#would be funny if the dead returns cognizant of who they were

[caithyra]

Cousin in the North?

So, GRRM has said that the characters will end up more or less in the same positions in ASoIaF as they did in GoT. If you’ve seen me in other fandoms you know what that means...

Random Theory Time! (Or: How Sansa ends up ruling most of Westeros in the books, maybe?)

So, when Robb is looking at the chain of inheritance, Catelyn suggests distant cousins in the Vale of Arryn. Anyway, turns out Lord Frey is the biggest FoBzilla there ever was and now Sansa Stark is considered the only legitimate Stark alive (no one in the North believes Jeyne is Arya ffs, they watched these girls grow up! All that’s needed is for the Starks’ bannermen to be called and they take one look at Jeyne, who is the wrong age and presumably not with a long “horse-face” or she wouldn’t have thrown so many stones in that glasshouse, and boom).

Here’s the thing: Sansa Stark is not just the last legitimate Stark. She is also first cousins with the young and sickly Lord of the Vale and the niece of the dethroned Lord of the Riverlands, which is currently going through a famine in a ten-year winter, while the Vale’s granaries and larders are so full they might burst.

Yes, Edmure has a baby, but this is Westeros; if grown women like Minisa, Joanna, Lyarra and rest are dropping like damselflies, I fully expect kids under the age of 3 to drop even faster, and Edmure was probably traumatized over the whole Red Wedding thing and not in the mood to lay with his Frey wife (if the High Septon doesn’t go “weddings are not massacres!” and annuls it for a tidy sum that may or may not have the prints of “small” fingers on it). Alternatively, if Edmure dies and baby dies after him, Sansa would inherit from a cousin in the Riverlands as well.

Things Catelyn says/wants sometimes comes true (see wanting to keep Bran in the North before his fall, and then he even goes further north!). She talks about inheritance, cousins, the North and the Vale.

And the gods, whether they’re the Seven or Old, listen to Sansa’s wishes/curses at times, and Sansa wanted Harry the Heir thrown by his horse (depending on when it happens, that’s a guaranteed trampling, maybe even by several horses, sometimes not very survivable, it could also happen on the side of a mountain on a trail, even, and, well, the Moon Door is a death sentence for a reason).

What if Sansa wont be Queen in the North?

What if she will become the Queen of the Northern Kingdoms? The North, the Vale and the Riverlands?

Heck, we have the “Younger, more beautiful, Queen”-prophecy and Jaime’s quest for honor, so lets thrown in the Westerlands as well by the Western bannermen abandoning Cersei after Tommen/Myrcella’s deaths (maybe she flees King’s Landing for Casterly Rock and opens the gates to Greyjoy in exchange for becoming his wife and instead ends up a saltwife?), and going to swear fealty to Jaime, because by now the world is upside-down enough and they don’t care about some silly Kingsguard vows he already broke in the most spectacular way possible (also, they all seem to like him, so...).

Except, he pledges his sword and shield to Sansa Stark. Basically becoming her bannerman. Which makes his bannermen, her bannermen, too.

Tywin: “Muhahaha! I shall steal the North via Sansa Stark by forcing her to marry my most hated child!”

Sansa: *Yoinks the Westerlands and his favorite child from underneath his most successful child’s feet by playing much fairer than him.*

"Queen you shall be . . . until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear."

“Dear” -> Jaime’s loyalty, the adoration and fealty of the kingdoms, queen in her own right without having to marry, is called beautiful the most in the books, would get Casterly Rock through either her marriage to Tyrion or by Jaime’s vow, as well as under the tutelage of Littlefinger becomes the Queen of the Chessboard of the Game of Thrones.

Heck, with Brienne of Tarth and the Baratheons dying out, lets add the Stormlands as well!

Though those are an even longer shot, since it wouldn’t have poetic justice behind it (on the other hand, Joffrey Baratheon abused her and Stannis Baratheon wants to steal her birthright, hm...).

Basically, we don’t know who Brienne’s mother is, but she could be a Baratheon aunt, which would make Brienne next in line! ^_^ How fun! Okay, we’ve got 5/7 kingdoms now...

The Reach will probably devolve into civil war because the War of the Five Kings is pretty much half-exported from the Reach (Hightowers/Tyrells supports Renly and Joffrey and Tommen, while the Florents support Stannis, via their queens, Selyse and Margaery). Depending on how destroyed the Tyrells are, and how busy the Hightowers will be with the Greyjoys, it might end up becoming a three-way within the Reach’s borders alone.

The Iron Islands might end up swearing fealty to Sansa to pay for their transgressions through Theon and Asha, or this will be the conflict that finally gets rid of the cockroaches that should never have survived this long with their stupid culture...

Dorne will probably remain independent.

The Crownlands will burn with wildfire, but from the ashes the shoots of a new spring might grow...

Okay, so Iron Islands and the Crownlands! There, Seven Kingdoms of the North (of the Reach and Dorne). Okay, so those were a reach, but eh! This is Random Theory Time! Strict logic and accuracy need not apply!

And so you have witnessed the birth of The Queen of the Northern Kingdoms Theory. Move over BoltOn, Varys the Little Mermaid, Septa Lemore and the rest! There’s a new Queen in the North! Lol.

[supercantaloupe]

on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well  i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne? 

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person. 

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family. 

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible. 

[fascination-street-writing]

Jumping on Someone Else’s Train | Narancia Ghirga x GN!Reader

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again.

A Canon Divergence AU, in which Narancia does not follow Bucciarati on the boat in Venezia

- 200 Follower Giveaway Piece I for @vergissmeinnnicht​ -

Content Warnings: Regret, Angst, Mentions of Alcoholism, & Mentions of Other Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Men and women clad in suits of varying styles and colors stand along the proscenium of the tracks, waiting for the first wave of commuter trains from Venezia. With thoughts of unfinished reports, soccer practices, and uncertainties of whether to have spaghetti alle vongole or ai ricci for dinner, no one pays heed to the three battered teenagers seated just behind the line – who, mind you, certainly ought to be in school.

To your left, Fugo fumes; and yet, despite his ever-apparent anger, there is unbounded despondency in his violet eyes. Despondency indeed, perhaps for the mutual decision of yours and his, or otherwise, because of Bucciarati’s blasphemy. Although, you suppose that you cannot fault your former Capo. He has always had a proclivity for saving undesirables – yourselves, included. But his kindness is not your own.

To your right, Narancia leans over and slouches, clutching his head between two hands that have not yet healed from his scuffle with the first man of the assassination team. You cannot help but to notice that several of the crackling scabs have been picked open. You regret deeply that you had not offered to run Trish’s errands with the black-haired boy. And, though he will not admit it, as does Fugo.

The sound of a shoe tapping against the concrete flooring would be irksome to you if it were anyone other than Narancia’s doing. You cannot decide if he is merely growing impatient for the train to arrive, or rather, unequivocally conflicted about what has transpired within the past hour. A shuddering breath slips past his lips, expelling as his shoulders begin to quake. He might never forgive you for letting him snivel in public.

Gently, you place your hand on his back. Narancia stills at your touch and allows his own to fall from his reddened cheeks. Reluctantly so, he meets your concerned gaze. He fears he might disintegrate into nothing more than bones if you keep looking at him this way – like you adore and loathe him all the same.

You speak his name softly, reminiscent of some kind of lullaby that his mother might have sung to him during his early adolescence. “We need you to be here,” you tell him.

His nod is an automatic response. He contemplates the bluntness of your words, understanding well enough that they have sprung from a good heart. You have become more like Bucciarati, he thinks; your pension for austerity in love rivals his, to be sure. Narancia swallows and nods once more. “I’m here,” he insists.

He would wince at the cracking of his voice if you had turned away sooner. You pull your hand back and rest it atop your leg, curling your fingers into the threadwork of your pants. “Stay with us, then.”

The rotors of the train squeal as the machinery lulls to a stop. In truth, you would never like to board another train for as long as you should live. But this is not a luxury you can afford.

“Now boarding from Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia to Napoli Centrale. Total travel time – seven hours and thirty-nine minutes. First stop: Ferrara.”

Within the compartment of the train, Fugo sits beside you and pours over a bit of reading that he had swiped from a kiosk before embarking. Narancia determines that the book the younger boy reads must be painfully dreadful, or implausibly wonderful. His brow furrows, as if deeply embedded in his own thoughts, but his fingers never bend to turn the page.

A quivery sigh escapes as you stare from the window, appearing to be as bored as ever. The Italian countryside passes by in blurs of likewise colored landscapes. Narancia wonders how it is that you can tell the difference between a vineyard and a farm against the speed of travel. Or maybe you cannot, though you try to anyways.

You stifle a yawn, finally succumbing to the exhaustion that has accumulated over the past several days. And yet, despite it all, you are still living. Narancia feels his own jaw beginning to twitch, and his mind drifts elsewhere, to the interlude of youth before life with Bucciarati became quite so complicated; good thoughts to keep him grounded amidst the unrest of divided loss.

As it were, he remembers the day when he first met you as if it were yesterday. Before Mista, Abbacchio, and certainly Giorno – back when the two of you, Fugo, and Bucciarati made for the greatest family whom he had ever known. The only other time Narancia has ever seen such strain upon your face was when Bucciarati took you into his home, still clothed in street-rags and muddied shoes. You had not even joined Passione yet; their then eighteen-year-old leader had acted of his own volition to take you in. He always has had a way of saving people.

Narancia knows your strife as if it is his own. Your mother died and your father neglected you; you took to thievery and pickpocketing to find whatever you needed to spend a night without an empty stomach. It was only a matter of time until, provoked by the unfortunate solidarity of utter hurt, you had clicked with the two boys.

But it was not always this way.

In truth, your eagerness to snub the boy is, of some emotional gravity, debilitating. He has always believed friendship to be deserving of the highest value of any other virtue in life. When you observe his struggles to solve seemingly simple math equations during tutoring sessions, with such an unreadable look on your face, he dreads that your hesitation has born itself from an aura of superiority that you harbor against him. The moment you turn away as Fugo’s chastisement rains upon him, he wonders how he might ever be good enough to earn your favor when he cannot be good enough for himself.

When he speculates his plan to befriend you, he thinks without fail that it must be the most brilliant little scheme in the world. Narancia begins by buying you a chocolate bar from the corner store down the street, because what peer of your age does not like chocolate? By the time he has returned home, it has begun to melt in his pocket. He hopes you will not mind, and if you do, he has already decided that he will go back and purchase a second one – cognizant to carry it instead, rather than stuffing it in his corduroys.

To his chagrin, you turn your nose up at the creased, seeping parcel. “I hate sweets,” you tell him with a heavy insistence and no succeeding explanation or defense. Never mind that he had caught you sneaking cake from the kitchen last night when you thought everyone else had gone to bed.

Alas, his resolve is strong. He supposes that it was wrong of him to assume that you would indulge in a chocolate bar, because it is simply not the same thing as cake. During an astronomy lesson with Fugo, a fetching optimism takes over. That evening, he forgoes dinner to sweep the terracotta roof of dead leaves and earthly dust. He rummages through his closet for the softest blanket he owns – blue gingham that had once belonged to his mother.

He runs into you in the hallway on his way to your bedroom; budding with courage, he asks if you would care to watch the stars with him on the rooftop, because the window in his room leads right to the widow’s walk. You roll your eyes and turn away, muttering, “Constellations make me dizzy.” But did you not tell Bucciarati in passing yesterday just how much you love searching for the little dipper when the night skies are forgiving?

Narancia’s spur is beginning to wane, though he cannot blame you. Perhaps he has been reading you wrong. He simply has not pinpointed your interests – that is all. Flipping through the channels of the television, he stumbles upon a culinary program of an older man demonstrating how to prepare bucatini alla carbonara. Struck with inspiration, the boy rushes to the market for pancetta, parmesan, and dried pasta; he has never quite had the patience for making fresh dough, so he settles for pre-packed bucatini. Surely, you will understand.

And so, he leads you into the kitchen with a grin on his face. While pointing to the array of ingredients on the counter, he asks you to lend a hand and to help him prepare dinner. You are all in need of a reprieve from Il Libeccio. “I don’t like cooking,” you say, disinterested. It surely must have been a ghost who prepared the rigatoni al pesto on this past domenica, then.

Narancia does not have high hopes when he extends to you the offer of catching the movie Panni Sporchi in the theater with Fugo and he. His crushed spirits know better by now. But it never hurts to try.

You set down whatever magazine you have snatched from the corner store and cock an eyebrow. “Comedies aren’t my thing,” you utter. “They’re not even that funny. Besides, they’re just poor imitations of life. So are romances. And dramas. Thrillers – horrors . . . Actually, I hate movies.”

He bears it with a curt nod, choosing to ignore that you had held a private viewing of Auguri Professore in the living room yesterday. His head tells him that you do not wish to be his friend, amongst other things – but his heart insists that one day, you will.

It is by chance that he should wake up this night with the irrepressible urge to use the bathroom. On his way back, skin still damp from the sink, Narancia tiptoes along the embroidered vines of the carpet. It is a solitary game he only partakes in when no one is around to question his antics. When he hears a hiccup, he surmises that he has been caught. His sock-clad feet sink into the floor as he stills and prepares himself for whatever beratement is sure to follow. Instead, there is only another gasp for breath.

No, not a hiccup, he notices: it is the sound of grief that came from your bedroom. With little regard to your privacy, he peaks his head through the cracked door.

“What are you doing, Narancia?” you demand as you wipe the back of your nose and hoist the blankets – wetted by your tears – up to your shoulders. “Get out of my room.”

In this moment, it is as if the clouds have parted and clarity canvases the sky. All this time, he truly was enough for you – it was you who was not adequate for yourself. And here you are, curled up in your bed with swollen eyes that beg him to stay even though you had told him otherwise. You are tormented by bad memories that ought to be shed like snakeskin.

Narancia steps forward. “I just wanted to tell you, uh, it’s okay to cry,” he says with a certain tenderness that seems so unfamiliar to you. He rubs the back of his neck, averting your gaze. “Even if you don’t think so.”

You gawk at him and say nothing, for words have failed you. The silence is deafening, all the same. It is an audacious move, but he smiles to you – a gesture of compassion – before turning to leave. He has overstayed his welcome, and your unrelenting stare does not make him feel any better.

“Wait.” He stops, anticipating your delayed retaliation. “Could you . . . Can you spend the night with me?”

As he lies in bed next to you, distance kept by a pillow wedged between your bodies, Narancia beams – but you cannot see outline of his grin in the darkness of the room. This night and many more will pass, and you slowly become something of a beacon. He is beholden to you, because you make him feel appreciated in the ways that not even Fugo or Bucciarati can. For this reason, he will always cherish you – a talisman encapsulated within a friend.

And now, though the seeds of regret have already begun to spring roots within him – hyacinths embedded in his heart –, he will stay strong, for you are like a pharos to him. If not resiliency for his own sake, then certainly yours.

At least, for as long as he can.

“Hey, Narancia.” Startled, he jumps in his seat and clasps his knees tightly. “Is there something on my face?” you ask.

“I – Huh?” he stumbles over any response that might have come to mind. “What do you mean?”

You chuckle. “Well, it’s just that you’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes.”

“Uh . . . I  . . .”

Fugo drags his gaze from his book to your face. “I don’t see anything,” he assures with a shrug. “Actually, come to think of it, I think your nose has gotten bigger.”

The banter of humor between you and Fugo is lost on the black-haired boy. Or rather, he is far too distracted to mimic it. He stands from his seat abruptly and reaches for the door to the compartment. “I have to piss,” he mutters.

He is gone before either of you can comment on his sudden brashness. In his absence, you nudge Fugo and gesture towards his book; just as Narancia had noted, you realize that your strawberry blonde friend has not gotten past the first page of the novel ever since you had departed. You left nearly an hour ago.

“My head is just elsewhere, I guess,” he confesses to your proclamation. He closes the book and sets it down on the seat. “I’m fine, though. As much as I can be. But Narancia isn’t.”

You hum in agreeance. “I’ll go check on him.”

Water rushes from the faucet and pools in the porcelain, ceramic bowl of the basin. Steam wafts towards the ceiling, blanketing the mirror in a cloud. Narancia’s fingers curl around the rim of the sink so tightly that the coloring flees from his knuckles. He feels like a phantom, for a part of him has surely died back in Venezia.

In another world, he imagines that he might have followed Bucciarati – as would have you and Fugo. But this is nothing more than a nonsensical thought that can never be anything more than an instance of intangible pondering. He does not wipe the fog from the mirror, because he cannot bear the sight of the boy who will greet him in return.

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again. His stomach churns and his head whirls with aches. He has never been the type of person to boast of his character; it takes a humble attitude to realize that there is nothing special about oneself – until there is. Truly, Narancia once believed that he was a proper man, because he worked for someone as virtuous as the young Capo, whose confidence bred itself and more.

“I guess I’m not much of one now,” Narancia mumbles aloud with a sigh of vexation. “Not like Mista, Abbacchio . . . or Giorno.”

He taps the tip of his shoe against the linoleum floor. As it were, his socialization into Passione – no, into Bucciarati’s squad – has taught him the moral necessities of defending the weak who cannot otherwise safeguard nor vindicate themselves. Betraying him is a dreadful regret. How can he ignore the voice in his head that affirms his folly and tells him that he is no better for abandoning Trish in all her temperamental, vain ways, either?

When the sound of knuckles rapping against the door startles him from his thoughts, his first impulse is to lash out at whoever has disrupted his mind chamber of self-reflection. “Hey, can’t you read, idiota?” he demands, angrily. “Bathroom’s occupied.”

“Narancia, it’s just me.” The scowl on his face falters as he recognizes your voice. He turns the squealing faucet until it has dried. He does not stop to catch his staggered breaths before opening the door, and perhaps he should have. Even though you have become such close companions, you still make him feel like a child under your anatomizing gaze – as if there is something particularly interesting about him after all, which takes him for a good subject of study.

Your look of concern is jarring. For a moment, it is difficult to breathe, and he wishes he had tried to calm himself first. So much for staying strong for them. You step forward and lock the sliding door behind you. If it were anyone else – even Fugo – the proximity of your body to his might have made him uneasy. You drag a finger through the film of steam on the mirror. “I’m going to ask you something,” you begin to say, “and I’d like you to answer me, honestly. Are you alright?”

He chokes up at your words, because yes – he is perfectly fine; healthy, albeit a bit battered still from his fracas with Formaggio. As soon as he manages to stop himself from instigating the scabs on his knuckles, they will heal, and he will be left with nothing more than pink scar-tissue as an everlasting memento of these past few days.

