#I’m so done with tumblr man why do you come in here with your dissertation extracts trying to ‘catch people out’

[evansbby]

hi I don’t think basing your entire view of white men on one dumbass is a productive thing to do. Personally this whole identity politics thing is not just reductive to the experiences huge cross section of coloured people especially women, but also to “white people”. Brits and different from Europeans who are different from Australians who are different from Americans. Not to mention how these groups are themselves incredibly diverse. Women of colour get shafted in a lot of places even by their own communities, sometimes especially by their own communities. They surely also get orientalised and fetishised by “white” people. However telling young women of colour things like “they don’t want to be seen with us” or “they don’t want to take us back home” just plays into the comfort of identity politics and screws their opinion of inter racial or inter national relationships, which very much should be the norm. Not to mention assumes white people are a monolith or that the term “white” is in any capacity appropriate to group people. White is a concept. Anyway I’m sorry Chris Evans has such a reductive view of WOCs. But super imposing Hollywood, especially American media, on the world is not only misguided but only going to screw up how we approach people which cultural differences in romantic contexts, and propagates the idea that “white culture” exists the way it does in America all over the world. “White” is not a thing. It’s a concept based on exclusion.

bestie i just woke up…

i didn’t say anything wrong, it was MY experience not based on him but how it reminded me of how white boys IN REAL LIFE have acted with me and countless of my friends… or did you completely skip that part?

i refuse to be gaslit lmfao all i did was state my opinion in my tags of my personal experiences and how i don’t agree with the jamal thing. i don’t need you coming here with your university thesis and fancy wording trying to act all superior and condescending and accusing me of something you KNOW wasn’t my intention.

[sparklyshakespeare]

the case for hyper-femme hotspur

this is my tumblr blog and this is like kind of just what we do heresies

OK so basically okay so

first of all i think anytime there is a character who is so strongly associated with an extreme form of gender expression in our collective zeitgeist (i.e hotspur and hyper-masculinity) there’s something not only extremely fun to play with but incredibly valuable about analyzing the story from the opposite end of the gender performance specturm. also canonically there are like 3 female characters in 1h4 and that sucks. also also don’t you want to see hotspur in pink glitter? i know i do and this tumblr is not a democracy!!

in this hypothetical dream sparkly version of the play, both hotspur and worcester would be women. not played by women, i mean textually explicitly women. this is important!! 

worcester should be very nancy pelosi hillary clinton-esque in the way that this is a middle-aged woman who has been taught that to be successful in her field (politics) she will have to strip herself of most of her femininity and perform a certain level of masculinity in order to be taken seriously. this creates a whole other layer to the hotspur/worcester dynamic when all of a sudden this young, hyper-feminine woman is being taken more seriously and being given more praise than someone who has worked and fought through the bullshit and done it all “right”. she hasn’t earned her place, she hasn’t had to struggle - and worcester resents her for that. (there’s like a whole dissertation to be written about how much of 1h4 changes when only worcester is genderbent, i love you queen worcester you are everything not in this version here you kind of suck lowkey)

henry iv is just a misogynist he just kinda sucks but like this is something we all knew screw that guy

ok now we can talk about hal because i know hes like the one all you little gay people care about. 

to me, it’s never made sense why the Henriad is framed as hal’s hero’s journey. maybe it’s because i’m queer (i’m like actually positive that’s why), but leaving home and finding acceptance and family from a group of outsiders who society has deemed as worthless is the path i’ve watched so many friends walk. having to leave that and return to your shitty dad because “duty calls!” and THEN leaving behind and disavowing the same community that opened its arms to you? i don’t see that as an awesome coming-of-age about learning how to handle responsibility, that’s deeply, deeply tragic. and far farrrrr too true a reality for most members of our LGBTQ+ community here (Bible Belt). SO guess where this version of 1h4 is set!!!!!! anyways, its the Medieval Revival of the ‘70s in the Bible Belt south, the Boar’s Head is a gay bar, and hal is trans. 

hal is trans-masc in some way and this needs to be incredibly explicit (like pronouns pin with trans flag on costume explicit). and then when the news breaks, when “I’ll to the court in the morning.” (we’re cutting the text so this is where that scene ends. cool? cool. cool!), hal takes the pin off. it needs to be like A Moment. it should make me cry, and i cry really easily so that’ll probably be pretty easy to do, but this is a gut punch. 

oh and lady percy is still a woman, they’re gay, because i said so. blah blah blah because look hotspur and hal really were so alike all along and look hotspur is fighting so voraciously because she’s hungry for a world where she can openly and unabashedly be with the person she loves but ultimately because i love lady percy and i love lesbians and this play doesn’t need another man. but also because look hotspur is fighting so voraciously because she’s hungry for a world where she can openly and unabashedly be with the person she loves. worcester and vernon should also both be women and have the blossoming of a relationship but be a lot more discreet about it (worcester should be extremely hesitant). now we get a cool split between younger and older generations of activists in both the feminist and the gay rights movement oooo themes oooo motifs oooo lady gagita 

as far as hal/hotspur parallels go, it’s probably pretty obvious at this point. your dad constantly praising someone who represents, at least in his mind, the ideal concept of a woman, disappointed you can’t be more like her, all the while you’re coming to terms with the fact that you’re not a woman, but he’ll never see that, so what the fuck are you supposed to do?!? it’s a LOT! but i think there’s also something to be said about the less obvious parallel. which is that hyper-femininity is NOT an attempt at ideal polite womanhood or self-Stepfordization, hyper-femininity is in fact the extreme performance of womanhood in rejection of that. hyper-femininity is queer in nature (also hotspur quite literally has a wife but i guess hal wouldn’t be able to tell that just by looking at her) there’s something to be said about the moment hal and hotspur see each other, and then the moment hal and hotspur seeeeeee each other. and go hey, you’re just like me. this person who you’ve been constantly compared to and made out to be lesser than  because you dare to be deeply wildly madly truly you is in fact exactly the same. we’re the same. and oh my god, in another world wouldn’t it have been lovely to just like go dancing together? sucks it’s not another world now we’re going to gay fight each other i guess

[amanda-glassen]

Mommy’s Personal Assistant

Written for my beautiful tumblr wife @ghostwritingcabenson because she and I are deep in our Serena and Baby Liv feels right now.

April 1973

Five-year-old Olivia spent her mornings as a preschool student, but once the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, she began her most important role of all: her mommy’s assistant. Her mommy worked a lot and spent most of her time in a classroom or at the library which meant Olivia would spend those afternoons with her babysitter or at daycare, so the days when her mommy got to do her work from home were an extra special treat for Olivia.  

Olivia never understood why grownups hated the commute to work. Her commute was always the highlight of her day. She would exit the school grounds and see her mommy waiting there for her and smiling. Her mommy would then crouch down to give her a hug and she would take in the comforting scent of her mommy’s floral perfume. Olivia didn’t know what type of flower it smelled like but she knew it had to be pretty like her mommy. They’d walk home hand-in-hand and her mommy would ask Olivia’s favorite question to answer, ‘What was your favorite thing that you learned in school today?’ She’d also talk about the games she played with her best friends Alex, Casey, Elliot, and Fin during free-play. If her mommy was in a particularly good mood that day, they’d stop for ice cream along the way.

But as soon as she got home or to the office as she liked to call it, Olivia knew it was time to get down to business. If they didn’t stop for ice cream, her mommy would make her lunch and, during that time, Olivia would go to her mommy’s desk and take stock of what needed to be replenished. First, she’d take the cover off of the typewriter and load a sheet of paper in it. Her mommy went through so much paper, especially when she’d get frustrated with what she typed. She’d crumble the paper and toss it in the wastebasket. Olivia didn’t understand why her mommy would get so frustrated but she figured it was probably because of those really big words that she had to type－words that Olivia couldn’t even pronounce, let alone know the definition of. 

Next, she’d get a stack of paper for the typewriter and some notebooks and make sure her mommy had enough pens and pencils within reach. On the first blank page of her notebook, Olivia would always write ‘I love you, Mommy’ because she knew it would make her mom smile when she saw it. “I love you, too, Livvy Bee,” her mommy would always tell her after reading it.

When the desk was ready, that meant it was time for her lunch and time for her mommy to get to work. Olivia knew her mommy was a teaching assistant and working on her dissertation. What it was about, Olivia had no idea, but last week her mommy had brought home a literary journal and told her to turn to page 10. On that page was an article written by Serena Benson. “Mommy, that’s you!” Olivia beamed with pride. “That’s me, darling,” Serena had told her. “...and I couldn’t have done it without you and the important job that you do.”

Olivia knew she played an integral role in their two-person team so as soon as she was finished with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she’d go back to her mommy’s desk and sit next to her. Olivia would bring her favorite books and some crayons and a coloring book to keep herself entertained during the next part of her job. The next couple of hours were the easy part because they mainly involved watching over her mommy and seeing if she needed anything. She liked bringing cookies and juice or veggies because it meant her mommy would take a break and eat with her, but Olivia’s favorite snack was potato chips because her mommy would make her laugh by making the chips look like a duck’s beak in her mouth. “You’re silly, Mommy! I wanna do it, too,” Olivia would tell her.

As time passed, Olivia noticed her mommy’s desk would get messy. There was paper and books and pencils scattered and her mommy would start to act differently. Her mommy who would usually act silly to make her laugh would start to become more serious. That was the time when Olivia would go to her room and play with her toys to give her mommy some more space to work. More than anything, she wished her mommy could play Hot Wheels or Tonka trucks with her, but because it was just the two of them, she knew her mommy had to work more than most mommies, so Olivia played in her room until it was time for bed.

Not wanting to bother her mommy, Olivia would usually change into her favorite Sesame Street pajamas, brush her teeth, and go to bed, but that night was different. 

“Livvy Bee, come here,” her mom called out to her when Olivia finished brushing her teeth. 

Instead of sitting at her desk, her mommy was getting ready for bed and smiling again. “Yes, Mommy?”

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” her mommy asked her.

Olivia immediately grabbed her teddy bear and returned to her mommy’s room to find her mommy sitting up in bed. “Can we read a book together?”

“Anything you want, darling.”

Olivia scanned the bookshelf, skipping over her mommy’s books because she thought they were boring. How anyone could like books with tiny print, long words, and no pictures was beyond Olivia. Instead, she grabbed a Paddington Bear book and sat down on the bed next to her mommy. She made sure to cuddle up as close as she could so she could rest her head on her mommy’s chest as she read the book to her. Whenever she did this, her mommy would give her kisses on the top of her head and playful little squeezes in between turning the page.

“Mommy, can I ask you something?”

“You can always ask me anything, Olivia.”

Olivia looked up at her mommy. “Why do you work so much? Is it because you’re not married to my daddy? Where is he?”

She noticed her mommy looked sad all of a sudden. “Sweetheart, your daddy…it’s hard for me to talk about him.”

Olivia got up so she could kiss her mommy’s tears. “I love you, Mommy. I just need you and not my daddy.”

Even though she was crying, her mommy started to smile again, which made Olivia wonder how grown ups could do that. “I just need you, too, Livvy Bee. And I’m not working a lot because you don’t have a daddy. I’m working a lot because this has been my goal since I was in high school. I’ve never needed a man in my life before and I don’t need one now. When you made that big LEGO tower, did you need a boy to help you?”

“No way!” Olivia scowled. “I can build a tower all by myself. I don’t need a boy to help me.”

“That’s exactly how I feel!” Her mommy started to tickle her which made her laugh until her tummy hurt.

“Mommy!” Olivia finally managed to say through her laughter.

“Olivia, there’s something I have to tell you,” her mommy said once they both stopped laughing. “It’s something I wish my mom would have told me when I was your age. Never let anyone tell you you can’t do something because you’re a girl. Girls can do anything boys can do, most of the time even better. When I was a little girl, I was told there were a lot of things I couldn’t do and now that I’m a grown woman I’m still being told there are things I can’t do, but there’s a lot of women in my generation that are trying to make it better so that when your generation of little girls is grown up, the world will be different and you’ll feel like you can be anything you want to be, even things that people right now say are only for boys.”

“Can I be a police officer?” Olivia asked. 

Her mommy gave her little kisses on the cheek that made Olivia giggle. “You’re the bravest and most caring kid I know so of course you can, Officer Benson.”

After one more story, it was time for what Olivia considered to be the most important part of her job. She had to make sure her mommy got a good night’s sleep so she let her cuddle her extra close because it helped her mommy fall asleep. 

“I love you, Mommy,” Olivia whispered after her mommy had closed her eyes.

But her mommy wasn’t asleep yet. Instead, she opened her eyes and smiled that smile that made Olivia feel warm and cozy inside because it meant that her mommy was happy. “I love you, too, Livvy Bee.”

[romewritingshop]

30 qs - 20 blogs

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better!

Well for the record, you are not under a contractual obligation so don’t worry 😆 I offer you immunity. I would love to get to know some of you and let you guys know me so thank you @what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil @withbeautyandrage @shewillreadyou @nikki-2406

I’m gonna tag five people:

@eleanorbloom (I love you and want to know more 🧡)

@drariellevalentine (I am slowly reading Medically Inevitable and I am loving it 💕)

@ladylamrian (Writing your request is a lot of fun and I hope you’ll enjoy it 💜)

@utterlyinevitable (You’re amazing and I’m absolutely in awe of your work 💙)

@melaninnntae (I love the way you react to my fics and I am in awe of your aesthetic 💛)

Name/Nickname: I go by Rome here but if you’re close, I’ll tell you my real name 😉

Gender: female (she/her) or (They/Them)

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius ♒

Height: 5′0 to 5′1 (I actually dk)

Birthday: Feb 3 (It’s actually coming up soon 😅)

Lucky Number: 3, 14

When did you create this blog?: 18 June 2020

What do I post?: Choices fanfics, a bunch of other fanfics (Might transfer those to AO3) Memes sometimes but important stuff, fanart. I have a sideblog: @romereadingshop where I reblog fics I enjoy reading or fanarts I like, more important reblogs on there.

Last thing I googled: “The Yorkshire Ripper” 😶 “easter chocolate usa” 😄 “yt” 🤦🏽‍♀️ 

Do I get asks?: No. I’ve gotten one or two recently but that’s about it. Nothing on my other blog. I would love asks. sounds pathetic but I’m starved of conversation. Would love an anon ask,

Why did I choose my URL?: My first original blog was chroma3 which was something Tumblr suggested. I had a sideblog I wanted to start where I did writing and posted my reviews of stuff but Tumblr sucked and I wanted my writing blog to be my main. So I deleted and restarted (Had around 314 followers on there) I write stuff and technically it’s a shop where you look around for fics to try so I stuck with Rome Writing Shop. It’s diverse and not limited to a single fandom. This is the name I’ll be known by and die by 😅 I don’t have the strength to change it.

My current projects and wips: 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 I have a dissertation and essays to complete but in terms of here: Some of the titles are on my masterlist with ‘Coming Soon’. At the moment, I’m writing Baking Love which I aim to release monthly and have a completed series. My Colt series, Meeting in Paradise is going to be retconned so I’m sorry if you wanted to read it. I’ll be deleting it soon and a new story line. I have 2 - 3 requests to write and one which I hope to finish soon and post.

Favorite artist(s) (atm): 

The Weeknd, especially with his new album After Hours. 

Michele Morrone 😍 

Shawn Mendes 🥰 

Lubalin (Really love his internet drama songs) 🤩

Song stuck in my head: 

'She stole my Broccoli’ - Lubalin (SLAPS HARD)

‘Love Faces’ - Trey Songz (Slowed version 🥴🥵)

‘Honey’ - Jessica Jimenez (🥵 Her voice)

Favorite song of all time: 

‘Hard for Me' - Michele Morrone (All versions because they all hold significance in my heart. Helped me heal through tough times)

‘Fallin’ All in You’ - Shawn Mendes (It is so romantic and honest and I just want to dance with someone on that song)

Last movie: My Neighbour Totoro (Still haven’t finished it 😅)

Last show: Bridgerton on Netflix 😂 (Cannot get over Simon) and Night Stalker (It’s about the Richard Ramirez case and it freaked the fuck out of me)

Favourite food: Anything with seafood

Food I hate: Some Asian curries 😬 Other than not much, also don’t like jalapeños

Favourite colour: Black, brown, blue, purple, green and red. The dark shades the better but I do like pink, yellow. I basically named all the colours of the rainbow 😂 I like shades more than specific colours. Hate strong pinks.

