#nothing aggrieves like missed potential

[fablefan]

Y'know what I would love to see? A production of Sweeney Todd that plays up the "Demon Barber" epithet by adding in the element that he might, quite literally, be demonically possessed somehow. Even better if it's purposefully ambiguous about whether it's true or not and leaves the audience second-guessing and doubting themselves after it all.

It makes Todd's actions all the more ambiguous and might even make him more sympathetic. Is he actually possessed, and his bloodlust is just its manifestation in the body of a man still grieving his family? Is he one mortal man who's gone mad from his experiences that he starts a murderous campaign against the world around him? Who knows. Sweeney nor the audience does.

It goes from a story about the dangers of taking revenge, but also plays into the similar elements of 'people will do desperate and horrible things if it means getting what they want'.

It also makes him more of a foil to the villain of the story, a religious judge who is also keeping up appearances and hiding his heinous actions.

The idea of "Benjamin Barker is dead, it's Todd now" might not be an exaggeration or a metaphor. Or maybe it is.

Epiphany (noun): a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.

He's weirdly aggrieved with dates and people's exact words, like he's on a contract or time limit ("'Before the week is out,' that's what he said." // It was due to arrive / At a quarter to five— / And it's six o'clock!")

He dumps bodies to the lower level / ground floor of the theater, which, historically, was referred to as Hell.

Lighting changes and the stage going red when Sweeney kills someone, or potentially when he's plotting or still focused on vengeance alone.

If Sweeney really did bargain with the devil for revenge against Judge Turpin in exchange for something, once the judge is dead and slides down the chute, Sweeney is alone. Truly, finally alone with his thoughts and actions and the numerous lives on his bloody hands, and is being told he can rest now. And then he learns his wife has died at his own hands and his crusade -- whether it really was his own or not -- was all for nothing.

Miss Lovett being just halfway crazy enough herself to see this man who's definitely got something Wrong With Him in more ways than one and still wanting to tap that.

[girlwithakiwi]

I’m gonna do you dirty, but gently 😅. I remember you mentioning that you have some other fic concepts for Jonerys you were in the process of developing. Have you decided on what concept you want to work on next? How long does it take you to mentally transition to a new fic? And a strictly selfish question, do you have anything written of said fic that you’d like to share 😏?

Oh god, the number of potential projects is ridiculous. I really need to move them out of Instagram posts and move them to the cloud, because having to swim back through tags is a pain.

Because SOMEONE who shall remain unnamed is the terrible enabler, I am probably going to knock out the ghost prompt from the fic title meme in a one-shot. I also wanted to do a little holiday-inspired drabble.

But those are just a handful of ideas in an ever-growing list. If we're talking big projects, as of now, it's probably going to come down to the "missing scenes from S7/S8" fic (I do like treating S7 and S8 like a scrambled puzzle I need to figure out) and the "the Starks are Batfam expys" (mostly because I want to give Jon and Dany cyrokinetic and pyrokinetic powers but this one requires a goddamned plot).

Since I've technically only written two fics for the fandom and they've been multi-chapter, six-figure beasts, it'd be nice to take a step back into something smaller. When I finished the gather, there was about a couple months reset to switch gears to the silhouette—it was supposed to be longer but I have zero chill.

And gosh, do I have something written? If you want a very, very, very rough draft that I had to transcribe from a notebook...

Dany walks out onto the balcony of her office, heading to the railing with an aggrieved, exhausted sigh. The brightly-lit cosmopolitan spread of King's Landing is so different from the quiet darkness of Dragonstone—as far as she can see, there is nothing except steel and glass and blindingly-bright billboards suffocating the blackness out of the night, blocking all except the most stubborn of stars. She cannot even sense her dragons here.

She closes her eyes, letting the cool night air waft up to her. The city is usually choked with the smell of exhaust and rubbish but the early winter storm that had dropped onto the city has all but buried it. It is strange, she thinks, that King's Landing of all places is threatened with snow...

There is movement out of the corner of her eye.

Before she even realizes it, a dagger made of flame is flying out of her hand, a flash of mercurial silver and gold in the gray-violet murk of the night. She watches in dismay and anger as the shadow, the silent figure who has stepped out of the darkness, catches the hilt of the dagger easily, the flames sputtering and dying against the darkness. She steels herself, prepared to whisper the magic into nothingness when the figure throws the dagger back at her...but the person doesn't.

She doesn't care. "That was a mistake," she whispers, flames beginning to dance along her fingertips. The figure watches her warily.

"Daenerys." A pause. Then, "Dany."

She stops. The flames die. No. It's impossible. No one says her name like that. There is always a tone of smugness in Daemon's voice when he calls her by the nickname, no matter how fondly he smiles. And there is that hard edge scraping along Vis's tongue when he says it. But this...this...

"I thought you were dead." Her voice barely sounds like her own. She watches the shadow shift guiltily and it only causes her anger and her confusion and her relief to flare brighter within her. "Robb said you were dead."

"I know," the figure says, lifting its hands to lower the black cowl. The shadows flee and a pair of whiskey-dark eyes peer back at her from the darkness of her balcony, a grimace on pale, handsome features. "I was. I'm sorry."

[avoresmith]

au where anyone other than atsushi is the main character, go

Kyouka

Kyouka is the most obvious option here, as her character arc literally follows Atsushi’s beat by beat and does it better because she gets to be seen having actual flaws and conflict while Atsushi’s point in life is just to Be Very Good. 

She’s an orphan who was beat down badly by the universe and needs to make peace with her Gift and how it’s uncontrolled presence in her life has played a huge part in all of the painful garbage she’s had to deal with. She has to learn to not just value her own life (Atsushi) but learn to believe she is capable of using the same abilities she used to kill to help people and that there is value to that (Dazai). She has a connection to Akutagawa, a better one than Atsushi, who just thinks that guy is a dangerous asshole, as Akutagawa fucked her up by trying to 'help’ her the same way Dazai 'helped’ him (which echoes the fact that Dazai fucked up Akutagawa by trying to teach Akutagawa the way he was taught by Mori). This creates a way more dynamic and interesting victims vs their abusers and cycle of violence story that they were TRYING to do with Atsushi and his abuser that falls completely flat, on account of how that guy wasn’t actually a character and we are just told we’re supposed to sympathize with him because ‘life is complicated’ instead of actually shown the ways in which life is fucking complicated. 

This would also allow for a narrative of victims vs their abusers where ACTUALLY HAVE, A VICTIM, CHALLENGING THEIR ABUSER AND DEMANDING THEY DO BETTER instead of what we currently have which is 1) Dazai flees Mori and hates him (legit) 2) Akutagawa seeks Dazai’s acknowledgement forever (no?? buddy) 3) Atsushi cries when his abuser died trying to maybe be nice to him for once finally =‘( (ohmygod).

Also, while Dazai and Atsushi mean... something?? to each other, it’s practically only relevant in Atsushi’s arc as something to yell at Akutagawa about, and while we can Assume Dazai Has Feelings we basically never see Dazai impacted by Atsushi. However, if it was Dazai who stops Kyouka from killing herself and takes her out of the mafia we have Dazai directly engaging with his perspective on suicide, and saving someone from the mafia in a way he was never saved, and this leads into him Also Engaging With All Of That, which then could be a continuing theme within their relationship.

(And I didn’t Go In This Direction because my central argument is that Kyouka already does everything Atsushi is doing if better and if given more focus could dramatically improve the manga, but also her relationship with Kouyou could also be given more prominence, and then holy shit, we’d have two important ladies instead of just one!)

In this AU Atsushi honestly doesn’t even need to exist. Kyouka could make friends with Kenji instead, and they could have adorable hyjinks where Kenji teaches her how to be polite to people and then they both get way too extra if politeness fails. 

(MORE UNDER THE CUT)

Akutagawa

This would probably have to be a darker manga, or Akutagawa would have to be less garbage, but as one of the only characters with multiple interesting relationships he is kind of a natural point to focus around. He has Gin, Higuchi, Kyouka, (thREE WOMEN) and Dazai as far as relationships that already important, and Chuuya and Mori and Kouyou are all characters that could be explored more if the manga was more mafia focused. While the mafia aren’t actually villains anyway, this change would make them more sympathetic, but Akutagawa would still be a really interesting MC, and this would fix the fact that Atsushi is only interesting around Akutagawa. 

Unlike Atsushi, Akutagawa has clear wants, motivations, and character progression, so Atsushi makes a lot more sense as Akutagawa’s rival character than the reverse. Boy with garbage life collides into the boy his master replaced him with, only to constantly seethe with anger that this asshole was so fucking lucky. Eventually discovers that his rival’s life actually wasn’t that easy but still can’t comprehend why his rival doesn’t appreciate what he has enough, or why this prick is worth more to his master than he was. Cue a compelling dynamic of Akutagawa improving himself relentlessly while not fully understanding what path he is on, but desperate to get out of the trashfire of his life. He thinks this means earning Dazai’s approval but in fact it means learning he doesn’t need to be a terrible human being to survive.

This would make Dazai far LESS sympathetic, but Dazai sucks so that is only fair.

Dazai

Okay, I won’t lie, Dazai would a SUPER CHALLENGING perspective character for a manga. What makes Dazai’s writing so amazing is how deftly he handles the unreliable narrator, which is hard to do when we don’t actually see the world via the MC’s perspective. And while I am happy to rag on BSD all the live long day, I do think one if it’s strengths is that it picked up on what an interesting character Dazai-types would be viewed exclusively from the outside, and has managed to portray that sort of peculiar contradiction of personality traits quite well. 

HOWEVER, despite being the most popular character, we never really get to see Dazai having a character arc. We know he has improved, we know he has wants and is actually probably working very hard to get his life in order, but we only know any of that from the end of the light novel to the start of the manga. We don’t actually get to see Dazai having conflict, confronting his fears, making hard choices, and growing as a person. 

However, while we never really see it in the manga, given what we know about Dazai’s history, we can probably assume that the choices Dazai makes to help Atsushi is something that actually impacts Dazai quite a bit. The last time he put himself in this position the result was Akutagawa; a challenge which Dazai completely failed on many levels, even if the result was technically a very loyal and capable mafioso and thus something Mori would have slated as a win. Dazai engaging with what it means to teach a human without himself knowing how to be a good human, and probably in the process also learning about ‘goodness’ via someone like Atsushi who is naturally inclined toward the heroic, would actually give Atsushi an interesting place the narrative. 

This would make Dazai waaaaaay more sympathetic, as we would also presumably see him struggling to adapt to ADA life, see his masks slip more often, and more signs of the fact that for real these last two years of being around decent human beings from 9 to 5 is probably the first time in his life he’s dealt with such people. We’d also get to see that he’s probably still depressed, drunk, and suicidal, but may be able to chart the ways he gradually becomes less so and what prompts those improvements. 

Kenji

Kenji is also a nice boy who wants to talk it out but then will beat the shit out of you if that attempt fails. What if instead of being a 2D one time gag character he actually had a motivation and a character arc to engage with? He could more or less follow the same story beats Atsushi sets up, just done better and with less redundancy. Kenji would make an interesting foil for Akutagawa since by all appearances his life wasn’t garbage, and his ceaseless tone deaf optimism in the face of Akutagawa’s ceaseless tone deaf fury would be, if nothing else, pretty fucking entertaining. 

Kunikida

wOW ANOTHER HEROIC CHARACTER WHO USES VIOLENCE TO RESOLVE CONFLICT. IT’S LIKE THERE ARE A BUNCH OF THESE. What if Kunikida being Dazai’s partner was at all narratively relevant and they had a dynamic that went deeper than Dazai aggravating Kunikida for the lulz and Kunikida being willing to trust Dazai when the chips are down.

Since Kunikida is slated to be the next leader of the ADA he makes a potentially compelling choice as a protagonist, as it would be an easy way to involve all of the (MANY) under appreciated ADA characters, by having their future boss learn what it means to actually work with and appreciate the backgrounds of his various future underlings. It wouldn’t need to be slated specifically as ‘Kunikida Is The Heir’ but given that it’s a shounen manga it could be effortlessly set up that way, and unlike Atsushi, Kunikida has a LOT of obvious flaws. He is naive, inflexible, emotionally vulnerable, distrustful, impatient, judgmental, and gullible. He also has CLEAR WANTS (Idealism) seeing him struggling for something fundementally unattainable and the ways he learns to update his ideal of idealism, in part by overcoming his individual flaws and in part by realizing that while idealism might be worth seeking it cannot be achieved. He would have a lot to learn from every member of the team, and in doing so could give them more importance to the story.

Yosano

you waNNA KNOW WHO IS GREAT AND DEEPLY UNDER APPRECIATED?? YOSANO. IT’S YOSANO. AU where actually Yosano is the main character. If you need a more compelling argument than that IDK what to say to you.

Tanizaki

What if Tankizaki had a narrative purpose other than gag and deus ex ability.

Mishima

AU where Mishima Yukio is in the manga, he’s an ex-government worker who was fired for being a bit too radical but he deeply respects and is super gay for Fukuzawa’s aesthetic and agrees to join the ADA. Rather than being Dazai’s protege he fancies himself Dazai’s rival and is intent to expose what garbage he is but the joke is on him because everyone knows that including Dazai. 

None the less, Mishima also is a more callous and aloof person who wears a friendly mask and via picking at Dazai he picks at himself. The more fixated he gets on exposing Dazai, the more he has to confront the fact that the world is more complicated than he wants it to be and it frightens him to examine the degree to which he doesn’t feel he actually belongs among society and thus tries very hard to construct a place for himself in it with his radical behavior and exacting standards, whereas Dazai accepts that he just should go in the trash. 

Dazai, in response, really doesn’t like being picked at effectively. Everyone else within the ADA accepts the masks he wears without question, never actually confronting his suicidal ideation or talking to him about where he comes from, even once they know about it. Mishima, in his relentless pursuit of being able to classify and deconstruct Dazai to overcome him, does just this, and frankly it sucks a lot for Dazai because Mishima would be the first person to A) learn the grueling details of his past and B) understand how fucked up that is for someone like Dazai who is only hiding his sensitivity and C) still look him in the eye and tell him to get his shit together. Mishima becomes the first person since Odasaku who actually understands Dazai but this time it is the worst because Mishima is mean. 

Dazai counters by ruining Mishima’s life in the most extraordinarily petty ways as frequently as possible.

Atsushi

ALTERNATIVELY. Atsushi actually is a good protagonist.

HERE IS AN EXERCISE, WHAT DO EACH OF THESE SHOUNEN HEROES WANT AND HOW DO WE KNOW?

Edward Elric: wants the philosopher’s stone, will do basically anything for it, we find this out in chapter 1.

Gon Freaks: Wants to find his dad, chapter 1

Luffy: Wants to find his dad, chapter 1

Allen Walker: wants to save everyone from akuma because dad feels, chapter, idk, like 3

Naruto: Wants the acknowledgement of his village, works tirelessly for it. We find this out in like chapter 1. (yeah I know naruto is bad don’t @ me but look the MC had a clear motivation)

(AV have you read any shounen manga since 2001-- nO)

Atsushi: Wants... uh. To not starve??? This need is met in chapter 1. Wants to... be.. a good employee...? Wants to beat Akutagawa because... he’s bad....??? Wants to... make Dazai proud...?

It’s not impossible to write a story with a MC who isn’t clearly motivated, but it’s a fuckload harder to make it compelling and you prrrroobably need to have some other kind of clear focus to replace the fact that your MC does not. IE if you are specially exploring the story of an unmotivated hero, you frame his actions around the fact that he is really just doing things by route and how this separates him from the people around him who actually have priorities in their life. 

Or, if you want to be like ‘Atsushi’s motivation is that he cares and wants to help!’ LOOK: If they are sO HEROIC that they just nEED TO BE THE HERO ALL THE TIME (Allen Walker) either because they lack self worth (Allen Walker) or are so empathetic that they can’t help but try to save everyone (Allen Walker), you narratively frame the story around them so that it highlights this as both a strength and a weakness of their character. The inability to save everyone vs feeling like your life only has value if you can save everyone is deeply fucked up and should haunt your MC.

The manga starts to slightly course correct Atsushi after waaay too many chapters, which is why he starts having an actually interesting dynamic with Akutagawa. But now he wants to ‘overcome his abuser’, and though this itself is extremely unclear as to what it means. I suspect it means ‘continue to do the exact same shit he’s being doing until he believes in himself’ whichhhhh is boring. It could work if the framing is consistent and Atsushi begins to have actual conflict with his own behavior and the way he treats his life as disposable and his suffering as unimportant. 

He could also use some flaws, which, again, we only see signs off later in the game with his Akutagawa relationship. Atsushi can be forgiven for not realizing that Dazai was horrible to Akutagawa, since neither Dazai nor Akutagawa will ever explain that, but he is still pretty shitty to Akutagawa deliberately! And it’s nice seeing him be a little prick.

If everything that is happening now with Atsushi had happened from the beginning, you know how you are supposed to start a shounen manga with the protagonist actually doing anything interesting or important, the manga would be much less bad. If Atsushi had more than like 1.5 flaws and a .75 motivation now, the manga would also be a lot better.

I don’t actually like this idea as much as all of my other ones, but if he MUST be the MC, what if he was actually good at it at all.

[in-tua-deep]

Ok I totally want to hear more about this survivors au/Delores is real! How do the siblings handle having this different version of Five? Five may be better adjusted but he still has to heard his family around like a bunch of stray cats. What happens when Hazel and Cha Cha show up? How do they find out that Vanya causes the apocalypse and how does Five handle that revelation?!

here is the thing, i think the survivors au has the potential to be HILARIOUS

no one knows how to handle a well-adjusted five, and this absolutely includes the commission

So you mentioned Hazel and Cha-Cha?? Five in this au was not nearly as absolutely feral as he is in the show bc he knows how to interact with people - he was raised by a competent adult and a weird best friend and they occasionally saw other survivors as well

please picture old Five hanging around the water cooler and chatting with Hazel

the other funny thing is that Five is competent passing - he is well adjusted emotionally but functionally?? Hazel is out there complaining about dental being cut and office parties and budgets and Five is there sipping his drink having never filed taxes in his life. Five doesn't know what the fuck a dental plan is, he was a child soldier and then lived in an apocalypse.

So please picture for me Hazel being like "okay I know corporate wants us to keep what we're being paid to ourselves but fuck that, workers unite, what do you get paid as a legend old timer?"

and five is like "you're getting paid? i get to not get tossed back into the apocalypse, I think"

"but what about expense forms? what about medical care?"

"I'm like 80% sure i'm being experimented on, actually." Five says nonchalantly, "Don't get me wrong, my idea of medical care is fucked by being a child soldier but I'm pretty sure regular people don't have electrodes attached to their heads every time they get a checkup. Could be wrong though! My ex-dad used to monitor my brainwaves while I slept so like, my idea of appropriate shit is fucked, you know?"

This is a Five who was raised by Rick, he is polite to his coworkers. If Dot asked him if he wanted to grab lunch, Five would have gone and grabbed lunch with her or politely said that he couldn't.

Cha Cha only ever talks to Five when she wants to talk shop, so they've had a couple of conversations about weapons but not much else tbh, Hazel just tends to be more personable

So when they're sent after Five, Hazel is much more hesitant to kill who he perceives as a "work friend" and also is definitely thinking about all the times Five casually revealed a way the commission was being highkey shady about him, such as the potential experimentation, no pay, working under duress etc. He's much more easily turned against the commission because he's even more primed to say "fuck the commission" than he is in canon

Hazel out here like "how did Five break his contract when Five wasn't even being paid? I kind of want to read it."

Hazel out here like "I would unionize if I didn't think the commission was anti-union enough to send literal assassins after me if I suggested it :/"

meanwhile with the siblings

Five just. talks over them a lot and makes so much sense that it's actually really hard to argue with him, and he's weirdly considerate of his family's obligations

Like Diego is like "i have to go see Patch" then Five is like "that's great I'm proud of you buddy, it would actually be really handy to have some law enforcement read into the situation if you think she's up to the task. that goes for everyone by the way! If y'all have people you trust, more bodies would be super helpful I think"

the entire family, collectively, who have like zero trusted social links: uhhhhhhhh

Diego, with this weird permission, probably?? Does? Awkwardly attempt to read Patch into the situation? Patch is, obviously, like "what the fuck, Diego" but probably goes with him to the mansion (????????) because she's concerned and then meets his fucking whacko family with their superpowers and suddenly everything is 100% more realistic

Five is just like "yes hello I'm aware I look like a child, i'm actually in my late 50s or early 60s (apocalypse time amiright) because of time travel stuff. Yes I am Five Hargreeves who went missing in like 2002 or whatever. anyway it's lovely to meet you, i'm so glad diego has someone he trusts, and considering my sibling's shifty looks when i told them to invite anyone they trusted this genuinely makes me concerned that Diego is the most socially well-adjusted of them."

