#and he NEEDS that he has gone his entire life without structure except prison and a max security mental hospital stay of one (1) week

[tsarkiller]

one thing to know about hanseok. is that if hanseok isn't happy NOBODY'S happy

[senju-sekhmet]

The Leash (Part 9)

Summary: Your rescue was supposed to be as smooth as these missions can be. However very quickly, Tobirama faces off against an enemy that has no form, color or smell - and time is running short, very fast. Unless he figures out what truly holds you hostage, your life will be lost. Warnings (for the finished work): Blood, illness, descriptions of heavy injuries and graphic violence, torture (both depicted and implied), needles, morally grey territory, human experimentation, panic attacks, character death, angst with a happy ending ~6000 words (this chapter, finished work: 80.000) Previous: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8 Read on AO3!   Disclaimer below the cut! more updates. is it really a disclaimer still, i wonder lmao

DISCLAIMER! we are nearing the grand finale of this fic!! please stick until the very end okay?! i know this chapter might be a little bit of a drag - it’ll get better, promise. <3 Other than that: enjoy my very self indulgent work, filled with my own headcanons and angst galore. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!!!! ________ Leaving you had been a real test of will. Not only were you in such a deplorable state overall, but also your request - it was quite obvious you were putting on a brave face, but the truth of the matter was you weren’t faring well, at all. It was the little signs that gave you away - the slight tremor in your voice sometimes. The gallows humour. He didn’t want to think about what the withdrawal had been like for you. But he could well imagine. And as per usual, he was helpless except to unravel how to produce more of this damned leash. He couldn’t even heal you or alleviate some of your exhaustion at this point. 

By the time he had reached the laboratory he was frustrated beyond measure, sick from guilt and his heart was aching that if he didn’t know better, he might as well think he was sick. He wasn’t, of course. But eliciting such bodily responses due to his emotional state was something entirely foreign to Tobirama. He was - always had been - subject to his moods, sure. And the people around him would know his sour moods, especially. But would he carelessly act on them, or physically feel them like this? No. Luckily it was the middle of the night and there had been nobody around to witness the somber scowl he was wearing. Not that he cared, anyway.

In the grand scheme of things, that was the least of his concerns.

He had contemplated testing his newest result on another prisoner, but ultimately decided against it. The best he could hope for was a prolonged time of muting the victim’s chakra. What he really needed to start working on now was to weave the second component in, the disruption. And since he had four vials available, that offered a variety of options. He’d leave one untouched, to be safe - and work on one for now to start with that.

The first problem was to imagine how he’d want the disruption to kick in. He knew from examining your blood and also the reaction you’ve shown that it took some time for the disruption to kick in. He had deduced it must be because of the chakra muting component - it covered the disruption up to leave a timeframe in which a victim was not threatened by it. When it faded, only the disruption remained, the lethal withdrawal kicked in. Therefore, the chakra needed for this would need to last longer, adhere to the victim almost like a brand and be intense enough to cause these effects. He did have a vague idea how to achieve this - but to compress it into such a small vial was… daunting.

What’s new, he somberly figured to himself.

And just as he imagined, this proved to be even more complicated than weaving the first component in. Not only did he have to treat delicately, but also be extremely careful to not destroy the structures he had worked so hard to get into that vial in the first place. He didn’t quite succeed in that - partly, the muting component took damage. The whole process felt as though he needed to weave chakra inbetween what was already in the vial - as if he was transplanting it onto the already delicate structure he had created. It was endlessly frustrating. Frankly everything about this was so demanding, at times he wondered if there really was no other option to get a cure.

Like torturing the prisoners to a maximum.

The more time he spent threading the more he became convinced there must be some trick to it. That, or it required an intense amount of training. If it was the latter, then he’d be facing a new problem. 

He’d deal with that when it came to it. His plate was full as it was. 

Once he got a hang of how to weave it in without wrecking the delicate structure of the first pattern, his gaze swept to the clock. It was long past midnight. Time for a small break. As much as he hated it, he didn’t want to use his clones yet again - he needed to figure this out more, firstly. If he had no real idea where to truly go with this, his clones’ works would just ramp up more exhaustion. More he needed to sleep off. Besides, this would not be so much of a break - though you were stable, he simply didn’t like the thought of leaving you alone. Not after your request - not after seeing you in your frightfully weak state. He had to check on you, as he promised.

He teleported back into your dimly lit room. Briefly, he gazed out of the window - the sky was clear, the moon shone bright and there were a million stars alongside it. It was beautiful. Silently, he walked to your bedside again to find you had your eyes closed. Finally - finally your face seemed peaceful. Gaunt, for sure, but not in pain. Tobirama settled down into his chair and laid his hand on yours, as lightly as he could to not wake you up. Very slowly he let his chakra skim over your network to find it dormant as well, pleased you still were asleep. Equally slow, he increased the connection to examine you as softly as possible. As usual, the injuries, microscopic tears, tissue damages and healing bits were too numerous to count. And there also was the general lack of reserves overall - a result from the strain put on you by the stretching of the interval no doubt. Even so, your cardiovascular situation was superior and no organ showed any sign of dysfunction. A pleasant surprise - compared to before, you were doing even better. Seems that aside from the exhaustion you had recovered well from their first stunt. He withdrew quickly before you could notice his presence and leaned back in his chair.

Had they gone by their normal schedule, you’d be left with four and a half days now. And Tobirama hadn’t even yet produced something that was anywhere near the leash. For all the grief it had put you through, it was a small victory. Admitting this felt wrong, though - despicable. It was the method. And he wasn’t sure how much time they’d gain from this, overall. His medical expertise wasn’t comparable to his brother’s, but he didn’t think you’d keep up lengthier intervals. Maybe if you’d been in peak physical condition.

He groaned slowly, rubbing a hand over his face.

Part of him didn't want to think anymore, now. He felt stretched out, thin. Spent. But of course, his mind wouldn't stop.

He vividly remembered the first time you went into withdrawal. The torment you had been going through. Just because you hadn’t been writhing or screaming now didn’t mean it was more bearable - no. You had been sedated this time. Tobirama was quite sure the whole procedure was hell for you, nonetheless, and all that kept you together was your unbreakable will to live.

If that ever faltered…

An ice-cold shiver ran down his spine. He closed his eyes. Already his heart pumped painfully against his ribcage, he had expected it. The all too familiar ache, the grief. The guilt.

I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you.

It was all he could do. Though he caustically surmised, so far he had done a less than stellar job.

He returned to the lab as soon as his concentration felt up to the maddening task yet again. Having seen you again quite possibly helped a great deal to spur him on again despite the hour and how daunting it all felt - he just  had  to produce some kind of breakthrough now. He knew it. He could feel it. This is the way. He didn’t allow himself another break from the delicate weaving process until finally he inspected a vial containing both components now. Using his sensory skills he sent a weak, short-range chakra pulse through it.

The substance was not like the leash, no. If the leash was shining like a beacon, his copy was a torch, at least. It was progress, compared to the last time. He silently wondered if adding the second component had done this. Then came the next test - examining it directly. Again, the result was that his vial seemed inferior: while the chakra swirled in it in a quite complicated pattern, finely woven, he did distinguish the two different components after a little bit. The liquid made it difficult as it stayed ever in motion, but it was as though he was seeing two different colors.

It was a step forward, at least. He’d be testing this soon. Based on that - and the test subject’s blood work - he’d draw new conclusions. Still, there was more time to work on this vial further. The weaving itself was becoming something of a craft - with each moment he’d learn new tricks to it. A taxing one that seemed entirely focused on details, tiniest nudges and using small amounts of chakra at a time, but a craft nonetheless.

Had he not been so pressed for time, he might’ve actually found it interesting. But right now, all he felt was your torment breathing down his neck, wrenching his heart around and stealing his breath.

He wanted this over with.

It was early morning when he finished his work - not that he’d call it that, but he decided there was more merit to testing it out now. Even so, he’d check up on you again first. The world lurched with the use of his hiraishin seal, and a moment later he was in your room.

The first rays of dawn filtered in already, drenching the wooden hospital furniture in red hues once more. Low rustles were coming from your bed. Tobirama stepped over swiftly to find you stirring under the sheet irregularly, your head tilting from side to side. Briefly, he wondered if you were having a nightmare - but your eyes were open.

And recognizing him. “Tobirama,” you breathed, surprised.

“What’s wrong, Y/n?”, he inquired, wasting no time to step closer even, the worry already growing. 

“Just … trying to get more comfortable,” you whispered, attempting a weak smile. “Looks like my strength returned a little bit more.”

He frowned slightly. “Don’t force it.” He couldn’t have prevented the sternness from seeping into his voice if he wanted to.

You sighed. “No,” a light shake of your head, “Just help me get on my side. Please?”, you extended your left hand for him to take, which he did with a small sigh. At least that way you wouldn’t try to do it yourself. And while he was extremely  adamant, as Hashirama had eloquently put it, about your rest, it still tormented him to see you lacked the strength to turn on your side by yourself. Of course he knew it was common for patients in your condition - but this was you. He placed his right hand around where your hip and the small of your back would be under the blanket after his left had grasped your hand and pulled you towards him very slowly and gently so you tilted onto your side. You groaned a little, but sighed once you had adjusted to your new position.

“Thank you,” you hushed, meekly almost. The lack of strength was just as obvious to you. Tobirama took his seat at your side again and shook his head dismissively.

“Of course.” He still frowned, though. “How are you feeling?”