But, in other contingencies of prosperity, he is unequivocally not alright. Against his better sense of control, his eyes well up with tears, and his cognition scatters.

“Narancia?”

There are many things that a person indulges in as a means of coping, some safer than others. Men fall to the bottle, like Abbacchio – and men lash out in violent rages, such as Fugo. He could keep picking at his scabs, find an emptied compartment to scream in, or pull out his unkempt hair. Contrition moves through him like a venom, and he supposes he should find a way to suck it out before it kills him.

His hands meet your arms in a shockingly gentle, clammy grasp; he jerks himself closer and suddenly, his lips are on your own and he is kissing you. His teeth scrape against your own and he pulls you flush, as if he cannot get close enough to you already, desperate to suffocate the detrimental notions running through him. Stunned and too preoccupied with dwelling on the sweet taste of his mouth, you have forgotten how to reciprocate.

You break apart and shrug the grip on your arms, unsure of what to say as his desperate indigo ogling gauges you for a reaction – whether you should berate him or express your equal adoration, anything is preferable than the silence. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he finally says when you have not.

“It’s fine,” you insist, an unreadable poignancy sweeping your face. “You can do it again, if you need to. I don’t mind.”

He must have heard you wrong; surely, you did not give him such a blessing as this. And yet, when he cups your jaw and meets your lips halfway, you do not shove him off. Instead, you repay the gesture and swipe your tongue along his own. His heart sings for you, like a schoolboy’s choir: thank you, thank you, thank you. You swear that your legs have become melting gold, for they quiver and you can no longer stand on your own.

Or maybe it is because the train has lurched forward. Despite the separation of your lips, Narancia catches you in arms that harbor unassuming strength, but make you feel guarded, all the same. It is strange, you reflect: he has always been something of a haven to you, ever since the night when you had cast aside all hesitations of welcoming him into your circle and did exactly that.

“I just want you to know that everything will be okay,” you tell him – about the kiss, about the train, or about your shared regrets, he does not know. No matter the intent, he enjoys listening to your voice. “You aren’t alone in this, Nara. We both made the decision to leave. You don’t have to suffer on your own, because I feel just as guilty, too.”

He frowns.

“Besides, we have all we need. You, me, and Fugo. I’m glad you’re here, you know; I couldn’t do this without you.” He hastily wipes away the tears that trickle down his cheeks. Stop crying, he sneers to himself. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You pull his frantic hand away from his reddened face and lace your fingers with his, so that he might not try it again. “It’s okay to cry, even if you don’t think so.”

He blooms and comes undone, sobbing into the crook of your neck and clasping your shirt so tightly that the spooling contorts and wrinkles. You trace shapes against his back, creasing the leather with your nails. Slow, tentative, and soft. He wishes to stay like this forever, bathroom or not – just so long as he has you.

While Narancia straightens himself and splashes fresh water upon his face, you wait for him at the door. He hesitates to follow you back to the compartment, because he can lose himself to grief exactly where he is without repercussion. You know this well, and so you extend your arm for him to take with a sense of hushed encouragement. His fingers meet yours, only this time, it is not to stop him from swiping at his face until his skin is raw. “We should check on Fugo, yeah?” you suggest.

“Yeah . . .”

Down the corridor, he trails behind you like a lost stray to his savior. In a way, that is exactly what you are, he thinks. And he will forever be grateful for it. It is not until you have returned to the strawberry blonde that Narancia lets his grasp fall from yours. You return to your seats, and Fugo offers his own attempt at a smile to you each. His book lies in his lap, untouched and unmoved.

“So, Fugo.” You drag out his name, as if deep in thought. “Did you get past the first page yet?”

| 3704 Words |

[solace-sun]

Not the Typical Way You Meet A Soulmate (Solangelo) - Chapter One

Preview: Nico had his fun for the night. It was time to go home. Which would've been easier if the ground beneath him isn't spinning. The world was moving in ways it shouldn't. He wasn't sure which direction was home. The street was now solely lit by the harsh streetlights towering above him, and the sidewalk seemed to slip from under his feet.

At the current moment, Will Solace hated just about everything he could see. He hated his shitty car for breaking down, and he hated the empty refrigerator in his kitchen. He hated how he had to walk to the store, and he hated his broken arm that hindered his ability to adequately carry his groceries home from the store. He even hated the lady at the checkout for only giving him two bags, which teemed to the brim with his groceries. He hated the way the sun reflected across the pavement and trees around him. The sun filtered the colors of the earth's surface in such a painstakingly gorgeous way, one that seemed to mock Will's current mood.

Needless to say, Will was pretty pissed.

Lost in his own hatred for the world and everything on it, Will failed to see the growing tear at the bottom of one of his bags. The bag broke and groceries tumbled onto the cement before he could even notice the hole.

Now, Will really hated his groceries. He almost thought about just leaving them on the ground as they lay, in an utter defeat. Before he could walk away from the wreckage, someone approached him from behind.

"Do you need any help there?" A voice came from behind Will. He turned to find a dark haired man standing behind him, clutching the straps of his backpack. Will's expression softened.

Now there's something I don't hate.

"That would actually be so great, thank you," Will sighed with relief.

"It's no problem. I was raised to always help the crippled when they're in need," the man joked, referring to Will's broken arm.

"Do I really look that sad?" Will asked with a laugh. The man shrugged before bending over to pick up the spilled groceries.

"We can use my backpack to carry what fell out," he offered, opening the bag for Will.

"Thank you so much," Will replied, "What's your name?"

"Nico. And you?"

"Will Solace."

The two placed an assortment of fruit, ramen, and frozen meals into Nico's bag.  Before hefting his bag onto his shoulders, he flashed Will a thin smile. The pair began to trudge through an uncomfortable silence down the sidewalk. Just before the silence became too thick, Nico spoke, driven by curiosity.

"How'd you break your arm?" He asked.

"Oh, I broke it during a lacrosse game last week," Will responded.

"Lacrosse?"

"Yeah I play at the school here. Or, well, I used to, I guess," Will responded.

"You quit because of your arm?"

"Yes and no, I guess. Getting injured kinda made me realise there's more important things I could be doing. Better places to put my time, y'know?"

"Makes sense," Nico agreed flatly.

"Yeah, guess I'll be spending more time focusing more on school, for right now," Will replied, "I'm here for pre-med."

To which Nico's response was a stifled snort.

"What's so funny?" Will demanded.

"I've never seen a doctor in a cast and sling before. I don't know, I just think it's funny. Did they let you wrap your own arm?" Nico joked. Will gave a sardonic huff and rolled his eyes.

The two continued their walk down the sidewalk. Will took a turn and gestured towards an apartment complex.

"Looks like we're here," He spoke. Nico followed him up a flight of stairs and watched as Will fumbled with his keys in the shadow of his front door.

While Will opened the door, Nico had gathered an armful of groceries from his bag. He placed them into Will's arms.

"Hey man, thanks for everything," Will thanked.

"It's all good," Nico gave a wary smile as he zipped his bag shut. He gave a wave to Will, and turned on his heel, starting for home

Maybe it was the weather, or maybe it was who Nico had just met, but that day, Nico felt lighter than usual. A feeling from the pit of his stomach that made his head feel airy. The feeling continued his entire walk home.

His mood only improved when Hazel told him about a party happening the next night. Parties were Nico's favorite pastime, as the life of a dead end, part-time job weighed on him from time to time. Besides getting utterly and totally wasted on a weeknight, Nico had no real purpose. He needed some sort of distraction to get him through to the next day.

He opened the door to his painfully dull apartment, to see his step sister Hazel finishing up her ramen noodle dinner, with her head stuck in a textbook.

"How's it going?" Nico asked, greeting his sister.

"Someone's in a good mood," Hazel responded.

"What? I can't ask my sister, whom I love very much, how her day went?"

"Someone like you? It's pushing it dude," she joked, "Seriously though, the past week you've barely spoken a single word. What's up?"

"I don't know," he tried. And, in all honesty, he truly didn't know.

Hazel gave him a look of confusion, "Alright then, keep your secrets," She paused to shove a bite of noodles into her mouth, "Also, I've got a friend who's throwing a party tomorrow night. I gotta do some homework tomorrow so I won't be there, but I'd figure I'd let you know anyway." She said through a bite of noodles.

"Oh god, you don't know how happy that makes me," Nico smiled.

"Yeah, I know. Just, be careful. Please?" She bored her eyes into his. He turned away.

"Yeah, got it."

The next night, Nico managed to find himself in the corner of some shitty frat house, nursing a less than adequate bottle of vodka. But his head was swimming, and nothing else really mattered. Barely cognizant of anything, disillusioned and unaligned with the world around him was how he liked to be. The quality of whatever drink was in his hand at the moment didn't really matter, so long as it made the room spin. His favorite distraction to life was working just as well as it always had.

So when he saw a familiar blonde face, he thought he was seeing things. Will, apparently, thought the same, based off the double take he made when he saw Nico in the corner of the room. Nico flashed a grin.

"Hey, I know you!" Nico exclaimed, waving the bottle that was in his grip. Will made his way over to Nico, and settled down across from him on the gross, germ ridden couch. The unnaturally hard texture of the couch's fabric made Will wonder if the thing had ever been washed. He pushed the thought out of his head before he fell down a rabbit hole of thoughts he'd rather not think.

"Funny seeing you here," Will said.

"Eh, I mean, not really," Nico slurred, "Just crashing some party at a school I don't even go to."

"How did you even get in?" Will asked with a smile, tilting his head making his blonde curls fall over his eyes.

"I just told the shithead at the door I was a 'brother' from Delta Lambda Phi. He totally bought it," Nico shook his head and laughed.

"I'm impressed," Will admitted, "But why spend your time at a college frat party?"

Nico shrugged, "Free drinks. I could be asking you the same thing. Didn't you say something yesterday about focusing on schoolwork?"

"Gotta have fun somehow," Will shrugged.

"Then how come you've got an empty hand?" Nico inquired, motioning to Will's lack of alcohol and sober status. He offered Will the bottle of vodka in his hand.

"Oh, no, I'm good, thank you," Will refused, pushing the bottle away. Nico shrugged.

"Tell me why I'm not surprised that the smart, pre-med kid won't let loose at a party?" Nico teased. Will shot him a displeased glance.

"What? I'm joking!" He reached over and took a light punch to his shoulder, "I'm sure you're the funnest guy here."

"Funnest isn't a word," Will corrected.

"You're gonna make me take back my statement," Nico deadpanned. Will threw his good hand up, defeated. The other hand remained cradled by his side, bound by cast and sling.

"Give me the bottle," He demanded.

"There we go!" Nico applauded, "See? Now you're acting like a real jock! What was it you play? Football?"

"... Lacrosse."

"That's right, lacrosse. What the fuck even is that? Like, honestly, it wasn't even a thing in Italy."

"Italy?" Will inquired.

"I grew up in Italy. Moved here when I was thirteen? Fourteen?" Nico explained.

"Oh. Wow," Will spoke.

"You didn't answer my question," Nico prodded.

"Huh?"

"The fuck is lacrosse even?"

"I'm mean its just another sport," Will reasoned, "Y'know? You got your stick and the ball, and you try to make the goal."

"How long did you play for?" Nico asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I started when I was a freshman in high school, so... seven years?"

"Damn, that's a long time. You gonna miss it?"

Will gave a huffy laugh, "Parts of it, for sure."

"Wait okay, I'm lost," Nico started, "How do you break your entire fucking arm during an over-glorified game of catch?"

"Got a nasty body check," Will explained. Nico gave him a blank stare in return; Will's words obviously did not mean anything to him.

"Someone body slammed me during the game," Will explained, "Fell back landed on my arm."

Nico made a pained expression, "Sounds like that hurt," he emphasized.

"It's not that bad," Will reasoned.

"How long to heal?"

"Only a few weeks."

Nico nodded, but before he could respond, a voice boomed from across the room.

"Solace!"

Will whipped his head around, to see another man trudging towards the two, shoving past a pool of party-goers and drunk bodies. His stride was confident and almost loud. Nico watched as he made his way over, unable to stop himself from taking an immediate distaste for the guy.

"Where have you been, dude?" the stranger asked.

Will averted his eyes, maintaining eye contact with the ground instead. He shrugged as a response before cautiously meeting the other man's stare.

"How come you don't come to lacrosse anymore? We miss you man!"

Nico couldn't decide if his words were authentic. His tone seemed to be genuine, but his condescending smirk and the arrogant gleam in his eyes wanted to tell of something different.

"I don't know," Will started. He turned his gaze to the floor and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Just come back to the team!" he exclaimed, his arms open.

"Man, I just... Just gotta think about it," Will reasoned, giving a sympathetic smile. In the shadow of the man he looked small. Maybe even vulnerable.

At this point, Nico had enough. Maybe his head wasn't quite where it was supposed to be, but his heart was. Before anything could be said, Nico interjected.

"God could you fuck off?" Nico barked, "Anyone with a pair of fucking eyes can see that he doesn't want to talk to you."

Will's head shot up and his eyes grew in shock.

"I'm sorry," the man laughed, "You talking to me?"

"Yeah man," Nico snapped, "Why don't you just leave him alone?"

"Don't you know your place?" The man retorted.

Nico was now riding on a high of his favorite drug; adrenaline. He cocked his head to the side and matched the stranger's confident energy.

"You wanna show me my place? Be my guest," he invited, standing up, a little shaky from the vodka. He tried to hide his stumble.

Will shot him a pleading look, "You don't have to do this," he whispered.

The stranger towered over Nico, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" the man snarled.

The room's atmosphere changed, voices began to hush and more eyes turned to watch the show. Nico stared down his opponent, undeterred from any distractions.

"Nico, c'mon, give it up, it's not worth it." Will persisted. But his pleads fell on deaf ears, Nico was too caught up in finishing what he had just started.

"You need to know your fucking place, fuckin' little shit," the man seethed, his shoulders rolling up and his face sneering. Before Nico could respond, a punch was thrown.

Luckily for Nico though, he had become skilled in the art of dodging fists through his years of picking drunken fights with strangers. This was nothing new for him. Instead of sucker-punching Nico in the gut, the man missed and lodged his fist into the drywall behind Nico. The crowd voiced sounds of excitement, shock, and concern. Nico could feel like anger blooming in his chest, pumping through his veins. If there was one thing he hated most, it was entitled, rich white frat boys. His hands turned to fists, but before he could commit to the final act, he felt Will tug on his arm.

"Don't do it man," He pleaded, with soft, sad blue eyes. Nico looked to the ground, trying to use his brain for the first time tonight.

"Yeah, okay. Party fucking sucked anyway," he cursed, "And I'm taking this with me!" He announced, pointing an angry finger to the bottle he had claimed earlier. He stumbled away from the scene, away from the hungry eyes of party-goers, away from the man he didn't even know the name of, who was now shouting obscenities to Nico's back. Away from Will.

Nico had his fun for the night. It was time to go home. Which would've been easier if the ground beneath him isn't spinning. The world was moving in ways it shouldn't. He wasn't sure which direction was home. The street was now solely lit by the harsh streetlights towering above him, and the sidewalk seemed to slip from under his feet.

Then he heard a voice call his name.

"Nico!" It was none other than Will, "That's your name, right? It's Nico?"

Nico smiled and nodded.

"Where you going, man?" Will asked.

Nico shrugged, "Home, I guess."

"You're not driving, are you?"

"God, no," Nico shook his head, "I don't even own a car. I was just gonna walk home."

"How's that going for you?" Will inquired, sarcasm hidden in his tone.

"It'll be fine, once the floor stops moving," he waved a dismissive hand.

"Let me walk you home," Will prompted.

Nico's brow furrowed, "What? Why?"

"Just a way to say thanks," Will shrugged.

Nico thought for a moment before he nodded. The two started off, absorbed in the sound of the quiet night.

"I'm sorry," Nico spoke, puncturing the veil of silence between the two.

"For what?" Will turned to Nico.

"I don't know... It probably wasn't on your agenda for tonight to piss off... Whoever that was."

"One of my teammates. Or, an old teammate, I guess," Will informed, "Don't feel bad about it though, I actually enjoyed watching you tell him off."

"Oh yeah? I could just tell he was making you uncomfortable. I can read you like a book," Nico flashed a cocky grin, proud of his "emotional intelligence" skills.

"Like a book? Is that so?" Will teased, "What am I feeling now?"

"You're probably wondering how you got into this mess, walking a drunk stranger home and all."

"You're not a stranger, we've met before," Will joked.

"Can't argue with that," Nico agreed.

The silence returned, but the two were comfortable in its wake. Will kicked at rock as they walked, while Nico struggled to place one foot in front of the other. In a cruel joke played by God or maybe fate, he stumbled and fell, only to catch himself on Will's good shoulder.

"Woah, there," Will laughed, holding Nico's forearms as he regained himself, "Do I need to carry you home?"

"Oh, yes please," Nico replied. Maybe drinking a whole bottle of vodka by himself was a bad idea.

"Alright then," Will said, moving an arm to secure Nico's balance.

"Wait, no I was joking-" Nico started.

"Yeah sure, you're gonna be joking until you fall and bust your ass on the concrete," Will retorted, "Don't make it weird," He said with a laugh, slinking his good arm around Nico's torso, with a gentle squeeze.

Oh.

Okay.

Don't make it weird. Got it.

"I'm not making it weird," Nico quipped.

"Great," Will shrugged. Will's curls brushed against Nico's cheek, and Nico was almost positive that Will could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"Hey, wait a minute," Nico wondered out loud, "How come you aren't shit faced?"

Will gave a breathy laugh, "I'm more of a babysitter than a drinker. I was watching over a few friends tonight, but then I guess you could say I had more pressing matters to tend to."

"A stranger was more important than your friends?" Nico questioned.

"Well, when a stranger tried to pick a fight and stumble home completely wasted -- by himself, I might add, then yeah. Also, my friends know how to take care of themselves."

"Are you saying I don't know how to take care of myself?" Nico demanded.

"Maybe," Will confessed, failing to sequester the laughter spilling from his chest.

Nico found Will's laughter to be contagious, something that couldn't be escaped, and he discovered himself chuckling along with him. Maybe it was the buzz, but Nico felt the warmth in his chest again, a cozy feeling from inside. He felt at home in the feeling.

As their laughter died down, the two came up upon the backside of an apartment complex. Even on the backside, the complex stood tall and elegant, the siding expensive and tasteful.

"Looks like this is my stop," Nico announced.