Favourite animal: Don’t really have a specific fav. I prefer foxes and really got into ferrets 😂 Animals with ✨ big ‘Fuck you’ energy ✨

What I’m currently wearing: A purple iron man shirt with black leggings. If you DM me, I’ll tell you my underwear 😂 If it was upto me, I’d wear a baggy shirt and underwear with socks.

Dream job: A writer at PB (I’m still salty at their treatment of books and POC characters) or an Editor at a publishing company. Become a part - time YouTuber

Dream trip: Anywhere snowy, like Austria, Norway or Switzerland. Also want to go to Iceland. They’ve got such pretty places there.

Currently Reading: Should change that to start but I’m gonna start reading Shakespeare’s stuff: King Lear, As you like it, Much Ado about Nothing

Currently thinking about: When will my [REDACTED] jumper come?, How much of a disappointment I am (Literally most of the time) My uncompleted deadlines and goals.

Fun Facts: Despite having a licence for two years, I don’t know how to drive. (Insurance was expensive and now I’m terrified to get behind the wheel)

I’m Muslim and Pakistani. People think I’m Indian, Goan, Punjabi (One time Arab) and they think I’m Christian or Hindu but I am a fairly religious Pakistani Muslim with liberal thoughts (To an extent, most people take advantage of my liberal opinions so I have to clarify to an extent)

Never had a boyfriend, dated or kissed anyone (Alone but I’ve done dare stuff)

Top three fictional universes: 

Choices (I want to be there with all my baes)

A world with Detectives, Murder and Mafia because I love mystery so I guess would that be Scooby Doo?

Detroit: Become Human universe or Almost Human. Love Androids with cops

[mittensmorgul]

When I talk about samwena, someone always says that their relationship is motherly, just like when I talk about destiel, someone always says that they are like brothers. Although I firmly believe that Sam and Rowena's relationship is not motherly, it bothers me that Rowena said "this is my boy" to Sam, because she also talked about Crowley, her son. Do you think this was an attempt by the writers to try to turn samwena into a mother-child relationship?

Aw, hi there! and I’m gonna start this by saying that I have written a lot on the subject, and none of it has seemed to change anyone’s mind, so I don’t know whether writing another long post on the subject will, either.

I’m putting this under a cut because it’s long-ish, and because I don’t need saileen shippers attacking me again... y’all have been warned if you don’t wanna read stuff that isn’t glowingly heart-eye’d about them... bearing in mind that I read all the positive saileen posts and just smile and nod politely at them and then move on with my life while shutting up about it...

(sorry about that... I edited this post for a typo and it seems to have messed up the read more cut...)

For years, we’ve watched the relationship between Sam and Rowena grow slowly, and it reached a point somewhere along the line where I couldn’t ignore the blatant romantic themes. The thing is, for me, their relationship can’t possibly work as her being “motherly” toward him. Because Sam has just as often been the provider of comfort/security to her as she has to him, you know?

I’ve seen a lot of people just flat out reject the read of their relationship as romantic, but I think that’s mostly because folks were clinging to the notion that Eileen was actually still alive. Granted, the fact that she had actually been dead all those years was only confirmed after Rowena’s death, but I think folks were dead set on them picking up their “romantic” relationship (which I don’t even think approached romantic in canon until Sam offered her that parting kiss, but again, that’s just me) and immediately were able to dismiss Rowena with that. Despite the fact that Sam (in canon, again) couldn’t just dismiss Rowena and strike up a relationship with Eileen (even after he verbally, repeatedly confirmed that he and Eileen were “not like that” after Dean’s prodding, a lot of people still only had heart-eyes for the two of them, and I get it, I really do, but I don’t see it, and can’t see it as ever having been romantic in canon before that point).

I personally do not think that Eileen will be back as Sam’s endgame love interest, and never have. I know that comment upsets a lot of people who cannot see a happy endgame for Sam without some sort of relationship with Eileen. But canon literally has not laid the groundwork for that. She could come back, he could call her at the end and suggest they give a relationship a try, but to me it would be just that-- not some Grand Romance that has been years in the making, but the very beginning of what could potentially be a happy life together. And I just find that... disappointing on so many levels. But again, that’s just me. If that’s what the show gives us, I’ll personally be incredibly meh about it.

In 15.03, as Rowena is attempting to convince Sam to kill her, to sacrifice her for the spell that was SUPPOSED to save the world, to finally free them from Chuck’s Final Punishment and heal the rift he opened into Hell, she sacrificed herself believing it would be to save Sam and the world. And the key thing to understand here is that her sacrifice did NOT end Chuck’s game of horrors for them. He was SUPPOSED to have left their world after that, and yet he didn’t. He just kept writing, destroying, and pushing them. Eileen was a pawn in his game. I can’t see her as anything more than that, as far as Sam goes anyway. In fact, her return prompted Sam to spend that entire episode thinking about Rowena, learning he was the only one able to enter Rowena’s home without being cursed by her security system. Had to bear the weight of the fact that he was the one who killed her, even if she basically had to force him to do so... Eileen being resurrected felt like cold comfort, especially when Sam still thought it had been Rowena’s one-time-use spell that had brought her back.

Learning that spell had been planted there by Chuck, after Sam had gone to Rowena’s in search of a crystal to trap Eileen’s soul for an eternity (better than going back to Hell or wandering the earth until she went vengeful), (which is admittedly not a very romantic start to any of this), and then learning that Rowena was first Queen in Hell and then had apparently lost control of the place by the next time Sam and Dean went to seek her help... I mean, the whole notion that Rowena was actually happy there is blown to shreds. 

Heck this is getting long, and I already wrote a dissertation on Rowena’s character (too long for tumblr, it’s on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641770). Somehow every time I start talking about Sam and Rowena’s romantic potential it always devolves into a dissertation on why I can’t see Sam and Eileen as a romantic potential, but that long essay is almost entirely about Rowena herself and has very little to do with shipping at all. I’m not interested in ship wars here. If y’all are happy thinking about Sam and Eileen together, congrats! I’ve written them as a couple in fic! They are cute together! But in canon, there’s no there there...

But back to Rowena, and that final line from 15.03:

ROWENA Hell's closing. The walls are falling. SAM There has to be another way. ROWENA I wish there were... I do. I don't care about anything enough to take my own life. Not you, your brother... not even the world. But I believe in prophecy. I believe in magic. And I'm here, and you're here, and everything we need to end this right is in our hands. [She puts the dagger in Sam’s hands and tries to get him to stab her.] ROWENA I know this in my bones... it has to be this way. Do it! Kill me, Samuel! [Sam hesitates. Rowena puts a hand on his shoulder.] ROWENA I know we've gotten quite fond of each other, haven't we? But will you let the world die, let your brother die, just so I can live? [...] SAM No. [He stabs her, crying. Rowena touches his face.] ROWENA That's my boy. [She twists the dagger where Sam stabbed her. Then, she takes it out.]

(and for every reason why I believe that entire conversation is key to Rowena as a character, again, see that long essay)

Rowena doesn’t do “fond.” She wields flirtations as defensive weapons. She manipulates and shields herself with favors and sensuality. I mean, remember every man she’s had flirtations with-- from the men she’d attempted to con into relationships in order to take them for everything they were worth to flirting with the most powerful being in the room from Chuck right on down to Cas. We know her history, from Crowley’s birth story to how she’d survived for hundreds of years by ingratiating herself to those wealthier and more powerful. Remember those witches in 12.11 who’d basically used her up and dumped her out again. But with Sam? With Sam she’d never made a power play. She’d never aggressively come on to him, never felt the need to assert herself to control him or defend herself from him. He was the only person she’d ever been entirely honest with, about her fears and her concerns.

Sam was the only person, possibly in her entire life, that she trusted fully.

And in return, Sam literally held her life in his hands. Nobody else had the power to kill her, and that is a fuckton of trust to have in someone you will then refer to as “fond of each other.”

I mean, honestly

how is that not romantic?

And yet her final attempt to comfort him after he’s done what she asked of him and has tears streaming down his face is “that’s my boy...”

What was she supposed to do? Kiss him? Knowing she would die and condemn herself to Hell didn’t seem like the right time for anything else... And yet now she is trapped there after a futile sacrifice that failed to save the world.

The look of abject shock on Sam’s face in 15.08 when they find her in Hell is telling. She dismisses him to refill her drink, because I don’t think she could bear that look on his face, and then advises Dean and Cas to fix their own mess. And that, to me, only served to underscore the fact that her own mess remained unfixed, and possibly unfixable at that point, you know? She was still dead, still trapped in Hell because of her own choices. She hadn’t even earned redemption for that sacrifice.

Are we supposed to believe that she’s still condemned to that fate, and that’s just the end of her story in an “oh well, moving on” sort of way just so Sam can have a cute lil fledgling relationship with Eileen (who left, with no immediate intention to return) and forget all about all of that? Nah, no thank you.

There are seven more episodes to air, and one of the major things I personally feel needs to be resolved with Chuck’s imminent dismissal from his creation (because honestly do any of us believe that Chuck won’t be defeated in the end?) is the reorganization of the whole of Heaven and Hell. Something tells me that without Chuck manipulating creation, Heaven and Hell will not survive as they are, and then what would happen to Rowena? I think she’s still important to the story, or at least I hope she is.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, and I don’t have any definitive guesses about anything, but to me, this is the only way things can play out happily for Sam, saving Rowena the same way Cas once saved Dean (sorry Saileen shippers, I know Sam “saved” Eileen already, but uh... there’s about 50 asterisks on that where Chuck’s desired story just falls apart all over the place, especially the peek into the future Chuck gave Sam in 15.09).

[oopshidaisyy]

March Fic Recs

social distancing = a lot of time to read fanfiction instead of, um. working on my dissertation. i’m doing great!

Packing Nonstandard Equipment by susiecarter Caution: handle with care. The unexpected and unlooked-for (but not, in the end, unwelcome) complexities of banging Clark Kent. Clark/Bruce, 4k, E Note: look no further for clark kent’s hundred prehensile tubular mushroom dicks (hotter than it sounds)

in the bone by patho (ghostsoldier) It all began when Corvo started kissing the Mark for luck. Corvo/The Outsider, 2k, E Note: oh look, it’s the fic that singlehandedly convinced me to buy the dishonored video game, a purchase i regretted once i realised that 1) i am not good at video games and 2) there was no hand kink smut in the actual game. sad

Distance Between by thingswithwings Sam's doing paperwork when aliens come through a rift in space and start attacking New York. Steve/Sam, 11k, T

What I Need I Just Don’t Have by gyzym If you want this choice position, have a cheery disposition. (Or: Tony needs an assistant. Rhodey needs a break.) Rhodey/Tony, 2k, Not Rated

i thought of you and where you’d gone by gyzym Their eyes meet in the reflection of the frosted-over freezer glass, another layer of distance to be splayed haphazardly across the oceans and mountains and countries they keep building between them, and Eames is smiling at him. Arthur/Eames, 1k, T

oistros by arriviste Enjolras has heard all the stories about bonded pairs, but he's always dismissed them as propaganda. Half the work is already done for the oppressive system when they can package your commodification as a fairytale, make you kiss your chains. Enjolras/Grantaire, 41k, E

we live under a halo of held breath by gyzym Eames is wrong. Arthur can juggle. Arthur/Eames, 1k, G

wildest dreams (burn it down) by susiecarter Clark isn't sure why it happens. But the important thing is that it is happening: he's in heat, he can't figure out how to make it stop, and he's not sure what to do except flee to Antarctica. He isn't expecting Bruce to follow him. Clark/Bruce, 11k, M

Lovesickness by idiopathicsmile Inspired in part by tumblr user feferi's post here, specifically: "i am in love with the idea that enjolras is so baffled by his own emotions towards grantaire that he legitimately cannot tell if he has heartburn or stomach butterflies" Modern AU. Joly is a gentleman, a scholar, a med student—and, when need be, a matchmaker. And oh, the need is definitely being. Enjolras/Grantaire, 11k, T

Arms And The Man by copperbadge His best friend keeps cockblocking him, his relationship guru is a computer, and he might be gay. The future is very complicated. Steve/Tony, 14k, E

A Beginner’s Guide to Vulcan Sexual Practice, by Captain James T. Kirk by thingswithwings “It is tradition," Spock says blandly. "Surely you would not ask me to abandon Vulcan tradition." "Uh," Jim replies. Kirk/Spock, 4k, E

Hold Me Down by Elspethdixon, Seanchai Steve takes Tony back to his apartment to recharge and get warmed up following a fight with a supervillain. PG-13-rated shower sex ensues. Steve/Tony, 4k, E

hit me baby one more time by theappleppielifestyle Richie reaches up a shaking hand and puts it on Eddie’s stomach. “Uhhh,” Eddie says. “Is this a bit? Is this a really inopportune bit? ‘Cause I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Richie, but this is kind of an important moment-” “What the fuck,” Richie says, not for the first or last time, and lurches forwards to hug him. (Or, Richie gets stuck in a time loop.) Eddie/Richie, 11k, T

Mistake on the Part of Nature by idiopathicsmile Steve takes in Bucky's betrayed look and Sam's confusion, follows Sam's gaze to the pile of mangled fruit in the trash can. Sudden comprehension fills his face. "Oh," he says. "Bucky found out about bananas." Bucky/Steve, 1k, T Note: sometimes i like to rec a fic featuring a pairing i don’t even ship just to keep you all on your toes

inspired by your laugh to wait for things by gyzym Maybe in Night Vale, where everything else works a little bit wrong, love works a little wrong too. Maybe in Night Vale, where time occasionally stands on end and gravity pulls slightly less than usual every second Thursday, someone like Cecil, a love like Cecil's, could come without any strings attached at all. Carlos/Cecil, 4k, T

Love, Changing Tenses by susiecarter Bruce goes to the funeral as himself for a reason. Not so he can make friends with Mrs. Kent; that part's an accident. And definitely not so he can posthumously fall for Clark Kent, which is an even bigger accident. But it's fine. He can handle it. Until Clark rises from the grave, that is. Clark/Bruce, 17k, T

nice and nasty by firstaudrina Villanelle masturbates about Eve a lot. Eve/Villanelle, <1k, M

Momentum by gyzym It doesn't matter who you are; eventually, everyone's past catches up to them. Steve/Tony, 15k, T Note: i can’t remember whether i’ve already rec’d the first part of this series (ready, fire, aim) but this part is just as good, if not even better

close your mouth (open up your heart) by susiecarter Post-JL, Clark isn't sure what to make of Bruce Wayne, or that he's ever going to be able to figure it out. But maybe all he needs is a little help. Or: five times Clark had conversations with other people about Bruce, plus the time he managed to actually talk to Bruce. Clark/Bruce, 7k, T

Margin of Error by idiopathicsmile Amy had this thing where she did stuff that normally would’ve annoyed the hell out of Rosa, except it didn’t annoy Rosa at all. Which was confusing. Also, annoying. Rosa/Amy, 7k, T

[hannah-writes]

The Semiotics of Roswell (aka why Malex is Endgame because the camera says so)

And we’re back with instalment #3 of The Semiotics of Roswell. 

Today’s focus is on episode 3 and, as always, screencaps are supposed to be in order but wonky upload is wonky. Considering this is such an epic episode, there’s so little Malex content that I’m wounded. So I’m likely going to ramble more to make up for it (edit: I did ramble to make up for it, I rambled so much over less than a minute of video that actually, I’m only including one video meta in this otherwise it’ll take you a week to scroll through it all. There’s less than five full minutes of Malex in this episode and I’ve written a dissertation about it, what is my life). I have, therefore, included the video meta within this one post! All the Malex, all in one place. You’re welcome :D. One video meta is included, the others are linked at the top, and at the bottom.

Image heavy, once again! Consider this your friendly neighbourhood warning! 

All my semiotic meta can be followed/tracked using the #Semiotics of Roswell tag, and is here on my Tumblr. This includes random other semiotic meta that comes at me when I see gif sets that isn’t directly related to this long-form meta essay I have made it my duty to write. Or something.

Part 1 / Reunion Kiss Video Meta / Part 2 / I Never Look Away Video Meta / Part 3 / Leaving so soon? Video Meta / This isn’t gonna work, Guerin Video Meta / 

So we all know that Liz and Max are not on the same page here, but their framing is increasingly romantic. They’re not only sharing a side of a screen here but they’re looking in mirroring directions. I think someone who has better photoshop skills than me could probably make the two of these images lay over one another and you’d find that their faces would likely almost meet in the middle because of how they’re framed here. Their eyelines are almost matching, too, though we know that Liz isn’t looking directly at Max.