You closed your eyes and sighed again. “It’s… starting again. I can feel it. I’m feeling dizzy and… weaker.” Your voice shook from a slight tremble. Fear, Tobirama concluded.

He clenched his teeth and breathed through the tight feeling in his chest. “Y/n, we don’t need to stretch the interval as much-,”

“No,” you interjected firmly, eyes snapping open, giving him a sharp look. “We do. You know it. I know it.”

Now was Tobirama’s turn to close his eyes. “I don’t want you to suffer,” he whispered, his baritone voice near breaking again just from uttering these words and yet firm all the same. The tight feeling became worse

“I know,” you replied, haunted. “I know.” Your gaze was sorrowful. Knowing. Tobirama leaned forward to grasp your hand again and enclose it in his, letting his chakra coat your networks in the familiar, warm way. He didn’t know what else to do for your comfort. “Thank you,” you muttered again, forming yet another weak smile.

His head hung low as he simply basked in feeling you like this. The small nudge you were giving his sensitive network made him gasp slightly. 

The moment was interrupted by the door swinging open. Tobirama’s head shot up to find his brother standing in the doorway. Looking more rested than he himself did, most likely. When he had reapplied his face paint after washing himself, there definitely had been dark rings under his eyes.

“Good morning,” Hashirama announced warmly, rounding the bed to stand beside Tobirama when he realised you were on your right side. “How are you?”

As you explained your condition to him, Tobirama gently grazed over your chakra network once more before drawing back slowly to free your hand. He’d be on his way soon, anyway.

Hashirama nodded. “Very well. I singled out a few medications that should help us stabilize you, as I mentioned. It’d be best to take them while you’re still, ah, responsive.”

“You mean when I’m not spitting it back at you?”, you deadpanned. Tobirama near froze at the image. All he could think of was how his hand had forced your mouth open, then poured the torture drug in and forcefully constricted your airway to make you swallow it.

Hashirama cleared his throat. “Well, you haven’t managed that so far.” Tobirama snorted in quite a cynical way then, earning him an arched eyebrow from you. Hashirama shot each of you a meaningful glance before continuing slowly. “Still..., it might be necessary to draw additional seals to release the medications transdermally.”

Tobirama’s head whipped to the side to stare at his brother. “That will aggravate the overload.”

Hashirama held up his hands defensively already. “The seals I have in mind for this purpose only add very, very little of the user’s chakra to the patient.” Tobirama wasn’t quite convinced yet as his scowl indicated. But then forcing things down your throat wasn’t gentle, either. 

“And we’re also going to modify your nutrition, accommodating for the duress you find yourself in,” he added softly, but no less serious.

That made you snort now, but in a disgusted way. “Oh, I know what that’s going to taste like.” Every shinobi in the field on long missions knew that, in fact.

Tobirama wasn’t having any of it though. Already, he became riled up. “Y/n, we're not going to discuss-”

“I know, I know,” you already deflected exasperatedly, waving your free hand to calm him down. He leaned back in his chair then and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow.

“Alright. Now that that’s out of the way,” Hashirama sighed, stepping closer to you. “May I?”, he extended his hand to take yours.

That was Tobirama’s clue. He wasn’t of any use here right now. He leaned closer to you yet again, expression mellowing. “I’ll be back soon, Y/n,” he promised for the lack of a better phrase. Anything else - anything mundane like ‘take care’ - just seemed wrong at this point. You nodded, trying another brave smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. Tobirama hoped his did.

He left the hospital to head straight for the interrogation and information headquarters, then, after having picked up his latest experiment with him.

It was already bustling with activity despite the early hour. Perhaps another mission finished. He didn’t dwell on it, really. Instead he headed to where he knew to find Ikuro; nodding towards the few familiar faces he made out. Apparently news about his task had made the round since nobody stopped him on his was through the small corridors past various offices. For a group that was euphemistically described as ‘interrogators’, everything seemed awfully quiet here. The walls must be thick. 

Ikuro indeed was behind the desk in the sparsely decorated office that adjourned the cell block holding the six prisoners. He greeted Tobirama with the oddly warm smile and a nod. “Back again,” his voice was quiet, deceptively soft.

“Back again.” Tobirama repeated, raising an eyebrow. Exchanging pleasantries was something he really had no time for - given his - your - predicament. Any waste of time felt like a crime at this point. And then again, he never liked chitchat much. “Any news?”

Ikuro shook his head. “Not regarding your problem, I’m afraid, given we know Zenji is the only one to interrogate about that. I take it you made progress, however.”

That was unsurprising. Despite all that happened, it had only been a day. A single day. “Something to test out, yes.”

Ikuro’s smile spread slightly. Tobirama wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but quickly decided he didn’t care enough to form an opinion just yet. “There is one question though,” his smile faded. Tobirama frowned. “Now that we know Zenji is the only one who knows how to make the leash, do you want to use it on him again? I know we did the last time, however, if we permanently injure him…” He trailed off, but Tobirama well caught the implication.

He crossed his arms then. A fair point that he hadn’t considered yet. Since there were six prisoners in total, he had more than enough test subjects to choose from. But picking Zenji had the additional possible merit of gleaning more information about the leash during the interrogation, at the cost of, well, risking him. It all boiled down to whether Tobirama was confident enough in his work to not harm a person permanently, or not.

He hated it. But, “The substance I brought with me today will be more aggressive than the one I used last time. So, no. Let’s pick someone else. If it works well, we’ll focus on him again.” He was set on giving that man hell until he gave up his secrets. Or Tobirama had figured it out himself. Either way.

Ikuro nodded then. “Alright. We’ll pay a visit to Kimi.” The smile was back again.

Tobirama instead scowled, his tone was dripping with sarcasm. “Why do I get the fleeting notion that is the loony one from the far end?”

Ikuro bellowed a sudden laugh that startled him, both eyebrows rising. He wouldn’t figure this man’s humour out, really. “You are as perceptive as they say, Tobirama.” Then he rose to full size and Tobirama followed with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. The walk down the cell block was accompanied by the well-known feeling of eyes on him. Not that Tobirama cared for those, either. Except for one pair. 

Zenji’s. His scarlet eyes darted to the side when they passed the middle cell. Tobirama was satisfied to find his black-bruised jaw was swollen. The look the man gave him was nothing short of hateful. He never broke his stride and followed Ikuro, surprised Zenji didn’t holler anything after him. Perhaps the jaw just hurt too much, hm.

Finally they reached Kimi’s cell. Like all the others, she also was chained up and sealed away. Her gaze seemed empty, staring a hole into the ceiling. That would soon change, Tobirama knew. Ikuro unlocked the cell. “Kimi,” he greeted warmly, like she was a friend.

“Go fuck yourself,” she shot back instantly but perfectly nonchalant. Tobirama’s eyebrows shot up. So much for friends. Her blue eyes locked with Tobirama’s. “Oh,” suddenly, her tone was infused with a shrill kind of adoration. “A high visitor!” Tobirama had to refuse the urge to cover his ears. “Tell me, tell me,” she chanted, swinging back and forth in the chains that held her. “How’s Y/n, how is she? Mhm?”, she exposed surprisingly bright teeth in a grotesque smile.

Tobirama didn’t even find her worth talking to; he could only roll his eyes and sigh exasperatedly. Enemies like this he knew to take serious - erratic behaviour covered up some of the most impressive techniques. But this wasn’t a fight. And he wasn’t about to try and converse with the likes of her. Not even in a cynical banter. He gazed at Ikuro. “Shall we?”

Kimi moaned loudly. “Awh, come on!”, it was an obscenely wanton sound. “Gimme a shred, please, please, please? I’m missing Y/n so, so much!”

Tobirama started to wonder if he had to break another jaw here. The ire that started to burn in his veins again surely provided enough fuel. His head tilted forward slightly as his stare narrowed, darkening.

Ikuro was already next to Kimi, shaking his head. He must’ve guessed at Tobirama’s thoughts - not that his body language wasn't enough of a giveaway. 

Kimi wasn’t helping her situation. “Tobirama Senju doesn’t find me worth talking tooo!”, she screamed then in a most offended way, loud enough for probably everyone in this building to hear. Not that she was wrong in any way. This woman would be better off without her vocal chords.

“Kimi,” Ikuro began, still sugary sweet. “You’re going to help us a little.” His hand seized the back of her head already, grasping her brown hair firmly.

She stiffened immediately, but the smile that spread over her lips now was nothing short of malicious. Typical, Tobirama figured - completely mad behaviour, but far from idiotic. “Oh.” It was a sharp sound. “My turn to get your itty-bitty-wannabe-leash?”

Tobirama’s mien remained completely impassive. “Are you going to open your mouth or are we going to have to force you, like your compatriot?”, entirely unfazed by threatening her with violence.

Not that she was fazed, either. And smart enough to know better than to put up a fight now. “I always wanted to taste the stuff, mhm,” she tried to nod her head, but Ikuro’s grip was iron already. “No need to break my jaw like dumb Zenji’s. Show me what y’got, Tobirama Senju, show me,” she then moaned again, lasciviously almost.

Tobirama’s lips drew into a disgusted scowl. “Good grief, how do you work with these people,” he scoffed. Ikuro was grinning widely. “I should’ve picked Zenji,” he added almost inaudibly. Kimi opened her mouth wide and stuck her tongue out, licking over her lower lip in distasteful ways. Still, he didn’t trust her for one second. And the contents of this vial were too precious for this maniac to spit back at him, which he was sure she would. His free hand seized her jaw tightly so that if she bit down, she’d seriously injure her cheeks. Kimi already spluttered. The moment Tobirama felt she wanted to speak more, he simply applied more pressure. He had enough of this nutcase.

