#i just have this compulsion to fill spaces with crap so it looks good

[vault81]

ah yes my classic "I don't know what to do with a space in sanctuary so i'll turn it into a park"

[chiseler]

Hero of Our Nation

I first encountered Roger Ramjet on a Chicago public access station in 1983. It was part of an early morning show apparently aimed at stoner insomniacs. The show came on at five and also included episodes of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, that awful Beatles cartoon, and a weather report clarified by some appropriate pop song (“Here Comes the Sun” or “Here Comes the Rain Again”). I was usually up and around that early for some godforsaken reason, and originally started watching on account of Lancelot Link. Always did love that Lancelot Link. But Roger Ramjet was, well, let’s just say it was a revelation.

Roger Ramjet, “ that All-American good guy and devil may care flying fool” (as he compulsively introduces himself) was a none too bright and none too coordinated drug-dependent space age superhero in an ongoing battle against the assorted forces of evil (or more specifically, N.A.S.T.Y.) to preserve the American Way of Life. He was square-jawed, straight-laced, straight-faced, and True Blue if little else, so hyper-patriotic that nearly every time his name is spoken aloud an American flag, a bald eagle, or a rotating ring of stars appears on the screen. After catching one or two episodes, I forgot all about Lancelot Link.

The show was easy to overlook, especially when squeezed between the Beatles and some secret agent chimps with a psychedelic band. The episodes were only five minutes long (maybe seven with the abrasive theme song filling out the opening and closing credits), and were so crudely drawn and animated it might at a glance seem like something a couple of junior high school kids threw together in their basement one weekend. The shows were so primitive they hardly bothered with niceties like “backgrounds” satisfied instead to settle for rudimentary suggestions of a setting. But the writing was so sharp and the voice talent so good what it really felt like, if you paid attention, was a spoof of a ‘40s radio serial like Sky King or Gangbusters, complete with a soap opera organ and illustrated by a handful of jerky drawings scratched out by someone’s kid. People who thought Jay Ward’s Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right were crude when compared with the output from Disney or Warner Brothers had no idea what “crude” meant. 

Looking at it today what it reminds me of more than anything are the paper cutout animations of the earliest episodes of South Park, before they upgraded to Flash. Along with the lo-fi stylistics, the humor was clearly aimed at an adult audience while pretending otherwise.  You may not find any child molestation jokes or crass religious cracks in Roger Ramjet, but for 1965 the lightning-fast humor was pretty hepcat and sophisticated, with undisguised satirical references to the Cold War, Central American turmoil, and the  Vietnam War (“Hey kids, this is Roger Ramjet,” demanding that you stay tuned to this station to see my next adventure,” Roger announces in his commanding superhero baritone. “Or I’ll see to it that all you little rascals are drafted.”) . Mixed in with the topical jokes we also get some highly unlikely name drops, from Noel Coward and Henry Cabot Lodge to James Joyce and bawdy nightclub performer Rusty Warren, as well as film parodies and  literary nods to the likes of Catch-22 and Catcher in the Rye.  It’s also a little less than what you might call racially sensitive by modern standards (consider Mexican revolutionaries The Enchilada Brothers, Beef and Chicken).

While a lot of the more timely jokes might be lost in the murk of the over 50 years since it first aired, there’s plenty of rapid-fire absurdity that’s timeless, from the misspelled title cards punctuating the narration to the self-consciously dumb coked-up adventures.

Bullwinkle aired from ‘61 to ‘64. Roger Ramjet came along a year later and Jay Ward’s influence is undeniable. The difference was Roger Ramjet crammed the equivalent number of bad jokes, references, and plot twists of a typical 8-part Bullwinkle serial into each five-minute episode, both mirroring the rapid-fire screwball dialogue of the ‘30s and the frenetic quick-cut comedy to come along a year or two later in shows like The Monkees and Laugh-In.

The episodes were produced with essentially no budget and were cranked out very quickly by a small team of writers, voiceover artists and animators with solid day jobs in radio and TV. They were all seasoned pros, some dating back to the days of classic radio, who worked on the show after hours as a way of letting off a little steam and tossing around a few cynical, subversive  cultural jabs their day jobs wouldn’t allow. The show was created originally by animator Fred Crippen  (who went on to work on some pretty dreadful crap like the Extreme Ghostbusters  and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Ken Snyder, an ad exec who moved over into producing cartoons. They brought in a remarkable team of voice talent and comedy writers, including Gene Moss (the voice of Smokey the Bear) Jim Thurmam (who did a lot of kids shows including Sesame Street), Dick Beals (the original voice of Gumby), and the great Gary Owens, a drive-time deejay in LA who would get national recognition soon enough as the on-screen announcer for Laugh-In. Although they would all get specific credits in the end (Crippen as director, Moss as a writer) it was a communal effort, in which everyone contributed to the writing, and everyone, even the executive producer, did a few of the voices. Apart from the regular crew, careful listeners might also catch a few uncredited guest appearances by some surprisingly big names (I’m told Sinatra and Dean Martin appear in an episode, but I’m still looking for that one). Owens was the star, though, as his ability to read the most ridiculous lines in a dramatic deadpan made him the perfect Roger Ramjet. Together they made 156 episodes (about 150 still exist), which were sold directly into syndication in ‘65 as half hour shows, each containing three unconnected adventures. I can’t say as I’m exactly sure who they thought their target audience was at the time, except maybe each other.

Much like William Conrad in Bullwinkle, each show opened with our narrator, Steve Allen alum Dave Ketchum, setting the mood and the scene (“In today’s depressing episode,” he’d begin with dramatic enthusiasm, or maybe it was an “existentialist episode,” “phlegmatic episode,” “rickety episode,”  “hairy episode,” or “ethnic episode”). Then we’re out of the gate at a breakneck pace, with a flurry of gags coming from every direction. “Ramjet rode into Boot Hill,” we’re told,  “where the men were men and the women were men, which can get pretty old after awhile.”

While none of the shows are connected, there are a few recurring characters and locations worth remembering: Roger hails from Lompoc, an actual California town (“where nothing ever happens, and seldom does”) and  takes his orders from General G.I. Brassbottom, a no nonsense military man who “hadn’t had an original idea since he was a civilian.” He’s also assisted by Yank, Doodle, Dan, and Dee, the unusually chubby  kids who make up the American Eagle squadron. Like Roger, all the members of the squadron wear their white jumpsuits and flight helmets at all times (Roger even wears his helmet on dates), and in true superhero sidekick fashion, their primary job is to get Roger out of scrapes and make sure his drugs are handy. 

That’s one little detail more than a few casual viewers have taken umbrage with. Roger, see, is a pretty hapless character most of the time, but he repeatedly saves the world thanks to a little help from his Proton Energy Pills (PEP), which take five seconds to kick in, then give him the strength of 20 A-Bombs for 20 seconds. Modern viewers seem a little uncomfortable with the idea of a superhero gulping amphetamines in order to function, but all I can say is, well, it was a different time, and hey, it worked for Roger and Elvis both.

The proton energy pills come in handy when dealing with his arch-nemesis Noodles Romanoff, the short, trench coat and fedora wearing head of N.A.S.T.Y. (the National Association of Spies, Traitors, and Yahoos). Romanoff may not have a Natasha, but he does have a gang of cronies and thugs who all mumble in unison (save for one, who can’t seem to get the rhythm). 

Along with Romanoff and his gang, Roger also has to contend with some lanky alien robots, the Solenoids (voiced by executive priducer Ken Snyder), and their repeated efforts to invade the planet in assorted ridiculous ways (in one episode, they begin kidnapping all the Miss America contestants, who “were disappearing faster than co-eds at a Dartmouth weekend.”)

When not saving the world, Roger found himself competing with the smarmy hotshot test pilot Lance Crossfire (who sounds an awful lot like burt Lancaster) for the affections of Lotta Love, the fickle Southern belle with a taste for the finer things in life.

Then there are the adventures themselves. Some seem standard superhero fare, but only to a point. Earth is besieged by flying saucer attacks (sort of). Roger’s hometown is terrorized by a werewolf (sort of). Roger plays tennis with a kangaroo, or becomes the first man to surf in space,  or, in a personal favorite, attempts to stop the flow of bootleg comic books into America’s drug stores.

Actually, there’s an interesting moment in that one that revealed just how subtle you could be even with animation this unsophisticated. Okay, so Noodles Romanoff, see, is replacing real comics in drug store racks with bootlegs in which popular superheroes are humiliated, all in an effort to destroy the morale of America’s children. After Brassbottom shows Roger a few examples (the issues include “Superman Gets Beat Up by a Chicken!” and “Ratman Stubs His Toe!”) he explains that if this sort of thing continues, “America’s kids won’t have anyone to look up to except YOU, Ramjet.” Then, for just an instant in that crude and jerky style, Roger cuts his eyes toward the camera, revealing in that moment everything we needed to know, namely that it’s what he’s always wanted.

Thirty years on and that still sticks with me.

In the end, though, the characters and storylines are secondary at best In Roger Ramjet. At heart it’s  a matter of trying to keep up with all the lightning-quick  jokes and wordplay, the non-sequiturs and references. In the five minute span of one cowboy-themed episode I counted nods to at least seven classic Western films, from High Noon to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and I suspect I missed a few. It really is such a dizzying blur of dialogue and bad puns and cultural references, sometimes, christ, even just references to old jokes that take the form of bad puns (“Waiter, there’s a spy in my soup” or “how many angels can swim in the head of a beer?”), that absurd as it all is, repeated viewings are a necessity to catch everything. It’s a bit like having the complete contents of an issue of MAD magazine jammed onto a single page. It can make your head hurt after a while, but it’s worth it. Whether the density and the pace make it better or worse for stoner viewing is something, I guess, each stoner will need to answer for him or herself. Lots of bright colors, though.

