#without context this is just some guy I KNOW but i promise it's scout. maybe not THE scout but A scout.

[egoarc4de]

ant mill wip #1536 so i can talk in the tags

[cerastes]

Among many things in Darknight’s Memoir, I love how the themes, and their effect on the cast, get touched upon in a manner that isn’t entirely explicit but isn’t as crystal clear as you’d expect.

For example, at one point, W was entirely willing to blow herself up to take out the enemy. She didn’t particularly want to, but she was going to do it if it came to it and if she had no other way out. When Ines understandably asks her “are you serious?”, W simply answers “well, if there’s no other way out of this, a kill is a kill, right?”. Contrast this with her attitude later, where her demeanor is as playful and caustic as we’ve come to expect from her, but her decisions, however, her courses of action, change entirely. No more thrill-seeking by riding the Catastrophe’s wind, no more gambles, no more unnecessary risks, she’s come to put a value on her own life beyond being a mercenary in the endless war game of the Kazdel barrenlands, she’s got a mission, something she less needs to accomplish and more that she wants to accomplish.

And that’s an important narrative thread in Darknight’s Memoir: To want. Sarkaz mercenaries, by and large, fight for the next paycheck more than anything, to get by, a client that pays is a good enough client. W herself initially came to Hoederer with the intent on killing him and claiming the bounty on his head. Seeing her prey firsthand and noticing she can’t kill him, she joins him instead. And that’s just natural: Why take on a foe that will likely injure you irreparably or even kill you? Better join up, and go for bigger fish. There’s literally no stakes in that fight. There’s nothing beyond the paycheck, but that also means there’s nothing except the paycheck: You can take it, but you can also leave it. The longer lived Sarkaz know when to take and when to live.

W, at this point, Wanted Nothing. Just being able to go through the motions, through whatever fights came next, was good enough. One of the first scenes we are treated to involves W throwing a team of her own mercenary corps under the bus to make it out alive. As a reader, our first reaction most likely is “wow, what a bastard”, but then you see Hoederer and Ines’ reaction, and it’s simply “oh, yeah, that happens”. It’s completely normal. That just happens in Kazdel and among Sarkaz, it’s the norm. That’s not to say it isn’t appalling, but in the context of Kazdel, that’s just another day in the job.

There’s no Want. Or technically speaking, there’s a very superficial, utilitarian, soulless Want: The next day, the next paycheck, the next meal, the next fight. Who cares about whatever the trillion of ‘noble’ Sarkaz clans are fighting for or peddle? They have their flags and their sigils and their plastic speeches, but they are all the same: The same warriors, the same traitors, the same devils. Whichever pays you, it’s all the same.

That changes when W meets Theresa. The full breadth of their dynamic is not explored in Darknights’ Memoir, but it’s made very clear that seeing the King of Kazdel, the sovereign of all Sarkaz, the noblest of nobles herself, Theresa, hunched over clumsily trying to fix a janky door, had an effect on W. Well, that, and their subsequent dialogue. Theresa was likely the first Sarkaz W met that wasn’t at least romancing a few ways to kill her, that simply wanted to know her name, and a little more about her. To us, Theresa showed the barest of cordialities with a kind demeanor, but to W, it was likely something that sent her brain into a blue screen of death state. She took an interest in Theresa, unlike she ever did with any other Sarkaz, or noble, or even any other person, and she observed her and served her.

And that there is when a pivotal change occurs: Want.

There is now Want. W No Longer Wants Nothing. She wants to see Theresa interact with others, she wants to see her alone, she wants to see how she does this and that, she wants to see her ideals through, she wants to actually believe in what she has to offer, because for the first time, it’s not a paycheck on the other side of the table that’s motivating her, it’s being able to see someone sincerely working towards a noble goal without ulterior motives and without betrayal, someone who actually believes what she preaches. Not long before this particular cutscene, Hoerderer mentions having killed someone that was trying to assassinate him, a guy he knew and that called him his friend, that even said he’d love for him to marry his daughter. This is the Sarkaz Normal. Literally everything is meaningless to the Sarkaz, even camaradeire. Not on Babel, not on that landship. W might as well have seen paradise in Babel, and in Theresa, a Messiah.

And, see, this is what I love about Darknights’ Memoirs: W doesn’t suddenly turn soft. W doesn’t do a 180. W supports the lofty goals of Theresa in the ways she knows, no doubt dyed by Theresa’s colors, but nonetheless using the skills and temperament that comes natural to her. W was born and nurtured by the battlefield, it’d make no sense for her to suddenly discard all of it, but the colors of Theresa are evident from this point on, even after Theresa’s passing.

W never becomes any less ruthless to her enemies, but there’s clearly a change to the melody of her percussive explosives. It’s no longer about the next battlefield, it’s no longer about the next paycheck, no, every move, from there on, has one clear objective: Kill Theresis, for having Theresa killed.

Now, revenge is nice and cold, but there’s a difference in how she’s going about this: As Hoederer mentions he wants out of this sordid lifestyle, W’s first reaction is to lament the loss of a capable hand, but to otherwise tell him that, if he’s getting out, he might as well Take This Specific Route She Knows Is Safest. It’s not the first farewell she’s given her blessing to: In this very conversation, Hoederer muses that W’s turned soft for letting Flamebringer leave without repercussions. While W’s Sarkaz ended up directly killing Scout’s team, Ines herself outright says to Scout that W didn’t have the heart to kill her old Babel ally (and this is an important distinction: Remember that W is loyal to Babel, not Rhodes Island), with W likely half counting on The Ghost of Babel to be able to make it out with his considerable skills (although if we recall what Scout had to say in Operational Intelligence, he seems to have been pretty aware he was going to die one way or another, and accepted this; his lack of regrets make more sense when you consider he IS the reason why RI was able to rescue Doctor at all, thanks to his deal with W so she’d let Rhodes Island pass). W, at this point of Want, is at that point where she’s not losing any sleep if she has to off someone so her cover in Reunion is believable and isn’t blown, but if she can avoid killing RI Operators, she’ll try and take that road (such as her not killing Adnachiel). Obviously, it’s not exactly the most altruistic or heroic of attitudes, but it’s about as good as it gets for, again, someone who used to believe that using her own teammates as cannon fodder to cover her retreat was perfectly normal and expected, even.

Recall the talk Ines and Hoerderer had about flags. Hoerderer says he’d rather forget about their flag, because it’s an empty symbol, and there’s no real flag for him to believe for... Instead, he believes in the flagpole: You could take that to be a very pure representation of Kazdel as a concept, as this eternal, meaningless warzone, where meaningless people wage meaningless conflict for meaningless rewards, create meaningless bonds and ultimately die a meaningless death: The very same man that throws his arm around you, calls you his friend, and tells you to marry his daughter will take a contract on your head the next day. It’s just the flagpole. It’s meaningless. It holds nothing but useless air. A flagpole with no flag is representative of something that has no meaning and no essence, a lone flagpole is exactly that: An ode to being devoid of, bereft of what should be there, but isn’t.

In many ways, as you may have noticed, Hoederer is meant to be a foil to W, and this is no exception: W has a flag, and again, it’s extremely telling that W’s affiliation as an Operator is not Rhodes Island or Kazdel, it’s Babel.

If we can consider Kazdel to mean more than just a physical location, if we can consider Kazdel to represent that meaningless, cruel, harsh style of life and way of death, then so we can consider Babel to be more than simply “Rhodes Island before Rhodes Island”, we can consider Babel to mean the ideology of Theresa, that style of life and way of death, full of meaning, with a clear objective, with a rocky path well worth the bloody trek.

If whenever Hoederer talks about about wanting to “leave Kazdel” as wanting to leave this sordid lifestyle behind once and for all, then thus, W being a part of Babel, despite her contact with Rhodes Island’s Kal’tsit, despite her undercover status as Theresis’ representative of the Sarkaz in Reunion, despite all affiliations, then that means something. And it’s changed her to some degree, sure, but the important change here is not W as a person, but rather, what W chooses to do with what she is and what she can do, successfully breaking out of the endless cycle of meaningless, vapid warfare, participating in it only in order to eventually crush it. Whereas W initially joined Hoederer because she saw herself outgunned, W is actively going against Theresis, even if she is more outgunned than ever, because now she has something she Wants. She could very easily submit to Theresis, but that’s what the past, Want-less W would do, not the current W, driven by Babel.

Because maybe, that’s all that the Sarkaz needed: Not something to believe, because words are cheap and nobles have those a dime a dozen, but someone to believe in. And not just anybody, but someone that can actually promise you more than a meaningless battle the next three weeks, and then deliver with their actions.

Maybe all they need is to Want.

Because sometimes, many times, Wanting is what breaks the stagnant cycle, but do not underestimate how easy it is to forget to Want... Or to never have learned to Want, in the case of the Sarkaz.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #248: “To Save the ETERNALS!”

October, 1984

Scarlet Witch: “It’s raining ETERNALS!”

Hallelujah?

This is a pretty striking cover. The white background is what sells it. Having an actual background would busify the cover too much.

So last times on Avengers: Bored after giving the chairman role to Vision, Wasp takes Starfox’s invitation to crash a party hosted by Sersi, a truant Eternal. Some other Eternals come to fetch Sersi for a Big, Important Eternal Thing and Wasp and Starfox end up getting dragged along when they try to stop the kidnapping.

After Sersi and Ikaris recap the Eternals’ ENTIRE HISTORY, Starfox realizes hey he’s an Eternal too! So he gets invited to the big, important Eternal Thing. Which is turning into a giant flying brain. As ya do.

But jerk fiend and eventual Great Lakes Avengers punchline Maelstrom takes advantage of all the Eternals being a giant brain and attacks, knocking out spectating Avengers Wasp and Captain Monica Marvel.

So thats a lot.

Vision and Scarlet Witch arrive in Greece after seeing Maelstrom on the video phone.

While Vision flies off in a big hurry, Scarlet Witch goes back into the Quinjet for some good exposition.

She continues to be worried about how Vision has been acting lately. Because after seeing Maelstrom, Vision barely said a word during the flight to Greece and kept pushing the engines until Wanda was afraid they’d blow up. But since he just took off and she can’t fly, she calls up what files the Avengers have on Maelstrom.

Which is Benn Grimm, the Thing, reporting on Marvel Two-in-One #72, where he teamed up with Black Bolt to fight Maelstrom who claimed to be the son of a renegade Inhuman. In the end, the Thing tossed a tube of anti-terrigen gas in his face and then Maelstrom appeared to die in an underwater cave-in.

Vision returns from his reconnaissance and does Wanda a startle so she finally unloads on him for how he’s been acting.

Scarlet Witch: “You don’t seem to be thinking at all these days! We haven’t had a real conversation since you became Avengers chairman! Half of our trip to Washington was taken up by a private meeting you had with the president! Afterwards, you didn’t even have the decency to tell me what you talked about! I had to hear from a reported that you’d discussed making the Avengers chairmanship a cabinet level post! We used to be so open with one another! What is happening to us? What is the matter? Is it me?”

Vision says ‘its not you, its me’ although in the context of him being at fault and not breaking up with her.

But he promises to do better and that she’s important to him.

Which would be heart-warming and romantic if he wasn’t making this face over her shoulder.

Why.

Anyway, with uh whatever that is handled, Vision reports what he found on his scouting nyoom.

He found the Eternal city on the side of Mount Olympus because of course its there.

Although. Wait. Where do the Olympians live? Are they neighbors? Do the Olympians live in another dimension or something? I vaguely remember something like that.

And Vision found Maelstrom who’s wearing a silly techno-harness connected to a big machine and has Captain Marvel and Wasp chained up at his feet.

You have problems, Maelstrom.

Not least of which is that his big scheme is to absorb the giant brain to make himself more powerful.

He blabs his plan to the Wasp who woke up when she sensed the opportunity to sass.

Wasp: “You seem awfully sure of yourself, Maelstrom.”

Maelstrom: “Ah, the Wasp! Back among the conscious, I see! Yes, I am quite confident... Supremely confident, you might say.”

Wasp: “But not so confident that you felt you could keep us here untied!”

Maelstrom: “If you are trying to shame me, it will not work. I am quite without shame!”

Curses, he’s immune to petty ego games.

Wasp also assumes he’s an Eternal which he’s quick to correct. No, see, his mom was a Deviant. And I guess his dad was an Inhuman, based on the Thing’s report on him. But its not like he wants revenge for all the Deviants being compressed into a giant cube.

After all, the Deviants killed his mom and raised Maelstrom in their slave pits.

In fact, after Maelstrom absorbs the giant brain, his next plan is to release the Deviants from the giant Deviant cube one by one and then do harm to them.

But, yeah, no. He does look like an Eternal. Easy mistake to make. The Eternals have been making that mistake as Maelstrom has just been hanging around for days with all the Eternals assuming he’s just some Eternal.

He’s actually maybe a little bit regretful that he has to kill them all to absorb the giant brain since the Eternals have actually been nice to him?

Maelstrom: “But power belongs to those who are willing to seize it!”

Interesting guy, Maelstrom.

He starts absorbing the Uni-Mind and totally spaces out doing that. But unfortunately, Wasp is in no position to capitalize on it because he put some leech manacles on her which are preventing her from shrinking. And Captain Marvel is completely out cold.

But Vision sneaks up intangible through the ground as he do like to do and intangibles his fingers into Maelstrom’s harness, shorting it out.

The energy discharge knocks Vision on his ass unconscious but Maelstrom just has to take a knee.

He yells up at an ominous figure standing up on a tower for not telling him that Vision was sneakign up on him. Maelstrom obviously thinks that this Deathurge is his minion but Deathurge has differing opinions.

Deathurge: For so long have I been with Maelstrom, yet still he does not understand! Still he thinks of me as his lackey! When will he learn... it is a darker power I truly serve!

Kinda wonder why he’s here. He doesn’t seem to be helping Maelstrom’s great brain heist and mostly just seems to... stand on a tower and look ominous.

But while Maelstrom was distracted yelling at a guy, the Uni-Mind breaks free of Maelstrom’s siphon and then explodes into a bunch of Eternals again.

Because it would be very improbable if that happened.

Your plan scheme just got Wanda’d, Maelstrom.

Huh. When I saw the cover, I wouldn’t have guessed that Wanda is the reason why its raining Eternals, hallelujah.

Goes to shows.

But since it was very improbable indeed that the Uni-Mind would explode into peoples, Wanda is wiped out.

