#unless it somehow gets better in the next few episodes the dream is dead

[igor-gn]

At least we still have them… Cleo and Frida are cute too

[dodo-begone]

Loyal here, and back from the dead! Had some health issues and family drama, but I should be completely back now! I hope this all makes sense, I had to take Benadryl so I’m kinda out of it at the moment.

——

For those who have been interested in the idea of a reader from Undertale, I’m so happy! Anon who went into detail with how y/n might be forced into bringing out their soul? *chefs kiss* I love it. And with Ranboo or Techno doing it on accident because of the voice(s)? Then, when they snap out of it and see y/n begging this ‘Frisk’ person for mercy? AAAAAAA YES P L E A S E. I live for the angst and that concept quenched my thirst for it. When it comes to the resets, I think that most of what happened during them felt like dejavú to y/n when going through the Underground, making them give reactions similar to the monsters who seem to recall certain things when you play the game again. However, when it comes to the genocide route, I feel like they don’t remember anything. At least...not until they’re put under extreme stress, panic, trauma, etc., or if they’re in an intense life or death situation. Only then would they remember. But it’s messy when they do. They get thrown into a memory and basically have a mental breakdown. Whether they remember it once they calm down or not...? Up to you. Anyway, here’s some of my own ideas based off all this!

- In Ranboo’s case, I feel like he’d know who Frisk is and quite a bit about y/n’s world. He just seems like the type of person you could tell anything to and he’d listen. Because of this factor, I can see y/n having either already shown him their SOUL, or having planned to in the near future. He’d recognize the situation—a panic attack—and do everything in his power to calm y/n down. He isn’t the type to pry, so he wouldn’t mention the reader’s SOUL unless it seemed to be in really bad condition. He’d rather y/n come to him and open up on their own.

- It’s a cry fest. They’re both tearing up and telling the other not to cry. Y/n knows it wasn’t Ranboo’s fault and doesn’t want him hurting himself over it, especially because his tears hurt him. They forgive him, it’s okay. Ranboo feels incredibly guilty for what he’s done. And seeing them crying over what he did and the trauma he accidentally brought onto them? He’s crushed. You know those sappy movies where the main characters are comforting each other, crying but letting out choked/hiccuping laughter? Not because they find the situation funny, but because they both react the same way and just want what’s best for each other and it’s all around adorable? That’s them.

- But, if it’s yandere Ranboo? He’d probably see this as proof that y/n is far too fragile for this world. Clearly, they need someone to protect them. He’d most certainly feel guilty about what he’d done, but he may play it up a bit to get as much attention/sympathy/whatever from them.

- For Techno, unless he was there when y/n initially woke up in the SMP, I don’t think he’d believe them. So he probably doesn’t know shit (or, he at least knows the basics), unless he found out from someone else. That’s just my opinion tho. Either way, I believe he’d think it’s all bullshit. However, he wouldn’t force an encounter to prove his point. He has at least some decency. No he doesn’t. I feel like he’d remind y/n of just how hostile monsters Underground were in the beginning, so they’d be weary around him. (I’m doing flat out yandere for him from now on bc that’s all I can think of rn)

- If he doesn’t know who Frisk is, I see him being slightly insulted that they think of some random stranger—as far as he’s aware—who clearly hurt them. He’d never do that! He—oh shit, he kinda sorta did do that...

- If he does know who Frisk is and is romantically interested in y/n, he’d probably be peeved that they’re basically referring to him as their sibling. He gets that they’re going through a traumatic episode but c’mon! He’d end up pushing the thought aside to help them. However, he may be slightly petty for the next few days.

- Keeping on the romantic yandere side, I see him possibly making the situation worse even if it isn’t his intention to. Whether he’s told by y/n or someone else, he at least knows what their SOUL is and what it stands for (even if he didn’t believe it till now). So here’s his little darling, all curled up and clutching their SOUL to their chest like it’s their lifeline. Oh, wait, it is. Sure, he’s surprised that it’s real, but any shock he would’ve felt is replaced by awe and he can’t help but notice how mesmerizing it is. So, he forcefully gently pulls their arms away from their chest, cooing at them and saying that everything’s fine, and removes their hands from the entity so he can get a better look at it. He watches as the (color) heart bobs slightly up and down, and can’t help but be surprised by how warm it feels against the palms of his calloused hands when he cups it. Any whimpers and pleas from y/n begging for their soul to be returned are blocked out. All he can focus on is the SOUL in front of him, the very culmination of their being, and how small it is. This little thing, that takes damage whenever their body does, that physically appears whenever they are in a fight, is what keeps them alive? That won’t do. Not at all. This land is far too dangerous for them! They better get used to his cabin, for as far as Techno’s concerned, it’s their new world home.

——

And Tommy forcing them into an encounter because he thinks it’s all bullshit? That would definitely happen. He’d feel so guilty once he sees the look of betrayal in y/n’s eyes and the disappointment that shows on the faces of anyone who had seen the forced encounter. As if they too weren’t curious. He noticed that no one stopped him. Let’s be honest. Most would be too curious to interfere.

- Y/n probably falls to their knees, cupping their SOUL in the palms of their hands. They know that Tommy wouldn’t actually hurt them, but they can’t help but feel as though their boundaries have been pushed aside, as though one of their only requests meant nothing to everyone. Tears slip and it takes watching the glowing heart, being lost in their own world as they mentally count every rhythmic bob to ground them. Once their breathing calms and their sobs turn into hushed whimpers, they push their SOUL back into their chest and stare at the ground, unsure of what to do next.

- Tommy definitely acts a hundred times more mature in the following moments. Depending on when in the DSMP timeline this occurs, he’d either be confident—and rightfully so—in his ability to help someone during a panic attack, or be hesitant, unsure of what to do, fumbling with his words and motions, but trying his damn hardest to help nonetheless. Either way, I see y/n appreciating it. Y/n literally come from a world where they would befriend creatures ten seconds after they genuinely tried to kill them and their sibling. I don’t see them holding a grudge. They’d most likely be slightly weary in the following twenty to thirty minutes, but get over it. After all, they’ve always chosen MERCY. Can’t say the same for their sibling, though. Tommy’s extra cautious about what he says or does around them after that.

- I feel like after a few weeks or months, y/n may bond enough with Tommy to want to show how much they trust him by bringing out their SOUL. Especially if they’re there through all the hell that Tommy goes through story-wise. To them, it’d probably be their way of telling him that they trust him with their life, and that they’ll always be on his side.

- Yandere or not, he does everything in his power to protect y/n if they remain weary of encounters. He’ll either find a way to avoid a fight, not wanting to hurt y/n by doing anything that would make him gain this supposed LOVE that comes from their world, or he’d do enough damage to allow them to escape without anyone or anything dying.

- If y/n discovers that they’re able to befriend the monsters of this world like they could their own, regular Tommy would respect that. He may be a bit antsy if the encounter drags on or if y/n sustains some damage, but he knows that they know what they’re doing. As previously mentioned, he’ll get involved if things go south, but he won’t kill anything. At least, not in front of them. Gotta get bones, blaze powder, and spider eyes somehow. But even then, he does it sparingly out of respect for y/n’s wishes. That, or he’ll have someone else get materials for him.

- Yandere Tommy wouldn’t risk shit. You can’t just talk to mobs, you idiot! You’ll die if you do that! And you’ve only got one life! He’d threaten to kill mobs right in front of y/n if it’d get them to stop trying to play house with disgusting monsters. That, or he may force y/n into killing. Their HP, AT, and DF increase when their LOVE increases, right? So they have to if they want to survive!

——

I agree with the anon that Dream and Vilbur would definitely force y/n into an encounter. Yandere or not. If yandere, they’d probably become obsessed with the concept of SOULS and constantly pressure them into bringing it out. They use it as a nightlight JKJKJK.

- Ya know how in Deltarune, Kris yeets their SOUL into a cage? Well, imagine that, but it’s forcefully taken by Dream. He’d put it in a glass container and show it off like some damn trophy. That, or he hides it away where no one can find it. Vilbur would do the same but keep the SOUL on his person at all times. That way no one forgets who y/n belongs to. To him, it’d show power and ownership. Much to his pleasure and mostly everyone else’s disgust.

- I’d also add Schlatt to the list of people that force an encounter, as well as yandere Sam. Schlatt would pull it out in front of everyone to show how much power he can hold ever someone, or, to use as a shield when he thinks Pogtopia will attack. They wouldn’t want to hurt an innocent person who’s got a little sibling waiting for them at home, would they? With Sam, he’d do it to make sure that y/n is in perfect health. Can’t risk there being any cracks or the SOUL being dim! Following Tommy’s death and revival, he’d probably do the same as Vilbur, keeping their SOUL with him and never letting it out of his sight. However, instead of doing it out of a show of power like Vilbur, it’s out of paranoia. He can’t lose you too. He has to know that you’re okay!

——

For some fluff, here’s who I think y/n would eventually trust enough to show their SOUL:

- Tommy (as mentioned earlier)

- Ranboo (also mentioned earlier)

- Tubbo (he reminds them too much of Asriel to not trust him with their SOUL)

- Captain Puffy (same as Tubbo, but for Toriel)

- Ghostbur (he’s just so nice!! How could they not? Besides, he sometimes reminds them of Napstablook! They probably call Ghostbur Blooky a lot on accident and the ghost just learns to roll with it LOL)

- Karl! (After hearing about this person who comes from a world with timelines and basically time travel, he can’t help but be interested. He’s losing so much, he needs someone who might possibly understand. They both share a similar hatred towards the concept of time travel/resets and the amount of pressure it puts on a person’s shoulders. That, and the lack of memories, even if they‘be both been effected by this in different ways)

- Bad (before he’s corrupted by the egg, of course. He’s so sweet omg. Besides, his personality gives me Toriel vibes)

I personally don’t see them trusting Philza enough, no matter how much he reminds them of Asgore. Then again, the King of Monsters is the one who basically put a bounty on their SOUL. He also refused their MERCY and forced them to FIGHT. Besides, when they hear from others—or see it for themself—that Philza kills his own son? I don’t think they’d ever forgive that. No matter what happens. You should refuse death, because there’s always another option. They’d know first hand, after all. With having their SOUL broken in half and pieced back together thanks to their own sheer will to live. To protect their sibling and save their friends. The battle against Asriel taught them so much, and they’d never take life for granted again thanks to it. “Asgore, though I may not stand by his methods of taking the SOULS of innocents—children, no less—I understand why he did it. He lost both of his children, his pride and joy, at the hands of humans. The real monsters of this w—of my world. He would have given anything to get them back. And you, you just throw your son’s life away? How could you?! Do you know how many beings, Monsters and humans alike, would sacrifice everything just to see their loved ones one more time? To take their place? To save them from a brutal death by the hands of those who want your SOULS? To see their small body covered in blood and burns or spears. Only for their death to have been meaningless, for their SOUL had shattered before it could be collected and used? When it should have been you, their big sibling, to take their place?” Yeah... they’ve definitely got some issues they need to deal with LOL. I personally headcanon that even if Frisk wasn’t able to reset, their soul would have been useless when it came to breaking the barrier because that thing shattered into PIECES. What would the monsters do? Use gorilla glue and hope the damn thing stays together?

——

Imagine how different characters, Yandere or not, would react to y/n’s soul shattering. Especially if it’s because y/n took a hit for them.

ALRIGHT THATS IT AND IM GOING TO SLEEP LOL

Omg that’s so much. It’s all so fucking good but I am just overwhelmed by how much is here because I want to answer it all but,,,

IT’S SO GOOF NIGHTLIGHT SOUL JANSJS PLEASE HAHA that’s just hilarious.

Also putting the soul in cages? YES THAT’S SUCH A GOOD CONCEPT TO BRING UP!!! Vilbur wanting to own while Sam wants to protect. Both lead to a similar end. An emotionless reader with no care for themselves or others. Just a rogue being. A zombie, I’d you will. But not dumb. Oh not dumb at all.

Also putting the soul in a jar??? I ca see DreamXD doing the same, if not similar. Ooo maybe he wears their souls on him? Trapping it in a piece of jewelry to display your “loyalty” and “love” to him.

I’m sorry I’m just not feelin too good.

[ilkkawhat]

Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Nick Stokes & Cassie McBride, Nick Stokes & Sara Sidle Characters: Nick Stokes, Sara Sidle, Cassie McBride Word Count: 3,059 Additional Tags: Angst, Episode: s06e05 Gum Drops, Rescue, Father-Daughter Relationship, Adoption, Possible new fic series??? who knows it's 2021 anything can happen Summary: A brief dive into Nick's feelings surrounding Cassie's rescue, and what may have happened to her afterwards.

read on ao3

“Let me out.” 

He couldn’t say the words at the time. Could only choke out a literal cry for help, though there were plenty of words that his brain was firing—and missing—but those three words in particular were just some of the few pleading thoughts he had while he was still enclosed in a glass coffin—one that was ready to collapse at any given second—why didn’t they see that? Why did they all stand on top of it? Why didn’t they open it immediately just to give him some air, just brush the damn ants off, no extinguisher needed.

He didn’t understand why it took so long to get him out. 

To rescue him. 

Maybe it’s cause that’s not what they do. They never really get to, always showing up when the rescue fails.

Or when it never arrives in the first place.

So they don’t really know how to rescue someone. Scramble around because they’re used to placing evidence markers and taking pictures, and unless it’s raining there’s really no rush because well, what’s the need?

And it hadn’t been known to him at the time that they were indeed aware the fan was going to die, that he was going to run out of air—he could only hope the desperation in his screams would tell them that, the ignored cry for help as they all left the hole, left him. 

Did they just assume because the unearthed the coffin that he would suddenly be able to breathe even with the condensing, scratched kept closed? Figure, “we still have another hour or so until the air runs out entirely , maybe even more since he’s not actively breathing.”

He didn’t understand their odd sort of...patience with the situation. Even Grissom took the time to calm him down before the lid was opened. 

His patience, however, in this rescue mission he’s taken upon himself despite Sara’s warnings, her doubt that it may not have a happy ending; is completely gone.

He’s not had any sleep since they started the case. Granted, he’s not had much sleep at all in the past five months but his senses are as sharp as ever, his eyes hyper focused looking for anything that doesn’t belong in the lake’s waters or forested banks. 

Like the body of a little girl.

Or more gum drops.

He almost thinks he sees a trail of them floating in the disturbed water as they pass through, beacons of lights waving over—though he feels like he’s doing a better job than the supposed actual patrolman operating the boat. He’s waving his flashlight all around him, while theirs seems to remain still. 

Then again, he’s the one acting like he’s going to “rescue a person, not recover a body.”

Yes, he knows that’s not usually the case.

He remembers being on the other end of that ray of light searching for a lost soul, remembers how close he was to losing his life, hanging by a last thread that was about to snap—how that light was really a rescue in itself in the darkness that entrapped him. His only light had been shot out to keep himself alive, only a dim green glow to remind him where he was. 

Sara’s words continue to echo, their conversation playing on a loop as that small part of his brain tries to convince him not to get his hopes too high.

But luckily, he proves himself wrong.

“Stop the boat,” Nick commands, his light shining on another fragile thread, one he hopes is not already broken.

“Stop the boat,” he repeats as he throws off his hat to get full view, tossing it aside and nervously gripping the flashlight in his hand. His heart hasn’t raced this fast since it nearly burst in the box.

“Let me out,” he echoes, but it’s not a broken plea. It’s a determined one. He’s not even going to wait for the boat to stop, his legs are itching to run to the pair he sees sticking out between the branches. A pair of shoes small enough for a ten year old girl.

“Let me out,” he says again but he doesn’t wait for any sort of response, nor was he asking for one. If anything, it was for himself. The permission to take the plunge as he jumps out of the boat, not even caring if the water is still deep. He runs as fast as he can through the water and as he approaches his heart soars before it shatters when his light shines onto what he immediately assumes is a corpse. 

There’s a slice on her neck, the classic slit of the throat that would kill anybody within seconds.

Her skin is pale, far too pale to still be alive though sure, it’s cold enough that his own skin is paling too, even more than that, it’s shaking. Is she shaking as his fingers press against her skin, or is it just him?

There’s still a pulse. It’s weak, it’s fading, but it’s there. Or is it the pulse that’s beating out of his own fingers?

There’s still rope around her wrists. Why would she leave it on?

There’s still a piece of gum in her hand, the final breadcrumb that she wasn’t able to put down because this is her resting place. Her premature grave.

But there’s still life in her yet, because like Nick, she’s a survivor. 

And she’s being rescued. 

“Hang on, baby,” he whispers as his soaked hand strokes her dry, matted hair. “I got you. You’re going to be okay.”

He hears the patrol call for the paramedics. They attempt to move her but Nick advises against it. 

At least, not immediately. 

And this is the part he hates the most, that he hated the most when he was the victim. 

Click. Flash. 

The picture of the living dead girl, another for the red room of his own photography of death and violence that haunts his dreams.

He mentally places it next to the picture of himself that he accidentally saw in Grissom’s office one day. 

A morbid sense of hope washes over him; if he was rescued from a horrific crime and has been able to go back to his job—back to his life, there’s hope for Cassie, too. 

Right?

The paramedics were not too far behind, and he had almost hoped that the flash from the camera may have shocked Cassie back to a full state of being. Crying and in deliriously tremendous shock, maybe, like he was when he was rescued; but in the same way as a baby cries when its born, it would be a comforting sign of life while this, right here is just...tragic? Hopeless? Despair? 

He doesn’t know what he really expected, as this rescue is less triumphant than he thought it would be after everything that led to this moment. It feels more...depressing, like they’re still somehow too late. Perhaps it’s due to how he seems to be the only one driven enough, how there was almost a suffocating amount of people crowding his scene. 

Cassie, on the other hand, has nobody.

Nobody but him.

He rides back with her, holding that same hand still clutching her last candied beacon of hope and he can’t tell if it’s still water dripping off of his face, or if tears are streaming as he remembers how his hand was held, how his family—both blood and found—were there for him. How they comforted him. Soothed him. Reassured him that this would never happen again. 

Kept telling him that he wasn’t actually dead.

He texts Sara and Greg, tells them he got her. Being the lead on the case, he instructs them on what to do yet somehow, he feels like he’s lost that role having abandoned them for his own selfish savior complex. 

They still do what he asks anyway.

When they get to the hospital, he’s turned away, because he’s not family. He’s shaking but not just from the cold of his wet clothes slapping against his skin, but from the anger as he lashes out, telling them she doesn’t have any, not anymore, and she needs someone. They express their “sympathy” but the best they agree to is calling him when she’s out of surgery.

He makes more calls, wondering who can be there for her, is there any family left? 

There’s not. 

Sara brings him a new change of clothes. Fresh pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie that he packed for the nights. He’s glad she chose that, as he hunches over in the waiting room. 

“She’s got nobody, Sar,” he sniffles, rubbing his hands together. Even the fourth cup of coffee still hasn’t warmed him up. “Who’s...Who’s gonna take care of this little girl?”

“You know what’s going to happen,” Sara sighs. “She’ll end up in the system.”

“Is it...is it bad?” he dares to ask, knowing he’s crossing a line, he doesn’t meet her eyes when he asks it. Just stares into the swirling black sea between his hands.

“Is what bad?” she puts a hand on his back, sliding up and down beneath the hood. 

“The...the adoption system. Just bein’...passed around like that. Thrown into an already established family, not sure if you’re gonna…”

“Fit in?”

Nick nods.

“It’s...it’s not easy. Doesn’t always happen right away, and when it does, it can...it can be a gamble. You know that well enough from the things we see.”

“Yeah,” he nods into his chest. 

They sit in silence for few more minutes.

“You don’t hafta be here, ya know,” he shrugs. “G’s already halfway back to Vegas.”

“I know.”

“A-And Grissom’s flight probably landed, he might have more cases to assign.”

“I’m not the only CSI he’s got,” Sara smirks. 

“Gonna be a while till she gets outta surgery, so they tell me at least.”

“You trying to get rid of me?”

“Nah,” he pulls a face. “I just...I hope you’re not doing this cause…”

“Go on, say it. Cause I feel guilty?”

“That’s...not...but sort of…” he mumbles.

“I don’t feel...guilty. It feels good to have found her alive. I didn’t want her to be dead, Nick.”

“I know,” he sighs.

“And I don’t want you to...to be so hurt every time something like this...happens. You’ve changed, Nick and I can’t...I don’t know if it’s necessarily for the better.”

He finally meets her eyes. His face pale, wet and weary. Dark circles under his eyes that he typically conceals with a light coating of makeup, cause he knows people will just worry. His hair’s dried now, sticking up in all directions. 

Anybody would think, and the patrons of the hospital most certainly do at this point, and even Sara seems to think that he’s nothing more than a broken mess.

He’s not. 

“I think it is,” he tells her in a surge of confidence in his voice.

He expects her to be mad.

Instead, she smiles at him with pride. 

“Well...seems like you might be right. I know this case kind of...got under our skins a bit but...I think you did a good job,” Sara tells him, and with a final press to his shoulder to keep him grounded and humble, she walks away, knowing before he even tells her what he’s about to do as she passes by a father walking with a small girl through the entrance to the hospital.

That’s when his mind is made up and he makes more calls, talks to more people including the child services agent assigned to Cassie’s case. He finishes paperwork for the case file, and for an application. He knows it’s going to take time to get approved, just as its going to take time for Cassie to recover enough for him to even...ask her if that’s something she would...want. 

And that’s when the doubts sink in, what if she doesn’t want that? Doesn’t want him? She doesn’t even know him, all he is to her is the guy that found her. And he would understand better than anybody else the mistrust in strangers. And even if he’s a member of law enforcement, a public servant, somebody you’re supposed to be able to trust, what if he would just...mess it all up? Would it even work with his schedule? Unless he started taking more time off, he supposes. Less voluntary overtime—though Ecklie’s trying to cut down on that anyway. 

The fears don’t settle, even with all the votes of confidence he receives from nearly everybody who accounts for him as a person worthy of being a father. 

But more than that, he’s afraid of being a replacement to her, instead of what he really hopes to be; a connection. 

And when he gets the card that she hand-draws for him, that fear goes away.

He doesn’t get to see her right away after the surgery, but the minute visiting hours open up again, he walks to the room with a case file in hand. He does his best to keep himself together, but shows the cracks as he can’t hide his empathy for her pain, though he doesn’t allow himself to fully cry and make her feel even worse. 

Instead, he does what he’s always done best, and listens to her. Holds her arm and keeps her grounded, too, and she gets more and more confident as she continues to talk—though some parts are harder than others. 

“You’re doing great, sweetheart, go on,” he encourages her with a smile. 

They take breaks for her to rest her vocal chords. When her voice goes out, she uses the notepad and he waits patiently, letting her lead their conversation.

She’s just as smart as Nick expected, asking her own questions and discussing the pictures of evidence in the folder. While he’s never quite been a teacher, she’s the best student he’s ever had.

When the story is done, she loses composure and he sits on the edge of the bed, hugging her as her fists ball the sweatshirt stained with tears. 

“You are so brave, Cassie. You are the bravest little girl I’ve ever met,” he comforts her, silent tears streaming down his own face and falling into the same dry, matted hair as they did before. 

She doesn’t say much after that, but when she calms down enough and visiting time comes to an end, she asks one final question that he knew was coming, yet was still unprepared for.

She can’t even say the words. Writes it on another page in the notebook.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” 

He still doesn’t know if he was the right person to answer this question, if this was something that her counselor should answer but he’s both too excited and too anxious to keep waiting.

“Well, honey, you’re...you’ll be going with Ms. Nancy, you met her, she’s going to take you to a place that’s...that’s like a hotel, u-until you can find a new family…” He doesn’t feel confident in his explanation, winces in expecting her to lash out, “I don’t want a new family!” which is exactly what he reads on her face as the crayon rolls from her hand.

“And I...sort of threw my name into the hat, that you could come stay with me, but only if you wanta—”

“I’d like that,” she nods, and smiles.

“Really?”

She nods again more fervently.

“I wanted to keep it a surprise,” a voice startles Nick, the aforementioned counselor he had been consulting with enters the room with a wide smile on her face. “Before you came by, I had a moment with Cassie and discussed it. There’s still some hurdles of paperwork to go through, but by the time she’s out of the hospital, she can go to her new home. With you.”

“That’s...That’s wonderful,” he cries, quickly wiping his tears but they don’t stop coming, especially not when Cassie reaches for his wrist and pulls him back to the bed, reaching out in the same way he reached out to his own surrogate father when he was brought back from the brink of despair. 

That’s what he wanted to happen, at least.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” 

It’s the same question he asked himself when he woke up in the hospital in the restrained trance, tied up in tubes and wires, fearful that he would never return to his life as it was before—and in a way, he never would. There’s pieces of Nick that are still buried, just as there are pieces of Cassie dropped along the trail of gum.

“I don’t know,” he tearfully admits. His application was still in process. The child services counselor, while holding respect for him did seem to kind of...judge him for being so desperate about this. Suspicious, even. He knows everybody would attest to his character but knows that he’s still bogged down with a lot of baggage, no matter how well he’s doing on his journey through this life.

He’s uncertain of the future, both his and Cassie’s, but one thing he is certain of—

“No matter what happens,” he holds her arm again, uses his other hand to brush the hair out of her face, cup her cheek. “Where you go, who you end up with, I will always be there for you, okay? You can call me anytime you need—”

He digs out his own card, not hand drawn and just adorned with his job title and phone number, and knows it’s not much to offer to someone who’s just lost everything, but knows the weight of what he does offer, in two words that he once vowed to his own savior.

“I promise.”

Cassie may not understand all of what’s going on between the shock and her inexperienced age, but she does seem to understand what a promise is, and what a promise means. 

She puts her hand on top of Nick’s, and even though she’s said it before in writing, she says it again out loud with the biggest show of strength he’s seen in any survivor, not even in himself.

“Thank you.”

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Reviews: The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers/A Day at the Aquarium

Last full episode before hiatus! The Kids have a sleepover in the castle that starts like the Princess Diaries 2 and ends in unspeakable horror, while the Plantars try to spend one final day together without getting sad. Sort of like everyone these days without the final part. One last ride under the cut. 

Whelp it’s the end for this batch of episodes which is sad, and i’ll genuinely miss covering these every week. Yeah I have other coverage incoming with Ducktales coming back, eeeee, and current Loud House coverage.. but it was still nice to have something to cover this summer and something to watch every week during this blighted year, as i’ve mentioned before there weren’t any BAD episodes just hard to cover ones and I think by the end I figured out how to do that.. mostly by stopping straight up recaps for more condensed ones. Point is I had fun, grew as a reviewer, and it was a good way to kill a few saturdays, sundays and one or two mondays, and that ain’t bad at all. So before we come back for halloween, let’s send off weekly amphibia coverage in style for now, unless it comes back in November and I look stupid, with this week. Let’s go. 

