#because just in general it takes deep connection with the other person to get Wally to be in love

[gameshow-host-wally]

Have you ever dated anyone or had a crush?

"Unfortunately, my dear viewer, I have bigger things to worry about"

[mooncustafer]

Recover, Regroup, Roadtrip

Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in March 1989. The case is still open. Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in October 2016. The case is still open.

for @laughingpinecone  /

/ @countdowntotwinpeaks​‘ WONDERFULXSTRANGE 2021

“Diane, I am uncertain of the date and time, or indeed if such concepts have any meaning in this place. Nor do I have my recorder, but I find verbalizing my thoughts helps me to resist the confusion and lethargy. As for addressing my words to you, even though you’ll never hear them— well, old habits die hard.”

It pleased Wally Brando on a profound level to discover that a few pay-phones remained in Philadelphia, that reaching out was not yet the prerogative only of those who could afford a landline or a mobile. He could also have checked his email on a terminal at one of the city’s Public Libraries, and indeed, made a note to do so within the day so that he might catch up on the news of parents and former school friends. The pay phone was also blessed with both the yellow and the white pages, and the number he sought appeared under “F.” Getting transferred to Dr. Albert Rosenfield was a more complex quest, but he was persistent as well as polite, and after a few minutes he was able to speak to Dr. Rosenfield’s voice mail, if not the man himself.

He introduced himself with salutations, and was about the explain the nature of his request when a beep signalled that the allotted time had run out.

“To listen to your message, press one. To re-record your message, press two,” said the voice of the machine.

Silently cursing his volubility, Wally pressed two. This time he simplified the introduction, and asked if Dr. Rosenfield would be good enough to meet him that evening at the Morimoto Japanese restaurant not far from the FBI offices, to discuss a matter of deep concern connected, he believed, with the little town of Twin Peaks. When the beep came this time, he listened to his message and then, satisfied, hung up. The restaurant he’d named was slightly above his means, but he was meeting a friend of his godfather, and wanted to do justice to the occasion, even if the reason for it was one of peculiar anxiety to himself.

“Diane, I have tried so many times to escape— on the last attempt I really did get out into the world, but my plans, I fear, had dire repercussions for you, and to no end— my course still led me back to the Black Lodge. Some flaw in my own nature keeps trapping me in this loop; perhaps it’s what they sometimes call Saṃsāra.”

It was Agent Tammy Preston’s custom, when scraping the internet for information relevant to one or more recent cases, to check her email inbox every seven minutes— to do so every five minutes would disrupt the flow of her work, but ten-minute gaps might let something important go unanswered for too long. Just now the inbox was due another glance, and switching tabs she saw that two minutes earlier Director Bryson had replied to Tammy’s email of that morning with an invitation to come by her desk at her earliest possible convenience.

Tammy locked her screen, paused ‘Soft Fuzzy Man’ on her playlist and removed her headphones. Picking up the folder marked Missing Persons, 1989– Palmer, she slipped back into her pumps and made for Bryson’s office. The door was open but Tammy stopped at the threshold and rapped on the wall.

“Come in,” said Director Bryson, looking up from a folder. Bossa nova music played softly in the background as Tammy entered and pulled up a chair. It sometimes puzzled Tammy that apart from herself and Director Gordon Cole, no one in this particular division of the FBI seemed to have any interest in music recorded after 1979. (The first few times she’d heard ‘Du Hast’ pounding through the walls of Cole’s office, she’d wondered if this taste for metal was the result, or perhaps the cause, of his hearing loss; but after he’d joked to an unamused Agent Rosenfield about how these were difficult times and difficult times called for Dave Brubeck, she’d looked up the reference in case it was a coded message, and then the next day had overheard Gordon whistling ‘Mister Sandman,’ a song she knew primarily from an internet meme, at which point she concluded that the ear wants what it wants, regardless of demographic.)

“You told me you’d found some serious inconsistencies in the records surrounding Twin Peaks and the Palmer case?”

Tammy nodded, hesitated:

“I believe there may be inconsistencies as well in my own perceptions of the case.”

“Well now, that I find a little harder to believe.” Bryson smiled, but then her voice grew serious: “I’ve looked over the notes you made, and it confirms my own doubts about events.”

“Worse yet— the fact that I truly left the Lodge and then returned to it, will enable the beings that inhabit this place to take another twenty-five year turn in my likeness, unleashing even more evil on the world. The only thing stalling them is the doppelgänger I had MIKE make for the Jones family, but I don’t know if he’s still under the White Lodge’s protection.”

After all these months it still surprised Harry Truman there was so little physical pain, and so much boredom, to dying. Oh there’d been pain at the beginning, when he’d started treatment and had had to stop drinking; the memory of detoxing still made him shudder. But now he only felt a tiredness too huge for sleep to make any dent in it; and since he couldn’t sleep all the time, there were a great many hours during which all he could do was lie in the hospice bed or sit in one of the hospice chairs, and think.

At this point dying didn’t even sound so bad— it wasn’t like the past three decades had been all that great. He imagined going to sleep, just filling up a big bowl of silence and darkness and sinking into it, and then he felt bad for thinking that because Frank had already lost enough people without Harry lighting out too. Anyways, with the things he’d seen over the years he’d be a damn fool to think there was anything peaceful about death and whatever came after. So he’d lie awake trying to find some other topic to ponder, and that’s generally when the boredom set in.

Right now, courtesy of the nap he’d had in the afternoon after today’s treatment had left him especially exhausted, he was lying awake in the wee small hours. 3:52 am, said the clock on his bedside table beside the stack of paperbacks Frank had brought him on his visits— Harry wasn’t afraid of e-readers the way Lucy was of cellular phones, but he found the smell of paper comforting. It reminded him of the Bookhouse. The hospice tended to smell of disinfectants and sweat and soup. The food actually wasn’t as bad as the food at the hospital in Twin Peaks used to be, not that any food could be as bad as the hospital food in Twin Peaks used to be, but it made no difference to Harry, whose appetite had been gone for months. Frank always brought a slice of Norma’s pie too, carefully sealed in an old cookie tin to keep it fresh, but Harry could never manage more than a couple of bites, and they didn’t always stay down.

Being awake in the middle of the night in a hospice wasn’t as bad as being awake in the middle of the night when you were alone at home— the occasional voices or footsteps from the corridors beyond were reminders that whatever might be happening to Harry, life went on for the staff; and the lights from the city outside showed that life went on for others outside the hospice walls. When he’d first arrived, those city lights had made it hard to sleep, but now they substituted for the starry sky above Twin Peaks. There were fewer birds to watch in the city, though sparrows, pigeons or a starling sometimes lit on the ledge outside his window and peered in at him, or maybe at their own reflections. The frequent rain pattering against the glass— well, that sounded the same here as it did in a cabin.

Frank had called to tell him about Margaret Lanterman. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have stayed in Twin Peaks and died in his own home like her, instead of lingering in this hospice like the doomed heroine of some nineteenth-century novel. Or like Annie Blackburn. Or Audrey Horne.

The rain was spattering now against Harry’s window, bending the light from the Japanese stone lantern in the pocket-sized garden below. Harry couldn’t remember what the hospice building looked like from the outside, but he guessed it was similar in style to the mid-century one next door where the day-patients came for their treatments. A flash silhouetted the roofline; five seconds later came the thunder-crack. Harry settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep pulled him into dreams of an espresso machine, like the one in the coffee place down in the lobby next to the gift shop for visitors. This machine filled a whole room, metal pipes feeding back on themselves like some kind of espressouroboros, neither steam nor coffee escaping from the grotesque contraption. Agent Cooper stood wearily before it with two empty coffee-cups. Harry was just wondering who the second cup was for, when Coop looked up and met his eyes:

“What year is this?!”

Harry sat up in bed, listened intently for two full minutes, but he didn’t hear Coop’s voice again. He sighed. Sometimes the mind pulls imaginary sounds out of the background noise. False pattern recognition or something— Coop would have known a word for it. Harry had little hope left they’d ever find Cooper, or if they did, that he’d still be the man he’d known. Yet he’d carried on, more (he told himself) out of habit than any real hope. He’d kept in touch with Agent Rosenfield, even when it meant letting him know about the cancer— not that Albert would blab the secret to anyone in Twin Peaks.

“Hello?”

“Good, you’re still alive.” Albert’s personality hadn’t mellowed with the years, exactly, but familiarity had worn the edges off his jibes.

“Shut up, Albert. So what have you found?” Albert’s calls generally came every three months, but never at nine in the morning, and he’d last spoken to Harry only two weeks back. Something important must have happened.

“Actually, Sheriff Truman, I’m the one coming to you for information.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s not easy to do investigations from a hospital bed. What can I tell you that you can’t get from other sources?”

“I need you to summarize the Laura Palmer case back in 1989, and the actions of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks at that time.”

“Albert, is this one of your damn cognitive tests? You already know—”

“We’re both too tired to argue, just humor me.”

“How detailed do you want?”

“An outline will suffice.”

Harry took a deep breath and briefly listed the finding of Laura’s body, and the living but dazed and injured Ronnette, and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper to lead the investigation. He skimmed over the crimes of Jacques Reneault and some of the other peripheral drama that had occurred in the town around that time, noted that Leland Palmer had murdered his own daughter, albeit while not fully himself, and was beginning to recount Cooper’s temporary suspension and Windom Earle’s campaign of terror, when Albert interrupted:

“You’ve still got the unofficial version, then.”

“Unofficial?”

“According to FBI records and your colleagues at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office, Laura Palmer is an unsolved missing-person case.”

Harry began to feel sick.

“Goddammit, Albert, you did the autopsy. I punched you and you fell across her body. You found a broken poker chip in her stomach—” Albert broke in:

“I hadn’t disclosed that detail to anybody I’ve questioned about this.” His voice was a little shaky. “Listen, Harry,” he continued. “Last Friday I was contacted by a young man wearing motorcycle leathers and talking like Jack Kerouac on quaaludes.”

“Wally.”

“Naturally I supposed him to be from your iodine-deficient neck of the woods even before he introduced himself as your godson and the offspring of those lieutenants of yours. He told me he’d come because he wasn’t sure where else to turn. Apparently he keeps in touch with his parents as he rides across the continent, but in their most recent conversation he’d noticed their memories of certain events had become confused. I was about to tell him I wasn’t the least bit surprised, when he added that he’d checked with other townsfolk, including your brother, and they all seemed to have had the same— how’d he put it? ‘The walls of their memory painted over like a childhood bedroom converted to a study.’”

