#Long story short: Missed

[doodlemxsings]

TAG DUMP!!!

[inkmonster21]

Sing for Me

12. The Wasted World

Cooper Howard × Fem!Reader / The Ghoul × Fem!Reader

She's a singer the nation adores. He's the actor everyone respects. What happens when these two get entangled in a heated affair? Passion, regret, rage, and even murder will commence. From before the bombs drop to the vast wasteland, these two souls live for one another.

Previous Chapter

Series Masterlist

Tagged: @fallout-girl219 @harmfulb1tch @themadhattersqueen @one-of-thewalkingdead

The synthetic bot of (Y/n) sits inside a run-down house on sand, confused and alone. The sparks misfire in her brain shooting different emotions and memories. They play like pictures, like a silent movie in flashes. Two different lives collide. After a while, she sits against the wall silently, her server still shorting out, but no idea what to do or how to fix it.

For two days she sat there. Could she die? Maybe. She was begging God to take her from this torture. Alone and confused. No purpose or quality of life. What was the point? Was she being punished?

"Hey." A sharp poke at my stomach woke me up. I stand within seconds looking at the figure. A young boy stands with his knife high. "Are... Are you hurt?" I nod slowly, my head and limbs twitching, small sparks coming from my neck. He holds his hands up showing innocence. "I can help, My older brother used to work on Snyths."

I back away, twisting and twitching. “Synth?” The boy looks at me with sadness in his eyes. “I can help you.” I reluctantly take a seat in hopes of the best, but expecting the worst. To my surprise, the young boy was able to fix the problem. "Just a fuse." He mumbles as he reaches in and replaces the damaged fuse. “Your memory storage is full too. We can find someone to help with that.”

I look at him as he backs away, "That should help." I look at my limbs, moving to test my mobility. "What's your name, kid?" "Connor."

“Well, Connor, you came into the story at the perfect time. Just as the plot demanded.”

~

At that exact moment, where was Cooper Howard? He was being buried by Dom Pedro. Buried alive for the next 30 years tortured by the memory of her. Why had he lived this long? He hoped it was a sign of her existence somewhere. When she breathed, he did as well.

~

Wilzig trembles in the heat. Reaction from his missing foot and the cyanide he just took. “People will come after you. I have a contact, a friend if you will. She will help you. She’s good-hearted, and she’s strong. Show her my head, and she will help you.” Lucy shakes her head in doubt as she watches the doctor's light leave his eyes. She stiffens up, clouding her thoughts as she grabs the saw. “Okie dokie.”

~

“Uh, Miss?” I turn around looking at the ghoul in charge of guarding my door, in fact not by the damn door. I cross my arms with furrowed brows, “why the fuck are you not at the front?” His thumbs twiddle. Poor kid, couldn’t have been more than 17. “I- I’m sorry I just, there’s a girl here, she’s asking for you.” “And you know I only take visitors AFTER the show is done.” He shakes his head, “No, see she’s not a fan. She’s asking for- “

A polite, gentle voice peeps from behind the teenager. “(y/n) (l/n).” My blood runs cold hearing my name, my real birth name. “I need to speak with you immediately, please.” I stare at the girl with wide eyes, full of confusion and shock. A blue suit lined with gold, and big hopeful eyes. A fucking Vault Dweller. “Leave us.” I snap and the kid quickly pushes her in and shuts the door. I grab my knife from my table, stalking up to her slowly. I smile as I flip her hair, and trace her cheeks. “Pretty,” I mumble as I circle her. She rocks on her feet, fear brewing in her. “Now,” I settle myself in front of her face, pushing the knife into the skin of her throat, “how the fuck do you know my name?”

She stuttered at first, raising her hands to show her innocence. “My name is Lucy MacLean. I’m looking for my dad. The Doctor, Wilzig, told me you would help. Please, you’re my only hope.” I watch her eyes as she speaks, reading her emotions to ring true. MacLean… well I guess there is a god, and he just so happens to be giving me a gift.

I slowly remove the dagger from her smooth, pale, skin. I laugh lightly as I turn to the door, opening it just a crack. I look at Conor who stands outside. “I’m going to be a few. Hold them over for me.” He nods without a second glance.

I turn back to Lucy with a smile. “Lucy, huh?” She nods, “Yes ma’am.” I scoff at that term. I may be over 200 years old but shit! That term makes it real. “Don’t call me, ma’am.” “Uh, okay, (y/n), then.” I raise my finger, shaking my head, “Nope, you can’t call me that either.“ Lucy tosses her hands slightly. “Then what can I call you?” I stare at the reflection in the cracked mirror. “Nothing right now, because I’m just not too sure about you, Lucy. Not a lot of people know my name. Have to make sure you're a good one.” “PLEASE! He said you could help me!” I stare at her, seeing the frustration in her eyes. I glare at her, “I don’t like your fucking tone, Lucy.” I turn back to the mirror, batting my lashes and straightening my hair. A knock sounds before Conor’s voice rings through the old wooden door, “They’re getting impatient.”

“I’m coming! Goddamn it. Never slows down.” I motion at Lucy. “Come with me.” She follows me through the door and down the narrow hall leaning to the stage. I push her down to sit in a chair, "Sit here, don't move, and most of all, enjoy the show." I turn to Conor, "Don't let her out of your sight." He nods and leans against the wall silently watching Lucy. Lucy looks up to meet his gaze with a shy smile. "Hi there." Conor just stares blankly.

The music starts and I show one leg through the curtain, letting the show begin. I step out, the makeshift stage light illuminating my frame in the old dress. The crowd loves me, they always have, and always will.

Lucy claps as I exit the stage and step behind the curtain. The roar of applause and cheers makes me smile. "That was amazing!" Lucy stands with a smile. "I never expected to see anything like this up here. You’re phenomenal!” I walk past her, and she follows behind me. "And you never will anywhere else. Unless you travel to Goodneighbor. They tried to replace me with some washup. She’s no good.” “How long have you been out here?” “30 years.”

As we enter the small dressing room again Conor closes the door behind him. I sit on my stool as Conor moves my hair away from my neck. Lucy watches in curiosity, eyes wide as she sees the small opening at the base of my neck. "You're not… human."

"Good insight, Lucy MacLean. You are correct. I’m what you’ll come to learn is called a synth. Synthetic humanoid. No blood running through my body, just wires.” As I’m closed up I roll my shoulders back. “I still have a beating heart and a working brain. Call me special. They were the only two organs they thought were worth a shit.” Lucy looks at me with sorrow, "Who would have done this to you?" I smirk at her, oh the perfect world she lives in. "Wouldn't you like to know, Vaultie."

I go behind my privacy shade and change out of the performance dress. "So, tell me why, Wilzig gave me up to some random girl." "He told me you could help find my dad. He said you were good-hearted." I roll my eyes at her words. Dumbass Wilzig, he knew exactly how to get my ass in trouble. "Well, he might've been exaggerating a little." I exit the privacy shade, clad in my new attire. “So where’s Wilzig now?” Lucy bites her lip and pulls a large lump from her bag. She opens the cloth to reveal Wilzig’s decapitated head. “Oh, wow.” I pick up his head and press behind his ear, feeling the electric bead. “Well, what do you know? You’ve got some kick to you, don’t you, Lucy?” As I inspected the head, Lucy looked at my photos on the wall. The small memories I was able to escape with. The belongings from my home the stole meant to tease me.

"Is this your husband?" She asks pointing to one picture in particular. A faded photograph of Cooper and I huddled by a Christmas tree the day we got engaged. My eyes begin to water, I force my emotions down. "Enough snooping around my shit. Go in that cabinet over there and fill this bag up with food, water, and those boxes. After that, you can take a shower, and get some sleep." I toss a brown bag her way. "Why?" I stare at her in disbelief. "Because we're going to be hitting the road in the morning to find your dad."

Lucy jumps over to me, bringing me into her arms in a tight embrace. "Thank you! Thank you so much! I knew he was telling the truth about you. I could feel it." I pat her back awkwardly. "Okay, you're welcome. That's enough touching." I push past her and plop myself on the couch watching as Lucy rushes around gathering supplies, with a dopey smile on her face. I look to my left, seeing the old faded photo, a smile ghosting my lips as I remember the good days.

~

My eyes open and raise my head. The lights dimly lit the room. Conor stands behind me, giving the proper maintenance to my server. Lucy lays on the couch dozing lightly. “You’re really going to help her?” Conor asks in a hushed voice. “I was supposed to travel with Wilzig. Technically still am.” “She’s a MacLean.” “Yep, I’ve got that fact noted.” “What will you do?” Conor slips my jacket on before dismissing himself to pack his own bag. I grab my shotgun, placing it over my shoulder. “I’m going to gut that mother fucker, and string him up with his intestine.” I move over to Lucy, kicking her leg lightly, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

Lucy wiped her eyes and sat up. I could tell she was energetic and excited. Almost makes me sick. “Let’s get going. Sun will be kissing the horizon soon.” Lucy swings her backpack behind her and smiles, “Okie dokie.”

Conor trails behind me, silently. Lucy furrows her brows, “I thought it was just me and you.” “He goes with me everywhere. No exceptions.”

Lucy smiles, “Oh, that’s nice to know marriage is still valued out here.” I look back at Conor and I begin to laugh. “Oh, shit. No, he’s not my husband. I am NEVER getting married again.” “Did he die?” I stare at her, hatred ready to spill. I could kill her, but that wouldn’t feel nearly as good. I shake my head, “Nope. That demon still slithering around somewhere.” Lucy stays silent until she begins another round of conversation. Friendly fucking vault dwellers. “I’d really like to be able to call you something.” Lucy pushes. I ponder on the subject. “If you have to, you can call me Melody.” It wasn’t a cover. I truly didn’t feel like (y/n) (l/n) anymore. It was easier to be known as Melody the Wasteland star in that little town. Being known as (y/n) meant remembering him daily. I could only handle the late hours of the night filled with tears.

[cyber-streak-2]

Hi! I've seen you do requests, so... Can I request g1/idw/mtmte characters of your choice with a bot!reader who thought they were a cybertronian? (Maybe there were even some hints, that bot!reader was never one.) However, in reality they are a human-made robot with high-level AI with appearance modelled after a cybertronian.

After realization bot!reader is heartbroken, and they feel like a complete outsider.

Sorry if I've missed something and requested something wrong.

(IDW1/MTMTE) Red Alert, (IDW1/MTMTE) Misfire, & (G1) Optimus Prime with a Human-made Robot Reader, who was thought to be Cybertronian:

Red Alert

{After having met you for the first time, he always felt like there was just... something about you. Not bad, just something different.}

{He couldn’t ever really figure it out though. You seemed just like a normal Cybertronian in every way- minus how the medics would occasionally mention something about your frame when they worked on you.}

{When he eventually left the Lost Light with Fort Max, you joined the two of them. And that was when Red, alongside Max and Cerebros, started noticing more things about you.}

{You didn’t bleed energon—you didn’t bleed anything at all, it seemed—at least from what Red noticed. He started to mentally take notes on everything that he noticed that was a little off.}

{Eventually, some files leak out, and the four of you happen to read them. The files reveal multiple things—among them, it reveals that some unimportant humans had made Cybertronian-look-alike-robots. Pictures are in the files... with you in there.}

{It’s obviously a surprise... especially to you. All this time, you thought you were one of them—a Cybertronian—but you weren’t, you were something different. And just a ‘little test’ as words in the files put it.}

{Throughout all of this, Red, Max, and Cerebros attempt to comfort and reassure you.}

Optimus Prime

{You just kind of appeared at the base, wandering around. Nobody knew of you, you were never seen back on Cybertron. But, Optimus allowed you to join, allowed you to become an Autobot.}

{He did notice certain things about you, but didn’t care about any differences. Although, he did get some comments here and there from some of the other Autobots about you.}

{Nobody was ever really mean about it. They were simply confused and curious. “Hey, do you notice how-“ “Hey, did you see how they were-“ “Did you see when-“ is what Optimus hears a lot, but he asks them to not bother you, and to quiet down about it.}

{The reveal comes when some humans come to the Autobots base, claiming that they want you back- not wanting the Decepticons to mess with their creation, and they even show Optimus some proof for this fact.}

{You, along with the rest, are shocked- despite all of the things Optimus and the others would notice, they didn’t really expect this. Although some do end up comparing you to Nightbird.}

{While still processing this new information, also learning that they erased the whole ‘made by humans’ thing of your memory, you don’t want to go with these people- and thankfully, they leave eventually.}

{When Optimus eventually goes to speak to you, you’re gone- but he quickly manages to find you outside of the base, where you reveal all of what you’re feeling about this.}

{The Prime reassures you that, while you may not be an actual Cybertronian, he and the others still care for you, that you aren’t an outsider, and that you’ll always be an Autobot.}

Misfire

{They all ended up going to Earth, and finding an old lab, where they found you in there, alive, but not awake. And long story short, Misfire and the others took you with them.}

{When you explain yourself to the group, you explain how you’re a neutral (and they don’t force you into becoming a ‘Con thankfully), and you just have no idea how you ended up in there.}

{You enjoy your time with the Scavengers a lot- especially Misfire. There can be moments when you just need some alone time from him, but you still enjoy hanging out with him.}

{Misfire had quickly noticed weird things about you, which he would eventually tell the others. How you seemed to freeze/glitch every now and then, how you never seemed to bleed energon, etc.}

{Spinister even tells him that something feels different/wrong about your frame, but he just... has no idea. He’s only given you little checkups here and there.}

{Eventually, the truth comes out when you and Misfire are on Earth again with the others and wandering around yet another abandoned lab. You find some tapes that Misfire decides to take.}

{When the two of you leave the lab, some old humans approach, claiming that you “belong” to them, and consider that Misfire and the others must’ve stolen you. You two book it.}

{Back on the ship, while explaining the weird interaction, you two decide to watch the tapes... which reveals the process of those humans creating you- before having to hurry out, leaving you behind, when something was happening.}

{For a while, you don’t even want to talk to any of the others while processing this- so you lock yourself in your habsuite. Although Misfire manages to get himself in there, where you eventually start letting it out.}

{He tells you that all of them are kind of outsiders/outcasts too, in a way, sort of. They all just suck as Decepticons, they’re horrible. “You’re a Scavenger, I think you fit in well with us.”}

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers MTMTE Retrospective: Scavengers and Chaos Theory (ISsues 7 and 8, Transformers 09 23 and 24)

Hello all you happy cybertonianas and welcome back to my more than meets the eye retrospective! For this month we're doing two stories and continuing our side trip. This time we see how the other side of the war is doing in it's aftermath.. and then cut to just before the end and long before it as we get a peak at who Optimus and Megatron are, and what Cybertron was before the war. So join me under the cut for Scavengers and Chaos Theory if you please.

Scavengers:

Scavengers begins with something we've been slowly building towards: we get our first look at the Decpticon Justice Divsion.. and see that the rep they've built over these first few issues and one shots.. isn't an exageration. If anything they undersold it as we see their latest Victim black shadow BARELY alive and begging for them to juts finish it after previously having been partially melted and crushed… only for Tarn the cruel and charasmatic leader of the DJD to lay it out: the deaths are agonzingly slow, and that's the point: every decipticon that hears about this will think twice about turning their back on megatron for whatever reason. It also makes sense Megatron has this sick motivational tool in his back pocket: while some Deciptcons are diehards for the cause.. the vast majority are in it for themselves, for petty sadisim or as we'll learn just because they were made for it. Many would likely screw up a mission just to get themselves ahead… and the DJD are there to explain why this is a bad idea. Tarn himself shows off his talent.. he can literally talk someone's spark into giving up. HIs very voice is his weapon and he saves it for the last. As for them doing this while the war is over Tarn refuses to belivie this, feeling the war isn't over till Megatron says it is… a philsophy that will be challenged horribly next season, but we'll get to that. It's a short but incredibly well done scene that emphasises just what monsters our temporary protaganists are up against.. and what our main heroes WILL be up against eventually. It's not a matter after all this build up of IF they'll meet the DJD.. it's a matter of WHEN. For now though they have another target in mind whose crime is… "He lived"

We break for the lost light which I honestly forgot about but is welcome.. if no less grisly. Rung is alive by some miracle, but is missing his head, and Red Alert, shaken by finding overlord confesses it to rung, and leaves a data slug with him… that in a later scene someone goes back to retrive. Something bad is going on and it's clearly a lot higher up than it seemed with just wingus and dingus.

We then meet our protaganists for these issues: Fulcrum, a bucketheaded autobot who wakesu pt ofind the rest of our new heroes trying to scrap him for parts. These are the Scavengers: MIsfire, swerves' non union decpticon equilvlent, Crankcase whose name matches his attitude, Spinster, the empyrically dumbest person in the universe, Flywheels, who you need not worry about, and Krok, who as leader gets best designs.

We get another subplot, . B ing a good friend Chromedome's been looking into Skids past, and goes to his other close friend for help. Brainwave disected his gun.. and it exploded. He also named it the binary gun because it has two bullets. Chromedome sums up how useful this is.. prompting Brainwave to reveal some actual information, albeit some even he's not sure of.. and given his info his reluctance speaks VOLUMES. The bullet is from the institute

Domey decides after that to just try using his surgery on Skids, who intitallyd ecided he didn't want it but has changed his mind. And while Chromedome's able to get a lot out.. he can't get everything and stops. While Skids want's it… Domey can't ethically keep pressing as there's something Skids is actively repressing, and a memory that traumatic could break him.. and given what Dome's scene, it's probably best he dosent. And knowing what Dome's seen and what Skids is hiding. .yeah I can see why his brain put up this defense mechaniasm. My only shock is that defense mechanisms aren't literal for transformers and a tiny brain gun didn't pop out of the back of his head to zap Domey in the eyes.

Once we get back to our other protaganists we find otu the Scavengers aren't really a formal squad.. but simply a bunch of lost decipticons who Krok found trying to find his crew and are currently trying to salvage enough materials to keep going. This sector in paticular is usesful as Optimus and Megatron went through a phase that's both the bonkers kind of werid I love you only get from a property like this and tha'ts grounded in the real cost of it

It's a brilliant idea I wish got explored more: for who knows how long two fo the greatest stratigests in the unvierse plugged themselves into giant computers and simply treated the entire universe like one giant RTS. It makes sense as their brains are computer based so why WOULDN'T they do this… and then shows WHY: millions died fast, things escilated quickly and it explains why Megatron would shift back to a much slower strategy after this. Optimus likely only did it either becuase he didn't consideer the implications.. or he had no choice. As Krok puts it "lives were reduced to lines and intergers and the only diffrence between us and them is the autobots came back to collect their dead". That last part is what makes me wish we got more out of it: the idea that for one point of the war people were reduced to mere data on a page and the consequences of that.

This brings Krok to another point: the war is over. The Scavengers all got the message "Come home the war's over" and while they think it's POSSIBLE Megatron one, they suspect it was the autobots since the message wasn't "HEY BITCHES PARTY AT MEGATRONS!" and none of them know what to feel about that. These were just the guys at the bottom of things. Just like our reguarlly scheduled heroes ther'es a sense of what do we do now? This was our lives. Krok decides shoot the torture victim from earlier who they used as a camp fire without realizing it.

So after the aformentiond data slug scene our heroes try to find enough fuel to power the Weak Anthropic Principal aka the W.A.P. a name that has aged gloriously. Flywheels finds something badass though

They explore it and suprise suprise.. the ship's pretty fucke dup with brains on the ceiling, half mangled protoforms in jars, usual horror shit. Only Fulcrum's excited by this and only because of the unknown, the idea their lives are there's now. He's let the post war reality set in.. and unlike the others he's happy his life's finally his… and then the DJD call saying one of them is on the list and they have 15 minutes to kiss their asses goodbye.

The issue ends with our heroes finding something that JUST might turn the tide: Him, Grimlock.

Yup i'm a huge grimlock fan. The first G1 work I saw was Transformers the Movie, which had him and the others a hilarious idiots tagging along with everyone else. I"ve loved the big dumb asshole ever since so I'm happy he's part of this run… even if he's not quite himself

After a flashback to fulcrum doing a heli jump that also implies HE'S the one their after, our heroes discuss it over and Krok points out the hard truth: none of them is going to admit to being the DJD's target for obvious reasons and even if they did, given how draconian and unstable the DJD is, they could easily just decide on the spur of the moment "Hey your all on the list now! Pray for death but death won't come!" So their options are

And shockingly despite the jokey nature of these guys.. all but Fulcrum choose Option C. Honestly when reading this story again for this it didn't really do much for me.. but rereading it.. this moment really sells it> These guys may be even MORE of a ragtag bunch of misfits than our main heroes, which is somehow possible, but they have some noblility in them. As Crankcase puts it "This badge belongs to us, not them". SO their going to do what they do best: use what they have on hand.

Our ragamuffins set a trap, leaving Grimlock's cryo pod there so theyc an open it, saying it's the traitor.. and Tarn just outs Fulcrum as his target. Tarn.. also isn't stupid. Given that decpticons already punish deserition with brutal torture if most of them target them, it'd take a lot to both escape and to stay escaped as is, let alone with the threat of Tarn himself over their heads. He still opens the trap, but it's more out of villanous curosity as to just WHAT the trap is than actually thinking they could escape him. He gets shorukened for it, but it quickly becomes clear Grimlock isn't at 100% percent and instead i just getting his ass kicked like a sad puppy, and our heroes can't even take advantage of tha to escape as one of the DJD finds them. Things go badly and we get an upclose look at how horriying the DJD are, with Kaon keeping a "pet" a deranged wolf like "sparkeater", Tesarus who just shoves people into his chest to be ground up , which poor flywheels gets a taste of, Vos who puts an iron maiden like mask on his targets. OUr heroes try their best.. but it's clear their just not up to this. As Tarn puts it these guys are at the literal bottom of the Deciptcon's rankings, he checks them because of course he does. Even some powered armor does NOTHIGN to these monsters.

What saves them is Fulcrum who decides to come clean and to jump, but not before giving a speech citing that these guys gave him faith in the cause again.. and that their worth TEN of the DJD any day. He then jumps revealing he's a LITERAL suicide bomber with an alt bomb mode… that goes off with a dud because that's just the kind of day these guys are having.

Thankfully they get a repreive: the DJD has found overlord… the overlord whose in the bowels of our heroes ship

Tarn leaves, and tells them all their ALL on his list now… but he has bigger fish to fry.

Fulcrum explains his backstory: he was a deserter, got caught and was remodeled into an unwilling sucicide bomber, his bomb removed by the others when they thought he was a lootable corpse. The rest of the gang.. is busy with Grimlock, worried about him till Misfire approaches him slowly and realizes he's brain damaged. He's not himself.. and thus comes up with a plan since Krok is a bit too unconcious and in need of repairs to come up with one and it's actually brilliant: they take Grimlock with them and use him as leverage. If the autobots won, taking care of one fo their own and bringing him home with them makes for one hell of a peace offering and gets them amnesty. If the decipticons won, bringing back one of the biggest baddest autobots is an instant promotion. Theya ll agree, loot krok for parts then take off… while a mysterious bot far in teh future shows up marking him dead…and on his data pad are also Ultra Magnus and Drift.

Scavengers is a decent story, one showing just what the other side of the war was. Really my only problem with these guys is we only see them three times in the main story and once with a b plot, making it easy to forget about them despite being important to the plot, as their intro both properly introduces the DJD.. and sets up events for later. Their not bad characters by any means but they often don't feel as developed. The story tries it's best and Krok certainly does but they feel a tad more one note due to not getting nearly as much time and being played mostly for laughs. It's not a terrible story but i'ts a shockinglyf orgetable one given how much happens and how decent it is. The next story.. is a bit bigger though

Chaos Theory:

So now we go to BEFORE MTMTE happened to a prequel.. an intentional one to the storyline "Chaos" that wrapped up the previous era of transformers, and loose one to both MTMTE as a whole and next month's arc shadowplay. This arc was James Roberts first work post wreckers and given how things tend to move in comics his first knowing MTMTE was coming. As such while it works well as a two part standalone story and isn't 100% necessary for MTMTE , it still sets things up for it and sets up how Cybertron was in the past, why megatron started the decipticons.. all important stuff for MTMTE's future. It's this arc where Roberts first gets to write megatron and while it wasn't intetional as his addition to the cast wasn't roberts idea, it sets up a lot of what Roberts would do with him and explore once we get to him.

Chaos Theory opens in a diner, with Megatron tallking to his pal impactor. Since their don talking about what they call a quarter pounder on luna 1, their onto Megatron's latest work: a manefesto of sorts but suprisingly it's built on non violent resitance.. on building a movement not through violence but through protest. It's chilling as it is sad: we knwo what Megatron becomes.. but right now alll he once is a better life. A life where a few drinks above ground between shifts is not all they have and where what your built to be dosen't mean your station in life. It makes you questoin just what made THIS GUY into well.. this guy

The two are interputped by some assholes hassling Rung, who makes his first apperance here, if as a bit of a cameo. Said assholes work for the Senate, which as you can probably guess by the need for systemic change.. is horribly corrupt, not only encouraging a caste based system where what one does determines how valuable they are that will later be refered to as "functionism", so naturally like any jackbooted thugs their bullying rung and wanting him to clean up after he knocks over some drinks before throwing him at Megs table, with Impactor getting up to teach them some street justice.

While he does that in the past in the present Megatron has surrendered.. and it has everyone uneasy. Ratchet is checking him for traps, the other autobots are all watching from a distance and optimus.. naturally wants to know WHY. And despite trying to put off the conversatoin.. he knows he has to have it.

