#probably don’t be a doomsday prepper either

[tonsillessscum]

*screams into my pillow bc my parents set me up for failure bc of the way they educated me*

[spiralcass]

NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #2 - THOUGHTS

I had so much fun covering the first issue, I thought, “Why Not?” and decided I’d do similar breakdowns for the rest of the series as it comes out. With its sapphic trans lead, Escapade, and writer, @charliejaneanders​, there’s no book I’m more eager to support and help spread awareness of right now. 

This issue sees multiple plots continuing here, with Escapade, Cerebella, Honey Badger (I’m still not calling her “Scout”), Morgan, and Wolfsbane still our leads as of this issue, but with the set-up and solicits we’ve gotten, it’s clear Dani and Karma will be getting more involved for the rest of the book. 

Starting with the A-Plot, probably my favorite thing about the previous three issues of New Mutants to star Shela, and this book so far, is how in nearly every scene, we get to see a new layer of her character. So often, fans will defend bland new characters by saying they “Just Need Time”, and my counterargument is always, “No, there are numerous modern characters who came out fully realized and captivating almost immediately.” 

We got a bit of this in the previous issue, but it’s made even more clear here that despite Shela often coming off as a typical quirky, goofy, teenage hero, she is an adult, she is an experienced veteran in her field, and she has lived a hard life with much more down-to-Earth trauma which has built responsibility. She may not like having to be all these things, and getting to act more like a kid is probably something she appreciates about Krakoa, but if she’s only teamed with less experienced heroes, this is gonna show. 

I’m unsure of what the writing is going for with Gabby so far. Gabby being excited and enthusiastic about beating up a bunch of villains? Nothing weird there. Being snarky? Right up her alley. But she has a weird mean streak throughout the issue that doesn’t feel right. Just a couple lines that don’t sound like things she’d say. 

I do like how she handled Nefaria’s tournament though. 

Sadly, Martha doesn’t get to do much this issue, and it’s to its detriment. While Shela and Gabby’s fights are fun, they take up so much of the A-plot that there’s no room for her. And with me not being particularly interested in Nefaria and his antics (mostly), sidelining the character who’s the whole reason this adventure is happening, and who’s emotional struggle is our hero’s primary motivator, hurts the issue. 

With that all said, now I get to talk about my favorite part of the A-plot, and the part that has me the most excited. 

To the shock of literally no one, it’s the part which involves Emma Frost. 

Not once, but twice in this issue, Shela directly compares Nefaria’s persuasive skills to Emma’s. Once is a joke. Twice tells me our young thief still has some unresolved issues regarding her former idol. 

In tandem with her other insecurities, it really is no wonder she allowed herself to get drunked-up by Nefaria. Against Emma’s speeches, she was able to bite back with bitterness. Against Nefaria’s, despite knowing what he’s doing, she still likes what he’s saying enough that she eases herself. 

Anders confirmed to me before this book started that Emma would not be appearing in it, BUT I really, really hope this is all going somewhere post-Lethal Legion. 

Onto the B-Plot, let’s start with the funny stuff because WOW did this get real dark, real quick. 

Of COURSE there are doomsday preppers for Mutants, of course there are.  Wonderful way to start the issue. 

 Cosmar basically realizing Shela has taken her place in the Lost Club’s main girl trio is sad, but also pretty funny in a meta sense. Hopefully Tashi can find another team to join. 

Also, Charlie, I know you read these, so I’m gonna ask one of the most common questions fans of these characters have: How old is Anole supposed to be? Shela and Martha are young adults, Gabby and Tashi are teenagers, and Rain Boy can go either way since it’s unclear if he died or not post M-Day, but no one really cares. Anole meanwhile is a longtime fan favorite, and between him simultaneously bartending at the Green Lagoon and hitting on Ahkiro, while also acting no older than Gabby and Tashi, and being referred to as a kid by one of his old classmates within the pages of New Mutants, fans have been deeply confused for years. 

I know writers sometimes aren’t allowed to speak on ages, so if that’s a thing here, I get it. If you can give an answer though, so many fans would love to know. 

Tangents aside, Dani and Karma’s entrance to the plot confuses me. I get Dani worrying about her kids, but are her and Xuan really freaking out because they don’t know where two grown women and their highly-deadly teenage friend are for more than a day? Hey, Dani, if you want to check on someone, how about your adopted son you haven’t spoken to in the last decade? If Josh has time to flirt with Gwenpool, he has time for you. 

Everything mentioned above is completely forgivable, however, because Dani and Xuan get the best damn panel in this issue.

Transitioning into the more dramatic stuff, we have Rahne. Wolfsbane has consistently been wonderful under Anders’ pen (really, she’s gotten consistently better writing in the past 3 years than she’d gotten in the prior 20), with so many great moments in this issue alone. I love how she helps calm down the sewer creature, wastes no time arguing with the doomsday prepper’s leader’s garbage, and is able to separate him from the rest of the mostly innocent people living in the sewers who need her help. 

Oh, Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Since your first appearance, I have not liked you. I still don’t like you, even if you being Chinese, Jewish, and Asexual on top of being a trans man is pretty cool. 

However, progress may finally be getting made on making his less insufferable. At the start of this issue, he’s still his usual self, with 0 comprehension of what Mutants have been through (honestly though, man, with all your other identities, you shouldn’t be THIS blitheringly ignorant), but then...

...we get to the big “Oh shit” part of the book, as it seems like Rahne may be about to teach Morgan about The Massacre. 

This data page is amazing. I’m not sure if it actually fits the book tonally, but I love it. I’m not gonna go over the details of it just because it’s such strong prose, and you should really take it in for yourselves. It really makes you just imagine Jared walking through the woods on Krakoa, and seeing Greycrow, one of the people who brutally murdered him and his friends, making out with Kwannon, one of the War Captains charged with protecting everyone. Of course he wouldn’t believe he was safe on Krakoa (you know, along with all the OTHER reasons not to feel safe on Krakoa if you’re not one of the big, special Mutants)

Despite the various complains I had, I still loved this issue. With multiple issues now out I feel comfortable calling this my third favorite X-book right now. And when your competition includes Red and Immortal, third place is still a triumph. I can’t wait for the next issue, and I can only hope Marvel greenlights more just like this. 

[jlilycorbie]

So a while back I had an idea for a horror novel about a haunted missile silo turned doomsday bunker owned by a moderately internet famous doomsday prepper/serial killer.

And it’s definitely still backburner because I need to do a lot of research (which will probably include a lot of YouTube that I...don’t want to face), and also because I need to finish either Bad Fences or the fantasy WIP before I start something new.

But now I’m thinking about how little work an angry ghost would have to do with a bunch of heavily armed tough guy cosplayers who are lost in the dark and freaked out.

And also what it would be like to be one of the few competent people stuck in the dark with them.

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

june 12, 2021 10:00 a.m. three lakes state park

[joseph] i sure do!

[grant] then why…

[joseph] why do i take you and your cousins out fishing?

[grant] so much for the “hey, let’s go fishing - it’ll be fun!” comment from this morning.

[joseph] it is fun! but not the fish part. the fun comes from spending all day with someone you love and talking.

[grant] see, i hate fishing, too, but i'll go because you and uncle paddy...well, i was going to say “enjoy it” but now my world is shaken to its core, so i guess i go just because you ask me to!

[joseph] oh, well, your uncle does like it.

[grant] what does he like about this exactly? actually, never mind. i feel like i know. he likes this for the same reason he booby-trapped his house and learned a bunch of “practical” skills like breaking locks and hot-wiring cars. he wants to be entirely self-sufficient in case the world collapses.

[joseph] and he doesn’t want to spend money. why buy fish at the store when you can get it yourself? ahh, your grandmother and i taught him too well. we meant for all of you to be self-reliant and to not blow through your money...but, well, you know.

[grant] you didn’t intend to raise a lowkey doomsday prepper?

[joseph] one got rich, one married rich, and the other gets it honest.

[grant] speaking of uncle paddy’s antics - so i was at therapy yesterday and my therapist was late because she got locked out of her car. turns out it was henry with the shoelace trick who got her back inside.

[joseph] your uncle was teaching your friends those tricks, too?!

[grant] oh definitely. i don’t think his parents knew about that but i think they’d be chill about it. besides, hey, his parents are friends with everyone in our family! if anyone is going to teach him some weird practical skills, better it be through family friends and not, like, um, weird internet forums.

[joseph] there’s stuff about that on the internet?

[grant] the less you know about the internet is probably better.

[joseph] fair enough! i can use my cell phone and that’s all i care to know.

[grant] so why lie about fishing? just curious. is it because you don’t want to ruin the good fun of the hanging out part of it?

[joseph] sure, mostly! if i admit to it, then if i ever ask, you’ll all say no because you kids all don’t much like it either.

[grant] awww no! we’d never say no! we love you too much to disappoint you like that.

[joseph] you’re too sweet. but you know, my dad used to bring me out here to fish a long time ago. i guess i can’t let go of that either.

[grant] oh really? he did?

[joseph] you never met him, my dad. he died well before any of you kids were born. the last person to meet him was your aunt bridget but she wasn’t very old when he died either so she doesn’t remember him well.

[grant] would i have liked him?

[joseph] no. probably not. haha! he was old-school, strict and not very open-minded, and he didn’t have a lot of care for emotions. he also didn’t talk a whole lot. he talked a lot less after my mom killed herself, which i suppose i understand. i respected him for trying to make a living for us, though. but about fishing: i didn’t see him much growing up because he was busy working all day in the mines but when he had time, he would bring me out here–and i really mean right here–to fish.

[grant] so it was his way of showing affection?

[joseph] sure was. i can’t even blame him. he lived a hard life. i don’t think he knew much better. i appreciated his attempts for what they were.

[grant] kind of sounds like my dad.

[joseph] there’s a strong resemblance, that’s for certain.

[joseph] my dad used to bring me here, too, when he had something to tell me. i guess he didn’t know how to have a regular emotional conversation either. i'd always know when it was one of those days where he had a lesson for me or something serious to share. he’d be more quiet than usual and that’s saying something. we’d come out here before daylight, fish in silence for a long while, and when he was ready for lunch, he’d give me that look–i guess a fatherly look–and he’d finally talk.

[grant] it’s kind of sweet. no, i mean, it is sweet. it’s sweet in a very old school old man kind of way.

[joseph] i think he was a good man, you know? we didn’t get each other but i knew he loved me and i guess i loved him, too. he tried his best.

[grant] i get that. sometimes you dislike a person for how they are but you love them as a figure anyway.

[grant] so when does my life lesson start?

[joseph] oh, it’s already started.

[thejdogga]

StarDust

Very post A Cascade of Stars but the events are mentioned.

Anyway enjoy! I haven't written in a while

—————————･｡*☆*｡･—————————

The metal clangs as my boots make their way through the hallway towards the airlock. I fix my black hair and make sure my helmet is secured tightly. Quick beeps sound as the code for the door is entered. The keypad lights up green as the door opens with a hiss. I step within and very familiar with the process I let the chamber decompress. After what seems like an eternity later the outer doors open, letting the cold void of space grasp at my suit, not that I can feel it underneath. I see another space suit sitting on the balcony edge, its gaze facing away from the station into the void. The suit is certainly filled with the only other member left on this station, my boyfriend.

I sit down next to him and take in the view he is gazing at. It is calm and beautiful as ever, in all my years on the station I have never gotten bored of the sight. Except today the view is lacking most of its stars. As I look on occasionally a star will fizzle and disperse before disappearing. At first i didn’t believe it, stars should be dying in violent supernovas, and definitely not at this rate. But all the reading confirmed it. The stars are dying. There is only an eighth of the stars in the sky as there was just a few month prior. I finally turn my head to my partner and he catches my gaze and looks back, he opens his mouth,

“Guess that crazy prophet was right huh?”

I exhale through my nose and look down, “Yeah, I guess so. Still don’t know how they knew” I look back up to the stars, “Who would have guess the head death of the universe was going to be so fast paced?”

“Hah nobody! The science doesn’t agree with it, yet I guess the science doesn’t agree with the Dis Aster event either. Humanity is lucky we survived that two hundred years ago.”

“Barely.” I remind him. “Only those well underground like doomsday preppers or those rich people that were lucky enough to have any warning.”

“True. I guess this is the second time the stars have disappointed us? The first they got too powerful and attacked. The second is right now, our defenses to subdue them seemed to be too effective.”

“You really think that’s the reason?”

He shrugs, “Only one I can think of that makes any sense. How else could they go from being all powerful supernatural beings to this” He throws both of his hands outwards in front of him to the void.

“Woah, the board is heavily out on them on them being supernatural beings-”

“Doubt.”

Sigh “Point is, all we know is that they gained some kind of sentience and descended on earth. We don’t even know if they meant to wipe out humanity.”

“Well the media treats it like they meant to. But, it’s not like it matter now, they are dying.” We both go silent for a while before he speaks up again, “Hey babe… you think we will survive this? I mean humans lived past the last star event so maybe there’s hope?”

I open my mouth before closing it again, taking my time to think about it. “Well, last time we barely made it. A lot of us will probably die. We should be fine for a few years, our station is nuclear powered, and we use that to power the agriculture facilities, water we distil after mining it from asteroids. We can probably gather a few of the other staff members back to the station too, after they finish spending their ‘last days’ with their families. A lot of them probably won’t join us though, maybe a few could bring their families?”

“Hm, as much as I don’t want newcomers to drag us down I guess we do need just normal people to get us going again. If we want to be one of the foundations for humanity’s next era?”

Sigh “As much as I do not want that responsibility I guess we kind of have to. Most people planet side rely on the sun. Stations like ours are the only human settlements not dependent. We are lucky for that, two hundred years ago we had nothing like us as a backup. Maybe we can contact a few of the other stations to join together? Start some kind of town.”

His brown eyes look into mine and I feel his fingers slip between mine and interlock, “Well,” He looks back out and leans his head against my shoulder, “Whatever we decide to do after the end of everything we can figure out later. For now Let's enjoy the stars while we still can.”

[blakkbirde]

Closing Doors

By the time my housesitting week was over, I had strengthened my connection to my ancestors and learned more about myself. I commemorated the time with a (very novice) painting of a cricket, alligator, and a forest along the banks of a river, all before white lilies of the valley. The members of the house gave their thanks and told me i could stay longer with them, but I missed my bed. One thing I remember is using the restroom before I left, and feeling as if I had left something on the floor. Nothing was there, and while I might have prayed short prayers throughout the day as I got ready for the day, I didn’t meditate in there. I thought nothing of it.

Before I left, the house owners gave me money for gas as well as a gift from their travels as a thank-you. I took it, thanked them, and went home. 

