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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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we need to talk about dc pride 2025-

PURELY from a consumer perspective!! I'm not writing this in an antagonistic way just because I'm part of the DC Pride fanzine (which I'm very proud of, you should check it out)- I just really want to talk about it and I feel I'm entitled to an opinion as gay book king of 2025 so HERE WE GO

To catch you up to speed, the DC Pride specials are usually anthologies with a handful of short stories highlighting and celebrating DC's canonically queer characters, with an all queer creative team (as is tradition). They're ordinarily self contained stories. This year though it looks like they tried to be more ambitious- and the stories are all connected to a bigger plot. In my humble opinion this was a huge mistake.

It's the nature of anthologies to have hit and miss stories! You've got a huge pool of creatives and some of those writing styles or stories aren't going to vibe with you. But that's no biggie, because you can just hop onto the next story and start fresh. It's what I've come to enjoy about anthologies! And I found this an accessible way to learn about DC's queer characters through these short stories.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE CASE FOR THIS YEAR'S SPECIAL. The overarching plot that all the Pride stories are under follow a magic plot where all queer characters across universes are trapped in a fantasy world (where they supposedly have all their desires granted) and need to snap out of it to get back into the real world. A character named Ethan Rivera, a trans man who served in the war, is usually the one to snap people out of it. This Pride Special serves as a backdoor-pilot style origin story for Ethan.

The story serves as a spiritual sequel to Alan Scott's recent solo comic. Years ago, Alan and his ex carved a heart onto this wall in a gay bar, unknowingly imbuing it with magic. In modern times, the wall and the bar its in are going to be turned into a parking lot, another gay monument lost to history. Suddenly it's doing some cosmic horror stuff where every queer character is sucked into a fantasy and regroup there.

(this dialogue is so....uh trite and on the nose I'm sorry afasdf)

This might seem like a new fun way to shake the Pride specials up- you get an overarching plot and everyone gets to interact with each other. There's a main character to help follow you through the action, theoretically giving you the opportunity to explore more depth in conflict than your usual short self contained Pride story, etc.

But no. It did the opposite for me. The overarching plot put some serious constrains on the writers, forcing them to essentially write the same plot over and over again.

Character is in a fantasy, something is off, Ethan snaps them out of it, and they all end up in a "home base of operations" where they get exposition dumped and caught up to speed with the magic shenanigans happening.

Interesting at first but very quickly overstays its welcome!! I couldn't escape the loop. I wasn't granted the freedom of a fresh start to read a new story, it was the same plot. Again and again and again.

I can sense some writers really trying with the limits they're given. Vita Ayala's The Question segment was among the stronger stories! And I felt a sense of this character's personality and history way more than the others.

Other characters weren't so lucky. Connor Hawke has been done so dirty this year. Not only was he whitewashed in a Pride illustration (that accompanies this collection), with half his face covered to add insult to injury- but he got a meager 2 pages of backstory before being cast to the side. And the writing was among the worst of the collection. Tragic.

(these panels summarize all these stories' plots. Just the same thing rinse and repeat)

Lowkey hate that the ace character's "celebration" this year is getting smooched on and then cast aside for a bigger plot. Justice for Connor.

Quick roundup of stories I want to talk about- sorry if I don't include your fav! This was just such a repetitive read that they all sort of melt together in my mind.

Any Apollo and Midnighter fan can go in more detail over how these complex morally grey characters get watered down to being sanitized Pride ads every year, so I'm going to review this on just the basic storytelling level. The premise is that the fantasy these two husbands are stuck in is a tongue-in-cheek respectable sitcom. "vigilante justice" is "legalized" but whenever someone violently threatens the gay couple, Midnighter can't really kill them. They turn into confetti.

I can sense this is trying to poke fun at respectability and censorship but it lands flat for me. Why are there people threatening them with slurs and guns if it's an escapist paradise? I've never seen a cute sitcom have that. It doesn't help that this idyllic fantasy is literally a desire for Apollo. That the reason they're stuck there is that one of them actually likes it there. If they went a more WandaVision route where they were stuck in a censored reality where they can't boink and have to dress as respectable sweater-wearing neighborhood gay dads, this could've poked fun at the company's own problems with softening edgy queer characters. Just a fascinating case study of attempting rebellion within a company.

Quick note for Harley's story. It basically says that all her modern motivations boil down to wanting a girlfriend. If that isn't a summation for how these characters lose all depth after being canonized as queer I don't know what is.

We need to talk about the Blue Snowman story. Or what I like to call, "this year's contender for "Pride is a Party""

Summarized perfectly by Dizzy on twitter as

The Blue Snowman's fantasy is that they're outed by Wonder Woman when she uses the Lasso of Truth on them. Forced to come to terms with their fluid gender identity, they imagine being graciously accepted and defended by the world against Wonder Woman, with her labeled as "Not An Ally". (we'll talk about how Wondie's canonically queer later in the conclusion)

I get that it's a joke, that the Blue Snowman is self deprecating, insecure, while also being egotistical enough to frame Xanthe Zhou as an "unimportant trans person"- who is inspired by the Blue Snowman to be queer. But it's not funny. And reads like a conservative "the gays are so fragile" comic. Again, this is presented to us as the Blue Snowman's secret desire. Much like the Apollo and Midnighter one, any commentary it's trying to make doesn't land.

Xanthe and Blue Snowman only "reconcile" in a quiet sequence of panels where Blue Snowman begrudgingly holds Xanthe's hand. The one time this comic decides to shut up, it does this. Justice for Xanthe because they barely get stories outside of these DC specials, and the one time they return it's to be insulted and barely apologized to.

The Blue Snowman story is the most trans focused narrative out of the entire collection this year (outside of Ethan exposition dumping his origin story). And this is what we got.

In between everyone's stories, we see Ethan in a dreamscape fantasy realm that is very beautifully rendered! Props to A.L. Kaplan!!

Even though I visually love these pages, I did find them disruptive to the flow of stories. It didn't help that Ethan sort of intrudes on everyone's stories to snap them out of their fantasies- I just found it all annoying to read. I couldn't really get into each character because they were mandated to follow a specific structure. In the end I still don't have a grasp of who Ethan is as a character either, despite all that screen time.

Ethan just tells us his origin, we don't experience it with him. He explains to us how he feels about everything. He is entirely a tell not show character.