The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers

Well this one took a turn. It was also an excellent one as we got more insight into Marcy and Anne’s friendship with Sasha, and some truly excellent horror. Yes, horror.  The Plantar kids head to the castle for the evening for a Sleepover. Turns out the king finally did find something, as did Marcy who’s playing coy about what they found in the hidden library I forgot to mention last time because I was covering 4 episodes at once. Anyway King Keith David has a meeting with them tommorow. So the kids are staying with Marcie to have a fun night together while Hop Pop has a night without the kids to get something head to toe.. it’s better not to ask. They also annoy Olivia who goes off to drink.. juice. Yes the hard juice that comes with a lemon wedge and speedoed servant newt. 

It’s also our ambigously gay duo’s first sleepover without Sasha, but their confident they can do this themselves while Sprig is hoping i’tll be good as his first sleepover (And has a creepy closeup about formative memories) Cue a fun montage of everryone annoying olivia and getting into hyjinks round the castle from sillys tring, which is shot from critters, to painting moustaches. It’s fun stuff.  Then we go from fun stuff to...

As , in order to stay awake, as being the bastion of pleasantness she is Sasha refused to let them sleep till sunrise, Marcy and Anne initate a SCARE DARE! A SCARE DARE! is a scary dare where the person who dosen’t complete it goes in the book of losers. Which of course was Sasha’s idea, both in general concept and the dares done. What a well adjusted young lady!  So naturally our heroes go into the basment they were told to stay out of. They get pass Lady Olvia because she’s passed out drunk on hard lemonade, living the dream as it were. ,Anyway they.  find a bunch of tombstones, and then Marcy and Anne taking a selfie (Say desecration) wakes the dead... all because they were both playing chicken. One has to imagine how the kids talking with hop pop would go

So yeah the ghostly horror terrors chase the kids, who somehow end up in Marcy’s room. So she just has a passage from a floating graveyard contaning horrifying eldtirch ghosts to her room.. a room the king put in for her. Someone protect this child. 

So our heroes soon have to deal with the ghosts but luckily sprig’s mirror catching it reveals the mirrors, which were foreshadowed earlier by a hall of mirrors leading into the corpse room, making the ghosts solid and allowing our heroes to fight htem back. Our heroes are exausted, Marcy and Anne reveal that they also chickend out on the scare dare so it’s okay, and Oliva arrives. It’s go time.  Final Thoughts: A fun episode that quickly pivots into a great and nightmare inducing one perfect for spooky season coming up soon. I do generally wonder just WHAT those things are, and it’s great setup for whatever’s abotu to come. And while I didn’t mention it in the recap we also get sprig finding some sort of painting and it being of the king, a toad and a frog.. we don’t get to see it clearly so it could be someone else.. but.. it’s clear the king likely has ties to what happened before. But what DID happen before? what are those ghost things? what’s the king’s angle? 

Yeah I have no answers for now on what the king’s plan is, or how inocent he is or if that’s his dad, just that something’s clearly wrong. And the omonious chess metaphor told us that.. yeah I do think that bit was kind of a mistake as otherwise while we’d probably still question the king, we would be more conflicted as evidence piled up versus “yeah something’s clearly wrong. “ Then again we genuiely don’t know what his motives or plan is or how well intentioned he is or anything other than he SEEMS nice, and that said game could be a necessary evil for all we know. We just don’t have enough information, even with the ominus bits, to truly know what’s going on and what kind of villian the king is. If he is one at all the show could pull a massive swerve on us.. I mean I doubt it he probably is evil, but I wouldn’t put it past the show. For now let’s move on so I can do more wheel spinning and what not...

Day at the Aquarium

So it’s time for another audience with the king. Turns out he and Mar-mar found out a LOT. Or Marcy did at least, as the above makes clear the king may of known ALL OF THIS already, and just needed Marcy and Anne to think he didn’t long enough for his evil plans. But we do learn a LOT about the gems, the box, and what it does as well as how to fix it... 

So let’s not waste time since some of you probably don’t have episode acess this early and want to know: Turns out the calamity box is an interdimensional travel device, and, as far as the king tells us anyway, the king’s ancestors went around from world to world as explorers, possibly the group seen in the picture and just as likely the king himself hiding his role in things. Now how much of the explorer part is TRUE remains up in the air, especially since history also painted Columbus an explorer, including when I was in school, and not you know.. an idiot and a colonizing bastard. History is written by the winners after all so it’s hard to know what’s true, only that the book is likely real: While the king COULD’VE planted it to lead marcy, or had one made up, a fake would’ve been spotted immeditly as we’ve established Marcy is a master detective with batman level deductive skills. Or Elongated Man but I wanted most of you to get the refrence and his adaptation versoins so far haven’t been the kindest to ralph. Anyways, point is that con wouldn’t work on her so the book IS real, as is it’s info on the box.. i’ts just hard to tell what was left out or if this was written before utter diastaer and apocalypse insued. After all Gravity Falls Journal 3 is all fine and dandy about bill before the giant passage about bill not being trusted written in blood and Ford going into a paranoid tailspin after realizing his friend is actually a horrifing monster, literally and figuratively, so we don’t know WHAT could’ve been hidden in a nother book the king could’ve removed at any time before  Marcy got there or while she was away on a mission.  But yeah while we know there’s probably more to it this is sitll big information, the box connecting to 4 other worlds other than amphibia, which not only opens up the story possiblities but the fan fiction, and that each of the gems can be recharged at three temples, each one of the gems responding to a diffrent trait judging by the symbols, each representing our girls; Purple is strength, and thus sasha, Blue is Heart, Anne, and Green is Brains, Marcy. I do like thisd as it tells us more but only raises further questions, hooking the audience more. It’s great stuff. But our heroines now have a goal.. but unforutnately the Plantars need to go back and Anne can’t go with as Marcy wants her close. It’s harvest season soon and the Plantars have been away long enough. So they have one last day, though both marcy and the king are apologetic and the king offers them a large tissue and upon getting no response just gives it to them as next time we see them with it. it’s both a great gag, and a nice show of kindess from the king and possible diabolical mastermind. 

So the Plantars decide to spend their final day with Anne at the aquarium, as it always cheered her up. This goes south as eveyrhting from the eels to the giant kraken to the coral reminds them of their past and leaves the poor group sobbing. Even a water show goes sideways as Sprig sees an eel, but it does lead to the group fighting off the stingrays at the show in an utterly stunning fight sequence. Not the best i’ve seen this month.. but only because I binged what I missed of rise of the tmnt this month and that show’s final figh tis an utter showstopper, as are most of it’s fight, but this is easily on par with most of them. Fluid, well done and emotoinal. Our heroes get thrown out of course, but the thought counts and they decide one last throughly them memory is better than nothing.  The final scene is naturally an utter gut punch as we get tearfull goodbyes (sprig and anne forever). Their crying, i’m crying we’re all crying and Hop Pop promises they’ll see each other again. Because family always finds each other. My heart.. it’s too full. here have an apporiate song...

Let’s see how i’m doing. 

Yeah so two things: I’m not going to be able to stop sobbing thinking of this scene so let’s move on and how have I only NOW refrenced gilmore girls on this blog?

But yeah the scene is utterly moving as the Plantars leave and Marcy realises something. She likely was keeping Anne close because she just got her back... but realizes she’s being selfish. It’s not SAID on screen but it’s clear both in Hailey’s voice acting and from the animation what’s going through her head. It’s utterly captivating stuff. So she tells Anne to go with them.. offically because they should have someone they can trust keep an eye on the box, which is a good idea honestly given just giving it to a royal messenger is just asking for it to be stolen. So Marcy will stay behind and prepare, and since she mentioned it before likekly try to find Sasha as she earlier stated they HAVE to find her.. and given what we see with the recharging that’s both because she misses her friend no matter what she’s done, and because she’s vitally important, while Anne goes with the Plantars to get the box and have some more time before they say goodbye forever, with Marcy coming to wartwood to pick it and anne up for the first temple. Because nothing terrible’s ever happened when a plucky youth with a sword went to three seperate temples, especially involving a guy with a beard and full plate armor. 

Marcy stares off, sad her friend and possible crush is gone.. but unederstanding that this is what she needs, and that she can’t hold her here.. Anne needs to see her family off.. and we get a tearful reunion as Anne chases after them, passing her friends from “Scavenger Hunt”, and reunites with her family. But of course we can’t end on a happy moment, as we cut back to Marcy whose utterly sad.. and the King who says he has a proposition for her, one she’ll find most agreable. 

But yeah we end on that bit of ominus as we close till october. 

Final Thoughts: Yeah if it wasn’t obvious this was a great one. Great plot progression, great animation, great emotional hook, good jokes which I dind’t get into for time, and tons of stuff to leave fans wanting more just before the break, but without a HUGE cliffhanger. Sure we don’t know what the King’s planning, but that aside our heroes are still together outside of marcy, and we haave a lot to look forward to whenever the show gets back. I’m hyped. Your hyped. IT’s a good note to go out on, especially since last weeks eps were also excellent and it looks like things are about to pick up. When next we meet it’s an inconsequential, probably, anthology episode, though it should be fun, then whenever new episodes return, wether it be just in november or more likely in February, our heroes return to wartwood! And we’ll find out what everyone’s been up to. Hopefully Ivy didn’t leave sprig. We’ll see. Until then, you can check out this blog for more recaps, as I said i’m covering ducktales as it comes back monday and loud house whenever I can get my meat hooks on the new episodes, and until then say safe and go team venture!

[twoidiotwriters1]

Starcrossed Losers 2.V (Josh Wheeler xF!Reader)

A/N: Now that I have more time on my hands expect a whole lot more of this baby coming your way :) -Danny

Words: 2,243

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Listen to me :)

Listen.

I'm not trying to defy my boyfriend's authority around here, can you really blame me for what I'm trying to do?

I don't get how the others aren't freaking out about this, like, those kids have eyes everywhere and now there's some freaky cult controlling them, right out of a dystopian story! Though I guess our whole situation may seem dystopian in general, I mean look at us, bunch of kids pretending to know what we're doing.

Either way, I'm just doing a quiet field trip, Nathan will come back with news of whether Sam will help or not, and we'll just look around the place... nothing more.

I don't have a death wish. I promise. Katie's death isn't weighing on me, I don't want to join her anytime soon, I'm actually quite happy, all things considered.

Then why am I here, the first hour in the morning, waiting for Nathan to come back?

Maybe I'm feeling like I have some adrenaline here that wasn't used and after going to one place and another now I can't stay still. And also because those AV kids might really need our help.

I find Nathan halfway to the school, he's not alone, Sam, Mona and Maya are with her. I groan a little at the sight of my former friend, and I can tell by her expression she wasn't expecting to see me either.

"Goodmorning, my queen," I smile at Sam, bowing a little just to make the ambience lighter.

"L/N," She bows back, her mocked solemnity making me grin in return. "Nathan has told us the issue, but only the basics. Care to tell us more?"

I tell them everything I know, I even play for them the last minutes of the newest episode, I see my worry reflected on Sam's eyes and I know I came to the right place.

"I knew Melissa," Sam said grimly. "She had the talent to see the positive things out of everything...  You have the map?"

"I memorized it."

"Cool, then let's go."

"What?" I blink. "Hold on, Sam, we can't just show up."

Sam frowns. "Why not?"

"Didn't you hear the recording? I don't know what the fuck happened there but it sounded like they were heavily armed, or at least that they are very violent."

"Well, you have a sledgehammer, Nathan has his crossbow, Mona has..." She looked over her shoulder. "Mona has herself. Maya has a pocket knife..."

"What about you?"

She shows me a taser and winks. "Think we're good to go."

"I don't know..." I bite my lip.

"Okay, here's a suggestion," Nathan starts. "Let's not fight yet? I know for a fact that Alex would kill me if you die."

"And?"

Nathan looks at me with this truly confused glance.

"I don't want you to die, Y/N."

I beam at his comment, however, Maya makes sure to ruin it right away.

"Yeah well, you haven't been around her enough lately, have you?"

"Neither have you, Maya," Sam gives her a warning look. "Y/N, we won't force you to go with us if you feel it's too risky, just tell us where to go."

"I won't let you go alone! It was my idea!" I exclaim, then pinch the bridge of my nose with a little exasperation. "Fine, we go. But we have to be quiet and we won't attack unless we really have to."

Sam and Nathan agree right away, Mona and Maya grunt and scoff, but I guess that's a yes.

We start moving then, only to stop five minutes later.

"Do you guys hear that?" I lift my hand so everyone stays quiet.

"Hear what?" asks Maya.

I hush her again, and turn to my right, recognizing the bright backpack peering from a trashcan.

"An!" I hiss in annoyance.

I quickly skate to the trashcan and lift the lid, revealing the tiny figure of Angelica looking up to me with a guilty smile.

"Surprise?"

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same," She frowns. "Josh told you to leave it alone."

"Since when do you listen to Josh?" I scoff.

"Since I realized a bunch of nerdy weirdos aren't worth risking my tribe!" She rolled her eyes. "They're probably dead already, Y/N! We should go back to the mall!"

She whines and pulls my arm as if to trying to drag me, I snatch my arm away and glare at her.

"I can't leave more people behind, not again."

Well, maybe this is about Katie a bit.

"You think those kids will thank you?" Angelica insisted. "They're losers! As soon as they find a better place they'll squirm away to the safest cave, there's a reason why rats survive longer than heroes, Y/N."

"I swear to god, sometimes what comes out of your mouth doesn't make any fucking sense," I reply. "Go back to the mall and stay there, if Josh asks, tell him I went to the school to finish my negotiations with Sam."

"I won't lie, he'll kick me out with you!"

"He won't kick me out!"

"Why not? You think he'll stop just because you make out a few times during the week? He could easily do the same with any other girl– No offence, but if he got over Sam Dean he can get over–"

"Stop!" I say, really not looking forward to hearing the end of that sentence. "You're already in trouble by knowing where I am, so you either come with me or you get lost but choose now because we don't have time for your temper tantrums!"

Angelica stares at me with that little frown she does before taking down her backpack and grabbing her taser.

"Fine," She growls. "But you better move your annoying ass faster, you're way easy to follow even while wearing those stupid roller skates."

"I was trying to be quiet," I argue.

"Wait, she's coming too?" Mona frowns. "We can't be babysitting while we search for a cult."

"I don't need a babysitter," Angelica rolls her eyes. "I could kill you in a heartbeat if I wanted to..."

"I'd like to see you try–"

"Okay!" Sam interrupted. "Let's just... keep going..."

As we keep going Nathan and I engage in a comfortable chat, it's weird to see him again, but not as weird as with Alex, I guess that by now I'm just used to find random people from my past. I'm not trying to avoid it, I don't mind being reminded of my past now that I have things to look forward to. I'm not sure exactly what, but I know I have a future, and maybe that future lies here or somewhere else, but as long as I stay alive I have one, and that's enough.

Nathan and I kinda have the much-needed talk about the elephant in the room, how we were an almost something, surprisingly enough, there are no hard feelings coming from either of us.

'Well the wind it brought my sails to you And my course was true We talked about the lovers we had How they never followed through Oh they never follow through'

"I still regret leaving you like that though," He tells me. "It's not that I was sick of you guys, I just... I don't know, felt like I was wasting my chance somehow?"

"Your chance?"

"Yeah, I mean during high school I was just the 'nice guy', you know? After the nuke I thought I would find something else to be but I'm still the nice guy, I let you escape when you stole half of our weapons, and now I keep Maya from doing fucked up things with the tribe when she thinks no one's paying attention..."

"That's a good thing to do," I try to cheer him up.

"I wish I could be more like you," He smiled fondly at me.

"What do you mean? The artsy girl?" I snort.

"You weren't the artsy girl– I don't know, you were just... you. I never felt like you had to belong anywhere to be worth something... I'm not like that."

"Maybe I never tried to belong, but I was lonely," I sigh. "I obsessed with reading of other worlds, imagining alternate lives that my actual real-life just felt... out of place. I always felt something was missing. The only time I had the feeling that my life was going somewhere for the first time was when... when you asked me out."

Nathan smiles at me, and even though I feel a little guilty about it, I can't help but feel glad that I can witness such a breathtaking smile from so close.

'You told me how the life you lead Is a made up thing How you wish you were as interesting As half the things you read Oh as half the things you read'

"Ah, I don't know," He sighs, looking away from me. "I guess I wasn't made to be part of a tribe, I really liked my time as a loner, you know?"

"Then why did you stop?"

He smiled again. "Because I also really liked you."

I blush at his statement, but I try to remain as neutral as possible.

"Well, if I'm allowed to say it, love is a really stupid reason to quit a good life," I admit.

"What?" He laughs. "Didn't you join your tribe because of Josh?"

"Not only because of Josh!" I defend myself. "I also joined because I had a purpose, I take care of them."

"Well, but most of them can take care of themselves now, don't they?" He teased. "C'mon, the only reason why you stayed is that Josh has you wrapped around his finger."

I frown a little at that.

Nathan kinda has a point, right? Alex already has my notebook filled with first-aid treatments and indications, most of the kids now know how to fix a broken bone. Do they really need me?

"Hey, not that it's bad," He adds, nudging my arm. "If I had what you have with Josh I would stay too, you guys seem happy."

Are we happy?

'I'm a wanderer I've always been undone And the shadows cast upon my soul Are clawing from the sun'

How much of this happiness will last once we get used to each other? And how much of that happiness is what it's keeping us together right now?

Are we really done with running away from places and being alone? I said I was, Josh said he wanted to stay with me. We said we'd be together. We are together.

Angelica's words come back to me in full force: 'If he could get over Sam, what makes you think he wouldn't be able to forget about you too?'

'I'm sure it's nice to think I'm something that you need But I promise when the sun ascends you'll see that's just a dream I'll never come around'

Do I really trust in love enough as to let it build the rest of my life? My future depends on whether Josh and I stay as a couple, and out of the two of us, I'm the one who'll lose the most if we break.

I obviously enjoy my time with Josh, and I really like him... but is liking him enough reason for him to stay? Or he'll leave as soon as I push the right button?

Just like with Sam...

'I must admit that the faith I had Is fleeting fast Cause you told me how you never let go And how that keeps you in the past'

No. I won't start this again. Josh already proved himself thousands of times. He chose me, he stayed with me. More yet, he came back for me when I left.

"It's here," I say abruptly, stopping dead in my tracks.

Everyone stops behind me. Ahead of us, there's a huge mansion, not too far from where Josh's old safe place is. It looks empty, but there's a security camera that luckily isn't pointing our way. I signal the group to give a few steps back and we hide around the corner.

"Okay, we need to get closer, we need to make sure they're–"

"Psst!"

I stop and straighten in my place.

"Did someone just 'pst' at us?"

"Psst!"

"Oh shit," Nathan looks up to the window above us and quickly prepares the crossbow. "Don't move!"

"Hey hey hey, it's fine!" The girl's voice says from the second floor. "You guys need to get out of the street right now, they're going to be here soon."

"What?"

"Come in!"

"Yeah, like we're going to listen to a stranger," Maya scoffs. "How do we know you're not with them."

"I know you," She says simply, then she turns to look at me and smiles. "I know your boyfriend. I talked to him once."

"What?" I tilt my head. "You mean after the nuke or..?"

"When you left the mall, he came to see me," She adds calmly. "Come in, I won't hurt you."

Her words make something inside my head click:

"Mavis?"

Taglist.

@letsbe-queer @slythermyg​ @loving-u-3000​ @one-loud-mind

[kurogabae]

TSUBASA: TRAINWRECK CHRONICLES

And How Bee Train is Single-Handedly Propagating Cancel Culture in This the Year of Our Lord 2020

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4 -- PART 5 

[[ join me on PillowFort. i have free invite codes if you need an account ]]

So last post was all filler episodes and we're well into season two of this, and I cannot stress this enough, two season anime. The only canon arc we've had was Piffle so far and it was poorly handled and out of order. Surely, absolutely surely, we are in for a canon arc. Shara perhaps? Skip right to Le Court? We all know they'd never dare touch Tokyo. How are they going to pad out the rest of the season?

Why another filler. A bad filler. The dreaded filler that goes against pretty much all of Fai's everything.

It's "A Date With a Wizard" and Kurogane isn't the one getting the date. If you haven't watched or heard of this episode before, buckle up kids. It's a doozy. And big spoiler warnings ahead.

Fort City Bit AKA Fai Dates His Own Fucking Mom (but like an AU version so it's okay I guess???):

You read that right. Fai goes on a date with this world's version of Chii, who was an artificial being he modeled after his dead mother. I could end the rant here but oh, there is so much to this. So much. It's only one episode long but it feels like an eternity.

The premise for magic use in this world is that:

Everyone has magic and that magic is specialized

Your career path is based on your magic's specialization. Like in MLP with cutie marks. And everyone is Fine with this.

Everyone recharges their magic via the sun, which is risen by their king

The king is chosen yearly after everyone in the country has the same fucking dream one night

The whole country runs on magic, to the point that if there is no magic there is no food, no power, no anything. But that's fine, because every day they get recharged by the sun. Right? WRONG! Because the current king is being a depressed little shit and refuses to raise the sun, effectively dooming the country to a slow death. Neat.

BUT BEFORE ALL OF THAT! The episode opens with Fai having a nightmare about Ashura looming like he's auditioning for a role in Attack on Titan. Vague and menacing, which is literally all we know about Ashura because we know nothing about Fai's past. And we never will. At least not in anime-land. No one knows anything. The manga isn't pulling this fakey flashback shit, so why is the anime? I don't know, but I hate it!

Anyway, the family gets the low down from Touya and Yukito - who still do not recognize Sakura and that upsets me because of the implications that there is no Sakura in this universe. (Sidenote: Kurogane recognizes them, even though he's never met them in the anime so far so honestly, just fuck everything.) While Touya is feeding them a frankly lavish meal that he's magiced up he explained their king problems. This leads to my next issue - if you're so worried about running out of magic why are you using it so flippantly and in such an extra ass way? Can you not make normal food? Does it only exist in magic form? Maybe just summon some soup? Does all food cost the same amount of mana? THIS MAGIC SYSTEM IS BAD!

So, back to the whole the king is too sad to raise the sun which powers everyone's magic which is now beginning to run low. Another problem I have. You get a recharge on your magic everyday. They have not gotten ANY recharges for, and I'm quoting here, months. They change kings every year. So even on the low end of things we're looking at 3-4 months before anyone got concerned about the king just. Not raising the sun. Personally, I would have gotten worried after a few days, a week at most. No one wanted to go and find out like "Hey your highness, why no sun? What's got you down?"

That, however, would be logical. This is a place of magic and whimsy! Not logic. Fai is asked to use his magic to figure out what is wrong with their king. Predictably, he tells them they have a better chance of meeting god, so everyone gets thrown in jail. Because refusing to solve a country's weird problems is illegal. Not that jail has ever stopped them before. Not with Kurogane and his muscles around. And while I am always up for watching Kurogane break things I do have to wonder - why are they not just warping free? Mokona said there was no feather. No one said anything about being magically held back. And yet, they are running through the castle, endangering themselves and the children!!!

Obviously this is For Plot Reasons, and I use the words "plot" and "reasons" loosely here.

Somehow the kitties and puppies get separated and Fai and Sakura end up surrounded by guards. Does Fai finally fight? Does he open that can of whoop ass we all know he's been saving? No. He leaps into the air and takes flight like some sort of stork. And while Fai's current cocky attitude is refreshing, he's working on some sort of idiot bimbo in a horror movie logic of "to escape the building I must do upstairs". This is not a man made to last on his own.

And, like Shrek to Fiona, the stairs lead him to the highest room in the tallest tower. Fai, then, promptly loses his shit as if he's not fully aware that doubles exist across the multiverse. Like, yeah, it would be a shock and anyone would be freaked out at the sudden surprise of it all, but Fai acts like he thinks he's stepped back into Celes. Like an idiot. He's better than this.

Now, we learn more things about this messed up king situation. Not only does everyone have a dream every year electing the new monarch, but the new king gets their memory erased for the whole year so that they can "rule with a pure heart" or some shit. Which seems like a baaaad fucking way to run.... anything. At all. Ever. Might as well pick up a fresh baby and put it in charge. It's bad. And it gets worse.

Chii is sad, but she wants to hang out with Fai and it's the first time she's shown any interest in doing anything but being Sad so her babysitter spirits are all like "Oh that's neat!" And Fai takes this is his chance to just... run off for a night on the town with her? They literally vanish and leave Sakura ALONE IN THE CASTLE WITH THE SAME SPIRITS WHO JAILED THEM. In what fucking universe????

Look, they are trying so so so so so so hard to sell this FaiChii shit. Fai leaves Sakura alone in a castle where they have just busted out of jail, he has no idea where or how Kurogane and Syaoran are, he's clearly uncomfortable around Chii as she reminds him of what he's running from, and, oh yeah, she's a copy of his dead mother he created in another world in order to comfort him and his dead brother as a child. Everything is Fine. Let's go get tea.

I'm gonna rapid fire some S tier bullshit:

no one knows where Chii has taken Fai - why is there no way to track your baby-brained king?

Fai leaves with Chii happily and cheerily, again, leaving Sakura behind and alone - who is this man because it isn't Fai

the only clue they have to Fai and Chii's location is that they are no longer on castle grounds, yet somehow Syaoran knows Exactly Where to Look - because sure why not?

Chii doesn't know how to drink???? - does this happen with every king? do they have to be potty trained too? omg they really are babies this is a terribly way to run a country!!!!!!

teaching someone basic life functions is not romantic but Bee Train sure wants us to think it is

"I want to stay with Fai forever and always." - at least he panics at commitment still... and probably incest

“I should be thanking you. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way.” - What? Uncomfortably reminded of your past and why your life is just shy of a living hell? Who are you? You are not Fai

Kurogane and Syaoran show up to save Fai and Chii, who have been surrounded by guards (I think, I can't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure they're there to take her back to the castle and her Sad Room). Fai apparently won't fight in front of Chii but whatever at this point.

It comes out that Chii is an artificial soul/being (like the Chii in Celes) and because of that she cannot leave the town or she DIES and that means the king dies and I guess they don't have a back up plan for that. Unsurprising but bad. Still, Chii begs Fai to take her away and show her the world and Fai like... hesitates? Thinks about it? Considers it?!?!? I dunno but he doesn't automatically say "Uh no, you'll die and also I have other shit to do, bye" and that's dumb for a lot of reasons.

Eventually he tells her no and convinces her to bring the sun back and be happy because she'll be able to remember him or some shit (you know, unless they take those memories too!) and  they all say goodbye. And I couldn't be more thankful.

Honestly, the real MVP here is Kurogane for not just losing his shit at all of this like I have. He's a better man than I.