Now I’ll remind you, that while all these things were happening to me, I had not changed. What I mean by that is that while I began to be cleaner, wake earlier to offer libations, and even started praying more, I had not changed in my core. I was still the anxious, bordering depression person with no boundaries or willpower to change. I say this not to excuse myself, but to explain my next move.

I took the money, and instead of putting it in my gas tank, I went and bought weed. Pretty ashamed honestly. Went a whole week without it, but I couldn’t go another day after. I went and got some and when I got home, I placed the change left over on my altar. I took some before bed and thought there would be no consequences.

Next thing I knew I was jerked awake. It felt like I was being hit along my back, my neck, and my head. My guardians were angry, VERY angry. They were angry that I hadn’t placed the money in my gas tank, then had the audacity to leave the change as an offering. My face was practically pushed to the glass of my window so I’d stare at my car as they berated me. I was told that I had to return the next day to the apartment and ask for forgiveness, then place the change I left on the altar in my gas tank. I agreed and apologized, thinking that would be the end of it. Turns out it wasn’t.

They were also upset at my weed use. I was told to give it up, cold turkey. I admit I put up a fight. I wondered why one time after a whole week of focusing on learning, why couldn’t I relax?

That’s when things got really weird. If you’ve gotten to this point of my posts, you’re probably thinking it can’t get much crazier. It does, it really really does. 

This is when my guardians tell me a baby’s coming, and that I have to prepare. Probably a good time to tell you I’m female (if you haven’t guessed). Immediately, I’m doubtful, as it’s an impossibility at this time. Still, there I am, rubbing my stomach, with voice repeating there was a son coming. 

I ask for clarification, but they can’t really seem to hear me. Suddenly, my nana and aunts don’t sound like their talking-their singing. And the singing hits higher and higher bars until what they’re saying isn’t making sense. I have the thought that my ancestors were shedding, shedding their skins, showing a true nature of themselves. And then a vision takes over. A whole host of angels, winged beings with a million eyes are swarming around me up to heaven, crying “holy, holy, holy.” They’re all singing but no song I’ve ever heard, and no notes I’m familiar with. I feel one come closer and rest on me, and all at once the vision collapse and I’m back in my bed. 

I was probably like you are at this moment: incredulous and disbelieving. The problem was that the angel that rested on me hadn’t left, and I realized he was familiar. He was Gabriel, the same one that had “visited” months prior and written the letter. He told me the coming of a son was true, that this son would bring about the end of days, and he was here to ensure I kept myself clean for the arrival. 

This wasn’t a doomsday preppers type of end, either. It was more the biblical type. The inescapable type. A new heaven and earth would be formed type of ending. 

I doubted that night, my faith no where near the point to take such a vision to heart. I felt like I spent all night wrestling with the angel as he tried to pull my doubt out of me. 

By early morning, I was awake and tired, not sure what to do. I had been hoping that as the drug wore off, I’d be left alone, but I was wrong. He was still with me. 

I knew I had to apologize for the money, so I made preparations for that. Throughout the day, I wanted to freak out and panic, but I felt calm through it all. I don’t know if it was my visitoror residual effects of the weed. All I know was that he was telling me to stay calm and go back to the house.

I told my sibling some of what happened, and they asked if perhaps I was schizophrenic. It wasn’t the first time I had thought about the question, nor was it the first time I had that fear. At the time, I had told her that either way, I had to go back, either to tell the news told to me or to be driven to a doctor. The path was clear.

On the way there, I spoke to the angel. I asked if he was the same from before and he confirmed. I told him his name was suspicious, that an angel with a famous name would come to me. He told me he was a messenger, that he only went where he was sent. We also talked about faith then. He told me that faith was believing without seeing, with no fancy gimmick to capture the heart. I told him it sounded like lunacy, to believe something even if there is no evidence. I then told him that if he were real, that he make every stop light on my way turn green. He would do it for two and force me to stop on the third, asking if I still believed. It was a rough ride.

I finally made it back to the apartment, and it felt like whatever was keeping me calm evaporated. I started panicking, hyperventilating on the owners’ doorstep. Luckily, they’re family. They ushered me in, made me some tea and a glass of water and had me sit. I remember being too hot for tea and drinking the water. I remember crying, feeling my experience want to overflow out of me but fighting it. 

And then everything stopped. I felt…taken over? Not the best phrase for it, but I wasn’t in charge of myself right then. I stopped crying instantly, wiping the tears from eyes as if they were a nuisance. I could hear, see, and feel, but my hands and mouth moved without me. My mouth opened and Gabriel introduced himself.

I don’t remember too much of what he said, just the gist. He told them what he had told me, and answered questions from them, like where I was and why he was choosing me. He said I was here, in my body, but I was in the back, I think. He said I was chosen because, well, why not? He brought up the doomsday thing again. I remembered him drinking the tea, saying he hadn’t had it in forever. I remember sometimes surfacing, crying again before I went back under. 

And then he was gone, just like that, and I was in control. I probably freaked everyone out, but they were super kind to me. They bundled me up, set me up on the couch, and told me to stay for a few days. I agreed, not knowing what else to do.

After all that, I entered my house. I asked my guardians if they knew what was happening, if maybe this was all a really bad trip and I shouldn’t take anything to heart. I remember my nana just quiet, shaking her head. She didn’t know what to tell me. I asked my aunts, one holding onto the other. I asked them if they knew anything. I asked if this was a joke. Suddenly one morphed into some dark, black thing, scaring me even further. It almost looked like she was on the fritz or something. My second aunt scolded her, told me they had little idea of came next.

Later on, I understood what had happened, that my aunt in her worry and anger had kind of spazzed out a bit. Unfortunately, this would be the last time I got to speak with any of them directly, so I never got to discuss it. 

I slept fitfully, dog tired but unable to stop turning. I remember a point where I was on the verge of sleep when I was woken up. It was Gabriel, telling me a new would take his place. Pretty confused, as I didn’t know I was being guarded at all. Another being took his place, one I think of as an angel. It was closer to a she then Gabriel, though was still firmly in the middle gender-wise. Her name was something with an IS. Istis? Imis? I don’t know anymore. She was rude by our standards and haughty in a way that Gabriel wasn’t. It was weird to find that angels had personalities. 

The next morning, Gabriel was back with news. My house and my guardians in it would be closed to me-I would not enter my own house, nor would I speak to my nana and aunts directly. It was a crushing blow. I didn’t realize how much I had gotten used to speaking to them, meeting with them for whatever was going on. I still miss them.

This ban is to stay for five years, after which the gate will be opened to me again. The closes I get to now is standing outside my gate, like I would anyone else’s.

I was pretty week the day after, my forehead and chest aching. It felt like my third eye and heart base had been scorched somehow, the burns needing time to heal. 

The apartment owners made me soup, tried to keep me busy, gave me space. I really appreciated it. It didn’t change what I felt though, and I felt was loss. I thought whatever power I had was gone, shut up away from me for my poor actions. The last spirit I saw was Mr. Solomon, the dapper fellow who made his way over to say goodbye. I cried heavy tears after he left. 

After a few days, I made my way back home, alone and bereft. I tore down my altar and stuffed all of it in a bag I still don’t touch. I forbade myself from drugs and alcohol. I thought all of it was all over, that I would somehow have to wait half a decade before I wasn’t alone again. I still prayed, though now I prayed that my ancestors were well and knew I thought of them. I think when you’re suddenly given something useful, you depend on it like a crutch. It took me a while to remember how to walk without my crutch.

But then I heard a voice. This voice, unlike the others I heard, began the second half of my quest that I continue today.

[bigdadskypilot]

Humans are a happy little accident

But ultimately we are doomed to go the way of the dinosaurs...and much faster. How do I know this? Because I have a cold. Let me explain:

My ten year-old son is finishing fourth grade. He has a bad cold. With the quarantine imposed by the global coronavirus pandemic, none of us has been sick for over 15 months. This is both good and bad. Good because no one likes a cold. Bad because a necessary component of immunity is exposure. This is where the covid-19 response comes in.

In March 2020, my son’s school closed and all classes went online. This sucked and education took a big hit. In September 2020, we started back up with a hybrid model with two days in school and three days out. Strict social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, the works. Coronavirus cases shut the school down occasionally and contact tracing was part of our lives.

In April 2021, our district - like so many others - rushed forward with elimination of the hybrid model and full-time in-school education. Yay, except it was rushed. We all want to get back to normal, but corona isn’t going away that easily. Many of us pointed this out to the district administration, only to get shouted down by parents and administrators alike for being alarmist. “We will wear masks still,” they said. “We will wash hands,” they said. “We will have lots of classes outside,” they said.

“How will you social distance,” we asked. “Oh, kids don’t really get corona...that bad,” they responded. “Besides, the CDC says its ok. Stop being party poopers. Hey everyone, look at the party poopers who don’t want their kids to go back to school and be normal.”

It’s not just my kid who had a cold. Five kids in his class are absent at the same time with very bad colds. That’s 20% of his class. That means someone passed it around school. “Well, thank goodness it’s not Covid,” the school said.

They are out of their fucking minds. Covid and common colds are spread in nearly identical fashion. The reason no one has had a cold in 15 months is because we have all been quarantined. Yes, I am not stupid. I know that colds will proliferate when we start opening society back up. But that means that Covid will proliferate, too...before everyone is vaccinated and before herd immunity is achieved. If kids are getting bad colds in school, then the Covid protocols are either not working or not being followed, or both. If they were working, then there would be far fewer colds. Parents are sending kids to school sick, too, because they are fatigued from a year of trying to work from home and take care of their kids full time. I get it. It sucks. But this is why we are doomed.

You see, humans throughout history have seen slow population growth because we are social animals who spread disease easily. It is only since the industrial revolution that we have been able to curb many diseases that had the effect of culling population numbers. Viruses and bacterial killed many, but now there are over 7 billion of us. We have grown too plentiful and something is going to cause the human population to seriously decline. War? Maybe. We thought that in the 70s and 80s. Climate change? Maybe, but while a warming planet is a certainty, we are unsure of the population impacts. Novel diseases? Now there is a possibility.

We are plagued by short attention spans and easily led by propaganda and bullshit. Covid was and is a real threat, but too many people couldn’t handle a year away from the tavern and a movie. Get my kids out of my hair and back into school where I don’t have to be with them all day. I hate to sound like a nihilist, but it seems fairly obvious and reasonable to me to expect that human population numbers will inevitably decline simply because we cannot go for more than a few months without creatures comforts that are less than 100 years old.

Humans got to the top of the food chain by an evolutionary accident. Whether we will be the cause of our own demise is not entirely clear, but what is clear is that we have become too big, too populated, and too short sighted to make group decisions that protect the health and welfare of the entire group.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad. I’m not disappointed. And I’m not a doomsday prepper. I just see that humans on their current evolutionary trajectory will probably cease to exist in such large numbers in the not-too-distant future if we can’t keep our kids out of school for a few more months until they are vaccinated against a disease that is a deadly as it is virulent. When Stephen King wrote The Stand, did anyone think that he simply made all that shit up?

[robert-c]

Doomsday Prep

There are many possible “doomsday” scenarios, some more likely than others, but one thing seems certain – our “just in time”, highly efficient (i.e. profitable) method of limited redundancies and backups to physical systems (like warehousing and delivery) practically ensure that any significant disruption will trigger a catastrophic cascade effect. Virtually all major cities have at most three days’ worth of food available in stores and distribution centers, i.e. temporary warehouses. A major solar flare would knock out virtually all satellites, and significantly damage all computer chip devices. We already know that these events are fairly regular with our sun, we’ve just been lucky enough not to be in the wrong place when one crossed Earth’s orbit. We don’t have to wait for an asteroid to hit (also inevitable), or a new pandemic to emerge (also something that seems to happen fairly regularly over the course of human history) for something disrupt this house of cards we have constructed. And we have yet to mention the violent political sects that would be more than happy to exploit any disaster to their own advantage.

From once being an “out there” fringe interest, it now seems that the tables are turning. Anyone who thinks that things can continue “just as they are” indefinitely without any major failure might now reasonably be called the “fringe believers”. Of course, even if you understand that a disaster is probable doesn’t make you able to prepare for it. Age, health and income can have a lot to do with just how much preparation (and actual survival) you can handle.

The fact is that most “preppers” have been conservative (to state it mildly). My take on that had always been because they intended to either disrupt the society themselves or capitalize on a convenient disaster. Liberalism, more or less by definition, is optimistic, as it believes changes will make things better than the way they are now; while conservatives are more concerned with keeping things the way they are. However, now that it is clear that there are a lot of people on the right wing who would be more than happy to usher in a fascist regime by force; more progressives and liberals are thinking about the need to survive what will certainly be a catastrophic time of violence.

I am too old to count on my survival in any world like that, but I am hoping that all like-minded people will start doing what they can to ensure a safe place for themselves. Let’s call it my way of hoping that the idea of a society of inclusion and equality won’t perish at the hands of those who have a rather limited idea of what the future could or should hold.

Liberals have two disadvantages going into this which I hope they will address successfully. The first is that most do not make the pursuit of wealth a priority, and as admirable as that is, establishing a safe haven is an expensive proposition. The most economic projections I have made suggest $500,000 as a sort of minimum figure for land and accommodations for up to half a dozen, and closer to a $1,000,000 for a better defended site. The second disadvantage is the need for community. The lack of unity of among many on the left makes that a little problematic. A community is needed because defense against outside threats, whether right wing militias or just desperate refugees who will only take what you have, requires people to watch and defend perimeters, and/or scout approaches to your safe haven.

I’m making this pitch because today’s fascists, like those in the past, use the fear of violence from the left to cover the violence they intend to bring in order to take power. In the longest term I believe that inclusion and diversity either win the day or the human race disappears – and I don’t want our disappearance to be associated with the most regressive, backward looking aspects of who we were.

I’ve written some thoughts for my children and grandchildren that will hopefully help them in the event of these worst case scenarios. One of them already has a  concealed carry permit so I think she’s going to be ready.

[chobit92]

Home: Jacob Seed/OC Chapter 26

Warnings: Mature Themes. 

 (2 days Later: John is in his sports car on his way back from another of Joseph’s sermons. Church on a Tuesday. It only used to be Sundays. He turns onto the winding dirt road that leads to his ranch. He pulls in and parks his car. The guards he has posted outside look up. Akers gives him a wave then points to the large chalet. John frowns and turns his head to see Mara sitting on the steps. He smiles, immediately cheered up at the sight of her. She just can’t seem to keep away. He switches off the engine and gets out of the car walking over to the steps. Mara looks up at him wearily. She looks tired. She also has a split lip and a black eye. He frowns.).