Captain Marvel starts waking up and Wasp orders her to bust the chains, don’t even think about just go go go.

And Monica Marvel CHOOOMs the leech manacles.

It’s probably a testament to her power that she can bust right through the power dampening handcuffs but Maelstrom immediately hits her with some pink with kirby krackle which apparently is an energy field for sapping strength and down goes Captain Marvel again.

>=|

Wasp dodges the pink energy and gets out of the way so Vision can shoot his forehead laser at Maelstrom.

I sometimes forget he has that thing.

Vision: “Yes, Maelstrom, I have found your weakness! you are vulnerable to energy that is not purely kinetic! That is why you required the power siphon to absorb the psionic energy of the Uni-Mind!”

Maelstrom insists that he’ll still kick Vision’s ass except we’ll never know if he was talking out his ass or not.

Starfox wakes up from being a giant brain and decides to go punch the bad guy.

Except except except.

Punches is kinetic energy. Fool that he is, Starfox just recharged Maelstrom.

Starfox: “I am Eros, called the Starfox... son of Mentor! The blood of the Eternals flows in my veins... and I am an Avenger! Thus I have the greatest stake in seeing you fall!”

Maelstrom: “No doubt! But you’ll not accomplish it this way!”

And then suddenly giant Maelstrom just picks up Starfox and hurls him at Vision who is forced to super-dense catch Starfox instead of intangible out of the way and let the idiot hit a wall head first.

Hm. Guy absorbs kinetic energy and gets beefier? So he’s like a less stylish Sebastian Shaw?

That’s not a flattering comparison for you, Maelstrom.

Makarri, Thena, and Ikaris of the Eternals wake up and also try to jump on and pummel Maelstrom.

... God, its like they weren’t even paying attention.

Good thing they’re immortal because they have no survival instinct among them.

Maelstrom throws them off and then whips out the pink bio-kinetic energy again, using it to crowd control the Eternals.

Then he announces that yeah, sure, the brain thing was foiled. But he absorbed enough information while he was draining the Uni-Mind that he has an even cooler plan for even greater power now.

So his new plan is to just leave. And go do something else.

‘Walk away with no further conflict you say? Nuts to that!’ - Scarlet Witch, presumably.

In fairness. This isn’t really a no harm, no foul situation.

I wouldn’t give Maelstrom over to the Eternals to add to the Deviant cube but he’s just going to do more asshole things if he walks away.

Starfox wants to go over and start punching Maelstrom again because. I DUNNO! The man is supposed to be smarter than this!

Vision stops him and tells him that instead he’ll need to use his pleasure power on Vision’s mark.

Starfox is startled that Vision knows about his secret weirdo power but this isn’t the time for a conversation.

Instead its time for microwaves.

Vision signals Captain Marvel to do her thing and she flies at Maelstrom, turning into infrared and microwave radiation, toasting Maelstrom up.

Then Wasp pew pews with her pew pew, while staying ten feet away so he can’t absorb any kinetic energy. That’s apparently why her stings sucked when she tried shooting him before. She got too close.

Well, her stings are bio-electrical so him absorbing her bio-kinetic energy would probably weaken them? Probably?

Maelstrom actually panics a little because the Avengers aren’t being dumb. They’re pelting him with energy attacks from a distance, wearing him down and not giving him a chance to build up his energy stores again.

I’m proud of you, guys. I knew you could fight smart if you put your minds to it.

Then with Maelstrom weakened, Starfox tries to use his PLEASURE BEAMS and tells him that actually we’re all friends here, won’t you be our friend?

Starfox: “The others will tell you I’m not one to hold a grudge! Besides, you really don’t want to hurt anyone! You’ll be much happier giving yourself up!”

Maelstrom: “Giving... up? Y-yes, that does sound nice. I... No!! What are you doing to me?!?”

So since Maelstrom succeeds his will save against the persuasion check, or something, Scarlet Witch just casts a spell of ‘on your knees, asshole’ and makes Maelstrom fall to his knees.

Realizing that he might actually be defeated, in the city of his mother’s enemies no less!, Maelstrom calls out for Deathurge to attend him.

Deathurge: “At last, the call I have longed for!”

Hmmmm. Maybe Maelstrom should have been more specific.

I admit that its very possible that this is exactly what Maelstrom wanted Deathurge hanging around for. But having a guy standing by to kill you so you don’t have to tally an L sure is an interesting way of going about things.

Also, the narration says spear but Deathurge’s weapon is clearly a very anime scythe. A dude in Bleach had two of this exact weapon.

Captain Marvel, as the nyoomiest of the Avengers, flies at Deathurge as the “spear” returns to his hand. He tries to hit her with the “spear” but it goes right through her and then she goes right through him when she tries to tackle him.

Since they can both be intangible, Deathurge declares this a stalemate and drops down into the ground. Captain Marvel tries to follow as x-rays but loses the ominous weirdo.

So that was a thing that happened.

Maelstrom sure folded like nothing once people who knew how his powers work actually started fighting back.

And I can’t even ding him for explaining his powers because he didn’t. Vision just did his research.

Anyway, even though the Uni-Mind ritual was interrupted, the Eternals still learned what they should be doing. Since the Eternals have grown stagnant on Earth, THEY’RE GOING TO SPAAAAACE!

Most of them anyway.

Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Valkin... Lets just say the main Eternals are going to stay on Earth.

The Eternals chosen to go out into space form a Uni-Mind again, grabs the Deviant cube, hurls it out of the solar system, and then takes off into space.

“So does the Uni-Mind, in all its wisdom, protect its native world from the Deviant menace.”

Eeeesh.

I thought squeezing them all into a cube was bad enough, now you’re sending them into space forever? You couldn’t find a planet where they can’t hurt anyone and just dunk them there?

Back down on Earth, the Avengers and Eternals watch a giant brain fly into space.

Wasp: “To think, this all started with Starfox and me crashing Sersi’s party! I certainly never expected to be in Greece at day’s end, watching the Eternals leave Earth!”

Really makes you think. That its a good thing that most Avengers’ day job is being an Avenger.

Captain Marvel asks Starfox if he’s sorry that he didn’t go with the giant brain and he says participating in one Uni-Mind thing was an incredible experience that he wouldn’t have missed but he’s a free spirit and there’s a bunch of stuff he still wants to do on Earth.

Which Sersi certainly agrees with.

The Avengers offer her a lift back home and she has perhaps the greatest of attitudes about everything that went down.

Sersi: “I hope my friends in the city have kept the party going! If they haven’t... well, we’ll just have to start one of our own!”

That’s the spirit!

But meanwhile, halfway around the world in a secret underground lair, Deathurge pops out of the floor.

Villains are villainous and all but you can’t beat the class of “secret underground lair.” Step up, heroes.

Deathurge struts over to some tubes and goes Everything Has Transpired According to Plan.

Because inside one of the tubes (or maybe all of the tubes??) is a fresh new Maelstrom body!

Deathurge: If all goes as you have planned, you shall soon awaken within this newly prepared body, ready to live again. And, as ever, I will stand by... ready to attend... Until all your lives have been lived!

Well!

No wonder Maelstrom has a dude standing by to pop him. He’s got extra lives!

Anyway, that was the unexpected Eternals three-parter nobody called for. But Avengers is the place to go to tie up loose ends from other books and concepts.

Avengers’ll accommodate you, they have room in their hearts and publishing schedule.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because there’s more Maelstrom coming! Wait, is that anything people want? There’s also Hercules! I know people like Hercules! He gives the best hugs! Also like and reblog if you like to reblog.

[kindrednerdspirit]

Sometimes a Thing Feels so Right: Part 4

Excerpt: This revelation, however, is not without its issues, because Casey now finds herself in the tricky situation of knowing it’s best to avoid private moments with Iz, but she also wants private moments with her.

Monday, first block. Casey’s perspective.

It’s 20 minutes before track practice starts and Casey has one goal: avoid any potential private moments with Izzie. Her decision is influenced by her most recent talk with Elsa. In a bizarre turn of events, the universe decided Casey would connect with Elsa on a deeper level twice in one week. Their first talk about Casey’s grandma helped her understand Elsa’s helicopter parenting and why she gets, well, annoyingly intrusive. Their second talk was an accident. A host of Izzie feelings reached a boiling point for Casey and her Izzie issues spilled out in front of Elsa.

For context, this is how it all went down:

The smell of roast fills the Gardner house. Sam works at the kitchen table as Elsa takes dinner out of the oven. He is sketching a new piece for his art class. 

“Sam, honey, do you mind telling your sister that dinner is ready?” Elsa asks as she cuts the roast.

“I do mind. I have to finish this sketch by tomorrow.”

Elsa is not surprised by her son’s very literal answer. He had been in flow for hours, sitting in the same spot since he got home from class. This is not a battle she wants to take part in, so she walks up the stairs to get Casey. Strangely, the door is ajar by a few inches. Curious in a way that any parent is interested in their teenager’s “secret” life, Elsa peers in before announcing dinner is ready. Casey is lying on her bed, curled toward the wall and sniffling.

She acts like she hasn’t been spying, and quietly knocks. “Case, dinner is ready.”

“Uh, sure. I’ll be right down.” Casey’s voice is soft.

Don’t meddle, don’t meddle, don’t meddle. Elsa repeats the phrase over and over in her head as she walks back into the kitchen and takes dinner into the dining room. A few minutes pass before Casey makes her way downstairs.

She sees Sam drawing at the kitchen table. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“I need to finish my sketch. It’s due tomorrow.”

“So, take a 10 minute break, eat, then finish it.”

Sam avoids eye contact and looks at the table the entire time he speaks. “Professor Shinerock says you have to find your peak time to achieve flow. My peak time is in the afternoon around 2:30, so this is when I have to start working on my art, because it’s when I’ll be at my most creative and productive. Professor Shinerock says to continue working in flow state for as long as possible.” 

“You know what else helps creativity and productivity? Not starving.”

“Of course, starving ruins creativity and productivity, because you’d be dead!” Sam tilts his head and furrows his brow. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.” Without another word, Sam puts on his headphones and returns to his sketch.

“If you’re not eating by the time I’m done dinner, I’m pretending you’re an egg.” Casey walks away with a smile, knowing that Sam did not hear her warning. She sits at the table with Elsa and starts helping herself to potatoes. The two sit in silence for a minute, save for cutlery clanging against their plates.

“Sweets, I know I shouldn’t meddle--”

“So don’t.” Casey finishes.

“--but I’m just going to say one thing, then nothing else. Promise.”

Casey rolls her eyes but let’s her mum continue. Elsa takes a deep breath to collect herself. “You just found out that UCLA is interested in you, but you seem sad. And you haven’t had Izzie over in weeks, you mope around the house, you’re unexpectedly crotchety...”

“Mum!” Casey groans. “Please, get to the point.”

“I don’t know if Izzie is jealous about UCLA scouting you, but whatever is happening between you two... it will sort itself out. Try not to fret too much.”

Casey stares at her plate and pauses to mull over her mum’s words. “How do you know?” She’s afraid to look at Elsa. Afraid that if she does, all her emotions will flood out.

“Because of how you two look at each other. It’s special.” Elsa smiles, reflecting on when she first met Doug. When they first met, they shared the same long stares and goofy smiles as Casey and Izzie. Boy, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Thanks.” Casey is surprised by her mum’s kind words. “I don’t know if it will, though.” Her voice cracks. She shuts her eyes, because she can feel the tears forming. Elsa practically leaps out of her seat to embrace her daughter. She kisses Casey’s head, then soothingly brushes back her hair with her fingers.

“She’s… embarrassed to be seen with me.” Casey murmurs.

Elsa nods, knowingly. “I’m sorry, love.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear. “Not everyone is as confident and comfortable with themselves as you.”

Casey smiles sheepishly and swipes away the tears. Of course, Elsa feels protective of Casey. She doesn’t want anybody breaking her daughter’s heart. At the same time, Elsa also understands Izzie’s situation to a certain extent, making her feel like a protective momma bear toward her, too. They have the shared experience of growing up with an absent parent, and perhaps, similar insecurities. Not to mention that both Casey and Izzie are just beginning to understand their sexual identities, so it's not surprising that this self knowledge is leading to difficult feelings.

Elsa is suddenly very grateful for reading up on parenting tips for LGBTQ+ kids. She chooses her next words carefully, so as not to imply to Casey that she knows about Izzie’s home situation. “Give her time, hon.” 

“I think I love her.” Casey sniffles.

“I know.” 

“Love who?” Doug walks into the room looking for dinner. He just got back from work, and somehow slipped into the house without the girls noticing. The question hangs in the air a few beats too long.

“Uhm, Izzie.” Despite not wanting this conversation to happen in this moment, Casey looks her dad in the eye.

“Yeah, I love her too!” He grins and pulls out a chair, completely oblivious to what is going on. Casey is not sure what to do, so she looks at her mum. The two watch as Doug happily sticks a fork into the roast beef, then proceeds to scoop carrots. The girls stifle some laughter. Maybe it’s best to let this one slide, considering Casey and Izzie’s relationship status is currently unknown.

“What?” Doug asks after noticing the girls’ looks.

“Nothing, Dad. Girl stuff.” Casey looks at her mum as she says it, knowing it will mean something more to her. She then grabs her plate and excuses herself from the table before dropping her dishes in the sink. Sam is still in the kitchen, completely absorbed in his art.

“I warned you!” Casey shouts. “Prepare to be egged!” With that, she scrambles onto Sam’s chair and sticks her butt on his head.

“Hey, stop! What are you doing?!” Sam protests.

“Don’t blame me. You’re the one who compared me to a penguin, so now, you’re my egg.”

“Why would that make me an egg? That makes no sense! You ruined my flow!” They continue squabbling, wrestling, and yelling.

Meanwhile, Doug looks at Elsa with a bemused but impressed expression. “Girl talk? Really?”

Elsa cannot help but beam.

***

Needless to say, when Casey found herself stretching on the field 20 minutes early, it was a calculated move. It’s amazing how saying something out loud can make things so clear. Once she told Elsa that Izzie was embarrassed to be seen with her as her girlfriend, something clicked. Casey could never pretend to be just friends with Izzie, it would never work out. She simply wasn’t the type of person to pretend, the type to play a role, even if it meant keeping Izzie close. 

This revelation, however, is not without its issues, because Casey now finds herself in the tricky situation of knowing it’s best to avoid private moments with Iz, but she also wants private moments with her. 

