#and then later in the series; where the power dynamics have flipped and he's so gentle with her

[notmoreflippingelves]

Why is it that my rare pair tendencies are not limited strictly to my hyperfixations of the moment but in like 99% of media that I consume? It's not fair. I just get a tiny little urge for like a day to read a fic or see an art for a specific pairing before returning to my main interest. Only to find that particular pairing that my stewpid brain had convinced itself "must be huge in this fandom because how could it NOT BE?" barely exists--if it even exists at all and I have clowned on myself yet again.

[anthurak]

Okay you know how basically EVERY fantasy series gets at least a bit weird with Light and Darkness representing some ‘good and evil’ dynamic?

It’s either the typical Light-is-Good-and-Dark-is-Bad, or it’s the ‘subversive’ take where you just swap the dynamic so Dark is Good and Light is Bad.

Even when it’s some Order-vs-Chaos thing, it’s almost always the watered-down, generic version where Order=Good and Chaos=Evil, or you’re just doing the ‘subversive’ flip again.

The point being, it feels like fantasy stories just CAN’T HELP attaching morality to light and darkness.

The reason why I bring this up is that I’ve recently noticed that early Yugioh actually does a really subtle and fun twist on this idea with Yugi and Kaiba that is not only a bit subversive but also manages to detach any real morality from this representation of Darkness vs Light.

Obviously we have the subversive element of Yugi, the hero, being associated with darkness via his Dark Magician, while Kaiba, the rival, is associated with light via his Blue Eyes White Dragons.

But more than that, Yugi’s association with darkness via his Dark Magician more represents the cunning, trickery and guile the Yugi so often uses to defeat his opponents.

Whereas Kaiba’s association with light via his Blue Eyes represents how he relies on overwhelming power to destroy his opponents.

Basically, we have the twist of the hero being associated with darkness and the rival associated with light AND managing to make this ‘darkness vs light’ conflict NOT represent any kind of ‘good vs evil’, but rather represent the ideologies and strategies of these two characters.

Oh and yes, this does in fact make the story later pivoting into a super-generic 'light-good, dark-bad' dynamic EXTREMELY jarring in hindsight.

[sapphic-agent]

Let's Talk About Izuku and Bakugou's Relationship

Happy New Year, everyone! Thought I'd kick 2024 off with a new post. I haven't written an in-depth analysis in a while, so I figured now was a good time.

So, I've touched on this before, many times in fact. If you've seen my other posts, you know that I think that the BKDK relationship is a clusterfuck of codependency, abuse, and toxicity. But I don't think I've ever analyzed it frame-by-frame, so here's an attempt.

Childhood

The lake scene has the most focus than any other flashback in the series. It's meant to show us why Bakugou hated Izuku; he assumed Izuku looked down on him and saw him as weak. It's supposed to support the idea that Bakugou has an inferiority complex that's been present since he was a kid and that's why he lashes out at Izuku and wants to be rid of him. Because Izuku makes him feel weak.

But this isn't true. Or, it doesn't paint the whole picture.

One thing the lake scene seems to gloss over is the fact that Bakugou was always mean to Izuku. Maybe he wasn't as harsh and could be written off as just a kid being a kid, but he still made fun of him. He still went out of his way to make him feel bad about himself and humiliate him. He called him "Deku" way before either of them were (or weren't) given a quirk.

And he only ever did this to Izuku, not the other kids part of his posse. He, even at such a young age, saw Izuku as an easy target, someone he could easily shove around because he knew Izuku wouldn't fight back (this would persist for the next ten years).

It's important to note that there's only one instance where Bakugou's behavior towards Izuku turns violent. It's when Izuku defends a kid that Bakugou and his posse are picking on. This is the moment where Bakugou becomes physically aggressive; not when he found out Izuku was quirkless, during the lake, or any time before. It's here, when Izuku stops being the defenseless wimp who won't stand up to him. He doesn't like that Izuku stepped out of the mold he had confined him to (I'll come back to this later).

The truth of their childhood together is that Bakugou was always inherently awful to Izuku. It wasn't like he experienced one bad moment that flipped a switch, Bakugou liked picking on Izuku from day one.

Middle School

There isn't much to say about their days at Aldera other than it's just a progression of escalation from their childhood. They've settled into their roles as abuser and victim. Bakugou knows he can say and do whatever he wants and Izuku won't defend himself because it's been the status quo for a decade.

He revels in that power he has over him, likes to remind Izuku of his "place." And if he steps out of line, Bakugou exerts that power over him to shut him right down, stressing his inability to do anything about his situation. It's a cycle of abuse.

Deku vs Kacchan Part 1

I've already talked about this scene before, but this is also another example as to what I was alluding to above.

As @delawaredetroit pointed out in a post from a while ago, Bakugou isn't feeling betrayed here. He himself has said time and time again that he and Izuku weren't friends. He cares about the fact that his victim now has power of his own.

All their lives, Bakugou had the power and Izuku was powerless. That was the dynamic they were used to and the one that Bakugou was aware and repeatedly took advantage of. But now, Izuku isn't powerless or defenseless. He no longer fits the mold that Bakugou had tied him to since childhood. That's why Bakugou is so upset; not because Izuku kept something from him but because the power imbalance between was shifting.

And it's why he tries to use guilt-tripping here. He wants Izuku to feel bad, wants to reestablish some of the control over him he just lost. And it works, because Izuku tells him he inherited his quirk completely unprompted after the fact. Bakugou knows he has the power in their relationship and has no issues abusing that power.

Sports Festival

I don't have much to say here, but I would like to point out something very inconsistent concerning Bakugou's interpretation of his relationship with Izuku. He claims that Izuku kept following him around and that he couldn't get rid of him, which attributed to his dislike. But even if that was true when they were 5, it's actually the opposite at least from middle school on.

Bakugou went out of his way to target Izuku in the first chapter/episode. He also tracked him down after the Sludge Villain incident. He's initiated every one of their confrontations in UA. And here, he deliberately eavesdropped on Izuku's conversation with Todoroki.

I don't know whether to call it hypocrisy or ignorance, but Izuku was content to leave Bakugou alone. Bakugou's the one who's constantly harassing and obsessing over him.

Final Exams

Izuku daring to display confidence and competence invokes immediate physical violence in Bakugou. He doesn't like that Izuku is talking to him like he's an equal, he doesn't like that Izuku dares to step outside of his role as a victim. Bakugou wants Izuku to act like he's below him and gets agitated when he doesn't do that. He, in this moment, cared more about putting Izuku in his place than his own grade.

Deku vs Kacchan Part 2

I mentioned that BKDK is codependent in the beginning of the post. This is what I mean.

Bakugou can't cope with the fact that he isn't the best and takes it out on the only target he has. Izuku had nothing to do with his shortcomings, but he still felt the need to establish superiority over him; a grasp for some measure of control.

Like I said above, he's well aware of the power he has over Izuku. Do you think he would have tried this with Todoroki? Or Tokoyami? Or Iida? No, because he knows that none of them would have even dignified him with a response. But he knows he can control Izuku in a way he can't with other people. He feels comfortable treating only Izuku as his emotional and physical punching bag.

The Apology

It's interesting that prior to apologizing for treating him badly, Bakugou proceeds to treat Izuku badly.

This interaction is important because it's their first major conflict after Bakugou's "redemption." We're supposed to be at the point where he's changed. But he still resorts to insults and goading. His first instinct is still to put Izuku down.

I've said most of what I needed to about the apology. But I do want to mention that coming from Bakugou's mouth, it grossly understates what happened during those ten years. Because the abuser is the one telling the story, his transgressions don't seem that bad. He's the one controlling the narrative, so his classmates- Izuku's friends- don't know the full story. They don't know what Bakugou put Izuku through. Bakugou comes off looking sympathetic to their peers by speaking "his truth."

Was this his intention? Probably not as Bakugou doesn't really care what others think about him. But it does raise the point that this is the extent as to how Bakugou sees his past self; as a stubborn, overzealous child and not the abuser that he was

[lookingthroughmirrors]

Opinion on how annabeth punches and pushes percy, the judo flip and percy being reduced to a himbo malewife in hoo (can't make his way out of a paper bag without annabeth).

(Please note most of knowledge comes from PJO and HOO as I have not read much of the later series, but I do know the main points and events that happened and have read certain pages *cough* judo flip *cough*

I’ll start with the first part, Annabeth punching Percy (which happens the first time long before HOO) and the infamous Judo flip, which is for some reason very controversial.

Most of the arguments I see are one of these few things.

1. Annabeth was worried and did it out love

2. They were raised as demigods (child soldiers) so it’s not the same/ they are used to violence therefore it excuses her actions

3. There is nothing wrong with her hitting because it wasn’t like

First off, all of these arguments and any other ones I’ve seen when it comes to this topic and defending Annabeth are bullshit. Why? Because there is no excuse to hitting a partner. Slapping someone’s shoulder while joking or something in a similar context is miles different to what was happening here. Annabeth hit Percy hard, and she did it with the intention of making it hurt. There is no excuse for that. Sure, they were raised as Demigods and violence has always been a large part of their lives, but then shouldn’t Percy also lash out and hit Annabeth if that’s the case? And shouldn’t that be fine too? You don’t hit someone out of worry or concern either, not hard enough for an army to believe you to be a threat. Annabeth has never been nice to Percy, she canonically say in TLT that she doesn’t care if he dies, only that she can go on the quest. And ok, maybe that could be written off as an immature twelve year old, if her actions in later books didn’t continually prove that she hadn’t changed or developed. I think another fundamental issue in her relationship with Percy is that she can never be wrong, Luke being the biggest example of this.

Percy, even with his history and past friendship with Luke, was able to look at things objectively to an extent. He says multiple times that Luke had a point. I honestly think if it had’ve just been Luke, if titans hadn’t of been involved, that Percy would’ve joined Luke. But that’s a whole other thing. I only bring it up because I think Luke particularly is the best example of Percy having far better judgement than Annabeth, who refuses to be wrong. Something that again is addressed within BOTL, when she challenges the Sphynx because of her pride, and is an asshole to Rachel because she doesn’t want to rely on another person and is jealous. She likes being the leader, she wants to be the person people rely on, but that has always comes naturally to Percy despite how much he himself hates it.

I personally would’ve far preferred Perachel to be canon than Percab*th. Percy is always stressed about Annabeth, about doing the wrong thing where with Rachel feels like he can be himself, not like he has to live up to some invisible standard he can’t ever hope to meet.

I also, as I’ve written about before when discussing Percab*th is that Annabeth is not an essential character to HOO, and that she could’ve easily been interchanged for someone more interesting and dynamically different. I think Percy was sidelined to try and give Annabeth more purpose in the story. I also think Percy is consistently put down, berated and underestimated. He literally has people thinking he’s a god when he first meets them, that isn’t someone who lacks power. I also think Annabeth has always been a little bit scared of Percy to certain degree. Or at least acutely aware that she would not be able to put a fight if Percy turned on her and he put in a tiny bit of effort.

I also Percy is never given enough or really any recognition of everything he did. That he took the prophecy so it wouldn’t go to Nico. That he turned down immortality, not for Annabeth, but because of a promise he made to Luke and his years long stance that nothing is worth living forever for. I think the nuance of Percy as a character, and his ability to connect with and understand characters like Like and Ethan is severely underdeveloped. He has never been blind to the gods faults, he didn’t do what he did in the name of the gods. He did it for the campers, for the demigods who’d carry out their parents burdens simply because they had the audacity to be born. Demigods doomed to die from the moment they’re born because of their parents, like him. I particularly think Percy is too far often used as a scapegoat for Nico’s issues and often either villainised or dumbed down into a himbo.

It’s ridiculous, since Percy has repeatedly shown himself to have both better judgment and better strategising skills than Annabeth. Percy is better than Annabeth, and he has far more power than she ever will.

Percy is such an amazing and nuanced character with so much room to explore different characteristics he’s shown at different times and he is too often sidelined to boost another character (most often Annabeth and Nico)

Overall I don’t really like Annabeth, and I’ve yet to hear a viable reason as to why what she did should be ok. And I truly believe HOO did a disservice to Percy by dumbing him down, and making him reliant on Annabeth.

I hope you like my answer! Thank you so much for asking I absolutely love getting questions and I also love a chat so please feel free to keep it coming!

[leafsheep]

In light of recent events I offer insight on Mr. Junichiro Tanizaki of Bungo Stray Dogs and Ms. Naomi

Spoilers ahead ofc

First off I’m just going to explain some things about the novel Naomi gets her namesake from: Naomi (1947) by Junichiro Tanizaki

In Naomi, Naomi is a 15 year old waitress who is groomed by Joji, a 28 year old man who fantasizes about molding her into his ideal wife. The novel starts off with Joji behaving almost parentally towards Naomi, but then progresses into a romantic relationship. Throughout the novel, Naomi herself becomes manipulative and the power dynamics of their relationship shifts as Naomi realizes that she can use her appearance to get what she wants and begins to flirt and use her looks to convince Joji to do things she wants. While this occurs Joji continues to delude himself into believing he is the one in control of their relationship.

In Bungo Stray Dogs, many people are put off by the bizarre and taboo nature of the “Tanizaki Siblings” relationship. As they are introduced as siblings and immediately after are shown to have an intimate romantic and sexual relationship. It’s essentially every fans main ick about BSD.

I have always been of the opinion that Naomi likely was not actually Junichiro’s sister, due to the fact that Naomi is a character from Tanizaki’s novel, while Junichiro is of course, based on the author, and creating a sibling relationship between a author and their character would in general just seem odd to me.

Now that we have a confirmation, I’m happy to share my thoughts :)

I will start off by saying, Naomi’s age while it has been debated, is somewhere between 15-17, some say 16-17 because of the age of consent, but I’m saying 15-17, due to the age of Naomi in the novel being 15, and I will approach this with the idea that she is on the younger side of this spectrum.

Junichiro and Naomi’s relationship appears to be that of a younger girl and her protector/guardian. Naomi is often at Junichiro’s side, and when she is harmed or threatened, Junichiro (who’s often fairly even-keeled) becomes incredibly protective and aggressive. Junichiro doesn’t even really act like someone who is in love with Naomi, like someone who loves her, yes, but not someone in love with her. He has some especially weird moments with her, implications of them having done things in private especially near the start of the series where it’s a more lighthearted story overall, but he doesn’t typically act like he’s in love with her (Keep in mind I haven’t read some of the stuff I’m talking about in a while).

On the flip side, Naomi is not ‘in love’ with Junichiro, she’s obsessed with him. She finds any reason to hold onto him or be near him. Naomi appears to have no shame about showing her thoughts about Junichiro, even in public where people believe their siblings, and she doesn’t even listen to Junichiro when he tries to get her to ease off some.

Now, there’s two possible routes to my thinking process, A. Junichiro is also a reflection of Joji, as Naomi was supposedly inspired by Tanizaki’s Sister-in-law who he possibly had an affair with. This could be plausible as Junichiro is visibly compelled by Naomi and Naomi very obviously has used tactics such as playing up her innocence by pouting or flirting to convince him of things, at different points throughout the story. But I don’t really like this idea, as Junichiro is NOT Joji, in fact his ability comes from a completely different work of Tanizaki’s too, so it would be strange to me that Junichiro would be used as a Joji Parallel so much.

The option B. I prefer, which is that Naomi was in some sort of strange situation parallel to Naomi and Joji’s relationship with somebody else when she and Junichiro met. Junichiro, ‘saves’ (whether she needed it or not is up for interpretation) her, and due to this, Naomi experienced Transference and then later developed Limerence.

Transference is when someone redirects feelings towards someone to another person, such as redirecting feelings towards a parent to a mentor. I suspect Naomi redirected the feelings she had towards her groomer to Junichiro when he became her ‘savior’/‘protector’. This also could explain the sibling cover story, if she was being groomed by a sibling or by someone who acted like a sibling to her at first (like how Joji was first a bit more parental to Naomi in the novel), this could make her start saying “he’s like a brother to me” which could evolve into just considering him an older sibling.

Limerence is where someone involuntarily becomes obsessive and attached to someone else (Their LO or Limerent object). People who experience Limerence become obsessive and analyze everything the LO does. They have intrusive thoughts about them, idealize them, and want reciprocation over everything else. I believe that Naomi has made Junichiro her Limerent object- which can also explain why she doesn’t just flirt to try and get him to do what she wants, she also just does it whenever, she’s fixated on him and wants to be around him as much as possible and she needs him to feel the same way.

No matter the option though, Junichiro is supposed to be someone who helps her, and his allowing her to behave in such a way raises some serious red flags. Whether it’s because he just sucks at getting her the help she needs and discouraging her behavior or because it’s in on some way reciprocated, it’s still alarming.

Their relationship is still weird, the fact they aren’t actually related doesn’t change that. But I wanted to share my thoughts on it.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Favorite Kiss Tag Game

Tagged by @yannig, thank you! 😘

Rules: create a poll with five of your all time favorite onscreen kisses, setting any standard for qualification you choose. Then tag more friends to join in!

This is both a delightful game and a very difficult one. Dead fish kisses are largely a thing of the past, and our screens are filled with lovely smooches these days.

For me, my favorite kisses are not only about being aesthetically pleasing or emotionally powerful, but also about conveying something meaningful, either about the characters or the story. Something that words would never be able to express in the same way.

Yok and Dan (Not Me) - "Words alone are not enough"

I've made no secret that Yok has my heart forever, and I love how this kiss is confirmation of their mutual feelings, and a promise, while also being a reminder that with Yok, you are going to get spice with your sweet. It's character moments like this that set up the way he will forgive Dan for his betrayal but also give him a solid punch to the face. (And let's face it, there was definitely a bit of punishment later on at home, along with the loving).

Mizuki & Yoh (My Personal Weatherman) - "Without you...I can't breathe"

Japan has such a knack for conveying things without words. It's not uncommon for characters in Japanese BLs to be incapable of verbally expressing their wants and needs for large amounts of a story, but that doesn't mean we don't learn huge amounts of vital information. This series conveys so much via intimate moments, but this kiss in particular is when we fully see what an unreliable narrator Yoh has been, and how deeply he misunderstands the depth of Mizuki's love and need for him.

Phayu & Rain (Love in the Air) - "I must reward this cunning boy"

LITA is chockablock full of good kisses, but I really like this one. The beginning of this episode does a lot around setting up the D/s dynamics of their relationship, and the kiss is a part of that. Rain gets punished for making Phayu worry, and Phayu indulges his slight sadistic streak by pretending he's about to peace out - but then the kiss that follows almost feels like a benediction for their new relationship. Phayu finally lets his absolute adoration for Rain come out, revels in the experience of being intimate with his person, and Rain matches him beat for beat, showing why they work as a pair.

Pluem & Kevin (Ghost Host Ghost House) - "I can wait for it"

The lead up to this kiss is one of my favorite moments in all of BL, where Kevin is 100% aware of the effect he is having on Pluem, and Pluem is attempting to be god's strongest soldier - and utterly failing. But again, what makes it so good is what it tells us about the characters. Kevin is teasing Pluem, Pluem starts to tease him back, in the traditional seme way, and when that makes Kevin nervous, Pluem makes it clear that he is not an old school boy. He's soft and sweet and absolutely willing to put Kevin's comfort first, which is, of course, why Kevin immediately responds. Who could resist?

Li Cheng & Mu Ren (History 4: Close to You) - "I didn't forget..."

Li Cheng and Mu Ren have yet to be dethroned as my favorite friends to lovers couple. The show does such a good job setting up their deep love and devotion to each other on the friend side, that when it finally gets to a point where their romantic feelings are mutual, you need something special to show that a switch has finally been flipped. The tone of this scene, with a little help of the blinding light of love, proves that we have crossed a threshold, and it is absolutely lovely on the other side.

I'm not sure where all this has made the rounds yet, but no pressure tags for @slayerkitty @sunshinexiaobao (your name change threw me for a moment lol) @infinitelyprecious @lilithfatale @dramalets and anyone else who wants to play!

[idkacatmonstermaybe]

okay hello @headfulloffeathers jess this is for you and the approximately two other people who might care about this meta breakdown but these are some of the parallels i see between look homeward and supernatural

(thank you for providing a distraction boot smut is stumping me i only have like 700 words written 😭)

(also uh supernatural spoilers? i guess? in the year of our lord 2024?)

okay so idk how much you know about supernatural so extremely surface level summary when dean is four and sam is like a few months old a demon kills their mom and then they spend their entire childhood on the road with their dad hunting supernatural monsters and searching for the demon who killed their mom. that’s like………. the bare bones basic premise of the show before they started delving hard into the angels/demons/biblical lore which gets really interesting and convoluted and tbh i stopped watching at a certain point bc i got bored and confused. SO basic vibes their mom (mary) is killed and their entire childhood they’re dragged around the entire country learning how to kill things bc their dad (john) is on a revenge bender.

so big overarching parallels: dean is a literal toddler when he is given the responsibility of caring for his baby brother which is so similar to a1 being 12 and assuming responsibility for sickly little 9 year old a2

sam is also like…. “assigned wrong at birth” lmfao bc the demon that kills their mom feeds him his blood to give him special powers? very confusing BUT there are moments where he’s ostracized for his powers and being born different and the way that parallels gods specialest boy a2 actually hurts me

follow up to that is sam goes through a phase where he is discovering these new abilities and goes a little power hungry and he starts drinking demon blood (lol don’t worry about it) and this gives me pretty strong serial killer era a2 vibes? but this one is a little looser bc sam and dean are still hunting together while this is going on and i’m pretty sure serial killer a2 is during the 92-01 separation? but they both have “dark” eras lmfao

okay also re: 92-01 when sam graduates high school he goes away to stanford for college and there’s a big falling out with john a “if you walk out that door don’t bother coming back” type moment so the boys don’t see each other for several years and there’s kind of the energy of really not knowing if they’re ever going to see each other again which parallels the very little we know about 92-01.

ALSO there are several moments throughout supernatural where sam is pushing to try to have a “normal” life—like going away to college to try and get a piece of normalcy that they never got to experience as kids. there’s also an arch in a later ish season where sam goes to hell (again……. don’t worry about it) and his like dying wish is that dean gets a chance at a normal life so dean shacks up with this woman lisa and her son ben but then when sam comes back he obviously ditches them lmfao. so there’s even an eden parallel sneaking in there lololol.

one thing that stays consistent throughout the series is also the way sam and dean are willing to do absolutely anything for each other like…… literally bring about the apocalypse if it means keeping each other safe which is The Dynamic of all time and is part of what makes a1/a2 so compelling

oh also sam is the vessel for the archangel lucifer and dean for michael which is flipped based on a1 and a2 but it’s also a fun little tidbit

obviously none of this means literally anything BUT early season supernatural was a fixation of mine for a while (obviously lmfao) so i find it so fitting that there are so many themes and motifs from one of my og hyperfixations are present in my current one

[punkypiscesell-writes]

chapter 12

Joel Miller x gn!/f! reader

series masterlist  -  chapter 11

summary: Time passes on and you realize there’s something missing from your life.

rating: mature

chapter warnings: good ol’ miscommunication, power imbalance in a previous sexual relationship that reader has realized later, mentions of oral sex (m receiving) and handjobs, insecurities, anxiety, angst, jealousy, some drinking, reader is said to have hair (no specifics mentioned), small town dynamics, lots of fluff, no use of y/n

notes: Here we are, close to the end of this story. I can’t thank you enough for sticking on this ride with me, reading and sharing this fic <3

word count: 28.4k

dividers by cafekitsune

“You have a visitor,” Brenda calls out from the door, your hands covered in suds as you’re washing dishes. You take a towel with you, passing Brenda who smirks knowingly. The reason for it stands inside the hallway, Joel holding his gloves in his hands. His warm clothes a clear sign of his day spent out of town on patrol.

“Hi,” you smile and his face lights up when he sees you.

“Those are healing nicely,” he points his gloves at your face. You instinctively bring your fingers against the nearly healed wound on your cheek, almost all the marks from the library gone from your skin.

“What’s up?” You fidget the towel in your hands, just like he’s fidgeting with the gloves.

“I heard you might be going to the stables later, for an evening shift?”

“Yeah, why?” An extra shift to welcome back those, who left to trade with someone out of town. They didn’t want to take the risk of outsiders finding out about Jackson as these are new people they’re trading with. They radioed in earlier and your morning shift at the stables was switched to the evening.

“Was wondering if Ellie could come and talk with you?” You swallow.

“Yeah, that should work,” you nod. You didn’t expect to have a conversation with her today, but you’re also glad it’s finally happening. It’s been long enough since the last time you spoke with her. Your words to her are a jumbled clump in your memory. The only clear thing is how you reacted impulsively in that moment and weren’t really in control of what you were saying.

Joel leaves you with a warm smile and as you close the door, you get a glimpse of him turning to look back at you once more before he disappears behind a hedge.

