#Jesus was a witch and you can’t convince me otherwise

[shiftingwithmars]

”Witchcraft is wrong!! It goes against Christianity!!”

Buddy, you think Jesus walking on fucking water wasn’t witchcraft?💀

[johnshelbysgirl]

Honey Don’t Feed Me... PT. 2

Part One

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. All original work is my own.

warnings: none.

Tag list: @xxdearlybeloved @woahitslucyylu

The cries of children laughing and playing games rung out in the park. The sound of the wind rustling through the trees wove them together nicely enough for Ella to drown it all out. She was full and completely content under the shade of the tree; laying out on a blanket with her best friend Clara who had packed a picnic basket for their lunch together.

Clara dropped her sandwich to rub her fingers into her eyes. "The new girl Mr. Martin hired is hopeless; she won't last."

Ella turned her head to the side to look at her fully. "What's wrong?"

"She can't do anything!" she screamed, "She says she's worked as a seamstress before, but she's messed up three orders this week."

Surprised, Ella sat up. "No one's complained yet?"

"They have," Clara scoffed, "Mr. Martin just smooths things over by giving them a discount and having me redo her work."

"Why doesn't he just sack her?" Ella voiced.

"The other girls and I were talking, and we think they must be related."

"Are they?"

"Not sure," she shrugged, "but what other reason would he keep her around for?"

Ella waggled her eyebrows. "Maybe he likes what he sees."

"Gross," Clara shuddered, "I think I'm going to be sick, thanks for that."

"How is this my fault? I'm not the one having an affair."

"No, you're just the one with the dirty mind."

"You can't tell me you haven't thought the same!"

"Well I have but I wasn't going to say it! Not everyone just says what they're thinking all the time you know."

Ella looked down at her discarded food, she knew what she meant.

"Had it been anyone else you were talking to you could've gotten into some serious trouble."

Clara's words echoing in her head. She had debated on whether or not to tell her about meeting John. She knew she'd react badly to the news, but she didn't want to keep anything from her. They've known each other their entire lives they were more like sisters than friends.

Almost as if she could read Ella's mind. "how's everything at work?" she asked hesitantly.

She knew what she wanted to ask. Despite his "promise", she hadn't seen John. Which, now that she thought about it, was ridiculous anyway it's not like they ran in the same circles.

"It's alright, no incidents to report."

Clara tilted her head to the side.

"I swear! It's almost been a week if you count today."

She raised her eyebrows now. "Counting the days now, are we?"

"What! No," She sputtered out, "I'm just saying that he must've found some other girl to spend his time with."

The thought stung at first, she didn't think he'd just move on, he said as much, but when the delivery of Marnox root arrived; It was George who brought it in. So, she figured that things were back to normal and took it as a blessing in disguise.

'That was perfectly fine with her.'

"Good, now all I have to worry about is you getting yourself cursed."

Ella groaned. "For the last time, Polly isn't a witch."

"Polly huh?" Clara sniffed. "Well her profession says otherwise."

"She's nice… you should give her a chance."

"You don't believe in that stuff now do you?"

"No, but I just think it wouldn't hurt to have an open mind."

"Christ, next you're going to start speaking in tongues."

"One day, maybe. You never know for sure."

"Ha-ha, just be careful around them, you know what they do."

As far as Ella was concerned, what Ms. Shelby and her family did was their business. She worked at the completely legit occult shop and Ms. Shelby assured her that she wouldn't have to worry about her dealings. It irritated Ella that Clara would think that she was so naïve, but she knew that she was just worried about her.

"I will." She reached over and grabbed her hand. "Promise."

She gave her a long look before squeezing her hand and letting it go. The sun started to descend from its highest point in the midday sky. Lunchtime was almost over, Ella was going to ask Clara if she wanted to start packing up, but she was busy fixing up her hair, eyes moving across the park and back to the ground hurriedly. Ella looked in the same direction to see what caused her friend to become unbalanced.

A tall, golden-brown skinned man with tiny jet-black dreads was walking towards them. Ella instantly recognized him; Jeremiah Jesus.

"Hello ladies," he called out.

"Well look what the cat dragged in?" Ella greeted.

"Well if it isn't the lovely Clara and my least favorite cousin."

Ella threw her half-eaten apple at him.

"Oi! Watch it," brushing off his shoulder, "gotta make sure I stay fresh."

"What brings you here Jeremiah?" Clara asked coyly.

"Spotted you two here and decided to see if you wanted an escort back to work."

Ella was about to tell him that it was unnecessary since it was still light out, but Clara interrupted.

"We'd love one!" Batting her eyelashes at him. "Do you mind giving us hand?

"Course not, love,” he winked.

A tight-lipped smile spread across Clara's face. "Thanks, Jeremiah."

Clara and Jeremiah packed the rest of the food back into the picnic basket while Ella folded up the blanket. Once the group gathered all the items they set off. Ella let her cousin get slightly ahead before she nudged Clara in her side.

"Thanks, Jeremiah," She said in a mocking sing-song voice.

"Shut it!" she whispered.

"What are you two doing back there?"

"Nothing." They said in unison.

"Yeah right," he scoffed, "keep up, will you?"

Ella grinned and squeezed Clara's hand in comfort. Clara resumed her stride once she was satisfied that Ella's teasing would stop.

"Some escort you are, not all girls have long legs like you."

Jeremiah turned around and moved between the two girls; wrapping his arms around them.

"There, that better for you?"

Ella was going to tell him where he could shove it but saw that her best friends' face was beaming at his casual touch and decided not to. They were three shops away from the tailors anyway.

"Alright I suppose," Ella muttered.

"I think it's very nice of you to walk us," Clara cheerfully added.

"Got to make sure you two make it to the weekend."

"Got any big plans for tomorrow?" Clara asked.

"Drinks, dancing, girls, the usual Friday night."

Clara's face fell and Ella could kick her clueless cousin in the knee. "Oh, sounds fun."

"Yeah you should swing by, Garrison's bound to be a good time."

At the mention of the Garrison, both girls stopped dead in their tracks causing Jeremiah to release his hold and face them.

"What? Something wrong?"

The girls exchanged a quick sideways glance.

"Nothing," Ella stammered out. "It's just I don't think we'll be able to go."

It was a valid excuse. Everyone knew that the Garrison was where the Blinders congregated. Ella's' mother would never let her go there; her job was one thing, but a Blinder pub was a completely different story. She was sure Clara's mother would feel the same.

"I can talk to Auntie for you," puffing out his chest, "I am her favorite nephew after all."

She did not doubt that he could convince her. After all, he's the one who convinced her into letting Ella work for Ms. Shelby. Ella felt cornered, she may have been a little hurt that she hadn't seen John but that didn't mean that she was going to get dressed up and go looking for him. She knew Jeremiah meant well, but she didn't want his help this time.

"Eh I'm not so sure you are anymore," Clara said, shaking her head.

Both Jeremiah and Ella looked at her with wide eyes.

"Oi! I expect that kind of lip from her but you," he pouted, "I thought you were on my side, love."

"I am!" she sputtered out.

Ella was the one pouting now.

Ignoring the look of betrayal on her best friend's face. "Mrs. Jones isn't likely to listen to a word you have to say after you not turning up to church last Sunday."

Clara was right. Mrs. Jones was a God-fearing woman who never missed a Sunday and had little patience for the excuses of those who did. Jeremiah would've better luck trying to charm the pants off of a nun.

"Right, never mind then," scratching the back of his head "Maybe next time yeah?"

Clara's shoulders drooped down but nodded and they all resumed their step-in silence. Ella felt awful. She knew Clara had a crush on Jeremiah since their school days. She may tease her about it, but she'd never wanted to stand in their way.

Once they arrived at the tailor shop door, she knew what she had to do.

'God help me.'

"You know what I'm eighteen now," she added, "I can make my own decisions and I think we should go."

Clara looked at her with wide eyes, eyebrows raised almost to the top of her forehead. "Really," quickly glancing at Jeremiah then back at her, "are you sure?"

"Yes," she insisted, "It could be fun."

"Yeah that's the spirit," Jeremiah exclaimed.

Clara, on the other hand, looked unconvinced but said nothing to contradict her. "Jeremiah do you mind waiting outside for a bit, I need Ella's opinion on a dress that I'm making, it won't take but a minute."

"Sure." He opened the door for them. "I'll just have a smoke."

She gave him her biggest and brightest smile. "Thanks again Jeremiah, see you."

She grabbed Ella and pulled her inside. Instantly her eardrums were assaulted by the sounds of sewing machines going off in discord. As they passed a few stations, Ella waved hello to a couple of the girls she knew from school, before coming to a stop at Clara's empty one.

"Where's the dress?" Ella asked.

Clara placed her picnic basket down before turning around and squinting her eyes at her.

"Right," Ella sighed, "no dress."

"Are you mental? Is that it?"

"No," she shrugged, "I don't think so anyway."

"Then why-" she paused, breathing in through her nose-"Why would you say yes."

Ella couldn't let her know that she was doing this for her. She'd never go and then her plan would be for nothing.

"I just think we deserve to have a good time is all, we've been working hard, especially you and all those orders, right?"

Clara shushed her and they looked around to see if anyone was listening in. Once they were content that no one was she continued.

"I mean yes but what if-"

"Just because we're going doesn't mean he'll be there; besides Jeremiah will be with us the entire time and we shouldn't have to miss out on a fun night because of him."

Clara said nothing, but from the look on her face, Ella was sure she'd won.

"Alright, we'll go, but we won't stay long yeah?"

Ella nodded. "Now, is there really not a dress or can I go?"

"Of course, there is and now that we're officially going, you're going to have a look at it, stay here."

Clara walked halfway towards the back before turning back as if she forgot something.

"Behave. please," she pleaded.

"I wasn't going to-"

She raised her chin and looked her in the eye.

"Fine," Ella mumbled.

When she was left to her own devices, Ella sat down at her friends' station. The sewing machine no different from the one her mum had at home, only bulkier. She grabbed some pins and started sticking them into the red pincushion. When she felt a shadow fall over her, she stopped and put it away.

"Finally," she joked, getting up from the seat, "Took you long enough."

But when she turned around it wasn't her best friend that was behind her. Instead, it was John Shelby sporting his signature smirk with a toothpick in his mouth.

He took it out and licked his lips. "Sorry love, I got held up."

Part Three

[carrotmakar]

… ready for it? - OKAY JUST EXPECT MOST OF THIS ALBUM TO BE IN ALL CAPS <3 THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD AND I SWEAR ON EVERYTHING THAT ALL I WANT IS SOMEONE TO SCREAM THIS AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS WITH ME!!!! LIKE IT’S JUST SO FUCKING… BADASS? AND LIKE THE FUCKING VERSES ARE SO GOOD AND THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THOSE AND THE CHORUS IS SO EXTREME BUT ALSO IT WORKS SO WELL AND JUST HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT I LOVE THIS FUCKING SONG. HE CAN BE MY JAILOR, BURTON TO THIS TAYLOR!!!!! I FUCKING L I V E FOR THAT LINE!!!!! I MAY SOUND FUCKING PSYCHO RN BUT I JUST… I LOVE THIS FUCKING SONG SM!!!! BABY LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!

End game - ALRIGHT THIS ONE ISN’T AS LIKE HOLY FUCK!!!! AS THE LAST ONE BUT IT’S STILL ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT’S STILL SO FUCKING GOOD!!!!! GOD SHE’S SO FUCKING HOT FOR WHAT??????? OKAY ANYWHO, I REALLY LIKE THIS SONG!!! AND LIKE I’M NOT THE ~BIGGEST~ FAN OF FUTURE SO THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING!!!!! AND I LIKE THE WHOLE ED SHEERAN, TAYLOR VIBE!!!!! SHE’S SUCH A BAD BITCH I AM IN L O V E WITH HER!!!! WHAT THE F U C K HOW DID I JUST… NOT LISTEN TO ALL HER MUSIC BEFORE NOW???? I- WHAT THE HELL!!!!! 