”That sounds like Wally, all right.”

”Eventually he got round to explaining why he’d come to me. The message that had prompted him to call home was from Lucy; she said she’d shot a suspect who was attacking your brother Frank. She’d also mentioned some FBI agents arriving a few minutes later.”

Harry swallowed. He tried to imagine Lucy shooting anyone:

“Frank never said anything about this.”

“And when Wally called home, Andy and Lucy not only denied it had happened, they had no idea what he was talking about, not that I’d guess that to be an unusual state of affairs. Anyway, after I sent your godson away, I began to have contradictory memories myself of what Cooper had told me about the case. I remembered the poker chip after waking in the middle of the night from the worst dreams I’d had since medical school. I’ve been telling myself it was a false memory, maybe a composite of all the young female murder victims I’ve had to examine in my career, but I told myself I’d make one more phone call, just to check. And now you confirm it. Also, in my recall you knocked me across Leo Johnson’s body. Thanks for the correction. Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, glad he was already sitting on his bed.

“Now that that’s established,” said Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone: “here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: when do you remember Agent Cooper disappearing?”

“March 1989.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, as though he was giving evidence in court. He briefly explained about the Black Lodge and Coop’s reappearance and unsettling behaviour and how he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was never heard from again. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, Albert?”

“According to FBI records and, up until two days ago, my own memories: Coop disappeared this past October while driving to Odessa, Texas for a case. The last record of him was a credit-card charge at a motel just outside the city.”

“What was he investigating in Odessa?”

“Missing person. I’ve tried looking into that case, but it seems to be a dead end, especially since Coop never seems to have arrived at the diner where the man he was looking for had allegedly been running drugs.”

“Sounds like the kind of establishment where nobody’d admit anything. Maybe Coop did get to the diner.”

“Gee, you’ve cracked it Sheriff, we would never have thought of that. The diner was old-school, but not so old-school they didn’t have a security camera trained on the front counter. We went over three days worth of footage. I admit we can’t be sure he didn’t slip in through the back for some reason; but you knew Coop— can you honestly picture him entering a diner and not ordering a coffee?”

“Not the Coop I knew, but— I already told you he was acting pretty erratically just before he took off.”

Harry heard Albert sigh.

“I’ve been checking with a few of my colleagues who were involved in the original Palmer investigation. I think Gordon knows something, but being Gordon he’s saying nothing, and as loudly as possible. Denise— Director Bryson, now— remembers the unofficial version, and according to her so does Agent Preston— oh right, you never met Agent Tammy Preston, the poker-faced glamazon computer hacker— I’m not sure she was even born yet in 1989, but she was on a case in Twin Peaks in October 2016, and during the course of the subsequent paperwork, she started noticing a lot of records and statements didn’t match up, and then she realized her own memories didn’t match up. Which brings up another problem with trying to reason this out by conventional methods: something in that Salem’s Pacific-Northwest Lot of yours is rewriting memories, documents, maybe the facts themselves. But so far it’s predominantly affected the people who were on the spot this past October.” Albert’s voice rasped a little from the long phone call, and he paused to clear his throat. “Unfortunately, that also means the people most likely to remember the original version of events are people who weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office during the incident that seems to have triggered the change. At the risk of sounding like one of those bullshit shows on the History Channel, we may never know exactly what happened that night.”

“Wait, what even was the case that brought you all back in 2016?”

“That’s the problem— I’m one of the people who was there, and I only have vague and disconnected memories of a British man with a gardening glove, the chorus of Guys and Dolls, Agent Cooper leaving the room with Diane, his secretary who quit the FBI decades ago, and Gordon, and only Gordon coming back.” Albert paused again. “It goes against my personal feelings and medical opinions, but would you be willing to let me visit you in person? I’ve some vacation time and enough frequent-flyer miles that the trip will probably cost less than the long-distance charges if we continue this conversation.”

Harry opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the key to Coop’s old hotel room:

“Yeah, come by.”

“Diane, I am currently alone. I realize that statement implies that I’m not always alone here, and indeed I sometimes have a companion, who I still think of as Laura Palmer, though I don’t know if that’s her identity anymore; I’d hoped, after my last attempt, that Laura would no longer be in this place at all. She comes and goes, or perhaps we both come and go and our orbits occasionally intersect. I’ve tried to find some pattern to it, but with no reliable way to measure time, I’ve had little success.

The last time we met she told me about a room she hadn’t seen before, all white walls, in which a dark-haired woman was contemplating a mirror with a puzzled look. I can’t help but feel this parallels my own situation.”

“Frank sent me this last month. But when I thanked him the next time he called, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Albert hesitated before taking the room key:

“Great Northern Hotel,” he read, turning it over. “Twin Peaks. Isn’t the front desk going to want this back?”

“Unless I miss my guess, it’s from 1989 when Coop was staying there.”

Albert’s ears stuck out more noticeably, or perhaps it was his face that was thinner. He’d spent the first part of his visit scrutinizing Harry and questioning him about his case and what the doctors were doing for it, until Harry told him to quit it or he’d run out of time to discuss Coop’s disappearance before visiting hours ended, and anyway weren’t Albert’s patients usually dead to begin with?

The trouble with the subsequent discussion was that it went in a circle— the people who’d been present for the 2016 Unknown Event had uncertain memories of what had actually happened; and the people who clearly recalled the 1989 Palmer case as a murder hadn’t been present for the Unknown Event. The one thing that seemed likely was that there was some connection between the 1989 case and the 2016 case, particularly since both had been followed by the unsolved disappearance of one Agent Dale Cooper.

“I hate to say it, Albert, but I’ve given up hope on ever finding Coop.”

“What’s hope got to do with it?” Albert asked. His tone was not sarcastic.

“Diane, I’ve decided that, if only to keep my mind occupied, I will go looking for the white room and the woman with the mirror. I’d feel happier if I had a ball of twine or some breadcrumbs to leave as a trail back to the waiting room, but I’m coming to terms with the idea that’s there’s no advantage to remaining or returning here— it’s not as if I need food or drink in this place, and I cannot be any more lost than I already am.

So far, I believe I’ve walked down five identical red-curtained hallways, and turned left five times. It therefore seems likely that I’m following a counterclockwise, roughly spiral path, although I’m uncertain if I’m proceeding inwards or outwards.”

“If this search is going to require juggling two sets of memories, then I’d better come along so you don’t get brainwashed again.”

“Sheriff Truman, if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re in a cancer hospice.”

“I just finished a round of treatments, I’ve got a couple of weeks free.” Albert snorted and Harry added: “You can monitor my health while we’re on the road.”

“I’m already thinking of your health. You’re immunocompromised, travel is too risky.”

“We’re crossing a few state lines, not going to the other side of the world.”

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. I’m driving. Which also means I get to choose the music.”

In fact, they went most of the way by plane, after Albert weighed the odds and decided five hours in a tube of recycled air would still be easier on Harry than a two-day road trip. Some of the passengers threw suspicious looks at Harry’s N95 mask, but they’d cleared it in advance with the airline, and Harry had briefly removed it when he went through TSA, and Albert was prepared to flash his FBI badge, but the flight crew were understanding.

They picked up a car at Midland International. Someone, presumably an employee of the car-rental company, had left a bundle of tourist-attraction pamphlets on the front passenger seat.

“According to these, Odessa has replicas of the Globe Theatre and Stonehenge,” Harry observed once he’d got himself settled.

“Why?” Albert asked.

“Got me there. The pamphlets don’t explain the motivation.”

Albert reached up and pulled down the car’s sunshade on Harry’s side, though the Sheriff insisted his cowboy hat was protection enough for his pale scalp:

“We’re not in the northwest where it rains every fifteen minutes,” he muttered, “and I’ve been looking up the side effects of your meds— you sunburn easily now.” Albert’s driving skirted the city, and they did not pass the Globe or Stonehenge.

The Pearblossom Motel, last recorded location of Agent Cooper, proved to be closed down. They’d noticed the papered-over windows as they pulled up, the sign unlit, not even to say NO VACANCY, but Albert got out to knock anyway. Harry watched him from the car; eventually he clambered out and slowly walked over to join him.

Albert was peering through a spot where the paper had torn away behind the window-glass. He stepped aside for Harry, and the sheriff took a look into the motel’s dim interior. He saw an ordinary, rather old-fashioned registration office, wood-grain panelling on the walls along with a few faded posters for local attractions. Rows of keys still hung on a board behind the desk, and a daily calendar read October 15, presumably the date the motel had closed, or the approximate date— Harry could imagine a concierge might not bother to keep tearing off the pages if they knew it was their last week on the job.

“I now realize that despite everything, I’ve still been harbouring hopes of finding my way back to the waiting room, hence my continual choosing of left-hand turns, as if attempting to mathematically navigate a maze. I must make a true leap of faith if intuition is to guide me, so I’ve closed my eyes and spun around several times in this corridor, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Now that I no longer can tell which direction I’ve come from… Diane, can you hear that? Of course you can’t, I don’t really have my tape recorder. I’m going to fall silent and listen for a bit.”

There seemed little else of interest at the motel (Harry, feeling a bit silly, had even tried the Great Northern’s room key on all the doors), so they turned back towards Odessa to look for the diner Cooper had been investigating. The motel was only a mile behind when they saw, ahead of them, a tall woman walking along the highway, her fire-engine-red hair, black t-shirt and pencil skirt out of place in a locale that was rural to the point of emptiness. Albert swore under his breath.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” he told Harry. “Roll down your window, I’m pulling over.” But the woman only threw a glance at the car as it slowed, flipped them the bird, and kept walking, though she stepped gingerly and Harry noticed she was barefoot on the asphalt. Albert leant across him and stuck his head out the window:

“Diane!”

“Fuck off, guys. I’m not Diane, and whoever she is I bet she’d tell you the same.” Harry gently pushed Albert back and leant out the window himself:

“Sorry, ma’am, mistaken identity. Are you all right though? I see you’ve mislaid your shoes.”

“Looks like somebody ran off with them,” the woman answered, her tone mocking despite the tired set of her shoulders. “I haven’t been up to anything illegal, officer. Just a bit of fooling around.”