John: What happened? Are you alright? Mara: Yeah. Great. Where’ve you been? Hot date? (He blinks several times then chuckles.). John: No. Joseph held a sermon. We missed you there. Mara: How am I meant to know when he’s holding a damn sermon? All that God stuff is a load of crap anyway. People only follow all that to make themselves feel better. John: There’s no making a believer out of you is there? Mara: For those who believe no proof is necessary. For those who do not believe, no proof is possible. (He tilts his head raising his eyebrows.). John: Hm. Where did you hear that? Mara: It’s a quote by Stuart Chase. John: Hm. So what brings you here? Mara: I dunno. What brings you here? John: I live here. (She laughs then stands up.). Mara: You want me to piss off? John: No. Come in. (She follows him inside and to the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and rubs his eyes before yawning.). Mara: Tired? John: Yes. Mara: Hm. Should’ve gone to bed earlier. (He chuckles.). John: I could say the same to you. Mara: What? John: You look exhausted. Mara: Jeez. You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself. (She laughs. He smiles.). Mara: I know I look like shit. I don’t need people telling me. John: I wouldn’t have gone that far. You just look tired is all. Mara: So I don’t look like shit then? John: No. I have already told you haven’t I? You are a beautiful young woman. (She looks sad for a moment. John frowns.). Mara: Thanks. John: What happened to your face? (She sits down at the table.). Mara: You should see the other guy right? John: Hm. (She sighs.). Mara: Got into a fight. John: With who? Mara: Guy called Wheaty. He’s a few years younger than me. We used to hang out in the woods when we were kids. His parents were dickheads too. John: Hm. So why did you fight with him? (Mara sighs.). Mara: He’s with the Whitetail Militia. John: Ah. I see. Mara: I’d gone for a walk and I saw him hanging out with some other guys with a tent in the woods. At first I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t seen him for years. Didn’t know he still lived around here. But then he started talking about Rachel. About how Joseph had brainwashed her and that we couldn’t help her. So I told him to fuck off. Then I told him that me and my sister were just fine. So yeah...We then ended up having a massive argument. Won’t be long before Eli hears that I’m back in town. Hope he shits himself. (John frowns.). John: You know Eli? Mara: Yeah. Crazy doomsday prepper. It’s kinda funny though isn’t it? That he doesn’t believe in Edens Gate or the Collapse but yet he has a doomsday bunker. (John smiles.). John: Indeed. Mara: So he calls Joseph crazy for thinking the worlds gonna end but he has a bunker you know just in case. Hm. Make what you want of that. (She smiles and gets up. John smiles.). Mara: Are you having tea or coffee? John: It’s alright I can make it. (He gets up. She takes his plane mug out of the cupboard and puts it on the side. He goes over and reaches for the sugar at the same time she does. His hand ends up on top of hers. She pulls her hand away.). John: I said I can make it. (She moves away from the side and leans against it. John makes two cups of coffee then turns to her. He frowns at her. She is leaning against the side with her eyes half closed. Then she slides to the floor.). John: Are you alright? Mara: What? Yeah. (She struggles to get back on her feet so he steps forward and lifts her up. She falls again as her knees buckle and she ends up pressed against his chest. He wraps his arms around her.). John: Whoa. Are you drunk? Mara: Um. I wish. (She sighs.). Mara: I just...Need to lie down. John: What’s wrong with you? Mara: Dehydration, malnutrition, heartbreak. Dealers choice. John: Heartbreak? (He raises an eyebrow looking intrigued.). Mara: Yep. Nothing unusual. (Then she collapses. He stops her from falling.). John: Mara? Mara? (She appears to have passed out. He lifts her up and carries her upstairs. She smells of lavender. So sweet, so enticing. He carries her to his bedroom and lies her on his bed. He brushes her hair out of her face gazing down at her. So beautiful. He finds himself looking forward to smelling her on his sheets later. He stands there for a moment thinking then he removes his shoes and lies down next to her. He reaches out and brushes his fingers over her cheek then down her arm. A few minutes later she stirs and opens her eyes. She turns and blinks at him.). Mara: What happened? John: You passed out my dear. Mara: Why am I in your bed? John: I carried you here. Mara: And got into bed with me? You fancy me or something? John: What would give you that idea? Mara: You called me beautiful, you asked me to shower with you, you asked me to go to bed with you and now you have gotten into bed with me. What else am I meant to think? John: Hm. (She sighs. He frowns as he notices tears in her eyes.). John: What’s wrong? Mara: Nothing. (She finds herself thinking about Jacob again. How he used her and how she was stupid enough to let him.). John: Why are you upset? Mara: I’m just tired, thirsty and I need to eat before I pass out again. Ain’t easy being alone and having nothing you know? John: Then I will cook you something. Mara: You’re gonna cook? John: Yes. I can cook you know? Mara: Oh really? John: Yes. Cheeky. (She giggles. He stares at her. Damn she is pretty.). Mara: You don’t have to do this you know? John: I want to. Mara: Thank you. John: I am only doing this to make you say yes of course. (She laughs.). Mara: Oh of course. John: Your sister wants you to join us. She is worried she is going to lose you. Mara: She might yet. At this rate I’ll starve to death. John: Nonsense. Join us and you will be well looked after. Mara: Where would I live? John: Depends. Your sister probably wants you to stay with her. But there is also Joseph’s compound. That’s where most of Edens Gate stay. Or you could stay at my bunker with my people. Mara: A bunker. I think not. I don’t really do underground. John: Well once the collapse comes you will have no choice if you want to survive it. Mara: What would I do? Just sit around waiting for the world to end? John: No. There are things that need to be done. A lot of work that needs doing. There’s a job for everyone. Mara: But what would be mine? Cooking? Cleaning? Knitting? Typical women’s shit. John: What is it you would want to do? (She is silent for several minutes. She has no idea what she wants to do.). Mara: I just want to be me. I know I ain’t much but...That’s all I am. All I got. (There is silence for several minutes.). Mara: What are you gonna do for dinner? (He doesn’t answer. She turns to face him and sighs when she sees he has fallen asleep. She nudges him.). Mara: Oi. John. (He makes a cute little noise before rolling onto his back. She laughs and shakes her head. This guy is terrible. She thinks about all she has heard about this family. Yet so far she hasn’t seen anything heinous at all. Except for the cages outside the hotel where Jacob’s men hang out. She isn’t stupid. She knows this family is far from normal. But maybe they are just like herself. Sad, broken, angry and lost. She slowly reaches out and takes his hand in hers. His hand is so unlike Jacob's. His hand is warm and soft. She doesn’t know why she is holding his hand or why she is still lying here with him. All she has heard about him from Mary May Fairgrave. How he likes hurting people. Torturing them. What he sees as atonement. Why does her sister have to be with these people? Then she laughs at herself. She’s the one that dropped her knickers to the sickest one of all of them. She’s seen all the mutilated bodies strung up around the mountains. She knows it was Jacob and his men. Jacob really doesn’t seem to like people. But then she doesn’t like people much either. She can’t help but feel that there is something more to him than just a psycho killer. There has to be a reason why he does what he does. Just like there was a reason that she did what she did. She realises again that she can’t think of these people as psychos not after what she has done. She wonders why Jacob slept with her. Does he just randomly fuck any woman when he feels like it? The thought of him being with another woman makes her chest feel tight. But why? She doesn’t even know him. It was a stupid drunk mistake. That’s all it was. She doesn’t even know if it’s possible to fall for someone on sight. I mean people say it was love at first sight but was it really? How can it be? Why she even finds him attractive is a mystery to her. He likes killing people. How on earth can anyone be attracted to that? But that night...Damn she liked it. The feel of him against her, warm and...Hard. The smell of him and his lips...Oh his lips...The way he took her from behind like an animal...The groans that came from him. She liked it...She did. She sighs as tears sting her eyes. The hell is wrong with her? She has never felt like this in all her life. Never. She told him to piss off...But if he had come on to her again she wouldn’t have pushed him off. She would end up sleeping with him again. The flutter in her abdomen and between her legs at the thought of him tells her as much. Damn him! Damn him! John fidgets slightly and mumbles incoherently. She had almost forgotten he was there. Tears sting her eyes as she realises what an absolute mess her life is. It always has been but she had hoped that by now she would at least have a home and someone that cared about her. But she isn’t going to have that. Ever. Now with this cult and her sister. Eli Palmer and...Jacob. Her life is only going to be even more of a mess. Tears roll onto the pillow and she closes her eyes.

---John wakes up. He blinks several times. It’s dark out now. Damn. Trust him to fall asleep. He frowns and looks down. His mouth opens slightly as he sees Mara curled up against him with her head on his chest. Her hand is wrapped around his bunker key. He swallows hard. He lies there for a moment just listening to her breathing. He can see right down her top. He stares at her large round breasts squashed into a bra that looks too small. He sighs. He needs to stop this. He can’t. He won’t. But God does he want to. Does he want her. His jeans suddenly feel way too tight. Damn her. Damn her! Mara fidgets and he feels her breasts pressing against him. A small noise escapes his throat. He then pushes her off of him and shakes her. She stirs and blinks up at him frowning.). Mara: Where am I? (She sits up and looks around.). Mara: Damn. I fell asleep. John: You and me both. Though I’m not complaining. Mara: Told you that you should have gone to bed earlier. John: Hm. Mara: Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. John: I don’t mind. I quite enjoyed waking up to you lying on me. Mara: I...What? John: Don’t play dumb with me. Mara: I’m not. I fell asleep. If you touched me I swear- John: Excuse me. You were the one that was all curled up against me. Mara: I was? John: Yes. Mara: Sorry. John: I don’t mind. Mara: Is the offer for dinner still available? John: Of course. Mara: Thanks. (She smiles at him. He suddenly decides that he doesn’t care if it is a sin. He wants this woman. He leans over to kiss her but she chooses that exact moment to get up. She turns and looks at him. She frowns as she sees him leaning across the bed.). Mara: What are you doing? Don’t tell me your still tired. Come on we need to get dinner before I pass out again. I’ll help you if you like. Not that I’ll be much good. Don’t really cook much. John: I can teach you then. Mara: Okay. Good. (She goes into the bathroom. He sits there waiting. He swallows hard. His jeans are still feeling way too tight. He presses his hand down hard on his crotch.). John: Stop. Stop it. (He presses down harder and a small squeak leaves his lips.). John: Go down. Go down. (He hears the toilet flush then running water. The door then opens and he looks up at her. She smiles at him.). Mara: You okay? John: Yes. Why don’t you go and choose something to eat. I’ll be down in a moment. Mara: Okay. (She goes downstairs. She looks around the kitchen then starts opening cupboards. She finds some spaghetti and supposes that will do. Just then she hears the radio from her handbag crackle to life. Her sisters voice materialises. She opens her bag and takes out the radio.

---Faith Seed is sitting in the front pew of Joseph’s church. She has been trying to reach her sister for hours. She went to Mara’s trailer but she wasn’t there. Joseph is sat on a chair at the front of the church watching her. Jacob is busy repairing one of the TVs. Terry is helping him. Suddenly the radio in Faith’s hand crackles and Mara’s voice can be heard.). Mara: Hey sis. How are you? Faith: I’m good. How are you? Mara: Still alive. Faith: Don’t talk like that. Why wouldn’t you still be alive? Mara: I don’t know. Between the starvation, dehydration and Eli Palmer and his band of merry men I’ve got a challenge on my hands eh? Faith: But Eli doesn’t know your back yet does he? Mara: Oh he will do now. I ran into Wheaty do you remember him? Faith: Yes. What happened? Mara: Well he told me that Joseph had brainwashed you and that we couldn’t help you. I kinda told him that I’d already met up with you and that we were doing just fine. Well he didn’t like that. Then he told me I should get out of the mountains coz you know Jacob Seed is a real bad scary guy. (Terry looks up chuckling. Jacob turns his head and looks at the radio. Faith giggles.). Faith: What did you say? Mara: Well me being me I told him not to worry coz me and Jacob had already met and were becoming fast friends. Best friends actually. I also told him that I’d hung out with Jacob’s guys at the hotel too. How we had a right laugh. (Terry laughs.). Terry: Yeah we did. Faith: Sis. Mara: I know. Well he liked that even less. Got into a bit of a fight but...Hey. So anyway probably won’t be long before Eli hears that I’m back. Hope he shits himself. (Faith giggles again.). Faith: I don’t know about that sis. He might. Did you say anything about Joseph? Mara: No. Should I have done? Yeah actually I could have thrown in for good measure how I love Joseph’s hair eh? Would have really ticked ‘em off. (Faith laughs again.). Faith: You are ridiculous sister! (They can hear Mara laughing.). Faith: Joseph heard you. He’s smiling. Mara: Oh really? Hey Joe! Oh yeah that reminds me. Saw John earlier, he told me you were having a sermon. He then had a pop at me for not bloody being there. How was I meant to know there was one on? Faith: I have been trying to contact you all day. Mara: You have? Sorry. Faith: Would you have come if I’d invited you? Mara: Ain’t got nothing else to do have I? Except sit here and wait to see what kills me first. Eli fucking Palmer, starvation or those poxy wolves that keep bounding about out here. (Terry laughs again.). Terry: Oh she’s great. Faith: Why are you starving? Mara: Ain’t got much choice have I? I haven’t found anything yet. I will though. I will. Faith: I could bring you something. Mara: No. No. I’ll work it out. Don’t worry. Faith: But if you’re hungry I have food sis. Mara: No. No. They managed it in 10,000 BC or whatever I’m sure I can manage now what with gas ovens and microwaves and shops and the like. (Terry laughs.). Faith: You are so stubborn. You just won’t accept help will you? Mara: I would if I really needed it. But I don’t right now. I’m at a friend’s place and he’s cooking me dinner. (Faith raises her eyebrows.). Faith: Oh he is, is he? Who is this friend? Mara: Oh you know him really well. Faith: I do? Mara: Yeah. He’s got his own song, his own region, his own great big sign. Likes the word Yes. Remember him now? (Terry laughs and shakes his head.). Terry: She’s so funny. (Faith sighs and shakes her head.). Faith: John? You are at John’s place? Mara: Yep. He’s cooking me dinner. I asked him why he was being so nice to me and he told me he’s only doing it so that I say yes to him. Bless his little heart. (Terry laughs again.). Faith: Well isn’t that like...Blackmail? Mara: Pretty much. I don’t give a shit. He’s cooking me dinner. Terry: She must really be hungry then. Mara: Anyway I’m gonna go now and I’ll catch you later. Gotta help with the dinner eh? Faith: Okay sis. I just wondered how you were doing. Mara: I’m fine. I’ll see you soon okay? Faith: Okay. Mara: Love you lots with jelly tots! (Faith giggles.). Faith: Love you too.