“So, what was that about?” Brenda sits by the dining room table, in clear view from the sink where you keep on scrubbing the dishes.

“I’m seeing Ellie later.”

“She’s the girl who was at the library, correct?” She dogears a page in her book and then flips it.

“Yeah, we need to talk about what happened there.” Brenda hums at your answer and you think she has gone back to reading her book. The slowness of the moment drags into you mulling over what you want to say to Ellie later.

“And what’s going on with you and him?” You close your eyes in a slow blink.

“Nothing, we’re giving each other space.” Another hum.

“What?” You drain the sink from the dirty water and start washing the soap off some glasses.

“You’d think that an apocalypse would only make you stick to the people you like more. But I guess you young people need to figure things out.” You consider her words for a moment, but eventually burst into surprised giggles.

“I guess so.” You’re happy with your decision, you are. You know it’s for the best, you know you both need it. It hasn’t been even a year since you got here, and you both carry a lot of baggage. You need the space. No matter how he told you that he likes you, no matter that you admitted the same to him. You still made the right decision. You think... 

The stables are quiet, bathed in the darkened, rusty lights hanging from the ceiling. You’re carefully organizing some boxes in the supply closet. How is it that even though people are careful with the equipment, when one thing ends up in the wrong place, then everything else starts to fall apart and all the boxes are filled with mixed items, making it hard for anyone to find what they’re looking for.

You’ve pulled some of the containers on the floor and made yourself space on the shelf to organize the brushes. The repeated motions of putting similar ones into their own boxes gives you a sense of comfort.

You hear the door open before you see anyone.

“Just a moment!” You exclaim and arrange the remaining brushes from your hands into their right places. You hear tentative, light steps and you crane your neck out the door to see Ellie in the hazy darkness. Her hands are in her coat pockets, fidgeting and making the lining move like she has ants in her clothes.

“Hi,” you greet softly. She’s visibly nervous. You don’t blame her. You step out of the closet and take a step closer to her but let her set the pace. She swallows and tries a gentle smile, but she looks more unsure than anything. 

“Joel told me you’re here, I hope it’s okay?” She talks quietly. You feel bad for her. You don’t want her to feel like she has to tiptoe around you or be anxious with you.

“Of course,” you try to match her mood. She just nods and avoids looking at you. She drops her hands from her pockets, swings them by her sides and manages to become even more restless than before.

“Can we talk?” She’s a teenager but somehow she seems even younger. A child in your eyes. Scared of the authority figure, unsure if she has let people down. This Ellie is someone you’ve never met before.

Admittedly you don’t know her that well, but what you’ve seen her around town and even when she found you, you’ve always thought of her as a natural leader. She’s confident and courageous, a bit of a rebel and she has a strong head on her shoulders. However, this new side of her is almost making you unsure as well. In this moment she needs security and reassurance.

You lead her to the bench by the front door. The corner seems dark even with the lights on, the amber tones surrounding you in the blackness that swallows the walls around you in shadows. You rest your back against the wall, almost force yourself to do it, but you do it for her. She has to see that you’re relaxed and eased in this moment. Maybe it’ll catch to her as well.

“I wanted to thank you. And apologize.” Her trembling voice reaches something deep inside you, a memory of a moment long ago.

You remember you were with your brother. Something had happened, but you’ve blocked out what exactly. You were upset with him and in your flurry of protecting him, your worry came out lacing your words with bitterness and sting.

No words have stayed in your mind from that moment. Even his voice sounds distant in your memory and you’re not sure if the sounds you relate with him are even his or just a combination of different people from different settings. There’s a specific snigger you remember, or a way he used to say some things, but other than that you can’t remember his voice. Same goes with your sister. They’re still with you but their voices have started to fade, like they’re behind a curtain, and you’re only left with an idea of knowing how they sounded like.

In that moment with your brother, his voice was as small as it ever was, and it made you promise to yourself you’d never want to hear it again. And here you’re with Ellie, faced with your resolution. You don’t want to be the one who causes her to be scared or timid, no matter what she has done.

You’ve been waiting for this talk with Ellie the whole day, since Joel came over to ask if you could meet up with her later. Now that she’s apologizing, you’re not sure how to answer her anymore. She doesn’t have to apologize to you, you’re not the one who has to hear it. You’re in no relation to her and she’s not accountable to you. Still here she is, apologizing, and all the answers you thought you could give her escape from you.

“Ellie—” you sigh. You really didn’t think this could be this hard, how speaking with her could wake up that older sibling in you who wants to make her feel safe, but also make her think what she did. Not for your sake, but for hers.

“I think I need to apologize to you as well. Or I know I want to. I didn’t mean to be so harsh with you. I was on edge, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry about that.” She turns to you, and you can see a sparkle of a tear in her eye.

“But you meant what you said?” She catches on quick, not missing what you left unspoken.

“I meant all of it. I still think it was incredibly dumb of you to even think it was a good idea and I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you did it.” She leans her hands against the bench and hunches forward, like she hides under a shell to protect herself.

Her hair falls over her other shoulder, an unusual sight to see her with her hair open. It curls at the ends, sticking to her coat with static electricity from the freezing evening. You notice miniscule droplets shimmering in her hair, water. Snow has started to float through the air again, stuck to her hair and has now melted. Not enough to wet her hair but there’s enough for you to visualize the scene in front of you when you walk home later this evening.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t have gone out there.”

“Why did you anyway?” She looks up, like she’s trying to decide what she can tell you.

“A friend wanted to show us something in there, old movies and books. I don’t really know why I went along with it. I knew I shouldn’t have but I…” You wait for her to tell you more. She looks like she wants to. She turns to you fully, in a way to express that she wants to tell the story to someone.

“I was angry.” She states simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“When you’re angry you shouldn’t go out there looking for trouble.” You raise your brows at her.

“I know, I know, and we didn’t look for trouble in purpose. I guess I convinced myself nothing would happen and the thought that something would kind of excited me.”

You have to think for a moment about what she’s saying. How the possibility of danger excited her. There was once a time when you thought you were also intrigued by danger. That the churning in your stomach was an answer to you finding thrill in threatening situations until you realized it wasn’t thrill at all. You just wanted to feel the rush of exhilaration because you didn’t know how else to deal with the pressure of your anxiety and fears that stirred in your body.

She’s seeking something from you. The look on her face expresses the question that is left unsaid. And you’re pretty sure you know what she’s after. Approval.

“Going out there shouldn’t be about being in danger and finding that exciting.” Your voice is weaker than you thought it would be. The tentative hopefulness drops from her features and her brows crunch gently together. She inhales once and her mouth opens but you stop her.

“What happened at the library isn’t something I’m proud of. What maybe once was intriguing for me, wasn’t that now when I knew your life depended on me being a machine.” Her chin drops against her chest.

“I’m sorry.” It’s a real apology. The weight of it hangs between you two and it’s filled with what you told her after your rampage.

“I know you are, thank you.”

“Can I ask you something?” That childlike curiosity blooms in her eyes. She inhales again, but this time you let her voice her question.

“Did you like it?”

“Like what?”

“The killing?” Lead fills your lungs. “What a loaded question,” you chuckle joylessly. You have to think it for a moment. What you can tell this fifteen-year-old, what is appropriate.

She’s not a small child. She understands how this world works, but she still has a lot to learn. The thought about liking killing is not what you thought you’d be speaking with her, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by you how she seeks for those stories. She’s fascinated and wants to piece an image of the people around her, understand them in a way that some might never want to.

“Joel has killed a lot of people. He was a smuggler before and I think he was a raider at some point,” she says out of nowhere as you’re probably taking too much time answering her. You’re lost for words at her revelation as it’s not what you were expecting.

“I just mean that I travelled across the country with him and knew he has killed innocent people. He killed in front of me as well. What you’re going to tell me isn’t going to scare me.” And there it is again, that young optimism.

She talks like she knows what she means, but you can tell there’s that piece of understanding missing. She might know in theory what a raider is and how they work. But it’s not until you’re face to face with them, know the brutality of them, how some of them deceive and torture for their own survival.

“How do you even know that?” You can’t hide your curiousness.

“We ran into a group of them in Kansas City, and he knew when one was acting hurt.” So, he wasn’t just a raider, but a hunter. No wonder he fits into the role of a patroller. The knowledge he has on how the other side works if they ever run into people with no good intentions, the ability to be ruthless if needed, the caution he has on new people. It all makes sense.

“I liked it at one point,” you finally answer her and she nods at you, encourages you to keep on going, giving you her undivided attention. “It felt necessary at first, then it was just routine. Killing infected is easy since they don’t act like us anymore. People on the other hand, even if you know they could hurt you… It has always been harder.” It’s the simplest way you’ve ever described the emotions to anyone, even yourself. You’re surprised how those feelings form into words, since you’ve always had trouble finding the right ones.

“Were you a raider as well then?”

“No,” you smirk at her question, “but I left a QZ with a group and lived with them in different places where we had to be prepared for anything.”

“How long did you stay there?” Time has turned hazy. You haven’t been keeping track of dates in ages. Knowing what month it is and seeing the changing seasons has been enough for you for a while now already. There hasn’t been a reason to know it all anymore. But now that you think of it, losing the track of time has made everything blurry. You can’t place certain events on a clear timeline, to know when something special happened or when your world changed.

“Years,” you realize out loud. Because it was. Time became a routine, you just lived through it, did what you were supposed to do, and were happy if you survived another day. It has all changed now though. You’re not high on adrenaline every day anymore, you’re grasping at the passing of time in a different way. You have a routine that involves life, not survival with teeth and nail.

“That must’ve been a different life for you then,” she nods impressed.

“To put it plainly,” you grumble and earn a giggle from her.

“Can I ask you something as well?” You repeat it back to Ellie. Her back straightens and she looks like she’s preparing for any kind of question. If she’ll answer, it is a completely different thing.

“When you said you were angry and that’s why you decided to be bold, was it because of Joel?” She’s clearly taken aback by the question, the directness of it.

“What do you know?” You have to match her reaction. She asks it like there’s some big secret you’ve been privy to, something that she’s scared about.

“I know you fought about something a while back. He lied about something to you?” You’re tiptoeing on the line of discomfort, you can tell. Her shoulders relax just the slightest, but a flash of disappointment and sorrow crosses her face.

There’s a history you’re not familiar with. A history between Ellie and Joel, a history of a lie that is apparently so big it made her venture out of the town into the hands of tens of infected without listening to her gut feeling. She doesn’t really even need to answer you. The way she’s acting is answer enough. She still nods, but she’s not saying anything.

“In the future, even if you’re angry and you feel like you could do anything, you have to stop and listen to that little voice in your head before you do anything that could actually hurt you or get you killed.” You try to be sympathetic to her inner turmoil, but the words seem empty when you’ve let them out of your mouth. Your sentiment is banal and useless, a cliché she doesn’t need to hear. Her whispered I know under her breath only confirms it.

“He says the same.” Her weak mumble makes you pause. “I felt like he took something from me when he lied. I had to feel something.”

“What did you want to feel instead?” Your question makes her raise her gaze to the ceiling and her face scrunches with concentration.

“Like I had power? That I knew what I was doing and no one could stop me? Recklessness?” The tumbling words are questions to no one. She’s not asking them because she wants answers. These are the things she struggles with, if she has the ability to feel those things, if she’s allowed to feel those things.

“Joel has protected me this whole time. I had to feel like I didn’t need him.” It’s not a question but a fact.

“Did you feel that way then?”

“No.” She picks at her fingernail, a nervous tick for her you realize. “I was so angry at him, still am in a way, but when the runners came after us and we had to lock ourselves in the storage room, I didn’t wish for anything else but for him to come save us.” You answer her resigned smirk with a much gentler smile, knowing what she means.

You’re familiar with the feeling, of wanting to be saved by someone. That someone you trust takes the burden off your shoulders and gives you a hand you can grasp. You still sometimes wish someone could do that for you, ease the load, even just the smallest amount. That they could read your mind and take some of the things from there to give you a little peace and quiet.

“I thought I could handle an infected or two.” You don’t expect for her to keep on talking. What she said sounded like she was done already. “I’ve killed them before, I’ve… killed before.” Her voice gets quiet and you instantly know she’s not only talking about infected.

Sorrow follows her admission, choking you with the realization that she has had to deal with that already. She on the other hand doesn’t want to talk about that or get deeper into that story. She pushes on with her thoughts and leaves the memory of killing somewhere behind.

“I thought since I had my friends with me we could handle it. I wanted to impress them, and we had fun at first when the library seemed abandoned. But of course, some of them hadn’t even held a weapon in their hands, let alone come across infected, so it kind of blew up in our faces.” She spreads her palms open and throws them towards her face. The gesture is so childlike that it makes you wonder where she got the impression that she could get through such an amount of infected. Even if she has killed some in the past, the skill doesn’t come overnight.

“Tell me you didn’t stay out there trying to fight them off?” Your question makes her chuckle.

“No, we’re not that dumb.” Her quiet laughter is soothing in a way, even though what she’s talking about does make your head spin.

There are too many memories flooding your thoughts. Memories about your first kill and the easiness of it. Memories of first bruises and cuts, achy muscles and getting used to the rush of aggression. It didn’t feel like it belonged in you, but you still welcomed that part of yourself with open arms and nurtured it by feeding it more blood and death.

That darkness is a part of you you’d like to let go and to move away from. You don’t want to have that companion in your life anymore even if you’d use your skills in the future as well. You just don’t want to lose yourself to it.

“One of my friends said it would be easy to take care of them if we encountered any infected.” There it is again, the word easy. “I also saw Joel and Tess kill two clickers and we survived that. I was scared shitless when that happened and after that I killed a few myself. I was in a FEDRA school you know. I know how to handle a gun, I’ve gotten some training. I thought that it can’t be that hard anymore. I’ve seen others do it, I’ve done it, why couldn’t I take care of a bigger bunch as well?” She sounds like she’s trying to justify her actions to you, or even herself. They still fall flat.

“And did you find out if you could do it as well?” She shakes her head immediately.

“I had no idea what I was doing.” You both snicker at that, and in a way it is funny. There was a real danger that something could’ve happened to her, but at least this was a reminder for her that she doesn’t know what she’s doing until she does it herself.

“How did you even do it, sneak out of town?” The question has been on your mind for a while. You’ve heard that their absence wasn’t noticed until hours after they had left, and no one had any idea where they were going or what their plan was. You coming across them at the library was pure chance.

“We planned it for months and made sure we were ready.” The way she says it makes it sound like it was the simplest thing to put together. But if they planned it for months, then it also means—

“You’ve been angry with Joel for months?” You blurt out. Her wide-eyed fragility hits you like a slap in the face. When he was here losing his mind over the lie Ellie had found out, the argument was a result of Ellie waiting for him to come clean. She held the plan over his head without him knowing anything about it.

“Did it go as you expected?” Your question confuses her and you have to think carefully before you open your mouth again. “When he told the truth, had you imagined how you’d react? Did you think you’d want to go exploring even more after it?”

“I don’t know.” And it’s the truth. The look in her eyes tells you she has a lot of thinking to do, a lot she has already processed but some things that have been too much for her the bear yet.

“If you wanted him to come save you, maybe you could give him a chance now?” Your suggestion makes her sigh deep.

“What do you mean?”

“That whatever it was he did, whatever you’re angry about, share it with him. You don’t have to carry it all on your own. I’m sure he’d be happy to understand you.”

“Have you spoken with him?” She asks and your last real conversation floods back like a tidal wave.

“He told me once that you’re his daughter by now, that you’re family. Nothing else.” Her eyes fill with tears instantly. They spill in heavy beads, and she turns away from you before she wipes at them with her coat sleeves.

You hesitate for a moment. Your hand hovers over her shoulder but you’re not sure if touch is a welcomed comfort for her. You’re not sure if this conversation is appropriate either, if you’re telling her something that should be expressed by Joel instead. But you can’t help yourself when it seems like she can’t calm her sniffles and the heavy stream of tears. Your palm lands softly on her shoulder and you run it across her upper back slowly until her weeping hiccups have calmed down and she’s tugging at her wet sleeves.

“I want to try to forgive him,” her whimpered, barely audible voice makes your eyes sting but there are no tears. Just a gentle upturn of your lips when you know there is still hope for them to fix everything. That whatever happened between them, it can be worked on. There can be understanding, it’s not all over. You can’t not think about Joel and how important Ellie’s decision will be for him.

“But don’t tell him that, please,” she turns quickly to you and your hand drops from her shoulder. Her bloodshot eyes and the blushed tip of her nose tell you that she didn’t expect to have a conversation like this tonight, even if she came here to talk with you. You didn’t expect this turn either, but you’re happy it did. It eases your mind and gives you a sense of comfort that not all hope is lost for them.

“Of course not, you can trust me.” She nods and empties her lungs with a quick exhale.

“Let’s talk about something else, please,” she chuckles and wipes at the corner of her eye once more. Her levity is determined already though and she’s not going to let a single stray tear steer her off course.

“What do you want to talk about?” You ask her, instantly regretting it because Ellie’s eyes brighten in a flash, and you know she wants to know more about your past.

“You said something at the library, about protecting people?” You look up and have to dig your brain to really remember what you said to her in your burst of emotions. It’s all a blur, all the infected, how you got yourself out of there, the ride back to Jackson. Just a mess of noises, flashes of actions, how your body reacted.

“Yeah.” It comes out weaker than you thought.

“Who?”

“My older sister and younger brother.” She looks surprised.

“Not your parents?”

“They’ve been gone a long time.” She has recognition written all over her face. To know what it feels like to be alone in this world without your parents who you’re supposed to lean on and trust the most.

“And your siblings, they’re gone as well?” You only nod.

You miss them every day. The worst of it has become cotton wool, a soft longing for a family you had for a long time. Sometimes it hits you like a hammer against your skull, a reminder of what happened to them. The more time has gone by, the more you realize you didn’t get to say goodbye.

At one moment you still had them, and the next they were gone. There’s no ending point for that though. You’re in a limbo where you relive that moment of discovering your brother was dead, and then the bullet that shot through your sister. The sound echoes in your memory and you try to rid of it with a roll of your shoulders.

“I get it, I’d kill for those who I love as well.” You twist your head to see how much she really means it, severity on her face, a glimmer of sadness in her eyes.

“I hope you don’t have to do that, ever.” The thought scares you. Not only because even though protecting someone can become like a second nature, but because it can start eating at you.

It’s not only protecting when that feeling spreads into blaming yourself if something happens to the people you truly care about. And then there’s the thought about who she’d protect. You can’t stop yourself from imagining the small framed, slender girl in front of you so full of rage and adrenaline that she could be capable of dealing with it. Maybe it’s one of those sides of her that is still unknown to you. And to her as well.

“I hope so too,” she swallows thickly after her words. The severity you saw earlier changes slowly, like water dripping from the faucet on the other end of the room, her real emotion coming through: fear. She’s not ready for that responsibility. At least not yet.

“Just promise me one thing?” You weakly attempt to change the mood that is shrouded in the rusty darkness like your surroundings. She raises her brows in question.

“Don’t go sneaking out there on your own without someone who knows how to handle infected or before you’re more experienced.” There’s real worry in there, but your tone makes it sound more like you’re joking.

“No, I won’t. And I can’t, Joel told me that I’m grounded?” She smirks with confusion, but her cheeks blush from the meaning behind it. That he is telling her what she can and can’t do, like a he’s her dad.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really know what it means?”

“Are you asking me?” Talking about grounding someone seems so out of place. A rule from the old world, where you had to think before you did something. She nods and you try to think of how you could even explain it to her.

“Were you ever grounded?” She asks instead, filling your mind with another glimpse from your past.

“No, but my sister was. I was still young when all went to shit and after that my mom didn’t really care to ground us, we just had to come home in one piece.” You wonder if she would’ve wanted to ground you if she knew what you did with the soldiers. She would’ve never wanted you to take the same path as she did, to keep your sister safe when she was more reckless and didn’t always keep track of curfews.

“Joel told me that I have to have dinner with him every night and I have to tell him when I come home, even if I sleep in the garage. Apparently it’ll ‘give me some peace of mind’,” she imitates Joel’s deep rumble, but only makes it sound like she has swallowed something spicy and she doesn’t know how to handle the heat. You snicker at the result of the voice that you hear.

“That sounds pretty kind, considering what you did. You’re not locked at home and can do what you want, just need to communicate more.” When you say the words out loud, they click in your brain. That you miss the communication with Joel. You know taking a step back from each other was the best decision at this point, but you can’t deny that you don’t miss him. Her delicate smile reveals your words made her understand the terms he set for her as well. How he didn’t punish her at all. He just wants to be present for her.

“I better get going before he starts to worry,” she says almost mockingly but it doesn’t reach that tone. There’s softness under the words. She stands up and her hand gravitates back into her pocket, her fingers idly fiddling with something in there.

“Thanks for hearing me out,” she suddenly bursts, care in her eyes. “I know it must’ve been difficult for you, but you saved my life.” Her open gratitude makes you want to be honest with her. No matter how young, impressionable, and immature she still is.

“It wasn’t that difficult. Like I said, I was trained, I knew what I was doing. But next time—”

“Next time?” Intrigue flashes in her eyes but you lift your palms towards her and shake your head to slow down her excitement.

“I mean the next time you go out there, you have to be ready for anything. Not any of that childlike carelessness, okay?” You stand up and you feel like you tower over her with your age and experiences on your shoulders.

“Yes,” she nods, her gaze fixed on you with determination.

“I’ll see you around Ellie,” and she nods. You stay still as you watch her leave. The door bangs closed and starts to drift open again, letting in the cold from outside. You feel like a weight has been lifted off your chest and a sense of levity calms you down.

You close the door when you hear the murmurs of voices pull away from your earshot. You peek outside, into the clear night. The sky is black, swallowing the town lights and the air is getting more freezing the longer the evening goes on. Joel’s broad shoulders sway lightly as he walks next to Ellie. Their breaths puff into small clouds of smoke. Ellie says something to him, and he knocks his elbow against her arm. Her quiet giggles land into your ears and you can’t help but smile.

Autumn turns to winter. Snow starts to float down from the sky until it’s a flurry and piles up until everything’s covered in white. The days are cold, nights even colder. The season envelopes everything into silence and darkness. Into the comfortable crunch of the snow against the bottoms of your boots. Into the warmth of your layers that you collect around yourself every time you go outside.

You see Joel around town. You say gentle hi’s to each other, exchange warm smiles, but rarely say more than a few words. Theres no time for it. Both of you are busy with work and making friends and then you come back home, lock yourself in your room and realize you’d have plenty of time to say more.

Every time you’d want to say something else as well, either someone is always near, whisking either of you away or you’re waiting for someone and you only get to ask how he’s been and what he’s been up to. The same questions drift to you as well and you fill him in on your exciting life of normalcy and routines.

You feel Joel every time he’s near. You search for him in the sparce crowds of the street, in the busy chaos of the dining hall during lunch hours, or at the joyous get togethers on weekend nights at The Tipsy Bison. Sometimes he doesn’t even notice that you’ve seen him and you get to observe him without interruption. The broad shoulders that you see a glimpse of when he’s walking in front of you, his usual strides confident and making people part from his way.

Lapping food into his mouth, every once in a while taking part in the conversation with his patrol friends. Their table is usually one of the loudest ones in the whole dining hall and their laughter echoes through the rumble of chatter.

You notice him sitting with Tommy or Maria in the bar until the other half of the pair arrives as well after leaving Matilda with a babysitter. He sips at his drink, usually a whiskey or a beer, and he circles the glass against the table. He runs his thumb across it chasing the condensation that makes the cold surface sweat. He gets to be as quiet or involved in their conversations as he likes, his smiles more relaxed and the crinkles by his eyes deep when he does let that upturn of his lips come through.

Sometimes, before he can even see you, you escape and don’t let him know that you were there. Those days are the days when you’re struggling. When you’re feeling low, alone, like you’re a bit lost and unsure of yourself. The times when you want to be in noisy places or with people who you now consider your good friends, but then realise it’s not what you want at all and need to go home.

Those are the times when you’d want to hide away in your room and ruminate with your feelings about how lucky you are you get to live here, what you’ve been through, what you want to put behind you. When you want to be in silence and think if you did the right decision when you asked Joel for space.

What you don’t know is that Joel sees you as well. You’re everywhere. He can feel your eyes burning against his back when he walks in front of you, knowingly crossing the street so you can see him, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his hair windswept, the cold pinching his cheeks and nose, his footfalls sometimes slowing down just a little so he knows you’re a bit closer with your steps.

When he’s sitting in the dining hall, he always chooses a seat facing you even if you’re tables away from each other. He tries not to look at you, get immersed in the conversation going on around him, sometimes not really even paying attention to what his friends are saying until they laugh and he joins them out of politeness.