“We can give you a ride into town,” Harry offered. “If it helps, you’ll be alone in the back seat— means you can get the drop on us if you start to feel nervous.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the offer, then abruptly barked out a laugh and opened the back door of the car, took a seat and folded her long legs in after her. “Only because I need a lift,” she insisted, rubbing her bare feet. “I knew office romances were a bad idea, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. Nothing to do now but go home and drown my sorrows in Hallowe’en candy.”

“You’ve still got candy left over from Hallowe’en?” In the mirror above the dashboard, Harry saw Albert raise an eyebrow and the woman in the back seat frowned, insulted:

“No! I may not have a maternal bone in my body, but I’m not going to give the trick-or-treaters candy that’s a year old.”

“Ma’am,” Harry asked, thinking about the calendar back in the Pearblossom Motel office, “what date d’you think it is?”

“Mid-October,” she began. Harry saw her reach into her purse with her black-and-white nails and pull out a mobile phone. Her eyes widened at the date: “No, it’s March. The fuck?—” She ran a hand through her scarlet hair. Harry wondered if it was dyed or a wig. Perhaps she was bald too. “Must be losing it. I was so sure it was October. And it’s not like I’ve could’ve been wandering around this desert for five months.” She tapped her phone screen. “5,230 messages?!” She looked frightened now, raising her head to meet their gaze in the mirror. “Where the hell have I been? And you guys— you’re feds, aren’t you?”

“No,” Harry began.

“I am,” said Albert. “He’s not.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s going on? Or is it classified? God, it’s not aliens, is it? I always assumed alien conspiracies were bullshit to cover up real conspiracies.”

“It’s probably not aliens,” Harry answered, unable to keep doubt from his voice as he remembered Major Briggs, “but I afraid it’s not going to sound any less weird.”

“To start with, we’re in the area investigating a colleague who disappeared in October,” began Albert, “and then you turn up, apparently amnesiac since that date.”

“And with my messages unchecked since then.”

“Yes, but there’s another detail— you look exactly like a former colleague of mine who was close to our missing man. That’s why I called you Diane when I slowed down.”

“I need a smoke.”

“No.”

“Albert,” Harry interrupted, “I’ve already got cancer, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Do you want me to answer that in detail?”

“No I don’t.” Harry turned to look over his shoulder at the woman in the back: “Just roll down your window first.”

“We’ll pull over and she can step away from the car,” said Albert.

He stopped on a shoulder, and their passenger got out and lit a cigarette. Examining the packet, she called to them:

“Three left. That’s fewer than I remember having on me in October, but not by much.” Albert, meanwhile, had pulled a shopping bag from the back seat:

“You should eat something,” he said to Harry, producing a sealed cup of applesauce and a box of plastic spoons. Between rounds of treatment, Harry’s nausea receded, but his appetite was still pretty weak. “There’s saltine crackers, too.” Harry chuckled in spite of himself as he tore the foil off the applesauce:

“This all makes me feel like I’m home from school with the ‘flu.”

“You’ll have to watch Roadrunner cartoons on your own phone, I’m not paying for the data,” Albert snapped.

“I’m surprised we even get reception out here.” The red-haired woman had strolled back to the car with her cigarette, though she took care to stay downwind from Harry’s rolled-down window. “Guys, is it just me or is this highway really deserted— like, Rod-Serling-voiceover deserted?”

“We were just thinking Roadrunner cartoons.”

“Can’t be, there’s no weird rocks.” She flicked ash onto the pavement, “Though it does feel like if someone painted a tunnel entrance on a wall around here, you might be able to drive into it. If you weren’t a coyote.” She took another drag and glanced at the power lines humming above their heads. “Maybe it’s the hum from those wires that’s giving us brain cancer— oh sorry, dude.” She broke off and looked at Harry in apology.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said when he’d finished swallowing his mouthful of applesauce. “I’ve got leukaemia, not brain cancer. And the sound from those lines is unpleasant. Like the whine of mosquitoes in the woods.” As he spoke the hum intensified, becoming a loud crackle. Albert glanced up as a shadow fell over the three travellers and their car.

In the sky a dark, nebulous shape twisted, circled, formed a comma or an apostrophe, and dove towards them.

The first few grackles, out of thousands, came down on the roof and hood of the car. Harry could see one pecking at the windscreen and glaring at him with hard yellow eyes. He suddenly remembered Coop had been afraid of birds; until now, he’d never been able to imagine why. He turned and pushed open the back door as the woman dove inside the vehicle. Around them, the flock blotted out the landscape.

“Hope they don’t scratch up the finish,” Albert shouted over the sound of wing-beats, “or I’m not getting my deposit back.”

“Is this nesting season? I mean, are the grackles round here normally this—”

“Oh fuck, one got in!” came a yell from the back seat. Eardrums ringing, Harry turned to see a small black shape ricocheting around the car’s interior as the woman flailed her long, bare arms. The grackle made for the gap between Albert’s seat and headrest.

And got stuck, its beak not quite touching the back of Albert’s neck.

Harry reached for the little feathered body, thinking of how to pin the wings against the bird’s sides to avoid injury to it or the surrounding humans, but the moment his fingers touched it, it crumbled. At the same time the din outside the car ceased.

“That— that’s not natural.” Their passenger was covering her mouth with her hand. Even Albert looked shocked. Harry stared at the palmful of ash that was all that was left of the grackle.

“Let me get a sample bag,” Albert muttered. He pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and held it out while Harry poured the remains in. Then he handed him a packet of wet wipes. “You all right, Diane?” The woman in the back seat did not correct him on the name this time.

“Couple of scratches,” she said, examining her right arm. Albert passed her a mini first-aid kit. Got to give him his dues, he prepares for everything, thought Harry, adjusting the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Y’know,” he said, “This could be a good sign. In that it’s any kind of sign. There’s nothing worse than working in the dark, waiting for some hint you’re getting warmer or colder— that’s the kind of thing makes you wonder if the thing you’re looking for is even out there at all. But this—”

“Someone tipped their hand, you mean, when they tried throwing a Hitchcock movie in our faces,” Albert cut in. “But what exactly did we do to worry them?” His glance, and Harry’s, moved to the dashboard mirror’s reflection of their passenger.

“You think the birds were after me, or wanted to break up our merry band?” She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble is I know a token effort when I see one.”

“Or a warning.”

“We found the Pearblossom Motel;” Harry thought he saw the woman flinch at the name. “And then left it, to head for Odessa.”

“Are you suggesting we drive around in circles and see if they attack again?” Albert muttered.

“I think that’d be a little unfair to our passenger.” Harry turned to her: “Ma’am, I believe Albert when he says he knows you; but I also believe you when you say you don’t remember him. We can drop you anywhere you like— your call.”

“Give me a few minutes, fellas. Given all the weird shit I’ve just been through, I’ve got to think about whether I’m safer away from you two, or sticking close by. Plus I’ve got messages to check.” She took her phone out again. Without taking his eyes off the road, Albert pulled his own phone from his suit jacket, passing it to Harry:

“You’d better check mine. Maybe Tammy’s got some news—she’s been looking up everyone connected with events in Twin Peaks, but not living in the area. She even emailed some couple in Japan, though I’m still not sure what they’ve got to do with this.”

Harry peered at Albert’s phone screen, occasionally commenting if something looked to be of interest:

“Gordon’s sent a grudging OK, tells you to be careful. Also tells you to look after me. I’d always imagined he’d type in uppercase— didn’t realize it was him at first. Hm. Do you know a coroner?”

“I know lots of coroners, we get together for an annual poker tournament and lucky draw. And when I say draw…”

“Do you know a Dr. Talbot in Buckhorn?” Harry interrupted. “Autopsied a headless body last September that turned out to be Major— wait, he— is this one of those revised timeline things?”

“Not exactly.” Albert brought Harry up to date as best he could on Major Briggs’ disappearance and decades-later reappearance. “I certainly remember meeting Constance,” he added, after a pause, and cleared his throat again. “According to Tammy, I made a favourable impression on her, which is… unusual among my acquaintances, even those who share my profession. So what does she have to say?”

“Something about a wedding ring and Schrödinger’s Cat?” Harry looked at the message again. “She says Tammy spoke to her, and was going to contact you too… a gold ring they found on Briggs… sorry, in Briggs… keeps disappearing from her office’s records and the FBI’s evidence files, then coming back again?”

Albert frowned in thought as he drove: “Does it have anything engraved on it?” Harry tapped a message on the phone screen, CC-ing Constance and Tammy.

Outside the car, suburbs, or at least car dealerships and big-box stores, were beginning to sprout up along the highway.

Albert’s phone pinged and Harry read the message from Constance:

“Yes, scribbled it down last time I could find the record. This ring any (wedding) bells? TO DOUGIE, WITH LOVE, JANEY-E”

“Janey-E,” said Diane from the back seat, and Harry heard her drop her phone. Turning around he saw her wringing her hands, the nails now robin’s-egg blue. “Albert,” she gasped, “Oh, Albert, I was almost lost again.”

“I believe the change in method may have led to a breakthrough: I haven’t found any rooms leading off of the corridor I’m following, but the decor has gradually changed from black-and-white flooring and red curtains, to dark brown linoleum flooring and institutional green walls hung with large relief maps of different parts of the world. The maps appear to have been manufactured some time between 1954 and 1965, as they show North and South Vietnam as separate nations. I’m just passing the continent of Antarctica, now, and… oh. I think there might be…

Diane, I found the white room, and when I call it that, I’m not simply echoing Laura’s name for it. It was like a cross between a sanatorium and a snow cave, if a snow cave had furniture. There was a bed with white blankets and a white metal frame like a hospital bed. Audrey was sitting on one end of it, wrapped in a white bathrobe and looking at a round mirror that stood on a little white table. She turned as I entered, and her face was older, drawn and, for a moment, frightened. Then she looked at me again and relaxed, saying ‘Oh, it’s really you.’ I fear she must have met one of my nastier doppelgängers at some point.”

At Diane’s request, they stopped to eat at a fast-food chain before approaching the diner Coop had been investigating in at least one timeline.

“I’m hungry, but I’d be too nervous to eat at the place where Dale might have… well, if they’re a front for something, then the food’s either spectacular or terrible, and I’m not feeling lucky right now. I want to be someplace as bland and mundane as possible for a while, so I can regroup.”

“Well this place has a twenty-minute limit.” Albert jerked his thumb at the sign.