He'll even explain what the metaphors represent to the reader. "Because it feels as though everything I've done since then has involved a transition of some kind. It's like I'm always transitioning. Like this place." "It's a beautiful tribute Alan. And look what you started! These carvings, this wall...it's like a monument. it represents everything you and so many others were feeling." This is real dialogue. He literally tells us what the wall represents like we're too foolish to know.

The dialogue in general was a pain to read. Everyone sounded like a Joss Whedon character. They'd say the most obvious on the nose thing, in a weak attempt to hide it as quirky charisma. It was not working.

(just because you lampshade your writing by showing characters being bored of exposition doesn't mean it's suddenly good writing!!)

It got exhausting to read hope speech after hope speech of characters talking in corporate prideisms that I found myself wanting to skim through the pages because I felt I wasn't learning anything new. And when I say these characters yap, I mean they YAP.

Godspeed to the letterer team because what the heck!!

All this text and for what? More cosmic red lantern magical nonsense.

Anyway the interconnected story ends abruptly. After yelling at the cosmic image of Alan's ex, Ethan returns to the graffiti wall in the gay bar with all the other queer characters transported back to where they came from. And the ending is...surprisingly passive about its conclusion.

There's a strange resignation to the characters. Despite being literal superheroes who have attachment to this gay bar and graffiti wall that houses generations of queer expression, they just kind of give up on saving a queer historical monument. They don't even try.

This is all lamp shaded under a "the fight never ends" speech from Alan. But like, again- y'all didn't try. You didn't fight for the place. You are just telling me that you are. "It's always been that way, and it always will be. That's what we get right? That and the privilege of hoping that, because of what we do, the next generation and the next may get more." A bit of an oxymoron to say it's always the same and hope the next generation will get it better.

I understand what this collection is going for. Deeper, interconnected conflict for its queer characters that you wouldn't normally get in its typical anthology format. It's even trying to end in a more somber note. They don't save the gay bar and its graffiti wall. They move on.

But it's lacking nuance in its garbled hope speech by the end. I understand that "It gets better" can become an irritating platitude to hear when historically, we know it doesn't always get better for marginalized people. I think if the story ended with "Things don't always get better. It can get worse if we're not careful, that's why we have to keep fighting." And show your characters being active instead of just accepting queer erasure when it happens, that could be really resonant with the current political climate. Instead we get this passive resignation. Anti-hope disguised in hope speeches.

Quick review of the Jenny Blake auto bio in the end. It's cute, though I have some thoughts. Inevitably when these collections feature an auto bio comic, they feel more authentic because they're about a real person.

I do find it ironic that Blake starts this comic by saying "just as no two human beings are exactly alike...no two lgbtqia+ stories are exactly alike" when it's featured in an anthology about queer characters experiencing the same "I'm in a fake fantasy, whoa time to wake up into the real world! What going on? Someone exposition dump me please" story over and over and over again. I had lost a lot of my patience by the time I made it to the end of this collection. And this felt like a punch in the face in the funniest way. Amazing lack of self awareness.

I have a nitpick for this later part though. Blake says "Evil reared its ugly head, and my country descended into cruelty and madness. Playing it safe was no longer an option. I needed to represent as my true self. I would not hide in the closet waiting for the bigots and transphobes to come find me!"

It's very cloying in its delivery. But I take issue with framing closeted people as shameful cowards who won't live their truth. Just "waiting for bigots to come find them". If things are hard for you in Texas (or anywhere for that matter) as a trans person, being in the closet doesn't make you any less queer. You're just protecting yourself the way Superman does when he's being Clark Kent.

NOW FOR BIG CONCLUSION FEELINGS

The DC Pride anthologies are always interesting to me for the wrong reasons. I'm fascinated by them like it's performance art. They're an annual celebration of the company's queer characters and staff. But they're also Pride ads. Sometimes there's little gems in the collection, but for the most part its watered down and corporate. I love dissecting all the ways they represent respectability, assimilation and the struggle between art and commerce.

This collection's existence is proof- evidence if you will- that queer writers don't always make great queer stories. Because they're human beings.

So this year's collection showing ambition to break away from the celebration-style writing to be more interconnected and somber, but still managing to feel corporate is a case study that my brain can't stop chewing on. Despite its deviance from the norm, it still follows DC's limitations with queer rep.

DC has so many more queer characters than those that show up in their Pride specials. And they even have huge mainline queer characters that mysteriously never show up in Pride.

Remember how the Blue Snowman comic joked about Wonder Woman not being an ally? Well. She's not. Because Diana's a canonically queer character. But DC doesn't market her that way. To the general audience, DC wants you to believe that Nubia is the queer Themysciran, the queer member of wonderfam. Despite Wonder Woman being a queer headline Trinity member, DC wants you to remember that Diana is for the boys. So they can't have her in the Pride anthologies.

Same with Selina Kyle, she may be Catwoman, she may have kissed a woman, but she's for the boys. So both her and Diana have a magical restraining order from the Pride Specials. A Lasso of Lies if you will. Catman can be here, though. Allies like Nightwing can be featured too.

Bi representation in DC is very bi-nary (pun intended). When Harley Quinn was canonized as bi, she's written like a lesbian character. Modern Harley solely hits it up with women, and has no feelings for men. Even in this collection she's being creeped on by a dude and has to reject his advances as she chases her girlfriend. It's as though DC resigned and said "fine, Harley's for the girls".

When Tim Drake came out as bi, he's virtually been written as a gay man. All his previous relationships with women are written off and discarded. Highlighting his gay relationship as the true relationship.

When Jon Kent came out as bi, he never says the word "bi". And is written to be a gay character. Yeah he's in dramatic love triangle right now, but we can't have our biggest multi-flag wearing mascot cheat and feel complex about this. That would be a bad bi stereotype! We can't have that.

The luckiest we get is bi characters like John Constantine. Who flirts constantly with men- but only has deep, character-defining romantic relationships with women. That's as good as it gets. He'll get bi jokes tossed at him though. We can't have everything.

That's only one out of the many ways corporate mingling messes with these characters. How it stops them from being truly transgressive. Because this Pride Special, for all its ambitions, just has the same foundational problems of the collection's usual offerings.

Only this time, in my opinion, there was no standout or good story. Because they were all the same story. They were forced to be. Which is deeply ironic for a Pride special.

