#bold of you to over-estimate my self-control in this way

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Screw it, can we just get a script for part of an episode of A-town at this point?

[For those of you just tuning in: A-Town is the shitty postwar sitcom inspired by the life of Jake Berenson, to the eternal annoyance of Jake Berenson. The main character is a kid named Brandon A., who lives with his nuclear family — mom Dr. A, dad Mr. A, sister Daisy A. (secretly a yeerk named Zeptron 420), dog Mopsy (secretly Brandon's friends in morph) — in Southern California at the height of the war. Brandon secretly leads a team of alien-fighting shapeshifters that consists of him, his best friend J.J., his cousin Trina, his sometimes-girlfriend Crystal, Trina's sometimes-boyfriend Liam, and Liam's stepsister Gina.]

We open on the spacious kitchen of a large suburban home. Mr. A sits reading the paper and smoking a pipe inside, while his son Brandon sits at the same table with a large set of schematics spread out in front of him. Dr. A, in a lab coat overtop a house dress, walks into the room.

Dr. A: Brandon, what's that?

Brandon: *throws himself bodily over the map* Nothing!

[cue laugh track]

Dr. A: Is that... Dear sweet heavens above, it is!

[The camera pans up to show Brandon is clearly failing to cover the floor plan for a Blade ship, and that Mr. A is now craning around the side of his paper to see what the commotion is about.]

Dr. A: Honey, our son... is doing... *loud gasp* Dunces and Dragoons!

Mr. A: *drops his pipe on his paper in shock* *lights the paper on fire, must hastily tamp it out* Dungarees and Dingbats? My own SON?

[cue laugh track]

Brandon: Mom, Dad, I would never! I'm just... I'm only... It was... *directly to the camera* I have no choice — they think I'm playing Dunkin' and Dragnet! *to Dr. A.* There's this alien invasion, Mom, and me and cousin Trina are two of the only six people who have the power to —

Mr. A: *very high pitched* It's affecting his mind already! Look at him, he's lost the plot!

[Cut to a set that looks like the waiting room for a dentist's office. Brandon's older sister Daisy is standing near the front of a queue that stretches the length of the room. Like almost everyone else in line, she is wearing a t-shirt for The Gathering; hers is bright pink and cut into a crop-top, paired with a pink miniskirt and platform heels. The walls are adorned with posters that have slogans like "Do your part for the Yeerk Empire today! If you see a suspicious animal: slay, slay, SLAY!" and "Don't forget to sign up your host's friends and family for our Eternal Member perks program!" Visser Six-Hundred is at the front of the line, typing names into a computer.]

Visser Six-Hundred: Next!

Daisy: Um, hi? I'm Daisy, and after you guys lured me into the Gathering by promising I'd get to meet shirtless Tom Welling — which still hasn't happened, by the way — you stuck my head in a pool and then this total jerk named Zeptron 420 took my body? And anyway, Zeptron never showed up after that last feeding, and I was just wondering...?

Visser Six-Hundred: Not my problem.

Daisy: No, I get that Mr. Welling is a very busy man, but I don't think I'm supposed to go anywhere without Zeptron controlling me?

Visser Six-Hundred: Also not my problem. You have any idea how backed up we've been around here since the kandrona shortage started? Leave now, check back in next cycle, and if Zeptron's not back by then we'll call you.

Daisy: Okay, but...

[camera pans to Daisy's face; the actor, does a very convincing job of realization dawning on the world's silliest airhead]

Daisy: K-thanks-bye! *runs for it*

[Cut back to the A family kitchen. Dr. A is taking Brandon's temperature.]

Dr. A: Looks normal to me. Maybe he isn't getting Durkins and Drainage syndrome yet.

Mr. A: Yeah, if anyone has brain rot it's that darn dog. Thing ain't right, I'm telling you.

[Cut to Mopsy, a fluffy grey-and-white terrier. The dog is currently staring intently at a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is propped open on the floor.]

Dr. A: What do you mean, ain't right?

Brandon: Yeah, Dad, 'ain't' isn't a word!

[cue laugh track]

[Cut back to Mopsy, who has clearly overheard this conversation and has attempted to hide the book by sticking it underneath a laptop computer, and is playing innocent by staring at the screen instead.]

Mr. A: Just look at her! She's playing Minesweeper!

[The camera zooms in on the screen, revealing that this is in fact the case. An extreme close-up of one of the dog's paws moving across the computer track pad is paired with a shot of the screen going to Xs as she hits a mine. A dog's upset whine is heard.]

Brandon: Come on, she's not even doing well.

J.J.: *in voiceover meant to indicate thought-speak* You try avoiding mines with these tiny paws, loser!

Dr. A: You know, maybe we should get that checked out.

J.J.: VET? Not the vet!

Brandon: *out loud* Don’t be such a baby!  Get control of your morph, man!

Dr. A: Then again, maybe the Dungenous Drags are getting to him.

Brandon: Uh, I mean...

J.J.: *runs for it*  Bye!

Brandon: I mean, after her!

[While Dr. and Mr. A chase "Mopsy" around the house, J.J. maneuvers Brandon into being the only one in the room when he demorphs. Brandon has to hastily morph into Mopsy to avoid being found out. Trina and Liam stop by Brandon's house to ask Brandon a question, and Brandon maneuvers Liam into being Mopsy just as Mr. A is pulling out the pet carrier. But then human Trina rushes into the room, creating a diversion by claiming a "hairspray emergency", and Mopsy runs off. It's at that point that the B plot intersects with the A plot.]

[Daisy walks into the house. She's wearing black skinny jeans, fingerless gloves, and rainbow hair extensions. There's pop punk music blasting from the giant headphones slung around her neck.]

Mr. A: Get the— *watches Mopsy escape out the front door* Dang it!

Daisy: Dad, you might have noticed I’ve been going through some changes lately.  Like I’m becoming a whole different person.

Mr. A: Honey, at your age, it's perfectly normal.

[Mr. A pulls out a box of tampons, seemingly from nowhere, and hands them to Daisy.]

[cue laugh track]

[Liam-as-Mopsy runs around the side of the house, now pursued by J.J. Trina is running after J.J.; together they complete two entire loops of the house. Meanwhile, Brandon is on the phone inside, everyone else passing by in the background. There's presumably an unseen swap, because Liam-as-a-human is seen chasing a different Mopsy, pursued by an enraged-looking Trina who is now holding a knife, while she is in turn pursued by Gina, who appears to be trying to talk her down. There's no audible dialogue, but we cut to Crystal on the other end of the phone, standing in her living room.]

Crystal:... got it! *hangs up the phone* *yells up the stairs* Hey, Mom?

Crystal's Mom: *enters the room* Yes, Crystal?

Crystal: You're looking a little unwell. Why don't you...

[Crystal touches her mom's arm. We hear the tinkling piano notes used to indicate someone is being acquired, and glitter effects briefly fill the screen.]

Crystal's Mom: Now that you mention it...

[She passes out onto the couch, apparently as a side effect of being acquired. This has never happened before, but with this show it's generally best to avoid asking too many questions.]

[Cut back to the A house. Daisy and Dr. A are standing in the kitchen.]

Daisy: Mom, do you ever feel like the whole world's out to get you? Like, do you ever suspect there's a giant conspiracy of alien invaders who are...

Dr. A: *distracted* Oh honey, did you get passed up to be Prom Queen again?

[Dr. A drops a kiss on Daisy's head, before running off in pursuit of Mopsy, who has gotten ahold of the knife and is trying to use it to pick the lock on the back door.]

[Cut to the exterior, where Liam and Brandon are watching the knife blade repeatedly stab through the door six inches off the ground.]

Brandon: You cheated on her again?

Liam: *sighs* Yeah, I cheated on her again.

[Cut back to the interior. Cue ominous music, as the chase speeds up. We see Trina-as-human again, gloating over who we can only assume is Liam-as-Mopsy. They struggle, and she makes an exaggerated face of shock as the dog is meant to have bitten her. Mopsy goes running off again, only to be caught by J.J. There's a scuffle, they roll behind the bushes, and a human Liam emerges holding J.J.-as-Mopsy. Brandon comes running outside with an expression of horror, and Gina dive-tackles both Liam and J.J.-as-Mopsy. Using extreme close-ups, we get only tiny hints of the scuffle, but the human J.J. and Liam would suggest that Gina has now ended up as Mopsy.]

[The montage sequence becomes something straight out of Scooby Doo, with all of the characters sprinting between doors and various mini-encounters including one where two copies of Mopsy are seen backing into each other and yapping in horror, running off in opposite directions before Dr. A can see their error. Why anyone is bothering to morph the dog at all remains an open question.]

[The montage ends with a clang as Mr. A shuts the door of the pet carrier on a Mopsy. The camera pans to a scratched and dirt-covered Brandon, then Trina, then Liam, then Gina... It's J.J. in the pet carrier. As the camera pushes toward J.J.'s fluffy little face frozen in an expression of horror, there's a smash cut to Crystal-as-Crystal's-mom standing in a vet's office talking to a middle-aged woman.]

Crystal: No, I did not lose your hamster — I know exactly where he is. I left him in the same room as Mr. Tyrus's ball python, and... *leans around a door frame to look off camera* *winces at what she sees*

Middle-Aged Extra: Y-yes?

Crystal: You can still see him... He's that big lump right in the middle...

Middle-Aged Extra: *screams* *faints*

Crystal: *to the camera* Brandon better hurry up. If she thinks that's bad, she should see what I did to the parrot.

Parrot: *off camera* And f[bleep] you too, you [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]!

[J.J.-as-Mopsy gets loaded into the car. The music is getting ominous, and all is looking lost, when suddenly Daisy runs out in front of the minivan.]

Daisy: Mom, Dad, I can't take it anymore! I've had someone inside me, and his name is Zeptron!

[Thus, the day is saved and J.J. is snatched from the jaws of a routine pelvic exam by Mr. and Dr. A cutting the vet visit short to instead rush Daisy to the doctor for remedial Sex Ed. Only Brandon realizes what she's talking about, judging by the expression on his face, but the camera doesn't linger there. Instead we see the minivan pull up to the vet at top speed. Mr. A gets out only long enough to thrust the pet carrier into the arms of Crystal-as-Crystal's-mom, and then the car drives off. It screeches to a stop at a near-identical office, only the poster of a dog wearing a stethoscope out front has become a poster of a uterus wearing a stethoscope. Dr. A walks in, dragging Daisy by the arm and shaking her head.]

[Cut back to the vet's office, where J.J.-as-Mopsy licks Crystal-as-Crystal's-mom on the cheek. Cue laugh track. Cue awww sounds.]

[As the credits fill half the screen, we get one last scene of Brandon standing outside Daisy's door. He's obviously nervous, rehearsing a conversation. Brandon leans against Daisy's door and it swings open, causing him to stumble into the room. Cue laugh track.]

Brandon: Hey, Daisy? About what you said earlier...

[Daisy is sitting with her back to the camera. When she does turn around, we get a slow reveal that she's back in pancake makeup, blond hair, and a pink sundress. She has the Myspace page for The Gathering open on the computer in front of her.]

"Daisy": *long pause* Yes, Brandon? You are my human brother, and I am happy to assist.

Brandon: Uh. *slow close-up on his face, as he clearly realizes what has happened* Never mind.

"Daisy": *another long pause* I'm sorry to hear that, Brandon. Human minds are often imperfect, are they not?

[cue laugh track]

[credits fill the screen]

Announcer: DON'T GO AWAY, WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK

[phantomrose96]

Twisting Fate

(A what-if idea I had. adjusted the canon timeline a little)

...

From Recovery Girl’s perspective, Sir Nighteye was a horizon.

Lying stiff in his hospital bed, with the setting sun creeping lower at his right, Nighteye’s whole body became ridges of shadows. His face was gaunter, paler at the precipice of death. Caverns hid his eyes, and every sharp angle of his frame threw swaths of shadow, magnified larger, over the left wall of his room. Machines like snakes clawed into his midsection, all cold metallic tubes replacing the functions of organs that had been shredded through. Recovery Girl sat on a stool to his left, shaded in this darkness, smelling on the heat of the radiator the familiar smell of death.

“I have… a theory…” Nighteye’s words were hardly even whispers. They were stow-away nuances on the raspy rattle of his breath. “…and it will bother me if I die without ever having resolved it.”

“What’s your theory?” Recovery Girl asked. She was too used to this, being the receptacle for the last thoughts, wonders, worries, and dreams of dying heroes.

“Izuku Midoriya… He may--…it is possible—he may have a quirk.”

“A quirk, as in one beside One For All, I assume.”

“Not One For All. Beyond that. His own quirk. I have a theory…”

“Izuku Midoriya was diagnosed quirkless. Does this affect your theory?”

Silence rattled around them. Nighteye’s chest rose and fell faintly. “As in… the vestigial joint in the smallest toe, and no observable quirk of his own?”

“Yes, he matches those criteria,” Recovery Girl confirmed.

Sir Nighteye said nothing in immediate response. He laid in silence to catch his breath, and let the room fall back under the sedation of his blipping heart monitor.

“The correlation… of the additional toe joint to quirklessness is about 99%. It is possible for Midoriya to still have a quirk.”

“That is true.” The lamp in the corner clicked on, softly yellow, blanketing the room as the creeping darkness of nighttime set in. “We don’t know how many cases of quirklessness are false positives. What is it that makes you think Midoriya has a quirk?”

Nighteye let out a rattling breath. “By my own nature, and the nature of my quirk… I take pride in having evidence for my claims. I’d like to investigate this before I tell you. …The doctors estimate they can keep me alive like this for three days, at most. Do you think that’s accurate?”

“Three and a half, now that I’ve healed you some,” Recovery Girl answered.

“That’s enough. There’s someone I’d like you to fetch for me.”

“All Might.”

“No,” Nighteye answered with the faintest shake of his head. “Shota Aizawa. He should be in this same hospital. Please bring him to me.”

…

Aizawa and Nighteye spoke only briefly, with an agreement to help, and a message to pass along. Two messages, more precisely.

Aizawa got himself released from the hospital by 6am the next morning, having not slept, and having pulled some strings with the night nurses who knew him well to expedite the process. By 7am, he was back at the U.A. dorms, the very atmosphere asleep this early on a Saturday morning.

Only two students were awake: Momo Yaoyorozu, reading comfortably on the common area couch with a blanket swaddled around her, and Tenya Iida, preparing enough toast in the kitchen to cover breakfast for the entire class.

It was Iida who Aizawa flagged, and pulled aside, and passed the message along to: There was a dying pro hero whom Iida had never met asking for his presence. Aizawa had no further details on what the man wanted, or why, and he knew Nighteye well enough to assume that neither he nor Iida would ever be informed.

The lack of information agitated Iida. His arms jittered, and he pressed for information on why, and what had happened, and what his presence would mean to Nighteye. Aizawa could only shrug and ask if the withholding of that information affected Iida’s answer. Iida paused to consider this only briefly. And then he agreed, of course, because any self-respecting hero-in-training would do everything in his power to satisfy the dying wish of a citizen.

…

When Sunday set in, Aizawa did not go prowling through the dorm areas until the early afternoon, because the other message he had to pass along was for Katsuki Bakugou, and Bakugou’s whole morning was booked solid with provisional license training.

When Aizawa found Bakugou, the boy was freshly showered and sporting a litany of new scrapes and bandages, thumbs jamming aggressively into one of the dorm’s three console controllers for the shared GameStation. From the neighboring couch, Kirishima yelled at Bakugou to not mess us the toggles, to which Bakugou fired off several choice, colorful words back.

Aizawa didn’t bother scolding him. He only pulled Bakugou aside, and gave him the same message as Iida: Pro Hero Nighteye wanted to see him.

Bakugou sneered at this. He knew the name as Deku’s work-study boss, and knew it more potently now that the recent news story broke, and Nighteye’s name made it to the local stations as a hero in critical condition after a daring rescue.

Bakugou asserted this had nothing to do with him. That none of this was his problem. That he owed nothing to a man he’d never met and shouldn’t be expected to bow to his whim. Aizawa said nothing in response. He let the silence linger, and let Bakugou fester in the echo of his own words. Bakugou cracked the silence with a growl of frustration, and a crackle of his palms, and a spat declaration of “fine”.

Aizawa thanked him for his cooperation, and asked if now would be a bad time to follow him to Nighteye’s hospital.

…

By the third day of his hospice stay, Nighteye had become more machine than man. He fostered little presence. His only motion came from the respirator breathing for him. His harsh angles and stark shadows had decayed, softened, sank with him into his very-little-at-all-ness into the bed.

Recovery Girl sat beside him once more. In theory she had come to change bandages and administer healing, but at the sight of the man, she knew even that much was not worthwhile. It was only Nighteye’s comfort that mattered now. She set up an IV drip to ease his breathing and pain, but it would not heal him. At best, it would offer him just a wisp of his voice back.

“Have you resolved your theory about Izuku Midoriya’s quirk?” she asked simply. It was another skill she’d fostered in her professional life – to ask the leading questions of dying people, who in death seemed so strangely prone to avoiding any direct answers.

To her surprise, Nighteye smiled.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Would you like to tell me?”

“Yes. You are the only person right now I trust with this information. I need to pass it along, and I have no one else in mind.”

“And once you’ve told me, should I tell Midoriya too?”

“I don’t know. I trust you to figure that out, if it’s right or not.”

“What’s Midoriya’s quirk?”

Nighteye said nothing at first. He stared at the ceiling, as it seemed he possessed little of the necessary strength to look elsewhere.

“During the fight against Overhaul… I saw Midoriya die. I saw it with my Foresight,” he said, not answering the direct question, which did little to surprise Recovery Girl. “My Foresight has never been wrong. Sometimes, purely in denial, I’ve convinced myself it could, theoretically, be wrong, if only to not feel so hopeless about the futures I’ve seen. But 35 years without a single incorrect prediction is… a devastatingly consistent precedent to contend with.”

“I know this about you. Midoriya was the first to change that future?”

“It was… Chisaki’s future… that I was looking at. I saw him kill Midoriya. I saw him escape. So it was Chisaki’s future that changed. And I suspected, the more I thought about it, that Midoriya may have done it.”

“What do you think his quirk is?”

“I… have more context… I want to explain myself. I asked Shota Aizawa to bring me two U.A. students.”

“Iida and Bakugou. Shota told me.”

“Iida, because, if my hunch was correct, he would be affected too. And he was. My hunch was correct.”

“What was your hunch?”

“When I used my Foresight on him, I saw something I’ve never seen before… All futures I’ve seen are linear. A movie to play out. Singular, immutable, and certain. What I saw in Iida was more like… tree branches twisting around a trunk. One which was strong, and bold, and most clear ahead of him. Like what I usually see. It was a bright and happy future. A future he’s earned. One to be proud of.”

“I’m glad. Tenya Iida is a kind boy.”

“But the small futures… I’ve never seen them before. All gnarled and withered, twisting in and out…. Most of those were empty. I see this when someone is soon to die, but… these looked as though Iida had already died. Several times over. Other small twisted ones… he was still alive, but not a hero, not a U.A. graduate, too heavily incapacitated. No use of his arms. Limited use of his legs.”

“And what does this tell you?”

Nighteye offered just wheezes, catching his breath.

“With… with Bakugou. It was similar but... Bakugou had many more gnarled branches than Iida. Some empty… Others where, it seemed he had never even gotten into U.A. Others as the League of Villains’ hostage. Others in jail. They were not uniform. Some were faint, so I could hardly detect them. Some were so far removed from our reality, as if they’d forked over a decade ago. …Do not worry, his main future is bright.”

“I know All Might has a lot of hope for that boy.” Recovery Girl pushed off her stool. She went and cracked the hospital window open, so that the fresh air may do something for the sweat coalescing on Nighteye’s brow.

“Izuku Midoriya… I know many things about him. Gathering intel is a specialty of mine. And I know he has been lucky in unfathomable ways. Bakugou, that boy, he saved from the League of Villains. Iida, he saved from Stain, just barely, as I understand it. Midoriya’s own acceptance into U.A. was improbable at best. His rescue of a boy named Kota should have been his end, but it wasn’t. He was involved in a fight against the serial killer Moon Fish. He was Shigaraki’s hostage briefly. He played the main role in orchestrating Bakugou’s rescue from the League of Villains. And now, under me, he defeated Chisaki, in a fight which should, with certainty, have cost him his life.”

“There’s no need to remind me of all these. I was the one who healed that boy every time. I know he’s reckless.”

“This is beyond reckless. This is the resume of a boy who should have died many times over. …And I think, maybe, he has.”

To this, Recovery Girl gave no immediate response. Only a deep inhale, nasally, a held breath, an exhale.

“Midoriya may have died already. My Foresight wasn’t wrong, but it was posthumously corrected. It is in the strange nature of Izuku Midoriya that when the people around him should die… they don’t. Midoriya always saves them. And if my Foresight is to be believed, he does not always succeed on the first try. Those gnarled branches into Iida and Bakugou’s futures were fates in which Midoriya had not intervened. Or had failed to intervene successfully. They were fates he was able to twist off the main path, and correct under his own power of will. And that would be a quirk nigh undetectable. How would you document or observe it? The ability to undo the outcomes that ended in disaster. It’s powerful. Unfathomably powerful, if I’m correct about this. Stronger than One for All could ever be. I wonder, if I were to look at Midoriya’s future, how many twisted fates might I see?”

Recovery Girl let her eyes shift to the window, contemplating the skyline, contemplating all the near-lethal encounters Izuku Midoriya had fought through. She tried to process this possibility, and found herself failing to take it in all at once. “Do you intend to look?”

“No,” Nighteye said, and it was with finality. “I won’t make it to tomorrow. And there’s someone else whose future I need to see today.”

“If it’s All Might, I would be able to--.”

“No. It’s not All Might’s.”

To this, Recovery Girl startled. Her eyes shifted to Night Eye, who wore the smallest of smiles, his eyes squinted shut.

“After what you saw six years ago… you don’t want to see if that fate has changed?”

“All Might and I have parted ways. I am choosing to entrust his safety to Izuku Midoriya now. I am choosing to trust that that boy has saved him from that future that’s weighed me down for all these years. I am choosing… to pass the torch onto him. All Might has chosen Izuku Midoriya, and I am at peace with it… No, more than that, I accept that. I am content with that. I am happy with that.”

Recovery Girl nodded, but trepidation stiffened her movements. “…Then who is the last person you want to see?”

…

With the light fading around him, Nighteye wondered if this was the first time he’s seen Mirio cry.

The boy was endlessly bright, endlessly shining, a beacon and a pillar and someone who Nighteye was proud to call his pupil. He felt only the slightest knocking pangs of guilt in his chest for the fact that he’d only connected with Mirio as a vessel for One For All. But Mirio had proven himself well above and beyond all Nighteye’s paltry expectations. He didn’t need One For All to be strong.

The true guilt Nighteye felt was in the knowledge that it was his own fault that Mirio was crying now.

Thick opalescent tears swam in his eyes and cracked his voice. Red blotched along his cheeks and sweat clung to his brow. It was a sad sight to see, the raw and wet keens of Mirio’s voice. It was sad. Nighteye wanted nothing more than to see Mirio smile once more.

So he set a gentle palm to Mirio’s cheek, and he apologized, and he blinked his final activation of his quirk into existence.

Mirio’s future was a grand tree. Like Iida’s, like Bakugou’s, it was threaded with splintered branches. Some empty and shriveled and dead. Some dismal and bleak, twirling up like vines. Nighteye didn’t pay mind to those. He focused only on the trunk. That bright and shining pillar surging forward.

It was a future where Mirio was smiling.

A hero. In costume. Beloved and strong and willing. With a smile that alone could save a million people.

Nighteye trusted Midoriya to cultivate that fate for Mirio.

And that was enough.

So Nighteye told Mirio as much. He deserved to know this as Nighteye did. A fine hero. Finer than anyone else. He’d smile again, Nighteye was sure of it.

The light crept to dark edges around Nighteye’s vision, petering out, swimming to a coldness and a darkness and a nothingness. But it was one he could take comfort in. He focused only on the image of Mirio’s smile as the heart rate monitors ticked to nothing, and the breath vanished from his lungs, and the future set before him ran through its final swath of film.

