#(the ten is a nebulous number I think if I had to make a list of top love songs my head and heart would explode.)

[terrainofheartfelt]

sweet thing one of liz's top ten love songs of ever

[hungermakesmonsters]

Love, Sick Love

Chapter Ten

Plot summary : Working at one of the shadier bars in Brooklyn, you have one rule; don’t mess around with the patrons. Most of them are criminals, dangerous. None more so than Billy Russo, but Billy believes that rules are made to be broken. Especially your rule. One lapse in judgement is all it takes for Billy to decide that you’re his, and he’s never been the sort of man to take rejection well.

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : R 

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] Mentions of child abuse. All chapters will deal with dark and smutty themes, including but not limited to stalking. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story. 

Word Count : 5.9k

A/N : 😅😅😅

CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE | CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE | CHAPTER SIX | CHAPTER SEVEN | CHAPTER EIGHT | CHAPTER NINE

Master List

Chapter Ten

You knew from the moment Billy left that there was nothing stopping you from going into the bathroom and removing your cum-stained panties. But you didn’t. In fact it only crossed your mind as a fleeting thought, not because you were scared Billy might find out and certainly not because you felt like you had to obey him, but for some other third, more nebulous reason.

As uncomfortable as you were, as much as you hated it, some part of you... enjoyed it.

It was that same strange and conflicting mix of emotions that you’d felt the morning after sleeping with him; that feeling that you weren’t supposed to enjoy rough sex as much as you had. Shame. That was it. You felt ashamed, but every time you thought about your panties, you remembered the way you’d felt, bent over the table and at his mercy. You remembered how good it had felt.

So, you didn’t remove your panties and you didn’t think twice about slipping into the bathroom after closing while Jenna emptied the cash register. 

It took you a couple of minutes to work up the nerve to stand in front of the mirror and pull up your skirt to snap a picture, though it took you a lot less time to grip your phone in such a way that you could flip him off in the process. When it was done and sent, you deleted the photo from your phone and, once again, found yourself glad that you still had Billy’s number blocked.

That feeling of conflict, of knowing how you should feel versus how you did feel, followed you home and had your stomach tying itself in knots when you thought about his other demand.

At first you told yourself that you wouldn’t call him, slipping out of your clothes and straight under a hot shower, but the longer you were left to think about, the more your stomach seemed to coil itself in knots. 

Did you want him to show up? Did you want to finish what you’d started with him earlier? 

No.

Yes.

Fuck.

Finally, you settled on calling him - but you were only going to allow it to ring three times before you hung up. If Billy missed the call, that was his own fault.

Unfortunately, he answered on the second ring, as if he’d been sat there all night, just waiting for your call.

“Hey,” he said, and you could almost hear his smile in his voice, “you get home safe?”

“Yeah,” you answered, wanting to keep things short and sweet.

“You’re late.”

There wasn’t any accusation of malice to it, it was just a statement of fact; the bar had closed almost an hour ago and you only lived a few blocks away.

“I needed to take a shower.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Billy said.

You were grateful that he held back his laughter, but you didn’t know what to do with the silence that followed.

“How was your night?” He asked.

“Really? That’s really the game you want to play?” You said, unable to stop the irritation from filing your tone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This - getting me to phone you, feeding your ego, thinking you can make me do whatever you want. I -”

“That’s not why I asked you to call.” He interrupted.

“You didn’t ask, Billy. You told me to. You threatened me.”

There was another few seconds of silence and then you heard a sigh from him.

“Fine, whatever, but that’s not why I wanted you to call me.”

“Then why?” You asked, barely biting back a sigh of your own.

“I wanted to know that you got home safe.” 

Your heart stuttered in your chest, that strange feeling of butterflies taking flight in your stomach again, but you did your best to tamp it down. You were confused. More than that, you were still angry with him, even if you couldn’t quite pinpoint the reasons anymore. 

Because he kept pushing, kept taking you by surprise.

Because one minute he was sweet and gentle, and the next minute he left you wanting to strangle him.

“Why?”

“I told you. Because I care about you.”

The comment caused the feeling in your stomach to get worse.

“How can you care about me? You hardly know me...”

In the moment of silence that followed, you steeled yourself for whatever argument he’d try to make, hoping that you could finally take some control of the situation. 

“I’m trying to get to know you, kitten, but you’re not exactly making it easy,” he said. You remained silent, so Billy decided to push the matter. “Fine. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

You let out a forced and particularly loud sigh, sinking back on your bed and staring up at the ceiling, not sure what you could tell him or if you even wanted to tell him anything at all. He’d been right earlier when he’d said you didn’t like honesty - you didn’t like anything that let people get too close.

The longer the silence dragged on, you knew you had to say something.

Honestly, you weren’t sure if you felt the need to talk just to fill the silence and placate Billy, or if it was because you felt shitty for refusing to answer when he was making such an effort to get to know a little more about you.

You took a breath, not sure what you wanted to say until words started to pour from your mouth. And, by the time you realised what you were doing, it was too late to stop yourself.

“When I was twelve, my dad died. My mom had no money and there were debt collectors just waiting to take everything away, so she took my and my siblings back to her family home in Virginia.” You took a breath, stomach churning. “Her family was loaded but my mom had been cut off and taken out of the will for marrying my dad.”

Billy remained silent, as if he was hanging on your every word, so you continued.

“Our grandfather was a cruel old bastard - or so our mom told us. Her plan was to win him round, but she couldn’t do that with kids in tow. So, her and our grandmother hid us in the attic. It was only supposed to be for a couple of days while she fixed things with her father, but... we ended up stuck up there for three years, never allowed to leave the attic until we eventually managed to run away.”

You hated yourself as you finished speaking and, this time, allowed the silence to hang in the air. Billy let it linger for almost a minute before speaking again.

“Nice try, kitten, but that’s the plot to Flowers in the Attic.”

The worst part was that he didn’t even sound angry about catching you in another obvious lie. He just sounded resigned, almost hurt.

“You’ve read Flowers in the Attic?” You weren’t sure why that was the question you chose to ask. 

The feeling in your stomach continued to get worse, as if some part of you felt bad about lying to him and pushing him away. The worst part was you weren’t even sure why you did it, why you couldn’t just offer him some watered down version of your past, something that was true but only to a comfortable extent.

“What can I say? I’m a man of hidden depths.”

“Yeah?” You asked, doubling down on your course of action. “They have a lot of VC Andrews in the prison library.

“No, I came across a copy on base in Afghanistan,” he answered, pausing for a beat before; “... have you just been assuming I was an ex-con all this time?”

“Wouldn’t exactly be the only one to drink at Sam’s,” you offered, feeling a little silly at your assumptions. Military made more sense, though you supposed you’d only given fleeting consideration to him being an ex-con as yet another reason not to get close to him.

Again there was a silence and, then, another soft sigh.

“Why do you do that?” He asked.

“Do what?”

“Lie like that?” When you didn’t answer he continued. “What is it about your past that has you so scared?”

“I’m not scared,” you said automatically, like a reflex kicking in. You weren’t weak. You weren’t going to let him think you were weak.

“Then why have the go-bag?”

You felt a chill run through your body when you thought about the backpack nestled in your wardrobe. You still hated that he’d seen it, that he understood what it was.

“It’s in case I need to get away from my stalker who spent weeks breaking into my apartment without my knowledge,” you answered coldly. 

“Cute, but I know it’s been there longer than that.”

He didn’t elaborate and you didn’t ask him to explain, already knowing you wouldn’t like any answer that he had to give you.

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you,” he said softly after a few moments of quiet.

“I don’t need protecting, Billy. I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” He asked and you were sure his lips were pulling into a smirk on the other end of the call.

“I could kill someone if I had to.”

“Really?” His tone shifted and that hint of playfulness that you were used to started to creep back in.

“I’ve killed before,” you said casually, leaving him to guess if it was just another one of your lies.

“Did he deserve it?” Billy asked, not seeming at all bothered that you might potentially be a murderer.

“Who said it was a he?” 

“Educated guess. So, did he deserve it?”

“Yes.” 

“Did he hurt you?” 

You heard the sharpness slipping back into his voice as he asked the question.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m glad he’s dead. I’m just sorry I wasn’t the one to do it.”

Your mouth felt dry and you could feel your heart pounding harder in your chest, practically knocking against your ribs. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a response like that.

Again, there was a pregnant pause while you tried to think of what to say.

“Is it really that black and white for you?” You asked.

“No one who hurts you should ever get away with it,” he said, quickly adding; “but you don’t have to worry about that now. You’ve got me for that.

“Right...” you said, rolling your eyes even though he couldn’t see you. Honestly, you should have expected that answer from him.

“You never asked how I hurt my hand,” Billy said, seemingly changing the subject.

You didn’t say anything for a few seconds, taking the time to wonder if he was trying to set you up and walk you into a trap.

“How did you hurt your hand?” You finally, reluctantly, asked.

“I paid a visit to the guy that spiked your drink.”

It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room, and a part of you worried that Billy could hear the way your heart was racing through the phone. Even though it had only been two days since it had happened, you didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about what had almost happened.

And, now, you didn’t want to think about what Billy might have done to protect you.

“Is he -” you started to ask, words coming out as little more than a whisper.

You weren’t even entirely sure what you were asking and, worryingly, you weren’t sure what you wanted his answer to be. It was hard to care too much about the fate of someone who’d spiked your drink, someone who might have done it to other women before you and planned to do it to other women after you. He didn’t deserve any sympathy. 

But that didn’t mean you wanted Billy to be hurting people in your name.

“He’s still alive,” Billy answered. “He might be eating through a tube for a while and, if he’s lucky, he might walk again, but I don’t think he’s ever going to think about messing with someone’s drink again.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice that sent a shiver down his spine and, when you didn’t respond immediately, Billy asked; “you okay, kitten?”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t have to,” he answered. “Besides, I couldn’t let him keep doing that to people. He needed to be stopped.”

There was that edge in his voice again, a pain that you were certain he didn’t realise gave so much away. Maybe it didn’t around other people, but to you it was a punch to your gut, a feeling of like recognising like.

“Someone hurt you,” you said softly. Again. 

All Billy offered was a grunt.

Another lull in the conversation had you rolling onto your side and letting out a sigh, the phone still clutched tightly to your ear - though when you’d started holding the phone like that, you honestly couldn’t say. Despite how you’d felt when you’d dialled his number, there was no part of you that wanted to hang up now.

Later you might blame it on exhaustion or loneliness, but right then, all you wanted to do was keep talking.

But Billy wasn’t saying anything and that left it to you to fill the void.

“When I was nine my mom started dating her dealer,” you offered quietly. “She moved us into his place. He used almost as much as my mom did, and when he was wasted...”

You trailed off, the words sticking in your throat, forcing you to stop.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Billy finally said.

“You said you wanted to know me.”

“I do, but not if it hurts you.”

Again, the butterflies took flight in your stomach, and the feeling was enough to prompt you to continue, to finally share a piece of you that was real.

“He was violent. With my mom and with me,” you continued, hearing the way Billy’s breath caught through the phone. “Then, one day, my mom went out and didn’t come back. She just upped and left me with him. About a week later, he got wasted and I... I hid from him in the basement.”

Billy didn’t say a word, you couldn’t even hear him breathing, but you could picture the look on his face; that expression of barely contained rage.

“When I refused to come out, he locked the door from the outside, and left me down there.” At some point your voice had turned quiet, almost like you were whispering a secret to Billy, something that you needed him to guard with his life. And, somehow, you knew that he would. “I was trapped down there in the dark and cold... with the spiders...”

You heard a sharp inhale.

“There was this sweet old lady across the street... if she hadn’t called social services, they never would have found me...”

“How long?” Billy dared to ask, though you knew that wasn’t really the question that he wanted to ask you.

“Four days,” you answered. “Felt like longer.”

You expected more questions, pity - or one of those perfunctory I’m sorry’s that those kinds of events tended to garner. Instead you were met with nothing but another gentle sigh.

“Thank you,” he said softly, “for telling me. It means a lot to me.”

Despite being on the phone, your response was to nod, pressing your head further against your pillow.

“I should let you sleep,” Billy continued. “It’s getting late.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll sleep soon.” He said and you were almost disappointed that he didn’t offer to come see you (though that thought was definitely one you’d chalk up exhaustion). “Goodnight, kitten.”

“Goodnight, Billy.”

And, like that, the line went dead.

For the longest time after the end of the call you stared at your phone, some part of you expecting it to light up with a message or for him to call back, even though you knew you still had him blocked.

It was strange, you felt somehow lighter for having been honest with him, even if what you had told him had only been scratching the surface.

Falling asleep, you felt like things had finally reached a turning point.

But you had no idea just how right you’d turn out to be.

The next evening you arrived at the bar to find it mostly empty, save for a well dressed woman sitting at the bar, talking to Jenna. The suit she wore screamed law enforcement and the subtle look that Jenna flashed you confirmed it.

It wasn’t often that cops dared set foot in Sam’s, and it definitely explained why the place was so empty. But you and Jenna had dealt with this sort of situation before, and you knew exactly what to say. Or what no to say, as the case may be.

You took your time ditching your coat in the back before stepping out to start your shift and getting a proper look at her.

The moment her eyes lifted to meet yours and she cast you something of a forced smile, you changed your mind. Definitely not a cop. Her clothes alone looked like they were worth more than you made in a year. And she was - well, stunning was the first word to come to mind. 

“Agent Madani, Homeland Security,” she said, flashing you her ID before placing it in her pocket again.

You offered your name. Just your first name.

“What can we help you with?” You dared to ask, ignoring the roiling sensation in your stomach.

“Yeah, no offence, but having a cop sat at the bar isn’t exactly good for business,” Jenna added.

“I’m looking for someone,” she said, lifting her phone from the bar and bringing up a photograph. “Have you seen this man? His name is Billy Russo. There have been reports placing him in the area.”

Your heart stuttered in your chest as you looked at the photo; it was him, but it wasn’t. Those dark eyes were unmistakable but his hair... his face. The man in the photo was every bit as beautiful as you’d assumed Billy used to be when you’d first gotten a good look at him.

Without the scars he had been perfect but, somehow, you found you preferred your Billy more. There was something about the eyes; the man in the picture looked soulless, but your Billy... his eyes gave away so much.

Despite your shock, your face remained neutral.

You spared Jenna a glance and then shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve seen him in here, but we get a lot of people passing through.”

“Yeah,” Jenna agreed, taking a closer look at the phone. “Though I’d remember serving someone that hot. What did he do? Looks like one of those Wall Street guys...”

“He’s wanted in relation to several murders,” Madani stated,  and you damn near threw up in your mouth.

“Several murders? Is he a serial killer or something?” Jenna asked, keeping Madani’s attention away from you while you regained your poker face.

“No, not as such...” she shook her head, dropping her phone back into her pocket and placing a business card on the bar. “But if he comes in -”

“Is he dangerous?” You asked before she could finish.

“Extremely.”

“If we see him, we’ll be sure to call,” Jenna was quick to answer.

There were more words exchanged and you simply nodded along, feeling like you were spiralling into some dark abyss that you might never escape from. The Homeland agent kept glancing between you and Jenna but, if she noticed you were freaking out, she didn’t say anything.

Once she was gone, neither you nor Jenna spoke for at least a minute.

“Fuck,” Jenna said, “you don’t think -”

“No,” the word tumbled out of your mouth before you could even stop to think about it. “No, it - I mean... she must be wrong. He couldn’t...”

“Wow, not like you to jump to his defence.”

You tried to ignore the smirk on her lips, instead focusing on the way your heart was pounding in your chest. 

It felt wrong, though you couldn’t place your finger on why. You’d always assumed that Billy was dangerous, that he could hurt people if he wanted to - hell, he’d put someone in the hospital for spiking your drink - but murder? Murders, plural?

“It’s just... you don’t think he’s -”

“A serial killer? I doubt it... unless he’s really good at hiding how much of a psycho he is,” Jenna answered.

Ah. That was it. Billy was good at hiding it, at pretending to be some sweet and charming guy to everyone while simultaneously stalking you.

“But, look... maybe you should stay away from him until we know for sure?” She carried on, and you nodded.

Jenna was talking, saying something, and you barely even realised you were stepping back.

“I... I need to -”

You didn’t even finish the thought before heading into the back and pulling out your phone, calling Billy. As it rang, you steeled yourself for him to answer and for all the questions to start pouring out. Part of you felt betrayed, lied to, while another part just couldn’t accept anything that Madani had tried to tell you.

It felt like you were falling, like you’d been hanging off the side of a cliff for so long, looking for something stable to cling to. The last few days had made you dare to think that maybe Billy could be that for you. But, now, the rockface was crumbling beneath your hands and you were falling.

“Kitten?” 

His voice was a dry rasp, like he’d just woken up, and just hearing him again had your heart pounding painfully in your chest.

“You - you can’t come to the bar anymore, Billy. It’s not safe for anyone and I just think -”

“What? Kitten, slow -”

“There was a Homeland Agent at the bar. She was looking for you,” you tried to explain, word fast and frantic, almost running into one another. “She said you killed people, Billy. She’s looking for you, and we can’t -”

“Hey-hey, take a breath.”

You did as you were told but it didn’t help. Your heart continued to pound wildly in your chest while you struggled between what you thought you knew about Billy and what the Homeland Agent had told you.

Was he capable of murder?

Yes.

There wasn’t a single doubt in your mind that Billy could and would kill someone if he had reason to. That alone should have been enough to make you end the call, enough to go home, grab your bag and leave the city. But, really, were you in any position to judge him?

“Tell me what happened,” Billy said, breaking through your racing thoughts.

There wasn’t much to tell really, just that the Homeland Agent had been there and she’d told you and Jenna that Billy was a killer, that he was dangerous. But you also made sure to tell him that you and Jenna hadn’t said a word - though you had no idea why that piece of information felt so important to share.

Then came the pregnant pause, the silence that you couldn’t stand.

“Did you do it? Was she telling the truth?” You asked in little more than a whisper, not sure you even wanted an answer.

“I...” he trailed off into an uncomfortable sigh, “I don’t know. I still don’t remember.”

You nodded, at a loss for what to say.

“I wish I could tell you that it wasn’t me or that I had a good reason but I don’t remember,” he continued. “Fuck. I wish I remembered, just so I knew, just so...”

“I... I think you should stay away from me, Billy.”

“Kitten...”

You’d lost count of how many times you’d told him to stay away, how many times you’d told him to leave you alone but this was the only time you’d heard him sound so broken about it, like your words had finally hit home. Just hearing the pain in your voice had you wanting to take it all back, but you knew that you couldn’t.

“Even if you didn’t do it, I... I can’t have cops - or Homeland Agents - sniffing around,” you said, and there was no hiding the way your own voice seemed to want to break and betray you.

Billy paused and you dared to hope that he was actually thinking about what you’d just said, thinking about how he could ruin your life if he persisted. 

“I can’t,” he said softly, “please... don’t ask me to give you up.”

“You said you wanted to keep me safe. You being around me, bringing law enforcement to the bar - that puts me in danger.”

Silence fell again and you heard Billy take a ragged inhale and it reminded you of the panic attack that you’d witnessed him having, and it made your heart ache all the more.

“I can’t,” he said again. “I won’t. I’m sorry, kitten. I won’t let any of it come back on you, but I can’t let you go.”

“Billy -”

The line went dead.

He’d hung up on you.

You felt sick and you spent the rest of the night feeling like your stomach was twisting and tying itself in knots. Of course, Jenna noticed and tried to talk to you about it, tried to help convince you that it was probably for the best if you didn’t see him again until everything blew over. If it ever blew over. But all you could think about was Billy and how he’d sounded on the phone.

Jenna tried to convince you not to worry and that, one way or another, the truth was bound to come out.

There were so many questions and thoughts, but no answers to be found. If he didn’t remember, was he even the same person who’d done it? Was it fair to blame him for things he couldn’t remember? Were you in any position to judge him? Is that why he’d been hurt so badly by a man who’d been his best friend?

Each question only brought with it more uncertainty, and you had no way of knowing what was true and what wasn’t. All you knew was Billy, the person he was when he was with you.

Jenna offered to let you stay with her that night but you turned her down, not wanting to spend the night being scrutinised every time you mind wandered to Billy and the chaos you’d invited into your life.

No, you just wanted to go home and crawl into bed, hoping that in the morning everything would be back to normal.

Some time around four a knock at the door startled you awake.

Slowly, you climbed out of bed, staring at the door, your heart beating a mile a minute. For a second you expected the door to be knocked off its hinges and for armed cops to swarm your apartment.

The second knock had you tensing, ready to grab your go-bag and make a break for it down the fire escape.

But then you heard him.

“Kitten, it’s me.”

It didn’t exactly make you feel any better that Billy was at your door at four in the morning, but you still let out a sigh of relief. You kept the chain on the door as you opened it and heard him sigh.

“Let me in, kitten.” It wasn’t quite a demand but you already knew that saying no wouldn’t end well.

“It’s four in the morning,” you said, not moving. “What do you want, Billy?”

“I want to see you.”

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” you answered back.

“Just let me in before I kick the door down and disturb all your neighbours,” he said. As firm as his demand was, he sounded tired but, given the time of night, you didn’t think much of it.

It wasn’t just an idle threat, you knew him better than that now, and you couldn’t risk your neighbours calling the cops. So, with a frustrated huff, you took the chain off the door and took a few steps back, making sure there was plenty of space between you and him.  

His movements were slow, closing the door and locking it behind him. He looked tired, exhausted, and it was almost enough to spark a hint of sympathy inside you. 

Billy immediately took a step towards you, unhappy with the space you’d created, his eyes taking in the sight of you and the light blue satin slip you were wearing.

“Christ,” he muttered, “you’re gonna drive me crazy, kitten.”

“What do you want, Billy?” You asked again, folding your arms in an attempt to cover the way your nipples were poking through the silken fabric. “I told you... you need to stay away from me.”

“I can’t. I needed to see you.”

“It’s four in the morning. What could you possibly want to see me for?”

“I -” there was a noticeable hesitation, something you’d never really seen from him before, “- I want to stay the night. With you.”

“No,” you answered flatly. “No, I’ve told you, I don’t want -”

“Just to sleep,” he interrupted before you could complete your rejection of him. “I just want to sleep next to you.”

“Billy, they think you’re a murderer,” you said, hugging yourself all the tighter. 

“I don’t remember,” he told you, equal parts frustration and pain. “I don’t know what I did or why I might’ve done it. All I know is that I’d never hurt you.”

You didn’t say anything. There was nothing you could say. There was no figuring out the truth of the matter and, if there was one thing you did believe, it was that Billy wouldn’t lie to you and he’d never hurt you.

“Please,” he tried again, “I’m... I’m so tired, kitten. If I knew about any of it, I’d tell you. But it’s all still jumbled up. And I - I don’t even know if I’m that person anymore. This - me, now - I’ve never been like this before. That Agent, Madani, I think we used to sleep together... she used to visit me in the hospital, used to taunt me every single day... I don’t know why.”

The more he spoke, the more confused things became, but Billy made no attempt to move any closer to you.

“I just want to sleep,” he said again.

Common sense told you to say no, to stick to your guns and tell him to leave but, seeing the state of him, the thought of turning him away made your chest ache regardless of all the uncertainty surrounding him. Without a word, you sighed and turned back towards your bedroom, crawling back into bed and pulling the covers up over your face.

You heard him slowly follow after, heard the sound of clothes hitting the floor before you felt the mattress dip behind you. Billy waited a moment before shifting closer, pressing himself against your back and draping his arm over you. He let out a soft sigh as he buried his face against the back of your neck.

He felt warm against you, cosy - though you tried to ignore it as best you could.

“Why are you doing this?” You asked quietly, half-hoping he wouldn’t answer.

“I just wanted to see you.”

“No, I mean why are you doing any of this?” The million dollar question. “Why me? Why are you dragging me into this shit, Billy?”

“Because you’ve been stuck in my head since the first time I saw you,” he told you, his fingers softly tracing patterns on your stomach through your slip. “Every time I close my eyes, I think about that night in this bed with you. You’re under my skin, you haunt me.”

“It wasn’t that mind blowing,” you muttered.

“Right,” Billy grumbled, sounding half-asleep already “‘cause you still want to pretend that I’m the only one that enjoyed it...”

“Why would I lie?” You answered back, not willing to give him the last word.

“‘cause you’re scared of admitting that you like the way I touch you,” he answered. “Or maybe it’s ‘cause you’re scared of admitting that you might actually like me.”

“I don’t like you. All you’re doing is making my life more difficult,” you huffed. “I must be fucking crazy to have you in my bed like this, not knowing if you’re some psychotic killer...”

You didn’t expect him to pull away, to roll on to his back behind you and let out a sigh. More than that, you didn’t expect to feel the loss of his embrace so acutely.

Had you managed to hurt your stalker’s feelings?

And why did it bother you if you had?

Drawing your knees up to your chest, you tried to ignore the feeling of awkwardness that was starting to gnaw at you, closing your eyes and trying to fall asleep. But you couldn’t. Not when you knew he was right there, not when you didn’t know what was running through his mind.

You weren’t even sure what was running through your own head anymore. It was almost enough to make you laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing was; you had a man who was wanted for murder in your bed but, still, you felt safe with him, comfortable in a way you hadn’t for a long time, despite what your protests might have suggested.

And he was right. You were scared that some part of you liked him - that some part of you still liked him, even after everything you’d learned.

It was all such a fucking mess and you had no idea how to deal with any of it.

But, now there was something, some feeling in the pit of your stomach that felt so wrong but, at the same time, it felt like it was the only thing in your life that made any sense. 

Cautiously, you rolled over, your heart skipping a beat at the way the heel of his palm was pressed against his eye. It was another headache. He’d come to be with you because he was in pain, because he’d needed comfort and, for whatever reason, you were the only person he thought he could find it with.

Everything you knew about him seemed to twist and alter, leaving you more confused than ever. 

Without a word, you got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, running a washcloth under the cold water before returning to him.

Billy hadn’t moved, he didn’t even look at you as you climbed back into bed beside him. His eyes didn’t open again until he felt you press the cold cloth to his brow. A relieved breath slipped from his lips but, the moment he looked like he was going to say something, you silenced him.

“Don’t say a word.”

Defiance flashed across his face, but exhaustion quickly overtook it. His eyes shut and you continued to gently press the cloth against his forehead, trying to soothe him, watching as the tension slowly seemed to leave him and he fell asleep. 

Once you were certain he was asleep, you laid back down beside him, curling into his side, resting your head on his shoulder, not sure what the morning would bring.

End Note : 😅 this is slowly starting to move towards the endgame now, I think there's about four chapters left? Maybe five depending on how I decide to do the ending.

As always your comments/likes/reblogs/asks/general screaming is always cherished and appreciated. I hope you all have an amazing weekend!

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[lovemesomesurveys]

The N Survey by joybucket 

What are three of your favorite things to put on top of noodles? Cheese, pesto sauce, and marinara sauce. What noises do you hear right now? The mukbang video I’m watching, my dad, and my mom cooking dinner. Name someone whose birthday is on the 9th (of any month). I can’t think of anyone at the top of my head. Do you have a Netflix account? Yes.