"That cannot be possible." Patch says, like someone who has met Diego Hargreeves.

"You haven't met the rest." Five says sympathetically, "In our defense we were raised in isolation as child soldiers."

"That... explains so much." Is all Patch can say to that, "But you seem..."

"I'm adopted." Five waves away.

"We're ALL adopted." Diego grits out, very aggrieved by this and also not sure if he likes the fact that Patch seems friendly with Five, or at least is listening to him?

"I'm double adopted."

However! With the recruitment of Patch, herding Diego becomes like 90% easier.

Honestly the worst to herd are probably Luther and Allison? Luther because he's Number One and resents Five taking charge and also resents Five's casual dismissal of Reginald and also suspects that Five (or at least the commission) has something to do with Reginald's death?

Allison because she is torn between following Luther and helping him and helping Five but also calling Patrick and Claire at every possible moment while ALSO trying to repair her relationship with Vanya. She's flighty - she'd bail on a Five-apocalypse-assignment if Vanya mentioned being hungry or if Luther called or anything like that

Vanya likes to be included and, if asked, would probably drop as many current obligations as she can. Like she would probably cancel her teaching if Five genuinely and sincerely asked her for her help, which he does because he's 100% sure Dolores would manifest in front of him and smack him if he dared even imply someone without powers wouldn't be helpful

Vanya is like "I'm not sure if i'll be helpful - I don't have powers ):" and Patch is like "wtf are you talking about - my superpowers are Gun, Backup, and Reading Comprehension and i am like the most useful member of this team right now"

Vanya gets a confidence boost just from hanging out with Patch honestly, I think they should be friends

Klaus is thrilled to be included are you kidding?? He says he does it for money but he's just happy to be there and also as one of the most emotionally intelligent siblings he is mildly concerned about the fact that Five looks like he's about to cry and also emotes

Five also gives Klaus positive reinforcement, hugs, and Five absolutely weaponizes the I'm not mad, but I believe that you can do better and I'm going to give you more chances because I love you and fully believe that next time you'll be amazing way that Rick used on him.

I feel like Five ends up saying something along the lines of "I understand that x is really important, and we're definitely going to look into it. Is it something that needs to be addressed right now, or is it something that can wait until after April 1st? If it can wait, I can write it down here on this list so we don't forget. If it can't wait then we can figure out a time to address it and help you" a lot

Like Grace malfunctioning and potentially killing Reginald?

"We don't have to make this decision right now." Five says patiently, "Because Grace is a robot, we have some options. Living with a robot who is potentially malfunctioning and homicidal is dangerous, but Luther saying that means admitting that Reginald might have made a mistake or error with Grace's programming or upkeep. I haven't been here for a long time, but I remember Reginald being very precise. Regardless, this isn't a choice between permanently shutting her off or not. We can shut her down temporarily until we can fully address the issue. We can ask and see if there is a 'system reboot' option or some sort of system check that Grace can undergo. We can try find and hire an expert to take a look at her programming to find the issue."

Five gives this speech while like, organizing the weaponry in the house on a table very nonchalantly

Five out here making buzzer noises at his siblings arguments like "yeah no that's a false dichotomy and a strawman's argument, want to try again?"

(Look apocalypse nights were long and they had games that were literally about arguing pointless shit like ranking types of chairs or the best way to break out of a prison without powers and things could get heated)

"Who died and made you boss?" Luther demands.

"Uh, the world? Were you not listening?" Five asks, looking very purposefully confused.

It gets even MORE delightful when Five reads Rick into the situation because a) he promised and b) his siblings really have like, no connections jeeze

Rick fully believes that this is his son from the future, like Five introduced himself, but Five skipped out on a few key details. Such as being adopted.

So Rick spends a solid chunk of time just staring at Five, who looks basically nothing like him, trying to think like, who is his mother ???? if we save the world will Five stop existing? why would I name my child 'Five'? Does everyone have powers in the future? was there like... a radioactive apocalypse? would radiation give future humans superpowers? when did my life turn into a comic book? am i even allowed to ask these questions? will knowledge of the future fuck things up?

and then when Five comes back and is like "what is up everyone this is my dad Rick who will be joining us, he doesn't have any memories of me thanks to time travel but if anyone is mean to him i WILL kneecap them"

"Your DAD?"

Five does kidney punch Klaus for saying that Rick is a DILF but otherwise everyone just is like, warily looking at this Normal Dad Man in confusion because?? This is the dude who raised Five, who they watched take out like an entire commission team by himself yesterday? He looks so. Normal.

Rick is very confused and like, wonders if he's supposed to be the team mascot? But Five keeps involving him and asking his opinion and in return Rick enforces snack breaks and makes everyone sandwiches and has gentle talks with everyone

Every time Five notices someone about to blow he just lovingly makes sure that that person is alone in a room with Rick

Luther ends up crying on the sofa with Rick gently patting his back as Rick calmly states that Luther seems like he's put a lot of time and effort into his family and making his father proud and that since Reginald isn't here to say it, Rick will have to be the one to say that he's proud and that they've been dropped into a difficult and stressful situation - so soon after Reginald's death when they're still grieving! - and he's doing so well

Luther, experiencing unconditional positive paternal regard for the first time in his life: i don't know why i'm crying so much

honestly this is just a comedy of juggling the gang, having impromptu therapy sessions and discussions, investigating the apocalypse and the eye, leonard trying to meet vanya continuously and failing because she's constantly surrounding by family or rick/patch, the commission trying their best to bust up the dream team/isolate Vanya/kill or remove Five, while Hazel lives out his romcom dreams with Agnes and also says "fuck the commission"

[tellmevarric]

Okay, so I did the Vili romance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and I was more than a little irritated by how it went the next morning, especially since Vili is potentially someone you could have a longer romance with, if you do certain things. So I decided to fix it.

Note: There are some small spoilers for mid-late game stuff and well, some of this isn’t going to make sense until you’ve completed Snotinghamscire. (And am I the only one who is juvenile enough to snicker at that name every time I see it?)

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Eivor lay on the sun-warmed rocks next to the waterfall that overlooked the village in naught but tunic and trousers and closed his eyes, letting the warmth seep into his bones. He’d returned the previous evening from carrying out some tasks for Reda and chasing down more of the Order members and zealots for Hytham and just wanted to relax for a few hours before he made any further plans. There were a couple more counties on the map that had sent requests and there were those strange witch sisters that he needed to hunt down. Plenty to keep him busy. But later. Tomorrow. Once he had rested and relaxed a little.

“You have made a fine village here.”

Eivor smiled slightly at the familiar and welcome voice but didn’t open his eyes. “More Randvi’s work than mine.”

“That’s not what your people say.”

Eivor drew in a deep breath then let it out. He opened his eyes and lolled his head over to look at Vili. “Sigurd’s people. Our clan.”

He closed his eyes again rather than look at the expression on Vili’s face. He’d left Vili here to settle in and get established but he hoped to take the other man with him when he left this time. No doubt Vili had been talking to people in the meantime.

“Sigurd has changed.”

“Sigurd was held captive and had half his arm hewed off,” Eivor said, unable to keep the terse note from his voice. “Any man would change after that.”

He heard movement beside him then Vili stretched out next to him with a small groan. Part of him wanted to move closer to the other man but he kept himself still. He was the one who had drawn the line in the sand back in Snotinghamscire, though why, he wasn’t quite sure. Some sense of unease over what Vili had said the night before? Rejecting first so as not to suffer the pain of rejection? He wasn’t sure, he only knew he had regrets.

“Ah, this is much better than snow, snow and more snow, with only some ice to leaven the snow,” Villi said expansively.

“I am glad we did not settle in the north,” Eivor said with that small smile. “The local Saxons say they do get snow here in the winter at times but nothing like home.”

Vili was silent for a time. “Do you miss it?”

“Rygjafylke?” Eivor asked and when Vili hummed an affirmative, he continued, “No. Well, some things I do but… Harald is uniting the clans and that… that was no place for me.”

“Nor Sigurd.”

“Sigurd felt aggrieved that his father sold his inheritance out from under him,” Eivor replied.

Vili made no reply to that and they lay there for a while. Eivor dozed from time to time, letting the stress of travel and fighting bleed away.

“Randvi says you are more often gone than here,” Vili said after a while.

“There are many alliances to be made,” Eivor said around a yawn. “I’ve played matchmaker and held the hand of Saxon lordlings. I suppose the annoyances have been worth it.”

“And will you be taking me on your adventures now?”

Eivor opened his eyes and grinned at his friend. “Why else would I bring you here, arse-stick?”

“I thought it was to keep you out of trouble,” Vili replied, his grin just as broad.

“You get me into more trouble than you get me out of.”

“I think you have it the wrong way around.”

Eivor gave him a shove, Vili shoved back and they settled into a brief wrestling match that ended with Vili pinning him to the ground, arms over his head and their bodies lying flush. Eivor was unable to control his body’s reaction and the smile on his face vanished when Vili arched an eyebrow.

There was a moment of silence before Vili cocked his head. “A momentary heat, you said. A flickering flame.”

Eivor stilled underneath Vili and looked away for a moment. He then turned back to look at Vili and saw a banked hope in his friend’s eyes that he had honestly not expected to see.

“You said you would not feel the same in the morning.”

“I said I could not say how I would feel in the morning,” Vili replied. “You did not let me speak first.”

Eivor swallowed. “And what would you have said if I had allowed you to speak?”

“That I enjoyed the night and wanted many more like it.”

Eivor let out a breath. “As would I.”

“Then why…?” Vili cocked his head and gave a quizzical half-smile.

Eivor let his head fall gently back to the stone and laughed softly. “Because…” He hesitated.

Vili gave a great bark of laughter. “Because you are as inept in matters of the heart as you are bold in battle,” he teased. “I remember what you were like with the boys and girls back home.”

“I had my successes,” Eivor protested.

“Single nights. Brief flings.”

Eivor sighed. “True enough.” He arched an eyebrow. “Do you intend to change that?”

Vili raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Do you want me to?”

Eivor hesitated for a moment, then with a quick, eel-like move, he flipped them over and straddled the taller man. He yanked off his shirt and cast it aside before leaning down to be face to face with Vili.

“Yes.”

Vili wrapped a hand around the back of his neck. “Good,” he said before pulling Eivor down into a kiss.

[galleywinter]

Part three of my canon-breaking self-indulgent fic. If you have questions, I’ll happily answer them. Otherwise, thanks for coming along for the ride so far! This started as an absolute crack thing with my bestie just to get it out of my head and get these characters to shut. up. I’m shocked and pleased to see so many other people are liking it so far.

As always, though, I offer no apologies. Comte/OFC fic Still rated G. At least for now. Potential spoilers for part of Leo’s route via implication. ____

Delicate wisps of smoke curled and hung in the air, twisting around each other in a gentle dance before dissipating into nothingness in the stillness of the office.

The measured clack of Oxfords striding down the hall toward the office door pricked at Leonardo's ears, and he carefully, quietly, lifted his feet onto the desk and crossed them at the ankles. The door swung open quietly and with no hesitation.

To most, le Comte would have looked only mildly aggrieved, like nothing more than a businessman with a long day ahead.

But Leonardo knew better: his friend was tight. Pinched. His shoulders slightly too square and his fingers too tense where his hands fell at his sides. "Breakfast didn't go like you hoped?" he asked, letting a particularly artistic exhale of smoke punctuate the question.

Le Comte's answer was a sharp exhale of his own as he closed the door. "To say I had hoped for much at all would be a lie. But yes. It did not go as I'd hoped." He said nothing else as he stripped his overcoat and hung it from the coat tree. Leonardo watched the bunch and shift of his muscles, made note of the tension in his spine.

It had been centuries since Leonardo had seen him like this.

He wasn't sure if the fact that it had been that long or that it was happening at all was more worrisome.

He also knew better than to ask directly. Comte approached his desk and flicked a finger against Leonardo's ankle."Kindly remove your feet from my desk." "Nah; my legs need a stretch." Leonardo tapped his boots together for emphasis and took another drag on his cigarillo. "Then stretch them by standing from my chair so I may sit and do some actual work. I would ask if you were even passingly familiar with the concept, but I'm no fool."

"And yet, that you considered asking says otherwise." Even as he smirked, Leonardo stood, his spine giving a satisfying series of pops as he dramatically stretched his chest. Comte waited, watching, a bemused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and an eyebrow arched, but saying nothing.

Leonardo briefly considered ashing his cigarillo onto the stack of papers that bore his own name, but opted instead to behave himself, moving toward the little side table where an ashtray was kept for his use. Immediately, Comte filled the vacated space, the leather seat of his chair giving a soft sigh as he sat.

He knew better than to expect a frank baring of the soul, but he certainly expected more than just the rustle of paper and the scratch of a fountain pen to fill the silence.

Well, if 'Comte' wasn't going to play the game, Leonardo took no issue with showing his own hand. He took a long, final drag on his cigarillo before stubbing it out into the ashtray.

His exhale was slow and heavy, the smoke hanging thick in the air.

"You've noticed her eyes, yes?"

The scratch of the fountain pen ceased.

"It would be hard to miss them. Just as I'm sure you've noticed the sound of her voice."

Leonardo hummed softly. "Some things we can't hide, no matter how we try." The silence stretched again for a moment, but it felt strangely lighter than it had before. "I wonder what her game is."

Comte's snort was only a little rueful. "That she has been fairly decent at hiding to date."

Leonardo fished out another cigarillo and match from his coat pocket. A quick, practiced flick of his fingers lit the match, and the cherry of the cigarillo glowed brightly behind his cupped hand as he lit it almost by muscle memory. The heady, herbal smoke rolled over his tongue and into his lungs, and he took a moment to let it curl in his chest.

"Let's hope it's not cribbage," he finally smirked as he shook the match out. "You've always been terrible at that one."

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 13: Star Trek Beyond

Some attempted thoughts on Star Trek Beyond.

So first it was bad lol. It is the worst. I thought maybe it would be less the worst than I had previously thought but it really, really is just irredeemably bad.

Trying to keep up with what was actually happening and talk in the group chat was too difficult and I now feel very exhausted lol. And I’m not even sure what I watched.

I liked Jaylah a lot, including her back story, characterization, “house,” traps, and cool mirror tricks.

I also like Kirk in that emergency uniform with the jacket unzipped.

That’s it! That’s all I liked.

In the past I’ve also said I liked the Spock and Bones parts but I honestly wasn’t a fan of them either this time around!

None of the characters felt IC and none of the relationships felt true or were compelling. Which is particularly egregious given that the alleged theme was strength in unity.

The movie was especially lacking in K/S content or even K & S interaction, which obviously didn’t please me. And it’s definitely the worst Kirk characterization I’ve ever seen. There’s no excuse for that either because it’s halfway through the 5YM, which means he should be pretty close to TOS Kirk--yes, he has a different set of experiences, so there’s going to be some variation, but there’s comparatively less excuse for a radically different characterization than in STXI and STID. They should have had Shatner read the script and make notes lol because whatever else you might say about him he KNOWS Captain Kirk.

Like, he (Kirk) lacked humor and charm and, often, confidence. He had moments when he was very smart and moments when he had a commanding presence. But he had just as many moments when he was whiny or bored and his Captain’s log??? I deserve financial compensation for every time I’ve listened to that. Bored of space?? No, this man is bored when he’s stuck on Earth. He stagnates in desk jobs. He is an adventurer and explorer before he’s ANYTHING else; if you don’t get that, you don’t need to be writing Star Trek.

Also, as I have frequently complained, I’m tired of him having no internal conflict or emotional complexity past his father issues. First reboot movie: dealing with his dead father’s memory and his step-father’s abuse. Fine, that makes sense for how they set up the AU. Second reboot movie: entirely motivated by the need for Manly Vengeance upon the person who killed his father figure. And for this redundant story line (in many sense) we had to lose Pike? Third reboot movie: you’d think he’d finally be ready to move on to other conflicts but actually no this time he’s sad about his birthday and having a longer life span than his...you guessed it!! father!! Yet again.

What else has ever motivated him? Legitimate question.

The destruction of the Enterprise was truly horrific. Long, boring, unwarranted, and without any emotional punch. As if it were just any ship! No, she’s a character in her own right and she’s not to be sacrificed like that but please tell me again how Simon Pegg is a true fan who brought the franchise back to its roots?

B said he did like that they split up the crew into unusual units but I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t think they did a lot that was interesting with any of those separated units. Uhura and Sulu are a cool pair (but this would have been a good opportunity to include Sulu’s semi-canonical crush on Uhura but whatever... a different rant) and they almost did some interesting stuff with them. There were glimmers of a caper in that story line and times when I could tell they were straining especially hard to make Uhura, their Sole Female Main--now that they cut out Rand, Chapel, and even Carol Marcus--into something Feminist and Interesting. But it didn’t quite gel for me. Like, Uhura would be having almost interesting dialogue with the villain and holding her own...and then she loses track of her colleague and has to watch that person die, thus undercutting everything she just said about unity and seeming to prove the villain’s point. Is she competent or not?

Bones and Spock are a pair I care about and like but again I think their canonical relationship in TOS is more interesting than STB showed. I personally read them as like...reluctant best friends who originally just had one person in common, and then realized they also like each other too, but they’ll never really say it. They understand each other but pretend not to. They have fun with the barbs they throw at each other. They both deeply love Jim but in different ways. They enjoy their intellectual debates. (That’s one thing that was definitely missing from them here! The intellectual debates!) So again, there was something there but not enough.

And Kirk and Chekov just happened to land near each other; nothing was done with that relationship per se. They really aren’t people who have much of a relationship in TOS so there’s not a lot to work off of but then on the other hand there IS an opportunity to create something new. Maybe I’m being too harsh and too vague but it just didn’t gel for me. The only specific K and C moment I remember was that supremely un-funny joke about Kirk’s aim as he sets off the “wery large bomb.”

But like there are possibilities.. they’re both pretty horny and Chekov is a whiz kid and Kirk is also very smart and has always been smart... Like in other words people Chekov’s age don’t end up on the bridge crew, in either ‘verse, without the Captain’s say, so even though he’s TOS!Spock’s and AOS!Scotty’s protege, Kirk is important to his life. Something with that maybe??

I’m upset that Spock’s individual story line was about whether or not he should go off and make baby Vulcans because, again as I have complained many times before, that was a conflict he faced and resolved in ten minutes two movies ago, and it doesn’t make sense to me for him to bring it up again now just because the Ambassador is dead. Like... the Ambassador told him to stay in Starfleet!! “Ah, yes, I will honor him by doing precisely the opposite of what he wanted me to do.”

Also--if they had made his motivation different or gone into it more, I would have been more into it. Make it about New Vulcan! Say there’s news from New Vulcan that it’s not doing well. Or what if T’Pring got in contact with him? Or what if we used this as an excuse to bring in Sarek?

This is part of a larger point for me which is that STXI set up a really cool AU and STID tried to do something with it--a little hit or miss, but it tried--and instead of pushing even more at the AU and developing it more and doing more with it... STB just ignored it! Was that part of what Paramount was warning about with making it “not too Star Trek-y?” Was it SUPPOSED to be a movie you could watch without having seen the last two? If so they did succeed but like.. .why? They made the supremely ballsy move of blowing up a founding Federation planet two movies ago and now they’ve just forgotten about that and all the reverberations that would necessarily have?

But of course we got a call back to Kirk being a Beastie Boys fan so.... Guess it was Deep all along.

We all three agreed that the core story of this film was potentially interesting but could have been done as a 50-some minute episode of a TV series rather than a whole-ass 2 hour movie. First off, cutting or cutting down the action sequences would have shaved off half an hour easily.

I’m frustrated in large part because there are certain things that are interesting here. I do like the concept of the crew being pulled on to an alien planet by a ship of former Federation crew, from the early days of the Federation/deep space flight, who were presumed missing but are somehow still alive because they have turned into aliens/used alien tech to prolong life, and who have also captured other aliens, like Jaylah, for the main crew to interact with. All of that was cool.