(---Mara shoves the radio back in her bag. John comes down the stairs and enters the kitchen grinning.). Mara: You look happy. John: I am happy. Mara: Are you? John: Yes. Mara: Hm. John: Have you chosen something for dinner? Mara: Spaghetti. John: Spaghetti? Mara: Yeah. You don’t want that? John: I don’t mind. Mara: Where are your saucepans? John: What are we having with it? Mara: I have no idea. Like I told you I don’t really cook. John: You mean you can’t cook? Mara: I don’t know. Probably not. I’m useless at everything else why not cooking too? John: What do you usually do for food? Mara: Well...Usually I look through bins, you’d be amazed what some people throw out. Especially restaurants. They waste food like nobody’s business. I found a half eaten portion of chips once with ketchup and everything. I sometimes...Steal from the shop. Just things like sandwiches and crisps. John: You shouldn’t steal. Mara: What else am I meant to do? I don’t have any money. I have nothing. I don’t even have a proper home. I never have. John: But you could have one. With us. In Eden. Mara: It must be so nice to be so sure of everything. John: But I am sure. (She finds a saucepan and fills it with water. She then puts it on the stove and puts the spaghetti in it. She then switches on the hob and opens several drawers until she finds a spoon to stir it with.). Mara: What do you want with it? John: Why don’t we have spaghetti Bolognese? I think I’ve got some mince meat. Mara: I haven’t had spaghetti Bolognese in ages. (He takes some mince meat out of the fridge and opens the packet. He smiles at her.). John: Then that’s what we will have. (John busies himself with the meat and rummages in cupboards. Once they have cooked the dinner John takes out plates and dishes it up. They then sit down at the small table in the kitchen. It doesn’t take long for Mara to finish the meal. She feels a little better after finally eating something proper.). John: You must have been so hungry. Mara: Always am. Should be used to it by now. John: If you say yes- Mara: What? My life will suddenly be better? Everything will be magically fixed? John: Yes. You will be cleansed and- Mara: And what? I’ll suddenly be wanted? I’ll suddenly have a proper home with people that give a damn about me? My sister will be fine and not the mess that I know she still is? John: Your sister isn’t a mess. She is doing much better now. You would have a home. Mara: Yeah...Some dank dark bunker with a load of people I don’t even know. You know you make it all sound so perfect John but you must be able to see that nothing ever is. I say yes and am cleansed or whatever then I join you. You know what happens next? John: You will be saved from the coming collapse. You will have a family. Mara: No. I’ll get rejected again. Coz that’s all that happens to me. My father never wanted me. Called me the abortion my mother should have had. My mother...Called me useless, a waste of space. She thought I was the devil. Even carved it into my damn back! So that everyone would know what I was. I was six years old. Then Franky...I thought I had a mate in Franky. I really liked her and thought I could trust her. But no...She left one day and never came back. Bonnie and Alex...I thought finally I have a family. I have a proper mom that actually loves me. She died. Cancer. Alex...I thought he liked me...Turned out he was only having a laugh. Taking the piss. Then he died. So you see... (She sniffs and gets up.). Mara: You got any whiskey? John: No. Mara: I bet you have. John: Bet I haven’t. You shouldn’t want one either. Is that what you do when things get tough? You drink? Mara: You gonna sit there judging me now huh? John: Not at all. I myself have struggled with vices such as alcohol. Drugs too. (She stares at him.). Mara: I ain’t some alcoholic. John: You may think you’re not. I didn’t think I was. Oh no I didn’t think I had any problems. I was a lawyer, had my own law firm in Atlanta. I was addicted to cocaine, alcohol, women. Anything to ease the pain. Mara: Pain of what? John: Everything. I thought I was on top of the world. Had it all. Cars, a high paid job, tons of money, women. I didn’t realise how close to hitting rock bottom I was until Joseph found me. I atoned for my sins and I try not to let sin overcome me again. I am not saying anyone is perfect. Nobody is without sin. Sin sometimes overtakes me. But then I atone. You...You won’t even try. Mara: Tch. You want a confession? Huh? I’ve killed nineteen people. Nineteen. Still think I’m worth saving? Still want me in your house? Coz nobody wants me they never have. So why the hell would you?! (She storms up the stairs. He stands there for a moment then follows her. He looks in the bathroom but it’s empty. He then goes to his bedroom. His bathroom door is shut. He tries to open it but it’s locked. He knocks on it.). John: Mara? Please open the door. Mara: What for? So you can kick me out now? John: No. I told you that were welcome to stay the night and you still are. Please come out. (The door opens and she stands there staring at him.). Mara: Can I have a bath? John: Of course. Mara: Thanks. John: I would like to hear more of your confession though. (She sighs. She moves and sits down on the bed. She stares at the floor. This guy really isn’t giving up. Mary told her what John does to the sinners. She can only imagine what he’s going to do to her once he hears the full story. But she can’t help but feel that she has no choice but to join these people. Her sister is a part of their family. They aren’t just going to let her go and she gets the feeling that her sister wouldn’t want to leave anyway. She sighs again.). Mara: Alright. (John’s eyes seem to light up. He smiles.). Mara: On one condition. John: Oh? Mara: We wait until tomorrow. John: Tomorrow? Why? Mara: Because I want a bath and I need to sleep. Looking at you I would say you need sleep too. And...I want us to...Be friends for a while longer. Coz it’s the last time I’m gonna have a friend. John: You consider me a friend? (John looks pleased.). Mara: Yeah I guess so. Least I thought so. John: Hm. We are friends. We still will be. Mara: No we won’t. I told you...I don’t get the happy ending. I don’t get a family or friends. John: You do. I give you my word that you will be welcomed into our family with open arms once you have been cleansed of your sins. If you give me your word that you will confess and atone tomorrow like you say. Mara: I give you my word. (He smiles at her then kneels down and cups her face with his hands. He smiles again.). John: You won’t regret it. I promise. (She smiles back.). Mara: Okay. If you say so. John: I do say so. (She smiles again. This is the first time Mara has seen John look genuinely happy. He stares at her for a moment and she frowns. He looks like he’s trying to decide on something. He swallows hard then moves so that his lips are inches away from hers. She freezes.). Mara: What are you doing you silly sod? (He lets out a shaky laugh.). John: I really want to kiss you. Mara: John...No. I already told you I’m not that kind of girl. (He looks down then suddenly stands up.). John: I shouldn’t have... (He seems to struggle with himself for a moment, his hands clenching into fists, then he turns to leave. She gets up and grabs his wrist.). Mara: John...Look...It’s not...I’m sure you’re a nice guy, really. It’s just...I’m the kind of girl that wants a man who is going to love her and take care of her. I’m not the kind of girl that just...You know. (He stares at her.). John: I’ll leave you to have your bath. (He leaves the room. He goes downstairs and leans against the dining table. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He wanted to kiss her so badly. He sighs again then smiles as he remembers that she is going to confess tomorrow. He finally got her to say yes. He goes to the kitchen and puts the plates in the sink then makes himself a hot chocolate in his plane mug. He wonders who she has killed. She said she has killed nineteen people. He knows she was arrested. But she was in a psychiatric unit instead of prison. He drinks his hot chocolate then looks at the clock. 1.34am. He makes sure the doors are closed and switches off the lights going upstairs. He goes to his bedroom and stops dead in the doorway. Mara is curled up in his bed asleep. He swallows hard then closes the bedroom door. He goes into the bathroom and brushes his teeth then uses the loo. He then switches off the light and removes his shoes and socks. He then removes his clothes leaving him in just his boxers. He stands there for a moment staring at Mara in the light coming from the small lamp. He climbs into bed next to her sliding under the covers with her. He lies there for a few minutes.). Mara: You gonna turn the lamp off? (He reaches over and turns off the lamp. The only light now comes from the balcony doors.). John: Why are you in my bed? Mara: Coz we’re friends and... (She feels so stupid. She isn’t interested in John, at all. Not like that. All she can think about is Jacob and how he used her.). John: And... Mara: I just wondered what it would be like to share a bed with someone. To be held...Just once. (He can tell that she is crying.). Mara: You think that’s stupid don’t you? Pathetic. (He swallows hard.). John: No. (He moves closer to her and wraps his arms around her pulling her against him. She closes her eyes and remembers Jacob holding her like this. Tears roll onto the pillow.). John: Why are you crying? Mara: Coz I’m an idiot. John: No you’re not. (He kisses the back of her neck.). Mara: Hey no funny business. John: Hm. You’ll be the death of me. Mara: Nah you’ll live. John: You make me want to sin so badly. Mara: What? John: I want you. Mara: Why? John: Because...You are so beautiful. Mara: I don’t know about that. I do know that we should be sleeping. So sleep. John: Yes boss. (She giggles.). Mara: Goodnight John. Thanks for letting me stay. John: You’re welcome. Mara: Now sleep. If I am going through this atonement tomorrow then I need to sleep. John: Hm. (She can’t actually believe what she is doing. That she has actually agreed to let John carve her sin into her skin. She must be mad. But suddenly she decides that she doesn’t care if she survives it or not.).

[twen-nee6]

How Trump Changed My Dad

tw: racism & all the prejudices

Last weekend, I saw my father, and, for the first time in my life, I heard him say racist things about Chinese people. In fact, this was the first time I heard him say anything this openly racist at all, except against “reptilians who call themselves Jewish.”

This isn’t some story about us uniting after a long period of time and him being a racist. My dad has always been in my life, and I love him very much. This is a story about how he has changed since Trump became president.

This is pretty long, so get the rest under the cut!

TL;DR: My dad has had his worldview skewed so radically due to conspiracy theories that he thinks that everything Trump says is true, and that has become a seed for racist remarks and ideas that are in direct opposition to viewpoints he had even last year.

It is interesting, and tragic, to reflect upon what Trump’s presidency has done to my family-- or, well, I suppose, my father. Before I really begin to get into this story, I am in no way condoning is point of view in any sort of way or trying to make excuses for him, because he is a grown adult who can make his own decisions. That said, he is also incredibly gullible under the correct circumstances. Unfortunately, Trump has kind of become those “correct circumstances.”

Before I get completely into this, I’d like to give some backstory on who my father is, because I think that’s important to realizing how absolutely floored my sister and I were to hear him say racist shit about Chinese people.

My dad grew up in a Jehovah's Witness family. If you’re unfamiliar with that sect of Christianity, they are a cult. My grandfather was excommunicated from the church when my father was young, and my dad (and all his siblings and my grandmother and my grandfather’s parents and brothers-- you get it: the whole family) was forbidden with interacting with him. To interact with my grandfather-- my dad’s dad --was to meet the same fate. No Jehovah's Witness is allowed to talk to someone who was excommunicated.

Despite this absolutely bizarre-ass rule, children are allowed to communicate with these people, so long as they’re not a full part of the church. My dad and his siblings were just not able to speak with my grandfather because my grandmother (and the rest of the family) were not allowed to interact, not because they were fully a part of the church. Thankfully, my father avoided the ceremony that would make him a true Jehovah's Witness throughout his life, so I have been able to correspond with my family who are still a part of the cult due to this loophole. 

This loophole also made it possible for him to escape from an abusive situation with his step-father, and he moved in with my grandfather when he was thirteen.

I know this is exposition-heavy, but bear with me here. I want you guys to see the person I grew up with, not the guy that he is now, so you can understand why I am so confused and upset.

My dad is a fucking fantastic musician. He has so many good stories, but here are some highlights from his life:

* A close family friend who is a Native American taught him a lot about his culture. My dad likes to talk about how sacred nature is, and he also loves to talk about the very odd experience he had following the man’s meditation instructions. According to my father, he was teleported (in his mind) to a library where every book is the book of someone’s life. When the Librarian asked him if he wanted to read his book, he said no. This experience rattled him.

* He moved to the South Side of Chicago in the early 90s to chase his dream of music. He worked in a diner that was at an intersection where gang violence was common, and he lived even deeper south in the city than the diner. He recalls with horror what he saw, but he is quick to explain that there is a duality to people: people in gangs, he always likes to say, are just as human as the rest of us, and he always tells us he met “a kindness I never saw in anyone else,” in the people who came into his diner (especially the gang members).

* He also lived in Austin, Texas in the 90s, and played music with a band with an incredibly diverse background. He was on TV a few times (I imagine it was local, lol), and he loves to tell the story about the time that he ended up playing guitar at a Latinx club because he did a good job putting electricity into some guy’s house. He uses his story there to explain how to be humble-- he always tells us that everyone in the club was dancing to the salsa tune, then his dumbass had a guitar solo and he played the blues, which killed the vibe. “Always take in your surroundings.”

* When getting a tattoo, the tattoo artist mentioned in passing that a biker had paid her with his soul for a tattoo. My dad and his friend were drunk, and they bough the guy’s soul for $20 and planned to use it “to get big.” The next day, they were sitting at the table with this guy’s soul contract, and my dad said that something came over him-- “I knew that if I did what I wanted to do, I would get famous, but I also knew it wasn’t worth it.” He burned the contract. The karmatic repercussions of using some poor guy’s soul to become famous just isn’t worth it.

My father also taught me how to respect life. I lack empathy. I feel like I would have a much harder time with my life without my father’s patience in my earlier years. He taught me how to be socially appropriate in a way that wasn’t demeaning, unlike the rest of my family who berated me (and continue to do so) when I did something they viewed as wrong. One particular story sticks out:

When I was about nine or ten, we were camping with his side of the family. I caught a crawdad (crayfish for you non-Appalachian folk) out of the creek, and I was very curious what color it would turn if I boiled it. So, I did just that. 

I’m definitely not proud of that. 

My dad had always tried to explain to me the sanctity of life and how we shouldn’t just kill things prior to this, but that time he really seemed upset. He told me how disrespectful it was to the animal, and then told me to think about what it would be like to be boiled alive. He then told me I should at the very least eat the thing, which... I told my cousin to do because I am a picky eater.

That lesson definitely stuck with me more than, “Don’t kill spiders.” or, “Hunting for sport is wrong.”

Throughout my life, my father has been the level-headed one. He has been the one with useful life advice who actually knows how to have friends and talk to people. He has been the man I looked to to be socially appropriate and a “good person” because my mother has been chronically unable to keep any sort of friendly relationship for anyone longer than a year or two. She isn’t a very good social role model.

So, imagine my surprise last weekend hearing my dad talk about how much he hates the Chinese.

His basis? The time we went to California, and “they were way worse than the other drivers.”

I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Dad, everyone sucks at driving in California. It isn’t just Chinese people. White people can’t drive either.”

Now, I know he doesn’t hate Chinese people because of their driving. We went to California in 2004. He has never once mentioned a goddamn thing about Chinese people not being able to drive (or Chinese people in general regarding that trip), so it’s pretty fishy he would suddenly bring it up sixteen years later. 