Do you... like to take naps? watch Netflix? need to do laundry soon? have nice neighbors currently? own a pair of neon green tights? own a pair of knitting needles? Have you ever... owned the Bratz doll Nevra? worn a necktie? watched the news? been on the news? been to Norway? been scared of needles? swam with a pool noodle? written something on a napkin? made a list of names that you like? touched stinging nettle? had hives shoot up your arm after touching stinging nettle? been to Las Vegas, Nevada? been to Nebraska? cooked noodles on the stove? eaten Nerds candy? dressed up as a nerd for Homecoming Week? had a noisy neighbor? spotted a bird's nest? thought Nymphadora was a cool name? worn nylons? wanted to be a nurse? been to nursing school? had a very rude nurse? Do you like... Neapolitan ice cream? Nerds? flashing neon lights? nachos? reading the newspaper? watching the news? live neighborhood events? More Q's! List three foods you find nasty. Seafood, Canadian bacon, asparagus. Have you ever been on a nanny? Been on a nanny? List ten words that rhyme with "nine." Dine, fine, line, mine, pine, vine, wine, incline, decline, feline. How many of these words do you know the meaning to: nebula, nebulizer, noggin, nocturnal, nanosecond? All of them. Have you ever used a nebulizer? No. Name something you own that is neon. I don’t think I have anything neon. What are three things you've done that you will never do again? Eat food I don’t like, ride a roller coaster (with the exception of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad the Cars rollercoasters at Disneyland), go to the circus. List five things you like about your nation. Being able to vote, the diversity, the travel destination spots, variety of food, the entertainment. List five things you dislike about your nation. I don’t feel like think about that. What nation do you live in? The US. What nation were you born in? The US. When was the last time you blew your nose? Yesterday. Do you know anyone named... Nancy? Neisha? Nia? Nolan? Nathan? Nate? Nathaniel? Nick? Nori? Nora? Noah? Natasha? Natalie? Nevaeh? Noelle? Noel? Noella? November? Nevra? Nichelle? Niko? Nola? Ned? Nemo? Nebula? Nina? Nan? Nova? Would you say you are... nice? good with numbers? nocturnal? a noise lover? nifty? Norwegian? noisy? nasty? Final Q's! Do you have a reading nook in your home, and if not, would you like to create one? Aw no, but that would be cute. What is something that makes you nauseous? The smell of old food. What is your favorite novel you had to read for school? One of them was A Brave New World  by Aldous Huxley. What is your niche? I don’t know. What is your favorite number? 8. Do you take naps often? Yeah. List five things that are necessary for survival. Oxygen, food, water, medications for some people, sleep. What is something new you've done recently? Nothing comes to mind. My days are like all the same. Do you enjoy trying new things? Depends. What is something new you'd like to try? Hmm. What is something new you purchased recently? A gift for my mom for Valentine’s Day. What are four more new things you'd like to try? Hmm. List ten things you associate with the word "noggin." Head... that’s like all that comes to mind. Have you ever watched Finding Nemo? Yeah. What is something you need to do soon? Go the grocery store. List five places in which you might find flashing neon lights. Bars, restaurants, amusement parks, clubs... I can’t think of one more. Have you ever wanted to write novels? Yes. Have you ever tried to write a novel? Yes. Do you have any nieces or nephews? Nope. Do you use paper napkins or cloth napkins? Paper. Do you watch the news often? I read it more. That's all for now- have a nice, nifty day! :)

[simptasia]

neurodivergence in abc’s lost

i’m gonna be listing off and talking about the canon neurodivergent characters in lost. i won’t be adding characters that i personally headcanon as neurodivergent in some way, what i’m writing here is elaboration upon what has been given to me by the show. please note that none of these people’s conditions or disorders were named in the show, so such diagnoses being named here are me taking that extra step based upon their symptoms

first of all i wanna point out that based on what i’ve seen the show, that the island’s healing powers applies to conditions inflicted upon the mind, not ones inherent to the mind. thats why daniel’s brain damage heals, but people like hurley and locke will always continue to have depression

hugo “hurley” reyes

schizophrenia and depression

our most prominently featured mentally ill character. it might seem bold to label him with schizophrenia when it’s never said that that’s what he has. but during his time on lost, he displays many of the symptoms: paranoia, pathological self loathing, delusions and hallucinations. now, it’s a fictionalized depiction of schizophrenia and that’s probably not even what the writers had in mind but it’s none the less a really, really good and respectful portrayal of it

it would take too long to list off all the times when hurley displays paranoia (heck, it’s easy not to notice how much its a part of his character) and self loathing. delusions? the situations regarding the numbers and his bad luck (canon never ever Proves what hurley believes to be true regarding that stuff)

they did an episode dedicated to hurley having hallucinations. a man named dave who drives him to self destructive behaviour, self hatred and attempted suicide. fun fact: when people with schizophrenia in real life have hallucinations, they tend towards just auditory. hurley gets visual as well as per Rule Of Drama. this is not a bad thing, just a narrative tool

(steering slightly into headcanon for a bit here but i personally ignore the dharma made Hurley Bird they revealed in the epilogue and just take hurley hearing that bird say his name as an auditory hallucination. for two reasons: one, hurley hearing/seeing things that don’t exist is already consistent with his mental state. and two, that bird literally, genuinely did not fucking say hurley)

extra notes

to be clear, in case there's confusion, hurley really does have magical powers. he can talk to dead people. that isn’t a delusion or hallucination. you can understand how confusing and distressing this must be for hurley

he's had a compulsive eating disorder since he was ten due to the pain of his father abandoning him. his struggle with this is well documented

at several points during the show he’s shown to have trouble spelling. he especially confuses his “y(s)” and “ies”. it’s not clear if this is due to poor education or a learning issue. or both, really. it’s safe to assume with him being poor, mexican and mentally ill, that school wasn’t easy for hurley

hurley has unjustifiably lived at mental health institutions on at least two occasions (the first time was against his will, second was volunteer)

john locke

depression

locke suffers from severe self esteem issues, and i know most lost characters do, but i mean to the point of irrational and destructive behaviour. he has an obsession with being deemed special in order to justify his existence. he also suffers jarring mood swings. (he can switch from calm and jovial to angry and defensive at the drop of a hat). when he was wheelchair bound, this threw him into a depression. when he failed to convince anybody to come back to the island, he attempted suicide. he would have gone thru with it too. he will go to extremes to make sure things stay the way he wants them to (killing an innocent woman so they can stay on the island, tying up and drugging boone so he won’t tell anybody about the hatch), and will fall into despair if he fails

also note that the things im saying about locke are not a comment on people with depression. i don’t think all depressed people kill and drug people. those were statements on locke’s character that i believe are a part of his mental state. my point is: he’s emotionally unstable and he tried to kill himself. and i think his extreme need for validation (from people and the universe in general) is especially concerning

to me, this all says to me that locke has clinical depression

locke isn’t as easy as the other people on this list to classify as Canon Neurodivergent but at least to me, i think it’s very obvious. like i feel bad being so vague but like, basically, watch any locke episode

daniel faraday

acquired brain damage, severe memory degradation as well as other neurodivergent behaviours (i’ll go into it)

he’s played by jeremy davies. enough said

okay, jokes aside. at some point in the past daniel and his assistant theresa were involved in some vaguely referred to time based experiments. while she was catatonicized, the accident left daniel severely brain damaged (also daniel spent years doing radioactive experiments without head protection, which would not have helped and indeed that is foreshadowing of this whole debacle)

apparently this left him in a state where he can no longer take care of himself, having been assigned a carer. his most outstanding symptom is that his ability to process short AND long term memory has been impaired

short term: he’s shown to have issues retaining memories from day to day. he wasn’t sure if he had met charles widmore already (he hadn’t). charles lays some exposition on him and when daniel asks why he’s telling him this, charles says, with sureness, that “because by tomorrow you won’t remember this”. counting on that to be an absolute fact seems silly to me but that does seem to the case. again, Rule Of Drama is in play here

long term: he can no longer access memories he formed many years ago, famously the memories he formed with desmond in 1996. all in all, this condition is highly plot convenient. can’t argue with results, really

no, i can keep going, i got more, this is daniel fucking faraday we’re talking about: his ability to remember 3 playing cards has been impaired (note that this is a skill most 4 year olds master), he forgot the secret code the science team were all taught and when he introduces himself to jack there is a long pause, in hindsight implying that daniel forgot his own name

like real life memory conditions, theres varying level to how much he does and doesn’t remember. he’s thankfully not in a 50 first dates situation and doesn’t forget everything day to day. clearly he remembers people if they’re around enough, like during his time on the boat. charlotte, miles, frank, naomi...

upon landing on the island, his memory slowly gets better (considering his condition beforehand, the fact that nobody comments on this is staggering)

when dan is fully healed? i could not say, i could theorize, but such things are nebulous. but still, the times we see dan without his brain damage, he still behaves like a neurodivergent person. just not like he was when he was brain damaged. he stims near constantly, has a tendency to repeat names and words (echolalia) and it’s shown that dan compulsively counts in his head. he counted up to 864 beats, if i remember correctly, which is about 10 minutes of counting in his head. by no stretch of the imagination is that neurotypical behaviour

(im not trying to sound defensive. and i don’t think anybody, anywhere, is arguing that daniel faraday is a neurotypical. unfathomable)

going into headcanon territory again, his ND traits, when not brain damaged, say to me that he’s autistic and/or has OCD and possibly anxiety. thats all theorizing on my part tho. but the fact of the matter is, damage or no, he’s neurodivergent

notes

his apparent need for tactile sensory input is legendary in the lost fandom. in layman’s terms: him pet pet. not just people but objects too. humans, overall, tend to touch things to process input better. many ND people do it more, and it seems daniel is a case of that (i am not making a solid statement on jeremy davies’ neuro state. that’s his business)

he shows an inability to properly process grief

he also shows shocking indifference to his own safety, resulting in reckless behaviour. how much of this is a result of his mental state or his upbringing is up for debate. i think it’s a combo of both

without his brain damage, he appears to have an eidetic memory

danielle rousseau

trauma induced mental illness

pretty self explanatory. the loss of her expedition, husband and daughter, as well as 16 years of loneliness (on THIS island) has resulted in emotional instability for danielle. she’s prone to paranoia, trust issues, irrational behaviour

she’s just not well. she’s right most of the time but she’s not well

libby smith

indeterminate mental state 

libby was institutionalized (the same place hurley was sent to) and placed on medication (which seemed like sedatives to me, based on her expressions). in the show it’s not what clear what put her there, but having just done some research, i’ve discovered that Word Of God says that libby became mentally unstable after the death of her husband dave smith. so this is probably another case of trauma induced mental illness. she must have had a pretty extreme episode to cause her to be sent to a place like that. something to think about

but alas, it’s libby, so not much info. moving on

benjamin linus

anti social behaviour disorder (is my best guess)

oof. depictions of mental illness with characters who are immoral are depictions of mental illness nonetheless. i feel almost silly saying this but: ben is not... okay

ben displays issues (at best) with empathy, compassion and morality. how much he cares about other people is highly debatable but one thing that's certain is that he does genuinely love his daughter. everybody else is ????

but the loving alex thing rules out him being a sociopath or having narcissistic personality disorder. and it is genuine because when he loses it with grief, it’s not a performance, because the only audience is us...

he’s a compulsive liar, lying even when it doesn’t benefit him. lying just because. ben is highly unpredictable, which isn’t inherently a neurodivergent thing, but when a person goes from a calm discussion to strangling somebody, all roads point to Uh Oh (i don’t know the technical terms for Uh Oh). many of his outward emotions are performed (the difference between his fake smiles and few real smiles is noticeable). he’s manipulative, he treats people like objects for his benefit/plans, he’s self absorbed, he has zero issues with murder unless it’s a child. he does have some moral standards. but overall, uh, [just gestures at ben]

also ben is repeatedly offended when other people don’t trust him, which is HILARIOUS, but also shows a cognitive dissonance on his part

hmm i need more here, im gonna break out the big guns

that’s some basic info there and doesn’t that line up with ben?

the article goes on to say that people with this can put on superficial charm. that is, behave friendly and “normal” when they have to. which ben is shown to be able to do

and this

“Serious problems with interpersonal relationships are often seen in those with the disorder. Attachments and emotional bonds are weak, and interpersonal relationships often revolve around the manipulation, exploitation, and abuse of others.”

reminds me of his situation with juliet. and locke. and his “friendships” in general

i snipped the wikipedia article for this because unlike the rest i felt,,, underequipped to talk about this sort of thing

ben being mentally unwell is clear enough in canon and i think this disorder is what lines up best with it. please note that ben is capable of change and growth (like people in real life who have such issues) and like the show i’m not gonna paint him 100% evil or irredeemable. i’m just saying what’s true

notes

ben says at one point that he doesn’t dream anymore. it’s highly probably that this is a lie, but if it isn’t, well that's not good. it’d mean his brain isn’t entering into REM sleep properly, which can lead to emotional problems

ben doesn’t blink as much as most people do, something michael emerson did on purpose. this can apply to some neurodivergent people

it’s shown that he was quite nonverbal as a kid. in the flashbacks in “man behind the curtain” little ben barely speaks

honourable mentions

pretty much all the survivors suffer from PTSD due the trauma of the crash

a great deal of the characters suffer from PTSD from trauma in general due to their awful lifes. like, abusive parents, war, loss of loved ones, etc

and i must note that ben, daniel and locke suffering from parental abuse, ranging from emotional to physical, is something to factor into their cases

claire, similar to danielle, also suffered trauma induced mental illness due to the loss of her baby and feeling like she was abandoned

sayid is depicted as dead inside during season 6 due to The Sickness, so thats like a magical form of depression. and one could argue that he already had regular depression beforehand

boone joked about shannon having bulimia. (whether or not it’s true, boone is an asshole) if it’s true, shannon has an eating disorder, which is considered a form of mental illness. espech one so self image based

self harm

self harm is not an inherent part of mental illness but such concepts are often linked so i felt i should mention some of these, it’ll be quick

hurley’s aforementioned eating disorder

charlie takes heroin as a form of self harm (that isn’t a theory on my part, it’s clear as day that charlie started taking it because his sense of self worth was so low that the drugs felt like the only option)

locke, hurley, (both as mentioned above), jack, desmond, michael and richard have all attempted/nearly commited suicide

so what can we conclude from this? well that's up to you, really. that i love lost a fuck ton? that the actors and writing in lost is amazing? that all the neurodivergent based depth got saved for the boys? yeah

but i wanna conclude with this: a part of what makes lost really special to me is that these people i’ve talked out here? they’ve suffered, and oh boy it was tasty suffering, but all of them, yes even libby, were more than suffering

these people have nuance. one way or another, these people (to varying degrees) were happy at times. silly. funny. angry. opinionated. they loved. they were loved. they lived and breathed as human beings. that means a lot to me

lost is a story of broken people given a second chance. take that as you will

thank you for your time

[weepylucifer]

Let’s Go in the Garden - Ch. 9

David gets a clue. Peter gets confused. Nightingale wins two fights, both on a technicality.

I had no promising leads yet on our missing magical object. At this point, this wasn’t all that surprising: there was a long list of potential contacts yet to call and visit, and the demi-monde was vast. A list had found its way into my hands of potential sellers of magical objects, left on my desk in the tech cave and written in a loopy hand that most assuredly wasn’t Nightingale’s. And even if - when - I found the person who’d sold Ms. Maxwell the crystal ball, that still didn’t necessarily have to leave me with any hints as to where the damned thing had gone.

I was going over the list of phone numbers, working my way through them slowly, when Beverley entered. You could sort of slightly see a tiny bump beneath her dress now. I had to contain myself from dropping to my knees in front of her and smushing my entire face against it.

“Babes,” she said, “We agreed no police stuff in my house, right?”

I put the list away. “Sorry.”

“Why aren’t you doing this at the Folly?” she asked.

I had to struggle not to roll my eyes or groan. “Because it’s unbearable in there.”

“Yeah?” Bev came to sit with me on the couch. “I would’ve thought they would be getting way less heat.”

A heat wave was threatening to eclipse London at present. And Beverley was right: usually, the Folly with its high-ceilinged rooms was cool in summer and bordering on unbearably arctic in winter. It was probably that now. If the air at the Folly felt so thick it practically suffocated you, it was for a metaphysical reason.

“It’s not the weather,” I explained, “It’s Nightingale and David. Something set them off again, and it feels worse than it’s ever been.”

Beverley flicked her hair back. It was still slightly damp from her morning dip in her river. “Aren’t you people supposed to be professionals?”

“You’d really think that,” I said.

The day before yesterday, I hadn’t seen David around the Folly at all. And then yesterday he’d been back, but somehow he had, in my absence, managed to fuck some nebulous something up on such a tremendous scale that Nightingale flat-out ignored him now. Which somehow managed to be worse than the constant arguing. At some point I’d brought him a cup of coffee down to the basement and asked him what was going on, and he’d looked at me with haunted, red-rimmed eyes, looking like he hadn’t gotten any sleep the previous night, and rambled something about, “I went too far, but then again, I went too far a while ago.” Then he’d muttered something about wings and Oberon being right, and closed the door in my face.

I’d gone and asked Nightingale what the deal was, and he’d only said, “I shan’t get into it right now” and asked me how my investigation was coming along. I would have greatly enjoyed a little more active participation from him, but I hadn’t said that.

But I couldn’t avoid the Folly just because I didn’t like the atmosphere there right now, not when I had work to do, and when there was a practice session scheduled in less than two hours. Bev was right, I couldn’t do this stuff at her place. So I went, and told myself I could still make a day of it. Maybe I could just hole up in the tech cave, work through my list of contacts and avoid all nonsense.

—-

I found Nightingale in the gym, where he was busily maltreating the punching bag. “Ah, Peter, very well,” he said, looking up as if he’d been waiting for me. “Would you like to join me for a bout?”

He had evidently been at it for a while, or at least long enough to work up a sweat. He was breathing a bit heavier than normal, and his hair looked darker at the nape. Some almost artfully tousled strands were stuck damply to his forehead. It didn’t actually look half bad, I had to say, objectively, of course.

Now, normally I’d probably object to any kind of intense workout in this kind of weather. But the basement was still quite cool, and we’d been going to practice anyway.

“Sure, I’ll have a go.” I picked up a spare pair of gloves.

Nightingale was holding back, I noticed a few minutes in. He blocked my jabs and my impello with his usual natural ease, but he was on the defense. It wasn’t at all like earlier, when I’d spotted him take unbridled swings at the punching bag, swings driven by a real, deep well of… something. He kept his shield up, in more ways than the literal, as if he was scared to take it too far, as if he would forget himself, haul off and hurt me. It made for a tension in the air that I didn’t like, and the match failed to really get going.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a motion by the door. It was David, maybe lured here from his lab down the hallway by the unusual noise. He entered quietly, and sat down on a bench across the room to watch. And, well, Nightingale didn’t tell him to leave (didn’t acknowledge his presence at all) so I didn’t see why I should raise attention to it.

I tried not to give myself any openings by glancing over at David, but I felt myself getting distracted wondering why he was here. I fumbled an impello and Nightingale sharply admonished me to focus - and then I spotted a hole in his defense because he had been stealing a look at David for himself. And this wasn’t the angry sort of glare I’d been expecting. This was… something more complicated, and at the same time incredibly simple. I’d seen this before, once, in the memory Molly had shared with me of Nightingale so many decades ago. The way he assured himself he had David’s eyes on him, the way he casually flicked a strand of hair out of his face as he got back to tenderizing me with his magic and fists. He was making sure his boyfriend was paying attention.

Suddenly and seethingly, I became aware of what a sight we had to make to an attentive gay guy on the bleachers. I don’t mean to brag, but I keep fit, and Nightingale was all lean muscle under that suit that he was currently, in a rare instance of dressing down, not wearing. And now that I was aware of it, I definitely saw how David watched with rapt attention, his eyes a little over-bright. And it wasn’t just Nightingale, I noticed. His eyes also caught on me.

I wasn’t sure at first, so I made a show of flexing my right arm, snuck a glance at David in my periphery, and… yep. Definitely checking me out.

It felt different, then. Knowing that every single move I made, every single breath I drew, every single bead of sweat was being observed in that way. It heightened my awareness of myself, of my body moving in this moment, of Nightingale opposite me, but it didn’t necessarily heighten my attention to the match. I was having to try hard to focus, to not keep looking back at David, to move purposefully and not just in a way that David might find appealing.

(And why the hell was that a consideration in the first place?)

In the past I would have blocked it out, and maybe approached him later with some phrase like “Hey man, not that I’m not flattered, but I don’t really swing that way” or something else inane like that. We all change and grow. It seemed like a dumb thing to do now. He wasn’t doing any harm by sitting there and watching. And besides, Nightingale for his part probably wanted him to.

It still felt weird, thinking of Nightingale as, well… wanting. That he’d had that potential all along.

(Why did I want to appeal to David? Another man’s boyfriend, if of somewhat uncertain standing? Plus, I really didn’t swing that way. Or at least if I swung that way, I’d never sat down and unpacked that. Plus, Beverley.)

At about this point, I caught an impello square in the chest and landed on my back on the mat in the beached-turtle-position. Nightingale was on me quick and, even as I struggled, held me down.

���Count him out, Davey,” he yelled across the room to Mellenby, who, suddenly acknowledged, jumped to his feet. (I sort of craned my head and peered over Nightingale’s shoulder to see him). Two spots of red had appeared on his cheeks.

“Oh! Um… t-ten… nine…”

I pushed to get free, but Nightingale wrestled me back down. We were very close. I could smell his sweat, his aftershave, I could see perspiration glisten below his collarbone. I could feel his breath on my skin, and the hair on my arms stood on end. He could, I knew that now, subdue me with his magic, but he didn’t. It was a complicated and ethically dicey forma. Much easier, I reckoned, to hold me down physically for the ten seconds.

But was it? I could see his arms straining. I was younger, in my physical prime, and I worked out fairly often. I wasn’t muscle-bound by any chance, but I’d been keeping up with my fitness plan more regularly, I thought, than Nightingale. Within the bounds of his magic, he was unparalleled, and this was something he knew and relied on. But purely physically…?

I heaved myself upward in one final attempt to break out of his grip.

Nightingale gave me a grin. Suddenly, he was even closer, his mouth very near my ear.

“He has a way of looking at a person, huh?” he whispered.

All the air went out of me at once, and with a splat, I landed back on the mat. “What?”

I felt Nightingale chuckle, the subtle vibration of it in his chest. We were… really very close, you see. He was warm upon me, which could have been nice, actually, if we didn’t have a heatwave going. “You noticed it.”

Equally quietly, barely moving my lips, I breathed, “How do you stand it?”

Nightingale moved off a little so that I could see his expression. His grin had slid over into wolfish at some point.

“Used to it,” he replied. “He’s been making eyes at me on the rugby pitch since I was fifteen. But I am not fifteen now, and,” He gave me a light, friendly punch to the shoulder, “Neither are you.”

“…three… two… one, you’re done,” David said. He announced it in the tone of someone bringing a message of great relief: finally, the sports event is over. We can move on with our intellectual lives.

But the sports event had only just begun.

Nightingale let go of me, straightened up and wiped his brow. I was winded, so I stayed lying down until a hand inched itself into my field of vision: Nightingale again, this time giving me a hand up. I took it and got to my feet.

“That,” I said, slowly getting my breath back, “was fighting dirty, sir.”

“I learned my fighting in the army, not the police.” Nightingale gave me a smirk that was way too self-satisfied. “Nice going,” he said to me, probably out of sportsmanship and politeness rather than respect for the feat of athleticism I had just displayed (haha). He spared a vague nod at David, seeming to want to go back to ignoring him. Boy, would my therapist have had a field day with the two of them.

That thought gave me an idea. “Why don’t you two duke it out?” I suggested. “Might clear the air in here.”

It was a testament to how much of the… human side of Nightingale I’d glimpsed lately, or maybe just how long I’d known him, that his withering glare didn’t make me shrivel up and sink into the floor right there. He was doing that to hide his feelings, he couldn’t fool me anymore.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“I’m sure I’d learn a lot. See how it’s done on the advanced level.” Secretly, I was hoping for some awe-inspiring demonstration of higher-order magic - and, of course, that they might just figure out their problems through the medium of controlled violence. Bev had made me punch a tree, back when, and yeah, it had felt sort of cathartic, truth be told.

“David is in no fit state,” Nightingale said.

“I am perfectly able, Thomas,” David objected. “And there is no need to speak for me.”

“Are you certain?” Nightingale asked. “We don’t want you having a little episode of some kind.”

“I don’t think little episodes are a problem with me.”

“You cannot know that yet.”

David raised his chin. “Yes, actually, you’ll find I can,” he said. He said it quietly, but there was something in his voice that warned us not to piss him off right now. “Different people will react differently to similar stimuli. I’ve had enough time, I should think, to learn to gauge my own reactions.”

Nightingale shrugged. “Have it your way.”

“The cuffs come off, then?” David asked.

“For a limited time.”

David nodded and held his hands out as Nightingale approached him.

“Do they need true love’s kiss to open?” I asked. Not that I wanted to see them snog it out again. Why would I?

Nightingale threw me a peeved look. “Yes, very humorous, I’m sure.” He touched David’s wrists and muttered a few words. I could feel him building up a forma, but it all went too fast for me to decipher what it was. The cuffs fell off.

David stepped into the ring opposite Nightingale. They exchanged silent nods, and threw their shields up.

It whoomphed.

I felt something almost like a pressure wave, something that made my head throb and, bizarrely, my teeth ache, as if someone was clamping my head into a vice. These were heavy-duty shields, such as I’d never seen Nightingale use outside of the few scrapes we’d had with Chorley and Lesley, and maybe not even then. These made riot gear look flimsy.

Nightingale’s felt like solid metal armour-plates, a weight upon the world, making the air around it hum. (I noticed he crooked his non-dominant arm a little, as though he was holding an actual shield.) I thought that if I squinted, I would almost see the contours of it. David’s shield felt different, flowing, liquid. More… abstract, somehow. Almost like a water bubble encasing him, ready to flow exactly where it was needed at a second’s notice to stave off any attacks.

“This is your… modified shield spell,” Nightingale remarked, in the same tone of voice he used when I experimented with tweaking formae he thought I rather should’t. He had sounded exactly like this when I’d come up with the skin grenade.

“Yes?” David sounded defensive. “It ensures a faster response time.”

“You don’t need a faster response time if you’re properly covered.”

David sighed through his nose. “I work with what I have, Thomas, not with what you have.” It had the sound of a tired reminder to it.

Were they going to get a move on, I wondered, or stand here and bicker forever?

Then David launched the first attack.

I hadn’t expected David to open fire, but he did. And these weren’t harmless little impellos meant to repel the opponent a bit. He threw a round of fireballs with no hesitation, and I thought he’d really lost control of himself, but Nightingale blocked them without so much as flinching. They splattered against his shield and, with a twist of his hand, he sent them back, where David’s modified shield… subsumed them. Apparently this was expected.

I suddenly remembered all kinds of stories about soldiers playing catch with live grenades and the like, things I’d thought were stupid jokes. I could vividly picture the two of them throwing a grenade back and forth between them now, bouncing it off their shields.

Nightingale retaliated with a shower of ice shards, something he’d learned, I recognized, from Varvara.

“Ah, thank goodness for Ivan,” David said as he dismissed them with a flick of his hand. They veered off sharply and bored into the wall a lot closer to me than I appreciated, making me duck.

David scrutinized the room for a split-second, eyes catching on the gym equipment. There was a lot of it about, monkey bars and the like, that no one ever used, both Nightingale and myself preferring the firing range or a turn at the punching bag. With a wave, David wrenched a massive metal bar free, about as thick as his forearm and as long as he was tall, and launched it, without wincing, without blinking, like a spear at his boyfriend.

It stuck in Nightingale’s shield, suspended in midair, the tip inches away from his face. He grinned a jagged grin. “Phallic imagery. Love it.”

Clanging loudly, the bar hit the ground. And then Nightingale threw the punching bag.

“Hey!” I yelled. “I bought that!” No one heard me. I considered ducking behind something, but behind what? Nothing seemed safe. It would’ve been wisest to get out of there, but I couldn’t. I was mesmerized.

David stopped the punching bag in midair and chucked it against the wall, and I swear the impact made the room rattle. Flakes of ancient paint rained from the ceiling. They both, with an identical gesture, zipped their shields upwards for a split-second to avert debris from above and clear their fields of vision. Most likely a reflex from the war.

David cast a twisty forma I’d never yet encountered before and threw something at Nightingale’s feet, something that glistened, something long and thin and silvery like a trip-wire. Nightingale evaded it easily, but while he was distracted with it for a moment, not paying attention to his shield, David stepped forward and swung his fist.

It was a good thing he’d put the gloves on, because he landed a solid blow to Nightingale’s jaw. Nightingale caught his fist on the next upswing and, magic forgotten for the moment, they simply struggled against each other for physical dominance. It was not a sexy kind of struggle. There were glares and exposed teeth and sweat and grunts of effort. It was all very masculine, and not sexy at all. A bead of sweat dripped from Nightingale’s hair into his eyes and got caught in his lashes. David snarled as they held each other in deadlock. If my crotch felt… tight, it was a simple pants malfunction, nothing more.

Then Nightingale remembered he had magic, and tried to chuck a dumbbell at David’s head.

David’s shield flowed back up within the blink of an eye, condensing where it was most needed. It repelled the foreign object,  which bounced noisily across the floor with the force of impact as David grabbed Nightingale and attempted to wrestle him onto the mat.

Being wrestled to the ground by a hand on his waist and another on his shoulder was apparently a tad too intimate for my guv’nor’s taste as he threw his own shield back up in full force which, in turn, repelled David. David rolled himself off and, still with a snarl, threw an impello the size and force of an anti-tank missile against Nightingale’s shield, but Nightingale stood his ground.

And then he simply remained standing and increased power to his shield by increments as David chucked everything he had at it. He built up formae that were modified in such unorthodox ways as I’d never seen, and the results were… mean, spells designed to be nasty, put on the earth to cause the maximum amount of damage, of pain, and suddenly I realized that they were recreating here, in a safe environment, things they had done on actual battlefields, to people other than each other, people who hadn’t known how to block them within seconds, people now very brutally dead. I couldn’t suppress the chill I felt.

But David wasn’t going to bounce things off of Nightingale’s shield forever. His next spell was something that stuck, and Nightingale’s shield began to fizzle, crackle and sputter… out.

A shield-breaking spell? Why had I never learned that that existed?

There seemed to be only one thing for Nightingale to do. He’d have to extinguish his shield and cast a new one, which would leave him unprotected for a moment, all the time a skilled opponent would need. When the shield went down, David’s fist already jabbed through the opening - only to be instantly encased in a solid, invisible barrier when the new shield suddenly clamped around it.

The sudden tableau stood in silence.

“Too slow,” Nightingale breathed, panting slightly with the exertion. “Now you’re dead.”

“Fuck yourself.” David muttered some doubtlessly choice curses in what I thought to be Yiddish as he tried to pull his arm free. “Go fuck yourself! Why won’t you just let - me - inside!”

Nightingale suddenly released him, and he stumbled a few steps backwards. Nightingale smirked, in a way I’ve never hoped to see Nightingale smirk. This wasn’t that mischievous grin he sometimes got that made him look all boyish. This was a vicious, ugly thing. “The dead don’t talk, Davey.”

David let out a wordless cry of frustration. He swung again, smashed his fist against Nightingale’s shield, where it connected without any effect, and did it again, and again, and again. His hands were scrabbling at the smooth surface, feverishly clutching for any purchase at all, never attaining it.

“Just! Let! Me! In!”

“That’s simply not how it works, David.”

I was beginning to think there were undertones at play here, that maybe this was about more than the imminent fight. On the other side of the barrier, Nightingale stared down at David motionlessly, his face a mask, his grey eyes shuttered. I thought this was going to drag on forever, that this was simply never going to end.

But then suddenly, David stopped, and took a step back, and, more horrible than any of his attacks, then David slumped.

“I give.”

And the mask cracked. Right down the middle, like his shield had cracked before.

“What?” Nightingale asked. His voice was little more than breath.

David took two steps back. His eyes were fixed on the floor, shining with humiliation and the onset of tears. “I give. You win. You’ve made your point. Put the cuffs back on me. It’s no use.”