While she works on her quads, Izzie jogs past and veers off to stretch on her own. She’s wearing the tight Adidas shorts that show off her beautiful curves. Casey always considered her own muscular legs to be tall and lanky, but Izzie���s… they were shapely in all the most appealing ways from her legs to her hips. The same hips she held onto whenever she pulled Izzie close. She fit so comfortably in her embrace, with her delightful warmth and faint smell of vanilla beans.

The best part was when Iz was really close and her chin would dip up. Casey would look down and see the same desire in her eyes as she felt all over her body. A shiver would go down her spine, her breathing would quicken. And everything else would just, sort of, disappear. Fade off into the background. Iz would smile, showing off her button dimples and Casey would want to devour her right then and there for being too adorable.

Oh. My. God. Casey! You have one job. Actually, two jobs. No private moments with Izzie and no getting turned on by Izzie because it’s a slippery slope, my dude. Quick, think of gross things. Zahid kissing Gretchen? Zahid in a robe? Ew, ew, ew! Too far. Poor Zahid. I love the guy for being Sam’s friend, but he’s a serious vagina mood killer.

Izzie looks up from her stretching and their eyes meet. She has the longing eyes and Casey knows exactly what she wants. Shit. It’s too hard, so she looks away. Much too hard. The rest of track practice follows a similar pattern of eyes meeting and diverting. 

***

After 60 minutes of failing miserably at ignoring Izzie, Casey is relieved when Coach blows the whistle. She hustles to the locker room with a few other teammates. Casey is talking to another teammate when Iz jogs over, her high ponytail bouncing with each step. She cannot help but disassociate from the conversation, because she sees the infamous Adidas shorts. And just like that, she’s done for. Blood rushes toward her southern regions. The Zahid tactic fails. Once again, Casey curses her body and heart for betraying her brain. 

“Yo, Newton! Wait up!” Iz shouts.

At the sound of her voice, Casey wavers for a millisecond. She decides to continue listening to her peers, pretending not to hear. But Iz is persistent. Casey’s words from the other night with Elsa race through her head.

She’s embarrassed to be seen with me.

The words are upsetting. There’s so many reasons why, it’s hard to pick only one, but she mostly feels frustrated. Frustrated that she cannot hold or kiss Izzie in public, that she cannot share her love with the world, despite their mutual feelings. Worst of all, she feels the immense hurt that comes with knowing she cannot pretend to be just friends. She hates that it has to be all or nothing. But to do otherwise, would be to betray herself. All these complicated emotions build up inside her until she finds herself towering over Izzie.

“I don’t know how to make this more clear. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Her cold tone surprises even her. She watches Izzie’s eyes widen, then feels her heart clench in response. Despite everything, her instant reaction is to make Iz feel better. And she easily could. Casey could slip her arms around her, up to the small of her back. Then, she could gently pull Izzie toward her and lean in. She could hover in front of her lips to tease Iz, the two sharing the same, delicious air.

“I--”

“Please, don’t follow me.” Casey cuts off Iz with a firm response. She gulps--that was close. Her feet hurry toward the locker room, whisking her away as quickly as possible. She hated feeling like an overdramatic school girl or like she was in some terrible rom-com. Big deal. Just be friends, right? At the same time, though, she knew there was no other way.

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #12- Gay Rights: the Movie

Finally finished with our franchise obligations! Let’s get back to the main story.

Those are some ominous ellipses. Almost like something bad is going to happen!

Let’s take a look at Cover A for this issue.

When this was released to the general public, alongside the synopsis that stated the Lost Lighters were going to run into a group of Decepticons, a lot of people thought we’d be seeing them meet the Scavengers. This isn’t the case, and that’s not Fulcrum. It’s some other K-Con, one that has purple in his color scheme.

Our story opens up with a narrative framing device:

Welcome to “Before & After”, one of the more ambitious issues of MTMTE in terms of storytelling. Roberts really likes bouncing between scenes and POVs, and he’s really indulging that here.

Rodimus and crew have loaded up on one of the Lost Light’s scouting ships to check in on a planet called Temptoria. Whirl’s leading all the guys in the front in a war cry that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood’s version of the Vietnam war, while Brawn demonstrates how to not properly handle a gun. Rodimus tries to explain what exactly they’ll be doing, but no one’s listening, feeding off of the chaotic energy. The back seat isn’t quite as rowdy.

Oh, Ambulon’s here? That’s got to be awkward. And Perceptor’s looking mighty cross about having to pick up a gun again. Isn’t he supposed to be retired from being a science sniper?

Rodimus finally gets everyone to settle down long enough to explain the situation, though not without a little jargon mixup.

Basically, Ultra Magnus went down to Temptoria while the “Shadowplay” story was being told, and found out that the organic populace had been enslaved by a group of Decepticons, and, more importantly, the sovereign agreement that the planet had with Cybertron’s been violated. Also, these guys might have been the one’s who kidnapped the Circle of Light. You remember those guys, right? The guys who were supposed to be in the 2012 Annual, but they weren’t, and Drift got really mad about it.

Rodimus wraps up the briefing with a “’Til all are one!” And we cut over to see what Swerve and Tailgate are up to. Tailgate seems to be a little nervous, not the type to enjoy waiting, but Swerve seems to be doing just fine. Why is that, exactly?

Even if Rung’s still a steamed side dish of a vegetable, he’s still here, in a way. And good on Swerve for not assuming Tailgate can visualize in the same way he can. Aphantasia is more common than one might think.

Escapism is an interesting way of dealing with your problems, but I don’t know enough about wartime psychiatry to know if this is something that would actually be considered a viable solution or not.

Oh, now that I’ve said it, I’ve got the research itch.

Later, later.

Anyway, Tailgate gives it a spin, and his happy place is surprisingly domestic for such a seasoned professional.

Pipes, it’s a clear glass, it’s not hiding anything from you.

Speaking of Pipes, he’s seated next to Hound, as they discuss what happened to Red Alert. Or, rather, the cover story that’s been fed to the rest of the crew by Rodimus, which is that the engine room pretty much attacked him. This is how ghost stories get started.

Trailcutter’s gotten some guns installed in his legs, because he’s a hypocrite.

Over with Chromedome and Rewind, there’s trouble in paradise, as they’re having a lovers’ spat. Chromedome’s giving Rewind the silent treatment, and Rewind’s having none of it. What exactly are they fighting about? We don’t get to know about that yet, but it’s digging up other issues, like Chromedome going back on his promise to stop injecting. The only thing keeping this from becoming a total meltdown is Whirl can-canning through the door to kidnap Rewind, so he can film Whirl getting in the zone before the fight. Whirl’s having a great time. This is probably the first time they’ve gotten to fight something since the Lost Light took off, and he’s all about it.

Rewind’s dragged away, and Chromedome just lets it happen, because he’s feeling cross. It’s good to take a moment to cool off, but I’m not quite sure this was the best time or way for it to happen.

Meanwhile, on the Temptorian surface, Blip the Decepticon, who is likely the dirtiest son of a gun we’ve run into so far, is asked to take a look at the monitor by a guy who sounds exactly like Megatron. It doesn’t particularly matter which Megatron, because comics are not an audio-based medium, so you can pick whichever one you like best. What’s on the monitor does not please Blip in the slightest.

I feel like maybe having guys who don’t turn into flying machines jump out of the bottom of the shuttlecraft isn’t the greatest tactical thinking, but I’m sure everything will be okay. Brawn’s got a gun, maybe he’ll figure out how to rocket-jump before he hits terminal velocity.

Then the narrative jumps to after the fight, as the ship flies away from the scene, and Chromedome isn’t happy. It’s for a different reason than earlier, though.

Man, Pipes just can’t win, can he?

Ambulon remembers that he is, in fact, a medical professional, and starts working on Rewind, while Chromedome tries to ask Swerve just what the hell happened. Swerve’s having his own issues, however.

I’d nearly forgotten they had skeletons.

On the production side of this issue, we’ve got two artists: there’s our usual guy, Alex Milne on the “Before” sections, and Brandon Cahill on the “After”. Cahill’s other Transformers work includes The Transformers (2009) and the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise. Outside of the franchise, he’s worked on several Marvel pieces, including writing Sable & Fortune and Legion of Monsters. Unlike a lot of the alternate artists we’ve seen for the series, Cahill won’t be a one-and-done; we’ll see his art again in Dark Cybertron, Season 2 of MTMTE, and even Lost Light.

Getting back to the story, we’ve jumped back to the point in the battle where everyone’s hit the ground and are just wailing on each other. Tailgate and Swerve watch the chaos unfold, as Ultra Magnus more or less takes on a platoon of Decepticons.

Drift’s having a great time, as he Naruto runs through the enemy, slashing as he goes with a big ol’ smile on his face. He stabs a guy in the back of the head who was trying to grapple with Rodimus, thus interrupting the little dialogue they had going on. Rodimus is vaguely upset that his moment was cut short.

In the “After”, the shuttle’s landed back on the Lost Light, and Chromedome rushes out with Rewind in his arms to find First Aid with a motorized stretcher. He was hoping for Ratchet- he wants only the best for his shnookums. As they run Rewind down to the medibay, Chromedome starts listing off his allergies- which include ultraviolet light, something we know reveals mnemosurgery scars. This is a holdover from a dropped plot point I’ll cover at a later time; as it stands in the canon narrative, Rewind’s just got an allergy to the friggin’ sun.

Back at the shuttle, Tailgate starts dragging Cyclonus down the gangplank. Oh, hell. You know it’s a bad situation when the guy who literally couldn’t die for six million years is out of commission.

Spoke and Lockstock are a bit of a gag- they always manage to get their asses kicked, but everyone on the ship really likes them. They will never be seen on-panel, and have no character designs.

Over in the medibay, history is being made.

Esteemed members of the jury, I present to you: canon gay robots. The first in a long line of them. This is the starting point of the queer community being handed the Transformers franchise on a silver platter.

Up to this point, Roberts hadn’t gotten any further than implied attraction and affection between robots, in either his fanworks or professional credits. Pretty heavy-handed implication in some cases-

-but implication nonetheless. Here is the first, honest-to-god direct confirmation of two male-coded robots in love.

In love and space-married and recognized by the authority in power, in a comic written in 2012, as a part of a major franchise owned by a massive American company, three years before same-sex marriage would be legalized on a federal level.

As part of the story, it’s great. Within the context of the time during which it was published, it’s a whole other level. This wasn’t just good writing, it was important.

Let me part the kimono a little here, with some personal backstory- I grew up in Buttfuck Nowhere, NC, and went to a high school that was so homogeneous, they were threatening to bus students in after I graduated. I didn’t know what a gay person even was until I was 12. “Lesbian” was used as an insult, and it was one I was subjected to because I had cut my hair short in middle school and wore cargo shorts on occasion. It was something I really pushed against, because that’s how a lot of people react to being forcibly given a label.

Not the best environment for a little queer kid, clearly.

It wasn’t until well after I’d gone to college that I really started understanding who I was. Hell, I’m still figuring some things out, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I remember reading this for the first time in 2015- yes, I got into the comics sort of late- and then having to reread it. I needed a moment just to process what had happened. As a person who had only recently come to terms with their sexuality at the time, it was kind of mind-blowing to have that sort of representation, especially since I was also watching Transformers Prime at around the same time. Talk about the duality of man, am I right?

These days, there’s a lot more representation in many different forms of media. Things are getting better. Which, y’know, yay! I’m glad. I just can’t help but wonder if things would have been a little different if this sort of representation had been available earlier on.

Anyway, so yes, Chromedome’s got a difficult choice to make for Rewind- either let his body try to sort itself out, or let First Aid break out the clamps and try to jumpstart him. Rewind’s got a relatively rare spark type, but luckily Chromedome’s the same type. Looks like everything’s coming up roses for our boys!

Tailgate and Cyclonus aren’t getting nearly as good a break.

My god, he’s filled with grape soda!

Back in the “Before”, things are getting a little silly.

Chromedome, what POSSIBLE tactical advantage could you be gaining from riding the giant, fire-breathing robot dinosaur? This is why they threw you in Kimia, isn’t it? Because you’re a dumbass.

While this bullshit is happening, Rewind and Tailgate are stacked on top of each other to look through a window, because I guess that’s just how things turn out when the resident couple on the ship is upset with one another. Rewind’s found something, but it isn’t the Circle of Light. Rather, it seems the Decepticons are dabbling in Pink Alchemy- a rather inefficient process that allows organic creatures to be turned into energon for consumption.

The good guy thing to do would be to save all the organics, but there’s a bit of a problem- the door is wired to a massive bomb. Good thing Tailgate was in Bomb Disposal, and is just generally an impressive and well-established dude. He gets to work.

Getting back to a point I made during Chaos Theory, Whirl can’t make a fist. Punching himself in the face is probably more akin to slashing it.

Tailgate’s got a weird approach to bombs, taking the time to teach Rewind how to do it, by way of student-led learning. They decide to poke a hole in the bottom of the bomb to drain all the explosive fluid out, which Tailgate does with little robot tears streaming down his face. Fear is a great motivator.

Oof, not a “Domey” in sight. That’s how you know things are rough.

Outside of this little scene, Whirl and Cyclonus are handling Decepticons. Whirl’s got a hold on that guy who’s voiced by Frank Welker, and we get a nice shot of his sad cat face before Whirl turns his head into a memory.

Swerve- who is also here- asks Whirl to loan him a gun.

GODDAMMIT SWERVE.

Not a single one of you bastards know proper gun safety! Between all the severe depression and reckless weapon-handling, I genuinely have no idea how the hell are any of you are still alive.

In the “After”, Chromedome’s just finished jumpstarting Rewind, and it’ll take a bit to see if it worked, so he’s left alone with his thoughts.

Just kidding, Tailgate’s come over to check in. Seems like Cyclonus is gonna pull through, something Chromedome’s not terribly thrilled about. Chromedome’s still miffed about the whole Kimia thing.

We finally learn why Chromedome and Rewind were fighting; it was because Rewind, as a walking historical database, has been deemed too important to die, and can opt out of any fight he choose to, but he doesn’t, thereby putting himself in harm’s way unnecessarily. Maybe he just worries about you when you go out there on the battlefield alone, Chromedome, you ever think of that? Maybe he doesn’t want to wonder when his husband will return home from the war.