Swiftly, he poured the contents of his vial into her mouth and in a well practiced move pressed down harshly on her nose and mouth to force her to swallow. Her eyes became glassy - luckily, he had been wise enough to keep her mouth shut, because he was perfectly sure she’d have licked his hand or done something equally disgusting had he not.

Not that much was needed. Obediently, she swallowed.

Followed by a shrill scream. Tobirama’s patience was a candle that burned on both ends at this point. He didn’t even put it past Kimi that this was precisely what she was aiming for but by all that he believed in, it worked. The woman let out a heavy tirade of sexually loaded metaphors about what she was seeing and feeling that might have turned a more innocent person bright red on the spot.

It elicited nothing but fast growing annoyance out of Tobirama, however. And Ikuro was grinning as he closed his eyes. He gave him a dark glare. The man had known, for sure. This better yielded good results. When he reached for her throat to examine her, his hand grasped so tightly Kimi’s voice got stuck in its tracks and all that remained was a small rivulet of obscenities at Ikuro, who had begun to invade her mind again. Squeaks, no more.

Much more bearable.

Now to examine her. He made no effort to be gentle about this whatsoever. Ikuro’s work was marvellous as before. Unsurprisingly, Kimi’s mental defense was nothing short of impressive. Perhaps Tobirama was imagining it, but Ikuro’s methods seemed different here - more brutal. More smothering. Akin to what he had done to Akio - less thought to the risk he was running. Was Ikuro himself fed up with her? The thought darkly amused Tobirama.

Kimi stayed completely stable throughout the whole procedure. Her chakra flow was almost as muted as yours was after indigestion of the leash, however it picked up again during the session. Tobirama had expected it, but with the additional experience in the whole weaving process, it gave him clues on how to improve on that. Briefly he stopped monitoring her to take a blood sample. Not an easy task as there was no patch of skin exposed save for her neck and head, so he had to go for the jugular artery as the veins would be collapsed. It bore a slight risk - but none that Tobirama even cared about. Unceremoniously he stabbed the needle in where he felt the pulse after having released his choke hold on her throat - an opportunity she used to gargle out profanities at both him and Ikuro, but the mental assault heavily impaired her ability to form coherent sentences. What was coherent by her standards anyway, Tobirama figured. After he had gotten what he needed from her neck, he continued to monitor her. The half-frozen state of her chakra remained steady for a while before it dropped more.

Ikuro began to retreat then, slowly. 

“Wait,” Tobirama instructed. His presence lingered then, still keeping Kimi in a mental choking hold.

As her chakra became less and less mute, the disruption kicked in more. And with it, for the first time there seemed to be genuine distress in the prisoner, indicated not by crude insults, but a genuine groan of pain. 

“Interesting,” Tobirama muttered, smugly, almost. Kimi whimpered while Tobirama took time to thoroughly investigate how her chakra tried to repel his disruption, over and over again - and each time, the reaction became worse for it, accompanied by a never ending stream of pained expressions. Watching the agony unfolding inside of her.

He felt no satisfaction, no. But he was pleased. A success, finally.

After a while of monitoring, he took another blood example. Ikuro was frowning now. “I’m not sure how much more she’ll take, mentally,” he announced.

“Well, physically, she’s well off. I won't say anything about her mental state, that has been debatable to begin with," Tobirama grunted. This was nothing compared to what you went through. The plight they ultimately had put you in.

Ikuro withdrew then, but Tobirama had to stay. After all, the disruption first had to fade at some point. He knew it would - this wasn’t the leash,  yet . But it was the right way. Slowly, Kimi’s body started to clear out the disruptive components alongside her chakra - another fascinating realisation that was different to when he had examined you. In you, the leash stuck - no matter how much your unmuted chakra and body battled it, it just kept on disruption and repelling it, thus causing the detrimental health effects. But Kimi’s cleared Tobirama’s out.

He withdrew then. Ikuro raised an expectant eyebrow. “She will be fine,” Tobirama announced, turning on his heels to leave the cell. He had new material to work with.

Ikuro followed swiftly after locking the cell containing the now limp Kimi.

The glare Zenji gave Tobirama now was decidedly murderous. Tobirama grinned back, darkly. Arrogantly. Zenji might as well know he was on their heels. His threats have not been empty. He almost had passed the cell, when Zenji’s strained voice echoed through the cell block: “Four more days, Tobirama fucking Senju,” the pain was obvious. Good. Nobody had healed the fracture, then. “Don’t think for a second you’re anywhere near perfection yet! Y/n’s gonna die so fucking miserably!”

Tobirama kept on walking, ignoring the new flare of ire in his veins. The urge to turn on his heels and break his jaw in new ways. Hell, rearrange his damned face. No, Zenji was beneath him he kept telling himself as he ground his teeth so hard his own jaws hurt. Back in the office, Ikuro closed the door. “I’m impressed, Tobirama.” His gaze was appreciative. For a split second, he believed this to be about reigning his temper in and was about to reply in a most impolite way to such a condescending remark, but he quickly realised this was not the case.

“Thanks.” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. The praise for his work was hollow when he reminded himself why he was doing this - and that it was far from perfect yet. “I’ll be back soon. I trust you didn’t learn anything pertaining to my task?”, not that he thought so, but he had to ask anyway.

“Sadly, no. It was a fruitful session, especially considering it was Kimi, but it seems Zenji’s slip up was not a false lead. She really does not seem to know about the leash’s creation.” Then, he frowned. “But, she adamantly guarded anything relating to the leash. Perhaps there is more to glean from her.

Tobirama’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, then we know to build up more pressure.” 

Ikuro nodded, surprisingly somber now. “Indeed. I’ll inform you if anything from the other prisoners might come up.”

Tobirama bowed slightly. “Thank you.” Ikuro was a good man to work with. 

A second later, the world lurched and the hiraishin seal transported him back to your room, where the little victory he celebrated dissipated swiftly.

The mood was dreary - and the innate hum he felt due to his sensory skills had picked up from the last time. It could only mean one thing. By now it was high noon and the sun’s light reflected off of the room’s pale furniture. Hashirama’s back was turned to him but the blanket was pushed aside - revealing your marred legs. On them, more seals, which he couldn’t make out precisely at this distance. Instantly, Tobirama rounded your bed swiftly, to find Hashirama working on the heart seal. Still, he couldn’t help but gasp when he saw your whole form revealed like this: a shadow of your former self and almost no part of you that didn’t bear a barely healing mark of torture. It didn’t deter him from analysing the situation, but it’d never fail to drive a proverbial blade through his heart.

Your breaths were quick and shallow again and Tobirama was sure to hear a rumble in there. Not good. Your lung was affected. Combined with the fact your body definitely was paler than before and the sheen of sweat that covered your skin, the situation was obvious.  You didn’t move - and in your face, the grimace of pain was etched into your skin.

It was worse than before. And they hadn’t stretched the interval as much as before, yet.

Hashirama’s gaze swept up to him when he had finished what Tobirama guessed was strengthening the seal that supported your heart. His mien was grave. “We can’t wait much longer.” He gave Tobirama a quick rundown of what had happened: the withdrawal had kicked in again as before, but the symptoms developed faster, and more severe. As he had guessed, your lung was starting to suffer damage not just on the slight, microscopic level Tobirama had witnessed during the first stretch but in a greater margin. Your cardiovascular system required more support as your heart struggled, too. He still hadn’t intervened directly, yet.

Tobirama swallowed finally and nodded and nodded. Then, he looked down on your legs. Each bore another seal meant for transdermal release of the agents the seal in the middle was soaked in. “You drew more seals?” he inquired, terse again.

“We had to,” Hashirama explained, his hand back on your arm and his eyes closed. “Her lucid intervals are too short to ensure her taking the medication by herself. This is more effective and safer.”

“Safer?”, Tobirama shot back, sternly. “There are six seals on her now. Which means we barely have any room for additional chakra based options, if any, without overloading her.”

Hashirama clicked his tongue. “I am well aware, Tobirama,” a slight hint of strain had snuck into his voice now. But instead of angering him, it did the opposite - Tobirama realised how serious your condition was for his brother to even let a sliver of exasperation slip into his tone. And besides. He didn’t say any more.

All they were doing here - it was all dangerous. Too dangerous. They were running into dead ends, either way - be it the leash or the withdrawal of it. And to make you suffer, for a few precious hours? Tobirama swallowed hard against the shortness of breath that gripped this thorax tightly suddenly. “Anjia, I don’t think we should continue. Y/n is suffering and I -,” he swallowed again as his scarlet gaze swept to your face and the hurt in his heart was near unbearable again, “I cannot condone this.”

Hashirama’s eyes flew open and he gave Tobirama a deep frown. “She doesn’t want us to stop. So don’t.”

His gaze wandered to his brother, frowning himself now. “If she dies from the withdrawal, then it was pointless,” he nearly growled, voice stern again, if just to cover up for the gaping hole that the ache was boring into his chest in a most agonizing way.

“She’s not dying. Have more faith in me, Tobirama - and most importantly, her,” he gazed back at you then, voice becoming softer, fonder. Tobirama would never fail to be amazed by his brother’s optimism.

In a very sarcastic way.

“I’m not doubting you or her, anija,” and the sheer notion of him doing so did well enough to distract him from the terrible heartache simply for how furious it made him, “What I am doubting is what we’re up against - effects of something I haven’t fully understood yet or been able to recreate!”