The colour’s quite heavily saturated in yellow and we’ve touched briefly on colours before. Some of the emotions that are supposed to be stirred and signfied by the colour yellow are: obsession, insecurity and naivety. I’d argue that though obsession fits Max’s feelings towards Liz, the emotions that are at the fore of this saturated scene are insecurity and naivety, especially the latter considering he lets her experiment on him, test out the limits of his powers and gather data as a scientist. And, because it’s Liz, it doesn’t even cross his mind that she might be using this for something that isn’t curiosity, something that’s more nefarious. He’d never dream that she would use her science-y powers for anything that might hurt them! It’s Liz!

I want to touch a little on the below screenshot before going back to the side comparison. The framing here, the mis-en-scéne is so good. The set designers who pulled together Max’s home deserve very, very high praise.

In this one shot we see so much, and we learn so much about Max. He looks tiny in this shot which, for a guy like Nathan is impressive as he has a presence about him when he’s on screen. He looks small and uncertain and unsure, clutching at the back of his chair and using the chair and the desk and the couch as a defence, a barrier between him and Liz because she makes him vulnerable. 

But then if we look at the background, all those books? You can see first-editions of what look like old books (the brown-gold colouring), they’re haphazard, like he’s run out of shelving space and had to start stacking the ones he reads more often on top of others. He’s got some wooden figurines and artefacts, too, so he’s a collector of things, of knowledge. He’s a curator of stuff, we know that he’s smart, but in a different way to Michael and this glimpse into his world, we can see how differently. Michael is science and equations, Max is words, things. I’d kill to see a close up of the books that he’s got on the shelves; they won’t be there by accident. 

In the far right of the screen there’s a small square picture which looks like a lonely person, standing on the left-hand side of the image. A small picture of a lonely man - probably a lonely cowboy. The colours are relatively bland, there’s nothing there that truly draws the eye, even the small splashes of it (the leaves on the second shelf on the right, the green glass below, the newer colourful books underneath) aren’t quite enough to distract us from Max. Max’s desk is cluttered and busy with books, the lamp is pointed towards the desk and it’s easy to imagine him late at night on his laptop writing with just the desk light because he can’t move to turn the main light on, or reading with the pinprick light to help him focus on the words. Everything looks a little like disorganised chaos behind him and contributes to helping him look small and little under the weight of all the knowledge behind him - all the knowledge from the religious texts he’s read that tell him people like him die bloody - and the indomitable woman in front of him that made herself the centre of his universe the moment she came into his life and he’s helplessly orbited around her since then. 

So we can see that Max looks small, by contrast, the mid-shot of Liz (below) is relatively typical. They’re on either side of the screen again, she’s less well lit than Max, possibly a stylistic choice to reflect the fact that there’s definitely another agenda to what she’s doing, but Max won’t see it. He’s totally blinded by his feelings for Liz.  (Side note: I love how guilty he looks when Isobel catches them, like some part of him knows what he’s doing is stupid as all heck but It’s LIZ. He’s got about as much chance of saying no to her as the earth does of spontaneously yanking itself out of orbit)

In this scene, the wide shot of Max vs the mid shot of Liz shows us the power that Liz has right now; she takes up more of the frame. She’s confident and assured and hiding her own fear pretty well considering. (And the ‘your heart’s racing’ ‘it’s not beacuse I’m scared of you’ line makes my shipper heart sing you guys, it’s one of my favourite tropes)

Then we get introduced to one of the key Echo motifs (below), backlighting by the sun. The use of the sun beween them to lighten/darken a scene is a massive motif; we see the sun setting between their faces so many times and this motif is used here, too, but to a reverse effect. This is a moment of distance, Liz is going for cold, clinical detachment and Max - as always - is just focused on Liz because she’s his Person.

Malex time!

So, because there was both a lot and not enough Malex content in this episode I’ve combined the video metas into this one, and honestly, I am very pleased that I did. I shall never complain at the chance to watch Malex being cute and perfect.

Remember how we talked above about the yellow saturation highlighting Max’s naivety. Another emotion that can be created or encouraged by the use of the colour yellow is comfort, it can be used to create a sense of something being idyllic, and since it's slightly more into the pale orange of the spectrum I'd argue that this scene feels warm and happy and safe at the beginning, the wash of yellow-orange creating a visual haven that locks us in, it's close but it's not suffocating because it's soft. In contrast to the harsh, almost sepia colours of the first kiss in the trailer in the previous episode that became bright and washed out as they started stripping, this starts slow and intimate building and loving in a way that we don’t get to see from a queer storyline very often (as @chasingshhadows said in a meta).

The camera pans slowly and lovingly up Michael's body, the same way that Alex does for a full four seconds, a slow sweep that's close and intimate. We're not watching this happening at that moment: we're in it. We're in it with Michael and Alex and we're not an outsider. We don't see any facial expressions, but we don't need to, we come into the shot clearly mid-way through Alex having been mapping Michael's chest with his fingers and lips, since he's still moving and we don't see him stirring, so this is a mid-action shot. We're entering something private. What's also important here is the fact that it's a soft-focus on Michael's chest, a type of shot that's almost exclusively reserved for heterosexual sex scenes, where everything's slightly blurry around the edges.

0:04

We cut to a shot that allows us to see Michael's face. Instead of feeling voyeuristic, as previous shots have, this closeness - with Alex and Michael still technically on opposite sides of the frame - makes us feel part of it. Witnessing something special. The camera stays still and the soft, blurry focus of intimacy stays as Alex settles to the side.

Michael's more in focus, as much as ‘focus’ is a loosely defined term in this section. We're meant to be watching him, the play of emotions on his face, the way he brightens at the realisation that Alex stayed. We know from Word of God that this isn't the first time they've hooked up since the previous episode, but Michael's reaction at 0:11 You stayed tells us that this is the first time he's woken up with Alex beside him. It's important that we stay tightly focused on Michael there, so we can see his face (and Vlamis' best acting is done opposite Tyler, in my opinion, the subtleties that he can evoke are heartwrenching).

We get a good eleven seconds just getting to soak in the intimacy of this early morning shot before we start moving onto something more distant, though we're not broken out of the moment.

0:12 We cut to a mid-shot, looking down on the two of them but they're still framed tightly; the bed, the pillows, the weird ugly decor on the edge of the airstream (Michael, really) are all we can see. We can see here that Michael isn't used to sharing a bed because the airstream bunk is tiny and he's laying on his back. Alex's pillow is hanging half off the bed and he's on his side, and you can tell from where the cabinet above them ends, he's pretty much on the very *very* edge of the mattress.

0:15 that's why you stayed?

Again we swing back into what I'm calling 'heteroframing' here, which is tight, close, intimate shots of two men completely in love here. Michael's soft voice, the way Alex reaches for him, they don't shy away from the intimacy of the moment, the sexiness of it. The kind of lazy, early-morning, sleepy touches that would probably lead to something equally lazy and intimate if not for stupid Isobel interrupting the moment but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We move from a side shot - of Alex's back - to a hovering shot of their faces and arms. 0:22 has the shot that launched a thousand ships; Michael's mouth chasing Alex's thumb, breathing in the touch against his skin. (Non visual meta but, Michael's quite obviously affection starved; from having been in abusive home after abusive home and never finding somewhere that he felt safe, never having that comfort, a part of Michael will always melt like butter when someone touches him like he's worthy. The way his mouth opens, not necessarily to bite but just to feel, the way he breathes out softly, a puff of breath against Alex's skin. The way he just leans down like he's being pulled towards Alex... So SOFT)

This all happens in a matter of seconds, I might add, between 0:22 and 0:29 we get the thumb casing, the leg touching, Michael kissing his way up Alex's collarbone and then the beeping of a horn. Thirty seconds of intimacy, we get, thirty seconds, and it's packed with love and care and tenderness and power. The camera never wavers, but more on that in a second.

Over this particular section, from 0:21 - 0:26, the line "I know it's time to face my fears" is played. It's played over Alex reaching out to touch Michael (important, because Alex is the more reticent one of the two of them; he's never stayed before, we've had a hint of the antagonistic relationship and the aggressive-passionate kiss from the previous episode, the bite from the pilot followed by the desperate-passionate kiss at the reunion, we don't have a frame of reference right now that tells us this is anything more than sex until this scene. Until right here. Until this audio cue that tells us that Alex is afraid. That he has to face his fears because he’s the focus of that moment; it’s him reaching out to Michael, even though we’re looking at Michael, it’s Alex’s legs that Michael’s touching). This is followed by that shot of Alex's leg, neat suture marks and Michael's hand slowly trailing down it. We see Michael's scarring in line with Alex's, we see the tender way his hand slides down his skin in a lover's caress and the camera doesn't cut away from it. We get to see what this moment means by the fact that we're watching it, we're focused on it.

It leads us to believe that we're seeing Alex overcoming his fear of letting people touch his leg, the easy assumption to make when we see it so starkly laid out. It's also easy to draw - using knowledge from later - the parallel of Alex's scar and Michael's both having been as a byproduct of Jesse Manes, indirectly and directly. That moment of connection is something deeper on a rewatch because Michael's scars and Alex's are the same; they're both a permanent reminder of what lengths Jesse Manes went to. They're both a reminder of how dangerous it is for them, or how dangerous it was.

0:28 The camera is in tight, we're sweeping up and hovering just behind Michael as he kisses his way up Alex, clearly going in for a proper kiss when there's the sound of a horn beeping. The camera allows us to see the surprise on Alex's face just before it pulls out.

0:30 The moment's broken. Over the next four seconds, the camera pulls backwards quickly, breaking the spell of the moment. The lighting brightens up and we're snapped out of the intimacy and thrown into two rapidly differing emotions; Alex's panic is shown in the rapid way he throws himself forward but Michael sort of rocks up and then back, almost amused by the interruption and Alex's reaction "woah, relax man" we're focused on Alex again - fitting since the face my fears comment was also definitely about him "it's just Isobel". The camera's frenetic here, rocking in an unnerving way rather than in the same, steady, curious way that the camera had been moving literally ten seconds before.

Alex is sat on the edge of the bed, more centrally framed than we're used to seeing him in this context but there's nothing in the background that's in focus, so we still can't really look at anything other than him as he asks "wait, does she know about us?" allows the audience to see that actually, the fear wasn't at all about his leg, the fear is of other people. It's easy at this point - without the knowledge of later on even in this episode - to think that Alex is ashamed. Michael's dialogue could even support that.  We don't move away from Alex' s face or reactions for a good six seconds, watching the panic and discomfort play over his features, the reaction to Isobel's presence and how quickly he's drawn away is a sharp contrast to the sleepy intimacy of a few moments before. Alex is lit in a harsh, white-yellow which is contrasted with the shadowed, darker lighting of Michael. This is partly to do with the light coming in though the windows, and the natural formation of shadows within a confined area but it can also be read as another visual clue as to how contradictory their current positions are.

0:42-0:46 "Would it be so bad if she did?" (CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIS VOICE RIGHT THERE DOES THINGS TO MY GAY-ACE SELF?)

"Yeah."

We get a very quick back and forth between Alex and Michael's faces - Michael, Alex, Michael. The shots are framed similarly, though Michael's is slightly tighter, but that isn't unusual for quick-fire dialogue where the characters can't be in the frame. The speed at which it cuts, though, heightens the tension of the scene, a rapid cut-cut-cut keeps the audience on the back foot, switching rapidly in a visual back and forth, similar to the lines.

At 0:44, you can see Michael shutting down, the realisation that Alex doesn't want them to be 'out'. I mentioned earlier that it's easy for the audience to assume that Alex is ashamed, and as Michael looks out of the window you can see him making a decision to protect Alex, protect his privacy even though it physically hurts.

Whereas before, when Isobel's beeping horn ruptured their moment and the camera pulled backwards rapidly, at 0:48 we have a sharp cut to a wide shot, moments after Michael's made his decision to go outside without Alex, to protect their secret. The interior is very dark - something that could, or should, have been fixed by some interior lighting to help us but fuck this show and it's moody lighting so much - and once again we're shown Michael and Alex squashed together on one side of the frame. I wish the scene was brighter so we could get a chance to see the interior; Michael's airstream has probably been put together just as thoughtfully as Max's but we don't get to see it.

I read this - personally - as a way of differentiating between Max and Michael, another way anyway. Max is a damn open book. He has so few secrets, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's open and honest and with Liz there's nothing held back. So as an audience we get to see his world, a proper, sustained glimpse into his world. We get to see the books and papers that are important to him, we get to see how he organises his space. The first proper shot we get of Michael's airstream where we're not focused on Malex is dark and unclear. We can see that he's got paper on the windows, that the whole thing is claustrophobic and tight and small (but what does he need space for, he's always alone, right?). I've only ever been inside one caravan before in my life so I have very little frame of reference to even guess what's on the right hand side of the image at 0:48, cupboards? A cooker? Microwave? God knows. Directly opposite them, a bathroom? (Ps. If anyone knows what the general inside of an airstream is like please message me. I need to know for ~reasons.) Michael’s world, though, remains largely a mystery to us.

Though there are arguments that could say that it's not as well represented later on, at 0:49 you can see Alex slipping his sock on over his stump, and just behind his foot you can see his prosthetic (I think, stupid moody lighting), a move that's highlighting, not hiding Alex's disability. It also normalises it, as the camera doesn't linger or focus on it, we're not drawn to staring at Alex as he struggles, it's a normal part of 'getting dressed'. If that is, indeed, his prosthetic lurking in the shadows of the shot, it also speaks to Michael as a partner, because even if Alex was the one to take it off, there's every chance that Michael was the one that leaned over and put down. Stood it up somewhere within reaching distance. Ahem. Headcanon of Michael as the Most Attentive Lover aside, the normalisation of Alex's disability in this shot is awesome.

We're also seeing them sharing the same side of the screen, whenever they are, they look small and close, their positions relative to each other highlighted against a larger backdrop. Here, however, the closeness of the airstream, the narrow and cluttered frame actually highlights their distance, not physical, not yet, but emotional. Michael's pulled away because he's been hurt and Alex is in panic mode. It's interesting watching it back with the benefit of having seen 1x06 and knowing that Alex's fear of discovery isn't because he's gay but because the last time someone caught them together, Michael was beaten with a hammer. At this point, though, all we have are conclusions to be drawn hastily from Alex's reaction and they aren't necessarily good ones.

0:50 "Guerin-" "Nah-"

We focus on Alex again here, the camera still rocks, the restless energy of the two men in the frame being echoed in the way that the camera moves. There's no lyrics undercutting this scene, just a really nice piece of original score but it's low pitched and has a subtle beat, a subtle pulse which lifts to a crescendo.

0:51 "-don't worry about it."

Moving to a shot that's focused on Michael, that pushes Alex almost out of it, we see him getting to his feet and physically creating distance and space between them, forced nonchalance as he tries to brush off just how much it hurts that Alex doesn't want his sister to know about them.

The final shot of this section comes at 0:54, where we're focused on watching Alex watching Michael leave. 

Interestingly, looking back at the interactions so far, it hasn't been just Alex that's walked away:

Pilot - Michael walks past into the trailer and shuts the door on Alex Pilot - Michael goes to move away from Alex, is stopped, they banter, Michael leaves (also comes back again for the Kiss but.) 1x02 - Alex leaves because the conversation is over ("we're not supposed to build on Santa's workshop either") 1x02 - Alex doesn't leave, he heads into the airstream and Michael follows

Then we have this here, where Michael walks out of the airstream to confront Isobel, the implication is that Alex has snuck out (the surprise in 'you stayed' being clear enough of an indicator for that), but we haven't physically seen Alex having a tendency to walk away. If anything, we've seen him have a tendency to seek Michael out, as only one of their interactions so far out of six has had Michael actively seeking Alex, which is at the party for that beautiful kiss scene we all could write songs about.

So the next two snippets of Malex from this episode have been put into new posts, to save your brains. 