This is especially odd since I’ve only ever heard him sing words of praise for Chinese immigrants, or, honestly, immigrants in general-- up until about a year ago, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

When my parents split-- and I know this may seem like another unnecessary deviation, but hold with me here --my dad’s obsession began. He moved in with his father, my grandfather, the man who hadn’t seen any of his family aside from my father and me for thirty years. My grandfather was a doomsday prepper. He owned something like 300 acres of land in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains down in what is known as a “Holler” here-- a small community of people who are very close to each other, live on the same road and are usually pretty friendly toward each other.

My grandfather also deeply believed in the corruption of the government, and how that would inevitably be the downfall of everything. While he wasn’t spouting anything about Hollow Earth or the sky actually being a projection, the man was distrustful of all things establishment. This kind of thought process definitely didn’t help my dad when he was going through a divorce, and I remember he really got into learning more about the 2012 Doomsday at the time.

To back up a bit, my parents have always been conspiracy theorists. My mom claims to have prophetic visions and that she is in contact with a Gray alien, which, yes, is probably just the schizophrenia, but my dad never questioned her and honestly, believed her. He was all about aliens and Area 51 and “Bush did 9/11″ when my parents were still together. He only got worse when he moved away, taking up the Doomsday stuff and digging deeper into 9/11, and then kept falling down this fucking abyss of a rabbit hole when he moved from my grandfather’s place into an apartment in the suburbs.

There, he didn’t have things to do after work. He didn’t need to attend to the horses. He didn’t have the hills to walk through. He had himself and oh dear god, man

The release of the first Assassin’s Creed was where the decline became noticeable. We bought the game, and the next time I saw him, he was telling me about the Knight’s Templar. As the years wore on, he only got worse. 

If you guys have seen the “Q Map,” that shit is all shit I can explain to you. Yes, I can tell you about the Draco-Reptilian Nazi Fleet, the Space War, and how Draco-Reptilian Nazis live in Hollow Earth. I can tell you how the Vatican relates back to the Knight’s Templar back to Moloch back to Egyptian Pharaohs back to Ishtar up to modern-day banks.

Look, I myself am gullible. I have the same kind of trait that makes me very paranoid and distrustful of people, especially authority.

My dad was spouting shit about “Kh****ian Jews” and how they were actually reptilian people (not real Jews!) who owned all the world’s banks and were trying to manipulate the populous into a One World Government, and, I’m sad to say, I believed it. Then, thank god I met my partner who shut down my bullshit really fast and has been a wonderful person to ground myself with.

(For those curious, my dad has asked for my partner’s bloodtype because they’re Jewish, and was visibly relieved when I told him it was B- instead of “an RH bloodtype” because that means that my partner is human... yeah.)

All that to say that I have an open mind. I’m willing to at least humor the idea of Nazis in Antarctica based on Admiral Byrd’s papers. Hell, I even humored my dad’s Flat Earth bullshit for a little bit, until I watched that Netflix documentary of Flat Earthers trying to prove the planet is flat, but only further proving it is round.  I’m totally willing to listen to alternate ideas, and I definitely find a lot of merit in many conspiracies.

This isn’t about aliens visiting Egypt or civilizations predating Sumeria, though, this is about my dad tripping on conservative conspiracy theorists and falling into a tailspin down the wrong fork in the trail.

This started with him listening to what he describes as “an underground conservative news channel.” He originally began being wary of the Democrats because he believed Hillary Clinton was a reptilian, but he originally was like, “Yeah, all politicians are these reptilians.” I honestly have no idea when that changed. The man didn’t even care all that much about politics until around the time of the 2016 election.

I’m assuming this is because Clinton was running, and he felt invested in not letting a reptilian become president? I swear, this man has a whole section of his brain dedicated to “Why The Cintons Are Bad,” and that only got worse as the 2016 stuff ramped up.

He started watching Alex Jones. I lived with him during this time, but I was going to college so I wasn’t home with him very often. I’d come home to the TV on Alex Jones practically foaming at the mouth every night and my dad asleep on the couch. Around this time, he started talking down to Democrats, which, hey, that’s fine, both parties in this country suck, and he honestly was interested in Bernie as a candidate.

He does still like Bernie, for the record. He even said this year that he wouldn’t mind Bernie as president.

The election rolled around; Trump got elected. Then, a lot of stuff happened.

* My dad was working for my uncle (his brother-in-law) and also renting from him. My uncle was barely paying him enough to live, so he decided to take his old job back.

* Shortly thereafter, my uncle sold the house my dad was living in. He didn’t even offer it to my dad. He fucking sold it under his nose. Not to mention, my dad was the one who put in all the flooring, bathrooms, wallpaper, etc into the house.

* My dad moved into a small farmhouse in the middle of a corn field. His old house was in a town, so he at least had interaction with other humans outside work. There are so few houses on the road he lives on that it doesn’t even have the ability to buy internet if he wanted to.

Living very much alone in the middle of a goddamn field has really impacted him.

My dad surrounds himself with what he believes to be unbiased news, but outright says are “underground conservative news outlets.” I mean, the majority of his time is spent listening to this fucking bullshit, playing old video games and jamming on the guitar.

Since the election, my dad has come to view Trump as an absolute force of good. He does admit that he does not like Trump as a person, and that he thinks that he’s honestly pretty gross, but he has been more-or-less brainwashed to believe that Trump is going to “save this country.”

Why?

* Trump is weeding out “the people the Clintons put in.”

* Trump is “going to make sure people who committed treason get what they deserve.” He points to John McCain and how Trump evidently tweeted something nine months before McCain died that eluded to the date?

* Those people who are committing treason are also part of a child trafficking ring and drink the blood of terrified children. I mean... maybe minus the blood drinking, but at least this one makes some sense, I guess.

* Trump is disbanding the Federal Reserve, which means that he is “taking the reptilians out of this country!” as well as putting the US dollar back onto the gold standard-- as if we have that much gold.

These were the original reasons why he liked Trump. He really thought, and continues to think, that the fucking orange in office has the best interest of America at heart just because he isn’t a politician. Anybody who ran for office who wasn’t a politician and got elected would have my dad’s praise, but it just happened to be Trump.

And what does that mean? It means my dad began by not agreeing with all Trump’s policies. It means my dad had a fucking brain, that he drew those conclusions himself with some aid of “”news”” (conspiracy) outlets.

But, because of the trust that he has put into this man, and the trust he has put into his “underground conservative news,” my father has allowed his perception of reality to become so incredibly skewed. For example:

* “Trump’s tweets are encoded by a quantum supercomputer to give news to the masses! Every misspelled word, random number and incorrectly capitalized letter means something, and it changes every time!”

* Dad says he doesn’t mind immigrants, but he constantly talks about how the people who want to get into America “aren’t actually struggling.” He pointed to something that happened in Mexico a little while ago and said that the people trying to get in weren’t starving, and he said that was all because they were a distraction hired by the Democrats to pull news from the trafficking of children over the border to contribute to the “adrenochrome market.” This is where some of his racist shit started.

* He believes all earthquakes in America in the last four years have been due to the Democrats “blowing up underground bunkers” to hide the fact that they are “conducing illegal human research.” He believes there is a whole world underground full of clones, and claims that ships docked on the West Coast exist there to help people that they take out of these underground cities. He also, of course, believes Trumpy-poo is the whole reason why “those poor people” are being liberated.

* According to him, there are Chinese tanks in the Amazon, and China is mounting an invasion on America. Believe it or not, this isn’t where he started talking shit about Chinese people.

* Trans* people do not exist. He also has become worryingly fixated on who he thinks is trans*? Literally any concert he sees on TV with a female lead singer becomes him pointing out “why that is actually a dude.” He’s also very fixated on “Michelle Obama is actually a man.” When we ask him why the hell that matters, he says it’s dishonest because “no man wants to be a woman.” Christ.

* On that note, he told me point-blank that women have more rights than men. I am AFAB. I fucking bluescreened.

* The BLM movement is just a way to deter from the election. The Democrats are busing in people to start riots and make cities shut down. “It isn’t a natural escalation of things to destroy your own neighborhood.” He also thinks the whole movement is shit beyond that because, “Everyone gets treated like shit by the police. I’ve been held down and beaten by a cop-- it’s just part of living in a city.” I... moving on

* “COVID-19 was created by the Chinese for the Democrats to skew the election.” He then points out all the sicknesses that broke out around other elections, like SARS and H1N1. This is where the sudden hatred of China comes from.

There is also just... so much more, but it is so incredibly tiring to try to think of all the things he tells me. Every time I look away to edit this anecdote, I remember more bullshit, so this is going to be the finalized list.

So, all-in-all, my dad went from being a very empathetic, compassionate man to having those traits used against him to believe that being racist is okay. My dad got sucked into politics because he was worried about the country being ran by reptilians, and now he believes that wearing a mask during a global pandemic is “unpatriotic” despite spending the majority of his life complaining about patriotism.

My sister and I try to set our dad straight. Any time he says something racist, we counter it the best we can, and it usually comes down to, “I’m not talking about all of them. I’m talking about the ones the Democrats paid off to do this stuff.” Unfortunately, there is no convincing him otherwise on that part, because if we try to show him anything regarding it, he deflects by saying that we got it from “a mainstream news source.”

I feel powerless as all hell because my dad has become something very distressing, and Trump / conspiracies are all he ever talks about.  I can only hope that his absolute bullshit “underground conservative news outlets” either get shut down so he has to look elsewhere or that he somehow finds some news source that he trusts that isn’t sucking Trump’s dick. I don’t know.

[haloud]

any other rose

ao3

With Dad in a coma and Flint nowhere to be found, Alex takes a leave of absence from Roswell to check on the other ducks in this particular row. He goes alone, though Kyle offers to come with him, puffing his chest up like that jock he used to be, only this time it’s to protect Alex from theoretical threat, and it’s frankly fucking adorable. He doesn’t even tell Michael he’s leaving until he sends him a text at a rest area a hundred miles away to tell him he’ll be back within two days.

This is something Alex has to do for himself. He needs information, something more tangible than what he can read off his computer screen, before he declares open war. His family may be hateful to the core, maybe, maybe, but a lot can change in relatively little time, and Alex just—can’t keep walking blind not knowing who his actual enemies are.

As Flint so eloquently put it, Alex has always been the black sheep of the family. His brothers, well, they toed the line much more skillfully, and grew closer together because of it. When Alex sets out to track down his two oldest brothers, he first runs into a wall. The eldest, Harlan? His military records check out up until the very recent present, then he just disappears. Definitely concerning, but maybe he just turned into a doomsday prepper and is living in a bunker made out of nonperishable food somewhere in the Midwest.

Robert, in contrast, doesn’t appear to be hiding his tracks at all. His whole life unspools for Alex in a perfectly neat paper trail—which is funny, because Robert is the one who hasn’t spoken to anyone in the family since 2013, making the possibilities frankly endless. Deep cover? Maybe, but his credit card activity is bland and consistent every statement Alex rifles through. A fight or falling out with Dad, Harlan, or Flint? Well, Flint doesn’t have the backbone to really ‘fall out’ with anyone, and if it was a fight with Dad then the old bastard would have taken it out on the rest of them tenfold. Harlan is a distinct possibility, but what might be so bad that both of them would drop off the grid, with Robert maintaining a convincing facsimile of civilian life?

No, there are two possibilities that Alex deems actually likely.

First: Robert is as neck-deep in conspiracy, murder, and torture as Dad and Flint, and he cut off contact with the family as a minimalization of risk. If one arm of Project Shepherd gets discovered, then a manufactured estrangement offers plausible deniability that the others had no knowledge of it whatsoever.

The second possibility has Alex pacing his floor at three in the morning more nights than he’d like.

(Why? Why? The world went dark around him as he stared at his computer screen with his hand over his mouth, staring at the name of a niece he’s never met. Aubrey Alexandra Manes. Why?)

A phone call would be too much warning, would give Robert time to hide or come up with a story. So Alex just finds his address, gets in the car, and goes searching for answers. What he finds is a simple ranch house six hours out of Roswell, one with a flag hanging from the porch and a slightly overgrown yard full of soccer goals and Barbie jeeps and other childhood detritus.

Maybe Robert knew to expect him somehow; maybe he just wasn’t expecting a car in the driveway at this time of day and therefore came out to inspect it. Either way, Alex doesn’t even make it up the porch stairs before Robert opens the door and brings them face to face for the first time in a long, long time.

“Alex!”

The shock would almost be funny, if Alex wasn’t bracing for either a punch or a bullet.

“Hey, big bro,” he says, curling his mouth in a deliberate smile. “It’s been six years since I got a courtesy Christmas phone call. What’s new in your life?”

Face thunderous, Robert steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. “Cut the crap. Believe it or not, I’ve been following your career. I know you could find out anything you wanted about me, and hell, I know you probably did. So it’s you that needs to start talking.”

Alex nods pensively. Reevaluates. Strange, to be properly estimated by a family member. It is true, though—Alex never would have gone in blind, and the research he did produce some interesting results.

Six years ago, Robert stopped coming to holidays. He stopped picking up the phone. He made polite, manly excuses whenever their dad pressed him, but he made those excuses every single time. And what did Alex find when he went looking? A birth certificate for a little girl, dated 2013; immunization forms; preschool and elementary registration; another birth certificate dated two years later. Aubrey Alexandra. So yeah, Alex knows, as if the yard cluttered with toys wasn’t enough of a clue. What he doesn’t know is why, so that’s what he’s here to find out.

“What’re their names?” Alex asks casually. He keeps his hands still at his sides, empty and loose. Not a threat. He has no interest in making Robert fear for his family, and if he’s being generous, he knows that Robert has no more reason to believe Alex isn’t working under their father’s orders than Alex has to trust him.

“Hope and Aubrey,” Robert says, the like you don’t already know hovering understood between them. He takes a step forward and shoves his hands in his pockets, shrewd soldier’s eyes scanning Alex just as much as Alex scans him. It’s a little strange, more so than Alex expected, to discover that Robert actually is a stranger now, not frozen at eighteen and stocky and mean-spirited.

Robert doesn’t move forward like he’s making threats. He presumably came outside because he felt either surprised or threatened by an unexpected vehicle in the driveway, but he isn’t even wearing a holster. Not even the suggestion of a weapon on his person. Is he the kind of military father who locks his guns away? Their dad was never that conscientious—presumably because it builds character for a little kid to accidentally shoot himself; either that or he just assumed his boys were too scared to go near anything of his. A fair assessment.

But what is a fair assessment of Robert? Maybe he just thinks girls can’t handle exposure to guns—safer parenting, to be sure, but still indicative of a toxic mindset. After all, Robert would’ve gotten suspended three times for snapping girls’ bra straps if dear old dad hadn’t intervened every single time.

“And are they why you’ve been MIA all this time?” Alex asks, point blank.

“You’re going to have to tell me why you’re here before I give you any information about my children. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Fair.” Alex holds his hands up in surrender, then lowers them as Robert takes another step his way.

