#hey remember when you were fucking garbage at picking men and I suffered for it?

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

It is easy to get midnight munchies if you have a cool car. Or a bunch of eager young drivers.

[badgersprite]

Fic: Desiderata (4/?)

Chapter Title: Families

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Miranda, Samara, Oriana, Jacob

Pairing: Miranda/Samara very slow burn, friends to lovers

Story Rating: R

Warnings: A strong trigger and content warning for the subjects of suicide, attempted suicide and depression/mental illness applies to this chapter. 

Chapter Summary: In 2186, Miranda finally has a go at recording a message for Oriana. In 2185, Miranda gets curious about Samara's past, and seizes an opportunity to obtain information.

Author’s Note: In which Miranda is bad at people.

*     *     *

“Are you sure about this?” Miranda asked, standing opposite Samara on the cargo deck. “I don't want to hurt you if anything goes wrong.”

“I mean no offence, but you will not breach my barrier,” Samara confidently assured her, a bright blue flash enveloping her skin as she thrust her arms forward, erecting a powerful biotic shield in front of herself. Miranda arched an eyebrow. That sounded like a challenge. “Now!”

“If you insist.”

Throwing caution to the wind, Miranda gathered her biotic energies, attempting to use reave against Samara. So far, she had only practiced the full technique on inanimate objects, but they were no substitute for an actual living target.

“Remember what you have learned,” Samara instructed, braced to withstand the attack, both in the event that it was successful, and if anything went awry.

Miranda focused on reaching out with her biotic field, until it encapsulated Samara's barrier, feeling its shape and dimensions as if with her own fingers. Now she just had to drain it, exactly like she'd done before, only on a much larger scale, and against an unwilling opponent. Simple.

She started the process, and felt the barrier begin to slip piece by piece, but it was like picking up sand with a sieve. Every time she drew Samara’s energy towards herself, all but a small fraction of it fell through her grasp, like satellites bound to her by the force of gravity, refusing to escape her orbit.

Miranda clenched her teeth. What was she forgetting?

She tried to emulate anything she might have done differently the last time she practiced draining Samara's barrier, but nothing made any impact. Not changing her stance. Not concentrating harder. She was treading water.

At that moment, Miranda recognised she'd lost her grip on Samara's barrier. Her biotic field was scattered all over the cargo bay, making random objects levitate.

“Damn it!” Miranda's frustration boiled over as her technique completely fell apart. As she clenched her fist, a nearby crate compressed in on itself like it had been crushed by a garbage compactor. Miranda rolled her eyes. “Great. Now I'm losing control of myself,” she grumbled, lazily tossing the destroyed metal box across the room with her biotics, just to get it out of her sight.

“Do not be disheartened. You are making swift progress – swifter than I anticipated,” Samara reassured her, impressed with what she'd seen so far. “If you continue to improve at this rate, I am certain that you will achieve mastery.”

Miranda mustered a faint half-smile, reminding herself that not everyone was as much of a perfectionist as she was, and that not everyone was as critical as her father. “I have an excellent teacher. I just wish I could get a handle on it before we run into the Collectors again; reave would be extremely effective against them. I don't think we'll have that much time, though.”

“It seems unlikely, at this stage,” Samara confirmed. She was probably still a few months away from being able to use reave safely and effectively in live combat. “But let us continue this another time. You should not exert yourself further. Shepard would not be pleased if I exhausted you.”

“For the record, I would be fine to try again, but you're right; we do have to conserve our strength,” Miranda acknowledged, wiping the perspiration from her brow.

Learning a new biotic technique was like exercising a previously undiscovered set of muscles. Even though the principle was the same, trying something unfamiliar caused far more strain and depleted her energy far quicker than using something like warp which she'd done thousands of times before.

As they finished up, a familiar silhouette caught Miranda's eye.

“We have spectator,” Miranda remarked, glancing up at Zaeed's window. The second she made eye-contact with him, he immediately ducked out of sight. “Have you noticed that he's always watching when we train down here?”

“No. I have not,” Samara answered, failing to see why it mattered.

A mischievous thought crossed Miranda's mind, suspecting what had piqued Zaeed's interest. “I barely know anything about Zaeed. Do you see much of him?”

“He has visited the library on a few occasions, but we have only spoken once.”

“What about?” Miranda idly pried, feigning innocence.

“Nothing of significance,” Samara replied, entering the elevator. “He made comment upon how the stars were very...'starry' I believe was the term he used. I wondered if he may have been concussed, but EDI assured me he was not.”

Miranda tried not to laugh, incredulous to think that someone with Samara's long lifespan and broad experience of the galaxy was genuinely finding it difficult to decipher why Zaeed was acting strangely around her. “Samara...” she began with a small smirk, earning a look in response. “I think Zaeed’s attracted you.”

“Then he is woefully misguided,” Samara stated bluntly.

Miranda snorted. “That is the understatement of the century. But yes. I concur,” she said. Zaeed was aiming so far out of his league that it was comical.

“If you are correct in your suspicions, perhaps I should address this before it causes any complication,” Samara thought out loud, seeing the potential for unrequited feelings to become problematic and distract Zaeed from their mission.

“Why bother? Just ignore it,” Miranda suggested with a shrug, surprised she was taking it that seriously. If Miranda had a credit for every time she received unwanted attention from men, she would have owned her own planet by now. “As long as he’s not making a nuisance of himself, then it shouldn’t be problem.”

“Aside from the fact that I would be compelled to kill him were we to meet in different circumstances?” Samara countered. Miranda had to concede that point.

Sure, his mercenary past wasn't an issue so long as they were united in a common cause. But, if they survived this mission, it would be a different story. Samara would no longer be bound by her oath to serve Commander Shepard. It was probably best that Zaeed didn't suffer any delusion that serving aboard the Normandy with Samara might grant him an exemption from her Code.

Samara sighed. “Perhaps you are right that this does not warrant intervention on my part. But I have been celibate for over four hundred years.” Miranda couldn’t help but tilt her head at that figure. “I would prefer that it be clearly understood by all aboard this ship that I have no desire to deviate from that vow.”

“Four hundred?” Miranda echoed. “Really?”

“You did not know this?” said Samara, assuming it was common knowledge.

“I never gave it that much thought, to be honest,” Miranda commented, the elevator doors beginning to open as they reached their destination. She'd had her suspicions, but she couldn't recall it ever being expressly confirmed until now. “Are all Justicars forbidden from marrying or taking lovers?”

“This is neither the time nor the place for that question,” Samara replied.

“Why? I’m curious to learn more about your Code,” Miranda persisted as they stepped out onto the crew deck. “That and I'm fascinated by things I find difficult to fathom. I can't comprehend merely existing for that length of time, let alone...sacrificing that aspect of myself for that long. And I say that as someone who devotes comparatively little time or attention to that part of my life.”

Samara regarded her oddly, evidently choosing to give Miranda the benefit of the doubt that her inquiries were sincere and well-intentioned, which they were. “I serve a higher purpose. The oaths I swore as a Justicar transcend fleeting, selfish whims. I could never permit myself to be in a position where my loyalties were divided. To allow my judgement to be clouded by personal attachments would serve no purpose but to potentially imperil my devotion to The Code.”

“But swearing a vow doesn't change who or what you find attractive. It’s part of who you are, so I'm assuming you must have been tempted at some point,” Miranda casually speculated, seeing no cause to be coy with her queries. “Does that ever go away, or does it just come naturally after a while?”

“Miranda...” Samara cautioned her. Miranda wasn't sure what prompted the disapproval in Samara's voice, but she quickly jumped to conclusions.

“Hey, I am not insinuating that you should reconsider your stance on Zaeed. Believe me, I am firmly on your side about that,” Miranda lightheartedly assured her. “Although, in all fairness, you did once tell me that you used to sleep—“

“That was centuries ago. Even then, the answer would have been no,” Samara cut her off, signalling that this conversation was at an end. Samara still sounded like her calm, patient self, but that had been uncharacteristically curt of her.

“I was just teasing you,” said Miranda, annoyed at Samara's sudden touchiness.

“I do not wish to discuss this,” Samara made her feelings crystal clear, never once raising her voice or speaking with anger. Nevertheless, it was apparent that her mood had abruptly changed at some point on that elevator ride. Miranda wasn't sure when, or why. “Unless there is anything urgent, I would prefer to meditate alone for the rest of day. There is much for me to reflect upon.”

Miranda furrowed her brow. That sounded like an extremely polite way of being told to kindly fuck off. “Are you angry with me?” she asked, failing to grasp what she'd said to trigger this abrupt cold shoulder from Samara.

“No,” Samara answered. Miranda couldn’t detect if her tone was more terse than usual; she was hard to read. “Please respect that I do not wish to be disturbed.”

“...Okay,” Miranda agreed, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back on her heel. Why wouldn't she respect that? Samara didn't utter another word, striding across the corridor to the Starboard Observation Deck, the doors sealing shut behind her. It was then that Miranda noticed a handful of off-duty crew lounging around in their quarters, staring at her. “Something on your mind?”

At that one acknowledgement they all immediately went back to their business, adamantly pretending they weren’t witnesses to any awkward scenes. Typical.

One person, however, did have the guts to share their thoughts with the class.

“Did you just ask Samara whether she'd ever break her vow and sleep with someone?” Kasumi's voice came from behind her, prompting Miranda to turn and glance over her shoulder. “Yikes. What gave you that bright idea?”

“Why shouldn't I ask her that? It's a legitimate question,” Miranda pointed out.

“...Wow. For a second there I assumed you were being sarcastic, but you're actually completely serious,” Kasumi observed. That retort did little to assist Miranda. Wry quips weren't exactly an explanation. “I've seen how much time you spend over there; I figured you were close or something. You...do know that she was married, right? And you know about her kids?”

“Asari don't call it marriage, but yes. Of course I know all that. What has that got to do with anything?” Miranda shook her head, failing to see the connection.

It was hard to see under the hood, but Kasumi looked stunned that she wasn't getting through to Miranda. “You know what? Forget I said anything. There is way too much to unpack there, and I make a better thief than I do a psychologist, so...”

Rather than finish that sentence, Kasumi activated her invisibility matrix and disappeared from sight, unilaterally removing herself from the conversation.

“Thanks for the insight,” Miranda remarked, heading straight to her office.

*    *     *

Miranda exhaled heavily, steeling herself. There were only so many quiet moments a person could secure for themselves when they lived under a giant canvas tent with a thousand other people. Jacob would be coming back to the bunk before long, then her opportunity would be lost.

She could do this. She needed to do this.

“...Begin voice recording,” she said, and her omni-tool responded.

“Hey, Ori,” Miranda began, forcing herself to smile. Oriana would be able to tell something was wrong if she didn't sound as happy as she should have been to talk to her. She had to make it convincing. She couldn't let her voice betray the façade. “Sorry it's taken me so long to send a message to you. I wanted to, I've just...with everything going on down here in London, I haven't had a chance.”

She swallowed. Her throat was dry.

She couldn’t let Oriana see her face yet. The shock of her wounds would be too much too soon. Miranda had to ease her into it. That was the best way to do it. She could reveal her condition after she’d healed some more. When Oriana was calm. When it was less likely to freak her out, and make her worry. 

“I don't know what Jacob told you about me. I hope he didn't scare you. But I'm fine. I'm doing okay. I'm out of the hospital. Have been for a while. I've been, uh...I'm working with the recovery effort. Primarily in an organisational role, overseeing operations, logistics, that sort of thing. I'm sure I didn't need to tell you that. You probably assumed that already.”

What the fuck was she talking about? That wasn't important.

“I, um...”

Miranda trailed off and, with a motion of her hand, paused the recording.

She sighed and ran frustrated fingers through her hair as she flopped back flat onto her bed. “Fuck...” she whispered, recognising what a train wreck this was.

What was she doing? This wasn't the first take. Why was she screwing this up so many times? Miranda wanted to talk to her sister more than anything. Why was this so hard? Sure, there were things about this one-sided conversation that she'd dreaded. Hiding her guilt. Lying to Oriana so that she wouldn't upset her. But drawing a blank like this again and again was beyond pathetic.

She had to keep going. Even if she hated it, she had to get through it and get it over with. She couldn't keep deleting messages and starting over.

“...Resume recording,” she said, willing herself to finally finish one of these. “Sorry, um. Got interrupted for a second there. I just...I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. I hope you are too. I can't wait to hear from you. And, don't worry; we'll be back together again before you know it.”

She tried to say something else. Anything else. But the words didn't come. 

“I love you,” Miranda told her. “Stay safe.”

Miranda stopped the recording and played it back immediately, ever her own worst critic, hyper-aware of how stilted, unnatural and inauthentic it all sounded.

Seriously? That was the best she could do? The recording barely lasted thirty seconds, and even that was only because of the long, awkward pauses.

It was fake. Hollow. Half-hearted. Miranda was none of those things around Oriana.

Oriana deserved better. But the reality was Miranda wasn't able to do any better. And Jacob was right. Oriana did need to hear her sister's voice. Confirmation that she was alive and well. It would mean the world to her.

Even a shameful excuse for a message was better than no contact at all, right? The longer Miranda delayed, the worse the wait was going to be for Oriana on the other end. It could take weeks for even a simple audio recording to get through the Extranet on a non-priority channel. The sooner the better.

She had to send something. So she sent that.

Miranda closed her eye and rubbed her temple, feeling like utter garbage. It was a feeling that wouldn't go away anytime soon.

*     *     *

“Do you have any sisters?” Miranda asked Samara. It hadn't been long since she finally reunited with Oriana. As such, Miranda was still getting used to interacting with her younger twin, unsure if she was saying the wrong things, and self-conscious about coming off poorly in her messages to her.

“Yes, half-sisters. Although we were never close,” Samara replied, awash in her biotic aura. Evidently she'd let go of whatever had been bothering her two days ago, and had forgiven Miranda for any part she played in it, without so much as requiring an apology from her. Despite remaining confused by the incident, Miranda was content to follow her lead and act like it never happened. 

“Pity. I was hoping you might have some advice for me,” said Miranda, reviewing her latest email exchanges with her sister. She was trying her hardest. She really was. But this was all new to her.

“I may do, although I can claim no expertise on the subject,” Samara offered. She ceased her meditation, always willing to help when Miranda requested it. “Does something trouble you? Forgive me if I did not suspect. You always seem so delighted when you hear from her.”

“I am. That hasn't changed, it's just...” Miranda hesitated as she put her datapad aside, fingers rapping against the armrest, not sure she wanted to embarrass herself by publicising her mistakes. But it was only Samara who would know, and she wasn't inclined to betray anything disclosed in confidence.

No, this was alright. She could trust her.

“...Look, I never lived a normal life, okay?” Miranda continued, keeping her voice hushed, lest anyone was lingering outside the door. “But I'm the big sister. Oriana's supposed to be able to come to me if she needs any help or guidance, and I'm supposed to know the answers. And if she wanted to know about the latest breakthroughs in bioengineering or how to spy on her neighbours, I could write her a bloody dissertation. But that's not what she's coming to me for.”

“Perhaps you should start from the beginning,” Samara recommended, sensing Miranda was focusing more on her own feelings of unpreparedness and inadequacy than on the situation itself. “What has happened between you?”

Miranda sighed, subconsciously massaging her forehead as she leaned on her hand. “She came to me for advice about this boy she likes, who might not like her back. What could I say to that? I had nothing to tell her. I've never had 'boy problems'. In some ways, she probably knows more than I do.”

“You are underselling your experience; you have had relationships before,” Samara noted with a knowing glint, aware of her past history with Jacob.

“If you consider one-night stands relationships,” Miranda mumbled. Jacob was the exception to the rule, and even their chemistry had quickly fizzled into nothing within a couple of months.

Otherwise, her sexual history was just a string of meaningless encounters with mostly anonymous men who weren't important enough to remember anything about. She'd never had those deeper, romantic feelings Oriana spoke of. Not for anyone. The capacity for that sort of intimate relationship just didn't seem to exist in Miranda. Not that it mattered. It didn't trouble her if it wasn't in her future.

If the term didn’t translate, Samara didn't question what it meant, inferring from the implication. She'd walked a similar path once; she didn't need an explanation.

“Anyway, that's not an example I want her to follow,” Miranda concluded.

“Have you answered her?” Samara asked, considering whether she might be able to offer some of her own insight to satisfy Oriana's questions where Miranda could not. She did have more wisdom in that regard.

“I tried,” Miranda grumpily admitted, not pleased with herself. “I looked up dating advice columns on the Extranet and copied and pasted the answers. Which was a moronic move on my part because Oriana's as smart as I am. She caught me out in under two minutes.” Miranda glanced up at Samara's silence, not failing to notice the humour sparkling in her expression. “Don't laugh,” she warned.

“I am not,” Samara replied, far too restrained to allow her composure to falter, though her amusement was plain to see. “That was very kind of you. I am sure that your sister appreciates that you did your best to assist her. Although it would have been preferable for you to be honest with her, she cannot doubt how sincerely you care for her after seeing your efforts. I know I do not.”

Miranda's expression softened. Hearing that was comforting, and it did a lot to elevate her mood. More than Samara realised, and Miranda cared to admit. 

“...Thanks,” she said, genuinely.

Much as Miranda hated to acknowledge it, her father had been a powerful influence on her. She was so much like him sometimes. She'd inherited some of his best qualities, and some of his worst. Miranda hated that about herself. She didn't want to be like him. Especially not towards Oriana.

Shepard had told Miranda there was no harm in Oriana knowing she had a sister who cared about her. But, in her darker moments of contemplation, it had concerned her to wonder whether Shepard might have been wrong about her potential to be a positive force in her twin's life.

What if, despite her best attempts at acting like a decent human being, Miranda was only going through the motions and imitating a connection she wasn't capable of really forming? What if Miranda was just deluding herself into believing her own bullshit? What if she only knew how to fake compassion and empathy after being raised in an environment without it?

All those thoughts and more had gone through her mind at one point or another over the past few weeks. So to hear Samara tell her that she wasn't acting like a complete sociopath and that her failings weren't a sign that she was fundamentally broken actually meant a lot.

“Why aren't you close with your sisters?” Miranda asked, keen to divert attention away from herself, but also sincerely curious.

“I did not grow up with any of them. Not in the same household. There are many years between us, as well as different fathers and mothers, whom I never met. Many in my family also looked down upon my parents' relationship for being an intraspecies union,” Samara casually explained.

“Oh. I'm sorry to hear that,” said Miranda. If her half-siblings were catty towards her for being a pure-blooded asari, it was no wonder they didn't get along.

“It is alright.” Samara shook her head, taking no affront. She did not appear to bear any ill-will towards her sisters now. Her older siblings were probably all dead, come to think of it. Or if not then close to it. “Between both of my parents, I may have more half-sisters than I am aware of.”

Miranda quirked a brow. “So, you could talk to another asari and have no idea she's related to you?”

“This is not uncommon,” Samara answered. “In asari cultures, we do not share your concept of a 'family tree' as you refer to them. It would not be possible to do so, as our relationships often form complex and expansive webs with many disparate connections across the vastness of space and time. Many asari never know their fathers; my kind often choose to raise their daughters alone. In such cases, the father is rarely informed that the meld produced a child.”

“And either of your parents could have been the father in one of those unions,” Miranda deduced. “How could you know you have a sister if your parents don't?”

“Correct.” Samara nodded. “However, they also may well have known every child they mothered and fathered, and consciously chosen not to tell me about them. This is not an infrequent occurrence, as we spend many centuries apart. Families can grow distant. Our lives must evolve and move forward, and we are encouraged not to dwell upon the past. If they did not wish to share with me that they had other daughters, then they were entitled to withhold it from me. It would have been considered improper of me not to respect those boundaries.”

“It's nobody's business, then? Asari don't interrogate each other about who they've slept with or how many children they have?” Miranda summarised, not surprised that they didn't care.

“No,” Samara confirmed. “If we did, it would take most of us a very long time to answer. It is not considered shameful in any way. It is taken for granted as a facet of our lives, and our biology.”

“Do you think that might be one reason why mating with your own kind is frowned upon?” Miranda speculated aloud. If people didn't know who all their sisters were, that created a high risk for accidental inbreeding.

“Yes,” Samara stated bluntly, as though that went without saying.