I did something bad - OH YES!!!! THIS SONG IS A FUCKING BOP AND NOT ONE SOUL CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!!!!!!! THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING LIKE!!!!!! WONDERFUL!!!! AND IT’S SO FUCKING FJKLADSHFKJDSAHFKJDSHAKJ!!!!!! NO WORDS!!!!! SOMEONE COME SCREAM THIS SHIT WITH ME TOO!!!!!!!! SHE’S LITERALLY SO FUCKING TALENTED AND I JUST- HOW THE FUCK!!!!!!!!! AND JESUS F U C K I N G CHRIST THE COVER PICTURE IS SO FUCKING POWERFUL SOMEONE HELP ME!!!! THEY’RE BURNING ALL THE WITCHES EVEN IF YOU AREN’T ONE, SO LIGHT ME UP, LIGHT ME UP, LIGHT ME UP, GO AHEAD AND LIGHT ME UP!!!!! GODDDDD THIS IS PURE FUCKING GOLD <333333333333333

Don’t blame me - BITCH!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS SUCH A FUCKING GOOD SONG I HAVE SCREAMED IT WAY TOO MANY TIMES IN THE PAST FEW DAYS!!!!!!! IT’S JUST SO FUCKING GOOD!!!!! I LITERALLY FUCKING SCREAMED THIS SONG WHILE I WAS DOING THE DISHES TODAY AND IT WAS THE BEST DECISION I’VE EVER MADE!!!!! MY SISTER LOOKED AT MY LIKE I WAS CRAZY BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!!! THE OH AFTER THE USING FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE IN THE BRIDGE MAKES ME SO FUCKING FERAL LIKE!!!! TAYLOR!!!!!! MA’AM!!!!!! 

Delicate - OKAY I LOVE THIS SONG TOO!!!!! LIKE LISTEN TO ME RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!!!! I DON’T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS!!!! THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SONG!!!! STOP THE FACES SHE MAKES IN THE MIRROR ARE SO CUTEEE!!!!!! OKAY OKAY OKAY BACK TO THE SONG!!!!!! I REALLY LIKE IT KJDHAJKFHDSK!!!!!

Look what you made me do - LISTEN!!!! THIS IS A BAD BITCH SONG AND THAT’S THAT!!!! I FUCKING L O V E THIS SONG!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK I LITERALLY USED TO HATE THIS SONG (BECAUSE IT WAS OVERPLAYED ON THE RADIO) AND NOW I’M LIKE GIMME!!!!! I LOVE IT SM AND LIKE….. FSDHFKJSDHFKJHAKJSDHFKJDSAHFK IT’S SO GOOD IDEK WHAT ELSE TO SAY!!!!!!! NOT THE OLD TAYLOR’S FALLING!!!!!!!

So it goes… - OKAY OKAY OKAY SO IT’S SLOWER THAN THE OTHER SONS BUT IT’S STILL SO FUCKING GOOD!!!! AND LIKE THE THINGS THAT SHE’S SAYING!!!! THE BEAT DROPS!!!!! IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD AHHHHh!!!!!!!! NOT ONE PERSON SAID THAT REPUTATION WAS T H I S GOOD!!!!!! LIKE Y’ALL SAID IT WAS REALLY GOOD OR THAT IT WAS AN AMAZING ALBUM BUT THIS ALBUM IS LITERALLY SO FUCKING… PERFECT SO FAR THAT I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW IT’S LIKE… REAL!!!!!

Gorgeous - DUDE THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD!!! THE LITTLE GORGEOUS AT THE BEGINNING IS TO DIE FOR!!!!!! YOU’RE SO GORGEOUS!!!!!!!! THE LITTLE TINGS IN THE SONG IS SO FUCKING LOVELY AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT!!!!! 

Getaway car - BITCHES DON’T EVEN GET ME FUCKING STARTED ABOUT THIS SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU LITERALLY CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I FUCKING LIVE FOR THIS SONG!!!!!! LIKE LITERALLY IT’S JUST… SO FUCKING GOOD!!!!! AND THERE’S NOTHING IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD THAT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!!!!! IT’S LITERALLY ONE OF MY GO TO SONGS AND I AM NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT THAT!!!!!!! NOTHING GOOD STARTS IN A GETAWAY CAR!!!!!! YOU SHOULD’VE KNOWN I’D BE THE FIRST TO LEAVE, THINK ABOUT THE PLACE WHERE YOU FIRST MET ME!!!!!!!

King of my heart - UM!!!!! THIS IS SUCH A GOOD FUCKING SONG!!!! LIKE!!!!! HELLO!!!!! THIS IS JUST!!! WOW!!! THIS IS ONLY THE SECOND SONG ON THE ALBUM THAT I HADN’T HEARD YET AND IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD????? LIKE REPUTATION REALLY JUST IS SO FUCKING GOOD HUH????? LIKE????? MISS MA’AM???? TAYLOR???? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU JUST KEEP RELEASING ABSOLUTE BOPS????

Dancing with our hands tied - WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING FUCK TAYLOR!!!! THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD!!!!! I SHOULD STOP BEING SURPRISED ABOUT ALL THE SONGS BEING SO FUCKING GOOD BUT!!!! HERE WE ARE!!!! YET AGAIN!!!! FLOORED!!!! THE BEAT ON THESE SONGS ARE SO FUCKING EPIC AND I AM ABSOLUTELY IN FUCKING LOVE WITH THEM!!!!

Dress - HOLY SHIT OKAY!!!! ONLY BOUGHT THIS DRESS SO YOU CAN TAKE IT OFF!!!!!! CARVE YOUR NAME INTO MY BEDPOST!!!!!! OKAY MISS TAYLOR!!!!!! I AM SO FUCKING IN LOVE WITH HER SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM FALLING!!! (THAT’S A JOKE, LEAVE ME HERE) ANYWHO!!!! I DON’T WANT YOU LIKE A BEST FRIEND!!!!!!

This is why we can’t have nice things - SHE IS LITERALLY THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!! SHE’S SUCH A BAD BITCH AND I SIMPLY CANNOT FUCKING HANDLE IT!!!! THIS ENTIRE ALBUM IS SO FUCKING GOOD!!!!!! AND I’M NOT EVEN DONE!!!!!!!!! THE LAUGH!!!!!!!! BITCH THAT’S SO CUTE!!!!!!!

Call it what you want - THIS IS SO GOOD!!!!! LIKE IT’S NOT EVEN UPBEAT OR ONE OF THOSE THAT I COULD DANCE MY ASS OFF TO!!!! BUT IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD THAT IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER!!!!!! 

New year’s day - OKAY IT’S A LOT SLOWER!!!! AND THE PIANO!!!!! IT KINDA SOUNDS… SAD!!!!! AND THAT’S!!!!! A BIT DIFFERENT!!!!! BUT I REALLY LIKE IT!!!!! I CAN’T TELL IF IT’S REALLY SAD OR IF IT JUST SOUNDS SAD!!!!! I STILL LIKE IT THOUGH!!!!! IT’S REALLY BEAUTIFUL!!!!

[jacscorner]

Castlevania Rant

 Let me start this off by saying that I love the Netflix Castlevania Series-all 2 seasons of them. There’s no doubt in my mind that there will be more, but I’m so confident that this will be the only ‘rant’ I do of this show-in fact, it doesn’t feel right calling this a ‘rant’ to me since, well, it’s not really an angry rant, it’s more like a miserable little pile of nitpicks that, while not outright awful, just kind of break the immersion for me.

Also, spoilers, I guess. But this is Tumblr, so that’s probably to be expected. 

Castlevania follows the adventures of Trevor Belmont on his quest to defeat Dracula, being an adaptation of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. And they do NOT hold back on their depiction of Dracula or the Church for that matter. Dracula is a monster, but they show a more human side to Dracula, one that’s hinted at in the later games. 

His wife, a physician that was accused to be a witch is burned at the stake and Dracula, a mourning man, is on a crusade to exterminate Humans. This show REALLY tries to make you pity this miserable little pile of secrets. They frame Dracula as a tired, old man who’s in deep mourning for the only woman he’s truly loved. He’s lost his will to live. This crusade is little more than a suicide attempt, and he wants to take as many people as he can-humans and vampires alike, with him.

 And...I personally didn’t care Or at least, find it hard to care. I felt bad for Drac, but it’s hard to sympathize with someone who wants to commit genocide, of two races no less, once relished in the suffering of others, and...well, this is based off of Castlevania 3, so Dracula here-at least in the games, has already made multiple attempts to lord over all.

I know that this is an adaptation, and in an adaptation, things are bound to change. That’s just how things work. You can’t turn a game into a show without making some sacrifices and vice versa, but if you’ve played the games, then it kind of creates an audience dissonance. At least, for me it did.

This problem sort-of hit me in Season 1 when ‘the gang’ was being assembled and Grant wasn’t included, but I accepted it as writing 3 characters is easier then 4 and perhaps he just didn’t fit well into this adaptation since he’s basically ‘Spiderman with a knife’. I mean, the knife could be silver or be made from...IDK, the smelted nails that pinned Jesus to the cross-IDK, I just think it’s weird to do Castlevania 3 and not include all the sidekicks, but that’s just me.

Back to my point, Season 2 really wants you to care about these Vampire Politics. Half of the four episodes is just Dracula and pals fighting about the best way to kill the humans and whether or not they should kill them all or keep them as livestock and Dracula just wants to exterminate them all. I get it, Humans are assholes, but, again, it’s hard to feel pity for someone causing mass genocide.

And aside from that, none of this feels necessary. The court of Vampires, these politics about how to do the war, fucking Isaac and Hector-they all feel insignificant when it all comes together. Most of the Vampires get dunked in holy water, Isaac and Hector are practically tossed aside, and none of it really mattered. Half of this show is wasted on this game of chess.

Meanwhile, Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard are dicking around in the Belmont library-cause remember that part of the game? Where you go home and study Dracula? Our heroes spend almost 4 episodes reading with 1 fight suppose to tide us over until the plot comes literally knocking at the door. It’s suppose to build the chemistry between Trevor and Sypha but...guys, there were better ways to do this. 

If you need to stop the plot just to convince us of this romance, then it’s not a good romance. And then, when the show remembers its plot, it feels rushed. Our heroes just walk in, kill the remaining Vampires that didn’t get dropped into the dunk tank or killed each other cause of course the Vampires started a mini civil war, our heroes flail angry at Dracula, and Alucard kills him AFTER the show takes a page out of Batman v Superman and have Alucard cry and realize he’s trying to kill his own son. Like, really? You acknowledged he was your son, he called you father, and only NOW after beating the shit out of him did you remember ‘oh no, I’m trying to kill my and my dead wife’s baby boy’?

And now to my actual point: This doesn’t FEEL like Castlevania. It has the names and the iconic imagery, but it never feels like Castlevania. It feels like any other show that just happens to have Vampire Hunting. You could’ve taken away the whips, changed the names of Trevor and Sypha, and nobody would’ve known the difference. It would just be ‘a show heavily inspired by Castlevania’.

Oh come off it. Everything you said were just nitpicks, you jack-off!

You...are 100% correct. None of these really ‘breaks’ the show or anything. I still mostly enjoyed it. The action is great, I think they had an interesting idea going on with Dracula’s characterization, and Trevor and Sypha’s budding romance was nice to see-not to mention Sypha is just a total bae. These are just personal nitpicks that I feel are small flaws on an otherwise great series that I hope is continued.

