#You Beat The System|Fi ~Redacted~

[tarnishedhalo]

"But I mean...have you actually sat down and read Lord of the Rings? Or Dune? Life can't be all cleaning guns and sharpening knives. Besides, sometimes I wanna live in a world where Good triumphs." Is he teasing her? Yes and no and maybe a little inbetween. "But also, Fi, we just can't move forward if you sit there and tell me that Chevy is better than Ford. Like what's more iconic than a Mustang?"

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Top 10 Games of 2019

This was an extremely good year for games. I don’t know if I played as many that will stick with me as I did last year, but the ones on the bottom half of this list in particular constitute some of my favorite games of the decade, and probably all-time. If I’ve got a gaming-related resolution for next year, it’s to put my playtime into supporting even smaller indie devs. My absolute favorite experiences in games this year came from seemingly out of nowhere games from teams I’ve previously never heard of before. That said, there are some big games coming up in spring I doubt I’ll be able to keep myself away from. Some quick notes/shoutouts before I get started:

-The game I put maybe the most time into this year was Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I finally made the plunge into neverending FF MMO content, and I’m as happy as I am overwhelmed. This was a big year for the game, between the release of the Shadowbringers expansion and the Nier: Automata raid, and it very well may have made it onto my list if I had managed to actually get to any of it. At the time of this writing, though, I’ve only just finished 2015’s Heavensward, so I’ve got...a long way to go. 

-One quick shoutout to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy that came out on Switch this year, a remaster of some DS classics I never played. An absolutely delightful visual novel series that I fell in love with throughout this year.

-I originally included a couple games currently in early access that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I removed them not because of arbitrary rules about what technically “came out” this year, but just to make room for some other games I liked, out of the assumption that I’ll still love these games in their 1.0 formats when they’re released next year to include them on my 2020 list. So shoutout to Hades, probably the best rogue-like/lite/whatever I’ve ever played, and Spin Rhythm XD, which reignited my love for rhythm games.

-Disco Elysium isn’t on this list, because I’ve played about an hour of it and haven’t yet been hooked by it. But I’ve heard enough about it to be convinced that it is 1000% a game for me and something I need to get to immediately. They shouted out Marx and Engels at the Game Awards! They look so cool! I want to be their friend! And hopefully, a few weeks from now, I’ll desperately want to redact this list to squeeze this game somewhere in here.

Alright, he’s the actual list:

10. Amid Evil

The 90’s FPS renaissance continues! As opposed to last year’s Dusk, a game I adored, this one takes its cues less from Quake and more from Heretic/Hexen, placing a greater emphasis on melee combat and magic-fuelled projectiles than more traditional weapons. Also, rather than that game’s intentionally ugly aesthetic, this one opts for graphics that at times feel lush, detailed, and pretty, while still probably mostly fitting the description of lo-fi. In fact, they just added RTX to the game, something I’m extremely curious to check out. This game continued to fuel my excitement about the possibilities of embracing out-of-style gameplay mechanics to discover new and fresh possibilities from a genre I’ve never been able to stop yearning for more of.

9. Ape Out

If this were a “coolest games” list, Ape Out would win it, easily. It’s a simple game whose mechanics don’t particularly evolve throughout the course of its handful of hours, but it leaves a hell of an impression with its minimalist cut-out graphics, stylish title cards, and percussive soundtrack. Smashing guards into each other and walls and causing them to shoot each other in a mad-dash for the exit is a fun as hell take on Hotline Miami-esque top down hyper violence, even if it’s a thin enough concept that it starts to feel a bit old before the end of the game.

8. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I had a lot of problems with this game, probably most stemming from just how damn long it is - I still haven’t finished my first, and likely only, playthrough. This length seems to have motivated the developers to make battles more simple and easy, and to be fair, I would get frustrated if I were getting stuck on individual battles if I couldn’t stop thinking about how much longer I have to go, but as it is, I’ve just found them to be mostly boring. This is particularly problematic for a game that seems to require you to play through it at least...three times to really get the full picture? I couldn’t help but admire everything this game got right, though, and that mostly comes down to building a massive cast of extremely well realized and likable characters whose complex relationships with each other and with the structures they pledge loyalty to fuels harrowing drama once the plot really sets into motion. There’s a reason no other game inspired such a deluge of memes and fan fiction and art into my Twitter feed this year. It’s an impressive feat to convince every player they’ve unquestionably picked the right house and defend their problem children till the bitter end. After the success of this game, I’d love to see what this team can do next with a narrower focus and a bigger budget.

7. Resident Evil 2

It’s been a long time since I played the original Resident Evil 2, but I still consider it to be one of my favorite games of all time. I was highly skeptical of this remake at first, holding my stubborn ground that changing the fixed camera to a RE4-style behind the back perspective would turn this game more into an action game and less of a survival horror game where feeling a lack of control is part of the experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much they were able to modernize this game while maintaining its original feel and atmosphere. The fumbly, drifting aim-down sights effectively sell the feeling of being a rookie scared out of your wits. Being chased by Mr. X is wildly anxiety-inducing. But even more surprisingly, perhaps the greatest upgrade this game received was its map, which does you the generous service of actually marking down automatically where puzzles and items are, which rooms you’ve yet to enter, which ones you’ve searched entirely, and which ones still have more to discover. Arguably, this disrupts the feeling of being lost in a labyrinthine space that the original inspired, but in practice, it’s a remarkably satisfying and addicting video game system to engage with.

6. Judgment

No big surprise here - Ryu ga Gotoku put out another Yakuza-style game set in Kamurocho, and once again, it’s sitting somewhere on my top 10. This time, they finally put Kazuma Kiryu’s story to bed and focused on a new protagonist, down on his luck lawyer-turned-detective Takayuki Yagami. The new direction doesn’t always pay off - the added mechanics of following and chasing suspects gets a bit tedious. The game makes up for it, though, by absolutely nailing a fun, engrossing J-Drama of a plot entirely divorced from the Yakuza lore. The narrative takes several head-spinning turns through its several dozen hours, and they all feel earned, with a fresh sense of focus. The side stories in this one do even more to make you feel connected to the community of Kamurocho by befriending people from across the neighborhood. I’d love to see this team take even bigger swings in the future - and from what I’ve seen from Yakuza 7, that seems exactly like what they’re doing - but even if this game shares maybe a bit too much DNA with its predecessors, it’s hard to complain when the writing and acting are this enjoyable.