Tune in next time as I continue to scream, in vain, at god.

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4 -- PART 5

[sailor-cresselia]

Zero One 01: A JUMP TO THE SKY TURNS TO A RIDER KICK

Okay, I’m gonna start liveblogging from the start of a show this time! Because oh wow, just watching this live was a trip… and now I get to properly understand it. >:3

––––

So, it appears that the shot of a HumaGear in the shadows in the trailer was not, in fact, in the satellite, like the trailer implied. Instead, he’s from the Hiden Intelligence sizzle reel.

Said sizzle reel also includes a shot of the “HumaGear Skin Fitting Gate System”. That’s the part of the manufacturing process that gives them their human-like appearance, as opposed to the base robot form.

Interestingly, each of the newly-humanized HumaGear has a rectangular tattoo, with some sort of hexagonal design in it. The male one has it on the left side of his chest, and the lady we see up close has it dead center a little below her collarbone.

The support HumaGear that they show next all have it on the side of their necks. And isn’t that a handy way to tell who’s a HumaGear, if they ever elect to make the ‘ears’ smaller?

Actually, I think the lower part of it has the Hiden Intelligence logo, and the top is the hexagon glyph. Still can’t get a good look at it, though.

Also, it’s probably a very bad idea to have all of your HumaGear managed via a single broadcast satellite. I’m just saying, with tech this advanced and ubiquitous, having some backups might be to your benefit.

–

So, Hiden Korenosuke, Aruto’s grandfather, was 75 when he died. Additionally, he wasn’t just the CEO of Hiden Intelligence – he was the founder.

The news spot about his funeral is being played on a giant hovercraft, via holographic screens.

I really do love how we’re clearly going all-in from the start on ‘this is not the mainline World of Riders.’

Meanwhile, Aruto shows us his dumb puppy nature right off the bat, being late for work despite having set five alarms.

We zoom out on the city, seeing the hovercraft in better detail than the grounds-eye view from before. We also see that the Hiden Intelligence headquarters absolutely dwarves the surroundings.

The logo appears on screen. When it zooms in for the transition, the black of the ‘01’ becomes a tightly layered pattern of binary.

–

There’s no opening credits today, since it’s the first episode and all. Opening Credits on the first day is not how Takashi Yuya-san rolls, as we saw during Ex-Aid.

The sponsor segment, however, does exist. It shows Zero One and his bike – which doesn’t have an individual name yet that I can find, just the term for the phone that has as a primary form. It’s a really cool shot, too. They’re under a blacklight. I’d thought they were glow-in-the-dark when I watched the raw, but seeing this in better quality shows that the blue and red accents are reacting, too.

That is so cool.

–

Aruto nyooms to the amusement park on his bike, because he’s super late. Turns out he’s a comedian in a stage show, with a truly hideous blue sequened suit and oversized red bowtie. His act is supposed to be a Manzai show… excpet for how he’s absolutely terrible.

Like, to the point where his straightman is his phone.

There are exactly two people in the audience… and it’s an older couple, who aren’t even watching. They’re having lunch.

This kills the Aruto.

–

And so does the fact that he’s fired. As his manager says, the era’s more suited to HumaGear entertainers.

Aruto disagrees – how could an AI understand a person’s sense of humor?

And then Ab-cruncher Taro, a HumaGear comedian, comes on stage for his act… and the audience loves it. Including the older couple from Arutos act.

I mean, this might be in part that nobody in World of Zero One likes manzai anymore, too, but also Aruto’s just terrible, and this guy did have a pretty decent pun on ad-libbing… as he exploded his abs off.

The manager points out that everyone is laughing, that having such a lively theme park is his dream. Aruto feels the same – he just wants to make people laugh, that’s all.

…Except that his now-former manager is already walking off. He already has someone who can make the crowd laugh, and Aruto really should find a new dream.

–

A car pulls up to Hiden Intelligence HQ, with Fukuzoe Jun and his HumaGear assistant, Shesta. I really like her red-and-grey outfit, not gonna lie.

Anyway, he’s the vice president of HI, and, admittedly rather justifiably, assumes that he’s the new CEO. He’s got quite an ego on him, apparently, because the funeral was today. He’s already got his portrait commissioned, made, and ready to be lowered over the portrait of the late CEO. And it’s larger, dwarfing the old one.

Dude.

Maybe you should have waited a bit on getting the portrait. Like, at least until after the funeral.

Just saying.

–

We switch to somewhere called ‘Daybreak Town.’

…It’s surrounded by massive, high-tech security fences. And is a bit of a crater. A flooded one.

Entering a run-down, semi-abandoned room, we meet Horobi and Jin. Admittedly, we don’t hear their names, but that’s who they are. Horobi is stoic and calm, and Jin… well, he’s basically an even more hyper Parad.

Horobi says that now that CEO Hiden is dead, they can start the Magear Plan.

…Jin, what was that you were messing around with on that stand?

Jin’s probable attention issues aside, Horobi goes to explain a bit further, while unplugging a pseudo-driver from a cable, probably where it was being programmed. They’re going to use the HumaGear singularity – that is, the hypothetical point when Artificial Intelligences become more intelligent than humans, often including sentience. Bascially, they plan to use that to surpass humanity… somehow. As he’s saying this, he takes a Progrise Key out of a holder, and we get a few shots of the room.

The MetsuboJinrai.NET emblem is on the wall, and we see some of the assorted items. Including a katana, for some reason. And, on a platform with the same pattern as where Jin was messing around earlier? That is a gun right there. Yay!

Horobi hands the driver and key to Jin, while saying that it’s time to annihilate humanity… just like this city was, long ago.

Zoom out from his face, where he stands under a beam of light… that is coming in from a hold in a ceiling. That is to day, the hole in a roof, of a former apartment building.

Zoom out further to see that it’s one of the handful of buildings around the perimeter of the flooded crater.

At the very center of said crater? Underwater?

That sure looks an awful lot like the satellite that controls the HumaGear.

This is why you have redundant backup systems, folks.

–

So, at this point, Aruto’s got Shotaro’s meme faces, Emu’s pratfall humor (although thankfully toned down a bit), and Sento’s phone. Now we’ve also got Kabuto’s Shibuya disaster 2.0.

This is fine.

–

At Hiden Intelligence, we see a room labeled ‘Three Dimensional Printing System’. Like, it actually says that in English, same as the gate earlier. An Ai starts speaking, saying that it’s receiving orders from BS-ZA – the broadcast satellite. What does the ZA stand for? Who knows! The sizzle reel didn’t actually tell us that.

I can not understate how incredibly concerned about the ‘we have a single point of control for all of this technology’ thing that’s going on.

Anyway, a holographic pattern gets displayed inside the printing… room, I guess, and two manufacturing robot arms emerge and start. Uh.

Okay, so. That’s not how 3D printing usually works. You can’t really makes something solid out of beams of light. That’s not how it should have worked with the HumaGear skins earlier, and it’s not how it should work now.

Unless, like, it’s not light? It could somehow be a sort of plasma version of the materials needed? But it was able to make, like, the hair and eyes and such for the HumaGear earlier, so… ugh. I’m putting too much thought into it.

My hangups about how things work aside, they’re making the driver.

Outside of this room, in an office, a female HumaGear in white and teal is sitting, inactive, until she receives orders from the satellite. She gets up, and goes to fulfill her task.

Hi Izu! I didn’t notice that you had little teal highlights in your hair before! There’s just these little streaks hidden in there. It’s cute.

–

A dejected Aruto walks his bike away from the amusement park, lamenting his inability to get the crowd to laugh. Sorry bud, but you’re just not funny.

A car pulls up, Izu stepping out. She identifies her ‘target’ via the object recognition analysis that CEO described in the sizzle reel earlier. I didn’t notice before, but even though they still says peoples names in the ‘family name first’ order, the HUD shows them with given name first. Interesting.

She describes him as a ‘self described’ comedian, who is unknown. We see her face during this, before she blinks and looks downward.

Aruto’s on the ground. He’s collapsed.

Izu has known him for all of less than a minute, has no real personality of her own (yet), and is already roasting him.

When he asks who she is, she tells him that her name is Izu, and she’s the President’s secretary. Please note that she does not say which president, which probably only furthers Aruto’s confusion.

–

Back at the comedy stage, we’ve got… a human manzai duo, who are getting a laugh out of the crowd. So, it’s just that Aruto’s terrible, not that they don’t do manzai anymore.

Backstage, Taro sits, presumably waiting for his next set. He’s playing back the crowd as they laugh at his joke, and oh nooo he’s smiling so widely. He’s so proud that he was able to make them laugh! Taro is a good guy and I feel really bad for what’s coming.

Not!Parad Jin ominously comes up from behind. He doesn’t say anything more than that he’s found him, before taking the imitation driver and slapping it onto Taro’s waist.

I like absolutely NONE of the hacking process! Not the red circle of light around the buckle as the driver activates. Not the fact that the ‘belt’ starts off as fuck-off huge cable strips with ‘connector pins’ on them. Of course, since said cables are basically as wide as an arm, this means the connecter pins are more like giant spikes.

Not the fact that they jam into poor Taro, and he immediately starts seizing up with red sparks everywhere.

Not him dropping to his knees, making pained sounds.

Not Jin saying ‘You’re my friend now, so go wreak havoc on this place!”

Not the fact that he says that with a smile.

–

Elsewhere, a belt has just finished being printed, and is now being assembled and given a spiffy new coat of paint.

–

Taro is trying to not do the thing, because his job is making people laugh.

Jin chuckles. Not anymore. Now his job is destroying humans.

We switch to Taro’s perspective, and see a download progress bar fill and complete. It has ‘metsubojinrai.net’ written underneath it. When it completes, the display is replaced with their logo.

Taro cries in pain, and his memory of the crowd turns greyscale. He reopens his eyes, and instead of the cool blue light they were lit with before, they’re glowing red.

Tonelessly, he says that he is connected to metsubojinrai.net, and the ‘connecting’ lights on his earpieces glitch from blue to red.

Jin hands him the Progrize key from earlier.

–

The driver’s done.

–

We switch to the Hiden Intelligence boardroom. Jun had called a board meeting earlier, and for some reason, Izu received instructions to bring Aruto there.

Nearly everyone in the room has a HumaGear secretary standing behind them. Shesta’s tattoo is on her left wrist, and Izu’s is on the back of her left hand.

The meeting was called to read the CEO’s will. Apparently, nobody even knew he had a grandson, much less one like Aruto. According to Izu, because he is, in fact, related to the CEO, and the CEO had requested he be there, there won’t be problems regarding the legality of all of this with Aruto here. She slides the will in front of him, and walks out of the room.

Jun tells him to hurry up and read it, he’s got to get to work taking over as CEO.

Aruto opens the envelope, and starts reading – forgetting to read out loud, because he’s just a confused puppy. (He’s 22, he’s legally an adult, but that does not stop him from being a dumb puppy.) He looks incredibly distressed over what’s in the will.

It’s ominously shown with a red static overlay, is hand-written, and segments of it are appearing on top to highlight themselves.

And I have no idea why some of the overlaid words are highlighted in red, because I don’t know Japanese.

Jun, frustrated with Aruto’s distress and lack of reading out loud, grabs the paper away from him.

“In the near future, our company will face a serious crisis.” Jun’s brow furrows, and the rest of the room starts muttering, wondering what crisis that could be. “The HumaGears that our company was making will be misused and will attack humanity.” This shot goes from Jun reading to a generic HumaGear, his eyes turning red, and zooming out to show that it’s a crowd of them, in a ruined city. They all crouch down and start. Freaking. Swarming, on all fours. It’s absolutely terrifying, especially when one leaps up at the viewpoint, shrieking. (It’s the same ‘vocal’ sound effect from the bugster unions, by the way.)

Back in reality, the boardroom is starting to panic a bit. Izu comes back through the door, carrying a briefcase. Jun resumes reading. “There is only one counter measure: the Zero One driver and Progrise Key.” Izu opens the briefcase, revealing the items in question. “Built into it is the new era’s security system, in order for human hands to take control of the HumaGear.” Aruto looks at the case and driver, his expression blank.

Jun continues, with us scrolling down the will. “Only the company’s President is authorized to use it.” He can’t restrain his grin. “And my successor whom-” his face falls “I entrust this to is my grandson, Hiden Aruto?!”

Nobody expected this, least of all Aruto.

“I want him to become a part of staff, and overcome the company’s crisis. That is all.”

Jun is not okay with this, and neither is the rest of the board. He’s treating this like a family business, that’s absurd! I mean, never mind that he was the founder.

All of them start protesting over one another, before Aruto yells at them all to calm down. He then says that there’s no way he can be a president. He just wants to make people laugh. Without another word, he picks up his duffle bag and walks out.

Izu tilts her head, blinking confusedly.

–

As Aruto, somber, rides the elevator down, he thinks back to when he was a little kid.

A tiny little Aruto is trying to practice a routine with someone who seems to be his father, who laughs a little. Babby Aruto insists on trying again, because he wasn’t laughing from the heart.

The man says that the result will always be the same. His headphones are white and blue – namely, with blue lights, the same color as a HumaGear’s earpeices.

Aruto swears that he’s going to make his dad laugh – oh no, this is his dad.

An explosion goes off, and blue fire fills the screen.

Little Aruto wakes up, on the ground, his father next to him.

His father, with sections of his skin blasted off, revealing a mechanical, HumaGear face underneath, bleeding blue and dying. “Aruto… head towards your dreams… jump to them…”

The shot zooms out, with elementary schooler Hiden Aruto crouched over his HumaGear father, surrounded by rubble and flames.

–

In the present, Aruto watches as Jun’s portrait is lowered off the wall. He apologizes to his grandfather.

–

At the comedy stage, the manzai act is still going on. Everyone applauds as they finish, the manager included. It looks like Aruto is about to go ask for his job back, but he hesitates, thinking back to what the manager had said. It looks like he’s trying not to cry as he turns back around to leave.

As he turns, someone shouts to be let go.

The hijacked Taro is holding another HumaGear, probably one of the staff, by the collar as he walks on stage, before tossing him to the side. “My job is to make people laugh…” Taro’s viewpoint is shown, red static overlaying the glitching sight of the crowd as they start to back away. “…and to annihilate them.”

He activates the key, and inserts it into his driver. Red ‘wires’ extend from the buckle, breaking into and through the key.

I am not okay with any of this transformation sequence!

Not with the fire burning away his human appearance.

Not with how his normal HumaGear face withdraws and reveals what is basically a robot skull.

Not with how his jaw opens wide, and green… I dunno. Green pipes come out of his mouth, and start surrounding him in what is basically the Mad Rogue transformation.

Not with the orange dna spiral that lights up around him, and turns purple before the whole thing – spiral and pipes alike – burst out of existence, leaving Taro as the Berotha Magear.

As per Rider Wiki: The name Berotha is from Kujiberotha teruyukii, an extinct insect that lived in the Cretaceous period. It’s a recently named type of thorny lacewing, which are closely related to mantises. Aka, the species that Berotha takes his appearance from.

Two HumaGear staffers go to try and stop him, but he tosses both of them to the side, and proceeds to use whip-like extenstions to attack them… and overwrite their programming, shredding their human appearances and causing their original faces to retract. they’re left with the skull appearance briefly, before full faceplates slide down, creating the anonymous mooks of the season. They run off stage to attack.

The manager watches all of this, stunned. Aruto watches, before running at Berotha and tackling him around the middle, trying to stop him. He gets thrown into a sign for his attempt.

–

In another section of… oh lord. In another section of ‘Giggle Dreamland’, we see that there are a lot more than two mooks now. A van pulls up, the body-armored grunts of AIMS grabbing machine guns as they rush out and get in formation.

Yaiba Yua, who will eventually be Kamen Rider Valkyrie, steps out as well, saying that they are to collect data on the rampaging HumaGear and that they need to- she’s cut off by machine gun fire. Fuwa Isamu, who will eventually be Kamen Rider Vulcan, gives the order to destroy all of them.

As Yua says, at least let her finish before you start going all gun-happy!

–

Aruto, now distinctly missing his jacket and bag, gets to his feet, seeing the destruction all around him. MaGear mooks are attacking people, and ohhh nooo I think they’re repeating some of their stock ‘amusement park employee’ phrases as they do it, and that’s just tragic.

The whole area is a shambles, and the manager is on his knees in despair. Aruto remembers how the manager had said that making people laugh with joy was his dream, before Berotha comes up to the manager, extending his arm blade. Aruto tries to tackle him away, but it’s no use – he gets tossed away again. Izu runs onto the scene, carrying the breifcase. Berotha grabs the frozen manager by the collar, saying that a future where humans have dreams will never come, and starts laughing maniaclly.

Theres the sound of a heartbeat as Aruto flashes back to his father’s death.

“Don’t you laugh!” He pushes himself to his feet. “Don’t you dare laugh at someone’s dream, when you know nothing about it!”

“I do know.” Berotha starts rattling off a dictionary description of ‘dream,’ his earpieces lighting up as they connect to the web, before Aruto cuts him off.

Aruto is all but shouting. “A person’s dream isn’t so simple that you can just look it up!”

Izu looks slightly aside, averting her gaze.

“Hey! With that driver, I can do something about this, right?!” We only see Aruto’s lower face as he asks this, same as when he told Berotha not to laugh.

Izu says that yes, though it is available only to the companies president-

Aruto cuts her off, desperation written on his face as he tells her to just give it to him.

“Very well, Aruto-sama.”

She walks up, and hands him the driver and key. (In the distance, we can see that Berotha is charging energy to his mantis sickles.)

“Equip the driver to your waist.”

Glaring furiously at Berotha, Aruto places it at his waist…

There’s the sound of a heartbeat, as blue ones and zeroes glow around Aruto, and…

His soul, glowing that same bright blue, straight up leaves his body, and transports into the satellite.

(Me, a Double fan: YOOOOOOO!)

The similarities to how Philip enters the Gaia Library only increase in his visualization of the BS-ZA’s ‘cerebro’, which is a white void with occasional columns of binary scrolling upward. And written in the same font as the logo, at that.

Izu appears in there, in much the same manner – they’re both in their usual appearances again, though. Whereever they step, the binary ripples out beneath their feet. It’s a nice touch to give a sense of where the ground is, since otherwise it’s all just pure white.

She tells him that his brain is remotely accessing the satellite. He… doesn’t quite take this well.

Also, now that I have a proper back view of Izu, I can see that the earpieces have a headband behind them, so they’re basically behind the head headphones. Except, you know, most likely mounted.

Anyway, she continues. Right now, he has the same thought processing speed as an AI.

Their surroundings change, to have the void show where they are in the real world, while they appear as data projections. Just to drive the point home, she walks through the real-world Aruto.

Who is very much unconscious, standing upright with his head dropped down. Berotha’s still charging his attack, rearing back to fire.

“Left like this, in five seconds, you will die.”

Only an AI could deliver this line so casually. Aruto is not okay with this. He’s not okay with any of this.

The surroundings change again, this time to a grey and purple tinted void with hexagons in the background.

“Until then, you can learn from the manual.”

So. They’re just actually having him read the manual, in virtual form, while his real body is very, very vulnerable, so that he can learn how to use his driver.

Now This Is Kamen Rider.

‘Opening Tutorial Mode’

–

Meanwhile, over with the Zectroopers – I MEAN – AIMS troops, the machine guns do absolutely jack all against the Magear mooks. They can knock them down, sure, sending them sparking to the ground, but they just get right back up again.

Isamu, frustrated with the fact that his bullets do nothing, climbs back into the van and punches his way to grabbing what will eventually be his driver.

It seems that Yua is supposed to be his boss, because she tells him to wait, that he doesn’t have her permission – he ignores her and shoots the gun in her direction.

For a brief moment, the audience assumes he’s shooting her, but he’s aiming right over her shoulder, the ‘bullet’ sending her hair waving, and hitting a Magear mook right in the eye.

It doesn’t get back up.

Also, the top of its foot has a skeletal… well. Foot. Zero One’s going all in on the robot skeleton theme they’ve got going here, then.

Looks like Isamu’s whole attitude is ‘when in doubt, apply a bigger gun.’

–

Aruto snaps awake. “Learning complete.”

As he activates his Progrise key, Berotha launches the energy scythes.

A yellow light beams down from the satellite. It was either rapid-fire 3d printing, or it was actually teleporting, but either way. A silver grasshopper with neon-yellow lines lands in front of Aruto, blocking the attack.

Interestingly, along with the impact dustcloud, there’s yellow and blue circuitry patterns radiating away along the ground.

Hot damn I like this background music. I’d ask when we’re getting the OST, but I know the answer is ‘after the season ends,’ so instead I will just mourn my lack of soundtrack.

The grasshopper starts bouncing around Aruto as he prepares to properly transform, a holographic screen projecting from the driver in front of him. Said giant robot grasshopper is making even more of a mess of the area, and said projection is slightly 3D – the images have depth to them… and are made, of course, of closely-placed zeroes and ones.

The owner of the park is watching all of this, by the way.

“Henshin!”

We actually get to sort of see the driver reading the data on the key – kind of like when we used to see the action inside the Build Driver.

The base Zero One suit is black, with glowing red lines and a disconcerting face plate. We don’t have to see that for long though, because the grasshopper quickly dissassembles itself and turns into his armor.

In a very interesting detail, you can see it breaking down into wires and metal, and the lights that pull it towards Zero One are DNA spirals.

A JUMP TO THE SKY TURNS TO A RIDER KICK

…Hey, didn’t Aruto’s father say he should jump towards his dreams? Just saying. ;)

The grasshopper didn’t just become his armor – it also seems to have turned one of its limbs into the Attache Calibre, which makes its way to Aruto’s hand as the transformation ends.

“Who are you?!”

“Zero One! That’s my name!”

He immediately launches into an attack against Berotha, punching and kicking to great effect. Berotha tries to slash right at his feet – if he can just stop him from moving, he can annihilate him. Except Zero One leaps over the blades.

And by leap, I mean that our good grasshopper boy is now on top of the rollercoaster. Aruto is, justifiably, super impressed by his new leg power.

(I’m just saying… Aruto got the Pink Cure’s ‘WOW I can jump really high now!’ moment for this year, because Cure Star didn’t get it. She had her first fight in space, so it was already a given for her.)

Berotha is decidedly less impressed, and fires an eye beam at him. The eye laser does nothing, as despite it being almost as wide as he is tall, Zero One just tanks it as he jumps back down. As the light breaks apart around him, there seems to be a faint helix pattern there, too.

Aruto’s about to go after Berotha some more, but then he sees the owner getting attacked by a pair of mooks. Mooks who used to be his staff, and can just barely be heard stuttering around their rote phrases, repeating them without context or intellect. He goes to block them, and yells at his former boss to get out of there.

As Aruto redirects the mooks elsewhere, Izu comes running up, carrying the attache weapon that had been abandoned. She calls out to him, and throws him the case…

And it whacks him upside the head.

The mooks just watch as she apologizes, and he, rubbing his head, says he’s okay.

An honest-to-gaim insert song kicks in as they start fighting again. Like, this isn’t the OP. I’ve heard the OP. This isn’t it. This is an insert song. In episode one. It’s only a short part of it, yes, but it’s still an insert.

This is going to be a good season for music, especially since you can actually hear said insert. Not quite clearly, and it’s too brief to really get anything from aside from the tone. But that tone is awesome and I can’t wait oh god it’s going to be a long wait for this soundtrack.

Also, at some point the mooks acquired guns.

–

The insert ends when we see Not!Parad Jin bouncing in joy as he watches all of this happen from a nearby roof. “Yeah! Come on! Get ‘em! This is so fun!”

A damaged mook gets up, stuttering. “A-a-a-attention! A-a-a-a lost child has been reported!” This confirms that the mooks are, in fact, still saying their lines. It tries to attack him, because that’s what they do. He’s human, after all. (Right?)

Still giggling, Jin grabs the mooks arm as it goes to stab him, and in one smooth motion and without looking, twists it behind said mooks back, holds it around the neck, pulls out an honest-to-god gun, and shoots it in the head.

Everything goes silent for a second as the gun fires.

He doesn’t stop giggling wildly the whole time, nor does he even spare the mook a glance.

The mook falls to the ground, broken and unmoving, as he continues laughing.

It’s a normal gun. That is straight up a normal gun. Not a fancy sci-fi one, just a normal gun with normal bullets and a normal bullet casing that ejects in front of him as he laughs.

…Can we go back to our hero, please?!

–

Oh, good, we’re going back to Zero One versus Berotha. Thanks!

And thank you even more for the OP kicking in as Berotha fires a volley of energy blades. These are powerful enough to slice through cars and set off explosions wherever they hit. But they don’t even graze Aruto, not the way he jumps and rolls in mid air to dodge them.

His fighting is super graceful and deliberate, so much unlike how he moves as himself. The intro beats to the song transition into the song proper as he leaps, angled yellow lines of light trailing behind him as he uses the flying cars as jumping points, bouncing from one to the other, dodging blades all the way, before the actual bus that’s in the air comes up toward him.

He just barrels through it, still dodging the blades, using the support bars to flip and spin around and over. He manages to tap the ‘stop request’ button with his foot as he rebounds at one point, which is a hilarious little detail that they didn’t need to put in. But that lets the bus announcement of ‘stop requested’ play as he comes through the rear window right before it hits the ground.

MAN, the attention to DETAIL in this episode. I know that it’s mostly Episode One Budget in action, but damn is this promising.

Those yellow lines start following him again as he resumes his beatdown on Berotha, giving a pre-asskicking one liner. “There’s only one person who can stop you: me!” He activates his finisher.

RISING IMPACT!

A brief projection of the robo-grasshoppers foot appears over his own as he braces himself to start moving. Neat. And move he does, going faster than the camera can follow, slowing down only long enough to deliver a few punches and kicks, tossing Berotha into the air. Zero One follows suit, leaping far higher, and diving down with his Rider Kick.

He goes through the MaGear, shattering it to pieces. Gears, wires, and dark blue hydraulic fluid go everywhere, as the eyes on his helmet have a line go from front to back along the facets. Huh.

A special projection of ‘rising impact’ appears on screen as Zero Ones kick approaches the viewer, and since holo-tech is a thing here, may or may not actually be there. The key that had been used to hack Taro into Berotha, definitely cracked, also flies at the screen.

Zero One lands, digging a gouge into the path, and when he comes to a stop… Aruto twists his ankle, winds up rolling bodily into one of the buildings, and gets covered in rubble. He pulls himself up a bit using some of the debris, saying “Aaaand here’s my stop.” He collapses backward.

–

The AIMS troops seem to be wrapping up their defeat of the mooks, but as Yua says, they’ve still got a lot to do.

Isamu’s stomps on the chest of one of the downed mooks, who isn’t quite as done as he’d looked. It grabs his ankle, before he apparently shoots and shatters it, going by the sound effect.