“That’ll do.” Diane curled up beside Harry in the booth as Albert went up to the counter to place their orders. She still wore her pencil skirt, but on on of their stops she’d purchased tennis shoes and a couple of fresh t-shirts— the one she was wearing at the moment read NOT TODAY in flowery letters. “Now he’s got two of us to worry about,” she said under her breath. Harry decided to reply:

“Someone needs to worry about him.” Diane nodded, and Harry offered his hand: “Sorry, we never did the proper introductions did we? Harry S. Truman.”

“I know.” Her expression relaxed slightly. “I see why he likes you.”

“Not sure Albert likes anybody, exactly—”

“That’s not who I was talking about.”

Albert returned with a eye-searingly-orange plastic tray:

“Mushroom burger, cheeseburger, buttered biscuit for you, Harry, because they can’t just serve toast like a real restaurant and those things they claim are bagels are made out of lies.”

“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll survive a biscuit.” Harry picked up one half of the baked item and took a bite. It wasn’t too bad, actually.

“Diane, the ring that jogged your memory—”

“My half-sister and her husband. Don’t ask me how they’d be mixed up in this though, Janey-E’s aggressively normal.”

“And her husband?”

“Never actually met him. Janey-E and I don’t talk much,” she explained. “But from her comments he’s… passively normal. Works for an insurance company, drinks too much sometimes, the whole man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit thing.”

“I’ve been talking with Audrey, or the version of her that existed in the white room. You’ll notice I use the past tense. Still sitting on the bed, she raised a finger and pointed to the mirror in front of her, saying:

‘The other me— she ran away from home, like she thought Laura had done. I’m amazed she survived her first year in the big city, but look:’

Diane, I saw Audrey searching records online, tailing suspects, testifying in civil and sometimes criminal courts. It’s a life that can make a cynic of the kindest soul, but there are situations the police don’t or can’t investigate, and those were— are, I suppose— Audrey’s bread and butter, in that mirror world. And they seem to pay well enough she can afford to do some pro bono cases.

‘I wish I were out there,’ she said, and the mirror clouded and shifted. She  patted the bedspread, and I sat down beside her. ‘You know how,’ she began, ‘when you’re a kid, and you’re reading your favourite book, and a little after the halfway point, you start to think ‘I’m getting near the end of the book?’ And really, you’re not— there are pages and pages left of scenes and pictures. You’re always surprised just how much more there is. But it’s not enough to shake the feeling it’s putting off the inevitable. Dawdling before bedtime.’ She stood up suddenly, bent and kissed me on the brow. ‘Say hello to the other me, if you ever run into her.’ And then she was gone, Diane. Not in flame or fadeout, just gone.”

I look up, and Laura is beside me.

The diner, when they found it, was not what Harry’d pictured. Instead of a lonely Edward Hopper tableau, or a grimy spoon where toughs whispered to each other along the lunch counter and cast knowing glances in the direction of the men’s room, “Wispy Dreams Cafe” was a blandly cheerful donut shop, the logo rather obviously altered from that of a national chain.

“Looks like they’re under new management.” Diane observed as they got out of the car. “Or else they got tired of paying for the franchise?” The three of them made their way across the parking lot the cafe shared with the landscaping company next door. Inside, the sound of chattering customers and a hum from the coffee machine both soothed and overwhelmed. Harry steadied himself against a gleaming, cream-colored formica counter. The woman on the other side— not a fresh-faced high-school senior or a kindly-faced matron, just a woman with her hair in a ponytail and circles under her eyes, doing her best to smile— threw him a glance and Harry nodded.

“I’m ok. Albert, Diane, what do you two want?”

A couple of minutes later, they sat by the window, feigning interest in their donuts and coffee.

“Well, we’re living the cop cliché,” whispered Albert. “So, what do you think? Soulless suburban hangout, or den of villainy?”

Harry gingerly sipped the brew in his cardboard cup and eyed the other customers. You couldn’t say the place wasn’t busy; the woman at the counter had already served a family of four in the time it had taken Harry, Albert and Diane to seat themselves with their coffees, and another customer had just come in the door.

“That counter’s been installed recently. Deep-fat fryer’s been replaced too.”

“And they don’t know how to use it yet. You could wax skis with these donuts. That’s hardly a crime, though.” Diane looked around at the blue and yellow walls painted with large trompe l’oeil sprinkles. “Doesn’t seem to be anything else funny about the place— I hate to say it but this place might be legit.”

Harry watched the new customer lean in to the counter. Harry couldn’t quite make out what he was saying— presumably the man was placing his order, but it seemed to be taking a while and there was something tense in the woman’s expression. Beside him he heard Diane swear under her breath, and faster than he could turn his head, his peripheral vision took in that she was getting up. She strode towards the counter and Harry had a glimpse of the angry red scratch on her arm as he struggled to his feet.

Diane was leaning on the counter now, trying to insert herself between the customer and the worker.

“What did you just say to her?” she was asking.

“Look, I come in here all the time, we joke around. What makes you think it’s your fucking business?”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Harry loomed up behind the customer— he might have only half his usual strength but he was still a good six inches taller than the other man. Behind him, he guessed, Albert was approaching. Harry knew the agent was unwilling to use physical force and not exactly skilled at defusing situations through diplomacy, so he turned his gaze on the customer with all the quiet confidence he’d used as Sheriff. In his ear Diane hissed:

“It’s nothing to do with the case, this asshole’s just creeping on the staff.” She must’ve locked eyes with the man too, for he was staring at her now, his bland pink features shifting expression from anger to terrified fascination.

Rather an unimpressive face, thought Harry, and then, what’s Diane doing? He turned to look at her sharp, smiling profile, and saw a tear slide from her eye.

“No,” she said loudly and abruptly, and blinked hard. “Do you want us to escort him out?” she asked the woman behind the counter; but the man was already out the door and running for his car.

“Diane,” Harry whispered.

“Diane,” whispered Albert. Diane was passing one hand across her eyes.

“I could have fried him. Just now. Something wanted me to; but I just wanted him to back off.” She beamed at them as Albert held out an arm for her to steady herself. “I think I’m back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

“Are we the only two left here now?”

“I’m not even here anymore.”

“I don’t know how to get back to the waiting room.”

“It doesn’t matter, the coffee’s cold.”

Somehow, the white room has become even more featureless, despite that being both a logical and a grammatical impossibility. Only the bed, the table and Audrey’s mirror remain. A moment in the glass catches my eye, and I look to see— oh Diane, I’m so glad you escaped! I see you travelling with Albert, and… oh, Harry…

…the cafe’s fluorescent lights flickered as the background hum, noticeable since their arrival, now rose to an ear-splitting volume then died away just as suddenly. As the three of them looked on, an old-fashioned hospital bed, its steel frame painted white, materialized between the counter and the booths, replacing two unoccupied tables. At one end of it sat Agent Dale Cooper, fully dressed in his suit and tie, a look on his face of mild surprise that turned to the familiar joy as his gaze met theirs. Coop had grown older like the rest of them, sharper angles in his face, but he looked hale and well, and his eyes did not have the cruel gleam that chilled Harry’s memories of their last meeting.

“Harry,” he said, as though a quarter-century hadn’t passed. In response Harry silently doffed his cowboy hat, revealing his pallor, his naked scalp. Coop’s smiled wavered a little. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he whispered, and rose from the white bed. In the background, the cafe staff and patrons continued to chat and serve and drink and eat coffee and donuts as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on right in front of them. Albert made a hesitant noise in his throat and Coop raised his hand in that just a moment gesture he always used to make, and in that moment Harry knew his friend really was back from wherever he’d been all those years.

“Apologies for being brusque,” Coop said, “but there’s a family in Las Vegas who I’ve reason to believe are in danger right now—”

“Janey-E?” Diane asked.

“Right on the button. For personal reasons which I’ll explain later, I can’t get in touch with them myself. The Mitchell brothers might be able to help, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to recall of our last meeting.”

“Tammy and Constance are already on it.”

“Good,” Coop looked relieved, and Harry stepped forward, shaking a little in spite of himself, and as if the motion had at last given him permission, Coop sailed forward and embraced him— very gently, as if he feared Harry might break. He’s gauging by touch how much weight I’ve lost, thought Harry, but it’s all right. He’d forgotten how warm Coop was. He became aware of Albert and Diane joining in, arms circling his shoulders and Coop’s. If I died right here and now, it’d be all right.

But this embrace was not an epitaph, or an epilogue. Outside, somewhere else in the city, was an imitation of an ancient stone monument; and a copy of an old theatre where real audiences watched real actors. Somewhere the forces that had sent the dark cloud of grackles prepared another attack, and somewhere Tammy Preston was moving to protect Janey-E and Dougie Jones. Elsewhere Audrey Horne walked the mean streets and was not herself mean. This was an interlude, but let them have it for a while.

A couple of patrons turned their heads to smile at the reunion going in their midst.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books. 

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful. 

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time. 

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe. 

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular. 

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles. 

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**. 

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview. 

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.) 

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.) 

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy! 

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions. 

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there. 

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff. 

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD 

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

[anothertimdrakestan]

Set In Stone - Go Back

If this is the first of this series you’re seeing click HERE

I put a read more so these don’t eat up my entire blog! Enjoy <3

“We have to go back Bart. I don’t know why I was given these powers but I was, and I can save lives with them, especially back at our home Earth, there’s a reason we were supposed to come here and it’s to know that we fight for a reason, for the family here and for the billions of lives that lived because of the way people like you, me, and Tim fight for what’s right. That’s the decision a true hero makes” Bart looked at you, a look of understanding flooding his face. “You’re right - damn you’re so totally right. Just give me time to say bye?” of course you agreed, waiting for him just staring at the beautiful future. 

Children dressed in immaculate clothes chased each other laughing jubilantly while grandparents walked hand and hand down the street. The elders stopped, staring at you in disbelief. “My god you look just like Y/N you know the hero from my generation!” the older lady looked shocked to be talking to you. “Oh um, yeah. I get that one a lot!” you smiled, your heart warming knowing that you’d be known as a hero. “Ah she was a good one wasn’t she! She rescued me one time! She says “you look like Johnny Brooke” and I says “I am ma’am” and she just hugged me! I was no older than 10 - I still have the picture of us together!” the elderly man fumbled open his wallet, showing you a photo of an older looking version of you dressed in a deep purple suit, your arm around a little kid, the both of you beaming. “Johnny Brooke, great name!” you tried to take a mental picture so when you went back to Earth you’d know to look for him, time traveling was weird like that.

