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puellafuriadarkmagica · 9 months ago

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Chapters 1 & 2

So here's what's going to be happening: I'm going to be rereading PFDM for really my own convenience; I forgot a lot of important things in my eight-month hiatus and can hardly even decipher a lot of the notes I've kept to remind myself what's happened so far and what will be happening. I thought it might be the case that if I were to reread, and share my thoughts, it could be an entertaining behind-the-scenes kind of cross section of how I see my own writing.

Everything I write here is going to be copy-pasted onto Tumblr. For the people keeping track on Tumblr, right now I'm writing all this in a Discord thread just to keep it sort of stream-of-consciousness. In my first sitting, I'll probably get through chapters one and two combined seeing as they're both very short.

At time of writing, the most recent chapter is chapter 51: Alive in That Kandinsky Painting. Each time I do one of these in the wake of a new chapter, I'll note the title of the most recent one. I'll probably spoil everything up to and including that chapter in doing this.

Chapter 1: Inkstain Panic Stricken Five-Star Heathens

I really gotta shoutout Pat for the cover image. Not just for how good it is for its own merits, but because I can use it to trick people into thinking Phoebe Deckard is important enough to be called part of the "main six", which I think I privately mentioned being a thing around that time. I think My Little Pony's cast has a concept homophonic with "main six", but I was pretty much brought up exactly between generations of that franchise so the whole thing basically passed me by. Anyway, PFDM was going to have a secret "main sixth" or whatever when I got around to unveiling Mækiu, but by that point Whitman ended up taking her fair share of the spotlight. So it's an unintentional seven now. Anyway give Pat money and he will make cool art for you. Especially if you're a furry, which I'm not, so his talents are pretty much wasted on a fool such as myself.

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This chapter's title is taken from the lyrics of the Presets' A.O., which is pretty much the only redeeming feature of their worst album (and their most popular, ain't that always the way). There are a few chapter titles which fit so well that it served to justify this whole gimmick, and this is probably the one I can most clearly point to. For those not in the know, fanfic chapter titles from song lyrics is a cliché I honestly kinda dig, only I wanted to pull the twists that 1. each chapter took its title from a song by an artist from the country in which that chapter was mainly set, and 2. I never used the same artist twice (although different bands that share members are allowed. So for instance, chapter 10 takes its name from Lover by PNAU, but if I wanted to pull a title from lyrics by Empire of the Sun or the Two Leaves Project, that would be totally allowed even though Nick Littlemore is a member of all three). The "no repeats" rule also applies to chapter quotes, although naturally that's much easier to pull off since I make most of them the fuck up.

The two exceptions to this rule are that 1. chapters not set in any country must be named after a duo of some kind, (because a. PFDM has a love of Gnostic symbology and by extension dualism, and b. I can't imagine the final two dualism-titled chapters being called anything other than what they will be) and 2. the book clubs are simply numbered. I figure if you've been reading these are both pretty obvious at this point.

"This self-centredness is ingrained in human nature. It can be overcome but it needs constant conscious effort to overcome it." -Tim "Exile" Shaw

Tim Exile's always been the kind of musician whose sheer quirkiness I've aspired to. I used to be part of what was called a laptop orchestra, which was a group that really interrogated why and how we should still perform live music when everything can be pre-programmed and pre-recorded on a computer. When I wrote music for that, live electronic music advocate Tim Exile was kind of someone whose way of thinking I looked to. Also I've got all my friends hooked on his album Listening Tree, which I definitely recommend to people who have ears.

I'll see if I can track down a recording of my work for the laptop orchestra, I did this big, sprawling piece where different members of the orchestra played back loops I got musician friends from around the world to record and send to me. If you guys would be interested in seeing that, let me know.

2008 was a long year. By the end, people were rather fed up with it as they might have been before with lice or heavy traffic. Not that they particularly disliked the year - they recognised its merits, they understood it served its purpose as a follow-up to 2007, and so forth - but it lingered in a frustrating way. Most people had figured out the point back in May or June, and the remainder thereafter just seemed like worthless filler. "We kind of get the gimmick now, it's not really that funny anymore," everyone thought. "It's hard to believe that the same inexorable progression from past to future that would give us such masterworks as early-mid February and last Tuesday would deliver something so mediocre." The passage of time gave eventually, as it was wont to do. "Fine," it conceded, "you can have 2009, but just this once."

Yeah, I'm not gonna mince words here. I have some gripes with early PFDM here and there because i was still finding my bearings, but this was gold right out the gate. One of the best jokes in the whole thing, if not the number one spot. It's my mark to beat and I'm having a hard time recalling any instance of me actually doing so.

2009 still a few hours away, but its looming presence palpable, four and a half million pairs of eyes and ears took in the pyrotechnic display over the heart of Sydney. One pair of eyes about ten kilometres North belonged to Marie Crawford. The other pairs of eyes belonged to other people, but that much wasn't out of the ordinary.

This one was a little forced though.

"Damn, dude," she groaned. "Where have you been all night? I've been getting lonely out here, and the party down the street is playing Walking On A Dream again. If I have to listen through it one more time, I'm going to lose it."

This is the first hint that Marie is an unlikable protagonist because frankly that's one of the greatest synth-pop hits of its generation.

"We have reason to believe we're close to determining the cause of the dark energy discrepancies in our latest measurements. We intend on doing so as soon as possible, and the next three hundred and sixty-five days would be a likely time frame for our investigation to conclude."

Have I revealed the answer to this mystery yet? Obviously I know what it is, but I've forgotten if it's been presented to you yet, dear reader. Hopefully this reread will serve to remind me of which questions I have and have not answered yet.

"…Jeez. How many times have we had this conversation before?" He turned his head to an odd angle for a moment, before his glare snapped right back onto her. "Three hundred and thirteen."

I try to slip this number in where I can regarding Marie, at first by what I thought was an interesting coincidence, and then more extremely when I expanded on her name. There's the whole bit with the gun in like chapter 15 or so, her birth date of MAR 13, the isopsephic value of her full first name, the way the first three letters of her middle name ELEASHA look, you get the picture.

She took the hint but made no act of pretending to enjoy it. "Gosh! What are you, my dad?" "Not really." "It was a rhetorical question." "It was a rhetorical negative."

This was a joke I thought was pretty funny, but I don't know if anyone else did. Shame, too, because a lot of stuff this chapter I think isn't as funny has landed a lot better with the audience.

I think generally the first end-of-chapter note is a good primer to the kinds of worldbuilding PFDM readers can look forward to. Most people take it as a strong hook into what's possible in this world, and in fact reading it I find myself getting a little nostalgic about that seemingly limitless potential, even though I don't even know if it would be in my top ten favourite end-of chapter parts. It also mentions Sylvia Carlos, who is frankly a character I like enough to deem my past self correct for calling her deserving of a chapter one mention.

As an aside, I do want to confess as I probably have before to stealing the idea for these post-script anecdotes from the comic Kill Six Billion Demons, which was hardcore enough in its early days to do like one every page. I could never do that much.

Chapter 2: Eye on the City like a Cyclone

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Briggs's body of work has pretty much laid the groundwork for what rap music in Australia is today, which is pretty crazy, because he's only put out two full-length albums. The guy's impact is just that immense. It's a shame that PFDM's set in 2009 - if it were any more contemporary, Hope's ringtone would have 100% been Briggs's Let It Be Known, but she would miss a ton of calls because she'd forget there's the quiet, reverb-drenched Snoop Dogg sample before the song actually starts.

By the time Hope Fearnley made it to Abject Permanence, it was almost midnight.

Hahaha this bar name is so stupid.

She'd never even left New South Wales before,

Actually I remembered Hope had never been overseas (this is a deliberate part of the joke of her having Malaysian currency in her pocket in the latest chapter), but I forgot she's never been interstate either.

"And the other Sydney leaders?"

Remember when they were relevant? Me neither. Joking aside, I guess I've sort of been tossing up bringing them back into the fray more or less around where we are in the plot these days, but I'm honestly not really sure they're that interesting. I play favourites, and I play favourites to win.

"You know," she took to trying to remove the juice's lid, to no avail, "you really shouldn't drink. Do you know how many health problems it's linked to?" "Probably nothing I don't already have." "You'd be surprised." "What, about the alcohol, or just in general?" Lara half-winced, and the lid came ever so slightly loose. "Bit of both. The world's a surprising place."

Lara stopped acting like this pretty early on. I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that I hadn't singled out her character voice yet, how much is because I could never think of material is wacky as her debut, and how much is because she's found herself continually taken further and further down the list of "weirdest things going on in PFDM", and she knows it. Probably a bit of all three.

"Zero? Oh, Fearnley, Fearnley. You underestimate me. What if I told you I actually had the capacity to do this? I'm on the cusp of wielding a whole new kind of magic. Nothing you'd understand."

I've spent a long time worrying about how much this plotline and the whole self-contradicting metaliterature thing going on has been slowly creeping into becoming PFDM's main plot, when all along I wanted it to revolve primarily and secondarily around the constant political thriller, and the Concordance's effect on human history, respectively. Largely because I worry that if the whole plot with the Narrator and the Knight and that calibre of heavy hitters takes the spotlight, the payoffs you're gonna get would be remarkably unimpressive, based on how silly and out-there and self-referential and sarcastic the trajectory that plot's taken has been. But I don't know, I think it's become that people do actually really like that sort of story, even when it starts to take itself very seriously. For instance, the book clubs get far, far more serious, and those are basically one very drawn-out joke. They're some of the most popular PFDM has been! So I'll take that as a sign not to worry; whenever the narrative wants one plot thread to take the lead, I'll let it. When it wants another, I'll let that one. And so on.

The tactile sensation of finality between thumb and red button served as a beat in Hope's thoughts, a fixed temporal point dropped like an anchor from the drifting of her reverie. Lara knew more than she'd let on, for sure, but she'd let on far more than Phoebe would have. It was a blessing and a curse, in a sense. If she was telling the truth, then Hope knew something was happening ahead of time, and could deal with that. But what time would that be? And what if it was a bluff? This early in Hope's leadership, failure to accept it could get people killed, or worse. Failure to call it, on the other hand, would have her dismissed by the others for overreaction, and the city would fall into the clutches of the incompetent, or the negligent, or… how had Lara put it?

I really liked the idea of Hope's introspection slowing the narrative down, and still use it to this day where appropriate. It's harder to notice now, though, because the style of pretty much every part of the story is incredibly slow now.

The trio took the organisation's name from an ancient Byzantine poem by Julia the Voyager, which featured a powerful knight clad in brass armour which wailed like horns in the breeze. In the poem, the knight would wander eternally through a desert, looking to stoke a fire only referred to as the deep light.

Okay, now I may not remember much, but I do remember that we get to see this later on. So that's good.

After the cleaning out of Petiere's office, a statue was erected in her honour just by the front door, although nobody knows who made it or why.

Honestly kind of disappointed that nobody got the joke here. It's another one I thought was a total classic but didn't land.

Alright! It's kind of weird to be reading some of my own work. A lot of stuff I've got that's older than this sort of disappoints me, but I didn't really dislike this experience. Not enough to revise it, at any rate, even though there's some overarching stuff I'd have liked to have done better than I actually did. Fingers crossed that with me working to a less restrictive schedule everything's going to be planned much better than it used to be. Most of my pre-PFDM stuff I've flat-out deleted out of sheer disappointment, so my seeming indifference is actually the equivalent of a standing ovation, all things considered.

Next time, chapter 3. Chapters one through three really function as a "pilot episode" in my eyes, after which the story properly opens up. Actually, I tried to write as much as I could before NYD 2021 when the story kicked off and only managed three chapters. Despite all that I somehow convinced myself I could have this story finished in two years. Hilarious!

See you then.

#pfdm reread #Youtube

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the-planet-ceres · 2 years ago

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star student

The second I get home, I collapse into bed, wanting to take a nap but knowing I shouldn’t. I’ve already been slacking off enough; not surprisingly, consistently refusing to do your homework means that you’re going to fail. And nothing ruins your day like your AirPods running out of battery thirty minutes into class so you can’t not pay attention.

Speaking of—thinking of, I guess—I need to charge those.

As I stand and my stomach demands a snack, I slip into the kitchen on ghost feet (do ghosts have feet?), barely glancing at my brother as we brush shoulders. Jack doesn’t flinch at the contact, and when he leaves, I hear the unrestrained thumps of his steps and the snaps as he cracks his knuckles. He doesn’t shrink at his family’s gazes; he’s not the one born with a broken brain that can’t pay attention to anything for more than two seconds. He’s not the one who pretends to be unruly and bratty instead of burnt out with a side of occasional hallucinations.

Of course, nobody cares about that, because nobody knows about that. Besides, the voices in my head are probably just caused by exhaustion anyway; once I slept for three days straight and didn’t hear anything for a week after.

By the time I successfully guess the password to my dad’s computer—which is somehow harder than actually hacking the grading website to make it seem like I don’t have a column of donuts—the Rubik’s cube on the desk has made me shuffle it three different times. As I’m reaching to scramble the little squares again, I hear someone coming. Crap. Guess I’m not postponing the inevitable this time.

Shutting the computer, I dart out and head upstairs at what I hope is a normal pace.

Go back, a tiny voice tells me.

Shut up. I should’ve had more coffee today. I don’t need this right now.

Go back. Show them your computer skills. Redeem yourself.

Since when are you so eloquent?

It goes quiet, replaced by creepy funhouse music that makes me think of black carpet stitched with neon planets.

Determined to at least accomplish something today, I turn on my laptop in search of answers to a math worksheet that has more letters than numbers. The first thing to open is a search reading “cna i sumon a dmeon to raies my graeds,” a remnant of my typical three-in-the-morning frantic races to vomit every single thought in my brain into either Twitter or Google.

I click on a new tab and start copying a problem into the search bar, but I don’t get very far. The funhouse music has faded; now there’s a terrifying chant of Look at it. Look at it. Look at it.

Not going to not going to not going to, I force myself to think. Then: God, I need medicine for this. Maybe I should look that up instead of trying to figure out how big some imaginary circle is.

Of course, because the other entities living in my brain are more powerful than my self-restraint, I end up clicking the Did you mean? on the tab with the demon search and clicking on the first thing that pops up.

It’s some ad for a church asking if I need the light of Jesus.

A bit too late for that if you ask me.

I go back and find something giving instructions on how to make a pentagram out of string, and then it’s one in the morning and I haven’t moved except to sit at dinner and lie through my teeth about starting an online tutoring program. A week ago, I said I would, but then I got distracted by something or other and completely forgot. I’ve written reminders for myself in three different places in the past three seconds, but knowing me, I’ll forget in another two.

Pushing a towel against my door so less light will escape, I manage to set up a ring of candles without setting my carpet on fire. In the middle is some red yarn shaped into a lopsided star; I have zero artistic talent and can’t use a ruler to save my life.

This is ridiculous. If it weren’t for the fact that Jack is probably asleep already, I’d be laughing out loud right now. Of all the things that could be wasting my time right now, I have to pick this one. Well, not me, actually, but another of those voices, commanding me to do it in a tone so harsh my skin is covered in goosebumps.

I pick up a sheet I scrawled a bunch of unintelligible demon chants onto and hold it to a candle, but before I can start reading, all of the tiny flames go out and the temperature in the room drops a solid thirty-ish degrees.

Cursing under my breath, I scrabble for my lighter so I’ll be able to see the way to my bed—my patience for this ran out almost before I started, and I have to be awake in five hours anyway to make it to school on time. As if I actually do anything when I’m there.