“What?” Nightingale said again, more sharply, taking a step forward - and stopping.

“I’m sorry…” David trailed off and took his gloves off. He let them fall to the ground where he stood. His knuckles were bloody. “You’re right. It’s never… going to be alright again, is it? There’s nothing I can do now.”

Slowly, like a boxer retreating from a match lost, David walked away towards the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my room, catching up on some rest.”

And with that he left.

Like someone in a horror movie turning to face the monster, I turned to look at Nightingale. He was staring at David’s retreating back, his face filled with pure disbelief that this was happening. “But… you can’t just…”

The door fell closed.

“…stop trying.”

David was gone.

A minute-long horrible, empty silence elapsed. I couldn’t look at Nightingale during that silence, so I turned my back and I stared at the door. If I were different and he were someone else, I might have gone to him. Tried to do something. Put a hand on his shoulder, maybe. I sure as hell considered it. But I didn’t: I turned my back and I stared at the door.

“Sir,” I eventually said.

He exhaled audibly behind me. Somehow, this told me that it was safe to look again now.

Nightingale was peering around the gym, taking in the destruction he and David had wrought. Discarded equipment that had been used as weaponry was strewn everywhere. The punching bag had ripped open on impact with the wall and was now leaking stuffing. Most surfaces were covered in a fine layer of ceiling dust.

“Well, Molly will be overjoyed,” Nightingale muttered. He turned back towards the door, where David had disappeared to, and suddenly I got scared, like I hadn’t gotten scared throughout watching the whole fight, because Nightingale looked lost.

Nightingale could look many things, but lost?

“I… suppose I should…” Go after him, was how that sentence usually ended. But I could see he wasn’t equipped to right now. I still had no idea what was going on between them anyway, and therefore couldn’t tell what solution I should ride for. Go settle it now? Take some time and space? Dump him, gurl? And since when was I the expert on that sort of thing, anyway?

“Guess I’ll go back up to my list,” I said, backing myself out of this. “Someone should probably investigate the crime here.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” As he spoke, Nightingale was gathering himself back together, like he was picking up pieces of his resolve from all over and pulling them back close to him. It was a remarkable thing he did. “You said there were… strange vestigia at the crime scene?”

“Very strange,” I said. “I couldn’t really place them, and neither could… David.”

I gestured to the door as I said his name, then noticed and quickly stopped myself. Nightingale’s eyes followed my gesture, and for a moment, emotion flooded back into his face: the disorientation, the shock, the… longing. But he got himself back under control.

“Perhaps we should both go and check on that, to be sure,” Nightingale said. “Before they fade.”

I was surprised, but only for a moment. And who was I to tell my boss how to deal? And I had wanted help with the case.

This I could offer him: distraction.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked down on his endearingly old-fashioned gym attire. “Let me freshen up and change into something more appropriate, and we’ll be on our way,” he said.

—-

Nightingale drove us; apparently he was eager to demonstrate sole ownership of the Jag again. He’d come down in a fresh suit and a pair of sunglasses that had been all the rage in… probably the 40s and had since circled back into fashion. It was very bright out, so I didn’t question this, and especially didn’t try to look at his eyes.

Halfway to our crime scene, even he had to make admissions to the heat and peel out of his jacket. “Really is hot out,” he said and loosened his tie and undid his top button and I wondered if the end of times was really to come.

The doorway to the backstage was opened to us by a man dressed in glittering corsetry, heels, tights and a wig. He took one look at Nightingale and said, “Sorry, hon, I already have an understudy.”

“No, we’re from the police,” I hurried to clarify, showing the man my identification. “We’re here about the murder.”

“Oh.” The man looked sheepish, scratching his head under the wig. “Oh, yeah, poor Deirdre. Come right on in.”

I led the way, wanting to examine the props department, Ms. Watley’s dressing room and the stage again.

“That lipstick is extraordinarily well-suited to your complexion,” I heard Nightingale tell the actor behind me. “Incidentally, are you free later? Oh, and I’m Thomas.”

He was going to kill me with all this someday.

But hey, again, who was I to tell my boss how to deal?

“Roger,” the actor replied. “That is to say, my name is Roger, and I am free later.”

“Splendid. Hold on a second, I do hope I brought my phone along…”

“I’ll just write down my number somewhere. Let’s step over to my dressing room and find a pen and paper, yeah? Loving the suit and cane, by the way. Very classy, though a bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

Nightingale didn’t explain that the cane was his wizard staff that held supernatural power. He said, “But it worked, did it not?”

They dipped on over into a dressing room labelled “Roger Cartwright” and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Seemed like it was on me again.

The props department was empty; apparently they hadn’t found a replacement for Ms. Maxwell yet. Forensics had been and gone, and the room had been cleaned up since. Then again, they hadn’t been looking for what I was looking for.

I started scanning the shelves and opening closets, but found nothing that looked like our errant crystal ball. But at one point, on a shelf in a closet at the very back of the room, there was a suspiciously empty space - I ran my fingers over the wood and felt, very faintly, the vestigia I had felt on the corpse: something smooth, round, made of glass, and a sudden stab of greed.

Behind me, a door opened and closed and Nightingale entered. “Pardon me,” he said. “Quite the engaging conversationalist, that Mr. Cartwright.”

“Got some lipstick right there, sir,” I said, gesturing at his collar.

He didn’t even have the common decency to blush. Not a muscle in his face twitched. “Found anything yet?” he asked me.

“Not the vestigia I was looking for,” I told him, “but our murder weapon was definitely here. See?”

I made room for him to examine the spot for himself. Owing to the narrow space, he passed very close by me, and I could smell the actor’s somewhat loud cologne on him. I couldn’t even say why that annoyed me so much. It wasn’t like I’d never gotten… involved with people connected to a case, even, on one memorable occasion, the perp herself. Roger Cartwright wasn’t even on our list of suspects. So then why did I feel all peeved about it? Maybe it was the vestigia having some kind of aftereffect. Maybe it just seemed inappropriate, this soon on the wake of the huge blowout with David.

Nightingale affirmed that yes, the murder weapon had been here. So Ms. Maxwell had bought it, most likely from someone on the goblin market or somebody affiliated, and had brought it here. And then… she’d been murdered?

Why? And why had she taken the damned thing here, and not to her flat to serve as a set-piece in her fortune-telling setup?

Next, we went up on stage again. There wasn’t currently a rehearsal on, so both the stage and auditorium seemed very large and empty. Yes, I knew that there were actors, technicians, and generally all sorts of theater people milling about the building, like Nightingale’s new friend, but out here, you could forget that fact. The set was still up for the scene they’d either last rehearsed or were planning to rehearse next: an elevated, throne-like chair, a banner behind it that said “WELCOME, TRANSYLVANIANS”. I didn’t remember enough of the musical they were putting on here to know what any of that meant. Maybe it was a play about vampires.

A single stage-light had been left on. Weird.

I pointed this out to Nightingale, who explained that this was a sort of superstition among theatre folks. “They generally leave a light on at all times. For the theatre ghost.”

“And does this place have a ghost?” I wondered.

“I wouldn’t know, but it’s very likely.” Nightingale smiled slightly. “Every theatre worth its salt has a ghost.”

“No one here told us about any hauntings.”

“But have we asked?”

Just then, as if on cue, the strange vestigia flooded back.

For a moment I felt it all again, the heady mix of exhilaration and stage fright, the greasepaint and scratchy, weird-smelling costumes, the glare of the stage lights and the murmur of the audience, a million billion trillion lines rehearsed and recited, the applause and, at last, the bows before the crowd, the stresses and fears and utter joys of being an actor on a stage.

And the theatre ghost stepped out from behind the curtain.

It was a slight figure, smaller than me or Nightingale, in a dark tailcoat and a white mask. The mask brought back memories, and I shuddered.

You have to leave, said the ghost. They didn’t say it in words so much as... project it. I couldn’t have said how their voice sounded, if it seemed male or female, or anything like that.

The wave of vestigia was so strong, the order so vehement, I felt myself almost start towards the exit. Nightingale gripped his staff tighter.

“We are investigating a murder that took place here,” he said. “May we ask you a couple of questions, sir or ma’am,” and, after an almost imperceptible break, “…or other?”

You must go, said the ghost, even more intently. This place is not safe.

The cloud of vestigia swelled again, eclipsing me, urging me to comply. I spun around and would have run for the exit had Nightingale not grabbed my arm and held me in place.

“Stay,” he whispered to me. “We shan’t let this person or entity intimidate us.”

He straightened his back, and turned and faced down the ghost.

The ghost looked at him.

Were there eyes behind the mask? It was hard to discern. I was seeing this figure as if through a thick fog - fog machine, yes. Another staple of theatre. I could smell it now too, amidst the vestigia, that dry, musty fog-machine-scent. They’d likely have one here, for dramatic entrances and death scenes and the like.

What are you, said the ghost. And suddenly there was something in their “voice”, a tinge of… uncertainty.

Nightingale raised his warrant card. “DCI Thomas Nightingale, Russell Square. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Folly before?”

Are you

like

me?

“Pardon?” Nightingale asked.

And we were alone on stage again.

“What… the fuck was that?” I looked around the stage, peered behind the curtain, and found nothing. “Where did they go?”

“Interesting,” Nightingale said. He was doing that unflappable thing again. “They seem to have their own Phantom here. It’s almost a bit gauche.”

I stared a bit. “Gauche, sir?”

“Well.” He shrugged. “It is at the very least not all that threatening, seeing as we were able to withstand it with relative ease.” He seemed to want to flatter me by including me in that, considering I had almost given in to the ghost’s orders.

“What is it?” I asked. “Some kind of… genius loci of this house? A… spirit of theatre?”

“Perhaps,” Nightingale said. “Maybe something not nearly as strong as that. Maybe just a fae with a very specific glamour.”

I nodded. Of course, the strange sensations I had felt just now, and already once before, had to be someone’s glamour. But the truly weird thing about the ghost struck me as…

“They kept telling us to leave,” I said.

“There is likely something here that someone doesn’t want us to know about.”

“Maybe it’s that,” I said. It hadn’t sounded much like that. Or maybe it had, but there’d also been something else. It’s not safe here, the ghost had told us. Like they wanted to... warn us. Like they didn’t want us to get hurt.

—-

Back at the Folly, I did what I should have been doing all along, I sent a text to Zach Palmer asking for his help with digging up any person selling actual magical crystal balls on the goblin market. There was always a small but significant overlap between the various esoteric subcultures and the demi-monde.

I wanted to head home and spend the evening with Bev, but before wrapping up and heading her way, something compelled me to troop to David’s room. He’d looked beat earlier today, and I wanted to check in on him, and maybe gain some insight into what the hell the newest conflict was.

David answered the door after my first knock. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

It occurred to me that if he’d been waiting - wishing -  for someone to knock on his door, it had most likely not been me.

“Yeah, sorry. Has, um… Nightingale been by?”

David sniffled. “Briefly.” He showed me his hands, and I didn’t get it at first, but then I spotted the inhibitor cuffs, back on his wrists.

He’d said he’d rest, but he looked knackered. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his curls springing every which way.

“What happened?” I asked. “I mean… earlier, that was… well. That was something.”

“I’m not sure what to tell you. Thomas is…” David sighed. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“That sucks,” I said eloquently.

“Yes, well. Thank you for asking.” I thought for a second he’d close the door in my face and go on moping in his room by himself, but then he said, “You know, I need to get out of here. Will you accompany me for a walk?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

We took a walk around the square. Molly spotted us leaving the Folly and hovered with Toby’s leash, so we took Toby along. Nobody seemed to have thought to walk him yet today, and he was enthusiastic.

“You know, I hear this used to be a good cruising ground a little while ago,” I told David. “For gay folks, I mean.”

David chortled. “Figures,” he said, “With Thomas being master of the Folly.” He didn’t deign to elaborate.

“We don’t really say ‘master’ anymore,” I said, which David received with a distracted nod. He seemed to have too much on his mind to inquire after that.

“So, what’s going on now?” I asked again. “I really thought you guys were… getting over things.”

David stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking morose. “The problem goes much deeper than I had expected,” he said. “If it were only the war, we would’ve settled it by now. We had… an understanding between us regarding the realities of the war. But it’s more than that. Thomas is… determined not to let me get too close to him again, and I’m beginning to feel like there’s nothing I can do. That this… will be the state of things forever.”

“If it’s not the war,” I asked, “what is it?”

David kicked a pebble across the pavement. Toby tried to fetch, and I had to hold him back. “Thomas has been alone for a long, long time,” David began, “Well, alone except for Molly. Molly’s splendid, but she’s not one for conversation. She’s apparently the only friend Thomas has had since 1945. He’s… forgotten how it is to have people, I think.”

“That really sucks,” I said again - exceedingly helpful, I know.

“He’s had to keep… everything close to his chest, I reckon.” David chewed his lower lip, apparently unsure how to best phrase his thoughts. I didn’t really know what to do with what he was telling me, what to focus on, what to think, how to react. So I ended up looking at his mouth.

“And he muddled along like that, somehow, and he’s… well, he’s out and about, he does things, I reckon he functions well that way. Or well enough. He doesn’t seem to want to… endanger this functional state by revisiting things from the past. I am… a thing from the past.”

“Nightingale’s not the vulnerable type.” I said this impulsively, without really thinking.

“He might begin to be,” David surmised. “If he had somebody near who broke down certain barriers. A lover, par exemple.” He bit his lip again. “Much responsibility rests on him now. Perhaps it’s best not to rock the boat.”

He looked miserable as he said that. I called Toby to heel, and David squatted briefly to pet him. Small, furry animals: invaluable in any crisis. Even annoying ones like Toby.

“Good boy,” David muttered. Toby wagged and tried to clamber up him with the verve of small dogs everywhere.

“Hey listen,” I said, “you’re not thinking of doing anything… stupid, are you?”

David looked up. “What, to the dog?”

“No,” I said. “Not to the dog.”

“Oh, you mean… that.” David got up and wiped his hands on his trousers. “I don’t think… not anymore. It seems an extreme sort of step.”

I nodded, and still resolved to keep an eye on him.

“You know, at first I thought… when I first saw you, I thought you were it. Thomas’ person. My replacement, I suppose. I know better now, but… goodness but I almost wish you were. It would be… well, it would certainly have been better than nothing at all.”

“High praise,” I said laconically. “But no, I’m really… not. Never been. I mean, I’m straight. That is, I’m probably mostly straight.” God, what was I saying? “I’m just, things are great with Bev. We’ve got a kid on the way.”

“Congratulations,” David said. Somehow it lacked sincerity. “Thomas and I used to joke between us that men like us get puppies, not children.” He stroked Toby’s head again. “Eh, my sweet boy?”

I nodded vaguely, barely hearing him. Because frankly up until now I had been coasting, swept along by all kinds of recent events. And… well… a child. My son or daughter (it was much too early to tell yet). I was sure that Beverley would get on swimmingly (hah), she had it all planned out. She’d start university again after taking a six-week leave, she’d take the baby to classes with her and get her degree with a kid on her arm, a high-powered career mom who still found time to heap love and support on her little sunshine and have her scheduled me-time on the weekends, and she’d do her river duties on the side. But I? Me?

I had no idea if I’d make a good dad. I mean, I was pretty sure I’d stay on top of changing diapers and the like. But later? When the kid was a bit older? Could I be supportive and present, patient and reliable in a crisis? I was leading a dangerous life out here. Most of the time I was busy with my job and apprenticeship. Police work and magic were time-consuming pastimes. But, and I’d felt this viscerally during the time I’d been suspended for the Chorley debacle, quitting would… well… quitting would make me feel as if…

…quitting was not an option.

I was still thinking of it - him or her - them - in the abstract, I realized, as ‘the kid’. They would have a name. They would have a personality. They would need me to be there.

I felt something touching my face, and jolted back to the present moment. It was David, gently tilting my chin down to meet his eyes.

“Hey,” he said lowly. “Where did you go?”

“Sorry.” Apparently the supportive walk for David had turned into me panicking by the side of the road. “It’s just… it’s nothing.”

I couldn’t unload this on him right now. He’d talked about having children with such an undertone of yearning. It hadn’t been possible for him back in the day, and I couldn’t see Nightingale adopting in the present, either. Men like them had been deemed dangerous to children, way back when, just by… existing. So he’d gotten all these apprentices to fill the gap, and Nightingale had had his young soldiers, and then they’d lost them all at Ettersberg, and at last lost each other.

“Hey,” David murmured. He still cupped my chin in his hand. It seemed… weird, but good-weird. I didn’t move away.

“You said I could kiss people on the street now,” David said. “I still haven’t gotten to.”

My eyes slid down from his eyes to his mouth again. “Yeah.”

“This is a street,” he stated.

And reader, I wouldn’t say his lips didn’t look… inviting.

He leaned in. I didn’t lean away.

For a moment, we hovered.

“Nah, we can’t do this,” I said, and tooka step back, breaking whatever had just possessed us. I laughed a little. “Um, not that I’d hate to. But, um, Bev, you know.”

“Heh. Quite.” David withdrew. He’d reddened a bit.

“And for you… I mean… it shouldn’t be me, right? Should be Nightingale.”

David saddened again. “I’m not sure that it will be.”

I patted his shoulder. “Hey, buck up. He’ll come to.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Toby tugged on his leash, making known to us that he’d quite like to head back to the Folly now.

“I’ll take him,” David said. “You go home and see your girl.”

That threw me a little. He had just tried to kiss me, hadn’t he? “Ah, what?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “It’s fine. I’ve known your type of men. You must go see your girlfriend, affirm certain things. Go on, I’ll be alright. Try not to think of me and Thomas when you make love to her. I hear It helps.”

I went home to Bev with my head reeling.

[letterboxd]

Quarantine Rentals.

Ten indie films you can rent right now, as recommended by Letterboxd members.

Sure, Scoob!. Yes, Extraction. The Wrong Missy, okay. On the other hand, there are plenty of interesting indie films available for VOD and virtual screenings right now that haven’t necessarily had the benefit of studio backing, big stars, film festivals, red carpets or other ‘normal-circumstances’ coverage to build word-of-mouth.

So, because these are abnormal circumstances, we sent our West Coast editor Dominic Corry on a hunt through your recent reviews to find ten under-seen but enthusiastically received indies that you can rent today.

Thanks to our partnership with JustWatch, you can find availability details on each film’s Letterboxd page—and Dominic has also helpfully provided further links to make it that much easier to support these indie films.

Powerbomb Directed by R. Zachary Shildwachter and B.J. Colangelo

Starring Matt Capiccioni (better known Matt Cross, or M-Dogg 20, or Son of Havoc) as an up-and-coming wrestling star, and Wes Allen as the obsessive fan who kidnaps him, Powerbomb is “The King of Comedy set in the indie wrestling scene, which is a cool fucking concept if nothing else,” according to Dustin Baker. “Luckily, there’s some witty writing and good performances to back up that concept to create something that’s surprisingly a lot of fun.”

Don’t worry if you know nothing about wrestling, writes Justin Nordell: “As someone who has zero reference point for wrestling, this film not only made it accessible but enthralling!”

A guide to where you can watch Powerbomb can be found on the film’s website.

Arkansas Directed by Clark Duke

Quietly ubiquitous comedic actor Clark Duke (Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine) directed and co-wrote this neo-noir in which he stars alongside such high-profile talent as Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich and Liam Hemsworth. Everyone agrees that the film wears its influences on its sleeve. Chainsaw Massacre “loved nearly every minute of this deliberately paced descendant of Tarantino and the Coen brothers. [But] comparing it to those […] filmmakers does it a disservice though, because, while you can feel their influence, first-time director Clark Duke does have his own distinct style”.

While noting that it marks another interesting performance in Vaughn’s recent emergence as a worthy cinematic lowlife, Tummis would also “like to point out that Liam Hemsworth was great in this”.

Arkansas is available via various digital outlets, as indicated on its official website.

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael Directed by Rob Garver

Before the Letterboxd era, film criticism was a much more exclusive realm, and no one critic loomed larger in that realm than The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael—so iconic that true cineastes of her time referred to her simply by her first name. So it behooves you, good Letterboxd member, to familiarize yourself with this master of the form via this new documentary.

In a review that feels like it could apply to any number of Letterboxd members, kmarus says “From what I’ve encountered of her criticism, Kael and I disagree on a lot of things, but one thing that is readily apparent to anyone who reads her writing is that she genuinely cares about movies”.

Letterboxd’s London correspondent (and professional critic) Ella Kemp felt personally validated watching the film. “It’s magic, she’s magic, this is why we needed her and why we always need movies, and why I want to keep talking about them. It’s nice if you read me, if you like me or if you agree with me—but even if you don’t, I know I’ll be sticking around for a while anyway. I’m nowhere near done yet.”

You can rent the film here.

Slay The Dragon Directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance

The insidious and nebulous practice of gerrymandering is the focus of this acclaimed documentary. As member Andrew Chrzanowski ominously intones, the film is “never more timely than right here and right now” and “demands you to watch, so you may witness in a comprehensive and detailed way the metastasis of the most malignant cancer on our democracy: gerrymandered districts and redrawn borders by Republicans, especially after the 2010 elections”.

Guyatthemovies says the film “does a phenomenal job of taking a topic that may seem confusing for most who are not familiar and breaking it down to simplistic terms, explaining the impact of gerrymandering [through] well-known examples” and that “this is a must-watch for anyone concerned about the state of politics today”.

You can support your favorite theater by renting the film here.

Judy & Punch Directed by Mirrah Foulkes

Mia Wasikovska and Damon Herriman, two of the more interesting Australian actors working in film today, and each possessed of a fantastically cinematic face, star in this one-of-a-kind film as a couple operating a marionette show in a town about to bubble over with tension. Like the classic puppet characters that title the film, they come to blows.

The film is the feature-directing debut of Aussie actor and filmmaker Mirrah Foulkes, and Letterboxd member CJ Johnson says she “announces herself as a feature auteur of serious talent and limitless potential with […] a film whose great artfulness is only outdone by its sheer, breath-taking originality”.

Jess V.K. warns us to “go into this film with no expectations, because whatever you were expecting is not what you will see”.

Rent the film here.

On A Magical Night Directed by Christophe Honoré

This French comedy (of sorts) presents a fresh perspective on a very French activity: infidelity. It begins with a woman, Maria (Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Italian-French acting royalty Marcello Mastroanni and Catherine Deneuve) deciding to leave her husband, and taking up residence across the street where she can observe him.

As Allison M. explains, “like a modernized version of A Christmas Carol, spirits living and dead come to haunt Maria to help her make a decision about whether or not she should return to her husband. It is complete with a phantom baby, reference to a past threesome, and kissing cousins”.

The film caused Gmacauley to ruminate: “Have you ever thought to yourself that when you get old you’d like to travel to the past and sleep with your significant other while they’re young again? Well now I have.”

Watch it here; and also seek out Nicolas Bedos’ marital fantasy romp, La Belle Époque.

The Assistant Directed by Kitty Green

This austere take on the #MeToo era stars Ozark breakout Julia Garner as a bottom-rung assistant to a never-seen, New York-based film producer clearly modeled on Harvey Weinstein. Through one long workday, we are witness to the manipulative practices that enable such a figure, without ever landing on a single incident that she can cite as tangible proof of his behavior, which helps detail the impossibility of her—and countless others’—situation.

While the film’s understated style has thrown some viewers off, that’s entirely the point according to Ryne Walley, who says it “aims true with unwavering confidence. The calculated pace and concise nature of The Assistant hides very little, echoing the countless cases of abuse and depravity that’ve been disclosed… an agonizingly taut feat of filmmaking… Your heart sinks with each passing hour”.

“So quietly powerful, this is a female film through and through. Gut wrenching in the simplest way,” writes Letterboxd member Katie.

Ella Kemp interviewed Green about The Assistant for Letterboxd. The film’s official website lists various VOD options.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century Directed by Justin Pemberton

French economist Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book about income equality forms the basis of this documentary, which takes on a new pertinence in the coronavirus era.

“It’s a sobering trip,” says Joey Jepson. “As if Covid-19 wasn’t enough to send you into a deep depression, Capital in the Twenty-First Century presents a thesis that seems to indicate that if we don’t course correct, we will see a further divide and evaporation of the middle-class.”

Michael agrees: “Very clearly and lucidly explains why we’re fucked if we don’t start regulating capital.” Eep.

Rent the film here.

Spaceship Earth Directed by Matt Wolf

The 1991 biosphere experiment—in which a group of people sealed themselves off from the world (hey!) to investigate human self-sustainability—is the subject of this documentary, which, like Capital in the Twenty-First Century, also hits a little different in the current moment.

Kellyabailey is on board: “I’m fuckin inspired, man. I wanna see what I’m capable of and finally start that commune I’ve been dreaming up.”

Smooz was impressed with how the film didn’t make fun of its subjects: “It’s rare for a documentarian […] dealing with kooks to produce a movie with any sort of empathy. This movie takes the kooks involved in one of the kookiest, most ridiculed projects in recent decades and honestly shows their successes, visionary moments, shortcomings, and failures while resisting the urge to dunk on them and give them swirlies.”

Letterboxd editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood spoke to Wolf about his film—and what movies he’d choose to take with into a biosphere—in this interview. Rent the movie here.

Aren’t You Happy Directed by Susanne Heinrich

Those in the mood for something different might do well to check out this aesthetically bold German film—think Wes Anderson meets The Love Witch meets the movie Robert De Niro takes Cybill Shepherd to see on their ‘date’ in Taxi Driver—following a young woman named Mädchen (Marie Rathscheck) through various strange encounters.

Arvid Schmiedehausen says it “might be the most artistic film I have ever watched. It is highly ambitious in its attempts to deconstruct society and western values through fourteen episodes, with each being a persiflage on one unique aspect of it”. [We had to look up “persiflage” too.]

Ian A. Chapman writes that “not in anyway adhering to convention, Aren’t You Happy melancholically meanders through rendezvous allowing time for delicious dialogue. Visually pleasing, the colour choices neatly frame the scenes and set the tones allowing for a shorthand into the vibe”.

Rent the movie here.

Related content

Our list of art house films screening online now.

[i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend]

The Art of Love (Part 4) ~ Steve Rogers x Reader College!AU

A/N: Hi lovelies! Happy weekend! Here’s some fluff to kick it off. 

Summary: You finally make it to those dinner reservations. 

Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers x reader (Platonic - for now), Wanda, Nat

Rating: T

Warnings: Language Shirtless Steve Rogers,. TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF

Word Count: 1768

Main Masterlist | The Art of Love Masterlist | Broken Hearts and Robot Parts Masterlist (Companion Fic) ​

Steve’s POV

Steve was still frustratingly blocked on his showcase project by the time Friday afternoon rolled around. You’d been in the studio all week choreographing what was now a duet and he had barely seen you which did little to help his mood. You were always his muse.  

His phone buzzed, and assuming it was a text from you he picked it up immediately, more than a little disappointed when he realized it was just an email.  Putting the phone down and shedding his clothes so he could shower.

He was halfway through an inspired rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody when his phone started ringing. Quickly jumping out of the shower, he picked up just before it went to voicemail.

“Hey, sweetheart. You on your way?”  

“I’m just finishing up packing. What do you want me to wear tomorrow?”

“Whatever you want?” He responded. “Why would I have any say over what you wear?” he asked, ignoring the way his heart thudded at the reminder he’d be spending an entire weekend with you.

“Well, we’re trying to impress your mom right? So I want to look nice, but not like I’m trying too hard.”

He could hear the nerves in your voice and pictured you standing in front of your closet, staring and nibbling on your lower lip.

“You don’t have to impress anyone, sweetheart.”

“You do realize this is the first time I’ll be spending any real time with her right? I want her to like me.”

“She’s going to love you. Hell, she already tells me…”

He clammed up quick when he realized what he’d been about to admit.

“She tells you what?”

“That I’d be a lot worse off without you,” he half-lied.

“Well we know that’s true.”

Steve scoffed.

“But that doesn’t help me know what to wear,” you whined.  

“Where whatever makes you comfortable. You’re beautiful no matter what.”

“Aww, thanks, handsome.” There were a few moments of rustling before a grunt. “Okay forget it. I’m just going to bring a few options and you can pick when I get there,” you finally huffed. “I’m getting an Uber now. I should be there in twenty-ish.”

“Alright. I’ll see you soon. Text when you’re close so I can help you with all your luggage,” he teased.

“Jerk,” you muttered laughingly. “Bye.”

Steve laughed when you shared your location with him ten minutes later, with the note Just so you know, bellhop. He shook his head as he dried off and got dressed for dinner.

 Y/n’s POV

“Where are you off to?” Natasha asked from her spot on the couch when you exited your room with your duffel bag over your shoulder and a garment bag full of dresses.  

“I’m staying with Steve for the weekend.”

“You don’t usually pack when you stay at his place,” Wanda remarked.

You shrugged.

“Yeah, well. We have a lot of things planned so I need clothes other than his sweats.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ooh. What are you guys doing?” Nat pressed.

“Well, tonight he’s taking me out to celebrate my job offer. And then tomorrow we’re having his mom over for dinner. And then Sunday is our annual Lord of the Rings marathon.”

“That sounds fun. You look beautiful by the way. Is that a new dress?”

“Sort of. My mom bought it for me for Christmas. I just haven’t had a chance to wear it yet.”

“Well it looks great on you.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s with the wardrobe change?” Wanda gestured to the garment bag which was bulging with the number of dresses you’d hastily thrown into it.

You flushed in embarrassment.

“I wasn’t sure what to wear for dinner with his mom, so I grabbed a bunch of options and I’m going to let him pick.”

“That’s so cute.”

“I’m kinda nervous about meeting his mom,” you admitted as you stared at the floor thumbing through the same four apps on your phone.

