#so a small master doc just in case is always good (even for myself to remember for subsequent books hah)

[itskaist]

i literally had this post already drafted and was dragging my feet whether to send it or not; and then @reapersmarch tagged me for a wip so fuck it we ball

wouldst anybody perchance be interested in an fhr code chart like this? 👉👈

[corvidshipping]

modern au red/milo dump while i try to get myself together to answer asks nd work on ATJ:

(tw for alcohol mentions near the end, also this is an EXTREMELY long post, its so long that even after i split it into categorized sections each section could be its own post)

CLOTHING

milo absolutely has no sense of fashion. i feel like this is basically canon - for the styles at the time, he dresses fairly basic, mostly focused on looking put together for his job (definitely dresses aimed more towards how he would like to be treated by his peers, despite his actual position - then again our best example outside of the expedition is when he's about to deliver what he considers the most important presentation of his life, so who knows, maybe he usually dresses like a slob). aside from that his main concern seems like practicality and comfort. his wardrobe is dominated by earth tones - beiges and greens set with white and greys. all of that taken into account, i can see him dressing like this in a more modern era:

basically- a lot of cardigans, usually collared shirts or comfortable turtlenecks (since he does still occupy a research position at the smithsonian, even if only in title), big ol' coats, khakis and chinos and slightly stiff dress pants complete with ironed creases. i can see him wearing similar clothes outside work, just more comfortable - jeans and knitted shirts, henleys, more turtlenecks, and comfy cardigans over short sleeved shirts. i dont really see him wearing a lot of prints, i think he'd veer more towards solid clothes in lighter colors, but maybe he has a few. hes definitely the kind of guy to think of wearing the single graphic tee he owns as "bold and wild".

im very married to the idea of him wearing converse though. i cant explain it. milo in converse keeps me going in this world

hes kind of broke so i think maybe he got the converse secondhand maybe? or a gift of some kind. aside from the converse i can see him wearing a lot of oxfords and maybe wingtips

i want to see him in a hawaiian shirt so bad. i am losing it at this thought. he buttons it all the way up to his neck like someones awkward dad. milo wears a hawaiian shirt to "let loose". he wears it with like, khakis. or knee length jorts AHHHHDJHDSGJHDSJGh

a tie??? does he wear his hawaiian shirt with a tie???? does he think it makes it look cooler?????????? i am sobbing

red is the COMPLETE opposite. in the canon 1914 setting, red is already very rebellious for an AFAB person of their era- theyre openly a suffragette, they frequently refuse to wear skirts even in public and dress in mens clothes even before they were openly nonbinary, despite not being accepted into the male-dominated research fields and colleges they continue to educate themself with or without help, they purposely aim for an "unfeminine" silhouette when they dress, refuse to wear corsets, etc. (spoiler alert- there's a clear reason they get on so well with audrey in ATJ)

theyre also easily mistaken by people that didnt know them prior to their transition for being just a very small/young cis man- even though they canonically have a very soft "traditionally feminine" face

so basically, in any era theyre set into, red is always gonna aim to be ahead of the curve- both in their personal beliefs and practices and in their fashion. theyre also very androgynous in their clothes, although they tend to aim a bit more masculine (thats partially due to the era though, and having been forced into skirts exclusively for their entire life- i think in a modern setting where its more acceptable for AFABs to dress and act in a less hyperfeminine way, theyd be more okay with a fluidity in their gender presentation).

all that taken into account, i can see them dressing like this:

lots of baggy clothes, especially baggy jackets and shirts. they like loose fitting high waisted pants like JNCO jeans, cargo pants, etc but they arent averse to pencil legs. they rarely ever wear skinny jeans or drainpipes though. messy hair is a lifestyle for them- their haircut is definitely home-done

you know how in BICSTLY they used to have really long hair before they cut it? in a modern au i can see them impulsively doing the cut at like 3am and waking milo up at his door cause they screwed it up and he ends up having to help fix it (even though hes literally no better at cutting hair than them. worse even)

definitely have an undercut bob- bob on top, shaven on the bottom layer. they might end up growing their hair into a mullet at some point if they get bored. probably dyes their hair all the time out of boredom and then regrets it later and has to use dye remover.

lots of ripped tights and fishnets, leggings with big loose crop tops, big hoodies, safety pin jewelry and homemade jewelry. maybe some sticknpokes.

all that said, they still know how to dress in a professional situation. since its a modern au theres really nothing holding them back from the education and career they canonically want but cant get in the 1910s, so i imagine they would work at the smithsonian as well, maybe their father helped them get the job? potentially in that case they might be his assistant- after all, he trusts their opinion on artifacts more than anyone else's.

at work you can still very much see the punk/skater/grunge/goth style but its more understated- turtlenecks, high waisted and looser dress pants, lots of black, slightly unbuttoned collared shirts with a loose overcoat and no tie

since i elaborated on milos shoe taste i may as well elaborate on red's: they definitely wear converse as well, probably newer than milo's since their father is fairly wealthy and they can afford it. they also have a doc martens collection. they have a pair of demonias but they never wear them and milo is really the only person to even know they own them, let alone see them in them. they really dont like to wear heels much, but they own a few just to play around with. they have a bad habit of wearing any laced shoes untied, but they never trip over the laces. they also use lace code- their most-worn Docs have purple laces on the right foot and yellow on the left. some of their Docs have (reclaimed) pink laces.

has an extensive pin collection including feminism pins, anti-racism pins, punk-related pins, skater-related pins, and pop culture pins (80s music, modern music, old movies, etc)

MUSIC TASTE

milo's into a lot of older music- stuff from the 50s is his favorite. really into jazz and ballroom style stuff. his favorite band is queen, i think- he likes the old-fashioned sound, the jazz-chamber-ballroom influences, the diversity of their lyrics, and the complexity between the guitar riffs, the basslines, and freddie's vocal runs as well as the vocal harmonies.

sometimes he hums good old fashioned lover boy to red and they two-step in the living room in their pajamas :pleading:

also very into rush. yes, he is a rush guy :pensive:.

also listens to a surprising amount of lo-fi? he really likes stuff that remixes older music with hip hop and lofi elements, like earl grey. nearly exclusively into instrumental stuff but also very into louie zong. he listens to it while he works a lot.

knows a lotttt of foreign artists, especially niche ones. fuckin LOVES casiopea

red's spotify is a goddamn mess. everything from 2000s emo, to classic 70s punk, to post-punk and new wave, to 90s pop, to rap. they cant be easily classified at all

their favorite bands are oingo boingo, prince, queen (they listen to a lot of their harder-rock music, but milo knows theyre into the ballads too. theyll never tell anyone else though), doja cat, lil nas, fall out boy, and billie eilish.

red recites the intro monologue to lets go crazy very seriously to make milo laugh, sometimes. they get very into it with their facial expressions. sometimes it devolves into a full air guitar/keyboard/drum and wild dancing session. milo does not know how to participate in this but he loves watching them have fun with it. sometimes they pull him off the couch to make him dance with them, though

they are a huge sucker for dark pop, vaporwave, retrowave, EDM, hip hop, emo, punk... etc etc. anything that combines any two or more of those genres in an original or interesting way gets their attention right away

there's a lot of sharing between the two of them- even though their music tastes are so different, they like a lot of the others taste, and theyre always up to listen to whatever their partner is playing.

red is a huge softie, and milo has found them more than once listening to or humming something he was playing for them the other day because it reminded them of him

speaking of which- in the 1914 canon, red can play piano. i think that carries over to a modern au, where they could play piano and by extension keyboard. i like to think they experiment with a lot of instruments but i doubt they ever really mastered any others. maybe theyre okay at drums or bass?

they learned to play and sing teo torriatte for milo, as a surprise. when they first performed it for them, they had everything set up for when he got home from work- the lights were dimmed, they had candles lit around the keyboard, they draped stuff in cloth to make it look pretty, they scattered flower petals around. when milo walked in and saw it all, he almost proposed then and there- the only thing that stopped him was that he would kick himself for the rest of his life if he did that without a ring.

HOBBIES/ACTIVITIES

milo is still an avid chess player in this, but i like to think hes in some kind of groupchat or text or discord server for it. he doesnt necessarily consider any of the others in the chat close friends, but he does know them all by name

he tries to get red into chess but they never really get it

he tells them all about the stuff that goes down in the games and they just. do not understand. but they love listening to him get excited about it anyway

"red you're not gonna BELIEVE this, eddie played an italian game on star today! i thought for sure she would see through it since everyone knows it but she slipped and he beat her in like, 13 moves! i wouldnt have believed it if i hadnt been there!"

"yes sweetie please tell me more" (barely disguised pained expression)

red is a skater and a regular at the skate park by the smithsonian

most regulars there know them by name, they can spot a newbie a mile away

they have a sticker of a broken tv with a skull inside of it on the underside of their board, its become recognized as a symbol of them unofficially

since theyre so regular and have been going there a lot longer than most of the other skaters that frequent the place, a lot of what they say is kind of just accepted as the rules

they have a bad habit of lecturing new kids who show up without knee/elbow pads or helmets at the very least. all the other skaters enforce it too. kids dont end up showing up without protective gear very often after their first visit

they brought a first aid kid and left it there and everyone has kept it stocked pretty well without them having to have much input. its kind of just a communal first aid kit

they once drew the broken tv symbol on the inside of a half-pipe and everyone started calling it red's ramp after that

they also started calling the bowl at the center of the park the Soup Bowl and now thats just accepted as the name. some of the newer kids genuinely thought that it was called that by the park and were shocked when they found out it was just a random nickname red gave it one day

theyve brought milo a few times but hes extremely awkward on his feet and could never really get his balance on a skateboard, and quite frankly red is afraid of what might happen if he tried even a low ramp, so he usually just sits at the rim of the bowl while red skates around

everyone knew he was their boyfriend before they even met him. a few of the regulars called him by name right away. one of them was certain red had brought him before.

but no

they just talk so fuckin much about him that its like they already know him

aside from skateboarding, red is pretty good on rollerskates/blades

they tried to take milo to a roller rink once but it was a disaster and they ended up going home, changing into pajamas, ordering chinese food, and marathoning movies till they fell asleep on the couch together. so not a total loss

theyre both very into movies. red is deep into horror and milo likes indie/art movies and just Cannot handle horror at all, but they both agree on old movies, from the 80s and 90s to like the 30s.

red has shown milo some of the classic horror movies and the niche old ones (from like the 40s) since theyre not difficult to stomach

every so often when red brings up wanting to see a horror movie milo is like "aw babe we can watch that tonight i promise it wont be bad" and he genuinely thinks he can handle it this time

he cant

he never can

it is always a lie

red ends up holding him every time and talking him to sleep, but it thankfully never causes like a major panic attack or anything like that

they love going to museums together, of all kinds. they love art museums. they also go to aquariums and aviaries

sometimes they like to go to other history museums and criticise the veracity or accuracy of exhibits/translations, all in good fun of course. theyre never actually being mean about it

SIDENOTES/UNCATEGORIZED

they both used to work at starbucks, when they were younger and before they worked at the smithsonian. they worked at separate stores 2 blocks from each other.

milo cant stand soda or carbonated drinks, red can and will chug a java monster in order to survive a long workday if they must. milo is constantly concerned for their health and wellbeing

they r both lightweights when it comes to drinking. they can split a six pack and both be falling-over drunk by the end of the night.

given the changes in beauty standards people DEFINITELY think milo is more attractive than they would in 1914. cmon. hes a lil twinky nerd. you think people wont eat that up?

he never really catches onto the flirting much though

did u think i would forget ki/da and the others? youd be wrong.

i simultaneously like the idea of something similar to the movie happening, but also just like... ki/da just being a regular person living on the surface. in either case they r all friends still

in the case of ki/da just being a regular person on the surface- i like the idea of atl/antis just being A Place in this au, maybe its a bit of a closed off country though? like, not many foreigners live there and to get there you basically need to be there as a diplomat or a scholar

maybe ki/da visits DC as a diplomat? she is a princess, after all

red meets audrey online cause they both yell at the same misogynistic asshole on twitter

they exchange discord names in the replies of the tweet and tell the guy not to interrupt them while theyre talking in his replies

i like to think red and milo are selected to go on an academic visit to atl/antis (to learn about the culture, with permission of the king), and audrey ends up as the mechanic on the ship during the visit and theyre like (spiderman pointing meme) at each other

red and audrey have so many inside jokes that they basically speak a different language. milo gets some of the terms from context and pop culture (they use "so very" in real life- as in "wow, that shirt is so very.") but he is hopeless to learn all of it

one of their inside jokes is any variation of "milo hot girl summer" and they REFUSE to explain it to him no matter how much he begs

milo wears that iconique tank top on the ship and they say it literally any time he bends over, picks anything up, reaches for anything, moves, BREATHES. he is bewildered and at this point concerned

(in truth, the joke came from red taking a really blurry picture of him in a short sleeve shirt where he looked pretty cute and captioned it "milo's having a hot girl summer rn" and they just could not stop repeating it once audrey met him IRL)

they have a minecraft world. i do like to believe that every so often vinny finds a way in- theyre never sure how- and griefs the shit out of them by blowing up EVERY. monument.

this post is getting long bc im enraptured by the idea of an atl/antis modern au so im cutting it off here but expect WAY MORE later

[starryknight09]

Burning love

Febuwhump Day 22: burned

Read on AO3.

________________________________________________________

Peter hadn’t been paying attention.  He knew better, but he’d been distracted thinking about the best way to ask MJ to the spring fling dance.  Even after Tony had harped on him over and over again about lab safety and always being careful and blah blah blah, which Peter thought was more than a little hypocritical because the other man was the antithesis of everything he preached about.

Regardless, one moment he’d been thinking about whether inviting MJ to the dance required flowers, and the next moment he forgot to move the hand holding together the two Ironman armor pieces so it accidentally got in the way of the welding torch he was using to meld the seam.  It happened so fast, for a split second Peter just froze in shock, staring at his damaged hand even though he couldn’t see much through his welding mask.  Then the pain hit him and he sucked in a sharp breath.  He fumbled with the blowtorch for a second before he managed to turn it off.  Flipping his safety mask up, he examined his hurt hand, no longer filtered through the mask’s lens shade.

“Oh shit.” He swore as soon as he noticed the streak of red blistering skin across the back of it.

“What?” Tony perked up from across the room.  Peter’s back was to him, so he couldn’t see what had happened.  “Did you screw something up?  You need some help?”

“Uh…no.  I’m uh I’m good.” He stumbled over the words because oh god ow his hand hurt.  He really wanted to run over to the sink and shove it under some cold water, but there was no way Tony wouldn’t notice that and he didn’t want him to know how stupid he’d been.  Tony would be pissed, and there was no reason the man needed to know when it should heal itself relatively quickly anyway.

“You sure?” Tony asked, only his voice came from much closer.  Peter put the torch down and turned around, careful to keep both hands behind his back while still trying to look casual.

“Yeah, I’m sure.  It’s fine.  Totally fine.”

“Uh huh.” Tony narrowed his eyes at him.  “You’re a terrible liar.”

Tony peered around him to look at the armor and Peter twisted so he stayed facing the man.

“See?  It’s fine.  I didn’t mess it up.” He said, voice tight because oh god oh god his hand his hand.  He’d been shot before and it hadn’t hurt this much.  What was it about burns that caused such exquisite pain?

When Tony didn’t find anything wrong with the armor he turned his gaze back on Peter, eyes narrowing as he studied him.

“Why are you sweating?”

“It’s hot in here.” He answered but it sounded more like a question.

“FRIDAY what’s the temperature in here?”

“It is currently 70 degrees Fahrenheit.” FRIDAY responded.

“Mmhmm so any clue why the spiderling here is sweating?”

His eyes widened.  

“I believe it is secondary to the burn he just sustained on his left hand.”

“FRIDAY!” Peter protested the snitching at the same time Tony snapped, “What?” and grabbed his arm, yanking it forward so his hand came into view.  The man swore as soon as he saw the burn and Peter’s face scrunched.  It looked even worse now than it had a minute ago.

“What happened?” Tony demanded even as he dragged him by the wrist over to the sink.

“It slipped.”

“It slipped?” Tony echoed in disbelief as he guided Peter’s hand under the stream of cold water.  Even though the coolness helped, the pressure from the water hurt.  He grit his teeth.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.

“How did it slip?” Tony asked.  “Aren’t your spidey powers supposed to keep these kinds of things from happening?”

Peter frowned.  Was he talking about his spidey sense?  “Um no.  I mean if some bad guy’s shooting at me then yeah, it’ll warn me, but it doesn’t warn me from myself because I’m not a bad guy.”

“That makes no sense.” Tony shook his head as he brought Peter’s hand out from under the faucet to look at it for a few seconds before shoving it back under again.

Peter winced and tried to explain, “Um it like senses intent?  So if someone wants to hurt me and then they try to it’ll warn me, but I didn’t want to hurt myself, I didn’t have any bad intent, so it didn’t warn me.  Does that make more sense?”

“No.  It should warn you either way.”

“Well, I mean yeah, that’d be nice, but it doesn’t.”

Tony huffed and pulled his hand out from the water again, turning off the faucet.  “Come on let’s get you to the medbay.”

“Oh.  No.  I don’t need the medbay.  We can just leave it.  It’ll heal in a day or so.” He protested even as Tony dragged him to the door.

“Yeah that’s going to be a big fat no.” Tony shook his head.  “We’re going to get this taken care of.”

Peter groaned.

**********

“So what are we dealing with here doc?  Is he going to be able to keep his hand?” Tony joked as Dr. Cho finished examining the burn.

“It’s a second degree burn.” Dr. Cho explained.  “But it’s over a relatively small area.  With his healing powers it should be completely fine in a couple days.”

“I told you.” Peter complained.

“I’ll put some burn salve on it and wrap it.” Dr. Cho said as she started gathering the necessary supplies from the cart next to the bed.  “I imagine it hurts, so once I’m done, I can grab you some of your pain pills if you want.”

“Oh no that’s ok.  I’m good.” He hated his pain pills.  They helped get rid of the pain, but they knocked him out too, and he didn’t feel like sleeping the day away over a stupid burn.  He’d come up for the weekend to spend time with Tony.  He wasn’t going to let a momentary lapse in judgment take that away.

“I’ll give a couple to Tony in case you change your mind.”

Peter sighed but didn’t argue.  She could give them to Tony but that didn’t mean he’d be taking them.

He watched as Dr. Cho slathered the burn in some cream and then wrapped it in gauze.  Once she’d finished, she handed Tony a couple pills and then gave Peter a small smile.  “You’re all set.  Stop by sometime tomorrow and I’ll take a look at it and re-wrap if it needs it.”

“Thanks Dr. Cho.” Peter said, jumping off the exam table, more than ready to leave.

“Back to the shop?” He asked as they walked out of the medbay.

“To do what?  You only have one working hand.” Tony scoffed.

“So do you and you manage pretty well.” Peter snarked.  Tony had survived after snapping the gauntlet but he’d paid for it with his arm.  He hadn’t let it slow him down, though.  He’d fashioned an even better one out of the same nanotechnology he’d used to make his suit.

“Not the same.”

Tony led them back to his rooms in the compound.  “Sit.” He ordered Peter.  “I’ll grab you some water.”

Peter actually listened for once and plopped down on the couch, picking up the remote with his good hand and turning on the TV.

“So, tell me again how this happened or you’re losing your welding privileges.” Tony said as he handed him a glass of water.  “Actually, either way you still might.  I haven’t decided.”

He took a drink of the water before setting it down on the side table.  “I told you.  It slipped.”

“And I’m not buying it kid.  There’s no way it just ‘slipped’.” Tony put the word in air quotes.  “But if you keep insisting, I guess I’ll just have to have FRIDAY play the footage.”

It wasn’t an empty threat, and he knew if Tony watched it he’d see right away he hadn’t slipped.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes.  “I was distracted and I forgot to move my hand.  Happy?”

“No, I’m Tony.”

“Oh god that’s such a dad joke.”

“Don’t try to deflect.” Tony pointed a finger at him.  “You’re going need to explain more than ‘you got distracted’ before I even think about letting you touch that equipment again.”

Peter huffed in irritation.  “I was thinking about how to ask MJ out to the spring fling dance and I wasn’t paying close enough attention.”

Peter instantly regretted the admission when Tony’s face split into a wide grin.  “A girl huh? ��All of this is because of girl.  See, that I can believe.”

“Oh god don’t get all weird about it.”

“You need some advice?  Not that I’m the best one to give advice when it comes to romantic uh stuff, or so Pepper would say.”

“No.  I don’t need any advice.” He shook his head.

“Ok, so how are you going to ask her?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Sounds like you need advice.”

“No I—”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about it kid.  Just go up to her at school on Monday and ask, ‘Hey MJ do you want to go to the spring ding—”

“Spring fling.” He corrected, not quite sure if Tony had butchered the name on purpose or not.

Tony waved a hand dismissively.  “—together?’  If she’s anything like you’ve described her, she’ll appreciate the straight forwardness.”

That was probably true, but part of him wanted to make it special.  “You don’t think I should get her like some flowers or something?”

“Flowers?  To get asked to go to a dance?” Tony pulled a face.  “I wouldn’t think so, but then again I haven’t been in high school in…actually never.  I skipped that part of my childhood.”

Peter smiled.

“You know what?  I think this calls for an expert.” Tony took his phone out and put it on speaker as it rang.

“Tony?”

“Hey Pep.  Quick question.  The kid wants to ask his girlfriend out—”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Peter interrupted.

“You hear that?”  

“Yes I did.” Pepper said and Peter could hear the smile in her voice.

“Anyway, he wants to ask a girl out to some spring a ling dance.”

Yep, he was definitely doing it on purpose.  Peter didn’t bother to correct him this time.

“Does he need to get her flowers or something or should he just ask her?  I thought he should just ask her, but then he mentioned flowers, and I honestly have no clue how the kids are doing things these days, so we thought we’d check in with the master.”

“And that’s me?” Pepper asked in amusement.

“Yes dear.”

“Well, I think for once you’re right.” Pepper said and Tony did a little fist pump.

“Just ask her honey.  She’d be crazy to say no to you.  And then when she says yes, you can bring her flowers when you pick her up to go to the dance.  Ok?”

“Ok.” Peter responded.  “Thanks Pepper.”

“It’s no problem.  I’d wish you luck, but I know you won’t need it.”

“All right.  Thanks Pep.” Tony said.

“You’re welcome.”

Tony hung up.

“See?  Easy.  Now, if you’d just brought this up when you’d gotten here you wouldn’t have had to suffer.” Tony gestured toward his bandaged hand.

Peter rolled his eyes.  “I didn’t want to say anything because I knew you’d make a big deal out of it.”

“But I didn’t, did I?”

Peter side eyed him suspiciously.  “No.  You didn’t.”

“So, on that note…do we need to have the talk?” Tony asked, arching an eyebrow at him, but Peter could tell he was just messing with him.

“Oh god.  I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Tony laughed.

**********

Monday morning came and his hand had healed.  Only a faint red line remained and he figured it’d be gone by tomorrow.  As he walked in, he decided to commit to following Tony’s advice.  He fidgeted all through the first half of the day until lunch period.  He’d seen MJ in class, but he didn’t think that was the best place to ask her with everyone else around, so he waited until they were alone in the lunch line together before taking a bolstering breath and asking.  “Hey MJ?”

“Hm?” She replied distractedly as she read the book in her hands.

“Do you, uh…do you want to go to the spring fling with me?”

MJ looked up from her book and the barest hint of a smile crossed her face as she raised an eyebrow at him.  “Are you asking me out Parker?”

“Um yeah.”

“Like as a date.” She clarified.

“Yes…”

“Ok.” She gave him a nod and went back to her book.

“Ok?  So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.” MJ smiled but kept staring at the page in front of her.

“Ok yeah um great.  That’s great!  Uh, thank you.”

MJ snorted.

“I mean uh cool.  It’ll-it’ll be fun.”

MJ kept reading and Peter tried to play it cool, but he couldn’t help pulling out his phone and texting Tony, ‘She said yes!’

‘Of course she did.’ Tony replied quickly.  ‘We’ll start brainstorming flower ideas next weekend.  But not around any heavy machinery.’

Peter smiled and shook his head.  That was actually something he didn’t need Tony’s help with.  He’d thought about it and already knew what kind of flowers he wanted to get her.  Actually, he wasn’t going to get her flowers at all.  A few months ago, she’d mentioned her favorite flower was the black dahlia because of its significance in the infamous Hollywood murder.  Since flower shops didn’t exactly carry bouquets of black dahlias, he’d searched online and found a black dahlia necklace.  The moment he saw it, he knew it’d be perfect.  He glanced back at MJ, unable to keep the smile off his face even as she kept her nose buried in her book.  The dance was only a month away.  He couldn’t wait.

