual. Is there a reason for that?

Sinag swallowed it dry.

- Well, my sister broke her leg, so my family needed a little help with that. And then came this disease that ended up harming many plantations here in the South as you may know. My family was also harmed - he took a break to take a deep breath - and that's why I filled out two forms.

- Humm. Did you know that there is a way to delete forms that were submitted? – her voice was soft and sweet - I'm just asking because sometimes we don't know about places we've lived in a long time.

- I already knew that.

She was silent for a while. Sinag was all sweaty.

- Don't you think two forms are too much? Did you have that impression?

He opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it. Maybe she was right. Maybe two forms were too much. The school already sent financial aid monthly to his family. Asking for more, not just once, but twice, seemed wrong.

- Do you think I should delete one of the forms?

- Well, my dear if you think this is the best choice, I want you to know that I'm going to support you.

With that she moved away and went up the stairs. Sinag wasn't breathing properly, and his pulse was racing. He headed to his room slowly. He could hear Lali walking in the room.

Upon entering he went straight to pick up his violin, he always stood at the end of his bed, leaning against the wall. His breathing had not been stabilized yet.

- Sinag, I'm going to change my dresser tomorrow could you help me with this process?

Sinag sat on his bed and nodded. He wasn't exactly the best person for that. Even Kito is stronger than you and he's 12. Weak is too little for you. The funniest thing about all this was that he and Atay were very much alike. Both had a small nose, big eyes, thick eyebrows, lots of acne and big ears. But it was with her that he had the worst relationship.

She talked to you, didn't she?

- Aham.

- About what?

Sinag sighed.

- Actually, I do not know exactly what she wanted– another annoying thing about spirits, they were always confused and obtuse. He ran his hand through his face – Maybe I should delete one of my forms, ask for two was too much.

No, not at all. Sinag the role of this college is to help society and support the students who study here. This help you asked for is necessary. Your family needs this.

Sinag agreed, which Lali said made sense. But he couldn't think straight.

- Don't you have violin class now?

- I do, but - but she was still in the building. He could bump into her on the way to class.

Lali approached Sinag and put his hand on his shoulder, he was silent. When they felt Ahfa moving around the building, Lali squeezed Sinag's shoulder slightly tighter. And then finally Sinag's breath began to return to normal.

[popwasabi]

The monster of “Shin Gojira” is government incompetence

I know it doesn’t feel like it but we’re just three months away from March again.

It’s been almost a year now since the beginning of quarantine, when the world had to be shut down due to the escalating nature of COVID-19 and things have…largely only gotten worse.

In the US specifically.

On March 13th we had 2,204 cases of COVID in the United States and a total of 49 deaths.  Today we have 14 MILLION cases across the country and currently 274,000 plus deaths. To put that in perspective we have nearly as many cases of COVID in the US alone as there are people in the cities of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago combined and we’re experiencing a 9/11’s worth of new deaths every day.

This is not even to mention the economic strain the pandemic has put the country under. Lockdowns and quarantines, without supplemental income to bolster those losses have led to closures, massive unemployment, people running deeply behind on their rent, and crushing debt for many if not buried in medical costs from being infected. Common people are trying their best to navigate a year unlike any other and are largely floundering with little to no help in sight.

And all this can be chalked up to one culprit in particular: our government’s incompetence.

(Remember all that fuss made about “breadlines” in the global south back during grade school?)

From the beginning when this virus first reared its ugly head in 2020, not enough was done to prepare the country for what would come next. Call it hubris or American Exceptionalism, but our government just was not taking it seriously as the President boasted cases would just “disappear” after late February and our leaders largely pretended it either was a) not a big deal or b) would never be a big deal.

Nearly nine months later senate Republicans still think another massive bailout for the nation’s richest coporations is the way to go, all while giving us $1,200 band aid for our troubles.

And make no mistake, the Dems have hardly been guiltless during this crisis themselves.

(“It’s a biiiiiig club, and you ain’t in it...” ~ George Carlin.)

As we see other countries largely find ways to navigate around COVID and create a safe environment where some normalcy can be maintained it becomes increasingly clear to anyone who isn’t a psychopath that the US has grossly mishandled this threat from the beginning. It’s a slow moving disaster that could’ve largely been avoided if our leaders gave a damn and it feels increasingly like we’re all just going to get the virus at some point because there’s virtually no structural safeguard in place to protect us.

This lamenting of the futility of our government’s response to crises is the central theme of one of my favorite monster movies of all-time; “Shin Gojira” (or “Godzilla Resurgence” for American audiences). Directed by “Neon Genesis Evangelion’s” own Hideaki Anno, “Shin Gojira” tells a similar story of a literal slow-moving disaster in the form of titular atomic fire lizard rising from the Pacific Ocean to decimate Japan once again and how the government poorly responds to it.

For most Americans, Godzilla is something of a joke as a movie character.