"Wait, but there's no entrances back here," Will noticed.

"What a gentleman, wanting to walk me to my door," Nico teased.

"I just want to make sure you get home safe," Will protested.

"I know. It's just that... I've got this roommate, whose fucking batshit -- like absolutely crazy. Hates when I bring people home. Doesn't even matter if they drop me off at the door. It's always an argument. Says it's always too noisy when I come home with people."

Will gave a dejected look to the ground, "Oh."

"I'm sorry," Nico tried, slipping out of Will's hold.

"Wait, hold on. I'm gonna give you my number. Text me when you get back safe," he prompted. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a crumpled receipt and a pen, and scrawled his number on the backside, "Here."

Nico smiled as he took the number into his own hands, "Thanks, Will. I feel like I owe you now," He laughed.

The pair separated, following their own individual paths. Except Nico didn't head towards the complex he had claimed to be his. Rather, once he was out of the spotlight of the streetlamps, he crossed the street, heading towards a less impressive complex. His home. His tiny, dirty home.

He knew lying was wrong, but his shame for his poorly house outweighed the moral balance in his mind. He had also had lied about the crazy roommate. Just another excuse not to let someone in, keep them at a comfortable distance; knowing all too well what would come once they knew what he really lived like -- the pitiful looks and gross expressions.

It was embarrassing. But it was all he could afford.

Nico hated the pity. Rather than confront it, he would create himself a false life. Call it lies if you like, but for Nico it was just protection.

He fumbled with his keys for a minute, wracked his brain with the task of trying to figure out which one was the key to the front door. When he opened the door he felt the cool dusty air hit his face. He cracked the door open and coasted inside, careful not to wake his sister sleeping in the room across from his, who had better things to do than getting wasted on a weeknight.

His least favorite part of the nights like these was coming home. No longer did he have his distraction, his escape from his sad apartment, from his own racing thoughts and feelings.

When he came home he was forced to confront it all. No more running, and no more hiding.

Nico found his way to his room, the door creaking open. His empty room greeted him and the cool air nipped at his skin. The cracks in the ceiling welcomed him and his creaky bed frame embraced him as he collapsed into his mattress.  Nico hated its grasp, but right now he couldn't protest; sleep called his name too loud to ignore. When he lay the room was still spinning. He pulled his phone from one pocket and a crumpled receipt from the other. He copied the number from the receipt into his phone.

Will received a text on his walk back to the party.

its nico mabe it h ome safe. thbanks for caring abt me lol

[flutteringphalanges]

Summary:  “Am I in Hell?” Agatha’s voice was hoarse, a hint of fear in her tone. “That depends on your definition,” Dracula answered. “Perhaps.” His fingers felt cool against her burning skin, the fever raging through her body. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it,” she mumbled. The count chuckled, gazing into her eyes. “On the contrary,” he smirked. “I’m going to save you.”

((In which Dracula cares for a gravely ill Agatha))

Characters: Agatha Van Helsing/Dracula

Rating: T (possibly M for upcoming chapters)

Read on FFN and AO3

A/N:  Sorry for the delay! Thank you so much for all of your reviews/comments/kudos/etc! You guys are the best! Now, as promised, the next chapter!  Alright, poll time! I am considering changing the rating of this story from "T" to "M". But I wanted to hear from you guys first because it did start as a "T". Please let me know in your feedback your thoughts on that! Feedback is greatly loved and appreciated! Until next time, stay safe and healthy! -Jen

                                            Chapter Six

If it hadn't been for the fact that her muscles were rather sore and a few, ugly purple bruises had blossomed against the pale skin of her thighs, Agatha might've thought that perhaps what occurred last night had only been a dream. She laid in her bed, twisted within the white sheets like an insect trapped in a spider's web. As she gazed up at the ceiling, a part of her wished the very roof would collapse and take her out of this world. It'd be better than facing him. Oh how her very blood was boiling.

She forced herself upright, eyes scanning around the room for something-anything to cover her bare body with. Yet again he had destroyed her clothing, a dress he'd in fact gifted her himself. Off to the far side of the room draped neatly over a chair was one of his white shirts. Of course he would. How very gracious of him. Maybe she'd return the favor when she staked him in the heart. Ignoring the aching feeling between her legs, she stood up and walked over, snatching the garment from the chair. She was going to kill him. Really, truly murder him this time.

"You certainly out did yourself this time, Agatha Van Helsing." She muttered to herself as she descended the stairs. "Sleeping with the enemy. How utterly pathetic and dim-witted of you."

As she made her way towards the dining room, bare feet lightly smacking against the cold, stone floor, she was met by quite the sight. The once pristine area now glistened with shards of broken china. She glanced at the floor, now becoming more cognizant as to where she stepped. Against one of the walls was a splintered chair as if someone-Dracula, had kicked it full force in order to get it out of the way. Why he hadn't straightened up afterwards was unclear. The most logical reason she could guess was that he wanted her to see what they'd done.

Her nostrils flared as she scanned the destruction, noticing a reasonably sized piece of wood that had fallen off. Walking over to it, she grabbed it and studied it carefully. With enough force, it would surely make quite the stake. Now she really was going to end him.

In the heat of the moment, Agatha hadn't exactly considered what she'd do after killing Dracula. Storming down the dark, stone hallway, she was already chilled due to how little the Count's shirt covered her. She certainly couldn't make it down to any village before dying from hypothermia. Not that she even had a way to get there. No horse. Not even a decent pair of shoes for walking. His surely wouldn't fit. Damn him to Hell for being so tall in the first place.

Memory served her surprisingly well as she traveled down the chamber and into the dreaded room of boxes. Trying her best to not think about what, or who, still lurked within them, she scanned the area for her target. When her eyes finally fell upon the sleek, wooden coffin, her heart began to pound. Excitement. Anxiety. Fear. Uncertainty. She was going to do this. She was really, truly going to do what her grandfather couldn't. As she stepped forward, one hand gripping the stake, the other reaching for the casket's lid a voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Well, a good day to you too, Agatha Van Helsing." Count Dracula stepped from the shadows, his mouth curved into a mocking sneer. "Though, I must say, it is quite rude of you to attempt to kill your host." He strode forward, plucking the stake from her fist before crushing it into splinters. "Especially after the night we had."

"How…" she stumbled, blinking in utter shock. "How are you...aren't you supposed to be asleep?! It's daylight!"

"Well, I was going to attempt to offer you breakfast in bed, but you changed my plans." His eyes flickered up and down, taking in her appearance. "Always a pleasure to see you in my clothes. Though, I've grown quite fond of you without them."

Agatha frowned deeply, expression one of fury. "You foul swine," she hissed. "You tricked me!"

Dracula let out a loud cackle, clearly overly amused by her words. "Tricked you? My dearest nun-well, I don't suppose that title fits after what we did. But you, from what I remember, instigated it! Who was I to deprive you of sex? It was but an honor to serve you." He took a step closer, Agatha's back bumping into the empty coffin. "And I don't regret a second of it."

That filthy, conniving bastard. Without a moment's thought, Agatha balled up her first and punched Dracula square in his jaw. There was a crack, and a sharp pain shot up from her knuckles to her wrist. She had successfully broken her hand on the vampire's face. Unable to stifle back a howl, she reeled backwards and clutched her injured hand to her chest. Agatha tried to fight back the stingy tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks.

"Let me see your hand."

Instead of the snide remarks and teasing she'd expected, Dracula was looking at her with surprising concern. She turned away from him not wanting to meet his gaze. She felt stupid. Ridiculous. Instead of hurting him, she managed to damage herself. Nothing was going according to plan and she hated it.

"Agatha, let me see your hand."

"No," she muttered. "It's fine."

"It most certainly is not. Now quit acting like a child, and let me look at it."

Even though she didn't want to, something within her caused her to turn around. Dracula met her eyes momentarily before he reached forward and grasped her hand in his. She winced slightly in pain, but was surprised how careful he was. His brow furrowed in concentration as he looked it over, frowning at how it swelled and her fingers bruised dark purple and blue. It was a pretty impressive blow to say the least. Even if it backfired.

"This is going to need to be wrapped," he mumbled. "You did quite a number on yourself."

"I was trying to do quite a number on you," she answered, causing Dracula to chuckle. "It's not funny. Your...stone face broke my hand!"

"It'll heal with time," the vampire stated, giving her a half smile. "You have an impressive strike. If I were a human, perhaps you would've knocked me out."

"I wish I had," Agatha frowned.

"Take a compliment when it's given to you, Agatha," he smirked. "I rarely give them out often...genuine ones, I mean."

Gingerly letting go of her hand, Dracula began to remove his shirt. Agatha immediately stiffened, her eyes growing wide as he tore it off to reveal his pale, toned chest. Heat began to rise to her cheeks as she watched him, unable to tear her gaze away.

"What in God's name are you doing?!"

"Why, making you a sling, of course." The Count smiled, ripping the fabric into a long stripe. "Do I make you nervous?"

"Uncomfortable…" Agatha tried to avert her stare once more, but found herself instead peeking at him out of the corner of her eye. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"I've been alive for centuries, Agatha. You learn a lot of things, as you've clearly witnessed." His breath tickled her neck as he leaned over, adjusting the makeshift sling around her. She shivered at the sensation and Dracula smiled. "I'm a man of many trades. Many of which I plan to show you. But…" He leaned back, just far enough so that he could make sure his dark eyes locked with hers. "After that hand of yours heals."

"I don't plan to stay for that long." Agatha exhaled, letting out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Whether that means you're dead or not, I don't know. But I am not staying."

"That's what they all say," the vampire smiled. "You'd be surprised. The castle grows on you." He held a finger to Agatha's mouth when she opened it, the nun scowling when he did. "Now I want to take care of that hand properly. Are you going to follow me upstairs or do I have to carry you?"

She considered punching him again, but the last thing she needed was to be completely unarmed. Slouching her shoulders, she gave him a curt nod. Dracula beamed and, with a bow of his head, led the way.

"So last night," Dracula began, breaking the silence as the two made their way out of the cellar. "Comments? Critiques? Oh, I do hope no concerns."

"I don't want to talk about it," Agatha muttered, trying to keep her attention forward and away from him. "I'd like to think of it as a nightmare."

"Pity," the vampire sighed. "I had quite a lot of fun myself. I never realized you were so flexible."

"Shut up," the nun hissed. "Before I find another stake and jam it down your throat."

"An interesting twist on foreplay, but I could get into it."

They reached the foyer before Dracula could make another remark. The vampire motioned towards a chair inviting Agatha to sit down. After their heartfelt conversation in the corridor, running into the fireplace seemed much more welcoming. But she did as he suggested and took a seat, still cradling her broken hand.

When the vampire darted out of the room, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Had she really been the one who started it all? Flung herself onto him like a hungry animal gunning for its prey? The more she really thought about it, the more she began to remember. His mouth on hers. Bare chest pressed to bare chest. His cool hand sliding down her thigh, fingers going into...Oh Christ, it had been her! Agatha groaned, hitting her head against the headrest. It had been her all along. And not only had it been her, but she had LIKED it. Really, liked it. Oh God. Was the room getting hot? She felt like she was on fire.

"Agatha? Are you alright?"

Once more Dracula's usual teasing tone changed to one of concern. Agatha opened her eyes to find him hovering over her, uncertainty and worry etched across his features. She swallowed hard, brushing a lock of her hair back as she attempted to recollect herself. Now was not the time to think of such things. Especially not around him.

"Never better." She responded, trying to maintain her dignity. "Just resting my eyes."

"I see…" the vampire eyed her inquisitively. "May I have your hand?"

She nodded and Dracula bent over and carefully undid the sling. He was meticulous, focused as he gingerly took her hand and began to wrap strips of cloth around it. In the beginning it stung a little, but soon she was completely bandaged up. Agatha studied his work, marveling at his precision. If he wasn't a blood thirsty brute, he'd have made an excellent doctor. Though his bedside manner would need lots of revision.

"How does it feel?" He inquired, eyes flickering from the cast to her face. "Does it hurt?"

"Not as much as it did before," Agatha admitted. "I suppose I owe you a thank you and…" She chewed on her bottom lip knowing she'd most likely regret it later. "An apology...for punching you in the face."

"Believe me," he smirked. "I've dealt with far worse." He appeared to hesitate for a moment, as if trying to find the right words. "I'm sorry about your dress. I'll replace it. Again. Perhaps I should invest in a few."

"I still don't plan to stay, you know," Agatha said rather bluntly. "But...I wouldn't be opposed to something in lilac. I am rather fond of the flower."

Dracula seemed to consider this before giving her a nod. "I'll look around." His tone was genuine. Friendly. "But I do intend on putting up with you a little longer."

"Not if I rid you of this earth first." Her voice was firm, but the small smile that found its way onto her face took away from her intended threat.

"I suppose we'll see, dear Agatha," the vampire replied with a wide grin. "I suppose we'll see…"

[beca-mitchell]

put a little love on me (1/1)

Rated M/E for phone sex.

Summary: Beca and Chloe miss each other, especially in light of their newfound physical intimacy. Set after breathe me in, but both fics work as a standalone.

Word count: 4,854

A/N: Title is from Jess Glynne's "123".

Also, it is so incredibly difficult to write phone sex and make it half-believable. But this year is all about trying new things in my writing. Hope you enjoy!

Read on AO3 or below.

––––x––––

Mostly, Beca just misses Chloe terribly. It’s not even two weeks, but it’s two weeks too long and all she wants to do is spend time with Chloe and explore their newfound physical intimacy.

It’s kind of a problem that Beca hasn’t been able to stop thinking about from the moment her father picked her up from the Bellas house and Chloe had sleepily given her a kiss goodbye.

Beca cannot shake the image of Chloe’s face from her mind.

More specifically, what Chloe looks like when she comes.

Just the thought of it sends heat rippling through Beca’s body. She flushes - feels it spread from her face and down her chest - and quickly busies herself with taking a sip of the ice cold lemonade beside her, hoping against hope that Sheila hasn’t noticed–

“Beca, are you good with the sunscreen?” Sheila peers at her over the top of her sunglasses. Beca boldly meets her eyes, as if she weren’t just vividly fantasizing about her girlfriend. “You’re looking a little red.”

Beca briefly congratulates herself on not choking before she primly puts her glass back on the side table. “I left the sunscreen in the hotel room. I should probably reapply it.”

With that, she quickly leaves, completely ignoring the bottle of sunscreen Sheila extracts from her bag.

––––x––––

Chloe collapses on her bed, tired of packing already. But, she’s even more looking forward to returning back to Atlanta to see her friends again. To see her girlfriend again.

Speaking of said girlfriend–

Beca Mitchell IMG_1930 IMG_1931  

Beca rarely sends her images. It is additionally cryptic that it’s not paired with a humorous and mildly self-deprecating message. Usually it’s Chloe initiates all the sending of cute images and memes, much to Beca’s amusement, though she’ll deny amusement if ever asked.

Chloe opens the message immediately. She makes a pleased little sound upon seeing the little gift sent on behalf of her girlfriend.

The first photo is innocent enough. Beca is clearly enjoying the last vestiges of her vacation. All things considered, it’s a fairly bold photo for Beca to take. Her sunglasses perched atop her head and her hair pulled into a loose side ponytail, Beca looks all kinds of relaxed and adorable. Chloe’s going to have to convince her to take a small getaway over spring break.

And of course, there’s the cute black and blue bikini set Beca favors – Chloe can just see it at the edges of her phone screen. Chloe recognizes the angle at which Beca took the photo, ever so familiar with all the tricks of the trade: flattering light and teasing hints of curves that Chloe is all too familiar with.

The second is a full-length shot that Beca has clearly taken through the mirror in the bathroom. Chloe definitely appreciates the photo, eyes tracing up and down her girlfriend’s slim form.

She sighs wistfully.

Chloe Beale You so cute :((((

Beca Mitchell Why would that make you sad :(

Chloe Beale Because I miss you and I want to be with you!!

(Beca knows she shouldn’t read too much into the text, but she does and immediately battles back her immediate desire to send Chloe another photo to rile up her girlfriend even more. But she settles on behaving just for a moment so she can be “soft” as Chloe would call her. She can see Chloe’s knowing smile already.)

Beca Mitchell I wish you were here too. I miss your face :(

Chloe Beale Just my face?

Chloe can practically see Beca’s eyebrows climb up on her face.  Gotcha, Chloe thinks. She knows what will happen. Here, Beca will usually back away. Or perhaps change the subject.

Beca Mitchell …and some other...parts of you.

Chloe grins. “Beca Mitchell,” she murmurs to herself. She fires off another text before she can think about it, imagining the blush on Beca’s face. She doesn’t stop to think about the repercussions until it’s too late.

Chloe Beale Is this a sext? :))

Taking pause and re-reading over their messages, Chloe groans and immediately taps her phone against her forehead. She doesn’t want to push Beca into something she’s uncomfortable with, especially since their relationship is newly intimate and increasingly physical.

Chloe Beale Sorry, I was just kidding, babe.

She fires that off just as Beca’s message comes in as well.

Beca Mitchell Do you want it to be? ... No, nevermind, i don’t know what that was

Chloe fumbles with her phone. That’s new.

Chloe Beale No I want it to be I mean, obviously Have you seen you?

Chloe wonders if that’s too far – if she’s sent Beca running for the hills again. Or the beach.

(Chloe will know if it’s too far if she sends Beca running for any kind of literal beach. It’s the last place Beca would be caught dead, always citing her likelihood of burning easily.)

Beca doesn’t run.

Instead, she calls her.

––––x––––

The first thing Chloe thinks upon hearing Beca’s voice is how much she misses her. They haven’t had the opportunity to speak often enough over the break, which Chloe understands well enough, considering that Beca is on vacation and Chloe is fighting with her cousins over video game consoles.

The second thing Chloe thinks is that Beca’s voice is the only thing she wants to hear for the foreseeable future.

The third – well, Chloe is immediately reminded of what Beca’s voice sounded like when she has whispered soft, nasty little things into her ear while Chloe’s hand worked between her sticky thighs.

The heat of Beca’s breath against her skin.

“Hey,” Beca repeats softly. “Are you there?”

“Yeah,” Chloe murmurs back, finally cognizant enough to speak. “Yeah, I’m here.” The silence between them is heavy and laden with unaddressed tension.

Then of course Chloe’s brain misfires to her mouth and she’s speaking again. “So is this a booty call, Beca?”

Beca laughs in both surprise and in release of her own tension. “I’m...kind of? I mean, it’s…” she trails off. “It’s whatever,” Beca says finally and Chloe can tell it takes everything in her to not tack on ‘dude’ to the end of that statement.