Tailgate asks about all the little vials that are scattered around Rewind’s hospital bed, and we get a little Cybertronian tradition thrown at us.

The vials are filled with innermost energon, the stuff that surrounds the spark casing and never changes, no matter how much you modify or upgrade your body. Leaving a little of the stuff for someone in an offering signifies that you care very much for that person. Chromedome can’t give Rewind any, because he was “born dry”, but I think being space-married to the guy more than makes up for it.

Tailgate asks how the two of them met, and unlike in issue #6, Chromedome is feeling vulnerable enough to indulge the question this time.

But first we need to establish that Chromedome is insanely insecure.

So, Rewind is fucking old. He’s older than the Cybertronian civil war, he’s older than the calendar system, and he’s old enough to have been affected by Functionist society’s categorization system. Due to being a memory stick- something that there were millions of back in the day- Ratioism dictated that Rewind as an individual was worth very little, and made him and his like into slaves. Because he was a slave, he needed a master, and that master was none other than Dominus Ambus, also known as Cybertron’s Mech of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years.

Even on Cybertron, there’s a weird stigma about breastfeeding.

Rewind and Dominus quickly became friends, because that’s just the sort of guy Rewind is, and it made Dominus realize that maybe these slaves Cybertron had been working to death were sentient creatures worthy of respect too. He even developed a test to prove that all the slave classes were on the same level of functionality as everyone else.

On their quest to find a cure for the horrible disease Cybercrosis, Rewind and Dominus fucked off into space, on a wild goose chase to try and find Luna 1, the Cybertronian moon that just disappeared one day. Weird, that. They didn’t find it, and by the time they’d come back home, the war was well underway. They immediately became Autobots, and that was it for a while.

Then we move on to how Chromedome and Rewind met, and boy is it a doozy.

Chromedome had decided he wanted to kill himself, so he moseyed on over to the nearest relinquishment clinic- they did assisted suicides instead of body-swaps at this point- to do the deed. He was sitting in the waiting room, when he heard someone screaming. He wandered into the back to find Rewind weeping over a coffin, and he thought to himself “Maybe I don’t need to die after all” as he offered his future conjunx a shoulder to cry on.

What a fucking dark start to a relationship.

Rewind wasn’t upset about anyone who was dead though, but rather missing- Dominus had disappeared into thin air months ago, and Rewind was getting desperate to find him, looking in more and more awful places in the hope of recovering what he’d lost.

As it turns out, he’s still doing that. The reason the two of them are on the Lost Light is because Rewind needs to find Dominus- alive or dead, it doesn’t seem to particularly matter at this point. That’s why he buys snuff films in dark alleys.

See, Tailgate gets it.

Guys, bad news.

Chromedome’s spark is too weak to jumpstart Rewind. Unless they find another compatible donor, Rewind’s gonna be in big trouble. There’s nothing to do but wait.

Later, in their room, Chromedome is sitting on the floor and very much not following doctor’s orders to get some sleep. Someone on the opposite side of the door he’s leaning up against starts talking to him. Chromedome doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it, until he does.

Given who the basement dweller is, this probably won’t turn out so hot.

Chromedome gets a call from the medibay, and fortunately the universe has decided to play nice this go around, because someone came forward as a match.

But it’s not like Whirl cares about anyone, right? Not in the slightest, nuh-uh, not him!

While Chromedome gives Whirl what is probably an uncomfortably long hug, and they both most likely ignore the fact that Chromedome would be actively suicidal without Rewind, Tailgate’s off in the corner, having taken his hand off and begun pouring cartoon toxic waste into a vial. It’s actually his innermost energon. Boy’s making an offering, but it isn’t to Rewind.

It’s to this ungrateful fuck.

Cyclonus stalks away from Tailgate’s kindness, until he’s stopped by witnessing the power of love.

Everyone likes Rewind, and these displays of affection seems to have reminded Cyclonus that he’s horrifically lonely. Feeling some remorse over his actions- not that he’ll ever admit it out loud- he goes back to help Tailgate pick up the pieces of the vial he broke.

Wrapping up our story, we go back to the “Before”, right before the bomb is set to go off. Whirl and Cyclonus have more or less taken care of the Decepticons, Whirl suggests they set aside their differences and agree to stop trying to murder each other, in a surprising show of reason and, perhaps, self-preservation. Cyclonus doesn’t seem to agree with the idea.

I genuinely think that’s the most he’s said all series up to this point.

Rewind calls the two idiots over for help, because Tailgate’s about to pull a self-sacrifice to get this bomb emptied, and he just isn’t listening to reason. Cyclonus assists.

Once Tailgate’s been fastball-specialed out of the room, Whirl decides to get back to being a bastard, and locks Cyclonus and Rewind in with the bomb with 10 seconds left on the clock. Ah, so the donation was out of guilt, I see. Still a form of caring, in its own way.

With no way to escape, all Cyclonus can do is attempt to shield Rewind with his body as the bomb goes off.

That’s the end of the issue but it’s the middle of the story, and despite what Cyclonus says, dynamics are changing. Slowly, but surely, things are shifting. He’s headed for a lot of character development, and he’ll be kicking and screaming the whole way.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ @sasuhinabigflash2020​​ || Day Twenty-Two: Out to Dinner ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

[ Previous ] [ Next ] [ This piece is a sequel to Day Seventeen ]

To say that their meeting was awkward was...a bit of an understatement.

For months, both Sasuke and Hinata have lived under a rather unusual assumption: that they were each the last person left on earth. One morning they’d woken, made to address their family...only to find their homes empty. Their neighborhoods...empty.

The entire city - and presumably the rest of the world - completely and utterly empty.

And yet strange phenomena seemed to keep life running as normal. Electricity never wavered. Food in stores didn’t rot. To both, it felt like being trapped in a strange gap in time. A limbo they had been dropped into with no context, no warning.

But then, while each looking to plunder a local grocery store...they’d finally managed to cross paths, each completely taken aback at the knowledge that they were no longer alone.

That didn’t make it any easier to accept, however, the meeting standoffish and each seemingly wary and suspicious. But they’d exchanged numbers, agreeing to - should the need arise - communicate with one another.

And after a week...neither has dared bridge that gap.

Sasuke, for his part, has actually adapted to the loneliness rather well. At first he mourned his missing family deeply. While theirs had been far from perfect, having them suddenly vanish left him more hollow than he could ever describe. But after an intense two weeks that nearly saw him deciding to try and join them...he’d instead become resolute. So...he was left alone to survive on his own, was he? Then he’d do it...and do it well.

And for months he’d done just that. Managed his food supply, ensured the care and defense of his home (even if there was, assumably, no one to seek to harm it...one could never be too careful), and kept himself guarded and ready for anything.

...well, almost anything.

He’d mostly been simply scouting out parts of his city he didn’t know well, taking several large bags with him to grab whatever looked useful. He had closer places to find food. But he was there, and it was ripe for the taking.

Or so he thought.

Seeing the girl, Hinata, had startled him in a way he had in no way expected. So...he wasn’t the last. Maybe they weren’t, either. Perhaps there are more somewhere, just waiting to be found.

But Sasuke had already decided he was fine not knowing. Hinata was a surprise, and a pleasant one. But that didn’t inspire some inclination to go looking for others. He had his domain and his necessities. He was fine as he was, thank you very much.

...and yet…

Every time he checks his phone, seeing her contact information...he debates sending some kind of message. What would he even say…? They’re complete strangers. He knows nothing about her, let alone something to talk about.

And yet...he wants to. Not because he’s lonely, he assures himself. But just because he’s curious. And it’s something new. Something to break up the monotony.

So after a week of deliberation, he sends his first text.

You there?

Casual enough, right? And he manages to put the mobile aside rather than wait for an answer...which comes seven minutes later.

Sorry, was in my garden! Do you need something?

Well, no. He doesn’t need anything. Nope. Just checking in. Kinda weird, tbh.

A minute passes. Yes, I know what you mean. Odd to talk to someone after so long.

...he reaches an impasse. Now what…? How is your garden?

Good! It’s just flowers. I wanted to grow something edible, but...ran out of time. Maybe next year, if...you know.

Ah yes. Winter. The thing both of them have been dreading, wondering if any problems yet to surface may in fact rear their ugly heads. I bet you’ll get around to it. I dunno anything about plants, so...don’t ask me.

They’re not that hard to learn about. I could teach you, if you wanted?

That earns a blink. Sure.

...another awkward silence.

Can I ask you a really random question?

Sure?

Okay. Just act cool. Do you want to like...meet up or something? I dunno, just seems like maybe we should at least get to know the basics about each other, all things considered. Right?

To his worry, she doesn’t respond for several agonizing minutes. Did he ask too quickly? Is something wrong?

Yeah! Sorry, there’s some loose animals in my neighborhood and one of the dogs keeps coming into my yard and digging in the flowerbeds...

Sasuke blinks. Maybe you need a fence.

Ha, maybe.

I could help you build one. I helped my dad build ours a few years ago. I kinda know how it works.

...you would?

Sure. Not much else to do, right?

There’s a brief silence as she seems to mull that over. ...okay! I’ll make you some dinner to pay you back, okay?

You don’t have to do that.

No, but I want to. It’s only fair.

Well, seems there’s no changing her mind. All right. When would you wanna start?

Doesn’t matter to me! Like you say...what else is there to do?

Nodding to himself, Sasuke replies, How about tomorrow? I know where a hardware store is, and I have my dad’s pickup. I’ll get the stuff today and head over then.

Okay! I’m...kind of excited!

All right, see you then.

...okay. He’ll admit it. He’s a little excited. Mostly because this is his first real social interaction in months. So off to the store he heads, asking Hinata for details of what she wants.

It’s not like price is an issue. Mostly just effort. And Sasuke’s got plenty of that to spare.

She decides on a privacy board fence, just to make sure the animals keep out. And he even picks up white paint and brushes for them to make it match her house. By the time tomorrow rolls around, he’s more than prepared. Boards, posts, nails, hammers, paint...he’s got it all.

They get started early in the morning, Sasuke showing her the basics and letting her help...until she smashes her thumb with a hammer. She’s then directed to painting duty, covering up the boards as he gets them tacked up.

A few breaks are taken to drink lemonade she took to making before he got there, as well as lunch. But it’s dinner she promises will be what helps make up for all his hard work.

By early evening, they’ve actually gotten it all up. Hinata insists she can finish the painting herself the next day. “For now, it’s time for dinner!”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” In truth? He’s starving. Been a while since he’s worked that hard, but it was nice.

Inside, Hinata’s gone all out. An entire ham is taken out of the oven alongside potatoes, salad, and a cherry pie.

“...I think you went a little overboard,” Sasuke observes, perking a brow as she blushes pink.

“I just...w-wanted it to be worth all you did today. I still don’t think it’s enough, really…”

“It’s fine. Like I said, it was something to do. If anything, I should be thanking you.”

The pair stand at an impasse before Hinata relents with a giggle. “Okay, okay...we’ll just call it even.”

Hinata, as it turns out, is a really good cook. Before Sasuke realizes it, he’s overeaten, having had two full plates of everything and feeling miserable.

“No room for pie?” she teases.

“Ugh, no…”

“Well, you can just t-take some home, then. Have it for breakfast tomorrow!”

He just nods, knowing he can’t tell her no. But he does help tidy up and put things away. “Think I might have to help you build fence more often if I get to eat like that.”

She flashes pink again, clearly pleased. “Y-you can come over any time! I guess just, um...give me a little warning.”

“Sure. Let me know if you need help with anything else.”

“I will! Thank you again.”

“Back at you.”

...an awkward silence blooms between them.

“Well, I...guess I’ll say goodnight…?” Hinata offers, sounding more like a question.

“Yeah. Have a nice night, Hinata.”

“You too, Sasuke. Drive home safe.”

“Not like there’s much traffic to worry about,” he counters with a grin.

“Still -!”

“I will, don’t worry.” Giving a wave, he returns to his father’s truck and revs the engine, headlights flicked on. The drive is quiet, and by the time he gets back to his house, the silence - after such a full day - is almost suffocating.

He stares up at the house he’s grown up in, seeing how dark all the windows are. How quiet it is. So, just to ward off the feeling, he shoots Hinata a quick text to let her know he made it back without incident.

Glad to hear it! Goodnight.

Night.

Considering his phone for a moment, he can’t help but wonder when would be long enough to wait to see if he can head back. Was kinda nice to go ‘out’ to dinner. He’s not much of a cook, himself. Enough to get by, but nothing like what they had.

He’ll just have to wait and see.

     I swear I tried to get this done last night but oof, my brain was not cooperating OTL I had a rather stressful day, BUT things are looking better today! So I’m gonna try to get at least one more drabble done today, if not more, cuz I am...very behind. I’ve just had a lot going on irl that makes sitting and writing difficult.      ANYWAY! This is more of the very random “last people on earth” verse I started with day 17. Our two stranded strangers are starting to become friends, seems like! No idea if I’ll do more of this for the rest of the challenge, but it’s a neat idea to explore. I just...don’t have much in way of a plot for it xD But hopefully it’s enjoyable nonetheless!      On that note, I’m gonna try to get another piece done. But thanks for reading this one, and I’ll see you guys later!

[oldestclarington]

SUMMARY: text and then f2f interactions between Nick Duval and Hunter Clarington on the evening of 1/4. They talk a lot about their bio details and some feelings were acted on but not talked about.

Hunter Clarington You.

Nick Duval   And you. Hey. Hi. Hello there. Yes, me? I mean- hey, what's up man?

Hunter Clarington What are you doing? Today, I mean. Right now.

Nick Duval   Oh, nothing much. Just putzing around the dance studio. Why? What's up, Hunter?

Hunter Clarington Do you want company while you putz?

Nick Duval  If you'd like. You know I won't say no to seeing that handsome face of yours. You all good, Clarington?

Hunter Clarington Good to know you still find my attractive. The world hasn't totally turned upside down. I'm always good, Duval. Just.. adjusting.

Nick Duval In what universe could I not? Have you seen yourself? Need a mirror? A polaroid? A portrait? Let a guy know. Interesting choice of words you've got there. Right, right. Of course. Nothing could possibly be amiss in the House of Clarington. Need any help with that?

Hunter Clarington You know, I think I could use a portrait... Could be. Especially not with the proud lion of the family. I think I just have less to do here. And a different kind of recognition. I'm still a Clarington, but this is no military academy. I was the natural born star there.