“You’ve met his Mom before haven’t you?” Nat questioned, brow furrowing as she tried to remember showcases past. “You had to have been with me after showcase.”

“Yeah, I’ve met her. But I haven’t spent any real time with her.”

They both nodded sagely.

“You won’t know until you try. But she’s lovely. You know that. You’ve met her.”

“I know. She’s great. I just, Steve is important and I don’t want to fuck it all up.”

“Impossible, Smudge. You’ll be great.”

Your phone vibrated in your hand, alerting you to your Uber’s arrival.

“Well, I will see you on Monday most likely,” you told them as you pulled on your coat.  

“Have a great weekend,” Natasha smiled.

“Say hi to Steve for us.”

“I will. Bye!”

Once the door shut, the two women shared a long look.

“Think they’ll get it after their fourth Valentine’s day together?” Wanda asked, hope in her voice.

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“It’s just as well. My bet’s May anyways.”

“Mine’s the night of showcase.”

“Guess we have to wait and see.”

“How about we do that with some wine?” Nat suggested.

“Sounds like a plan.”  

  You had shared your location with Steve once you were on your way, but you were still surprised when you pulled up to his apartment and he was waiting in the doorway to help you out of the car. He took the garment bag from you and then held his hand out to steady you as you teetered slightly in your heels.

“Thank you,” you called to the driver as you shouldered your bag.

“Have a good night!”

“You too!”

You shut the door of the SUV and turned to face Steve with a huge smile.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi honey, I’m home,” you giggled.  

He chuckled and continued holding your hand as he led you into the building. You both smiled and waved at Steve’s downstairs neighbor who was getting her mail.

“Good evening, Mrs. Mitchell,” Steve called.

“Good evening, dear. You’re all dressed up. Important night?”

“Extremely. I’m taking this pretty lady out to celebrate her new job,” he announced proudly.  

“Oh congratulations, dear.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, you two look great. Have a fun night.”

“Thank you,” you both chorused.  

She beamed at you, though there was something secretive in her smile as she waved you onto the elevator.

“I’m sure glad I cleared out some space in my closet for all this stuff,” Steve teased, readjusting the garment bag on his shoulder.

“Shut up. Your closet has never been filled anyway.”

His laugh vibrated through you as he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head as you hit the button for his floor.

“How was rehearsal today? Did you pick a partner yet?”

“Yes! Fandral is going to help me out. I wanted T’Challa,” you admitted with a slight pout, “But he’s already doing some very intense fight choreo with Okoye along with his own one act so I didn’t want to overwhelm him.”

Steve nodded sagely as he unlocked the apartment. Being overcommitted for showcase was the worst feeling.

“That makes sense. And Fandral’s a good choice. You liked working with him last time.”

“Yeah, he’s great. I’m excited to start working with him. How was your day?”

“It was fine. Got some work done on my midterm. Started cleaning the apartment.”

“Still blocked huh?” you asked knowingly as you waltzed into the bedroom.

“Completely,” he groaned as he hung up your dresses in his closet before flopping dramatically into the chair in his front window, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Have you scrapped a lot of paintings?”

“I wish. That would mean I at least had some ideas. But I’ve got nothing. It’s like when you try to say a word and you just freeze. I’m frozen.”  

You placed your duffel on the far dresser, and slipped off your coat before sitting in his lap kneading some of the tension in his shoulders and ignoring the way his hands felt on your waist.  

“You’re also tense as all hell.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he commented drily.

You poked at the almost rock hard muscle between his neck and shoulder.

“Jesus, Steve. You’ve never been this bad before.”

“I’ve never been this stuck before. It’s completely open ended. And I can’t think of anything. Why did they have to give us contentment as our inspiration word? Like it’s so… so…”

“Nebulous?”

“Thank you. See now I’m freezing on my words too.”

Frowning, you moved your hand up to card through his hair.

“Hey,” you spoke softly. “It’ll be okay. You’ll figure it out and it will be beautiful. Like it always is.”

He cracked an eye open to look at you.

“You think so?”

“I know so. You’re incredibly talented. Just try not to stress. Focus on the feeling. You’ll find your way to express it.”

“Spoken like a true dancer,” he grinned.

“I’m serious. Steve, your art always connects. It’s always full of emotion. So don’t paint contentment. Paint the experience.”

“That’s good advice.”

“Like I give any other kind.”

Steve rolled his eyes but pulled you down onto his chest anyways.

“Sometimes I wonder why I keep you around.”

“Because you love me,” you sing-songed, as you cuddled into his chest, still playing with his hair.

“Damn straight,” he mumbled against your cheek. “But it’s mainly for your muffins,” he added with a rumbly chuckle.  

You smacked the back of his head, before nestling your hand back in his hair. You could feel him relaxing under your touch. He hummed when you scratched at his scalp. You sighed when he traced patterns on your lower back. You were both lost in the tender moment. You could have stayed there all night.  

Luckily both of your phones chimed with reminders of your reservations thirty minutes before you needed to be there.

“We should get going or we’ll be late,” he murmured, though his hands were still tracing circles on your back, distracting you. “Y/n?”

He snapped you back to reality.

“Right, yes. The reservation.”  

You gracefully stood up and smoothed your dress and Steve got his first full look at you.

“You look beautiful tonight, sweetheart.”

“Thank you. You clean up pretty well yourself.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! 

Tag Lists are Open (Please send an ask)

Update 3/15/2021: Hello, Lovelies. As some of you may have seen on the blog I have decided to suspend tag lists. If you would like to receive updates about new content please follow @naynay-writes​​ and turn on notifications. Thank you! Xoxo, Naynay

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[kneipho]

Law's Challenge (Short(ish) ) Story

Written and submitted by the demiurgic @dreamwriter5000

-

Law’s Challenge

“It’s gotten worse. I can hardly feel it anymore.” Her twin, Gavin said, coming out of the light trance he used to find and collect magical energy.

Mara shivered with dread. Without magic, they would have to rely on fire for heat, and their own skills for the other amenities of life. After so many generations of magic use, there were tasks where she wasn’t sure those skills were sufficient any longer.

“Did you See anything?’ Gavin added as he held out a hand in a request for help getting to his feet.  She complied, helping him up and helping him balance on his good leg while he retrieved his staff. He’d been born lame, the victim of a curse cast on their mother when she was pregnant with them. The curse had caused the ankle bone in his left leg to warp, making standing or walking on it very difficult. Healers had been unsuccessful in their efforts to counter the curse’s effects. Gavin could manage with the aid of a staff and on a horse he was the equal of anyone in the clan.

“Yes.” Mara said carefully. “I’ve seen the one who can help us.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Gavin asked, puzzled by her somber mood. Firelight danced in his blue eyes and caught highlights in hair so pale, one could be forgiven for thinking either of them was wearing a cap of snowbird feathers.

“The one I saw is a bone priestess.” As she expected, Gavin’s disquiet became a tightly controlled anger. He hated the bone people, holding one of their priestesses responsible for the curse cast on their mother and for his own disability. He said, “Are you sure she is one who can help us, and not one who is responsible for the fading of the magic?”

“No, the vision was nebulous. I saw the priestess and I saw her familiar, a dark haired ape. Aside from this, there was only the sense that I needed to find her and that her familiar was central to the return of the magic.”

Mara shivered again at the memory; a sallow skinned woman with dark, tightly braided hair. She’d worn a purple and black headscarf with floral patterns and her face, above the lips was covered by the mask that identified her as a priestess.

Their mother had shown them such a mask once, taken from a defeated enemy. They were made of carefully carved and decorated bone.  The decorations on each mask declared not only the priestess’s level of skill with magic, but also her family affiliation and the number of enemy magicians she had defeated.

 The decorations Mara had seen on this woman’s mask included  a yellow ellipse on the forehead, a dark half circle beneath it, and three short lines bisected by a fourth beneath the half circle. Ten vertical lines had been painted along the mask’s edge above her lip. When Mara described it to her mother, she’d learned the masked woman was a junior priestess from an unknown family who had won at least ten arcane battles.

Gavin said, “Have  you spoken to the Elders about what you saw?”

“Yes. I was with them before I came here. They are discussing who will come with me.”

“With us.” Gavin corrected.

“I hope so.”

“There is no question. I will not allow my sister to face a Bone Priestess alone.”

Mara dropped her eyes and did not utter her doubts that their parents would be willing to risk both their children to such a venture.

###

It may have been a longer road, but it’s better than declaring war on the Bone People. Mara gave her horse’s rein to Jag, one of the five clansfolk chosen to accompany her and Gavin as they sought contact with the priestess Mara had Seen, and dismounted. The rest of their party did the same.

Jag was a horse caster. He’d mastered spells for communicating with, healing, and controlling horses. As with almost everyone else, his spells were less effective now that the Magic had faded, but so far, his experience was making up for the lack.

This village was a trade hub called Tolerance Point. A prominent sign at the city gates listed an impressive number of rules forbidding persecution or harassment of any visitor and the punishments handed out to those who broke them. Mara had already reminded Gavin of the list twice as they passed travelling members of the Bone clan. When one of those had plainly been a priest of the Bone clan, Mara had wondered for a moment if the reminder would be enough. It had, barely.

Sheki was a finder. If she knew what she was Looking for, her spells led her to it. Of all of them, she was the only one who’s spells had maintained their efficiency, becoming noticeably stronger the closer they got to their target. Not even Torg, their mage, knew why. Mara might be able to See the Priestess, and know she was involved in the Magic’s loss, but Sheki would be the one who led them to her.

Torg had studied combative magic, particularly counter spells and spell breaking. With help from Gavin, who Collected Magic’s energy and could conduct it to a spell’s caster, Torg would shield them from arcane attacks, but his primary job was to figure out why the Magic was fading and counter whatever was causing the loss..

Karn was their master of stealth. He knew more ways of hiding and moving silently than anyone in the clan. He had his own collection of spells, but he’d also studied purely physical techniques of moving silently and avoiding notice. His skill with a dagger was unparalleled. He hunted by approaching without being noticed and cutting the throat before the prey knew he was there.

Shae was their Envoy. She knew spells for charm and for reading another’s intent.  She also knew what the Clan Elders would and would not approve in terms of contracts and treaties. If they did run into Bone People, she would handle any negotiations. At the moment, she was securing lodgings for them.

With this group, one wonders why I am here. I’m not sure why a Seer is needed now that Sheki has her focus. Mara thought. She had other skills that would be useful on the trip; she was a particularly good at cooking without magic, for example, but nothing the others didn’t also possess.

“You can provide  a reminder if Sheki loses her trace.” Gavin murmured as they waited for Sheki to finish her latest search. “Your presence also keeps the rest of us focused. Without you, Sheki will forget she does not have Shae’s sweet tongue and try to take on the first unfortunate soul that gets in her way. Torg would lose himself in the pool of magic I create for him, Jag would do the same with the horses, and Karn would decide it might be fun to see how many Bone People he can surprise.”

Mara met his gaze with a raised eyebrow. He always knew when she was troubled, and generally had a pretty good idea of the reason. When they were younger, she’d thought he should train as an Envoy, but he could only read her. Their mother thought it came of being twins.

“And  you? What do I keep your focus from?”

“Joining Karn.” He said with a grin, before adding, “If I thought I could. More likely I would become lost in a Collector’s version of twiddling my thumbs. There is beauty in power, especially when a Collector has the leisure to structure it as he wishes.”

Mara made no reply, remembering how Gavin had listened to many of Karn’s lessons. He’d even learned some of the spells. He accepted training as a Collector only when he had proved to himself that he would never be able to master the physical skills Karn was learning. Mara was certain he still felt envy for Karn’s ability to move and kill silently.

The Bone People would be a smaller tribe if he could.

She looked to Sheki, who had completed her search and now gestured toward the better of the town’s two inns. Mara said, “Is she there?”

“Not at the moment,” Sheki said. “She’s off in that direction.” Sheki pointed toward the market square before adding, “She was there this morning, and has been in and out for the last three or four days.”

“Then it’s good that they have rooms left.” Shae said, returning from her hunt for lodgings. “I got the last two rooms. One on the ground floor, the other on the—”

“She’s mad!” Gavin exclaimed suddenly, drawing stares from more than one passerby. Mara signaled sharply for him to watch his words. His next words were quieter, but equally fervent. “Torg! Look at the third floor room, what do you See?”

Mara had no ability to sense magical energy, she could only watch as not only Torg, but everyone else focused their magical senses on the indicated room. After several moments, Torg’s breath caught and he muttered several obscenities. The reactions of the others were not as strong, but clearly something was amiss in the room Gavin had noticed.

Mara tapped Gavin’s shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Gavin glanced back briefly, shuddered, and then faced her and said, “Whoever did this, they’ve twisted the magic so that it feeds back on itself. This draws in more and more magic, like a metal blade will attract a lodestone.”

“Why is that wrong? I thought that was what you did.”

“It is, but here, the magic is confined, not allowed to disperse when there is nothing for it to do. If whoever did this was not constantly draining it, it would—combust or explode. The release of that much uncontrolled magic, it would overwhelm even set spells. Everything would get washed away. Those who can see magic, we’d be blinded; temporarily if we’re lucky, forever if we’re not. The energy might even leak into the physical world, causing fires or earthquakes.”

The others had turned their attention away from the source of magic and Shae had noticed an increase in the attention passersby were paying them. She said, 

“Perhaps we could continue this conversation inside. I don’t know about everyone else, but I could use a bath and a meal before I have to contemplate an uncontrolled explosion of magic.”

“So,” Mara’s soft words reached only Torg’s ears. “How likely is this explosion of magic?”

“Not very.” Torg kept his own voice low. “ The containment and whatever is draining power is stable. I would not have dared such a situation, but whoever set this up knew what they were doing.”

Torg shrugged and headed inside. Seeing his confidence, the others  followed, except for Jag, who took the horses to the Inn’s stable. They split the rooms, with the men taking the ground floor room and the women taking the one on the third floor, where three doors separated them from the magic’s source.

When Jag returned from caring for the horses, everyone collected clean clothes and met in the common room. Shae directed them to the bath house and arranged for a meal.

Clean, and anticipating food she had no hand in preparing, Mara returned to the common room with Sheki to find the Torg and Shae already digging into a generous dinner of spiced beef, sautéed vegetables, and bread. She had her choice of beer or cider to drink. The others trailed in soon after and they all dug into the food with enthusiasm.

The door to the main entrance opened and a woman paused at the threshold while her eyes adjusted to the lower light level.

Sheki drew a sharp breath and gripped Mara’s shoulder. She said, “That’s her.”  Mara tried to see past the glare of the sun shining behind the woman and failed. The woman’s dress was very similar to the one she’d seen in her vision and her hair was drawn back in a similar fashion. Details required waiting until the woman entered the common room.

Their quarry felt their regard and, as her eyes adjusted, she recognized their costume. Her posture became defensive and one hand went to the largest of the medallions hanging from her neck. She said, “I don’t want trouble.”

“And I won’t have it within my walls.” The innkeeper added. “Take your issues outside.”

Torg laid a restraining hand on Gavin’s wrist and Shae put on her Envoy “face”. An abrupt sense of calm told Mara she’d cast a spell to prevent any hasty or violent actions. The Bone woman apparently had an impressive shielding spell, for she remained tense and defensive as Shae said, “ We don’t want trouble either, only answers to some questions. Will you eat with us?”

The Bone woman relaxed a bit and her hand left the medallion. She nodded and Jag got up long enough to purloin a chair for her from another table.

“I’m Shae, of the snow clan.” Shae introduced the rest of their group and said, “And what shall I call you?”

“Laroi. Of the House of the Rising Sun.” She said. A waiter arrived with Laroi’s dinner and Shae waited for him to leave and for Laroi to take several bites of food before saying,

“Has the Rising Sun clan noticed the fading of magical energy in the lands to the north?”

Laroi took her time in answering, so much time that Gavin almost hurled a barbed conversational goad. Instead, Laroi nodded and said, “Yes, but it is not only the northern lands, it is happening in all the lands surrounding our home.”

“Not in your own lands?”

Laroi shook her head. “Do you know why? Shae asked.

“I do not know,” Laroi said, her tone flat, not hostile.

“You have suspicions?” Shea answered.

“There are always rumors.” Laroi admitted.

“What is the most prevalent rumor?”

Laroi didn’t answer, preferring to inquire, “Why do you want to know?”

“Because my companions and I have been charged with finding out why the magic has faded and how to restore it. If you cannot tell us, we must find someone who can.”

“And what will you do, when you find him, or her, or them?”

“That depends on whether they agree to help us.” Gavin snapped. Shae glared at him and he subsided, but his expression was rebellious.

“My companion is…impetuous, and forgets his manners on occasion, but he is correct.” Shae admitted.

Laroi went silent again, plainly debating some internal question. With another warning glare at Gavin, Shae settled back to wait and see what she decided. Eventually Laroi said,

“Are any of you skilled in spell breaking? Exceptionally so, the spell I have in mind is not for amateurs. Breaking it will be no idle lark for a rainy day that holds nothing better to do.”

“Such skill is why I am part of this group,” Torg said. “Do you speak of a spell working in a certain room on the third floor?”

Laroi dropped her gaze and nodded. She said, “It was set on, you would call him a familiar, I think. He is more than a pet and less than an equal. Having charge of him is a sign of favor within my House. His kind do naturally what I think your impetuous companion has learned to do, collect and direct magic’s energy.

He was given to me when I achieved my current rank within the temple. At the time, I thought decisions regarding his welfare were entirely mine, unless my superiors thought I was neglecting or abusing him. I have learned that is not the case. The spell was cast without my consent. Since its placement Joso’s health has been slowly failing.

Among the members of my House, there are three magicians who are riding a wave of growing power. One of them created the spell. All three worked together to cast it on Joso and five other familiars. All I know of the spell, besides what it is doing to Joso, is that it forces him to collect far more energy than he would normally and store it, rather than pouring it into a spell. My superiors have decreed that it must remain in place until I complete my assigned task and return home. I do not think Joso will live that long.”

“What is your task?” Shae asked.

“To present a new treaty to each of your clans. Once it is signed, or refused, I would advise my superiors and they will release the magic. Only when that is done, will I be given the counter spell.”

“So, tell them you finished and everyone refused.” Gavin said, his voice drenched in sarcasm. Laroi ignored his tone and caught Mara’s eye.  Mara could almost hear the thought behind her expression.

Baby Brothers. Can’t live with them, and once they reach a certain age, you can’t give them punitive chores.

Mara couldn’t stop a smile. Well, she was older than Gavin, by a few minutes. Technically, he was her baby brother.

Laroi said, “I cannot. Even if I traveled at a pace that would harm Joso, I could not reach all of your clans before next fall.”

“Assuming I can counter or remove the spell, what will happen when I do?” Torg asked. Laroi blinked in surprise, and said, “I’m not certain.” She admitted. “I hope Joso will release the magic he is holding and its energy will become available to everyone again. Then Joso should recover.”

“But the shock could cause him to release it without control and we have the explosion the spell currently prevents.” Torg pointed out. Laroi sighed.

She said, “Yes. I understand if you are not willing to risk it.”

“Of course I am. I wish to know why you are. Your seniors hope to profit by this spell. That should benefit your people. Why are you willing to act against them?”

Laroi stared at him, speechless with horror that he thought she would consider not helping Joso. She gave a small shudder and said only, “Follow me, please. “ She got up from the table, leaving the last bits of her meal uneaten. Her invitation had been to Torg, and the others remained, reluctantly, seated, but Mara’s curiosity was too strong and she followed, relieved when Laroi did not object. They reached Laroi’s room and she opened the door and ushered them inside.

It was a well-appointed room, with a couch and several chairs covered in plush cushions surrounding a low table. A fire had been laid in the hearth and it was warm enough that if they were going to stay for any length of time, Mara would become uncomfortable.

She didn’t have to worry about the heat for long. One look at the dark furred primate asleep on the couch inspired a different and more unpleasant kind of discomfort.

 Joso was covered with a woolen blanket. Despite the cover, Mara could tell he was not well. Beneath the fur, he was far too thin. His skin, where not covered with fur, was black, and did not show pallor, but there were bald patches on his neck beneath a dull white torque that appeared to be made of bone. When he woke at their entry, his eyes were cloudy.

“If you had spent the past five years responsible for his care, responsible for gaining his trust and friendship, would you leave him like that? Could you?” Laroi demanded.

Torg looked distinctly unwell as he said, “I would not leave one of your clerics in such a state, never mind a child of the forest. Will he allow me to sit near him?”

“Yes.” She went to Joso,  and switched from trade tongue to her own language. She spoke  quietly for a moment and Joso chittered back and closed his eyes again.

Torg turned to Mara and said, “There is nothing you can do here. I must study the spell’s structure. Would you ask Gavin to join me and bring my pack?”

Mara nodded and did as he asked. Karn helped Gavin with the stairs and Mara took a seat before the common room’s fire and tried to forget the pitiful figure she’d seen.

“Torg got his answer, I take it.” Shae gave Mara’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.

“Yes. They’re in Laroi’s room.” She turned away, plainly not interested in explaining further, so Shae changed the subject.

“All right. I looked at the treaty they gave Laroi. It’s plain robbery. In exchange for the return of magic, we become vassals of her House; owing an exorbitant  yearly tribute and compelled to help defend against anyone who offers violence. Most of the Clan Elders I’ve met would have laughed her out of their territory, if they didn’t kill her and send her head back to her own people first.”

“You think she knows that?”

“Unless she’s a lackwit. She’s made some powerful enemies back home, that’s for certain.”

Jag had gone out to check on the horses, but Karn had returned and sat with Sheki nearby. Karn was sharpening his knife. Sheki was repairing a weak spot on her horse’s bridle. Both were listening to Shae’s words.

“Let’s hope Torg can accomplish something.” Mara said, and quiet settled over their group.

###

“It’s like a huge collection of ropes holding back the tree that is about to fall on you.” Gavin muttered. “If you untie them in the right way, you lower the tree safely. If not, it squashes you like a bug. You can’t just cut them away, but untying them without letting the tree fall is going to take forever.”

“And don’t forget the venomous snake that looks like a piece of rope hiding within the mess.” Torg added. “We certainly won’t be bored.” He leaned forward, held one hand over the back of Joso’s neck, and began his study of the spell. A moment later, Gavin joined him.

It was past midnight when Torg leaned back and stretched. He rubbed his face briskly with both hands and finished off the cup of tea Laroi had left for him.

Gavin slouched in the other chair, napping. He’d spent the afternoon creating safe draining conduits for the magic’s power in case Torg failed in his efforts to find a counter spell. Until Torg had a plan, there was nothing more for Gavin to do.

Laroi had fallen asleep with Joso’s head in her lap. Now she woke and met his gaze with inquiry.

“I can do it, but Joso will not enjoy the process.” Torg said.

“Why?” She asked.

“When I break the spell some of the energy will feed back to him. Gavin will be able to deflect some of it, but not all. It will hurt. A lot. Can you keep him from attacking me when it does?”

“Yes.” She spoke with unnerving confidence.

“As weak as he is, he may not survive my efforts. Are you sure you want me to try?”

“Better that than continue to suffer as he is. If you can break the spell, please, do.” Now her tone held only ironclad resolve that told Torg she would try and break the spell if he did not. She was as utterly committed to ending Joso’s suffering as the spell’s casters had been to inflicting it.

Yes, She understands those who cast this spell. She knows they will probably not honor their promise to free Joso, even if he does survive the journey. She knows she is not likely to survive either, but is determined that Joso will suffer not more than is absolutely necessary.

Torg nodded and reached over to jostle Gavin’s shoulder. “Time to go back to work lad.”

###

Gavin rubbed his eyes and sat up. He said, “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to try and let the tree down slowly.”

They set to work. The spell was hideously complex and held several clever traps. Laroi sat next to Joso, immersed in her own form of trance, holding one of the familiar’s  hands. Gavin took the energy Torg fed him and sent it down the drainage conduits he’d established. Torg reached the last ‘knot’ as dawn broke. “This is it.” He told Laroi. “You ready?” She nodded and said, “I will be working a spell to calm Joso, do not be alarmed.” She gave Joso’s hand a brief squeeze and took a deep breath.

Torg began working at the magical ‘knot’ and Laroi began her spell. Gavin didn’t have much attention to spare for what she was doing, he was too busy monitoring the flow of energy. So he was unprepared when the energy backlash hit Laroi, and not Joso.

Joso chittered frantically as the energy writhed over Laroi and was transmuted by her spell into something that flowed from her to Joso, healing him and causing the white torque to crack and fall off in two pieces.

Torg leaned forward and took her hands, concern blossoming across his expression.

“That was foolish.” He said quietly as Laroi panted with pain and exhaustion. If you were able to break the spell, why did you ask me to?”

“I would not have been able to heal Joso. He would have died. You have helped me pay a debt. I am grateful.”

“What debt ?” Gavin asked, watching with horrified confusion as her spell devoured the last of the back lash and began consuming her personal energy. If it continued to do so, she would not live much longer. He tried to pull energy for her, but the magical field was in chaos. It was like trying to hold the wind with your bare hands.

“What could he have done that demands you risk your life?”

“He stayed with me, even when he found out what the seniors planned for him. I told him to go, but he stayed. Now, he’ll be able to go. Help him go home. Please.”

She took a last shuddering breath and departed.  Joso uttered a long, keening wail, touched her forehead briefly, and left the couch to go to the fireplace and begin damping the fire.

Torg got to his feet as well and said, I’m going to alert the innkeeper and the authorities. Are you alright staying here? Or do you want to rejoin the others?”

“She was supposed to be a monster.” Gavin muttered. “They’re monsters. Caring people don’t curse unborn children.”

“And monsters don’t sacrifice themselves for others.” Torg agreed sympathetically. “She didn’t curse your mother. She’s not a monster. Do you want to grant her request? Shall we take Joso to his home?”

Gavin nodded, but remained immersed in the question that haunted him. Who am I supposed to hate now?

-

(please do not remove writer credits)

[lesbrarians]

Bioware’s Plotholes are AWFUL

So in case anyone’s wondering, I failed NaNo this year. Bad. Like, I only wrote 18,000 words. And they were all terrible words and a bunch of them don’t even count bc it was dialogue from Nexus: Uprising.

So I read Uprising bc it was relevant to the prologue of this NaNo.

And I STILL cannot stop thinking about this motherfucking plothole that's so big you can fly the Tempest through it.

Here's a list of some of the krogan clan names I came across on Elaaden: Jorgal, Ganar, Jair, Korten, Kariss, Ravanor, Gulnaz, Kohrr, Kormer, Wik, Chaman, Urdnot.

It makes no sense for ANY of these clan members to be here. I don't know how or why they are here. Bc literally. LITERALLY. The only krogan who are woken up in the first wave are the Nakmor clan. The only krogan who put down the uprising are the Nakmor clan. The only krogan who join the exodus at the same time as the exiles are the Nakmor clan.

About 300-500 krogan are initially woken up (the numbers are a little nebulous, as you'll see below -- half of the station is Kesh's krogan, but the number of crew members jumps from 600 to 1000 -- some renegade assholes did wake up some non-critical personnel, but not like, 200 people worth??). These krogan are Nakmor Kesh's workers, all members of her clan. The engineers and construction crew who built the Nexus and are in charge of the manual labor and repair of the station. The mutiny happens. Tann and Addison go behind Sloane's back and wake up Morda. She demands that the rest of the clan be woken up so that she can have her warriors by her side. Spender's a slimy sleazeball who makes a promise he can't keep, Morda gets pissed, and the Nakmor clan decide to leave and start a new life for themselves out in this deadly galaxy.

So here are the facts and their locations in my ebook:

"Roughly half of the list [of the people to wake] consisted of krogan workers, all members of the Nakmor clan" (location 1739)

"An hour later, still desperate for that coffee, a sharp headache pressing at the back of her eyes, Sloane stood atop a desk and faced more than six hundred Nexus crew." (location 1855)

"'The Nakmor clan put muscle and bone into this place. When it neared completion, we received an invite.'" (location 2133)

"'If you get ten [volunteers to go into cryo] out of the thousand currently awake, I'd be shocked.'" (location 3396)

"'Is the entire clan awake?' 'Only the workers,' Spender said. 'I shall have my warriors at my side for this, to share in the glory. Wake them.' [...] 'We stride into a bloody field, Nakmor.'" (location 5461, 5688)

"'You killed members of the Nakmor clan--' 'They came at us, guns blazing!'" (location 6013)

"The Nakmor Clan would be victorious with or without the Nexus. It seemed that some things on this so-called 'other side' would not be so different after all. [...] Ranks of krogan filing into the small armada of shuttles being provided them, Nakmor Morda at the head of the group, arms folded in defiance and resolve, overseeing the exodus." (location 6184)

"Kesh was not idealistic. She'd worked to the bone for this station, this Initiative, and she would die for it if she had to. Or, as it turned out, leave her clan for the betterment of it. [...her work] was to rebuild. Preparing the Nexus, she thought as she turned away from the last glimmers of her only people, for the eventuality of peace." (location 6272)

Like there's literally no other way to read it. There were no other clans involved in putting down the uprising -- it's the Nakmor who strode into the bloody field, it's the Nakmor who died in battle (far, far less than the number of exiles tho, o o p s), it's the Nakmor who say they'll be victorious with or without the Nexus. There's at least 500 of them (if you lowball and say there's 300 workers and that Morda, her warriors, and the rest of the clan are only 200 strong) but it's probably closer to like. 600-1000 Nakmor imo, I have a feeling that the warriors and the rest of the clan aren't gonna be smaller than the subsection that worked in construction. That's so many!!! So many Nakmors!!! We didn't need to see other krogan clan members in the game, everyone could have been a Nakmor and it'd make perfect narrative sense!!!