[kettlequills]

affinity

unsure at this point whether elenwen would benefit more from a long course of therapy or a good dicking. luckily, neither of these are in store for her, so enjoy an elenwen who is not hinged at all plus sybille, who is having a very bad day. TW: blood drinking, cutting, violence, manipulation and threat, sexual themes, and character death. implied sybille/istlod, a lil elenwen/elisif, uhh idk if youd say this is elenwen/sybille but hm. enjoy, and gimme a shout if you think it needs an extra tag. a03

Elenwen discovers Sybille's secret, and has ... words.

The Thalmor Ambassador had come to Solitude and found an empty palace. No one else was there but Sybille, left to frustratedly amuse the Ambassador while someone hurried to fetch the steward, the Jarl, somebody. Anybody, but Sybille Stentor. Some dispute had drawn them away – some fluster in the training yard – Sybille neither knew nor cared, except that Falk was not here to ask the Ambassador why she had come to darken their door, nor even Elisif, to gracefully offer wine and bread to the sour-faced elf.

Even if it had not been months since she had last slaked her thirst in the prisons beneath Solitude, Sybille still would have had little patience for this. The Thalmor irritated her, with their poorly-hidden disdain, their smugness, their superiority. As it was, her head pounded, her throat ached, and moving around in the dim evening sunlight was painful enough that it made her vision blur red. She had begun to hear heartbeats in the chests of her friends, the Jarl she was trying to become loyal to, and each night was an exercise in self control growing monumental in difficulty.

And there was Elenwen standing with her hands behind her ramrod back, looking as if she had sniffed something foul. Her expression was so forbidding, so bleak, so threatening that Sybille immediately perceived why the weak-willed guards had found someplace else to be. For once, she was completely alone, unflanked by unsmiling justiciars.

Foolish, or another spiteful little snub. No, Elenwen had nothing to fear in the heart of the Blue Palace – as much as they might whisper into their pillows how much they hated Thalmor oversight, Thalmor gold still sweated in their palms as they tipped their toothless necks back for the glutting. Why bother with guards, when you had the helmless court of Solitude on a leash?

Oh, Istlod. How he would be ashamed, to see his court reduced to this.

“Ambassador,” Sybille ground out, hating this. She wasn’t supposed to be the one greeting dignitaries come to pander and parley. That was Falk’s job, or the Jarl’s – but Istlod was long gone, and Torygg was dead, now.

Torygg, Torygg. He’d been just a boy; Sybille remembered as if it had been yesterday his chubby hands grabbing on the front of her robes, his lisping pronunciation of “ibble!” before he’d learnt to say her name. A gangly teen, pimple-faced but trying desperately to be noble, the pride of Istlod’s eye, blushing-bold. Bare years after, before even the flower of his prime – dead, dead and cold on the cobbles. Sybille had promised Istlod to keep him safe. But she’d failed. She failed, and Torygg was dead, his murderer walking free and all that was left was … Elisif.

Elisif. A dear girl but… not Torygg. Young, foolish, easily swayed. Inexperienced. Weak, when they needed strength. When Sybille needed Torygg. She was fond enough of her but Elisif looked at her like she was drowning, always begging for advice, and when Sybille met her eyes all she saw was the moment when Torygg had heard Ulfric’s challenge ashen-faced, then turned to his bright young wife and visibly steeled himself.

Ready to die, rather than dishonour her, disappoint her.

It wasn’t Elisif’s fault that she had survived Ulfric when Torygg had not, but Sybille could not stop blaming her. Still, Sybille wished she was here now. The young Jarl was better at this, the inane courtesies, the lies, than Sybille was. Even if Sybille thought she was far friendlier to the Thalmor Ambassador than was wise.

“Court Mage,” Elenwen greeted, polite as picture. In her clipped Dominion accent, the two words sounded loathsome as a curse. Her lip curled upwards in an estimation of what she probably thought a smile was supposed to look like. It was all sneer, and like most of the Emissary's facial expressions, was tinged with pointed disgust.

She was standing rigidly in the main hall of the deserted emptiness of the Blue Palace like a stubborn brick over a fire. Choking all the air out of the room, stifling, her presence as oppressive as a lead weight. The maids had all found themselves somewhere else to be, fearing, no doubt, the Ambassador’s legendarily cutting tongue and Sybille’s own displeasure at being left to entertain. As if she did not have a thousand more pressing matters to attend to, and barely the patience besides.

Not even when she was well-fed, which she was not.

They stood in silence for a moment, Sybille warring with herself, before she grudgingly asked, “Are you in need of refreshments, Ambassador?”

Hospitality, to a pit viper. If Sybille had not been what she was, the thought would be funny. As it was, it only insulted – Solitude did not need any more secret teeth tracking the prey that would not be missed. Sybille had heard the rumours, like everyone else, of secret Thalmor dungeons, and screams from beneath the solar so loud that they could be heard over the music during the parties. The prisoners of Solitude – such as they were – were Sybille’s domain.

“No,” said Elenwen, a pinch too swiftly, as if the very idea was nauseating, “And yourself, Court Mage?”

Sybille's control of her face was not so slight that she blinked, but she was aware of a tightening around the skin of her knuckles. The words, the consideration, were so odd in Elenwen’s cold, autocratic tones that at first she was certain she had misheard.

“I fail to see how that is any concern of yours,” Sybille said rudely, and suddenly, Elenwen changed.

She turned fluidly towards Sybille and prowled closer, the stiffness as if she was daring not to breathe for fear of inhaling foul scent gone. Her sneer vanished, smoothed into a smile, wide and full, completely genuine, utterly threatening. Her eyes glittered flatly, like mirrors. Her movements were slow and slinking. Gone were the sharp clicks of her boots, muffled by some trick of her step that left her silent as a panther.

Sybille was left feeling like the world had suddenly shifted to the left and left her behind, as dizzy as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath her. A moment ago, the Thalmor Ambassador had stood in front of her, haughty as ever, unbending with her stiff Altmeri pride – but this hungry, prowling creature was not her.

Her teeth sharpened in her mouth at the implicit threat that rolled off Elenwen, at her approaching closeness, the blood Sybille could sense flushing the capillaries under her skin, pounding through the chambers of her cold Altmeri heart. At once, Sybille was immensely aware that there was no one to observe them; no one at all.

And it had been weeks, weeks since Sybille had drunk her fill.

“How quickly these mortal children wane compared to the lifetime of an elf,” Elenwen murmured. Her voice was throaty and rich, the sharpness of the consonants blurred by a coastal accent that Sybille swore she had not had before. “How we see them pass us and consign the summers of our childhoods to the distant realm of myth and mystery as they bloom and fade in the blink of an eye. Truly, I am impressed at how faithfully you served the late Jarl Torygg, like you served his father Istlod before him. Tell me, how many of them have ... failed to see?"

Elenwen's horrible smile stretched wider.

"But I see, Court Mage.”

“I am perfectly well-appreciated within my position, Ambassador,” Sybille said coldly.

She was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable. There was no possible way that Elenwen knew her secret, but the damn elf seemed far too smug for Sybille’s liking. She hated these types, the twisted double-talk that meant something else entirely. Was she attempting to recruit Sybille to the Thalmor? She had to know that Sybille would never have agreed to that, for Istlod’s sake, who had been miserable at the news of the Concordat, if nothing else. Now, if only they were somewhere a little more secluded, then Sybille could teach her some proper manners –

Except no, she couldn’t, that was the Thalmor Ambassador. People would notice if she visited the Solitude dungeons and came back with marks on her neck and a hunger to be bitten, drained deep, pliant in the arms of a predator, better attitude notwithstanding. And Sybille couldn’t kill her. Not without reprisal.

Istlod would have wanted Sybille to kill Elenwen. Except – no, he had agreed to the peace too. Her fangs pressed insistently, dully, on her tongue.

Elenwen’s smile widened. Sybille saw every one of her straight teeth. Too white, too even, lined up like regiment soldiers or grave-markers for war-dead. Some of them were fake, she was willing to bet. This wide, the makeup caking her cheeks folded around her smile unflatteringly, the thick foundation hazed with cracks. Fake, fake, but the blood that ran under her skin was real.

Sybille could force her to bleed, force her to feel spark-bright pain, force her to reveal the truth under her teeth, her claws, her little boot knife. Even an ice-spike would do, chill that golden flesh high and taut until it pebbled with goosebumps and she was shivery and damp, and the heat of her blood spilling over her chest made her gasp at the shock of warmth.

That would make her speak straight and true, if nothing else would.

“It has been a dry spell in the prisons, hasn’t it?” Elenwen purred, soft, sympathetic, as if she was commiserating over something truly terrible, “My condolences, truly, you have been much more patient than I would. But tell me, have any of your beloved young humans noticed you have not aged a day?”

“Many humans are not aware of the life spans of an elf,” she said, to hide the fluttering of something that was beginning to feel like panic or fury. “I am Dunmer, a few decades are no great time to me.”

“Could you go decades, I wonder?” Elenwen’s smile dropped, but the look that replaced it was worse, coquettish, sly. She contrived some way of looking up at Sybille through her eyelashes painted and curled with oil despite her taller height and took a falsely-nervous step closer, all awkward shoulders and sliding foot, just as if she was a wheedling young lover begging her first kiss. But her eyes danced brightly, privately, as if this entire interaction was nothing but a game they were playing, just the two of them. “I rather think you’re hungry now.”

“I ate this morning,” Sybille lied flatly, “with the rest of the hall.”

“Tch,” said Elenwen, as if Sybille had missed a step, and belatedly, Sybille realised it would not be any hardship for a spy group as developed as the Thalmor to verify that lie, “Are you sure, Court Mage? We could test it, if you like. How much of you would be left, after decades? It’s been such a short time, and yet, I can see it in how you look at me.” She came closer, thrilled and faux-breathless. "You are hungry."

“I am quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sybille bluffed, but she knew she had lost. Whatever game the Ambassador was playing, Sybille did not know the dance. She glanced haphazardly around the room, but they were truly alone. She could not hear so much as a scuffing slipper or clank of mail.

“Two months, three, since you last drank blood,” Elenwen clarified, so there was no possibility at all of pretending that she did not know, and smiled, smiled, smiled wide at the look of horror on Sybille’s face. Ice poured down Sybille’s spine. The floor dropped out from underneath her. No, no no, the Thalmor could not know.

“Were you fucking his father?” Elenwen asked conversationally, in the silence that fell, “Torygg’s, I mean.”

“I don’t… That is a serious accusation, Ambassador!” Sybille hissed, ignoring her, unable to name the feeling that started icy in her fingertips and spread dully and low up into her breastbone until she ached the whole way through. Her stomach knotted and writhed.

“Aren’t you thirsty, Sybille Stentor?”

Elenwen was so close now. So close that Sybille had to step back, her tall shadow casting her in gloom. Her eyes were half-moons behind the sun, and the light gilded her blonde hair like it was strands of gold. A strand drifted out of its aggressive pinning as Elenwen bent forward, swaying into Sybille like she was magnetised, and tickled there along her artificially-blushed cheek. Sybille could smell the powders, the hotness of her skin trapped beneath it. She had bleached with lemon oil recently, a faint scent clung to her, almost drowned by the floral drench of cosmetics.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” Sybille snapped, mouth dry as bone, and Elenwen laughed. It was full and unrestrained, a laugh from the stomach, and nothing at all like the stiff, courteous little smirks she gave as ambassador. It rang, rich and loud, through the entire hall, down the stairs and over the thrones, and Sybille heard it with a sinking feeling of a lock snapping shut.

Elenwen would never have laughed so loudly, so out of her stiff Ambassador performance, if she thought it was possible she could be overheard. Would she? Was this a bluff?

Sybille’s gaze darted again to the dark eyes of the doorways, but the palace seemed empty. Were there Thalmor in the wings? Elisif. Was the Jarl safe? She should be – though had not Sybille sent a servant to fetch the Jarl, the steward? Was Elenwen planning to unmask her before the court?

“Come on now,” said Elenwen, warmly, her smile conspiratorial like they shared a secret, just her and Sybille, “We’re all alone now, and I’m right here. Why don’t you bite me? Look,” She undid the first two buttons of her uniform, exposing a long line of pale gold throat. “I’ll make it easy. Do you like it easy?”

“Are you insane?!” Sybille snapped. There was no other possible response to that.

Nonetheless, her eyes were drawn to the expanse of bared skin, the delicate lines of the veins and tendons in Elenwen’s neck. She could see the forklike line of her jugular, the thinner softnesses of her veins. Vulnerable. The skin here had not been painted and powdered, hidden as it normally was under her collar. It was paler, yellower, like Elenwen did not get enough sun. Sybille wondered how she bruised. Whether she would paint over the bruises Sybille would leave her, when she woke in the morning, and wondered how she had struck her neck in the night.

Sybille swallowed around a mouth pooling with spit. It had been too long.

She could see the hollow where Elenwen’s pulse fluttered, waiting for Sybille to sink her teeth home. What would she taste like? Could anyone truly blame her, if she took just a little taste, just the tiniest mouthful, to sate her burning throat?

Surely, if she was doomed already, it would not hurt.

“Bite me,” ordered Elenwen, steely. Softer, she said, “Bite me, Sybille Stentor. You must be so thirsty. Doesn’t it feel like flames in your throat?”

It did, it felt like each inhale peeled dry chunks of her throat off with all the gentleness of searing sandpaper. Elenwen was so close now that Sybille could lift her chin and kiss her, close enough that her breath, warm, alive, smelling vaguely of summer-wine, brushed Sybille’s cold cheeks. Elenwen’s warmth was like another creature between them, the impossibility of Sybille being the dead one, with Elenwen’s eyes like a mirror to every fear Sybille had ever banished.

“You must have confused me with someone else,” Sybille said faintly as Elenwen stepped even closer. Their bodies brushed, her breath fanned hotly over Sybille’s forehead.

Elenwen hummed a little, disappointed. “Perhaps,” she said, and suddenly there was a dagger in her hand, so quick even Sybille’s vampiric eyes could not spot it. Just as fast, the dagger flashed, once, twice – and then the heavenly aroma of fresh blood reached Sybille’s nose. On Elenwen’s neck, either side of her tendons, two deep slices welled fresh red, deep, deep enough that after the first droplet rolled enticingly towards her collarbones another followed.

Sybille swallowed. She could smell it, thick as perfume, tantalising as an oasis in the desert. Elenwen’s blood was fresh, healthy, and right there. It was bright red, scandalously scarlet, against the warm gold of her throat, like a slash of silk. The candlelight from Sybille’s little alcove shone and shimmered in the droplet like the magicka in it sparked and sung, for Sybille alone. Begging her, almost, to lean forward – barely any movement at all, to chase the droplet with her tongue, lap up along that proud, stiff neck to the wet gash that fluttered like breathless lips waiting to be kissed.

How fast was Elenwen’s heart beating, to push such quick, steady little pulses down her neck? The collar of her robes was darkening to a liquid blackness, but Elenwen did not seem faint at all. Would she be strong til the end, Sybille wondered, would her heart hammer and struggle against her lips, her hands, her body and Sybille’s mouth? Would she pant and gasp and writhe, or would she fall still and silent, terror-glazed eyes and frozen muscles, or best of all, would she struggle and strain, drum weakening hands against the firm cage of Sybille’s arms?

“It’s a bad time to be a vampire in Solitude, isn’t it?” Elenwen asked, friendly, almost sweet, “With all that terrible news about undead stirring in the catacombs. A death sentence for you if anyone should find out, I expect.”

Sybille opened her mouth but her fangs were beginning to protrude, and venom ran eagerly down her chin. Elenwen’s gaze tracked the wetness in her mouth, and her voice dropped an octave when she spoke again.

“But I’m right here, and I’m offering,” said Elenwen, soft as a spider, warm as the blood Sybille could not tear her eyes from. “I could do so much for you if you enthralled me. All the power of the Thalmor at your fingertips…”

She chuckled, darkly. This close, Sybille felt it vibrate through her chest into Sybille’s own. The movement of her shoulders had a droplet of blood, teetering on the steep ridge of her tendon, tumble headlong into the sleek curve of the dip where her collarbones joined her neck. The swipe of red glistened wetly.

“… and I have so many more little puppets dancing for me than you could ever guess, Sybille Stentor. You would never have to fear being found again. All it would take is… a taste. Bite me.”

Pressing her shoulders back against the wall, Sybille turned her head away stubbornly. The stone was cold through her robes. Elenwen’s warmth was dizzying by contrast. Sybille was hot with bloodlust, had never wanted so badly. She was aware, as if it was happening to someone else, that she was trembling.

Involuntarily, she considered Elenwen’s offer. Imagined stepping forward, grasping the elf’s thin waist, following the trail of blood with her tongue. Licking up that taunting trail over the rigid line of her tendon, sucking hard and strong on the slash she’d cut into her own neck, the bones of Elenwen’s hips fine as glass under her grip. Imagined how Elenwen would go moaning-soft and boneless as butter in her arms, her long ears brushing over Sybille’s hood as her head drooped. How Sybille would have to catch her when her knees buckled, the reflexive way she would go to push Sybille away turned to a trembling grasp, rigid at first by the pain, then softened by the venom, how her brilliant, hard blazing eyes would go soft, dark, round with venom and bloodloss euphoria, when Sybille imposed her will over her, how Sybille would drink, and drink, and drink-

But no – it was broad daylight in the middle of the fucking Blue Palace, there was no way that Sybille could drain Elenwen or thrall her quick enough to avoid discovery, and that was only if Elenwen didn’t have some other plan. There was no way that Sybille would go along with some Thalmor plot out of – hunger, hunger alone.

What would Istlod say?

Elenwen pressed close until she was crowding Sybille against the wall. Her body was thin and bony, the buckles of her uniform dug into Sybille’s breastbone. Her lips brushed the tip of Sybille’s ear through her hood when she spoke. This close, the smell of blood was intoxicating.

But Sybille was not strong enough to push her away.

“Drink,” Elenwen cajoled. “It’s been so long since you last had a prisoner, hasn’t it? …Such unfortunate accidents.”

Sybille heard the shift of cloth, that and outrage had her turning her head back to glare at Elenwen, but she was too close, and instead Sybille’s nose butted against her smooth cheek. Her skin was searing hot, a fine dust from her makeup tickled Sybille’s nose. Sybille felt Elenwen’s repressed shiver at the chilly brush of Sybille’s dead skin against hers in the pit of her stomach. “You-?”

“Me,” Elenwen confirmed, smile widening in Sybille’s peripheral vision.

Sybille was transfixed as Elenwen lifted her finger to the bleeding wound on her neck and shoved her finger in, stark, bold, crass. Her smile never wavered at all at the pain. Her bright, bright eyes were focused on Sybille. The part of Sybille that had been mortal once was horrified at her disregard, the part of her that thirsted so badly for blood it barely cared anymore found it unbearably erotic.

She behaved like a venom-drunk thrall, but she smelled rich and fresh, unbitten, untainted. Did she feel no pain, or did she not care? … Did she like it?

The deepened wound gushed redly down her neck, and Elenwen leaned even closer, until the warmth of her body pressed Sybille’s cold one through their robes, like she wanted to become one with her bones, buckles and all. She was thin, thinner than Sybille had expected her to be; she could feel the ridges of Elenwen’s ribs, her small breasts, the cavernous flutter of her stomach.

Elenwen’s finger, glistening with her own blood, raised towards Sybille’s watering mouth.

There was nowhere to go. She turned her head, straining, but Elenwen chased her, cornered her, and Sybille’s mouth parted involuntarily to stop it from painting her lips red. If she tasted the blood – even a droplet – Sybille knew she couldn’t hold back. She choked out a little moan when Elenwen let her finger rest there inside Sybille’s mouth without touching her at all, breathing in the scent of her, so strong, so present. Slender and long, she could have tickled the back of Sybille’s throat if she chose, made her cough and gag and choke, but she did not, instead she teased, not touching, not tasting, forcing Sybille to breathe around the inescapable allure of her.

“I must confess a little professional curiosity,” Elenwen told her, intimate as a lover’s whisper, “I’ve never met a vampire before, and I’ve always wondered how it compares. The blood of Alinor’s finest surely ought to taste better than the swill in the dungeons, though personally, I can’t say I’ve ever tasted much of a difference – Nord, Altmer, Dunmer, we’re all good in wine.” She smirked a little at that. “Won’t you taste, for me?”

The saliva pooled down around Sybille’s fangs and over her chin. She closed her eyes in humiliation.

Elenwen tutted. “I suppose not. Perhaps this will help.” She drew closer, closer, nudging under Sybille’s hood, until her breath puffed over Sybille’s ear, waking long dead nerves with a shiver. Her free hand bracketed the wall above Sybille’s head, then stroked down over the back of her neck and seized the base of her skull. Her fingers knotted into the hair there, each one hot as a brand.

Sybille forced her tongue against her teeth, trying to ground herself through the strain in her jaw. Elenwen’s blooded finger in her mouth was a burning beacon, commanding attention. Spit and venom drooled continuously down her chin. Elenwen’s thready heartbeat – affected, now, by the bloodloss – pounded underneath Sybille’s ribs like a call to war.

“I killed Torygg,” Elenwen breathed into Sybille’s ear. “I told Ulfric to kill him. I broke his mind and I told him to murder poor King Torygg. I was told he squealed like a stuck pig when Ulfric knocked him down, broke his darling bones with one of those beastly shouts of his. Did you hear them break? There’s a certain sound a bone makes when it shatters beyond repair, and the look in a plaything’s eyes, when they realise they are only breakable meat – well, you don’t need me telling you how sweet that is. … I envy you. I wish I could have seen it.”

Elenwen’s gory detail was not needed. That day was burned into Sybille’s memory, the dull wet pops, the snaps and cracks of Torygg’s bones, the horrible thud and the wail he’d made in the thunderous after-shocks of that terrible Shout, the bitter venom in Sybille’s mouth when Ulfric contemptuously cut his head from what remained of his shoulders with one swipe. Ruby-red, it spurted from the messy stump, it had puddled in the grooves of the courtyard’s cobbles, and weeks after rust-red flecks were found, splattering shoes and hems. Torygg had contained so much blood in him, so much of Istlod, and his iron scent was seared into her nose, her mind, mixing with the tantalising barely-there taste of Elenwen in her mouth.

Sybille gurgled on a gasp. She closed her eyes harder, overwrought, fighting to restrain the tears that welled there. That broke through the blood-haze. She’d known. She’d known it had been too simple, that it hadn’t made sense. But – the Thalmor, killing Torygg? Manipulating Stormcloak?

Elenwen moaned at something on Sybille’s face, tearing her concentration. The vibration stirred Sybille’s chest, the quiver of her ear, and Elenwen’s hips ground against hers in subtle, excited circles. It was vile. It was seductive. Sybille had never wanted to break more than she did now. She deserved to die. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Grief, sick desire, warred with prudence. But – this was what she wanted, Sybille fought to remember, the Ambassador was trying to manipulate Sybille to – to –

She was so thirsty.

Sybille’s teary glare did not seem to faze Elenwen at all. This close, she could see the breaks in the makeup that covered Elenwen’s skin, the artificial wrinkles that made her look older than she truly was. Everything fake, a performance. She made a negative sound around the venom bubbling out of her mouth, and Elenwen smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“And I think I might fuck that idiot doll you’ve got on the throne, too,” Elenwen whispered, and Sybille’s jaw muscle jumped. Her catlike eyes warmed with glee. “Oh, I know you were warning her off my little parties. Came back in too much of a state once, did she? The funny thing is that she approaches me – you should be thanking me, really, all that whining about her poor husband, but she cheers right up if you get a little summerwine into her, turns right into quite the … bold … little … slut.”

That last word was delivered in a hiss, lips brushing Sybille’s ear, and at once, she couldn’t take it any longer. She jerked to snarl back, and Elenwen’s bloodied finger rubbed the soft wetness of the inside of Sybille’s mouth. The rich taste of fresh blood overwhelmed her, blanked her mind. Sybille sucked reflexively, and Elenwen’s breath stuttered in her chest. She threw back her head, exposing her bloody neck, and ground hungrily into Sybille.

“Does your doll like knives?” Elenwen panted. “I do.”

Then, she laughed, delighted and breathless, as Sybille’s hands left the wall and found themselves somehow on Elenwen’s back, pressing her close, wrinkling her robes beneath clenched fists. She bit the flesh between her teeth, dazed, searching tongue prodding for all the blood she could smell but not taste. Her own venom burned her throat when she swallowed.