Drive-In Video Meta 1

Drive-In Video Meta 2

[Tagging by request: @space-malex, @istilfeelicantrustyou, @ineverthoughtiwouldneedasideblog, @callieramics, @lire-casander, @i-never-look-away, @stydiaeverafter, @tasyfa, @lovecolibri, @saadiestuff, @signoraviolettavalery, @ubiestcaelum, @el-gilliath - if you want to be tagged in future semiotics posts, let me know!]

[mdelpin]

Small Sacrifices - Chapter 2

Gratsu Bingo 2019 Prompt: Friends AO3 | FF.Net | Tumblr: Ch 1

Chapter 2:

Gray looked up from his textbook as soon as he heard the sound of keys jingling outside the door. A smile played across his lips as he waited patiently for Natsu to open the door to their small apartment.

"Hey, welcome home," Gray greeted, but his words went unheard as Natsu was on the phone laughing with someone.

"Okay, gotta go, Sting, I just got home, see you tomorrow," another laugh and Natsu hung up already walking towards Gray who had gone back to his textbook to hide his frown.

Natsu put his keys down in his usual place and collapsed on the sofa, arms instantly reaching out for Gray. "How was your day Snowflake, did you get a lot of studying done?"

Gray allowed himself to be held briefly, but before Natsu could kiss him, he mentioned, "You were out late tonight, where were you?'

"Laxus asked me to substitute for one of the players on his Ultimate team, I figured it was okay since you were studying," Natsu replied but noticing Gray's guarded expression he asked apologetically, "Should I have called?"

Gray knew that Natsu had a hard time during his exam period, he felt like he had to be quiet around him, and that was hard for the naturally boisterous male. So a lot of the time his friends would invite him out to keep him out of Gray's hair, and he was sure that this was what Laxus had intended but…

"Did Sting play as well?" Gray asked, trying to sound uninterested as he pretended to look down at his book again.

"Yeah, he did," Natsu scratched his head, puzzled.

"You've been spending a lot of time with him lately, don't you think?"

"I guess," Natsu studied his boyfriend carefully, trying to figure out what he was missing when all of a sudden his eyes lit up, and he laughed. "Don't tell me you're jealous!"

"What?! No!" Gray spluttered, and he wasn't, he trusted Natsu completely. He knew Natsu would never cheat on him, just like he wouldn't either. It was something they had promised each other early on.

"Then what?" Natsu challenged, not understanding what could be upsetting his boyfriend.

"Natsu, it's obvious he likes you, and you spending all this time with him, it's sending him the wrong message."

"You're being absurd. Sting doesn't like me like that."

Gray rolled his eyes at him. Natsu was the most oblivious person on this planet, and he would know. It had taken him almost a year to get the idiot to realize he had feelings for him.

"He also thinks we're just roommates," Gray commented drily.

"Now that's just ridiculous! Everyone at work knows we're together."

"Lyon told me Sting asked Erik about me, and he told him that we had been roommates for years."

"Why would he do that?" Natsu asked, looking genuinely bewildered.

"Because all your friends are assholes, and Erik thought it would be funny since he knows Sting likes you," Gray explained hating to see the confusion in Natsu's eyes.

"Well, why didn't Lyon set him straight then?"

At that, Gray had to chuckle, "Because Lyon is an asshole too."

"So he really likes me?" Natsu seemed decidedly uncomfortable with the concept, and Gray couldn't blame him.

He'd been on the receiving end of a similar situation the previous year, and it had gone very badly. The girl had refused to accept that Gray was in a relationship and had become decidedly stalkerish. When she'd broken into their apartment with the intent to hurt Natsu, they'd had to get the police involved. They still had a restraining order out on her.

"Yeah, hot stuff, he does," Gray repeated matter of factly.

Natsu grinned at the nickname, sneaking a kiss before speaking plainly. "Do you want me to stop hanging out with him?"

Gray froze, knowing that Natsu would do whatever he asked. It was tempting, but he had no desire to cage Natsu. And to be fair, he liked Sting just fine.

"No, I just want you to be honest with him," Gray paused before adding quietly, "Sting's a good guy. I don't want to see him get hurt."

Natsu startled at Gray's words. His boyfriend was an amazing man. Where others would be jealous about their partner spending so much time with another man, he was trying to look out for Sting.

"Alright, I'll talk to him soon," Natsu promised. While the idea of bringing the topic up with Sting was making him decidedly uncomfortable, he'd have to figure out a way to do it. Gray was right if Sting had a thing for him he'd have to let him down. He grumbled, already trying to come up with a way to get back at Erik for this.

Gray rewarded him with a kiss and satisfied with Natsu's promise went back to his book. Natsu sat quietly for a few minutes with his arm draped around Gray's shoulders as he watched his love study. When he began fidgeting, Gray gave him an irritated glare, which was his cue to go to bed.

This was their routine during exam weeks. Natsu hated it, but he knew how important it was for Gray to keep his grades up. If he didn't, he'd lose the scholarships he'd earned.

It wasn't a full ride, but without them, they'd never be able to afford to pay for school. Natsu leaned in for one last kiss and went to bed already thinking how best to breach the dreaded topic with Sting.

Xxx

"Where am I?" Natsu asked, looking around the white room in confusion. He felt like there was something he should remember, but he just felt strange all over, and out of it.

"You're at the hospital, Natsu, " Lyon answered helpfully. Natsu peered at him and didn't particularly like the concerned way he was looking at him.

"Am I going to be okay?" he asked drowsily.

"Yeah, but listen, there's something I have to tell you," Lyon started to speak, but Natsu wouldn't let him continue.

"You didn't call Gray, did you?" Natsu asked worriedly, "Today was his dessert presentation."

Lyon managed a small laugh before correcting him, "Dissertation, moron."

"Whatever, just tell me you didn't call him over this."

"I had to, you know he'd kill me if something happened to you and I didn't tell him," Lyon gazed down at his brother's boyfriend with a fond smile.

"Oh man, he's gonna be pissed," Natsu complained, and Lyon couldn't help but wince because he knew Natsu was right, especially once his brother found out what had happened.

He was about to try to comfort the man he already thought of as his brother-in-law and offer to help him talk to Gray when their conversation was rudely interrupted.

"I believe I told the nurses family members only."

"I am his family," Lyon scowled at the dark-haired man that had entered the room followed by a white-haired assistant who was scribbling on a clipboard nonstop while speaking on a cell phone.

"Funny, I don't remember seeing you before," the man answered haughtily, "I'm Zeref Dragneel, Natsu's brother, who the hell are you?"

"I'm Lyon Vastia and I'm--," Lyon began, but he wasn't allowed to finish his sentence as Zeref's assistant shoved him out of the room with surprising force, closing the door in his face.

Lyon was furious, but all he could do was watch through the glass as Zeref talked to Natsu. He could tell Natsu was enraged even though he couldn't hear the words. It was obvious the two brothers were arguing, which was probably not great for Natsu's condition. He felt arms grab him from behind.

"I came as fast as I could, is he okay?" Gray's clothing was a mess, his shirt was buttoned incorrectly under the strap of his school bag, and his belt was undone, telltale signals that Gray had caught himself attempting to strip and tried to remedy it, a childhood habit that only ever popped up when he was anxious.

Lyon gave his younger brother a hug, trying to relax him and then helped him button his shirt correctly, letting him fix his belt on his own.

"Sorry, I can't help it," Gray shied away from his brother's knowing look before asking what had been freaking him out since he got the call earlier. "What happened?"

"Don't worry about that now, Natsu's brother is here, and he's not letting anyone but family members in."

"Zeref is here?" Gray looked through the glass, his expression one Lyon couldn't easily interpret.

"You know him?"

"Not exactly, I know of him," Gray explained, "He's the reason Natsu ran away. Shit!"

"Chill, man. You're both adults, it's not like he can take Natsu away or anything."

"I know," Gray hissed, "It's... complicated. I should get in there," Gray muttered, sounding like he was trying to convince himself of the fact. He looked to Lyon suddenly, "Tell me what happened."

"Shouldn't you worry about that later?" Lyon hedged, trying to weasel his way out of being the one to tell him what had happened.

"Lyon?"

"Fine, it was an accident, Sting was supposed to turn off the electricity, but he was distracted, and Natsu was electrocuted," Lyon winced as he saw the fury on his brother's face. "They're still running tests to determine how widespread the damage is."

"What do you mean Sting was distracted?"

Lyon cursed his luck, of course, Gray would hang on to that word. The man was obsessed with Natsu's safety at work. Lyon knew it was a constant source of anxiety for him, he'd lost so many people in his life he was terrified Natsu would be next.

Lyon sighed, "Natsu finally got around to having that talk with Sting you wanted. He didn't take it well."

"Are you trying to tell me Sting did this on purpose?!" Gray growled, and he felt horrible guilt, knowing that he'd been the one to ask Natsu to do this. He began to have flashbacks of his stalker, and the room felt like it was darkening around him.

"Of course not! It's nothing like that girl, I swear. Like I said he was just distracted because he was upset," Lyon put his hands to Gray's face trying to bring him back to the present, "I had to talk Laxus out of firing him, as it is he got suspended without pay for two weeks."

Gray calmed down at Lyon's words and began to look through the glass again, wanting to talk to Natsu and assure himself his boyfriend was alright.

"Look, I don't know enough about his condition, but he was awake and talking, he already chewed me out for possibly ruining your dessert presentation," Lyon grinned, he loved to tease Natsu, but he really did care about him a great deal. He made Gray happy, and after everything his brother had been through, that's all Lyon cared about. "Did everything work out?"

Gray immediately chuckled at Natsu's phrasing, "Moron," he uttered fondly. "Yeah, I explained what happened to my advisor, and she rescheduled the meeting for next week. She's the one who called the cab for me," Gray explained, "I was too shaky."

"The doctor should be able to tell us something soon," Lyon soothed, not wanting to be the one to have to tell his brother that besides the burns that Natsu had on his hands, his internal organs could be fried along with a whole lot of other issues from the fall he'd suffered as his body jolted from the massive amounts of electricity running through it.

Gray drew in a long breath and glanced at Lyon before grabbing the door handle, "I'm going in."

He opened the door and walked in to hear the two brothers fighting. Gray watched with growing concern as he saw how agitated Natsu was.

"I don't care, Zeref," Natsu yelled, "If she's still waiting for me that's her problem, not mine. I told her quite clearly it was never going to happen."

"Natsu," Gray hurried over to the bed, putting his school bag down on the floor and wrapping Natsu in a protective embrace before kissing him, which is something they didn't tend to do too much in public spaces, aware that it made some people uncomfortable. He heard Zeref mutter the word fag under his breath but ignored it. He had better things to worry about.

"I'm fine, Snowflake," Natsu tried to assure him, but Gray was having none of it.

"I'm so sorry."

"Sorry? For what?" Natsu seemed puzzled and then frowned as he realized Lyon must have told him what happened with Sting.

"It was just a stupid accident," Natsu was quick to shrug it off, I'll be up and around before you know it."

"You were electrocuted, Natsu," Gray reminded him, "It's not like when you managed to staple your finger with the nail gun.

Natsu flinched at the memory, that had been undeniably painful, and Gray had been a mess then too.

"When are you going to stop this charade and come home?" Zeref shouted at him as he watched the two men with disgust.

"I am home, Zeref," Natsu declared as calmly as he could, "Gray is my home, and I'm happy. I'm glad to see you're doing well, but if you still can't accept me for who I am, then you should leave. "

"This isn't over, Natsu."

"Yes, it is," Natsu announced forcefully, "Please leave."

"Fine, but I'll be back," Zeref promised as he stormed out of the room, shoulder checking Lyon on his way out.

Natsu refused to stare after his brother, focusing on Gray and the fear on his face at his brother's appearance.

"We're going to be fine, Princess. We both knew this day was going to come eventually. We're adults now, there's nothing he can do to split us up."

"How did he find us?"

"Honestly, I'm surprised he hadn't found me before," Natsu shrugged it off, trying to keep Gray calm.

"I'm sorry, Natsu. Freed called him, it's the first accident since he started and he was just trying to follow company protocol," Laxus walked into the room followed by Lyon. "It won't happen again, I removed the number from your file."

"Why was the number even there?" Gray's forehead furrowed in confusion.

"Gramps," Laxus explained, "You remember how reckless Natsu used to be, Gramps wanted to make sure he could reach his family in case something serious happened. It was a condition of his employment at the time."

"Is your brother gonna be a problem for you guys?" Laxus glared at the door Zeref, and his assistant had just exited.

"I don't know," Natsu said truthfully, his eyes getting a faraway look, "He did say one thing that was interesting, my father is back."

Gray startled at Natsu's words, he knew that Igneel had abandoned both boys years ago and that Natsu had never given up hope of seeing him again. But was he really back or was Zeref dangling that in front of Natsu in the hopes that he would bite? Things were getting more complicated by the second, and it was making him decidedly uneasy.

"Well, we'll deal with him if he does," Laxus smiled at them as he patted their backs being careful of Natsu's injury, "We're your family now."

Lyon nodded in agreement, and both he and Laxus sat in the room's chairs as they waited for a doctor to tell them about Natsu's condition.

Natsu didn't have the heart to tell his friends that if Zeref were really determined to bring him home, he would find a way to take them down one by one. It was what his brother did best, and he never showed any remorse.

Natsu cursed his luck, he'd really thought he'd left this mess behind when he'd run away from home all those years ago. He felt Gray tense up and made room on the small hospital bed for him, letting Gray hold him in his arms and play with his hair, reinforcing the fact that he was here and he had no plans to go anywhere.

A/N: I kept thinking about these two and my brain came up with a backstory for them. I meant for it to be one additional chapter but it got too long so I split it up. The next chapter should be up in a few days.

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: xi

because i literally can.not stand to work on my damn dissertation any more so... here we are. this chapter is close to 12k because i have no self control.

tumblr’s formatting still sucks and is a dumb so yes, carry on.

part x/AO3.

Wyatt Logan learns he is in trouble the way most busted husbands learn they are in trouble: his phone starts buzzing up a storm, falls off the side table, and when he gropes at it and picks it up, the first three words he sees are “Jess cell” and “TALK.” This is a combination to strike terror into any unsuspecting man’s heart, especially when he’s not quite certain what he did – what else, that is. He’s been in San Francisco for the last several days, he didn’t come home on Sunday like he promised, but he had a nice floral arrangement sent as an apology, and he’s gotten weirdly involved in this Rittenhouse hunt. For instance, he’s pretty sure that Bam-Bam’s dad is in it. Whether Bam-Bam knows about that is another question, as he seemed genuinely blank on it and Wyatt has known him long enough to be sure that he’s not that good a liar. But this means that there’s an operative in Rick Baumgardner’s swanky, high-powered law firm, and the operative’s son in Delta Force, which fits with the emerging pattern that Wyatt is discovering. Tons of important and well-connected people, embedded in just about every relevant government and military department – not necessarily pulling strings, but those strings aren’t far away if they feel like venturing a tug. Wyatt thought Flynn was crazy (frankly, the jury’s still out) but he’s not making this up. This is serious.

Wyatt’s valiant detective work, however, is currently of secondary importance. Still bleary-eyed, he swipes at his phone, then stares as a photo pops up in a text message. It’s him, out to dinner on Saturday night with Emma Whitmore, at the exact moment he was leaning in to hear her better. Unfortunately, from the angle of whatever vigilante mystery diner snapped the photo, it looks an awful lot like he’s leaning in for a kiss. He can almost, therefore, understand the string of angry texts from his wife. She sent the first one six hours ago. Uh-oh.

Sleepiness evaporated, Wyatt sits bolt upright and hits Call. He sags back against the hotel pillows as it rings, running a hand over his sandy stubble and cursing. He probably should have seen this coming, but – how did someone just happen to get hold of that picture and Jessica’s number, was there some old school friend who recognized him and decided to get the lowdown on the garden-variety dirtbag husband – but that’s not Wyatt, that’s not what happened, that’s not –

“Hello?”

Wyatt winces. It’s Jessica, and she definitely saw the caller ID. “Hey. Uh. You have a minute?”

“Do I have a minute? I’m the one who’s been texting you for six hours! By definition, I have had three hundred and sixty minutes! How about you, Wyatt? You have a minute to tell me what’s going on? Now that’s a question.”

“Jess, just – it’s not what it looks like, it was a business dinner. You don’t have to get so – ”

“Wow, so it’s the not what it looks like and women, so emotional! cards right out of the gate?” Jessica sounds even angrier. “Want to just go for the nothing happened, I swear and make it a trifecta?”