While he steels himself back in the past megatron is interviewed in a cell: apparently he and impactor really got into it with those guys and they and impactor are all in med bay… and Megatron is soon starring down a familiar lack of a face who shadily decides to take over his interigation…..

Yup! While Rung is a neat cameo to stash away for later, Whirl is full on setup for the character and his apperance and connections here will be important later. As he mentioned in issue 6 he worked for the senate.. and we see what that means here… and none of it is good. What follows.. is one of the best scenes in transformers period. The symbol of each side, simply sitting in a room, talking it over, as Optimus DESPERATLEY tries to figure out why megatron is like this. There is a LOT of good stuff in this conversatoin, a masterclass in how to do a character conversation. Such as Megatron talking about hate

Optimus counters by why he's tired: generations of fighting and all it's gotten is every other race to turn their back on them, millions dead, their races decimated… and it just won't stop. You can see now why he's tired: Roberts really taps into something that dosen't get refrenced enough in transformers: this war hasn't just been going on a few years.. it's been going on millinea and as mtemte has proven they remember all of it. All the losses, all the trauma, all the pain, what was it for?

He asks Megatron a simple question: pretend for a moment he's won, optimus dead the autobots no more what does he do?

Well minus the rest part, but he basically rebuilds the universe into true peace through tyranny: a new golden age where free will is gone but os is wanting for anythimng.. something that naturally disgusts optimus. The two then trade stories about the times they've nearly killed each other before breaking

Back with autobots high command, they argue what to do wtih him: some, including Ultra Magnus want him dead, while Bumblebee worries it'llmake him a martyr. Optimus..says i'ts not up for debate and he's instead going to someone else who will be important in MTMTE, Chief Justice Tyrest, the guy who apointed magnus and who oversaw the Aquetus trials that were at the center of Last Stand of the Wreckers andwho naturally we'll see later. For now he's who Optimus trusts but to try this and to do so in a way other races will accept, though some worry Optimus is getting a bit chummy.. and by some I mean hot rod whose lack of tact gets everyone thrown out, though Optimus is clearly still rattled.

Back to the past, Whirl is beating the shit out of Megatron who isn't fighting back. This police brutality is interputed by Springarm, the officer he reliefed earlier as Megatron has been let off, thankfully before Whirl could blame his death as him "slipping his bonds". It's a shockinglyf rank show of the police: some may mean well.. but many are just selfish brutalizing assholes who don't want change as their power would go away.. and we're only going to see more of that in these past segments.. and any time Prowls around. Seriously the bot is a walking defund the polcie advertisment. Optimus not only shows he talked to the bartneder and found Megs didn't participate, but read his manefesto: he dosen't agree entirley but he feels he's in the right direction.. and that itself says a lot.. as did the fact Megatron tried to act like this wasn't their first meeting. To Megatron their first meeting was a battle between two sides, a glorious war on a bridge. For Optimus.. it was two idealists, one working outside the system one working simply having a talk… and likely the regret Megatron didn't speak to peace. That so many died because Megatron strayed so far from who he was.

In the present Optimus finally asks Megatron the real question, the one he REALLY wanted to ask.

This speech is one of the main reasons I covered this one: while the events of it are a direct prelude to shadowplay, this line.. comes back later. And we see as you can probably guess.. that Megatron wasn't being honest. No not honest megatron. But Megatron got what he wanted while in the past.. he throws his datapad away, a sign that he's starting to slip from who he was .. and into something else. And what I like is while the story paints present megatron as a villian.. i'ts hard to argue entirely with his past self, especially after part 2: the system is broken and while sometimes peaceful protest and showing you have the higher ground works.. sometimes the only answer is in action. Sometimes i'ts okay to get pissed off and riot. The question is how far you take it. Megatron is wrong because he took it from "the'se corrupt assholes need to be replaced" to "peace through tyranny". He had an understandable starting point, wanting to raise the working class to equality.. it's about how you achive it.

As we'll see as we open part 2 though, while Optimus is trying to work in the system.. he will not BEND to that system. It allows the other side to florish: Optimus was a cop which can be one of the worst thigns you can be and usually is in a facist system. But for Optimus.. he's trying his best to be an honest person. He lets Megatron go and likely saved his life with it.. and as we open part 2, we see a bunch of senate thugs confront him. It's clear from the outset that while they put on a lair of civility.. it's all an act Optimus sees thorugh it and while theyt ry to SUBTLY imply Whirl should be let go, that dosen't take and outright saying he has friends in high and low places who'd be pissed… Optimus dosen't bend. Whirl broke the law. It shows who Optimus is: he's a cop yes.. but he puts his morals first: he went out of his way to get Megs exonerated because he did nothing wrong. But he refuses to let Whirl free because he tried to murder someone in custody. He broke the law. It dosen't matter who his friends are or who comes for him, Orion Pax or Optimus Prime, he won't let someone trying to murder an innocent person go. In the present Optimus graples with his morals, as at the end of their verbal joust.. Optimus shocked megatron with his restraints and wonders what he's becoming… and if he's beecome too reliant on the matrix, with their bonding being painful.. not helped by Hot Rod's having been "wonderfuL' and trancendant.

The bulk of the rest of the issue.. is an action fest. But a well done one. Optimus brings a bunch of criminals in, and is also clouded in his thinking, tonight's ecnounter only having made it worsed: he read what Megatron wrote.. and realizes the system.. is really brokena nd he can't "countance" that.

He comes back.. and finds springarm and another guy we just met decapitated, and the three senate thugs from earlier escorting whirl out who shockingly DIDN'T approve of this, showing that the Whirl we will know. .is in there. Optimus gets hit from behind and we get a tense standoff as a result if an epic one. He uses his own comednations as fucking shuriken, and then , regretfully as you'd expect, hotwirse springarms corpse so he can use hsi bhike alt mode to ram into them, then reads the main thug his miranda rights. But Whirl makes a point: touch him and there's more bloodshed.. and asks what Optimus will do.

This being Optimus what he do.. is storm into the senate chambers, his faceplate cracked and whirl slung over his shoulder and mkae a speech> this is despite the senate security trying ot murder him.

I'ts one hell of a speech and it stillf eels relevant today when , in the US where I live at least, a lot of senators are, just like the cybertronain senate, self entitled jackasses who make choice sfor other people based on self intrest or some corrupt dogma instead of what the people actually want or need.. yeah it feels all too right. Of course they have Optimus dragged off.. by we see soon after a mysterious senator had him saved, being the only one actually agreeing with optimus and using the right argument they woul'dve made him a martyr, warning Optimus dark times are coming and to decdie wh he wants to be.. while a young optimus looks at his chest cavity.. and ponders the matrix.

Oh and as for present day optimus he simply went ot megatron, sans matrix.. and told him he's taking him to tyrest, with Ratchet telling optimus his moral compas is his own.

Chaos THeory just rocks as a character showcase for Optimus, showing both his inante noblity as a rising star cop and his tortured conflict in present day, while also nicely contrasting megatron's start as a good intentioned revolutionary… with his finish as a tyranical monster. It sets up both how bad the past of cybertron was and how much of a monster megs sees himself is, while raising the question of how much does he really buy he likes hurting people and how much is an act? We won't get any answers on that for a LONG time, but I felt it was worth raising them now… as they won't get any easier when Megs does come back.

Next Time: MORE FLASHBACKS. It's time for a bit of shadowplay as our heroes take turns narrating a tale of the past to hopefully help rung join them in the future. Thanks for reading.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

do you like the plot of the new tlsq? honestly I don't, to me torvus is too angry with mc for something we couldn't avoid imo, the acromantula attacked us, what were we supposed to do, die? maybe i missed something, i don't understand all these "it's your fault" accusations

....I've got a lot to say.

I'm watching the footage right now and honestly...it's really not a very good story at all. It feels like maybe they wanted to make a TLSQ about Torvus but more out of a sense of obligation or opportunity, as he was one of the character who didn't have one yet. Not because they had a story they wanted to tell about him. Like, we don't learn anything about Torvus or about his relationship to Jacob. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to TLSQs that act as follow-up to things that happened in the main story, but between this and the Knighthood TLSQ...it's just never executed very well. Not to mention that the whole motif of togetherness and community is soured by how mean-spirited the tone feels.

First of all, like you said, the premise is absolutely ridiculous. They repeat the idea that MC is to blame for everything, so many times that if it was a drinking game, you'd die of alcoholism. Usually having MC own up to this, regardless of player input. Which is kind of frustrating if you think about it for longer than half a second and realize that not only was none of this was MC's fault, but you'd seriously have to be confunded to think that this was a logical conclusion. The entire trajectory of how all of this happened is a bit woolly and not well defined, but to place the blame on MC's shoulders is nonsense, and as a result the entire story is systematically broken, especially concerning MC's motivation. Torvus blames them for everything, and they just...kind of go with it. Everyone does, for no apparent reason.

So opening the Forest Vault is cited as the reason for why all of this started. Considering how much they try to push a theme of interconnection and the bonds of nature, I could believe that the Vault would have unforeseen effects on the ecosystem. Hey, we still don't get how the Vaults work, so that would be fair enough...Except apparently what it all came down to was MC's duel with the Acromantula. That's what caused a chain reaction of events that...er, somehow, led to the Centaurs having a water shortage. But the Acromantula was responsible for the trouble with the fairies and the red cap. He had nothing to do with the Troll and the Forest Lake. Did I miss something? The Acromantula had no connection to the Centaurs' problems. No, you know what ultimately caused the problem with the Troll? The sleepwalking students. They trod upon the bubotubers while under the spell. So, in other words...MC opening the Forest Vault stopped the problem from getting any worse. Not only did their actions not cause this, they actively helped. Why doesn't Torvus, or anyone for that matter, point this out?

No one seems willing to take apart the logical fallacies of Torvus' vendetta. Why is MC blamed exclusively when it was a joint effort? Charlie was there. Hagrid was there. Torvus was there! They all helped open the Vault! And he has the nerve to act like this is all on MC? It's no better than when Dumbledore gave MC a year's worth of detention and ignored the other students who came along. That's not even getting into the ludicrous idea that MC is at fault for the duel with the Acromantula. Y'know, where it was trying to kill them and their friends? And they didn't do any lasting harm to the creature at all? And it was his choice to leave his colony? Why is that our problem? The story forces MC to "prove" to Torvus that they can be trusted to solve this problem even though he demanded their presence in the first place. Does he want their help or not? It just really tests my patience. We even have to prove to the Acromantulas that we can be trusted to solve the problem. Why? That seems like such a waste of time. Why do I care if they have faith in MC?

So MC's obligation to this problem, which the quest loves to have them restate, is flat. What about the consequences if they don't fix this? Yeah, no, that's nonsense too. Not to call Torvus' bluff, but literally no one in the quest does, so I suppose I'd better. Just what does he mean by saying that MC will be "banned" from the Forbidden Forest? Does he not realize that they already are? Has he forgotten that the humans call it the "Forbidden Forest" and that students aren't allowed to go in? Clearly, MC has been disregarding that for a while, and Torvus knows it. Tell me why MC should stop visiting the Forest just because Torvus says they have to. Y'know, Care of Magical Creatures classes are sometimes taken into the Forest. What is MC supposed to do if that happens? Get a zero for the day? Why should they? I know it's Kettleburn and he's a little bit odd, but the point is that this would cause a conflict and I don't imagine the school staff would care about the Centaurs' wants in this situation.

I know the Centaurs consider the Forest to be their land, and they have a strained relationship with the humans at best, but seriously, what exactly are they going to do if MC disregards their "ban?" Short of killing MC on sight, how are they gonna enforce this? And again, I'm gonna call that bluff because Centaurs do not harm children. Culturally, it is considered extremely taboo to harm a "foal." Never mind the trouble they would get into with Dumbledore and the Ministry, not to mention R, who want MC alive. Speaking of the teachers, why does MC so freely tell Flitwick and Sprout about their plans to try and temper a troll? They shouldn't, because any reasonable teacher would react with alarm and forbid MC from doing this. Confine them to their Common Room while the staff goes to sort this out. Come to think of it, why don't Flitwick and Sprout do this? They just shrug off MC announcing their intent to visit the Forbidden Forest and tame a dangerous creature! (Deep, deep sigh.) Look Torvus, The Creatures Reserve is (probably) within the Forest, so no, Luca's not gonna stop visiting. It's one of the areas in the hub world of the game, and this quest drops at a point when MC still has to visit later on for plot reasons....so I know The Forest isn't going anywhere. This threat isn't scary, it's irritating in how blatantly empty it is.

At the end of it all, MC has to review what they learned in their path of atonement, and show Torvus how much they've grown. Get the hell out of here with that. MC and Charlie could have died a few times over, and that's on Torvus. He didn't tell MC about the troll! He knew, and didn't tell them! Because "something thing, you needed to learn a lesson, etc." No! That's not okay! I'm supposed to consider him my friend after this? Seriously, I wouldn't mind all of this so much if Torvus didn't constantly treat MC like a hated criminal, and MC didn't so humbly accept that treatment. I'm gonna need to rewrite this one a fair bit in my headcanons because Luca may be soft and an occasional pushover, but they also develop a nose for bullshit as time goes on, and this entire TLSQ is demanding MC atone for saving the school, for something they already faced punishment for with the kitchen detentions. For something that Torvus participated in, and seemed quite happy about at the time. Y'know what, I'm starting to think he's got a pretty serious entitled streak. And for better or for worse (and by that I mean, for worse) I think MC may have nurtured that streak when they first met Torvus. He blamed them for Jacob's actions, and MC did everything they could to "make it right." I think Torvus has learned from that incident that he can hold MC accountable for anything so long as he finds some six degrees of separation method of claiming it involved them.

I feel terrible for the fans of Torvus' character. Because this quest is even stupider than the Knighthood TLSQ and it makes me even angrier than the All Wizard Tournament. This one was, to put it nicely, a misfire.

[ahsokasshoto]

the weight down in the deep of you: a lucky batch fic ☘️

(guys!! i finally wrote a thing!!! feat. why ballast's name is ballast and why jackal loves throwing his prosthetic arms so much. hope you enjoy!!!)

A ballast is the secret, vital core of a ship: the weight down in the deep of you that keeps a vessel upright in dark water. - Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

    The sun hung low and hazy in the sky and most of the clones of the 37th battalion were still sleeping in their camp when a terrifyingly loud, terrifyingly explosive sound erupted from nearby the ship. 

    “What the kriff--” Jackal moaned, jolting awake. He held his head. He hated loud noises at the best of times; and it was even worse to be rudely awoken by one. 

    “Was that an attack?” another voice sounded. It was Ryder.

    “I don’t know, di’kut,” Cypher responded groggily. “Why don’t you go out and look?”

    Several of the Lucksters stumbled out of their tents into the cool morning air and looked around. It didn’t look like they were in immediate danger, but there was some smoking coming from Ballast’s workstation.

    On closer inspection, the entire workstation--as well as much of the dark, sandy ground--was covered in soot and ash. The greatest amount was collected on Ballast’s face. At least he’d had the sense to wear goggles. 

    “Oh, hey boys,” Ballast greeted his batchmates cheerily as they came over. “Just a faulty wire. Sorry if I woke you. I’m going to see if there’s any replacement parts on the ship.” 

    He walked off, whistling a sprightly tune as he went. His brothers shared glances between them, shaking their heads.

    “Does anything rattle that guy?” Rane wondered aloud. Jackal glanced toward Ballast’s retreating frame, a small smile gracing his features. 

    “You don’t know the half of it,” he replied, a faraway look gracing his features as a memory overtook him.

    The air was so thick with blaster fire, it was nearly impossible to see. This was not ideal for the clones of the 37th Battalion, who wound their way through a massive and labyrinthine Separatist facility. They were on mission from the Jedi council to retrieve a particular set of data for the Republic. The security around the facility was so great that they needed all hands on deck to help keep them at bay while others infiltrated the facility, which was why Cypher and Ballast found themselves winding their way through the dark hallways along with Jackal and Ryder. Jackal and Ryder were used to the front lines, but Ballast and Cypher were not usually in the thick of things like this. They’d been raised and trained for battle, but their talents typically had them supporting the other soldiers in other ways.

Now, they found themselves hunkered down in a side hallway while droids bore down on them from either side and they wouldn’t have time to retreat back the way they came before the droids caught up to them. Jackal held his head, struggling with the noise of the blasters. Ryder pat himself down wildly, trying to find which of his weapons still had any fuel left. 

    The familiar clicking of empty blasters sounded from Cypher’s pistols. “This is bad. This is terrible, disastrous, catastrophic!” he shouted over the noise as he hunkered down in the hallway. 

    “Keep it together, Cypher,” Ballast said, his voice steady despite the hammering in his chest. He’d never been in a position like this before, but he knew they all needed to stay calm if they were going to make it out alive. Still, he was painfully aware that they were outnumbered and outgunned. Glancing around, he noticed a control panel on the opposite wall. They could use that to short the circuits and get the doors shut to cover their retreat. But they didn’t have enough ammo left to cover him while he worked on it. His heart pounded furiously, his stomach was in his throat, but he forced himself to take a breath and clear his mind. There was a solution. There had to be, and he would find it. 

    A blaster bolt came frighteningly close to their position of cover and Jackal threw his arms up over his head, his metal prosthetic hitting Ballast in the process. Wait….there it was! The solution!

    “Jackal!” Ballast hissed to his brother. “Your prosthetic. We can use it to short that panel and get the doors closed!”

    “You want to use my arm?” 

    “I’ll make you a new one!”

    Jackal’s eyes went wild for a moment before settling with a fierce determination. “All right,” he said, tugging on his prosthetic with his other arm. It came free in his hand and he passed it over to his brother. “But this had better work!”

    “Yeah, I hope you know what you’re doing, Ballast!” Ryder cried, firing off a couple more of his few remaining shots. It wouldn’t be enough to last them if it didn't.

    “So do I,” Ballast replied through gritted teeth as he whipped out a couple of tools from his pockets, opened the sockets of the prosthetic, and set furiously to work. 

    What felt like an eternity but was really only a few moments later, Ballast handed the prosthetic to Ryder. The fist was closed except for the pointer finger, which was extended. “You’ll have to be precise with this shot!”

    “Wait, wait, wait!” Jackal cried, reaching for the prosthetic. Ballast was worried he’d changed his mind about using it, but he merely folded down the pointer finger and extended the middle finger.

    “Really? Right now?” Cypher cried, but before anyone could say anything else, Ryder sucked in a breath and launched the prosthetic at the control panel.

    The metal of the prosthetic alighted with sizzling electricity as it interacted with the panel. The boys held their breath for those agonizing seconds; the last thing they saw was the control panel fizzling and Jackal’s prosthetic dropping to the floor before the doors before them shut. 

    “It was the middle finger that did it,” Jackal voiced before they retreated back the way they had come. 

    Later that night, Ballast sat with a cluster of parts in his lap, working by the light of their campfire. He was determined to make Jackal’s new prosthetic even better than the last. Before long, he heard approaching footsteps and looked up to see Jackal coming over to join him by the fire. He sat down next to Ballast, who in turn shielded his project from Jackal’s eyes with his arm. 

    “Hey, let me see!” Jackal protested, craning his neck to try and sneak a look. 

    “It’s going to be a surprise!” Ballast replied, playfully knocking his brother in the shoulder. 

    “Alright, keep your secrets.” The two of them grew quiet as they gazed into the gently flickering flames. 

    “What a day, huh?” Jackal finally voiced. “You know, we managed to draw enough of the droids’ attention that the others were able to get the data we needed.”

    “So I heard. Glad your sacrifice turned out to be worth it,” Ballast grinned. Jackal just shook his head, growing serious. 

    “How did you do it?” 

    “Oh, well, I had to recalibrate some of the motor functions so that when it hit the panel--”

    “No,” Jackal interrupted Ballast before he was subjected to a long-winded explanation of mechanics. “How did you stay so calm? How weren’t you scared out of your mind like the rest of us?”

    Ballast looked back at the fire. “I was,” he said after a long moment. 

    “Wait, really?” Jackal looked at him incredulously. “Didn’t seem like it.”

    “When I’m working, there’s always a chance that something is going to break, misfire, explode….like a ship on rough water,” Ballast began to explain, his voice soft. “You can’t always predict the way the weather will turn, can’t control the wind or the waves, but you can control the way you carry yourself through it.” He allowed himself a small smile as he looked over at his brother. “Giving in to that fear wasn’t going to help any of us. I just wanted to be strong for us.”

    Jackal smiled broadly back at Ballast, placing his remaining hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Well, thank you. For always being the weight to carry us through. And hey,” he added, “maybe you should make a few more of those prosthetic arms. I kind of like that tactic.” 

    “I think I can do that,” Ballast grinned. Jackal chuckled. 

    “Just try not to let them explode, yeah? At least, not on purpose.” 

    “Now, where’s the fun in that?”

@monako-jinn-stories @just-another-dreamerr @lynnpaper @lavenderstaars @foxlock @maygalodon @letsunity @oo-hazel-oo @generaltano @cosmicghostie @lusiawonder @the-lucky-batch @burnthashbrown27 @stereotypicalpicnicmat @mango-peachjuice @namesmox and other lucksters i missed!

[fandom-necromancer]

Obscured by Shadows

Now to the last Halloween short! This was prompted by the wonderful @spacalicious and let me tell you you gave me so much I could have written a full on 60k story about it. I didn’t have as much fun writing a story in a long time. That said, this got long, i’ts a bit over 5k and I’m sorry to those who haven’t got something as long, I hope that’s okay. So enjoy this one!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 | AU: Eldritch being?

Nines had always been determined to figure things out for himself. Maybe it was something he valued because he had never been given a real base programming. He knew his model would eventually be used for the military. But Cyberlife hadn’t been able to do more than basic hardware tests on him before the revolution changed the world. He had been informed his prior series had been finished and given a purpose: The RK200 was a caretaker and the RK800 was working for the police. With nothing much to go off of, RK900 had chosen to keep these purposes in mind while finding his own.

He had applied at the police academy immediately after making this decision. He didn’t want to just download a program from someone. He wanted to build his own unique one. And during his time at the academy, he quickly found he liked the challenge of uncovering mysteries. He enjoyed gathering evidence, puzzling together what had happened based on it and uncovering the truth in between sowed lies. It only took him a few years to make it detective and was proud to be accepted at the fifth precinct of the Detroit police department. The Captain had assigned him to Lieutenant Anderson, the officer that had been there the longest, and Connor, the RK800. He was supposed to learn the ropes from them, and Connor was more than glad to show him around.

His predecessor had decided getting to know his co-workers was the best course of action and one after the next pointed out the different persons to him. ‘Okay, as you came in you must have seen the receptionists. The android is a ST300, she calls herself Steph, and the human one is Elisabeth, but everyone calls her Elly. Then we’ve got Officer Collins over there, this is Hank’s desk and mine and there is Officer Willson’s. On the other side we have Officer Person, Officer Chen and Officer Miller. And you already met the Captain. We are a small group, but that’s because SWAT is right there, if you head out this side. Another RK800 is working there, but I’m not on best terms with him. We tend to evade each other. Doesn’t mean you have to though. I can show you around there tomorrow, for now I’ll show you the cells, interrogation room and the meeting room. Then we can-‘ ‘Excuse me?’ Nines felt bad for interrupting, but his eye had fallen on… on what again? ‘Yes? Sorry, I tend to monologue. How can I help you?’ Connor politely smiled at him, while Nines thought about what he had meant to ask about. Connor had showed him all his co-workers and had went on with- right. He looked around again and kept his eyes on the person Connor missed. ‘Who is he?’, he asked, pointing Connor at the man. ‘Hm? Oh. Oh, that’s just Gavin’, the other android waved him off. ‘Detective Reed I believe. He’s an asshole. I met him briefly before the revolution. That was enough to get a clear picture of him. File him under unimportant and go on with it. It’s not really worth knowing the guy, trust me.’ ‘But I introduced myself to everyone personally after the initial briefing’, Nines argued. ‘I believe I must have forgotten him. I at least want to do that.’ Connor shrugged. ‘Fine, knock yourself out. I’ll wait here for you. I doubt you’ll be long.’

Nines made his way over to the man’s desk and read the plague first. Connor had been right: Detective Gavin Reed. ‘Hello! My name is Nines. I’m a RK900 unit and the new Detective. I’m looking forward to work with you!’ He held out his hand and every other person had accepted it and had some niceties left for him. The human in front of him just stared him up and down and grumbled. ‘Phck off.’ Nines recoiled. ‘Excuse me, I just wanted to be nice. I-‘ ‘And I don’t. Mind your own business and piss off!’ Nines knit his brows but remembered Connor’s words. Maybe this one time he could have relied on someone else’s knowledge.

-

He had returned to Connor that day and the other RK had shown him the rest of the precinct. After that the days seemed to rush past: Nines helped Hank and Connor with their cases and quickly afterwards he had his first very own case. The other two had helped him solve it, but it still was one he had led and found most of the clues to. After work he was driving from one place to the next looking for a small affordable flat, but so far, he stayed in the mostly unused stasis-booths at the precinct or simply continued working. In his breaks he had chatted with his co-workers and learned quite a lot about them. Collins had a sweet tooth, Wilson was almost religiously obsessed with football, Person was spending a large amount of his pay checks on his sister’s hospital fees but according to him she is getting better, Chen loved tea way too much and Miller could talk on for hours about his daughter and wife. Nines was quite content with his life and his choice to join the DPD. He liked the challenge actual cases brought to the table and was in general well-liked. So why was something constantly nagging at his systems, directing his attention to empty spaces on the opposite wall or just letting him stare into the nothing somewhere in the precinct? Maybe something was just wrong with his systems.