He’s Japan’s version of King Kong, a great fire-breathing reptile for thousands of random Japanese to scream “AAAAHHH! GODZILLA!!!” at while a man in a rubber suit knocks down model buildings for two hours. For several decades, he was even a bit of a superhero for children; the good monster who fought bad monsters like King Ghidorah, Gigan, and Hedorah.

The newer American remakes by Legendary Studios have not done much to change this perception. In these films, Godzilla is again depicted as a “titan” for the people doing battle with the bad titans set with people in mo-cap suits duking it out in front of greenscreens that create elaborate cities for the monsters to stampede through.

It is just not that deep to most people and who could blame them? Godzilla is cheap popcorn escapism for most audiences and most of his films see him as such.

(“Wait you mean to tell me this isn’t serious theater??”)

But Godzilla has a much darker origin, however. 1954’s original “Gojira” isn’t some cheap monster flick; it’s an allegory for the atomic bomb and the terror it brought upon the people of Japan. At the time of its release the Japanese hadn’t really reckoned with what happened in WWII, it was a source of deep shame and horror and it broke the spirits of many back then. After an atomic bomb test accidentally radiated the crew of a Japanese fishing boat in 1954, director Ishiro Honda became inspired to create the King of the Monsters after Japan’s own government largely mishandled the fallout. The film was a huge hit and Japanese audiences were moved by the dark allegorical nature of the story.

With “Shin Gojira” Anno brings Godzilla back to this grimmer tone. He was inspired by the events of 2014’s Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and how the Japanese government once again failed to act in a major crisis. Through his 2016 film, Anno aimed to depict the slow moving nature of a developing disaster quite literally with the character of Godzilla and how a crisis can only get worse and worse if left largely unchecked by those tasked to protect us.

(Hardly Hideaki Anno’s first forray into movies about crises, of course, but that’ll be for another write-up. Stay tuned...)

Godzilla begins in “Shin Gojira” as a small, destructive, but ultimately killable lifeform as he appears in the waters off Tokyo Bay. His beady, soulless eyes, tadpole like form, oozing putrid toxic blood everywhere through his malformed gills are pretty gross and Anno directly references Fukushima as the beast creates a tidal wave as he makes his way toward land in the opening sequence.

Meanwhile as Godzilla causes horrific damage to the city in this small (comparatively to earlier films) but powerful form, the Japanese Government tries to put an end to it. But as they try to address the escalating nature of the problem, bureaucracy gets in the way at every turn. Through the use of fast cuts and dark humor, Anno creates his own “Dr. Strangelove” set of scenes as Japanese politicians scramble from one board room to another to weigh options in cold math against the very real people who are fleeing for their lives as they debate with one another. Anno, doesn’t go out of his way to depict anyone as explicitly the villain here, but he does make it very apparent that when government officials refuse to accept the reality of a crisis people die. In a scene that is played partially for laughs, that feels all too relevant and frankly on the nose now, the Prime Minister addresses Japan on TV by assuring the people that there is “no way” Godzilla can make landfall and everyone will be safe. Moments later he is interrupted on live TV as Godzilla has in fact made landfall.

(Yea and he’s one ugly motherfucker in this movie too...)

Early in the film though, as Godzilla has done already immense damage in his adolescent form, Japan’s government has a chance to kill the monster once and for all by mobilizing the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) a move, that if you are not familiar with Japanese politics, is rife with concerning optics. The moment comes where Japan’s government can pull the trigger and kill the threat once and for all but in another, darkly humorous, turn of events decide not to as some nearby citizens who could be caught in the crossfire become a hazard for the JSDF. Godzilla goes back into the sea from there and Japan is left to pick up the pieces.

In the early months of the COVID lockdown, things appeared to slowdown. From about April to June, those states that took the virus seriously at the start saw some plateauing of the daily cases. While hardly a victory, things at least appeared to be going in the right direction. Then inexplicably in July a bunch of states declared premature victory and began reopening back up in certain areas such as gyms, salons, and some restaurants. I wouldn’t say we had the virus on the ropes but we were trending generally in the right direction (though nothing was really being done about loss of employment and cancelling rent and evictions, of course…). So, in a moment when the government could’ve kept trying, mostly at least, to do the right thing they failed to keep going and pull the trigger.

And just like in the movie, COVID (ie: Godzilla) came back stronger and even worse than before.

(Again, just the ugliest motherfucker...)

After the JSDF failed to kill Godzilla in the opening act, the big guy returns later on in the movie having evolved into his more indestructible final form. Where the JSDF’s weapons may have had an effect before they find their tanks, helicopters, and other military hardware have no effect on Godzilla now. It is too late to stop what is now inevitable. Godzilla walks literally through it all, causing waves of destruction with each step and Japan’s government watches in horror as they lament their failure to stop him when they had the chance.