“Nothing did happen, it’s not – Jess, just let me explain, it – ”

“You stand there glaring and harrumphing whenever I talk to any guy – including my boss, that one time – and all of a sudden, I’m the irrational one when, after weeks of you vanishing and ducking out the back door, I get a mysterious text with a picture of you practically jumping down some glam redhead’s throat? If there – if there was someone you met overseas, and now you’re trying to keep it up now that you’re home, Wyatt, just – ”

“Jess! Jessica! I’m not cheating on you, Jesus!” Despite the fact that this is the truth, Wyatt is aware of a small voice in the back of his head, which is yelling, YOU BLOWING IT, SON. Getting angry is not his prerogative in this situation; it does look bad. “I told you, it’s for the investigation, her name’s Emma. It was just to – ”

“Yes,” Jessica says. “The investigation? The one you assured me you were still on? So I’m guessing you have another dazzling explanation for why Pendleton called the house yesterday and wanted to know where you were, since you got reassigned three weeks ago?”

Son of a bitch. Wyatt should likewise have seen that coming, but he figured they’d call him on his cell first. He has done the usual check-ins, but he hasn’t told them what he’s doing, and he may have missed the last several days, since he doesn’t think it’s a great idea to go straight from investigating a shady cult to waving beacons at the government. “Look, I – fine, some parts of it are. . . it’s complicated, but I swear, I swear, nothing happened. It was not a date. She was asking me about another guy, she wanted his number. She’s trying to get out of a bad situation, I wanted to help. That is the whole story.”

Once again, he can hear Jessica breathing but not answering, taking her time about it. Finally she says, “I’m not even sure I care at this point, honestly. We have barely had a real marriage in – who knows how long. Since at least the last deployment. I don’t want to be that nagging wife insisting you stay at home, but God, Wyatt. I’ve given you the world’s longest leash, a favor you have not returned, and you just keep lying, you keep dodging out, you – ” Her voice breaks, and she stops. He can hear her gulping, hand over her face.

Wyatt sits there feeling about two inches tall. He can’t even physically comfort her, if that was a thing she wanted right now, and he’s known all along that he was fucking this up, but kept justifying it in the name of the bigger picture. Which is not entirely inaccurate; Rittenhouse does seem to be a genuine threat. But the demands of the job, however valid, don’t always cover your ass when you’ve comprehensively fornicated the canine in the way he has, whether or not he meant to. He needs to get over himself, get off this case, and take a goddamn breath, before he hurts Jess any more. Platitudes and floral arrangements aren’t going to cut it. He needs to get home, or the next thing on the docket for them is divorce papers, and frankly, he’d probably deserve it.

“Listen,” Wyatt says at last. “I’m going to swing by Mason Industries and find Emma and see if I can get an explanation for this. Then I’m coming home right away. It’s a drive, I can’t get there immediately, but I should be back by tonight. You hear me? I promise.”

“Yeah.” Jessica sounds unutterably weary. “You’ve promised a lot, Wyatt. I suppose we’ll see if that extends to you turning up. I’ll leave dinner on. Surprise me.”

And with that, she hangs up.

Wyatt stares at the phone in his hand for a long moment, hoping he’ll feel better. He doesn’t. At last, he tosses it onto the nightstand and gets out of bed, heads to the bathroom, and bumbles through a half-assed shower. Wants to shave so he doesn’t look like a total mug, but doesn’t know if it’s the greatest idea to have something sharp near his throat, even (or especially) a Gillette three-blade Super Turbo Macho thing that Jessica bought him last Christmas. Mostly as a gag gift, but Wyatt likes it, all right. He finally manages a cursory scrape, only nicks himself twice, and dabs it off with toilet paper. Feels like the kid who ran away from home before he was old enough to properly shave, doing it for the first time in a dank truck stop bathroom that reeked of piss – but he’s fine. He’s not gonna spiral. He’s fine.

Wyatt pulls on his least wrinkled clothes and heads out. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Emma when he finds her – she has no more control over the fact that someone snapped an apparently compromising photo than he does – but obviously, he is not thick enough to think it’s coincidence. Rittenhouse might still have someone on her, watching her closely, keeping an eye out for any attempts at desertion or making contact with an outside source. Was that a warning, the proverbial horse head in the bed, and the next time, Emma goes sleeping with the fishes? If nothing else, Wyatt needs to warn her.

He pulls into the parking lot at Mason Industries and talks himself inside with only a little extra effort. Asking for Emma Whitmore, however, he is told that she is not there. She didn’t come into work on Monday, and hasn’t been in for the rest of the week. There was some sort of notice. Personal time, or family emergency. Very sorry, that’s all we know.

Wyatt barely restrains himself from hitting the counter in frustration. It is mildly comforting to hear that Emma took the initiative in disappearing (at least that’s what it sounds like) rather than waiting around to be nabbed, but it still leaves him with no clue about where that is or why, or how that picture came to exist. Or is it all just some giant –

Right then, before Wyatt can entirely finish the thought or remember what it was going to be, the glass hall doors swish open, and Rufus The Tech Nerd makes his reappearance. He’s juggling a stack of papers that look to be covered in complicated mathematical gibberish (Wyatt failed ninth-grade algebra, don’t look at him) and muttering to himself, but he screeches to a halt when he sees Wyatt. “Wait. You again?”

“Yeah. Me.” Might as well own it, Wyatt thinks grimly. “We still haven’t actually properly met. My name’s Wyatt Logan.”

“Rufus Carlin.” Rufus shifts his armload of papers enough to free up a hand for a shake, which he offers politely, but still guardedly. Given what’s been going on around this place recently, Wyatt doesn’t blame him. “You here to interrogate Connor again?”

“No, actually, I’m not. That coworker of yours I met the other day, the two of you were running some kind of tests. Emma, Emma Whitmore. I need to talk to her.”

Rufus blinks. “Emma? She – ”

“Hasn’t been in? Yeah, I heard.”

“So you always just turn up at high-tech labs planning to go through the whole workforce for answers, is that it?” Rufus doesn’t look impressed. “Emma and I work together, but we’re not buddy-buddy, I can’t tell you where she is. I did hear someone talking about it, they just said that she was gone and it was important. So?”

Wyatt supposes that technically, this is understandable. He did give Emma Flynn’s phone number and tell her to talk to him, and if she’s jetted off in hopes of doing that, she might not know about the picture situation anyway. He could actually call Flynn, but can’t quite summon up the desire to do that. Instead he says, “Okay, all right. But you don’t have just a few seconds, do you? To talk?”

“Do you have a warrant?” Rufus shoots back. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Belatedly, Wyatt realizes that a white lawman coming in here and throwing his weight around, even more or less politely, to a black scientist isn’t a good look, as if he thinks that Rufus – despite his clearly staggering intellect and well-paid tech job – is just another “hoodie kid” he can lord it over with impunity. “Hey,” he says, more humbly. “There’s just some weird shit going down recently, I’ve kind of gotten mixed up in it, and once I get some things straight, I will disappear and never darken your doorstep again. Okay?”

Rufus eyes him as if to say that he holds probably multiple PhDs, Wyatt does not need to dumb it down for him, but finally shrugs, indicating the papers. “I was just on my way out to bring these over to the guy who’s taking them to the JPL. So this isn’t a – ”

“Where are you headed?” Wyatt asks. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“And I really think it’s a great idea to get into a car with you?”

“Fair. But I – ” Wyatt struggles to think of one genuinely decent reason that Rufus, in fact, should. “It’ll save you gas money?”

Rufus almost looks amused, despite himself. Then finally, he shrugs. “The office is in San Jose,” he says. “Just a second, let me tell someone where I’m going and who I’m going with, in case I don’t come back.”

Wyatt raises an eyebrow, but wisely holds his tongue as Rufus goes off, then returns a few minutes later, tucking something into his pocket. “Fine. Let’s go. If you’re going to kill me, at least don’t play Motley Crue. Or Kid Rock. I’m not dying listening to that.”

“I’m not going to kill you, honestly.” Wyatt leads the way out to the parking lot and hits the clicker to unlock his truck, momentarily hoping that nobody has planted a pipe bomb under it while he was inside. It wasn’t that long, but it feels like that kind of day. Hoping to make friendly small talk, he adds, “These are going to the JPL?”

“Jet Propulsion Laboratory,” Rufus says. “In Pasadena. They do a lot of work for NASA. Us too.” He shrugs. “The Star Wars nerd in me still has a tiny inner meltdown coming to work every day, and I’ve had this job since I graduated from MIT.”

“Nice.” Wyatt glances at him; Rufus can’t be much older than he is. Maybe even a year younger. “I’m guessing you finished high school when you were what, fifteen?”

“Fourteen.” Rufus can’t quite keep the tinge of pride out of his voice. “Then computational science and engineering, and physics, all the way through. I’ve worked here for two years, but I’ve known Connor since I was in middle school. I owe him a lot.”

That’s clearly a veiled warning that he’s not going to be induced to turn on his boss, if Wyatt was thinking of squeezing him for more information. Wyatt’s not, though he is feeling decidedly intellectually outclassed. Technically, he’s not a high school dropout – he did his GED when he was twenty-one, and took a few classes at community college between postings. Plus he’s trained as an Army language specialist; he speaks four (Spanish, German, Urdu, and he can just about scrape by in Arabic). That, however, is definitely not on the same level, but he starts the truck and pulls out without anything exploding. Following Rufus’s instructions, he heads for 101 and merges onto the highway.

They’ve been driving for about ten minutes when Wyatt becomes increasingly aware that the black car two or three lengths behind them has taken every turn they have. That is not terribly suspicious – this is a major thoroughfare, and it’s Silicon Valley, black cars are everywhere – but Wyatt, for obvious reasons, is sensitive to the possibility of being followed. Just to be sure, he makes a few quick lane changes, cutting deftly in and out of the heavy flow of midmorning traffic. A pause, then the black car makes them too.

Wyatt’s pulse starts to pick up. This is obviously no place for a car chase, in the middle of a throng of civilian commuters, but he also doesn’t want to keep tooling on as if he hasn’t noticed anything. He keeps an eye on the freeway exits, speeds up, and throws them into a small break in traffic, abrupt enough to catch them both against their seatbelts. Been a while since he had to really bust out some moves. That is definitely a bad thing, not a good one.

“Dude!” Rufus yelps, as they take the exit ramp a great deal faster than recommended. “What the hell are you doing? It’s not for another three exits, and all of a sudden, I’m riding shotgun with Vin Diesel? I knew this was a bad idea!”

“Sorry,” Wyatt says tensely. “There’s some guys tailing us.”

Rufus twists around in his seat as if to look, but the black car has, for the moment, vanished. Or maybe it hasn’t; Wyatt didn’t get a good look at the license plate, after all, and there are several black cars presently behind them. He switches sharply out of a stalled queue at the off-ramp traffic light, gets honked at, and accelerates into the right lane. Fuck. He’s pretty sure that one there, coming down the pike, is their pursuers, and nips through a very dark yellow turn arrow, but not entirely fast enough to avoid notice. The mystery car is solidly in his rearview mirror, and a nice suburban avenue, with traffic lights at every intersection, is an even worse place for high-speed vehicular escapades. Shit. Maybe he bailed on the highway too soon.

Nonetheless, Wyatt Logan is a man of action, and this is the action in front of him. As Rufus grabs onto his seat with both hands and squeaks something that sounds like, “What the fuck,” they peel down Scott Boulevard, adroitly dodge a car coming out of a hidden drive, and push it as close as they can with the lights without outright running them. Wyatt can’t help the surge of adrenaline that pulses through him, almost tempted to whoop, though he’s very sure Rufus would not appreciate it. And if some yuppie in a Prius calls the cops to report some tool in a truck driving like, well, a tool, he will shortly not be in a whooping mood.

It takes a few more minutes of pretty fancy driving (if Wyatt says so himself) but they finally take several turns without the car reappearing. He’s pretty sure he can get into San Jose from here, even if Rufus is loosening his grip one finger at a time. Again he says, “The hell?”

“Sorry. I – used to drive a lot.”

“That’s not even what I meant. We just drag-raced through Santa Clara, and you’re – ”

“Look,” Wyatt says, finally daring to take his attention off the road for more than two seconds. “I told you there was some shit going down, remember?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t realize that was the car-chase kind of shit!” Rufus glances edgily over his shoulder again. “How about you drop me off in San Jose, and I’ll just. . . call someone at the lab for a ride back to work, huh?”

Wyatt has to admit that he would probably want to do the same thing in Rufus’ position. There is not much talk for the next few minutes as he finds his way to the generic office complex where Rufus is dropping off the papers, turns in, and parks. As they pop their seatbelts with some relief, Wyatt says, “Hey, I’ll walk you in, all right? Just in case.”

Rufus opens his mouth, considers, apparently decides it can’t hurt, and nods, if grudgingly. They get out, enter the complex, and head upstairs, where Rufus finds where he’s supposed to go, dispatches the papers, and chats briefly with his JPL contact before they leave. It’s all very science-y and incomprehensible to Wyatt, but he can tell that Rufus lights up around it the way Wyatt himself does around cars, and has a moment of wishing they could be friends, despite the awkwardness of the situation. He doesn’t have any who aren’t also old squad mates, and it’s been a long time since he’s seen most of them. Don’t really keep in touch when they aren’t on deployment. You trust the guy in the foxhole next to you, but you don’t always kick back and order pizza and do the dude equivalent of braiding each other’s hair, either. And in a branch of the service like Delta Force, your buddies are a lot more ephemeral than jarheads who’ve been in the same platoon since the Flood. They get reassigned, they take different postings, they die. A lot of the time, you never even know.

Wyatt shakes his head, reminds himself that he still needs to get this over with and go home to his well-deserved chewing out from Jess. He offers to walk Rufus back and wait with him until his ride arrives, though he’s not sure if this is counterproductive in terms of getting Rufus away from him. Or if it’s just a question of –

They emerge into the parking lot, and stop short.

The black car that Wyatt was congratulating himself on escaping is parked next to his truck, and several men in suits are leaning against it. Two of them are clearly security, built like linebackers, and the third looks like the genial silver-haired man in prostate medication ads. (Wyatt just feels that’s how anyone would describe him.) He glances at them, still frozen in their tracks, and smiles. “That was some very impressive driving earlier, Mr. Logan.”

If there is a creepier way in all of existence to open a conversation, Wyatt doesn’t want to hear it. He has automatically reached into his jacket for his gun, but if he pulls it out, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are going to do the same, and that can’t go well. “I’m sorry, and you are. . .?”

“Cahill,” Prostate Medication Man says. “My name’s Cahill. Hello, Rufus.”

Rufus opens and shuts his mouth, throwing Wyatt a deeply betrayed look. Wyatt mouths I’m not with them, which he hoped was obvious from the Fast-and-Furiousing it, but he can’t blame Rufus for a little confusion. He has a very bad feeling that he knows exactly where they are from, but he takes half a sideways step toward Rufus, preparing to shield him if necessary. It’s only the fair thing. Rufus would not be in this situation (or would he?) if not of Wyatt, and he’s not going to let Rufus’s pessimistic (but possibly accurate) predictions of getting murdered come to pass. This is ridiculous.

That, however, does not have any bearing on whether or not it’s happening, and Rufus looks shaken and afraid. “Mr. – Mr. Cahill, sir. I work at Mason Industries, you can phone Connor Mason right now and he’ll send someone to prove it, I’ll give you his – ”

Cahill waves a hand. “Of course you work at Mason Industries. That’s why I’m here. You see, Rufus, I just need to make sure. Did you hand off those equations exactly as you received them, no alterations, no deletions? You – ” he glances at Wyatt – “you didn’t attempt to change or interfere with them in any way?”

“What the hell? No, I gave Rufus a ride over, I didn’t – ”

“You went to some effort to shake us, though.”

“I’m a soldier. I have that reaction when someone starts tailing me.”

“You’re an employee of the federal government, Mr. Logan. So are we.” Cahill spreads his hands in what is clearly supposed to be a why-don’t-you-trust-me-man kind of way. “Unless you’ve also decided, like certain others, that your obligations are flexible?”