“Ah.” Miranda awkwardly rubbed her neck. “Here I thought I was being observant.”

“You were,” said Samara, kindly. “However, I do not wish to overgeneralise and create a false impression about my species. There is no one, singular family structure that could be considered dominant or favoured among asari. I merely intend to convey that my disconnect from my sisters is not unique.”

“Why do you think that is?” Miranda inquired, fascinated to learn more. She'd long thought humanity should aspire to be more like the asari in a lot of ways, so discovering more about their cultures and beliefs was always a welcome thing.

“Largely, I believe it is a consequence of our lifespan,” Samara elaborated. “Our species is very long-lived compared to yours. In exceptional cases, an asari could mother or father her first child a thousand years before her last. In a broad sense, it is most common for an asari not to seek a new partner or have a child with a different partner until the children of her last partner have grown old enough to leave home. This, in my view, is the primary reason why many asari may have little connection to some if not all of their half-sisters.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Miranda, though she had an inherent aversion to the thought of never knowing her sister. “Human families don't always stay together, either. I never had a mother, and my father only ever saw me as a science project, so I can't speak from experience, but I've heard it can be difficult for children to adjust to their parents finding new partners.”

“It would appear that our species share that in common,” Samara told her, in a relaxed manner. “But, as I have said, asari families are widely varied. There is no standard approach that I am aware of. For instance, neither my bondmate or I had any children from previous partners. Our daughters were born only a few years apart, and it was our desire that they should grow up together under the same roof. Many other asari have sisters and half-sisters they were raised with, or who they were raised by in circumstances where their mother passed.”

Hearing Samara mention her family caused Miranda's mind to deviate from her original query.

“Your bondmate was another asari, wasn't she?” Miranda asked. She wasn't entirely sure how being a carrier for Ardat-Yakshi syndrome worked, but she had been under the impression that only purebloods could be Ardat-Yakshi, meaning Samara would have needed to have a child with another asari to pass it on.

Samara's expression faltered, turning stony. “Yes,” she answered, emotionlessly.

“And you were the mother of all your children together, weren't you?” Miranda continued, curious as to how this disease worked. Samara seemed to think the fault was inherent in her, but Miranda couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't more likely that both parents needed to be carriers of the gene to have three Ardat-Yakshi daughters. “Do you think things would have turned out differently if you hadn't—“

“I would prefer not to speak of this,” Samara quietly cut her off, but the firmness of her voice was unmistakable. This was a very painful subject, even four hundred years later. She was not willing to revisit it.

“...You're right. I'm sorry,” said Miranda, dropping the matter entirely. She wasn't about to repeat her error of two days ago. If she had the opportunity to avoid causing Samara offence a second time, she was going to take it.

“It is not your fault,” Samara assured her, aware that there was no malice behind Miranda's line of inquiry. “But that aspect of my life is my own.”

Unfortunately, Miranda could rarely leave a question unanswered.

She hadn't failed to notice that every time she delved a little too deep into the subject of Samara’s bondmate and children, she inevitably touched a nerve. Just when it seemed like Samara was open to discussing it, a shadow would come over her, and then she would completely shut down and refuse to talk about it. Miranda didn't understand why, and that was a problem, because if she couldn't grasp what the issue was then it meant she was in a disadvantageous position.

And it wasn’t just her family either. The last time Miranda said something to upset her, she hadn’t mentioned her bondmate or her children. So there were clearly sensitive matters at hand that Miranda hadn’t even fully identified yet.

Knowledge was power. Knowledge was strength and safety. If she didn't have a more accurate picture of what it was that made Samara keep reacting that way when she brought up particular topics, and if she couldn’t figure out where those invisible lines between ‘okay to ask about’ and ‘strictly off limits’ was, then there was nothing to stop Miranda from potentially offending her again.

Miranda was a problem-solver by nature. Leaving anything unresolved didn't sit right with her. But the defining events of Samara's past took place over four hundred years ago, on Thessia. How was she supposed to find out any useful information when Samara was unwilling to speak of it?

It wasn't impossible to track down answers, but it would likely be arduous. It would take time, more than she could afford to devote amidst their mission.

On the other hand, if she found the opportunity to learn more about Samara expediently, then any lead was definitely worth further investigation...

*    *     *

It was nice to have a moment of peace.

Miranda stood by the River Thames, gazing out over the landscape. She’d been granted a reprieve from work to attend medical appointments, monitoring her health, following up on her recovery. They’d taken nearly the whole day.

It had been worth it, though; the doctors had given her as close as she could get to a clean bill of health in her current condition. There were no signs of sepsis, though they were keeping her on oral antibiotics just to be safe. They had warned her she may experience fatigue and weakness for some time.

Her skin grafts were healing well. There had been some contraction, and there would always be burn scars, but her body was not rejecting the synthetic skin. There was no apparent risk of infection. Frankly, the day when she no longer had to bother Jacob for help cleaning her wounds couldn’t come fast enough.

Work kept her mind busy most days when she wasn't in her bunk. It was a welcome distraction. But it didn't ward off the thoughts that came in quiet moments, when she lay in her bed at night. Or moments like this.

Sleep often eluded her, and it was poor quality when it didn't. Her dreams were disturbed by bright flashes and memories of her desperate struggle to survive after the shuttle crash, haunted by the faces of death – those who had fallen under her command, or by her side. The visions showed no signs of abating.

When she couldn't get to sleep, or deliberately delayed it due to what awaited, she often lay awake thinking about the Normandy's crew and what had become of them in the war. All of them. Not just her squadmates.

With Shepard gone, Miranda was the highest ranking person left from the original SR-2. That was a responsibility she took seriously. If anyone was going to track down potential survivors, it had to be her. And, if she couldn't find them, then she would be the one who had to contact friends and family members to let them know they were missing, if there was anyone left to deliver the news to.

Miranda had checked reports from other cities when they came in. Information was spotty at best, but it did get through. She searched for any mention of familiar names, or people who matched the description of any members of the Normandy crew she was aware of, from every iteration of its service.

But she would have lied if she said there wasn't one person she looked for more than others – the one person she knew to be alive, and who she felt closer to than anyone else on that ship; the woman who had saved her life.

Samara.

It had been far too long since she left, and nobody had seen or heard from her since. The stark silence was disconcerting. Miranda was starting to worry. Nobody had found her in another corner of London. Or, if they had, nobody had documented her presence. If she was no longer in the city, then she'd offered no word of her departure. That seemed so unlike her. Or perhaps it didn’t.

Miranda knew that the Code came first for Samara, before everything else. The only reason they'd been able to form the bond they had on the Normandy was because Samara had temporarily sworn her allegiance to Shepard. Once that was over, she had no reason to stay by Miranda's side for any length of time.

It shouldn't have hurt. This was all to be expected. But it did. It left an unfamiliar ache in her chest to think that the connection they'd forged was just an illusion – that their time meant far less to Samara than Miranda thought, and that she was just projecting its significance to herself onto someone who didn't share that opinion. She supposed that it shouldn't have surprised her if that was indeed the case. Her father's voice in the back of her head certainly told her it was petulant and childish to waste her time on the frivolous pursuit of a personal rapport.

But Miranda knew that the voice of her insecurities spoke falsely. She'd been there for all those countless moments enjoyed in one another’s company, and she had a perfect memory. Miranda was hardly the most astute at reading other's emotions, but surely she would have seen in Samara’s face if their connection was purely one-sided. Why would she even need to lie about that?

They had a friendship, didn't they? A real one. One of the few Miranda had ever known. And it was definitely mutual. So why didn't Samara care enough to come and check whether or not Miranda had survived her injuries?

“Thought I'd find you here,” Jacob's voice portended his arrival behind her.

Miranda uttered a faint snort. “My love of polluted water and crumbling bridges is notorious,” she remarked, looking out over the scene as Jacob joined her on the railing near the Thames. “You sound more chipper than usual.”

“Only because I've got good news. You know how they’ve been looking to move people off the streets and into any buildings that are safe to occupy? Well, guess who just got new digs,” Jacob announced, showing off a set of keys, thrilled to finally escape tent city. “Hard work pays off; they said I was ‘priority personnel’.”

“If you're waiting for a round of applause, you've got the wrong woman,” said Miranda, turning back toward the view over what was left of Westminster Bridge.

“You should be cheering. Everywhere I go, you go. Unless you prefer the bunk. Because I’m perfectly happy to leave you there,” Jacob jokingly remarked.

“No. Getting out of the cold would make a nice change. As long as I don't have to climb too many sets of stairs,” Miranda replied, unable to muster much enthusiasm given her prior ruminations. Even though leaving Hyde Park was a welcome prospect, it didn't exactly feel appropriate to start celebrating.

At the end of the day, they were still all alone.

“It's nothing too flash, and we'll be sharing with about ten other people. But it's an improvement,” Jacob said with a shrug and a smile. Miranda didn't respond, half-consumed in other thoughts. Jacob didn’t fail to pick up on her evasive behaviour. “What's up?” He stepped forward, sensing something on her mind.

Miranda's gaze wavered slightly, but she covered it. “It's nothing.”

“Look, not to put any pressure on you, but if you can't talk about it with me, who can you talk to?” Jacob reminded her, turning around with his back to the railing. Miranda couldn’t argue against that. But she wasn’t accustomed to leaning on others, having lived her entire life in the expectation of bearing everything alone.

“Allow me to rephrase – it's not any one specific thing. A lot's happened. I'm still processing it all, I guess,” she murmured, and that wasn't a lie.

“You didn't get bad news from the doctor, did you?” Jacob queried, concerned.

“No,” Miranda assured him, shaking her head. “That's all going better than anyone could have anticipated. Anyone who doesn't know me, anyway.”

Jacob was visibly relieved to hear that. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Not really,” Miranda muttered, preferring to keep her thoughts her own. 

Although, come to think of it, that wasn't entirely true. There was at least one thing Miranda could think of that Jacob might be able to provide more information on. Something that was weighing on her more heavily by the day.

“...Hey.” Jacob glanced up when Miranda broke the silence. “Not to change the subject, but how long did you say it had been since you last heard from Samara?” she asked, unable to shake the peculiar void left by her absence.

“Since before you woke up,” Jacob answered plainly, exactly what he’d told her last time. What's more, Jacob knew Miranda would have remembered that. She never forgot anything, unless she didn’t care enough to pay attention to it in the first place. “You worried something might have happened to her?”

“No,” Miranda coolly shot that down. “Samara has been fighting on her own for centuries. She can take care of herself. Hell, she's even more capable than I am, and she's the last person I'd expect to do something stupid to get herself hurt.”

“But you're worried,” Jacob pointed out, knowing her far too well to believe that deflection. Miranda sighed. He was right. She was. “Talking helps. Want to try?”

“I just don't understand it,” she admitted, seeing no sense in letting herself dwell on what troubled her longer than she already had. Besides, Jacob was the last identified person Samara had spoken to. Perhaps he could offer some insight that Miranda was lacking. “It's like she dropped off the face of the Earth. She really didn’t tell you anything about where she was going?”

“Nah. You know Samara,” said Jacob with a nonchalant ease, unperturbed by her disappearance. Yes, she did, Miranda thought. Better than Jacob realised. “She’s not the kind to leave a note. She just comes and goes as The Code wills.”

“But she should have been back by now. Or contacted us, at least,” Miranda mulled over the puzzle aloud. “Not even a word. Nothing. They aren't even bringing in survivors who claim she rescued them anymore. That's...” She trailed off, shaking her head slightly. That wasn't the Samara she knew. Or she thought it wasn't. There had to be an explanation. Maybe something had happened.

“I know what you're thinking,” Jacob began, well-acquainted with Miranda's single-minded determination to leave no problem unresolved. After all, she’d been the one to track down his father. “You can't go out there and look for her.”

“Of course I can't, Jacob; I have no clue where I'd start, even if I did have the resources to mount a search,” Miranda matter-of-factly replied, uttering a dismissive scoff. Not to mention that Miranda wasn't the type to get distracted from greater goals by personal matters. Aside from those times where she absolutely had. Those were clearly exceptions. “And that wasn't what I was thinking.”

“Then what was?” Jacob prompted, curious.

“I...I don't know,” Miranda admitted. Too many different things at once. Too many disconcerting possibilities, all borne from a common root. But, at the core, there was one kernel of doubt that seemed to cut deeper than any other.

What if Samara just didn’t care?

For as much as she tried to look for evidence to convince herself otherwise, she couldn’t disprove it. If Samara wasn't hurt, then that meant she was staying away by choice, even though the last time she had seen Miranda she was laying on a hospital bed, with no certainty whether she would live or die.

She hadn’t even lingered long enough to receive confirmation that Miranda was going to wake up before she went off to do what her Code demanded. And she hadn’t returned to learn what had become of her.

Even complete strangers likely would have followed up on the condition of someone they rescued, right? Code be damned, there was no excuse for abandoning her on what could have been her deathbed. Miranda thought she and Samara were close enough to mean something to one another.

But obviously they weren't that close, or else Samara would have been here.

That realisation left Miranda with an alien sensation in her chest that she couldn't entirely describe, and one which she was uncomfortable talking about.

She’d never been...rejected by anyone before. Discarded. Cast aside.

Was this what that felt like?

“I've never known you to not know what you're thinking,” Jacob observed.

“I wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for her,” Miranda acknowledged, meeting Jacob's gaze, her eye no doubt betraying some element of her inner turmoil over this. “She's the only other one of us who we know for a fact survived. But I never got the chance to see her or thank her or ask her how she is. She hasn't even come back to check on my condition, or say one final goodbye. Maybe you don't agree but...that doesn't sound like the Samara I knew.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. You know she checked on you,” said Jacob, folding his arms as he sat back against the railing. A fleeting shift of expression flitted across Miranda's brow. “I know you didn’t forget what I told you about how she reacted when the doctors wanted to turn off your life support.”

“No, I guess not,” Miranda quietly acknowledged. “But I wasn’t awake for that, so you’ll forgive me if it’s difficult to reconcile that with her current behaviour.”

“Look, I can't pretend that I get where she is emotionally, but...well, she's kind of like you, I guess,” Jacob supposed. “And that's how I know she was worried about you, because she expressed it exactly how you would have.”

“How would I?” Miranda asked, arching her eyebrow, with a hint of genuine doubt. She could honestly count the people she’d ever truly cared about on the fingers of her remaining hand, so she hadn't, to her recollection, ever had to cope with someone who was important to her being seriously hurt.

“You would bury yourself in your work and focus on it as hard as you could, because working gives you an outlet and keeps you sane, but you would go and check in whenever you had a free moment in order to stay updated,” Jacob explained. Miranda couldn't dispute that. “That's what Samara did with you.”

“For a couple of days,” Miranda added, making sure that specification wasn't overlooked. It did rather change the complexion of the situation. “Then she left.”

“Yeah. Because she's a Justicar, and she has a binding responsibility to every other victim out there. She’d be breaking her oath if she ignored it. Why are you taking it so personally?” Jacob asked, oblivious to the friendship that had been formed in the seclusion of the Starboard Observation Deck.

“I'm not, Jacob, I just...” Miranda trailed off.

She was taking it personally. She was reading into things that had perfectly logical explanations, moping around like a lost puppy, ignoring all the things Samara had done for her and all the signs that she wasn’t apathetic to her.

And maybe Jacob was right that she should have been satisfied with these answers. The Code was The Code, and Samara was always going to put her selfless service to justice ahead of anything else. What kind of friend would she be if Miranda didn't understand that – if she expected Samara to compromise her beliefs? Why couldn't she accept the obvious explanation as good enough?

“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” Miranda finished, shaking her head and walking away from the railing, tired and frustrated and no closer to feeling any better about Samara’s absence, or deciphering the meaning behind it.

To his credit, Jacob didn't push the issue.

*    *     *

A blue glow bathed the Starboard Observation Deck. Samara and Miranda meditated side by side. Miranda concentrated on the biotic ball she’d formed between her hands, keeping its shape steady. The simple task helped clear her head of conscious thoughts, allowing her to access a different state of mind.

She didn't even hear the door open.

“Is this a bad time to interrupt?” Shepard's voice broke Miranda from her trance, causing her to look back over her shoulder. Samara didn't even flinch.

“You would be welcome to join us, Shepard,” Samara extended a friendly invitation. “And my time is always yours if you require anything.”

“I was looking for Miranda, actually,” Shepard explained, giving a small gesture towards her to that effect. “I went to your office first, but EDI told me you were in here. I didn't realise you were busy. I'll come back later.”

“No, no, I'm free,” Miranda assured her, dropping her biotic field and getting swiftly to her feet. It didn't matter what hour of the day it was or how much she had already accomplished beforehand; work always took priority. That was what made Miranda so effective. “What do you need, Commander?”

“I've been thinking about implementing those upgrades Jacob and Garrus suggested to the Normandy's weapons and armour,” Shepard began.

“Good idea,” Miranda replied. Given what had happened to the old Normandy when it faced an attack from the Collectors, any advantage they could get going forward would be a wise investment. “Where do I come in?” she asked. Shipbuilding was one area in which she could offer little to no expertise.

“These upgrades require rare minerals. EDI can scan nearby planets, but if you could do some research and narrow down a list of planets that might be rich in the minerals we're looking for, it would save a lot of time and fuel,” said Shepard.

“Certainly. I'll have a list of suitable candidates ready by morning,” Miranda obliged her request, turning to Samara. “We'll pick this up again some other time.”

“I look forward to it,” Samara cordially replied as her guests took their leave.

Just as they both stepped towards the door, Miranda noticed a strange smile on Shepard's lips. Miranda eyed her Commander suspiciously, but made no comment until after they left the room, and were out of Samara's earshot.

“Do I want to know why you're smirking?” Miranda remarked as she walked at her side, keeping her voice low, lest anyone else overhear.

“I don’t know. Do you?” Shepard quipped, approaching the elevator. Miranda didn’t even indulge that with sarcastic laughter. “I’ll admit; I didn’t peg you as the type to make friends aboard the ship. It's nice to be proven wrong.”

“What, because I'm supposed to be incapable of basic social interaction? I'm perfectly civil, Commander.” Shepard looked like she could have voiced disagreement on that, but elected not to. “But, I will be honest; I do enjoy Samara's company over that of anybody else on the ship.”

“Even over me?” Shepard joked, hitting the button to call the elevator.

“Yes,” Miranda answered frankly. Helping her protect Oriana meant Shepard had earned her trust in a way few ever had, and the closer they grew the more Miranda found to like, but Andrea still only came in about third, behind Jacob. They may have butted heads a lot, but after everything they'd been through together he took a sentimental edge. “If that makes us friends, then so be it.”

Shepard chuckled at her blunt honesty, unoffended. “Not that my opinion matters, but I think this is good for you – being friends with Samara.”

“...But?” Miranda filled in the blank, sensing there was a caveat.

Shepard sighed as she waited for the elevator. Evidently Miranda was right, even if Shepard hadn't intended to voice any reservations she might have held aloud. But Miranda had broached the subject, so it was unavoidable.

“Despite popular opinion, you've never struck me as someone who says or does things to upset people on purpose. Samara's a lot wiser than I am, so I don't doubt that she realises that too. Just be careful with her, okay?” Shepard advised.

“Careful? With what?” Miranda didn't hide her puzzlement. “Samara's a matriarch. She's a strong woman, in every sense of the word.”

“Yes, she is,” Shepard concurred, her tone unchanging. It was clear from her expression that she'd spoken to Samara a lot, following Morinth’s demise. “But even the strongest of us have things we hold close to our chest, for good reason.”

“I'm not an idiot, Commander. I understand what she's gone through recently. I've done my best to support her. Not that it's any of your business, for the record,” Miranda noted. She didn't need to justify herself, or prove her good intentions.

“No. You're right. It's not.” Shepard raised her hands as if in surrender, backing off. Evidently she wasn’t looking to criticise Miranda or make her get defensive. “And I appreciate you being there for her. I'm sure Samara does too,” she said sincerely, glad Miranda had been so considerate of Samara's emotional well-being, although it was completely unexpected given her usual demeanour.

“So what's the problem?” Miranda confronted the issue directly, not about to let this go until Shepard shared her thoughts, whether she wanted to or not.