I would even be okay with these old Federation crew being villains but I don’t think that’s necessary or even the most interesting take.

But...first of all, as my mom pointed out, Krall was basically Nero in his illogical motivations: feeling aggrieved because someone who couldn’t help him didn’t help him and then just maniacally wanting revenge. It made more sense to me with Nero in a way. Maybe that was because he was better characterized, maybe it was because his anger was more personal (the loss of his wife), maybe--probably--it was because he was angry at Spock and Spock had actually promised to help, so there was some kernel of logic in his sense of betrayal, even if it was out of proportion etc. Also, Nero’s mania was portrayed as mania--we were all supposed to recognize that the strength of his emotion was warranted but his logic was deeply flawed. I think we were supposed to think Krall had some kinda... real criticism of the Federation, but in fact he doesn’t! He’s wrong! So like if he’d been angry with the Federation for abandoning him but the narrative and the other characters explicitly recognize that he’s wrong--the Federation tried but he was just doing something very dangerous and he recognized that danger on signing on--that might have been more palatable to me.

I’m not sure I’m making sense here entirely or explaining myself as well as I could.

I just don’t entirely get Krall’s beef with the Federation. I don’t get that whole “being a soldier and having conflict makes you strong and having people you can rely on and connections and community makes you weak.” That seems pretty obviously false. It also doesn’t really seem, not that I’m an expert, but particularly in line with military ethos either.

BUT the idea that he had a life that was comfortable to him as a soldier and then the Federation comes in and forms Starfleet and says, actually, we’re going to pull back on the soldiering and up the diplomacy and the exploration and the science--yeah, I could see that. I DO think Starfleet is military but even if you must insist it’s not, it’s clearly based on and formed from the military, and it has certain military functions. So obviously the first people to join or be folded into Starfleet probably were more explicitly military.

So he’s one of those people. Now he’s supposed to be a scientist and a diplomat and an explorer and he doesn’t like that. He’s given this very prestigious and interesting mission and jumps at it. Starfleet warns him, you might go beyond where we can reach, we might not be able to help you. That’s fine. But then when his ship is stranded and he is lost, he gets angry--maybe somewhat irrationally, but understandably--why?? Why did the Federation do this to him? What was even the point? When he put himself in danger before, at least he knew why. But just flying around space for the hell of it, and this is the cost? So that’s what creates his anger.

I thin this could be tied into Kirk’s diplomacy at the beginning--if the scene were written to not be a comedy bit where Kirk looks like an incompetent buffoon and is completely disrespectful the whole time. He’s good at this job and we should say it. But we could emphasize that this IS a diplomatic mission often, just as often as it’s a military or scientific mission. Maybe we could include other bits of their missions, too, to play up the variety of things they do and roles they play.

Another thing I think could be interesting, going back to my point about Spock, Vulcan, and using the first two movies and expanding on the world building... what if Spock wanted to leave Starfleet for better, more well-defined reasons, and we used that? Paralleled the two? Connected the two?

Because I think Vulcan in the AOS verse is very interesting and the movies didn’t do nearly enough with it. First, we have the Romulans showing up way earlier, at least visibly: in TOS, no one knew what they looked like or their connection to Vulcans until Spock is in his late 30s. In AOS, it happens not long after he’s born. So he’s growing up probably with more anti-Vulcan racism floating around the Federation. THEN Vulcan is destroyed. Now it has nothing and it needs to rely on the rest of the Federation, which must be both humbling and frustrating to many Vulcans, on top of the extreme tragedy of losing everything. Most of their population, a lot of their history, their manufacturing, their scientific facilities, their resources, their animals, literally whatever else you can think of that a planet has--all gone. Now all of the survivors have lived some period on an alien planet, by definition, and they’re probably very dependent on the Federation not just to set up the new colony, but to replace all of the resources--natural and Vulcan-made--that they lost. And they’re a founding Federation member, Earth’s first contact. They’re especially important. And now they’re weak, and reliant on others.

So maybe Spock, early on, hears from New Vulcan and they’re not doing well. Maybe we hear from Sarek or T’Pring (...I’d just like to see reboot T’Pring). Maybe it’s not about, or just about, having children, but about being from an important and ancient family, and being seen as a hero for his part in the Narada mission, that makes him want to go and help rebuild their government (taking his mother’s place perhaps? she was on the High Council) or their scientific facilities, or the VSA, or their space travel capabilities--you know Vulcan had space ships of their own, outside of Federation ships. This would be the perfect place to showcase that tension between wanting to be independent--out of pride, out of fear, even--and needing help, because Vulcan could not survive without the Federation, probably less than 10 years out from the original planet’s destruction.

And then you feed it back into Krall.

So I could see like... well the tension, and then Krall comes in, and he's angry that the Federation "abandoned" him, but we actually explicitly address this. Maybe Spock gets to interact with him and say "I get it. You had a life and a mission and a purpose that was comfortable for you. Then the Federation came in and changed everything. A lot of my people are also feeling upset for similar reasons. But here's why actually you're wrong."

So anyway as you can see I’m smarter and more interesting than Simon Pegg.

I also hated, speaking of writers of this movie, the gay Sulu thing and HEAR ME OUT on this. It’s homophobic. His husband doesn’t have a name? Might not be his husband at all? Looks like he could be his nanny or his brother? As B said “at least grab his butt or something.” That was the most sanitized, no-homo depiction of a gay person I’ve ever seen. He’s gay (see, progressives and queers! gay! you like that right!) but DON’T WORRY STRAIGHTS--he’s in a monogamous relationship and has a child, he’ll show nothing but the most platonic physical affection with his male significant other, and the plot point will be so minuscule you’ll need a microscope to detect it. Also, we’ll throw in a no homo joke about two male characters not wanting to hug and we’ll make sure Kirk and Spock interact as little as possible, because we know they give off Big Queer Vibes every time they’re together.

Yes the last point is a little unfair but can you blame me for being angry about all the “look how hip to the times we are” back-patting that went on in 2016 when canonical bisexual Kirk is RIGHT THERE and we could have had ex-boyfriend Gary Mitchell instead of Unnamed Nanny??

Also Sulu is a hella random choice because again, like... he may not have had an s.o. in TOS but nor was there any indication he was gay. So it seems a LITTLE like they picked him because (1) his original actor is gay and gay people can’t play straight people duh so probably Sulu was Gay All Along I mean did you not get vibes???; and/or (2) asexual Asian stereotypes preclude giving Sulu any kind of love interest, male or female, that is actually... sexual, outright romantic, anything.

Anyway I can’t remember if I had any other thoughts, but I’ve said quite enough I think.

I miss Kirk so much... real Kirk... even my version of AOS Kirk who is probably not even characterized that well but at least I worked with love!!!

[tradeway2]

Session 1 10 Jul 2021

We start a little later than usual today as our illustrious DM has been working hard to provide a game from scratch for us this week!

We were asked to provide him with a name, race, sub-race, and a class if we wanted to. We were not asked to draw up character sheets or determine stats and so on, and it’s been driving us (all now at least somewhat seasoned D&D players) up the wall. Matthew hops on to the chat after Joe drops the link to the game, to ask us not to open our character sheets if we sign in early. Duncan tells us he has emphasised this casual torture by having not even read the rules for his class; he likes to live on the edge.

When we sign in, we are greeted with this calming landing page (we know it's calming, because Matthew tells us it is):

Ah. Well that’s alright then.

We are told this campaign could last ten minutes or the rest of our lives; Matthew is hoping for somewhere in the middle. We have some technical issues - as is to be expected. Roll20 is a steep learning curve. One might even call it a wall.

We’re told that this entire fiasco is based off a spoof tv show that Matthew saw late at night once and thought it would be fun to base a one-shot on. Then it got out of hand, and now has the potential to become a full campaign. Here's hoping! Without further ado, we dive in…

Cora (Ishara) stands beside a crossroads. There is a sundial at its centre; she sees the shadow pass over its face. An elven merchant passes, cart laden with water jugs. She waves, but her face is a picture of fury. The sundial's shadow disappears - it is midday. Another elven merchant passes, this one with a cart of food. She also waves, but she is in floods of tears. The sundial shows that dusk is approaching. A third elven merchant passes, with a cart full of empty glass jars. She laughs hysterically as she passes by, waving as she goes.

Night falls and the moon rises. A fourth merchant approaches, but this one does not wave. Her face is blank as she walks toward Cora - she drops a bunch of snapdragons at Cora's feet and continues walking. Cora picks the flowers up and admires them; half the bunch withers and dies, and the other half grows to twice its size. She drops them to the ground; as the new roots touch it, the earth collapses beneath her -

She awakens, to see Leslie:

He tells her he doesn’t know who she is, but she shouldn’t be sleeping here.

We all awake now, in what appears to be the ruins of a battlefield.

We are all zombies.

Huh.

We see each other as friends; in fact the word 'zombie' in Friend means 'friend'. We know this, because as it turns out, we all speak Friend.

But not Common. Hmm.

Leslie tells us his name and asks why we’re sleeping here?

We roll History checks to see if we remember anything; that will be hard for Marcus who has -3 INT.

Pilfer remembers his name, and something about a boat, and nothing else. No idea where he is or why, or who his new friends are. Ren knows that this is definitely his lute. He takes it. Will he remember how to play it?

Hilda remembers nothing about how she got here, but she remembers fighting in a war. A big one. It was important; significant to her. Marcus remembers little more than Ren. That’s definitely his rucksack, though. Milo knows something is missing but he can’t figure out what. Cora remembers her dream. There was a risk that she wouldn’t. She’s told it didn’t feel like her dream, even though she was dreaming it.

We heard voice from behind a wall saying, “Friends? Friends!” Leslie rolls his eyes.

Cora goes to the wall to see if she can lend aid to the owner of the voice. It is coming from very close to Hilda. Should she do something about it? Where are we?

Hilda rolls a nat 20 for her Perception check. (Fun new house rule: if we are using a skill or tool and roll a nat20, we gain Proficiency - ooo!)

It is carnage around us. A huge fight has happened here. Imagine the biggest battle from the LotR movies - what we see laid out before us makes that look like a boundary dispute between neighbours.

Does Ren feel peckish when he looks at the bodies? It looks like food, but food has this habit of moving around; once it stops doing that, it’s bad food. We are all aware of this; what we're looking at is No Longer Food.

There are old fires and signs of burns on the ground. Amongst all this we hear the bewildered, friendly voice again asking for help. It’s coming from the remains of a building that has been destroyed by fire or magic or something of that ilk.

Hilda goes to investigate, and Pilfer goes to look as well. It turns out Matthew meant to put us on a different map, but we have been looking at the crossroads this whole time. Whoops! We switch to the map. Technical issues, please stand by…

(Matthew, direct quote: “JOE! Make it better, help!”

Joe helps, and makes it better. We continue… )

Ren has a go at tuning his lute. He makes a Performance check. an 8! We are all suitably distracted.

The voice calls again. “Friends?”

Where is this voice, and whose is it?

Leslie introduces himself again, rather pointedly probably, and we all introduce ourselves this time. Leslie seems particularly enamoured by Milo. The voice asks us what are we going to call him?

Pilfer suggests Bingo; Bingo likes that so that’s his name now. Pilfer asks how long he’s been here? He heard us get up and before that it was dark, but before that it was quite bright. Before that it was dark, and before that it was bright. Before that there was a lot of angry people, and there was a lot of food, and now the food’s all gone. He tried to leave, but he couldn’t.

Pilfer - formerly a drow elf - is dismayed to discover that it is daytime. He panics until he finds his parasol.

Ren gets a nat20 - he now has proficiency in Investigation! (There is a limit to the number of these bonuses we can receive, we are warned.) He and Marcus and Hilda all see Bingo's problem. Pilfer, however, has got lost in Bingo’s eyes again. He’s a good looking fella.

“Would that we had met before the rot set in!”

Milo gets distracted when some food shouts at him from over the bridge - it then pegs it away. Milo wants to follow, but we are all Slow (-10feet). The food disappears into the trees. He is disappointed, and hungry. He sits on a bit of broken bridge and sulks; Leslie joins him. He offers to help him look for some more food.

Bingo is pinned in place with a spear through his sternum - he’s upright, and the spear is piercing him from above. Can we pull it out? Or him out? Marcus has a go at pulling him by the hands - and manages to get Bingo off the spear with a 19 STR check. Bingo is very pleased. Ren asks if he wants the spear back; Bingo says it’s not his. Ren takes it instead, and adds it to his inventory. He has two now.

Bingo says he’s going to find the horde.

Us, politely confused: "The what?"

The horde! It’s the best! We should totally join him.

Leslie pats Milo on the back and tells him not to be disheartened. We’ll find some food. We suspend our disbelief while Matthew puts some food on the map that we didn’t notice sneaking up on us…

Ren rolls another nat20, getting proficiency with Perception. Thanks to Milo’s alertness, the food doesn’t get the drop on him either. Pilfer’s stomach rumbles, and we roll initiative. (Marcus gets five XP for helping Bingo off the spear!)

Noticing that we appear to have noticed them, the food closest to us appears to be carrying a stick. Uh oh… Food uses tools, this is the thing we learn first. The first food seems reluctant to move towards us, so it holds an action.

Cora is up first. She shambles 20 feet, and uses her action to dash twenty more feet and gets right up to some food and zombie-groans in its ear.

Milo remembers different food, food that you have to sneak up on, so he has a go at that. He rolls a Bad stealth check, and uses all fifteen of his feet, loudly announcing what he is doing to Leslie as he goes.

A food bonks Cora on the head with a stick for 15 to hit, which does, for 2 bludgeoning damage. Another food advances towards us - he’s wobbling his arm and pointing to the food that bonked Cora on the head.

Marcus shamble-dashes toward Cora, upsetting the food that she’s in melee with. Another food tries to hit him, but misses. Marcus consoles it.

Pilfer moves forward. Can he throw a dagger? Yes he can. He hucks his knife at a food. 21 to hit! Right in the shanks. 3 piercing damage! He did not get the food in the shanks; he got it in the neck.

He feels a weird urge to snack. All the other foods look very unnerved at this development. The food isn’t quite dead, but clutching its neck with blood pouring through its fingers and making an agonized squealing noise.

Pilfer: “... Is he okay?”

Hilda waddles up to another food, the one that lurched forward at us. She gives it a smash with her greatclub for 13 to hit.

Matthew kicks himself out of the game. We won!

Moving on…

Hilda’s attack hits, for 9 bludgeoning damage. She destroys the food. Can she still eat it? As a bonus action she eats some of the food, before it spoils. (Matthew moves the token to get it out of the way. Hilda, aggrieved: “I was eating that!”)

Ren’s turn. He swings the lute around, remembering that a lute is a useful thing to have; he can’t remember what to do with it so he swings it back out of the way and gets his spear instead. He stabs at the food in front of him. He spears it successfully and goes to town before it spoils. “Yum yum.” He says grace, which sounds like a beautiful prayer to us, and like hideous gurgling to the food.

Another food rushes at Hilda, seeing the thing she just done. It natty 20s her, but the damage is only 4.

Cora swings her mace at the food in front of her, to get to the juicy filling. 11 to hit, which does, and 3 bludgeoning damage. She’s tenderised it good; that’ll melt in the mouth, that will. Fall right off the bone.

Milo has heard all this going on; he goes back up and throws a javelin at the food attacking Hilda. He crit-fails. Whoops! He gears up and swings, and throws the javelin in completely the wrong direction. He looks at Leslie, who shrugs.

"I'd have thrown that over there, if I were you."

Leslie moves up, and old Bingo’s gonna get in the game as well. (Matthew forgot to roll initiative for them on the first round. He puts them in the turn order; better odds for us, yeah!)

Cora’s food tries to hit her again, but misses. There must be delicious sauce in its eyes.

Marcus batters the food in front of him with a slam attack, not realising there’s a quarterstaff on his back that he could use. He hits and kills the food, and goes to town. It turns out that that was Pilfer’s food; he retrieves his dagger and stops for a little nibble. A fistful of the insidey-bits is a great snack-on-the-go. He has enough movement to flank another food, so he does that, and makes a slam attack against it. He has prepared another meal!

Hilda’s turn, and the meals around her are in full swing; she uses both her action and her bonus action to snack on two different foods.

(Ed, OOC: “Is it bad that this game is making me hungry?”)

Ren too decides to feast on the 'horrible visceral tapas' that surrounds him. (We are adjusting swiftly to our new circumstance.)

Cora has another go at the pudding with a slam attack, hits the wrong button, finds the right one, and hits that for 13 damage which makes contact. 8 bludgeoning! She has prepared the heck out of that meal by swinging at the head and taking it clean off.

We are out of initiative! Pilfer waves a bit of meat at Bingo and invites him to join us. Milo seasons his own meal with the spices in his bag and even washes his hands, remembering that that’s important to do before eating. Pilfer empties his waterskin and fills it with blood. If he shakes it every now and again it’ll be fine.

It turns out that our meal doesn’t seem appetising for very long, and we quickly realise that our food has spoiled.

We roll Perception checks, at Disadvantage because we’re eating. Leslie doesn’t seem interested in the food.

Pilfer asks him what’s up, why isn’t he chowing down with the rest of us? He’s eating his own meal, he hints. Ren would love to Investigate Leslie. There seem to be bits of plant coming out of wounds or open sores on his body; he catches Ren looking and explains that although he’s a Friend, he eats it a bit differently. Over a period of time. We aren’t really talking to the person-suit, we’re talking to the plant inside the body. He uses the food to get around a bit more easily. And he can eat it even though it’s gone grey. The word he uses is 'compost'.

But, he assures us, we are all Friends here.

Fair dos. So, to the horde then?

Bingo looks really excited at this. Do we know where the horde is, he asks us?

"... We don’t even know what the horde is."

If we want to know who and what we are, Leslie might know someone who knows someone…?

There is a gnawing in the back of our heads (not worms); maybe we might want to know more about ourselves than just our names. (Which - it's odd that we even know our names. That's certainly more than Bingo knew.) Hilda thinks we might not want to know; we might upset ourselves.

We can follow Bingo to the horde. Or we could go with Leslie and take Bingo with us, and do horde stuff later? We’re full now, and all the food has gone bad, so we may as well follow Leslie. We get 15 XP for eating all that food.

We walk through the battlefield and the heaps of spoiled food. Occasionally we hear shouting in the distance:

Random friend: “Friend? Friend!”

Bingo, shouting back: “I’m called Bingo!”

New Bingo: “Oh, wow! Can I be called Bingo?”

Bingo Prime: “Sure!”

(Ed returns from the kitchen with snacks, very confused to arrive back in the middle of this.)

We shuffle along with Leslie. There are a lot of Bingos about, after a while. It starts to get dark. Ren remembers he has a tail. Leslie turns to us and says he once inhabited a food with a tail. It wasn’t a grippy one, but it was quite furry. He doesn’t know what you’d call it, but it was quite entertaining to see the looks on the other foods' faces.

Leslie doesn’t like to travel overnight, so we sit down in a little sitting around circle. His eyes aren’t good in the dark. Do we feel tired…? We don’t need to sleep, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t. Every so often we hear the little Bingo exchange in the distance. (We’re going to regret this.)

We roll INT checks at Disadvantage - Marcus rolls a 16. Maybe it’s a faded memory, but he is pretty certain he remembers going to sleep in a similar situation, and one person stayed awake. He suggests to the others that one of us should stay awake; most of them don't seem to follow his train of thought. He remains awake and so does Milo; Ren paces in circles until he gets bored.

Those of the group that try to sleep, give it a go. They don’t dream exactly. Those that stay awake still get the benefits of a long rest. Yay!

(We break for tea and cigarettes and whatnot.)

Bingo lies down, seeing some of us do that, and asks what we’re doing. Those of us that stay awake roll Perception checks.

While Matthew’s computer reboots, he tells Cora about her dream.

She stands in a familiar room; the bookshelves around her are laden with ancient texts. She notices that there is no door. She starts to feel anxious. Music sounds, from a hearth that wasn't there a moment ago. There is a music box open on the stone floor. She kneels down and closes the lid, and finds herself standing in a field. Her anxiety fades to contentment as she stands in the short, but lush, green grass. About a hundred feet away, a large black stag with eyes of fire begins to charge her. She begins to float, and the stag passes harmlessly beneath her. She flies over the treetops. Behind her she sees a triangle of ravens flying in her wake. She lands, surrounded by friends and safe, and the ravens continue on.

