#// me when sinister exists . uh oh

[telepieta]

this is over when i say it's over .

( esinisex )

@esinisex :

CULT CLASSICS — accepting !!

❝ um, I don’t mean to impose, but — ❞

psy/der backs up into a wall, crawling enough of a distance up to be difficult to reach . they continue to timidly speak as they work their way to the ceiling .

❝ I sort of have prior obligations in about twenty minutes — ❞ he has a math test to get to, ❝ — would it be TOO MUCH to ask for you to say it’s over in the next … few minutes or so ? ❞

they stumble a bit, trying their best to not let the SINISTER INTENTIONS, the black and red oozing evil of the man’s mind infect their own . the seven- eyed mask blinks painfully . the mad doctor’s presence is strong, trained, DANGEROUS . most aren’t even aware they can effect psy/der by prodding at their mind, but …

❝ it’s okay if not, it would just be kind of nice . I’d ask you to try and understand, but — you seem like the type of person to make your own WORK HOURS . vigilantism doesn’t mean my schedule’s always open . ❞

[ofherpinkways]

I҉̡̯̺̜̅́͋̃͢͜n̸͐̈́͟͟͝ M̶̶҉̳͈̺͟͢͠͠ͅȳ̸̵̩̜͔͍̔́͟͟͢͡ R̴҉̷̨̖̮̉͑ͯ̑̋͟͠o҉̢̡̲͇̌͗̀͢͝o҉̢̡̲͇̌͗̀͢͝m̴̵҉̸̲̗̰̼͗͌̃̇͟͟͟͠͞͠

( My friends and I giggle about how the "Love ", "In my room " part sounds like Stewie Griffin singingI tried my best yall - 🤍🩰🧸)

cod men x fem reader fic based off the song(Warnings blood,gore,violence,please beware of the lyrics as they may cause triggers)

*tap* *tap* *tap* "Are you gonna let me in ?*tap* Hello? Hello ? "

You died two years ago on a mission , just "simple" way to go , getting caught in the across fire. "Just the wrong place,wrong time" they said

2:45 and the bell went off,thank God

Many people think i'm odd

He hasn't acted the same since, how could he ? You were the love of his life. The small flame of hope in his darkness and trauma. Now you're gone 6 feet under the below rotting way

But I talk with no one and I walk alone

And I avoid sunlight with a chalky tone

I get home and I don't say hi,it ain't no one there

He stopped talking to everyone completely , shutting everyone out as he rebuilt the walls. The walls that you were helping him break down. Instantly going to his dorm after every mission without saying anything

I don't care,I walk and go right up the stairs

To my room,get in bed and I just wait for dark

He sits in his dorm for hours on end lost in dark thoughts

Because that's when the real show starts

(Tap,tap) tap,tap on the glass go the piece of ass

He eventually started seeing things , YOU. He started showing up about year after your death

So young and pretty ,it's too bad she passed

There you stood again pale and cold

But she comes to my room and we talk at night

You've been showing up every night for about two months now

She's demonic and bloody but she holds me tight

Obviously it wasn't actually you. You stand there lifeless with glossy eyes and a sinister,stomach turning grin .(like the one smiles in Smile 2022) He didn't care

In my bedroom,with her,I'm never alone

And I kiss her cold lips until the morning comes

You guys spend the nights in heated make out sessions

Then she gone,I can still hear her voice loom

But she only exists in the dark of my room

Love,I can't ignore you

In my room

Do anything for you (tap,tap)

Love,I do adore you

He became obsessed

In my room

(Tap,tap go the piece of ass) you and I

I try and smile a lot but I'm always frontin'

But I do love a ghost and at least that's somethin'

She don't talk much and when she does,it gets cold

3:00 am now and the whole Base grows cold , nothing feels right

Usually we just lay there,where we hold we each other

We're lovers, we don't need others

The two of you stay snuggled against another

One of my mother's cats jumped up on the covers

And it scared my baby,'cause she don't like pets

The k-9's started to bark loudly outside of the barracks not liking the dark eerie presence in the air , causing you to leave him

So I twisted its fuckin' head off at the neck

"Look baby,it's bloody,it's gone,it's doomed

"please! come back to the room"

"I'll do anything for thee,don't ignore me"

This is more than a sick love story

There he sat begging and crying for you to return

Without you,I'd bring a shotgun to school

And I will if you want me to,for any reason

I hate that you leave when the lights come on

And if I had it my way the fuckin' sun would be gone

Love, I can't ignore you

In my room

Do anything for you (tap,tap)

Love, I do adore you

In my room

Tap,tap go the piece of ass) you and I

Love, I can't ignore you

In my room

Do anything for you (tap,tap)

Love,I do adore you

In my room

(Tap,tap go the piece of ass) you and I

He just wants you back

Sometimes I kiss her,I start shakin'

Your demonic self has him on a choke hold

She slips me the tongue and it tastes like bacon

There the two of you sit kissing in the dark,footsteps are near by

Uh-oh,something's wrong, baby's upset

you pulled away from him,your frown shifting to smirk

She told me she was spotted by the neighbor's kid

She can't come back now.'cause they know our secret

Unless I can make them keep it

One of the other guys "saw" you

If i do, she may come back to life

Now I'm in their yard with a shotgun and knife

Cut the screen,went and sun the kid

Blew a bowl of spaghetti in the side of his head

He got up and out of the dorm,pinning his own teammate,his own friend to the wall bashing his head against the brick wall in fit of rage

Then the daddy was next,next runnin down

He went after everyone else

I shredded his throat and he was quick to fall,tossed the Mossberg and gribbed the knife

Started stabbing the shit of his wife

One by one he got to everyone

Went home a bloody mess with a job well done (tap,tap)

Wash up and wait for my baby to come (tap,tap)

He cleaned himself up and sat in his bed waiting for you

Love, I can't ignore you

In my room

Do anything for you (tap,tap)

Love,I do adore you

In my room

(Tap,tap go the piece of ass) you and I

Love, I can't ignore you

In my room

Do anything for you (tap,tap)

Love,I do adore you

In my room

(Tap,tap go the piece of ass) you and I

There he sat waiting

I waited two, or three days, four days

Waitn' for the tap tap like always

Days passed and you still haven't shown up yet

I waited and hated this

I created a bloody mess

Guilt started to hit him

I waited for two, or three months, four months

Waitn' for the tap,tap just for once

I waited two, or three days, four days

Waitn' for the tap tap like always (where is she?)

I waited and hated this(why isn't she comin' back ?)

I created a bloody mess (tap,tap)

Worry started to hit him

I waited for two, or three months, four months(I fuckin' killed those people!)

He killed his teammates, his friends

Waitin' for the tap,tap just for once ("where the fuck is she ?")

I waited and hated this (tap,tap)

I created a bloody mess(why isn't she coming back?)

(Love) I waited two or three days,four days

GUILT

(In my room) waitin 'for the tap,tap like always (I can't believe I did)

WORRY

(Love) I waited and hated this

GUILT

(in my room,you and I)I created a bloody mess ("I killed them")

WORRY

(Love) I waited two or three months, four months

(in my room) waitin' for the tap,tap just for once ("where is she")

GUILT

(Love) I waited and hated this

(In my room you and I) I created a bloody mess

He went insane

[dotster001]

Hey! How's it going? Jade playing hard to get and Floyd being your wingman to get his brother and mc together.

Slippery Eel

A/N: I'm low-key pissed off at Jade rn because his dorm uniform keeps showing up instead of the SSR in the banner. This has happened to me three times. But enjoy this anyway 😂

You had joined the mountain lovers club to spend more time with him. But now you couldn't find him anywhere.

It had started randomly one day, when you'd arrived at the club meeting area and the only other member just…didn't show up. From that day on, it was like Jade Leech never existed at all. There were a couple times you swore you saw him out of the corner of your eye, but upon further inspection there was no trace of him.

The only way you were certain he existed at all was….

"Guess who?" An excited voice exclaimed as it covered your eyes from behind.

"Oh, Floyd! Perfect, I wanted to ask you about something!"

Floyd uncovered your eyes with a giggle, then playfully punched your shoulder.

"Ooh, a question for me? Go for it, Shrimpy."

"Do you know where Jade is? I haven't seen him in…well…a long time."

"Oh, the question has nothing to do with me," he sighed with mock sadness. "Well, Jade is hunting."

"Hunting what?"

The only response you got was a laugh.

"Okay, second question, when will he be back?"

"When he's done hunting."

They always say hindsight is 20-20. And you really should have known Floyd wouldn't answer your questions. 

"Alright," you sighed, "if you hear from him, tell him…"

Floyd raised an eyebrow, but you realized you didn't know what exactly you wanted him to tell Jade.

"Nevermind."

Suddenly, Floyd's smile turned mildly sinister.

"That so? Well, I'll tell him you said 'nevermind' in the meantime," an arm was wrapped very tightly around your shoulders now, "Let's gossip about him behind his back. What of his qualities is your favorite? Mine is that he allows me to do whatever I want as long as I don't touch his mushrooms."

On "mushrooms",  Floyd gagged quite loudly.

"Kay, your turn."

"Oh, well," your first thought was to tell Floyd that gossip was typically when you talk negatively about someone, but then you realized it would just be easier to play along. 

"Uh, I really appreciate his patience, and how he's so collected even under pressure. And how he can be so sweet and thoughtful, like he knows what I want before I even know I want it, and…"

You trailed off as you started to feel your cheeks heat up.

"And?" 

Why did Floyd sound so smug?

"That's it," you squeaked out.

"No, there's something else. I can tell, Shrimpy."

"Nope," you said, popping the p, and attempting to wriggle away from Floyd.

"Hmm… okay, you'll tell me someday."

  ….

For most people, that would mean that they were dropping the conversation until the person was ready to talk. For Floyd, that meant drop it, until the next time you see that person.

"So, what was that last thing you liked about Jade?"

"Hey Shrimpy, it's not nice to keep secrets."

"You're hurting my feelings. Tell me what you think of my brother!"

Floyd Leech. An ever living nightmare to both his friends and his enemies.

Two weeks into this, and still no sign of Jade, though other people had told you he was still going to classes and working at the lounge. Meanwhile, Floyd was at your side pushing for that last thing at all hours of the day. 

You would have to add another thing to your list of traits you appreciated in Jade. He would have already known what you were trying to hide from him. Yes, he'd give you hell for it, but…

Wait.

"Shrimpy, what…."

"New game, Floyd!" You said a little too loudly.

Even he seemed startled, but you had to test your theory.

"We're gonna talk about what we hate about Jade."

Floyd's eyes widened.

"Wait…"

"I hate that  he has to suck up to Azul. I mean talk about a weak man. Without Azul backing him up he's nothing."

Floyd turned a little pale, and whispered, "Shrimpy, I wouldn't…."

"Oh, and then there's the fact that he never says what he's thinking. Talk about pretentious."

"And-"

You were cut off by a hand covering your mouth from behind, and the conflicting scents of the sea and crisp mountain air.

"You are very clever, my precious pearl. How long did you know?" Jade's voice whispered in your ear.

You could lie. You could say you knew he was watching you the entire time you couldn't find him. You could say you knew Floyd was trying to push you in his direction.

But he'd know you were lying. So what was the point? So when he removed his hand from your mouth, you turned your head over your shoulder to meet his piercing gaze, and said,

"I just figured it out. Well played, though."

He hummed in acknowledgement, before turning to Floyd.

"You can go now, thank you for your help."

Apparently, the only thing that could scare Floyd was Jade. Because he practically ran.

"Now, please tell me that last thing you wouldn't tell Floyd."

"I don't think you deserve it. It wasn't very nice of you to disappear on me. Besides, you already know what I was going to say, I'm sure of it."

"Hmm," he hummed, before tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I believe I do, but I need you to say it to be sure."

Your cheeks warmed again, and you stubbornly turned away. 

"I see," he hummed. You could practically feel his smile piercing into your back.

"Well then, I suppose it's time for me to disappear again."

You quickly grabbed his wrist.

"I think you are so beautiful," you said quickly, knowing full well that he would follow through on his threat.

He tilted his head to the side, as though telling you to continue.

"And, and, when I'm with you I have butterflies in my stomach, and you make me feel so loved and seen, and I've been so sad since I haven't been able to talk to you these last couple weeks, and you've caught me, you don't need to keep hunting, so please come back to me."

Your words were a rush, but he must have caught all of it because his smile turned soft, and a gloved hand came to caress your cheek.

"My precious pearl," he whispered. "No one has ever dared to feel that way about me."

"Well, I'm a big kid. I'm not scared of you," you said, slightly defensive. 

His eyes flashed and his smile became a grin.

"I know, that's what I love about you."

"Just kiss me, you smooth talker," you muttered.

Luckily for you, Jade specializes in giving people what they want.

....

Tag list-@shytastemakerthing @leonia0 @eccedentesiast-sapphic

[allwormdiet]

Interlude 7

Hi Miss Militia, sorry your superpower is just being a living weapon

No dancing around on this one, huh, just straight into the meat of it

Is Kovan our first dead kid/teen in this story? I feel like the child violence is steadily increasing over time. Vista, the ABB conscripts, Dinah, now this.

Also this shit is brutal

Fuck.

Sometimes you just have that sudden, instinctual understanding that something bad is nearby. Not usually something so devastating as a pit trap or landmine, but just that moment of the hindbrain screaming at you that something's not right.

Hey fucker, you sure showed up early, huh

So. Fucked up geometric crystalline entity that exists in multiple overlapping states or realities at once. Piece of it comes off and impacts her, bada bing bada boom she has powers and, conveniently, no recollection of the vision.

Ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who know better, cosmic horror has entered the chat, and it's giving out free goodies to unsuspecting participants

Crystal Superpower Cthulhu legitimately looked at this child and was like "oh I know how to turn the circumstances of your trauma into a superpower! I'm just going to give you Gun."

This feels a lot more on the nose than it's been for everyone else so far, but what do I know

Yeah here we go

"Good news, you never have to sleep again. Bad news, your brain will be on at all times and when you try to shut it off you will remember the worst day of your life in fucking IMAX quality"

Also feels very appropriately sinister that nobody can remember Crystal Superpower Cthulhu except in dreams of their trigger event, if you can even call it a dream.

Wow! Even more reason to doubt the Wards program, huh? They just dropped this kid into that life without her say-so and that cooked her for however long it took to graduate, at which point she obviously became a lifelong member.

Miss Militia is fully in it, huh? That's the kind of indoctrination you straight up can't pry yourself out of unless you have a damn good reason to suspect that's what's up, and it sounds like she never got that reason.

Yeah of course she's a dutiful little daughter and student and soldier. What else has she got? Not even the other kids from her hometown. Fuck me. Isolate and steep in the propaganda.

Oh no. Oh no she believes the American Dream exists. Oh Hana I'm so sorry, they just made that up to sell houses in the suburbs.

...Fuck, that's just it, isn't it. Hana was a victim of the grinding machinery of empire, and that was the pressure cooker situation that made her trigger. And now she's a component of a different, larger empire, grinding more of its targets into the same fuel that she almost became, but she doesn't even see it.

She didn't have a chance.

Speaking of chances. Hana, do you want to live in a world where God favors Kaiser as much as he favors you? Like that's just the problem of evil times a hundred.

Oh hey you two

Colin you have got to be careful what you wish for, man, you live in a world where superpowers are built off of fucking monkey's paw logic

Pity.

Haha uh oh

This is the first time we've heard Case 53 used, yeah? Same as Newter and Gregor? Hmm.

Now this is kind of an interesting conversation, having to figure out what the hell to do about what junior members you can or else have to give away

Okay so they know Shadow Stalker is trouble

...How much do they know beyond that, and how have they been dealing with her? Because I don't think it's working, and at least one person is just straight up not doing their job

I'd love to feel sorry for Armsmaster in this moment, but my dude is in desperate need of some fucking humility, and honestly I'm not sure he was ever meant to be in a leadership position. He just doesn't have the temperament for it.

So, first off, insane that the Endbringers are keyed in enough to human civilization to know what hurts most for them to target

Second off: Coil you stupid fucker your gun jumping on the Empire accelerated the entire city into apocalypse! Arrogant bastard wants to run Brockton Bay so bad that he just tripped and dropped his little city diorama all into a trash can full of rotting fish. Fucking jackass.

The Endbringers can bring media response into consideration for their attacks?? What the fuck kind of operation are these kaiju running?

Oh god fucking dammit.

Armsmaster is going to try and get his glory by killing an Endbringer.

Current Thoughts

Somebody needs to tell these people the genre of story that they're in for real. This isn't gritty sci-fi, this isn't something about the power of faith, this is about an alien intelligence using Earth and humanity for purposes that are, at best, utterly ambivalent to the ongoing existence of either of those things.

Also I feel a lot worse for Miss Militia but it seems like she hasn't reflected on like, any of her baggage beyond the most surface level stuff of "boy I'm sure fucking glad I'm not in that village anymore"

[notallwonder]

I have no chill, about this ridiculous tv show. 🙃

CME 17x07, alright alright alright...

- ewgh acid shower. 😬😬 yikes that's gruesome

- sorry but also hilarious that this guy's just in his basement with the holiday decor in storage

- nothing like a nice nap while you wait for the corpse to dissolve 😂

- I mean yeah especially when you're a new dad

- ok Felicity Huffman will be making her appearance!

- Emily "I gotta flex a little bit" profiling Tyler's handwriting? rolling my eyes so far back in my skull

- LOLLL Emily's "all of them??!" delivery

- so they're leaning into the parental dynamic with Rossi and Emily here, and it's cute, but the very idea that Emily would follow such a prohibition is so funny, Rossi you're still delusional my man. Adorable indeed

- cm is a comedy!!! "I don't have asthma"

- oh no this is heartbreaking AND sinister. And kind of vaguely romantic?

- Tara, I WILL listen to you lecture me about epigenetics. Anytime

- "situational psychopathy." words!

- "you're not gonna mess with my head again, are you?" "of course I am" 🤣🤣🤣. It's so nice that Emily's feeling more pep in her step

- side note: Emily in red my beloved

- what is Tyler's "persuasive skillset"?