“There is no problem. I meant it when I said I think this is good for you. Both of you.” Andrea ran a hand through her hair as the elevator finally arrived, sensing Miranda would hold it against her if she didn’t speak her mind. “But you do have a tendency to be so focused on what matters to you that you don't take the thoughts and feelings of others into consideration, even where it affects them.”

Miranda paused. “No. I don't agree with that,” she responded. She wasn't offended by Shepard's opinion, but she thought it was misplaced. “Of course I take others into account when I make decisions, where it’s relevant. If I cared that little about people, I wouldn't be trying to save humanity from the Collectors.”

Somehow, Shepard didn't seem surprised by that answer.

“I’m not saying you don’t care. And I’m sure you don’t do it deliberately. I’m just saying you can be a bit...careless with people’s feelings sometimes. And it can read as insensitive,” Shepard advised, choosing her words delicately.

“Isn’t that their problem?” Miranda countered. “How other people choose to interpret me is their business. But I’ve never had that problem with Samara.”

“None of this is meant as an insult. I just don't want you to inadvertently say or do something you'll regret. That's all,” Shepard clarified as she stepped into the elevator, keen to let this go. It really wasn't that big a deal, and it certainly wasn’t an indication of any distrust. It had barely been worth mentioning.

“Something I'll regret?” Miranda echoed, furrowing her brow, wondering if Shepard knew something she didn’t. “Like what?” Miranda stared in confusion as the elevator doors closed, leaving her alone with her question unanswered.

Miranda frowned in puzzlement. What a bizarre conversation.

She didn't understand what Shepard was getting at, or where that had come from. She'd never confronted Miranda for tactless behaviour before. Her mind did hark back to the incident with Samara in that very spot a few days ago, wondering if word had spread that Miranda had caused her to storm off, but Andrea hadn’t mentioned it as an example. She’d only spoken in hypotheticals.

If that incident had been what sparked Shepard’s concern, it wasn’t like Miranda needed a warning. While she still wasn’t sure what she’d said to cause offence, Miranda had been more cautious since. Besides, Samara was a rational adult; she was perfectly capable of telling Miranda when she crossed a line.

Why was Shepard so concerned about Samara's well-being all of a sudden, anyway? Samara may have suffered a great tragedy, but she was by no means fragile. She was a Justicar, for crying out loud. Words weren’t going to hurt her.

Certainly, taking her daughter's life had been a profoundly heart-rending experience, but like the resilient person she was Samara hadn’t let it destroy her. If anything, she’d come out better for it. Miranda admired that about her.

Nevertheless, Miranda was no fool. It went without saying that she wasn't stupid enough to say something flippant about what had transpired with Morinth. She’d witnessed Samara’s sorrow firsthand. And, despite Shepard’s concerns, Miranda didn't discount Samara’s feelings as an irrelevance. Far from it

She wasn't a loose cannon like Jack. Miranda was nothing if not professional. She was never at risk of being incapable of moderating her own behaviour. She had a low tolerance for incompetence, admittedly, but otherwise she treated people with basic respect. Why the hell did Shepard of all people feel the need to caution Miranda about something she was already doing faultlessly?

Unless Shepard knew something about Samara that Miranda didn't...

Hmm. Now that was a thought.

*    *     *

“It's been a month. You can’t honestly be convinced that it is worthwhile to continue looking for survivors,” said the President of the European Council, communicating via a secure channel from somewhere in rural France.

Brussels had been hit hard early in the Reapers’ invasion, as had all of Earth’s major centres. For their own safety, any world leaders who hadn't been indoctrinated or killed during the invasion had been smuggled into remote locations by various special forces. With the Alliance Parliament destroyed and the bulk of military leadership currently outside the Sol system, that meant supranational governments were now the highest authority ground-side.

“How can we stop now?” Miranda asked, refusing to accept that instruction. “I understand making tough decisions, but this is unreasonable. If we give up, then not only are we abandoning parts of the city we could otherwise be expanding into, but we're condemning anyone out there to an almost certain death. That window of opportunity isn't going to be open for much longer.”

“What window? We won't find anyone alive at this point,” The President proclaimed. “Search and rescue is no longer a priority; our focus must be on consolidating our existing settlements, restoring infrastructure and ensuring our current population won't succumb to illness or starvation.”

Miranda sneered, tempted to interrupt her again. She'd been hearing this same message from authority figures non-stop since forcibly discharging herself from hospital and joining the relief effort, just in slightly different variations. She hadn't dragged her battered body back into action in order to be told to sit and wait as their already faint chance to save lives dwindled. But she didn't need to call the politician out on her bullshit. Someone was already speaking for her side.

“With all due respect, Madame President, every time it's been declared that it's 'too late' to possibly find anymore survivors, we've gone out and found people alive,” said Commander Bailey, the closest thing to a leader London had at the moment, for good reason. He'd been there to clean up the Citadel after Sovereign's attack. He knew a thing or two about how to react to wide-scale destruction.

“We're in the middle of London, not the bloody Sahara,” Miranda argued, managing to refrain from scowling at the holographic projection. “We’ve made contact with numerous outposts in various parts of the city, and the story is always the same. The power may be cut off, but with ingenuity and a bit of luck they’ve been able to scavenge enough food and water to sustain themselves.”

“Then what is the urgency?” The President countered, annoyed. Miranda’s eye narrowed. “If people are surviving outside the green zone, I am not stopping them.”

“The issue is that these isolated outposts won’t last forever,” Bailey explained, keeping an even tone. “They can only sit around and wait for the outside world to make contact for so long before circumstances force their hand. They don’t have the manpower to get nearby hospitals up and running, and they can and do run out of options. I’ve already heard reports of missing persons who left these outposts to look for other people, who haven’t been heard of since.”

“I can attest to how dangerous it is out there,” Miranda chimed in. “If they don’t think we’re looking for them, people will grow desperate, and risk everything to save themselves. Even if they remain where they are, supplies will run out. Every second we wait is sentencing probable survivors to slow starvation.”

“I understand that,” the European President sombrely replied, acknowledging that her decision would likely cost lives, “But we have to cut our losses and move on. Earth is a logistical nightmare. While we calculate the fallen, ships from every species in the galaxy continue to land. Every habitable city is already overburdened with their numbers. They were not prepared for this.”

“We have no control over that.” Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “You need to coordinate with the leaders of the other Council races. They decide when and where their people land. It’s their responsibility to take charge.”

“At the end of the day, they have no choice but to come to Earth,” the President responded, evidently having had those discussions. “The quarian fleet may be feeding the dextro-races for now, but none of the others brought adequate rations. God only knows how we're supposed to keep peace with angry, starving aliens behind the guns of battleships. They can't all go into stasis! We need to start producing again before everything we have in reserve is consumed.” 

“No offence, ma'am, but it's not our job to fix that,” Bailey said plainly. “We already have more aliens in London than we have the space or provisions for. That overcrowding is only getting worse by the day. Ordering us to sit around on our asses or to go become farmers isn't going to improve the situation.”

“Not when you phrase it like that, but you could be devoting your time and attention to tasks like construction, or send the ships you use to scour the wasteland to the countryside so workers can begin producing fresh food. And I don’t doubt that Ms Lawson could be a valuable asset if she turned her mind to formulating solutions for our broken mass relay,” the President pointed out.

“I appreciate the compliment, and I have every intention of addressing higher-level problems when people's lives aren't at stake,” Miranda responded.

The President shook her head, visibly stressed. “Why are you advocating for this, anyway? I've read your status reports on London. You don't have enough room or supplies for the survivors you've already found. How can you possibly justify wasting resources and manpower searching for more?”

“As we’ve tried to tell you, moving into other parts of the city and getting them up and running again is vital to London’s sustainability,” Miranda asserted. “I am not opposed to making sacrifices for the greater good – letting some die so that others might live – but what you're asking for is counter-productive until we have a viable base to build upon. We do have to expand the green zone now, before disease and hunger set in. It's our only chance of averting catastrophe.”

“But—“

“With all due respect, this is not up for debate,” Miranda cut the President off without any regard for her status. “We have no choice but to clear the roads and get infrastructure and supply lines working again, to locate habitable spaces, to find buildings that are intact, to reopen hospitals, to get people out of overcrowded parks and into temporary housing, or more suitable shelters. The fact that we still have a chance of finding survivors only adds to the urgency.”

“I'm in agreement with Ms Lawson,” said Bailey, presenting a united front. “Right now, our streets are flooded beyond capacity. As it stands, the situation is tenuous as best, and unmanageable at worst. There could be riots or epidemics if we don't act soon. We're already on the brink of famine. We'd be better off if we could offload the people who can't contribute into residential zones. Then maybe we can establish some form of order and start using the soldiers and volunteers who are still fit and healthy enough to be put to work to their full potential.”

“Every city on Earth is rife with these problems! Stop focusing on yourselves like you owe nothing to the rest of us!” the President all but spat. “Do you expect us to continue to divert resources to your relief effort indefinitely?”

“No, but I expect you to allow us to make do with the resources we have,” Bailey stated frankly. “And you could try and get the leaders of other species to stop interfering. I can’t make progress when I’m being undermined on all sides.”

Bailey was right. Contradictory orders from outside sources were becoming as serious problem, preventing him from exercising authority over those who hadn’t actively joined his relief effort as volunteers. It seemed like each separate military organisation was looking out for themselves, which meant they were reluctant to lend Bailey any assistance. A divided London was certain to fall to pieces.

Bailey may have been the closest thing London had to a recognised leader, but he was operating with little support outside of Alliance personnel. And, while there had been aliens from all species willing to step outside their own chain of command and take up work at their HQ, they were the exception rather than the rule. Most never abandoned their first loyalty to their own military.

They were doing damn well in light of the circumstances, to be sure, but things would be much better if he just had official approval to make a concerted push into unexplored parts of the city – to order people from every species to move out, instead of sitting idly by because they didn't know who to follow.

Miranda imagined the situation wasn't that different elsewhere on Earth. London just had it worse because of the vast numbers left stranded by the battle there.

Many with working ships had seen the sense in heading to other cities already, since London clearly couldn't support them all. In some ways, their departure was a good thing, but, in others, it was a waste. Those ships could have been useful, even if they’d only taken more refugees with them, instead of leaving them behind. The level of disarray and lack of communication only made it harder to reinstate any semblance of structure amid the chaotic aftermath.

“If you leave me no alternative, I can authorise Alliance military forces to take direct control of the situation in London, Commander,” the President warned. It wasn't a threat, just a step that wasn't out of the question. “I have trusted you to work in concert so far. But, if you cannot maintain order, someone must.”

Before Bailey could speak, Miranda stepped in.

“Paralysis is not 'order'. Although London may be a powder keg, we can and will keep it under control, but that won’t be possible while you ignore our advice. Unless we intervene now, London will collapse, and we will be forced to shift the burden of our population onto others. So, if you want to create fewer problems, I'd recommend you support our plan to expand and recover who and what we can,” said Miranda, following the example of a fallen friend in being diplomatic.

Honestly, Miranda thought it would have been more effective to shoot the politician and put someone competent in her place. But the President wasn't there in person, so she supposed that was off the table. Solving problems with speeches had always been Andrea's strength rather than hers. Miranda just hoped some of Shepard's uncanny luck and charisma had rubbed off on her.

The President paused, giving Miranda's words some thought.

“Very well,” she reluctantly conceded. “I will authorise a drive to expand our habitable territory across all cities, including London, and I will speak to representatives from other species to ensure cooperation in this endeavour. But be warned that, if this is unsuccessful in rectifying your problems, then that is on you. There will be no more excuses. Following this, I will divert excess resources and personnel away from London and into arable parts of Europe. I think you'll find others will not do you the kindness of giving you such forewarning.”

“Thank you, Madame President,” said Bailey, politely nodding his head and saluting before the transmission was abruptly terminated. He sighed. “Well, that's a start,” he remarked. Most of the time, the outlook was so bleak that all one could do was pretend that days like these counted as good ones.

In a sense, they were. Better than the bad days, at least.

“It's not a start. This should have happened weeks ago, and we never should have had to fight for it,” Miranda spoke, her voice strained with frustration, masking a faint wince as she leaned on her crutch. “Anyway, I should get to work. We have to compensate for the delay this political posturing has caused us.”

Her physical discomfort didn’t escape Bailey’s attention.

“For as much as I admire your dedication, you know you’re more use to me alive than dead,” he commented, folding his arms like a disapproving father. Thankfully not in the same manner that would have described Miranda's, though. “You’ve done an outstanding job, Ms Lawson. Now take some damn medical leave.”

“And sitting on my arse would accomplish what, exactly?” Miranda countered, fed up with copping flack for doing the work everyone else was either too stupid or inept to do. Whether Bailey was joking or not was irrelevant, given her mood. They needed her. She made strides that others didn't, and accomplished what others couldn’t. She was the best. “Honestly, you're starting to sound like Jacob.”

“You say that like it's an insult. He’s a sensible guy. You should listen to him,” Bailey remarked, audibly smirking. He was a gruff, serious man, but he did seem to enjoy riling Miranda up in jest. Probably because she could take it. That and her desire to shut him up was a powerful motivator; it brought out her tenacity.

“Why bring this up now?” Miranda asked, perplexed, and a little suspicious, limping along beside Bailey as she followed him out into the hallway. “You know I was being treated for sepsis when I first contacted you, right? This is the least incapacitated I’ve been since I started working here.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Sepsis? Really?”

“I defy medical explanation,” Miranda dryly replied. That wasn’t an exaggeration either. But that was a long story. Too long to get into right now. “Point is, I know I haven’t done anything to make you question my reliability all of a sudden.”

“Maybe not, but you sure as hell do look exhausted at the end of the day. And right now,” Bailey observed, suspecting she was pushing herself too hard.

“I like being exhausted,” Miranda answered honestly. It kept her mind off things.

At that, they came to a stop in the corridor. “Alright then. I'm not going to pussy-foot around this; the reason I bring this up is because I figure you want to do with this operation what you did with the Wolfe Gang at the hospital,” he pointed out. “You plan to go out into the field in person if you can, don’t you?”

“Who's going to stop me if I do?” Miranda stated bluntly.

“I could have you detained, you know,” Bailey noted, though it was clearly an empty threat. “All I'm saying is, you're one of the privileged few who has an actual place to live at the moment. So, when we get the green light to go out into the field, just stay home that day. Don't go getting yourself killed on my watch.”

“Tell you what, I promise I'll rest when I can be sure you and your people would be even half as effective without me,” she remarked. It wasn't smugness, just truth. In fact, from what Bailey had come to know of her, this was practically humility. “Until then, I'd recommend you trust that I know what my body is capable of. My judgement has never been wrong yet.”

Bailey almost mustered a grin. Miranda had an attitude. Ordinarily, not a quality he liked. In fact, it might have made Miranda impossible to work with, if it weren't for the fact that she was exactly as good as she said she was and delivered better results than anyone else on his team as consistently as clockwork.

Noticing his response, Miranda softened. Much as she may have bickered with him, she knew she couldn't have accomplished what she had without Bailey's help and unwavering support. As an ex-Cerberus agent, people were unlikely to follow her. Being a former member of the terrorist group that had been attacking, slaughtering and conducting experiments on thousands of innocent people did not inspire confidence in a leader. Bailey, however, people listened to. People trusted him. And he allowed her to do her job, despite her past.

London needed somebody like him – somebody Miranda couldn't be. Moreover, he'd proven his competence. It was fortunate he hadn't been among the millions who sadly failed to make it off the Citadel in time to escape the Reapers.

Now, the Citadel was a smouldering wreck – scattered debris in the sky. Miranda supposed most of the people still trapped inside had died when the Citadel hit the mass relay, not in the massive explosion when the Crucible was fired. She wasn't sure which death was worse. But this wasn't the time to ask that.

“Well, are we just going to stand here all day, or are we going to make the most out of the time we've got left to get organised?” asked Miranda, patience running thin. She was ready to get back out into the wasteland, and make something amounting to a difference in this post-apocalyptic hell-hole.

Bailey nodded his head. “Best words I've heard all day.”

“Alright. I'll begin making arrangements,” Miranda affirmed.

“Oh, and Ms. Lawson?” said Bailey, stopping Miranda before she could hobble off. “Let Mr Taylor know you'll each be leading your own teams.”

Miranda's brow quirked, surprised Bailey was letting her go. “You're serious?”

“Start preparing your people; I don't want there to be any delays when we get approval to move out,” Bailey continued, dismissively waving his hand as he returned to his duties. “I'm counting on you, Ms Lawson; don't let me down.”

Once he departed, a small smile tugged at the corner of Miranda's lips, satisfied to have been given that opportunity. She knew the odds of finding anyone she knew personally were slim, but she'd be damned if she didn't want to turn every last ounce of strength she had in her body to combing the ruins for any trace of anyone who she served beside on the Normandy, living or dead.

She might even see Samara again.

*    *     *

“Hey.” Miranda glanced up when Shepard spoke to her. “You doing okay? You got pretty banged up back there.”

“I'm fine, Commander,” Miranda answered, trying not to wince. As fine as anyone could be after getting bullrushed by a yahg and nearly crushed to death. She was still pissed off at herself for letting her guard slip like that, sour about getting taken out of the fight. Miranda had fallen short of her own standards, and Shepard and Liara had been forced to fight the Shadow Broker alone.

“You're sure?” Shepard pressed, sounding concerned.

Miranda realised she was unconsciously nursing her ribs and made a concerted effort to stop. “I've had worse. I don't need to be rushed to medbay, if that's what you're asking. Besides, I think you’re needed.” She nodded her head towards Liara, aware of Andrea's existing relationship with her. “Take your time.”

Andrea followed her line of sight, realising what she was implying. “Thanks,” said Shepard, appreciating that Miranda was allowing them a private moment.

“See? Even I can be sensitive sometimes,” Miranda quipped.

Shepard smirked at her before following Liara deeper inside the ship, leaving Miranda alone in the control room, but for the holographic VI hanging about.

Miranda leaned back against a panel and glanced about herself while she waited, idly curious about the technology and resources that the legendary Shadow Broker once had at his disposal. Or, well, she supposed there was a new Shadow Broker now. Maybe there would always be one.

Cerberus had dealt with the Shadow Broker in the past, never on good terms. To Miranda's knowledge, The Illusive Man had always perceived the Broker as a threat and a potential enemy, refusing to use his services lest it avail the Broker of information he could turn against them. His caution had proven prescient when the Broker allied with the Collectors. But, now that they had seized his ship, Miranda was sure The Illusive Man would be eager to make use of it.

As Miranda examined the control room, she couldn't help but find it funny how dated most of the technology was compared to any Cerberus facility she’d worked at. Maybe that was deliberate. If everyone assumed the Shadow Broker relied on cutting-edge technology, using older models made his network harder to hack. More likely, the ship was just so old and keeping its location hidden was so crucial to the Broker's survival that he'd never been able to modernise.

Before she got more than a third of the way around the room, an open terminal nearby caught Miranda's eye. She recognised familiar names on the screen – the names of her squadmates. Checking to make sure nobody but the VI was watching, Miranda went to investigate, her curiosity piqued.

Browsing the terminal immediately revealed that these were the Broker's files on every relevant person aboard the Normandy. The Shadow Broker must have been accessing the data he held on each of them at the time they boarded his ship. There was information about everyone at her fingertips. Every single person.

If Liara intended to keep this information, Miranda didn't begrudge her for that. Smart. It was what she would have done, in her position. Given her relationship to Shepard, no doubt Liara would prefer to keep an eye on those closest to her.

As she scrolled through the list, her own name came up. Miranda checked that file first. Her eyebrow arched. Contrary to providing tactical intelligence, the information was distinctly...personal. It contained records of her online dating history, medical records, even messages between her and Oriana.

Hmm. Invasive. Was this how it felt when she did that to everyone else?

She didn't delete any of it from the server. Liara would know. Besides, she probably didn't have that much longer before Shepard returned, ready to leave.

There were still so many other names there, though. Thane. Kasumi. Jack. Garrus. Jacob. Mordin. Tali. Samara. Every single member of the team. She couldn't pretend she fully trusted every person on that list. She didn't, and many of them felt the same way about her. Even when it came to those she felt closest to, she couldn’t forgive herself if she let this information slip through her fingers. 