The couple parted ways and Bart came outside, his cheeks slightly wet from a tearful goodbye. After a quick stretch he was ready to go. You clung to his back and he turned to you one last time. “You sure about this? I don’t know if this will be our future” you thought about Johnny “I know this is the right thing to do, heroes right?” “Heroes.” Bart replied before taking off, the familiar energy crackling in the air. 

This felt different than going forwards in time. In fact it felt so different you weren’t quite sure you were even time travelling. You peeled open your eyes to face a mirror image of you. “Hey girl! Looking good! Heh get it?” she cracked the same joke you would’ve made. “Am I dead?” you asked, confused as to why your hell or heaven was just another version of yourself. She looked happier, confident almost. “Oooh yea, bear with me cuz this is some wack shit okay?” you nodded, glancing down to confirm you still had arms and legs in this alternate universe.

“okayyy so! long story short the deity Fate chose me - well, you and me - us, to carry the burden of the ever changing future. Scary shit right! So like besides all the daddy issues I’m unloading on you I’m here to tell you that the whole Tim or Bart choices stuff is bullshit all just a big test to unlock some epic powers! Obviously you passed - that whole “we are heroes” speech was totes adorable also I totally want to know how the fuck you got to the future cuz I had a hell of a time finding you I mean damn girl what did you do? Meet and tell Bart the truth even though he is basically a child when we first met him? Anyways, you can test out the fancy powers later - there’s another y/n or well, us, that wasn’t given the opportunity to choose selflessness so we’re gonna go help her! Then you can go back to your shitty timeline where you trust people! Deal?” 

“Extra powers? What do you mean?” were the first words that tumbled out of your mouth. “Don’t worry about it girl let’s go kick some ass!” You grabbed your own hand, leaping into a giant portal. 

(to read the y/n & y/n team up to save y/n plot you can go to the masterlist or go back to the beginning and make new choices!)

“Wait so you met yourself, then went on a quick trip to save yourself?!?! I THOUGHT BART KILLED YOU” Tim screeched as you tried to explain the epic adventure you just went on. Bart was relieved when you returned home, he blasted into the present and then realized you were nowhere to be found. “Yeah it’s totally crash there’s like a multiverse of y/n’s and Tim’s and Bart’s! And since they all have futures all the Y/N’s can connect! We’re actually gonna go get coffee soon I think!” you explained and Tim just about fainted. 

It would take a while for him to wrap his brain around what had happened, and it took you time to completely understand your powers and their limits. And all the reasons why you can’t go fall in love with another multiverse’s Conner Kent just because he wears a sexy spikey leather jacket and your Conner wears a black t-shirt. Life lessons. But it was worth it, the pain with using your powers was beginning to dissipate once you learned that the future changes, flowing with time not set in stone - once you learned to flow with the tide you stopped getting hit with waves. And you never stopped learning what being a hero meant to you, rooted in the selfless protection of your world you found yourself becoming a better hero and person every day. Plus the newly found daddy issues with Fate, but you had your infinite number of Y/N’s to help with that! 

“So if nothing is set in stone you can pick one of us without the other dying - who’s it gonna be?” Bart waggled an eyebrow at you seductively while Tim looked up curiously. “Yeah! I wanna know!” he added. You rolled your eyes, “if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that picking and choosing ultimatums only hurts yourself and others, why would I continue that trend after everything I’ve learned!” Tim shrugged in agreement, still hoping you’d go for him. 

Bart didn’t get the message. “Wait so you’re saying threesome?”

“No!”

One of the best endings you can get - care to find the other good ones?

~ hey I really hope you enjoyed this series. It all started with me asking myself why heroes sacrifice themselves so easily, take Wally West in Young Justice or Superboy in infinite crisis originally I thought it was because of their relationship to the other heros or their family but then I realized that the best heroes do it because they see the life of others as so precious they’ll give anything for it - no matter the person. So I wanted to see all the ways selfishness can burden decisions, especially when it comes to love. I also wanted to show that not every ending to a story is inherently good or bad. This series has endings that end with love, death, secrets, lies, truths, and heroism and they can all mean something different to the person making the decisions. I’d love to know what you thought of this! ~

[youllallriseintheink]

Aimless rambling about the ink thinner AU

So, I’ve always kind of wanted to explore this comedy au in more depth (and no, I’m not writing a fanfic on it. It would be aimless). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the ink thinner AU is one where the crew gets the opposite of their usual personality for a week. This doesn’t include a person’s abilities or attitudes about specific people (it won’t make Wally smart, or make Sammy instantly fall in love with him). It’s an interesting concept to explore- what would you, as a person, do if you could be separated from so much of what keeps you where you are for a week?

I’m going to add an extra detail: on day two, Joey figures out what happened and calls the other twelve into his office to explain. All of those who have families and/or significant others will have a meeting together that night to explain what’s going on to their loved ones so they can work out an arrangement.

Original post is here: https://youllallriseinthenk.tumblr.com/post/187692782312/what-would-happen-if-each-of-the-batim-employees

The post is about what their personalities are, but I want to talk about how they’d handle it.

Henry: has way too many emotions and no way to handle them since he’s always been super calm without much effort. On the plus side, he 100% takes advantage of Joey’s temporary reasonableness so he can get him to make some changes around the studio in regards to working conditions. Does his best to contain himself at home. (His kids mostly just think it’s funny.)

Joey: It was a long week for him. Suddenly developing empathy when you’re a person who’s done so much wrong isn’t easy, and he was also a pretty somber person in general that week. On the plus side, he made some great changes to the company and apologized to a bunch of people he did wrong to.

Sammy: is really even-tempered all week. Takes the opportunity to apologize Susie and Wally for being so snappish all the time, and tackles particularly frustrating parts in the songs he’s working on.

Susie: Is finally able to look at things logically and leave her obsession with the Alice role behind. Being less naive, she comes to a realization that she is being seriously mistreated at Joey Drew Studios and writes down why she thinks that so that she will remember when the week is over. Signs up for auditions elsewhere. Her cynicism is really off-putting, though.

Allison: is outwardly a total bitch all week, but her fire for novelty is gone, at least. It’s pretty uneventful for her, except that Thomas is really kind to her. She and Susie go out to bitch about life over coffee at one point.

Thomas: it’s a very peaceful week for him. He’s able to have a productive and helpful discussion with Joey (see below) and can connect with Allison in a way that’s hard to come by for him now that he’s in a rare state of inner peace and contentment. Will probably miss this more than anyone.

Jack: essentially spends the week making his rounds on every person that routinely takes advantage of him, chews them out, and sets new boundaries on the relationship. Goes harder on some people than they deserve and apologizes to them as soon as the week is over. He also crashes at Sammy’s place so that his family doesn’t have to deal with him being an asshole.

Wally: was so depressed that he spent the first day of it in bed. Afterwards, he was determined to move up in the world and made a plan to do so. He was thinking “who’s the last person I’d normally want the help of,” and invited Shawn to help him.

Norman: was really sociable all week and made a bunch of friends with people not affected by ink thinner. He lost track of most of them afterwards, but he kept a few.

Grant: obviously enjoyed being cheerful and energetic. Used the opportunity to draw up a detailed financial plan for the studio to get as much as possible fixed, and especially to get as much done as possible before Joey was back to normal. Also tackled some things in his home life that usually seem too hard or intimidating.

Bertrum: is essentially thrown into a paralyzing existential crisis because everything he’s ever done was to become as big and noticeable as possible, but now he feels like an disgusting embarrassment and just wants to hide and never be seen or thought of again. (Yeah... a person who hates themself as much as Bertie loves himself is a wild mess.)

Lacie: really has to help Bertrum stand up for himself. Thankfully she’s feeling really gentle and nurturing right now. Eventually she just has to encourage him to take the time off and not make any big decisions until he’s himself again.

Some events:

-Jack chews Joey the fuck out for everything, which makes him cry. Sammy as well. Both of them treat him with kindness that week. Sammy didn’t even realize he was mistreating Jack until he told him because Jack is just that much of a cheerful pushover. Sammy changes his behaviour towards Jack after the week is over. On the other hand, Jack picks a fight with Allison that ends with him in the infirmary.

-on day two, during the meeting where Joey tells everyone what’s going on, Wally drops some line about how depressed he’s been. After the meeting, Grant takes him aside and offers to tell him some of his coping mechanisms, since he’s used to dealing with it. Wally takes him up on the offer. The two passed by each other a few times that week and Grant made a point of asking Wally how he’s doing. After the week, Wally started asking the same thing on the occasions when they crossed paths (until Wally left, that is. See below.)

-Since Thomas doesn’t feel so under-thumb anymore he tries to have a serious talk with Joey about the ink machine. Joey tearfully admits that the ink machine is evil and they should get rid of it. Being both unusually sentimental and naive, Thomas comforts him and promises not to go to the police so long as Joey immediately gives the order to start taking down the machine. Of course, that order is immediately reversed the second the week is over, and so is Thomas’ willingness to go to the authorities.

-Wally and Shawn have a deep, meaningful conversation about their future careers. Wally writes out a plan to take a second job so he can save enough money to take some time off, learn a trade, and go into a career that will make him happier with himself. Shawn considers looking for a job as a chef and leaving the studio behind. The second the week is over, Wally is so glad to feel alive again that he immediately crinkles up the plan and is like, “Hey Shawn, fuck this, I’m happy right here!” To help him celebrate, Shawn sets fire to the plan and dares Wally to stuff it in his mouth. He does. After the week, Shawn actually does go on to become a chef, and gets Wally a job as a janitor at the restaurant. Thus, neither of them get sacrificed.

-Right before the week is over, Jack gets ahold of the intercom, and tells everyone that he’s found more ink thinner and will drink a whole gallon of it if anyone tries treating him like dirt again. A few days afterwards, Grant and Thomas approach Jack, and, well, it wasn’t easy telling the poor guys that there was no more ink thinner.

If you have anything to add, reblog and add it.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I'm new to your blog but found a few posts that were about a JayTom ship, and I was wondering who Tom was? And also you've mentioned in a couple of posts the idea of Jason having a lineup of Titans in his age range and you talked about the Ray and Damage in one. Do you have a whole lineup in mind for them and if so, is there a post on that somewhere?