[blah-blah-stranger-things]

The Monk (Chapter 2/2)

Chapter 1

ao3 (featuring slightly better formatting)

“A Monk. One of those quiet-types with robes and fancy handwriting?” Hopper looks at Wheeler skeptically.

“It’s not like - no, not a medieval monk. They’re like...”

“Monks believe in perfecting themselves, physically and spiritually, in pursuit of enlightenment,” Dustin advises sagely, balancing potato chips on four of his fingertips.

“And that sounds like me to you, huh?”

“Um - yeah, of course it does,” Wheeler responds cheerily. Hopper’s going to pretend he doesn’t notice the glance at his stomach, because otherwise one thing will lead to another, and at the end of the day he understands that it’s never ok to beat up a child.

“They also believe in punching people real hard in the face,” Lucas adds dryly.

Hopper tilts his head. Alright, he’ll give them that one. “And this role, or whatever - that determines what I can do?”

“Your class. And yeah, kind of,” Wheeler replies, turning one of those massive rulebooks toward him. “They determine your hit dice, and your ability set, and how much experience you need for certain effects, and what - ”

“Whoa, whoa, ok. Slow down. You promised me I wouldn’t have to look at any charts.”

Wheeler looks disappointed for a moment, but then shrugs as if to say ‘your loss.’

“So. Monk,” Hopper resumes. “That’s the closest thing this game has to a cop?”

Nobody responds for a couple of seconds. Dustin becomes very interested in his hat, Lucas starts idly tapping Max’s jeans with his pencil’s eraser (she grimaces affectionately; Hopper hadn’t known that was something a person could do), and Will concentrates intently on a doodle he’s been sketching in the corner of his character sheet. “Sure,” Mike says eventually.

Hopper glances at El, who shrugs shyly without making eye contact. “Do me a favor, kids,” he says after a moment. “Don’t ever commit a crime that requires you to lie to the police. It’s not your strong suit.”

El has the decency to look embarrassed, but Wheeler just scratches the back of his head. “Well - ok, maybe technically there’s another class that’s more like a police officer. But it’s taken.”

“You can’t have more than one of each?”

“Well you could, I guess, but... we don’t.”

Of course they don’t. “Ok. So which one is it. I assume it’s not maestro over there - ” Dustin waggles his eyebrows helpfully. “ - or red’s made-up speed demon, or El’s witch.”

“Mage,” El corrects gravely.

“Right. So that leaves the clerk, or - ”

“Cleric,” Will says, crossing his arms. Jesus, kid can glare as good as his mother when he wants to.

“ - or bandana over there.”

“Lucas is a Ranger. And no, it’s not any of those.”

“Well,” Hopper concludes patiently, “I may not be a math whiz, but I’m pretty sure that’s all five of you. There some invisible player here I don’t know about? Bad manners not to introduce a guest to the host, kid.”

“Um, hello?” Wheeler says. “There’s six of us here.”

Hopper frowns. “I thought you were the, uh. The Dungeon Master.”

“Right now, sure. We trade off sometimes, though.”

“Yeah but Mike’s the best at it,” Will notes matter-of-factly. In response Wheeler does his best not to look cocky, which isn’t saying much.  

Dustin gives a half-shrug. “Eh, for stories. Lucas still kills it when it comes to running tactical scenarios.”

“And yet he couldn’t stalk for shit,” Max laments teasingly, flicking Lucas’s temple, who flinches and grins. (Hopper decides he doesn’t want to know.)

“Anyway - I’m a Paladin, which is probably the closest thing to law enforcement. But I mean that’s just based on specs and general outline. Really backstory is more important, and Monks have to be Lawful, which fits the police, right?”

Hopper smells bullshit - exhibit A, there’s no goddamn Paladin in the group at the moment, and since he doesn’t expect he’ll be investing in a set of mutated dice anytime soon why the hell does it matter if he plays one - but whatever. He’s doing this for El. Stop arguing and get it over with, Jim. “Fine. But let me state for the record, you’re missing out on a real bonding opportunity, Wheeler. Don’t you think El’d love it if her two favorite men had matching classes?”

El smiles widely and Wheeler looks embarrassed, so as far as Hopper’s concerned he’s 2 for 0.

“Alright, so I’m physically disciplined, I punch people, I’m law-abiding. That enough to get started here or what?”

“Lawful. Different from law-abiding,” Dustin amends in what Hopper supposes is meant to be a professorial tone.

“How you figure.”

“It’s part of your alignment. I mean yeah, Lawful people usually are law-abiding, but it’s more than that.”

Hopper rubs his temples preemptively. “Alignment.”

“Mhm. Everyone has an alignment. It’s a system on two axes; on the one side you’ve got your Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic, on the other it’s Good, Neutral, and - ”

“I know you’re not showing me a chart but now I’m picturing one in my head, which I’ve decided counts. Why don’t you just... tell me what you all are and I can be that too.”

Will’s gone back to doodling - the kid’s intimidatingly good, even if he puts the timid in intimidating; Hopper feels mildly unsettled when draws dries, sometimes, half-convinced that one day he’ll look over Will’s shoulder and see more of those damn vines spilling out onto the page. Anyway he’s doodling, and doesn’t look up when he replies. “We’re different. Mike and I are Lawful Good, Dustin and Max are Chaotic Good, and El and Lucas are Neutral - ”

“ - Good, yeah, I get it, you’re the good guys. Fine. So I’m Lawful Good?”

“If you want to be. You could try Lawful Neutral if you’re feeling edgy. The law applies to good and evil alike! That kind of thing. Like Judge Dredd, or... man, is there anyone in Star Wars who’d be Lawful Neutral?” Wheeler asks, looking mildly distressed.

“It’d be lost on me anyway, kid,” Hopper reassures.

“Inspector Javert’s Lawful Neutral,” Dustin provides.

Hopper grunts; he took Sara to see that show, once, when she was too little to understand much of what was happening. “You never struck me as one for musicals.”

“What? I have a soft spot for Les Mis. My mom likes it. Besides, I am a Bard. I dreaaaamed a dreaaaaam in time gone byyyyyyy - ”

“Just - god - please. Don’t,” Hopper pleads quietly.

God spurns him. Will joins in without looking up from his doodling, forehead creasing with due melodrama. “When hoooope was hiiiiiigh and liiiiiife worth liviiiiing. I dreaaaaamed that loooove would never dii - ow!” the boys say simultaneously as Max and Lucas, perfectly choreographed, smack them upside the head. At least El’s laughing.

“So can we get started or - ” Hopper and Mike both say, overtop each other.

El laughs harder.

Yes, though, it turns out, they can.

“Unbeknownst to the party - unbeknownst even to Ariybar himself - there’s another witness to the dark proceedings underway in the ritual chamber. A tall man with a hard gaze lurks just outside the secret doorway, having followed the brave adventurers here at the behest of the Order of the Golden Shield. The Order, a band of warriors dedicated to seeking justice across the land, sent their top operative - known only as Chief - to ensure the safe return of the princess, given - um - some... creative solutions, that this particular group has been known to employ on occasion.”

“Look,” Dustin interjects, “if that goat hadn’t looked at me funny I never would have had to - ”

“Would you shut it about the goat already,” Lucas hisses. “Besides, he’s probably talking about the time El first discovered her powers and almost burnt down the entire Enchanted Forest.”

El makes a face at him. “Better than Doomstoll.”

“Yeah, Lucas. I don’t remember El spending half an hour flirting with a young maiden who turned out to be a kobold in disguise,” Will teases.

Max raises an eyebrow.

“In my defense,” Lucas says, holding up his hands, “Mike said she was hot.”

“Yeah? What’d she look like?”

“Oh you know. Dark hair, petite. Dainty. Just how I like ‘em,” he says with a grin. Max shoves him.

“Yeah except actually she looked like if a wet rat had sex with a lizard,” Dustin notes. “Not sure what that says about you Max.”

“Doesn’t say anything about me. Just shows how pitifully desperate this nerd used to be.”

“Guys can we focus here? - So, Chief, you’re listening in and have just heard Ariybar explain his plan. It’s clear from the way the runes along the wall are reacting that his ritual is about to begin. What do you do?”

Hopper finds himself feeling surprisingly nervous all the sudden, and it doesn’t help that they’re all staring at him expectantly. “Do I get choices, or something?”

Wheeler shakes his head. “You can do anything you want. As long as it doesn’t go against the rules.”

He grunts. “So the Dungeon Master is Lawful, is what you’re saying.”

Wheeler smiles. “What do you do?” he repeats.

Hopper glances at El, who nods encouragingly. “I, uh... do I have a gun?”

“What do you think,” Wheeler responds, looking unimpressed.

“Ok, fine. A weapon?”

The Dungeon Master taps his fingertips against the cover of a rulebook, mouth twisted in thought, before he picks up a die and rolls it. “Yeah, ok. Traditionally Monks don’t rely on weapons and armor, but we’ll say you’ve got a knife with you. You’ll do more damage with your fists, though, if you decide to attack.”

“Does he have Quivering Palm?” Dustin asks excitedly.

“What? No. That’s level 13 and above.”

“Yeah, but he’s older. More experienced.”

“Age doesn’t matter when it comes to level.”

“Yeah, I know, but...”

“No. Overruled. He’s the same level as the rest of you.” Kid takes to authority a little too well, Hopper thinks with a frown. And judging by the impish smile his daughter’s sending Wheeler’s way, she likes it.

“So where’s everyone standing, relative to me,” he interrupts, before his mind can start going all sorts of bad places.

“Ok - the party is about 15 feet into the room. Ariybar is hovering a foot or so off the ground about 10 feet in front of them. Here,” he says, pulling a board of sorts out into the center of the floor space, “we probably should’ve set this up earlier. Each square is 5 feet by 5 feet. With your speed you can move 30 feet per combat round - but we’re not in combat yet, so, ignore that for now. Uhh so this one’s Ariybar,” he says, picking up a statuette of a gnarled little creature and placing it on the board. “And here’s Will, El, Max, Lucas, Dustin... and this one’s you.”

The figurine he chooses is a ripped old bald guy with a big stick. Kind of like if Gandhi had decided to skip the hunger strikes and spent all his afternoons at the gym instead. “And he doesn’t know I’m here yet.”

“Right.”

Hopper scratches his neck, realizes he missed a spot shaving. Eh, it’s the weekend. “How long until this ritual thing is complete?”

“You don’t know. You’re not a caster.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You don’t need to be a caster to know about spells,” Dustin contests.

“Yeah, but this is a unique ritual.”

Lucas makes a face. “That’s weak. He didn’t get to pick his backstory or skills, how do we know he doesn’t have a knowledge concentration or something?”

“Because he doesn’t!”

“Weak.”

“Well - Ariybar’s an illusionist. So an arcane caster,” Will notes. “A Monk might know about divine magic, but probably not arcane.”

“Thank you,” Wheeler says, as Dustin and Lucas both appear to reluctantly concede, leaning back.

“Wise,” Will reminds with a shy smile, tapping his forehead.

“So are you going to do something, or...” Max prods.

“Yeah,” Hopper grunts, clearing his throat. “Just a couple more questions first.”

Mike toys with something behind his little Dungeon Master wall/board/whatever. “The runes flair dramatically; you get the sense you don’t have much time left. I’ll give you one more question.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah.”

Hopper grunts again, and finds he isn’t above waiting a few extra breaths as the group stares at him expectantly. Dramatic tension, or some shit. He slouches in his chair to get closer to eye level with the group seated on the floor. Also because it’s a Saturday and he’s lazy. “What’s he wearing.”

Wheeler frowns, and Dustin and Lucas glance at each other. Max looks ready to be offended and/or disgusted; El just looks confused.