Or the times when he’s at The Tipsy Bison, enjoying a glass of alcohol of his choice, feeling the buzz warm his skin and know you’re around even if he doesn’t first see you. Just the thought that you’re in the same place as he is, is comforting in a way. That even when you agreed to give each other space, you’re still living in the same town, going to the same places, living this life with its ups and downs.

He sees you with Diana and Brenda when you help them with various tasks. You clear the walkway to their porch from snow or you get them groceries. You talk with people in the stables animatedly and your whole attention is on your work friends. Your hands fly in the air if you’re especially interested in the topic.

One afternoon he hears your laughter and since then he hasn’t been able to shake it from his mind. Since that day he craves for it, looks and chases it and finds it less frequently as he’d like. When he does hear it, he saves the sound into his memory and lets the sweet sound of your joy remind him that you’re healing. 

He sees the downs as well. When you’ve come to the dining hall alone, seeking solitude in the loudness of people and their presence. Sitting by yourself in one of the tables, slowly dipping your utensils into the food and taking slow bites before you wash it down with water.

The times when you take a bit longer when he comes get Beardy or he comes back from patrol and you press your face against the horses necks when you brush them. And he sees you around town, walking slowly, wrapped in a thick coat and scarf, your head covered with a hat that covers your ears, taking in the snowy landscape that glimmers in the occasional sunshine that manages to penetrate the usual, heavy grey blanket of clouds. And you try to breathe, the puff of smoke from your mouth sometimes so shaky that you press your palm against your chest and stop for a moment until you keep on going and hold your head a little higher. He can’t not think how far you’ve come. How good you’re doing. How happy he is every time he sees you.

When he does come face to face with you, he’s always a little nervous these days. He’s not really sure what he’d like to say just to hear your voice. His fingers tap against his thigh and he can’t even blink when he knows it’s a passing moment before your friends ask you to join them and you look back giving the softest of smiles in apology.

He keeps his head down. He gives you all the space that you need, as long as you want it. Just like you give him space.

Joel spends his time with Tommy and Maria and watches baby Matilda grow into an energetic little baby who spends her time wondering at the world around her. He listens to Ellie, understands her conflicting feelings, and wants to be there for her as much as she wants. It’s not easy with her, she hasn’t forgiven him yet. But sometimes her playfulness comes through and she lets him on the intricacies of her life.

She lets him in and he lets her share her load on his shoulders. They’ll possibly never be the same, she has told him that. But when she once said dad instead of Joel, her cheeks crimson red and her voice wavering with the question she had for him, the whole mess with the lie seemed miniscule for him. It might be a mess, but families are messy sometimes. It still doesn’t change the fact that they’re a family.

The winter starts to melt into a pleasant spring. It creeps up on you even though you’ve seen the signs in front of you each day. The birds move back. The days start to become longer and the sun warms your skin. You change your winter coat into a lighter jacket and there’s a smell of dust in the air when the streets clear of snow and dry in the sunlight. The first spring flowering bulbs push through the ground and joyful splashes of colour paint people’s front yards.

You move out of Diana and Brenda’s house into a small cottage with Gwen, a newcomer who stayed behind when a group of traders came through Jackson a couple of months back. She’s getting to know people, to know what she’d like to do now that she doesn’t have to travel around the country anymore.

She’s social and bubbly, making friends left and right and most nights she’s out of the house spending her time with new acquaintances. She mentioned she wants to start patrolling. She’s no stranger to weapons of any kind and she thinks it’s most suitable for her after years of living on the road, never in one place for too long. She misses the outside, the danger that she can now experience controlled.

You work together with Gwen to make your home yours. A neighbour offers you paintings they have in their garage, unused and left in the darkness. You collect the ones that go together the most and make an art wall in your living room, right opposite from your couch.

Neither of you is interested in a television so you replace it with a good record player and start collecting music of different genres. Gwen finds some on her patrols and some are brought to you when Gwen tells her new friends about wanting to find good music to listen to.

She’s the one who manages to find you notebooks to write in without you asking, a habit you picked up around the holidays, and she’s always encouraging you to write more. So when you go into your room in the evening, get ready for bed and look back on the day, you can write down observations or things you want to remember. Things you can focus on when you hit a rougher patch.

You keep doing your own thing. You work and enjoy the quietness of your day-to-day life. You have your own circle of people; Diana and Brenda, who you still help if they ask you to or go around theirs to have dinner or tea with them after Brenda has baked something. You go out with Dan and Sasha and some other people from the stables, usually ending up at The Tipsy Bison on weekends when everyone else seem to go out as well. It’s always busy there, it’s always tight to fit your whole group around a table, but it has become an end of week habit that you’ve fit into your routine.

You feel like you’re living. Life doesn’t feel like you’re on a seesaw, but on solid ground with some occasional downs. Even they don’t seem so bad anymore. Just a normal part of your being that you’ve come to accept and nurture.

Gwen is good at seeing those days on your face. She makes you breakfast and gives you your own space, but also doesn’t leave you alone. Usually on those days she makes the effort to make it home by dinner time so you can eat together and enjoy a quiet night in. She never forces her presence on you. She never makes you talk or doesn’t fill the quiet moments with useless noise. She lets you lead and she lets you be comforted by the fact that you’re not alone.

You like what you have going on. And as more time passes and the sun starts to heat up, you add more things into your routine. You take up hunting, going out with some selected few every once in a while, usually involving either Dan or Clara. You like those days in the woods, away from the buzzle of the town and in the middle of the waking nature.

You see the budding leaves on tree branches, hear the birds and the critters making their nests, a whole concert welcoming you into the embrace of their home. You watch the wilderness turn from different shades of white and grey, burst into luscious greens, glowing pastels and vivid pigments that take on the different hues of earthy warmth and contrasting brightness.

You smell life in the air after a cold and dry winter and welcome spring rains with open arms when you know it only melts the rest of the remaining snow and nourishes the hungry ground. Everything works in perfect synchrony, one piece falling into place and another always follows.

“Would you like to come for a quick patrol?” Clara asks one morning at the stables when she’s getting her horse. You look at her with doubt in your eyes, but she explains it to you. That it would be a one-time thing, just because her usual partner isn’t doing well and needs to take a bit of time off.

It would be to a close lookout, a usual route that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. It would just be a few hours and you’d be back well before lunch.

You say yes and ride out with her, a rifle once again on your shoulder, the cloudy day breaking with gentle sunrays and your cheeks tingling with warmth when you see Joel at the gate mounting Beardy. He does a double take, raises his brows and tips his chin in a silent hello when all patrollers are out the gates at the same time.

All of them give you long looks, some whispering to each other, but you only notice him when he looks back before he takes off in a gallop. You expect to see Jade riding next to him but are left with a shivering confusion when Gwen joins him and rides with him into the wild. You swallow down the uneasiness that wants to burn in your throat and find solace in Clara and her steady calmness.

It ends up being more than just a one-time thing. You should’ve known. Clara asks you for patrols almost every week for one day to give her usual partner a day off when her knee is giving her trouble. You always have a bit of time to prepare for it before you’re back on Willow and riding out with the group, separating onto your own trails. You start to know them well and the forest and old, small towns become familiar. Getting out of town doesn’t make you nervous or anxious anymore. It becomes something you look forward to.

She always asks you how you’ve been and what you’ve been up to. If there’s anything new you’ve done or experienced. If you’ve felt comfortable and are cared for in Jackson. And you always answer more truthfully the more you spend time with her. She becomes a friend who is kind to you, who listens to you, but is also opinionated and gives you tough love in the gentlest of ways.

“I know it might be hard sometimes, but there’s no one else to pick you up other than yourself.”

“Maybe you just need to look it from another point of view, to see that what you’re feeling might not be the one that you should trust.”

“Oh c’mon, you’re amazing, you don’t even need to doubt yourself or if you’re capable. You’ve learnt how to take down infected, you’ll learn how to cook!” That made you laugh because it was the oddest comparison, but also true.

Gwen’s friends usually bring you food that you get to eat a few days for leftovers, but when there’s nothing in the fridge, you have to come up with different dishes that you’re definitely not confident enough making yet. So it’s a challenge for you to learn a new skill, which you’ve been taking as an experience.

When you ride your horses with Clara, she has an ability to ease you and get you into the habit of patrolling with good focus but without the intense adrenaline rush that drowns out everything else in your mind. You feel like you’re present and your brain isn’t overwhelmed with the need to eliminate who you are. You’re working with someone if you come across infected, someone who you can trust and who has your back no matter what. You teach her your ways to be calm and without fear and you both benefit from learning from each other.

And sometimes she has this look on her face that almost says she knows you. She listens to you and her eyes narrow. She nods when you tell her bits and pieces of what your QZ was like or what kinds of shenanigans you sometimes got into with your siblings. You leave out the grimmer details about the dark alleyways and FEDRA soldiers but tell her about your escape from the QZ and what it took to live that life on the knife’s edge.

She tells you about her similar past. She was in a QZ but managed to get away before a rebellion took place and overtook FEDRA. She was one of the lucky ones because if you didn’t choose the side of the rebellion, you were seen as a sympathiser for the military state and soldiers. She didn’t end up wandering in the wild though, as she was already in contact with someone who had moved into Jackson when it was still just a few houses and a small group of people.

They needed more people to protect what was starting to grow into a safe community and she was more than happy to be part of that. What surprised you was that she had just graduated from college and had become a teacher for seven-year-olds right before the outbreak. Her parents owned a small bed and breakfast and hunted on their downtime. That’s how Clara learned to hunt as well, her skills with a gun still sharp from her folks like she had been doing this her whole life.

Her parents lived a humble life, but she wanted to move into a big city. She knows they didn’t make it. She went home a few years ago to see if the house was still standing and it was, though run down. And her skeletal parents were in their bed. There was a letter sealed into a safe that only she knew the combination to like the back of her own hand. They had written to her, telling her how they loved her but didn’t want to turn into those monsters so they handled it their own way.

It's an ordinary day at the stables when you realise it. It hits you like a rock on the head, making you stop working and pause for a moment. You feel like yourself again. And someone completely new. You’re a combination of both. You like this version of yourself. One who is sensitive but strong, who pushes you to try new things but also gives you kindness when it all starts to overwhelm you. You get to know this new you, like it’s a person you haven’t met before even though this new person also feels like someone you’ve known your whole life. You just haven’t had the chance to meet them before.

Yet you feel like you’re missing something.

You’ve just woken up. Someone’s knocking at the door when you’re still rubbing the crumbs of sleep from the corner of your eye and you can’t really comprehend everything that is happening around you. You stumble out of your room and knock on Gwen’s door, only to find it ajar and her room empty. You have no idea where she is but don’t have time to think about it more, when you hear the knocking again.

Last night was a long one. You were at The Tipsy Bison first with Gwen, Dan and Sasha until you ended up coming home with a jar of Dan’s home-made blend of cider that he gave you for tasting. Gwen was adamant for you to try it at the end of your night even when you were already tired and your eyes felt heavy from the alcohol you had consumed earlier. You still ended up taking a couple glasses of it, dancing in your living room to a tune from one of the records without really following the rhythm.

The song just felt good in your body and you let it sway you on your feet. You leaned against Gwen, twirled each other under your arms and laughed until your stomach felt like you had done a workout. It wasn’t until late that night when you dragged yourself to sleep, crashing face first into your pillows and pulled the duvet over your tired body.

Sleep didn’t take you away though. You thought it would be easy, but you ended up rolling in your bed trying to find comfort against your mattress. Your bed just seemed wrong. You ended up keeping your eyes open, staring out the dark window with the curtains pulled to the side. You could see some stars dotting the sky faintly against the deep backdrop.

You thought about that feeling of missing something you’ve had for a while now. An emptiness that is always clawing somewhere under everything else. A sense of loneliness that is sometimes more present and sometimes you forget it and realise it exists after a long day when you get to calm down and be alone with yourself.

There’s no denying where that feeling comes from. Who it’s caused by. Joel.

You miss talking with him, his low vibrating voice, his attentive presence and his broad figure making you focus only on him and what you’re talking to him about. You miss hearing him tell you things, the grim jokes you two had. You miss getting to know him. You want to know more of him. You’d want to delve into his mind and hear his quiet voice tell you whatever he likes. Be it something that is inconsequential or something that shaped him into being who he is today.

You’ve had enough of this space. You made a decision in the lonely hours of the night. When you see him, no matter where that is or who he is with, no matter when it will happen, you’ll go talk with him and ask if he’d like to maybe someday have lunch with you after your work day is done. Or if he’d like to go to the bar for drinks some evening. Or if you could come and visit, or if he’d like to visit your new home so he could see where you live and what it’s like. He has probably heard where you live. News travels fast in this town and everyone knows what’s happening with everyone save for the details. And sometimes the details are included. You want to show him that you’re interested, that you’d like to be more present in his life. If he’d also like to be more present in yours.

Now in the bright, early sunlight the decision is still there but much more tentative. It’s easy to be decisive when it’s the middle of the night and your brain loses all boundaries. You can’t lie to yourself when your thoughts are flying a hundred miles a minute and you can barely keep up. It’s quick decisions and assuredness in the dark. In the daylight those decisions are followed with shyness and realization that you’re being hasty.

You should be discreet when you talk with him to not get all the town blabbermouths gossiping about your interest in the roughened man that is known as dependable and charming. The patroller who gets people to turn their heads when he walks past, respected by his peers and people who hear about how he helped someone fix their roof or checked over their pipes on top of keeping the town safe. Someone solid and dependable. That would get people talking no matter what he’d say. Either you’d become someone who pursues him and gets turned down or someone who caught the infamous Joel Miller, the more somber one of the brothers.

You have a dull headache, nothing you can’t handle, but still there reminding you of being dehydrated and needing some food in your stomach. You open the lock and let in the kind spring breeze that surrounds Ellie.

“Morning!” She greets, an enthusiastic smile on her face, energetic twinkle in her eye and sweet blush on her cheeks.

“Morning,” you croak and clear your throat. You step aside and let her in. She’s almost bouncing on her toes but you’re still too tired to really notice her. She toes her shoes off and follows you into the kitchen. You hear her humming a tune and your brain is finally coming back to life when you get some cold water down your throat.

“What’s up Ellie?” You turn towards her and she’s fiddling with her fingers while a smirk only grows on her face.

“I wanted to ask you something, a favor of sorts?” Her voice is on the brink of a giggle.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I was wondering if you could train me?” The glass in your hand stops against your lips and the water touches them but you don’t drink any of it. Ellie balances herself against the counter, her palms pressing down on it, and she can’t stop shifting forwards and backwards, like she’s riding a non-existent wave.

“Train you how?” You don’t even know why you’re asking. Of course you know what she means.

“My patrol training starts in a few weeks when I’m done with school but I was thinking if you could maybe show me a thing or two so they won’t think I’m a total rookie.”

“But you are?”

“I know, but still. Let’s call it skill refreshing?” Her hopeful spark is waking you up more than the water did.

“And when did you plan for this to happen?”

“Today?” She grimaces, but with a smile that only makes you chuckle.

“Is there a reason it has to happen today?” You can’t help but think there is a big, broad, fatherly reason she’s knocking on your door at this hour of the morning, excited as one can be, asking for you to give her a lesson in whatever weapon handling she wants to learn more of.

“Well…” She looks at you under her brow and the pink tint on her cheeks only deepens. At the same time your suspicions are confirmed. “Joel is out on patrol and I don’t have anything better to do today so I was wondering if you were free? I haven’t seen you in a while either so it could be fun.”

“Uh-huh,” you call out her bluff without actually saying anything. Maybe she wasn’t even trying to make her explanation sound convincing. You can tell from how she’s acting that she had thought about this a while and as soon as Joel was out the door, she was also ready to leave the house.

“Does Joel know?” The question hits a nerve that doesn’t cause any harm, but her jerky shake of her head makes you wonder if this is a good idea at all.

“I think he’d say yes. He’s supportive of patrol training so why wouldn’t he want me to know a thing or two beforehand?” She’s almost desperate, leaning her whole body against the kitchen counter. You let her sit with her words for a moment while you finish the glass of water and turn from her to wash it and put it on a drying rack next to the sink.

“Fine,” you get to say before she starts to actually jump up and down on the balls of her feet. “But not yet, I want to have a shower and have something to eat first. Meet me at the shooting range at midday okay?” She nods the whole time words tumble out of your mouth.

“Do I bring my own gun?” She asks and starts to walk towards the door, picking her backpack off the floor. You lift your hand up, stopping her from opening it. If you know her at all, she already has the gun with her.

“No, they’ll have enough guns. And do you really have your own gun?” You can’t help but wonder if Joel would be pleased about knowing she’s carrying one around. It’s not forbidden for people to have their own weapons but you’re sure it wouldn’t be seen as responsible for an underage teenager to be carrying her own gun around.

“It’s Joel’s, I’m just borrowing it.”

“Does he know you’re borrowing it?” The question makes a tight smile appear on her face and she drops the backpack on the floor gently. “That’s a no then,” you mutter loud enough for her to hear as well.

“Just put the gun back where you found it and we’ll meet a bit later.” She’s out the door with a litany of thank you’s and a cheery see ya hollered your way. At least this will be a good reason for you to go talk with Joel, even if you’re also planning on telling him that you’d like to break the space.

The shooting range is empty save for the one working there, surprised to see you asking for a rifle and a handgun to practice with. She gives you both, her eyes big like she’s starstruck by your presence. You duck your head and thank for the guns and the ammo and go outside, checking the targets.

The shooting range isn’t really a shooting range but a makeshift practice field for people to learn how to use different types of weapons. Trees, hills and rocks litter the area, leading to the fences of the town, having enough space for different types of practice grounds.

One area is secured for guns, one for hand-to-hand combat training under the sky. There are some dirtied dummies brought from an old gymnasium and a couple handmade ones with hay and weeds poking through the durable fabrics that have been sliced through over and over again with knives and arrows.

It doesn’t matter that the mannequins are in the hands of the weather and seasons. Patrol trainees need to learn in the most authentic ways possible and it’s not going to happen under fluorescent lights, padded floors and flat terrain. It takes a lot of hard work to be able to handle the outside world and the physical demands of it.

You set up different targets for Ellie in different proximities. Some smaller ones are peppered closer and further, with some of the bigger ones in the back, peeking behind a rock and a couple of trees. You hold the guns, the rifle strap over your shoulder, the hand gun in the back of your jeans, with ease, like this is something you do regularly. Teach teens how to use those weapons and how to prepare the practice field for different types of aiming and weapons.

As you’re walking back towards the small boxes where you’ll be spending your time with Ellie, she’s already standing there, waving at you with a huge smile on her face. She has her backpack with her but you hope she left Joel’s gun at home.

“Where do you want me?” She offers when you get close enough. You point towards the wooden stalls and she springs into a brisk walk to reach the one you’ve prepared before you do. You show her where she can put her bag and stand still for a moment as you don’t really know how to begin.

You’ve never taught anyone how to do any of these things, especially a teenager who is like a sponge for any information you’ll give her. Ellie waits patiently. Her eyes drift to the gun on your shoulder but she doesn’t push it. Ellie doesn’t demand for you to do something as you look towards the field and think back how you learnt everything.

You didn’t learn from Peter because you necessarily wanted to. You went to him because you had learnt to trust him when it came to your sister sneaking around past curfew to get things you needed or ration cards by exchanging goods that were sometimes seen as contraband. Medication, booze, even basic first aid kit materials, sometimes fruits that someone had somehow gotten from some other people.

They kept taps on her, but what she was doing sometimes saved you from going broke or hungry. In desperate times, some desperate measures didn’t even seem desperate when you got to know Peter better and you became a regular visitor in his bedroom after hours.

The way he taught you wasn’t in a secure location. You didn’t face off with dummies and little trinket targets. He took you up on the wall in the middle of the night, when he was on duty, and gave you a lesson in how to shoot infected from afar.

Afterwards he always wanted to trade with you for his knowledge. That usually ended up with you giving him a sneaky handjob while he tried to stay silent or you let him hold you down while he fed his cock past your lips, spit dribbling down your chin.

When he wasn’t on duty, he gave you a sheathed knife and he told you to attack him in his room. You might’ve wrestled with him for hours while he taught you how to get him down, how to attack him from behind, how to dominate him with the secured knife. You always knew the roles were going to be reversed after you were sweaty, tired and burning limbed from all the exercise. The line between teaching and foreplay were blurred and you saw it on him when his intentions of getting you naked and on the bed became clear.

When he deemed you ready enough to face infected, and eventually people, it wasn’t a quick process. You spent a good while with him teaching you and you remember waiting for that day when you could take the knife out of its sheath and touch it against skin.

You were nervous, but more importantly ready when he gave you his FEDRA handgun to use while he had his hands on your shoulders, keeping you steady as you two snuck out of the QZ. The weight of his palms creeps up on you, like he’s standing behind you at this moment. His mouth was glued to your ear as he gave you instructions reminding you of the ways to keep yourself unwavering. He told you to focus on the target and get the job done.

The rush was like a drug. The blood in your body whooshed in your ears when he took you by the hand and walked you back into his room. That was the first and only night he made you cum and you’re not sure if it happened because of him or because you were still so excited of what you had done earlier.

Learning was an exchange with him that you now later look at as a cruel way to use you, which you didn’t really understand as a fresh adult. He wasn’t much older than you but he had learnt it all from the other soldiers. He was brought up in the world of using others and taking from them whatever they were ready to offer. You just did what you thought you were meant to do. And here you are, about to teach a teenager who is younger than you were when you learnt everything about killing. There’s no pressure or demands, just you and Ellie, guns and a shooting range.

“What do you already know?” You turn back to Ellie and realise that you need to ask it. She said she knows some things already and you have to know where to begin with her.

“Well… In FEDRA school we were taught how to handle a gun and how to aim, but Joel showed me how to really hold and use it.”

“Okay, then we’ll start with those.” You give her the unloaded handgun first and watch her stand with her back stiff, her legs spread wider and her knees slightly bent, her arms holding the gun like she’s in some action movie you remember seeing on TV when you were a child and your parents weren’t too happy when they realized what you were watching.

“Where did you learn that from?” She looks at you questioningly and you get the gun from her hands, showing her the right stance.

“The hands were right—”

“Uh-huh, Joel showed me that.” You smile warmly at her and stand next to her, lifting your arms up but keep your elbows relaxed and feel the natural posture your body is always searching for.

“You were also on the right tracks with the stance, but you can’t be stiff like a metal pipe, firmness is better than total stiffness.” You instruct her to stand like you do, with her other hand ready for the gun. You place it against her open palm and make her move her limbs one at a time to get her to feel the different angles and parts of herself that activate while the gun rests in her hands. You talk her through the whole aiming process and make her press the trigger even when nothing is going to happen.

“You ready for the real thing?” She nods eagerly so you move slowly when you load the gun and make her watch you shoot once, at a target close by. You tell her what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, she sees you take a deep breath and relax against the weapon in your hand before you press the trigger and the loud BANG rings in your ears even when you’re wearing ear covers. They’ve seen their best days. The sound isolation isn’t the best anymore, but at least it’s something. Or you can say you used them even if they didn’t really protect your ears.

Ellie has her back straight and her chin up when you give her the gun while you make sure that she holds it securely with the safety on.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” you instruct Ellie and she does. Like you thought, she listened like a hawk when she explains everything back to you, even repeating the same words and tones you used. She hesitates for a moment when the last thing she’s supposed to do is shoot. You wait for her take a few breaths, but when she doesn’t do anything, you’re ready to jump in and get the gun from her to empty it so you can do some more dry runs.

“Let’s put the safety back—” you begin, but she takes one, more audible breath and then shoots the gun. She flinches from the recoil but stands her ground. You both look at the target that is now on the ground, blown off its place. A smile starts to appear on her face, but you can’t have her lose her focus, not just yet.

“Do the next,” you encourage, and she does. She takes her time, aims and makes sure she’s calm when she shoots. When all the closer targets are down, her hands are slightly shaking, but her excitement is palpable.

She takes the rest of the ammo out and gives the gun back to you. She almost throws the ear covers to the ground but decides against it just at the last second and hangs them on the wall. They sway from side to side as she takes steps back and finally starts to laugh. It comes from somewhere deep inside her, blooming from her chest and bursting with her excitement.

“Fuck that was so cool!” She yells and you can’t but laugh with her and celebrate her success.

“Are you ready for the rifle?” You ask her when she has stopped jumping up and down and her pacing has gotten most of her big emotions into check. She nods and comes back to you for you to teach her how to use the bigger weapon.

“Has Joel taught you anything about shooting a rifle before?”

“Yes. He said to take a deep breath and give a slow breath out. To squeeze the trigger ‘like I love it’,” she lowers her voice and you know that that was exactly what he told her to do. “Gentle, steady, nice and slow,” her head sways from side to side as she keeps on mimicking his low rumble.