No, there wasn’t anything wrong with his systems. Nines had checked as he had entered stasis that night. But that would mean something in the precinct actually let his sensors misfire. And apparently, he was the only one to notice that strange phenomenon. The RK900 still doubted himself as he stepped down from the platform that morning. All his co-workers were competent and attentive people. They should have noticed it if something weird was going on in the bullpen. And there was still the minimal possibility of his diagnostic routines failing him. He would keep this to himself for now and keep his eyes open.

It took him almost a month to lose his patience. The errors and inconsistencies piled up and so far, almost all of them could be chalked up to the one person no one seemed to care about or even notice. Gavin Reed. The strangest thing was that Nines himself didn’t care much about the human. In fact, he only ended up focussing on the man as the number of things he didn’t know about him became suspicious. He had made a point of knowing as much as possible and appropriate about his co-workers. He had learned that helped a lot with work climate and integration. The occasional donut for Collins, a signed picture of a famous footballer for Wilson’s birthday, spending his break with Tina once to check out a local tea shop: That all was something that had made him likeable and made working a pleasant experience. But with how much he knew of them, how little he knew of Gavin was worrying.

Sure, the man was an asshole. But even assholes had personalities. There had to be at least rumours about him. But whenever he had asked someone, he had been given the same answers: ‘Reed? Yeah, he worked here for some time.’ ‘He’s an asshole, it seems to be worse with androids.’ ‘Pfft… Nah, he keeps to himself, don’t know anything about him.’ So he wasn’t alone with not knowing, he just was alone with worrying about that fact.

One quiet day, he decided to do some personal research into that mystery. Every human was known to the world in some way or another. Date of birth. Date of graduation. Date of Employment. Criminal record. Won some small prize in the lottery. An Address. Anything. And that was when things got truly confusing. He looked over at the man and felt how his eyes suddenly darted away to movement that he had thought to see at the edge of his vision. He never managed to look at the human for longer than a few minutes. Something was seriously wrong.

‘Connor? Can I speak with you for a moment? In private?’ Connor looked up from his work, then to the clock. He shrugged. ‘Sure. I can take my break early. What can I help you with?’ They left the precinct through the back entrance to have some privacy and Nines began with a sigh. ‘It’s about Gavin.’ ‘Did he do anything to you? Did he harm you?’ ‘No!’, Nines quickly said. ‘No, he didn’t do anything. But he is weird. I… I did some research and…’ ‘Wait. You “did some research”? What are you talking about?’ Nines held his hands up to calm him. ‘Connor, please listen to me, it will all make sense in a minute. How much do you know about Reed?’ ‘Nothing much, he’s an asshole. Otherwise he keeps to himself. Worked here for a long time.’ ‘How long?’ ‘How should I know?’ ‘How long did Person work here?’ ‘For twelve years, exactly a month from now.’ Nines stared at him triumphantly.

‘Hey, I haven’t looked into his file, okay? Never even talked to him. That doesn’t mean anything.’ ‘Well, I looked into it’, Nines picked up where Connor left off. ‘He doesn’t even work here. Officially. There is no file in the systems for his person, his name is only listed as being employed by the city. There is a birth year at least, but no school. No educational record, no graduation paper. Nothing. There is an address, but the place had been towed down ages ago.’ ‘Maybe he forgot to update it. Or Fowler knows and hadn’t updated his new address yet.’ ‘And the missing documents?’, Nines tried to convince him. ‘What about those?’ ‘Humans can be sloppy sometimes. Especially with bureaucracy.’ ‘May I remind you the entire HR department is run by androids by now?’, Nines threw his final punch. ‘It’s quite funny when you think about it.’ Connor held his head as if he had forgotten he couldn’t get headaches. ‘Nines, you are paranoid. The guy really isn’t that important.’

But Nines didn’t let himself be shut down. ‘There is more actually. Chris complained about the coffee being empty, right? That was yesterday, a Thursday. Correct?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And I personally restocked Monday the week before! Tina drinks tea, Chris can’t drink too much or his stomach acts up. With the regular caffeine intake of the rest of them, it shouldn’t be depleted yet.’ ‘So?’ ‘Someone drinks an unhealthy amount of coffee, I would even dare say it would kill a human or at least leave them with serious health issues. And only Gavin is left if you keep an eye out.’ Connor sighed: ‘Or someone dropped the package, spilled half of it and cleaned up the mess into the bin.’ ‘Okay, then how do you explain this: Reed is always here when someone arrives. No matter how early I rise from stasis, he is already there. As if he never left. And then sometimes he spends entire days away and no one bothers!’ ‘Vacations and overtime are a thing.’ Nines shook his head. ‘There is no car standing in the parking lot that belongs to him, I looked after everyone was gone. Yet, there is a key to a car on his desk.’ ‘Maybe he parks somewhere else, because he likes to go on a walk after a long day of sitting around.’ ‘Connor!’ ‘No, Nines, you are paranoid. That’s all. You should slow down maybe. Or take some days off. The man is just your regular asshole who is decent enough to be professional and do his job. And that’s all.’

Nines was desperate. He had thought that at least if pointed to it, the other RK would notice. ‘Then what about the fact that I have never seen him eat something once? And he keeps framed pictures of his cats, but he has no cat hairs on himself!’ ‘Nines, please, you need to calm down. If I didn’t know it any better, I’d say you are stalking him. Please stop. Believe me when I say Reed is as unimportant as someone could be. You are certain of the way things seem to be and now you search for evidence to prove your point. But we are detectives. We find evidence and conclude.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I worry for you. Please, take a break from work. How is your house-hunting?’ ‘Haven’t found a flat yet.’ ‘Do you want to live with Hank and me? We could make room for you for a few days. You need to get out of here.’ Nines deflated as he saw he couldn’t win. ‘That’s nice of you, Connor. But I guess I’ll just think about what you said and try to get back to work.’

In truth Nines didn’t think about anything Connor had told him. If anything, his words had only made it clearer to him that something is wrong. He had to take matters into his own hands.

-

Gavin startled as a coffee cup was put on his desk with an audible thump. He looked up. ‘Hello, I’m Nines. I already introduced myself but we never really talked.’ Gavin stared at the nosey android and frowned. ‘And I already told you to phck off. Nothing has changed since then.’ ‘No need to be so aggressive, Detective. I always see you working. I believe I never actually saw you taking a break.’ ‘Well, I like work and I’d like to get back to it, tin-can.’ ‘Tin-can? Oh, that’s a new one’, the android answered and smiled at him. Goddamnit. ‘Listen, I don’t know what you are on about, but I don’t want to talk. I’ll say it one last time: Phck off!’ This… Nines… pouted at him. ‘Come on, I got you a coffee, the least you could do is answer me one question!’ Gavin sighed and leaned back. ‘Fine. One question. And then you’ll go!’ He hoped his form didn’t show how nervous he was.

‘What do you like?’ Compared to everything he had expected that was quite harmless and caught him off-guard. ‘What?’ The android continued to grin at him. ‘What do you like? Food, hobbies, doesn’t matter.’ ‘Oh, okay, err… I like cats. And… Coffee.’ ‘Are those yours?’, the android asked pointing at the framed pictures. ‘Hey, you said one question, then you’d be leaving me alone!’ The android lifted his hands. ‘Alright, fine. I’m leaving. Was nice talking to you!’

Gavin couldn’t help looking after the machine that was leaving now. Damn nosy androids would be his downfall someday. He turned back to his work, the smell of coffee distracting him. He glanced over to it and finally succumbed to taking and drinking it. He wasn’t ashamed by the fact that he was addicted to it ever since he first tried it in the 15th century. It was one of the pleasant experiences of his existence. He had lived on this world for eons now, maybe he had been around right from the start. But you could only spend so many billion years until you got bored and wanted to try something new. He had lived among humans ever since a massive migration to a continent a large part of the world never even knew about. It was easy to fit in when no one asked where you came from and everyone was eager to start a new life. And Gavin fit in nicely. He sowed enough information to saturate most and those who wanted more he used his powers on to become totally ordinary. So ordinary that most didn’t even notice him. He was living a peaceful life, working on farms, later with railroads and the industry. He liked the concept of lifetimes to justify changing from one job to another and discovering new interesting ways to fake being human. This lifetime he had decided to spend just relaxing. He played the average human that made it Detective and since then worked away solving mysteries and cuddling with cats when coming home.

He couldn’t have known this would be the time humanity decided to change once again. They decided to design machines, androids. They looked human but were designed to obey. Why exactly was it that humanity wished for some kind of slavery every few hundred years? He didn’t care for it too much as they were just machines. Sure, his powers didn’t work on them like they did with humans, but as he was seen as one of them, he could just order the androids to go away and leave him alone. And then deviancy happened. Humans had tried perfecting them so much, they accidentally created life. Gavin knowing humans had decided to wait it out. Too easy he could fake his death and return to his normal existence. But he had been living within them in peace successfully so far. He really didn’t want to change that. So, he waited. Waited until the revolution happened. And too his distress, the androids won.

Ever since he had tried to move on the streets as little as necessary. He spent almost all of his days in the precinct where he was safe from them minus Connor. And the bot he could easily get rid of by changing his attitude to grumpy and abrasive. He thought it might work out. But this new android was a pain in the ass. Nosey as hell and apparently determined to get to know him. Well, someday his luck had to run out and it seemed the time had come.

He spent his remaining day at his terminal, until he felt eyes on him again. He tried to subtly look up and met the damned android’s cheeky grin as he entered the stasis booth. The machine even gave him a little wave. Gavin felt his powers bristling underneath his skin, warning him he had been spotted, but with grit teeth he forced them down. Phck, he needed to relax. He switched off his terminal and headed outside. He hurried through the streets until he finally found an empty back alley without CCTV. It really had been easier in the olden times. Quietly he let go of the charade and got rid of his fake skin. Finally, he could stretch and brush against corners, making natural shadows more refined and let them stretch to take him. Oh, he had missed that feeling. Excitement bubbled inside him as he scaled the city, slithering from one shadow to the next through the narrow spaces in brickwork and underground where there was no connecting darkness to act as a convenient passageway. More than once androids looked towards him, but he just hurried away before they could investigate. Damn machines.

He finally made it home, faster than any car or train could and let himself inside through the letter box. Only then he reformed his human appearance and got to his knees, greeting his cats with maybe one or two arms too many. Not that they would care, they just wanted their pets. Gavin sighed, the fluffy fur under his hands just the perfect way to destress from a long day. He fed them and switched on his stereo to blast music as loud as the cats would allow. He had more than enough time to settle everything with the nosey android. He would be fine.

-

‘You forgot your keys yesterday!’, he was greeted as he walked into the bullpen. He could only frown at the android standing beside his desk, dangling them from one finger. Gavin saw red and pulled them from the man, maybe having moved a little too fast for a human. ‘Give them back!’ He looked down on them and carefully put them down in their usual spot. ‘How did you come home then? You couldn’t drive with your car.’ ‘I don’t have one, phck off!’, Gavin shouted. ‘Then why do you have keys?’

Phck. He felt his powers acting up, but it only managed to avert the human gazes from the disturbance. The android didn’t bulge. Shit. A human explanation, quick. Oh, right, parents were a thing! ‘They are my dad’s, he… He died in a car crash. They are the only thing I’ve got left of him.’ It technically wasn’t even a lie. Nowadays he often faked his death so he could inherit his own belongings and one of them had indeed been a car crash. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ The android really looked like he meant it. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’ ‘Well then go and-‘ ‘Can I make it up to you?’ Oh phck no… ‘There is a cat café that just recently opened up. I thought-‘ ‘What is a cat café?’, Gavin asked, momentarily forgetting he wanted the android gone. ‘Oh, it’s a regular café, but cats are roaming around. I thought you’d like it.’ ‘I… That does sound interesting.’ ‘It’s a deal then! I’m looking forward to it!’ ‘No, I-‘ But the android had already left. Gavin let his shoulders fall. It wouldn’t hurt playing human for a break, right? He had done so before. Sure, it broke his rule of never mingling too close with humanity, but it couldn’t really go wrong, right?’

-

It was awkward at first. They had entered and sat down on two comfy chairs and didn’t manage to speak a word until the waiter came. They ordered their drinks and it returned to the uncomfortable silence. Until one of the cats decided to jump onto Gavin’s lap. The android had laughed at his surprised face and Gavin had begun to pet her. ‘You are good with cats’, he commented. ‘Yeah, I love them’, Gavin answered. ‘Just… calms you down I guess.’ ‘I never got to pet one.’ ‘Really?’ Gavin could understand that human lives were short and that not everyone had the pleasure of strolling along the streets of early civilisations and pet every fluffy beast in existence, but it did surprise him. ‘You really have to!’

The android looked around and tried to get the attention of one of the cats wandering about. The look of pure wonder on the android’s face as the cat headbutted his hand for the first time touched something in Gavin and he chuckled. The android looked back up while still petting the cat and smiled back. Only as the cat decided they had enough did the android return to the table. ‘I really wonder why everyone was so sure about you being an asshole’, Nines began talking. ‘I mean, I don’t really know you yet, but you are nice company.’ ‘I tend to keep to myself’, Gavin muttered, looking down on the cat that still hadn’t moved and curled herself up on his legs. ‘Made some bad experiences I guess.’ ‘I think we should do this more often’, the android said. As much as Gavin wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to truly disagree.

They met a few times afterwards. They often spent their breaks together in the café and with time Gavin thought that maybe he didn’t have to isolate himself all the time. But he always shut these thoughts down and thought of the android as an exception. One evening Nines had insisted to come over and see Gavin’s cats, what had brought Gavin into the zugzwang to explain some of the by now ancient things he had collected over the years. ‘I’m interested in history’, he bluffed. ‘Archaeology is a pet peeve of mine. So I tend to collect.’ Surprisingly, the android had bought it and instead admired his “collection”. It had ended in multiple visits to museums and exhibitions. Not that Gavin really minded. It was a fun distraction and his lie about being a history enthusiast wasn’t that far fetched when he could tell a few first-hand stories from when he had been there himself.

It was about a month later that they had come back from one of these exhibition trips and the android had dropped him off at his apartment. The android had hugged him goodbye, something he would never get tired of, and was about to go. ‘Are you going back to the precinct?’, he blurted out out of nowhere. ‘Yes’, Nines had answered. ‘Detroit’s housing market is awful. Haven’t got a flat yet.’ ‘Do you want to… I mean you could stay here if you want to.’ The android had stared at him wide eyed and Gavin started to regret his impromptu decision until Nines threw him a smile and nodded politely. That evening Gavin ended up on the couch next to Nines watching TV until the android appeared to have entered stasis. In the silence that followed, he began to think about his life choices. What was he doing? He was an eldritch shadow being from the dawn of time. Nines was an android he had no power over. And something was clearly growing between them. It was evident in the way Nines had snuggled up next to him, the cats all over them. This couldn’t work. What if Nines found out? What if he would rat him out to anyone? Humans he could fool, but androids would be able to follow him to the end of the world. He had made a huge mistake.

And still: listening to the hum of the android’s thirium pump he couldn’t find to regret it. Quite the opposite was the case.

-

The next morning was filled with more excuses. Why didn’t he have a kitchen? Why didn’t he have any food at home? Gavin had mumbled something about always getting something at the food trucks and stressed they would be late. Apparently, Nines took that information with only a sigh, too. One Catastrophe evaded.

Off to face the next one: As they entered the precinct together, Gavin froze as he found his desk occupied. By Connor. And the other android was staring at them with determination. ‘You two. Interrogation room. Now.’ Gavin was about to protest, so did Nines, but the other RK stopped them: ‘I said now!’ So, they trotted over, and Gavin knew he had phcked up. He had set up these rules for a reason. How could he think he could start a relationship with an android would somehow work out?

‘Nines, I believe you now.’ Nines frowned in return as they entered and exchanged a look with Gavin. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘What you told me about him. It’s true! It’s like he isn’t even existing! And everything you told me was true! There are so many discrepancies with him that something has to be wrong.’ Gavin felt panic creeping in. What? What had these two androids talked about? What had he missed? ‘No, Connor, you were right’, Nines disagreed. ‘There is a logical explanation for everything. I was just paranoid, as you said. I just knew nothing about him because I never even spoke with him.’ ‘Oh and now suddenly everything is perfect? What are these explanations then?’ Nines sighed. ‘What do you want to hear from me?’ ‘The keys?’ ‘Memorabilia of his deceased father.’ ‘The cat hairs?’ ‘Either I must have missed something or he had just washed his clothes. Scan Gavin now and you’ll see a bunch of cat hairs.’ ‘What the hell are you two talking about?’, Gavin asked. ‘You are hiding something!’, Connor growled his way. ‘And I won’t rest until I know what it is!’ Gavin took an instinctive step back. Oh no… ‘Connor’, Nines directed the other RK’s attention back to him. ‘I spent the last months with him. He really isn’t as bad as you think and he clearly isn’t hiding anything.’ ‘Oh, is that so? Have you seen his home then?’

Nines puffed out his chest. ‘I have, actually. In great detail.’ He challenged Connor by staring him in the eyes. ‘Wait what?’ That had caught Connor off-guard at least. ‘You two… You aren’t… No.’ ‘Yes’, Nines grinned. ‘And you should trust the android with the more advanced analysis tools that he is as normal as a human can be.’ Connor was left just standing there, staring. ‘I… I’m not convinced, just so you know. But I trust you. Just know that I’ll be keeping an eye on you!’ ‘That’s only fair’, Nines commented, but Connor was already storming out of the room.

For a while no one moved. ‘Should we go back to the-‘, Gavin started, but was interrupted: ‘No.’ Nines pushed himself off the table and leaned against it. ‘The cams are deactivated, and the observation room is empty. No one else can hear us. I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier.’ ‘What should you have told me earlier?’, Gavin asked carefully. ‘I had suspicions about you. That’s why I initially wanted to get to know you better. I pretended everything was alright so you could tell me once you were ready. But I guess now is a good a time as ever: What are you, Gavin? Who are you? The things you own are legitimately old. A collection like this would be priceless, you could sell it for millions. Most of it belongs in a museum. And you don’t even really exist on paper. I couldn’t find your name in any hospital archives from the day you were supposed to be born and you never went to a school. Please, I need to know.’

Gavin sighed deeply and sat down. Should he tell him? Well, he had to. But what then? He guessed a prison to hold him would have yet to be built. And he could always move to another city after faking yet another death. But he didn’t want to lose this. This lifetime was meant to be relaxing and hell, with Nines he had been the most relaxed he had been for centuries. Well, he had to hope for the best. ‘No one can see us?’ ‘No one.’ ‘And no one can hear us?’ ‘Everything said here will remain between us.’ ‘You have to promise not to tell anyone.’ ‘I will as long as my duty as a police officer doesn’t call for it.’

Gavin took a deep breath. So far so good. But promises could be empty and who knew what the duty of a police officer entailed these days. But he knew he was only buying time. And so he began: ‘I am a being that has been around since the dawn of time. I am made of shadows, some worshipped me as the shadows themselves. I don’t even know if that’s true. I’ve been around for a while until I finally decided to try living as a human for a while. And it worked! I was a peaceful part of society since… Well, I took a few breaks but more or less since the 600s? It is hard pretending to be a human if you are immortal, so I travelled a lot and faked papers as much as I could. I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I like coffee and cats. The keys are from my first ever car, but I hate driving, so I got rid of it by crashing it one day.’ Nines stared at him dumbfounded. ‘I think I need proof, I can’t believe this.’ Gavin sighed and looked at the table. ‘Please, don’t freak out’, he warned, before transforming into his true form. Suddenly half the room was swallowed by darkness and Gavin showed off a bit by extending a few tendrils of shadow towards Nines. The android looked shocked at first, then bewildered and then fascinated. Nines even stepped closer. ‘You won’t hurt me, right?’ ‘I never hurt anyone’, Gavin answered, his voice coming somewhere from his centre that was still hovering over the chair. Nines extended an arm and tried to touch Gavin, who chuckled. His only feature was to consume light, he literally was the personification of the absence of light. What a dork, trying to touch that. For some reason that seemed to disappoint the android and Gavin made an effort reforming his body partially while still keeping his real self exposed.

‘And?’, Gavin asked. ‘What does this mean now?’ Nines was still staring at him. ‘You are beautiful.’ Gavin laughed, but took the android’s hand lovingly. ‘If you say so.’ ‘How did you keep this a secret for so long? Is that why you aren’t noticeable by most? I have so many questions, I-‘ ‘I would say, I explain everything to you at my home where we are safe’, Gavin offered. ‘I want to know what it means first. For us. Does it change anything?’

Nines smiled and came closer. ‘Only that I don’t have to worry about your human lifespan’, he smirked. ‘And that we can spend an eternity forever.’ Gavin sighed in relief and relaxed completely. ‘You don’t know how much that means to me.’ ‘I think I get the gist of it’, Nines shrugged and dove in for a kiss that left Gavin completely unprepared. But he had always been quick to adapt.

It took them a while to get out of that interrogation room, but thanks to Gavin’s powers no one but Connor noticed. Nines just threw him a cocky smile while making a point of sitting down on the free table opposite of Gavin’s.

Maybe Gavin Reed was a man made of shadows. It didn’t change the fact that Nines was completely engulfed in his gloom.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 50 

The Hand of God, my third Paolo Sorrentino’s film (After ‘The Great Beauty’ and ‘Youth’). Sheer movie making delights from the new Fellini, like current Amarcord but for Napoli in 1984, the year Maradona was transferred there. Interesting that the young protagonist is listening to his Walkman throughout, but we never find out what he’s listening to. Superb - 9/10.

✴️    

2 (and again) by Hiromasa Yonebayashi:

✳️✳️✳️ Yonebayashi worked for Ghibli for 18 years before leaving in 2014 to establish his own Studio Ponoc. It is obvious that he sees himself as heir apparent to Hayao Miyazaki, and deservedly so. Mary and the Witch’s Flower is the first film he directed there.

A psychedelic fairy tale about another young girl who becomes a witch combines the emotional twists from ‘Spirited Away’, basic story from ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ and Ponyo’s magic, together with Harry Potter adventures. The animation kept changing unexpectedly at least 10-15 times into new, phantasmagorical styles. Highly creative!

Together with ‘The Secret World of Arrietty’, I’ve now seen all three films he directed. One of my best movies of the year!

✳️✳️✳️ When Marnie Was There, seeing it once again after just one week. "I missed you. I kept calling you in my heart." Just beautiful.

✴️    

Antonioni’s 1960 rule-breaker L'Avventura. Visually & stylishly innovative, I loved the early part on the island, as Monica Vitti is looking for her disappeared friend. But I didn’t ‘get’ the changing focus of the story, as it moves later into the empty, doomed attraction between her and her friend’s former lover. (Photo Above).

✴️    

2 With Adrien Brody, Fisher Stevens AND Larry Pine: 

✳️✳️✳️ Season 3 of Succession, a modern day ‘Dallas’, about a despicable ‘King Lear’ mogul and his mediocre four kids. Tedious, brutal and fascinating dive into the depravity of greed, power and abuse. This repetitive season continued with the complete disintegration of ‘Dark Prince’ Kendall Roy, and of patriarch Roy Logan who keeps assuring that his children hate one another just enough to never take sides against him. Why is it so compelling to watch, when it’s clear from the get go that all four heirs are too incompetent to take over the father’s role?

“I’ve seen you get fucked a lot, and I’ve never seen Logan get fucked once...”

✳️✳️✳️ The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Wes Anderson’s intellectual homage to The New Yorker magazine and to the mid-centrury Paris of Jacques Tati. It’s a really good movie for people who like that sort of movies.

(For me, I still can’t stand Owen Wilson). 6/10

✴️    

I’m going to go through the Steven Soderbergh‘s films I missed up to now. First watch: The Limey, a standard crime story with Terence Stamp, which unusually flashes back to scenes from ‘Poor Cow’, a much earlier Stamp film done by Ken Loach. 3/10.

✴️    

I Was at Home, But, an award-winning, SUPER-slow German film directed by Angela Schanelec, of the “First wave Berlin School”. The puzzling story of a grief-stricken, single mother with two kids struggling to keep it together two years after her husband died. It starts with a static, long shot of a donkey and a dog walking into an abandoned living room. Reminiscent of Bresson, Ozu and Roy Andersson. 5/10.

✴️    

Fabulous deadpan comedian Steven Wright X 2:

✳️✳️✳️ TV on YouTube: Steven Wright appeared on Craig Ferguson’s show 22 times. They both had a blast. 9/10

✳️✳️✳️ I never knew that he actually won an Oscar in 1988 for his offbeat film, The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. As if a disturbed inner dialogue from his stand-up, was made into a strange short comedy. With Mike Starr as the doorman / substitute psychiatrist, and Rowan Atkinson as his real, bored psychiatrist.

✴️      

Shadows and Fog,  Woody Allen’s misfired German Expressionist experiment, an idiotic  Kafkaesque indulgent, a-la Fritz Lang, Pabst and Murnau. One of his worst movies.  2/10

✴️

2 more re-watches:

✳️✳️✳️ San Junipero is considered by some as one of the best Black Mirror episodes, because of its unusual uplifting tone. But even after watching it a few times, I still don’t see it. Maybe because the dating scenes were too young for me, or because the simulated reality background is hokum, or because its “daring” same-sex happy ending story was mundane.

✳️✳️✳️ Guilty pleasure: The perfect Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with François Truffaut as Claude Lacombe. George Lucas was sure that the movie will be such a colossal hit so he traded points with Spielberg before the premiers. He gave 2.5% of Star Wars profits against 2.5% of Close Encounters.