[docholligay]

Follow Water Down

I have been wandering around in the woods since I was a small child. My family was not particularly well off, and from the ages of probably 3 to 16, the only vacations we ever took were camping trips. We left the house for the woods nearly every weekend. I live in Montana, and so when I say camping trips, I don’t mean we headed off to the KOA with a pool, I mean if I walked away from the campsite I was in the goddamn National Forest. I was genuinely happy with this arrangement, as I was a strange child who grew up to be a strange adult, and I enjoyed the quiet, the sense of exploration, the smell of the trees. 

I began leaving the campsite nearly from the word go, and by the time I was about 8 or so, I was very much off by myself in the woods for the majority of the day, which leads us to our post today. There are people who would call my mom grossly neglectful for having allowed me to do so much on my own at such a young age, and even she gets bashful when she talks about it, but I credit it with a lot of positives: 

I have an extremely good sense of direction

I have a strong core of self-sufficiency and am not easily overwhelmed by anxiety

I can be alone in the quiet with my thoughts

I am rough and tumble as HELL, owing to many many many falls down the sides of mountains, huge gashes in my legs, being stalked by a mountain lion, and one very memorable miscalculation that ended in me falling off a (small) waterfall

When I meet my fear, I can master it*

So what I am here to present to you today are very basic survival skills such as I would teach my own child, such as I was taught as a child. This is by no means comprehensive, and if you intend to get seriously into outdoor life, I recommend both doing far more research, and taking a a Wilderness First Aid class, which are frequently offered when it’s NOT Covid, and which I take about once every 3-5 years (I am due). This is a primer for those who are young, or new, or mostly want to experience the wilderness by reading about me doing it. 

Follow Water Down. 

I cannot remember how old I was when I learned this. It’s the sort of thing that is a part of my makeup, my mother must have told me when I was only a toddler and its stuck with me so hard that it’s one of the first things I tell people. 

If you are lost: 

Water will always lead you back to civilization eventually. Join up with the stream. See which way its going. Go that way. This is obviously not significantly helpful if you are lost in a flat desert plain but then again, I did start this by saying I was a child of the woods and not the desert. This seems like such an easy trick that people often ignore me when I say it, but it is the simplest thing for a child to remember. 

I can’t remember how old I was when I got lost in a tangle of hills and mountains in the Little Belts, where the trail faded but I kept going in my normal bullheaded way. But I was well and truly lost by the time it was about 3 pm, and in some ways I wish I had worn a step tracker back in those days because I am extremely certain I went miles and miles, as one does when they leave immediately after breakfast and don’t come back till dinner. I had no idea where I was, where the campsite was, or what direction I should be going. 

I was not thrilled. 

But I was not a kid who sat down and cried, in that I had smaller concerns before, and so could easily grow to meet the larger ones. I simply walked down the mountain, knowing a valley was more likely to have a stream I could easily join. Lo and behold, there in that little valley was a snowmelt creek, and I followed it downstream, knowing eventually there would be a house, or a campground, or something. In a twist of glorious good luck, it actually led me back toward where the campsite was, and as I began to recognize things, I easily clipped into our campsite long before any sign of trouble. 

Follow Water Down. If you aren’t near a stream, head for the nearest valley, and follow the valley. This will generally lead you to water. People will tell you to stay put and that is WAY smarter than wandering aimlessly in circles, which is why I say to follow something. You think you won’t go in circles, but you will. By following a streambed, not only are you doubtlessly heading back to civilization on a long enough timeline, but you keep yourself from doing that. 

Your Pack: 

Before you go out for the day, you should have a simple day pack. Mine is an Osprey Hikelite 18, but I hike all the time, and you don’t need something that technical. A plain ol Jansport will work as long as it fits you well. I do however, really approve of and recommend a waist clip. I also think a pocket for a water bottle on the outside is really useful, but you’re not going to fucking die if you have to take off your pack to get to your water bottle. I just find it takes up space I don’t want. 

Gear:

More important than your pack itself is what you have in it. Again, this is according to people named Doc, who are me. This is stuff I always take with me when I am by myself, on a trail where it would be realistic to assume I would not see someone else for hours. This is like 95% of Montana trails, or any time that I am off trail. 

Compass. You can get fancy, pretty compasses, but a lot of times they lack the actual essentials you need. I like this guy, which is well made, can be clipped to you backpack easily, and is inexpensive. I don’t have the time or space to really try to teach you how to use a compass, but here’s a really good simple primer from the American Hiking Society. 

Paper Map. I sometimes break this one, admittedly, but I shouldn’t. Having a paper map of the area is always a really smart practice, and used in combination with the compass, can help you get unlost quickly, or at the very least give you an idea of how close to any given outpost you are. 

Water Bottle. Please don’t tell me you were going to attempt to leave without this. I have no preferences on one, shockingly, and I’m being serious. I’ve been given to use an old disposable one, who gives a shit. 

Water Filter. Now THIS I did not have as a child, because my parents didn’t know any better, but if I follow in the grand tradition of my people and release my child into the mountains, I will give them one for certain. I knew what kind of water to look for if one was going to drink from a stream, and I did so, which probably explains why I am not susceptible to ~tummy upsets~ to this day. However, it would have been smarter for me to have one of these. I like LifeStraw but Sawyer makes a perfectly good one. Look for lightweight, it’s a day pack, kids. 

Knife. I have many many feelings about knives, which would require its own post, but this is fairly essential for being out and about. This is not a thing I would necessarily cheap out on, though there are fine options at most price points. This is my knife:

The Gerber Propel AO. The serrated and straight blade edge means there’s a lot of options for use as a tool, I find the blade to be strong and hold an edge well. Most American-made Gerbers (be sure and check, as they have a much shittier Chinese-made division) are incredibly well made knives. Leatherman multi-tools and Swiss Army Knives are, if you ask people named Doc who are me, a waste of weight and size, but if I were to buy a Leatherman, it would be a Free K2X. I would not buy a Swiss Army Knife. 

A jacket/fleece/pullover. Listen, i am the last one who wants to carry this shit but if you get lost overnight (as has never happened to me, kinehara.) you are going to want it. Read up on what the lowest temperatures are, and rate it to that. Depending on what mountain you are in, this is going to vary widely. And for the love of god, wear pants. I know, I know, it’s in the 70s and you’re hoooooooot but seriously, you’ll be less likely to injure yourself and you won’t fucking freeze. 

Flashlight/headlamp. 

There are fancy firestarters, but honestly I just throw in a bic. 

Food! Clif bars are great for this, lightweight, high calorie, keep well. this is in addition to your sandwich or whatever you’re packing for planned eating. 

Sunscreen/bug spray. Don’t be stupid. 

Whistle. Three sharp shot blasts is the easy and international sign for help. 

FIRST AID KIT this has its own thing. A first aid kit can be very basic to very intense. Our group first aid kit is more intense, but when I’m stuffing a day pack, I want stuff that’s light. 

Ibuprofen

Bandages

Gauze

Leukotape

wound wipes/antibac

Imodium, benedryl, caffeine

Oxycontin. This is leftover from long ago and basically exists in case I break my leg and have to drag myself out of there, or, as we like to say, a Worst Case Scenario. 

That’s it! It essentially fits in a bento box. 

You will want to be wearing a sunhat of some sort, sunglasses at hand, and a watch. Not a smart watch, a watch watch. It’s good to know what time it is, better to know that after your phone dies. Attach bear bells to your pack, or your shoe, or something. You do not want to surprise a bear, that is how people die. 

You may notice that I do not have a phone, external battery, GPS tracker or anything like that listed. GPS trackers are not a bad idea if you want to invest the money in backcountry--my wife has one--but I never have and I do not consider them essential. Phones and external batteries are not useful to me, and in the places I go there’s often not service. If there IS service, I find I’m more irritated than not by the people with me, who often can’t pull their faces out of telling their audience how much of a life they have to actually have one. Be alone with your fucking thoughts for once. 

Which leads me to my next thing: DO NOT WEAR HEADPHONES TO HIKE OH MY GOD. Being able to hear what’s going on around you is key to safety, and also to allowing you to get your bearings. If you are listening to music or something, you are far more likely to sneak up on something, or allow it to sneak up on you. Don’t do it. It’s a terrible idea. 

Should I bring bear spray? This is an excellent question! We have ample bear spray, and I often wear it but I just as often wear Montana Bear Spray (a gun). It’s easier to practice with a gun, I feel more sure of how to use it, and I’m comfortable around it. That being said, this is not the story for most of America, and I understand that. So make sure you are VERY familiar with how to use your bear spray. 

I suppose this went off the rails into supplies more than “tips for survival” but honestly I would rather help you all AVOID trouble than help you out of it. It’s easier to pack clif bars than set a rabbit snare, and its easier to not get lost than it is to build shelter. Also, this is already at 2,000 words, so if you have a SPECIFIC question, let me know! 

*Apologies to Phillip Pullman, but if I were going to get anything from HDM tattooed on me, this sentiment would be it, the only problem being the actual line is “You ent afraid are you?” “Not yet. When I am, I shall master the fear.” which doesn’t look as good but damn has that resonated with me since I read it.

[giddleford]

Broken Walls

Graham is unable to sleep and so over a mug of hot chocolate he manages to deepen his friendship with the Doctor.

Word Count: 2,088

Rating: G

Notes: I wrote this by hand while I was not paying attention to some lectures during the span of one day, it was bugging me, a lot, so I had to have it done. It’s also my first published fanfic which is, well, scary. To those who are fortunate to know the references, you will love them, to those who don’t, I hope you just enjoy it.

Thank you to the amazing @not-mandip for being my beta tester and helping me come up with the title. I wouldn’t have written this if you hadn’t invited me to your cursed chat, so thank you for that as well.

The TARDIS was quiet, only the usual white-nose remained. Graham had been exhausted, there had been way too much running in the last adventure and he no longer had the stamina. He was doing pretty good for his age, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t tired. As he lay in bed of his longtime claimed bedroom his muscles relaxed, leaving parts of him painfully sore. He’d have to ask the Doc for a calm adventure, thought Graham, he didn’t think he’d be able to move tomorrow. He tucked himself tighter and let his body relax even further, now feeling as if he was floating. He reckoned he’d be falling asleep soon, he was in warm and soft plaid pajamas with a blanket with a fluffy underside over him but yet he couldn’t. He might have been laying down but his mind was still running. 

The Doc had been particularly reckless, as if she didn’t care about her life anymore. She was never careless with the fam though, always making sure they were alright, almost like a mother hen, but with herself, well, then it was different. Graham had a vague idea of regeneration, he knew that Doc was hard to kill, but he was still worried. He was so sure he had something to do with that man, oh what’s his name, yes, right, the Master. While the rest of the fam was trying to make out who he was, Graham had been looking for answers in her expression. He remembered quite clearly, even though it had been a while ago. She was standing still, shocked, as if she’d seen a ghost. He’d never seen the Doc like that. He knew she was furious as well, her anger tended to be very subdued, boiling beneath the surface but raw and potent. And yet he couldn’t exactly make out why she was angry, they hadn’t been left for dead in a crashing plane at that particular moment, and all the Master had done was reveal his true identity. He wanted to ask her so many questions, and he tried, he really tried but she had been so shut off, pretending as if nothing happened, as if everything was all right. He knew it wasn’t, he had been through too many hardships to know the face of grief and she wore it almost daily. He had to ask her, he wanted to help, to understand, to be supportive but only if she’d let him. 

Gosh, he’d worry his head off, no, he wouldn’t fall asleep if he worried so much, but he couldn’t help it.

He tried to think about things that made him happy, like watching The Chase on TV and beating the chaser from his sofa at home. Trivia, he was good at that. But no, that didn’t make him truly happy it was just a distraction. He knew who made him happy but thinking about her still hurt, it was bittersweet. Her smile, her mind, all of her still made him all dopey, but this time that ache he got when he looked at her was tinted with grief. He tried to focus on the positive, all the memories that they made, all the laughs that they shared, all those quiet afternoons and those rare mornings where it was sunny and she would brighten the day even more. At least he had Yaz and Ryan, they had been next to him, supportive as always, and so was the Doc, as alien as she was. Now he thought about it she had been incredibly understanding, always showing support. From small touches to meaningful looks, to small worlds when they were alone, she had been all too familiar with his grief, as she had been there. 

Darn it, this wouldn’t do, he was worrying again. It was as if he couldn’t control his thinking.

He had to clear his mind, perhaps a good mug of hot chocolate would help, like the ones Grace used to do on lazy nights. That paired with anything that could distract him would be greatly appreciated. He could watch TV, he’d meaning to finish The Hour but never got around to do so, too distracted by the evergoing travelling. Or maybe he could read a book, any of them classics. Definitely cozy, to be seated in a fluffy bed with a hot chocolate in hand and a book in the other. He shifted his in his bed, a bit reluctant to leave it’s heavenly comfort. As he stood up he located his slippers by the side of his bed, he then moved to reach for his matching fluffy robe. Perhaps he was out of bed, but he wasn’t going to sacrifice comfort. He headed towards the kitchen, or more specifically, he started walking around the halls expecting to eventually find the entrance. It didn’t take him long to find it, just like it didn’t take him long to prepare a warm mug of hot chocolate. He put marshmallows in the dark beverage, immediately feeling nostalgic for that was Grace’s favorite part. She had a sweet tooth, she would never admit it though. Graham chuckled under his breath, she could be quite stubborn sometimes. He missed her, even a simple hot chocolate made his heart ache, but right now he needed a distraction, a story to lull him to sleep. 

He wandered through the halls again looking for his room. He had decided he’d watch TV, perhaps something new, something he hadn’t watched before, like Broadchurch, he’d heard very good reviews. He was decided, but he couldn’t find his room. The halls of the TARDIS we’re like a labyrinth, yes, but he was so sure it was around that corner, instead of finding in the console room. He retraced his steps, incredibly confused, perhaps if he found his way to the kitchen he could walk back to his room, but all he found was dead ends and other rooms. Eventually he found a very particular dead end, it had a mug of hot chocolate identical to his own inside a little compartment. It seemed like the TARDIS wanted him to grab it. He did, and when he turned around there no longer was a dead end, just a simple turn. He kept walking, he shouldn’t have gotten out of bed, he thought, but at least he had gotten distracted. When he came back from his thoughts he was standing right in front of the entrance of the console room. He had the urge to come in, and so he did, having long lost the interest to rationalize the situation. 

He admired the room, sipping on one of his mugs when he spotted the open TARDIS doors. Sitting on the ledge with views to a gorgeous orange planet was the Doctor. Graham knew she didn’t sleep, or at least she didn’t sleep when they did but he didn’t expect her to be there. He thought she’d be tinkering with a gadget, constructing something, doing repairs but she was sitting there, still, and that terrified him because he knew something was wrong. He approached her with caution, making sure not to startle her as he sat down next to her. He mentally cursed, sore muscles. He recognized her tears, the pain behind her eyes and it hurt him. Wordlessly he offered her one of the mugs, internally making sure that it wasn’t the one he had drank from. Her eyes softened at the action and Graham knew that was her way of saying thank you. They both drank from their mugs admiring the gorgeous planet, emotions under both of their skins. Graham knew this planet was significant, he knew that she’d be allowed him to see something important even if he didn’t understand it, and he also knew that she was restraining herself, not letting him see her vulnerability.

“It’s gorgeous Doc,” whispered Graham, truly in awe of the sight. The Doctor looked down, instinctively hiding her face and then she looked back up readying herself to speak.

“I know.”

There was a brief moment when they shared eye contact, and that was the oldest Graham had ever seen her eyes look. So many lives were hidden behind those eyes, so much pain, so much regret and it struck Graham if her eyes had always looked like that when she was alone. Cautiously, he started wording his next sentence, he knew that he was meant to ask her, that this was the moment he had been waiting for. He was going to show his support, his worry.

“Hey Doc, I’ve been told I talk about my emotions too much. I’m a bit of an old sap you know, but I’m afraid you talk about them too little. Look, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but we are worried about you. I know you’re hurting Doc, don’t know exactly why, but I’m here, we are all here in case you need us. That’s what friends are for.“ 

At hearing those words, the Doctor broke down her barriers. She was also tired, the last adventure also had taken a lot from her, but she would never admit it. Small tears ran down her cheeks and a sad smile painted her lips. It was bittersweet, Graham thought, it was a conflict between good memories and bad ones, she was experiencing grief and in that moment Graham hated that he was right. He never liked seeing his friends in pain.

“That’s my home planet, Gallifrey. For a long time I thought it was gone, destroyed in the war.”

“But it’s not really gone, is it?”

“No, I brought it back”

Graham tried to understand. He failed.

“I used to be so sure that the only way to win the war was to destroy Gallifrey. At some point I found another way, and I brought it back but I forgot. They let me wallow in grief and guilt, so when I remembered I was furious. I had been so alone.”

“What happened then?”

“My childhood friend came back, after I thought he had died.”

Graham searched inside his brain, could that be? Yes, it must have been.

“The Master?”

“I thought he had changed, but suddenly all the work I had gone through crumbled. All those people I saved from myself were massacred. Thousands of people, my whole species. I didn’t feel alone anymore, but that was taken away from me.”

He couldn’t help but admire her, that despite so much pain being ever so present she still managed to smile, she managed to bounce around with shining eyes, she managed to keep hope and to save people from injustice.

“I know grief all too well Doc. My sister, my parents, my young love Jack, my true love Grace, I always felt alone afterwards. But know this Doc, there’s always people who love you but you won’t get to know that if you don’t talk to them. I know this is hard for you, to open up and talk about emotions, so thank you.”

The Doctor looked at Graham and smiled. It filled Graham with a familiar warmth, and so he smiled back, pouring as much love into the little gesture as he could. They finished drinking their hot chocolate in silence, just enjoying the presence of each other. At some point their mugs were empty and Graham felt himself close to yawning, so with a quiet grunt he stood up.

“Here, let me get that,” said Graham as he reached for the Doctors mug.“ You know Doc? I think we’re due a quiet day, we’re all sore from all the running, or at least I am. I’ll be heading back now, get some shut-eye. You should rest too Doc, don’t want you running ragged.”

Just as he was about to leave the Doctor called him.

“Thank you, Graham. For everything.”

“Anytime Doc, anytime,” responded Graham with a warm smile.

As he was going back to his room, he realized how content he was. A pleasant warmth filled his chest. His worries had dampened and now he knew that the Doc could count on him as much as he counted in her. That’s what he meant when he said he barely knew anything about her, and he still didn’t, he had just seen the surface, but now they had a little connection, and it was a start, a very meaningful at that. Perhaps after all this he could finally go to sleep, he was pretty tired after all.

[ikesenlemonadestandstories]

Level 10

It’s FEBRUARY! Are you guys ready for Valentine’s Day? Cuz I am! Hope you’re all enjoying this story! It’s been a lot of fun to work on!

Tagging: @loudartanimeeclipse​

Master List here or check the tag Ikesen AFK

Warnings: In a hospital, mentions of an OR - I kept it pretty clean

Happy Reading! T~

Level 10

You had never been so agitated in your life. What was even happening up in the OR today? Seriously, sure it was behind, that was normal. Procedures never went on time, and the later it was on the schedule, the more likely it was to go late. You knew that but what was that nurse’s problem? It’s like she had been toying with you all afternoon! First, she called you at one to tell you to get up and set up, so you kindly asked if you were still going last or if they had moved your procedure ahead of the others. She got snippy and said, “Why would we do that? Are you going to come set up?” You kindly told her, no, that’d you’d wait until you were fifteen minutes from your procedure start time to come set up. 

She obliged and called you just shy of four-thirty to say that you were next, and the flex bronch would be done in a little under twenty minutes. Perfect. You took your time, walked up to the OR, and changed into your surgical scrubs before heading to OR19. You waved at Dr. Tokugawa when you remembered he couldn’t see the smile under your surgical mask, he returned the gesture with a nod as he continued to scrub down at the wash station. 

Once the both of you finally made it into the OR, you noticed your crash cart had been pushed up against the back wall, and a C-Arm was moving in. The poor surgical tech from radiology walked up and bowed deeply. Proclaiming how sorry they were but they had to cut ahead of your case because “Dr. Kenney was the only radiologist on the floor today and with the procedure as far behind as it was he needed to go so he could make his next case on time.” 

After a charged stare and a few snide comments, Dr. Tokugawa conceded, meaning you would likely be waiting at least another thirty minutes. Which was all dependent on how long it took to get the port in and accessed. The straw that broke the camels back, though, was when the nurse called you a fourth time to tell you that they forgot to call you and that they needed you in the OR right away.

After a mad dash to the room and you barely managing to squeeze into your gloves with your sweaty hands, you realized not only was the port not assessed yet, but your orders hadn’t been released, and nobody had even bothered to call Dr. Tokugawa again. 

With a sharp look at the nurse, you pulled up the patient chart on the computer and released the orders. “I can go grab those! I’ll be right back!” A PCA squeaked as she scurried out of the room and down the hall to the main desk. Clearly trying to avoid as much conflict as possible. 

With the C-arm being wheeled away, and the radiology team finishing up their final hold point it was finally your turn. Too bad nobody could do anything until your doc got here. Not like it was his fault he was behind though. So you’d get ready everything you could while you waited for him.

“Is everybody ready?” Dr. Tokugawa remarked as he stepped in through the sliding door a few minutes later and picked up the packet of sterile gloves. 

“They better be.” You huffed under your breath, just finishing the last part of your tray set up.

He chuckled and turned to the other PCA, who was still in the room, gesturing towards the patient. “I’m going to need you to hold them.”

She nodded in response, and Dr. Tokugawa used that as his cue to start the timeout and begin the procedure. He was always so quick. Most of the time, it took longer to anesthetize patients than it did to do the actual procedure. He was clearly in a hurry, done with the collection in two minutes flat.

“That’s a new record.” You smiled with your eyes and finished capping your syringes. Happy that there was a light at the end of this long tunnel. 

“I’ve got places to be. Since everyone insists on keeping me here all evening today, I figured I’d at least try to help my case.” Dr. Tokugawa said as he cleared the sharps from the tray and shucked his gloves. 

“I feel that. I was supposed to meet a friend at five-thirty, and that’s clearly not going to happen.” You sighed as you disposed of the empty tray and wiped down your cart. “I don’t have their personal contact info either, so I feel bad cuz I’m just going to show up late. I hope they’re still there so I can at least explain myself.”

“Do you have to run those when you get back to the lab?” he lifted an eyebrow and pointed at the specimen bag in your hands.

“No. Fortunately, not.” You said as you exited the operating room and untied your surgical mask. “Our pathologist said it’s not urgent, so as long as we do it first thing in the morning, we’re good.”

“That was nice of him.” He acknowledged as both of you walked towards the main desk. “Enjoy your evening then; hopefully, your friend is understanding.”

“They don’t seem like the patient type, but you never know.” You smiled and waved before pushing into the women’s locker room to change out of your scrubs. “Enjoy your own evening Dr. Tokugawa.”

“Ieyasu.” Was all he said before the door shut behind him. 

“Ieyasu.” You said to no one, in particular, a small smile on your face. 

[haydenbarnes]

wrath & redemption | self para

His hand wrapped around the cold metal handle of the door that led into the soundproofed room in the back end of Labyrinth. There was always a moment of hesitation before he opened this particular door. He always knew what was on the other side, so it wasn’t a hesitation that came from apprehension, but one that came from a moral dilemma as to whether he was the kind of man who could one day walk away unscathed from this kind of business. At this point in time, the devil on his shoulder had much more of an influence than the angel. So, once again, he opened the door to the grunts and groans of a cheating, sleazy man.

The room was small, the only decor available was a couple of grey metal cabinets with locks on and a stool that sat dead center. Foam echo-proof padding donned the walls, making sure that the highly illegal goings-on of Labyrinth stayed firmly between him, the subject, the Doctor they paid to sit in the room next door just in case, and the bouncer who brought the cheater here and stopped Hayden from crossing a point of no return. 

Pleading eyes, filled with fear stared at Hayden as he picked up the white knuckle wrap from the side and slowly began pacing the room, bandaging his hands. He had tape over his mouth, so he couldn’t actually talk, but the groans that came from hostage definitely sounded like a mix of ‘please don’t do this’, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘what the fuck is happening?’. 