In 1965 there was nothing new about making cartoons with adult sensibilities in mind. Betty Boop and Bugs Bunny were made to be shown as short subjects to largely adult audiences. Jay Ward’s cartoons a few decades down the line were near-revolutionary for smuggling hip, subversive political humor into what had become an exclusively child-friendly format. What made Roger Ramjet so radical was it’s blend of ‘30s radio style with mid-’60s cynicism, as well as its foreshadowing of our shrinking attention spans, a hyper-condensed proton pill of comedy and commentary disguised as just another dumb, low-rent superhero cartoon. Although it’s barely remembered today, its influence is still evident in most any subversive animated show you can name, even if they’ve slowed things down a bit.

by Jim Knipfel

[hesesols]

The Devil's Advocate

Day 19 and 21 of Ichiruki month 2020

Summary: Demons are a pain in the neck. Exhibit A: The pint-sized she-demon Ichigo’s stuck with until further notice.

Rating: T

FF/ao3

.

.

His mouth is bone dry.

Summer heat renders the humidity inside the tiny studio apartment stifling. Heat and sweat cling onto him like a second skin and the stupid electric fan does nothing to ease it.

It's barely three in the morning when he trudges over to his fridge and parks himself in front of the open doors. The blast of cold air hits his heated body nicely. He almost moans.

Instinctively, he grabs the bottle of orange juice from the side and takes a swig from it- only… it's empty?

He growls, "Rukia, what did we say about leaving the empty OJ in the fridge?"

The culprit spares him a lazy smirk from her end of the couch, violet cat-eyes gleaming from the faint glow of the TV. She tilts her head just so as she sticks her tongue out at him.

"Oops!"

Ichigo wearily sighs and slams the door shut, mumbling something about free-loading she-demons. His life is hardly picture perfect to begin with anyway with his job at the Metropolitan Police as a homicide detective. Work hours are long, and his mornings usually start off with unsolicited gruesome crime scene photos and a diluted concoction of coffee-water that is nowhere nearly as strong as he needs it to be.

Since Rukia moved in though, things seem to have gone from bad to worse.

His neighbours think she's his live-in girlfriend- sweet, albeit a little strange at times. Ichigo snorts. They don't know half of it.

The midget isn't even human.

Underneath a heavy layer of glamour, are two spiral-shaped horns- the colour of it blending near seamless with her nest of glossy black hair and of course, a very noticeable fork-tipped tail, flicking from side to side as she giggles at his obvious annoyance at the OJ-less situation.

Filling his cup with lukewarm tap water instead, he trudges over and nudges at her to move. Wordlessly settling next to her, he then proceeds to ignore her indignant yelp as he splays his long legs on the couch, taking up much of her space.

She huffs and glares at him, which earns her a careless roll of his eyes.

"What are you watching?"

Squinting slightly from the brightness, he scoffs as he realizes that she's watching a Spanish telenovela. Though watching may be an understatement in this case, Rukia is obsessed with them to the point where she becomes a little too invested in the torrid love affairs of the fictional characters on screen. By virtue of her otherworldly origins, she understands every language known to man and speaks in tongues; Ichigo doesn't and thinks it's a feat that he catches the names of the characters in passing.

He grabs the remote control, surprised when she viciously slaps his hand away and hisses, "Change the channel and I guarantee you won't live long enough to see the next dawn."

"I'd like to see you try."

Ichigo snorts and does it anyway. It's hard to take her seriously even with the whole glowing eyes business when she is so tiny that she barely comes to his shoulder.

As a demon, Rukia is surprisingly low maintenance- the most outrageous of her demands since she has gotten herself suspended in limbo in their plane of existence was for him to take her to a bunny café. That being said, she does however take her soaps and TV shows very seriously which explains her aggressiveness as she launches herself at him, her touch burning hot on naked skin as she grapples for the device.

"Give it back!"

Ichigo stretches, holding it in one hand just shy of her reach, taunting her.

"Why don't you make me, midget?"

Growling, she takes him up on his challenge. Violet eyes ablaze as she clambers over him on all four, chewing at her lower lip from the effort. It shouldn't even be possible Ichigo thinks, for demons to be this cute- ahem-fixated with earthly distractions but the press of her lithe body feels warm against him, deluding him into thinking for a second, that Rukia isn't some supernatural being from the nether realms powerful enough to send him flying with a snap of her fingers.

Sometimes, he feels she almost forgets about her inhuman advantages- on purpose. The puff of warm exhale from her makes his hair stand, the sight of her face so close to his jerks his thoughts away from his nonsensical musings. Her shirt hikes up and the collar that is way too loose on her easily falls off her shoulder, showing skin.

He bites the inside of his cheek. She needs to stop prancing around in his shirts.

She has her own clothes to wear. He bought her a full array of sundresses, pants, shirts and skirts. Ichigo thinks it's compulsion that makes her raid his closet and steal his clothes. It wouldn't have been quite so ridiculous if she wasn't so petite, making his worn-in T-shirts look more like dresses with the hem cut conspicuously shorter than normal on her thighs.

Ichigo looks away and takes a quick gulp of water. The heat is doing things to him.

He's not checking her out.

He swears. Honest to God.

He's not suicidal. He wouldn't put it above Rukia to claw his eyes out or alternatively damn him to the deepest pits of purgatories if she found out about him sneaking glances at her.

"Here!"

Ichigo throws the remote back at her, standing up abruptly without sparing her another glance. His skin feels warm- much warmer than it has any business of being under a demon's touch and his mouth dry. No touch of water will ever begin to quench this thirst and tame his racing heart but he is human enough to still try to run from the implications.

It's too hot to think. He grabs his keys and wallet.

"I'm heading out."

Rukia's voice rings up from the couch- cool, unaffected as always. Ichigo hates her a little for it, almost.

"This time of the day? Where are you going?"

"To get some OJ from the corner shop since someone finished it and couldn't even be bothered enough to replace it."

Her grin is impish, not a shred of remorse from her as she sighs and kicks back, reclaiming her sovereignty over the couch.

"Oh, could you grab some ice-cream while you're at it? I think we're all out too."

He grimaces, halts his process of shrugging on a shirt to yell back, "They're full of sugary crap. Too much of it and you're going to rot your teeth!"

Just before he sets foot outside though, he grumbles.

"What flavour do you want?"

The grin she flashes at him is annoying and indolent with her spread out on the couch, like a cat in the sun, pleased with her unchallenged access to her favourite soap and him running errands on her behalf.

The satisfaction practically purrs from her as she smirks and says, "Strawberries and cream."

His cheeks burn and he tells himself that he's too nice for his own good, staunchly refusing to even consider the possibility that she's got him wrapped around her pretty little fingers.

.

.

.

The streets of his neighbourhood are mostly deserted in the wee hours before dawn and the scarcity of people makes the air somewhat bearable despite the heat. He walks home in the dark, his groceries in a plastic bag hanging limply by his side.

Ichigo sighs. It's a horrible thing to be distracted by thoughts and downright disgraceful that it has taken him this long to realize that he's being followed.

He turns the next corner sharply and as expected, the heavy footsteps, the crunch against the gravel of the pavement follows. He hides behind the decrepit wall, bidding his time until the sound creeps close enough for him to make out the shadow of a hunkering man.

Now!

He leaps out from the shadow, swinging the heavily-laden bag like a weapon at his attacker.

The stranger decked from head to toe in black falters from the surprise attack. He is forced to take another step back as the weight hits him dead centre- quickly followed by a punch from Ichigo, letting out a pained groan as his world spins.

"Who sent y- the fuck!—"

The hood of his attacker slips off and Ichigo is more than a little shocked by the ghastly appearance of the creature underneath it. Whatever this thing is- it's not human. Yellow teeth- drool dripping from the corners of the gaping mouth and sunken cheeks make up the most sinister-looking skull-face he has ever seen. The thing's unfocused milky white eyes sharpened at him.

The creature throws itself at him, snarling with claws drawn out and aimed at his jugular.

Forced on the defensive, Ichigo doesn't hesitate. Instincts and years of experience have him throwing the bag of grocery at the ghoul as a distraction to buy him time. He takes off down the street in the opposite direction without looking back.

The bag rips, predictably; the contents of it spilling into the empty streets but it barely slows the creature down.

Outrunning him by a good minute, the creature lunges at him from his blind spot which he clumsily dodges. His back meets the wall of the alleyway, chipping off old paint and the uneven edges bite into his skin through his flimsy cotton shirt, drawing blood. He hisses in pain but there's barely even time to register it as the ghoul lunges again.

The strong jaw of the creature crushes the pieces of garbage Ichigo throws at it, rendering them into splinters. Its movements and attacks unrelenting and aimed to kill.

Weaponless as opposed to the creature's deadly bite and claws, Ichigo has neither the speed nor the agility to fully dodge the frenzied attacks. The odds are stacked against him and with every swipe and snarl; Ichigo feels his chances of survival dwindling.

He is crawling backwards on all four, back against the wall when his hand closes on a steel bar. He thanks the stars and whatever higher power there may be but knows that he is not out of the woods yet.

Grim determination sets in as his eyes harden.

He only gets one chance- one chance to get this right or he's dead and done for.

.

The ghoul rears up for its attack and Ichigo readies himself.

Mid-launch, the steel bar spears through the creature's twisted body. It gives a strangled cry, black blood oozing and dripping onto the pavement, over Ichigo's battered and bruised body. But Ichigo refuses to let go. He pushes it in deeper until he can hear the snap of muscles and soft tissues, and sees the metal protruding from the other side of the dead monster.

The ghoul flops over dead. Its weight settles on top of Ichigo and he eagerly hoists it off, eager to put some distance between them. The damn thing smells worse than the open sewage and rotten corpses.

Above him, there is an ominous roll of thunder and flashes of lightning that streak through the dark skies. Ichigo picks himself up wearily. He has no intention of being caught in the downpour.