Nick Duval Well allow me to get right on that then. Post-haste. Could be huh? Ahhh I see what's going on here. Clearly you just have a worship kink that isn't being fulfilled here :smirk: . For whatever it's worth, Clarington...You're still a star to me.

Hunter Clarington Cute. Perhaps I have a strangling kink; would you like to help me out with that one too? ..Thank you.

Nick Duval Me? Me, cute? Awe, shucks. Ohhhh now we're really onto something, huh? I just might. So what if I did? Yeah. Don't mention it man. I mean it though. Just...Remember.

Hunter Clarington You. Cute. Indeed. Are you trying to fuck, Nick? Of course. I will.

Nick Duval If I didn’t know better Id say you were flirting with me Clarington. Me? That’s a loaded question wouldn’t you say? Good.

Hunter Clarington Loaded how, Nick?

Nick Duval  Avoidance I see. Alright, I’ll play. Well I just mean...Wit our history, Hunter. I didn’t think that required elaboration.

Hunter Clarington Are you afraid you'll want to belong to me and my handsome face? Maybe I am flirting with you. What are you going to do about it?

Nick Duval Belong to you huh? Those are some words. I- I mean I could do a lot of things I guess. Depends on you.

Hunter Clarington You're the one that brought up our history. Now you've got me curious, boy. Tell me what you want to do.

Nick Duval  I did yes. Though it was you who chose that context. Boy huh? Keep that up and I’ll make you wait to find out.

Hunter Clarington I'll always choose that context. Is that so? Brat.

Nick Duval  Yeah? And why is that, Hunter Clarington? Brat huh? Something tells me you’re secretly into that, too.

Hunter Clarington Thirteen years of being told someone belongs to you is a long time. I could be. You know where my suite is. I'm just about to get in the shower.

Nick Duval Seems to me like someone, not mentioning any names of course, still sees me as theirs. Interesting. Christ. Are you trying to kill me? I’m positive you are. And what if I joined you?

Hunter Clarington Interesting, indeed. Don't worry, I'm CPR and first aid trained. I've already set out a second towel.

Nick Duval   Hunter... always prepared, huh? I...

Hunter Clarington I was a boy scout, after all. Come here. Come to me, Nick. I'll reward you.

Nick Duval  I know, how could I forget? You always looked so fabulous in those uniforms. Hunter, I- is this- Yes Sir.

Hunter Clarington I look fabulous without them too. Is this...? Good boy. My good boy. I'll see you soon.

Nick Duval When I have that heart attack please promise me you’ll take care of Cameron. I’ll will him to you. Truthfully I was going to ask if this was a good decision but... That was before I decided, ‘fuck it.”’ Very, very soon.

Hunter Clarington I'll take care of your kept boy, don't worry. I'll take care of you too. Fuck it is a good line of thought. Very soon.

-------------------------------------------[ now f2f]

Nick Duval  Well, Clarington. Ask and yee shall receive.

Hunter Clarington  And if I ask you to get in with me? 

Nick Duval Hunter....Hunter I can do that, yeah. Yes.

Hunter Clarington Good. I want to see you. 

Nick Duval  Hunter... this is....Holy shit this is crazy. I...You kissed me.

Hunter Clarington Is it really? Yes, I did. And I'll do it again. Unless.... you didn't like it.

Nick Duval  I...Yes and no- Please do- I liked it. Do it- again...

Hunter Clarington Care to elaborate? You.

Nick Duval   I- Is right now really the best time, Hunter? Me? You! Look at you! You’re-

Hunter Clarington  As long as you're not going to regret this. Let me touch you, let me fuck you.

Nick Duval   Are you kidding? Trust me when I say, I won't. Please do. As long as I get to touch you too. Fuck me then, Hunter.

Hunter Clarington Good. I won't either, you know. Of course you can touch me too. I want you to. I will. I want to know every inch of your body.

Nick Duval I hope you're right about that, Hunter. Because that would...Really suck. Thank you, I'll take care of you Sir. I want you to know me. I want to know yours, too. You're...Fuck you're an Adonis.

Hunter Clarington  I'm always right, Nick. You can trust me. You know me. I'll take care of you. My good boy. Kiss me again, then I need to prep you because I can't wait to fuck you.

Nick Duval  Oh is that a fact? I know. And you know I do. I always have. Always. I do know you, I know you will. That does more for me than it probably should, but we can address that later. Yes, Sir. I want nothing more. Fuck- Please Hunter. I want you so bad.

Hunter Clarington It is. I know. I know. You've always been so good for me. We can. Or I can just keep saying it. You're so fucking hot. I'll give you everything you need.

Nick Duval  You're funny, Hunter. Good. I want you to know. I...I have? God you're really going to kill me...Fuck please, don't stop. Please. Give it to me, Sir! I need it- I need you! I've waited...So fucking long...

Hunter Clarington I've been accused of being a lot of things, but funny was never one of them. You have. Good, you won't forget this. I won't stop. I need you too. I've waited too. Too long. Far too long.

Nick Duval   That's because not everyone sees what I see. Lucky, lucky me. Hunter....No, you're right, I won't. I can already tell, I'll be feeling you all week. Fuck, I- I'm yours! Take me! Mark me! Show everyone who I was meant for, Hunter. Fuck me!

Hunter Clarington You're right about that. The perks of being born for me. Lucky me. I won't forget either. You're right about that. I might fuck you all week. I can't see myself pulling my hands off of you any sooner. With pleasure.

Nick Duval  I could get used to those perks, you know. Lucky you? I hope you don't. I don't want you to...To forget about me. Fuck me all week then. I can take it, I'll show you how good I can be for you. Keep those hands on me, Hunter. You're so good!

Hunter Clarington Without hesitation, Hunter kissed Nick again, pulling the other naked man flush up against his own naked body under the stream of water. As they kissed, he reached back, groping his way down the other Dominant's body until he had one hand full of ass cheek and the other slipping fingers inside of him. He didn't spend too much time prepping Nick before he flipped the other man around, pressing his front against the tiles as he lined himself up and slid his cock inside him. "Nick... my boy. Fuck." Already, his hands were gripping and groping all over again.

Nick Duval  Feeling Hunter's body against his sent sensations through Nick he'd only ever felt once before. Tipping his head back, he let out a long moan as the other Dominant's hands explored and took in every square inch of his body. When those fingers found his way inside him, Nick found himself grinding his body down, twisting to connect his lips and teeth with Hunter's shoulder, neck, and collarbone. Then, before he could think, he was being flipped around. The cool of the tiles sent a shock through his system, though not one he could focus on for long as he immediately felt Hunter's length sliding into him, those hands continuing their journey. "Oh, God...Hunter!" Nick near-yelped, biting into his lower lip as he leaned his head back against Hunter's figure.

Hunter Clarington  The way Nick moved into him and ground down against him was vulgar and wonderful, eliciting a moan and renewed vigor from Hunter. He wasn't exactly gentle, but he knew Nick could handle it and he knew his own strength; he knew he wasn't being too rough. There was hope warming his chest that that attention he felt on his bared skin would leave marks. This was something he had thought about for a long time, so the sound of his name tumbling from Nick's lips in that erotic cry was both familiar and satisfyingly new. He ground into the other Dominant slowly and carefully, making sure that he was okay before gripping his hips to hold him in place as he tested faster. "I love the sound of my name on your lips, Nick. Don't stop; I want to hear everything."

[sol-futura-est]

Sol was always smug when he talked, but when you found him, he was looking off into the distance wild eyed. As if you were right next to a tiger still in the grass looking down on prey mere yards away. As if he was seeing things he couldn’t move out of his visage.

    “What happens next? After I’m in Suceava.”

    “Not for me to say. More than you at play, my friend. More situations than you will know. Just be well behaved, and do what you think is right, just as you’ve done.”

    This man, this being, was rigid. Rules were rules, and they did not bend for him or I. At least now, there didn’t seem to be much to say, but he sat smiling, as if seeing me was a delight, a reality he was happy in.

    “There’s not much to tell me then, now that the ball’s rolling.”

    “Not much, no. Besides reminding you that you’re not just an anomaly. People don’t remain mystical for long. Before man found the narwhal, the unicorn was an anomaly. Albeit one that didn’t exist.”

    Sol always made good points, but there was no sense in talking. I simply nodded, before walking away. Laughter rang out as I passed, and when I turned, his glinting, shining eyes stared me down.

    “This won’t be our last meeting, Octa. Trust me.”

    Feet didn’t stop for him. Nor for his amusement. As soon as I lent my hand on the door, it ceased, and the guards greeted me all the same. Each stretch of hallway was as pristine as it was the first time I came in. As I entered the apartment, Mortimer was still there, sat on a stool where he was standing just a few hours ago, thinking. 

    “So what happened?”

    “Send a letter to Pescariu. I’ll be there for the winter.”

    “Just like that?”

    “I don’t think there’s a single choice here that will lead to anything bigger than any other. At least here, I’ll end up learning to ride a horse, and I can spend some time in a new place, learning something valuable.”

    “It’s not a bad idea, kid, but I’ll talk to him about it first thing tomorrow. Are you gonna head off to bed?”

    “Not for a few more hours.”

    “Marcus told me to give this to you.”

    When Mortimer reached across the kitchen island, he gripped an old notebook, a date written on the front in old marker, laminated over by hand with clear packing tape.

    September 2199 to January 2204

    “Is this Marcus’ Journal?”

    “He said it was from his time in Damascus as a military attache to local militia, he actually was with Julian when this happened. The consul.”

    “He mentioned some earlier.”

    Morty winced, clear with disgust.

    “He doesn’t skimp on details when you ask him in person, but he doesn’t in there either.”

    Nodding softly, I turned to Mortimer, smiling, patting his shoulder before going off to my room. At first I set it on my desk, and didn’t read it. Part of me was scared to read an account of the great peace, only to see it be painted in a brutal light. Part of me knew, at least when I read a history book, that there were details missing. This was much different; this was Marcus’ life.

   

   

"March 9th, 2202

    I have no words beyond rigid facts. Neither does Julian, who even for a skilled member of the espionage corps. I never figured the world would wind up this backward, this amoral, again. I thought we left this behind. I thought it wasn’t possible with our republic holding the reigns of hegemon.

    This warlord, who my interpreter will not utter the Arabic name for, calls himself the Sandstone Demon. Harun will not elaborate much, but the context of the word demon here isn’t exactly a djinn, but something different. Phonetics aside, we call him the Nomad. Not a bedouin, or a pilgrim, or even a caravaner, but a nomad. Without context, simply a wanderer. He bore us gifts of gold inlaid human skulls, that we identified were like Ethiopian, from some thirty or forty years off. Our scouts previously reported every major town in Ethiopia and Somalia to be deserted, desecrated by corpses. Much like the rest of Africa, those who lived after the civil wars retreated to the jungles or the oases. 

    He brought us slaves. Amputees who were supposedly ritually chopped up, and consumed. Those who were quadruple amputees were strapped onto the sides of camels like trophies, some were apparently great warriors who the Nomad defeated or defiled. 

    Our sentries at first repelled skirmishers, but later were offered slaves.

    Whatever is to the south, if anything, has to contend with this man who has made a cult of himself, no doubt from the cesspit of morality that the past was. Formless people striving only toward what is stable, even if barbaric. Malaise was what one of my team leaders said was his first feeling. 

    When I told Julian we can’t risk contact, and that we should shoot on sight any who come within five hundred yards, he shook his head, saying that the senate won’t report this. They’ll just declare the zone uncontested sand, worthless. Our outposts will always remain, but there would be no way the new guys would try to let the image be squandered.

    It came down to optics? What if there’s a would be explorer wanting to see the sand buried city of Mecca, and is instead eaten alive? What then? This is the fact of point, that these creatures lie to the south and they are to be blacklisted? 

    I even saw the Nomad face to face. He was deformed by something, as if his eyelids were melted into some kind of artistic menagerie of lines and swirls. At first he simply sat on his camel, under mounds of white cloth, accented in gold and turquoise, but he told me about how in the deserts both here and in the Horn, the ruins sometimes are filled with places rotten to all life.    

    Could be chemical weapons that went sour, probably not nuclear. Or maybe he simply tried using mustard gas on some unsuspecting village people and was on the other side of the breeze. If it was my discretion, I would’ve killed him, but it’s not under my jurisdiction to do that. Even if I can’t get that girl out of my head, the one who cradled herself on the side of a camel, carved from hip down.

    Each eye was pallid, sunken behind the ridges of the bone. More than mere starvation, it was like her body was decaying whilst alive. As if her soul was bleeding, and each drop of life came down into the veins and sundered everything her creator had deigned hers.

    If I find an excuse, I’m taking it. What good is this senate if justice is unanswered? Perhaps it’s my own discretion that must be requited tenfold. Maybe good men must break the rules."

   

    Rarely did I let myself be unnerved, disgusted, like I did imagining Marcus in this situation. Marcus had been in his forties here, but before the special treatments that I’m told made him so fierce, full of zeal and eager to see enemies. Was it the treatments? How would enhanced adrenaline, lengthened bones, hyperstrength, and extreme intelligence and reactivity do that? If anything, they would make you arrogant, feeling like a superhuman. What if this was why? Seeing the aftermath of things that were once human, scarred from things normalcy would never allow. Almost viscerally I can see the Nomad in front of my face, the reek of sweat and blood mixed into the sight of a clay figurine disfigured, laid out into the sun where the cracks could fill with grime. Draped in rippling linen, like a bust covered for fear of retribution in the disgust, the shock, of seeing it. Brown eyes eternally made rouge, a single struck hawk perched against the cliff, blush and blank stone marbling behind him. Each breath from under the veil filling you with flustered disgust, knowing behind it was once the same life within you. That your blood could be an object of greed to him. That he would reduce you down to that, despite looking in the mirror and seeing himself. Does he look at himself, imaging his own sweetness, or does he realize, for a moment, that he desecrates one of nature’s greatest works, perhaps for some her magnum opus? That, if we believe there to be a soul within one’s chest, that by defiling their body, he defiles his own soul?

    Shaking my head with vigor, I sat still for a moment, realizing the same shock came over me that Marcus may have been under for weeks, months. What did it all mean to him?

    As I held the journal between my fingers, I looked at my right hand. One of the pages was singled out, like someone had turned to it over and over. I turned to it slowly, flattening out the page and breathing slowly.