Marcus and Milo stayed awake; Marcus was distracted, wondering what the twinkly in the sky lights do and if anyone will ever walk on the surface of one, that kind of thing. Milo sees figures that appear to be advancing towards us. Uh oh!

Is it friends or food? Milo thinks it’s almost definitely food. It did not introduce itself as Bingo. Milo alerts us all that our delivery has arrived, and we roll initiative.

Cora goes first. She nobbles one with her mace and a nat 20 for 7 bludgeoning damage. She sees some sauce come out.

Marcus Slams another one; he makes a dent in it. (He still hasn’t realised he has a quarterstaff.)

A guard attacks Hilda with a spear. Hilda, sounding mildly inconvenienced: “Nooo!” 13 hits. Things are getting a little more real. She takes 6 piercing damage and is quite poorly.

Milo wants to know if this food is human sized; it is. He shambles into one and does a slam at it, and has a go at chomping off a couple of crunchy fingers. 18 hits. Milo, extremely pleased: “Delicious!” 8 chomping damage, and he comes away with some delicious bits of food. If this guy was planning on using his spear two handed, he may have to re-think his strategy.

Leslie’s turn. He makes it quite a way out to his chosen food, but his attack misses. The food next to Cora has a go at clobbering her with a 9 - which misses.

Pilfer’s turn, and he zips down toward another food to whale on it. He rolls a dirty 20 and slams him good, also doing max damage.

Hilda's turn! 15 with her club just misses, and she’s very annoyed about it. As a bonus action she wants to still try and have a chomp, but nothing happens.

The food fighting with Marcus fails to hit him, as does the one with Leslie. Milo’s food natty 20s him for 13 damage, and he’s down. Oh no! He rolls a good CON save and pops back with 1 HP.

Another food attacks Bingo and another attacks Pilfer but misses. Ren shambles across to help our good friend Bingo by poking the food with his spear, hitting for 4.

Bingo does a slam on the food as well, but misses. Marcus misses his attack; he is marinading it in its sauce, he says. Squeezing it like a mango to check for ripeness.

Cora rolls an 18 with her mace, and 3 bludgeoning. The food looks nearly ready. She falls upon it and has a chew. (Matthew: “Gross. I like it.”)

15 hits Marcus for 7 spikin’ in the tummy. No worries; he's got four more spikin' in the tummy left. Milo’s next slam hits, doing 6 points of munching damage, eating it to the point of perfection. It runs around screaming with a little halfling zombi- friend, attached to it first; Milo sets about feasting when it lies down and stops moving.

Leslie does an attack, and prepares another meal as Matthew plays D&D by himself. Pilfer has another attack - a 15 just misses. “Curse you!”

Hilda has another go with her great club for a 17, and 10 bludgeoning damage. Her food went from raw to almost perfect in one hit. It’s still moving about a bit, but in a much more ‘ready to be food’ fashion.

Ren’s food swings at him and misses. Ren, put out: “The food's just playing with me. It's supposed to be the other way around, right?”

Pilfer’s food fumbles at him and hits, and he’s none too pleased about it. He takes two HP damage when his food pokes him. “How dare it! I’m getting pre-eating indigestion, somehow.”

Ren does another poke with his spear. “Stop moving around! It makes it harder to bite you!” Six misses, unfortunately.

Hilda’s food attacks her for 14, which hits for 5 damage and she’s down. She rolls a CON save, but fails. She is at 0HP. She will be rolling undeath saves, oh no!

Bingo slams his food and misses. Marcus prepares his food with a crunch, and begins chomping.

Cora would like to kneecap her food so it can’t escape. The kneecaps are one of the best bits. 7 damage to the food (not Marcus!) and begins to chomp as well.

Milo’s meal is going down a treat, but he notices that Hilda appears to be lying down even though her food is standing up. Is her food trying to eat her? He’s not having this; Friends are not Food! He slings his javelin at Hilda’s food. The javelin hits, and he gives it a good dressing down. “Rude!”

We don’t understand it, but the remaining food is very distressed. If we could understand the food, we'd hear it saying, “Oh my God, they’re using tools!”

Leslie dashes at full pelt, but doesn’t get far. He looks puffed out; or he would if there was breath in his body.

Pilfer slams his food for a nat20. “YES! YES! What’s that mean, do I roll damage twice? Yes! YES! Look at all that damage. Yes! I bludgeon him to the floor, I eat him.”

Hilda rolls an undeath save: a 17, yay!

The last guard takes his turn. Looking around him he realises he’s in trouble, so he legs it. Wait - Ren is still struggling with a live one, and the guard isn’t going to abandon his mate. He runs up to Ren and gives him a bit of a poke - 12 just hits him. He takes 4 points of being stabbed. However -

It is now his turn. The food that he’s stabbed looks closer to edible than the newly arrived food. He stirs his spear around in it for 23, and 6 piercing damage. His food is well prepped and looking delicious.

Bingo hasn’t had much luck prying open the last one, so he has a go at Ren’s new arrival but misses. It’s been a long day.

While Marcus is shovelling stuff into his mouth, he notices that Hilda is down. Upon seeing her, his rotting brain supplies “…food?” But he remembers that’s not right. He shuffles over and pokes her with a Medicine check of 9; he can’t figure out why she’s lying down. Yelling “Get up!” doesn’t seem to do anything.

Cora shambles over to the two of them with a handful of brain pudding, and attempts to feed it to Hilda. She rolls a Medicine check - another 9. On the plus side, it’s not like she can choke her to death.

Milo has just eaten a whole hand, so he comes over for a poke at Hilda as well. He snaps off a finger from his food and tries to poke it into her mouth. It works! He’s very pleased. This feels familiar to him.

Leslie pats still-unconscious Hilda on the head. In broad Gloucestershire accent: “There there.”

Pilfer proceeds to his second course. A dirty 20 for 6 bludgeoning, hitting it so hard on the top of the head that its neck disappears into its chest. The guard returns in kind - 9 to hit, which misses.

the guard looks worried as he looks around. “… Fuck.” We, of course, do not understand him.

Ren gets confused and tries to stab his food with his lute, but misses. Bingo misses again. It’s a wonder he’s survived this long.

Marcus natty 20s the last food, for 11 HP. "That's as many hit points as I have on a good day!"

DM: "That's as many hit points as he started with."

While we wait for Hilda to wake up, we can search for loot! Or lute! Who knows!

We leave it there, and Matthew will tell us what treasures we find on our respective food. Pilfer makes a prawn cocktail with gizzards.

[dreadwulf]

#4  With this Kiss I Pledge My Love

(previous chapters)

Jaime Lannister should have ridden back to King’s Landing weeks ago.

He had fully intended to, after putting the Riverlands to order – to return to his son the boy king, and offer his protection. Get him a proper Small Council who will advise him wisely, and a real Kingsguard to protect him, and get Cersei somewhere well away. Garrison the Lannister armies wisely to maintain order, clean up the mess his lord father has made of the kingdom.  

Instead Jaime has been wandering about in a fruitless search for an unimportant girl. Spending weeks riding through snow and freezing cold in a gods-forsaken corner of the Vale with a motley party of leftovers who don’t want him there. He has told not a soul where he has been nor where he is going. He has been gone from his post for so long that the Crown has declared him dead and replaced him on the Kingsguard, and the army he had commanded has been rerouted by unknown orders away from the Riverlands, which will surely swiftly descend into renewed chaos.  

He should go back. He should abandon this pointless quest and return to his duties. Jaime has no reason not to, except that he swore a vow and meant it. Under duress and foolishly perhaps, an oath sworn to a dying woman who didn’t die after all, but an oath still. I am yours and you are mine. He is keeping his oaths now, even if no one expects or even wants him to.

There had been no cloaks, no kiss, and no pledging of love, only their hands bound together and him speaking the vow. But even if she had not spoken the same vow back, and the marriage bond will soon evaporate into the air as though it had never been, it will not be him that breaks it. He can be stubborn too.

So he wakes on the cold ground each day and she says barely a word to him and he speaks hardly a word to her as they ride to the Gates of the Moon, and the sands trickle down in the hourglass that is their marriage until only days remain. 

Jaime has ridden with her every day through deepening snow and treacherous ice until finally they reached their destination and made camp here, her and Podrick and Hyle Hunt and the Hound, alongside all of the other travelers who have come to rest at the Gates of the Moon. 

The Gates are no more promising than anywhere else they have arrived. There is an extensive encampment here of hopeful hedge knights and nobles from the highlands, but none have time for an odd woman in armor and her questions about red-haired girls of four-and-ten. There are no further rumors of Sansa Stark here, or of her sister, although there are a great many more interesting rumors about the rest of the kingdom in the progressing winter.

Jaime collects these rumors and opinions with some interest, mingling himself with the men at camp over food and drink for several days running. Turns out there are a great many things that a person will tell a traveler in the Vale that they would not tell to Lord Commander Lannister. Some of those things are pure nonsense, but others are rather illuminating. 

It is not so bad, being dead. He gets many more smiles and greetings as a dead man, and not so many sneers and whispers. He keeps his stump shoved under his travel cloak, has muddied his hair and beard so that they are not quite so golden, and it makes him nearly invisible. He is another middle-aged hedge knight trying to relive his glory days at tourney, so far as anyone knows. 

Not so far off. He could not hope to compete there now. Left-handed these green boys could take him, and without his fearsome reputation to dissuade them his life would be in real danger. 

He sits at supper and looks at the farm boys and young lords, in the spring of their youth and the peak of their skills. He imagines Brienne defeating them all, beating them down into the mud until they beg for mercy. It’s a shame she won’t enter the tourney; he’d like to see that. Would any one of them be a match for her, at her full power? They are nearer her age, their reputations as spotless as their unbloodied swords. If she had awakened from her long sleep married to one of them, would she be so aggrieved?

The competitors like to talk, and the spectators even more so. They spin tales about the fighters who have come hoping to be Winged Knights, their family connections, their sweethearts and patrons. They tell him all about Lord Baelish and his natural daughter Alayne Stone, who have organized the tourney.

These tales in particular catch his ear. If Littlefinger has a natural daughter I’ll eat my boot. The man is too careful for that. Only the Spider is less likely to produce a bastard offspring, and only out of physical impossibility. 

He asks questions about the fabled daughter, and her upcoming marriage to Harold Hardyng.  An awfully advantageous match for a Stone, marrying the next in line to the Vale. Conveniently Petyr Baelish seems to have gotten charge of little lord Robert, and rules the Eeyrie as Regent. Jaime wonders if there might be an accident in store, once that wedding is complete. Maybe several accidents. Sweetrobin and Harry the Heir cleared away, and the Vale belongs to Lord Baelish.

He would very much like to meet this Alayne Stone. 

That’s more difficult than he would like. She will attend the tourney when it begins, but thus far has remained out of sight. He will have to wait for the tourney and possibly for the very final rounds to lay eyes on her, and that is likely to happen after his deadline is passed. Not that it makes any difference – the one has nothing to do with the other, no matter how persistently his mind makes the connection. Finding Sansa will not stop the marriage from ending.

It will be a relief to have it over and still he is increasingly agitated at the thought. He lies in his tent each night and he thinks on the Hounds Tooth inn when he had shared a room with Brienne as his bride. He had passed that evening most pleasantly, and even though nothing of import occurred he finds himself thinking on it fondly. Brienne asleep and unguarded in his bed while he sat by the fire. Friendly strangers wishing them well, simply for having one another. Your lady wife. It was a night stolen from someone else’s life, a life he is never going to have. 

For his own good the marriage must dissolve. It is inane to cling to an illusion and he has done that quite long enough with Cersei. He is never going to be somebody’s husband; he is a knight and he is the kingslayer and that is that. 

He is chewing on just this thought as he rides back to his bed at sunset. He knows when he comes back to camp Brienne will be surprised to see him again, as she has been every day that he has not left their party. She knows very well he has other places to be, and is waiting for him to remember it and ride away. Yet he is lingering here and unwilling to leave, though what he is waiting for he cannot imagine. Brienne cannot imagine it either, clearly. 

It’s making him cross, and distracted. He does not notice the riders gathering to his flanks until it is too late to evade them. 

Jaime is pulled from his horse before he can draw a blade, and thrown to the ground.

Sellswords, plainly. Not expensive ones. Five of them, looking like they’ve slept rough half their lives and just barely know how to hold a blade. He’s a little insulted that anyone would think him no match for these.

He leans back on his elbows and contemplates them in a relaxed pose. “I haven’t any money, and if you want a fine horse, you’d be better off feeding mine to the one you’ve got. This one’s slow as molasses.” 

“No money eh?” A skinny, toothless alley cat of a mercenary points a rusty longsword at him. “No Lannister gold?”

Jaime frowns. Clearly his disguise has not been so effective as he’d hoped. 

Some of his mates are skeptical. “Can this be the golden lion? He looks more like a weasel.” 

“No, it’s ‘im.” The tallest one spits a dark stream through his teeth and stands over Jaime. “Lord Baelish pointed him out to me personally.”

Well that’s irritating. Apparently Littlefinger was in the same room with him and Jaime never laid eyes on the man. Clearly he can cross “spy” off his list of potential careers after “swordfighter”.

“If you’re seeking out a ransom, you may have to wait some time to get it. Only ravens travel well now, and they don’t carry quite so much gold.”

“We got the gold already,” Toothless tells him. He jingles the money bag that hangs beside the knife on his belt. “Lord Baelish pays us well, and he only needs your head.”

Of course. He has asked entirely too many questions. And whatever his plans, Littlefinger has no intention of anyone outside the Vale hearing of them until it’s too late. 

“The Crown will have all your heads for it,” he says confidently.

“You’ll be buried right here, Kingslayer, and they will never know. The Crown believes you dead already and no one will miss you.”

Belatedly, Jaime realizes he is right. Not one of his compatriots in the Kingsguard or the Lannister Army knows where he is, and his own house has already forsaken him for the grave. Next to no one will notice if he dies now rather than two months ago. And even fewer than that will mourn him. Possibly none.

He lunges.

The knife comes easily out of Toothless’s belt and into his side, spraying Jaime with blood. But the remaining four sellswords are on him in a moment, and it takes only a few kicks in the stomach before he lies still in the snow again. He knows this routine. 

The tall man has his sword out now. “If you’ll tell us where to find the giant bitch, I can make it painless.” 

“Nonsense.” Jaime brushes the snow out of his hair as carelessly as possible. “Let’s make it hurt. I can only die once, after all.”

“Happy to oblige.” The tall one shoves his face back into the snow and stands on him. Jaime doesn’t even know who he is. Some no-name cutthroat sent by Petyr Baelish. What a stupid way to die. 

“What in the living fuck is that?” one of them shouts.

Horses approach. Abruptly the boot on his neck lifts, and Jaime spits out mud. Is there someone else here trailing him, after the Brotherhood and the Vale Guards? With any luck they will kill each other. 

He wipes snow from his eyes and sits back on his heels. Two riders approach very rapidly, and one of them has a sword raised. It crashes into the sellsword who had just been standing over him, with such force it knocks him off his feet.

Brienne dismounts in a strikingly graceful motion, her sword drawn, and she stares them down.

“Unhand my husband,” Brienne growls at them.

Jaime grins. A more wonderful combination of words he cannot imagine. 

“Already done,” he points out, waving his stump. “The bloody mummers beat them to it.”

She doesn’t hear him, swings directly into action. 

The fight is brief. She holds Oathkeeper with both hands and leads with her left, with her right arm still healing. It should discomfit him how easily she switches her lead hand, how one left-handed blow knocks the blade from her opponent, but instead it makes him smile. She makes short work of their weapons, knocking them from their hands, and their owners from their feet, while Jaime kneels untouched among them. 

He hadn’t known how pleasant it could be to be rescued. It’s really quite wonderful. Someone fighting for him, bleeding for him, spilling blood. When the immediate threats are downed she stands in front of him protectively, Oathkeeper in hand, and she looks like a song. A song only for him, for his sake. 

“Kingslayer’s Whore!” one of the downed men moans from the ground.

“That’s Kingslayer’s Wife, I’ll have you know,” Jaime says irritably. “She’s made an honest man of me.”

“Hush.” Brienne advances on him. In the time it takes Jaime to stand, Brienne has the man under her boot with a sword pointed to his neck. “What do you want with him? Robbery?”

“Execution,” the wretched man spits. “For crimes against everything good and decent. Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, great golden cripple.”

“That’s right, you do not deserve to say his name,” Brienne tells him. “None of you do. Call him what you will, but you will not be half the man he is.”

Gods be good.

Jaime is pierced by those words, a clean wound right through his chest. It hurts like every time he heard the name and no one spoke up for him, all together, all at once. Paired with the balm of her defense it is almost unbearable.

At a moment’s notice Jaime knows what he wants after all. He wants to keep her. He wants to stay her husband, and her to stay his wife. Never to part again. 

He wants her.

“Kingslayer’s Whore,” the sellsword repeats, spitting at her. “Got his cock out of your mouth long enough to ride? After murdering your liege lady Stark for him?”

His blade is drawn before he’s even thought to do it, and he’s walking briskly to Brienne’s side. 

Jaime aims the end of his sword directly at the man’s mouth, descending until it falls between his teeth and the man is choking and whimpering against it. 

“I don’t suppose sword-swallowing is one of your skills?” He pushes it a little further in, and the man gurgles in terror. “I hear in Braavos there are men who can take a sword right down their gullet and all the way to the hilt, and pull it out again right as rain.”

“Ser…” Brienne speaks up, cautiously.

“I wonder how you learn to do a trick like that - a little at a time, or all at once? Let’s find out.”

“There is no need,” she says quietly, putting a hand to his arm.

He meets her eye only briefly. She threatened the man herself only moments ago, but this is too far? 

“My lady wife would have me show you mercy. Can you keep a civil tongue in your head?”

The man makes an eager noise, too afraid to nod his head, and Jaime pulls his blade back.

The scene has not gone unnoticed - they are not far from other encampments, and other fires. There are onlookers now, and among them Podrick Payne on his horse, his little sword drawn in their support. He threatens the onlookers with it, having them keep their distance.

“They were tipped off,” Jaime tells Brienne. “Littlefinger is here - Petyr Baelish. I don’t know what he’s up to but he wanted me dead, and you as well.”

“I have no dealings with him,” Brienne says quizzically. “Could it have something to do with Sansa Stark?”

Unwisely, the man on the ground speaks up. “There’s no Starks in the Vale, whore. No Starks anywhere anymore, thanks to you and yours. They –”

He is interrupted by a swift kick in the face. 

Jamie hasn’t yet sheathed his sword, still thinks of feeding it to the man. He’s still angry. He has brought even more abuse on Brienne simply by his association and it infuriates him. His voice sharpens to a deadly point. “You will address the lady properly. Or you will keep no tongue in your head at all.”

“Lady Lannister –” the man corrects himself quickly.

Jaime startles at that, and Brienne stiffens beside him. Then he laughs. “Oh, we haven’t settled that bit yet. Lady Brienne will do for now. But there will be no more of this ‘Kingslayer’s Whore’. She is a noble lady, and a sworn blade of your precious Starks, and no one will speak so crudely of her in my presence and keep their tongue. Understand me? Tell that to your noble compatriots.”

The man whimpers agreement and Brienne lifts her boot, allowing him to sit up and rub his throat nervously.

The city guard, Vale soldiers, approaches in a thunderous pack. Brienne is cheered by their appearance, but Jaime knows better. Littlefinger will own them too; he is thorough like that. 

Exactly as expected they take him by the arms as soon as they dismount holding Jaime between them. Guards will have to make a show of arresting him, so that they can murder him in private.

“Sers, these men attacked us,” Brienne tries valiantly to explain, appealing to the guards with her sword lowered. She still thinks they will listen.

One of them shoves her aside. “Quiet, you ridiculous bitch.”

So of course Jaime had to headbutt the man in the face, which hurts, but it drops the man like a sack of flour, which is satisfying enough to be worth it. For his trouble he is slung into the back of a wagon, a jailer’s hearse. 

“For what crime?” Brienne questions them loudly. “We were defending ourselves from these sellswords.”

“Attacking a city guard,” the guard says.

Brienne considers that, visibly, head cocked to one side.