Sharp pain shoots from his side as he hobbles. His hand comes up red and in disbelief, his eyes flit to the wound on his side, cut deep and the shred of cotton or what remains of his tattered shirt is soaked in the bloom of scarlet. The drip—drop of blood follows the pull of gravity, pattering onto the hot pavement.

He's been stabbed, he realizes belatedly and curses, that was his favourite shirt too.

.

Adrenaline fades and his legs give way from the blood loss.

A drop of something cool slides down his cheek before the torrent of rain follows, drenching him as he lays helpless on the deserted street, too weak to even yell for help.

He heaves a shaky breath, trying to make himself comfortable. The ache of the pain somehow dulling as the rain blurs his vision.

Cliché but he swears he sees his life flashing before him. And at the forefront of his strange musings and equally bizarre life cut short before his time, he remembers his first meeting with Rukia.

.

.

There's nothing quite like satanic cults and human sacrifices to brighten up the prospects of the day.

Ichigo grimaced, looking at the crime scene photos with a deep frown as he sipped at his coffee. He should have never taken up Ishida on his offer.

This case had all the makings of a ritual killing. Missing child, dead parent cut open with palms splayed, gruesome markings etched- he scowled; it reminded him too much of his own loss.

A tip-off from Anonymous led him to an abandoned warehouse not too far away from the Docks, the scene of the first murder.

"Don't do anything stupid," Ishida had cautioned him against it, "It's just another prank call. I sent a team out to canvas that area hours ago. There's nothing in that warehouse."

But Ichigo wasn't convinced. Gut instincts screamed at him to take a closer look at it but he also wasn't about to pick a fight when they should be focusing the bulk of their resources and time into finding the missing girl. The first 48 hours are crucial.

He's tough and packing. That made the second part of his decision a no-brainer as he slinked in past the locked gates and rusted metal fences— alone.

What he found inside the warehouse though was enough to make him balk.

"Nothing to report, my ass," he mumbled, carefully avoiding the pile of animal bones strewn along the doorway. He thought he heard the scurrying of rats and other critters as he made his way in deeper, unable to shake off the feeling of being watched.

There's something else in here. He could feel it in his bones.

He drew his weapon as he wandered into a room with what seemed to be a laid altar with offerings of dead flowers and questionable animal remains.

Heavy clouds of sulphur and incense filled the air, making his eyes water. In the centre of the room, was a circle, curious glyphs and runes drawn in red that he strongly suspected to be blood, candles with half-burnt ends flickering.

There's a pull at him towards the circle. He didn't resist it. The minute he crossed the threshold though, the candles were snuffed out and a blinding white light enveloped him. A strange ringing echoed through the room.

When his vision cleared, there was a girl with two horns and a tail standing in front of him, violet eyes searing into his as she bowed somewhat mockingly.

"Took you long enough. I was beginning to think that I'll waste away here for another week before someone shows up."

He stared, slack-jawed at her nudity or rather her lack of shame at her own state of undress.

She was unimpressed. Tapping her foot impatiently, she looked at him and said, "Well don't just stand there and gape. State the terms of your contract and we'll see if something can be arranged."

.

.

"Ichigo!"

The memory fades. The same pair of violet eyes are now boring deep into his.

"Rukia," he breathes. Talking is hard but he tries anyway. If it's to be his dying words, let them at least have meaning. Rukia- her existence and the events leading to her presence in his life are the only things that have ever made sense in a world said to have been created by an all-loving God and yet so full of injustice and hate.

"Stop talking! Damn it!"

He thinks she's smarter than that. He's lost too much blood now to ever come back whole. He is beyond saving at this point.

There's a light somewhere guiding him on. Maybe he'll see his mom after this; will she be proud of him- of what he's done with his life?

"I won't let you die."

There's a strange shimmering in the air. The shaft of light shining down on him is suddenly blotted out and he is falling-

Falling-

Falling-

.

He slams back into his body and chokes.

The pain is a hundred times sharper and a million times more jarring than he remembers. Brown eyes snap open just in time to see Rukia's kneeling body enshrouded in a silver ashy glow of light; her hand plunged deep into his chest.

The rain plasters her hair to her face; her eyes an unholy combination of black sclera and violet irises. She growls from the effort as her fingers tirelessly trace rune after rune across his broken body. The burnished ring of gold on his chest glows and hums with each and every character added.

Ichigo can only watch on in stunned silence as a cascade of something iridescent is siphoned from her and pulled into him. He thinks he hears singing, sweeter than the song of a nightingale and so beautiful that he thinks he just might cry from it.

She grits her teeth.

"Do you trust me?"

He nods.

She presses her lips to his. He surges forward to meet her and tastes the saltiness of her tears, mingled with that of the rain. There's a cut on her lip from where she had been biting too hard and the taste of it- like honey, decadent and syrupy, lingers on his palate.

The pain- or rather the absence of it grows and he feels something being anchored into place.

His heart.

Her heart.

There's something between them that is beyond words and whatever she's done, Ichigo knows it's life-changing for the both of them. He knows somehow, staring at the identical marks of a glowing glyph on the back of their palm.

They're bonded.

But even the very word seems inadequate to express this shimmer between them. There's a sliver of her- something inhuman— nay, a dark voice whispers, better than human— within him and it makes the world incomprehensibly sharper in his eyes, the taste of the summer air sweet on his tongue and the warmth of her skin so achingly perfect against his own as he holds her.

Pink flesh peeks through his tattered shirt. He is once again healed, whole, rendered into something new in her presence.

"So," he licks his dry lips, "did Hector ever managed to tell Maria that he loves her?"

"You idiot!"

She is shaking her head, calling him names for his recklessness. At length, she stops, and heaving a sigh of deep relief, grins at him, canines showing.

"Welcome back to the world of living, Master."

.

.

.

FF/ao3

The 'I-accidentally-summoned-a-cute-demon-and-now-I-think-I'm-in-too-deep-to-let-her-go' AU

Also detective! Ichigo who solves crime with some help from the occult world- courtesy of his soulmate/familiar/contract partner demon! Rukia.

As always, review, like, reblog, comment or send me an ask to share random thoughts.

[violetsmoak]

Appetence [4/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/48114034

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn’t expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #incubus #leather jacket #cigarettes

First Chapter

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52 

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

Tim may have miscalculated.

Under normal circumstances, his plan would be no big deal for him to recalibrate; thinking on one’s feet is part of being a Bat, after all. And it’s not like he doesn’t have assets.

The alleyway, though dark, is broad and not filled with cumbersome obstacles that would impede fighting in close quarters. There’s enough shadow for him to disappear into if need be, and if he were unable to reach for the tools in his utility belt or bandolier, he would easily find makeshift weapons—shards of glass from a broken mirror or loose bricks.

He’s just having a little trouble concentrating.

Actually, he’s having a lot of trouble concentrating and worse, trying to get his body to do anything he wants it to right now.

Almost the minute he stepped into the alleyway Tim felt a heaviness settled into his bones.

He’d shaken it off as a random bout of exhaustion—the kind that creeps up on him frequently, especially when he hasn’t slept properly in a few nights—but this one didn’t go away. He can’t seem to push it back or ignore it just enough to regain his wits.

And now Salvatore is moving directly into his personal space, too close for comfort, Tim should be lashing out to stop his advance. A blow to the chest, a twist of his wrist to bring him down to his knees.

But he finds he can’t.

Tim’s arms and legs are like lead weights by his side, too heavy to maneuver.

Then Salvatore is reaching out to him, tipping two fingers under his chin and stroking the skin there. Tim shivers, in disgust and at how cold the other man’s skin is.

“There now, isn’t this cozy?” the other man purrs.

Tim’s heart begins to beat faster, and he thinks it’s adrenaline at first, a reaction to his immobility and the danger of the situation. But the way his cheeks flood with warmth and the way his suit suddenly feels too tight tell him it’s something else.

“It could be cozier,” Salvatore continues thoughtfully, tracing Tim’s jaw. “What do you say, baby? Take off that ugly hood and show off the pretty cheekbones I know you have.”

“What…are you doing…to me?” Tim growls as he struggles against the immediate compulsion to do as the other man says. He can’t keep his hands from moving toward his face, though they do so slowly, trembling as he tries to hold back.

“Not anything you don’t want me to, I’m sure.”

“I…really…don’t…”

“That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing. Now, let me see what I have to work with.”

The cowl is off, hanging heavily against his back. Tim is barely able to keep himself from releasing his domino mask as well, if only because Salvatore didn’t specifically ask for it. Whatever this compulsion is caused by, it allows for loopholes—though he doesn’t know how much longer that’s going to last.

How is he doing this? He barely suggested it and Tim’s completely susceptible to him, to the point where his training is like a distant memory. The entire situation reminds him of being under the influence of Poison Ivy’s concoctions, but somehow different. Where hers focus on achieving biochemical responses or altering hormones, this is different; it feels like something is being drawn out of him on a deeper level.

“Oh, I was right. You Bats all look so edible from a distance. It’s even better up close.”

Tim’s brain scrambles for a plan, trying to buy himself time. If he could just make the smallest movement, he could activate his comm to call for help.

His fingers remain stiff and uncooperating.

“Metahuman,” he accuses.

Salvatore pauses, looking offended for a moment. “I’m no such thing. Nothing so new and crude.”

“Is this…what you did to Dante?”

“Who? Oh. The one in the picture. No, I didn’t play with your little friend. He wasn’t really my type. Too…pure. But you?” His uncanny eyes rake over Tim again. “Mmmm.”

“But you know…who did…take him?”

“No idea. I already told you there are worse things than me out there. At least I’m just acting according to my nature—the real monsters out there are the ones that make themselves.” He grins, and it somehow seems like he has too many teeth. “Now stop asking me questions, pretty boy, and behave yourself.” His hand slithers up Tim’s arm and over his shoulder. “I promise to make it good for you—it just tastes so much better when willingly given.”