5. Control

Control feels like the kind of game that almost never gets made anymore. It’s a AAA game that isn’t connected to any larger franchises and doesn’t demand your attention for longer than a dozen hours. It doesn’t shoehorn needless RPG or MMO mechanics into its third-person action game formula to hold your attention. It introduces a wildly clever idea, tells a concise story with it, and then its over. And there’s something so refreshing about all of that. The setting of The Oldest House has a lot to do with it. I think it stands toe-to-toe with Rapture or Black Mesa as an instantly iconic game world. Its aesthetic blend of paranormal horror and banal government bureaucracy gripped my inner X-Files fan instantly, and kept him satisfied not only with its central characters and mystery but with a generous bounty of redacted documents full of worldbuilding both spine-tingling and hilarious. More will undoubtedly come from this game, in the form of DLC and possibly even more, with the way it ties itself into other Remedy universes, and as much as I expect I will love it, the refreshing experience this base game offered me likely can’t be beat.

4. Anodyne 2

I awaited Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s new game more anxiously than almost any game that came out this year, despite never having played the first one, exclusively on my love for last year’s singular All Our Asias and the promise that this game would greatly expand on that one’s Saturn/PS1-esque early 3D graphics and personal, heartfelt storytelling. Not only was I not disappointed, I was regularly pleasantly surprised by the depth of narrative and themes the game navigates. This game takes the ‘legendary hero’ tropes of a Zelda game and flips them to tell a story about the importance of community and taking care of loved ones over duty to governments or organizations. The dungeons that similarly reflect a Link to the Past-era Zelda game reduce the maps to bite-sized, funny, clever designs that ask you to internalize unique mechanics that result in affecting conclusions. Plus, it’s gorgeously idiosyncratic in its blend of 3D and 2D environments and its pretty but off-kilter score. It’s hard to believe something this full and well realized came from two people. 

3. Eliza

Eliza is a work of dystopian fiction so closely resembling the state of the world in 2019 it’s hard to even want to call it sci-fi. As a proxy for the Eliza app, you speak the words of an AI therapist that offers meager, generic suggestions as a catch-all for desperate people facing any number of the nightmares of our time. The first session you get is a man reckoning with the state the world is in - we’ve only got a few more years left to save ourselves from impending climate crisis, destructive development is rendering cities unlivable for anyone but the super-rich, and the people who hold all the power are just making it all worse. The only thing you offer to him is to use a meditation app and take some medication. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that this whole structure is much less about helping struggling people and more about mining personal data.

There’s much more to this story than the grim state of mental health under late capitalism, though. It’s revealed that Evelyn, the character you play as, has a much closer history with Eliza than initially evident. Throughout the game, she’ll reacquaint herself with old coworkers, including her two former bosses who have recently split and run different companies over their differing frightening visions for the future. The game offers a biting critique of the kind of tech company optimism that brings rich, eccentric men to believe they can solve the world’s problems within the hyper-capitalist structure they’ve thrived under, and how quickly this mindset gives way to techno-fascism. There’s also Evelyn’s former team member, Nora, who has quit the tech world in favor of being a DJ “activist,” and her current lead Rae, a compassionate person who genuinely believes in the power of Eliza to better people’s lives. The writing does an excellent job of justifying everyone’s points of view and highlighting the limits of their ideology without simplifying their sense of morality.

Why this game works so well isn’t just its willingness to stare in the face of uncomfortably relevant subject matter, but its ultimately empathetic message. It offers no simple solutions to the world’s problems, but also avoids falling into utter despair. Instead, it places measured but inspiring faith in the power of making small, meaningful impacts on the people around you, and simply trying to put some good into your world. It’s a game both terrifying and comforting in its frank conclusions.

2. Death Stranding

For a game as willfully dumb as this one often is - that, for example, insists on giving all of its characters with self-explanatory names long monologues about how they got that name - Death Stranding was one of the most thought provoking games I’ve played in a while. Outside of its indulgent, awkwardly paced narrative, the game offers plenty of reflection on the impact the internet has had on our lives. As Sam Porter Bridges, you’re hiking across a post-apocalyptic America, reconnecting isolated cities by delivering supplies, building infrastructure, and, probably most importantly, connecting them to the Chiral Network, an internet of sorts constructed of supernatural material of nebulous origin. Through this structure, the game offers surprisingly insightful commentary about the necessity for communication, cooperation, and genuine love and care within a community.

The lonely world you’re tasked to explore, and the way you’re given blips of encouragement within the solitude through the structures and “likes” you give and receive through the game’s asynchronous multiplayer system, offers some striking parallels for those of us particularly “online” people who feel simultaneous desperation for human contact and aversion to social pressures. I’ve heard the themes of this game described as “incoherent” due to the way it seems to view the internet both as a powerful tool to connect people and a means by which people become isolated and alienated, but are both of these statements not completely true to reality? The game simplifies some of its conclusions - Kojima seems particularly ignorant of America’s deep structural inequities and abuses that lead to a culture of isolation and alienation. And yet, the questions it asks are provocative enough that they compelled me to keep thinking about them far longer than the answers it offers.

Beyond the surprisingly rich thematic content, this game is mostly just a joy to play. Death Stranding builds kinetic drama out of the typically rote parts of games. Moving from point A to point B has become an increasingly tedious chore in the majority of AAA open world games, but this is a game built almost entirely out of moving from point A to point B, and it makes it thrilling. The simple act of walking down a hill while trying to balance a heavy load on your back and avoiding rocks and other obstacles fulfills the promise of the term ‘walking simulator’ in a far more interesting way than most games given that descriptor. The game consistently doles out new ways to navigate terrain, which peaked for me about two thirds of the way through the game when, after spending hours setting up a network of zip lines, a delivery offered me the opportunity to utilize the entire thing in a wildly satisfying journey from one end of the map to another. It was the gaming moment of the year.

1. Outer Wilds

The first time the sun exploded in my Outer Wilds playthrough, I was probably about to die anyway. I had fallen through a black hole, and had yet to figure out how to recover from that, so I was drifting listlessly through space with diminishing oxygen as the synths started to pick up and I watched the sun fall in on itself and then expand throughout the solar system as my vision went went. The moment gave me chills, not because I wasn’t already doomed anyway, but because I couldn’t help but think about my neighbors that I had left behind to explore space. I hadn’t known that mere minutes after I left the atmosphere the solar system would be obliterated, but I was at least able to watch as it happened. They probably had no idea what happened. Suddenly their lives and their planet and everything they had known were just...gone. And then I woke up, with the campfire burning in front of me, and everyone looking just as I had left it. And I became obsessed with figuring out how to stop that from happening again. 

What surprised me is that every time the sun exploded, it never failed to produce those chills I felt the first time. This game is masterful in its art, sound, and music design that manages to produce feelings so intense from an aesthetic so quaint. Tracking down fellow explorers by following the sound of their harmonica or acoustic guitar. Exploring space in a rickety vessel held together by wood and tape. Translating logs of conversations of an ancient alien race and finding the subject matter of discussion to be about small interpersonal drama as often as it is revelatory secrets of the universe. All of the potentially twee aspects of the game are balanced out by an innate sense of danger and terror that comes from exploring space and strange worlds alone. At times, the game dips into pure horror, making other aspects of the presentation all the more charming by comparison. And then there’s the clockwork machinations of the 22-minute loop you explore within, rewarding exploration and experimentation with reveals that make you feel like a genius for figuring out the puzzle at the same time that you’re stunned by the divulgence of a new piece of information.