“You’re probably wondering what the fuck is happening, right?” Hayden finally spoke as he dropped down so that his eyes were level with whoever this over-compensating wall-street-wishing wannabe CFO was. It was as their eyes met that Hayden had to just completely shut off his moral compass. It was as their eyes met that Hayden felt that flood of adrenaline surge through his body that made him not only want to do this but made him need it. 

“Well,” he chuckled as he finished wrapping his hands and threw the tape off to one side. “I’ll cut you a deal. I’ll tell you why you’re here if you can tell me why you think it’s okay to walk around this casino’s blackjack tables with a 21 card duo up your sleeve,” he challenged with a sinister smile as he slowly began to peel the tape off his skin. “Ahh-- and save the screaming, okay? This is, like, all soundproofed and I literally just had to take an Advil before this. Migraines suck am I right?” With that, Hayden ripped the tape off the man’s mouth in one quick action.

He yelled out in pain, his body tensing up as he tried one more time to free his hands from the rope that tied them to the chair. “What the fuck is this place?” He cried, his eyes watering as his lips went a shade of red Hayden thought was only possible in cartoons. “So I tried to make a fast fucking buck! I’m fucking broke man! I can barely afford my mortgage! What?! Are you gonna-- Are you gonna kill me for that?” The man was shaking, and as Hayden’s eyes glanced down to his crotch, he realized the dude had wet himself as well. Clearly, this was his first shakedown. 

“No, I’m not going to kill you, you fucking moron,” Hayden scoffed and rolled his eyes, turning around to the bouncer who couldn’t help but smirk. “What? I look like a murderer?” Hayden turned back to the cheater. “No-- don’t be a fuckin’ tool, we just bring shitbags like you back here to make sure you don’t come back here again-- so, tell me, princess, have you learned your lesson?” 

“Sure! Sure! I w-won’t... You think I’m gonna come back to this place? None of us will come here! Not me, not my buddies--” WHACK. Hayden’s fist smacked across the guys' face, his knuckles tearing through a part of his cheekbone. “What the fuck was that f--”

“Your buddies aren’t gonna know about this, hotshot. You hear me?” Hayden stood up and went to turn around, but then quickly pivoted back around, fist slamming square into the dude’s jaw, sending blood everywhere. Quickly, Hayden grabbed a chunk of his hair, his knee pushed down hard into the man’s genital area and he closed the gap between them to mere inches. “Listen to me, you fucking idiot. If I hear one little whisper of you telling anyone about this room, about me, about this casino? If you even think about calling a lawyer, or going to the press, or badmouthing Labyrinth Casinos or Ainsley Slater’s name in any way at all, I will rain down on you like FUCKING hellfire! DO I MAKE MYSELF CRYSTAL FUCKING CLEAR?!” Hayden yelled, causing the guy to start crying uncontrollably and nod over and over again. “Good,” he smiled as he took a few steps back from the chair. 

“So tell me-- er,” Hayden turned around to the bouncer as he pointed back to the man. “What’s this dude’s name?” 

“Clive.”. 

“Of course it is...” Hayden took a deep breath and rolled his eyes before turning back. “So tell me, Clive, what happened tonight? Why’s your face all busted up?” 

“I-I-I---” 

Hayden groaned and threw his hands up in the air which caused the guy to flinch so badly that he fell over backward, hitting his head on the concrete behind him. “Fucking IDIOT,” Hayden grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him back up before slapping his cheek a couple times. “Answer my fucking question, asshole. What happened tonight? What’s up with your face, besides it being ugly as fuck?” 

“I was-- I was at the casino,” he flinched, but then kept going when the hit didn’t come. “I was at the casino a-and I got too drunk... I got kicked--”

“No, you didn’t get kicked out, did you?”

“N-- No, I left the casino a-and I went to a club?” He stuttered. Hayden nodded, moving his hand in a ‘and?’ motion. “A-And I got in a fight with someone there b-because I was-- I spilled a drink on him.”.

“There... That wasn’t so hard now was it?” Hayden smiled as he ruffled the guy's hair to just patronize him just a little bit more. “Well,” he clapped his hands together. “I think he’s learned his lesson, and I think we’re done here,” Hayden nodded as he began to unwrap his knuckle tape. “The Doc will just check you over then you’re free to go, dude. Just remember,” Hayden dropped down to whisper in his ear. “We have your credit card details, your full address and your name. You speak a word of this and I will find you, and who knows, maybe I do look like a murderer.” Hayden stood back up and rose his eyebrows at the man who was now just a quivering mess covered in sweat, blood and piss. 

The bouncer knocked on the only other way in and out of the room and the Doctor came in. Hayden zoned out at that point, throwing the tape into the bin and exiting through the door he came in from. As quickly as he was able to shut his emotions off for the job, once the deed was done, they came flooding back in. His hands started shaking so he pocketed them as he made his way through the back corridors of the casino, head down so no-one would speak to him and delay his getting to fresh air. The sound of the fire door slamming open against bins echoed through his head, the cold late night air danced across his face and through his hair. He sighed. He swallowed. 

The sound of quick footsteps approaching him caused him to finally look up, and as he did he saw the bloodied man running down the back alleyway to freedom. Their eyes locked onto each other and it felt like everything suddenly went into slow motion, he could feel the fear and hurt he’d caused. It all sped back up again as he shouted something like ‘don’t come near me’, as he almost tripped over his own feet before taking the first turn off he came to. Then, once again it was just Hayden, alone, in the middle of the night with bruising knuckles and the guilty weight on his conscience. 

Hayden pulled his hood up and made his way out of the alley and out into the city. He took a long way home so he could avoid the town center in a hope that he wouldn’t bump into anyone he knew, or anyone at all really. His mind spun with what had just happened. What number was that now? Was that his-- tenth? Fifteenth? He was beginning to lose track. It was easier to deal with it when the guy he was beating up was a total asshole when they were spitting at him and smirking and trying to make the job hard. It was easier to justify what he was doing, those guys deserved being brought down a peg or two, didn’t they? But that guy? He’d wet himself before Hayden even walked in. He could have just said boo and he wouldn’t have said anything or come back again. But, he’d set a precedent for himself now. It’s what was expected. But that didn’t justify what he did at all... Not with him. 

He came to the edge of the park. It was the final stretch of his journey home. Ten minutes and he could just drink himself to sleep. But, then he happened to notice the flickering lights of the church on the corner. He’d walked this way a couple times before, and he’d even done in the daytime, but he’d never noticed that church before. Hayden’s relationship with religion was complicated, to say the least. He couldn’t bring himself to believe in God as a master creator and overseer of every human action. There were too many immoral wrongs and unfair miscarriages of justice in the world for him to believe that. But, there had to be something. There had to be some force that connected everyone and everything, right? Otherwise, what was the point in love or friendship or compassion? Otherwise... Why did he feel so bad about what he was doing right now? Why did he feel like he had sinned?

Hayden found himself walking into the church before his mind had even made the decision to go in. Despite it being 1 in the morning, candles still burned on vigil’s dotted down the edges of the pews. The sound of plainsong and Gregorian chants played gently through the speakers. He let out a heavy breath and looked back at the front door. What was he doing? He wasn’t worthy of redemption. The sound of muttering prayers broke through the music and caused him to look back into the church. A man sat on a cushion in front of the altar, hands pushed together, head back, eyes closed. Hayden furrowed his eyebrows and once again his feet began to walk him down the aisle before his mind decided on the action. 

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed nervously, eyes firmly on who he guessed was the priest. Who else would be in front of the alter this time at night? Hayden slid into a pew a couple rows back from the front and pushed his hands into his pockets. He nipped at the inside of his mouth. Maybe he could try that; praying. Maybe that would take the weight off his shoulders a little bit. Maybe there was something or someone that could help. He doubted it, but maybe... Maybe...

He closed his eyes and tried to clear the images that immediately projected onto his eyelids. But, as he tried to clear his mind, he couldn’t help but begin to actually hear what the man was saying. He couldn’t catch it word for word, but he heard the word sorry. He heard him ask for forgiveness. He heard him speak about a boy. He heard the word cancer. He heard the word cheating. He heard the word deserves. Then he heard ‘I know even gambling is a sin, and I’m sorry, please forgive me.’. Hayden’s eyes shot open and he stood up so fast he almost knocked the pew in front of him over. His chest rose and fell at the same rate as if he’d just run a marathon. The man jumped and turned around and there he was. His face still stained in blood. His lip swollen. 

“I--” Hayden’s words got trapped in his throat. He went white as a sheet. He wanted to throw up. “I’m sorry... I’m--” Hayden shook his head as he shuffled out of the pew back into the aisle with his hands up as if he was surrendering to the cops. “I-- I didn’t tail you here, it’s-- I-- I’m sorry,” Hayden was the one stuttering now, his were the eyes that filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered one last time before backing up a few paces then turning and running out of the church. 

He ran through the park, the sound of his own breath so loud it was as if his head was inside a boombox that was playing it. How could he even think for a moment someone like him could possibly find redemption? How could he even think for a moment someone like him could find peace? There was no peace or redemption in the world for a man like Hayden Barnes. For a man that got his own Father murdered. For a man that abandoned his best friend. For a man that gives up at every thing he’s ever started the moment things get hard. For a junkie. 

His door slammed against the wall as he kicked it open. His mind was going so fast he couldn’t understand a single thought other than the one that repeated itself over and over, louder and louder. He needed a fix. He needed the dope. He had some. For emergencies. Drawers went flying across the room as he tried to find where he’d put the bag until; bingo. He held it up against the light, a sigh of relief as he spent a moment just looking at it before snapping back into action. He grabbed everything he needed to cook it up and use it. And within minutes, he pushed it into his veins. And within minutes, he was out. 

That was his redemption. Heroin was his God. 

[banshee1013]

How To Train Your Hunter(s)

Well, here it is, finally - the continuation to the Looking Glass series, in which I and my friends formulate a plan to convince the Winchesters to allow us to help them defeat God and save their world.

This one ended up being a BEAST, so I’ve split it into three parts. This is Part The First.

Enjoy!

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

"OK, ladies… this is it. Are you ready?" 

Speaking directly into my computer's microphone, to the Discord voice channel set up for this purpose.

Things this complex require voice communication, and being scattered over the country (and South Africa for Mags), long-distance charges would have been a nightmare. 

Thank the stars for Discord. 

A nervous titter from Cori over the channel.

"I think I'm ready… I'm so excited I can barely breathe!" 

Mags: "I was born ready…"

Ella: "As ready as I'm gonna be…" 

I felt a flutter of nerves in my gut, a moment of doubt. Not in my friends - I knew they were ready - but in me.

Could I keep them safe? 

And just how quickly - or worse, slowly - will Dean kill me for this? 

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

I hadn't told anyone else about the Looking Glass - not until I had, with Sam and Cas' help, performed many more experiments.

Bringing something other than myself through - weapons (my sword, a machete) and even one of my cats - CHECK. This was good news - it meant I could defend myself over there, and other living things could pass through as well. 

Bringing something from the "Mirror Universe" or MU as I jokingly referred to it (shoutout to my Star Trek nerd roots) - other weapons (returned before Dean noticed), a stray cat hanging around the Bunker (using gloves as to not shock the poor thing). CHECK (although I now have another feline mouth to feed…).

Jack will be pleased. This was Step One toward the Disneyland trip. 

I still zapped everyone I touched over there - well, by *everyone* I mean Sam, Dean, Jack, and Cas because I obviously hadn't interacted with anyone else - how do you explain to a stranger you're from another universe? But as suspected, the effect didn't happen at home. The Grace was dormant here. 

And then, like a dummy - I slipped. 

Mags was the one that caught it - an innocent comment between Dean and me regarding a pool game - how he cheated by distracting me (he may be like a brother to me, but still - DISTRACTING when he focuses his efforts on it). Thankfully pulling me into a DM rather than confronting me in public,  she pried at me. I tried to play it off as one of our usual GIF games, but she was having none of it. 

So I came clean. And of course, I then had to explain it - impossible over text alone. 

That's when I set up the Discord channel and turned on the voice feature. Once I explained the process, Mags was completely on-board with going over herself. 

"You know they need our help. They're fighting GOD, for Go… for shit's sake." 

"Mags, we have NO training. Have you *ever* used a machete?” 

"No, but I can learn," she asserted. "You learned how to fight with a sword, didn't you?" 

Well, she had me there. 

"OK. Let me do some… creative questioning of Sam. Come up with a training plan or whatever." 

"That sounds reasonable," she agreed, followed by a pregnant pause. "But we have to get Cori and Ella in on this action. Remember 'Dean's Angels'?" 

I groaned, eyes trailing skyward. "That was a joke!" 

"Was it though?" she countered, the mirth plain in her voice, before sobering. "C'mon. The more, the merrier, right? Besides, they would be so pissed if we went without them." 

She had a point. And training for two could easily be expanded into training for four. 

I invited Cori and Ella to the Discord channel and caught them up.

To no one's surprise, they were gung-ho on the idea. 

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

The following Saturday, I paid a visit to the Bunker and surreptitiously questioned Sam on the nature of decapitating vampires and other monsters.

He probably would have thought I was nuts if he hadn't been distracted by his research trying to find Donatello. 

Finding Donatello was important to me as well, so I limited the questioning to times when I could coerce Sam into taking a break, tempting him with sandwiches and smoothies. 

I sat at the kitchen table across from Sam during one of these breaks as he sampled the smoothie, sliding the plate with the sandwich across to him.

"So y'know, I was wondering - how much pressure would you say you have to exert to chop off a vamp's head?" 

Sam paused mid-slurp and gave me a puzzled look. "Uh, I dunno, really - I never stopped to think about it…" 

"Well, would you say it's more like - chopping through a cabbage, or chopping through a pumpkin?" 

Ever the intellectual, he seriously contemplated the question. "I would say at least a pumpkin, a big one." Picking up the sandwich, he took a bite and considered the question more while chewing. Swallowing, he added, "But really, probably more like a ham. A good, 15lb bone-in ham." 

"Did someone say 'ham'?" Dean inquired, on a break from the Star Wars marathon in the Dean Cave with Jack, popping into the kitchen to fetch another beer and a soda for Jack. 

The next day, I brought through a 15lb ham and cooked it up for dinner - one of two I had purchased.

Theirs was to distract them from yesterday's discussion - and because Dean looked so crestfallen when no ham was on offer. They had ham sandwiches, and ham and cheese omelets, and ham and potatoes au gratin for a good week after. 

The other, of course, was for me to chop with a machete.

After trying it and finding it suitably difficult, I recommended the idea to the others. 

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

We studied fight techniques.

I filmed my sword training classes for the "classical" techniques - entering the fight, counters to attacks, and grappling.

Cori found some excellent videos on actual machete fighting.

And we all studied every Monster of the Week episode of The Show, breaking down Sam, Dean, and Cas' knife-fighting skills and techniques. Ella became a master at the ‘Angel Blade Flip', using a Bowie knife borrowed from a friend. 

We all ended up eating a lot of ham, and when we got sick of it, the local shelters reaped the benefit.

We were always sure to carefully clean our blades before and after every training session, both for the protection of the blade and to keep the ham clean enough for eating, and would lay down fresh tarp to catch the falling pieces. 

If anyone at the shelters wondered about the nature of the donations - thick, somewhat uneven slices of bone-in ham - it was never voiced out loud.

Gift horses (pigs?), I suppose. 

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

We also studied basic first aid and field medicine. 

Mags worked at a hospital and became our go-to for all things medical. She was able to convince one of the ER docs and several of his patients to allow her to film suturing and wound treatment. "Research for a book" she claimed, promising credit and mentions in said book.

Yeah, she'll write that. Some day. 

The ham suffered more abuse as we gashed into them to practice sewing them back up with dental floss.

Unscented. I didn't want to find out if the mint stuff burned on contact. 

Cori gathered the necessary items and packaged small medical kits for us. 

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

"We're almost ready, ladies," I said to the others in the Discord voice channel.

We had been training for a couple of months, and sliced many hams.

We felt ready for the next step. 

"Just gotta find the right case for us." 

"So I assume Plan A was a bust, then?" Mags sighed.

"Yeah, well we kinda knew it would be, didn't we?" I said, resigned. 

'Plan A' was to film our training and present it to Sam and Dean as proof of our prowess and ability to protect ourselves, in order to gain their trust and allow us to accompany them on a hunt. 

I didn't tell the girls this - but I never had high confidence in Plan A. Sam could possibly be reasoned with, but Dean?

Not with that mile-wide protective streak of his. 

So I worked on 'Plan B' - finding a vamp nest for us to tackle on our own.

To do so, I would go through the Looking Glass to past hunt locations in the MU.

I figured a done deed would be far more convincing of our abilities than videos of murdered ham. 

For research, I once again turned to the 'tale of the tape' - The Show.

One of the "benefits" (for lack of a better word) of Chuck's little Greatest Hits Tour - reviewing the Show, and following the boy's hunts on Twitter, I had a decent idea of all their cases from the past and which of those past cases had been resurrected and already dealt with. With this knowledge, I believed I could find something suitable. 

I knew, however, that scouting locations was a not going to be an easy task. Remember that Grace? It was a beacon to Cas and Jack every time I set foot in the MU. 

So, I took Jack into my confidence. Sorta.

I didn't tell him the exact reason *why* I needed him to ignore my visits and keep Cas from noticing. I told him I was working on a surprise for Sam, Dean, and Cas, and asked for his help. 

It wasn't *really* a lie.

This would certainly be a surprise. 

For the first experiment, I picked a place well-documented on The Show but with no known monster visitations - Donna's cabin.

I researched the location, gathering information on temperature, sounds, and smells. Google Earth was my friend.

I paused the scene to study the cabin and surrounding area, memorizing visual cues. Studied the ground cover to determine what it would feel like as I stepped on it. 

I wasn't planning on being there long - just long enough to verify I was in the right place.

I figured I wouldn't be there long enough for Jack or Cas to detect my presence through the Grace, so I didn't tell him. 

I stood in front of the doorway of my spare bedroom and focused.

Closing my eyes, I envisioned every detail. Every sight, sound, feeling.

I stepped through the doorway - and my feet crunched on the leaves scattered on the ground outside what definitely appeared to be Donna's cabin. 

My time was limited so I confirmed the location in the quickest way possible - I searched for, and found, the garden gnome with the key hidden underneath, exactly as she had described in the episode. 

I couldn't stop the giddy feeling bubbling up in my chest. 

Step 1 of Plan B was a success. 

************************************ 

Over the next week, I watched every vampire episode, looking for one small enough for us to handle but big enough to be, well, impressive. Challenging.

I considered Alex's old nest - but there were only three of them. Mags could probably wipe out the nest all by herself.

I thought about Benny's old nest - but didn't want to run the risk of running into Benny. Chuck would be asshole enough to bring him back if just to torment Dean.

I went all the way back to the first season and found what could be the perfect case - Luther's nest, the first case the boys worked after the return of their father, John. The nest only consisted of about 10 vampires - just over two each. Doable. 

That is, if Chuck had returned them. I had to perform some reconnaissance to see. 

To do this, I needed to be there much longer than I was at Donna's cabin.

I was going to need Jack's help for this one.

I opened Twitter and a DM to Jack. 

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

@redbanshee: Hey Jack, are you there?

@IAmCalledJack: Hello! Were you at Donna's cabin last week? I thought I felt Castiel's Grace there but he was right here in the Bunker with me. 

Oh shit. I guess even the few minutes I was there was enough to trigger the alarm… 

@redbanshee: Uh, yeah… part of the surprise for Sam, Dean, and Cas - I needed something from her cabin.

@redbanshee: Did, uh, Cas notice?

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, but he figured he must be mistaken because it only appeared for a few minutes. 

Whew… dodged that bullet. I wouldn't get that lucky this time, though. 

@redbanshee: So, Jack, I need to go somewhere else today to get something else for their surprise - do you think you could distract Cas or something so he doesn't notice? I really don't want to spoil the surprise…

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, I am happy to help. I can actually block him from noticing you're here.

@redbanshee: Oh, that's very helpful! Thank you!

@redbanshee: I should be less than an hour, can you block him for that long?

@IAmCalledJack: Yes, I believe so.

@IAmCalledJack: Are you sure you'll be safe? You're not going anywhere dangerous, are you?

@redbanshee: No, of course not! Perfectly mundane. :)

@IAmCalledJack: OK :) But you'll pray to me if you get into trouble?

@redbanshee: Of course I will, sweetie. But I promise, I'll be just fine. 

I closed the DM and tried not to feel awful about it. 

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

I stepped through the doorway into a copse of trees overlooking the barn housing Luther's nest.

Or at least what I hoped was still - again - their nest.

It was late afternoon San Diego time, but just sliding into dusk in Colorado. Unlike what the myths would have you believe, vampires are capable of moving about in the day - it's just painful for them, so they don't unless they have to. I'll have a much better chance of seeing them after the sun goes down.

Taking out a pair of binoculars, I scanned the grounds. Nothing yet, so I waited. 

I didn't have to wait long. In the gathering gloom of dusk, the barn door opened and three figures emerged. A dim glow from inside the barn backlit several more inside, including a couple still asleep in hammocks. 

It was fairly obvious the nest had returned.

I felt the grin spreading across my face. We had our case.

But I had to be sure. 

I followed the three figures to a small bar about a mile down the road from the barn.

Followed them inside and picked a table in a dark corner to observe.

Watched as one, a female, singled out a loner sitting at the bar, sidled up to him to whisper in his ear.

Watched as he flushed, a tentative tongue flicking to lick lips gone suddenly dry.

Watched as the eyes glazed over, and followed her as she led him out the back door of the bar. 

I knew the hour I told Jack was almost up - I needed to get back in case he couldn’t block Cas for longer than that.

But I needed to *know* if these were really vampires. Could be just a commune, or a bunch of grifters.

I needed to make sure.

I waited a few minutes, took a deep breath, then followed them out the back door. 

And got there just in time to see the vamp drop the mark to the ground, drained. She turned toward me and hissed, blood dripping from ruby lips.

I froze, shocked and sickened.

Then jumped as a growling voice echoed from behind me. 

"Looking for something?" 

My breath stopped in my throat. I had no weapons.

I. HAD. NO. WEAPONS. 

I closed my eyes and forced down the panic. Turned to face the voice behind me.

"Uh, nope. Just came out for some air, y'know… I'll just be getting back inside, my friend is waiting for me… "

Steps echoing in the alley behind me as the female vampire approached, blocking that exit.

I sidestepped to move around him and dash for the back door of the bar, but he stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

He smiled a toothy grin.

A second set of very pointy teeth descended over the first. 

OK, then. No more proof necessary.

Now I just had to live long enough to bring the girls back and handle it. 

"Sorry, sis. Your friend is just gonna have to wait…" he smirked, reaching for me with lightning speed and grasping my arms just above the elbow.

On the bare skin just below the edge of my t-shirt sleeves. 

A blue-white flash of static discharge flared from the touch and sent the vampire sprawling.

I leaped over him and headed for the back door at a dead run.

Envisioning carpet under my feet, the hue of the overhead LED lights…

I plunged through the back doorway of the bar, and yelped as I stumbled and fell face-first… onto the carpet in my spare bedroom. 

I flipped and scrambled backward away from the doorway of the bedroom, waiting…

Wondering if something would follow me back through.

Scrambled until my back slammed against the wall, and I pulled my knees to my chest, breaths coming in wheezing gasps. 

The doorway remained empty.

I was safe. 

And I had found our case. 

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

"OK ladies, let's go over the plan one more time…" 

I could hear the groans from the others over the Discord voice channel.

I didn't care.

I would go over this plan again and again, if necessary - until *I* was sure we were prepared and it would go off without a hitch.

I would not… COULD NOT… put my friends in unnecessary jeopardy. 

Dean is gonna kill me for this, anyway… and I'm ok with that as long as everyone else gets home safely. 

"FINE," Cori grumbled. "We step through the mirror and meet outside the bar…" 

" I'll pass around the dead man's blood and bullets…" Mags added. 

Working in a hospital has other advantages besides providing our medical training.

Mags was able to sneak into the morgue and grab several syringes worth of dead man’s blood, enough for two each.

She also painted several clips of bullets with it.

Neither would kill the vamps but would sure as shit slow them down. 

"I've got the medical kits." Cori chimed in. 

"I have the burner phones." I confirmed.

I had picked these up during my previous visit since our phones won't have service in the MU. 

"And then weapons check…," Ella added eagerly. The metallic clink and soft chime of silver meeting silver rings over the channel. Playing with her silver daggers again. 

"But bring your machete," I cautioned. "Those are sweet daggers and you're amazing with them, but silver doesn't affect vamps." 