   

    "November 24th, 2203. 

    Julian hasn’t been able to talk to me for hours. I don’t care. No reason to now. I asked nine men from my personal section to join me, the ones I already knew had proven their loyalty to me in combat. Career men who had quashed bigger bugs for less.

    We tracked across the desert through the long night until we found his camp. As grand as the display was, it wasn’t defensible. Not for camel riders who, frankly, couldn’t see in the dark. Even if they could see us, it was fighting a bear with fists. Our plasma against their rifles older than any ruin you could find. Decorated pieces of fashion more than weapons. 

    As we parsed through the wreckage, the fires were a welcome break from the frigid, flowing sand. When we found him, naked, covered in boils scarred over, his face spouting blood from the burning hole in his stomach, he just looked at me. When you take him off the horse, he doesn’t stand half as tall. A glorified cripple who would’ve died to another tribe in ten years time. 

    But seeing his lifeless corpse after I stood on his neck, it was worth it. The only question was the amputees. After we piled the bodies up, some asked for us to take them back with us. The question was where. So of course, we promised we would return, with trucks, and bring them back. 

    Julian stonewalled the order for my drivers, and drug me into a room once I got back. We hadn’t spoken once, but he arrived just in time to belay the order. When I told him to not speak over a tribune of the republic, he told me to hush, that he could have me subject to a war council and imprisoned for what I did. For killing cultist cannibal raiders. But for what he said next it was hot air.

    The senate still wants no word of this, so we agreed to keep the raid under wraps. When We got the camp to see about the amputees, some had died from suicide. Only a few remained, mostly those who could not, but they asked us to kill them anyway. Julian nor I wanted to, but we did. This was pure injustice. Unadulterated madness. 

    We’re both leaving the desert come January. Not to attest anything before the senate, but instead because our time here is up. The sector is stable enough for the consul.

    This world will not break me yet. But I don’t intend to deny myself justice."

    I wasn’t surprised at the cut short ending or the details within, but I realized in the final words that this wasn’t knowledge to most anyone else. I had to question if Marcus intended this journal for me, or another. Was this world he saw, the world that was beyond the borders of the known and civilized places, where human culture was warped against the circus mirror, then painted against the canvas with the blood of an innocent man? Or was it Marcus just getting unlucky? Seeing the worst there was to see.

    Part of me didn’t want to believe I had even half the details. Or even if Marcus had changed or not. All I knew was this man was beginning to make some sense, here and there

[shiyaki]

Symphony 1

Pairing: Vishous / Butch aka Dhestroyer

Fandoms: Black Dagger Brotherhood

Summary: “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but I guess weirder things have happened, true? You’re in a time loop?”

Warnings: Temporary character death, swearing, violence

“Hey Cop, feeling better?”

„V, already finished your rounds?”   Butch raised his hand in greeting, but didn’t bother looking away from the TV in front of him or providing an update on his current state of health. “Hey, do ya know anyone who’s good at playing the piano? Or making ice sculptures?”

From the corner of his eye he noticed Vishous stop in mid-motion, the gloveless hand no longer seeking a self-rolled cigarette and the right foot still raised from nudging the door closed. Even without seeing it, he could vividly imagine the current ‘what the fuck’-expression on his best friend’s face. Butch’s lips curled into a wistful grin. Incredulity was a good look on the other male; every expression was a good look on him except for that one. The one burned into Butch’s soul and which he never ever wanted to experience again.

“Why? Did the transition knock loose more than a sudden appreciation for chocolate? What’s up with the sudden art enthusiasm?” V ribbed after a short moment of silence and lowered his hand, the cigarette apparently forgotten for the moment. He approached the couch, where he spent a full minute watching Bill Murray tinkling the ivories on the widescreen. “You’re watching Grounddog Day…”

“Yup.” Ignoring Vishous’ judgingly raised eyebrow, Butch stuffed a bite of the huge, extra-cheese pizza, with cheesy crust into his mouth. He didn’t even feel guilty about the amount of fat he was currently consuming. Besides a vampire’s ridiculously quick metabolism, which would be the envy of every and all eating contest participants worldwide, the calories wouldn’t be a problem for more than a few days.

V’s piercing gaze wandered from the side of Butch’s head to the half-emptied bottle of Lagavulin and the stack of DVDs on the coffee table, then he picked up the latter. His diamond colored eyes quickly skimmed the synopses on the back covers and with each one the furrows on V’s forehead became more pronounced. Finally he dropped the movies back onto the table and eyed Butch bemusedly.

“You must be really bored. A time loop marathon, Cop?”

Butch silently stared back at Vishous, chewing away on another mouthful and using the time to ponder the situation. Did he want V to know? It wasn’t like it was going to help his plight, but… Well, who was he kidding? Of course he wanted him to know. He wanted him to know and keep knowing and he wanted a lot of other things that were out of his reach.

“It’s kinda soothing.” Butch averted his gaze from V’s half lidded eyes and hissed in annoyance when he shifted and irritated his still sensitive skin. “They’re caught in a loop, forced to experience the same day time and time again, while everyone around them forgets. It’s slowly driving them insane, because they have no idea how to escape and they’re starting to do stupid things, but…” A pair of black boots appeared in front of him seconds before two heavy hands settled on his shoulders.

“Butch?”

“… But in the end they fix whatever the fuck needs fixing and then they’re on their merry way to the future,” Butch finished and closed his eyes. His mouth had run away with him, but he honestly didn’t care, he was just so tired and sick of this.

“You don’t sound all that soothed,” Vishous assessed. It seemed more like an afterthought, though the squeeze to Butch’s shoulder felt earnest. “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but I guess weirder things have happened, true? You’re in a time loop?”

Butch wasn’t too surprised that V had jumped to that conclusion based on his ramblings or that the other vampire seemed to give the idea some real consideration. He was great like that. “Always knew you were a smart guy. Or, I guess, bright spark fits you better, with the glowy thing and stuff.” The remark earned him a punch to the shoulder, but he just grinned.

Vishous fetched a still unopened bottle of Grey Goose and a tumbler from the kitchen and threw his leather jacket over the backrest of the couch, before he dropped down next to Butch. While unscrewing the cap, V side-eyed him, his gaze filled with curiosity and concern.

“So… how long have you been at this?”

“Can’t really say. A year maybe?” Butch put the rest of his pizza slice back into the box and wiped the grease off his fingers with one of the tissues he had located nearby for other, more personal substances. “It’s hard to keep track, especially because it’s not just a day but nine. The loop begins during my transition, which sucks ass by the way, and lasts until the day of my initial initiation into the Brotherhood.”

Vishous forwent the tumbler and took a pull right on the bottle. Then another one. “Tell me everything, maybe we can find out what’s causing it.” “Oh, I know what started all of this. Your-… uh… the Scribe Virgin apparently had some-“

“Wait! My what?” V narrowed his eyes at him, but Butch firmly shook his head and cursed his slip of the tongue.

“Nope, forget what I just said. Buddy, please believe me when I say that you don’t want to know. And honestly? I don’t want to tell ya, especially not now. The last time I was there to witness you getting this information ya went all phoenix or dragon or some shit and turned several buildings into dust.”

Vishous was full out glaring at him now and looked about ready to shake or punch the truth out of Butch, but that hadn’t intimidated him (much) when he had still been a human and it certainly wouldn’t now.  Five minutes into their staring match, V huffed and his glare subsided to a ‘This ain’t over’- narrowing of his eyes. Butch barely managed to suppress his grin.

“So, as I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me, the Scribe Virgin had some sort of vision after my initiation, but things weren’t right for it to come true, so she started this damn time loop and it won’t stop until I achieve whatever it is that leads to her picture perfect future. And because she’s an unhelpful bitch, she refuses to tell me what she saw. Only on the last day, by the way, before then she has no clue what’s going on.” Butch had never seen V’s eyes get this big and he had seen a lot of expressions on the other vampire’s face. Huh…

“Please tell me you have never called her that to her face, Cop,” Vishous muttered despairingly into his hands, after he’d buried his face in them. The shock had apparently dissipated the remaining irritation completely.

“I did actually. Once. Didn’t end well, but it’s still the truth. Anyway, I’m taking this loop off, as they say.” It was still ridiculous that he could say such a thing in any plausible context.

“But-“

“No. V…” Butch dragged a hand through his hair and uttered a bone-deep sigh. “I know this is new for you, but I promise, I’ve already told ya all of this. Repeatedly. I’ve told you and the rest of the Brotherhood and Marissa and… Hell, I talked to Rhevenge once or twice. I’ve tried so many different things and I always wake up to the feeling of every damn bone in my body breaking and the knowledge that I have yet again failed at whatever the Scribe Virgin wants me to do. I just… Please don’t get on my case for a few days of time-out.”

For a long, almost unbearable moment, silence was Butch’s only answer. He didn’t dare look at Vishous’ face to gauge his reaction, so he startled a bit, when the other vampire got up. Instead of leaving, however, V swapped the DVD in the DVD player and sat back down. He pressed the play button on the remote control, when the main menu popped up and settled his legs on the table after snatching one of the pizza slices.

“I don’t know anything about piano playing or ice sculpturing, but I can show you some blacksmithing, true?”

Some of the tension drained out of Butch’s body, enough for a small grin to appear on his lips. “And baking bread?”

“What?”  V raised a disbelieving eyebrow. Totally unnecessary in Butch’s opinion.

“Well, you… not you you obviously, but a you said that ya bake awesome bread. I’m curious if that’s the truth.”

V mouthed ‘a you’ and shook his head. “Stop talking, before I get more of a headache than I already have. But okay. I guess, we can put baking bread on the list, too.”

~*~

Vishous was utterly frustrated with the situation and being covered in flour from head to toe didn’t even factor in. Though how Butch had managed to turn the kitchen into a winter wonderland or a cocaine drug bust gone wrong (depending on the one being asked) was still beyond him.

No, the main reason was this whole time loop business.

Sure, it was hard to wrap his mind around the concept, but V did believe Butch. The expressions he had seen on his best friend’s face the previous night would have been enough to convince him, but the cop also moved like he had had a fuckton of time getting used to his new body. There were also the new skills in dematerialization, knife throwing and the Old Language. Not to mention the information Butch evidently was and shouldn’t be privy to.

V didn’t know which issue to tackle first. The apparent connection he shared with the Scribe Virgin and finding out what other stuff Butch had dug up on him? Just imagining that the cop knew about his lovely five-star stay in Bloodletter’s camp turned his stomach.

Maybe he should first focus on puzzling out how to stop this time loop shit, before Butch really went loopy. He was already on his best way to the loony bin, it seemed. Why else would they be standing in the Pit’s kitchen, channeling girl scouts? What next? Would they collaborate with Rhevenge and sell hash cookies in ZeroSums for a good cause?

Anyway, Butch had mentioned… other Vs (what the fuck?) coming up with ideas, which had ultimately ended in failure, but that didn’t mean he would just sit around on his ass and twiddle his thumbs. He would indulge Butch’s wish for a week-long time-out, though, because he really, really looked like he needed one and V was pathetically whipped, when it came to the cop. Hopefully he wouldn’t come up with anything too outrageous, like robbing a bank… Huh, that could be pretty interesting, actually. Not the ski-mask wearing, bank clerk threatening take on things, of course, more of an Ocean 11 kinda thing.

“Sorry about dumping this on ya,” Butch muttered, looking up from the dough he was kneading dutifully. He looked fucking ridiculous with the wannabe salt and pepper hair and the smudge on his cheek. “Know you have enough on your plate at the moment, buddy.” His gaze flickered to V’s twitching eyelid, which was usually covered by his, well, their Red Sox cap. Vishous hadn’t bothered wearing it in the Pit. Butch probably knew all about it, anyway, including what his nightmare was about. That was a whole new nightmare in the making to be honest…

“Don’t rack your brain about it, Cop, true?” V nodded to the dough, while his hands deftly worked on a self-rolled. “Throw a towel over that and leave it alone for an hour or so.” A smirk curled the corner of his lips. “You can use that time to play Cinderella and scrub the kitchen clean.”

And Vishous would spend it working on… something, as long as he was far away from Butch and the cop’s growing problem.

Fucking post-trans horniness.

[cooperjones2020]

What’s Past is Prologue, What to Come, pt. 4

Summary: He wanted to hit whoever made Betty cry. He wanted to hit Betty so she’d keep crying. Interrelated vignettes from Jughead Jones’s obsession with Betty Cooper. Dark!Jug, Creepy!Jug, Stalker!Jug, generally Sociopathic!Jug.

A/N: We’re ditching the Shakespeare. Instead, I leave you with this quote which is delightfully creepy out of context: “Since he longed to take possession of something deep inside them, he needed to slit them open” (Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 215).

TW: implied child abuse (for this chapter specifically, check the other tags on ao3)

(parts one, two, and three)

ao3—>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11394858/chapters/26628525

By the time he stood across from her in the dusty classroom that housed five ancient PC monitors, two typewriters, and a microfiche reader, Jughead had given up fighting his obsession with Betty Cooper. He had given up fighting the way it hurt when she looked at Archie. He liked the hurt, liked the pain, liked the reminder he was alive.

When Betty and Archie seemed to be alright, after the disastrous night of the back to school dance, Jughead felt the embers in his stomach die down. But that ease of tensions came coupled with a new awareness of Betty. She seemed lighter to him. Not that she felt that way—he could still sometimes see her struggle with the ashes of her feelings, could see her face fall when she thought no one was looking. But the air around her seemed to be lighter, as if some of the threads that tied to her to Archie had been cut.

When he appeared in the doorway of the student newspaper office, he did so silently, so she didn’t notice him where she was bent over her work behind one of the ancient computer monitors. She wore a burgundy top today, new, one he hadn’t seen and that provided a marked contrast to her normal colour palette. He liked it. He liked the possibilities it represented.

“If print journalism is dead, what am I doing here?” he asked her, leaning against the doorway with one leg crossed over the other.

“The Blue and Gold isn’t dead, Juggie. It’s just dormant,” she replied, pressing her hands together in front of her heart, before running a finger along a dusty keyboard. “But waking up. You’re writing a novel, right? About Jason Blossom’s murder?”

“I am. Riverdale’s very own In Cold Blood.” He plucked a magnifying glass out of a pencil cup and held it up in front of him, looking at Betty through it.