And it’s like Tim’s protests die in his throat, the fight draining out of him with every passing second and every inch closer that Salvatore moves. He casts his eyes around, trying to find anything he might use for a weapon if he could just reach for it—

Instead, he catches sight of movement. For a moment feels a burst of hope, until he understands it’s just Salvatore’s reflection on the broken mirror. That disappointment morphs quickly into horror when he realizes he’s not seeing the enticing young man in front of him reflected there.

Instead, a hairless, gray and vaguely humanoid shape leans over Tim’s reflection. Its facial features are inhuman, cold black eyes with a reflective tint and an open, gaping mouth like a Sarlacc pit.

It takes every bit of effort he has to try to pull backward, away from the approaching…thing. Even as he knows there’s no stopping him, that he can’t even twitch his fingers enough to engage the taster in his suit.

He’s going to have to wait until the creature comes into actual physical contact with him, press him up against the electric panel in his chest to throw him off.

Bile rises in his throat at that thought

As Salvatore leans into him, lowering his mouth to Tim and bringing an overwhelming scent of sickly-sweet rot, his consciousness begins to ebb away, lulled into a dreamy haze

Maybe…maybe it won’t be so…bad

“You know, usually I avoid your kind, since I’m not so great with the fleshy side of ugly,” a voice declares from the mouth of the cave, shattering the overwhelming tension, “but there’s someone big and brooding goin’ to take exception to this guy going missing or dead.”

And then suddenly Salvatore is being hauled off of him, sending Tim falling to his knees when the creature’s compulsion no longer able to hold him up. Salvatore reacts like an angry cat, hissing violently at the newcomer.

Tim has the impression of red hair and a leather jacket, but that’s it as he struggles to regain control of his faculties; the hazy sensation is slow to ebb away. The quick withdrawal of whatever was keeping him in thrall retracts as abruptly as a snapping elastic, forcing a kind of whiplash feeling.

Immediately, his stomach revolts and he can’t hold back from vomiting on the ground.

“I get you’re just doing what you do, and all,” the stranger continues to talk, a taunting edge in his voice, “but there are a lot of people out there with self-esteem issues and no self-respect who’d be more than happy to give you what you want. This guy? Doesn’t look as into it as you are. I mean, you had to pull the mojo out on him right away…”

“Maldito hijo de puta,” Salvatore spits.

The stranger snorts. “That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?”

“Take a hike, filth,” Salvatore snarls. “I don’t care what you think you know, you’re not ready to tangle with me.”

“Oh, well, now I’ve got to stay.”

“I won’t waste my time with foreplay, then.”

And Salvatore takes a running leap at Leather Jacket, hauling his hand back as if to punch him. Except his fingers are open and curled and sharpening—

Leather Jacket swears as he ducks backward, the creature’s claws raking down the front of his chest. He staggers backward.

“You want to walk away,” Salvatore orders coldly. “Walk into traffic.”

Leather Jacket falters a moment and then laughs. “You really think I’d have come at you if I didn’t have protection against your stupid hypno-crap?”

Salvatore makes a shocked noise, which is cut off when a fist hits his face. He reels backward a few feet.

Wiping his mouth, Tim tugs his cowl back up over his face with trembling hands, needing to regain that sense of anonymity and disguise the effect all this has had on him. It’s all he can manage at the moment, his legs still wobbling like jelly. There’s no way he can get up right now and throw himself into the fray.

The stranger pulls something out from beneath his jacket pocket as Salvatore recovers and goes to make another move. Tim recognizes the shape of a gun.

“You know that won’t kill me,” Salvatore sneers.

“Do I?” the man replies and pulls the trigger.

“No!” Tim cries; too late.

Bullets tear through Salvatore’s shoulder, making him snarl in pain and fury as his body jerks backward with the force of it. But instead of falling to the ground, blood spurting from the wounds, he remains standing; the wound begins to smoke.

“You’re right, it won’t kill you,” Leather Jacket agrees as Salvatore gnashes his teeth. “But it will take you a few hours to heal. Who knows what I could do to you in that time?”

Salvatore growls and lunges forward again, and Leather Jackey fires two more precise shots, this time to his knees. Now it’s Salvatore on his knees, panting in pain.

“That was warning number two,” Leather Jacket tells him coolly. “Want to go for a third?”

Tim senses the exact moment when the fight goes out of Salvatore’s body. The next time he moves, it’s angling his body away from Leather Jacket, using a wall to pull himself upward.

“Now, bugger off while I’m feeling merciful,” Leather Jacket growls. “And stay the hell out of Crime Alley. Try the Diamond District for your hunting grounds—you’ll fit right in.”

The injured Salvatore gives another hiss, cradling his wounded shoulder, but thinks better of taking another run at his opponent. Instead, he turns about and limps off at a run.

Leather Jacket snorts at the sight, shaking his head.

Tim still needs to lean against the wall to steady himself, his stomach continuing to swoop angrily. As the haze in his head retreats, it’s with a swirling, withdrawing sensation that has him seeing spots.

He should probably thank the guy who saved him, even if it’s embarrassing, he needed to be saved, but he can’t unstick his tongue.

“Is this a new thing for you lot?” the stranger asks. “Coming down here to work the streets, getting picked up and almost eaten by suspicious strangers? I mean, it’s a step down from tangling with the Joker, ain’t it?” The sardonic tone falters slightly on the name, a hard cold seeping in. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Well, if Tim was going to thank him, now he’s not. He deals with enough entitlement from the old fogies in the WE boardroom, he doesn’t have the patience to deal with it during his night job. Instead, he tries to unpack everything that just happened.

“How did you know?” he asks, tongue still heavy in his mouth. He’s not sure if he’s asking about how he knew to come down here, how he knew what Salvatore was trying to do—how he knew how to fight the creature off.

“Seen his kind around. Didn’t always know what they were, but once you’ve tangled with one incubus, the rest is pretty easy.”

Tim finally manages to straighten up under his own power, but still can’t see the man’s face. The way he’s standing, the light from the road behind them casts dark shadows across his features.

“Who are you?”

“None of your business.” The man digs into his pocket for something and hauls out a carton of cigarettes. He considers them a moment, then holds one out. “Need something to ground you?”

“No.”

He shrugs, lights up; the spark of the flame isn’t enough to uncover his features, but Tim senses a judgemental glance being thrown his way. “You sure you should be wearin’ that cape if you can’t take care of yourself?”

Tim scowls at that. “I’m having an off day.”

“That’s puttin’ it lightly.”

Tim’s head is finally starting to clear, his focus returning; he catalogs what he can about the stranger

Tall and muscular; built like Bruce, though thicker in the thighs than the shoulders; scarred hands—a fighter—boots scuffed with black earth; that’s rare in the city. Wandering around somewhere with lots of soil and earth? And the way he speaks…Tim detects a foreign lilt on the edges of his words. Non-rhotic postvocalic consonants.

At first, it sounds like he’s from around here, except…it blends with something else. Sort of sounds like when Alfred goes full-on-West London when he talks to anyone from England.

So this guy probably spent some time there.

Squinting he notes the cigarette package as it disappears into the man’s pocket.

Silk Cut. Definitely spent time in Britain then.

And whatever he just fought; it wasn’t human—but not a meta. Which by process of elimination usually means magic.

Tim flips through his mental catalog, trying to narrow down which major player this guy could be working with, rogue or hero; the cigarette brand triggers something from a file memorized years ago, quirks and data about enemies, allies, and undecideds. One name stands out.

“Constantine,” he says after a moment. “You work with Constantine.”

The man is pretty good at hiding his surprise, but Tim senses the minute stiffening of his shoulders. It’s gone a beat later, smoothed into the man’s deceptively languid posture. “Guess I owe him a pint; I didn’t think he’d made much of an impression when he was last here.”

“You shouldn’t be in Gotham,” Tim growls, trying to regain some kind of imposing authority following tonight’s fiasco. “And you definitely shouldn’t be interrupting my interrogation.”

“Interrogation? More like succumbin’ to a supernatural roofie. What were you going to do, snore at it?”

Tim clenches his fists.

“I had it under control. If he got close enough, the chest panel in my suit is equipped with a taser. It activates if my vitals experience a sudden, sharp change.”

“Then you seriously don’t understand what you were up against if you think your little Bat-issue toys were going to do anythin’. That was an incubus that had you, and you were gonna get a lot less information and a lot more dead if I hadn’t stepped in. So. Again…you’re welcome.”

“Because of you I lost my best lead tonight,” Tim shoots back.

“Right. Mission comes first, even at the expense of your own life,” the stranger deadpans. “How could I forget that.”

And that sentence should be Tim’s first clue that all is not what it seems to be, but his brain is still rebooting from whatever Salvatore did to it and he’s fighting off growing frustration.

Not only did he screw up his investigation, but a civilian—typical or not—had to jump in and save him.

Tim straightens up.

Fixing the most unimpressed glare he can muster from beneath his cowl, he faces the interloper, ready to deliver a cool quip before he grapples away.

(Drama is not just for Bruce Wayne if the occasion calls for it.)

But when he finally gets a good look at his savior, every word in every language he has ever known vanishes.

Because Tim knows that face.

Even if it’s a little harder now, stubbled and scarred, and lacking the unblemished, boyish roundness of childhood, Tim Drake could never forget the face of Jason Todd.

⁂

Next Chapter

[dotshiiki]

CoL, chpt 3

This is the chapter that refused to end (and is partly responsible for how long the story became). It started in my outline as a single chapter that morphed into three, and then the first of those became another three ... yeah. Hopefully the expansion was worth it!

III: PERCY

The first thing he knew was pain.

He wasn't sure which was worse: the suffocating tightness, like someone was attempting to squeeze him into a body that was way too small, or the ripping sensation, as though he was being peeled out of his own skin. He felt like a stubborn zit someone was pinching, trying to pop it while simultaneously scratching it apart.

The pain intensified with every passing second.