Five flicks until the lighter works, and then the dot of fire whooshes out of existence again.

Huh. That’s weird. Shrugging, I stumble over the pile of books that I dumped out to look for a pencil and wave my limbs around like a confused zombie until I trip over the edge of my bed.

When I fall onto the covers, something warm and disturbingly like skin shifts away, and then what feels like a hand is being clapped over my mouth.

“Mmf!” I try to bite at the palm pressing into my lips, but its owner pushes my head back until I’m lying down. When I kick haphazardly, all my legs find is air; my arms flail and smack into something as hard as bone.

“Quiet,” hisses a raspy voice. It’s a bit like one of the ones that I hallucinate sometimes, with the same tone of authority that makes me obey its every command. “I do not want to be discovered. Where is light?”

The hand lifts, and I manage to let out a yelp before it slams back down.

“Scream and I will end you. Where is light?”

This time, I’m too paralyzed by terror to try yelling. “I can turn on the closet light. If we block the door, no one will see from outside.” Yes, being in a smaller space with whatever criminal has somehow made it into my room is a terrible idea, but I don’t want to risk my family coming and getting hurt too.

“Then come. Turn on . . . the closet light.”

The presence shifts to let me stand; as I get to my shaky feet, I grope for the lighter, but it’s gone.

“Over here,” I call softly as I lift the door so it won’t creak. “Go inside.”

A cold breeze washes over me as the intruder enters, making me shiver both from cold and fear. I take a deep breath, worrying that my stupidity might make it my last, then follow, kick a shirt against the door as I close it, and flick the light switch.

And freeze.

At least I have the sense not to scream.

The . . . thing . . . in front of me flashes his needle-sharp teeth, licking his lips with a pair of forked tongues. After a second, he notices my hand scrabbling for the doorknob behind me and his smile—if it can even be called that—morphs into a snarl that makes my legs turn to jelly. I drop my arm and try not to pay attention to the claws on his fingers, the feathery wings sucking all of the light into their blackness, the twisted black horns that could spear me in an instant.

He scratches at the shaggy brown hair they’re jutting out of, and out tumble what look like very tiny bones.

I can feel my face turning green.

“I think it is typical to look a stranger in the eyes when being introduced,” the demon rasps. But even though the intensity of his words makes me fear for my life, I can’t peel my eyes from the scabbed lines running over every exposed inch of his skin or the very threatening knife at his waist.

He could have slit my throat, and nobody would’ve known until morning.

“Girl?”

“Bree,” I mumble. “It’s Bree.” Grandma’s name or not, I refuse to go by Breeshey.

“Bree,” he echoes, pronouncing it more like Blee. “What is it the angels say? Fear not? Or have no fear?”

Enough time passes for it to be obvious that he wants a response, so I shrug and admit, “I don’t know.”

“Ah. Well, it is no matter. Look in my eyes.”

I shut my own, then force them to open and drift upwards past his horrifying mouth. To my surprise, the view isn’t that bad; pupils surrounded by two soft orange rings watch me with something bordering on curiosity. He smiles again, and their corners crinkle.

See? Not that bad.

Actually, scratch that—embedded in his cheeks just below the regular eyes is a pair of smaller blue ones. As I stare at them, they dilate, then twitch and shut.

“What . . . are you?” I ask, my words a shield that keeps him from taking a second step towards me.

“A demon, of course. What kind is unimportant.” His wings close a little as he shifts his balance and knocks a row of hangers off their rack. After a beat, he continues, “My name is,” then lets out a weird gargling noise.

I blink. “What?”

Sighing, he whips out a notepad and pen from who-knows-where and writes Aszksxymysthz. “That is the closest approximation in your tongue. But humans cannot make these sounds, so you may call me . . . Ash.”

“Ash,” I repeat. “So, uh . . . What are you doing here, Ash? Not here to murder me and string up my guts like Christmas decorations, I hope?”

Yeah, let’s give the literal demon ideas, a voice snaps in my brain.

“No. You summoned me for improved academic performance, so that is what I am here to provide.”

As he gets closer and lifts a hand to my face, I sidestep and frown. “So . . . you’re just going to help me? Because I wanted to?” That sounds like something a genie would do, not . . . you.

Ash tilts his head, showing pointy ears as his hair moves, and nods. “Partially, yes.”

Ah, there it is. “What’s the catch?”

“A small thing. Every night at midnight, you must pluck one feather from my wings.”

“Huh? Why? Wouldn’t that hurt you?” Why does it matter?

“I have greater motivations than self-preservation.”

My arms cross of their own volition. “And those are?”

“Unrelated to and thus irrelevant to you. Now, what is there to be done?”

“What do you mean, irrelevant? How do I know you’re not lying?”

His tiny blue eyes open wide, and he repeats more forcefully, “What is there to be done?”

My mouth goes dry, and I’m about to put more distance between us when I realize my back is against the wall. “Well, right now, sleeping. Then school in a few hours. Wait—how are you going to get in? I can’t just walk up with a random demon next to me.”

For a heart-stopping moment, Ash just watches me, and then he’s gone.

“Ash? Wh—”

“Like this,” his voice interrupts. Except—it’s coming out of my mouth. “Your mind is pliable, so I can enter and exit as I wish. Although there do seem to be quite a few vermin here.”

“Vermin?”

“Do you hear things in your head, perhaps?”

Oh. “Um . . . yeah.”

“I can remove them if you would like.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

Then he’s in front of me again, and the permanent undercurrent of whispering in my mind dies.

“Whoa,” I breathe. “Sick.” I’m free.

I’m free.

Ash smiles again, and this time, I don’t shrink from him. “Go sleep. I will find a way to occupy myself.”

As I reach for the knob, I suggest, “Maybe you could start by picking up all those shirts you threw on the floor.”

He grazes me with his wing, and I tense until I hear the lightness in his reply. “I will consider it.”

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

Midterms come around a few months later, and Ash passes me with flying colors. My teachers praise my sudden diligence as I not only finish things early, but get perfect scores. I no longer get angry at myself because I no longer lose focus every ten seconds. My friends seem more relaxed around me now that I’m not constantly asking for their help cheating (which I stopped doing a while ago anyway, when I stopped caring). Mom and Dad start treating me like the faultless second child again, hoping enough rewards will keep this from ending. Only Jack resents this change; he throws himself into his schoolwork even harder, brushing me off when I tell him he’s too smart to be wasting his time studying material he memorized the day it was given.

It stings a little, that me “bettering myself” has put up a wall between us, but I don’t think about it too much.

He’ll come around. He’ll see the good in this.

Even if, like everybody else, he has no idea how it’s happening.

Even if I’ve probably sold my soul or something without even knowing.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

The morning after a shockingly successful school year ends, I wake up with a weird feeling in my stomach, like it’s being torn open from inside. Great. What a way to start the summer.

But when I stand up and sag under the weight of a back screaming with pain, complaints about food poisoning drain out of my mind.

“Ash? Are you in there?” I whisper. After Mom almost caught him, we agreed that he should possess me while I sleep; sometimes I end up with random aches, but never this bad.

Nobody answers.

“Ash?”

Still no one.

Under the bed, the box where I hide his feathers is empty.

Huh. I guess it makes sense, since I don’t have classes in summer, but a little warning would’ve been nice. I’ve become strangely attached to the demon.

Stretching with a slight wince, I go to the bathroom to shower the last bit of sleepiness away but stop short when I see my reflection.

The pale green of my eyes has darkened to orange, and beneath them is another, smaller pair with light blue irises. Sharp black horns spiral out of my head, and massive wings the same color have sprouted from my back. I bare my teeth; they’re thin and pointy, barely fitting in my mouth.

As I watch in horror, a bright red line runs down my forearm.

I’m about to shriek when the walls melt, giving way to an endless field of fire and hazy smoke set against a crimson sky.

“Ash?” I call again, more frantic. This has to have something to do with him. “What is this place?”

“Your Aszksxymysthz no longer resides here,” a bodiless voice booms. “I have dismissed him.”

“You . . .” Who are you? What are you?

“He mentioned that his motives did not relate to you. But I controlled them, and I have taken an interest in you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I get a glimpse of a vague black shape that I can’t categorize as any horror I’ve ever seen before.

My hands curl into fists. How could I have been so stupid? I should’ve known not to trust a literal demon. “Meaning?”

That horrifying silhouette comes back into my field of vision and states, “That now he is free, and you are as he was.”

Suddenly my skin burns with agony, and I scream so loud the heat of the air singes my throat until I can’t take it anymore and my brain cuts off my consciousness.

#the-planet-ceres #the planet ceres #fiction #writing #creative writing #stories #seance #demon #demon summoning #grades #good grades

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speakeasy8 · 2 years ago

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[002] Fujii, K.

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The songs we hear on this program were all performed live on the spot by Kaze (and requested by the host). He didn't know what's going to be requested beforehand so everything we hear is just him playing and singing from memory, which is why the lyrics to songs that aren't his may sometimes get a bit iffy, even if the performances themselves are heaven to the ears.

He's also not actually there in person at the station. It's a remote appearance that he made from Tokyo (I think the station the show was hosted at was in Osaka or something), since this was mid-2020.

Things mentioned in this radio show excerpt:

[Note: Pls ask first if you want to share this elsewhere]

- he joined the basketball team in his first couple of years in middle school but by his third year, he was the captain of the go-home-straight-after-school club

- high school was way too far from home (apparently it was a 2-hour commute by train one-way) for him to even consider after-school activities so the only club he joined was the Eng one which only required a once-a-week participation on Sunday, and might as well have been a ghost sorta club since it basically didn't do much else other than existed

- high school was pretty much like a music university with the kind of courses and lessons they offer (more than half the courses offered are music-based courses)

- couldn't be arsed to come up with lyrics for the second half of Kiriganai and so copied and pasted the first verse instead but it was hard to notice thanks to Yaffle's creativity and also the director of the MV

- working with Yaffle is a stimulating experience because the guy has interesting ideas and while they may not always see eye to eye with their individual ideas, it's always good to share different ideas

- he spent most of his middle school years fooling around with his friends (this wasn't detailed in the radio show itself so here's some extra info: in middle school he and a bunch of friends fancied themselves comics and came up with their own routines which they'd show the entire school and apparently they sucked because they got booed more than applauded)

- NaN-NaNw was written with the purpose of it being a debut song in mind, which he wrote in between the time when he graduated from high school to when he left Okayama for Tokyo

- he actually already has a huge repertoire of melodies that he composed with the intention of providing lyrics in English to at some point so now these unfinished songs exist in limbo with English-sounding gibberish as placeholder for proper lyrics

- he's also got some songs that he's written in Japanese from when he was still in high school

- his folks were pretty shocked that he could sing when he finally came out to them as a singer

- he's always had the intention to sing because even as a little kid he's always liked songs with vocals better than instrumentals but his parents (or rather his dad) seemed to think he'd be a pianist instead

- he's always been dead set on being a singer, never once entertained the idea of becoming a pianist

- thanks to growing up at a cafe where a lot of old Japanese music spanning across a number of genres was played 24/7, he probably has about a few hundred songs in his head that he can perform on the spot if asked, more if one also counted the ones where he only remembers the music and not the words

#藤井風 #fujii kaze #kaze fujii

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moonknowshome · 4 years ago

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The industry reflected on television

This is a translation of the post x made by @larryisinlove and @faithinrainbows

On many multiple occasions through the media around us we have read or heard a lot of people talking about the reality that the music industry faces and a lot of their aspects that we may not notice at a first look. However, we can see that a variety of TV programs (many of them released for younger audiences) gave us some kind of hints or messages on many chapters they present to us. Chapters which show us the reality artists face in the world of music industry.

Let's start by talking about the Disney series, "Hannah Montana." In the episode (3x10) we can see the protagonist of the series, Miley, dressed as the teenage pop star Hannah Montana along with a famous boy named Austin Rain, who claims to be her partner to the photographers and the media.

At first we see them united showing themselves in front of the cameras, but the reality behind it is that the relationship was only created to promote their song together called "Us Isn’t Us Without You."

We are also going to mention the moment when one of the most famous series for children created by Nickelodeon, a very recognized television network, tried to make a reference ( more like a parody in my opinion) to a massive TV network we all have seen in the past which is Disney Channel. In one episode called “The Dingo Channel” they talk about a channel called “Dingo Channel” tried to copy the structure of the web channel protagonist the series iCarly and the way that channel was run in that period of time. We can see it as a satire the way some of the rumors Disney Channel and their creator were involved in. They qualified Disney basically like a network with little originality.

It is interesting to see how certain topics are presented as a joke, such as wars between television networks. Or how the protagonists go from making a channel on the internet to making it to television, but little by little they find big changes that the production wants to introduce, among them, change to the protagonists, and other modifications that culminates with a different program to the original.

The third program to mention is another from Disney, "Gravity Falls" (1x17). They present to us a band called "Sev'ral Timez", and the protagonist is a fan of them. So, together with her friends, they decide to attend one of their concerts.

At the end of this, the girls are curious to know what is behind when the group disappears, so they go behind the scenes without anyone seeing them, to find various capsules. Inside them you could see the same boys, in different sizes, and the band in a large cage, as if they were animals. According to them, their manager keeps them safe that way.

You can see how the series wanted to demonstrate what happens many times in the industry, wanting to create perfect bands or artists, who manage to sell their image to their fans.

We go on to see what the fourth program presents, in Austin & Ally (Third season-episode 22). One of the Disney series that most thematically refers to the life of an artist in terms of their experiences or events they experience at such a young age is without a doubt Austin & Ally. Several things have been mentioned in relation to the life and growth that an artist has in this episode, exemplifying the main characters of this series. In addition to having their typical Disney touch that characterizes them, it also shows how the characters develop their personalities in the artistic environment and in the world of the music industry.

A clear example in this particular episode called "Relationships and red carpets" that draws a lot of attention at the moment of analyzing it, is to see how Austin and Ally prepare for an awards event, they have been nominated in the same category and would basically come to mean the big moment of the beginning of their careers as pop stars. They planned to announce their relationship to the public eye, but something happens that caught a lot my attention and that is something not far from reality is that Jimmy (owner of the record company in which Austin signed) prohibits him to make his relationship something public with the clarification that it would not be a good thing for his image and that what he wants to sell with Austin is something for teenagers who will eventually buy his music and have that fantasy of being able to go out and date that star, that star he wants to turn him into. He explains openly that this will make him sell more albums in the future. In this episode Austin and Ally try to make their relationship a secret with the purpose of showing Jimmy that they can deal with this. They even deny their relationship to the press at the award ceremony, but they realize that it is not easy at all. Austin risks his career at the cost of it by telling everyone he is dating Ally. This tells us that maintaining an image for sales is too important, it shows us that these things are not taken easily.

As a consequence Austin is unable to release music in any ways for the next 10 years due to the power that his label presents over his music by certain contracts that are mentioned in a basic way in the series.

The next show belongs to Nickelodeon, "Victorious." In this series we find a rather peculiar chapter, within this we see in a developed way how they ask teenagers to send videos showing their skills in music, and with that they achieve a career. The person who did these auditions was a man named Mason, and particularly he is British, with great power in the industry.

The winner of the contest is Tori, the protagonist of the series, who is summoned to a confidential meeting in order to talk about her future. She happily goes with the idea that she should only sing and be her, to which they respond "Your image does not sell, so we are going to create a new one for you", something that we know happens a lot. And they put a condition on it. They tell her that she can't tell anyone about her control over her image, not even her friends. This is how they put wigs on her, flashy clothes, and invent an insolent personality in addition to rumors that generated controversy, among them, causing a stir in restaurants in front of many people.