“And did it work?”

“He says I flinches so he showed me and that fucker shot the target like a pro!” She exclaims it like it’s the most infuriating thing that has ever happened to her. Her burst of disappointment in herself and Joel managing to use the gun the way she would’ve liked makes you grin. “But I did manage to shoot a deer once,” she admits, but her voice lowers and there’s a hint of fear that tells you that it wasn’t because they were hunting just for her to learn how to use a rifle.

“Let’s take it one step at a time then, you’ll get rid of the flinching. But he was right, you have to treat the rifle like you’ve missed it and want to give it some love.”

“Oh don’t say you also want to get it pregnant,” Ellie sighs.

“What?” You’re not sure if you heard her right.

“Nothing, let’s do this.” So you did hear right. You try to shake it out of your mind and visibly shake your head to bring yourself back into this moment.

You look at her take aim and it’s better though she clearly has some trouble with the weight of the gun. You let her get used to it as you do some imagery training with the targets that are further away. She makes you shoot a couple of times until you give the gun into her hands and she prepares by stretching her neck and holding the gun firmly, but gently in her hands.

“Focus on the target,” your low voice fills the space between you two as you lean a little forward, watching the target she’s going for.

When the rifle goes off, Ellie flinches and the target stays unscathed from her aim. She sighs in disappointment and you give her support by lifting her elbow a little higher.

“Let’s go again, it’s okay, you can do this.” She takes a deep breath in and lets it slowly out through her mouth and focuses on the target.

“Dammit,” she whispers when the bullet passes the dummy again.

“This time you didn’t flinch that much though, it’s already a win. Do you want a break or go again?”

“Let’s go again.” She’s determined, you have to give her that. She’s frustrated, you can tell. This isn’t going as easily as with the pistol but she’s not giving up.

“Now, watch the target, lean just a little bit against the rifle, let it work with you,” you instruct her and drop your hands from her elbow. You watch as she prepares herself and finally shoots. She barely flinches and the bullet graces against the arm of the dummy.

“There you go! Do that again, you’ll find it.” You can’t help but feel excited for her even when you keep it subdued and mellow as she steels herself for the next shot.

She shoots twice more, all of them getting better and she gets a feel of the gun.

“One more,” she says and you stand back and watch her take control. She looks almost like a natural with the way she stands and holds the rifle and the flinch is finally gone when she shoots again. It hits right in the middle of the dummy’s chest.

Her arms start to droop immediately and you take the gun from her, kicking the empty shelling at your feet against the wooden walls on either side of you.

“How did that feel?” You ask her when you secure the rifle and watch her shake her arms and pace back and forth with the most awed expression on her face.

“I want to try again, for the targets behind the obstacles, but give me a second, my arms are aching,” she chuckles and you let her take her time before she comes back next to you and takes position.

When the sun moves across the sky and starts to shine into your eyes, you decide you’ve had enough for the day.

“You want to go for lunch?” Ellie asks when you’re returning the guns to the starstruck woman at the range and walk out of the little cottage where all the weapons are held.

“Yeah, sure!” You walk side by side, while Ellie can’t stop thanking you for teaching her.

“It was nothing, thanks for asking.”

“I was wondering, you know how to use a knife as well?” Her hopeful eyes lead you to her next question. You just raise your brows and let her continue. “I have a switchblade and I’d like to learn to use it like you use your knife. Would you give me some help with that as well?”

“On one condition.” You open the dining hall door for her and she steps in. It’s not too crowded, but there’s still plenty of people to make the vast room echo with chatter and the warmth is amplified with the food. Ellie looks at you curiously.

“If you tell Joel that you’re already taking lessons, I’ll teach you.”

“Okay!” Maybe you weren’t expecting her to be so forthcoming but you’re not complaining. It’s for the best if he knows she’s learning combat already and you don’t feel like you’re sneaking around doing something that you’re not supposed to.

You watch Ellie load up her plate full of roasted vegetables and chickpeas and take a more tentative amount on your plate while she’s already searching a table for you to sit at. She waves you over even when you see her clearly. She’s easy to pinpoint with that beaming smile she has on her face.

“You should’ve said you were hungry, we could’ve left earlier,” you point your fork towards her lunch and she shakes her head with her mouth full. She hums and you wait for her to swallow so she gets her words out.

“I didn’t mind,” she loads another forkful, “I didn’t really notice being hungry until we were done with the rifle.”

“Time flies when you’re doing something fun, huh?” She nods eagerly as you get to taste the food in front of you. You savor the fresh flavors and crunchy chickpeas. Someone’s done something new to them, they taste a bit different, a bit toastier and heartier than before.

You hear someone speaking on the next table over about a few patrols coming in, how they were confused about the changes made to the usual pairings. It’s not unusual for people to switch their partner for patrols, but it did make people raise their brows when long time partners were suddenly willing to look for change.

“When would you be free for our next lesson?” Ellie asks conversationally but the question is everything but a kind gesture. “I can tell Joel about you teaching me later today when he comes home,” she points out and tries to stay casual with her tone. You can tell she’s hiding her excitement under her words.

“Next weekend?” You ask but realize you ask it more from yourself than her. If you’re really going to teach her what you know about knife handling, you might have to plan it a bit more so your meetings won’t turn unsafe and Ellie gets to learn just the basics. She doesn’t have to learn everything from you. As she said, she wants a refresh for her skills. Then again, you’re not sure how much experience she has with her knife.

“Yeah, that’ll work!” She can’t hide her joy any longer, though she stuffs her mouth full and that mellows some of the force behind her exclamation.

“You’ve used your knife before?” You expect her to finish the bite but she ends up pulling her backpack on her lap and rummaging through it while chewing. You eat slowly and your mind starts to wander as she’s elbow deep in her bag. How that same bag Ellie was carrying when you hiked with her and Joel right after they had found you. That same backpack has gone through adventures you have no idea about, but they all involve Joel.

This girl in front of you is his daughter and you haven’t really spoken with him for months. She’s asking your help because she saw you taking down infected and might’ve thought it was skilful or cool. You all know each other, but there’s a disconnect and the more you think about it, the harder it is to make that connection whole again with Joel.

She finally lifts her hand up and in her fist she has the handle of her knife. She holds it out for you and you take it gently into from her. The cherry red wood is in stark contrast with the bright metal. You release the blade and admire the sharpness of it. She’s taken good care of it as it’s carefully cleaned and incredibly sharp.

“It’s beautiful.” You secure the blade and hand the switchblade back to her, but she holds it in her hand and twists it in her fingers like it’s the first time she’s seeing it.  

“I’ve always had it. My mom gave it to me.” The wistful tone takes you aback. She doesn’t have to say much more about her mother to know that the knife isn’t just any gift from a parent to their child.

“That’s why I want to learn how to use it properly, so I won’t be just carrying it around,” she shrugs her shoulders and hides the switchblade in a pocket on the front of her backpack. “I have used it before, but I can’t do what you did with your knife,” she smiles tentatively.

“I don’t think we’ll ever match in combat styles because we are two different people.” Your remark takes her by surprise. She looks like she’s deep in thought before she faces you with openness in her eyes.

“But you think I could learn, right?”

“Absolutely, that’s not what I meant. I’ve been using a knife for years, you’re still a child and knowing how to use one takes time. You grow into the weapon, to learn the feel of it in a serious situation. It’s different when we’re holding your switchblade now compared to when you’re about to take out infected with it. You’ll learn, don’t worry about that. But you’ll find what works best and most efficiently for you.” The more you ramble on, the more her expression relaxes and her shoulders round down.

“Have you always used a knife?” She asks suddenly and continues eating.

“I’ve had it for years, but I didn’t start learning with a knife. I’ve always enjoyed the physicality behind it more than with a gun though, there’s something intimate when you’re handling a knife.”

“You sound like Joel and how he talks about guns.” You grin at her remark.

“I think the more you use a weapon, you come to know them pretty well and what is your personal favorite. You’ll find that out some day.” She listens to your words and hangs onto them. It takes her a while before she smiles a genuine soft smile, like you’ve told her a prediction of her future.

“Why do you want to become a patroller?” People walk past your table, some with finished plates, some with steaming lunches piled on theirs, and there’s more turnaround now as late afternoon rolls in.

“I don’t really know,” she considers your question for a while. You can see the wheels turning in her head.

“I think I want to make a change even if I can’t do much. I want to do something.” Her voice quiets and she hides her face from you.

“I think you’ll do a lot. You’re a quick learner and people like you, who want to do something good for their community, are always welcome.”

“I guess.” She pushes the last remaining chickpeas around her plate. Her shoulders sag.

“Is everything okay?” You can’t help but ask. She straightens her back and there’s sadness in her eyes, uncertainty that wasn’t there before.

She wants to say something, the air is thick with the pressure that she radiates to get herself talking. Her lips quiver slightly like she’s about to open her mouth but then decides against it right at the last second, until she starts to doubt herself again and the same wobble happens once more. She takes a deep breath and you think she’s going to say something, but she just exhales and a flash of determination washes over her.

“I feel… guilty sometimes.”

“About what?” Another inner battle, a much stronger one. She’s evaluating you in the dining hall and you feel like you’re alone with her.

The other people around you are just props who don’t hear or see you. You’re in your own bubble with Ellie and she’s trying to decide if she can trust you. Truly count on you with whatever she’s mulling over in her head, whether you will understand her or turn her down.

“You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay,” you decide to give her an out and she takes it immediately. She nods tightly, once, but the mood shifts around her and she visibly relaxes. Some things are better left unsaid, especially when it causes her so much inner turmoil. You can’t help but wonder what it could be about but it’s also none of your business. Maybe you’ll find out one day, maybe you won’t. It’s better to give her the peace of mind that she needs.

You only have a little of your food left when the people from the next table stand up and they’re leaning towards each other. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re still talking loud enough for you to hear everything they’re saying.

“I wonder if something happened between them. Jade is wonderful, but Joel has always intimidated me. Maybe they fell out?”

“I heard the new one is into him, she pushed for the switch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d get together,” the other says and shrugs her shoulders while the other makes the most scandalous, drawn-out ooh sound you’ve heard in this town.

“Imagine, the quiet one and the social butterfly. What a couple that would make!” They both laugh and you hear it echoing as they move away from you.

Some people like to gossip, you know that. You’ve experienced it firsthand. But when people you know are mentioned, people who you have a personal relation to, something spills inside your chest. Your fork pauses against the plate and you strategically take a few pieces of your lunch and look up with a forced smile. Ellie looks at you immediately, waiting for whatever you’re about to do.

“How has it been going at home?” You kick yourself in your head. You sound like a teacher who wants to inquire if their student is doing okay after missing homework too many times. You fill your mouth and chew slowly to make sure she won’t ask you any questions about your intentions.

“Yeah, it’s been fine.” She says, but her smile becomes a little more mischievous, more of a smirk than a kind smile really. “Joel’s been experimenting in the kitchen. It hasn’t been that bad.” She shrugs and you have to hide your smile from her by piercing a few of the last pieces of lunch with your fork and lifting it to your lips.

“And everything’s been better with Joel?” This is not subtle at all. She can see right through your weak attempts at hiding your interest in finding out how Joel has been.

“Mmhmm, things are better, thanks.” Oh no, she’s not giving you anything else. She’s baiting you to be more direct, to reveal what you’re really doing.

“We’ve been spending more time together.” Oh. She might be kinder than you thought. “Movie nights and Matilda comes over sometimes. I also heard him play the guitar once, but I think he got embarrassed.”

“He played it for you?” The question is out of your mouth before she can close hers.

“Nah, I was hanging out in my garage with friends and came in to get snacks when I heard him playing. He usually plays when I’m not around and stopped right away when he saw I had come in. He has shown me a thing or two now though. I might pick it up and actually start playing if he’s still up for teaching me.” She tells you about it proudly, but with a hint of softness that penetrates whatever curiosity you have of finding out what Joel’s been up to. The guitar is so much more than just a guitar for him. Ellie being open to learning it makes your heart swell with warmth, a tingle of pride heating your cheeks.

“He’s going to show me a couple of chords later, when he’s back from patrol.”

“He goes out for patrols a lot?” You know he does. You’ve seen the lists at the stables that tell you when he and Gwen are going out but haven’t wanted to pay much more attention to it than making sure the horses are ready when they’re about to leave.

“Now more with his new patrol partner, yeah.” Your chest clenches but you keep smiling. “She’s all over him sometimes, giggling and hanging onto his shoulder. And they always go for lunch afterwards and she has brought him stuff at home too before they go talk in the other room. He’s never been like that with anyone.” You feel it, the feeling that pulls your cheeks tight against the smile and you have to fight the pressure in your shoulders. Jealousy.

You want to wipe it out of you and make it disappear. You want to forget you ever even felt it. You don’t want to feel jealous over anyone. Especially when you have no right being jealous over Joel who is free to do whatever he wants with whoever he wants.

Gwen is wonderful. You’re not surprised he'd be into her and her sunshine personality compared to your rainclouds, dark nights, and usual partly sunny tendencies. She’s sparkly and you’re quietness. She’s social while you take a step back and observe. You’d be into her as well if you were him.

“Well…” You chuckle uncomfortably, pick the last pieces of your lunch, and force them into your mouth. You don’t taste anything when you swallow the food, just take a big gulp of your water, and stand up abruptly.

“We should probably head out.” You still have that fake smile on your face and it’s making you more and more uncomfortable the longer you hold it. Faint lines form on Ellie’s forehead as she watches you rush to get out of the dining hall.

“So we’ll see each other next week?” She asks when you step outside.

“Yeah, same time same place, if you tell Joel,” you remind her but even saying his name makes your stomach churn. How on earth did you think last night that you could rekindle whatever it was you had with him last autumn. Of course he has moved on. You took too long and you have no one else to blame than yourself.

“Of course!” She smiles and you wave each other goodbye.

When you walk back home, you’re afraid you’re going to see him there with Gwen. The fear comes out of nowhere but you can’t stop it ploughing through every rational thought you have left. The anxiety hits you like a load of rocks and the voice in your head only gets louder as you get closer to home.

They’re probably already in love. She knew what she wanted and went for it. They’ll get married and have a big party and you’ll have to attend because you’re her housemate. And she’ll move out and they’ll live with Ellie. And he’ll play the guitar for her and she’ll get to enjoy his undivided attention without anything getting in the way. And he’ll cherish her and keep her safe, literally as they keep on patrolling together. And they’ll grow old together and you’ll stay alone, at the sidelines.

Stop, you have to tell yourself. You close the front door behind you and your chest is heaving. Cold sweat surfaces in your arm pits and you have to lean your back against the door to keep yourself from falling over from the overwhelm. Your home is as quiet as it can be. You left the window in the kitchen open earlier and a bird is singing up on a branch in the big birch tree.

“Hello? Gwen?” Your voice shakes. When you don’t get an answer, you’re happy she’s not here to listen to your pathetic voice and seeing your jealousy blooming in full force. You don’t know what to do with yourself. You had no idea you could even feel this way, let alone have that jealousy directed at your friend. You can’t stay home.

You open the door again and walk to Diana and Brenda’s. They’re planting something on the porch and greet you with open arms as you try to be brave. Diana pulls you inside with an empathic look on her face, sensing something’s going on. Brenda makes you tea and doesn’t say anything when you start unravelling all those difficult feelings clashing inside of you.

“People were talking that they have something going on,” you rub at your temples while embarrassment takes over. You never thought you’d be someone whining after a crush but here you are.

“Are you sure? Joel is definitely more into you than Gwen,” Brenda’s tone makes you look at her and see her face twisted in confusion.

“Honey,” Diana shushes with a shake of her head. You only groan and let Diana talk you out of the worst gloominess while Brenda keeps on watching you like a doubtful hawk.

When you finally walk home late in the evening, you can level with yourself. Even if you’re jealous, your care for others is bigger. What you’ll have to do is be supportive. Life goes on and if they live happily ever after, it doesn’t mean you’ll stay alone.

“Hi!” Gwen’s chirpy voice greets you from the kitchen as you step inside and lean your back against the door to take a breath.

“Hey,” you still sound weak but not weak enough to make her worry.

“How was your day?” You ask her when you’ve taken your jacket and boots off, joining her in the kitchen where she’s making something in a small pot. You smell something savory cooking on the stove and a hint of hunger grumbles in your stomach. She’s almost dancing around the table, picking out a flowery bowl for you, matching it with her striped one.

“It was great! Patrol went good, had great company, everything was really nice. What about you, what did you end up doing?”

“I didn’t even know you were supposed to go out for patrol today?” The question comes out pricklier than you intended.

“It was a last minute thing, but it was fine. Got my headache cleared out in the forest.” She pours the soup into your bowl and then hers and when she sits down, she looks at you with blushing cheeks and her eyes sparkle.

“I was out with Ellie, she wanted to learn to shoot better,” you tell her as she’s still waiting for your answer.

“Oh yeah I heard rumors you’re quite the badass! What do they call you…” She snaps her fingers together and as she says, “Oh yeah, Savvy,” you repeat the nickname at the same time but no voice passes your lips.

You pick up your spoon and taste the steamy dinner. You might still feel the jealousy creeping under your skin but can’t deny how grateful you are that Gwen made you both such a delicious dinner.

“Did you make this?” You have to slow down to be able to enjoy it a bit longer. The setting sun pours in through the kitchen window and blinds you. It doesn’t seem to bother Gwen who is smiling and wiggling slowly from side to side in her seat, like she’s hearing music you’re not able to.

“You’d know if I was this good of a cook,” she giggles. “I got it from Joel, he had a huge pot of it in his fridge.” You swallow harshly but keep smiling. You watch her under the palm of your hand as you try to shield your sensitive eyes from the orange glow of spring.

Gwen looks happy. Her eyes shine and her smile looks like it’s never going to leave her lips. Everything about her tells you she’s excited about what’s happening in her life.

“You’ve become close?” You try to not sound nosy. You’re just making conversation with your friend, you convince yourself.

“Uh-huh,” she hums and looks at you straight in the eyes. Your spoon stops in the air as she nails you in your place. “We had a good conversation today, he’s so interesting and insightful. I’m so lucky I have him as my patrol partner.” She beams at you. You can’t help but smile back at her even though you still feel the green-eyed monster clawing inside your chest trying to close your throat up.

“I understand why some might think he’s a bit intimidating, but I’ve seen men like him all over this country while I was still travelling with the group.” She takes a bit of soup and sighs around her spoon when she pushes it into her mouth. You copy her and feel the hearty dinner warm you from the inside out.

“I think he’s resourceful, careful, a bit reserved but he’s a big softy when you know what buttons to push.” She giggles and reminds you of Ellie when she was telling those bad jokes to you and Joel last year. You have to tilt your face away from her. The ghost of the kiss from months ago pushes itself into the forefront of your thoughts and lingers there, teasing you with the hold he still has on you.

“And you know what?” She leans her forearms against the table and waits for you to react.

“What?” You lift your gaze and see her expression melting.

“He’s so gentle hearted. When you get to know him, he’s so incredibly caring and thoughtful. He respects the people around him and he wants to make sure the people he cares about are safe. You should hear how he talks about some people.” She nods her head towards you slowly and squints her eyes. They glint in the low light of the spring evening. You smile at her gently. She deserves this. She deserves to feel that safety after being out there in the wild for so long. If she has found that with Joel, then there’s nothing else to do than to be happy.

You think about your jealousy as quiet settles between the two of you. You understand the feeling and where it comes from. When you’re alone in your room at night, in the quiet, you can’t deny you haven’t wanted him.

You’ve missed his voice, even the way he held your hand. You’ve been wanting to feel that same touch again, but all over you. It’s not just the physicality of him though. You miss the connection, the broadness of him invading your personal space slowly at first, but then in all its glory so there is nothing else than him. You could’ve talked with him after the first time you realised you miss him. You should’ve admitted it to yourself sooner. You would’ve had a chance. Now life moves on and you only have to accept it.

“You want to do something this evening?” Gwen asks you as she takes your empty bowl to the sink and starts to wash them immediately.

“I think I’ll just have an early night, I’m still pretty tired from yesterday.” She laughs with her sing song voice that always manages to bring up a smile on your face.

“I get it. You have to save some fun for next weekend as well.” She places one of the bowls on the counter, still dripping and soapy. She looks domestic in the cream colored kitchen, all sunlight and laughter, her hair in a ponytail that swings against her back every time she moves.

You fade away from her and pull into your bedroom that is now shrouded in shadows. The setting sun creeps across your deep blue walls and creates a contrast that sucks you in. You enjoy the sun, but you need your darkness. You need the warmth, without it you wouldn’t be able to face all parts of yourself. The jealousy washes over you and you let it. You examine it, like it’s a thing you can take into your hands and look at. You breathe against it and chip away at the thoughts it whispers into your ears.

You make a decision. You care about him. You care about Gwen. People need people, they need love. He deserves it. Gwen can give it without taking space. So you’ll be happy for him. Your jealousy is fleeting. In the end, so are your feelings for him. it might hurt for a while but you’ll get over it. And when that happens, you’ll see how it was all supposed to go that way.

Just at this moment you can’t see it, but you will eventually.

So you keep your head down. You keep working, you help Brenda and Diana when they need it and you spend time with your friends. You get a bit too drunk some nights when you’re out with them. You play music too loud in the house and Gwen joins you as you both belt out the songs as best as you can, not caring if it’s on key or not.

You go hunting with Dan and on shorter patrols with Clara. You answer her questions about living with a housemate, what Gwen is like and what it has been like living in your own house. She’s so gracious when you talk about the tougher times and she’s happy you have someone like Gwen brightening your days. Sometimes she notices you need a distraction and she tells you about her days and attempts at painting her home to match her personality better. Her gentle words about Joel helping her and showing her how to fix basic things around her home always make you smile even if you want it or not.

And you see Joel. At the stables, when you pass by each other on the streets, at The Tipsy Bison. He’s always present, and you’re always aware of him. You keep your distance even more, careful to not cross any boundaries. At the dining hall your eyes always search for him if you know he’s been out on patrol with Gwen. Every time you find him and he’s in a deep conversation with her. Some other times you think he turns his gaze away from you. But you can’t be sure so you don’t think about it too much. It is what it is, the ship has sailed and you just have to get over it.

April turns to May, and May turns to June. Summer sweeps across the town slowly and over one night at the same time. At first the mornings are hazy and there’s still some crispness in the air. Then it’s suddenly mellow and the sun rises early in the morning. The days get longer and the air gets to that perfect balance between cool and hot.

You can’t remember if it was like this last summer, but when you’re doing your usual chores at the stables, sweat drips easily down your spine and makes your skin sticky. And when you’re taking in your day, relaxing in Diana and Brenda’s garden with tea, you can feel yourself a little chilly in the shade of the massive aspen trees that sighs with the gentle breeze dancing across its green leaves.

The whole town is getting ready for bonfire night in a few days, excitement settling in when the plans for the town event get clearer. You didn’t go there last year, but this year you’re more than ready. The whole town is coming together for the first time since last fall and the big celebration where you enjoyed the last few nights before the cold settled in.

Now everyone is preparing for the new season of fresh summer produce. By the bonfire night, the first strawberries will be ripe. The gardens are full of greenery and people working there will see the efforts of their labors coming into fruition after planting and taking care of the existing plants and saplings through the freezing months. Everyone is looking forward to this celebration. It means no patrols, just food and joy to greet the summer with open arms.

Then the day arrives. It’s a scorching, cloudless sky day with birds circling up in the air. You go help out with the heavy lifting, getting benches and chairs into place around where the bonfire is being built. People are already bringing out tables for the food plates and where people will be served with a cold, sweet flavored water, leaves of mint floating on the top of the containers.

You feel sweat pouring out of your pores while you work and you wipe it from your temples with the backs of your hands. Just as everything looks to be in place, the town center starts to fill with people ready to party. You slip out of there to have a shower to scrub the stickiness off your skin and change your clothes. Your home is silent. Gwen has to be at the celebration already. You let the burn of the sun dry your hair when you get back to the unlit bonfire.

The whole town center is packed. People are squeezing to find places for them to sit to get the best view of the fire later, reserving spots for their family and friends. There’s so much laughter and chatter around you, almost like the people have come alive after the darker months with the nature surrounding you.

You easily find Diana and Brenda sitting on a bench, a seat saved for you with a blanket you can wrap around you when the evening eventually will turn chillier. You make your way to the drink line, their and your mugs in hand, and stand behind a group of teenagers. A familiar looking head of hair turns to you and Ellie’s smile sparkles as she notices you.

“Hi!” Her voice makes her friends turn around and you recognise them all as the group from the library. A bit more grown up but still teenagers, green and inexperienced for the world. They all greet you as you look at them and you smile at them warmly, which seems to thaw some of their nervousness. Ellie steps closer to you and clinks your mugs together.