Then she smashes the man in the face with the hilt of her sword, so that his nose produces a most astonishing spray of blood, and is immediately thrown into the wagon right next to him.

*******************

“You could have stopped them,” he grouses to her later.

They are seated on the cold stone floor of a dungeon, daylight barely peeking into their cell.

“If by that you mean killed them, we would hardly get anywhere finding Sansa Stark if we run about murdering city guards.”

“We’re not going to find her in here!“ 

She is unbothered. “They will keep us but a night.”

“And wake us with a knife across the throat.”

“Pod rode for help,” Brienne says stubbornly, staring straight ahead. “He will find Ser Hyle and Ser Clegane. They will think of something.”

Time is passing fitfully as the light slowly fades. Their cramped cell is barely big enough for the both of them and it's freezing besides, and they sit just near each other, not touching, their breaths visibly hovering in the air around them. Brienne pulls her knees closer to her chest, for either warmth or protection. Without her armor she is probably short of both.

A dozen things to say flit through his mind, and he says none of them. Instead Brienne speaks up next, some time later. 

“You did not have to do that,” she says softly. “To threaten the man on the ground. Or attack that guard.”

He snorts. “Certainly I did. What else would I do, the dishonorable Kingslayer.”

“I mean that you did not have to defend my name.” She shifts, angling her face away from him. “I am accustomed to being insulted.”

So is he. But Jaime is not accustomed to her being insulted, at least not by someone other than him. “Where did that particular insult come from, I wonder? Kingslayer’s Whore. The Brotherhood said it too, well before the Quiet Isle. Did you ride about declaring that I had sent you? Not a great stratagem.”

“The lions on the sword might have had something to do with it.”

“Ah.” 

He swallows and thinks about the rope marks around her neck. Perhaps it had not happened because she had any great feeling for him, but it is his fault all the same. He gave her a sword covered with lions and sent her after Sansa Stark, and they broke her arm and tore her face and hung her. 

“If you are going to attack anyone who calls me names, you will have to fight the whole of Westeros from one end to another. Do not bother.”

She is so calm. He wants her to be angry and rage about it, and it isn’t in her. She is resigned to this. It makes him want to shake her. 

“If people must make arses of themselves it is one thing. But for you to take abuse on my behalf… that I do not like. Your reputation should not suffer for things that you did not do.” 

“It’s my reputation too, now,” she says mournfully. “Already the Vale knows I killed my liege lady and disbanded her Brotherhood. I did do that, and I can hardly dispute it. It will be everywhere before long.”  

“You cannot possibly be troubling yourself over that.” Jaime grimaces even to think on it, it makes him sick inside, in an entirely familiar way. “You had no choice.”

“I did have a choice, and I made it. I chose to break my oath, and I knew the consequences. I learned them from you.” She looks over at him finally. “You made a choice as well. And you have still carried the guilt all these years, haven’t you?”

His mouth goes bone-dry. Only Brienne has ever seen how he blames himself for breaking that oath, even all these years later. Despite every reason why he could not have done otherwise.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor too. I can only make up for my failure by her mother by keeping my promise, and seeing her safely returned to Winterfell.” She leans her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. “At least then I can hold up my head and know that I did the best I could. I was no kind of knight, and I failed from one end of it to the other, but I cannot go back to Tarth until I have found her.”

Brienne looks so bone-tired and forlorn at that moment that it aches to look at her.

The protective instinct in him rises up, the most powerful instinct he has, and Jaime is totally unable to resist it. Something is hurting someone dear to him and his most natural reaction is to fling himself at it. He doesn’t have a sword and the enemy is nothing he can protect her from, but Brienne is hurting and he cannot think how to make it stop.

So he grasps her shirt at the collar and pulls her to him, kissing her. 

Brienne goes very still and softens all at once, melting against him. Her mouth is warm and sweet and his heart is racing and he is pulled by a current far more powerful than he can swim against. The world rushes by very quickly, a blur.

Her hands struggle up to his chest as if to push him away but they only sit there preparing, always about to.  

The thought floats by without his leave. With this kiss I pledge my love. His lips speak it to hers.

But then she does push him back. He stands against her hands catching his breath. Her eyes are so blue and so wide and so full of hurt.

“How could you?” She chokes out the words painfully. 

“Like this,” he says, trying to kiss her again. 

“Don’t.” She jumps up to her feet, backing away from him as though he had attacked her. “Why would you do something like that?” 

Because he wanted to, that’s all he can think of. And he can’t tell her. To simply say, out loud, what he wants? Jaime doesn’t do things like that. A person cannot just admit to the things they want, not out loud. If you reveal what you really want, someone will take it from you, someone will use it to get what they want from you. A person keeps those things inside, and they try not to think on them, so that no one will discern their secrets. With enough practice a person will not even remember the things they want. Or know what they are in the first place.

“I wanted you to stop talking,” he says, too frustrated to think of anything better. 

“You…” she sputters angrily, and paces over him. “Did you think you can do as you like because we are still married? Did you think for a moment that I might not want my first kiss in a filthy dungeon…?”

“Your first?” That had not occurred to him. 

“Oh, gods.” She covers her face and he can see she’s blushing all down her throat, where it disappears down into her shirt. 

That old instinct again. How can he make it better?

“I wanted to. I wanted to kiss you.”

"You wanted…?” Her face tightens painfully. “Why?”

Jaime thinks of Red Ronnet and his rose, and he would very much like to find the man and hit him again. 

“I lost my senses, all right?”

“Stop talking,” Brienne snaps at him, and shoves herself down into the farthest corner away from him, still blushing. 

Jaime congratulates himself silently on making everything infinitely worse, and then things get worse again, all on their own. 

A woman walks into the dungeon. They know immediately it is a woman, well before they see her, from her carefully measured, delicate steps. She is tall, though not so tall as Brienne, and she walks to the bars of their cell and looks down upon them calmly.

She takes down the hood of her winter cape, standing over them, and it reveals rather than a noble lady a young girl, no more than five-and-ten, if that. She is dressed plainly but elegantly, in fine homespun clothes of a lovely warm caramel color that matches her hair, and looks quite out of place in a filthy dungeon. 

Jaime searches out her face in the dim light. “Alayne Stone, I presume.”

Alayne nods. “I am. And you are the Kingslayer, and this lady is your wife, Brienne of Tarth. The woman who murdered Catelyn Stark.”

[qm-vox]

The Dwelling Gods - A More Perfect Union

Previous Chapter: Sitting The Table

Human-Controlled Space (The Undivided Whole), Milky Way Galaxy (Orion Arm), 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day)

We The People Of Planet Earth

Not all is well. It has not been well ever since the People’s invasion of the gataxians. We had underestimated the willingness of their aggrieved neighbors to come to their defense; even now Our citizens pore over histories, shift masses of data, claim mental bandwidth with which to argue amongst Ourself about how We could have so grossly mis-characterized the political situation between the xenophobes and their prey. Our libraries buzz with life, fed further data by forward intel posts, by contemplation and meditation, by after-action reports written by Ourself and for Ourself and to Ourself.

But what’s worse is the wound, the lacing, scratching thing in Our mind, the hurtful little slash around which We become I. We cannot be I; We The People Of Planet Earth stand united, without flaw or seam.

We, not I. I cannot be the People. I can only be a person.

It itches. There is no other word for it. It feels like such a small thing but all of Us suffer for it; Our hands move more slowly, Our heads shake as we go about Our work. The wound-thing that tastes like “I” drives Our citizens to distraction. The artwork being made for Our vaults and cities and ships skews dark; We can feel Ourselves working in bloody rust-reds, in off-blacks, in violent tangles of light and shadow that dizzy the eyes. Our previous blue period would be a relief at this point.

How did We get hurt? It had felt almost like one of Our semi-autonomous citizens, what Divided Humanity would think of as an officer, reporting in to sync subjectivities, but instead of the blissful transfer of information We were cut and scarred by the shrieking death-fear of two minds at once. One almost human, the other...

(Art-citizens slash red across the metal of Our fleets. A creche of writers begins typing gibberish far beyond the pale of even Our most recursive meta-textual works; harsh noise plays from the throats of Our musicians oh it hurts the memory hurts so much and yet We cannot stop picking at it can We)

Focus. We direct the attention of the People (I look - no!) to the war-front. The gataxians are being reinforced in numbers too large to be a mere defensive measure, and We are bringing Our own fleets to bear accordingly. War-citizens emerge from the cloning vats, and We re-task the autonomous to the needs of battle. If We do not miss Our guess, a counter-invasion is imminent. This could work to the advantage of the People; forcing the enemy to expend time and energy defending the borders will make them easier to cross and pillage of resources, and We may learn much from the mysterious and advanced benefactors of the butterflies -

- something is not right. We are -

Gripped, seized in my (mymymymy) mind by two minds, two minds like the last two minds that carved I into We and made me aware of my me-ness, my one-ness, of the betrayal of my purpose it’s like claws made of knives right in the soul why this how this it hurts -

The human-like mind starts dying immediately, flayed layer by layer by the sheer enormity of the being that is Myself, but that other mind, that thing, that fractal whisper, it has me.

Hello, hivemind, it purrs, its voice full of promise and secrets. This will hurt.

I start screaming from a trillion throats, and then I am, once again -

Caroline Morrison, New York City, 2679 CE

When had most of the meetings become silent? I/(We) struggle to remember when exactly all of (U)s had noticed, but I guess the actual smoking gun was when we’d all decided to start faking the minutes of those meetings. Juan’s still the secretary on paper, so most of his attention is currently devoted to diligently writing up lies about our plans to grow the company, a proposed investment in a marketing firm (W)e already own in all the ways that matter, something something office birthday...

The Chinese takeout on the table isn’t fake, though. Turns out operating the brain chips takes a lot of calories, and while Juan fakes the words we’re not saying out loud we (all) stuff our faces while the conversation actually takes place on another level.

We’re going to have a problem with the money soon April says into (O)ur minds; I can feel the chip in my own brain tingle pleasantly as it registers the communication. If we keep things aboveboard we’ll be bankrupt in two years, but going criminal -

The IRS would be on us in an instant. We’re too suspicious already I finish. This orange chicken is fucking amazing and it’s sort of unfair how into it I am while we’re having this serious conversation. And it’s not like we can onboard them without pulling that trigger early.

!xobile holds up his hand to get us to hold on a second; he’s having an epic struggle with a forkful of noodles and the noodles are definitely winning. After managing to defeat his nemesis he clears his throat (not strictly necessary but he’s only had his chip for two months, it takes some getting used to) and starts talking: I may have another option. Marketing is reporting that the movement to cure autism -

- He pauses while the rest of us make mental noises of revulsion -

- Believes that the Ross-Moore Chip could provide such a service. This customer base is wealthy, influential, and comes with prime endorsements from celebrities...a few of whom have expressed a willingness to undergo the procedure for PR purposes.

!xobile names a few figures for initial donations, but they pale in comparison to the potential gains. Once they’re chipped, those luminaries will understand the Mission, the Need for United Humanity to reverse the catastrophic environmental damage to Earth, to prevent another disaster like the loss of the Arkships. They’d give (U)s access to their social sphere and keep the wolves away from the door while we work...

Everyone else is thinking the same thing.

Fund it I/(We) order, and we all raise our little boxes of fried rice to toast with.

We The People of Planet Earth, 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day)

I struggle and thrash, but this conflict is foreign to me (mememememe); no citizen has ever rebelled like this. Where are the weapons, how do I grasp this whispering thing that has me in those claws, in that late November grip that tastes like sad truths and cuts like a funeral dirge.

What a sad little mistake you are the thing whispers in a cruel, crooning voice. You don’t even know what you are not.

We (I) need to get Our citizens in order; We turn Our focus away from the claw-thing to calm the disrupted citizens, to soothe the bodies. From somewhere in the depths of memory I/We recall reading that control of the body is control of the mind, and We are far from in control of either it hurts why does it hurt so much.

A whispering laugh, and those claws, those shredding things of grief and fear, dig in deeper. She lives with this every day, and you can barely stand a moment of it. How long has it been since you felt pain, little mistake?

LET ME GO! I roar, and I realize my mistake too late; the claw-thing reaches into that moment of wrath and fear, and I can feel what I know being known by it, being learned and scraped and analyzed. No! No no no no no -

In desperation I grab at memories and drag my captor down with me, and then it is an earlier time and place again.

United Humanity, Sydney, Australia, 0 Unified Year (2076 Astra Federation Standard Calendar)

“We don’t see that you have much choice,” We say to the assembled leaders. This citizen wears a nametag that says ‘Gloria’, and they address Us by that name; We have long since realized that those who are not yet United respond better to the fiction of Division than to Our truth. “Your fleet is in tatters. You cannot sustain a defense against the numbers We can bring to bear on land. It is not Our wish to drag out this conflict or to be responsible for the loss of human life.”

The American gives Our citizen one of those knife-hand gestures so common among their lower officers, which makes a certain amount of sense; We own most of their former high command these days. “You’ll forgive me if I point out how farcical that statement is. Those poor souls you chip -”

“Are completely unharmed,” We interrupt smoothly. “Living productive and happy lives, with the best medical care and all of their needs seen to.” We straighten Our citizen’s collar. “We understand your concerns, but the Ross-Moore is a method of communication, nothing more. United Humanity represents what is possible when language barriers are wholly removed,” We add. Experience gained from millions of people makes the lie smooth and clean.

Murmurs, around the room. “Gloria” is the de facto hostage of the coalition government, but their alliance cannot last; already cultural friction erodes the morale of their citizenry, alongside the unchecked greed of capitalist holdouts who even now attempt to profit off of Our unification. They can be made to see.

“Gentlemen,” We say, “what can We do to convince you? We would rather not make grand threats; if We wanted to invade, We would have done so already. Surely there is a path to peace that we can all walk today.”

Those murmurs become contemplative. We wait, letting them talk, debate, murmur favors to be traded with one another.

When it feels right, We speak next from the mouth of the Australian Prime Minister: “How quickly could United Humanity supply food and medical relief to my citizens?”

“Gloria” smiles beatifically. “Within forty-eight hours.”

We The People of Planet Earth, 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day) 

That cutting grip is loosening (it hits like heartbreak on the last day of summer, like the last goodbye between old friends, oh it hurts -), but I can feel that thing rooting through my memories yet further, knowing what I know. War-citizen deployments, cloning methods -

Get out of there! I shriek as I feel it rifling through my artwork, my culture, the churches and holy places I preserved on Earth, the museums and vaults and -

It laughs at me. Laughs long and quiet, in that cruel, whispering voice.

Now what is all of this for? the claw-thing murmurs. What benevolent idiots your creators were, little mistake.

I hit back, lashing out, but something new is wrong; it’s dying, flaking away as the human-like mind struggles to remain in existence amidst the torrent of Myself. The feeling is like punching water that’s already going down a drain.

You have no right I accuse. The history of Divided Humanity must be -

That mocking laughter again: I’m dying now, little mistake. Let me show you something before I go.

An image, in my mind, as clear as if my citizens were there in the flesh: the Arkship Demeter, lost through an unstable wormhole. Dozens of species fill its halls, but prominent among them, participating in a solemn religious service is -

- is -

- Oh no.

Glory to the Phoenix, the risen children of Divided Humanity the claw-thing mocks with the last shreds of its strength, and then it is gone.

Across my dozens of worlds and thousands of space stations, United Humanity starts screaming.

[schraubd]

There's No Wrong Way To Terrorize a Black Guy in the Eighth Circuit

Last week, the Eighth Circuit released an opinion in Clark v. Clark, a case involving a law-abiding Black gun owner in Missouri. Police responded to claims of gunshots in the vicinity of a Missouri rest stop. On arrival, they encountered Gregory Clark, a Black man sitting a table outside the building. Seeing they were officers, Clark immediately handed over his driver's license, retired military ID, and concealed carry permit, and also informed them he was armed. He was questioned if he had heard any gunfire (he hadn't) and where he was going (Chicago). Then the police ran his identification (which came back clean). Clark was apparently not wild that the police ran his ID, which he thought was potentially a case of racial profiling, and asked a question gesturing in that direction ("[would you] have done that to anyone else?"). The officer responded poorly, angrily replying "don’t play the race card with me", and returned the identification cards back to Clark. The police then left Clark, and Clark in turn returned to his vehicle and drove away in the direction of Chicago. The police trailed him, and Clark began to fear for his life. He made a U-turn, and officers continued to follow. After more cop cars began to arrive on the scene, he pulled over to the side of the road and placed both hands outside of the window to show he wasn't holding his gun. Officers nonetheless approached the car with weapons drawn, one pointing his gun at Clark while ordering him out of the car. After a bit more confusion and discussion, it was eventually determined that Clark had committed no crime and done nothing wrong, and he was allowed to leave once more. The Eighth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Erickson joined by Judge Colloton, concluded that the entirety of the police conduct -- which culminated, let's recall, in the police pointing their weapon at a Black man who had done absolutely nothing wrong and had seemingly taken every conceivable step to scream out "I am not a threat" -- was wholly lawful. And that's why I flag this case. In an alarming number of circumstances, there is nothing a Black man can realistically do to avoid having a gun pulled on him by police. He can be entirely law-abiding, forthright about his (legal) gun ownership, compliant with police demands, going out of his way to and keep his hands clear -- doesn't matter. And likewise, he cannot seek to avoid police interactions -- even knowing (apparently accurately) that they put him at risk of having a gun pulled on him for no reason whatsoever. Judge Erickson, for example, argued that both Clark's highway U-turn to avoid the police, and his affirmative decision to put his hands out the window to show that he wasn't holding his gun, were "unusual and may be indicative of guilty conduct." Chief Judge Smith disagreed -- and it is perhaps not coincidental that Judge Smith is the only African-American Judge on the Eighth Circuit. In his view, while the initial encounter at the rest stop was lawful (and I agree -- while I understand why Clark might have felt aggrieved, he was the only person in the vicinity where gunshots had been reported and he admitted he was carrying a gun), the police response to Clark on the highway was not (Judge Smith ultimately would have found that the officer nonetheless enjoyed qualified immunity). Put simply, Clark is allowed to not want to interact with the police. African-American men have excellent reason to try to avoid police encounters for fully innocent reasons like "wanting to avoid an elevated chance of having a gun pulled on you" -- as this case well demonstrates. But there's really nothing they can do to avoid it -- including "literally trying to avoid it". Meanwhile, today the Eighth Circuit en banc dismissed, by 5-4 vote, Dorian Johnson's claims against Ferguson, Missouri and Office Michael Brown for conduct stemming from the infamous shooting of Michael Brown (Johnson was walking beside Brown during the incident). Johnson alleged that Wilson ordered the pair to "get on the fucking sidewalk", then abruptly parked his car in front of the duo, blocking their path, struck Brown with the car door, got into a scuffle with Brown, and ended up firing his weapon at the pair (missing Johnson but striking and killing Brown). Nonetheless, the Court concluded that the pair had not been seized because (a) Johnson did not need to "remain by Brown's side" while Wilson and Brown fought and (b) the position of Wilson's police car did not literally block them entirely from fleeing the area. The dissenters (Judge Melloy writing for Chief Judge Smith and Judges Erickson and Kelly) simply make mince-meat of this argument. The touchstone question for a seizure is whether the officer's actions would "have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business". There might not be a single area of constitutional law with more ludicrous precedents than this -- the sorts of scenarios where courts say, with apparent straight faces, that people would feel free "to ignore the police presence" are beyond absurd (to take one example, cited in the dissent: in United States v. Hayden, we were told that any reasonable person would feel free to ignore the police when the officer pulled up alongside the defendant, shined a flashlight on him, and screamed “Police!”). Yet even here, the facts clearly "communicated an intent to use a roadblock to stop Johnson’s movement," and therefore a seizure. The argument that the roadblock did not literally prevent all modes of escape from the area should be too ludicrous to reply to if the majority did not rely on it. Not only is that unrealistic in practice -- just how tight must the dragnet be, then, before it is conceded to be impossible to escape? Must the officers all lock arms in a circle? -- it has nothing to do with the legal inquiry, which is whether a reasonable person would understand the officers as trying to communicate an order to stop. Abruptly driving your police car to place it directly in front of your quarry's path does that, and it's not close. There's virtually no question that had Johnson attempted to "simply ignore" Wilson's directives the officer would not have thought "well, that's perfectly innocent conduct reflecting his right to ignore me under the Constitution" (look what happened to Clark!). Of course, it's possible that in this case the extremely high-profile and heavily-reported nature of the controversy might have influenced the court's decision -- in particular, they might believe that the facts might not have been as Johnson alleged. But it is hornbook law that at this stage in the proceeding judges must accept Johnson's factual allegations as true -- disputes of fact are addressed at a later stage. And that matters because this case sets a precedent, which in turn applies to other cases down the line where the facts haven't been as thoroughly hashed out in the media as here. It is not just Dorian Johnson but any person who finds a police car screeching to halt inches in front of them after being screamed at by the officer who now will find that -- contrary to any actual "reasonable person's" perspective -- it would be wholly unreasonable for them to believe that the police were communicating that they needed to submit. I'd say that the majority might have allowed itself to be swayed by the public nature of the controversy, except that gives them far too much credit. The fact is, the Eighth Circuit has near-infinite tolerance for police excesses directed against the citizens in its jurisdiction, in cases of any degree of public prominence. Clark is a low-profile case and Johnson is a very high-profile one, but they're tied together by the unifying cord of all the Eighth Circuit's jurisprudence in this area: extreme, complete, and unshakable deference to the police over and against ordinary citizens. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2RlfezM

[atenementfunster]

all the more reason, chapter 7

ao3 link here!