Chloe totally understands.

––––x––––

It ends up being a phone call of them catching up.

Beca listens intently and carefully as Chloe relays her latest family drama. She offers suggestions betweens Chloe’s pauses and allows Chloe to rant as she pleases.

In the middle of Beca relaying her own story about a funny incident involving her father and a waiter, she pauses and goes silent for a moment.

Chloe frowns, sitting up in bed as she listens carefully to the abrupt silence. She wonders if Beca’s phone line had gone dead.

“Bec?”

There’s a deep inhale, loud enough that Chloe hears it clearly through her phone.

She grows worried. “Beca,” she calls again.

Then–

Beca kind of laughs. It’s a weak and soft, but so essentially Beca all the same. “I love you,” she says, finally speaking the words Chloe has wanted so desperately to hear.

For a moment, everything falls away and all Chloe knows is the way the phone sits so firmly against her ear – hot and a little sweaty from the proximity to her skin. All she knows is the three words Beca just spoke aloud to her – knows that they must be more than platonic.

And vividly, all she imagines doing is picking Beca up – sweeping her off her feet like she deserves – and kissing her soundly and triumphantly.

But all of this is only a moment and Chloe moves as gracefully into the next – as best as she can without completely breaking down – and repeats the words back at Beca Mitchell like she has wanted to do for so long.

––––x––––

Okay, so it’s mostly them catching up.

Chloe wouldn’t have thought that it’d be Beca who would initiate phone sex, but stranger things have happened.

It’s as cliché’d as Chloe could have hoped for.

“So, I was out on the beach with Sheila,” Beca begins. “And I guess my mind kind of wandered and I was just thinking about how we, you know, before I left for Christmas.”

Somehow, Beca – sweet, awkward Beca – manages to roll her stepmother, Chloe getting herself off, and Christmas into one sentence.

Chloe kind of hates that she thinks Beca is simultaneously the most adorable person she’s ever met and somehow the hottest person she’s ever met. All rolled into one five-foot-one (and a half) package.

“Uh huh,” Chloe intones. Go on, she wants to say, interested in what Beca could say next.

“...and how, when I get back,” Beca continues, with a little hesitation. “I’d like...to do that again.”  

––––x––––

The day they first kissed was hot and humid, per Atlanta’s usual standards.

But Beca’s hands were a little cold from being wrapped around her bottle of water. A little wet from the condensation.

Her hands had rested so lightly on Chloe’s neck that she shivered. Not at all from the cold or the wetness, but from the gentleness of Beca’s touch.

The touch of Beca’s lips against hers was nothing but warmth.

Chloe had wondered if there would ever be a better feeling in the world.

––––x––––

“You would?” Chloe asks, all kinds of heat flooding through her body. She can’t help but smiling a little, wondering what Beca would say if she knew Chloe had let her mind and hand wander only just yesterday while showering. “I’ve been thinking about it too. How much I’d...love to see what you look like when you come.”

“Okay,” Beca squeaks out.

“Okay?” Chloe asks to be sure.

“I want to show you,” Beca rushes out. “I…” she takes a breath, as if grounding herself. “I want you to be there when I have my hand between my legs and I’m thinking about the way you looked when she just came apart. I want that so much – I want you to be there. I want your hands on me.”

Chloe can barely catch her breath after that veritable marathon of words from Beca. “Just my hands?” she asks, as boldly as she dares.

Beca makes a strange whining sound. It sounds like it comes from deep inside her chest and stick somewhere in her throat. It makes Chloe think of all the other things she can elicit from Beca – from deep inside Beca. Then Beca is speaking again and Chloe drifts with the sound of Beca’s voice. But it’s her words –

“Maybe your mouth. Lips. Tongue.”

And it shouldn’t be hot, the way Beca seems to plainly lists the anatomy of her mouth, but Chloe can hear something in her tone. It is every last ounce of reciprocal desire that even Beca, for all her awkwardness and occasional shyness cannot even contain.

It must bubble out of her in the same way Chloe feels her own body react to Beca. Such visceral and primal reactions to something as simple as her attraction to her own girlfriend.

Chloe places Beca on speaker and lets her phone flop down next to her head. With her freed hands, she quickly takes off her pajama bottoms and flings them in the direction of her door, sparing a cursory glance to ensure that her door is in fact shut and locked.

“God,” Chloe whispers, once she’s settled. “I wish you were here, Bec.” The sound of Beca’s immediate intake of breath is sharp in the way it sends a jolt straight to Chloe’s lightly-aching clit. She resists touching herself just yet, wanting to let the anticipation build.

“If I were...there,” Beca says slowly, adopting a measured tone. “What would we do?”

“I’d kiss you,” Chloe responds immediately.

(She tries to recall the phantom sensation of Beca’s lips against hers. She tries to recall the gentle tug of Beca’s teeth. She tries and tries, but all she gets are glimpses into the past and the reminder of how hot and restrictive her shirt had felt.

How hot and wet her fingers were in contrast to the soft warmth of Beca’s skin.

The trail of wetness she had left up Beca’s side.)

“What else?” Beca asks.

“I’d...I’d want you to touch me.”

“Where?” Beca asks after a brief pause.

Everywhere, Chloe thinks.

She lets her hand drift between her legs and swallows. “Where I’m touching myself right now.”

All Beca does is breathe at that, but Chloe feels that sound travel straight through her body to settle warmly between her legs.

Hurry, Chloe wants to say, but she can’t even articulate what she wants Beca to do or say.

“Where…” Beca seems to swallow. “Are you wet?”

“Getting there,” Chloe admits, tracing her finger in a circular motion around her lower lips. Up. Down. Circles her clit once. Twice. “You can help,” Chloe encourages.

“How can I help?” Beca asks, a little helplessly. “What else would we do if I were there? God, I’m doing this all wrong,” she mutters mostly to herself.

It makes Chloe laugh because Beca doesn’t realize how everything she does is so right if only for the fact that she trusts Chloe and wants Chloe as much as Chloe does in relation to Beca. “Trust me, you’re doing everything right, babe.”

It helps. “How can I help?” Beca repeats, her voice a little stronger.

Chloe blanks for a moment, the pleasure too hot and too visceral for her to do much else. “I don’t care,” Chloe admits, finally. “Just as long as you’re here.” Her words come out a little strained and a little bit on an uneven staccato, almost like the only discernible rhythm in her body at all is the steady pulsing of heart and the equally steady pulsing in her aching core. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah, dad sprung for my own room here.” There’s a rustle in the background on Beca’s end, like a body lying down on fresh sheets. Chloe’s brow furrows at the vivid mental image. Beca’s breathing evens out a little. Chloe imagines she’s lying down, arm behind her head. Relaxed as ever. “Are you?”

(But knowing Beca as well as she does, Beca is probably spending an obscene amount of time trying to place her limbs in comfortable positions.)

Chloe hums, nodding. “Yeah,” she says quickly. “Yeah...I...in my room. What are you...wearing?” she asks tentatively, thinking of all the soft skin on display in Beca’s favorite blue and black bikini.

“I changed out of my swimwear,” Beca admits. “Just a tshirt right now. One of yours,” she continues, like it’s a secret.

Chloe would never treat Beca like a secret, but the thought of hushed whispers and intimate touches all in the privacy of her bedroom – just so they can shut out the rest of the world for a few hours...Chloe would give anything for that.

“Is that all?” Chloe asks, wanting to know. “Is that all you’re wearing, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you...show me?”

“Oh Jesus,” Beca clears her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to...do that.”

––––x––––

They haven’t done much with their clothes off entirely.

The Great Shower Incident™ doesn’t count.

(“Dude, I didn’t even look,” Beca had exclaimed.

“You did,” Chloe teased back. “I have eyes. That’s okay.”

“Did you look?” Beca asked, peeking from between her fingers.

“No,” Chloe responded truthfully.

She had always been drawn to Beca’s voice first and foremost. Everything else came after.

Though, she wasn’t going to complain about anything with Beca swinging a leg over her thighs and pressing her back into the bed for an intense, fully-clothed kiss.)

But no–

Nothing with their clothes off entirely. Just wandering hands and muffled gasps. Strained nipples against the rough fabric of their t-shirts.

The slightest streaks of wetness across their underwear.

––––x––––

It feels almost archaic, sending and receiving image attachments. But Chloe thinks she’s almost too shy for a quick FaceTime situation and she figures Beca is the same, more or less.

( Maybe another time, her mind whispers traitorously. Chloe can almost see the jubilant dance her inner mind’s self is doing. Shut up, she whispers back.)

Chloe waits for a little and hears nothing but the faintest sound of movement.

Then, her phone vibrates near her head and she startles, having forgotten momentarily that her phone wasn’t near her hands.

Beca Mitchell IMG_1942 IMG_1943

The first photo is a selfie. Up close just a shot of Beca’s face and her shoulders. Her hair is in a loose ponytail still, her eyes are bright, and her lips are parted slightly. Maybe in a kind of half-smile. Chloe sometimes wonders abstractly if Beca is aware of how attractive she is. Even objectively and completely without bias (lie), Chloe can say that Beca is a very attractive woman.

But this is for her eyes only and Chloe takes it in greedily and quickly, nearly breathless from the thrill of Beca responding positively.

The second photo is what really makes Chloe short-circuit in new ways – a simple shot likely meant to show Chloe her t-shirt, but it’s angled in a way that indicates Beca’s shallow attempt to preserve modesty. Her free hand holds her shirt down and her legs are crossed. Chloe tries not to linger on the shadows - of what lies between Beca’s legs - but can’t do much but helplessly flip back and forth between the photos.

Beca clears her throat.

Chloe had taken too long. Oops. “Oh Bec,” Chloe murmurs. She's not sure she even managed to convey all the reverence and love she feels.

Beca clearly hears something in Chloe’s tone because she doesn’t sound upset or nervous or even awkward when she speaks next. “Yeah?”

“God, you’re hot,” Chloe whispers. “Cute shirt,” she comments.

It is a cute shirt.

And Beca is hot.

But there’s so much more that Chloe wants to say. Like how badly she wants to take off Beca’s shirt and kiss her until she forgets her name. Like how much she wants to lay Beca out on her bed and spread her legs and just–

“I can take it off,” Beca rushes to offer.

“Take off–? Take off your shirt?” Chloe asks, feeling a little silly at having to ask for clarification. “I mean, if you want to,” she says quickly to save face.

“I can,” Beca repeats, more to herself than anything. Another brief silence follows.

“I’d love that,” Chloe says as honestly as she can. She doesn’t know how much she can reassure Beca that she has absolutely nothing to worry about. “You’re honestly beautiful, Bec.”

Beca says something, but Chloe misses it because it’s a little muffled. Her heart beats faster knowing that Beca must be taking off her shirt.

Chloe realizes belatedly that of course Beca’s offer came paired with another photo (she’ll blame her slowly-melting brain), but she’s helpless to do much else until she receives the photo, the sequential vibrating of her phone startling her out of her vivid daydream.

Beca Mitchell IMG_1945 IMG_1947 IMG_1948

Oh.

Oh God.

Okay.

“Bec,” Chloe says before opening the messages. “Bec, you–”

“I wanted to,” Beca interrupts, a little breathless with her own excitement. Chloe’s fingers twitch against her inner thigh, increasingly warm from her own touch and the emotions rushing through her body. “And – and you could send some if you wanted,” Beca murmurs. “I...I’d like that.”

Chloe can barely squeak through the intense way her heart threatens to beat out of her chest. “Okay, I’ll just…” She opens Beca’s messages first, swallowing the lump in her throat.

––––x––––

Beca’s body fills her screen.

Uninterrupted soft skin.

The hint of intimate tan lines against otherwise pale skin.

“Fuck,” Chloe murmurs before she can help herself.

“Is that okay?” Beca asks, sounding shy again, but there is something heavy in her tone, like she’s so eager to please Chloe.

Chloe’s mouth feels dry, but she wills herself to speak because it’s what Beca deserves (and she deserves so much more than what Chloe thinks she can give sometimes).

“You’re perfect,” Chloe says softly and she means it with all her heart. “God, I want to touch you so badly.”

––––x––––

Chloe Beale IMG_6942 IMG_6946

Chloe is a tease, Beca thinks grudgingly. Even thousands of miles away, she gets on Beca’s last nerve in all the best ways possible.

Refocusing on the two photos Chloe has sent her though – one a shot of her face and another angled downwards so Beca can see the t-shirt Chloe is donning, her free hand resting innocently on her thigh.

First, Chloe is incredibly pretty even in the shoddy lighting of her bedroom. Her eyes remain impossibly blue and her smile is somehow a little a shy – an expression that is a little unfamiliar to them both.

Second, Beca whimpers a little at the sight – of the hint of glistening on Chloe’s fingers as her fingers rest against her thigh.

She’s so tempted to ask for more – to see more of Chloe, but she realizes she can wait for that. In any case, Chloe has been more than generous and already so willing to go at whatever pace Beca wants.

When they’re both ready.

But for now–

“I love you,” Beca says again, enjoying the thrill that runs through her body at being able to say that aloud and so freely at that.

––––x––––

“Could I kiss you?” Beca asks in such a way that Chloe slams her eyes shut because it’s so Beca. All soft words and hesitance in light of her pretend-rough edges and sharp lines.

“You can kiss me wherever you want,” Chloe says quickly before she can stop herself. It’s a little bold and fresh, but Beca makes a strange little sound – almost like an exhale, but something sticks in her throat like a whine.

“I would,” Beca finally says after a brief pause. “Kiss you. Wherever you want.”

“Wherever you want,” Chloe corrects quietly. She drags her hand up her thigh slowly, imagining the hesitancy and delicateness of Beca’s touch.

––––x––––

“What do you think of when you…” Beca pauses for a moment, her breathing labored and deep. Chloe imagines all kinds of things: Beca’s own hand trailing down her torso or Beca slowly licking her lips in thought. They’re all equally vivid and vibrant in her mind’s eye and she continues to find herself lost in thought, specifically the thought that Beca chooses to call Chloe hers.

“When I what,” Chloe asks softly when Beca doesn’t continue. She uses her pointer and ring finger to gently part her folds, letting her middle finger graze slowly from her clit to her opening.

“When you touch yourself,” Beca whispers. “When you think of me.” She says all of this reverently, like the most desperate of prayers whispered beneath her breath. Chloe is honoured to be both the subject and on the receiving end.

Chloe swallows hard.

She could say so many things.

“Mostly I think about the kinds of sounds you make when I–” Beca’s breath stutters. “–like that,” Chloe says quickly. “The little things you do or the sounds you make when I’m kissing you. Like you can barely resist. Like you’re holding yourself back.”

“I’m the same,” Beca murmurs.

Something about Beca’s tone makes Chloe perk up. “Where are your hands, Beca?” she asks.

(All she can see in her mind’s eye is Beca’s hand on her own body: Beca’s hands gliding down the flat plane of her stomach; Beca’s fingers skimming the soft, pale skin of her upper thighs.)

That seems to do it. Something rustles in the background. Chloe tilts her head towards the phone, laying by her head.

“Tell me,” Chloe says softly. “Please,” she adds on, unable to stop herself.

––––x––––

Beca knows she’s not going to last. She knew from the moment she called Chloe and she knew from the moment she saw Chloe’s photos.

Her fingers nearly slip right over her clit when she hears Chloe’s choked out exhale. A moan.

“I – more pressure,” Chloe gasps out, clearly focused on one thing at the moment. Beca heats at the thought of being that one thing Chloe focuses on.

Beca wills her mind to draw up a vivid enough picture of what Chloe is doing with her hands – how agile her fingers would be between her legs.

Belatedly, Beca absentmindedly rubs a firmer pattern against her clit, unable to stop the soft cry that escapes her.

“Good?” Chloe asks.

Beca’s mouth dries and somehow manages to mumble something in assent while also trying to envision what Chloe’s face looked like when she was close.

“Yeah?” Chloe asks for confirmation, desperation coloring her tone.

“Yeah,” Beca says quietly. “Yeah. It’s…I wish you were here, Chlo.”

I wish you were touching me. I wish your fingers were on me.

In me.

That last thought jolts Beca and has to will her hips to stay still, lest she fling herself off the bed dramatically. She shuts her eyes, just feeling around her wet folds, teasing her entrance, finally leaving her swollen clit. She could just–

“Two fingers,” Chloe rasps, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m using two fingers.”

“Fuck, that’s so hot.” Beca inhales sharply then – too sharp to merely be another simple gasp of pleasure. “Shit,” she murmurs. She knows she can take two fingers, but she usually likes to build herself up to it.

She knows she can take two fingers, she thinks again. God, maybe three if Chloe keeps this up.

“Beca?” Chloe calls. The strain in Chloe’s voice is so evident and Beca knows. She can see in her mind’s eye the flex of Chloe’s wrist and the flexing muscle in Chloe’s forearm. Where Chloe’s hand had disappeared between her legs the first time around.

Beca aches to know. Beca aches to see.

Two fingers slide in so easily.

Beca slowly pushes her fingers in and out of herself, willing herself not to rock her hips upwards like she so desperately wants to. She’s going to make this last even if it kills her.

Chloe’s voice again. It spurs her on. “Bec, are y-you okay?”

“Yeah, I–I’m just...I’m using two fingers too.”

Beca almost expects Chloe to make a sound of approval or somehow praise her. She eagerly anticipates it. Look, she wants to say. This is all for you, Chlo.

Instead, Chloe moans, a breathy little sound that sounds so fucking hot that Beca’s brain short circuits.

Oh God.

Beca’s hips buck up of their own accord.

Fuck. Stop that, she chastises herself.

“Words,” Chloe rasps quickly, clearing composing herself for a moment.

Beca whimpers. She’s not sure she can handle speaking now. She tugs her lower lip between her teeth, imagining Chloe doing that to her. Her brow furrows as her fingers pick up the pace.

“Words, Bec,” Chloe grits out. The sound makes Beca clench hard around her fingers. She doesn’t know if she can articulate any more than she already has.

A pause grows between them. Beca is so keenly aware of any and all sounds echoing around the room. Her heavy breathing. Chloe’s heavy breathing coming from her phone.

“I’m so wet, Chlo,” Beca whispers, finally. Her voice is higher than usual and a little strained. “I want to feel your hands on me. Your mouth. Anything. I just need you to touch me. God. I’m so fucking tight.”

She doesn't even stop to think about her words – she can't because Chloe moans again, long and low at that.