This failure comes to its ultimate head in the final moment of this sequence when Godzilla revs up his dorsal fins and unleashes his horrifying atomic breath. It’s more powerful than anything he has done previously and absolutely wastes Tokyo in a brilliant display of raw destruction that is honestly one of the best most terrifying sequences in Kaiju filmmaking ever.

Godzilla is best used in cinema when he is a titan-sized walking metaphor for the destruction that happens when governments fail their people. Where the recent American Godzilla depicts him as a force of nature, like a walking hurricane, Ishiro Honda and Hideaki Anno see him more as a vengeful God coming to punish the wicked for their sins or, in the case of the government, their incompetence.

If COVID is a metaphor for anything this year, it is a microcosm for a wide range of problems that go unaddressed for too long by our leaders and only given notice when it’s far too late. Climate Change continues to get worse and worse each year as I am quite literally choking on ash as I type this due to yet another wildfire in the California area. The riots that erupted over the summer and continue to go on in response to the gross militaristic, overfunded, and racist structure of law enforcement in this country are the result of decades of not doing the right thing to curb the problem. The reason we are by far the worst equipped first world country to handle this crisis right now is quite literally due to years of gutting our social safety net, slashing our wages, and privatizing our health insurance.

Though there is a wide range of Japanese specific politics in the film, “Shin Gojira” is an unfortunately timeless film for people who have suffered from leaders who fail to act in moments like these. It shows what happens when our government drags its feet on transformative legislation and actual measures that can save lives. It criticizes our leaders for choosing to save themselves in the moment, with performative optics, over helping their own people. It argues that the results of bureaucratic red tape and bad politics will always end in disaster for its citizens. And most relevantly it states that governments have a duty to stop a crisis in its infancy before it’s too late.

“Shin Gojira” is a perfect monster film for the year of COVID and distressingly accurate to the way the US has mishandled this crisis from the beginning. Everyday, more and more people suffer and die because our leaders have failed to act in an unprecedented time, whether it’s the usual suspects who think any government social service is “cOmMuNiSm” or the feckless cowards who twiddle their thumbs and shrug each time a conservative tells them “no.”

We are far past the stage where this can be solved the easy way anymore and though there are still many proven ways to help the common people right now, it unfortunately feels like 2020’s Godzilla cannot be stopped…

Yea, things will totally get better in 2021, guys...

[alarawriting]

52 Project #8: Crab People

The aliens had studied the world they were traveling to for years. Transmissions of primitive radio waves from the hairless, bipedal mammals’ world told the Katalk everything they needed to know. The humans, though fractious and inclined to war with one another, did not have weapons that could pierce the thick natural body armor of the Katalk. Their world was mostly ocean, in a salinity similar to the oceans of the homeworld, teeming with life. Technically, the Katalk could simply conquer the ocean, and leave the lands where the humans dwelled alone, aside from the beaches and the other land areas closest to the sea, where Katalk who enjoyed spending time on land could make their vacation homes. But because the humans themselves poured poison and garbage in that ocean, and because they valued that sea-adjacent land very highly themselves, it was determined by the High Command that the Katalk needed to subjugate humanity in order to hold the oceans of the world the natives called “Earth” in their pincers.

While the discordant, warlike humans had many separate tribes that they called “nations”, and had no unity in the governance of their world, there did appear to be one nation that dominated all the others, producing the majority of the radio transmissions that contained visual information. Radio transmissions emanating from the other nations frequently included information that had originally been transmitted from that nation. So the Katalk carefully studied that nation. Its capital was heavily guarded with flying machines carrying metal projectile ordnance—mostly a nuisance to the heavily armored ships of the Katalk, but they had not become the dominant conquerors of the galaxy by allowing a nuisance to wear at their defenses when there was a better way. Besides, the capital was on a freshwater river, not particularly near an ocean.

A short distance north and east of that capital, barely twenty skroons of travel at the speed Katalk ships could go, there was another city… on a bay. A brackish bay whose salinity was perfect for Katalk, even better than the oceans of the world, where the salt was perhaps a little overly-strong for comfort. And that city had far, far less of an active military aerial defense. The city seemed to be somewhat infamous for the number of humans killing other humans with personal ordnance, but the personal ordnance used by humans would be, again, no more than a nuisance against the hard shells of the Katalk.

The Katalk broadcast on all the radio wave frequencies that were being transmitted out of locations near the city. Some of these frequencies could apparently transmit visual information, so they recorded images of their fleet leader, flanked by his chief war captains. “Human creatures. We are the Katalk. Our weaponry is far superior to anything your species has developed, and our natural armor can resist the strongest weapons you have. We claim your world in the name of the Katalk Empire. Surrender yourselves immediately or face the consequences.”

This was broadcast in all the languages that the radio waves were transmitted in. Then the Katalk ships descended to land in the bay. It was a perfect strategic position; from within this bay, they could quickly reach the capital of this nation by water, and there were multiple large cities within their reach now.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the humans crowded up on the piers and the shoreline of the harbor, watching the ships, but there had been no response from anyone who had authority, yet. “Let us get their attention unmistakeably,” the fleet leader said, and commanded the gunner of the lead ship to destroy the top few floors of their tallest building.

