#watch out for the deck sweeper

[the-last-patch]

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Hey everyone, it’s me again. I don’t know how we deal with time here on the Omninet yet but sorry if this finds you at an odd hour. For me, I don’t keep track of days or nights since PMC typically spends weeks to months traveling in space between jobs. As far as I know we’re the only mercenary company willing to take contracts in this space. I wish I could say more but a small group like Patchwork has gotta stay tight lipped lest we lose the people’s respect! I can say however that we’ve got a big job coming up, and the first steps of it start tomorrow! That being said…I wanted to tell you all a little about myself, In case this next sortie serves to be my last. I don’t intend for it to be, but I wouldn’t be a Merc if I wasn’t prepared to die every time I got into my Frame. Anyways, introductions and fun facts!

My name is, not important! You all can call me “Opossum” since that’s what everyone I know calls me anyways. I am a fairly experienced mercenary and pilot a mech which can be most closely described as a GMS EVEREST by the name of “Marsupial Mayhem”. Despite the aggressive name, I specialize in Hacking and controlling the area around me. If things get dicey, Marsupial Mayhem’s original base frame was a construction mech designed for digging meaning as long as there’s solid ground I can reposition. I usually save that as a last resort though, anyone who gets close enough to me to force me to move usually regrets it.

In the field I am wholly consumed by the mission, and often push my emotions to the side through the use of a neural cocktail PMC’s personal Doc. Not the healthiest habit to have I know, however I pay for it after every mission when the adrenaline and ecstasy wears off. Off the field, well you kind of know how I am already! I like to think I’m friendly, amiable, and a joy to be around, but most of my coworkers would just describe me as “silly” and “deceptively mature” whatever that means. In my free time I like to fix up old tech which most people consider scrap. My favorite things to fix are actually considered “old humanity relics”. I’ll get into how I got most of mine another time, but I was referring to cassette tapes! In case you’re unfamiliar they’re handheld devices which contain an audio recording, most often music, and can play it back with the use of an analogue player. They’re super cool, and if anyone has and is willing to part with them I’ll make sure you get your Manna worth! Anyways I digress, I should get some rest before this Sortie tomorrow. Thanks for indulging my pointless rambling everyone, see you all starside!

P.XV “Opossum”, Signing off.

[Transmission End]

[noneorother]

Hi, I’ve only read one meta by you yet, but you seem to be just the right person to ask this: did you notice how many people in the scenes outside the bookshop are wearing orange, in series 2?

Any idea what that’s all about? Is it just esthetics, an echo of the bookshop‘s columns, or does it have a filmographical significance? Everytime I watch the show there seem to be more orange clothes, once you start seeing that, it’s crazy how many there are!

Hey thanks for the ask! I mean, you have until 2026 to read more of my drivel so; pace yourself! Orange clothing is definitely an *interesting* choice for extras in film. You almost never see it in background actors clothing because... it draws the eye! The fact that they included so much orange, yellow, and loud patterning in the extras in season 2 is a real decision to throw film tradition and S1 cannon out the window.

I would like to submit my own theory that the choice was made as a deliberate nod to time travel. But first, a little background.

Compare two crowd scenes on Whickeber street from each season: It's kind of nuts that even at microscopic resolution we get such a HUGE difference.

That's not to say orange is missing. Here are the only two extras wearing orange in S1, and they happen to be in the same scene in episode 2, when Newt and Shadwell meet for the first time, discussing occult beings "hiding in plain sight". (witches in this case)

We also get some pretty obvious bright orange in main characters in S1: Madame Tracy and Beelzebub. We meet Tracy in orange as she immediately reveals to Newt multiple hidden identities, see her again wearing orange hair when she communes with spirits, and finally all decked out in orange when she is being possessed by an angel (a person hiding inside a person). Beelzebub wears an orange sash and medal as a high ranking Duke of Hell, so orange is maybe their house colour, or a prestigious colour for hell in general, but after season 2 we know Beelzebub doesn't always have the same face, and is hiding intentions of their own.

Orange doesn't have much biblical significance, mostly because the colour orange was mostly seen as "fire" or "bright" coloured until way after the bible was transcribed, and orange dye wasn't really a thing in the European world until significant trade with east Asia developed. Here's the only other bright orange thing to appear all season, (in a deleted scene): Crowley hiding in plain sight, posing as a maintenance worker.

I think we might be able to draw the conclusion from season 1 that orange is a colour associated with the "Hidden Occult/Power". Not necessarily only hell, but more as something otherworldly, that's hidden in plain sight. (Interestingly, we never ever see Anathema or Agnes Nutter in orange. So I wouldn't say it's related to witches at all.)

In season 2 however, orange is everywhere. More specifically on extras' clothing and the outside of Maggie's record shop.

Maggie seems to be the only main character to wear bright orange herself (E2).

But this is by far my favourite one: in the back of the crowd of demons getting a Shax pep talk in S2E5, there's a regular human extra wearing bright orange sitting amongst the army, completely unnoticed by both demons and audience, observing the plan.

This really set off alarm bells for me, because there's a very Terry Pratchett precedent for powerful and unnoticed orange-wearing characters in the discworld series : the time monks.

Terry's character Sweeper seen here on the original cover of Night Watch. The time monks' clothing and general philosophy is based on Thai buddhist monks, who (like in many buddhists sects) wear donated, saffron-dyed robes in orange and yellow/red to symbolize flames of purity, and to separate them from the world of gross matter, like a fallen leaf from a tree.

In the discworld novel Night Watch, the time monks are responsible for monitoring and cleaning up the timeline, pruning it like a bonzai tree. They are everywhere and yet unnoticed, inside the flow of time yet not of it. And they are the ones who guide the main character through the process of being stuck after falling back through his own timeline, into his own past.

(Excerpt from the book where Sweeper is explaning time travel to Vimes).

Extras circling in the background are called "background actors" because they exist to not be noticed. Put in extras wearing orange/yellow and bright red, and suddenly you can track them, and notice how they are part of the crowd, but stand apart from it. You can notice when they go missing from one cut to the next, or appear to circle or jump between frames. Many extras, including the demon army watcher, also seem to be circling, and monitoring the goings-on in the world of Good Omens. Based on the meaning of orange from S1, it would seem these mere background actors are more than they appear to be. Could they even be checking up on unwarranted time distortions or timeline ruptures happening around a certain Bookshop...?

[megamuscle885-blog]

Big thanks to @tgirlblogger who reminded me with a like to post this today this morning like I planned.

TORTUGA

Tinker 8 - All-in-one Mech, redundancy/life support tinker.

Citadel Architect, or Conglomerate Architect from the weaverdice document fit best here. Everything she makes feeds into her Mech, her magnum opus, a career spanning megaproject that is constantly 'unfinished' but still capable of combat. Much of her tinker methodology is inventing something and then discovering how it fits into the design of her machine. She believes her power is 'alive' and whispering the secrets of the universe to her, but she alternates between truly treating her power like it's alive and thinking it's just her subconscious needing a rubber duck to let itself out. (It's both, her shard is exactly like her only with a blue-orange mentality from being a giant space world-machine.)

She also has some extremely sophisticated parahuman scanning equipment built into her sensors and her quasi-AI computer co-pilot she's built to handle the automatic functions of her Mech. Her best work is made this way; scan parahumans (more in-depth scans are better but she's still taking passive scans of everyone she comes in contact with), create equipment inspired by parahumans, plug that component into the machine, the machine's secrets are revealed a little more and the puzzle is growing complete, iterate on new inspirations driven from the new tech's installation to upgrade previous tech until new well of inspiration is expended, repeat.

The consequence of this is that though her Mech is one of the most intensely iterated pieces of tinkertech in the world, she herself doesn't have much in the way of portable technology.

Glasses that record what she sees and hears with rear view cameras built into the frames that hang over her ears.

A pilot's plugsuit that is durable and temperature controlled and wicks away sweat and grime so she can wear it indefinitely.

A helmet much like a fighter pilot's that allows her to have a HUD and aim/control the mech manually via remote.

All of these things are mundane enough that they could be made without tinkertech, but customized to work with her Mech in a way no mundane tech could.

I'm not too sure on her trauma or how to make it fit. It could be that we simply don't cover it in the scope of the story. I feel like her self induced isolation within her Mech is part of it. She can't sleep comfortably outside of it, and even then for barely an hour. She'll start to become restless and hyper-vigilant while outside of it for any extended period of time. It's her safe space in a thousand different little ways. She's lost her Mech once before and had to rebuild it from damaged parts, almost from scratch, though she hasn't lost anything in terms of progress or discoveries. Tortuga Mk2 is a much more successful version of her initial machine.

Her specialty as a redundancy and life support tinker is best shown in how many backups she has for her technology. Chemical thrusters as backup for her anti-grav. Viewports as backup for cameras which are interchangeable with lidar, sonar, radar and gravity sensors to detect strangers, all within a camera drone net. Anti-thinker tech. Multiple shielding barriers, some based on slowing projectiles, others based on resisting them as hard as possible, then reactive armor behind them, then ceramics, soft armor, hard armor, etc. while a point defense system watches over all of it. The idea is that her Mech should resemble some of the most intense combined arms technology possible, while her inner sanctum exists to keep the VIP (her) as alive as possible. I may have to read up a little more on Lancer to get more inspiration. Hyper reflex mode, the deck-sweeper automatic shotgun (I intend to have it as a belt-fed gatling shotgun), Watchdog Co-pilot, all awesome things that inspired the character.

This didn't end up being the character bio I hoped for, but it's the one I'm posting. I'll probably end up expanding here later. Her history in central america will require some research I think, and some extrapolation on the kind of conflicts around Eidolon's zone of influence in Texas down towards Mexico and South America. Earth Bet's USA feels a bit isolationist in foreign policy to me, especially as Endbringers started cropping up, and Leviathan started crippling international shipping, and the Simurgh makes air travel daunting. I wonder what kind of influence Earth Bet's USA holds over Haiti, the Dominican Republic, or Mexico, all historically within the USA's zone of influence.

I also haven't yet thought of a name for her since I also don't know in my mind where she's from. There's this murky idea of a shaved head and pale skin and sunken eyes with bags under them, but an overall chipper attitude in private (within the comfort of her mech) and a terse mercenary facade when she puts on for her client or 'co-workers' whoever they end up being. I'm thinking something voiced by Jennifer Hale in that icy renegade Sheppard style. She's constantly got her tinker on a leash anytime she speaks to people, but would rapidly open up and turn into a motormouth if she's being encouraged and feels safe to unleash her thoughts and interests on others. Turtles are a big non-tinker special interest I think. I may have to do research on Turtles. Fuck.

[niuttuc]

My Favorite Cards of 2024: Fallout

The year is pretty close to over, so let’s go back over the sets released this year (with new cards at least), and go through a few of my favorite cards from that release. I’ll group together stuff released together, in this case it’ll be just the Fallout set and potentially some of the bonus reprints, either reskinned or with pip-boy art. I’ll probably go through one set a day for the next week, though I might skip some days for personal reasons.

My first card is pretty innocuous and niche, but Survivor's Med Kit has found its way into many of my artifacts commander decks since it released. It has extremely low opportunity cost, can be tutored with Urza's saga, and represents 2 artifacts on board and a cantrip. The rad counters mode is trinket text, but that's fine. At best in some decks it allows you to sac this at will without a sac outlet to bring it back for another round.

These two are together due to some, but not full, similar uses. Pre-War Formalwear is a great equipment to have in a package, reanimating a small creature and giving it a chunky boost all its own while being tutorable with a Stoneforge, targetable with sun titan, and all that good stuff. Getting immediate spell value out of your equipments makes them much, much better and more usable. Brotherhood Outcast really wants you to be able to use that first mode, but if you can take advantage of it fully, that's another card and 2 or 3 extra mana on your three drop. Particularly good with auras that tend to go to the graveyard, but powerful equipments attract plenty of removals too. The shield counter buyout makes this at least not a dead card in other situations, and can even protect from blasphemous acts and other wraths of god if those are the kind of sweepers in your playgroup.

Another great one in Artifact decks, Synth Infiltrator is a two mana clone that's also an artifact is just nice. Phyrexian Metamorph is hard to compete with, but this can do it in some decks, and if Improvise isn't a heavy theme of your artifact deck, it's often trivial to have three of them laying around that don't mind being tapped. It can copy opposing creatures, which is a good quality to see in a clone these days.

Mostly for graveyard decks only, but a land every turn and with some self-milling packaged in if you have nothing else going on makes Tato Farmer a decent ramp option for those decks. The rad counters are optional, so don't even have to worry about going nuts and killing yourself by accident with your lands.

This was our preview card for the set so it gets a bias bump up, but Kellogg here is also an excellent rate for what it does. First Strike means you should usually find someone to attack, haste that it gets value immediately, and a treasure a turn is useful ramp. The theft effect is also there, though I mostly play this guy in decks that don't really care about it.

Watchful Radstag is just neat. You can keep making 3/3s to create tokens 1 at a time, or go bigger creatures to double your stags, but that'll be limited because at some point they'll be too big, but the new ones are always 2/2s to keep at least something going. It's surprisingly difficult (though far from impossible) to go infinite with, and that's a good thing for this kind of design.

I really like Mysterious Stranger in theory, though never expect it to do great. I've been disappointed so far, the two times I drew it, nobody else had ANY instants or sorceries in their graveyard, which is probably a fluke? You'd think they'd be common enough.

Untapping two lands is the big seller here, makes the Pip-Boy quite a low investment in an equipment deck since it pays for its own equip cost and then starts generating two mana a turn. With that said, with the kind of manabases I encounter, with bounce lands and certainly a Dowsing Dagger in that equipment deck, that mode becomes even stronger. It's cheap enough to get with a Saga, and that's always good to see.

I don't actually play Inventory Management anywhere or enjoy the gameplay of it all too much, but I gotta give it props and a place here for the top down design that's both incredibly fitting and a hilarious translation of a common trope.