“Oh, though I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Elenwen continued, tugging her finger free, “She will learn to, if I want her.”

Her body tensed as if she meant to move back, but Sybille shot forward faster than lightning with a bloodcurdling snarl. She seized Elenwen’s hair and waist in a vicious grip, bringing her face close to the dripping wounds. The blood, hot and wet, the revenge, the wanting. At last, Sybille dared a tentative lick, a long, sure line up Elenwen’s neck, chasing the path of the bleeding. She tasted like magic, sun, knives, sharp and a little acrid. Intoxicating. Sybille smoothed over the wetness of the open wound, and she hesitated there, damnation at her lips.

A man’s face was before her eyes, fuzzy Nord-beard, mournful wrinkle-sagged stare. …Istlod?

Elenwen did not fight her at all, though Sybille felt the prick of her dagger against her ribs, a second from slipping into her heart, even as she whimpered at the tightness of Sybille’s grip on her fine hair. It was soft, thin as insect-wings over Sybille’s fist. Elenwen’s body hummed with tension like a live-wire, she breathed in gasps, and she trembled faintly with an unbearable want that Sybille could feel straining to pierce the skin, meet its echo in the parched emptiness of Sybille’s bloodless gut. But her knife tickled at Sybille’s robes, warning and promise both.

“Go on,” Elenwen goaded, her voice strained, a little breathy, cracked with desperation, “Hurt me. You must want to. I killed him, I starved you. Hurt me.”

Could she drain Elenwen before Elenwen stabbed her? There was some reason why Sybille could not drink, she knew that, but all thought deserted her every time she breathed, every time she couldn’t help herself and licked the welling blood before it reached Elenwen’s collar, tracing the topography of her willing throat. Elenwen made sounds, beautiful and ragged, when Sybille lapped at her with her cold tongue, shivered in her arms, all eager sighs and clutching hands and poised knives. But still, Sybille did not affix her mouth over the pumping vein and drain, drain, drain her dry.

“Just-!” Elenwen bit out, “What’s wrong with you? Just – do it…”

Sybille strained against her desires. A battleground between her self-control, the mind of the mage who had served loyally for years, and the hungry animal that howled for blood. Istlod. Torygg. The sweetness of the elfsblood – sunlight and sweat, blade-tip lick – in her mouth. The iron reek of Torygg splattering over the cobbles. Elenwen’s gasps, overlaid with the symphony of Torygg’s body breaking, shattering, pulping under the force of Ulfric’s rage. The world had quaked then, now it whimpered in Sybille’s arms, immobilised by her grip. Istlod at peace on his bed, still smiling his last smile. Torygg’s tears. Elisif wailing, when the sword came down. The war-prisoners in the dungeon, hollow-eyed men whose blood tasted of death and despair. The Thalmor’s snake-whisper, hurt me.

Sybille felt Elenwen’s ear twitch against her hand. A moment later, footsteps rushing towards them.

“Out of time, vampire,” Elenwen cooed, almost a disappointed sigh, and when she pulled back this time Sybille felt her numb fingers release her.

She swallowed, copiously, trying to empty her mouth of spit, and burned hotly with indignation.

“You dare,” Sybille rasped, but Elenwen only quirked her lips, apathetic to Sybille’s fury.

A flash of light and the marks were gone, eaten by healing magic. The dagger disappeared into the folds of her robes, the buttons done up, the stray hair smoothed back into its severe imprisonment. She stood an easy few paces away, as if she had never dared to come so close to a starved vampire, a vampire she had starved. It took moments, and through it all Elenwen’s expression was bored, not a hint of fluster, not even a breath of that wretched amusement or nauseating intrigue.

“I’ll send a prisoner or two your way,” Elenwen promised in a flat voice, plucking at the neckline of her robe. “Do think of me when you drink them, won’t you?”

She drew herself up, and suddenly the Ambassador was back, rigid and stern.

“The Thalmor appreciates your cooperation in this matter, Court Mage,” she said sniffily, the accent disappearing as if it had never been there in exchange for the ringing, cold tones Sybille was used to from her. Pinched about her eyes there was nothing but vague disdain, as if she knew nothing about Sybille, as if she had never clung to Sybille and all-but-pleaded to her, and in fact, considered her just as interesting as a cockroach beneath her heel.

She turned away when Falk rushed out of the bowels of the Blue Palace and greeted her with a flurry of apologies. There was not a wrinkle on her uniform. Her heels clicked loudly on the marble as she followed Falk, reverberating into Sybille’s ears, as if she was the only sound.

Sybille sagged against the wall, and cursed Elenwen in every tongue she knew. Sybille considered herself good at reading people, had thought herself safe, well-protected here at the heart of the court. But the damned Thalmor had her over a barrel. She had no doubt these prisoners of Elenwen’s would be nothing but good men and women who had simply fallen on the wrong side of the Dominion, and Sybille nothing more than a convenient way of disposing of them. She could not see a way out of this trap easily – Elenwen could expose her with a word, had proven her control over Sybille’s food source, had threatened the last dregs of the family Sybille had loved.

Sybille needed blood from those who wouldn’t be missed, needed secrecy, needed to be in court even more than ever to protect Elisif and Solitude now she had glimpsed the danger Elenwen posed: the disdainful Ambassador, the eager prey, the gloating predator, glossed in her makeup to falsely age herself, in her uniform that hid her thinness, with her secrets and her contradictory masks. And yet, the most troubling of all was that Sybille could not tell which of the sides of Elenwen she had seen was the truth, and which was the lie.

[gothgirlmahi]

Princess Chapter 4

Summary: You never thought one date with an Avenger would end up with you locked in his house, playing out his fantasy.

Warnings: Smut, non con, dub con, forced age regression

This is the last chapter I have planned but I might add more if inspiration hits.

Masterlist

Bucky’s cock was deep inside you, spearing into you mercilessly while he had you pinned under him against the kitchen table. The dress you wore was bunched in his hands and held against your back with your underwear pulled to the side. With every harsh thrust his balls slapped against your clit. You moaned wildly at the feel of him inside you. There was no use in pretending he wasn’t getting you off because he was going to do it regardless of how you felt.

Every time his hips met your ass, the wet slapping sounds of your fucking bounced off the walls. His thrusts were rough but centered exactly where you needed him. Even though you were sore, your approaching climax had you clenching around his dick.

“Are you close, baby?” he growled in your ear. A ragged breath escaped you before you answered.

“Yes, daddy.” The words left a bad taste in your mouth, but you said them anyway. You quickly learned that keeping him happy was always the best option. Bucky pulled you back by your hair and pressed rough kisses down your neck.

“You’re perfect. Be a good girl and cum on my dick. Squeeze that tight cunt around me.”

You gripped the edge of the table tightly as your orgasm took you. Your back arched deeply, pressing you even closer to him. A groan ripped from your throat as you convulsed under him.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Bucky groaned. He pulled out of you and pushed you to your knees.

“Take me in your mouth, baby.“

You listened and opened your mouth for him. This wasn’t the first time you blew him so you knew what to expect. He didn’t want you to do much, just sit there while he fucked your face.

The first thing on your mind was the taste of you on his cock. Then the gagging sensation you got when he started to push further into you. His hands weaved through your hair and he shoved himself completely in your throat. As soon as he pulled out, you took a breath and prepared for the onslaught.

He slammed into your throat roughly, immediately cutting off any air coming in. You concentrated on trying to breathe through your nose while his hands tugged at the roots of your hair while he used you. Strands of your hair got caught between the metal plates of his hands and you winced at the pain. Tears welled in your eyes from the force he used. Bucky was clearly enjoying himself.

Animalistic grunts left him while he fucked your mouth. You were still struggling to breathe with him lodged in your throat, feeling lightheaded when he gave no reprieve. Black spots danced around your vision, but you knew he was close. You hoped you didn’t pass out.

“Gonna cum in that pretty mouth. Swallow it all, baby.”

He pushed down your throat as he came, holding himself there and spilling in your mouth. When he was done, he gave a pat to your head and pulled out. You choked and sputtered trying to swallow it all but also get air in your lungs. Bucky pulled you to your feet, reached down to readjust your underwear and set you at one of the kitchen stools.

When he turned around, you glared at his back. The only act of defiance you could get away with.

That man controlled everything you did. You weren’t sure you’d ever have the opportunity to be your own person again. Being near him made you feel like you were always on the verge of losing your mind. The taste of his cum lingering on your tongue made you hate him even more.

The only upside was that he kept you upstairs now. The window in the kitchen was the only one you had access to. The only thing you could see from that angle was a small garden of flowers. One day you might get bold enough to ask if you could go out to see them. The ability to look outside made you sad. It made you miss your life and constantly long for escape. There were no windows in your room and most of the house was still off limits to you. Besides, Bucky probably wouldn’t like it if you ran around trying to look through every single window.

He didn’t like when you seemed too curious. You still had bruises from the last time he disciplined you.

Bucky moved over to the refrigerator, opening it and looking around. A thought crossed your mind. You had been here for a while. You still weren’t sure how long and you knew Bucky would get upset when you asked.

He got upset about a lot of things.

It had to be weeks or maybe even months by your estimation. Unlike in the beginning, you began to fight him less and less. It wasn’t worth the struggle and the subsequent act of him taking out his anger at you. In his words, you’d been good. But for you, it was just self preservation. Bucky wasn’t above really hurting you if it got you to listen.

“Umm, daddy?” you called out to him. Bucky turned around, almost looking shocked. He recovered quickly and his shock was replaced with a pleasant smile.

“Yes, princess?”

“Can we have pancakes today?”

You studied his face carefully looking for any hint of anger. His confusion was visible but the smile never left. You knew why he was confused. You could count on one hand the amount of times you spoke to him of your own free will, outside of sex. The only time you talked to him was in reply to a question he asked.

The question was really just an attempt to test boundaries. To see what he would say. He was becoming more and more amenable to you by the day. You were starting to think he actually did love you, in some terrible twisted way.

“Of course,” he said, nodding.

Bucky walked back to you and pulled you into his arms, holding you in a strong hug. You let yourself embrace him in return. He smelled nice like an earthy cologne and you buried your face in his chest. As much as you didn’t want it from him, you needed a hug. You held tightly to him and you could feel the rumble of a laugh in his chest.

“That’s my good girl.”

You knew you were screwed.

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

RWBY lore & World Building Analysis

Atlas and Mantle Part 1

Timeline, Origins, and History

Timeline

We really don’t have a coherent timeline for the series but this is my best gamble for Atlas and Mantle in terms of events and the people born there(Please RT give us an establish timeline)

B.F.B./ Before the Fall of Beacon

F.B./ Fall of Beacon/ RWBY year one

A.F.B./ After the Fall of Beacon

?-200B.F.B. People settle in Solitas for the first time

200 B.F.B. Mantle Founded

199-91 B.F.B. Century of oppression, & Alliance with Mistral

90-80 B.F.B. The Great War

80-79? B.F.B. Nicolas Schnee Born?

45? B.F.B. Ironwood Born?

28-24 ? B.F.B Ironwood attends Atlas Academy

23? B.F.B. Winter Born?

23-1 ? B.F.B Ironwood ascends to General of Atlas Military & H.M.

17 B.F.B. Weiss Born

2 B.F.B. Winters Joins the Atlas Military

0 F.B. RWBY V(s) 1/2/3

1 A.F.B. V(s) 4/5/6/7/8/9

Given from this we have a rough estimate of the timeline that concerns Atlas, and Mantle And the rise of certain characters from Atlas and Mantle. This will  carry over to the next section help with the known history of this Kingdom

Origins, & History

This section is going to be  a long recap of the history of this kingdom If you already know or are not interested please skip to the summary (Words in Bold should be taken as something to think and analyze upon)

Early Settlement and Rise

Originally founded by settlers who traveled north to the icy continent of Solitas in order to begin a new civilization. Its harsh climates and great mountain ranges helped to suppress the threat of the Grimm, but it also proved difficult for the population to grow. Humanity adapted, however, by using Dust in tandem with advanced technology, developed out of necessity and at faster progression than the rest of the world, creating what came to be known then as the Kingdom of Mantle. Their advancements in Dust application allowed Mantle to expand and devote more territory to mining and research, including the area beside the Kingdom's combat school, Alsius Academy.

Alliance with Mistral

Prior to the war, Mantle formed an alliance with Mistral. The two traded frequently, and Mantle taught Mistral how to form settlements in the snowy northern region of Anima.

Incident at Mantle

After an incident with the Grimm, Mantle came to the conclusion that, if it controlled its citizens' emotions through the abolishment of the arts and self-expression, it would become safer from Grimm. Rather than lose the alliance, Mistral did the same, to an extent. This added to the list of things Vale disliked about Mantle and Mistral, among which was the treatment of their own citizens, their use of slavery and their insistence that their way of life was what was best for everyone.

The Great War

Eventually, Mistral entered a conflict with Vale, after a riot between settlers from the two devolved into the first battle of the Great War. Mantle rushed to their ally's aid, and together, they fought Vale on both Sanus and Anima soil. Having established a presence in Vacuo, the two allied Kingdoms were able to keep Vacuo out of the conflict, and some time into the war, they began pressuring the desert Kingdom to join the war on their side. Fearing that they would conquer Vacuo, should Vale fall, the citizens of Vacuo pushed Mantle and Mistral out of their territory and allied themselves with Vale.

Around eighty years before the beginning of the series, a massive ten-year conflict known as the Great War came to an end. In this war, Mantle and Mistral fought Vale and Vacuo.

During the Great War, Mantle accelerated the pace of its technological innovation, developing new weapons and applications of Dust, giving them an edge during the conflict. Large tracts of land were set aside for Dust mining and research.

Wars end and the road to reconstruction

The Great War finally came to an end with the deadliest battle in the war's history. Mantle and Mistral attempted to take Vacuo's Dust mines to cut off their enemy's supply. There, they were met with the King of Vale personally leading his army alongside Vacuo. It is said that he laid waste to countless men, but historians claim that this feat was aided by the unusually violent weather and Mantle's inexperience in desert combat.

With the war over, the leaders of the four Kingdoms gathered on neutral ground on Vytal to form a treaty and plan the future of Remnant. There, the four Kingdoms' governments were restructured, their territories were redistributed, slavery was abolished, the tradition of the Vytal Festival was begun and the King of Vale founded the four Huntsman Academies.

Atlas Academy and its secrets

Alsius was reopened under the name Atlas Academy and was secretly given the Relic of Creation to safeguard. As a gift to the world, Atlas invented the Cross Continental Transmit System and had the towers for it built on each Huntsman Academy's campus, thus allowing all four Kingdoms to communicate. In an attempt to give back to its citizens, Mantle applied many of the techniques and technologies used in the war to enhance the Huntsman Academy's campus, expanding the school grounds and even securing the surrounding areas. Along with the eventual establishment and merging of the military and research facilities with the government and schools, the original capital of Mantle was overshadowed. The decision was made to move the capital to Atlas, and the Kingdom as a whole was also accordingly renamed to Atlas. Around this time, an incarnation of Ozma suggested to use the Relic of Creation to raise Atlas off the ground. By the present day, the public story for Atlas being kept afloat is due to Gravity Dust.

The Schnee Dust Company

The Schnee Dust Company was founded by Nicholas Schnee in the aftermath of the Great War, in the kingdom of Mantle. Nicholas personally led numerous expeditions around the world to find Dust veins, earning him praise and respect throughout the Kingdoms, while also greatly expanding his company. However, as time passed Nicholas began to grow weary. His family missed him and his health was failing. He was convinced by his son-in-law, Jacques Schnee, to let him inherit the company. Under Jacques' leadership, the Schnee Dust Company's profits grew exponentially, albeit through less-than-ethical practices, such as the use of cheap labor, allowing dangerous working conditions, possible monopolies and having shady business partners.

The Defunct Kingdom of Mantle

The former capital of Mantle appears to have subsequently fallen on hard times,

During the charity concert , guests are heard conversing with Jacques Schnee about the economic disparity between the cities of Atlas and Mantle.

At the same time, they discuss Faunus-Human relations; it is implied that a significant portion of Faunus live in the poorer city of Mantle, and are economically disadvantaged themselves. Those that moved to the city of Atlas were "promised jobs by the Schnee Dust Company amongst others, though it is implied that this is not working out as well as the immigrants would have hoped.

The 40th Vytal Festival Tournament

Preparations for the Vytal Festival were held as early as RWBY's first semester in Beacon. Representatives of the four kingdoms converged upon Vale beginning in the second semester of Team RWBY's first year.  The Atlesian contingent, including Penny Polendina and led by academy headmaster and military leader General Ironwood, arrived aboard three Airships in an impressive show of force. The Vytal Festival was marked by a stronger security presence than usual, with a sizable fleet of airships constantly overhead as well as android soldiers patrolling the grounds. This was due to the precautions of General James Ironwood, who was appointed to head of security by the Vale council following the events of "Breach", where Grimm were able to enter the city.

Unbeknownst to the populace, the matches of the 40th Vytal Festival were manipulated by Cinder Fall, who had managed to infect the Cross Continental Transmit System with a computer virus, giving her the ability to decide the match-ups in the tournament.

The festival was marred by Yang's apparently unprovoked attack on Mercury in the first singles match of the tournament. This caused widespread controversy amongst audiences. Unknown to the public, these events were also manipulated by Cinder. Emerald, working under Cinder's direction, used her Semblance to create illusions that led Yang to attack Mercury, mistakenly believing it to be self-defense. The controversy and negative emotions attracted the attention of the Grimm, which attempted to enter the City of Vale. Huntsmen and Atlas forces managed to hold them off but had to call for additional help.

Fall of Beacon

Tragedy struck, the following night, when Penny was destroyed by Pyrrha in a fatal accident, also orchestrated by Cinder, who attempted to make the accident appear like a cold-blooded murder. Cinder then took control of the broadcast with a computer virus and used it to transmit a message condemning the government. The subsequent horror and panic amongst the audience attracted even more Grimm, which managed to overwhelm the defenses that General Ironwood had set up around the City of Vale. With the Grimm attack imminent, the Festival was canceled and Amity Colosseum was evacuated.

During the 40th Vytal Festival, the hosting Kingdom, Vale, is attacked and Beacon Academy and its Cross Continental Transmit tower was destroyed, cutting off Atlas' communication with the other three Kingdoms. The festival's live broadcast and Atlas' robots were hijacked by the attackers, who made it appear as though Atlas attacked innocent civilians. Beacon became overrun with Grimm, and the presence of a petrified Wyvern drew in even more Grimm. Atlas officials searched for a solution, but with Vale making slow progress to retake the academy even after several months, they were not optimistic.

During the several months between the end of Volume 3 and beginning of Volume 4, the Atlesian council voted to place an embargo on Dust exports, in an attempt to prevent conflict, due to the other Kingdoms believing Atlas attacked Vale. This embargo continued into the events of Volumes 4 through 7.

The Present and the Fall to Come

Upon learning from Winter Schnee of a brewing threat in Mistral, General Ironwood decides to close the borders of the Kingdom of Atlas, calling back most of his troops to defend their home. He stations a small group of soldiers, lead by Special Operative Caroline Cordovin, to stay in the city of Argus and restrict transportations to Atlas.

The Atlesian Military aids in the assembly of the Amity Communications Tower, and later defends Mantle in the Battle of Mantle from incoming Grimm onslaughts. Once Ironwood declares martial law and attempts to raise the city of Atlas, the military attempts to capture Ruby's Group as an arrest warrant for them is sent out throughout the kingdom.

Summary

In this long recap we can see that the Kingdom of Atlas is one of long complicated situations and conflicts both internal and external. Both in Survival and society. The Survival aspect prior to the incident of Mantle was less about the Grimm and more of the cost of living. The Early settlers developed advanced tech to heat and insulate their homes (And Possibly burrow underground and make ice carved towns/Like Old Ba Sing Se) As well as establishing trade agreements with Imperial Mistral(Food for tech)

Now comes the social imbalance caused by this survivability. In a word where Demonic monsters drawn by negative emotions force most people to live in armed fortress cities that makes living in Remnant a very difficult task. There is very little hope to wonder whether or not you can prosper in such a world. That is until Mantle became an official Kingdom and once word spread through its trade and the rumors of security and high survivability it would not be much of a stretch for more people to migrate to what could possibly be the safest place on Remnant  

Sadly it is human instinct to trade whatever we value for security and peace of mind. And in a place where the Grimm of the time can freeze to death instantly might as well be the city of angels worth any cost. An opportunity for people make a life for themselves instead of just surviving.(Huh... I wonder if their were any walking dead stories in remnant?)

But sadly this was also a crippling blow to mantle as its natural security from the Grimm attracted the desperate it also attracted the corrupted. Why I say that is because of these two lines;

Prior to the war, Mantle formed an alliance with Mistral. The two traded frequently, and Mantle taught Mistral how to form settlements in the snowy northern region of Anima.

After an incident with the Grimm, Mantle came to the conclusion that, if it controlled its citizens' emotions through the abolishment of the arts and self-expression, it would become safer from Grimm.

Why do these two line make me think that Mantle attracted the corrupt people of remnant as well as the desperate?

Well we all know by now that Mistral was a large continental empire whose power further grew thanks to mantle. And as establish the larger the territory the harder it is to control. This lack of control is why most of the bad people such as thieves and murderers go there to hide. And it continues to be like this to rwby present.

But was it truly the only territory to have such a problem. Criminals by nature are cowardly with a need of guaranteed self preservation when doing something bad. Either from local law enforcement or Grimm. And since Mistral had a trade agreement for tech interchange for food it would not be impossible for fleeing criminals to run and hide to Mantle incase Anima was no longer an option(Similar to fleeing the country(Canada or Mexico)) Sure your still a wanted person by the law but chances are you would have a higher chance of survival if you focus on avoiding the law instead of the Grimm.

And where can you go without worrying about the Grimm; Mantle Do to this it wouldn’t be unlikely that Mid- late Mantle prior to the incident would be remnants 2nd crime-ridden civilization. Just behind Mistral but just a little bit a head of Vacuo.

Which brings me to the other point

The incident in Mantle was most likely the first time that Mantles Natural security failed. And like most security systems when compromised they are either improved and fixed or replaced for something more efficient. But what caused the need for this change in security. The Grimm attack sure but the questions are; why were they there, and how did they get there?

As we know Salem can make improve or make newer Grimm types using her magic so it is quite possible that a prospering city in the frozen tundra would force her hand and she would try to destroy this kingdom to save her ego. As such she made Grimm that can withstand the cold of solitas. The one and only effective security system that Mantle had for over a century(If it ain’t broke don’t fiddle with it).

As most civilizations IRL people usually don’t change unless something unexpected happens that forces said people to improve the conditions of their lifestyle. But what would cause the people of mantle to change their lifestyle so drastically that it makes them almost robotic and inhuman.

Well as the old saying goes; Men do not fear men they  fear Monsters. And when your in the only place were the monster can’t get you especially the ones that are drawn to your inner darkness, you’re pretty much free to indulge in whatever passions you deem fit. Especially if your a criminal running from law ranging from petty theft to outright murder(Serial killer in terms of tyrian). And sadly people are also entitled to an opinion, and sadly we all really don’t get along when it comes to opinions. Now what do we argue the most when our opinions clash with one another; Art and all of its medias.

Most people don’t really argue when it comes to the workplace(Unless safety concerns) or the state of other nations(unless your allies) on a day to day basis. For the most part people really don’t care or value that part of their lives mostly because they were already born in what has already established by their ancestors. So they just maintain the status quo of the functional economics of there time however they truly focus all their efforts and time into whatever passions they enjoy. But sadly as I learned through social media we really don’t get along when it comes to media entertainment( Huh as I wrote that I can’t help but wonder if the Mantle incident and the aftermath was meta foreshadowing in regards to the current state of the RT and RWBY fandoms)

Anyway Mantles soon to be outdated security and the emotions of its  unchecked citizens have led to the incident that made it rethink its  current defense. Something that would improve the chance of survival and make sure the people wouldn’t give into their passions.