“Happy summer!” You notice she has two mugs in her hand, the other a plain sandy one with a brown trim and the other a deep purple, which she’s holding by their ears.

“Happy summer. You know you can always get a refill on your own mug?” You joke and touch the sandy mug in her hand. She turns it to you and you can see an owl carving on it.

“Oh no, this isn’t for me. Joel made me get him a drink as well, he was planning something with Gwen,” she chuckles and you feel your cheeks burning. Instantly your Joel radar goes off and you lift your gaze to look around you to see if he’s somewhere close.

You can’t see him in the sea of people. You have seen them together plenty of times but somehow this evening seems more special. There’s some magic in the air, must be the dreamy glow of the summer solstice, the sweet smell in the air, the cheery mood all around you. The couples you see leaning against each other waiting for the sun to set and the sparks to light up the dry wood in the middle of the town center with flames.

The line moves fast, containers of minty, sweet water filling glasses and mugs with experienced hands, little to no water spilling on the tables. Ellie and her friends wave you off as they have their drinks, leaving you to make your way to the older couple waiting for you. You clink your mugs together and watch the stream of people around you.

“Are you going to stay for long after the bonfire is lit?” You ask them and they both look at each other.

“A while but not that long probably, we want to wake up early tomorrow to get to planting the garden when it’s still cool outside,” Diana wonders out loud and Brenda nods along.

“You should come over for dinner tomorrow, I want to try this herb salad a neighbor recommended,” Brenda takes your hand into hers and cradles it like a grandparent cradles the hands of their grandkids.

“Count me in.” You finish your water with them but leave them after that to find your other friends. Dan and Sasha told you to sit with them when the bonfire is lit. Apparently they’re going to get the best seats. And you can’t complain when you finally see them in the crowds. The bench they’re sitting on with others from the stables is not too far back, but also not too close to the bonfire, just at the right angle to get a clear view of the upcoming event.

You make your way to them and as soon as you sit down next to Sasha, who is leaning against Dan, a full plate of food is given to you and your mug is filled with a pink drink that seems to simmer in the shades of amber as the day starts to break into evening. Someone is playing the guitar and the loud noise of people talking manages to drown it out if you’re not close enough to the one playing it. You can barely hear it. The higher notes come through better than the lower ones.

A sense of home surrounds you as you fill your growling stomach with the seed crackers on your plate, fresh butter, cheese, and herbs topping them while strawberries roll around the edge.

Someone clangs a bell and people understand to quiet. An older, silver haired, wrinkly cheeked man is standing on a wooden crate in front of the bonfire and claps his hands together. Everyone has their eyes on him as he does a full circle on the crate, managing to look at everyone gathered around.

“The cold is away and were celebrating summer once again. Are we ready to light the bonfire?” His question is answered by people clapping and whistling.

“Are we ready?” He yells and you can’t stop yourself from laughing when he encourages people to start cheering and keep it up. He steps down the crate and throws it on the stack of firewood, digs his pocket for a lighter and lights a piece of bark on fire.

The cheering wanes away until it’s so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. With bated breath you watch the man push the bark into a crevice in the pile of wood and light another piece on fire with the lighter in his hand. You can hear the sparking and see bark being fed to the awaiting dry pile of timber.

When it starts to smoke, some people gasp out in relief and in excitement. But it isn’t until the first licks of flames emerge from the crevices when people erupt into optimistic whoops and then in more rapture when the fire starts to spread. More and more people cheer along and soon the whole town center is filled with people celebrating the official start of summer in Jackson.

The guitar starts to play again and people begin singing along to the familiar songs you heard a long time ago, and songs that are new to you, written by people who live in the town. You see Dan hugging Sasha and whisper something into her ear, her eyes prickling with tears. She nods and when she kisses him, you look away and drink the alcohol from your mug that burns pleasantly in your throat. It isn’t just any drink, it’s Dan’s mix that you taste tested a few weeks ago, now more rounded and sweeter. He sways to the music with Sasha wrapped in his arms and you can feel it with the sparks that fly out of the fire. That magic that is all around you.

Even in this big crowd you find yourself feeling sorrowful, hyper aware of yourself yet like you’re just someone spectating everything happening around you. A strange mix of contentment and loneliness that makes you stand up and walk around.

All the kids have been sent home, only adults and older teens staying to celebrate by the bonfire as the night goes on, the horizon turning darker and stars sprinkling across the inky sky. Some hazy clouds drift across the starlit backdrop and turn rusty with the flames reaching towards them. There’s no other lights on than the bonfire and it’s more than enough to give light to the party.

The smoke catches gently onto your clothes and burns your eyes if you get too close. No wonder you were told to arrange the seats to a good distance away from the fire to keep people safe and to let them enjoy the night without inhaling too much of the acrid smoke. There’s barely any wind, only the heat from the fire and the coolness from the night, a perfect balance as you make your way through the crowds.

You carry your mug with you, sipping from it from time to time, and say hello to people who say hi to you. People who have come get horses, who you might exchange a few words with here and there. People you’ve seen at the green houses, at the dining hall and just out in the town. People who know you by your nickname but might not know anything else about you.

And then there’s him. Joel. In a dark t-shirt, his arms catching all the shadows from the fire. You can only see his profile, the bow of his nose, the roundness of his cheeks as he smiles, the line of his jaw covered with his salt and pepper beard. He drinks something from the mug he has in his hand, the other bent over his chest, his bicep hugging against his side.

Gwen is laughing with him. You can almost hear her. You hate that the jealousy comes back in full force when you see them drinking together. You pull yourself back from it and engage in a conversation about someone wanting to organise a party during the wintertime as well and how much it annoys them they have to wait so long before people come together again for a big get together like this. You try to focus on what the people you’ve blended yourself in are saying but can barely keep up.

Once you’ve seen him, how damn good he looks with his hair all fluffy and dark against the golden light, some greying streaks coming through like foamy waves in the ocean, you fight a losing battle with yourself.  You can almost imagine how he smells, how his voice sounds in this glowing fire. His cheeks look flushed as he turns towards the bonfire and sips from his mug. He must be drinking something stronger as well than the sweet water from earlier. You hear the group around you laugh and you join them but have no idea what they’re saying.

Fuck you miss him.

As much as you’d like to be the bigger person and say you don’t care if he’s with someone else, that you don’t feel jealous at all, it’s harder to do as alcohol blurs your thoughts and makes you crave his company. He’s part of your life if you like it or not. He’s part of the good and the bad.

He saw you when you had lost yourself. He saw you when you were at your weakest and needed someone to help you pick up the pieces. He has seen you at your deadliest. He has seen you healing. And when you were starting to get yourself back together. He has seen you this whole time and he has been so incredibly gentle with you. And how do you pay him back? By pushing him away. You kick yourself in your head, how stupid that was of you.

Gwen says something to him and suddenly they’re laughing again. Clara joins them and Gwen grabs at his bicep. You can see his mouth moving as he points at Gwen and immediately Clara looks impressed, asking more questions from her.

She looks almost shy around Clara, her eyes flitting across the crowds and stopping to stare at her for a moment before she turns her gaze away. Her cheeks are flaming pink and she bites her lower lip like she could pierce it.

He drinks from his mug, emptying it completely, before he leaves the women to talk by themselves as he makes it his mission to get something more to drink. You watch his broad back as he weaves his way through the people and gets a refill. Tommy joins him. The two brothers stand next to each other, similar in height and build, both tall and strong, yet still so different.

The flickering firelight dances across their features while Tommy leans his head closer to Joel’s left ear. Joel shakes his head and his eyes are covered in shadows. A joyless smirk passes over his lips and he presses the mug against them.

You hear laughter somewhere overhead and look up to see a group of teens sitting up on a rooftop watching the town center and bonfire from above. Ellie waves at you and you lift your mug at her as you keep on walking around the crowds, now knowing exactly where Joel is and where you might not want to go to not feel that pang of sadness lash through you again.

You find yourself with another group of people but you can’t focus on what they’re saying or how you react to their stories. Your eyes search for Joel to see him still by the bar with Tommy, casually chatting one moment, in a deep conversation the next.

You make your way to sit for a moment on one of the back benches and try to see him again but you can’t find him. Both Joel and Tommy are gone. You battle with yourself about what you should do. You want to go talk with him, just to even say hi, but you don’t want to bother him or mess anything up with him and Gwen.

The firelight doesn’t reach you as well anymore and you can feel the chill of the evening inching across your skin. Slowly, but in a steady stream, people start leaving. There’s more seating available and even though there’s still plenty of people to fill the town with chatter, you can hear the songs played on the guitar clearer and enjoy the comforting sounds of the instrument.

“Here you are!” Brenda’s voice startles you and you press your hands against your mug when the older couple smiles at you.

“Were you looking for me?” You raise your brows at them as your suspicion rises why they’re in such a good mood. They’re both almost giggling and Brenda looks like she can’t contain herself.

“I’m not one for gossip, but we couldn’t help but hear someone say something,” Diana begins as she sits next to you. Her skin glows in the softness of the firelight and the bundle of a blanket cradled in her arms looks incredibly soft. Brenda sits on your other side and takes your hand into hers.

“I don’t think you have anything to be jealous about with Joel,” Diana says slowly. She tilts her head right as you let confusion wash over your features.

“We heard Joel Miller has been a little cupid,” Brenda snickers close to your ear. “When you said he was interested in Gwen, I knew immediately there was something off with that.” Her tone tells you she has been invested in this for a while. She fixes her gaze on something and when you follow it, you see Joel with Gwen again, but her eyes are glued on Clara who talks with them both.

“What do you mean?”

“Because I heard from a little bird that Joel has been helping Gwen make an impression on Clara for a while now. It looks like he did a decent job, but it’s a little funny that he has been up to the task with people you’re also close with, isn’t it?” She questions and you slowly turn back to her, only to see her knowing smirk and suggestive sparkle in her eyes.

“He’s good friends with Clara, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.” You point out, but find yourself searching for him again, only to find he has left Gwen and Clara once more.

“Like I said, I’m not a gossiper, but it does seem like he’s not involved, if you understand what I mean?” Diana’s contribution only feeds Brenda’s excitement.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough. There’s nothing that could back that up and I’m not even sure if he’s interested in me,” you try to reason mostly with yourself to keep your nerves from leaping and your heart from racing. Diana touches your arm and her warm, motherly softness makes you quiet and focus on her.

“I’m proud of you and the progress you’ve made in the last year. But it is a little funny that you try to convince yourself that you’re not lovable or don’t deserve something good in your life. There’s only one way to find out if he feels the same way you do.” Brenda squeezes your hand as you both listen to Diana talk to you not as the person who has helped you with your difficulties, but as someone who includes you in their family and is ready to be honest with you in the gentlest way possible.

“You still have plenty of night left to go talk with him,” Brenda gushes in your ear and you can smell hints of alcohol in her breath. Diana stands up and takes Brenda by the hand.

“Do you want the blanket?” She offers you but you shake your head no, nervous about the possibilities of what this could mean.

“There’s magic in the air tonight, I tell you, magic.” Brenda’s eyes close as she smiles and lets Diana take her under her arm. They wrap around each other still somehow managing to walk at the same time.

You watch their backs disappear into the darkness away from the warm glow of the town center. Now that you’re sitting alone, your jealousy crumbles into tentative hope. Gwen and Clara are nowhere to be found, but Joel is. He sits close to the fire, on the other side of where you are. He’s leaning his arms against his thighs. He looks like he’s deep in thought, rolling his mug against his fingers incredibly slowly. You wouldn’t know he’s doing it if you didn’t see the ear of the mug turn with the movements.

The bonfire is still burning bright. The night is swallowing everything into darkness that isn’t touched by the glow of the flames. The person, who played the guitar before has left and you can hear the crackles and snaps of the wood burning like it’s the soundtrack of the night.

More and more people are leaving and the ones who stay take more space for themselves on the benches, wrapped in blankets or just warming themselves against the orange and red of the fire. Tommy sits next to him and you see it. Joel’s guitar. Tommy places it onto his lap and tunes it before he starts to play a gentle tune.

He plays slowly and his fingers try to find the right strings, but every time he does it the song stops and makes Joel shake his head. He sets the mug next to him and asks for the guitar from his brother, who gladly gives it to Joel. Almost like him playing was just a ploy to get Joel to want it for himself. He holds the neck of the instrument against his palm and his fingers rest on the strings like he’s not sure if he should play or not. When he does, the sound is gentle, perfect for the quieting evening under the stars and shine of the flames.

He drifts into the tune he’s playing. He hangs his head low and the music flows out of his fingers with such ease that it makes you stare for a moment. Like that time behind his door when you heard him playing his guitar, once again you’re taken aback by the emotion he pours into it.

He’s not just playing because it’s a song he likes, he plays it like it has a story behind it. You stand up and make your way slowly around the bonfire, rounding behind him to not disturb his concentration as there’s less people on his side of the seats. The ones who hear him playing the guitar nod their heads along or sway to the music.

You find a place a couple of benches behind Joel and Tommy. You watch his shadowed broad frame, lined with the golden halo around him. There’s a few curls right on the nape of his neck, behind his ears and on top of his head, sticking out. You hear Tommy’s voice and Joel’s low crumble answer him. You can’t hear what they’re talking about but the fire in front of you has nothing on the low chuckles he lets out a few times. He goes through songs like they’re in his spine, while they talk so quietly no one else can hear them except themselves. The air feels vibrant as you listen to the music he plucks out with his fingers.

If what Diana and Brenda said was true, this is the moment to find it out. You still have enough alcohol in your system to be brave enough to go talk with him. But you can’t move. You feel that inexplicable pull he has on you, that ability to make you at ease and nervous at the same time. You force yourself on your feet and take a light step forward, but only to move to his left and stay behind him to sit on another bench.

You can’t talk with him, not yet. You don’t want to break your own heart by finding out the truth. This is like admitting your feelings for him once again, only worse. You’re so sure he has moved on, as he should have, and whatever it was that happened last fall is long gone. You’re making yourself nervous. You take a deep breath and listen to the music he’s still playing while talking with his brother from time to time.

The gentle tune lulls you into a quiet daze. You look up and watch at the pitch-black sky littered with the enormity of space and little sparks emanating from the bonfire that someone is keeping an eye on and prodding every once in a while now that the firewood is a pile of embers and ash. You listen to his guitar and close your eyes.

You drift off to a soft daydream where you’re warm and safe. You’re reminded of a summer day with your siblings when you were younger. It was in the QZ. There was a hill that during summer time always turned into a field of dry hay. You remember your skin being hot under the unrelenting sunshine and how sweat beaded on your forehead after you had finished playing with them.

You could see the hanging stage from the hill, a reminder of the world you were in, but you were with your siblings and nothing else mattered. You were singing with them and laughing so hard that your stomachs and cheeks hurt.

You hear the tune and you hum along. The memory changes and you can feel Joel’s hand wrapped around your hand, his fingertips against your wrist. How that small gesture could tell you that his hand around yours wasn’t enough. And how it told him your pulse picked up even when you were still unable to admit that you wanted him close. He knew what he was doing. He knew all along.

You keep on singing along to the song. It repeats in your head, a memory from your childhood, of your family. You bring your chin against your chest and come back to reality. How it’s all just memories and moments from before. How it’s all different now. How that was a life that doesn’t seem your own anymore, like it’s separate from you.

You blink your eyes open and hear only people’s quiet whispers and soft footsteps as they leave to go home. And silence, no more music. You gaze up to meet Joel already looking at you. He’s leaning his arm against the body of the guitar, the back of his hand against his jaw as his head tilts to watch you.

“Hey,” he says so quietly that you’re not sure if you imagined it. He doesn’t want to break the magic of the night. Your lips quirk up and you greet him back.

“Well, I think I’m ready to go back to my girls,” Tommy announces and that’s what breaks the moment. you shift in your seat and look at the ground and your shoes that are covered in dust.

“Yeah, I’m going to head home too,” Joel sighs and clears his throat.

“You?” Tommy asks and you realise he’s asking it from you when no one else answers him.

“I think so.”

“The way Clara and Gwen were hitting it off, I’m not sure if you’re safe going to your own home.” Tommy’s laugh makes you raise your brows. Just like Brenda said, Gwen had no interest in Joel at all. You stare at him with empty eyes as it all somehow clicks. How she talked to you about Joel with a knowing look, trying to get a reaction out of you. How Clara was telling you about Joel, keeping him present when you hadn’t talked with him for a while and she was clearly looking for you to ask about him. You’ve been blind, oh so incredibly blind.

“Maybe you should crash at Joel’s? You have a spare room now that Ellie lives in her garage.” Tommy’s suggestion makes Joel whip his head around to face his brother and from the tension on his shoulders and a hissed whisper you know he’s not appreciating the unsubtle hint.

“If it won’t be too much trouble?” You go for it. You have to talk with him. You decide to be brave and the alcohol still coursing through you makes you bolder than you actually feel. This has to be it. Just to give yourself the peace of mind to know what he wants. To give yourself the chance to know how you should feel moving forward. You need the clarity, maybe this is luck in disguise.

Joel turns to you slowly, not expecting your question. He takes you in with an unreadable expression on his face. You can tell his walls are back up, to keep himself safe and unharmed.

“Not at all,” he shakes his head. Tommy grins and claps his hand on Joel’s shoulder.

“Goodnight to the both of you then,” his voice seems so loud in the silence of the night.

You stand up and stretch your back from sitting on the hard bench. You tip your mug against your mouth and drink the last drops of Dan’s own mix while you wait for Joel to reach you before you start your unhurried walk to his house. He puts the guitar on his back, like it’d be his rifle, and holds the strap tightly in his hold. Tension is thick in the air and you feel it rippling between the two of you. The town gets darker the further you get from the bonfire and the warm glow it provided.

“So Ellie’s in her garage?” You want to make some conversation to not lose yourself completely to the silence.

“She said she was going to Dina’s for the night with her friends,” he says thoughtfully. You nod at his answer and try to lean into the comfort you once felt when neither of you talked. Now it’s replaced by shyness and nerves that are making your hands tingle.

There’s no lights on when he holds the door open for you and you walk past him. Your arm brushes against his chest. He flicks the light switch and the rusty colored ceiling light in the hallway blinks on. You toe your shoes off and stand awkwardly in place while he opens his boots. He puts them neatly in line with yours.

It’s been a long time since you were here last. You look around, but not much has changed. There’s a few picture frames on the mantelpiece. Yu can see the gentle pencil marks on white paper. Drawings. A new stack of DVD’s has found their place on the bookshelf and there’s a new blanket on the back of the couch. In the dining room, on the table, there’s a few candles on a plate, candlewax pooling on the ceramic.

“You want anything to drink? Water, something alcoholic?” He asks and takes the guitar into the living room, placing it in the corner.

“Water’s good,” he turns his left ear towards you as you follow him into the kitchen. The lights blink on and there’s glasses and plates all over the kitchen island. He sighs deep and picks them one by one and puts them into the sink. You hand him the last little glass and your fingers brush together. Your skin heats up immediately even though it’s just a quick brush that you might’ve otherwise not even felt if you hadn’t looked at his hand.

“I told her to dunk them in water, she’s been collecting all these in the garage,” he grumbles. He picks up a clean glass off the drying rack and fills it with sparkly, cold water and gives it to you. You set your mug on the counter where Ellie’s dishes were and he takes it, dropping it in the sink as well. The glass in your hands drips water against your palm and you sip from it. The coolness of it evens out the pitter patter inside your chest as the silence stretches between the two of you.

“You have a nice voice,” he wonders out loud.

“What?”

“You sang the song I was playing on the guitar,” the other side of his mouth lifts up lazily and you have to look away when the heat inside you spills over. You have to still be a little drunk, a little hazy from the alcohol, but you can’t explain your feelings for him away with being drunk when you know it’s just him who is making you feel a little dizzy and giggly.

“Oh no,” you squeeze your eyes shut and smooth the wrinkle between your brows with your fingers, all while an embarrassed wheeze escapes your throat. “I didn’t mean for people to hear me.”

Your eyes fly open when his fingers brush against the back of your hand. He’s suddenly close, so close that you can feel his breath on your face. His fingers round over your hand and pull it towards him just so he can touch the inside of your wrist, his tough, warm, almost hot fingertips pressing gently against your pulse point. His grin only grows when he feels the unstable rhythm beating under your delicate skin.

“It’s a good song,” he mutters.

“It is.” The tension that you’re not sure ever went away is thicker than before, rippling, swelling, eating you whole. His eyes are dark, swallowed by the dim lighting, framed with even darker lashes. He’s going to stay close even when his hand lets go of your wrist in slow motion. He’s not going to let you pull away this time.

You have to turn your eyes from him to not choke on your water. You finish the glass in one mouthful and your throat burns as you have to swallow the water down with three big gulps. So much for not almost choking.

“Tired?” He quirks his brows up. You really aren’t. You feel like those embers from the bonfire have gone through your skin and are living inside you, making you glow.

“Not really,” your voice comes out barely audible and he tilts his head slowly. Your words are the ones that make him finally break eye contact. A hint of red blushes his cheeks and he lets out a long breath.

“Maybe we should make the bed in the empty room.”

You follow him up the stairs. There’s one step that creaks under his foot, and then under yours as you’re right on his heels climbing them at the same pace as him. You grip the banister like you could otherwise trip over. You follow him into a room, a bedroom, that you figure is his.

The duvet has been thrown carelessly over the wide bed. There’s a comfortable chair in the corner of the room, in front of the double windows that he has left open and where cool air is breezing in. A few clothes rest on the armrest, but it all looks just like a bunch of darker fabrics blending together. On the other side of the bed is a box full of records, a record player and a wardrobe where he’s now choosing sheets from.

You notice a book and a couple of pictures in simple frames sitting on the bedside table, under the hazy warm lighting of a lamp that radiates into the room, shrouding it in shadows. In one of the pictures is a younger Joel, smiling at the camera, a smile that you haven’t uncovered before. Next to him is a young girl with a cloud of dark, curly hair framing her face, his hand over her eyes. In the other picture she’s kissing his cheek, his face scrunched and her smile curving her eyes closed. The polaroids are faded, but not so much that you wouldn’t be able to make out what’s happening in them.

You take the one where she’s kissing his cheek into your hand and sit on his bed. His footsteps fall so quietly against the wooden floorboards that when he sits next to you, your first instinct is to make sure it’s still him. Joel’s thigh presses against the side of yours and you’re both looking at the picture in your hands.

“This her, Sarah?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. You can hear the soft, reminiscing smile in his voice. You lean your thigh against his a little tighter. There’s no words needed to express your sympathy. You place the photo back on the table gently, almost afraid you’d break it if it makes even the smallest of sounds.

“What’s this?” You look at the book next. It’s an old one, with the pages wrinkled with moisture and some corners earmarked. An Idiots Guide to Space you mouth the title without a sound and open a random page. You had no idea he’d be into space.

“Ellie has her birthday coming up next month and she’s real into this stuff. I’m taking her to a museum that has a space exhibit.” His low voice rumbles out barely audible in the quiet of his room. You smile at him and flip the pages. “It’s a surprise so you can’t tell her,” he warns and you nod your head in understanding. You find one of the pages that he has marked by turning the corner inward.

“You’ve underlined stuff here and everything, are you taking notes as well?” You tease him, running your fingertip against the words that he has marked as important. You don’t get far in reading the sentence when he’s sliding the book from your hands and lightly taps it against your arm.

“Okay, enough, I want to know something before we go to the museum so I won’t be a total rookie.” If this would be the first time you met him, you’d think he’s actually annoyed. But you can see the smallest upturn of his lips, the playful glint in the corner of his eye and hear the cheeky lilt in his tone.

“Fine, okay,” and you lift your hands up in surrender. He relaxes and puts the book back on the nightstand, leaning closer to you so you smell the smoke from the fire and him even better. You to continue your discovery journey through his nightstand.

“Anything else interesting in here?” You open the drawer and the items rattle against the wood. Inside is a jar of some sort of lotion that you can smell even through the lid, the sweet beeswaxy scent fluffing out of the drawer. You raise your brows at him and show him the jar.

“That’s just for when my hands are dry.” He clears his throat and his eyes shine black.  

“Mmhmm, for your dry hands,” you smirk. You put the jar back into the drawer and reach for his hand without looking. Your fingers land right on top of his and you touch the back of his palm. You have to admit, his skin is incredibly soft. Much softer than you’d expect from a man like him who goes out for patrols and does manual labor around the town. You pull your hand back and look at the other object next to the jar.

A revolver. A familiar one. You pick it up and as soon as you lay it against your palm, you recognise the feel of it. Something digs against the skin between your thumb and index finger. A similar dig that you felt in the library last year.