“ - sorry?” Wheeler replies eventually.

“I said, what’s he wearing.”

“You mean like what equipment he has, or - ”

“Is that how you take it when someone asks you what you’re wearing to the school dance? They want to know if you’re bringing a sword? I mean exactly what I said.”

After a few more skeptical seconds, Wheeler shrugs. “Ok - um, he’s got a somewhat dirty white tunic covered by lightweight leather armor. Brown pants. A cloth belt and muddy boots, and a red robe, undecorated but definitely the best-maintained part of his outfit. There’s a pendant around his neck, a blue stone on a gold chain.”

“And that’s it?”

Wheeler looks uncomfortable for what might be the first time since Hopper got dragged into this mess, and it takes a little effort to keep from smirking. “I mean... that you can see. Yeah.”

Hopper nods. “Alright. Here goes nothing,” he mutters. “I step out into the room.”

“Do you sneak?”

He shakes his head. “Looks to me like someone needs to interrupt him. So I interrupt him.”

Wheeler nods. “Ok. What do you say?”

Hopper rubs at the patch of stubble on his neck. “Uh - so I just say it to you?”

“Yeah. Pretend I’m Ariybar.”

Hopper’s not going to do that, because a teenage supervillain in an argyle sweater isn’t something he’s sure he can take seriously. So he focuses on preparing his response instead. “Stop right there,” he says with as much authority as he’s willing to muster.

“Ariybar’s sinister smirk is interrupted by a confused frown as he looks toward you, and the runes dim slightly. ‘What’s this? Another hapless soul for my master to consume?’”

Hopper’s eyebrow twitches. The kid has a flair for the theatrical, no doubt, but his voices could use some work. “I’m here to stop you,” he says with something like heroism, reevaluating all the choices in his life that have led him to this moment.

“Who the hell are you?” Dustin asks emphatically.

“...what do you mean, who the hell am I.”

“No - my character says that.”

“Wheeler just told you who I was. A Monk from the League of the Gold Medalists or whatever.”

“Order of the Golden Shield,” Mike says impatiently. “Like a police badge?”

“I know he said that,” Dustin resumes, his professor voice on display again. “But you’re not supposed to metagame. ‘What is metagaming,’ you’re no doubt asking yourself. Well, that’s an excellent question, Chief Hopper’s hypothetical internal monologue. Metagaming means acting on knowledge you have as a player but that your character wouldn’t know. It’s like cheating.”

“So in addition to knowing all the stuff in those books you also have to not know things to play this game.”

“Pretty much. So like I said - ‘Who the hell are you?’”

Hopper closes his eyes, rubs the corner of one with his thumb. “I’m from the Order of the, uh...”

“Golden Shield.”

“ - Golden Shield, I was about to say that. I followed you twerps here to make sure you actually got the job done.”

“Are you kidding me? The king doesn’t trust us? After everything we’ve done for him?” Dustin exclaims, affronted.

“I mean, to be fair...” Max says, waving her hand in a circle.

“...ok, so I admit this isn’t our finest moment. But still. I thought we had a bond.”

“‘Fool. All you’ve accomplished is ensuring you’ll share your friends’ fate!’ Ariybar turns his attention to you and begins to cast a spell.”

“Not my friends,” Hopper mutters.

“Everyone’s piling it on today,” Dustin grumbles.

It takes Hopper a moment before he realizes that Will’s holding out a die pinched between two fingers in front of him. “You’ll need this,” the boy says, nodding at Wheeler, who’s flipping rapidly through pages in his rulebook.

Hopper holds out a hand for it, and Will drops it in. Well, he thinks, staring down at the lump of plastic resting on his palm, there’s no going back now. He’s about to lose his nerdginity.

“Roll a Reflex save. - Uh, just, roll that,” Mike corrects when he looks up, before Hopper can ask for clarification.

Here goes nothing.

The die cracks its knuckles against the floor and comes to rest next to an abandoned pretzel stick. “17.”

“Nice. A bright, crackling beam of energy aimed at your chest slices through the air, but as though on instinct you angle your body out of the way in the fraction of a second it takes for the spell to leave his fingertips. The wall behind you sparks and sizzles, burnt at the point of impact.”

“Holy shit, did he just dodge a bolt of lightning?” Max remarks.

“Monks get Evasion as a class ability.”

“Badass,” El says. Oh good. She’s picked up another one.

Granted, it was kind of badass.

“Punch him in the face,” Lucas suggests enthusiastically, but Hopper raises a hand to shush him.

“Wheeler said I wouldn’t know anything about the ritual. What about the rest of you? You can still talk, right?”

Will nods. “El should be able to roll a Knowledge check for it.”

“Good luck,” Lucas mutters.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hopper says, defensively on El’s behalf.

“It just means her character’s, uh... you know, more of an emotionally-driven Mage. Not really the... bookish type.”

El sticks her tongue out at him as she picks a die to roll.

“Ariybar grimaces. ‘Dodge all you want. There’s nothing you do to stop me! In a few moments, it’ll all be over! My master will - ’”

“Yeah, listen, I heard the whole villain rant from the doorway there, so we can skip it, thanks. El?”

“One-two. Plus two. So, one-four. Fourteen,” she corrects when he gives her a look, rolling her eyes. They’ve had several disagreements where she’s made the case that her numbering system makes more sense in the end, an argument he’s found frustratingly difficult to refute - but if she’s going to be out in the world soon, she needs to learn to blend in, and that’s not how one-four-year-olds speak.

“Ok,” Wheeler says, “so you don’t know anything about this specific ritual, but you know an invocation spell like this one usually requires a focus component, and takes about a minute of concentration to cast.”

“So... the focus component is the pendant. Duh,” Max supplies.

Hopper craves a smoke, but the pack is back over on the table, which means not only would he have to unslouch to reach it, he’d have to stand. Meh. “Before your little plot twist back there I’d have made a comment about how stupid this guy is to wear an important part of his plan around his neck, out in the open like that. But I figure it must be rigged or something. That’s a thing, right? Magic booby traps or whatever?”

“It’s possible,” Dustin agrees.

“Ok. Then I pull out that knife you said I have.”

“Ariybar smirks. ‘You expect to take me down with that?’”

Hopper rubs his nose. “No. But I think it’s going to get me that little bauble around your neck.”

“‘Ha! Do your worst, hireling! This chain can’t be cut by any blade, let alone a common - ’”

“I circle round to Red and put the knife against her neck.”

“Whoa, what the hell,” Max exclaims, wide-eyed, and the rest of the group’s comments blend into the kind of cacophony Hopper usually associates with interruptions to bingo night down at the church on Thursday nights, whenever he’s called into to stop two octogenarians from tearing each other’s hair out.

“‘What are you - what are you doing?’ Ariybar demands.”

“Well,” he says, crossing his arms, “as I understand it your plan hinges on taking control of the, uh, Zoomer here. Seems like all our problems go away once she’s out of the picture.”

“Dad!” El hisses; there’s no affection in the word this time. He ignores her.

“‘You... you wouldn’t dare take an innocent life!’”

“Hey,” he shrugs, “they’re the Good guys. I’m the Neutral guy.”

“Ariybar stops levitating, feet touching the ground as he approaches you, hands raised. ‘Let’s - let’s be reasonable. Surely we can come to some arrangement. One where you don’t need to kill an innocent girl.’”

“Uh, my character’s a woman, thank you very much.”

“God Mayfield that’s not the point,” Wheeler says, either as himself or as Ariybar, Hopper can’t decide.

“Like I said,” Hopper interrupts, “this knife’s gonna get me that stone. Hand it over, and I’ll let her live.”

“Ariybar hesitates. After a moment, he reaches behind his neck and unfastens the chain, and then slips the pendant off. He plays with it a moment before slowly approaching and extending a hand to give it to you.”

“I keep my knife to her throat as I reach out to take it. Uh, I say, ‘Any funny business and she’s a goner.’” Jesus, he sounds like a 40s movie gangster. “‘You saw how fast I moved back there; don’t think my hand is any slower.’ - That’s, uh, true, right?” he asks as an aside. Dustin gives him a thumbs-up.

“Ariybar scowls and drops the stone into your hand.”

“Good. Now back off.”

“He does.”

“Woo-hoo!” Lucas cheers. “Nice thinking, Chief.”

Hopper twists his mouth and studies Wheeler, who’s managing a decent poker face. “Gave it up too easily,” he mutters in reply, and then, experiencing a sudden burst of energy, sits up nearly an entire half an inch. “Is there a way to be sure this thing isn’t another illusion?”

“You can roll to disbelieve it.”

He does, using the same bulky die as before when directed. “19.”

Lucas makes a noise. “Damn, man. Talk about beginner’s luck.”

“You can’t be 100% positive your attempt worked, but you feel confident that the stone you’re holding is real. It pulses with an otherworldly heat; magic is definitely flowing through it.”

“If I have quick hands, does that mean I have quick fingers? You know, uh, like...”

“Sleight-of-hand skills?” Wheeler asks. Hopper nods. “Sure. I think that’s reasonable.”

“Alright. Then I’m going to lower my knife and walk around behind the rest of the group. Will, do you still have that sack you were carrying around earlier?”

Will is wide-eyed and more animated than Hopper’s ever seen him; he’s been that way all day, not included play breaks, every time Hopper’s looked up to check in on the story. Uh - on the players, he means. Anyway, it’s kind of adorable. “My satchel? Yeah. It’s pretty full, though.”

“That’s fine. I’m gonna sneak the stone into the top of the bag as I pass by.”

“Ok. Give me another d20 roll.”

“11.”

Half the party groans, and for a second Hopper assumes he’s failed the roll or something. He reevaluates when El, smiling widely, leans forward to give the slightly pinkening Wheeler a peck on the lips.

“Every. Single. Eleven,” Dustin complains.

Hopper grimaces. “Maybe cut the PDA while I’m playing,” he suggests firmly. He tries his best not to get too overbearing-father-figure with El these days, especially when it comes to Wheeler - part of him does feel guilty for keeping them separated for a year, and an even deeper part of him has internalized the sting of El’s recitation of numbered days, the terrible realization that, at least on some occasions, she saw him as a warden more than a protector - but that doesn’t mean he won’t enforce boundaries where appropriate.

El shakes her head at him, though, still looking giddy. “Tradition,” she states plainly, and directs her smile at him.

It’s not fair that she can melt his heart with a look like that. His heart is supposed to be a big, hairy, manly heart, a heart like weathered concrete, and, you know, a whole bunch of other clumsily mixed metaphors. (His physician has other adjectives for it, but that’s neither here nor there.) He mutters something unintelligible and turns his attention back to the game. “So...”

Mike unflusters himself. “Yeah. The stone goes in without incident.” He makes a roll behind his wall/shield/screen.

“Good,” Hopper says. “Now all that’s left is for you to release these... adventurers, and point me in the direction of the princess.”

“You said you crossed the room?” Wheeler confirms.

“Uh... yeah, I guess I’d have to, right? If I went behind Will?” He moves Buff Gandhi to a new position on the board.

“Then Ariybar mutters an incantation and the runes flash white. Give me another d20 roll.”

“...4.” Beginner’s luck, huh.

“The light fades and you find yourself in the same state as the others, frozen in place.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dustin sighs.

“ - I mean, is anyone surprised?” Lucas asks with frustration. “What exactly was your plan, here? You basically gave up your hostage, which was the only thing stopping him from...” He trails off as Hopper fixes him with a death glare.

Ariybar picks up for him, though. “‘You arrogant fool!’ Ariybar exclaims, approaching you.” Wheeler has a cocksure smile on his face, and Hopper has another urge to exercise his Monkly proclivities for introducing smug looks to closed fists. “‘Assuming I’d just let you leave, even after you abandoned your advantage? After I’d given you my pendant?’ He cackles and crosses to Will.”