- what is going on with this lawyer guy. Voit's whole deal seems to be reminding us that profilers are insufferable

- well that's one way to pay your lawyer I guess

- okay actually I think this shot through multiple car windows is cool

- I am not the only one interpreting that "skillset" comment that way lol. cm is a comedy! not like...a good one. But I am laughing. yokes on me guys

- oh I like this Penelope look

- hope his screams don't wake the baby 💀

- what? why this weird ass angle. oh like a security cam? harrumph

- yeah ok I'm laughing so much at Jill thru the door

- did she just leave Tyler in the car like a neglected toddler?

- this murder couple is fucked up, but like not in a fun way

- kind of annoying that they conveniently forget bi people exist just to make this evidence 'exonerating'. I mean, JJ didn't forget (of course). but also is it weird they didn't say the guy was gay or bi, just referred to who he had sex with?

- "he loved you back" Aww

- oh my god the comedy just keeps coming. Jason Gideon was melodramatic, histrionic...and Rossi is "the opposite," please. Like, I know the man is currently xtra traumatized but he's been yelling and throwing coffee cups at the wall for weeks, months, etc

- "how's JJ?" aww

- this baldfaced manipulation is kind of funny. it's kind of like all the times Emily's flirted with a suspect or unsub except not smooth at all, girl did you forget how to be subtle. the eager "but is it working? but I'm cute right?" energy

- calling JJ "the younger generation" is too silly I can't. She's been in the BAU longer than you!

- omg his wife is dead already isn't she.

- this mfer creepy

- JJ still wearing those sleeves pulled all the way down to her hands...

- when Jill comes in to the BAU is she just going to read everyone for filth? I wouldn't be shocked

- oh doctor you got lucky

- oh goddddd not the baby corpse 😫 holy shit. the dead wife's hand was gross, but the baby! noooooooooo 💔. aisha tyler why did you do this to me

- uh oh vinny!

- here she is! hugs from Penelope!

- it would be so funny if Jill took this opportunity to vandalize Rossi's office

- love to torture this old man

So overall this episode was okay. I think they're having a hell of a time trying to balance the Voit/Gold Star of it all with a serial murder of the week. The murderer was suitably creepy and imo an interesting rehash of that guy in "Normal" that was shooting people in traffic. But does it tie in with the season? Thematically if not in plot terms? Seems like not much! Maybe I'm wrong.

I do really like Jill Gideon, very much looking forward to her involvement. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Felicity Huffman, but I like this character - she has a personality! And a sparkle in her eye! And a unique perspective on the team and the work! I hope she's not just used to fuck with Rossi. I like that she has (pleasant!) history with the OGs. She must have known Elle as well - it would be neat to get an Elle mention. Also I hope she and Tara get some screentime together.

[phoenix-writez]

I deadass forgot about this tumblr account LMAOOO

HI YEAH YALL ON TUMBLR ARE WAAAAYYY BEHIND

SORRY I'LL FIX THAT

----------------------------

Entry #3

[CUBFAN]

I'm drenched in some weird black substance, and I can see eyes peering out of the walls.

I had just recently jumped down after revealing a hole in the ground, deciding that chaos truly was an answer that needed calling. Of course, I don't actually know where I'm headed.

But, man, who needs to figure that out? I have a sense that where I'm headed is full to the brim with anger. That just gets me going.

After walking through sludge and eye soup, I find a button. Normally, I wouldn't really press just any button out in the open. But this felt like it needed to happen.

So I pressed it. It opened a large door, kinda felt sci-fi. I slid to the wall, hiding behind the doorway that coincidentally hid me perfectly. I looked inside the room, there were two people chatting up a storm.

“You have no idea what's happening down here, do you?!”

The voice sounded like a woman, but I don't assume. The other voice sounded almost like a gremlin, but with a deep and intimidating voice. That I didn't actually care for, because I've heard worse from Tango.

“Oh, Shrub… you're naïve. Theatre of course is an act, but they all act like children.” The other one said.

Shrub, I guess, began shouting. “They are children! A bunch of teenagers trapped inside of this time capsule! Xornoth, for the gods' sakes, you're so aggravating!”

Xornoth snickered with a sinister hiss of breath as he leaned down towards the mushroom lady, “I am? Awh, a shame.” He pat her on the head, “I pity you. Stuck here with no idea on anything. There, there, little one. I'll be here to save you in your time of need.”

Shrub frowned, she glared at the ground. “No… you've controlled my life far too much already, Xornoth. I can't let you just save me just because I'm stuck in the basement of a maze.”

My eyes widened and I guess I forgot to be quiet, as I quickly gasped and slammed myself back onto the wall so I could be well hidden. Xornoth slammed his hand onto Shrub’s mouth. “Did you bring someone here?!”

Her expression was wild, as she tried to shake her head in refute. She muffled an attempted shout and Xornoth grumbled under his breath, lifting his hand from her face. “NO!” Shrub yelled.

She took a deep breath and veered towards the doorway. “There's no one here. You probably heard wind, or maybe someone else is in this stupid maze trying to get out. Who knows?! There's so many people in this damned building!”

“Damned is not the word I would use.”

“Of course! You'd use perfection! This building is extravagant to you! The best thing that could ever even exist in your plane of life!” Shrub held herself, her fingers tightening on her arms as her face scrunched up with every shout she made.

Xornoth couldn't help but laugh, he began walking away. I heard it, the stomping of his boots against the wooden floorboards. It had been headed away from me, I finally let out my breath.

Arguing fuels me, my mother is the god of chaos and strife after all. But this argument felt oddly draining, like all of my energy was being sapped away as they spoke. I sat down and tried not to be seen.

Of course, that failed.

As the mushroom lady herself hung around the hallway, then marched towards the door. Towards me.

She leaned on the doorway, hands grasping the walls like she was depending on it to keep her steady so the wind didn't blow her away.

She was rather petite, I looked up at this mushroom lady and immediately was frightened. When I said mushroom lady, I didn't exactly mean she had fungus growing in her hair. I saw a mushroom cap on her head, but I assumed it was a funky little hat, and she even wore an outfit that fit her cottagecore yet definitely-lives-in-a-cave aesthetic.

“I almost didn't notice you here,” Shrub smiled nervously. “Nice, uh, glasses, I think? Is that how you talk to people?”

“Weren't you just talking to someone?” I tilted my head as she began laughing. Quickly, she sat next to me and spoke so gently, “That man I just spoke to is Xornoth, I have no idea where he'd come from, or what he's doing here. I'm sorry you heard all of that, or if you don't understand half of what we said.”

“Exactly what do you think I don't understand?”

“The… time stuff? About this place?”

The corner of my lips lifted, only one though. It's a smirk, I never realized I had to explain one before. I snickered and leaned back, “I came here to assist in breaking an important group out of this place. Unfortunately, only one made it through. I'm fully aware this place is one giant time and space continuum joke. I have no idea what's causing it.”

Shrub fidgeted around with her hands. I watched as grass grew from the floorboards, flowers even began to sprout from the wood. She smiled, “Will you call me crazy if I talked about gods?”

“Would you call me crazy if I said I was the son of one?”

Shrub’s eyes widened and her whole body whipped around towards me. I've never seen a smile so bright and innocent before, it made me feel a little guilty. After all, I'd just eavesdropped on an argument.

“NO WAY!” She shouted, “I'm the daughter of Ceres!”

I paused, “Ceres? Like…”

“Oh you know, some Roman god.” Shrub’s hand flapped and went limp, as if she were shoving her words away because they meant nothing. “What about you?!”

“Uh, Eris.”

—

I think I began losing track of time around thirty minutes within that maze. We walked around for so long, avoided Xornoth like the plague, and trapped ourselves in dead ends.

Shrub whined for a while, I guess the mushrooms in her body began to hurt. Because at one point, I glanced at her to figure out the issue and I found a fungus digging its way through her skin.

We made it to a hallway that was splattered in reds, greens, and blues. I scratched the back of my head and stifled a giggle. “Looks like some computer artwork failed here.”

“Computer…” Shrub thought for a moment, “Wait, Cub!” She grabbed me by the shoulder. I turned towards her, “Yeah?”

“Vulcan!”

“...Please speak in terms we can both understand.” My brows lower as I suck air through my teeth, “I can't exactly, y'know, translate Latin to Greek in three seconds.”

“Vulcan is literally Hephaestus! Don't be dumb!” Shrub groaned. “Oh, buddy, if you wanna see dumb, you should see my friends back at camp. Especially the Hermes cabin, good lords.” I look away, back at the RGB modern art on the walls.

“If we're gonna theorize Hephaestus, the best we can do is figure out what this was made for.” I waltzed around, taking samples of the paint and anything I could find.

Shrub shivered, “You think this was just sheer pettiness on his part?”

“Of course it was, everything he does is petty. Should've been the god of being petty, but all the gods are.” I tapped on the walls and felt a pressure change immediately. “Uh,”

“WE'RE FALLING!!” Shrub held onto the nearest thing. Unfortunately, that was me. And we fell faster, because I'm no parachute.

—

We woke up in a ditch, and there we saw him. Laying on his side, my eyes widened in fear and surprise. “Who is that?” Shrub whispered. “Are they dead?”

I got up and walked towards him, poking him. “Cub! What are you doing?!” Shrub stood up.

“...Impulse? I thought you left with the rest of them. What's going on? Why are you…” I looked to my right. A wrench, I picked it up quickly and stared at Impulse. “Your gift is here, buddy. What's going on?”

I pulled him to where he now laid on his back. His lips were covered in fuzz and blood, and his head was a mess. I looked back at the wrench and found blood sticking to it, “This is hours old. Probably days.” I dropped it.

“Cub, what's going on here?” Shrub walked towards me, the concern living on her face along with all the dread.

I sighed, “Remember how you brought up Vulcan?”

“Yeah…?”

“Impulse is his son. Not Vulcan’s, but Hephaestus’ son,” I turn to look at her. “He brought us here for a reason. He told us to find Impulse.”

Shrub got lost in thought, I watched as she peered down at the floor once again. The floor this time was concrete, dry and painful to even step on. She seemed to count the lost pebbles that mixed in with the concrete. Her eyes closed.

“The fate of machine will be washed away by hands that prey on the day.”

“...Hey, I heard that prophecy.” I frowned. “Just before I got here.”

“So did I.” Shrub sat down next to Impulse, “Prey on the day…?”

“Is there some type of Apollo kid here?” I looked around, “Don't see one.”

“I'm the closest we have to day. I'm the feast… the farm, the crops, the nature.” Shrub planted her face on her hands. I glared down at Impulse. “We'll find the answer soon enough, I think I know who's doing the preying.”

Impulse never moved from his spot.

I didn't know if he was ever gonna move again.

[hrefna-the-raven]

Lawmen

Masterlist - DBH masterlist

Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8

Words: 1991

Warnings: drunkenness, smut (18+)

Chapter 9 - (Don't) judge a book by its cover

An hour passed before you were ready to start the mission. You tried your best to check off the misgivings that were tearing your stomach apart, making you slightly nauseous. What was wrong with Gav, despite your weird situation, there normally were no issues while texting. Had he finished his reports by now? Where was he? At home? At Jimmy's? These thoughts plagued you, serving as a foreboding of what might await you when you arrived at his place after work. The sound of footsteps ceased, and David stood next to you, casting a concerned gaze at your pale face.

“Are you ok?”, he asked, his hand gently encircling your arm.

Feeling a wave of relief wash over you at his touch, you nodded and continued towards the entrance of the club, grateful that his hand remained on your arm. It felt comforting, and also added to the appearance of authenticity. As soon as you stepped foot inside the club, passing by the few androids trapped and dancing in glass enclosures, an overweight man approached you. He wore a stained purple shirt, a lanyard, and black slacks. Grease clung to his beard, and his receding hairline accentuated his pitiful existence. A sinister smile emerged from behind his beard, causing a shiver to run down your spine.

“Ah welcome, my friends, to the glorious Eden Club!”, the grandiloquent wave of his arms ridiculed his appearance even more, “this is where the magic happens. What can I do for you? Oh, no wait! Let me guess, you’re here to spice things up, ay?”

He playfully nudged David's elbow, who struggled to restrain himself from punching Floyd Mills right then and there. Instead, he mustered a grin.

“My, uh, girlfriend and I are looking for a third party to, uh, you know…”

“Ah don’t be ashamed, my friend, this is more common than you think”, he winked at David and beckoned for both of you to follow him, “come with me, I have the perfect spot for you two lovebirds. Male or female?”

“Male”, the answer escaped your lips faster as you planned it, earning you a curious glance from the captain, who tried to anticipate the play as fast and efficient as possible.

“I promised to spoil my love today, so we decided to add another man, or, in this case, a male android. I hate to share her with a real person.”

“Don’t worry I understand and good ol' Floyd won’t judge”, his leer revealed a golden tooth.

What a cliché, you thought to yourself. Mills presented you with four different male androids, playing along as you pretended to be selective, ultimately choosing the one you initially spotted. In the end, it didn't really matter. Mills claimed this particular model was unique and had just arrived the day before, ensuring that the two of you would have a memorable time together. As Mills opened the door to the room, which was supposed to be unoccupied, you completely froze in shock by what you saw inside.

“Hey, you should have left already!”, Mills shouted in anger as he stormed into the room.

The person in the room was obviously dead drunk and, totally unimpressed by the audience he just gained, continued to clumsily fuck the female android from behind.

“I told you to get out, you drunk idiot!”

Mills grabbed the man by his t-shirt collar and swiftly spun him around, causing him to trip over his sagging pants that he desperately tried to pull up. The man stumbled and ended up falling heavily at your feet.

“Iiiii’m da po-po-police!”, he slurred, his speech barely intelligible.

His gaze drifted upwards, locking with yours, as the weight of his realisation hit him like a ton of bricks. Gavin laying there, sprawled out before you, completely intoxicated, his pants shamelessly lowered in the sex club where you were undercover on a crucial mission. Your mind spun, overwhelmed by a torrent of questions, desperately trying not to succumb to the wave of sadness that consumed you in that very moment. You had endured and tolerated so much from that insufferable jerk, but this was the final straw. Just as the expression of sorrow and disappointment threatened to etch itself onto your face, the captain swiftly guided you out of the room, pulling you into a tight embrace and whispering almost inaudibly into your ear.

“Focus, I’m here, we can still do this.”

Gavin opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could escape, Floyd Mills stepped over him, making his way towards you.

“Please forgive this unfortunate sight. As compensation for this incident, we will gladly offer you a discounted rate for your reserved time. Please proceed to this room, and an android will be with you shortly.”

You entered the adjacent room where Gavin was still lying, shutting the door behind you and collapsing onto the bed, tears streaming down your face. The captain sat beside you, gently stroking your leg.

“I apologise that you had to witness that”, his compassion sounded honest, even though, in your opinion, he had no reason to empathise.

“You’re not the one who needs to apologise”, you replied, rising from the bed and straddling him, “you’re right though, let’s focus on the mission, it’s too important.”

The door opened quietly, and the male android entered.

“Hello, I am an HR400”, its voice was soft, but the static monotony stripped it of any human touch, “let me know how I can assist you.”

As soon as the android reached you, you took out the hacking prototype, hold it to its face and its head dropped instantly as you activated the device. Grateful that the android didn’t completely collapse at the force shutdown, you stepped back and opened a small panel above the liquor cabinet in the room. Frantically typing a few codes on the keyboard, a holographic display appeared.

“We’re in, cap”, a small amount of joy found its way back to your shaken voice.

Allen took his position on your left and inserted a small chip into the keyboard.

“Let’s hurry and retrieve as much data as possible. That android will be back in two minutes. And don't forget about the hidden files”, said, rubbing his neck as he glanced at the display and then at you, “I can’t wait to see what’s hiding in the system here.”

You managed to finish and close the panel just in time before the HR400 was back online.

“Hello, I am an HR400. Let me know how I can assist you.”

“Sit on the chair and watch the ceiling”, you commanded it harshly, observing as it immediately obeyed.

You pushed the bewildered captain onto the bed and straddled him once again.

“Uh, are you sure? I mean, you and Reed, uh, I don't want to intrude ”

You seemed to have completely startled to usually so confident captain and you couldn't help but find him even more endearing in this vulnerable state. You leaned your face closer to his until the tip of your nose grazed his.

“Less talking, more kissing”, you pecked his lips, “Captain Allen”

"You might regret this", he whispered, his hands caressing your face as he held it firmly to admire your beauty.

"I already have many regrets, so adding this won't make much of a difference at this point", you chuckled, "and it's up to you if I need to regret this later on or not."

Allen leaned in, pressing his lips against yours, deepening the kiss as his tongue explored the depths of your mouth. He groaned at the sound of your soft moans, feeling the bulge in his pants grow. His fingers traced along your body, tearing open your blouse and gently squeezing your breasts. Breathless, you broke the kiss, admiring his radiant face. With his striking features and captivating emerald eyes, which held the power to consume you entirely.

"Tell me, what does my girlfriend desire?", his tantalisingly husky voice wrapped around your mind.

"She desires", you slowly unbuttoned his fly and lowered his pants and briefs, "you to be deep inside her."

The way you moved and spoke sent chills through his spine. From the moment he laid eyes on you, he knew there was something special about you. Your beauty was just one of the many qualities that captivated him; your wit and charm were equally enticing. Despite his attempts to resist, he couldn't deny that he was falling in love with you. But until tonight, you were with the detective, and even if you were to reconcile with that douche, he had you now and he would be foolish to let this opportunity slip away. He swallowed back a groan as he moved your panties aside and felt your wet cunt. It seemed you desired him as much as he desired you at this very moment. His hands dug into your hips and pressed you on his erection, grinding your wet swollen sex up and down it. You felt his cock twitching underneath and the heat rising to your cheeks. You needed him inside you, now, the was no way this could be delayed any longer, you wanted the captain to fuck you here and now, screw your brains out that you were unable to even waste any more thoughts on that douche detective. David threw you off him, on your back and positioned himself above you, pulling on of your legs up and nudged his tip at your entrance.

"Don't keep me waiting, Dave", you moaned with a mix of desire and impatience.