Decks that attack can often struggle with board wipes, and turning your attacks into draws (up to three cards) whenever you need them that dodge creature wipes and ramping you to cast them and in the form of artifacts and not needing to attack with this and... Rose, Cutthroat Raider does a lot, and I think more decks should attack more anyway.

[howardseth]

The Peavy Lesson

DC1 Peavy asked me to "swab the deck." It didn't go as he may have planned. Lessons from being at sea as a young sailor.. still apply today.

REVEILLE, REVEILLE. ALL HANDS HEAVE OUT AND TRICE UP. THE SMOKING LAMP IS LIGHTED ON ALL WEATHER DECKS. REVEILLE………BREAKFAST FOR THE CREW. “Sweepers, sweepers! Man your brooms!” Alright, we have to get up and get ready for work, unless we were already up because we had the watch. If you were like me, you’d get the late night or very early morning morning watch which meant less sleep and more…

[ezrisdax-archive]

quarantine year two list of new (to me) things I’ve gotten into because the old list was getting too long and I just like making lists:

Transformers IDW comics 1.0 and 2.0

Transformers Marvel comics

Transformers: Cyberverse

Transformers: War for Cybertron

Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)

Transformers: Prime Wars trilogy

Transformers: Last Knight (a mistake)

Dimension 20: Mice and Murder

Kid Cosmic

Ted Lasso

Mortal Kombat (movie)

Final Fantasy VII: Intergrade/Intermission

The Owl House (season two)

Buzzfeed Unsolved (final season)

Puppet History

Marvel Comics (All New Wolverine, Mighty Valkyries, New Mutants 2019, Beta Ray Bill 2021, Champions 2020)

DC Comics (Far Sector, Green Lantern 2020, Wonder Girl 2021, Blue and Gold, Crush and Lobo, Static 2021, Teen Titans Academy, Aquaman: The Becoming, The Flash 2021, Nubia and the Amazons)

Amphibia (season two and three)

Resident Alien

Infinity Train (season four)

Ratchet and Clank: A Rift In Time

Power Rangers comics

Dimension 20: Magic and Misfits

Space Jam: A New Legacy

Prozd Plays Games: Danganronpa 1 & 2 playthrough

Leverage Redemption

Master of the Universe: Revelations

My Life is Murder

Rogue Runners

Ghosts (season three)

We are Lady Parts

Free Guy

Space Sweepers

Derry Girls

Dave Made a Maze

Luca

Dimension 20: The Seven

Star Trek: Lower Decks (season two)

Brooklyn 99 (final season)

The Great Ace Attorney (started, first game done)

NEO: TWEWY (started)

Star Trek: Discovery (season four)

Encanto

Shang-Chi and the Seven Rings

Deathloop

Only Murders in the Building

Star Trek: Prodigy

Horizon Zero Dawn

Arcane

Destiny

Doctor Who (series 13)

Dimension 20: Shriek Week

9-1-1

9-1-1 Lone Star

Wheel of Time

Kirby: Star Allies

things still do watch/read/play, some of which aren’t out yet this year but I’m keeping track here regardless:

Gintama

Way of the househusband

Soul Eater

AI: Sominium Files

Snow White with the Red Hair

Skyjacks

Tales of Arise

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Witch Hat Altier

[omnifatal]

Dragon Standard: Esper Control Deck Report

A friend of mine came up with an idea for a tournament some months ago. The concept was pretty simple, it followed the premise of the Khans of Tarkir block (minus the time travel, maybe): Dragons vs Everyone Else. It combined the aforementioned Khans block standard with the famous Dragonstorm Standard from Worlds 2007. The legal sets were:

Coldsnap

Time Spiral

Planar Chaos

Future Sight

10th Edition

Lorwyn

Theros

Born of the Gods

Journey Into Nyx

M15

Khans of Tarkir

Fate Reforged

Dragons of Tarkir

There were also some "Form of" cards legal, like Form of the Dragon, but I don't think anyone played them.

Pro Tour Dragons was one of the first I watched as a player, and I remembered the Esper Dragons deck from that year fondly and thought I'd replicate it in this format, with some powerful upgrades. I also really, really just wanted to cast Dig Through Time again. And so, the following list was born. (One of these days, I’ll figure out how to get the iframe to work). 

The person running the tournament (I use that term liberally, it was just the four of us playing here) did their own breakdown of my deck afterwords and I think they had a lot of good points. The biggest takeaway I had from the tournament was that making control in such an unknown metagame is really difficult. I drew inspiration (read: copied) from the successful Esper Dragons lists from the PT DTK era. Unfortunately, we were just a set or two off of the card that really cracked this deck in half: Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. 

As a result, I had to play a "gimped" version of the deck without the powerful Planeswalker, and many of the strategy and deckbuilding articles about Esper Dragons were from the Origins era, which didn't help me out. That said, I was pretty happy with my 75 going into the tournament. I'd known from previous times I'd played with this group to expect some kind of off-the-wall combo, hence the grave hate in the board. I wasn't super impressed by Anticipate, and I honestly thought Ponder would be enough card selection, paired with fetchland-powered Dig Through Time, to find me the cards I wanted when I wanted them. It turns out that wasn't the case.

As I said, playing control in a wide open, totally unknown format is tricky. This deck probably had the strongest finisher/anti-control tool in the format in Dragonlord Ojoutai, and in theory we had actual, factual counterspell in the form of Silumgar's Scorn. Crux of Fate could clean up any wide boards and Foul-Toungue and Hero's Downfall were solid removal options for big threats, and the former also doubled as a life buffer verses aggro. In hindsight, I was woefully unprepared for the aggro matchups, and I probably should have cut most of the walkers for more removal. Cryptic command, unsurprisingly to anyone who's tried to play triple colored cards in a format without the mainstay fetch-dual interaction, was hard to cast in a three colored deck. My mana base also ended up being a little too slow to keep up with some of the aggro decks, and while the life gain and scries were helpful, I felt like my scries often went to getting rid of extra lands and ended up making me too slow to actually be able to cast my sweepers and removal. Speaking of, who let me play 27 lands with only 4 Ponder as cantrips?!

All this is to say that the deck performed fine, but not fantsatic. I ended up taking second place to a super neat Naya Megamorph deck which very obviously poked at my lack of good removal and applied a quick clock with beaters such as Tarmogoyf and standard all stars Nest Invader and Den Protector to out-value my Digs and Cruxes.

In a reversal of the DTK timeline, the dragons lost this round. Although, to be fair, I was outnumbered 3 to 1. In the future, I'm probably not going to try and make a control deck for a pseudo-block format like this without a lot more thought, I really just stole an old list and shoved Cryptics and Ponders into it and expected it to work. This might have gone better if I'd just copied it whole cloth, as I'd at least have some better card selection and ratios of removal. But oh well, live and learn, right?

[aion-rsa]

How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A close-knit crew of wildly different people ride around on a spaceship having adventures. If you’re a sci-fi fan, there are very good odds that this synopsis describes one of your hooks into the genre. That crew might be a dysfunctional band of space criminals and revolutionaries, or a clean cut team of scientists, diplomats and soldiers serving a galactic Space UN, but there is a core appeal to this set up across the genre.

“Ensemble crews are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to forge a found family.  A foundational example for me was Blake’s 7,” says Paul Cornell, who has written stories for the Star Trek: Year Five comic series among his many speculative fiction credits. “They haven’t been recruited, they have relative degrees of distance from the cause, they’ve been flung together.  The most important thing is that they’re all very different people.”

These Are the Voyages…

It’s a formula that has been repeated over and over for about as long as there has been science fiction on television—starting with the likes of Star Trek and Blake’s 7, through the boom in “planet of the week” style TV in the 90s and 00s with Farscape and Firefly, to more recent stories like Dark Matter, The Expanse, Killjoys, and the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Most recently Sky’s Intergalactic, and the Korean movie Space Sweepers have been carrying the standard, while last month saw people diving back into the world of Mass Effect with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. While Commander Sheppard is ostensibly the protagonist of the video game trilogy, few would argue that it’s anything other than the ensemble of the Normandy crew that keeps people coming back.

As science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders points out, it’s not hard to see the appeal of a family of likeable characters, kept in close quarters by the confines of their ship, and sent into stories of adventure.

“I love how fun this particular strand of space opera is, and how much warmth and humour the characters tend to have,” Anders says. “These stories have in common a kind of swashbuckling adventure spirit and a love of problem-solving and resourcefulness. And I think the ‘found family’ element is a big part of it, since these characters are always cooped up on a tiny ship together and having to rely on each other.”

Over the years the Star Wars franchise has delivered a number of mismatched spaceship crews, from various ensembles to have crewed the Millennium Falcon, to the band of rebels in Rogue One, to the crew of the Ghost in Star Wars: Rebels.

That energy was one of the inspirations for Laura Lam and Elizabeth May, the writers behind Seven Devils and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies. In Seven Devils, a team of very different women come together aboard a starship stolen from an oppressive, galaxy-spanning empire, clashing with each other as much as the regime they are fighting. 

“So many of these stories are what we grew up with, and they were definitely influences. The scrappy people trying to make a living or rebel against a higher power, or the slick luxury communism of Star Trek,” says Lam. “What’s great and terrible about space is how you are often stuck on a ship with people, for better or worse. That isolation can breed really interesting character conflict and deep bonds. You have to have your crew’s back, otherwise space or alien plants are too large or dangerous [to survive].”

While the “Seven” duology is very much inspired by this genre of space adventure, it also brings these stories’ underlying political themes to the surface.

“What I enjoy most about space operas is taking contemporary socio-cultural and political issues and exploring them through a different lens,” says May. “I love to think of them in terms of exploration, analogous to ships navigating the vastness of a sea. And on journeys that long, with only the ocean and saltwater (space) around you, things become fraught. Yes, these are tales of survival, but they’re also tales of what it means to question the world around you. Aside from the cultural questions that [premise] raises, it opens possibilities for conflict, character bonding, and worldbuilding.”

In Yudhanjaya Wijeratne’s novel, The Salvage Crew, his ensemble don’t spend long on their ship. In the opening scene, they are plummeting through the atmosphere of an alien planet in a drop-pod piloted by an AI who is also the book’s narrator. But the book shares that sense of characters who need to stick close together in the face of a large and dangerous universe.

“What did I like about [space team stories]? Well, always the sense of wonder that the scale brought me: the feeling that Earth, and all our bickering, was just a tiny speck of dust – what Sagan called ‘the pale blue dot’ – and out there was an entire universe waiting to be explored,” Wijeratne says. “I treasured the darkness, as well: the darkness of the void, the tragedy of people in confined spaces, and a terror of the deep that only the deep sea brings me. It wasn’t the family attitude: it was more the constraints and the clever plays within terrifyingly close constraints. There’s a kind of grim, lunatic nihilism you need for those situations, and I loved seeing that.”

When asked for their favourite examples of the genre, one name kept coming up. Wijeratne, Anders, Lam, and May all recommended the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers. The first in the series, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, concerns the crew not of an elite space naval vessel, or a renegade crew of space criminals, but of a ship that lays hyperspace tunnels for other, more glamorous ships to travel through. This job of space road-laying is one that I can only recall seeing once before, much more catastrophically, in the Vogon Constructor Fleet of Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a very different tale, however.

May tells us, “It’s a quieter space tale, a novel that feels very much like a warm hug. I love it with all my heart.”

Chambers doesn’t hold back when describing the impact this genre had on her growing up.

“I can’t remember life without these stories,” she says. “TNG first aired when I was three years old, and I watched Trek every week with my family until Voyager wrapped when I was sixteen. I can recite most of the original Star Wars trilogy word for word while I’m watching the movies, and I binged Farscape like my life depended on it when I was in college. This storytelling tradition is so much a part of my fabric that I have a hard time articulating what it is I like about it so much. It’s just a part of me, at this point. These stories are fun, full stop. They’re exciting. They can break your heart and crack you up in equal measure. They’re about small little clusters of people doing extraordinary things within an impossibly vast and beautiful universe. Everything about my work is rooted here. I can’t imagine who I’d be without these stories.”

The Unchosen Ones

Perhaps a big part of the appeal of these stories is that they are about an ensemble of people, each with their own stories and goals and perspectives. It can be refreshing where science fiction and fantasy frequently centre stories of “the Chosen One”, be it a slayer, boy wizard, or Jedi who is the person the narrative happens to. While Chosen One stories will frequently have a wide supporting cast, the emphasis for those other characters is frequently on the “supporting”.

“I very intentionally wanted to do something other than a ‘chosen one’ story with Wayfarers. I’m not sure I can speak to any broader trend in this regard, but with my own work, I really wanted to make it clear that the universe belongs to everybody in equal measure,” Chambers says. “Space opera is so often the realm of heroes and royalty, and I love those stories, but there’s a parallel there to how we think about space in the real world. Astronauts are and have always been an exceptional few. I wanted to shift the narrative and make it clear that we all have a place out there, and that even the most everyday people have stories worth telling.”

It’s an increasingly popular perspective. Perhaps it’s telling that one of the most recent Star Trek spin-offs, Lower Decks, focuses not on the super-heroic bridge crew, but the underlings and red shirts that do their dirty work, and that in turn echoes the ultra-meta John Scalzi novel, Redshirts.

Charlie Jane Anders’ recently released young adult novel, Victories Greater Than Death is a story that starts off with an almost archetypical “Chosen One” premise. The story’s protagonist, Tina, is an ordinary teenage girl, but is also the hidden clone of the hero of a terrible alien war. But as the story progresses, it evolves into something much more like an ensemble space adventure.

“I was definitely thinking about that a lot in this book in particular,” Anders says. “Tina keeps thinking of the other earth kids as a distraction from her heroic destiny or as people she needs to protect. Her friend Rachael is the one who keeps pushing for them to become a family and finally gets through to Tina.”