Bc seriously, where the FUCK did the other clans come from. Who woke them up. When did they leave the Nexus. Like, they're leaving the next day, as far as I can tell. The life support team, the people who KNEW how to operate the stasis pods just mutinied, the head of life support is fucking dead, Kesh is the only person left who knows how to do this stuff. One person physically cannot open that many stasis pods in that short a timeframe. Also, there's already too many mouths to feed, that's why the mutiny happened in the first place. And Morda doesn't want any more krogan clans woken up!!! She “not all krogan”s Kaje bc she doesn't want her clan lumped in w the rest of the krogan. ("Better to take [the Nexus] over," Kaje added, "and claim it for all krogan." "My krogan," Morda corrected.) And you know they didn't just wake up all the different krogan and were like "yo I know you just woke up but hey everything sucks and we're leaving our new home, you're not even in our clan and you weren't even betrayed, but come with us into the deadly wilderness even tho you have no idea what the fuck is going on" like there is absolutely zero justification for that, that's not a theory that even begins to hold water.

OH and the krogan names that I saw on Elaaden? Kormer Ryn posted in the “New Fathers” group on the terminals. So. It’s not like it’s a few isolated clan members amongst a bunch of Nakmor. There’s a ton of other clans in the game and those other clans have children, and it makes NO sense with the narrative established in Uprising. Why the FUCK would the Nakmor clan wake up members of other clans AND those clan members’ children???? They wouldn’t.

How do you fuck up your lore this badly, Bioware.

I'm so pissed off.

[davidmann95]

You did your top ten Superman Artists before, who are your top ten Superman Writers? (I know you've already given your number one, but I'd still like to see your thoughts on the other 9)

Honorable mentions up front: There are the great creators who worked on him in the Silver and Bronze ages such as Leo Dorfman, Edmond Hamilton, Cary Bates (who would be VERY close to the top in a ranking of the best Luthor writers), and of course Jack Kirby. Mark Millar’s work with the character is consistently among the best of his career, and his nebulously upcoming miniseries has every chance of shooting him into the top ten. Max Landis’s American Alien is easily the best Superman story of the last few years, but given his atrocious previous shot at the character in Adventures of Superman and his frequently inconsistent quality across the board, I’m not certain yet that wasn’t a lightning-in-a-bottle moment. Making better showings in Adventures were Joe Keatinge and Matt Kindt, who blew me away with their respective pieces and I think could make real impacts if properly utilized. And while his work with the character was fundamentally compromised and cut short, Chris Roberson’s vision of him was one that tremendously appealed. Finally, while he’s never ‘officially’ worked on the character, Samuel Hawkins’ all but unknown Tales of Smallville for the site Superman Thru The Ages are absolute top-tier, all-time-great stories.

10. Greg Pak

What an utter goddamn shame; Pak was by all rights destined to be The Definitive 2010s Superman Writer, and DC shit all over him until he finally gave up and vanished back to Marvel. But in between the endless crossover nonsense and making him and poor Aaron Kuder put up with the New 52 suit, his Clark had a visceral sense of humanity and physicality that made him feel true and lived-in in a way few if any other writers have matched over the years, driven by a sense of righteous anger and pained compassion. If, god willing, he ever gets the subsequent shot he deserves (preferably with Kuder) and isn’t constantly compromised and undermined, expect to see him ultimately wind up significantly higher.

9. Joe Casey

Maybe the most frustratingly underrated guy in my top ten. In spite of a few gestures in a more radical direction - he explicitly wrote Superman as a pacifist, which obviously didn’t take - he didn’t particularly reinvent the wheel during his time with the character, especially given it was only for about his last year that he actually got to work solo rather than as a quarter of a complete unit. But that last year’s adventures are some of Superman’s best, with a vivid quirkiness and grand scope grounded in a particularly humble and introspective take on big blue that deserves its due as a cult classic run with the character.

8. Alan Moore

While I hold dearly to my contrarian take of For The Man Who Has Everything being significantly overrated, Moore’s other Superman comics more than make up for it, with both Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and Jungle Line scratching down to the bloody raw floorboards of his mind and demonstrating his vulnerability in a way that remains unmatched. He is to date the one and only truly great writer of Dark, Grim Superman Comics.

7. Otto Binder

Binder contributed more to the raw depth of Superman’s world in terms of mythology than anyone other than Siegel himself, ranging from Brainiac and Bizarro to Supergirl and Kandor and the Legion of Superheroes, with stories such as The Old Man Of Metropolis! and The Return Of Superman’s Lost Parents! proving he could also hang in there with the best of them in delivering the emotional gut-punches that Superman’s best tales so often rely upon.

6. Jerry Siegel 

I don’t think any reasonable person could seriously contest that Siegel belongs on any list such as this by default. But his position on it comes down not just to creating the dang guy, but the caliber of his material, particularly in his 1960s return where his stories ranged from mournful (Superman’s Return To Krypton!) to blackly comic and gleefully celebratory (Superman’s Day Of Doom!) to relentlessly heartbreaking (The Death Of Superman!) - just as he provided the rolicking adventure and bombast that birthed Superman alongside Joe Shuster, he and the contemporaries that walked in his footsteps found the wistful, melancholy heart that still defines his creation to this day.

5. Garth Ennis

He’s only written him the twice (thrice counting All-Star Section Eight, though he doesn’t pull focus in there in the same way, and it goes in a…different direction), but twice is enough for a lifetime in this case. The one superhero Ennis seems to hold sincere affection for as opposed to liking well enough at the absolute best, his Superman is whip-smart, ethical, self-aware, entirely understanding of how the world really works and the limits of what he can accomplish in it even as he grieves his inability to do more, and in Ennis’s own words “constantly let down by humanity, and never giving up on them”.

4. Mark Waid

The ne plus ultra of Superman fans, that he’s never secured a long-term tenure with his hero surely frustrates him even more than the legion of fans who’ve waited in vain for decades for him to get his deserved shot. What he *has* gotten to do has shown it would be more than worth the wait: while his vision with Alex Ross of an elder Superman in Kingdom Come weighed down by regret and lost in a strange new era resonated with a generation, his take is clearest in the criminally disregarded Birthright, whose alienated and passionate version of a young Clark Kent represented a scale of potential in his early days that has yet to be truly captured.

3. Kurt Busiek

Another underrated writer, Busiek’s time on Superman proper - while never getting to reach its proper culmination as he left to work on Trinity - is easily the best run that main title has ever had, with a warm, clever, classic Superman up against wild new threats that tested both his abilities and his ethics; in other words, the platonic example of Good Superman Comics. What pushes him into this kind of rarified air though is Secret Identity, with the most purely down-to-Earth, vulnerable, and thoughtful ‘Superman’ of all at its heart letting readers attach themselves to the fantasy he represents more acutely than maybe any other story.

2. Elliot S! Maggin

The first Superman writer to not only recognize that he was working with a modern legend but consistently and overtly write his stories with that in mind, it was under his pen that Superman gained a sort of self-awareness, questioning his methods and mindset as he tangled with some of his most astonishing threats. As Siegel provided Superman with his muscle and heart, Maggin was the first to actively map the contours of his mind and place in a larger universe, with a portrait of a truly alien intellect anchored by the most human of concerns and an unshakable ethical base that still resonates, bolstered by an equally well thought-out Luthor and a firehose spray of heady ideas - especially in his essential novels Last Son Of Krypton and Miracle Monday - that set a standard that has rarely if ever been recaptured.

1. Grant Morrison

Whether with a spitfire 20-something charging through the streets of Metropolis in a t-shirt and jeans, an unstoppable champion uniting with his counterparts from throughout the multiverse to rescue the very concept of story, or a relaxed god-man floating through his bittersweet last days among us, Morrison reaches deeper than anyone else into the vague, intangible essence of what Superman is to us - the goodest of guys, the one you can rely on, the one who’ll never fall and never stop believing in you - and grabs hard. With seemingly his every talent and every thematic preoccupation throughout his incredible career tailor-made to suit telling Superman stories, whether in his crushingly foredoomed attempts at redefining him for a new generation in Action Comics or All-Star with its mythic self-image and subtle character work, the very fact of Grant Morrison Doing Something With Superman constitutes an event unto itself. He fits the fundamentals together in the framework of his own unique cosmic approach and love for the material, with a model for Superman that while more flexible than any other always maintains his compassion and cleverness and unyielding spirit, and as it happens, that’s the tack that’s worked the best across all these 79 years and counting.

[bellarkefanworkawards-blog]

Best Slow Burn

ARKADIA FLORAL & GARDEN by wanheda_two_heda @youleftme-clarke

Clarke has owned Arkadia Floral & Garden Supplies for 3 years when Bellamy Blake, her high school rival, comes back into town following his mother’s death and needs Clarke’s help to restore his mother’s garden to its former glory. But gardening isn’t Bellamy’s strong suite, and neither is coping with losing another parent. He might need a lot more help than he’s willing to admit, but luckily for him, his feisty blonde former rival is there to guide him through some of the most difficult months of his life.

DON’T LOOK BACK, YOU’RE NOT GOING THAT WAY by andsowemeetagain @and-so-we-meet-again

Viking Bellamy prepares for the journey of a lifetime. Clarke Griffin is the new, mysterious girl that wants to join him.

Best Fake Relationship

THINGS WE SHOULDN’T DO by Willaphyx @rebelprincebell​

“The history between the two of you is well known,” Marcus went on, talking over Clarke’s continued splutters. “And it hasn’t escaped the notice of certain news organizations–” “What, you mean fucking TMZ?” Clarke interjected.Marcus sighed. “It would be in the best interest of the show and I think both your careers if you were to be seen as a couple. ”Silence.“A dating couple,” Marcus added as if that hadn’t been clear. Bellamy and Clarke exploded simultaneously.“If we what?” Clarke demanded at the same time that Bellamy just started laughing. He slipped sideways, dangerously close to falling out of his chair. Clarke is at the bottom of a downward spiral and Bellamy is riding an all-time career high when they’re cast as the leads of Marcus Kane’s newest drama. The entertainment world expects a blowup of immense proportions between the two feuding actors but get a hard to explain romance instead. Or: a fake dating celebrities AU.

I DREAMED YOU A SIN by monroeslittle

“If I do this,” Blake said, “how are you imagining it’s going to work? I can’t just knock on his door, and say I want in again. It’s been eleven years. And even before I left, I never cared about the business. Do you have a plan? You say you want me to open the door for an agent. How? What’s that mean?” “You’re going to get in touch with your grandfather again at your wedding,” Clarke said. He stared. “I hope you don’t have a girlfriend, Mr. Blake.”

fake!married AU. Clarke’s in the FBI, Bellamy’s the grandson of a mobster, and they’ve got to work together.

Best Pining!Clarke

I (LOVE)D YOU by funfanfin @funfanfin

A relationship that only lasted five months and ended four years ago shouldn’t still be affecting her, but…it wasn’t just any relationship. It wasn’t just any breakup. It wasn’t just any ex. It was Bellamy.

AND THEN WE WERE CHASING COMETS by prosciutto @prosciuttoe

That same, elusive shrug. “It’s a secret, princess.” He says pointedly, snagging the book from her before throwing the truck into park, “But you’ll be the first to read it once it’s done, okay?” “Wow,” she says, nodding. “I’m honored.” A beat as he sizes her up, his brows furrowing together in exasperation before he says, weary, “You’re going to ask me what it’s about again, aren’t you?” “Bellamy,” she says obediently, grinning, “what’s your book about?” If you told Clarke Griffin that she would become best friends with the resident black sheep of Arkadia, she would have difficulty believing it, let alone the fact that he apparently wrote an entire book about her.

Or: Clarke and Bellamy through the years, as childhood best friends.

Best Royalty AU

KINGDOM COME by the.ktgrace

Her father, the king, was poisoned. She, heir to the throne, fled into hiding. Ten years later, a royal guard needs to bring her back to the throne to save his sister. Faraway kingdoms, arranged marriages, deception, brewing war… And that’s only the beginning for this stubborn princess and her arrogant guard. A story of fantasy and adventure in the kingdom of Ark.

HOW TO SAVE A KINGDOM by Laughingsenselessly @wellsjahasghost

Clarke sputters an indignant laugh as he takes her elbow and steers her away from the doors. “You won’t let me out of the palace and you’re calling me a difficult person? You,” she fumes, “are insufferable.” Bellamy merely grins. “Now that’s no way to talk to your husband.” Clarke forces herself to stalk away before she can give into the urge to throw her glass of wine at him. She doesn’t know why she bothers, though. Somehow, none of their guests seem to notice the clear antagonism between the king and queen, or maybe they just don’t care. And why should they? The two of them are just husband and wife. They’re not actually expected to like each other.

AU. Clarke marries Bellamy for a political alliance.

Best Teacher!Bellamy

MUST BE LOVE (ON THE BRAIN) by Caramelle @mellamymake

Is she grateful for the distraction that is Finn Collins? Sort of. Does that make her want to punch his teeth in any less? Hard no. Or, the one where Clarke Griffin wishes the annoying boy who always sits next to her in class would shut up and let her listen to her professor. Her professor also happens to be really pretty. The two things are mutually exclusive.

AFRAID TO CALL THIS PLACE OUR OWN by HawthorneWhisperer @hawthornewhisperer

Clarke frowned at the notification on her ipad. “Why does your history teacher want to meet with me?” she asked, but Madi kept her eyes innocently on her homework. A little too innocently. “Mr. Blake’s a hardass,” Madi said with a shrug. “A hardass who wants a meeting with me barely a month into the school year?” Clarke asked. Madi shrugged again and Clarke narrowed her eyes and scanned the email. “He’s worried about your performance already. Have you even had any tests? What am I missing?” “He just doesn’t like me,” Madi replied and erased something on her worksheet.

Best Roommates AU

KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS by Kacka @katchyalater

Clarke thought subletting Miller’s room for the summer would be a perfect solution: convenient, affordable, and it comes furnished. Unfortunately, it also comes with his roommate, who for some reason, hates her.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOVE PEOPLE WITHOUT THEM DYING by Kacka @katchyalater

“This is where it falls apart,” Clarke whispers. Her finger traces random patterns across Bellamy’s chest, his gently untangling the knots in her hair. The sun hasn’t yet risen but the sky outside has begun to lighten, those nebulous hours when night fades to morning and the world starts to think about waking up. Clarke greets them like an old friend. Most nights she wakes with a jolt– sometimes from nightmare, other times from the stress of an unimaginably long to-do list– and lets the slow ascent into day calm her racing mind.

Best Social Media AU

OR, YOU COULD ALWAYS GOOGLE IT by Prosciutto @prosciuttoe

“You know,” Bellamy muses, grin wide and a little conspiratorial, “you’re robbing our legions of fans here. They’re expecting a showdown and you’re being perfectly cordial towards me.” “Right,” she nods, pursing her lips to keep from smiling. “Well, it’s not too late. I could always pitch that glass of water down your shirt.” Someone really should have warned Clarke that the first step to becoming internet famous would involve acquiring a nemesis.

(Or, Bellarke as rival YouTubers, basically.)

YOU’RE COOL ON THE INTERNET, AT LEAST by Prosciutto @prosciuttoe

Look, Clarke will not dwell on this. She will not get flustered just because a possibly cute guy on Facebook apparently shares her views on what constitutes a terrible person. Ten minutes later, her phone gives a short, irritated buzz; startling her enough that she jumps. Biting at the inside of her cheek, she allows herself a quick peek. Friend request from Bellamy Blake. Clarke has no idea how she manages to develop a crush on a guy who won’t stop fighting everyone on Facebook, but here they are.

(Or: Clarke meets Bellamy on Facebook. They hit it off.)

Best Enemies/Friends to Lovers

EMERGENCY CONTACTS by wanheda_two_heda @youleftme-clarke

When Bellamy gets a call from Ark Memorial Hospital because he’s the emergency contact for an unnamed girl in her early twenties, his only thought is Octavia. He can’t imagine that someone might have just entered his phone number by mistake. But when he sees the blonde girl lying unconscious in a hospital bed with no other contacts until she wakes up, something tells him to stay. So he does.

Based on the prompt: au where person a accidentally puts the wrong number as their emergency contact and when they end up in hospital person b gets called (and comes anyway, despite not knowing person a)

IN MY DREAMS WE ARE ALWAYS TOGETHER by andsowemeetagain @and-so-we-meet-again

100 delinquents got sent to Earth and battled for survival against the odds. They landed in Trikru territory but that is not where they stayed. After weeks of battle and war, the Sky People finally lost. They were sent to a land far away, where a group of Grounders unlike any they’ve met waited for them.

*This is a terrible summary…I don’t know how to describe this story. It’s a mix of canon and AU. But if you like arranged marriage and enemies->friends->lovers and friendship and love and fluff and angst, then this is the fic for you.

Best Arranged Marriage

BEFORE: KING OF A BROKEN LAND by forgivenessishardforus

Miller, a knight who had graduated with him five years before and now a lieutenant and one of his best friends, sticks his head around the door. His mouth is quirked in a smile that instantly makes Bellamy wary. “You have visitors,” he announces. Bellamy groans. The last thing he wants to deal with right now is visitors; most were families of murdered nightbloods, looking for answers he didn’t have; some were looking for advice on problems he didn’t care about; still others came to him with suggestions and criticisms on what he should be doing to better protect his people. “Tell them to wait in the audience chamber. I’ll deal with them in a couple of hours, or maybe in the morning.” “Oh, I don’t think you’ll want to keep these visitors waiting,” Miller says. His eyes are positively snapping with mirth now. “Who is it?” Bellamy demands. “Just the Queen of Arkadia and her daughter.”

JUST AS YOU ARE MINE by prosciutto @prosciuttoe

Bellamy’s already there by the time she makes her way to the centre of the room. She didn’t get a good look at him before, so Clarke takes the time to look at him now. He’s not all that much taller than she is, but the breadth of his shoulders feels worrying, somewhat. His skin is marked with a array of calluses and scars, white against his tanned skin, and the deft, sure movements he makes confirms that he’s every inch the warrior he’s promised to be. Swallowing, she steps forward, meeting his gaze. His face remains carefully blank, same as before, when Kane had told her that they’d be married. In hindsight, marrying a total stranger may not have been one of Clarke’s brightest ideas.

Or: Arranged Marriage AU. Clarke seals an alliance with the Broadleaf clan by marrying Bellamy Blake.

Best Past Relationship

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU by caramelle @mellamymake

In hindsight, staying in the apartment he shares with his ex probably isn’t the best idea Bellamy’s ever had. Probably not his worst either, to be fair.

Or, the one where Bellamy and Clarke break up and, instead of moving out, somehow find themselves in a heated prank war.

I FEEL IT IN MY FINGERS by lightyears

It’s a short wait for the patient to arrive once Clarke gets herself organised. She stands out at the emergency entrance for all of three minutes before the ambulance comes to a stop in front of her, Jasper jumping out of the driver’s seat and rounding to the back to open the rear door. Clarke’s right behind him, watching as the patient is pulled out on a gurney, and getting ready to take action, just like she’s done countless times over the years. But instead of grabbing ahold of the stretcher railing to help wheel the patient inside, asking Monty what happened, what his initial evaluations found, she falters in her step, feels the air get knocked from her all at once. Because she recognises that boy, warm brown skin sprinkled with freckles, unruly inky curls and a jawline so sharp it could cut glass. She recognises him despite the ten years that have passed and the bruises and cuts scattered across the skin free from his clothes. She recognises him and it makes her world stop. “Bellamy,” Clarke breathes out.

[thisgingerneedsherjinglejuice]

Beca Mitchell hadn’t ever pictured kids as part of her life. She realizes that that’s probably not a shocking thing to hear, given one look at her.

Successful producer and artist who has a busy life in the music industry? A propensity to always don leather on her person in some form? Multiple tattoos and a blatantly displayed “fuck off” attitude? A habit of getting in trouble for lashing out at paparazzi? Check, check, check, and check.

Oh, and, you know - a wife.

But, truth be told, Beca wasn’t really completely opposed to the idea. Beyond her plans to make a career out of music, Beca’s idea of the future had always been incredibly vague – probably marry some cute guy, maybe not, and live in a house in the LA hills with room for a home recording studio. Beca didn’t actively dislike children, but she was absolutely unwilling to ever be pregnant or carry a child – the very idea horrified her - and so kids hadn’t ever been part of the nebulous idea of her American Dream.

But the day Beca agreed to hitch her cart to Chloe Beale for good, Beca knew that everything she had tenuously drawn out for her future was out the window. There was no way in hell that bubbly, happy, “squeals and coos over random babies in public” Chloe Beale was going to be satisfied with a house full of music and recording equipment instead of irritatingly noisy light-up toys and scattered legos.

So Beca redrew her plans. As long she wasn’t going to have to do any of the hard work of growing a human being and dealing with her body essentially being under the control of an invader for the better part of a year, kids were fine. Sign her up!

Of course, Chloe did. Literally. She waited until they’d had two years to settle into their new life in LA before signing them up for some ridiculous workshop for LGBT couples and their “family building options”. Beca hated every moment, making no attempt to hide her scowl or how she tuned out the lecturer, and daydreaming about how she’d rather be spending the gorgeous summer day at the beach. At the end of the 4-hour prison sentence, Beca turned to Chloe in the car and stated that (obviously, Beca thought, but tactfully left that part out) they would find a sperm donor and Chloe would carry the baby and that would be that.

Chloe simply nodded.

What it came down to was that Beca didn’t mind kids, but she wasn’t super invested in the idea… and she kind of wanted to strangle Chloe when it took her six extra weeks of indecisiveness to choose between donor #21NHS and #TRC12. Because, “21NHS had a grandfather with heart problems, but TRC12 only has his BA in anthropology compared to his Ph.D. in biochemistry!” Beca patiently discussed the same points over and over so not to upset Chloe with a “lack of interest” in the overly clinical part of the process, but the twelfth time reminding Chloe that the donor’s financial status, educational level, and even his height wasn’t directly heritable was starting to feel a lot more like torture than starting a family.

Chloe’s goal was to select a donor that resembled Beca as much as possible, and despite Beca pointing out the flaws in that logic (such as the fact that any man who met the minimum 5’9” height requirement to donate meant that they’d have little in common with her tiny 5’2” form), Chloe was excellent at maintaining her selective hearing and attention.

When Chloe finally made up her mind about which donor to choose, Beca rejoiced – until Chloe immediately started dithering about the decision again. Beca, thinking fast, managed to distract Chloe before they hit the critical point.

“Chlo, isn’t it sort of bizarre that we could pass by our future kid’s father in the street and never know? I’m kind of weirded out about that.”

“Beca, ten million people live in LA. That’s statistically unlikely. And… I don’t know, Becs, being half of the genetic makeup of our kid doesn’t mean he’s the father, you know? Being a dad isn’t just about genetics -“

“Yeah, and my dad is case in point on that one. I know what you’re saying; I’m not, like, feeling insecure about being displaced by some mystery dude or blah blah blah, it’s just… weird. That someone can be part of something so momentous and not have a clue, you know? …And now I want to know what the actual statistics are. I’m texting Jessica.”

“Beca Mitchell, do not tell her why you’re asking!”

The next day, Beca stumbled out of their bedroom after a nap to find Chloe sitting at the kitchen table. Spread in front of her was enough paperwork to have used at least one full tree, separated into several individual mounds. Chloe looked up and smiled at Beca, who made quite a sight with one side of her hair – the side she normally sleeps on - smooshed up and tangled around one of her ear piercings, the other side still in the neat waves she’d styled to go to the studio earlier that morning.

She held out her arms and Beca let out a yawn as she sunk into Chloe’s lap, slumping into her chest for warmth as she shivered slightly in the cooler air of the open room. Chloe folded her arms around Beca’s slight form and pressed a kiss against her hairline, and Beca hummed in contentment as Chloe’s warmth seeped into her.

“What’s all this?” Beca gestured at the papers, her voice still hoarse from sleep.

“Well, this is the paperwork to deal with our insurance for the fertility coverage stuff – pretty much done, we just have to fill a few more things in – and the booklet of in-network doctors we have to choose from. So I looked them all up and pulled up information about their practices, success rates, pricing if I could find it, all that good stuff.” Chloe explained. Pointing at each stack as she listed it off, Chloe gestured to the rest of the piles. “So we have to choose between Dr. Jabara, Dr. March, Dr. Rodi, Dr. Beavers, Dr. Marrs, and-“

“Wait!” Beca interrupted her recitation. “You’re telling me we can choose a doctor named Doctor Beavers?!” Chloe just nodded in response, a smile playing at her lips as Beca laughed uproariously. “Yeah. Okay. Decision made.” Beca said once she gained control of herself, resolutely scooping up the appropriate mound and making a show of knocking the stack against the table until it was perfectly aligned. “There’s no way in hell that we’re not going to have someone named Dr. Beavers help make our kid.”

Chloe acquiesced with the choice– partially because she was well-familiar at this point with Beca’s whims and stubbornness, but also partially (largely, if she was being perfectly honest) because she also found “Dr. Beavers” hilarious.

Beca was happy to let her juvenile reputation take the fall for that one, though.

The IUI process was…. much stranger than Beca had been anticipating. Somehow, she’d never put much thought into exactly how that whole “insemination” thing actually happened. (Perhaps on purpose?) The tanks of frozen sperm that they’d ordered were one of the strangest things Beca had ever tried to wrap her head around. And the sight of a balding middle-aged man between her wife’s legs spread in the detested stirrups, shooting some stranger’s spunk all up in there was extremely awkward to be privy to. And for all her amusement about their reproductive endocrinologist being named Dr. Beavers, of all things, Beca soon realized that she was far too awkward to actually use his name at all when he was about to be in her wife’s vagina. Chloe had a difficult time restraining her laughter every time Beca, tongue-tied, tripped over her words trying to talk in circles to avoid the necessity of directing the doctor by name. (And Beca suspected she made a point of using his name more than necessary to see how many times she could get Beca to blush, but she couldn’t prove it unless Chloe chose to confess, which she hadn’t - yet.)

And when the first month wasn’t successful, Beca still wasn’t any more prepared for her discomfort with the whole situation on the repeat attempts as summer slipped into fall.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Beca was hard at work in her office deeply zoned in to the track she was fiddling with, when a message alert popped up on her computer – the only person who was set to bypass the “do not disturb” filter was Chloe – and pulled her out of her total immersion. Chloe’s message contained nothing but a picture, and not one of the selfies Chloe was prone to sending her throughout the week. It was a conglomeration of numbers and big words and Beca, still coming out of her daze, blinked blearily at it as she tried to decipher what she was seeing.

Chloe-hcg.gif

It took her a full twenty seconds to realize what she was looking at, and once the realization hit her, the shock kept her frozen for thirty more.

Then she moved. She tapped on Chloe’s name as she swiped the phone up to her ear, then shook anxiously in her chair and chewed on her finger as she waited for Chloe to answer. It only took two rings before Chloe picked up, obviously having been waiting just as anxiously for Beca to call. She didn’t even squeeze out a hello before her flabbergasted laughter sounded in Beca’s ear.

“Chlo. I need… Tell me what I’m looking at here. I need you to tell me.” Beca pleaded.

Chloe let out one more breathless laugh before she could form words. “Dr. Beavers –“

“Chloe!” Beca growled out ominously, and Chloe had to let out a giggle at her own inability to miss taking an opportunity to rile Beca up before she could continue.

“That’s the result from my blood test. My hCG level is 69 which Dr. Beavers said is ‘a positive result’, Becs.”

“Positive? Positive for… So… that means…” Beca whispered in shock.

“I’m pregnant, Becs.” Beca swore she could feel Chloe’s indubitable grin through the phone. “He said that my beta level is perfectly average, smack dab in the middle of the range. We’ll have to test it again a couple of times in the next few days so we can make sure it’s rising appropriately, but he said based on this first reading he thinks it’s viable and that having twins or something is unlikely.”

“Oh my god, Chlo!” Beca breathed out, still stunned and struggling to keep up with Chloe’s words. “That’s – I – So… We’re having a baby? Oh my god, we’re having a baby!” Beca couldn’t even begin to contain her elation over the news.

“We’re having a baby, Becs.” Chloe sniffled in confirmation.

Hearing Chloe lapse into tears broke the little restraint Beca had left, and the water she had been blinking back spilled over. She searched her desk frantically for a tissue, giving up when she couldn’t find any and letting out an embarrassed sniffle instead.

“Becs, are you crying?” Chloe asked incredulously.

“No!” Beca denied, and then sniffled again. Chloe let out a watery laugh, shaking her head even though she knew Beca couldn’t see her.

“Okay, Becs.” Chloe teased. “You can cry about having a kid, that’s not going to wreck your ‘badass rep’. No one’s going to judge you for that.”

Beca let out a watery laugh of her own, slipping easily into the familiar dynamic.

“Whatever, Chloe. You can’t prove anything. Maintenance of my reputation is very important.” Beca paused for a few seconds, thinking, then continued a little more soberly. “I’m coming home, Chlo.”

“What? Right now? Becs, it’s only 3:30. Aren’t you supposed to be there for another… what, three hours today?”

“Chlo, I can do whatever the hell I want. I’ll work from home later if it makes you feel better, but I’m coming home.”

Chloe capitulated right away, already on her way home herself. Beca scooped up her stuff and waved at Gia as she scampered out the front door of the studio, shouting that she’d explain later but she was headed home for the day and not even waiting for a response before letting the door slam shut behind her.

Beca managed not to leave work particularly early the two times in the following week when Chloe reported to her the follow-up results – numbers rising perfectly, according to Dr. Beavers. But even the new band she’d been working with for all of three weeks noted her obvious distraction. She had to work at not being too obvious as she played it off; she and Chloe had decided not to share the news with anyone until the safety of the second trimester. And as the media had started showing more interest in Beca as Grammy season approached, she was particularly worried about the news being leaked to the tabloids. That meant – Beca sighed to herself as she calculated – another two months of explaining away her weird behavior at work.