To finish, we are going to present what the movie Starstruck tells us, the life of a superstar and a girl he meets throughout the plot. In this film we see how this artist handles the moments in which he is told what to do to clean up the image he has a little and get more opportunities as an actor, he must keep himself out of the public eye, and obey everything they tell him to do or say and be cautious with whom he hangs out because of recent problematics he has had.

Basically this film, apart from touching the typical Disney theme of a love story, shows how this star tries to handle this fight in which he is constantly told what to say to the media or the people around him and also shows the way in which the media greatly influence the image of this artist. You can see the behavior of Christopher, the protagonist, at the time of making decisions in order to take care of his own image with the purpose of getting the role he wants to play, all this starts as it is usual from a recommendation that his manager gave him, therefore this idea does not come out of his mind and sporadically says or does things that make the girl he has a romantic interest in feel disappointed because she doesn't like the person that this star tries to be reaching a point of collapse due to all the hate and harassment by journalists which falls into it as a result of things the star said in order to clean its own image. Jesssica, played by the well-known Danielle Campbell, gets tired of having constant harassment by the press, which was waiting for her to say something about the relationship of this normal girl with the big star Christopher is. She decides to give a speech that allows us to understand the intentions that these media require, to sell an artist and sell articles or magazines at the cost of freedom, privacy and quality as a person. (This is highly ironic). The star reconsiders and thinks that the best thing to do is to start taking control of his image and his life and decides to leave his opportunities as an actor and tell his parents who in a way were in charge of taking care of his image that they are fired and he wants to be himself.

As we could see in the examples mentioned above, and in many more that were not named, there are series or films that contain episodes in which they will give us examples or clues, some more direct than others, about the management around the artists in the middle.

It is not unusual that there are so many examples, and so many similarities between them, or with what one already knows, hears, or reads.

The objective of this post is to imply that it is no secret what companies or managers do with their artists, the changes in appearance and personality, transform them completely, or even invent lives that they do not have. These chapters, or scenes that we name, are a step forward to show publicly what happens, and that the affected people cannot come out to say it.

#english post #to read about #industry

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wiypt-writes · 4 years ago

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Stark Spangled Banner

Ch 14: Nothing Personal

Summary: Steve confronts Fury about the Lemurian Star mission and the Director reveals just exactly what it is he’s been working on. However, when Fury is later gunned down in Steve’s apartment right in front of the Captain and Katie, the two are forced to run from the very people they’ve called colleagues and friends for years.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: Language! Violence.

A/N: I love this edit from @angrybirdcr

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 13

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

“You just can’t stop yourself from lying, can you?” Steve seethed as he crossed the floor of Fury’s office.

Nick didn’t even need to ask him what he was talking about. Without turning round the Director spoke calmly. “I didn’t lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.”

“Which you didn’t feel obliged to share” Steve pressed, raising an eyebrow as the Director spun in his chair to face him.

“I’m not obliged to do anything” Fury replied simply, looking at him.

“Those hostages could’ve died, Nick.” Steve pressed, holding the man’s gaze.

“I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn’t happen.” Fury stated, and Steve could feel his temper rising even more. He hated the blasé attitude the Director was discussing the issue with, like it was simply something he wasn’t all that bothered about.

“Soldiers trust each other, that’s what makes it an army.” He said after a short pause. “Not a bunch of guys running around and shooting guns.”

He wasn’t expecting the response he got. Fury leaned forward, frowning as he levelled Steve with a look.

“The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” Fury spoke, his tone steely. Steve cocked his head to one side, crossing his arms but maintaining his silence. “Look, I didn’t want you doing anything you weren’t comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.”

“I can’t lead a mission when the people I’m leading have missions of their own.” Steve pointed down at Fury’s desk, stressing his point.

“It’s called compartmentalization” Fury eyed him. “Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all.” Steve snorted silently and gestured at Fury. “Except you.” Fury took a deep breath and levelled Steve with a look. “You’re wrong about me. I do share. I’m nice like that.” Steve frowned as Fury stood up and motioned for him to follow.

“Where are we going?” Steve’s frustration was evident on his tone.

“You’ll see.” Fury stepped inside the elevator. Steve followed. “Insight bay.”

A photo of Nick’s SHIELD ID flashed up on the screen, surrounded by a green light. Then Steve noticed his, but the light was red as the SHIELD computer spoke. “Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight.”

“Director override, Fury, Nicholas J.” Fury spoke, without missing a beat.

“Confirmed.”

The elevator started to moved downwards. Steve leaned against the rail which ran round the middle of the glass box and clasped his hands in front of him by his belt. Despite his initial annoyance, he had found himself beginning to understand what the Director was saying. SHIELD had so many secrets, many a matter of national security. It made no sense for everyone to know everything, it was a security risk, he got that. But it still irked him.

“You know, they used to play music.” Steve said, his tone softer as he broke the silence, making a joke at his own expense.

“Yeah. My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years.” Fury mused, somewhat nostalgic. “My granddad worked in a nice building, he got good tips. He’d walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He’d say ‘hi’, people would say hi back. Time went on, neighbourhood got rougher. He’d say ‘hi’ they’d say, ‘Keep on steppin’. Granddad got to grippin’ that lunch bag a little tighter.”

The flash into Fury’s personal life surprised Steve somewhat. He cocked his head to one side and looked at the man. “Did he ever get mugged?”

“Every week some punk would say, “What’s in the bag?”

“What did he do?”

“He’d show ‘em. Bunch of crumpled ones and loaded point twenty-two Magnum.” Fury smirked “Granddad loved people. But he didn’t trust them very much.”

Steve had to smirk slightly, thinking that Fury sounded a hell of a lot like his grandpa. He looked down for a second, and when he looked up he was aware that they had now travelled down the side of the Triskellion and were descending further, underground even. As Steve looked around he realised he was in some sort of below building hangar, and he looked out of the glass, spotting three giant Helicarriers. His mouth fell open in surprise, his brow furrowing.

“Yeah, I know. They’re a little bit bigger than a point twenty-two.” Fury remarked.

Eventually the elevator stopped and Fury stepped out, Steve hot on his tail as he watched people bustling around the hangar shouting, carrying things, fixing things. The helicarriers were bigger than the one they’d used during the Chitauri invasion, each being able to house at least twenty Quinjets.

“This is Project Insight.” Fury explained as he led Steve across the floor of the hangar. “Three next generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites.”

And then Steve understood. “Launched from the Lemurian Star.”

“Once we get them in the air they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight courtesy of our new repulsor engines.” Fury stopped underneath one.

“Stark?” Steve asked, frowning.

“Well, he had a few suggestions once he got an up close look at our old turbines.” Fury nodded, as they continued. “But don’t worry, that’s not something Nova is keeping from you.”

“I wasn’t” Steve said honestly, as he looked up and around the hangar. “I trust my girl.”

Fury looked at him before he turned his attention back to the matter in hand and pointed up again “These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist’s DNA before he steps outside his spidy hole. We gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.”

Steve crossed his arms. “I thought the punishment usually came after the crime.”

“We can’t afford to wait that long.”

Steve could feel the nerve twitching in his jaw. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once we’re way ahead of the curve”

“By holding a gun at everyone on Earth and calling it protection?” Steve looked at the director, frowning. He didn’t like this. It smacked of something HYDRA would do.

Fury picked up on his tone and he looked at Steve, arching an eyebrow. “You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

Don’t I know it? Steve thought to himself as he took a deep breath. “Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so the people could be free.” He turned and pointed at the helicarriers before looking at Fury “This isn’t freedom, this is fear.”

“SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be.” Fury stated simply. “It’s getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap”

Steve shook his head. “Don’t hold your breath.” And with that he left.

He changed quickly, eager to put as much distance between him and SHIELD as possible for the rest of the day. After a short conversation with Rumlow about a mission report, he was on his bike and heading for Katie’s apartment, his mind whirling. What was Fury playing at? This wasn’t what he signed up for, at all. It felt so far removed from what he had joined the army to do, to keep people safe, free. Had he really changed that much? He felt a sudden pang for his Howling Commandoes, for Bucky, for Peggy, for Colonel Philips, for all those damned missions which had been simple- destroy HYDRA before they destroyed you.

Despite the fact he had woken up that morning and felt so happy with his girl being there, he couldn’t help but wish life was as simple as it had been back then.

*****

Katie’s morning had been far more productive. She had looked at a couple of transcript extracts her editor had selected. She had to admit, the guy had a good eye for a future blockbuster, and this one she particularly liked. After discussions, they settled on an initial run of two hundred hard copy of the books to be sold online, along with a downloadable kindle version, and if they went they would review how many more we needed.

Pleased with her mornings work and having cleared her diary for the afternoon, she had lunch in the kitchen and had just finished when she heard the elevator door open. She headed into the main area of her apartment to greet Steve, taking a deep breath as she noticed how drained he looked.

“Dare I ask how it went?”

His response was a sigh as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in for a hug, simply wanting to feel her close.

“That good huh?” She squeezed him back gently before she pulled away and headed towards the kitchen, him following behind her.

“Debrief was fine. Fury, however, went on about compartmentalisation, the usual crap.” Steve sighed, running his hand over his face, smiling softly to himself when he saw she was gathering stuff out of the fridge to make him a sandwich “And then shared something I really wish he hadn’t.”

“Like what?” she asked, throwing some turkey and mayo onto a sub. “Ever heard of Operation Insight?” Steve looked at her, even though he knew the answer. There’s no way she would have and not told him.

“No?” She handed him the plate containing his sandwich.

“Well apparently your brother has. Thanks.” He took the plate from her sat at the breakfast bar taking a bite of his food. He swallowed and then continued “Three huge hellicarriers that are basically designed to go up in the air and never come down based on Tony’s arc reactor tech. Programmed to monitor potential threats and wipe them out before they get chance to do anything.” She frowned, settling on the stool next to him. “And Fury has sanctioned this?”

Steve nodded, taking another bite of his food. “I don’t like it. Like I said to him, punishment normally comes after the crime.”

Katie could see he was really struggling with this and that his faith in SHIELD was running very, very thin. A lot of what the Agency did was political, not just about keeping people safe. She’d tried to explain that the lines were a lot more blurred than back in the 40s, but still had to admit she was kind of with him. As she pondered for a moment, Steve could see the cogs whirring in her brain, the slight v shape crease that always formed in the middle of her eyes when she was thinking was present. Steve didn’t blame her, it had thrown him too and he’d had the full explanation. The hangar had been huge, and there were enough people in there to make him realise that a LOT of people knew about it. What he didn’t know was who on his immediate team knew about it.

“I just wanna know who I can trust” He sighed, looking at Katie as she reached out gently, touching his cheek.

“I know, Soldier.” she said, softly before she shook her head. “Okay, no more talk about SHIELD or hellicarriers, or whatever.” She moved to pick up her soda. “What do you want to for the rest of the afternoon?”

Steve wanted to go to the Smithsonian. He’d been thinking about it since they had emailed him to invite him to open the exhibit on him, which he had politely declined. But he was curious to see what it was like, curious and also eager, after today, to be reminded of a time when he worked with people he knew inside out, people that he would trust with his life. And he was keen to share that with his girl, the woman who had months ago before they even started dating, been the one to help him pick what the museum would display.

“You know, we’ve still not been to the Smithsonian since they opened the exhibit.” He shruged, hoping his tone was casual enough to make it sound like he hadn’t been thinking about it enough. He failed though, smiling as Katie looked at him, arching an eyebrow.

Busted.

“Call it curiosity.” He shrugged.

“You know what curiosity did don’t you?” Katie quipped back, her eyes flashing playfully.

“What?”

She grinned as she delivered the punchline “Killed the Cap.”

*****

“A symbol to the nation. A hero to the world. The story of Captain America is one of honour, bravery and sacrifice,” the narrator at the Smithsonian museum said as we entered the exhibit.

Steve paused to pull the collar of his blue jacket up a little further, a gesture that, along with the cap that was pulled down over his face, he hoped would prevent him from being recognised as they made their way to the start of the pieces.

"Denied enlistment due to poor health, Steven Rogers was chosen for a program unique in the annals of American warfare. One that would transform him into the world’s first super soldier,” the Narrator continued. Steve paused to look at the display to his right when Katie gently nudged him.

“Think you’ve been rumbled.”

Steve looked down at her, and then followed her gaze as she looked to her left at a small boy dressed in a light blue T-shirt adorned with the design of his shield who was watching the pair of them, his eyes growing wide. Steve smiled, put a finger against his mouth to indicate for him to keep quiet. The boy nodded and then turned, running back off to find his mum.

Without speaking Steve took her hand and led her over to the part of the exhibit that had an older looking motorcycle on a platform and some black and white footage playing beside it. The footage was of him in his older Captain America uniform, also currently on display, running through a battlefield.

“In this rare footage, everyone’s favourite war hero, Captain America…”

He didn’t stop to hear the rest, he could remember that mission by heart. It had been on the outskirts of Toulouse, liberating another HYDRA prison camp. Katie allowed herself to be led by him, this was his moment after all. They slowly walked to a display of mannequins dressed in his original suit, plus those of the Howling Commandos, which had been donated by their families. His eyes lingered on Bucky’s for a second and he took a deep breath.

“Battle tested, Captain America and his Howling Commandos quickly earned their stripes. Their mission, taking down HYDRA, the Nazi rogue science division,”

Katie looked at the uniforms, a smile on her face. She had only seen photos of Steve’s war suit, never seen it in person and it intrigued her. More so because this was something that her dad had made, something physical he had touched. She felt a tug on her hand again, and she looked up to see that she was being led to a section dedicated to Bucky. The familiar (albeit again, only from photos), handsome face of his best friend looked back at them as they wandered over to read what it said in more detail.

“Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable on both school yard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country…”

The narration didn’t cover half the text on the black, glass screen and in Katie’s opinion it wasn’t a particularly good tribute to a man who had lost his life in such tragic circumstances. She read the rest of the text as Steve’s eyes skated over it, reading, despite the fact he knew it all. He wished he could have saved him, he really did. He’d loved him to have been able to meet Katie. But then, he wouldn’t have anyway. As he would have most likely been dead now. Or what’s to say things may or may not have ended up differently. Would Buck have been on the Valkyrie with him?

He watched the black and white footage playing, where the two of them were talking and then laughing about something and he felt the sadness hit his chest again. And as if she sensed it too, Katie gripped his hand a little bit tighter and lay her head against his arm, her weight giving him something to anchor himself too, and he was grateful for it.

They carried on walking and then they found there was a small cinema area a bit further round the corner playing footage and interviews. Steve paused for a second and then looked at Katie, the question stayed silent. She nodded and together they walked in, taking a seat on one of the benches. There was a bit of introduction footage, and then a familiar face appeared on the screen.

Besides him Katie took a deep breath and whispered a single word “Dad…” and he automatically dropped a hand to her knee, where she placed hers on top of his as the two of them watched her father an animatedly talking to the camera.