That definitely sounds like a trap, and Wyatt is quiet as he tries to think how to answer. Rufus clearly doesn’t dare to sass these clowns – being a little fresh with Wyatt in the safety of Mason Industries is one thing, but every black man knows what happens if you so much as look at an armed white man wrong, and even Wyatt feels half-intimidated, which doesn’t (or isn’t supposed to) happen. He obviously doesn’t want to bring up Emma in front of them, but it seems more than clear that they (and their friends) are the ones she wants to get away from. There’s a very awkward silence as they eye each other. Then Cahill says, “If that’s all the case, clearly you won’t mind me running up and checking that the calculations were submitted correctly. Rufus, we’ll give you a ride back to Mason Industries, so just – ”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Rufus says. “But I’d actually prefer to ride with Ranger Rick.”

Cahill smiles patronizingly. “Good to know you’re getting along – but I’d be careful of how much you do going forward.  You’re a smart young man with a bright future, Rufus. Don’t mess that up. Oh, and Mr. Logan. While I go up, I think my associates want to have a quick word. It shouldn’t take too long. Gentlemen?”

As Wyatt instantly prepares for being jumped, hesitates a split second too long in deciding whether to go for his gun – it’s a suburban office park, there are civilians everywhere, he can’t just let loose – the meatheads step forward, take firm hold of either arm, and escort him into the car, where he is immured on the patent leather seat. After that, with barely the preliminary of offering him a drink (which Wyatt is not a total moron and thus does not take) they do in fact proceed to have a chat. It’s a terrifying chat, but still. The gist of it is that they’re sure he’s a nice boy and nobody wants to make this difficult. He is going to go back to San Diego, make no report of this to anyone in Pendleton, and take up whatever ordinary new assignment they have for him. He is not to attempt to make contact with anyone whose recent actions might cause any question of his sincerity on this matter, or continue to insert himself into Mason Industries’ proprietary intellectual-property ventures. He can sign an affidavit right now swearing to all the above, or. . . well, it’s really preferable that he signs.

Wyatt listens with disbelief, then incredulity, then anger – and then, despite himself, some fear. NDAs and classified protocols and stuff you can’t talk about for years, or ever, is obviously par for the course in this job; he generally expects that most, if not all, of his missions will remain officially off the books for the entire duration of his service and well after his retirement. But he knows how that works, and it entails letting him in on the secret first. This clearly is not what the brute squad came here to do. If he disobeys, he’s going somewhere the law can’t help him. Or worse.

“Look,” Wyatt says. “This is a little much, don’t you think? We’re all coworkers here, in a way. Like your boss says, all on the same side. You don’t have to – ”

“You married, Mr. Logan?”

“What?” Wyatt stares at Thing 1. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes.” He thinks of Jess, waiting for him to get home and not really believing he will. “Not that I see what that has to do with – ”

“Any kids?”

“No,” Wyatt says, slower. “Maybe, you know. One day.”

“If that’s the case, Mr. Logan, you want to sign.” Thing 2 slides a sheet of paper toward him. “Better for you and whatever family you’re thinking of having. Trust us here.”

Wyatt doesn’t see a way out of this car – at least any good one – if he doesn’t. He accepts the offered pen and scribbles illegibly where indicated; he’s heard of cases where people got out of ill-advised signing decisions because the prosecutor couldn’t prove it was their name on the damn thing. This done, the goons seem satisfied, at least for now, and tell him to head on home. They’ll handle Rufus. Everything will be fine.

“You just – ” Wyatt can’t punch them, much as he would like to, but he pins them with a searing look. “You just take him back to work and leave him alone, all right? He’s just a geek doing his job, he – don’t mess him up in this.”

The goons exchange an amused look, as if they’ll agree that they know something he doesn’t. Then Thing 1 says, “As long as Rufus keeps on living his life as normal, he has nothing to worry about. You have a good drive home, Mr. Logan.”

Wyatt is almost sure that that means they’ll be keeping tabs on him somehow to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere else en route, and likewise quite sure that he knew who took the picture of him and Emma. Probably sent it to Jessica as an opening shot across the bow. He waits until they open the door (the car does not have regular inside handles) and stumbles back out, just in time to see Cahill emerging from the office complex and looking pleased; evidently he has satisfied himself that there was no funny business with the equations submitted to the JPL. Rufus has shrunk back against Wyatt’s truck, and shoots him a desperate look, as if to acknowledge that he was not his biggest fan this morning, but now would really appreciate it if Wyatt would not leave him alone with these lunatics. Frankly, Wyatt does not want to, but it’s also clear that he is not going to be given a choice. He mouths sorry at Rufus several times, opens the driver side door, and gets in.

It takes him a moment to put the truck in gear. His hands feel cold and uncooperative, there is slime down his spine and an unpleasant lump in his gut. He doesn’t want to be meekly rolling out of here, tail between his legs, and yet somehow, he is. If this is Rittenhouse, and it seems beyond any doubt that it is, they have not, not in the least degree, come to play.

It is a very long drive home.

Lucy wakes up slowly, surfacing from a repeated roundabout of uneasy dreams, in that split-second state of total disorientation that she has had far too often recently. The light is an indeterminate grey, reflecting through her closed eyelids, and she can feel the stall before her brain belatedly re-engages and the events of the past twenty-four hours return in nauseating detail. She lies very still, as if hoping that they will get bored and go away, but of course, it’s too late. She’s here, they already happened, and Flynn –

At that, Lucy opens her eyes with a start. Despite the turbulence of her mental situation, her physical one is – for the moment – actually rather comfortable. She’s tucked into Flynn’s side like a shrimp, head half on his shoulder and half on the pillow, her arm draped over his stomach and moving with the slow rise and fall of his breathing. Their legs are entangled beneath the quilts, her knee between his thighs, and for once, if only since he’s fast asleep, he has abandoned his efforts to put as much space between them as possible. His left arm is wrapped around her shoulders, cradling her into him, and his right is resting atop the covers, as if he made sure to leave it free if sudden gun-grabbing should be called for. He clearly is not discounting the possibility, but – at least for now – the early morning is still and quiet.

Lucy lets out a long breath, fingers sketching lightly across Flynn’s broad chest. She doesn’t want to wake him, especially since he could probably use the rest even more than her, but she also can’t quite bring herself not to touch him, as if there is space and time and distance that needs to be made up, and she’s not sure how much longer she has to do so. She drifts the tips of her fingers over his solar plexus, careful about his wounded shoulder. The bruising looks uglier this morning, from where Millerson and Vincent hit him. Are they going to walk down for breakfast and find Emma lurking behind the bagels? How are they getting out of here?

Those are pressing questions, and now that she’s awake, Lucy can’t fend them off, but she still wants to try to hold onto this moment, in whatever small part of it she can get. She glances down at Flynn again. Even in sleep, he does not look relaxed, a grim line drawing his dark brows together as if his dreams are not pleasant either. She is taken by an odd urge to kiss it, to smooth it away. He’d likely wake up and do something else to prevent it, but still.

Lucy cautiously edges closer, moving her knee to the other side of his hip and swinging half atop him. She isn’t going to do anything too forward – he, after all, is unaware, she isn’t going to be creepy about this or ignore the fact that he can’t presently say yes or no – but she still wants to be closer, to press and shape them together, to take comfort, however fleeting, in his sheer solidness. After the fact that her entire world has turned to quicksand and shattered glass, there’s something deeply appealing about it. Yes, Flynn himself was responsible for a good part of that destabilization, but he’s also been trying just as hard to hold it together for her, in his take-no-prisoners, give-no-fucks kind of way. And it’s Rittenhouse that’s really done most of it. Flynn, for all his faults (and they are many), has been trying to protect her. Lucy is certain beyond any remaining doubt that as long as it is remotely in his power, he will keep her safe, and that is no small thing.

She hesitates, then traces her fingers over the grooves on either side of his mouth. He shifts and sighs, but doesn’t quite wake up, and she pulls her hand back. She settles back down next to him, unable to avoid the thought that it feels nice, lying here together. This is clearly not the time to investigate whether it could become a recurring arrangement, especially since she still has very little faith in his ability not to torch himself all over again. Who knows.

Lucy lies there until she has to regretfully disentangle herself from his arm and get up to pee. When she returns from the bathroom, Flynn is awake, sitting half up and looking around as if the one thing to summon him back to the land of the living was the sensation of her going missing from his side. When he sees her, he blows out a breath and tries to disguise it. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Lucy coughs. “Not Rittenhouse.”

Flynn answers with a grunt, sitting the rest of the way up and running a hand through his hair. He glances at the clock, then gets up right away to recon the parking lot, which is unchanged except for the crappy old RV. His face darkens. “I should take a look at that.”

“If Rittenhouse was here, don’t you think they’d have tried to case the rooms already?” Lucy isn’t sure, but she doesn’t want him going down alone. “Or at least – ”

“Who knows?” Flynn points out. “Less chance of a scene if they can just pull out and grab us once we leave, rather than breaking down everyone’s doors. Stay here, I’ll be back.”

With that, he clicks a fresh magazine into his gun, puts on his shoes, and goes out of the motel room, as Lucy watches very tensely. The last thing Flynn needs is more perforations in vulnerable regions, and she sees him emerge, stroll over to the RV, and rap briskly on the window. It takes a few moments to be answered, but finally, it turns out that the occupants of the RV are not elite undercover secret agents, but a dreadlocked young hippie couple who, to judge from the way Flynn’s nose wrinkles, absolutely reek of pot. Flynn proceeds to have a little chat with them. The male hippie seems to be apologizing profusely. They go back into the RV and emerge with a pair of hiking backpacks and a dog, give something to Flynn, and hoof it down the drive, out of sight beyond the trees. Flynn watches them with a malevolent expression, waits several minutes, then finally turns around and comes back up to the room, where he tosses an also vaguely-cannabis-scented keyring at Lucy. “It looks like it’s the piece of shit for us after all.”

“What did you – I thought you said it wasn’t worth stealing?”

“It isn’t,” Flynn says disparagingly. “Not in the least. But beggars can’t be choosers, and at least I could easily convince them not to file a police report or talk to anyone about it. If I had to go to the effort of actually stealing a car from someone who didn’t want to give it up, well…” He pauses, then shrugs. “Things could get unpleasant.”

Lucy decides she probably really does not want to know if he’s talking about carjacking and murder, which it sounds like he is. “So what, just told them to give you the RV and you wouldn’t tell anyone about the pot and illegal camping?”

“Something like that.” Flynn does not seem terribly concerned that they have now inherited the mobile weed situation. Maybe they can get some Febreze. “We’ll take it as far as it will go, then figure out something else. Get dressed, Lucy, we should go.”

This is true, even if Lucy can’t help but wonder resignedly what happened to the soft, gentle, worried caretaker of last night. Probably woke up and was aghast at himself for slipping. Or knows this is going to end with them separated again, and thinks he’ll make it easier if she wants to see the back of him. Push her away pre-emptively, so she doesn’t miss him when he’s gone. It’s the sort of garbage logic that probably appeals to him.

They don’t want to stay longer than necessary, so they eat the last few stale bread rolls and figure they’ll find something more substantial later. Then they head down and climb into their fancy new ride, which has a broken gas gauge and bits of yellowed stuffing exploding through the cracked faux-leather seats. The kitchen is clearly from the seventies, the bed is the size of a cupboard, Flynn cannot stand up even close to straight, and there’s dog hair on everything, as well as the lingering atmospheric aura of eau de ganja. Lucy opens the windows, trying to air it out and not breathe too deeply, as Flynn jiggles the gauge and tries to get it to tell how much he has before he has to find a service station. He finally guesses there’s a little under a quarter of a tank, and this beast probably does not get great mileage. Clearly thinking that it would have been worth it to kill a businessman and steal his Mercedes (though this is not the kind of place that attracts businessmen with Mercedes) he growls under his breath, puts it into gear, and swings out.

They rattle down the road, passing the hippies standing with their thumbs out in hopes of hitchhiking. Lucy wonders suddenly if Rittenhouse will come by and pick them up, if they will tell them who jacked their RV – has Flynn thought of that? She would be a fool to doubt it, but… it’s a horrible thing to consider, but should they have left them alive? Maybe someone would realize they were missing, but if they were just out here wandering, not for a while.

Lucy pushes it aside and returns to the passenger seat, and they drive until they hit the junction for I-87 and the main route up to the Catskills. There is a Wal-Mart mega center here, as Lucy thinks wryly that yet again, Wal-Mart to the rescue. Flynn pulls into the gas station to fill up the tank, but then drives over to the main store parking lot and beckons Lucy out. “I think we need to get you a gun.”

Lucy opens her mouth, then shuts it, then opens it again, then shuts it once more. Of course, you can in fact just walk into Wal-Mart and buy a gun from the sporting goods counter, especially in upstate New York – which, while it might not be libertarian-paradise-rural-survivalist Maine, still has plenty of that mentality in places, especially not far from the military academy. She doesn’t want it and she wants to think she won’t need it, but she also can’t say it’s wrong. “I – ” she says. “I don’t – are you sure that’s really – ”

“I’ll teach you how to use it,” Flynn says. “And I obviously would prefer that you didn’t have to. But I think it’s time you did.”

Lucy does not have a substantial denial for this, and they walk inside. Go to the gun counter, Flynn says his wife wants to look at something compact and sporty (Lucy notices how comfortable both of them have gotten with that lie, just comes naturally to their tongues now) and the salesman pulls out a few options. Lucy picks them up carefully; they all feel alien and heavy and wrong in her hand. She lies – too easily – about having something mainly for target shooting (well, this isn’t wrong, she will possibly be shooting at targets, just not the one the salesman thinks). Then the salesman asks if she has her pistol permit, if she’s an in-state resident, and since the answers to both these questions are no, they have to politely thank him for his time and bow out. Gun laws actually working for once. Mirabile visu.

Still, Flynn does not intend to be thwarted, and since upstate New York generally has a lot more slide in its handgun licensing requirements than NYC, he figures there has to be another private gun store around here, because a) hunting country and b) America. There is, and it isn’t totally straightforward, but he manages to convince the owner that the license is in the pipeline and that (with a quick flash of his NSA ID) it would really be a good idea for him to sell. This is a risky strategy, because the guy is as likely to hate the government as to obey, but he decides he does not want the hassle. He supports women being armed too. He’s a feminist.

Lucy manages not to visibly roll her eyes at this, but they finally pick out a smallish handgun that she can hold comfortably. They buy a few clips for it, Flynn gives her a lecture on the various types of ammunition, the bore differences, don’t put the wrong size bullet in, etc. etc. He goes over the basic firearm rules – always assume it’s loaded, don’t ever point it at a person (or animal) unless prepared to shoot, keep it secured when you don’t have direct control of it, don’t loan it out, so on. Lucy feels as if this should be common sense, but she knows it’s not, and she does her best to listen attentively as she hands over her driver’s license, passes a five-minute background check, signs some paperwork, and is now the proud owner of her very own gun. American as apple pie.

She keeps looking at it as they get back into the RV. Opens the owner’s manual and carefully scrutinizes all the parts and pieces, still can’t imagine how she’d be comfortable toting this around as an everyday accessory (they had “For Him” camouflage gun cases, and “For Her” pink ones, because Heteronormative Gender Roles!) Finally, before she can stop herself, she says, “Where did you learn – where did you learn all this?”

Flynn glances briefly sidelong at her, with a grim smile. “How to shoot?”

“That, and just…” Lucy waves a hand. “All of it.”

Flynn takes his time about answering, until she briefly thinks he won’t. Then he says, “I enlisted in the Croatian army when I was fifteen. 1990. The Soviet Union was breaking up, there was the war for independence. After that, I just… kept doing it. There were stints in Chechnya, in Bosnia, in Kosovo. I was in Afghanistan after the ’01 invasion. Briefly in America, then Somalia in 2006. That was my last war. I joined the NSA after that. So.” He pauses, then shrugs, as if this is just like anyone’s CV. “I’ve had experience.”

Yes, Lucy thinks, he has. Got started as a fifteen-year-old boy, probably lying about his age because he looked older, to go shoot some Reds. If he’s been around the Balkans, he’s probably been constantly fighting in regional guerrilla wars, against the Russians, against the Serbs, in whatever populist uprising is at hand against the oppressive status quo. Maybe what he’s doing against Rittenhouse is not terribly different. She wants to ask what he was doing in San Francisco in March 2003, when he saved her life, but doesn’t expect she’d get an answer.

They drive steadily. Lucy sees a road marker for I-80 west, and then a “Welcome to Pennsylvania” sign not much later – apparently, they’re back. She can’t think that they’re going back to Penn, unless Flynn thinks those Nicholas Keynes files are really that vital – but the whole place must be on high lookout. “Where are we going?”