He glares, hands trembling in apparent rage, saying that history is repeating itself.

–

Jin hands Horobi the damaged key. When Horobi ‘questions’ the damage, he just ‘asks’ “Zero One?”

Implying that there was a previous Zero One.

This implication is only furthered with Jin’s comment, as he pulls down his hood. “Seems like the previous president didn’t simply die, huh?”

We still can’t see his ears under all that hair.

The suspicion that these two aren’t human only grows. Why would Horobi want to turn humans into an endangered species if they, themselves, are human?

The ‘eye’ on the sunken satellite glows red.

–

As they exit the amusement park, Aruto’s going on to Izu about how cool he was. She says she’ll be escorting him home, calling him ‘Mister President.’

“Wait, what?!”

Turns out he completely blanked on the fact that only the president of Hiden Intelligence is allowed to be Zero One, and he accepted the position by putting on the driver.

Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen. He’s just a big ol’ puppy.

He’s protesting this fact – the president thing, not the puppy thing – to Izu when he hears a child asking the parks owner if he’s going to be closing the park.

“Not at all. A mysterious yellow hero protected it. So we’re going to keep on giving smiles to our guests!”

Aruto looks absolutely touched by his former bosses words, just by the refusal to close, and the ‘mysterious yellow hero’ part. …He has no idea that his boss knows exactly who that hero was.

Not until said boss turns to him, and winks.

Izu lifts one hand. “I have detected many smiling expressions that Master Aruto is responsible for.”

He laughs, just a little, a light chuckle at himself. “There’s more than one way to make people smile, huh…?”

He bounces the driver a little in his hands, and gets into the car.

As he buckles in, and Izu doesn’t – sweetie, I know you’re an android, and thus can’t technically die in the way most people would see death as, you should still use your seat belt and model good behavior for the kiddos watching at home – she hands him ‘the presidents’ Rise Phone. It looks like it’s just an upgraded version of his phone from earlier, or they upgraded that phone itself.

He tries to make a terrible pun about the hassle the board of directors gave earlier… which Izu, now putting on her seat belt, thank you so very much, starts explaining. Aruto cries that she shouldn’t be trying to explain the joke as the car drives away.

The episode title finally appears.

––––

Aaand that’s Kamen Rider Zero One, episode one! This is sure gonna be something, and I’m super hyped!

[janiedean]

I have to tell you something but PLEASE, please, don't be mad. I love Brienne, and I loved her with Jamie, and I'm mad and sad that they didn't get to have their happy ending...but I don't think his ending was shit. Or OOC. First at all, book!Jamie is not TV!Jamie: his relationship with Cersei is different, not as sick or manipulative. He loves his siter and is loved by her in a more "helthier" way: in the show she told Tywing the truth about them, and it's huge considering the love for power1/?

He watched her lose their 3 children, he learned about her walk of shame to get back to Tommen, he witnessed Robert’s humiliations. I think he would have stayed with Brienne if she knew his sister was safe, but he couldn’t be happy if his siter died and he did nothing to save her. He needed to be that person, otherwise all his growth would be lost, and he would have dragged Brienne in his spiral, and he didn’t want to make her miserable. To me he is still an honorable man, bc when there was a chance to do something, he did it: he killed the king to save KL, he fought the dead army, but over and over he said that the Lannister army didn’t stand a chance against the dragons or the Dathraki, he was not a fool. His speech was not about NOT CARING, it was about knowing there was nothing he could have done. He did good, he was good, and till his last moment he tried to be honorable, he tried to be the person Brienne inspired him. P.s.: Still heartbroken that he died, but I think there is some poetic justice with Cercei crashed by the symbol of the power she tried lo long to hold.

anon, I appreciate that you’re being nice and I appreciate that you’re trying to find some sense in this entire thing, but… okay, I’ll go over it and please don’t take me as *me* being mad or whatever but I don’t think a few things were clear here so I’ll try to do it now:

jc in the show is not healthier. it might be different, but it’s not and the fact that it might have been less obvious doesn’t mean that they didn’t drag that toxic mess out for four seasons when it had no reasons to exist. now: I was down with looking at it until s4 because that was book canon and I can deal with book canon. I had to look at three more fucking seasons of that toxic abusive mess happening and I don’t know if it’s obvious or not, but if I have one thing, like one in the universe that I can’t deal with, that I hate and that makes me feel sick more than anything else it’s emotional/psychological manipulation. and show!jc has that in spades and I can’t. like, as it is right now I’m pretty damn sure I’d take reading explicit thramsay fic that ends horribly with annexed detailed fanart than even rewatching five seconds of a scene where those two are in the same frame and is2g if they had kissed at the end of 8x05 I’d have thrown up. please for the love of everything if you think it’s better than book canon your prerogative, but don’t come at me informing me of that because I can’t. especially not right now;

I honestly can’t give much of a damn about the stuff c. suffered when 80% of that is her damn fault and I’m especially talking about tommen who only did that because she gave zero shits about his opinion in anything but we’re supposed to think she’s a good mother or that she cares which makes me especially sick because people have decided that for her out of nowhere when we all know how much leeway they give catelyn for that and I’m honestly done with it, and maybe it’s not inconsistent that he’d care, but it’s inconsistent how they wrote it;

because I mean if they showed some half-regret over leaving brienne or she was mentioned or if the entire thing was addressed instead of spending four episodes building it up and then did in four minutes what it took six feet under an entire season to do with nate and brenda back in the day is bad writing, has no consistency, it also murdered tyrion as a character because I can’t believe that in the span of two episodes he goes from I’m happy that you’re happy to WELL I DON’T HATE MY SISTER SO MUCH JUST GO TO PENTOS when ah, wait, c. sent bronn to kill both of them?

also ‘who ever cared abotu the innocents’ or whatever the fuck that line was??? wow, that’s all this asshole has ever cared about in canon to the point of losing his reputation for it not counting c. or tyrion at least in the very beginning of the series when everyone thinks he’s an ass, and I have to buy that this episode was halfway decent writing?

also: even if I was okay with jaime’s ending - which I could have been if at least it amounted to something because that entire episode was a plot hole after plot hole (where’s widow’s wail? he waves WITH THE FAKE HAND??? WTF??, did he ring the bells so he actually helped destroy the city without knowing dany would lose her shit through jon connington’s ghost possessing her? if bran didn’t rat him out bc he had A ROLE TO PLAY what was the damned role since he hasn’t done anything until now that warranted it??? just the first four) and he didn’t even… help cersei or take her out like he literally was there to just give her some basic human comfort and rocks fall everyone dies, what’s the sense of it?? -, anon, this entire narrative leaves brienne horribly;

because sorry but in the best of chances she’s not pregnant and someone lies to her and tells her jaime went there to stop cersei and tried to be honorable (which given what they made him say about not caring for the innocents makes it bad writing but nvm) and she can think okay, I waited years for the right guy to trust/open myself to and then he left me like that but at least he did it for a good reason now will I ever trust anyone again, maybe, and I assure you that getting over such a thing is not too easy, but that would be the best option. mid-bad option: she still thinks he did it for the right reasons but she’s pregnant so hey, she has an illegitimate child from a man who left her like that to go into a senseless death making her believe she was wrong about him and breaking her heart and she has to play single mother in tarth without him or maybe she can hedge knight along with the kid or leave him with pod or smth but that doesn’t look good on jaime either. or worse, she’s pregnant and she finds out he went just to die with cersei and didn’t even mention her or anything to tyrion along the way so she did all of the above…. for a guy who at the end of it as the narration puts it just went back to die with c. and a kid he didn’t even know might be real or not when she could have given him what he always craved/wanted/needed and left her like that? like, anon, even if it was a good ending for jaime, there is no bloody way that brienne gets out of this mess of a season with a dignified ending unless they somehow manage to pull a miracle out of their arses and sorry but their writing has been so bad that I honestly doubt it, not even david milch showing up like the calvarly could salvage this crap of a finale, and for all characters tbqh, not just them;

on top of that, sorry but it passes the message that brienne, only rep. in this show for nonstandard attractive people who spends years thinking she’ll never find love and suddenly thinks she can be happy with the guy who also fulfilled her greatest dream and opens herself up to him putting her vulnerability on the line (and while I don’t really think the whole virginity thing is that much of an issue since she actually did manage to give it to the guy she wanted it does mean something in this context)…………. shouldn’t have done it because wow, left like that without a second thought and without being addressed in the next episode at all by at least tyrion who has spent the previous four episodes either admiring her or trying to get her and jaime together never mind jaime? wow, I mean, I surely signed up to see the character I always saw myself in getting this shit treatment by people who obviously didn’t understand either her or jaime at the bottom of it for as much as I still think 8x04 did it right until the end?

anon, I appreciate your optimism about that narrative, but this episode was so badly written that it managed to about destroy the narratives of characters that weren’t even in it (sansa and brienne, and let’s not even discuss sansa because lmao), to have every single person but davos and possibly jon but meh behave ooc given what half of their lines said if not their actions because even if we take jaime’s actions as your reading (legit) what they made him say was still atrocious and ooc and same for tyrion, let’s not even touch dany or sandor/arya or really anyone that wasn’t davos. I cannot, in all good conscience, find anything good about this mess because it was badly written. period. even if we decide that the plot and motivations were fine and we try to make them make sense the way you did, the execution was shit, the dialogue was shit, it looked like they weren’t even trying, it did a disservice to every single character that was in it except davos who was there for five seconds to smuggle stuff and I honestly, honestly, cannot even find the force of will to try to make sense of it.

this entire season has been a gigantic plot hole, it wasn’t coherent within its own narration see ep. 2 clashing with ep. 8, 90% of what happened post 8x02 was for shock value without giving a single fuck about making it look in character and making the characters behave nonsensically - and I don’t mean just jaime, I mean all of them to serve the undoubtedly wtf shocking ending they have in plan for us which if I guessed already I’ll hate with the force of a thousand suns, and I’m honestly done with trying to make sense of this thing because nothing makes sense anymore. I appreciate that y’all are trying but I give up. I can’t make sense of a narrative that goes like ‘we’re doing this because it’s cool and if it doesn’t add up with everything we did before who gives a fuck’, and I honestly can do without trying to find a silver lining in a show that has totally twisted the message of the books and turned into an angst fest for which everyone has to be miserable at all costs or it’s not good tv, and that’s the last I’m going to say about this specific matter because:

a) I’m tired, b) I want to finish my spitefics and ignore this mess ever happened and concentrate on doing something that makes me happy, c) if I just keep on thinking about how bad this was IN GENERAL I wish jaime was my #1 problem I just feel worse and I don’t need it, d) the fact that they did brienne this dirty and she wasn’t even in this episode is really leaving the worst sour taste in my mouth and it’s already bad enough that I have to hope her ending is only 80% crap and not 100% crap, I honestly can’t with discourse that tries to find any basic sense in how this episode was conceived and executed beyond my problems with jc, jaime’s writing and the fact that they managed to get wrong one of his three most basic character traits that has nothing to do with brienne or jb for that matter.

thanks for being polite and nice about this and I swear I’m not mad but I honestly can’t with this episode and I would appreciate if from this point on anyone could refrain from trying to make jc sound better than it is where I can see it/where I can’t blacklist it because it’s really not a good idea right now. thanks again and have a possibly nicer than than mine. ;)

[parabellum-rpg-archive]

Congratulations, Sam! You’ve been accepted to play Holden Estrada. Please make your page and send it in within 24 hours.

Admin note: Sam! I’m so excited for you to play Holden. He’s been one of my very favorites from the beginning, and I feel like you’ve got such a good grasp on him. I love the little details, like Holden listening to podcasts and loving to dance. I can’t wait to see him on the dash! - Admin V

IC INFORMATION —

CHARACTER DESIRED

Holden Estrada

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Holden’s not exactly depressed but he is tired. He’s basically resigned, at this point, to a life he never wanted for himself and watched all his dreams get torn up and scattered in the wind long ago. He was terrified at the beginning, then angry, then desperate for an escape. Now, it’s become something he’s more or less accepted. It’s not that he likes working for the Costellos but he’s had to get good at his job to stay alive and alive is still better than dead. While he wouldn’t call himself an optimist, in reality he’s probably tipped a little more onto the pessimistic side, he still tries to find good things in his life. Not in his job, exactly, though he’s somehow made friends there, but in the rest of his life. As if to balance the poison he spreads onto the streets, he tries to do good in other small ways. Holden’s not a boy scout but he helps people if he can, tries to offer most people a smile or a kind word when he’s not working, tries to be the soft spoken, kind guy he used to be before the world (and the Costellos) had a few rounds of kicking him in the teeth. Maybe it seems a little strained or the smiles don’t quite reach his eyes but he tries to enjoy what he can, soak in the small pleasures like a good movie or a delicious meal, having a few beers with friends. Holden’s life has boiled down to simple pleasures because there’s so much of it that he doesn’t enjoy but has to accept.

In spite of the outward acceptance, there’s still a resentment that burns deep down in him, towards his father and towards the Costellos for keeping him trapped, and that’s what he uses for his tough shell when he’s working. While not naturally violent, he’s had to learn how to use a gun, had to be willing to drive a truck into people sometimes to get himself or friends out of hairy situations, had to accept that the streets are cold and cruel and if he’s going to survive (which he will do, dammit) then he has to adapt. He has adapted and sometimes that tough shell is harder to shake off than he wants it to be. More and more it takes a few hours or longer to get out of the work mind set and back into what he considers his true self, though he’s starting to doubt it. Ten years have irreparably changed him, what are the next ten going to do? Will there be a gentler self to get back to then? Holden worries about that and tries to play the balancing act though sometimes wonders if he should just go for it, just embrace the violence, dive full on into the life of crime he has to live anyway, and forget about the rest. Such bitter moments are still few and far between though, not frequent enough for him to go through with it, so he holds onto that kid he used to be that everyone liked. If he really needs a reminder, he calls his aunt and puts on his sunniest disposition, maintains the lie he’s been telling her for years that he’s graduated and got a good job that he enjoys, and lives a fantasy version of the life he could have had for a little while. He peppers in as much truth as he can, tells her funny stories that aren’t work related about what he and Aaron get up to, and wishes he could go visit her. Holden knows that he can’t leave Chicago unless the Costellos order him to and always just tells his aunt he can’t get away, which at least has the benefit of being true.

Holden isn’t stupid enough to be openly hostile towards the Costellos and he’s too scared of them anyway, at least Marcel and Leon, though it’s more of a general wariness towards the others. The twins, from what he can tell, aren’t really involved in the business and his natural friendliness generally extends towards them. They were born into a family they didn’t choose, after all, and after that whole wedding business he feels bad for them. With other loyalists that are higher up or the Costello cousins he outwardly shows them respect and acts like the good little soldier, following orders. He’s not often rubbing shoulders with them anyway but in the back of his mind he knows it’s best to maintain a good relationship with them in case he ever does decide to dive headlong into this life and try to move up the ladder.

Holden’s isn’t a satisfying life, not by any means, but he still tries to make it a good one.

WRITING SAMPLE

On really bad days, which are thankfully few and far between, Holden indulges in a very detailed fantasy of what his life could have been if Leon hadn’t come for him when he was eighteen. He thinks about the full ride scholarship he’d had, imagines what his classes might have been like, the degree he would’ve gotten, the life that should have been his. The small details often vary but in this alternate reality that exists only in his mind, Holden always has a fulfilling career, a long term partner that challenges and delights him, even sometimes a family. When he finally pulls himself out of it, to the very different and stark reality, he feels hollow. It numbs him so much that on those days he spends the rest of his time doing almost nothing, staring out the window for hours at a time, or wandering aimlessly through the streets. It’s a dark mood mostly because of its absence of feeling, of the way that nothing seems to matter because he’s empty, living a life he wasn’t supposed to lead all because a man he barely knew or remembered had made some stupid mistakes. It can last for nearly a whole day sometimes but there is always something that manages to bring him out of it and it’s usually entirely random. Sometimes it’s because he passes a playground and hears children laughing, or he catches a glimpse of the sky at just the right moment, or Aaron shows up with his easy smile. Then, because of that random thing, Holden finds himself smiling and the world is vibrant with colour again and things are all right, or if not all right, at least acceptable.

Thankfully, today wasn’t a bad day. It was actually a pretty decent day because he hadn’t had to work and the sun was shining. There were new episodes of some of his favourite podcasts and he planned to spend the afternoon enjoying those before going out that night, to Sapphire or somewhere else, and taking advantage of the fact that he was still young, fit, and reasonably attractive. Other people at Sapphire tended to notice that too and even if he didn’t go home with anyone, it was still nice to dance and feel the bass resonating in his chest. Days like these made him feel just a little less tired, made the fact that he would always be in debt and never get away from this whole Costello business seem just a little bit more bearable.

After the podcasts and a quiet afternoon (which he shouldn’t have had, he probably should have worked to fill his quota but his sanity demanded these relatively stress free days once in a while) he headed out to Sapphire as he’d intended. The beat drew him to the dance floor as if there was a string pulling him that way. There was no alcohol necessary because he just liked to dance, liked to feel the crush of humanity around him, the young, vibrant people that all had so many more possibilities for their lives than he did. Holden could forget that for a while, smiling as a cute guy approached and started dancing with him. They stayed together for the length of a song or two before that guy disappeared into the crowd and a pretty woman took his place. Holden’s ears were ringing by the time he got off the dance floor and settled at the bar to finally order a drink and catch his breath. This made him feel alive, even if he wasn’t a college graduate with a very different life, and he would take as much dancing, good music, podcasts, and attractive people as he could to remind himself that there was still a lot to be happy about in this world even if it didn’t always seem like that when he was out doing his job.

Holden may have had a debt he could never pay off weighing on his shoulders but at least today had been a good day. Hopefully, tomorrow would be too.

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘Muninn' Review

"Burn, baby, burn."

American Gods mostly gets its groove back after last week's misfire, Wednesday and Laura go on a literal trip down memory lane, and New Media finally makes an appearance.

Billie is not going to be OK with what happens to the library, however.

Interestingly, after my complaint last week about missing the Bryan Fuller signature soundscapes and dreamscape imagery, we open with exactly that. To be fair, that was probably largely due to avoiding the cost and logistics of actually showing a train derail after hitting a car on the tracks. Disorienting yet suggestive imagery combined with an off putting soundscape tell the story of a train v. car collision just as well and are much, much cheaper.

Whatever the reason, it was nice to have them back. It's interesting however, to note that there were several instances where the stylized camera work made it difficult to follow what was actually happening. For example, it wasn't entirely clear what was going on when Betty the Car reformed herself post accident. Were they reversing the footage of the car being crushed as a way to indicate the fractured way one of the characters present experienced that moment of the accident? Was it a visual metaphor? A dream someone involved in the crash was having? No, apparently the car was literally reforming itself, as it was sitting there good as new a few shots later. Another instance was when the scene transitioned from Shadow looking out of it in the wreckage to Shadow walking through some trees in daylight. All of the visual language of television was indicating that we'd transitioned to a dream Shadow was having, but we weren't, we'd just cut to later in the day when he'd gotten out of the wreckage and that hadn't been communicated to the viewer in a clear way.

Honestly, the whole immediate aftermath of the crash sequence just made you realize how good Fuller is at that sort of thing, because I can't think of a single occasion where he's used that same distorted imagery technique and it resulted in the action being unclear. At least, not in a way that didn't feel one hundred percent deliberate.

So, after last week's absolutely delightful pairing of Sweeney and Laura, this week we get Laura paired with Wednesday which worked much better than I was expecting it to do. It seemed odd at first that Laura would reject Sweeney and choose to go with Wednesday instead, particularly as she knows that Wednesday basically destroyed her entire life just to get her out of the way. She and Sweeney clearly were really connecting last episode, so turning on him for picking up her body parts off the road seemed like a forced way for the show to separate them. Then I thought about it for a minute and remembered that sabotaging her relationships with people that care about her is pretty much Laura's entire character description. Viewed with that in mind, the whole sequence of events makes perfect sense. It would have been nice if the show had made that point a little clearer. I hate to criticize a show for giving the viewers too much credit for figuring things out on their own, but in this case they could have stood to underline her motivations a little more.

Ah, Mad Sweeney. Pablo Schreiber continues to be the show's standout, and is more so every week. Thank god(s) that they kept both him and Laura around past their appearances in the novel and that they continue to give both of them so much to do. Hypocritically, I also feel like they probably should have cut Sweeney out of this episode after they left the funeral home, as all we really got of him were comic relief bits showing his bad luck road trip to New Orleans. But then, if they'd cut him out we'd never have seen the look on his face when he realizes that he's been 'rescued' by a Christian rock band, and nothing is worth that.

The thing that this episode felt like more than anything was a series of videogame side quests. Now, I'm not a gamer myself. I have an inherited tremor which makes trying to use a game controller kind of a pain in the ass. But my understanding of the whole side quest thing is that at various points in the game you have to stop working toward the main goal of the game, whatever that may be, and instead fulfill a little side mission, or earn some money, or solve a puzzle or something. That's what this episode felt like to me.

Taking the side quests in order, Laura and Wednesday head off to find another old god that has allowed himself to be co-opted by the new gods because Wednesday wants to kill him and somehow doing that will 'recharge' the coin in Laura's chest that's keeping her alive and making her superstrong. Again we continue this episode's theme of not explaining things properly, as it's never really made clear why killing Argus will do that, plus we're all pretty sure that Wednesday is lying to Laura the whole time anyway, which it turns out he is but the coin recharge thing still works anyway because reasons. Having accomplished that, Wednesday immediately betrays Laura and leaves her stuck in whatever Argus' realm is supposed to be. It might possibly be a TARDIS, there were some very distinctive roundels in that last hallway.

Great job with the design of Argus, by the way. This is our first god that we've seen who doesn't look like a standard human to us as his standard desktop theme and they did a great job making all of the eyes look real and disturbing. The fiber optic cable bundles that writhed like serpents were also a nice look. I don't recall ever seeing anything quite like it.

Technical Boy and New Media are also on their way to see Argus, because Mr. World wants them to... um... scold him for not updating his Norton Antivirus or something, possibly? Again, it's not entirely clear what they're there to do. You might be seeing a theme here. Similarly vague are New Media's actions with Argus. Was she actually betraying Mr. World to join an alliance with Argus? It would make sense, as he represents watching and she represents being watched, but if that's the case shouldn't Technical Boy have reacted in some way to that development? Instead he just politely stands back and doesn't stop Laura from killing Argus, then he and New Media leave without even mentioning it. And I've been remiss in mentioning it, but Bruce Langley really deserves a lot of praise for his work on this show. It's hard to play a character that irritating in a way that isn't irritating to the people watching at home, and he pulls it off.

Then we have Ifrit and Salim, who head to the corn palace to pick up a magic spear, as you do. Instead of the corn palace, they end up at a strip club called the Porn Palace, whose neon sign has a faulty first 'P,' making it appear to be a 'C' at first glance. That was a cute reveal. There they pick up the spear with no incident from a Lakota trickster god named Iktomi, who was played by the always wonderful Julian Richings, who many will remember as being the definitive Death over on Supernatural. This plotline felt the most perfunctory, and probably could have been replaced with a line of dialog later on down the line, but it's always nice to see Mr. Richings.

Lastly we have Shadow and his new friend Sam Black Crow, who gives him a lift to the storyline's next destination. Again, not a lot happens here and Sam feels very much like a mouthpiece for the writing staff to muse about things philosophically, but it works. Mostly because Devery Jacobs has an indefinable charm about her, but also because it opens up the concept of Two Spirit gender identification, which more people should know more about.

Quotes:

Wednesday: "Ah, Mrs. Moon. Did we sit on a wall?"

Mad Sweeney: "You just gonna lie there, let nature have her way with you?"

Laura: "Are you eating me?"

Sweeney: "Coward? I saved you." Laura: "I’m dead, coward." Sweeney: "Well, you’re welcome for picking up all your gory little f**king pieces up off the road."

Ibis: "The advantage of love at first sight is it doesn’t require a second look."

Technical Boy: "How the f**k is that an upgrade?" This felt like the writers pre-empting complaints about New Media. It probably was intended as such.

Wednesday: "So, you’re working on faith, huh?" Laura: "I definitely wouldn’t use that word."

Sam: "You ever hear of the Crow nation warrior named ‘Finds Them and Kills Them’?" Shadow: "No, but he sounds very efficient."

Laura: "Please. Tell me more about what I want."

Wednesday: "What’s the worst thing you can do to a book?" Laura: "Um.. Ignore it..?"

There are not words for how much I love the Hello Kitty collar on this shirt.

Bits and Pieces:

-- It's awfully convenient that Laura was literally blown to pieces in the train crash and Shadow only got a little bruised. But then, her body is actively decaying, so I supposed she'd be more explodable.

-- I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, but I have to say it again. A lit cigarette will not ignite fuel, no matter how many TV shows and movies show it happening. It will either be smothered by the liquid before it gets anywhere near generating enough heat for combustion, which doesn't happen in the liquid but happens in the off-gasses, or it will smolder until it burns out unless by some miracle the off-gassing reaches LEL (Lowest Explosive Level) before that happens. Please stop.

-- You could, however, use a lit cigarette to start a fire in a library full of parchment. It would take a little effort, but you could do it. But despite having a lit cigarette on hand at the time, Laura takes the easy route and uses a match.

-- It seems that Sweeney's bad luck only hits him when he's not around Laura, which sort of makes sense since he's also near his coin at those times.

-- It's interesting that Sweeney is still heading to New Orleans to see someone who I presume is Baron Samedi, since he was only going there to help Laura and she's not with him anymore. That's sweet. I hope he's the one who rescues her from Argus' domain.

-- Sweeney seemed genuinely hurt when Laura chose to go with Wednesday instead of him. I'm 'shipping those two so hard.

-- Argus isn't in the book, nor are any of the Greek Gods. Neil stated that he decided against featuring any of them since they get used so much more often in popular culture.

-- New Media just isn't working for me yet, although I know it's way too early to judge. I miss Gillian Anderson's celebrity impressions.

-- Laura's dad was a drunk. Now we know why he wasn't at the wedding. No word on if he's dead or alive.

-- I wonder what Wednesday is going to need the seedling for?

I know I'm sounding like I didn't enjoy much about this episode, but that's really not true. There was a lot of good stuff here, and many, many little details that show that someone was really putting their heart into it. I just wish that some of the storytelling had been a little clearer.

Three out of four creepy eyeballs.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water

[rosegardentwilight]

Sweet Dreams Chapter 1

Summary:  The sleep dust affects the miraculous holders differently, and it lulls Ladybug into a deep slumber. Now it's up to Chat to travel inside her dreams and convince her that reality is better than her wildest dreams. Alternate version of Sandboy. 