Miranda may have undergone something of a transformation since first joining the crew of the Normandy, but she hadn't changed that much.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Miranda synced her omni-tool to the Shadow Broker database, downloading as much of the data on her Normandy comrades as the system would allow her to. She wanted to know everything about everyone, leaving no trail behind for Liara to detect anything amiss.

As such, when she returned to her office that evening, Miranda couldn’t wait to dive into what she’d obtained. She had a wealth of options to explore.

Most of it turned out to be garbage, honestly. She read Jack’s terrible poetry, and Grunt’s extranet search history. She found out what movies Jacob was viewing, no surprises there. Those were all things Miranda already kept track of.

Other information was more...revealing. Things she wouldn’t have known otherwise. Information from years ago, not from aboard the Normandy.

As she closed Thane’s file, Samara’s name caught her eye. Miranda opened the Broker’s records on her without hesitation. Miranda would have been foolish not to. She’d touched on sensitive issues enough for it to become a recurring problem  – one that even Shepard had warned her about.

Any method that might aid Miranda in demystifying Samara’s past was a welcome one. Contrary to the popular saying, ignorance was not bliss. The longer she remained blind to any relevant information, the more likely it was that Miranda would repeat the mistake of saying something inadvertently offensive. If she did that too often, it would almost certainly damage their burgeoning friendship.

Second thoughts never crossed her mind.

The Shadow Broker only had so much intel on Samara. A conversation with her daughters. A list of possessions bequeathed to the Justicar Order. But it was still extremely useful; those names, dates and connections to Samara’s past around four hundred years ago made it significantly easier for Miranda to follow further leads, and track down more files related to her family on Thessia.

She didn't consider it an invasion of privacy to do so. It was just research. All this information was either on file with the Shadow Broker already, and the rest of the leads she hunted down were readily available to the public.

Well, not all of it. Some did require hacking into police records once she knew exactly where to look, but it still wasn't exactly a secret. At no point did it occur to Miranda to stop digging, or that she was going too far down the rabbit hole.

One by one, she started accessing files from that critical period, painting a detailed picture of Samara’s life around the time of her daughters’ diagnoses.

What she found was illuminating, to say the least.

In the years prior to becoming a Justicar, Samara had been living the most boringly, blisteringly normal upper middle class existence imaginable. She lived in a good neighbourhood in a four-bedroom house. Her bondmate was an associate at a prominent law firm. Samara was an actuary in a finance company. Their three daughters, close together in age, all attended the same prestigious school.

From the available evidence, it was clear Samara maintained an active social life. She had a gym membership. She played for her company's sports team. She attended community events with her neighbours and had a reputation as a rising name in her field, on the path towards potentially owning her own risk-management and financial advice company by the time she became a matriarch.

By all accounts, she was a typical, everyday, if high-achieving middle-aged mother. The sort of person nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to.

That had all changed, almost overnight.

Rila was the eldest daughter. She had been the first to be tested, and the first to be diagnosed as an Ardat-Yakshi. She was taken away almost as soon as the test results came back, before they even had time to process the news.

They probably only got about five minutes with her as a family before Rila was whisked away by the authorities, never to be held by either of her parents again.

The devastation of losing Rila in an instant hit their family like a tonne of bricks. Samara did her best to be strong and hold it together for the good of her loved ones, but everything unravelled around her with shocking speed. 

There was a record of medical notes from a counselling session (mandatory for parents of Ardat-Yakshi children) detailing how all appeared to be going well. Samara’s bondmate had just returned to work after a ‘nervous breakdown’. The psychiatrist seemed pleased with their progress, noting that both of them were doing their best to recover and support one another after their horrible news.

Only a few weeks later, there was a death certificate.

Samara's bondmate.

Suicide.

The official cause of death was exsanguination. According to the incident report, she was found in the bathtub. Victim's bondmate contacted police. Body discovered when she returned home from work, after collecting their children from school. No foul play suspected. A suicide letter was present on scene.

A copy of it was in evidence.

There was no way in hell Miranda was opening that. She couldn’t. Even the thought of it made her sick. The police report already said too much.

Samara's partner felt that this was their punishment. They'd been arrogant, ignoring the risks inherent in a pure-blooded union. She couldn't look at herself or Samara without seeing 'the curse' they had passed onto their child. She couldn't live with it, this sickness that they had unknowingly carried inside them. And, as Falere and Mirala approached testing age, she could not bear her fear that they would share their sister’s fate.

'I cannot love monsters,' she'd said, which meant she couldn't love Samara, her children, or herself. And she'd taken her own life to prove it, consumed by despair.

It was hard to imagine what Samara and her children had gone through. Samara couldn't have been oblivious to her partner's conflicted feelings following Rila’s diagnosis, or her struggle. But she had just been going about her day like any other day, putting on a brave face for her children, maybe daring to think that they could heal from this and find some semblance of normalcy, even without Rila...and she had come home to find the woman she loved dead in the bathtub.

In an instant, any hope they had of moving on with their lives had been snuffed out.

Nothing would ever be ordinary again.

Perhaps that explained why Mirala had turned into Morinth. Her behaviour had changed after her father's death. She became angrier, understandably. There were mentions of her becoming violent at school. She lashed out at teachers and fought with other students. All the while, her own test loomed nearer. They were monitored closely the whole time, Mirala and Falere, because of their sister's diagnosis. It was said to be a 50% chance they would possess the same illness.

Then Falere was officially diagnosed, only about two years after her elder sister. Mirala's test was due two years after that. Falere cooperated. Mirala didn't.

She knew she would fail the test, just like her sisters had, and that she would be forced to endure the same fate. So she ran the day she was scheduled to take it.

They found the body of her childhood best friend twelve hours later. The first person Mirala had melded with. The first person she'd killed. Morinth had still been a child at the time. She probably hadn't fully grasped that there was no way for an Ardat-Yakshi to safely meld with anyone. Maybe she'd hoped she didn’t have the syndrome. But it didn't matter. There was no going back from that.

The police had interrogated Samara, accusing her of facilitating her daughter's escape and assisting her in evading detection. Samara had insisted she had no clue where Mirala was. But she admitted that she felt responsible all the same.

In the transcript, Samara confessed that she had tried to emotionally prepare Mirala for what might happen, explaining to her that she might have to join her two sisters, and that she would live a life of seclusion and comfort. Instead of calming her, those words had stoked Mirala's panic and pushed her over the edge. It was no wonder she had stolen the opportunity to take flight.

Samara blamed herself for everything. Her daughters' condition. Her bondmate's suicide. Mirala's escape. The death of that poor, innocent child.

And everyone else blamed her too. She returned to her home alone, a pariah, locked away with the memories of her broken family, and society’s contempt.

Samara lost her job, citing poor performance. There were reports of vile, anti-pureblood vandalism on her home, never investigated. The child Mirala had killed, her mother had been Samara's friend once. They played on the same sports team. But not after that. Miranda deduced that much when her name came up on an assault and battery report against Samara. No charges were laid.

Miranda deduced even more from the next police report.

They'd been called to Samara's house by a frantic neighbour. Evidently, the only one who still gave a shit about her and didn’t despise her for the disease her children bore. She broke into her home when Samara didn’t answer her door or respond to phone calls, and she found her lying unconscious on the floor.

Samara had been prescribed drugs that Miranda recognised as common asari anti-depressants, and tried to overdose on them. There was a record of her admission to hospital, where she was held as an involuntary patient until she was deemed to no longer be a danger to herself. She was released back to the same empty home, the same hollow shell of a life, the same crushing isolation.

After that, there wasn't much information. Some updates on Mirala's presumed whereabouts, and crimes she was suspected to be responsible for. But for Samara, the next notable record of her was that conversation with her daughters the Shadow Broker had recovered. That was the day before Samara bequeathed all her possessions to the Justicars and swore her life to their Order.

Miranda could only speculate as to precisely when and how that decision came about. But she had no wish to dig deeper after the horrible things she’d already read. She had uncovered more than enough. More than she had any right to.

And, for the first time in her life, she felt rotten to her core.

Was this what Shepard had been warning her about? Had she known or sensed how deep Samara's wounds ran? Was that why she was wary of Miranda being careless with her trauma?

It was only as Miranda sat there processing that emotional rollercoaster that remorse began to bubble up inside her. Sure, she could justify it to herself that it wasn't really an invasion of privacy to learn things anyone present at the time would have known, because Miranda was nothing if not an expert and defending her own actions. But unearthing confidential records that went to Samara's mental state, her innermost thoughts, and her attempt at taking her own life?

Yeah, even Miranda felt uncomfortable with that.

She should have realised earlier that there was no separating the two. How could she read anything about such an intimate and painful part of Samara's past without crossing a few boundaries in the process? It wasn't like Miranda hadn't known what she was doing. She'd chosen to violate her trust and her privacy in the full knowledge and appreciation of what that meant.

She would have done this to everyone on the ship without a second thought. Hell, she already did, as a daily routine. She dug into their past. She hacked into their private messages. She spied on them. Not a single person on this ship didn't know how little Miranda cared to respect their agency.

So why did this feel so wrong?

Well, either way, Miranda had got what she wanted, right? She'd wanted to understand what happened in Samara's past and with her family in order to be able to grasp how profoundly it must have affected her and why she flinched at the mere mention of the subject. Now she fucking knew. Boy did she ever.

Be careful what you wish for. Because you might just get it.

*    *     *

Miranda was never truly satisfied with anything so one would have been forgiven for assuming from her complaints that she disliked their apartment. There was no way before the war that twelve people occupying a small three-bedroom apartment wouldn't have violated health and safety laws. There were way too many stairs she had to climb on one good leg. The water supply was spotty at best. And the bathroom situation was better left uncommented on altogether.

However, she was actually pleased with the upgrade. It was a relief to be out of tent city. For the first time since leaving the hospital, she had her own private space to sit and think. Since she wasn't a socialiser and was in no condition to battle the crowds in food queues, she tended to be the first person home. Even when she wasn't, if she wanted peace, she could head up to the roof with a laptop.

On that afternoon, about half her roommates were home, most of them in the kitchen and lounge area, either cooking dinner or hanging around shooting the breeze after a long day. Miranda kept to herself, seated at the small desk she'd set up in her bedroom, working on her computer, making the final preparations for her search and rescue team, ensuring everything was in order for tomorrow.

She'd already secured the assistance of Shiala and the Feros colonists. As promised, they were only too happy to help after Miranda had assisted them in securing the medicine they needed. They wouldn't be on Miranda's team as they didn't have any of the kind of specialised equipment necessary to be of immediate use to her, but they would be offering backup and support, helping evacuate any survivors and maintaining supply lines to and from the search front.

They would only have a couple of days, they had to make the most of this effort.

“Miranda,” Jacob's voice caught her attention. She hadn't heard him coming, something that almost never used to happen to her before her hearing was damaged. He was short of breath. She could tell he'd been sprinting across the city to get to her. “Whatever you’re doing, put it down; I got a message.”

“From Samara?” Miranda assumed, immediately getting up from her desk.

“No.” He shook his head.

Without another word, he handed over a datapad, leaving the room and closing the door behind him, electing to give her privacy. Miranda arched her brow in confusion and touched the screen. A video was already queued up.

She didn't dare to hope. Except she did.

“Hey, sis. It’s me.”

Miranda barely made it past the first word before the full force of seeing Oriana again hit her square in the heart. Her knees quaked, and she had to sit down fast as her weak leg buckled, almost collapsing onto the edge of her bunk bed. 

Her head swam from the shock, and she felt like she was about to fall off the face of the Earth. Suffice it to say she had not been emotionally prepared.

“I...don't need to tell you it's me, because this is a video message and you can see my face, can't you?” Oriana grimaced at her choice of words. “Ugh. Sorry. I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but I'm having a one-sided conversation with a black screen and not hearing you talk back to me. This feels so weird.”

“I know,” Miranda murmured, the soft glow of the screen illuminating the dark. 

“And now I'm rambling. Great start, Ori.” Oriana paused, swallowing heavily, her eyes downcast. “I don't know if you'll ever get this. Communication keeps blacking out everywhere, and...and well...I received a message from your friend, Jacob. I think it's old, but...He told me you were hurt pretty badly. That you were missing for five days. That you were in surgery for a long time. That you might not—”

Oriana's breath hitched, unable to speak that thought. Miranda's heart broke as she watched her sister struggle to blink back tears. That was her fault. She had forced her sister to bear that pain alone. She had made her worry like that.

“But, then...you're you, you know?” Oriana’s voice cracked as she spoke. “You might secretly be a huge nerd, but you're also an unstoppable, all-powerful space badass, so you have to be okay. You're going to hear my stupid rambling someday. And...we're definitely going to see each other again. We only just met, yeah?”

Miranda never normally cried. Except when it came to her sister. The first time she’d seen her. When she’d been forced to let her go. When, after nineteen long years, they finally met. But this? This didn’t only make her cry. This wrecked her.

Oriana's voice. Her words. Her fear and sorrow. It tipped her over the edge, and swamped her in a sudden surge of emotion that destroyed every wall in its path.

She broke down and wept like she’d quite literally never wept in her life.

“Whatever you did on Earth, it worked. You saved us. I mean, the mass relays are gone, but we're still alive, right? We have a chance at a future. We can come back from this. Somehow, we'll find a way. Someone will figure out how to rebuild them. It has to be possible. When that happens, you can come back to me. Or I can go to you. Whatever. We can be together in person again, like we're supposed to be. So you have to live to see it. If not for you, then for me.”

Miranda's fingers gently brushed the screen, certain the teardrops on her cheek mirrored the stains on Oriana's, the light of her image reflected on her skin.

“If you ever wake up, please send me a message. Even an email. Just let me know you're okay. I don't know if we'll be able to talk properly anytime soon with the Extranet the way it is. I imagine we're just two among billions trying to contact each other. But...fuck them; you’re the only one I care about.”

Through her tears, Miranda almost uttered a laugh at that. She and Oriana, they were both so different but...sometimes they were exactly the same.

“I love you,” Oriana said sincerely, unknowingly meeting her sister’s gaze through the cruel divide of time and space. “Please be okay.”

With that, the message ended.

The only thing Miranda did before recording her reply was wipe her eye and take a second to catch her breath. She had to reach out to her. Yes, she had already done so, but not as she truly was. Not openly. Not the way Oriana deserved.

She had to make right what she'd done wrong; she needed to be real.

She hit record.

“Oriana, I...I don't know if you've received the last message I sent you. To be honest, I don't care, because I just...I just got yours. Your first one.” Miranda brushed the hair out of her face. Doing that exposed her half-burned face, cotton and gauze concealing her now empty left eye socket. The tablet was far enough away that it clearly showed where her left arm stopped above the elbow as well.

“...This is why I only sent you a voice message before,” she confessed, realising this was the first time her sister would grasp the extent of her injuries. “I didn’t want to frighten you. And I didn't want you to worry about me. But...hey, at least people won't have any trouble telling us apart when you're older.”

Miranda managed a tearful smile. She'd never been good at jokes. She honestly didn't have an ounce of humour in her, thanks to her father's influence. The closest thing she had was sarcasm. But for Oriana, she would certainly try.

“It looks worse than it is,” she continued, glancing down self-consciously. “I'm not in pain. Not much, anyway. Not anymore. I'm already back at work, like I told you before. I...If that message got through. But I really am fine. I wasn't lying when I said that. I've never lied to you in your whole life, even when you didn't know me. Except...Except when I left for Earth and promised I'd come back.”

Her voice caught. Her breath choked and she shuddered as she fought back a sob.

“I'm so sorry.” Miranda’s resolve dissolved, pleading for forgiveness. “I'm so sorry I put you through that – not knowing if I was going to survive. And I'm sorry I came here because, if I hadn't, we wouldn't be stranded light years away when I swore to you that we were finally going to get to be a family. And I'm sorry because...I gave you my word I'd be back when I never truly believed I'd make it through this. But then, you already knew that, didn't you?”

More than anything else, that had been the one thing that ate away at Miranda's conscience, and kept her awake at night. For all the other harrowing thoughts that haunted her nightmares, none were worse than the fact that she knew she was lying to Oriana about her chances of returning.

Miranda had come to Earth fully expecting to die in the fight to save the galaxy. Maybe that had just been wishful thinking. Maybe she would have preferred that to living with the consequences of her cowardice, and facing responsibility for deserting Oriana to go play at being a hero.

She didn't feel like much of one now. Heroes didn't get their whole team killed.

“Please keep sending messages. I know I don't actually have to ask that of you. But I need to hear your voice, and not just because yours is a thousand times more positive than mine. Although that helps.” Miranda brushed the moisture from her eye, but it was in vain. “The only reason I am who I am today is because of you – because I had to protect you, and keep you far, far away from...you know who. Without you, there is no...'unstoppable space badass' or whatever you called me.”

Miranda couldn't help but utter an emotionally broken laugh at that. That was such an Oriana thing to say. Sometimes it seemed impossible that she and her sister really did share completely identical DNA. Oriana was so light-hearted and funny and empathetic, the exact opposite of Miranda in those respects. Nature versus nurture, and all that. They made a good study in which traits were which.

“...It was also your voice that kept me going after the shuttle crash,” Miranda confessed. “I was out in that wasteland for what felt like eternity. Alone. Hurt. But every time my body wanted to stop, I thought of you, and I kept going. Samara never would have found me if not for that. So please...stay in contact. I don't mind what you say. Just...something. Anything. As long as it's you.”

Words couldn't encapsulate how wholeheartedly she meant that. It didn't matter what Oriana said, or how stupid and inane she probably thought it was. Miranda would have killed just to hear her waffle on about nothing. Just to hear her speak. Just to know she was living her life.

It made all her sacrifices feel like they were a little less in vain, if they'd played any part in keeping Oriana safe, happy and healthy. Even if they hadn't, it made the vast distances between them feel a little smaller.

She sat in silence for a long moment, the numbers on the recording still ticking by. Even though she wasn't saying anything, she didn't want to end it. Doing so felt like severing that faint connection between herself and her twin, not knowing how many days, weeks or months it might be before she heard a reply. But time wasn't going to wait for her. She still had a job to do tomorrow.

She sniffed and straightened up, pausing to think if there were any last words she wanted to add. But there weren't. Not that occurred to her in that moment.

“I love you, Oriana,” she said – the only person Miranda had said those words to, and the only person for whom that statement had ever been true. “Goodbye.”

Miranda switched off the recorder. She didn't play the message back. She just sent it, and hoped it reached her sister quicker than the last.

Jacob didn't ask any questions when he came in to check on her when she was late for dinner. He just hugged her and let her process her mixed emotions in silence until the tears stopped flowing, and the sobs stopped tearing her throat.

*    *     *

Guilt was an emotion Miranda was not well-acquainted with.

Miranda rarely saw beneath the surface when it came to her perceptions of others, satisfied that her first assumptions were always correct. She never got close enough to anyone to care what they thought of her, or to spare a thought for the emotional impact of her actions. People’s personal feelings didn’t matter to her. And they weren’t Miranda’s problem. Hence, it was hard to have many regrets.

But that didn't apply to Samara.

In only a few short weeks, Miranda had grown to value Samara’s companionship in a way that was...completely new and unfamiliar to her. Miranda had never been allowed to have friends growing up. She’d never learned the skills necessary to make them. And, as she’d entered adulthood, her independent and self-sufficient nature (along with her difficulties relating to others) ultimately convinced her that she neither needed nor desired it. She hadn’t missed anything.

Samara was the first person she’d met who made Miranda appreciate what a genuine rapport actually entailed, and how it could enrich the quality of one’s life rather than needlessly distracting from it. None of the time she’d taken to get to know her had ever felt like a waste. Nor did those moments where Miranda had allowed herself to show vulnerability, and listened to Samara’s sage advice.

Unlike most other people, Miranda usually didn’t struggle to connect with her. Maybe that was because Samara wasn’t dominated by her emotions either. She didn’t react to things in irrational and unpredictable ways. She was perfectly capable of putting her personal feelings to one side, and talking things through logically.

Perhaps that was why, when something did upset Samara, Miranda tended to take it more seriously. And with good cause, because so far it was always something that made complete sense. Something even Miranda could understand.