Hashirama took a sharp breath. “On the other hand, we can evaluate her condition, react accordingly and adjust the figurative sails. We will not run a risk. You said so yourself. That, we do know.”

Tobirama looked back on your tormented form. Then he closed his eyes slowly. He hated it - he hated all of this - but he knew, deep down, he knew it - they’d need to continue down the path they had chosen. All of this - it would end soon. Either way. All he could do was to ensure it ended favourably, swiftly. And for as long as it lasted he’d need to remind himself of the promise he had made to you. No matter what. If Hashirama found your condition stable enough to continue - he’d trust him. He had no other choice but to.

“How much longer until the next dose?”, Tobirama asked then, the numb feeling spreading again. He welcomed it. The numbness muted all of the grief, of the ache. His focus returned.

“Not much. Might as well prepare it.” Hashirama instructed, politely refraining from commenting on Tobirama’s falter further.

He nodded and made for doing just that. Not twenty minutes later, they administered it - again, you were stirring from the force with which Tobirama had to pry your mouth open to pour the hated liquid in. The pained way in which you groaned echoed quietly in the sparsely furnitured room as he focused on not spilling a drop while gripping your jaw with vice strength again and holding it open. Uttering apologies he knew you couldn’t hear but he made nonetheless. After he made you swallow it you stilled again.

It had whatever brief respite - if it could’ve been called that - they had gained by stretching the intervals and thus making for more time null. Impressively, it had been shown you paid the price in proverbial blood and if it continued, literal blood might follow.

Tobirama’s only rest would be when he literally crashed, now.

[snowdice]

Something Left (Part 1 of the series Is There Anything Left of Patton?)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Virgil & Logan, Logan/Patton(?)

Characters: Logan, Virgil, Patton(?)

Summary:  Virgil has been living in Logan’s house for 3 months and they get along pretty good. Their abilities seem to balance each other out making them a good team for the apocalyptic world outside their door.

Then he finds the secret in Logan’s basement... He almost wishes that secret was as simple as he first thought it was.

In which I set up a world where Logan is probably crying like 85% of the time.

Notes: Zombie Apocalypse AU, Past major character death(?), Look it’s a zombie AU so you can probably guess why there’s a question mark after everything involving Patton.

Three months. It had been what passed for a normal three months, a good three months even. Especially when compared to the three months before it and even more to the three months before that. Don’t even get him started on the three months before that; those months had been the shittiest months. Those three months had started out with him working at a coffee shop trying to pay rent while look for a better job and ended with him almost dying because he had to jump off a bridge into running water to save himself from a pack of zombies.

These last three months had been good comparatively. This was mostly because he’d been living in Logan’s house for almost the entire time. Logan’s house had actually been his (as far as Virgil could tell) from before. That or he’d bothered to lug cases of old college textbooks with his handwriting scribbled in the margins and boxes of photographs with him in them through the zombie apocalypse.

It was a nice house even now and sat on the outskirts of what used to be a town. Virgil had no idea how he’d managed to hold down the fort during the outbreak or how he’d managed to not get overrun after it. He imagined that the population of the dead in the vicinity of his house was a lot smaller now than it had been at onset, but it was still sizable enough that Virgil had almost gotten eaten while scavenging in a neighboring house. That is how his met Logan.

Virgil had been certain he’d been about to die since he’d just barely been holding back teeth from chomping his face, when a single bullet had gone through the zombie’s head and embedded itself right to the left of Virgil’s own skull. Even just the one gunshot, of course, alerted every mindless carnivore in the area of their location, so they’d scrambled into his house to wait it out.

Virgil had just… not left. He’d never really been invited, but he’d also never been asked to leave so he’d just stayed. He contributed of course. Virgil was pretty good with the little garden out back while Logan seemed to have… whatever the opposite of a green thumb was. He seemed to appreciate Virgil taking it over. Virgil was pretty sure the plants themselves cried in relief.

Despite his lack of skill in the gardening department, Logan was pretty good at things like hunting (managing to only kill the zombie and not also shoot Virgil had not been a lucky shot) and keeping the house structurally sound. They both were okay at scavenging which was much easier with two of them and they worked well together.

Also, Logan was nice to talk to, especially since Virgil had been alone for a long time during the last year. He was a good guy if a bit eccentric. He’d disappear for hours into the maze that was his house and Virgil often found him reading in odd places, but he was chill and smart.

Well.

At least, that’s what Virgil had thought.

“God dammit. You’re one of those people. Fuck.” Virgil said.

“It,” he said standing in his secret, fucking, dead body prison basement, “It isn’t like that.”

“You know, Logan,” Virgil said. “That’s what they all say.” He gestured at the thing in the cage. Even though he knew there was nothing going on in its head, Virgil couldn’t help but feel a bit of pity for it all trussed up like that in the corner, squirming and making horrible sounds behind a gag. “So, what? Huh? Is it someone you think you care about too much to put out of its misery even though it might kill anything it comes into contact with? Are you keeping it for some sort of last-minute defense for your house? Do you do science experiments on it out of some perverted need to know more about them? Tell me, because I’ve honestly run the gambit of crazy assholes in the last year.”

“No,” Logan said. “I…” he sighed. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I don’t understand?” Virgil scoffed. “Why don’t you explain it to me? Why do you have a zombie in the basement of your house. The house I lived in for the past three months without you thinking to tell me about this?”

Logan looked at him for a moment. “Very well.” He grabbed a set of keys on the wall and moved over to the enclosure.

Virgil lunged forward to grab his arm when he moved to put the key in the lock. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Logan didn’t try to pull away from his hold. He just spoke calmly, face neutral. “He is restrained well on the other side of this cell. I will lock the door behind me. You won’t be in danger.”

“You’re fucking nuts,” Virgil spat. “What am I supposed to do. Just stand on the other side of the bars and watch you get ripped to shreds by that thing?”

“I will not get ripped to shreds,” Logan promised. “I’ve been in that cell many times. I know how to deal with him. Please let me explain myself.”

Virgil cursed, but released him. He took a few long steps back while Logan unlocked the cage. His warry eyes went to the creature who was stirring at the noise, but it did seem well restrained. As he had promised, Logan locked the door behind himself.

The thing grew more agitated as Logan approached, straining against its bonds and making sickening noises behind the gag. Logan went to his knees in front of it, a sad smile on his face. “Hello Patton.” Logan reached for the handcuff locks.

“You’re so fucking nuts!” Virgil said, but it did not deter the other man and it was not like Virgil could stop him from the other side of the bars. He didn’t even have the keys if he wanted to enter the cage. When Logan released the thing’s arms, it reached forward, its fingers grazing Logan’s cheeks in a move Virgil recognized. He’d seen people get pulled in with motions like that. Mindless dead fingers grabbed and grabbed, pulling you toward deadly teeth so they could tear you apart. The only thing keeping Logan from being a snack was the gag in the things mouth, but as Virgil watched, he reached up a hand to take that out. From experience, Virgil expected it to lunge directly towards Logan’s neck, but it… but it didn’t.

It continued to reach for him, and the raspy moans got even more haunting without the gag smothering them, but it did not attack. Despite all rational thought, Virgil felt himself draw closer to the bars of the cell to watch. Logan calmly set the gag to the side as though he was not being clawed at by a mindless dead thing and then, he reached up to press the inside of his wrist to the creature’s mouth. “I don’t know why,” Logan said, very much not being bitten. The creature seemed discontented with this new thing covering its mouth and titled its face to get away. “Perhaps it is a different strain of the virus or something went wrong with the turning. Maybe it’s just him. He was a good man in his life. He wouldn’t even let me kill bugs he found in the house. Perhaps there is an echo of that leftover that keeps him from hurting people. Or maybe it’s just me; I wouldn’t risk anyone else to test out if he’d attack another. That’s why I keep him restrained here.”

“I…” Virgil said. “Fuck.”

Logan looked up and Virgil was shocked to see that despite the level tone he’d been using the whole time, there were tears leaking from his eyes. “You can see why I can’t just finish him off though. Even if perhaps I should. I just…” and his voice finally wavered as he gave an aborted sob. The creature reached and reached mindlessly for him, brushing his face again and again with its fingertips. Logan grabbed its hands and held them between his own. “I-I don’t know what you want, dear,” he whispered. The creature wiggled and pulled against the grip. Logan cleared his throat. “Virgil would you perhaps mind sliding me the first aid kit on the table over there?”

Virgil obeyed, grabbing it and sliding it through the bars to him. He took it and opened it with practiced ease. “You’ve hurt yourself again,” Logan said at a volume that made Virgil sure it was not meant for him. “Here, I’ll fix you right up. It’s okay.” There was a minute pause in the sounds it made. A reaction to the words? To the tone of them? Or did it just finally need a breath? Virgil could not be sure. It did not pause in the reaching, and the moaning started full force again right after. Logan rubbed some sort of cream into a mark near the creature’s elbow.

“Does that work?” Virgil asked. Most zombies he’d seen didn’t appear like they ever healed. They were often rotted and limping.

“He’s still living in some sense of the word. He heals if wounds are properly treated and he has enough nutrition. In fact, he seems to heal faster than before.”

Nutrition. “And uh, what do you feed him?”

“Meat. He doesn’t seem to have a preference for cooked or raw. He won’t eat anything else. Well, except for baked potatoes for some reason.”

“Backed potatoes?”

“He won’t eat mashed or fried.”