"Maybe not, but will sure slow them down!" Ella chuckled gleefully. 

I sighed. The girl was gonna be the death of me. 

"Oh, and you all have something to carry this stuff in?" I asked. 

This had been a source of discussion for many days. We needed something big enough to carry a twenty-inch machete, medical kit, and dead man's blood, but not big enough to attract attention from any civilians who happened to be in the bar. 

We may be going to a world full of monsters, but if years of The Show had taught us anything, it was that most people there were oblivious and perfectly content to stay that way. 

Eventually, we decided on backpacks to reinforce our cover as a group of hikers on a trek through the local woods. Ease of access was not a concern with our plan – we would simply arm up before storming the barn. And anyway, should the machetes be spotted or questioned - we needed them to hack through the underbrush. 

A chorus of "Yep's" or variants thereof answered my question. 

"So after that, we'll head into the bar," I continued. "It will be late afternoon, and with any luck, happy hour."

Because yes, this was a hunt.

But it was also a meet and greet.

And I didn't know about anyone else, but I knew I was gonna need a shot or two of whiskey to take the edge off. 

"We'll wait there until dusk, then head to the barn." 

"Uh… I have a question, Cee…" Cori spoke up hesitantly. 

"Of course! What's up?" 

"Why are we waiting until dusk?" she queried. "I mean, they usually sleep during the day, right? Wouldn't it be better to attack them then, when they're all asleep?" 

She'd just hit on the heart of the matter. 

"If this were a standard vamp hunt, then yes, you're absolutely correct." I took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

"But it's not. It's an audition." 

"Audition?" Ella queried, puzzled. 

"Yeah… for Dean." Mags huffed. "Plan A didn't convince him, so Plan B has to." 

"Yeah," I sighed. "So here's the play. We head to the barn at dusk and wait for the first hunting party to leave. We meet up with them before they get to wherever they're going, and put an end to them. That does three things - gives us a win, provides positive proof we know what we're doing, and cuts down on the number of vamps we'll all have to take care of later." 

"All?" Cori asked. "Sam and Dean will be there?" 

"Not when we start. We handle the first group on our own." I paused, the nerves starting to creep up.

This was the dicey part.

"Then I call them and… invite them to join." 

Silence on the line. I pushed on. 

"So, remember that Grace Cas gave me? It's like a beacon - he always knows when I'm over there because he can sense the piece of his Grace that isn't with him." 

"So how have you been able to get all this information you've given us - the pictures and descriptions so we can get there through the Looking Glass?" Cori questioned. 

I hesitated. I still harbored feelings of guilt over using Jack as an accomplice.

Dean is going to have my head for that as well.

But would my friends? 

"Jack helped me. He kept Cas from noticing I was here." 

"You used *Jack*?" Mags exclaimed.

"Oh boy…" Ella breathed.

"Dean is going to KILL YOU!" Cori blurted. 

I winced at the outburst, but I knew it was coming. Deservedly so.

But it was necessary. 

"I didn't have much of a choice," I argued. "We all agreed we needed to help them, right? This is the only way we're going to convince them that we *can*." 

I paused. Silence. 

I continued. "Anyway, before we head over, I'm gonna text Jack and let him know I'm heading over. He'll block Cas until I give the signal. Then he'll grab Sam, Dean, and Cas, and teleport them to our location. Once they're there, they'll see we've successfully killed vamps by ourselves. Part 1 successful. Then we'll all go to the barn and wipe out the nest. Part 2 successful, positive impression made." 

"What's the signal?" Cori inquired. 

"Well, here's the tricky part," I sighed. "It's the one part we can't test beforehand." 

"OK, and…" Mags prodded. 

"I'm going to share the Grace with you…" 

A burst of voices from the channel… "What??", "Ohmigod are you sure?", "Huh??" 

"… this has two purposes!" I shouted over their protests. "First - remember the first time I crossed over and it knocked me out so bad I slept for a day and a half? Cas gave me the piece of his Grace to prevent that from happening. However, he gave me SO MUCH that everything that touches me over there gets a big jolt." 

Oh, right.

I hadn't told them about the encounter I had in the bar… zapping the vamp when he grabbed me.

All I had told them was I found the nest and scoped out the bar. I didn't want to scare them about going there.

It would be pure daylight out - no way the vamps would venture out in that.

We'd be perfectly safe. 

I rushed on. "So, when we're done with the first group… I'm gonna put my hand in and you're all gonna grab on, and I'm gonna pass some of this Grace on to you. I'm hoping this will do a few things - one, make it to where you won't be knocked out like I was when this is over. Two, it will decrease the amount of Grace in me, and I'll get to hug my boys again without having to be so damned careful!" 

I stopped for a breath. No one spoke.   

"Third - this will be Jack's signal to bring the A-Team. When he notices Cas' Grace split four ways, that's his cue." 

Silence. Finally, Cori cleared her throat and asked, "What's the plan if you can't transfer the Grace?" 

Another possibility I'd considered and scoped out when I went back for pictures.

Full-length mirror in the lady's room of the bar. 

"Plan GTFO - Get The Fuck Out. We head back to the bar and you guys jump back through the mirror in the lady's room. It's gonna be painful for you guys after you return, and I'm sorry. If that happens, I'll talk to Cas, see what can be done for future visits." 

"Well, you seem to have thought of everything…" Mags offered encouragingly. 

"Jesus, I sure as hell hope so," I breathed. "So, everyone still in?" 

I waited for what seemed like an eternity. 

"HELL YES!"

"What are we waiting for?"

"Let's get this show on the road!"

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

Part The Second Coming Very Soon!

[theravensreliquary]

The “I want to dive into a new hobby of painting minis so what do I buy?” guide

So I have been painting figures for about two years or so and have learned a lot mostly by myself and some from Painter’s Guild on Project Alpha. So I thought I’d put some info out there on how to start your new and serious hobby

So here’s what I suggest you get.

Paper towel. You’ll want a good supply for cleaning your brushes and yourself.

Rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush. Before paint touches the figure, you want it to be clean. It’s good to wash the figure with soap and water, using the toothbrush to knock off the casting material. Then toss it in some rubbing alcohol and let it sit. I’ve been told to let it sit for a day, but I usually just do a few hours because I’m impatient. I’m not too sure what it does other than SUPER clean it, but it makes the paint stick even better. Also, the rubbing alcohol is really good at cleaning brushes that are caked in paint.

Finishing spray. I use just whatever is at the store so long as it’s matte. I’m not a fan of a super shiny mini, but maybe that’s what you want.

Brush cleaner. This isn’t super necessary as it is $12, but it keeps your brushes soft. Even with rubbing alcohol the brushes get really stiff, so it’s good to condition them every so often. Also, if you have any brushes with real hair, you’re really going to want this as those brushes are expensive and conditioner extends the lifespan of all brushes. I haven’t seen any other brand conditioner, but I’m sure others work just as good as B&J “The Masters” Brush Cleaner and Preserver. 

Water container. I just use old yogurt cups. My mom has yogurt almost every day so I have plenty. Just find someone who likes yogurt. Replace every once in a while as you’ll get paint built up that can keep your brushes from properly cleaning.

A pallet wheel. Also not super necessary but it doesn’ costs even a dollar. The paint doesn’t stick super well to it so it works nicely for mixing and it’s easy to scrape dried paint out of it. I used to always mix in a plastic to-go cup for sauce, but after it built up a ton of paint I realized just how much paint was going to waste. 

A tray. Totally not necessary but a friend of mine gave it to me and I’ve enjoyed it. It keeps my table cleaner from the paint and water that soaks through the paper towel and I can keep the paints I’m using as well as the water, brushes, and figure altogether when I need to set things aside for later. It’s handy.

PAINT. Obviously. Citadel is what I swear by, but there are other good acrylic paints out there like Army Painter and others. These go for $4.75 a pop and go a long way. Click here for a post talking more about what paints you should buy first. 

Neuro Bliss bottle cap with some sticky tack. I’m mad I didn’t know about this sooner. You stick your mini to it and keep your fingers clean. I’ve wasted so much time pulling off paint with my fingers... This is the best thing ever. And you can use any bottle cap, but the Neuro Bliss caps are the PERFECT size. The top is just under an inch which is the usual size for bases, and it’s a good size to hold on to.

Okay, now types of brushes and basic tools.

Toothbrush. like I said before with the rubbing alcohol, you’ll want this to properly clean the mini.

X-ACTO knife. (or a scalpel if you have a doc relative). This is used to remove flash lines--the lines where you can tell the pieces of the mold came together. This smooths out those lines and other imperfections and is useful when you start taking minis apart to make new stuff.

A file. This also helps smooth down flash lines. I don’t use it too often as it’s less precise, but it’s useful. 

Tweezers. Mainly I use these to pick the dried paint out of caps of paint, but also, it’s useful when you use a heat gun to not melt your fingers off.

Small brush. I just buy the smallest brushes my hobby shop carries, but if you got the $$$ Valejo real hair brushes are what most people praise and worship. Honestly I like these Atlas Brushes. They’re pretty nice.

Stiff brush. A brush with plastic bristles that is tough. This is your dry brushing brush. I even cut my bristles so they’d be stiffer.

Soft brush. This is one you’d maybe want real hair for. I doubt mine is since it was $.75, but you want a brush that’s soft and holds a lot of liquid. This is for your “shade” paints or “wash” paints, whatever you want to call them.

A pin. Seriously. I don’t know why no one else has thought of this for painting eyes. Online everyone is just “get the tiniest brush you can get your hands on” like I have access to any brush I want. I used my scalpel for a while, but once it dulled the end became more of a line than a point. But yeah, this is how you paint eyes I’ve Finally learned.

Also I love a good kit and kaboodle. If you’re low on space these things work great! I’m kinda over capacity with paints these days, but I can stuff the essentials in the main case.

And, not pictured is a heat gun. You can get away with a hair dryer or even with cation and boiling water, but it’s harder. With a heat gun, gone are the days of limp swords and bent legs! Just heat up the plastic for 5-10 seconds and move it into place, hold for a moment and tada! Oh! and I also recently learned that heating up some water and dipping the figure in that works great, too!

So ya, this is what you’d need to start a real hobby. 

[eledritch]

So reading all of you amazing works as well as following the content of other lovely Sheith shippers has inspired to finally write some fan fiction and contribute too! It’s been literal years since I’ve written anything though, and of course the story that got me really excited is going to have to be a multi chapter monster. As the master of long and complex fanfics, any advice for beginners?

Good!! I believe in you.

Sure, why the heck not :’) been awhile since I made a big writing tips post and I feel like I have some new things to offer since the last one. I don’t know if your fic is gonna be an AU or canon-compliant, but since my specialty is long and complex multichapter AUs, this is mainly gonna be about that.

First, you can check out my ‘writing tips’ tag for my own tips and tips from others on tumblr: http://saltyshiro.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-tips

The most important advice I can give to you as a writer is to READ. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to, but I still try to when I can. Reading was what gave me the inspiration and knowledge I needed for worldbuilding, which is a vital part of not just AUs, but any long and complex fic. You need to be confident about writing the world you’ve stuck your characters in. You have to know that world better than anyone.

More often than not, books aimed at children actually have better worldbuilding than books for adults. There are exceptions to this (a lot of sci-fi, like Dune & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for example, as well as dystopian fiction like The Handmaid’s Tale), but some of my favorite worlds remain those from children’s books. They include:

The Ever After in the May Bird & the Ever After series

The absurdist and time-period defiant world where anything goes (as long as it’s unfortunate) of A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Other World in Coraline & London Below Gaiman’s adult fantasy novel Neverwhere

The world populated by various small animals like mice, rats, and squirrels in Redwall by Brian Jacques

The medieval kingdoms of Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

The eerie surrealist circus world of The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley

I’m also currently working my way through the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, which is some INCREDIBLE worldbuilding in a high fantasy setting.

So what do all of these have in common? Well, contrary to popular belief, I don’t think you have to go Full Tolkien and write a brand new language as well as six thousand maps for your world. Nope. None of that is required. All that is required is that you LOVE the world you created. Love the heck out of it. Even if it’s a shitty world. Doesn’t matter. It’s YOUR shitty world. 

The more you love this world of yours, the more you’re gonna want to write about it, and the more reluctant you will be to let yourself drop the project. The pitfall many fanfic writers (and writers in general) fall into when writing long works is that they get burnt out and tired of their own story. You can’t get tired of your story if you keep adding to the world and finding new things to love and explore within it.

Worldbuilding reflects onto your characters, too - people are in many ways a product of their surroundings, after all. If your world is shitty, then your characters might end up a little shitty, too. But - and here’s the clever thing about this - because you love your world so much, and because your characters are an integral part of that world (they should be, if they’re your protagonist/villain/etc), you end up loving your characters, too. It feels like a betrayal if you stop writing their stories, and the world you’ve created should at this point feel almost like a real place, albeit within your head and your imagination. And when that happens, writing about your world and characters doesn’t feel like a chore or an obligation anymore. It feels like an adventure.

That being said, human brains have limits and it shouldn’t ALL exist in your head. You gotta take notes, do some doodles and simple maps if you’re into that, and also use resources made specifically to organize worldbuilding. I tend to just use good ol’ fashioned pencil and paper, but I’ve heard this tool is pretty good for digital organization:

https://www.notebook.ai/

Additionally, don’t be afraid to uh....“borrow” from other worlds that have been made before. The sooner you understand that everyone kinda steals (respectfully) from everyone (i.e. the lion king is hamlet; romeo and juliet is heavily inspired by the greek myth of pyramus and thisbe), the better off you’re gonna be in worldbuilding. You can, and unavoidably will, use worlds you’ve read about and/or experienced in the past in your own worldbuilding. It becomes a patchwork of your own, and once you have a base for your world, it becomes increasingly easy to add onto it and expand with more original ideas.

It can also be helpful to do a ton of research. Say you want your world to somewhat resemble Victorian England. How are you gonna know what that was like? Watch movies set in Victorian England to understand the aesthetic and speech. Watch documentaries to get a more factual basis. Read books set in Victorian England for the language and the societal ideas. Go on a Wikipedia or Google deep dive - almost always, you will end up in a much more interesting place than you expected. Listening to music can also be super helpful to get into a particular tone you want to see in your world, or can help you find the tone if you’re not sure what you want yet. I have playlists for most of my stories.

And, finally, understand that there’s always room for growth. I know my worldbuilding can be better than it is, so with every new story, I strive to make a more vibrant, vivid, lovable world than before. And guess what? Usually, not only does it work, but I also enjoy myself while writing more.

The key to long and complex fics is genuinely enjoying what you’re writing. You may be able to bullshit and slog your way through a shorter fic, but not a 200k monster. Another important key - know where your story is going to end up. 

You need a goal to work towards. Maybe it’s a scene you’ve been wanting to write since you came up with the story. It doesn’t have to be the ending, but it helps if it is. You should know the ending by at least the middle of the story. I’m pretty sure I’ve written stories where that wasn’t the case and I was just flying by the seat of my pants, seeing where my world and characters took me next...which is a valid way to approach writing, but riskier, and ultimately rather frustrating when writing fics since you can’t exactly go back and insert foreshadowing for the ending you didn’t know was coming, lol.

I find late-night brainstorms best for figuring out how I want to end stories. I’ll open up a word doc, think for a good while, and then just start typing. Type it out stream of consciousness style. It doesn’t need to be a good explanation of the events, it just has to be an explanation. (This is also helpful in long stories for writing down reoccuring elements you don’t want to forget, such as slang, societal titles, a promise a character made to another than they really need to bring up again sometime...)

For example, here is my stream of consciousness brain-spew for my fic Seal It With A Kiss (this did not all end up happening quite like this, but here it is, warning for nsfw mentions lmao):

Witch Classes: Apprentice, novice, journeyman, master/magus, archmagus

The Wastes – western desert wasteland, Keith is from Blackwater, three days’ ride from the Citadel. It’s bordered by the River Acheron to the west, on the other side of which are the lands where Keith’s father lived with his first wife. The ocean is to the north, with the island of Cobao directly south of the Citadel.

The Citadel – centrally located, perched among Asphodel Peaks, near the lowland Oscuran Woods. Capital, Altea City, is three days’ ride to the east. Shiro’s grandparents live to the south on the shores of Lake Lucanus, a major fishing outpost bordered by the Dalterion Swamplands to the south.

THE VOID: mysterious dimension (or entity?) accidentally opened by witches eons ago (oops), which created Hell and unleashed demons/monsters/old gods (Voidborn). It is made up of what witches call infernal magic – a powerful and supposedly corrupted/corrupting form of quintessence. The Void is largely unknown and inaccessible to humans. Few return, and those who do are always changed by it.

HELL: Thought to be a reflection of the Void on a more physical/less abstract plane. Hell is made up of many pocket realms, including Daibazaal (one of the largest, ruled by the Galra), and Stratonikeia (ruled by Hecate). It is populated by Voidborn, who carve out sections of it for themselves in warlord-esque fashion.

Neither Hell nor the Void are inherently “evil,” though most witches consider them so, and they are dangerous. While the most well-established Voidborn rule with law and order, many other parts are lawless chaos centered around power struggles, and all Voidborn are morally gray to an extent.

VOIDBORN: Despite their vast differences, all Voidborn derive power from human souls & quintessence. Often generalized as demons, Voidborn are secular beings with no “holy” counterpart (i.e. angels), however, they come in many forms:

SPECTERS: generally the weakest Voidborn, they lack corporeal form and often “haunt” areas with histories of death, grief, and bloodshed, frightening humans and feeding off of their fear.

MONSTERS: a large and varied group of Voidborn, not as intelligent nor powerful as demons. They are the mostly likely to directly attack/kill/eat humans and are often hunted, with trophies of their heads displayed outside remote villages to ward off other monsters.

OLD GODS: a more rare group which often overlaps with greater demons; old gods can be benevolent if appeased (i.e. through ritual sacrifice, favors, offerings, worship, etc). They define territories for themselves and over time can become deified by local peoples, since old gods have been known to protect their lands and the people within them in exchange for worship.

LESSER DEMONS: more intelligent than monsters but less powerful than greater demons and old gods, they often rely on contracts and trickery to get their way. They are known to be petty, cruel, and ugly.

GREATER DEMONS: highly intelligent and powerful, they are dangerous beings who chiefly use contracts, torture, manipulation, and possession to take power from souls, which they crave more than any other Voidborn.

*Haggar has been cloaking Keith from Krolia so she cannot find her son since Keith went to the Citadel*

Shiro was captured by Haggar, who experimented on him (gave him the arm, which is powered by infernal energy/Void quintessence and began to corrupt his soul/erode it) and used him as a gladiator, until she managed to capture and slay Kurobasanir, whose quintessence she combined with the remnants of Shiro’s soul. His soulless, empty body was left to fight in the arena as a kind of robotic killing machine, while Shiro’s self became entangled with Kurobasanir. Because Kurobasanir was dead but Shiro was alive and so determined to stay alive, Shiro’s soul (primed with the Void energy which allowed him to stand up against Kuro) took control, though he gained Kurobasanir’s memories, abilities, and personality, while losing/forgetting his own. However as time passes with Keith, Shiro’s subconscious (ironically the only part of him which is still conscious/knows who he is) begins to break through, making him more ‘human’ as he starts to remember who he is/have doubts that he is really Kurobasanir.

He is unable to shift into any other human but Shiro, falls in love with Keith (demons are supposedly incapable of love), experiences sudden surges of emotion/nostalgia and feels protective towards Shiro’s family/horse/possessions/etc, is mostly unaffected by spells that should exorcise or defeat demons, and acts differently than the original Kurobasanir according to the late incubus’s friends. Because Kurobasanir was a sadist, but Shiro is not, so when he fucks Keith in front of the other demons, they know something’s up because he’s not hurting Keith at all.

What he doesn’t remember/know, though, is that this whole thing is a trap set by Haggar in order to lure Keith, who is a cambion (half demon, half human) to her so she can experiment on him in her quest to gain immortality so she can stay with Zarkon forever without surrendering her soul/turn her own soul into a demon’s essence. Because cambion, once mature, are effectively immortal and have a soul, while still retaining dormant Void magic within them which allows for their immortality and more demonic qualities. They are also extremely rare, and Haggar only knows of Keith because Hekate (Krolia) was her mentor and mentioned him.

So when Keith and Shiro go to find Shiro at the Samhain Tourney, Keith sees Shiro’s soulless body fighting and goes to break him out of his cell in the intermission; Shiro, not recognizing him/caring about him/trained to kill on sight tries to kill him, Keith is horrified and unable to bring himself to hurt Shiro, so he is saved by Kurobasanir, who realizes the situation fully once he comes face to face with the body that was once his, realizing his (Shiro’s) soul has been transferred into the incubus’s.

Before he can tell Keith this, though, Keith is captured by Haggar (who he recognizes as Honerva) and the two are separated. Keith cries alone in his cell, thinking Shiro is gone for good and also thinking Kurobasanir betrayed him and/or will be killed or tortured, leaving him utterly alone again. Lots of time passes and Keith realizes Haggar is trying to break the bond between him and Kurobasanir, because they’re both trapped and the contract must be sealed via sex. So Keith is in agony (and very very horny) because he can’t touch Shiro, and the contract is on the verge of breaking (and causing a great deal of pain and harm to both of them, since it was broken against their will) when Hekate/Krolia shows up, kicks BUTT, and bc she’s Mom of the Year, rescues Keith and brings him to Shiro while explaining on the way what happened. She also mentions that Keith’s father left because he was fulfilling the contract Hekate had with him, which was that because he was infertile she would bear him a “human” son (Keith), who would be blessed by her and live a happy/prosperous life, but in exchange Keith’s dad would only get sixteen years with his son, and then Hecate would take his soul.

As it turns out, though, Hekate/Krolia grew pretty darn fond of Keith’s dad (he’s a human teddy bear hedge mage unfazed by demons, what’s not to love), so he’s just chilling in Hell with her and had planned to come back and tell Keith the whole story, but when he returned Keith had gone off to the Citadel & Haggar was hiding Keith from Hecate.

So Keith and Shiro reunite and they’re so desperate for each other that they basically end up fucking while escaping (Keith is VERY EMBARRASSED but Krolia is like boi I am the mistress of dark magic, I don’t care, get that demon dick, proud of u son. Plus Shiro does his best to hide Things), cue a very wild scene in which both Keith and Shiro are kicking ass while fucking, since Shiro has regained his powers and Keith is Restored By The Power of Shiro’s Dick. Amen. Hallelujah.

Thankfully they finish up by the time they find the Holts, who were being forced to do alchemy stuff in Haggar’s lab. Haggar’s druids attack them, but Keith, who has read up on Honerva’s magic/theories, and Krolia, who mentored Honerva and is now pissed at her bc she tried to use Krolia’s son for her experiments, defeat the druids and are about to destroy Haggar’s research. Then Haggar bursts in, and in a desperate attempt to save her life’s work tells Keith that she can separate Shiro’s soul from Kurobasanir if he spares her/her work. Shiro is actually the one who hesitates, since he thinks Keith deserves much better than him and should have him fully human, as he appeared in their future together. But Keith has made up his mind – he loves Shiro in any and every form, and he’s done with Haggar’s shit. Furious at the thought of what she did to Shiro and planned to do to him, Keith’s magic creates a massive explosion which destroys the lab as Krolia uses one of Haggar’s traveling crystals to take them all away from Daibazaal.

Krolia takes them to her realm of Stratonikeia, a much more chill part of Hell. Because it’s Samhain and everyone is partying, Hecate’s palace is hectic and full of drunk demons and debauchery bc demons just wanna have fun, okay? Krolia makes sure the Holts are given safe accomodations so they can rest up and receive treatment before returning home. Meanwhile, Keith and Shiro are very shaken and Keith is weak from using so much magic to destroy Haggar and her lab. He and Shiro manage to escape the party and get to a balcony or something, where Shiro tearfully apologizes for everything, saying he understands if Keith wants to break ties after their contract is over, and that he wishes it didn’t have to end like this. Keith is quiet, then tells him that nothing is ending, pointing out that apparently he’s also immortal, and that technically Shiro gets his immortal soul in return for completing the contract. Shiro misunderstands, panicking and assuring Keith he will not take his soul and will leave him alone, but Keith cups his face and says he wants Shiro to have him forever, because he loves him, and never stopped loving him. Disbelieving but hopeful, Shiro embraces him gently, and when they kiss Keith begins to show his demonic characteristics (little horns, glowing eyes, tail, reddish scales).