The top of the building exploded, mostly vaporized, but with enough chunks of solid matter spraying out over the city that many of the humans were injured, and a few were killed – as, obviously, were the ones who’d been at the top of the building. A new broadcast went out. “We are tired of your delays! Your ruler must come and surrender to the Katalk immediately, or we will annihilate this city!”

Within ten minutes, a brown human female surrounded by an entourage of humans in policing uniforms and humans holding microphones and cameras walked out on one of the piers. “Katalk ship! I’m the mayor of Baltimore, here to discuss the surrender,” she said.

“At last,” the fleet captain said, and left, with his own entourage. He didn’t have to – in fact, some might say that the fleet captain meeting with the mayor of a conquered city was bending low to a level far beneath his status. But he had been in space for months, and wanted to take the opportunity to breathe the planet’s air for himself.

The ship floated over to the pier and laid down its gangplank so that the fleet captain could stride down onto the pier. As he did so, he heard someone – not the mayor, but someone in her entourage – say “Oh my god, they look just like giant crabs!”

“We are not like any of your pathetic Earth life!” the fleet captain’s chief aide said. “We are superior beings, and you will treat us as such!”

“Of course,” the mayor said. “Please forgive my aide, he was just startled. You do bear a strong coincidental resemblance to an Earth life form called a ‘crab’, which is one of the most common and enduring symbols of our city. I feel as if God must have intended for you to come here to Baltimore as your first experience of our world.” She bowed deeply. “May we exchange names? I—”

“We may not,” the fleet captain said brusquely, interrupting the mayor. “It is taboo among the Katalk to share names.”

“Oh,” the mayor said, her face and tone showing the pattern humans exhibited when they felt surprise. “How do you tell each other apart, then?”

“We address each other by title. I am the Fleet Captain of the Katalk Expeditionary Fleet to the Sol System. These are my aides. I do not actually care who your servants or assistants are. You are here to surrender.”

“I most certainly am,” the mayor said. “I can take you to the place where we run our government right now. But I’d like to invite you to a ceremony tomorrow night, a ceremony we perform for our most honored leaders.” She bowed again.

“Describe this ceremony,” the fleet captain barked.

“We begin by inviting all of your crew to watch you be honored at the ceremony. We give you a ceremonial key that represents control of this city. Then we anoint you and your crew with herbs and spices that smell beautiful to us, and bathe you.”

This wasn’t the behavior the fleet captain had expected. Usually primitive races attempted to use violence to harm the Katalk, and needed to be taught a harsh lesson before their subjugation. And every human fiction broadcast on the radio waves from their planet, and every story of what was actually happening on their planet, said that this was what humans did as well. Yet the human woman was treating the Katalk as honored rulers of high status. Could it be that, because the humans of this city venerated a creature that looked much like the Katalk, they were prepared to accept Katalk rule near-bloodlessly?

That would be excellent. It was always best to take the primitive natives as slaves rather than destroying them. They would best understand the wildlife and the vegetation and how to utilize them as food.

“We will accept your ceremony of honor,” the fleet captain said.

He allowed the woman to guide him and his entourage to the place called City Hall, where she introduced him to many humans, by their titles only, and attempted to show him how to do the paperwork. He used his side weapon and vaporized the paperwork. “Your bureaucracy means nothing to me,” he snapped, claws clacking. “We will rule as we see fit.”

“Of course, my lord Fleet Captain.” The mayor bowed again. “Let me make arrangements for your ceremonial anointing tomorrow.”

She slipped away, leaving an aide to explain things the Fleet Captain did not need explained. Why would the Katalk care about humans having parking permits?

***

Interlude:

Come to Baltimore, and walk downtown, and perhaps you might be fooled into thinking there is an underground subway system, or something of that nature, because you’ve seen steam rising from vents in the streets and sidewalks. But it’s something else that causes the steam.

Beneath the streets of Baltimore, in the downtown area, there are pipes that feed chilled water, hot water, and steam to businesses in the area. These connect to heating and cooling systems in the local buildings.

Naturally, there are no buildings where the steam comes into the open areas where people are.

There are many engineers who work in Baltimore, for the energy company that supplies the steam, who would know how to redirect the steam. It might be a very difficult task. It might cause excessive cursing, and complaining about short notice, and overtime work. But if the mayor needed steam to be somewhere that it usually is not, and was willing to commit to whatever the cost would be, there are engineers who work for the energy company that supplies the steam, and they could do it. ***

The conquest was going well. Wherever the Katalk went, the humans pointed and made sounds of amazement. The mayor was incredibly deferential, and humans moved smoothly out of the way as the Katalk approached.