"As you command agent", he grinned and pushed inside.

The bed gave a suffering groan as he thrust his cock inside you. Your walls clenched at the exquisite feeling and he moaned your name repeatedly.

"Tell me, Dave", you asked as you bucked your hips to get him deeper, "how long did you long to do this?", you moved your hips back again, blocking him from entering you again with your free leg.

Allen hungrily pushed your leg away and gave you a fierce thrust.

"Since the first moment I saw your beautiful face", a gentle smile spread across his features, melting your heart instantly.

Your breaths grew more ragged as he increased the speed and depth of his movements, becoming more desperate as both of you approached your climax. You writhed against him, unable to suppress the pleasurable moans that escaped your lips. He reached around to grip your hips, lifting you slightly to ensure his cock hit the perfect spot with each thrust.

"I'm close, I want to cum together with you"

His seductive voice drew you closer to the brink of ecstasy, causing your fingers to tighten around his firm butt, pulling him deeper with each passionate thrust until you finally came, sending your mind and vision into a hazy maze of almost unbearable pleasure and happiness. Allen groaned, overcome by the tightness surrounding his cock, pumping his seed into as he came, moaning your name. He collapsed onto your body, relieved and content, burying his face in the crook of your neck, showering you with tender kisses. Your heart was beating rapidly, almost tearing your chest apart. You haven't felt this good for a long time, not even after you and Reed managed to get that weird relationship somewhat working. Reed....you expected a lot as you knew him for quite some time and yet nothing could have prepared you for the heart-wrenching scene you witnessed earlier. Despite your love for him and your willingness to forgive, your mind struggled to rationalise his decision to get reeling drunk, fucking an android at the very same club where you were supposed to meet for a crucial assignment, instead of finishing his reports and spending his time with you, the woman he was supposed to love. What on earth did he think planning this through, considering the possibility that he actually did think or plan anything.

Chapter 10

[ecosystem-administrator]

Horizon

Timeline: Early 2.0

The journey out to Vesper Bay leaves Mayhem a lot of room for uncertainty and overthinking. Is there really a secret society of adventurers hidden away in a distant corner of Thanalan?

There just wasn’t much out this way. An abandoned mine, the road north to another stretch of lightly-populated dusty scrubland. The trading post was called Horizon for a reason, Mayhem was pretty sure: it felt like the edge of everything, one last gathering point before the end of the known world.

Except, it wasn’t. After attuning to the aetheryte and talking to the local merchants, they’d been pointed down a rail tunnel toward the little port that was their true destination - apparently Vesper Bay was half the reason Horizon could even exist, a stopping point for merchants on their way to a ship, to refresh their supplies and rest their birds before making their way through the marshes.

“More walking,” Mayhem groaned when they heard it. “I should have gotten a bird of my own.” Not that they had anywhere near enough money to afford their own chocobo.

The Lalafell merchant giggled sympathetically. “Not as many adventurers bother to come this far out of the way,” she admitted. “Unless there’s something very particular they’re looking for.” And then she leaned in closer with a conspiratorial grin, “But since you’re headed to the bay itself and not for a ship…well, the things you can find there are very unique, and worth the journey in my opinion.”

It had been such an odd thing to say that the assertion stuck in their mind as they made their way through the marshes, and finally wearily stumbled into the bayside port itself - which, thankfully, somehow managed to feel more lively and less half-abandoned than Horizon had, a little tucked-away corner of civilization, no doubt due to the consistent traffic of ships.

Asking after the address they’d been given earned them a few odd sidelong looks, but they were able to get directed toward the waterfront. The place they’d been sent to was nondescript, more like a warehouse from the outside than any kind of ordinary gathering place, and for a moment they wondered if they’d been tricked somehow. But no one had asked them for any money yet, if there was an ambush it surely would have happened on the road here, and they didn’t have anything that would be worth going to this much effort to steal. …Besides, Mayhem considered themself a pretty good judge of character, and neither the chipper pugilist nor the sharp-tongued thaumaturge had come off as sinister. Certainly they were hiding something, but it was hard to believe they had any ill intent, and an official Adventurer’s Guild representative had even vouched for them.

So, hesitantly, they made their way inside. Immediately the uncertainty returned: there was no one here. A large room with a few mostly-empty shelves, one table in the middle with a single chair, a rather ominous staircase down into the basement, but no people, no front desk - or so it seemed until they caught the sound of humming.

It was coming from the little table, and as they approached with quiet footsteps, they realized that what they’d mistaken for a single empty chair actually contained a Lalafellin woman, humming a cheerful tune as she filled out some paperwork. “Um, excuse me, miss?” they began. “I’m...not sure I’m in the right place…”

“Oh!” The young woman startled, a few of her papers scattering, and she scowled at Mayhem. “I’ll thank you very much not to sneak up on me, you ruffian!” She looked them up and down. “Just where do you think you’re meant to be, hm?”

“Uh…Papalymo and Yda told me I should come here, and Momodi Modi gave me directions,” they explained. “But I’ve never been out to this part of Thanalan, so…”

“Oh!” Immediately her demeanor brightened. “Why didn’t you say so to start with? You are in the right place, but just to make sure, what’s your name? I have a list of candidates here somewhere…”

“I’m Mayhem Moondrop,” they told her, relaxing just a little bit now. Whoever this gatekeeper was, she’d clearly recognized the names of the Scions. Maybe this was a legitimate organization after all. With that much established, all the mystery and secrecy just made it more intriguing.

[thesinglesjukebox]

(G)I-DLE - "QUEENCARD"

Time to find out once and for all -- like, for real this time -- who hates fun!

6.29

Kayla Beardslee: Dumb bitches assemble (affectionate). "Queencard" is kind of embarrassing to defend (you're going to bat for the boob and booty hot song? really?), but if you listen to it enough, it becomes impossible to deny that it's also kind of a banger. It would be a different matter if the production and topline weren't pulling their weight, but that bassline rips, and those line-to-line handoffs between all five members in the first verse get me every time. It also helps that this song comes from by far the best album (G)I-DLE has ever put out: when "Queencard" is placed next to the beautiful, dreamy B-side "Paradise" or the sinister-sexy "Lucid," its goofiness seems less like actual vapidity and more like Soyeon intentionally fucking around because she knows it's good to have a little fun and gas yourself up sometimes. Like, look me in the eyes and tell me it's not high performance art to release "Tomboy" and "Queencard" (and "Nxde"!) within a year of one another. I can get on board with a bit of silliness in exchange for the album I've been waiting for (G)I-DLE to make since I first discovered them -- which, as it happens, was when the Jukebox covered "Uh Oh" back in 2019. What a lovely and emotionally nuanced full-circle moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to twerking on the runway. [8]

Crystal Leww: MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT MY BOOB AND BUTT IS HOT [8]

Katherine St Asaph: Vintage Fergie. [3]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Ridiculous. [7]

Tara Hillegeist: As an object lesson in one of pop music's golden rules -- "unfuckwithable production can save unforgivable lyrics every time" -- "Queencard" ticks all the bases. Embarrassing lines like "twerking on the runway" and "sexy like Kim Kardashian" that not even Meghan Trainor could've written with a straight face completely fail to dent that supple bassline and synth-bleep driven stomp of a beat. There isn't a single word of this song worth dignifying with a sincere analysis; there isn't a single word of this song that matters while the squelched-alarm bubble and squeak of a melody and irrepressible line delivery are still making the brain jiggle like so much excited jelly under their sonic assault. This is a missive from the same school of thought that produced "Song 2": a heady slab of music so thoroughly stupid yet sneeringly self-confident about it, hearing it excites the listener enough to mistake it for the work of a frustrated genius, instead. I cannot take its message seriously without taking insult. I can't stop pressing repeat. [7]

Will Adams: So many delightfully dumb lines, it's hard to choose a favorite. I wish the music had been equally as silly, as opposed to whatever Jonas Brothers purgatory it currently exists in. [5]

Alfred Soto: Elements from Pussycat Dolls and Meghan Trainor drift and fade with the attention span. [4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This quintet's energy is infectious enough to take "Queencard" (great title) to the finish line, but there's no getting past the backing track. Envision every Black Friday/post-Christmas/commercial on TV, strip the jaunty musical beds from their flatscreen-deal context, then paste them one after the other. I'm sorry, but GO TO PRISON!!! [2]

Nortey Dowuona: Pop rock as an aesthetic is actually a good thing to be pilfering from. It's not novel or boundary pushing in the slightest, but after the last decade of everything stealing from rap -- the structures, the adlibs, the flows, the kicks, snares, hi-hats and percussion, the poses, the clothing -- and miserably failing to even slightly capture the same lightning strike... maybe don't be bothered to try. I've been listening to What Had Happened Was with Questlove, and at each turn I grow more frustrated by the fact that neither he nor Black Thought ever cottoned on to the giant possibilities of being an actual band, only producing musical phrases to be looped in the least interactive or vivid way. And this song, which is a solid approximation of 2005 pop rock and 2011 piss-take raps, just frustrates me cuz it feels like Jeon So-yeon, the group's Questlove, has the same problem; being able to make poppy Shafiq Husayn records and settling for Max Martin throwaways. [5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: How long has it been since we've had an honest-to-god hook song? You could blame it on shifting musical trends, but ever since K-pop made it big in the West, lyrics have had to start making sense. This means we've been deprived of the joy that comes with wonky English. The lyrics are especially camp on "Queencard," but it goes beyond that: it's the total surrendering of a topline to phrasing and rhythm. Case in point: "My boob and booty" has syllabic parallels with "I'm top" and "twerking." There's also a slick maneuvering between English and Korean here, with (G)I-DLE selecting the words that sound best -- "ppoppo" is way more fun than "kiss," and "I'm cute" can be delivered with more sass than the same phrase in Korean. "Queencard" may not be a term the average American knows, but it doesn't matter: it's the sort of nonsense word that you can repeat incessantly, much like we all did with "gee" 14 years ago. To top it off, (G)I-DLE actually sound like they're enjoying themselves instead of delivering a Serious Message. We may never get a song like this again. [7]

David Moore: There's boob and booty and twerking in this one, sure, but the most exhilarating part of the whole thing is when the phrase "I'm a queencard" in the chorus devolves into uncanny syllables, like Jell-O starting to go runny in the sun, in a way doesn't just tell you what a queencard is, but really points to it -- this is a queencard. I'm reminded that K-pop isn't just multilingual, but often meta-lingual in the way that so much (all?) good pop is, refusing to let words get by as mere signifiers and forcing us to reckon with words at the phonemic, molecular level. How wild is it that the entire basis of our civilization is built on these funky noises we make with our mouths and tongues and lungs and noses and throats? I think that's neat. [8]

Kat Stevens: I worry that she's going to lose a lot of money at poker. [6]

Michael Hong: Look, Soyeon's English lyrics are often questionable, and it doesn't help that each member seems to drop syllables. She's exaggerated her "rapping" voice to be sharper and more piercing, and the lyric "look so cool, look so sexy like Kim Kardashian (uh) / look so cute, look so pretty like Ariana" fits awkwardly in the meter and is a bit reductive of each (but also your bad if you expected a nuanced feminist take from the group that brought you "Nxde"). And the entire thing is just a Valley Girl rip of "Song 2" by Blur. And yet, 4 + 4 is still: [8]

Brad Shoup: The pre-chorus is really interesting, how it teeters on the rim of Meghan Trainor maltshop-pop without ever falling in. It's a nice break from the spy-theme slink that dominates this. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Referencing Ariana Grande directly feels like giving away the game -- this is some real Dangerous Woman shit, a maximalist pop barrage that seems to operate on the principle that if you make enough baffling aesthetic and lyrical decisions it'll loop back to sense eventually. Joke's on me -- they're right! This sounds like how I imagine getting shot out of a T-shirt cannon would feel. [7]

Michelle Myers: Shuhua is a queencard. Soyeon is squeak-rapping like she's HyunA's daughter. Minnie is hosting a blue champagne party and doing her best Debbie Harry impression. Miyeon hard carries the pre-chorus. Yuqi is jamming the phrase "sexy like Kim Kardashian" into five syllables. She's top. She's twerking on the runway. [8]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: "I'm twerking on the runway" has got to be in the top five greatest stunt English lines in K-pop history. (G)I-DLE have always had oodles of talent and charisma, but "Queencard," like last year's "Tomboy," has the confidence of maturity and a rare sense of unfettered enjoyment. Nobody's had such a good time in a music video since GD and TOP went to the club. Speaking of YG party songs, of course this is reminiscent of that format---though as others have pointed out, it lacks the true YG party chorus to close. There are a few better precedents in Cube's own history, which are combined effectively with a vaguely punk rock sound and a sensitive handful of blog house references. Part of the magic has to be the judicious editing Soyeon has applied here -- "Queencard" is a blisteringly tight 2:41, far from the bloat often befalling her earlier compositions. It's fun, you can shout along to it, there's a funny little dance, there are at least three melodies I've had stuck in my head--it's some good fucking K-pop. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[kadavernagh]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The cabin PARTIES: Emilio, Regan, and Jade SUMMARY: Not wanting to be alone, Regan invites Emilio over purely for an "investigation" into the human simulation program. The Sims aren't so happy to see them. Jade shouldn't have pirated.

UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE. 

Every time Regan returned from work and called for Jade (not like a child), her whole body filled with dread, relief only pouring out once a familiar voice chimed back. There wasn’t one today. The cabin was empty. It wasn’t a surprise; Jade said she’d be out later than usual tonight, and the sun hadn’t even set. Regan couldn’t object. Jade was out there saving lives and protecting death – doing the things Regan herself should have been returning to. Maybe Jade could help enough people, touch enough lives, for the both of them. So how selfish was she, that she wanted Jade here right now? 

But, oh, there were plenty of things Regan could do that weren’t pining (pathetic, childish, leanbh). Such as… there was the simple act of reaching out to the ham child, to Elias, to Wynne. To check on them. To be a doctor and a friend. She thought she could do that, as she stared down at the screen of Jade’s laptop. She thought she could do a lot of things. In the end, the one thing she had managed to do came too late. 

Not that, then. Something else. The human simulation program. Regan managed to keep herself occupied for about thirty minutes before each creak of wood sounded sinister and shadows gleamed with tar. She just needed to keep her mind busy; so she flicked through tabs instead: new clothes, a tab that now played Teenage Dream she couldn’t stop, a Candy Crush forum where an obscene username asked about anonymously sending lives, and a search about wigs which was likely intended to be wings. Finally she landed on Emilio’s page. Another slayer. Yes. She could ask him things that might have made Jade coil up in defense (or strike with venom at the monsters). That was useful. But… it could also be done online. Her lungs felt tight. When had she last breathed? 

She had to do it. Regan told Emilio to come. And Emilio… well, he existed. And other than when he’d tried to extort her, he was trustworthy enough. It was possible he already knew about this place, given Jade was staying here and the two of them were close (but not that kind of close… anymore). Oh, but it had nothing to do with needing someone else present, because… right, yes, there was a case! So it was about the case, obviously. The human simulation case that Regan let herself believe wasn’t utter nonsense. Like she didn’t already know practically everything there was to know about the human digestive tract, or how long a human could live before starving to death.

Time was slippery and she had no idea how long she’d been waiting, zooming from tab to tab. Most of her efforts were spent on trying to get the music to stop playing. It didn’t work. The song looped incessantly. Fortunately she eventually heard the knock on the door, which had to be Emilio. No one else came out here, and Jade had a key.

Regan glanced at the laptop, feeling strange about leaving it (like it would do something in her absence) but she got the door. Indeed, Emilio was there. “Hello. You found this place. In the woods. Good.” Some part of her still objected to anyone entering the cabin, given what used to be here, what used to happen here, but she moved out of the way to let him in, because his company was better than no one. “Uh, Jade and I have been staying here. Before you start looking, she isn’t here. She told me she was going to be out later than usual. You know, the… slaying. How is that going, by the way? For you? How often do you acquire contusions on your lip?” Probably more often than Jade. She had to be more skilled, and Emilio didn’t exactly move quickly. 

“Right, the simulations. The reason you’re here.” Regan gestured to Jade’s laptop, still blaring Katy Perry. “I… suppose I should show you, right?” The real question was, should she tell him ahead of time who was being simulated?

—

The wounds he’d earned from the brambles were healed now, though not without leaving a few new scars in their wake. Emilio could barely pick them out among the rest of the scars that marred his body, his skin an endless canvas of encounters that left him bleeding. The small bits of raised skin didn’t bother him now, didn’t really represent a thing he gave a second thought to at all. Instead, his mind kept going back to the corpse they’d left behind in those tunnels to rot. He’d given his client her husband’s personal items the moment he no longer looked like he might keel over from blood loss, had pressed the wedding ring into her palm and handed over the wallet and dog tags just to prove who it had belonged to. And she’d cried, and she’d fallen apart, and he’d stood there because Emilio never knew what to do when a stranger’s world was ending even if he’d seen it happen a thousand times. 

It was this part of the experience that he knew would remain with him, this part that would haunt him long after the brambles were forgotten entirely. That woman’s quiet sobs, her pleas of why, please, I don’t understand, echoed in his mind beside the sound of her husband’s body crumbling as it was crushed by the snake-like creature that Emilio and Wyatt had scarcely escaped themselves. Even now, sitting on the sofa in Axis, it was a ghost no exorcism could chase away. 

But a distraction might give him a break from it.

His phone pinged with a new message, and Emilio had never been a social man but he practically dove for it all the same. He wanted something to take his mind off things, something to make him forget that Nora was desolate and Wynne was broken and Teddy had been through something awful at the hands of their own family. A message, whatever it said, could offer at least a few seconds of something else to think of.

Seeing that the message was from Kavanagh left him with… mixed emotions. 

He wasn’t angry at her. He’d tried to be, tried more than once now to point the ever-present fire in his chest in her direction, but it was harder than it should have been. Maybe it was because Jade was happy she was here, or the fact that her return brought Nora and Wynne back, too (even if her departure had been what made them go to begin with). Or maybe he was still too goddamn tired to be angry in any sort of way that mattered. Regardless, the feeling he got seeing her name on the cracked screen of his phone wasn’t rage, even if he didn’t know what else to call it.