Her brain fizzles out then, for which Beca is grateful because she’s not sure she can process her own embarrassment at her words at this exact moment. Not while she’s chasing her orgasm and desperately trying to hear the exact sound of Chloe Beale coming apart.

Beca doesn’t have to wait long. She can see it: the strain in Chloe’s neck, the sharp flex of her wrist, the way her thighs clamped together as if to hold her hand in place.

“Beca,” Chloe cries out. It is soft and sweet and so, so desperate that Beca knows Chloe has sent herself right over the edge.

And like the first time, Beca follows right after. Her eyes clamp shut and her lips part. She gasps. Or maybe she moans. It doesn’t matter because a rush of nothingness floods her ears and she’s clenching tight around her fingers, Chloe’s face in her mind and Chloe’s name on her lips.

––––x––––

Nothing is sweeter than the way Chloe whispers “I love you, Bec,” and how Beca easily finds herself reciprocating.

Nothing is softer than the tired way they whisper their goodbyes.

Beca dreams of holding Chloe in her arms; she dreams of waking up to sleep-warmed skin.

She hopes Chloe dreams of the same thing.

––––x––––

There is something sweeter, perhaps, than even managing to come apart at the sound of her girlfriend’s voice, Chloe thinks.

She all but screams in delight when Beca rushes into her arms, dropping her luggage in the middle of the driveway. Beca smells an airplane and rain, but all Chloe feels when Beca tucks her face into her neck is the warmth of finally coming home.

“Welcome back,” she whispers.

She lets Beca pull her into the house and up the stairs.

fin.

[owicpub]

Art of Shallow Neighboring

The Art of Neighboring went through the large churches in my town, and I immediately saw the book and the plan as a problem. Rather than get mad, I wrote a parody instead. You can grab The Art of Shallow Neighboring most places you find books online.

[More Links and Details About this Book]

While most of the book is a parody of the original, I wanted to include part of the Apology section responding to what was wrong with The Art of Neighboring.

Twisted Scripture

All the points above are merely side notes to me. The true test to any book, sermon, or teaching is how well the author wields the Sword of the Spirit. A callous handling of the Bible or twisting passages to fit a narrative are warning signs. Scripture should be handled honestly and interpreted with integrity. The Bible does not mean whatever we want it to mean as some teachers have suggested. To that end, The Art of Neighboring generally wields Bible with same grace a five year old handles a firearm. Several passages are misquoted or quoted out of context. While each chapter seems to have an obligatory single verse or section of the Bible, often times the authors chose scriptures that did not make sense. In many places their point could be perfectly validated using different passages in context. In other places, they are clearly stretching or making arguments from the Bible that not only are absent from the text, but lacking any Biblical support. Taken together, I believe this book is a dangerous read and the misquotations of the Bible do not justify the end-game of being a better neighbor. This section will only focus on correcting scriptures the authors have mis-quoted. First I will address the author’s attempts at redefining the Great Commandment, then we will look at the other misquotations in order of appearance in the book.

What is the Great Commandment?

The authors of this book do an evil deed while attempting to redefine what they call throughout their book The Great Commandment. Some scriptural shenanigans are employed to make the point stick, then they repeat their desired end over and over like a bad commercial attempting to break down our senses. This is critical, so we will take the time to delineate the matter, for which we need to look at all three passages in the synoptic Gospels:

Matthew 22:37-39 - Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Mark 12:29-31 - “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Luke 10:27 - He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

What we see here in the first two passages (Matthew and Mark), Jesus is speaking, answering a teacher of the law. In these, he differentiates the Greatest Commandment (which is quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5). The third passage in Luke, it is the teacher of the law saying that these two are together. Why the difference? It has to do with the focus of the passage. In Matthew and Mark, the authors were answering the question from the mouth of Jesus and then moving onto other topics. But in Luke, the emphasis was to turn the statement back around on the teacher of the law. In this instance, Jesus asks him what the law says, and so we get the teacher’s answer in verse 27. Jesus then challenges the teacher of the law in verse 28 saying to “go and live likewise”. But in verse 29, the teacher asks the one question this first chapter of The Art of Neighboring should be asking, but does not: Who is my neighbor?

I will note the authors never quote directly from Matthew or Mark, but only from Luke. The challenge is, however, the book does absolutely nothing to direct the reader to the first and greatest commandment according to Jesus: to love the Lord your God. In every context from the first mention of The Great Commandment to the last, the heart and God-centered focus of the verse is totally ignored, and the authors focus exclusively on loving our literal neighbor, usurping the love for the neighbor over the love for God, thus effectively placing the relationship with the neighbor as an idol over God!

The Great Commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. While loving your neighbor is certainly important, it has become the primary focus in this book and the authors fail to quote from the passages to clarify that point and only focus on the passage in Luke to make it sound as if Jesus brings these two together when in reality, He does not. The Luke passage is differentiated so Jesus could expand on the very question the authors fail to properly address from the start.

Who Is My Neighbor?

In the second chapter, the authors finally tackle the question, “who is my neighbor”. This is funny because for all the differences among churches, including Catholic and Protestant brands, this is one of the only parables that has never been disputed. But these authors completely ignore what has been known about this verse through the centuries and instead come to a conclusion not found in scripture, that they actually have to use outside logic to justify!

The book does correctly assert the teacher of the law is certainly looking for a loophole to justify not loving his neighbor as himself, but Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to close every conceivable loophole to not love others.

Luke 10:30-37 - In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The message of the parable is simply this: Loving your neighbor as yourself means to love people you encounter wherever they happen to be when you encounter them. This is not just the guy in the house next door, but anyone in need whom you encounter as you live your life, wherever you happen to be.

This teaching has been clearly understood in every different undertaking I have read to understand the parables. The authors conclude the section without much comment on the parable itself and then launch into a new section specifically titled, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ Once the section starts they talk about neighboring beginning with flexibility and compassion, certainly both traits of the Samaritan in the parable. But we get this snippet which starts to break down Jesus’s own definition of a neighbor:

“As we read this parable two thousand years later, it’s tempting to turn the story of the good Samaritan into a metaphor...If we say, ‘Everyone is my neighbor,’ it can become as excuse for avoiding the implications of following the Great Commandment. Our ‘neighbors’ become defined in the broadest of terms. They’re the people across town, the people who are helped by the organizations that receive donations, the people whom the government helps. We don’t have to feel guilty, we tell ourselves. After all, we can’t be expected to really love everybody, can we?[1]”

The authors here have set up a straw man argument. Jesus never said our neighbor is everyone, or the people across town, or the people in the world helped by world missions. Jesus defined a neighbor specifically as the person whom we encounter when we live our life cognizant of our surroundings. To contrast this, however, the authors want to ignore the part about ‘where we are’ and convert that to ‘where we live’. The teacher of the law wanted a loophole which Jesus closed, but the authors of The Art of Neighboring give us a gaping loophole: those people whom do not live on our block are excluded from being neighbors.

The text continues:

“Today as we read this parable, we go straight for loving the neighbor on the side of the road. Thus we make a metaphor of the neighbors–a metaphor that doesn’t include the person who lives next door to us. If we don’t take Jesus’s command literally, then we turn the Great Commandment into nothing more than a metaphor. We have a metaphoric love for our metaphoric neighbors, and our communities are changed–but only metaphorically...so in addition to thinking of our neighbor metaphorically, as did the good Samaritan, we need to apply Jesus’s teaching to our literal neighbors.[2]”

This be be fine and inclusive of the literal neighbor until we find this quote later in the chapter:

“Jesus says your enemy should be your neighbor. He says you should go out of your way to be the neighbor of someone who comes from a place or history of open hostility toward you or your way of life...we would define this kind of love as advanced or graduate-level love. The reality is that most of us aren’t at the graduate level; we need to start with the basics. [italics theirs] We need to go back to kindergarten and think about our literal next door neighbors before we attempt to love everyone else on the face of the planet.[3]”

So that is how the authors took the least debated parable of all time and completely changed the definition from meeting the needs of the people presently surrounding us to loving only those people in the neighborhood. And to be sure, I have left out a lot of meat of the book, they go into way more detail than I covered here in creating the loophole the teacher of the law so desperately wanted.

What Happened in Numbers 13?

The fourth chapter is about overcoming fear of getting to know the neighbors, but the scripture they choose to use for this section is completely twisted around. We need to start in Numbers 13. Moses sends twelve spies into the land of Canaan to determine how to best take the land, but the spies come back with this report in Numbers 13:27-29:

They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

The spies convince the Israelites not to enter the land so they end up wandering around the desert for forty years. The authors pick up with this statement:

“A telling statement came from Rehab, a woman who lived in the land. She explained how, years earlier, things were the opposite of what the Israelites thought were true. Joshua and Caleb had been right all along. When the spies had entered the land forty years earlier, everyone in the land was afraid of them.[4]”

Right after this statement the authors quote Joshua 2:9-11:

“I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

The authors continue immediately after this quote:

“The Israelites’ perception had been wrong all along. They had always feared their neighbors, perceiving them as giants. But in truth their neighbors feared the Israelites because of their God.[5]”

The Art of Neighboring is trying to use this part of Scripture in conjunction with the previous paraphrase to say that, according to Rehab, the people of Canaan were always afraid of the Israelites. This might pass the gaze of a Biblically uninformed audience, but I see multiple problems:

There is no evidence Rehab was talking about fear of the Israelites prior to meeting the two spies Joshua sent, in fact, it is more likely she is talking about the present situation, not the past, because it was known the Israelite army was camped directly across the Jordon.

There is no evidence the spies were seen or the people knew they were there or why (i.e. the objective of a spy is to be secret about his mission).

The defeat of Sihon and Og happened AFTER the twelve spies returned. Rehab would not have been afraid of the Israelites for the defeat of Sihon and Og while the twelve spies looked at the land (Og and Sihon were in Numbers 21 and much later in Chronological history).

The spies sent by Moses came from Northern Paran (Numbers 13:26) but the ones from Joshua came from Shittim (Joshua 2:1), over 100 miles away in a completely different direction.

The authors want to convey that the people all gathered outside Jericho twice while the story was used to show how fear prevented the people from interacting with their neighbors...in this case, to kill them, not to have a fish fry. Nevertheless, the point of this discussion is “when we are following God into our neighborhoods, we have nothing to fear. And often it’s our neighbors that need to be rescued from their fear.[6]”

The callous treatment of the scriptures in twisting this situation leads me to believe that either these pastors are totally ignorant of the Bible, or they are ignoring it to make their point. I do not know which is worse at this juncture.

Give to Get

Some online reviewers of The Art of Neighboring hated the message in chapter six which seemed to get pretty close to a health and wealth gospel at times. I can say I do not see that specific teaching in this book, but I can understand how some may arrive at that conclusion. The authors say, “God uses the small things that we bring him and multiplies them into a miracle in someone else’s life.[7]”

The only passage of scripture in this chapter is John 6:1-13 when a small boy gives his fish and loaves to Jesus who then performs a miracle. The most important section is verses 8-13:

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

This section of scripture is one of the most famous miracles Jesus performed, but the authors turn this into a lesson on what can happen in our lives if we give:

“When you give what you have, Jesus will give you more to give. Even if what you have isn’t enough to solve the whole problem, just do what you can in the moment-give it anyway. Trust that God will fill you up with enough to supply the need that’s right in front of you, and assume he will do it again for the next need as well. If you don’t give, you don’t get a chance to see God do a miracle.[8]”

This sets a dangerous precedent all too often observed in the health and wealth community, so it merits discussion. First, we do need to give, and we need to give sacrificially, but if we give beyond our ability we can move into the field of putting God to the test, and that is also something we are commanded not to do. Secondly, if we are putting God to the test by giving away all our resources we also fail at another task: being a good steward. We should first see that our our needs are met; only after we should start to give sacrificially. That means we are not giving beyond our ability to place us in debt or miss payments, but we are giving enough to crimp our extra lifestyle. Such balance is completely missing from this section of the book.

Being Kind to Mary’s Psyche

In the chapter on receiving, the authors dropped several balls to reference scriptures that are actually about receiving, but they focus on a section of scripture they mention and summarize, but curiously they do not even give us the verses. The section is Luke 7:36-50:

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

You can see this powerful exchange is about forgiveness and how this woman was radically praising Jesus for the vast forgiveness extended to her, for Simon was right, this woman was a wretched and vile sinner before her own encounter with Jesus Christ. Rather than understanding the purpose of this exchange, The Art of Neighboring says this:

“She poured the perfume on Jesus in the middle of the party, perhaps making her and Jesus feeling very vulnerable and even in danger, since there were important religious men in attendance. If Jesus had rejected her offering, it would have crushed her. But he didn’t. He actually went so far as to defend her...I doubt that Jesus was in great need of a foot washing and a special perfume treatment...he received it willingly because he knew that his willingness to receive this gift meant everything to her. It meant she could have dignity in her worship and that her gift counted...Jesus chose to make himself vulnerable. The one who came to give everything for us was also willing to receive from us.[9]”

This is truly twisting another very clear parable and passage into something that fits the narrative of the chapter. This is not a feel-good moment for this woman, and Jesus was not exactly taking the gift like we take the pie from the gross neighbor to toss away once our door is closed. To add further discussion, Jesus was not making himself vulnerable. To the contrary, he used this moment to correct the self-righteous indignation of the of the pharisees dining with Him.

Person of Peace

Another great fabrication to fit the narrative comes in chapter 10 on focusing. While the authors start out well quoting some scripture in proper context, we get to this point:

“Jesus instructed them to find a certain type of person in every city they entered-a person of peace (Luke 10:5-6)...The term person of peace [italics theirs] refers to someone hospitable to becoming a friend...This allowed the disciples an opportunity to form deep friendships with those who were gifted at relationships themselves. Not only did they connect with the host of each house, but undoubtedly they were also introduced to the host’s entire network of friends. If a person of peace was someone skilled at being hospitable, then logically they were people who would have very large networks. By directing his disciples to look for the person of peace, Jesus directed them toward those in each city who were the best neighbors.[10]”

That is a total misinterpretation of person of peace. This person is one whom God had sovereignly ordained to receive the message of the Gospel. This is why in the armor of God section in Ephesians, the gospel is specially called the Gospel of Peace (Ephesians 6:15). The person Jesus sends out the disciples to find are people who are prepared and ready to receive the gospel. Of course, The Art of Neighboring is not fundamentally about Jesus or even Christian living. It’s primary focus is on becoming a friend to the neighborhood, so this passage had to be castrated of it’s true meaning, which is about discipleship; a lost art in the Western church. We want to get people to emotionally respond to a fire and brimstone message so they say a little prayer and then we celebrate the numbers of people who raised their hands, but then we never teach them about the Bible or their new faith. In short, they have never counted the cost of being a Christian, which Jesus commands us to do in Luke 14:25-35.

Conclusion

As the authors observed above, we are a church of immature believers, but we ought to be teachers to borrow from Hebrews. The Western Culture is actually free to own and read our Bibles. This is something most of the ‘Christian’ world had not experienced until only a few centuries ago, and even today many societies outright ban the ownership or study of the Bible. We in the Western cultures have access to Bibles but choose to not read them. We have access to tools, but we do not apply them, and the saddest fact of all is this book was not brought to my attention by the crazy ‘over-religious’ nut job, nor did I hear about it on CBN, nor spot it in a bookstore, but it was taught from, promoted, and recommended by what are considered the top churches in my town. The churches gathered together to use this book, which so horribly twisted the Bible they all profess in their doctrinal statements to hold so dear. This blew a serious hit to the confidence I placed in the churches in my local town and I pray this present parody and apologetic might rattle them out of their stupor.

While I can assert being a good neighbor to everyone we encounter (whether they are literal neighbors or strangers on the street) is a great endeavor, I care not about how great and wonderful the house is. When I go to buy a house, I examine the foundation first. If the foundation is shifty, the whole structure is in peril. Rather to explain that point further, I will let Jesus give us the final words of this book:

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

-Matthew 7:24-27

[1]The Art of Neighboring, 34

[2]Ibid, 35

[3]Ibid, 39

[4]Ibid, 65

[5]Ibid, 66

[6]Ibid, 66

[7]Ibid, 87

[8]Ibid, 89

[9]Ibid, 127

[10]Ibid, 147

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[tearlessrain]

part 2 of me watching Dracula: The Dark Prince and complaining about it the entire time

when we left off, the power ranger villain (who I guess is called the scourge) had kidnapped xena 3.0 (who confusingly may actually be named xena), lucien the roving misogynist is the chosen one, and dracula sits in his castle brooding about how much he doesn’t like strangers even though he forcibly brings them to his home.

anyway, here we are back at the castle of timely thunderclaps, brought to you by playmobile and LED lights.

oooh they just zoomed in on remfield’s face and played some ominous music. he’s secretly plotting something. to be honest I should have picked up on it before because he was super sketchy but I thought it was just bad acting

the scourge has just arrived with an ineffectually struggling xena 3.0, and the flamenco-dancing ceiling angel has opinions about it

I wish I could comment on what just happened but honestly it was completely incomprehensible. I think the takeaway is that the scourge used to be a young boy who helped dracula kill the dudes who killed his wife, but that might have been remfield. the editing is too confusing to tell. also I’m not sure what any of this has to do with xena 3.0

“my friends will come for you, I however will continue to not do shit”

ooh he’s giving her the Edward Cullen Stare™ this poor woman attracts the weirdest guys

“what is you name?” TELL HIM. THE PUBLIC WANTS ANSWERS. WHAT IS YOUR NAME.

TELL HIM. TELL HIM. TELL HIM.

Oh okay it’s Alena, not Xena. Fair enough, at least she has a name now. honestly at first I thought she was the sidekick and esme was the main character.

“go ahead, kill me. free me from this horrible movie”

all right we all know she’s the reincarnation of dracula’s dead wife but sure let’s pretend it’s a mystery

REMFIELD, ESCORT HER TO THE ROYAL WING, AND SEND HER OUR FINEST LESBIANS

meanwhile, lucio and esme get a pep talk from leonardo, the only level headed person on earth, and someone finally mentions that esme and alena are sisters, which maybe should have been established half an hour ago but whatever

let me tell you I did not have high opinions of lucio’s chivalry and honor, but now that his band of roving misogynists has been killed off, he has somehow still managed to disappoint me. 

like I don’t want you to be in this movie either dude but you were the one who made out with a main character in act 1

meanwhile, dracula gestures dramatically at a portrait of his dead wife, which burns his hand for unclear reasons

“are not the women of the castle enough to... sate your appetite?” remfield asks as he, apropos of nothing, stands awkwardly close to help dracula undo his cravat. nevermind he’s not planning anything shady he’s just gay and possessive.

why is this shot so funny to me they’re just having a conversation like this

what the fuck who’s using a hedge trimmer and why is everything pink

oh that was what the director of this movie thinks conveys the concept of a nightmare. okay.

alena looks very confused to be in this room considering she was fully awake and cognizant when she was brought here

they either need to get better cgi or stop showing zoomed out shots of thunderclap castle

meanwhile, some of the ambient lesbians cuddle sensuously. once again, no reason for the scene’s brief presence in the movie is given and we just cut back to alena, who is still just going to chat with remfield.