It’s the one Ellie had taken from Joel. You turn it in your hand and see scratch marks on the grip, right where it dug against your hand. You look at them more closely in the dim lighting. Letters, two of them. The first the same your sister’s name began with, the next the letter your last name begins with. You brush your fingers over them, a pang of recognition hitting you instantly.

“This is my gun,” you’re not sure if you’re stating a fact or if it’s a question. It could be both. “My sister, she engraved it with her initials in the worst place possible.” You show him the letters like a kid who has discovered a bug in the garden.

She didn’t mind the engraving, or maybe she didn’t care. You just remember her carving the grip with your knife in one of the settlements you managed to run for a while after leaving the QZ. She carried the gun everywhere. It was part of her. And then it was yours when she pushed it into your hands right before she died.

He doesn’t reach for it and you wouldn’t give it to him if he did. Instead you hold it in both of your hands and open the cylinder. It’s empty as you expected. Joel wouldn’t have a loaded gun next to his bed. Not in here at least. Your sister had it loaded at all times. She would sleep with it like it was her lover, nice and quiet, but ready to go off when needed.

“I had this with me,” you say quietly to him. “Why did you keep it?”

He doesn’t answer for a while and you start to wonder if he’s going to answer at all. When you look at him, you know immediately he’s taking his time deliberately. Calculating his words and picking out the right ones to stay honest with you. “I’m not sure. I could’ve given it away, but it didn’t feel right when I saw the initials. I was meant to give it to you at some point but there didn’t seem to be a right time for it,” he admits and looks at you through his lashes.

You turn away from him and close the gun back into the drawer. You massage your palms against the tops of your thighs while a wave of grief crashes through you. It pulls back, rushes in and drowns you with memories of your sister. Then the wave recedes and comes back again but doesn’t have a chance to hit the shore as strongly.

Every time the wave comes back, it’s a little less overwhelming, a little calmer, until it only ripples against something painful inside your chest. You push yourself up and don’t really know what you’re supposed to do now.

Here, in Joel’s bedroom, everything somehow seems incredibly loud and enormous, every little detail microscopically chaotic and amplified. The sounds of the cicadas in the garden float through the window and rings in your ears. The dim light seems bright in your eyes. Your clothes seems scratchy and uncomfortable. The floor under your feet feels too warm. The walls around you are unfamiliar and intimidating.

When Joel touches your hand, you gasp out a small sigh and close your eyes. His touch is feather light. He’s slow with his curling fingers that force you to stay with him, to focus on his presence alone. To let go of your discomfort piece by piece.

“Hey,” he mumbles, pulling you to turn towards him. You blink your eyes open. You’re immediately jumping into the gold flecked dark brown of his eyes. He brings you out of your head, out of your memories, solidifying you into this moment with him.

Your interlocked fingers squeeze together, and for a moment it’s a game between you to. He does it first, and you squeeze back like an answer. You go back and forth, pulsing the physical connection between the two of you until you crack a smile when he squeezes your hands together twice. He’s watching your reactions, waiting for a sign. Your smile is it. He slips his other hand into your free one, holding them both in his large palms, his thumbs brushing against the skin over your knuckles.

“Don’t leave.” It comes out more like plea. He winces right as he says the words, almost in embarrassment of his confession. You take a step closer, a small one, and then another, until you’re standing between his spread thighs.

“Was I going to?” You ask him and sway your joined hands carefully.

The sorrowful downturn of his eyes tells you he wasn’t talking about you going home. He wasn’t asking you stay here in his room, in his house. He was asking you to stay here with him mentally, to be present, to be here without panic, without the pain that you both still hold close to your hearts. Him and his photos. You and your sister’s gun.

“Can I tell you something?” You can barely feel any alcohol circulating in your system anymore. He nods and squeezes your hands more softly this time, to let you know that he wants to hear whatever you want to tell him. You take a deep breath and make yourself look him in the eyes, to not shy away from him this time.

“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed being around you.” It’s all true, all you, no liquid encouragement needed. His eyes brighten and his fond, slow grin breaks the surface. He presses his forehead against your fingers. His skin is hot against your touch, almost feverish if you didn’t know it’s from the heat that spreads from his cheeks to his whole face, in joy and wonder.

You pull your other hand free and card your fingers through his hair. A motion you’ve only done once before but have missed ever since. You bury your fingers into the softness of his curls and move your fingertips in a lazy circle. He leans against the touch and lets you tug his head up to reveal his face. The pad of your thumb touches the scar on his temple lightly and you see a flash of water in his eyes before he blinks it away.

You feel his massive hand slowly splaying across your hip, keeping you still, keeping you close, and you wouldn’t trade this moment for anything else.

“Me too,” he admits.

You don’t sleep. Neither of you does. The night rolls over the town on the other side of the window and you stay awake, laying on his bed, limbs wrapped around each other. You couldn’t be any closer to him, but you’d want to.

You listen to his steady heartbeat, the rumble of his voice through his chest. You lean your palm against his sternum, where you can feel the steady beats right against your hand. You watch him as he speaks, his eyes drifting to look at the ceiling, while his fingers draw shapes against your back in slow motion. His other arm is under his head, pillowing it, giving you a good look at his bicep as he unconsciously flexes it from time to time.

“We were too young. She was terrified when Sarah was born, so was I. But it hit her harder. She had all these plans for her future and she wasn’t ready to let them go.” His voice is far away as he remembers his past life.

“Didn’t you have plans then?”

“I did, but they were different. She wanted to graduate from college and move away, have a good career and a steady income. I was already working when Sarah was born. I didn’t go to college or get a fancy degree. I wanted to stay in Austin, I was happy there. I had lived my whole life there.” You listen to his slow drawl, the accent coming through stronger at times. His hand stops in the middle of your back and flattens against your spine. Like he’s making sure you’re actually real. That this moment is real.

“Do you know what happened to her after, did she get what she wanted?”

“I saw her a few years before the outbreak. Her dad had died and she came for the funeral. I didn’t know she was in town. It was by chance that she saw me in the store. She seemed happy. We didn’t really have anything to say and she didn’t want to stay when she found out Sarah was with Tommy by the ice cream aisle. There was this local brand that made her favorite ice cream and she wanted to get it but couldn’t risk getting seen. But you know what’s funny?” He asks in a way that tells you it’s more bittersweet than funny.

“Sarah loved the same ice cream. Vanilla and raspberry, there always had to be a tub at home.” You smile at his memory.

“Even thinking about that makes me crave ice cream.” He smooths his whole palm up and down your whole back, to the points where his hand almost lifts off and doesn’t bend anymore.

“What about after her, did you date anyone?”

“I don’t really know if you can call it dating when it’s the apocalypse,” he jokes and a chuckle vibrates out of you and into his chest. “Not really. Not until, well… There was my friend who I met a few years after the outbreak.” He glances at you from the corner of his eye. You don’t want to fill in with the information Ellie gave you a while back. This is for him to tell, whatever he wants to tell.

“Tess,” he says slowly. A crease forms between his brows as he lets the thoughts of her pass him by. “I don’t think I would’ve survived as long without her.” You drop your ear against his chest and smooth your palm over it and around to his side, pulling yourself just a little closer.

“What about you, have you had anyone?” His voice is tentative.

You take a deep breath before you speak. “Not really. There hasn’t really been any time or chances to think about liking someone for who they are rather than for what they’ve been able to offer. I just fooled around with some people in the QZ, but I never did it for fun. It was more a necessity in that moment.” He makes a thoughtful noise while he considers your words. You hear it filter through his chest in low vibration and it tickles against your ear.

“What about now, do you still feel the same way?” He tries to sound uncaring, but when you steady your chin against the back of your hand again and look at him, there’s nervousness on his face. A pinch of uncertainty that he’s trying to keep at bay but doesn’t manage to hide it completely.

“What do you mean? About you?”

“Would it be a necessity to like someone now?” His doubt is something that takes you aback. An expression he rarely lets through. The walls he has been keeping around himself for so long, the ones he has built over the years, one rock at a time, sealed them with the thickest concrete to keep everyone out. It’s finally crumbling down in front of you completely. He’ll probably always protect himself from whatever hurt he might go through, but there’s a space that you can squeeze yourself through.

“No, it’s not,” you’re thoughtful with your words. “It’s different here. We get to live here, there’s routines and safety. We get to go to bed in the evening and fall asleep without having to worry about someone coming in and taking away that freedom.”

He listens to you with his full attention, just as you like. You’re heard and understood. He can’t deny the things you lay on the table because he knows it too. Jackson isn’t like living in a QZ where you’re used to the fear of being punished or getting caught doing something you’re not supposed to be doing. It becomes part of your system, the constant dread and danger, and it doesn’t let you out of its grasp unless you leave.

Then the fear changes because you’re not safe at all. There’s no security of walls or soldiers keeping you at least somewhat safe while threatening your safety at the same time. There’s the fear of getting infected, getting caught by people who have no good intentions or being welcomed into groups that seem kind and friendly at first, the ones who say they want to give you care, but end up making you feel like you’re poisoned from the inside out. You can’t figure out how it happens or how to escape it, until you realise there is no options than to stay and follow a new, stricter set of rules.

“For starters, it’s not out of necessity that I like you, but I do.” You admit it through a thickness in your throat.

“You still like me?” His grin that reaches the corners of his eyes makes you snicker.

“I think it’s pretty obvious.” You dig your fingers into his side and he squirms against it. He barks out a laugh and the sound surprises you.

“Are you ticklish here?” You dig your fingertips into his ribs again only to make him wriggle against it.

“I’m sensitive, it’s not the same as ticklish,” he fights back but when you’ve found the spot that makes him lose that solid, gruff exterior and his face twists into a silent gasping laughter, you can’t let the discovery go. You break into giggles as he fights against your exploring fingers. He puffs air from his lungs in an attempt to keep himself from fully losing the battle to his tingling weakness.

“Stop it!” He growls and wrestles you off him, his large hands pinning your wrists together and against the bed. The room is even darker now that it’s the middle of the night but you can still clearly see his eyes shining and the crooked grin that rests on his face. You open your palms and hide your smile behind them.

You nuzzle your face closer to his onto the same pillow. Your hands are against his chest and you let that warmth spread through to the rest of your body. He finds his place against you again, his arm easing on your side and his hand finding that slow rhythm from earlier against your clothed spine.

“What?” You ask as he squints his eyes just the tiniest amount. You can see thoughts running through his mind, but he’s not sure if he should let you in on them. He shakes his head and looks away like he’s ending conversation before it has a chance to even start. But when he finds you still interested to know what he’s thinking, he pulls his hand from your back and puts space between you two.

“I asked Clara about you.” He’s waiting for you to say something. He’s expecting you to turn away from him, that he crossed a line and overstepped a boundary you set last fall.

“When?”

“After I saw you two going on patrols.” He looks away finally, in embarrassment of what he’s telling you.

“What did you ask her?” Your tone is more curios than anything. He sighs and closes his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose before he runs his fingers across his chin.

“How you were, what you had been up to. If she knew anything about you… maybe… dating anyone.” The different levels of awkwardness run across his features and he turns on his back again. He’s still giving you that out, that space if you need it. The last piece of the puzzle locks into place. She didn’t mention him to you by chance. Her questions were also questions from him.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” Your chuckle is easy and it gives him a chance to face you without the fear of maybe you being completely blindsided by his admission.

“I don’t know,” his voice is breathy in a way that signals how confused he was by that as well.

“I asked Ellie about you too,” you can’t hide the smirk from your face. When his brows knit together, he turns his eyes to you. Slowly his body follows until you’re facing each other fully. You make space for yourself on his pillow again and he lets you.

“And how did that go?”

“She said Gwen has been all over you so I thought you two had gotten together.” You can’t help it when laugh bubbles out of you.

“Why did you think that we…” He stops himself and blinks carefully a few times. His eyes look black in the lighting. He tilts his head up just a tiny bit and the smirk on his lips makes you prepare for whatever he’s going to say. “I was just helping her get closer to Clara. But more importantly, were you jealous?” You hide your face with your hands and can’t believe that this conversation has lead to this. You nod your head while the whole situation starts to look incredibly foolish to you. How silly it all makes you feel now. He wraps his fingers around your wrist to reveal your face and to gently twine his fingers with yours.

“She figured as much when she told me about how you had been when she had talked about me at your home.” His brows quirk up in challenge only to make you want to hide your face again. The grimaced smile on your lips is straining against your cheeks. He doesn’t let you as your fingers are still slotted together.

“Why do I feel like we’re teenagers with bad communication skills?” You ask through your frustrated groans.

“Should we promise something to each other?” He asks. The look on his face has melted into comfort and warmth, breaking the chain of embarrassment in you. “From now on we talk to each other. No hiding, no fear of what the other is going to say. Just us.”

“I’d like that,” your voice comes out weaker than you’d want. His arm wraps around you again and you relax into his chest, your foreheads almost touching. You want to relax, but there’s something on your mind that doesn’t let you.

“There’s one thing I want to say.” He hums and you watch his shadowed face. “I want us to take things slow. One day at a time, see where this could go.”

“This,” he repeats and his eyes are half shut. He savors the word on his tongue and it hangs between you like a promise. “I’m okay with that,” he answers. You press your palm against his chest and keep it there, to feel the rush of his heartbeat. His warm breath fans across your face and you close your eyes.

The last thought before you drift off is how much you like the feel of his hand drawing those random shapes against your back. It burns in the best possible way, raising goosebumps wherever his fingers go to next and your skin starts to expect his touch. He pulls you closer and you sink into his warmth, falling asleep against his solid frame.

You don’t sleep for long though. The window is still open and you can hear birds singing outside in the trees surrounding his back garden. The sun is rising, reflecting golden rays against the walls of Joel’s bedroom. You look at him and his sleeping face.

You touch his cheek lightly, the patch on his jaw where there’s no beard. You follow the edge of his lashes with your fingertips, the curve of his eyebrow, the bow of his nose, the lines on his forehead that are now smoother when he’s asleep. Last you trace the softness of his lower lip. Air follows your fingers in a steady rhythm and you match your movements to the slowness of his dreams.

His face twitches and he brings his hand to wipe at his face when you start the movement of your fingers from his lashes again. He puts his hand between your chests and you look at it. The size of it, the heaviness of it, the thickness of his fingers compared to yours. The softness of his short nails and the little cuts that have scarred over a long time ago. He’s still fast asleep.

You pick up his hand and touch his knuckles. You put extra care into the ones that have been bruised and cut open before, the markings faint on his skin. There’s a lighter line from an old wound between his index and middle fingers. You don’t know why, but you press your lips against it. You move to kiss his knuckles one at a time, then his fingertips, and turn his hand around.

You kiss his palm and the base of each finger after that. His hand gets lighter and when you look at his face, his pupils are blown charcoal black, his lips are parted and he’s watching you carefully, while his chest rises and falls in a heavier pace.

He's the one who brushes his fingertips against your lips again and you kiss them, one by one, until you’ve touched all of them. He pushes his palm against your cheek and into your hair, making you shiver when his fingers reach the base of your neck. There’s no rush when he brings his lips against yours, feather light at first, slotting them together with such ease that you wonder why you haven’t been doing this the whole time. You wrap yourself around him and lose the track of time.

When your lips are swollen and red and your head is spinning from his gentleness with you, you fall back asleep with your face against his neck. His hand doesn’t stop running up and down your spine, dipping under your shirt at the small of your back every once in a while.

“Sorry,” he whispers when you stir from your sleep and he’s trying to move you off him delicately.

“What time is it?”

“Almost eleven,” he sits up and stretches his back. His t-shirt rides up and a sliver of tan skin shows at the bottom of the shirt, a couple of shallow dimples visible at the base of his spine, above the waistline of his jeans.  

“Wait here,” he tells you as he stands up and takes slow steps into the bathroom. You fall on your back and stretch your legs and arms out. You haven’t felt this good in a long time. Or maybe ever. The realisation is sudden when you come to the conclusion that you’ve never felt like this before.

A mix of giddiness and happiness, a small hint of nerves in the best possible way. Your whole body feels relaxed and warm, soft and a little delicate from realising and acting on your feelings. The euphoria of having those feelings reciprocated. Your thoughts are slightly jumbled from not sleeping that much but it doesn’t really matter. You smile and take in this new set of emotions.

It's only cut short by the grumble of your stomach. You push yourself up and pull your arms behind your head in another stretch. Blood flows around your shoulders and neck and tingle in your ears. You hear water running in the bathroom when you stand up and head for the stairs.

The sunlight is making the hallway glow. You’re rolling your shoulders back when you reach the fridge in the kitchen and open it. There’s some fruit and vegetables but other than that there’s plenty of space on the shelves. Joel’s footsteps are light but you hear that one stair creak under his foot.

“Your fridge is basically empty,” you turn towards him just when he reaches the doorway and a smile spreads on his face. He doesn’t stop to say anything, only closes the distance between the two of you and kisses you immediately. He must feel the stiffness in your muscles when he wraps his arms around you, just to pull back with a tinge of worry on his face.

“Is this okay?” You nod, pull him back against you and press your almost bruised lips against his. He happily melts against you and closes the fridge door behind you. There’s no fanfare or explosions with him, just quiet easiness with him. The kiss fades into a hug. His clothes still smell of the smoke from last nights bonfire.

“Would you maybe want to have a drink with me?” He asks against your temple.

“Now?”

“I mean some evening when we’re both free?” You lift your head to face him and tilt it when you see a glowing flush on his cheekbones.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Your teasing tone makes him tip his chin to his chest and you both chuckle at this new situation you’re in.

“Yeah,” he lifts his chin back up, proudly challenging you and your sniggering.

“Okay,” you tell him simply and watch a fond grin soften his eyes.

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase - Season 1 Episode 1 "Lost my Marbles" (part 1) - How It All Started

Hello, all. I want to talk about a particular episode of Cyberchase today. I don't know if I will put together discussion posts like this for every episode, but I feel like I need to put one together about this one. This was the first proper episode for Cyberchase after the pilot episode. Sure, we had the three-part prequel web comics and other promotional material. However, I bet most people who saw this episode saw it before they saw the webcomic or other promotions.

I didn't see this when it first premiered, but I did see the re-runs. That was long before I knew about the web comics. So, where do we begin?

The Hacker: Ahahahahaha!

The Hacker: At last! The moment I've been waiting for! Haha. It's absolutely perfect.

Yeah, The Hacker gets the first line of the entire series. As if he was going to let anyone else have that.

Imagine you'd never heard of Cyberchase before. Imagine this was the first episode you'd ever seen. We have this clearly villainous character flying his ship through a strange world. And now he's laughing with evil intent while remotely spying on some children at a library.

Buzz: Yeah, you're right, Boss. Cyberspace is simply enchanting.

And then the more competent (?) of the two Duncebuckets gets the second line. Delete is noticeably silent in his introduction, and he looks annoyed that Buzz is interrupting The Hacker's speech. I feel like this dynamic flipped later in the show. Delete became more prone to outbursts, and Buzz did more to tug him back in line.

The Hacker: Those Earth kids are the key to my plan.

Buzz: Oh yeah, you mean your master plan for all-out domination of Cyberspace that will allow you to spread chaos and evil from site to site?

The Hacker: Of course that plan, you robotic duncebucket!

Buzz: I thought the only way to take over Cyberspace was to get rid of that Cyberbrain that runs it, Motherboard?

The Hacker: And so we shall.

So, Buzz is a good, if somewhat clunky, vehicle for exposition. He explains The Hacker's ultimate goal, as well as the big step that he is about to take to achieve that goal. He also refers to Motherboard as a Cyber-brain. It is possible that that was some sort of slur, but I don't think Buzz is that kind of bad guy. It's largely accepted by the community that Motherboard's species is called Cyber-brain. That raises the question as to whether there are more of her out there.

During this exchange, the scene cuts to the kids on Hacker's big board. They don't have dialogue yet, but this is the very first interaction among them.

Yeah, they were on The Hacker's screen earlier, but Matt and Jackie were frozen in the place, and Inez did some sort of idle animation. However, this shot, Matt and Jackie are clearly working together to figure out how the library map screen works. Matt is poking at the screen. Then, he looks in Jackie's direction. Jackie smiles ad gestures with her hand. Matt smiles back. Calm down, shippers. They just met. Oh, and Inez is standing there with her arms folded. Her expression is neutral. She may be annoyed at how long tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum are taking to figure out how the map works. She did have a long bike ride over here, and it was stated upon her arrival that the library was closing soon. I'm not sure how much work any of them expected to get done today.

Now, we enter Control Central and see Motherboard for the first time. Digit and Dr. Marbles are working on her.

Dr. Marbles: Upgrade nearly complete, Motherboard. Stand by for reboot.

Motherboard: Hurry, Dr. Marbles. My firewall's been down long enough. It's not safe.

Digit: Not safe! C'mon! What could possibly happen?

He just had to say that, didn't he.

Motherboard: Hacker alert! Hacker alert!

Digit: Hacker's Back?!

Dr. Marbles: Impossible! We drained his power grid and exiled him eons ago.

Inez: Excuse me? You two aren't the only ones who require access to this map.

Matt: Hang on, I'm just trying to figure out how to use it, okay?

Yeah, Inez is already done with their shit, and they haven't even been properly introduced.

Jackie: Alright, you're here, see? So, just find where you want to go and touch that spot.

I love that Jackie's first words in the episode were to try to calm down Matt and Inez. Jackie also just turned key #1 of 3.

Matt: Okay. Mythology... Mythology...cool!

And so, Matt turns key #2 of 3. We can see that the map drew a line between the Lobby and the Mythology room. I'm not sure how it would have helped with navigation though, as it seems to be a straight line or a simple curve. We also don't see any step-by-step directions.

Inez: But I need to go to the research room!

I love how Inez lunges for the map to tap the still-glowing Lobby button again. Matt and Jackie make a point of stepping backwards out of her way.

And so, Inez gets her useless directional line to the research room. She also turns key #3 of 3.

Inez: *gasp*

Matt: Hey, what's up with that?

Jackie: It looks like the icons are going to crash into each other, right...

Matt, Jackie, and Inez: Here!

Dr. Marbles: Hacker has found a way to breach the system!

Motherboard: Quickly, reload my firewall!

The Hacker: Behold, my half-baked henchmen. My concoction of computerized chaos is about to... attack!

Motherboard: Hacker has launched a virus. It's coming this way.

Digit: Hurry Doc! Hurry! Close her up!

Dr. Marbles: Firewall loading! 45! 50!

Motherboard: It's too late... the virus has invaded my circuits. It's shutting me down.

Dr. Marbles: Firewall up! No further damage anticipated.

Digit: She's in bad shape, huh, Doc?

Dr. Marbles: Her Encryptor Chip has been destroyed! I can't retrieve it! I've got to locate and install a new one.

Dr. Marbles's quest goes poorly, as Hacker immediately captures him.

So, let's pause for a moment and process what just happened here. The Hacker, who was apparently exiled eons ago, has returned. We know from the official prequel web comic, "How It All Started", that The Hacker attacked Valussa after he was banished, but before he infected Motherboard with the virus. That was a major event, as it led to Digit betraying The Hacker for the second time, The Hacker imprisoning Digit, and Digit escaping and defecting to Motherboard.

Assuming Digit gave Dr. Marble and Motherboard the full story of The Hacker's attack on Valussa, they had to know that The Hacker was still alive and capable of causing chaos on Cybersites in spite of his downgraded power supply. So, I don't know why Dr. Marbles is in such disbelief that The Hacker is back.

It's not clear what happened in the time period between the events of the comic "How it All Started Episode 2", where The Hacker attacked Valussa, and "Lost my Marbles". This gets murkier if we bring in The Flying Parallinis' storyline, since The Hacker was imprisoned on Mount Way-Up-There without Digit.

Maybe I was wrong in my original assessment of the Parallini's storyline. Maybe The Hacker's imprisonment on Mount Way-Up-There wasn't really a retcon. Maybe Motherboard was content to just stuff him in a pod and launch him to The Northern Frontier over the theft of The Encryptor Chip from "How It All Started Episode 1". But then, after he terrorized Valussa and Digit defected, perhaps Motherboard saw fit to put The Hacker on Mount Way-Up-There as an additional punishment. If so, there was apparently nothing there to alert Motherboard if he left the mountain. Now that I think of it, that arrangement might clear up the inconsistencies in Buzz and Delete's origin stories. We know The Hacker built them with parts from Cybersite Botopolis, but they also talk about a time when they worked in a cyber cheese factory unassociated with The Hacker. If we take Mount-Way-Up-There as a separate punishment, then perhaps Buzz and Delete lost their jobs when The Hacker went up the mountain. Then, when he came back down, he pulled them back in.

I'm not going to touch "Hacker Hugs a Tree", since that was 100% a retcon of How It All Started.