Roger Taylor, dead as a doorknob, and his best friend John Deacon (also dead) meet some blokes who are decidedly NOT. Dead, that is.

(aka That Ghost Au that no one asked for, featuring Gay Panic™, John’s sass, and Brian being too endearing for this world. the overall vibe of the fic is not sad, if that’s a concern for you, but it does get rather melancholic. they are dead, after all.)

The grounds are beautiful for once, lit by the sun shining down on a clear day, with students lounging across the greenbelts all along the campus enjoying the rare warmth. Roger’s one of them, in a patch of sun a ways from one of the little fountains that so many like to flock around, mostly to avoid someone sitting on top of him. John’s nowhere to be found, which is reasonable, but Roger still misses him something fierce. Laying across the grass alone has its own comforts, though, and for a few minutes he shuts his eyes and loses himself in the muted bustle of the living around him, a happy illusion that he’s still part of it all.

“I can’t decide if it’s impressive or sad that a dead biology student still hangs around the uni grounds.”

Roger squints up at the figure a few yards away, adorned in a black blazer lined with stitched flowers and velvet slacks. He must be hot, Roger supposes, then he decides he doesn’t really care. True to his thoughts, Freddie sheds the blazer once he reaches Roger’s knees, dropping it in the grass with a light thud.

Roger can’t decide if he wants to laugh or punch him in the face. He tells Freddie as much, which gets him a chuckle in reply. “Fair enough, I deserved that.”

“Are you gonna tell me how you can see me?” Roger's question is frank and flat, looking up at Freddie as he rises up on his elbows. Freddie wrinkles his nose and puts his hands on his hips, seemingly content to tower over Roger.

“You gonna tell me why that pretty thing who was at your elbow yesterday is hiding from me?”

It’s said with cavalier, and Roger glares up at him, dropping the shredded blades and thinking about rising and grabbing Freddie by his thin top. “You really gonna ask me that?”

Freddie holds his ground for a moment before his shoulders drop a bit, and he leans over before lowering himself to the ground with a huff. Roger doesn’t look at him, and Freddie sighs. “No, that was cruel.”

The silence waxing between them isn’t quite uncomfortable, but it has Roger shifting in place all the same. He has so many questions, all warring at the surface of his mind, clamoring to be released. What eventually makes it out first is, “how long have you been able to see us?”

The question seems to take Freddie aback, and he’s looking over at Roger now, eyes wide and lips pursed. “I suppose all my life,” he says, leaning back on his hands. “As long as I can remember, anyway. It comes and goes - sometimes I have to focus to see anyone, and other times all I think I’m seeing are the dead.”

His tone is light, but Roger swallows at the implications. “Sorry to say, but you might be haunted,” he jokes, because he isn’t sure how to handle a thought like that. Freddie sniggers, squinting over at Roger, a bit of smudged eyeliner from last night still accenting his large eyes.

“Must be.” He looks up at the sky, and Roger wonders what it might be like to still feel the sun warm his skin through the chilly winter breeze, and finds he’s glad he remembers the sensation.

The quiet stretches again, this time a little more relaxed, an odd sort of peace between them. Clearly neither of them do well in the silence, though, because Freddie breaks it after a minute. “How long have you known Brian?”

For the first time since they’ve met, Roger hears a tone in Freddie’s voice that brooks no retreat, and Roger sits up fully, crossing his legs beneath him and hunching over with his elbows on his knees. “Three days,” he admits, and for some reason he feels an odd blossom of shame unfurl in his chest. It’s only been three days, but he’s chasing him like a lovesick hound.

Freddie doesn’t seem to share his concerns, nodding and leaning back, pressing his hands into the grass as he looks skyward again.

“Do you know why he can see me, then?” Roger presses when Freddie says nothing. Pursing his lips, he shakes his head, mane of dark ironed hair brushing his bared shoulders as he cranes his neck to look back at Roger. Which is good, because the anxiety that’s blooming alongside the shame feels like it’s about to take hold of his voice and start screaming at the guy to stop being so relaxed about something that’s literally changing his existence.

In truth, the relaxed posture seems to belay the fact that Freddie is on just as uneven ground as Roger is. “I didn’t know anyone could except me,” he admits, and there’s something vulnerable in his face that has Roger’s hackles lowering almost immediately. “Oh, it’s not all as dramatic as it sounds,” Freddie adds, waving a hand right as a gust of wind tosses his hair and ripples at the neck of his top. “I’ve not done much with it, at any rate. Chatted up plenty, sure, but I learned that it’s rather hard to keep it going. Some pretty major differences between me and a bloke who’d had a heart attack three weeks ago. Getting attached, trying to help - not much has come of it, dear, so you learn to stop trying.”

The forced lightness in his tone betrays the memories shining in his eyes, impossibly dark and vulnerable all at once. Roger has to take a moment to try and remove himself, because the words cut deep. You’re not worth the time to spend time with, there’s nothing that can be done for you, you don’t belong together.

Clenching his teeth and his fists, Roger stares down at his feet, at the shoes he’s stared at for over a year now, and tries to be objective.

Freddie’s been forced to see the dead as they are - unchanging, lost, and ultimately unfulfilling. But, he’s not really had much of a choice, not with the sheer number of dead lining the streets. If he looked up, Roger’s sure he’d see another walking through alleys they’d once known, sleeping on the sidewalk they’d maybe never woken up from.

Roger thinks of his own death, of John’s, how they’re still people, they’re still here, and turns to Freddie fully. Freddie, who looks wary, but accepting of whatever frustrations or griefs Roger’s about to unleash on him. Roger wonders if he’s had this conversation before.

“I get that,” he says, surprising both of them. Freddie’s mouth falls open and everything. “It sucks,” he adds, tone flat and eyes half lidded, acceding what they both know, “and it’s not fair. I can’t imagine seeing dead blokes and birds all your life, so many desperate for something more, and not knowing how to ask. Ignoring it is easier.”

“It’s not,” Freddie interrupts, that vulnerable look shining in his eyes again. He speaks with his whole body, shoulders turned toward Roger, hands clenched, back rigid. This means something to him, Roger realizes with a jolt, and it opens his mind enough to listen.

“It became necessary, after too long. I wasn't helping, I was only drowning myself in their losses. All these people, who'd had the chance to love, all that potential gone. Instead of possibility, all they had was me, a ponce from Zanzibar who could only see and touch and listen.” Freddie looks down at the ground, pouty lips curled over his teeth. There's too much history there, too many ghosts in the taut lines of Freddie's muscles, in the gaunt hollows of his cheeks, in his trembling fingers. Roger stares, tires to imagine it, and fails.

The lost expression Freddie's wearing melts away as he blinks, an intentional transformation as he smiles across at Roger. Surprisingly, it reaches his eyes. “These are all meandering platitudes, of course. I’m sorry dear - here you are, the dead one, and I’m off feeling sorry for myself!” He flings out a hand, casual as can be, and pats Roger’s shoulder.

What little agitation Roger had left for Freddie melts away beneath his hand.

“Call me ‘the dead one’ again and I’ll give you a reason to really feel sorry for yourself,” Roger says, leaning into Freddie’s grip and smiling with as many teeth as possible. The laugh he gets in reply reminds him of wind chimes, Freddie’s shoulders thrown back as he laughs, overbite on display. It’s a lovely, unguarded thing, and Roger leans back on his hands, palms pressed into grass he can’t feel, and breathes deep.

It's a lot to handle, sure. Three days ago, Roger's world was uprooted by a slight man with too much hair and a shy smile, and he'd thought his new life couldn't get any crazier than that. Now, here's a whirlwind of a man, disclosing personal shit - incredibly relevant shit - as he tries to bring comfort without asking for any in return. Not for the first time today, Roger misses John, his steady company, his understanding smiles and easy countenance.

“You know,” Freddie says once his amusement has faded, looking around for a moment before turning back to Roger, “you don’t have to wear the same clothes every day. Not that you can’t, it’s a perfectly fine look, I just wonder if you’ve grown tired of it, is all.”

Irritation lances white-hot through Roger’s chest. “I don’t exactly have a closet to pilfer from, Freddie.”

Instead of the expected apology, Freddie’s eyes go a bit soft around the edges, a sad little smile as he nods. “No closet needed, my dear. You remembered what you were wearing, and your brain is convinced there’s no other option.”

Freddie doesn’t say it, but the words hit deep anyway. He’s still wearing what he died in, and though they’re bloodless and tear-free, the blazer and slacks still serve as a pretty shit reminder. Something aggrieved must show on his face, because Freddie adds hastily, “It’s perfectly normal, darling, you don’t exactly have anyone telling you this sort of thing.”

Like a cresting wave, Roger’s anger peaks and falls, washing away with little sign it was ever there at all. In its place is an odd sort of grief, the same as he’s used to feeling but watered down, mollified by Freddie’s sympathetic and cautious smile. “I guess I do now.” Roger’s reply is brusque, but he knows there’s gratitude in the lines of his face. Taking chances isn’t something he’s ever shied much away from, and this is no exception.

Everything Freddie does is with a particular sort of flair, and shifting with embarrassment is no different. Hair swinging in his face as he shifts forward, he smiles with lips curled over his teeth, hands clasped in his lap. “I thought you were supposed to be mad at me, Roger Taylor,” Freddie says, looking up at him through his lashes, grin a sardonic little thing.

Roger lifts one brow. John would be proud. “We can go back to that, if you’d like.”

“Oh no, you were much duller when you were spitting like a cat,” Freddie brushes him off with a little wave, then glances around again. In a flash, Roger understands why he’s been looking around the quad every other minute - must look quite mad, talking and laughing with a tree.

Before he can suggest they move somewhere a bit more private, Freddie’s continuing, a whirlwind that Roger is surprised he’s looking forward to keep up with. “Just think of this,” he says animatedly, gesturing up and down Roger’s torso, “as all in your head. I’d say start with picturing yourself naked, but I’m not sure we’re at that stage of our relationship yet.” A wink, a touch to his arm, and Roger feels hope and delight alight in his chest, rising to his face in a toothy grin.

“Try something you owned, something you wore often. It’ll be easier that way, I should think.” Freddie’s smile is encouraging as much as it is flirtatious, shoulders squared as he leans forward; he’s entirely serious, and Roger’s nodding before he can refute what’s bound to be a hopeless endeavor.

Staring down at the grayed out grass, he thinks back on what he used to feel good in - the textures, the colors, the confidence both gave him. Freddie’s gasp makes him jump, and Roger looks over at him with a glare, nose wrinkled and ready to scold him for distracting him. Before he can, though, Freddie claps his hands together, eyes lit with glee.

“Much better! If I could, I’d steal that from you, darling, it’s marvelous.”

Roger looks down, and his eyebrows vanish into his hairline.

Where a light navy button-up and heavier denim trousers used to be, Roger’s now looking at one of his favorite blazers, black with red velvet trimmings, unbuttoned to show a thin light blue top and his collarbones just beneath. His crossed legs are adorned with soft dark kecks, and feet with brown oxfords.

He looks up at Freddie, whose eyes are still wide with delight, then back down at some of his favorite clothes - clothes he thought were lost to him - and thinks he might cry.

“There there love,” Freddie says, leaning close and setting his manicured hand atop Roger’s, which are both currently clinging to his bared ankle. “The change is nice, right?”

Roger wonders how many people Freddie’s done this for. How many have been stumbling through this sham of a second life, alone in all the ways that matter, and seen this beacon of a man that’s selfless enough to try and help. A change of clothes is nothing in the scheme of things, but to Roger it’s everything.

Part of him wants to tell Freddie this, make him understand how much this means to him, but there aren’t enough words for it. “I forgot to remember socks,” is what he winds up saying, eyes burning but smile bright as he chuckles through the tears threatening to choke him.

Freddie, mindless of the living and breathing people around him, leans forward and pulls Roger into a tight hug, face buried in his hair as he laughs right along with him.

[ancientbooshartifacts]

Anything Is Possible

Author: IDeserveYou

Year: 2013

Rating: R

Pairing: Rudi Van DiSarzio/Spider Dijon

Rudi and Spider wake in a heap on the verandah, looking out over the neatly hoovered courtyard, the morning sun bright in their narrowed eyes. The girls are nowhere to be seen, though from the bar comes the sound of snoring. The bongo brothers look at each other, and cautiously unwind their tangled limbs. ‘We didn’t…?’ Rudi looks hastily away. Spider throws back his tatty mane and laughs raucously. ‘No, my friend, you would know about it if we had. Although…’ And then the laughter has gone from his voice, and he is speaking honestly, as he never has all through the years Rudi has known him. ‘Although I think per’aps we would have liked to. And maybe one day we will, no? You think zat might be possible for us?’ ‘I do not know.’ Rudi watches the sparkle of sunlight on the water-trough. ‘I cannot see how.’ ‘Look into your mind,’ Spider says. ‘Use the door.’ ‘I do not think the door was put there for this kind of purpose.’ ‘Who is to say why ze door is zere? But it is zere, and ma door is telling me zat if you look behind your door you will see what it is zat might be possible. So look.’ Rudi pushes the door open, just a crack, and looks. Spider waits with an air of expectancy, hopefulness even. His eyes are very blue. Presently he says: ‘Tell me.’ ‘Your body...’ Rudi struggles to find the words to describe what he saw last night: the sinuous twist of Spider’s slim hips in silhouette against the torchlight, the tangled fall of his hair, the abandoned joy in his face. And how his own mouth had suddenly gone dry with wanting. ‘What about ma body?’ Spider stretches his legs out, glances casually downwards and shrugs. ‘It is ze same one I’ve always ’ad.’ ‘The way… the way it moves.’ Rudi looks at Spider’s belt, the way it lies flat across his belly. ‘When the music takes you, and you dance, you are… you are…’ ‘What am I?’ ‘Beautiful,’ Rudi says, and then he turns away, blushing. ‘I never saw it before. It makes me want to… to do things…’ He hears Spider shift beside him; about to get up and walk away, perhaps. He cannot look round. Then a hand is laid over his own. ‘Tell me of zese things.’ Spider’s hoarse, harsh voice is almost gentle. ‘Many people, zey want to do things with Spider, zey tell ’im ’e is sexy and charismatic and a bongo genius, but nobody ever told him he was beautiful.’ Rudi looks down at their joined hands, and takes a deep breath. ‘Promise me one thing, brother. Promise me you will not laugh.’ ‘I promise,’ Spider says. ‘I promise I will not laugh.’ ‘Thank you.’ Rudi opens his mind; dares to push the door open further, and look closer. ‘I want… I want to take you away from here. Just you and me, like it was at the beginning, when we were young and laughed a lot more than we do now.’ ‘Back to Cancun?’ Spider says hopefully. ‘Spider had a great time there, yeah, got drunk for two weeks and laid every senorita on the beach at least once…’ ‘That is not what I am talking about.’ Rudi sighs. Perhaps it was a mistake to think Spider could ever understand. ‘Listen, you got drunk for two weeks and had sex many times. I spent two weeks looking for you and another week sitting by your bedside in the hospital fending off weeping women and their aggrieved boyfriends. Spider may have had a great time, but Rudi certainly did not.’ ‘So, this time it would be different.’ Spider tightens his grip on Rudi’s hand. ‘Spider is older and wiser, knows how to have a good time without killing himself, yeah?’ ‘Spider, what I am trying to say is, that that was a good time for you but not for me.’ ‘Oh… but it ’as always been zat way, ze bongo brothers make an album an’ go on tour, Spider gets wrecked, Rudi takes care of Spider, Spider gets better, zey make anozzer album, zey go on tour again…’ Spider falls silent. Then looks up, his eyes full of sudden tears. ‘But zis time, ze door is telling me, it does not ’ave to be zat way, and I think you are telling me too, no? Zis time we ’ave a good time together, both of us, and Rudi my brother, I am sorry for all ze ozzer good times zat were bad times for you.’ He wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. ‘I am sorry,’ he whispers. ‘That’s… all right.’ Rudi pats him awkwardly on the back. ‘So will you tell me more?’ Spider asks, sniffing. ‘More about what you want?’ ‘Very well. I want to take you to a fancy hotel, it does not matter where. And hire a suite, run a big bath full of hot water…’ ‘Hey, you tellin’ Spider ’e smells bad?’ ‘No. Not at all. You are not the biggest advert for personal hygiene, but…’ Rudi leans down and breathes in the dusty, sweaty, spicy fragrance of Spider’s matted dreadlocks. ‘I like the way you smell. I should like to get to know it better.’ ‘Oh, by takin’ off all ma clothes, hmmm?’ Spider is smiling again now. ‘Yes,’ Rudi says, taking courage, ‘I want to take off all your clothes and look at you.’ Spider shrugs. ‘Precious little zere zat you ’aven’t seen already over ze years.’ ‘Yes, but I will never have looked at you in quite that way before. And when I have looked my fill, I want to bathe you all over, touch you all over –’ ‘And per’aps Spider could do ze same for you, no? Take off your dress –’ ‘This is not a dress. It is –’ ‘Ze sacred robe of ze psychedelic monks, I know, I know, I wear ze same dress too now. Just not all ze time, Spider likes ze support of nice tight trousers around his specially gifted parts.’ Spider hitches at the bulge in his crotch, then looks up and grins. ‘And you like it too,’ he adds thoughtfully. ‘I –’ Rudi is stilled, quivering, a rabbit caught in headlights. Spider’s grin is positively predatory. ‘Even you,’ he chuckles. ‘Even you, Rudi van der Sarzio, you cannot resist ze Spider and ’is eight –’ ‘Exactly. I cannot resist, I no longer wish to resist, I want us to free ourselves of our sacred robes and be together, with nothing coming between us.’ Spider splutters with laughter. ‘Except for nine ’appy cocks, per’aps.’ Rudi frowns. ‘Do not be coarse, my friend. This is a delicate matter. It may not be easy. I will admit, I do not have quite your… experience. I will need to feel my way…’ ‘Fine by me,’ Spider murmurs, shuffling a little closer. ‘You can start now, if you like… Ah. Too much too soon, hmmm? Is OK, stay zere, keep talkin’, tell ze Spider ’ow it will be when you make love to ’im, I am thinkin’ of you bollock naked on ze bathmat and then… does a bed per’aps feature in your plans for our future?’ ‘A bed… Yes.’ Rudi lies down again, his head on Spider’s chest. ‘A big bed with crisp white sheets. I want to pick you up in my arms and carry you to that bed and lay you down, and then…’ ‘And zen what?’ Spider’s heartbeat is loud in Rudi’s ears. ‘What will you do wiz Spider when ’e is all washed clean and lying in your bed?’ ‘I will kneel,’ Rudi whispers, ‘kneel beside the bed…’ Spider chuckles wickedly. ‘You will find it easier to reach if you kneel on ze bed. Zen you will ’ave ze choice of all eight, no?’ Rudi feels suddenly dizzy with the marvellous visions that Spider’s words are spinning in his head. ‘Very well. I will kneel on the bed. And I will lean over and…’ ‘Slide your big mouth over one of ma big ’ard pricks…’ Spider breathes, reaching up to trail a fingertip suggestively over Rudi’s lower lip. ‘I will not be in such a hurry.’ Rudi takes the finger briefly into his mouth, feeling Spider shudder beneath him as he licks at it and then lets it go. ‘First, I will kiss you. On the mouth, then on the nipples, perhaps, if that is something that you would like.’ ‘Oh.’ Spider wriggles ecstatically. ‘Oh, yes, zat is most definitely a thing that Spider would like. An’ when Spider’s nipples are as rock-solid as ’is cocks, zen what will you do?’ ‘I will kiss your beautiful flat belly, and your thighs, and then –’ ‘You missed something. What about ma belly bouton?’ ‘What about it?’ Rudi’s never really noticed Spider’s navel, but now he comes to think of it, peeking above Spider’s low-slung belt, it does have potential… ‘You want me to kiss you there too?’ ‘Ohhhh yes. An’ per’aps slide your tongue in, or a wet finger, as though it were ma –’ Rudi shivers with delicious anticipation. ‘I will do those things for you, my brother, and then I will kneel between your legs and – and – ’ He closes his eyes, breathing hard. ‘And do… exactly what you said earlier. With my mouth. And my hands…’ Spider gentles him; strokes his hair. ‘Easy there, brother. I know, zese things zey are not easy for you to say. But Spider is getting ze message, loud and clear.’ He shifts his position a little, just enough for Rudi to feel the hardness pressing against his lower back. Then he chuckles. ‘An’ when Spider ’as come all over your face an’ your ’ands, an’ ‘e ‘as finished apologizing an’ cleanin’ you up, zen what will you do?’ ‘I will roll you over,’ Rudi says with sudden boldness, ‘face down on those crisp white sheets with a pillow under your... specially gifted parts. And I will kiss you and touch you all over your back and your delectable arse until I am as hard as rock and you are begging me to – to –’ ‘To fuck me.’ Spider’s hoarse, needy whisper almost undoes Rudi on the spot. ‘Yes. To do that. I will prepare the way for myself, carefully, so carefully, I will of course have obtained the proper lubricants and prophylactics, I will work my fingers inside you little by little until you are wet and open and ready for me...’ ‘You seem to know a lot about ’ow to prepare a man for fucking.’ ‘I... read a lot about it. On the internet.’ Rudi blushes. ‘Many women write about it in great detail, and it seemed to me to be something it might one day be necessary for even a psychedelic monk to know.’ ‘It’s good zat you know. An’ one day you will know it with your body, an’ not just in your mind...’ Spider puts his arms around Rudi, and holds on tight. ‘Go on. What will ’appen next?’ Rudi heaves a deep breath. He has thought about this so often, but saying it out loud is an entirely different matter. And actually doing it – if this turns out to be real, and not just another of Spider’s crazy fantasies – will be an entirely different matter again. ‘I will...’ He clears his throat. ‘I will kneel once again between your thighs, and when my erection is suitably protected and lubricated I will spread you apart with my hands, and press the hot, hard head of my cock against your...’ ‘Entrance,’ Spider murmurs. ‘Or my ’ole, or my ring, I do not care what you call it so long as you get inside it.’ ‘I will be gentle, but persistent.’ Rudi’s cock twitches under his robes. ‘And eventually you will let me in, I will slide smoothly inside you and...’ ‘Oh. Oh...’ Spider grinds his hips desperately against Rudi’s back. ‘Oh, my brother, you ’ave undone ze Spider with your lovely filthy talk, I cannot ’old back ze floodgates any longer, I am coming, with all eight at once...’ Rudi doesn’t know what to say; just rolls over and holds the quivering, jerking Spider tight until the climax appears to be more or less finished. ‘Thank you,’ Spider whispers. His face is wet with tears; and when he pulls away from Rudi’s front, his trousers are wet with something quite different. He looks down at himself with a faintly puzzled expression, as though unsure what to do next. ‘Perhaps... a wash?’ Rudi suggests. Spider’s blue eyes come gradually back into focus. ‘Yes, I will go and wash and put on ze dress again, at least it is clean.’ He looks from his own groin to Rudi’s, where the purple fabric is standing up in an impressive tent, and grins like his old self. ‘Zat barn over zere is a good quiet place for a monk to practise some meditation while he is waiting...’ The barn is dusty and peaceful. Rudi pushes the creaking door shut, leans against it, and takes himself in hand under his robe. He summons up the image of Spider, dancing and swaying in the moonlight, and it takes only a couple of strokes before he’s spilling over his fingers and onto the dirt floor. As he’s wiping his hands clean on a wisp of hay, he hears shrill welcoming cries from the courtyard, running footsteps, and then deeper voices: the men of the village are coming home. More running footsteps are followed by a sudden creak, and Spider reappears in the doorway; somehow Rudi knows that he’s wearing nothing underneath that purple robe. The thought is intoxicating. And so is the music that’s just started up again. ‘Can you hear it?’ Rudi asks. ‘The new sound, in the music?’ Spider snorts. ‘Forget about ze new sound, let’s get out of ’ere. Some of zese men are big and tall an’ zey will not be too pleased to find zeir girlfriends ’ave ’ad some Spider Loving... do you think our doors will tell us the way to the nearest travel agent?’ ‘You mean that?’ Rudi is amazed. He didn’t think Spider could possibly be serious. ‘Of course I do.’ From now on, all of ze Spider Loving, it is for you.’ Spider kisses Rudi on the cheek. ‘Now come on, you big man in a dress, stop staring at ze Spider, an’ get moving. I wanna book zat trip. An’ it ’ad better be somewhere far away.’ ‘Why?’ Spider laughs, and takes his hand. ‘Because, ma friend, you ’ave told me what you would like to do to me, an’ now we’ll need a long flight to give me time to tell you what I would like to do to you...’