Seven Devils (and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies) is also a story that tries to focus on the exact people who would never be considered “chosen” or who have wilfully turned away from their destiny.

“I do like that most of them [the characters] are those the Tholosians wrote off as unimportant–people to be used for their bodies, and not encouraged to use their minds,” Lam says. “And Eris’s journey turning away from the life chosen for her and choosing her own, but having to wrangle with what she still did for the Empire before she did, makes her a very interesting character to write. In many ways, she was complicit, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to atone.”

Wijeratne also argues that an ensemble story is in many ways more true to life.

“Rarely in life do you find this Randian John Galt type, this solo hero that changes the world by themselves; more often you find a group of people with similar interests, covering for each other, propping each other up,” he says. “It’s how we humans, as a species, have evolved. Our strength is not in our individual prowess, but in the fact that three people working together can take down a mammoth, and a thousand people working together can raise a monument to eternity.”

While there are certainly themes and kinds of story that are more suited to ensemble storytelling, May points out that there is plenty of room for both kinds of story.

“Having written books that explore both, I find that Chosen One narratives are often stories of duty, obligation, and self-discovery,” she says. “Ensemble narratives often involve themes of acceptance and friendship bonds. To me, these serve different narrative functions and ask separate questions.”

A Space of Their Own

The spaceship-crews-on-adventures subgenre is one of the major pillars of science fiction as a whole, with the trope codifier, Star Trek, being likely one of the first names that comes to mind when you think of the genre. This means that the writers working within the subgenre are not only heavily influenced by what came before, they are also in conversation, and sometimes argument with it.

Paul Cornell is a huge Star Trek fan, and has written for the characters before. His upcoming novella, Rosebud, features the quite Star Trek-ish scenario of a crew of AIs, some formerly humans, some not, investigating an anomaly. It’s a story that very much intersects with the ideals of Star Trek.

“Rosebud is about a crew who are meant to believe in something, but no longer really do,” Cornell says. “They’re a bunch of digital beings with varying origins, some of whom were once human, some of whom weren’t.  There’s a conflict under the surface that nobody’s talking about, and when they encounter, in a very Trek way, an anomalous object, it’s actually a catalyst for their lives changing enormously.  I’m a huge fan of the Trek ethos.  I like good law, good civilisation, civil structures that do actually allow everyone to live their best lives, and Rosebud is about how far we’ve got from that, and a passion for getting back to that path.”

Other stories more explicitly react against the more dated or normative conventions in the genre. Seven Devils, for instance, both calls out and subverts the very male demographics of a lot of these stories.

“For a lot of ensemble casts, you get the token woman (Guardians of the Galaxy, for example) and until recently, things were fairly heteronormative,” Lam says. “So we basically wanted to turn things around and have a gang of mostly queer women being the ones to save the universe. We also went hard on critiquing imperialism and monarchies with too much power.”

Indeed, the “space exploration” that is the cornerstone of much of the genre, is an idea deeply rooted in a colonialist, and often racist tradition.

I’ve written my own space ensemble story, an ongoing series of four “planet of the week” style novellas, Fermi’s Progress. One of my concerns with the genre is how often the hero spaceship will turn up at a “primitive” planet, then overthrow a dictator, or teach the women about this human concept called “love”, or otherwise solve the local’s century’s old, deeply rooted societal problems in half-an-hour and change in a way that felt extremely “white colonialists going out and fixing the universe”.

My solution was simple. In Fermi’s Progress, the crew’s prototype spaceship has an experimental FTL drive that unfortunately vaporises every planet they visit as they fly away. It’s a device that riffs off the “overturn a planet’s government then never mention them again” trope of planet-of-the-week stories, keeps the ship and crew moving, and leaves the reader in no doubt as to whether or not these “explorers” are beneficial to the places they visit.

Of course, not every effort to engage with these issues needs to be so dramatic.

“Since I tend to view space operas in terms of uncharted exploration, it’s crucial that the text addresses or confronts power issues in its various forms: who has it, who suffers from it, how is it wielded?” May says. “And sometimes those questions have extraordinarily messy and complicated answers in ways that do not fit neatly with ‘good team overthrows evil empire.’ One of the things I wanted to address was this idea of ‘rebels are the good guys.’ Who gets to be a good person? Who else pays the price for morality? In Seven Devils, the character of Eris ends up doing the dirty, violent work of the rebellion so the others can sleep at night–so that they can feel they’ve made moral and ethical choices. And for that same work, she’s also judged more harshly by those in the rebellion who get to have clear consciences because of her actions.”

“I had particular beef with the homogeneity,” says Wijeratne. “An entire planet where x race was of an identical sentiment? Pfft. At the same time, this naive optimism, that people can work together on a planetary scale to set up institutions and megastructures without enormous amounts of politics and clashes. I was most frustrated with this in Clarke’s work. [Rendezvous with] Rama in particular: it just didn’t compute with what I knew of people.”

As a consequence of the genre’s colonialist roots—not to mention the nature of most real spaceflight programmes—space in these stories can feel like an extremely militarised space. Even a gang of misfits, fugitives and renegades like the Farscape cast features at least a couple of trained soldiers at any one time.

“I didn’t want my characters to be just redshirts or ensigns, who get ordered around and seldom get to take much initiative,” Anders points out. “And I was interested in exploring the notion that a space force organized by non-humans might have very different ideas about hierarchy and might not have concepts like ‘chain of command’. I tried not to fall unthinkingly into the military tropes that Trek, in particular, is prone to.”

Chambers was also driven by a desire to show people who were working in space without wearing a uniform.

“I wanted to tell space stories that weren’t about war or military politics,” she explains. “These things exist in the Wayfarers universe, and I personally love watching a space battle as much as anybody, but I think it’s sad if the only stories we tell about the future are those that focus on new and inventive ways of killing each other.  Human experience is so much broader than that, and we are allowed to imagine more.”

Getting the Band Together

Writing a story built around an ensemble, rather than a single main character, brings its own challenges with it. In many ways, creating a central protagonist is easy. The story has to happen to somebody. Creating an ensemble can be tricker. Each character needs to feel like they’re the protagonist of their own story, but also the cast is in many ways a tool box for the writer to bring different perspectives and methods to bear on the issue at the centre of their story. Different writers take very different approaches to how they put that toolbox together.

“I had some types I wanted to play with, and I was consciously allowing myself to go a little wild, so they get to push against the walls of my own comfort zone,” Cornell says of the AI crew in Rosebud.  “I created a group of very different people, tried them against each other, and edited them toward the most interesting conflicts that suited my theme.”

Anders also went through various iterations in assembling her cast of characters for Victories Greater Than Death.

“I went through a huge process of trial and error, figuring out exactly how many Earth characters I wanted in the book and how to introduce them,” she says. “I wanted characters who had their own reason for being there and who would either challenge Tina or represent a different viewpoint somehow. I think that’s usually how you get an interesting ensemble, by trying to have different viewpoints in the mix.”

In writing Fermi’s Progress, I very much tried to cut the crew from whole cloth, thinking of them primarily as a flying argument. Thinking about the original Star Trek crew, most of the stories are driven by the ongoing debate between Spock’s pragmatism, McCoy’s emotions, and Kirk’s sense of duty, and so the Fermi’s crew was written to have a number of perspectives that would be able to argue interestingly about the different things they would encounter.

Others, however, focus strongly on the individual characters before looking at how they fit together.

“I gravitate much more toward writing multiple POVs than sticking with just one. Character dynamics are catnip to me, and I love to play with them from all angles. But building each character is a very individual sort of process,” Chambers says. “I want each of them to feel like a whole person, and I’m struggling to think of any I’ve created to complete another. I just spend some time with a character all on their own, then start making them talk to each other — first in pairs, then in larger groups. I shuffle those combinations around until everybody comes alive.”

In writing Seven Devils, May and Lam began with a core pair of characters, then built outwards.

“El [Lam] and I each started with a single character we wanted to explore,” May recalls. “For me, it was Eris, who also had the benefit of being an exploration of thorny issues of morality. Eris’ natural foil was Clo–conceived of by El–who believes in the goodness of the rebellion. From there, our cast expanded as different aspects of imperial oppression that we wanted to address: colonial expansion via the military, brainwashing, the use of artificial intelligence. Each character provides a unique perspective of how the Empire in Seven Devils functions and how it crushes autonomy and self-determination.”

“We started with Eris and Clo,” Lam agrees. “Eris is sort of like Princess Leia if she and Luke had been raised by Darth Vader but she realised the Empire was evil and faked her own death to join the rebellion. Clo has elements of Luke in that she grew up on a backwater planet where things go wrong, but it was overpopulated versus wide open desert with a few moons. She also just has a lot more fury and rage that doesn’t always go in the right direction. Then we created the other three women they meet later in the narrative, and did a combination of using archetypes as jumping off points (courtesan, mercenary, genius hacker) but taking great care crafting their backstories and motivations and how they all related to each other.”

Ensuring that every character has their own story to be the protagonist of is something you can trace right back through the genre- particularly with series like Farscape, Firefly, and the more recent Intergalactic, where the crews often feels thrown together by circumstance and the characters are very much pursuing their own goals.

Balancing all of these different perspectives and voices is the real trick, especially if you want to avoid slipping back into the set-up of a star protagonist and their backing singers.

“This was a bit of a struggle, especially in a book with a single pov,” Anders says. “In the end all I could do was give each character their own goals and ideals that aren’t just an extension of Tina’s. It really helps if people have agendas that aren’t just related to the main plot.”

“We have five point of view characters and seven in the sequel, and it was definitely a challenge,” Lam admits. “For the first book, we started with just Eris and Clo until the reader was situated, and then added in the other three. We gave each character their own arc and problem to solve, and essentially asked ourselves ‘if [X] was the protagonist, what would they journey be?’ Which is useful to ask of any character, especially the villains!”

Chambers has a surprisingly practical solution to the problem: colour-coded post-it notes.

“Some characters will naturally have more weight in the story than others, but I do try to balance it out,” Chambers says. “One of the practical tricks I find helpful is colour-coding post-it notes by POV character, then mapping out all the chapters in the book on the wall. That makes it very easy to see who the dominant voices are, and I can adjust from there as needed.”

A Ship with Character

One cast member these stories all have in common is the ship they travel in. Sometimes the ship is a literal character in itself, such as the organic ship Moya in Farscape, but even when not actually sentient, the ship will help set the tone for the entire story, whether it’s the sweeping lines and luxurious interiors of the Enterprise D, or the cosy, hand-painted communal kitchen of Serenity. When describing the Fermi in my own story, I made it a mix of real and hypothetical space technology, and pure nonsense, in a way that felt like the story’s mission statement.

Seven Devils’ stolen imperial ship, “Zelus”, likewise reflected the themes of the book.

“Our ship is called Zelus, and it begins as a symbol of Empire but gradually becomes a home,” Lam says. “They took it back for themselves, which I think mirrors a lot of what the characters are trying to do.” 

The same was true of the “Indomitable”, the ship Tina would inherit in Victories Greater Than Death.

“The main thing I needed from the Indomitable was to be a slightly run down ship on its own, far from any backup,” Anders says. “I did have a lot of fun coming up with all the ways the ship’s systems work. In the second book I introduce a starship that is a little more idiosyncratic, let’s say.”

For Cornell, the spaceship at the heart of Rosebud was an extension of the characters themselves, almost literally.

“It’s a kind of magical space, in that the interior is largely digital, and reflects the personalities of the crew,” he says. “There’s an interesting gap between the ship’s interior and the real world, and to go explore the artefact, our crew have to pick physical bodies to do it in.  Their choices of physical body again tell us something about who they are.”

“My background is in theater, so I am always thinking about what kind of ‘set’ I’m working with,” Chambers tells us. “Colour, lighting, props, and stage layout are very important to me. I want these to feel like real, lived-in environments, but they also communicate a lot to the reader about who the people within these spaces are. Kizzy’s workspace tells a completely different story than, say, Roveg’s shuttle, or Pepper’s house. I spend a lot of time mulling over what sorts of comforts each character likes to keep around them, what food they like to have on hand, and so on. These kinds of details are crucial for painting a full picture.”

Stellar Dynamics

When he was writing the cast of The Salvage Crew, Wijeratne fleshed out his characters by focusing on how they relate to one another.

“My cast tends to be more of ‘what’s the most interesting mix I can bring to this situation, where’s the tragedy, and where’s the comedy?’ I go through a bit of an iterative process –  I come up with one stand-out attribute for the character that makes sense given the world I’m about to throw them into,” he says. “Then the question is: what’s a secondary quirk, or part of their nature, that makes them work well with the others, or is somehow critical? What’s a tertiary facet to them that really rubs the others the wrong way?

“Then I take those quirks and go back to the other characters, and ask why do they respond to these things? What about their backstory makes them sympathize with one thing and want to pummel the other into dust? By the time this back-and-forth is complete, I’ve got enough that the characters feel like they really do have shit to get done in this world, and really do have some beef with each other.  They have backstory and things they react to really badly and situations they’re going to thrive in.”

In The Salvage Crew, this included Simon a geologist who crew up plugged into a PVP MMORPG and who hasn’t really adjusted to the real world, Anna, a wartime medic who has PTSD around blood, and Milo, who is a decent all-arounder, but has problems with authority, particular women in authority.

In the best-loved stories of this sub-genre, it’s not just the strong characters, but the relationships between those characters that people love. Spock and McCoy, Geordi and Data, Jayne and Book working out together in Firefly. Even in the protagonist-heavy Mass Effect, some of the best character moments don’t involve Shepard, but are the character interactions you eavesdrop or walk in on while wandering around the Normandy.

“I think we’ve all experienced being flung together with a group of workmates, and nobody asking us if we like everyone there,” Cornell says. “And how the smallest quirks of personality can come to mean everything over several centuries.”

Getting those relationships to feel organic and natural is the real trick, and it can take endless writing and rewriting to get there. 