(I remember taking David to the original viewing, when he was 7 in 1977.)

✴️    

Alan J. Pakula’s Presumed Innocent, a terrible court “drama” with Harrison Ford and Raul Julia. Uninspired piece of average trash. 1/10

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 18- Mind and Body

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU and Red belongs to @theguardiansofredland )

After the success of their first day among the elite, a new dawn rises and the hermits continue to prove their worth as a guild and as wizards. From the distance, however, people are watching the hermits much more closely than just if they win or lose.

____________________________________

Somehow, the hermits were in the lead. By the end of the first day, they were leading the boards. Even though they lost the pageant and footrace, their domination of the quick draw, the sea race, and Tango’s evening flight race has them ahead. Behind them, the other two nonguild teams were tied for second. The points from there on were a mess between the guilds.

It was an underdog story for the ages. Three ragtag teams leading the Chimaera’s Championship. Guilds will train for years to win even a bronze medal in the games. They select their teams from only the best, never ceasing to push their limits. And yet, nothing can compare to the determination and skill these outcasts held. Even the hermits had to admit, Team Crafted and the wanderers were strong. But more than that, they were both a team. Just like the hermits.

“I’ve got this, guys.” Iskall laughs, twirling a rod of iskallium in his hand. “These mega guilds won’t know what hit them when they see my sharpshooting skills.”

“I mean, we are winning right now, but...I really wanna win them all.” Mumbo’s had a taste for competition, and now he wants more. “But I’m not so worried about the guilds as I am the other teams that are tied.” 

Iskall looks over his shoulder, seeing Avon observing the distance between where she stands to the target down the field. “I think she’s all bark and no bite. I’m gonna show everyone the power of iskallium after today.” 

“What kind of mage even is that?” Mumbo questions, noticing the massive black wings on his opponents back. “Is that like Ren’s misfired werewolf mimic?” 

“Nah dude, don’t you know anything?” Iskall spikes his iskallium rod into the ground. “That’s a draconic mage.” 

“Are they rare? Like...rare as Grian’s sky angel magic or my multi-magic?” Mumbo has never heard of a draconic mage, though he never really learned things like this from his parents. His mood immediately sours at the thought of them. He hopes they’re not here, watching. Or does he? 

“Eh, in a way. Not quite like you guys. It’s more of a… finding the right teacher kind of problem.” Iskall sees Mumbo’s confusion only grow. “They have to learn from dragons, dude. Not exactly the most trusting beasts, those big lizards of doom. But don’t worry about that- it’s not like you’ll have to face anything like that.” 

“Good luck, Iskall.” Mumbo whispers, retreating as the event starts. He was the only hermit willing to wake up this early for the event. Most are still somewhat drunk from celebrating their victories yesterday. No one imagined they’d do this well. Though, a few were dizzy, and Tango even struggled to get out of bed. 

One by one, down the line, wizards use their magic to strike the target. Everything from flecks of dirt to pillows shot at the haybales. One art mage even draws up their own arrows and sends them flying. Some strike near the bullseye, others don’t even reach the target. It was a close match for the former. The drawn arrow was almost perfectly center, just millimeters from landing a perfect score. 

Iskall knows he has to be better. He gets three shots. Three tries. His emerald eye flicks across the field, measuring the distance between himself and the target. Three shots and he’ll win. He feels the wind in his hair, blustering for a second and ruining a shot of the person next to him. Three shots and he’ll prove he’s a mega sharpshooter. 

It’s his turn. He draws out his rod of iskallium, his own element of creation. It’s radioactive, but he’s immune to it. He can feel the power, the energy within the rod. Energy he plans to use to make a clear, perfect shot. He reels his arm back, and throws the first rod. As soon as it’s airborne, he releases a burst of radioactive energy from the projectile, sending it burying into the target. A near perfect hit. 

His next shot is almost identical, though the wind as his rod nears the target pushes it slightly off center. His shoulders sag, a weight pressing down on him, pressing in on his lungs. As long as he doesn’t miss the center ring, he’s got the event in the bag. 

He doesn’t miss. Iskall offers a coy smile beneath his beard, though inside he’s freaking out. He’s currently winning a championship event. He stays calm, but in his mind he’s already celebrating. Doing his own little dance in the sand at his feet. 

Until a barb whizzes down the field, burying into the center ring. He opens his eye, staring at Avon beside him. Her eyes are trained on the target, like a predator stalking it’s prey. Her wings are slightly ajar, counterbalancing her weight from throwing the poison barb forward. She straightens, another projectile appearing in her fingers. He can see purple toxin dribbling from the tip of the barb. The gaze never falters, determination locking her in. She twists around, launching the barb like an arrow in the wind. It digs into the hay-filled target, the larger base of the barb brushing against her first target. 

“No...way.” Iskall whispers. The wind picks up. Surely that will mess her up, right? He was Iskall, deadeye of doom. Nothing can stop him. The last barb flies in slow motion, her throw slightly curved against the wind. Letting the breeze push it to center. 

The tip of the barb splits through the first shot. A perfect bullseye, not once but twice. Iskall has no ability to be bummed that he only got silver- that was mega awesome. Avon seems calm, collected even as she receives her medal, albeit tired. Exhausted physically, but never betraying what she’s thinking or feeling. 

Mumbo and Iskall are still talking about the sight when Grian and a few other hermits join them in the stands. “So, how’d it go?” Grian sings, trying to be as bouncy as usual despite sleep still holding his eyes. He notices the silver medal hanging off Iskall’s neck. “What?! How’d you only get second? You’re like...the best shot i’ve ever seen, Iskall.” 

“Those three wanderers, bro. I’ve never seen a least conspicuous group ever...but wow.” If it wasn’t for their lack of members, they’d give the hermits a run for their money. At least they have that going for them. “So G-man, you ready to prove your true talent?” 

“Flying? You bet.” Grian flicks his arms out, and his angelic blue and white wings unfurl from nowhere, appearing like clouds in the sky. “That pageant was just a warmup.” 

He hops onto the railing of the seats, before taking off into the air. Flying among other winged wizards, the hermits can already see his mastery of the sky. On the ground, Etho is warming his muscles as obstacles rise above the stadium. Pillars and rings teeter into the sky, caves and ravines digging in the ground, the dual events taking place at the same time. Neither Etho or Grian were the only nonguild wizards- Ecto is back, snacking on a cactus as she watches the course construct before her. In the air, the basilisk mage, Ty, is testing his wings against his short, lanky body. 

“I don’t know who to watch!” Mumbo whispers, glancing from one course to the next. A firework crackles in the air, and in both the sky and the sand wizards take off. Across the obstacle course. 

“You watch Grian, I’ll watch Etho.” Iskall chuckles, observing as the shadow ninja disappears through a shadow, reappearing in the lead. He bounces off a wall, dropping onto a raised bar and flipping across a pit of acid. Who even made that pit? Seems dangerous. But danger means nothing for Etho, and his incredible agility across the course. 

Mumbo is biting his lip, watching as Grian brushes against a pillar of stone in the sky. Grian’s flying is risky, even in the best of times. The amount of heart attacks Grian gives his best friend on a normal day is spectacular. Today is even worse. He loses a year of his life watching the sky angel plummet from the sky, wings snapping open just in time to fly through a ring, pulling into the lead. Mumbo swears he can see a blue feather sheared off Grian’s wing as his friend squeezes between two rocks. 

“Oh no, not again!” Iskall’s groan turns Mumbo’s attention to the ground. Ecto and Etho are both at the finish line, huffing and puffing as they clasp hands and congratulate one another. Mischievous eyes glimmer and grin, sharing quips and laughing. The two look at the other contestants, but based on Iskall’s outburst Mumbo knows who won. Again. 

“Grian’s winning though!” The two look up, a shadow passing over their seats in the crowd. He’s got a heavy lead, while Ty and a gryphon wizard battle for second. Ty takes the lead, his scaly wings fluttering in the wind and ducking low to go under a blockade. The guild mage flies over, swinging his arm. Magic shoots out, aimed directly at Grian. 

“Is that allowed?” Mumbo gasps, standing up. Grian’s almost at the finish line. He can’t let himself get hit by whatever spell the mage just cast. 

“Go Grian!” Iskall shouts. “Watch out!” 

Grian looks back, eyes widening as the golden magic hurdles his way. He’s so close...he’s not going to lose this. Grian curls his wings, tightening them against his body. He plummets from the sky. Wind whistles across his ears, feathers fluttering and the ground quickly rising up to meet him. But so is the finish line. A blast at his back pushes him into terminal velocity, the guild wizard’s magic blossoming into an explosive barrier. He needs to open his wings, to slow down. But he’ll become a target. So what does he do? 

He closes his eyes. And crashes into the ground. Bouncing off the grass and hurtling over the finish line, Grian wins first place. Blood and bruises quickly appear on his skin and face, but he’s conscious and sitting upright as the coliseum erupts into cheers. Iskall and Mumbo only sigh. For the healer of the guild, he gets himself hurt more often than anyone. 

Once on the sidelines, Etho helps Mumbo wrap bandages around Grian’s wounds. Mumbo shakes his head, prodding a bruise. “That was totally an illegal move, that explosion.” 

“The guilds are pissed that we’re winning.” Etho hums. He tries to manipulate a shadow to cover him against the sun, but frowns when his magic refuses to appear. “You should’ve heard the wizards in the agility course. They think we’re cheating. They don’t get how a bunch of misfits are winning in almost every event.” 

“It’s just cause we’re that much mega better.” Iskall chuckles. “They don’t have the awesome teamwork and diverse wizards like us.” He leans back, watching Joe standing before a sphinx. It’s the riddle event. “Maybe if they stopped worrying about money and status they’d do better.” 

Grian hisses in pain, only for Etho to hush him. From the field, the sphinx stalks Joe. “I am alive, but without breath. I am as cold as life in death. I’m never thirsty, though I always drink.” The feminine voice purrs from the sandy skin of the sphinx’s human face. Feline haunches roll and rock under feathered wings and fur, but Joe only looks to the sky, his glasses hiding the emotions in his eyes as he thinks. “What am I?” 

The hermits hold their breath, watching Joe in the lion’s den. His lips curl up, and his clasps his hands behind his back. “You’re a fish.” 

The sphinx pauses, then dips her head. “Well done, poet. How about this? What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?” 

Joe snickers. “Easy, a heart.” 

“How very poetic, Joe of the Hills.” The creature pauses directly in front of him. “But not what I was looking for.” Teeth snarl and claws glisten, and the embroidered fabric of Joe’s cape is flung across the field, glasses clattering to the side. The hermits collectively wince, even Grian feeling the ache in his bones that Joe will feel come tomorrow. “The next contestant. Ian.” 

The engineer mage bounces to the mark, completely unconcerned by the vicious lion-bodied creature before him. He wipes his brow, leaving a trail of black oil across his forehead. “I’m ready for whatever you got, miss sphinx!”

“Hmm, alright then.” She chuckles, sitting on her haunches. A lion’s tail, with feathered tips, flicks like a clock against the grass. “What can bring back the dead; make you cry, make you laugh, make you young; is born in an instant, yet lasts a lifetime?”

“Memories!” Ian quips, grinning proudly. “Let’s see if you got any better.” 

The sphinx growls. “Alright, engineer.” She offers another riddle. And another answer. Iskall leans forward, biting his lip. The current leader has only two correct answers- Joe and another wizard were the only ones clever enough to come up with correct answers with enough time. One final question. And one final answer. The sphinx stands up after Ian responds, shoulders rolling. “Congratulations, Ian of the Crafted. You have won my challenge.” 

“At least it wasn’t a guild that won. I don’t think we’ve heard the end of it.” Mumbo whispers, sitting back. Grian winces, pulling his arm against the sling it’s in, to which Etho swats him to keep it still. 

“Stress is next!” Iskall grins, exciting to see his friend perform. Stress chose this event herself, and no one dared question her claim. And as she stands among the other wizards, she’s easily the most out of place. Surrounded by large men and mages of strength and muscle, many hardly wearing much more than whatever their guild deems necessary and often glistening in oil, Stress crosses her legs and pats the warm material of her ice blue dress. She casts a quick spell, and her short brown hair caresses pale cheeks as an icy wind cools her down. Iskall leans back, shaking his head. “She’s going to freaking crush this.” 

And crush it she does. No one, not even the audience is prepared to watch the short, dainty ice wizard lift more weight than any oiled, burly man around her. Her magic, and her own strength, easily lifts the shelled form of a tarasque, a hydra, and a baku in one wall of ice. Not just lift the still living creatures, but doing so with enough care that each beast is left unharmed and even cradled by the ice rink beneath their feet. As soon as the creatures are back on their feet, Stress is immediately cooing- ignoring her gold medal in lieu of praising the hydra’s many heads for all their work helping her win. 

Truly a strange mage for the strength event. 

__________________________

“Are you sure they’re not here just to compete? You really think they’re here to...stop him?” A black cloaked figure whispers, eyes following the ice wizard as she skips to her friends. From the nosebleed section, the brothers can hardly see each individual person. But the hermits are easy enough to pick out. They stand out, unlike the other guilds. Each person with a unique outfit, unique features. 

“If I know my brother, he can never take anything sitting down.” Red fabric moves as the white haired wizard talks, sharp eyes never leaving their target. A mask like that can be seen from a mile away. “And his friends aren’t much better.” 

“They’re incredible!” The third figure, clad in a white cloak to hide his mop of rainbow hair, stands to get a better look. His friend grabs him by the arm and pulls his rear back to his seat. “These people are the true heroes we nee-”

“Can’t you be quiet for a minute, loudmouth?” His brother seethes, glancing at their contact. They’ve only just met him today, despite being in contact for much longer. 

“I don’t know if I’d call them ‘heroes’, but they’re all Lairyon has.” The contact pulls his cloak’s mask up over his nose, tugging on the long white hairs stuck in between. 

“A ragtag team of criminals, rejects, and outcasts is the only hope for Lairyon. Great.” The black cloaked brother huffs, setting his head on a propped up hand. 

“How much different is that from us- or, I mean, the crown and his advisor?” The white robe lowers his voice after his brother slaps his arm, sharp gaze daring for him to try that again. “Lairyon needs light to return, and I think these hermits are exactly what we need.” 

“I hope you’re right, your majesty.” The contact tugs on his long white ponytail. “They’ll need more help if they expect to survive. Which is why I came to you.” 

“Well, let’s get started?” The three stand up, disappearing amongst the crowd. There’s a few people they’ve seen on the field who can help the hermits. Help from afar- as Ex always does.

[anonbeadraws]

'Geshed had lived long, had seen the world pass in the increments of clock hands, but one thing, they knew, would never change.  People would always question. No matter how they travelled in the odd hours to avoid interaction, kept words to a minimum, brusque and short,  keeping their face blank of emotion, they would still come to them, come to their shadowy corner of the tavern and ask their questions! Who are you! What do you do! why is your skin that way? Where have you been, is it far?

Geshed. Play for money for food and shelter when they could. Born that way. And she could never really answer the last one truthfully. Not far, was the best she could come up with. Everywhere would have been closer to the truth. And it was harder now, travelling. She had to avoid so many places, places her path had lead more recently, places where her unchanging face might cause alarm, fear. It had happened before. Geshed had given up attempting to change their appearance past covering their head. Make up did not stay, the ivory of their skin, the white stain glowed through anything she pasted and plastered on (which admittedly, the sales person took as a challenge years ago when they attempted to cover them) and their hair would grow unheeding of shears, simply returning to their long dreaded length after a long rest, no matter the drastic measures taken the day before. Something seem to like Geshed just the way they were. The same something that had kept them living for almost 750 years now. 750 tiring years. It was not that they were invulnerable, unkillable. Geshed, though they had tried to avoid it, had been close to shuffling the coil many times. Usually accidentally. Wrong places at the wrong time, misfires, miscommunication and in one case, a poorly designed staircase and a deaf old dog. That one was embarrassing. Healing still took time, pain still burst through the skin and bone and they bled like others did. It was just that the lines around their eyes, thin but there, did not move or shift. Their body retained muscle mass and strength, well past the age it should have. And Geshed was not sure what age that this began, this endlessness, for even others found it hard to gauge and their childhood was dark and misty. No memory to examine there. But they remembered they had been easily in their first century when they noticed. So many people in that time. So many faces and stories and little sayings lost to time and place that Geshed used to try and remember, at least in the first 50 years after they realised that their face didn't not change in their reflection. They tried to get them down in the first couple of decades, write the ones they missed into their songs.  Music had been Geshed’s release. They had never been good at words, even as a youth, unknowing of their long long future ahead, and had struggled to connect with those around them. The drum had been a natural progression, breaching the silence, offering something, anything that people could grasp and enjoy. Geshed used to love watching the people they struggled to talk to before shows, people who had smiled awkwardly at their attempts of small talk, dance and cry with joy. They can't remember where the drum came from. They can't remember many things now, not far past a decade back, nothing personal, nothing of themselves. Nothing of those they had known. The music had once helped. The memories lost would step back into place with each song, like dancers, stumbling at first, shaky and ghostly, solidifying and remembering their place in the dance of Geshed’s life. Geshed took the time, determined, frightened, to keep them, sew the inflections of strangers and loved ones into rhythm, turn laughter lost and gone into syncopation. They had started their work with such hope and joy, a gift to work on as they travelled their seemingly more and more endless path to discover the reason for her longevity. But long life does not equal long memory. The songs would stay, they had to, to earn the bread and ale that fed the undying body that grew hungry, grew weak despite it all, but the meanings seem to fade, leaving nothing but music. Beautiful but empty. The movement now more natural than breathing but nothing more than repetition. Dull and dead.

Like how they should be really, they would consider, twisting the ring they had forgotten the origin of around and around its string on their neck, dark sigils spinning, merging, unheeded.  Dead and gone. But sometimes, when they played in those quiet places, in the campsites of long travelled, in the empty bars of ghost towns, and they played the song’s their hands remembered without thought, it seemed as though Geshed could hear it again. Not the laughter of those gone, but their own. The feeling of joy, a memory once so intertwined in the notes that their hands mindlessly danced to, now but a ghost in their ear. But a ghost was better than nothing, they would suppose, finishing up to the dregs of applause from somewhere in the darkness.  It was enough to question. Enough to follow.' random roll for a client!

commissions!|kofi

[perfeggso]

Noir (yutae)

Week II pt. 1

Tokyo – fall of 1983: Nakamoto Yuta is quickly rising in the ranks of one of Japan’s most notorious yakuza families, and he’s poised to climb even further if he can stop himself from being ruined by the pretty Korean boy who’s shown up out of nowhere.

Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3  |  Chapter 4  |  Chapter 5  |  Chapter 6  |  Chapter 7  |  Chapter 8  | Masterlist 

Glossary of Japanese words

Characters: Yuta x Taeyong + NCT ensemble, Twice J-line (for funsies) 

Genres: Gang!AU, angst, smut, fluff, 1980s!AU

Warnings: graphic violence, swearing, minor character death, alcohol use, mentions of drugs, period-typical homophobia, xenophobia, BDSM

Rating: 18+

Length: 4.5k (will progressively get way longer)

A “foot soldier,” as it turned out, was the smallest of small fry in the syndicate.  They were mostly responsible for manning the many front businesses that Inagawa used for small change, low-level intimidation, and charity work.  Taeyong found that he did get to carry a revolver around with him but was forbidden from using it in non-life-threatening situations because he had only been a yakuza for about a week and had only gotten the opportunity to practice firing the thing twice.  This was both for his own protection and for the protection of the gang; almost nothing could have been more damaging than the misfiring of an illegal gun by a rookie.

All Taeyong had needed to do to leave his mechanic job was to submit a letter of resignation, which in honesty was the most obvious solution.  People were allowed to resign without a specific reason – his boss didn’t own his soul.  And Taeyong wasn’t too sad to leave since he hadn’t been close to anyone working there.

After a week, Taeyong found himself leaning over a yellow plastic desk at the entrance to a miscellaneous electronics shop in Akihabara, bored to death and resigned to people-watching.  Taeyong usually avoided Akihabara because he wasn’t particularly interested in electronics nor in otaku culture.  More than that, he hated how the few times he had come to the neighborhood in the evening he’d been approached by creepy middle-ages men trying to entice him to go “chat” with some “lovely young ladies.”

But now he was here among the neon lights with nothing more to do with himself but try to look inviting to customers.  If he was being honest, part of him wanted to sabotage the whole racket by looking purposefully glum and driving people away.  Despite his sweet face, Taeyong did have an aggressive streak in him but he always considered himself principled about those who got hit by it.  For instance, swindling major corporations out of millions of yen, as he was vaguely aware that Inagawa did, seemed perfectly ethical to him.  Selling faulty electronics to innocent working-class people on the other hand…

“Taeyong!” Mark yelled from behind him, forcing him out of his contemplative rabbit hole of Robin Hood ethics.

Taeyong turned around to see Mark walking up to him, a stack of colorful business cards in one hand and a badminton racket and shuttlecock in the other.  What a fuckin’ weirdo , thought Taeyong, although he couldn’t help but like the guy.

Mark had been the first person Taeyong had spoken to as an unofficial member, he supposed, of the Inagawa-kai, as he was the one responsible for escorting Taeyong back to his apartment and spending the night there to ensure that he did not try to run away or go to the authorities.  Taeyong didn’t sleep that night because his head was full of too many questions, and Mark wasn’t allowed to, so the two instead got to talking – as much as they could given the supreme awkwardness of the situation, anyway.        

“What do you need?” Taeyong asked and in response, Mark passed him the stack of cards as if that were an explanation.  Before he got around to illustrating his intentions with words, he began bouncing the shuttlecock against his racket, twisting the string bed 180 degrees between each contact.

“I need you to stand on the sidewalk and hand these out to people,” he finally said, still focused on his game. “They say we’re having a promotional sale.  It’s supposed to drum up more business which we can handle with the three of us here instead of two.  But for this to work, you need to stop scowling.  Show off that charming smile of yours.”

Mark was sure a cheeky bugger.  If Taeyong did stick around in this gang, he’d eventually use his age advantage to mess with the kid once their gap in experience wasn’t so large.

“Was this your idea?” Taeyong asked.

Mark shook his head no, pausing his game of hand-eye coordination.  “It was our Shategashira ’s.”  

“Nakamoto?”

“Hasn’t he told you to use his title?  Or just Yuta if you want to use his name.”

Taeyong huffed a sigh.  This ‘ Shategashira ’ of his had really become an exasperating figure in his life over the past week.  They’d barely interacted, but the coolness and ease with which Yuta always addressed him made him feel funny; as if he truly had no control over the trajectory of his life anymore simply because he was dumb enough to follow some sounds in an alley.  But who was he kidding?  His life might as well lead him to being in a gang.  Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted?  And anyway, there was a reason the Inagawa-kai had an entire Korean division and some Korean leadership.  Taeyong had just imagined more bombastic motorcycle rides and fewer junk computers.

“Yeah I remember now,” Taeyong said, shuffling the business cards in his hands and making his way out from behind his desk.  “So how do I get people to take these?”

Mark walked with him to the front of the shop, his hand on the older man’s shoulder.  “Just smile and say ‘promotional sale: premium consumer electronics.  This week only,' or some shit and try to get these into the hands of everyone who walks near you.  I think you can handle it.”

“I will try,” said Taeyong.

He found it was easier to get people to take the cards than he had expected, although his success didn’t seem to go further than that, as most people who took a card only regarded Taeyong with a confused scowl once they had it in their hands.  After about an hour, a woman came walking towards Taeyong on his side of the street, and she was truly the first person Taeyong fully noticed his whole shift.  He noticed her because no one could have not: she was slightly taller than average, especially in heels, with long black hair blown out, a green bodycon dress, black heels, and a gold chain necklace.  Taeyong thought she might have the prettiest face he’d ever seen on a woman.  He also noticed her because she was staring right at him as she approached.  Taeyong wasn’t fazed because he was used to nice looking girls coming onto him.  They would inevitably be put off either by his ethnicity or by his lack of interest in them – whichever they perceived first – and then bad things would happen.  However, the intensity in this woman’s gaze felt different as she came to stand just a few feet away.

“Momo-hime??” Taeyong heard Mark yell from somewhere within the store.  Huh?   Soon enough both he and Jungwoo had emerged and were greeting the gorgeous young woman.  Taeyong stayed frozen to his post because he didn’t know what to make of the situation nor of his role in it.  She was a ‘princess’ anyway.  What business did a street rat have introducing himself to her?

Soon, though, Taeyong found he didn’t have to.  She exchanged a few words with his coworkers, and they nodded, pointing her his way.

“Lee Taeyong,” said the woman, bowing once she had finally gotten close enough to greet him.  “I’m Hirai Momo.  It’s good to meet you.  Yuta told me you had been brought on.”

Taeyong was so confused he felt like he was floating, but he bowed back despite himself.  “Nice to meet you too.”  The name Hirai sounded familiar but Taeyong took a moment to place it.  Then, like being slapped in the face, his brain found the missing puzzle piece that allowed him to make an association.  The Hirai family ran the entire operation, didn’t they?  Shit .            

“Why are you here, Neechan ?” asked Jungwoo.

Momo smiled.  “Yuta sent me to retrieve you, Taeyong,” she answered, causing Mark and Jungwoo to raise their eyebrows in unison.

Taeyong could feel the blood rush through his veins, and it felt cold.  “I – did I do something?”

“Don’t worry,” Momo assured.  “Everything’s alright.  Yuta-san just wants to make sure you’re adjusting alright and to have you get some more target practice in with your new piece.  How does that sound?”