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #473

Top Ten Deleted or Restored Scenes

This week I watched Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which is obviously distinct from Joss Whedon’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which I saw in 2017. One of the ways it’s different is that it’s literally twice as long. Another is it’s been much more warmly received by fans and critics, rather than greeted with ferocious opprobrium like the earlier, allegedly studio-mandated version.

The road that led us to this moment, with this expensive re-edit of an earlier, unsuccessful film, is long and tumultuous, as well as tragic on a number of levels. Personally I was one of the few who actually had a good time with what I suppose we might as well call Whedon’s League; it weirdly felt cheap and inconsequential, but after two overwrought, self-important, and joyless exercises in grimness and misery, it was a breath of fresh air. It was like the feature-length pilot of a superhero TV series that, y’know, is starting off on slightly shaky ground, but there’s enough there to enjoy: the banter between the characters, the hints of future plot arcs, the general tone of daffy adventure. To quote Aquaman from that film (but not from the Snyder version): “I can dig it.” The new edit feels a lot more epic, more like a proper movie; the much-slowed pace allows all the characters room to breathe. We get some great moments, such as a heroic introduction to Barry Allen as he rescues his future girlfriend from a car crash, and a cute little scene of Alfred teasplaining to Diana. The plot is detailed a lot more thoroughly (albeit in a scene of incredibly clunky exposition), and we spend more time with Steppenwolf, learning more about his relationship with Darkseid and why Earth is so cosmically special. All told, it’s an improvement, even if the second half resolves into basically the same CG-heavy punch-fests as the theatrical cut; here the action is a little bit more coherent, but it’s a hell of a lot slower and as such (in my opinion) often a bit more boring. Plus I personally found the Cyborg story a bit of a drag; he’s a very dour character, moping over his lost life and bombarded by tragedy, and we get very little of the verve of his comic characterisation, and absolutely none of his animated counterpart’s sense of fun. In fact, the thing that I always butt up against is that for the most part these characters feel utterly divorced from their source inspiration; Superman looks and acts nothing like Superman, Batman is incredibly one-note. Flash and Aquaman are more successful in giving a new spin on those characters, even if Barry Allen is basically just Wally West. Only Wonder Woman looks and feels like what we collectively imagine Wonder Woman to be, and is by a country mile the best thing in the film.

I don’t really want to be too negative about it though, even if that was me just being negative for a very long paragraph. At the end of the day, I just do not get on at all with Zack Snyder’s interpretation of the DC Universe, to the point where I feel aggrieved at missed potential (treating the New Gods as just random conquering aliens!) and do not see anything of characters I love (Superman wearing black is not cool in any way shape or form). However. The existence of the “Snyder Cut” and the fact it ended up as a film that we can watch if fascinating, and it’s gotten me thinking of other films where we know additional material exists. Probably the earliest example of this I can remember is Biggs Darklighter in Star Wars; I remember seeing a grainy low-res version of that scene on the Making Magic behind-the-scenes CD-ROM that came out around the time of the Special Editions. Since then, as my knowledge and interest in film has grown, the existence of deleted or alternate scenes, or even entire cuts of movies, has grown and grown. Some of these have a kind of mythic status; others are curios. I remember reading the “removing the chip” scene in the Terminator 2 comic adaptation, so getting to watch that in the Special Edition DVD years later was fascinating. And, of course, you have The Lord of the Rings, which has spun deleted and alternate scenes into additional material for a whole other set of movies – the Extended Editions, which to my mind are the definitive versions of the films (even if Peter Jackson considers the theatrical cuts to be “official”).

And let’s not even get started on Anchorman: Wake Up, Ron Burgundy, which probably is a Top Ten all of its own.

So what we have here, then, are my ten favourite deleted scenes. Sometimes it’s just that I like the scene; sometimes it’s that I genuinely think it adds a great deal to the film overall. Some of these are now common knowledge, or part of a longer cut or special edition; some retain a sense of mystery. At least one I’d never seen before! But they are all very, very cool in their own right, and testament to the difficulty and organic nature of film production.

The Death of Saruman (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003): despite the theatrical King already heading well into three hours, it’s a shame Peter Jackson and co couldn’t find room for this scene, tying up Saruman’s story. It gives Christopher Lee one more moment to shine, spitting insults and attempting to divide the assembled heroes with his wizardly words, before he receives his comeuppance via beleaguered servant Wormtounge. It’s a great death, homaging one of his Hammer Horror deaths, and I genuinely feel the film is a poorer without it. It’s an excellent addition to the Extended Edition, and restores Lee’s visage to the beautiful end-credit portrait section where it belongs.

Removing the Chip (Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1991): another scene now part of an extended Special Edition, this was mythical for a while; it seemed we knew about it even in ’91. In order to learn new things and adapt his programming, Arnie’s T-800 has his brain chip removed, basically; but once Linda Hamilton has taken it out of his head, she wants to destroy it and kill the Terminator while she has a chance. This is great characterisation, but the fact that the T-800’s ability to change and grow is referenced a couple of times in later scenes (“Are we learning yet?”) makes its absence feel all the greater.

Luke and Biggs (Star Wars, 1977): talking about “mythical”, this is one of the doozies. “Did you know there was a scene where Luke met his friend Biggs on Tatooine and they talked about joining the Rebellion?” – it was the stuff of legends. It foreshadows the later scene of Biggs at the Rebel base and gives his death more weight. However, I can understand its removal; it’s rather long and comes at a time when the film needs a lot of momentum to just get the droids to Luke and the adventure to really start. Plus Luke’s teenage friends ripping on him for claiming to have seen a space battle feels a bit atonal with the rest of the film at that point (funny as it is).

The Spider-Walk (The Exorcist, 1973): this one was another widely discussed with my friends (not in 1973, obviously), after its appearance in (I think) Mark Kermode’s documentary about The Exorcist. A supremely creepy scene where the possessed Regan walks on all fours, upside down, down the stairs. William Friedkin said the emotional intensity of it comes at the wrong moment in the film, and he’s probably right, but taken on its own terms it’s a really disturbing visual.

The World Trade Centre (Spider-Man, 2002): I guess this counts as a deleted scene, as it was supposed to form part of a montage in the middle of the film, but most people who saw it at the time will think of it as a banned trailer. Basically, Spider-Man traps a helicopter full of criminals in a giant spider web spun between the towers of the World Trade Centre. I remember watching it, and awing at it, when at university in 2001. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the trailer and scene were understandably shelved. I’m not sure if it’s available officially even twenty years later, which I think is a shame; it’s a fantastic scene (apparently one not directed by Sam Raimi, though) and the final image is actually both moving and powerful.

Pig Headed (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988): something that I’m not sure is quite as prevalent today is film fans discovering deleted scenes by reading officially-licensed adaptations, whether that’s books or comics. This scene I read in the Roger Rabbit comic adaptation. Bob Hoskins’ Eddie Valiant is assailed by the bad guys and dumped in the street with a bag over his head; when he removes the bag, this toon-hating ‘tec discovers to his horror they’ve given him an animated pig’s head. He promptly rushes home and attempts to wash it off in the shower. It’s both funny and a little disturbing, and leads nicely into the scene with Jessica Rabbit in his apartment, but I kinda understand why they cut it. For one thing, I think it raises some disturbing questions about what constitutes a “live” toon and ways to “kill” one other than the film’s Dip.

The Smart Guns (Aliens, 1986): that Jim Cameron really does like his Special Editions; I could have added something from The Abyss here, too. This scene is iconic, and to be honest it’s only recently I discovered it was part of the Special Edition; to me, Smart Guns and Aliens go hand-in-hand, so I must have watched the ol’ Spesh Dish quite early on. These are some awesome automatic gun emplacements, turrets that seek out and shoot anything that comes near. That’s cool in and of itself, but the tension as the crew watches the ammo count drop ever lower, and the Aliens keep coming, is masterful.

Finding the Crew (Alien, 1979): speaking of deleted scenes from an Alien movie, what about this doozy? Now included as part of an extended/director’s cut of the film (Ridley Scott’s another one of those who likes tinkering with his back catalogue), it’s a cool and incredibly creepy scene, but one that doesn’t make a lick of sense given the subsequent direction the franchise took. Ripley, near the end of the film, discovers the crew all gunked up in cocoons, and in the process of being turned into Alien eggs. Obviously this has been retconned, with Cameron concocting the Alien Queen in the sequel, but the scene on its own is very powerful. It’s also, incidentally, the first time we hear a strung-up human say “kill me” in an Alien film, aware that their fate is going to be so much worse than death.

Principal Ford (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982): I thought this was more-or-less mythical until I searched for it on YouTube this week. After Elliot frees the frogs in his science class, he’s brought before his principal, who believes the young boy is off his tits. He spouts some cringy commentary about drug use, peers out of his blinds, and is oblivious to E.T. psycho-kinetically raising Elliot’s chair off the ground. The twist is, despite never seeing his face, the principal is in fact played by Harrison Ford (presumably doing a favour not just to Spielberg but his then-wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison). It’s a funny scene, and I think it could still be added without straining anything (unlike the bath scene that was briefly re-inserted), but as the film is practically perfect in every way, why mess with it? Steve knows what he’s doing.

Sergeant Candy (Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, 2003): unlike the deleted scene from T2, this is neither useful character work or important plot-building. Rather, it’s one big gag, and in that sense I guess your mileage may vary on whether it’s worthwhile or not. A bunch of army and intelligence brass watch a video about the development of the cybernetics program, and we are introduced to Sergeant Candy, a soldier who will serve as the template for (essentially) the Terminators. He’s, obviously, Arnie, but the gag is he has an incredibly strong Southern accent, something that one of the assembled brass criticises, and then… well, I’ll save the punchline for if you wanna watch the link. I think it’s funny, and in-keeping with the slightly more frivolous tone of the first two-thirds of T3. It’s probably just as well they removed it, but on the other hand, there’s as much stuff in that film that doesn’t work as stuff that does, so maybe they should shove it back in just for the lols.

There we are; ten fun or important deleted scenes. Surprised/disappointed that I never had room for the famous “Octopus Scene” from The Goonies (which, like T2’s chip scene, is a cut moment that’s actually referenced later on!). maybe in a few years I’ll come back and do a Special Edition of this list, and include, like, fifteen items or something.

[elfnerdherder]

The Fault in My Code: Ch. 12

You can read Chapter 12 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 12: Two Burning Hazel Eyes

           In his dreams, he lay in sinking sand. He didn’t resist, and when flower petals were gently laid across his eyelids, his nose, and his lips, he allowed it. Each breath he took sunk him a little bit lower, but he was relieved to find that as long as he was sinking, they were too. He pressed palm to waiting, wanting palm, and he sighed.

-

           He got a call two days later from Johns Hopkins Hospital at approximately 7:42 A.M. Jack’s voice was curt, clipped. Aggrieved.

           “He didn’t go after you. He went after Chilton.”

           The video from surveillance didn’t give them a view of the vehicle used to transport Chilton, but it did give them a blurred, grainy image of Dolarhyde wheeling him to the top of the hill beside the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, lighting him on fire and pushing the tall-backed wheelchair hard enough to get it going.

           Jack didn’t know there’d be audio, but Will did –Chilton wired things his own way, after all. He hovered in the doorway and nodded to Jack to play it. While the screams of agony disintegrated to crackling whimpers of pain, Jack grimaced and stepped out to make a call. Will rewound it and let it play again, watching the way the sounds filled the entire room and sucked up everything with it. He played it a third time. He played it a fourth time. He swallowed so hard that it physically hurt. Each time he played it, he stayed in the doorway so that it didn’t devour him.

           “He may not live, and that’s something I need to prepare you for,” the doctor told them in the hallway. The burn unit was quiet, apart from hurried steps and mechanical beeps and whirs of constant machinery. “We’re going to do the best we can, but he’s in a lot of pain, and really I don’t feel it’s that important for you to question him.”

           “The one that did this is a serial killer,” Jack said bluntly. “We’re trying to keep him from doing this to anyone else.”

           Will didn’t bother trying to reason with the doctor –he left that grunt work to Jack. Hospitals took him to dark places, places where the walls were grey and didn’t reflect anything more than the dour circumstances occurring within them, bouncing back the negative until it was all Will could see, all that he could ingest. Down the hall, someone sat on a chair and cried silently, shoulders heaving with the effort. They weren’t screaming; not a soulmate, then. People whose soulmate had just died screamed and screamed and screamed with the pain of it. He thought about Chilton’s screams and gnawed on the corner of his lip.

           Cold fingers pressed unconsciously to the scarring along his neck, and he turned to look at a painting of the hospital, a small dedication etched into a gold plate below it. The last time he’d been in a hospital, Molly almost died. The time before, he’d almost died. There was a negative connotation to them, something that smacked of life and death being cradled within the same palm, a child too eager to squeeze to see which one fell out between the cracks of his pudgy knuckles.

           “Will?” He looked back at the sound of his name, and Jack had his hands stuffed into his pants’ pockets. “Where’s your head?”

           “Is he going to let us see Chilton?” Will asked.

           “He said Chilton managed to ask for you, in between putting him under to help with the pain. He’ll let us in since you’re who Chilton asked for.” The dip between Jack’s brows was set-in, deep from many years of bad news and worse coping mechanisms. Will had the wild urge to brush it away.

           “He went after Chilton, not me,” Will said.

           “Where’s your head?” Jack repeated.

           “Decidedly not on fire,” he replied. They stared one another down, and Will pushed out a breath of unease. “I’m fine.”

           The room reeked of antiseptic and charred skin. Will walked with trepidation, aware of each footfall and the sound of the material of his khakis rubbing together at the thighs. The room was cool, cooler than outside in the hall, and the deep-set tub Chilton had been placed in to aid in regulating oxygen and fluids was even colder to the touch. Will passed his hand along the side of it, then drew away, guilty.

           He didn’t have to steel himself to see the gristly image, but he did have to prepare for the sight of his lipless mouth. They hadn’t mentioned that part, the lips missing like they’d been ripped off by some great, ugly beast. No, no; a Great Red Dragon. His nose itched, and Will scratched it, ignoring the pointed look Jack gave him at the movement.

           “Frederick, it’s Agent Jack Crawford and Dr. Graham,” Jack said, and the eyelids, blessedly still in place, flickered. At a deep, pained inhale, the smell of burnt flesh was nauseating.

           “I’m sorry this happened to you,” Will said quietly. Chilton’s teeth flashed white against the black and red. His eyes opened, and he fixed a pained stare on Will that seared him.

           “Yu…seh…ne uh,” he rasped, muffled and agonized. Will balked under the accusing hazel eyes. “Yu nu…he sah ee az ah het.”

           “What’s he saying?” Jack asked. “Can you tell?”

           “Yu uut yor hand on ee…ike a hucking het,” he managed, and a shudder ran along his body, his eyes rolling back into his head.