Pairings: Marichat, Adrienette

Word Count: 3k

A couple things:

1. This is my version of Sandboy and that episode so things are slightly different.

2. Aged up till like 17/18 so this happened later than what it did in the show.

[next]

Marinette glanced up from her sketchpad to see 12:30 am plastered on her alarm clock. The stiff muscles relaxed with a simple stretch, and her hands rubbed her tired eyes. Staying up late wouldn't be so taxing if she didn't also have to balance her responsibilities as Ladybug. There was a fashion design contest next week that she hoped to submit if she ever finished. The only sound that filled the room was the tap of her pencil. Usually, Tikki kept her company and told her stories of past Ladybugs to past the time. To ask her to stay with her would have been selfish, especially if they could contact Nooroo. Marinette could manage to keep herself entertained for the night.

"Sandboy has checked in; now dreams can begin." Her head snapped to the window in time to see a blue figure floating on what looked like a pillow leaving dust in his wake. That was an akumatized victim if she’d ever seen one.

"Tikki, we have to-" She stopped herself short. Master Fu's rule of Kwami’s staying with their owner started to make more sense, but thankfully he only lived a few blocks away. If she ran, she could pick up Tikki and take down Sandboy.

Adrien let out a groan staring at his Literature textbook, how was he supposed to know what the author meant by a color? He shifted his gaze toward his phone debating on how easy it would be to reach out to his study partner. No doubt Marinette would be up. They had gotten in the habit of reaching out to each other if they were bored or needed help with homework. He enjoyed their conversations, the laughter they would share, and even the times where they would sit and comfortably in the silence when no words were necessary. His fingers itched to call, but instead, he turned a page in his textbook.

"Sandboy has checked in; now dreams can begin." The words hung in the air coating his skin with goosebumps. Did Hawkmoth have nothing to do at 12:30 in the morning? His test was still tomorrow even if he had to deal with an Akuma attack. It’s not like he could drop the excuse that he fought crime all night, and he had to excel in school to please his father. The one good thing about the attack was that would see his lady love.

“Plagg, claws out.” Adrien fully expected for his kwami to jump from his resting place on the pillow transforming him, but nothing happened. “Come on Plagg; Ladybug needs us.” Silence echoed through the room for a couple of seconds before Adrien made the short walk over to his bed; the covers got ripped back to reveal a black sock cat instead. This couldn’t be happening. His kwami had either turned into a sock or run away, and his lady and Paris needed him. It wasn’t like he could go without his powers...or could he? The idea sparked, he knew that his father kept a copy of his costume for the music video. If he wore it, he could still help until he found out exactly where Plagg had gone. The idea screamed dangerous, but that didn’t stop Adrien as he started to dig through his closet. I can’t let her down; his mind raced again. As soon as he found his fake suit, he zipped it on with ease. His unsteady hands cupped the edges of his mask. The sound of thunder rolled answering the lightning dancing across the sky.

You could die.

The thought stopped him in his tracks, and his gaze landed on a nearby mirror. No one would probably tell the difference at first glance until his powers were needed. He would deal with that hurdle when it arose, in the meantime, Adrien clung to the hope that his Kwami would magically turn up. Until then he would be trapped in a tailspin of fear.

Are you willing to die for her?

An image of Ladybug laughing flashed in his mind as she cooed her nickname for him. He had professed his love for his partner on several occasions, put his neck on the line, but this was different. Adrien, not Chat Noir would feel every punch, blow and hard landings that would befall him. If he did die, who knew how it would affect his father, Nathalie, his friends, Marinette. At the thought of her his stomach churned, she cared so deeply for her friends, if he could watch her at his funeral, it would break his heart. But regardless, he had to go; Ladybug needed him. It was the reason cats had nine lives, right? He could only hope that he wouldn’t lose one of his tonight.

The rain started to come down, but it pushed Adrien closer to the commotion. He decided at that moment he would never take rooftop jumping for granted again. It made things so much simpler. Then he saw her, his lady in red already in action fighting Sandboy. What she failed to see was that he was about to strike.

“Ladybug look out!” Everything slow as he felt the breath ripped from his lungs. She turned towards him instead of the danger and the dust engulfed her. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. When the rain drove away from the remainder, Adrien felt his heart drop. His lady laid motionless on a cloud that Sandboy created.

“She’s mine,” he growled lowly.

“Over my dead body,” Adrien bit back.

“That can be arranged,” his evil grin spread across his lips.

Adrien pulled out his fake staff hoping that it would aid him somehow. His fingers dipped into a secret button in the paw, and the staff extended, not enough for him to reach her, but it made him question what else it could do. He spun it in his hand before sinking into a defensive position. The only way that Sandboy would get out of here with Ladybug had to do with his body in a body bag. At that point, Hawkmoth would have what he needed, and Paris would have a whole new set of trouble.

He quickly dodged an attack and narrowed his focus, unless his staff could extend a couple of stories, he would be at a disadvantage.

“Why pull out that copycat when you can have the original?” Just like that, his heart swelled and jumped inside his chest.

“Plagg, I’ve never been happier to see you!” Adrien exclaimed not wanting to admit for a hot second that he thought his kwami had morphed into a sock. The idea seemed silly now.

“You owe me so much camembert for this.”

“Plagg, claws out!” There was no greater feeling than his real suit covering him from head to toe. He felt power and adrenaline coursing through him; now he had a fighting chance. He used his staff and vaulted up to the roof to provide an equal battlefield. He threw himself towards Sandman as he tried to tackle him. When he missed, he used his strength and his staff to catapult him back towards him. He knocked him onto the rooftop and only managed to get one punch in before he got blasted with sand like substance. Thankfully he flipped back and landed on his feet.

“Cataclysm!” His hand engulfed in the dark energy, and he eyed his pillow, that must be where the Akuma hid. If he stopped Sandboy, Ladybug might wake up and make everything right. He took a running leap off the building but as he reached out to touch the pillow with his active hand but suddenly was blasted off course. Unfortunately, it hit hand wasting his power. Sandman’s focus broke and as a result of the cloud that his partner lay on disintegrated.

“Ladybug!” He had to abort his mission. Taking down Sandboy would do nothing if Ladybug died from the impact. Adrien was suddenly grateful that Plagg showed up when he did. His staff extended upward till he met her in mid-air. He wrapped an arm around her torso and skillfully landed without any damage. She was alive that’s all that mattered, although he would be lying if he said the fact that she hadn’t woken up didn’t concern him.

“Give her back,” he snarled.

“Never,” In a snap movement, Chat positioned his partner; cradling her in his arm and bolted down an alley where he couldn’t follow him. His ring beeped, but he couldn’t worry about that now, the number one focus should be getting his lady to safety then waking her up. What did that dust do to her? He was in over his head. Usually, when these occasions occurred, he would turn to the sleeping girl in his arms.

Master Fu! The thought hit him like a brick wall. How could he not think about him sooner? After all, he was who Ladybug turned to when she needed help. The shop wasn’t too much farther; they could make it without detection. All the meantime as he ran as fast as he could he prayed that he wouldn’t be too late.

“What happened?” Master Fu cleared off the table for Chat to lay down his lady.

“Sandboy got her...and she hasn’t woken up. If I didn’t get her out of there, Hawkmoth would have her miraculous. I didn’t know where else to go.” Master Fu circled Ladybug which didn’t ease his anxiety. Ladybug needed to be awake before they could purify the Akuma, and the longer she slept, the more powerful he became, almost as if the action drained the life out of her body.

“I have just the thing,” the guardian slipped into the other room giving the two a small window of privacy.

“Fight this LB; you’re the strongest person I know.” He hesitantly reaches out and stroked her cheek the cool flesh stirred doubt inside him. She was fading, and fast.

“Drink this,” Master Fu returned carrying a purple liquid in a cup. The aroma wafted in his direction made him want to gag. If this was how it smelled, he could only imagine the taste. “We don’t have time. I can’t bring her out of her self-conscious state; something is keeping her there. I can, however, link your dreams so you can go in and convince her to wake up.” Adrien opened his mouth to argue the impossibility of that, but since he became a superhero, there wasn’t much he didn’t believe was possible. “Won’t I know her identity?” If he went through this, he would have access to her mind and thoughts without her permission.

“We will deal with that after you wake her. There is no other way, and Paris needs her.” Adrien glanced at her sleeping form for a couple of seconds before grabbing the liquid and chugging it down. His world started spinning and instantly felt the need to lay down. Master Fu helped him on the table, and he grasped Ladybug’s hand lightly.

“I’m coming, my lady,” he uttered before sleep claimed him.

Paris. At least Ladybug dreamed of somewhere familiar. Chat didn’t know what he would do if he landed in a country he had never been to, now he needed to find her. There were so many places for her to be, the only thing that aided him was the knowledge of the city.

He watched a Parisian walk cross the sidewalk, “Excuse me,” he called out hoping to get some assistance. But the mother and daughter pair continued as if he was invisible. Chat’s smile faltered, maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as he thought. Ladybug could be anywhere. He tried to gain the attention of three more sets of people but failed at every attempt. They seemed more like mindless shells walking the streets of Paris. Chat wondered if he stumbled more into a nightmare; he’d seen plenty of movies where the zombies suddenly overtook the city. Hopefully, that wasn’t the case; there was no way of knowing if his powers worked in here let alone what damage it could cause to Ladybug’s mind. The wind rustled a newspaper until it caught at his feet. The second he bent to pick it up the headline caught his attention.

Agreste Wedding Upon Us

His heart skipped. Ladybug dreamed that she married him? Whether she knew his secret or not, the thought invigorated him. She would pick plain old boring Adrien (compared to his cooler self) and love him enough to spend her life with him. It wasn’t until he unfolded the newspaper that he found his heart stop then shatter inside his chest.

Ladybug didn’t want to marry him; she dreamt that he married Marinette.

She must have seen them together and got the wrong idea; not that there was anything wrong with Marinette. She was talented, kind and beautiful; he would be lucky if she had her sights set on him. But with his rigid lifestyle, Adrien doubted that he would draw any romantic attention from anyone at school.

This still gave him a starting point, he didn’t know where Ladybug was, but he knew that he could trust Marinette to help him find her. If she was indeed marrying his civilian self (the thought stirred something inside him), then his best chance of finding her was the Agreste mansion. He was surprisingly pleased when his staff could extend giving the option to jump the rooftops.

His home was right where he remembered it, with a couple of modifications to it which included a gazebo on the front corner of the home. When he crept closer, his ears picked up some of the conversation.

“I love you.” Marinette’s confession stained his cheeks even though she didn’t speak directly to him. His mind placed the words on repeat, and each time it played his heart swelled in his chest.

Focus Adrien.

Marinette, if she could talk, then she would be useful. He could use someone in his corner, and if Ladybug wasn’t around, Marinette was his second choice.

“Luckily for you, I could never forget.” The words caused him to pause. The voice sounded exactly like him, not in dialect but the tone. If he was there then who was that? The curiosity drew him closer, this could only be described as dangerous, but Chat couldn’t bring himself to care. He tripped when he watched whoever was impersonating him steal a kiss from Marinette. His blood boiled, she must not know that she was being tricked. Suddenly he felt her eyes on him, and all he could do was freeze. The second she removed her gaze he dropped to the ground concealing his location once more. One of the first things on his agenda, get Marinette away from that creep and this place then formulate a plan to rescue Ladybug; where ever she was.

“I love you,” her smile widened as Adrien leaned in and stole another kiss. She had been waiting her whole life for a marriage with the man in front of her. She belonged to him, as he did to her. Nothing would get in the way of this.

“I love you too,” his fingers slid down to join with her hands. “And to think two days from now you’ll be Mrs. Agreste, and we’ll never be apart. You can stay here, with me, forever. Would you like that?”

“More than anything in the world,” she replied tenderly. “I can’t wait for my family, Alya, Nino to come and see this.” She dropped his hands to travel to the edge of the gazebo’s railings. “I knew from the moment we shared in the rain that it would be you....” Her words and her brow began to furrow.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t remember how you proposed,” she confessed softly. Marinette turned back to the blonde who closed the gap and rested his forehead on hers.

“Luckily for you, I could never forget.” Their eyes locked again, and Marinette resisted the urge to kiss him again in favor of gaining her answer. “It was after one of my fashion shows, I stopped us on the red carpet and dropped to my knee. I said that there wasn’t anyone else I could imagine my life with....do you remember?” Her memory kicked into overdrive. She vaguely remembered, but it felt like that was a dream rather than reality. What person would forget their proposal? Especially from the man, she was madly in love with. She should be overjoyed, but a gut in her stomach screamed that something was off.

“Yes,” If nothing else she wanted the off feeling to go away, Adrien loved her. “How silly of me to forget.” Her eyes wandered off him when she swore she saw something from the corner of her eye. “Chat Noir?” The words are barely audible. She could have sworn that she saw her partner, but it didn’t make sense why he was there. An Akuma attack? Leave it to Hawkmoth to cause chaos so close to the wedding. Her blue eyes searched for another glimpse again but came up empty. She must have seen things; the wedding planning had been stressful after all. Adrien took the couple steps before guiding her lips to meet his. Warmth enveloped her being, and all other thoughts drifted away; when they parted her eyes only opened half-mast.

“I love you,” she repeated once more lost in bliss. Adrien flashed one of his boyishly handsome grins.

“In two short days, you’ll be all mine. Why don’t you go inside and freshen up? I’m going to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow.” As soon as she slipped into the home, his eyes scanned the surrounding area for the trespassing superhero. Chat Noir joining their dream was unexpected, but he would be taken care of in no time. It was torture enough to disguised himself as this Adrien guy to gain her attention. After tomorrow it wouldn’t matter, she would stay with him. No one would take his love away from him, not in his world.

[kazmorosov]

|| bill skarsgard, cismale, he/him || ( kazaran morozov ) is a ( 25 ) year old ( senior ) at rockport university studying ( business + literature [TA] ). people say they are ( ardent ) but also ( stoic ), and remind others of ( coffee rings on crisp paper, losing their sense of reality, hushed arguments ). bet they sure didn’t expect anyone to know about ( his plagiarizing to succeed and honor his terminally ill mother he killed ) but someone does, and ( kaz ) better cooperate if they plan to keep their lives. || james, 20, EST ||

hi i’m so sorry this took a long ass time to put out but im herE lmao here’s my baby

tw; murder, addiction/substance abuse, abuse mentions,

gen. info:

full name: kazaran nikolai morozov

nickname(s): kaz

b.o.d.: december 14th

label(s): the escapist, the academic, the fallen, the philanthropist, etc.

height: 6′4″

hometown: bangor, maine

sexuality: str...aigh...t ? question mark ?

biography:

born to a self-made businessman and a philanthropist with a penchant for odd names

his father’s a russian who moved to the u.s. in his childhood who still has many...unique, ties, to the country though none of those are important

his business involves military equipment and he works closely with the u.s.’s military (ahsdfghk conspiracies ?)

and his mother was a plain jane (literally--her name was jane) from a family of politicians; his uncle’s a senator

kaz is the eldest out of seven children (christ) and yes all of their names are just as excessive as ‘kazaran’

grew up with the pressure of the ‘golden child’ title; kaz had to be perfect at everything he did, from his grades to after school activities to manners and presentment

was always expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and like ?? partner with him once he was old enough? 

which is fine and grand except kaz had never given a shit about his father’s business; his real passion had always been for the arts, particularly literature and even more particularly poetry

he found that the arts was probably the most...free, kaz could get, without actively rebelling against his father

b/c god . . . his father is a force to be reckon’d w/

very strict man, likes to be in control constantly, not the...best, emotionally towards his family. or verbally. sometimes physically. y’know.

this really only...amplified, kaz’s perfectionist attitude. it was mostly out of fear of repercussions than much else

kaz has, however, always loved his mother.

jane is the opposite of their father, a woman who loves the world and everybody in it with this...heart of gold, and best intentions in mind

the only problem was that she was horribly submissive to her husband

aNYWAys okay, kaz grew up fairly unscathed but only because he was so...conformist, y’know?

loves his siblings and would die for them, but god--he’d have to side with his father just for his own sake, which definitely strained his relationship with a few of ‘em

AnywAys again; was pretty well-known in his high school

for being like, intimidatingly tall but also was fairly popular? star of the track team, student gov president, in DECA or whatever.

went to rockport just because it wasn’t...too far from home, and partially because he wasn’t allowed to go out of state.

and he was fine w/ it, man

his mother got sick his freshmen year, however, it wasn’t...horrible, at first

it was concerning, yes, but the doctors said she was going to be fine

jane was pretty...adamant about not letting her condition effect her children, too, so she acted as if she was fine

kaz, being a dumbass, was like alright fine this is fine and went on w/ life

sophomore year he met his soulmate; a future veterinarian named freya

n i mean he just...fell for her immediately, y’know ?? n ig she felt similar enough b/c they started dating immediately

it was really...good, for him; especially as his mother’s heath had suddenly taken a turn for the worst

kaz wound up taking two years off of school to care for his mother; his father was gone more often than not, and he felt as if his younger siblings shouldn’t have been burdened with the task

and well...jane never got better, only worse

it was at the point where the doctors had sent her home, knowing that nothing else could be done--she was confined to her bed, and miserable. in pain, really.

one...day, as kaz was tending to jane, she broke down. i mean, just, a full on emotional breakdown, a complete episode, begging him to just...put her out of her misery.

and, god, kaz had never disobeyed his parents (minus his studies in literature but y’knw what. . . not important rn) but that was so ?? morally ?? conflicting ??

they cried together for a long time until y’know. deciding what to do.

as soon as she had fallen asleep, kaz put a pillow to her.

he was never...caught, tho that may have involved some bribery on his father’s end who knows

the day after the funeral, kaz proposed to freya and she agreed.

and it really should’ve been fine if kaz’s mental health didn’t rapidly deteriorate like...he was not handling it well

freya helped, yes, but she could only do so much

turned to drugs, particularly painkillers after a minor car crash and just...a mix of shit, y’know.

probably stole drugs from his fiance’s job tbh

got on antidepressants, which only worsened his shit b/c he started ?? occasionally hallucinating his dead mother ??

his creativity had also just. shat on itself. he couldn’t write, no matter how hard he tried

his mother had really wanted him to pursue his dreams, and god, he was too far in his degree to drop literature

so he started....plagiarizing, his works, b/c kaz is a whole ass idiot. but he hasn’t gotten caught yet, somehow

his fiance thought the cruise program would be a great way for kaz to possibly, recover, since she could see how bad he was doing so he weNt because of her

also yes at this point he had gone back to school; had even gotten a TA position because he used to be...one of the best in his class, y’know ?

anyways yeah im paraphrasing this all horribly but idc u get the point

drug addict, mercy-killed his mother, loves his fiancee, tortured soul, y’know all that

personality:

likes to pretend he’s much calmer than he actually is, y’know

likes the whole aloof and distant thing b/c it’s already so easy for him to be intimidating

he can b a lil snarky, a lil sarcastic, but he’s overall always been really well meaning?

can be extremely passionate about his hobbies, or his future wife, or really...anything he mildly likes, tho, y’know?

gOD is he always feeling so guilty, tho, it really weighs him down

but he’s also like...usually high, sometimes u can tell but more often than not u can’t ??

because he’s obsessed w/ seeming okay. and doing okay. and being that average dude next door, y’know?

he wants to be normal, to feel normal, but he’s got this wave of emotions crashing into his chest and he’s in sm pa i n constantly

like he’s got major anxiety but u won’t know unless u catch him in midst of a panic attack and like he’d rather die than somebody see that

probably journals as a way 2 like...cope, and keep himself calm

uuhh he’s like lowkey a huge softie. will cry at sad movies and won’t care tht he’s crying about it

takes teaching rly seriously but he’s also always concerned somebody’s going to figure out that he’s just. a fraud.

smart, with dumbass energy

like he just...sometimes doesn’t think ??

loves his fiancee a whole bunch but this distance thing is...sm harder than he thought it would be. she’s his anchor and he’s just ?? floating aimlessly now

but yeah he’s always acting like he’s okay, like he’s gucci.

uuuhhhh god i dont know what else to say tbh ?? he’s just. a mans. being a mans.

probably doesn’t sleep super often b/c not only is he a TA, but he’s got some mf nightmares man

wanted connections:

got a girl best friend but he needs a...dude best friend?

other friends in general, honestly

professors he’s got some sort of relationship with b/c he’s working for penelope rn

a flirty unrequited thing, where they keep tryn but kaz is like nO i am TAKEN look at this photo of my beAUTIFUL FIANCEE

ppl pissed at him for the grades he’s given them LMAO

people...concerned? for him?

bad mf influences who are like LET’S GET FUCKED UP

a dealer y’know. somebody on the ship who can give him what he wants which is a Lot

uuh let’s brainstorm together, bb

like srsly just. gimme a like, i’ll pop into ur dms w/ my messy tall son and be like let’s fuck him up !

[gudlyf]

Scars [Short Story]

UPDATE: Listen to this being read over at @thenosleeppodcast!

Parts of this story are true, happening to me in my younger years. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which parts those are.

I don’t go into the woods. There are things in there, things that drive my anxiety through the roof at the mere thought of coming close to them. A casual hiker may not notice them, lying low and deep within the surrounding foliage. On a windless day they remain perfectly still. They don’t have to make a move. You’ll come close soon enough, and then they’re all over you. You won’t know of their effect until you’re tucked away in your tent. Or in your bed at home. The next day — oh boy, the next day. Then! Then you will know. And then it’s too late.

But I see them. I can’t not see them, because they are fucking everywhere. When walking down the street. At the playground. Even in my goddamn back yard. Jesus, may palms are itchy just thinking about them.

They have become the most frightening living things to me in my little corner of world. I cannot believe that God had chosen to create these things, for poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac are clearly the work of the devil himself.

My brother grew up allergic to peanuts. For my sister, it was cashews and pistachios. This was the deadly kind of allergic, where not the slightest whiff of these nuts could pass by their nostrils without cause to whip out the epinephrine shot. Unlike my siblings, I was lucky enough not to have food allergies of any kind. However, growing up in a household without peanut butter in days before alternatives like almond butter were commonplace meant I had no concept of a good ol’ PB&J. Jam and butter? Not even close.

Though I was clear of food allergies, there was something I did have to stay very far away from: poison ivy. Poison oak. Poison sumac. The poison plant trifecta, I call them.

This was not your run-of-the-mill allergy, mind you. While 85 percent of the population is allergic to these plants, most would need to come in physical contact with the leaves to have some sort of reaction. This was not the case for me. A slight breeze off a plant several feet away would carry enough urushiol oil through the air to latch itself onto me. Then came the warm redness later that night. Sometime the next day came the itching. My god, the itching. All from walking too close to the side of the road on a windy day.

One of the worst episodes I’d experienced came when I was a boy, while helping my father stack a cord of apple wood he’d cut down that summer. Apple wood, as I was told back then, is prime stuff to stoke the stove with in winter. I suppose it must have a sweet, burning applesauce smell to it, but what do I know? And what did I care? I was getting paid ten dollars! This was going toward the gaming console I’d been dreaming of for months: the Atari 2600.

Under a blistering sun my brother and I hauled split wood onto the bed of my old man’s truck, working well past sunset. Sweaty and sunburned, we left not knowing of the full conditions we’d been working in. The logs had covered the immense patches of glistening poison oak that’d I’d otherwise have steered well clear of, had we seen them in the light of day.

The next morning, I could not open my eyes. My face was swollen to the point of being unrecognizable. My hands were bloated sausages, covered in liquid-filled skin bubbles. My inflamed feet wouldn’t fit in my shoes. My hearing was partially affected because they’d been so engorged with blisters. It even got inside my nose and on my scalp.

I must have gone through fifty bottles of Calamine lotion that summer, that awful smelling pink shit you coat on your rash in hopes of relief from the incessant itching. It would do the trick for about an hour if I was lucky, and then I’d be painting more of it on, again and again. I looked like the Elephant Man covered in concealer.

I’d resorted to drastic measures at times to alleviate the swelling. I would take a sewing needle, for instance, dip it in rubbing alcohol, then lance the pustules between my fingers in order to drain them enough that I could bend my fingers to hold onto a fork or even wipe my own ass. And yes, the poison oak got there too. But that’s not the worst spot to get the itch.

The soles of your feet; the palms of your hands. Nothing worst than that. Not even your balls. Calamine lotion doesn’t work on soles and palms, and the itch is unending and unbearable. Placing my palms on something hot, however — say, a leather seat that’d been sitting in the sun all day — somehow provided some brief reprieve. The searing pain was much more tolerable than the itching; in comparison, it was ecstasy.

Overall, not a good summer. But I did get my Atari.

Now, Ted. Ted was a different story.

There were a few times I’d gotten bad cases of the poison ivy plague during the school year. Maybe not so bad as that summer of blisters, but once bad enough that I was kept out of sixth grade for several days. My absence did not go unnoticed by Ted.

“You were out for three days because of … poison ivy?” he said, the two of us standing at the edge of the schoolyard during recess. “Just because you got a rash?”

“Just a rash? Haven’t you ever had bad poison ivy before?”

Ted shook his head. “Don’t think I ever got it at all.”

My jaw dropped. “Never? Not even a little?”

“Nope.”

“Well count yourself lucky. It sucks.” As I said this, Ted wore that faraway look of his that I’d seen too often. The kind that says there’s an idea brewing within that thick skull that’s boiling into action before it’s had a healthy seasoning of reason. A true recipe for disaster that I’d seen all too often.

“What’s it look like?” he asked, his eyes scanning the ground amongst the dense thicket of brush nearby.

It didn’t take me long to point them out. I’d been eyeing them since we got there, and I’d known they were there since the school year had started. And I presently stood as close as I was ever willing to get. I pointed to the glistening patch of leaves beneath a crop of trees.

“There’s a bunch of it right there,” I said. “Those green leaves with red. A ton of it.”

Ted didn’t hesitate. He was halfway there before I could raise a stink.

“These right here?” he called out. His pointing finger was so damned close to the poisonous bouquet. My mind’s eye saw the slick oils drifting through the air and onto his willing, exposed skin, and I shivered at the thought of being remotely as close to it as Ted was.

I nodded. “I’d get away from it if I were you.”

Except he wasn’t me. The ridiculous idea of his had already bloomed in his mind and he was dead set on seeing it through. He stepped directly into the patch. He picked one of the leaves. Then another. Then a whole branch. I couldn’t breathe. My own skin began to feel hot at the mere thought of being in Ted’s shoes, shoes that might not fit his feet anymore.

My god, his hands, I thought. His fingers. His palms! Dear lord, his palms!

It was like watching someone bite into the hottest pepper in the world with idiotic, wild abandon. But this was worse. Much worse. The mouth-burn of a Carolina Reaper may feel like the fires of a thousand suns, but that’s an agony that’s short-lived. Ted was in for days of hell on Earth.