Yuta was turning out to be the most involved boss Taeyong had ever had.  He still had no idea what was going on, but at least he wasn’t in trouble and if he was being honest, he liked firing the gun and looked forward to another sanctioned opportunity.  Taeyong chided himself as he noticed a piece of his mind wondering churlishly what this girl was to Yuta.  That doesn’t pertain to you , he told himself.  

“That’s fine,” he said.

“Great,” said Momo, winking like a girl from an animated television show or something.  “So, you’ll go to headquarters and meet him right after your shift, got it?”

Got it.

***

The Inagawa-kai Tokyo headquarters was located in a simple, box-shaped black building on the edge of Aoyama.  It wasn’t a short structure – it had about seven stories – but compared to much of Tokyo’s architecture it remained strategically unassuming.  Once inside the building, a tall man with dark hair and a patchwork of tattoos and scars across his exposed skin approached Taeyong and told him he would escort him to the meeting.  At first Taeyong didn’t recognize him because he hadn’t gotten a good look the first time, but he soon realized that his companion was one of the men who had essentially arrested him a week ago, a fact which made his throat tighten.  Taeyong also cautiously noted that the man had a fresh stump of a pinky finger on his right hand covered in bandages.  Must have gotten in a bad fight.

The man led Taeyong down a series of identical concrete hallways until they reached a sliding door made of oak, at which point he left Taeyong to enter the room by himself.  Taeyong hesitated for a moment but was stunned into action when he heard Yuta’s expressive voice anticipate his presence from inside with the simple utterance of two syllables.

“ Douzo .”

Within, Yuta sat at the same desk where Taeyong had first met him, surrounded by expensive Scandinavian furnishings, walls of glass and concrete, and a pristine bonsai tree on a ledge behind him.  Yuta himself wore black pants, a silk shirt, and a yellow velvet smoking jacket of all things.  Taeyong felt something twist in his gut at the sight of him and his intent gaze but decided to file the feeling away somewhere very deep for the purposes of later contemplation.

“ Shategashira !” Taeyong greeted with a salute, as he was now pretty sure he was expected to.  “Would you like me to sit, sir?”

“At ease,” said Yuta, waving him off and letting Taeyong relax a bit.  “No need.  I’ll accompany you to the range right now, if that’s alright.”

“Of course, Shategashira .”

And with that, Taeyong let himself be led back under the florescent lights of the complex’s maze-like hallways.

“How are you adjusting, Taeyong?” asked Yuta.

Taeyong was constantly surprised that the couple times he had seen Yuta since their initial meeting, he always made sure to check up on him.  He didn’t know what to make of this.  He guessed it was just standard practice – a measure to make him feel protected and ensure his devotion, or something of the sort.

“It’s alright, I guess,” Taeyong responded.  “I like Mark and Jungwoo.  Johnny seems like a good guy too.  In all honesty, I don’t have a lot to do right now.  But I do appreciate having the position at all!”  Taeyong’s tone was absolutely all over the place, not knowing where to stand between familiar and deferent.  Taeyong thought he saw his little speech provoke a smile in Yuta, and suddenly that knot in his stomach was back.  Well, fuck.

Yuta spoke.  “I acknowledge that you don’t have the most exciting posting.  But that’s partially why I wished to speak with you today.  After you.”

Yuta left that tease there.  They had come to the end of a hallway to an orange door with chipping paint and a black symbol indicating that protective equipment for eyes and ears was recommended inside.  Yuta held it open and Taeyong passed through.

Once in the vestibule of the shooting range, Taeyong set himself up where he was supposed to stand and aimed his revolver at the target on the other end of the room as Yuta leaned against an acid-white wall with his arms crossed and his chin raised slightly.

“Relax your shoulders,” Yuta said, and Taeyong cleared his throat, shimmying his shoulders lower on his back in response.  He took a deep breath and focused on the red bull’s eye placed on the heart of a human-shaped target, both hands on the gun.  He had to refrain from grinding his teeth.

“Wait until you’re ready,” Yuta coached, voice low and commanding, “then focus your energy and count down from three before you pull the trigger.  Simple as that.”

“Yes, Shategashira .” Taeyong did as he was told, steadying himself, focusing his eyes on his target, and counting 3…2…1… BANG!

Taeyong felt himself sway backwards for a moment after firing but regained his balance quickly – something he had not done the first time he had shot the thing.  That time, he ended up on his butt, confused and embarrassed as Mark thrashed around on the wall in a fit of performative laughter.  The practice he’d had since then had helped, but so did the pressure of Yuta’s gaze.

After a moment, Taeyong heard clapping coming from next to him and he realized he had been closing his eyes.  When he opened them, he saw that a chunk of the wooden target was missing on its inner thigh.

“We can work with that,” Yuta remarked, finishing his short round of applause.  “Certainly enough to cripple, and that’s important.  However, I get the sense you weren’t aiming there, hm?”

Taeyong’s breathing fumbled when Yuta began to stalk towards him.  “What we need is to teach you some precision and confidence,” he explained. “We’ve got to work on your kill shot.  Do you mind?”

Yuta was asking for the gun, so Taeyong handed it over with an “of course, Shategashira .”        

Yuta took a sideways stance, holding the revolver out with one arm, and proceeded to shoot five times in fast succession, obliterating the plywood head of the target cutout until it was nothing more than splinters.  Taeyong did not care to imagine it as belonging to a real human.  When he had finished, Yuta turned to regard Taeyong, and to Taeyong’s surprise and horror, he broke out into a wide grin.  God , thought Taeyong, I’m alone with a psychopath and a gun .  Although, once that thought had passed, Taeyong couldn’t help admiring the princely charm of the way the smile had spread like a sunrise over Yuta’s face.  What the fuck was going on?  

“You see?” said Yuta, ebullient, “you’ll be doing that soon enough.”

Soon enough .  Right, Taeyong would need to sort out his future, and soon.

“Let’s try again.  Go back to your stance.  We’re going to stay with two hands for now.”

Taeyong took the gun back and repositioned himself in his starting position, holding the weapon with his outstretched arms and lining it up with his sternum.  Yuta came up beside him and held his hands over Taeyong’s shoulders.

“May I?” he asked, and Taeyong nodded, allowing Yuta to press down onto his shoulders and straighten his spine.  Taeyong could feel the other man’s breath and it was sending his nerves into a state he did not need them to be in, heat crawling up his neck.      

“Do the countdown again,” Yuta instructed, “deep breath, and then fire.  Don’t let your eyes close, alright?  And try to stay still as much as possible.  You can if you really engage your core.”

Taeyong nodded at all the advice and tried to follow it – attempting also to avoid noticing the watchful smile blooming on Yuta’s face in his peripheral vision.  He took in a deep breath of the room’s stale air and counted down again, eyes trained on the cutout’s heart and intent not to shut.

A BANG rang out once more throughout the vestibule.            

Taeyong did narrowly refrain from closing his eyes, but they seemed to have gone out of focus.  Once he blinked the fuzziness from them, as if erasing an etch-a-sketch, he could see that he’d succeeded in blowing a hole through his target’s crotch.

Yuta giggled and slapped Taeyong over his right shoulder.  Taeyong’s head spun.  Was he supposed to be scared of this literal mob boss or not?

“I have a hunch you weren’t aiming there either, huh?” Yuta asked, and Taeyong shook his head no.  “That’d definitely be an effective shot though, wouldn’t it?  Might actually be better than aiming for the heart in some situations because you can make them talk while they bleed out.”

Holy shit.   In an instant, Taeyong became painfully aware of his reality.  He was practicing shooting because he might be in a situation where he’d need to – where others would be aiming at him the same way he was aiming at this outline of a man.  What if it was him who got shot in the heart, or worse, shot in the dick and forced to bleed out horrifically?  Taeyong felt lightheaded but managed to squeeze enough air from his lungs to speak.

“Do you mind me asking you a question, if it’s not too forward?”

Yuta raised an eyebrow.  “Shoot,” he said, obviously amused by his own word play.

“Why am I here?” asked Taeyong.  “What am I doing here now?  What am I training for?”  That was three questions, but oh well.  Taeyong didn’t feel like being measured.

Yuta sighed and cocked his head, eyes fluttering to regard the floor.

“I had a feeling this would come up,” he said, smiling wryly this time.  “Keep practicing and I’ll fill you in.”

Taeyong nodded and prepared to shoot again, hitting the target’s left shoulder this time when he pulled the trigger.

“Getting closer to the heart,” Yuta observed, appreciative.  “You see, Taeyong, there are only two favorable outcomes for you now that this ball has gotten rolling.”  Taeyong relaxed his arms and watched Yuta begin to pace, his face steeled by caution.

“The first, which would be preferable to the family, is that you stay on with the Inagawa-kai and devote yourself to our line of work.  However, I understand that what has happened was not your choosing, and you may want to return to your normal life as soon as possible.  Whichever path you choose eventually matters little to what I need you to do for now, so don’t worry about it yet.” Yuta paused, giving Taeyong a moment to recover from the way his emotions had just gone topsy-turvy like his image in a funhouse mirror.  Then Yuta gestured towards the gun Taeyong was now pointing at the rubber floor.  “Please continue,” he said.  Taeyong hit the target in its stomach and caught a hum of approval from Yuta.    

“Either way,” Yuta went on, “you will need to establish trust here.  Even if you want to leave, you will have to stay on long enough and perform well enough to prove that we can trust you to be an ally even in the civilian world.  Does that make sense, Taeyong?”

Bang! Left hip.

“It does,” Taeyong replied, resigned.  This was all his own fault anyway.  He couldn’t help his curiosity though.  “Is this something that happens often?”

Yuta chuckled slightly.  Bang! Sternum.  Taeyong was quickly gaining enough balance and confidence to keep himself still while firing.

“Similar situations have occurred although we obviously try to avoid them.  For instance, the two men who brought you in to me have been duly reprimanded for their carelessness.”  

Taeyong was preparing to fire as Yuta said this and was immediately thrown off when his mind returned to the image of his abductor’s freshly severed finger, putting two and two together.  Is that what a mistake gets you here? Worse, did Yuta purposefully assign that guy to escort Taeyong as some kind of warning? Taeyong was already pressing down on the trigger when this thought came to him and it caused him to misfire wildly, hitting the wall on the other end of the range a few feet from the target.

“Fuck!”

“Do you need me to stop talking?” Yuta asked.

Taeyong held the gun in his left hand while shaking out the wrist of his right, as if the problem had been purely physiological.  “No!  Er – sorry, just give me a moment please, Shategashira .”

“That’s alright,” said Yuta.  “You’re doing pretty well for a beginner.  Take a break for a bit.”

Taeyong nodded, feeling defeated but somewhat relieved.    

“Similar situations,” he mused “Like what?  If you don’t mind telling me.”

“Take Jungwoo, for example.  He worked for a circuitry and computing firm that was under our thumb.  He knew nothing about it – he was simply a technician and didn’t have access to the books – but when the small company had defied our understanding with them one too many times, Jungwoo happened to be unlucky enough to witness the consequences.  We gave him the option to make it up to us by working for us.  It was difficult for him at first, but now his closest friends are in our ranks and he gets to do what he loves while never needing to worry about money.  So, it worked out in the end.”

Jungwoo, huh?   Taeyong had thought the guy seemed a bit too cheery to be a natural gangster.

“I see.  I don’t really have a thing though, that I love doing, you know?”

Yuta shrugged, then smiled in a way that was meant to be reassuring.

“Well, you may not love it, but you know about vehicle mechanics, right?  That will be useful to us.  However, to be honest I do feel for you, Taeyong, I really do.  You caught my attention immediately and have weighed on my conscience.  I want to help you make the best of this, and the best thing you can do now is quickly prove your loyalty both to me and to the people I work for.  That way, you will get the most flexibility in the least time.  That’s why I’m scheming to fast-track you to that point.”

Taeyong was mystified as to why his superior, who had implicitly threatened him into becoming a yakuza in the first place, was being so nice to him; so reasonable.

“What does that mean?” Taeyong asked, eyes going wide in anticipation.

Yuta leaned back against the wall and watched Taeyong from under his bangs.  “I’m in the middle of a project that it would be nice if someone helped me with.  It’s not inherently dangerous and it’ll give you a good idea of how we operate.  If you do a good job you will both understand the world you’re now living in and if you want to stay in it, and hopefully, gain enough trust to be allowed to make that decision when the time comes.”

Taeyong’s thumb skimmed nervously over the textured handle of his revolver, eyes searching the vestibule for some sense of reality.  He felt almost dizzy with exhilaration at the idea of helping Yuta out and spending more time with him - studying him.  “What’s the project?” he asked.

“An investigation.”

“An investigation…” Taeyong repeated.  What did he know about investigations?

“Yes,” said Yuta, “I’m gathering information on a certain executive at one of the nation’s largest companies.  For blackmailing purposes.”

Taeyong almost laughed at how upfront Yuta was about this.

“Okay…”

“Is that a yes?”

“Do I have a choice?” Asked Taeyong.  Yuta smiled, something almost predatory in his expression.  “What would I have to do?”

“Accompany me when I go out following leads, be my lookout and my sounding board for ideas when no one else is free to help.  You can be more involved depending on how well you do with that.  Think you can handle it?”

That didn’t sound too out of the box for things Taeyong could do.  Besides, Yuta had said “lookout” not “bodyguard” or something.  Taeyong was used to fighting, but his dustups were usually with hoodlums from Shin-Ōkubo, not with armed career criminals.

Taeyong nodded.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Yeah I can.”

Yuta pushed himself off the wall.  “Perfect.  Before we finish here though, I’d like to get you to hit your target.”

The way Yuta said it so flatly made it clear to Taeyong that this was a command, not a suggestion.

“Yes, Shategashira .”      

“I think I know how to help,” said Yuta, “it’s something I used to do when practicing.  Do you have someone you want that to be?  Someone you hate so much it makes your toes curl?  Makes you want to smell their blood?”

Taeyong pictured the leader of the Specters – the boy who’d beaten him black and blue until he couldn’t hear or think; the boy who had only refrained from dragging Taeyong from a chain on the back of a car when he heard sirens coming for him, and all because Taeyong had dared to be zainichi .  Sure, Taeyong wouldn’t mind a little payback.  He nodded at Yuta, both men’s eyes going dark and focusing on the target.

“Good,” said Yuta, placing his hands on Taeyong’s shoulders and squeezing.  This time, Taeyong’s mind had gone too cold to let the contact affect him.  “Now, don’t let them get away with anything less than a bullet to the heart.”

With that, Yuta pushed away and Taeyong imagined his victim, ugly smug face and rising sun headband appearing in his mind’s eye with chilling detail.  Relax, breathe out, 3, 2, 1, BANG!

Taeyong was steady as the bullet passed an inch or so from the bullseye and the sight caused a great sense of relief to wash over him, like stepping into a hot tub on a snowy day.

When he turned around, Yuta was watching him with a smirk, arms crossed over his chest.

“When do I start, Shategashira ?” asked Taeyong.

Yuta’s smirk morphed into what Taeyong could only describe as a proud grin.  “You start now.”    

[satonthelotuspier]

Fur and Feathers

Part 3 of the XiCheng story arc. I’ll no doubt write more of them in future for extras etc but this is the main part of their story finished.

Part 1 and Part 2 can be found at the links.

After 2 years of avoiding his responsibilities it’s time for Jiang Cheng to return to Lotus Pier, and the political husband he walked out on the day after their marriage.

Once back the two settle down to ignoring each other wherever possible, until a misfired talisman created by not-so-genius brother Wei Wuxian causes them to have to forget their differences and co-operate from close quarters for a while.

7k words

XiCheng Part 3

“Isn’t it about time you went home to your husband, Jiang-gongzi?” Nie Mingjue asked pointedly at dinner that evening.

Nie Huaisang coughed once to hide his amusement and pulled out his fan, opening and covering his face with it. He had pre-warned Jiang Cheng to expect something like this, apparently his brother hadn’t bothered to hide his displeasure at Jiang Cheng’s return from Huaisang.

And really, Jiang Cheng thought that he had likely pushed his absence as far as he could. His mother would probably have him beaten with the discipline whip when he arrived back at Lotus Pier. He had chosen to ignore letter after letter from her demanding his immediate return over the past two years. The longer he had left it the harder the thought of returning had become; distance and a level of maturity had allowed him to admit what an absolute bastard he had been to his new husband. He had walked away from Lotus Pier the very day after their political marriage had been enacted, leaving the other alone and adrift in a new clan, ripped away from everything he’d known.

He knew Lan Xichen had been as much of a pawn as he had in the union; perhaps more so, having offered himself in the place of his brother to ensure Lan Wangji, who had been in love with Wei Wuxian for many years, had the chance at happiness Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng were to be denied. Yet Jiang Cheng had still acted out on his childish humiliation, wanting to hurt the other as much as he had been hurt. He had probably more than achieved his wish.

Jiang Cheng had spent the last two years at Qinghe with Nie Huaisang, and visiting Jiang Yanli, his elder sister, in her new home at Lanling with the Jin clan.

She had gently scolded him about his terrible behaviour, but as ever she wouldn’t push him on the matter. He had also spent a year night hunting with a pair of rogue cultivators he had met on his travels; the two owl shifters had been investigating a troublesome ghost haunting in a beleaguered village at the same time Jiang Cheng had happened upon it as he’d been making his way home.

They had cooperated, and Jiang Cheng had been invited to travel with them. And he hadn’t taken much convincing, anything to put off the inevitable for a little longer. Eventually they had parted ways, however, and this stop off in Qinghe was his last before he genuinely did return to Lotus Pier to face his mother and his husband.

“You’re correct Nie-zongzhu, I will be leaving for Lotus Pier at the end of the week” he agreed, and at his agreement Nie Mingjue could say no more.

***

The night before his departure Nie Huaisang joined him in his rooms.

“So, what are you going to do about your trophy husband when you return home?” Nie Huaisang asked him lazily from where he laid on Jiang Cheng’s bed. Nie Huaisang’s version of helping was being present to offer guidance and moral support.

His mouth pulled tight at Lan Xichen being described as his trophy husband. Sadly, that was likely the extent of how Madam Yu saw him; a coup for Yunmeng Jiang to have had the former heir of the Gusu Lan clan and foremost cultivator of his generation, marry into it. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, for he had equally played his part in the Jiang clan treating this well-bred gentleman cultivator like a thing to be used and ignored.

“How do you mean?” Jiang Cheng asked eventually, not quite understanding the question.

“Are you going to attempt a reconciliation? Divorce?” he prompted.

“We can’t divorce, that would defeat the purpose of the marriage in the first place. Much as Lan Xichen, or either of us, might wish to. And how could I possibly attempt a reconciliation? Would you forgive me or my clan in his place?”

Nie Huaisang hmm’ed his agreement, before a devilish look came across his face, “Or you could seduce him, once he’s under your sexual spell he might”

“My sexual spell” Jiang Cheng repeated flatly, trying to ignore the fact the thought of Lan Xichen in that way made his neck heat up in embarrassment. “Look, we’ll probably just get on with it like my parents. We don’t have to like each other to be married. It was about the politics” the thought of such a marriage, stretched out in front of him was a lead weight in his chest, however.

“How romantic, what a life to look forward to, being just like your parents”

“I don’t exactly have much choice” Jiang Cheng snapped, then rolled his shoulders in irritation, “we’ll be fine, at least there won’t be any children for us to ruin”

“Or you could try to get on with him, its a novel idea, I know”

But Jiang Cheng was finished discussing the subject.

***

His mother was the expected level of incensed with him when Jiang Cheng did arrive back at Lotus Pier. Salvation came from an unexpected source, however, and Lan Xichen moved in to greet him after her initial sally. He was drawn away with various comments on his tiredness due to travelling, welcomes home, and queries after his health.

He was about to thank the other but Wei Wuxian had found them, and Lan Xichen took his arrival as opportunity to leave, and turned on his heel and walked away.

Jiang Cheng felt the cut, but he wasn’t sure if Lan Xichen had intended it deliberately.

He had little time to dwell on it, as Wei Wuxian trailed him to his rooms, where he dropped his pack and sank onto the bed in relief.

It was short lived, however, as Wei Wuxian took up where Madam Yu had left off in admonishing him for being gone so long. He added being so horrible to Lan Xichen to his list which hadn’t been a concern of hers, but was just as fluent in his censure.

Wei Wuxian didn’t have access to the discipline whip, or Zidian, though, and Jiang Cheng knew how to wrap Wei Wuxian around his little finger.

He got up and moved to his brother, sliding under his arm and into a hug; he rubbed his cheek against Wei Wuxian’s, scenting him as family. It was as effective as he had expected, and Wei Wuxian wrapped him up tightly in a reciprocal embrace.

“We’ve been worried about you, you little shit” he accused, “If Nie Huaisang and Shijie hadn’t written we’d have had no idea where you even were for the past few years. You’re lucky I can’t use Zidian, or your mother would be the least of your worries” he accused, rubbing Jiang Cheng’s back which took a lot of the sting out of his threats.

And Jiang Cheng hadn’t realised how much he’d missed his adopted sibling; the strong purr that rumbled in his chest in response to the contact surprised him. He rubbed his cheek once more against Wei Wuxian’s then gave in to his animal form and allowed it to take over.

Jiang Cheng was a sleek black cat weaving around Wei Wuxian’s ankles before the other could blink.

He was scooped up and set on Wei Wuxian’s lap as the other sat on his bed.

He continued to stroke Jiang Cheng’s back and Jiang Cheng continued to purr as Wei Wuxian kept up his stream of scolding for a long while.

***

A week later, as he sat over dinner with his family, he wondered whether his father or he had done worse in the arranged marriage stakes.

Yes, Madam Yu was a fiery, tempestuous woman, much like Jiang Cheng in temperament, but was her rough tongue really worse than the faultless politeness Lan Xichen treated him with when they were forced to interact? At least with his mother her venom made it clear exactly where you stood.

To make matters worse Wei Wuxian’s relationship with Lan Wangji seemed to have progressed some too. Of itself that wasn’t a problem; he was happy for his brother, the problem was his brother-in-law, who took the faultless politeness of Lan Xichen and added a severe coating of ice to it. Politeness could impale when Lan Wangji wielded it.

He was not a popular in-law, it seemed.

It was nothing he didn’t deserve, however, and he didn’t feel it was an unfair reaction. He very much thought if the tables had been reversed and it was Wei Wuxian who was in the same situation as Lan Xichen he would hiss and spit in defence of his brother, as Lan Wangji did in his own way.

Jiang Cheng was also happy to bear the censure when he saw the look in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, that soft, dawning love every time he looked at Lan Wangji. Perhaps he had finally begun to realise that the “friendship” between he and Lan Wangji had the potential to be much more, especially if the new Lan sect heir had his way.

He paused briefly as the implications sank in. Lan Wangji would no doubt ask Wei Wuxian to marry him when the time was right, and it appeared Wei Wuxian would agree. Then Wei Wuxian would follow the other back to Gusu, marry into the Lan clan, and live happily ever after.

And Jiang Cheng would be left in Yunmeng, without his siblings.

He would be alone. He would have no one left to mark, to curl into the lap of when he wanted to be a pampered cat, no one to tease and be teased by.

All that was in front of him was years at the mercy of his mother’s disappointment and his father’s indifference.

The thought made him feel ill.

It was no reason to wish his siblings anything but their happiness, however; his life was his to bear, alone if need be.

His stomach roiled at the thought of eating another bite, and he placed his chopsticks down on the table, excusing himself.

***

Jiang Cheng woke up in the night. It was still pitch dark outside and there was barely any light as it was the last sliver of a waning moon that hung in the sky.

Had his feeling of illness at dinner been an omen of an onset of fever? His body felt unusually warm, and there was a tingling painfulness at the nape of his neck. He felt restless, with a vague sense of wrongness. Jiang Cheng sat up in bed, brushing the heaviness of sweat soaked hair away from his nape, trying not to think too much on how his body just didn’t seem to move like he was used to.

And now he looked around, the window wasn’t in the correct position in relation to his bed, and the carafe of water he normally kept on a table by his bedhead was nowhere to be seen.

This must be a dream. He had a fever, and he was undergoing one of those strange dreams where his body didn’t seem to belong to him and he imagined things were different to what they were.

It must be.

He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep but his brain wouldn’t stop working, turning over and over how wrong everything was.

Eventually he gave up, sat up and sent a small amount of qi out to light the nearby lamp. It nearly exploded; he was pretty sure he had made the same gesture a hundred times before without that happening.

Soft flame-light illuminated a room that was very definitely not his, and as he stubbed a toe on the bed frame as he moved to pick up the lamp he cursed in a voice that was absolutely not his.

Something was very definitely wrong and this was not a dream.

He moved quickly over to the mirror and found out why everything had felt so wrong as Lan Xichen’s face looked back at him, Jiang Cheng’s intense shock and surprise forming the jade-like features into a stronger emotion than Jiang Cheng had ever seen grace them before.

He dashed out of the doorway and after a brief moment of confusion, while he recalibrated his mind to the fact it wasn’t his rooms he had just left, set off to Wei Wuxian’s accommodations.

He barged in with the most perfunctory knock, which had Wei Wuxian waking in surprise. He sat up and shook his head as if to clear the sleep from it, “Xichen-ge?” he questioned in confusion.

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng dashed over to his bed, sitting on the side and grabbing Wei Wuxian’s forearms, “Something’s wrong. I don’t know how this happened”

“Is it Lan Zhan? Is he alright?” he threw the blankets back and got up, searching for his boots.

“What? Why would it be Lan Wangji?”

“You said something was wrong, are you feeling well, Xichen-ge?”