“Rogers was different” Howard spoke, smiling, the caption on the screen telling him the footage had been filmed in 1953. “He was constantly striving to do the right thing, with no fear or care for how it would affect him. He, err, when we dropped him behind enemy lines we had no idea if we would see him again. I narrowly escaped myself, the machine guns nearly took our aircraft down but without thought to how he would get back, he told us to leave him behind. When they declared him missing in action the entire company was devastated but, lo and behold… well they can’t keep a good man down.” Howard paused and then looked down and back up at the camera “I can only hope that if I’m graced with Children, they grow up to be half as driven as he was to do the right thing…”

As Katie looked down at her feet, a stray tear fell down her cheek. Seeing her dad there like that was raw. She knew that Tony felt the loss of their parents far more than she did, she had only been seven after all when they had died and Tony had been her father, if you will, for far longer than her actual dad had. But still, seeing him in front of her so candidly, talking about his hopes for his future children, made something in her chest tighten and she couldn’t help but feel sadness at the fact she never got the chance to really know him. Steve gently squeezed her knee, but then as they looked back up at the screen it was his turn to still as someone he recognised extremely well, her face painted into his memory for life, entered the screen and began speaking, also in 1953.

"That was a difficult winter. A blizzard had trapped half our battalion behind the German line. Steve, Captain Rogers, he fought his way through a HYDRA blockade that had pinned our allies down for months.” Peggy Carter stumbled slightly through the interview. “He saved over a thousand men, including the man who would become my husband as it turned out. Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life,” And despite the fact that she smiles slightly at the end of this line, it’s clear to see that talking about Steve affected her a lot.

Katie leaned against him and with a breath he lay his head on top of hers. “We haven’t seen her for a while…” she whispered as the video finished. “Shall we go on the way home?” He gave a soft chuckle and dropped a kiss to the crown of her head.

“You read my mind.”

*******

Peggy was pleased to see them, as always when she was having a good day. They both greeted her and after a few pleasantries they told her about their trip to the Smithsonian. Peggy smiled, informing them that she remembered the interview, like it was yesterday, apparently the man interviewing her had been an “utter rogue”, but she didn’t elaborate on what that meant further than saying he was worse than Barnes, which made Steve laugh. They chatted a little about her time as Director at SHIELD before she trailed off with a sigh as she noticed that Steve was uncharacteristically quiet. After a little gentle coaxing from her and Katie he told her what was on his mind.

“My whole life I’ve just wanted to do what was right, I guess I’m not sure what that is anymore.” He paused for a moment, thinking of how to voice his worries about SHIELD “And I thought I could just throw myself back in and follow orders, it’s just not the same.”

Peggy chuckled as she rolled her eyes and looked at Katie. “He’s always so dramatic.”

Katie let out a small laugh, nodding her agreement. “Tell me about it!”

Steve shook his head, a smile on his face as he raised his eyebrows slightly and looked away as Peggy continued to speak.

“Look you saved the world, we rather mucked it up.”

“No you didn’t. You know, knowing that you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay.”

“And the other half being?” Her eyes strayed to Katie who smiled, looking down and then up at Steve as he caught her eye, his hand resting on her knee.

“I quit remember?” Katie reminded her.

Peggy smiled “Indeed, a woman with principles. That I can get on board with. ”Katie gave a little smile as Peggy continued. “Look, the world has changed and none of us can go back.” She spoke softly. “All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.“

At that she started to cough. Steve quickly picked up a glass of water from the table and rounded the back of the chair Katie was sitting in to try and hand her the glass.

"Peg?” He held the glass out as her coughing subsided and she took a sip. Once she had finished she looked up and stared at Steve as if she was seeing a ghost

“Steve?” Peggy breathed out in an amazed yet broken voice.

“Yeah,” Steve whispered, his heart sinking as he recognised the look in her face. Her memory had gone, again.

“You’re alive! You, you came, you came back,” Peggy whimpered. Tears were gathering in her eyes at this point as she tried to hold them back and Steve was struggling to do the same with his own. One of the smartest, nicest, bravest women he had ever met was being betrayed by an illness that was literally rotting her brain. It was cruel, and every time she did this, they went through the same routine.

“Yeah, Peggy.” Steve responded forcing a smile onto his face as Katie squeezed his hand gently, standing up so he could take the chair next to Peggy.

“It’s been so long. So long,” Peggy started to cry, giving up on holding back her tears.

“I’ll leave you with her.” Katie spoke softly as she gently touched Steve’s shoulder. His hand briefly reached up to lay over hers before he leaned over to take Peggy’s.

“Well, I couldn’t leave you.” He forced himself to smile. “Not when you still owe me a dance.”

Normally that calmed the old lady down, but not today. She was becoming more and more confused and in the end he had to press the call button.

“Again?” The nurse who attended asked softly, and Steve simply nodded.

“I’ll fetch the doctor.”

Outside Katie took a deep breath and headed towards her car. Ex partners could always be an issue in relationships but this was something else, something completely different. She opened the passenger side to the car and sat side on in the seat, door open, legs dangling out. She felt sorry for Peggy, she really did, and her heart ached for Steve. It can’t be easy seeing the woman he once loved, and probably still did in some way, fading like that in front of your eyes.

She ran her hand over her face, rubbing at her eyes slightly and waited as she watched various people coming and going out of the main doors of the hospital. It wasn’t that long before a familiar figure appeared, a flash of white T-shirt standing out against his dark navy jacket and equally dark jeans as he walked towards her, hands in his pockets. She stood up, not saying a word as she wrapped her arms around him and he buried his face into the nook of her shoulder and neck, his safe place, his hands gently resting on her hips as he breathed out a sigh.

“Is she okay?” she asked gently. “Yeah they sedated her.” He said as he pulled away.

“I’m so sorry Steve.”

“What for?” “Peggy…it’s so unfair.” “Yeah…” He replied simply. And it was. He wished things could be different, that Peggy wasn’t ill. That she could be home, with her family, living out the last years of her life with the dignity she had lived the rest of it. She deserved more. He looked over the car roof across the street and watched for a second, everyone milling about their business, getting on with their lives. Like he was, and whilst he wished things had been different for Peggy, he suddenly found himself thinking and wondering if he would change anything if he could.

He felt Katie still in front of him, reacting to the fact he himself had changed posture, and as he looked down at her he was suddenly struck with the answer to his question. Despite everything, despite his sudden feelings of nostalgia sparked by the events of the last twenty hours or so, no he wouldn’t. Because whatever had happened, every action, every decision, it had led him to the girl now in his arms, and he loved her so fucking much it hurt. Yeah he had loved Peggy, he still did in some ways, but it was nothing compared to this. Nothing.

He reached out and took Katie’s hands, pulling up her arms so they were round his neck, pulling her closer to him as his own hands joined at the bottom of her back

“I love you.” He said gently, needing her to understand, to believe him. “My best girl.”

“I hope I’m your only girl, Rogers.” She sassed back with a sniff, and he smiled softly, happy that she understood.

“How about we head back to mine and not leave the flat for the entire day tomorrow?” Steve looked down at her, the idea suddenly coming to him and her face lit up. Katie loved lazy days. It was rare Steve was in the mood for them, his incessant energy normally meant he had to be doing something. But on the odd time he agreed, it usually involved them staying in bed till about midday, then watching old movies on the TV under a blanket on the couch, maybe a bit of fooling around and then calling a take out before retreating back to bed. Right now that sounded like a damned fine idea. “Can you clear your diary?”

“Consider it cleared.”

“I just wanna make one quick stop on the way home” He suggested, his journey of contemplation was leading him to one more place. He glanced at his watch before planting a kiss on her lips as she looked at him questioningly. “Thought we could pay our jogging friend a visit.”

********

“Look who it is. The running man and his pretty girl.” Sam joked slightly as he came over to the doorway where Katie and Steve were stood.

“Hey.” Katie smiled as he dropped a kiss onto her cheek.

“Caught the last few minutes. It’s pretty intense,” Steve commented as Sam shook his hand.

“Yeah, brother, we all got the same problems. Guilt, regret,” Sam shrugged. As his sentence went on his voice got more serious and softer.

“Have you lost someone?” Steve asked, perceptive as ever. Katie mentally cursed herself for not filling him in fully, but Sam didn’t seem too bothered to talk about it. He nodded gently.

“My wingman, Riley. Fly in the night mission. A standard PJ rescue op, nothing we hadn’t done a thousand times before, till an RPG knock Riley’s dumb ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It’s like I was up there just to watch,” Sam paused to cross his arms over his chest, his posture slightly tense. “After that, I had really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?”

“But you’re happy now, back in the world?” Steve asked

“Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about zero. So, hell, yeah,” Sam joked, loosening up slightly, before getting a bit serious, “You thinking about getting out?”

“No.” Steve replied quickly before he took a breath. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know what I would do with myself if I did.”

“Ultimate fighting?” Sam shrugged and Steve laughed as Katie snorted. “It’s just a great idea off the top of my head. But seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?”

Steve turned his head to look at Katie, an unconscious movement, smiling gently as he shrugged. “I dunno…”

“Oh I think you do.” Sam said, smirking slightly as Steve placed his hand on the small of his girl’s back.

“Oh, stop by the front desk on your way out,” Katie turned to Sam, smirking, and he raised an eyebrow in question,

“We asked for you by name.” Steve clarified.

“She seemed thoroughly impressed.” Katie finished. Both of Sam’s eyebrows rose at that and he looked down the hallway towards where the front desk was.

“You two are the best.” A smile stretching across his face as he began to turn to head down the hall. “Stop by anytime.”

“No problem.” Steve grinned in amusement as Sam jogged his way down the hall.

It was gone eight by the time they got home, having made a pit stop for a beer on the way. Steve held the door open for Katie, and she stepped into the apartment building and started to climb the stairs in front of him, giving him a quite pleasing view of her ass as her hips swayed side to side in front of him.

“Sam’s right you know.” She continued their discussion from the bar. “And so is Peggy.”

“What about?”

“If you wanted to get out you could do, start over.”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I want, but spending the rest of my life playing janitor for Fury is not it.”

“I can write you a resignation note.” She grinned and Steve chuckled slightly and then took a deep breath.

“You know, it’s funny when I think about it. Us, stuff, what we’ve done and how far we’ve come in a year.”

“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.” She teased as she stepped onto his landing.

“No, that’s not what I mean at all.” He took a deep breath as she headed towards his door and turned to face him “You know, I’ve never really talked to anyone or shown them about my past in detail or introduced anyone to Peggy bar you.”

“Well I am your girlfriend.” She shrugged, holding onto the hand that wasn’t digging into his jeans pocket to fish out his keys. “Your best girl.” At that he smiled. “So you should be able to talk to me about anything.”

“I know, I’m not explaining myself very well.” He remarked, finally succeeding in obtaining his keys. And he wasn’t. He was trying to tell her that he couldn’t imagine his life without her, that he wanted her to share his everything, including his home.

“Spit it out Rogers.” She teased as he slid the key into the lock.

He took a deep breath. “Coming home last night and you being there…and then this morning…it was perfect, Doll, and I want that all the time.” He turned to face her leaving his key hanging from the door. “How would you feel about us maybe moving in together?”

She paused for a moment, looking at him, realising he was deadly serious. She raised her eyebrow.

“I thought you came from a time where man and woman didn’t live together until they were married?”

“We could get married if you want.” He blurted out. That made Katie raise both eyebrows as she studied him again, her mouth dropping into a small ‘o’. Steve looked back at her, trying to keep his face passive, as if it had been a joke, even though he knew it wasn’t. He’d known for months she was the one.

But to blurt it out like that? Outside his apartment door, in such a dumbass way?

Way to go, Rogers.

Katie cocked her head to one side, there was a funny look on Steve’s face that she couldn’t place. But whatever it was, even if Steve was serious about them getting married, she knew him well enough to understand that was not how he would want to propose, and that he was probably kicking himself about stumbling it out the way he had done. So she broke the nervous tension, as she always did, with a slight joke.

“You know, that’s not much of a proposal.” She slid her arms up around his neck. “But its one step up from you’d make a great housewife, I suppose.”

“Should I try again?” A cheeky grin spread across his face, glad the tone was playful, his arms circling her waist “Yeah, with a big, fuck off Tiffany diamond.”

“I didn’t think you were so materialistic?”

“Well, you know what they say? Diamonds are a girls’ best friend.”

“And there I was, thinking it was me.” He muttered, his lips pressing onto hers.

“That’s so sweet!” A voice interrupted and they both turned to look at Kate, his neighbour from over the hall. For a split second Steve thought she was talking to them but it soon became apparent she was on the phone. “That’s so nice…but hey, I gotta go…okay bye…”

She dropped the phone into the basket of laundry she was carrying before grinning at us both “My aunt, she’s kind of an insomniac”

Steve smile before looking at the basket of washing in her arms as he dropped his arm round Katie’s shoulder “you know if you want…if you want, you can use my machine. Might be easier and cheaper than the one in the basement.” “Thank you, but I already have a load in downstairs actually, and you really don’t want my scrubs in your machine.” She grinned. “I just finished a rotation on the infectious diseases ward, so,”

“Ah, well, we’ll keep our distance,” Steve grinned, holding his hands up, palms out.

“Hopefully not too far.” She chuckled. “Don’t want to lose my best neighbour. Okay, well I better be off.” She turned to go before she stopped and spun back round to look at Steve. “Oh, by the way, I think you left your stereo on.”

“Right, thank you.” Steve watched her go, frowning. He looked at Katie as they both pressed their ears to the door. The record player was certainly on but…

“We definitely didn’t leave that on before.” Katie looked at him, as the gentle tones of Kitty Kallen Long Long Time hit their ears.

Steve held his finger up to his lips and gestured to the window, before leaving Katie where he was. He ran off, down the stairs as fast as he could and then he scaled the gate on the fire escape easily. Once he reached the steps which were parallel to his window he took a running jump, easily pulling himself up over the sill and into the kitchen area. Quickly and quietly he moved along the wall, picking up his shield which was leaning against the shelving unit. Holding it up, he cautiously peered round the corner of the room into the living area and instantly relaxed when he saw Fury lounging in a chair.

“I don’t remember giving you a key.” He said, somewhat sardonically.

“What, you really think I’d need one?” Nick replied. Steve shook his head and headed to the front door of the flat, pulling it open.

“Fury.” He said with a roll of his eyes, turning and walking back into the apartment.

“Huh?” Katie asked as she followed him into the living room, where the music was coming from, to see Fury sitting on the couch in the dark.

“What are you doing here?” She demanded.

"Nice to see you too, Nova. And in answer to your question my wife kicked me out.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” She continued, frowning. And she didn’t. And she wasn’t sure that he was.

“There are a lot of things you don’t about me,” Fury replied casually.

“I know, Nick. That’s the problem,” Steve grumbled walking forward as Katie remained where she was, eyes narrowed at her old boss. Steve flipped on the light switch, instantly recoiling in surprise when he noticed Fury’s injuries. Besides him Katie gasped slightly and moved to get closer to help but Fury indicated for her to stop and the both of them to stay quiet. He turned off the light again and typed something on his phone.

'EARS EVERYWHERE’.

Bugs? His apartment was bugged? By who? They both exchanged a glance and instantly Katie looked up and around the room, as if she expected to see a microphone glaring at them.

“I’m sorry to have to do this but I had nowhere else to crash,” Fury looked around a bit before he typed something else up on his phone:

'SHIELD COMPROMISED’.

Steve and Katie shared another glance, the pair of them wide eyed. This was bad.

“Who else knows about your wife?” Steve asked, keeping his voice even.

Fury showed them another text;

'YOU TWO AND ME’.

“Just my friends,” Fury grunted in pain while getting up and walking closer to them.

“Is that what we are?” Katie blinked at him. She still hadn’t completely forgiven the man for lying to them all about Coulson.

“That’s up to you.” Fury replied, his eyes darting from Katie to Steve.

Then out of nowhere came a rapid succession of gunshots. Steve quickly pushed Katie out of the way, the pair of them taking cover behind the kitchen wall as Fury groaned before he collapsed down to the floor. Steve scooted forward, keeping as low as he could, pulling him into the kitchen. Katie knelt next to him and tried to check his injuries through his black clothing when he reached up and handed something to Steve.