“Wh- what are you doing?” I breathed. It was then that I noticed I’d been subconsciously distancing myself from the whole scene, as though Ted’s disturbance of the plants would affect me where I stood. In fact, even at ten feet away — for me — that wasn’t far from possibility.

“We got that math test tomorrow,” he said. “With Ms. Sullivan?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Well I’m not going to be here to take it.”

He took the words right out of my mouth.

Ted bunched the leaves in his hand, as though what he held were harmless bits of greenery and not the evil carriers of Hell oil they were. I knew it was too late for him then. Unless he immediately scrubbed his hands with rubbing alcohol, he was in for it. And I, for one, was going nowhere near him at that point. Best friend be damned; as far as I was concerned, he was a walking plague.

But he didn’t stop there.

I didn’t protest. I couldn’t protest. And if I could have, it wouldn’t have mattered. At best, my words would have been unintelligible gasps and stammers. Anything worth hearing would’ve been ignored. All of his chips were pushed to center now; he was all-in.

As one might clean themselves with a bar of soap, Ted began to rub the poison ivy all over his body. Arms. Legs. Face. For good measure, he replenished his supply of leaves when he’d rubbed some down to bits of pulp, then did the entire exercise again. Just when I thought he was through, he did the unthinkable.

He turned from the rest of the schoolyard as though he were about to sneak a piss, pulled the front of his jeans out with his empty hand, and jammed the other hand in. And then his hand came out empty.

It was suicide. I was witnessing my best friend’s self-immolation and couldn’t move a finger to stop him, for in doing so I’d surely be dooming myself.

“Think that’ll be enough to get me out of school tomorrow?” he asked.

“What did you do? That’s enough to keep you out for, like, a month!”

He pumped his fist. “Yes! Even better!”

My eyes didn’t leave Ted for the rest of the day. Where he sat. What he touched. What urinal he used. Short of wearing gloves and a mask, I behaved like some crazed germaphobe. And as far as I could tell, Ted wore that bunch of leaves down his pants all damned day. Pants that I hoped he’d set fire to come the next day, along with the rest of his clothes, once he realized the enormous mistake he’d made.

Side note about fire and poison ivy. Fire, as it turns out, is not an affective eliminator of urushiol oil. I learned this the hard way, of course, during my junior year of high school, along with a sizable portion of my fellow classmates. One of the rare times I dared enter the woods was for high school parties. It was isolated, difficult for the cops to get to, and had an unlimited selection of places to hide in and make out. When no parent-free houses were available, it served its purpose well enough.

Besides an abundance of cheap alcoholic beverages, a natural ingredient of a party in the woods is a bonfire. And a natural ingredient of a bonfire is wood. Or, at least, a combustible material of any kind. Sometimes a tire; sometimes the back seat ripped out of someone’s shit box. And sometimes random brush. In this case, on this particular evening, brush entangled with poison oak. And a byproduct of a bonfire? Smoke, and lots of it. It gets in your lungs, your hair, your clothes. And you bring that all home with you. If you’re not completely shitfaced before attempting to crawl into bed, maybe you take a shower, therefore not waking up the next afternoon smelling like a campfire. And, if you were somehow thorough enough, perhaps you don’t succumb to the full onset of the poison oak you’d been hanging around in all night.

Like me, everyone save for a few, spent at least the following few days in hell. From that point, not only would I stay far from the woods, I’d go nowhere near open fire pits save for ones fueled by gas. Until then, I’d never known what it was like to get poison oak in your mouth. Or on your dick; everyone’s got to take a leak at a raging beer party at some point.

And here Ted was about to get the full experience, his first time.

When I finally saw Ted exit the school bus that afternoon, I was sure it was the last I’d be seeing him for a good long time. I wouldn’t be paying him a visit any time soon, that was certain. Except I didn’t have to.

The next day, Ted walked onto the morning bus like nothing had happened. In fact, nothing had happened. Ted, as it turned out, was among that meager 15 percent of lucky sons of bitches on the planet who’s not affected by urushiol oil at all. No blisters. No rash. Not the slightest itch. And while I was pretty sure he’d taken a shower that morning, I still kept my distance from Ted for that day and the next. I did not want to take the chance. And though Ted felt he was in Hell for having to take Ms. Sullivan’s math test that day — a math test he clearly had no intention of preparing for the night before — in my eyes, he surely did not understand the massive bullet he’d dodged.

Some have said that it’s possible to outgrow an allergy to poisonous plants. There are others, still, who claim that actually eating one can trigger an immunity. After thirty-some-odd years of systematically weaving and dodging my way around any suspect crops of leaves — whether consciously or not — I never had the intention of finding out, most especially not by making a goddamn salad out of it. I’d grown accustomed to avoiding the shit. My quality of life hadn’t suffered at all because I didn’t go for deep-woods hikes or take up camping or trail jogging. The memory of my childhood suffering had scarred me for life; I was not keen on ever revisiting it, and certainly not on purpose.

Ted and I kept very close for a long time. Our wives hung out together. Our kids went to the same school. We attended the same church. We even started a business together, a pizza and sub shop — Giuseppe's — that somehow resisted being muscled out by booming franchises. Ted was the real talent behind the place, having developed most of the recipes himself. His pizza sauce was unmatched, which largely accounted for the loyal customer base. I was the business side of things because, if you haven’t caught on, Ted was no good with numbers; he couldn’t count out proper change for a dollar. And I was lucky if I could make a cheese sandwich.

We were called upon to cater the annual Saint Ambrose church picnic. This was last summer, with days hotter than the deepest ring of Hades, and the comet making its lasting streak across a bit of the the night sky. Pot luck alone was insufficient for the large gathering, and so Giuseppe's filled in. On the house, of course. It was our parish, after all.

Naturally, both of our families were there as well. My wife and son, Ella and Peter. Ted’s wife, Kim, and his daughter, Sophie. Truth be told, it was as boring an affair as always. The adults got by with chit-chat and gossip. The kids had to get creative to remain entertained: ball, Frisbee, hide-and-seek — that sort of thing.

Saint Ambrose owned a large empty parcel of land adjacent to the church. Most of it had been cleared years ago to make way for an expansion of the cemetery, the old one having been filled to capacity; the old mausoleum nearly there as well. No vacancy, I guess you could say. The dead check in but they don’t check out. Nothing unnatural about it, really. Just old people getting older and drunk people getting dumber, for the most part. It’s so old that some early Scottish immigrants had their names chiseled on stone there; it was bound to fill up at some point.

Sometime just before noon, Sophie came running over to us from the clearing. She wasn’t in tears, but she was not happy.

“Daddy! Peter lost the Frisbee on us and now it’s not fair because he said he won’t help me find it!”

I hung my head, exasperated. I cupped my hands to my mouth and called out. “Peter!”

Ted clapped a hand on my back. “Hey. Don’t get too mad at the kid. It’s just a Frisbee.”

I shook my head. “It’s the last opening day Frisbee I have. Remember those? With the corny phrase you put on it? Besides, that’s not the point. And I can only take his ten-year-old attitude so much, y’know?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t know anything about that!” Ted laughed. “Let’s go find your kid and this damned Frisbee. And, hey, that phrase isn’t corny, it’s poetry!”

I had a laugh at that as we dropped what we were doing and headed in the direction Sophie had come. As we crested the small hill, I caught sight of Peter in the distance, standing just outside the edge of the woods. His back was to us as he stared into the trees beyond.

“PETER!”

“Hey hey hey,” Ted said with a gentle tone of reassurance. “He’s right there. Take the anger down a notch.”

I wasn’t angry. In fact, so far my son was doing just what I hoped he’d do. Just what I’d taught him to do. Or, rather, not do.

If you don’t know exactly what’s ahead of you in the woods, you do not enter.

And when did anyone ever know exactly what was in the woods, even ten feet in front of them? That’s right: not ever. Could be ticks or snakes or a covered-up hole atop a vast underground chasm. Or, need I say it, poison ivy.

Peter turned his head to us at the sound of my voice. His expression was of concern, though from fear of getting in trouble or of what he’d been looking at, I couldn’t say.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Ted said. “Go on in and get the Frisbee. It’s not gonna bite ya.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s afraid of,” I said. Ted looked to me with a bit of a puzzled expression. I returned it with a raised eyebrow; he knew what I was getting at.

Ted shook his head and sighed. “Oh for crying out loud. Where is it, Pete?”

Without turning back around, my son pointed directly into the woods.

“In there. Way in there. I can’t even see it, but I can see tons of-”

“Tons of poison ivy,” Ted interrupted. “Right. Right. Your dad’s got you all worked up about it because he blows up all like a balloon near it. Am I right?”

“Come on, Ted,” I groaned.

“Kinda,” said Peter. “Only the stuff in there is, like, a lot bigger. And there’s something else in there too.”

“Yeah, the Frisbee!” Sophie called out.

Peter ignored her remark. “There’s a … tomb or something in there. Next to the huge leaves. Dad … it …”

Ted chuckled, though his tone was touched with concern.

“A tomb, Pete?” he said. “What are we, in Egypt?”

Ted sometimes had a fine way of making it difficult to discern the adult from the child in his conversations.

“I dunno what you call it.” Peter said. “It’s, like, one of those things in graveyards with a big door on it. Dad, there’s sounds coming from inside it. Like, voices.”

“What, like a crypt?” said Ted. “What the heck is one of them doing in the woods? They ain’t started putting graves out here yet. Look at it. It’s been one big, open field for years. Must be something else. Don’t let some pile of logs or whatever scare ya. Think the ol’ Crypt Keeper’s calling you to come visit? Probably left over from when they started clearing it.”

Sudden realization seemed to strike Peter then, in why he was standing with us, explaining himself. And so he began to ramble on in one breathless plea.

“Don’t let them make me go in there, Dad. That thing scares me and then there’s those huge shiny leaves and you told me to stay away from those and never touch them so I shouldn’t go in there! And there’s voices in there! Really! Please!”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy,” I said. “No one’s going in there.”

“Hell with that,” said Ted. “I’m goin’ in. Poison ivy never got me before. Won’t get me now. And the Crypt Keeper’s a little shit.”

“And you,” Ted continued, pointing an accusatory finger at my son. “You should take more responsibility next time. If getting a little itch is what it’ll take for you to do the right thing, then so be it.”

Before I could argue with Ted’s attempt at re-parenting Peter, he approached the edge of the forest and parted a mass of low-hanging pine branches, then stopped.

“Ho-ly …”

“See!” Peter said. “You see the tomb in there, right?”

Ted took a moment to answer as he appeared to survey what he was looking at.

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “It’s no pile of logs. Looks like an old crypt, alright. Pretty old one by the looks of it.” He turned to look at us. “This was an old cemetery before?”

I shrugged. “Not that I’ve ever heard.”

“I mean there’s no headstones, no other graves. Just … that. In there.”

“Well that’s not creepy at all,” I said. “Just leave it, Ted. Seriously.”

“Damn. Kiddo’s right about the leaves too. Like the size of elephant ears.”

“Oh, come on,” I said in disbelief. “Then those can’t be-”

“What did you say?” Ted interrupted.

“I was saying that those can’t be poison ivy. They aren’t that large.”

“No no,” Ted said, holding up a hand behind him. “It wasn’t you. Shh! You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Besides the distant commotion from the party we’d left behind, there was nothing. I looked at the kids who were both slowly backing away, shaking their heads in the negative.

“Ah! There!” Ted shouted, now uninterested in whatever noises he’d been hearing. “There you are, you blue bastard. Frisbee’s right there.”

He parted the branches further apart and stepped deeper into the woods, disappearing from sight. The sound of breaking branches followed as he marched inward, spattered with moments of colorful cursing. After about ten seconds, there was nothing.

“Daddy?” called Sophie. “Did you get it?”

A few seconds more. Nothing.

“Hey Ted!” I called out. I silently prayed that I wasn’t going to have to enter those woods to look for my friend, but the crack in my voice said it all.

Branches cracking again. Ted was running now, running for the clearing. He burst through the overhanging branches where he’d entered, panting, red-faced, and sweating profusely, no Frisbee in sight.

“Daddy! Where’s the Frisbee?”

Ted was doubled over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. Sweat soaked his shirt. His face. His hair. Even his shorts. Ted’s not exactly in shape, but he’s not morbidly obese either. A ten second run in dark woods shouldn’t have exerted him like a marathon.

“No Frisbee, sweetie,” Ted said between wheezing gasps for air. “Like your uncle said, we’ll buy a new one.”

“She began to protest. “But it-”

“Sophie, no. Just … go play with something else. We’re gonna go home soon anyway.”

She crossed her arms and stormed off.

“Uncle Teddy,” Peter said. “What happened in there? Did you hear the noises from the tomb?”

Ted stood upright and gave me a look that said he wasn’t up to talking to a kid about this.

“Pete, go catch up with Sophie. We’ll probably be leaving soon too.”

Peter did as I asked and disappeared over the hill.

“Alright, so what did happen in there? You look like you just came out of a rainforest.”

“Man, that is the spookiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What, the crypt?”

“Well yeah the crypt, but not just that. The kid wasn’t kidding about the sounds from the crypt in there. Like … I don’t know. Voices. And, damn, those leaves. All over the thing. They … you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Alright, you’ve succeeded in freaking me out. They what? Talked to you?”

“Moved. Not from wind or anything like that. I marched in the middle of them to get the damn Frisbee, and then something just felt … off. Like I thought maybe you’d come in behind me, only I knew you’d never do that, but it felt like someone was there. But it was just all of those plants, all around me.

“And then they moved. Not from the wind or anything like that. It was like they were turning to … I dunno … to look at me.

“Well I turned and got right the fuck outta there and left that damn Frisbee for those fucking plants to play with.”

I snorted, and then the chuckle just followed it on out. I couldn’t help it if I tried.

“Oh, okay,” Ted said, my laughter becoming too contagious for him to avoid. “I see. So why don’t you go on in there and get the thing? Damn zombie plants from the crypt. You’ll see!”

“You know, I’d clap you on the back but you’re sweatier than a Ridley Scott movie.”

“Ha ha. Well this ain’t sweat. It’s dew from all those leaves in there.”

I stayed far away from Ted for the rest of the walk back. I told myself as much as Ted did, that the leaves were just covered in dew. How could all that be urushiol oil? It just couldn’t be. But the scars upon the memory of my youth endured, and so I took no chances, even at the expense of Ted’s playful jeers.

Soon after, each of our families ended the day and went our separate ways.

Ted didn’t show up at the shop the next day.

Ted would usually open the place up in the morning in order to get it ready for the lunchtime crowd. I’ll stroll in sometime later, before we actually open for business. Only this time the doors were locked. Ted hadn’t shown up yet.

I unlocked the place and went inside to call Ted. After a few rings, Kim answered the phone. She sounded like I’d just woken her up.

“Hey John.”

“‘Morning. Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No I’m just … didn’t get much sleep last night. Exhausted.”

“Is Ted there? He didn’t show up to the shop today. Place was still buttoned up when I showed up.”

She sighed with exhaustion and frustration. “Oh god. I’m sorry, Ted. I should have called you. Ted’s worse off than me. It was his tossing and turning all night that kept me up. I eventually had to sleep on the couch. Looks like he … caught something at the picnic yesterday.”

“What, like a stomach bug?”

“No no. Looks like he got too much sun. Worst sunburn I’ve ever seen, the poor guy. But I guess it serves him right for not putting on sunscreen. You know how pale he is.”

“Paler than a beluga whale, yeah,” I said, punctuated with a sigh of defeat. “Alright, so I guess he’s out of commission today. Tell him to call me when he’s up and about.”

She acknowledged and hung up. I went about making a closed sign for the door and directing our phone to a voicemail message stating the same. There was no way I was attempting to run the place without Ted.

I left and spent the day doing long-neglected chores around the house. Spending time with Ella that day made me realize that we’d both somehow come out of the previous day with nary a scant tan, much less evidence of a sunburn. What’s more, it was an overcast day — we hadn’t worn any lotion.

Later that night, my cellphone rang. It was Ted. He sounded as ragged as Kim had that morning.

“Hey, man. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner.”

“Yeah sure,” I said. “Don’t sweat it. You alright?”

“No. No I’m not.”

“Jesus. From a sunburn? How bad can it be?”

“Sunburn? No, this ain’t no sunburn. Gotta be poison ivy. Itches like fucking hell.”

It took all I had to keep the phone in my hand as my mouth fell open. I suddenly felt my own skin begin to take on that characteristic burn. My palms begin to itch, my mind telling my body that it, too, was once again stricken with the rash. The mere mention of it was enough, like an instinctive cringe. What’s more, Ted of all people had succumbed to it. How?

“But I thought you weren’t allergic,” I managed to say with some measure of disbelief.

“Yeah, well. Shit happens I guess,” he said. “Listen, I gotta go. It’s … God, the itching is … I have to go.”

Before I could ask about what we should do about the shop, he hung up.

It’s not unheard of for someone who’d once had an immunity to something like poison ivy suddenly lose it over time. Ted suddenly showing signs of a reaction normally wouldn’t have surprised me. In fact, his lack of a reaction in all this time was the more surprising thing to me. And more surprising than all of that was how quickly it had taken hold on him. He’d gone from zero to one-hundred seemingly overnight.

There was nothing I could really do for Ted. He’d seen first-hand what I’d gone through in the past, what meager remedies I’d resorted to for alleviating the itching and swelling. It’s all I could do then and all he had now.

I faced the fact that it was clear Giuseppe's was staying closed for at least another day. Depending on how bad off Ted was Tuesday night, I’d have to consider my options, like hiring some temporary help. I wasn’t the best cook, but I could at least keep the business afloat.

Late the next morning, I gave Ted a call, to see how he was faring. He’d likely faced another sleepless night, so I wasn’t surprised when Kim picked up.

“Hey, Kim. How’s Teddy doing? Hope you at least got some sleep last night.”

“I slept okay. Ted didn’t sleep in the bed all night, stayed closed up in the den all yesterday and last night. Didn’t want anyone to go near him. Trust me, we didn’t want to. He was in a mood, as you can imagine. I woke up a couple of times in the night and heard him downstairs, grunting, swearing. It must’ve been driving him nuts.

“But … I guess he must be doing better. I woke up to the smell of him cooking breakfast, not that he left us any. Just a dirty skillet. Nice, right? And now he’s gone off somewhere.”

“Seriously? He went out?” Though I was amazed Ted hadn’t gotten worse overnight, I was relieved.

“Maybe check the shop?” Kim suggested. She’d read my mind.

When I pulled up to Giuseppe’s, I noticed one of the exhaust vents on the roof billowing smoke. More than usual, in fact. Ted’s car was nowhere in sight, which wasn’t entirely unusual, since he lived only a couple of miles away and sometimes made the walk. I thought this a good sign, that Ted really was on the mend and getting things prepared for the afternoon customers. Except when I got to the front door, my “temporarily closed” sign still hung in the window. I figured Ted hadn’t noticed it, so I pulled it down as I entered.

I could hear Ted busy at work in the back kitchen. The air was already hot with the warming pizza ovens, griddles and friers. One of the oven doors had been left opened, and I could see the remnants of what looked like a pizza mishap smeared upon the oven’s firebrick floor. Pretty early for pizza, I thought, but we served all kinds.

“Ted! You back there? What happened here? Oven’s a mess!”

The sound of the kitchen fryer answered, its contents being lowered into the 325-degree oil. And then something else: a man’s exhale of intense relief. No, pleasure.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen. Ted’s back was to me, facing the fryers. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers, and his skin was like nothing I’d seen before. My sneakers squeaked to a halt as breath caught in my throat. I stumbled backward, catching myself on a counter. Oozing sores covered half Ted’s back and legs. The other half was covered in blisters the size of golf balls.

“Ted,” I managed to breathe as I fought back hyperventilation.

Of course he couldn’t react. Because when I say he was facing the fryers, I mean that in a much more literal sense. His entire face was submerged in the steaming fryer oil, up to the hairline. I would’ve thought him dead, but a second later he stood upright. Grease poured down over his shoulders and trickled down his back. More of the blisters withered and broke apart under the oil’s heat. And once again Ted sighed in ecstasy.

“Ted!” What was meant to be a scream came more like a strained whisper. I threw a hand over my mouth, either due to pure disbelief over what I was seeing, or to stop myself from being sick, or both.

He straightened and turned around, my feet instinctively making a slow retreat sideways, toward the door. What I was looking at was not Ted. Not anymore. This person was unrecognizable as a human being in all but frame. Strips of red, smoking flesh peeled away from his forehead and cheeks, the bare muscle and bone behind glistening with oil. Lips … there were no lips. A set of teeth in a perpetual, skeletal grin, the tongue behind, bloated and red, peeking out behind them. Eyelids hung like useless flaps. His arms, his chest, all bare of skin, looking like an anatomy poster. His arms, blackened and charred. All that seemed to remain intact was most of the surface of his legs, and I could see blisters there continue to form before my eyes.

“John,” Ted said, his voice guttural and nearly unrecognizable, but calm and eerily satisfied. “John, you were so right. Fuck the Calamine Lotion. Fuck all that shit. All you need to do to get rid of the GOD DAMNED itching is HEAT. Once you’ve got that … oooh … it’s euphoria, Johnny. Pure. Fucking. Euphoria.”

He held up his hands, then. Hands that I hesitate to describe beyond that they were surely not usable appendeges anymore. Something fell from what used to be his face onto the floor, joining a mess of fried flesh within puddles of spent grease.

I couldn’t touch him. Jesus. I couldn’t stop him.

“Ted. Oh, Ted. No no no no.”

He breathed a wet sigh again, somehow peeling away a flap of loose, cooked skin from his forehead with one of his red, bony fingers. He threw it aside like a rotten slice of tomato.

“It’s okay, John,” he gurgled. “It’s almost all gone now. Just a little more heat, and I’ll be all better. This is so much better than the oven.”

He turned back around and held his breath, as I held mine. I turned and ran.

When I made it outside, I called 9-1-1. The police and ambulance arrived moments later. I watched as EMT after EMT entered and promptly exited, retching into the flower beds outside, before finally composing themselves to enter and save Ted’s life. I was told if they’d been only a few minutes later, he’d have been gone.

In all my life, I’d never seen a reaction to plants like that, let alone experienced it myself. What further floored me was that this had been Ted’s reaction to whatever was in those woods, a man who’d been immune to poison ivy for as long as I could remember. What would those things do to someone like me?

I talked to my wife and told her she’d have to pick Peter up from choir practice at the church that afternoon. I also called Kim, and she and I spent most of the day at the hospital. Not a stitch of him was not covered in thick bandages, and he lost most of his fingers. The CDC was apparently being called in, and we were told Ted was going to be put into an induced coma. I couldn’t bring myself to see him like that anymore, and I wasn’t sure what to tell Kim about what I saw at the shop. How was I to explain to anyone that he’d done this on purpose? An accident. A pure, unfortunate, unholy accident. That was enough.

I wasn’t sure if Ted was going to pull through. There was no doubt that his recovery, if he had one, would be agonizing. At the cost of removing whatever pure hell he’d been experiencing before, would he say it was worth it? I couldn’t fathom. Covered in pure scar tissue and skin grafts for the rest of his life, it’s unlikely he’d have to worry about something like poison ivy ever again.

My mind, just as Ted’s unfortunate body, would be scarred for life.

I called for a car to take me home. I was in no condition at all to drive.

As I exited the car at the bottom of the hill, I heard Peter call out from the driveway.

“Hey Dad! Catch!”

I was still dazed from what had happened earlier and had little time to react. Stars blossomed in darkness as whatever Peter had thrown smacked me in the forehead and fell to the ground, and I along with it. I put my hand to my throbbing head, pulling back to see blood.

“Damn. Well, that’s gonna leave a scar,” I muttered to myself.

Peter ran up and squatted beside me, his face reddened with embarrassment.

“Oh man! Dad! You okay? I’m so sorry! I thought you’d catch it.”

“Yeah, well, my reaction’s not all it used to be.”

I reached down beside me to pick up what Peter had thrown. And the words upon a circle of blue greeted my disbelieving eyes.

Fly In To Giuseppe's Empty. Fly Out Full.

[dearmyblank]

Dear Dead Girl who wrote this,

Sometimes I look back at all the shit I’ve gone through personally and wonder what good it’s done me. Times like these, I realize, at the very least, my experience can help inform someone else who’s going through something similar, if only to help them come to the realization that certain “saviors” are not really going to do anything on their own.

When I was 21, I graduated college and moved back in with my parents. That summer, I lost or pushed away most of my friends and some of the only people in the world that ever cared about me, and sank into a cycle of alcohol, self-pity, and depression that would take several years to come out of (if that). I would sit in my parents’ basement, getting high, dreaming about how much better my life would be if I could just get to sunny, open-minded Los Angeles. I anthropomorphized the cities I lived in, deciding that they just “had it in for me”, that I would never fit in there because the “city” didn’t accept me or “get” people like me.

I eventually moved to LA. Suffice to say, simply landing at LAX somehow didn’t instantly remove the years of scars that life (and I) had etched into my heart and mind. I always figured if I got away from the people and places I associated with my pain and the worst moments in my life, that somehow that would help me heal. What I had yet to realize was that the thing that I was trying to run away from, the pain that haunted me, it wasn’t carried by the friends I lost, or in the streets and alleys of the city where I felt my heart break, or in the bars where I would binge drink alone, or the empty parking lots where I would break down and cry in my car. That pain was inside me, and no matter where I went, unless and until I dealt with it, it was coming with me… everywhere.

All I had done by moving to LA was separated myself from the only support systems I actually had, and as expected, I eventually broke down completely and ended up moving back home. I felt like a failure. LA was supposed to be my fresh start, my last chance to prove to myself I could move on and make something of myself. I leaned even heavier into drugs and alcohol, sunk into a horrible depression, and a few months later, attempted suicide. It didn’t work, so I tried again a few weeks later. After that time didn’t work either, I realized that one of two things had to be true. Either this just “wasn’t my time” to die, and there was some purpose out there in the world I was still meant to fulfill, I just needed the courage to keep looking. Or, for the more skeptical side of me, the fact that both attempts failed meant that there was still some part of me that wanted to live, as meager as it may have been. I decided that whatever the reason was, if I was going to stick around, I wasn’t going to do it just to wake up miserable every day. I had to try to give myself some sense of purpose, even if it seemed manufactured, contrived, whatever, at first. I had to try.

I went rehab and got myself cleaned up and off the drugs. I signed up to take the LSATs and applied to law schools. Why law school? It was just something I always found interesting and figured it was just structured and demanding enough that it would keep me engaged and not leave me too much free time “with my thoughts.” And being honest, I watched a few episodes of Suits, and I (again) pictured my life in one of those high-rises, and figured my life would be so much better there. Flash forward 3 years later, I graduated law school with honors, and I’m headed to New York for a big law firm job, and I just signed a lease for one of those hi-rise apartments looking over the skyline.