LOL man, I really need to start pulling all my posts about JayTom and Jay’s lineup of Titans together for some kind of a masterlist, so thanks for the reminder haha. Like, I saw this ask and thought of various posts to point you towards but ugh, I don’t know where any of them are.

Anyway, so. The Tom of JayTom. Aka my ideal ship for Robin!Jason in the series of one-shots about an AU where Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia in ADITF and thus never dies, that’s kinda grown out of that of a one-shot I started as a writing commission a couple months ago, if anyone else remembers that….the one that was like ‘what if Jason called Dick after the Garzonas incident and Dick sided with Jason’…that one. 

Which then snowballed into ‘well, then I could give Jason his own lineup of Titans who are in the same age range as like a younger gen learning from Dick’s generations of Titans but still older than Tim’s generation of YJ and then eventual Titans.’

Sigh. Oh, me. Right! So! Anyway! Tom in JayTom is Thomas Bronson, the son of JSA member Ted Grant, aka Wildcat. 

Tom and Jason have never ever interacted in canon as far as I know, as I don’t think Tom’s ever appeared outside of JSA and Jason never appeared in that book either before or after his death. BUT by the magic of winging it and Canon Has Not Definitively Contradicted Me, I think the two of them are feasibly in the same age range, so I’m going with them both being fifteen when they meet here.

Tom’s a scrappy, street smart, attitude throwing teenager with daddy issues of his own, lol, thanks to Ted’s general non-existence in his life, for most of it….and he’s also tiny, like, 5′6″ and 135 lbs even at the end of his teenage years. LMAO, I honestly don’t remember, but I think that might be the whole basis of this ship for me, or where it originated. Like, I happened across Tom’s stats as listed on one of the DC wiki sites, and was like, lol oh, he and Robin!Jason could be pint-sized punks together! And then from there, I had the inevitable thought “okay but now make them gay” and then from there I fell into my usual trap of “oh no, it was supposed to be a joke but now I’m taking it seriously and seriously pondering how it could seriously work.”

And then from there it consumed my brain and devoured my life. I swear, it was Dick/Kyle all over again. Ugh, my brain is so problematic.

So anyway, this is Tom:

He’s a werepanther, he can shapeshift into a panther form to fight, which brings up an interesting facet of his character and something I think could be really fun to play off Jason and his own issues…because Tom hates fighting. HATES it. Will run from a fight at any given opportunity rather than engage….but its not because he’s a coward, or doesn’t have heroic instincts of his own, and its not even because he’s not GOOD at fighting.

Its that he’s scared of himself, and scared of hurting whoever he’s fighting…at least more than he means to. Because he has trouble controlling his shift when in fights. His panther form just comes out in response to his own amped up levels of aggression. The fight or flight response for him is actually more like “flight or turn into a raging whirlwind of clawed and fanged fury that can’t stop won’t stop until he’s definitively won his fight….which by extension, usually means his opponent is currently bleeding out on the ground from a few dozen deep claw marks because Panther!Tom’s claws and fangs are SHARP.”

Now pair this fear of his own power with Tom’s natural belligerence and problems with authority at certain points in his life, AND his desire to follow in his hero father’s footsteps as well as his resentment and giving himself grief every time he realizes he even has that desire, because he doesn’t owe his deadbeat dad shit and can’t stand that he nevertheless admires him in a lot of ways and still feels a desire to prove himself to him…

Then pair him up with Jason during his Robin years, going through similar issues and emotions as well as a comparable dynamic with Bruce as him not dying in Ethiopia nevertheless changes nothing about the two of them likely clashing more and more over their views on how to deal with criminals and the appropriate levels of aggression when dealing with them….

And that right there, IMO, is super strong potential for a dynamic couple with a lot in common and yet occasional clashes of their own due to different opinions on which direction to go in so as to address those shared issues…but who likely would never hesitate for a second before backing each other up and presenting a united front against anyone else who tried to give one or the other shit for any reason whatsoever.

Also, I have vastly amused myself with the thought (and the occasional post here and there) of Ted and Bruce continually glowering at each other and blaming each other’s son for being a bad influence on their son, who has never done anything wrong in their life ever, CLEARLY (even if Bruce had actually just grounded Jason the day before. Whatever. Ted doesn’t need to know that).

Anyway, so that’s the JayTom I reference now and then. I’ve always maintained that Jason could really benefit from having a stronger support system of friends distinct to him and not sharing similar dynamics with any of his siblings, so then I was like, well if Jay doesn’t die, and I have him and Dick closer in this AU than they’re usually written as being, plausibly Jason would spend a lot of time at the Tower to get away from Bruce and his own fights with him. 

With Dick being more than able to relate to trouble dealing with Bruce and thus happy to lend a sympathetic ear….and eventually maybe express to Bruce that it might do them both some good for Jason to make more friends his own age and have some normal routines that took him out of the house and Gotham enough that he and Bruce don’t constantly feel like they’re breathing down each other’s necks and keeping tension a constant thing between them. A little space now and then could benefit them both, give them chances to cool off after their fights and actually MISS each other before readdressing the issues.

So then I could see the Titans kinda sending out invitations/recruiting various teen heroes around Jason’s age that they’d all maybe had their eyes on for awhile as kids who could benefit from the same kind of team unity/group support that helped them so much when they were that age just a few years ago themselves.

Which leads me to where I am now which is….I still haven’t settled on a solid lineup, because I came up with too many choices, lol. Basically, my parameters were I wanted characters who could feasibly be said to be in the same age range as Jason and Tom, and didn’t have super strong associations with any other characters that would create any kind of conflict with them being on a Titans team at this point in the timeline instead. And because I’m all about my thematics, I wanted them all to have certain root issues in common that they could all bond over and actually, y’know, support each other with and through. 

(The same way I think Dick’s generation of Titans actually has certain distinct themes and issues that almost all of them share and can relate to in varying ways, which I think has a lot to do with how quickly and fully they all bonded and why they created such lasting friendships and teams between them. But that’s a whole other post, lol.)

So the central shared issues I decided to focus on for Jason’s age group of Titans were: teen/young heroes from abusive homes or runaways, ones with issues and fears stemming from and regarding their own powers or tempers, etc, and misfits who were regarded warily by other or older heroes and considered potentially able to end up on either side of the hero/villain line in the sand.

Which Dick’s generation of Titans, which of course includes Raven, Kory, etc, would not be in agreement with that last part, and thus be all the more likely to recruit these specific teen heroes and be like nyah, nyah, watch how with our help and oh yeah, SUPPORT, they all become the best damn heroes that ever did heroically hero. Suck it, JLA-holes!

(And then Donna would be like, not you Diana, you know we’re cool, its just I gotta do the team solidarity thing and Dick, Garth and Roy are still being Displeased with their mentors/dads at the moment, and also we’re all kinda ticked you guys stole Wally. Btw, we’re stealing the new Green Lantern kid, because Revenge and stuff. He’s ours now, you snooze, you lose).

 So, Jason’s lineup of Titans will consist of some of the following, I’m just not 100% sure which yet, because I have to whittle down the list.

1) Jason (nominally mentored by Dick, but the latter just calls it an excuse for brother bonding time and neither of them make much reference ever to having any kind of actual mentor/protégé relationship like I see the rest of Jay’s lineup having. Plus, Jason unique from the rest already has a mentor in Bruce anyway, so his situation and reasons for being part of this team aren’t quite the same from the others, especially as one of my reasons for this AU was always addressing the issues I have with Bruce’s parenting before the canon event point of Jason’s death, and like…..so like, Bruce does get better once Dick calls out some of his shit with Jason based on his own experiences with Bruce and then later Jason returns the favor by calling out Bruce for taking Dick for granted and no longer putting in the same effort connecting with his eldest and being an actual PARENT to him like he used to).

2) Tom Bronson/Tomcat (who else would act as his personal mentor other than Gar aka Beast Boy aka Changeling, the shapeshifter extraordinaire?)

3) Grant Emerson/Damage (recruited by Roy and his personal protégéand likely BFFs with Jason IMO, as I think their temperaments are complete opposites but Grant’s the kind of kid who would roll his eyes and dolefully follow his troublemaking best friend Jay into likely danger, because his power to blow things up really comes in handy with the kind of scrapes Jason gets himself into and this in turn is a really handy thing to point out in the aftermath of pulling Jason’s butt out of a scrape and then gloating but in the totally mature and “I’m much too nice to actually be gloating, you must be mistaken about what’s happening here” manner in which I see that going down. And in terms of the parameters I mentioned, Grant grew up bounced around abusive foster homes, is watched like a hawk by various groups and heroes because of the huge catastrophic potential of his powers, which he has his own fears about, and also he has no idea who his parents are either, and I imagine him and Jason going on a ‘find out who our real parents are roadtrip’ after graduation or something).

4) Ray Terrill/The Ray (potentially recruited by Kory and her personal protégé. He was briefly a member of Tim’s Young Justice team, but part of the reason he was never that close with the other members was he was a little bit older, just a couple years or so, but enough to put him squarely in Jason’s age range. Also comes from an abusive home, and spent the majority of his childhood living in complete darkness because his asshole uncle told him he had the same powers as his father which meant sunlight would be harmful to him and make him dangerous to be around. When in reality, like his dad, Ray’s powers are fueled by sunlight and he’s like a living solar battery, keeping him afraid to leave the dark was just meant to keep him passive and powerless. Even knowing his uncle lied now, Ray still has long had fears about his own powers, unable to totally shake the fears his uncle instilled in him).

5) Todd Rice/Obsidian (potentially recruited by Raven and her personal protégé. He and his twin sister Jenny-Lynn Hayden are probably a bit older than the rest of this team, but their ages aren’t definitively linked to any points in the DC timeline, so there’s no real conflict between handwaving them as aged down to be right around the same ages as the others. Todd and Jenny-Lynn are the twin children of original Green Lantern Alan Scott aka Sentinel, and the DC villainness Thorn. They grew up in separate foster homes though with Alan unaware of their existence for most of their childhoods. Todd’s childhood was notoriously rough, with him having several abusive foster parents. He’s canonically gay and mentally ill/neurodivergent, which several of his foster homes targeted him for. In addition, his shadow powers are tied to a dark dimension that’s said to prey on his mental state and led to occasional times where he’s been a villain briefly, and at all times his powers are regarded fearfully by most people and with him shunned and avoided because of them. All of which I think makes Raven an ideal mentor for him).