The creature stopped reaching for Logan in favor of attempted to get at the cream on its skin with its mouth. “No,” Logan scolded. It did not respond. He pushed its head back and picked up bandages to start wrapping the area.

“You know this is crazy, right?” Virgil asked.

“I do, but what do you expect me to do when there is something left of him?”

“I. Fuck,” was Virgil’s response. “Fuck.”

Want to read more? This is now part of a series! Click below for the next part of this story.

Someone You’ll Never Meet

[az-5-elimgarak]

#TeamWillow

Fictober19

Type: Fanfiction

Fandom: Homeland (TV Show)

Prompt #24: Patience... is not something I’m known for

Rating: G, No warnings apply

Characters: Peter Quinn, Willow (seizure response dog)

The story and the tags after the break-line. Lemme know if tagging bugs you. Or if you’d like to be tagged in the future. And thank you. ❤

The first time the mystery object brushes against the bottom of his jeans, it barely registers. Given how easily he gets distracted on an average day, he promptly dismisses it as another one of those sort-of-phantom-but-not-really-because-Andy-says-it-can’t-be sensations his affected side whomps up on occasion.

The truth is, he’s just too tired to look down. Fifteen years of covert operations, life in the shadow of days, weeks, even months of sleepless nights at a time, and he can honestly say he doesn’t remember himself feeling as worn to a frazzle as he does now.

Since he started on Prazosin the nightmares have gradually gone away. Not entirely, of course, but he hasn’t had one render him borderline catatonic in months. He’s been doing better. Not great - he’s not sure it’ll ever be ‘great’, or that it ever was, for that matter - but definitely better. 

It wasn’t until Kim asked him during one of their sessions if his being ‘busy’ - as in ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Um… Busy, I guess’ - was a good thing that he realized, to his utter astonishment, that it was. That amongst hundreds of briefings, debriefings, missions, drinking himself into a near-stupor between missions, he doesn’t remember a single day that was, simply, busy. And that, even though between his job and the neverending succession of therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy, and every-other-fucking-kind-of-therapy-known-to-man, he sometimes feels thin, like butter scraped over too much bread (to quote Bilbo Baggins),  he wouldn’t trade a single moment of it for the world.

In fact, right now, following a night shift at the Center and a particularly grueling physiotherapy session, he’s going on thirty six hours without sleep. His brain, fretted and discombobulated on a good day, feels like it’s barely holding structural integrity, let alone that of coherent thought. He’d tried to reschedule the interview, even considered giving it up altogether, but, in his condition, passing on an opportunity like this just wasn’t an option.

He struggles to keep his eyes open, not to mention follow the questions that seem incessant - a slow, systematic torture that’s starting to make the infamous 2003 interrogation in an Iraqi prison look more and more like a walk in the park. 

“...currently involved in any illegal activity? Or were in the last year?”

Now this piques his interest. “Anyone ever answer ‘yes’?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Hayes. I know this is…” A bunch of meaningless, bureaucratic crap? “...tiresome. And may seem redundant.” No shit. “But I’m obligated to ask. And, if you’re hoping to be in the program, you need to answer.”

“I was not,” he concedes. Not in the *last* year. So not *really* a lie.

She’s right, he knows, this woman across the table whose name, for the life of him, he cannot recall. He needs this. In fact, he should’ve applied a lot sooner. Not just because having a seizure response dog may, at last, allow him to hold a legitimate driver’s license. And not just because it didn’t help his rehabilitation process when six months of work to improve the range of motion in his left arm went down the crapper following a nasty seizure-induced fall that shattered his left humerus in two places. But because if he doesn’t, one of these days the neighbor recruited to check on him several times a day will be too late. At which point, ironically, having survived being shot, stabbed, and gassed, he’ll finally meet his demise on the kitchen floor, drowned in his own drool.

“...the program is very intense, and, as such, can be quite demanding. Training takes time. Weeks. Months, in some cases. We can’t promise you quick results. But we guarantee that, provided you put in the due time and patience…”

Patience…  is not something I’m known for.  

Hot on the heels of the thought a wave of anxiety follows. He fucked it up. No, not past simple. He HAS BEEN fuckING it up, for as long as he can remember: every chance he was ever given, every iteration of ‘normal’ he ever had. What if…  

Breathe, Kim’s voice whirs in his head. He swallows, counting to three before gradually letting the air funnel out. Then again. And once more. Until the numbness washes away and he’s prickling all over. You haven’t fucked THIS one up. Yet. So… shuddup and fucking BREATHE. 

“...we highly advise those who eventually qualify make the necessary arrangements allowing them to actively participate in the process. Training an SRD is goal- and need-oriented. We can’t just tell a dog what to do when you have a seizure. And, as you probably know, seizures differ in frequency, type, and intensity. Once the training is complete, your SRD should not only be able to warn you of an upcoming seizure, but also provide assistance, or even call for help if necessary. So, obviously, the training cannot be done unless you’re a full participant for the entire duration of the program…”

There’s that same brushing sensation again. Except, this time it’s not against the sleeve of his jeans but lower, on top of his foot. And it’s not so much brushing as it is… stirring?

He looks down, eyes widening in awe. “Um… Miss…” What *was* her name?

“Yes?

“It’s… There’s a p-p-p…” A sure sign of his brain initiating the shutdown process.

“Problem? Look, I know this all sounds quite overwhelming. But I assure you, if you put in the necessary effort—”

“No. No. There’s a p-p-p…” he motions under the table, unable to stop grinning. “P-p.. small dog.”

With some effort, grabbing the side of the chair with his right hand, he shimmies away from the table. The ball of creamy-gold fluff on top of his sneaker stirs again, sleepily rearranging the tangle of chubby paws around his braced ankle.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Judi! Judi! Why is there… I’m sorry, could you give me a minute? Judi! There’s a puppy in the reception room!”

“That’s alright. I don’t mind,” he tries, reassuringly.

“It’s not that, sir. Judi! I’m so sorry, they’re not supposed to be here. They’re not even house trained yet. Oh my God, did it…?”

Finally, the side door opens and, mumbling apologies, Judi - he presumes - rushes in. 

“Willow! My goodness, how’d you get in here, girl? I’m sorry, she’s a bit of a… here, lemme take her. Excuse me… Sir? Could you…? Your foot?”

“Oh. Sure.”

He moves further backwards. His foot, sliding from under the snuggly weight, causes the puppy to roll over with a soft, startled yelp.

The amusedly exasperated “There you are, you mischievous scamp” is followed by an abrupt “No! No! C’mere! Willow, you...! Oh, for God’s sake… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sir… do you mind?”

Bending down, he awkwardly reaches with his right hand behind his left ankle where what appears to be the feistiest golden retriever in the history of the breed is engaged in an out-and-out battle of ‘catch-me-if-you-can-bitch’ with her irked-out-of-her-mind keeper. 

“Gotcha,” he smirks, deftly hooking his palm under the plush belly and emerging from under the table with a wriggling jumble of ears and limbs. 

Held in front of his smile-dimpled face, a fierce twinkly-brown stare locked with his steely-blue, Willow lets out the tiniest, most defiant squeal of part-bark, part growl, part something-too-adorable-to-not-have-a-name he’s ever heard. 

“Wow. Consider me scared,” he nods, genuinely impressed, tightening his grip as she wiggles harder, earning a narrow-eyed shake of his head. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

Something in his calm, measured tone renders her still for a moment. Moisture-sleek, pitch black nostrils flare. Once. Twice. And then, he feels her go limp in his palm, paws and earls slacking, head cocking puzzlingly to the side. 

He lowers his voice. “That’s more like it. Now: care to say hello like a proper lady?” 

Slowly, he moves his hand to his face until they’re nose to nose where, following a series of cautious sniffs, his gesture of good will is rewarded with a torrent of slobber so generous and enthusiastic, he’s forced to laughingly gather her to his chest instead. 

“There,” he whispers, cradling her in the stiff, motionless fold of his left elbow and soothingly running his newly freed hand from the top of her head to the tip of her shimmering tail. “It’s nice to meet your acquaintance, Miss Willow. I’m Noah,” he adds. 

And, for the first time since he was handed his new identity papers, the name he thought he'd never get used to folds on his tongue just right.

 ______________________

The woman across the desk blinks rapidly, as if trying to decide whether or not he’s joking, and, in case he’s not, which part of the protocol her job is outlined by should’ve prepared her for this.

“Mr Hayes, I’m sorry. But that’s - what you’re asking -  it’s out of the question. It just… doesn’t work like that. We don’t - we can’t… you don’t just choose an SRD. At this age, we don’t even know if they have the ability. And even if we did, pairing an epilepsy dog with a potential candidate is an intricate process. There are factors that—”

“That what? I mean, how compatible do we have to be? It’s not like I’m asking you for her  bone-marrow.”

She exhales in an attempt to regain her composure. “I realize that, sir. But, nevertheless, there are things to consider. Things that our specialists have been trained to take into consideration. I’m sorry. This is— unprecedented. The candidate can’t just walk in and choose a puppy. Which is why we usually…” shooting an accusatory glance in Judi’s direction, “...don’t even let the candidates see the dogs until one is assigned.”

“Fine. But how about a puppy choosing a candidate?” he quips, pointedly scratching behind the ears of the aforementioned puppy snuggled sleepily in the crook of his neck.

“A pu…? Mr Hayes, you can’t be serious.”