He was going to die; he was sure of it. He just didn't know if it would be from being crushed or torn apart.

'Just what do you think you're doing?' The shrill voice cut sharply across his fractured consciousness.

Everything halted. The pain didn't exactly recede, but it stopped increasing, and that was respite enough.

'Hey, Eileithyia,' rumbled a second voice. 'What's up? How's the delivery going?'

'The delivery,' hissed Eileithyia, 'is getting messed up because of you.'

'What do you mean? I'm just doing my job, like always.'

A quick flare of pain burst across his senses, red-hot and sudden, like a determined shove from a razor-clawed hand.

'Stop that!'

The pressure around him loosened slightly as the giant hand trying to force him into a too-tiny space relaxed its grip. His skin felt less like an exposed blister. He managed to draw one shaky, shuddering breath into lungs that stubbornly resisted expansion. The flow of air through his trachea stung like it was scraping against a raw wound. Red spots danced before his eyes. Through them, he could make out two vague figures: a pair of heads leaning over him.

He got the impression that the two were arguing over him and his life hung in the balance between them.

He had no idea who they were—heck, he didn't even have a clue who he was, though he hoped that was because his head was too clouded with pain at the moment—but he hoped the girl, Eileithyia, would win, if only because his agony abated when she told the other guy to back off.

'You're not putting this soul into my birth, Attis,' Eileithyia said crossly. 'He's not clean!'

He blinked. Was she talking about him? What did she mean, clean?

'Of course it’s clean,' Attis protested. 'Straight from Lethe—'

Eileithyia snorted. 'Don't pretend you're not having trouble with the insertion. He's resisting—oh yes, I can tell it's a he. You didn't do your work properly, Attis.'

'Hey, don't look at me! You know full well that I don't do the cleaning. I just bring 'em to you. S'not my fault if someone screwed up down there. Bet it was Lethe. You know how forgetful she is.'

'I don't care who screwed up. Take him back to the Underworld.'

The forms of the two speakers grew clearer. Eileithyia, a round, matronly-looking woman, had her hands-on her hips as she faced down Attis, a skinny dude whose face was dominated by a curly moustache. Nothing about their conversation made any sense, though. Lethe? The Underworld? Was he supposed to know what they were? He had a feeling he ought to, but the words were practically gibberish to him.

At least the paradoxical pain of being simultaneously squashed and torn in half was definitely easing up.

'Oh come on, can't you just let it be? I don't wanna mess up my schedule. I've got a long list of souls waiting, you know. Rebirth's the new "in" thing down under.'

Eileithyia sniffed. 'That's not my problem. I've got my reputation to keep as the goddess of childbirth.'

Rebirth, he thought with a stab of panic. Did that mean he was dead, then? Dead and about to be reincarnated?

Except Eileithyia was refusing to allow it, so, what—was he going to go back to being dead? And why did it have to hurt so much? Wasn't the point of death that everything was supposed to stop, pain included?

Unless this was his eternal punishment or something. Oh crap.

'…and I'm not going to be held responsible for a birth with a spirit that's still hanging on to who he is,' Eileithyia continued. 'I mean, I can see his identity, clear as Hemera. It's still written on him! Are you sure he was even dead to begin with?'

Attis sighed. 'Look, I don't know. I just take the spirits. Fine. So you won't take him. What am I gonna do, then?' He sounded defeated.

Eileithyia's tone softened. 'Okay, look, I have to finish this delivery first. Poor woman's been labouring long enough. But I'll think of something. Just hang on—and don't even think of trying to sneak this soul past me!'

She vanished. His pain dissipated like she'd taken it away with her. He no longer felt like he was being impossibly compacted or quartered. There was an odd lightness instead, like he was floating, or maybe made of mist.

Attis sat on the ground next to him and rubbed a weary hand over his face.

'"Be the god of rebirth and reincarnations,"' he muttered darkly. '"It'll be fun," they said. "Magical." Hmph. It's all fun and games until somebody screws up a soul wash.'

There were two soft pops. Eileithyia reappeared, accompanied by a lean, well-built man with curly salt-and-pepper hair.

'Sure,' the new guy said to her, 'I owe you for helping out with Melissa.'

Attis sprung to his feet. 'Lord Hermes!'

'Attis is in a bit of a bind,' Eileithyia explained. 'He's made a mistake.'

'I didn't make the mistake!'

'He tried to rebirth a soul that hasn't been cleansed of his identity,' Eileithyia continued smoothly, as though Attis hadn't spoken. 'I thought since you're an Underworld guide sometimes—'

Hermes snorted. 'You need to keep up with the times, Ellie. I haven't done it in millennia. You realise Thanatos is probably better suited to dealing with something like this? Collecting souls is his business now, after all.'

Eileithyia pouted. 'Don't be like that. You know I don't get along with old Death.'

'Plus he's so unbearably smug all the time,' Attis muttered. 'Just 'cos he got the good looks in the family…'

'True, that,' Hermes said. 'So—er, this spirit here—'

'Attis didn't wipe his slate clean. The identity's faded, sure, but I can still read who he was—who he is. Perseus Jackson.'

Perseus? Was that his name?

If it were, surely he should feel some recognition, some connection to it. He realised with a panic that he was still drawing a blank on who he was.

'How many times do I have to tell you,' Attis snapped, 'I don't do the washing—'

'Wait,' Hermes cut in. 'Did you say Perseus? As in Percy Jackson?'

'Uh huh.' Eileithyia squinted at him. He could see her eyes, wide and round and a piercing blue-grey. It occurred to him suddenly that he wasn't even sure what form he had for her to examine. His body still felt smoky and insubstantial, as ghostly as the spirit they kept calling him. But it was unmistakably him they were discussing.

Perseus. Percy. Huh.

Sure, why not? It wasn't like any other name was coming forth to claim him.

Hermes's handsome face went pale. 'He's not supposed to be dead. Or did I miss something?'

Well, that was a relief. Now if they could just get to the part where he could get back to the life he was supposed to have—preferably one where he actually knew who he was—that would be great.

'That's what I told Attis! He's not a reborn soul!'

'You did not say that. You're just as clueless about what went wrong.'

'At least I guessed that—'

'Can it, you two,' Hermes said sharply. Eileithyia and Attis fell silent as though he'd sewn their mouths shut. 'We have a serious problem.'

There was a long silence. Then Attis said timidly, 'Can't you fix it, Lord Hermes?'

'I wish I could.' Hermes's voice was pained. 'There are rules—limits to our interference. But maybe…if I hide him well enough… Yeah, I think I could sneak past Dad. First, though…'

A light, feathery touch flitted over Percy's eyes. They shut, and his world went black.

OoOoO

The darkness was heavy and sticky, like it was made of cloying black sludge. It smelt like burnt sugar and smoking rubber. Hot, oozing tendrils curled around him in a viscous embrace even though he didn't seem to have a physical form for them to encircle.

In the blackness, someone laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to shake all around him.

'Who's there?' Percy demanded. His formless fingers opened and closed compulsively, searching for a handle to grip. 'Show yourself!'

'But I am everywhere.' He felt, rather than heard, the voice reverberating in every atom of his being. 'I am all things and everything.'

'Who are you?'

'I think the real question is, who are you?'

Percy hated to admit it, but the voice was right. He didn't know who he was. Heck, he wasn't even certain about his own name.

Laughter again. The solid black around him lightened to a smoky grey. Wispy clouds of white swirled past him. He caught glimpses inside them here and there: faces, places, all moving too fast for him to get a clear look. Did they belong to him? Were they the memories that eluded him?

Percy tried to reach out and grab hold of one, but his arms were as insubstantial as the images. The darkness thickened again.

'I am where all that is lost resides. Everything begins and ends…in chaos. Come, Perseus Jackson. Come and I will swallow you, too.'

Percy stumbled back. His foot met a ledge, and then he was falling through endless darkness as taunting laughter echoed in his head.

Then he felt a tug. Like a string connected to his abdomen, it pulled him up through the small of his back. He stopped falling and floated instead, drifting through space.

He heard a girl's voice, thick and husky, cracking with emotion but filled with determination all the same: 'I didn't give up on him then and I won't now!' It wrapped around him and he imagined it as the cord holding him fast, drawing him out of the darkness.

Someone was looking for him. All he had to do was find her.

His mind remained a complete blank, so he focused on the echo of her voice, trying to soak it into his skin.

The words that came to him seemed to travel up through the nerves of his spinal cord. They weren't quite a thought, more a sensation, the last thing to touch him before unconsciousness overtook him.

But they made no sense at all.

Princess curls.

OoOoO

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Percy's head hurt.

He opened his eyes groggily. He was in the back of a truck, speeding along under an open sky. The sun glared down so intensely that he had to squint against the brightness. Stacked around him were crates of different sizes—some wooden, some metal, others made of a curvy white material that he really hoped wasn't bones. A few of them thumped threateningly at intervals, making him wonder just what was in there. The crates had labels painted on them, but the alphabets swam before his eyes so that he couldn't read what the contents were. The few he managed to make out didn't put him at ease: DANGER, THIS SIDE UP, MAY EXPLODE.

What was this, some smuggling operation?

In the cab up front, he could hear the driver talking on the phone as he drove.

'Yeah, I've got him in back—of course he's safe enough back there! Look, I can't very well disguise him as cargo if he's sitting up front with me, can I?'

A raspy, reptilian voice interrupted the driver, although Percy couldn't see anyone else in the cab: 'Your brother's on line omicron.'

The driver must have switched lines, because he growled into the phone, 'What do you want?'

There was a pause as he listened to the new caller on the other end. Then—'Great Zeus, Ares, I'm taking care of an important delivery—wow. Blackmail, really?' The driver threw a quick, furtive glance towards the back of the truck, giving Percy a glimpse of his slyly handsome face. It was Hermes, the guy from his dream. The one who'd called him Percy Jackson.

And from the sound of things, whatever Percy was doing in the back of his truck, it didn't sound legal.