Epilogue – Keith and Shiro get married. In Hell. It’s beautiful. They also have the most romantic, tender, kinky demon/cambion sex ever. They’re in love and together forever :’))

*

I hope that helps, dear!! Best of luck in your writing endeavors. 

[tillerman1]

TORMENT [to the word] pt.3

PIPPI : See me VET to of calls myself Pippi. That is a good name. I vet teachers who have considerably uglier names…

Sandman becomes brutally snatched from their studies.

PIPPI : Horn Sandman, strike back the Greek. Sit don't and read in the next hour's lesson on my lesson and believe above all not that I am so senile that I don't see him.

Pippi goes down to class from the chair, takes out a paper -

PIPPI : This here essay-made contains two real splendor-flowers. The one is Grönstrand papa till.

Grönstrand's pimpled, sad face -

PIPPI : He writes: The nomadic Lapp population stays ne'er long in a sure place.

Merriment in the class. Pippi laughs with -

PIPPI : Sandman is one indecent man and rolls to among gangster and bad women in the free the subject in a mixture of Maupassant and Zola. He writes… But what is it with Mr. Widgren…

Jan-Erik is right sweaty in the face and presents all sign of high-degree nausea -

JAN - ERIK (gets forward): Mayst I get go home.

Pippi will forward till it –

PIPPI : Yes, certainly! How is the injury?[?] Dear someone then. Is he very sick?

Jan-Erik travels himself and goes out from some room. Closes the door.

JAN - ERIK : Refusal then, I feel badly only. Jan-Erik goes along one long far corridor. He disappears longer and longer away. At the end of the corridor falls it down faint.

Dad, mother Widgren cum the doc comes just out of Jan-Erik's room.

THE FATHER : I can really not comprehend how HE can be overworked. He has not worked so particularly much over last time.

The doctor. He picks up smoke and kindles -

THE DOCTOR : The school… the school. Nah. There occur well other than school. Or be that not that, the bureau director?

THE FATHER : How means the doctor?

DOKTORN : Yes, no naught particularly. It can incidentally very well be the school. Blue tap is not only the road to corrupt health.

The three casts themselves down. The doctor prepares himself to take up his darling subject –

THE DOCTOR : One boy came till I for he wet in bed over the night. He had become hard when death-frightened by his history teacher… Is man doctor mayst man view a strange downside of the school. Scrawny and overgrown individuals, slanted and squint, spindly, malnourished, overworked. Sunken chest, weary-leewards eyes, anemia cum till and of distorted sex.

The small doctor gets all eager. He rises upward from the chair and wanders around -

THE DOCTOR : But is it so strange actually(.)[?] Think of the school buildings(,)[;] I mean the old venerable and traditional learning plants. Old dirt holes. And the syllabi. Is it wise and sensible to keep a young human fast on its tail from bell eight on mornings till four in the afternoon and THEN homework(.)[?] The courses will more expensive and more expensive and the teachers will special - and compartment-idiots, so would the boys learn themselves all as required became the queue on some asylum.

The father has vainly tried (to) insert a word here and there -

THE DOCTOR : But so stupid are they not, the adolescents. No, they do as good they can of till help of miscellaneous thief- and rack-game, which they consider last fully justified from the viewpoint that the school's control system is as it is. For to not talk about the penal system.

That youth is as resilient as they are attributes I a surely developed lazy mask.

The agency director gets now an awl in the weather and exclaims, slightly indignant –

THE FATHER : The doctor considers thus that cheating and truancy cum other fraud is fully justified.

THE DOCTOR : No(,) take me seventeen if I consider so. Yet self says I ashamed on old the school that spreading out carpets over the shortcuts as called cheating and truancy.

The doctor initiates go to out in the hall for that take on to coat, but the agency director want doesn't drop the threads –

THE FATHER : Young people should learn themselves know hut. [note: "know hut" means manners]

THE DOCTOR : Think just the same. But I allow I doubt to current methods. Both coddling and raw drawing. It should seventeen be pedagogue. Incidentally round the older and younger generation would something smaller death-terrified for each other think me it would be considerably better.

The doctor shakes suddenly cum preoccupied, pressing hand with the parents –

THE DOCTOR : Treat hand of the boy something now. And let one lie one day in quiet and tranquility. He looks me out as one such there as wants solve the world's mystery with more. Awful hotly - and windy. Yes!

He nods yet one time. Out.

Jan-Eriks face. He lies with closed eyes. He stirs himself restless, mumbles something.

The door opens cum Caligula comes in.

He stays quietly inside the door.

Jan-Erik travels himself with stretched hands as one blind. He looks frightened out. He stares at Caligula.

Caligula walks quietly closer and puts himself on the chair at the bed.

Jan-Erik penetrates himself up against the wall. Shakes on the head. Caligula opens mouth, puts the stylus on Jan-Erik's neck cum says calmly -

CALIGULA : Abelativus absolutus. ["A relative absolute"]

Jan-Erik sinks together in senseless fear.

In through the door comes Bertha. She goes forward till the bed.

BERTHA : You hold so much of me. Do you not. I am so scared, dear! You may never go from me, never. Help us. Help me only. (she whispers)

Jan-Erik stretches arms towards her. Screams, but it becomes like a whisper -

JAN - ERIK : Bertha! Bertha!! BERTHA !!!

Caligula bends himself down over Jan-Erik.

CALIGULA : I must kill you[,] Mr. Widgren. You are too ignorant of the dead languages. But that death should you can become more which home ...

Caligula raises the stylus and directs that against Jan-Erik's eye. Bertha appears in one horror distorted position.

A splitter-sounding of glass shards in thousands.

Jan-Erik wakes, TERRIBLE sweaty, excited cum says something that really not hear till the sake –

JAN - ERIK : Bertha… BERTHA!

Home at Bertha.

A hand that puts down a glass of cognac. Bertha sitter the crawl up on her couch in morning rock. She stares at the man middle opposite her. It is dead quiet in some room.

She looks as hypnotized ahead herself. And follows the history mimic -

CALIGULA : Yes, you have guessed right the right. I am much afraid. Air brain, where the sitter one small white burning stain thinking out disgusting cases and I will (be) ever (most) afraid myself. So when I turned on the power switch for that scare you…

The low toneless, absolutely indifferent voice ends.

Some cognac glass.

A hand, deformed by a large scar, takes it and hands it to Bertha -

CALIGULA : Should you none have some cognac.

Bertha takes towards the outstretched glass, which rattles against her teeth.

She drinks from it.

The hands.

Tempo furioso.

They touch to incessantly, violently speaking, pantomime.

CALIGULA: I have known death's fear one time in my life. It was a cat… funny! I have always liked if cats. Outside a house sat a large cat and sunbathed himself. I went forward till it. Talked kindly to it. It stroked to against me and span. I bent myself down and stroked it along the back.

Per even bit it me in one hand. They slog like that knot in it. It settled all twenty claws in my hand. Hanged itself fast on it. Drilled in the teeth to it. It became with even so big…

Bertha's face. She is disgusted, fascinated -

CALIGULA: I set aside never my panic fear. I think I screamed. Vet you what I did… I stopped down the cat and the hand and the arm in a water barrel that stood there. The cat had locked itself in cramp.

It drowned only released not the grip… a doctor got cut loss it.

See, I have the mark yet… See… see how I look outward.

Bertha crawls together.

BERTHA: No… I want not.

But against her want looks it at the battered hand that stretched towards her.

Caligula travels to, goes forward to the bed cum holding her if shoulder cum twists her against it.

CALIGULA: So should Man be… Bite the fast. Don't drop bite. Bite don't I so bite you, therefore bites me first…

The street outside the Widgrenska house. Bertha stands across opposite the sidewalk. It is morning. From the port comes Jan-Erik. It blows violently.

He walks up the street pretty fast as would it late. Bertha hurries to after him.

She time in cap him cum both stays. Bertha is profoundly upset but trying (to) master herself. –

BERTHA: Forgive me, that I will so here.

JAN-ERIK: For all share.

BERTHA: I must get speak to you.

JAN-ERIK: It can go for himself.

He begins to go quickly. Bertha half-jumps wide at him.

BERTHA: You get not speak to me as if you would angry with me.

JAN-ERIK: I am angry with you. And I want nothing throw to do with you. Got remember there. And try to understand that too.

He walks from her.

Bertha stands left and looks after him. Then turns she herself round, but at like moment popping Caligula up as from the ground.

Caligula walks straight past her without that take any that especially notice of her. At the close of the street disappear it around a corner.

Caligula has time upward Jan-Erik. He walks in width with him. Jan-Erik greet something clumsy when he discovers who it is -

JAN-ERIK: Hello.

CALIGULA: Good morning Widgren.

It sounds unusually convivial.

Caligula has also brought a convivial facial wrinkle -

CALIGULA: How feels it presently then? You became the ...

JAN-ERIK: Thank great.

It becomes silent. But Caligula looks don't out to want end the conversation.

New street.

They have not said anything for a while. So –

CALIGULA: Well, you know the girl in the tobacco affair. Very surely perchance?

JAN-ERIK: No.

He looks searching on Caligula.

CALIGULA: Not (at) all?

JAN-ERIK: Some.

Quiet again.

CALIGULA: Is she one real fine girl intrinsically?

Jan-Erik looks out like if he tried recalling himself something –

JAN-ERIK: That vet I don't. How so?

CALIGULA: Jäh (gesture). (pause) There are only some but left now. Let me see: sex till you shall up. (pause) Sad with the round heat. The tar one must watch us all. And the wind. (short pause). To the hold on so here all the time troth.

Jan-Erik tiger.[? possibly "Jan-Erik remains quiet"] The wind howls and river in with a huge lady cloud just round the corner.

Home in Jan-Erik in his austere small study chamber. The window stands open. But now is the quiet against before the permanent whistling. The curtain hangs slack. There is a thick cloud wall over the house opposite. It is evening.

Jan-Erik at the desk with the Latin grammar spread out in front of him. Jan-Erik at some desktop with the Latin grammar open before himself. He writes on a paper: VOLO, NOLO, MALO, CUPIO, JUBEO, STUDEO. {FLY, REFUSE, WISH, INCLINE, JUDGE, STUDENT.}

He is sweaty in the face and takes the paper knife and cools the forehead.

Then he gets up and goes to the water carafe, pours up water. Drinks. Then comes he and takes his hat, throws it again.

He walks front till the bed, puts himself on it. Drills in the knuckles against the eyes. Sitting so one while. Traveling to so again.

He walks a stroke over some floor. So treats it cap again. He takes up his got comb and smooths till hair before the mirror. He looks led and disgusted out.

A deserted street in a strangely surreal evening lighting. Some people hurry forward along the house walls.

A long[,] narrow, narrow street, as before. Jan-Erik comes walking fast.

Bertha's house.

He goes in through the port.

He knocks on the door. Nobody answers.

When recalling it to the key and begins forage for it in the pockets. Finds it. Puts it in the lock and uncaps.

As it is overcast obscures it right strong inside of the hall. He walks through it in on some room.

He stops. Almost naked is Bertha in a funny position on the bed with the knees hunched under the chin. In the twilight looks her sleeping outward. The room looks out as plain as when as on magical shadows up to the ceiling, figures and glare in a flask and wash glass, the street lamp's indirect light.

Jan-Erik walks some steps over some floor. He looks out like if he figured leave her in peace to sleep intoxication off herself. Somewhat misguided.

Now seems it that Bertha's right arm, one she is on, sticks out like a bowsprit with sprawling fingers.

Jan-Erik walks slowly forward to the bed. He stands some moment right still. So takes he her quickly with that only the shoulder. But he pulls flash-quickly back the hands again. Bertha overturns on even down for back. The head comes to hang outside the bed edge, dangling. She is dead.

Jan-Erik screams over, uncontrolled cum backs back some steps. Pushes over a chair. Standing as still again, staring at the dead. Among the silence includes sudden a slight scraping sound. Then becomes that quiet again.

Jan-Erik looks himself around. Then runs it out into the kitchenette. Nothing.

Through the room again out into the hall. There is it dark. Looks himself around. May see something. Under the coat hanger among coats, frocks cum other appears a human being has hidden one.

Jan-Erik goes back and drags away the clothes. He gets off to a half shout.

There, hidden among the clothes, sitter Caligula, white in the face, sweaty, disheveled without glasses. He stares with despair's horror at Jan-Erik and whispers again unto again similar thing like a parrot -

CALIGULA: I have not done it … I have not done it … I have not done it … Self promises, promises …

Jan-Erik grips of panic and rushes from there, get after some difficulty up the first door. Outside brights the stairway light. He runs only his way and forgetful's close the door after one.

So hears Caligulas voice low, whispering -

CALIGULA: He reports me … he reports me.

He travels to from his corner and goes in at the room. Strides forth till the telephone. Stares at Bertha, crossbars the zero: the police.

CALIGULA: The police.

Ambulance and police car at rapid howling trip through streets.

The cars stop outside Bertha's house. From all corners, from all keep coming the folk that sets themselves to stare.

Caligula is himself in the open door, near the cops coming up the stairs –

CALIGULA: I have not done it … I have not done it.

The police station.

Caligula. He is violently frantic. The commissar tries to calm him –

CALIGULA: I have not done it …I have not …

THE COMMISSAR: The lecturer may be kind to calm himself something now. I can none release you before the doctor has rung and confirmed the death's cause.

CALIGULA: Well, that is why not wise… I am why no criminal. Think you that I am that?

The commissar walks around the table forward till Caligula, taking him on the shoulders cum push down it in a chair.

THE COMMISSAR: Sit presently here and calm you. It is why only a pro forma thing.

CALIGULA: I have why never done a fly for when… I am so scared…

Caligula shoots out the head at the commissar (as against Jan-Erik) -

CALIGULA: I've been sick… you must not scare me like this. I get not… the doctor has said.

THE COMMISSAR: You can get lay you a while in of my room and try sleep.

It for in Caligula in his small room where there actually only is one bed with some blankets.

THE COMMISSAR: Lay you now and try and slept as announces us as soon the doctor's statement has arrived.

Caligula allows himself lays. Pulling the blanket up over his ears, turning towards the wall.

Drag the blanket up over some ears, turns himself towards the wall. He looks most insignificant and scared out. Sometimes jerks it till as in a sob or as if he froze.

Jan-Erik walks forth and back of his room. Forth and back. He puts to correct up and down on a chair and stares straight front himself -

JAN-ERIK: Bertha … poor … little …

Some mortuary.

Bertha covered just over and whisked away on a wagon. The doctor takes off himself the rubber gloves, talking to his assistant –

THE DOCTOR: She must have mismanaged herself awfully. Don't understand me what man can drink death herself, but it has she indeed done.

Offers colleague a cigarette. Both go towards the exit.

Them takes their coats.

THE ASSISTANT: Yes, it was the heart, weak before. Well … (gesture)

THE DOCTOR: So malnutrition and other more. Speaking, ring for seventeen the police, so the dissolute lecturer get go home and sleep…

The lecturer is as before with the face against the wall –

[This section was edited out of the film]

{CALIGULA'S VOICE (low): I must gather hop myself. I must become it I was … previously, before …

Caligula tries exclude memory –

CALIGULA: No, don't think about it. I must try bring discipline and order … discipline and order … I must find me myself (loud) Oh[,] devils' devils, why calling them not. Discipline and order, discipline and order.

The door opens, the commissioner sticks in the head, Caligula travels to terror at the elbow.

CALIGULA: What is it[,] commissioner?

THE COMMISSAR: The here lady …

CALIGULA: Yes, yes, she MAY well come in.

THE COMMISSAR: Get well that.

In comes presently aunt Elisabet. Mild, mild.

AUNT ELISABET: It was right that you called for me. I am so glad for that… My little boy.

She sets herself quietly on a chair. Caligula sits up. The sitter altogether silent either two. Aunt Elisabet takes his hand, caresses it –

AUNT ELISABET: I am not angry at you[,] my boy. … You will see we get it probably so good. We should stay together again… like before. Not alone. Not now anymore. Dear small boy.

Caligula's glasses-loose face.

Suddenly puts Caligula ones face in aunt Elizabet's lap. He moans himself low, pressed. But he cries doesn't.

CALIGULA: Assistance me! Assistance me. Why to everything be so this. I want the only be at peace…

AUNT ELISABET: And thou should live in small some room inside the hall, self to come in till you in the evenings and sit with you and talk. Everything should be as it was before.

Caligula boosts the head and looks at her and takes over her hands -

CALIGULA: Yes. Everything must be as it was before!

In same now calling it on the telephone at the expedition. Caligula sits himself up and stares at the door. Under the time heard the commissar's voice –

THE COMMISSAR: Yes… yes… no. Yes. Then releases we him well then… Well… Geez yes. Thanks cum good night.

The door goes up cum the commissar comes in. Caligula has rest himself and is up.}

THE COMMISSAR: Well, you can get going now, lecturer. That was well nice.

Caligula answers not. He takes forward one comb and combs himself carefully, silent.

Then takes it on oneself their glasses. Then straightens it on the tie and jacket. Travels without a word out in the expedition, takes on to cap and coat. Aunt Elisabet stands still and follows him with glances, tense.

He turns to measured till the commissar –

THE COMMISSAR: Goodbye then[,] lecturer, and forgive that we each had to do that here.

He stands silent a moment, then takes he the commissar's stretched hand, bows measured,

CALIGULA: Goodbye constable.

{She extends her hand after him and calls –

AUNT ELISABET (screams): Go none!

But the door slams again.

The principal looks indescribably concerned outward and stares after Caligula, then he turns and wanders out through the rector's expedition's door.

He takes the telephone and rings –}

THE RECTOR: Want Larsson last kind and retrieve Jan-Erik Widgren.

Jan-Erik Widgren comes in and stands before the rector, tired to the rupture limit.

The rector is diffuse, consequently that he thinks it all is unpleasant –

THE RECTOR: Yes, Widgren, this is a boring story there here. Your Latin teacher has been and talked with me just. I have noted his accusations, and you get freely say what you consider last justified and less justified in this here. Sit, sit[,] Widgren.

Widgren sits it. He looks out through the window, seems quite apathetic for that which proceeds.

The rector bends himself over some paper –

THE RECTOR: One morning meet your schoolfellow you together with one girl who called Bertha Olsson, she works in the tobacco affair here middle received. Then he knew that the girl none had the best reputation, sooner was ... hm ... so up searching he her for that ask her hand you, do final with you and preface her the wrong unto to have a relationship with a schoolboy.

Jan-Erik has gradually become more and more concerned from the story. Now harks it very attentively. He starts get angry –

THE RECTOR: She laughed out him, swore at him cum bar to over home taken badly at, sat and drank cognac.

Suddenly takes her to for heart and falls dead down.

The rector makes a short pause. He looks over the glasses at Jan-Erik, who none says something.

THE RECTOR: Just after, before he yet has recovered himself from the shock, comes you and opens with, after what he says, own key. You may see the dead girl and rush from there down to have accused him that have murdered her ... Yes, it was in brevity what the whole went out on.

It becomes silent the moment. Jan-Erik stands that paralyzed. The rector's fingers drum against some board.

JAN-ERIK: Believes the rector himself in all that there?

He rectifies himself. Staring at the papers.

THE RECTOR: I believe nothing. One wants say …

Jan-Erik attempts suppurate as calm and objective as possible –

JAN-ERIK: Yes, yes, that is true. I have been together with a girl, who perhaps not was so particularly decent.

The rector has rest himself and walks past Jan-Erik. Stops.

THE RECTOR: This fact plus your cheat is for attendant probably for that get you relegated. Understand you-all that?

JAN-ERIK: I vet that and self gives the cat in it.

The rector walks up till Smith, down to right front it –

THE RECTOR: But it is not only that, that is the question about. I would know if the others are true also. I mean… themselves some course.

JAN-ERIK: Well, the principal is not sure about it.

THE RECTOR: I'm praying that you answer off MY question and don't make any private reflections.

Jan-Erik.

He puts his hands on the back, bends himself something forward.

JAN-ERIK: I would be grateful if the principal repeated the question to the person who fabricated the accusation.

The rector barking just lit his cigar. Takes down it again, shakes of the head –

THE RECTOR: That want I don't (pause). It can I not (pause). Well, I SHOULD do it.

They fix each other a moment, then goes the rector till the telephone.

The rector and Jan-Erik stand with faces towards the door. Quiet a moment. Then knocks the two light blows.

THE RECTOR: Path in.

There delays some, then opens the door. Caligula enters. He is quiet and still. He smiles something, hardly noticeable. Not one muscle pipe to in his face.

The rector observes him tense, silent.

Jan-Erik also.

The rector again. He speaks in one icy cold business-like tone as allows understand his antipathy against the latin lector –

THE RECTOR: I would know if your accusation against Widgren is till all points oaths-terms truthful. He has sting us put that the question to you in his presence.

Caligula. He looks some moment first on the rector, then on Jan-Erik. Then comes it quickly –

CALIGULA: That should I have for provocation to lie.

The rector looks hastily down at their paper. He rancid himself uncomfortably affected. He had apparently not expected himself one such response.

Caligula again.

He stands still left at the door, something shy and faint-hearted. Quiet.

CALIGULA: My tasks mayst admittedly none checked, it is true. Certainly, certainly. But is it likely… For where would I have other than purely pedagogical motives to get Widgren separate from school.

The rector shrugs of the shoulders and looks something perplexed at Widgren. He should just come up talk –

THE RECTOR: Well… can we not try done out it for Widgren...

Then breaks Jan-Erik from him. It comes as one full explosion -

JAN-ERIK: Pedagogical motives…

The rector react terrified –

JAN-ERIK: … You took life from her.

Jan-Erik is furious, suddenly and without height, completely desperate –

JAN-ERIK (points): You! Scared death her, tormented life from her, drank her full, tormented, tormented her, as you plaguing me and all other you will at.

Jan-Erik stands presently right against Caligula.

CALIGULA: I protest against that …

Jan-Erik turns himself from the rector –

JAN-ERIK: You have scared till death. And if I'm to relegated so should he there expelled hundred times more, for what he made…. Your old man-wretch… And …

There knocks suddenly on the door. Without that awaiting answer sticking Pippi in the head and comes after a moment in whole and cohesive – –

PIPPI: Sorry to I bother, but …

The rector, he is irritated –

THE RECTOR: Want the lecturer anything?

Pippi is also confused, but it labeled to him that he would stay so gladly as he wants to live –

PIPPI: Refusal not precisely.

THE RECTOR: Then maybe you would wait out there some moment.

PIPPI: Well me …

THE RECTOR: Would you volition be kind and do it.

PIPPI: Shall well do it then.

Pippi turns the visible sad and walks out through the door.

When Pippi has gone out, beat the rector the fist on the table –

THE RECTOR: Now get we do end on this here. Widgren goes out and waits out where tills I'm stating till. [sic]

Caligula stands silent and pale. The twitching in corners as till one laugh.

Jan-Erik stands silent one moment, so walks it against the door, past Caligula, tight past. He stays at the door, turns to round, stares at Caligula. Caligula takes together hands and drags in the long fingers, so at forefinger. Staring past Jan-Erik. Jan-Erik becomes suddenly furious and beats Caligula middle in the face.

Suddenly throws to Jan-Erik over him, grabs him about the neck with your left hand, penetrates him up against the wall cum before the rector, who rushed forward, can prevent it bestows it him four hard fist punches in the face. Then release it him and stands like an idiot and stares. Caligula has failed down on a sofa, stunned.

The rector shakes Jan-Erik, angry -

THE RECTOR: Your young jubilation-idiot. Presently can I why not clear you. Your general ass. Shucks.

Jan-Erik makes himself free from the rector and goes out of the expedition. Closes the door.

The rector takes no notice of Caligula as seated and dries sin nose. He goes forth till his desk and puts to. Tired.

THE RECTOR: I wonder who as is the most guilty of gentlemen.

Caligula looks up indignantly –

CALIGULA: What MEAN you?

Their glances meet. Caligula bites to in the lip –

THE RECTOR: We come that forced till one justice murder, lecturer. The can well not avoids. For I can well not get you to hold in with your notification?

Caligula looks up. Then travels it to and walks towards the door.

CALIGULA: No.

Walks a bit, turns to round -

CALIGULA: To the may you-all me not!

[{added in film}THE RECTOR: Will you have it on your concience that you ruined the boy's future?]

Out through the door.

Jan-Erik goes over the schoolyard.

Some of his comrades come past him, half-running -

GRÖNSTRAND: Hurry up boy, we should away and try tangles. [sic]

JAN-ERIK: I need probably no tangle.