“Which started out as a series of articles. I’m hoping you’ll come write for the Blue and Gold.” She looked so hopeful, so earnest and untouchable, he was a goner before he even walked in.

He tried anyway. “I just don’t think the school paper’s the right fit for my voice.”

“Juggie, Jason’s death changed Riverdale. People don’t wanna admit that, but it’s true. We all feel it. Nothing this bad was ever supposed to happen here, but it did. I wanna know why.” Every time she called him Juggie, his heart rate slowed down. It had been her nickname for him since they were kids and its effects were just as strong and just as addictive as morphine.

“Would I get complete freedom?” It was a feint, but he was interested in her answer.

“I-I’ll help and edit and suggest but it’s your story. It’s your voice.”

“Doesn’t sound like complete freedom but I’m in.”

“Okay, great. Um, in that case, I have your first assignment.” She did that thing with her hands again, like she was in an old episode of the Donna Reed Show and her body just couldn’t contain its joy. “There’s one person who was at the river on July 4th that no one’s talking about.”

“Dilton Doiley and his scouts.”

“Exactly.”

He brushed his thumb off his nose in gesture of camaraderie and conspiracy and turned to leave. He didn’t need complete freedom. He’d lost it long ago in any case. But, since the dance, and the night he and Archie had joined her and Veronica at Pop’s, he did need increasing access to Elizabeth Cooper.

We crave absolutes. They comfort us. But life is infinitely more complex than that. He was still attempting to untangle the threads that used to bind Betty to Archie when he discovered Archie and Grundy in the music classroom and it fucked everything up. It threw off his entire world axis in which Archie was deserving of Betty and he, Jughead, was not. Then, Betty found out about it. And with that, she threatened to slip back out of his control.

Closer access to Betty Cooper meant many things for Jughead Jones. It meant re-memorizing the smell of her hair and analyzing all the micro expressions that gave him insight into her moods. It meant resuming his game of guessing which underwear she was wearing that day, double points if he figured it out before he saw her bra strap.

It also meant seeing the places her enamel was wearing thin. After Dilton had left and they’d discussed the connotations of Archie being with Grundy at the river’s edge, Betty snapped a pencil in two with the force of the grip of her left hand. But she kept talking as if she hadn’t noticed.

He cut her off, “Betts, promise you’ll sleep on it before you go off the rails. We don’t know for sure what happened.”

She was staring at the cork board over his left shoulder. He could count the veins in the purplish skin beneath her eyes. He knew she wasn’t sleeping.

He slowly reached forward and unclenched her hand, removing the broken pencil pieces and brushing away the splinters that clung to her palm. She didn’t flinch, or even blink, when he touched her fresh half-moon cuts.

He wasn’t really sure how he wound up in a booth at Pop’s with Kevin and Veronica. He’d been typing away on his laptop, content as he was capable of being, when Betty walked in. Next thing he knew, he was ranting about the drive-in to a semi-captive audience. At least she’d bought him a burger again.

“The drive-in closing is just one more nail in the coffin that is Riverdale. No. Forget Riverdale. In the coffin of the American Dream. As the godfather of indie cinema, Quentin Tarantino, likes to say—”

“Please, God, no more Quentin Tarantino references,” Kevin cut him off.

“What? I’m pissed. And not just about losing my job. The Twilight Drive-In should mean something to us. People should be trying to save it.” The drive-in, the diner, the friendly neighborhood Hitchcock blonde to his right, all of the pieces of Riverdale that looked so great on paper. That, cliche as they were, kept him from sliding into the darkness that loomed.

Veronica interrupted his thoughts. “In this age of Netflix and VOD, do people really want to watch a movie in a car? I mean, who even goes there?”

“People who want to buy crack.” Trust the sheriff’s son to dismiss such an iconic emblem of working class Americana and Jughead right along with it.

“And cinephiles and car enthusiasts, right, Betts?” Betty knew what he was talking about, she knew what the drive-in meant to him.

“Totally.” But she wasn’t paying attention to him. He began tapping out a staccato rhythm with his foot.

“Anyway, it’s closing because the town owns it but didn’t invest in it. So when an anonymous buyer made Mayor McCoy an offer she couldn’t refuse—” Jughead stared out the window as he spoke.

“Anonymous buyer? What do they have to hide? No one cares.”

“I do. Also you guys should all come to closing night. I’m thinking American Graffiti. Or is that too obvious?” He directed it at the three of them, but he looked at Betty.

“I vote for anything starring Audrey Hepburn. Or Cate Blanchett.” Surprise, surprise.

“Or The Talented Mr. Ripley. Betty, your choices?”

“Everything okay, B?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just thinking. Um…Maybe Rebel Without a Cause?” Betty flicked her eyes at him and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at her.

He turned his attention back to his dinner and contemplated the possibility that maybe one or two of the threads that used to connect Betty to Archie might now connect to him instead. He vaguely registered Veronica getting up and returning and the sound of the bell on the door jingling behind him.

“Now that’s an odd combo of people,” Kevin said.

Jughead and Betty both turned to look over their shoulders in one motion. It was Archie, Fred, and Grundy. Fuck. He glanced at Betty. Her mouth dropped open.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Betty, no. Don’t.” He made a half-hearted attempt to reach for her, his hand closing on empty air. He wanted to protect her, but what more could he do? She needed to snip the rest of the threads on her own. And truthfully? Archie needed a Betty Cooper-style kick in the ass.

Jughead grimaced at the two of them out of the window.

Again, Veronica’s voice intruded. “What’s happening out there? Do we know? Is it about me?”

Archie’s back was to him, but he could see the hurt and concern all over Betty’s beautiful face. “I have a strong inkling. And no. Also, I’d let it go.”

“Yes, but you’re you and I’m me. You do you, girl. I’ll be back.” He rolled his eyes at Veronica and settled lower in the booth.

“What was it like before she got here? I honestly cannot remember.”

Jughead didn’t respond. He sneered and ate the strawberry off Betty’s milkshake.

His final attempt to save the drive-in had been a bust. Mayor McCoy shot him down and even Fred wouldn’t help him. So, Rebel Without a Cause played to a full house. Of course. Nothing like nostalgia to pack them in.

Jughead watched from the projection room. She didn’t come. Whenever she came to the drive-in, she’d come up to the booth and drag him down to socialize for a while. Or she joined him up there with a blanket and some snacks.

He texted her, a little while after the movie started, but she didn’t respond.

She didn’t come.

The chill woke Jughead early the next morning. Indian summer had faded and no one had ever bothered to insulate the projection booth. He registered that he had a novel of a text from Betty sitting unread on his phone. He wasn’t ready to answer her yet.

He ate a stale pop tart and, from his seat next to the projector, he surveyed his dilapidated kingdom. A plastic bag blew across the empty lot. Discarded soda cans and spilled popcorn decorated the grass like some kind of fucked up Christmas tree.

When he could delay it no more, he stood to finish packing.

The Betty box had grown over the years. It took up more than half his backpack space, but he wouldn’t risk leaving it at the trailer. A drunk FP was an unpredictable FP.

Jughead watched the last reel finish winding then did a slow turn around the room that had been his only safe haven the past few months. He grabbed a shirt he’d missed packing, shoved it in his backpack, and, with an old photo of him and Jellybean in hand, closed the door.

He didn’t exactly need to add vandalism to his record, but seeing as Fred was the one tearing the drive-in down, he reckoned he was pretty safe. So he marked out “JUGHEAD JONES WUZ HERE” in black spray paint along with an outline of his crown on the side of the concession stand.

Then he tossed the can of spray paint away, to join the litter on the ground. When he turned to leave, FP was standing behind him. Jughead looked away so they wouldn’t make eye contact.

His father and the Serpents had been hanging around the drive-in for months, but he only sought him out when he hit the level of drunk of slurring his words and talking about reuniting their family. It was a little early, even for FP, but Jughead still didn’t want to talk to him.

When his father spoke though, his words were clear: “They’ll tear that booth down too. Raze the whole place, send it to the junkyard. And us with it.”

“Yeah. Or maybe they’ll save it. All the pieces. Store it in the town hall attic and rebuild it in a hundred years. Wonder who the hell we were.” The image made him smile. Then he remembered who he was talking to and cut his eyes away to frown at the ground.

“So where you gonna live now?”

“I’ll figure it out, Dad. I always do.” He just barely stopped himself from checking his dad with his bag as he walked past. That kind of aggression never worked out well for him with FP, and he didn’t need any more surprise injuries that needed explaining away to Betty.

[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Fifteen: Annabeth

How to Predict Unicorn Collisions. You Don’t.

             Annabeth hated when things didn’t go according to plan, and being side-rammed by a unicorn hadn’t been part of the plan. As she pushed off the black pavement of the Brooklyn street, she thought about how she should recalculate this.

           She’d been furious that her call with Frank had been interrupted. No matter how many drachmas she and Percy tried to throw at Iris, they kept getting the message, Your rainbow has been disconnected. Please hang up, and try your rainbow again.

           The two most important parts of the message had been left out: Leo is alive and these demigods were probably terrified.

           And now Frank and Hazel were here. Something must have gone wrong for them to ride all the way to the East coast on Arion.

           Finding the right flight over had been child’s play. She knew which airlines the Romans had frequent flyer miles with because of some deals they’d worked out with the Amazon. She knew their preferred airports and the approximated time the flight would have left. They only ever did direct route flights, since layovers were bad news for ADHD, monster hunted demigods.

           She had hoped Piper could talk to them first, using that line she never got to use on the Romans when they first got to Camp Jupiter, “Lower your weapons. We just want to talk.” Or Will, since he and the shy daughter of Apollo, Kally, seemed to get along well. Or Nico, her friend. Or Jason, who connected really well with Axel over Capture the Flag.

           Something about this felt like a set up: the way the video of Euna Song turning people into trees had zoomed carefully onto hers, Kally’s, and Pax’s faces without any context as to why they were fighting against those people, the way the dialogue had been muted from the video of Axel attacking Leo, the way her phone, and the phone with the videos, malfunctioned so she couldn’t watch it again for a closer analysis, and the way the two ex-Kronos soldiers had ended up in a town whose policy was to execute ex-Kronos soldiers.  

           This group of half-bloods was suspicious, and very dangerous, but she also suspected something else was happening here, possibly something out of their control. From what she’d seen of Calex Rupin McKenzie and Merry Blythe at Camp Half-Blood and from Piper’s solid impression of them, neither seemed the type to associate with murders without reason.  

           But she also knew that desperation could crack a person. She wanted to know what was going on. They needed more data. Like where Axel had found Leo Valdez.

           Percy gently touched her arm. “Are you alright?” he shouted over the sound of the getaway taxi-van zooming away and horns blaring from oncoming traffic.

           Scraps and bruises. Minimal damage. They needed to focus on their target. She nodded, checking him over first. He looked the same—just dazed from being thrown off Blackjack.

           Had he been hurt, she’d have to murder a unicorn.

           They staggered to their feet in enough time to see the unicorn blur in retreat, Arion, riderless, was in quick pursuit. Annabeth wondered if that unicorn knew mythology was not on its side in a race against that horse.

           “Is Blackjack okay?” she asked, assessing the situation. Percy’s pegasus stumbled to his hooves. Hazel was on foot, Frank had disappeared, and an SUV pulled up beside them. She didn’t get to see what had attacked Hazel and Frank to knock them off Arion.

           Percy nodded, quoting in his best equestrian mimic, “Good as new, boss. I think I’m going to take it easy for a bit. I get a carrot for that, right?” He reached to pet Blackjack’s face. “Thanks for the ride, bud. Get to safety. You’ll get a whole bushel when we get back to camp.”

           Blackjack huffed and flew off into the air. Percy turned to Annabeth. “I hope Arion teaches that unicorn to play nice with other ponies.”

           Someone threw open the door to the SUV beside them, and Annabeth was glad to see Jason Grace motioning them inside. Piper gave them a happy wave from the back and a, “Hey guys! Tell me about NRU after we’re done doing some demigod hunting.”

Hazel hopped in from the other side, glancing towards the front in concern.

“Sorry I’m running late,” Jason apologized. “I couldn’t summon Tempest. I was scared my powers might throw off weather patterns around the airport.”

           Something felt uncomfortable inside the SUV, and it took Annabeth a moment to realize it wasn’t because the driver was a French zombie. There was an argument happening.

           “What’s the one thing I told you not to do?” Will demanded, his hands on his hips, despite being seated in the middle. If he hadn’t been such a firm believer in seatbelts, she was pretty sure he’d be leaning over Nico’s passenger seat.

           Nico sighed and leaned his head against the headrest to stare at the ceiling. “Raise the dead.”

           “And what did you do?”

           “Raise the dead—but look Will, it’s been a month since my last incident, and it’s just summoning the dead—not rocket science or shadow travel—”[1]

           Annabeth winced as they rearranged the seating. Everyone had promised to enforce Will’s no excess power usage for six months on Nico, but none of them  predicted Apollo showing up to shake Nico like a ragdoll. It put Nico’s recovery back by a lot and terrified Will and pretty much everyone at camp.

Jason jumped into the back. Percy pulled Annabeth into his lap so they could conserve on seating. From the uncomfortable glance that Jason and Piper shared, Will and Nico had been arguing since the airport. Maybe a chat about rogue half-bloods or college entrance exams would be relaxing.

           “Nico, I’m not saying this because I don’t have faith in you. I’m mad because we made an agreement and because I care about you and it would crush me if anything happened to you.”

           Nico went bright red in the face and sank into his seat. “Will,” he grumbled, “Not in front of everyone.”

Hazel cleared her throat. She looked concerned for her brother, but her expression also had serious problem written all over it. Something had gone wrong in Rome. Annabeth’s mind raced with ideas.

“It’s great to see you guys, but Frank scouted ahead. We should—”

           A hummingbird darted through the door before Annabeth could shut it. When Frank turned back into a human, the SUV became uncomfortably cramped, and Annabeth started to really miss the expansiveness of the Argo II. Annabeth’s brain filed through excuses to push them past any cops that might pull them over for having too many people in a vehicle.

           Normally, Frank would have been embarrassed to squish in the tiny bit of space between Will and she and Percy. Instead, he leaned forward to talk to the driver, jumped to find it an undead person, and turned in confusion to Nico. “Uh—hey Nico—they’re five blocks ahead, can you uh tell—”

           “Monsieur Jules-Albert.”