'Oh, all right. You're lucky Phoenix is en route.' The truck made a sharp left and Percy swayed right, bumping painfully into the skeletal crate. Something inside whined. He quickly pushed himself away from it.

A shadow fell over him and he looked up. He blinked in amazement. Where a moment ago there had been open skies and desert terrain, there was now a landscape of haphazardly-spaced buildings. Some were low, flat structures, others towered to skyscraper height.

How had they gotten into the middle of a city so quickly?

He crawled to the side of the truck to get a better look at his surroundings. They passed a tall beige stone building, a bunch of skyscrapers with mirror-like walls that reflected the cloudless blue sky, then turned down a boulevard lined with palm trees. At the next junction, Hermes took a sudden right and braked hard to avoid slamming into an illegally parked van on the roadside. Thrown off balance, Percy tipped over the side of the truck.

He toppled out onto the asphalt, slamming his head hard against a sign post. His vision exploded into stars. By the time it cleared enough for him to get his bearings, the truck was already moving off, swerving out from behind the double-parked van.

'Hey, wait!' Percy croaked. Maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to call after someone who could have been kidnapping him, for all he knew. But Hermes might be the only person who could offer him an explanation as to who he was and what he was doing here.

Unfortunately, the truck zoomed off with Hermes oblivious to the fact that he'd just lost his cargo.

Percy groaned and sat up, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The building on the opposite side of the street looked like an ancient temple, with a set of stone steps leading up to a doorway framed with two round columns on either side, and a triangular roof. Inscribed in the archway over the doors were the words DUMMIES TARTS AND SEANCES.

He frowned, sure that couldn't be right. After squinting at it for a minute, he decided it probably said DOMESTIC ARTS AND SCIENCES. Some kind of school, maybe.

The sidewalks were teeming with people—probably students, judging from the books they were toting around—but none of them paid him any attention. It was like they'd completely missed the fact that a guy had just fallen out of a moving vehicle right in front of them. In fact, the eyes of the nearest passers-by skipped over him as if he wasn't there.

Disconcerted, Percy got up and headed down the street. He wasn't sure where he was going, only that moving felt better than sitting invisible on the sidewalk with no memory and no plan.

The air in the city was dry and scorching. Heat radiated off the concrete around him, giving him the sensation of being baked in an oven. He hadn't gone five minutes down the street before his throat begged for an icy can of soda.

'You lost, sugar?'

Finally, someone had noticed him. He turned around gratefully and his jaw dropped when he saw who was addressing him.

Sashaying out of a side alley, her hips swaying sensually, was a drop-dead gorgeous redhead with caramel-coloured skin. She gave him a coy smile and beckoned him closer.

Goosebumps erupted along his arms. A shiver ran down his back in spite of the heat. Percy swallowed hard. 'I, um—'

Suddenly, the woman was right in front of him, so close he could smell her thick perfume: a strange combination of vanilla and freshly mown grass. The heat must be addling his brain. He had to have spaced out momentarily—there was no way she could have moved that quickly.

'Um,' he said again. He swayed a little, suddenly dizzy. The woman's face swam before him. She caught him as he collapsed, finally overcome by the heat.

'Well, now,' she cooed, 'isn't this my lucky day? Aren't you a gift from the gods, sugar? Weak, lost, and alone!'

'There you are, Dilys!' Another female voice rang out. 'And you've found us a man…excellent!'

'Shove off, Marcy. He appeared to me. I call dibs!'

'Oh no, you called dibs on the last one—I get to kill this one!'

Panic flooded through him. Were these ladies, like, literal man-eaters? He tried to crawl away from Dilys, but his limbs felt like jelly. His vision was completely blurry. Sun spots popped before his eyes.

'No! Stop it, both of you. I sense something special about this one. What if he's the one—'

'Enough about the one,' snapped Dilys. 'You lost us our last two victims with your stupid gamble. We don't even know if that old myth is real.'

'And I'm hungry,' Marcy complained. 'We haven't had a man in weeks.'

'I said no!'

'Who made you the boss?'

There was a loud, screeching clang, like the clash of two steel blades. A metallic ripping noise followed, like a machine being torn apart. The air filled with the tang of rust and sulphur. In a few short seconds, the arguing ceased, leaving only the sound of someone panting heavily, as though they had just emerged from a rough fistfight.

A shadow loomed over him. Outlined against the bright desert sun, it looked like a monster with ferocious fangs and misshapen legs. Then he blinked and it resolved into the vague form of a slender girl.

'Hey,' she said, holding her hand out to him. 'Thank Hecate I found you.'

Percy let her pull him to his feet. She handed him a bottle of water, which he downed gratefully. A million questions flew through his mind: What just happened? Where am I? Who are you? Do you know me? But the one that actually came out of his mouth was, 'Who am I?'

A strange flurry of emotions danced through the girl's eyes, which seemed to change colour with her expressions. For a second, Percy even imagined that they glowed red, but he blinked again and it was gone.

It was probably a trick of the light. Or some leftover hallucinatory effect from all the weird dreams he'd been having. If he closed his eyes, he could still see red spots dancing behind his eyelids.

She pursed her lips at last and said, 'Let's not talk about it in the open. Come on.'

He followed the girl through dusty streets, past more towering buildings, palm trees, car parks, and through a fenced park. Sweat trickled down his forehead as the sun beat down on them. As they walked (or in his case, limped), he tried to place his surroundings. Did he know this city?

The best answer he could come up with was maybe. The feel of the dry air tugged at the corners of his brain, but he couldn't identify any of the places he was seeing.

They finally arrived at a run-down building made of red brick. They climbed five flights of steps to the top floor, where there was only one door. His new companion unlocked it and ushered him in.

'Okay,' she said, bolting the door behind her. 'You'll be safe here.'

'Er, thanks, I guess?'

He looked around. It was one of those studio apartments: a single room with only one partition for a bathroom. The walls were a drab grey. The only splash of colour in the room came from a set of velvety curtains drawn across a tiny square of a window. They were a deep red that gave the place a slightly sinister glow when backlit by the sun.

The room was probably decent-sized, but Percy couldn't help thinking of it as cramped when it had a queen bed, dresser, closet, couch, and coffee table, as well as a kitchenette with a dining table all squeezed inside. Add to that a weird collection of shiny prosthetic limbs lying scattered about and there was hardly space to swing a club.

Something about that seemed familiar.

Well, maybe not the prosthetics. He turned to the girl, wondering if she was maybe a medical student or something, and found her studying him intently.

'What?' he asked.

She waved her hand in front of her face like she was fanning herself. A wave of vertigo overtook Percy without warning. The room tilted alarmingly. The air thinned like it was being vacuumed out. He lurched forward and she caught him.

'Perseus!' she said in alarm.

She knows me, he thought hazily.

Then the room righted itself again, but he had the strangest feeling that his surroundings had been completely replaced, even though it was still the same room with the cluttered furniture and weird fake-body-part décor.

He concentrated on the girl. Did she look different? Her eyes were a warm, honeyed amber. Her thick brown hair fell about her shoulders in curly ringlets that gave her a regal appearance.

Princess curls.

A shiver ran along his spine and lodged itself in the small of his back.

'I know you, don't I?' he ventured.

A slow, hopeful smile spread across her face. She nodded encouragingly.

Her name was on the tip of his tongue now. He scrunched his eyebrows, thinking so hard it felt like an army of woodpeckers was trying to drill information into the inside of his skull. Were memories supposed to feel like this?

In contrast to the dreams he'd had, the thoughts slipping into his head were devoid of any sort of emotional attachment, like a list of plain facts he might have memorised from a school book about some boring historical figure's life: Perseus Jackson, age 20, lived in Phoenix, Arizona.

Shouldn't he feel some sort of connection to his name, his life? He wasn't entirely certain what some of the things he was now remembering even meant. He was attacked by dangerous demigods in an alleyway and rescued by—

'Beth?' The name rolled off his tongue. He knew it was quite right, though.

The girl's smile faltered. 'Bella,' she corrected him. 'I'm your girlfriend.'

Her voice did sound more familiar now, deeper and warmer than his first impression of it. Or had it been like this all along? She did sound like the voice he'd dreamed of, the one searching for him. That kind of made sense.

Besides, why would a girl who looked as hot as she did claim to be his girlfriend if it wasn't true?

'Oh,' he said. 'Sorry, I—I guess I hit my head real hard or something when I was…I was attacked, right? Some of it's coming back to me, I think, but my memory's kinda like a big black hole.'

Bella nodded. 'It was horrible! The demigods ganged up on you, the monsters.'

'Demigods.'

'Half mortal children of the gods. They're our enemies. Always have been.' She said it like the two of them were something else not quite human either.'

'And we're…'

'Well, I’m an empousa. A servant of the goddess Hecate, brought into the world with the first woman. But unlike mere women, we are blessed with unsurpassable beauty and the powers of our mother goddess. As for you—well, you're special—only one in a million mortals can know who we are and accept that we mean no harm. Most people are scared of our magic. They don't even try to understand.' She stepped closer to him. 'That's what I love about you, Perseus. You're so non-judgemental.'

Gods. Mortals. Her words sounded far-fetched, yet there was something convincing about them. Percy had a hazy memory of three beings arguing over him—wait, had that happened twice?—and there had been a ride in a truck, right? It was all so fuzzy, like half-formed sketches of someone else's life. He wasn't sure any of it was real.

A fight, though. That sounded right. His mind supplied images of fearsome men and women looming over him, wielding spears and swords. He didn't know why the demigods wanted to kill him and Bella, but he believed they did. It made sense somehow, like he'd clicked two puzzle pieces together, even though he still didn't have a clue where they fit in the context of the whole jigsaw.

If he managed to match enough pieces, maybe the full puzzle might start to come together. So far he had his name and age, a vague idea about his enemies, and a girl with princess curls who was probably Bella. That last combination felt slightly off, like two pieces whose edges had been forced together, except after you made them fit, it felt more and more like they should be a match.