The events surrounding her family were no exception. And that placed Miranda in a dilemma. Because she could foresee the reasonable consequences of her actions in violating Samara’s privacy if they ever came to light.

And, for once, she cared.

Scarcely a moment had passed since Miranda had gone digging into Samara's past without her consent that she hadn't second-guessed her decision, or wished she hadn't stumbled across the Shadow Broker terminal. She told herself it was a waste of time and energy to beat herself up over it. It was too late to undo it now. This exercise was pointless. But it didn't silence her unease.

On one level, she didn't think she should regret it. A voice in her head told her she shouldn’t feel compelled to apologise, because, technically, she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Not by her standards. It was nothing she wouldn't have done and hadn't already done to others a thousand times without blinking.

And, unlike other times, she hadn't done this to gain an advantage over Samara or to report it to The Illusive Man. Miranda's sole reason for investigating further into her background had been to gain a better insight into her, and to try to reduce her risk of accidentally upsetting her in future. Admittedly, those reasons were still selfish, but they weren’t malicious. It was only because she'd come to care about Samara as a friend that she'd delved as deep into her past as she had.

Conversely, it was only because of their friendship that Miranda was questioning her actions. It mattered if Samara felt betrayed or hurt by anything she’d done.

Even if she never found out, that didn’t exactly put Miranda’s mind at ease. Whether Samara realised it or not, Miranda had opened Pandora’s box and released her deepest secrets, and that lid could never be closed again.

Samara was her closest confidant aboard the Normandy, and now Miranda knew, in intimate detail, how the worst moments of her life had unfolded, unravelling the fabric of her entire family, leaving her with nothing but unimaginable grief and mournful memories. Her children's diagnoses. The suicide of her partner. Mirala's first murder. The way her friends and neighbours had turned against her. How Samara had attempted to take her own life.

Miranda knew all these things, and she could never un-know them. Every time she looked at her, that forbidden knowledge was there. And Miranda couldn't even express sympathy for what Samara had gone through, or comfort her, because doing that would expose her treachery. It just had to sit there in the pit of her stomach, an unspeakable transgression, perpetually gnawing away at her.

She’d never felt that before.

Miranda had lived her life without shame, never once craving absolution for any of her sins. She’d never lost sleep over the people she wronged in pursuit of her own ambitions or the furtherance of Cerberus’s goals. She was always justified.

But not here.

For the first time she could recall, she craved forgiveness. But she was too afraid to confess and repent, for no other reason than because Samara’s opinion of her might be permanently damaged if she revealed what she’d done. And Miranda couldn’t reconcile with losing her, even if she deserved to.

She hadn’t been this scared in a long time. Not since she was a child, hiding minor mistakes from her father and his disproportionate retribution.

In retrospect, Shepard’s warnings to be careful with Samara made perfect sense. More than that, they’d been prescient, a prologue to future events. 

Was this what Shepard had been referring to? Had she known all along? Shepard did have an uncanny ability to understand people. Maybe she'd recognised the hollow heart Samara carried with her. Maybe they’d talked about it.

And to think, all this time, Miranda had assumed Samara was at peace with her past, troubled only by Morinth’s murders and recent death, purely because she didn't let her pain show. Between the two of them, Samara always seemed like the stronger one. Then again, maybe she still was. She had persevered despite what she had endured. Miranda had been damaged far worse by far less. 

Well, either way, Andrea had been right; Miranda had done something she regretted. Just as Shepard predicted, Miranda had been so narrowly focused on pursuing her own desire to learn more about Samara's history that she had barged through any barrier of privacy like a battering ram without sparing so much as a thought to her wishes, or how she would be affected by that.

She should have listened to her. She should have left it alone.

“Miranda?” Samara prompted Miranda to open her eyes. “I understand that we are meditating, but...” Samara trailed off, visibly searching for the right words.

“But what?” said Miranda, too frustrated with herself to be self-conscious.

“You seem quiet,” Samara tactfully pointed out. Maybe it wasn't the quiet itself that struck her as odd, since she and Miranda could spend hours in the same space without exchanging a word, but the tension she sensed in it.

“I'm just...concentrating,” Miranda assured her, dodging the question. That slight hesitation didn’t go unnoticed, confirming Samara’s suspicions weren’t misplaced.

“If something troubles you, perhaps I can be of assistance,” Samara offered.

Miranda's teeth grazed her lower lip. Samara's unconditional kindness twisted the knife. It was a stark reminder that Samara would never have betrayed Miranda's trust. “No. I think this is one of those cases where I need to help myself.”

“Very well,” Samara respected her wishes. “I am here if you need me.”

“Hmm.” Miranda glanced down. Perhaps there was something. “I never apologised to you for upsetting you the other day, did I?” she asked, well aware that she hadn't. “I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have pushed you into that conversation.”

“Your apology is not necessary, and I should not have reacted in the manner I did. There is much which I have not told you, or anyone else aboard this vessel. You cannot be expected to intuit all that may cause me discomfort. But I thank you for apologising,” Samara graciously replied, forgiving her mistakes.

“You know, I think you're the first person I've spoken to who doesn't make me feel humiliated for admitting I'm wrong,” Miranda acknowledged. If only everyone was as easy to talk to as Samara. Maybe she’d do it more often.

“Show me any person who has never been wrong in their life, and I will show you a liar,” Samara replied, a relaxed smile tugging at her lips. “Though we should all aspire to better ourselves, no one should be shamed for imperfection.”

“Tell that to my father, if you ever meet him,” Miranda remarked.

She did feel better, having made some small amends to Samara for something, even if it wasn't what she ought to have expressed remorse for. But it didn't lift the weight from her mind, every moment a conscious reminder of what Samara had gone through with her family, and the private grief she still bore.

But, come to think of it, maybe Samara didn't have to carry that all alone.

“...Samara, can I ask you a personal question?” Miranda began. Samara tilted her head, receptive. Miranda wasn't so sure that would last once she asked what was on her mind. “Can you tell me about your bondmate?” she said, genuinely wanting to be able to connect with more of that part of  her life. Only, this time, she wanted to do it the right way. “Only if you're comfortable with it.”

Needless to say, Samara was taken aback by the abrupt question. She glanced down, her gaze heavy. “Forgive me, I find it very difficult to speak of her.”

“Of course you do,” Miranda replied in a sigh, understanding why. How could she be so stupid? It wasn't any of her business. “You're right. I shouldn't have—“

“It was strange. I had never considered myself to be unhappy in my life prior to that point. But, when I was with her, I realised I had never truly known happiness, or love,” Samara reminisced, her voice soft and wisftul. “She completed me, and elevated me. I can say with no falsity that she made me a better person.”

Miranda didn’t interrupt, watching the expressions play across Samara’s face as she drifted into thought, remembering brighter days from a distant lifetime.

“I had just returned to Thessia, for my mother’s funeral,” Samara explained. “Her passing was...very sudden. I had not been told that she was ill, so it was...difficult to bear. I could not accept it, or comprehend that my chance to reconcile with my mother before the end had, in essence, been stolen from me. I harboured a great deal of anger and resentment towards my sisters over this.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Miranda said quietly, certain she would have felt the same had she been in her position. Not that she had a family of her own to compare with.

“One day, a complete stranger approached me at the temple of the Goddess, and wanted to know if I was okay,” Samara recalled their first encounter. “She had seen me there several times recently, and was concerned that I always seemed so upset. She bought me a cup of tea and something to eat and listened to me bare my soul. I do not know if I could have endured that day without her,

“I do not remember the things I said,” Samara continued. “But somehow she must not have thought me a raving madwoman, because we kept spending time together, and within a few weeks we had already become close friends. We were friends for over two years before I recognised that I had fallen in love with her.”

“What was she like?” Miranda said curiously, eager to learn more about the woman she'd only read about in police reports and medical records, and about the life she and Samara shared together for nearly a century.

“She was a strong woman, but gentle. Devout in her faith. She never harmed a soul in her life,” Samara described her, unable to help but smile fondly at her memory. “She was stalwart in her convictions, but never harsh or severe. She was warm and kindhearted, sometimes to a fault. I learned much from her.”

“Isn’t it taboo for asari to be together?” Miranda asked, prepared for Samara to stop her if her questions crossed a line. “Did that...affect you when you started dating? Were either of you uncomfortable with changing your relationship?”

“I had no concerns, but she did initially, yes. However, it is not so rare as one might think; I can guarantee that there are far more asari who have melded with another asari than there are those who have not,” Samara assured her. Though that couldn’t be proven, Miranda trusted her authority on the matter. “And is not forbidden to become bonded or produce children. While social stigma does exist, the law does not permit discrimination against purebloods, or asari-asari unions.”

“But it happens anyway,” Miranda stated the obvious. Just because it was illegal to discriminate didn't mean people didn't find ways to act upon their prejudices.

“Yes,” Samara conceded. “Unfortunately, the world we live in is an imperfect one, built upon the flaws of imperfect people. She sought to fix it, which is why she pursued a career in law after we met. Her idealism was ill-suited for a system that fosters inequality, privileging the corrupt and disadvantaging those who value character over personal gain. She fought for justice, but rarely found it.”

“You do the same,” Miranda observed.

“I was not the person then that I am now,” Samara reminded her. “Though I believed myself to be otherwise, I was less compassionate towards others, and prone to moral relativism. I had less sympathy for the plight of others, and thought they should be self-reliant. Some of my views had merit, and not all of them have changed, but I was misguided. I did not appreciate how fortunate I was.”

“But you've become nothing if not a crusader against injustice, just in a different way than she aspired to. You defend the defenceless, and cut through the bureaucratic red tape that allows corruption to thrive. I’m sure she’d be proud of that if she saw you now,” Miranda postulated, hoping she took some comfort in that.

“Perhaps,” Samara neither agreed nor disagreed. “But my endeavours are distinct from hers, in that no Code ever compelled my bondmate to be virtuous. She just was. She walked the righteous path of her own accord. To the extent that she was able, she was tireless in her efforts to advocate for clients who fell through the cracks in the system, and those whom the laws of Thessia failed.”

“That sounds very noble, but if she worked at any reasonably sized firm she was more likely representing the rich than the poor. And every lawyer ends up on the wrong side of a dispute at some point. It's part of the job,” Miranda stated frankly.

“You are correct. She was often forced to act against her conscience. She said it was worth it in order to keep her job, so that she could continue to use her status and position to assist those clients whose cases genuinely mattered to her at no cost. Those moments were truly rewarding to her. However, they were few and far between. I knew she struggled with this,” Samara confessed.

Miranda noticed Samara's thumb was unconsciously tracing circles on the back of her other hand. She didn't think she'd ever seen her fidget before. It occurred to her that this was probably the most openly she'd reflected on her bondmate in a very long time. Possibly since her death. It was obviously a painful subject to bring up. But that didn't seem to be deterring her. Maybe this was cathartic.

“She was very different from you or I,” Samara continued. “You thrive when challenged to your limits. Pressure does not defeat you; it fuels you. The more tirelessly you work, the stronger you become. But this was not so for my bondmate. The stress undid her, and gnawed away at her. She was often overburdened and overwhelmed, and began to buckle under the weight. When she came home, she dreaded answering the phone, afraid it would be work. I loved waking up in the mornings and facing the day ahead. She loathed it.”

“That doesn’t make you different.” Miranda shook her head. “You describe your bondmate as gentle and kind. I might be neither of those things, but you certainly are,” Miranda pointed out. Samara had never been otherwise towards her.

“No. In this, you and I are alike. You are a hard woman, as I am. And I was moreso then,” Samara quietly confirmed. “Perhaps that is why I failed to grasp how heavily her work weighed upon her. I misconstrued it as mere frustration, even as she became unwell emotionally. After she passed, I...” Samara stopped suddenly, taking a long moment to compose herself. “I often thought if I had been softer, she would have confided in me. And I could have saved her.”

“People aren't unbiased judges of their own state of mind. It isn't your fault if she didn't tell you. She probably didn't want to acknowledge it herself. Or maybe she didn't want you to worry,” Miranda comforted her. It wasn't fair for Samara to blame herself for her partner's mental illness. She had no control over that.

“With respect, I have thought about this a great deal over the centuries,” Samara replied, her voice calm, but layered with deep, unabating sorrow. “In retrospect, it would not have altered her fate. Because I would not have listened.”

Miranda blinked, taken aback by that frank statement.

“There were signs that her health was in decline and our relationship was deteriorating that I was too blind to see,” Samara admitted. “We were under strain. And I was not sensitive to her needs. I was always pushing her to be resilient – to be an example to our daughters. When something was amiss, I would say, 'weather this, and it will pass, and you shall be the stronger for it.' I did not know then as I know now that it cannot always be so. I was too rigid and simplistic. Arrogant, even. Would that I had heeded her sooner.”

Samara trailed off into troubled silence. Miranda didn't know what to say to that. She couldn't comprehend living with that level of regret. The closest thing she could imagine was if she had never rescued Oriana from her father.

Even if the blame was unwarranted, how could someone ever forgive themselves if they felt responsible for...essentially killing someone they loved?

But Samara’s bondmate had a lot to answer for too. Far more than Samara did. She may not have been in her right mind, but her actions had hurt the woman she claimed to love so deeply that it damn near destroyed her.

Miranda’s first instinct was to think it selfish and cowardly to abandon her family rather than face reality. But, intellectually, she knew that was simplistic. Medical opinion was clear that depression and anxiety didn’t work that way; it wasn’t a moral failing or a question of willpower. That was her father’s influence talking. Besides, Samara had been driven to the same despair too, and she was far from weak. Samara had the most unshakable resolve of any person Miranda knew. 

Still, Miranda couldn’t understand what would make someone want to do what she’d done, or why Samara wasn’t angry at the mere mention of her.

Could someone ever forgive the person they loved for taking their own life?

“...Do you still love her?” Miranda asked, aware of the painful way their relationship had ended, and grasping to some degree the hurtful things her bondmate had said in that letter. Perhaps it was a stupid question, but she'd never felt anything like what Samara had described, so she didn't know.

Samara glanced down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. “Eternally.”

As their conversation trailed into silence, a strange sense of relief washed over Miranda. That gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach faded. Samara had willingly shared information about that part of her life. It was out in the open now. She had tacit approval to know...most of what she knew.

Even though she wished she had not sunk to employing those underhanded methods, Miranda had come to better understand the ever-present shadow that Samara carried with her. It wasn't always on the surface, and it didn’t mean the moments where she was visibly happy were fake. They were real. But echoes of her past lingered, inescapable. And she would always bear that heartache.

In the span of less than five years – which, to an asari, was the equivalent of a couple of months – Samara had lost everything that gave her life meaning. Her bondmate. Her children. And it had broken her. At one point, she believed she'd had nothing left to live for. Yet somehow she had found the strength to rise from the ashes like a phoenix and keep living. She'd survived, and endured.

Anyone who was privileged enough to be privy to that part of her story could only marvel in awe upon recognising what an astonishing feat that was.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me,” said Miranda, appreciating that she had indulged her petty questions. “I know it’s hard for you to talk about.”

“It is,” Samara acknowledged, visibly drained by their conversation. “And yet...if I am not mistaken, you may be the first person who has asked me to.”

Miranda arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Justicars do not discuss the people we once were with one another. And I have travelled alone for a very long time,” Samara informed her, her voice barely above a quiet whisper. “...I am grateful that you encouraged me to speak of her again, but...from now on, I think it would be best to focus on the task ahead.”

“Of course. I agree.” Miranda nodded her head, taking that as an indication that Samara was not prepared to reveal anything further, and did not wish to dwell on her past more than she already had. Miranda didn’t have a problem with that. Samara wasn’t obligated to reveal anything she didn’t want to.

Miranda still regretted not respecting that boundary sooner, but her failure just made her all the more committed to never breach Samara’s trust again.

She couldn’t erase what she’d done, but she could change her behaviour going forward, and prove herself worthy of Samara’s confidence. She deserved that, especially if Miranda truly was the closest thing to a friend she’d had in centuries.

“You really are an incredible person, Samara,” Miranda told her.

Samara held her gaze for a moment, meeting Miranda with a faint effort at a smile that never reached her weary eyes. “I am not, but thank you for saying it.”

*     *     *

[whydidireadthis]

Dark Reign...a brief look.

Events.

The word alone is enough to make a superhero comic reader fight their understandable gag reflex.

In the 80s, confronted with a capricious market, the genre powerhouses Marvel and DC experimented with “events” -- limited crossovers of numerous characters for a singular storyline. DC had been doing this annually as a tradition, typically between the Justice League and the Justice Society. However, their company crossovers were cranked up to eleven around the mid-80s, and Marvel decided to give it a try.

Both companies decided that events were the thing of the future. The main reason for this is because they could very easily make series seem to tie into the main crossover’s storyline and, thus, wring out a few more bucks from hapless readers who didn’t know any better. It’s also worthy of note that this same initial period is the period where the expression “red-sky crossover” comes from.

If you didn’t know what that meant, it means “a book advertised as being a part of an event that only includes some superficial aspect of it”, which specifically refers in its name to the many “crossovers” of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Many had nothing really to do with the main story, which was ridiculously dense and a massive clusterfuck that could have used decompression into other books; instead, the labeled “crossover” would feature something like the red sky from the main Crisis books and have someone comment on it, then the rest of the story continued on as normal.

Classy.

But after that little bit of setup, let me just segue into saying that Civil War was the event to end all events. And by that, I mean it was the absolute nadir for the superhero genre and unequivocally the worst “event” ever conceived, figuratively and literally destroying countless characters and making it impossible to repair the genre into what it should be: super-powered champions in iconic costumes fighting back against evil, villainy, and oppression.

Days of Future Crap

Civil War took an old, tired X-Men plot (which was probably why the X-Men were largely absent from it) and decided to rehash it one more time, except worse somehow. And as much as I hate the “Marvel cinematic universe”, I have to admit -- without it coming along to build some characters back up, they would have been completely and utterly unusable after Civil War made them into nasty little fascists...the exact thing most superheroes love to punch right in the face, for good reason.

But after Civil War tore the real Marvel Universe apart, alienated longtime readers in droves, and brought extremely short-lived sales boosts that petered off almost instantly, Marvel found themselves stuck for what to do. Eventually, they went with the sure bet of Skrull fuckery, because Skrulls could change shape. That worked, right? Sure! Even if it did completely ignore or contradict decades of established continuity in so doing, as with garbage -- which you would rightly clock as garbage from the title alone -- like Skrull Kill Krew.

And after the yawn that was Secret Invasion, which was basically just an excuse for more graphic violence and “shocking” twists, then came the brusque push into Dark Reign.

In many ways, Dark Reign kind of exemplifies the worst tendencies of the superhero genre since 2000, that period of over-the-top violence and flagrant disrespect for beloved characters and teams, but also tries to include some genuinely good ideas and concepts. There’s good stuff in there, which is far more than anyone could say about, for example, Civil War or Secret Invasion.

Unfortunately for Dark Reign, it also stuck around just short of for-fucking-ever, and it gave us remarkably little in return for our investment of time. And money, because over 200 issues, at a very reserved estimate, carried the Dark Reign tie-in label.

And that’s really its biggest problem: it was an idea that was conceived with no scope in mind. Marvel editorial wanted, they claimed, to get away from the concept of “events” as essentially limited series storylines with tie-ins, which came and went relatively quickly.

Well cry me a fucking river, since they started that shit in the mid-80s and rode it for over twenty years while readers complained every god damn time an “event” came along and derailed the story and characters to tell its comparatively stupid one.

Ahem. But I digress. The main problem was that Dark Reign was an event, without actually being an event. It’s a lot like my feelings about superhero stories that are totally superhero stories, they know they’re superhero stories, but they act like they’re too good to admit that and look down on superhero stories, constantly sniping at and avoiding genre staples out of contempt. Fuck you. Call a spade a spade. You’re not some amazing auteur because you wrote Superman without a costume.

And that’s really the big problem here: in trying to avoid making Dark Reign seem like the usual type of event, it’s a vague, nebulous mass of barely-related issues where the villains of the piece may only pop in at one point to twirl their moustaches, and nothing can actually be accomplished because, at the end of the day, it is an event and its plot will not advance until the event is resolving. It’s virtually impossible to figure out where the story starts, where it advances, and there’s no real order to it. Multiple would-be authorities on the subject have put forth their proposed reading orders, but it’s all conjecture at this point. The only order you have is when there is a limited series specifically tied in to the event (and there were several) or when an already-running series has tie-in issues that go in sequential order.