I don't think The Hacker attacked any other Cybersites between the Valussa event and the attack on Motherboard. I think he laid low while cooking up the virus. I suspect that sometime between The Hacker terrorizing Valussa and "Lost My Marbles", Motherboard, Dr. Marbles, and Digit got complacent. They figured he was just sulking in The Northern Frontier.

In addition to writing the code for the virus, The Hacker must have rigged that library map to open a breach in Motherboard's defenses. Even with her firewall down for maintenance, he couldn't launch the virus, or he would have done it. We also know that raising the firewall was able to prevent the virus from causing further damage after the initial infection. So, The Hacker needed her firewall down, and he needed the breach opened at the same time in order to pull this off.

But how did the breach work? I feel like I could make an entire separate post theorizing about that, and I probably will. I won't bog down this post with it though.

So, back in the real world...

Inez: You think we broke it?

Matt: I don't know.

Jackie: There must be some way to reboot this thing!

Motherboard: I am Motherboard.

Jackie: Uh oh.

Matt: Mother-who?

Jackie: We're in for it now! She's probably FBI!

Motherboard: I am protector of all Cyberspace.

Inez: Right, and I'm Xena, Warrior Princess.

Motherboard: When the three of you touched that map, a breach in Cyberspace allowed a nasty computer virus to reach me.

Motherboard already know their names, possibly through spying on them in the library. She pulls them into Cyberspace. This is the beginning of the next 20 years of their lives spent working to keep Cyberspace safe from The Hacker.

The old pitch documents claim that Motherboard "conducted an elaborate computer search of every being in every galaxy for the right combination of bravery, moxie and math skill", and these three actual children were the best for the job. That comes with the caveat that Motherboard had just suffered brain damage from a virus first, of course. There is a popular fan theory that she pulled them in to make amends for accidentally opening the breach.

They meet Digit.

Digit: Without Motherboard, everything and everyone in Cyberspace is doomed!

Jackie: You guys, we can't let that happen. We can't just stand by and let this Hacker guy destroy Cyberspace. We have to help! We just have to!

I love that Jackie is the first one to insist that all three of them band together to save Cyberspace. She doesn't know her new teammates, Motherboard, or the scope of the mission, but she's ready to ride or die.

Inez: Excuse me, I don't even know you guys. This is a major decision! I need time to think about it.

I love that Inez is being the rational one here, arguably more rational than Motherboard.

Matt: There isn't time to think about! We've got to act now! I'm in!

I love that, the moment Inez mentions taking time to think about it (i.e. waiting), Matt throws his hat into the ring with Jackie.

They don't get cyber-suits or virtual avatars, but they get, Sqwak Pads, funky little handheld computers for problem-solving and communication.

I'm nearing the limit for these posts, so I'll stop here. I'll make a part 2 for the rest of the episode, as there are some important scenes to high-light. I probably won't go scne-by-scene, since that will take forever. However, the scenes that I covered in this part were all very important, since they set up the premise for the show and introduce our characters.

[marvel-ousmondays]

The Avengers (Avengers Assemble)

So it took me a week to finish watching The Avengers.

It wasn't the movie's fault. It's a great film, especially if you are into the action-packed, fighting scenes. The dynamic between characters is great, and it has one of (if not my absolute) favorite quotes of the series.

But it is 2 hours and 23 minutes long and I had a weird week in terms of work, plus I wasn't actually feeling like watching a bunch of fight scenes. So it took a hot minute. Also, I had just finished season 2 of Loki not that long ago and going back to really bad Loki was a bit hard. He has few if any redeemable qualities in this one.

I'm not going to attempt a standard review given my less than standard watching procedure. I'm just going to call out things I liked.

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow will forever be flipping incredible. In the Battle of New York where she's jumping on the flying Chitari and such- epic. But also her clear care for Barton and her emotional manipulation of both the criminals at the beginning and Loki later on- chef's kiss. I'm so glad she's the one to close the portal.

(Quick side note/small spoiler- there's a fan theory going around that her "feelings" for Banner in Ultron are all fake, just a method of control. I call bullshit. She is clearly fascinated by him throughout this film. If anyone's feelings are fake, it'd be Banner's, but Mark Ruffalo is too genuine for us to ever know.)

Erik Selvig and Barton both under Loki's control and then when they come out of it did incredible jobs. I particularly like the writing of Selvig under Loki's control- the science fascination unbridled, versus any actual desire for power. I think this hits the Tesseract's power and Loki's manipulation abilities dead on- they don't project what Loki would assume others would want onto them- they magnify the worst parts of anyone's desires and abilities. Barton is a master strategist and Selvig wants to understand every aspect of the cosmos. Generally these are traits they've put to good use. But under Loki, they're manipulated into awful acts.

Samuel L. Jackson's line "I recognize the council has made a decision, but as it is a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it" could be emblazoned on my tombstone and I'd be happy. The delivery was pitch perfect and always makes me laugh, while also being deadly serious.

Coulson- Clark Gregg's best role by far and the small amount of fanboying here just humanized his normally very stoic disposition so well. So glad they did opt to bring him back and in style.

I'm a huge Mark Ruffalo fan, both as an actor and just as a human being. It was incredibly difficult to come in after Edward Norton to fill this role but he nailed it. The moment when he tells about how he tried to commit suicide and the Hulk spat the bullet back out breaks my heart every time. There's obviously a lot of parable here about learning how to channel your anger. I personally think anger has gotten a bad rap, especially among women and activists. Righteous anger, as Starfire might say (yes, I know, I'm daring to mix DC and Marvel again, fight me later), is a powerful motivator. Anger can fuel us to change that which needs changing, but it has to be directed. Hulk shows that well enough. But I also appreciate the slow realization by Banner throughout the film that the Hulk is less crazed, destructive monster and more protector. We're not *there* just yet by the end- there's still some concern, but he's beginning that process of acceptance and understanding.

Captain America is mostly well written here, particularly in demonstrating he doesn't just follow the U.S. or orders blindly any more. He still sees himself as a soldier, but when Tony and Bruce alert him to the smell of fish in the air, he goes looking for answers. This is key character development for him as there was a time where he would have considered himself more bound to higher-ranking officials. However, I would wager Marvel regrets the one "God" comment they made in there as it doesn't really fit him overall.

Stark and Thor perform well, I just don't have a lot of commentary for either. Their rivalry is solid, though the idea that Thor would leave his brother unattended, even in remote mountains, seems unlikely.

I will also argue for more women sooner but that ship has sailed. I had forgotten about Thanos in the post- credits scene, so that was a good addition.

Note for me

Directed by: Joss Whedon

[alectology-archive]

TPoD chapters 7, 8, 9, 10:

I’m done! and this was the worst fucking experience of my life! I’m never rereading any of Perrin’s plotlines, sorry. It was far worser than I remember it being.

consensus is still out on whether or not perrin is interested in berelain. I understand his noticing her perfume - he can’t help that. I don’t vibe with him saying she needs to dress a certain way or deliberately trying to pick out hints of flirtation when she’s literally just discussing their next course of action. 

- It is so weird to see perrin talking about how he only gets along with and trusts grady and neald and doesn’t trust any of the women in his group. partly because they have differing opinions about how to go about accomplishing certain tasks. it’s also really weird that this happens on the heels of dumai’s wells where the asha’man brutally slaughtered the shaido, too. the gender essentialism in this series really brings down its overall quality. Another point to note is the fact that perrin gets along with the the two guys who’ve been taught (by rand) to cultivate no personality apart from being soldiers + he avoids any actual interaction with people who have strong opinions. 

- I think I don’t like reading about faile when she’s around perrin sadfjkdhf - it’s like perrin’s default mode is managing to push some trigger that manages to piss her off. I like her and think she could’ve been a great character if she’d never interacted with perrin though. And although I complain about the shaido plot a lot faile’s POVs in it were fantastic - partly because she’s divorced from Perrin’s presence - and were such a treat to read.

- honestly this section of his POV is kind of pointless. I don’t think there’s any need for faile, seonid + wise ones and berelain to fight for the right to approach alliandre - rand specifically chose berelain to approach her with annoura! But narratively it does do a very good job of establishing the fact that there are many power dynamics at play here, which I think that was what RJ might have been trying to establish.

seonid is so gay

He’s fully making shit up at this point. Just let her exist, oh my god. Why is he looking for a flirtation in every gesture??? Literally it’s hard to not believe that Perrin fully encourages Berelain to keep hitting on him.

evidence not found. this is a telling more than a showing so far.

- Morgase is another female character who gets caught up in this useless plot ugh. It’s just trauma sequences after trauma sequence for Morgase and I pity her so much.

This is with reference to morgase just because she was very mildly rude to him despite his insisting that aram not call him a lord moments before - also I don’t like the way perrin talks about women yeuch

- I think RJ being a “discover as I write” sort of writer does affect how he writes a lot - there are some clarifications for plot that don’t necessarily always make sense later on. there are also introductions to things characters struggle with without any real basis for it and sometimes manages to be all over the place - mostly perrin and his relationship with violence and responsibility was done very badly (the show does better on the front but it obviously had a whole established canon to work with already which is always an easier task).

- masema & the cult plotline is integral to exploring the various facets of how the dragon reborn affects the cultural and religious landscape in the continent, just like how the seanchan are important narratively to explore how a flipped power dynamic between channelers and non channelers would look. rand is not a saviour - RJ hammers that point in constantly - but he plays a role that’s very closely associated with saviourism since a) it’s so tied up with the struggle versus good and evil b) has a history of false dragons fashioning themselves as saviours, so cults are naturally a very interesting angle to explore. but also like every other plotline perrin touches, it fails to be dealt with in any interesting way. I genuinely enjoyed what we saw of it in TFoH and I hate that it eventually deteriorates into a mess.

where is the struggle against violence. I just don’t get it. why is killing with a hammer better than killing with an axe? I still don’t get it.

perrin: killing? violence? I don’t care. I’ll do it all for faile. 

ugh. I guess that is the point of the whole shaido arc but I still can’t bring myself to care about it.

and yet.jpg. why is it that perrin is obsessing over his followers not following his orders to the T while he’s disregarding all of rand’s instructions? I hate him so much. 

Well! my earlier point stands! why the fuck does perrin get along with them better than with the women. lol.

- I hate SO much that the mantheren plotline was passed on to perrin. I hate it!! on principle I can’t stand the thought of a dead nation being resurrected in that fashion because it falls back on uncomfortable ideas of (mostly) autocratic rulers using history to justify their rule and manipulate people into accepting it. I also hate that it gets rid of the semi-democratic rule the two rivers had. but there were ways in which it could’ve been executed well - I really liked how the band of the red hand was sort of resurrected in the same fashion (although that was mostly a symbolism thing, obviously). in conclusion: give the plotline back to mat!!

- Arrela! hi! she’s described as “tall and dark” and masculine. one of THE canonical lesbians. 

I mean at least Faile looks out for the people who follow her. Perrin has exactly ONE guy who’s super attached to him and he manages to let even him down.

- TBH a plot mostly focussed on convincing Alliandre to join them and seeing the women do politics in Ghealdan - and also potentially dealing with a more whitecloack/amadicia focused plot - would have been a far more interesting plotline than Perrin wandering around the countryside trying to save his kidnapped wife.

- ohhh now that perrin mentioned them I’m sad we didn’t see more of the algai’d’siswai! they were just as fascinating as the prophet plotline still was back in book 5 but RJ just kind of forgot about it. 

- Faile convinces perrin not to inform rand about news of seanchan in amador because ‘maighdin’ tells her that messengers and pigeons were carrying the news anywhere. Hand Of The Author, I see you. Rand needed that news! How long would it take an asha’man to inform him and hop back to ghealdan? why is travelling never used to the extent it should be in the books?

here’s a suggestion! stop smelling her all the time! A person’s thoughts on a matter will never necessarily reflect what they’re feeling because emotional responses are at the very best knee-jerk reactions and can’t be controlled or modulated the way logic can be!

- I can’t emphasise this enough but their ‘romance’ is non-existent. They make terrible partners! They’re too different to make things work. (This is not to say people who’re unalike can’t get along - but Perrin and Faile are no Elayne and Aviendha).

- I do like Lini as a character but I think my fondness for her dropped significantly after she tried to have morgase and tallanvor forcibly married. I hate it so much, and I don’t really like that she’s so rude and forceful with morgase after everything she endured in amador - I do get that she’s concerned that their cover will be blown, but... I refuse lol. I don’t like this plotline. morgase should’ve gone back to caemlyn - faile would’ve still shone in her shaido plotline even if morgase hadn’t been a part of it. I hate powerful women suddenly being shoved into servant-master dynamics!!! it happened with siuan once already! why aren’t the men forced to do such things?

- I do genuinely believe RJ enjoyed writing his women a lot but I don’t like his choice to make women inflict shame on themselves as a form of punishment in order to repent their actions. It goes hand in hand with a lot of (evil) female characters ending up enslaved & the female forsaken being abused to be taught a lesson. 

- ‘Tallanvor was too young’ sir, you literally paired moiraine and thom & gareth and siuan & morgase and thom 😭

(with reference to seonid and masuri being apprentices)

I think. I think brandon sanderson came up with the idea that an apprentice should just Know when they’re fit to be a wise one. I definitely got that feeling while I was reading the books because it was such a Brandon Sanderson thing and kind of nonsensical, honestly. It was just a ploy to keep aviendha away from rand in the gathering storm. ugh, I’m going to blame him for min and aviendha not bonding too. 

- If a man uses the word ‘wench’ he goes down on my shit list! so elyas is on my shit list! if he wasn’t already, for being the source which delivers the news that saldaean women like their husbands to take a firm hand with them or whatever.

- was I always predisposed to disliking perrin because I hate werewolves? possibly.

- alliandre!!!!

WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY TO SECURE THE ALLIANCE, BASICALLY??? What else would berelain tell alliandre -

- honestly shout out to alliandre for making the best of so many terrible situations. she had to deal with the prophet, the threat of the seanchan, the threat of rand once he conquered illian, and then perrin trying to ‘raise manetheren’ and the shaido.

and yet he gets mad when faile is less subtle when she’d trying to guide/influence him.

- worldbuilding notes: perrin can apparently smell desperation but not guilt, lol.

lmaoooo I actually did enjoy this faile POV a lot since perrin wasn’t in it! even if she and berelain sort of bickered! but it wasn’t annoying at all, and was kind of fun, actually.

- Berelain supports faile when she’s discussing politics with alliandre even if faile just technically insulted her! I love her.

faile, that’s gay.

- Berelain is very pleased with one of faile’s manipulations of alliandre!

[Total count for the number of times berelain tried pursuing perring romantically in the path of daggers: 0]

Yeah, I think I’m going to stick with the line that perrin never gives berelain a firm no. Would this have stopped her from pursuing him? It’s hard to say because she’s angling for political advantage, but faile mentions that perrin conducts himself as if he believes he’s a prize that berelain and faile have to struggle over. And he’s constantly using his enhanced senses to predict what faile is feeling instead of asking her what she’s thinking which are two very different things! I just. I honestly don’t know how RJ could have enjoyed writing any of his POVs, lol, they’re so boring and full of contrived conflicts. He should’ve killed perrin off in the middle of the series because it would’ve done a good job of building tension (although he probably would have never done that even if he’d considered it since he’d established that perrin and mat would play integral roles to secure rand’s success in the last battle).

[pixiemage]

There is something just so fantastic about Martyn and Ren’s dynamic in 3rd Life. I’m only on like session 4 so I’m maybe halfway-ish, but I already love it. For one thing, they’re both playing roles half the time, which is fun to watch. (I keep seeing mentions of a Red King and his hand, and though I haven’t seen that part yet I KNOW it’s coming. It’s right up Ren’s alley of creating characters for plot and I can’t wait!)

But the other thing too is how they became teammates in the first place. It was a business transaction at first, right? Like technically Martyn calls Ren “boss” and Ren is “in charge” of Renchanting and Dogwarts. But now they’re more like equals than anything else. They both had bouts of “I don’t know if I should trust this guy” and “Shit I probably need to keep him in the loop, he’s my teammate” and like - I think that at the point I’ve reached, where Scar is red and he comes a-knocking and Ren still turns down Scar’s offer to buy his enchanter off of him because “It’s not just me I have to think about. There’s Martyn too, that’s not my choice to make.”…I think we’ve just reached a point where they actually honestly trust the other person to have their back now no matter what. (Especially after Ren’s recent death-by-tnt-minecart, holy shit, they’re ride-or-die now and it’s great!)

Their partnership is different than Bdubs and Cleo, who just decided on day one or two to be partners and never really questioned loyalties at all, just went “Yeah we’re buddies!” and stuck with it. (Which is a similar dynamic to Scott and Jimmy, to be honest, though different because I think Scott holds more power in their partnership lol.) And it’s different than Grian and Scar, who started off with a reluctant life debt that has already started to flip over toward “I’ll stay with you anyway even after I lose my first life” (and I know it becomes a permanent partnership later because I’ve seen posts about it all over this site).

Nah, Martyn and Ren have a whole different dynamic than any other partnership on the server, and it’s such a great team-up to watch. They’re smart - like I said, Martyn began as an employee for Ren as a way to pay for enchantment rights then worked his way up to partner, and Ren capitalized on a rare commodity right off the bat and gained a lot of materials and trades early on because of it. They’re HILARIOUS at improv - don’t even get me started - and there’s a fun balance to the combination of Ren’s type of chaos and Martyn’s type of shenanigans that just hits a sweet spot for entertainment value. I’m excited to get deeper into this series, man. It’s so so good!

[sokkastyles]

“Tell Me What Happened:” Zutara and the Female Gaze

I’ve seen some discourse about the male and female gaze, and I think some people misunderstand what these terms actually mean. So let’s go back a bit to the origins.

The term “the male gaze” was popularized by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. In her essay, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey uses the Hitchcock film Rear Window, which is a story that is entirely framed around the voyeurism of the main male character. There’s a point in the movie where the protagonist’s girlfriend, who had previously doubted the events the protagonist claimed to view out of his apartment window, which make up most of the action of the story, finally comes around to his way of seeing things, and delivers the very effective and famous line “Tell me exactly what you saw, and what you think it means.”

Most of the time when people talk about the male gaze, they refer to female characters being displayed as objects for an assumed male viewer. Mulvey argues that the way the character Lisa is portrayed in this movie does subject her to this voyeuristic interpretation, but it goes deeper than that. When Lisa is not the object being viewed, she is asked to see things through the perspective of the main male character. She originally doubts him, but eventually she is forced to view things from his perspective. Later in the movie, she becomes subject to the protagonist’s gaze as we see her on the other side of the binoculars. Her boyfriend, the character through which the movie establishes its viewpoint, watches her be threatened by another man and eventually she is saved.

The movie both invites the assumed male viewer to view Lisa as an object AND asks her, as the movie’s female protagonist, to view things through the lens of the male protagonist.

And that’s what most of the critiques I see of Katara and Aang’s relationship are about. Take “The Fortune Teller,” for example.

Many people have already talked about how "The Fortuneteller" treats Aang's crush on Katara vs Meng's crush on Aang, but I would like to point out what I think is a particularly egregious example of the male gaze in this episode.

This is Aang looking at Katara. We get the pan over her body with emphasis on how attractive Aang finds her to be. The lighting makes her look practically angelic.

Then, later in the episode, when we see Meng crush on Aang, we get a similar pan.

The joke is meant to contrast Katara's desirability with Aang's, yet we are supposed to root for Aang as he worries that Katara does not return his feelings.

The show is also making fun of Aang's crush on Katara by showing Aang's exaggerated perspective, but she still remains desirable in his view and to the camera. There is no undercutting of Aang's view of Katara the way the camera subverts Meng’s view of Aang. We are not asked to see Aang as desirable from a female perspective, which begs the question of what Katara should see in him if female desire is so, well...undesirable.

This is one of several places where the show is self aware enough to poke fun at the way Aang sees Katara, but still in the end totally validates him and the male gaze by only subverting it when the genders are flipped. Which isn't actually a subversion at all.

This is an example of the camera framing a female character as object of the male gaze, but it goes deeper than that. The male gaze isn’t just framing women as objects to be looked at, but inviting women to view themselves through the filter of the male gaze as well.

And therein, I would argue, is the appeal of zutara.

You could make a case that one of the reasons zutara is so popular is because the show does occasionally present Zuko as an object for the gaze of a female audience. The creators were aware at a certain point that there was a not insignificant portion of the fandom that was into Zuko.

But Zuko is never framed as an object of desirability for Katara.

What the show does do, though, is switch up the lens through which we are supposed to view the narrative. And the way this happens is directly tied to Katara’s relationship with Zuko.

Katara is, in a lot of ways, our narrator from the beginning. Her words are the first ones heard from episode one, telling us about the world and the war and the Avatar. Her narration is focused on Aang and his story. “I believe that Aang can save the world.”

Katara also has her own story, though, one she talks about throughout the series but mostly in relation to others. And it’s this story that she confronts Zuko with in the crystal caves, when she tells him that he has “no idea” what she has suffered, and she tells him about the death of her mother.

Zuko does something she doesn’t expect by apologizing and relating it to the loss of his own mother, but he still can’t fully commit to her side and ends up betraying their tentative truce. It’s when she confronts him with it again in “The Southern Raiders” that things start to shift.

Before that, Katara had used the death of her mother to empathize with other’s loss, and many times this is a male character. We’ve heard the story told many times. Sokka tells it to Toph to explain Katara to her.

When Zuko seeks out Sokka in “The Southern Raiders,” though, it is the first time that another character has asked to hear the story.

Zuko: I want you to tell me what happened to your mother.

Sokka tells Zuko the story and tells Zuko that it’s not something he likes to think about. This relates to how Katara and Sokka differently view what happened to their mother, and partially contributes to why Katara told Sokka that maybe he didn’t love her enough. For Sokka, the day of his mother’s murder is not something he wants to relive, but Katara is constantly forced to relive it.

“The Southern Raiders” contains three full flashbacks to Kya’s murder. First from Sokka’s viewpoint, then Katara herself as she is telling the story to Zuko. The last time we see the story play out, it is as Katara is standing in front of Yon Rha and confronting him with it, while Zuko looks on passively.

Here, the dynamic has shifted so that Katara is not only the one telling the story, but in the end she is also the one who gets to rewrite it, to define how it ends, and Zuko is the observer, much like Lisa in “Rear Window.” Tell me what you saw and what you think it means.

Zuko knows the importance of letting Katara give shape and meaning to this story because he himself tried to do the same with Ozai, who is the only one left to speak about what happened to Ursa.

Ozai: Don’t you want to know what happened to your mother?

That both of these narratives involve women being silenced emphasizes the reclamation of them as the shifting from a male gaze to a female one. That Zuko’s redemption is tied to such a shift is very interesting, especially given the elemental symbolism of fire = male and water = female. That “The Southern Raiders,” one of the most shippy episodes, involves Katara ignoring Aang’s attempts to define the situation and, in the episode’s climax, forcing two male characters to observe as she describes what happened to her mother, a woman she is so connected with, is significant. Katara directs both the gazes of Zuko and Yon Rha, and by extension the audience, just as she effortlessly directs the rain itself. The last time we see the memory retold it is Katara revealing the truth to Yon Rha, who thought he had killed the last waterbender. The fact that this episode was penned by a woman also emphasizes the power of reclaiming narratives with a female gaze.

[itsclydebitches]

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

[ramblingguy54]

True Colors: An Emotionally Fantastic Serious Game Changer.

If we’re to look back at Reunion as Season 1′s dramatic pay off for Amphibia’s message of toxic friendships, as Anne & Sasha’s conflicting dynamic showed us, then True Colors is a colossal expansive note on this big theme of the series. True Colors makes Season 1′s finale look like a walk in the park for what angst goes down between our three main heroins in Season 2′s climatic resolution. Everything that can go wrong does go oh so painfully wrong for these three kids. Anne, to no one’s surprise, gets double crossed by Sasha leaving things between them a Hell of a lot more bitter than they were previously, as if that couldn’t already be topped when Sasha tried to kill the Plantars before. Anne has had enough of her lies and manipulation not being afraid to tell Sasha straight up how awful of a friend she’s been in general, even hitting her where it hurts most of all saying, “No, I’m done listening to you! I’m done trusting you! You’re a horrible person and I am done being FRIENDS with you!”, going so far as to get a shaken reaction out of Sasha dropping her brave face act, making this girl try to wipe away the frog family.

Right off the bat, True Colors makes it highly evident this isn’t just another story of stopping a bigger threat, but one hitting much closer to home, overall. Yes, King Andrias is certainly a dangerous villain, who makes his presence and intimidating nature known to the others by True Color’s final act, which despite this Amphibia isn’t entirely putting him at the forefront, rather focusing on a more intimate study of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy’s big emotional conflict. This finale knows exactly where to put its focus of importance on, so I love that instead of it being action packed we’re getting the spotlight shined on just how screwed up these three of a friendship have, in spite of Marcy claiming in The Dinner episode, “We’re supposed to be friends for life. We don’t split up!’ . Very ironic stuff right there, indeed.