“Don’t, trust anyone,” he coughed before passing out. Katie and Steve both looked at what he had been handed and saw that it was a flash drive. Steve curled his hand around it and looked at Katie, but before either of them could say anything else there was the sound of someone breaking into the apartment. Steve quickly moved into a defensive position, in front of Katie and Fury, raising his shield.

“Captain Rogers?” a familiar voice suddenly called out and they watched as Kate, his neighbour, cautiously walked in with a gun pointed. “I’m Agent Thirteen of SHIELD’s Special Service.”

“Kate?” Steve frowned, shaking his head. He’d just about had his fill of surprises.

“I’m assigned to protect you.” She continued

“On whose orders?” Katie snapped.

Kate stopped as she spotted Fury lying on the floor. “His,” she dropped besides Katie, checking Fury for a pulse and then spoke into her radio

“Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive. I need EMTs.”

“Do you have a twenty on the shooter?” A SHIELD agent questioned through the radio.

Then there was a movement on the other side of the window, on the roof adjacent to the building. Steve instantly glanced up and saw a flash of silver and the shadow of a figure running across the rooftop.

“Tell them I’m in pursuit.” He said and with that he took a running jump and smashed straight through his window, and through into the office building opposite. Steve ran, keeping his eye on the man, smashing through walls, windows, anything in his way. Eventually he caught up with him on the roof and flung his shield at the assassin who, to Steve’s shock, caught it with one swift move in the hand of his metal arm. There was a pause as Steve could do nothing but eye the man with surprise before the shield came flying back. Steve caught it, with both hands on its rim but the force pushed him back a few yards along the gravel surface of the roof. By the time he had stopped the momentum moving him, the assassin had jumped. Steve ran to the edge of the building and looked down.

He was gone.

*****

“What happened?” Hill asked as they all looked through the glass window at the hustle and bustle of the operating room. Steve moved his arm from around Katie and took her hand in his, squeezing her fingers gently.

"He was at my apartment when we got home.” Steve started. “I hadn’t even had chance to ask why when there were two blasts, then another. Someone shot him through the window- three times. I tried to go after the shooter, but I lost him on the roof of the building across the street.”

Steve had no doubt in his mind that if there was anyone else in SHIELD they could trust right now it was Hill, but both he and Katie kept quiet. He had taken Fury’s warning of trusting nobody seriously and had told Katie as much as they had strode through the ED of the hospital. Both were aware that Hill was studying them, side on, her face stony.

“What aren’t you telling me?” She asked quietly.

“Nothing.” Katie answered for them.

Before Hill could drill either of them anymore, the door to the observation room flung open and heavy footsteps crossed the room, stopping at the other side of Katie.

“Is he gonna make it?” Natasha asked, almost inaudibly, staring through the window.

“We don’t know,” Hill mumbled.

“Tell me about the shooter,” Natasha whispered

“He’s fast and strong. And he had a metal arm,” Steve said, letting go of Katie’s hand to fold his arms across his chest and as he did, they both caught the look of recognition and slight fear on Natasha’s face reflected in the window.

“Ballistics?” She swallowed heavily.

“Three slugs. No rifling and completely untraceable,” Maria answered softly.

“Soviet made?”

“Yeah,” Maria looked at Natasha in shock. Steve turned to face her, as did Katie, but she didn’t look back. She stared straight through to the operating theatre but before Katie could ask what it was that she wasn’t saying, the operation room went into overdrive. Machines started beeping erratically, the doctors and nurses were rushing around the room and the panic was palpable even behind the glass. But they couldn’t save him.

“Time of death, 1:03 A.M.”

A few moments passed as the four of them stood completely in shock. Katie reached up to wipe a tear that had trickled down her cheek away, before Natasha turned and almost sprinted out of the room.

Steve pulled his hand out of his pocket, turning the flash drive that Nick had given him over in his hand. Nick had been killed because he knew whatever it was that was on that drive. What could possibly be so bad, so secret, so dangerous that the Director of SHIELD was deemed a threat for knowing? He glanced up at Katie who was watching him, tears in her eyes. She might have had her issues with Fury, but he was a good man and would never have wished him dead. With a sigh Steve placed the item back into his pocket and pulled her in for a hug.

******

A little later, they were all in the same room as Nick’s body. Natasha was by him, hardly having moved a muscle, almost like she was in shock. And it unnerved Katie. Nat wasn’t one to really show emotion but then again, Fury had meant a lot to her. The door opened and a doctor entered, speaking to Hill. She nodded and then walked over to Katie and Steve, coughing to clear her throat.

“They need to take him.” She said, her voice cracking slightly. Steve nodded and stepped forwards.

“Nat. Natasha…” But at that she turned away from them all and made her way quickly into the corridor of the Hospital. Katie and Steve looked at one another, before they hastily followed her.

“Why was Fury in your apartment?” Natasha span around to ask Steve. Her eyes were filled with sadness, but Katie could also see suspicion etched on her pretty features.

“I don’t know,” Steve sighed shrugging his shoulders, and before the conversation could go on further they were interrupted by Rumlow.

“Cap, they want you back at Shield,” He informed them, gently touching Katie’s shoulder. “You too Nova.”

“Alright, give us a second,” Steve nodded dismissing Rumlow, perhaps a little more harshly than he intended, as he turned back to Natasha but Rumlow was insistent

“They want you now,”

“Alright” Katie spoke firmly but calmly. Rumlow nodded and then moved back down the hallway.

“You’re a terrible liar.” Natasha shook her head at Steve with her trademark smirk that didn’t reach her eyes before she turned and left.

“What the hell is on that drive?” Katie asked Steve after a moment of silence.

“I don’t know, but it’s what Natasha was saving data to on our mission the other day.” He replied before he looked up staring very focused into a vending machine to his right, which was open as a janitor filled it up. He didn’t want to take the drive back to the Triskellion, just in case. He knew that something wasn’t quite right.

Katie caught his eye before glancing around the hallway that was mostly full of SHIELD agents, luckily they were all congregated on the other end.

“Do it.” She nodded, figuring out his intention to hide the item “I’ll distract them.”

Without another look back at him, she began to stride forwards towards Rumlow.

“Its almost four am.” she glanced at her watch. “What do they want us for Brock? We already told Sitwell what we know and I don’t work for SHIELD anymore, remember?”

Rumlow shrugged “Honestly, I don’t know Nova. I’m just under instructions to get you both back to base.”

At that point Steve reached them, but he wasn’t stopping. Taking Katie’s hand he nodded to the STRIKE leader

“Let’s go.”

“Yeah,” Rumlow fell into step with them, fixing his earpiece. “Strike! Move it out.”

Steve drove to the Triskellion, Katie’s car flanked by the Armoured SUVs as they sped through the streets of DC. Katie dozed off for ten minutes and Steve let her sleep, lost in his own thoughts. He had expected her to be called in alongside him, especially after she had been, along with him, the last people Fury had spoken to him before he died. But he wasn’t happy about it, he wanted her as far away from whatever the hell was going on as possible. Once they arrived he gently shook her awake and the two of them were given an hour or so to grab something to eat. Neither were hungry, but they forced down their sandwiches, Katie’s brain working in overdrive as she did so. Something was nagging at her, and she was trying to make the connections, figure it out, but her head simply kept replaying Fury getting shot over and over.

“Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive. I need EMTs.”

“Do you have a twenty on the shooter?”

She frowned.

“What is?” Steve asked, coffee in his hand as he sat back on one of the large chairs in one of the common rooms by the kitchen area.

“Before…when Kate…Agent thirteen, whatever the hell her name is called back to base…she said Fury was down and needed EMTs…”

She paused and Steve waited, knowing how her analytical brain worked. She had to follow threads, talk them over or write them out, letting them weave together as she did. A look of comprehension crossed her face as the threads connected.

“Sitwell…” She whispered.

“What about him?” Steve asked. “He was the one that replied, at least it sounded like him.” She bit her lip, but not in the seductive way that made his crotch twitch, the way she did when she was thinking “And he asked…do you have a twenty on the shooter.”

Steve frowned, not quite sure where this was going. “Okay…” “Well, how did he know Fury had been shot? How could anyone know he had been shot?”

Now he understood. He understood completely. Damned it she was clever. “They couldn’t.” He sat up and leaned towards her, his voice dropping. “Not unless they were there or Kate…whoever, told them.”

“And she didn’t. She just said he was down and unresponsive.” “Which means…” Steve began, but Katie finished for him. “Sitwell knew about the hit. Because he was in on it.”

The both looked at one another, their faces wearing similar looks of shock. Fury was right, SHIELD was compromised. But how far, they had no idea.

Before Steve had chance to say anything else, the door opened and Rumlow stepped in

“Secretary Pierce is ready now guys.” “Thanks.” Katie nodded, shooting Steve another glance as they both stood up.

“Not a word.” He mumbled as they got into the elevator “We say nothing, not until we figure out who we can trust.”

“If we can trust anyone.” She mumbled back.

*****

“Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?” Secretary Pierce looked at Steve as he sat on the couch next to Katie in the large office.

“I don’t know.” He answered in a soft voice.

“Did you know it was bugged?” Pierce pressed on.

“We did.” Katie nodded meeting the secretary’s eye. “Because Nick told us.”

“Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?”

Steve took a breath and glanced at Katie, his expression stony but the two of them shared the understanding.

No, no he had not.

“I want you to see something.” Pierce continued, and gestured to a monitor just behind the couches we were sitting on. On the screen was a man tied down to a chair, he looked to be currently being interrogated. Katie didn’t recognise the man, but Steve did. It was Batroc, the lead merc from the hijacking of the Lemurian Star.

“Is that live?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not so safe house in Algiers.”

“Are you saying he’s a suspect?” Steve didn’t take his eyes off the screen “Assassination isn’t Batroc’s line.”

“It’s more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to hijack the Lemurian Star. He was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts. The last going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech.” Pierce said handing Steve a folder.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Steve skimmed through the file offered to him in curiosity and confusion.

“Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at 1437.”

“Wait,” Katie frowned as she gathered what Pierce was suggesting. “Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?”

“The prevailing theory?” Pierce shrugged. “The hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick’s death.”

“If you really knew Nick Fury you’d know that’s not true.” Steve replied strongly, and he believed it. Fury was a lot of things, but a traitor he was not.

Pierce nodded in agreement. “Why do you think we’re here talking?” He then got to his feet and began to walk towards the window. “See, I took a seat on the council not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy, and the hand shaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies.”

Steve didn’t like the way this was going. He looked at Katie and gestured for her to stand as he did. Pierce turned back around and looked at them both.

“Those people that call you dirty because you’ve got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today,” Pierce shoved his hands in his pockets. “Makes me really, really angry. Captain, you and Miss Stark were the last ones to see Nick Fury alive. I don’t think that’s an accident.” Pierce said matter-of-factly. “And I don’t think you do, either. So, I’m going to ask again was he there?”

“He told us not to trust anyone.” Steve said honestly.

Pierce made a humming sound. “I wonder, if that included him.”

There was a tense moment of silence before Steve spoke again. “I’m sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse us,” He turned to leave, picking up his shield that he sent down upon our arrival and attaching it to the harness on his back, before ushering Katie out of the room slightly ahead of him.

“Captain,” Pierce’s voice halted him mid step and he turned to look at him. “Someone murdered my friend. I’m going to find out why. Anyone who gets in my way is going to regret it.” Pierce’s voice rang out again, a pointed look in their direction.

Steve wasn’t a stupid man, and he knew that was a veiled threat. He took a deep breath, considering his response, before he decided appearing un-rattled was the best option.

“Understood.” He nodded, holding the door open for Katie to step through keeping himself between her and Pierce as he followed, anchoring his hand on her back to keep her moving.

“You should have lied.” She whispered.

“Huh?” “Back then, said we didn’t know why Fury was there. By telling him that he told us not to trust anyone he knows we know and that we’re hiding something.” Her tone was a little panicked and Steve simply took a deep breath.

“We need to get to the hospital and get that stick.” He looked at her, remaining adamant that whatever it was that was on there would hold the answers. He looked up and down the corridor before they stepped into the elevator.

“Operations Control” Steve spoke as the elevator scanned his face and Katie’s Guest ID.

“Confirmed”

Just as the doors were about to close, Rumlow stepped in with two other STRIKE agents.

“Keep all STRIKE personnel on site” He was saying. Both the agents nodded and voiced their acknowledgement of his order. “Forensics.”

“Confirmed.”

“Cap, Nova…” Rumlow nodded to them both.

“Rumlow.” Steve acknowledged him as the doors closed and they started to descend.

“Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see.” Rumlow turned his head to look at Steve. “You want me to get the tac-team ready?”

“No, let’s wait and see what it is first.”

“Right.” Rumlow turned back and Steve looked out of the side of the elevator, pondering what his next move was. Chase down the man responsible? The drive? The elevator stopped at the next floor and Rollins plus a few more SHIELD and Strike agents entered, Steve moving over slightly to allow them in.

“What’s the status so far?” Rollins was saying.

“Administrations level” another one asked, before they continued whatever it was they were talking about, moving round to find a space behind Steve and Katie.

He noticed Katie look round, a frown on her face, but before he could say anything Rumlow spoke, looking over his shoulder at Steve.

“I’m sorry about what happened with Fury. Messed up, what happened to him”

“Thank you.” Steve nodded.

Katie could sense something was off. Years of training as an Agent didn’t just leave you when you quit, and those years of training had taught her very well to read body language. Rumlow was alert, too alert, and it was more than just a nervousness because Fury had been killed. There was an atmosphere in the lift, and she glanced at one of the agents that had joined them at the last floor. He was still talking, normally, but he there was a bead of sweat dripping down his cheek from his temple.

Steve could sense it too. He watched as Rumlow and Rollins exchanged a glance and looked down at Katie who was watching him, nervous expression on her face. He shook his head gently, instructing her to keep calm.

The elevator stopped and another agent entered.

“Records”

This one stood in front of them, facing the elevator doors and it was then with a slight air of exasperation at allowing it to happen, Steve realised they were surrounded. Whilst he wasn’t too concerned, he knew he could more than likely fight his way out, it was his girl he was bothered for. It had been months since she had been in active combat, and this was going to be brutal. Besides him Katie stiffened, feeling very underprepared for what was about to go down. She had no weapons, nothing. Instinctively Steve gripped her hand and pulled her forward so she was stood next to him instead of behind and moved his feet apart slightly, hands on the buckle of his belt, adopting his Captain stance, preparing for what was coming.

“Before we get started,” he sighed, looking down before he stared straight ahead, “does anyone want to get out?”

His eyes flicked to the back of Rumlow’s head. There was a moment’s pause before all hell broke loose. They both put up a good fight, ducking, diving, punching. Steve was then shocked with a baton, but he simply grit his teeth, absorbing the electricity into his body. It hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable. And then, three of them managed to snap one of his arms to the wall of the elevator using some kind of metallic clamp, before five of them piled on him at once, attempting to pin his other arm in too. He kicked out, taking down as many as he could.

Just as Katie had floored the second of the agents who had launched at her, she was grabbed from behind by her hair and hauled to the edge of the elevator, being wrestled roughly to the floor by Rumlow who was instantly on top of her, trying to get her wrists from where she had positioned them underneath her body in an attempt to stop them restraining her.

"Brock…” She spoke gently, looking at him as she swallowed. “What’s going on?” “I’m sorry Stark.” He shook his head. “Just following orders.”