What makes it even more complicated and frustrating is when you have tie-ins only sometimes. For example, with the then-running series of War Machine, issues 1-5 and then 10-12 are the only ones considered part of Dark Reign. They’re the ones that directly pertain to the Dark Reign plot. But there are a lot of times in the various series where the issues with the Dark Reign label cut off before any real resolution...making it either poor organization or just poor planning. Some series, like War Machine, just abruptly end with the end of that tie-in, as if that was the only thing keeping them going. In War Machine’s case, that may have been true.

But it’s a huge mess. Even if you were to decide “oh hey, I’ll just grab the trade paperbacks, that’ll be easier to read them in order”...not really. Sure, it’s all collected, and in order. But not always a coherent order, and not always including all of the parts of the story that you need to have it actually make sense.

For example, one of the high points of Dark Reign is the X-Men leaving San Francisco and establishing an independent sovereign island nation of Utopia. However, for whatever reason, it’s ridiculously difficult to find any of those issues included in any collection. Maybe it’s Marvel’s stupid rights mismanagement with the X-Men and Fantastic Four, but it’s just as likely to be a really tremendous lack of organization with regards to the event.

And I’m not giving them a free pass on this, either; the Utopia storyline suffers from terrible inconsistent characterization and oftentimes, just painfully bad writing, like Daken’s inexplicable voiced contempt for female fighters...which had not previously appeared and never popped up again afterwards. It had some great moments too, though, like Emma making a strong showing but still remembering that she had a heart and feelings, as well as being an excellent strategist and tactician. It was also nice to see that Sentry, for all his overblown bullshit, wasn’t a match for Namor and Rogue, on the rare occasion she’s written well, is able to hold her own against serious heavy hitters.

But I’ll come back to the Sentry later. Oh yes. He’s not getting out of this unscathed.

The Un-Crossovers for the Un-Event

The thing is, everything feels adrift in a sea of crossover labels. Oh, this book’s part of Dark Reign! Well that’s cool...too bad it doesn’t have much context beyond the basic premise of the event, and almost nothing in any story ever seems to have any consequences or repercussions beyond that individual story! It’s this feeling of futility that really makes it hard to enjoy Dark Reign, especially since it was conceived with no scope in mind. They really wanted it to feel less like an event, and more like just something happening in the world of the characters. And that’s cool and everything, but...

It doesn’t work.

The reason why events even work at all is because, love it or hate it, once it’s over, things are going to continue on without having to tie into it. People will be relieved, they’ll pick their series back up, and they won’t be constantly bothered with some extraneous story that doesn’t focus on the character or team they really care about. Plus, the company can compile the event into a couple of trade paperbacks and wring a little more profit from them, since that’s why they did the event in the first place anyway.

When you have an event so nebulous and yet so ubiquitous, it really shows the weakness of the event mindset. Stories function better when the villains, who are built up as being detestable -- you want to see the heroes get one up on them, you want to see the big bad guy punched in the gut and brought low -- are defeated before they become too much and it just becomes depressing and miserable.

When a story drags on for over a year, readers become used to it. It becomes a new normal, and that’s a depressing reality, especially when the villains are constantly being built up for readers to hate them. You have to give readers something, and that something increases in scope with every evil, detestable act the villains commit. You have to balance it out with victories, even small ones, so that hope can be maintained and it doesn’t become a drudgy slog.

And I’ll say this too: Alan Moore was right in the fundamental message of Watchmen. Which I will also say I hated as a story, I think it’s overrated miserable crap, and it’s fodder for the endlessly pretentious to harp on when they think they’re too good for superhero comics. Like I said before: fuck you. Call a spade a spade and be done with it.

But the fundamental message was this: it’s better for superheroes to fight supervillains than it is for there to be no superheroes or villains, because then all you’ve got are politicians and shitty regular humans constantly trying for a pathetic little bit of what they think is power over each other.

And fundamentally, we read superhero comics not to see bureaucracy, politics, or the inherent shittiness of people. We read them because they are a modern mythology, of heroes we vicariously identify with, whom we join on their adventures through the medium of comics. We see them at their high and low points. We join them in their moments of tragedy and triumph both, and we delight in those highs and understand those lows.

When we are enjoying superhero comics, we can fly above any unhappiness or inadequacy that our real lives give us, and in those moments, we are invincible. It is because of this that superhero fans are so passionate about their heroes.

There has always been some element of things like government and military shit in superhero comics. The fact that they really kindled as a genre during World War II is not lost on me. But since shortly after 2000, Marvel tried really hard to militarize superheroes and brought in a heavy governmental angle too. SHIELD was promoted and became more overblown than it was in the age of the superspy. Suddenly, everything had to revolve around one or the other, and it was not a wise or welcome turn.

So I will say this for Dark Reign: it illustrated very well, especially in tie-in storylines like Avengers: The Initiative, why militarized superheroes and government lies are not a good thing to have around. Sure, we shouldn’t need to have it spelled out for us, but it’s nice to have that precedent set that no, superheroes shouldn’t be government-controlled, no matter who is in power, because even if we have an administration that isn’t overtly malevolent, that won’t last. Inevitably, someone will get power that doesn’t deserve it, which is something especially painful to say in this day and age.

But having Norman Osborn be constantly, repeatedly built up to be even more of a piece of total shit than we already knew him to be...was a huge mistake. Because we knew that, despite everything, despite Marvel’s tendency for that 2000s “kill-’em-all” attitude and despite their unending contempt for readers, shown very well with Civil War alone...

We knew nothing was going to come of it.

We knew Norman Osborn was going to get the easy way out, survive the whole ordeal, and be locked away somewhere until someone wanted to bring him back as the Green Goblin or something.

And you can’t do that with this kind of storyline.

You can’t make it a shitty, real world-feeling storyline like this, mired in politics, bureaucracy, militaristic bullshit, and the bad guys winning, not to mention taking things way too far in tone with everything from rape to cannibalism, and not have the big bad guy die to resolve it.

You cannot, with the unlimited scope of superhero comics, leave someone like that alive. They have caused, directly or indirectly, horrific things to happen, and they committed crimes that are completely inexcusable; if you want them to stick around, if they’re the kind of “love to hate them” villain, then you have to do less to make them the kind of person that even the best and most heroic would say “yeah, nothing of value would be lost if you just offed that guy.”

Because it’s pretty fucking unsatisfying and pretty god damn smug when you try to have the good guys act like they’re the better people for not just ending evil -- and this is a fictional evil, so it’s absolutely, completely, and objectively evil -- but every reader of every age knows that doesn’t do anything at all to fix the things that person did. It doesn’t bring back people from the dead, it doesn’t undo their trauma, it doesn’t heal their injuries. It doesn’t repair the damage done to the world at large.

When you have someone who essentially steals a position of great power and influence, they must have absolute accountability. Which...is also pretty relevant to modern life, but painful to have to spell out.

The thing is, with Dark Avengers, they could have balanced this out a bit. The characters in that series (who were almost invariably as written completely different people in any other series) were pretty fucked-up, but they were often treated as more nuanced, three-dimensional people, with only a couple of exceptions. I’m looking at you, Sentry.

In Dark Avengers, even the team of villains and grey area antihero types didn’t know how to deal with Norman. Which was a bit stupid, since any one of them probably could have destroyed him effortlessly, but it made for a more psychological conflict. Unfortunately, the glue holding it together was the Sentry...one of Marvel’s worst characters and worst character ideas, who comes off as a bad idea somebody had while stoned, but who became a high-profile character anyway.

He’s not altogether the worst idea ever, but he’s up there. Conceptually, it’s pretty interesting to examine a high-powered superhero everyone somehow forgot about, but in actual execution, the Sentry is just a crazy twat. He’s impossible to like, he’s uninteresting because he’s overpowered, and nobody knows how to write him well, because his fundamental premise is one of not understanding his character. It’s obvious that whoever thought up the Sentry was someone who didn’t understand how to write Superman, didn’t know what made Superman great as a character, and thought it was ludicrous that such a character could exist in the Marvel Universe.

But it’s not. There are cosmic-level characters all over Marvel’s whole cosmos. And while superheroes are all about the action, that’s not all there is to them. How hard a character can punch something isn’t really what the character should be about, despite superheroics tending to revolve around resolving problems with fighting and powers. If you don’t have a context for those fights, it’s just meaningless, hollow visuals. If a character doesn’t have a motivation to do something that tells you something about that character, you probably won’t care about that character.

How hard does Superman punch? As hard as he needs to. How much can he lift? As much as he needs to. What can he do? As much as he needs to. That’s why Superman is an excellent character who has stood the test of time, and the Sentry is a terrible character who only pops up when people think they have something clever they can do with him.

His function in Dark Avengers, as in Dark Reign, is Norman’s imagined ace in the hole. He uses Sentry as a bully, to just casually destroy anyone or anything that gets in his way, and he constantly holds that threat over everyone...except when the story needs him not to do that, which it does often. Sentry is fairly easy to take out, but when it matters, he’s impossible to get rid of, and for no reason that really develops him as a character or makes him more interesting. He’s a schizophrenic idiot and contributes essentially nothing to the story. He is a placeholder until or unless he’s used as a deus ex machina, when he becomes insufferable because he’s nothing but a crutch for weak writing.

The worst and most glaring part of it is that Norman is batshit crazy, and it’s frankly unbelievable that he is somehow able to handle the Sentry, by using Sentry’s crazy against him. It’s just unbelievable, and it’s ridiculous that it goes on as long as it does -- a year, which in superhero comics is an eternity.

Sentry has no pathos and no real levels to him. All the depth he has is manufactured, artificial, and wholly “who cares” at every point. The one series that ever managed to make me care about him was the whimsical series The Age of the Sentry, done in a spirit of fun and real, palpable love for bygone eras of comics, and that was a series of stories told about the character and of dubious veracity.

In Dark Reign, he’s written like Superman when Superman is badly written: a crutch to quickly resolve stories the writer has no idea how to get himself out of, or alternatively the one that has to be taken out as soon as possible because the writer can’t write, usually because he wants to show that the person doing it is a serious threat. Either way, it doesn’t work.

Cul-de-Sac Reign

In a similarly dead-end sort of way, most of the tie-in stories are nothing but plot cul-de-sacs. They can’t actually advance the plot appreciably until editorial wants it to advance...so instead, they just end up being prolonged exercises in futility.

For the same reason I hated The X-Files, in which the protagonists were constantly prevented from accomplishing anything by increasingly ridiculous plot devices, I hate pointless stories. The Young Avengers miniseries is pointless, for introducing characters who all but came from nowhere and vanished back there, in a worthless plot where characters were inspired into complete inaction despite having a resolution to the entire event available. Similarly, the Elektra miniseries takes the widely-hated horrible joke of a character, makes her somehow more unlikable, and wastes everyone’s time with a story that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing but character destruction, mainly of Elektra and Wolverine.

Who is, by the way, now absolutely complicit in multiple premeditated murders of people justifiably pissed off at Elektra being a complete piece of shit. Not that they bring this up with any of the gravity it should have -- just look at any time Rick Remender writes Wolverine or, for that matter, anyone in any series. Or don’t. No one should have to read Remender’s pretentious garbage.

Even the Punisher, whom I can’t stand, is dicked around by Dark Reign’s insistence to avoid having things happen. It’s pretty shitty when multiple issues of his title advertised him going after various members of the Dark Avengers to take them down, and he wasn’t even able to make any significant impact with anything he did. He couldn’t even take down Norman, who had no believable excuse for being able to escape mortal danger! You know, for all I give superhero comics shit for killing off characters needlessly, having the Punisher actually take out Norman -- or Sentry -- would have actually been shocking, and that could have led to so much more interesting conflicts and storylines about what this means, if it was right if the other heroes were thinking about it (and they were), and they could have had the Dark Avengers scrambling to try and hold onto their legitimacy and almost make it...but be defeated by the good guys, who prove their goodness and show the public what they bought into.

And can we just talk about the animal cruelty that popped up from time to time? It seemed really overt and conspicuous, and it’s absolutely not okay. Extreme violence is never okay, even in superhero comics (or maybe especially in superhero comics), but animal cruelty is really going a step past a step past too far.

Get your shit together, Marvel.

To say nothing of the inherent lameness of the Hood, probably the absolute worst character to be introduced and featured prominently in these past couple of decades of superhero disaster. It’s some lame whiner of a shit garbage character that dresses in everyday clothes but wears a red cloak over it and, of course, dual wields guns. Because that doesn’t look stupid or anything. And of course his background is basically the one thing I despise more than almost anything else in tired-ass writing cliches: straight people baby daddy issues. Please go fuck yourself. Nobody cares about the asshole who knocked up some bint who shit out a kid and became a by-the-numbers deadbeat dad. Because they’re lame.

The underlying basic concept, that of someone finding a magical cloak that gives them powers, is wondrous and fun. It’s just that the Hood himself is the exact opposite of wondrous and fun. He comes off, every time, like some asinine mary sue author insertion character you hate the moment they’re introduced. It’s cool when Doctor Doom shows that he’s not only a scientific genius, he’s also a skilled sorceror. It’s not so cool when some asshole dumbasses his way through magical power because of some cape he found randomly that anyone could have found.

It makes him seem even worse, and even more of a character almost metaplot levels of desperate to intimidate that he keeps trying to spook the people around him because they don’t take him seriously. Here’s an idea: create an imposing costume. If you can’t do that, you really can’t expect to be taken seriously. If you can’t even make imposing fashion choices or bring together an ensemble that will impact others, you have no business expecting them to just take you at face value because you’re wearing a red cape that you have matched with literally nothing else you’re wearing.

Plot, Unmoving

But none of it really adds anything to Dark Reign, and it really pisses me off to see stories where direct resolution was available, but heroes couldn’t actually do what they would logically or reasonably do...because editorial wanted to stretch out the event to make it seem like it wasn’t an event.

The whole concept of “Dark Avengers” is made even more stupid by the fact that they’re wearing obviously outdated costumes. As cool as Moonstone looks in Ms. Marvel’s old outfit, she also looks like she just stepped out of a disco. And while the different lineups of Avengers have sometimes been really strange and seemingly random over the years, you can’t expect me to believe that literally nobody noticed how awkward this one was, and how their costumes were almost all completely out of date and out of touch with the figures who are well-known public figures.

There’s also this weird aversion to the actual heroes confronting the people masquerading as them, because Norman’s good at PR spin. I’m sorry?! This just doesn’t make sense, and it keeps making less sense when some of the heroes are actually willing to strike out on their own to kill Norman, rather than to actually make it public that they are being impersonated...which makes it even more ridiculous when you consider that some of the people being impersonated have public identities.

The Dark X-Men team was actually was more plausible, in large part because much of the public didn’t know the X-Men well, and also because there actually was an actual X-Man in the group. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to have Wolverine really in the Dark Avengers, and maybe have the X-Men or some other group have to work with his dangerous and unpredictable son Daken to get one over on him and take him out, thereby reducing the power level of the team significantly?

But no, they couldn’t have that. The X-Men had to have their own inane events, and Wolverine, despite being a dumpster fire of a character at this point, is somehow sacrosanct for vicarious dick-waggling of insecure writers who live through him just like the same pack of wankers do for Batman.

There’s also this bizarre insistence that somehow, despite people overtly getting plenty of proof that the “Dark Avengers” aren’t who they say they are, and some of them are committing pretty serious crimes in costume, in a day and age where everyone has a camera and a microphone and there’s recording everywhere...nobody gets any real dirt on them until they write it into Spider-Man for Peter Parker to do it.

I think it’s great Peter does it. But at the same time...how exactly is it that a top-level investigative journalist isn’t able to do it for a small eternity, and how exactly is it that it doesn’t have more serious repercussions in the public eye? It may just be the chaotic nature of the incoherent narrative, and I’m just not seeing it in any sort of cohesive order, but it sure seems like one of the many plot elements that doesn’t really matter until editorial decides it suddenly has any bearing on anything.

And I’ll just address the elephant in the room: the Dark Avengers lineup is not, to be totally honest, the most powerful or able he could have assembled. Most of them being mentally unstable doesn’t exactly help the plausibility. Given, the Marvel Universe tends towards more street power level and less cosmic, but there are plenty of real hard hitters that have been in the Avengers’ membership over the years, not to mention their foes that a villain supposedly so resourceful should have been able to recruit.

It’s basically just a sort of take on the Masters of Evil or the Sinister Six or something. And I have to say again that having an actual hero, or even a fallen hero desperate for redemption, would be a vast improvement. Instead, we only have elements like that in side stories or tie-ins that go nowhere and are easily missed by the central narrative.

Additionally, Norman Osborn is not the most believable as a long-term leader, even if he does use strongarm tactics, blackmail, and manipulation to get his way. He’s just not that smart, certainly not as much as he’d have to be in order to keep his team of people together and not killing him, and incidentally avoiding anyone else outside the team and thus his control similarly killing him. This is where I’ll bring Doctor Doom up again, since when he gathered a group of people together, he had a damn good reason and, as a reader, you could believe he could actually control them...or at the very least, keep them from posing a serious mortal threat to him.

Members of the Dark Avengers fight other teams and heroes, but rarely do they ever bother to clash en masse with any other group to any narrative end. There’s such a feeling of futility that pervades it all, that if you read any story supposedly tying into it, you start to expect it to go nowhere and accomplish nothing. Because even if it seems to actually make a difference, everything it does is either handwaved, ignored, or somehow doesn’t work into the next story you read under the Dark Reign banner.

Dark Reign is an event, make no mistake. It has a central storyline that we should be seeing unfold with every tie-in and every crossover. Instead, Marvel’s complete aversion to admitting what it is leaves us with a meandering, disjointed tale that promises something unique and superior and instead leaves us thinking of what it could have been, and probably should have been, instead.

[trickormemes]

HBO’s Girls starter sentences

season 6, part 1 of 2 episodes 6 through 10 187 starters feel free to change gender pronouns ‘read-more’ added for length content warning: cussing, sexual themes

"_____ broke up with me. Can you believe it?"

"Holy fucking shit. _____. How did this happen?"

"Stop fucking with me."

"I can't believe how supportive you're being. This is a shock."

“Okay, I take back what I said about you having your shit together, because this is fucking insane.”

"What the fuck did you just do? That's a rental."

“You know what? I can’t do this right now. I’m feeling really overworked. Sorry.”

“I’m tired of being exploited.”

"I see what you're doing. Do not change the fucking subject. You're not getting out of this."

"Fuck money!"

“You used to be a dream come true.”

"I cannot believe that this is my fucking life."

"What are you doing today?"

“For the record, I don’t think you’re gonna be a terrible mother. You’re maybe not gonna be the best, but you’re certainly not gonna be the worst.”

"What you said really scared me."

“I don’t want our friendship to end. I need you in my life. I need you in my child’s life.”

"I wanna be in your child's life. I just don't think I'm gonna be a very good influence."

“But our kid’s gonna have great skin and be the right kind of slutty.”

“To be clear, I’m not offering to pay for anything.”

"_____ will not stop calling me."

"Great, you're stalking me now? That's very three years ago. I appreciate it."

"Why are you avoiding it so hard? It's not a big commitment."

“I’m avoiding it ‘cause I’d literally rather do anything else. Like I would prefer to eat my own arm.”

"Why are you pushing me?!"

"I need you to tell me if it's real."

“Great, our relationship amounted to very painful memories for you. Such soothing information.”

"Don't you wanna stop carrying around all the baggage of our failures?"

"I'm not angry. I have moved on."

"_____, will you talk to me, please?"

"Oh, _____, don't be such a prude."

"Well, you are basically an hour late..."

"_____, you're lucky I came at all."

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

“What happened to you?”

"Are you fucking high?"

“_____, you should really know what a high person looks like by now.”

"Nothing about his life projects the idea that he wants a child."

"Anyone who’s buying leather gloves after 6:00 is clearly a goddamn murder."

"My whole life... My whole life is… is gone. I had one bad moment and… and now it's gone."

“Jesus, man, you’re fucking good.”

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Do I really have to answer that question for you, _____?”

"Regardless of everything that happened, you are still my dear friend."