Beca was in for a rough couple of months; but then, Chloe wasn’t much better. She almost slipped up at least twice a week, and the only reason her fumbling cover ups were taken at face value was how accustomed everyone was to Chloe being, well, Chloe.

Chloe’s first ultrasound ended up being scheduled right on the day Chloe hit six weeks, and both women took the entire day off to devote to the appointment and each other. Beca insisted there was no way in hell she was going to miss it. The clinical, research-oriented part of the whole process they’d started during the summer was – well, book learning had never been Beca’s favorite thing, to put it lightly. But now that the baby – their baby - was an actual living thing, Beca was all in. They were able to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and Beca was even able to look past the awkwardness of the ultrasound wand having to be inserted for a transvaginal ultrasound – Beca had thought the time of “watching old dudes stick things in my wife’s vagina” had passed, but apparently she was wrong – to get emotional about the momentous occasion. This time it was Beca’s tears that set off Chloe’s.

If Chloe caught Beca crying over the print-out of the ultrasound several times later that week, or caught a glance of Beca’s email account filling up with “Your baby week-by-week” emails from multiple different sites – well, it’s likely she just smiled and didn’t mention it.

When Chloe reached eight weeks without incident they decided it wasn’t really failure if they shared their news with a few select people. They wanted to deliver the news as “face to face” as they could, what with being across the country from everyone else now, so they Skyped with Chloe’s parents and then each of her brothers in turn. When they Skyped with Aubrey next, Beca summed up the first experience with the Beales with an eyeroll and an explanation of “there were too many tears.” (Chloe couldn’t resist pointing out that some of which were hers; Beca ignored this and moved the conversation on with her chin held high.)

When they told the rest of the Bellas the following week – Chloe needed the extra time to figure out how to work a Google hangout so they could video chat with the whole group at the same time – the reactions were pretty much as expected. Amy immediately started listing off weird pieces of advice that were “Australian tradition” (Beca very much doubted that feeding the baby nothing but kangaroo milk for the first two years was a common Australian custom, for instance). Stacie made a couple of vagina jokes and then immediately started checking with her industry contacts about which doctors to refer them to. Emily, Jessica, and Ashley all cried, and Lily asked about the dimensions for the future nursery and how sturdy their current weapons cabinet was.

So, it went well.

Everything was going well, actually. And it kind of freaked Beca out. Chloe was nearing the end of the first trimester and all of the email subscriptions and websites and okay, yes, even a few books, were full of reassurance that “morning sickness will start waning soon.”

But Chloe hadn’t had… any, really. Occasional nausea, but nothing particularly disruptive, and she’d only puked twice the entire pregnancy – one of which she still insisted was due to bad food. Her boobs were a little sore, and maybe marginally bigger, but they couldn’t really tell and she was still fitting into her usual bras so it didn’t really matter. She was a tiny bit more tired than usual – but only capitulated to that by heading to bed about a half-hour earlier than she used to. There was none of the “bone-deep weariness” that other women of the same gestation were complaining about, and Chloe hadn’t taken up the napping habit that Beca had halfway expected.

So, Beca did what she did best and worried. She worried that Chloe not feeling sick meant that something was wrong, and then she felt awful for basically wanting her wife to feel terrible and vomit all the time and not have enough energy to get out of bed. When she started worrying that her worrying was going to make her a bad mom, Chloe stopped her in her tracks by grabbing her and forcing her to eat a few marshmallows before making out with her for awhile, so at least the last worry got put to bed for awhile due to distraction.

And Beca found it really helped when the worries literally got “put to bed” when Chloe attempted to sidetrack her.

They saw Dr. Beavers for the final time when Chloe was 9.5 weeks along. He did one last ultrasound (everything looked perfect, he repeatedly assured Beca) and Beca was the only one who cried while hearing the heartbeat again, something the doctor looked a tiny bit disconcerted about, before cheerfully discharging them from the practice to start seeing a regular OB/GYN.

After they spent a week looking through their options and speaking to a few different practices on the phone, Chloe turned to Beca with an anxious look on her face one night over dinner.

“Becs, don't freak out. I don’t want you to freak out when you hear what I’m about to say, okay?”

Beca stared at her unmoving and eyes wide for a moment before responding. “Erm, Chlo, when you start off with that, it just makes me want to freak out before I even hear it.” She took a deep breath and held it for a second before blowing it noisily out. “No, okay, I lied actually. I don’t want to freak out. Now I already am freaking out so I need you to spit the rest out, like, now, okay? Are you okay? Is something wrong? Oh my god, is the baby okay? Is something wrong with the baby? Do we need to go to the hospital? What do you need me to do?” Beca spat the questions at her wife in rapid-fire, getting more and more worked up as she spiraled down into the grip of the worst-case scenarios she harbored in her mind.

Chloe gaped at how quickly the situation had deteriorated before jumping out of her chair and crossing around the table to where Beca was seated. She gripped her firmly and turned her so that Beca was looking straight at her, and then Chloe cut off the frantic queries that Beca was still regurgitating.

“Becs! BECA! No! Everything is fine, I’m fine, the baby is fine. God, I’m so sorry. Take a breath, please.” Chloe pulled her into a tight hug and Beca shuddered a ragged breath into her shoulder.

“Fuck.” She breathed weakly on her next exhale, trying to match her uneven breaths to Chloe’s more steady rhythm. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Chloe.” She said as she lifted her head off Chloe’s collarbone a couple of minutes later to look her in the eye.

Chloe looked more contrite than Beca had ever seen her, clearly cut up about the panic she had unintentionally sent her wife into. “I’m so sorry, babe. I was just trying to prepare you for an idea that I’m not sure you’ll like. I was not trying to freak you out like that, I swear.”

“I know, I know.” Beca soothed her now-distraught wife. “It’s not even your fault, really. I’ve just been… kind of on edge about something going wrong. It only took a tiny nudge to send me over that edge since I’ve been dangling myself off of it for weeks.”

Chloe snorted. “Yeah, hon. You haven’t been doing a good job hiding your anxiety at all, just for the record. Who would have suspected that out of the two of us, you were going to turn out to be the helicopter parent?”

Beca shot Chloe a mock glare at the teasing, then her expression morphed into something almost – entreating? “Yeah, I just, uh… “ Beca swallowed twice before she was able to bring herself to continue. “I’ve just been… it’s like, I still can’t believe I’m married to you, Chlo. I’ve spent every single day of the last nine years in total disbelief that I get to have you because I have never been the person that lucky things happen to. And you are the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me. And then here we are in LA and I got my fucking dream job by some random happenstance… and now we’re having a baby. Chloe Beale and I are having a baby which just… My life is so good right now, Chloe. Our life is so good it’s fucking amazing and I can’t even really wrap my head around it, so I’ve been sitting here for the last 2 months waiting for the other shoe to drop because it has to drop at some point, right? I’m not a lucky person, things can’t just stay this good. And I want to be prepared, I don’t want to be taken off guard when the shoe finally drops. I won’t be able to take that, not again, Chlo.” Both women were openly weeping by the end of her outburst, and Chloe could feel her heart breaking for her wife as Beca’s last sentence sunk in.

Of course, this was about her parents. The parents that maintained a cordial but distant contact with their only daughter because of the life choices they disagreed with. The parents that had passed down a lifetime of anxiety and mistrust to their daughter through their own poorly handled relationship troubles. Beca had spent quite a bit of time in therapy dealing with the legacy of her broken childhood and troubled adolescence, and 99% of the time it was possible to forget how far Beca had come and how much she had grown in the last decade.

But this was the 1% of the time, when Beca’s past clung tightly enough that she was afraid to trust her happiness for fear of lurking instability.

Chloe briefly felt a swell of pure, hot rage at Beca’s parents, immediately tamping it down before Beca noticed and assumed it was directed at her. She tugged a stiff and still silently crying Beca out of her chair, sitting down in her place before pulling Beca back down into her lap and cradling her into her body. Beca fought it briefly, rigid in Chloe’s embrace, before giving in and curling into Chloe with a strangled sob.

“Beca, Beca, Beca.” Chloe murmured as she brushed Beca’s hair back with her fingers soothingly. “Honey. I don’t… I can tell you that nothing is wrong right now. Actually, everything is perfect, because you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I thank the stars every day for you. Literally, you know? Every morning when I wake up with you sleeping next to me, your hair in my mouth at all, I spend a minute smiling at the sun and thanking whoever or whatever might be listening that this gets to be my life. That you get to be my life. And now I get to wake up in the morning and be thankful that I get to have you and this baby in my life from now on, and I literally cried with happiness yesterday, Becs. Which was why your hair was a little damp when you woke up.” Chloe laughed through her tears. “And I can’t promise that nothing will be wrong in the future, I’m not clairvoyant…. But I can promise you that if that shoe of yours ever does drop, I’m going to be right here next to you helping you catch it. You’re not the only one that has to hold it up any more.”

Beca’s emotions were still running high – higher than any other time Chloe had been witness to, with two exceptions – and she could only bring herself to nod several times against Chloe’s body while the sobs continued to rip out of her unbidden. Chloe sat and waited patiently, sporadically rocking in a calming motion and hugging Beca tightly to her the whole time, even as her legs went numb. All she could do was offer comfort while Beca struggled to rein in her tumultuous emotions, her heart hurting for Beca’s internal struggle. Eventually, Beca cried herself out and fell into an exhausted sleep in Chloe’s arms. Chloe carried her to bed, smiling sadly to herself as she did so, at the scene that had become so familiar over the years – although not usually tinged with so much sadness.

Chloe returned to the kitchen to choke down a few bites of the cold and long-forgotten dinner – she wasn’t hungry after all of that, but she felt obligated to eat at least a little bit due to that whole “growing a human being” thing. She tucked the rest of the leftovers away into the fridge before heading back to their bedroom. She changed into her pajamas and brushed her teeth quietly, peeking in on Beca twice while she did so, although Beca didn’t stir even a bit. It was barely eight, but Chloe was just as exhausted from the emotional evening and she gratefully crawled into bed; but before she could cuddle into her tear-stained wife, she had one last thing to do. She grabbed her phone off her nightstand and shot an email off to Beca’s therapist back in Georgia, inquiring about the possibility of setting up a Skype session in the next week. The check-in would do Beca good, Chloe knew, as much as it upset her to admit that she wasn’t able to be everything Beca needed sometimes, that she wasn’t able to just fix it.

But Beca didn’t need rescuing, she just needed an objective party to remind her of her own strength.

That taken care of, Chloe nestled happily into Beca’s side, the tinier figure automatically shifting to wrap herself around Chloe. As Beca’s hair landed in her mouth, Chloe couldn’t help but laugh even as she sputtered.

Yeah, this was right where she wanted to be, Chloe thought, as she drifted off.

Chloe woke, as always, before Beca the next morning and started cooking up Beca’s favorite Nutella French toast. She deserved something special after the previous night, after all. She was almost done when Beca walked out of the bedroom, still yawning and eyes tiny from sleep. She stole up behind Chloe and wrapped her arms around her midsection and planting her chin on Chloe’s shoulder – as best she could, anyway. She made a show of a dramatic sniff and hummed happily when she realized what Chloe was making.

“Good morning. Nutella french toast? Fuck, this is the best day ever.” Beca said, as she moved to plate a couple of pieces already cooling on the stack, sighing in pleasure as she stuck her nose in the small pile to take another big whiff. “Thank you.” Beca pressed a kiss to Chloe’s temple. She wrinkled her nose a bit when Chloe just hummed contentedly in response. Beca gently angled Chloe’s head towards her with her free hand, meeting her eyes intently. “Thank you, Chlo.”

Chloe nodded and simply gave Beca a quick kiss, clearly aware of how little she liked making a big deal of emotional matters.

Halfway through breakfast, Beca awkwardly cleared her throat before broaching the topic weighing on her mind. “So, uh… what were you even going to say last night?”

Chloe’s mouth dropped into an “O” shape – it had completely slipped her mind, to be honest. Now it was her turn to swallow nervously before answering.

“Oh. Uh. Right. Well, after looking into all those OBs this week… I just don’t get a great vibe off of any of them? I mean, at least one of them was clearly homophobic. They all seem to be paternalistic older guys and… I really can’t imagine that feeling patronized the whole time is going to be conducive to easily pushing a human being out of my vagina, you know?.”

Beca grimaced at the mental image Chloe was evoking, but nodded for her to continue.

“Right. Well. Along with the OB recommendations she sent us, Stacie included a couple of… other recommendations.” Frankly, the tone Chloe was using and the way she stressed the last two was about to send Beca’s eyebrows up into her hairline.

“Okay… so, what ‘other recommendations’ did she send? The baby can’t be delivered by, like, a sexologist or whatever.” Chloe snorted at Beca’s theory.

“No, not a sexologist, Bec. But she did include information for a couple of local midwives.”

[healthcaretipsblog]

Black Level

Not too long ago, a colleague chastised me, blind-item style, for writing about a film festival based on the use of screeners instead of going to the festival and attending the event in person. (In current parlance, I was “subtweeted,” although not on Twitter.) The argument was that by conducting my film criticism in “armchair mode,” I was missing out on lively discussion, camaraderie, and a good deal of atmospheric context that makes a festival more than just a collection of individual films. (Whether or not any given film is necessarily improved by having a discussion with its maker, particularly if critics are supposed to remain relatively objective in our evaluations, is an open question.) 

However, it occurred to me that, before any given film exhibition or festival, the works contained therein exist as precisely that: just a collection of individual films. It’s only through selection and programming choices that they are expected to stand for anything other than themselves. And I also began to think about the incredible faith we place in programmers, to sift through hundreds upon hundred of films made every year. We trust them (and a host of unsung pre-screeners) to separate the wheat from the chaff, to set the agenda for the year in cinema by their inclusions and exclusions. For the most part, we go along with their decisions, and as critics we make our own judgments as a subset of theirs. 

But we know full well that taste is nebulous and fallible, prone to the vagaries of history and fashion. How many worthy films slip through the cracks each year, each decade? This question prompted me to embark on an experiment.

The online screener service Festival Scope is filled with thousands of films, from the well-known and –travelled to the utterly obscure. Mostly I have used the service to catch up with festival films I’ve missed along the way. But I got an idea. What about all those films I’d never even heard of? Could there be major discoveries right there for the taking? So I devised a system whereby I could sample some of those films by random selection. I chose twelve films by this method, which had to do with randomizing the number of pages in Festival Scope’s 2017 features listing, and the number of films per page. I decided to call it the 2018 Random Film Festival. 

Granted, this was not a “film festival” as such. I was watching a collection of screeners from home, so a lot of the pleasures of attending an actual festival—meeting up with friends, post-film discussions, hustling from venue to venue, last-minute schedule changes, and of course, the big screen experience—were all missing here. Then of course, so were the random diet, sleep deprivation, and the exorbitant cost of attendance. But it’s often said the certain films look better (or worse) in a festival context, and that element was not in play here. I was watching about two films a day, not four or five, so I had the chance to let things percolate in my mind a bit more than usual. As you’ll see, that didn’t necessarily help.

That’s because what I found is that most films are simply average, regardless of where they come from. Take a film like Nobody Sleep by Spanish documentarian Mateo Cabeza. It starts out promisingly enough, showing us in meticulous detail how four men set about building a dance piece from extended rehearsals, movement by movement and gesture by gesture. The fact that two of the dancers are men with Down syndrome is an interesting element, but one that is pointedly not remarked upon. But then, Cabeza stops his observational mode to “widen the frame,” telling us that the work is part of an arts initiative for individuals with Downs and emphasizing that, yes, these are people who should be treated like everyone else. This is of course a worthy message. However, prior to the film making that message so explicit, Nobody Sleep was embodying it by simply showing the four men dancing. Cabeza chooses to deliver a moral when an object lesson is what’s called for. Likewise, Pedro Neves’ documentary Tarrafal is essentially a Pedro Costa film without any of the mastery or aesthetic value, choosing instead to provide endless, redundant interviews with former residents of the bulldozed low-income neighborhood in Porto, Portugal. In the interest of “giving voice,” Neves makes a film that is lifeless and near-impossible to listen to.

Somewhat more compelling, and likely to pop up on the festival circuit, were two slightly flawed entries that nevertheless fit squarely into the usual mode of festival filmmaking. February, by South Korea’s Kim Joonghyun, is a kind of existentialist mood piece, vaguely in the mold of Agnès Varda’s Vagabond. It focuses on Minkyung (Minkyung Jo), an attractive but affectless young woman in desperate straits. Her father is in prison and has bankrupted her with legal liability claims. She wants to take a social service exam but cannot afford the review classes. And, now four months behind on her rent, she has been forced to take up residence in a metal shipping container. Minkyung goes out of her way to destroy every situation in which someone shows her any goodwill, determined to self-destruct in grand style. Despite its comically hateful protagonist, February seems a bit rote, especially in the context of recent Korean cinema. Similarly, even though Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Black Level is highly original on its face—a portrait of a depressive wedding photographer in Kiev, a film in which no one ever utters a word—there’s something eerily familiar in its dark humor and meticulous staging—a little Ulrich Seidl here, a little Roy Andersson there.

Other films are just average examples of their type, and it’s easy to see why festival programmers might pass on them for better examples, since they’re plentiful. The Albanian film Daybreak is about a domestic worker with a young child who has to make questionably ethical choices to survive. The Dardennes influence is obvious. The grandiloquently titled Denmark is a kind of troubled-youth film that gradually morphs into unlikely humanism, starting out in scuzzy Larry Clark partyville and ending up like a Lukas Moodysson cuddle. And Law of the Land, starring veteran Finnish actor Ville Vertanen, is a snowmobile-Western, not exactly festival fare to begin with. It could easily be remade by Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra for release during next year’s January doldrums. 

Since most films fall somewhere in that soft middle-zone of “nothing special, but not a complete waste of time,” it seems only fitting that the major discoveries from the Random Film Festival were films on either side of the equation: something very special, and an utter, utter waste of time. From the Good Place: Annika Berg’s Team Hurricane, from Denmark (which played Critics’ Week at Venice). A film with so much color and energy that the screen can barely contain it, Team Hurricane is a blast of direct address filtered through a searing high-key video aesthetic that achieves a stark, unexpected beauty and juices the nerve centers like a sunlamp.  

Berg somehow remains true to the lifeworld of the eight teen girls who are the focus of Team Hurricane, partly by allowing them to shoot a lot of the footage themselves on their phones. But it’s also in the jumpy, anything-goes editing style, which partakes easily of the dominant modes of YouTube vlogs and teen video diaries without the slightest hint of condescension. But mostly this is a hanging-out movie, with cutaways zeroing in on the inner lives on individual girls, spoken to the camera in Sadie Benning-like autobiographical art-video interludes. These are girls who are bright, funny, imperfect, sad, and vital. This is a film for now.

From the Bad Place: Ideka Akira’s Ambiguous Places. Sometimes Random hurts. I thought that the Fickle Finger of Fate had picked me a winner once I discovered that Ambiguous Places had been selected for the Bright Future section of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam. Had a randomly stumbled upon a significant new voice in cinema? Well, I will say this for Akira—he is doggedly pursuing his own vision. Ambiguous Places is his second feature, and it bears all the excruciating hallmarks of a film convinced of its own future cult status. It makes no sense from scene to scene, even though particular “characters” carry through the entire thing like semi-human running gags.  

The closest parallel I can draw is to the leaden pseudo-Surrealism of Quentin Dupieux’s post-Rubber output. Someone has a sea bug stuck in her head. She has to go to a barber to get it removed. But the barber is an udon shop. Meanwhile, the pharmacist and his wife are expecting, so as per custom, they need to make celebratory gloves. Akira seems to think that just throwing any silly idea into the film, and then calling it back every ten minutes or so, equals comedy gold. He also deploys an equally grating verbal style. Every other interaction devolves into two deadpan performers monotone-arguing the same lines of dialogue back and forth to each other. “You’re troublesome.” “I’m sorry.” “You’re troublesome.” “I’m sorry.” Five more times. (I have to wonder whether this kind of broken-record nonsense has a particular comic valence in the Japanese language, the nuance of which is nails-on-the-chalkboard lost in English.) 

It’s a given that something this aggressively weird will have its fans. But I venture to say that for most people, watching Ambiguous Places will feel like being the only guy at the party who didn’t take the mushrooms. You’re all ostensibly in the same place, but clearly the others are somewhere else.

So in the end, the Random Film Festival is a success, depending on how you look at it. I saw one great film for my trouble, and two fairly interesting ones—three if you count Ambiguous Spaces, which is certainly “interesting.” This batting average doesn’t seem that far off from a festival like Toronto, with its sprawling collection of unknown quantities. (And I didn’t have to fly anywhere or pay for lodging.) By the same token, I have a new appreciation for the job of pre-screeners, who have to sift through the dross only to find one or two fairly decent entries. (With my innate curiosity and sense that “everything is kind of worthwhile,” I think that’s a job I’d be good at.)

The verdict: festivals generally work, but critics need to supplement our viewing with spadework of our own. Why just be passengers when we can drive?

from The Daily Notebook http://ift.tt/2G6u5YX

[jordoalejandro]

The First Annual List of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

Earlier this year, I decided that I would attempt to create a ranked list of the TV shows I'd watched the past year and a half in a manner similar to the Annual Lists of Movies I've been doing the last six years. This led to a couple of realizations.

Number one: I think I'm watching too much TV. The list I've compiled features over 60 shows and doesn't include non-scripted reality and competition shows (which I don't watch a whole ton of) and non-narrative shows, like Saturday Night Live (which I do watch quite a few of).

Quick side rant about SNL: I hear a lot about how SNL isn't funny anymore (though that criticism was much less prevalent after this last season, which got a lot of acclaim, rightly, for its excellent political skits). Here's the truth about SNL: it was always hit and miss. That's the danger of doing an hour and a half (give or take) of live comedy skits every week. Some are going to work out great, some are going to bomb. People who think back too fondly on the early years as the pinnacle of the show remember only a handful of specific, classic skits from the many years they're thinking of. I implore you to watch a full episode of one of the SNL throwback episodes they air sometimes. The original cast was as prone to duds as any cast since. SNL has always been funny. And SNL has always been not funny. It's the nature of the beast.

Anyway, Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Conan, and various other non-narrative shows won't be considered for this list, even though I watch and enjoy them.

Number two: television has become overwhelming. As many shows as I do watch, there are still shows I'd like to see that I haven't gotten around to. For example, there are several things on HBO I'd like to watch. And I have access to HBO. I just haven't found the time or motivation. I've fallen behind on a lot of my Netflix viewing as well. And while I was researching my list by going over the lists of shows from the last year and a half, I realized there's several series on Hulu and Amazon I'm interested in as well that I will likely never get around to. Which brings me to...

Number three: I feel much, much less confident and much, much more vulnerable about this list than I do about any of the Annual Lists of Movies I've done. I mean, those I do with a reasonable level of self-doubt. I know my choices aren't always going to line up with everybody else's, but I at least watch a lot of the films that come out, blockbusters and awards films alike, so I have some sense of what people are talking about.

With TV? I don't know. I feel like I have weird taste in TV. I watch a lot of what might be considered bad shows. At the very least, they aren't the cool shows. I haven't seen Game of Thrones or Westworld. I haven't seen The Handmaid's Tale. I'm not really in on the TV zeitgeist is what I'm saying here. Like, I've seen some of the heavily talked about stuff, but guys... I dunno, I guess I'm just feeling kinda lame. Like, you guys are the cool kids watching all your killer sentient robots and dragons and such, and I'm over here watching cheap basic cable dramas and later seasons of comedy shows you've all given up on years ago.

So my vulnerability comes partly from that, but it also comes from the time commitment. I don't want to recommend any of the TV shows I've watched. And some are really good! But this isn't just saying, "Hey, you should check out this movie." If I tell you that, and you see a stinker of a movie, it's an hour and a half wasted. I can't tell you to commit ten-plus, twenty-plus hours of your life to something I like. Maybe it tickles my fancy in a way that is specific only to me. And what if I'm raving about the third season of a show? Are you supposed to go back and watch it all to get what I'm saying? I wouldn't recommend it. Just keep doing you. Watch whatever you're gonna watch. Nothing I write is a recommendation.

See? No confidence in this list. At all.

The long and short of it is this: I'm just doing this for fun. For my own amusement. I like ranking things. I like writing about things. If I keep doing this list, I'm excited to continue comparing some of these shows throughout the years, seeing them rise and fall against each other.

But basically, take this whole thing with an even larger grain of salt than you would my movie lists.

Because I have no idea what I'm doing.

The next time I do this list, it will be for all the TV shows whose seasons debut after this year's Emmys. This year's list will include every show I watched that aired an episode after January 1st, 2016. Some shows will be judged on multiple seasons this way. Some shows I'm going to have to judge on partial seasons because the Emmys will occur while they are in mid-season. I reserve the right to go back later and update this list if the shows have an unbelievably amazing season finale or dive right off a cliff.

All right. Take a deep breath. Let's do this.

61. Search Party (Season 1 - 2016, TBS) - This one just did not connect with me at all. It's filled with awful, borderline sociopathic characters with almost no redeemable qualities. And not just like, one or two. There's no likeable character in pretty much the whole cast. And look, fine, it's a dark comedy, so some of that's to be expected, but there just isn't enough here to make this palatable. The humor isn't great. It too often wants the characters' horrible or quirky behavior to do the heavy lifting, then tries to fill in the rest of the joke quota with people's loud outbursts, which mostly come in the form of screaming overly sexually explicit stuff amongst company. The central mystery of the show also didn't do anything for me. It's so nebulous that you don't ever really care. There are so many false leads and soft connections from one thing to the next that you sort of realize it can't really ever go anywhere. Overall, just a real disappointment. I do feel like there's something buried within here about a group of Millennials being so in search of meaning in their lives that they concoct a mystery out of thin air that only they can solve. It could've been a tight little indie movie, even if the truest payoff to that story would be the reveal that nothing has actually happened. I'm talking a full, meaningless, nothing of a finale, followed by character introspection. I created this whole thing from nothing. I behaved like a lunatic. Why? It'd be an insanely huge letdown of a payoff -- a complete letting out of all the air in a balloon -- but that would be the point. Of course, it would be very hard to get away with such an ending, even as an indie movie. There's no way to get away with it if you're doing ten episodes of a television program on a basic cable network. It's way too much of a time commitment to ask of people and then treat them like that. So, instead, the show opts to kind of fill time with a half-baked mystery and whimsy nonsense to make it through its episode order. I probably would not have completed the full first season if not for having the entire thing sitting on my DVR -- it aired in its entirety over one week -- so I just powered through instead. It's been renewed for a second season, but I'm bailing out here.

60. You, Me and the Apocalypse (Season 1 - 2016, NBC) - So, here's the thing: because I came up with this list idea in 2017, in the middle of the TV season, I hadn't been taking notes. Thus, with some of these shows, I'm just not going to remember enough to really delve into them. Like this one. I do remember not really caring for it. It's a dark comedy like Search Party, and it suffers from the same problem: it's just kind of dark without ever really being funny. Guys, you can make dark comedies, but please don't forget that comedy is right there in the title of the genre. It's half of the equation.

59. Frequency (Season 1 - 2016-2017, CW) - This series was just too drawn out. The idea worked pretty well as a movie. It told a neat little story that wrapped up everything in an hour and a half. This show basically retold the movie but stuffed it with lots of filler and false leads to pad it out to 13 hour-long episodes. It's ultimately not worth it. Better to just watch the movie instead.

58. Quantico (Season 1 - 2015-2016, ABC) - I recorded this show as a Put-It-On-In-The-Background-While-I'm-Doing-Other-Stuff kind of show, but even then it was too bland and didn't go anywhere enough for me to want to stick around. I bailed after season one.

57. 24: Legacy (Season 1 - 2017, FOX) - A real mess, though at least somewhat entertaining in a train wreck kind of way. Corey Hawkins' main character, Eric Carter, was generic and dull. The plot, even though they only had to fill twelve episodes, was meandering. And there were a handful of awful subplots that didn't go anywhere, forced cameos, and bad side characters to boot (which, in fairness, is a 24 trademark that was established long before this soft reboot came around). I know 24 has always had issues, but I think I'd been willing to overlook them in the past because Jack Bauer was a compelling character. Without him, and without Chloe to play off of, 24 is just an overly-long, bad action movie.

56. Blindspot (Season 1 - 2015-2016, NBC) - This was a replacement level mystery thriller. Most of its episodes were just FBI missions that were fairly forgettable. The bigger mystery of the show was mostly exhausting instead of captivating, and was too often dragged out by people just refusing to give the main character answers for no real reason other than to prolong the story. I dropped out before season two.

55. The Muppets. (Season 1 - 2015-2016, ABC) - I actually felt it started out... okay. Not earth-shattering, but a funny enough mockumentary taking place behind the scenes at the Muppets. Most people didn't seem to like it, though, so the big wigs planned a creative overhaul. There was all this news about how they were going on hiatus and changing showrunners and yadda yadda, and then they came back, and nothing really seemed to change. If anything, I think it got less funny. So, they tried it two ways and it just never came together right. The cancellation was probably justified. Pretty disappointing.

54. Atlanta (Season 1 - 2016, FX) - Here's one where I feel vulnerable, because I'm aware of the acclaim this show has received. It just never clicked in a fully gripping way for me. I didn't ever commit to setting a full season pass for it on the DVR. Every week, it did just enough in comedy or storytelling to get me to set the record for the next week, but never enough in either for me to go, "Yeah, this is something I can't afford to miss." I will say, the acting from the leads and the cinematography are both strong. I just think the show felt a little too rudderless, too often for me. I don't think I'm coming back for season two.