Far away in the school courtyard behind Widgren comes Pippi heady. He is breathless and excited. He shouts on the run –

PIPPI: Widgren! Widgren! Widgren!.

But Jan-Erik hears him not.

Bureau director Widgren dries his sweaty forehead. Through some hall's window lit the sun in red and mercilessly.

At the table stands Jan-Erik, he has head lowered and stares at the table's disc, drums with the fingers.

At the door stands the mother. She looks pale and sorry outward. She holds fast in a stool –

THE MOTHER: So have you not come till us the boy mine. Why have you not spoken about …

JAN-ERIK: Well … How …

He can not say something more. He is for {too} upset.

The father. He stops. He speaks calm and low-key –

THE FATHER: Expelled. Yes… it is as mother says. So have you not narrated.

JAN-ERIK: What would I have narrated?

The mother and the father look at each other. None are in stand to say anything.

The father. He puts himself on an uncomfortable, upright stool. Dries himself again in the face with a handkerchief.

THE FATHER: No… we needed well this here, mother and I, for we were so exorbitantly dumb and conceited. We thought… it makes the same incidentally.

Jan-Erik wreaks in with one certain irascibility. –

JAN-ERIK: Father can gladly say what Father means. You thought you would get exist proud over me… not true?

The father looks up. Then jerks it on the shoulders and beats out with the hands –

THE FATHER: We can not drive down us in the here now. Done is done. We must try to get through it, mother and I.

Jan-Erik breaks off. His voice has suddenly changed. He is mocking –

JAN-ERIK: You-all must surely TRY it well.

The father turns himself towards him. Lightning fast –

THE FATHER: What is this for the tone?

JAN-ERIK: It is YOU and YOU and you. YOU who are offended, and YOU who is betrayed cum YOU who will get through it. What! But what I have been with about, it gives you blank damn.

THE MOTHER: Jan-Erik!!

Jan-Erik walks towards the door –

JAN-ERIK: But I'm giving the cat in you and your sufferings. You touch myself don't, for you have never bothered you for me. I will not stay here. As avoid you see me and ashamed.

The father travels to up. Relatively quiet.

THE FATHER: Hear you, you are all very big in the gull, you.

JAN-ERIK: So, father believes me not …

Jan-Erik pushes away the mother and rushes out through the door, which he slams again after itself hard.

The mother looks at the father a moment –

THE MOTHER: That you could …

She rushes after Jan-Erik out in the hall. He holds just on to take on to the coat, fumbles.

THE MOTHER: No, you must not go. You must not.

She hangs itself fast at his arm. He tries (to) get loss her –

THE MOTHER: Go none beloved boy[;] (...) all must become good again. Go none. You must not go… No, no…

Jan-Erik lucks do to free and comes out through the door.

The schoolyard.

It rains awfully. Lightning and thunder. For the plan before the scholastic port has a big hop people collected under umbrellas and in doorways.

A row with leaved crates as stands middle in the rain looks poor and ruffled out. So also balloons and another.

On a window in the school glimpses the graduates. They stare down at the crowd.

In one doorway, something hidden, account Jan-Erik. He is but greatcoat and hat cum he sees strangely uneasy out. So looks it up. The old ice guard that opens the windows. He leans himself out, waves with the hands cum calls -

ICE GUARD: All clear.

Jan-Erik's face. He is immobile. Looks right out –

Cheering.

Murmurs.

Thunderbolt.

Some teacher-room.

In two rows stands them: Till right teachers, till left the students with the hats in hand. In the center rector. It mumbles and talks some until all are gathered. Then clear is himself the rector –

The rector.

He is somewhat solemn, only understands still to take it as easy as possible –

THE RECTOR: Yes, boys. So is it here the tide of your life past and you-all going out at life for that test on what it has to give.

New thunderclap. The boxes rattle. All turns of the head.

THE RECTOR: I would say, to you then should do you old school honors. Attempt to see on her as she is. A strict run-mother, a demanding mentor, perhaps not always equitable, perhaps not ever such she should be. But one has she as I dare go in good for. One aboveboard sincere will to fashion you.

New appalling crash, which pulls attention till itself.

The rector hurries himself to complete his speech, where he marks that none hear unto him. –

THE RECTOR: I said one honest, candid will to fashion you till good, sufficient, useful society creatures. My earnest hope is it that she might have succeeded in its large and responsible task.

The rector silences cum the becomes silent some moment. Then begins all to speak low-key -

THE RECTOR: Yes, then is the only to say goodbye. We old school chestnuts wish you all happiness and welfare, this vet you, so it requires me why none say …

So walks the students around and says goodbye and thanks.

Caligula stands smiling, warmed by the solemn atmosphere. He takes all in hand.

CALIGULA: Goodbye! Happiness till. Goodbye, happiness till, Goodbye, happiness till, Goodbye, happiness till … happiness till. Goodbye.

Some clapping it in the back.

Sandman comes forward for that speak goodbye. He stares Caligula correct in of his enlarged eyes, takes not his stretched hand –

SANDMAN (low): Swine.

The huge stairwell.

The students gather quickly outside the teacher's room door. Through the windows illuminates the lightning and the rain spurts. The thunder thunders and echoes in the stairs.

Then sets the boy horde itself in motion and plunges under wild howls performed the stairs.

A second staircase is among yet violent-mare momentum.

The large courtyard's port fought up. The rain stands right in like a curtain. The boys clamps fast their white hats cum so runs they or roars, overwhelming rain, hail cum thunder in it the falls to out in the rain, straight down for last the stairs.

THE STUDENTS: Sing about the student's happy day …

The sounds disappear in a general cheer. The group captures up and decomposes in the rushing human mass …

In a window visible Caligula.

He has taken coat and hat at himself(,) [;] he polishes its glasses. He smiles, laughs, extends himself out through the window, waves.

Jan-Erik stands down at the port and looks at him.

Walks then alone over the schoolyard. The rain pours down.

Some cemetery chapel.

It is afternoon and the rains none longer. Middle of the small chapel is one coffin without flowers, black and simple.

THE PRIEST: Amen.

He nods at the only present at the funeral, pallbearers.

They go front till the coffin and conforms up it in their ropes and carry it slowly out.

Outside stands Jan-Erik and Sandman, somewhat embarrassed. They follow after the coffin.

Open grave.

The Undertaker has just begun to shovel back it. He works silently and persevering. One small bit from therein stands Jan-Erik and Sandman.

They face and start going. First silent.

SANDMAN: What should you now do?

JAN-ERIK: I vet not… is not as I would wise… must think.

SANDMAN: You are desperate, boy. Speak if for me.

JAN-ERIK: Nah.

They have come to Bertha's house.

JAN-ERIK: Servant then.

SANDMAN: Think you dwell here ... in Berthas ...

JAN-ERIK: Each should I otherwise dwell.

They account silence one moment as they always do when they shall separate –

JAN-ERIK: It was decent of you that you went with. (unfavourable) It was so bad about her. And you understand I ... I... yes...

Sandman ensures calmly on the friend.

So nods he little –

SANDMAN: Yes particular. I understand.

JAN-ERIK: Do thou it.

SANDMAN: Yes, you remember that there about Nietzsche and Strindberg, one where some dirt man talked about ladies and such there.

Jan-Erik nods –

SANDMAN: Oh... I believe not on it longer. You understand man has become... Hm.

Sudden gets it self-conscious. [sic] Change topic -

SANDMAN: Can you not follow cum me.[sic] Give seventeen for that dwell there alone.

JAN-ERIK: No... I would be at peace. Servant.

SANDMAN: Servant.

They bear some instant silence. So go they. Sandman along the sidewalk and Jan-Erik up the staircase.

Jan-Erik comes in at Bertha's apartment. It is dusk now. He closes the door after him, which he locked up with his key.

The street lamp draws figures on the roof inside with space. Jan-Erik goes across over it. He throws off to coat. Taking one felt, puts oneself in a chair cum drags one other chair till himself for the feet. Then takes it out a cigarette that he kindles.

He sits and smokes, tired, thoughtful. So butts it the cigarette and creeps together on the chairs, so good it goes. He tries to sleep.

Of even calling it on the door. Jan-Erik sits himself up.

It appears he is scared.

It calls one time till. He travels himself and paws out in the hall in darkness.

He stands at the door. Indecisive. Now rings it again.

Then opens it and in the door stands the rector. He draws of himself against the staircase's light.

THE RECTOR: Is it Widgren.

JAN-ERIK: Yes.

The rector rising on –

THE RECTOR: Have you something against to me steps unto so here.

JAN-ERIK: No.

The rector goes in of the room. He goes forward in middle –

THE RECTOR: Mayst we possibly get some light in here.

Jan-Erik goes silent forward and kindles the table lamp. The room shows to be in similar condition as at the discovery.

The rector pretends whether nothing. He puts himself in a chair. Allows Widgren stand where he stands –

THE RECTOR: Self have willed speak with you earlier. So rang me Sandman and said that you were here and then thought I that was [an] idea to go here.

Jan-Erik quiets. He stands still left middle of the flooring.

THE RECTOR: You thought didn't of the school you. What? Or rather, you found you didn't till correct there. Or how? Yes, yes, I can well understand that. Will man after some then must man enough admit that it is a rather strange school form we have.

Jan-Erik turns to towards the rector –

JAN-ERIK: What want the rector me? Think the rector that it helps with that the rector speaks ill of the school.

The rector laughs something. He is very still and very wise –

THE RECTOR: What I want… That shall I tell you. I would how you should go home left, till your parents like worries themselves till death for you.

JAN-ERIK: JUDGMENT!

The rector takes up the boy's tone –

THE RECTOR: Yes, JUDGMENT well. (pause) So I want to try to help you if I do can in some way. So want try attempt forward you if I mayst in some way.

JAN-ERIK: There is nobody who can help me.

THE RECTOR: No, not with your own settlement, for the get you as all others stand out of right alone. But looks you, there is one other thing well that must clear out, which I somehow feel me co-responsible over.

JJan-Erik has sat it. He seems calmer now.

JAN-ERIK: So, that should it be.

THE RECTOR: Yes, you have suddenly struck you out watch society. You are about sorts desperado as like a rocket rushes straight at hell. As strange it songs is it your school's fault. That want I try recompense.

The relegation goes not to prevent cum thou grows perhaps sued. But I pledge that I shall try minister you in any way. I must try hinder din rocket fart(,)[;] I must try may in you bland the people again. Förstår du mig pojken min.

The rector's usual ton cars for much for Jan-Erik. He travels to and goes forward to the windows –

THE RECTOR: Wants you promise me now to come home to me in morning, so we get spoken at again, on something soberer …

JAN-ERIK: Yes, yes, go only.

THE RECTOR: And promise me to not do some nonsense …

The rector has residual to and gone forward and stands behind Jan-Erik –

JAN-ERIK: Shucks.

THE RECTOR: Well then so. Here have thou funds such you can stay in a hotel at night. And try to sleep properly.

The principal puts money on the table. Then claps he Jan-Erik something in the back –

THE RECTOR: Days go, that one after the other. So gradually mayst you perhaps see in this here as something that doesn't do evil - but that maybe was useful... Sees you, I think that there is a meaning to everything that happens, also if it may look strange outward for our eyes. Goodbye to you.

The rector gives him yet one clap, hands him his handkerchief, which he takes, turns cum goes.

Jan-Erik stands at the window quite still some good while, then walks it around in some room when driven by a furious concern.

Suddenly stopping it center of the flooring. He can not master to further without sinking together weeping. He lies on some floor the same crouched and crying over-given.

He has pressed forearms against the face in one ridiculous, distorted position.

Jan-Erik lies still left on the flooring, but the crying has silenced. He rolls over on chine, adds hands under the head cum stares at the roof. Cords.

Now departing it to, stands and looks himself about. Somewhere beats a clock three blows.

He goes front till the boards and takes the rector's handkerchief cum sobs himself. Then extinguishers it the lamp on some board. A faint gray light at some room. He takes the money, drags down the curtain cum goes towards the door.

Near he arrived till the door stops he and turns himself back. Thereafter goes it out.

Through the hall goes he, opens the door and disappears out through the hall door.

On the stairs is it dark. Only with a small reflex light from the stairway windows. Jan-Erik gropes after the light and kindles. Shall just more further when he suddenly turns himself back.

On the staircase above. By the wall stands Caligula. They stand and look at each second under silence. Jan-Erik is no longer afraid(,)[;]; he is quiet and downright mastered.

Now roars Caligula across himself. He walks slowly down for steps and forwards towards Jan-Erik, who calmly stands remain.

Now stand them middle opposite each other. Caligula opens his mouth as if to say something, only keeps silent again.

JAN-ERIK: That does you here. – – You maybe would go in? Hurry, here is the key.

Caligula keeps silent.

Jan-Erik hands him the key.

JAN-ERIK: Where so good – – –

Caligula takes it doesn't.

CALIGULA: The rector was here –

JAN-ERIK: Yes.

CALIGULA: What said he?

JAN-ERIK: We spoke not about you.

CALIGULA: What said he? I understand that he said something something - - - about me - -

Jan-Erik shaking on the head –

CALIGULA: I meant ne'er that it would be so here, Widgren.

Jan-Erik thinking walk.

CALIGULA: No, stay and hear across me. I meant it not – – – I have been sick. I (are)[am] still sick as I can none help it! You understand well that I none did it with sense and will.

Caligula goes and puts himself on a step, that if he were completely exhausted –

CALIGULA: I have no I – – –

He laughs short unexpectedly –

CALIGULA: four walls, ceiling, bookshelf, bed, desk - cleaning bitch, schoolboys, waitresses. The available none who wants regard at me - no single person – – –

JAN-ERIK: Get I go now?

CALIGULA: The available none as want know for me –

The last screaming he forth desperate –

CALIGULA: All only laughing at me and runs from me. They are scared for me also – – –

Jan-Erik goes from him down (for) [to] the stairs.

CALIGULA: – – but it is nevertheless I that is most fearful – – –

The voice (is) heard through the stairs. Short has the stairway light burned out.

Steve gropes himself downwards, all the time, audible Caligula clamour –

CALIGULA: – – – alight the light – alight the light – Widgren, you may not go from me – – alight – – alight – –

The last comes as elongated lowing.

Jan-Erik has time outside the port, which he slams again behind it. Thus heard no longer Caligula's voice.

Jan-Erik stands a moment with the back supported against the port and breathes out. Then goes it out on the street. It is morning and bright lighting over the rooftops. A scavenger sweeps along the street. The refuse-horse going slowly and sleeping beside. A little newspaper-old-woman hurries till her work with her large, empty bag.

Afterword by Jan Holmberg

Ingmar Bergman engaged from SF as »assistant director and screenwriter« the 16 January 1943, till to start with for a year forward. Under one farther hospital- and convalescent period winter 1942–43 had he written the manuscript to TORMENT and SF bought it in July 1943 within the framework for some contract with Bergman. Simultaneously gave company him in commission to at some points further develop it.

The recording, at which Ingmar Bergman participated as combined assistant director and script boy, took place in two periods. The first included the film's interiors and stretched to between 21 February and 31 March 1944. The later PERIODS, under which the exterior scenes played in, included about ten days under latter the half of May 1944. It was under these exterior scenes that Ingmar Bergman made his actual film direction debut. Bergman in PICTURES:

Near the film was almost pre-recorded made self my debut which film director. TORMENT ended intrinsically about to all taking the student exam except Alf Kjellin as goes out one rear way in the rain. Caligula stands and waves in some window. All opined that this ending pus for dark. I got writing till a scene in the dead girl's apartment where the school's rector tells Kjellin to correct cum Caligula as afraid loser howling in the stairs below. Themselves one final scene shows Kjellin in the morning light. He walks towards the awakening city. These last exteriors had me order to film, as Sjöberg had other assignments. They were my first professional pictures. I was crazy with excitement. The small film squad threatened to go home. I screamed and cursed so that people woke and looked out through their windows. The clock was four in the morning.

Later in the career would Bergman again come to work with both Alf Sjöberg and Stig Järrel (Caligula). Sjöberg directed Twelve years later FINAL PAIR OUT after Bergmans script. Järrel unto his lucky played Satan in THE DEVIL'S EYE and was including a small role in THE LUST YARD.

TORMENT gave rise to an intense press debate. Aftonbladet {The Evening Blade} published one interjection of rector Henning L Håkanson at Palmgrenska samskolan {Palm-border swim-school}, where Ingmar Bergman [had?] been scholastic (the statement as referred in subsequent citation did Bergman for Aftonbladet the day after the premiere for TORMENT, 3 October 1944):

Mr. Bergman's statement, how all his school time was one hell, surprises me. I remember clearly, how both he, his brother cum his Father were much satisfied with the school. After his one student exam[sic??] has also[sic?] Ingmar Bergman revealed himself at the school at our Yulefest, glad and enjoying and of[sic?] all that doom without any feeling of resentment[sic?] whether to[sic?] towards the school or against its teachers. The sake is probably till in a different way. The good Ingmar was one problem barn, idle but pretty gifted, and that one such type not easy arranges to in a daily orderly study walking, is natural. About such school may not be adapted for dreamy (suit) bohemian without for normal found working people.

A scanty week later replied Bergman:

Firstly was it so »the 12-year-old's hell« (rugged expression incidentally. Not used by me but by one who interviewed me. I would recollect that I said "heck", and there is inequality there). Yes! I was a very lazy boy and very afraid why that I was lazy, because how I fussed with playhouse theatre of instead for of school and because how I loathed to fitting times, rise upward in the mornings, reading homework, seated still, carrying maps, having halftones, writing projections, chewing interrogation, short told and without frills: I abhorred school that principle, that system cum establishment.[sic] I have thus definitely not liked comma at my own school without all schools. My school was[,] as I distinctly observed in the unfortunate interview[,] from what I understand[,] neither better nor worse than other establishments for equal purpose.

My revered principal typing also (probably so sharply): "A school may not be adapted for dreaming bohemians[,] but for typically found working people." Where should the poor bohemians take the road[?] "Shall the pupil material be divided: you are [a?] bohemian, you are [a] working person, you are [a] bohemian, etc. Avoid bohemians".

There are teachers [a] man never forgets. Oldsters [a] man liked and oldsters [a] man hated. My revered rector belonged and belongs still (in my case) to the last category. I have also a feeling of that my beloved rector not has seen the film yet.[sic] We should perhaps go and see it together!

[fearofaherobrine]

Roleplay Server Log #302

“Crim In the Nether, Survivors, Winston's Arm, an Uneasy Truce”

[Gk] You look better kid, all that dry crap is sloughed off. No more itchy?

[Crim] No itch, no tights... - yawns and looks drowsily at GK, or rather the two GK's - Betters, all be.

[Gk] Sleepy already kiddo?

[Crim] - nods, tries to get up, but can't. He grabs a foot and shakes it - Feet won't behaves.

[Gk] Chuckles- They do that sometimes. Darned old feet. - He makes a new portal back to the overworld and scoots Crim back out onto the grass.

[Crim] - oggles grass and hic-ups, thankfully only smoke comes up. He rolls over in the grass, all twisty-turny with paws everywhere - Yas, green scratchy stuff.

[Gk] Hunkers down and ruffles his wings into a comfy pose. - Go to sleep Crim. I'll keep an eye out.

[Crim] - wiggles and settles in a postion that would give a cat a run for its money. His tongue is hanging out, one eye half closed and starts to softly snore -

[Gk] Chuckles -

-The nether mobs form a circle around Lie at the perceived threat to their mistress-

[Lie] Begins to cry as she falls to her knees on the ground-

[Winston] - Mistress...

[CP] Since he's had the catnip and armor removed he's starting to squirm, he can feel his mates distress-

[Steve] Puts Cp down on TLOTs head so he can hang on to Cn easier-

[TLOT] Lie?!

[CN] Darts down TLOT and through the few mobs to get to Lie-

[Lie] - This is it... This is all that's left...

[Steve] You mean...? Oh Gods...

[TLOT] His army?! Harvestman killed the rest??!!

[Lie] Hugs CP close to herself- Yes... The halls of his fortress... It's just filled with corpses

[CP] Mewls-

[TLOT] Is angry again but for a different reason, his eyes are practically flaming.

[Steve] Slides down with Cn in tow - Oh Lie....

-Testificates are moving aside to give their king a little space and get the children out from underfoot

[CN] Looks at Steve- What's wrong?

[Steve] Cp and Lie... they just lost a lot of their allies... Harvestmen.... he killed their friends....

[TLOT] Gives a rather anguished roar and the mental waves of his pain spill over the server-

[Lie] Changes CP back, wanting her husband in his usual form-

[CP] Pulls Lie close to himself, comforting her as he looks through her memories to see what had happened to his seed-

[Eliza] - Master... What are we to do?

-There's a chunking of claws on stone as Doc lands on the wall-

[Doc] Xe sees the small group and makes a furious face-

[Traveler] Is watching their reactions closely-

[CP] - For now all of you will rest and recover...

[Doc] Joins TLOT's roar and the chunk shivers under the assault of grief-filled noise

[Winston] - But sir...

[CP] - No buts Winston

[Traveler] Stands before Lie- You'll have my blades. This is unacceptable behavior for a NOTCH. This animal needs to be put down.

[Roulade] Approaches nervously - Are these mobs... allies of yours?

[Lie] - Thank you Traveler...

[CP] - This is what remains of my army...

[Doc] Falls from the wall and shifts down to hir smaller shape as TLOT does the same.

[TLOT] His eyes are streaked with tears but his face is resolute.

[Doc] Firmly- Bring me anyone who is hurt.

-The generals check over the other mobs first, not caring about their own injuries. It's mostly scrapes and bruises, a few broken bones as well. The worst injury is Winston's missing arm-

[Doc] Gets to work cleaning and repairing the little injuries with what xe has on hand, it results in several of them with oddly colored pixels filling gaps. -

[Lie] Curls up closer to CP, taking comfort in his warmth and closeness- Even Grayson... He was slain in the main entrance... Oh gods, it was just... Just...

[CP] - Shhhh, it's alright, I'm here...

[Lie] - But he was there! And... And the last thing the personal guard that you assigned to me did was lead us to Winston and the others... He... He killed them...

[CP] - Then they died doing their job, protecting you...

[Lie] Hiccups a little amongst her sobs-

[Tungsten] Eyes Winston for a moment - Doc, I've got this one. Pardon me for a moment- He takes out Aurums bow before plucking it as he quick walks back to the forge-

[TLOT] Is beside himself with grief and holds Steve as the miner cries openly-

[Aurum] Is a bit surprised at being summoned again so soon-

[Tungsten] You and I have work to do.

[Drilby] Falls into step beside him with a grim face.

[Aurum] - What are we doing?

[Travler] Addressing Cp - If it gives you any comfort, the fresh blood on my garment is his. And his accursed sword bounded off of me like it was made of slimeballs.

[CP] Grunts, more focused on Lie-

[Winston] - It was a good strike, but he’ll recover quickly, he always has

[CP] Translates for Winston-

[Traveler] Then next time I'll aim to remove his head.

[Tungsten] We need a pully system, and a gauntlet

[Aurum] - Hmmm, we may want Copper for this. You know the really complex looking bow? Pluck it's string

[Tungsten] Does as he's asked-

[Copper] He forms as a very large testificate. Beneath the robe there's a bit of whirring- Aye, what do you want now Aurum?

[Drilby] Wooow....

[Tungsten] We need an arm. Left side.

[Aurum] - Hey, I'm not the one who called you

[Copper] - I can see that now, and an arm ya say, well, those are one of my specialties- Copper begins approaching the forge

[Tungsten] What do you need?

[Copper] - Well, ye will want iron, and some gold, red stone as well

[Aurum] - Don't forget the paper you old coot!

[Copper] - Aye aye, that to

[Drilby] Is already digging and laying things out-

[Tungsten] Paper?

[Copper] - Aye, to make wires, something Aurum here was never very good at

[Tungsten] Why not use spiderwebs? They work for tripwires.

[Copper] Lifts his robe to reveal a mechanical leg beneath- Because wires help translate smoother motion and is less work for the wearer

[Tungsten] I like it. Teach us, please.

[Copper] Smirks and begins his lesson with the young master Smith-

[Drilby] Is also listening and helping out, him and his husband both are utterly fascinated

[Aurum] Watches for a bit before returning to his bow-

[Copper] Shoes then how to roll and insulate the wires and explains how to build the connection needed to translate the signals from the body to the new arm-

[Drilby] Do we need chest straps? He doesn't have a nub to go inside it.

[Copper] - If that's the case then yes, do ye have the measurements needed?