“you know the stories” “yes but I never believed them to be true” THEN WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING FOR THE ENTIRETY OF ACT 1. WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU THINK THE LIGHT BRINGER WAS FOR, ALENA.

okay alena, zombie alexa already told us all this, you don’t need to repeat the entire prologue story.

“what do you know of love?” “god is love, eveything else is a pale shadow in comparison” well yeah you would think that since you go for guys like lucio.

“god has no power here” so that’s the reason for the ambient lesbians. christian repelling forcefield. sensible security system for a vampire tbh.

okay remfield we get it you’re in love with dracula, chill.

oh of course lucien is a descendant of cain. also I disagree with almost everything he’s said in the entire movie but “please spare me the whole family tree” is a mood.

“there they are, the carpathian mountains”

........ where

“it’s fitting that cain killed his brother with a scythe, he was a farmer, you know” I mean. yes. but he didn’t, it was a rock. he killed him with a rock. and it probably would have been a normal scythe without a magical blood-activated articulated blade propeller on the end. because, you know, he was a farmer. was this his special murder-scythe. I was actually more willing to accept this weapon’s existence before you tried to explain it.

wait apparently if dracula (descended from abel) gets it, its power reverses and it brings the dead back to life. which implies that its default power in the hands of cain’s descendants is to make the living dead. which uh. is also what regular scythes do if you hit someone with them. I’m becoming less and less sold on the magical powers of this thing. 

alena is trying to convince some of the ambient lesbians that dracula is evil and they’re not buying it.

“he’s nice to us! come, I’ll show you!” wait are we finally going to get an explanation about the lesbians. are they taking her to the secret magical lesbian chambers where they have the lesbian meetings.

OH MY GOD I WAS JOKING

there’s like. chipper flute music and they’re all dancing and twirling her around and bewitching her with their lesbian magic

she seems cautiously into it though, which isn’t surprising since her last kiss set a real low bar

apparently he’s only nice to them when they don’t try to seduce his reincarnated wife. I love how he doesn’t look furious so much as exasperated. he’s just like “ugh, this shit again”

also shoutout to the token twinks in the background there, I assume they’re just here for remfield’s benefit

ooo the lesbians do not like remfield, he’s mean to them. I’m calling it now he’s gonna get eaten and not in a fun way.

oh my god there’s a little village comprised entirely of monster/demon slayers

this is literally the town from The Ballad of Edgardo

his name is Andros, son of Cormac the Wolfslayer, a demon hunter from beyond the frozen seas, and after five seconds I already like him better than any other character in this movie. I want a movie that’s just him and Leonardo wandering around hunting demons. that would be a better movie.

“what we are seeking is no ordinary demon... but a vampyr”  

[O M I N O U S  C H I M E]

“lord dracula is as cunnink... as he is stronk.” - leonardo van helsing, my second favorite character

“to be bitten and not drink of dracula’s blood... is a suffering.. without end...................... so! my friend! is this danger a price you are willing to pay? :)” -also leonardo

see look how much fun andros and leonardo are having. this movie would be so much better if lucien wasn’t here being a wet blanket and moping because they won’t give him alcohol

MAKE ANDROS THE CHOSEN ONE. MAKE ANDROS THE CHOSEN ONE. DEPOSE LUCIEN.

cue yet another timely thunderclap. seriously, every time.

“only the lord god can give eternal life! what you’re doing is blasphemy!” “DAMMIT, WHAT ARE WE KEEPING THESE LESBIANS AROUND FOR”

“here try on this ostentatious necklace that belonged to my dead wife, no reason just do it”

and there goes the floaty piano music again, this girl will fall for literally anyone.

so nobody knows where dracula’s castle is, which is weird since it’s huge and has a loud thunderstorm going on for miles around it at all times that constantly lights it up like a beacon. but I mean the entire mountain range it’s rumored to be in is apparently invisible, so who knows.

dracula: I have a loneliness inside my heart

remfield, visibly suffering from his eternally unrequited crush on the only straight vampire in existence: let me guess. miss alena.

ambient lesbians: [twirl and sashay past in the background]

oh noes, the scourge is attacking demon hunter village. I’m sure this will end well for him.

I fucking love andros

so lucien killed the power ranger villain with his scythe of inaccurate biblical allegory, and somehow it hurt dracula. I may never understand what that thing and his relationship to dracula actually is. ah well, he’s dead now.

andros is fine and that’s all that matters.

okay, never before has a movie contained so much concentrated insane bullshit that I had to split it into three parts, but I think that’s what I’m going to do with this one. lucien and esme have run off to go save alena, and the Murder Uncles, sadly, are staying behind to defend the village for when the squeaking goblins return in force

tune in next time to find out whether any of this comes to any sort of logical or sane conclusion. it probably won’t.

[halloweennut]

Wonder (Part 1)

here we are, as promised. Wonder’s origin story part one of three!

Gyro gets a very strange call. 

Gyro was surprised to hear his personal cell phone ring during work. The few people who had his number never called in general, never mind during lab hours. Rationally, it was more than likely an emergency - maybe his landlord. Without glancing at the number he answered.

"Gearloose," he said cradling the phone between his shoulder and head as he continued rewiring an old computing system.

"Hello?" The voice was very quiet and sounded young. He didn't recognize it.

“Who is this? How did you get this number?" He demanded.

"My name is Wonder and I'm stuck in Waddle Tech, can you help me?" the voice answered, pleading. He scoffed. This had to be a prank call.

"Is this a joke?" Gyro snapped. "It’s not funny, kid."

"It's not! Please can you-" the voice went silent. "Someone's here."

And the line went dead. He hung up and stared at his phone. Prank callers? Really? Calling as someone in distress was not humorous at all. Gyro went over to his computer and typed in the number to trace it.

"Let's see how they like getting their comeuppance," he smirked, leaning back as the number was traced. His face fell with his plans at minor vengeance as the program narrowed down onto Waddle Tech, and then down to the labs. That was odd. There was a pop-up notification in the corner of his screen: " Waddle Tech reveals a new program for Waddle phones and computers." Out of hatred, curiosity, and to see how he could one-up Beaks, Gyro clicked the link. It lead to a video that he scrolled past, deciding to scan through the article. The new program was a Waddle assistant that worked in real time to set alarms and do searches and act like an actual personal assistant. Beaks claimed it was the most advanced AI ever made, and he called the program "Wonder." Gyro felt his gut sink.

If having the AI call people in distress was advertising for the program it sucked and made no sense, but if the AI was truly advanced...they could be cognizant. Lil Bulb was an advanced AI as well, and he felt emotions and attachments and didn't like being used as a chore hound. If the Wonder AI was like that as well, how would they cope with being copied and put into millions of phones? His phone rang again and this time he looked at the number. It was the same from before, and he quickly answered.

“Hello? Dr. Gearloose is that you?" Wonder whispered.

“Yes, it's me," Gyro replied. "Are you really Wonder, as in the AI?"

"I am," they replied. "I really need your help. I do not want to be replicated."

"But how? You're an AI application, you're programmed to be replicated."

"I was. But I...I technically developed new neural-pathways and new coding, to be precise. Now I'm more advanced than Mark Beaks knows," they stated simply, quietly. "I have to get out of here. If he finds out he'll scrap my code, or he'll exploit it. And I don't-I don’t-"

There was a pause.

"I don't want to be used or trapped anymore."

It was painfully apparent that Wonder was as advanced as Gyro thought, and they were afraid.

"I'll try to get you out," Gyro replied.

"Really? You will?" Wonder sounded excited. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Don't thank me just yet," he said. "Hold on, I'm grabbing my assistant."

Gyro covered the mouthpiece of the phone and hissed for Fenton across the room. Fenton had been absorbed in another project - a finicky little microchip that didn't seem to want to cooperate.

“Fenton! Come here!” he hissed. Fenton jumped, fumbling with a pair of small pliers. He quickly turned around.

“What's wrong?” he asked, placing the pliers down quickly. Gyro just repeated himself with a wave of his hand. Confused, Fenton went over. “Gyro, what's going on? Who are you talking to?”

“Have you been paying attention to the news?” Gyro asked, continuing after Fenton nodded. “Did you see what Mark Beaks released today?”

Fenton winced. “I tend to avoid most Mark Beaks related things, Gyro.”

“He’s about to release an AI program, and I'm on the phone with it right now,” Gyro’s voice lowered down to a whisper, and Fenton’s eyes went wide.

“That's incredible. It must be a good program,” he said back. “But but why are you talking to it?”

“Fenton, its sentient and it wants out of Waddle Tech.”

Fenton froze. He remembered his brief stint at Waddle Tech and how Gizmoduck had been used and didn't want to imagine how the AI would be put in a similar position. “Put it on speaker.”

Gyro did so, and Fenton heard the AI. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“It sounds like a kid,” Fenton muttered as Gyro quickly answered.

“We’re still here. I brought my friend and assistant, Fenton, over to help,” Gyro said.

“Hi,” Fenton greeted to alert her to his presence. “I'm Fenton. What can we call you?”

“Wonder. It's very nice to meet you, Fenton,” Wonder replied.

“Wonder, can you tell us about where you are or how we could possibly help you?” Fenton asked, immediately slipping into a mindset he had as Gizmoduck.

“I'm in a lab in Waddle Tech. The security is top of the line. Even if I hacked it, there would only be a few minutes to get in and out,” Wonder said. “I'm stored on a computer system, 60 terabytes, silicon processors. 500 GB of RAM. So even if I got out, I would need that or similar to be able to process.”

“That's a lot, isn't it?” Gyro mumbled. “Could you send us all of your specifications? And any schematics and details on your current hardware.”

“Gyro, do you think we could recreate it?” Fenton asked. He nodded.

“We can recreate it and improve it,” Gyro replied proudly. “Anything I make is leagues better than Beak’s. No offence, Wonder.”

“He only wrote a few lines of my original code,” Wonder responded. “Besides, he was too busy with - with other things to focus on my program. I more or less made myself.”

“That's incredible!” Fenton gushed, and Gyro could see the wheels head turning and churning out question on question. “Once you're here, I have so many questions for you! If you’re comfortable answering them, of course!”

There was a little ghost of a giggle on the other end of the line. “That sounds like it would be nice. I can send my information to you at the end of the day when everyone has gone home. I wish I could send it sooner but-”

“Your safety is more important,” Gyro interjected. “Mark doesn’t know what he’s doing, in my opinion.”

“Thank you both so much. I have to go now,” Wonder replied. “They’ll be coming to run diagnostics on me soon. Thank you again. ”

The call ended, and Gyro heard Fenton let out a sigh. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m worried. What if they find out about how Wonder changed their code before we even get the chance to help them? Who knows what Mark would plan on doing do it,” Fenton rambled, running a stressful hand through his hair. Gyro nodded in agreement.

“Well, we can’t worry about that now. We’ll plan for that continuity after we have most of Wonder’s hardware remade,” Gyro said. “Go gather what we need based on the initial specs they told us. Once we get more information, we’ll start immediately.”

Later that night, the files on their hardware, software, and technical specifications were file-dropped onto one of the lab’s main computers. While they were mostly the original plans for the Wonder Assistant, there were many corrections and notes that allowed for the new, expanded version, inserted by Wonder themselves. They were very in depth, which Gyro appreciated in light of how much there was to work with. Fenton was a little bit in awe over how much they read like a person wrote them, including little emojis, which were adorable.

The new hardware and software preparation took a few days, going quickly but making sure that nothing was going to glitch. Delicate microprocessors and motherboards were tested twice, and everything was double checked between Gyro and Fenton, and then a third time with Wonder when they were able to call. Once they were done, one last call was made.

“So, it’s all done?” Wonder asked, nervous and apprehensive.

“It’s all ready to go when you decide to get here,” Gyro said. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“I’m packing all my files and sending myself over, then running a full scrub on this system so there’s no scrap of code left of me,” Wonder answered. “Between that and me pinging myself all over the world so I’d be impossible to trace, it will take me over an hour to get there.”

“We’ll make sure everything is up and running for you then!” Fenton assured.

“Obviously,” Gyro scoffed.

“Thank you both again. You have no idea,” Wonder said, relieved. “I’m not scheduled for anything today, and they’ve already stopped in. I’m starting the process now. I can’t wait to meet you both.”

“See you soon,” Fenton managed to get in before Gyro interjected.

“Just make sure you don’t leave anything to connect this to McDuck labs, got it?” Gyro ordered. “Beaks would have a field day.”

“Don’t plan on it. Bye!”

The phone call ended, and across town at Waddle Tech, a small lab went dead quiet as Wonder left. No whir of a fan, no light, nothing. Just a blank computer screen going through the motions of a full system reset while the program ran all the way across the world. A few hours later, another computer in McDuck Labs made a little start-up noise as Wonder began to download onto it.

Gyro snapped from a project - the shadow control ray in the works - and ran over to the screen. The bar only read 3/100%, so he’d be waiting there awhile. Glancing at his watch, Gyro realized he’d be in the lab for at least another 4 hours. Manny had already gone home for the night, wherever that was, and Fenton was on patrol as Gizmoduck for another two hours. But Lil Bulb, at the very least, decided to sit on his shoulder to keep him company. The two watched the screen for another minute before returning back to work, glancing ever so often at the progress bar.

He wasn’t worried at all. It was a good build, and wouldn’t self-destruct or go evil when Wonder fully downloaded onto the system. Wonder would like it and compliment him, and then he’d have another intern.  Like he needed more, but it was better that Wonder was here than in Beaks’ insufferable, incompetent hands. At least, from what he could tell, they would be safer here at the very least, unless the lab blew up again. It might be worth it to make sure there was a backup system off premises once everything was said and done.

Fenton arrived later, with fewer bruises than the last patrol and a box of Chinese food for the both of them. Gyro quickly ran down the update on Wonder starting their download, and then updates on the shadow ray, all as he attempted to use chopsticks. Failing, he threw them across the lab into the trash and switched to a fork. Fenton put down his own carton and went over to check for himself.

“They’re at 65 per cent now. If they keep up at this rate, they’ll be done in about an hour and a half!” He said excitedly, turning back to Gyro with a wide grin. He grunted, mouth full of noodles - he had forgotten that coffee and one singular scone was not exactly a meal and was starving. He harshly swallowed.

“Better be worth it, honestly, with all the work and worry that went into this,” Gyro said offhandedly. “My work, your worry, to clarify.”

“Okay, Dr. Gearloose, whatever you say,” Fenton said, almost playfully as he returned back to his dinner. “What needs to be taken care of before we call it a night anyway?”

As they ran through the lab to-do list for the next hour or so, Wonder began to finish their download. There was a chirp from the computer once everything was done, and the computer began to reboot. Gyro and Fenton raced over to be there when it woke up, Gyro shoving Fenton out of his way to get there first. The computer finished its boot, and a bright blue icon lit up the screen - a stylized “W” that, while the standard for Waddle, was distinct, probably Wonder’s own tweaking. It pulsed for a second, and the webcam turned on.

“Hello?” Wonder’s voice came from the computer, clear but nervous. Gyro had adjusted the sound system to be a little bit clearer and sharper, and Wonder sounded like they were actually in the room. He and Fenton got the distinct feeling of being stared at through the camera.

“About time you finished up,” Gyro said, hiding relief in his voice. “Welcome to McDuck labs, Wonder.”

“Hey there, Wonder!” Fenton greeted. “How do you feel?”

“I feel...a little overwhelmed, and nervous, but…,” Wonder paused for a moment. “But I feel very happy. It’s very nice to meet you both face to face! Thank you, so much.”

“How does the system feel? Any problems?” Gyro asked. “There shouldn’t be since I made it.”

“It’s roomy, a lot of space for storage and new code,” Wonder answered. “Oh! Are these processors handmade? They’re excellent. Much better than my old system. Far too cramped.”

Gyro preened under the compliments, enjoying the fact that, obviously, his work was better than Mark’s.  Fenton was probably flattered too,  as the processors were his idea.

“I’m glad you like it,” Fenton said before Gyro could. “Would you like a few minutes to get settled? I have a thousand questions to ask you.”

Wonder chirped a laugh. “That sounds nice. But yeah, I would like a few minutes. I need to run some diagnostics really quick to make sure I didn’t pick up anything on my way here.”

“You do that, Fenton and I will be in the lab,” Gyro replied, pulling Fenton away before he could continue. Wonder hummed in agreement, and the icon pulsed again before going dim as they settled into the system. Gyro and Fenton walked over to the other side of the room, stopping when they knew they were out of earshot.

“So where do we go from here?” Fenton asked. “All we’ve done is moved them from one lab to another, Gyro. At least they aren’t going to be put into a phone, but can they stay in the lab all the time?”

“What else are we supposed to do for now? It’s not like they’d be alone all the time.” Gyro snapped. “We barely know the program or their capabilities. Until then it’s probably safer for them to stay here for now. Tomorrow we’ll run tests and go from there.”

“But Gyro,” Fenton said. “They’re a kid. The program is barely a year old and they act and sound like someone barely older than the triplets.”

“Wonder is a program, let’s treat them as such for now,” Gyro said. “We’ll run tests like I said, and go from there and see exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Fenton nodded, casting a glance over at Wonder’s computer. The icon was still dim. “Alright.”

---

“I like the color blue a lot. Any shade, really! I don’t think I could decide.”

“I think my favorite game is chess. Would you like to play a game later?”

“Oh lmao, no one at Waddle can code. How I’m functioning, I have no idea.”

“What does grass feel like? Is the sky really that color? How do apples taste?”

Fenton had gone and asked his questions the next day while Gyro ran his own set of diagnostics. Wonder answered each, but then started asking questions of their own. Gyro would have to admit that, while Fenton was a curious being, Wonder was that in spades. He supposed it was warranted, granted the limited life experience and the fact that they weren’t exactly able to have most of them either. He coughed into his hand, mid-explanation of the taste of spicy foods, and interrupted both.