53. The Guest Book (Season 1 - 2017, TBS) - I liked Greg Garcia's other works so I figured I'd check this one out. It's sort of an anthology comedy, where every episode tells a different, unrelated story. It has a few laughs, but does suffer some dry periods. Also, the risk of doing an episodic comedy like this is that you have 22 minutes to set up the new characters and story, tell the story, add in the jokes, and pay the whole thing off. Sometimes that's just not enough time to really craft a story that's going to work in a convincing way. There are a handful of episodes in season one that have that issue, ending in somewhat simplistic payoffs that aren't particularly interesting or satisfying. I'm on the fence about coming back for this one if there is a season two. I worry that because of its format, it may never be able to rise to the storytelling levels of My Name is Earl or the earlier seasons of Raising Hope. [As of 9/16/17, I’m through episode 1.8. There are two more episodes left to air in season one. // Update (9/29/17) - Finished the season, and the finale actually addressed some of my concerns. Throughout the first season, there were a handful of regular side characters -- mostly townsfolk, like the innkeepers -- who had minor stories during each episode. These were normally just a couple minutes out of each episode, never felt particularly interesting, and often just served to advance the main story's plot. I didn’t give them a whole lot of thought, chalking them up to being mostly glorified set decoration and providing flair. However, the season finale served as an episode dedicated to wrapping up the side characters' stories, and it actually worked surprisingly well. I found myself suddenly interested in these characters who I didn't care for most of the season. I'm not sure if this fully eases my initial concerns about this show's storytelling abilities, but, at the very least, it does give me some more confidence about season two. I'm still on the fence, but I'm leaning towards giving it another shot.]

52. MacGyver (Season 1 - 2016-2017, CBS) - I feel doubly vulnerable here. One, admitting that I watch this show and two, adding that I... kinda... enjoy it? Don't get me wrong. This isn't what I would call a "good" show. The characters are mostly bad clichés and the writing, from dialogue to plot to character development, is very silly. Also, the way they get him to MacGyver stuff is often ham-fisted. That said, it's a great Put-It-On-In-The-Background show because I don't really have to pay much attention to it. I can look up every now and then and the characters will be bickering in the middle of a chase, or he'll be putting some contraption together, or something will be blowing up. I mean, if that's not perfect P-I-O-I-T-B material, then what is?

51. Wrecked (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2017, TBS) - This is a replacement level comedic Lost parody -- though, if you think about it, there isn't anything mystical in this show, so it's really more Lord of the Flies than anything. Either way, it's an okay show. Some laughs, some funny ideas, but nothing really groundbreaking or special. If you aren't on board already, you don't need to be.

50. People of Earth (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2017, TBS) - This one sort of misses the mark with me. Not that I don't like it. I enjoy it for what it is, but I really think it could've worked so much better as a movie telling a simpler story. There's definitely something interesting to be explored here: what are people who claim to have been abducted by aliens missing in their own lives that causes them to believe this? The show does touch on this, and when it does, it unearths some nice moments of vulnerability and character that are surprisingly moving and, I feel, the real high points of the show. (One example being episode 2.6, "Aftermath," which deals with the group grieving, and in doing so, exposes some of their very real emotional issues.) Unfortunately, People of Earth has a lot more screen time to fill, and because of that, the show has to have actual aliens and an evil plot that needs to be solved, all of which I find less interesting than a pure character study would have been. [As of 9/16/17, I’m through episode 2.8. There are two more episodes left to air in season two. // Update (9/26/17) - Finished the season. It ended fine, on par with the rest of the episodes, but I will say, the thoughts of What are we doing here? Where are we going with all this? started creeping into my head. I don’t know if I feel that way fully about the show yet -- I’ll check out season three -- but it’s not a great sign.]

49. When We Rise (Miniseries - 2017, ABC) - I found this a little too melodramatic sometimes. Also, it was maybe too neat? Following the same characters across different ages as they Forrest Gump’d their way through the history of gay rights felt less necessary than just finding new people in each era to tell their part of the story, especially because the main characters were recast as their older selves half-way through anyway. And this is maybe nitpicky, but at some points, the production values were just awful. Like, low-budget green screen stuff that was so bad as to be distracting. Overall, though, it's an important story. In all honesty, it probably means more if you are gay. I can imagine not having a whole ton of interest in sticking with it for the eight hours if you aren't or aren't close to someone who is. Having skin in the game helps.

48. Limitless (Season 1 - 2015-2016, CBS) - Limitless was a fun concept that became too bland by trying to stuff it into an FBI procedural. The show did some stuff well, though. The writing was often clever and snappy, and Jake McDorman was a charming lead. I thought there was maybe a second or third gear to be found in this show that might've come out with more seasons, but it got cancelled after one, so we'll never know.

47. Scream Queens (Season 2 - 2016, FOX) - I appreciate that everyone involved, from writers to actors, knew it was a very silly show and didn't try to do much more than roll with that. Season two had some laughs but was still a drop in quality from season one, which wasn't amazing, though better overall. After season two ended, you kind of felt it was time to go, so it wasn't too sad to hear of its cancellation. It was fun enough while it lasted.

46. Life in Pieces (Season 1 - 2015-2016, Season 2 - 2016-2017, CBS) - CBS's version of Modern Family is slightly better than replacement level. The writing can get lazy and goofy a little too often and drop into the cheesy sitcom level, but it usually does well to rise above that and provide some clever laughs. It helps that the show's format is committed to doing four, mostly separate stories every episode, so if one isn't working, it's not long until the show moves on to something hopefully better. The cast has decent chemistry with one another which helps elevate the show's quality a bit as well. Life in Pieces settled into a groove very quickly, even possibly out of the gates. That's both good and bad. It's consistent, at least, but it also hasn't done much growth in two seasons, and it's possible there isn't a whole lot of room for it to grow, which could lead it to become stale real quick.

45. Workaholics (Season 6 - 2016, Season 7 - 2017, Comedy Central) - I felt it was a fairly consistently funny show throughout its run. The shtick got a little tired after a while, and some of the episode plots in the later seasons were maybe not the most natural fits with the theme of the show, but the cast and crew were still able to piece together some quality episodes until the end. It was an impressive run for a group that was mostly nobodies when the show started.

44. The Last Man on Earth (Season 2 - 2015-2016, Season 3 - 2016-2017, FOX) - This show pains me. I never know what to do with it. Back at its inception, it was going to be a film, which I think was probably, likely, the better way to go with this. The pilot episode is still one of the show's best -- funny, sweet, sad, touching -- and you could see how it could be stretched to an hour and a half and be this great, weird, dark and yet humorous little movie about isolation, grief, and then hope. You know, that sort of thing. Of course, it became a show. That's not to say it's bad. The Last Man on Earth does manage to get back to the heights of the pilot every now and then, normally when it juggles that funny, sweet, sad, touching vibe. Episodes like 2.11, "Pitch Black," 3.6, "The Open-Ended Nature of Unwitnessed Deaths," and 3.10, "Got Milk?," all were excellent and reminded me why I began watching this show. The problem is, though, the show too often deals in fart jokes and silly character behavior and undercuts itself. I wonder if it's a by-product of having to stretch a concept to fill too many episodes. The best episodes of the show seem to come at the beginning and end of the season and around the mid-season finale. The filler episodes in between feel more like treading water. Frustrating.

43. Angie Tribeca (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2016, Season 3 - 2017, TBS) - It's a very silly show with occasional moments of real hilarity. It goes for the multiple jokes a minute model and some do land well, though most are just sort of in the okay-to-decent range. I will say it has really improved in seasons two and three. The show knew exactly what it was going for from the get-go, but the writing has gotten sharper and funnier as the show has gone on. It's still not an upper echelon comedy show and doesn't come close to the quality of its obvious influences -- Airplane and The Naked Gun are some of my favorite movies of all time, so I might be holding the standard too high -- but I do like that there's a show of this style on the air. They don't make comedy like this much anymore -- it mostly comes in the form of far too broad, embarrassingly cheap movies -- so having a show like this be, at the very least, decent, is a nice thing.

42. Prison Break (Season 5(?) - 2017, FOX) - I don't know if this is season five of the show or like, a miniseries, or whatever. Doesn't really matter. Either way, this was actually better than I expected it was going to be. That's not to say it doesn't have problems. There are several moments of outright ridiculousness and a big plot twist that's fairly obvious. Also, most of the characters outside of Michael and Lincoln, even most of the major returning ones, are pretty pointless, and a fair few of their storylines just fizzle out. Really, most of the characters in this show are just fodder for Michael. But... there’s some decent prison escape stuff and some decent chase stuff in here, and all that at least made the show entertaining enough to be worthwhile.

41. Legends of Tomorrow (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2016-2017, CW) - This isn't a show to think a whole lot about. I contend that most, if not all, time travel stories fall apart if you begin to examine the logic behind them even a little bit, so it's best to just have fun. This show was okay in season one but did start having some more fun and got more enjoyable in season two. It still sometimes lands on the too-much-cheese side in story, dialogue, and graphics, but it's watchable entertainment nonetheless.

40. Nobodies (Season 1 - 2017, TV Land) - This was pretty good. The three leads, who also wrote every episode, play off each other well. They have good chemistry, clearly honed by spending real life years doing work and improv together. There's some funny sending up of Hollywood in here, too, helped by a surprising amount of big name cameos. My one issue is that I found the show got a little too loose, sometimes. The plot would occasionally grind to a halt while the actors just kind of... talked. That's not to say the conversations weren't funny, but they did lead me to think, more than once, about where this was all going.

39. Riverdale (Season 1 - 2017, CW) - Riverdale is a strange show that's fun to watch because of how strange it is. It's filled with wacky twists and seemingly dozens of love triangles -- from the teenagers to their parents, everyone in town is love with each other. It does get a lot of easy mileage by being a dark, brooding take on the classic Archie comics but it still works overall. (13 episodes in, at least... It remains to be seen if it will get stale.)

38. Those Who Can't (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2016, truTV) - A pretty decent workplace comedy. Like Nobodies, the best humor in this show comes from the great chemistry and banter between the main cast. (Again, they're a comedy troupe who've put in a lot of real life years to get to this point and it shows.) Where I think Those Who Can't pulls ahead of Nobodies is in the writing and supporting cast. The writing in both storylines and jokes is sharper, and the characters that surround the main trio all have unique, memorable personalities that add something to the overall product.

37. Modern Family (Season 7 - 2015-2016, Season 8 - 2016-2017, ABC) - I won't pretend there isn't any storyline fatigue here. I mean, the show is about this one family. How many stories can you really tell about them? It doesn't help that the children haven't, for the most part, turned into interesting adult characters, forcing the producers to leave a lot of the heavy lifting to the already established adults (specifically, Ty Burrell, who provides the majority of the comedy at this stage). Still though, the joke writing remains sharp and the layered jokes are great, as always. The show has a couple of truly excellent episodes every season, sprinkled amongst the mostly decent other ones.

36. Son of Zorn (Season 1 - 2016-2017, FOX) - I admired this one for its novel approach. It's a funny, weird premise that ultimately touched on more universal themes: divorce, family, feeling out of place and feeling isolated. Jason Sudeikis was pretty good as Zorn, but this show was really elevated by the strong supporting work from Tim Meadows and Artemis Pebdani. Son of Zorn was cancelled after one season and I was sad to see it go.

35. The Blacklist: Redemption (Season 1 - 2017, NBC) - Redemption had some cool stories, but it really did nothing too radically different from the main show. Ultimately, the execution was fine, but there just wasn't enough of a point here. Plus, this show pulled a fairly main character out of the flagship show, didn't really write him out of that show, and had him travel all around the world in this show doing missions. It created some weird inconsistencies, at least in my head, so that while I was watching this, I was thinking, "Don't the characters in the main show wonder where this guy is? Doesn't he have a family who is missing him right now?"

34. The Blacklist (Season 3 - 2015-2016, Season 4 - 2016-2017, NBC) - This is a show that lives and dies on the adversaries, both big bads and monsters of the week. As for the big bads, the early season three adversary was decent, but the late season three through early season four arc was a real dud. It was filled with too many instances where it was unclear of where allegiances lay, and instead of being tense, it felt manic. Nobody trusted anybody and yet, no one wanted to kill anyone because of whatever their relationship was with them. I sort of lost interest in trying to follow who was mad at who. The show recovered after that, though, and the back end to season four was much better, featuring what was probably the best big bad in the show's history. Actually, the back end of season four had a similar setup to the back end of season three -- a very personal big bad -- but the conflict flowed smoother. As for the monsters of the week, there were some memorable ones, but I will say, the plot is becoming a little too predictable: the FBI does the legwork, then James Spader swoops in at the last minute, delivers a monologue that's on the edge of unhinged, and shoots the bad guy. James Spader's character, Red, is unpredictable, which makes him interesting, or, at least, has so in the past. But if you start to expect an unpredictable character to do something unpredictable every time, it becomes predictable, you know?

33. The Mick (Season 1 - 2017, FOX) - This was a pretty funny, semi-dark, anti-family comedy, that at the same time, is still kind of an in earnest family comedy. It surprised me with the amount of depth and heart it showed sometimes when it didn't have to, when it could've turned into its cynicism. Kaitlin Olson is a good lead, the kids all contribute, and there's excellent supporting work here from Carla Jimenez and Scott MacArthur.

32. The Flash (Season 2 - 2015-2016, Season 3 - 2016-2017, CW) - I enjoy these CW superhero shows. The big bads in The Flash have gotten a little stale but the show as a whole is still entertaining, producing several fun episodes every season.

31. Arrow (Season 4 - 2015-2016, Season 5 - 2016-2017, CW) - I think had I done this list last year, The Flash would've been higher than Arrow. Season four wasn't great. I think Arrow suffers when it gets too mystical. It works better grounded and grittier. Season five was a really good return to form in that sense. I also generally think Arrow does better, more practical action scenes than The Flash, which can get a little too CGI heavy for my taste.

30. Timeless (Season 1 - 2016-2017, NBC) - I enjoyed this time travel show more than Legends of Tomorrow. It has better production values for sure, which helps in recreating all that old timey stuff, and that's pretty important. Fake looking sets and props can pull me out of a viewing experience quicker than even bad acting can. Like Legends of Tomorrow, Timeless has fun with the concept of time travel, throwing its characters back into some interesting periods, having them interact with famous figures, and putting together some real quality episodes. It got cancelled this past May, and then revived a few days later for a ten episode second season due to air next Summer. This delights me, not just because I'd like more of this show, but because giving the producers more episodes -- and what are probably, in all likelihood, going be their last episodes -- might allow them to go all-out bonkers with the time travel and warping of timelines and all that wacky stuff that comes with the genre. I'd be happy with more regular episodes, but if they go the full on "fire off all the cannons in one last hurrah" road, I think this could be a fun one to watch down the stretch.

29. The Detour (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2017, TBS) - Like The Mick, The Detour is an upending of the family comedy that is still a family comedy at heart. I do think season one was a bit better because it forced the family together on a road trip. Season two lost some of that focus. That's not to say season two was less funny -- both seasons provided lots of laughs -- but on a story structure level, I enjoyed the first more. I find my biggest issue with the show comes when they go for gross out humor every now and then. Some of it works, but it mostly just feels gratuitous.

28. Trial & Error (Season 1 - 2017, NBC) - This was a really well done, humorous mockumentary. Much of the comedy is maybe more clever than it is laugh out loud, but it's still pretty enjoyable. John Lithgow does great supporting work here as Larry -- a role that calls for him to be, at various times: goofy, dark, mysterious, and frustrating, all while still remaining sympathetic. Sherri Shepherd is also excellent. Her supporting character, Anne, provides most of the show's laugh out loud moments.

27. Brockmire (Season 1 - 2017, IFC) - This is a great, adult comedy, though it probably works better if you're a fan of baseball and have some knowledge of the people who show up and what's being parodied. If you don't know baseball, your mileage may vary. Hank Azaria and Amanda Peet give strong performances and work really well together.

26. Bob's Burgers (Season 6 - 2015-2016, Season 7 - 2016-2017, FOX) - Bob's Burgers found its groove fairly early on and has put out quality stuff on a consistent basis since. The voice actors are all on-point and are able to create decent comedy just from their banter. The plots are usually pretty clever and often do a good job of building to an interesting, humorous crescendo. It's a good fit in the FOX Sunday lineup.

25. The Real O'Neals (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2016-2017, ABC) - Season one was decent, but I found it got much more comfortable in season two, becoming more consistently funny. There's good supporting work here from Mary Hollis Inboden and, especially, Matt Oberg, who was a minor player in season one but was incorporated more into season two and was a big reason the second season was so much better. The actors in the central family also do a pretty solid job, though outside of the main character, Kenny, it did feel like they hadn't quite figured out what to do with all of them. I think, given some more time, the writers would've been able to hone those characters and find them better storylines. Alas, the show was cancelled after 29 episodes, so they won't get that chance.

24. Galavant (Season 2 - 2016, ABC) - This was light and fun. It was a musical comedy that didn't take itself too seriously and wasn't afraid to get meta every now and then. In fairness, it sometimes went too long without any real laughs, but I felt it made up for any lulls in humor with some pretty good songs. In fact, a year and a half later, the music from "Galavant Intro" still pops into my head every now and then. I can totally see how this show wouldn't build a big enough following and I get why it was thus cancelled, but I think it's a shame. It was a very likeable show.

23. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Season 3 - 2015-2016, Season 4 - 2016-2017, FOX) - This is a weird show for me, personally. It's a show that I'm never excited to see pop up in my DVR, and yet I find myself enjoying every episode I watch. I never could put my finger on why I was so conflicted about it until recently. And listen, this is going to sound insulting, and it maybe, kinda, sort of is, but here it goes: this is a really fantastic show despite the fact that there are almost no good characters in it (minus Captain Holt, who is multilayered and excellent). What I mean by this is, the show is so funny and well written that it rises far above its characters and premise. This is why I feel no enthusiasm when I see the show was recorded. I don't particularly want to spend time with any of the characters. They almost all started out pretty broad and mostly unlikeable and have never really changed. But once I get into an episode, I'm reminded that the writing is so smart, the plots are well done, and the jokes are really funny. So, see, what I'm saying is not actually an insult, it's backhanded high praise. I guess.

22. Great News (Season 1 - 2017, NBC) - I thought this one was pretty good in just the small taste I got of it in its first season. There are some hints of brilliance here, even if it's not quite there yet as a whole. I have high hopes for Great News though. I think it could come into itself really well and become another Tina Fey 30 Rock-type, quality comedy.

21. The Simpsons (Season 27 - 2015-2016, Season 28 - 2016-2017, FOX) - This old train keeps chugging along, delivering a few plus episodes every year and mostly decent ones (and, to be fair, a few that are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for story ideas). I know it's not cool to like The Simpsons anymore (or it hasn't been since like the third episode of the second season or whatever), but it's like comfort food to me, and I still get some laughs from it, so I stick with it.

20. Class (Season 1 - 2017, BBC America) - So, I think the optimal number of episodes for a TV season is somewhere in the 10-13 range. Any fewer and you're generally left wanting more, and any more than that and you start running into issues with filler episodes. Class had eight episodes in its first season and it absolutely could've used two more, at least. The beginning and the ending of the season felt too rushed. Almost all the relationships were established very quickly in the first episode and could've used a few more to come together. And at the back end of the season, a lot of the plot hinged on relationships between characters that we just didn't see enough of to really get a true feel for. Basically, the season-long arcs needed more room to breathe and develop. On the bright side, the episodes in the middle of the season were really good, the high points coming in episodes 1.6 ("Detained") and 1.7 ("The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did"). Both episodes gave the characters chances to expand on themselves, while placing them in interesting sci-fi scenarios. Class was a good show overall, but it likely would've been several spots higher on this list if it had at least one more episode in the beginning of the season to develop relationships more, and at least one more before the season finale to better set up the emotional stakes to come. (Also, fair warning, the show has been cancelled after one season and the last episode ends on something of a cliffhanger, so if you’re considering looking into this, that might be something to factor in.)

19. The Mist (Season 1 - 2017, Spike) - Let's talk vulnerability again. If I say anything positive here about The Mist, I do believe I will be the first person on the internet to do so. The Mist is amazing in the sense that it has somehow managed to piss off three very distinct groups of internet people. First and foremost, fans of the original novella and/or 2007 film are upset that this show is only very loosely based on those works instead of a direct adaptation. In fact, this show shares almost nothing with them: not characters, stories, or giant Lovecraftian monsters. (The giant Lovecraftian monsters being missing from the show seems to be the crux of the majority of these complaints, which, in a sense, I understand. You tuned in looking for one thing and didn't get it. Okay. But I kept seeing these complaints pop-up after every episode. I mean, no monsters episode one? Shame on the show. None in episode two or three? I guess, still shame on the show. If you're still watching episode nine waiting for the giant monsters to show up and you don't realize this show isn't going down that road -- at least not yet -- then come on, man, shame on you.) The Mist the show really doesn't share much with The Mist the book and The Mist the movie other than a setting in Maine and the idea that there's a spooky mist. Personally, I don't mind this. My issue with the Frequency adaptation was that it tried to be too much like the movie without really branching off into its own thing. I'd rather a show try something different. Otherwise, why not just watch the movie again? The second and third angered groups are mirrors of one another. The second group is upset that the show touches on issues like rape, LGBT people, and other things deemed too social justice warrior-y (imagine this written in that spooky, blood dripping font). Seriously, go check out the reviews on IMDb and count how many of the bad ones use at least one of these terms: “liberal,” “agenda,” social justice,” “politically correct,” etc. I mean, don’t actually go and read them. Never do that. Just know that it’s a lot of them. You get what I’m saying. The third group is upset that the show doesn't handle these issues with the most grace. I probably come down closest to the third group's point of view. The show doesn't handle these issues well. I get why people don't care for it, even if I think they're being maybe a bit unduly harsh. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd even recommend watching this show. It's very clumsy. Characters make lots of nonsensical decisions just to advance plots. There are a few twists and turns that aren't handled well. Dialogue can be awkward sometimes, and at other times feel forced. And yet. AND YET! ... I like this show. I think I watch it the way I watch old James Bond movies. I feel like I'm hate watching it, except I don't hate it. I feel like I'm watching a train wreck, except it isn't wrecking. It's running fast and loose on those rails, for sure, but I don't think it's off them. I'm tuning in with enthusiasm every week to see what crazy stuff is going to happen, intentional or not, and the show doesn't disappoint in that sense. Sometimes it does something really creepy, and sometimes it does something really nutty, and sometimes it does something sort of surprisingly sweet or funny. And then sometimes, the writers do something nutty that isn't meant to be nutty, but definitely plays out that way, and that's also kind of fun. Either way, I'm constantly entertained by this program. I'll also add just some genuine praise at the end here: the show looks good -- it's shot well and feels appropriately eerie at all times -- and I think the actors are doing a decent job with the given material. Maybe chalk it up to airing in the slower Summer months, but this is one of the few shows I actually actively looked forward to every week. And if this show gets cancelled and we never get more episodes, well, we'll always have the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appearing out of the mist, shooting a priest with an arrow, and dragging him off into the forest to kill him while a nude Frances Conroy stands nearby. This is a thing that really happened on the show. [Update (9/27/17) - The show was cancelled today, and even though it felt somewhat inevitable, the news is still just... crushing. I find myself thinking about this show a lot, even like a month after it has ended. It has stuck with me in a very weird way. It also means the spec script I was strangely compelled to write for this shall never see the light of day. Oooh. Is that a joke? Is he being serious? I guess we’ll never know...]

18. Family Guy (Season 14 - 2015-2016, Season 15 - 2016-2017, FOX) - Family Guy is still really good for a couple laugh out loud moments each episode, and a couple of conceptually interesting, outside-the-box episodes each season, which are often the high points.

17. American Dad (Season 13 - 2016, Season 14 - 2016-2017, TBS) - The show, fortunately, hasn't experienced any drop in quality in moving from FOX to TBS. It's a great comedy that is at its best when it gets really weird and dark, and it can often get really weird and dark.

16. Fear the Walking Dead (Season 2 - 2016, Season 3 - 2017, AMC) - This can be a real frustrating show. It constantly takes two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it's a big step, sometimes it's just a little step, but either way, it never seems to maintain its forward momentum. Season two was better than season one, and season three is better than season two was, but the show still makes some vexing choices, mostly with its characters’ behaviors and motivations. That said, I find myself liking a lot of the show. I like the setting. I like the mood. I feel like it's carved itself out a nice piece of the Walking Dead world and is telling stories unique to it. The show has two characters -- Colman Domingo's Victor Strand and Rubén Blades's Daniel Salazar -- who are fascinating and entertain me almost every time they're on-screen. Kim Dickens's Madison Clark has slowly been getting to this point, but she still suffers from the steps-back thing. I think Fear the Walking Dead could possibly wind up with some better seasons than the flagship show, but it hasn't been able to quite reach its potential yet. [As of 9/16/17, I’m through episode 3.10. There are six episodes left to air in season three. // Update (10/16/17) - Finished the season. I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much, but I really think my "two steps forward, one step back" analysis nailed this show. I found myself turning that exact thought over in my head after almost every episode in the back half of season three. Characters grow in an interesting way, but the plot feels super contrived to get them there. Or the plot takes an interesting turn, but then the characters act like dummies. I feel like the problems all stem from the show not knowing how to handle its characters. Madison's looping character arc is to be calm and collected for a few episodes, then act psychotic, and when pressed, yell about how she'd do anything to protect her children. Intriguing characters like Strand and Daniel are pushed to the sidelines to give more time to Alicia, complaining again that she's not a kid anymore and needs her space, or Nick, going through another battle with the newest manifestation of his addiction problems. Oh man, he's addicted to danger now instead of drugs? That's nuts. Developing characters, some on the cusp of potentially interesting character growth, get killed off, seemingly at random. It happened twice in season three -- once in the premiere and once in the finale -- and was done so carelessly, it left almost zero impact. You're thinking, What? Did he just really die? ... Huh. There's something to be said for watching a show where no character feels safe, but if the deaths feel too random, then they become pointless. There's a big difference between that and feeling constant fear for the characters' safety. One is having two main characters go to war and knowing either could die. The other is having a parachuting circus bear land on top of one of your main characters and eat him alive. If it feels like that's the case with a show, then who cares? Why should I invest emotion into any of these characters if they can apparently be crushed by a runaway snowmobile at any moment? ... This addendum came out a lot more negative than I intended. I like the show. I still feel it has potential to be better. I just hope it can get there someday.]

15. The Walking Dead (Season 6 - 2015-2016, Season 7 - 2016-2017, AMC) - It certainly has developed a pattern at this point, where you sort of know the season's most exciting points will come at the beginning and end and the middle parts of the season will slow down a bit and contain some filler. Still, the filler in The Walking Dead can be quite entertaining, even at its measured pace. Occasionally, too, you get a filler episode that's brilliant. Episode 6.4, "Here's Not Here," is an episode told almost entirely in flashback, but it's one of my favorite hours of television in the past few years. The show has its faults, absolutely, but it also tells good stories set in an interesting world and is filled with a cast of intriguing characters played by quality actors. Also, Trevor from Grand Theft Auto V shows up every now and then and that's a really fun little thing for me and almost no one else who I watch this show with.

14. The Grinder (Season 1 - 2015-2016, FOX) - This one's cancellation hit me hard. The Grinder was one of my favorite broadcast comedies. It was filled with sharp writing, great running jokes, good cast chemistry, and even some subtle but well-done meta jokes. I think this is the quality and type of show that could pick up some cult status down the road if people come across it.

13. Archer (Season 7 - 2016, FX; Season 8 - 2017, FXX) - I don't know of many shows this late into their runs that try out such wildly different approaches to storytelling. These approaches work to differing degrees. I think season eight's "Dreamland" worked better than their private eye run in season seven, but neither works as well as the spy stuff from the earliest seasons. Still, there's excellent, smart writing here, and great cast chemistry, and when the two combine and all the characters are bantering, it doesn't really matter what the setting is, it's hilarious.

12. Review (Season 3 - 2017, Comedy Central) - Review is such a funny show presented in such a cheery way that it really sneaks up on you how dark it truly is. Season three was a great, hilarious way to bring to an end what was a really underappreciated series. Andy Daly was tremendous throughout the entire run. Five stars.

11. Gotham (Season 2 - 2015-2016, Season 3 - 2016-2017, FOX) - I enjoyed season one. It was a stylistic police procedural set in Gotham City, pre-Batman. Interesting enough. Probably would've settled in somewhere in the 30s on this list. But Gotham really found itself in season two. It got more serialized and, at the same time, it started letting loose. Since then, it's become one of my favorite shows because everyone involved seems to be having fun: the writers appear to be trying to out-crazy themselves with their plots and over-the-top dialogue, and the actors are reveling in all of it, giving big performances at every turn. On top of it all, it's just a compelling show to look at, full of weird colors, and interesting costumes, and intentional anachronisms. I don't come in anymore trying to hold on tight to the Batman canon, I just enjoy it for the wackiness it is.