“Are you here because of dad.” The question falls flat, like he doesn’t really want the answer. Robert’s face is inscrutable, his tone still thinly pleasant, but something darker lurks beneath the surface.

“In a manner of speaking.” Alex tilts his head and looks his brother up and down. Robert’s put on a little weight since the photos Alex saw from his last deployment; he’s got laugh lines around his eyes. They’re all of them getting older, but Alex—once again wrong-footed, and he’s getting increasingly frustrated with himself—Alex never expected Robert to wear his age so openly. “I’m doing a little reconnaissance. You see,” this time it’s Alex who steps forward, “Last time I saw Flint, it was in a secret torture prison our father has been running for decades, and he had a gun to my head. Harlan appears to have gone off the grid, so one can only guess what’s going on there. Which leaves…you. I thought it was high time we had a little reunion, bro.”

Genuine shock flicks over Robert’s face, and his eyes dart up and down Alex’s body as if looking for injuries. He is a military man, however, so the emotion is quickly replaced with more grim impassivity. “What kind of information are you looking for? Are you in danger right now? God damn it, Alex, my family—”

“Aren’t home at the moment, and I will happily be long gone before they get back. This is about our family, not yours. Hope won’t need to be picked up from school until 2:30, and your wife takes Aubrey to Tiny Tots ballet classes after preschool from one to three every Monday and Thursday. No one knows I’m here; if you’ve really been following my career, you know I know how to cover my tracks. I didn’t come here to make threats, Robert.”

“Then why are you here? You seem to know pretty much everything already.”

Alex feels a pang of…actual guilt at the fear lurking on Robert’s face, in his defensive posture, in the way he clenches his hands compulsively in his pockets. Rattling off his kid’s routines like that…might have been an excessive show of force, and Alex grimaces at himself. Robert is a soldier, sure, but somehow…somehow Alex forgot that not everyone has been unraveling earth-shattering revelations for the past year. He dug into Robert’s life remembering the dick who did shit like flushing his toothbrush down the toilet and dying all his clothes pink because he was ‘basically a girl anyway, right?’, and he did it expecting to find yet another monster with Alex’s same blood pumping through his veins.

He needs to remember: high school. Ten years to the left. Alex nods sharply to himself. He went about this the wrong way—it’s a reunion, not an op. If it goes poorly, he walks out of here with better knowledge of his enemy and the exact same amount of family he walked in here with. Nothing to lose.

“I just needed to see for myself, I guess. The reason why you haven’t even talked to dad in over half a decade. Or me. I don’t know about Harlan and Flint, but I’m guessing they’re getting the same treatment?”

Robert thinks for a minute, then he jerks his chin towards the rocking chairs squeezed into the corner of the narrow porch. “I’m not inviting you inside just yet, but I’ll get us some beers. We can sit out here and talk.”

Alex takes a seat in one of the rocking chairs and rests his hands on his knees. In between the two large chairs are two little ones, painted all kinds of crazy colors, sponge-stamped with bunnies and butterflies and dinosaurs. A pang of—something echoes deep in his chest. Can you be nostalgic for something you’ve never, ever had?

“Okay.”

Robert sticks a beer in Alex’s face. It’s already open; Alex sniffs it, swishes it in his mouth, holds it on the back of his tongue before swallowing. Well, if Robert was keeping undetectable poisons around on the off chance he got to slip it into Alex’s drink, he probably wouldn’t be walking around without a gun. Alex takes a real swig and waits for Robert to start talking.

His brother doesn’t look at him, just stares into the middle distance as he says, “You might remember Alanna, my wife. I think you met her a couple times.”

“Of course. Dad didn’t ‘approve of her family,’” Alex says with a thin, sarcastic smile. The real reason, of course, is that Alanna is black, but Jesse would never be so uncouth as to say something like that outright. No, it’s always dogwhistle central with that man.

Robert snorts and spits in disgust, the largest show of emotion he’s displayed since Alex pulled into the driveway. “Yeah. Fucking hell. You and I both know how deep Dad’s hatred runs. For everyone and everything that doesn’t march to his fucking tune.”

Alex folds his hands in his lap and does a terrible job of keeping the knives out of his voice. “Of course. I just wasn’t sure how you would approach the topic. Of hatred, that is, since I was the only member of the family not invited to the wedding.”

It’s surprisingly difficult to get the words out. How many times is he going to have to go through this? First with Flint, now…Robert may not have pulled a gun on him (yet), but it’s still a piece of Alex’s soul that gets chipped away bringing up this old pain. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of being the black sheep,’ Flint said, and the answer is, frankly, not fucking likely, considering the standards set by the other Manes men past and present. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to be alone, doesn’t mean he didn’t feel the lump in his throat and the pain in his chest when he saw the wedding pictures on Facebook and realized he was deliberately excluded.

Alex clenches his fists on top of his knees and gets pissed at himself for showing even that much of a reaction.

Robert cuts his eyes away, clenching his jaw. Finally, he says, “Fuck. God damn.”

“No, I get it.” Alex forces a laugh. “Couldn’t have the gay gaying up your big day. We’re not here to talk about me. Forget I brought it up.”

Shaking his head sharply, Robert says, “I’m airing old shit, and I’m doing it once, then we’re getting back on topic. I didn’t invite you to the wedding because Dad already invited himself, you had just gotten stationed far away from Roswell, and I didn’t want to put you back in his path. That’s the sum of it. End of story.”

An ugly laugh, a real one this time, busts out of Alex’s chest. God, that’s even more rich than Flint’s bullshit about protection!

“I’m serious,” Robert snaps. “’Lanna opened my eyes to a lot of shit, okay? I won’t pretend I was some kind of amazing fucking ally back then, but I wasn’t afraid of your gaying, got it?”

And Alex wants to fight back. He does. He’s still owed a fucking pound of flesh. But in the back of his mind, he thinks—Aubrey Alexandra. And it gets him back on track. It even lets him see the humor, because, come on, Robert saying gaying like that is pretty fucking funny.

“Okay. Apology accepted,” he says, one last snark because Robert never actually apologized, and the way he looks away again says he knows that. “Tell me more about Alanna.”

“Right. Well. So anyway, she knew what she was marrying. Dad gave her the fucking creeps, but she married me anyway.” He fiddles with the label of his beer and quite obviously tries not to smile. “And we did the happy family thing for a while. I was deployed; the distance was hard. She felt a lot of pressure to be the right kind of military wife, but she had zero support. I was wrapped up in myself. The missions, the medals. I was a shitty husband, a shitty partner.” He drains his beer, then stares at the bottle like its emptiness is a personal betrayal. “Between deployments, she gave me the ultimatum. Couples counseling—completely non-military—or that’s it.”

“You went to a therapist?” Alex blurts. Robert? The guy who would lurk outside the guidance counselor’s office and trip kids if they came out crying? Maybe Alex should have done a deeper dive into whether or not Robert could have had alien contact.

Robert snorts and shakes his head. “I deserve that. God I was an absolute fucking cock as a kid. And as an adult. But Alanna gave me something to fight for, and damn if she didn’t push me to fight for it. I don’t know. I didn’t understand half the crap the shrink said. But I listened. Followed orders. Not so hard.”

“But you still had some contact with dad in that time. You didn’t go radio silent until several years after you and Alanna married.”

“He’s not an easy man to say no to. When his number would come up in my phone…”

Robert’s jaw clenches hard and tight. Alex hopes he has good dental.

“I always picked up. Autopilot. But the shrink helped me realize trying to be like Dad was…well, in real terms, ruining my fucking life.”

Damn. Alex is gonna find this therapist and send an annual fruit basket.

“And then Alanna got pregnant?” he prompts; Robert nods curtly.

“Changed my whole life. Scared me shitless, too, I don’t mind telling you. I was just working out how fucked our whole upbringing was, and now it was my turn? God.”

“So that’s the story? That’s why it’s been six years since you acknowledged any of us?”

Robert looks at him dead-on for the first time since they sat down. He looks like Dad. He really does. The same squarish face, the same thin mouth, the same soldier stoicism. But there’s a softness in the next words he says that Alex never once heard come out of their father’s mouth, and it shakes something in Alex’s very core.

“I got kids of my own now, man. And I work with kids too, or around them. Eighteen, nineteen years old. And I think about how dad treated us. I’m not exposing Hope and Aubrey to that. Not ever.”

“Good reason to avoid Dad, then. But what about the rest of us? Harlan, Flint? Me?”

Shrugging, Robert says, “I talked to Harlan a while longer, since we were closest as kids. But he got weird, man, I don’t know. And Flint…ended up I couldn’t trust him one bit. If I talked to him at all, he’d hand the phone over to Dad, and I didn’t want this shit getting that messy.”

“And me?”

Aubrey Alexandra. A little slice of Alex’s world has been disorienting and surreal ever since he read that name. Aliens are one thing, but having a niece that’s carrying his name—Alex doesn’t know how to live in that world. He has to hear it out of Robert’s own mouth, this brother he didn’t know he had at all.

A huge sigh gusts out of Robert’s chest. He goes back to staring into the middle distance. It’s a long while before he says, “I told you already that I’d started realizing Dad was fucked up.”

He cuts off there like there’s something physical blocking the words, and Alex waits for him to continue.

Finally, he says, “That was a hard thing to come to terms with. I always thought Dad was what made us into men, you know? If times were hard, well, they had to be, to toughen us up. But it turns out Dad was just an abusive fuck. So then what good is any kind of lesson he ever taught us? What good is being any kind of man he’d be proud of, when I’ve got ‘Lanna and two baby girls I could be making proud instead?” He sighs heavily. “So that’s why. I wanted them to be proud of me, and there’s nothing to be proud of in the way I treated you. The way I let you be treated. I thought about calling you up, but I was too damn cowardly to dial the phone, and somewhere along the line I convinced myself it would be better if I just let you live your own life without fucking bullies sandbagging you.”

Alex takes a moment.

In that moment, Robert runs his hand over his close-shaven skull three times. He bounces his leg, stops himself, and bounces again. He brings his beer up to his mouth like he’s forgotten already that it’s empty.

And Alex just…breathes.

Flint carried his orders like absolution so he could sleep at night. With Robert being such an unknown after six years of radio silence, Alex thought he was prepared for all eventualities this reunion might come to, but turns out he wasn’t actually prepared at all. Not for the reality of the two little rocking chairs, allowed to be bright and clumsy. Not for a version of his brother that sees the world with open eyes.

“You going to say anything?” Robert finally says gruffly.

“I saw Aubrey’s birth certificate when I researched you.” Alex swallows and tries to wet his throat with the beer, but it’s gone flat. Ugh. Still, he won’t back down. “Aubrey Alexandra.” Saying the name out loud chokes him up, just a little bit, and he forces it back down like he learned to do a long time ago. “You could have just called me.”

Robert ducks his head to hide his own too-bright eyes, and that sheepish, honest gesture cracks deep in Alex’s chest to feed some very small, very young part of him.

“Yeah,” Robert mumbles. “I know I should’ve—asked you. Or just not. But I was all emotional ‘n shit. It felt right at the time.”

“All right.” Alex shoves his emotion unceremoniously aside. He has the information he came for, so it’s once more time for action. The fact is that no matter how skilled Alex is at covering his tracks, his presence has the possibility of putting Robert’s family in danger. Until Dad is dealt with for good; until Flint and Harlan are neutralized; Alex can’t be a part of his brother’s life, or his wife’s, or the lives of his nieces.

Something else to fight for, then. As if he needed more motivation.

Alex gets swiftly to his feet, and Robert mirrors the motion.

“You’re leaving?” He blurts out, and something like grief, chased by acceptance, runs across his face. God, Alex almost wants to do a double take every time he sees honest emotion in eyes like those. But it’s time he gave credit where credit is due.

“I should,” Alex says. “I promised I wouldn’t put your family in danger before I heard your story, and I intended to keep that promise no matter what you said to me. But now it is imperative that you listen.”

He puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder for what may be the first time in their entire lives. Robert swallows.

Alex says, “Do not change a single thing about your routine. Do not tell anyone I’ve been here. When it’s safe, I will contact you—and at that time, it’s your decision if you want me in your children’s lives or not.”

He can see every single question in Robert’s face. Pride and anger tense him up, but, miracle of miracles, Alex also gets to watch him let them go.

Fruit basket. Seriously. Maybe an Edible Arrangement, for the actual miracle worker.

“How much danger are you in?” Is all Robert demands, voice still gruff with emotion.

“No more than usual. Don’t you know I love to live dangerously?” Alex says breezily, but Robert doesn’t unclench. Great, just what he needs—another person in his life taking his safety seriously when there are things that need to get done. Alex gives a fond roll of his eyes and lets his hand fall off Robert’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says, honestly, as Robert follows him off the porch and to his car.

“Pretty sure you don’t get to thank me for anything ever. I basically owe you for life.”

“Well, then, get started on your debt and give me that ‘you’re welcome’ you owe me just now.”

“You’re welcome.” He hesitates, swallows a couple times. Then he raps the top of Alex’s car and chokes out: “Drive safe, kid.”

Alex drives home in a different world than the one he drove up in. He barely notices the miles fly by, and when he gets home to Roswell, everything still looks the same, no matter how impossible that is.

Still, life goes on. A week later, a letter comes for him at the base. The return address makes him furious—how’s Robert made it this long if he can’t follow a simple order for his own good?—but he can’t hold onto that anger as soon as he sees what’s inside.

The thick envelope contains three sheets of paper and a fridge magnet—just a generic #1 Uncle! design, but it still hits him hard right in the chest. The first page of the letter is covered in small, need script he doesn’t recognize—Alanna’s, most likely. The next page he unfolds is covered in a child’s deliberate print, and he puts that aside too, gently, reverently, so he can read it later and savor every word. The last page is covered in drawings, big and bright; god, he’s gotten more medals than he knows what to do with, but he’s never felt as honored as he does now by the fact that clearly Aubrey busted out a brand-new pack of markers for this. And the magnet—he’s going to put these on his fridge, like that’s something that exists in his life—and now it does, this part of his family he thought was closed off to him forever.

And his world is different now. A little brighter, a little bigger, a little fuller.

Now all he has to do is protect it.

[ofravensandgenesis]

F, O, and P for Declan and Josh!