[Drilby] He's a basic wither skeleton. I'll just put it on him and punch the holes for the buckles where they're needed.

[Copper] - Wither Skelton eh? We'll need to lengthen the arm s bit then, but we can get a more secure connection with him by using the spine and where the ribs meet in the front

[Tungsten] Good, I don't want to pull him away at the moment. His Herobrine and Lie are both in a bad state.

[Copper] - Alright then, we should hurry though

[Tungsten] Gets back to work, his fingers flying over the components.

[Drilby] Finishes with the leather strips and leans over his work from the other side, pulling wires and helping him-

[Copper] Watches and corrects on small things rather often- I know it may seem annoying to ya, but every small part needs to be precise in somethin like this

[Tungsten] I understand. It's going to get used, possibly in battle.

[Copper] - Then at some point in the future we should make him a stronger one for that

-Some of the adult Testificates have gone into their homes and brought back blankets for the mobs, some are gently offering food as well, unsure of what they might be able to eat.

[Drilby] This can be the protoype. I think they're going to be staying with Lie,or at least on this seed. He can come back for repairs if needed.

-Most of the mobs politely decline-

[Copper] - Oh he will, these things always take lots of adjustments over a few months

[Tungsten] Finishes and moves so Copper can inspect his work-

[Copper] Looks over everything with a well trained eye- For your first attempt this is good lad, now go get it to it's wearer

[Tungsten] Gathers everything but the leathers and hurries back with Drilby in tow-

[Winston] Is dutifully staying near CP and Lie-

[Drilby] Approaches Winston - We made you a new arm!

[Tungsten] Is carrying the contraption, with it's cover on it looks like the sleeve and gauntlet from a suit of armor.

[Doc] Eyebrow and listening-

[Winston] - Oh, that... Was not necessary... I can learn to function without... [CP] - Winston, you're going to need that arm [Winston] - Says the one sitting there with no pants on

[Traveler] He was a cat a few minutes ago....

[Tungsten] Rubbish. Even I know you're Cp's right hand. You can't be that without at least a left of your own-

[Drilby] Eyeballs Winston and shortens the straps a bit to fit.

[Winston] - Oh alright, go ahead and connect it

[Tungsten] Holds it up to the correct place while Drilby scrambles around making it secure.

[Doc] Slides over to Copper. - Any chance you're a friend of Aurum?

[Winston] Winces a little as he feels the Maxine connect and begin responding to him-

[Copper] - Aye I suppose you could say that, I'm Copper, one if the previous masters

[Doc] That's excellent. I'm Doc, I take it these complex prosthetics are your area of expertise?

[Copper] - Aye

[Tungsten] Is moving Winston's fingers so he can get the hang of it.

[Doc] It's a field that interests me too. Have you done work on yourself as well?

[Copper] - Aye, my leg

[Doc] Nod nod- Nice. I like working with hearts best myself.

[Copper] - Never was able to work on those myself

[Doc] Eyebrow waggle - Show me yours and I'll show you mine.

[Copper] Sighs but does lift his robe to show his leg-

[Doc] Does a little bit of poking to see how it works and is obviously impressed. - Expect me to come bug you for collaborative work at some point. I love your technique. My turn now- Xe gathers a bit of statick on hir hand and makes a glitchy hole over hir chest. The mass of hearts is visible through hir ribs, there's several types of crystals, gold, diamond, obsidian, iron, all formed into hearts and scattered amidst ten fleshy red hearts. All of them are beating in a perfect casacade from the bottom to the top and then back down again. - I seem to have a knack for just making whatever I need from what's around and integrating it.- Xe indicates some of the mobs with oddly colored pixel patches. I've built non-human bodies from scratch for people several times before.

[Copper] - Interesting method you have for getting inside, and interesting choice of metals as well

[Lie] Quietly- We made a mistake...  A horrible...  Horrible mistake...

[Firebird] -Lands on the ground and turns to his other form, giving a small ashy cough into his hand. His eyes are distant-

[CP] - Shhhh, it's alright...   There was nothing we could do...

[Lie] - But we could have!  We could have been there!  Helping to protect them instead of staying away!

[CP] - Lie, we thought staying away would make them less of a target...  Somehow I doubt he would have stopped if we had been there

[Lie] - It's just...  I don't know

[CP] - Nuzzles her head a little- It's alright, I know the feeling

[CN] Kinda hides behind Steve, wanting to go to Lie, but doesn't like all the nether mobs-

[Steve] Pulls out a blanket he kitted himself and drapes it over Cp and Lies shoulders. It's hideous but warm and soft-

[CN] - Lie...

[CP] For once doesn't try to burn what's offered, knowing his wife needs it-

[Doc] Returns hir attention to the surrounding mobs, - Well... At least some of them were saved. -xe addressees them directly- Some of you already know of this seed. It is a haven for the hunted and hurt. There are many Herobrines, Steves, Alexes, even a few NOTCHs, but no players. As long as you don't start fights you will all be made welcome for as long as you wish to remain. The Nether is mainly wild as well if any of you would prefer to be there instead of the Overworld. I can always clear out a nether fortress for you.

-There's a small amount of discussion amongst the mobs-

[Winston] - For now we'd prefer to remain near the Master and Mistress

[Doc] Okay. They live just outside town. And if anyone needs further medical assistance, I'm never far away.

[CP] - We'll head there soon...

[TLOT] Makes an effort to spread some calming vibrations over the general area. -

[Traveler] Zeros in on Doc- That was generous.

[Doc] Full body shiver as xe realizes whos looking at them - Th-thanks...

[Steve] Doc this is our new NOTCH, Traveler.

[Doc] Charmed. Um, I'm Doc, head admin.

[TLOT] Comes up beside them- She's my responsibility. Is it acceptable for her to have a room in the castle?

[Doc] If you trust her...

[Lie] Offers CP his pants and he quickly equipts them while Lie turns to Doc- Doc...  She's immune to Harvestman's sword...

[Firebird] -Coughs a bit more ashes before relaxing-

[CN] Goes to Firebird- Firebird...- He looks on the verge of tears

[Doc] There's a glimmer in hir eyes - reeeally? Then you and I have things to discuss.

[Travler] Suddenly looks suspicious.

[Firebird] -Offers arms to CN- Shhh..

[CN] - Firebird...  She's scared...  Why can't I protect her...

[Steve] It's okay Traveler, they don't hurt people. Doc has patched up every brine on this seed plus some Steves at least once.

[Firebird] -Scoops CN up to chest, hums a bit. He doesn't have an answer for him.-

[Traveler] Hmm. Well. I shall still be doing some exploring.

[CN] Starts crying a little-

[Firebird] -Holds CN and keeps humming softly-

[CP] - Come on Lie...  Let's go home...

[Lie] - Please

[TLOT] Is passing around the group of villagers and children, giving hugs and soft words.

[CP] Teleports them to their home, the mobs soon following-

[Doc] Whispers to Cp in chat- Don't forget to introduce them to Markus...

[CP] - Later

[Notch] Is feeding the fish outside and blanches as the mobs come tromping up the path-

[Winston] His eyes narrow at the sight of Notch, his fingers twitching for his sword-

[Notch] Freezes in place and a few fish flakes trickle from his fingers. the sound of the koi gulping at the surface is unaccountably loud-

[Flux] See's his fear through the window and steps outside- Notch?

[Notch] Can't take his eyes off the group. He's weaponless and in broad daylight- Flux...nether-mobs...

[Flux] Moves quickly to stand between him and the mobs- What is going on?

[Winston] Glances at where he knows CP and Lie are-

[Notch] Follows their eyes- Ar-are you looking for Cp?

[Winston] Knows Notch can't understand him and struggles to communicate that they are here to guard-

[Notch] Is getting used to Steve's brothers signing at him and kind of understands-

[Flux] - Love, let's just go inside until your son decides to explain this...

[Stevie] Is heading in the direction of Notch's place, spots the familiar forms of CP's mobs and does a complete 180-

[Notch] You don't think they'll just batter the door down?

[Flux] - If they try I'll use my magic to reinforce it

[Notch] Looks up as a few drops of rain begin to fall- No. If there are here for Cp we should let them in.

[Flux] - Are you certain?  We don't know how aggressive they are

[Notch] Sees Stevie noping and yells for him- Hey Stevie!

[Stevie] Freezes as attention turns towards him-

[Notch] Stevie? Come over here please?

[Stevie] - Ummm, how about you come over here?

[Notch] Come on Stevie, it's raining. Get over here.

[Stevie] - I'd rather not get near the things that have tried to murder me since who knows how long?

[Flux] - Perhaps you should talk with your other son first

[Notch] Goes to him, a little annoyed- Are these your brothers mobs?

[Stevie] - Yes!

[Notch] Good. Thank you. And don't be like that. You're on respawn anyway.

[Stevie] - Doesn't stop being killed by them from hurting

[Notch] Is walking back. Mutters- It's called diplomacy.

[Strevie] - It's called survival

[Notch] Walks straight up to Winston and looks up at him nervously-

[Winston] His hand comes to rest on the hilt of his sword-

[Stevie] Panicked- Father what are you doing!?

[Notch] Extends an empty hand and swallows hard- We should get the blazes and magma cubes out of the wet so they don't go out. Please come with me.

[Winston] Glances back at Blake and Magnolia-

[Notch] Waits. He's already a bit soaked himself-

-The blazes and magma cubes creep forwards-

[Stevie] Is panicking and and has his sword out-

[Notch] Indicates that they should follow him and turns to lead them around to the workroom, since the floor in there can't catch fire. He's sweating from the tension and glad for the drizzle as he's actually terrified to turn his back on them. [at Stevie] Don't do it....

[Stevie] Races around to the other side of the house to keep an eye on Notch-

-The mobs follow him while the others begin to spread out around the house-

[Notch] Scoots the butts pumpkin away from the doorway and steps back so they can come in. The workroom is warm from the lava flow in the corner, and the rain is pattering on the glass ceiling.

-The mobs investigate a little-

[Stevie] Moves closer to Notch- Father what are you doing?

[Notch] Letting your brothers allies in out of the storm. I don't think they'd be here for no good reason and it may mean that the danger on your old seed has increased somehow to warrant this many guards.

[Stevie] - I'm really not sure this is safe

[Hope] Runs away from the mobs and up into the rest of the house-

[Notch] It's not safe, it's a calculated risk. But in this case it's crueler to play it safe and possibly worse in the long run. I have some powers of my own, and if Steve is brave enough to go unarmed and make friends with the skeletons then I can do the same. They're not animals Stevie. They're people of their own type.

[Stevie] - Then will you and Flux at least come and stay at my place until we have more answers?

[Notch] No. This is family business.

[Stevie] - But father...

[Notch] A little more fiercely- NO.

[Stevie] Flinches back a little at the loudness-

-The mobs turn towards the loud noise, curious as to what's happening-

[Notch] Sees his face and grabs him in a hug- Just trust me please. I know it seems scary, but I feel like it's the right thing to do. Just like they hunted you at Cp's command, Harvestman has been hunting them, except they don't get to come back. Have some compassion.

[Stevie] - I'm sorry, I know I'm getting more used to being around my brother, but I don't think I can handle his mobs yet...

[Notch] Do you feel safe next to me? You know I can shield you.

[Stevie] - Of course father

[Notch] Then help me lay some beds.

[Stevie] - You're the one in creative

[Notch] Shakes his head and starts handing him small beds- I meant help me place them. - Pats his shoulder-

[Stevie] Shakily enters the room- Are we sure they need beds?

[Notch] I don't know? But some of them look hurt. So it's probably a good idea.

[Stevie] Quickly throws down the beds-

[CP] Can hear them doing stuff down below but is keeping Lie in an embrace as she stays close to him-

[Notch] What I could really use is an interpreter...

[Stevie] - I know brother has translation codes...

[Notch] Are they contained in something? I know Doc has that egg they use sometimes.

[Stevie] - As far as I know?  No

[Notch] Snaps his fingers- I know who can speak mob! - He types out a quick message in the chat and there's a soft 'boof'

[Enderbro] What's shakin bacon? Woo! Mob party! I brought glowstone! -shakes a block around-

[Magnolia] Slips inside-

[Enderbro] recognizes her - Magnolia! - Waves a lot-

[Notch] Magnolia?

[Stevie] - One of the generals...

[Magnolia] At Bro- Oh, hello

[Enderbro] She's super important, military stuff, yep!

[Notch] Ask her why they're here please?

[Enderbro] Does as he's asked.

[Magnolia] - The Mistress brought us here, for our own protection.  We're all that's left...

[Enderbro] Translates, his face falling - THAT'S SO SAD!!!

[Notch] Oh gods.... But he had an army...

[Stevie] - This is all that's left of his army?

[Notch] Kneels in front of her. - I'm so sorry...

[Enderbro] Has pulled out cookies and is eating them while sobbing- WEEEHHHHH

[Magnolia] - We lost so many, but it helped protect the Master and Mistress.  I personally am saddened by the fact that she had to see all of our corpses...

[Notch] I can't believe they're gone... Doc told me how many there were at the coronation... And Harvestman did this? Even with him thinking Lie and Cp were both dead?

[Magnolia] Nods-

[Enderbro] Grabs her and cries on her- WEEEHHH

[Magnolia] - Ah!  Please don't cry, water isn't good for you...

[Enderbro] BUT I'M SAD!

[Endrea] Is returning to the house with her children under her wings to protect them from the rain and hears the crying, but she can't hurry or she'd leave her children behind-

[Enderbro] Plops on the floor with his legs splayed out and tries to rally himself- Here... I made a house! You can have it! - He presses a small cluster of Legos into her hand -

[Magnolia] - Oh!  Um...

[Endrea] Finally reaches the house and ushers her children inside, instructing them to go upstairs immediately before she slips into her human form and goes inside- What is going on?

[Notch] Looks very tired and sad - Endrea... Cp's mobs... they were massacred... there are only about 20 of them left...

[Endrea] - I'm assuming that doesn't include mine?

[Notch] Well yours are here, so I assume not.

[Endrea] - I see...  How is the Master and Mistress taking it?

[Notch] I don't know, they're in Lie's bedroom-

[Enderbro] Gets up and goes to Endrea. He's surprisingly childlike in his want for a hug from someone he considers motherly-

[Endrea] Willingly hugs him, wrapping a wing around him as well- Go, check on your son and daughter, I can watch things here

[Notch] Thank you... - He snags Stevie's sleeve and pulls him along as well-

[Stevie] Little yelp-

[Notch] Hauls him across the little bridge and taps on Lie's door-

-There's a bit of shuffling inside and Lie is still sniffling a bit-

[Notch] Lie... It's me and Stevie, can we come in?

[Lie] Quietly- Sure- She and CP are a bit tangled up with each other for comfort

[Notch] Comes inside and leaves the door open, giving Stevie a little tug as well-

[Stevie] Hesitates but does step inside-

[CP] Has curled himself around Lie-

[Notch] I heard what happened, I'm so sorry... I let the hot mobs into the workroom but the rest chose to stay out in the rain-

[CP] - Most of them the rain won't harm

[Notch] I was just trying to be nice, Stevie helped.

[Lie] Thank you for that Notch...

[Notch] Sits on the edge of the bed and embraces them both, his eyes are wet with tears- I know they meant so much to you. They'll be missed.

[Lie] - There was so much death there, within my getting there and getting what remains out...  Four more of them died...

[Notch] I'm sure there was nothing you could do Lie. - Shoots Stevie a look, it's clearly meant to goad him into joining them.

[Stevie] - Right...  Our false father...  Hes strong.  He took both you and my brother out

[CP] - And now he knows we're both still alive...

[Notch] Is resolute - He won't take you from me. Any of you.

[Lie] - Thank you Notch

[Stevie] - We wouldn't let him take you either

[Notch] Nods grimly-

[CP] - I'm not sure what to do now...

[Stevie] Moves a little closer- What?  No plan for once?

[CP] - Not an inkling of one

[Notch] The plan is to round up everyone with any kind of strange powers or special items and obliterate him from a dozen angles...

[CP] Pulls Lie a bit closer- I just...  Don't know...

[Notch] Doc blocked him out of this server. You're all safe here. We can bide our time until everyone is healed.

[Lie] - Time, that's just what we need now...

[CP] Flicks a paper at Notch- Give this to Winston, he'll make sure none of my mobs attack you

[Notch] Takes it curiously- What is it?

[CP] - Just some orders

[Notch] Done. And I'm sorry I bothered you two. You should sleep. We have a lot to do when you're feeling stronger.

[Lie] - Thank you Notch

-Two days pass-

[Doc] Comes around to check on them, hesitating at the ring of mob guards outside the house- May I?

-They part for the doctor-

[Doc] Nods respectfully and knocks on Lie's door-

[Winston] Answers the door- Oh, Doctor, it's you

[Doc] Is carrying the translation egg- Yep. Just came to talk. Hows the group? Does anyone need me?

[Winston] So far everyone seems to be alright, nobody has complained to me or the other generals yet

[Doc] They're probably still weirded out being up here. It's chillier then they're used too and it's been rainy. The weather seems to match everyone's mood. Oh! Steve sent a present too. Not sure how useful it will be though. - Xe opens a small trunk, and it's full of soft sweaters and hats. - TLOT made him stick to one color for each, he pouted, but went with it anyway.

[Winston] - I'll be sure that the mobs that can wear them get them

[Doc] Not to pry, but I am a bit concerned about you too. Why didn't you call for help with your numbers so reduced?

[Winston] Bows his head a little- I was about to, but then he attacked... I had the paper right there in my hand and he took it by taking my arm as well

[Doc] Growls - Of all the... How long was that before Lie found you?

[Winston] - I'm not certain, but it was while we still had a majority of the generals

[Doc] leans against the wall, - it was while we were outside.. it has to have been....

[Winston] - You mean the real world?

[Doc] Yes... Markus was in danger of outing us being as we are and being able to drag humans into the game. We had to watch over him while he became physical and then threw our pursuers off the trail. It would have put every Herobrine in danger if we hadn't done it. Deerheart and Flux went as well. Both of them now have physical human forms to switch too and move freely out there.

[Winston] But why are you so certain that that is when I lost my arm?

[Doc] Just the time frame, it moves faster here, but we were gone for a long time out there.

[Winston] - I see...- He looks down at his new mechanical arm

[Doc] Winston... you have gone so much above and beyond anything anyone could expect, been faithful to Cp under so much duress, I have more respect for you then you'll ever know. I want to give you something. And none of this 'I'm a faithful servant and want nothing thing'. You choose. It doesn't have to be right now, take your time and mull it over. But I'll make it happen, anything in my power to give.  I'll give you wings, bring you back to life, build you a house, take you irl, give you any item your heart desires. You've only to ask.

[Winston] Is surprised by the offer- There really is no need... As a mob I don't need a house, I like being a skeleton although the lower resolution is taking some time to get used to, and I have been to the real world before

[Doc] Nonethless my offer stands. Even if it's nothing more then a fancy outfit.

[Winston] - I will keep it in mind

[CP] Comes out if the bedroom, intent on going to his private chambers-

[Winston] - Sir...

[Doc] Smiles at him - Hello Cp...

[CP] Grunts at Doc-

[Doc] At least I got a response- Xe darts in and gives him a quick hug.

[CP] - What do you want now?

[Doc] Nothing really. I came to talk to Winston and see if everyone was healing up okay. You have quite the formidable honor guard outside.

[CP] - They're scared

[Doc] You've told them he's...? - xe turns to Winston - Cp's NOTCH has an identifier number, they all do. I can use it to blacklist them. He can't come here. The server itself would reject him, Deerheart's just as furious and hurt as everyone else.

[CP] - They know, but they're still scared that something may happen to Lie and i

[Doc] They need time, we all do. But reassuring them can't hurt. Take a page from TLOT's book, just keep them under your wings for now.

[CP] - That won't be hard

[Winston] - They refuse to let either the Master or Mistress out of sight

[Doc] Well that's a bit annoying if you need the bathroom, but okay otherwise.

[CP] - They know better than that

[Doc] I was making a joke and you know it. Something else occurs to me though, you know I'm pretty sneaky. Do you need anything from your private space on your seed?

[CP] - I don't think so, all the obsidian pieces have been brought over here...

[Doc] That's good. I was thinking-  

[impvarjack60]

16 Ballroom Blitz

Now this was the event I was truly dreading, because I had no idea what I was going to see today. I've only met one other Hybride, and she's completely normal. Because the person who thought of her wasn't completely nuts. Anna was super excited about the whole thing. I had the feeling that the 'First Time in Forever' thing was coming out. The Masters knew that this was a trait that I found endearing, and it was my favorite song in the movie. "I can't wait to meet everyone!" "As long as you've met the one, I'm OK with it." That one got by her, blurred by the excitement. So we got dressed to the nines, but put on some running shoes for the trip there. This is the one time I wouldn't mind being able to hail a cab. It's a long walk, and Anna rambled on about who'd she would like to make friends with. I must admit, this was something I really liked about her. She would be the charming intermediary that would make making friends so much easier, if they can just get past her looks. The fact was that I kept my passion for Frozen hidden from the world because it was flat out embarrassing, and now everyone would know. There was no way to hide it anymore. My only hope was there would be some more freakish people there to out-shadow her.

Not a snowballs chance in Hell.....

"Oh, hey look. it's the Zahir's" "Where, I don't...." Damn, 'Eyeballs' is at it again. As I looked out into the crowd, it seems that Anna was a unique creature among the Hybrides. While I was seeing lots of large breasts, I wasn't seeing anything too off the cuff. But there were some exceptions, there was a Marilyn Monroe. Kinda' cliche', but meh, OK. Alright!, there we go, an Orion. I'd recognize that green skin anywhere. I knew I wasn't imagining her the other day.

Another woman had a very Japanese Hentai look. More big eyes. Saw a couple of Amazons in the crowd too, I always liked those. One had to be over two and a half meters tall. "Honey, I'm gonna' go mingle." "Go ahead, Anna. I'll catch up." "Is that Princess Anna?" An inquisitive couple ask me. "Yep, one and the same." "If you don't mind us asking, how did she come about? Oh,.. and I was there for your speech, very inspiring." "Well, she's the result of a delusional mind, in a way. I was obsessed with the whole Frozen thing. Be careful what you wish for, right?" Man, I could use a drink right now. "She's very lovely, you must be proud." "For a choice I didn't make, she was a good choice." That one went right over their heads, ZING! "She also seems to have attracted quite a crowd." Yea, it looks as though Anna was the hit of the party, she was completely surrounded by guests, answering all their questions with grace. The women were just absolutely fawning over her. I could see them pointing at her eyes, probably giving her make up tips and the like. With her ear to ear grin and her hands folded in front of her, she was the epitome of cuteness. I saw her wave her arm near her face, followed by fits of laughter, HA! She must've done the masturbation joke, and it worked. Good for her. It seems she could converse fluently with these people. Maybe this was the leader they would be looking for, but she was still a baby. As a pair, we could possibly pull it off. I was really awkward in these situations, but Anna looked like she was born for it, maybe she was. Funny thing was though-on earth-it was always Elsa, Elsa, Elsa. Anna just didn't have the fanbase she did. To me, Anna was the real hero of the story. Although my own twisted view of the world may have skewed my view somewhat. They both made sacrifices, but Anna gave her life for Elsa. Yea, it was just a movie, but now look were I am. Waist deep in fantasy, that's real. If Elsa was here, Anna would probably be second fiddle again. But these people seem genuinely hooked on her, what is it about her that's so magnetic? __________________________________________________________

It looks as though roughly the same crowd was here at the last meeting, just times two. These people it seemed just longed for a lost love, and their prayers were answered. Anna was a freak among them, but she was a freak that they liked. I was scared that she would be an outcast here, but that's not proving to be the case. I really didn't get to talk to her much for the rest of the evening. That is, until the Quartet began to play.

It seems that some of resident musicians had taken my advise and got together, I couldn't be happier. They broke out some Beethoven from the Middle Quartets. While I never paid too much attention to the individual pieces, I recognized the work, I had a collection from Hungary with these pieces on it. They were joined by a horn section, then they broke out the Strauss Waltzes, the Blue Danube started to play and I saw Anna run up to me; "Let's dance, shall we?" "Oh, wait Anna, I don......" "Come on!" Too late, she was dragging me out to the floor. It wasn't a complete disaster. I learned square dancing when I was a kid, but that was fifty years ago. She, on the other hand, was a complete natural. How she learned this, I have no idea. I don't ever remember seeing her practice, but she did seem to have a good sense of rhythm. Maybe she just has pre-programmed natural abilities. Another strange thing that leaves me baffled. I did manage to get one good twirl out of her, her skirt fanning out as she spun. "See, you're not too bad, and at least you're not trampling my feet." The fact was that's only because they were so small they were a hard target to hit.