True Colors’ most powerful strength it adds to Amphibia’s ongoing profound story about healthy friendships is the thorough deconstruction of these girls defined “ideal relationship” as people. Before Anne came to the world of Amphibia this kid was afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even knowing especially well that stealing the calamity box was morally questionable, but did it anyway. Sasha was super manipulative, abusive, and used her power to control people, like she did a lot of toward Anne in their lives. Marcy, while very smart, wasn’t the most competent physically, who soon grew into being more independent without needing to rely on Anne always having to be there for her. These three were changed immensely by the events of being thrust into this world of sentient amphibian creatures. Anne benefited morally most out out of all three in taking up the mantle of responsibility and ironing out her own issues. She’s become a much stronger person all around. 

This episode asks us an important question though in nutshell with, “Have Sasha & Marcy truly changed for the better?”, since Anne has reached a point in her arc feeling genuinely content with who she’s become and the bonds that have been made with the Plantar family shown most notably with Sprig Plantar. Hence the whole purpose behind the song, It’s No Big Deal, with Anne feeling proud for who she is, yet not noticing a bigger issue right underneath her nose. That previous episode was meant to bring Anne’s happiness up only to bring it all crashing down in a devastating display of new revelations in True Colors. Every dramatic emotional beat isn’t just earned. Each significant moment is completely knocked out of the park by terrific voice acting, beautiful animation, and music composition that gave me serious emotional goosebumps. True Colors did exactly as Not What He Seems accomplished for Gravity Falls in shaking up its own respective dramatic stakes just when you thought it couldn’t get any higher for these protagonists. Shit seriously hits the fan here.

Did it ever occur to you, Anne? Sasha? That one of you knew more, than she was letting on? That ONE of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia on purpose...?

The big bombshell twist of Marcy playing a part too in getting them into this whole debacle completely flips everything upside down. Sasha pushed Anne into taking the Calamity Box, yes, but if Marcy never sent that photo because of her desire to stay with them together forever, then they wouldn’t have been stranded in basically a world full of dangerous creatures and who knows what else. Easily my favorite part of the episode, considering it adds more nuance to a situation that defined Amphibia’s story. It wasn’t just one person’s fault at the end of the day. Sasha bullied Anne into taking the box, Anne didn’t put her foot down to make a stand for something morally questionable, and Marcy took advantage of them both to benefit her own selfish desires for supposedly a “happy ending” not involving them staying apart, due to her parents moving away for a new job. All three girls played an important part on why they got landed into Amphiba. It’s why Anne’s statement to King Andrias, “The three of us may have made some mistake, but you...You’re evil and I’m gonna stop you!”, holds such a real weight to it, as this story continues to solidify how genuinely fleshed out their dynamic is.

Marcy’s super desperate plea to be understood by Anne & Sasha when Andrias revealed her getting them thrown into Amphibia purposefully was hard to watch. On one hand, I felt for Marcy because she didn’t want real life circumstances to tear apart that close connection she had to Sasha & Anne. Sure, she could’ve just kept in touch with them over the phone or chatting online, too. However, Marcy had known them since very early childhood. When you’ve been so attached to someone it can be a devastating thing, depending on just how vulnerable you are emotionally, to start drifting apart. Marcy represents that embodiment of toxic need for togetherness and couldn’t bear to let a possibility, like moving away, throw a wrench into her happiness and friendship, as well.

Never mind Marcy wanting to stay permanently in a different reality, rather than face her’s, but it made this person feel like something more. It gave her a chance to feel truly special in being able to live out a fantasy dream of having such power and freedom that a kid, like herself, couldn’t have had. The freedom to know she is plenty capable of making it out there on her own without Anne having to watch this kid like a hawk. So, to have someone, or something, try taking it away from her terrified Marcy of facing a terrible truth. That she isn’t strong enough after all to live a life without Anne & Sasha by her side completely, where Marcy will never feel truly worthy enough to blossom into her own person. It’s why that line, “I just...didn’t want to be alone...”, carries such a deep pain to it all. Marcy just crumbles into pieces accepting her greatest weakness. As much as Marcy fumbled the ball big time, it’s so easy to empathize with her on the idea of feeling competent enough. Marcy never meant to hurt Anne or Sasha, but the sad crushing punchline is she very much did.

Speaking of which, Anne had every right to be upset and mad, obviously. Anne has been missing so many things from her life before everything went off the wall. Hopping Mall especially highlighted Anne’s emotional desire to give anything just to hear her mother’s singing again. This teenager has been really dealing with a lot of grief in general quite honestly. Anne got into a high stakes battle against Sasha to save new friends, who’d practically became like an adopted family, which left the poor girl traumatized and heartbroken over the end result. She thought finding Marcy would help compensate for it and eventually be able to mend those complications with Sasha to boot. It’s simply painful to see it all blow up in Anne’s face to know not only Sasha betrayed her trust yet again, but realizing Marcy also played a part of responsibility in getting them thrown here. Matt Braly really just decided to slap future trust issues onto Anne finding out Hop Pop, Sasha, and Marcy were all super dishonest in their intentions at one point or another. Damn, I feel so bad for her.

It makes their embracing hug back in Marcy At The Gates so much harder to watch. Anne was super glad to see her again. Anne had wondered what became of Marcy or even possibly started to think she could even be alive at all. Then come to find out later on Marcy having intentionally ripped her away from a normal life must’ve felt worse then what happened with Sasha. Anne, already done with all of Sasha’s bullshit, thought she could at least expect better from Marcy not letting her down, but that too wasn’t the case. Marcy is very much as flawed as Sasha in what she has done. To think, Anne wanted so badly to get back home, yet she’s staring the very person dead in the eye, who ripped her away from it to begin with. Marcy knew Sasha would talk Anne into taking the box from that thrift shop, even if she wasn’t completely certain it would successfully teleport them away. Regardless of whatever good intentions someone can have in why they did what they did, it still doesn’t absolve them of said mistake. Fact of the matter is, Marcy tragically made her own bed, by choosing to mess with forces she couldn’t begin to comprehend and now has to face consequences, in spite of her not deserving them.

What really got to me was when Marcy tried to spin around Anne’s personal growth and close friendship with the Plantars as all entirely thanks to her. When she said, “I gave you this! I gave you everything!”, I was like, “Nope, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”, seeing everything that has culminated in Anne’s journey of bettering herself. Marcy didn’t give Anne anything, but a one way ticket to cutting the kid off from her family, presuming she’d be fine with this idea. It’s all kinds of messed up, however what it boils down to is Marcy undermining Anne’s independence and agency. Anne’s moral judgement in decision making was what allowed her to create this new life she made for herself in Amphibia. Anne’s honesty as a whole led her down a path of togetherness, while Marcy’s lying landed her in a result of not wanting to be alone, costing her so much.

“I don’t believe this. We were so focused on each other we couldn’t see what was right in front of us!”

True Colors excels at earning each of its emotional beats because they line up with character motivations down to the last letter. Anne doesn’t want to trust Sasha anymore because of their already rocky past, which leads to her helping King Andrias regain control of his kingdom. Sasha not keeping a lid on her temper, wanting to rule over Amphibia, and trying to reinforce that power dynamic with Anne & Marcy only made things worse for her image of a changed good friend. There wasn’t a chance in Hell Anne would hear Sasha’s reasoning after she flat out tried to take away her frog family, by attempting to use the Calamity Box a bit ago in the episode. Marcy wanted to believe there was a happily ever after in seeing this world traveling idea as their only chance for salvation as friends for life, but it turned out to be something much more sinister, when learning of Andrias’ backstory and his true scumbag nature. All three of their motivations come clashing together, blinding them from a much bigger danger. Something that effectively puts everyone at stake.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale works so excellently, given it covers important dramatic elements it’s been stirring around since Season 1′s early rumblings. Amphibia is a story centered around people’s need for emotional connections. True Colors builds miraculously off what Reunion already did quite well in showing friendships can become rough and they are never easy to deal with. When you have to make a stand it can be a tough pill to swallow on the reality check of maybe this “good friend” of your’s isn’t as nice as you previously thought them to be. Anne having been hurt one too many times now by her former friend sends that message close to home, so much so even Sasha begins to question her morality as a human being. It poignantly encapsulates how this trio’s complex friendship is a serious growing issue needing to be reexamined, overall.

What if Anne’s right..? What if I am a horrible person...?

Something I absolutely love to pieces about True Colors, also a testament to Season 2′s darn good writing, is how much introspective we get from each character on what they’re feeling. We’ve seen plenty of Sasha’s vulnerability before in other episodes centered on her issues, but now we’re getting to the root of it. Sasha is really taking everything more to heart, little by little. Sasha’s understanding what kind of an effect she has on people, seeing the damage it has caused made evident by Percy and Braddock in Barrel’s Warhammer. Grime once told her, “Some dreams have a price and not everyone is willing to pay it.”, where she’s questioning that idealism every passing minute the invasion plan proceeds further into reaching success. Sasha isn’t sure what to do with herself anymore feeling aimless. Those previous episodes had a real impact on her priorities more than she cared to let on with Sasha’s typical tough girl act. This kid has let her guard down more, which scares and confuses Sasha. She’s always used to playing the role of protector it contradicts everything Sasha stands for when the roles are totally reversed because now Anne has made her feel the tremendous change in their growth as individuals.

Sasha’s lifestyle has been all about control that after somewhat learning to be more considerate to Anne & Marcy’s feelings she feels beyond conflicted about what truly matters to her. The most screwed up part of it all is Sasha didn’t want to fight anymore, taking up a pacifist approach after seeing what King Andrias had been hiding from everyone. It’s a fitting punishment for Sasha to try bringing Anne over to work together once more, but getting her pleas for companionship outright ignored. Anne was correct that Sasha had wasted all the chances to be reasonable. Boonchuy tried to hear out Sasha before at The Third Temple. One wanted to start things over again to iron out their serious issues, but the other was driven by bitterness, while only remorseful to a degree at best, of seeing their once weak friend become so independent, mature, and stronger that it drove her up wall. Sasha wanted to take away that “problem” being the Plantars, since in her eyes they’re the source of Anne’s strength, driving a wedge further between the two girls in their heated Reunion 2.0 battle.

True Colors demonstrates the horrific price of no trust, communication, nor teamwork from the three main girls that Andrias smoothly took advantage of, as if they were fiddles. 

“That’s the thing about friends isn’t it? The more you love them, the more it hurts when they go.”

King Andrias is quite literally what I wanted Lunaris to be, where DuckTales’ Season 2 finale didn’t impress me on doing. He’s a serious big baddie to the main cast, who follows through on his threats of violence to demonstrate his wide array of arsenal and power. Andrias doesn’t just emotionally manipulate characters, like poor Marcy, but utterly crush them without an ounce of remorse for his actions. When he dropped Sprig out that window after Anne willingly let him have the Calamity Box back I thought they were legit gonna kill this boy off. The way Anne’s flashback montage of her good times with Sprig were eerily shot really didn’t help either on that note. Anne’s Calamity power finally activating is easily up there among stuff, like Dewey risking his life for Della’s disappearance in Last Crash, where the cinematography is shot and animated brilliantly. You feel Anne’s blind raging sadness in every hit she landed on those robots and Andrias. If anyone didn’t believe Sprig was like a little brother to Anne, then I dunno how anyone couldn’t view their bond anymore as such after this hugely defining scene. Anne went bloodthirsty when she believed Sprig to be dead further evidenced when she hugged him in relief afterwards exclaiming, “Sprig!? You’re alive!? Oh, thank goodness...”, which cuts deep so damn much.

Anne was ready to fight every one of Andrias’ troops in that castle to the death, if need be. Before Sprig came back from falling, thanks to Marcy’s quick acting, to comfort Anne, her only goal was to slaughter every opponent in that throne room, along with making Andrias pay dearly for even daring to lay a single finger on anyone of the Plantars. I’m not gonna lie, this pivotal power up reminded me so much Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 after Cell curb stomped Android 16 into pieces with a smirk on his face. Anne Boonchuy’s maddening outburst is a classic testament to the idea of, “Piss off the nicest person and they’ll make it their mission to instill the biggest kind of fear/terror into you.”. showing this kid at her most vulnerable mental state, yet. Sprig & Anne’s cathartic embrace really messed me up in reinforcing just how these two respect, love, and would go above any of their limitations to help the other out. Sprig’s “death” scene was a masterful bait by the writers into making us think someone was gonna die and it was gonna be a poor kid, no less.  

However, it was actually all just a bait and switch for the real, “Oh, shit. They really just did that”, moment with Marcy unexpectedly getting run through with Andrias’ gigantic sword. In a last ditch effort, Marcy wanted to atone for what she had a hand in getting them all into. Marcy was ironclad determined in making her own stand for what was right trying to save the people she endangered. Akin to what Sasha did in Reunion for saving Anne’s life, Marcy does the exact same here. Although, unfortunately this time, no one is here to protect Marcy from escaping death, like Grime catching Sasha from plummeting at Toad Tower. Marcy couldn’t react in time because she was so focused on helping her dear friends out. She wanted to prove to herself at least one time, “I’ve screwed up so much stuff with my friends. Maybe, just maybe. If I get my friends back home, it’ll prove I’m not an entirely crappy person for setting these events into motion.”. Marcy’s own deep seeded remorse is what saved Anne & the Plantars, while being the cause of her own untimely demise at Andrias’ hands.

This scene is what no doubt encouraged the warning sign for younger viewers Disney decided to make for them. It’s impressive how far Matt and his crew are willing to go for intense dramatic content. Andrias trying to crush Polly with his fist after destroying Frobo with casual ease, dropping Sprig out of the window from up sky high, and stabbing Marcy with his powerful sword displays his cold blooded brutality. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you get in the way of Andrias’ plans for multiverse domination, then he’ll throw anyone into their own grave, be it man, woman, or child. That’s the mark of a truly terrifying antagonist.

Andrias didn’t care who had to be hurt or manipulated to get back the box, so he could invade other worlds with Earth being his next prime target for invasion. Marcy’s fate is a horrifyingly poetic statement, since Sasha stated to Anne in a flashback from Marcy At The Gates, “One of these days, she’s gonna get herself killed.”, with True Colors tying back to this line in a disturbing manner. Something that sends chills down my spine is we get to see the full extent of how far Andrias shoved the sword through her body. We don’t just see the entry point of where it hit her, but it even zooms out to show the whole thing. Real talk, I got serious Avatar The Last Airbender vibes from this scene. Reminded me so much of Aang getting suddenly zapped with lightning by Azula when he tried to enter the Avatar state. Marcy didn’t want to be alone so badly she ended up inevitably dying alone trying to send Anne back home to their reality. One Hell of a way to close off Marcy’s last moments in Season 2, until her inevitable resurrection happens in Season 3 now that King Andrias has her in a tube tank that looks tied to his master.

True Colors ends on a deeply bittersweet cliffhanger leaving the fates of Sasha & Grime totally unknown if they’ll get away by the skin of their teeth, or get captured by Andrias’ soldiers and robots. Anne finally returned home with the Plantars, but at a deadly cost of leaving her other close friends behind in Amphibia. After all the isolation, heartbreak, and endurance she went through with her frog family Anne finds herself at a total loss for words. Once again, Anne is in a state of solitude of not knowing if her friends are really okay or not, mirroring the start of Season 1 when she landed into Amphibia’s world. It’s safe to say to say that, “Finally me and it’s no big deal.”, lyrics have aged terribly for Anne’s realization of finding her own identity came at the expense of getting separated from friends she’s known since kindergarten. Definitely see Anne becoming a lot more protective of the Plantars now more than ever after watching Marcy drop to the ground from being stabbed in front of her eyes.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale is exactly how you capitalize on a winning story telling formula of dramatic writing, lovable characters with layered depth, and increasing the stakes of your story in an organic manner. True Colors is a finale that should be talked about for a long time to come, as it not only showed how worth the wait it was, but reinforces why Amphibia is a truly great series. It’s unafraid to take its characters to dark places in a way that feels totally earned.

Amphibia Season 2 is everything a sequel to a first film should be.

[roswellnmsource]

Michael Trevino Talks The Valenti Legacy & Roswell, New Mexico's Exciting Season 3

So, I'm just jumping right in here. Kyle has had a lot going on in season three, to put it mildly. How would you describe his journey so far this season?

Well, as I'm sure you know, Kyle is continuing to put out fires. He's there for as many people as he can be, but he's definitely called upon. And whenever he's needed, I feel like he shows up, but in episode 3x09, that's going to air next week, I think we kind of see things. He's reached his limit. And you sense his frustration. And I feel that it's warranted even though it comes in a bit hot, but we're in season three, and his life has taken a turn. And he's finding out more and more about his own family history, and I think it's just been a bit frustrating for him.

Sure. And while Kyle was recovering, the audience got the big bomb dropped on us that Ramos is Kyle's uncle. And that adds another layer to the Valenti history and legacy. So can you kind of speak to where Kyle currently is in regards to his feelings about his father and his feelings about the legacy of his family?

Well, I think what the writers have done is really, from season one to season three, has painted a picture of who Kyle's father was. Who is Jim Valenti? And at first, we thought he's this great guy that Kyle had looked up to and always wanted to make proud. And maybe that is the driving force in everything and anything that Kyle does. Well, now we're finding out a bit more about who Jim really was. We've been on this journey of season two with Jesse Manes, that whole interaction. And now we're finding out a bit more in season three. And that really flips Kyle's world upside down. I don't see how it couldn't. So he becomes this angsty, frustrated individual because you're thinking you know somebody, and you're finding out all these different things about him or her. And so with Eduardo, I feel that it's like, "What else? What else am I missing?" What else can be thrown his way? Because now we find out that, yeah, Eduardo, "Oh, you're my uncle. Interesting. Why hasn't anybody ever told me that before? Where have you been? Can you help me understand what is going on?" And when you think about that, Kyle probably thinks, "Well, who am I really? What is this really about?" So I don't know if he's, maybe, in the middle of wondering or questioning his own identity of what is this Valenti code? Has that been a lie? Because that's something that he's lived by, so that's where we're at.

Will we get to find out more about what happened the night that Kyle was attacked?

No, not really. I'm trying to think fast here of exactly, no, I mean, when we started episode 309, we find out, has he been in a coma? Was he injected with something? Was he knocked out? So, it was briefly explained, but I think, more so, we get into Eduardo and Kyle. Who are they to one another? And that is a jumping-off point for Kyle.

You touched on this a little bit earlier, but Kyle is not only the doctor that everyone needs, but he's also a confidant as well. Can you speak to Kyle's role, how you see Kyle's role within his group of friends?

Yeah. I think Kyle is somebody that you can depend on. He's somebody who has everybody's best interest at heart. If you call upon him, he's going to be there for you. And I think that what I've enjoyed about being on the show is how Kyle is interwoven between all the storylines, everything that's happening. He is a part of that, in some capacity. So that's been fun to play just as an actor with everybody on our cast, but that's just going to continue. And I feel like it's just going to get heavier. Just a heavier burden on Kyle, on what else needs to be done, how he can help, what is asked of him, needed of him to finish off the season.

And that also kind of flows into my next question, which is that Kyle is a character that has deeply personal relationships with pretty much all of the core characters, but is there a certain dynamic that you wish could be explored a bit more on the show? Like this season, we've got you with Michael some more and some more with you and Rosa, is there any particular dynamic you'd like to see explored more?

Great question. A hundred percent. Kyle and Isobel. I want to see it. I want them to...what is their dynamic? Cause I think the energy that Lily brings to Isobel is so... it's not infectious, but it's... it is infectious, but it's also, she just has so much energy. She's a ball of energy, and I want to see...and she's powerful. She's just fierce. And so, I'd like to see more Isobel and Kyle scenes. What is their friendship relationship to one another? And I'd like to explore that.

Yeah, that'd be great. Cause I also think with Kyle, every person he gets to interact with brings out a different side to him, which is really nice to see as well.

Yes, very much so. I'm glad you noticed that because it's true. It's true. And that's why I picked Isobel because I think that out of everybody, you see the most, you see such a different side of Kyle whenever he's interacting with Isobel. For whatever reason, I feel like it's always there compared to any other character. And so, I'd want to explore that more.

Yeah, I'd like that too. So last season, we saw Kyle in a relationship with Steph, but this season we haven't seen him pursuing anyone romantically. Will that be something that changes as the season progresses, or will his focus kind of lay elsewhere?

No, I think the focus at this point is not only is he going to be more involved with Deep Sky and Eduardo. But everybody, in some way, is going to have to deal with Jones. And that's gotta be priority number one. So, I don't see any time for any romance.

Earlier in the season, Kyle was presented with an opportunity to potentially leave Roswell for new opportunities. If that were to ever happen, which I hope it never does, where do you think Kyle would end up?

Ooh! That's fun. I think Kyle would go to New York. I think he'd go to the East Coast. I think he'd want to be in the big city. He'd want to be in Manhattan and just have that energy. Because we all love Roswell, but it is a bit of small-town living. And so, I think I would see him pursuing more in the medical field in the big city.

This season feels like a bit of a rebirth in some ways. And it's been a lot of fun for the audience. So, is there anything about season three that you particularly enjoy? Not just for Kyle, but the show as a whole?

Ooh. Listen, where we're at now in the season is Jones. Jones is our "big bad," if you will. And what's fun is, one to see Nathan Dean play two characters, right? And trying to see him add different layers to both of them. So that's been fun. I know last season he was working his ass off, and I think it shows. But to do that, to play two characters, is a lot. I really enjoyed him tackling that, but all of us have that in common, right? It's like, okay, we have to all come together, join forces almost like it's The Avengers or something to take care of Jones. This is our big bad. This is priority number one, and this is what we have to take care of. And I know in the later episodes, it's everybody joining forces. I mean, it's exactly what you would think of all of us in one scene, coming together, being like, "Okay, we got to get rid of this guy. How do we do this?" And everybody has their job.

I know you are shooting season four now. What is it like being back in Santa Fe and stepping back into the role, and how much do you enjoy filming in Santa Fe and everything that kind of goes with it?

Well, I noticed, we shot season three a little later in the year, and so it was the dead of winter; it was freezing. I think you can see that in the episodes that are currently airing. We may seem like we're not cold, but we are freezing, freezing. I liked that we started a bit earlier for season four. So right now, the cold hasn't set in yet. We're shooting very beautiful exterior shots, and it's been nice. It's been nice. The show is still going. I do want to thank all the fans that continue to watch week to week and are still invested in the story that we're telling and the characters that we're playing because we're getting into that rare territory. It's season four, and we're all still happy to be here. We're all still working. I've been on series' that last a long time. And sometimes the dynamics can shift, right? But I can honestly say that I think everybody on this series is happy to be here and happy to work and grateful for that. And so, it is a nice feeling. We're plugging away right now. It's season four; things are going really well. I really like these episodes. And it's a different energy because we're working, but then we're also able to get instant feedback on which episodes are airing currently. That's a really nice feeling, but me, I enjoy Santa Fe. It's a beautiful part of New Mexico. And we're all great right now until maybe in about a month and a half until it gets freezing again. But right now, we're good.

Yeah, and congratulations to you because, like you alluded to, getting four seasons nowadays is no easy thing to do. So, you guys should be very proud of that.

And trust me, I'm reminding our cast every chance I get. I'm like, "Hey, this is a good thing here." I think people are still engaged in what we're doing. People are still tuning in. And so as long as that's happening and we're doing our jobs, everything should be fine.

This is just a little bit of a fun question. If you could think of a Vampire Diaries character that you would like to see swoop into Roswell for a bit, who do you think that would be?

Oh, damn. That's a great question. I'd love to have more time to think on this, but off the top of my head right away, gut reaction because I'm envisioning my buddy, Zach Roerig, in a Sheriff's uniform. And I'm envisioning Max in a Sheriff's uniform. And I don't know why I want them to... maybe they don't get along. Maybe there's a new sheriff in town. I don't know what. I don't know what, but it would be very awesome to see Zach Roerig play Matt Donovan in Roswell, New Mexico. But him be that character. Have him be Matt Donovan and just kind of react to what's going on here. And if it's the same character, you'd think he'd be like, "Okay, first I was dealing with witches, werewolves, and vampires. I'm coming to this town. You're telling me there's aliens here." Let's make this a comedy. I want to see that play out. That would be hilarious.

Yes, it really would be. Last question for me, with this season winding down, is there anything you can tease for us about where Kyle's story goes from here?

I think what we're going to see him and Eduardo be allies to one another, and Kyle's involvement in Deep Sky is going to be greater, and everybody has to come together for this guy, Jones. It's all hands on deck. Cause Jones is very powerful, manipulative, and we have to get him out of here.