“The one and only Gambier, Ohio.” Flynn downshifts with a worrisome grinding sound. “You have a job to interview for, don’t you?”

Kenyon. God. Lucy legitimately almost forgot. She could hardly feel less prepared to waltz in there and present herself as a competent, trustworthy, well-put together adult, when she’s arriving in an ancient, pot-smelling RV with her not-really-boyfriend, an ex-NSA asset on the run from the evil organization that has tried to kidnap and/or kill both of them at least once. Is it really fair to Kenyon to turn up and act like she’s in a real position to take the job? Maybe she is, but she has no way of knowing for sure. Rittenhouse could just come barging around this campus, instead of Stanford’s.

They have just stopped for gas and some proper food in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and Flynn has been trying to figure out if that banging noise is going to get any worse, when they see blue lights in the mirror, a siren wails, and a Pennsylvania state trooper ushers them over onto the gravel shoulder. Flynn swears. “Hide the gun.”

Lucy thinks this should be obvious, even her own heart has picked up to a dangerous level. A traffic stop with at least two weapons in the car, a strong reek of marijuana, no registration or insurance (she digs in the glove box and comes up with an emissions report, failed, from 2004) and not a single clue who used to own the damn thing before them (did the hippies just reclaim it from the junkyard?) Flynn pulls out his Alexander Kovac passport and is clearly preparing to lean on the dumb foreign tourist card with all his might. They sit as tensely as statues while the trooper runs the plates. Finally, they hear crunching footsteps, he approaches the car, and Flynn obligingly rolls down the window. In a very thick German accent, he says, “Hallo?”

“Afternoon, sir, ma’am.” The trooper is your standard-issue, early-thirties beefy white guy with a blond buzzcut and a ranger hat. “Do you know why I’ve stopped you today?”

“It is because the… because the…” Flynn waves a hand as if he can’t think of the right English word and is hoping the trooper will supply it for him. “The… rule?”

“Your tags expired last October, and your tailpipe is smoking. Where are you folks from?”

“We’re visiting,” Lucy says, in the best French accent she can pull off at short notice. Altoona Allan here is not likely to be able to tell the difference. “From Europe. We have borrowed the campervan from our friends. There is a problem?”

The trooper sniffs the air. “You two been enjoying your visit to America, then?”

“Vas is dat mean?” Flynn blinks as innocently as a lamb. “I have here mein passport.” He hands it over. “Alexander Kovac.”

The trooper flips through it. “You have a U.S. or German driver’s license, Mr. Kovac?”

Flynn hesitates. He, after all, has several, but they all have different names on them. “I haff German license.”

“You have that license on you, Mr. Kovac?”

“Yes, yes, I do.” Flynn digs through his wallet for several minutes, looking first confused and then increasingly flustered. “Honey, where is my license? I had at airport, yes? When we rented car? I showed them then?”

“Where did you folks arrive in the country?”

“We flew into Philadelphia,” Lucy says, which is not a lie. She opens her own wallet and pulls out her luggage tags from the Philadelphia airport. “Yes?”

“Thank you, ma’am. You find that license, sir?”

“I – I haff it, I haff it just the other day.”

“All right, well. Just in case, sir, please step out of the vehicle.”

“Why is dat?” Flynn says, looking agitated. “This is – I have not done an error!”

“I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Kovac. Do you have anything you would like to declare?”

“Declare?”

“Is there anything in the vehicle that I need to know about right now?”

“There is – there is just my wife. We are going to see, you know.” Flynn waves a hand. “Beautiful Pennsylvania.”

“I see. Please step out of the vehicle, slowly. Mrs. Kovac, stay where you are, please.”

Flynn considers. Lucy can see a muscle working in his jaw. Then he gets out of the RV and straightens up, whereupon it becomes apparent that he has several inches and a good fifteen pounds on the trooper. Not that she’s calculating the odds of him beating up a policeman, since that is the one thing definitely guaranteed to bring the wrath of Khan on their heads, but – well, she may be calculating the odds of him beating up a policeman. They eye each other up and down. Hopefully Flynn does not smell too noticeably of pot outside the confines of the driver’s seat. He’s clearly dearly wishing that he did in fact go for the Mercedes.

The officer insists on administering a pat-down, checks the passport again, and finally decides that they are clearly very clueless and should probably learn how things are done in the good ol’ U.S of A. But he gives them a ticket and tells them to get the tags updated, and that they should maybe check with their friends about the lifestyle choices they appear to be making. He has decided to let it go this time and not ruin their holiday, for which he clearly expects to be thanked. Flynn does so. Then he gets back into his cruiser, pulls off the shoulder, and drives away.

Flynn stands there until it’s certain that he’s gone, then marches back to the driver’s seat,  jerks the door open, and gets in, fuming. He plainly knows just as well as Lucy that they have had a very, very lucky escape, but it also raises the possibility of a repeat incident that may not have the same result. “I knew this piece of shit was more trouble than it was worth!”

“Hey.” Lucy reaches over to grab his hand. She has to hold on for a moment as well, to steady herself. “Let’s – let’s just keep going, all right?”

Flynn’s eyes flick from hers to their fingers. He lets out a slow sigh, then starts the engine again. He does not cease to mutter under his breath in a wide and colorful variety of vernaculars, but at least they get underway again. It’s another four and a half hours from here to Gambier, but neither of them feel like stopping. If their valiant chariot doesn’t just die on the spot. Lucy thinks briefly of Puff the Tragic Wagon, thinks of the sensation of plunging, the cold water rushing in, feeling it sink away beneath her even as Flynn hauled her to the surface. After that, aside from just doubling down on the history, she became very averse to risks, wouldn’t even go on those extreme-thrill roller coasters or anything like that. Nothing dangerous, nothing out of her control, nothing to make her think she’s still falling. Had a panic attack in public when it felt like a BART train she was riding had lost its brakes, was going to derail or worse. She doesn’t know when she’s felt more like that than now.

It’s getting dark by the time they finally plow into Gambier, which is a very small Midwestern-standard town; Kenyon is the main reason anyone comes here. They find a Comfort Inn and get a room, which has two beds this time. Lucy can’t help being somewhat disappointed. Not for any reason.

In any case, the topic doesn’t come up, because they eat dinner, sleep like the dead, and wake up the next morning in a vain attempt to look less like they feel. Lucy does her hair and makeup, Flynn shaves, and while they will be arriving in the worst vehicle in the history of vehicles, hopefully that won’t be the first thing the selection committee notices. As they step outside, Lucy notices that the RV’s expired New York plates have been changed for current Ohio ones, and raises an eyebrow at Flynn. “Just find those lying around?”

“No,” Flynn says. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”

“You didn’t…?”

“If I killed someone, I promise, I would also have stolen his car.” Apparently not realizing that that is not a comforting statement, Flynn opens the passenger door for her with a slight, sarcastic bow. “Madame?”

Lucy rolls her eyes at him, but gets in. They drive to Kenyon campus and park, consult the directory, and bumble in the direction they need to go, until they find the history department. Lucy apologizes several times for turning up like this out of the blue, introduces herself, and asks if Professor So-and-so, who knows Dr. Underwood, has a spare moment this morning. Fortunately, it’s quiet, so she is taken through, shakes hands and makes more introductions. This is just an informal meet-and-greet, not a formal interview, but they want to know what sort of questions she has, what they can tell her about the position, etc. Standard stuff.

Lucy spends the morning more enjoyably than she has for a while, getting shown around the department and meeting her potential new colleagues. They are all very nice (it is the Midwest) and generously offer that her boyfriend can come too, if he wants. Flynn has been too busy keeping an eye on all windows and exits to pay much attention, but Lucy says quickly that he’s fine, though it’s true that she finds herself getting antsy when they have been out of each other’s sight for too long. But no way Rittenhouse can be here. Right?

Finally, they wrap things up, Lucy shakes everyone’s hands again, and they promise to be in contact very soon. She’s still feeling very good about herself as she and Flynn walk out; you would never know that she almost died two days ago, or whatever could have happened (she somehow doesn’t believe that Emma’s promise not to hurt her would have held out indefinitely). They were very impressed with her CV and her research background, the amount of teaching she’s already done, the various projects she has in the pipeline (she will probably complete a Lincoln monograph in a year or two, and has had three articles published). Likewise, Lucy can sense that it is possible for her to be very happy here. Gambier is a sleepy nowhere that would be a big change from Palo Alto, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least give it a try. It’s not tenure-track, she can leave in a few years if she hates it, but as a starter job, it could be much worse.

They get into the RV and billow back into town, where they get lunch, and Flynn decides that they are going to make the most of their terrible vacation by finding a shooting range and giving her some preliminary lessons. They stop at the motel to change into some more appropriate clothes and retrieve the guns, then drive around until they find one. Park, and head inside.

Lucy has been wondering what exactly the lessons will entail, if Flynn’s pedagogical method is just to light it up and deal with the consequences later, but he turns out to be a very precise and exacting teacher. Before they get anywhere near the actual shooting, he makes her load and unload the gun a dozen times, feel the difference between each, know how to click the magazine in and out and tell just by the weight if it’s armed or not. They’re using blanks for these first exercises, rather than live ammunition, but she has to treat it as if it is loaded and ready to kill at all times. Practice switching the safety on and off, likewise start to know if it is or not just by how it feels in her hand. Work on how to draw it without pointing it at anything you don’t want to point it at. How to grip it, what it feels like to fully pull the trigger. Practice that, a dozen more times. All right, now put it all together.

Lucy is not the world’s most physically coordinated or gifted individual, and this is not something that comes naturally to her, but she tries. At last, when she can do all this more or less without literally shooting herself in the foot, they get the bright orange ear protectors, go to one of the galleries, and set up. Flynn takes the pistol from her and nails half a dozen dead-center shots in about thirty seconds, either to test that it’s working or just to show off, then watches with an eagle eye as Lucy loads it properly for the first time. The ear protectors make it hard to communicate verbally, so he stands behind her and adjusts her arms and hands, sets her into a good stance, nudging her slightly here and there. Then he lets go, and nods.

Lucy raises the gun, tries not to think about doing this reflexively and shooting Millerson, and aims at the target. Her hands are oddly steady. Then she fires.

The gun kicks, even if not as much as a rifle would, and she takes half a step backward into Flynn. He steadies her, hands momentarily lingering at her waist, as they inspect the result; she at least hit the target, if nowhere near the center. He pronounces it acceptable for a first try with a brusque nod of his head, and beckons her to try again.

They’ve been working on the actual shooting part for thirty minutes or so, after the hour and a half of preliminaries, when another man comes in, takes out his ear protectors and his service weapon – looks cop or military, and very hopefully not a friend or employee of Pennsylvania law enforcement – and starts jacking in the rounds. It’s clear he’s good at it, and Lucy tells herself that it’s her imagination that his eyes periodically flicker sideways to them. Even if they are, that doesn’t mean it has a nefarious purpose – he could just feel bad for the guy trying to teach his girlfriend how to shoot, because women, etc. Maybe they are intruding on whatever fantasy he is imagining for himself. He’s not Rittenhouse, Rittenhouse can’t know that they’re here, or just what a shitbox of an RV they stole. Unless they picked up the hippies, and the hippies blabbed. Is that what happened? Is it?

Lucy is losing her focus, and Flynn likewise seems to be slightly edgy. They shoot a few more clips, but wrap it up, pay for their time, and head out. Hopefully not too quickly or suspiciously. Lucy is rattled, feels as if her momentary illusion of safety and isolation from the rest of the insanity has been destroyed, and can’t sit down when they get back to the motel room. She really just wants to go home. She just wants it to be over, to –

And just then, that’s when her phone rings.

It’s not Emma, which was her first, paranoid thought. It’s the dean at Kenyon. They were very impressed with her this morning, and of course there are still more formalities to go through, committees to rubber-stamp things, and so on. But if she wants the job as soon as she has the PhD in hand, they would be happy to extend a proper offer. Does she? Want it?

Lucy sits there frozen, briefly having forgotten how to breathe. It feels almost like another panic attack, though she doesn’t know why. Is she going to move from the beautiful, sunny Bay Area, her home, her roots, to Bumfuck, Ohio? Leave her mom and Amy and Stanford and everything she knows, to come out here alone and never know if the sharpshooting guy at the gun range was a secret Rittenhouse agent? Do that one thing – throw herself out into the void, into the ether, the reckless and  uncontrollable, that she’s avoided so steadfastly since the accident? This would be a huge change. She would have no support system. It feels too close to West Point and Rittenhouse’s black site there, even though it’s three states away. If so, what, bring Emma and her associated maniacs down on these nice Midwesterners? Can she do that? She feels like she’s going to throw up. Jesus, how can she possibly –

“Ms. Preston?” The dean sounds puzzled. “Are you still there?”

“I. . . I am.” Lucy takes a heaving breath. “I. . . thank you for your consideration. So much. But I – I just – right now, honestly, I – I don’t think it’s the right fit. It was – it was so nice to meet you all, and the position is wonderful, but – ”

Her throat closes. This is as close to her dream job as she is going to be offered – certainly just after graduation, possibly ever – and she is letting it slip through her fingers. She is just too scared, and Rittenhouse’s shadow has fallen over everything, and her mother’s face is in her head, looking disappointed. Lucy, she sighs. Of course you weren’t going to leave me?

“Ms. Preston?” the dean says again. “Would you like some time to think about it?”

“I. . .” Lucy’s fingers are cold and nerveless. “I just – I am so grateful, I am so grateful to you for meeting me so ad-hoc, and – and everything. I really am. I wish I could accept it, I wish it so much. But with how things are in my life right now, I’ve thought it over and. . .”

Flynn looks up with a start, as he has been checking something on his own phone, and frowns at her. Lucy shakes her head at him, barely manages to hold it together for the rest of the conversation, and finally hangs up. Then she leans forward and puts her face in her hands.

“Lucy?” Flynn gets to his feet. “What was that about? Why didn’t you take the job?”

Lucy doesn’t know if she can or wants to explain, or if the howl of misery forming in her chest is just going to come rushing up her throat. Flynn remains hovering for a moment more, then sits on the bed next to her, and very gingerly puts an arm around her shoulder. It’s as if he’s not entirely sure that this is a thing humans do in a situation where their friend is sad, like he’s just dressed up as one and is hoping nobody notices. But Lucy turns, takes hold of his shirt with both fists, and buries her face into his chest. She takes half a ragged breath, and – it’s this, it’s everything, it’s too much, too much – silently starts to cry.

Flynn holds her as if he is once more unsure if this is a thing people do with their arms, rather than using them for punching. He pats her back once or twice as if she’s a colicky baby, but for the most part, he just lets her get on with it, like being sick, knowing it’s been a long time coming and she’ll feel better once she’s done. Finally when she’s fallen more or less silent except for a hiccup or two, slumped against him, he says, “I thought you wanted it.”

“I d-did.” Lucy wipes her nose, snuffling. “I – I do. I do. But right now, how can I – how can I be here alone, how can I leave Mom and Amy and Stanford, how – with Rittenhouse probably just waiting for me to – I’d put the people at Kenyon in danger too, it’s just – it’s not going to work right now. It’s just not going to work.”

Flynn doesn’t answer except for a noncommittal humming noise. It’s unclear whether he agrees or disagrees with this line of reasoning. Then he says, “All right. Well. If that’s what you actually want, then. . .  we’ll drive to Columbus and get a flight back to San Francisco tomorrow. I don’t think you should shackle yourself to that bitch, but – ”

Lucy stares at him, aghast. “You’re talking about my mother. Who has cancer.”

Flynn looks briefly like he’s been caught with his trousers down, though she doesn’t know why. Then he shrugs. “You didn’t seem to be very fond of her either.”

“When did I say that?”

“Earlier,” Flynn says, though Lucy can’t think when they’ve ever talked about her mother in any detail. “Anyway, wherever you go, you need to keep up practice with that gun. We don’t know who will find you, or what they’ll – ”

“I need to keep up practice with that gun?” Lucy stares at him, brow wrinkled. “Am I mistaken, or does that sound like you don’t plan on being around to help?”