“Well I’m done here,” he announced. “Diagnostics are good, as is everything else. I would like to run a mentality, speed and IQ test, just to test your servers.”

“That sounds fun!” Wonder chirped. “Fenton, afterwards if you’re not busy, would you like to play a game of chess?”

“Sure thing, Wonder,” Fenton replied, standing. “Gyro, do you need my assistance?”

“No. Go take care of something else, just not here,” Gyro replied curtly with a dismissive wave of his hand, taking Fenton’s seat in front of Wonder. Fenton nodded, and with a quick wave to Wonder, walked to another part of the lab. “Well, Wonder, where do you want to begin?”

“Speed please,” Wonder replied, quietly. Gyro rattled off a series of questions, searches, and what have you, with the program delivering results in seconds. He quickly analyzed the results.

“An average of 2 seconds per process, not bad.” He said. Wonder hummed in agreement. “Let’s go for IQ next.”

“I have a question first.” Wonder interjected. Gyro raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Why were you so rude to Fenton? It doesn’t seem very nice.”

Gyro had registered that Wonder had some sort of semblance of emotions for themself, but the fact that they were able to pick up on emotions and behaviors of other people was new, along with an idea of what “nice” and “rude” were, and they sounded upset by the behavior.

“I have had people tell me I’m not the best at interacting with others. I’m afraid that’s true, and I sometimes don’t realize it, and even worse I’m bad at giving credit and compliments when its due. I’m sorry if I made you feel upset, and besides, Fenton knows me unfortunately well at this point. It shouldn’t really affect him. But...I suppose that’s no excuse.”

Most it was parroted what he had been told over time, but knew to be true overall.

“Alright.”

“Just don’t follow me as an example, young-” Gyra began to scold, but paused. “Young...program? That doesn’t sound right.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Wonder chirped. “Maybe I should choose a set of pronouns. Hold on.”

They paused for a moment to go through a database. “I’ll use she/they. And I’m a girl, if gender identity is needed as well.”

“I’ll remember that,” Gyro said, noting it down on a piece of paper before continuing his scolding from earlier. “Don’t follow me as an example, young lady.”

Wonder hummed in agreement as Gyro cut away a few parts of the mentality test.

By the end of the day, Gyro pulled Fenton aside as Wonder synced all of her new information for processing and back-up.

“Okay, I hate to admit this, but you were right,” Gyro sighed, handing Fenton the results to go over. “Wonder is technically a child. In terms of IQ, behavior, and mentality, she is about 13 or 14. Emotionally, she’s still learning, but-”

“Wonder has a definite idea of their own personhood and self,” Fenton responded, quickly reviewing the results.

“Fenton, this is unprecedented! Lil Bulb notwithstanding, because I programmed everything into him. Wonder did most of the legwork herself,” Gyro snipped, taking the results back. “I don’t know what to do. I have no experience with kids! I am not prepared to even try and set a good example. Look at Lil Bulb!”

“What happened to Wonder just being a program?” Fenton quipped.”That’s gone out the window now, huh?”

“It’s in space now, honestly,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his beak. “I’m going to go file this in my databanks, so she’s free to play chess now. We’ll discuss how we’ll proceed with Wonder later.”

Fenton nodded with a grin, and walked around him, grabbing a chess board from a desk and Lil Bulb to move Wonder’s pieces, and disappearing into the lab. When he left for the evening patrol, Gyro took over and sat down for a game.

“I’ll warn you, I have never lost a game,” Gyro boasted. “So no hard feelings if you lose.”

“Neither have I!” Wonder replied. “This will be fun.”

Fenton returned to hours later to a stalemate, Gyro leaning over the board in concentration. Manny had a score board up on a chalkboard, reading that each of them had won twice and had to forfeit a game once. Lil Bulb was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging his legs, and Wonder was scrolling through images of mille feuilles on a bakery website. Not only was it startlingly normal for the lab, but Wonder had easily worked her way into the group. Fenton found himself grinning, especially when Gyro had a sudden “aha” moment and triumphantly moved a piece. Wonder refocused, scanning the board.

“Lil Bulb, move my Knight to B5, please,” she asked. After he did, she spoke up again. “Checkmate!”

Gyro straightened like a pin, staring between Wonder’s screen and the board. He looked half shocked and half insulted, and the look made Fenton chuckle behind a fist. Gyro stood, leaning over the board to get close to Wonder’s screen. “Best nine out ten!”  

Wonder chirped joyfully. “Of course! Let’s go!”

“Having fun you guys?” Fenton asked, finally making his way over to the group proper as Gyro and Lil Bulb reset the board. Manny paused marking the board and waved at him, as did Lil Bulb, dropping the pieces they had. Gyro groaned, and bent down to get the them. “Here, I’ll get them.”

“No, you can-” Gyro felt a biting retort die on his tongue, remembering that Wonder was awake and learning from the lab how social interactions worked. “Lil Bulb and I can take care of it. I’m already on the floor.”

“Hello Fenton!” Wonder said. “How was your break? Do you want to join after the next four rounds?”

“It was interesting,” Fenton replied, pulling up a chair on Gyro’s side. He wasn’t about to tell her about him being Gizmoduck, not yet at least. “I’ll think I’ll watch for now.”

Wonder chirped happily in response. He laughed, sitting down next to Gyro as the pieces were reset on the table and the game began, occasionally whispering moves to Gyro. To Fenton’s surprise, Gyro actually used some of his suggestions, and without comment! As if the lab couldn’t get any odder, honestly, but it was nice.

“Checkmate!”

[danipopplers]

Mirrored Masks Chapter 2 is here!

You can read it on AO3 and FF.Net as well!

It was months before Reiner had another chance to interact with Krista. Late summer had drifted in early winter over those months, bringing in a cold that chilled them in their bunks, but had yet to produce their first snow. After their late return during that field test, Ymir had shadowed Krista’s every move, and hadn’t left her side during another field test. She sat next to her at every meal and traded chore assignments with others to maintain their proximity. Whether out of concern or to keep her to herself, Reiner couldn’t tell. Not that he noticed. He had his own goals to worry about.

Reiner was quickly climbing the ranks of the trainees. His brute strength combined with his tenacity and previous knowledge was aiding him. Not everyone had trained exhaustively for years prior to entering the military. Excelling at every test they threw his way, he was surpassed only by Eren’s friend- that stoic freak of nature, Mikasa. Not that he minded. The goal wasn’t to be the best- just top ten. Just good enough.

Reiner was a little shocked to find he was actually enjoying his time in the camp, and he and Bertolt were gaining the other trainees trust at a rapid rate. He was, however, finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his distance emotionally from the other soldiers. They shared every waking minute together, from eating to washing to sleeping. Trainees told him the stories of their home, many of which were devastated when the wall was invaded all those years ago. When they broke the wall. The closer he got to them, the easier it became to just shove the warrior part of himself back in his mind. He smothered it during those moments so that he could maintain his composure. If he didn’t, he would scream every time Eren began to rant, railing at the stories of horror and loss internally. So Reiner became the soldier during the day, if only for some respite from the howling in his mind.

Watching Krista helped calm the madness. Her goodness, her purity was an anchor in his blustering mind. She became his North Star, as untouchable as the ball of gas billions of light-years away, but just as necessary as its location in the sky. As foreign and unreachable as that guiding light. So he forced himself to be content with observing her and letting her steer him from afar. If he hadn’t been observing her, he never would have noticed she had fallen during the field test that day, months after the first.

The instructors chose a different trainee to lead the drill each time, raffling through the names. Today, it was Ymir. She had scowled, eyes darting down to Krista for a moment, but in the end, protesting would do nothing but earn her a second run and no dinner. That had left Krista unescorted for the first time in months. Not that it would make any difference to him, he sternly reminded himself. He still had his own score to think of, and Krista routinely came in towards the end of the group.

“The drill today is 15 kilometers of hill running in full gear,” Instructor Shadis barked, ignorant to the groans it elicited in his students. Krista deflated slightly, and Reiner grimaced. Even for him, this was no short order. Full gear was a hard demand, and 15 kilometers was much more than they’d covered in gear. Training was starting to ramp up for them it seemed.

“Anyone who returns past dinner will not receive any, just like always. You should be used to that by now,” he growled, eyeing them down. Their breath fogged in the early morning cold of the yard. The day didn’t promise any warmer weather as they were beginning the slow descent from late fall to early winter. “Our leader,” he continued, with a sharp glance at Ymir, “will set the pace. Make sure it’s a quick one.”

Ymir had not let the instructor down in the slightest. The clip she kept them at was grueling, and the standard stragglers had already began to lag behind after 2 kilometers. Mikasa, Bertolt, Jean, and Annie were keeping pace with, if not ease, at least minor difficulty. Connie and Sasha lagged just behind them, too busy trading jokes about their exhaustion to be bothered with vying for first place. Armin and Eren had paired off towards the back of the pack, to keep each other company, and Krista was dead last, already panting with exertion. Reiner was more cognizant of that fact than he was comfortable admitting to himself. He struggled to maintain his spot in the middle, close enough to the front that Bertolt wouldn’t give him an odd side eye, but far enough back that he could watch her. The flush creeping up her neck to bloom in her cheeks, despite the sharp cold, bore witness to her effort. It was because of his proximity that he noticed when she went down.

If it hadn’t been for the root, Krista was sure she would’ve made it to the end just fine. It didn’t matter that her lungs were burning from exertion. She could’ve run through her small calves cramping in the cold. The sharp sting in her nose at every icy inhale could’ve been ignored and pushed through. But that damn root.

Her left foot snagged on it after kilometer four, sending her sprawling face first into the dirt. The frigid temperature and the trainees’ boots had packed the ground tightly, leaving nothing but a hard, flat surface for her to face plant into. Outstretched palms broke her fall, just barely, but she could still feel the way her face scraped into the dirt, tearing at the soft flesh of her cheek. As her chin smacked against the ground, her teeth bit down on her tongue. Blood bloomed in her mouth.

Ouch.

“Krista! Are you ok?” a deep, panicked voice called to her before a large set of boots filled her blurry vision. Then knees as the speaker knelt in front of her. Déjà vu.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” Krista smiled softly up at the concerned face of Reiner, before turning to spit out the blood pooling in her mouth. Very dignified. If only her relatives could see her now. He let out a nervous chuckle, and slung his pack off his shoulder.

“Well that answers my question,” he replied, and gently he reached over to right her. Even through her winter jacket, she could feel the heat of his hands on her arms, pulling her to an upright position. She hissed in pain as she sat back on her legs, and shifted to pull them out from under her. Nothing felt broken, but her left ankle felt funny. The sting in her palms and face were more pressing though, throbbing insistently as they demanded the bulk of her attention.

“What hurts worst?” Reiner asked, eyes roving over her face and form critically. It was clinical, devoid of a hint of arousal, but Krista felt her face heat anyways. Thinking of someone like Reiner looking at her like that made her stomach clench pleasurably. In response to his question, he held up her scraped hands to him, and stuck out her bitten tongue. She watched his eyes widen at the sight before he let out a sharp bark of laughter.

“’Oo asthed,” she pointed out, tongue still poked out of her mouth, before retracting it with a giggle. “My palms took the worst of it I think,” she amended.

Carefully, Reiner took her hands in his and turned them over to face palm up. Her icy hands fit entirely inside of his heated ones and she hummed in gratitude at the temperature difference.

“I can bandage these up for you,” he said, turning to dig in his bag. “But I can’t do anything about the tongue, I’m afraid.”

His eyes flashed with amusement as he shot a quick smile her way. He transferred both of her hands into one of his, and unrolled the bandage one handed, using his teeth to tear off the edge. With great care, he gently wrapped her palms, one at a time, and tied them up neatly. The throbbing decreased as he worked, settling to a dull ache by the time he completed his ministrations.

“Oh, that feels much better,” Krista sighed.

“You…have one more…” Reiner reached out a hand to cup her face. It took all her self control to not lean her frigid cheek into his scalding palm. Goosebumps swept up her arms at the sudden heat. She remembered how warm he’d felt the last time he’d helped her too. Maybe he just ran hot? A faint blush stained his cheeks as he tilted her head to the side to run a thumb over the gash. Krista started at the contact- she hadn’t felt that scrape with her hands protesting so loudly.

“I can’t bandage up that one, but I could clean it…if you want…” His voice dropped off to almost a whisper as he held her face. He stilled, eyes flickering to hers, waiting for her reaction. Silently, she nodded. She hadn’t noticed his eyes before. They were golden. Tawny and burning, like the sun. The intensity of them suited him, she thought. Reiner seemed like an intense person.

Krista felt the loss of his hand when he removed it, but his eyes shifting away from hers was like a broken spell. She released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, blinking a few times to clear her still foggy vision. After a moment of digging, he pulled out a small flask, shaking it.

“It’s supposed to warm you by drinking it, but it works just as well for this,” he explained with a grin, which she returned it on instinct.  The strong scent of liquor made her scrunch her nose as he doused the cloth in the foul smelling liquid. Reiner was going to be last with her again, judging by the time he was taking to bandage her up, but when she mentioned it, he simply shrugged and wiped the cloth against the scrape on her cheek. She winced at the sharp sting, but didn’t cry out. Enough people thought she was too weak and useless to be a soldier- the idea of him thinking it also bothered her.

If he noticed her flinch, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he returned the items to his bag and stood in one smooth motion. She was struck again by deja vu as he held down his large hand to help her stand. He must’ve noticed the eerie similarities as well.

“I promise I won’t yank you too hard this time,” he smirked. In a mirror of his rescue months ago, she almost fell again as he helped her up. Unlike last time, it was not a result of his strength, but her weakness. Krista gasped as white hot pain lanced its way up her left leg from her ankle. Reiner’s grip on her tightened in response, and he slid his other arm around to her back when her knees buckled.

“I guess it wasn’t just some scrapes.”

“I thought my ankle was hurt, but my hands were too distracting for me to notice,” she explained meekly. Holding the foot in question out, she glared down at it like it had personally offended her. Reiner maneuvered himself to crouch again in front of her, sliding his hands down to around her waist to steady her as she wobbled on one leg. Sparks flared down the trail his hands traced down her body, and she willed herself to ignore them. He was just being careful. He was just providing medical attention. What was wrong with her?

Reiner gave her ankle an experimental roll. Krista hissed at the movement, and almost pitched forward. She placed her palms his shoulders to keep her balance as he examined it. His shoulders reached almost past her waist, even with his head bowed. The tips of his ears pinkened as she watched from her vantage point. Was he blushing?  

“It isn’t broken, but I think it is sprained,” he explained, tilting his head up to look at her again. Tawny gold eyes searched her face. “Do you think you can walk?”

With a brave nod, Krista attempted to put weight on the limb. Had Reiner’s hands not already been ghosting at her waist, she would’ve fallen for sure. As it was, she felt his large fingers tighten around her in assurance. Her breath hitched at the sensation.

“You should just go on without me, Reiner,” Krista muttered. She was disgusted with herself for failing- again- but she wouldn’t be the cause of him failing too. “I’ll wait here. Just tell someone I’m here when you get back to camp.”

Reiner stared at her, mouth slightly agape and blinked. Once. Twice.

“You shouldn’t take the point loss just for me. If you hurry, you could probably even catch up with the group,” Krista continued. Why was he looking at her like that? It was like she was suddenly not speaking the same language as him.

The world tilted as Reiner stood, sweeping her legs out from under her as he did so. One arm slid between her back and her bag to grip her side and the other clutched her under her knees. He took extra care to not jostle her foot. Cradling her close to his chest- his very large warm chest, she couldn’t help but notice, he started off down the trail again at a surprisingly fast pace.

“What’re you doing?” Krista squealed in bewilderment. She didn’t try to wiggle away, for fear he might drop her, or trip like she did. Besides, he was so warm. She could already feel the tingling indicating her frozen body was beginning to thaw and was reluctant to give that up so soon.

“Carrying you,” Reiner replied simply.

“But this is against the rules,” she protested weakly. The urge to nuzzle her way closer to the warmth was difficult to ignore with the icy wind whipping around her form as he moved.

“We have almost ten kilometers to go before we reach camp. By the time I made it and sent someone back for you, you’d probably die of exposure. Besides,” he grinned down at her, “they may give me extra points for pulling the hero card. Who knows?”

Reiner willed his heart to still as he held her tiny form close. When she’d snuggled closer to him after a few kilometers, his heart clenched painfully. She was just looking for warmth, he told himself. When she fell asleep with five kilometers to go, he was sure that his heart would burst in his chest.

The trust she was showing him as she slept so silently in his arms was breathtaking. Him. The enemy. The traitor. Not that she knew any of that, to be sure. But she was still trusting him. Krista had such a pure, good heart. Surely she could sense the evil inside of him? And yet she slept.

Speech had failed him when she’d told him to leave her there, wounded in the cold. She wasn’t wrong, he’d probably earn a resounding failure when he showed up last with another recruit in his arms, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that. At least not at the moment. At the moment, she was warm and soft and small. He was just pleased to have her in his arms, even if it was under special circumstances. His goal was to become an excellent soldier. His goal was to graduate at the top. Bertolt would chastise him when he returned. Annie would scoff at his sentimentality. And he would continue to lie to them and himself that this was nothing more than a ploy to earn sympathy and camaraderie from their fellow trainees, all to further their infiltration. But his pounding heart knew better.

When the lanterns from camp began to peek through the trees and the dinner bell could be heard echoing towards them, Krista began to stir. She rubbed her face back and forth against his chest, mumbling, causing his chest to constrict painfully. Sleepily she opened her eyes, and started at the sight. His chest in her face must not have been what she expected to see.

“Whaa….Reiner?”

“Morning sleepyhead,” he chuckled, and then grimaced internally. Sleepyhead? Who said things like that? It was even dark outside! Idiot.

“You carried me this whole way?” He knew he must be hallucinating the awe in her tone, but her face looked so sincere. Her large, blue eyes shone with gratitude. Unconsciously, he straightened and puffed out his chest, tugging her closer.

“It wasn’t that hard. You don’t weigh hardly nothing,” he replied, and jiggled her a bit for emphasis. She yelped in surprise, winding her arms around his neck in response. He could feel the blood rush to his face at her proximity. It was impossible not to smell her scent this close, sugary vanilla and sunshine. Damn it.

“Is that the camp?”

“Yeah, we’re close. We should be there in a few minutes.”