The last few hours of the game contained a couple puzzles so obfuscated that I had to consult a guide, which admittedly lessened the impact of those reveals, but it all led to one of the most equally devastating and satisfying endings I’ve experienced in a video game recently. I really can’t say enough good things about this game. It’s not only my favorite game this year, but easily one of my favorite games of the decade, and really, of all-time, when it comes down to it.

[kdtheghostwriter]

New Blade Runner Fic

And I mean Brand New!

Yes, this is one of the ideas I’ve had slamming around in my head lately. And before we go further I must must MUST give a shoutout to the righteous @future-geometries for being a source of inspiration.

You see, we both have an on-off, intermittent fascination with the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049. It has a tiny but passionate fandom that still produces content to this day. (That includes a great fic written by J.)

We were in the midst of one of our convos about this flick when they pointed out how tragic K’s arc was and how disappointed they were that we haven’t had a “satisfying, low-stakes AU” yet. Now, this was over a year ago at least and perhaps I underestimated how much people love putting K on the Whump Train because we still haven’t seen it. So, what else is the guy who rewrote Dawn of Justice to do?

This is a rare look into my process as you get to see a very skeletal first draft. The final version will be three chapters with much more detail about the characters and the issues they face in a modern-adjacent setting.

I had to get this out into the Ether because I know it will be ages before I can get back to finishing this. I still have to finish The Batman. I still have to write JL3. Between those I’ll be writing my [REDACTED] rework. And a neat idea I have for Atomic Blonde. Then maybe I can finish this.

Until that fateful day, join me under the cut if you will...

Title: Dead Slow Ahead Word Count: 2415 Category: Gen Fandom: Blade Runner Characters: K, Rick Deckard, Ana Stelline Rating: T+ (some thematic elements and Deckard’s salty language) Summary: A tragedy in the life of Officer K begins a slow spiral that leads to his resignation from the LAPD. He now finds himself in the home of another former officer named Deckard, as he begins the slow march back to stability. A snapshot of a recovery in progress.

He drops the badge and gun on her desk without a word. She doesn’t look up at first, until she notices him still standing there. He stands there in silence for several seconds longer before he takes the seat in front of her. He’s looking down and away, then up and to the left. Anywhere but ahead into her sight.

“Is that it?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Think what? I don’t read minds.”

“I think I’m done.”

She pauses at that. Not out of surprise.

“Kinda figured. Life’s put you through the shit stain recently.”

“…Yeah.”

Another pause and she opens up a drawer to drop the badge and gun into. She snaps twice to get his attention. He maintains eye contact for the first time.

“I don’t have to tell you but…this isn’t normal protocol. It’s usually a two-week notice. Two weeks that you’re still expected to show up and do your job. But I like you. We’re not friends but I like you. You’ve done good work for this department. So, I’m going to do you a favor.”

She holds up two fingers. One from each hand.

“Two days. Forty-eight hours. However you wanna think of it, I don’t care. You get two days leave to figure out whatever this is. You come back in two days and I give you your gear back. If you don’t, I clear out your desk and I don’t see you in this building again. That’s fair, right?”

“Very fair. Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiles very slightly. “You were always so polite. I know I’m a smartass constantly but I do appreciate that.”

“I know.”

“Hey.” She sits up straighter to cross her legs. “Before you go.”

“My baseline?”

“If it’s not any trouble.”

“Not at all.”

He’s been in her office for meetings before. He doesn’t have to see behind her desk to know her finger is hovering above a silent call button. Whether he left the precinct under his own power or under restraint depended on his performance.

He closes his eyes, swallows the emotion and looks forward to recite the words.

“And a blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played. But in the case of my white fountain what it did replace? Perceptually was something that, I felt, could be grasped only by whoever dwelt in the strange world where I was a mere stray.”

She places both of her hands flat on her desk. She visibly relaxes. He does not.

“Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Constant K like always.”

“Always a pleasure, Madam.”

 -------------------------

 K jolts awake to slam on his brake, throwing his arm out to the seat space next to him. He expects the paper grocery bags to go flying. What he finds instead is his front bumper flush against the garage door. Asleep in the driveway. Embarrassing but not dangerous. He backs up slightly and kills the engine.

Almost a year removed from his last day finds him in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. He’s staying in a house for the first time since finishing high school. It shows as he drops his keys while fishing from his pockets. He grumbles as he bends down to retrieve them, hearing the door open.

“Deckard,” he says. “I know I’m late but I got some extra-“

The face in front of him isn’t who he expects. It’s much younger and the smile is still visible from behind the clinical mask.

“I suppose you aren’t wrong.”

“Ana. Hello.”

She answers with a wave. “I’m making my weekly visit. May I?”

K without protest hands over one bag and pockets his keys. Once inside, he slips both shoes off and drops into the near recliner with the bag still in his lap.

“About time, boy.” Deckard speaks gruffly while scrolling his phone.

“Kept you waiting, huh?”

“Not me.”

A scruffy Shepard mix brushes up against K’s leg and he repositions the bag to give it a petting.

“Ten years I’ve had Bo, he’s hardly ever that friendly. Good-looking stranger walks in and he acts brand new.” Deckard places his phone down and takes the bag Ana is holding. “You get everything?”

K answers non-verbally through a yawn.

“Feels that way. Oh! Look at this. Four whole bell peppers? I think Miss Consuela likes you, Joe. Joe?”

The latter man is asleep with the second bag still upright in his hold.

Deckard claps once. “Joe! Huh. New gig is doing a number on him.”

Ana pads quietly across the room and stops near the chair before reaching out to touch his shoulder.

“K?”

This perks him up. He looks back at Ana and down to the dog.

“Was I asleep just now?”

“Out cold,” Deckard responds. “You’ve got a bed, you know.”

K hands the bag to Ana. “You don’t need help with dinner?”

“I do, but that can wait until you’re rested. A stiff in the kitchen won’t do me any good. Get.”

K gives Bo another head pat, then shuffles down the hall to his room. While holding the bag, Ana joins Deckard on the sofa to help him with the groceries.

“What’s that you called him?”

“K.”

“Like the letter?”

“Like his badge number. KD6-3.7.”

Deckard scoffs, putting his reading glasses on. “The hell kind of serial is that?”

“It’s his.” Ana says this while inspecting a pack of tomato seeds. “Was his.”

“I’m not calling him by his damn serial.”

“You don’t have to, Deckard.”

“Oh yeah?” Deckard is out of his chair and she follows him into the kitchen. “Why do you?”