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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so originally Jason was buried in Gotham Cemetery, which i think makes his whole ‘disorientatedly breaking out of his own grave’ thing so much funnier. because like. that’s a public graveyard. there’s probably walkways going through it that people take to get to work or school every day. and i know a lot of people retcon that with the excuse of the loa cleaning up the broken grave so that they can keep Jason away from Bruce, but what if they just. didn’t?

Gotham is a fucked up place, and the people that live there are so used to it by now. they don’t bat an eye at the vigilantes, the fear gas, the clowns-, they have been desensitised to the weird and unexplainable. so i imagine with the fact that Bruce Wayne’s dead son’s gravesite suddenly becoming the CLEAR location of a broken out corpse, with the scratch marks on the inside of a burrowed out coffin, mud and dirt bursting up in the way that could only happen if something was emerging from below, the probably muddy footsteps leading away, not to, away from, the grave…

what i’m saying is the general public of Gotham are probably well fucking aware that there’s a zombie Jason Todd walking around somewhere, and they’ve all just collectively decided to mind their own fucking business.

there’s no new zombie-rogues, no people being eaten, and after a week or so the caretaker of the cemetery sighed and filled in the mess anyway, so nobody really thinks to mention it. of course, the Waynes are too overwhelmed by grief to ever go to Jason’s grave, and people are too scared to bring up such a sensitive subject with them, so it gets to the point where literally everyone in Gotham knows that Jason is probably alive…. but his family.

Jason comes back to Gotham as Red Hood and he doesn’t even try to have a secret identity as a civilian. nobody fucking cares. he just gets an apartment and starts walking around during the day and everyone who recognises him as Jason is just like ‘heyy! glad to see you back man, we were wondering where you’d popped off to!’. literally nobody gives a shit.

(Tim knows. he used to walk through that graveyard to get home from school, he’s known from the beginning. he knows that whatever Jason’s staying away for is his own business, and to be honest he really didn’t want to be the messenger for that particular shitstorm of information. politely, he will not be touching that with a ten foot pole.)

(Damian knew before he even came to Gotham. quite frankly, his opinion on his father dropped astronomically when he found out his English teacher knew of his brother’s residence in Crime Alley and Bruce didn’t. it’s more entertaining for him to just sit back and watch anyway. he too, refuses to say shit.)

Eventually the news reaches the upper side of Gotham, who all immediately assume that if Jason’s walking around again then the Wayne’s must of course be aware of it, so they never think to bring it up then, either. but Jason Todd-Wayne is back, and there’s always been a special fondness for that cute little street kid who nervously started getting brought along to galas and tried his absolute best to fit in and be polite, even if half the time he ended up fucking around with Dick or that Drake kid in the corner to pass the time. so if he’s back, then the elites all immediately assume that he is once again going to be a part of higher Gotham society.

so Jason Todd, secretly the Red Hood Jason Todd, hiding from his family Jason Todd, living in a shitty apartment safe house with two pieces of furniture and a lot of swords Jason Todd, starts getting invites to high-end events from all the city elites. he doesn’t even know how they got his address.

but well, he was free that evening… and he couldn’t deny that it might be a little bit funny…

his identity reveal ends up being much less explosive than originally planned, but it sure is entertaining. at least for him. Damian and Tim looked positively suicidal the whole night.

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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Clark Kent finally goes to get therapy but the only person who knows both of his identities AND is in any way actually qualified is Harley Quinn

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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That user may not be trying to dunk, but I am. As that user said, Republicans at the RNC gleefully held signs at the RNC saying "mass deportations now" and everyone heard Trump saying Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. There was no "information environment" that hid this information from voters. They heard Trump's explicit promises of violent xenophobia loud and clear. They knew. We all knew.

We have got to stop treating voters like children who can't possibly be held accountable for their actions. There's a fucking legal age requirement for voting for a reason--because it's assumed that by the age of 18, people are old enough to understand the world around them and that there's a cause/effect with their actions. These MAGA fucks weren't some sheltered, lost lambs who had no idea what they were doing. Every Trump voter did vote to deport moms, it's just that some never thought they would face consequences for their actions, so now they're trying to rewrite history and deflect blame. That's all it is.

Democratic politicians may not be able to treat them with the contempt they deserve without facing electoral backlash, but the rest of us are under no obligation to entertain these people's lies. People refusing to hold MAGA accountable for supporting the most gleefully, proudly awful person alive is a big reason why we're back in this fucking hell 8 years later. These people should have been shamed from polite society way back in 2016. Fuck them. The guilt should keep them up at night for the rest of their lives.

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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short comic based on this post by @rapidlydecayingcorpse

reblogs appreciated!

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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The teacher clapped his hands. "Ok! We're doing motivations people! Motivations!"

"I want to find my father."

"I want to prove myself to my childhood bullies."

"I want to do nothing."

"..."

"That's not a motivation," the teacher said.

"Sure it is. I'm motivated to not be motivated."

"I-- then why are you going on this quest with this party?"

"Ideally, I'm not."

The teacher opened his mouth. Closed it. Said, "That's not--"

"My motivation is to make that guy do something," the last rookie adventurer proposed.

The apathetic one frowned. "Which I'm not going to do."

"Aren't you?" they asked, raising one eyebrow suggestively.

"No! You don't get it, I'm doing nothing--"

The teacher grinned with too many teeth. "And! Your motivation just went from 'do nothing' to 'do nothing despite that one guy trying to make you do something.'"

"What? No! He can't be part of my motivation!" Did no one understand subversive art anymore?

"Too late, the story marches forward. Next, what's preventing you from self-actualizing?"

The rookies looked at one another. "Can we turn this in at the end of the quest?"

"Fiiiiine. But you get extra points for every character arc you complete, so consider having a revelation mid rising action to keep the audience engaged."

"Yes, sir!"

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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Nadezh' Interview

Summary: After Nadezh previous identity as the Firebreather, notorious Supervillain, was revealed, she thought she’d lose everything. She’s never been so happy to be wrong.

You can read Nadezh' first story (HERE)

--------------------------.

It’s decided that Nadezh will work in the finance department of Hero Force. She hates to leave her civilian job and her coworkers seeing the success of her budget fully bloom, but the other option is wearing the power suppressors 24/7, and their power frequency vibrates through her engagement ring in a way that reminds her of a bee buzzing, and she won’t take the ring off so.

The interview is a formality but they make her do it anyway. She prepares for it over the course of seven days, making Gannon rehearse every hypothetical question with her until the last minute.