Quinn leans back, tilting his head so as to rest his cheek on top of the plush bundle. “Look. I understand. So, say she doesn’t have the… SRD gene, or whatever makes them qualify. Or we don’t… work together. It’s fine. I mean, it happens, right? Even with the “selection process”, it must happen on occasion. What do you do then?”

Finally back on familiar territory, Christie - it *is* Christie, isn’t it? - nods.

“Sir, we’re a private facility. One of the top in the world, as I’m sure you know. Candidates who choose our services are guaranteed a functioning SRD. Of course, like you say, it’s not an exact science, and some pairings don’t stick. Which is another reason why the selection process should be left to people who are qualified to perform it. But, if the pairing is unsuccessful, we offer a client a chance to repeat the process.”

“Which costs you money.”

“Yes. But that’s far from being our main concern. Like I said, the training program is quite demanding. Doing it twice is not in anyone’s best interest.”

Disregarding her last remark, Quinn presses on. “And the dogs? Those who don’t qualify?”

“Well, they are all purebred, so, we offer them up for sale to individuals or elite breeding houses.”

“There you go. I’ll make you a deal. I get Willow, right now—” Christie opens her mouth to protest but he raises a hand to stop her. “Just... hear me out. I get Willow. And, if it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, I’ll pay for her. And I’ll pay to repeat the program.”

“Sir—”

“I fail to see the downside. I really do.”

“Well, for one, Willow is too young to be trained. Or even tested. It’ll be at least another six weeks.”

Quinn smiles.

It never ceases to strike him with awe how, sometimes, his fretted, disjointed, swiss-cheese of a brain just... snaps back. As if resetting to some kind of safe point, all of the stroke and sarin splintered parts shift and reshuffle, and, suddenly, every word he needs is just where it ought to be.

“Miss, I’ve applied for the program over six months ago, and have been on the waiting list for the past three. I was diagnosed with refractory epilepsy a year ago having tried every combination of anticonvulsants known to modern medicine; and a bunch of experimental ones. I’ve had two, three, sometimes up to five grand-mal seizures a month for almost two years now. I’m pretty damn sure I can wait six weeks.”

 __________________

With Christie excusing herself in order to run the ‘this is highly irregular, sir, it really is, but I’ll see what I can do’ deal by her supervisor, and Judi retreating back to the breeding chambers, the room has grown quiet at last. It’s just the two of them now: Quinn, slumped back in the chair, eyes closed,  and Willow, passed out on his chest, her wispy, feathery breaths tickling the side of his throat.

He feels himself melting away, losing cohesion. He could fall asleep like this, his cheek resting against the velvet of flopped ear, fingers buried deep in the thick of her fur. And, given the bargain he just made, he probably should. 

Whatever it takes, he thinks, his mind skidding down the slope of exhaustion. Whatever it takes. 

Like a pebble skipping across the lake of his memory, he’s suddenly at the Center, chatting with Jessie, last night’s admission: a fourteen-year old turned over to CPS by her case worker following a late night raid the DEA made on her fifth foster home in two years.

“Ok, I can tell you. But it’s like a total spoiler.”

He arched a skeptical brow. “#TeamLannister? A total spoiler?”

“Hey. It’s GoT, alright? Everything’s a spoiler.”

“Fine. Spoil away,” he sighed, tossing her a new set of bed sheets.

She went on to tell him a long, elaborate story of a big battle involving dwarves (or was it just one dwarf), dragons, “dragon-wasting” ballistas, some “BAMF” knight called  - he wants to say James(?) - and, well, a “buttload” of other spoilers of which he understood very little; and remembers even less. Not to mention the fact that he never did get the answer as to what #TeamLannister - printed in block letters across her t-shirt - means.

“Hey, we’re a team now.” He nuzzles the wisp of spikes just above Willow’s ear as she stirs and burrows deeper into his neck. “#TeamQuinn?” A snort. “Ok. #TeamHayes?” A sleepy whimper. “What? #TeamNoah?”

Suddenly, there’s Christie’s voice in his head again. “...provided you put in the due time and patience…”

Patience… is not what I’m known for, he remembers thinking. And he shakes his head, smiling. Not something Peter Quinn was known for. Nor “John”, or “David”, or “Nathan”, or any of them, for that matter. 

Noah Hayes, though? He chuckles. The jury’s still out.

Jolted awake by the bounce of his chest, Willow emerges from under his chin, big, droopy eyes blinking in sleepy daze. 

“Hey you,” he laughs, poking the tip of her nose with the tip of his.

And, as she scrambles higher, curling her head in the crook of his neck with a long, joyful sigh, he just knows: for as long as it takes, wherever this road leads, and whatever the cost - from now on, it’s #TeamWillow.

@valerafan2 @hidingupatreeorsomething @awariasuit @tenar-of-atuan @potter012 @johnlockismyreligion @boisinberryjamarama

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x01: What the Structure Foreshadows

Okay, I was going to do Details today, but it occurred to me that the details will make more sense if we first understand the structure. Because the TD symbols within each are more significant based on where they’re placed than they are on their own.

So, I’m sure you all noticed the headings placed periodically throughout the show. They were, Training Day, Skin, Bird Wisdom, Sea Dogs, New Mexico, Lines We Cross, and Embers.

I knew right away these were important. Everything is a foreshadow, so something about these should tell us about the chronological structure of what we’ll see happen in the story moving forward. I’ll explain what I mean as I go through each one.

Training Day:

This was TF training on the beach. We saw boat and ocean references, of course, and lots of badassery from our characters. 

What does this represent? I think it represents everything that’s come before. Everything from the prison to Grady to Alexandria and beyond has been their training for what comes next. While of course they miss those they’ve lost, they’re all in fairly positive places right now. (That’s sure to change soon.) I think that’s why they referenced several deceased characters. This represents all that’s come before.

In terms of details, other than the training, we also see Michonne and Daryl bantering, and they mention Rick and Tara (more evidence that it represents what’s already happened) as well as life going on at Oceanside. 

Something @wdway also pointed out that I think is worth mentioning is that a film called Training Day starring Denzel Washington came out some years ago. We don’t know if the writers are trying to invoke that film, but this is its exact title. If they are making reference to it, well, that film is about corrupt cops. Grady anyone?

Actually, if you read through the plot of the film (I’ve never actually seen it) there are a lot of parallels we could draw to Grady. The community the corrupt cop serves kind of allows him to be taken down because they’re sick of his corruption, arrogance, and shenanigans. Much like the people at Grady wanted Dawn gone. Just saying.

Skin:

Aaron radios Alexandria to tell them they found a skin mask and the Whisperers might be back in the area. Michonne takes a group out to look for signs of the Whisperers along with Aaron, Magna, Luke, Yumiko, and Alden. They find an abandoned campsite with a fully skinned walker, so they know one of the Whisperers has been there.

When Michonne returns to Oceanside, she hears Judith telling RJ about Rick, except she calls him The Brave Man, rather than telling him the story is about his dad. Michonne hugs her kids, and then the Satellite falls.

Again, the meaning of this is fairly obvious. It represents the Whisper War, which is what comes next. If Training Day represented everything that came before, the next thing we’ll see is the war between TF and the Whisperers. I’m not sure what to make of the details in this sequence. I think it’s obvious by Aaron’s angry role here that he’ll have a large part in it. 

I will say that Rick is mentioned a lot in this part. First because Michonne gets mad at Aaron for running onto the bridge, saying, “I lost Rick on a…” but she doesn’t finish. Then because we hear Judith telling RJ about him. I don’t think he’ll have much of a role in the Whisper War, so I’m not sure what to make of it. Maybe it simply represents that Michonne will leave during the war to find him? That could be it.

Bird Wisdom:

So here’s the thing. The four sections after Training Day (Skin, Bird Wisdom, Sea Dogs, and New Mexico) all take place simultaneously. They start with Aaron radioing Alexandria about the skin mask and ending with the satellite falling out of the sky. Just keep that in mind as we move forward.

So Bird Wisdom is about those at Alexandria: Eugene, Rosita, FG, Siddiq, Negan, and Lydia. The actual “bird wisdom” reference comes when FG talks to Negan in his cell. Negan tells FG he doesn’t want to be blamed by people or lumped in with the Whisperers. He encourages Gabriel to use their fear to manipulate them. Which Gabriel KIND OF does. He goes out and announces that they need to lock the gates and double the watch. He’s just doing it to show people that precautions are being taken.

Obviously this bit sets up something with Siddiq as well as Negan during the Whisper War. Hard to say exactly what will all happen, but again, it will probably be loosely based on the CBs. Then the satellite falls.

Sea Dogs:

Okay, something to keep in mind here as well. I said these four sections happen simultaneously, because they all start with Aaron talking about the skin mask being found and end with the satellite, right? Well, that’s not entirely true of Daryl and Carol’s sections. They actually have two sections are about them. And the two seconds combined are simultaneous with the previous two. 

So, Sea Dogs starts with Aaron talking about the skin mask. But then New Mexico continues the stuff about Daryl and Carol and that second section ends with them seeing the satellite. 

I don’t know why, exactly, Daryl and Carol got two sections. It might just be that they had more to show about them, so they divided it into two sections. Though I also think there might be something symbolic about the division. I’m just not sure what it is yet. It would make more sense for it to simply be more, though. With Michonne leaving, Daryl and Carol are all that’s left of the original group, so it makes more sense that the two of them will get more screen time during this arc without Rick or Michonne or Maggie around to take any of it.