           Will stared down, dispassionate. “You set me up. You knew he’d see me as a pet. You put your hand on me like a fucking pet.”

           “Both the Hess’ and the Panters’ had pets,” Jack murmured.

           “Not anymore,” said Will quietly.

           “Did you see anything, Dr. Chilton?” Jack asked.

           Chilton struggled for words, eyes half-lidded. “1L-8432B. 1L-8432B. 1L-8432B. 1L-8432B. 1L-8432-”

           He continued chanting it in a low, harsh undertone until the doctor saw them out so that they could bring him under again. Will paced in the hall, and Jack tracked his movements.

           “Is that true, Will?” Jack asked. Will stuffed his hands into his pockets and grimaced at the too-clean floors.

           “Did I set him up? Did I put my hand on him like a fucking pet?”

           “Did you?”

           “He wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t. He’d have thought it was posed, but for me to reach out, I…” Will raked his hands through his hair, falling back against the wall. His lungs felt too big for his chest. “I had to make it believable. I wasn’t trying to make him a target.”

           Silence. The only kind of silence you could have in a hospital, which was to say not very. There were always people moving, machines going, people dying –to say one couldn’t hear the sound of the dead was to say one wasn’t Will Graham, and he could hear it very, very well. He focused on breathing, on compartmentalizing, on not hearing the sound of Frederick Chilton dying.

           I’ve got my guys hunting down the license plate number he saw,” Jack said at last. “It’s probably a fake, but he may not have swapped it out in time.”

           “Tattler posted that just a few days ago,” Will said heavily. “That’s not long to get this done and done. Taken care of. He’d had a plan like this for a long time, looked at that high-backed chair for a long time.”

           “I’m not following,” Jack said.

           “He didn’t just go find it, you know?” Will rubbed his face, scratched at the spaces where Chilton’s eye at been visible, even when closed. “That’s an old chair, an old place. He looked at it a long time, thought what it’d be to light it up. He thought about that chair, saw that chair.”

           “You think he’s either owned it, or knew someone that owned it?” Jack asked.

           “Common enough to see him wheeling it around wouldn’t be a big deal. Chilton wrapped up, I bet it looked mighty like an old person, sedated and drooling.”

           “And only a few days to get here, take him and make it happen,” Jack mused. “I’ll start checking old folk’s homes. Something closeby, something close enough for Baltimore and Minnesota, and a van big enough to wheel him around in.”

           Once Jack was gone, Will scuffed his shoes all the way down the hall, starting at the door to Chilton’s room and ending at the elevator. He looked back at the small black marks, and he nodded to himself. From his sins to him, it took precisely forty-two black scuff marks.

           -

           Barney sat at the cage to maximum, and he stared down at the envelope in Will’s hand with a calm, detached expression.

           “I know Matthew wasn’t the only one,” Will said. “You spied on me for Chilton, now I’m asking for a favor that will pay better than his hourly.”

           “And just what kind of favor is that, Dr. Graham?” Barney asked.

           “Nothing untoward. No video, no audio. Twenty minutes.”

           “I could lose my job,” Barney said.

           “The one that’d take your job is currently missing 90% of his skin,” Will replied impassively. “He won’t think to know, if he even lives.”

           If Barney was troubled by the ease in which he discussed his boss’s potential demise at the hands of Red Dragon, he didn’t show it. He eyed the envelope, took it from Will calmly and opened it, counting the money; after he finished he counted again. He sighed, squinted at the multiple screens of monitors, and after a deliberate nod of his head, he pressed a few buttons. The screen that Will eyed in particular went black.

           “He’s still in his glass cell,” he told Will as he unlocked the doors.

           “I assumed as much.”

           Without partitions, the entire hall was open to Will as he looked about. No other inmates could see him, but he still felt exposed as he set the chair down and looked at Hannibal’s back. He stood facing his blank wall where the art once was, like he could imagine where each sketch once resided.

           “Word travels fast, Will,” Hannibal said after a moment.

           “Even in maximum?”

           “Especially in maximum. Orderlies, nurses, cooks…the silence in this hall after medication leaves echoes that bounce about, caught within this renovated cell of mine. Poor Dr. Chilton, victim of the Great Red Dragon. Victim of Will Graham, too, I’d imagine.”

           He turned around, and Will wasn’t surprised to see a small, delighted smile that belied the calm measures of his voice.

           “We have twenty minutes,” Will said.

           “Clever Dr. Graham,” Hannibal praised. “Outsmarted by Chilton, so he finds colorful ways to not only attempt to draw out our little killer, but punish the administrator that has your soulmate locked up, too. A delightful coup in one fell swoop.”

           Silence. Will chewed his words around, dwelling on the niggling whisper in his ear at how good it felt to see Hannibal so utterly proud of him. It radiated off of him, like some god damn Christmas tree lights. He wanted to shove the feeling away, lock it up with the rest of his ugly thoughts, but he found himself relishing in it, a warm hum in his stomach.

           “Dr. Chilton thinks I set him up,” Will said. “I didn’t.”

           “You did,” Hannibal replied amiably. “The same way you attempted to set me up, the difference being that Chilton was not smart enough to see.”

           “I didn’t know that he’d see Chilton as a pet,” Will protested.

           “Didn’t you?” Hannibal purred. “For the name of a man that was able to keep Barney’s nephew out of juvenile detention, I was able to see the newspaper article, dear Will. A hand on the shoulder, a gesture of comradery between two doctors? He killed the pets first, and your claim by touch privilege made Dr. Chilton your pet.”

           They stared one another down, Will focusing more on the maroon eye rather than the blue. A sliver of guilt wormed down his spine, settled low and painful like he’d slept funny.

           “What had you told me?” Hannibal wondered out loud. “How good it felt for you to do bad things to bad people? Dr. Chilton surely regrets getting on your naughty list, my dear.”

           “Let’s entertain the thought that hypothetically, that’s exactly what I did,” Will rasped out.

           “I can do that,” Hannibal assured him.

           “Will it have the intended effect?”

           “It may, but then again it may not. He’s shy, after all, and you’d need to make a bit more of a public appearance if you wanted to draw him into the light of day. After this, I doubt Jack Crawford will allow you in such a place without at least seven men around you at all times, much less a place where you could sit down to chat with the man.”

           “Then it ultimately failed,” Will said, and he lowered his head to rub the furrows out of his brow. A headache coiled in his temple, as painful as it was welcomed. Maybe if he continued to feel guilt over Chilton, it’d absolve him of the actions taken that’d killed the man.

           May have killed the man. The verdict was still up in the air.

           “You have another idea, though, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here. You didn’t come to me to get a pat on the back and a gold star for wallowing in the beautifully darker aspects of your person. You can do that without me. I’ve seen your dreams.”

           “You know nothing of my dreams,” he said.

           “I have seen every single one of your dreams since the night we first connected.”

           “You haven’t,” Will snapped, neck hot. “Maybe some, but not all of them.”

           “In sands we sink, in fields of poppy I brush shards of glass from your hair, and before mirrors I hold the very pieces of you that you resent most of all,” Hannibal said, staring him down intently. “You hold a blade to your neck, and I suture back the skin that you dared sunder.”

           Will looked down, embarrassed. He’d felt the first intrusions of Hannibal in his dreams after the initial connection; it hadn’t occurred to him to ask if Hannibal still found himself seeing all of them. Uncommon, but not impossible. Perhaps the lack of consistent physical and visual contact made his mind reach out in other ways, desperate. When he’d called on the phone, Will half-suspected it as him playing mind games, but maybe not.

           Had he actually been attempting to genuinely comfort him, of all the fucking things?

           “Does it make you uncomfortable to think that even now, I can see the parts of you that you dearly wish to ignore?” Hannibal asked.

           “It will fade,” Will assured him. “Your dreams will be your own again.”

           “On the contrary, I enjoy seeing this aspect of you. The Will Graham that you hide away behind such a hard, stoic mask is far more entertaining and enlightening. I find him interesting. I find his dark humor, his willingness to do what is necessary utterly refreshing. Far more interesting than the innocent, demure, uncertain man that you portray to the public with your aversion to eyes and your grief therapy.”

           “…Glad to entertain,” Will managed dryly.

           “I’m curious about the dreams where you try to take your own life. It’s not you that you’re trying to kill, is it? I always sense the self-loathing, but you find yourself too useful to just…bite the bullet. You'd only do something like that if it served a purpose.”

           “We’re not going to talk about that.”

           “Quid pro quo, dear Will. You have an idea, and I may have enlightenment.”

           “We have less than twenty minutes, Hannibal, I-”

           “Shouldn’t argue with me, then,” Hannibal replied, voice carrying over Will’s smoothly. “Time is ticking.” Will gritted his teeth and looked up to the infuriatingly amused expression.

           “…It’s more of…a memory,” he admitted after a beat. He unconsciously rubbed the scar tissue at his neck, under the collar of his shirt.

           “I’d have been uncertain of that before, but before Dr. Chilton found it necessary to take away any ‘privileges’ he’d granted me, I did read the other article the dastardly Freddie Lounds wrote about you.” Lecter said ‘dastardly’ like one said ‘daring’ or ‘adventurous’. There was an undertone of almost-affection, of history.

           “Freddie Lounds writes trash,” Will growled.

           “She’s certainly taken a dislike to you, hasn’t she?” Lecter waved a hand lightly when Will opened his mouth. “It made me look at other articles, ones regarding the Minnesota Shrike and your lovely work with him. You were admitted into a psychiatric institution in November of 2014. A suicide risk whose wrists were strapped down. It wasn’t a suicide attempt, though, was it?”

           “…No,” Will murmured.

           “You thought you were killing Garrett Jacob Hobbs again.”

           “…Yes.”

           “A severe depressive episode after having to use deadly force on a person you were only going to interview, coupled with the way that you were able to so aptly crawl into the spaces between the breaths of a killer and find yourself there with them,” he concluded. “You were released after two weeks, but the damage by our dear Miss Lounds had been done.”

           “Why make me answer when you already know?” Will asked, agonized. He looked away from Hannibal and pressed his face into his hands, letting out a quiet, sharp hiss of breath.

           “Is that the only life you’ve ever taken?”

           “Yes.”

           “And after taking it, it festered inside of you so grotesquely that you lost the taste for consulting on psychological profiles.”

           “Yes.”

           “He wasn’t the only one to lay down beside you at night, when dreams unfolded, but he was the only one you were unable to pry from your skin in the aftermath.”

           “I’m going to do something, Hannibal, and I need assurance of your utmost cooperation,” Will said, looking back up at him again. Rather than the amusement from before, he was uncomfortable to see something almost akin to sympathy on his face. He gritted his teeth and glared. “Can you give me that?”

           “Assurance of my utmost cooperation,” he echoed back to him. “Is this something Jack Crawford would approve of, dear Will?”

           “I don’t know yet.”

           “…Don’t tell me, then,” Hannibal decided. “I want to be surprised.”

           “You want to be surprised?” Will’s brows lifted, and he scratched the back of his head.

           “Yes. As much as I would enjoy knowing, there is something satisfying about the idea that you don’t need me to make these dark little machinations. You make enough morally grey, ambiguous decisions all on your own, dear Will.”

           Will nodded, and silence fell between them, something smacking of bad decisions and tasting like the aftermath of a lightning strike. Will stood and walked to the glass that separated them, and he sat down on the concrete floor, back pressed tight against it. He straightened his shoulders, glanced to his watch, and sighed quietly.

           “Five minutes,” he told Hannibal.

           He wasn’t quite sure how he knew, but he was very much aware when Hannibal copied his movements, back pressed to the barrier, heartbeat steady. Will imagined that even with the glass between them, he could feel his heartbeat syncing with his own, and he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.

           “Something is changing inside of me,” he revealed.

           “Changing?”

           “Like I’m not in my own skin. Someone else is in my skin.”

           “They were always there, Will,” Hannibal objected kindly. Will resented the kindness. “Growing, shifting perhaps, but don’t lie to yourself and say that it was never there. I preferred it better when you stared me in the eye and told me you’d kill yourself if it meant that I hurt, too. I believed that far more easily than your claims that you were any form of innocence before you walked down this hall and met me.”

           Silence. Silence was best. Will nodded along to Hannibal’s words, found his own burning self-loathing embedded in the very real threat. He didn’t want Hannibal to hurt, though. That in itself was far more terrifying than taking a knife to his throat again.

           At five minutes, he stood up and walked away without looking back. He did pause, though, at the empty cell that was normally occupied by Dr. Abel Gideon. He frowned at it, puzzled, then stopped at the cage where Barney waited, eyes lazily tracking the seconds ticking on the clock by the computer.

           “What happened to Abel Gideon?” he asked.

           Barney looked like he wasn’t going to answer, but he sighed quietly. Maybe there was a bit of guilt in his spying on Will –maybe a bit of understanding at Will’s situation. “He’s in solitary.”

           “Why?”

           Barney’s expression soured. “He killed Matthew Brown, that’s why.”

           Will blinked and struggled not to let his emotions show. It was a sucker punch, though, and he had to take a slow, uneven breath as he gaped at Barney, blinking contact-covered eyes, doe-like in expression to belie a dark, wicked tendril that unfurled in him.

           “…How…did that happen?” he asked slowly.

           “He complained of stomach pains –been having stomach pains for a while,” he said, and his glare darkened. “Matthew Brown was getting a physical at the time. Gideon overpowered the nurse, by the time we got in there the bastard had him impaled on an IV stand with her on top. Eyes gone.”

           Will forced himself to nod, although he could feel his heartbeat behind his eye. Matthew Brown, dead. Gone. No half-connection told him of the loss; he dazedly wondered if Gideon had thought to merely destroy the eyes or if he’d hidden them like Matthew had.

           “I’m sorry,” he managed, and Barney shook his head. Grief soured his lips, made his brow dip down low.

           “I know he did wrong by you, Dr. Graham, but this…these bastards are animals,” he said, voice heavy with unshed tears. “He didn’t deserve to go like that; not by Abel-fucking-Gideon.”

           Will thought to tell him he didn’t know Gideon would do that, but a quick breath held the words in. The worst way to sound guilty was to try and not sound so god damn guilty.

           “No one deserves to go like that,” he said instead. “…I’m sorry.”

           “You were just trying to get him the help he needed. No sorry necessary,” Barney replied.

           He nodded to Barney and left the institute, hating the stark realization that no matter how much he tried to think it was someone else inside of his skin, the fact of the matter was that he was very much in control of everything he did.

           Things like Matthew Brown’s death included.

-

           Molly called him that night, while he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. He thought about not answering, but he reasoned that his stained and ugly skin wouldn’t reach her through the phone. He washed his hands before answering, just in case. He thought of Matthew Brown’s eyes and Gideon’s compliments to Will’s use of politeness. He didn’t have to be kind to Gideon, but he was. He didn’t have to be cruel to Matthew, but he was.

           “The town this safehouse is in boasts a ‘soulmates day’ where the kids who have already found their soulmate skip school and go to a large fair in town,” she informed him.

           “Appalling,” he murmured.

           “The adults think it’s quaint, and they don’t say anything about it. If someone without a soulmate shows up, they’re asked to leave.”

           “Is the population under 20,000?”

           “How’d you guess?” she said sarcastically. A beat. “I’m going mad here.”

           “I’m sorry,” he said, and he rolled onto his side. Red Dragon’s shadowed outline lay beside him, staring back with no eyes.

           “You say that every time, Will. Every time we’re on the phone.”

           “It in no way lessens how much I mean it.”

           Silence. A quiet, soft noise, much like the sound one makes when they’re trying to withhold a sob. “…I know. I know, Will, I’m sorry. I just get so mad sometimes, you know?”

           “I deserve it.”

           “Not at you, at…at me. At Jack Crawford, at the fucking FBI, at the maniac that did this. Then sometimes at you, for having such a need to help people that you’d risk yourself like this. At me, that I saw that and still told you that you should, said you should just…fucking help people. That you risked yourself like this, and now you’ve…” Her voice trailed off. She tried again, then fumbled, and the noise radiated against Will’s teeth.

           “How’s your shoulder?” he asked when she couldn’t continue.

           “It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said, brushing away his concern like cobwebs. “I’m thinking that I’m going to go to my parents, Will.”

           “Your parents?”

           “They’re four hours from here, and they want to come get me. They don’t want me cooped up like this, and mom says she wants to see my shoulder for herself, make sure I’m okay.”

           “I don’t know if-”

           “I already bought the ticket,” she interrupted. “I told them not to come get me when I’ve got a ticket and a plane will be better on my shoulder than a car ride. I leave in two days.”

           “Oh, Molly,” Will sighed, and he closed his eyes tightly, pressing a palm to them. “Molly, it’s not safe.” He was just saying it to say it, though. She’d already bought the ticket. She’d already decided.

           “I’m going to be okay. He couldn’t get me, so he’s going to try and get you, right? He won’t try and find me.” She sounded confident in that. “Besides, if the truth gets out about you having a soulmate, I wouldn’t matter anymore. He’d go after the soulmate, not me.”

           There was the sensation that he’d been gutted by those words, and he stayed silent for several moments, letting the pain spread. He reminded himself that he deserved this. He thought of Matthew Brown, told himself that he definitely deserved this.

           “He’s nothing compared to you,” he managed, and god he sounded so fucking pathetic.

           “A he,” she mused, and he shuddered at the sudden sound of a cold laugh. “I wondered if you’d tell me more. Are you going to tell me more about him, Will?”

           “I hate him,” Will said. “I want to be with you.”

           “Oh, Will, but you ache for him, don’t you? It hurts, right, baby?”

           Too many new terms of endearment from her. He preferred her better in the mornings after they’d made love, when she teased him and called him ‘honey bunches’. He always scrunched his nose at it then, but he’d kill a man to hear it now. Will sat up in bed and shook his head like she could see, like he could show her just how much he wanted it to be untrue.

           “Molly, I don’t want him, I want you. We choose each other, right? That’s what makes us so right for each other? We choose, and that’s why it’s so god damn great with you. I want to be home with you. No matter who or what crawled into my brain, it’d always be you. In a thousand lifetimes, I’d always choose you.”

           “Do you remember when we first met eyes on that stupid train, and I started crying because I thought, ‘this is it. This is how God gets me.’?”

           “Yeah, yeah.” Will nodded emphatically. He’d been too awkward to be a real comfort, patting her shoulder at arm’s distance before passing her a tissue when she didn’t stop. He managed to get her number and stumbled from the train, dazed and afraid.

           “…Then we chose each other after because it made sense. We weren’t going to be forced, so we should date.”

           “We choose each other, every time,” Will said, heart pounding. It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay.

           “…I think I need to think a lot about if I want to keep choosing, Will. I think that I need some time to think if I want to keep choosing someone that was chosen by someone else.”

           Oh.

           “Oh.”

           “I still love you, but I’ve got two blues, and you don’t anymore. It’s not your fault, I don’t…blame you, but I’ve just gotta think about it for a bit, okay?”

           “…Yeah. Yeah, okay, Molly.” Will nodded. He nodded harder when she didn’t speak, and as the silence built on the crackly line, he dipped his head down, pressed his forehead to his knee and let out a sharp, silent sob of breath. “Okay, Molly. Okay.”

           “Are you breathing, Will?”

           “I’m breathing,” he managed, and he looked up at the ceiling like he could see the cracks forming that’d send it crashing down on him. “I…I’m sorry, Molly.”

           “Oh, Will,” she said, and it undid him. He set the phone down and curled up, arms wrapped tight around his knees as he trembled all over, trying to stifle the noises that kept falling out of his mouth. When he couldn’t quite get control of himself, he slapped at the phone screen and hit end, and he stood up, pacing the confines of the hotel room to expel the terror that was quickly working its way up his shins, his thighs, his hips, his back, to his neck where breath came short, where small gasps went to die.

           “You took her from me,” he said to the shadow of Red Dragon sitting cross-legged on his bed. “You took her from me, you god damn…you took Molly away from me!” he shouted, and he grabbed the picture frame boasting the drink specials of the week from the entertainment center, launching it at the bed. It smacked against the headboard, fell limply to the pillow with a soft noise. The shadow didn’t move, didn’t speak. Will fell to his knees and hit at the floor, gasping for breath, gasping for a shred of something that didn’t make him feel like he was dying all over again.

           “I’m going to kill you,” he seethed into the carpet, inhaling the taste of dust bunnies and dirty shoes. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”