“He asked. And I feel like K is a bit more interesting than Joe. Don’t you?”

“Eh. Seems like a lateral move, to me.”

Deckard sits at the table with both bags before him. Ana remains standing, drawing her hands into the sleeves of her pullover.

“Will he be alright?”

“You’ve got three degrees. You tell me.”

This is meant to be a joke, but if the frown outlined by her mask is an indication, Ana does not find this funny. Deckard frowns back to remind her where she got it from.

“Don’t give me that. Physically he’s fine. Beat up maybe but fine. Mentally? Emotionally?” Deckard removes his glasses and his gaze softens slightly. “He won’t be ‘alright’ for a long time. You know that like I do.”

Ana circles the chair to embrace her father. She isn’t taller than him but while he’s sitting, she can rest her temple on his.

“It was nice of you to help him.”

“It was necessary. Kid has no family and I know what the force does to people. Wasn’t gonna let him go back there.”

Ana stands up straight when her phone sounds from the other room. She’s reading the message silently as she walks back in. Deckard is busy separating the canned goods from the perishables.

“Oh,” she says.

“Gotta go?”

“I do.”

“Fair enough. Scoot, then.”

“Very well, Detective.”

“I told you I’m not-”

Deckard is cut off by a quick peck to his cheek. He fights a smirk as she slips away.

“Hey! Mask on, you hear?”

 -------------------------

 When K wakes up his room is dark. Several hours have passed since he left Ana and Deckard in the living room. This is about when dinner gets prepped, but Deckard hasn’t come looking for him. K walks past a napping Bo in the hallway to see what the status is. Deckard is at the table, peeling potatoes.

“You started.”

“You were sleep.”

“Could have woke me up.”

“Could have. But that would be rude. You’re here now, so get started.”

He tosses a peeler in his direction that K catches easily.

“Yes, sir.”

They stay like this for several minutes, peeling in silence. K is a great help with menial tasks like this. He doesn’t complain, nor does he get distracted. After a time, though, even Deckard gets a bit antsy.

“Talked with Ana earlier today. Before you got here.”

“How is she? She usually stays to eat with us.”

“Busy, Joe. It’s always around springtime her workload gets heavy. She can manage but for a few weeks it’ll be tough.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, she told me you had your eye on a place?”

“Found one, actually. Studio in Los Feliz. I move in next month.”

“Not bad, kid. You know there wasn’t a cutoff date on this arrangement.”

“I know.”

“I mean I get it. Shacking up with an old man ain’t exactly exhilarating.”

Deckard’s teasing works as K holds up his peeler in protest.

“No, no! It’s not you. I like being here. I’ve…honestly needed to talk to you about this for a while.”

“I got nothing but time, Joe. Just keep peeling, huh?”

“Right.”

K doesn’t speak again until he’s finished peeling his current potato. He also doesn’t see Deckard roll his eyes.

“I never lost the place. I put all my stuff in storage. Been subletting for months. I just couldn’t stay there any longer. I only went back today because the office called me.”

“Is that what this is about?” Deckard reaches into the seat of a neighboring chair and pulls out a copy of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Pale Fire. “Found this under the eggs.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“You mentioned this before. Your girlfriend. What was her name?”

“Joy.”

“She was a reader, huh?”

“No, she hated that book. She liked to hear me read.”

“How long you stay after?”

“Too long but it’s not like I was ever there.”

K closes his eyes and counts before he continues.

“After Joy died… You’d think my work would suffer while I was bereaved but it was the opposite. I was more driven than I’d ever been. I was sleeping in the station barracks. I found a lot of people that didn’t wanna be found. Destroyed them. Got destroyed myself. In my storage unit, there’s a box of awards with my name on them that I got for running and fighting and kicking ass.”

K grabs another potato. He isn’t done and Deckard knows so he doesn’t interject.

“This sounds crazy now but I didn’t even consider leaving.” K drops his peeler and wipes his hand to pull out his phone. “Not until I found this up on my door.”

He passes the phone as Deckard slips on his glasses. Once he sees, he whips them off and returns the device.

“Fucking hell,” he spits out.

“Didn’t matter that my life partner was dead,” K started. “Didn’t matter to them that she was Spanish and not Mexican. It didn’t matter that she was a legal US citizen. Only thing that mattered to them was my badge and my gun, when I knocked on their door and told them exactly what would happen if they bothered me again. That is when I knew.”

“This sounds familiar.”

K exhales. “Bet it is.”

“Well, you were nice enough to share so I’ll do the same. I was with LAPD way longer than I was supposed to be.”

“I thought you quit.”

“I did! Life has a funny way of happening.”

“You too?”

“Rachel was her name. I was already one foot out the door when I met her, so there wasn’t really a decision to be made. And with the ink dry on the previous marriage I felt like the stars were lining up for once.”

“What happened?”

Deckard lays down his peeler to ruffle the fur of Bo who has joined the pair at the table.

“The good news, if you can call it that, is that we weren’t taken by surprise. I was never interested in kids. Rachel wanted one so I wanted one for her. We tried and failed and on the way to failing, we were told in fairly explicit terms that a pregnancy, should we succeed, would likely be fatal. We traveled the country after that. Maybe it was my youth but I was damn prepared to live in that RV in Vegas forever.”

“Until you weren’t.”

“She was with child, Joe. It was every fucking emotion all at once. The happiness, the relief, the fear. I took her home and was back working full time within the week. I took as many cases as I could. Maybe deep down I knew, but I never stopped long enough to think about it.”

There are three potatoes left to peel at this point. K will finish the job, of course; before that, there’s something hanging in the air between them. K goes ahead without looking up from his work.

“Did Rachel get to see her?”

If Deckard doesn’t appreciate this question, he doesn’t let it show. “You never know with that kind of thing. The nurse said she did. Could you blame her? You’re facing down a widower holding a newborn in his arms. You’d say the sky was turning pink.”

K isn’t sure how he should react to this, so he stays quiet for a long time.

“Feel better?” Deckard asks.

“Sorta.”

“Did any of that make sense?”

“Some of it.”

“Good, cause I’m not repeating it.”

The older man rises from his seat and lifts a harness off the wall. Bo takes this as the cue to follow his lead.

“Taking Bo for his night walk. When you’re done there you can get dinner started.”

“Are these for dinner?”

“Nope. They’re for tomorrow. Dinner’s in the oven. All you gotta do is press the ‘Start’ button, big guy.”

K is alone again. He had been rather sluggish and heavy for days up to that point. Moving into his own place once again obviously wouldn’t be the end of his relationship with Deckard or Ana. What it would be is the first extended time he’s had alone with his thoughts. Is he ready for that? Does he have a choice? What is his relationship with these people exactly? He feels better than he was, but there are still more questions than he’d like.

K picks up one last potato from the container. With no one to hear him, he begins to recite the lines he knows so well.