“For me, it’s usually a lot of gold-farming,” Anders says. “I will write a dozen scenes of characters hanging out or dealing with stuff, and then pick two or three of them to include in the book. I can’t write relationships unless I’ve spent a lot of time with them.”

Often it’s a question of balancing conflict and camaraderie among the group.

“It’s easy to want to go straight to banter between characters, which is a massive benefit of ensemble casts. But I also think it’s essential that they have moments of conflict,” says May. “Not just drama for drama’s sake, but in any friendship group, boundaries often have to be established and re-established. Sometimes those boundaries come from past traumas, and taking moments to explore those not only adds dimensionality, but shows how the character unit itself functions.”

For May and Lam it helped that their ensemble cast was being written by an ensemble itself.

“Having both of us work on them really helped them come to life,” Lam says. “Their voices were easier to differentiate because we’d often take the lead on a certain character. So if I wrote a Clo chapter, I didn’t always know how exactly Eris might react in her next chapter, or Elizabeth might change Eris’s dialogue in that initial Clo scene to better fit what was coming up. As co-writers, we were in conversation with each other as much as the characters, and that’s quite fun. We tend to work at different times of the day, so I’d load up the manuscript in the morning and wonder what’s happened next to our crew during the night and read to find out. We also did a lot of work on everyone’s past, so we knew what they wanted, what they feared, what lies about themselves they believed, how they might change and grow through the story as a result of meeting each other, and therefore the characters tended to develop more organically on the page.”

For Wijeratne, the thing that really brings the characters’ relationships into focus is a crisis, and it’s true. Across these stories, more often than not you want your space team to be working together against a common challenge, not obsessed with in-fighting among themselves.

“The skeleton of what you saw was the output of an algorithm. A series of Markov chains generating events, playing on the fact that humans are extraordinarily good at seeing patterns in random noise,” Wijeratne says. “But the skeleton needs skin and muscle, and that’s more or less drawn from the kind of high-stress situations that I’ve been a part of: flood relief efforts, factchecking and investigating in the face of terrorism and bombings, even minor stuff like being in Interact projects with people I really didn’t want to be working with. I find that there are make-or-break moments in how people respond to adversity: either they draw together, and realize they can get over their minor differences, or they cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”

Found Family

Whether we’re talking about Starfleet officers, browncoats, rebel scum or galaxy guardians, these crews are rarely just colleagues or even teammates. They are family.

“I think it goes back to many space operas ultimately being survival tales: whether that’s surviving in the vastness of space or against an imperial oppressor,” May says. “These stories bring unrelated characters closer together in a way that goes beyond the bonds of blood. ‘Found family’ is a powerful bond predicated on acceptance and respect rather than duty.”

It’s a topic at the heart of Seven Devils, set in a galaxy where the regime in power has done all it can to eliminate the concept of “Family”, but Lam also believes the found family is something extremely important to marginalised groups.

“In ours, the Tholosians have done their best to erase the concept of family entirely–most people are grown in vats and assigned their jobs from birth. You might feel some sort of sibling bond with your soldier cohort, perhaps, but most people don’t have parents,” Lam says. “Rebellion is incredibly difficult, as your very mind has been coded to be obedient and obey. So those who have managed to overcome that did so with incredible difficulty, and found each other and bonded among what they had in common. You see it in our world as well of course–the marginalised tend to be drawn to each other for support they might not find elsewhere, and the bonds are just as deep or deeper than family you’re related to by blood (just look at drag families, where you have a drag mother or daughter, for example).”

“Found family is definitely a strong narrative thread,” Wijeratne agrees. “I think it stems from an incredibly persistent process in our lives – in human lives: we grow up, we outgrow the people we are born among, and we go out into the world to find our tribe, so to speak. And this is a critical part of maturity, of striking out on out own, of becoming comfortable with who we are and realizing who we’ll be happy to battle alongside and who we’d rather kick in the meat and potatoes.

“Space, of course, is such a perfect physical representation of this process. What greater ‘going out’ is there than in leaving aside the stale-but-certain comfort of the space station or planet and striking out for the depths? What better idea of finding a family than settling in with a crew? And what better embodiment of freedom than a void where only light can touch you, but even then after years?”

Of course, the “Found Family” isn’t exclusive to spaceship crews. It’s a theme that we see everywhere from superhero movies to sitcoms, reflecting some of the bigger social shifts happening in the real world. As Cornell points out, one of the very first spaceship ensembles shows, Lost in Space, was based around a far more traditional family.

“I think one of the big, central parameters of change in the modern world is the move from biological family being the most important thing to found family being the most important, the result of a series of generation gaps caused by technological, ecological and societal change happening so fast that generations now get left behind,” Cornell says. “So all our stories now have found family in them, and we can’t imagine taking old family into space.  The new Lost in Space, for example, had to consciously wrestle with that.  And even in the original, there’s a reason the found family of Billy and Dr. Smith is the most interesting relationship.  It’s the only one where we don’t immediately know what the rules are meant to be.” 

To make a huge generalisation, that sense of “not immediately knowing what the rules are meant to be” might be the key to the genre’s appeal. After all, if your space exploration is closer to the ideals of the Star Trek model than they are to Eddie Izzard’s “Flag” sketch, then it’s about entering an alien environment where you don’t know the rules. If there are aliens, your space heroes will be trying to reach out and understand them. But for the writer, whether those aliens are humanoids with funny foreheads or jellyfish that only talk in the third person, the aliens will still be, behind however many layers of disguise, human. We really struggle to imagine what it’s like to be anything else. Perhaps our spaceship crew’s efforts in communicating with and understanding those aliens is reflected in their efforts to understand each other.

Seven Devils, by Elizabeth May and Laura Lam, is out now, as is The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders, and A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Rosebud, by Paul Cornell, will be out in April 2022.

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The first two parts of Chris Farnell’s serial, Fermi’s Progress, Dyson’s Fear and Descartesmageddon, are also out now, or the season pass for all four novellas is for sale at Scarlet Ferret.

The post How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3plvUIL

[unholyhelbig]

Bechloe Prompt- Chloe's life has been slowly been falling apart, so she decides to take a month off to get her life together. Renting a cabin in the middle of the woods for a get a way from it all, she's surprised to hear that she'll have a roommate due to a mistake in the paperwork. While its only for the month and meeting someone new is great, her roommate, Beca, also has her own personal reasons and secrets to be there too.

Read on AO3 

Title: A Hallmark Ending 

Ship: Beca Mitchell/ Chloe Beale 

By the time the sky faded to lilac, Chloe Beale felt drunk on her own confidence. Her suitcase plowing along on the gravel path towards a quaint little cabin on the edge of a lake. A lake her father used to bring her to when it was just the two of them- before he got remarried and they would just sit in a small fishing boat in the utter silence. Splitting a peanut butter sandwich and sharing in the quiet until a fish sunk its lips around a metal hook.

Those were simpler times. Times when the world didn’t get a chance to dig its steel-toed boot right under her ribs and flex its sickly bones in her side. Like when her publisher could pull out of a book deal last minute, leaving the manuscript untouched and dusty on top of her bookcase. When she had to cave and take her old job back at a department store in the perfume department.  When her car sputtered to a final stop seven blocks from her driveway.

Chloe decided that coming here was a good idea.

Getting back to her roots on the lake in a cabin that was tiny and secluded. It was only a short trip, a month away from work that her pension could cover if she timed it exactly right (and it was Chloe, so she had). A place where she could breathe in the fresh mountain air and clear her mind of everything that made it so hard to write in the city.

The cabin was tiny, a one-bedroom with a large deck around the back and a string of fairy lights that radiated once the sun ducked down behind the horizon completely. A canopy of stars and a cup of hot cocoa made her pick up her pace. There was an old beat-up truck out front, probably the landlord doing one more sweep of the place before leaving for the next thirty days.

Chloe Beale was confident because she had done this all by herself. Had decided to pull herself away from work, and hand rented a cabin similar to her childhood one- all on her own. All without the help of some greasy mechanic who overcharged her, or a terrible boss who would walk her through how to ring up every purchase.

She heard it then; the rhythmic splitting of wood, and a couple of soft grunts coming from the side of the cabin. The one facing a large row of pine trees that gave way to an extensive forest filled with creatures and plants of all shapes and sizes.

A woman- shorter by about two inches from where Chloe was standing lifted a large shining ax above her defined shoulders. Chloe stopped at the edge of the grass. She brought the sharpened edge into the center of the log, splitting it into three even pieces. It sounded like a bowling ball hitting the just the right pins before a long sweeper came and knocked down the rest.

Her brunette hair was tied into a messy bun and sweat coated strands fell into midnight eyes, completely focused on the task at hand. She had headphones in and a focused look on her face. She had sweat through her white t-shirt, dirtied with mud.

“Excuse me,” Chloe waved meekly, trying to get the woman’s attention. She tried once more “Excuse me!”

The stranger drew in a bout of air and stopped, the axe in mid-air. It glinted off the orange sun. Chloe couldn’t tell if she had worked her features into annoyance or if she generally looked like that on a normal basis. Her earbuds hung around her shoulders now, eyes sweeping over Chloe’s figure.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect anyone else to be out here.” She panted.

Chloe nodded solemnly “Are you the handyman around here?”

The stranger laughed then, light and airy and done with her entire body. She let the ax drop to her side, taking in the appearance of Chloe all together. Her fingers were neatly painted, and she wore a nice blouse. She had barely even broken a sweat.

“No, kitten, I’m renting out the place.”

“I- that’s impossible.” Chloe huffed out, the back of her neck burned. “I paid the landlord for the rest of the month. Cabin 7A.”

“Yeah, me too, and I got here first, so it looks like you’ll have to find other arrangements.”

Chloe tried to keep her composure, tried to swallow that anger down but that stupid smirking face of this… this heathen was biting back at her like a mosquito just looking to tap a vein. She reached down and piled a few pieces of chopped wood into her grasp, walking towards the front of the cabin.

“It took an entire day to get up here and I refuse to go back!” Chloe followed her, pulling that suitcase after her like a shadow.

“You’re more than welcome to stay outside if you’d like. I won’t call the sheriff on you Kitten, promise.”

She kicked open the screen door with her booted foot and set the wood next to the large stone fireplace. Everything was just like the brochure- the nice leather couches and gorgeous wood finish. There was a large set of stairs leading up to a loft and the one-bedroom the place had to offer. A moose head that Chloe could do without was situated right near the second landing, staring blankly at her.

The stranger wiped her hands down her jeans, leaving streaky marks as she let out a sigh and faced Chloe, quirking a brow at the woman who rested in the doorway. Waiting for an invitation in, one that she wasn’t going to get.

“Look, Red, I’ll call the landlord right now. We’ll get it situated.”

Chloe seemed to be happy enough with that answer as she took the last dastardly step into the place and set her suitcase by the door. She ran her fingers against the furniture, feeling the cool leather and the grooved wood as the woman called. She could hear the muffled conversation from the kitchen but not well enough.

She didn’t know where the sudden change of heart came from- but she didn’t question it. Maybe it was the deep-rooted need for both of them to not share a cabin for the next month. Especially one that only came equipped with one bedroom and not a very big bathroom. Chloe should have booked a trip to Cabo, but instead, she traded the luxury for childhood memories.

“Well, bad news and good news.” She exited the kitchen, shutting the phone off with a muted beep. “We are double-booked for the month.”

Chloe took a steady breath “And the good news?”

“You’re not the one who fucked it all up- they are.” She crossed her arms over her chest and moved that terribly cold stare from Chloe’s feet all the way to her own eyes. “But… I’ll take the couch for the first week.”

“You think I’m staying here with you?” She asked.

“Well Kitten I don’t see much of another choice. Unless you want to brave the road back to town, and I don’t see much sense in trying. There’s a big storm coming. Don’t you watch the news?”

No, she hadn’t. But she could feel the electricity sparking in the air the second she stepped off the bus at the base of the long drive. Large oak trees were swaying in the hot slight breeze, their leaves overturned to display the meek belly of green. A sign that the tides were turning and that it was best to stock up on bread, milk, and evidently firewood, that would be too soaked to ignite if she had waited any longer.

Chloe conceded and let the screen door slide shut behind her before she flopped down on the nearest leather couch. How was she supposed to get any writing done now?

“Dinner’s ready, Red.” The stranger spoke from the doorway, and Chloe’s stomach clenched. The sun had pulled behind the base of the water hours ago and the wind had picked up speed as it yowled like a wounded animal. Chloe had pooled herself at the end of the sofa, a fire warming the side of her face as she watched the flames dance across the pages of the nearest book she had pilfered.

She didn’t want to eat the stranger’s food- didn’t’ want to admit that the stew she had been cooking for the last five hours actually smelled good. It’s broth salty and contrasting to large chunks of sautéed meat and potato. But her stomach growled and tightened and she couldn’t focus on Rudyard Kipling’s words anymore.

“I promise I didn’t slip any arsenic in here.” The stranger continued “Though, I would love to have this place all to myself.”

Chloe scoffed but peeled back the blanket draped over her legs and made her way to the kitchen. It was smaller than she remembered, or maybe she was just the small one and it was always a one-lane room that forced the two of them closer together than she ever wanted to be. The woman ladled a good helping into two bowls and slid one across the island, passing Chloe a spoon.

She waited until the first bite was taken, steamy broth warming her cheeks as she watched the woman chew triumphantly. Refusing to break eye contact. “See, no poison Kitten.”

“I have a name, you know.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of coming by it.”

The woman glared “Chloe.”

She shoved the spoon in her mouth then, taking in the sudden burst of flavor that washed over her taste buds. Chloe let the moan escape her throat without even thinking, chewing thoughtfully before getting a good look at the cocky smile that the stranger had to offer. Degrading.

“Good right? It was my mother’s recipe- but I’ve tweaked it a little.”