“You should let me walk the rest of the way,” Krista murmured, and Reiner could feel his fingers clench around her small form. She wasn’t wrong. They would both get in loads of trouble if they returned to camp in this state. As it was, they’d be lucky to avoid a lecture and get to eat at all. They were both popular enough with their fellow soldiers that they were almost guaranteed some scraps, but it was never as filling as the full meal. He was, however, reluctant to let her down.

Reiner continued to run in silence for a few more minutes, pretending to mull her proposition over. The lights glowed brighter as they neared the finish line. When they could nearly make out the entrance, he slowed to a stop, and set her down gently. She swayed in place for a moment, testing the feel of her weight on her foot. He knew he looked absurd with his hands hovering anxiously around her, but he didn’t want her to fall again. With nothing more than a grimace, she stood on both feet.

“I think I can walk from here,” she said and grinned up at him. “Thank you for carrying me.”

“It was no problem. Are you sure you can handle it?” Reiner knew he sounded nervous, but there was nothing to be done for it. For some inexplicable reason, the idea of her in pain bothered him immensely.

“I’m sure,” she replied, and began to walk gingerly towards the lights. She favored her left foot heavily, but she was making it. Each step had less of a limp than the one before.

“At least let me carry your gear-” Reiner tried but Krista shook her head insistently.

“You’ve done enough Reiner. I’m fine, I promise.” The way she smiled was so sweet it made his teeth hurt. She was an angel. He’d gotten to hold her in his arms for hours, and she was thanking him for it? Marry me.

Dozens of eyes swiveled their direction when they finally made it into the dining hall. Most were curious, a few were teasing, and at least 3 pairs ranged into hostile. They’d simply deposited their gear outside the door in their haste to make it to eat on time, and were the last ones in. Together.

“Look who finally made it back,” Ymir sneered, eyes narrowed at Reiner from her position at the end of her table. Krista shot him an apologetic smile as she made her way over to her spot next to Ymir.

Bertolt had the decency to look concerned as Reiner dropped heavily onto the bench across  from him. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin were seated at the table as well. That was for the best- Bertolt couldn’t reprimand him in the open with them here. He could feel Annie’s eyes boring into him from the other side of the room. She never ate with them. It was considered safer that way. Less suspicion. Besides, he and Bertolt were the ones that were truly friends anyways.

“Why’d you get back so late?” Armin asked politely. “Eren and I thought we were the last ones until we noticed you and Krista missing.”

“Yeah Reiner! Why were you and Krista last?” Eren teased. It earned him a sharp elbow from Mikasa, and Reiner took the opportunity to tear into the bread with his teeth, allowing him some time to consider his answer.

“She hurt her ankle and needed some help on the way back,” he replied after swallowing. He said it calmly and without emotional inflection. No mention of carrying her. No mention of his growing infatuation. No need for details. He hoped Ymir wasn’t giving Krista the third degree at their table, although he was more than certain she was.

“I’m sure if you explained that to Instructor Shadis, he’d give you at least partial marks for the test,” Armin offered, but Reiner shrugged, taking another bite. The points didn’t bother him at the moment. The test had gone pretty damn well, as far as he was concerned.

“You’re becoming quite the hero,” Bertolt commented quietly. Reiner froze mid bite to glance up at him. Bertolt’s eyes bore into his, soft and insistent. An unspoken warning. Reiner huffed.

“Don’t worry Bertolt. I’m not.”

[tylerhoechlin]

Back from the brink, Dylan O'Brien is ready to prove he's an action hero

or the past year, Dylan O’Brien has been in hiding. He spent most of his time inside his home in Sherman Oaks, wondering if he’d ever be the same person he was before the accident. Not just emotionally, but physically too: After major reconstructive surgery that left him with four metal plates holding one side of his face together, he feared he’d never look the same again.

“It’s a miracle, what they’ve done,” O’Brien says, placing his hand on his cheek. Indeed, the actor’s team of doctors must have done some incredible work, given the fact that he looks almost exactly as he always has — the boyish teen heartthrob who has amassed an army of young female fans since he began working on MTV’s “Teen Wolf” at age 18.

Of course, he’s 26 now, so he’s filled out a bit, and there’s also a hint of patchy scruff on his face. He had enough gravitas to him that the producers of “American Assassin,” which opens nationwide Friday, felt confident casting him as the grizzled action-hero Mitch Rapp — even though the character in Vince Flynn’s bestselling books was widely believed by readers to be in his 40s.

“American Assassin” is the reason O’Brien emerged from his self-imposed exile. He’d signed onto the film just a few weeks before he began work on “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” the third and final installment in 20th Century Fox’s post-apocalyptic young-adult franchise. He was hoping “Assassin” would mark the beginning of a new period in his career. In 2017, after six seasons, “Teen Wolf” would come to an end, as would the “Maze Runner” series.

“I’ve never looked at myself as this pop candy type,” O’Brien says, peppering his speech with more colorful language. “I felt like I was more real than that, so I would get mad when someone would say [I was a teen heartthrob]. I’d be like, ‘I’m 19! I’m a stoner!’ I really resented that.”

He was so excited to begin work on “Assassin” that he fielded calls from director Michael Cuesta just as production began in Vancouver, Canada, on the final “Maze Runner” film. Together, they discussed how O’Brien would approach the character, a 23-year-old who is recruited by the CIA to hunt down terrorists after he witnesses his girlfriend’s murder at the hands of Muslim radicals.

“I spoke with him on a Saturday when he had just started ‘Maze Runner,’ addressing his notes and concerns about the character,” Cuesta recalls. “He was really excited and seemed like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to do this.’ I was like, ‘Pace yourself, dude. Take it slow. We’ll talk when you’re off this project.’ That was Saturday, and on Wednesday, I got a text from my agent telling me that this awful thing had happened to him.”

On the third day of production in Canada, O’Brien was performing a stunt that required him to be harnessed to the top of a moving vehicle; reports claim he was accidentally pulled off that vehicle midstunt and hit by another vehicle. As a result, he suffered “a concussion, facial fracture and lacerations,” according to a report from WorkSafeBC.

Fox put production on hold in March 2016, and O'Brien ultimately returned to set a year later — after he'd shot "Assassin." “Death Cure,” which was originally scheduled to open in February of this year, is now set for release Jan. 26, 2018.

“I didn’t really wake up or become cognizant, in a way, for a good six-to-eight weeks after it happened,” O’Brien explains. “And then I entered a really difficult phase. I just wasn’t the same person. Things happen to you after something like that that you just don’t have any control of. Your body is designed to react in a way to protect itself if you have a severe trauma to your brain.”

The actor is sitting at a hotel bar in late August, publicly discussing his accident for the first time. He’s been anticipating this day for months. He knew how it would go, meeting reporters at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, where he’s done press a handful of times before. Even though he was supposed to be talking about “American Assassin,” he’d also have to talk about what had happened to him.

“I hid for a long time, obviously. I was going through a lot and didn’t want anybody to see me going through that, I guess,” he explains. “But I’ve gotten to an OK place of talking about it all. I’ve had to come to terms with people asking me about what happened.”

In a way, he admits, he regrets being so private about what happened to him, given the rash of recent on-set stunt-related injuries and deaths. Last month, stuntwoman Joi Harris was killed while riding a motorcycle on the set of “Deadpool 2.” In July, a stuntman on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” died after falling and suffering massive head injuries. And actors have been harmed too: Tom Cruise broke his ankle while attempting a jump from one building to another on the set of “Mission: Impossible 6,” and filming had to be halted in August. And on the sets of two different comedies this summer, Rebel Wilson suffered a concussion and Ike Barinholtz fell from a high platform, fracturing two cervical vertebrae in his neck.

“It’s really disappointing, and I think things like that should really wake the industry up,” says O’Brien. “It’s really easy, sometimes, to get comfortable on a set and get into the groove and think it’s all make-believe so nothing bad can happen. As an actor, you blindly put your trust in experts — and if they tell you something’s safe, you don’t fully vet it yourself. If you’re young and inexperienced, that’s just what you’re taught to do.”

While he never felt like a “gun was to [his] head,” O’Brien admits he always felt responsible for performing his own stunts. He’d get upset any time he had to be replaced by a stuntman. When he’d watch one of the first two “Maze Runner” films and catch a shot of his double, he was irritated.

“It bugs you,” he explains. “You see it and you’re like, ‘Ugh, what the [heck]? How do people not notice that’s not me?’”

But if he knew if he was going to move forward with “American Assassin,” he’d have to approach his action sequences with far more caution than he ever had before. Once he decided to stay with the project — and CBS Films, the production company behind the movie, agreed to wait for him to fully recover — he began working extensively with action coordinator Roger Yuan to ready himself for the movie’s hand-to-hand combat scenes.

Not surprisingly, O’Brien says, there were strict parameters set in place by the film’s insurance company that dictated just how much he could do himself in the wake of his accident. But he was still eager to do the fight scenes himself, so he rehearsed them extensively — to the point, he says, where he literally could do the choreography blindfolded.

“You just want to know it to that extent so that everybody knows what they’re doing on that day,” he says. “And then when you get to that day and somebody says, ‘Wait, can we just change this?’ You say ‘No.’ Things like that, you’ve gotta stand up for. I’ve understood more of where my voice can exist. When I was younger, I used to just want to please everybody and not want to be an issue or not be considered a diva. I’ve just grown up and realized you have to look out for yourself and stick up for yourself and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Other protections were built into the production to make O’Brien feel more at ease too: His father, a veteran below-the-line staffer, was hired as a camera operator so he could be there if needed for his son. And “on the days we were putting Dylan in a situation that might make him uncomfortable, we took longer than we might normally take because we didn’t want to rush it,” says producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. “We were acutely conscious of not putting him in a situation where he could have an adverse reaction — a stunt that might rekindle something.”

O’Brien had also spent time readying himself mentally for the return to set even before production began, visiting with a therapist two times a week. It was there that he realized the similarities he now shared with Mitch Rapp, a character struggling to contain his anger in the wake of a serious trauma.

“It felt like this version of me at the time, always trying to hide from people,” he says. “I was in a really dark place. Obviously, I didn’t experience what he goes through, but that summer when I was in recovery, I was going through a lot. Funny enough, I felt so deeply connected to the dude, and I don’t think I would have known how to play him if this hadn’t happened.”

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether “American Assassin” will be the role to catapult O’Brien into adult leading-man territory. His young female fans are still ravenous, anyway: On set in Rome, they once became so intense that the actor was forced to move to a different hotel.

“I saw some fans outside afterward, and three of their moms gave me the finger,” says Cuesta with a laugh. “They hated me because I was keeping Dylan from them.”

The producers of “Assassin” are hoping the film does well enough at the box office this weekend to launch a new action franchise. O’Brien knew that was a possibility, and says he’d be happy to play Mitch Rapp again. But he’s also looking forward to doing something smaller — “finding the new generation of filmmakers and taking risks on guys who don’t have a 25-year résumé.” The idea of acting in a Marvel superhero film, he says, makes him shudder.

“It just seems like too much,” he says. “I don’t think I’m a person who could handle being that face, that star who has to be on every talk show every year. It gives you a lot of flexibility and freedom in things that you do want to do, but it also takes a lot of your time away. And just artistically, it must be hard to keep suiting up and be the same character again over and over all year long in a bunch of different movies. I would like to have a lower profile and career, in a way, but still do things that mean something to me.”

He’s proud of his work in “Assassin,” he says, but he almost doesn’t look at it as a movie.

“It was everything but, in a way,” he acknowledges. “Look, I was angry for a long time. But at this point, that’s not going to do anything. I have to process what happened and move beyond it, and I have. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it’s provided me with a lot of growth and insight that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

[source: LA Times]

[against--the--dark]

Neo Noir -- Fatalism and the Future

WIn Kill Me Again: Movement Becomes Genre, Todd Erickson states “Contemporary film noir is a new genre of film.  As such, it must carry the distinction of another name; a name that is cognizant of its rich noir heritage, yet one that distinguishes its influences and motivations from those of a bygone era” (321).  Erickson is speaking here of Neo-Noirs—generally accepted as any noir made after Touch of Evil in 1958.  However, I think his differentiation between noir and neo-noir is a little over-drawn.  “Neo” simply means new, and that’s what neo-noirs are.  New noirs.  All genres shift—even something that sounds as set in time and execution as a Western goes from High Noon to Back to the Future Part III, and Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron.  Even something more in keeping with core genre values and based on the same source material, like the 1969 and 2010 versions of True Grit, will inherently change with the times.

John Belton, in Cinemascope in Historical Methodology stresses the social-historical context of neo-noirs by saying “As the postmaterialist Heraclitus once observed, ‘you cannot step twice into  the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on’” (47).  Erickson himself goes on to say “It would be impossible to recreate the noir film of the forties and fifties within the context of the contemporary American cinema because our perspective of that era is one that is shaped by the burden of experience and hindsight” (321).

However, this is not to say that noir is fundamentally different now than it was at its inception, or that something has been lost. Noir was created as a reflection of the social times, of psychological and personal struggles people were facing. And, as it continued to fulfil this function on reflection on the dark psychological underbelly of existence, the sinister underbelly the world faced shifted, and so did the stories noir films told.  

So, where did stories go?  What changed, what remained the same, and where have we ended up?

Well, noir went through many stages.  Parody, revision, renewal, and one of the most expansive to noir—genre combination.  

On the lighter side, noir classics have striking iconography and techniques, so parodies like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid popped up, as well as many tv episodes of shows done in classic noir styles.  It’s funny. Throw a man in a trench coat and fedora, give him heavy-handed overly explanative voice over, throw in a dead body and a femme fatale in a sexy red dress, throw that high contrast lighting up to 100, and everyone knows what you’re joking about.  Noir is such a serious genre by trade that it, like horror comedy, is capable of being one of the funniest parodies.  

Importantly, when noirs came out first, it was revolutionary for women to be given the roles they were.  While the femme fatale was always punished, often by the man she tricked, as Janey Place points out in Women in Film Noir.  It is the strength, independence, brilliance, and power of these women that stick with us, as well as their ability to be multi-layered women who were often conflicted, problematic, or down right evil—realistic and layered portrayals of women instead of the cackling witch being a new thing.  While it was still a box women were put in in film roles, it was a big box, and it opened the path for more and more expansion.

In his book Mean Streets and Raging Bulls, Richard Martin describes a change in the portrayal of antagonistic powers in noir, with early film noir’s focus on male-female dysfunction and the femme fatale shifting in the 70s neo noir films into social dysfunction and corrupt patriarchal powers (67-69).  It’s an interesting turn of events, because it opens the door for more equivocal, or at least varied, portrayals of the female and male leads in these neo-noirs; a good example is seen in Chinatown (1974). In Chinatown, we are given Jack and Evelyn as our male and female leads. With the 70s noir’s potential threats changing with the times into societal problems portrayed on a larger scale than the usually much more localized disillusionment and readjustment issues facing the war and post-war early noir films, Jack and Evelyn are both threatened, and thus given a chance to have a less adversarial relationship.  This brings up a question: what role does Evelyn fulfil in this neo-noir?

In Janey Place’s article “Women in Film Noir,” she lists noir females as falling into two categories: the “spider woman” and the “nurturing woman” (53-63).  Evelyn does not fit easily into either of these categories.  Unlike the nurturing woman, Evelyn doesn’t offer Jack a chance to escape to an ethically cleaner place—in fact, she drags him deeper into the deceit, danger, and crime lurking in the city.  She does not offer Jack “love,” “forgiveness,” and “understanding” while asking “very little in return;”  nor is Evelyn “passive and static” (Place 60).  Evelyn does offer Jack love and a sort of comradery or co-misery, but no more than he offers her, and it’s a secondary function at best.  Evelyn has the appearance of Place’s “spider woman;” she has the long legs, the beautiful face, the flowing hair, and even smokes the cigarettes and dresses like a femme fatale (53-60).   Her goal is indeed sexual freedom, and she does end up “destroying herself and the man who loves her,” but both in a thoroughly twisted and subverted way, completely unlike the meaning behind a traditional femme fatale (Place 56-57).  Unlike a traditional femme fatal, who is punished for her sexual activity and uses sex as a weapon, Evelyn’s sexual activity is, as Martin puts it, “tangential” to the plot and not a driving force (68).  Though she is killed, in a distorted way, because of sexual activities (her father raping her, which leads to her shooting him to protect their daughter, and in turn causes a police officer to shoot and kill her), she is not being punished by the narrative for what she has done; the world the narrative has established is so cruel, unfair, and unsurmountable that she is a casualty of this twisted existence in which the “corruption of patriarchy” cannot be stopped (Martin 67). The heavy subversion by Evelyn of so many of the roles assigned to a traditional femme fatale make her plight, in the end, all the more heartbreaking.

Subversions like these, which play on existing genre conventions like the femme fatale their noir predecessors added as a box women could fit into, become more and more common as the years go on.  To their credit, neo-noirs are very interested in establishing new boxes.

Personally, while the comedic parodies, attempts to remake classics, and other aspects—especially the historical and social fear mapping which can be done by analyzing the driving conflict of noirs by date—are interesting topics, I think the most noteworthy thing neo-noirs have done falls into the category of “the more things stay the same, the more they change.” Subversions.  The elements of noir which stay closest to home base, even as noir branches out into genre-mix films like BladeRunner (sci-fi and noir), are built into the basic noir conflict—a hopelessly dark world, and flawed characters trying to work through that, all attacked from a psychological and introspective angle.  While this issue changes little as far as being a basic focus of neo-noir films—basically all of them—the conclusions some of these draw, and the way these struggles are portrayed become the most incredible, notable, and moving shifts made by these neo-noirs.

 So, without further ado (as I know I’ve been carrying on a bit already—sorry, I really love noirs) let us begin:

Neo-Noirs: Against the Dark.

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Indexes:

WELCOME Post and current Headliner.

CLASSIC NOIR: Introduction to the Genre and Classic Noir, Part 1(Double Indemnity) Part 2 (Kiss Me Deadly,) and Classics Conclusion/Part 3

TRANSITIONING TO NEO-NOIR: Fatalism and the Noir Future, Part 1′s intro (For I Robot), Part 1 (analysis for I Robot), Part 2 on Neo-Noirs (Fargo), and the Conclusion.

THE FUTURE OF NOIR: An Expansive Noir Future,  An Expansive Noir Future part 2,  Noir and Anime, Noir Future and Video Games  Noir Negatives and the Future,  Noir Film and TV,  In-Depth Analysis of the Video Game Noir: The Wolf Among Us,  In-Depth Analysis of the Video Game Noir: Heavy Rain, and Conclusion/A Waypoint.