This moment brought back a dream I had as a teenager. I can't remember her name, but there was this girl I would talk to on the bus ride home after school. She had the same piercing eyes as Minoo. I dreamt of that girl in a ballroom gown while I swept her across the floor to this very same music. Now I'm doing it with someone who is ten times more beautiful, and I felt as if my heart would burst out of my chest, so many dreams coming true all at once. Speaking of Minoo, she and the Doc were burning up the floor. If this was a contest, they'd be going home with the big trophy. Maybe they can give us some pointers. But in Abzari's religion, dancing like this was frowned upon, where did he learn this?

In my self created daze, I complete ignored the fact that the floor had cleared except for the Zahir's and us. The music ended to much applause, while Anna and I bowed in the Zahir's direction as I proclaimed to the crowd; "The Winners, ladies and gentlemen!" More applause ensued. "OK, Anna, I think that's enough for now." "Alright, but we are taking lessons as soon as I can arrange it." "I would be delighted, m' lady."

Abzari had walked over and took Anna's hand; "Would you care to dance, your Highness?" "Charmed." And off they went. It's one thing to see your dance partner in front of you. But the view from afar gives you another perspective, a chance to see her from a different angle, and I found myself mesmerized. She was such a vision, I hope we get to do this forever. Why did we ever stop doing this? This is what the human race needed. Interaction. Beauty. Enlightenment. Joy. Why did we tolerate the existence we got handed? Were only a select few people supposed to have this kind of enjoyment? This should be for everybody.

Now that is what concerns me. Not everyone is here. Some of us are still camped out, huddling in their houses, afraid to come out. We have to reach out to them-we're in this together-we need them.

The evening wrapped up with a few people stopping by to say how much they liked my speech, and to Anna came complements on her dancing and how charming she was. We did make some inroads here and I figured these were good things. But disaster hangs over my head like a piano being hoisted into a ten story building, and sooner or later it will fall.

[docholligay]

Doc, what was your favorite part of the trip? What was the most surprising? What would you want to do again?

I haven’t read Jet’s yet, by design, because I didn’t want to be influenced by her answers, and also I usually read long-read articles in the tub.

My favorite part of the trip, all in all, if I had to pick just one, was the surprise. I love surprises, I live for them, and i love really unexpected surprises, and I knew there was no way she would ever expect that I would do something like this.

(Again, a million thanks to the sponsor who made this happen, who wishes to remain anonymous, this was amazing)

I was on the MAX for as long as my flight was, taking the train all the way out of the city and then taking the bus, the whole time hoping that I wouldn’t accidentally spill the beans.

It’s so funny, I have exact same thing every time I fly to Portland: A small split of prosecco in the airport, 2 chicken strips, and two glasses of the complimentary Horizon wine on the plane. Exact same. Every time. I don’t like to fly, and ritual is very comforting to me.

I WAS TERRIFIED, HOWEVER, THAT THIS TIME IT WOULD GET ME MAGICALLY DRUNK, AND I WOULD SPILL ALL THE BEANS,AND ALSO THE REST OF THE TACO FILLINGS, OH MY GOD I AM MAKING TACOS FOR DINNER.

Also the gal at the airport bar didn’t recognize me because I was dressed up as Lena for the entirety of my flight. TRAPPED IN MY BOY PANTS: THE VACATION.

One of the funny things is Jet KNEW something was being delivered, because she never would have believed I forgot our friendiversary and didn’t send anything at all, so I ordered Chinese to her house with garlic shrimp, a la Winston and Lena, and Mike emailed me, afraid that I’d screwed up and meant the food for me and hadn’t gotten to the house in time (In fairness, the gallon of soup was 100% for me, and I ate the entire thing that night.) But no, I had my bases covered, and she assumed, as I had hoped, that it was my gift for her.

But I didn’t, as astute viewers may note, and i did in fact manage to get off the bus on a pitch black street with no sidewalk, stare at my phone, shrug, and walk to where I thought the little dot would be.

Luckily, a Jedi came crashing through the bushes, whispering my name.

When Jet first saw me, it took her a solid 10 to 15 seconds to even register who I was, thought in fairness I was bouncing around so much that I think a reasonable person might have had a hard time telling through the blur. She, of course, repeatedly called me a shit, because what else was she going to do, really?

That was a great moment, just her utter surprise and my utter delight that she was surprised and I hadn’t ruined it, and it had all worked out, and I knew that it would be a tough surprise to top ever.

Other than that, if we break it down by day:

Wednesday:  Best: Dinner at PokPok. This is a place I’ve always wanted to try, and the food did not disappoint, it was so amazing, and Jet’s delight at the discovery of the Mango Alexander was everything I had ever wanted in life, and also her surprise at how much she liked the food! I had ordered what was essentially a grilled chicken half and rice, in case she couldn’t handle the rest of the food, but she really loved the chicken wings (we all did) and the mussels with the crispy crepe. (I was the only one who lost my shit for the fruit salad, due to its twin sins of being very spicy and not meat, but I would fucking order it again in a heartbeat)

Most surprising: How good the roast beef was at Jet’s butcher! I’m a little jealous, the pastrami was middling, but the roast beef was EXCEPTIONAL.

I also really liked sitting Jet’s ass down and forcing her to work, and forcing her to write, and we’ll be doing that again when she’s here SO LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

Thursday:

Most surprising: THAT OREGON FUCKING SHUTS DOWN OVER LITERALLY 0 INCHES OF SNOW. My whole plan got ruined that day, which I am STILL exceptionally shirty about and will be until the day they lay me in my grave and PROBABLY AFTER THAT IF WE ARE ALL BEING HONEST, so I didn’t get to go see Vista House, we never got to Mount Hood itself, never took the historic highway all the way up and boooooo. So we went to Bonneville Dam, where Jet discovered the fish ladder, and oh my god, her actual delight was so funny and heart warming and amazing. Her telling Mike THEY HAD TO COME BACK WHEN THERE WERE MORE FISH IN THE LADDER.

Best: When Jet stole the pint glass from Full Sail Pub for me, because they were way different and nicer than the ones given out at the tour, and stolen pint glasses with the name of the place on them have the highest ranking on my pint glass system. (Best = I went there, glass was stolen from the table, Second = I was there, I bought it Third = someone else was there, they stole it for me. I generally don’t bother with someone going a place and buying me one or I’d have a million of them) It was just a fun, unexpected moment, and I really enjoyed myself.

I also really loved the picnic at Bonneville, where Mike and Nikki had never had a real picnic, with a full spread.

Friday:

Most surprising: Jet’s absolute love of the blue cheese on honey! It’s one of my favorite pairings, ever, in life, but I didn’t expect Jet to like it as much as I do. But she absolutely loved it. The whole experience of Chizu was exceptional, the way the cheese boards were laid out, the thoughtful pairings with each, even if I found the cheese a bit milder than was to my general liking, but some of that was when we did the cheese omakase, we noted that Jet had never had fancy cheese before, so she was fairly new to it.

And the Japanese garden was absolutely beautiful, just lush with foliage and more people than I thought there would be, but it was thoughtfully laid out and I loved the meandering paths. It would be a great place to hang out for a few hours and sit and think, if one were by themselves and inclined to do such things. The tea place (the Umami cafe, which will never not remind me of umami tits, which will never make anyone but Jet and me laugh) was also lovely, very modern, and I really appreciated that they had pre-paired small bites with tea, so it was very easy to get something that would offset it nicely, which was good for me, as I don’t know overly much about Japanese sweets. I got the genmaicha, which I really love for the earthy roasted flavors it provides, with a little manju cake, which was just this side of too sweet for me but actually worked really well with the genmaicha’s deep flavor, so that was a fun unexpected pairing!

Best: Either Chizu or Bad lesbian advice, which was me cosplaying Haruka and Michiru and was an experience, and by ‘an experience,” I mean neither Jet nor I could fucking breathe at times we were laughing so hard, and have sprung off a million inside jokes that we will laugh about until we die. (Jet, if you’re reading this, I want you to know I can hear you with my Senshi EYES and my senshi HEART)

Saturday:

Most surprising: After taking Jet and Mike to El-Masry, we just discovered that Mike just has a general passion for middle eastern food! This is the second middle eastern place I’ve taken them, and Mike loves the flavors and spices (I do too--never met a style of middle eastern cuisine I don’t like) so I’m working on trying to find other middle eastern places they can go.

Also that I preferred the Chinese garden to the Japanese garden. The Japanese garden was gorgeous and I cannot recommend enough seeing both if you’re ever in Portland, but the Chinese garden is an architectural model, a tiny oasis in the middle of a massive city, and the detail work on all of the building and pathways absolutely captured me, the scents of the garden and the floral arrangements we were lucky enough to be there for, the entire thing almost felt a dollhouse made by a master, a small space transformed into something so much bigger than its own footprint, it had an immense quality to it.

The teahouse was excellent too, though I think I preferred the tea I got at the Japanese place (This was the fault of me trying something new because the tea menu was much larger, and I just find chrysanthemum tea middling, as it turns out.) The teahouse was done in a more old-world style than the sleek lines of the Japanese tea house, which was very modern, and I am very old world myself in a number of ways, and more is more, and I loved the carved dark woods and gilded edges of frames peeking out at me.

ALSO JET BOUGHT A BIG GIRL COAT. We finally just fucking went to Macy’s and I got to have her and Mike buy coats, and I got to talk about cut and fashion and fabric and I fucking live for that shit, i was a bouncy happy little ball in the men’s outerwear section.

Best: Dinner at Nomad. I’m struggling to find the words to describe Nomad, and if I finish all my writing chores for the month, I may sit down and write out course by course my impressions of the entire meal. Jet was legitimately surprised to see me in a suit, though she was really nice and did compliment me on it, because I haven’t worn a suit in years and it was a little odd for me, too. Joyce the bartender was an absolute delight and one of my favorite elements of Nomad, so kind and funny and excellent. The food itself was simply art. It’s so difficult to describe how a few mouthfuls can really speak to you, how it can bring the essence of everything down to one moment, and be perfect in that moment.

Also, note for the next trip I go on: I NEED A FOOD NOTEBOOK TO WRITE IN. I have a very strong memory but no one has total recall.

I have never been a volume eater, and eating for eating’s sake doesn’t really interest me--part of the reason my mom started teaching me to cook is that I was underweight. Because food was boring and I was ready to go run around instead of sitting and eating, and I didn’t care about missing dessert because sweet is just another thing I’ve had, even as a kid. So she started to teach me and I got into food as construction, as art, as something that CAN be interesting and that’s how I got into cooking. Nomad takes that idea of food as art, and elevates it about anything I’ve ever had, even the restaurant with one Michelin star I’ve been to, although I would argue that Nomad would EASILY and HANDILY get a Michelin star if Portland was included in the Michelin reviews.

Anyway you’re not asking about me and the food, you’re asking about me and Jet. It was so wonderful and interesting to talk about the food with her, to get her impressions, we laughed over how she’s so visual, and I’m really not, I’m very texture and scent based, as far as things having an effect on flavor. We sometimes had totally different impressions of things! Including one time where she thought a puree of different beans and vegetables tasted like peanut butter, because it looked like peanut butter, and I swear I looked at her with INTENSE CONFUSION, because it was neither sweet nor nutty--I guess it was fatty like peanut butter, and coated your tongue, but lots of things do that. So we really laughed about that. We got a little table just on the edge of the kitchen, where I could watch them work even though we weren’t at the “chef’s table” so that was such an extra little delight. I think that was the best time I’ve ever had with jet, out of A LOT OF TIMES, but it was just a really nice extended evening with really nice cocktails and fun dress and good company and we made it last all night and it was just one of the best nights of my entire life.

Sunday:

The best thing about me going home is always the Ramen Of Sadness, which is Kizuki Ramen, which is fucking great and I cannot recommend enough, I go to a ramen place in every city I visit (that has one) and Kizuki is my favorite. I always get the chicken rich ramen and the cedar sake, because they are both fucking amazing.

SURPRISE I DON’T GET TO GO HOME.

So the melting pot was the surprise, and I was fucking tired and frayed at both ends because THEY KEPT MY BAG AND I HAD TO SCROUNGE TOGETHER A KIT AT TARGET, but the Melting Pot ended up being such a nice way to end the night, WHERE JET WAS TOTALLY NOT SORRY ABOUT ALL THE MARSHMALLOW THINGS IN THE FONDUE PLATE, it was warm and happy and it’s a silly chain restaurant but one I’ve always wanted to try, and we had a great night there laughing with our server and our lyft driver and we just had an amazing time.

Not to get gross or ‘have a feeling in public’ as the children say, but it was just really nice to have a week with Jet, and it was nice that it was a surprise for her and she had no time to hype herself up worrying about the house being clean enough, so she got to just enjoy me being there and we got to just have fun, and I will always really cherish it, and I can’t wait for our road trip.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Enduring Voices: The Legacy of Nat Hentoff

There have been dozens of obituaries for Nat Hentoff over the past week. He was memorialized in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and anywhere else a person could hope to be, with obituaries detailing his intellectual prowess and expertise on a myriad of subjects. Despite the plethora of responses to his passing, I cannot help but wonder how he is going to be remembered, and indeed if he is going to be remembered in the long run. Hentoff was a producer, not a star, nor even the type of director who gave himself an occasional cameo. History is not much good for remembering producers, despite the fact that no shows go on without them. Hentoff wrote himself out of many of his works and used a light touch in his interviews in order to focus entirely on the people he interviewed: their stories, their lives, their voices. This is what makes those pieces so rich. It’s why his subjects trusted him. He was a good listener. One of the best, it seems.

I dwelled on the “elegant riffs and the sweet harmonies” in the Times obituary: “the legendary jazz writer and civil libertarian who called himself a troublemaker and proved it with a shelf of books and a mountain of essays on free speech, wayward politics, elegant riffs and the sweet harmonies of the Constitution died on Saturday [at age 91] at his home in Manhattan … surrounded by his family members and listening to Billie Holiday.”

Hentoff worked at the Village Voice for fifty years, alongside a handful of agile writers populating their independent America with flair, teeth, and supple sentences. For my cohorts and me, they changed journalism.

Hentoff’s art was to highlight the art of others and he was so successful that he is in danger of being left out of the stories he stepped aside to make room for.

Any way you want to look at it he was prolific. There are many strands of Nat Hentoff, which, in both scope and depth, are hard to wrap your head around.

Known for books such as Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya (with Nate Shapiro) and The Jazz Life, his big themes (section titles of The Nat Hentoff Reader, 2001) include the condition of liberty, the passion of creation, the persistence of race, and the beast of politics. His lesser-known books are as rich and illuminating as his best known. These include Peace Agitator: The Story of A.J. Muste; a spirited and heterodox biography of Cardinal O’Connor, to whom Hentoff warmly referred as “my friend the Cardinal”; and (a personal favorite) his understated, rough-cut Young Adult novel Jazz Country, billed on the dust jacket as, “the story of a white teen-ager’s struggle to make it in the black man’s world of jazz.”

My own hope is that some day there will be a well-selected collection of Hentoff’s music writing, that will stand side by side with such classics as Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, a fellow writer and traveler who chronicled his own towering century.

For those less familiar with Hentoff, he may be one of the best-known Zelig figures that you’ve never heard of. Witness Hentoff taking the stand in Lenny Bruce’s obscenity trial, and placing himself in the line of fire, as William F. Buckley berated the specter of Black Power on his TV program Firing Line. As Camera 2 turned to Hentoff in the latter, he matter-of-factly explained that the truth of Black Power is that it did “not exist as yet,” which is why black people and groups such as the Black Panthers were organizing under its banner. Aboard Bob Dylan’s bus for the Rolling Thunder Revue tour with Joan Baez, listening to Allen Ginsberg holding forth; on the go again on a chilly night in April 1955, backstage among the 40-plus musicians at Charlie Parker’s memorial concert at Carnegie Hall, which Hentoff co-produced and to which he contributed program copy; or in the studio with Cecil Taylor and Abbey Lincoln producing the album We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite.

Though I did not always share his opinions and positions, I respected, even lionized Hentoff. He had an unabashed sense of rabidity about what he was here to do, and how to keep on doing it. I was not alone. David Lewis asked the poet Amiri Baraka what Nat Hentoff’s reputation was among jazz musicians. Baraka shook his head and laughed, “I don’t know, what’s the reputation of the Bible in Church?”

From the age of 15, as a muckraker for the mimeographed Boston City Reporter, where he wrote about anti-Semitism, to articles drafted the past few months (see his June 2016 article “Trump’s Dangerous War on Press Freedom,” as timely as it is distressing), Hentoff never stopped.

Some of the Hentoff tributes over the past week focus on his political writings, others on his jazz criticism. He himself understood that his articles, books, and producing were interconnected. Both politics and American creative music are share the clear-eyed goal that the fight for freedom never ends. For writers and musicians like myself, certain of his most powerful books are emancipations.

How did Nat Hentoff become Nat Hentoff? In his memoir Boston Boy, one exchange becomes a central trope of his identity: I was twenty, sitting at the bar in a struggling Boston jazz club, alongside Duke Ellington’s longtime tenor saxophonist — the large, often volatile, Ben Webster.… Ben had just finished a set with an earnest but stolid local rhythm section, and he had lifted them, as if in a huge fist, into a groove that at least approximated swinging. “You see,” Ben said, triumphant: “If the rhythm section ain’t making it, go for yourself.”

That principle of Ben’s music and his life, which were the same, has stayed with me. If I’m to have a headstone, I’d like that to be on it.

In Jazz Country, another elder black musician explains to the young white protagonist that you don’t have to play jazz to swing, you can “swing in other ways.” And that was Nat’s own story of how he translated he values of music and the Jazz life into his own writing and worldview. It is more than an honorific gesture that he was the first nonmusician to be recognized as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

He said one of his favorite Ellington songs was “What Am I Here For?” It always struck me as a strange choice. I like a few versions of the song, but never felt moved by it. Still, I’d give it a close listen, trying to hear what Nat heard it in. As it turned out, the song held a private meaning for him. His autobiography Boston Boy provides a clue.

At age 15, he still didn’t know what he was here for, but he began to find out when he was recruited “as apprentice journalists for a muckraking newspaper — actually a four-page mimeographed sheet — the Boston City Reporter.” He reflected, “The only payment was that for me, it put a personal pulse, a rhythm, to Duke Ellington’s song.”

Hentoff took the song and question to heart. He knew enough to know that the question has no one answer, but that, in any case, the lived life is its expression.

For Hentoff listening was as essential as food, clothing, and shelter. It was basic need, and yet listening and “being there” were starting points; you then had to “make it” in the moment. This meant allowing conversations to go in unexpected directions. More than once Hentoff quotes cornet player Bix Beiderbecke, who learned to play by ear, obsessively listening to records: “That’s one thing I like about jazz, kid. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?”

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Strange as it may sound for a writer of his accomplishments, Hentoff believed that his most lasting achievement would not be one of his books, but in fact a television program that he helped produce one Sunday afternoon in 1957.

CBS asked Hentoff and Whitney Balliett to create a jazz program for the network. They selected the musicians and worked with them on the numbers to be played. The line-up included Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Mal Waldren, Milt Hinton, Osie Johnson, Vic Dickenson, Doc Cheatham, Danny Barker.

The show, The Sounds of Jazz, exemplified Hentoff’s light touch. The bare studio would be the stage. Against protocol, the cameramen were told “not to worry about being caught in someone else’s shot.” According to Hentoff, in his introduction to Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music (1995), permission was given for the cameramen to use their judgment on any “particularly arresting shots” and “not wait for the control room” for directions.

A seemingly minor detail, Hentoff relates that the musicians were “told to dress as they would for a rehearsal,” which meant that Holiday would not wear a dress and “most of the musicians wore their hats.” The details of the set up reveal Hentoff’s process in action. You can see the musicians sharing stories in their own private language in a small intimate setting.

The session’s moment of truth is Lester Young’s one course solo on “Fine and Mellow,” sung by Billie Holiday. Hentoff’s telling of it gives me the chills:

When The Sounds of Jazz was on the air, we in the control room were moving in time to the music until something happened that nobody had anticipated. It was an epiphany, a wordless remembrance of things past between Lester Young (“Prez” she [Holiday] had nicknamed him long ago) and Billie Holiday (“Lady Day” had been his name for her).

They had once been very close, but for reasons unknown they had grown far apart. During the week before airtime they had avoided each other. And Lester Young, sick and weak, had to be replaced [on an earlier part of the show] on the big-band numbers. All he had left was Billie’s number. I told him before the show started that he didn’t have to stand up for his solo; he could stay seated.

Billie was seated on a stool … She began to sing. In the control room we leaned forward. The song “Fine and Mellow” was one of the few blues in her repertory. She sang about trouble long in mind, with some kicks along the way. Her sound was tart, tender, knowing. And she was sinuously swinging.

It was time for Prez. He stood up and played the sparest, purest blues chorus I have ever heard. Nodding, smiling, Billie was inside the music. Her eyes met his. It was as if they were in another, familiar place, a very private place. I felt a tear, and so did [CBS producer Robert] Herridge.

As I dwell on Hentoff’s life and work I keep thinking how much poorer the history of jazz would be without him. I think about his liner notes for John Coltrane’s Giant Steps or his exceptional “Dizzy in the Sunlight” portraits of Dizzy Gillespie — more essays than I can name here. Hentoff wrote in such a way that we felt we were hearing something for ourselves when we were in fact hearing it through Nat’s scrupulous ear.

As Hentoff developed as a writer his questions became deeper about the person and deeper still about the bigger picture of one’s own life.

He was an early commentator on the cultural and racial politics of jazz, critiquing the white culture of jazz critics and even DownBeat magazine while he worked there. According to scholar Nichole Rustin he “was perhaps the most articulate white critic on the subject of race and its attendant discourses of power, agency, and class within jazz culture and on the national scene. Black musicians felt that they could trust Hentoff because of his deep knowledge about jazz history and its practitioners, and his respect for their ideas.”

If Hentoff is the voice of jazz writing, as he has been called, it is because he always allowed the voices of the musicians to take the lead. A typical Hentoff piece seems to tell you everything you need to know: a note or two from Nat, a quote or two from the musician, and then you’re off, on your own to immediately search for the music.

Here are the lead paragraphs for Hentoff’s “Every Night, I Begin Again.”

In the Ellington sense, Hank Jones is serenely beyond category. If I owned a nightclub, I’d give Jones a lifetime contract. Unlike some musicians who memorize attractive “licks,” as they used to be called, Jones is a true improviser. He is “the sound of surprise,” to use Whitney Balliett’s phrase for jazz as it ought to be.

Furthermore, Jones is a melodist, a lyrical storyteller. “In a way,” he [Jones] told me recently, “I have a singing approach to the piano. I play very long lines that connect with each other to tell a musical story. The sentences become paragraphs, and as for the colors — well, the harmonies are what the lines are built on.”

In many ways Hentoff’s significance has been acknowledged, and in others it has not been. Hentoff’s 1957 review of Thelonious Monk’s Brilliant Corners and his startling interview “Just Call Him Thelonious,” both provided a much needed window into Monk as a person, musician, and composer at a critical moment in Monk’s life and career.

A favorite line from Hentoff’s introduction to his interview with Monk, is “When he has something to say, he says it in his music.” Indeed, Hentoff’s critical evaluation of the pianist proved decisive.

I do not wish to overstate Hentoff’s significance, or the role he played in such critical receptions, yet it would be wrong to understate them too. It’s a hedge for other writers or historians whom might just wish to rush directly to the gold of the quotes and miss the alchemist in the shadows of such brilliant corners.

In high school my best friend’s father, who was an encyclopedia of American music, told me that when he first heard Monk he thought he was playing chopsticks. Later I came to admire his honesty about how he heard Monk. We want to believe that we can see and hear the most vital art and its contours, mysteries, and wily beauty, but more often than not trusted guides are needed.

In the end, so many of the people whom Hentoff interviewed said things to him that they either couldn’t or wouldn’t say to anyone else. This is the power of listening, but these conversations grew out of real relationships and mutual trust. And so it is, his interviews, conversations, and many books, starting with Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It, are a cultural treasure and inheritance. Hentoff never needed or wanted to be center stage, and that may have been the right-sized understanding of the role of a critic, and especially a white critic, in the jazz world. For me, Hentoff stands as one of the greatest sidemen in the history of jazz.

The post Enduring Voices: The Legacy of Nat Hentoff appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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