Chloe nodded slowly and dipped the spoon back into the bowl for another taste. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Beca Mitchell.”

Beca Mitchell- seemed familiar in a way of passing that Chloe couldn’t quite pinpoint yet. Something she could recognize in passing. Skimming the magazines at checkout, recalling that one random fact about how fast a jellyfish could swim, or the size of an average elephant foot. She would smile at the cashier and replace the small pad of paper instead of putting it on the black belt, just like the one in front of her did, and the one behind her as well.

“I used to come up here with my father.” Chloe said after the silence “That’s the only reason I’m here. To clear my head, get some clarity for my new book- and trust me this is less than ideal for all of us.”

“Mm, you’re a writer?”

Beca didn’t’ offer up her own reason for isolating herself in a cabin for upwards of a month, though Chloe could admit that she had some questions herself. Figured that if she put her reason out on the clothesline to dangle in the wind- then maybe the stranger would follow suit. Preferably before she had to fall asleep in the same house as her.

Chloe took another bite of the stew and chewed slowly “I’d like to call myself one, yes. This year has been a little rough, the business side of things. But I’ve had my fair share of New York Times Best Sellers.”

Beca lifted her eyebrows and set her mostly empty bowl in the metal sink. “That sounds like more than a hobby, Chloe. Impressive.”

“What about you, then?” Chloe leaned forward, running her fingers over the spoon. “What brings you up to the beautiful seclusion of the forest?”

She chuckled at that, leaning both of her palms against the edge of the sink. She watched Chloe with accuracy, who watched her right back. Waiting for an answer- one that was better than a simple ‘to escape’. That she was used to giving people.

“I’m a chef. I was a chef until the restaurant I worked at burned down. They’re trying to rebuild, offered me another contract and everything.” She worked out slowly “I have it with me and I don’t know if I’m ready to sign it yet. Hence the isolation. I needed to figure things out.”

“If your stew is telling of the rest of your food, then I think you should. What’s stopping you?”

Beca’s cheeks heated from the compliment, usually something written in the newspaper or given through tight-lipped smiles of those around her. Those who cared too much about the parties and the diamonds that were around their necks and bound to their wrists.

“The luxury of a life like that,” She started, frowning down at the intricate patterns on the granite countertop. “Is overwhelming to every sense you can possibly possess. You have the people who are rich enough to act the way that they do, and those who are trying hard to get to the level that everyone else around them is at.”

“And you’re neither?”

“I’m neither.” Beca let out a small sigh “I just think that life like that- life that needs to be bathed in luxury, and fancy cuisine… I started out making cheesesteaks in a small restaurant by the beach. And I was content.”

Chloe nodded thoughtfully “I was too. Writing for the local paper, you know? Covering little stories about local businesses and bake sales. All of it was simple and beautiful.”

“What’s stopping you from going back?”

“Recognition, mostly. After I wrote that first book- I don’t know. It gained me a lot of attention, a contract that was broken because I have writer’s block. The worst type of writer’s block that isn’t spurred by a lack of inspiration. It’s the kind that has everything to do with pressure. With a lack of enjoyment.”

Beca didn’t say anything, then. She turned to face away from Chloe and started to rummage through the cabinets, not caring much for order. She produced a bottle of half-finished white wine and two mismatched mugs that had different states printed on the side.

“What are you doing?” Chloe chuckled.

“Sounds like both of us are fucked. And the only thing people who are this lost in life can do is drink.”

“That sounds like the start of a lot of my problems, not the end of them.”

Beca unscrewed the metal top, pouring a generous amount into both glasses before she shoved one across the counter to the young writer. “Yeah, well, we might as well make some use of the time we have up here. Work out what we’re going to do. Who knows, maybe you’ll find some weird type of inspiration in the… near solitude.”

Chloe grasped the baby blue mug and took even sips of the wine. It was sour and tasted flat but made her stomach feel fuzzy all the same. She watched as the chef gathered up the dishes and went to wash them in the sink. Hair falling into dark eyes and a tune hummed on her lips. Chloe thought, for just a moment, that maybe she had found inspiration somewhere.

[sympathyfortheblinderdevil]

All is Fair: Ch 11

Hi, Y’all!  Thank you for being so patient and not giving up on this fic even though I have been egregiously late with updates. At best, my life is erratically populated with periods of leisure time and periods of hectic, soul-crushing work. I, like many of you, am in the midst of a forced period of leisure time, so you will probably see more frequent updates. I appreciate those of you who are willing to stick around to see what happens next, and I hope you are in good health. Tell me what you think! x

Discovery and Dissolution

Polly Gray sat in her Bentley, wrapped in fur. Through her dark glasses, she watched the scene on the street where Lia worked. The bitter north wind cut straight down the sidewalk in front of the library and sent patrons scurrying for shelter within. A cluster of people shuffled through the arched brass doors, and Lia stepped out. She was a vision in a blue cashmere long coat, a mink collar clutched around her neck. The wind caused her coat to flap and play peek-a-boo with leather boots that stretched up to her knees. Both items were gifts from Tommy, Polly surmised. She noticed that Lia still wore an older pair of wool gloves. Guess he couldn’t think of everything.

 Despite the cold, Lia wore a little smile as she walked along. She’d been hard at work referencing and cross-referencing research with a professor of Art History at the University of Birmingham, and he was pleased with the help she’d given him. He had mentioned working with her again in the near future. Lia had come a long way from shelving books. She was beginning to realize the kind of life she had only dreamed was possible when she first came to Birmingham.  As she neared the corner, though, she was pulled out of her thoughts when she noticed familiar-looking woman in a posh car was watching her.

 Polly lowered her window and called out, “Lia, Lia Montrose!”

 Lia slowed down and warily approached the car. Polly extended a sumptuously gloved hand, looked over her sunglasses at Lia, and introduced herself, “Polly Gray…Tommy’s Aunt Polly.”

 Lia visibly relaxed and took her hand at those words, “Mrs. Gray…I’m pleased to meet you.”

 “Get in, it’s time we got acquainted.”

 In a matter of minutes, Lia found herself sitting in the kitchen at No. 6 Watery Lane while Polly found two cups and put the kettle on. She then reached into the cupboard where she found a tin of tea. Upon opening it and sniffing the contents, she decided that it would do. Decked head to toe in Parisian tailor-made garments, she looked odd moving around the kitchen with such familiarity.

 While they waited for the kettle to boil, she offered Lia a cigarette and lit one of her own. They’d spoken hardly a word since they entered the house. Lia was loathe to break the silence with small talk, so she waited for Polly to say what was on her mind. They sat, smoking and soaking in the dusty quiet of the dimly lit room.

 Only when Polly poured the tea did she finally speak. “I brought you here so that you could see where Tommy lived...where we all lived before the money came.”

 Lia looked all around the room and smiled, “So this is where Tommy began.”

 Polly waved her hand with a flourish and laughed, “Who knows where Tommy began. If I hadn’t witnessed his birth I’d swear that he was flung out of heaven and barred from hell.”

 Lia smiled knowingly, “Well, Lucifer was a fallen angel.”

 “Exactly.” Polly raised an eyebrow and leaned back in the rickety chair. “I want you to understand why Tommy is,” she searched for the right words and finding none she continued, “the way he is.”

 Memories flooded Polly’s mind as she looked all around herself, gesturing here and there with the hand that held her cigarette. “Look around you, Lia. This is where we moved when things got better. You don’t want to know where we lived before when things were worse.”

 Lia swallowed hard and held her cup with both hands as if to draw every bit of heat out of it. She was suddenly cold. She had not grown up with much, but she was certainly comfortable. Her home had a lightness about it. The room where she sat with Polly was cozy, homey even, but the air was laced with soot and traces of despair.

 “Does that explain why he is so driven?” Lia wondered aloud.

 “Partly,” Polly mused. Then she looked at Lia with soft brown eyes, almost like she sympathized with her. She felt sorry for anyone who loved Tommy, even herself. “He has always been different. Clever and driven since the night he was born.” Then she looked away, “But he did have a big heart.”

 Did.

 It wasn’t Polly’s intention to make Lia uncomfortable or uncertain of her place in Tommy’s life, but Lia couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated. Lia’s chair creaked as she shifted her weight and sat her teacup on the table, and Polly saw in her eyes a vulnerability that hadn’t been there before.

 “We all had to make sacrifices to get where we are today, but Tommy has sacrificed the most. Business comes first. Always. Ada says that Tommy likes you, he may even grow to care for you, but there are certain things you will have to accept if you want to be with him...”

 “So he has said,” Lia broke in. She immediately regretted cutting Tommy’s aunt off, though Polly showed no sign of being offended. She just sipped her tea and smiled.

 “Has he said what he plans on doing with you when he returns to London, Dear?”

 Lia winced a bit at the question. “No.”

 There was silence between them again. A clock ticked out the seconds from the next room and the sounds of people shouting to each other in the street filtered through the walls. Having finished her tea, Polly lit another cigarette and let the quiet grow around them. She believed that you could learn a lot about a person by how they chose to deal with spaces in conversation, so she waited and watched.

 Lia ruminated on Polly’s last question as long as she could, then stood and looked toward the parlor, silently asking permission to go in.  Polly rose and accompanied her. Dusty furniture and photographs sat frozen in time as if they were waiting for Polly to run the sweeper or Ada to polish the tabletops. The fireplace sat waiting to be lit. But she couldn’t see Tommy until she looked up the shadowy stairwell. It was narrow, and she could barely see the top stair in the darkness, but something in the woodsy smell that drifted down reminded her of him. Polly caught the wistful expression on Lia’s face and placed her hand on Lia’s back.

 “His room was up there,” Polly nodded.

 Polly peered into the darkness and flipped a switch, then nodded in the direction of the stairs, inviting Lia to climb them.

   ***

 The sleek grey Bentley rolled along Cannon Lane and splashed slush in its wake. Lia sat in back with a heavy woolen blanket wrapped around her legs. She made small talk with Rodney, the Blinder up front. Already, she knew that he had a fiancé and that they were to be married in June. His mum and dad were from Coventry, and they were both deceased. Also, Tommy had taken him under his wing as a boy of thirteen. Tommy kept him from starving and from, as Rodney put it, “…falling in with the worst sort of criminal element.” It seemed like everywhere she turned there was another person with a story about what Tommy had done to help them.

 Rodney delivered her to her door, and eager to get out of the cold, Lia darted inside.

  “Jenny, are you here?”

 A few snowflakes floated to the floor while she hung up her coat and unbuttoned her mink lined gloves. She noticed that the kettle was on, and so she called out again.

 “Jenny!”

 Her cousin bounded down the stairs, pulling her arms through the sleeves of a cardigan as she came.

 “Jesus, Lia!” she laughed. “Is the bloody house on fire?”

 “I have news,” Lia beamed.

 Jenny nodded her head and set about fixing tea, “Go on then. Tell me your news.”

 “WE have the use of a car.”

 Jenny froze and her heart sank. “Come again…”

 “A car, Jenny! Tommy doesn’t like the idea of my riding the bus and walking to work, so he is sending a car ‘round for us every morning and afternoon. One of his men will drive us to and from work,” she enthused.

 Jenny stood blinking at her for a moment then responded in a monotone voice. “A Blinder, Lia. ‘One of his men’ means a Blinder. I’d rather walk in the rain and snow.”

 She turned her back to Lia and got out the plates, careful not to take her simmering mood out on the crockery. She tried her best to keep her distrust of Tommy out of her relationship with her cousin, but it was hard to keep things light when every other word out of Lia’s mouth was “Tommy”.

 Jenny had taken quite a bit of flack at work because of Lia’s connection with Tommy Shelby. She’d had her fill with entering rooms full of chatter only to have them go silent, and she had dodged several sideways comments about her recent promotion. She hated to kill the mood, but someone had to be the voice of reason. Rolling up to work chauffeured by a flat cap wearing thug was more than she could tolerate.

 Lia balled her fists and tried to modulate her voice as she asked, “Why do you hate him so much? Hmm? He is good to me and he wants to help you too.”

 “Help? Is that what he calls it?” Jenny turned back around and eyed Lia’s obviously new and obviously bought by Tommy clothes. “If you want to play house with him and let him dress you up as his little doll that’s your business, but I won’t be ferried around town in a car that was paid for with blood money.”

 “That’s not fair, and you know it. Our family weren’t always saints. Granddad was the first one in the queue to spunk away his wages on the horses and the last one out of the pub at night.”

 “Right, and it was people like the Shelbys who were more than happy to take his wages off of him while Nan and our dads went shoeless.”

 She had a point. Lia hated the fact that she had a point. Damn Jenny for always knowing how to snatch the stars from her eyes. Lia sat down and put her head in her hands to hide her tears. It was so easy to let Tommy do little things for her, to buy a scarf here and some gloves there, to make life easier for her in a thousand little ways. He never made her feel like it was payment for services rendered. How could Jenny take all of Tommy’s kindness and turn it into something dirty, something tainted and wrong? The gifts and the thoughtful things he did for her were not part of a transaction, they were just part of the way he liked to take care of her. She wished that for once Jenny could see the goodness in Tommy.

 Since Aunt Polly had shown her the house and the betting shop where Tommy had launched his empire, she had a deeper understanding of him. Since she’d stood in his tiny bedroom where he had wrestled with the echoes of the tunnels and sweated through nightmares of poverty and war, she saw him through different eyes. She had grown to tolerate his last-minute cancellations and welcome him without pouting when he’d kept her waiting half the night.

 Polly had opened her eyes to the man behind the façade in a way that he could never do himself. With that understanding, she opened herself up to the possibility of a life with Tommy. No, nothing about what happened between them was mercenary. Tommy just took care of people in his life. She was used to Jenny acting like an older sister and alerting her to pitfalls she had overlooked, but this was too much. The tears of frustration and despair that she had hidden behind her hands were becoming tears of rage. Over and over Jenny had proven that she wouldn’t ever approve of her relationship with Tommy, and Lia was finished with seeking her cousin’s approval.