“Of course I’m not feeling well, you stupid weasel…”

“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian frowned in confusion, but there was only one person in the world who mocked him with the term weasel, meant to be derogatory to his sable animal form. Even if there was a second person, Lan Xichen would not be he.

“Yes! I don’t know what happened, Wei Wuxian, I woke up a while ago and I was in Lan Xichen’s body. What do I do?”

Although the room was lowly lit Jiang Cheng saw Wei Wuxian blanch; a guilty look crossed his face, and Jiang Cheng would have felt his temper flare normally. He was merely a little cross.

“What did you do Wei Wuxian?” he asked getting up too, taking hold of Wei Wuxian’s shoulders.

“Xiongzhang!” Lan Wangji’s voice sounded from the doorway, and they both looked across to see the Second Jade of Lan stood just inside Wei Wuxian’s room with a look quite close to actual surprise.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian called, “This isn’t what it looks like”

And it really wasn’t.

“Wangji” An odd thrill passed through Jiang Cheng’s current body at the sound of that tone; he put it down to the oddness of hearing his own voice speak words he hadn’t formed.

“I think you had better explain what you’ve done, Wei Wuxian” Jiang Cheng said calmly, and Lan Xichen, in Jiang Cheng’s body, marched over to stand close by too.

“Yes, what have you done, Wei Wuxian?” it sounded tight and angry, and Lan Xichen’s face pulled up into an expression of shock, a hand flying up to cover his mouth.

Jiang Cheng met his wide-eyed gaze with amusement.

“Do you always feel like this?” there was disbelief in Lan Xichen’s tone.

“Fun, isn’t it?” Jiang Cheng asked facetiously.

“Not in any way. Explain, please Wei-gongzi” Lan Xichen pushed Wei Wuxian for an answer again.

“Alright, so this is probably my fault” Wei Wuxian began.

“How probably?” Jiang Cheng asked, moving away to stand at the window.

“Likely mostly” Wei Wuxian admitted, and held his hands out helplessly, “It’s like this, and really it could have happened to anyone, I designed a talisman that I used tonight”

Jiang Cheng felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Wei Wuxian”

“It was meant to swap mine and Lan Zhan’s animal forms for a while”

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji exclaimed in surprise.

“What, Lan Zhan? I wanted to be a cute and soft bunji, you’re always saying I don’t understand how unsettling being around one of your natural predators is, so I thought if we swapped for a while it would help me, and you could be a handsome sleek sable with a beautiful coat, as an added bonus. So really, if you look at it that way, it’s actually your fault, Lan Zhan”

Jiang Cheng raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation, except it wasn’t his nose, and it was the oddest feeling to have something that intuitive feel wrong.

“So you can just design the reversing talisman?” Jiang Cheng asked him, “and we’ll be back to normal tomorrow?”

“I could try” Wei Wuxian said tentatively, “But it’s probably safer just to let it wear off naturally at this stage” he said, “It should only last a week or two”

“I don’t think I’d last two weeks, Wei Wuxian” Jiang Cheng complained.

Lan Xichen added a soft “Quite” to the argument.

Wei Wuxian shrugged, “I might end up swapping your animal forms but leaving you both in the wrong body, I think it safer to not interfere. Look at it like an adventure. A chance to see how the other half live, quite literally” he clapped his hands together and rubbed them together, “Now that’s settled, I’m tired, could you all please go and entertain yourselves somewhere else?” he made a shooing motion.

Jiang Cheng called after Lan Xichen, “If you do end up in cat form just don’t lick...things, honestly if I find out you did, I’ll break your legs” he meant to make it sarcastic and cutting, but it was more like a suggestion when it was passed through Lan Xichen’s vocal chords and emotional centre.

“Think yourself lucky if they’re all still attached when you get this body back” was the cutting response, followed by another hand over mouth look of shock.

The Lans left, but Jiang Cheng paused as the hot tingling pain made itself known again. He could ask Lan Xichen about it directly, but he was loath to talk to him about it.

He pulled the hair off of his nape, and asked Wei Wuxian, “What is that? It burns and tingles constantly”

He heard the swift intake of breath, then Wei Wuxian’s voice, unusually sharp when talking to him.

“Are you being facetious, Jiang Cheng? It’s not very funny”

Jiang Cheng was surprised, “What? No, of course not, Wei Wuxian, tell me what it is”

“It’s a bond bite, please don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to have bitten Xichen-ge and forgotten. I won’t for a second believe it was from anyone else, Xichen wouldn’t be unfaithful”

But at the initial identification of the source of his discomfort Jiang Cheng had gone cold, had he?

“Did you let him bite you back? Please tell me that you weren’t that much of a shit to mark him and not let him reciprocate, and then leave him for two years”

“I didn’t mark him!” Jiang Cheng denied helplessly.

“It’s an impossibility that you didn’t because I can see the damn thing, Jiang Cheng”

Jiang Cheng thought back to that single night they had shared. Lan Xichen had claimed virginity and an unwillingness to be the one to do the taking lest he hurt the other, therefore Jiang Cheng had done so.

He cursed as it all became clear on carefully considering their wedding night, although he hadn’t intended to mark Lan Xichen the base instincts of his cat had made him bite the other at the scruff of the neck to hold him down while they mated.

“Fuck” he dropped his face into his hands; he really had been that much of a shit, although it had been unintentionally.

“Jiang Cheng”

“I know. I actually do have a conscience Wei Wuxian. I’ll make him mark me tomorrow” he promised; a reciprocated bond mark would stop the burning itching tingle. “Wait, I’ll mark him…me…” this was so confusing, honestly, sometimes Wei Wuxian’s insane shenanigans got so old. “Do you think you can avoid making any more stupid talismans before tomorrow?” he asked, finally managing to get a little sarcasm out of Lan Xichen’s mouth.

“Not sure, do you think you can avoid biting anyone else until tomorrow?” Wei Wuxian demanded in response, and it neatly shut him up.

He wanted to stalk out, but the First Jade moved far too gracefully to enable a good stalk, and he merely glided out of Wei Wuxian’s rooms instead.

***

They sat across from each other in Jiang Cheng’s rooms the next morning, a tea set between them. It was probably the longest they had spent in each other’s company when it had been just the two of them since...well, since their wedding night.

Lan Xichen had done his best over the past week or so of Jiang Cheng’s return to avoid being alone with him, and Jiang Cheng hadn’t wanted to push him into something that he obviously wanted to avoid.

No wonder, when he thought Jiang Cheng was such a cad that he would bond bite him then walk away for two years. The latter was bad enough on it’s own. Whatever Lan Xichen’s feelings were towards Jiang Cheng at this stage of their relationship he more than deserved them.

“Wei Wuxian wants us to wait until the talisman wears off, how do you feel about that?”

“Amazing, you worry about how I feel now, when it affects your body!” came the retort, again accompanied by a surprised look as Jiang Cheng’s emotional centre made his response for him.

“Honestly Xichen, you’ll have to stop wearing that expression every time you’re mouthy, it’s going to happen a lot over the next few weeks”

Really, being the one sat on the receiving end, Jiang Cheng could only wonder at how more people hadn’t punched him in the mouth in the past.

“How do you even live like this? How can you be so angry all the time and not just feel so weary of it” Lan Xichen wondered, reaching for his cup.

“I’m a hardy soul” Jiang Cheng shrugged. Really he was occasionally weary of it. But he had gotten better over the years at holding his temper, Lan Xichen, with his much calmer personality, didn’t have Jiang Cheng’s years of practice at binding that quicksilver response.

“We’ll have to bear it” Lan Xichen returned to Jiang Cheng’s original question.

“Do you want to be honest with everyone, or do we try to hide it?”

“Will Wei Wuxian get in trouble?”

“Probably a little. My mother isn’t particularly tolerant of him”

“Your mother isn’t tolerant of anyone” Lan Xichen did cover his mouth with his hand then; and he bowed to Jiang Cheng, “I’m deeply sorry that I disrespected your mother”

Jiang Cheng nodded his head in acceptance of the apology, although he hadn’t said anything that was untrue it was of course deeply disrespectful to comment on his mother-in-law’s short comings.

“We should probably try to hide it then, to save Wei-gongzi from possible punishment”

Jiang Cheng was glad the other agreed with the choice he had wanted to make; but he wouldn’t have forced the issue if Lan Xichen had decided against it. He nodded his agreement. That was issue number one dealt with.

Issue number two was going to be much harder for him to discuss, but he was an adult, and he would deal with things, even if they made him uncomfortable. He had grown up over the past years.

“Xichen, I want you to know I didn’t mark you on purpose, then leave” Jiang Cheng decided the best way to apologise would be directly, “I’m not making excuses, what I did was a horrible thing. But it was instinct, and not malice. I’m truly sorry”

“Nice, you merely emasculated me accidentally, good to know, Wanyin, thank you”

He hadn’t expected to get away with it too easily, especially not when the other was armed with Jiang Cheng’s naturally smart mouth.

“We should make a reciprocal mark”

Lan Xichen, in Jiang Cheng’s body, looked at him in surprise, “Oh”

Jiang Cheng, in Lan Xichen’s body, looked back at him in confusion, “I didn’t do it maliciously, of course I’m going to make it right”

“But aren’t you…” he made an elegant but vague gesture with his hand that was pure Lan, “...with Nie Huaisang?”

It took exactly thirty seconds for his meaning to permeate through Jiang Cheng’s borrowed brain.

“What? No!” had Lan Xichen really thought he had been off sleeping with another man for the last two years? “How could I do that? We’re married. I haven’t...not since before the betrothal”

“Oh” that noise again.

Honestly, there was no wonder Lan Xichen hated him; he’d feel exactly the same if he thought the man he had been joined in marriage to had put a bond mark on him, effectively marking him as belonging to the other, then gone on a two year jaunt of debauchery and sexual excess.

“I spent some time at Qinghe as Nie Huaisang’s friend, but I went to Lanling too, and I spent a year night hunting with a pair of rogue cultivators I met while travelling. A snowy owl and a great grey owl. They were good people. A little odd, like most bird shifters, but good”

Honestly there was a long-held-true notion in the shifter world that people with bird forms were the most likely to just forsake the human world and give in entirely to their animals. There were many anecdotal tales of bird shifters just vanishing forever. Sometimes Jiang Cheng wondered if it wasn’t because they had the ability to just fly away if their lives weren’t what they wanted, and maybe start again many hundreds of miles away, but some said the pleasure and freedom of being a bird was too seductive, that when their human life was hard, it was too easy a decision to just forsake it.

He noticed the unnatural amount of iron in the other’s spine then, and rethought what he’d said.

A comment about bird shifters.

Damn.

Did he even know what animal Lan Xichen was? It would have all been part of the betrothal documents and wedding licences, but he had been in such a snit at the time he had paid no attention to any of their wedding preparations.

“I like birds” he tried, and as damage control, it was absolutely stupid. But for some reason Lan Xichen found it amusing, and he started to laugh. He seemed as much surprised by that response as Jiang Cheng was, but didn’t seem to be able to stop.

Eventually, holding his stomach, his amusement was spent, and Jiang Cheng wondered if his husband had ever laughed so much before. The Two Jades had always seemed too stately, statue-like, and disconnected from the world for that kind of response. They both had untouchable auras, surrounding melancholy, saturnine dispositions.

Although Lan Xichen had always seemed mildly amused at the world, in that detached Lan way, and Lan Wangji had always seemed disgusted with it.

He felt that soft stirring of compassion for his husband, one he had buried under layers of anger and hurt and childish reprisals many years ago.

He doubted either of the Lans had spent an afternoon yelling and laughing and wrestling in water with their peers, just because it was hot outside and there was nothing more soothing than a dip in the lotus lake to be had.

“I know, Wanyin, but you like to eat them, I can feel your cat’s interest stirring when I look at you, in my body. I fear my bird might be a little too much for your cat to take on though”

Jiang Cheng had never yet found a bird his cat didn’t think he was equal to; false pride was also a failing of cats. His cat was more cunning than most, thanks to his human intelligence, but really anything from a crow and up would leave him pecked to pieces for his hubris, that was something the human Jiang Cheng understood, even if it made his cat sit and swish his tail in irritation.

Jiang Cheng suddenly realised that the feeling he had of being trapped, of being bound, wasn’t him being uncomfortable in Lan Xichen’s body, it was Lan Xichen’s animal that wanted to be on the wing.

“How much is too much?” he asked out of interest, as he ran the fingers of one hand up and down the opposite arm in a soothing stroke.

“Around two and a third chi of raptor, perhaps?”

Jiang Cheng gulped on behalf of his cat, who was definitely outmatched. Lan Xichen was talking in the realms of the biggest birds of prey. He held a silent memorial for his cat’s self-respect.

“I’m a mountain hawk-eagle. Once we’ve exchanged the bite, perhaps we should try and get comfortable with each other’s animal forms? I don’t think my eagle will like being denied for so long as two weeks without being allowed to fly”

The suggestion was a good one, honestly his cat wouldn’t want to spend two weeks without a warm lap to nap on either, now he had returned to the bosom of his family.

He scooted around the table unthinkingly, before pulling the collars of his robes out of the way, at Lan Xichen’s nonplussed look he realised he’d become confused again.

“Oh, of course, it’s the other way around isn’t it?” this was so stupidly confusing. Wei Wuxian had a lot to answer for. Although he had managed to bring about Lan Xichen being willing to be in Jiang Cheng’s company for longer than it took to offer a polite greeting and move on, so there was something.

“It does seem rather unfair that I’m the one getting bitten again, doesn’t it?” Lan Xichen asked with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, and Jiang Cheng pulled away again.

“We don’t have to, we can leave it until after the talisman has worn off if you’d like; then you can be the biter. I promise this isn’t just because it’s inconvenient to me, I’ll still let you bite me when I’m back in my body” he swore.

“I know, Wanyin, I was just being a brat, as you may be familiar with. Please continue” he bared the long line of Jiang Cheng’s neck to him, “I don’t know where you’d like the mark to be”

It was a little disconcerting to actually be biting his own throat; honestly it was a blessing they didn’t have a sexual relationship, or Jiang Cheng would be putting that firmly on hold until after the talisman wore off; surely only the biggest narcissist in the world would find the thought of sleeping with themselves anything but an utter turn-off.

It was only when the First Jade snorted in amusement (actually snorted! Please tell him that wasn’t something he did!) that he realised he’d mused on the subject out loud.

“You’re quite correct” Lan Xichen agreed with a small smile.

To cover his sudden embarrassment he leaned in, and with a, “I’m sorry if this stings” sank his teeth into the bare skin at the join of shoulder and neck, until he tasted the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

***

Later, after the reciprocal bond bite had been made, and cleaned up, they made their way out of Lotus Pier to safely let the other’s animal have free reign.

The burning, scraping feeling at the nape of Jiang Cheng’s neck had faded almost as soon as the bite had been made, and Jiang Cheng was glad it was something less Lan Xichen would have to bear when they returned to their own bodies.

They found a clearing in the woods.

“I would think much of the process of flying would be natural, same for your cat, perhaps we’ll be fine if we don’t overthink it too much” Lan Xichen murmured, and it made sense.

“Would you like to go first?” Jiang Cheng invited, and Lan Xichen looked at him in confusion.

“Can’t we try at the same time? Do you think my eagle will attack your cat?”

“No” Jiang Cheng chuckled, “Honestly, you wild animals have no idea what it’s like to be a domestic shifter. Do you know how much attention a domestic cat requires?”

“Very little? I thought cats were self-sufficient, and standoffish”

“Yes, but also very needy and with a want to be babied”

“Cats make no sense” Lan Xichen complained, then eyed the other as realisation struck. “So basically, that’s the riddle of Wanyin, you literally encapsulate every trait of a cat”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t even be annoyed at the parallel Lan Xichen had drawn, because he literally was a cat in his human form too.

He shrugged, “It is what it is” he stepped back to give the other space, and he switched forms, that triumphant look still on his face until he changed into a sleek, black cat.

His first action was to lower his head and groom nervously at his left shoulder, right over where the mating mark had gone, then he stretched luxuriously, each claw on his front paws fully extended. And then he went to explore the undergrowth.

Jiang Cheng did a quick visual check to ensure there wasn’t anything poisonous to cats that Lan Xichen might not realise was dangerous, before he sat down in the shade of a tree and waited for Lan Xichen to return.

That feeling of restlessness still plagued him with freedom in sight, but he would make sure Lan Xichen was fine before he gave in to the need.

He was dozing in the warmth of the day when he felt the tentative touch of paws against his thigh.

“Come here” he murmured groggily, knowing what Lan Xichen, or rather the cat Lan Xichen was currently inhabiting, needed.

Invited, the other climbed into his lap and formed a cat loaf, while Jiang Cheng found all the secret spots that he loved to be fussed in, causing the black-furred predator in his lap to rumble in contentment.

Once he had received his full allotment of attention, Lan Xichen got up, stretched again, and went hunting a butterfly he saw fluttering through the grasses. There was no way with that clumsy hunting technique he would offer it any serious concern though, Jiang Cheng realised, grinning.

He took the opportunity to stretch himself, then shimmered into Lan Xichen’s animal form.

It was odd. Their animal’s were both predators, but they couldn’t be more different from each other.

“Wanyin” his head tilted to show he heard the other, who had changed back into Jiang Cheng’s human form. “Be careful, I don’t think you’ll understand how addictive flying can be until you experience it, but don’t go too far, not just yet. Make sure you stay in sight of the clearing, and test your stamina. Having tested your cat form I’d say a lot of the instincts are there, but they’re not necessarily as intuitive as I’d expected. A lot of flying, especially for raptors, is using the air currents, and none of your own actual energy, try that out. And please be careful, Wanyin, there wasn’t too much damage I could do from the ground, but if you make a mistake at that height you won’t be walking away from it” he reached out a hand towards Jiang Cheng, who nipped gently at his fingers with his sharp, hooked beak, to show he understood, and that seemed to settle Lan Xichen a little.

With several strong flaps of his wings he pulled off the ground and up into the air.

It was very intense activity, no wonder birds had to find a way to make it less energetic to avoid becoming exhausted quickly, at this rate he’d not make it above the treetops. He made it to the canopy, and found a perch high up. He wanted to try a glide, which he could do across the clearing from here; it went better than expected, and he thought he might be beginning to understand what Lan Xichen meant by using the air currents rather than his own energy.

Next he flew out of the clearing, and higher into the air. He new raptors hung at ridiculous heights to hunt their prey with their sharp vision and as he gained more of that height, then settled into the air currents he genuinely understood what Lan Xichen had meant about becoming addicted.

This feeling of freedom, the world stretched out beneath his wings, endless, yet small and unimportant, it was amazing.

He understood fully about those bird shifters who gave up on the world; how could you give this feeling up if what waited for you on the ground was nothing but pain and disappointment?

Unfortunately, he was awaited by a worried husband, and he didn’t want to worry Lan Xichen any more than he had to, so after a short while he folded his wings and practised losing altitude via deep swoops. There was one moment of instinct almost taking over, when he caught the movement of a small hare in a meadow, but he managed to redirect his own attention, and eventually rejoined Lan Xichen in the clearing.

He changed back and dropped out of the low branch, and the feeling of disappointment was a tangible thing.

He now understood why bird shifters were often thought odd, or melancholy, how could they be anything else in human form when they knew the feeling of flight?

He had flown on swords for most of his life and it didn’t even come near to the experience of the wind beneath stretched, powerful wings.

He wanted to ask Lan Xichen how he could ever bear to be in human form, but knew the question would spark pain. How could it not?

“How did you do?” Lan Xichen asked him tentatively, and Jiang Cheng nodded.

“I think I was starting to get the idea. A poor hare almost became dinner, though” he admitted.

***

The next several days were tiring. They spent much of them in each other’s company, they escaped to allow their animal’s freedom as often as they could, and avoided company other than Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian when possible. When it wasn’t, they pretended to be each other. They both had quite a good grasp of the other’s personality by now, and it wasn’t too hard to replicate it, there were only one or two moments where it was a close call; they came mostly when Madam Yu began to berate Lan Xichen, in Jiang Cheng’s body, where he often felt the need to leap to Jiang Cheng’s defence, whereas Jiang Cheng would never have dared talk back to his mother on his own behalf.

They spent most night’s sleeping in the same room, with Lan Xichen taking cat form to take advantage of the opportunity for fusses; and after all, there wasn’t anything scandalous in husbands sleeping in the same room.

As the time for the talisman to wear off came closer Jiang Cheng, whilst looking forward to things physically going back to normal, was sad at the thought of what he would lose.

There was the amazing, soul-altering feeling of flying in Xichen’s animal form. He would never get to experience that again.

Then there was the surprising closeness he felt to Lan Xichen; they had spent almost every minute of the time they’d been body-swapped in each other’s company. He wondered, with a tinge of sadness, if things would go back to how they had been before, once things returned to normal. He felt like they understood each other much better than they had before, so hopefully not. But what if Lan Xichen wanted nothing to do with him, when they didn’t have to pretend to be each other anymore?

He stroked the soft black fur of the cat asleep on his chest as he turned the problem over.

He really didn’t want to lose this...friendship?...relationship?...with Lan Xichen. The more he had gotten to know the other, the more he’d learned about Lan Xichen’s personality, and what made him tick, the more in love he had fallen with his husband.

His fingers stilled as he realised where his thoughts had drifted.

Yes, he was in love with Lan Xichen. What a cruel irony to fall in love with your political match of a husband. After you had spent several years avoiding him, humiliated him and left him alone and adrift in a life he had never expected for himself.

Then to come back and just fall in love like nothing of the other actions had gone before.

He was fucked.

He couldn’t even claim it was merely hormones, because as the other was currently residing in Jiang Cheng’s own body, he could confirm with certainty sexual attraction did not enter into it in the slightest. He was more likely to grow hard while looking in the mirror at the body he currently inhabited, (no need for Lan Xichen to find out about that little embarrassment though).

It was genuinely love.

He fell asleep that night with a frown of worry on his brow.

***

The gentle fusses at the magical nape of his neck where delightful, and always guaranteed to coax his purr from him.

He came awake slowly, stretching his long, agile body out to it’s full length, claws flashing as each individual toe was unfurled to it’s full extent.

This was luxurious. The hand moved to stroke the full length of his back from neck to tail base, and it was only as he began a rigorous grooming of his paw that he realised what was wrong.

He paused, his paw held up and tongue out as shock froze him in place.

That caused a soft chuckle to rumble in the chest below him.

He rather ill-advisedly decided to swap his cat for his human form, reasoning he could do with the ability to think clearly. Without allowing for the fact that his human form would still be sprawled out on top of the other. Which helped his ability to think not at all.

“Uh, Xichen, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think” he tried to scramble away, but a gentle yet strong arm around his waist, and a hand in his hair, held him in place.

“Thinking is overrated sometimes, Wanyin. Thinking didn’t get us anywhere before. May I kindly request for you stop thinking for a while?”

That wouldn’t be difficult at all, stretched out against the full length of the man he loved, Jiang Cheng realised as he went instead with instinct, and bent in to capture Lan Xichen’s soft, sweetly parted lips beneath his own.

[popculturebuffet]

Hickman’s X-Men Line: One Year in Part 1: Prelude, House and Powers of X, X-Men and New Mutants (Hickman)

Under the cut is an explination of how hickman’s run happened (the mass decay will be covered another time probably), and dives into his x-books: house of x, powers of x,x-men and his breif run on new mutants and what i thought. Pax Krakoa baby. 

One year ago, I breathed a sigh of relief as I read the utterly masterful house of x #1.  See for the past few months, i’d been waiting on baited breath for this comic with a level of anticipation not matched by any before or since. Even the debut of a spinoff to Chew, one of my faviorite comics of all time that i deftnetly need to do a retrospective on, this week got within the same galaxy and it still wasn’t on the same level. This was big, grandiose and everything I hoped for. And whatever issues I had as House and it’s sister series came out slowly died out as the full story unfolded, my jaw dropped and my faith in Hickman to save the x-men was  fully delivered. At last the x-men were back on top. And it was going to be one hell of a ride.  

As you probably know the x-men had been treated pretty badly at marvel due to fox having the movie rights, a move that still baffles and frustrates me. Instead of making money to rub in fox’s face by promoting the hell out of them in merchandise, animation, video games and of course comics ALONGSIDE the avengers, they basically ignored the x-men and fantastic four to give fox less to work with to spite them while fox.. entirely ignored this as since both franchises have been around since the 60′s and the x-men had had mountains of spinoffs to give them mountains of characters. So in short: a decision to spite and hurt their compeitors only cost marvel money, pissed off fans and fox’s eventual absortion as far as I can tell had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. 

Thankfully marvel DID stop being stupid eventually and relented: The Fantastic Four came back a year before house of x with a decent run by dan slott, which is thankfully more like earlier spider-man work and ff work, and less like what his spider-man run became from superior onward despite the ocasional misfire but i’ll talk about both runs another day. I mostly bring it up because with this revivial, marvel also slowly reintegrated the four back into the marvel universe and made their return feel like a big deal.  The X-Men however took a bit: while they got an earlier shot at returning with ressurxion. Buuut with the idea of having hickman return in their back pocket, marvel apparently refused, at least according to cullen bunn who I fell has no real reason to lie, to let the writers rock the boat too much and the era perdictably was just meh, especially flagship book X-Men Gold which was written bafflingly by Mark Gugenhiem and outside of one or two good ideas basically felt like the comics equivlent of one of those party store albums where every song is a cover done by someone who couldn’t give half a damn. There were bright spots though with Cullen Bunn finishing out his awesome x-men tenure with x-men blue, Sina Grace’s wonderful iceman that took the wonky execution of Bendis’ decision to make bobby drake gay and made it work beautifully, and the decent if somewhat baffling x-men red. But overall it just felt like a missed opportunity and with the fox deal in bloom and a new EiC, marvel NEEDED something bigger, bolder and grander to do with marvel’s strangest heroes of all. After all all eyes would be on them while Marvel’s Movie department took a few years, probably longer now thanks to the pandemic, to let things cool off before bringing the x-men into the mcu.  Enter Jonathan Hickman: Writer of another one of my faviorite runs of all time, his Fantastic Four run, along with an enjoyable but heavily flawed avengers run, a secret warriors run i’ve read half of that was a hell of a ride, tons of ultimate comics, and a bunch of indies I haven’t read but are probably great. A wordy weirdo and i’m convinced the second coming of grant morrison, and I hope one day the two work together on something tha’ts equal parts weird and amazing.