'Right. Okay.' He ground his teeth. Nothing else was coming into his head, factual or otherwise. 'Man, this sucks, not being able to remember stuff.'

Bella patted his hand. 'You've got me,' she said. 'I'll help you out.' She crossed over to the kitchenette and pulled a glass from a cabinet. 'You must be thirsty after our walk. Here, I've got just the thing.'

Now that she mentioned it, his mouth did feel dry. He took the glass, filled with a clear, sweet-smelling liquid, and brought it to his lips. It was disgustingly lukewarm, but once it hit his belly, he was filled with a comforting sense of ease. It didn't seem to matter quite as much that he had gaping holes in his memory. After all, he had Bella. Right?

Bella leaned in close to him. 'I'm so glad they didn't take you away from me.'

Her face was inches from his.

Percy swallowed. He wondered if he should feel some kind of thrill. Excitement, maybe. A gorgeous girl—his girlfriend—was closing in on him, her lips tantalisingly close, and the only response he was getting from his body was confusion.

He drew away. Bella pulled back, disappointment in her eyes. 'What's wrong?'

'Sorry,' he said. 'I just—everything's kinda overwhelming right now.'

She sighed. 'Of course. Um, I guess you want to clean yourself up?'

'Yeah, sounds great.'

Bella nodded and pointed to the left. 'Bathroom's that way.'

In the bathroom, Percy splashed his face with water and stared at the reflection in the mirror. The face in it looked completely unfamiliar: glassy green eyes peering out from under a shock of messy black hair, thin cheeks sloping down from high cheekbones that framed a pointed nose. Around his neck was a leather cord with a bunch of painted beads, like some Native American fashion statement. His shirt was tattered, the letters faded so that he couldn't make out what they spelt—there was an 'N' and an 'M' in the first line and a couple of vowels in the second, but that was all he could decipher. His jeans weren't in much better condition. He reached into his pockets, thinking he might have some change, but all there was in them was a capped pen.

He ran his fingers along his arms and noticed something really strange. Tattooed on the underside of his left arm was a picture of a three-pronged fork, one vertical line, and the letters SPQR. He traced them slowly, trying to imagine what they might stand for.

After a while, he gave up. Nothing he could see provided him with any clues.

He was just going to have to hope his memory would return on its own.

@supernaturally-percyjackson​ totally gets the credit for TARTS. If you enjoyed that bit, kudos goes to her!

Eileithyia is the goddess of childbirth, and Attis is the closest I could find to a god of rebirth. Ain't the Greek pantheon fun?

Continue to Chapter 4 | Back to content page

[libraryoferana]

Author Name: Judith Starkston

*Please tell us about your publications.

I’m the author of three books of historical fantasy based on the Bronze Age Hittites—an empire of the ancient Near East nearly buried by the sands of time. My books take “a quarter turn to the fantastic,” to borrow Guy Gavriel Kay’s phrase, and give full expression to the magical religious beliefs of these historical people. My first book, Hand of Fire, is set in the Trojan War and told from a woman’s viewpoint, Briseis, Achilles’ captive. Currently, I’m writing a historical fantasy series based on a Hittite queen. The first book in that series Priestess of Ishana is available FREE Oct 2-6. The second book, Sorcery in Alpara, launches Oct 14.

What first prompted you to publish your work?

When I was researching my first book and figuring out the Trojans, I made a startling side discovery—a queen I’d never heard of who ruled for decades over an empire I’d barely heard of, despite my training and degrees as a classicist. It was the Hittite empire, of which, it turns out, Troy was a part. The queen was Puduhepa (whom I call Tesha in my fiction–the Hittite word for “dream” because she had visionary dreams). I’m particularly interested in the theme of women as leaders, so I was hooked. The Hittite empire could be called the forgotten empire, but fortunately, recent archaeology and the decipherment and translation of many thousands of clay tablets have filled in parts of the lost history. We now have many Hittite letters, prayers, judicial decrees, treaties, religious rites and a variety of other documents, but overall our knowledge still has huge gaps in it. I use shifted names in my series, such as Hitolia for the Hittite empire, to cue my readers to how much I have to fill in imaginatively from those fragmentary records. It also gives fair warning to the magic that I give free rein to, the rules of which derive from Hittite practices, but I do let the story go where a good story should and that means a lot of fantasy. It was that juicy primary source material, an extraordinary female ruler, and an intriguing ancient world that prompted me to write Priestess of Ishana and Sorcery in Alpara.

Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter’?

I outline my novels in a couple different ways before I start writing, but those outlines are subject to change whenever the story and characters take me into new realms I hadn’t imagined at the start.

I use a couple approaches to outlining and organizing my manuscripts. One is very character/theme/pacing driven, Libbie Hawker’s book Take Your Pants Off. The other, very plot and pacing driven, is a storyboarding technique that means I’ve got each of my books laid out on a three-sided board like we used for our school science projects. It’s explained in Alexandra Sokoloff’s Screenwriting Tricks for Authors. You’ll notice in both the word “pacing.” I found as I learned the craft that pacing was both the hardest part to get right and the most essential. If readers aren’t compulsively drawn through my story, it doesn’t matter how beautiful my writing is and all the rest (though I work hard to get all that nailed). A good story is hard to put down—that’s something we all intuitively know. The corollary is that if a story is hard to get through, it isn’t very good!

What piece of advice do you wish you’d had when you started your publishing journey?

Write at least a little bit every day and give yourself permission to write “bad words.” What do I mean by that? Just write and don’t worry whether it’s crap or not. Later you can go back and edit or trash if need be. I find that it is often the days when I think I’m writing the worst that I discover on later read, I’ve written some of my best. And you can only fix words that are actually on the page.

If you could have dinner with any literary character who would you choose, and what would you eat.

I’ve never gotten over my fascination with Achilles in the Iliad. He’s maybe legendary rather than literary, but I’d like to sit down and listen to him (probably admire his physique also…). He’d probably want lamb roasted on spits spiced with garlic and cumin, and I love that also, so I’ll go with that. Some fresh flatbread right off the hot stones to go along with it!

What are your views on authors offering free books? Do you believe, as some do, that it demeans an author and his or her work?

I’m using this technique—offering free my first book in the series, Priestess of Ishana, from Oct 2-6. I’m doing it right before the second book comes out, so I’ll see buy through and get paid that way. I think it’s a viable marketing strategy. I don’t think reaching new readers is demeaning. It’s what you do as an author, and putting books into people’s hands seems like a good thing overall. If I was expected to give away books for free all the time, that would be silly. But accessing a lot of new readers I wouldn’t have any other way? That sounds smart to me. So do download a copy of Priestess of Ishana, and then if you really enjoy it, buy Sorcery in Alpara.

What are your views on authors commenting on reviews?

I spread the word when I get a particularly strong review, especially from someone I really respect. When someone writes a bad review, I see no reason to react one way or the other, certainly not comment on it. I let my fiction, my author notes, all the background material on my website speak for itself when someone has a wrongheaded idea in a review. Reality has a way of coming through over time, so I don’t sweat it. If someone points out a perceptive way to improve in a review, I go to work in my next book and make sure I fix that. I’m happy to learn from all sources.

How much research do you do for your work? What’s the wildest subject you’ve looked at?

I have gone deep into the research, both the book/reading part (years of that) and the travel. I’ve gone to the archaeological sites, landscapes, and museum collections in Turkey that are the source material for my world-building. I contact the dig directors and museum curators so that I can talk with them and learn first-hand from the people who really know. I spent a whole day at the site that we think was Tesha’s hometown that I call Lawaza, but was called Lawazantiya by the Hittites. It’s the archaeological site of Tatarli near the city of Adana in Turkey. The key reason they think it’s her hometown is that the dig mound (with Bronze Age ruins of the right kind) is surrounded by seven springs. The Hittite records from the capital of the empire describe this town as having seven springs. The dig director took me to each of the springs–one of them appears in a key scene in Priestess of Ishana and I could never have gotten the atmospherics of that scene right if I hadn’t been there. One of the wildest subjects I’ve run across is the Hittite magical rite to remove a curse that I use in Priestess of Ishana. It involves chickpeas. Who knew that the way to get the demons out was via garbanzo beans? The Hittites were obsessed with curses and they believed sorcerers caused all kinds of evil with them. If you had to remove a curse from someone, you baked a loaf of bread with chickpea paste in the middle (basically humus) so that when you touched the bread to the cursed body while saying the right spell, the paste would absorb the pollution. I couldn’t make up this stuff in a million years, but the Hittite culture hands it to me. I just have to write it into compelling page-turners.

If you could be any fantasy/mythical or legendary person/creature what would you be and why?

I’m having a lot of fun writing griffins into my series, so I’ll choose that mythical creature to be. It turned out, much to my surprise as I wrote, that griffins, or at least the ones in my books, have a very dry sense of humor. And they are wickedly good warriors and can soar into the heavens, and yet they have a big soft spot for their cubs who are allowed to climb all over the grownups, so I suspect hanging out as a griffin for a while could be very entertaining.

What is your writing space like?

I’m very lucky and have a big window in front of my workspace that looks out on my garden. I write on a lovely inlaid wooden writing table with a comfortable armchair. So I’m all set to keep my butt in that seat for a good stretch every day.

Is there a message in your books?