“Yeah well follow this.” She snarled, the anger brewing in her as she jerked her head forwards as hard as she could, feeling it connect with his nose. He yelled, and then her head snapped painfully to the right as he back handed her straight across the face. She felt her lip split and the warm, metallic taste of blood hit her taste buds, stars flashing in front of her eyes as her ears began to ring from the harsh knock.

Steve saw Rumlow land the blow to Katie’s face and let out a growl of anger and aimed another kick at the final agent standing, causing them man to collide with the side of the elevator before slumping down. He turned, pulled on his arm as hard as he could, wrenching the cuff off the side of the elevator and looked up in time to see Katie, who was now pinned against the wall by another set of those damned cuffs, take a blow to the ribs from Rumlow causing her to cry out in pain.

“Rumlow!” Steve yelled causing the man to whip his head round, surprise on his face. Katie, using her arms as leverage, swung her legs upwards, kicking Rumlow with both feet. The STRIKE leader stumbled slightly as Steve snarled at him, his entire body and face alight with rage “Touch my girl again and I’ll fucking kill you.”

Rumlow got to his feet, holding one of his arms out, electric rod in his hand “Whoa, big guy. I just want you both to know, this ain’t personal.”

He then lunged at Steve with his electric rod but one on one Steve was easily able to defend himself, he moved to the right, dodged and grabbed Rumlow, throwing him harshly upwards where he crashed into the ceiling of the elevator, before falling to the floor, unconscious.

“Yeah well, it kind of feels personal” Steve said, his breath slightly ragged from the exertion. He used his foot to flip his shield over like a Frisbee, catching it perfectly.

“You alright?” Steve asked, stepping over the bodies that littered the floor of the elevator to get to Katie.

“Yeah.” She assured him. Steve cut the cuffs that were restraining her into two pieces with his shield and she bent over, his hands gently on her back as she rubbed at her side before straightening up and stalking over to where Rumlow was beginning to stir slightly. She kicked him hard in the face, causing him to flip backwards and he was out, unconscious.

“Nothing personal.” She spat, then looked up at Steve. There was a moment during which they both looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened, before the elevator doors opened and Steve pulled Katie sharply behind him. They both stared at a team of STRIKE agents pointing their weapons into the elevator. Steve raised his shield.

“Drop the shield! Put your hands in the air!”

Steve looked round, and spotted the elevator wires to the left of Katie’s head

“DUCK!” he yelled at her, and as she did, he swiped with his shield over her head sending them plummeting. Eventually the emergency brake systems kicked in and the elevator stopped, slightly misaligned with the doors by a few feet. As Katie bent down to retrieve a gun and some ammo off one of the Agents, Steve forced the door open, intending to climb out but more STRIKE agents were approaching. He closed the door again and looked at Katie, then around the glass walls, looking down below us at the glass roof of the main Triskelion atrium.

It was a long way but they could make it.

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Katie exclaimed, realising exactly what he was thinking.

“Give it up, Rogers! Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!” came the yell from the floor outside the elevator door.

“Do you trust me?” Steve asked, both his hands cupping Katie’s face.

“Of course I do, but…”

“Then hang on…”

She sighed and jumped onto his back, swinging her legs round his waist and her arms round his neck. Steve raised his shield in front of him, before he propelled them forward and broke through the glass in the elevator, spreading his arms out wide as he fell to prevent them from tumbling through the air before tucking his body as tightly in to his shield as he could. Katie did the same, burying her head into his back as they crashed through the glass ceiling and hit the floor with a loud clang, to screams and shouts from people all around the atrium.

Katie gave a soft groan, rolling off Steve who moaned and stretched out, having been winded from the impact. But Steve knew they had to keep moving. With a monumental effort, he pushed himself up onto his knees, took a deep breath and offered his hand to Katie to help her stand. They both took a quick glance around before he started to run, pulling her with him. She stumbled slightly, but Steve kept hold of her, not letting her fall until her legs seemed to be working again.

And then they ran.

**** Chapter 15

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #Katie Stark #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #mcu #mcu fanfic #captain america #chris evans #chris evans characters

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bumbleartz · 4 years ago

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So got inspired by @sondrawr and @gotham-mother-of-monsters and had this ramble pop into my head. Hadn't flipped through my Mercy books in a while so it was fun to go back and refresh. Covers from the first book up to Storm Cursed and has spoilers if you haven't gotten that far.

Jesse has heard the title Marrok on and off throughout her childhood. Usually the title is whispered between the wolves or her father in tones she isn't supposed to hear. These conversations always ended in her being hustled off to the care of her mother or after the divorce being sent off to her room. The first time it became more than a hushed precursor to her being shuffled off is after being taken hostage. Her father had pulled her into his office and given her a name to go with the title along with a number to enter into her phone. "He is the head of all the wolves. If something happens regarding pack business or you feel for some reason you can't get to any of us or Mercy you call that number." She'd dutifully filed the number away as instructed under Bran Cornick and promptly had the conversation fade to where she kept the rest of what was considered pack information.

The first time she sees the Marrok is in the entryway way to the house in the middle of the night. She's too distracted by the fact her father is home safe to pay much attention to the others in the room as she is carefully wrapped into his arms. He looks like crap and smells worse even to her normal human nose. She can't bring herself to care as the tears she's fought so hard not to shed wet her eyes. When she unburies her face from her father's chest long enough to take note of the others there she's honestly too tired from the stressful nights of waiting to register anything beyond them being in one piece and alive. Later, after the first good night's sleep she's had in days, there will have been too many new faces for her to register who was who. The only one she can place a name to with any certainty is Charles. Mercy laughs and tells her Charles has that effect on people when she goes to see her later.

The first time Jesse meets the Marrok is not long after on a midnight escapade to calm her nerves. Another nightmare has had her shooting awake and the images are still playing in full technicolor behind her lids each time she closes them. It's been almost a year since she was taken hostage and yet the blinding terror feels as fresh as ever. She'd turned down therapy when it was offered. What was she supposed to say? Yeah, some werewolf thought they could use me as leverage to make my dad behave so they could use him in some murder plot with a side of treason? She'd known how well that would have gone over. She'd thought they would fade over time. Maybe they would have if things had gone back to normal; a demon vampire threat, murder plotting psychos, and the attack on Mercy had happened instead. Jesse didn't bother adding the destruction of her social life and ongoing mom issues to the list since they just seemed to pale in comparison to the rest. Anymore Jesse found herself waiting for the next horror story. The most recent of which was currently causing all the wolves various fits. She currently wasn't clear which was bothering them more: one of their own being resurrected or Mercy being pulled into the pack. The kitchen light is on as she rounds the corner and she expects to see any number of people outside of the vaguely familiar stranger currently staring back at her. Somewhere between him asking her if she couldn't sleep and making the hot chocolate the same way Mercy does it dawns on her this person who looks barely older than her is the Marrok. Her tired brain tries to summon up the awe with a side of shock she should be feeling and fails miserably. Instead she finds herself nursing her mug of cocoa and making small talk while the Marrok takes drinks of his own. In the midst of the conversation he manages to get her to verbal vomit about her nightmares and the troubles she's been having at school. She manages to find out he has a deep dislike of Shakespeare, has a deep love for music, and possesses a terrifying wit. By the time she is making her way back to her room and he to the guest room she is feeling better then she has in months. He's already gone when she gets up leaving her without ever getting a chance to say thanks. While it isn't a big thing it bothers her just enough to pull her phone out and send a text to the number she'd all but forgotten. The simple thank you is accompanied with a YouTube link to her favorite Lindsey Stirling video. After all, Jesse views not knowing who she is and being a violinist as a crime. The little smiley face emoji she gets in reply makes her grin.

The next time they meet she's the one providing the hot chocolate. The pack has managed to get themselves entangled with a fairy queen and Mercy has yet again made the sacrifice play. Everyone is chasing their proverbial tails trying to find her while remaining outside of her father's war path. In the meantime, Jesse feels she's improved in her chaos handling as she's only broken down twice. Apparently having your boyfriend kidnapped and going on to a fairy queen's court doesn't have the same punch as other things she has dealt with lately. When she sets the mug on the coffee table it's the wee hours of the morning and the Marrok has been seated cross legged on their monstrosity of a couch for the better part of a day. If she hadn't gotten to know him a little better over the previous months she would have felt she was intruding. However, Bran was not against using all available resources and she'd been pulled in regarding the newest resident of Aspen Creek. Kara and Jesse had clicked right off the bat and become faithful texting pals ever since. Bran rubs the bridge of his nose and blinks hard a few times despite his eyes having been closed before reaching for the mug. He looks beyond exhausted and she knows not all of it has to do with the current situation. Kara has confided in her about his lack of sleep and the way he's been running himself ragged. Jesse does her best to lighten the mood with a joke about the fairies contacting them any moment begging them to take Mercy back. Her effort is rewarded with an amused smirk and a quiet chuckle. She ends up rambling about different ways Mercy is driving the fairies nuts and is encouraged when Bran joins in. Jesse wakes to the noise of people rushing around. Bran is smiling and gripping a walking stick with a white knuckled grip from his spot on the couch when he tells her Mercy has been found.

Jesse is biting her lip to keep from laughing too loud as she informs everyone the butterflies have succeeded where the dove idea failed. Marji is cackling on the video feed in victory while Bran seems too amused to care he has just lost a hundred bucks. Two days pass in a blur of emergency calls and group texts. Despite the short time frame the wedding goes off without a hitch. Mercy is surprised and Jesse can't remember the last time her father looked so blissfully happy. Once the two love birds are off Jesse spends the rest of the reception twirling around the dance floor with Gabriel. The raised eyebrow this gets her from Bran makes her stick out her tongue. The fact Mercy comes back from the honeymoon in a wheelchair shouldn't have been much of a surprise. Jesse can picture Bran doing his iconic bridge pinch when she sends him the picture.

Bran's text to Mercy makes Jesse's lips quirk in amusement. After the destruction of the Rabbit she could use the humor. That humor plummets when the number comes up disconnected when Mercy tries to reply. The knot of concern only tightens with each person Mercy tries and fails to reach. The pain of it becomes near unbearable when they find Ben and no one else. The pain doesn't start to ease until she recognizes the dark haired man fighting beside Tad. After months of having Asil tease her about her hair after seeing it during a video chat with Kara she'd know him anywhere. Seeing her father and the pack alive and well makes the knot come undone. At least it does until she realizes one is missing and hears of Peter's death. She knows how her father will take the loss and can't bring herself to add more weight to those already overburdened shoulders. So she turns her focus to looking after the younger Sandoval children and burying her feelings as deep as possible. This works until Asil catches up to her in the kitchen getting together snacks for the kids. All he has to do is ask if she's alright and she falls apart. Asil pulls her into a hug and gives reassurances in Spanish. Jesse doesn't understand a word but it soothes her all the same. He tells her everyone in Montana is safe and she sags in relief. When everything is over and she gets a new phone that has been programmed by Charles, Asil's number is listed in the contacts.

Her mother has only been living with them for a day and Jesse wants to scream. She loves her mother but watching the resulting train wreck her mere presence is causing makes her wish she'd just leave them all alone. Even though her talk with Mercy has eased some of the hurt and anger, it hasn't gotten rid of it. Mostly because despite what Mercy said she can see the way her mother has gotten under her skin and cut her to the quick. Anger and the need for a voice of reason has her contacting Bran. Bran gently reminds her Mercy is more than capable of holding her own in a dominance dance. He must know this isn't what she was looking to hear because the next message contains Charles' number and instructions to text him. Jesse has no idea why Bran would have her talking to Charles but she copies and pastes the message she previously sent like instructed. Bran must have warned his son because Charles doesn't seem surprised to get the message. Charles turns out to be an unexpected fount of wisdom when it comes to the difficulty of broken family dynamics. It's odd how hearing from someone else that she is allowed to love her mother and yet not like her makes it feel OK. By the time her mother's stalker has been dealt with Jesse thinks she might finally be finding the path between love and hate.

Jesse isn't a wolf, but she can still feel the moment Bran breaks ties with the Columbia Basin Pack. She doesn't wait for her father and Mercy to come out of the office. Tad seems to know something is up but doesn't say anything when she gives the excuse of homework and heads to her room. Her phone is a lead weight in her hand because what do you say to someone who just had to throw away someone they love? A part of her is angry too. Angry at the pain she knows this has caused Mercy and the difficulty it will cause her father. However, Jesse knows what it is like to be caught in a situation outside your control due to the actions of those you love. She types out a promise to do what she can for Mercy and to send a warning the instant something happens requiring help. She ends the text with a little heart emoji. Current circumstances might make it harder but family out ranked all else. Jesse already knew if something happened Bran would help. She's proven right when Baba Yaga saves her father in Underhill.

Jesse's proven right again when Bran goes with her father to get Mercy back from the Lord of Night. He sends her a message promising her he will bring Mercy and her father back in one piece. She replies telling him she knows. She also tells him to come back in one piece too or she's going to have to go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At this point she's gone to battle to protect her new pyro of an adopted younger brother and managed to keep him from burning the house to the ground. She's pretty sure she can at least annoy a vampire lord. The fact she'd have backup from an Italian mercenary, a Dark Smith and more than one werewolf pack was completely irrelevant. After all the one thing she knew for certain was you always looked out for your pack, your family. Which is why as soon as she hears everyone is returning from Italy in one piece she sends a message to Tad for him to tell his dad. She also makes sure Warren passes on the message to Stefan though he doesn't need reminding. She snaps a picture of everyone getting out of the car when it pulls up and sends it to Charles and Asil because she knows hearing someone you care about is safe is not the same as seeing it. And because he is family in her eyes at this point, after she hugs her father and Mercy, she hugs Bran too.

#mercy thompson #patricia briggs #Bran Cornick #Jesse hauptman #writing

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sepublic · 5 years ago

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Musical Car!

What’s interesting is that the musical has a sign advertising Jesse’s name; Did he stop by the Musical Car at some point and inspire the denizens there with a speech about empathy, and how differences are okay? We know that had to have taken place prior to him, Lake, and Alan Dracula entering the Carnival Car, meeting The Cat, etc. Either way, I’m not at all surprised that someone as open and friendly as him would say such things, especially with an unconventional friend like Lake; And obviously he stuck by his words in the end, didn’t he?

Lemme tell you though… I was legit disturbed by that raid, as well as seeing those poor denizens get legitimately hurt and injured for no reason at all, and that ONE decapitated dude almost getting wheeled, only to be converted into Simon’s thing; Like, screw you Apex. That’s what makes Simon and Grace interesting; I’ve always imagined the concept of more problematic protagonists for this series, so it’s not much of a surprise to see Book 3 dive into this! Given how much more, well… WORSE Simon and Grace are, pehaps it’s not all-too surprise that their arc was confined to HBO Max, given the even more mature tone set by them and their actions!

Honestly, those two rapidly switch and range from terrible, nasty jerks I want to punch, to misfits with banter and chemistry, and plenty of comradery; Especially for people they DO care about! It really drives the point home that not every bad person is PURE evil, like they don’t spend every waking moment plotting how terrible they can be, and most don’t even consider themselves as bad! It’s disconcerting, but a good look into their mindset; With Grace genuinely trying to be nice and caring to the kids and not hurting their feelings, but also repeating Amelia’s lies about the train denizens being there for the passengers’ benefit, and… More on that later.