"You can't just detach yourself from a relationship. Unless you're some kind of psychopath."

"I don't care what you think and I don't care about your feelings 'cause I don't really care about you anymore, _____."

“Alright, so… how’s this gonna work then? What’s the plan?”

“Everything we did together happened, whether you want to believe it or not, whether you want to remember it or not.”

"You can't just erase people. You can't just erase me. That's not how it works."

“I did not know what a good time was until you came into my life.”

“I mean, even if you're amazing at something, that doesn't necessarily mean that you should do it, right?”

"Who are we if we don't stick to our commitments?"

"I think you make me feel too good."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

“I break things, _____. It’s what I do. It’s why I avoided you for so long, ‘cause I didn’t wanna break you.”

“But this, now… so perfect, it scares me a little.”

"The only time I've ever felt perfect is when I'm with you."

“I wish we could stay right here, forever.”

“I am sick and tired of everyone acting like unrefined sugar isn’t sugar. It’s the exact same fucking thing.”

"If it hurts, you'll always remember."

"Why is your ex trending so hard on Twitter?"

“Ew. Now I get why you finally dumped that sexy creep."

“_____, why are you looking at your phone?"

"That was amazing. You wrote that, right?"

"Do not let another homeless woman in here, please."

"She was fun. You know it."

"Look at your sad little outfit."

"Fuuuck! My whole day is fucked right now! What the fuck am I supposed to do?“

“I feel like I just chugged a bunch of Robitussin or something.”

"I'm gonna have my eye on you, even when it seems like I don't."

“I come from a long line of women who choose terrible men, but that’s ending now.”

"Everyone in my family is fucking lying garbage."

"What the fuck! Did you just roll your eyes at me, _____?"

"I'm not leaving until you tell me why. Why'd you do it?"

"I'm what you've been needing."

"You're afraid he won't support you."

"It just sounds so much sadder when you try to defend it."

"You need to stop checking on your ex, man. He's gonna get to your head."

"Good dick is a prison."

"Everyone said it was, like, so important. Now I feel like maybe it was a mistake."

"I don't even believe in mistakes. I really don't."

"I wanted it to be easy and it was easy, so I guess it's just a little sad... how easy it was."

"What are you crying about?"

“Ugh, man, you stunk up the joint.”

"I wish I was younger so we could hang out and it's not weird, but... it feels weird."

“There’s nothing but places to hide in this city.”

“There’s nothing like a public shaming to make you realize what’s really important.”

"You can't fuck with me anymore, okay? I'm ‘unfuckable’ now."

“You don’t owe me anything, and I’m really sorry that I thought you did.”

“This isn’t something I wanna have to tell you. I know you’re gonna be pissed as fuck, and you should be pissed.”

"We have a lot of history that we can't seem to erase. We can't let each other go, as much as we try."

"Is there anything you wanna say to me?"

“Look. You gotta do what you gotta do."

"Why would I do that? You haven't done anything wrong."

“I don’t know, it’s just that conversation with _____ really fucked me up. I've been thinking about it so much."

"I'm starting to feel like I was a little naive thinking this was all going to be so simple."

"Let me know when it's safe for me to leave my house again."

"I miss you, and I miss being with you."

"Let me show you who I've become."

"I don't want to be away from you any longer."

"Excuse me! Do not air quote at me!"

“I’ll cut your ass!”

“That was unnecessary, how loud that was.”

"Do you think I'm weird?"

“Okay, two sips in and I’m fully soused, if I’m keeping it real.”

"Would you rather live in an ugly building with a view of a gorgeous building, or in a gorgeous building with a view of an ugly building?"

"There's too much history here. There's too much good stuff for us not to try."

"What's it like to fuck _____?"

"So now I know why you want to be with me. Just to make sure I don't fuck everything up."

"I don't want you..."

"I'm just excited to get out of my own fucking head for a while, you know? Aren't you?"

“What was it about you that he fell in love with?”

“What’s the rest of your night look like?"

"It's really fun hanging out with you."

"Would you object greatly if I kissed you?"

"Lust fades and friendship never does if you nurture it."

"Do you need something?"

"You are a fucking hot shot."

“Your science will not protect you.”

“This is the greatest city in the world.”

"This place—it's just too hard to make a living here."

“What’s important is we agreed to live here and suffer and be miserable in this godforsaken rat hole together.”

"Hey, you wanna come sleep with me?"

"Will you sing to me?"

"I had to unfollow her on Instagram. It's too much negativity."

“I’m trying to figure something out and I really need you.”

“See? That’s why you’re my best friend.”

“I don’t want that in our apartment.”

“I mean, can’t someone just tell me exactly what to do, but in a way that makes it seem like it’s my idea?”

“Look! I stole these!”

“Wow, it’s—it’s really wild to see you. We did not know, uh, if you were alive.”

“Life’s so wild, isn’t it?”

“Go. I release you like a bird, like a wild bird into the night.”

“I have an actual problem about actual life.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”

“Well, I stopped by to see you, but it seems I maybe picked a bad time.”

“You had a party and you didn’t invite me?”

“What the fuck is going on? Why didn’t you answer any of my calls all day?”

“I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“So, um, basically, you’re gonna act as if you invited me?”

“Not you, and not now. Not in the mood.”

“Okay, you know what? I can’t handle this right now.”

“Can you tell me what this is, what we’re doing here? I don’t understand.”

“We are not going to throw randomized grenades of hostility at each other. Okay? We’re gonna be the adult women that I know we can be and say what we’re feeling.”

“I’m feeling extremely shitty about not being invited to _____’s engagement party.”

“I’m feeling like I would like to go one place without being treated like I’m a jezebel or a witch.”

“I am feeling a lot of anxiety about the fact that we’ve allowed our friendship to reach this place of aggression and isolation.”

“If you don’t mind, I would like to take a step back and say that this is the reason that we can’t hang out together anymore.”

“We can’t hang out together anymore because we cannot be in the same room without one of us making it completely and entirely about ourselves.”

“I have come to realize how exhausting and narcissistic and ultimately boring this whole dynamic is. And I finally feel brave enough to create some distance for myself.”

“On my way over here, I saw a man take a shit in the street.”

“_____ was right. She was right about everything.”

“Can you stop being so dramatic? I mean, have a little perspective.”

“Get the fuck out. I need the room.”

“It’s okay, I’m fine. You don’t have to say that. I’m really fine.”

“Um, well, I think it turns out that I wasn’t as ready to help people as I thought. And I just needed to take a long, hard look in the mirror, as my mother would say.”

“Oh, um, I got you something, actually.”

“I don’t know how the fuck that happened. I haven’t really processed it.”

“I’m sorry. Um… I am sorry… for everything.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, it’s okay. I mean, it’s like—I mean, it’s not okay, but it’s, like, I don’t know who’s really supposed to be sorry for what, so at this point we should kind of just call it a… Like, say it. It’s okay.”

“Our best was awful.”

“_____, what the fuck?! When did you get here?!”

“I’m here. I win. I’m your best friend. I’m the best at being your friend. I love you the most.”

“Promise me you’re not gonna give up, okay?”

“There’s a reason they call breast milk ‘liquid gold.’”

“_____, can you really stop?”

“_____. I’m asking you to stop and I’m asking in a nice way.”

“You think you’re the first man who rejected this? Well, think again. You’re not being very original.”

“You know what, you’re being kind of a fuckhead. You’re being kind of a little bit of an asshole.”

“Do you even have a nipple? Because I’ve known you a long time and I actually don’t think I’ve seen it.”

“Every time you say ‘nipple’ a fairy dies.”

“You know what? Your, like, desire to be part of this is actually starting to feel really perverse. I feel, like, very objectified and I just would like some privacy.”

“John Stamos has not aged a single day. It’s insane. And, like, why is this man a bachelor?”

“He hates me. I don’t know what to say.”

“But this is reality. It’s happening now. And you suck at it, okay?”

“Why are you following me? And why are you judging me and putting words in my mouth?”

“I don’t understand why you’re yelling at me when I’m in emotional pain.”

“I don’t understand, _____. You didn’t say it was gonna be this hard.”

“Have the last few years looked easy to you?”

“Sorry for trying to help.”

“God fucking damn it. Men are disgusting.”

“Sorry I walked in on you beating off.”

“Hey. Are you happy here?”

“I don’t need to be happy.”

“You’re a fucking monster!”

“So, you ran away because your mom asked you to do your homework?”

“Run as fast as you can, okay? But life is gonna chase you, it’s gonna chase after you with problems you can’t even imagine.”

“I guess it’s time for me to start figuring out what’s next.”

[nyanced]

i’ll keep you safe.

ok so it’s been Years since i last wrote something like this or just anything from roleplaying so!! please forgive me if i’m quite rusty i wanted to do smth to commemerate ;) this event like ok i used to not like ocs much back then but because of archie’s angel that changed because i love them so and i love the bond they made with my shintaro sobs like julian carter is pure and so here goes

(inspired by THIS please listen to it sobs)

happy birthday to the light of @shigukyos​ life, jules!

          The sounds of the train’s electronic humming comforted the man who sat near the sliding doors, eyes closed as he crossed his arms to gain extra warmth. Thankful that he finished his work early because the January breeze seems hell-bent on making him suffer; after all, Shintaro is never good with winter (or any seasons at all, he noted painfully) since he always preferred indoors. He blinked the exhaustion away, walking onto the platform as soon as he heard an announcement, and headed his way out of the station and into the bustling streets.

           It had always been like this for years after he moved from his hometown and tried to make something of himself. Wake up, snooze button, arrive late, work until late, eat, work; rinse and repeat. Waste away. Pick up the trash. Shoot it at the garbage bin. Cry in frustration because it won’t fucking go in. Won’t leave him alone. An inconvenience when feelings grow on you. When people barge in your life just to create a giant hole in your chest as they disappear or when they just decided to stay and grow on you.

          Slight irritation and a minor headache accompanied a deep sigh as soon as the silent apartment greeted him with today’s mayhem earlier in the morning. Books were everywhere, the floor was still damp, dishes from last night and today’s morning undone, clothes scattered, and he had to pinch his nose and inspect…are those burned noodles? Quickly, he raced to the kitchen, opened the microwave and thanked the heavens to find nothing before surrendering to get a lot of trash bags and decided to put everything in. Apparently, the urge to clean won than the plea to go with the trash instead even if the kitchen is almost a lost cause.

           So, he started with the living room. Grabbed a mop and rags to dry the floor. Nearly killed himself when he almost hit his head against a table corner as he suddenly slipped; although his arms suffered the heavy blow from his body as he groaned in pain. Standing up to hit the same table with a knee as the books on the table fell on his toes, and he bit down his lip before the whole neighborhood hears words he’d later regret.

           Regret, huh. Calming down, Shintaro picked up the books as faded photos fell, reflecting red and orange colors off a small kid laughing hard at him on the day they went to slide in the park. Like how can a teenager mess up a landing, face-first in the dirt? A thin line formed on his lips, worry etched on his features, as he remembered clearly how he could’ve given the kid a broken arm or leg back then if he didn’t cushion their fall. The surface on that old slide sucked and hurt, but it was worth it when he heard the kid laugh as if it was his first time in the playground.    

           Or when the small kid turned into a brat many years later, hiding his stock of soda every time he crashes in his room back at his house; or when the brat gave him a thoughtful Christmas present by throwing soda on the floor, knowing he will never have god-like reflexes; or when the kid took a photo on new year, as he brought home the same brand of ice-cream the brat loves; or when the kid cost him a microwave and a reminder to get a life insurance because Shintaro discovered that over the years, Julian Carter is a walking disaster as he kept growing older and taller than him.

           It’s been years since he left town with this small brat who lost himself in a park. It’s been years since the kid grew into this little shit he kept because he thought who else could’ve supported him, Shintaro never saw this kid’s parents formally, and he was afraid the kid might die early if he weren’t there. That he could waste away just like what he did. Like it was shame to let this kid rot like he did because he saw the best he could be, the potential in Jules, to aim higher, to do whatever he cannot, to grow and be a better person despite what everyone says about him.

           Because he saw himself in him, and it hurt because he remembered his regrets. Regret that he cannot make anyone stay. Regret that he didn’t do anything to make anything stay. Regret that he stayed only in one spot, took him two years, before moving on with his life and try to do something with it. Ever since he met these amazing people he never thought he’d acquaint with, especially Jules.

           Jules, who he remembered had these chubby, tiny hands he held and teased about, but never let go even if the kid did not display signs of upset, although there was slight clash of his eyebrows that he didn’t tell the kid. Jules, who was quietly distant with those eyes staring at the ceiling, and whom he placed a hand on his shoulder to squeeze, remind him that Shintaro is here to listen, because “damn, kid you’re not a machine, you’re not a robot; just cry if you need to”.

           Jules, who gave him chocolates on valentines’ day and offered to give him a human

(“What is this, a sacrifice?”

“If that’s what will get you laid, then yes.”

“Leave me and my love life alone, dammit!”) and reminded him that Jules is grown up, away from the kid who shied alone on that summer day. That Shintaro fucked up or is a fuck up, that he swore never to forget again but here he was––

           Pulled the red scarf off the coat hanger to wrap around his neck, as he raced out of the apartment and back to now tame streets, compared to two hours ago. Cursed the cold slap of air against his face as he forgot to put on mittens, and an actual two layers of a jacket and a hoodie. But he resigned when he went inside a shop, held the box with a ribbon tightly, and shook the snow off his boots when maybe, he’d tolerate winter if Jules wouldn’t see an opportunity to bury him in it again. “It’s just like being buried in sand!” his ass. Honestly, just bury him properly 6 feet underground next time.

           He walked briskly back to the station, one hand secured the package, and the other hand held a phone when he called. Ringing. Ringing. Dead. Breath caught in his throat, putting the phone back in his jeans after few rings as the anxiety kicked him in the guts. Worry. A bad feeling. His watch showed 11PM while he knew the guy should be back at least four hours ago. Why isn’t he answering his phone? Washed out? Drunk? Punched his lights out in an alley where no one can find him? His headache began, matched with winter being a bitch right now. He was shaking, as he stopped at the platform, and his eyes were searching. What the hell did he wear earlier? Did he even wear a jacket? He knew he should’ve bought him mittens or something. They’re both weak to the cold, right? He angrily reached to his phone, trying to contact the––

           Shintaro almost slapped on his forehead with his phone when Jules showed up, exiting from the train; his shoulders tensed, and his dumb face showed…what was that? Did he turn his head away? Or did Shintaro just imagine it?

           “Where the hell have you been?” 

          But it didn’t matter because Shintaro’s blood was running to his head, his hand gripping the phone hard. He could hear silent pleas from those eyes to shut up, don’t say anything but, the concern gnawed him, he couldn’t think straight as the words just flowed out. 

          “Your phone is dead, and you didn’t even try to call or text me. You were never this late! How could I have known if something happened to you? What the fuck were you thinking? I was––”

           Caught off-guard when Jules only stared at him, jaw locked, but there was something in his eyes that told him “enough”; and Shintaro could only stop, groaning under his breath when he broke eye contact, only to seek Jules’ hands. He placed his phone back in his pockets again, walked toward the boy (Jules always is, in Shintaro’s eyes), and tried to hug him with only an arm. It was awkward as hell, two grown ass men before a running train, in a tight embrace as Shintaro could manage with one arm, but he didn’t care. That look Jules gave is enough signal for Shintaro’s anger to dissolve for a while, even if he is still mad out of concern. The same look Jules gives whenever things don’t go his way, when the ice cream melt before he ate it or when he think he failed at something he’s fucking good at, but still believed he didn’t make it. It’s been years they both adopted each other as guardian and responsibility, as a make-shift family, as brothers. They both know subtle things each other show, even if they unconsciously do so or intentionally hide.

           “We’ll talk about this later, alright?” Shintaro mumbled as he pulled away from Jules, gazing at him fondly but he kept a small frown because he was ready. Ready to rain hell down on anyone who hurt this kid, because this kid is his brother, a part of himself and he swore, he swore he’d never forget. Never let anything happen as long as he stood watch.

           “Hey, kid.” Shintaro faked a cough, as he shoved the box to the kid’s chest and shake it a little, so that Jules will know better to carry it. He still have the order privilege from the last game they played so the brat better play with the rules. “We’ve got to buy twenty candles and a lighter because I forgot while I’m on the way here. You still have to clean your shit in the kitchen before we eat the cake, and for the love of everything sane, how did you break the modem again?”

           He turned his back to walk away, hiding the smile under the cover of his hands, and he puffed his breath to his freezing hands. 

                    Turns out, not everything he throws in the trash is trash. Sometimes, he mistook that damn red scarf that gave him happy memories; sometimes, he mistook the soda he drowned with when he was grieving; and sometimes, he almost mistake putting everything away in the garbage bin, including the people and the emotions that made him feel alive, that made him alive again. Almost including the kid who brought back everything. Somehow, it’s not bad at all to feel something. 

         “C’mon, Birthday Boy.”

[analogscum]

BLACKOUT (1985, d. Douglas Hickox)

I’m gonna let you in on the process, my dear Scumbags. The method behind all of this madness, if you will. This is how I tend to go about picking a movie to write about for this site: I look at the VHS box art. I would like to say that this is because I want to make the experience of reading ANALOG SCUM like scrounging through the grimy back section of a video store of yore, but the reality is that I’m lazy and easily swayed by aesthetics. So you can imagine my elation when I came across the box art for 1985’s Blackout. I mean, look at this puppy! There’s a bondage gimp man brandishing a knife, with a very rock n’ roll title font, what’s not to love?! This is one of those titles that haunted (tee hee) the horror section of my local National Video as a young’n, and I’m sure horror fans around my age or older remember those piercing blue eyes staring at us through that leather mask. Based on this box art, I thought I would be watching a sleazy giallo-inspired slasher, with nudity and gore to spare, maybe even of the SOV variety, which is a-ok in my book. But then…I learned that Blackout was a made-for-TV movie. Oh fudge.

So there’s this lady in a red trench coat, right? She walks up to a house and knocks on the back door. Then she rings the doorbell, and it sounds like a buzzer, which, who has a doorbell on their back door, and that’s not how a doorbell sounds. Fucking CARE MORE, filmmakers. The lady finds a spare key and enters the house. It’s pretty eerie. There’s classical music blaring, and the remnants of a child’s birthday party are still on the dining table. The lady goes into a side office, where the classical music is blaring from, and turns off the record player. But what’s that? The TV is on in another room. So the lady heads downstairs. It’s dark. It’s creepy. And in the TV room, there’s another lady and three kids, and they’re super duper dead! Whoa! Afternoon ruined!

And so enters Detective Grandpa. He’s a grizzled old gumshoe who you just know is going to take this case way too personally and the guy who did it is going to become his white whale, etc. etc. etc. Detective Grandpa learns that the patriarch of this murdered family, one Ed Vincent, has gone missing. So of course that must be the perp who done it! Cut to: a guy hitchhiking by the side of the road. Huh? So he gets picked up by someone driving what looks like a Yugo or a Gremlin or some other terrible late 20th century car. Anyway, this fucking guy immediately starts tailgating a lumber truck for no goddamn reason. Ease off the gas, dicknose! Then he tries to pass the lumber truck on the right hand side, which, c’mon, asshole, and then ANOTHER LUMBER TRUCK comes in the other direction, the car swerves, goes up a hill, comes crashing down, and fucking EXPLODES. Was it worth it, ya tailgating son of a bitch?!

Now the movie turns into The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for a few minutes, and we see things from the perspective of the hitchhiker. Turns out he’s suffered serious facial injuries and will require a series of total reconstructive surgeries, plus he’s got amnesia, so he has no idea who he is, whoops. We meet a bunch of his doctors, who don’t matter, plus his nurse, who is played by Kathleen Quinlan, aka the lady from Apollo 13, plus her cop boyfriend, played by Michael Beck, aka the guy from The Warriors and zero other good movies. She’s a recent divorcee, and he’s extremely pushy about wanting to get married, and gets super annoyed when she tries to assert her personhood, but don’t worry about it. Anyway, our homie gets all of his surgeries, and decides that he wants to look like Keith Carradine, which is fine. It’s a choice. It’s like saying, hey, make me look like a more wholesome Klaus Kinski. But yeah, eventually he and Kathleen Quinlan fall in love, and decide to get married. Michael Beck takes this extremely well, by which I mean he yells at her and then pretends he was only worried about their financial situation. Oh hey, is that a wall on Michael Beck’s bedroom that’s covered in photos of Kathleen Quinlan? I thought I said don’t worry about it!