 She wiped her eyes and spoke through gritted teeth, “You know, Tommy has offered to let me stay in one of his properties near the library. Maybe it’s time to take him up on that offer. I’d hate for my reputation as the Shelby whore to rub off on you.”

 Jenny put down the knife she’d been using to slice the bread. “Calm down. I didn’t say that…”

 “But that is what you meant.” Her words came out clipped and cold. “I don’t want my reputation for sleeping with the Gangster of Parliament to ruin your chances with some nice mid-level clerk, so I’ll just move out.”

 “No…don’t! I’m just worried about you. You are like my little sister and I’m afraid you’re riding for a fall. What happens when this is over?”

 Lia abruptly stood and lashed out at Jenny, “Over?” Lia growled.

 The word struck a chord of fear in Lia that made her dizzy. In an instant, all of her nights with Tommy, the taste of his sweat, the feel of his mouth, the smell of his sheets, flashed through her mind. She turned that fear into rage and took a step toward Jenny as she shouted, “I love him! That’s enough for me! Why can’t it enough for you?”

 It was true. She loved him so much that it hurt. Her face was red and blotchy and her chest heaved with every breath. She was tired of fighting Jenny at every turn, and at that moment all she wanted was Tommy’s arms around her.  She needed him so badly that she felt like she would fly into a million pieces without him holding her together.

 Jenny took a step backward and bumped into the kitchen counter. Lia looked truly deranged. A realization came over Jenny like a wave. Lia was a different person now— a person who turned a blind eye to the ugly side of her man and made excuses for his shortcomings. It had been happening gradually over the last few months; the absent-minded dreamer that she had grown up with had disappeared. Back then, no matter how far out Lia got Jenny was always the voice of reason who could reel her back in, but Lia wasn’t listening to her anymore. This was different.

 There seemed to be no turning back. Jenny knew that she had already said too much, but couldn’t resist a parting shot as she headed for the stairs. “Love? How can you love him when the only things you have in common are each other?”

 Even as Jenny said it, she wondered if it was true.

  ***

   Tommy and Arthur were sitting opposite each other at Tommy’s desk in their shirtsleeves talking about horses. Arthur had put too many logs on the fire and the room was like an oven. It was past the close of business and they should have been heading home, but they had lately taken to staying for drinks a couple of nights a week. Arthur would tell stories about Billy and the chickens, and Tommy had even opened up a bit about Lia. Arthur was cursing the heat and rolling up his sleeves when they heard someone pounding at the door.

 “You expecting company?” Arthur asked in his rough, whiskey soaked Brum.

 Tommy ran the tip of his tongue along his teeth and shook his head, “No.”

 They stood and Arthur made his way toward the door, his hand on his pistol.

 “Who’s there?” he boomed.

 A muffled voice called, “Lia Montrose. I need to see Tom…Mr. Shelby.”

 Arthur turned in his brother’s direction and feigned seriousness. ”Shall we let her in, Tommy?”

 Tommy rolled his eyes and huffed, “Open the fookin’ door; it’s freezing out there.”

 Lia entered the building shaking snow from her disheveled hair and stamping the slush from her boots. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and her eyes were a bit watery from the wind. She imagined that she looked a fright, but Arthur thought she looked like an angel.

 Arthur stood there looking her up and down while she tried not to gawp at the pistol hanging loosely under his arm until Tommy cleared his throat and began to make introductions.

 “Lia, this is my brother Arthur. Arthur, Lia Montrose.”

 Arthur straightened up and offered to take her coat. As he hung it on the rack, he smiled a bit too broadly and said, “Tommy has told me a lot of nice things about you.”

 Tommy knew that something was wrong because he and Lia hadn’t planned on seeing each other until the weekend. After a few pleasantries, Tommy stared at Arthur until he made his excuses and left.

 Chills shook her body; she was shaking like a leaf, so Tommy took her by the hand and led her into his office where a fire roared and two glasses of whiskey were already waiting. He sat her down on his desk and took a seat in front of her, all the while rubbing the warmth back into her arms and hands. She looked down into his crystalline eyes and tried to find the words to say what she’d come for. At that moment, she was ever so grateful that Tommy knew how to take his time with her. He would wait until she was ready to talk.

 She finished her first glass of whiskey and leaned into him. She breathed deeply and sighed, feeling better already simply for having him there to hold her.

 “I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled into his collar.

 “About…” he prompted her while stroking her head.

 She sat back up and his hands went to her thighs rubbing slow, soothing circles over her skirt. She watched his hands and thought about what Jenny had said. She didn’t know very much about him, other than what they did together. Hell, she only just met his brother. His business dealings were a mystery and she had learned more about him from the papers than from his own words. So what if she became breathless around him? So what if her tummy fluttered every time he entered the room? Surely there was more to love than the helpless infatuation she felt for him.

 Tommy lay his head in her lap and wrapped his arms around her hips thinking that maybe she would be able to tell him what was wrong if his eyes weren’t watching her. She ran her fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.

 “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

 “Is that right?” Tommy whispered.

 Lulled by the sensation of her fingernails on his scalp, he could feel the knots in his shoulders loosen. He was trying his best to be attentive to her needs, but his mind drifted to what he’d like to do with her on his desk.

 “Jenny and I had an awful row… the worst one we’ve ever had,” she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and went on, “I can’t live with her anymore.”

 That got his full attention.

[fancyfanfiction]

Soon It Will Be Spring (Chapter 3)

YAY! I had a major set back in the form of my external hard drive corrupting, but I got the data back and have been working on this chapter! I also now know way too much about the Russian railway system. Fun fact: The name of the Nikolaevsky/Oktyabyrsky station is now the Moskovsky Station.

Cross-posted to AO3 here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242599/chapters/65460604

 Chapter 3

The clocktower of the Nikolaevsky—now Oktyabyrsky—railway station stood stark against the cobalt sky as the pair approached the building, one of the holdouts of imperial style in the new culture of Russia. Train whistles mumbled and overlapping conversations, and the chugging of locomotives enveloped the station and its grounds. Gleb and Katya kept pace with their fellow travelers as they crossed the threshold into the main hall of the station.

Katya took in the sight, allowing herself private revelry in the familiarity of the old train station. Any childhood trip ended there: with a train pulling back into Saint Petersburg and some treat or another from her father to ease the sadness of an adventure ended. Katya could almost hear her father comforting her: the best part about the end of an adventure is now another can begin. Adventure had been his life since the beginning, adventures that Katya had never quite been able to imagine. The Caucasus mountains existed to her only in books and in the stories her father had told of his boyhood. Regret pricked the back of her neck. Katya would never get to see the mountains where her father had been born now.

The odd companions stood staring at the board of arrivals and departures. Moscow would be easy, but Poland: less so. Money and time for forged papers were luxuries they hadn’t been afforded. They approached the ticketing window, and something seemed to click on in Katya’s eyes.

“Hello, comrade. Where are you headed?” asked the man.

“Two for Moscow, please. The earliest departure you have.” Katya had donned a modest Polish accent as she slid the money across the counter, not unintelligible by any means, but unmistakable in its origin.

Upon hearing the accent, the ticket man seemed to change his demeanor. The stench of condescension wafted off of him. “You’ll need to go to platform four and give this to the man on the train when he asks for it” He pronounced each word slowly and loudly as if speaking to a small child, exaggerating each syllable and gesturing as he handed Katya the tickets.

She offered a vacant smile, “Thank you, comrade.”

Of course. She was playing dumb Gleb realized.  

“Platform four, then?” Gleb asked once they had left the counter, shifting his pack from one shoulder to the other. “I’m surprised you didn’t shout at him.”

“Playing into people’s prejudices can have its uses,” Katya said, her disdain for the “stupid Pole” stereotype dripping from each word.

“Where did you learn to do that accent so well, Yekaterina?” Gleb asked, curiosity getting the better of his instinct to leave Katya alone to cool off.

“My mother’s family is Polish. Neither of my grandparents on that side ever fully shook the accent.” Her answer was direct but lacked the iciness Gleb had expected.

They walked in silence to their destination. The light tang of coal, metal, and oil floated in the air, strengthening as the platform grew closer. The train would be departing in less than half an hour. They stood with their fellow passengers, the shared comradery of an imminent journey connecting all those who stood waiting. The moment washed over the pair like water over the banks of the Neva as they watched the train pull into the station.

“We can’t come back.” Katya broke through the silence.

Gleb thought for a moment he saw heartbreak flicker in her eyes – the same look Anya had as she knelt next to him, loaded gun still in his hand, the same blue eyes. Gleb glanced at Katya again, but she had turned away.

A sea of coats, hats, and luggage ebbed and flowed around them as the passengers boarded.  Katya claimed the window seat before Gleb even had a chance to protest. Exhaustion clung to her like sleet, weighing Katya down as she leaned her head against the cool glass. Her eyes fluttered, going in an out of focus as sleep threatened to overtake her.

“Here.” Katya thrust the tickets toward Gleb. “Just hand the conductor both of ours when he comes by.”

Gleb nodded and took the paper slips from Katya; the tips of her fingers brushed his through her fingerless gloves. Whether they were fingerless for dexterity or simply because the tips had become too damaged to bother mending anymore, Gleb couldn’t say.

The train lurched forward in a cloud of steam and smoke as it pulled away from the platform. The gentle rocking as the train picked up speed lulled Katya into a blessedly dreamless sleep, leaving Gleb alone with his thoughts.

He took stock. It would be at least a few hours before they reached Moscow. He knew Katya had some money but had no clue how much; Gleb decided he would only count on his own money. There was no use speculating on things he didn’t know and had no place asking. He knew Katya couldn’t have saved much. Yet Anya – Anastasia, he corrected himself mentally – had made it with those conmen, and street sweepers made only a fraction of what a cleaning woman would make. She had more than made it. She had thrived. Why hadn’t she taken her place publicly? The image of Anya decked out in her regal red gown that played so well against rosy skin haunted him, taunted him, dangled what could have been in front of him, just out of reach. Long life, Gleb, her voice still echoed in his head.

***

 “Now arriving at Oktyabrsky Terminal, Moscow.” The conductor’s voice boomed through the train car. Katya stirred and woke, fixing Gleb with those blue eyes that seemed too familiar after four hours of ruminating on the past.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” He said dryly.

“We’re in Moscow, then?” Katya rubbed her face.

“Unless the conductor is lying.”

Katya responded with a short half laugh. “So, you do have a sense of humor.”

“A bit rusty, but it’s there.” Gleb smiled, the first genuine smile Katya could remember seeing on him.

With their current government, the more paranoid part of Katya didn’t quite trust that the conductor wasn’t lying. She stretched and stood, trying to shake the idea from her mind. A yawn escaped as she shook out the stiffness from sleeping leaning against a train window.

“Warsaw next, then?” Gleb asked, allowing the chatter of the other passengers to cover their conspiracy.

Katya nodded. “Yes…” she trailed off.

Gleb sensed the “but” implied in her answer. “But we don’t have papers.”

Another nod. “I think I have a workaround, but we’ll have to be quick.”

           The pair disembarked with the rest of the passengers and crossed to the departures board. The train station hadn’t changed much, despite its renaming Katya noted. She almost wished she had time to wander around Moscow. It had been so long since she’d visited. Then she remembered. The palaces, the grand parties, all of that would be long gone—had been long gone for years now.

           Gleb looked between the chalk departures board and his father’s old map. “It looks like the closest we can get to Warsaw today will be Minsk.”

           “Alright then. One more leg to the journey won’t throw things off too badly.” Katya began walking, rifling through of her bag.

           Gleb’s gaze drifted from person to person, habitually searching for any danger. His heart jumped as he noticed a man walking quickly in his direction. The man was dressed neutrally, meant to blend in with the crowd in the train station, but he walked with a purpose that set him apart, shoulders square and jaw set. Gleb knew a Chekist guard when he saw one. And one was walking dead towards him and Katya.

           “Yekaterina.” Gleb grabbed her arm, not even waiting for a response. He pulled them both around a corner into a shadowed, empty corridor and pressed her against the wall, hoping the dark color of his coat would camouflage them—if not, he supposed he could use the excuse of sweethearts stealing a kiss away from the crowds.

           “What—” Katya’s question was cut off by Gleb placing his finger to his lips. She was certain she would have a bruise on her upper arm from how hard he had gripped. Scrutinizing his face, she searched for an answer as to why the former Deputy Commissioner had shoved her against a wall in a dark corner of a crowded building. The wool of his coat still held the familiar smell of his—now former—apartment despite their frenzied escape from St. Petersburg. He looked over his shoulder and Katya noticed the dark stubble that had begun to spread along Gleb’s jawline. Seeing the bruise-colored circles beneath his eyes, Katya felt a pang of sympathy. This close she realized Gleb was holding his breath. What ever caused him to try and hide them, she figured, it must not be gone.

           Seconds felt like minutes before Gleb heard the quick steps of the Cheka pass. He stepped back, freeing Katya.

           “The Cheka.” He answered her unfinished question.

           Katya’s eyes widened. “Do you think they’ve found us?” Her breathing hitched. Had they really been so close to danger?

           “No.” He shook his head. “But if they’re looking for us, they’ll have our descriptions.”

The two walked back into the main lobby of the station. The travelers and commuters seemed oblivious as to what had just happened.

“Well, we should get to Minsk as soon as possible.” Katya walked up to the window and returned with their tickets. “The train’s already boarding.” She walked right past Gleb, leading him toward their platform.

This train was nicer that the last, Gleb observed. He and Katya found their compartment and took their seats, this time across from each other, rather than side by side. This would be a long trip. Moscow was more than 700 kilometers from Minsk. The train ride alone would take 6 hours, likely more if they needed to stop to refuel.