The former can be done no problem(IRL one of the reasons why humans are the dominant species on the planet is because we like to make items that kill so other things can die instead of us) But the latter not so much. You really can’t just easily expect people to fall in line just like that or allow you to do so. But do you know what can allow you to do that; Martial Law or a Stratocracy based government(Think of the Galactic Empire)

This makes sense given the fact that Mantle had relied on natural defenses instead of practical defenses like fleets of ships or large militias. Usually when marital law is enacted it is usually a choice made by the current government to reestablish security and control over their panicked and threatened citizens. As well as to ensure that the people don’t revolt and try to replace the current government via revolution once its been made clear that the current government can’t protect its citizens. Usually Martial laws are temporary administrations. Its only when they are dragged out longer than their intended purpose do they become oppressive. So the question now stands; Did Mantles M.L. drag out longer than intended or did it evolve into a Military Dictatorship?

Either way the end result obviously didn’t end well. Not just because of the events it played during the great war but what kind of impact it had and the lingering scars that persisted into Atlas. This is easily recognized by the conflict between rwby and Ironwood when it came to the decision of whether or not to declare martial law.

The scenes in “the worst case scenario and Gravity,” when it brings up the topic of martial law paints a clear picture; this wasn’t the first time its been declared.

Obviously Gravity shows Weiss’s reaction to Ironwoods declaration. It’s almost a tear breaking expression for her and shock that it causes her to quietly say no in disbelief. Now I’m not familiar to the education system of the rich but given her ties to the SDC Atlas Mantle I would assume she is well versed in the history of her kingdom when it comes to politics/ the source of all trade between nations

Now why is that important well assuming this isn’t the first time martial law has been declared and that their have been several periods in the kingdoms history when it was declared its quite clear that it had mixed results that either were fine or dragged out longer than their intended purpose that resulted in the Great war.

A sort of progressive retraction that would not only just start another great war but would tear down all of the pillars of progress of humanity that Atlas had tried to restore. They are becoming ancient mantle once again. More robotic in nature and Inhuman except this time They had accumulated immense power and are willing to use it against anyone who stands in their way of self preservation. Since the show is clearly setting the state for a second great war much like our world wars I find it interesting that despite knowing what caused the first great war and the events that led to it. It is repeating the same mistakes of the past

(In the words of George Lucas; It’s like poetry, so that they rhyme)

Conclusion

After reviewing and giving some thought as I was researching sources and videos for this I was quite surprised by how much was shown and told in regards of the origins of Atlas. 

And then comparing those findings to other works and our real world history, and societies, there is no doubt that real world Atlases and Mantles exist or have existed in our world and how they either changed for the better or fallen for the benefit of all(I’ll elaborate more in other posts about that)

But sadly Atlas is repeating the mistakes of the past and it continues to not see it. And unless the people acknowledge that they are doomed, regardless of Salem or not.

[kacxa-fan]

Costume Party

Request from @rorylum about Kacxa dressed as Big Barda and Mr. Miracle for a costume party!

___

Summary: Typically the two weren't ones for parties, especially those considered loud and flashy, but for the sake of pleasing their friends who kept insisting them to "take a break", they did so.

___

"But you have to! C'mon Acxa, it's just for one night! It'll be a good chance to clear your mind, then you can go back to stressing yourself out." Whined the pleading voice from across the line.

"Hmm, alright. Inform me of the whereabouts and time it would be most appropriate to visit."

"Wow, really? Awesome! Okay, so the party's at James's place around uh 9 p.m., got it?"

"Got it." Acxa responded, quickly jotting it down just in case she forgets due to all the clutter kept in her busy mind.

"Oh- How could I forget? It's also a costume party! So be sure to prep yourself up, k? Can't wait to see you~!"

"Wait. What is a-" the phone call ended "Oh Veronica..." she groaned.

Acxa avoided recalling her friend, deciding it be best to ask her significant other. She walked down the stairs and met him sitting on the couch, Kosmo lazily splayed about his lap. She took whatever was left of space on the furniture.

"Hey, got your work done yet?" Keith glanced over at her before returning his gaze to the TV as he switched through the channels.

"Not quite. I've decided to put work aside for a bit since Veronica asked me to come join her to a 'costume party'... Whatever that is."

"Huh? That's a surprise, but hey, it's nice to get out and destress. Also, a costume party?" He paused and tilted his head over to fully face her.

"If you will, please explain to me what the customs of this type of party are?"

Keith muted the TV, turning his full attention to her.

"Well, a costume party is basically a party where the guests dress up as whatever they'd like. Examples say being uhhh a monster or character from a show. Stuff like that."

"Like a disguise?"

"Yeah, like a disguise, but you don't really gotta fool anyone."

Acxa nodded, her hand reaching it's way over to Kosmo's ear.

"Very well, but what should we dress up as?"

"We?"

"Oh, I forgot to ask. It's just that I thought you'd like to join..."

"Or you'd feel a lot more comfortable if I joined you, huh?"

"Perhaps, that too..."

Keith chuckled, scooting closer to Acxa. He wrapped his arm around her waist and placed a kiss on her blushing cheek.

"I'm in!"

"Thank you, Keith."

"Mhm. Okay so costumes, uh we could be hmmm... Oh! I grew up really liking Batman, and I guess you could say Catwoman was his girlfriend? You'd rock a Catwoman, not gonna lie."

He pulled out his phone to search the duo up.

"Here, look. See?"

"Ah, how um interesting. As much as I'd like to say that she looks quite flattering, I can't help but notice how uncomfortable her outfit seems. Leather, is it?" She looked down the image "And high heeled boots?"

Acxa unconsciously took his phone from his hand, scrolling through the various images of the peculiar lady.

"Oh my, this is... suggestive?"

"Hahaaa, yeaaah." Keith muttered in slight embarrassment, scratching the back of his neck.

"Is that a whip? Her weapon?"

"Okayyy! That's enough lookin' her up. Let's say we think of another couple, if you're not sure about this one, k?"

The two huddled closer as Keith offered various other options. Somehow Acxa always seemed to pick at one or the other, more so fascinated and weirded out by the outfit. Time ticked by as Keith grew tired. They ended up with few ideas.

He blew out a puff of air, "Uhm welp here's these two. Superheroes. Named Big Barda and Mr. Miracle?"

Acxa, again, took the phone. Her eyes dilating at the bright colors.

"Guess it's a no too?"

She shook her head, "No, I actually find it suitable. Considering that I am the tallest out of us both. Also, we are running out of time, no?"

Keith rolled his eyes playfully, although their height difference was never much of a bother for them.

"My only complaint is the bold colors. Other than that, it looks to be comfortable enough. Don't you think?"

"As long as you're sure, I'll settle for it."

What Acxa wasn't aware of is that Keith was not necessarily looking forward to wearing such a thing, as it was not his sort of style. In fact, this duo's fit was nothing of their style, but nonetheless they agreed to it.

---

"Here we are. Ready to show off?"

"Just a moment. I think my cape got tangled."

Keith and Acxa exited their car, pinkies hooking and having nervous talk about their suits. They entered the apartment complex, scanning the numbers of each door.

"Here it is! Ready?"

"What other choice is there..."

Keith knocked, and low and behold, James answered.

"HEY! ACXA AND... KEITH? NO WAY! THAT'S PRETTY FUNNY SEEING YOU TWO HERE. ESPECIALLY WEARING THOSE!" He shouted as the commotion of the dark yet colorfully lit room dazed the visitors viewing it. The brunette took his time looking the deadpanned couple up, incapable of holding his growing amusement.

"WELL, COME ON IN! THE GANG'S JUST RIGHT OVER AT THE POOL TABLE."

Keith took the lead, holding a hand out for Acxa to follow. Acxa examined the area, taking notice to the strange figures, assuming that some were not human at all, but actual aliens to Earth such as herself. She heard the booming and perked her ears, worried that a fight involving weaponry was taking place. Hesitantly, she took his hand and stepped foot into the strange presence. They walked behind James as cautiously as they could, with the few bumps here and there from strangers in all sorts of display.

"KEITH, IS THIS WHAT ALL PARTIES ARE LIKE? GOODNESS WH- OH, FORGIVE ME!" Acxa hollered.

"NOT ALL, BUT WHEN IT'S RUN BY PEOPLE LIKE JAMES, THEN YEAH. PRETTY MUCH."

Finally straying away from the crowd and their noise, the trio were reintroduced to their friends.

"Aw Acxa, and Keith~! Glad you actually came. I was beginning to think you'd bail out on us and this fun!" Veronica hugged her confused friend.

"Why yes, I would never do such a thing. Although, I would have to disagree with you on how this could be 'fun'." Acxa responded, massaging her ears.

"Oh there you go again blurting out your opinion without a care. Typical Acxa-"

"Our Acxa!" Veronica consoled James by patting his back playfully.

The rest of the MFE group exchanged their greetings.

"So, Acxa. You think this ain't at all fun? I'll make it my mission to prove ya wrong!" Nadia spun back to the others, "Right guys? Everyone come on and join us!"

"Sure, sounds fine by me." Said Veronica.

"I mean, I'm kinda busy on keeping check who's at the door cause this is my place-"

"Don't worry about it, Jamesy! Someone else can take care of that stuff. Spend time with us and quit looking around for a girl to dance with and hopefully date~"

Veronica and Nadia shared a smug smirk towards the now heated boy. Ina simply shook her head in shame.

"If you'd like, may I offer you all to a game of cards?" Ina asked.

"Cards?" Acxa tilted her head.

"What kind of ga-"" Keith was cut off.

"CARDS?! Inaaa sweetie, again?" The blue haired, hyper girl whined.

"Shush Nadia, there's nothing wrong with playing some more. Plus, I think it's a great way to show Acxa how a party can be fun!" Veronica stated, pulling Acxa and Keith to the table as the rest soon followed in.

After this "boring" and time consuming game, Nadia was sure to introduce her alien friend to a whole variety of other party activities.

Some not so appropriate to her friend's taste, that is.

___

Hours passed, around four. At least, that's what Acxa assumed. It was quite dark afterall.

Clumsily, she walked, or rather stumbled, her way back to the snack table. Her eyes dilating as her gaze lingered from item to item, looking for that deliciously red-colored juice. To be honest, she didn't really think it to be that good, terrible actually, but nonetheless she had the urge to engulf her system with some more. This beverage was making her feel... happy anyways.

"Acxa? Acxa-" Keith trotted to his girlfriend. He rested his hand on the small of her back, looking over to see her pouting face. How cute.

"...Ac-?"

"No, nooo, nooooo! There's no more *hiccup* juiceee!" Acxa aimed to pound her hand onto the table, but instead missed and hit Keith's stomach area. She turned around at the sudden sound.

"Ow. Acxa are you-"

He felt her cold finger poke his lips. She giggled childishly. Her toothy smile making the man blush almost uncomfortably. She looked so happy, and he knew well that it was not exactly in her control.

"You're... I think you look very handsome~! Do I *hiccup* know you... from somewhere?"

"Yes, yes you do. I'm your boyfriend, remember? Keith." He couldn't help but chuckle.

She looked up and stared at nothing in particular, thinking.

"Keith. Oh yes! I remember you, I think."

"I sure hope so. It'll suck if you don't and I lose my beautiful girlfriend."

"Aw, you're too kind, sir." Acxa bashfully covered part of her smiley face with her hand. So cute.

"Really looks like Nadia did her job, huh? How much did you drink?"

"Hmmm, I estimate around 57 *hiccup* cups? No wait, maybe it was 70..."

Keith was shocked. Then again, he was dating a 6 foot something to 7 foot girl from another planet. He should've been surprised more at the fact that Earth alcohol even had an affect on her.

"Wow, ahaha! That's enough for you then. Let's say we go back home and go to sleep. I'm beat and this party is getting crazier by the minute." He took her hand and tugged her to, again, follow him.

"Waaait~! Not yet! I wanna say bye to my *hiccup* friendsss!" Acxa protested and limped herself back.

Keith sighed, "Ina told me to say goodbye for her to you a while ago. Veronica went out earlier too. Nadia's passed out black on the couch. And James is... eh whatever who gives a damn."

"Nadia? Passed out! Is she okay? She's not okay! I need to help her- Let me go help!"

Great.

"Woah woah calm down, baby. Nadia's okay. She's with a few other girls watching over her. Trust me?" Keith wrapped his arms around her frantic self.

"Always have, always will." She puffed.

"Good. Thanks for that. Now, ready to go?"

"M'kayyy~!"

___

AN: Gee, look who's back. 🤡

[puttingfingerstokeys]

how come cassie gets two dads?

So @sxvethelastdance and I have had more than a few conversations vis a vis Raiden being like, thunder dad, and ofc Johnny being like a fantastic father and like, how much Faraday Cage (Johnny/Raiden) was an expression of tired fathers helping each other back to like... some semblance of okay-ness... which ofc is embodied in a friend in need but like, what’re some of the more humorous aspects of Raiden sort of... becoming part of the Cage family? This one isn’t HILARIOUS but it’s a little chuckle worthy.

Ft. Cassie, Raiden, and Johnny (mentions of Liu Kang)

light Faraday Cage, implied Caged Heat 

Broken Timeline (echoes of prevented timeline tho!)

“Cassandra Cage.” 

Cassie nearly jumps out of her skin, and the hair on the back of her neck is decidedly standing on end. She whirls, body tense, despite knowing who is addressing her and being otherwise accustomed to his presence in her father’s home. 

Of late, the god of thunder—well, she supposes he isn’t technically a god anymore, after what had happened with Liu Kang, but he still appears in lightning bolts and his eyes still have that freaky-ass glow—has made himself a semi-permanent fixture around the Cage house. She is glad for it, because the place had started to become desolate and empty without her mother, even if it had been years since Sonya lived with her father. It’s the knowing, Cassie assumes, that makes it hard.

“Jesus H Christ on a FUCKIN’ bike!” The hiss is hoarse, good-natured, but betraying the thumping of her heart. Raiden chuckles and shakes his head, clearly amused by the display. 

“I am not your Earthrealm messiah—perhaps Lord Liu Kang would be a better fit in that role,” he says after a moment, stepping into the room. His eyes, unreadable to most, but never to the Cages, rest upon her only a moment before drifting over her shoulder to the window behind and the back lawn, where Johnny seems to be tinkering with a round, flat platform made of undetermined material—it is clearly heavy, but he has not given up on his quest… whatever that entails. 

“So what’s up? Dad’s outside, messin’ around with… well a landing pad for you, actually.” Cassie sets the pile of magazines aside which she had been transporting to the recycling bin, frustrated with herself and her babbling. There is something about Raiden that brings forth a gush of words, and not the usual, sharp ones which suggest she is in any way in control of her speech patterns. She regards the vacuum cleaner, sitting off to one side, pointing her irked gaze toward it, rather than Raiden. 

A Roomba is hard at work behind the couch in the area just before the foyer. The place is shaping up, almost gleaming, and Raiden is glad to see its emerging cleanliness. Cassie has clearly been matching the Roomba blow for blow in the rest of the house. Raiden only half wonders after the occasion. Earthrealm people have so many celebrations that it is, admittedly, difficult to keep track, though he suspects it is Johnny’s birthday. 

“I see that.” The material of the platform with which the elder Cage is struggling, Raiden decides, must be a thick, vulcanized rubber composite. Johnny has expressed in the past his displeasure at the burn marks upon the lawn, though always in good humor. Evidently now he has made moves to prevent it. “But I am not here to speak with your father, Cassandra Cage.” 

“Mmkay, so… with me, then? Do I need to like, kneel or… siddown or?” She doesn’t know the proper protocol to speak with a god or… emissary or whatever he is, though she has chatted fairly casually with Raiden on multiple occasions; this seems to be a little heavier and they are not on the brink of multi-realm war. “Oh uh—shit, do you want a seat?” 

She clears another stack of magazines from the sofa and gestures. The divine nods and expresses his thanks, seating himself and finally ceasing his habit of towering over everyone in the room. Cassie plops herself on yet another chair then jumps up with a start. “FUCK!” She pulls a deflated whoopie cushion out from under her rear and tosses into a pile that deserves a neon sign reading “trash”. 

Raiden chuckles. “Another of your father’s mementos?” 

“Some’n like that,” she grunts, then straightens, as if recalling to whom she is speaking. Cassie respects Raiden, though she has not nearly so much experience with him as her father and late mother, or Liu Kang, who’s evidently some kind of titan-god-human hybrid thing now. She’s not clear on the logistics of that one, but it’s fine and probably above her pay grade in either case. “Anyway, what’s up?” Smooth, Cassie, just ask the literal embodiment of lightning ‘what’s up’ again. Nice.

“I wanted to express my condolences properly… for your mother and… my apologies on behalf of my older self—my… uglier self.” He shakes his head, sighing, wide shoulders sagging. The hat obscures his face, but she can read his expression via body language. Raiden is heartbroken. “Sonya Blade was a powerful, honorable, worthy representative of Earthrealm and all for which we stand—and she is… she was your mother and—” 

“And she put up with dad, so that prolly makes her worthy of canonization—do y’all do that? Canonize folks? I mean that’s kinda what happened to Liu, right?” She, like her father, speaks over her pain, willing it to flee before her mighty voice. But it still hurts. Like Cassie can read Raiden, Raiden can read Cassie. She, by his estimate, is currently wishing she did not feel the compulsion to speak so loquaciously or frankly with him.

“She is worthy of a great many honors—I only wish that I had been a better person to honor her, a better friend. What I said… It was unkind and thoughtless. She did die with honor, but I… hate that she died at all.” His hands are folded in his lap, his face a stern mask. He is holding together well, due most likely to millennia of practice. Cassie has always imagined his forays into the world of the Elder Gods to be exercises in his own patience and humility, if they’re anything like how Johnny has envisioned them. She trusts her father’s perspective on the subject. He knows a few things about shitty parents, after all. “I am very sorry. Please, accept my apologies.” 

Cassie stands, then, and, in a burst of boldness not unlike her father’s, she seats herself on the couch next to Raiden—at a respectful distance, of course, but close enough to shift her body so she is facing him and her left knee nearly comes into contact with his right. 

She can feel from here that peculiar electrical field her father once described to her when he had downed perhaps one too many beers and it is, in a word, immense. This isn’t even his final form, she thinks almost flippantly. The laughter threatens, but only in that hysterical way it sometimes does at funerals or other somber, church-related events. She reaches out to place one hand atop both of his and finds them, as well, to be immense. Her heart jackhammers for a moment and she wonders if this is what cardiac arrest feels like. Their eyes meet. 

“Raiden,” she says quietly, “I… get it. It wasn’t really you—not this you. I don’t… know anything about multiverse bullshit or cosmic whatever-the-fuck, but I… know you… err, well, I’ve gotten to know you,” she amends, then presses on, “and, more importantly, dad knows you. You don’t have to apologize, ever… Your being around here for him—for both of us—is huge. It means a lot to him and to me, y’know? You’re like the weird uncle that’s hard to explain to the neighbors, or somethin’.” Cassie withdraws her hand, because the electrical current has become too much and she’s gone a little numb in the immediate area. She minutely covers it with the other as she folds it in her lap, imitating him, but secretly trying to rub feeling back into it. 

“I do not do this, be here with you both, to apologize,” Raiden informs her, straightening. “I… have become fond of your family over the years and… it is not something even my nature can overcome. Nor do I want to deny it, Cassandra Cage.” 

“Okay Lord Raiden, I’m—I’ve had it up to here with the whole ‘Cassandra Cage’ thing… Don’t you know me well enough to call me Cassie?” Cassie surprises herself with this outburst. It does not, however, seem to have taken Raiden by surprise. 

“Johnny Cage has said much the same,” he responds. She makes a “see there you go” gesture.

“You and me,” she says suddenly, standing, fists balled, “back yard, winner take all. I win, you call me Cassie—and my dad’s just Johnny, okay?” 

“And if I win.” Raiden stands as well, once more dwarfing her. She suddenly feels foolish about her challenge, but the Blade women never back down. Cage women don’t either. 

“I’ll… make that pizza you like…. With the anchovies.” Cassie pulls a face, indicating she has some objections about Raiden’s choice in pizza toppings. For his part, Raiden seems to consider it. Cassie wonders if he’s considering consulting the Elder Gods, even now, knowing it’s a cruel thought to have. Her contempt for them has not and will not likely ever wane, after what they’ve put Earthrealm through. Death’s more than they deserve, she thinks acidly.

“I accept your challenge.”

Cassie nods, her face grim, the set of her jaw and strongly resembling both her mother and father. She heads toward the back door with Raiden in tow, he heart hammering. Relax, Cass’, she thinks, it’s friendly; he’s not gunna fry ya for this. Just as she reaches it, her father bursts in and tosses his hands up. “I got it, Cass’, I figured out what… I… need…” He trails off as he catches sight of the tall, hat-topped figure behind his daughter. “Is there… uh, what’s goin’ on?” 

Raiden finds his bewilderment charming and his expression softens. “Your daughter has challenged me to Mortal Kombat.” 

“Oh okay well that’s just—MORTAL KOMBAT? Cass’, you gotta be shittin’ me, baby girl; what are you—why? No—Nope I can’t… this is not happening.” 

“Once the challenge has been issued and accepted, it cannot be revoked,” Raiden reminds Johnny, laying a hand upon his shoulder. “But worry not. I have no intention of… cheating. Hold this a moment, will you?”

And just like that, the surge of electricity Johnny had felt when Raiden made contact erupts across all of his nerves and he suddenly feels like he is floating. Cassie once more whirls to face the thunder deity and finds that, in place of glowing, indiscernible irises, a pair of dark, soft ones meet hers with ease and benevolent kindness. Her father, however, is a different story. Reaching up, he pulls off yet another pair of $500 sunglasses (which seem to be in eternal supply in the Cage household) and flashes those strange, glowing eyes at his daughter. 

“Dad?” Cassie’s voice is a strangely hoarse whisper. She shifts her attention and addresses her concerns to Raiden. “Is… he gunna be okay?” 

“He will be fine, Cassandra Cage, now… to Kombat.” He gestures out the back door and, with the sound of her whole name, Cassie’s resolution is galvanized and she leads the way once more, a very human Raiden and a deified Johnny Cage now following her like the strangest band of ducklings ever conceived. 

Johnny watches his hands, lightning dancing between his fingers as he finds his way, dazedly, to a deck chair and plops down into it. “Hey!” He calls suddenly, “can I like… go visit Liu?”

“You can.” 

Before the second syllable is out of Raiden’s mouth, Johnny is gone. Raiden laughs and shakes his head. Cassie’s brows knit together. “Does he even know how to drive that thing?”

“Not at all, but his desire to see his friend will bring him where he needs to be.” Raiden stands back, beckoning Cassie. She notes that he does not seem to drop into any kind of fighting stance as she does and it worries her. She has seen the damage he can do with his lightning, but not without it and she has never, in her recollection, seen him engage in kombat. What the hell am I doing?

“Thunder God Johnny Cage,” Cassie says, the words tasting strange in her mouth. “Who knew?”

“It suits him.”

 -

 The pizza is delicious, in Raiden’s opinion and, though he does not need to eat, there is a certain pleasure in these little indulgences. He is grateful to have learned this lesson from an old friend and he cherishes it when the timing is right and the opportunity arises. This certainly qualifies. They, that is, Cassie and Raiden, are seated on the back patio, the sun slowly sinking, the pizza box open between them. 

“So… why does dad get to be Johnny and I’m still Cassandra?” She does her best to imitate Raiden’s stern baritone, but of course fails miserably and ends up sounding comical. Raiden considers her question and imitation a moment and sits forward, laying his plate aside. He shifts once more and turns to her. 

“Your grandfather Carlton… refers to your father as Jonathan.”

Cassie never asks again.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (141/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[3 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Less than an hour ago, King Rehval III Trismegistus stood on the verge of total victory. The almighty King of the Saiyans had become invincible, immortal, and the rest of the galaxy had been forced to submit to his irresistible power.

And none of that mattered at all!

The secret to Rehval's power lay in his alchemical bond with the planet Nagaoka. His energy was merged with the vast geological power of the planet. Normally a fleet of warships or a single angry Saiyan could make short work of a planetary body, but only because it lacked the conscious will to defend itself. Thanks to Rehval, Nagaoka could protect itself, and Rehval himself was more powerful than any Saiyan who ever lived... or so he had thought.

Luffa was the only being in the universe who had dared to challenge his new power. He had expected her to try something. She was the Legendary Super Saiyan, after all. Rehval had heard the tall tales of the old heroes. He never dreamed that one of them might be a woman, or that such a woman would defy him so completely. But he quickly learned that Luffa was destined to be his enemy, and that she would rather die than accept his rule.