One of the fleet captain’s aides overhead the mayor speaking on a telephone, one that was connected by a wire rather than one of the ones that transmitted by radio waves. “No, Mr. President, there’s no need. No, we have the situation under control… Yes, that’s right. They’re right outside my office. I’ll let them know to expect you to arrive and surrender to them after the anointment ceremony… sir, it’s a Baltimore thing, don’t worry about it.” She hung the phone back on its cradle and looked up. “I’ve made all the arrangements! The ruler of our nation will be here to surrender formally to you after the ceremony! He wanted to send troops to fight you, but of course I told him that would be futile; your technology is far too advanced, so he’s agreed to surrender.”

“If you are planning some sort of sneak attack or subterfuge, this city will be destroyed,” the fleet captain said when he was told what the mayor had been doing.

“Of course! Don’t worry, I know I couldn’t outthink you. You must be far more intelligent than humans, with such advanced technology.”

“See that you remember it,” the fleet captain said.

***

The place where the ceremony was to be done had the sign “ROYAL FARMS ARENA” in large letters on the front of the building. “What does this mean, Royal Farms?” the fleet captain asked.

“It’s a figure of speech. The idea is that we grow a king or queen into their power and potential, the way that farmers grow plants,” the mayor said. “That’s why we hold the ceremony there.”

All of the Katalk filed in, with the exception of those who’d been left behind on the ships, one or two per ship, per regulations – they couldn’t have humans sneaking aboard the ships while they were all gone, after all. There were nearly six hundred Katalk coming into the ceremony. “We do ask that you leave your weapons here, at the front,” the mayor said. “Of course you can easily retrieve them if you need them, and it’s hardly as if humans are any kind of threat to you, but it’s symbolism.”

The fleet captain considered telling the mayor that he didn’t care about human symbolism, but decided to humor her.

As each Katalk entered the arena, several humans sprinkled large quantities of a strange-smelling orange powder over them, from tubs labeled “Old Bay.” “Our research on your radio wave broadcasts revealed that you have a product you refer to as ‘Old Spice’,” the chief researcher on humanity said to the mayor. “Is this similar?”

“It’s very similar, but this is the Baltimore version. We call the spice mix ‘Old Bay’ because we’re on a bay,” the mayor said.

The researcher touched his two large claws together in the gesture the Katalk used to express sudden understanding, or acknowledgement of a truth. “Sir, it makes sense,” he said to the fleet captain. “I haven’t seen anything about this specific ceremony, but I do know that highly honored culture leaders called ‘celebrities’ are often invited to ceremonies at arenas like this, and I also know that ‘Old Spice’ is considered a scent compound that is highly desirable and is seen as making the males of the species superior to those who are not scented with it.”

“Understood,” the fleet captain said.

After all the Katalk were in the room, the mayor went to the stage and spoke into a microphone, which was broadcast throughout the arena. “Our honored crab overlords, the Katalk, are here to be given the keys to our city, and to be anointed with the sacred Old Bay and bathed in the traditional manner. Let us give thanks that they came to Baltimore before any other city on Earth!” She called the fleet captain to the stage. “We are very, very pleased you have come to us,” she said. “Please accept this symbolic token of our surrender to your leadership.” She had two aides show him a ridiculously huge key.

The researcher whispered, “It ties out; they used to have walled cities to protect themselves from marauding humans. Since then, the ‘key to the city’ seems to represent a great honor.”

The fleet captain clacked his claws against each other in acknowledgement, and stepped on the stage. “Humans, your days of self rule are at an end, but if you continue to cooperate and embrace our rule as eagerly as you have done, you will be spared and allowed to continue to live and serve us.”

There was dead silence from the humans, and then the mayor said, “Let’s hear it for the Katalk!” All the humans started slapping their hands together loudly, which looked much like the human version of the Katalk acknowledgement gesture. The fleet captain assumed that they were signifying that they understood and accepted their fate.

“Now, for the ceremonial bath,” the mayor said. “We’ll let some cleansing steam into the room. It’ll really make your carapaces shine and bring out the scent of the Old Bay beautifully. We humans won’t be present for this, because it’s a taboo among our people to see someone else bathe unless they’re our mates. As soon as the bath is over, we’ll return, and take you to the places you’ll need to be after that.”

“And tomorrow your nation’s ruler will surrender to us as well?”

“He’s told me so, and none of the ruling class of America would ever dare lie to anyone as powerful and intelligent as you.”

“That sounds a bit dubious,” the researcher whispered. “Apparently their rulers frequently lie, according to the radio waves, and make promises they cannot or choose not to keep.”

“It’s no matter. If the nation’s ruler doesn’t come tomorrow to surrender, we will move on their capital, using this city as our base, and force him to his knees.”

The humans bowed as they left the room. The mayor said, “I eagerly look forward to meeting with you after your bath, fleet captain! No one in Baltimore can imagine anything more enjoyable than spending time serving you.”