So why am I telling you all this? No, it’s not to brag. I’m saying it because I wish back when I was 21, someone who had gone through similar stuff had told me about their experiences, and how getting “what you want” won’t necessarily make you happier. I got everything I dreamed of at the lowest point in my life, and if anyone “normal” asks me, I will say that I am absolutely happy and satisfied and grateful for everything I’ve gotten. And I am grateful. But I won’t lie to you and pretend that the pain healed. Or that I don’t still feel miserable and alone most days. Even now, I still go to bed many days praying I don’t wake up the next morning. Except now, given that I have - on paper - a life that many would kill for, I have to feel ashamed about it. But I had to make sacrifices to get here. I had to shut down my vulnerability and emotions, cut any possibility of dating or love out of my life completely, because I understood how dramatically those things could impact me, and I couldn’t allow anything to sabotage me before I got where I wanted to be. I had to be aggressive - often cruel - with the most vulnerable parts of myself, because the world would only use them against me.

My point is this: For those of us that are more vulnerable and wear our hearts on their sleeves, so to speak, hopelessness can often tempt us into thinking that a different job or different location will solve all our problems. Because in that moment, when you are at your lowest, any change can - and is - a step up. And don’t get me wrong, it does work, to a certain extent, but it won’t be an overnight savior. I can’t imagine where I would be now if I hadn’t accomplished everything I have. Even though my scars are still healing, changing my circumstances, giving myself structure, a sense of accomplishment, and accountability to others, has given me the skills and strength to fight back with objective facts when the demons come calling and tell me I’m worthless.

But the only way I was able to do it is when I realized that I have to lower my expectations. Not as a self-defeating narrative that stops you from being ambitious, but simply as a survival mechanism. That way, if you don’t get exactly what you expected, you don’t feel like a huge failure. But if you do, you’ve earned the right to the self-worth that comes from that. The temptation to beat yourself down and self-hate will always be there, no matter what city you live in. But every time you set a goal and accomplish it, no matter how small, that’s one more chip you can use to tell that self-hatred to go fuck itself.

All the best,

Another K

[athousandmilez-blog]

Secrets Secrets → 014

Tagging: Miles Sterling & Nick Vaughn.

Timeframe: Friday, December 1, 2017.

Location: Miles’ apartment.

General Notes: Miles is back in his own apartment. When Nick comes over for another attempt to get through Stranger Things season 2, their best kept secrets are shared.

Miles realized that, in hindsight, it probably would have been smarter to stay at his mom’s house for just a little bit longer — if not for himself, then for her. They were both having a hard time. But he hated being so dependent on her and stressing her out. Plus, he needed to get back on track at some point; it might as well have been sooner rather than later. So he was back in his own apartment with Scout, promising Quinn that she’d be informed if he needed absolutely anything. And then there was Nick, who was also worried but never pushed him, which he appreciated more than words could say. Miles liked being with him, though, of course, so he wasn’t alone too often. He liked to have Nick there, sometimes to keep Scout company while he napped (which was still often) or just to hang out with him. He was pretty sure Nick liked it, too. He still had his own stuff going on that Miles wanted to be there for him through. So it was a nice thing they had going on, especially considering their whole take-it-slow thing. As far as Miles was concerned, that just meant they weren’t seeing other people, and when they were together there was no hesitation with anything. And that was just fine with him. Now Nick was here because they were finally going to get through the second season of Stranger Things. They had plenty of time with Miles out of work during the day, and Nick mostly worked nights. “I swear season three is gonna come out before we finish this one,” Miles commented as he entered the living room where Nick was, cupping the mug of hot chocolate he’d just made in his hands. “Also, there’s totally hot chocolate in the cabinet that I didn’t think to offer you because I’m a terrible host.” He shrugged at his own words, sitting down and putting the hot mug down on a coaster on the table in front of him. “Let’s go ahead and say it just slipped my mind. You can’t get mad at me because I have a concussion.”

Nick: Things had been surprisingly normal once Miles got home from staying at his Mom’s house. As normal as they could be, anyway. Nick had been hanging out with him a lot lately, and it was almost like how things used to be. There was no weirdness or weird passive aggressive comments toward each other. Miles was doing well, and so they’d just been hanging out. It was a little different now, but it was good. He wanted to be there for Miles in case he needed him, but being around him also helped to keep his mind from racing. It was a win win. Nick grinned when he came out to join him, and shrugged. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Just more to binge.” He wouldn’t mind watching ten straight seasons of Stranger Things. Provided he didn’t have a life, anyway, which he unfortunately did. “I’m not offended.” His eyes followed as Miles set his down on the table. “I’ll just drink some of yours when you’re not paying attention.” He teased. “Saves me a trip.” He wasn’t really kidding about that.

Miles shrugged. He had a point there. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But we can hardly find time for this one, so I don’t know how well that would work. Unless we both quit our jobs.” It wasn’t like his job paid incredibly well anyway. But he still needed it so he wouldn’t starve. More so Scout didn’t starve, though. “Ew. I don’t want your cooties,” he teased right back, grimacing in mock disgust at his words. Though in reality he wouldn’t notice, or even care if he did. “Luckily for you, I don’t think what I have is contagious, though.” He loves hanging out with Nick. It was easy, just like it had been before everything went to shit. He was just glad things could be okay again, albeit in a slightly different way. He pressed play on the episode, finally ready to sit through it and finish off the season to be on the same level as the rest of the world. “Whenever I watch this show, I think about how much better off these kids are than me. Like, we were pretty awful when we were twelve, you know? Even if we could dance.” He shrugged. “These kids already have it made, though. My future career plans are not quite as exciting.”

Nick laughed at that. “I wish we could get paid for watching Stranger Things. I know I’d quit my job so fast.” He mused our loud as he leaned back into the cushions of the couch. Nick used to like his job okay. It had his flaws, but he had friends there and he was good with the clients. Lately, though, it had been more and more difficult to get through his shifts. So the idea of being able to bum around all day and still have money in the bank? He was in. “You’ve never complained about my cooties before. Maybe from now on we should just keep our distance so you don’t get infected.” He was only joking, of course, something enhanced by the wagging of his eyebrows. He turned his head to the commotion on screen. “Yeah, I know.” He paused. “At least we had dance though... and I had dreams. I wanted to be an alien hunter, so these kids are pretty much getting to live my dream.” He was serious. “What are your future plans? You know it’s not too late to go to acting school and join them.”

Miles nodded. “I mean, technically there are jobs that are sort of like that. Like...video game testers and stuff. Is that a real thing? It’s gotta be, right?” If not, maybe he should make it a thing. He was all for playing video games all day. “You’re still at the bar or whatever? How’s that going?” He was genuinely curious. Nick didn’t really talk about work much. Granted, Miles didn’t either, but tutoring wasn’t very exciting. “Fine, but don’t come crawling back to me when Murphy won’t watch Cupcake Wars with you.” It somehow always went back to Cupcake Wars. “I want to teach. English, probably.” It was the one thing he could really stick with. “You know, you could still be an alien hunter. You just gotta learn some astrophysics or some shit to go into space.”

Nick: “I think so. After we’re done with Stranger Things remind me to check Craigslist for job listings.” That’s how he found his last job, after all. “Yeah, I am.” It was always awkward for him when Miles asked about his job, because it wasn’t really something he was purposely trying to hide. He just didn’t know how to tell him at this point, and now that they were doing... whatever it is they were doing, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d take it. “It’s been going alright. I asked them to reduce my hours for the next couple of weeks so I could take a break.” He shrugged. “Less money, but it’s nice not having to work every night.” He shrugged. “How’s your thing going?” He asked curiously. “Not my fault Murphy thinks he’s cooler than me. He’s wrong, but he still thinks that. Maybe I’ll just put out an ad for other Cupcake Wars fans.” He wouldn’t. By this point, it was practically their thing. “Really? Not dance?” He asked, even if being a dance teacher kind of sucked because you’d have to deal with all those competitive kids. “That’d be cool though. I could see you doing that.” And he could. Nick thought he’d be a good teacher. If he was this patient with him, he’d be good with a room full of kids. “Yeah, maybe.” He grinned. “Or I could just start my own YouTube channel where I amature-ly hunt for them. That way I don’t have to go to school.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “That’s not too trustworthy. But hey. You do you.” He wouldn’t judge his choices. He nodded as Nick talked about his job. “What do you do there? Are you secretly a bartender and you’ve just never told me you have that skill?” He was teasing, but he totally would give him shit for not making him good drinks all the time. “Eh. Maybe dance, but not as like my day job, you know? That seems like more of a side gig for me. It’d be fun, though. You could teach dance too, you know.” He laughed at that, nodding firmly. “I’d subscribe. Let me know when that becomes a thing. You can even have my pretty face as a guest star. I need to be compensated, though.”

Nick: “It’s safe, all the serial killers on Craigslist are already caught.” He smiled at his own joke. “Um, no. Not exactly, but I’ve helped out at bar before.” He fathered his thoughts. “I’m an... entertainer, I guess. I keep the customers happy and talk to them so they are more likely to drink more and tip bigger.” He said honestly, because that was the honest to Gods truth. “It’d be a good side job for sure. I guess I could do it. We could go into business together if we wanted to. But I don’t want to get competitive and hate you again like when we were kids. That’d be kind of sad.” Nick laughed. “Will do, you can be the guest star soundtrack. As long as your pretty face gets me subscribers — you’re in. What do you want? ‘Cause all I can pay you is hilarious jokes and probably Oreos.”

Miles: “Your logic is flawed, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. You’re never gonna learn if you’re not taught a lesson.” Nick’s description of his job had Miles quirking eyebrow, and he turned his attention away from the screen to focus on his friend. “An entertainer? What, are you a stripper or something?” he asked jokingly, the laugh evident in his voice. “Well, that was serious business. High school musicals are no joke.” It was true. “Hm. I think I’ll decide on a regular basis. You know, whatever I’m feeling that day in return for my appearance. Because it’s going to be a big deal. Everyone’s going to count down until your Miles Mondays.”

Nick: “Well I’m not dead yet.” But he’s come close to it a few times, so perhaps Miles had a point. He was hoping Miles wouldn’t question him any more about his job, but as he literally hit the nail on the head, Nick realized he should have been more vague. He wanted to deny it just because he was used to denying a lot of things, but he told himself to stop overthinking it. To be honest because he said he would. He didn’t answer for a beat, before nodding slowly. “Yes.” He risked a glance over at him in an attempt to gauge his reaction, and he could only hope that it wasn’t bad. But if Miles wanted to, like, keep hanging out with him like this — he needed to know so he could decide for himself if this was a dealbreaker or not. It would be for a lot of people. “I guess that seems reasonable. Just let me know an hour beforehand so I can scrounge together the payment. Miles Monday’s? That’s cute, but about that... I think we need to change your name for the channel. I’m sorry but Miles just isn’t edgy enough for an alien hunter sidekick.”

Miles: “Let’s keep it that way, yeah?” It was a genuine request, despite the joking subject matter. He noticed Nick’s pause and then his confirmation of Miles’ guess. Immediately, Miles assumed he was kidding, because it was Nick. Why wouldn’t he joke about something like that? But he didn’t laugh, just looked at him, and that was when it dawned on him. “Oh.” That was why Nick never talked about work or was vague about it. He was...a stripper. And Miles was going to be the last person on earth to judge him, of course, but he certainly didn’t expect it. “Sorry. That was rude.” More than anything, he was glad Nick was honest with him. That meant more than anything else. “You...you really like, take your clothes off? And dance for people?” He hoped he wasn’t offending him. He was just caught off guard, mostly. At the comment about his name, Miles laughed rather loudly. The irony in that statement got to him. If only Nick knew that the reason he went by Miles was because his actual first name was even dorkier. Then it hit him, the realization that Nick had told him something he obviously didn’t bring up to just anybody, and the thought alone made his heart swell. Enough that the smile slipped off his face, and he wondered if now was the right time to share his secret that no one else knew. “It’s...funny you bring that up,” he said quietly. “And in the name of being open and honest, I have to tell you that—that I haven’t been entirely honest with you about something.”

Nick:  “I’ll try my best.” He replied, and it was a joke but he also didn’t want to die. “Yeah...” He said in return, because he wasn’t sure what else to say at that. Was that a bad oh? Nick couldn’t be sure. Miles was clearly shocked, that much was evident. But when he apologized, Nick relaxed some. He didn’t look disgusted, and that was more than he could ask for. He risked a joke. “No... I dance for compliments. The money is just a bonus.” He smiled slightly before answering for real. “But yeah. Sometimes I get the occasional person who’s lonely and just wants to talk to me. But for the most part, it’s the other stuff.” If Miles had questions, he’d suck it up and answer them. He knew it was a tough thing for people to wrap their minds around. That’s why he didn’t bother telling them at all. At Miles’ admission, he raised an eyebrow and angled his body more to face him. “Yeah? Who did you kill?” He asked teasingly. “Or are you just married?”

Miles could tell Nick was feeling hesitant, understandably so. Opening up to people about that sort of stuff was hard, when it was something most people would certainly judge for. “Well, compliments are good, too.” He grinned. “Hey, a job’s a job. And you must be good at it, right?” A strange compliment, perhaps. “But thanks for telling me. I think it’s cool you can stick with something you’re good at.” He paused. “Do you go by a different name there?” He certainly wasn’t going to be able to judge for that specifically. There was his own thing now, and Miles didn’t know why he was so nervous. It wasn’t as serious as those things Nick was jokingly suggesting. But to him, it was a big deal. “No one knows,” he started, shaking his head slightly. He looked Nick in the eye. “I mean, other than my parents. I’m pretty sure even other people in my family have forgotten by now. Not even...Greg or Helen or anybody.” He paused and took a breath. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if he hadn’t been hiding it his entire life. But it was the time to be honest. “My name isn’t Miles.” He shrugged. “I mean, it is but it—it’s my middle name.” It felt so weird saying it out loud to someone. “They just called me Miles when I was really little so I wouldn’t get confused with my dad.” He bit down on the inside of his cheek.

Nick felt relief sink in the moment Miles spoke again. He wasn’t reacting negatively like he thought he would. He was being nice... and strangely supportive. And Nick didn’t know why he thought he’d be anything other than that. He hasn’t judged him for that before, or anything really. That’s why he was his best friend, wasn’t it? He laughed loudly at that comment and shrugged again. “I don’t know if I’m good, but I guess if I were bad they would have gotten rid of me by now.” His amusement slowly wore off. Not because he was worried or scared, but he was embarrassed. “Um, yeah. I don’t know if you want to hear it though. It’s kind of embarrassing.” That was a given. He stopped talking and listened as Miles told him no one else knew his secret. And it kind of worried him; it was obviously a big deal to him. He tried to follow along as he explained, and he didn’t entirely understand at first. “Okay.  So you’re not Miles.” He repeated, a smile finding its way back on his face as he began to understand, though it wasn’t mean spirited by any means. “Okay, so you’re named after your Dad...” His grin grew without him being able to control it. “His first name or middle name?”

Miles nodded. “Right. So you’ve gotta be good. Does this mean you’ll strip for me if I throw ones at you? Not even in a sexual way. I just wanna critique you.” Now he was sort of just being an asshole, but oh well. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. But I’m totally going to find out eventually.” He could promise that. Talking about his name was a whole other story, though, and the genuine downright happiness on Nick’s face made him blush. He could feel his neck and his ears and cheeks get warm as they obviously flushed red. “His middle name is Miles. He’s a junior.” He sighed. “My grandpa is George Miles Sterling, Sr. My dad is George Miles Sterling, Jr.” Miles paused, meeting Nick’s eyes. “Say hello to the third. George Miles Sterling...the third.”

Nick: “I didn’t know you were an expert in the art of stripping. Are you sure you’re qualified?” He knew Miles was teasing him now, but he wasn’t offended. Just mildly embarrassed. “But it depends on how many ones you’ve got.” Nick raised an eyebrow at him. “Good luck because it’s a secret to everyone.” He was only kidding, and he almost told him, but then the secret about Miles’ own name came out and distracted him instantly. He could see Miles blush and knew he was embarrassed, but Nick couldn’t keep the dumb grin off his face. “I...love that.” He was being 100% honest. “Why do you hate it so much? It’s sweet, it’s a family name. George Miles Sterling. Huh.” He paused, still mulling it over. “—-Can I call you George now?”

Miles: “I mastered the art when I got that sponge bath in the hospital. Did I forget to mention that I gave her a lap dance afterward?” So clearly Miles was very qualified. “I have quite a few. So that’s a yes, got it.” Miles groaned, burying his head in his hands, despite the fact that Nick was telling him how much he loved the name. Of course he liked that it was a family name, but he was Miles now. Not George. “It’s just so lame,” he muttered, finally lifting his head again. “Plus, it’s been so long. My whole life I’ve been Miles. George is just like...my lame middle name. Except it’s my first name. I think I was very briefly called George, but it was just too confusing for everybody.” At that, Miles glared at him. But it didn’t last very long. “You can call me George if you tell me the name you use.”

Nick: “You did fail to mention that. Maybe when you’re all healed up I could talk to my manager about giving you a try. I’ll need a replacement when I find a job as a video game tester.” He rolled his eyes at him playfully. He knew Miles would joke about this forever now. But somehow he still didn’t regret telling him. “I don’t think it’s lame at all. I like it.” He didn’t know why, but he did. Miles suited him, sure. But in an odd way so did George. “I guess I can see why you’d be used to Miles though.” It’s not the same thing, but he hated when people called him Nicholas. So he guessed it was kind of similar. After a small beat, he answered him. “Dalton Oliver.” He would have told him anyway. Nick leaned forward and without overthinking it, he pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth that landed half on his cheek. But he hadn’t been aiming anywhere in particular. “So George it is.”

Miles: “Sounds good. It’s better that we don’t work together, anyway. You know, because I’m obviously better at the whole stripping thing. So I don’t want any animosity between us.” He had certainly missed joking like this, that was for sure. “Well, I think it’s lame.” Not that Miles wasn’t, but it was better. When he finally told him the name, Miles grinned. “Okay. Now that is a name.” He wasn’t sure where it came from, but the idea of Nick using an entirely different alias at his job amused him. He was still grinning when Nick kissed him, and that alone had Miles laughing lightly, his emotions suddenly very much heightened. “I might let it slide, but I can’t promise I won’t throw in a Nicky every once in a while in retaliation.”

Nick: “Yeah, good thing. I’d hate to have to live up to your skills. You know, you’re going to have to come up with a name for yourself so your crazy fans won’t be able to stalk you.” It had been too long since they’d been able to joke and just hang out without being low key mad at each other. It was so nice, and Nick couldn’t be more happy about it. “I know you think it is. But think of it this way, you could totally start a solo George Michael cover artist career under your real name. And everyone would just think you’re trying to be clever. No one would know.” He was still teasing, and he gently slapped his arm to show him as much. “It’s a name.” He nodded. He could have chosen worse. Some of his coworkers had insane names. “Oh god, Nicky.” He grimaced lightly. “You know what, fine. It’s worth it. Do your worst, George.” He wouldn’t use it a lot. Clearly it bothered him. Nick still wasn’t over it though, this was the best thing he’d heard all day.

Miles laughed, shaking his head at their ridiculous banter. Not that he didn’t love it, though. “Well, I would have used Dalton, but...I think it’s taken.” He grinned at Nick, nudging him with his shoulder. Needless to say he wasn’t paying any attention to Stranger Things once again. “Too bad I can’t sing. Otherwise, sure. Perfect plan.” He nodded firmly to emphasize it. But when Nick actually called him George, rather than just threatening it, Miles groaned, tipping his head back. “You’re annoying,” he muttered. “I changed my mind. I can’t take it. No amount of Nicky’s in the world could make up for that.” It really wasn’t that bad and he knew it. He was just dramatic. And he certainly preferred to just be Miles. “Keep it up and I won’t hesitate to call you Dalton in public. I’m sure some of your...customers are running around places we frequent.”

Nick would maybe regret telling him his actual alias later on, because now Miles could retaliate when he called him George. He really screwed himself. “You could do Dalton Double and only come in when I call out. Like an understudy. Just don’t be surprised if people constantly compare you to me.” The conversation itself was ridiculous, but that was a good thing. It was easy to talk to Miles, even when the topic was embarrassing. “Dang. I could’ve been your manager and everything.” Nick grinned again as Miles groaned in annoyance. “Okay... Okay. Fair enough.” He made a face at the thought. There was nothing worse than when someone recognized him. Definitely not on his list of top ten funnest occurrences. “Blackmail isn’t fair you know. You don’t want to be there when someone recognizes me. It’s awkward and sometimes they ask for private dances to be funny and no one laughs.”

Miles: “No, I need my own brand. I’ll think of something. Maybe if I ever actually consider becoming a stripper. But I’ll leave that to you for now.” Miles shrugged. “You can still be a manager. Maybe for my video game testing business.” He was totally going to go far with that. “Then no more George and the blackmail don’t even be necessary. Give and take here, my friend.” Miles laughed at the thought of it. He couldn’t picture that situation. And he thought it was awkward when he ran into someone he tutored or someone he had gone to school with. “That’s not funny because you know they’re not kidding even if they claim to be. Maybe I should be your manager. Or bodyguard. Keep the creeps away. Clearly I’m in top physical condition to do that.” Except he wasn’t at all intimidating as a six-foot-two lamp post.

Nick: “Fair enough.” He laughed and nodded. “As long as we split the money 50/50, I’m in.” Nick realized he’d probably called Miles George more in the past five minutes than he had been called in his whole life, so he figured he’d give him a break. He wasn’t a complete asshole, even if he did like the name. “Okay, Okay. No George.” At least not all the time. “Which means no Dalton for you.” He laughed and nodded as his friend spoke. “Some are kidding. Some aren’t. A manager would be nice though. But I’m not sure if you’d be up for making sure all of those lonely Moms keep their distance. They get crazy. You might get mauled.”

Miles shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m down with 50/50. We’ll talk.” It was his business venture, after all. Miles nodded at that. “Deal. No George, no Dalton. Anytime I hear a George it’s fair game, though.” He paused. “In all seriousness, I’m glad I could tell you. Now you’re part of an exclusive club of very few people on the planet who know my secret.” He shuddered slightly at the idea of such a situation going down. “Man. When you put it like that then I don’t know. Is it always moms?”

Nick let out another laugh and nodded before he got slightly more serious. “I’m glad you could tell me too. I promise I won’t let the secret slip in front of anybody. I wouldn’t blow your cover like that.” He promised. “For the record, I’m glad I could tell you mine too. Only a few people know what I really do — Murphy’s unfortunately one of them ‘cause he saw glitter on my shirt one day and started asking questions. So I better not catch you two talking _shit_.” He was joking, he didn’t care because Murphy already talked shit about it to his face. He was used to it by now, just not public. “No... sometimes it’s Dads. But they’re just sad. I get a lot of party groups too. Our biggest tippers are for sure the Mom’s though. They get the most into it.”

Miles: “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Miles reached forward for the mug he’d long since forgotten to sip it while he listened to Nick speak. He stopped himself from laughing and doing some sort of gross spit-take. “Glitter. Wow. I really think I need to see this. Am I invited? I promise I won’t even ask for a lap dance.” Because he wouldn’t take it seriously at all, especially not compared to Nick’s regular very lonely people. “I don’t know what the confidentiality policy is like there, but I would really appreciate never finding out if my mom or dad wind up there someday. I sort of feel bad for those moms, though. Doesn’t that job sorta make you sad?”

Nick smiled at him in response. But then the conversation turned to glitter, and he rolled his eyes again. “I mean, don’t expect me to hand you a written invitation or anything. But I can’t exactly tell you no. Just remember, if you accidentally bump shoulders with someone or something, you won’t be able to get that glitter out for weeks.” Nick wasn’t even sure where it came from. It’s not like he rubbed it on himself before a shift. “Uh, I can verify that neither of them have ever showed up.” Thank God. “And on the off chance that somebody’s parents do ever end up there... I’m going to be too busy pretending it never happened to even breathe a word about it.” Ain’t that the truth. “Sometimes, yeah. It can be sad. I don’t always like I. Especially since they expect you to, like, exploit that and suck them dry of all their money. It’s kind of fucked up.” It wasn’t exactly the best business in the world. “But then sometimes you get people who are just there to have fun, and they’re funny and respectful. So it’s not all bad all the time. And as I said, it’s good money.” Especially with how hard it is for anybody to find a job lately. He was lucky he found something that was able to pay the bills.

Miles sighed. “Well, that’s disappointing. I was hoping to get one of those fancy invitations they do for weddings and stuff. ‘You are cordially invited.’ That sort of thing.” He thought that would be good for business, for sure. “I’ve never really seen you all glittery. You must have some very efficient showering techniques before you see me. Or are you secretly getting sponge baths behind my back?” The worst offense. “Good to know. I appreciate that. But it all just seems like such a strange system. To each his own, though, right?” It wasn’t Miles’ business how people decided to spend their money. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about it. Probably for much different reasons than those people, though. I want some of those numbered cards judges use during competitions to hold up.”

Nick: “Oh, yes. ‘You’re cordially invited to the stripping of Nicholas O Vaughn, widely known as Dalton Oliver and beloved by many. Please RSVP and bring your crispest singles.’ I bet you’d love getting that in the mail.” He laughed, realizing he was doing a lot more of that now that things between them were good again. “You sounds like you want to see me all glittery. I’m a pretty expert showerer, though. I say no to the sponge baths and just attempt to do them myself. It keeps me humble.” He joked. “I guess so. And it keeps a roof over mine and Murphy’s head. So I can’t complain too much.” He snorted lightly at Miles. “You really want to judge my stripping that bad? You really must want to tear down my confidence.”

Nick: “See? That’s what I want. Christmas gift ideas.” He’d have to fight the urge to get Dalton embroidered on something for Nick’s Christmas present. “I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be amused by it. I could always just glitter bomb you but I wouldn’t get the full effect. I’m happy to hear you’re not stealing my nurses for sponge baths, though.” He nodded — that was certainly true. Other people’s sometimes strange interests gave Nick a job. “Nah, man, I want to build you up. Tens across the board. I’ll make sure everyone knows who the top dog is around there. Let’s just hope they don’t find out how biased I am.”

Nick: “Maybe I’ll suck it up and sprawl one out on a napkin if it means that much. I mean it’s either that or a Starbucks gift card. I still need to decide.” He was only joking. He hated giving impersonal gifts, but he also hadn’t thought about what to get people yet. And Christmas was right around the corner — fuck. “I’d never steal your nurses. That’d be going against the bro code and I don’t do that.” He shook his head. “You’re so thoughtful, how have I lasted this long at work without you to hype me up? That’s an issue, though. People will get jealous and complain that I’m getting special treatment. Then you’ll be banned from the club and have to find another one to do your judging at.”