And so his goal became to surpass and defeat Luffa. Once, he had been content to play the elegant statesman, using political wiles to unite his people and realize his will for the Saiyan people. But Luffa insisted on dragging their species backward. She spoke of honor and compassion like they meant anything in a cynical universe that only respected results. The only way to truly defeat her was by force, and so he had merged himself with Nagaoka, and demonstrated his absolute superiority. Proud and stubborn, Luffa chose to invade Nagaoka anyway. When her allies abandoned her, she came alone. None of this was much of a surprise to Rehval. He expected some final, desperate last stand from her. But instead, she used his own power against him. She parted the clouds over Nagaoka, and used the light of its moon to transform herself into a giant ape.

With that single stroke, Rehval found himself on the defensive once again. Luffa's power had already been extraordinary, but now, in her Golden Oozaru form, it was unthinkable. The snarling beast cut down his followers like they were a swarm of insects in a firestorm. Even Nagaoka's crust had taken heavy damage, despite Rehval's efforts to protect it.

As for Rehval himself... his exact nature was somewhat difficult for a layman to interpret. His followers recognized him by his power, though they had no idea what to make of him. His Jindan elixir increased their power, but it did so by mingling their ki with his own, just as he mingled his power with that of the planet. There was a Saiyan man named Rehval, but he had evolved into something more, and his Saiyan body had begun to feel like more of a part of his greater self. His abilities allowed him to control not only the mass of Nagaoka, but the earth on numerous other planets as well. He had become a celestial being, whose intellect happened to be centralized around a Saiyan body.

But Luffa's transformation into the golden ape had exposed the flaw in his evolution. Normally, a Saiyan Ape could be neutralized by destroying the full moon that sustained the transformation. In an extreme situation, one could destroy the plant the Ape was standing upon, and they would suffocate in airless space. Or if all else failed, one could withdraw to another planet and begin anew. Only this time, Rehval could do none of these things. He was Nagaoka and its moon, as well as the Saiyan body that controlled them both. He could no sooner run from this place than an ordinary man could run from his own heart. Luffa was using his own power against him, and she didn't seem to care what happened to her in the process.

It was all collapsing. Rehval's cult had fallen. If any of his followers still lived, they had fled in terror to other parts of the planet. Luffa didn't bother to chase them, since there was really nowhere for them to hide. She had destroyed all of the spaceships days ago. Rehval's faithful might have looked to him for guidance, but the man they had sworn to obey was now a corpse in their empty fortress on the opposite side of the planet. Before, Rehval had been coordinating the battle from the safety of his chambers, but when he found himself overwhelmed by Luffa's power, he grew desperate, and used an overdose of his elixirs to complete his unification with the planet. This killed his Saiyan body, but it enabled him to wield Nagaoka's energy more completely. He now was Nagaoka, for all intents and purposes. With this drastic step, he was able to forge a new body for himself, one made of solid gold taken from the planet's interior.

The gold-Rehval was much more powerful than a walking, talking gold statue would actually be. Earlier, he had made a grand speech about how he was empowered by the nobility and purity of gold's essence, rather than the metal itself. But Luffa had still been able to beat his new body like it was made out of a soft and ductile material. He struggled in vain to restrain her while his remaining followers died in a feeble attempt to cut off her tail. She simply shrugged them all off like they were nothing!

Lying on the ruined surface of what had been their battlefield, Rehval could only watch as Luffa mowed down his cultists with a blast of ki from her enormous mouth. She scooped a pair of warriors into her paw, and crushed them without a second thought. With each Saiyan she killed, their Jindan power was dispersed and reabsorbed into the planet. This was by design, as Rehval wanted a way to recover the power of his followers when they failed him in battle. Part of his strategy in the war against the Federation was to send his warriors to die, thereby increasing his own personal strength while eliminating unworthy followers from his flock.

But he had never imagined losing so many of them all at once, and on his home territory. The planet was assimilating their energy more rapidly than he could cope with, and the experience was painful to him.

Then, Luffa pointed her brutish fingers and fired a ki blast at the ground. She had been attacking the planet's surface all night, but this time it had a much more dramatic effect, and Rehval suddenly experienced a far more terrible agony. If he had still been a Saiyan, it might have like losing an arm or a leg in an explosion. But instead of a limb, he estimated that she had destroyed a huge section of the continent they had been standing on. Where it had once been, there was now only magma and ash. And among the chaos, a giant golden ape hung in the sky, beating her chest and howling with gruesome satisfaction.

The destructive energy she was unleashing was beyond anything he could have anticipated. Her last attack had been enough to destroy ten planets. His Jindan power had enabled him to blunt the effect and keep most of Nagaoka in tact, but this only delayed the inevitable.

Laying upon a floe of half-molten rock, Rehval's golden body was twisted and dented beyond recognition. He had the power to reshape himself, but he was having trouble using it. Above him, lightning flashed angrily in the cloudless sky. Above that was Nagaoka's moon. Its soft glow seemed to mock him for his hubris. He had thought himself so clever for mastering its power, and now it had been turned against him.

Slowly, painfully, the gold-Rehval rose to its full height, and drew more metal from the planet's mantle to increase its size. Without taking the time to repair its appearance, Rehval turned its misshapen head toward Luffa.

"You've lost, Rehval!" Luffa bellowed. "The only way you can fight me is to pool all your power into that tacky body of yours, but you can't protect the planet and attack me at the same time! I don't even have to hit you, not when I can just blow away some more real estate!"

"No!" Rehval cried. "It's not too late! I can still stop you before you can destroy it all!"

"Ooh, so it's a race, is it?" Luffa laughed. "Fine! Then let's end it here and now!" And with that, she alighted on a section of rock that had cooled enough for her to stand upon. Rehval's golden avatar followed her. This time, he began to wonder if his bold words had any truth to them. Luffa had hurt him so badly already, and she showed no signs of slowing down. He was determined to keep fighting, but he couldn't deny the despair that had crept into his thoughts.

He shifted his tactics this time. Knowing that he couldn't match Luffa in a direct confrontation, Rehval used the nature of his new body to contort himself into positions and stances that would be impossible for a humanoid to match. As he did this, he tried to exploit Luffa's weaknesses. She was favoring her left shoulder, after he had stabbed it earlier, but the real target had to be her tail. If he could only cut it off, she would revert to her normal form, and he could destroy her with ease.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep up. Luffa had wounded the planet more seriously than he had realized, and his power was dropping rapidly. Worse, her combat senses were as sharp as ever. It was easy to see the ape form and assume she had become a mindless brute, but she saw through his attacks almost before he could execute them. There seemed to be no answer to her power.

And then, suddenly, she faltered. There was a brief lull in their battle, as Rehval was so astonished that he almost failed to take advantage of the opening.

"Of course. Of course!" he shouted as he fired a ki blast at her chest. Suprise gave way to comprehension, and then joy.

"You can't maintain it!" Rehval cried. "All that power, but you can't maintain the form! I should have known!"

He tried to stomp on Luffa as she dropped to one knee, but she had the wherewithal to roll away from him. The pain in her simian expression told the entire story. In spite of his own pain, he couldn't help but enjoy this moment of triumph.

"But then," he said, "I did know. I never expected you to use my own moon against me, because I couldn't believe that you would ever become this powerful. And I was right! The toll it's taking on your body... your fragile, mortal body!"

"You... you haven't won yet, Rehval," Luffa said after a groan. She fired a defiant ki blast from her mouth, which vaporized a third of his golden body, but this wasn't enough to stop him. Rehval smelled blood, and he was determined to go in for the kill.

"So that was what this was," Rehval gloated. He needed time to rebuild his avatar before he could press his advantage, and taunting Luffa would keep her distracted. "Your heroic last stand? You gambled everything on a power-up that would tip the scales in your favor, but you miscalculated. Once again, time is on my side, Luffa! I don't have to overpower you, not when I can just wait for you to fall on your own!"

He shaped his body into a long, spindly parody of a Saiyan, and formed his hands into thin, golden blades, which he charged with geomantic power. Luffa was still able to dodge his wild swipes, but she was finally giving ground, and Rehval was enjoying every moment of it. And yet, in spite of the situation, Luffa still had a smile on her bestial face.

"You put up a good fight for a woman," Rehval chuckled, "but you'll never be more than meat and bone, trapped within the limitations of the flesh you were born with. I've prevailed because I transcended my limitations! My brother's name, my father's throne, my master's alchemy, Nagaoka's power! What do you have, Luffa? What do you have, besides a bunch of old stories, and a power too primitive for you to control?"

As he asked this question, he looped his wiry frame around one of Luffa's punches, and wrapped himself around her like a tangle of barbed wire. Luffa struggled mightily, but this time she couldn't shake him off. Luffa howled with rage as she rolled around on the ground. She even began to rip at her own fur as she struggled to pull Rehval's golden form away from herself. In response, he stretched his mass even thinner, and clung even tighter to every purchase he could find on the ape's body. In this shape, he lacked the strength to restrain her movements, but he no longer needed to.

"I see the advantage of this now," he cried. "Get so close to your enemy that their defenses become your own! The shoe's on the other foot now, Luffa! And now that you can't dodge, I'm free to do this!"

He concentrated, and with a tremendous effort, Rehval blocked out the pain and forced the planet around him to give him the power he needed. It came in the form of lightning, electric bolts mixed with raw ki energy from the planet. Rehval's golden body acted like a conductor and the bolts lanced from the ground, across the skies, and into him... and then into Luffa.

Her gutteral shrieks were like the sweetest music to him now. His only regret was that he couldn't make the attack continuous. It took time to charge another strike. During these short pauses, Luffa's massive fingers ripped even more desperately at his golden strands, and he knew she was nearly defeated.

"I can sense it, woman!" Rehval jeered. "You're losing control! Your poor little body can't handle it anymore, can you? You should have stayed home all these years! Kept your nose out of my business! The future of the Saiyan race was mine to decide! You! Never! Should! Have! Gotten! Involved!"

As he raved, Luffa charged her own ki to fight back against his offensive, but he was too thrilled with his success to let that stop him. Let her power up, he thought to himself. It would only hasten her own demise.

"You thought you would get something out of this?" he shouted between her screams. "A measure of revenge before you died! You petty little idiot! There are other Saiyans out there! The ones you killed today can be replaced! Even the damage you've done to this planet can be repaired! It might take me a century to fix it all, but when I'm finished, it'll be as if it never happened! I'll rule the universe a little later than I planned, but I'll still prevail! And you'll still be just as dead!"

He suddenly realized that this was how it was supposed to be from the beginning. He had taught his followers that their suffering was a crucible designed to purge impurities and eliminate weaknesses. Nagaoka... his very self, was just another crucible. He had to suffer, to face Luffa in this way, for how else could he overcome his nemesis and rise above the final obstacles? It would be here, on this day, that the universe would be purified for all time. And in that epiphany, the pain he felt, the raucous screaming of his enemy, the rush of destructive power through his golden coils, it all seemed so sublime to him.

And then, finally, Luffa collapsed. Her breathing was rough and unsteady. Her Golden Oozaru energy was building out of control. Rehval could feel her pulse racing, and he knew that her savage heart would fail at any moment. This had to be the end. There were no more moves for her to make.

"It's over, Luffa! I've won," he said. "All I have to do now is wait for your body to give out from the strain. Until then, you can't hurt me at this range, not unless you want to hurt yourself in the process!"

Luffa gasped a few times before responding. When she finally spoke, he expected to hear some admission of defeat, or perhaps even a begrudging apology. He got neither.

"That was my plan all along, you jackass," she said.

And then she began to laugh again. Rehval was about to demand to know what she found so funny, and then he suddenly sensed a huge power welling up inside Luffa. He tried to pull away from her, only to discover that she had created an energy field around her body that kept him trapped against her fur.

"Did you really think I came to this mudball all alone without a plan?" she shouted. "You think I didn't expect my body to give out under the full moon? You fool! I was counting on it! Honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner!"

It finally dawned on Rehval what she meant by this. When she first arrived on Nagaoka, he had blithely assumed that she had come to die in battle. Now he realized just how right he had been.

Except she never had any intention of dying alone.

She was going to take him with her. The planet, the moon, his golden avatar... all of it.

"There's no way out, Rehval!" she screamed, her power intensifying until he could no longer sense it properly. "No ships to fly you to safety this time! No magic portals to whisk you away to a safe haven! You're trapped here, with me, on this worthless planet, and when I go, you'll die with it!"

Suddenly she was standing upright once again. Rehval wondered if he had ever managed to hurt her before, or if she had simply been luring him in this entire time.

"Luffa, no!" Rehval pleaded. "You can't! The Saiyans! Your son!"

"They were dead the moment they joined you," she said with a roar. "You thought this stupid planet would make you a god, but it's nothing more than a millstone around your neck!"

She was right, and now it suddenly occurred to Rehval that he was entirely at her mercy.

"But the Saiyan race!" Rehval wailed. "Luffa, you have to spare me! If we all die here, then the future of the Saiyan species is doomed! I'm the only one who can ensure our prosperity! You have to let me live! I beg you!"

"You beg me?" Luffa asked. "You really do have no pride at all. If you're the only hope for the Saiyan race, then we're better off extinct!"

And in those last moments, Rehval realized there was nothing more he could say, nothing more he could do. His golden body was helpless. The source of his power was fractured and doomed, and he was at the mercy of a monster who wanted nothing more than to end his life. All his knowledge, his power, his rhetoric, would avail him nothing. It was this realization, more than the prospect of death itself, that horrified him.

Then, he heard a terrible, ear-splitting roar, as Luffa released the power within her in a tremendous explosion. Through his connection with the planet, he could feel Nagaoka being ripped apart, and the pain it caused him was greater than anything he could have possibly experienced in a mortal body. He expected everything to go black, but instead, it went white. A brilliant, agonizing white.

*******

And then, strangely enough, Rehval found himself lying on the floor of his fortress. The planet--or what was left of it, was directly beneath him. He could still feel the pain of its death throes. He was still linked to Nagaoka. It hurt so much that he could barely bring himself to move.

Somehow, he found the will to crawl. The last thing he expected was to be shunted back into his original Saiyan body. He had assumed that his abandonment of it was permanent, but it was an experimental treatment, and he never imagined that Nagaoka would be so badly damaged, or what the effects of this might be. This was all uncharted territory now. As he struggled to crawl out of his chamber, he paused to put a finger to his throat, and found no pulse. A stench in his nostrils and an unsettling moisture in his pants suggested that his bowels had evacuated. The discomfort of these revelations paled in comparison to the torture that assailed his senses. He was still one with the planet, and he would experience its destruction firsthand.

But there was still a chance. Apparently Luffa's final attack wasn't as quick and decisive as he had assumed it would be. She had exploded on the nightside of Nagaoka, and he could feel that half of the planet now lay in utter ruins. The dayside would soon follow, but not right away. Nagaoka would linger a bit longer before oblivion, which bought him a little time before the end. Luffa had destroyed his shipyard on the day she arrived here. But there was still one last means of escape. He had never intended to use it, but he had kept it safe throughout Luffa's invasion. He had planned to use it to send for assistance, so that his followers could come and go as they had done before. Now, he dragged himself through the empty corridors, seeking to use it to carry him to safety. He wasn't sure what would happen to his corpse once Nagaoka finally disintegrated, but he knew enough alchemical recipes to find a way to recover, even from this.

He wished that he could summon one of his followers to help him, but that was surely impossible. They were all dead on the other side of the planet. Luffa's explosion would have killed them all instantly.

At last, he reached the section of the wall that housed a secret launch bay. He touched a stone that contained a device that would react to his fingerprint. When nothing happened, he tried it again. And again. It was getting harder to think. He had to figure out how to get the wall to open up before it was too late. As he considered the problem, he finally looked over to the section of the wall that was supposed to have moved, and noticed that it was simply no longer there. It looked like someone had smashed their way through it.

And that someone had taken his secret escape craft. All that remained was an empty bay. Above, the canopy was still open from when the ship had launched. The sky had turned blood red. This was probably a side effect of the planet-wide cataclysm, though Rehval had no idea what the specific cause of it could be. He found it curious that his dead body could still see anything at all.

He struggled to think of who could have taken his escape craft. None of the cultists knew about it. The ones who had installed it for him had all been killed months ago to protect his secret. Treekul might have discovered it somehow, except she never could have smashed through the wall that way.

He thought... he thought that maybe.... he could smell the scent of his daughter. Whether this was his keen Saiyan nose or wishful thinking was impossible to tell. He liked to think that it had been Seltiss who managed to escape. But there was no way to be certain. The future was utterly beyond his control now. The Saiyans were doomed. Theirs was a ship without a rudder.

Then he smelled the aroma of burning flesh, and he realized that it was his own. It smelled so familiar, like when he had murdered his own brother and burned the body to cover up the crime. He had taken his brother's name and identity on that day. It had seemed so clever of him at the time. Now, with death nipping at his heels, he began to regret it. He had never worried much about legacy, because he assumed that his plans would all come to fruition, and the universe would remember him for his achievements and his unforgettable impact on history.

But if this was to be his end, then he would likely be forgotten. And even if he was to be remembered, it would be by his brother's name. It stung his ego, and he was surprised by how much it hurt. He suddenly found himself wishing that someone--anyone-- could know his true name, the one his mother had chosen for him... the name of... of...

What had she called him? It was so long ago, and he hadn't used the name in so long. He was having trouble remembering...

And as his reanimated body burned, and his fortress collapsed around him, the corpse that once called himself King Rehval III Trismegistus finally succumbed to true death. His last thought was the realization that Luffa had been mistaken about him in one regard.

In the end, it seemed that he did have a small amount of Saiyan pride, after all.

*******

[4 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Nagaoka was not destroyed all at once. Luffa's explosion atomized a huge chunk of one hemisphere, and blasted apart the surrounding mass. The rest of the planet was destabilized, and smaller, secondary explosions erupted throughout. Within hours, the entire planet had broken up into something resembling asteroids.

On one of these chunks of rock, Luffa could sense that her attack had succeeded. There were no Saiyan ki signatures. Rehval's power was completely gone. His followers were all dead. It was important for her to be sure, since she had somehow survived, and she had no idea how.

Once she was certain that she was the only one left, Luffa considered what had happened. Her intention had been to summon up all of her power and release it all at once in a giant explosion. She had fully intended to die along with everything else. Her Golden Ape form had been unstable, after all. It seemed like blowing herself up was the only part of her plan that was guaranteed.

Instead, she found herself alive, surrounded by a force field of her own ki energy. Somehow, she had survived the explosion, and made this little bubble for herself. There was a chunk of earth for her to lie upon, and enough air trapped inside for her to breathe. It was like a terrarium floating in space. She couldn't remember doing this. Had she blacked out and done this while unconscious? Was this some sort of survival instinct at work? All she knew was that she tried to blow herself up, and then woke up to find the planet destroyed.

She had no idea what had happened to the Nagaoka's moon, except that it was no longer visible. Perhaps it had been destroyed as well, or it was obscured behind a cloud of debris, or Luffa had simply tumbled through space to a position where she was pointed away from it. All she knew was that she was no longer a giant ape.

She was no longer in her Super Saiyan form either. This was no great mystery, as she was too exhausted to move, let alone maintain any transformations. Wearily, she took stock of her situation, and concluded that she was about to die the same way she was born: Alone, in outer space, and completely naked. Luffa had heard of Saiyans using elastic clothes that could survive the size changes of the Oozaru transformation, but she hadn't been wearing anything like that when she came to Nagaoka. She didn't expect it to matter much in the end.

"Well... that's it, then," she murmured to herself as she looked out at the stars. There was very little air inside her force bubble, and the stale odor suggested that she had used up much of it already. The temperature was beginning to drop sharply as well. She had planned to destroy herself, the planet, and her enemies instantaneously, but somehow fate always seemed to drag these things out. It was never like the stories about the old heroes. They always did such drastic and amazing things and it always went so quickly. She supposed the storytellers edited out some of the slower details to make the story go faster.

She hoped that the story of Luffa would gloss over this part, the part where she froze to death on an asteroid without any clothes on. But the more she thought about it, hers wasn't a story that deserved to be told. Hers was a legend of successive failures. A failure as a mother, as a wife, as a leader, and as a warrior. She would shed no tears for the Saiyan race, but it still pained her to think that things had gotten bad enough for her to decide that the best answer was to destroy her own people. The last Super Saiyan, Chanisp, had saved his fellow Saiyans. Luffa had always admired him for that. Now, she wondered why the bastard had even bothered.

It wasn't all bad, she supposed. She had fought plenty of battles, though none ever seemed to be quite the challenge she craved. She had made friends and she had left an impression on countless aliens, though she wasn't sure how much that was really worth in the end. She had found love... but that was over now, and it seemed wrong somehow to take any solace in the memory of it. Instead, she prayed that Zatte would understand all of this some day.

The air in the bubble became stuffier and colder, and Luffa was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She didn't particularly want to die, but she also felt that it was long overdue. There didn't seem to be anything left to live for, after all. No more battles to fight, no more thoughts to think. No more power in her body. She just wanted to lie back and sleep. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep the air inside her bubble, but she supposed it wouldn't make much difference if she suffocated or froze to death.

And then, just as she closed her eyes and surrendered to her fate, she felt something strange. Her eyes fluttered open, and there was a bright light flickering all around her.

*******

[Date and Location Unknown.]

In the next instant, she was warm, and the air was fresh. She was still hurt, but not so weak that she couldn't look down and see that she was clothed again, even if it was only a tube top and a pair of simple breeches. She was somewhere else. In the next few breaths, she found the strength to rise to her feet, and that was when she noticed it.

It was a giant animal, even bigger than her own Oozaru form. The creature was shaped like a great serpent, but with four legs, and antlers sticking out of its head. It floated above her, glowing in the night sky like an obnoxious sign at a casino she had visited once. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but found that her throat was too dry to speak, and in the few seconds it took for her to swallow and clear her throat, the creature spoke aloud instead.

"Your wish has been granted," it proclaimed with a voice like rolling thunder.

Luffa was about to ask what wish, when the creature spoke again.

"Farewell..." it said, and before Luffa could demand an explanation, it glowed even more intensely, becoming a hot filament of light. A group of crystal balls rose up into the air to meet the creature as it vanished, and then these orbs shot off in different directions like shooting stars. Once the strange animal was gone, the dark sky suddenly gave way to daylight, and Luffa finally took note of her surroundings. She was standing in some kind of city. Before her was a structure that looked like some sort of elaborate mobile art display, featuring large gears of bronze that rotated as though suspended in midair.

Was this the afterlife?

Then she heard footsteps. Someone was approaching her from behind. Luffa turned, and found a man in a long black coat. There was something familiar about his face, but his lavender hair and intense expression kept her too distracted to think about it.

"You're surprised, I'm sure," he said.

Normally, the man might have been right. Luffa would have been surprised, but she was too exhausted and confused for the shock to register. She was still trying to understand how she hadn't died in the explosion.

"I'll have to explain it all to you later," the man said. "But first, let's see how much power you have."

He then reached over his shoulder, and drew a sword that he wore on his back. The sound of the metal scraping against the scabbard rang in Luffa's ears. She tried to clear her throat, to ask him who he was and how she had gotten here.

Without another word, the man charged toward Luffa, his sword raised to strike.

NEXT: Xenoversal.

[thanksjro]

Children of a Lesser Matrix: It’s Like A Saturday Morning Cartoon, But With… Genocide

Children of a Lesser Matrix is by no means a complete work- more of an outline that never got past the “slap some ideas in as they come to you” stage. Fun fact: you don’t have to write in sequential order if you don’t want to. It can actually help with writer’s block to jump around.

Let’s take a look at the writing process, shall we?  

I wasn’t kidding when I said the self-insert got the shaft in Eugenesis.

It turns out that back when the Transmasters UK club was a thing, it was pretty common for the members to have a sort of mascot for themselves, a character that would show up in their work repeatedly. You see it nowadays with fanfic writers too, so it isn’t exactly an odd phenomenon, but it’s something I found interesting.

You know who else shows up repeatedly in Roberts’ other works?

Throwback.

But that’s a topic for another day.