“And a blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells. Interlinked within cells. Interlinked within cells. Interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played…”

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on Powers of X #5

Didn’t quite catch up to Hickman, but I’m still going to get this done!

Can It Be Done?

Let me say off the bat that I think this is definitely the weakest of the HoX/PoX issues I’ve covered to date, although I still think there’s some useful stuff to be mined from here.

Starting with Xavier’s meeting with Forge: Hickman said in an interview that Forge being in his 90s X-uniform was an error, which suggests that this scene is supposed to depict Forge in his popped collar/short-shorts look before he joins the X-Men, which would make sense what with the meeting happening at his Dallas holographic house. (Although Xavier being in his X-movies wheelchair confuses the timeline some.)

Moving on from that, the bulk of their conversation revolves around the logistics of a fifth-generation Cerebro unit - which given that the specs we get later are for the seventh generation, makes me wonder what happened to the sixth.

Xavier claims that the first iteration was “solely my design” but that versions two through four were “Henry McCoy’s doing.” Is he hiding Moira’s involvement here?

We learn that the shift in primary function from location to copying didn’t happen until the fifth generation, which should give us a rough cutoff of how far back resurrections can go.

Forge identifies three key issues: storage, power, (namely, that they would need “an unlimited power source and unlimited storage”) and redundancy. More on this when we get to the infographic.

Xavier wanting five-fold redundancy is another example of five being a recurring number in HoXPox.

The solution to Forge’s issues turns out to be a combination of mutant technology and Shi’ar technology (notably antimatter engines and logic crystals...more on that in a bit), which Xavier seems quite smug about. Presumably this is due to his relationship with Lilandra - a lot of X-tech from the early 90s used “Shi’ar” as their technobabble of choice - but, given what we learned about Shi’ar in Moira’s Ninth Life using mutants as imperial subalterns, I wonder what their broader political interest is.

On a more general note, Xavier is being really manipulative throughout this discussion, but he barely needs to be, because Forge is always going to go for the technical challenge of pulling this off than the broader ethical questions of whether they should.

Cerebro Infographic:

Here, we learn that the current version of Cerebro is Version 7.0 - so at least two major updates beyond what Xavier and Forge were discussing.

The two main differences seem to be that, A. the new system is portable (hence why Xavier is always wearing it in HoX), and B. it no longer relies on Shi’ar power in favor of a Krakoan No-Space vent. This suggests a concerted effort to ground the new Krakoan culture on mutant technology without relying on outside sources (even allied ones).

Speaking of my earlier thinking about Krakoan biomachinery and cultural heroes, Forge will probably go down in the mutant history books for starting the Krakoan scientific revolution and directing it down firmly biological rather than mechanical lines. 

A sign of how sci-fi this all could get is that he’s accomplished the astonishing feat of harnessing a “Krakoan No-[Space] Vent” to provide “an unlimited power source for mutants living on the island,” even before the revolution begins. At the same time, if my hunch about where the power is coming from is correct, it might not be the best idea to use literal hellfire to fuel the engines of your new society.

One sign that Krakoa isn’t at technological autarky yet is that they’re still reliant on “Shi’ar logic diamonds” as the “primary choice for data storage.” This raises two interesting questions: first, who has possession of the digitized Sinister database? And second, is this the technology that Doctor Gregor seems to have gotten her hands on in X-Men #1?

As with The Five, this infographic sets up story hooks by establishing points of vulnerability: the system requires a weekly three-hour backup and a yearly hard backup “during which the process cannot be interrupted and Xavier cannot be disturbed.” This creates opportunities for things to go haywire while Xavier is looking the other way.

There’s a bit more on the issue of downloading the wrong mind into the wrong body, although here there’s more of a suggestion that it would usually be fatal...unless you have a mutation that would allow you to survive. Dunno what kind you’d need tho.

We also learn that skilled telepaths can replace their own minds with previous versions (presumably outside of the resurrection process)...and that Xavier’s done it twice. When he did that is an interesting question, because there have been a couple instances in which Xavier has had to switch bodies, which may have prompted his downloading.

Finally, we learn that the backup locations are really spread out: one’s on Krakoa Pacific, one’s on Krakoa Atlantic, one’s on Octopusheim, one’s on the Mind, and one’s with Moira in No-Space. So definitely trying to spread this system out so that it can’t be easily destroyed.

For the Children:

Finally for the best part of the issue, Emma’s recruitment scene. As befits Emma’s personal idiom, the meeting takes place at the Louvre, as Emma contemplates the Winged Victory of Samothrace. An omen of victory or of the glory of a lost civilization? 

Charles’ three-piece-suit and Cerebro is suprisingly dapper. 

Speaking of Hickman and character voice, Emma Frost is clearly a character that Hickman just gets on a bone-deep level, and despite all the claims that HoXPoX is all exposition and no character work, this scene really is a tour de force for the woman that Emma Frost has become since New X-Men.

Notably, Emma Frost is here to ask some of the big meta-questions in her usual acid-tongued way: is the Krakoan project “heroic” or “reckless” or “both”?

We can see from the jump that Charles is interested in “the Hellfire Corporation” as “an international prime mover;” he wants Emma as the lynchpin of his economic/geopolitical blackmail system.

In order to get Emma - who’s still pissed about what happened with Genosha, as she has every right to be - to sign on the dotted line, Xavier needs Magneto to make the argument that only he can make about this being the opportunity to “make right all the things that went wrong” by using the resurrection system to reverse the genocide.

This is where I start to wonder about Sinister and timeline issues - Magneto talks about getting mutant populations from 198 to 100,000 to 2 million in the space of a year as being “woefully behind” schedule, which makes me think that Xavier and Magneto were primarily concerned with getting their system not only active but in mass production before ORCHIS or anyone else could stop them.

Emma asks the meta-question, “what’s going to make it different this time?” And we don’t really get an answer - beyond showing us the sweeping vistas of Krakoa, we don’t really learn what Emma saw that convinced her this could work, although we do get the more important character beat that explains that Emma gets on board “one more time, then, for the children.” At her core, Emma Frost is a teacher who will fight for the next generation of mutants.

At the same time, it’s not like she doesn’t like money...so the new Hellfire Trading Company will handle the international distribution of Krakoan wonder drugs with a fifty year monopoly giving them a quite lucrative world-wide market all to themselves. I will have a lot more to say about mutant economic policy in the future, let me assure you. 

Interestingly, Xavier considers the “real matter at hand” to be getting the Hellfire Corporation representation on the Quiet Council (most likely out of an enlightened self-interest basis that you don’t really want that kind of mutant socio-economic power on the outside of the tent pissing in when they could instead be given a stake in Krakoa. It’s all very Hamiltonian.