Putting it all under the cut bc it got long. xD

F: Fun1. what do they do for fun?Joshua’s a hands-on kind of guy, he likes finding something to do even if it’s downtime. He’s picked up a lot of craft-related hobbies to varying skill levels, largely driven by the whole impending-end-of-the-world fear. x’D Cooking is his passion, but he also dabbles in gardening, knapping, woodworking, some blacksmithing, sewing, and leatherworking as his top preferred areas of interest. Very DIY. He was pretty hellbent on trying to figure out how to make stuff himself once he got his act together in his teen years. That’s not to say he’s good at all that. He’s passing fair on basic stuff, is kind of going for a jack of all trades deal. If he’s too tired to mess with something like that, he reads or watches movies. Prefers cooking series for their predictability and the “safe” topic when it’s movies or TV series, fantasy/adventure or slice-of-life and other light fare when it’s reading. Will watch nature documentaries and other interesting historic series too. That’s the fun he gets up to on his own that’s legal. If we’re talking illegal, he does get a thrill from stealing stuff simply because he’s good at it, and he’s keen on stockpiling stuff. He stopped doing that once he went into the police academy—though he made sure he’d stolen enough to further his plans before then, scheming little doomsday prepper that he is. Never got caught either, so his record is technically clean. With others though? He likes to hang out with Sharky, Staci, and Hurk Jr. in particular for just drinking and doing fun dumb and questionably-safe activities. Hangs out with Jess, Joey, Dutch and a few others too, doing significantly less dangerous things, like hunting lessons from Jess.Declan is a fucking jock, okay? x’D He likes his martial arts practice, likes going on nature hikes, going to the gym, sports in general, etc. If we’re talking inclement weather or just a rest day or something, he’s probably watching chinese dramas or reading romance novels. No for reals, he does read more broadly, he just is a squishy sap and likes happy endings, typically leans towards fiction over nonfiction, but is willing to read anything recommended to him. Is less of a fan of horror, but will read some selectively, prefers more old school gothic horror if so. He’s not as much of a dabbler as Joshua is, but does a little houseplant care from time to time, and tries to take care of the garden. Emphasis on tries. He gets by. x’D Nothing’s died prematurely, but he steers clear of any real gardening commitments. He’d be better with more clear-cut instructions of figuring out what a plant needs on a set schedule. Gardening’s complicated in his opinion because it’s more by feel from his perspective. Declan’s not really an eyeballer sort. Likes to dance in his own home when no one’s looking to whatever dance music he’s got on. This happens a lot during chores.2. what is their ideal party?Joshua would prefer to keep it small with people he’s comfortable with, and probably with the more “we don’t quite care so much if it’s illegal but Sharky stop trying to get yourself a federal warrant” crowd of friends. He likes his more-law-abiding friends too, just…well. Joshua’s shady, though he tries not to be. x’DDeclan likes BIG parties of friends and family. The potluck kind where everyone brings food and there’s games and gossip at all hours until a reasonable bedtime. The kind where people are squashed together in small circles everywhere because there’s nooooot quite enough chairs or seats to go around. Small parties are nice too, but he feels most at home with more people around, preferably 3+. Dinner parties with friends invited over count in this regard too.3. who would they have the most fun with?Sharky, Hurk Jr., and Staci for Joshua, for the above reasons. xDDeclan has more fun with Joey, Staci, Whitehorse, and Nick and Kim Rye.  Declan got to talking to Earl about how to get into fishing, which led into fishing lessons, which led to just hanging out with a nice beer on occasion. He absolutely adores the Ryes’ weekend barbecues and gets along particularly well with Kim. Kim thinks him and Nick talking are like putting a pair of nerds from different fields together and watching them chatter, they’re both such dorks. xD Declan’s family ofc also applies, but that’s a given at this point.4. can they have fun while conforming to rules?…yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, for Joshua. He’s learned!Declan absolutely, he’s just a few notches shy of being a rules-lawyer. xD5. do they go out a lot?Yes and yes.——————————————————O: Optimism1. are they optimistic or pessimistic?That’s an interesting question for Joshua because he’s got a lot of conflicting beliefs and he knows it. He’s ultimately an optimist, though he has his moments of utter existential despair and feeling like everything’s going to end badly and there’s no point in trying…but he takes the time to recover from those low bouts, because he wants to believe that it’s at least worth trying to change it all for the better, because maybe it’ll work. Maybe things will turn out better, if they try. He’s resilient in his optimism, bending with the wind, compared to Declan who is more rigid in his beliefs.Declan is definitely an optimist. He can’t believe that it’s all for nothing, that the universe doesn’t care, that there isn’t a greater good. That’s part of what trips him up in his AU storyline, because he does believe virtues like justice are inherent to the universe among other things. That belief is challenged in his story a lot due to the cult’s doings, and the ultimate fallout of it.2. are they openly optimistic, throwing it on others?Well, Joshua doesn’t throw it on people, but he does try to support people who are feeling down or such about the state of the world. Declan is similar, if more resolute in his presentation—or he was. He’s a bit more on the strong-and-silent-type in his “present” timeline. x’D3. are they good at giving advice?On what topic? If you want to know how to quickly pick a lock like you’re a level 20 rogue with a maxed out dex stat, best ways to stake out and plan a home invasion, and how to do rapid inventory turnover on the black market, Joshua’s your guy. He is also your guy in select areas of research and experience. Morally in general though? Crapshoot. He’s morally flexible and will adjust depending on the audience, but generally strives to get everyone sooooooort of in the neighborhood of being a good person. His lines in the sand are mostly regarding violence and harm. Stealing and kidnapping in the context of the impending Collapse? If you have principles and rules guiding the actions he’ll side eye strongly, but let it slide. Moreso the stealing, he’s fine with that provided it’s not Extra Assholery like stealing from impoverished people or such but well…he’ll take kidnapping while waiting for the nukes to drop if there’s no torture or brainwashing or murder involved. If only. In more normal circumstances, he’s against kidnapping. Stealing…well. He and Jess used to shoplift from Lorna’s when he hitchhiked to visit when he was younger. He’s got history in Hope County whether most folks know it or not, even though he was technically living in a different state at the time.Declan? Will do his best. He gives reasonable advice before plot happens, afterwards…he doubts himself more. Doubts everything more. Once he squares that away though, he’ll be more like his old self. Not entirely, but he’ll always try to do his best and give what good advice and support he can, or go find someone who can help, etc.4. is there anyone in their life that throws optimism on them?We’ll interpret “throw” as “is influenced by” here. xDJoshua gets some good optimism or down-to-earth-solidarity from various friends. Definitely Joey, she helps him believe in the inherent good of humanity just by being herself most noticeably, but it’s true as an influence in different ways with all his friends. People being there with him means a lot, even if he’s not been totally forthcoming about his life’s details and some major aspects of himself yet.Declan gets it from friends and family alike yes, it’s part of why he’s such a lil ball of jock-y sunshine. xD5. were they always optimistic?Joshua? Not always. He veers back and forth even now, but ultimately tries to remain optimistic as stated above.Declan? Also no. He was optimistic all his life up until Plot Happenings, namely the in-game events of both Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn.——————————————————P: Personality1. what is their best personality trait?Joshua’s determination to try to make things better even in the face of crippling self doubt, supernatural issues, and overwhelming external problems.Declan‘s inherent belief in the greater good and the attempt to uphold himself and everyone to being the best they can be.Kind of similar, aren’t they, though different in how they go about it.2. what is their worst personality trait?Joshua can be incredibly violent if threatened and stressed out to the max, and impulsive at times. He regrets it later, and tries to do better, but he does have a temper he tries to rein in. He’s a petty and vengeful little fucker when pressed, though he tries not to be.Declan’s would be ironically his strong point: thinking people can be better than they are because he can see their potential. It’s hard for him and takes a while to accept that sometimes people don’t want to be better, and other related aspects of that. He works on this, but he just has a hard time accepting not trying to make a situation or such better. Well. He used to have a hard time accepting that. Plot events have gotten him a bit more jaded somewhat. Not entirely, but somewhat.3. what of their personality do others love?Joshua’s loyalty and supportiveness. Get you a friend who doesn’t judge how many bonfires you want to start per week and actually wants to help out with finding stuff to burn, while keeping you on the right side of legal enough to not get arrested. He’ll object to melting Angels’ faces off, but that’s a moral debate.Declan’s unwavering faith in humanity and individual people. He believes in you!! You can do it!! Somehow, someway!! And if there isn’t a way, he’ll help you make one!! He is your favorite gym buddy if you need a cheerleader who will encourage and compliment you.Well, he was, but needs some time to get over his more heavily trauma-induced selective muteness to get back to cheering people on.4. what of their personality do others envy?Hm, not sure people would envy either of them, though I guess maybe Declan’s do-gooder attitude? Joshua’s momentum and ability to keep going, perhaps.5. do they hate anything about their personality/about other’s personalities?Joshua hates how emotionally whiplashy he can get. He’s not sure if it’s [unrevealed backstory elements] or just how he is. He’ll learn to accept it at some point...eventually. He’s surprisingly more accepting of people being emotionally whiplashy than he is of himself being thus, up until they start hurtful comments. Then he’s potentially going from 0-60 of sympathetic to aggressive. Hard to tell, it’s chaotic at times to figure out how he’ll respond, and he wishes he was more stable in general. He’s working on it though, and has made some progress. Declan...wishes he was more pro-active in thinking for himself. It’s not full on hate so much as sad, angry, hurt, because hate is very hard for him to feel let alone sustain. At most, he might feel a flicker of it for a flash of a moment, but if he believes someone or in this case himself is doing their best, he won’t fault them for not getting a perfect or desired result. Life is full of mistakes, and you do your best to learn from them.

[icarus-suraki]

2, 11, 17, 67 :) (also if you feel like answering it - what do you like about cosplay, why do you want to get into it again?)

2. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Do they have to be alive? Or can they be dead? Because I have some weird answers for either.

I don’t know. Sometimes I like to answer this question with the usual celebrity answers (Barak and Michelle Obama, for example). But I sort of wish I could meet the man whose last name my family now carries because we know so little about him–way back in the early 1800s as it was and all. He showed up, married a woman we know lots about, fathered a child, but then disappeared before that child was born. That child had his father’s surname–and so do I, but I don’t know much about that man. And this has been a hunt going on for at least three generations with no answers yet.

I also sort of wish I could meet a lot of people who I knew years ago when I was a lot sicker (mentally) than I am now. I wish I could meet them again for the first time and undo what happened before.

And I also wish I could meet my grandparents (both sets) now, at this age, just to show them how I grew up. I lost my maternal grandparents when I was fairly young and I wonder what they’d think of me now. I lost my paternal grandparents when I was in graduate school and I just miss them.

11. Do you have any strange phobias?I can say I don’t have hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, but I actually do have eschatophobia (if that’s the way to phrase it). In other words: I had panic attacks triggered by apocalyptic stuff, especially in a religious context, but rarely in a fully fictional context. It was astonishingly specific.

I sometimes think people overuse the word “trigger” but I think that’s because for a while I couldn’t read the word “revelation” (as in “this latest revelation in the NFL draft…”) without going into a full-blown panic attack. I had to always be on guard looking at the news. I had to be careful shelving books at work. And it got really awkward when complete strangers would try to witness to me when I was at work, because I’m start panicking right there in front of them (whether they knew it or not). And the panic would last, quite literally, for days and even weeks. And it got all tangled up with all kinds of weird shit, like Nostradamus and televangelist doomsday preppers and New Age speculation and science articles and other people’s paranoia… And it was Really Bad for a while. Like, near-on psychotic break bad. So, yeah, I’d say I have a weird phobia there.

Now, that all being said, I have this phobia much much more under control than I did even two or three years ago–thank goodness. Because it was a bad time back then.

I also don’t like things inside holes. It’s like “cluster phobia” (don’t Google it), but with a twist. Blech.

Also, I’ve apparently been diagnosed with social phobia? But, like that wasn’t nearly as bad as this other stuff.

17. What is the last lie you told?This one: I never lie and I’m always right.

67. What were you doing last night at 12AM?Sleeping. I’m old and tired. I sleep a lot. So last night, a Saturday night, at midnight? Sleeping. Ideally dreaming, but I can’t be sure.

Bonus: What do you like about cosplay, why do you want to get into it again?I think I like pretending that I’m not myself, that I’m someone (or something) else–someone more interesting than me, with a more adventurous life, with more and stranger possibilities ahead of them. I loved playing dress-up and pretend as a child; I probably kept playing pretend much longer than is “typical” or “healthy” but I certainly did keep it up. I guess I feel like cosplay is a continuation of those games of pretend and dress-up. I’d like to say that that’s why I want to get into it again, so I can “play pretend” now, as an adult, and not be questioned (as much, anyway) for it. I like any chance I get to wear something strange and have a good excuse for wearing it–instead of getting just stares and intrusive questions. I’d dress strange more often, if it weren’t for creeps and whispers.

My concern, though, is that under that motivation is an undercurrent of desperately wanting attention. I feel like I’m trying so, so hard all the time and I just want a little attention or recognition for having done something good or well or interesting. I’ve always wanted to impress people, but I’ve never really been able to do it. I try, but usually I get knocked back down or I realize I’m overstepping my bounds or I’m just reminded of my place. I’d like to be seen as interesting or cool, I want people to admire things I’ve made or done. That basically never happens. So I think that’s the undercurrent here. I just want someone to notice me.

So do I pass? Am I a “skinjob” or what? (I swear my eyes don’t shine in the dark.)

[fanfictionconnectionwordpress]

Mystic Messenger Fanfiction | SevenxMC Good Ending Continued | Ch.18 Indestructible

***Here we are! It's the end of this fanfiction. I went through so much personal stuff throughout the writing of this one, and I'm so grateful to everyone not only for being patient but for even reading anything I write in the first place. The Good Ending Continued Series project was something I started just to have fun and started posting thinking no one would ever read it, but boy have I been pleasantly surprised. Thank you. Really. For my patrons, there is a new hidden scene available to you of Seven and MC raising their teenagers. I'll be returning to work on posting up my commissions and focusing on Tagged again as we wait for the After Endings for Saeran and V. Thank you again to all of you. ~Let's Connect! FFC***

***You can support my writing on patreon and get access to my VIP Discord Server or other goodies like early chapter releases and hidden scenes. Chapter Directory – Other Fanfictions***

Why was my phone ringing at this ungodly hour of the night? I rolled over with a grumble, taking a few tries before I managed to actually get my hands on the item in question. After struggling all day with the boys not wanting to nap and the girls creating messes all over the house, I was not really in the mood for a phone call. Seeing the caller ID made me question just what crisis Yoosung could possibly have that would require my attention.

“Yoosung? What is it?” Saeyoung stretched lazily next to me, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me slightly closer to nuzzle my bottom. I swatted at him as I tried to make out what the blond was talking about. A lot of it didn’t make sense at first as he was talking about how he heard strange noises and that he’d seen something running around in his house. The only thing that did make sense was when he asked if Saeyoung was home.

I furrowed my brows and looked down at my husband. Had he been up to something? Yoosung started talking again about how he kept hearing Saeyoung’s voice in the house. A prank? Saeyoung still had his eyes closed, but there was definitely a grin on his face. With a sigh, I answered Yoosung’s question. “Saeyoung is home. He’s in bed with me right now.”