           “Yes, Monsieur Jules-Albert to follow—”

           The zombie driver stepped on it. Their SUV lurched forward, knocking Frank back. Though they quickly jerked back to a stop in Brooklyn’s absurd traffic. Annabeth’s mind whirled to calculate if it would be faster to walk.

           “Seatbelt,” Will said to Frank, folding his arms and frowning at the passenger seat in the best charades of, we’ll finish this later, that Annabeth had ever seen.

           “Augh, dude, what happened to your ear?” Percy asked.

           Annabeth was about to ask the same question. Frank had a hasty patch job of gauze on his ear with medical tape wrapped around his head to keep it in place. From the old blood dried on the gauze, she had a feeling there wasn’t much of an ear left under there.

           “I can probably reattach it if you have the ear,” Will offered, sensing the same.

           “I don’t,” Frank said grimly, like he’d forgotten a number two pencil on test day. “Axel bit it off after he set Reyna’s house on fire.

           “He what?!” Nico demanded, sitting up in his seat and forgetting his prior embarrassment. “Is Reyna okay?”

           “Physically, yea,” Frank said. He gave them a brief update on what happened as Jules drove.

           “Wait—why were they in Reyna’s house? I thought she pretty much lived, ate, slept, and plotted punishments for bad legionnaires in the principia,” Percy asked.  

           Annabeth swatted him. She’d seen Reyna and Axel interact once, when Axel first parked outside Camp Half-Blood’s boundaries and refused to come inside. From what she’d seen then, and from a few comments Piper had made about the type of guy Reyna might like, Annabeth had a guess why Axel was in her house.

           “They were on a breakfast date, sort of,” Hazel confirmed from the back of the SUV. “It was… hard to convince her not to come on this quest, but she’s making sure Camp Half-Blood is safe, since she knows you guys are out.”

           Annabeth hoped that wouldn’t make everyone lose focus. She kept reminding herself that they needed all the facts first, that something wasn’t adding up here, but Nico voiced the opinion of the group perfectly.

           “I’m going to drag Axel to Tartarus and craft him a personal punishment for the rest of eternity. How dare he hurt Reyna,” Nico growled. As the SUV rolled to a stop, he glanced back. “Or Frank. Sorry about your ear, Frank.”

           “It’s okay; it’s just gone for good.”

           “Nico, we talked about this,” Will scolded.

           Nico rolled his eyes and threw his door open. “Fine. In a few months, I’ll drag him to Tartarus and craft him a personal punishment.”

           “There’s my responsible son of Hades.”

           They got out of the SUV and took off down a wide alley between two brick buildings designed with the classic flare of late nineteenth century architecture. This was an old part of Brooklyn, one the gentrification hadn’t yet touched, but the neon blue and purple lights around two ionic columns were new. They stood on either side of a club entrance that Annabeth could see Euna, Calex, and Merry darted through.  

           They needed a plan.

           The bouncer was a huge guy in a biker jacket—what you’d expect to find at a club in New York. Unlike what you’d expect, he stood off to the side of the door, leaning against the wall and grinning stupidly at their approach. He held a hand out to prevent the small line of guests from entering. The guests in line whispered, looking far less agitated than Annabeth would expect with a bouncer not letting anyone in.

           From what Annabeth had read and seen, clubs weren’t usually active this early at night. She hoped this wouldn’t be a rerun of Club Lotus.

           “Stop,” Annabeth said before they reached the entrance.

           Everyone skittered to a stop, like she’d pulled a gear out of a watch. Jason, Percy, Piper, Hazel, Frank, and Nico all paused to glance at her expectantly. She forgot how well their team worked together. The only person who stumbled was Will.

           “We need a plan.” Jason read off her face.

           Annabeth’s mind spun. That was her territory. But she was missing some integral data to make a full plan. Her instinct told her not to go in with swords drawn. “We should try to parley. When they ran from the airport, and when they were in the cab, they didn’t attack any of us. The Pax brothers may have only done that in New Rome because they were cornered.”

          They’d have to worry about Frank’s quest from Ares later. Right now, she wanted to know what was going on.

          “Seeing Roman colors is going to probably scare them, so Hazel, use the Mist to hide what you and Frank look like. Stay to the entrance to make sure they don’t double back to escape. Everyone else, keep with your partner—” She didn’t need to say who was partnering with whom. “—keep alert. They are dangerous, but try to talk them down first. If you see them—”

          “Find or walkie-talkie Jason and I,” Piper finished. “And I can make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

          Annabeth was pleased to see Will open up his jacket to show off a charging station for walkie talkies beside his medical kit and a package of latex gloves. He handed one off to Percy and one to Hazel.

          Because Iris Messaging had been so inconsistent, and the presence of a half-blood tended to make technology go haywire, she’d been experimenting with ways to keep in contact. Older walkie talkies proved somewhat reliable.

          The other problem was getting into the club. If Axel Misted a group of underaged kids in, Hazel could probably do the same. Annabeth just hoped everyone either had a driver’s permit or a library card for Hazel to Mist.

          The bouncer put a huge arm out across the door. “The guitarist says you’re with him. And he said you’re allowed to keep your weapons. And we aren’t supposed to kill you.”

          Annabeth wanted to swear. She should have assumed the others had connections here, else they wouldn’t have ran straight to this club. Her brain pierced through the Mist to reregister the bouncer’s single eye, and how tall he was. Despite all the time she’d spent with Tyson, the seven year old in her always cowered at the sight of Cyclopes. But she was almost a legal adult now, a hero of Olympus and a daughter of Athena. Annabeth maintained steady eye contact. This guy wasn’t mimicking any of them, and didn’t even look interested in chowing down on one of their heads.

      ��   The people in line hazed into various monsters and ghosts.  

          “This is a club for monsters,” Frank said. The way he said it made her wonder when Frank would bring the entire legion here for a warm up drill.

          Everyone else must have seen it too. They touched their weapons.

          This Cyclops kept grinning, not seeming to realize which demigods he was stalling. “The guitarist says you can come in, but,” he said, “the tiny Pax said you can only come in if that one gives me a hug.” The Cyclops pointed at Jason Grace.

          Jason Grace pointed at himself in confusion. “Me?”

          The Cyclops nodded. “He said you love hugging Cyclopes. And the tiny Pax knows I love hugs.” The Cyclops folded his arms and stood up tall, like he had declared how much he liked breaking people’s necks.

          Percy stifled a laugh. “Hey, Cyclopes give the best bear hugs, probably only second to Frank.”

          “You’re not going to hurt him,” Piper asked her question as a statement, one enlaced with charm speak.

          The Cyclops didn’t change his posture or expression at all. Maybe he really did like hugs. “Nope!” he affirmed.

          Jason frowned as Hazel giggled and Nico and Will choked on laughs.

          Percy patted Jason’s back. “He seems like a good Cyclops. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Thanks for reading guys! I had a great time writing this one :D XD

 Foonote:

[1] I need to thank both Gravity Falls and BruneGonda for this. I’ve been trying to find a way to slip her hilarious fanart in for three books.

[ruminativerabbi]

My Writing Self

As Descartes almost said, existence is a slippery thing.

A trip to the theater will bring that idea sharply into focus. What you think you see on the stage when you see Othello entering Desdemona’s bedroom in the fifth act of Othello are two people, a man and a woman—real people with real Social Security numbers and real home addresses—dressed up to look like two other people, neither one of whom actually exists at all. But what is really happening has nothing to do with any of the above: what is actually afoot is that a playwright dead and gone from the world for a cool four centuries is somehow managing to overcome the natural limits of the possible to speak from the grave directly to the fully-alive people sitting in the audience. That’s a lot of people involved, only some of whom exist. Even that doesn’t sound that complicated, not really! But saying exactly how many people in that complicated equation are real is more daunting a task than it feels like it should be. Here’s a tip: don’t answer too quickly!

The actors exist, but their real identities are completely submerged under the personae of the characters they’ve been hired to play on stage. So they exist in some theoretical, yet fully invisible way. The characters in the play that the audience sees on stage are wholly fictitious: no matter how talented Glenda Jackson may be, she’s still not really King Lear, who, like Othello and Desdemona, is a wholly fictitious character. (Even Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is a fictitious character, at least in the sense that the real man of Roman antiquity never said any of the lines the Bard put in his mouth. He didn’t even speak English! Ditto Antony and double-ditto Cleopatra.) That leaves the people in the audience and the playwright to consider. Shakespeare is dead. (He died in the spring of 1616, so it’s been a while.) But even if the play in question were to be by a playwright still among the living, that living person is not actually talking to anyone in the audience other than through the magic of his or her art, and is certainly not really present in the room in the way that two people engaged in direct, dialogic conversation have to be. So that leaves the audience. They, obviously, do exist! But it’s only they in this complicated pas-de-six that do so unambiguously and in a way that does not require elaborate explanation. No wonder I always feel so existentially exhausted after an evening at the theater!

What’s true about the theater is also true about the movies and about TV, which is why I find it upsetting when a character on the screen leaves the dramatic context in which he or she was conceived and in which that character solely exists to turn to the audience in the theater and speak directly to them. (Joan says this is a sign of being a crazy person, but I really do feel this way.) When the Kevin Spacey character in House of Cards, for example, turns to face the camera and address the audience watching at home, it’s at best confusing: the guy on the screen speaking to me isn’t the actor divested of his role in the show (since he’s still in costume and on the set, and he’s reciting lines someone else wrote), but he also isn’t the character he’s portraying (because he seems suddenly to exist in the real world that I myself exist in, which makes no sense since only one of us is real). No wonder I feel ontologically aggressed against when that happens—and, yes, I felt that way even when Matthew Broderick does the same thing at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and, stepping out of the film but somehow not really into the real world, tells the audience that the movie is over and that they should all go home. (Or do I mean when Ferris Bueller does that?) You see why this is upsetting! At the very least, it’s confusing. But since I am someone who finds it upsetting to be confused, it all comes down to the same thing.

Why I don’t find third-person novels irritating is a good question. They too, after all, feature narrators who aren’t the author (since they live in the fictitious narrative and seem to be on the same existential plane as the people they’re describing, none of whom exists in the real world) but who also aren’t characters in the story (since they are rarely named or identified, and almost never play any sort of actual role in the plot as it unfolds). Maybe it’s precisely because they are such wan personalities, these all-knowing unidentified narrators, that I don’t find them that upsetting. But it’s also true that I generally like first-person novels much better: when Ishmael opens the book by turning to me, the reader, and telling me what to call him, I like him already. He’s not Melville. But he’s also not a voice-of-God narrator who magically seems to know everything about the story the author-who-is-not-him is about to tell. What Ishmael is, is a character in the book, and that is the case even if he seems able to transcend his own context and speak to me personally and directly. For some reason, I can live with that in a great book. And I feel the same way about Huck when he starts right in by telling me that Mark Twain only mostly told the truth about him in Tom Sawyer. And about Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. And, of course, about Scout as well. (Doesn’t everybody forgive Scout her non-existence and welcome her willingness to tell us her story directly as though we somehow actually could encounter each other on the same plane of existence?) So I’m a little inconsistent. What can you do? My favorites among my own stories are also all first-person narratives. But you probably guessed that already!

And now it turns out that the great stage of human folly and promise that is the Internet also features real/unreal players…and to an extent I hadn’t realized until just recently. There was a startling story just the other day in the Times, in fact, about the degree to which “virtual influencers” have become such a staple of digital advertising that it feels unnecessary to waste time wondering if they are people or digitized sales-avatars. (To see the article, written by Tiffany Hsu, click here.) I do realize that neither Betty Crocker nor Aunt Jemima actually existed either…and that they didn’t do so long before anyone could have imagined the Internet. But they were basically drawings on boxes who occasionally appeared in magazines to encourage the purchase of their products, not faux people with whom consumers could conceive actually of having a relationship with, of listening to, or of caring about.

And that brings me to my own avatar-issue. Because, for me personally at least, my writing self—for all it is obviously allied strongly to the real me—has also come, at least to a certain extent, to exist independently. And as June draws to a close and I conclude now my thirteenth year of writing weekly letters to you all, this seems a point worth pondering. (There has been a lot of room for growth too: this week’s is my 465th letter since the first went out in the fall of 2006, a number that seems unreal even to me.)

To prepare the series of “best hits” among my letters that will appear during the weeks I’ll be in Israel, I’ve been looking through the files and noticing how my writing has evolved over the years…and how I myself also have in the course of all these weekly efforts to speak directly to my readers about issues that seem relevant and interesting. Without planning to do so in advance, I note how I return over and over to certain themes in my writing, trying always to flesh them out slightly more provocatively and to refine more accurately the precise way I feel in their regard. These themes—the nature of heroism, the symbiotic relationship of history and destiny, the relationship of Jewishness to Judaism, the flawed reasonableness of the democratic ideal, the relationship of church and state in America and in Israel, the sanctity of Jerusalem and the great adventure of owning property there, the ultimate compatibility of science and religion, the relentless vulgarity of so much of Western culture, and the specific way I have responded to specific books I’ve read and wished either to recommend or not to recommend to my readers—will be familiar to all. I’d like to think my prose style has evolved over all these years in a positive way. But more interesting, at least to me personally, is noticing how I have somehow evolved a writing voice that feels to me distinct from my preaching voice or my teaching voice, how the weekly commitment to writing these letters has allowed me to evolve an identifiable addition to my collection of other selves, how I have been able intellectually, emotionally, even spiritually, to evolve and to grow through the medium of these weekly letters.

I remember reading somewhere that you should never been pleased when someone you haven’t seen in ages attempts to compliment you by saying that you haven’t changed a bit in all that time. Life is growth! But growth requires a medium, a context, a setting. And you, my faithful readers for all these many years, have provided me with that setting, with that context. And for that I am truly grateful.

I wrap up, then, this bar-mitzvah year of writing to you all with a simple wish: may God grant that we all have many years to write and to read, to agree and to argue, to allow the written word to function as the specific arena in which the ideas I put forward in these letters are allowed to incubate so that we can all together see where they go, and where we go as well. Whether there really is no noise when a tree falls to earth if there’s no one present to hear it is one of those high-school truths that feels hard to square with the way the physical world appears actually to work. But what I do know to be true, and unequivocally so, is that no written word truly exists without readers to read it, to test it, to respond to it, to react to the invitation to dialogue or to debate embedded in it. And that makes me very grateful to you all for the opportunity you’ve afforded me over all these many years to write and, because of you, to be read as well.