This story takes place in the year of 1990. No peering into the future here; this was probably set in the modern day at the time of writing. Seeing as Eugenesis was first published in 2001, it’s safe to assume that we’re looking at the work of a very young Roberts.

Our focus at present is an asteroid in uncharted space.

Oh!

Oh.

Looks like these guys are Autobots, and their ship crashed into this space rock, killing them instantly. These must be the equivalent of Transformers’ red-shirts, because it usually takes a little more to take them out. There’s also a Decepticon, but we’ll get to him in a second.

What else is on this asteroid? Oh, y’know, nothing special. Just the Creation Matrix.

AND IT’S EVIL.

And everyone knows that green is the color of EVIL.

We’ve got an interesting take on the Matrix here, in that A) it’s evil, and B) it’s sentient. Like, really sentient. Also, it can summon demons, and is gonna stuff them in these Autobot corpses it found in the ship.

No mention of what it does with Thunderwing, if anything at all.

Yep. Thunderwing. If you read the IDW Stormbringer miniseries, or the MTMTE Revolutions one-shot, you know about Thunderwing at least a little. In the Marvel UK comics, his whole shtick was that he was obsessed with obtaining the Creation Matrix, believing himself to have an affinity with it. Guess that sort of backfired on him here.

This is the first time I’ve seen something bolded like this in Roberts’ work, and I really couldn’t tell you exactly why, but it’s oddly endearing. Maybe it the mental image of this 14-year old kid just furiously getting this outline down, underlining the word “will" so hard the lead in his pencil breaks off.

We get hit with an interlude, taking place inside a robot grandpa.

Of course, I’m being facetious, but this is a little interesting. Perhaps this is referring to his base on Cybertron, and not Alpha Trion himself. It seems more likely than Roberts mistaking the name for a place.

And who’s inside Delta Triton? Why, it’s Skimmer!

You probably don’t know Skimmer.

Skimmer was actually in MTMTE #41- or at least, he was mentioned. Hailing from Caminus and serving under Thunderclash, the comic doesn’t even know what gender he is. He’s male. Probably can’t put that on the wiki, seeing as this is about as far from “canon” as it gets- an unpublished, basically unwritten fanfiction. It’ll be our little secret, just between you, me, and James Roberts.

Skimmer runs into his boss Quillion- who does not show up anywhere else, as far I can can tell- who doesn’t look terribly happy at the moment. There’s a huge blip on the radar, and it isn’t anyone they want to have over for tea.  

Language!

Quillion orders for these massive rocket boosters they’ve strapped to the moon be turned on so they can get the hell out of the way of this honestly preposterously large pile of Decepticons coming their way. They flip the switch, and moon #3 blasts off.

Oh hi, Luna 01, didn’t recognize you there!

Back at the asteroid, the Matrix went and brought the Autobots back from the dead, and proceeds to wax poetic  on the nature of life, and how its new underlings will serve it.

That’s the royal we, baby. The Matrix is making no bones about it, this thing is KING. Seems like the Omniforce is a Roberts-original idea. Wonder what that’s all about. And what of this new force of evil?

Oh my fucking god his name is Genocide.

If I were a middle-school kid reading this outline, I’d be losing my mind over how cool and edgy this was. Roberts is trying so hard here, and I’m all about it. You go, tiny JRo. You go full cowl on these evil robots.

Our Omniforce have personalities to match their new looks and identities, and it’s about what you’d expect- these boys are a drop of blood in the water away from going completely feral. Also, Thunderwing’s starting to wake up. So, that’ll be a thing soon.

Back at the interlude, everything’s settling down as the gravity rights itself. The moon almost hit light-speed- which, holy shit- but it looks like the laws of inertia in a vacuum are on vacation today.

Not that I expect a kid from the 90’s to know about that.

They’re roughly 7000 hours away from Cybertron, so they better start heading back now. Assuming that there’s still a Cybertron to go back to.

Back with the first plot, Thunderwing’s having a seizure- Roberts’ prose characters seem to do that a lot- and the Matrix is freaking out, because if he dies, they won’t have a ride off this barren space rock. There’s only one thing to do!

The Matrix zaps Thunderwing with green (evil!) lightning, saving him from the brink of death. Thunderwing is less than enthused with this turn of events.

You get redundancies like this when outlining, it happens.

Thunderwing is pissed, and the brand-spanking new Omniforce isn’t super sure how to handle the current situation. The Matrix, thinking quickly, merges with Thunderwing.

This does not help the situation.

You’ve had them for five minutes, and you’re already killing them. I know you’re new to this, Matrix, but come on now.

TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS LATER, it turns out that Quillion’s estimate of their arrival back at Cybertron was off by just a smidge. The moon runs into a tomb of all things in the depths of space, and brings it on inside to see what all the hubbub’s about.

It’s got a Mind-Krell in it.

No, I have no idea what a Mind-Krell is. Another Roberts original. He’s always been rather ambitious as a writer, it would seem.

Jumping back in time, Thunderwing’s throwing out his rawest lines, and it’s amazing.

Like holy shit, I unironically love this. I wish he’d decided to do more with this, it’s fantastic.

We get our first taste of action. Theres a lot going on here: Genocide is apparently a necromancer, capable of controlling the dead, which Thunderwing currently technically is. However, this takes time to set up, so it’s Black Fusion’s turn to step up to the plate. He shoots off a volley of Black Fusion from his eyes, knocking Thunderwing over.

Yes, they’re named after their powers. Or are their powers named after them? Anyway, they’re about to head for the shuttle, when Genocide orders Kaos to use his- you guessed it- Kaos Energy.

We’re also dealing with the “can’t just use said” phase that every young writer goes through. Kaos’ staff, which he’s had this whole time, turns into a gun? It’s not clear, but he shoots Thunderwing and then dives into the shuttle at the last possible second, Indiana Jones-style.

As the shuttle takes off, Genocide warns their resident possessor Daemon to not do the thing, even though he really, really wants to. With that, they train the onboard weapons systems on Thunderwing below- all of them.

And that’s all we got for Children of a Lesser Matrix.

Clearly there would have been more if he’d continued with the ideas, but as is we have a fascinating snapshot of what was probably one of Roberts’ first forays into writing. You don’t get to do this with very many authors, where you can go this far back and see what they were doing, what changed, what stayed the same. I wasn’t expecting to see ideas from MTMTE pop up here- and certainly not ones that were as big as the moon thrusters.

If this entry seems a little soft around the edges, it’s probably because it is. I’m of two mind about covering this at all. On one hand: it was published online for others to read, which makes it free game, and it’s a part of his growth as a writer, so of course I’m going to look at it! On the other hand: Literal. Child. I wouldn’t make fun of a kid just starting out now, and I’m definitely not trying to rag on a young writer retroactively. That being said...

I’m not gonna lie, this is kind of a rough sit. I mean, other than it being an idea springboard that never went anywhere. There are some neat ideas, but… look, anything that’s truly made from the bottom of one’s heart, out of pure love, is always going to be at least a little cringe-inducing. That’s just how it goes, even with the best writers, and this is an outline written by a kid who grew up on 80’s-era media and was just starting out.

Still, there was a lot of potential here. It’s ambitious, it’s over the top, it’s silly and earnest. I like it. It makes me smile to read it and think about the person creating it and having fun doing it.

It just goes to show that no one starts out amazing at what they do.

Up next, a relic of a bygone era- the ‘zine! It’s The Mystery of the Transformer Decoys, a ‘zine that was printed out and sent via snail mail. We truly are spoiled by the internet.

[cloud-piercer]

ten years late but finally tried to remember some notes and ramblings i wanted to make for roads orz

zhang jiale’s siblings are all also named jia-somethings bc i headcanoned that jia is the generational name, so everyone in his generation has that character. for the crazy chinese family trees this is a neat way to figure out who’s who (under the bold assumption that anyone actually remembers who’s who). plus, it saved me time thinking up names /insert discord joy emoji here

the ‘le’ character in zjl’s name can also be pronounced as ‘yue’, so when one of his cousins suggested passing zjl off as zhang jiayue, it could have happened! even his id would agree to it, as iirc there’s no pinyin on the chinese id card

with the travelling part i legit spent so much time googling travel times between cities and places to visit... zhang jiale is living my fantasy of travelling around china, just with more emotional baggage, and im lowkey jealous. on one hand, going places, on the other hand, ouch.

speaking of emotional baggage, delving into zjl’s character was just. somewhere in between wanting to give him a blanket and a hot chocolate, and knowing it would slide off him like water. all i can say is he has much better mental fortitude than me, i’d have called it quits after s5 or s6 at the latest. writing his slow, slow recovery was cathartic and draining at once

side note: i really adore fics where the author slowly wrings the emotions from you until you’re left emotionally bruised all over, so to everyone whose comments suggest i pulled off even a fraction of that - thank you so much!

as this got written it spiralled wildly out of control... i still remember when i thought it would be a nice calm 7k at best. good times. at one point it was a running joke between me and a friend to call it the “have you reached harbin yet” fic bc i just. could not reach harbin (my self-identified halfway point of the fic)

at least 30% of this fic is just me revelling in imagery, and that’s probably a conservative estimate. as you’ve probably guessed, i love imagery! the more strangely-fitting the better, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. (probably not a good thing to love imagery this hard but /shrug)

shengji is a popular card game that is too complicated for me to explain, just know my degree of love with it is similar to my degree of love for mahjong. aka: with all my heart, even though i suck at it.

zjl and ljy’s conversation in nanjing is one of the very few pieces that made it out from the first plan (i’d like to say first draft, but i edit as i go so my first draft is my second draft is my final draft...) everything else went through an enormous amount of me dithering on it. go ljy!

i will probably never stop loving chinese bathhouses. they are so extra. i love them so much. they also tend to be more crowded than i portrayed because i have never found a bathhouse with the changing area empty enough two people can have a shouting match there, but artistic liberties exist for a reason

having long hair in northeast china is a uniquely terrible experience. everything gets stuck in it. everything. 

trying to figure out how old both of them were by the lunar and standard calendars is not an experience im keen to have again

the new year’s gala is an experience everyone needs at least once in their life, it’s like the most bizarre mix of some fabulous costumes that took all the budget and the shitty costumes left behind and some absolutely ridiculous song-and-dance routines and comedy sketches and ads and a pouring of nationalism over the entire thing and it’s just. an experience. 

dazzling spring and spring enchantment - dazzling spring is 浅花迷人, spring enchantment is 浅花入迷. at least 100% of the people zjl and szp dungeoned with thought they were partners.

*shakes bblue* how could you make... such good characters.... bblue why...

[riverdamien]

Voting is A Renewable Resource

In Our Flawed Democracy, Voting Is a Renewable Resource

By Adam Russell Taylor

 September18, 2020

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“With less than 50 days until the last day to vote in this election, we are entering into the final sprint of what feels like the most consequential election certainly in my lifetime. Sojourners has long warned of the danger of narrow, single-issue voting, advocating instead that Christians should vote all of their values across a broad range of issues. But as Rev. Jim Wallis argued so well last week, we believe that racism is the central religious issue in the upcoming election. Of course, even referring to racism as “an issue” feels inappropriate because the pernicious and pervasive impacts of racism collide with every issue at stake in this election. That is why, between now and the final day of voting on Nov. 3, we will examine in greater depth a range of key issues through the lens of race. We hope and pray that this motivates you to vote up and down the ballot — from local school board races to district attorneys to congressional candidates and, of course, president of the United States.

While applying our faith and biblical principles to political choices can be both messy and challenging, what should unite us as Christians is who we prioritize when we enter the voting booth. From God’s requirement to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8), to Jesus’ overriding ethic to care for those in need and to liberate the oppressed (Matthew 25 and Luke 4), the gospel is crystal clear that our first order priority as Christians is to protect and uplift people in the most vulnerable circumstances and most marginal places. This standard applies to how we live and to how we participate in public life, including how we vote. In every election, we must identify and carry with us the modern-day widows, orphans, immigrant people, and the disinherited. We must ask how candidates for every public office will defend and prioritize them while advancing the common good.

The moral responsibility of voting

In a democracy, even in one that is as flawed as our own, voting is an imperative for faithful citizenship and Christian discipleship. It is both a weapon for how we combat injustice and a renewable resource for how we restrain evil and advance the common good. Voting is also about accountability. As civil rights leader Cesar Chavez once said, “The day will come when the politicians do the right thing by our people out of political necessity and not out of charity or idealism.”

Abdicating this civic right and religious responsibility dishonors those who fought so hard for it and jeopardizes our very future. For those of you who are disillusioned with your choices, remember that a non-vote is actually a vote for the status quo. We are always faced with imperfect choices, and the kingdom of God is never squarely on the ballot. But we must use our spiritual discernment and prudential judgment to choose candidates who we believe most share our values, embrace our priorities, and will be best able to implement policies that prioritize those in need.

Faithful voting reflects a combination of our understanding of the candidate’s positions on important issues, your sense of their character, and their history of accomplishments. Voting can’t be reduced to a purely transactional exercise based on self-interest. Integrity and truth-telling, empathy and compassion, courage and conviction — these traits matter. So do experience and accomplishments, either in or out of office, because they provide a window into what a candidate will likely do if elected.

When we say the upcoming election is the most consequential election in our lifetime, it is not hyperbole or political spin, but a reflection of the perilous nature the crises that our communities, our nation, and our world face — the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, the ongoing crisis of climate change, the deep erosion in public trust and alarming levels of polarization, and staggering levels of inequality and poverty. We must resist an “us versus them” politics and embrace a broader “we,” committing to advance the common good. Groundbreaking polling and research by More in Common finds that a majority of Americans, which they refer to as “the exhausted majority,” are fed up with America’s deep polarization and yearn for politicians who are solutions-oriented, reject incivility and zero-sum politics, and emphasize the ways in which we have more in common than what divides us.

Sojourners’ mission rests on three core pillars: economic and racial justice, life and peace, and environmental stewardship. We hope that these pillars can provide a practical roadmap in the midst of this contentious election. First and foremost, as it relates to faithful citizenship, that means whether all citizens will have the opportunity to vote in a free, fair, and safe election is of central concern. As we've written over the years, it is an assault on the imago dei, the image of God in each and every one of us, to attempt to suppress even one person's vote. In this time of pandemic that has already claimed nearly 200,000 lives in the United States, we should be making it easier to vote safely, not harder.

A racial and economic reckoning

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic hangs over the entire 2020 election like a thick and unrelenting fog. By the time of Election Day, the nation will be approaching a staggering 250,000 deaths from the virus. We need leaders who can provide bold, science-driven direction to combat the virus, care for those in the most vulnerable conditions, and foster an economic recovery that leads to a radically more just and equitable new normal. We need leaders committed to calling forth our sense of communal responsibility to protect ourselves and our neighbors by wearing masks and practicing social distancing for as long as is deemed necessary. We also need leaders who understand our moral responsibilities and practical interdependence with the rest of the world, which requires global leadership in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Alarmingly, due to the pandemic and global recession, the World Bank estimates that 40-60 million additional people will fall into extreme poverty in 2020 and the Gates Foundation estimates that the pandemic has set back global health and the Sustainable Development Goal agenda by 25 years.

In the midst of our nation's ongoing and long overdue racial reckoning, we should support leaders who understand how centuries of structural racism affect every facet of our economy and society — and who have concrete plans to redress these injustices. The pandemic of racial police violence and systemic racism will require elected officials who are committed to more than simply cosmetic or incremental reforms to policing and criminal justice. We need leaders who are willing and able to ensure equal justice under the law applies to Black lives and who support both bold reforms and real transformation.

To give just one example, it's important to understand the influence wielded by district attorneys, sheriffs, judges, mayors, and members of town and city councils to control how public safety and policing are conducted in our communities. We should be keenly attentive to the impact candidates and ballot initiatives are likely to have on the protection of Black lives specifically.

Of course, issues of racial equity stretch far beyond policing and criminal justice and into education, employment, health care, and so much more. There is an integral connection between racism and poverty that should inform how we think about economic justice, which in turn should heavily influence how we vote. We should scrutinize policies and policy makers to ensure that the solutions they propose to the immediate economic crisis most benefit those who have the least, rather than exacerbating the existing inequalities that were already getting worse before COVID-19. The 2,000 verses in the Bible proclaiming God's justice for the poor and the oppressed demand to be taken seriously by Christians when they step into the voting booth. The exercise of this civic duty cannot be divorced from the tangible impacts officeholders and their policies have on the advancement of racial and economic justice or the furthering of injustice and oppression. And we must elect leaders who will end inhumane detention, reverse mass deportations, and are determined to finally pass bold, just, and effective reforms that provide a permanent solution — and do not discriminate against Black, Indigenous, and people of color — for DACAmented people and enabling over 11 million undocumented men, women and children to pursue a path to citizenship.

How we do life together

We believe that Christians are called to support and protect the life and essential dignity of all of God's children through every stage of life, no exceptions. That means the lives of children separated from their parents at the border, regardless of citizenship, are worth no less than lives in the womb. Abortion is so often used as a political wedge; instead, we can support leaders who are committed to working together to dramatically reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies through common ground solutions, such as increasing access to health care, ensuring access to affordable child care, and enhancing reproductive health. Protecting life means opposing capital punishment and supporting active peacemaking to prevent armed conflict. It means taking weapons of war off of our streets and keeping them away from our schools. It means supporting gender equity and justice and supporting policies that end domestic and sexual violence.

It’s important to note again that people of color are affected by each and every one of these threats to life and peace disproportionately, both in the United States and around the world.

Protecting the future

When we vote, we are making decisions ranging from which member of the town council supports initiatives to ensure clean drinking water for people in low-income housing to which candidate supports international treaties to combat climate change. It also means examining candidates and policies to determine who will protect the land and water rights of Indigenous people from multinational corporations. The stain and sin of racism are very much present in these issues as well, as we see egregious examples of environmental racism from contaminated water in Flint to lead paint in Baltimore. We're seeing increasingly dire consequences of our changing climate already; science tells us the worst impacts are still ahead of us — and we are running out of time to avoid catastrophe. That’s why we must support politicians who offer bold leadership to combat climate change and advance environmental justice.

Just before the 2016 election, Congressman John Lewis said, “the right to vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument in a democratic society.” We must all not only utilize this powerful tool, we must use it wisely so that together we elect leaders capable of and committed to advancing liberty and justice for all and transforming our nation’s broken politics.”

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     One of my favorite stories comes from Hindu Scripture. There are two knights of differing opinions and each day they awake, eat breakfast, and spend the day fighting’s, with all of their strength. When one loses they lay down their swords, sit down, laughing, and fellowship together. They agree to disagree, and are friends.

A friend and I were recently talking about our view on medical marijuana and she told me, “I do not agree with your position, but I love you any way.” I have friends and supporters of all political persuasions, races, creeds, religious and ethnic groups, and what ties us together is our love of one another, and our love of the street youth we serve. We agree to disagree. Win or lose we are always friends. We talk to each other, we fight with each other, but at the end of the day we sit down, eat together, laugh and play together. For all that truly matters are our love of one another. In this world full of storms, all we have is each other.

     We are all children of one God, let us agree to disagree, and care for each other, be there for each other, and bring healing and peace to our nation and world. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

Father River Damien Sims, sfw,D.Min.,D.S.T.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org

(Sorry for three blogs but we felt the timing of each was important.)

                .

[carmichael-psychology]

How to Drink Moderately

AKA How to Find Your Drinking Sweet Spot

Jump to:

Tips from Mindfulness Meditation for Moderate Drinking Enjoyment

What to do with your observations

Your drinking “sweet spot”

Conclusion

New York City is a city that loves to drink.  We meet friends for happy hours, we eat at business dinners where a sommelier serves amazing wine, we go to trendy lounges that serve artisanal cocktails,  we attend networking events with open bars, and many of us love a nice quiet drink with a delicious meal and a lively social scene seated at a restaurant bar.  The beauty of it is that for many of us, all this drinking actually leads to great things: successful business dinners, mingling with new and interesting people, a sense of relaxation that happens effortlessly as alcohol immediately creates a mild euphoria that makes us open up, laugh more, and shuts off our incessant internal monologue. Alcohol has clear benefits for many of us, both personally and professionally. With all this drinking, we could probably benefit from some tips from mindfulness to enjoy moderate drinking even more!

The benefits of alcohol lead many of us drink so frequently that it can become habitual.  There is nothing inherently wrong with drinking habitually, but many clients who come to my office indicate that they would prefer to be in control of their habit rather than feel as if the habit has taken on an inertia of its own.  It is very important to note that this is different from alcoholism or addiction to alcohol. The distinction I’m making here is that with an addiction, we tend to think of drinking away our last dollar, drinking that leads to arrests or hospital visits, or other forms of drinking that clearly suggest our normal standards of safety and personal responsibility have been severely compromised due to a desire for alcohol; those types of relationships with alcohol are generally best classified and treated as addictions.  I do not treat addictions to alcohol- my practice is limited to situations where a person’s alcohol use is perfectly safe and more habit-based than addiction-based; I work with clients who are not alcoholics but simply people who want to increase their sense of purpose and control around the way they drink. Here is how many people in my practice have done this successfully:

Tips from Mindfulness Meditation for Moderate Drinking Enjoyment

Decide to build your awareness: Commit to observe your drinking without trying to change your habits, at least at first.  Before we can really try to change something, it’s often helpful to just observe it. This helps us to set realistic goals, and to understand our drinking patterns and triggers more fully than we might if  we paid attention to alcohol only a) to drink it, or b) to control it. The idea here is to pay attention and study your drinking from a neutral, information-gathering, curiosity-based mindset before you attempt any significant efforts to change it.  Once you’ve made a commitment to observe your drinking, here’s one way to do it:

Define your observation field: Mindfulness meditation often involves choosing something to observe and then observing it for a set period of time.  This builds our observation and awareness skills, and pre-defining the time period for observation frees us to delve into the observations without second guessing ourselves with questions like “Should I stop yet?  Have I observed long enough? I wonder if I’m doing this right?”. We can apply this insight from mindfulness meditation to facilitate drinking observations in the following manner: For a predetermined amount of time (for example two weeks, two days, or whatever feels best for you), commit to observe your drinking in a neutral manner by noting down your drink counts.  Your goal here is to tabulate your drinking without attempting to change it. This is actually more difficult than it sounds for many people, so be gentle with yourself if you struggle with this step. Remember: the more familiar you are with basic information about your drinking and the more capable you are of observing it, the easier it will be for you to make whatever changes you desire.

Document your observations: Try to complete the log below for each day, making one entry per day.  If you forget or decline to make a same-day entry but still want to note the information later, put “No” in the “Same Day entry” column to indicate you are making a retroactive log.  Don’t judge yourself if you forget or decline to make a same day entry; just document that it happened if you wish to do so by making a retroactive log. You don’t have to do retroactive entries if you don’t want to do so; you can simply resume your log with your current day and let your log reflect that there are some missing days.   Or if you wish, you can make retroactive entries and simply indicate this with “No” per above. Part of the observation process includes observing your willingness or ability to indicate awareness of your drinking over a predetermined period of time. Many people find a two week period is a good length of time for an observation period, but you can choose whatever period of time feels best for you.

What to do with your observations:

At the end of your observation period, you’ll not only have logged observations of drink counts, you’ll also be observing your overall drinking observation skills and patterns.  We call this “meta awareness” in psychology. It is a form of mindfulness. If you notice that you skipped a lot of days, you can become curious and try to understand why you’re skipping.  Is it because you simply forgot and would benefit from a reminder in your calendar?  Or maybe this means there is a part of you that doesn’t like the idea of observing drink counts?  Or maybe there is some other reason you tend to skip. The idea is to replace any forms of judgement with curiosity so that this becomes an exercise in self-compassion and self-observation rather than self-flagellation.  There are no “wrong” answers, only observations that help you get to know yourself better (caveat: as stated at the beginning, this is only true if you’re someone for whom alcohol does not lead to dangerous behavior- if alcohol is dangerous for you but you can’t quit, then please see an addiction specialist).

The goal is to sharpen your observation skills regarding drinking, so hopefully you will be able to enter more “C”s than “E”s in the last column documenting whether you’re estimating or counting your drinks for the day, but if you find that your log shows nearly all “E”s then welcome this as good information not only as an estimate of your drinks, but also as information about your current observation skills or style.  Become curious about why you tend to estimate rather than count. If it’s because counting feels boring, remember that this is just an observation period that doesn’t have to last forever and that while the counting may not seem entertaining, it is in service of broader insights. If you think you may be estimating to avoiding actually counting because you feel ashamed or regretful about the count, try to be accurate anyway and congratulate yourself for increasing your awareness at all.