The mayor’s obsequiousness was starting to get on the fleet captain’s nerves. “Just go. Let this bath begin so it can be over with.”

She left, and the doors to the arena were closed, as would obviously be necessary if there was to be a steam bath. “Let’s see if this steam bath is all that the humans say it is,” the fleet captain said.

The researcher said, “It is something they speak of highly in their radio waves. They also enjoy spending time in desiccating rooms where it is very hot but there is no steam, and in tubs of hot water. They are much more comfortable with water than we would expect from land mammals.”

The steam came in from under the seats. When the captain sent an aide to tell him how it was being done, he reported that it looked like there were dozens of pipes that had been hastily inserted into the walls. Steam rolled in from the pipes, and it was pleasant; the weather on this planet was chillier than the Katalk homeworld. The fleet captain relaxed and let himself enjoy the warmth, as the rest of the Katalk did the same.

But then the warmth began to grow uncomfortable. “It’s time we left,” he said. “If the humans haven’t come to bring us out, we will just go on our own. We don’t bow to their timetables.”

Two Katalk went to open the doors. They didn’t open.

More steam rolled in.

Katalk started desperately searching for doors, trying to batter the doors down when they found them, or bash holes in the walls with their powerful claws. The steam rose. Katalk fled up the stair-step seating, trying to find a place out of the heat. The steam rose. Swirls of it fogged the room and made it hard to see one’s fellow Katalk.

The fleet captain commanded that they form a giant pile and try to reach the roof. It was plain that the humans had betrayed them and lied to them, and had locked them in, but perhaps there was a way to escape via the roof.

Military discipline broke down completely. None of the Katalk wanted to be on the bottom of the pile where the steam was hottest and thickest. They climbed over each other frantically, sometimes ripping each other’s claws out in their fervor to climb higher than their fellows. The fleet captain bellowed orders, that were ignored.

It was so very hot.

***

Outside the Royal Farms arena, the mayor smiled grimly at the doors, which had been quickly screwed to a large piece of corrugated steel, so even if the doors gave way under the Katalk claws, there would still be no escape. “My son worked on the top floors of the Transamerica building, you sons of bitches,” she said, her voice quiet but her tone vicious. “Burn in hell… once you’re done boiling alive.”

She turned toward the crowd behind her. “Citizens of Baltimore, in about forty-five minutes, we’re going to have the biggest crab feast this city has ever seen, here at Royal Farms arena. And then our National Guard, who’ve been dispatched down here by the governor, are going to take these guns and use them to root out any of these crab people who might have stayed behind on their spaceships.”

“What are we gonna do with the spaceships?” a man in the crowd yelled.

“What else would we do with the spaceships? We’re gonna use them to go to space,” the mayor said. “Prepare to enter a new era of jobs and industry for Baltimore, all courtesy of our tasty friends in there.”

More and more people gathered at the Royal Farms Arena over the next forty-five minutes, milling around excitedly. Eventually, the steam was cut off. The mayor gestured at the sealed doors.

“Everyone! Please step out of the way to let the caterers through. They’ve been preparing corn on the cob for us to enjoy with our feast, all day long, because you can’t have a real crab feast without corn on the cob. And I’ve asked hardware stores around the city to donate hammers, because I think those shells are a good bit harder than we’re used to, and our wooden mallets probably won’t be enough to do the job.”

Everyone cheered and backed out of the way as the caterers wheeled forward large tables covered with brown paper, actual hammers, butter dishes, and stacks of corn on the cob, and the firefighters unsealed the doors. Steam escaped through the open doors, into the air, up and away from the waiting crowd. The appetizing scent of Old Bay wafted out, as the caterers waited for all the steam to clear before going through the door to prepare for the crowd.

It was going to be the crab feast to end all crab feasts.

“Save at least one for the president,” the mayor said to the catering manager. “I promised him one when he comes tomorrow.”

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #6- Rung Has a Friggin’ Day

It’s time for therapy.

Finally.

It turns out that Ratchet didn’t forget about Fortress Maximus’ acts of extreme violence in all the chaos that was last issue, and requested that Fort Max get set up with some mandatory counseling. Of course, because it’s been about a week in Fort Max-time since Garrus 9 went down, he’s not exactly thrilled to talk about what happened. And who can blame him? Garrus 9 sucked big time for everyone involved, even Overlord.

Fort Max claims to not remember what happened- he’s lying, and we’re treated to a flashback that sort of justifies his fib- and Rung suggests they get Chromedome involved, which seems perhaps a bit unethical? To just rip traumatic memories that may or may not be repressed out of a guy’s head? Like, I’m not super well-versed in psychiatry, but that seems a little off.

Rung, in an attempt to make Fort Max feel a little safer, tells him that Overlord- though he doesn’t say his name, because triggering Fort Max could literally get people killed- was neutralized about as efficiently as possible for their species.

I can’t believe Cybertron has a better veteran healthcare system than the United States.