Until the last minute meaning on the drive to Hero Force for the interview.

“There is a discrepancy in the packaging budget,” Gannon reads. He’s used to her driving and doesn’t flinch when she merges too quickly, and a chorus of Chicago drivers chastise her loudly. “There is a flat rate for three different sizes of package. According to the average order value and average product mix, packaging should be $3.5k—Nadezh, Hero Force doesn’t have a commerce division, I don’t think this is necessary.”

Nadezh knows the rest of this question. What steps would you take to reconcile actual and planned? “Of course, there’s the option to conduct a forensic audit, however—”

“We do have a forensic finance department,” Gannon concedes, “but that’s not—”

“—first would be to observe the whole packaging process. While there is a flat rate for all three package sizes that doesn’t mean all orders are being packaged for efficiency—”

Gannon reaches for her knee, thinks better of it, considering her foot on the gas pedal, and diverts to her shoulder. He squeezes, and all of the tension in her back magically eases. “Babe. You’re already overqualified. You’re going to do great.”

They’ve already had this argument, so Nadezh doesn’t say Overqualified? It’s amazing they’re even letting me into a Hero Force building, I could be the President and I still wouldn’t be qualified considering my past. Instead, she says, “Right. Right, thanks. You’re right. Right.”

“Right,” Gannon says seriously.

“Right,” she says and takes the next exit.

“Riiiiiiight.”

By the time they pull into the parking garage, Nadezh is laughing at the increasingly bizarre ways Gannon says the word right. The word barely has meaning anymore, and she’s fairly certain that if anyone else heard Hero Zone sounding so goat-like, they’d send him to psych for an evaluation.

Nadezh gets out of the car first, hurrying before he can say anything else that will set her off.

“Go save the day,” she says. Her face hurts from smiling. She tosses him the keys over the roof of the car after she closes the door. “I can get the train back.”

Gannon rounds the bumper and presses them back into her hand. He kisses her forehead. “No public transport from HQ.”

She blinks, the spot his lips touched tingling. “Is that a rule?”

“Our house rule,” Gannon says. He smiles reassuringly at her. “Just a precaution. I know too many people who get made getting followed out of HQ.”

Gannon always explains himself even though she never asks. Her heart is racing at our house rules. They have house rules. They’re engaged. They’re going to get married. She lifts her chin for a kiss. “I love you.”

“Love you.” He kisses her.

Kissing Gannon is the closest she feels to her powers these days. The warmth that runs through her, the heat in her cheeks, the pounding of her heart – actually she takes it back. It’s not like her power at all. It’s better than her power.

“Break it up!” a man calls from across the parking garage.

Electricity shoots through Nadezh. She didn’t hear him come up behind her. She tries to pull away from Gannon, to turn and protect them, but his hands on her shoulders stop her. Her brain catches up a moment later. Gannon is relaxed, warm brown eyes still happy. The voice is familiar.

“It’s not goodbye yet,” another voice says grumpily. This time Nadezh recognizes the speaker. When her tension eases, Gannon lifts his hands long enough for her to turn and greet Flare. He drapes his arms over Nadezh’s shoulders. Flare’s eye twitches. “There’s, like, a whole elevator ride to go.”

“There’s cameras in the elevator,” Gannon says.

Nadezh still doesn’t know what to make of Gannon’s Hero team. Omit – the leader of the team – is decent. Fast, sound decisions on the field, always knows when to retreat, which is important when your team is made of B and C-rank heroes. His power – to eliminate an object from the enemy’s perception during battle – makes her uneasy. Despite his openness with her, she can’t erase the suspicion that he’s using his powers on her from her mind.

She likes Flare. The woman is bright and bubbly, almost six inches shorter than Nadezh, with all the energy of a hummingbird. Though she’s stationed on Gannon’s team, she’s in high demand across the city. There aren’t many fliers out there, and although her dragonfly wings aren’t exactly subtle, she’s fast enough and strong enough to conduct recon across Lake Michigan. Flare keeps Gannon safe when he’s out saving the world. Nobody sneaks up on them with her around.

Mostly.

“Us singles are feeling left out,” Omit says and tries to drape an arm over Flare’s shoulders.

Flare flits away. “Interview today?” she asks Nadezh.

“Right,” Nadezh says.

Gannon’s burst of surprised laughter lasts all the way to Nadezh’s floor where he waves goodbye breathlessly.

Even with his mask obstructing the crow’s feet she loves, Nadezh savors the memory of his joy all the way to her interview.

----.

Agent Briston isn’t like any other agent Nadezh has ever seen. He’s in his sixties, round, bald, and wearing a sweater vest under his regulation suit jacket. She thinks there’s a reason agents like him are kept out of sight. He looks like an easy target—no. She doesn’t think about people as targets anymore. She means that he looks like the grandfather in a commercial about watches, the one who takes the vintage watch off of his own wrist to wrap it around the grandson’s with an air of gravity.

“This interview isn’t a guarantee, despite your…recommendations,” Agent Briston says the moment Nadezh sits down. His desk has nothing but a computer, a notepad, and a pen. Somehow the harried look on his face makes it seem cluttered with paper. “We don’t have the budget for many staff. We need to be selective.”

Nadezh resists the urge to pull at the Hero Force regulation mask on her face or the power suppressors around her wrists. Part of her agreement with Foresight was that she’d wear the cuffs whenever Gannon wasn’t with her. The blue glow feels ostentatious, and she hopes Agent Briston won’t turn her down based on them. “Understood, sir.”

“Briston,” Agent Briston says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Only the heroes call me sir. My staff calls me Briston.”

Nadezh nods. “I’m Nadezh Mel—”

“No last names, Nadezh,” Briston says. He pulls his glasses from a desk drawer and puts them on. He squints at his computer. “Now. Tell me. Do you have accounting experience?”

“Yes, si—Briston.”

Briston’s thick white eyebrows raise and he abandons his computer to focus back on Nadezh. He seems skeptical. “Really?”

“I created the office budget for my last company,” Nadezh says. She has a better way to say this, she rehearsed this with Gannon— “My plan allowed for the purchase of new chairs and a copier.”

Briston stares at her. “You really have accounting experience.”

Did he not hear her? Or did she answer incorrectly? “I-I was also part of the team that allocated reinvestment funds—”

“Foresight’s recruits never have accounting experience.”