Gleb looked at Katya. Her face was mirrored in the dark glass as she stared out the window. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

“If we’re going to be on this train for a while, perhaps we could get to know each other?” Gleb suggested as nonchalantly as he could. Truthfully, he was a little curious about his companion.

Katya turned from the window toward Gleb. “What do you want to know?”

He searched for a moment before settling on a question. “What was your life like before you worked as a cleaner?”            “My mother left me at the Smolny Convent to become a nun when I was about 14.” Katya replied.

“You were a nun?” Gleb was astonished. In the hours they had now spent together, he’d not once gotten the impression that she was particularly devout.

“No. I was a novice and not a very good one at that.” Katya corrected, amused by his surprise.

“Papa and I sent letters, in secret of course.” She continued, “We weren’t exactly supposed to have contact with our families, but he always encouraged my rule-breaking. I suppose that was part of why my mother sent me to the convent in the first place.” The softness Katya’s features had taken talking about her father faded. “I was there until you Bolsheviks disbanded the convent.” She gave him a pointed look. “And looted it.”

She leaned back against the seat. “I would write and tell my father about how I had screwed up in my novitiate again since we’d last talked. Something stupid normally. Playing a prank on another novitiate. Staying out past curfew and then trying to argue my way out of penitence. He’d say, ‘That’s my Katenka. Full of fire to the bitter end. Just like me.’” A fond and forlorn smile softened Katya’s features again.

“Katenka? That’s not a pet name I’d expect for you.” Gleb fought the amused look on his face.

“Don’t ever call me that.” A hint of menace lurked behind her dismissive tone, almost protective of the memory she’d just shared. Katya scowled at the floor between them as they sat in silence; the conversation was obviously dead.

“I miss my father, too.”  Gleb offered after a few minutes.

Katya looked up.

“He died about 10 years ago.” He continued.

“Mine died about that time, too. I suppose a lot of children lost fathers during the revolution.” Sadness and sympathy for those who had known her tinged Katya’s voice.

“His name was Sergei?” Gleb attempted to keep the conversation going now that it had been resurrected.

She raised an eyebrow as her lips pressed together and quirked to the side.  “No, his name  was Ivan.” An eye roll and a small smile of amused exasperation accompanied her sarcasm.

Gleb’s eyes flicked downward, then back to Katya as he realized the redundancy of asking someone he almost exclusively addressed as “Yekaterina Sergeyevna” her father’s name.

Sometimes he seemed more like a boy than an officer to Katya, a child wearing his father’s boots.

“Mine was Stepan.” Gleb brushed some dirt from his sleeve.

"Really, Gleb Stepanovich?  I never would have guessed." Katya emphasized his patronym.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if they had known each other, given they died around the same time?” Gleb waited a second to see if Katya found it an interesting thought as well.

“We live in a country of more than 90,000 people. I think that’s rather unlikely.”

Gleb grimaced at his failed attempt at connection. A yawn caught him off guard.

“You should sleep. It’s a long train ride, like you said, and I got to rest on the last one.” Katya offered. “I’ll keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

Gleb nodded and leaned back, appreciating the feeling of cushion rather than stone. Adrenaline could only carry a person so far, he figured. Sleep pulled him down into darkness quickly as he closed his eyes.

Katya looked at the sleeping form across from her. The Deputy Commissioner—former Deputy Commissioner—wasn’t unhandsome, not by any stretch of the imagination she decided. He was in fact very handsome when he deigned to smile. Which was seldom. She had only seen a true smile once or twice, not that tight-lipped half-grimace he often made. He, like all the other Bolsheviks Katya had had the pleasure of encountering, seemed to lack a sense of humor almost entirely or at least she had thought until that afternoon. Even so, he at least had more empathy than his comrades. He looked younger when he slept, granted he was young for his rank, but still.

The train’s great heave forward as it began to pull away from the station didn’t rouse Gleb in the slightest. He seemed already lost in dreams. Katya unthinkingly reached out and gently brushed his normally well-kept hair from his forehead. She hated to admit it, and perhaps it was just the shared bonds of running for one’s life, but she was growing fond of the former Bolshevik. She turned to look out the window again. Katya had never been to Minsk, hopefully the added time to the journey would be worth it.

[steves-on-a-plane]

Dont Get Attached (Pt 17)

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven/ Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Part Sixteen 

Words: 1249 Connor x Daughter!Reader W/ Dad!Hank Anderson summary: A thrilling chapter highlighting Connor & Reader’s escape from Jericho.

“Marcus!” You, Marcus and Connor had run below deck to warn his followers when you bumped into one of the other deviants. You didn’t know her name, but you’d seen her on TV before and knew she was one of the leaders. “They’re coming from all sides! Our people are trapped in the hold, they’ll be slaughtered.” Marcus brought a finger to his left temple. You assumed he was sending a message to the other androids to evacuate.

“They’re coming from the upper deck now too. We saw helicopters on our way down here, we’ll be caught in the crossfire.” Marcus said aloud.  

“We have to run, Marcus. There’s nothing we can do!” The female android explained.

“We have to blow up Jericho.” Marcus announced. “If the ship goes down they’ll evacuate and our people can escape.”

“You’ll never make it!” She argued back. “The explosives are all the way down in the hold! There are soldiers everywhere.”

“She’s right.” Connor agreed. You noticed he laced his fingers through you own, allowing him to get a tighter grip on your hand. “They know who you are. They’ll do anything to get you.”

“Go and help the others.” Marcus ordered his friend. “I’ll join you later.”

Marcus!” She begged him.

“I won’t be long.” He told her firmly before running off. Shots could be heard nearby. Connor tugged at your hand and you took off running again.

“Connor!” You huffed, the only one out of breath. “I can’t run…as fast…as you!”

“SHES HUMAN?” The female android remarked. “Are you crazy, bringing a human in here?”

“Go on without us!” Connor told her. “We’ll find our own way out.” Connor stopped running so that you could catch your breath. “I would carry you, [Y/N], but I don’t think that we could both fit through the bulkhead doorways at the same time.”

“It’s fine.” You panted. “Lets just keep going. Okay?”

“Alright.” He seemed hesitant to continue with you in this state, but neither of you had much of a choice. “But we’ll walk until you can catch your breath.” Connor took your handy again and led you down the next corridor. It wasn’t long before you heard the softest whirl of a weapon warming up behind you.

“Don’t move!” An unfamiliar voice ordered. You and Connor both froze midstride. You didn’t dare look up at him. You weren’t even brave enough to squeeze his hand in fear.

So much for catching my breath. You thought as you seemed to stop breathing altogether. In a matter of seconds, you thought of what it must look like. You in Connor’s jacket, trying to blend in and Connor is his human street clothes. There would be no talking your way out of this.

“Don’t shoot.” Connor told the voice. He didn’t turn around or flinch a robotic muscle. “I’m on your side.”

“With us?” The person asked. “Are you a human?”

“I work with Agent Perkins.” Connor explained, now turning around. He nodded at you indicating that you should do the same. You guessed that Agent Perkins must be the FBI agent that Connor and your dad had lost the deviant cases to. You turned around slowly to see a man in full tactical gear with US ARMY written across his chest.

“This is [Y/N].” Connor continued. “She was taken hostage by these androids. I’m just trying to rescue her and bring her home safely.”

“I’m gonna have to check…” The soldier reached for his radio.

“Please.” You begged, trying not to lay it on too thick and give away the lie. Maybe it was the stress of the whole night or that you were just honestly scared in the moment, but you even managed a few tears. “I was brought here against my will by those…things. I just want to go home and see my dad. Can’t we just go?”

“She should lose the jacket.” The officer suggested, lowering his weapon. “And you should get her out of here. Go back up on deck and let us do our job.”

“We will.” Connor promised. “Come on [Y/N].” You and Connor walked away, waiting until you were out of the soldier’s eyesight and earshot before picking up running again.

Thanks to your ruse, and the fact that both the FBI and Army had concentrated their efforts on raiding Jericho, the top deck of the ship was practically empty. There were a few gunmen, but many of them were training their weapons downwards at the androids trying to flee from the lower decks. Somehow through all the chaos the two of you managed to escape unharmed.

“This way.” Connor waved you to the very same opening you’d found Jericho through. From there it was only a series of dangerous parkour moves from Connor before you were staring up at the same ten-foot wall you’d jumped off of hours ago.

“I could make that climb.” Connor said, “ But…” His eyes drifted over to you, communicating what you were both thinking. There’s no way you could climb ten feet straight up a flush brick wall and it was only a matter of time before the army or the FBI found out about the secret entrance to Jericho. You looked around the lot you were standing in. There must be something there that you could use.

“There!” Your eyes settled on a large rusted section of pipe. “If we wedge it on an angle, I might be able to shimmy up the pile, at least far enough until you can grab me and pull me the rest of the way. Connor seemed uncertain, but as his own eyes scanned the lot, he didn’t seem to find a better option.  

Connor did as you suggested and wedge the pipe between the top of the wall and the base of the lot you stood in. You were glad you’d worn sneakers out of the house that night as you sized up the pile. You watched Connor effortlessly leap his way to the top of the wall. He then stood at the top and waited for you with his arms outstretched.

The angle of the pipe was such that you wouldn’t be able to walk it like a bridge. It had to be climbed. You straddled the pipe, squeezing your legs tightly. You had to, to make sure that you didn’t slide down the pipe once you gained some actual height. The entire experience was giving you flashbacks to middle school gym class.

“Careful, [Y/N]!” Connor warned.

“It’s fine, Conn...shit!” As you were just about to tell him that what you were doing was perfectly fine, you heard the tearing of fabric and felt a deep slice on your inner thigh. You’d cut yourself on the rusty pipe. You didn’t chance inspecting the injury then incase you lost your balance and fell off. You were about halfway anyway, you could make it to the top. Gritting your teeth, you kept your legs wrapped around the pipe and continued climbing. As soon as he could reach you, Connor grabbed your arms and pulled you up on top of the wall.

“You’re bleeding.” He observed worriedly.

“I’m sure it’s nothing…” You waved him off. But even you didn’t miss how blood soaked your pant leg already was. “Well there’s nothing we can do about it here.” You reminded him, limping forward. “We’ve got to get back over that.” You pointed to the large chasm you’d swung across on the way to Jericho.

Tags:  @dechartduo @rainbowzephyr@sherlockspie@mybrilliantusername@wishuponawriter@fandomloverlord221 @racrneko @that-random-chick-named-tori@noodledraw@mariahlambslbs @sdavid09 @baebecca @black-and-white-eyes@twdpansy @revenge-parti @grievance-s@mikithekiki  @kazuha159 @dragonempress123 @the-razy-pie-rope@layinglonely @talle-2002 @trash-is-my-name@geolusun@professionalfangirl1738 @ask-angel-of-death@havanbcby @beautifulsilvermarch@myemoescape@sweetlittleviper@fineactually@manymanyenvelopes @demonpandu @mikkasao@21putnamp@comeheretiger @pringtella @deathbyhollywood@itstrashleydude@clowntapus @dragonempress123@tenderlytremendouskittens@lovelittledoyouknow @etherealpeachh @omelys-space@xesthete-cxssi@itstrashleydude @loopy-lolly-loo @abigfanofyours @onceuponagleepottermindlock @missjayi @treanna-hatake@bunnie-kookie @bvngtanboiz @kumamno@jinwonholeo@erinitoburrito @kinggst @line-viper @treanna-hatake@pxnisparker @goalsweight @ayajackson @taylor-swifter-sweeper@ohskit @ninatheotter @regular-mexican-girl@katiekitty261@iknowrocknroll567 @Ispheygurl @hidenbarrista@doctorpaintedwhore @cliche-female-protagonist@fairytailwzard@hollowmasque @syrinxgm @misbhv-ur@sugaraddict@thelavachick @nikkidawnlight@hollowmasque@fairytailwzard@patchworkdabi @fearlesspatroclus@dbhtrashftw@writingpromptsstuff @fearlesspatroclus @xalinx@dbhtrashftw@awkard-fangirl88 @cindersonick @spookydun-iplier@spacekidarayo @anglemae  @redlovett@xalinx @letthembehappymcu

*If you would like to be tagged in the Don’t Get Attached series, simply reply to this post or submit an ask.*

[greenlinelandscapingllc-blog]

How to Lay Artificial Grass

You've bought some fantastic artificial grass to draw out the best in your nursery – presently the time has come to lay it! We've arranged a guide loaded up with master clues and tips to make it as simple as could reasonably be expected.

·         The phases of artificial grass establishment

 ·         Accumulate the devices you'll require

 ·         Expel any current turf

 ·         Set up the base layer

 ·         Apply a layer of sand

 ·         Make an even surface

 ·         Put down a layer of stun spongy material

 ·         Expel the without grass fringe from the artificial turf

 ·         Adjust the grass

 ·         Slice the turf to the shape you need

 ·         Lay the grass

 ·         Brush sand into the grass

 ·         Before you start

 ·         Check for any water ponding

 Does your nursery have satisfactory depleting?

 Evacuate any weeds or plants that you never again need in your nursery

 Watch that passageways (indirect accesses, doors and so forth.) to your nursery are clear

 Artificial grass establishment apparatuses

Ensure you have the correct apparatuses for the activity – this will guarantee that you accomplish the most ideal completion and should make the procedure simpler for you.

 ·         A sharp blade and extra cutting edges

 ·         Knee cushions and gloves

 ·         Measuring tape/straight edge

 ·         Compaction plate or roller

 ·         Turf shaper

 ·         Solid open air sweeper or mechanized force brush

 ·         Skip

 ·         Sand spreader

 ·         Scored trail

 ·         Setting up your base for artificial grass

 The most effective method to set up a hard surface for artificial grass

The surface should be smooth, perfect and level. Be that as it may if there are any undulations in the solid apply a dainty layer of sand on the sub-base which will assist with leveling and fill in any minor imperfections.

 Guarantee you are content with the necessary tallness of grass against the current territory, considering any sub-base arrangement.