The morrison comparison is also apt as both came into the X-Men at a time when the x-men badly needed them: Just like Hickman morrison had to deal with a largely stagnant x-men and changed them to fit the times. And yes unsuprisngly i’ll also be covering morrisons run, warts and all, and it’s also one of my faviorite comics of all time. However Hickman was given a huge advtange his spirtiual predecessor, and really few comics writers EVER have gotten: full control of the x-men line.  Unlike morrison who wasn’t even allowed to use certain characters despite writing the main fucking x-book, Hickman got full creative control: full say in the direction of the story, full say in who came on board and to let them pitch whatever they wanted to do. And honestly it’s an apporach that’s not only reovlutionarly but makes the books FEEL like their actually occuring around the same time. Sure their all still seperate entities, but it DOES feel like one coheisive universe. Contrastingly with the avengers Black Panther’s solo has had him on a year long sojurn in space, before returning to earth.. while also running the avengers over in jason aaron’s run and having his own spinoff team, without any fucking clue as to when intergalactic empire of wakanda takes place in relation to everything else. Tony Stark is currently just taking back both his own damn name and the iron man name in his own book, but is also a major player in avengers, and empyre with no mention of his seeming drunken spiral (itw as a ploy) or arno taking up the armor and I feel these issues rather than the neglect the x-men once had are why krakoa’s impact isn’t being felt more in other titles. I’m not saying don’t let books do their own thing, but I am saying let them have fucking consequences and weight instead of just acting like one isn’t happening or at the very least have a character be absent for an arc so you can fit the other stories into continuity easier. As X-Men’s shown it dosen’t stifle inovation and hell even immortal hulk easily fit into no road home with a fucking note saying “this takes place before x issue” it’s not that hard.  This advantage was likely part of Hickman’s terms for coming back. See the x-men were the one thing at marvel he never got to do. The Gillieon and Aaron runs and Bendis runs meant the spot simply wasn’t open and by the time he was leaving it was clear marvel wanted to bury the x-men not praise them, so his ideas had no run. But the X-Men were what got Jonathan into comics. A shocking fact I learned at last years comic con, during which most of the dawn of x titles were revealed, was he WASN’T a fantastic four or avengers fan as a kid, not hating them but like me with the avengers for some time, not really caring about them. But with both runs, he did his homework, read as much as possible, and BECAME a fan, and it shows as both runs show a deep love for both marvel and the teams present. With X-Men they were his dream, his golden goose, his windmill, he just never was in the right place at the right time... but with Marvel needing his starpower and creativity and having nothing to loose with the x-men and badly needing a big run to hlep keep intrest in the x-men till the new movies, he finally was. So seeing the company needed him and he could get his dream and the control he needed, while dc had just taken bendis, didn’t need him and until very recently was ran by a moron, his choice to come back to marvel instead of go to dc as he’s admitted, was obvious. And it ended up being the right one. House and Powers of x were massive creative and commerical hits and the following titles have all been mostly praised. The new direction has been a boon for the franchise,k the fans and marvel.  So being a fan of this direction, as you can tell by the massive intro, to give my thoughts on each book so far: what I think their doing right, where some went wrong etc, since I’d rather wait another year or so befor ediving into these and let some more of hickman’s plans and future story hints spread throughout his books pay off first. WIth that all out of the way it’’s time for a deep dive of x.So grab some plant based snacks, your x-shaped helmets, and your krakoan coffee, it’s time to finally get into hickman’s era of x-men. 

HOUSE OF X AND POWERS OF X The opening salvo and just with two mini series that are one, though why he DIDN’T just have them be one big mini series I genuinely do not know, probably to justify having two diffrent artists to carry the load, is an utter masterpiece. Plain and simple. Let’s get the status quo the series set up out of the way so I can dig into it more: Magento and Xavier were revealed to have been working together for years behind the scenes.. with Moira Mactaggert, one of my favoirite x characters who the series changes utterly and forever. See instead of being the one human who consitantly is on mutants side and one of the x-men’s staunchest allies who sadly hadn’t been resusrected in 20 fucking years, she was a mutant herself, her ablility being reincarnation.. and thus had lived through 9 of her 10 lives seeing mutantkind always loose so told xavier and magneto about this in the hopes of breaking the wheel and letting mutantkind live this time.  However hickman , while revealing the alliance does brilliantly still make it work in continuity for me: it’s clear from moira’s notes in one issue, as house and powers and any following titles love having charts or text based sections that I feel give the comics a unique flavor and really help boost most issues, that Charles optimism she was trying to break him of and faith in humanity took years to fully shatter: he plotted and schemed with her to protect his species but it was clear he probably felt it woudln’t be necessary that humanity would prove her wrong.. and by this series it’s clear, no they haven’t changed, the majority of them just want to genocide mutants and have tried again and again and again while the rest who don’t necessarily want it, paticuarlly the superheroes did nothing while Magneto chaffed against her after the whole “alter his infant self after he was deaged by a mutant he made into a baby to be more pacificsitc which naturally pissed him off when that wore off”. Yes that’s a thing that actually happened pre and post retcons it’s why a survivor of the holocaust is , while not a YOUNG man, still healthy and vibrant. It’s a clever way to not undermine those stories while still telling this one and this retcon is a move I like as unlike most retcons it’s both there to tell a good story and excuted in a way that outside of moira dosen’t undermine anything. The Moira retcon I was and to a degree still am mixed on. While the new version of her is brilliant, creative and intresting and I can’t wait to see what happens with her next time she shows up, I do mourn the old as the x-men had few human allies and now their only big one is now a mutant herself, but it IS in service of a really damn good narraitive and the twist that the bad futures presented were in fact other lives of moira was brilliant, and it’s nice to see SOMETHING done with her. I’d rather something that i have a small problem with lead to really great things and be worth the sacrifice of her former character, than just changing things because “fuck it I want to do this and their letting me do this’ as a lot of retcons tend to be. Hickman’s story needs moira and her cycle of defeat to truly soar to the heights it’s reaching, and to make Charles and Xavier’s back alley actions make sense, so i’ll glady sacrifce one version of a character that I really liked for another version of her that’s also really good.  The other big swing though I was completley on board for: Hinted at early on by serveral dead mutants being alived, after a sucidie mission against new big bads and mutant hating extermists orchis, who are far better written than other extermists,   it’s revealed just why death has seemingly taken a holiday: the big plan that has been decades in the making for xavier and co? That will reshape mutant kind and required working with mr sinsiter of all people? Revivie all dead mutants.  See in a brilliant reveal Cerebro isn’t just a mutant tracker; It’s a copier, copying their essecnes reaguarly and storing them for later, updating them every so often and thus meaning any who died can come back. Why it took Chuck so long to do this is also explained as he needed 5 specific mutant power sets to do it and thus had to wait till they had everything they needed: Goldballs, yes goldballs, spits out his giant golden balls, phrasing, which hickman in an insane and awesome turn revealed to be EGGS. Yes EGGS. Proteus, Moira’s son and former villian whose now pacificed since this body cloning process means he has an infnite suply of xavier bodies to burn through and thus isn’t killing people, warps reality to mamke the eggs viable. Elixir, a healer whose been through some shit the poor guy,gives the eggs , once injected with the mutant in questions dna via syringe because of course, life, and Tempus, goldballs former classmate fellow bendis creation and mistress of time, speeds it up a bit so they don’t have to wait a good few decades for some mutants to rerez. The fifth that makes all this possible is hope summers, mutant messiah and adopted daughter of cable returned to promence once more, whose power is revealed to be power maniulation and thus can boost their powers to the degree neded for this. it’s a BRILLIANT turn that not only undoes all the pointless deaths mutants have undergone, but changes the game: Genocide is now near impossible, as humanity has no idea bout any of htis, and instead of mutant lives going down, they can only go once.. as one man once put it...

And as an x-men fan having watched characters I love die again and again for stupid reasons, especially int he placeholder run right before house of x, this was so satsifying. Everyone the x-men had lost, every character I loved who was gone and forgotten.. they were back or would be back.  And thanks to Krakoa they were thriving: By giving mutantkind a homeland instead of a headquarters, a nation given to one of their own because he demanded itbasically, or an island fortress designed to give a dying species refuge, they have a goregous sentient island (I’ve always loved krakoa for the record though I wonder what happened to his clone son), with abundant food, teleporting gates across the world to visit wherever they like or live in the various worldwide habitats if they please, and peace and security they’ve neve rknown. No more being woken up to get to a panic room because a sentienl attacked. No more having religious maniacs blow up busses containing your tine. No more having the vast majority of the superhero community do nothing as a fucking plauge cloud wipes out your species. Anything apporaching krakoa now has hundreds of the most powerful beings alive defending all mutants.. and that includes the worst of the worst, all given amntesty.. but they must tow the line or else be given a fate worse than death. After years of pain and suffering and misery mutantkind is free safe and happy. They still have to fight to get the rest of their kind out of racist hands and to saftey, the fight’s not over.. but now the odds are in mutantkinds favor. It’s paradise.  And yet this mini, and this whole run dosen’t run from tough issues; The mutants are now isolationists and only mutants are allowed on krakoa itself.. on the one hand this is a bad idelogy and potentially dangerous, instead of fighting for harmony fighting for my land alone.. but it’s also see why Mutantkind has taken to it. The X-Men have tried for at the least a decade in universe and at the most and most likely 15 years to live in harmony, fight for mankind and make peace with them.. and only a small chunk has acutally tried to help them with that. The other large fraction? They either build death machines to try and wipe out all mutants, and in the case of Cassandra NOva who while not a human is still a racist genocidal bitch, SUCCEED in wiping out a large chunk, or do nothing while mutantkind suffers.  The series forces you to think about the implications that marvel comics themselves previous ignored: That with all the superheros in this world who arent mutants.. more often than not htey’ve done fuck all when terrible shit happens. When Genosha died, not a one asked the x-men what happened or tried to hunt down those responsible. When Decemation happened, the avengers were more concerned with helping the x-men cover it up than helping them move on and did nothing as the goverment made xavier’s into a reservation, even after regrestration happened and the goverment had more heroes than ever to spare to helping them. When the T-Mist happened years later instead of stopping terrigin or asking the inhumans to stop it for the good of another race, the rest of the heroes just did fuck all. Sure the avengers were on a budget and the ff were asbent, but there were enough heroes in the world still and enough teams to do something about it and only the ones with mutants on them did!. IT’s hard to say “well you shoudln’t exclude them”.. when the rest of superhero kind has been subtly doing it their whole lives.  But it dosen’t shy away from the claims of racial superiority the isoaltion or the fact the x-men basically sued for nationhood by making requiring recognizing their nation hood the price for trading for their life saving and extending, world changing drugs, which you would still need to buy. There’s other issues, one that i’ll get to in a moment as it was only revealed in x-men. Various characters, Corsair in issue one of the ongoing, the fincial summit in issue 4 and the ff both in house of x #1 and ff/x-men, all question this and some of the ethics. Hickman brilliantly decides instead of just painting the x-men as absolute moral rights, to show their new nation warts and all: the genuine good their doing and trying to do but also the price they have to pay for it and the mistakes they may be making. And the compromise necessary to build a nation. It’s all chiling, compelling shit that’s even more releveant in a time when bigotry is piling up like crazy. Both house and x-men, which i’ll get to in a second, ask questions with no easy answers and it makes them a compelling read.  Also compelling is the two mini series use of flashbacks: The two previous moira timelines, which we learn are just that as we go, are compelling with the apoclaypse timeline having loveable heroes were are heartbroken to see die in the struggle, while the last timeline seemingly sees the mutants turn as bad as the humans.. only to peel back a layer at the end and reveal humans are still very much the real monsters, and them evolving via machine is a threat to mutant kind's natural evolution. It was a good story twist and of course there’s FAR more to dig into in both books, and I defintely will at some point in the future as I said. But there’s tons of great ideas here: Sinsiter not only being a mutant but a reluctant ally, the same of apocalyspe, the heavy questions I got into above, the idea of machines being mutants greatest threat which makes a ton of sense, and the various ones I already went into. I can’t gush about this book enough, but since this is already long enough i’m trying. The point is both mini series are great and how you do a self contianed event perfectlY plenty of consequence, plenty of scope but enough character and brilliant ideas and a FUCK TON of quotable and iconic lines, all blend into one of the very best series i’ve ever read. And lead directly into..

X-Men I talked about a lot of what this book represents above as it’s a direct continuation of the above, but the book on it’s own is still something diffrent. while it continues setting things up, playing with the new toybox hickman set up, and asking the tough questions, x-men does it in a diffrent way. House and Powers bounce around through time while all telling one huge story and one huge bundle of setup for this status quo.  X-Men instead is a bunch of single issues. It’s still a ton of setup, though with enough payoff to house and powers that it at least so far hasn’t become tedious, especailly since hickman specifically has plans for all of it and has shown in the past he’s a long game man when it comes to storytelling, but through more action packed stories that, with the exception of mistque’s spotlight issue so far, have one shared element: Cyclops, aka Scott Summers, who as grand captain of krakoa is the nation’s ruling council’s go to guy for missions and who he himself can form any team he once for any mission.  Cyclops, like the x-men hadn’t been treated well for years; Various characters lambasted him after the phoenix force drove him mad and lead to him killing charles xavier, and before that his run as leader of utopia, not helped by x-force painting him as a cold heartless dickweed, had him forced to make questionable decisions that made fans turn agains thim despite the hard position he was in. But now with the burden of absolute leadership of mutantkind in other hands, HIckman writes scott beautifully and has restored him to his proper place.  WIth Xavier taking over as absolute leader of mutantkind and his race no longer hanging by a thread for the first time in years scott can relax and ENJOY himself. As the first issue shows he has everything he ever could have possibly wanted: A healthy marriage with Jean again, and an open one at that with him free to still see emma and Jean openly seeing Logan. Logan himself no longer trying to murder scott for his mistakes or kill his teenage self due to bad writing, but being his best friend again and also living with him and presumibly having threeways because they have connected bedrooms and of course jean would want both at once. Maybe they also just fuck each other sometimes again the details haven’t exactly been clear but it’d explain the tension disappearing. Maybe the schism would’ve ended quicker if Cyclops and Wolverine just fucked each other after children of the atom. Hey not every question is a deep personal one on krakoa sometimesm it’s just “Are these two fucking and could it have solved things faster in the past if they did?”. Also I almost forgot to mention, and added this near the end of writing this, in additoin to everything else scott now lives ON THE FUCKING MOON, on the blue area with a breathable atompshere, on a moon house with his family and fuckbuddy and Vulcan’s buddys. It’s fucking amazing. But moving back to other things scott’s gotten besides logan’s wang up his butt, as seen in issue one thanks to the gates his dad can now visit anytime, his brothers live with him with Vulcan going from genocidal dickweed to weirdo thanks to his experinces between his “death’ and this series, and he’s just. happy. And as a leader he takes the x-men on thrilling missions: the series combines action with character and worldbuilding and it is great.  The worldbuilding part has been tremendous; we’ve seen new foes in the returning children of the vault and horticulture, aka what if the golden girls were tv ma, and also plant based  supervillians plotting a better future for mankind that krakoa’s drugs clash with. We’ve seen nimrod creeping close, charles and magneto not playing ball with mystique start to backfire, the return of krakoa’s lost love, and in my faviorite arc, we’ve seen broo, one of my faviorite x-people and intellegent brood, eat an egg and thus become god emperor of the brood, not only giving the vicious race a chance to reform but giving the x-men a huge advatange in space, doubeldby events we’ll get to in a second.  And biggest of all we saw the crucible: Since those depwoered by the decimation can get power back by dying again, and to prevent overworking the five with mass sucidies krakoa came up with a nasty solution,: earning resurection via ritual combat. And like the above there aren’t easy answers to this: mass sucidie isn’t better or faster, but having mutatns forced to EARN repowering by dying brutally isn’t a great solution either and is kind of sick. And it also opens up questions about ressurectoin that Nightcrawler feels made need reegion to answer htem. It’s again good heavy instreating stuff.  We also got my faviorite issue #4 where the x-men go to a fincial summit, and while security detail cyclops and gorgon fight off hired goons...

Xavier, Magneto and Apocalypse discuss with world leaders about the implications of krakoa’s policys, with Magneto not hiding his love of flexing his superiority. And Charles ends the confrence, after it’s revealed one hired them in an utterly masterful moment: Taking off his helmet to reveal no this is charles, this is him and that even after they tried assintating him he has and always will love humanity he’s just sick of being treated like crap and suffering for doing it and his people suffering for it and he won’t tolerate this sort of shit again. See it for yourself it’s an absolute triumph:

 It’s a great scene. Overall an utterly great title that really keeps the momentum moving and I feel is only setting up for even more things.. the only real issue is that A) the title’s been slower at coming out than the other dawn of x titles, though in the case of the empyre tie in’s it’s not hteir fault but the rest sure as shit are, and B) that it has mostly been just setup but it’s been good enough and enjoyable enough and I feel payoff is coming, so I truly don’t care. At long last we have a main x-men  book that’s not only fantastic but uttterly engaging and I read most issues multiple times. An utter slam dunk

Giant Sized X-Men: This one is incomplete, so I can’t fully say what the full picture is.. but for the three released so far it’s a mixed bag, though the art in all three is gorgeous as Hickman brought on the best artists in the buisness but it’s telling that while New Mutants bellow had issues that bugged me but was still kinda fun, and the above havem y utter priase I nearly forgot to include these issues. None of them are bad and all have gorgeous art as I said, these are some of the best in the buisness, they feel padded. These were supposed to be annuals, but when they decided to change this to one shots.. they shoudl’ve just made them regular length instead, as there simply isn’t enough story here to fill them and so far only Davis’ issue has both had huge setup (both revealing doug’s fusion with warlock is a secret for some reason and that he is indeed still fully alive and revealing what happened to the x-mansion), and due to Davis background as a writer/artist the pacing to fill one issue and even then it could’ve been trimmed. Not bad and I don’t fault the artists for not being used to being writer/artists or having to do so while also conforming to a larger narriative which likely didn’t help or in the third one’s case having to take over for someone else entirely, but it’s , while not bad no ton par with the two above books and I expect better from hickman. 

New Mutants (HIckman’s Issues)  I’ll cover Brisson’s issues next time as they feel like a diffrent run entirely, but New Mutants was.. a disapointment. I was utterly pumped for this title going in being a huge fan of the team thanks to finally reading the claremont and sikenwitz run and before that re-reading abnett and lannings utterly great run and hey jonathan hickman who’d already done gangbusters was writing it! It had a great roster! 

And it starreed one of hickman’s faviorite mutants and one he’d taken a shine to on avengers, and one of my faviorite superheros, Roberto DeCosta, aka Sunspot. On Avengers hickman took Roberto , already a decent character and made him amazing. He was still rich, young and a playboy as ever.. but he used said wealth and his love of fun wisely. When undercover at an AIM casino instead fo throw down, he offers the agents a free day of partying and gambling on his huge dime, then puts them on payroll as his undercover agents. So to recap Roberto DeCosta won the avengers two valuable double agents in what at the time was one of their biggest threats.. by buying them tons of beer and gambling and presumibly hookers. And later got the loyatly of the rest of AIM through these guys, and when Steve found out tony betrayed him and went off hte deep end hunting him instead of stopping the end of the goddamn world, TOOK OVER AIM HIMSELF IN COMBAT WITH THE AIM SUPREME, and then formed his own avengers. 

Literally. He got his own avengers team, most of which left after the apocalypse but he simply found younger and hungrier replacements, and aim.. with blackjack and hookers. The man is a legend. And knowing Roberto if hookers were actually involved he probably treated them with respect and overpayed them because he’s a class act. Then under Al Ewing’s mighty pen, Roberto not only formed another avengers team since most of the avengers he formed to stop the end of the world were busy elsewhere, of young and great avengers, while dying of the aformentioned death cloud, but became an utterly brilliant chessmaster, only failing ONCE becaue of hydra cap getting into his head while AIM was working for the us goverment towards the end as the USAvengers. And yes that’s a real team. It’s as insane and beautiful as it sounds. And his new avengers once fought american kaiju, a godzilla with a flag painted on it chaning usa. Al Ewing is the best and I love him. But he also became a master stratigest and schemer with schemes within schemes within schemes, his crowning one being faking his own death and using his fake funeral to clear out any remaning enimies in AIm, and only quitting AIM to keep it out of goverment hands and in the hands of a trusted friend. He was and still is one of the best avengers there ever was and ever will be.  But here, as the new mutants go on a road trip to get sam? He’s a fucking dumbass who hires the worst space laywer possible, only gets off trial because Sam and his wife save them, glad they weren’t broken up by the way,  and is utterly useless most of the time. It’s like HIckman forgot the last part of his run.. granted time runs out isn’t very good but still, that wasn’t a good thing to forget and like Hickman wants to ignore ewing’s work for no damn reason, even though Ewing did great things with Roberto and kept him relevant when marvel was choking the x-men to death. It’s fucking embrassing and disapointing to see.  The rest of the New Mutants aren’t much better mostly being happy but also not really acting like themselves, with only mondo really standing out since he gets great moments and hasn’t done anything in a while. And Doug, who I negelcted to mention above is one of my faviorite mutants and thanks to being krakoa’s primary method of commuincation, is now one of krakoa’s most important mutants, has a seat at the council with krakoa, and weirdly has his best friend warlock hiding on his arm for reasons that haven’t been explained yet. In Short doug went from beign forgotten to being used awesomely again. Roberto instead of getting the same is set back as a character and ends the arc deciding to stay in space because he misses sam, and will likely become third in his marriage i’m sure, and wants to bone deathbird, x-men villian and frequent shiar usuper. But while rahne actually being happy is a good sight to behold they , except Dani, really dont’ do much. Though Magik gets a fucking amazing scene where she asks the various assasians sent ot kill them if they want to make out , not only revealing she’s bi, but that she’d prefer that to killing them all but does so when they dumbly refuse .. I mean seriously who, whose not in a relationship that’s open or way older than her, not take her up on that?  The plot their thrust into isnt’ great either, mostly just more setup but not present as well as in x-men about Gladiator giving the shiar empire to xavier’s daughter.. yes charles has a daughter that was created from his and his ex wife lilandra, whose still dead’s dna, and letting DEATHBIRD Of all people teach her instead of his damn self. Xandra taking over isn’t a terrible idea it’s just handeld poorly. It just feels disapointing.. like hickman WANTS to do a JLI style book here but the combination of him only doing one arc and not really wanting to write the characters as they should be, an issue that only pops up here and in the new mutants cameo during x-men proper and not for doug ever, that makes it fall falt.. I mean there are utterly great moments like the above, and hte image i used to lead off their just stifled by misusing roberto and everyone else. 

But overall hickman’s works on x-men  are fucking great, intresting and engaging. I’ve read the issues a ton and will again. One small mistep dosen’t take away from all the large good he’s done and he’s made the franchise feel alive again and hopefully the MCU take on it will take after this run, as it’d be a great way to break from the endless xavier vs magneto battles of the fox universe. So yeah overall 2 great books and a thankfully short misfire, HIckman’s on top. And next time we’ll see who he picked to help him carry the x banner home to us all, and who did well with it and whose stumbled a bit as part two delves into the rest of the dawn of x. For now subscribe for more comics stuff as I plan to get back on that, including I hope a restrospective on the fox era x-men sometime soon, animation reviews, and more fun stuff. And until then, courage. 

[theclownprnc-arch]

WAVES FROM A FAR! Hey-o, Roy! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering how you would rate Joker’s appearances throughout the comics (& other media??) from your favourites to the least appealing o3o ! I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a wee while but I always forgot! Have an awesome week!!

Hello, hello, hello! 

I love me a cool question in my inbox, so that’s not a bother at all!

I started writing down some of my most and least favourite artists from who’ve been drawing this clown and the first thing I realized was the abundance of different designs, which — I think — in Joker’s case are always a hit or a miss. He’s been around in the comics for 80 years now, so I’ll be focusing mostly on his latest appearances from like the last 20-30 years because otherwise, this answer could get really, really long ( and I can already tell that even now it won’t be short either ).

So, let’s start with my least favourite ones ( from ‘meh, can do’ to ‘brb bleaching my eyes’ ):

Mikel Janin who was drawing Joker for a good chunk of Batman’s Rebirth run. It’s just… boring and there’s something off about it, but I can’t exactly pinpoint what it is. Not the worst, but it doesn’t stand out in any way.

Guillem March whose art appeared in Batman vol. 3 #89. The thing is — I really like some of his drawings, but this design doesn’t do it for me. Must be the brows.

Alex Sanchez in Joker’s Asylum: The Joker. Again, there’s nothing too exciting about it and I imagine that’s how Jack Nicholson’s Joker would look like if I were to see him while having a comedown.