Cut to: six years later. Keith Carradine is going by the name Allen Devlin. He’s a super successful real estate agent, he and Kathleen Quinlan are happily married, and they have three kids. Detective Grandpa, meanwhile, has been forced into retirement by the powers that be, definitely because of political reasons and not because he’s a degenerate drunk. But then someone anonymously sends him a newspaper clipping with a picture of Allen Devlin, and he’s like, oh fuuuuuuuuck, I’m off to Washington state to harass some innocent people! He accosts Allen on a crowded elevator and is like, Oh hey, Ed Vincent! And of course Allen is like, um, no, you’ve got the wrong guy. And Detective Grandpa is like, oh no, you’re definitely Ed Vincent, remember, you had a wife and three kids and then they were fucking murdered?! Anyhoo, see ya later! And then he just gets off the elevator and Allen is like, what the hell was that about, some old rummy just called me a killer?!

Detective Grandpa then does what he should’ve done in the first place were he not a whisky-soaked dickhead and shows up at Allen Devlin’s office. He shows Allen a bunch of crime scene photos and Allen is horrified and agrees to prove his innocence however he can. THE VERY NEXT SCENE, they go to the doctors and the doctors are like, hey, look, Allen’s dental records don’t match Ed Vincent’s, so this movie should basically be over now. But Detective Grandpa is like, nah, who needs scientific evidence when you’ve got a sleuth’s intuition and blah blah burp. At this point Michael Beck gets pulled back into the movie, and once again rightfully points out that the movie should be over at this point because scientifically speaking Allen can’t be Ed Vincent, and Detective Grandpa responds by calling Michael Beck a “young hot shot computer type.” Ugh. So Allen hires a private investigator to look into his past before the accident, which goes pretty much nowhere. Kathleen Quinlan starts getting threatening phone calls from someone calling themselves Ed, and addressing her by the dead wife’s first name. Oh, and out of the fucking blue, Mr. Bondage Guy from the box art shows up and starts attacking women around town, and Detective Grandpa is like, oh yeah, forgot to mention this, we had similar attacks out in Ohio, creep in a gimp mask going around rapin’ everybody up in here, but they stopped…AFTER THE VINCENT FAMILY MURDER!!! SPOOOOOOOOKY!!! It’s like, c’mon, you’ve GOT to set this up way before the mid-point of the movie! It’s like getting a sandwich with one too many meats: do you want a serial killer hoagie or a bondage rapist grinder? PICK ONE, BLACKOUT!

So the private eye that Allen hired winds up dead, and the police of course suspect Allen. Allen, meanwhile, is starting to think that Detective Grandpa and Michael Beck are conspiring to set him up, because of course he would think that! This sentient bottle of Captain Morgan and the creepy cop who clearly still loves his wife suddenly start lobbing accusations of murder at him? C’mon, what’s he supposed to think? But then one of the kids finds a gimp mask in the garden shed! Oh noooooo! Kathleen Quinlan is like, gaaaaah maybe you are a murderizer! And brandishes a knife at him, and Allen is like, c’mon, baby, you know me better than that, I have no idea how that super sexy mask got in our garden shed! Look, to prove that I’m not a murderer, I’ll have myself committed, so that the cops can’t arrest me (which is not how that works), and then when the crimes continue, I’ll be exonerated for good! So off to the loony bin he goes, and into the garbage bin this movie goes.

Detective Grandpa gets the DNA results back from the lab on the super sexy gimp mask: no traces of Allen anywhere on the thing. And then a guy gets arrested for attempted rape, and they find a different sexy gimp mask on him! All of a sudden, Michael Beck, who has been calling Detective Grandpa crazy this whole time, is like, this could be a copycat crime, I think Allen is the real bad guy here now because the plot needs me to! Detective Grandpa is like, nah, your man confessed, there’s no real evidence to tie Allen to any of this, I was wrong, I’m going back to my elderly bachelor’s apartment in Ohio, but before I do that, can I use your bathroom? Michael Beck is like, sure, no problem, just ignore my wall festooned with pictures of Allen’s wife, if you could. But whoops, he doesn’t, and Detective Grandpa is like, holy shit, you set this whole thing up because you wanna go back to boning Kathleen Quinlan, you sent me that newspaper clipping, didn’t you? And Michael Beck, toilet clown that he is, tries to have it both ways, and is like, ok fine, I sent you the newspaper clipping, but I did it because I really thought he may be the guy you’re after, not because of this obvious romantic vendetta of mine! Psssssssh. So then Detective Grandpa is like, did you make those phone calls and plant the gimp mask too? To which Michael Beck is like, how dare you, I may have sent you a newspaper clipping in the hope of getting my unrequited love’s new husband accused of murder, but I’d NEVER plant evidence! Get off your fucking high horse, Beck, and just admit that you’re a creep, yeeeeaaaaaah.

To his credit, Detective Grandpa stops by to see Kathleen Quinlan, and is like, hey, I fucked up, your husband is definitely innocent, and Michael Beck definitely set this whole thing in motion because he’s still in love with you. Which comes as a huge shock to Kathleen Quinlan, and I hate when movies do this, because women are fucking smarter than this. Men in general, but especially creepy men, are terrible at hiding their unrequited feelings, and women definitely know, they just choose to ignore it. Whatever. So Kathleen Quinlan goes to see Allen and is like, I know you’re innocent now, I just want you back, and he’s like, ok, you’re right, it’s time for me to come back to my family, but oooooh boy am I mad at Detective Grandpa and Michael Beck! Anyway, I should be home just in time for…OUR SON’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! SPOOOOOOOOOOKY!!!

Michael Beck, because he’s awesome at ideas, decides to show Kathleen Quinlan that he’s not a creep by accosting her in the Safeway parking lot. Smooth move, Xanadu. He’s like, look, I know that I made a few oopsies, but I still think that your husband is a murderer, and you and your family are in danger. So finally Kathleen Quinlan just unloads on him. She’s like, you’re a manipulative jerk, that’s why I didn’t want to marry you, and that’s why we’re in this situation now, and you need to fucking nut up and get over this childish crush you have on me, and while you’re at it stay away from me and my family, I never want to see you ever again. So Michael Beck totally respects these wishes and…nope, nope, sorry, he parks his car across from the house and goes and stalks them. To make sure they’re “safe.” Fuck offfffffffff, dude.

So the kids are celebrating the youngest’s birthday, they’re decorating the house and blaring the rock n’ roll radio (let’s go!). Kathleen Quinlan asks one of the kids to go close the garage door, but he’s like, nah, I’m on the phone with the radio station so that they’ll give little fuckin’ Mikey or whatever his name is a shoutout on the air! So Kathleen Quinlan goes herself to take care of the garage door, but the lights aren’t working, so she grabs a flashlight, and then, OH CRIPES IT’S MR. BONDAGE GUY!!! She fights him off and manages to knock him out. Meanwhile, Detective Grandpa has stopped for gas, when he hears the birthday dedication to little fuckin’ Mikey or whatever his name is on the radio and he’s like DEAR GOD!!! So then Kathleen Quinlan is like, I must know! So she pulls off the super sexy gimp mask, and whoopdie fuck, it’s Allen. Great. So he wakes up and starts smacking her around and he’s like blargh bloogh I’m crazy now, I’m Ed Vincent and I think you’re my wife, so everybody’s going to hell tonight! The kids don’t hear any of this, of course, because of that blasted rock n’ roll music! She barricades herself in the car, and oh shit, there’s Michael Beck’s dead body! He starts busting out the windows, she crawls out of the driveway, and he’s about to gank her with an axe, when all of a sudden, Detective Grandpa shows up and puts two between the eyes. RIP Allen Devlin. RIP Ed Vincent. And RIP Blackout.

Mostly this movie is just a deeply frustrating viewing experience. The central premise, an amnesiac accused of murder, is a really smart and fascinating one, because there are so many ways you can run with it: is this guy really a secret cold blooded killer? Is this detective just letting his obsession (and all that liquor) cloud his judgement? Or are they both being manipulated by someone else for their own nefarious means? Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to go with the most predictable and boring answer, while also taking the most needlessly convoluted route to get there. However, the performances are all good, more or less, and there’s some excellent cinematography, courtesy of Tak Fujimoto, who would go on to do incredible work with Jonathan Demme and others, so at least the movie looks good. Still, you can’t help but lament what a lost opportunity this is from a storytelling perspective. This is exactly the types of movies that should be getting remade: films with interesting plots that failed in execution. Just imagine what someone like Nicolas Winding Refn or David Fincher could do with this story, right?!

I’ll wrap things up with a strange and macabre addendum. Thanks to Nate Phillips, who runs the fantastic online storefront Media Crypt (I own a few of their shirts, and you should too!), for pointing out to me the fact that Blackout inspired a real-life murder! The film premiered on HBO on July 28, 1985. Less than a week later, on August 3, Ed Sherman of Hartford, CT, murdered his pregnant wife, Ellen. Just like in the film, Ed cranked up the air conditioning to slow down decomposition, and throw off the time of death, in an attempt to establish an alibi. During the trial, witnesses claimed to have discussed watching Blackout with Ed the day after it aired, and the film was even shown to the jury by the prosecutor. In the end, Sherman was sentenced to fifty years in prison, but died of a heart attack only four years into his sentence. The case would eventually be covered on an episode of “Forensic Files.” So that just goes to show ya, Scumbags: crime doesn’t pay! Or maybe it would if you pick a better movie than Blackout to base your crime on. I dunno. I don’t really do crimes.

[viralhottopics]

‘Are You The One?’ Recap: So It Begins

Jambo, morons! Welcome back to another riveting season of where the success rate is similar to the cast members combined IQs: practically non-existent. But hey, were Americans. We love shit that is destined to failwhether its reality shows or President-elects. Its our cross to bear.

ANNNNYWAYS. So MTV had a hard job to do: top the group of idiots that made up season 4. And thankfully for you, but mostly for me, they did just that. Shoutout to you MTV, you da real MVP.

Also, as many of you know, I tend to feature quotes from my loveable, yet incredibly cruel mother in these recaps. You think Im bad? She once called a woman in Starbucks a psycho bitch because she took the last of the skinny vanilla mix. True story. DM me for details. Lets begin now.

This season MTV really went for #culture and decided to have the show in the Dominican Republic. Even reality shows get island fever, I guess. I mean, you can really only throw so many group orgys/luaus so many times on one show.

Ryan Devlin, the host who you feel bad for like 99% of the time, meets up with the cast and is like you guys all suck at and theyve all been trained to say relationships. Of course they all forget their one fucking line and just sound like they are saying random shit.

RYAN: You guys suck at CASTMATE 1: Relationships! CASTMATE 2: Tomato! CASTMATE 3: Unicorn piss! CASTMATE 4: 9/11 was a hoax!

We meet Tyranny (Mom Quote: IS HER NAME TRANNY!?! theyre so cute when they are mildly offensive) says that all of her boyfriends have either cheated on her or knocked other girls up. In the words of Donald Trump: Sad! Very Unfair!

Theres Jaylan who used to be a loser, hit the gym, now gets pussy. Male Laney Boggs. Tale as old as time. Moving on.

Taylor: hottest girl on the show easily, talks about how her dad would kill some of the men she has dated, low-key concerned for her safety and the safety of others.

Theres Joey, the povo as fuck part-time garbage man who spent his last remaining dollars on a gaudy watch. Obviously a very smart investor. Didnt know sent kids on scholarship. Im just happy hes honest about being a garbage man and doesnt try and be like Im a sanitation assistant. Not that any of them know what sanitation means.

Joey is def hot though10/10 would bang, just to get hook up with blue collar worker off my bucket list.

REAL PICTURE OF JOEY:

THE FIRST DATE RULES

Ryan explains about how they do comprehensive interviews and questionnaires to develop and algorithm that eventually finds their match. You know poor Joey didnt know what was happening after comprehensive.

This season, theres another twist: there are 11 guys and 11 girls, but they only get ten chances. Obviously MTV was giving away too much money with this show, so they made more couples. What? Youre thinking it.

For the first date, MTV acted like a bunch of fucking narcs and sent bios to the contestants’ parents so mom and dad can pick who they think is a match. Everyone is like, Mom dont fuck this up for me.

My mom: If you were ever on this show I would literally never acknowledge you again. (Fair enough.)

Joeys mom picks Carolina, whos like okay cool, whatever. She doesnt know hes a garbage man yet, so give her a break.

Hannah’swho is from my hometown, hey girlfamily picks Oswaldo, a self-described horny genius. Welp, I think a line like that means its time for a shot. Brb.

Anyway, Hannah is like I would rather eat my own spleen then date Oswaldo. (paraphrase)

Giannas mom chose Hayden and they start hugging and are like . Fucking spare me. The other fucking losers have to send these couples to the truth booth after their date.

BACK TO THE HOUSE

The castmates get to their dungeon for the next few months and drinks are flowing and shirts are off. I remember my first sip of alcohol.

Cassandra is drunk and is wanting to touch everyones face. She like Im so flirty when Im drunk which is a weird way of saying Im a hoe.

Its Mikes birthday today. Hes like its my birthday so someone fuck me. *plays Birthday Sex* *stares aggressively at all the women*

Mike describes himself as a typical Staten Island boy. His hobbies include moisturizing, mispronouncing half the English language and fapping off to girls who look like Snooki.

Ozzy is a local, so you know he is dirty as fuck. Kathryn goes to Florida State, you know shes hot as fuck, but also borderline brain-dead.

Shes like I WANT TO BE A TEACHER! and its like, sure ya do sweetie, and I want to be a fucking astronaut. Stick to what you know and continue being a TFM girl.

Ozzy and Kathryn both want to be teachers. Snoreeeeee. Shes already like Im in lovewell folks, weve met the stage-5 clinger for the season.

Michael the douchebagnot be confused with Mike, the little man from Staten Islandis laying it on THICK to Taylor and she is not having it. Taylor has officially become my favorite on the show so far.

MICHAEL:Hey pretty lady TAYLOR:Ew seriously? Girls with asses like mine do not talk to guys with faces like yours.

Shes like youre so full of shit and Im like SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK, TAYLOR.

Hayden and Gianna are talking about how they both have dogs and both like corn and other pretty basic shit and decide theyre going to be together forever.

GIANNA: I breathe air HAYDEN: No way, I breathe air!!!

They both have the flyover state bond, with Hayden being from Indiana and Gianna being from Ohio. Its always cute to see two people from middle America bond and discuss the fact that they fucked the rest of us over. True love.

Everyone is like Hayden and Gianna are a match, even though theyve all known each other for 3 seconds.

Joey the trash man is telling people that hes going to be a carpenter, much like a 3rd grader would say Mommy, Im going to be a superhero! Shannon brings me the biggest laugh of the night by asking him to do her carpets, clearly not knowing what a carpenter is. Shit like that makes me miss my sorority.

Ozzy is chain-smoking and being like I DONT WANT TO BE THE OLD ME. Aka, me on New Years Eve.

Kathryn and Ozzy are drunk as fuck and being flirty and going WE WANT TO HELP KIDS!!!! You stay the fuck away from my future children, Rush-Boobs and Ozzy.

Michael is talking to Gianna and starts telling a sob story about how he was chubby and he blossomed. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one. No seriously, every fucking season they have one of these guys.

MTV CASTING: Ok we need at least one hick, one former fat dude, one ripped black guy and one oddly feminine guy. Search the fucking country.

Michael starts asking Gianna about her open-heart surgery, gets bored halfway through and just starts sucking her face. Okay. Well that escalated quickly. Quote from mom: He doesnt give a shit about her faulty heart. Hes trying to get laid. Profound.

Rush-Boobs wants to make Ozzy jealous and starts low-key hooking up with Mike. Fantastic logic, cant wait for you to educate our youth.

Then we meet Andre, who has trust issues because the girl he liked since 8th grade literally sat on his friends lap. Meanwhile, Tyrannys boyfriends are having children, but OKAY. #dramatic

Alicia is the perpetual sidepiece, aka every womans enemy.

Ozzy and Kathryn already think they are a match and Ozzy forgive Rush-Boobs for hooking up with Mike because hes a cheater too, so this is karma. Wow, how fucking zen of you.

THE DATE

Hayden dresses in camo for the date and Gianna is like You can take the boy out of Indiana, but you cant make him dress like a normal fucking human.

Its very clear Gianna is over Hayden, whereas Hayden hasnt been this excited since he attended a Donald Trump rally last summer.

GIANNA: FML HAYDEN: *excitedly whispers* Build that wall! Build that wall!

Joey just looks like a trash man, like, just in life. He has resting garbage man face.

Hannah does not like Oswaldo, its very obvious. Shes going to call her parents and demand a raise in her monthly allowance for making her suffer through this bullshit.

Gianna starts kissing Hayden and shes like Ill give him a chance. How fucking noble of you.

Carolina and Joey are talking about their parents and Joey tells her that he would never cheat on a girl and Carolina damn near creams her pants. They kiss and meanwhile the whole audience is wondering does she know hes a trash man? That dramatic irony, doe.

THE TRUTH BOOTH

ShockerHayden and Gianna to the truth booth. Michael is like WE MADE OUT LAST NIGHT but Im not jealous.

MICHAEL: Im not even mad! NARRATOR: Michael was, in fact, very mad.

Ah, but there is a truth booth twist! They can trade in truth booth and add $150,000 to their prize. But if they take the money then Hayden and Gianna can never get sent back together.

The house is torn. Im torn. Im all out of faith, this is how I feel.

*Starts Twitter poll asking people what they would do*

They decide not to take the trade, which my mom and I both agree is stupid.

And lookie here: No match. So thats done.

Michael is thrilled. My mom thinks he looks like a baby rat. Cannot un-see that.

Gianna gives a speech basically saying that she didnt feel it the whole time and everyone is like okay cool thanks for telling us, *whispers* ya fuckin bitch.

We also very quickly meet Kam, who has a rotation of men because #feminism. And Edward, who has a chest tattoo. Thats it for now.

Gianna goes to hang out with Michael and hes over it. He makes her cry, I dont really care, blah blah blah, moves on with life. Gianna and Michael are going to be the annoying couple this season. Buckle up.

MATCH CEREMONY

This season they have the blackout rule again but this time they cut the winnings in half if they blackout. Thats way harsh, Tai.

First is Kam and Eddy. Shes building up her newest rotation.

Taylor picks Tyler, who is hot. Wait what? Why did they not introduce the hot guy? What is this fuckery, MTV? They also sound like they could be identical twins.

Kari, dont know her yet so whatever, picks little man Mike.

Casandra picks Kaylen.

Caroline picks Joey.

Tyranny and Oswaldo. Can I just call you Tee? Im going to call you Tee, because Im one letter away from being low-key fucked up.

Giannas dumb ass is up and shes like I HAVE A GREAT CONNECTION WITH MICHAEL so obviously shes going to pick Ozzy.

Tee and Alicia are pissed and threatening to curb stomp this bitch. Fuck yes, this is what I signed up for. Gianna is like Leave me alone everyone, Im proving this to Michael! Literally all you proved was that youre crazy AND stupid.

Hannah picks Michael.

Alicia picks Andre.

Rush-Boobs picks Derek, who is also hot as fuck. Also, Rush-Boobs laugh reminds me of Kitty from. I know. Its all you can think about now.

Shannon, who btw really needs her carpets cleaned, picks Hayden.

Well this is excitingthey get two matches. Not bad for week one. They dont make me want to kill myselfyet.

Ryan gives the follow your heart speech that we hear every fucking episode and the cast goes back to the house to turn the fuck up.

So far, off to an interesting start. Gotta say, good-looking cast this season. Dumb as rocks, but good-looking. Come back next week to see what other shit I can talk about my peers who are doing far worse than I am. Peace, bitches.

div.body_middle_part_right .bodypart:nth-child(n+2),a.prevBody{display:none;}

Read more: http://betches.co/2itgoq2

from ‘Are You The One?’ Recap: So It Begins