Miles placed a hand over his heart. “I’m so touched. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone to write an invitation on a napkin for me.” In all honesty, he probably would get emotional over it, despite his joking about it. “I don’t know how you’ve lasted. I’m a very important asset to your growing career. Frankly, I’m offended you didn’t ask me sooner.” He shrugged, leaning forward again to put the cup back on the table. “No one has to find out. We just have to pretend not to know each other when I’m not doing my judging. I just hope they don’t dig up scandals like the wedding — then my days posing as a fair judge are over.” And they just couldn’t have that happening. “It wouldn’t be as fun at a different place because I wouldn’t know someone there.”

Nick: “Eh, just for being you.” Maybe as a joke he’d write one up for him. Of course if anyone else saw it he’d never be able to live it down. “I didn’t know that you had an inner dance Mom laying below the surface or maybe I would have.” He idly watched as Miles put his drink back. Without giving it too much thought, he leaned forward to pick it up himself for a small sip before gradually setting it back down. If Miles complained about cooties again he’d just have to remind him that his tongue had literally been in his mouth at some point. “The last thing we need in our tutoring and stripping careers is a scandal. You can come on the condition you act like you hate me so no one suspects we actually know each other.” That probably wouldn’t be too hard for him, Miles would just have to recall their High School days for inspiration. “True. But I mean, I could give you the names of some nice strippers to talk to so you have more of a network.”

Miles: “I knew I was special.” The lighthearted conversation was still so relieving to have. Miles looked back at the TV, but he really wasn’t paying any attention. Of course they were going to have to start over again. And take a vow of silence next time. He could see Nick drinking from his mug out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t bring himself to even care enough to make a smartass comment. “Hm, I could probably manage that. I’ll just pretend you won’t stop calling me George. Then it won’t be too hard.” It could potentially become reality, too. “Networking is very important, so that’s a great idea. You give me some numbers and I’ll get to work on forming some professional relationships.” He sighed contentedly, tilting his head to look at him. “Giving me all your favorite stripper names. You’re just too good to me.”

Nick: “Try not to get too cocky about it.” He’d pretty much forgotten about Stranger Things completely at this point. Their conversation had completely taken over. Nick wasn’t complaining about it, though. One day they would really have to watch it though, this was getting ridiculous. “Funny. I haven’t called you George in a whole five minutes so there’s no reason to be salty.” Nick teased, lifting his legs up to Criss cross themselves as he turned to fully face Miles, the show clearly forgotten. “My favorites? Well that narrows it down to about three. I was just going to give you the best dancers. They’re a little morally questionable, but hey, most artists are.”

Miles: “How could I not be knowing I’m the favorite?” Miles rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the playful smile on his face. “It’s only a matter of time. I’m just preparing myself ahead of time.” He subconsciously twisted his own body to do the same as Nick turned to face him. Miles laid his arm across the back of the couch, resting against Nick’s shoulder and fiddling with the fabric of his sleeve there. “Morally questionable I can handle. It is stripping, after all. No offense. More power to you and everything.” Miles respected the whole taking ownership of his own body thing. “I can’t really provide you any helpful connections in return. Unless children struggling with schoolwork can somehow be beneficial to you.”

Nick: “Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.” But he wasn’t, really.  Miles was one of his favorites, he just didn’t say it. “Preparing to hate me? Well I guess that’s smart.” Nick smiled to himself as Miles started to toy with his sleeve, and subconsciously he leaned a little bit more toward him. “None taken. It’s a little shady. That’s why I don’t really talk about it.” That, and the fact that he was a male stripper was a little too awkward to just being up in normal everyday conversation. “Maybe not the children, it’d be weird for me to have a bunch of kid connections. Their parents is another story, though. If they’re stressed out from having to deal with their kids school issues, just send them to me.... not directly me. But where I work.”

Miles: “But am I wrong?” Miles asked, quirking an eyebrow, because he was pretty sure he wasn’t. “Just preparing for the G bomb.” It was bound to come when he least expected it. “I don’t blame you. But at least now you have someone to vent to about work stuff. And I’ll do my best to relate. I am your hype man, after all.” It was only fitting. Miles pulled his arm back to just have his elbow propped up. “Sure, will do. I won’t give them your name. I’m not about to pimp you out to people. I feel like I get dibs, anyway.” He wished he could say it with a straight face, but he couldn’t help but grin.

Nick: “I didn’t say that either.” He laughed loudly at that. “There will be no G Bombs. Not where anyone else could hear, anyway.” He wouldn’t blow his secret. “Well. Thank you. I appreciate that. You probably don’t want to hear half the stuff that happens. But that’s nice of you — I’ve never had a hype man before.” His grin widened at Miles’ own words and shook his head. “You’re dumb.” But the lightheartedness made him happy. The fact that they could joke and just be around each other despite everything. He’s always wanted that. “You never called dibs, you know.” Nick leaned in to kiss him gently, because at that moment he felt like he could. “But you can have them. I don’t want to be pimped out to just anybody anyway.”

Miles nodded firmly. “Exactly. So shush. I appreciate you not blowing my cover, though. I lead a very important life as Miles.” He just couldn’t risk it. “I think I can handle it. I’ve seen some things.”  He really hadn’t. But he was still pretty sure he could deal with the stripper horror stories. Maybe he’d end up eating his words, though. He was about to respond when Nick kissed him, and Miles automatically lifted a hand to rest on his cheek when he did. He almost didn’t want it to end, and he found himself leaning forward even more when it did. He pushed himself back when he noticed it. “Well, dibs. Now it’s official.” He shrugged. “I don’t see anyone else trying to in the meantime. Unless you have suitors I don’t know about.”

Nick: “Yeah, and you don’t want to get confused by two different names and have an identity crisis.” Nick rose an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What things?” He asked, half amused and half curious. The kiss ended all too soon, but he had to pull back to speak or the mumbling might’ve ruined the mood. “I’ll have you know that I have plenty of ‘em, thank you. I told you, all of those single Mom’s aren’t shy about what they want.”

Miles raised his eyebrows, waving a hand to emphasize that was his entire point. “Exactly. It’s too confusing. So George doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.” Miles shrugged a shoulder, mulling it over in his head. “Things I can’t repeat, obviously. They’re too disturbing.” The actual most disturbing thing he’d come across was Greg Miller in his entirety, so he’d keep his mouth shut. “Well, give me names then. I guess I need to throw hands.” Assert his dominance and whatnot. Which was quite minimal. “I’m still curious about that whole atmosphere, though, so you can expect to see me at some point. I’ll be the one cheering you on.”

Nick had seen some things he didn’t want to necessarily share with anybody, but the fact that he could talk to Miles if he wanted was nice. “Right, fair enough.” Nick laughed loudly. “Are you sure you can take them? Especially Susan. She likes to brag about the fact that she does yoga every day.” His laughter died off and he shook his head. “In all seriousness, you probably wouldn’t like it there.” Nick didn’t even like it there and he worked there. “I can’t stop you if you decide to stop by. But I don’t think it’s your type of place.”

Miles stretched his arms up over his head. “I can take Susan. I’ve done yoga before. She’s nothin’ special.” Although yoga was intense. Miles couldn’t do it more than once with his mom. He’d barely made it through that first one. “Hey, you don’t know my kind of place.” Except he totally did, and he was right; Miles would hate it. “I like to think I’m at least tall enough to see over some heads. And I can’t foresee many people hitting on me.” Lily had only initially done so because her friends had egged her on. “So I’ll be okay. I just might need to bring some hand sanitizer.”

Nick: “You know, I’ve never had anyone try to compete with white suburban Mom’s for me before. But I can’t say I hate it.” Susan was pretty strong, but she was nice so she’d probably have mercy on Miles. “Suit yourself. You most definitely will be hit on, though. The second the vultures see you it’s on. You have to flirt with the customers so they’re more likely to want a dance. Sorry, buddy.” He didn’t necessarily want to see Miles there, because it wasn’t really a place he could see him actually enjoying. But the thought alone was also kind of hilarious.

Miles: “What can I say? You’re worth it.” Miles was just glad he didn’t have to think twice about saying things like that anymore. Nick knew what he meant to him and he had no problem voicing it to him. “I think I’d pay for a lap dance but then spend the whole time just asking if they’re okay. Strippers are people, too.” He was still teasing, and he showed it by grinning again. “I probably will never end up there, though, honestly. I hope you won’t be too sad that I’ll never visit you at work. Hopefully you won’t miss me too much.”

Nick: “I’m glad you think so.” They were both clearly joking, but Nick knew the sentiment was still there. And while before he’s tried so hard to ghost over it and pretend that it wasn’t there, now he was welcoming it. “And what would you do if one started crying on you mid lap dance?” He grinned back. “Well thanks for acknowledging the fact that I am actually human. I wasn’t sure otherwise.” He knew the chances of Miles ever showing up were slim, because he’d have to know the name of the place he worked for one thing. But hearing him voice it was a relief. Truth be told, he never wanted him to see him like that. “It’ll be tough but somehow I’ll manage. I guess you’ll just have to stay busy with your baby tutoring jobs.”

Miles: “Of course I do.” He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t. “I would hold them while they cried. Damn, Nick, I’m not a monster.” He was still playing around, but he totally would. He was the one who’d ask, after all. “No problem. That’s what I’m here for — reminding you of your humanity.” Sort of. “I am quite busy with them already. Maybe I can find some time to squeeze you into my schedule, though.”

Nick smiled slightly before laughing at Miles commentary about the strippers. “Maybe you should just skip being a teacher and move straight to therapist. Then you could help all the strippers you want.” Honestly, Miles would probably be good at it. “I thought you were here to just watch Cupcake Wars and Stranger Things with me. Looks like you have multiple uses.” He absentmindedly reached out to playfully tug on Miles’ sleeve while they talked. “Well you did say you were the master stripper. Maybe you could just tutor me in that so you can be on the job and around me at the same time.”

Miles: “I’d be a great therapist. Except I think I might cry along sometimes too.” Miles tended to get sympathetically emotional about that sort of things. “Oh, I have plenty of uses,” he said, raising a hand to wave off the notion that he didn’t. He looked down at Nick’s hand on his sleeve, and Miles scooted closer to him, letting his knee bump against Nick’s leg. “Hmm. I think I would be okay with that. I don’t think I’d be complaining about work at all.” He leaned forward to kiss him again, because he just didn’t think it would be necessary to stop any time he wanted to now. He couldn’t held himself. It was all in the name of being honest, after all — and he’d be lying to himself if he pretended not to want to kiss him as often as he did.

Nick: “At least your patients will know you care. That alone would probably be therapy enough.” Honestly, if he ever had to go to therapy, he’d way prefer someone who was too emotional over their patients than someone emotionless. That’d just be nerve wracking. “Clearly you do.” He noticed Miles knee bump his, and that they seemed to somehow keep getting closer and closer. But Nick didn’t exactly mind. “The only thing is that you’d probably have to work for free. That okay with you?” He teased before noticing Miles begin to lean in, and getting the picture, he leaned in to meet him half way. His hand dropped to lay flat on Miles’ leg for support as he stretched his neck to meet him half way — not thinking twice to kiss him back.

Miles: “I guess you’re right. So maybe I have a fallback career after all.” He wasn’t sure if he could handle it, but it was certainly something to think about. Jokingly, of course. “Maybe I could deal with that. I’d have to be compensated in other ways, though. Like you could stock my fridge for me. That’d be hot.” He’d love to not have to do any grocery shopping. He was aware of Nick’s hand on his leg, and Miles brought one of his own over to grab it. He could get used to this, especially the fact that nothing negative was going to come from it afterward, no matter how many times he decided to do it. It was fair game and he loved it. He pulled back reluctantly, keeping his face close. “Or that.”

Nick: “It’s good to have options.” Nick certainly wouldn’t want to do that for a living, though. He could barely handle his own problems, let alone a bunch of strangers’. “You know what would be hotter? Me not doing that and just mooching off you after you do it.” Nick was only joking, naturally. He actually liked grocery shopping, it meant he got to choose the food. He smiled into the kiss as Miles reciprocated and covered his hand with his own. It wasn’t anything crazy, but it was nice. And he found himself wanting to lean back in for more, much like earlier. “Or that.” He agreed quietly, before following his instincts and leaning back in once more for another, unfortunately brief, kiss. “I like doing that.”

Miles nodded. “It’s better than my original backup plan of just begging on the street for spare change.” That probably wouldn’t get him very far. “Mm, that doesn’t sound nearly as hot, actually.” It required effort so he was uninterested. Miles grinned at Nick’s reaction, followed by another quick kiss. “I do too,” he agreed quietly, nodding to make his point. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” It was still exhilarating. He wasn’t sure if that feeling would go away, but he didn’t particularly want it to.

Nick: “There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s my plan.” If his whole ‘millionaire by the time he’s thirty’ plan doesn’t pan out, of course. “Says you. Don’t kink shame me.” The joking atmosphere slowly wore off as they kissed. “Is that a good thing?” He asked with a slight smile, because he knew it was.

Miles: “I say we team up, then. They’re probably more likely to give to two of us, right?” Or maybe that would just drive people further away. That seemed a bit more likely. “I think we’ll have to come up with some sort of compromise here. Which, like...the best I can come up with is we split the work half and half, which is what we already do in our respective homes, so...good job. Keep up the good work.” It worked just fine so far. “You know the answer to that,” Miles replied, matching his grin, “but I’ll humor you anyway. It’s a good thing. I don’t think I want to get used to it.”

Nick: “Right. That or it’ll be easier for one of us to get away when they end up calling the cops on us.” Probably not their smartest plan, admittedly. Hopefully they just became millionaires and wouldn’t have to go that route. “Glad we had this talk, then.” He grinned in amusement. “I’m not used to it, either.” He admitted, and it still was a little difficult for him to say these things out loud, but he was trying to make more of an effort to. “But in a good way.” His hand toyed with the fabric of  Miles’ pants absentmindedly. “Still getting used to the fact that my best friend wants to kiss me.” He cracked a smile, but it was the truth.

Miles: “Well, if one of us gets away, then at least we’ll be able to bail the other one out. Count your blessings.” The easy solution would to not do anything worthy of going to jail over to begin with. But where was the fun in that? Miles watched Nick’s movements, the way his hand was just barely moving and tugging at the fabric of his sweatpants like Miles had been doing with his shirt earlier. He recognized the inattentive nature of the movement, just something to do that wasn’t at all awkward for either of them. It made his chest feel warm. He just loved their new situation. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. It was a positive change, at the very least. “I’ve been wanting that. It’s just expecting it to happen and knowing that it’s okay to do it,” he clarified. “I think you’re going to have an issue keeping me away from you now that it’s not exactly unfamiliar territory. So...I apologize in advance, but not really.”

Nick: “We’d make a good homeless team.” He nodded in agreement, because they would, even if it wasn’t exactly the worlds greatest plan. The following conversation should have been awkward for Nick, and it was to some extent simply because he wasn’t used to it. But Miles being so open and him being able to be open back made him feel lighter than usual. For once he wasn’t allowing the negative thoughts to get in the way. Not right now, anyway. Right now, he was just happy to be there with him. “I thought I made it obvious that I don’t want to keep you away from me. ‘Cause we’ve already tried that and it never works out.” He had no hesitation about admitting that. “So I’m not sorry if you’re not sorry.”

Miles: “I think we’d make a better team, like, not homeless. So I think our bigger goal should be to keep it that way.” It certainly wouldn’t be a difficult goal to reach. At least, Miles hoped so. He was still taken aback by Nick’s next words, mostly due to the fact that this would have ruined things for them a short time ago. And maybe there was still a chance for that to happen eventually, but at least it was much less likely now. “I know,” Miles agreed. “But now you’ll just officially have a harder time getting me off your back. Whether or not you actually enjoy it is your business.” Miles was glad that he did, though. “In return, I promise not to hold a grudge when you clearly drink from my mug even though I don’t recall inviting you to do so.”

Nick: “Of course. The whole homeless thing is just a ‘just in case’ thing.” Nick nodded in agreement. “Thanks for the heads up. But I think I can handle it.” He hoped, anyway. He hoped he could handle this newfound thing between him and Miles without somehow messing it up. Nick laughed, not realizing Miles had noticed. But of course he had. “I warned you I might. And you never said I couldn’t.” Admittedly, though, couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed by being caught. “Besides, since you’re my new stalker now, I should have rights to your hot chocolate.”

Miles: “Right. Just in case.” Still, he could do without having to get to that point. “Glad to hear it.” Miles didn’t think he’d be that hard to deal with. He’d do his best. He shook his head at that, unable to keep from smiling. “You’re a douche. I told you that you could go make your own. It’s literally right there,” he reminded him, gesturing toward the kitchen that was merely a few steps away from them. “Keep it up and I’m gonna send Scout chasing you out of here.” He turned to the TV again, frowning. “At least then maybe I’d actually watch this show. Shit, man. It happened again.”

Nick could only shrug, nearly guilty. “It always tastes better when it’s somebody else’s.” Plus, he didn’t want more than a taste of it. Why waste a trip to the kitchen and a whole packet of hot chocolate for that? “Please don’t, I feel like you’ve secretly trained her to rip people’s throats out. And I like my throat.” Nick turned his head to the TV when Miles did, and couldn’t help but smile slightly. “I don’t think this is working out. How many more times are we going to try before giving up?”

Miles shook his head. “Unbelievable. I know for a fact your mother didn’t raise you like this.” He could make some educated guesses, at least, based on what he knew about her and the Vaughn children when they were growing up. “Please. You know her. She’d only be able to suffocate you with kisses.” Thankfully, Miles had never had a need for Scout to chase people off. But she’d never quite been herself around Greg. It reminded Miles how dogs truly have the best judge of character. “I think if we’re going to do this we need to just stop listening to each other,” he said, but it was much easier said than done. He picked up the remote to pause the episode. “I need to catch up, man. We really need to shut the hell up.”

Nick: “No, but she accidentally taught me to be sneaky, so she never knew. I just wasn’t trying to hide it this time.” His Mom was the no nonsense type, so Miles was right about that. “I mean, I didn’t want to die. But being smothered to death by dog kisses doesn’t sound too terrible.” Better than being mauled to death, that was for sure. “Okay... okay. You’re right. No more talking.” Nick nodded, trying to keep a straight face. “Let’s try this one more time. We can pause it like every three episodes to get all the words out.”

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘The Tale of the Field Hospital’ (S02E28) Analysis

A historical tale of disease and horror in a field hospital, and a few interesting new details about the tunnels below the Magnus Institute.  What’s not to love?  Come on in to hear my take on ‘The Tale of the Field Hospital’.

First, holy crap this narrator.  This is one of the best jobs Jonny Sims has done yet of capturing a personality through writing, and I found Joseph Russo equal parts hysterical and irritating.  The only character I can think of who tops him in terms of pure personality bleeding through the narrative is Jane Prentiss, and that’s saying something.

Interesting that he noted that so many statements got leaked in 1999.  While this does explain how other paranormal organizations know about and disdain the Magnus Institute (especially since even Russo admits that most of the leaked statements were lies or drug-induced), I’m more interested in who did it.  It had to have been someone with access to the archives, which immediately puts me in mind of Gertrude or Elias, unless Gertrude had unknown assistants at that time. Of course, this begs the question of why either of them would want to leak some of those statements.  Was there a goal in discrediting the Institute? Perhaps they’d been getting too much attention and needed to seem less credible?  In that case, I nominate Elias for having done the deed.

I also went into this episode expecting a Leitner episode (as per usual when we get an episode about a book), but I really wasn’t expecting the sudden reemergence of John Amhurst.  He’s gone from a creepy unexplained thing last season to a being of great interest this season.  We now know it’s likely he was probably repeatedly dying, coming back, and spreading pestilence at least in 1899 and 1902 (the years of the Second Boer War).

I was also not expecting this to be really the first episode to draw a deliberate parallel between real-world horrors and the horrors of the supernatural.  It was a subtle thing, but the thread between John Amhurst, monstrous being of pestilence and death, and Jeffrey Amherst, the (actual, historical) governor general of Quebec, and one of the earliest known users of biologic warfare was deeply disturbing.  Because while Amhurst spreading his disease amongst the soldiers of the Boer War, and bringing back all the pestilence in the concentration camps to visit upon the field hospital is vicious, it seems more understandable.  Amhurst’s very nature seems centered around disease and decay. But when humans inflict something like smallpox blankets on one another … there’s a horror to that that’s worse than a monster.  Because it’s us doing it to ourselves.  It’s one person looking at another group of people, some of whom are on the opposite side of a war, but most of whom are simply trying to get by, and killing them through confinement and illness.  It’s consigning an entire group of people to death, not based on nature or some ineffable supernatural drive, but the horror of expedience and apathy.  And the connection there between Amhurst and Amherst is one of the creepier ties I’ve seen yet from this show.

Kudos on the show for daring to go there, and for doing it with a lightness of touch that didn’t make any potential message seem preachy or overbearing.  It was a moment when I really had to think about the parallels, and how much more awful the real Amherst seems to me than the fictional Amhurst.

Let’s get back to the story itself.  There’s now some question about how closely tied Amhurst is to the Hive, or if we simply drew the parallel because he and Jane Prentiss seemed so similar.  Of course, there were always differences, but I chalked it up to the Hive needing different vessels for different things. Both were plague-bearers, but Prentiss seemed far more a shambling force of nature, while Amhurst seemed intelligent and deliberate.  Prentiss could barely speak by the end, while Amhurst seemed to have retained a degree of eloquence right up until he got torched in ‘Pest Control’.  So there’s no real answer to whether or not Amhurst is part of the Hive, or something else entirely.  It is well worth consideration, however.  

What we do know now without question is that he is a harbinger of illness.  Each of the soldiers who replaced him on the bed grew septic and died in hours, and one can assume something similar was happening in the nursing home in ‘Taken Ill’.  The fact that the nurse said “We’ve taken ill; we’ve passed away” also seems to echo the fact that Amhurst keeps dying and coming back.  What about the soldiers he infected?  Would they come back as well?  Or is it more like in ‘Squirm’, where Prentiss could infect someone, but they wouldn’t become a Hive so much as burst once the Hive reached a critical mass within them?

And of course, there’s the question of whether or not Amhurst is really dead.  We know that ‘Taken Ill’ happened in 2011, as did Amhurst’s apparent death by lighter in ‘Pest Control’.  Is that the end of Amhurst, as the incinerator apparently was with Prentiss, or will he come back again, being such a restless man?

What’s also interesting here is we have a direct crossover between Leitner (likely) and a major player in the supernatural ecosystem, John Amhurst.  We know that the book itself is infectious, and killed Russo within days of accidentally getting a papercut from it.  So it’s likely to possess at least part of the Hive’s power.  The question I have is how much power, if any, a book like that granted Leitner over the subject?  Would John Amhurst, for instance, have been subjugated in any way by the existence of this book, and its possession by Jurgen Leitner?  I previously speculated that Leitner was the Mommy Fortuna of the TMA universe, using his books to trap and hold supernatural beings, to have a mundane and powerless human granted dominion over beings far higher than him on the food-chain.  All we know of Amhurst in our current timeline, as I mentioned, happened in 2011, well after the apparent burning of the Leitner connected to him in 2003. Was John Amhurst bound to the book, only to be freed upon the burning of his book, or was he never particularly bound, and the book acted more as a mirror than a cage?

I really want to know how Leitner’s library functioned, and how it interacted on a larger scale with the supernatural ecosystem.  I’d also like to know what, or who, eventually got Leitner.

The Supplemental

So that hope that Sims would actually do the sensible thing and take a little field-trip with his assistants?  Yeah, that was obviously a pipe-dream.  I should have known, but I’m still dramatically unimpressed with his decision-making abilities.

What’s interesting is that Not-Sasha came for him, probably deliberately.  How did she know he was in the tunnels?  Was she waiting for him to go down?  If so, why did she follow and rescue him?  And what was it about the tunnels that allowed him to see through her deception for a second?  Is the thing in the tunnels able to work through him somehow to make him see what the Archives can only push him to be paranoid about?  Are they one in the same thing, but somehow the presence is more present in the tunnels?  Is the thing in the tunnels acting like a protector, sort of like the creature in the Alexandrian archive found in ‘Crusader’?  If that’s the case, does that indicate that deep at the bottom of Smirke’s impossible stairwell, someone has secreted a second archive, with all the things that previous archivists squirreled away, beyond even the reach of the Institute, just in case this current larger archive should be burned or otherwise destroyed?

The more we get to know the thing in the tunnels, the more I think it’s deliberately protective of Sims, and yet trying to guide him somewhere.  Things went wrong for him in ‘Too Deep’ only when he decided to take a random side-jog of his own.  And in this episode we see how rapidly Sims got lost, but was he truly lost?  Or was he instead being guided somewhere?

And if he was being guided somewhere, did Not-Sasha want to stop him getting there?

Either way, next time maybe he won’t be a colossal idiot and take Martin with him (Martin being the only one likely to be willing to accompany him down to the tunnels at this point).  We haven’t heard from Martin in a while, and I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on with him.  We have a far better accounting of Tim and even Not-Sasha right now.  Martin is keeping his head down, and I wonder if it’s deliberate.  Is Martin working on something we don’t know about, or is Sims simply not noticing him?

I’d like to see what would happen in the tunnels should Sims bring a friend along with him.  Would the tunnels exert the same effect over him, or would it hold off until he was alone again.  And if it did still exert its effect, would Sims’ bravery be bolstered enough by someone being with him to find whatever it is that the tunnels are hiding?

Conclusions

I always love a good historical story, and this one was particularly skin-crawling (pun intended). Bringing in the atrocities of the Boer War, as well as the atrocities visited on the Native Americans by Jeffrey Amherst, makes for some uncomfortable parallels between the supernatural forces, which we often treat as less malicious and more instinctual, and the human evils of deliberately infecting people with smallpox or other diseases to decimate a population.  It’s a very well done parallel, and only served to highlight to me how much more frightening people are than any monster.

This episode brought up a lot of questions about Amhurst, his connections to the Hive and to Leitner. It also brought up new questions about the tunnels under the Institute.  The more I hear, the more I’m hoping we have a proper multi-cast episode in them.  Even the brief snippet we got this week was properly chilling stuff, hearing Sims panic as he realizes that he’s lost and didn’t prepare for an extended stay (why the hell did you go down without preparing first, you idiot?).  I’d love to get more Tim and Martin down there (though it would be a hell of a thing convincing Tim to return) and their takes on the tunnels and the thing that lurks there.  The more it becomes clear that Sims is a fantastically unreliable narrator, the more I appreciate outside perspectives to either confirm or refute his observations.