He read the message, made sense of it in his mind. She wanted him to come over to discuss a case, and it took him a moment to remember what he was working on for her. Right. The ‘humans need to eat every twenty minutes’ thing. It seemed like a case far less likely to end with Emilio in an underground tunnel feeding a man’s body to a giant snake, so he figured it was a good case to work on. Gathering a few essentials (knife, stake, holy water, flask, earplugs), he moved to grab his shoes from by the door. Perro trotted behind him, stopping to sit by the couch and tilt his head.

“You’re in charge,” Emilio told the dog. “Please eat Gabagool.” 

And then, he was off to Regan’s cabin. He’d never actually been there before, and that was another reason why accepting her invitation felt like a good idea. He’d be lying if he said no part of him was curious about what it might look like. He glanced around as he hopped off his motorcycle, observing the outside for a moment before he made his way to the door. He could snoop around the grounds any time. It was the interior he really wanted to know more about.

Faintly, he heard a song playing from behind the closed door. He wouldn’t have recognized it, even if he could hear it more clearly, but he was a little surprised that Kavanagh was the sort of person to listen to music when she was home alone. Rapping his knuckles against the door, he waited until she pulled it open to step inside. 

“I’m good at finding places. In the woods and out of them,” he replied absently, already busy glancing around. Sparse, which wasn’t a surprise. What was a little surprising, though… “You don’t even have a couch.” Why had she been so worked up about his couch if she didn’t even have one? Was that hypocritical of her? Emilio almost felt offended. He almost missed her next question, brow furrowing as he looked back to her. He might as well have missed it, with just how little he understood what she was asking “What?” She probably wasn’t going to explain in a way that made sense. She never did.

The simulations. “They’re on a computer?” It was entirely possible that Emilio didn’t understand this case. He wouldn’t say as much, of course; much of his career was a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ type thing. He knew he was bad with computers… but Kavanagh might have been worse. He let this feed into his confidence as he nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “show me the computer. Turn off the music, though. It’s — hard to think.”

—

Emilio surveyed the space as any half-decent PI would, and Regan had a feeling she knew what he was looking around for: anything weird. The things Kaden walked right by, under the cover of the blindfold Regan had insisted upon. The things Regan had deposited into a casket buried about 4 feet underground half a mile from here. “You’re not going to find anything strange. Like I said, Jade is normally here, too.” Although… Jade couldn’t be described as typical in any sense, a thought that made Regan’s heart dance to the music (if it was actually cardiac arrest, it could just take her now). The weapons that had previously lined the walls had been moved, but she figured that would have been the usual for Emilio. “Is it a problem that I don’t have a couch? There is a table. There are two chairs. You can sit on one of them – the chairs, not the table. Couches are indulgent. I guess you can tell me about the contusions later.” She had also recently asked Jade for help picking a new couch out. Banshees could never be self-indulgent, but as a human, perhaps she deserved comfortable buttocks.

“Where else would a simulation be?” She lifted a brow at Emilio, but waved him over to the laptop as the chorus of Teenage Dream made the table vibrate. “The only way I know how to get the music to stop is by breaking the computer. And I have been trying very, very hard not to do that. It’s Jade’s.” Never mind that she could grab several new MacBooks from work. They didn’t have the simulation on them, and Jade was happy enough with her phone most of the time. “So you’re just going to have to speak up. “

The simulations were never really at peace. Most of the time, when Regan ended up in the program, the tiny humans paced around, listless. They ate a lot. They engaged in bladder (which was actually just urinating – why didn’t the meter simply say that?). Sometimes, they decided to dance in a little line, but their movement was vaguely threatening, like a gnashing worm. Elias liked fire. He spent hours a day bent over the small stove, watching the flame, not cooking anything. Wynne, meanwhile, stood by the pool. That was more true to life. (No, she wouldn’t think about the lake right now, focus on the program.) There used to be a small, simulated dog that ran around. Regan saw the tail-end of it drowning in the pool. Truly the tail-end. Wynne had been nearby at the time. Then there was the ham child, who went about her days with a knife in each hand. She had a whetstone as the centerpiece in her bedroom and was up all night sharpening the blades. The Emilio simulation was somewhat of a conspiracy theorist type, it seemed. He was typically seen in the office, pinning minute pieces of newspaper clippings up on a board with even smaller tacks and string. Finally, there was the Regan simulation. She hadn’t recognized her at first. At some point, tiny Regan had stopped following tiny Jade around, and instead spent all of her time staring up at the screen as if it were a sunset. 

“Here they are,” Regan announced, gesturing expectantly toward an empty, simulated house, with not a single light on.

—

Not going to find anything strange, she said, as if the cabin’s very existence wasn’t strange. The idea of Regan Kavanagh living somewhere was strange, though it shouldn’t have been. Everyone needed a place to sleep at night. Emilio just tended to imagine Regan… sleeping in the morgue, or something. He thought he’d have been less surprised if her home had a wall of metal cadaver drawers than he was by it looking relatively normal. “Jade is not normal, either,” he hummed. There were parts of Jade he understood — the hunter parts, mostly — but most of her was just as confusing as Regan. That was probably why they fit together so well. Two people who didn’t quite fit in to what they were born into — banshee and slayer — but couldn’t find a solid place in humanity, either. “It’s not a problem. It’s just — Did you steal mine? Is that why you made such a thing about it?” His eyes narrowed as he looked to the bedroom door, as if trying to see through the wood and decide if his old couch had been moved inside to obstruct it from view. He’d much rather talk about that than… whatever contusions Regan was asking him about. 

“I don’t know anything about simulations,” he replied dryly, the last word sticking to the roof of his mouth as he tried to work out the syllables. It wasn’t a word he used in English often enough to be practiced in its pronunciation, though he didn’t think Kavanagh would mention it. “Can you at least make it quieter?” The song was annoying. It was loud, and he didn’t really understand the point the singer was trying to get at. He’d rather listen to Regan — something that spoke volumes about just how little he enjoyed the music. But… it was what it was, he guessed. If there was no way to turn it off without breaking the laptop, and if the people Regan wanted him to look into lived inside the laptop, he’d just have to find a way to cope with it.

Gritting his teeth against the bone-rattling volume of the very repetitive song, Emilio leaned over the laptop to inspect the screen. There was a house there, and it looked… nice. Cartoonish and a little off, maybe, but nice enough that it would have fetched a pretty penny in the real world. Emilio scanned the darkened rooms of it, brow furrowing. There were no people — simulation or otherwise — that he could make out. Subtly, he glanced towards Regan from the corner of his eye. Had she imagined it, somehow? Had she spent hours staring at this empty, animated house and built up a world of people within it who needed to eat every twenty-four minutes and gave her something to do? Maybe the music had gotten to her.

Movement on the screen pulled his mind away from the thought, and he looked back to the big, empty home. There was one person on screen now, and it was a little bit of a relief. He wasn’t sure he’d have known how to navigate a banshee-flavored mental breakdown. He squinted at the lone figure, who was waving frantically at them through the monitor. Dark, curly hair in a familiar style, clothes he didn’t quite understand, sharp eyes staring up… “Is that supposed to be Jade?” It looked like her, but only mostly. It was a two-dimensional version, not quite right. Something about it made him uneasy. “This is weird. What you’re doing here. Do you… hang out with this when she isn’t home?” Tiny, two-dimensional, Jade was yelling now, voice rising up beneath the still-blaring music.

“Fricka frack! Fazool plopsy! Choo waga choo choo!” 

Emilio glanced at Regan. “What’s it saying?” She must have known.

—

Emilio was looking at her with the same sideways glance she’d earned so many times over in her life – from everyone other than her family and Jade, really. There was always a question behind the look: what is wrong with you? When she’d come to Wicked’s Rest, she told herself it didn’t matter. She was a banshee, fae, and she couldn’t expect humans to understand her manner of thinking (which she ought to be proud of). Now it once more felt like being kicked out of the sandbox for burying dead birds. Regan’s sharpened awareness of the look became a frown. “What? Don’t judge me. Her nights are long. She barely sleeps. This is better than stealing couches – which I did not do.” He seemed to think she made this. Regan’s voice cut above the music. “I didn’t make her! She did not come from me. Jade made the Jade simulation.” But would Regan have otherwise made one? Before herself, yes. “I’m aware the program is weird, which is why you’re–” Her stomach groaned at the encroaching lie and she swallowed it. And also because she noticed what the small version of Jade was doing.

Jade looked straight up at the monitor, her hands waving like something was wrong. This was not the real Jade, not even close, but the tugging on Regan’s aorta was real. Something was amiss in Cadaverville (she had renamed the town; Jade was encouraging her creativity).

Regan was starting to understand some of the simulation language, with a little help from Jade (her real one). “It means… she says this when there’s something between her and the Regan simulation. Oh, there is a Regan simulation, by the way.” She wouldn’t mention the Emilio one if she could avoid it. Also, she still didn’t see any of them. The only time she could remember their little house being empty was when the simulations gathered in the yard and dug a bunch of symbols into the lawn together. The tiny Jade really did look terrified, though. There were a lot of white pixels in her eyes right now. “What is it? What’s wrong? Where is everyone?” It would be better for everyone if Emilio pretended she was asking him.

She wanted to keep the Jade simulation in view, but she knew investigation took precedence. Regan leaned forward against the table, moving the view around the neighborhood to see where the simulations might have scattered. Not at the park. Or the neighbor’s house the ham child and Emilio had ransacked. 

Regan scoured the town inch by inch, frantically, trying to understand. As she scrolled and clicked away with one hand, something brushed against her other, some bug that had squeezed itself under the door. And then it bit her. No. That was not only pain. That was heat. “Wabadebadoo!” A small voice declared, in sync with the music. “Ow.” She pulled away, seeing an angry red patch of skin on the top of her thumb. And, there right next to it, was the Elias simulation, flaming torch in hand, the fire also burning behind his tiny eyes. A pencil-thin trail of smoke reached her nose. Confusion could be an excellent analgesic for pain. Regan lowered herself, kneeling, eyes level with the table – and the miniaturized Elias, which was likely another trick of the tar that had coated her neurons no more gently than it had her grandmother. “Hell…o? Sul sul?”

—

Emilio narrowed his eyes at Regan’s insistence that she hadn’t stolen his couch, eyes darting to the closed door again. He’d investigate it to be sure, he figured, just as soon as he helped her figure out… whatever needed figuring out with the computer. In all honesty, Emilio wasn’t sure what she’d called him over to look into. Her computer people were being strange, but it seemed to Emilio that they were meant to be strange. Was there any way to have a group of two-dimensional humans existing within a screen without making it weird? He had his doubts. 

Still… the Jade simulation looked distressed. And it didn’t look very much like Jade, even if Jade had made it (which Emilio wouldn’t argue with, since making a simulation of herself was precisely something Jade would do), there was still a strange tugging in his chest at the sight of some strange version of his friend in such a state. He imagined it was worse for Regan, who was… Okay, she was definitely talking to the computer. Emilio cast another glance in her direction, wondering at what point it might become necessary to consult about the banshee’s well-being with someone else. If he told Jade her whatever-they-were had lost it, would that be enough to ease his guilty conscience? 

(Probably not. His conscience was always a guilty one, no matter what steps he took to repair it.)

He hummed as she translated the simulation’s strange gibberish. They must have been speaking Irish, then. He wondered if that was a default option within the simulation, or if Jade had somehow added it herself. “I don’t see anything in her way,” he said, leaning in a little closer to the screen. He also didn’t see a Regan simulation. “Maybe she’s looking for you. Uh, the… small, computer version of you. Try to find you. Her. It.” This was a headache.

He watched as Regan scrolled around on the screen. A house near the one where Computer Jade and Computer Regan evidently lived seemed to be in shambles, and Emilio wondered if that might be a clue. He was about to ask when a strange voice spoke up with a strange, possibly Irish, word.

Turning towards the sound, Emilio found himself taking a wide step away from the computer and attempting to come to terms with the sight that greeted him. It looked similar to the Jade on the screen — an almost, not-quite person. Smaller than it should have been. Roughly the size, in fact, of the small Jade on the screen. And it was holding a blowtorch. Of course it was holding a blowtorch. Emilio squinted at it a moment. “What the fuck? Is that — Is that supposed to be Elias?” It had the stupid hair, the beard. He’d never seen Elias standing at just a few inches tall and waving around a miniaturized blowtorch, but he figured this was probably what he’d look like. 

Emilio turned towards Regan, who offered some sort of Irish greeting. “What the fuck!” He repeated, because that seemed an important question to ask. “What is going —” 

“Boobasnot!” A small voice yelled from the table. Emilio looked down, eyes growing impossibly wider at the sight of a tiny, dark-haired figure waving around a blade that was only a little larger than a sewing needle. 

“Did you make a computer person of m— Of the ham kid?” He turned back to Regan, trying to catch up. 

“Boobasnot!” Computer Nora said again, more empathetic. She leapt off the table towards him, needle-sword waving. “Boobasnot! Boobasnot! Boobasnot!” 

“I don’t —” Emilio started to take a step back, but fear prickled the back of his neck as he realized doing so would end with Computer Nora falling to the floor. For someone her size, it would be a long fall. He took a step forward instead, trying to catch her. “I don’t speak — fuck,”  the needle sword stabbed into his hand, more like a bee sting than anything genuinely painful. “I don’t speak Irish! Kavanagh, what the fuck is going on? What’s —” 

More small voices joined the fray. 

“Renato! Renato!” A tiny Wynne screamed like a war-cry. 

“Wabadebadoo!” Elias joined in.

“Boobasnot!” Nora added. 

“Veena fredishay!” He turned towards the last voice.

“Is that supposed to be me? What the fuck!”

—

Despite being under two inches tall, the simulations of Elias, Wynne, and the ham child were not stymied by their size. They charged, shouting in the simulation language – mostly words Regan didn’t know. Did Emilio– hold on. “You think this is Gaelige?” Her grandmother would have stripped his skin from his muscles at the insult. And then Regan’s, for not saying more to defend the language. But Emilio was too distracted anyway – by the simulations and his own swearing (it did improve Teenage Dream). She couldn’t exactly blame him. This was new territory for her, too. “They’re not usually out here!” Regan clarified, because she thought that needed clarification. “Yes, that’s the ham child. I couldn’t– I didn’t– I wasn’t sure how to–” Regan winced as the ham child jumped blade first into Emilio’s hand – followed by the Emilio simulation latching on with a thumb tack. But while the child’s tiny eyes also seared Regan with pure hatred, Emilio only seemed interested in attacking… Emilio. “You recognize that one? I was accurate, then. You were my first simulation. I needed practice before attempting the others. I could not get them wrong.” 

But this wasn’t what she’d been aiming for either. The Elias simulation was on a rampage. He hopped around, spraying fire everywhere with his little blowtorch. He himself lit up when he saw the photos Jade gave to Regan across the table – Jade, nude with the skeleton. “Wabadebadoo!” He shot fire toward it. “Hey! Not that! Don’t– not that.” She snatched the photo away, and tried to avoid any look Emilio was shooting at her. So what if this was her idea of decoration? What photos could be better? (Other than the ones of her ulcers, which were on equal footing – but they were in a box she’d packed up from the morgue.) Regan raised her palms, trying to pacify the tiny Elias, but his fury burned hot. She did not have to ask what she had done to him to deserve this.

Her gaze sank to the laptop, because she did not want to see the mess that she had created. “I’ll, um – must be something in the air, or – I’ll figure this out.” Wynne smacked her arm with a pool net. “Renato! Renato!” Regan’s stomach lurched with the kind of guilt that rolled on its back. “Or… perhaps we should just ignore them. They are not doing anything that–” That was not owed. At least where Regan was concerned. Emilio’s consciousness was probably equally as heavy, even though it shouldn’t have been. “Here, I’ll ask Jade about it.” Jade. Jade would know what to do. The real one wasn’t present, so they would need to settle for the next best thing. Regan hunched over the laptop again, scanning for a familiar red shirt and head of dark, silky hair. Katy Perry made her want to shake the gan úsáid machine around until it stopped, but she couldn’t do that to Jade. Uh, either of them. The small Jade didn’t go far; she was pacing like the actual Jade (endearing). 

Regan couldn’t hold the question back– “Did you let them out?” The tiny Jade gaped, offended, and Regan immediately regretted asking. “No. Alright. You tried to stop them?” The Jade simulation nodded eagerly. “Delco webney, yibs!” she yelled. “Then what do we do? I will not hurt them.” Again. Regan glanced down at the small ham child, who thrusted the needle-like blade into her arm now and drew a thin line of blood. It didn’t hurt. Regan deserved to have it hurt. She had sliced the child’s arm open, hadn’t she? The Jade simulation started wiggling around. “Oh feebee lay!” she cried. “Dancing?” Regan guessed, then she fired off more attempts. “Worms?” Tiny Jade held her stomach. “Tapeworms?” Had Jade installed a tapeworm modification for her? That was thoughtful; she always knew what parasite Regan wanted to see. 

Oh, it was the hunger meter, now a vivid red. Was Emilio seeing this? It was why he was here (no, it wasn’t). But the Jade simulation stayed, despite her mechanical drive to eat. “She has to eat,” Regan announced, but Emilio was busy dealing with the actual emergency at hand. “I said, she has to eat.” Regan clutched the photos tightly. The Wynne simulation smacked her again. The ham child got another cut in before leaping back to Emilio, out for blood. He didn’t seem to want to cause the simulations any harm, either. Couldn’t they just finish cutting her open, already? She would expose her own muscle for them if they wished. They could slice those, too, and immobilize her. She had done the same to others, to them.

Elias pranced with steps the length of his body, and Regan figured he’d be gunning for her again, and didn’t make an effort to move, only keep the photos away. But he was aiming the torch at the corner of the laptop. Katy Perry skipped, the chorus quivering. It was Jade’s and Jade was on there. The simulation Jade. But still– “Elias! Stop it! Mise ina ionad!” Too loud, too high. The small crack that followed her shout had only been across the camera, not the screen. Regan placed her hand – the one not safeguarding the titillating photos – between Elias and the computer. If her palm burned, she couldn’t feel it. “I know. I get it, alright? I know why you’re doing this. You are entitled.” But she didn’t know how this was happening. How was this possible? She would return to that question every night for the next several months. 