6) Jenny-Lynn Hayden/Jade (Todd’s twin sister, even though they didn’t grow up together for the most part. Honestly, she doesn’t share in a lot of the issues the rest of the team prospects do, and had a relatively good childhood before her powers developed and she found her brother and they started operating as heroes together. But upon learning who her brother and dad are, she’s always been committed to growing closer with them, so I think anywhere Todd goes in this AU, she’d definitely follow, and its not like the team can’t benefit from a heavy hitter like her, let alone more girls. Not totally sure who I picture as most mentoring her in specific, probably because I don’t see her as being recruited per se, so much as just going with Todd when recruited….but I’m thinking maybe Garth, actually. Garth has a lot of range and versatility with his powers and magic, which makes him ideal for mentoring someone who not only has the same powers as a Green Lantern, limited only by her imagination…..but who also might benefit from being mentored by someone who ISN’T a Green Lantern because she doesn’t share their traditional weaknesses and thus she’d be best off training with someone whose own techniques and instincts aren’t geared around weaknesses that are literally irrelevant to her powerset).

7) Courtney Mason/Anima (A metahuman runaway who was almost sacrificed by a cult before her powers kicked in….she’s also right in the same age range as Ray, Grant and Jason, and has briefly been a member of a couple Titans lineups but never for long and usually only for big event stories. But she fits the runaway/rough home environment parameter as well as fear of her own powers….she absorbs life energy from people and animals and can potentially kill them by draining too much. She also has a separate power that’s basically a connection to an other-dimensional spirit called the Animus that she can summon forth and unleash on her enemies. I’m thinking she’d make a good recruit/protégé for Jericho actually, for a number of reasons).

8) Cynthia Reynolds/Fantasia (? Maybe? Not sure yet. Not her actual codename, but her actual codename is a slur, so I’m def gonna make up a new one, I just haven’t 100% settled on what it is yet. Suck it, DC. She’s most known for being a member of Justice League Detroit along with Steel, Vibe and the Ray, but she’s the right age range to end up recruited to be a Titan here instead, like Ray. Also is a runaway from an abusive home, and often deals with mistrust and suspicion due to her illusion powers. Perfect recruit/protégé for Lilith, IMO).

9) Cisco Ramone/Vibe (Also created as a teenage hero to be part of the Justice League Detroit lineup, which makes him the right age range and he’s another runaway. The nature of his powers makes him a good fit to be a recruit/protégéof Mal Duncan/Herald).

10) Amy Allen/Bombshell (Totally self-indulgent on my part given that I basically would ignore the vast majority of her storylines and writing, which I think suck. She was in the Titans stories revolving around Tim’s generation of the team, but she was always stated to be a few years older than the rest, like in her late teens when the majority were probably sixteen, so I think she’s a good fit for this age range. Also had a crappy home life and parents, and her powers are hugely destructive in certain applications…she basically has the same powerset as Captain Atom, though she’s never had any kind of official mentor or sidekick relationship with him. Also, I think Captain Atom is an asshat and a dillhole and he sucks, but I do like his powers, so reinterpreting Amy as a character who doesn’t suck and playing around with her powers instead is solid decision making on my part and renders Captain Atom irrelevant now. I think I shall kill him. Because I can do that. Anyway, I think she doesn’t need him as a mentor but could make a good recruit/protégé for Leonid/Red Star).

11) Carla Moretti/Cinder (Odd choice, given that she’s only ever really been used as a villainous member of Deathstroke’s anti-Titans team and was easily in her twenties at the time. Pyrokinetic who happily makes bonfires out of her enemies but written with zero attempts at nuance, like a total one note villain framed as having long since abandoned her own humanity….which bugged the crap out of me, as she was given a super angsty backstory of childhood sexual abuse and that’s just ‘why she’s like this’ and I have a deep seeded loathing for asshole writers writing survivors as villains and just blaming their casual homicidal ways on their abuse while serving up said villains to just be punching bags or dominoes for the heroes to knock down on their way to the Boss Fight. So I do have inclinations towards making an actual Titan out of her, like with Amy, because surprise surprise, both these characters being written shittily and one note was the work of the same writer, shocking. So I’d just handwave her down to the right age range and have her recruited/mentored by Donna, probably…more due to me thinking Donna would be the best person to help her deal with stuff because she’s mastered the art of avoiding avoidance via having Dick Grayson as a BFF. So with them its not really because Carla needs mentoring with her powers specifically. Idk, Carla anyway you slice it I think has a lot of rage, and Donna knows what to do with that. Written right, Donna’s not a character who judges or shames a victim or survivor for being angry…she gets angry with them, and helps them find options for what to do with that now.) 

12) Hero Cruz (Lesser known Titan, has a device called the Dial H device that lets him turn into a different hero with different powers depending on the setting he puts it on. Basically Ben 10, but Hero came first. Doesn’t really fit most of the parameters, other than being around the right age range, and not even sure who would make a good mentor for him though I wanna say Vic, but not totally decided yet. Mostly I just like him and think he’s underused, so whatever).

There’s also a few other candidates that I have mostly ruled out but not totally. I thought about using the aged up version of Chris Kent, and just introduce him earlier than he showed up in canon. And then Kara/Supergirl could be his mentor because I kinda handwave her into Dick’s generation of Titans anyway, even though it was the alien Matrix version of Linda Danvers that was the only Supergirl ever on the team. Whatever. She should have been a Titan all along anyway. But also Chris would fit the team well as he had an abusive childhood as well, at his dad General Zod’s hands, and again, I just like the character. 

Thought of including Virgil Hawkins/Static too, even though I think he’s closer to Tim’s age range. And again, just another character I’m a fan of and think is underused, but he would definitely be an odd man out in this group because like….he comes from a happy, healthy, loving home and family, and he loves his powers. So he would constantly be just like nodding his head along while his teammates talk and like ugh that sucks, but 10/10 absolutely can not relate, my parents are awesome.  Same with Natasha Irons/Steel, who really would have to be handwaved to even be in the right age range, and again has a happy loving home environment and a superhero uncle of her own so its not like she needs a Titan mentor…..but I kinda wanna see Karen Beecher/Bumblebee take her under her wing anyway, and have them be science nerds together.

Also pretty much the only reason I ruled out Connor Hawke too, as he doesn’t really match the rest of the team in any of the parameters except for feasibly being right at the upper edge of the same age range. But again, I just love the character. 

So I’m probably gonna end up throwing at least one of these other characters in there anyway, lol. I do know myself).

Anyway. So that’s Jason’s lineup of Titans, or at least the candidates as they exist bouncing around in my head now. Also, they’re pretty much Team “Everyone is Gay Except For When They’re Bi.” Which, granted, is basically how I view Dick’s generation of Titans, but with them I have to be like Make It So, in my brain, whereas with this group like….canon’s actually done the work for me for the most part lol. Ray is gay, Todd Rice is gay, Courtney is bi, Hero is gay. And I can’t actually find anything confirmed Tom was stated to be gay somewhere in canon, but I SWEAR he was, like, ugh this is bugging me.

But anyway. That’s that about all of that.

[laughingpinecone]

TP request for Every Woman Exchange because an “or” matching signup with 10 characters or groups is bound to be a wordy business!

Doris Truman

Group: Audrey Horne & Laura Palmer

Group: Laura Palmer & Donna Hayward

Group: Laura Palmer & Sarah Palmer

Group: Norma Jennings & Shelly Johnson & Heidi & Miriam Sullivan

Denise “fuck you AO3 canonical” Bryson

Diane Evans

Laura Palmer

Lucy Moran

Margaret "The Log Lady" Lanterman

Tamara "Tammy" Preston

Feel free to mix and match these characters, anything from Tammy interviewing Doris to Denise getting Lucy a drink would be amazing. I also love all their usual cohorts, so Doris and Harry in the woods or Diane and Albert - or heck, Diane and Phil, unanimously voted Philadelphia's Most Glamorous - or Tammy and her FBI dads is all cool as long as the focus remains on the girls. Tammy regrets in TFD that she couldn't meet Margaret? Let Tammy meet Margaret somehow, by golly! You can't really go wrong with gen combinations if you get any cool idea you want to explore. All these prompts are just suggestions. I like magical realism and American Gothic and flat-out surrealism so anything canon-like is great, but also a sitcom take on any group of colleagues, or a smarmy moment played teeth-rottingly straight (which is also canon-like, hah), some found family feels, you name it.

(the order is just me copypasting the tagset)

Doris: I wish her the best and hope that she'll find a way to amicably divorce Frank, or take a deep breath away from each other, heal through other people... there was also a message on Hastings' website from a regular reader that was just signed "Doris" so I headcanon her as an UFO enthusiast, if you want to play with that. I like to think that Albert will drop everything and stay in town after TPTR, and I swear by the fact that both he and Doris need a lot of cathartic shouting, for opposite reasons (she has a lot of pain and frustration to let out, he needs to stop being dead inside). So a good, cathartic shouting match could be a fun fic or art if you like the idea.

Laura & Donna: post-canon meetup post-canon meetup post-canon meetup!! Somehow. Dreams, shifted realities, straight-up 'Carrie' driving up to Vermont to find her Donna again. Shippy or not, I just want closure for them. Or any kind of Laura&Donna fic is great, I've loooved basically everything I've read for them.

Norma&Shelly&Heidi&Miriam: I love the RR microcosm! Sweet and supportive and just so /good/. Good for Norma for snatching the ever-so-rare happy ending and I'm glad Heidi got painted in a much more positive light this time round! And our heroic Miriam! My first thoughts go to either Shelly working through her Red problem with the help of the other girls, or Miriam triumphantly getting the pie Shelly and Heidi wanted to get her. But anything RR-centric is great. idk, a collection of drabbles with different customers (established characters or otherwise) coming in? Or something else still!

Denise: she was FBI all along so she can be friends with all the rest of the FBI cast! What a wonderful retcon. So tell me everything about Denise and Diane, Denise and Albert, Denise and Tammy... Denise and Cooper in the hopefully-not-so-distant future... she's so warm and charming, she just lights up any scene. Denise in Twin Peaks during s2 or Denise back in Twin Peaks years later for whatever reason is also great!