“I bare my teeth at him,” Will says, demonstrating with feeling.

“He reaches into your pack. ‘And this - this was supposed to fool me? This stone is bound to me; I would know its precise whereabouts even had you carried it halfway around the world!’ He pulls out the stone and backs away.”

Max shakes her head. “Damnit. I really thought we had him there, for a minute.” She kicks the side of the couch. “Well. Nice knowing you, everybody.”

“Still think you made it too damn hard,” Dustin mutters at Wheeler.

“Well the last three sessions you said everything was too easy! What was I supposed to - ”

“Come on, guys,” Will says, with the weary determination of a boy who has seen things. The thought occurs to Hopper as something humorous, at first, until he remembers that of course Will has seen things, felt things, lived through things, beyond anything he can really understand. “The Chief did a great job giving us a second chance. There must be something...” he says, though it’s more of a plea than anything else.

“No one’s saying he didn’t,” Lucas assures. “But we’re all paralyzed, now. Unless another one of our parents has been secretly listening in outside and decides to join in, I’m pretty sure we’re well and truly screwed.”

“The runes turn green again as Ariybar lifts off the ground; judging by the intensity of the light, he’s picking up where he left off.”

El looks at Wheeler pleadingly, who looks pained for a moment before he bites his lip and shifts his divider to block her gaze. By the time she turns that gaze to Hopper, it’s only gotten more intense. “We have to do something!”

He keeps his focus on Wheeler, stone-faced.

The kid glances around the faces of the others - apologetically? To check for last-minute strokes of genius, maybe - before he takes a deep breath and announces, “The green of the runes becomes absolutely toxic and pulses once, twice, three times, then fades to lifeless black. ‘IT IS DONE!’ Ariybar announces, cackling wildly as he settles to the floor. Max, that sinister energy you felt earlier consumes you entirely - hundreds of souls enslaved to your will, and beyond them a looming darkness in the back of your mind: your father, the Tyrant, ready to receive them, to be - ”

Hopper clears his throat. “I can talk, right?”

Mike frowns. There’s silence for a second or two as everyone pulls themselves out of the moment. “...I mean... yeah. I guess. Everybody else could, so...”

“Good. Zoomer, do me a favor, would you, tell this guy to shut the hell up?”

Max frowns. Everybody frowns. “...I don’t...” She glances uncertainly at Lucas, then at Wheeler, then at Hopper. “What do you...”

Hopper sits up so that he can lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees and interlacing his fingers. “Will, remind us what the last item you put in your bag was?”

Will creases his brow, looks decidedly confused. “Um...”

“I’ll help jog your memory. Unless I’m mistaken, it was right after you all found that scrap from the princess’s dress.”

Will blinks. “In the back of the amulet shop. Yeah, that’s right. I picked up one of the amulets so that we could test...” His eyes widen.

“That’s right. You did. To test its effects, or something. And I seem to recall that this - what was it he called me? Arrogant fool? - that this arrogant fool said anyone who’s touched one of these amulets would be under the Zoomer’s control as soon as his ritual finished. Your pack was pretty full, and that amulet you picked up would’ve been on top. Poor guy should’ve worn gloves. But we know he didn’t. Wheeler said he’d described everything Ariybar was wearing.” Hopper lets the smirk he’s been sitting on creep out onto his face.

Max blinks. “Stop talking!” she shouts suddenly.

Hopper blinks back, until he realizes she’s addressing Ariybar, following Hopper’s advice. Wheeler realizes it too, after a minute, and then it’s his turn to blink. “Uhh - um...” He lets out a single, breathy, kind of dumbstruck laugh. “Yeah. - Yeah, ok.

“I guess Ariybar shuts the hell up.”

~

Afterwards there’s laughter and high-fives and a surplus of dessert waffles, in-jokes and anecdotes and way too many sci-fi references. At one point (and, admittedly, with the help of a couple of beers) Hopper finds himself getting a little too involved watching what’s gradually turned into a dramatic reenactment of the group’s last adventure, to the extent that when they slay the big bad he actually lets out the kind of whoop he usually reserves for hometown football games.

Wheeler’s the last to leave, as usual. And, as usual, Hopper can’t help eavesdropping on the extended goodbye.

“That was fun.”

“Yeah - yeah, it was. Sorry if it was weird, bringing Hopper in like that.”

“Mm-mm. It was good. He had fun.”

“I guess so. - You know he was actually pretty good.”

“He’s the best. Like you.”

A break in the dialogue. No mystery as to the cause.

“I’ll radio you tomorrow?”

“Tonight.”

“Deal.” Hopper can hear the smile in Wheeler’s voice.

“Not promise?” He can hear the teasing in hers.

“Can’t hurt to shake things up now and then.”

“Fine.” Another pause. “Deal.”

And then he’s off.

~

End of day the following Monday Flo stops him in the hall as he’s pulling on his jacket. “Chief,” she says, frowning down through her glasses at a piece of paper in her hand.

“What can I do for you, Florence?” he says pleasantly.

She glances up at him skeptically. “You’re chipper.”

“That’s because I’m leaving.”

She makes an unamused noise, which he likes to think means she’s amused. “I was just going over the office supplies requests. Tell me, what do we need - ” she adjusts her bifocals -  “‘polyhedral dice’ for, exactly?”

Hopper glances around the office - no one else around to overhear, thank god - and scratches his chin. “Training exercises,” he answers after a moment, as he pushes past her and out the door, a small smile playing at his lips.

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

July 13, 2021

GOODBYE GREAT SALT LAKE — HELLO BABYLON

How can you have a Salt Lake City without a Great Salt Lake? Here's the honest truth: The Great Salt Lake is drying up — FAST. Soon it will just be a dusty depression where crazy people drive ATVs around in circles kicking up toxic dust. But it was just three decades ago that Gov. Norm Bangerter installed gigantic pumps on the lake's western shores to drain the rising waters before they flooded the airport. Back then our mountains got 600 inches of snow each winter. But we're faced with another problem now: It would be like having a Bonneville City without Lake Bonneville. Dumb. There is a lot of denial, but if history is any guide we could end up like Babylon, Carthage and Angkor Watt. People would say, what is Salt Lake City? as though it were Palenque. No surprise, Mayor Erin Mendenhall is having none of it. She commissioned a new city flag and pressed the City Council to pass an ordinance forbidding the lake from drying up. Not least, SLOC is seeking the 2034 Winter Olympics like there will be a Great Salt Lake and other stuff, like snow. We need a new name that will reflect more aptly where we live. How about something like New Egypt. We could import camels and the Utah Travel Council would just love it: “Greatest Humps on Earth.”

HATE CRIME IN PANGUICH? SHUT UP!

There are certain places you shouldn't go if you have a Biden or Obama bumper sticker on your Subaru. Blanding, Utah, comes to mind. And if you have one disparaging Trump, you should never leave Salt Lake County. But this latest bit of news actually scared the hell out of Wilson and the band: A 19-year-old woman was charged with a hate crime after allegedly stomping on a sign at a gas station in Panguitch — population 1,712. (We aren't making this up.) The sign read “Back the Blue,” referring, of course, to law enforcement. Ever since Black Lives Matter, others want to matter, too — Blue Lives Matter, White Lives Matter, Red Necks Matter... Anyway, you might add Garfield County to the “don't go zone” if you aren't white and conservative — a  MAGA hat wouldn't hurt. According to Tribune ace Jordan Miller, the arresting officer's statement said: The woman “crumpled the sign up in a destructive manner and threw it into a trash can all while smirking in an intimidating manner towards me.” There is this little matter of the First Amendment. Stomping on a sign falls under freedom of expression, as does burning Old Glory. Still, the woman faces up to one year in the slammer — Bill of Rights be damned — and Panguitch is a much safer place.

GOP HAS GONE NEO-FASCIST — BUT DON'T TELL UTAHNS

One-time Republican strategist Susan Del Percio shuns the term, “Trumpism,” because the M.O. of the present-day Republican Party goes much deeper. “Neo-fascism, that's what the grassroots of the Republican Party is right now,” she said. Well, neo-fascism can't be so bad — Trump once said, “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things, too.” But don't tell Utah Republicans they are neo-fascists. They could get even more confused. Lately they've been convinced their kids could be indoctrinated by Marxists, vis-à-vis  critical race theory. And, of course, they think Trump won the election, despite 60 court rulings that say otherwise. The question for people like Del Percio is how to get the GOP back from QAnon Zombies, the Jan. 6 mob and evangelicals who think Trump is the Savior (seriously). The Swiss and Danes found that fighting Neo-Nazis on their own terms was fruitless, but providing a positive vision of the future without them was like throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West. The staff here at Smart Bomb had a brainstorm: why not create a hologram of a brown Jesus washing the feet of Nancy Pelosi. It's far fetched, we know, but bringing the GOP back from Zombieland will take more than cutting off their heads with chainsaws.

Post script — OK, sun-worshipers that's a wrap for another week here in paradise, where we keep track of Mike Lee's drivel so you don't have to. Critical race theory will “weaponize diversity,” Mikey ranted last week as he launched a fund-raiser to ensure that kids will not learn this is a racist country. The senator, who grew up in an all-white neighborhood, went to a white college (BYU) and white law school (at BYU) knows a lot about diversity because every evening black and brown people come to clean his office. Lee rode into the Senate on the Tea Party wave of 2010, adding to his street cred on civil rights. Fun Fact: Mikey clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito — who is a bit to the right of Sarah Palin — when he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals. So why all the hoo-ha about critical race theory? Columnist Leonard Pitts says this: “It is this year’s War on Christmas. It’s Sharia law, gay wedding cake and new Black Panthers... so white people feel resentful, frightened and besieged — and vote accordingly.” But fear not, the GOP has never used racism as a political strategy, except for Nixon's “southern strategy,” Reagan's “Welfare moms driving Cadillacs,” Bush Sr.'s Willy Horton and Trump's Mexican rapists. Racist Country? Nah.

Well, Wilson, it's hot and smokey and the band is going to need a lot of beer to survive. So, lets raise a mug of grog to Mike Lee and maybe you and the guys can play a little something Sen. White Bread might appreciate:

We skipped the light fandango turned cartwheels 'cross the floor I was feeling kinda seasick but the crowd called out for more The room was humming harder as the ceiling flew away When we called out for another drink the waiter brought a tray And so it was that later as the miller told his tale that her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale

(Whiter Shade of Pale — Procol Harum)

[letmewritemylife]

Plan A, B and C All in One

You need the pain now just to feel anything…                                                                                      - Red

A/N Oh yeah, angst...

TRIGGER WARNINGS Restraints for magic (??), my baby being a self-loathing idiot in need of a hug

As soon as she can get out of bed, Lara starts wandering around her new house, inspecting every corner with a curiosity that Yngun can’t help finding adorable. Urill doesn’t complain either, happy not to be the only one using the huge library anymore. Days pass quickly and Lara finds plenty of opportunities to distract herself from everything that is going on outside of that corner of paradise.

It takes her six months of study and training to be able to visit Earth. Yngun and Urill, whom Lara often refers to as friends rather than simply colleagues, spend hours suggesting her what to and not to do in order to avoid SWORD, but finally they give in and Lara gets to meet her brother, Jonathan. At first, Jonathan is angry: angry at his parents for lying to him and telling him his sister was dead, angry at her for fighting Agency X - because of course Lara’s brother had to be one of their best agents, their relationship would have been too easy otherwise, - angry at whoever suggest her to portal herself in his living room out of nowhere and almost make him a heart attack.