“Jadosi, za woka genava,” Elias said, staring at the flame against Regan’s skin. And, oh, she could feel heat radiating up to her fingers now. She might not care very much, but Jade wouldn’t like a new injury there, of all places. Regan closed her eyes; she couldn’t bear to watch as she gave the tiny Elias a quick flick, flinging him across the table. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never wanted for you to be hurt, for my grandmother to do that, I didn’t mean–” She got a glimpse of her hand when her eyes opened. Ugly. Not a doctor’s clean, steady hand. What did it matter? “I’m sorry I hurt you. Again. Again. I did it again. Shite doctor I am.” Her butt hit the chair and she sank.

The simulations were fast, traversing the table (and Emilio) more quickly than any proportional human could. They also seemed fascinated with the corner of the room, gazes seeking it out periodically. A jab into Emilio’s skin, an impossible leap to his neck. The ham child seemed intent on slitting it. It was as if a flea could kill a dog. And Regan just kept looking to the laptop, where the Jade simulation stood, wiggling around, stomach rumbling. “Plerg majah bliff?” She asked, a little passive aggressively. Regan knew that one. “Yes… dag dag.” Regan huffed, looking slowly over to a struggling Emilio. She asked him, now. “Can you get them off?” But Regan wasn’t exactly moving to help. Her mental status felt torn away like wet paper around her soggy heart. Months ago she would have trapped the simulations under a cup and placed them on a dissection tray awaiting further study. (She would have sacrificed them with acetone in a jar first – she would not vivisect them. So it would have been acceptable.) But she only sat stock still as the small Wynne purpled her arm a little more with each whack of the pool net and Elias scrambled back into a charge.

—

“No, I think it’s Irish,” he snapped, irritation building as the tiny Nora continued its (her?) plight to end his life with a glorified sewing needle. The tiny pricks on his skin didn’t hurt much, though a few went deep enough to draw small droplets of blood. Taking the long way home should give it enough time to heal fully and spare him trying to explain the source of the blood to Teddy, who would probably find the entire ordeal hilarious. “Well they’re out now!” He yelled, still trying to fend off the small Nora without hurting her. And that was stupid. He knew that was stupid. This wasn’t Nora, even if it looked a little like her. (Not completely, though; parts were still wrong, still not-quite-human. It was a funhouse mirror version of the kid, something just close enough to feel guilty about hurting.) He glared as the small version of himself climbed up onto his boot. This one, Emilio felt no guilt about punting towards the wall. “You used me as practice? You were fine with getting me wrong?” Why was he offended by that? 

Regan chastised the tiny Elias for something, and Emilio turned instinctively to see what she was trying to prevent. He was just quick enough to catch a glimpse of the photo she was pulling away from the small creature, blinking as it was hidden from his view. “You — I don’t have time to think about this.” Any other day, he would comment on Regan displaying naked photos of her girlfriend in her living room, but today? He was a little busy trying to keep tiny Wynne from clawing his leg to pieces. Or… scratching him in a way that was slightly uncomfortable, really. None of the attacks were particularly effective. 

When Regan announced she was going to ask Jade for advice, there was a brief moment of relief. Emilio assumed, perhaps somewhat stupidly, that Jade had just pulled in the driveway. Perhaps Regan had heard her bike in a way Emilio hadn’t, his last experience with a banshee that wasn’t her leaving him with a faint, ever-present ringing in his ears that made some sounds harder to hear. He nodded, glancing towards the door and waiting, expectantly, for it to open.

It didn’t.

Instead, Regan kneeled down to look at the computer, where the small, two-dimensional Jade still paced on the screen. And of course. Of course she meant she was going to ask the small Jade. Why had Emilio assumed anything different? Why had he let himself believe that Regan would have a real solution instead of one that involved talking to a computer screen. Tiny Emilio returned from the journey normal-sized Emilio’s kick had sent him on, spewing more strings of nonsense syllables. Regan spoke to the tiny Jade in the computer. Emilio wondered if he could convince Teddy and the kids to move somewhere very far away.

“She lives in a computer,” Emilio pointed out. “I have no idea how to feed her. She could come out here and help us, maybe.” He shot the computer — and the computerized Jade — a sharp look, though he wasn’t sure the smaller version of his friend had eyes for anyone but Regan in this moment. He wondered if this Jade knew him at all, or if her loyalties lie more with the tiny Emilio attempting to climb his leg. Why was Regan so sure she could trust this Jade, anyway? For all they knew, she was the mastermind behind this.

The smaller versions of their friends that existed outside the computer screen seemed to be enjoying their time leaping between Emilio and Regan, intent on somehow ending both with their tiny hands. Elias had his flamethrower at the ready. Wynne seemed to prefer using their hands. Nora’s needle sword got a lot of mileage. Emilio had somehow acquired a thumbtack. (Resourceful. He almost respected it.) Elias went for the computer, and Regan’s resulting screech was just enough to crack part of it and leave Emilio pulling his face into a frown. He didn’t think a banshee scream was what they needed right now.

Regan was busy with tiny Elias, who Emilio saw fly across the room from the corner of his eye. Tiny Nora leaped for his throat, and while the needle sword wasn’t a huge threat, he didn’t think it would be a great idea to let her stick it into his jugular. He stumbled back, knocking into the table. The computer was jostled, lifting from the wood and slamming back into it and causing the crack Regan’s scream had created to grow just a little. On the speakers, the song skipped. “Re-regrets, reg-rets, reg-ets, re-re-re,” the voice crooned, and Emilio glared at the screen briefly before plucking tiny Nora off his throat by the leg and holding her upside down at arm’s length. With his other hand, he grabbed the sword between two fingers and yanked it from her surprisingly strong grip. 

When he glanced back to the screen, tiny Jade was gone. For a moment, Emilio wondered if she was going to join the fray, too (on which side?), but he was quickly distracted by Regan’s request for assistance. Grunting, he shoved tiny Nora into the inside pocket of his jacket and zipped it closed, then moved over to Regan, where the rest of the small crew of miniaturized people seemed to have gathered. He reached a hand for tiny Wynne, closing them into his fist and grimacing when they began thrashing against his palm. “Can you — help me out a little here? I have two hands. There are more than two of these things. I could use — ow, what the fuck?” He opened his hand instinctively, tiny Wynne falling out as he brought his palm up to his face. “I think they bit me! Wynne would never bite me.”

—

“Gaelige is Irish!” Regan shouted, more exasperated with Emilio than the tiny simulations attacking them. Now the crack reached the top of the laptop’s screen. The music looped, or at least the lyrics did. Regan was also more panicked about the laptop than being hurt. “Cinniúint, Jade trusted me with the laptop and we are breaking it.” Mostly her, but she wasn’t going to be the one to point that out. “And be nice to the Jade simulation. She’s sensitive. And trying to help us. Or, uh, she was. Now she’s eating.” Maybe Regan could swap in a new laptop without Jade noticing. Van could help her move all of Jade’s things (if Van was willing to be of any help to Jade) and– “Ow!” The tiny version of Wynne dropped the pool net in favor of clawing into the meat of Regan’s shoulder. She did nothing to stop them, but the spot Wynne chose was radiating pain. They seemed to grow bored with her lack of response and hopped over to Emilio. 

The Elias simulation looked up, his tiny eyes landing somewhere over Regan’s shoulder. Hm. Had he been looking that way before? It had been hard to tell since he needed to look up at Regan anyway, but they all seemed to be checking in with that corner. Emilio was struggling with the small versions of the ham child and Wynne, and Regan probably should have helped, but what could she do? She would not hurt them. If anything, they deserved to keep jabbing into her. She stayed seated in front of the computer, where the Jade simulation had abandoned her to eat something, and took the hits. Maybe Emilio deserved this a little, too. He was supposed to keep the ham child here, in Wicked’s Rest, but she slipped through his fingers just as adeptly as this small version did. She didn’t miss that Emilio seemed to be avoiding harming them, too.

Regan grit her teeth against the small torch scorching her arm. That hurt. Fire was fire, regardless of the size of the flame, and she could feel it there. “Can you finish already? Uh…” What was the word? “Araganda?” She asked. The Elias simulation gave a cheery reply of “bum bum!”. Regan’s eyes were wet when she blinked; was it the pain, or the guilt? “We should have protected them. But I did not. So why should I be protected from them? They will tire eventually,” though she wasn’t at all confident of that. Regan finally lifted her arm, careful not to swipe Elias away again. This time, when he looked to the corner, Regan followed the path of his eyes.

There was a tiny figure, like a plastic toy, on top of the fridge. Regan squinted, reluctantly pushing her heavy body up from the chair to get a better look. And… it had something it was waving around, like a conductor with a baton. White hair. Wait a moment. Regan realized two things simultaneously – one, that was not a baton, it was a scalpel; and two, the Regan simulation was the one holding it. Of course she had a scalpel. Regan had to give the small version of herself the doctor profession (but she, the big version, gave all of that up; she did).

“Emilio, up there, do you see–” The tiny Regan catapulted herself across the room – even without wings – landing scalpel-first on the crown of Regan’s head. Regan hissed at the small blade slicing into her, blood soaking the roots of her hair. Katy Perry blared UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE over and over and over again. “Get her off of me!” Regan screeched as the simulation stabbed her again. A small section of her hair trickled down her cheek, chopped off. “Get her off!” UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE UNTIL WE DIE. 

So maybe she should have been more proactive in helping Emilio. The laptop made a crackling noise and the screen flickered. She could feel the small being on her head freeze in tandem. Elias, back on the table, fell over, before getting to his feet again in a daze.

There, between all of Katy Perry’s UNTIL WE DIEs, was a tiny, frantic voice. The Jade simulation was doing jumping jacks in front of the screen, waving her half-eaten burger and fries around. “Regan! Gerb woof em! WooHoo!” Regan whipped toward the screen. Was she asking for– “I can’t right now! I’m busy. You can see that, yes?” A bloodstained white hair fell over her nose. “And you’re not the right, um–” She didn’t want to hurt this small Jade’s feelings, but she could think of several logistical issues and one huge emotional (an uncomfortable word) one. But the Regan simulation popped out of her hair and shouted back toward the computer. “WooHoo?” She seemed to consider it. “Ooh be ga…”

Regan seized the opportunity and raked the tiny simulation from her hair, cupping it in her hands. It still had the scalpel. Her fingers were quickly reminded, and she dropped the tiny Regan on the table. She looked over her shoulder, fury in her eyes, but her attention was drawn back to the proportionally-similar Jade. She pointed her tiny scalpel at Regan, then Emilio. “Dooby zession. Geelfrob?”

—

“How the fuck would I know that?” Frustration was beginning to blind him a little, anger burning so hot that there was little room for anything outside of it. He got like this, sometimes. He’d like to pretend that it was a new thing, like to claim that the anger piggybacked on the grief that had been drowning him for the last few years, but he knew that wasn’t true. He’d always had his own special brand of rage gripping his heart, always known the feeling of its fingers wrapped tightly around that useless hunk of flesh inside his chest. Emilio had been angry all his life. He used to think it made him useful, but right now, it wasn’t doing much for him. Maybe if these small people had looked like anyone else, maybe if the guilt didn’t outweigh the anger, maybe… 

There were too many maybes to hold onto. His hands were full, and he’d much rather drop the endless possibilities that wouldn’t help them now than he would the tiny, raging creatures that looked a little too much like people he loved. He shot Regan another look, content to use that anger in his chest to argue with her if he couldn’t use it for anything else. “I am not breaking anything!” He wasn’t sure that was strictly true, but he was nothing if not stubborn. “What does she need to eat for? Her friends are killing us, and she stops for a snack? The real Jade would not do this.” The real Jade, he thought, would probably be a lot better in this situation than either of them were. At least she had a better idea of what these things were. She’d probably dealt with this a thousand times before, Emilio thought. She’d know exactly what to type into the computer to make it stop. Emilio cast another look to the door, wishing she’d walk through it even if he’d never admit to the thought. 

He could tell that Regan didn’t want to hurt these small creatures any more than he did. There was so much hesitation in the way she fought them off, so much restraint. If she wanted to, he thought, she could probably shatter every one of them with a scream. If he wanted to, he could slice them all in half with one of his blades. But the very thought of doing so made his chest clench, and he could only nod at Regan’s words. We should have protected them. He thought of Nora, the way she looked when she finally showed up at Axis again. He thought of Wynne, the quiet timbre of their voice as they stood beside his motorcycle and recounted that drive to the airport. He thought of Elias, and the way Emilio had come so close to telling Wynne to grab Nora and leave him there when he’d thought it was clear that Regan had no intention of leaving herself and Elias had no intention of leaving without her. Shouldn’t he have done more? Wasn’t this a karmic thing? 

The wriggling from his pocket stopped abruptly, a small scream-like sound erupting from behind the zipper. Emilio stilled, breath catching in his throat. His hand shot to the zipper, ripping it open with such force that the fabric tore. Reaching into his pocket with a trembling hand, he removed the small Nora, who had… evidently found one of his knives. She was still, eyes closed. On the ground, the small Emilio and the small Wynne erupted into dramatic tears. Guilt clawed at the normal-sized Emilio’s throat as he held the small, still form. “No, no, no,” he muttered, the skipping lyrics of the song providing a morbid backtrack for the realization. 

Regan was yelling, was pointing to the fridge, and it took Emilio a moment to pull his gaze away from Nora to see — Regan. A different, smaller Regan. With a scalpel. Emilio had just enough time to think that this Regan might be capable of fixing the small Nora before the creature launched itself into the hair of its larger counterpart, attempting to either stab her in the head or give her a worse haircut than the one she was currently sporting. 

Scrambling over to the pair of Regans, Emilio set the small Nora on the table and pointed desperately towards her, trying to make eye contact with the smaller Regan. “You — Fix her!” He ordered, gesturing empathetically. Small Regan seemed a little more interested in small Jade’s talk of… whatever WooHoo was. Desperation dug sharp nails into his legs… wait. No, that wasn’t desperation after all. That was the small Emilio, evidently seeking revenge as he used his thumbtack to assist him in climbing up the leg of his larger counterpart. 

He got up to Emilio’s knee before the larger hunter took action, reaching down and plucking the small version of himself off his pantleg and lifting it up by its arm. The anger burning in his chest alongside the confused grief of small Nora’s still form found a new, convenient target in this miniaturized version of himself, and he grit his teeth as he glared into his own furious, beady eyes. Rearing back, he tossed the small Emilio hard into the air…

Right into the cracked computer screen.

The force of it knocked the computer back a little more, the crack on the screen growing. Tiny Regan was pointing a scalpel at him and saying something that evidently wasn’t Irish. From the computer’s speaker, the song continued to skip. Heart stops, heart stops, heart stops. On the screen, tiny Jade was screaming something. 

“How do we — stop this?” Emilio looked desperately at the tiny Jade, searching her face for answers.

—

Regan barely kept in a screech as the tiny version of herself jabbed the scalpel into her head again. When it got tired, it lept off and dragged the weapon – sorry, instrument – in a vertical line across Regan’s cheek. It was deep enough for her to feel and taste blood in her mouth, and she couldn’t help but screech. And what was Emilio saying? Something. But her head throbbed and Katy Perry finally sounded halfway good, and when she stumbled forward her shoes slid on something slick covering the floor. Regan caught the edge of the table for balance (barely – part of her had expected some help from her wings). The floor was smeared in pale yellow. And it smelled like – “Bananas.” Emilio must have pushed things off the table. Just as the thought occurred to her, a tiny, incomprehensible battlecry was howled from across the room, and white powder made fireworks in the air. Wynne found the flour.

Regan never should have started observing this program. Her eyes landed on the hamchild simulation, flat on the table, Emilio gesturing angrily, as the small Emilio slammed the thumb tack into his hand, over and over and over again. “What’s– what is going on?” Blood dripped from her mouth. All she knew was she was apparently supposed to fix something. It was true Hamstring wasn’t breathing, but… none of them breathed, right? She couldn’t feel any death nearby. Regan’s understanding of human simulation anatomy was not up to par with her expertise in actual humans. Regan attempted a quick check in with the small Jade, but the tiny Emilio had been flung in the very center of the screen, blocking communication. The music was improved once again though.

Couldn’t everything just stay still for a minute? Regan needed to think. Her cheek seared with pain. And because, fine, perhaps she’d punished herself enough today. Regan pulled the Regan simulation off her head and tossed her flat on the table, more harshly than she’d intended. “Sorry…” But Wynne and Elias had gathered around the Hamchild, and even Emilio (the small one) pulled himself up and limped over to where his pseudo-child’s tiny body rested.

That left small Regan. Dragging herself back toward the big version of herself (also known as regular Regan, or, Regan), hatred in her eyes. Regan pointed past the simulation. “Do you see over there? The hamchild is hurt. Don’t you care? Is that not what you do? Tend to others?” Still, she clawed forward, leaving tiny pits in the wooden table. “I don’t know how to help her. You do, though. You’re a doctor, and you have never stopped being a doctor. Why don’t you turn around and help. Help her! You have the opportunity. You can help her. She doesn’t have to go through this. You can fix it. Heal her.” But the Regan simulation was singularly focused on Regan. She had reached her tiny scalpel. 

A voice came from an unexpected direction, warped and warbled through the dying laptop’s speakers. The Jade simulation. Looking straight at the Regan simulation, as if nothing else mattered. The small Jade shouted again. “O mee pooba!”

And now, the Regan simulation froze. “Pooba?”

“O mee pooba!” Jade repeated.

This felt like a strangely intimate moment. But the Regan simulation had been quelled. It approached the laptop and stared lovingly at the Jade simulation. For now. So Regan turned to the others, all clustered together. Then to Emilio, assuring him. “I know how to help…” It wasn’t a lie. It would feel like one to the simulations, though, who stood vigil around Hamstring. It gave Regan some time to act.