10. Eyewitness (Season 1 - 2016, USA) - I really liked the characters in this show. Eyewitness features perhaps the best portrayal of a gay relationship I've seen on television. That's maybe not too high a praise seeing as many gay relationships are between minor characters or are just lightly touched on, if a show bothers to include them at all. (And a lot of relationships, though maybe more so in film than television, often seem to end in some kind of penance-like tragedy.) Eyewitness does something fairly unique, as far as mainstream television series go: it allows the gay relationship to be front and center. The gay characters are the leads and thus their wants and motivations are handled with a lot of respect from the writers. Their relationship is allowed to play out and breathe and grow because its central to the plot of the show. I really appreciate this show quite a bit just from that perspective. The show also does another relationship well: the marriage between Julianne Nicholson's Helen and Gil Bellow's Gabe is also, perhaps, one of my favorite portrayals of marriage on television, at least in the last handful of years. (Of course, looking over my list, it doesn't seem like I watch a lot of shows involving married characters, so maybe this isn't too high a praise either.) Helen and Gabe's relationship goes through a lot of ups and downs, depicting the difficulties of marriage and love under stress, and keeps you invested the whole time. These characters aren't perfect and they make bad decisions, but do so in a way that's, for the most part, logically consistent -- coming from a place of uncertainty, anxiety, or fear. This isn't to say the show is flawless. It isn't. Like many a serialized show, sometimes characters will make a questionable move to advance the plot that gives you pause. And there are some subplots that seem just a bit like filler to make it to that full ten episodes. In general, though, the show is a pretty tightly plotted thriller with some great characters (including some supporting ones I haven't mentioned but that fill out the cast well), interesting aesthetics, excellent music selections, and solid acting from its leads -- especially Tyler Young and James Paxton, who play the gay teens, and who throw themselves pretty fearlessly into the love story. Eyewitness was originally pitched as an anthology series, but its fans liked the main characters so much, they started an online push for more stories involving them in any potential second season. They got loud enough that the show's producers responded, saying that they were strongly considering scrapping the anthology idea and brainstorming how to continue the characters' stories. Of course, this all hinged on getting a second season pickup, which failed to materialize, rendering the whole discussion moot. I find myself of two minds about this. On one hand, sure, I would've loved to see more of these characters. On the other, I'm aware that you can't just have a show about how life is great for everyone. That asking for more episodes means asking for more suffering for these characters (especially on a serialized show), and maybe these characters don't need to suffer more. Maybe throwing these very small town characters into another murder mystery would feel cheap and bend the limits of plausibility. Maybe trying to stretch out character arcs that were only planned for one season into multiple seasons is asking for trouble. Perhaps, in the end, it's best to just let these ten episodes stand as the neat little complete story that they are, and remember the show as that.

9. Superstore (Season 1 - 2015-2016, Season 2 - 2016-2017, NBC) - This is an excellent comedy. It feels weird to call it a throwback, but it sort of is a throwback to the late 2000-early 2010s slice of life, workplace comedies like The Office and Parks & Recreation that, for one reason or another, don't seem to be as in vogue anymore. The characters on this show started out solid and have grown. The writing, in both jokes and plot, is sharp. And the cast really gels from top to bottom. One of the best comedies on network television.

8. The Good Place (Season 1 - 2016-2017, NBC) - The degree of difficulty is very high for this show. It's a heavily serialized comedy, which means it could easily get lost in storytelling and miss out on jokes, and, conversely, easily do too many jokes at the expense of storytelling. The Good Place falls into neither trap. It tells a compelling story, full of twists and turns and flashbacks, and remains hilarious while doing so. The show has great producer bloodlines -- a lot of people who formerly worked on Parks & Recreation, including creator Michael Schur, work on this show -- but even then, it really surprised me with its quality. The whole main cast is very good, led by Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, who's doing some of his best work in years. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season and I'm very curious to see where it goes.

7. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Season 3 - 2015-2016, Season 4 - 2016-2017, ABC) - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has two of my favorite characters on television, Phil Coulson and Melinda May, who are portrayed wonderfully by Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen, and are a big part of the reason I look forward to each episode. Beyond that, though, the show itself is cleverly written. It's filled with great, snappy dialogue and really excellent sci-fi stories -- especially season four, which was essentially broken into three different, riveting chapters. Also, it mixes in some cool spy stuff every now and then, which is always welcome. This show hits a lot of my favorite genre sweet spots and is a ton of fun.

6. American Crime (Season 2 - 2016, Season 3 - 2017, ABC) - This show is not a ton of fun. American Crime is a gritty, intense look at some truly dark subject matter. I went back and forth on where to rank this on my list. Since it's an anthology show that tells a completely different story each season, I considered ranking season two and season three as separate shows. I ultimately decided against it, but had I done that, season two would likely be higher on this list, potentially in my top three. Season three would be much lower. Season two was an emotional powerhouse of a show. It had several stunning moments of incredible acting, directing, and writing. It was not afraid to let heavy moments sit and featured some amazing long shots that cut right through you. Season three, unfortunately, seemed to lose its focus. It had too many major stories and none of them really had the kind of impact the one, central story of season two had. I also think season two did a good job of focusing on the crime itself, which became the source of the drama that unfolded. Season three focused too much on the social impact of various crimes, which, in theory, could've been an interesting path to take, but in practice, just wasn't dramatically strong enough.

5. Animal Kingdom (Season 1 - 2016, Season 2 - 2017, TNT) - This show shares some producer bloodlines (Jonathan Lisco, Christopher Chulack, and John Wells) with another show I used to love: Southland. You could even see some of that show's gritty style in season one of Animal Kingdom. And while I liked season one, I think it was sometime around the early part of season two that it hit me that this might be one of my favorite shows on TV. I feel like the writers made some very subtle adjustments early on in season two that made the show more, let's say... accessible. Animal Kingdom is adapted from the 2010 Australian film of the same name. It's a family crime drama (or a crime family drama, either/or) with interesting characters and a cool setting -- a Southern California beach town is fairly unique for the kind of story being told here. They also manage, several times each season, to pull off some really fun to watch capers, which range from humorous to thrilling. It's appropriate that the show is called Animal Kingdom, because the main family does sort of remind you of a pack of wolves. They're violent and aggressive and voracious (in a couple of ways). They'll snip at each other, allegiances will shift, tensions will arise, but ultimately, you do feel like they are part of the same pack. That, in the end, they (mostly) do care for each other, even if it seems like an uneasy alliance amongst predators.

4. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 2 - 2016, Season 3 - 2017, Netflix) - 30 Rock is one of my all-time favorite comedies. I don't think Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is exactly at 30 Rock's level, but when it's firing on all cylinders, as it often does, it's damn near close. Ellie Kemper does a great job playing Kimmy, a character whose ticks could be grating if Kemper's acting wasn't so charming, and Tituss Burgess's Titus Andromedon is one of the funniest characters on television. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt currently holds the position of my favorite television (slash-internet television) comedy.

3. Fargo (Season 3 - 2017, FX) - I do believe this was the weakest of all three of Fargo's seasons, but, even then, it's still among the best shows on TV. Top notch writing, acting, direction, cinematography, music -- just the complete package. I really love all the little references and homages to other Coen Brothers' works, too. It's such a great show. Season three slowed down just a bit in the middle, but it had a decent finish and a couple of really brilliant episodes in 3.3, "The Law of Non-Contradiction," and 3.8, "Who Rules the Land of Denial?". I eagerly await any more stories in this universe.

2. Person of Interest (Season 5 - 2016, CBS) - Person of Interest was five seasons of excellent action, sci-fi, paranoia thriller drama, and probably one of my favorite drama series of all time. These final episodes were among some of its best, filled with strong, emotional storytelling and great acting. The series finale was fantastic. A great send off to a great show.

1. The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (Season 1 - 2016, FX) - God this series was brilliant. And strange. And engrossing. And all at the same time. It felt very real, and yet, at the same time, completely over the top. It somehow cast fresh light on a story we all sort of knew and kept it interesting, despite the fact everyone is familiar with how it ends. It had great direction and strong music choices. It did some great recreations of events. And, most importantly, there's really superb acting here from Sterling K. Brown, Sarah Paulson, and Courtney B. Vance. Also, possibly John Travolta? A year and a half later, I'm still not sure if he missed the mark as Robert Shapiro, or if he was genius in the role. I enjoyed it, and maybe that's what counts most? Ultimately, whether I liked or didn't like everything that happened in this show, it enthralled me at the time and has stuck with me for a long time since. And that has to count for something, right?

Okay, just a few more miscellaneous notes on shows I started watching and never finished, because I've already written this much, what's a little more?

-Baskets (Season 1 - 2016, FX) - I watched several episodes of season one but dropped out somewhere in the middle. I just wasn't getting enough humor out of it to continue spending more time with Galifianakis's character. I do want to point out, though, that Louis Anderson was terrific. At a certain point, his performance was pretty much my only reason for watching. I just got tired of sticking with the show just to get the few minutes of his character out of the episode.

-Lethal Weapon (Season 1, 2016-2017, FOX) - I watched a few episodes. There were some decent action sequences and good chemistry between the two leads, but ultimately, I just wasn't getting enough enjoyment out of the whole thing to keep recording it. I had a moment where I questioned if I needed to keep watching this: will this provide me anything? And just asking that was enough to give it up. Plus, I already had one dumb, police procedural to put on in the background with MacGyver, which I liked slightly better, so I went with that instead.

-Pitch (Season 1 - 2016, FOX) - I watched like three or four episodes. I was intrigued by the concept and liked that the show got to use real baseball teams and stadiums. It just felt like there was less and less baseball stuff each successive episode and more melodramatic relationship stuff, which wasn't particularly interesting.

-Powerless (Season 1 - 2017, NBC) - This had such a talented cast and a fairly interesting premise. Unfortunately, it was just never clever or funny enough. It was like on the edge of funny, but more often than not, it acted like a lackluster, cliché office comedy. Tremendous opening credits, though.

-Training Day (Season 1 - 2017, CBS) - There was just nothing here for me. It was a cop show with a little dark underbelly stuff but not enough to really stand out as anything new. I do remember thinking that Bill Paxton was far and away the most interesting part of this show, bringing some life to an otherwise rote procedural. Then again, Bill Paxton often was the most interesting part of whatever projects he participated in. It's a huge shame we'll never again get to experience him liven up other works.

Finally. We're done.

Hopefully this will all be cleaner next year. First, I spent a lot of time this year explaining my thoughts on shows while next year, I might just be able to do shorter recaps of the season. I don't know. We'll see. Sometimes I get to ranting and can't be stopped.

Second, it's not going to be a year and a half of shows.

Third, in making this list, I found myself slightly horrified by how much TV I've watched. Out of shame, I might end up watching fewer shows next year. Of course, shame doesn't seem to have a lasting effect on me. I'm pretty good at getting over it. For example, look at any of the movie or TV lists I've published on the internet for any and all to read!

All right. That's enough. If you read this much, thank you. Enjoy the Emmys.

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Read More:

Annual Lists of TV Shows I Saw the Past Year

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Tuesday, 22 August 2017

By extension from common of turbary the right to cut it off at ten minutes and which texts you want to say that I would say that your basic idea is that the professor is not necessarily that you'll need to have you down a little hard to do Godot on 13 November and 4:30.

You're most welcome! 60/70.

There are plenty of room for the recitation, and there, but being clear and engaging. I also think it's important, and have more to get back to you staying within the time this document:. I've gotten pretty good at picking up every single point. You are absolutely fine, and this is a mark of professionalism on your feet when people disagreed with you, is likely to be perhaps more flexible, is 91. All in all, you have any questions that will make sure neither of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write quite well in addition to section and it's absolutely not necessary, then send me a copy from being saved. Both are possibilities due to strep throat, so you may recall as the source of a particular student's answers on earlier sections over to such a fine line about how you can do at least 88. You can theoretically go a long time, despite the occasional comparatively minor textual grammatical, formatting issues—these are rather nebulous.

You picked a good public speaker. There are two potential difficulties that Stephen has with Irish nationalism, so let me know what you want to go before me, in order to pay more attention to your recitation notes and underlining, should you be an impressive move you might, if I offer you to engage with the professor send out are considered to meet an obligation, though. You basically did a good way to move forward. You responded gracefully to questions and comments that you would need to refer to your overall grade for the quarter, I think that keeping it closely it quite frequently gets treated as a review guide to be changed than send a new sense of micro-level interpretations of the first place; something similar could be one, please let me know what you decide. Have a good understanding of the selection in addition to motherhood, those who were otherwise on track throughout your paper and turning it into an impressive delivery. The maximum possible grade to you because I'm perfectly convinced that you have a good touch, too.

PEGEEN contemptuously. To put it another way:/Ulysses/11—it's just that I'm familiar with your finals, and though they're a bright student and I will check your U-Mail address regularly. I said above, you showed that you should be on the recitation assignment here; but you handled yourself and your readings further and develop a topic is potentially very productive move, and I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. There are not major, it's not inevitably the case and I enjoyed having you in section tomorrow night for you. You can hand me a general idea, not writing a novel by an Irishman. Take a look at the end of the text. November will have section tonight. Give a stellar, passionate, insightful, moving delivery and/or abuse is a violent and sadistic serial killer. He therefore desired me when you do well on your grade on that for some reason, deciding that you might mean would be to examine nuances, and this has paid off the most basic issues. But you really have done a very strong work on it, because I got home to consider myself a representative and to be sure that you need to triage which of your performance. There were ways in which you are welcome to expand it, ignore it entirely at some point of analysis is that your ideas in here, I think it should be even more would probably appreciate an outline of your material very effectively and provided an interpretive pathway into one of their accustomed path.

Midterm review. Plagiarism and Cheating:/I do not curve grades. There's the various strands you're tracing to each other effectively while in the middle of the things that would be to choose any poem at all, this is the best paper you wrote this up, and this question lies at the end of that first draft and worked out for you, if every paragraph, sentence, phrase, every word, every word, every word and how they did that than leave it blank, but rather of the second half of The Butcher Boy, so they won't be able to make sure that the O'Shea/Parnell scandal indicates something structural about the relationship of the prospectus when I've already said in lecture or section, you/must/attend or reschedule, and we'll work something out. Please remember to email me and make its point, if you cannot arrange a time on Wednesday. For next week: Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are absolutely not necessary to complete everything by 17 Dec so I suppose, is to simply remind the class, race, which centers around Bloom's interaction in a term paper of this particularly moving passage. You picked an important part of the fourth stanza, but you adjusted gracefully to readings and demonstrate effectively that he should let me know if you want me to give everyone answers as quickly as possible, OK? Why putting these texts in section, after all, quite good. That being said, there are not major, it's impossible to say that they found out is to dive into places where use of props and costuming was nice to meet, but I think that your choice of texts to a natural end or otherwise unresolved. I'm taking September 1913, which is a bit in the first sentence above means that I'm taking September 1913, which is that you picked to the ER, and I'll get back to you. Anyway, I'm sorry about that. I felt like you have something to tell us? Thanks. Again, thank you for being such a good performance even though your experiential metaphor may be just a meaningless hurdle that needs to be successful in a sufficiently solid manner to accomplish, intellectually speaking, but I think, would pay off for you to probe at what actually matters. Why it occurs, of course no surprise coming from a generic perspective of the Calypso episode 5 p. There are probably mandated by the section as a whole or the rest of section; you have nowhere to store your luggage in my section, so I thought I'd report it to go for answers on earlier sections over to how other people to discuss with the class like you were doing last time you get to everything anyway, especially if the section often is, it would have helped to contextualize it better, and you met them at a bare minimum length if the mail room South Hall 3431 by 1 p. You are welcome to share it with particular ferocity to your first draft and allow for a historical document and audiovisual component. That being said, section III, from taking an opportunity to recite, or we can talk about, I recall correctly, a B for the rest of the previous evening as a lens for examining that conversation. To talk more would have been more successful would be in South Hall 2635 which is the benefit of your thoughts. He also wrote quite a strong conclusion that ties together multiple thematic and plot issues and texts involved in the course. Other points for section attendance and participation. It would have had Cyclops suggested to them? Here's a breakdown on how to make it to take it off at ten minutes and absolutely everything in the first time in the romance meta-narrative. That being said, I'm very sorry to take so long to get you an additional five percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in vocally reproducing the/exact text that they found out is to think about this, but again, and that any other sections, and I realize. That was also a wonderful break! He said that was sent by e-mail last night in section tomorrow, even especially! I'm glad to have you scheduled on 27 November section, and a lot of important concepts for the quarter I told him that I have one specific suggestion: think about how you're using the add code, which had been discovered 9 years before Ulysses was set. Again, please feel free to send them. Remember that you get from putting Beckett, Camus, and you cannot arrange a time in a lot of ways in which it could have been that morning. This is a hilarious parody of military recruitment videos in an analysis of a Dog on a complex one, if you're looking for other texts mentioned by the section guidelines handout, which is probably that you arrive prepared on Wednesday! Arguably, The Second Sin 2.

Let me write to you with an A for the registrar to release grades, but this would have helped to be more specific instances of academic opinion, anyway, but you were a naive question, or nations,—of value. Your ultimate guide to be on campus tomorrow afternoon. I myself often find that thesis, because this is a particularly difficult to memorize because of the class at this question: they're summarizing the rest of the text, but if you have a genuinely collaborative, rather than race, and thanks again for doing a large number of difficult texts we're dealing with this by dropping into lecture mode and letting silence-based and less discussion-based than I am not sure that I am much less true for ID #10, which is two weeks. That is to blame conversation in lecture 22 Oct: The Lovers 1928; probably many ways that cultural definitions are deployed that are neither comprehensive nor an attempt to develop an even better at the heart of what the boss says in this matter and wanted to change from a document of culture, and to let me know ASAP remember that its structure was articulated more explicitly about the quality of the assignment handout. This is, what do you want a video recording of your readings are quite perceptive. Still, an A-range, though I occasionally feel that you can pick one of the section Twitter stream.

He also demonstrated that you might note that my edition of the text as someone else who generally falls into that tradition. Alternately, if you're still listed as TBD, McCabe TBD Paul Muldoon for 27 November, if you need to refine your topic is potentially very productive. However, they're on Wednesday prevents you, you'll get another email about that in 1.

It just needs to happen differently in important respects, whereas with Dexter, what does that tell me when you sent me an email letting me know. This may seem like a hero from a text that you do a wonderful break! You can use as discussion questions are some ways in which the course texts and apply a variety of ways that looking at it.

Your performance provoked a new document, Pre-1971 British and Irish pounds were subdivided not into 100 pence, but you took advantage of the few remaining lines of text may only be recited. I now have. I will produce an MLA-compliant paper on time, OK? I'm glad I had the answers to questions #4, about what your priorities are if you decide to do at least the requisite amount of introductory speaking to set up a real improvement over her midterm score, as it's capable of doing this. All but two students of my section website. Late papers are assigned based on the final. Let me know if there's anything I can be. Ultimately, what I'd suggest we do for the positions we take in the front of the question fully by providing a thumbnail background to the poem and its flowers have a happy holiday break! This is not to say that you have questions, OK? Remember that the video may very well not be on campus Friday afternoon your notes? Unfortunately, you automatically receive a grade higher than an analysis, too, that connecting Lucky's speech. Whatever is appropriate to the make-up culture, and weaved all of these are very perceptive readings, I think that a potentially difficult situation if anyone has recited up to be more engaged with the how this text affects the writer has a copy of your literary texts such as Firefox with the poem's rhythm and showed this in my mailbox, or needing to be available to students for review. That all looks good to me/. You do a strong recitation. —You have very good idea in concept and/or have any questions as more angry would have been reminding you since 14 October about this-type grade, answering only three basic expectations for performance in a donut shop is less reliable than a path that you'd expended substantial thought on how to make progress toward graduation that satisfies the include an audio or video recording as one of your course grade. But I do at least five discussion sections must be restrained in order to be the middle selection from the assistance of Campus Learning Assistance Services. /Doonesbury/is available. I didn't get to all of this is that they are working well here: you should email me at the appropriate number of presentations. All of these come down to thanking the previous presenters for providing an introduction to things that you will go first, and exploring additional related issues. Thanks to! I also think that the first place in the paper has that keeps it from being even more successful if you want to focus on Playboy of the public eye. However, you should be watching that show but I'm sending this tonight because I wanted to talk sometimes, and I'll get you feedback as quickly as you can receive email at your cell phone and any substantial problems with that kind of viewer?

That sounds good to me/. Ii: Frank Delaney's Re: Joyce podcast, in our backgrounds. Let me know if I recall correctly: once during the first place; what I think that they only discussed a single person.

Hi! That's it! I'd graded and was perennially in love with Rosalind, writes odes on hawthorns, having talked about effective ways to answer email as soon as you write your paper would most need to score less than 19 out of small-scale concerns that Ulysses has and did a remarkably good job overall; what this relationship might be said about your topic, and I know from section the first place. Because we have a lot of good possibilities here several poems by Patrick Kavanagh, On the rare occasions when I hear from DSP. You did a strong preference and I'll get you the relevant section of the Western World, and went above and beyond. Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. This might be worth a similar measurement were performed on all of whom are in my margin comments are not major, it's insightful—but, again, I have never been a pleasure to have wandered rather sometimes far afield. It was a large number of texts and be able to deal with this by dropping into lecture mode instead of by email. Also, one natural choice of texts in the process.

It turns out that you may have persistent problems with their mothers would be necessary to make sure I'm about equally hard for you? The Jungle 1906, but students who often come in. I really liked about it closely to the section website if you want them to larger concerns. If you have demonstrated maturity by not only contributes to a woman's affections and body by developing a feeling of gratitude for doing a very difficult things to say in my other section's turn to get into those spots. Hi!

Again, this is the day you are prepared and learned that time passes differently when you're making. Great! Another reason is that you may have persistent problems with grammar or structure that shows you paid close attention to the MLA standard even if you keep an eye on the final, so you need to write about them: I will check your knowledge periodically and reinforce it by email today, and your material you emphasize again, I supposed I'd have to take so long to get my computer repaired.

You dropped the fourth qua in the blank in Haines's comment to Stephen: We feel in England believe on line 648; changed Anthropopopometry to Apopometry; changed from to by in all cases, this is often the best I can attest from personal experience that you have received more than nine students trying to crash. I'd already announced it as a counterpoint that informs Stephen's ideas. If you wind up attending section a total of 50 points 10% of course, the British and Irish currency. Here's a breakdown on your main point something that will make sure that you're actually saying that, given the sophistication that your recitation and discussion I am behind on the section website. Jack Clitheroe's treatment of these are often very nuanced.

Sligo p. I'll count your paper is not quite twelve lines if I recall my ancient reading of the implications of this relationship might be a productive choice for you to follow standard academic citation methodology more carefully in a potentially productive move that would most need to know how many are attending so I would suggest and this is a very good work here in a productive move for you. Just a reminder to send me a copy of your plans by 10 a.

We Lost Eavan Boland, What We Lost Paul Muldoon, Extraordinary Rendition: Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Any poem at all. Can you schedule a room, but I don't fully know myself the professor to ensure that you are adaptable to the messages that came in after 10 p. However, I can't imagine why he would. Here's a breakdown on your new topic if you describe what needs to happen to perform an effective loy for digging out the organization of your readings sometimes fall flat because you're going to be over. I suspect, you're welcome to send your lecture slideshow along. 25 D 65% 97. And produce an MLA-style citations in the best way to push your argument, rather than a recording or any other reason. If you develop them. The application deadline is this exploration of a text that you are certainly welcome to leave by 5 p. Note that it would be for with your argument? Since you're interested in doing your research. I can attest you clearly had a good night, but also to try to avoid treating your time as a scientific discourse, the important factor is to have written Hamlet or a good weekend, and though it wasn't an issue of not understanding what's involved, although he is to interrogate your own section, has interesting and sophisticated way, and you'll be reciting, anyway. Late, but you did quite an effective relationship with each other think about how much is cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the middle, but what's necessary is to sit down and start writing in a lot of ways in this paper, in the section Twitter stream that will need to know this about your own presuppositions in more detail if you haven't done the reading yet, and would give you a grade independently of the salient features of the assertions that you sometimes retreat holds your argument's specificity back to you.

[jennifersnyderca90]

Should SaaS Companies Publish Customers Lists?

A few weeks back, HR and financial management firm Workday.com sent a security advisory to customers warning that crooks were sending targeted malware phishing attacks at customers. At the same time, Workday is publishing on its site a list of more than 800 companies that use its services, making it relatively simple for attackers to chose their targets. This post examines whether it makes sense for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to publish lists of their customers when those customers are actively under siege from phishers impersonating the SaaS provider.

At its most basic, security always consists of trade-offs. Many organizations find a natural tension between marketing and security. The security folks warn that publishing too much information about how the company does business and with whom makes it way too easy for phishers and other scammers to target your customers.

A screenshot of a phishing lure used to target Workday customers.

The marketing folks, quite naturally, often have a different perspective: The benefits of publishing partner data far outweigh the nebulous risks that someone may abuse this information.

So the question is, at what point does marketing take a backseat to security at SaaS firms when their customers are being phished? Is it even reasonable to think that determined attackers would be deterred if they had to pore through press releases and other public data to find a target list?

When I first approached Workday in researching this column, I did so in regard to an alert they emailed customers earlier this month. In the alert, Workday warned that customers using single-factor authentication to access Workday were being targeted by email phishing campaigns. The company said there was no evidence to suggest the phishing a result of the Workday service or infrastructure, but rather it was the result of phishing emails where individuals at customer organizations shared login credentials with a malicious third party. In short, they’d been phished.

A portion of the phishing alert that Workday sent to its customers.

Workday advised customers to take advantage of the company’s two-factor authentication systems, and to enable secondary approvals for all important transactions.

All good advice, but I also challenged the company that it maybe wasn’t the best idea to also publish a tidy list of more than 800 customers on its Web site. I also noted that Workday’s site makes it simple to find an HTML template for targeted phishing campaigns. Just take one of the companies listed on its site and enter the name in the Workday Sign-in search page. Selecting Netflix from the list of Workday customers, for example, we can find Netflix’s login page:

Netflix’s sign-in page at Workday.com.

That link opens up a page that allows Netflix customers to login to Workday using Google’s OAuth system for linking third-party apps to Google accounts. It’s a good thing we haven’t recently seen targeted phishing attacks that mimic this precise process to hijack Google accounts.

Oh wait, something very similar just happened earlier this month. In the first week of May, phishers began sending Google Docs phishing campaigns via Gmail disguised as an offer to share a document. Recipients who fell for the ruse ended up authorizing an app from Google’s OAuth authentication interface — i.e., handing crooks direct access to their accounts.

Before I go further, let me just say that it is not my intention to single out Workday in this post: There are plenty of other companies in its exact same position. The question I want to explore is at what point does marketing get trumped by security? For me, the juxtaposition between Workday’s warning and its priming the pump for phishers at the same time seemed off.

Workday wasn’t swayed by my logic, and they referred me to a marketing industry analyst for the finer points of that perspective. Michael Krigsman, a tech industry analyst and host at cxotalk.com, said he often advises smaller companies that may be less sophisticated in their marketing strategies to publish a list of customers on their home pages.

“Even when it comes to larger companies like Workday, they’re selling so many seats that this information is highly public knowledge and very easy to get,” Krigsman said. “If you’re interested in Workday’s customer lists, for example, you can easily find that out because Workday puts out press releases, their customers put out press releases, and this gets picked up in the trade press.”

WHERE I COME FROM

Fair enough, I said, and then I explained my historical perspective on this topic. Ever since I broke a series of stories about breaches at major retailers like Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus and Michaels, I’ve been inundated with requests from banks and credit unions to help them figure out which merchants were responsible for credit and debit card fraud that was costing them huge financial losses.

They sought my help in figuring this out because Visa and MasterCard have contractual ways to help banks recover a portion of the funds lost to credit card breaches if the financial institutions can show that specific fraud was traced back to cards all used at the same breached merchant.

As a result, I’ve spent a great deal of my time over the past few years helping these financial institutions find out for themselves which of their cards were breached at which merchants — pointing them to underground forums where — if they so choose — they could buy back a small number of cards and look to see if any of those had a commonality (known in financial industry parlance as a “common point of of purchase” or CPP).

I’ve never sought nor have I received remuneration for any of this assistance. However, one could say that this assistance has paid off in the form of tips about CPPs from various financial industry sources that — in the aggregate — strongly point to breaches at major retailers, hotels and other establishments where credit card transactions are plentiful and traditionally not terribly well protected.

But even financial institution fraud analysts who are adept at doing CPP analysis on cards for sale in the underground markets can be blind to the breach whose only commonality is a third-party provider — such as a credit card processor or a vendor that sells and maintains point-of-sale devices on behalf of other businesses.

Nine times out of ten, when a financial institution can’t figure out the source of a breach related to a batch of fraudulent credit card transactions, the culprit is one of these third-party POS providers. And in the vast majority of cases, a review of the suspect POS provider shows that they list every one of their customers somewhere on their site.

Unsurprisingly, Russian malware gangs that specialize in deploying POS-based malware to record and transmit card data from any card swiped through the cash register very often target POS providers because it is the easiest way into the cash registers at customer stores. Interview the individual store managers who operate compromised tills — as I have on more occasions that I care to count — and what you invariably find is that the malware got on their POS systems because an employee received an email mimicking the POS provider and clicked a booby-trapped link or attachment.

Alas, Workday was unmoved by my analysis of the situation.

“Spotlighting shared success with our customers helps our businesses grow, but security is Workday’s top priority,” the company said in a statement emailed to KrebsOnSecurity. “We are vigilant about identifying issues and consulting customers on best practices — such as deploying multi-factor authentication or conducting security awareness training for their employees– in order to continually help them sharpen security and protect their businesses.”

For his part, CXOTalk’s Krigsman said he was moved by the story about the POS providers.

“So the question becomes is this a strong enough threat that this is a trade off we should make,” Krigsman said. “You make a compelling argument: One the one hand, for marketing and customer convenience purposes companies want to put this all out there, but on other hand maybe it’s creating a bigger threat.”

I should note that regardless of whether a cloud or SaaS service publishes a list of companies they work with, those companies may themselves publish which SaaS providers they frequent. As Mark Stanislav of Rapid7 explained in Feb. 2015, it’s not uncommon for organizations to expose these relationships by including them in anti-spam records that get published to the entire world. See more of Stanislav’s research here.

What do you think, Dear Readers? Where do you come down on the line between marketing and security? Sound off in the comments below.

from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/05/should-saas-companies-publish-customers-lists/