So, we start with Aaron radioing Alexandria about the skin mask. Then, this is where we get the beach scene with Daryl, Connie, and then they meet Carol. This is significant because we get that ridiculously heavy Connie-gonna-bring-Beth-back-to-Daryl sequence. Plus there’s all the ocean stuff. Then Daryl meets Carol coming off the ship and they take off together. They talk about whether or not she was looking for Alpha, which she denies, and then we see them hunting together (the callback to the Claimers).

New Mexico:

Alright, I know Daryl/Carol scenes are not anyone’s favorite, and especially as they talk about leaving together here, it’s not likely to be any Bethyler’s favorite. I get that. But this is also the scene where I saw the most dialogue hints and callbacks to Beth. I know this isn’t the Details post yet, but I’m going to quickly go through them. Because I think it’s important for everyone to understand the significance of what’s being said here.

So, first off, they hunt a DEER. It does, which suggests someone else living. Also, this area where they’re hunting looks EXACTLY like the place in Inmates where Beth and Daryl saw the shoe by the railroad tracks. It wouldn’t surprise me if they filmed this in the same location. But I think that would be purposeful if they did. As a callback to Inmates.

Incidentally, Carol has a weirdo line here where she says that deer might have fed 200 people. Um, no it wouldn’t have. It was a fairly small deer. So I’m not sure what she meant by that, or even how to interpret it symbolically, but I made note of it.

When they sit down, Daryl says, “Why don’t you come on home, now?” Just an example of the coming home theme. We’ve seen Beth be involved in that theme a lot.

She then says she’s a sea dog. Sea and dog. Both heavy Beth symbols.

When she talks about making him a bracelet, she says, “should we make a matching collar for dog.” That’s huge in my mind, guys. It’s kind of a callback to the collar we saw in 5x10 when TF ate the dogs, but also if dog = Beth (because Sirius symbolism) it shows that Daryl, Carol, and Beth are being connected here and are kind of inextricably connected anyway.

She asks what his favorite color is: Blue? Green? (Both significant colors). Then, “Black. Definitely black.” To me, that just confirms that Daryl = Buttons/black horse. We already knew that, of course, but it’s nice to have a confirmation.

Then Daryl says the thing about how they are just surviving one fight to the next. Carol comments that it was like that for both of them even before all this. She means because they were both victims of domestic abuse, so they survived one fight to the next even before the zombie apocalypse.

But this snippet of conversation is also a massive callback to Still. Beth said Daryl was born to survive in this world. He said it was just because he’d grown up in a place like the moonshine shack and was used to things being ugly. Of course there’s always been plenty of mentions about how Daryl was a survivor even before the apocalypse, but he mentioned it with Beth in the show, and now they’re mentioning it here in a very similar way, and in conjunction with all these other symbolic references.

Then he says there has to be other people out there like them. Callback to Beth saying there are good people out there, and insisting more people survived the prison and are out there. Also kind of a foreshadow that Daryl and Carol might head out to look for said people at some point. More details on that HERE.

Carol then invites Daryl to go out on the boat with her. He says he doesn’t like the idea of staying in a tiny boat cabin. That’s a callback to the Cell. To be fair, even in S3, Daryl was never keen on sleeping in small spaces, like the prison cells, but I doubt what Negan and Dwight put him through helped. So a callback to The Cell, and what was going on in the Cell? Songs that referenced Beth, anyone? And written by Angela Kang? Just saying.

Then there’s the actual New Mexico reference. On the surface, this is a bit of a head scratcher. Me, @frangipanilove and @wdway all put our heads together over this one, and we can’t think of a time they’ve specifically referenced New Mexico on the show before. And it’s entire too specific for them to just throw it in without meaning. We know they don’t do that. So I think it’s a foreshadow. More specifically, I think it points to the way TWD and FTWD will connect.

The Fear people are in Texas, but New Mexico is directly next door. So maybe Daryl and Carol will head for New Mexico, but have to go through Texas to get there, and perhaps run into Morgan’s crew on the way. Conversely, we already know that Ginny (in Fear) has multiple settlements. Maybe they aren’t all in Texas. Maybe some of them are over the border in New Mexico and Daryl and Carol will meet the Fear crew there.

Obviously this is all conjecture. We can’t know for sure what the New Mexico reference refers to, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they would name a place right next to Texas, where Morgan’s group is.

The section ends, as do the previous ones, with the two of them seeing the satellite fall out of the sky.

Lines We Cross:

So now we’re all in the same timeline again and the satellite has started a fire. This section is called The Lines We Cross because they cross Alpha’s border to fight the fire. We see them fighting the fire through a long, hot night, running out of water. (We hear things like, “I’m out” multiple times.) And of course more and more walkers are attracted to the fire. So it’s just a fight all night. Kinda reminds me of TF holding barn doors closed together all night in 5x10, Them. There was no fire in that case, but it was a battle they fought together.

Embers:

Then we get the final section. They’re still fighting off a few walkers. Carol uses blood from a walker to put out the fire, which I thought was probably symbolic (maybe that Carol will kill more people for the greater good or something). 

Daryl throws the ax at the tree to take down some walkers, which was pretty awesome. Eventually, we see the fire get put out. People are hugging after making it through the night. Michonne wants to go but Eugene wants to scavenge from the satellite and Michonne finally relents. It ends by seeing Daryl and Carol go to Daryl’s meeting place with Alpha and Alpha emerging.

Okay, so what does it all mean? What do these sections and headings point to? 

Here’s my hypothesis:

I think this points to a chronology of what we’re going to see throughout this arc. Once again, the arc isn’t necessarily contained within one seasons. We might be looking at the next several. Because we have a change in the opening credits, I think this is not just the beginning of S10, but the beginning of the next major arc.

So as I explain this, go back and read what I’ve written above for reference.

So Training Day represents what’s come before. What happens with the boat—the fact that it falls apart and walkers come out, rather than just doing one at a time as they’re attempting to—may represent what happened with Beth. It reminds me a little of what happened in 4x10 when Maggie goes looking for Glenn on the bus. It represents something going wrong, and a walker horde showing up, which messes things up and changes everyone’s plans. Meanwhile, that boat is mostly blue and broken into two pieces. We already know ship/boat references are about her, so it may represent her getting shot and left behind. She is the shipwreck. Symbolically.

The “Skin” section literally represents the Whisper War. But remember that Bird Wisdom, Sea Dogs, and New Mexico are all on the same timeline. So I think these sections represent the arcs of the different characters. I’ve already explained some of the things I think will happen with Carol and Daryl. For the others, I think they’ll make more sense once we see them fulfilled. It’s hard for me to predict stuff about FG/Rosita/Eugene/Siddiq since I don’t pay very close attention to their characters. With Michonne, again, we already know she’ll be leaving during the Whisper War to find Rick. Do you see how this represents what we’ll see over the next phase of the story?

Then, only AFTER that (i.e. perhaps after the Whisper War) the satellite falls. I keep saying this, but I’ll go into more about what the satellite and radiation references are telling us, and what they mean later in the week when I do a post on them, but for now, just know that we think it’s heavily linked to the helicopter group. So I think the satellite falling represents the kickoff of a future arc that will be a big interaction (perhaps war?) with the helicopter group. But that won’t come until after the Whisper War.

I don’t have a lot of specifics to give you about these final two sections. Just some kind of big battle that TF will eventually win. We probably would have predicted that anyway. 

I actually think the part where they fight the fire foreshadows a major drought or water shortage. More on that when I get to my predictions post later in the week.

I also notice that Michonne tells Eugene he has five minutes and then they’re leaving. “Five and out.” Can’t help but wonder if that’s a reference to the fact that Gimple always says he has through S15 of the show planned. (5 more seasons = season 15). So this may be what we’ll see over the next 5 seasons of the show.

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll do Details tomorrow and talk more about where they appear in the structure. This episode was just chalk-full of stuff!

[theonyxpath]

Scion Hero art by Marco Gonzales

Greetings, true believers! Meghan here, with an excerpted preview of the Nemetondevos pantheon from Scion: Mysteries of the World. The Nemetondevos are the Gods of Gaul, a pantheon destroyed long ago by Caesar and only now beginning to return to the World. This preview gives you a rundown of their basic cosmology and current situation, followed by one of their Gods. Enjoy!

Cosmology

The Nemetondevos have no unifying Overworld. Their Sancta make up thousands of individual realms connected to the World via their nemetons. This has given the Nemetondevos a particular interest in preserving the natural Earth, as without it their realms would be eternally isolated, and so the stereotype of “druid as conservationist” is not without merit.

Most of these Godsrealms feature a “downward” theme (caves, pools, roots), but only the Wheel serves as the Nemetondevos’ Underworld. There, souls of the dead ride what looks like an incomprehensibly massive wooden Ferris wheel, weighed down by a lifetime of memories. When they reach the bottom, Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, so they can ride the Wheel back up to their reincarnation. Memory, be it mortal or divine, is the fuel that keeps the Wheel spinning, and the Wheel moves the universe. Its upper half reaches into Taranis’ realm in the sky, the only Gaulish Overworld that fits the term literally.

Titans

The Materes gave form and immense power to primal concepts, creating the Titans of the Nemetondevos. The Gaulish Gods mostly dealt with these beings in prehistory one way or another. Perhaps that void left Fate to invite another pantheon to step into the role of the Nemetondevos’ eternal enemies.