Also- Glad to see Grace make fun of Simon’s fashion sense and acknowledge it, but at the same time… Either he was ten when he began to wear socks with sandals, AND/OR he was ten when he first met Grace; Presumably on the Infinity Train, although the idea of two individuals knowing one another PRIOR to boarding it is also fascinating! Especially given how Book 2 discussed the idea of fate and pre-determination in one’s paths and all…

It’s interesting to see that not all Apex kids are against the denizens, like some DO want to make friends with them (albeit in a very invasive manner), but Grace and Simon just shut them down. I have to wonder if they themselves also had a similar moment with Amelia, only to be brutally shut down; And Amelia is objectively worse than those two considering how much higher her number is, and how SHE was the one who started this dumb ideology in the first place (instead of just being taught it at a vulnerable moment in her life like everybody else)!

What’s worth noting is that Simon has a device that can detect the presence of other passengers, which is both VERY cool and VERY useful; I have to wonder if it’ll detect Hazel in the Jungle Car however. Given the speculation of her being a train denizen, it’d serve as neat, subtle foreshadowing as to her true nature, and I can see the show touching upon this! Also, the aesthetics of that device reminds me of what The Cat would own; Given how she’ll make a return this Book and has had a run-in with at least Grace in the past, I can easily see it being something she’d own. She IS a collector of useful things, after all… And I have to wonder if maybe The Cat was even a companion of Simon or Grace; Or maybe even Amelia! Perhaps the Passenger-Detector was a ‘gift’ from Amelia…

(I mean, they HAVE to bring her back in Book 3, given how her ideology and actions are a direct consequence of everything that happens, and would fit nicely into her eventual redemption arc. Not to mention it’d give a fascinating insight as to what was going on in her mind when she indoctrinated the Apex.)

Neat detail seeing the Unfinished Car with those corgi diplomats, and nice joke with that one turtle talking to what’s later revealed to be a phone with a line that’s already cut anyway! Grace breaking her Harpoon Pack makes sense; She wasn’t seen with one in the trailer and posters, and I guess it’d help ‘balance’ things if only one protagonist had a Harpoon Pack; So they can’t just skip over cars on their way back!

Speaking of a way back; We have a set number of cars leading back to the Mall Car, so in other words we have a way of keeping track of the journey’s progress! It IS worth noting that the cars could always rearrange… It’s interesting to learn that cars apparently don’t move when passengers are inside; I always assumed that sometimes they might’ve and a passenger wouldn’t notice because all the cars look identical from the outside, and also being inside a pocket-dimension kind of skews around with the sensation of what’s going on outside. It’s possible that Simon and Grace actually felt the movement because of the Unfinished Car’s unusual nature…

Regardless, after that disturbing opening scene it makes sense that One-One is stepping in! Given how he values the passengers more than the denizens (as seen with his second and final interaction with Lake), it makes me wonder how much he actually CARES; Or if he can’t afford to have people ‘breaking equipment’, and/or is mostly doing this to lean the Apex towards becoming better people by confronting them over their actions! At this point, they may end up pushing One-One too much and he’ll have to send in his Steward…

Getting onto some existential crisis, the cruel thing about Simon and Grace saying that the denizens are made for them is… They’re actually kind of right? NOT that this justifies at all their wanton, senseless cruelty towards the train denizens… But it ties back to Lake’s existential crisis in Book 2, the realization and likelihood that she (and maybe even the Mirror World) was made purely for the character development of people like Tulip and Jesse! One-One himself outright says in the Book 2 Finale that, YEAH; Train Denizens are supposed to stay on the train because their entire purpose, their entire means of creation was just to fulfill what the passengers need!

…Obviously, using them for raids ISN’T what One-One (and/or whoever made the Infinity Train/the Infinity Train itself) intended… But the disturbing realization still stands that the denizens’ purpose and creation in life is for the betterment of passengers, to accompany them, aid them… In the past, I’ve speculated how some Cars and their inhabitants don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond being a basic caricature to fulfill the ‘theme’ of a car, as well as aiding in passengers’ journeys! And obviously they’re all PEOPLE, but again this ties back into just how real the pasts and worlds of denizens were, as discussed by Mace; The idea that entire histories and cultures have been fabricated, and pre-programmed into the memories of denizens.

Needless to say, it’s very disturbing… And if Simon and Grace ever change their stance on denizens and even start vouching for them, it’d be a brilliant reversal of their beginning attitudes to have them call out One-One for making sapient people for the sole purpose of serving others; Which could be a dilemma for him given how HE may have been made for the purpose of others! Given how Amelia taught the Apex her ideals, and she was Conductor for a time and thus had rather intimate knowledge of the Infinity Train… perhaps what she says about the denizens being just ‘toys’, made for the passengers, isn’t too far a stretch from the truth; Obviously a dark, twisted, and selfish distortion. But it’s emblematic, reflecting a deeper, underlying issue that could lie with the Infinity Train itself.

(Especially since Owen Dennis said that One-One and the Infinity Train can be wrong…)

Given how Amelia made cars with denizens that only ‘turned on’ once a car was considered ‘complete’ (or close to it), it suggests that she knows all about the artificial, pre-programmed nature of denizens because she’s made a few ones; Which when coupled with how she probably tried to make a Fake Alrick, and ultimately realized that a replica would never be the same… Eerily, it lends to the idea that part of what made Amelia realize this at the end of Book 1, was her mindset that denizens are just follow, fake copies of pre-existing things and aren’t even real to begin with.

THAT is a cruel twist; That the very ideas that founded the Apex and caused our issues in Book 3, were low-key what helped Amelia wake up from her fantasy and realize that she needed to confront her issues! Given how high her number is, it only makes sense that while she’s making progress, she STILL has some more fundamental problems to tackle; Specifically the idea that while denizens aren’t the same or ‘real’ as the original, they’re still people and whatnot!

All in all, a VERY fascinating watch! Just eleven minutes, but I’m hooked in; Sure this does tie a lot back to previously-established concepts, but what story-driven show doesn’t? It really recontextualizes and makes you think back about what WAS discussed already and how it changes with the more we learn and explore!

#infinity train #infinity train book 3 #infinity train cult of the conductor #infinity train season 3 #infinity train spoilers #infinity train season 3 spoilers #infinity train grace #infinity train simon #infinity train amelia #analysis #spoilers #it spoilers

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system76 · 4 years ago

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UYPP: Cameron Nagle's Starting Small Podcast

The System76 Unleash Your Potential Program selected six winners this year to receive a System76 computer to help them pursue their next project. This week we spoke with UYPP winner Cameron Nagle about the Starting Small Podcast, in which he hosts, records, and edits interviews with CEOs from all walks of life.

Tell us about the Starting Small Podcast.

I started Starting Small pre-COVID. When we launched in 2020, my plan was to tell stories of entrepreneurs and their upbringing, education, and the story of their overall brand. I had my first guest Chuck Surack out of Indiana, the CEO of Sweetwater Sound, a music retailer. That set my guests at a pretty high caliber from the start, because Sweetwater Sound is the largest music retailer in the world.

Once COVID struck, I had to figure out a way to interview remotely, and that’s what allowed me to really branch off and connect with these amazing entrepreneurs from across the globe like Reebok, North Face, Cards Against Humanity, and more. And ever since then, the podcast has been going great. My audience—and myself at the same time as a business student—has been able to learn so much from these entrepreneurs. My own personal network has grown exponentially, and I’m connecting with people I normally wouldn’t have been able to connect with without this podcast.

There’s a lot of people here who would be interested in hearing that Cards Against Humanity interview.

Max Tempkin was an amazing guest, a very early guest of mine. He has a really cool story.

Are you looking to move to in-person interviews?

My initial thought was to interview locally because I didn’t really know much about Zoom when I first started the podcast. Originally I was going to keep my interviews to a two-hour radius from my home, but my plan now after having some success interviewing remotely is to continue doing it remotely, as long as I’m still connecting to these executives and they’re open to it. There are some circumstances where I might drive or fly to a guest if the opportunity arises, but remotely it’s been going great and it’s super efficient for both myself and the guest.

What’s your process like for recording and editing the podcast?

For recording, I use my System76 Oryx Pro laptop. I have the guest log in to Zoom on their end and I log in on my end, and I record both sides of the audio. Once that’s recorded, we post-edit the episode and make sure the guest is okay with what they stated and the sound and everything, and then we bring it into our podcast host, which distributes everything to all the platforms. We use Podbean to distribute all of our episodes. We upload the audio and then all the copy that we want the descriptions to say, and then from there we can track all analytics and progress, and how many listens and downloads we’re getting.

What software do you use?

We record in Zoom. For editing we are currently using Pro Tools. Because I’m new to the Oryx Pro I’m still trying to figure out the editing software. After the interview I’ll take the audio and go into Pro Tools, edit, and go back in for distribution.

Is there someone who works on the podcast with you?

We have two other team members on our team. Gabby manages our social media accounts, and Kylie does PR. It’s been an amazing ride so far, and a ton of fun.

Why did you choose the Oryx Pro for this project, and how do you like it so far?

One of my friends actually owned an Oryx Pro, so I’ve used it in the past. What I recall is my own personal laptop that I had was so laggy and not up to speed when I had multiple documents open and different files open.

When I received the Oryx Pro, I was able to do multiple tasks at once, such as having multiple documents open to read for our show notes, having one of our host platforms open, having Zoom open, etc. That allows me to have much more bandwidth on this one laptop than any other laptop that I’ve ever used in the past.

How was the setup process for you?

The setup process was fairly easy. When I powered it on, the instruction walkthrough was pretty self-explanatory. I went into the settings to add a couple custom shortcuts, but other than that the setup of the laptop is very much how it would be if you were to just turn on an Oryx Pro. For someone who just buys their laptop, it’s pretty much ready for them out of the box.

How much experience do you have with Linux?

I don’t have too much experience myself recently before I received the Oryx Pro, but my family did have a mixed desktop growing up. I recall using my brother’s computer, I would play some games on their Linux system back in the day. I am fairly familiar with the software and how Linux runs, but it has been a while. I switched to Apple a few years ago and then switched back.

What’s next for the Starting Small Podcast?

We are working on transforming our podcast from audio-only to incorporating video, in order to hopefully draw in a larger audience that prefers video content. So that is definitely the next step for us. Following from there, we would be very interested in joining a network such as an NPR or other podcast network that acquires shows and be part of that network.

Where can people go to follow the podcast online?

On Instagram we’re @StartingSmallPod, and the same thing for Facebook. For listening to the episodes you can go to almost any streaming platform that hosts podcasts, such as Spotify, Apple podcasts, Pandora, and more.

And where can folks listen to your interview with System76’s own Carl Richell?

Right here!

youtube

Carl's certainly happy with his new Starting Small Podcast notebook!

Stay tuned for further updates from Cameron Nagle's Starting Small Podcast and cool projects from our other UYPP winners!

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lihimsidhe · 3 years ago

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Full Review: https://youtu.be/nMBgmV3QMwY

Summary

Stories Untold is a sci fi psychological horror adventure game released in 2017 by the studio No Code Lt and published by Devolver Digital.(1) Adventure games are characterized by exploring, puzzle solving, and narrative interactions with game characters. (2) The ‘adventure’ label hails from the 1st known adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure developed during the 1970’s. (3). In Stories Untold the player will do mostly 3 things: enter text into a writing prompt and hope what they entered progresses the game forward (text adventure), click around the environment to find interactive elements and utilize these elements in a specific order (point and click), and do some very light exploration.

Stories Untold’s origins lay in Ludum Dare; an event where game developers around the world challenge themselves to make a game from scratch in just a few days aka a ‘game jam’. (4) House Abandon was the product of such a game jam. (5) House Abandon would prove to be so well received that it is the very spark that would grow to become Stories Untold. (6). House Abandon became just one of the four stories featured in Stories Untold.

Each story has the player assume the role of an unidentified person using various electronic equipment ranging from locations that include an abandoned house, a laboratory, and a remote radio station in a blizzard. There is a fourth chapter but to explain its location and tasks can easily wade deep into spoiler territory.

It’s very difficult to reveal if this game attempts to execute on a specific message or not without spoilers. So treading as carefully as I can I will say that yes there is a message to be found here. A tragic takeaway that can hit hard for some players who put in the work to leave no narrative stone unturned.

Analysis

Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of puzzle games, or puzzles in games. They too often devolve into ‘guess what the developer was thinking’. More on this in a bit. Back to the regularly scheduled program:

The development studio behind Stories Untold, No Code Ltd, describes the game as the following:

“Four Stories. One Nightmare.

From the prototype 'The House Abandon' comes the critically acclaimed, and BAFTA winning, 'Stories Untold', the latest madness from No Code. Four short stories, tied together in a complex web of psychological-horror, intense visuals and genre-bending adventures.” How does this game execute on these selling points? Let’s address the last line first: genre-bending adventures. In my playthrough I walked in expecting a fairly basic adventure game with excellent presentation and left having experienced that same notion. This is all to say that Stories Untold, as far as I can tell, is not bending any genres.

The text adventure portion of Stories Untold doesn’t make a noticeable departure from one of the earliest text entry experiences ELIZA; a program created in the 1970’s that simulates a psychologist by responding to a user’s text entries (7). In fact after having played around with some ELIZA clones online (8) I’d say that Stories Untold actually underdelivers in this genre compared to ELIZA that was developed nearly fifty years ago. Point and click began with the game Enchanted Scepters in 1984 released on the Mac (9). In that game you do much the same as you do in Stories Untold: Moving your cursor to find an interactive point that hopefully drives the game forward. An activity unfavorably described as ‘pixel hunting’.

While I do concede that Stories Untold executes well enough on its mechanics would I also concede it is genre bending? Absolutely not. Mechanically speaking it falls very strictly within its genre.

As for the intense visuals the game advertises it has? I’m strongly inclined to agree. This game’s visuals are a love letter to the 80’s. It’s as if the game reached into the past and brought a portion of that era forward in time both temporally and visually.

Stories Untold also executes on psychological-horror aspects as well. There were times I was genuinely frightened both via jump scares and/or the dense atmosphere the game draws the player into. This game evoked feelings of fear, mystery, and foreboding of what was behind the next event.

“It is up to the designer to provide the appropriate information to make the product understandable and usable. Most important is the provision of a good conceptual model that guides the user when things go wrong.” (10) -Don Norman

The promise of a text adventure sounds great on paper: enter some text and the game reacts to what one entered driving the player’s progress forward. Just the thought of that fills my mind with excitement at being able to utilize my conversational skills I’ve learned in life to interact with a game sounds incredible The thing is, and the reason I’m personally not a fan of puzzle games is that they almost always seem like playing a game of ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ instead of the player applying their common sense to solve a puzzle.

If for example in a text adventure game you are trying to walk around a house you simply typing ‘walk around the house’ may or may not work. Perhaps the developer perceived ‘walk into yard’ as walking around the house. For me this creates a schism where it stops being about me vs the game and instead becomes a battle of how my exact wording for doing something very simple differs in verbage in how the developer would write it. So instead of walking around the house and losing myself in the story I’m now trying to guess what the developer thinks are the right words to say. What compounds this here is that the feedback is binary; either what I typed works or it doesn’t and I get the equivalent of an error message that doesn’t offer any guidance on exactly what the developer was thinking. This ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ issue wasn’t as pronounced in the point and click sections of the game. These were almost always tests on one’s observational skills and parsing over every little detail until the path forward reveals itself. Some of the puzzles I was willing to endure and some… I just looked up a walkthrough to solve them so I could get back to enjoying the game’s incredible atmosphere. The crazy thing about Stories Untold is me as a player desperately trying to scrutinize every little detail to move forward shares a strong connection to the game’s narrative. I really appreciate that despite my misgivings with this game’s puzzles.