“—and payroll for over 500 employees—”

“Payroll!” Briston looks up at the ceiling. “She does payroll!”

“I—I’m sorry?” she says. She can’t read his tone. Is he disappointed or being sarcastic? She scrambles for her next interview answer. “I have a bachelor’s in accounting from Illinois State, but I plan to complete my master’s in the next five years—”

Briston makes a sound she’s only ever heard from frightened raccoons. “You’re hired,” Briston declares. He reaches over the desk to shake her hand. “I’ll draw up a counteroffer before noon.”

Confused, Nadezh shakes his hand. His grip is surprisingly strong. “Sir? The terms of my employment should already be in my file.” Foresight had made it clear she’d be starting at the bottom level of the pay scale.

“We aren’t paying my new director that,” Briston says. “We’ll start double that and see what they counter offer.”

“They? Aren’t you in charge of salary approvals?” Nadezh asks. Then, as his words sink in, “Director?!”

Briston beams at her. “Experience, a degree, and common sense! We’ll settle for 30% higher than the initial offer with a condition for an additional 10% at the next performance review.”

“Director,” Nadezh says. When Briston doesn’t answer, ignoring her in favor of typing feverishly, Nadesh says with surety, “You’re joking.”

Briston hums and doesn’t answer her.

“Right?”

----.

Briston isn’t joking.

Gannon takes a dazed Nadezh out for dinner and drinks to celebrate. The private room he reserves is in the back of a Japanese restaurant run by a former Superhero. There are flowers on the table, candles strategically placed around the room, soundproofing on the walls, and a chilled bottle of Nadezh's favorite white wine waiting. She processes all of this distantly. She makes Gannon read her employment contract between bites of sushi. Bemused, he dutifully announces her employed status and starting salary whenever she asks.

“Guess I shouldn’t have listened to the rumors about the department head,” Gannon says. Rather than surprised, his voice carries an element of relief. “You’re barely taking a salary cut with this.”

“Cut? This is a ten percent raise,” Nadezh hisses. She stares at her green tea. “Does Foresight know?” A jolt of sick fear floods with her. “I didn’t make Briston give me a raise, I swear!”

“Nadezh, of course you didn’t,” Gannon says. He reaches across the table to nudge at her clenched hands. Automatically, she unfurls them to reveal half-moon indents from her nails. He slides his palm against hers. “You deserve this.”

“But Foresight might think—”

“He won’t.” Gannon picks up his chopsticks with his left hand, content to let his right keep holding hers so that her dominant hand is free. He’s clumsier with them and frowns as he chases salmon roe around his plate. “Briston has almost unilateral say in the finance department. Nobody can sway him. He’s known for being short-tempered, cheap, and stubborn. I’m sure Foresight will just be grateful he finally hired someone.”

Nadezh narrows her eyes. “You said you didn’t know the person interviewing me.”

“Oops?” Gannon finally catches the salmon roe under a bite of rice and pops it in his mouth. He chews innocently. “Did I?”

“Fess up.”

“It’s not like I know a lot. People say Briston fires more than he hires.” Gannon’s eyes shift to the side. “Aaaand that he can be heard yelling whenever it’s time to calculate overtime expenses. Or whenever the armory submits their expense report. Or when the audit team comes back with city damage claims. Or when—”

Nadezh drops her head into her free hand, letting her long black hair hide her for a moment. She forgot that Hero Force accountants dealt with destroyed skyscrapers and medical leave for when you got your arms ripped off in a fight, not copiers and desk chairs. “You didn’t think to mention any of this before the interview?!”

“You were freaked out enough.” Gannon pauses in the way he does when he’s about to say what he’s really thinking so Nadezh doesn’t interrupt. She waits as he chews until he finally says, “I’m glad he bumped your salary. I was starting to feel guilty.”

Nadezh’s hand spasms around Gannon’s. “Guilty?”

“Yeah,” Gannon says. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I argued against making you leave your job. Said it made Hero Force the sort of organization everyone always accuses us of being. Overreaching and, well…cruel.”

“You didn’t tell me about that either.” Had he been thinking that this whole time? While she made him practice interview questions with her? Did he think she was forcing herself? The thought of Gannon feeling even a tenth of the gnawing guilt that lives inside her makes her want to throw up. Nadezh shakes her head and leans across the table. She’s glad for the private room and how it allows her to show him how his words affect her. “Babe, you don’t have anything—"

“I know how hard you worked for that job,” Gannon interrupts. He licks his lips. Now it’s his turn to stare at his tea. “Please, just…listen.”

Nadezh would do anything Gannon asked. She squeezes his hand again and fights the words bubbling up her throat like lava.

“We haven’t really talked since that day,” Gannon says. He’s a Hero; he makes himself look into her eyes. “I haven’t really talked. I’ve been afraid to. I know your past isn’t…isn’t good. I do. And I know that you don’t want to forget about it or pretend it doesn’t exist.”

She wants to, but she can’t. Like hunger and emptiness, she doesn’t think Gannon will ever understand the weight she carries from the harm she’s done. The screams she’d once reveled in now haunt her in ways she could never have guessed. But he’s talking to her, so she doesn’t explain. She listens.

“I feel like I’ve been making you give up everything for me,” Gannon confesses in a rush. He speaks faster as her eyes widen, like if he makes his sentences a big enough river, she won’t be able to dam it up. “Your first civilian job, your past, and your freedom to do whatever you want to do – because you could do anything, you really could – and even your powers.” He rubs his thumb over the underside of her wrist where the power suppressors sit during working hours. His face crumples. “Every morning, I will have to take you to put them on. It’s…I hate it. It feels like I’m abandoning you, or like I’m part of your punishment, or like I’m not being the partner you deserve.”

She starts, half rising from her seat. “Gannon! How could you—?”

His grip is strong on her hand, and he gestures for her to sit with a quick jerk of his chin. His eyes close tight. “Please, Nadezh.”

She quiets.

It takes him a long time to start speaking again. He remains quiet until he’s able to look her in the eyes again. “You…that day. The day you saved my and my team’s life.”