I love the reaction shot when Emma learns that they want to bring Sebastian Shaw back from the dead to “run the black-book operations into countries who reject our sovereignty.” My guess is that Xavier and Magneto look at it as Shaw being a disposable and deniable asset who they could easily throw to the wolves if they get caught drug/mutant-smuggling. We had no idea, rogue actor, will face Krakoan justice, etc.

Finally, we get some good setup for the upcoming Marauders #1: Emma wants a third seat for Kitty Pryde (no matter what the actual title is), whose job it will be to “get the drugs in, get the mutants out.” Speaking of geopolitics...it surely didn’t escape people’s attention how many of the non-friendly nations had coastlines?

Quiet Council of Krakoa:

I don’t really want to spend any time discussing the Quiet Council here, because we get the reveal in the next issue. This is one of the few times where the whole delayed reveal through redacted infographic thing just did not work. 

Hhowever, we do get a sense of future political conflict with “there is some debate as to whether this council will continue in perpetuity or if some other system of government will replace it.”

Xavier Reaches Out:

This is a bit more interesting: here we see the other speech that Xavier gave, the one that went out to mutants rather than humans. (Somewhat annoyed that we don’t have a clearer timeline on this.) As we might expect, Xavier leans heavily on the unity message: “now is the time to put aside all differences and realize we are one people.”

And we see the “invitation” being extended to any number of groups that Xavier has had issues with in the past: Exodus and the Acolytes, Mister Sinister (who’s killed off the other SInisters and walked off with the database...I guess because Xavier’s message set off the psychic “reminder”), Omega Red (who we haven’t seen much of), and Gorgon (only slightly more).

But the meat of this is Namor, who’s the only one actually having a conversation with Xavier. Namor comes off very Nietzschean, implictly describing himself as one of “those beyond” good and evil, and arguing that anti-mutant bigotry ultimately stems from ressentiment. 

At the same time, Namor’s reason for rejecting Xavier’s offer raises the question of whether Moira fully “broke” Xavier of his original philosophy. 

In the Year One Thousand...

Ah yes, X^3. In retrospect, a lot of this could have been more compressed, if that wouldn’t undermine the six-part structure.

Here we really get into the ambiguity of ascension: in order to “ascend,” homo novissima have to divorce their minds from their flesh - only their minds will be saved, while all that lives will be destroyed in fire and lightning. It’s very Gnostic, if you think about it.

Nimrod really goes into Exposition Mode to lay out what Hickman is getting at:

emphasizing how all of these scales end up suggesting an endless ladder of “self-improving, self-replicating machines" - it’s turtles all the way up and all the way down.

Kirbons is a nice touch.

I’ll get into Titan theory come the infographic, but I’ll reiterate that these intelligences don’t seem to be acting very intelligently: “we reached beyond ourselves to to build a world-mind and attract a...protector...instead we attracted a predator.” Predation and consumption sounds way more Jack London nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw.

Types of Societies Infographic:

Titans being “isolationist” is a bad sign, until you realize the alternative.

When Hickman talks about a “Type O” on the Kardashev Scale, I think he’s referring to a “Type Omega-minus” (a civilization that can control “the basic structure of space and time”), since a Type Zero civilization isn’t nearly advanced enough to fit this group.

Strongholds aren’t isolationist but “warring factions seeking to actively destroy or absorb other Strongholds in order to achieve Dominion status...expansion and conquest are the altar at which Strongholds worship.” Two rungs higher than the Phalanx, and we’re still talking about imperialism...

Only with the Dominion are we told (not shown) a civilization that’s truly godlike. The fact that they feel threatened by the Phoenix is definitely going to come back; Hickman loved playing around with Galactus on his FF run, so I can’t imagine he wouldn’t want to take a swing at the purple guy’s opposite number.

[storiespun]

CHARACTER SHEET repost. do not reblog.

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME.    Loki “Ikol” Laufeyson / Odinson   /  ᛚᛟᚲᛁ  ◆   ᛁᚲᛟᛚ  ◆   ᛚᚨᚢᛓᛖᛃᛊᛟᚾ ◆ ᛟᛞᛁᚾᛊᛟᚾ PRONUNCIATION.   ˈloʊki  ˈlaufɛysʌn / oʊdɪnsʌn  ( low-KEY LAOW-fi-sun / OH-din-sun ) OR ikoʊl ( EE-KOH-L ) NICKNAME.   Ikol, Chico, Cosplay Boy, Trixie, One-Direction, God of Lies, God/Godess of Stories, Agent of Asgard, God of Evil, Thor, Moon-Queen, Moon-King, Mistress of Strategies, Hipster Viking, Lord of Lies,  God of Mischief,God of Evil, Prince of Evil, the Son of Secrets,the Maker of Mischief, the Sly One, the Lord of all Liars, Lie-Smith, Sly-God, Shape-Changer, Wizard of Lies, Loki Trick-Skin, Tso Zhung, the Trickster of Asgard, Serrure, Gem-Keeper, GENDER.   [ AIRPLANE PROPELLOR NOISE ] HEIGHT.   6′4′’ and up usually. but honestly how ever tall he wants to be  age.  [ TV WARNING SYSTEM TEST NOISE ] (at least 1 millennia but it’s..... hard to calculate....) ZODIAC.  he’s claimed to be literally all of them at least once. spoken languages.  all-speak, so.... all the languages......

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR.    black EYE COLOR.    green SKIN TONE.   ghost ass pale ass white BODY TYPE.    the epitome of wiry, all height with muscle stretched over. Probably SEEMS decently buff when not near others but the section he’s near someone who’s actually shredded.... the truth is out  ACCENT.   varies with form/disguise but generally something deeply obnoxious and renfair-y  VOICE.   medium depth, raspy smooth to insufferably smooth. inherently sounds like he’s trying to sell you something and struggles to sound sincere even when he is. DOMINANT HAND.   left but he’s ambidextrous at this point POSTURE.   full of unearned confidence. ranges WILDLY from well trained to gremlin. SCARS.  very few thanks to his skill with magic and healing. TATTOOS.   none BIRTHMARKS.    none MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). the gold horns

��𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH.   Jotunheim   HOMETOWN.    Asgard / Midgard BIRTH WEIGHT.   LITERALLY WHO CARES BIRTH HEIGHT.   LITERALLY WHO CARES MANNER OF BIRTH.   traditional delivery, mother died in childbirth or by laufey’s hand unclear FIRST WORDS.  ᚾᛟ / no  SIBLINGS.  biological: Byleistr, Helblindi | Adopted: Thor, Baldr, Hermod, Vidar, Tyr, Angela, Laussa Hela (depends on who you ask on that one) PARENTS.  biological: Laufey and Farbauti  Adopted: Odin and Freyja/Frigga  PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.   Laufey was INTENSELY abusive. Odin is.... he also kinda sucks like a LOT most of the time but it’s way more complicated. Frigga was intensely involved with Loki and supported him the most of all of them.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION.   God/dess of Stories, Mischief, Lies whatever he’s got a LOT on his plate        CURRENT RESIDENCE.   Yes.  CLOSE FRIENDS.  [ SWEATS NERVOUSLY ] can I say...??? thor???? bc like... they’re not super close but like.... he tolerates loki the most..... of everyone.... but also HIGHKEY VERITY AND ZELMA.  RELATIONSHIP STATUS.   [ SWEATS NERVOUSLY ] FINANCIAL STATUS.    cash money bitch  DRIVER’S LICENSE.  HE’S A FUCKING GOD CRIMINAL RECORD.   [ REDACTED ] VICES.  he’s like.... more vices than man........    