Remember to suspend judgement during the counting phase; be proud of yourself for being bold enough to note the real numbers or at least real estimates.  If facing the real numbers is too daunting, that’s good information for you to know as well. The idea here is just to document your observations as well as your willingness and ability to make observations.

Your drinking “sweet spot”

Dr. Chloe raising a glass to toast Carmichael Psychology’s

2015 holiday celebration

Once you have enough data, you can identify a “magic number” of your ideal number of drinks, or your “drinking sweet spot”.  Your ideal number of drinks for our purposes here is the number of drinks that brings you the most pleasure. Many people find that the first 2-3 drinks bring a great deal of pleasure, while the fourth and fifth (or sixth or seventh) drinks seem like they will bring pleasure but actually bring hangovers or regret.  If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve had some sort of experience with hangovers, oversharing, extra belly fat, or other features of drinking that you’d rather skip.  The good news is that you can keep the pleasurable parts of drinking and nix the negatives by simply stopping at your “magic number”. Of course, this is easier said than done– if you leave it to your “buzzed self” to decide the magic number “in the moment”, it will be much harder to find the sweet spot than if you track some observations to locate your magic number in a more logical manner, and then do your buzzed self a favor by learning to stick with that number.  Your buzzed self will actually have more fun and thank you later since it no longer has to do “on the spot thinking” about how much to drink.  Many people find that through observation, they discover they frequently drink one or two drinks more than what is actually their true pleasure point.  By reframing your drinking target as a “magic number” that is about your pleasure rather than as a “limit”, many people are able to embrace alcohol moderation as a friend rather than a foe.

Conclusion

Many people find that having a reference point of how much they wish to drink is very helpful since by definition if we “make it up as we go along” and just drink “however much feels right” then we almost always end up drinking more than we want over the years.  This is because we develop a tolerance, and because once we’ve had a few drinks it becomes very difficult to gauge how much more we really want to drink versus how much we’re just operating in a buzzed “more is more” type of mindset that can trick us into drinking more alcohol than is optimally pleasurable– and the goal of drinking is actually pleasure, right?  The first step to determining your magic number and then ultimately having drinking habits that support your magic number is to observe how much you’re drinking without judgement. I hope you will find the approach and worksheet above helpful.  Bottoms up and cheers to you!

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[optimisticvibeworld]

Optimistic Vibe: Social Architecture of Self-Reliance

Preface

Welcome, to Optimistic Vibe. Many thanks to the Small Business Development Centers of the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Hawai’i, after five years we have re-designed today’s common Business Model. The social experiment called Optimistic Vibe is to illustrate Self-Reliance as the re-designed Business Model.

Optimistic Vibe brings a positive shift, positive energy being applied to making the world a better place through an intelligent, and self-reliant community. A proven concept of Self-Reliance that dates back five hundred native years to my ancestral origin of my eleven generations ago grandfather Iyanough of Wampanoag Nation, and my twelve generations ago grandfather William Brewster of the Pilgrim social movement. My two ancestors met at Plymouth Rock and instilled a sense of care for the individual, environment, and community.

Four hundred years following my ancestors uniting on the foundation that would later become America, the amazing son of Robert F. Kennedy, Maxwell, found inspiration in my beliefs of a better America. Max’s belief in me raised my courage and confidence. I quickly got to work on my book, Optimistic Vibe, as a memorial to my brother, David.

David and I were raised by our single mother, a hard worker who never earned more than minimum wage. Our single mother struggled with fear of criticism in the small New England fishing village we lived in. When our mother was in fear David and I were in fear, fear of being homeless, fear being without food, with no place to turn for help. A mother’s fear goes right through the mother into the child. I was that child. The severe child abuse I received from my father was pale in comparison to the fear I absorbed from my mother’s social challenges. No child should live with fear that transcends from a mother being socially challenged. My beautiful mother’s fear haunts me to this day.

For my mother’s eightieth birthday I worked with the Small Business Development Centers of the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Hawai’i, to apply Social Architecture to address the needs of single mothers in need. The social experiment addressing Oppression of Women called ‘Optimistic Vibe’ is the result, the Tiny Home Sisterhood is the starting point.

Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader’s running mate, the brilliant woman Winona LaDuke, said during a speech "We don't want a bigger piece of their pie. We want a different pie." My mother would agree with Winona LaDuke, adding we don’t want a Hand Out, we simply need a Hand Up.

The Tiny Home Sisterhood is the answer to Winona LaDuke’s intelligent perspective of calling for a ‘Different Pie’. America currently has an estimated 13.6 million single mothers raising over roughly 21 million children. Addressing their needs, the Tiny Home Sisterhood is one small experiment as the ‘Different Pie’… pro-positive Social Architecture addressing their Self-Reliance needs.

The Tiny Home Sisterhood’s hallmark of Self-Reliance is but one characteristic that approximately 12% of today’s population, glorious forward thinkers, international in scope, unified in innovative heart… features that define Social Architecture. Those that are focused on Self-Reliance with heart to help make the world a better place, give Self-Reliance, are visionary, and have real dreams of building real rainbows that hold tremendous sustainable ideas to make things better. Independent, but connected in scope, those that believe in Self-Reliance are stretching their arms excitingly to gather hands around the world, making the world flat once again, using technology with unlimited freedom to be as innovative and bold as to inspire creativity by honoring passion. They dream without borders.

From research for this book, I found a common theme embedded in my ancestor’s sustainability for the community they served, held as its core value, Self-Reliance for the person, environment, and community is the measurement of social worth. Similarly, the Tiny Home Sisterhood is following the same ancestral formula. Those involved in the Social Architecture that has resulted in the formation of the Tiny Home Sisterhood are passionate and brilliant pioneers, focused on living with tremendous vibrancy, at an operating frequency most of us can only dream about, living larger than life, productive through their vision and dedication to make things better, pure positive energy they are.

While researching over the last five years through the Small Business Development Centers of the University of Hawai'i and University of Massachusetts, I have met with thousands of you, from every country, culture, and sustainable perspective. You are applying innovative creativity to make things better, creating a better way, a new way, propelling us into the Next Age, an age of Evolution: You are Social Architecture. Hats off to you, people of Social Architecture are positive energy with Self-Reliance. You are heroes.

These amazing heroes are not interested in changing, judging, nor controlling anything, on the contrary, they are only interested in unselfishly applying their unlimited positive energy to make things better. And to their merit they will, not because their intention to make things better is directed by some political force, but instead because throughout our history there have been many small handfuls of positive people prompting many types of worldwide social movements, all driven by inspiring social need.

The inspiration for today is a social movement for the Next Age: Social Architecture. Formed from the energy of many positive people around the world working toward delivering goodness to the people with Self-Reliance to the overwhelming number of brothers and sisters struggling with a myriad of social challenges, to overcome an ailing environment, and realign our distrusting community so people are no longer treated as machines.

The new social movement toward Social Architecture follows the social movement that shifted us from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the social movement that nudged us from the Iron Age into the Renaissance Age, the social movement that sent us from the Renaissance Age to the Reformation Age, and the social movement that delivered the Industrial Age. Today’s exciting social movement towards the Next Age: Social Architecture is occurring now because 12% of society has globally decided that a new idea should replace an old idea.

Why?

Beginning about the year 1720 the Industrial Age built machines to increase productivity, and soon people were treated like machines with time clocks and performance measurements related to pay and job security, from this 28% of Americans 'hate’ their job, not dislike, but rather 'hate’. Roughly one quarter of the working population spend each day 'hating’ their workday, day in day out, working to obtain a paycheck they will trade for more and more of the stuff they make at a job they 'hate’ daily. As for the environment, the Industrial Age destroyed delicate ecosystems. Community? The Industrial Age consumed entire traditional cultures.

Over a period of two hundred and fifty years the Industrial Age’s purpose of convincing people to compete in acting like machines has created a work, earn, spend cycle that has fed greed, from which today the 200 wealthiest people in the world have an annual income that exceeds the 2.5 billion poorest people of the world. This machine/person, productivity/greed scenario is not sustainable and the Industrial Age is hence coming to a close, as witnessed in the loss of manufacturing over the last few decades, in the social shift of trust in Wall Street and Washington, etc. However, the times they are a changing, the world is promisingly shifting toward Social Architecture, making the world a better place because technology is linking their positive energy one shining star connecting with one shining star at a time, soon technology will connect all stars and the bright light will propel their beautiful social movement.

The Industrial Age has built and produced our infrastructure, meaning the Industrial Age served its purpose of 'advancing’ humankind so we could prepare for the exciting new social movement, but the old methods from the Industrial Age no longer fit today’s needs. For example, addressing today’s need to repair the Industrial Age’s subsequent environmental impact demands innovative non-Industrial Age thinking. We can’t use old thinking on fixing new challenges. Albert Einstein said it best: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

The Bronze Age didn’t end because we ran out of bronze, and the Iron Age didn’t end because we ran out of iron, much the same holds true that the Industrial Age will not end because we ran out of industrial needs, but rather, the Industrial Age is coming to a close because its methods are unsustainable. Simply put, the mission of the Industrial Age was to focus on building machines, with the dollar as a measurement of productivity, an unsustainable practice. Evidence is seen when we focus on machinery and a dollar as a priority rather than focusing on the person as a priority social depression is the result, i.e., socially depressed people lose trust in Wall Street and financial institutions collapse as was the case in 2008, socially depressed people lose hope in politicians and don’t vote, and among socially depressed people social apathy replaces personal interest.

A sustainable world, compared to an industrial world, requires thinking differently toward the person, our environment, and our sense of community. A return to people, not machines, as our inspiration to support by joining in the encouragement of a handful of innovative thinkers with an optimistic vibe around the globe making the world a better place. The creative genius creating a better world through imaginative systems that nurture collaboration across every conceivable boundary with a core value where Self-Reliance for the person, environment, and community are the measurement of worth.

These thinkers with an optimistic vibe are not, nor do they have to be, CEO’s or presidents, nor any other ‘prestigious’ title, on the contrary, the creative genius that will make the world a better place are not flag wavers, nor those out for political gain. They are simple folks, advocates dedicated to advancing the person, sharing advocacy through awareness on environmental concerns, and lucky for us they wear their heart on their sleeve regarding care for our community. They are demographically only 12% of our population, varying in age, size, and beliefs, but they are incredibly strong, extremely intelligent, and wonderfully determined, and they are beginning to organize in numbers.

We are open-minded folks like you and I, goodhearted people dedicated to problem solving versus finger pointing, dedicated to positive energy versus negative, Pro-Positive. We are advocates as demonstrated in our peaceful advocacy to raise awareness on a host of social concerns. We are a social movement called Optimistic Vibe, creative thinkers making the world a better place by sharing a common motto as our important advocacy.

We have a strategy, and if you are one of the creative people out to help make the world a better place with an optimistic vibe, this book is dedicated to you. Thank you for joining the Tiny Home Sisterhood.

With love, and Aloha,

Robert John Cook

Social Architecture

Social Architecture is the harmonious integration of the people, environment, and community in a sustainable way for a secure place for living things on this earth

Social Architecture is the use of people, environment, and community as the basis for designing integrated systems of a practical, creative approach to the challenges of diminishing resources and threatened global environmental and cultural crises we now face.

Social Architecture addresses the way we live on this planet in a graceful and healthy way where the elements interact in mutually beneficial ways to produce a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Social Architecture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; of looking at all life and Nature in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system.

Social Architecture gives witness to present concern, and builds a beneficial future legacy.

Social Architecture is an ethical design tool, creating sustainability through the integration of diversity, stability, and resilience in culturally-sound, ecologically-sound, economically-viable human environments.

Social Architecture is a world-wide movement of designers, teachers, and grassroots advocates working to advance people, environment, and community.

Social Architecture is the ethical and holistic foundation for sustainable culture, environment, and community.

Social Architecture is a body of knowledge susceptible to learning and teaching, a way of organizing knowledge, connecting systems that integrate diverse experiences and resources.

Social Architecture is an innovative science that balances community development with ecological sensitivity.

Social Architecture is a natural ally to an organic approach to caring for people, environment, and community development.

Social Architecture integrates the human community into Nature’s design, a design providing us spiritual fulfillment within a balanced and healthy cultural, environment, and strengthened community.

Social Architecture is the use of people, environment, and community as the basis for utilizing technology for community development with an ethic of caring for the earth and interacting with the environment in mutually beneficial ways.

Social Architecture is to create abundance.

Social Architecture works with natural forces to create productive people, environment, and community.

Social Architecture is a way of designing and living sustainably by cooperating with Nature.

Social Architecture is a paradigm shift.

Social Architecture is addressing the way we live on this planet in a graceful and healthy way, respecting the plants & animals around us, and leaving Mother Earth in a more productive and healthier state than we found it.

Social Architecture is a way of life dedicated to making the world a better place.

12 Features of Social Architecture

1. The future is being enjoyed today by a rapidly growing number practicing Social Architecture to make the world a better place around the world. They have an optimistic vibe of Self-Reliance to demonstrate to others a peace, harmony, and thankfulness that fosters a balance among all humans, all plant life, and to all living entities.

2. Those that practice Social Architecture around the world live with love in our hearts and we walk an honest path in our life to demonstrate Real Transparency. We believe Dalai Lama was right: “A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” Real Transparency works best!

3. Social Architecture believes Giving is the Greatest Reward we will ever receive. In return, we receive in return for Giving the respect of Self that fits nicely with our passion to make the world a better place.

4. Social Architecture is the truth we seek is present-moment awareness of the love we give, and cherish. By practicing present-moment awareness in our workplace we enjoy the optimistic vibe of harmony, which makes for an AMAZING team:)

5. From being humble, those practicing Social Architecture are creating the platform for understanding all our relations, our simple humility allows us to be equal to others as one. In practice, we call this One Hand Up, back in the Industrial Age this was called a job.

6. Join us as we explore the future of Social Architecture and build and share together. A place of community enjoying Courage to go back 400 Native Years to a time of Seven Teachings passed down from Elder to Elder for many generations around the world, delivering goodness to others, a courageous manner that allows us to live larger than Fear, allowing us to reach beyond what might seemingly be obstructions.

7. Social Architecture is respect for the creative genius that opened the doors for us to follow in their footsteps, they taught us that passion will lead us to our purpose when we believe with everything we’ve got. Vincent Van Gogh added, “…such passion is spiritual in calling”. We invite you to join us in believing in your passion to make the world a better place.

8. Join Social Architecture by awakening the new world with the platform of tools for Empowerment, Passion, and Confidence.

9. Around the world, Social Architecture is awakening the new world with the platform of tools for reaching inside ourselves to empower our Oneness with Nature.

10. Standing in number, and with Social Architecture from their heart, we are awakening the new world with the platform of tools for empowering our journey of evolving wellness.

11. Join us and bring your vision for a better world, Social Architecture is awakening the new world with the platform of tools for utilizing your creativity to empower your Self-Reliance to conquer your Fears.

12. We are global and circling the planet, belong to amazing people with amazing projects awakening the new world with the platform of tools for empowering ourselves to join in with universal positive energy around the world. We are awakening the new world with the platform of tools through re-invented employment practices based on empowerment of passion.

[the-courage-to-heal]

6 Signs You Were Raised By A Narcissist:

To outsiders, your dad is a larger-than-life social magnet who attracts people from all walks of life. Or your mom is the perfect woman, always looking to please and juggling everything with ease. But behind closed doors, all pretense falls away. Only you, their child, knows what it’s like to endure their cold shoulders for days on end over a minor infraction, or bear the brunt of constant, age-inappropriate demands for perfection and strength. You know what it’s like to be parented by a narcissist.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is one of 10 personality disorders described in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an authoritative psychiatric guide. Narcissists tend to have an inflated sense of self-worth and base their identity on the praise and approval of others. Their intimate relationships are superficial and focused mostly on how other people reflect on them, with little to no empathy for the other person’s experience. They genuinely believe that they’re better than other people, but they are also prone to feeling intense shame over critiques they receive or mistakes they make.

Researchers estimate that less than one percent of the general population has evidence of “full-blown” NPD, but anywhere from two to 16 percent of people who seek therapy have the disorder. That’s usually because the loved ones in their lives have demanded they seek help or risk losing their relationship, career or other life privileges, explains therapist Wendy Behary, founder of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and author of the book Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed.

But children of narcissists are rarely in a position to demand that their parents seek help. In fact, they may not even realize that their parents were narcissists until they seek professional help for their own struggles, said Behary, who specializes in treating people with NPD and their “survivors.” While narcissists come in all varieties and their symptoms vary across a spectrum, Behary notes that there are a few ways for adult children to tell they may have been raised by a narcissist. In the points below, both she and psychologist Craig Malkin, author of the bookRethinking Narcissism: The Bad — And Surprising Good — About Feeling Special, break down the signs of a narcissistic parent, and what adult children should do to break the cycle of destructive decisions.

1. You’re a complete doormat.

A narcissistic parent will trample all over their family to address their own desires without giving much thought to what anyone else needs. Because of this, some adult children of narcissists will actually overcorrect and bend over backwards to make sure no one could ever possibly perceive them this way. Alternately, they may have grown up all their lives being told that their needs don’t matter. Either way, the result is the same: They let people walk all over them because they’re not in touch with what they need and they don’t know how to express it.

“They’re not able to say, ‘I matter,’ and ‘I have needs’ because that feels narcissistic,” explained Behary. “Someone who’s fighting hard not to be a narcissistic parent ends up being trampled on.”

“I’ve seen clients whose parents made them feel sick, crazy, or selfish for expressing the most basic of needs,” agreed Malkin. “One of my clients felt so worthless and frightened as an adult, he suffered from nightmares and cowered in the face of any authority figures because they reminded him of his abusive father.”

What you can do: Learn as much about narcissism as you can, in order to be able to identify the dysfunctional messages you grew up with and start working against them.

“If I meet someone who has grown up with a narcissistic parent, or if I’m clued in that that might be the case, it’s really important for me to make sure that they understand narcissism in all of its colors,” said Behary. “We figure out together what type of narcissism their parent had, but even more importantly, we have to look for the part of them that got lost along the way.”

2. You’re afraid you might be a narcissist yourself.

Not everyone overcorrects in reaction to seeing narcissism. Some children see that the only way to avoid ridicule and abuse is to be like the narcissistic parent, and over the years, this survival tactic turns into the way they genuinely see the world. Adult children who adopted these coping mechanisms may find themselves putting others down out of a fear — rooted in childhood — that if they don’t show strength first, they could be crushed, just like when they were young, explained Malkin. “Extremely strong-willed children, more extraverted from birth, sometimes become narcissistic themselves in a game of ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,’” he said.

What you can do: Seek the help of a professional to help you break out of abusive behavior patterns, especially if you already have a partner and/or children.

“Children of narcissists who find themselves name-calling and hurling insults aren’t without hope, but they need to roll up their sleeves and work hard emotionally,” said Malkin. “They need to become comfortable feeling — and expressing — vulnerable feelings like sadness, loneliness, fear, and overwhelm with those they love.”

3. You feel relentlessly competitive with, or resentful of, your sibling.

Narcissists have trouble with personal boundaries and view other people as extensions of themselves. In families with several children, one may be chosen to reflect the narcissist’s best qualities. They get the most attention, praise and support, but are also under the most pressure to perform. Another child may be a target for the parent’s blame and shame, and scapegoated as a burden that can never do anything right compared to the chosen child. They may also be blamed as the reason that a narcissistic parent is forced to act in an abusive way. Both projections are two different sides of a narcissist’s personality, but the chosen child and the scapegoat will have two very different childhoods, and this pits them against each other, even into adulthood.

What you can do: Reach out to your sibling with what you’ve learned. If you were the chosen child, you might resent your sibling for the fact that they were under a lot less pressure than you. But if you were the scapegoat, you might resent your sibling for soaking up all the praise and glory and leaving none for you. Understand that the narcissist pits people against each other on purpose, to serve their own needs, and that this dynamic wasn’t your fault.

“Extremely narcissistic people love to put people on pedestals — almost as much as they enjoy knocking them off them,” said Malkin. “Perfect people don’t disappoint, so if you idolize people — even your kids — you needn’t ever worry about being disappointed or hurt. Scapegoating accomplishes much the same thing. You never have to worry about expecting too much and being disappointed because none of us really expect anything from people we view as worthless.”

There is hope for siblings who were put in this position as children, said Behary — even if the only thing that unites them in the end is the shared experience of having a narcissistic parent.

“They can end up feeling extremely bonded to one another,” said Behary. “Common hostages going through different phases of torture, based on how bad the narcissist might be in their life.”

4. At times, you’ve felt you were more your parent’s partner than their child.

Not all narcissists command the spotlight with their bold, brash personalities. Some narcissists demand the attention of the room by playing the victim or describing their problems as greater than anyone else’s problems. They may also try to control other people’s actions by threatening to harm themselves unless a certain outcome goes their way.

People with this kind of narcissistic parent may feel that they spend their entire childhood running to put one fire out after another, or trying to maintain the peace so that no one is hurt. Some of Behary’s clients tell her that they felt more like their mother’s husband than their mother’s son, and this burden meant that they were doing more of the emotional supporting than the parent was. Or they felt their life was all about keeping their father from getting angry at the family.

“It’s the sense of drama that the child feels they have to manage,” said Behary. “In order to do that, they really have to forfeit a lot of their own innate childhood needs.”

What you can do: Take time to acknowledge the young child that’s still inside you, and ask what his or her needs were and still are. Behary advocates using the power of imagination — aided, perhaps, by photos from childhood — to acknowledge the emotional needs that weren’t met and still aren’t being fulfilled by your parents.

“She’s still suffering in there and she needs someone to care about her,” said Behary. “She needs to be able to feel that she’s fine. She needs to know that she has rights too.”

5. You derive self-worth solely from your achievements.

Some children of narcissists figure out that the only way to get along in this world is to do as their parent does and derive their self-worth from production, performance and achievement. While they may not be beset by the perilously low self-esteem and overwhelming sense of shame of a true narcissist, some adult children may take on behaviors like workaholism because their performance is the only way they’ve ever been taught to define themselves.

“The child of the narcissist learns that the only thing that matters is what I can produce in the world, not just my own little being,” said Behary. “[This] is very similar to the way the narcissist can be in the world, except children of narcissists may not have same brash overcoating — they’re more detached, more self-contained.”

What you can do: Try to empathize with your parent, suggests Behary. You don’t have to feel sorry for them, but it can be helpful to emotionally inhabit the feelings and choices of another person, to understand their thoughts and decisions, even if you don’t agree with them. Because of Behary’s work with narcissists, she understand that they are often intensely suffering because the survival tactics they learned in childhood are backfiring on them in adulthood.

While some researchers think that there may be a biological basis that makes some people more vulnerable to narcissism than others, others agree that the personality disorder stems from a complex mix of factors that include exceptionally harsh criticism and/or praise in childhood, which causes the child to shield their low self-esteem with a strong, perfect persona. It also makes the child especially needy of praise, admiration and flattery in order to feel normal, while leaving them especially vulnerable to even the slightest criticism, notes the Mayo Clinic.

“I care about the [narcissists] I work with because I know they’re suffering underneath,” said Behary. “People will say, ‘You’re such a softie on them,’ and I say I hold them responsible for their bad behaviors, but I don’t blame them for how they were formed.” Behary emphasizes that while narcissists may have turned out this way through no fault of their own, it is solely their responsibility — not their children’s — to do something about it.

6. You have no sense of yourself, your wants, your needs or your goals.

A telling trait of narcissism is grandiosity: thoughts or feelings that one is superior to others, even if one doesn’t have the achievements to justify it. Narcissistic parents may see themselves as elite, but because they never achieved a certain level of success, they may find meaning in living vicariously through their children, explained Behary.

“Many children of narcissists will say, ‘I’m not sure how I ended up in this career because I never really knew what I wanted,’” said Behary. Or, “I always felt like I was poised to be more of a reflection of my mother rather than be my own person.”