That seemed to perplex the blond further, but he apologized for waking me and hung up. Saeyoung’s phone must have been on silent. Now that I looked over at his nightstand, I could see the device flashing green because it had new messages waiting. “What are you up to, Saeyoung?” My husband just nipped my butt and I reached over to smack his before he yelped and rolled over, holding up his hands in defeat.

The grin on his face completely betrayed the lie. “Nothing, nothing! I haven’t been doing anything.” There had to be something going on. Even though I was tired, I was more intrigued than upset at being awoken. Though, my phone was going off again. I picked up much more quickly this time to find it was again Yoosung. “Are you sure Saeyoung is in bed with you?”

I looked over at Saeyoung who was starting to snicker and rolled my eyes. Whatever this was, it had to be a pretty good prank. “Yes. He’s in bed with me. Would you like to video chat?” It was easy enough to change the voice call into a video one and Yoosung’s eyes went wide as Saeyoung waved at him.

“Hey there, Yoosung. Why’re you waking my wife so much?” He’d managed to make the blond pale completely with that question - now starting to make apologies and again describe what was happening. Yoosung appeared to be getting more and more upset, even to the point where his chest was heaving so much that I was almost certain he was about to cry. That was when I saw it.

Something was walking up behind Yoosung on the floor space leading to his bed. The item in question looked an awful lot like a small doll of my husband that he’d once shown me. This only had me further furrowing my brows. Yoosung must have noticed me squinting at the screen, because he stopped mid-sentence. “MC…is something…?”

Almost as soon as he’d asked the question, the blond noticed on the small ‘preview’ window of his own video feed that there was something creeping up on him. He shrieked - dropping his phone and giving us a view of his covers but an excellent audio feed as there were crashing sounds and soft curses. Saeyoung burst out laughing, and I couldn’t keep myself from snickering either.

Obviously, my husband had been testing out a new robot creation of his. I felt bad for Yoosung being the victim of yet another of my husband’s little pranks and tests, but I couldn’t help finding it hilarious either. Yoosung returned on screen - the small robot clutched in his hand so hard that his knuckles were white. “You come get this in the morning Saeyoung or I’m going to smash it!”

The blond’s face was red with anger and probably some embarrassment as well before he abruptly ended the call as my husband only laughed louder. With the call ended, I could join him in the belly-aching laugh until our eyes were teary. Poor Yoosung…but my husband had managed to make Yoosung think that he was being haunted by the ghost of a living human being.

When our laughter finally cooled, we were still both staring at the ceiling with occasional small bouts of the giggles before I rolled over to snuggle into my husband’s chest. “What did you even build a robot you for anyway?” That was accompanied by a giggle of my own, but it died as I felt Saeyoung tensing below me - pulling me a little closer. Was it something worth tensing over?

“I wanted to make a version of myself that would outlive me. A way for me to be around after I’m dead.” That made me tense as well before I pulled back, my hands on either side of his head and hair falling around me as I looked down at my husband’s face. “Outlive you?” Saeyoung looked completely serious as he responded. “Yeah. I made one for you, too.”

This wasn’t exactly an easy topic. He tended to be a little on the eccentric side and obsessive about things I couldn’t even begin to understand like supernovas and the infinite cosmos, but having your husband preparing for your deaths was a lot more disturbing than that. “Why would you be making something like that? Is there something wrong?” My best guess was that Saeyoung was secretly a doomsday prepper, but that didn’t really make much sense, considering.

He’d started to chew on the inside of his cheek, probably because of the look I was giving him, but now he moved to push some of my hair behind my ear. “I just wanted…in case something ever happened to us, I wanted the kids to have a piece of us. They’re still so young…” My heart clenched painfully in my chest at the look on his face. His eyes were showing an intense pain beneath the surface. This wasn’t something he’d created just for fun or ‘just in case’, there was a real reason behind it.

“I grew up without my dad and with a mom who hated me. I was alone for so long…and I don’t want that to happen to them.” Now my heart absolutely crumbled, a tear I didn’t know I’d shed falling onto his cheek before I bent to kiss him long and hard. Saeyoung was creating these ‘outliving’ robots because of all the abandonment he’d suffered when he was young - wanting to keep that from happening to our children.

When I broke the kiss, I wiped my own tear from his cheek and gave him a light peck on the nose. “You’re a wonderful father, Saeyoung…” I gave a soft laugh before shaking my head and lying back down beside him. “I hope we’ll never need it, but you better go get that robot tomorrow before Yoosung throws it down his stairs.”

Saeyoung gave a little laugh of his own before rolling over and tickling me for a short while before I could grab his hands away. “Don’t worry, MC.” His smile was positively wolfish, almost the same sadistic one he gave when he was playing the dominant in our bedroom. “That robot is pretty much indestructible, so he can throw it wherever he wants.”

***

Their children could have run the RFA all by themselves if it weren’t for the fact that it needed some organization. Thankfully, Jumin had adopted a daughter who took over that aspect as well as Zen and Jaehee’s son. Only one of MC and Saeyoung’s children had any sort of danger filter, and it made for rather interestingly themed RFA parties after the old RFA retired.

Saeyoung and MC’s life was filled with activity all around, even in their last days. With as many children as they had, their grandchildren multiplied quickly, and rest was hard to come by. Neither of them really wanted rest - not when there was fun to be had as a family. Nearly every grandchild inherited the vibrant red hair, and that more than anything showed Saeyoung just how much evidence of his own existence he’d left on the world.

MC would always remember the night her husband passed as she drove him out for what he called ‘one last ride in my babies’ to a grassy area outside of Seoul. He’d been ill for some time, no longer able to walk as his body was reaching its limits. Saeyoung had never taken the best care of himself physically, and it was really showing in his old age. As they’d lain there under the stars, Saeyoung spoke of the emptiness of non-existence and the way MC had saved him from that life. He mentioned that he hoped the reset would start again so he could live this life over, but she simply hushed him and said that whatever came they’d always be together. That seemed to soothe him, and they laid there quietly until he breathed his last.

It was several hours later before MC found herself able to call the medics and let go of her husband. She was right to think that his robots would never be a replacement for him, though she still dug the little thing he’d once terrorized Yoosung with from its hiding place. She was found clutching the item when she passed - the little robot still singing her a lullaby and asking her if she’d fallen asleep.

In their time working for the RFA, they were able to help raise incredible amounts of money. Saeyoung gave up most of his hacking activity and lived a far more legal life than he’d had to before - able to be reunited with his brother and have his own family. The existence he’d never thought he’d have was now a permanent mark on the organization as well as their family left behind. Who could forget the eccentric redhead who’d once protected them from the shadows? His legacy was as indestructible as the robot he’d built.

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Chapter Directory – Other Fanfictions

[trpg-dingusmaster]

8 days after zombie day.

Played werewolf apocalypse at the lfgs tonight!

One of the characters was given a vision of the future (several months ago irl and in game) and the vision was soaked in blood and laden with rot and despair. The dead would walk and the Wyrm would dance. There wasn’t much time. He loaded his truck with supplies and his terrified and confused siblings and stole away into the woods to hide.

Eventually, and with some help from a very conserned group his senses returned and he explained what happened and what was going to happen. Luckily another characters estranged father was a doomsday prepper who was delighted to allow this group of strangers help finish his compound if it meant reconnecting with his child.

Once finished, and now with the extra help, the compound would be able to satisfy the needs of 300-500 people. Working as much as possible on this while still trying to not draw too much unwanted attention to the endeavor about 45% of the compound was completed before the outbreak began.

I missed a lot of this campaign but my pc was dm controlled npc as needed so I missed a lot of the background but my character missed nothing. that’s essentially what happened in my absence and the opening of today’s session. Most of today’s session was figuring out who and what was needed and what priority these things were. And how realistic we wanted to be with all of it, which was extremely realistic I guess, which was fine and everyone seemed to enjoy that discussion a lot but I was very unprepared for it so mostly tried to stay quiet except now and then I did need clearification because I’m out of date with the subjects that came up for doomsday preparation.

the first 1-3 days were spent gathering the last of the supplies there was room for and the tools needed to continue work and quietly as possible bringing friends, family, and trusted colleagues to the compound. Days 4-6 finding familiar people in the community who would be good to have around or not picked up in the first 3 days some of these at the request of the npc dad character who had a list ready as part of his doomsday preparations.

By day 7 the population of the compound was about 120-150, the minimum required to continue run the compound, keep watch, and continue actually building on it without much difficulty.

Day 7 was also the day we decided to break the news to the compound dwellers that zombies were not the only other strange thing running around. That a good number of those present are werewolves, and... a troll, and also a fae. That outside were other werewolves and vampires and numerous other things. Some could be trusted, others not so much. I gave a “Puberty and Your Changing Body” type speech and the fae gave a demonstration of shape shifting, then an educational slide show was presented to help explain the situation without causing much fuss in the audience thanks to some good rolls.

Also the compound leadership was decided.

A LONG time was spent on that. A super long time. And i feel like it didn’t need to take that long? Because we were essentially all in agreement but nobody seemed to notice? this kinda thing happens a lot and I have some ideas on that but I digress,

It ended up being if I understood:

My pc I charge of medical shit, an npc in charge of daily operations, an npc in charge of base defense, a pc in charge of and leading away missions.

Day 8 arrives we discuss were to go and search for survivors, supplies, tools, livestock?, extra weapons because apparently some got confiscated in an earlier session? etc we pick up a radio distress call from a police station in the nearest township. I misunderstood the discussion slightly and suggested we just kill everyone in the building.

“Your a child of Gaia and a doctor dammit not a get of fenris and a murderer!”

“Oh yeah... uh I you know? I maintain the statement. Wren has a big problem with the police apparently,?because I wasn’t paying attention. Also, you don’t know me or my life stop looking at me like that.”

“... fine, but nevertheless we’re not murdering whoever is in that building.”

“That’s fine. I don’t really care what we do as long as we decide and do something.”

And so we did. We headed out to the police station driving some sort of Catipillar? I’m not sure exactly what kind of vehicle the description could have been any of several construction type devices, but would probably have been used in construction of the compound so we had access to whatever it was. Unfortunately the noise drew in zombies from all over and to get to the station instead of 30 zombies scattered around there were 47 coming right for us as soon as we exited the vehicle.

We are nearly defeated almost instantly because of overwhelming numbers and bad rolls. Also I didn’t know what stats do what or how combat worked when I built my character so.... that was an issue.

Luckily the troll npc helped my character get to safety and the other heavily injured pc was right by the CAT so he just went back inside. That’s where we ended the session.

when we meet again I can heal myself and go back and I’m pretty sure I can heal the other two after that? I’ll have to reread those bits of the manual. In between I’m going to use that xp that’s been building up to adjust my sheet. Or try to, I’ll probably have the dm look it over because I feel like it’s written pretty clear but something about it just isn’t clicking?

Somewhere in there, while the internet/phones service was still running we received a mass email/text from our friends in the Glass Walker community informing us that werewolves are for sure immune to zombie infection but not sure about the other supernatural creatures yet.

And I’m pretty sure the other two players either changed characters entirely or changed big details about them but I’m not sure why they’d have done this? And I didn’t bother to ask. It didn’t effect anything really? It was just odd and I noticed.

Also: apparently the Black Spiral Dancers use normal social media. I’m not sure why I thought they wouldn’t? But? I still thought that was a great weird detail to add. Like? I wanna know how many followers a dancer has on instagram?? How often do their accounts get taken down? Do they prefer reddit or 4chan???

[vanilla-blessing]

Magical Girl Ore Post-Meltdown Prediction Guide

With the release of its fifth, first not outsourced episode, Magical Girl Ore has already reached the breaking point. Unbeholden to the earthly requirements of producers, schedules, or source material, it has ascended to a higher level of anime wokeness. Meta no longer describes this adaptation, and the fourth wall has been destroyed, even atomized. Its exploration of foreign outsourcing to meet deadlines and the well-known but oft-ignored self-destruction of the anime industry is a clear and definitive statement from Magical Girl Ore: there are no Gods, there are no masters. As such, we at Vanilla♡Blessing may only try to understand and predict where this series' new direction will lead them next.

A Fairy Ring opens, allowing the anime-chans to traverse into the 2D dimension. Concentric Fairy Rings allow the nurse from Forest Fairy Five and Forest Fairy Five ~fairy tale~ to appear in the lower right corner of the screen ala japanese reality television. She doesn’t like what she sees but she’s polite about it.

The robot brothers join the Kamen Rider and Sentai Ranger crossover movies, where their designs belonged in the first place. They look kind of out of place but everyone assumes they won a contest or something so nobody questions or notices the change.

One of the episodes will be completely live-action, shot like your typical tokusatsu show. This will not be addressed by the characters and the animation credits will still be placed in the ending song. Gackt plays Saki post-transformation.

The moment they run out of remaining source material, the characters all stand awkwardly waiting for their next line, which never comes. The last 3 minutes of the episode are pitch black with silence.

Fifteen minutes of the final episode are devoted to a formal funeral procession for Ruby from Jewelpet, pictured below. Attack Chance is still on infinite hiatus and every YouTube-available episode is played at the wake. Gangnam Style is played the entire time. 👌

The characters develop further sentience as to understand the circumstances of their existence and try to find a way to escape their 720p prison. They make their way through several series before running into their manga counterparts, leading to a moment of existential horror.

Through some sort of magical disturbance, Saki’s transformation sequence goes wrong and she turns into a plate of curry. Hilarity ensues. Sakuya loses her “ka”.

A fight breaks out among the staff and so one poor animator is left to put together the episode in Microsoft Paint. The entire episode focuses on this, with several gags based around things like canvas size and the fill tool. They fight the stick figures from those animator vs animation Newgrounds videos but they don’t have enough budget to keep up after burning all their good will with producers in previous weeks.

In an unlicensed crossover with Berserk (2017), Saki and Sakuyo are forced to fight against hordes of poorly animated CG goblins and skeletons, leading up to a confrontation with Guts. The duo make fun of Guts for his poor animation before getting sliced in half by a one frame sword slash. This is never brought up again and the girls are fine next episode.

thanks @qwarq on twitter for the gif

There’s an OVA and it’s bought out for 29 minutes of Carl’s Jr commercials but nobody watches that either so everyone loses money. On the later TV broadcast it’s replaced by Hardee’s and fans riot. Since nobody is watching this show, all the fans are revealed to be paid actors, or they would be if anyone were checking.

Truly, there is no knowing the depths of depravity to which Magical Girl Ore will stoop. Conversely, the heights of which it is now capable are similarly immeasurable. All we know is that Magical Girl Ore cannot be stopped, only witnessed. Probably don’t watch it though. We can only hope that either all of these or none of these predictions come to pass.

-ChorpSaway and qb, Doomsday Preppers