Enough of Fortress Maximus’ impending implosion, it’s time for bar shenanigans!

Over at Swerve’s, Trailbreaker is proving to be completely incapable of keeping his drink in his glass, as Chromedome participates in a game where he has to guess who’s transforming into their alt-mode, based purely on the sound. He gets it in one, and everyone loses their shit. Chromedome, never one to hype himself, takes the opportunity to instead build Rewind up, because he just loves him that much.

Fortress Maximus gets brought up, and while Trailbreaker thinks the guy’s a little overrated, the others have heard about what happened on Delphi, and proceed to learn the wrong lesson from the whole thing. Tailgate enters the scene, after a rousing study session with everyone’s favorite giant neurotic.

Tailgate, you fool! It’ll be another 41 issues before Cyclonus is ready to even acknowledge his feelings!

It’s good to know that Tailgate doesn’t hold any grudges over the info dump Rewind gave him the other day. Also, that table looks like a nightmare to clean.

Ultra Magnus walks in, looking about as cheery as he possibly can considering who he is, promptly arrests Swerve for running the bar without taking bureaucracy into account, and whisks the little jabber jaw away in handcuffs, practically carrying him off by the scruff like a kitten.

Fort Max enters the room, having decided to grab a drink after the ordeal that is mandatory therapy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a day on the Lost Light without something going just a little screwy.

This is a typical Wednesday for Pipes.

Fort Max proceeds to wreck several robots, seemingly at random, though he somehow manages to not actually kill any of them. Intentional or not? We still have several pages of this issue to get through, hold your horses! All will be revealed in time.

Which brings us to now. Fort Max has locked himself in Rung’s office, alongside Rung and the poor sap who was unlucky enough to have had an appointment when the big guy showed up. Rodimus and Drift are trying to figure out just what the hell to do with this current situation. Magnus enters, having just set Swerve up with his punishment, and berates Rodimus for letting Fort Max run around with a gun, as if 90% of the crew doesn’t also have massive weapons literally built into their bodies.

Blaster gets a video feed from one of the surveillance cameras going, and we get a good look at just how fucked this whole thing has become, because as it turns out, Rung’s appointment for this time slot was none other than Whirl, instigator extraordinaire, and being stabbed by some ship piping has done absolutely nothing to slow his suicidal roll.

That gun is positively ridiculous. Where were you even KEEPING that thing, Max?

It only takes a couple of face-mashings with the barrel of the BFG to get Whirl to back off, accomplishing what Rung simply cannot, because Whirl doesn’t play by the rules of anyone who values their life in any capacity. You’d think it’d take more than that to shut him up, but Whirl’s head is made of plot, so it’s a bit delicate.

Rung spots the camera, and decides to make himself useful by providing audio to this whole debacle, by way of his microphone thumb.

Now, a hostage situation just isn’t complete without some sort of demand in exchange for the safety of said hostages, and Fort Max has quite the doozy for Rodimus: he wants to go back to Cybertron, so he can confront Prowl on the slow response to the hell that was Garrus 9. Max was trapped there for over three years before the Wreckers came along, and it’s still pretty fresh for him because of the coma letting him skip a lot of time he could have spent healing.

Pro-tip: when handling a hostage situation, don’t get into a screaming match with the dude who’s about to shoot the only mental health specialist your race has ever managed to produce. Blaster gets it.

Rung is many things, but is no actor, as is made apparent by him holding his microphone thumb-bound hand in the most fucking conspicuous way possible. Fort Max notices- because how could he not?- and relieves Rung of this terrible burden.

Rung is really regretting not minoring in theatre right about now.

Hours later in the medibay, First Aid is proving to have gone mad with power, as he maintains some dangerously high snark levels while keeping the victims of Fort Max’s spree stable. Ratchet, whose hands are still Pharma-blue, is starting to piece together the reasoning behind who got shot.

That’s right, Fort Max was embarrassed that he showed up with the same color paint as all these guys, and tried to kill them to keep his fashion faux pas to a minimum.

Back in Rung’s office, Whirl’s dropped all pretense due to sheer boredom, and straight-up asks Fort Max to just get it over with and shoot them both. Having his thumb ripped off has made Rung a bit snippy, and he snaps at Whirl for the quip, before Max decides that he’s actually rather interested in just what Whirl’s appointment was going to cover. Rung tries to stymie this line of questioning, but he really ought to know not to get in the way of the plot progression at this point.

Whirl does decide to spill his beans, if only after Rung gets the obscenely large barrel of Max’s obscenely large gun pressed to one whole side of his face.

It turns out Whirl has depths to him, or at least he did, once upon a time. Before he got booted out of the Wreckers, before he was even in the Wreckers, he created as opposed to destroyed. More specifically, he was a watchmaker, good enough to find an audience in the time of Functionist Cybertron. Now, because he’s a helicopter, the guys up top weren’t too jazzed about Whirl not doing what he’d “been born to do,” on top of not giving them any of his sweet watch money, and decided to start fucking up his life to get him back in line. They started with tearing his shop to the ground.