My fictional Tesha, based on the historic Queen Puduhepa, provides a worthy model for leadership—particularly the value of female leaders, which we’ve been thinking about lately, so this seems timely. She certainly wasn’t perfect, and some of her actions are hotly debated among historians as possibly self-serving or politically motivated rather than ethically driven. She gave me nuanced material to work into my hero’s character. But, despite that human complexity, or perhaps because of it, she had brilliant skills as queen in many areas: diplomatic, judicial, religious and familial. Most famously, she corralled Pharaoh Ramses II of Egypt into a lasting peace treaty. The surviving letters to Ramses reveal a subtle diplomat with a tough but gracious core that made her able to stand up to the arrogant Pharaoh without giving offense. She also took judicial positions that went against her own citizens when the truth wasn’t on their side. Fair justice wasn’t something she was willing to toss overboard when it was politically inconvenient. Her equal partnership with her husband was a much-admired model even in the patriarchal world of the ancient Near East. I’m enjoying working in these themes from a real woman into my historical fantasy series, one book at a time.

How important is writing to you?

I love the long hours at my desk spent lost in the world that I write and in the company of my characters. I enjoy it every day. It’s my fulltime occupation.

Links

Newsletter sign up (for a free short story and book deals): https://www.judithstarkston.com/sign-up-for-my-author-newsletter-for-books-news-special-offers-and-freebies/

Website  https://www.judithstarkston.com/

Priestess of Ishana  https://amzn.to/2DXpdXt

Sorcery in Alpara  https://amzn.to/319vuIj

Hand of Fire  https://amzn.to/2KOb6a0

  Bio

Judith Starkston has spent too much time reading about and exploring the remains of the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Hittites. Early on she went so far as to get degrees in Classics from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Cornell. She loves myths and telling stories. This has gotten more and more out of hand. Her solution: to write historical fantasy set in the Bronze Age. Hand of Fire was a semi-finalist for the M.M. Bennett’s Award for Historical Fiction. Priestess of Ishana won the San Diego State University Conference Choice Award.

  Dirty Dozen Author Interview – Judith Starkson #Histfic #Hittites #Meetanauthor Author Name: Judith Starkston *Please tell us about your publications. I’m the author of three books of historical fantasy based on the Bronze Age Hittites—an empire of the ancient Near East nearly buried by the sands of time.

[andrewdburton]

Money and Confidence are Interchangeable

So, I’m assuming you are here reading this because you want to get yourself some more money.

And since this is Mr. Money Mustache and not a standard financial publication, you’re willing to think about the bigger picture:

Not necessarily “Maxiumum money at all costs so I can have a nice, spendy retirement!”

More like “A good, fun amount of money so I can walk outa this cubicle with confidence and never look back.”

Making that mental leap is a huge one. It takes you from a life of permanent pursuit of the unattainable, to one where you get to the “Enough” stage pretty quickly. This alone will change the course of your life for the better.

But what if there were an even bigger mental leap that we were leaving out? One that starts with the hard-nosed math of living off of your investments, but then puts it on a more flexible scale that allows you take shortcuts and attain the freedom you want, much sooner?

Well, there is such a shortcut of course, and there is even a story right from my own life that illustrates it.

The Unnecessary Fears of Teenager MMM

Since I was a kid, I’ve always had confidence issues. I was afraid to attend the birthday parties of other kids, if there were too many strangers around. I was afraid to try new foods or join any teams. It took me a long time to become outgoing enough to start meeting girls in high school.

I compensated for these things by trying to be really good at everything, in an attempt to alleviate feelings of worry. Insisting on A+ grades even on the most pointless of assignments, just because I felt that “winning” was a safe defense against bullshit workloads.

I engaged in slightly compulsive weight training and with some of my fellow status-seeking schoolmates until we were all well-dressed two hundred pound muscleheads, safe from the risk of bullying and gleefully (but needily) soaking up the status rewards of having more prestigious outer appearances. We would have all claimed it was for fun reasons or health reasons, but there was plenty of teenage insecurity driving up those barbell plates at 5:30am as well.

Even as a young adult, my desire to build up a massive financial surplus was probably at least partly driven by a desire to protect myself from things that could go wrong – like unemployment or being stuck in a job that I no longer enjoyed.

I’m not ashamed to admit all of this, because you need to see your opponent clearly in order to beat it. I went through this journey of insecurity and came out on top – in the safety of a well-designed life with lots of advantages. But since then, as I have spent the subsequent thirteen years learning more about that life, and meeting new people with entirely different successful lives, I have come to realize something I wish I could have known earlier:

I had nothing to worry about in the first place.

It turns out I didn’t need all that money, because my needs and wants will never be more than I earn from my natural desire to do useful work. You don’t need to be a musclehead in order to have friends or meet attractive people or deter bullies – normal fitness is just fine and being friendly and open is much more attractive – whether your goal is finding love or running a powerful enterprise.

You don’t have to OVERACHIEVE at everything you do – you can be strategically great at things you truly enjoy, carve the rest of the unnecessary crap out of your life, and spend your days in a much healthier balance of work and play.

Many of us are focusing our energy on building up the wall of protective money and insurance policies around us to ever-greater heights, working one last year and funding one last insurance policy against an obscure risk, when really our deficit is not in money. It’s in confidence.

And thus, it turns out that Money and Confidence are Interchangeable.

Figure 1: With no confidence, you need a shit-ton of money to feel comfortable. Find a smarter balance.

  Think about it: It took me seventeen years of school and ten years of work to become an expert software engineer, making a growing six-figure salary and with a million dollars* of investments by about age thirty.

But then, years after retirement I started a carpentry business just for fun, and within just a few weeks of spreading the word, I had enough business to easily pay the bills with very part time work. It was a lot of fun. So, would a sufficiently confident carpenter really need to do the engineering career and save that million, in order to live a satisfying life?

In 2011, I started this website to write about money. Even without the lottery-like success it has lucked into, I would have still ended up with a writing career in a popular subject that was loads of fun and could again have easily paid the bills through things like consulting, advising, speaking, or connecting with new friends for business opportunities. And I’ve enjoyed writing since I was ten years old – with enough confidence, I could have started writing about money decades earlier.

In 2017, I bought a small commercial building alongside some friends and converted half of it into a coworking space, and it easily filled up with members. Despite charging only a third of standard rates, the income from this business would also be plenty to fund a happy family’s lifestyle. If I had the confidence earlier in life, I could have shortcut the intervening work and achieved almost exactly my current lifestyle decades ago: no war chest of investments required.

More important than these examples from my life, are examples from yours.

Every day, I get emails from people describing their plentiful savings and unpleasant jobs, and then a description of the golden handcuffs or fearful assumptions that keep them working in their jobs.

They wonder when, if ever, they’ll be able to quit. When really, the problem is not the money, it’s the confidence. With confidence, they could quit right now.

Confidence allows you to change your current life entirely and instantly, without the need to change anything – because you’re just rearranging the feelings in your mind.

Imagine for a moment that you’re Jill CTO or Joe Attorney, locked into a prestigious firm and a two point six million dollar Washington DC dream townhouse. You’ve got an entire department reporting to you, your ex-spouse to manage, two kids in private schools, a standardized and rigorous vacation plan to address both sets of inlaws,  and a comfortable, safe 2016 Lexus Hybrid SUV that you use several times per day because although you agree with Mr. Money Mustache that more people should be riding bikes, it just doesn’t work with your lifestyle right now.

You’re a high achiever, no doubt about it. But what is all this achievement buying you in life happiness today? Are you selling off your current years of youth to The Firm, and putting off your happiness because in just another decade or so, once the kids are grown and things settle out, then you’ll give yourself permission to be happy?

If so, you may have confidence issues, just like the rest of us.

What if could take all that complexity and ass-covering and self-protection in your current life, set it aside, and consider the following ideas.

In fact, let’s repeat all of this together in the first person so it sinks in for real:

A Recipe For Badass Confidence

I will always be able to get a job if I need one.

Billions of people are living far less expensive lives than mine, and yet many millions of these people are surely happier than me. What is their secret?

While I don’t control the entire world, I am in control of my response to everything I experience. And my response is the part that determines my happiness.

I am in control of my cost of living. Everything I do is a decision, and it’s made by me, not the world around me.

I can always learn new things. With proper dedication, I can gain any skill that I want or need. This means when I depend on other people, it’s just a positive choice we are both making. When others depend on me, they are acknowledging my strength and I will choose to pass some of it on to them.

My kids will be just fine. Just by giving them my love and support and being honest with them. They don’t need prestige and they don’t need the support of multimillionaire parents to prosper in life. Nobody does.

Exotic Travel (just like any other luxury) is not a necessity for a happy life. At a moment’s notice, I could choose to spend the rest of my life within driving distance of this spot, and still lead a completely blissful existence forever.

But on the other side of that same coin, I can always move. My current location is a mixture of chance and choice, but people move all the time and their lives are usually better for it.

I can always make friends. No matter where you drop me in the world, I could build up a loving support network of warm and caring relationships. Because people are the same everywhere – we all just want to be valued and given some warm attention.

I know that my real goal in life is happiness, and I will always have the right tools available to me to maximize my happiness. They’re everywhere, and they are free.

Millions of others have achieved this before me, with fewer advantages and in harder times. I have more than enough personal power to get this shit done, in spades.

  That collection of points above, is my personal version of what Confidence means. But you’re welcome to use it, adapt it, even turn it into a t-shirt or tattoo for yourself. Confidence is the opposite of fear, and fear is the enemy that has stands between most people and greater happiness.

And because it’s interchangeable with the need for money, that dozen or so bullet points can easily be worth millions of dollars.

The biggest bonus about this multimillion dollar recipe? If you haven’t followed it before, your initial results will come strikingly fast and fuel your desire to get yourself even more of it. Confidence is addictive, joyful, and self-reinforcing.

What To Do With This Amazing Power

You now have two complementary tools in your belt: Money, and Confidence. Both of them are useful. But it would be foolish to develop one exclusively, while completely ignoring the other.

Most people work too much on the money and use it to compensate for a lack of confidence. To get to the next stage in life, you will need to stop doing that.

The Freedom to live happily is your goal. Confidence is part of the price of admission.

  *based on 2005 retirement date inflation adjusted to 2018 dollars

  from Finance http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/03/09/money-and-confidence-are-interchangeable/ via http://www.rssmix.com/