They didn’t have any glass bowls, which was for the best, but it did mean they wouldn’t be able to see what the simulations were doing underneath. Safety before snooping (always close, however). Regan snatched the big, metal popcorn bowl and with one swift swoop, trapped the simulations underneath – the injured Hamchild, little Emilio, and the righteous Wynne and Elias who probably deserved to get more swipes in. Regan didn’t have it in her to separate the Regan simulation from the Jade one. And they were both fine now, right? She panted and looked up at Emilio. When she tried to ask if it was over now, her lungs twisted it into something she should have been able to control.

Regan tried to catch her breath; she was making the table vibrate and the walls tremble. She would not bring down Jade’s cabin. She would not. And Emilio was here. This shouldn’t have been difficult. It should have been nothing. But Regan huffed with effort, her hand white-knuckled on top of the bowl. She had this. She had this, alright? A leanbh would not have this. Regan practically gagged on the sound that had been steadily pushing upward. But she had her teeth trapping it and could swallow it down, and –

The door was opening.

A small screech escaped out and, just like that, Katy Perry was silenced, replaced by the mechanical sounds of Jade’s laptop exploding.

—

It was supposed to be a long shift. That was what Jade told Regan, at least. She intended to be out there till the crack of dawn, walking around the headstones and mausoleums of Eluria trying to awaken that feeling of… you know, having a meaningful life purpose that was a little dormant at the moment. But how was she supposed to do any of that when she forgot her bag of stakes at home? (This was a first, actually. Like her own conscience sabotaging her) (And nope, she didn’t wanna dwell on what it meant, thank you). Good thing she realized before she was already in the thick of it, and she managed to turn her bike around to return home. Home as in… the place Regan happened to live in. (Cause they had already discussed the cabin didn’t feel particularly cozy for either of them).

Like every other time, she parked Roxie at the head of the trail, cause no way she was getting the wheels into the filthy forest floor, and continued the (very annoying) trek by foot. She had to wonder if this was all a sign that maybe tonight wasn’t the ideal night for slaying after all. What if it was a stay in, ‘watch’ a movie and ‘cuddle’ kind of night? Regan did have that look in her eyes that said she didn’t want Jade to go, but like… her duty, right? The D was already so limp, Regan couldn’t always come first. (There was a joke in there, but she was too dignified to make it) (Right, so dignified).

After minutes of walking alone in the woods, her head everywhere but the path ahead, Jade saw the cabin come into view. And despite the tiring journey to get there, this part she totally enjoyed. The anticipation fluttering in her belly at the thought of seeing Regan again (it had been like, an hour at most, but it still hit the same). Maybe she’d gone to bed already, maybe she was up playing the Sims, or sorting out her turtleneck collection, or reading up on worm societies and their organizational systems. Whatever she was up to had to be fun, right? Cause… wait, why was some distorted version of music reaching her ears the closer she got? Was Regan throwing a party without her? 

And actually? Whatever was going on inside the cabin sounded like one big ruckus, not so much a celebration. There was some shouting, a male voice coming in, which Jade would’ve identified as familiar if she wasn’t suddenly freaking out. Cause… Regan had been alone in the middle of the woods. In a cabin that seemed to be broken into pretty easily (remember the banshees?). Her pace quickened, jogging up the doorsteps, plucking one of the knives from her belt, just in time to hear a small screech come out of Regan’s mouth. Oh no. She burst through the door, adrenaline peaking as she expected to find some sort of altercation. But what Jade barged into was in fact…

More like, something of a cartoon scene. 

Fear vanished, replaced by confusion and a wave of relief that made Jade a little light headed. Geez, she totally had to get a grip on herself. Since when did she feel fear like that? She’d leave the introspection for later (or like, maybe never) cause there were things going on that needed her attention. Her laptop was on the table, well, parts of it more like, but it smelled like it had burned. Plus the screen was gone gone. Exploded. And then there was obviously Regan, her hair all messy (hot, to be fair), holding onto the popcorn bowl, joined by… Emilio. Oh, sweet! Emilio was here. (Wait… He knew where they lived?) 

And she wasn’t even gonna get into the suspicious looking mush on the floor or the flour everywhere cause…She was totally sure she heard Regan vocalize (that was what she was trying to call it, what about it?), so why was that? What were the two doing that was so scary, what had Regan losing control of her lungs? “I thought you didn’t like banana bread,” surprisingly, it was Emilio she addressed first, shooting a look at him, tone all accusatory. So he finally had come around Regan’s baking brilliance, it seemed. 

All she got in return was two pairs of eyes looking back at her, positively shook. Okay, what on earth? Then she glanced at the popcorn bowl they were both holding onto again. And the math absolutely mathed for her. This was their little secret hangout, wasn’t it? Adorbs. Why would they hide this from her!? “Ooooh, is it movie night for you guys? My bad, I forgot my stakes, that’s why I came back.” She put her knife back on the sheath and she approached them. Super mindful not to step into the squashed bananas. And actually, change of plans! Why not leave the slaying for later or, tomorrow even! Having two people she loved in one room was so rare these days, why not make the most of it? 

Regan and Emilio were still acting a little sus, though. “What’s going on, why do you look like you saw a giant worm?” she looked at Emilio specifically, cause she knew Regan was already navigating her mixed feelings after her adventure in Terramoist. She glanced again at what remained of the laptop. Pretty much nothing but plastic, except a few keys (the a, the g and the y, specifically). They might have been watching recipes, since apparently Emilio had some talent for baking too. Was this the reason they looked upset? Pft. “No biggie. It was pretty old anyway, all those viruses made it a little stubborn sometimes, it was time to go.” She shrugged. Maybe Regan could get her a MacBook with her Apple influence.  

Speaking of, she gravitated towards Regan, obviously, as it usually went. And wow, she did not wanna let go of that bowl, did she? Jade reached for it, gently brushing Regan’s fingers. “Come on, baby, I can clean this mess later,” she pressed a soft kiss to her cheek before the two minute mark, as stipulated. She waited, slowly coaxing the bowl out of Regan’s hands, noticing the weird looks being exchanged over her head (but like, most things happened over her head, technically). Why were they acting like they were expecting something inside? The bananas and the flour where definitely elsewhere. She flipped the bowl, holding it to her chest, swearing she almost heard Emilio gasp. Weirdo. She flashed a wide smile at them. “So, are we doing it in the bedroom as usual? I don’t think Emilio will fit in the bed,” he totally would’ve, but she didn’t think Emilio would wanna be there if they got sidetracked. (They would get sidetracked). “We can bring one of the chairs. Alright, so? Let’s move it. I’ll make the popcorn,” she waved her hands, shooing them away from the kitchen. And what movie did Regan and Emilio even had in common? Well, she was about to find out.   

—

It was absolute chaos. The tiny versions of himself, Elias, and Wynne all gathered around the tiny version of Nora, while Regan’s smaller doppelganger seemed intent on ending her life. Emilio had a hard time focusing on it, eyes stuck on a thing that wasn’t Nora but looked like her, sprawled out on the table. There was no blood, but it was clear that she was dead or dying. The group crowded around her threw their heads back in dramatic sobs, large tears flying through the air but disappearing before they hit the table. Emilio felt stupid for the burning in the back of his throat, the way his chest ached. 

Regular-sized Regan was yelling at Smaller Regan to do something, but Smaller Regan seemed interested only in making herself the only Regan in the most inefficient way possible. Frustration built with the strange grief in Emilio’s chest, making him want to tear his damn hair out. Why wasn’t the small Regan doing anything? Small Jade, still within the cracked monitor, said something Emilio didn’t understand. Small Regan seemed to get it, though. She was at the screen in an instant, still not helping Small Nora but no longer attacking Regular-sized Regan, either. Maybe it was as good as things were going to get.

Emilio glanced back as Regan claimed she had an idea, expecting… a suture kit, or tape, or some method of repair. Instead, Regan returned with a bowl. Which she put over the small versions of everyone but herself, who remained a part from the group. Emilio couldn’t pretend not to understand it. It was probably too late for Small Nora, anyway, but Small Wynne could be protected by the bowl. Small Elias, too. He didn’t give much of a shit if Small Emilio was protected or not. 

Some of the chaos seemed to die down, but only momentarily. The music was still blaring and skipping, Small Jade and Small Regan were yelling nonsense back and forth, there were bananas on the floor. Regular-sized Regan opened her mouth, letting out an ear-splitting screech just as the door slammed open to reveal…

“Jade.” Relief flooded Emilio’s voice, because Jade would know what to do here. Regan mentioned that Jade used this thing, whatever it was for, pretty frequently. She’d probably know how to fix Nora and get the murderous little things back into the computer. “We are not making bread. Or watching movies. We are dealing with…” He trailed off, glancing to the bowl that both he and Regan were holding tightly on the table. Making an executive decision, he yanked the bowl upwards and gestured to what lie beneath. “How do we get them back inside the computer?”

There was a beat. It took him a moment to realize that there were no more cries of nonsense, or dramatic sobs of anguish. Blinking, he looked down to where the bowl had been, staring at the empty table. There was nothing there at all. No tiny Nora, still and flickering. No small Wynne, brandishing flour and a needle. No pint-sized Elias, with his obsession for flame. No pathetic Emilio, with his stupid thumbtack. He glanced over to the now smoking computer to find that Small Regan had vanished, too, and the screen was black and void of Jades. 

Less void of Jades was the kitchen, where the normal sized version was talking about movie nights and beds Emilio wouldn’t fit in. The detective found himself suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion, and he ran a hand over his face. He needed to go home and deal with the needle pricks, anyway. He turned his hand over to inspect them, but… those, too, had disappeared. A quick glance to the only remaining Regan in the room revealed that the scrapes her smaller self had left her with had similarly vanished. Even her hair, which had been sliced through, seemed to be back in place now, somehow. The only evidence that anything had occurred was the mess they’d made of the cabin and the broken computer, and one could hardly blame that one tiny doppelgangers without looking like they were pushing blame around.

Emilio sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He looked to Regan, then to Jade, then to the computer. “You know what?” His gaze settled on Regan. “I think this is your job. You can tell her what happened. I’m going home.” He moved towards the door, narrowly avoiding ruining his dramatic exit with a slippery banana. 

Turning back to Regan one more time, he squinted. “You owe me $500.” 

Because this had definitely earned him more than his going rate. 

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 044: Peter's Graduation (ASM 181-186, Ann 12)

MASTERPOST

Len Wein's run finished with an astounding Green Goblin story, what will Marv Wolfman bring to the table?

Oh wow, we're not wasting time, huh!

I also know some little kitten is coming soon...

Our story begins a grave. Uncle Ben's grave!

And what a striking first page. Beautiful colors, smart positioning for the artists, overall really impressive beginning.

This issue is just a recollection of how our hero came to be, with a subtle retcon of Harry Osborn existing back when Peter was in high school. There's an entire page about Jameson's various ways to attack him--he really tried his best! The issue features really nice art, and there's a page where it recounts Spidey's foes... including Will O'The Wisps and Stegron. Uh, sure. Not gonna let me forget the latter now, are we?

My boy the Prowler also gets a cameo, which is quite lovely.

At the end, a penniless father steals Peter's old microscope he just dropped to Ben's grave. That's another kid who'll be happy!

#182 time!

Marv Wolfman's first tenure is to bring beloved supervillain Rocket Racer. Huh! Paying respect to your predecessor, I can appreciate that.

More importantly, this issue starts with one of these panels that Ross Andru seems to love and that, for me, have come to define his tenure:

Mindbending perspectives.

And you know what?

I think Ross Andru loves Rocket Racer, because their chase gives him the occasion to have fun angles and draw specific buildings, and i'm sure it was pretty much Christmas in his head, hahaha. Good for him!

So Spidey loses RR, who blackmails his employer who wants incriminating evidence against himself to make it disappear.

First off: those angles in the first three panels are a rare kind of thing, I feel! And secondly: Hmm, who might that be? A small, thin figure... I'm intrigued!

At the hospital, May tells Peter that married life is really cool. Uh-oh... Are we going to get a proposal, folks?

I didn't notice that right away, to be fair. It's MJ who lampshades it as they leave the room, and she's even about to say she's sad she doesn't have anyone like that (at least, before she gets cut off: where's Anna in all this?) when Peter, who doesn't care in the slightest, has a bad feeling. Doesn't notice anything though, although we definitely see some focus on a character...

Later, the blackmailed guy tries to end things, but Rocket Racer saves him--he wants money after all.

There's a fun scene where two police offers try to catch RR, to no avail. It channels Spidey's chase with the Tarantula through the city a bit. Just a bit.

Interestingly, Spidey says that he'll be graduating "in a few months" and he's been offered a scholarship to teach at ESU and pay his PHD. Nice!

While chasing RR, Spidey notices that his web has been getting weaker for months now... something affecting the original formula (um sure Peter, let's go with that). Set up! Set up!

Anyway, RR escapes once again, but it doesn't matter because...!

Aww that's cute! I admit the scene made me smile.

You know, that was a fun issue. The hero side was fun, and the human side was fun as well!

In #183, Spidey tells us that MJ hasn't answered the proposal yet (oof, that "gulp" was sinister enough...) and we get this...

Lmao, why does Peter look so smooth in the middle panel? Get outta here with that omega man stuff, hahaha.

So Weele, the guy blackmailed by RR, goes to the Tinkerer and decides he wants to be a supervillain too. So the Tinkerer's effectively becoming "that guy every villain comes to to become a supervillain", given that he already built RR's suit.

At the hospital, May's gonna be fine, but "Robert" is there too. His mom is not fine, and the hospital bills keep piling on. He's definitely doing something shady to pay stuff, but what?

Turns out Robert is Rocket Racer. Nice, we get backstory and motivation! Interestingly, both heroes fight while wanting to protect their mother figure in the same room, it makes for a nice moment.

You know what is bonkers?

Weele's new alter ego: Big Wheel. The famous one. I'd heard he was pretty remarkable, and. Yes. I can see that.

The fights ends with Big Wheel rolling into the Hudson. Oops. It was nice to know you!

More importantly, Spider-Man's appearance at the hospital has put May in need of intensive care, says the most asshole male nurse I've ever seen. And then MJ comes... to give back the ring. Oof.

Poor Peter. Who is this in his apartment? That era where you let anyone go to your place, I swear...

Anyway, good issue too! I definitely enjoy the tighter focus on the personal lives of the characters.

Hehehe. A lot of people had guessed it was him! I think having multiple months during the storyline definitely was in their favor.

Some people are NOT happy, but I personally am. They're not yet ready!

In #184, Betty Brant is back! Is she gonna be a serious romantic candidate? I don't feel like Peter's ready for a new partner just yet... and isn't she with Ned Leeds?

Look, if I'm putting this here, it's because Peter Parker is fine as fuck. I think he looked better some 50 issues ago, but he's fresh regardless. He doesn't look as cute anymore... Then again, he's been through some stuff.

Oh right. The plot!

So Betty just left Ned, which means Peter and Ned can finally start dating. I've been waiting for this!

Her story is kind of sad, but also, I really understand it. Not speaking the language can be pretty isolating.

Peter quickly thinks that hey, Betty and him could rekindle their old romance, but he immediately thinks that's not a good idea. She's still married, and he's a good Jewish man.

...I kind of want to see that, though. A bit of drama. Scandal!

And she's into it too, clearly, because she's not going to let Peter go alone to his graduation practice. Is that a thing? I don't have my high school diploma, and I'm still not entirely sure how/when I'll be able to get my university diploma hahaha. Oh, Americans.

Nice to see Marla's still here. And continuation of the Man-Wolf storyline, that's great!

At university, Peter and Betty have a nice time, at least until they cross the path of Philip Chang, who obviously has some PTSD.

Let me enjoy hot Peter in peace.

There's Spidey business for a bit, then back to our betrayers! Betty says Paris is depressing, and she's entirely right. It sucks! It has beautiful things, but it sucks!

Oboy.

Unfortunately, their water is Philip from earlier! Philip is not jazzed up about it, but Peter once again tries to reach out to that lonely figure that calls back to his past self. It's heartwarming, I like it!

So turns out Philip is threatened by this gentleman below.

The White Dragon kidnaps Philip and in consequence, Peter quickly gets rid of Betty, but she seems enamored still, and he has to admit he's also not indifferent to her.

Turns out, Philip has to choose between one of 4 gangs to belong to. Oh. Spidey gets rekt by the White Dragon, and if he wants to save him, Philip has to pick a gang.

But Philip can't, and Spidey's thrown in a gigantic vat of burning oil. Poor guy.

In the comments on *a certain website*, one guy tells his own horror story, about how he also proposed to his girlfriend, who accepted the ring without saying yes or no... then they gradually stopped talking. Oof. That's rough. Hang in there, buddy.

In #185, Spidey gets off fine because while the oil burns his chains, it somehow doesn't burn HIM. Suuuuure. After drowning in the nearby river, he goes back to free Philip. Turns out Philip's dangerous activity back in Hong Kong caused the deaths of his parents, and he vowed to never use violence again. Naturally, that means he can't enter a gang.

These are fun panels. The White Dragon is easily defeated.

Now, onto the graduation! Robbie brings a TV to May's room so she doesn't miss anything, that's sweet!

All of Peter's friends are there (well, not Ned, nor MJ), but there's bad news... he's not on the list! No matter, he still goes to the ceremony. Jameson does a speech that literally lasts "several hours" until, at last... he concludes with "Excelsior" and a reminder that everybody should subscribe to the Bugle.

Peter's name is never called though. The dean tells him he misses one credit, for his sports class. How ironic!

Well, at least, he can always catch up in the summer.

...Wait. What is that.

Is Ross Andru leaving? Is he gone? Was it his final issue? It's a great issue to end on, with a sense of finality, but god damn it, to say I was so happy to have him all this time! Are you kidding me?!

#186 time! Hello, Keith Pollard. Let's see how you're faring.

It's like Ross Andru never left.

Spidey saves a guy from this burning building, to Jameson's despair, but the guy's not happy...

Ooh, that outfit has aged terribly. But the Chameleon seems gay for Spidey so I'm invested.

Anyway, Peter needs money because May needs to be treated and the US health system sucks. So...

Oh my god, they actually fucked.

This is awful, I love it.