Diane: putting herself back together? I'd love a post-finale journey of self-discovery (or an episode thereof, for shorter fic or single pieces of fanart), slipping out of the Linda identity (whatever that's about), accepting/reclaiming her tulpa, and even that split self we saw outside the motel... or! Fun times with Janey-E! Why can't they stand each other? Is it because they're both kind of complicated people to be around? Is it because Janey was the only one who figured something was wrong when Diane got tulpa'd? Diane and Albert's frendship warms my heart, and it's fun to imagine Tammy trying to connect with her even after she got barked at. Or Void Club with Annie and Audrey, where they're not gonna talk about Dale Cooper, in fact they're not gonna talk about Dale Cooper at all...

Laura: finding her angels again please? Or in any situation - in the Lodge or in whatever sort of surreal road trip she and Cooper ended up in - that's closer to the Laura in Between Two Worlds, the woman who's walked through fire and made it to the other side, Laura with her eyes sparkling and that impossible Mona Lisa smile. Any moment where she gets to shine and tower over everything and everyone else. As an aside: I did not request Laura&Audrey because I figured that anyone offering it would ship it, and I very much do not, and I didn't want to inconvenience anyone who hoped to match on them because of the ship. BUT I came to the realization that I am in fact pretty invested in s gen reading of what Audrey saw in Laura, how she resented her but also idolized her and tried to follow in her footsteps until she got burned at One-Eyed Jack's. So what if they met after canon, how would a grown-up Audrey confront her old idea of Laura, would she see the real person behind that image, and would it help her come to terms with some of her own crap?

Lucy: Kimmy Robertson said she would like to be the color blue in Lynch's palette, if the prompt works for you. I love Lucy taking her time to understand and organize the world around her, I love her with Andy, with Wally, with Maggie Brown and the rest of the new sheriff's station cast, and I love it when people who don't usually appreciate her (both sheriffs and Albert come to mind) have to come to terms with the fact that she's amazing. I also like that Hawk is a first-class gossip, apparently, and so is Lucy, so if THAT prompts works for you...

Margaret: Margaret and the woods, Margaret and Hawk, Margaret and Laura always... Margaret and Shelly, Margaret and Audrey!, Margaret trying to impress Norma as per that one Log Lady intro... young Margaret and the Truman boys, or an older Margaret still with the Trumans, and sometimes maybe there's only one Truman and sometimes they are very distinct, oh well c'est la vie.

Tammy: I like to take the difference between her book self and show self as a straight-up character trait, that she's way more reserved in person than she is in writing. Any fic based on this duality would be great for me. Other than that, throw her at literally any character and I'll be thrilled to read it. I love how she looks up to Albert and just kind of follows him around like a baby duckling, I love the possibilities of Denise mentoring her, I love how she's the next generation of Blue Rose and hopefully the first one that won't fuck up majestically and I wonder if Gordon realizes it as he lets her learn the ropes at her own pace, I love possible "passing of the torch" scenarios with Cooper where he's so proud of her, or Laura sharing her secrets. Or let her be lace buddies with Shelly or look into a supernatural case with Cynthia or find Audrey or whatever! Yay Tammy!

Ship-wise, my big ships are Laura/Donna, Laura/Ronette and the Brennans. I also ship Shelly and Bobby and hope they can sort it out. And I'm curious to explore Tammy/Cynthia, /Audrey, /Candie, and/or getting a supernatural smooch from Laura. And while it's got zilch to do with this exchange, for the sake of full disclosure, all sides of Dale/Albert/Harry.

DNWs: unrequested ships, especially my NOTPs (Coop with Audrey, Annie - she’s a bit more complicated than NOTP but for the sake of a clear signup let’s just veto it..., Janey-E, Diane and Laura. Shelly/Gordon, Tammy/the rest of her coworkers twice her age), character bashing, s3 negativity

[independentartistbuzz]

7 FROM THE WOMEN: JENNY KEEL

Based out of Virginia's scenic Shenandoah Valley, bassist Jenny Keel spends most of her time on the road. This year alone, she's toured nationally with bands the Larry Keel Experience and Keller and the Keels, playing multiple major festivals and appearing on co-bills with artists like Tyler Childers and Billy Strings. Comprised of Keel, her internationally-acclaimed flatpicker bandmate and husband Larry Keel, as well as mandolin player Jared Pool, The Larry Keel Experience has continued to grow a cult-following with their energetic performances and skilled musicianship. The group's newest release, One, follows the trio from the philosophical to the supernatural to the sardonic to the unapologetically romantic. The band had a clear vision for One: to create an album without distractions and to give listeners a hard copy of exactly what they would hear at a live show. The album was then mixed by Jeff Covert of Wally Cleaver Studios and mastered by legendary Grammy award-winning engineer Bill Wolf (Grateful Dead, Doc Watson, Emmylou Harris). Not only does One illustrate each member's honed talent at their respective instruments, it embodies the unique cohesion, energy, and magic that is sparked when the three combine forces.

Jenny, Larry, and Keller Williams make up a power-trio side project called Keller and the Keels. On November 22, they released their acclaimed new album Speed and will continue to tour the country in support of the album in 2020. Read more and view full tour dates here: https://larrykeel.com/home?

What have you been working to promote lately?

Professionally, I've had an incredibly busy and gratifying year with music. Our band, The Larry Keel Experience, has toured all over the country playing major festivals and theaters from coast to coast; we've toured with so many great acts and artists and I've done 2 recording projects this year that I'm extremely proud of. In June, we released One. It's all of Larry's original music, performed completely fresh and 'live', without using any studio tricks or overdubs... just pure, in-the-moment music, expertly recorded in our road manager's basement and mastered by industry legend Bill Wolf. It's an exquisite musical ride, concocted by maestro Larry Keel and myself on upright bass and our mandolin-playing and singing phenom, Jared Pool. Just recently we released our third recording project with our long-time friend and jam hero, Keller Williams [known collectively at Keller and the Keels]. This latest album, Speed,came out in late November and it's so us! It's Keller and the Keels at our best, captured on recording. The song choices are fantastic, and we love the way Keller leads us in creating fresh interpretations of ultra popular pop and country tunes that we Keels may never have heard before, cause we're just intentionally backwoods like that! We'll be doing lots of shows with Keller this coming year and touring this new album. 

Personally and on a day-to-day level, I'm really into promoting mindfulness. In ordinary activities and routines and then expanding into giving thought and attention to larger matters. Hopefully I'm promoting this by example! I feel it really starts with each individual's intention to focus and 'be present' with whatever is going on at the moment... from the first thoughts of the day, to the way we greet the first people or animals in our day, to the way we listen, to the way we navigate traffic or move around and interact with the general population around us, to how we present ourselves in our work and at play, etc. It's a huge undertaking to always try to consider all the elements of my surroundings in every moment, but I really do want to promote that kind of mindfulness and attentiveness to what's going on around me and who is involved. It's sort-of like the 'golden rule' teaching of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' in the way that everything we pay attention to (or neglect paying attention to) is directly affected by us. 

Please tell us about your favorite song ever written, recorded or produced by another woman and why it’s meaningful to you?

It's hard to pinpoint... but maybe it would be something from Joni Mitchell, like the whole album Blue. When I heard her music in my teens, I just thought she was so incredibly strong and confident and fearlessly artful and original. Her lyrics are gorgeous and Beat-poet-esque, and her singing is athletic and refined at the same time. I love every song on that album, and I listened to it a million times when I first got wind of it. Her musical landscapes took me places, deep into nature, travel, romance, sorrow, and reveling in just being alive.

What does it mean to you to be a woman making music/in the music business today? Do you feel a responsibility to other women to create messages and themes in your music?

I can't begin to express how grateful I am to have had a career in music for most of my adult life. Once I started 'burning' to learn to play music, and then actually started to play live performances for pay (!) I have never wanted to do anything else, so I consider myself very fortunate to be following the dream path I set out to accomplish (against all odds, I might add! But that's another story, and nothing at all to do with being a woman!) I absolutely encourage other women to do exactly the same thing: pursue the dream that burns inside of you. And you can't just bail because things get hard or overwhelming, without sticking with the grind of it all for a good several years until you start to see the results you're interested in. It's just like the adage "If you look really closely, most overnight successes took a long time." My feeling is that this message applies to anything a person (man or woman) burns to do with their lives.  

Who was the first female artist you saw that made you want to create music/be in the business?

If I go waaaaay back, it probably began seeing so many awesome Broadway musicals with my family when I was really little. Both on stage in the theater and on the big screen with motion picture versions of the hit musicals like "The Sound of Music", "Funny Girl", "West Side Story", "Annie", etc. The unbelievable talents and strength of character beaming from women like Julie Andrews, Barbara Streisand, Natalie Wood and the child actress Aileen Quinn (who played Annie), just thrilled me and inspired me from an early age. I'm sure I felt the urge to be an entertainer from having seen so many of those epic musical performances. 

In the realm of radio rock and pop music that I listened to and went to see in concert, I'm thinking the women who really impressed me and fired me up to play would have been artists like Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Linda McCartney, Annie Lennox and Blondie. 

What female artists inspire you and influence you today?

Susan Tedeschi, Mimi Nadja (of Fruition), Allie Kral (of Yonder Mountain String Band), Lindsay Lou... all badasses.

What was the most challenging thing you have had to face as a female artist?

For me personally, this is probably the same stuff that male musicians face... which is mostly that along this whole journey/quest/pursue-my-dream thing, the challenge has always been to seek as many opportunities as possible in which to play the best music I can, and have the music that my bandmates and I play come across with all the magic and heart and energy we know we can create as long as the sound equipment and the venue environment and our combined efforts all line up. Sometimes that's a big challenge – getting all the conditions right! The challenge of keeping up a steady drive to continue to grow and expand musically, and the challenge of hopefully always being in demand booking-wise! In other words, the continuous challenge to do all it takes to have a long, satisfying career in music.

If you could form an all-female supergroup, who would play in it?

If I could time travel, I'd go with Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, Mother Mabelle, Mary Ford, Mimi Nadja, Allie Kral. I really could go on and on!! Thanks for inspiring me to think about this one along the way!

Connect with Jenny Keel online via

https://larrykeel.com/

https://www.facebook.com/LarryKeelFishinAndPickin/

https://twitter.com/LarryKeel

https://www.instagram.com/larrykeel/

https://www.youtube.com/user/Larrykeelmusic