But we’ll get to what the hell empurata is in a few issues.

Also, while Whirl’s been sharing his backstory, Rung managed to grab his model ship from off the floor.

I’m not sure how he managed to get ahold of his model without making a giant clumsy scene either, considering that’s his thumbless hand.

Rung, because he’s a clever man, is staring super hard at the camera and making kind of a weird face as he taps on the little windows of his model ship, signaling to Rodimus and crew to see what they can do with the windows outside of his office. He’s got three real big ones that let you see out- or in- the whole room. Rodimus makes a call, and we get a proper understanding of what Chromedome meant when he said Rewind was outside.

No kidding.

Rewind and Swerve are on rivet replacement duty, using rivet guns nearly as big as they are. Swerve’s passing the time idly chatting, because that’s his whole deal.

Knowing Swerve, that’s probably a joke, but given what we learn a few issues after this, on how exactly Cybertron handles those who don’t fall in line, I can’t help but wonder…

Okay, we know why Swerve’s out here, but what’s Rewind’s deal?

You remember those data discs Red Alert mentioned last issue, the ones Rewind was begging Chromedome to help him find? The ones he got from Swindle at the start of the series? Yeah, turns out those were chock-full of video footage of people dying.

Rodimus didn’t like the fact that Rewind had brought snuff films onto the Lost Light, and now here he is. We don’t get an explanation as to why he wanted the films in the first place, though he does integrate that it isn’t a pleasurable thing to watch. Rodimus calls, interrupting the conversation, and asks Rewind to take a walk.

Returning to the office, we find that Whirl’s really pouring it out now, giving us his whole life story.

Rung’s reaction here is equal parts sweet and sad. It’s like he’s never had a fucking friend in his entire life. Rung seems terribly lonely.

We also get the answer as to what exactly Whirl did to get kicked out of the Wreckers- he tried to mercy-kill Springer. After the events of Last Stand, Fort Max wasn’t the only one in a coma, and Whirl saw the writing on the wall in terms of Springer’s chances of recovery. He tried to put the guy out of his misery, but was caught and kicked to the curb before that could happen.

And that’s about where he stops. You know, if it weren’t for the whole “being held at gunpoint” thing, this would have been an amazing therapy session! Whirl really opened himself up today, I’m proud of him.

Fort Max realizes that the ship hasn’t turned around to head back to Cybertron, and that’s about the point where he decides it’s time to make good on his threat. Whirl volunteers as tribute, as Swerve and Rewind peek through the window, ready to enact the next phase of Rodimus’ plan.

Rung tries to deescalate, with Whirl reescalating in equal measures, because he is actively and violently suicidal at this point, bringing us to a standstill in negotiations as Ratchet finally gets ahold of Rodimus to tell him something very important.

Ratchet’s sussed out the central pin in this pegboard of PTSD, and it’s Overlord. Every guy Fort Max put in the ICU looked at least somewhat like that lippy bastard. Rung comes to a similar conclusion on his end, claiming that Fort Max is acting out because he went through hell at Overlord’s hand, and wants payback.

Outside the office, Rewind is lining up to shoot Fort Max with his rivet gun, though he has his reservations.

It’s a special kind of love that makes you want your husband to support you through sniping a guy five times bigger than you.

Rewind’s lining up the shot, when Fort Max moves behind a pillar. Time for Plan B.

Rodimus, you can’t just SAY that to him, he’s a married man.

Whirl’s egging Fort Max on, his eye flaring out in a way that one might consider to be crying, though if you asked him he’d absolutely deny it. Then Garrus 9 pays everyone a little visit, by way of Rewind’s camera projecting on the wall. This freezes Fort Max in his tracks, because of course it would. That shit’s terrifying. He breaks down, falling to the floor in a heap.

I suppose this is one way to handle a hostage situation. Rodimus, not wanting to take any chances, orders Swerve to take the shot anyway.

Safe to say, Swerve wasn’t top of his class at the military academy.

As Fort Max mourns the loss of Rung, Whirl yanks that pipe that’s been stabbed into his belly for the last several hours out, and returns the favor, getting Max right in the chest.

Shit.

All those fucking therapy appointments are going to have to be rescheduled. There are over 200 robots on this ship.

I sure hope Rung had a secretary to handle all that.

Later on, after the messy stuff’s been dealt with, Rodimus and Drift have a chat about Red Alert, and how he’s developing a potential to be a liability. As they talk, Red Alert is shown to be ripping the drill arm off that guy who got eaten by the quantum engine and using it to dig into the floor where he heard that super-slow voice. What does he find? I hope it’s treasure!

...That’s not treasure.

Hey, Rung?

Rung?

Buddy, I think someone might’ve been fibbing when they said that.

Nobody tell Fort Max about this.