It takes a while - and lots of purple portals in his living room - for him to accept the small, powerful witch who likes butterflies as his sister. He’s not sure when that feeling began, he just knows that one day he woke up, looked at her staring wistfully at a butterfly and realized that she was his sister. It all becomes easier from that moment on.

As a guy with the body structure of a wardrobe drags her down the many hallways of the Avengers Compound, Lara can feel Jonathan’s eyes glued to her face, searching for any sign of discomfort to use as an excuse to rip all those agents around them apart. She ignores him, just like she ignores all the Avengers and aspiring such staring down at her as if she was about to commit mass murder from one moment to another.

Hayward tells Captain America something and the super soldier throws her a look, but she doesn’t flinch, holding his gaze until his eyes move back to the man before him. They share a handshake and the guard who’s been holding her in place this whole time walks in front of her, reaching for her hands and pulling at the handcuffs. For a moment she hopes he won’t move them too much, hurting even more her deeply cut wrists. 

A voice gets through the wall of numbness in her head. It’s Jonathan’s and he’s talking with the guard. “Touch her anywhere but her wrists and you’re dead.”

All SWORD agents but Hayward step outside the room, leaving her with just the heavy collar around her neck reducing her powers to almost nothing. If she didn’t feel weaker than a blanket, she would move from her spot near the door, even just to hide away from all those looks.

Jonathan’s arm wraps around her shoulders and he leans closer to her. “Are you okay, Elle?” he asks, his voice low enough not to be heard by the super soldier approaching them. She nods absently, already imagining why the Avengers would bother to call her.

Steve - his name should be Steve if she remembers correctly, but she was never a big fan of Captain America so she isn’t sure - explains their plan, but she doesn’t catch all the words. At some point he mentions the greater good, the void that Thanos left inside all of them and a bunch of other stuff that she couldn’t care less about.

She interrupts him with a groan. “You want me to recreate the stones, don’t you?” she asks and her voice is much rougher than she remembered it.

“Well, yes,” he replies, halfway between surprise for her frankness and offense for having been interrupted in the middle of his speech.

She nods, her hands wrapping around her wrists and massaging the reddened flesh. “Great. How about you cut the motivational speech so I can try and then go back keeping the world safe by staring at a wall?”

A racoon jumps down the glass table in the middle of the room and makes his way to her. He quickly moves his gaze on her, barely hiding a disgusted grimace at a blood stain on the collar of her uniform. “Do all witches look dead inside?” His voice, unlike Steve’s, has a hint of worry that makes Lara’s stomach twist.

“I’m not a witch,” she cuts short, wobbly walking up to a glass case in the middle of the room, a red and golden gauntlet shining behind the thick glass.

Jonathan takes advantage of everyone’s sudden excitement to reach for Lara’s hand. “Are you sure? You don’t look exactly in the best shape.”

She nods absently, caressing the back of his hand with her thumb. “I’m doing great,” she lies.

Bruce gestures to her to proceed and she approaches the gauntlet, begging her hands not to shake. Purple magic forms around her fingers and she moves her hands through the air, a weak, barely-there discharge of energy coursing through her veins.

Hayward stands up from the wall he was leaning against and stares at her, his eyes studying her face for the tiniest sign to use as an excuse to tease her. As to warn her, he taps with his fingers against the teaser in his pocket.

Lara ignores him, completely focused on using the tiny spark of magic inside her to complete her task. She almost smiles when she remembers the Creator talking about the extent and intensity of her powers, now that her knees are shaking and her hands are getting colder by the second.

Her heartbeat increases, louder and louder in her head, and a discharge of energy, coming from her collar, runs down her spine. Her magic fades away almost instantly and she struggles to hold back a scream.

Bringing her hands to her head, she shuts her eyes closed, her breath heavy and shaking. Jonathan takes a step towards her, moving a tentative hand to her shoulder, but she steps away from him. “I’m fine,” she mutters before he can even say a word.

Tony looks worried at her and she has to strain herself not to insult him. She doesn’t need his pity, she’s fine, she made her choice. The fact that he doesn’t approve of it doesn’t affect her.

Steve is about to say something, but she walks back to the glass case and makes another attempt, this time more careful not to trigger her restraints. Her heart is loud in her head, bumping faster and faster as purple sparkles struggle to form those damn stones. She curses under her breath when one of the stones glitches intensely before her eyes.

And there it is again, a hundred times more intense than just a minute before. Another discharge hits her, shutting down her powers for the second time. 

This time she can’t pretend she’s okay. She bends down, gripping the edge of the glass case until her knuckles are white. A painful scream escapes her lips and she closes her eyes tightly. She can’t even think, her heartbeat so loud in her head that she barely registers Jonathan rushing to her side, his hands on her shoulders in a vain attempt to soothe her.

A man takes a step towards her, but Jonathan throws him a cold look that convinces him not to approach her. Steve holds him back, calling him with a name that Lara barely hears - Scott or something like that. Tony screams something at Hayward, the only word that Lara recognizes is a curse. 

The other man tries to defend himself. “It was not part of the deal,” he insists.

Jonathan helps his sister up, an arm wrapped around her shoulders and another around her stomach. She breathes out and slowly opens her eyes, the LED lights of the room hurting her sight.

Rhodey shares a look with Tony, before speaking for the first time since the beginning of the meeting. “Maybe we should take a break.”

Lara shakes her head, clenching her fists to stop the shaking. “I’m fine, I can try again,” her voice is hoarse, but at least she manages to keep it more or less steady.

“You’re not trying again.” Jonathan’s imperative voice makes Lara fume.

“Why do you even care?” she snaps back, suddenly angry. Even though she knows he didn’t do anything, she can’t help it.

Jonathan widens his eyes, letting go of her and staring in disbelief at her. “Maybe because I’m your brother and I don’t want you to hurt yourself ‘cause a self-righteous assh*le told you to?” Hayward furrows his brows at the comment, but judging by the way Jonathan has looked at the other Avengers, he isn’t sure if he’s talking about him or Steve. Maybe both.

Lara takes a step away from him and her brother can notice a strange glint in her eyes. “Would you rather everyone stayed dead?”

Thor gets up from the couch, lowering his sunglasses just enough to look at Lara. “I appreciate the witch’s enthusiasm, but there are other things we can try,” he comments, gesturing vaguely in her direction.

Lara laughs bitterly. “That’s not true.”

Jonathan doesn’t stop, shutting down the part of him that is telling him not to push his sister too much. “How do you even know? We didn’t try-”

She loses her patience, clenching her fists even harder. “Don’t you f*cking understand why the Creator sent them to us?”

Natasha narrows her brows. “How do you know h-?”

Lara ignores her completely and walks closer to Jonathan, raising her tone as much as her weakened body allows her to. “If I fail this sh*t, billions of people stay dead and it’s on me. If my magic doesn’t work, there is no plan B, no second outcome.”

“What makes you think that?” Lara can’t help hating her brother, so kind with her to the point of being completely oblivious to what is going on around them.

“Don’t you think that if there was another way Mr Jesus would go with that instead of calling a psychopathic murderer?” She’s practically screaming at this point, her voice shaking more than she would like to admit as her eyes water. Her knees seem made of crystal glass, not strong enough to hold her upright.

Tony moves his eyes from Lara for a moment to silently suggest Jonathan to shut up, but the other man doesn’t notice his hint and continues with his suicide mission. “You’re not a psycho and least of all a murderer.”

Lara can’t hold it in anymore. All the suppressed anger of the past weeks, months, maybe years is finally unleashed. Tears are streaming down her face, slightly stinging on her scars. Her heartbeat increases again and Lara prays with all herself that her collar won’t activate itself again, mistaking her almost panic attack for use of magic. “Stop acting as if I hadn’t killed my family!” she screams it at the top of her lungs and a minute later she’s storming out of the room, unsure where she is going but deeply eager to get out of there as soon as possible.

Hayward is about to run after her, but Rocket screams at him to stop. To content him, Tony asks FRIDAY to watch over her.

When she was just a child, Lara liked to think that someone up in the sky controlled the weather with their emotions. Every time it rained, she couldn't help feeling empathy for that person up there, grieving for God knows what reason. Years passed and she reached a point when she thought her powers could influence her weather and she was the person in the sky doing the good and the bad weather. Literally.

Now, she has decent proof that she was wrong, as the weak rain falling on New York doesn’t even come close to the thunderstorm inside her. The few raindrops occasionally hitting the glass and iron rail of the balcony fail to be cathartic for Lara and she groans loudly, leaning with her face on her knees. 

From time to time, someone walks in the hallway behind her, throws her a look and questions why she’s curled up under the only covered corner of the balcony, staring blankly in front of her. If she has to be completely honest, she’s not sure either. Probably in those two years of captivity she’s got used to doing nothing for prolonged time. For a moment she’s sorry that Jonathan decided to follow her, surrendering to SWORD with her in a stupid hope to be there for her. Or at least that’s why she thinks he did it, since she doubts he understood her real motives.

“Speak of the devil,” she jokes to herself when Jonathan sits beside her, squeezing his shoulders to fit in the tiny space empty under the roof, but still ending up with half a shoulder exposed. “How are you?” he attempts.

She smiles weakly, not convinced. “I’m okay.”

He nods and waits, not moving his eyes from her as her face darkens, a wave of melancholy washing over her. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

She sighs, leaning against his side and letting him wrap an arm around her shoulders. “I failed them,” she whispers, burying her face against his ribs.

He kisses her forehead before pulling her in a hug, something that he wished to do for a long time in that SWORD base everytime he heard her screaming in pain from the adjoining cell. “You did not.” 

She doesn’t fight him this time and sobs quietly against his shirt.

[therumpus]