Flynn glances away. Finally he says, “You’re not the only one who’s been thinking about the future, about what needs to be done. Yes, I could go back and try to destroy the time machine, but you heard what Emma said. They still haven’t invented half the things they need. I can’t be sure that it would permanently stop them if I did it now, that I would take out anything close to what I need to. And even if I did destroy it, Rittenhouse would still be there, they would still be evil, they would still have Connor Mason and any of their marching myrmidons there to make more for them. I can’t stop them like that. It wouldn’t be enough.”

Lucy keeps staring at him. She isn’t sure entirely what he’s suggesting, but she doesn’t like it. “Garcia, what are you – ”

Flynn looks back at her levelly. “I need to know more,” he says, after a long moment. “About Rittenhouse, about how they got this capability, about what they’re going to do with it. And for what I need to do with that, it’s going to be very difficult for us to – well. To anything. So. I’m sorry, Lucy. But we may not see each other again for – a long time.”

“You. . .” Lucy feels punched. “So you’re what – going off the grid?”

“Something like that. Yes.” Flynn almost succeeds in sounding matter-of-fact. “I know how to live like this, what I need to do. You don’t. One day, we will work together, Lucy. You’ll see. But this, I need to do alone.”

“You – ” Lucy is half-tempted to say screw it, she’ll drop everything, she’ll come with him. But she doesn’t, as he says, have any experience of disappearing off the face of the earth, of conducting deep-cover intelligence operations for months, living on the run – the limited experience she has had of it already has been decidedly unpleasant. That’s the whole reason she turned down the Kenyon job – to return to the safe, settled embrace of Stanford and her mom’s house and her controllable, predictable life, not to fling it completely to the wind and go deep underground on this very dangerous mission. And yet. A tiny, painful part of her thinks it might not be so bad if it meant she got to stay with him.

Flynn sees the look on her face. He smiles sadly, and touches her chin with his thumb. “I told you not to give up history for a boy,” he says. “It doesn’t change now that I’m that boy.”

With that, he lowers his face to hers, and gently, lightly kisses her forehead, the most tender thing he has ever done to her, at least openly. His hand stays alongside her cheek, and Lucy turns her mouth up, all but begging him to kiss her properly, fuck it, even if it makes tomorrow even worse. His eyes drop to her lips, and she can see that there is no part of him that does not want to. Indeed, he clearly wants to do just that, and more. Would be entirely willing to throw tonight away and forget about the morning, just burn the consequences the way he often does, and consider it a parting gift. The air almost shivers. Their eyes remain locked. If she touched him now, he might snap, and then, better judgments or not, wise ideas completely aside and self-control out the window, it could happen anyway.

At last, with a visible swallow, Flynn pushes himself backward. There does not seem to be enough air in the room for both of them, and it is clearly impossible for them to touch, even in passing, without using up all of it. Lucy’s fingers claw out inadvertently after him, fall short. Her voice is caught in her throat. “Garcia – ”

“It’s better that we don’t, Lucy.” His face is turned away from her, profile half in light and half in shadow. “Not if I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Yet-frigging-again, Lucy can’t tell if this means that he would be totally unable to leave her, to commit himself to the long and lonely work of whatever he’s going to do to take down Rittenhouse, if he abandoned himself to a night of wild passion with her, or if it’s just a distraction he prefers to do without anyway. No sex the night before the big game (Lucy dated a second-string member of the Stanford Cardinal football team for six months as a freshman) or whatever. It’s true that she is still not in a good headspace, to say the least. That this likewise counts as the kind of bad decision she is dutifully trying to avoid. But – how?

(How does she let him go, how does she know what the world looks like now, how does this make sense, how is this bearable, how is he going to possibly do this – any or all of those.)

(How.)

Lucy stares at the ceiling, and listens to everything burn.

[iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite]

Why Reylo Should DEFINITELY NOT Happen

Is this an unpopular opinion now?

Disclaimer: I am not anti-Kylo. I love Kylo Ren for the potential his character does have (view profile picture!). I do not excuse any of his actions, but I do understand that had he not been mentally fucked by Snoke as an impressionable adolescent and had he not pushed away everyone who cared about him and tried to help, he would not be in this mess. Very much Snoke’s fault, very much his own. I love Rey for the beautiful being and character she is. How strong she is, her emotionality, and her fierce and beautiful desires. I am a fan of both Rey and Kylo Ren, so please do not take this as me saying one is too good for the other. 

Well, everyone knows how very, very sure I am of myself when I say Rey is Rey Skywalker. This would make her Kylo’s first cousin, their parents being twins, so that is very, very fucked up to begin with. This is the MAJOR, and first, reason I was ever anti-Reylo. 

But let’s PRETEND she isn’t Rey Skywalker. Maybe she’s Rey Kenobi or Rey whatever. It doesn’t matter. Let’s PRETEND she’s not a Skywalker, even though that is so wildly unlikely. View the attached videos to the last few words to see why I say it is that.

Have you viewed the videos? No? Well, I suggest you do. But whatever…I don’t know your schedule nor your interest level in this. Anyway, moving on…

So I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why, if you love both of the characters and they weren’t related, would you not ship them together?”

Simple: Because it is insulting to their characters, detrimental to the character development they could potentially have, and ends Star Wars for good.

I can hear the jeering now, “Those are some WILD assertions. How can you prove this, OP?”

Dissertation:

We have only been just introduced to them as characters, so how would I truly understand their motivations and who they really are? Well, to tell you the truth, I am one of those people who knows who people are based on how they act and respond to situations. It’s easy for me to predict what you will want and how you will act later. If I am so confident after TFA that I am willing to put myself on the line for jeering and my opinion up to all criticism on this website littered with differing opinions, I must be pretty confident that I know what I’m talking about. Especially true because I avoid conflict at pretty much all cost. So here goes…

Kylo Ren is a child trapped in a man of 30′s body. He pushed everyone who loved him away and was brainwashed by someone who cared only about what he could do for them. Kylo Ren’s main desire is that he wants to be wanted, he wants someone to be proud of him. He is unstable, unpolished, and very, very frightened…of Snoke, of himself, and of what he feels inside him. He is not emotionally mature enough, at least at this point, to handle a romantic relationship…at least a healthy one, one that which Rey would hypothetically deserve. And even though Kylo is allegedly more “polished” in TLJ, deep-seated fears like those just don’t go away. 

Rey is a grown adult. She grew up alone by nothing more than circumstances brought on by her parents, of whom we don’t (but probably do) know. Rey is 19…probably 21 by this movie…and has dealt with way too much in her life. She is emotional, but strong. She is fiercely loyal and desires nothing greater than to belong somewhere and feel that she belongs. She has every capability to have a healthy romantic relationship, but she doesn’t seem to really push for that. She desires friends and companionship and belonging, but not…a romantic relationship. At some point may she? Probably, but she doesn’t seem like the type of person, in my opinion, to prioritize a romantic entanglement. She is just getting her footing in the new world outside of Jakku. 

Now, keep all that in mind while I explain why it’s insulting to their characters and the franchise itself!

I am writer myself. I am, admittedly, predominantly a songwriter. I have written screenplays and short stories and whatnot…you may have seen one of my screenplay ideas for Kylo Ren’s redemption because I did, at one point, post a few of them on Tumblr. However, not the point. 

I took a screenwriting class about 2 years ago in college. Stay with me here! There was one time, I remember, we had an assignment for a short screenplay. I was writing a story…I don’t remember about what exactly, but I remember how much trouble I was having in keeping it within the time limit and due date I had. Finally, I had 3 days left to hand it in and still was trying to think of a decent way to end it. I had ideas and ideas that I loved, but the only thing that fit within the page limit and that would allow me to hand it in on time was the ending I hated…but it was the only choice I had at this point. I did it. I had the main antagonist fall in love with the main protagonist. I hated myself for it and it dissected their characters and destroyed the story, but I did it. I handed that paper in on time and in the page limit I had. 

You see what I’m getting at, don’t you?

I used…a cop-out. 

And that’s what endgame Reylo is. 

A cop-out. 

A cop-out is, as I’m sure you all know, something you do when you have no other choice or can’t think of a way to bring about your next goal. You do it because you gotta do it to make what you want happen happen. In this case, making Reylo canon would bring about a natural close to the saga. 

But at what cost?!

Star Wars, as I’m sure we’re all aware, is littered with themes that extend back to the beginning time of storytelling. Good versus evil being the most notable theme, familial love, love in general. A lot of basic AF themes, but all good stories tend to have similar themes. We all know that because there are truly only 6-8 real stories in life and cinema. You can only have so many good things. 

Now, TROPES are a different monster all together. Redemption is a trope that Star Wars utilizes a lot and that’s okay because it makes sense and grounds their good versus evil theme. Also, the Star Wars universe is so expansive and well-designed that it’s even kind of difficult to identify the trope until you really step back and say…”…huh.” It’s fine to utilize some tropes in wonderful movies. Don’t get me wrong…

But not when it sacrifices your characters. 

The trope I will be talking about now is the one in which “the bad guy falls in love with the good girl and shirks his bad ways to make her happy and be with her”. We all know what I’m talking about. And we all know how played out it is. We’re all tired of it.

How many movies have we seen this year with the very same endgame trope? 12? more? I don’t know, I barely go to the movies anymore. 

Do you want Kylo Ren and Rey’s character identity as it stands and their potential character development to devolve, which that’s what it is, into a romantic endgame? 

That is my question for you. 

Kylo Ren has the potential to pull a Vader and decide for himself, with the help of the people whom he pushed away earlier and those new friends, that what he’s doing is wrong. Darth Vader decided that when his son’s life, whom believed steadfastly in his goodness, was threatened that what he was doing was wrong and changed because he wanted to. Luke did not coerce, did not guilt, did not even truly fully persuade Darth Vader to turn back. But having Rey profess her love or even Kylo admit he is in love as a method of change is such a disservice to both of their characters. You are eliminating the fact that Kylo Ren must take responsibility for what he’s done and make amends as necessary. 

To degrade Rey’s very presence in the series to a method to bring about change in her male counterpart is disgusting to me. Her potential to grow as a Force-user, her potential to be stronger than Luke, her potential to be her own person is GONE. We all know this to be true. Once she becomes the object of the male villain’s affections, she becomes a sex symbol, she becomes nothing more than an object, and she is now forever thought of as “Kylo Ren’s Girlfriend” and not “Rey”. She becomes his property in the thoughts and minds of fans and those not fans because she loses her own name when that happens because now all that matters is the relationship. 

To use a female of Rey’s caliber to FORCE CHANGE in a male such as Kylo is reprehensible because it negates his need for true redemption, for taking responsibility, for fighting back from the Darkness. We all know Kylo needs to show effort because of who he is. He is denying and fighting the light, so therefore, he needs to fight the Darkness even harder. But…

If they fall in love…we all know, that’s all that will be remembered. 

Not who Rey really is. Not what she could have been. Not Kylo’s struggle to turn back. Not his betrayal of Supreme Leader Snoke. 

It’s all just them falling in love now…

Do you want that for Star Wars?

Because you know that’s what would happen. “Search your feelings, you know it to be true.” 

I, personally, would not want that for this amazing franchise that has literally brought people joy for 40 years. 

Aside from that, if they did fall in love and potentially go on to have children, that would be the end of Star Wars. 

I know Return of the Jedi was kind of that way too. ROTJ was really a nicely tied bow on top of a Christmas present, sealing the whole Saga of 6 (yeah, I know ROTJ came out before the Prequels!)

TFA is really a second Christmas present for someone. 

Since X, XI, and XII are all confirmed, if Kylo and Rey get together in IX, I do not see where they could go from there, especially considering they’re probably intending to follow the formula from before where the first saga was Anakin and Luke’s story, this saga really couldn’t be Kylo and Rey’s. IX would feel too final for people to want to rehash and reopen the gift. They’d lose viewers. They’d lose revenue. They’d lose our trust. If something feels too final, people won’t want to come back to it. That’s the problem with older people not liking TFA and the new trilogies. ROTJ was too final. But now that we have this and I’m open-minded to the new story, I’m all in…but 

THEY HAVE TO DO IT RIGHT.

And Reylo is not the right way. 

It would bring everything to a natural close before its time. I don’t know if I’d want to come back to SW after that because I don’t see the potential for a future in the series with that as a trilogy-closer. 

Now, I’m done. I’m just trying to let you all see what I’m seeing here. The quote that Rian Johnson made in the NYT that “Rey and Kylo are really two sides of the same protagonist” is the truth, but it, in no way, alludes to Reylo becoming canon. If anything, it alludes to: 1) Kylo’s Redemption or 2) Rey’s Turn to the Dark Side. 

Now please understand…I’m not trying to make y’all feel anything if you ship Reylo. This is just how I feel and how a lot of others feel. I’m very Pro-Kylo and very Anti-Reylo and I admit that. But I have legitimate reasons and legitimate concerns for the future of the franchise if Reylo sets sail. 

[robinsgirlwonder]

21, 40, 45, 51 (I'd actually be interested in "rant" - if that exists for you in the world of fanfiction)

Oh man, fun ones! I got a little long-winded so I put it under a cut. :D

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Uh, you will NEVER find it. It has been lost to the annals of time, but I remember slaving over a Tom and Kes fic for Star Trek: Voyager back when the episode Before and After came out. And it was basically my take on how that life would have gone for them. I wrote about all the way past Year of Hell and since this was on the day of floppy disks and notepad having a character limit, I LOST THE FIC. It died on a floppy. 

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

I get REALLY stuck in my own head, and when I realize people are paying attention to what I’m writing, I start second-guessing myself. I normally level back out, but I have a hard time getting out of my own way. Like today, I was agonizing on how a chapter might be received so bad I didn’t start writing it until 6 PM. And then once I started, boom, half of it was done. 

On a more technical level, I struggle most with knowing when I’m getting too flowery sometimes. I try to back it off, it’s what you have betas for, but since I spent years writing for radio drama where there is NO description and virtually just dialogue, I tend to overcompensate. 

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

Oh my god, that’s SO TOUGH. I have SO MANY from over the years. I think my absolute favorite from over the years was a series that I can’t find now because I think the author may have disappeared or removed it, but it was a Doctor and Rose fic where after Bad Wolf Bay, the Doctor turns into the Tenth Doctor and thinks Rose is dead. And it’s all about how he kind of lingers on earth and he’s miserable and meanwhile, Rose is trying to go back to having a life and she meets 10 not realizing he’s the Doctor. And it was just so beautifully done, and the author went on to do a few more fics in that series and kind of drifted off because she had a life and I get that.

Other than that, I also have another favorite in a Booker/Elizabeth fic from Bioshock (Don’t judge me, I could write dissertations about how that game is a hot mess that squandered that chemistry) and I think it’s been semi-abandoned by the author, but she left it where I could be happy with it is Top of the World.

Bear in mind, I’m really bad at this because when I start reading fic, I voraciously consume and I am really bad about remembering names or favoriting. I leave reviews, but I always forget to fave unless it’s something in progress.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

So, first of all, I love that you explicitly asked for a rant, which makes me think I must be too chill on here now or something. 

This isn’t necessarily specific to the world of fanfiction, it applies to fandom at large, but I especially hate it when I see it in Fanfiction: 

Nitpicking. It drives me nuts. I’m an old school fan and I come from the world of comic books where I have no say in the creative input of The Thing I Like. Nothing drives me more batty then I see people leave reviews like “Ugh, I really disagree with your characterization of X character because FANON VERSION OF CHARACTER does this differently.” 

If you do not like something about a fic, I come from the land of “Cool. I close the window and I move on.” I am not going to change that writer’s mind overnight. Even if they welcome constructive criticism, then I am CONSTRUCTIVE. I ASK why they made that choice for that character. I hate needless negativity. 

Look, the world sucks enough outside right now. WE don’t need to add to it by needlessly seeking out the shit we DON’T like just to piss on the people who like it. 

Like I said, that also applies to fandom. I am very much a “Oh, you don’t like my character? Cool. Let’s stay in our lanes and leave each other alone. IF you would like to have an open dialogue on why I like this character and this pairing, I’m more than happy to do it.” But, after the vicious shitshow that was OUAT fans utterly ripping apart the August part of the fandom (which was closer to how casual fans felt about season 1), I learned very quickly that I do not have the energy to argue. I’m an old lady on Tumblr. I make a salary and I have a job and I have rent to pay, I’m saving for a house, I gotta make sure my wife and I don’t fight over chores, just… ship who you want and that’s totally fine. PLEASE, let’s not fight. Save that energy for the assholes trying to take your or my rights away.