As for the game’s narrative itself… I say I left the game mostly satisfied. Throughout the game the music, visuals, and gameplay really got my mind racing with the possibilities of the world that was spilling out before me. “Where could this story be leading?”, I excitedly pondered. And sometimes I was even afraid the game would provide an answer. Seeing how it was resolved was a bit underwhelming. I won’t lie. I went from a mind racing with possibilities to a flat, “Oh it’s that? Well that’s something I guess.”

If there was one thing I wish this game did differently it would have been to have focused entirely on the text entry mechanic presented in House Abandon. I said before I went and played with some ELIZA programs online and I loved that there was no failure state. The conversation just continued even if the code emulating a human would sometimes spout nonsense. I don’t expect anyone, let alone Stories Untold, to conjure up a fully realized artificial intelligence to amuse me for my 3 hour adventure game. But I can’t help but muse about a more realized text entry loop.

This game has 12 total achievements to earn. (11) Since the game utilizes a level select system, there are no missable achievements. Most achievements are earned by just progressing through the game. The ones that aren’t awarded in this manner are obtained by light exploration and finding some collectibles. All in all very easy to 100% in one sitting.

Significance

Stories Untold has received several notable awards (12) including British Academy of Film and Television Arts Game of the Year in 2017 (13).

Steam Reviews has it sitting at ‘very positive’(1) while Metacritic has it at a 7.0/10 user score. (14)

It has sold at least over 100,000 copies on Steam (15). If Steam sales remained roughly the same on the other platforms it was ported to (Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox) that would imply at least a few hundred thousand people have decided to enter the world this game provides. While adventure games have drastically changed since the days of Colossal Cave Adventure with games like The Walking Dead and Until Dawn, text adventures have mostly fallen out of mainstream gaming discourse. For that reason the fact that Stories Untold managed to break through in the way it did favors it being a touchstone for many adventure and text adventure games going forward.

Recommendation

Ask yourself the following: Do you like arbitrary puzzles? Do you mind some psychological horror in your entertainment? Do you ever wish you could just play through chapters in your favorite book? If you answered yes to both these questions then this game was made for you.

What if you’re like me and you can barely stand puzzles in games because they seem to evoke a ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ type of feeling?

I would still recommend this game. The reality of the game is that it can be completed in just a few hours. When you get stuck, look up a guide, solve your roadblock, and get back to enjoying this game’s stellar atmosphere. It’s really worth experiencing. Especially if you lived through and/or are a fan of the 80’s

If you’re completely puzzle adverse but still enjoy interactive narrative? It might be worth looking up a playthrough or livestream.

Sources

1. Dev & Publisher: Stories Untold on Steam (steampowered.com)

2. Adventure Game Def: https://www.britannica.com/topic/electronic-adventure-game

3. colossal cave adventure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure

4. ludum dare: https://ldjam.com

5. game jam: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2016/9/5/the-house-abandon

6. dev interview: https://www.pcgamer.com/crafting-the-unique-genre-defying-horror-of-stories-untold/

7. ELIZA (origins): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00146-018-0825-9

8. ELIZA (interactable): http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/eliza.htm

9. 1st point click game: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/history-of-graphic-adventures/

10. Don Norman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E257T6C/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_2BZA3S6D0KPFSKXFKHVM

11. Achievement List: Steam Community :: Stories Untold :: LihimSidhe

12. Various Awards: http://www.nocodestudio.com/nocodegames

13. BAFTA: https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/british-academy-scotland-awards-2017-winners-announced

14. Metacritic: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/stories-untold

15. sales: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2017/9/21/stories-untold-news-patch-indiecade-awards

#storiesuntold #nocode #devolverdigital #videogames #sciencefiction #horror #adventure #scifi #horrorgames #horrorgame #textadventure #videogame #enchantedscepters #ELIZA #colossalcaveadventure #adventuregames #adventuregame #scienceficitiongame

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wfdwqfw · 3 years ago

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fyexo · 5 years ago

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191220 K-Pop Stars EXO Reflect on How Far They've Come — and How Far They'll Go

As Chen tells Teen Vogue, this year has been “a time for EXO to reflect” on their past, present, and future.

Chances are, even if you didn’t know it at the time, you’ve seen the members of the legendary K-Pop group EXO before. Their musical prowess speaks for itself, but even beyond that, their careers have taken over TV, fashion, celebrity culture, and more in the past year.

Maybe you've seen rapper and multi-instrumentalist Chanyeol, 27, shaking hands with Zendaya at Paris Fashion Week. Or perhaps it was breathtaking dancer and rapper Kai, 25, cracking 7th place on British GQ’s Best-Dressed Men of 2020 list. Or singer and composer Lay, 28, becoming Calvin Klein’s first-ever Chinese global ambassador. You might’ve watched rapper and youngest member Sehun, 25, on Netflix’s detective program Busted, or glimpsed leader and vocalist Suho, 28, waving from the red carpet as an honorary ambassador of the International Film Festival & Awards Macao. These are just a few of the places and memories that stamp the proverbial passport of EXO’s lives this year.

It’s been an equally powerful year musically for EXO too. With two members — Xiumin, 29, and D.O., 26, — currently completing their mandatory military enlistment and Lay promoting in China, the remaining six members of EXO have explored their own individual musical identities in 2019. Power vocalist Chen, 27, released two solo albums that chronicled love and heartbreak through mature, heart-warming ballads, while Baekhyun’s groovy solo album, City Lights, broke the highest monthly sales record for a solo artist in South Korean chart history with over 500,000 copies sold. Sehun and Chanyeol teamed up this summer for the debut of EXO-SC, EXO’s hip-hop sub-unit, while Baekhyun and Kai joined forces to “jump and pop” in SM supergroup SuperM.

As Chen tells Teen Vogue, this year has been “a time for EXO to reflect” on their past, present, and future as they reunite to promote their sixth album Obsession.

It’s December 4th, 2019, and the six members are dressed in thick, woollen, neutral-toned sweaters and trenchcoats to protect themselves from the arctic winds billowing throughout Seoul. There’s a warm camaraderie to their interactions as they laugh amongst themselves and take sips of their iced coffees. The atmosphere feels comfortable and familial, born from an understanding of each other’s mindsets and quirks that has been learned organically over the group’s career.

“It’s been seven years since we debuted and we’ll be hitting eight years next year; that’s a long period of time,” Chen says. His humble, calm demeanor is a balm for the rest of the group who cling to his introspective thoughts. “We reflected on our past journey and tried to make improvements in this new album. It’s been a grateful and fun time.”

This desire to continuously push boundaries both musically and creatively has been at the crux of EXO’s identity since their debut in 2012. Originally split into two groups, EXO-K and EXO-M, EXO performed their shared discography in both Korean and Mandarin in an effort to appeal to two major music markets simultaneously. The groups came together in 2013 to release their debut album, XOXO, and the album’s repackage released later in the year saw EXO’s popularity hit a fever pitch with the funky, dance-pop single “Growl.” Since then, each of EXO’s last five albums have sold over a million copies in South Korea alone, earning them the title “quintuple million sellers.”

The group is not only a staple in South Korea but across the globe too. From performing in front of the world at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics to becoming the first K-Pop group to have their faces projected on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, EXO has stamped their name in the annals of pop history with their devotion toward their music, fans (called EXO-L), and each other. As they’ve matured over the years, that dedication hasn’t wavered.

“In our early years we just played together, whereas now we’ve grown up and matured,” Baekhyun replies. The singer’s personality is brighter than his shining white hair, and he thrives on the reactions to the jokes he makes throughout our chat. “We share a lot about where we’re headed in life, what we want to do for the upcoming album, and discuss how we can come together closer as a team to improve our teamwork.”

That tight-knit teamwork manifested itself in multiple ways throughout this year. From congratulating each other on Instagram like Lay did for Baekhyun’s solo debut to Xiumin and Sehun emceeing Chen’s solo album press conferences, the members have made it a point to support one another with every milestone they achieve, both individually and as a group. It also took center stage as the group embarked on their fifth world tour, Exo Planet #5 – The EXplOration, this July.

Part of the decision to go on tour, according to Suho, is because it makes the fans “happy,” which in turn makes EXO happy; this treasured time spent with fans also one of the reasons why the group worked tirelessly to release their new record in between their jam-packed personal schedules.

“Since the year EXO debuted, we’ve released an album every year. We’ve never skipped a single year,” Suho answers. With attention-grabbing ruby red hair, the leader holds himself with a quiet confidence and classic charm. “Even though it wasn’t a formal promise we made, it’s been a tradition to release an album each year, even if that means we have to make the promotion period short. Everyone’s been having hectic schedules, but it’s very meaningful for us to spend the end of the year with the fans.”

Heavily rooted in the group’s constant state of reinvention, the concept for Obsession sees EXO face off against their evil, superpowered doppelgängers X-EXO. Superpowers have been a common thread that has tied EXO’s music video multiverse together since their debut single “MAMA”, with each member utilizing their own signature power ranging from Chanyeol’s pyrokinesis to Kai’s teleportation abilities. When X-EXO arrives ready to destroy the planet in the group’s music video, the result is an explosive, superhero-style brawl between good and evil that leaves viewers enthralled.

In the lead up to shooting the music video, EXO emphasized the importance for both of their characters to have their own distinct, contrasting identity. While EXO dressed in weathered, straight laced black cargo pants and berets as if ready to march into war, X-EXO celebrated their eccentricities with jewel toned hair colors, white eyelashes, and uniquely cut clothing that bridged the gap between menacing and seductive.

“Our main focus was to draw a big contrast. All of us thoroughly discussed with our makeup and hair artists to bring that contrast, almost to the point of exaggeration,” Chanyeol says. He’s as jovial as his bubblegum pink hair and is openly expressive with his emotions, which light up his face whenever he speaks. “We tried to make X-EXO look very dark. EXO, on the other hand, was the good, righteous EXO like what fans have seen in the past. They came easy and naturally.”

“Like Chanyeol said, we discussed thoroughly with the makeup, hair, and costume team so that you could see the contrast right away,” Kai continues. Conscientious and thoughtful, Kai surveys the older members before answering so he doesn’t interrupt them. “Our attitudes also play a key role because they add to the strong visuals. Since it was a video, we all tried to make our performances convincing. X-EXO showed something that EXO had never done before — something mischievous.”

Amongst the members, X-EXO wins in a landslide over the team they liked the most.

“X-EXO had a stronger visual impact,” Baekhyun explains. “Personally, I wish that we made the plain EXO look cooler. That would have been right, because EXO was supposed to be the revolutionary army against X-EXO! I feel like they were visually weaker; I wish we had expressed more passion as EXO.”

With every album, EXO releases a bold title track that shatters the current K-pop paradigm, like the sinister “Obsession” or the reggae, EDM hybrid track “Ko Ko Bop." The remainder of the tracks on the albums typically allow EXO to explore new genres and make them their own, which range from hip-hop dance tracks like “Ya Ya Ya”, which samples ‘90s vocal trio SWV’s “You’re The One”, to heart-fluttering ballads like “Butterfly Effect."

Kai’s favorite track on the album is “Jekyll," which he loved from the first listen. “It starts off like a sweet R&B song, but the chorus suddenly changes into this shouting, which I think is in line with the duality expressed in the album,” he says. “I immediately thought that we could show a very different type of performance for this song — I can’t wait to perform this on stage and show the fans.”

“I like “Obsession” the most,” Sehun answers. Although under the weather, he makes a point to attend the interview to support his older members. “It was good enough to make the title track, so it’s my favorite.”

Chen picks the dreamy “Groove” because: “I love all the other tracks, but this song made me wonder if I could pull it off when I first heard it because it was such a different genre. It was challenging while recording it, but I love the result. It’s one of the songs that I feel most attached to.”

Chanyeol also fell in love with “Jekyll”, but is also partial to the similarly haunting reggae track “Trouble”. “The song came out to be great; I think we pulled it off pretty well,” he says happily.

“‘Day After Day’ for me,” says Baekhyun. While the other members have been discussing their favorites, he’s been silently exchanging silver rings with Suho. He nicks Chanyeol’s wire-rimmed glasses and puts them up his face backwards, reveling in the laughter he receives. “The song reminds me of a certain type of weather. I like songs that remind me of something — a song with a theme or story. ‘Day After Day’ does that for me.”

“I was going to say the same,” Suho says, shocked. A mischievous grin spreads on Baekhyun’s face. “Stop it,” he teases.

The room is whipped into uncontrollable laughter as Suho jokingly grasps the collar of Baekhyun’s sweater, as if he’s about to wrestle the other singer mid-interview. Suho’s faux fury only makes Baekhyun’s smile grow wider and he lets out a loud ahh, ahh! before Suho lets go.

“It reminds me of rain!” Suho complains, but a smile is working its way across his face too. “That’s because the lyrics have the word ‘rain’ in them,” Baekhyun dryly quips. “Choose something other than ‘Day After Day’,” Kai urges in between laughs. “Day after tomorrow? Two days after tomorrow?” The laughter doubles.

In the end, Suho chooses “Baby You Are." “The song uses band sounds and I really like the sound of the guitar,” he answers, before replying in English: “The intro is the best!” He flashes an assured smile and gives a thumbs up to further prove his point.

“The intro is your part!” Chen lovingly chides. “It’s because you sang that part!”

The most emotional track on the album is “Butterfly Effect," which is a direct callback to the group’s 2013 song “Don’t Go” (which literally translates to “Butterfly Girl”). The song, according to Chanyeol, was selected as a way to thank fans for their unwavering support over the last seven years.

“After viewing the different universes portrayed in EXO’s albums, you’ll be able to see a connection between Obsession and our previous records,” Chanyeol says. “In songs like ‘Don't Go’ and ‘Butterfly Effect’, there are butterflies that resist the Red Force [the canonical evil force mentioned throughout EXO’s music videos] and protect EXO. To us, these butterflies represent our fans, who are always beside us no matter what. They are why and how we exist.”

He continues: “Because of our fans — through their love and support — we are able to overcome any difficulties [we face as a group]. This is probably one of the biggest messages that we wanted to share on this album.”

Prior to their debut seven years ago, the members’ goals for the future were heavily built upon their dream to debut together. Chanyeol recalls that, before they were ever officially called EXO, each member was bonded together by a “common goal to create good music as one” as well as their frequent discussions while training to “work together for a very long time."

“At the time of our debut, we had achieved nothing and everything was up in the air. We talked about working together for a long time, hitting number one on the chart, winning awards, and more,” Kai replies, tone contemplative as he leans closer. “Personally speaking, when we eventually achieved all those goals, I realized, yes, winning awards and being successful is important, but more importantly being able to perform happily as an artist is what mattered the most. There were times when I obsessed over our sales record, stages, and something tangible, but now my goal and dream is to be a happy artist, being satisfied with what I do.”

At the end of Kai’s answer, EXO breaks out into a hearty round of applause. Kai bashfully shines on the encouragement with a soft grin. “He’s like a supervisor,” Baekhyun teases. Chanyeol concurs, “He’s like a CEO!”

Looking ahead, EXO’s goals for the upcoming year aren’t the grandiose, tangible achievements of their youth, but rather to keep the promise they made to each other all those years ago: to make music together for a really long time. “I’m wishing all the members’ health and happiness [in the future],” Chen says.

“Being able to perform for a long time as one, being able to meet the fans for a long time…” Kai reflects. “That’s the most important.”

source: emlyn travis @ Teen Vogue

#exo #suho #baekhyun #chen #chanyeol #kai #sehun #t: info

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