 Expel the normal turf utilizing either a mechanical turf shaper or a spade.

 Expel the normal grass and subsoil to a profundity of 10cm (if your ground is very much compacted and free depleting evacuate 7cm). Artificial grass ought not be introduced straightforwardly onto topsoil.

 Smaller the surface with a roller or vibrating plate (both can be procured).

 Splash the zone with a weed executioner and afterward introduce weed layer.

 In the event that a timber encompass is required, place it at this stage while guaranteeing that it isn't over the last arranged grass line.

 Apply at least 75mm of clean Type 1 or limestone 20mm evaluation size total onto the surface and smaller the stone with a roller or vibrating plate.

 In the wake of compacting the total, utilize a layer of fine stone – 6–14mm evaluation size or developers' sort sand (here and there called sharp sand or coarseness sand) to a profundity of 20–40mm. Minimal this to the necessary level, beating up if necessary to accomplish the ideal level.

 Instructions to lay artificial grass

 Strong Base (Concrete Area)

Reveal your grass onto the leveled region permitting 5cm of additional grass on all sides. This will give you enough material to guarantee an ideal edge. Leaving your grass to make due with 2–3 hours will help expel any wrinkles.

 Trim your grass cautiously utilizing a sharp blade to give it a smooth and flawless completion. We suggest that you turn the grass over and run your blade perfectly beside the line lines abstaining from cutting into the join. You can utilize cover tacks to tie down the grass to a wooden surface or decking or a cement appropriate for open air use on a solid surface.

 For enormous zones you may need to join two bits of grass. For this you have to buy joining tape and cement (see point 3 under Sand and Stone Base).

 Sand and Stone Base

Reveal the grass onto your level, compacted base at that point permit the grass to make due with 2–3 hours or ideally medium-term. When choosing which heading to lay your grass remember that artificial grass sees its best when you're investigating the heap of the grass.

 Trim your grass cautiously utilizing a sharp blade to give it a smooth and flawless completion. We prescribe turning the grass over and running your blade flawlessly by the line lines abstaining from cutting into the join.

 For enormous territories you may need to join two bits of grass. For this you should buy a getting tape together with a reasonable cement (guaranteeing that both are appropriate for outside use).

 You can either utilize a wooden secure to make sure about your grass or use arranging nails put each 10–20cm.

 Expel the entirety of the surplus bits of grass and brush with a sweeper.

 The most effective method to join artificial grass

You may need to join two bits of grass together for huge regions. For this you should buy a getting tape together with an appropriate glue (guaranteeing that both are reasonable for open air use).

https://store.greenline.us

[merryfortune]

Day 23 - Gold

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

Ship: Anzu/Dark Magician Girl

Word Count: 810

Warnings: Canon Compliant, Fluff

  “Here, have this.” Dark Magician Girl chirruped.

  Anzu blinked. One moment, she had been alone in her room. The next, she had company. Very cute and very boisterous company who flitted about like an over-excited bird. She smiled though, soothed that she the only intruder she had, was an intruder who usually made her home in her deck which she kept on her desk.

  “What is it, darling?” Anzu asked.

  “A bangle.” Dark Magician Girl replied.

  Her eyes, as brilliant as the endless blue of the ocean, glittered happily as she handed over the object in question. It was gold, and heavy too. Sort of squarish rather than rounded it and Anzu regarded it suspiciously. She liked it though. She wanted to like it but given that golden objects involved with Duel Monsters spirits were usually quite strange and had all sorts of effects, she was cautious of it.

  She let the sunlight coming through her window hit it and it cast prismatic shadows on her wall. Anzu gasped, dazzled and kept inspecting it for more hidden dangers. If it had an eye-like design on it, like Yugi’s Puzzle of Pegasus’s, well, Eye, she might have to be extremely wary of it but so far, all she could find on it were engravings which were light and reminiscent of how a child may draw water.

  “Where did you get it?” Anzu asked.

  “I found it in the Spirit World. It was just… hanging out in the sand. I couldn’t let such a pretty thing go to waste on dirt. I simply had to take it and bring it back here.” Dark Magician Girl replied.

  “It’s not cursed or anything, is it?” Anzu asked.

  Dark Magician Girl floated around and hummed. It was an innocent sort of noise – and look – but it did cause Anzu rightful concern.

  “Nope. Don’t think so.” Dark Magician Girl replied. “I mean, it might annoy some Harpie Ladies if they see you wearing it. I think it was originally one of their jewellery pieces but you know what they say! Losers sweepers, winners keepers…”

  “Very well then.” Anzu replied. “Thank you for the gift, my sweet.”

  Dark Magician Girl laughed. She simply adored being referred to with such sweet words by her lover and girlfriend. It made her feel all ticklish and warm inside and it all just welled up inside of her hopelessly as Dark Magician Girl lived by the motto of wearing her heart on her sleeve. That was something Anzu was delighted by; just like Dark Magician Girl adored being called pet names and the like, Anzu adored being able to witness Dark Magician Girl’s seemingly boundless joy. Her laughter, for instance, was a brassy sort of noise, like bronze bells but Anzu loved it. It made her feel warm and tingly inside.

  Anzu then proceeded to don the bangle. She smiled as it jangled and danced around her wrist. It certainly complimented her skin tone; Dark Magician Girl had a great eye for that sort of thing. Dark Magician Girl beamed as she watched Anzu so gracefully adjust it and simply admire it.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “Well, what?” Anzu countered.

  “Are you feeling cursed yet?” Dark Magician Girl asked, all but squawking.

  Anzu continued to admire the piece of golden jewellery around her wrist. She felt fine, perhaps a little giddy because her girlfriend had been kind enough to go and loot a hopefully abandoned Harpie Nest for her, just to get her a present. But ultimately, she was fine but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t have a little fun with Dark Magician Girl and tease her.

  “Oh no, I am feeling cursed alright.” Anzu replied.

  Dark Magician Girl gasped. “You are? What’s happening? You’re not sprouting feathers, are you?”

  Anzu pulled herself up from where she had been resting. She flung her arms around Dark Magician Girl who playfully squealed and squirmed. Completely and utterly encouraging Anzu and her mischief.

  “I feel very, very cursed with too many feelings of love for my girlfriend!” Anzu squealed.

  “Oh, Anzu!” Dark Magician Girl cried out, grinning and her voice soon dissolved into boisterous laughter. “You are too much sometimes, I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, honey, thank you so much for the bangle, I love it.” Anzu said and the struggle they were both putting up in play dissipated. Instead, it turned to a peaceful snuggle and Anzu breathed deeply.

  Dark Magician Girl was soft, though her hair was springy like straw and she smelt like a desert breeze. But Anzu loved her very much, for all her kindness and energy. So, it was nice to just warmly embrace as they were. Especially since Dark Magician Girl was a transient soul due to being a Duel Monster Spirit, it was nice to have these moments when she could manifest.

[edh-a-to-z]

Budget EDH - Tajic, Blade of the Legion

Check it out here: (deck link)

Hail planeswalker!

I had been working on a deck tech for Angus Mackenzie (the next in my series of alphabetical commanders, coming soon!) when I realized something.

It’s crazy prices - Angus alone is over 150. Crazy expensive manabase (for maximum effectiveness), and basically pricey overall.

So, I wanna see if I can make a deck out of spare parts. Spare parts and under $50 dollars. So, here we go!

Tajic is a straightforward commander - get some dudes on the board, smash in.

We need Voltron parts, Tokens to go wide (plus go-wide support), some utility cards, and a cheap mana base. Let’s get to it!

Voltron

Our plan is to get Tajic out, soup him up, and lay waste.

We want evasion, haste, and damage. Luckily, Tajic is indestructible, which makes him much stickier - we can get away with leaving him around.

We want Tajic to swing through without problems, so that means unblockable on trample, and we need to pile on the damage (we also want him swinging at +5/+5, but that’s a token problem).

For unblockability, we need Spectra Ward. Protection from all colors is functionally unblockable. Hot Soup doesn’t have a downside for us, Whispersilk Cloak is great, and Rogue’s Passage are great and cheap.

Inquisitor’s Flail has no downside and doubles it’s equipped creatures damage, and Sword of Vengeance gives us a boatload of buffs. Relic Seeker is a cheap option to fetch us equipment, and Thalia’s Lancers can fetch us any legendary including Tenza, Godo’s Maul which works great with Tajic. 

Open the Armory and Godo, Bandit Warlord are cheap tutors.

Tokens

Captain of the Watch; by Greg Staples

Sunhome Guildmage can pop out hastey tokens and buff the team. Captain of the Watch is one of my pet cards, as she’s a one-man army and buff. Myr Battlesphere can bring an army and clear blockers, Trading Post gives you options and very scary 0/1 goats (that can attack!), Chancellor of the Forge is a fatty with tokens, Darien King of Kjeldor just went down in price. Conqueror's Pledge, Nomad’s Assembly, and Increasing Devotion are one-card armies

Paying to make tokens with Master Trinketeer, Oketra the True, and Drogskol Cavalry are also options.

There’s also some options for tokens not involving creatures. Assemble the Legion, Mobilization are great. 

Utility

Cast Out, Banishing Light and Oblivion Ring are some great removal options.

While we wanna avoid board sweepers, as we’re so devoted to the board, we wanna try out a few - it’s not like Tajic will die! While OG Wrath is over budget, we can consider Rout and Sublime Exhalation. Solid choices both, and both budget.

Rapid fire:

Draw from Staff of Nin, Mentor of the Meek, Magus of the Wheel and Skullclamp is a must.

Firemane Angel and Frontline Medic are great Battalion creatures.

Forsake the Worldly, Oblation, Swords to Plowshares, Condemn, Darksteel Mutation, Duergar Hedge-Mage, 

Marshal’s Anthem and Cathar’s Crusade are THE anthems. 

Adriana Captain of the Guard wants you to hit everyone, and Nobilis of War and Veteran Swordsmith make sure your tokens hit hard. Bring in Phantom General and Intangible Virtue as well.

On the defense, use Pariah on Tajic (he can take it!), and Plea For Guidance to get that (and any other) enchantments.

Chandra, Flamecaller nets you cards and can spam out creatures.

Stonecloaker, Sun Titan, Archon of Justice, Boros Guildmage, Twilight Shepherd, Hellkite Charger and Hoard-Smelter Dragon I didn’t feel like sorting. But they’re fun.

Mana Base

This is gonna be interesting.

Take a look at all those dual lands. Rugged Prarie, Sacred Foundry, Plateau. Look at them and weep.

We’re a guildgate kinda deck.

Start with 15 Mountains and 15 Plains. Plus Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. Then Needle Spires, Boros Guildgate and Garrison, Wind-Scarred Crag, Slayer’s Stronghold also help. Add some cycling lands and cheap utility lands as you see fit.

On the manarock side of things, we use Boros Keyrune and Cluestone, Darksteel Ingot, Commander’s Sphere and Mindstone for some light ramping. 

After Building the Deck

We want Tajic, our commander, to hit the ground turn 4, and by turn 5 be a swinging 7/7. With some help, he should be able to kill another player with commander damage in 2-3 good swings. We also need him activated. If that means we swing in with a 0/1 Goat and a 1/1 Solider, do it. Make tokens often and fast - swarming is our backup plans. Don’t worry about board wipes, we have so many bodies on the field it’s easy to come back.

Bargain with your opponents - especially one’s in White or Black who can exile or -X/-X Tajic. Our only real fear is that, or Pacifism. 

Diplomacy is quick and hard in EDH, and time your attacks to kill someone with another’s help. 

Once you go a couple rounds with this deck, take it apart and analyze what works for you. Add some better cards from your collection, or experiment with some bulk you have.

Tajic, Blade of the Legion; by James Ryman

So, there you have it. Under 50 bucks. Uses a lot of EDH staples that can be used later, and can easily be upgraded to a more token based strategy, or a better equipment package.

Well campers, that was fun. If you want me to feature another budget commander, let me know! Questions, comments, ideas, hit me with it, I’m always looking for stuff in my inbox!

[razieltwelve]

MTG Arena Thoughts

Some thoughts I’ve had playing MTG Arena...

Why are goblin and elf players mad at rogue (UB rogue/mill) players? The most common accusation is that rogues is brainless to play, but historic goblins and elves aren’t exactly 9000 IQ decks either. Having played both sides of the matchup, I feel that rogues is the harder deck to win with in that you don’t get nearly as many games where you just goldfish and the other player just dies before being able to do anything. I get that goblins and elves players can get frustrated if everything is getting countered/killed, but both goblins and elves can win incredibly quickly if the opponent lacks sufficient disruption. Goblins also has one of the single most powerful top decks in the format with Muxus. You can have an empty board and then just win in the late game if you draw Muxus and it resolves. Likewise, elves can assemble an essentially unbeatable board relatively quickly. If you’re a mid-range or aggro deck, elves can be a nightmare because you don’t have the sweepers to keep up with it.

Watching Tibalt’s Trickery decks mulligan remains one of the most amusing things in the game. You know you’re facing a Trickery Deck when they’re instantly willing to mull to four.

Playing the Lifegain/Lifegain mirror is hilarious. It’s why you should pack 2 copies of Ajani. Assuming you can get enough life, he’ll win the game on his own. Also, the new GW legend that scries of life gain is for real. You never run out of gas if you’ve got her in play.

The evil part of me loves playing BR. Thoughtseize, Inquisition, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Kroxa, etc. just give you so much game against a wide variety of decks. You might not always be super favoured in a matchup, but you’re rarely just dead, which is a nice feeling. In contrast, playing aggro is something I enjoy, but against the plethora of combo decks going around, you are going to have matchups where you are basically just dead.

Prismari Mill makes me happy. It’s janky as anything, but copying mill spells is just too funny. Copying Tasha’s Hideous Laughter will often just win you the game against a lot fo the aggro decks where everybody is running really low CMC cards.