The day she thought her fairytale had come to an end. Even now, the memory of his blank eyes as she revealed the red and gold costume of the Firebreather, one of the world’s most notorious and deadly supervillains, follows her. The cold wind whipping across the ship’s deck, the pillars of ice gleaming in the sun, his team haltingly asking her if she was going to take over the boat…and his eyes. The pain that ripped through her when she realized she would lose him was worse than anything she’d ever experienced. It had made her realize that she’d been a shell for years until she met him, that she’d been nothing until he showed her a world where she could be someone. In that moment, she’d known that she’d wasted his time on a dead end. That their dream to get married would never be the same if it happened at all and she had robbed him in her greed.

But he remembers it as the day she saved his life rather than dooming his future.

“I became a hero to save people,” Gannon says. His lips thin. “How did I put it? That day at the diner? To share the relief of having the day saved.” His face twists in a way she can’t understand. “You must have thought I was so naïve.”

“No,” she says simply.

He raises their hands so he can kiss the back of hers. “Thank you. I think I was naïve. Being a hero seemed simple, looking at the world that way, like everyone wanted to be saved and, in turn, wanted to one day go on to save someone else. Every moment of salvation would get repaid. Good things would always happen to good people.”

Well, when he put it like that.

Gannon continues, “But when I saw you standing there, dressed as the Firebreather, being saved was…different. It was all different.” He swallows hard. “For the first time, I realized saving the day wasn’t so simple. You had to reveal your identity to do it. You had to put your freedom and everything you worked for on the sidelines. Even us. You were ready to do it even if it meant we never got the chance to be married. I could tell that you weren’t going to let that stop you. You were going to save the day. Instead of being relieved, I felt afraid.”

A small noise of protest builds in Nadezh’s throat. “Afraid of me?”

“No!” Gannon’s eyes widen and he leans over the table. “No, never. Never, Nadezh. Even when that last fireball singed the toes of my boots, I didn’t flinch for a moment. I knew you would never hurt me.”

Nadezh’s laugh is watery. “So that’s why you threw out those boots.”

“Regulation is closed toe,” Gannon says gravely. He plays with her fingers. “I was afraid because I realized there was a cost that I wasn’t willing to pay, but you were.”

“I couldn’t let you die,” Nadezh says.

“I know.” Gannon clears his throat and adjusts his grip on her hand so that he can feel her pulse against his thumb. “I know. I’m not saying that’s wrong. Just…it was hard, wasn’t it?” His brown eyes search hers. “You knew before you even left the apartment to find me that you were going to lose everything.”

“But I didn’t,” Nadezh points out.

“But that’s what you thought.”

She can’t deny that.

“Saving the day is easy when it’s just a job,” Gannon says. “That day, I realized that I’d never really been a hero. It was a job, an important one, but not one that was going to take anything I wasn’t willing to give. That same job was the reason I let myself just stand there as Hero Force took you into custody. Like a coward. I hate myself for that moment.” His voice is raw with the admission. His free hand curls into a fist. “I should have run with you then.”

Nadezh barks a disbelieving laugh. It’s inappropriate, but the idea of Hero Zone, the most honorable hero in Chicago, running away with a supervillain is ridiculous. She hides her incredulity. “That’s—”

“I’m serious, Nadezh.” Gannon’s eyes burn through her, gaze unflinching. Her pulse jumps under his thumb. “I still think that. We could run now. Settle down somewhere and be civilians. Never show up on Hero Force radar again. Like Bonnie and Clyde hiding out from the law.”

“That’s not funny.” Try as she might, Nadezh can’t find any trace of humor on Gannon’s face. Her eyes dart around the room. When she can’t find any cameras, she leans forward and hisses, “Don’t even joke about that. You love being a hero.”

“I love being with you,” Gannon says. This time when he smiles the mole under his eye disappears with the force of it. “I told you, all I want is to marry you. No job will ever be worth more than that. So…” His smile wavers for a moment before he fixes it in place. “What do you say? Will you run away with me?”

Fuck. Her mind leaps ahead. They could get a place in the mountains. She knows how much Gannon misses his hometown on the East Coast. His family has long since disappeared from those ridges and valleys, but she can see him there, facing the sun with his arms held over his head in triumph. A field sprawled out below him blooms with green and a house sits just beyond that with a gently smoking chimney. Could she belong there too? With him?

Gannon mistakes her silence. “You wouldn’t have to wear the power suppressors ever again or worry about Briston yelling or what Hero Force will make you do. It could be just you and me like we always imagined. Together.”

Is he pleading with her? Begging her to say yes?

There will always be a part of her that wants to. The greedy and selfish part that wants to keep him all to herself, like the doll in her childhood that unraveled at the seams after only a month. The part of her that could hide him away is familiar. Too familiar.

“No.”

Gannon’s face falls. “No?”

“Not because I don’t want us,” she assures. Somehow, she feels lighter. Is this what’s been sitting silently between them this whole time? She could laugh. “I do. But I think you’re misunderstanding something. You’re not the reason why I’m cooperating with Hero Force.” She thinks over her words and then rephrases. “You’re not the only reason.”

“I’m not?” Gannon backtracks. “I mean, it’s not a problem if I’m not, but I thought…well. I thought given what you said in the interrogation room…”

“You will always be the love of my life,” Nadezh says. She finds the words as she says them. She’s had a lot of time to think about this – Gannon is not the first one to think what it’d be like to run away. “That will never change. It’s just��” Private room, she reminds herself. No one will be able to hear. She confesses, “I want to change. I don’t want to be the Firebreather anymore.”

“You’re not!”

Keep him, no one can stop you, power suppressors barely work once we really get up to temperature—Nadezh stops those thoughts firmly in their tracks. “There are parts of me that still are. I was afraid when I revealed who I was, but since then look how far I’ve come. You know all of me and you’re still here.” She lets her wonder and hope leak into her voice. Some mornings she wakes up to him by her side and can’t fathom how the universe let someone with hands as stained as hers have something so good. “I have a job. I have a way to give back for all the harm I caused. I…I think confronting my past has given me a chance to grow like I haven’t done before. A year ago, I couldn’t even accept the proposal from the man I love more than life itself. Now? I know that I can walk into work every day and have those power suppressors put on me by Hero Force -not you - and I can hold my head high.”

“Not me? Nadezh, I’m your containment,” Gannon says. His expression is tortured in the candlelight. “You say it’s Hero Force, but it’s me. I’m the one holding you back. Foresight said that Firebreather was sufficiently contained by my side, he awarded me custody—”

“Are you feeling guilty over that?” Nadezh’s mouth drops open. “Gannon, seriously?”

“I feel like I’m choosing to be your captor over being your fiancé,” Gannon says.