I. This doesn’t begin with the fire, but it’s as good a bookend as any— just one tableau of many featuring the usual cast of accusatory fingers and the figures in their line of ire. Those whom rules have favored and those who know what it is to suffer. We’d never been to that space, never met the artists and attendees who perished in a building like the wooden belly of a ship, but we know places like it, have danced and sung among fairy lights, handmade lofts, puppets built by da Vinci’s latest incarnation as a trans girl. Those people shouting shame over building codes have likely been the comfortable kind exercising freedom not to be spat on, threatened, killed for being observably at odds with the bodies they were given. Yes, I said those people, and I meant the enfranchised yapping like lapdogs from narrow confines, not the beings residing in rinky-dink bedrooms/garages that double as performance spaces for bands nowhere else will book. I’m a straight-seeming cis white girl learning to catalogue my privileges and extending them to others when I can and still I have been on the shitty side of a rental inquiry. I know how it feels to be, on paper, worth absolutely nothing and how easy to feel that way off of paper, too. II. I don’t get told to kill myself, but I know many in the LGBT community hear this regularly. Sometimes the command is convincing enough. Anger is a mirror and I don’t believe the otherwise-at-ease offended by some people’s existence are looking in it. I try to imagine having love and sympathy even for livid Jesus-freak gazillionaires stripping rights from everyone who can’t pay their way out of a bind and I can’t do it, can actually see my own humanity’s limits. Would that they too would try this exercise, or another: admit faults! Hard to trust anyone who has no sense of humor. A gentle soul who says she talks to angels has become someone I don’t recognize, taking to Facebook to slut-shame Beyoncé, tongue-lashing Obama for his immigrant sympathies, typing in vitriolic caps about all of the WHINERS who can’t accept Trump as a gift from the Lord. If he is a gift, it is a flaming column of shit wrapped in dubiously human skin, in my very un-angelic opinion. What’s absurd about the man is the obviousness of his insecurities— he doth protest too much—the kind of complex that might inspire sympathy were he not responsible for the lives and deaths of everyone within these borders and many beyond. An awareness of my faults makes me hesitant, makes me reach for the scaffolding of facts while his make him bombastic, loose-cannon, a smug, dumb charlatan, the emperor everyone knows is nude. The angel lady insists not all of God’s chosen ones were perfect. I’m a heathen by choice, prefer to direct my energies to stones, intentions, the wheel of the year. I like my lore more figurative. Still, something tells me God’s chosen weren’t hate-mongering gropers (or worse). Just a hunch. A woman’s intuition. Since childhood I have tried not to know anyone well enough to dislike them, or give them license to antagonize, but Facebook is the license now. We are all animals. At work I held and scanned sweat-stained armbands from the Holocaust, touching fabric that touched people condemned to death or to put them there: red and green triangles, Stars of David, angular S’s and skulls. This is not a metaphor. The rabbi-turned-collector I work for, who deals in Judaica, tells me something I’ve never known: shows me the band that says Jüdische Polizei, for Jews the Nazis forced to police their own people, a level of fucked-up I’d never read. Each day new 1930s and 40s equivalences grow more disturbing, like how fucking stupid and heartless are we, and what kills me is that it’s the red-blooded self-professed patriots only too happy to repeat history, likely the same people who look back at any clash and think they would have been hero underdogs, which is what all Americans fancy ourselves, right? My husband’s aunt is a troll. This is a metaphor. Says he doesn’t watch real news, directs him to YouTube conspiracy videos. These are our times: rhetoric trumps reason, is wielded like a weapon against “ignorance” by those who vilify book-learnin’. I know only too well that I don’t know everything, which makes me not want to claim expertise on anything, which is of course what I want from everyone else, the same control in different clothes. I know how to escape a dinner party mostly unscathed, how to be a worker about whom no one has license to complain, but I don’t know how to be a soul or what true goodness is. Sometimes when I am in a mood, it seems easiest to leave the earth plane altogether, let everyone else deal with this ever-intensifying mess because who am I to do it? I, riddled with faults! I, not very kind! When my serotonin levels are not set to self-destruct, I wonder how often Donald Trump thinks about offing himself and figure the answer is never. III. For the first time in three years, my husband and I were home in the U.S. for the fourth of July. We’d spent twelve months in a nation where kings own newspapers and teachers sign waivers saying they’ll never speak ill of their school, the king, or the country. Portraits of royals hang in every business and home. I watched from afar as my homeland grew foreign to me, an unfunny joke I didn’t bother to defend. At least U.S. journalism is real, I’d thought, an antidote to automatic support for all-powerful leaders. Sad! In Bhutan, foreign workers need government permission to leave town for the weekend, afternoon, even an hour. This is granted by the immigration office, assuming all goes well with a letter from one’s employer, the whims of government workers, and sometimes a whiskey bribe. We presented our papers at checkpoints and kept trips to a minimum, inconvenienced and suspect because foreign. For us, there was an endpoint to this suspicion. In our own country again, we sang “proud to be an American” with gusto, gallows humor. I didn’t yet think such a system could happen here, didn’t know that six months later I’d be shouting at the airport with hijabis and Jews holding signs saying “We’ve seen this before.” I can’t command and articulate encyclopedic knowledge on the history of anger in and toward and from the Middle East and everywhere else, which is what I feel I need every time anyone starts in against Islam, but it’s not like facts are doing too hot these days so what does it matter, why am I still trying to fight fair against people who make up the rules as they go, who pride themselves on never reading books, whose tones of voice call to mind a fat cartoon man tugging his suspenders with jazz hands, chewing one end of a cigar? Floating over my shoulders I’ve got on one side a stenographer and on the other a housecat, both judgey and withholding, not the spirits to summon in an argument against oversimplification, the casting of all of a kind of person as their worst representative—which is what U.S. Americans can anticipate now that the rest of the world sees us for what we’ve always denied that we are: buffoons, ill-meaning and otherwise. I don’t know what to do with myself so I am calling representatives, studying Spanish, reading the Quran before the Bible, wishing my boss Shabbat Shalom, trying out Insha’Allah, everything graceless as crayon art magneted to the fridge, but an alternative to withering. At the women’s march, where I didn’t march so much as shift my weight from side to side for hours, so crowded, all I did was look and listen to people who’ve done this before, their history of anger a resistance pre-dating my existence. I imagine the fire victims who might have marched with us against all manner of finger-pointing, their pockets perhaps like mine lined with stones: malachite for a resilient heart, sodalite for courage to speak truth, tiger’s eye for personal power. Among the signs about witches and coat hangers: Black lives matter. Can’t believe that statement is ever a provocation, but then what I cannot believe is redefined every time I read the news now. Home after the protest there’s a Facebook statement from the angel whisperer: “Congratulations, ladies. You just marched for terrorism.” A flame of anger. Then a video clip: someone just punched a Nazi in the face. 2017 battle cry as .gif. “We’ve seen this before” manifest as a fist. For a moment, that was all the clarity I needed.

RUMPUS ORIGINAL POETRY: “Mewl” by Sarah Lyn Rogers

[aion-rsa]

Kings of a Dead World: Why We Tell Sleep Dystopia Stories in an Age of Climate Change

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This piece is sponsored by

Author Jamie Mollart laughs while admitting this, but the idea for Kings of a Dead World, his new dystopian novel about a world put to sleep to conserve resources, came to him in a dream. And why shouldn’t it have? “Sleep on it” is the common advice for a human being pondering a big choice or change, with the promise that a good night’s sleep will allow them better perspective to write a novel, make a life-shifting decision… maybe even save the world?

Over fifty years ago in Welcome to the Monkey House, Kurt Vonnegut vividly described a grossly overpopulated Earth like the tightly-packed drupelets of a raspberry. Mollart’s bleak near-future bears these familiar hallmarks, further complicating overpopulation with rising water levels, dwindling fossil fuels, and, most damningly, individual countries’ failure to halt the global climate crisis on their own terms. The solution, then, requires a global sacrifice: The majority of the world’s population spends three months in a chemically-induced, coma-like Sleep, with one month Awake in which they make up for that lost time. Everyone, that is, except for the Janitors, who live by natural circadian rhythms: monitoring the Sleepers’ vitals, as well as conducting worldwide Trade to deliver Creds into their accounts so that they have some earnings to spend in their limited Waking hours.

As a way to curb consumption, it makes sense in theory, and has Kings of a Dead World joining a subgenre of dystopian or otherwise speculative fiction in which sleep can potentially solve seemingly insurmountable societal problems: David Fincher’s seminal film Fight Club, Karen Russell’s quietly devastating novella Sleep Donation, Christopher Nolan’s dreamlike Inception, and so forth. After all, there’s something incredibly alluring about the idea of closing your eyes and trusting that the world will fix itself while you snooze. It’s the same passive self-improvement your body undergoes during the normal stages of sleep, but on a colossal, collective scale: the ozone layer restitches itself, the stocks go up, the Earth gets a break from billions of footprints. It’s almost like rewinding time.

But that’s the thing, Mollart says, when Den of Geek speaks to him about his new book: “Time’s like a false constraint, isn’t it? You’ve got the sun coming up, the sun coming down—there is an obvious set of divisions of how people spend their time. But the whole hour and minute thing—we’ve made these false constraints that we as society have put onto things. It’s humans grappling with what’s in front of them in nature, isn’t it? It’s this whole thing we can’t control, so we try to control it by putting our own constraints on it.”

False or not, these societal constraints have created an inverse relationship between sleepers and wakers, their movements balanced by time zones that dictate when half of the world ends the day while the other half is just beginning. In fiction, this dynamic is even more pronounced, with characters moving through the dream realm at cross-purposes to one another, whether it’s the Inception team planting ideas three layers into the slumbering subconscious, or Tyler Durden puppeting the Narrator’s body for cross-country flights to found Fight Clubs all over the country. Kings of a Dead World alternates between the perspectives of Ben, an octogenarian whose age belies his revolutionary fighting spirit, struggling to take care of his sick wife Rose during their brief time Awake; and Peruzzi, a Janitor who has the Sleeping world as his playground yet suffers an existential lack of purpose.

Being the sleeper is easy, or so we think: Sleep Donation posits that donating sleep is as painless and noble as giving blood. That’s the party line for the Sleep Corps’ champ recruiter Trish Edgewater, who convinces the parents of newborn donor Baby A that she has a surfeit of the stuff, and to not give would be to doom the nation’s insomniacs to an agonizing, brutal, unnecessary death. For Baby A, or Washington Irving’s archetypal snoozer Rip Van Winkle, or the Narrator, they get to wake up into a changed world. It’s the people watching them sleep, moving through the insomniac hours, who have to do the actual hard work of breaking and reshaping the world.

In the Narrator’s case, Mollart says, “[he] can’t break out of the cycle that he’s in without inventing someone to tell him how to do it, which is just such a modern male thing. We’re rubbish about talking about our feelings; we’re rubbish about facing responsibility for ourselves.” Toxic masculinity is a recurring theme in Mollart’s work, from his prior novel The Zoo to his next project: “We’re the shit half of the species, and I just think male friendships are really interesting. Most blokes have one real strong relationship, often from your childhood, and you become really mirrors of each other. That’s kind of what the Tyler Durden/Narrator [dynamic] is like. Blokes egg each other on, [and] it’s difficult for men to show affection to other men, it’s just sad. As long as that continues, we won’t break the cycle of nonsense of male violence and the patriarchy that we’ve got unfortunately still.”

The Tyler/Narrator dynamic plays out in the relationship between fellow Janitors Peruzzi and Slattery: colleagues, quasi-friends, and partners in crime. While their decadent lifestyles spoil them with at-home gyms and Brave New World-inspired raves every three months, Slattery tempts Peruzzi into seeking out greater highs than pills and sex. Their explorations into the Sleeping world at first tap into a Fight Club-esque awakening of the blood, only to tip into Project Mayhem levels of voyeurism and violation in pursuit of confirmation that what they do actually matters.

Despite these outbursts, the Janitors remain a shadowy presence in the lives of the Sleepers, watching them but not motivating them to Sleep. That incentivization comes from this world’s new-old religious order: the chronological trinity of Chronos, Bacchus, and Rip Van. “In a world where you hit a cultural stop,” Mollart explains, “where it goes from this to this, it felt to me that you would go back to something quite primal.” He turned to ancient mythology for the personification of time (who oversees the Sleep/Wake cycles) and the god of partying (who rewards the Janitors for their hard work). But it was fairy tales that provided a folkloric Jesus Christ figure for the Sleepers in Rip Van, a figure who every extended Sleep cycle seems to preach, I did it, and you can too. I lost twenty years, you can give up three months.

Fairy tales, Mollart said, are “rooted in innate primal fears; they’re very much about things we worry about on a hunter-gatherer level, like getting lost in woods [and] wicked witches turning us into things. They’re very dark, aren’t they, but with this playful exterior.” His description sounds not unlike dreaming, in which the dreamer uses that otherworldly space to process waking events and subconscious conflicts.

But what about a Sleep with no dreams? “I wanted there to be a difference between forced Sleep and actual sleep,” Mollart says. “It shouldn’t be a thing where you get to restore your body and your mind. It’s like they’re turned off, literally turned off.”

Although the Sleep is initially presented as a solution for the sake of the common good, it becomes clear that it is more of a life sentence than a sacrifice. “It’s the actual stealing of time,” Mollart says, “time is stolen from them, rather than time you can do something else in. If they were having beautiful dreams while they’re Asleep, it would just take away a little bit of the fear of it. … There should be nothing. Not to get into the comparison with death and all that, but it’s little incremental bits of death.”