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.   pansexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.   panromantic PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.    submissive  |  dominant |  SWITCH ( ? ) . PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.    submissive  |  dominant |  SWITCH. LIBIDO.  yes. TURN ON’S.  hot, nice to him, can beat him up, honesty ironically TURN OFF’S.    cruelty, bad hygiene, being mean to him, bad taste in media LOVE LANGUAGE.   acts so princely and classically courting that it borders on suspicious and nearly fucking tanks his shit. alternatively is just openly the sketchy dude you’re kinda into at a party when you’re a lil tipsy.    RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.  disastrous. 

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.   Low Key - Ally Brooke (feat. Tyga) yes i AM this much of a bitch for PUNS HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.  bothering thor and co., magic, mischief  MENTAL ILLNESSES.  none  PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.   none PHOBIAS.   GOD I DON’T EVEN WANNA GET INTO THIS FOR FEAR OF METAS  SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.   Schrödinger‘s self esteem.  VULNERABILITIES.  he’s somehow unpredictable and TOTALLY predictable, cares for his family and friends more than he’d ever like to admit

tagged by.  @thievesgambit tagging. HHNNNNNGGG @punishstars @thunderis @walksonwalls  @eggquarters IDK I’M BARELY UP ON THIS BITCH

[b4kuch1n]

Question Form RQ03 [special use]*

*Question form edited by MIB Secretariat, used under particular conditions, use authorized by Personnel[redacted] 

R Lounge, MIB HQ, [date/time redacted] 

Teruki HANAZAWA | Minor | Starchild

(There’s no alien prison on Earth. Earth is like a big neighborhood, and the US a particularly noisy block. Convicted criminals leave the neighborhood and go to prison. Which Earth is not. 

So, of course, the place Hanazawa was about to be kept at (really, O.? Really? Kept at?) does not qualify as a prison. 

Technically that is true: it’s as big as a normal lounge and there’s a good-size screen in there and probably Wi-Fi too, even though the filter’s probably tighter than his hair-clogged drain at home. It’s also rumored that you can ask for any magazines in existence, as long as you say “please”. Might also be alcohol in the mini-fridge, which he wouldn’t know was the good stuff or not, since he can get trashed on three shots of anything barely alcoholic ever. 

But if there’s anything his years (has it been years already? Christ, you really don’t feel it while it’s burning bright, do you?) serving the MIB can teach him, it’s that isolation freaks people out. He has yet to come across a race that doesn’t value connection under any form. Someone raised with human values would even be more attached to it. And if there’s something that lounge-for-folks-in-questioning doesn’t provide, it’s a humane connection. 

A week in there for a teenager would make them implode. 

So he presses O. on that issue. “Tell me in less than thirty words what my lounge has less than that one in term of security,” he says, tapping the pen on the glass surface under his hand. 

O. lets out a long sigh. “You.” 

“Excuse you!” he throws his hands up, the pen falling from his grasp perfectly into its slot on the stand, “I’m your recruit, madam! You don’t trust your own employee - is this whole agency already starting to collapse onto itself?” 

Another sigh. “No, Agent R. We’re going steady and strong, with a strict and efficient hierarchy and division. Which dictates that you’re a field agent and not a security officer.” 

“When did I say that I’m replacing security? Lounge R has security like any other place in this whole building. What I’m saying is that I should be added into this scheme.” 

“You know,” O. says, sipping on her chocolate milk, “you’re unofficially still not off the hook on that microwave accident yet. But — ” she cuts him off before he can reciprocate, “ — I see where you’re coming from. And I acknowledge that as a field agent, you know more about this than us pen pushers do. So I’ll see how that goes with the higher up.” 

The other thing being in on the whole alien stuff teaches him, after that many years, is that there’s a rhythm to negotiation. There are good moments in the conversation to push a point, and there are times you can only go that far with the set system. And O. is not a bad boss - she is sensible and smart, and the amount of shit she has to deal with daily is honestly baffling - so even though he does not like to be called out, he knows to back out in front of an incoming misstep. 

That’s how Agent R. finds himself in the people-in-questioning lounge half a day into Hanazawa’s stay at the MIB headquarter, a pint of ice cream in one and a tablet in another, asking the security guy passing by to put on a nature document to fill the silence. 

“Uh,” Hanazawa greets him, “hi. Nice to meet you.” 

“Same to you, kiddo,” he replies, putting down the pint of ice cream. “I just got moved here. Would you mind if I watch my soaps at nine in the evening?” 

Hanazawa stares at him for a very long time. Finally he says, “So you’re the soaps kind of person,” and pulls the ice cream towards himself.)

1. Are you completely aware of your alien heritage?

(”So, Hanazawa Teruki,” he says while Hanazawa’s flipping to the next page on his book, “how much do you know about you being a Starchild?” 

The beat of silence is casually tense, until Hanazawa starts speaking. “Well, I am a Starchild, I know that much.” 

He dutifully types that down on his tablet.) 

2. Are you born on Earth? 

(”You know, it’s really weird,” Hanazawa says, “I don’t know. But memories only go back as far as to when you’re four years old, right? And I do remember being here then. So maybe I was born on Earth.” 

“Just gonna put a ‘maybe’ in here,” he says, typing down a comment on the tablet. “Let the office deal with it.”)

3. Of which heritages are your guardians? 

(The quiet is a bit worrying. 

After the first pint of ice cream has been consumed with a speed that only makes sense in context, he has set up a Code Ice with security so he can wordlessly order ice cream to the lounge at any time. Partly because he feels like he should prepare thoroughly for more urgent situations, but he also just want to alert security when they enter unknown ground. No matter how many times he has dealt with Mob’s more extreme emotions before, he’s still talking to a different, separate individual, who is not Mob, and should not fall under generalisation. 

Hanazawa’s control seems strained, very unlike Mob’s. Mob’s control over his emotions is... motivated. Hanazawa’s, not that much. It’s like a prosthetic at this point - something the kid wears to help him function - but it’s stressing its own wielder out.

“They’re human,” Hanazawa says, finally, but the tension doesn’t leave. “Through and through.” 