“Just like how you knew I would never hurt you, I know you would never hurt me. I wouldn’t even have to use my powers. I know the second I didn’t want to put those cuffs on, you wouldn’t.”

“I’m still—”

“No.” Nadezh won’t allow any room for confusion here. “Gannon. Stop. I am the one choosing to do this. That day I gave you a choice, remember? I said that you could walk away and I would be—” fine is a strong word “—I would understand. I was going to keep the memory of us agreeing to get married and let you walk away.”

There’s gravel in Gannon’s voice. He reaches across the table to capture her other hand. “I would never change my mind.”

“I believe you.” He was patient with her, waiting for her to believe it. She holds his hands back. “I believe you. So here’s what I’m asking. You gave me a choice just now. Stay or run away. Please believe me when I say I want to stay.”

“Even if it means I have to be your captor?” he asks, anguished.

She nearly snaps at the question. Isn’t he listening to what she’s saying? His tone stills her. She studies him. His eyes are teary, and she can feel his hands tremble in hers. “This really bothers you.”

He nods wordlessly.

She tries to put herself in his shoes. She imagines that he’s working as a henchman who used to be a hero. She imagines putting cuffs on him before work every day, knowing that he’d be helpless if the Villain ever decided to turn on him—She winces. “Maybe we can ask Omit to put on the cuffs instead?”

“I…we could try that,” Gannon says after a long moment. He breathes in through his nose. Out through his mouth. In through his nose. Then, “I really ruined this celebration dinner, huh?”

She snorts. Both of their eyes are red and swollen despite neither of them crying. “This is about how most of my celebration dinners have gone. Better, actually. Nobody is screaming and nothing’s on fire.”

“Yet,” Gannon says.

“See? There’s still hope.” They’ve been talking for so long that her wine is warm. She grimaces as she swallows. “Hey, captor? I think it’s time you took me to a secondary location.”

“That’s not funny.” Despite his words, Gannon’s lips twitch as he stands and pushes in his chair. “I’m really upset about that.”

Nadezh follows him to the door. She caresses his shoulder, ostensibly checking him for dust, but really needing the contact. “Should I comfort you?”

Gannon drops back to put his arm around her shoulders. “Hmmm, keep talking.”

“I think I have Stockholm syndrome—”

“I change my mind. No more talking.”

Nadezh laughs. “Riiiight.”

It’s not perfect. Nadezh knows that the conversation isn’t over. There’s a guardedness in Gannon she’s never seen before when talking about Hero Force. He doesn’t believe her, not yet. But that’s okay.

She’ll be around to convince him.

(Except for 9am-5pm Monday through Friday. She somehow doesn’t think Briston would take kindly to a hero responsible for flooding the docks every other week hanging around the office.)

----

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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You were once the most powerful villain. You retired early and are engaged to a minor super hero who isn’t aware of your past. They are about to be killed right before your eyes..but you step in.

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the-ghost-light-and-the-book · 8 days ago

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Granny's Sugar Cookies

Summary: Working in Hero Force’s mail room is the equivalent of being a poison taster for monarchs – it wasn’t a matter of if a disgruntled citizen was going to send Hero Force a bomb, but when.

Based off this prompt (X)

--------.

Travis, your supervisor, makes you take Disposal Training every two weeks to keep your skills fresh for the inevitable day something does show up in the mail.

“You’re lucky,” Travis says with his wide arms folded over his chest. He still wears the mail uniform from the 90’s with the pale blue, short-sleeved button down and the darker blue pinstripes. The Hero Force mask covering half of his face is in the new “regulation black” that every Hero Force personnel has to put on at the start of every shift. You hear Travis complain that they won’t let him wear the old brown one a lot. “But luck won’t ever take you further than training, kid.”

You aren’t a kid. In fact, Travis could almost be your kid. Your pension isn’t supposed to start for another three years, so that’s how long you need this job to last. There are rumors that Travis is trying to get you to quit before then as a way to prevent you from collecting retirement benefits from Hero Force. Save the company some money. You don’t think that’s true. You think that the extra training every second week is actually Travis’ way of being kind – you get to sit in the air-conditioned office for two hours and watch the same videos with your feet propped up.

Still, it is unusual that you haven’t opened anything criminal yet. Lots of people cautioned you against taking the job. Your neighbors, friends, your husband…even your eldest -who also works for Hero Force and who suggested it to you in the first place. They said it was the equivalent of being a poison taster for monarchs – it wasn’t a matter of if a disgruntled citizen was going to send Hero Force a bomb, but when.

“I don’t think it happens as often as people think,” you’d told your husband and child when the offer letter came. What you didn’t say was we don’t have a choice. You’d laughed and petted the coffee table. “Now maybe we can think about getting this old thing refinished, hm?”

Three years isn’t a long time anymore, not with a good 63 of them already under your belt. When the financial advisor ran the numbers and grimly told you how long you’d need to stay in the workforce, you’d been relieved. You’re fortunate that being a baker for most of your life has kept you reasonably fit and that you’re used to being on your feet.

Still, eight hours is a long time for anyone to be staring at bland white envelopes and brown boxes wrapped with yellow tape, so you’re thinking longingly of the bath you know your husband will have drawn for you at home when the blast doors slam down over the exit, trapping you and three of your coworkers in the sorting room.

You blink at the heavy metal plate that nearly took your (seemingly ever-growing) nose right off your face. The WARNING light hanging above the door is lit, casting the room in a striking red glow.

“You scanned that here?” Ring asks. He’s over at the sorting table, standing over the new hire’s shoulder. He gapes down at the screen held between her hands. It shows an x-ray of the box sitting innocuously on the sorting table. “Boxes with that dimension are supposed to be scanned in the disposal room!”

“It’s my last package,” the new hire says. You have to strain to hear her voice despite only being a dozen feet away. She’s already been given a nickname – Mouse. Fear makes her even quieter than before. “I-I thought—It’s to Strongwoman. Who would even think sending her a bomb would work? She got hit by a bus last week and the bus lost.”

“You know we don’t sort based on recipient,” Hawk says, pinching the bridge of her nose under her mask. She’s the veteran in the room, gaining her nickname from being the longest surviving member of the mail room after Travis and for having the highest number of successful disposals in history. Hawk eyed. “Your scan just told the defense system there’s a bomb in a vulnerable part of headquarters. We’ll be trapped here until they can get Demolition out to disarm it.”