This is especially the case for Ben’s wife Rose, afflicted with an unnamed disease suggestive of dementia, in which she Awakes into different eras of her life. Because Ben never knows which Rose will Awake, or how panicked she will be—with any heightened stress levels forcibly putting her back to Sleep—their time together is so precious. Mollart likens it to currency, especially with Peruzzi as the have to Ben’s have-not: “He’s got so much time, but he doesn’t do anything with it, whereas Ben is the sort of person who’s working really hard to look after their family, and every penny counts. When you’ve got loads of something, you lose a sense of what it’s worth.”

Ben’s struggles to reach Rose mirror that of Inception’s Dom Cobb, who even in other people’s dreams is haunted by his subconscious’ projection of his dead wife Mal. He blames himself for getting her so immersed in dream-sharing that, despite living fifty years in the space of a dream, she believed upon waking up that she was still dreaming. That conviction, that she was stuck in a waking dream, led to her suicide. For Rose, some months she emerges having gone through fifty years of Sleeping and Waking with Ben; others, she’s young and scared and doesn’t understand why her body is being turned on and off like a light switch.

Despite being a universal aspect of the human body, sleep itself is such an intensely individualistic experience. Even if interlopers can infiltrate dreams in Inception, or if a nightmare can taint a sleep supply like in Sleep Donation, a given night’s sleep still feels like it is intimately owned by that person. This quandary mirrors our society’s approach to the climate crisis: “One of the whole problems with climate change is it’s just too big, you can’t picture it,” Mollart says. “It’s so big that you can’t understand that recycling more or not eating meat or not using single-use plastic will have a difference, because the problem’s too big. I think it’s that sort of mentality, that we can only project so far out from ourselves; and I think when you’ve had things taken off you, you very quickly resort to looking after yourself and those close to you. It’s human nature—not very nice human nature, but that we all do.”

Trish promises the Harkonnens that the Sleep Corps will not overdraw Baby A’s sleep supply, painfully aware that she’s saying so “at a moment when people are plunging their straws into every available centimeter of shale and water, every crude oil and uranium and mineral well on earth, with an indiscriminate and borderless appetite.” When sleep becomes yet another resource to be exhausted, Russell shows readers, the individual will be exploited supposedly for the greater good, in reality robbing the next generation of their future.

“Our fathers were our models for God,” Tyler tells the Narrator while branding his hand with lye. “If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?” While Kings of a Dead World unpacks toxic masculinity, it contextualizes that misbehavior within this greater trauma of parental abandonment and explores how to break the aforementioned cycles of violence caused by a refusal to engage with one’s feelings.

Outside of fiction, that’s witnessing our planet’s youngest generation openly speak out about being burdened with an irreversibly damaged world with a shrug in place of an apology. Their unfortunate position fits the second half of that oft-quoted Fight Club monologue: “You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen.” By acknowledging their shit situation instead of trying to ignore it, the next generation is trying to find a way forward.

Despite Kings of a Dead World being more of a cautionary tale for mass sleep, Mollart acknowledges that, on an individual level, sleep can certainly be a positive force for change.

“It actually is in Fight Club, isn’t it?” Mollart says. “In a very messed-up kind of way. The whole bringing down of society happens because the sleeping version of him is more proactive than the waking version—and he goes about things in a very fucked-up way, but his intentions are good. The ending scene with Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’, where all the [credit card companies] get blown up, is supposed to be a positive, uplifting ending. It’s like he’s dreamt—well he has dreamt the whole thing, weirdly—and then he wakes up and it’s this fresh start. He’s got rid of his demons, he’s with Marla, and their society’s monetary evils have been wiped out.”

That distinction between sleep and waking is crucial. Dystopian sleep stories are not meant to be soothing lullabies, especially when threaded with narratives about climate change. They are meant to depict the nightmarish future that cannot be pushed off—not by escaping into symbolic dreams, not by punting the issue to children and grandchildren. Sleep should be utilized for its initial purpose of recharging—but at some point we have to complete the cycle by waking up.

Kings of a Dead World is available June 10 in the UK from Sandstone Press. Check out the full synopsis below…

The Earth’s resources are dwindling. The solution is the Sleep.

Inside a hibernating city, Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease stealing his wife from him. Watching over the sleepers, lonely Peruzzi craves the family he never knew.

Everywhere, dissatisfaction is growing.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The city is about to wake.

The post Kings of a Dead World: Why We Tell Sleep Dystopia Stories in an Age of Climate Change appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[tomishaped]

522 Things I'm not allowed to do at Hogwarts

Numbers 391-488

391. Asking the Weasley twins, "So do you do everything together?" is ill advised.

392. Telling Lucius what he could do with his staff... is not advisable.

393. I will not ask the school to sponsor a break dancing crew.

394. Voldemort, after being defeated, did not get served.

395. Getting Colin Creevey drunk and steering him toward a sleeping Harry Potter is just a bad idea all around.

396. -Then using his camera to take incriminating photos is not nice.

397. Coming up behind Harry while he and Draco are glowering at each other and saying "Oh, go on and kiss him already!" is not funny.

398. -Even if Luna Lovegood does say, "Yes, I thought so too."

399. I am not a Balrog animagus.

400. The house never did fall on Professor Umbridge's sister, nor is she suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.

401. I may not try to find out if any of the owls are David Bowie in animagus form.

402. I will not ask people what their daemons are.

403. I will not offer Professor McGonagall lasagne.

404. I will not tell the Ravenclaws that they're basically useless because Hogwart's smartest student is in another house.

405. I will not call Pizza Hut and ask them to deliver to the common room.

406. I will not poison first years. No matter how much I think they need it.

407. It is not appropriate trade first years between houses.

408. I will not tempt Ravenclaws with apples. I will also not say that the Slytherins have tempted other students with apples.

409. Frankenstein is not required reading for DADA classes.

410. -Neither is Dracula.

411. I will not try to explain the laws of physics, not even for the sake of argument.

412. If I even look like I might sing "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves" I will be Obliviated.

413. Using the 'Petrificus Totalus' curse on Draco Malfoy and dumping him in the Gryffindor common room as a Christmas present to the House means you should watch your back until June.

414. -Especially if the Weasley twins were staying over break.

415. -If Lee Jordan was there too, you're going to need a bodyguard.

416. I will not claim to be able to see the Thestrals if I cannot.

417. -I will not tell first years that "any true wizard or witch" can see Thestrals, and that if they can't they "obviously aren't cut out for this school".

418. I am not to tell Muggleborn first-years that Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans taste better when one eats a whole handful simultaneously.

419. I will not take out a life insurance policy on any Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

420.I will not attempt to repel Dementors by covering myself in chocolate body paint.

421. I will not sneak up behind Draco and Harry while they are in their Staring Snarky Yelling Matches and yell, "SLASH SLASH SLASH! LET'S SEE SOME SLASH!"

422. I will not give Hagrid Pokmon cards and convince him that they are real animals

423. -Likewise, I will not tell First Year Muggle-borns that Pokmon battles are a part of the Care of Magical Creatures curriculum

424. I am not qualified to perform exorcisms on Hogwarts ghosts, and attempting to do so will merely offend them.

425. Draco Malfoy is not the secret identity of "Ferret Boy".

426. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are not the magical equivalent of "Batman and Robin".

427. Telling Draco Malfoy to "make like a ferret and bounce" is always a bad idea.

428. The Crucible is not summer reading for History of Magic, and I should not tell First Years that it is.

429. "You might be a Pureblood if..." jokes will get me in trouble, especially in front of Slytherins.

430. I will not play the Darth Vader theme for Professor Snape.

431. - However, when Lucius Malfoy visits, I may play it.

432. The bludger is not a bowling ball, and Professor Snape is not a bowling pin. I will not attempt to prove otherwise.

433. If I insist on carrying out my plans of producing "Riddle-de-dee: The Voldemort Musical", I will do so under a nom-de-plume.

434. - I will not attempt to recruit the title character to play himself. Even if he looks good in tap shoes.

435. The Slytherin prefect is named Draco Malfoy, not "Rocky Horror.

436. -Transfiguring Draco Malfoy's uniform into a gold thong is inappropriate.

437. -Especially if he's wearing it.

438. Crabbe and Goyle should not be referred to as "Bulk and Skull". "Dumb and Dumber" is equally inappropriate.

439. -I should not refer to Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle collectively as "Team Rocket" either.

440. Comparing Draco Malfoy to Alex Krycek, Lindsay McDonald, Lex Luthor or any similar character is not an appropriate subject for a Muggle Studies essay.

441. I will not attempt to determine whether Malfoy is a natural blond.

442. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle's first names are, respectively, Draco, Vincent and Gregory, not Larry, Darryl and Darryl.

443. The Slytherin Quidditch team should not be referred to as "Draco Malfoy and a moderate amount of cross-dressing".

444. -Even if that is an accurate description.

445. The song "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" is never, ever appropriate.

446. "Springtime for Voldemort" is not an acceptable suggestion for the class play.

447. I am not allowed to spank others.

448. -Even if Malfoy liked it.

449. No matter how vast the uses and entertaining the results, I will not indulge in fun with duct tape.

450. -This goes double for superglue.

451. I am not to dance naked in the great hall.

452. -Or on the grounds.

453. -Generally, dancing naked is wrong.

454. Despite the appearances of the employees and the vaults, Gringotts is not the entrance to the Labyrinth.

455. -While in the company of goblins, I must not demand that I be taken to Jareth.

456. -Nor shall I tell them "You remind me of the babe.

457. Draco Malfoy no longer requires a nanny, nor does he need tucking in and "a bit of a cuddle" at bedtime.

458. - Not even if he insists that he does. And that his father has hired me to provide said service.

459. I am not to call Hogwarts "the most covert anti-Death Eater organization on the planet.

460. The Easter Bunny is not Jesus' Animagus form.

461. I am not allowed to ask Pureblood students things like, "If your parents got divorced, would they still be brother and sister?"

462. I am not allowed to discuss my theory that Voldemort is actually the second cousin of Sauron.

463. I will not tell first years that they should build a tree house in the Whomping Willow.

464. I will not write forged letters home to the parents of Muggleborn first years detailing the Satanic rituals they are learning.

465. I will not ask Dobby why he doesn't look more like Orlando Bloom.

466. - Nor will I ask him if he works for Santa Claus in the off-season.

467. I will not invite Professor Snape to a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

468. -The same goes double for Voldemort.

469. -Likewise, I will no longer be permitted to refer to Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange as Riff Raff and Magenta.

470. -Especially to their faces.

471. I will stop pasting happy face stickers on Lupin's office door.

472. Draco Malfoy does not appreciate being called 'Ferret Boy'

473. -Or 'The Blond Boy Wonder'

474. Hagrid's skin is not green and I should stop calling him 'The Jolly Green Giant.'

475. Sending love notes to Professor Snape and signing them 'With Love, Draco Malfoy' is not appropriate.

476. -Neither is signing them with: 'I had a great time last night, Argus Filch.'.

477. Breaking into song during Potions class is not acceptable.

478. -Especially if the song is 'I feel pretty, oh so pretty'.

479. Or 'I'm too sexy'.

480. I am not a 'ninja sent here by Lord Voldemort to destroy Harry Potter' and should stop shouting this at meal times.

481. Lucius Malfoy's cane is not a 'pimp cane'.

482. I must never sneak up behind Draco Malfoy and coo "How's my Blondie-Bear?"

483. Teaching first years to chorus in unison "The amazing bouncing ferret" whenever they hear the name Draco Malfoy is just wrong, funny, but wrong.

484. It's not tasteful to approach Cho wearing a shirt that says All the good-looking ones die young with a picture of Cedric Diggory on it.

485. I am not to tell Draco that I know all about his affair with Hermione Granger.

486. -Especially if it's not true.

487. -I also cannot sell the story to Rita Skeeter.

488. -Or owl Lucius, Narcissa, or Bellatrix with the imaginary details