What you can do: Consider going low or no-contact with abusive or manipulative parents. Not all narcissistic parents are abusive, explains Malkin. But parents with extreme forms of narcissism can leave their adult children feeling like shells of themselves, and sometimes the safest thing for adult children to do is to limit their exposure to these toxic relationships, especially if the parents don’t think they have anything to apologize for.

Malkin says there are three signs an adult child should consider going low or no-contact with parents: Abuse, Denial and Psychopathy. No one should ever have to put up with emotional or physical abuse, and if parents can’t acknowledge the fact that there’s a problem in the first place, there’s little chance that anything will change. Psychopathy, which in this case will look like a pattern of easy lies and remorseless manipulation, indicates that the parents aren’t just bad at putting themselves in others’ shoes — they may actually lack the ability to empathize with others, and may even lack a conscience.

“Abusers are 100 percent responsible for their abuse, and only they can stop it,” Malkin concluded. “Until they do, interactions won’t be safe.”

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Identifying weakness: the real reason I chopped my hair

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

If you know anything about me and how I operate, I’m highly strategic about most aspects of my life.

Before I’ve done something, I’ve already mapped out why I need to do it, because the dance around the playground of pros and cons can be never-ending.

Without sounding like an extremist, I’ve always been someone who’s either all in or all out. Naturally, I tend to value that quality most in people as well.

When I half-ass an idea, I get a half-assed result. And mama wants da whooooole ass.

Okay, awkward ass talk aside, I’m sure you’ve all seen this quote:

As someone who’s lived on the road for over half a decade, I was constantly at the mercy of countries that lacked the proper hair care products I needed.

So I actually was chopping my hair off every 3-6 months and using wigs and weaves to carry on as usual.

Contrary to popular belief, Black hair grows fast! And it became an annoyance to bury my fro underneath wigs constantly because I was too lazy to always cornrow them down.

It wasn’t until last year after my surgery, that I decided to let it grow out again, because I came out of that experience with a newfound gratitude and decided I’d take better care of all aspects of my body, hair included.

I remember buying a bulk order of a specific kind of hair conditioner and getting it shipped to a friend in LA, before realizing that it’s literally impossible to be able to travel with all the hair care products you needed for proper maintenance of my 4C hair.

I have a pretty substantial number of white readers here, so I wanted to include the above graphic to educate more of you on how complex our hair can be, and how the “nappy or kinky” images that society touts as unprofessional, is our hair’s natural state when not chemically modified or pressed.

I grew up dreading the hot comb burning the back of my neck every Sunday getting ready for church.

My hair was just past shoulder length at its healthiest, but the time and products it took to maintain that, always exceeded either my budget or level of patience.

So I taught myself how to do box braids, quick weaves, lace fronts, you name it.

Black women don’t wear weaves because we have to, we do it because we want to, and enjoy the convenience. Click To Tweet

I always hated how society painted Black women as incapable of growing hair, when ours are so incredibly versatile.

And for the last few years, weaves and lace fronts are the preferred style of 90% of non-Black celebrity women, but I digress.

Anyways, 2019 took me through the wringer, and I entered 2020 with this burning urge to change more than just my location.

I was ready to level-up my outer appearance, inspired by these lessons I learned last year:

Don’t aim to be nice; aim to be respected.

There are people committed to misunderstanding you.

People aren’t evil; but if they can take advantage of you, they will.

Image isn’t everything, but it can be complementary to your messaging.

The less you care what people think, the more freedom you’re afforded.

My boho, carefree, gaping smile was the look I became branded by.

Always happy, always helpful, and always ready to lend whatever I could to make someone’s day.

Holy shit, Glo. You were a total people-pleaser.

You allowed yourself to get so bent by the needs and wants of others, you bent your own self out of shape.

In typical Glo form, I wanted to investigate this further, diving into self-help books, investing in therapy, and looking into psychological questionnaires to see who else “suffers” from this.

It led me to the Myers–Briggs Personality test (here’s a free site to take yours and where I’m pulling my reference screenshots from).

I got my ENFJ-A results and immediately scrolled to the weaknesses section to have a self-deprecating pity party for one, joking but absolutely f*cking serious.

And though this discovery was made after I had my hair chopped off, it confirmed what I already knew and why I had to do it.

First and foremost, let’s point out the fact that I’m equally as extroverted as I am introverted.

Over the last 3 years, I’ve tapped into my introverted side more (even wrote about how travel impacted that), but this is something people are shocked to learn because I have so much energy online.

But I’m able to preserve energy because I’ve developed a morning routine that allows me to pour into myself before trying to pour into others.

Another shout out to the fact that I share any category with two of my faves: Uncle Barry and Oprah.

Okay, now to the flaws.

Overly idealistic: I hold my values close to me, and when someone tends to lean on the cynical side, I struggle to relate or want to engage with them, because I find it a draining way to live.

However, in the world of business, this trait will eat you up alive.

If you’re kind to people, surely they won’t turn against you?

If you do good unto others, surely they will do good back?

If you have business ethics, people you do business with will as well?

LoOoOoOooOoOooOol.

It only took me a couple really shady experiences to realize, woooooow, Glo, you really was strollin’ through life with a rose-colored lens, seeing the world how you hoped it could be, rather than how it actually was.

Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, and I’m super thankful for the people that took advantage of me or tried to get one over on me, because it exposed a weakness in myself that I’d yet to confront. Click To Tweet

While I want to tell entrepreneurs that growing a business is a thrill, the hard truth is this:

If you are truly looking to build something great, get ready for the snakes to come out.

In droves.

It’s the people you least expect as well.

And when it comes to the B2B world, a company could see you needing their services more than they need your business, and so tacking on an extra $10K to the price tag because they can, isn’t out of the norm.

Money talks and there’s a lot of people who only see dollar signs when it comes to running their business.

I don’t think I’m in the minority when it comes to genuinely wanting to serve from a place of compassion, but it’s a matter of time before you might mix with the wrong people.

It’s a side of the business world I refused to acknowledge and therefore was so blind-sighted by the act that I had no choice but to change my narrative and take back control over how and who I would allow into my world.

This sounds like a Michael Scott a la The Office reference where your weaknesses are actually your strengths, see this clip for the lolz.

When people know that you love to help others, they become too reliant on you to the point that you don’t even realize you’ve overextended yourself far beyond your boundaries should allow.

With my products and services, I’m so committed to getting people results, that I forget that even if I’m giving 100% of my time and resources, there are still external factors that play into the desired outcome.

But because I’m so caught up in delivering results, I can’t even see that I’m literally just digging myself into a hole of mismanaged expectations and effort.

Don’t get so involved in the commitment to help others that you sacrifice yourself in the process. Click To Tweet

And before I knew it, I couldn’t tell a doormat apart from my reflection.

It’s why I created my Mastermind, because I could see others who have that same generous heart for serving, and I wanted to also help them navigate the shadier sides of business that you often only learn about through mentorship and personal experience.

I’ve created so many dynamics of ways that I help others, from daily posts on social media to my e-book, to syndicated articles, to podcast interviews, to live workshops, to bootcamps, to retreats, to courses, to private mentorship, and so on.

Thousands of people have invested in my products and services over the years, but the problem is, I started to feel like I needed to go out of my way to show gratitude, as if the product or service they paid for wasn’t enough.

Too much emotional investment into the people who you want to help, will have you trying to solve all the problems of a person who bought a $10 ebook, the same way you help someone who bought a $2,000 course.

Unrealistic expectations I unknowingly placed on myself, all because I wanted to make sure people realized that no matter the investment level, they were going to get answers/results/etc, ha insert mental breakdown here

So I flew to a hairstylist who I heard was one of the best in the country, and told her to literally do whatever the hell she wanted with my hair. I’m almost positive I used those exact words.

Around the time I did it, I was so over being the “nice” girl.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to turn into some mean b*tch (sad that women need to preface this because it’s assumed we’re bossy b*tches when we want to be more assertive in business).

I’m just no longer apologizing for the boundaries I’m putting in place to protect my peace and guard my energy.

One of my mentors, Necole, said it best:

And so, here we are, two months into having this short do and I’ve never felt more myself.

It matches the page I’ve flipped in my career and the new boundaries I need to put in place to protect my energy.

It took me a good week of looking in the mirror to even recognize who was staring back. I remember rehearsing in front of my tripod, going from one power pose to another.

I love who I’m becoming. And that I can look at myself and now see the reflection of someone on a journey who’s redefining her boundaries and who she allows to join her next chapter.

If this is what my 30’s have to offer, I’m loving this newfound peace that comes with the assertion and ownership of your life.

I don’t know if any of this was useful to read, but if you’re someone who’s ready to make a bold statement to yourself or to the world, I highly recommend shaving the locks and going for a pixie.

You’ll give off just enough “Can I speak to the manager” vibes, while still having a luminous flare, which makes your expression of radical self-love something that people can model in their own lives.

Here’s to the journey, Glo

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Create the Best Email Subject Lines with These Useful Tips + Examples

Globally, experts estimate that nearly 4 billion active email accounts exist out there. Nearly 300 billion emails from businesses enter inboxes every single day. Do the math. People get around 75 business emails per day. And it’s only increasing.

Are you take time to read 75 emails a day? Are you opening that many? How many messages just sit there day after day, getting marked as read when you never even opened it?

This kind of skimming the inbox is what you’re up against. It’s why only the best email subject lines get opened. Let’s look at 50 of the highest performing and best email subject lines we’ve seen and why they work so well.

#1 Appeal to People’s Need for Instant Gratification

Whether the topic is weight loss, saving for retirement, or getting to page one in searches – people know there are no magic pills. But still the idea that you can have things now that you really didn’t have to work for appeals to a lot of people.

University of Illinois Professor, Shahram Heshmat Ph.D., studies the science behind how people make choices. He says “There is psychological discomfort associated with self-denial. From an evolutionary perspective, our instinct is to seize the reward at hand, and resisting this instinct is hard.”

The best email subject lines offer this opportunity for instant gratification.

As you’re exploring the examples of best email subject lines in this article, consider this point.

69% of email recipients will mark an email as spam just because of the subject line. There are no “magic bullet” subject lines that work every time for every audience.

There’s often a fine line between an effective subject line that has a high open rate and one that appears spammy. Understanding your audience and what the spam rates are telling you will help you adapt in order to navigate this fine line.

Now, let’s look at some of the best email subject lines that promise instant gratification.

Great Examples of Instant Gratification Subject Lines

1. “How to email a busy person (including a word-for-word script)” – Ramit Sethi

A word for word script means they’ve done all the work for you.

2. “Steal these email templates…” – Digital Marketer

3. “We Need Your Help! Get $5 in Free Gas For Completing Our Survey” – Pacific54

They had a 46% open rate with this subject line.

4. “Grow your email list 10X faster with these 30 content upgrade ideas” – Optinmonster

5. “Your beauty issues, solved” – Sephora

6. “Key Takeaways from SaaS Connect 2018” – Kiwi Creative

Busy people love when they can get the “Cliffs Notes” from an important webinar, seminar or meeting. This one earned Kiwi Creative a 60% open rate.

#2 Generate a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Response

FOMO is a relatively unresearched psychological phenomenon that compels a person to do something for fear of missing out on information, an experience or something else that others have.

It’s this urge that keeps many tied to their social media feed, just waiting for the next post to appear when they’re not working. And sometimes when they are. Researchers are just beginning to conduct studies and learn what drives this overwhelming urge.

But from a marketing perspective, FOMO has been long established and confirmed through analytics, A/B testing and professional experience.

The average person can’t help but click if they feel they might be missing out.

Examples of FOMO Subject Lines

Using FOMO requires a delicate balance. Because marketers have been using it perhaps since the invention of the printing press, it can feel “played out.”

Explore new and different ways to generate a FOMO.

7. “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring” – Warby Parker

Warby Parker is an online prescription eyeglasses company. Whether they know if your prescription is expiring or not, this is a very FOMO line.

8. “Happy Birthday Lindsay – Surprise Inside!” – Rent the Runway

The fact that’s it’s Lindsay’s birthday makes this not only feel exclusive. It also feels like whatever the offer is, it’s only good today.

9. “Hey” – Barack Obama

This one probably only works if you’re the President of the United States or high profile celebrity. But it’s definitely a FOMO subject line in that context.

10. “You’re missing out on points.” – Jet Blue

For people who are trying to build up travel miles, this is the worst thing they can hear. They want to know how to fix it ASAP. They do that by opening the email when they see best email subject lines like this one.

11. “The timer’s going off on your cart!” – King Arthur Flour

#3 Evoke Curiosity

People are very curious creatures. Curiosity and FOMO often overlap. But not always. The psychology behind them is very different.

Respected Professor of Psychology and Economics, George Loewenstein explains curiosity this way. It’s a feeling of mental deprivation caused by the perception that there’s a gap in understanding.

Deprivation is a strong word. But it’s very well-placed. When something makes a person curious, they feel like there’s a void that they must fill. It’s like they haven’t eaten in a week. And you just offered them a hamburger.

It’s the continual pursuit of knowledge that drives people to click the best email subject lines while leaving the rest of their inbox unattended.

Great examples of Curiosity Subject Lines

Curiosity is a very personal thing. What makes one person overwhelmingly curious will leave another scrolling by. Know your audience. Know what makes them curious and you’ll create the most amazing headlines.

Here are some companies who do curiosity very well.

12. “Not Cool, Guys” – Buzzfeed

We want to know what the “guys” did. Don’t you?

13. “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities” – Thrillest

Be careful with all caps. This was just enough to get attention without feeling like screaming or spam.

14. “Buffer has been hacked – here is what’s going on” – Buffer

Yes, they really sent this email when they got hacked. It allowed them to be the first to inform people about the event. They could control the conversation around it because they were proactive. And they used this exceptional curiosity-evoking subject line.

15. “Last Day To See What This Mystery Email Is All About” – Grubhub

16. “A faster donkey” The Hustle

Who wouldn’t want to know what The Hustle is talking about?

4. Craft Humorous Subject Lines

The world-renowned Psychologist, author and inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud believed that humor was one of the few ways that you could connect straight to a person’s subconscious mind. It melts the mental blocks, defense mechanisms and logical thinking that may prevent a person from connecting with another.

If you can just make a person laugh, you’ve just earned a moment of their time.

Over the years, people have built up barriers to marketing strategies. Some people see FOMO subject lines coming a mile a way. They don’t click. They know what you’re trying to do.

People with these strong anti-marketing barriers don’t react the same way to humor.

Great examples of Humorous Subject Lines

Of course, the issue here is that what one person finds to be “ha ha” funny someone else might find to be in poor taste or even offensive. You’ve got to consider your audience and find what works with them.

Through it, you develop the best email subject lines.

Some of the best funny email subject lines we’ve seen include:

17. “Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it.” – Quirky

Quirky is a website that connects inventors with companies that may want to buy their ideas. This corny play on words is followed by a conversational statement that people commonly make after saying something silly. It earned a lot of clicks.

18. “Yes, I’m Pregnant. You Can Stop Staring At My Belly Now.” – Baby Bump

19. “NEW! Vacation on Mars” -Gozengo

20. “Pairs nicely with spreadsheets” – Warby Parker

21. “Where to Drink Beer Right Now” – Eater Boston

The pub sent this one at 6:45AM on a weekday, making the timing part of the joke. You’re probably on your way to work at that time.

And we’ve got a bonus and possibly the winner.

22. “*Don’t Open This Email*” from Manicube.

If you found none of those remotely funny, it speaks to how hard it can be to pull off the perfect zinger. But don’t be afraid to explore humor as a means to overcome objections and barriers that stand in the way of a person opening an email.

#5 Create Outrageous Subject Lines

Boring, everyday subject lines don’t earn clicks. Even if you’re a buttoned-up professional brand, few audiences will respond to a simple description of the email.

You need to be bold. It helps to be a bit audacious. You can find ways to be a little outrageous without straying from your brand.

Being outrageous doesn’t mean stoking controversy or getting under people’s skin unless you really know your audience will appreciate it. It’s more about causing and “I can’t believe they said that” or “what is this all about?” feeling.

Great Examples of Subject Lines That Got A Little Outrageous

23. “Let’s get fat, Boston” – Thrillist

It was an email exploring some of the best restaurants in Boston. It’s a bit off-beat. But it makes you look.

24. “How to organize your VHS collection” – HubSpot

25. “Is Twilight the best movie ever made?” – HubSpot

26. “Our Blades are F***ing Great.” – Dollar Shave Club

Know your audience. Some audiences will find cursing funny or non-conformist. Others find it offensive. Dollar Shave Club gambled on this one and won big with their target audience.

#6 Make Them Feel Like an Insider

Why do we like inside jokes? People want to feel like they’re a part of something. And see something that they know only a handful of people will understand, they feel special.

This is true whether your audience is in MENSA (the club for geniuses) or in a certain field of work that uses a certain language. Using insider subjects further connects your audience to you because it shows that you’re an insider too.

Great Examples of Insider Subject Lines

Don’t worry. We’ll give you the explanation in case you’re an outsider among these groups.

27. “!” – DiningIn

People who use messaging apps will recognize an exclamation point as a stand-in for words. By using it the sender is expressing that they have something very exciting to show you when you open the email. The target audience will understand this and have to click.

28. “As You Wish” – Uncommon Goods

It’s a reference to the cult fantasy classic “Princess Bride”. Choose movies that are very likely to be viewed by your audience.

29. “Coffee’s for closers” – Glengarry Glen Ross

Not a known email subject line. But it should be. Anyone in sales or marketing would likely get the reference.

30. “11 is a crowd. We’ll wait.” – ThinkGeek

You may want to brush up on your binary code for this one. 11 in the binary representation for 3.

#7 Stroke Their Ego

We all have one. An ego. When someone else says something that makes you feel good about yourself, you probably just made a friend. A momentary feeling on vanity is what a person gets out of a subject line like these.

You may not think of vanity as an emotion.

But it certainly is. The best email subject lines tap into emotions. You don’t have to be a narcissist to feel it. People with all levels of pride and self-importance can be positively triggered when you stroke their ego.

Great Examples of Ego-Stroking Subject Lines

31. “Your Butt Will Look Great in These Workout Pants” – Fabletics

Who doesn’t want to hear that?

32. “Wow! Fantastic credit score.” – NerdWallet

For someone who’s financially-savvy, that’s a great compliment.

33. “So What Did You Think? Write a Review.” – REI

Demonstrating that you value a person’s opinion is a great way to stroke their ego.

34. “? Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks?” – Wag

This is a personalized subject line. “Tullamore” is the dog of the person receiving this email. For pet lovers, the pet is an extension of the person’s sense of self. Complimenting the pet or offering them something special can be just as powerful as targeting the person’s ego.

35. “Hey [First Name]! Which one of these would be your favorite read?” – EmailMonks

#8 Feel Their Pain

When you can speak to a target audience’s pain points, you show that you understand how people use your product and why. It demonstrates that you think from the side of the consumer rather than from your own business from time to time.

Great Examples of Pain Point Subject Lines

36. “Since we can’t all win the lottery…” -Uber

This subject line speaks to a very specific audience. 70% of lottery players are in their 20’s and 30’s. Around 90% of players have jobs but say they’re having trouble paying their bills. These individuals are also the most likely to become Uber drivers.

37. “How to Survive Your Next Overnight Flight” – Thrillest

38. “Stop wasting time on mindless work” – Evernote

39. “[Pain Point] | [Company Name].” -Demanddrive

DemandDrive uses this template again and again to generate high open rates.

40. “[First Name], here’s how you can [Benefit from our Solution]” -Growthhackers

Similarly, Growthhackers has found a template that works well with their audience. They use it repeatedly to increase clicks.

As your exploring how to create the best email subject lines, think systematically. Explore by using a handful of templates that you can quickly fill in to generate a compelling headline.

#9 Create a Sense of Urgency

You’ve probably stumbled upon some classic TV commercials that say “Act now!”. And this is what you can try with your subject lines too. Although not necessarily these exact words, you can convey scarcity and urgency in your subject lines to urge subscribers to act immediately. However, be sure to use this subject line only when the campaign calls for it.

This is the oldest trick in the marketing book. But it still works in digital marketing. The analytics prove it. It’s definitely among email subject line best practices.

When someone feels that they have time to do something later, they put it off. They think at the time that they’ll come back. But they rarely do.

When people feel like they must open something now or miss out, they at least take a peek.

A study reported in the New York Times found that 20% of people are chronic procrastinators. If they don’t feel like they have to do it now, they won’t. The Journal of Consumer Research found “being busy” was one of the top social media “humblebrag” statements.

People like to stay busy. They like to be perceived as busy. They often don’t feel that they have time to open your email.

To get the highest email open rates, make people feel like they must open this now — not later.

MailChimp found the following benefits of using time-sensitive words:

Urgent – Increased email open rate by 79%

Breaking – Increased email open rate by 68%

Important – Increased open rate by 55%

Alert – Increased open rate by 31%

This is definitely a tip that you’ll want to follow up with analytics to make sure “time sensitive” words aren’t getting emails sent to spam folder. That 79% increase will be worth it for some when compared to spam rate.

Subject lines like these that can land some businesses in the spam folder. So they should always be tested first on a small segment of the email list.

Note there are many more ways to express urgency. Try these.

Great Examples of Time-Sensitive Subject Lines

41. “Your 7-figure plan goes bye-bye at midnight…” – Digital Marketer

42. “[New Product] just arrived. Only 15 left.”

43. “Before you write another blog post, read this” – Sumo

44. “Extended for a day! Get Free shipping through Friday.” – VerticalResponse

#10 Avoid Spam Language

You don’t always intend for the subject to sound spammy. But over the years, certain language has been flagged as spammy language by spam filters. because of the rampant misuse of that headline.

Experts estimate that each charity loses around $15K a year of would-be donations because they accidentally said something “spammy”. You don’t spend time and money building a quality subscriber list just to be sent to spam.

Act-On has created a great list of phrases an innocent business might use that sends them straight to spam.

Those words include but aren’t limited to:

Opportunity

Satisfaction Guaranteed

No Purchase Necessary

Eliminate Debt

FREE {In all CAPS}

Success

Hot

Bad Credit

Increase

Make Money Fast

This list may elicit feelings of nostalgia for the days before we had spam filters to filter this stuff out. But some of these are completely innocent words that are often used in spammy ways. You might not choose to avoid these words altogether. But definitely see how they are received by your audience.

Avoiding spam filters will help improve email deliverability.

#11 Segment Your Best Email Subject Lines

Segmentation is a form of personalization. You divide email recipients into groups based on a major trait that they share. This could be:

Age range

Industry

Geography

Job Role

Behaviors

Then customize the subject line based on this trait to make it more relevant.

The open rate for a segmented email is about 14% higher than non-segmented. When something feels customized and relevant, people are more likely to see it. On average, a business can increase email-generated revenues by 58% by segmenting.

#12 Personalize it

Personalizing is a step up from segmentation. It’s when you send a specific email to a specific person at a specific time.

You might include their name in the subject line. But personalization goes far beyond this.

Personalized emails may:

Welcome a new subscriber

Thank a person for their purchase

Suggest other items based on their purchase or viewing history

Remind them to finish a video

It’s both the timing and message that make these types of email subject lines so effective. This kind of timing is only possible through email automation.

This Email Monday chart shows how businesses are benefiting from email automation.

Examples of Personalized, Automated Email Subject Lines

45. “Hi, { Customer Name}, I’m deleting your Envira account” – Envira

This is a bold move that could backfire. Obviously, if you say you’re unsubscribing someone or deleting their account, you have to do it if they don’t respond. But a message like this can renew interest with a person who never opens emails.

46. “{Customer Name}, Did you miss out on some of these new features?” – Animoto

47. “Email subscriber exclusive: [Product name] sale is here.” – VerticalResponse

That product would be something this individual recently viewed. Automation can pull it into the email to make that missed sale. This kind of email is one of the top tricks for improving eCommerce ROI.

48. “Were we boring you, {Customer Name}?” – Unbounce

49. “Hey, forget something? Here’s 20% off.” – Bonobos

50. “Steve, where’d you go?” – Unbounce

The Best Email Subject Lines

The best email subject lines are built around your target audience and brand. But you can definitely get some ideas by looking at what’s working for other companies. These 50 examples will have you well on your way to creating high-performing subject lines of your own.

Are you getting the most out of your email marketing investment? We can help you achieve a higher ROI. Contact us today.

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