He tables any other inquiries on the subject - the main question’s already answered - and holds up the clicker. “I’m gonna call for more ice cream.” 

The big screen flickers a bit, before Hanazawa blinks and grabs at the remote. “Can you call two pints at once?”) 

4. Specify the conditions in which you recognized your alien heritage.

(”...so the accordion fell down from the portable chandelier, and I swallowed it whole, and when I looked back the chicken was pointing a gun at me. I don’t really know what he thought that would even do to me, but I think he was too far gone to care. He fired the gun. Then the van crashed, and he got squished under the shotgun seat, and people were coming over to see what was going on, so I pulled myself together and fell out of the side door to avoid suspicion. I got out of the hospital that evening and came home to think the whole story through, and the chicken might have been tossed into the dump when they inspected the van afterwards. I don’t know where he is now.” Hanazawa stops to change position on the couch. “That was back when I was eight.” 

He taps the tablet screen lightly. “Yeah, I’ve heard about that guy. Got deported, I think-- wait. That accident was on TV, wasn’t it? So you’re that kid?” 

Hanazawa shrugs. “Probably. The news loved me.” He sounds a bit put off by that. 

“The real story’s more interesting anyway,” he says, puts down the tablet and looks at the digital clock in the corner of the big screen. “Jesus Christ, it’s six already?”)

5. Are your guardians aware of your alien heritage? 

(This time Hanazawa replies almost too fast. “I don’t know.” 

He looks up from the tablet, “Huh?” 

“Never tried to ask,” Hanazawa says, just barely faster than his normal speech. “I think my mom does have a vague idea though. I mean telekinesis and such isn’t really normal human traits, right? She should know at least a bit, since I was. Well.” He gestures vaguely with his hands. “Yeah.”

There’s a beat of silence before he can reply. “Doesn’t mean they can let you live alone for three years at the age of fourteen,” he says, calmly. 

Hanazawa looks down. “They really shouldn’t have,” he says with a small laugh. “At least they haven’t cut my card yet.”

The tablet is set down on the table. “No, okay. I’m saying that their decision wasn’t justified, and it still isn’t.” He says, crouching forward a little bit. Hanazawa looks up at him with wary curiosity. “Doesn’t matter the consequence. That is not something guardians do.” 

Hanazawa keeps looking at him for a moment longer, then he shrugs and says dismissively, “That wouldn’t matter now anyway, right?” 

There is too much to that statement for him to address in one single conversation, so he notes down the answer first, just to get his duty out of the way.)

6. Are any groups/individuals with residency on Earth (other than your guardians) aware of your alien heritage? Specify their nature if the answer is yes.

(Hanazawa’s answer is at first morphed beyond recognition, through the mouthful of ice cream he’s currently trying to get down. “You gotta learn some table manners, kiddo,” he says, pushing the button on the remote absentmindedly, checking through the free channels on the network, while the kid frees some more space in his mouth to continue on the current pint. 

“I learn my lessons,” Hanazawa says. 

“Good, good, great. Go over that one again?” 

“Oh, right. The Thursday market.”

“The one on Spice Intersection?” 

“Yep.”

“Who there knows about you?”

Hanazawa scraps the ice cream idly with the spoon. It’s melting a bit. “Well, the market.” 

“Okay.” He notes that down. “Anyone else?”)

(The form is submitted a bit late, but otherwise the Office can’t find any reason to bother them more on that one. He fills out another form not long after that, and by the end of the same day they’re released from the HQ. 

Hanazawa is quiet on the ride back to his apartment, but it’s a serene calm, if a bit thin. They arrive at the block a bit late; the night guard stares at them as Hanazawa climbs out of the car. 

“Good evening, Ben,” Hanazawa waves at him. So that’s where Ben’s gone to after he closed the store on the old street. 

“So,” he says when Ben has looked away. 

Hanazawa takes a deep breath. “So,” he repeats the word. 

Time to fish the keys out of the candy pocket. “Here,” he tosses them to Hanazawa, “this is for my place. Number ten, seventh floor, Fifth street.” 

Hanazawa catches the keys, but for a moment doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. His hand balls up around them, and when he finally finds his voice again, he says, “You don’t need to.” 

“Mob has a set too,” he waves his hand dismissively. “I treat it like a cottage all the time, so why not. Doesn’t hurt to have a second place to crash sometimes.” 

Hesitation shows in the way Hanazawa pockets the keys, but his tone is sincere when he says, “Good. That’s great. Thank you, Sir.” 

Agent R. - Reigen - smiles. “It’s Arataka Reigen. Nice to be in this together.” He holds out a hand for Hanazawa.)

By signing this form, you’ve acknowledged that you’ve read and completely understood the questions asked, and that all of your answers are truthful. Once this form is verified, you will be registered in MIB’s databank as an alien citizen. 

Are you ready to sign and submit this form? 

(Hanazawa shakes his hand.

”Same to you, Mr Reigen,” he says. “That doesn’t rest well on the tongue. I’m just gonna call you Boss.” 

“That’s fair,” says Reigen.) 

Signed, Teruki HANAZAWA

Signed, Personnel[redacted]

[tarnishedhalo]

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Jurassic Asks || The Lost Meme

"Fi." He knew that knock before it even landed on the wood of the door. And when he opens it, sees that it's her, something doesn't immediately sit right with him. It's after midnight, and the second coming of the Flood is pouring buckets over the city. Riley's always prided himself on making his home a little harder to find than most places but he's glad on one hand that she's here. On the other... He ducks his head out the door, looks up and down the hall. Then he pulls her into the apartment. Once the door is shut, he starts unravelling her out of the wet clothes, with the easy skill of a concerned older brother. "What happened?" He kneels down, and taps one foot, before he begins unlacing the boot. "Up."

[tarnishedhalo]

@learnedlucidity {{xx}}

Riley leans into her doorframe as she considers his request and less than cheerful demeanour but mostly because if he doesn't he's likely not going to remain on his feet for much longer. He's not so hurt as he might appear though there is fresh human blood pouring in trickles from places it ought not be, but more than anything, Riley's exhausted and running on fumes. He winces when she calls him by his government name. Or maybe it's the threat of his sister looming over him. "You know I'm stubborn as a mule an' even Beth can't scare me long. And maybe if you didn't sometimes take the very same risks, I'd give extra merit to your argument." He might have murmured something like 'oh thank God' under his breath as he pushes himself off the doorframe to lurch into her home. He doesn't resist when she takes the bag though he does feel a little sorry that it's so heavy. "Oh yeah? Whatcha go in mind? I'm sure we can work something out." There's money. Favours, goods, contacts, and most important in their line of work? There's information. He slings himself down onto her couch, legs dangling off the end and sort of simply sinks into the comfort there, momentarily closing his eyes. "I know, babe," he says, admitting it for maybe the first time. "Didn't want to put you in more danger than I had to."