The next page helpfully informs me that no, they didn't, they just spoke all night while very obvious sexual tension threatened to ruin their lives. I'm into this too, but it's a bit disappointing, I'm not gonna lie.

Spidey is fed up with being considered public enemy, so he goes to the feds, but...

What. DOC OCK "DIED" IN A SIDE NOVEL?!

Spider-Man is starting to look dangerously like Danganronpa.

Oh well.

Spidey gets an interview in Central Park, but the Chameleon tricks him and his reputation is once again ruined.

It looks right out of a horror movie, I love that left panel hahaha

Aww, Flash, baby! My babyboy

Hmm, we haven't seen Electro in a hot minute... Okay, alright, why not!

So that was alright, this issue. The artists did a good job!

If you're wondering, Annual 12 is ASM #119 and #120, so nothing special. I covered them here already!

Overall a really good batch, I loved the amount of social life we got to see, and I'm curious to see what happened in Spectacular throughout this batch. Next time, folks! I do seem to recall we've got a mystery...

Should be fun!

[thenewnio]

If Clan Apis were a novel...

“Get away from me!” shouted Nyuki. She hovered in front of the mantis, ready to strike.

“Whoa, be careful with that sting.” Warned the mantis, “There’s no need to get upset.”

Nyuki was so stunned she landed back on the branch. “No need to..? You’re trying to eat me!”

“Well, you only have yourself to blame for your anxiety,” explained the mantis. “If you hadn’t seen me hiding, I would have devoured you before you had time to react and you wouldn’t be so distressed.”

“Of course I wouldn’t be distressed,” said Nyuki. “I’d be dead!”

The mantis spread her forelegs as if explaining something quite obvious. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad, young lady.”

“You are crazy,” muttered Nyuki.

“No, I’m hungry,” said the Mantis. “We mantises don’t live in cushy little hives like you bees. We have to fend for ourselves. And it’s not easy, you know. We’re loners. Solitary hunters.” The mantis sniffed as if she was about to cry, “It’s an isolated existence. We rarely run into another of our kind. In fact, the last mantis I saw was my husband when we mated.”

Nyuki knew the importance of family and seeing the mantis so sad made her feel guilty for calling her crazy. “Gee, I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no idea—“

The mantis sighed and stared wistfully at the sky. “Just thinking of him makes me hungry,” she said. And then she looked at Nyuki and added in a sinister tone “He was delicious, y’know.”

Nyuki barely had time to say “Uh oh.” before the mantis’s forelegs shot out like two death-dealing daggers.

“Hee-Yaah!” cried the mantis as Nyuki swiftly flew out of reach.

“Gah! You almost had me with that sob story.” said Nyuki.

“I said too much didn’t I?” the mantis said, as she folded her arms in disappointment.

“You ate your husband!” cried Nyuki.

This seemed to trigger a fond memory for the mantis. “Mmmmm, yes,” she said “Crunchy, mantis goodness.”

[imsopopfly]

I'm Jewish and an ex-Zionist myself, actually. I left because the atrocities Israel has been committing over the years feel to me like they run entirely counter to all the Jewish values I was taught as a child. I couldn't stand by and continue to be complicit in the very genocide that we as Jews have a duty to prevent.

I certainly do not blame you for your Zionism, of course, one of the main tactics in many Zionist Jewish communities is to inextricably entangle their beliefs with our cultural identity, to the point where it's hard to mentally separate the two, and I know how because of that, when you're still in that community, any words against Zionism can sound like they're also against Judaism. But that simply isn't true. And, while yes, there are many anti-Zionist organizations out there that are also antisemitic, there are also many that are not.

I am unsure if you will even listen to me on this, because I don't know how deep you are into Zionist beliefs and I know personally how hard it can be to extricate yourself from those and look at what's happening from an unbiased perspective. It can be really scary. So you may not be ready for this next bit of advice, but if you really want to know more about groups that are anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, I encourage you to look into non-Zionist Jewish groups. There are a number of Jewish pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist organizations out there, some of them in Israel itself. They're fairly easy to search for on Google. Looking outside of Zionism can be hard because it can feel like you're leaving your cultural identity and everything that makes you Jewish behind. That's just not true. There's always been Judaism that exists outside of Zionism and seeking them out can really help you get the answers you need.

And for the record, we are not 'indiginous' to Israel. While it is true our ancestors lived there thousands of years ago, and while it is true that our being forced out of the land back then was a great injustice, the fact remains that prior to the forming of the modern state of "Israel" that land has not been our home for nearly two thousand years. And the people who live on it now, they're not the ones who took it from us. That land is their home and has been for countless generations. And trying to force them out of it the same way we were forced out millennia ago is only perpetuating the cycle of injustice. Even if you were to make the 'indiginous' argument because of our biblical roots in the land, that wouldn't make the Palestinians any less indiginous themselves, and what Israel is doing to them would still be wrong.

We as Jews are taught to question. This is the path I've come to after questioning things and keeping an open mind. I don't know where your truth lies, but I do encourage you to seek it out and not to believe anything blindly without looking into it yourself. I wish you the best on your journey. (oh and since you asked yes I can name at least five Jewish conspiracies that anti-semites often spout, I've had them pointed at me often enough. Let's see, uh, there's the one where they think we're secretly lizard people, there's the one where they think we secretly control the world, there's that weird evangelical one where they think all living Jews need to be in Israel so the Rapture can happen and no Jews can be allowed to stay outside of it, there's um im not sure if its a conspiracy but I've gotten people asking me why I don't have horns if I'm Jewish, there's the really racist white supremacist one where they think that white Jews aren't really white and they're trying to usurp white people, there's that one where they think there's way more of us than there actually are and we're hiding our numbers for some sinister reason, there's the one where they think we drink the blood of christian babies, that's a really out there one, um, I know theres more but those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head)

it's so insane to me how measured every jewish person's take is on antisemitism.

even when i don't agree with them, they are still polite and civil and never do 5 different colors and 5 different sized text bubbles saying kys, then link to a gif of an anime or cartoon character shooting someone with lightning.

i don't know who could follow the die hard anti Israeli antisemites. like, it gives me a head ache from the visuals of screaming in horrible red on bright pink and not just from anger/homicide/"im not the genocider, YOUR THE GENOCIDER" talk.

[theinsanecrayonbox]

Xmen Unlimited Infinity Comics #62-#67 “A World Without X” (aka Age of Apocalypse island of stupid edition)

heyhey, look who found a way to finally read this! so when this was announced, i was intrigued; AoA is my favorite Xmen story/setting, and to be fair the House of Stupid 90s edition wasn’t *that* terrible and it was fun to see how they could creatively mimic the island of stupid using only the 90s animated stock. so can the same be said for AoA?

this is long because i’m covering the whole story, so lets save some dash space with a cut huh

#62

so...Chuckie boy is annoyed that he’s over worked...or that no one cares about him/are too busy to care about him...idk, i have no sympathy for him to start with so i probably am missing the point. Logan tells him to suck it up while beating him up in a sparring match, so that’s nice. then him and Rachel are on the Astral Plane building something?? (why is the Astral PLANE now a physical dimension??) and Nightmare shows up to throw Chuck into AoA. 

so ok, this isn’t “what if Xavier had been killed off and Apocalypse rose to power” but “What a Wonderful Life”. i guess that can work, plus this is a short format so yeah that’s fine.

#63

Sinister just had Xavier clones...mk, and is surprised that this one’s awake because that’s the body Nightmare shoved Chuck into. ok, cool, that works. this Sinister is the more jokey one of the island though and not the AoA one, but alright... Chuck tries to call for Logan but...

uh yeah...Laura wasn’t in AoA. “but KP she didn’t exist when AoA came out so of course blahblahblah” haha i know that, but in the 2000s after she was created, there was an X-23 counterpart introduced in the anniversary stories, and she was not Laura. again, again, semantics i know, but like i said i like AoA. and again, this is the island of stupid doing AoA so they’ll use what pieces they have. plus...

i like how she looks very much like Kyle here

Havok shows up...i could’ve sworn Cannonball was on Gen-Next but maybe i’m misremembering (that was my least favorite part of the story after all)

yay Kyle!

even more yay at this panel!! Kyle, Laura, AND Victor! this was made for me ^^

hurray! it’s the correct AoA and not the terrible Battleworld one! this has just gotten SUPER good ^^

#64

i was going to make a joke about him eyeballing due to you not wearing a shirt, but then the rest of this dialog just slammed me in the feels. it’s official, i love this. also adorable to watch Kyle and Laura go play in the yard.

ok, so our X-team here is Rogue, iceman, and Sunspot as usual, so that’s good. Cypher and Proteus i can give them, because they’re island folks. idk who Tempus is, i thought that was Moira but...

Moira is Magneto???

so the explanation is a little weird but it works well enough i guess; plus it gives the baby Charles vibe without having it be Magneto and Rogue’s kid. anyways, Tempus is part of the Five i guess? and i just now realize that Chuck is Bishop in this, the guy that knows  the timeline is wrong and how to fix it. the good guys are then like “cool lets do the island of stupid here to fix everything” however...

Sinister says the same to Apocalypse with the added caveat of “hey let’s make a clone army to invade the multiverse”.

so the good guys are going to raid the pens for the missing Five members, the bad guys are planning to capture their members...

you are leaving Victor and Kyle out of this assault??? (Laura is on the Next panel and got cut off whoops). boo on you. you just lost your SUPER status. also where’s Blink???

#65

so fight time. Darkchylde (who i don’t believe was in the original, but island so hey) summons magic zombies of dead Xmen? fight time. Xavier waxing about being a teacher and how his Xmen are so much better because he taught them. blahblahblah

oh Victor and Kyle are here. good. the Pack is sticking together i guess

Moira gets a good line about not focusing on fixing the past or over thinking the future, just living in the now. so that’s a nice contrast to her murderbot normal self. i say they AoAed her well then.

Laura and Kyle take on Scott! yay!

lookit Victor being so proud of his pups with very fitting caption boxes across TWO panels! (have i finally found the person at marvel who follows me???)

so Chuck decides to take the fight to Apocalypse...and by fight i mean kaiju fight as they super-grow Krakoa into a big boy.

#66

kaiju smash! lol. has Holocaust been Nemesis for a while? or was that just changed for this? i’m not sure if that feels correct or not...

Chuck melts Sinister’s brain after Sinister beats him up. Apocalypse says he’s too smart for that...so Chuck manifests his wife and...blah. why is Genesis such a huge deal? if it was this easy to defeat Apocalypse all these decades, just gotta talk about his wife, why has he been so hard to stop. i know the answer is “magic of retcons” but still.

Chuck complains how mind wiping is totally a bad thing to do...despite the fact that he does that on the regular...the day is saved? Chuck seems to die (in a cliché La Pieta pose), so...happy ending?

#67

ah boo, there’s more. so Nightmare goes “haha that was round one of torture, lookit how evil and cool i am” and Chuck is all “nuuh looser i’m winning”

ok, i’ll give you that part of his argument, even though Moira seemed to have more lines, Victor kinda had more of the emotion even if it wasn’t the focus.

so blahblahblah, Nightmare trips an alarm and all the Grey-Summers ladies come in to save Chuck. Chuck talks about how the Xmen are an idea and will never die, because hope eternal even if he’s not there, blahblahblah.

so Logan takes him hot tubbing to unwind. ok...didn’t see this turning into a gay porno...

is that a nod to the AoA-esque 90s episode “One Man’s Worth”? because Logan was a main character of that

oh, oh great, he’s gonna try to invade other realities and convert them to his hivemind of terribleness. that, that’s just brilliant -.-

so we jump back to the AoA, which i guess is real and not just a vision created by Nightmare, cause their gang sets up an island seed? and is all “welp let’s wait for the real world to find us”. and Victor still refuses to wear a shirt XD

SO how did this stack up overall? you know, actually pretty good. it’s a super short read, and it’s own little pocket world, so it doesn’t affect anything in the grand scheme. it’s the stock Wonderful Life plot, and if it wasn’t done to rise up a character who’s so terrible, it’d’ve hit all the correct notes i’m sure. but it hit enough of the good ones. and it did a good job mimicking it’s inspiration using different pieces. if this story makes it to print like some of the other Xmen Unlimited ones have, i’d be willing to grab it. the art was good (turns out it was the same art team as the House of Stupid 90s edition, which i also really enjoyed the art on too), the writing was good. a very nice and quick one and done.

[thankskenpenders]

IDW Sonic: Imposter Syndrome and #50

It’s finally here! IDW Sonic #50! I waited to talk about the Imposter Syndrome miniseries until after #50 dropped, and it turns out #50 has, uh... well, it’s made a big splash. I’m not sure I’ve seen this many people talking about (and/or arguing over) a single issue of Sonic in a long time.

As expected, in this post I’ll be talking about Surge, Kit, and Starline, but #50 has also given us a ton to chew on regarding Sonic and Eggman, Belle, and the overarching themes of the entire IDW series.

Let’s start out with the miniseries!

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Surge rules

Can I just say that up front? That’s my main takeaway. Surge fucking rules

She was popular from the very second the first images of her dropped because Evan and Mauro came up with an extremely sick design, and the actual story does not disappoint. She borrows liberally from delinquent rival anime tropes (except, you know, she’s a girl, so it’s instantly even better), but that’s such a natural and fun addition to the Sonic cast that she instantly grabs you

And boy, if the writing and the strength of the design weren’t already enough, Thomas Rothlisberger’s art throughout the arc sure does. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Rise of the TMNT, which I can see. But Surge just makes so many good faces, constantly, and everything she does is cool. She’s angry teenage rebellion personified and she’s instantly become one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise, period. (Tangle and Whisper are also up there, so it’s safe to say the IDW comics have an extremely good track record when it comes to comic-original characters.)

Like seriously just look at her faces and tell me she isn’t the best

Kit, AKA “Aw Little Guy!!! Oh He's A Little Bit Fucked Up Actually”

There were always hints that Kit had a sinister side to him - he is a villain, after all - but Surge stole the show at the start of the miniseries. This left Kit mostly as her meager sidekick struggling to please both her and Starline. In this way, he’s a dark reflection of Tails. Where Tails has become more independent over time, becoming more of an equal to Sonic, Kit exists entirely to support Surge. Starline made him this way, because this is how Starline perceives Sonic and Tails’ relationship. Starline doesn’t really understand people despite thinking he does, and this is what ultimately damns all of them

Naturally, this has left Kit kind of fucked up. Over the course of the arc, it becomes clear that he’s probably the scarier of the two. Surge might be stronger, but like Sonic, she wears her emotions and her intentions on her sleeve. But Kit? Kit suppresses his violent urges, until they build to a point where he can’t anymore

(these panels from #50 but still)

Holy shit, Starline???

I touched on Starline’s very meta plan earlier. I would have honestly been happy if Ian and co. had just added these cool new rivals for Sonic and Tails and let them duke it out, because they are, in fact, cool as hell. But the actual plot of the arc is more intriguing than that

Starline has always been a very meta character, with his main trait as a character basically being that he can zoom out and notice patterns in the franchise that other characters either can’t or won’t. He’s the guy who watches a movie and says how he would make smarter decisions than the characters the whole time. Early on, he did this with Eggman. He tried to “fix” Eggman’s methods so that he could finally succeed in beating Sonic and taking over the world, but this didn’t work out, and Eggman kicked him to the curb. He then decided that he would simply go solo and take over the world for Eggman. He finally reveals his true plan for doing so here: create his own “heroes” who can replace Sonic and Tails, the main heroes who always stand in the way of “progress” (Eggman taking over the world). In theory, this will allow Starline to control the hero/villain dynamic from both sides, ending the cycle of Eggman trying to “change the world” and Sonic stopping him

And of course, Starline calls this cycle he intends to break...

“The Sonic Cycle.”

I love you Ian

It quickly becomes apparently, though, that Starline’s plan here is, uh. Extremely fucked up! Wow! Early on it’s revealed that Starline has repeatedly been “rebooting” Surge and Kit. Any time the cracks start to show in their conditioning and they question their life stories, Starline’s orders, or their innate desires to defeat Sonic and Tails, Starline edits their memories. They do start to put two and two together, though, and eventually they learn the truth: they’re just two random kids Starline kidnapped and experimented on. They don’t remember their actual pasts, and Starline didn’t bother to keep track of who they originally were because he doesn’t care. They’ve been modified with cyborg endoskeletons and even have some of the Metal Virus in them, making them nigh-unkillable. Which Starline tested by... well, killing them repeatedly to make sure they always bounced back.

This is... so much darker than I would have ever expected? But in a fantastic way. It makes Starline SO absolutely despicable, and it gives Surge and Kit this pathos that makes you want to root for them, even as they set out to go rogue and burn the whole world down. Surge is very much set up as her own antihero in the buildup to her showdown with Sonic, which is a choice that I think leads to some fascinating character juxtaposition when it finally happens in issue #50.

Really, my only complaint about the miniseries was that the marketing made it seem like Sonic and Tails would be dealing with these two sooner, when in reality this is all the setup. The extremely hype wrestling promos for the climactic Wrestlemania that is Sonic #50. (My other complaint, I suppose, is that IDW is still having multiple artists trade off in a single story, which can be a bit jarring. But that’s a publisher-wide issue.)

But MAN. When we finally do get that big showdown? It does not disappoint.

SONIC #50

As with Imposter Syndrome, I went in expecting Sonic and Tails to fight Surge and Kit. And we absolutely got that with this extra-long issue penciled by Adam Bryce Thomas. Adam’s always been an A-lister on the IDW series, especially when it comes to bombastic shounen manga-inspired battles, but this issue might just be his best Sonic work yet

But like I said at the start, the issue is more than just some cool fights.

Sonic vs. Surge

Surge’s entire life, or at least what little of her life she can remember thanks to Starline, has been building up to this moment. Whoever she was before is gone, replaced with one purpose. She’s been impatiently awaiting the day she's finally allowed to fight Sonic to the death. We’ve followed her through Starline’s inhumane training, the audience being equally antsy after months of buildup. At long last, she confronts him. She delivers an impassioned speech about what she stands for, how she curses the world that discarded her, how she’s going to tear Sonic and anyone else who stands in her way a new one...