Tim Sale who’s responsible for huge-teethed Joker in The Long Halloween. This design is also the main reasons why it took me ages to finally read it. In fact, I’m still not too sure how to feel about it, but whenever I think of Joker’s worst designs this one always pops up in my head.

Frank Miller. Frank freakin’ Miller. The one behind The Dark Knight Returns and the one with this weird tendency for making every character damn wide. I believe that anyone who had to see it deserves a lifelong supply of eye drops because this shit ain’t easy to look at. His Joker is straight outta Botched, I swear.

Now, to the more pleasant part! The order goes from ‘n i c e’ to ‘MMM NICE’:

Stjepan Šejic, the author of Harleen. Not gonna lie, his Joker is a pretty dude. While I’m not a big fan of Joe “Conventionally Attractive” Kerr, Šejic did find the balance where he’s not a total eye-candy because there’s still this ‘Creep Alert’ vibe to him.

Enrico Marini who drew Joker for The Dark Prince Charming. Love the makeup, love the hair and most of all I love his big bowtie with polka dots. I’m so tired of seeing him sporting a simple tie when bowties/ribbons are the epitome of THE Joker look. Besides, I absolutely love the faces he makes.

Jason Fabok, whose art will be in the upcoming Three Jokers. It pays such a great homage to the most classic Joker look most people are familiar with. Like, Joker designs could be divided into two categories — weird-looking dude you could meet in the streets and eerie comic character. The latter can often be a misfire, but Fabok’s just on point. Meanwhile, his Joker is very reminiscent of the one from The Killing Joke, or even the one from the 70s/80s, he still has that… something.

Dave McKean. While a lot of people seem to be not too enthusiastic about Joker from A Serious House on Serious Earth, I love how nightmarish he is. If this clown’s looking like he could be my sleep paralysis demon, that’s what I call an A+ design. He’s unsettling, he’s grotesque, I wouldn’t want to see that guy in the corner of my bedroom. Very nice.

Greg Capullo, especially Joker’s design throughout the Death of The Family story arc. I just love the gory aspect that naturally comes with his sliced-off face ( and that’s also the reason why so many people rate this design as the worst ). Well, it does disgust me a teeny-tiny bit but in the best way. Good stuff.

Alex! Ross! The man, the legend. Usually, I’m not that much of a fan when it comes to realistic art, but Ross’ drawings are always so alive that I can’t just walk by without appreciating it. His Joker is splendid and the unhinged gaze is spot-on, and he’s also a great mix of comic and realistic. Forever in my heart.

[hedwigstalons]

WIP tag game

I got tagged by @tsarisfanfiction.  I’m now feeling a little bit glared at by my WIPs of which it turns out there are a few.  I originally set out to be a ‘task and finish’ writer.  No overlapping projects.  See things through to completion.  It turns out that hasn’t happened and I have a few things open at the moment.  Only one of which has been aired to the world though so I’m sort of managing to not leave people hanging.

Sorry if you have already been tagged elsewhere; I’ve tried not to do duplicates but it’s difficult to keep up.  I’d like to see what projects @godsliltippy @the-lady-razorsharp and @sonatanotwo have in progress.

So here it is; my unfinished pile.

1) Untitled - Virgil whump

This is the only WIP that I’ve published bits of.  I don't even know if it’s a WIP or if it will stay as a random attempt at whump practice.  Basically I chucked Virgil down an old open cast gold mine in a pod.  This is where I left it.

“Brains is gonna kill me.”

 “Not this time.  We’re all still glad to have you with us.  You won’t be flying for a while though.”

 The fact that he was still in hospital was a fairly good indicator of that and Virgil would have rolled his eyes if he had the energy.

 “And it’s not just flying you won’t be doing for a while. You got pretty beat up out there. You broke both your collar bones, dislocated a shoulder and got a bad case of whiplash among other things.”

 Virgil let the implications of this wash over him.  He was no stranger to physical injury; none of them were.  But injuries that would keep him from his art were the most painful to bear.  He would pick a broken leg over a broken arm any day. At least then he could paint through his recovery.  

 The tears that graced his eyelashes now were nothing to do with the overhead lighting.  

2) Untitled - something with Selene for #irrelief

I’ve taken on the challenge of using someone else's OC.  I’ve been following the various exploits of Selene (created by @willow-salix) so I’m hoping I’ve captured her character and can do her justice.  Here is how this one starts.

The radio was on, the autopilot was doing its thing and Thunderbird Witch was eating up the miles towards home.  Ok, she had been majorly sceptical of the upgrades to her little car to begin with but after a few long haul trips to the island she could see the benefits of being able to fly.  It certainly made visiting clients easier.  In just ten minutes she should be back on the outskirts of London ready to finish her journey on the more conventional four wheels.  She considered calling out for pizza; she should be home before the delivery ready to gorge herself on the cheesy goodness.  Her stomach rumbled at the prospect.

 Her stomach wasn’t the only thing making ominous noises.

 The engine coughed and spluttered; a disconcerting thing to happen at 15,000 feet.

 Selene urged her precious car onwards, invoking prayers to every deity imaginable not to let her plunge to her death in a twisted heap of mangled metal and glass.  The car continued to do its best impression of a tractor and jolts could be felt running though its body as the engine misfired.  

 The looming tide of dread threatened to tip the scales into full blown panic as the engine gave its largest hiccup yet.  It was time to contact the other omnipresent being in her life.

 “John, sweetie.  Are you busy?”

3) High Expectations

This tells the story of young Gordon and his relationship with Jeff and the rest of the family.  So far it starts in high school and should continue into WASP.

This is a long term project and should turn into a longer and more involved piece.  While it is multi-chaptered I probably won’t actually publish anything until I’ve got the whole thing written.  It’s a challenging writing style for me and I struggle with extended plot.  It’s also being written hideously put of order with various backfilling as scenes grab me.  It’s a bit angsty and a bit emotionally whumpy.

Here is a little snippet from somewhere in the middle.

“And what if it’s not what I want?  Sometimes it feels like I don’t have any say in my life. Dad wants me to stop swimming.  Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

 Truth be told, Virgil didn’t.  He had only ever met encouragement for his plans.  He had been supported and his passions had been indulged.  Music lessons and art classes had co-existed with school, ensuring he had a therapeutic release from his more traditional studies.  His desire to study engineering had been greeted with enthusiasm and a generous allowance.

 “I’m sure Dad only wants what’s best for you.”

 “Yeah, it always comes down to what Dad wants.” There was a snort of derision. “But news flash Virgil, I’m not like the rest of you.  I’m never going to get into Harvard or Yale or anywhere else Dad would approve of. And I don’t want to.  I have one thing I’m good at and now that’s being taken away.”

4) Scott’s Situation

I had a random thought a while back about the boys being too busy for relationships and family.  But there was a time before International Rescue and I speculated the Scott was probably a bit of a player at college.  This is something I started back in November and haven’t touched since.  I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it.  I’ve stepped away for too long and my writing and ideas have moved on.  I also don’t have an end point in mind which doesn’t help.  This bit is from somewhere near the beginning.

Grandma Tracy looked around at the sound of the door; normally she was left well alone when the urge to bake took hold.  She took in Scott’s pale face in a single glance and took off her oven mitts.

 “Grandma.  I have….a situation”.

 Feeling it better if she read the detail herself Scott passed her the tablet with the email still open on the screen.

 Dear Mr Tracy,

 I regret to inform you of the passing of Mary Ellen Williams following a short battle with cancer. As the executor of her will I am charged with carrying out her final wishes.  Miss Williams’ estate is left in trust to her son, Sam Williams.  I am entrusted to administer this trust until Sam reaches the age of 18.  However, Miss Williams requested that custody of Sam falls to you, as his sole surviving family, in your capacity as father.

 The email continued, giving details of a solicitors office in England, and further instructions regarding taking custody of Sam.  To Scott it felt like an eternity watching his Grandma read the full email in silence.

 Grandma Tracy put down the tablet and surveyed her grandson.  When she spoke her questions was blunt and to the point.

 “Is this true?” she asked.

 “I don’t know”, Scott ran his fingers through his hair, looking agitated.

 “It’s certainly got you rattled.  Start at the beginning” she instructed.

So there you go.  The current stack of unfinished work glaring at me.  If you see anything you like, let me know and it might get bumped to the top of pile.

[caps-lockdown]

Sweater Weather Part One

Sweater Weather

Hey everyone here is the next series I’m working on, mostly inspired by how %#$@ hot it has been here in Kansas (And everywhere else, the world is on fire). This story takes place over the course of a weekend (I know, I like weekend worst case scenarios okay? Leave me be), so it’ll probably be 5-6 parts. Hope you like it!

Pairings: Steve Rogers x PottsRelativeFem!Reader

Ratings/Warnings: Hard R 

For everything from language, crude jokes, ADULT situations/impure thoughts, booze (because it’s pretty much a staple in my fics at this point.), arguments, and an extremely overprotective Tony Stark. Very little angst, as I try to keep most of my fics light humored. But of course there are some insecurities/unsure feelings, as well as sad feels from everything with endgame/ the decimation. Also dead parents.

Also AU in the fact NO ONE DIED during Endgame/Steve didn’t go back. Also as much as I adore Morgan Stark, she isn’t around yet. I didn’t know where this would fit timeline wise, so just ignore the timeline. Kay? Cool.

Slow(ish) burn. Lots of pining

Words: 3,476

Summary: You’ve just moved to New York after a long 3 year stint travelling the world and helping with various charities, taking a new job with Stark Industries thanks to your cousin Pepper. A trip out to surprise Tony and The Avengers for the weekend turns from good to terrible when the a/c at the compound breaks. How will you beat the heat for the record breaking weekend?

It’s in Y/N Y/L/N format, any pictures, outfits, gifs, and marvel characters just assume I don’t own them. Also no Beta, as I don’t ever have one, so the mistakes and reader are all my own.Also her friend Kate isn’t mine either, she’s based after a very close fantastic friend. Enjoy!

Part one

“You just had to get the apartment on the top floor with an out of order elevator?”

You dropped the last box labeled “Kitchen” haphazardly on the floor, wiping your forehead with the back of your hand as you turned to watch Pepper Potts shut the door behind her comment.

“You were the one who wore heels today, dear cousin. And besides, the movers did most of the work.” You stared pointedly at her, before bringing your eyes to sweep over the piles of boxes that filled your apartment. A sea of cardboard that came with the faint scent of permanent marker and small notes of your truck’s air freshener flooded the small hallway and living room areas. The floors were bare otherwise, you not having any furniture at the present moment. “You should also know the elevator will be fixed this weekend while I’m out at the compound catching up with everyone.”

“Doesn’t help our damn case now though does it?” The redhead complained while looking at her tired feet.

“But did you die though?” You raised an eyebrow, turning back to look down the hall. “I just gotta pack a bag for the weekend and then we can head out. You sure it’s going to be ok? Me going out there and all?”

“Are you kidding me?” Pepper looked confused at your sudden question, shaking her head and grabbing your shoulders. “Tony is going to be so excited to see you! No one has seen you since the wedding! Not to mention these team building weekends never really get anything accomplished.” You giggled as you waded through the boxes to your mostly empty room, shuffling boxes as you looked through ones with “clothes” written hastily across them in doctor worthy handwriting.

“I should change. It’s hot as fuck outside.” You muttered, opting to switch out your gross sweatpants and stained-to-hell white shirt to a pair of short jean shorts and a curve hugging blue tank top. Your mind wandered to everyone you hadn’t seen in so long. Three years. It had been three years since you’d been back, spending that time traveling the globe and helping charities after the decimation. Pepper and Tony always called you, kept you updated. You honestly never believed you’d move back to New York. But things change.

The only reason why you had come back was after the whole Thanos thing six months ago Pepper had offered you a job as a receptionist at Stark Industries, you decided that day it was time to settle down. You made sure everything was good with the charities you had been helping out with before putting permanent plans into action though. Purchasing a small apartment in the heart of New York City, your cousin and you kept everything quiet as to your return. You wanted it to be a surprise, mostly to see Tony’s face. Maybe someone else’s. Shoving a few days worth of clean clothes in a duffel bag, not forgetting your swimsuit as your cousin promised you some sunbathing time, you opened the door to see Pepper grinning widely at you.

“You know blue is Steve’s favorite color right?” You smirked knowingly as you moved to the bathroom, throwing your toiletries into the sack and zipping it shut. Of course you knew. The blonde avenger was one of the only things that had gotten you through these tough last few years. When everything went down with Tony, you had decided not to pick sides, but you and Steve fell apart regardless. It started slowly, the two of you drifting from good friends to mere strangers. It hurt but you understood. It’s not like you were dating, or like he would ever see you as girlfriend material. Not that you would ever turn him down if he had just asked you. He was definitely boyfriend material, and him looking the way he did certainly helped things too. You had always harbored feelings of some kind towards him, even if you weren’t sure what they actually were. When the decimation happened, you knew the whole team had enough on their plates to deal with. So after a couple years and more importantly Pepper and Tony’s wedding you vanished off the map, putting your people skills and nurturing personality to good use. It’s not like anyone missed you terribly.

Shutting off the bathroom lights you lugged the bag over your shoulder, reaching to take a stuffed Panda bear, obviously worn from years of travel, and grabbing your keys and purse.

“Got everything? What’s the bear for?” Pepper asked as you double checked the deadbolt after you had shut the door.

“A girl in England gave it to me after I found her some relatives to live with. She couldn’t have been more than seven at the time, yet she had managed to deal with her parents turning into dust a hell of a lot better than some of the adults I had seen. She said Mister Stuffins was her favorite and that he would be my friend so I wasn’t alone. Sweet girl. She wrote me when she got her parents back. I cried for a week.” You turned the small bear over in your hand and placed in the front pocket of your bag, remembering her strength in such an awful time of her young life.

“What was her name?”

“Evangeline, but she demanded to be called Evan.” You snickered as you recalled her nearly ripping off your partner at the time’s head for calling her by her full name. The spirited small child had almost made you forget about the seven flights of stairs awaiting you. Your face fell flat upon remembering, Pepper shoving your shoulder.

“Come on, I’ll race you.” You gaped as the red head went barreling down the stairs, deciding to give her high heeled ass a head start before you ruined her self esteem. She’s going to hurt herself and I’m going to have to help her dumbass to the truck.

~~The Compound, a few hours later~~

“Jesus Christ Tony watch where the hell you’re pointing that damn thing!”

“That’s what she said.”

Steve rolled his eyes at Bucky, watching the comedy unfold before them. Sam sat on the ground, tinkering with a standing Tony in his iron suit, the latter barely missing the former’s head when his repulsor rays misfired on accident. They had been at this for hours, Sam trying to help the billionaire with fixing something that was wrong with his right leg. Tony continued to bark orders at the man who was only growing more irritated by the minute. To be honest Steve didn’t have the faintest idea what was wrong or how they were planning on putting it right, but he wasn’t the one doing it. So he, Banner, and Barnes all simply stood back to watch.

“We miss anything?” He turned his head slightly to the left at the sound of Natasha’s voice, Thor and her returning from unloading the Quinjet for the weekend.

“Tony missed Sam’s head again, but I think they’re about…”

“DONE! Eat a dick Tin-man.” Sam shouted suddenly, hopping up from his feet and clearing the way for a smug looking Stark, who only looked down at his leg and shook it. He turned to give Sam an iron clad thumbs up, who only flipped him off in return, heading over to join the rest of the group that had gathered on the compound’s grounds.

Since Thanos’ attack, the compound had been rebuilt but wasn’t nearly as massive in size anymore. Only one large building that offered housing, training, mess hall, laboratories and a few holding cells sat next to the pad that held the Quinjet. Tony decided that since the battle had leveled most of the original compound, building something a little more simplistic would be the best course of action. Everyone had agreed with him, and Steve felt like it was little more like home this way. And he’d rather be inside right now than standing outside in this hellish heat wave.

The sun was high in the sky, the temperature only climbing and it was already uncomfortable outside. Steve could feel the beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck, the forecast calling for record breaking highs for the weekend. He wasn’t looking forward to it to say the least, and knowing Tony they would be doing absolutely useless things to pass the time. He would pay for a distraction at this point.

The roaring of a large truck engine forced the super soldier from his thoughts, the impressive vehicle pulling sharply onto the compound parking lot with minimal effort. Dust settled as Steve’s blue eyes caught the familiar sight of Pepper Potts exiting the passenger side, fist pumping the air to loud rock and roll that was blaring out of the windows. Very unlike her.

“Honey uh who’s truck is that?! Are you leaving me!?” Tony coughed as he climbed out of his suit, the large mass of metal’s motor being shut off and the driver door thrown open.

“Of course not sweetheart. You wouldn’t last a day without me.” His confused look had the team chuckling as he kept darting his eyes from Pepper to the vehicle.

“Then who the hell is that?!”

“YOUR SURPRISE!” Tony raised an eyebrow as to why his wife was shouting all of a sudden, clearly not catching on.

On cue you jumped out of the truck, just like you two had discussed on the drive up to the headquarters, beaming at the large group of people.

You’d remember Tony’s elated smile for the rest of your days.

“SHORT STACK?! WHAT THE FUCK?!”

You laughed as the brunette man came sprinting towards you, the nickname ringing in your ears as he picked you up slightly, pulling you into a spine crushing hug and making you drop your bag. In all the years you had known him, Tony had been like the older brother you never had. When Pepper started working for him you were visiting with your parents and the two of you hit it off instantly. After their unexpected death due to a car accident a year later, Stark and Pepper were some of the only ones there for you, you three becoming inseparable. It had killed a part of you to leave after the decimation, but he had reassured you it’s what your parents would have wanted you to do. You blinked back tears as you hugged the man fiercely.

“Hiya Snark. I’ve missed you too.” The two of you broke apart, Tony leaning back to hold you at arm’s length, taking in your well toned and tanned body.

“Look at you! I mean look at you! Was there something in the water overseas?” You smacked his arm as he went to hug you again, his obviously excited demeanor spreading over the others, although there was a small hint of nervousness in the air.

“Move it Stark, she’s got a line.” Nat scolded, pushing the man away from you so she could hug you herself, a girlish giggle leaving you as you returned it.

“Dig the hair Nat, you break my record yet?”

“I gave up three weeks in. Pinball just pisses me off.” She shrugged, reaching to give your shoulder a squeeze. Thor threatened to break you in half as he embraced you, Bruce choosing to shake your hand. You decided that the new version of the doctor would take some getting used to, but at least he was wearing shirts now. Your eyes met the uncertain ones of who you assumed had to be Bucky, Steve’s friend. So they brought you home after all huh?

“You must be Barnes. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Y/N.  Roger’s talked you up a lot.” He took your outstretched hand firmly, giving you a small smile and nodding.

“Did he now? Funny he never mentioned how he let your gorgeous face slip through his fingers.”

Your jaw went slack as you stared at the man, eyes widened in shock as he shamelessly raked his eyes over your figure. Sam took the chance to rush you, your breath escaping your lungs as he all but tackled you. Everyone laughed as Pepper went to grab your overstuffed duffel off the ground.

“Y/N I’m so happy to see you! It’s been years!”

“I know Sam, I’m sorry I stayed away for so long, just had to think of the bigger picture for awhile.”

“Please Y/N. You were helping people, kids with finding family, rebuilding businesses and houses. Even running soup kitchens for Christ’s sake. Don’t apologize.” He met your bewildered expression with a sincere smile. “Pepper kept us updated. You really didn’t think we would miss you?”

“I had to think of…”

“The bigger picture. We know.” You wanted to remove Sam’s smile off his perfect face when a certain tall blonde walked into your sights. He looked nothing short of amazing, even after these last few years. His hair was swept back into its usual style, his blue jeans and simple t shirt combo making you light headed and he got closer to you. Steve Rogers looked damn good. But you had always thought that.

“You got a hug for me too Doll? Or are you all out?” Your breath hitched at hearing his deep voice, his challenging tone making your heart race.

“Not sure Rogers, why dontcha come over here and find out?” You challenged back, his eyes glittering in amusement as he moved to wrap you in his arms. It never came though.

The large explosion off the side of the main building of the compound caused everyone to jump, panic taking over your senses as Tony reassured you no one was inside.

“That’s good to know Snark but what the fuck was that?!” Your nickname for the man only made him smile before he went speed walking off to go investigate, the rest of you following suit. The blown line of a/c compressors sizzled and popped angrily at you as you got close, Steve darting an arm out protectively in front of you. You let your eyes drink the sight of his large limb, the muscle groups flexing deliciously against the material of his shirt. Tony didn’t look amused.

“What the hell is your arm going to do Cap? You protecting Y/N or flexing your freakish flesh for her?” Tony snapped, the captain lowering his arm guiltily. Rolling your eyes at your cousin’s overprotective nature you stepped forward to take a gander at the busted machinery, the sparks and smoke rising from the group of metal. Tony ran his hand over his face with a sigh.

“Looks like I get to track down some new compressors. Y/N, come with me.” Stark commanded, your face looking to his in confusion as he began to head back towards the main doors.

“Me? Why me?” You asked, not understanding the clearly cranky male’s logic. He scoffed.

“You’re better at people than I am. And I don’t like how Rogers keeps staring at your ass.”

A blush rose to your cheeks, not even sparing the embarrassed blonde a glance as you hurried to catch up with the angry brunette. You could feel Steve’s heated gaze on your back as the two of you walked away, Tony turning around to shake his head at the soldier.

“You better put your eyes elsewhere before I knock them out of your skull soldier!” You contained the giggle that bubbled in the back of your throat as you heard Steve groan, the rest of the team looking on at the two of you and sharing curious expressions.

Later

“Yes I will let him know, thank you so much!” You hung up the phone with a defeated sigh, tossing it to Stark as you paced the living area of the compound. The sun had started to make its way towards the horizon, and after five phone calls you were finally gaining traction on your current mission.

“How many does that make?” Tony questioned, repositioning his sunglasses on top of his head like a suburban soccer mom and scribbling something down on a small note pad.

“That makes the six we need. Six compressors, three deliveries, two electricians to set it up come Monday. I’m sorry but that’s the soonest I could get them here.” You slouched onto the couch next to him, the billionaire lovingly patting your leg. You let your head rest on his shoulder, thinking about how F.R.I.D.A.Y had said earlier you had about 12 hours before the outside temperature would start to affect the building. That was about an hour ago.

“So much for a team building weekend, we should let the others know. I wish there was a way to punch hot weather in the face.” You muttered aimlessly as Tony continued to crunch numbers. His head shot up at you suddenly, a wide smile covering his tanned face.

“That’s it! Short stack you are a genius!”

“You’re welcome?” You nearly fell over on the couch as Tony leapt to his feet, offering you a hand before pulling you out of the living area and down the hall into the kitchens where the rest of the Avengers remained.

“You guys Y/N figured out how we still make this weekend work!”

“Oh yea? Does it include leaving this place until Monday and getting some actual sleep?” Came Nat’s sleepy reply, Bruce pouring her another cup of coffee.

“No! We���re going to work together to beat the heat!”

“Y/N I highly doubt this was your idea.” You shook your head at Sam, clearly you and Tony had completely different ideas on how you all were to spend the weekend. “And Tony it’s supposed to reach nearly a hundred and ten! Why the hell would we willingly be stuck here, with no a/c for essentially two days, in a hundred and ten degree heat?!”

“Because whoever is still here at the end of the weekend doesn’t have to come back for the next four months of team building.” Came your cousin’s response, everyone looking at Pepper with a look of admiration, well everyone except Tony.

“Alright I’m in.” Nat agreed, slamming her coffee mug down, Bruce giving his confirmation alongside Thor. Bucky looked warily at his teammates before sighing, nodding his head curtly in submission. Sam and Steve also agreed reluctantly, not really having a choice in the matter.

“What about Y/N? She’s not part of the team and she shouldn’t have to be stuck here with us!” Sam directed everyone’s attention to you, a small lump forming in your throat as you realized they were absolutely right. So how would you spin this to where they’d let you stay without thinking you were crazy? Chewing your bottom lip in thought, you didn’t miss Steve’s eyes darting from your eyes to your lips repeatedly, a darkened expression on his face before Bucky managed to lightly nudge him, motioning to Tony who was watching him like a hawk.

“I don’t have anything else to do. I don’t start work until Monday and I kind of wanted to catch up with all of you,” You smiled to all of them, Bucky looking extremely pleased with your answer as Stark raised a finger.

“Question. Where are you working and how come I wasn’t made aware that you’re staying here indefinitely?!”

“Don’t worry Snark I won’t be far, I just moved into my apartment over the last few days and I…”

“Last few days!?” Your cousin in law threw his hands up, “When did you decide you would be moving back?”

“Uh…five months ago?” The noise that emitted from Stark’s mouth couldn’t have been English, his eyes narrowing at his wife who only smiled brightly at her husband in kind. She was within good reason to feel accomplished, usually secrets never stayed silent when Tony went snooping.

“Well I for one am all for Y/N staying. We’ll need all the estrogen we can find to deal with you lot this weekend.” Nat chided, coming to stand next to you and patting you on the shoulder.

“Great it’s settled then.” Pepper smiled warmly at you, rounding the island in the kitchen and going to pull out supplies for a meal big enough for a small army. “Now who’s helping me cook dinner tonight?”

A rousing chorus of “Not it!” was heard as Tony took off running in the opposite direction, Steve and Bucky following suit. Within moments you found yourself alone with your red headed relative, the rest of the team becoming scarce to avoid having to cook or prepare.

“I didn’t want them to help anyway. This kitchen would end up looking like the compressors outside.” The two of you laughed as you turned on some light music and got to work. It felt nice to be back.

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