“Or until it goes off,” Ring offers helpfully. Ring stands for ring the alarm, something he’s always doing. “Which it probably will before Demolition flies over from freakin’ California.”

Mouse hiccups. Her hands tremble on the scanner. “I-I’m sorry. Maybe it’s not…it could be something else?”

Ring and Hawk look at each other over her head. Ring tilts his head to the scanner. Hawk’s lips thin.

Translation: Unlikely.

“Maybe,” Hawk says. She puts a comforting hand on Mouse’s shoulder. “The only way to tell for sure is to open it.”

“Which protocol says we shouldn’t do,” Ring says.

You rub your nose. You don’t have to go to the bathroom this second, but you know your body. Protocol is not to carry a phone in the sorting room, so none of you have a way to you’re your husband and let him know you’ll be late. “How long do you think it will take for a disposal team to arrive? Supposing there’s one besides Demolition.”

Three heads whip towards you. There’s a range of emotions there, from surprise to dismay to dread.

“Oh no,” Mouse whispers, “I’ve killed Granny too.”

“If you survive, no one will ever forgive you,” Ring says.

Mouse’s eyes well with tears. “R-really?”

“Even Neon loves her muffins—"

Hawk hits him over the head hard enough his mask slips down over his eyes. While he curses and sets it to rights, she says, “Sorry, Granny. We’ll probably be waiting a while.”

You tug at your cardigan and shuffle over. The box is too big to be scanned in the sorting room – about the size of a case of flour you used to get delivered to the shop. The three of them make room for you on their side of the table. You squint at the screen. “What type of bomb is it?”

“Not like any I’ve seen before,” Hawk says. She takes the scanner from Mouse and angles it towards you. The box is shown in green and black lines. Inside is a cube of white and some curly bits. There are strange shadows across each shape, as if there are layers and layers of something over the top. “You?”

You raise your eyebrows. You thought it was common knowledge. “Well, I’ve never seen one before outside of training.”

Mouse starts. “Never seen—”

“Granny is lucky,” Ring says. He pats her on the shoulder like Hawk had. It’s nowhere near as comforting. “You’re just unlucky enough to have canceled that out.”

You pull out your glasses. You’re supposed to get the mask with your prescription over the eyes to prevent anyone from recognizing your personal eyewear. You think the prescription masks are itchy, however, so you regularly sneak them in your cardigan pocket. The scanner remains incomprehensible to you, even with them on. “It doesn’t look anything like it does in training.” You frown as the curls begin to look like ribbon the longer you stare at them. “Are you sure this is a bomb?”

“The defense system triggered on it,” Hawk says.

You wave your hand. These new AI systems are wrong all the time. You recently saw a news article about how the facial recognition software at the Hero Academy failed to pick out a top journalist, allowing him complete access to the campus. “They wouldn’t have us here sorting if the system were infallible.”

A strange look crosses Hawk’s face. “That’s one perspective.”

“It’s a state-of-the-art system,” Ring tells Mouse in a low tone. You imagine he thinks you can’t hear him or the faint laughter in his voice. “It’s not wrong.”

That grates. You may be new to the sorting room, but you aren’t wrong to question the systems. You point. “It could be cookies. See these disks here? Sugar cookies, I used to make a recipe just as thick. They’ve been very popular to send to Strongwoman lately; she must like them. And that’s the ribbon tying the box closed.”

“No,” Ring says. “No, it’s not cookies, Granny.”

Your spine stiffens. “I think it is.”

“Granny,” Hawk says tentatively. “Do you…often think things like these are cookies?”

“People do send the heroes a lot of baked goods,” you say. “It’s the best way to show gratitude!”

Mouse’s jaw drops. In a normal voice, she says, “You’ve been sending bombs onto heroes thinking they’re cookies?”

“Because they are,” you say.

“Oh my god,” Ring says. “Granny has seen a bomb, she just hasn’t recognized one before. Oh my god.”

You’re too old to stamp your feet. Instead, you narrow your eyes at Ring like you did when your eldest drew on the walls. “I have not. I open each package—”

“You open them?!”

“Protocol—"

“-and they’re always just cookies,” you say. You snag the package before any of them can move. “I’ll prove it to you!”

There’s a bit of a scuffle. Mouse doesn’t move out of the way of Ring’s lunge in time, and they both topple onto the table. Hawk tries to yank the package away from you, shouting something or other about better to be cautious or Granny stop! But you’re stronger than they think. They may call you Granny, but you’re only 63! Do they think you need a cane to walk?

You rip open the tape. Mouse screams. Ring whimpers. Hawk closes her eyes tight. You shake out the contents of the box.

A pink pastry plops out of the package and onto the scanning table. The three of them are frozen, eyes darting over the pretty ribbon curled into a bow holding it closed. With an indignant huff, you use a letter opener to cut the ribbon and flip back the lid.

Sugar cookies in six sloppy rows and stacked four deep sit inside.

“See?” you say triumphantly. “Sugar cookies!”

Hawk’s brow is furrowed. “That’s not—that can’t be—”

The bomb doors slide down and the WARNING light switches off. The system beeps three times and then falls silent. The quiet that fills the room sounds like victory.

“…so I can go home now?” Mouse asks.

“Yes,” you say smugly. You know it’s bad manners, but all the excitement has dropped your blood sugar. You snag a cookie and bite into it. “We all can.”

Ring and Hawk stay behind, staring from the box to each other and back again as you go home.

----.

You have two days off, and then Travis is off the day you come back so it takes three days for someone to tell you it was a bomb in that box.

That someone is Foresight, the leader of Hero Force.

He looks out of place in the sorting room, smiling and standing by the door as you shuffle from cart to cart to collect your jobs for the day. Travis is there with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed on Foresight.

“We call your class of power S-class,” Foresight explains. “The ability to change reality with a thought – it’s only been observed in a handful of super-powered individuals.”

“I don’t care what power she has,” Travis says. “You aren’t poaching Granny.”

“I would also like to stay in the mail room,” you say.

Foresight opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He looks bemused as he says, “Alright then. We do need to quantify your power. Does Thursday work for you?”

“Yes,” Travis answers for you. “We’ll be there.”

Your ears perk up. Maybe it will be a long meeting. Maybe you’ll have a chance to sit down. “Thursday it is then. I’ll bring some snacks for everyone.”

----

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