And Sonic... doesn’t really give that much of a shit.

They do fight, of course. Boy, do they ever. But Sonic has never met this girl before and has no animosity towards her. He’s also done this too many times and would like to skip to the part where they’re friends, or at least frenemies. And this is just... tragic for Surge. For her, this is the most important day in her life. But for Sonic, it’s Tuesday. For Surge, this is a duel to the death. But Sonic, ever the unflappably positive shounen protagonist, is just having fun fighting someone who keeps him on his toes. He refuses to validate her on her terms.

(There are also a lot of interesting parallels with Tails’ simultaneous fight with Kit, where the kindhearted Tails is trying to be extremely nice and defuse the situation when he realizes that Kit is just some poor, fucked up kid. But instead of going on my own tangent I’ll link this very good TikTok analyzing Sonic’s social skills and the interesting ways his blunt, brash attitude can clash with the fact that he does genuinely care a lot.)

I even feel like Adam’s art is playing up the idea that Sonic’s attitude continues to make him the villain for Surge. His speech about his ideals places him above Surge, with a smug expression on his face and sunbeams shining down over him. Adam’s own (extremely sick) variant cover is framed very similarly, showing us the smug and above-it-all Sonic from Surge’s perspective.

Why does Surge think Sonic is so holier-than-thou? And why does she still care about fighting him if she just wants to defy Starline’s brainwashing? Well, she directly calls out his belief in the power of second chances, blaming Sonic for her very existence. Which ties back into what’s become one of the main recurring themes of the IDW series.

Sonic’s Characterization

As Ian’s explained, Sonic’s characterization in the IDW series has been informed by a number of factors. For one, more compassionate heroes are just landing better with audiences these days, including in shounen manga. Your Dekus, your Tanjiros, etc. But beyond that, Sega explicitly forbids Sonic and friends from proactively seeking out Eggman. Sonic is never looking for a fight. Eggman simply causes trouble, Sonic shows up to stop him, and he returns to being a free-spirited roamer.

Really, Sonic’s attitude in the current comics isn’t much different from how he acts in the games. Ian just decided to draw more attention to this behavior, and turn it into an explicit character trait that impacts the story.

I don’t really know what games people have been playing where Sonic DOESN’T act like this? Sure, there are a few games where a villain dies. There are always going to be counterexamples in a series as inconsistent as this. But look at how many characters Sonic has given second chances, and how lightly Sonic often takes threats to the world. Shadow was trying to blow up the damn planet and Sonic was still just having fun racing him on the ARK. Chaos destroyed a whole major metropolitan city and Sonic is like “hold on, Chaos is just hurt, we need to break this cycle of violence.” He’s ended up working with Eggman plenty of times to stop a greater threat. Even when this doesn’t happen, Eggman tends to just fly away at the end. Sonic never hunts him down. Again, Sega forbids him from doing this. It’s not in his character. The IDW comics just explore why.

At the same time, bad faith criticisms of Sonic’s willingness to give villains second chances tend to ignore the very important second part of this mantra, which this issue has Sonic spell out explicitly. Yes, he believes in giving people personal freedom. But the second they use that freedom to hurt people, Sonic is going to beat their asses again. He doesn’t have qualms about using violence in that way. He is, by no definition of the word, a pacifist. Sonic understands that Surge is traumatized, and tries to give her the chance to back down. She refuses, so he kicks her ass, because she’s a threat. Sonic sort of took mercy on the Zeti, in that he didn’t fucking execute them or whatever... but they also got banished back to the Lost Hex where they can’t hurt anyone. Tails disarmed Metal Sonic before they let him go. Sonic let Eggman go only because he had amnesia and Mr. Tinker was, by all accounts, a literal different person. The second he came back? Sonic gladly went right back to blowing his shit up. He is not out here handwringing about Eggman Empire property damage, he’s destroying his bases and smashing his mechs again.

Sonic also isn’t just any regular guy, and can’t always be judged as such. He’s a larger-than-life hero. He’s the embodiment of freedom, of endless adventure, of the power of friendship, of other idealized... well, ideals. This is the very core of his character. He’s the unshakably positive hero who never blinks in the face of danger, who the other, more realistically fallible characters can lean on. He’s a force of nature. He’s not perfect, and he doesn’t always handle things the right way, and other characters will bring up valid counterpoints to his way of life. Like other shounen heroes like Goku or Luffy, he might be a hero due to his actions, but he’s not concerned about being the world’s savior or its god. He doesn’t want to dictate how people live their lives. He leaves decisions about how to run society to other, smarter people, like the Restoration. He just wants to be free to go on adventures and to help his friends when they’re in need. His theme song spells out his whole deal, clear as day: It doesn’t matter who’s wrong and who’s right. He’s just living by his own feelings, and he won’t give in, won’t compromise. He only has a steadfast heart of gold.

Surge can’t stand this, though. The two just can’t see eye to eye. And so she zaps Sonic when he takes a time out in their fight to help her out of a chasm, getting the last laugh and seemingly falling to her doom. “That’s the real problem with giving people a choice,” Sonic solemnly says. “You can’t stop them from making the wrong ones.”

The Bigger Problem

Beyond any fandom bickering over how Sonic should or shouldn’t be characterized, though, this is part of a larger problem that I’ve seen way too frequently in recent years. Adults are engaging with genre fiction for children, and then getting upset when the child protagonists fail to model what they perceive as proper behavior for adults. Particularly, adults are seeing child protagonists learn to solve conflicts nonviolently, or even merely refusing to kill a villain, and interpreting this media as a political playbook for adults telling them that punching Nazis is bad.

That’s not to say that children’s media is never political, of course, or that you can never judge it through a political lens. (Back in the Archie days the direct political allegories were NOT subtle.) But just because some cartoon villains are obvious stand-ins for fascists doesn’t mean that every cartoon with a world-conquering villain is trying to tell you, an adult, how you should deal with fascists, or murderers, or whatever bad faith comparison critics on YouTube and Twitter want to make this time.

This will hopefully be insultingly obvious to most people reading this, but fiction isn’t always literally about the thing it’s depicting, or the closest real world equivalent. In genre fiction, and especially genre fiction for kids, reality is heightened. A fight for the fate of the city or the world or the universe isn’t necessarily about world-scale threats in real life like fascism, or even about real world violent conflicts in general. It’s often more about the emotions than what’s literally happening on screen. In a musical, when the emotions get too strong for words, they break out into song. In an action cartoon, when the emotions get too strong between conflicting characters, they fight. The fantastical violence is just the medium through which the story is conveyed. They trade blows and express their feelings.

Similarly, when the child hero in a series for children saves the day by hugging the right person, or when a villain is redeemed, or when Naruto espouses the power of friendship and uses Talk no Jutsu for the hundredth time, that isn’t telling you, a 30-year-old, that you can go out right now and save America by giving Mitch McConnell a hug. The morals of these stories aren’t necessarily supposed to apply to world-scale conflicts because children are not responsible for saving the world in real life. Instead, the lessons apply more to conflicts that children do deal with. Disputes with friends, or family members, or teachers. Things like that. It’s telling kids that hey, maybe you’ve been mean to people, maybe you’ve acted wrong, but you can learn from your mistakes and do better. That is what lessons about trying to resolve conflicts peacefully, talking about your feelings, empathizing with others, and giving people second chances are supposed to be about. They (usually) aren’t intended as political playbooks for adults telling you not to punch a Nazi, because the people telling these stories are probably hoping that adults aren’t modeling their political behavior after Cartoon Network and Shonen Jump.

But while I generally enjoy this compassionate take on the Sonic series, there is one part of the issue that felt weaker when it comes to the heroes showing compassion towards the villains.

Belle and Metal

If there’s one character from the games that I think Ian has always struggled with more than others, it’s probably Metal Sonic. Of course, not every writer is going to gel with every character, especially on a licensed series where you’re working with someone else’s cast. (Lord knows if I was to write a Sonic series I would play favorites lmao.) And Ian’s definitely put out some great Metal Sonic stories. But he’s also prone to boiling the character down to a simple killer robot for Sonic and co. to repeatedly defeat without any interiority.

Belle has also been a contentious character throughout this season. I’ll reiterate that I think Belle is great, and the big emotional beats with her have been strong. I would say the mixed response to Belle is primarily a matter of pacing, more than anything else. As Evan explained over on her blog, Belle's backstory was originally just going to be a short one-off. When the 2021 Annual was replaced with the Classic Sonic special, Belle’s story got turned into the main overarching subplot connecting the stories of the third season. I do like a lot of the storytelling this allowed for. The buildup to the reveals in the Test Run arc, and her ensuing tearful breakdown; her questioning of her very nature as a Badnik; her heroic moments in Trial by Fire where she’s finally able to prove herself. It’s good stuff! Character arcs like this are why original characters are added to the comics in the first place. But I can also see how the slow and somewhat repetitive rollout of information and emotional beats is a bit much over a year and a half of comics, and it was a little odd to have her stick around as the only consistent main character for every single arc of the season as soon as we met her. But I still enjoyed her arc this season as a whole.

No, where I start to be more mixed on the direction of Belle as a character is this issue. Previously, Belle had made it her mission to try and save as many Badniks as she could. I understand her motivation, and I do think this has potential to be a fun premise. Badniks are EXTREMELY underutilized in the tie-in fiction, and anyone in this corner of the fandom who’s following artists like Hydro knows how fun it is to have Badnik characters around.

But the problem is, of course... if we start to recognize the Badniks that Sonic destroys casually as people, doesn’t that make it wrong for him to destroy them?

I guess it depends on the context, and how it’s executed in the future. Like, Motobud was fine because that’s not just A Motobug, but one that was specifically reprogrammed by Mr. Tinker to be friendly. But what’s Belle’s endgame here? Where is the line drawn between robots that need to be saved and simple obstacles for Sonic to pop in action sequences?

To me, we start to see the cracks in issue #50 with Belle’s attempts to save Metal Sonic. Metal is certainly no stranger to redemption arcs and characters trying to see the good in him - the OVA basically defined him as a character. But still. It’s admirable for Belle to see a robot who’s hurt and want to help, but the sympathy shown for Metal is laying it on a bit thick for me given Ian’s usual characterization of him as a missile with legs. Sonic already let him go once early in the series, but that was specifically because he thought Eggman was gonna remain Mr. Tinker forever at the time, and he and Tails also made sure not to restore his full fighting abilities. (”We’re compassionate, not stupid.”) But in this very different context, with a very different character, it’s just... eh, it didn’t sell me on this as a wise use of Belle’s compassion. If she wants to help the “abandoned” Eggman bots, Metal is very much not one of those. He just happened to have been hurt by Surge when they found him.

Not the end of the world, but it’s the weak part of what’s otherwise an amazing issue, and I worry that Belle showing complete and total sympathy towards every Eggman robot may get old fast. But, like I said, it will depend entirely on the execution. Maybe she’ll only single out the oddballs like herself and Motobud. It may not even be a huge element of the story moving forward, since I know Evan’s outright said Belle would be taking more of a backseat now that her initial arc is completed. (It also seems like Eggman wants to take advantage of the fact that she interfaced with Metal, so her kindness here may backfire...)

If anything, though, I do like the little awkward family reunion where Belle is telling Eggman that she’s done hoping he’ll go back to being Mr. Tinker and is gonna go live her own life and Metal is just kind of standing there because he won’t attack another Eggman creation.

Anyway! I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned the giant robot fight

Starline’s Final Comeuppance

Sonic’s ideals, as explained in his fight with Surge, are also directly contrasted with Starline as he fights Eggman. Sonic stands for personal freedom, for better or worse, but Starline stands for total control, even more so than Eggman. He tries to manipulate people and the very story he exists in to steer everyone in the totalitarian direction he thinks is best. Anything outside of his narrative doesn’t matter. Even as Eggman is fighting him in a giant mech, he’s still under the impression that his actions are justified, that Eggman will be okay with being a pawn in his scheme so long as they get their happy ending ruling the world.

Instead, he loses a sick-ass mech fight, he’s humiliated worse than ever before, and then he dies!

I actually didn’t read it as a death at first because being crushed by rubble is such an easy “death” to write around, and it’s, you know, a comic book. Nobody stays dead in comic books. (We already know Surge survives this issue, regardless of how it looked.) But Ian did, indeed, intend for this to be Starline’s death. He also admits that that’s not entirely up to him since he’s not the only person making story decisions, so I won’t be surprised if he comes back in a year or two. Regardless, as much as I like the character, this is probably the most fitting death Starline possibly could have had. He thought he could outsmart Eggman, and the very nature of the series he’s in. Some readers, too, have accused Ian of writing Eggman as too much of a bumbling oaf in the IDW comics, especially with Starline always pointing out his mistakes. Even the marketing for this arc seems to have played into this, asking if Eggman would “bumble his way to a victory”

All this for the ultimate slam dunk in this issue where Ian definitively reminds us that, even if he can never beat Sonic... no one else can definitively beat Eggman, either.

Because Eggman fucking rules

I said at the top that Starline is damned because he doesn’t understand people as well as he thinks he does. He creates Surge and Kit as dark and deeply broken reflections of Sonic and Tails because he so fundamentally misunderstands how their dynamic works. He thinks he understands Eggman, too, but he doesn’t. He may consider himself Eggman’s #1 fan, but he’s a toxic fanboy with faulty criticisms. He’s CinemaSins. He focuses on the details and the logic, he nitpicks, and he thinks he could do everything better if given the opportunity. He thinks he understands the nature of the series he’s in, but he fails to see the big pictures, the heart. He doesn’t understand why Sonic is really the hero beyond his strength and bravado. He doesn’t understand why Tails is a hero beyond his ability to support Sonic. And he doesn’t understand why, despite his many mistakes, Eggman will always endure as the true big bad of this world. And this leads to his downfall at the hands of his idol

I could say more about this issue and the ones that lead to it! I have obviously already said way too much. I’m gonna cut it off here!

Even with all the hype to live up to, this was an extremely satisfying issue of Sonic. One of the best in a long, long time. This one’s gonna stick with people. I have my quibbles, but it really has it all. Action, humor, drama, heart, stunning artwork, and a whole lot of character work to think about. Can’t really ask for more, can I?

[see-arcane]

Barking Harker: The Dracula sequel I guess I’m making

(Scraps of Dracula spoilers below)

This honestly started as a running joke with myself.

Between Dracula Daily and rereading the novel in a speedrun in the interim and generally letting my brain chew this old story apart like an over-loved dog toy, I started cooking this idea in the background. One that had some seeds in my Jonathan Harker rambles. The gist of which discuss (SPOILERS):

1. Jonathan Harker’s eerie-to-inhuman alterations after his time in Castle Dracula.

2. Theories as to what specific entity and/or cryptid Jonathan Harker might be.

3. Exactly how ride or die Jonathan Harker is for Mina. Rather, ride and die. And kill. And anything else required to ensure Mina continues to exist and that he shares whatever fate befalls her. To a spicy and outright sacrilegious extent. There’s some very literal Faustian ready-to-sell-my-soul intensity from our sweetheart solicitor when it comes to his beloved.

The combination of all this was stirred into one of my longest-running pet peeves about the novel.

Specifically, that for all the zesty gothic goodness promised by the opening stay in Castle Dracula—a portion of the book I’m convinced could’ve been its own novel or novella—we don’t really get everything out of it that we could. No more than we get another glimpse of Count Dracula at his most uncomfortably intimate and intimidating after that section. Following Jonathan’s unpleasant business trip, it’s all about Dracula in the shadows, sinking his teeth into England, and harassing the ensemble cast. Which is a great story! Obviously! ‘Ancient monster man coming to haunt and menace the unprepared modern characters’ is a fun time.

But damn it, the first part of the book is still my favorite. Cornered Protagonist VS Overpowered Antagonist in a confined space, sinister supernatural goings-on, manipulative power plays, knife-twisting psychological warfare, and all the gothic trimmings. I wanted more! Just like I wanted to play with all the implications and potential surrounding Jonathan Harker’s whole weird deal.

And you know what? I wanted to cram more in there. This thing was a bowl of untainted cookie batter and I could pour a metric ton of chocolate chips* into it until I was satisfied.

(*Varied monsters. Cameos. Mind games. High Octane Fuckeduppedness.)

“I have a keyboard, an open Word doc, and no inhibitions!” I shouted in full Grecian hero hubris. “I can write this self-serving literary junk food if I feel like it! And I do! So I will!”

So I did. So I am. So much so that I’ve realized I maybe, possibly, actually am making something a wee bit beyond a little public domain fanfiction.

Note: This encompasses the first four chapters.

Uh oh.

I don’t want to jump ahead of myself. I’ve self-hyped over WIPs and books-in-potentia before, then burned myself out on the expectations I couldn’t reach, endlessly writing and deleting and rewriting in a Promethean loop that killed the whole thing. NaNoWriMo damn near gutted me the one time I dared it. Putting this pseudo-announcement up here is less of a Very Guaranteed Promise I Shall Complete This Work, but more of a low-key way to jab myself into sticking to it as best I can.

(Because it really is that much harder to drop a project when you’ve mentioned it out loud and can’t pretend otherwise.)

So, yeah. Without spoilers, I am currently working on an alternate ending sequel novel to Dracula, with the working title, Barking Harker. Features include a return to Castle Dracula, more horror, more menace, more bastardry, bogeymen, and bogeywomen all over. We’ve got vampires visiting from outside Transylvania. We’ve got werewolves. We’ve got ghosts. We’ve got strange dogs. We’ve got stranger professionals in the matter of vampires and assorted occult odds and ends. We’ve got murder and madness and and macabre nightmares galore.

Any folks out there who have enjoyed my rambles and ficlets pertaining to Dracula and company, you are invited to poke me with a virtual stick every now and then in the ensuing months. Even if you’re not interested, I ask that you channel the most irritating backseat driver voice you can to occasionally ask, Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet? The mortifying ordeal of being known/caught in the act of slinking away from Yet Another Unfinished WIP is an underrated motivational tactic.

That said, cross your fingers for me. And maybe pray for our good friend, Jonathan Harker.

He’s going to need it.