The Nemetondevos’ approaches to Titans have always been as varied as the Nemetondevos themselves. Andarta made war on them, hoping the sacrifice of another Titan could create a World-altering nemeton and put the Gauls back on top. Esos put them to use, as Orgos serves as the Wheel’s center. The Gauls had no qualms about slavery, and the Forester knows the value of using natural forces to power industry. Belenos, ever an idealist, wished to see the Titans reborn into something benign, if not benevolent.

Orgos is death itself, whom the Romans conflated with Dis Pater (a Mantle of Hades). He coupled with the Materes to birth the Nemetondevos, and thus is the ancestor of all Gauls, mortal and divine. His Underworld, Dubnolissos, was a miserable place where the dead were stagnant and forgotten. When Esos bound Orgos into the workings of the great Wheel, it carried the souls back into the World while Orgos struggled to break free.

Unfortunately for Orgos, even though the Wheel stopped spinning when the Nemetondevos fell, his wooden prison did not break. But he is not entirely powerless, as his titanspawn, the Ankou, still do his bidding. These skeletal, scythe-wielding figures in wide-brimmed hats drive carts to collect the dead who have gone astray, a mockery of the wagons devout Gauls were buried with to ride to Belenos. They return these souls to Orgos, that he might break the Wheel’s bindings and return Belenos’ realm to his own control. Purview: Death. Virtues: Dominance, Fecundity.

The Tarvos Trigaranus: The decapitated head of the massive bull is buried deep beneath the World. While Andarta sacrificed the monster to create the first nemeton, the bull’s head still holds some power, creating the horrible tarasques that crawl out from beneath the earth. These nightmarish titanspawn resemble dragon-lion hybrids with spiked tortoise shells and a scorpion’s stinging tail, echoes of the Tarvos’ madness and cruelty.Purview: Beasts.Virtues: Dominance, Rapacity.

Primordials: The Materes

The Materes are not just mothers; they are motherhood. These three Primordial women, also known as the August Nurses, birthed the World and its earliest inhabitants. But they are more than just producers of life: they ache to protect and nurture their offspring well after the children grow to no longer need them. Like many mothers, they have difficulty admitting their children have reached that point. Their milk allowed the first bull to grow into the colossal Tarvos Trigaranus, which trampled mountains until Andarta slew it. The Materes themselves reside in a Terra Incognita deep beneath the World, where they sired the myriad Gaulish deities until their lovers fell to Caesar.

Callings: Creator, Guardian, Healer

Purviews: Health, Fertility, Passion (Maternal Love)

Religion: None

Unlike other pantheons in the World, the ancient powers of the Nemetondevos truly did go away. This left their mortal worship in the lurch, and while their priests, the druids, retained their remarkable knowledge, they could no longer access their Gods’ powers. Prayers were met with an eerie silence. Mistletoe stopped growing on the sacred oaks. The water of holy springs cured thirst, nothing more.

Over time, worship of the Nemetondevos faded. The druids had refused to write their tales down, believing their strong memories would power the Wheel upon their deaths. When the Wheel stopped, they lost their motivation to teach their lore to apprentices, instead moving on to other pantheons to share their gifts and wisdom. Votives and religious artwork became little more than names and pictures with no context. Movements tried over the centuries to reconstruct the old beliefs and rituals, but without the aid of sacred writings, Scions, or miracles, these efforts were futile on both scholarly and divine levels. On the rare occasion some definitive key to the Gauls’ beliefs popped up, it was met with an “unfortunate accident,” with a Scion of the Theoi not far behind.

With the Wheel turning again, their only religions are the cults of their Incarnate Scions. Some spread the Nemetondevos’ true rites, unearthing their Godly predecessors’ memories in their rebirth; they might quest for moments of revelation by seeking places where those Gods’ nemetons once were or hunting down clues in Terra Incognitae where lost lore might linger. Such moments are much more common the closer Scions are to the Memory end of their Virtue track. Insular druidic orders are happy to relearn their own faith’s funeral rites to keep the Wheel turning. Other cults are global organizations searching for returning Gaulish Gods to aid and protect. Still others labor over secret plans of revenge against the Theoi.

Belenos, Keeper of the Wheel

Alias: Vindonnus

Belenos, reviver of the dead, keeps the universe moving. The weight of memory turns the great Wheel, which moves the stars, the sun, and the World. Those dead who are buried with carts, wagons, or chariots (anything with a wheel) ride spectral vehicles from their graves on sacred days. When their souls reach a nemeton of Belenos, druids bless their passage onto the great Wheel. This impossibly massive wooden structure takes them to his divine realm, their memories of life weighing them down. Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, and the purgation of these souls lightens them to rise back to the World to be reborn.

Belenos himself is the oldest of the Nemetondevos, first son of the Materes. His nemetons are circular, and his incarnation would be surprised to find his followers using henges and other megaliths for his rituals. Such monuments are either new to him or older than the God he was, but he doesn’t mind the change of venue. He gets a kick out of making cryptic references to people’s previous lives that only he, as Belenos’ incarnation, remembers. Those who meet him (and recall the experience) say he wears a friendly smirk, like a man listening to a joke he’s heard before but loves to hear again.

As keeper of the Wheel, he alone knows when and where a God or Hero reincarnates. He frequently leads other Gaulish Scions to their former Birthrights, sometimes acting as a Birthright guide himself. His own incarnations are no exception; the Virtue of Memory drives them to help their fellow Nemetondevos find themselves. The firstborn of the Gauls is likely to be the first reborn, too; some people think he must be for the Wheel to start turning again at all.

Callings: Healer, Liminal, Sage

Purviews: Death, Health, Stars, Sun

[marvelhead17]

Miracle (Original Female Character x Cable)

Chapter 23

Summary: “How did you fix it?” he asked. “Ask Ellen the Teenage Warhead,” Wade shrugged as he stood up, “As for baby Hitler he ended up having a diaper change, funny story I was actually going to call Cable since he was so keen on killing Russel, I thought this would be like taking candy from a baby, if that means replacing it with a bullet that is,”

Warnings to cover the whole fic: Graphic depictions of violence, use of weapons, mild to strong language, mentions of rape, mentions of pregnancy and miscarriage, referenced torture and psychological abuse/manipulation, nightmares and night terrors, sexual humour, sexual content.

Word count: 1.9k

Four Days Later

“Try not to get your asses kicked fellas, you signed the waivers so anything that happens in there is not on us,” the guard said with a smirk on his face. “The new girl has been pretty feisty,”

Wade and Nathan shared a knowing look, they walked through the opening metal doors and into the newly repaired prison block of the icebox, some security measures as well as major structure changes had taken place since the two had last been here, having of course wrecked the place by blowing a giant hole in the side of it.

They entered the prison cafeteria to find a group of mutants cowering in a corner, leaving the so-called ‘feisty new girl’ to have the entire room to herself, they saw her sitting alone at one of the larger tables closer to the entrance which they were currently walking through.

Wade spoke to Nathan, “Last time I sat down at one of these tables I got stabbed with an ass pen, still the most gruesome injury I’ve had and I should know, I’ve tried to kill myself with bleach before,”

“Last time I was here I was ready to kill your stupid ass, if you’re not careful I might be tempted to do it again,”

“For the last time what was I supposed to do? She was way ahead of us, there was no way I’d have convinced her to do anything else,” Wade tried to defend himself, Nathan simply grunted and they both made their way to the table.

Wade sat himself opposite Hayden while Nathan sat at a slight distance on her side.

  “Hey Haydes,” Wade said softly, Nathan noticed that her eyes were glowing soft violet and that she was muttering to herself in Russian.

“Da?” she looked up and shook her head, “Sorry, hey.”

“I’ve seen you pretty nervous before, but nothing like this,” he added, urging her gently to talk more.

“Nervous? I’m getting agitated from being stuck in this shithole, I can’t sleep because it’s triggering nightmares, too many people thought they could try something with me, and worst of all I haven’t even got my music to block everything out,”

“Yeah, well, we’ve heard you’re ‘feisty’,” Nathan raised a teasing brow; she put her face in her hands.

“So you’ve made a few bitches already, Russel is going to be so jealous when I tell him,”

“God- just because some moron whispered what he wanted to do to me in my ear yesterday and I kicked him in the balls so hard that he passed out- doesn’t make me feisty,” she sighed.

  “And what did you do today?” Wade smirked.

“Ugh, I knew you’d ask that,” she groaned.

“So?”

“About an hour ago the bitch lying on the floor in the group over there,” she nodded her head in the direction of the mutants, “Tried groping my ass, so I broke her stupid jaw,”

“That’s the sis I know,” Wade grinned brightly and nudged her side playfully with his elbow, “By the way yellow is not your fucking colour, like at all,”

“I don’t intend to wear it for long, at least I’m hoping,” she then turned to Nathan, “Cable, did Wade make you his bitch while I was gone?”

“What the hell, no, of course not,” his eyes went wide and he shook his head immediately.

“You’re unusually quiet,” she commented, “And not in the stoic brooding kinda way either,”

“You’re unusually on edge, this whole thing is flipping our worlds around right now,” he said defensively followed by a shrug of his shoulders.

  “You know now that I think about it, this is definitely the table that Cable threw my weak-ass-dying-of-cancer body onto and made me a fucking quadriplegic,”

“Wade,”

“I’m serious Haydes, I was practically human spaghetti, except nobody wants to eat cancer,”

“You’re such a fucking mess,” Hayden chuckled and shook her head, Nathan smiled as he noticed her muscles loosen up a bit.

He was tempted to put his hand on her thigh and brush it gently with his thumb but he shook the thought away.

  Now is definitely not the time, especially with Wade around, it’s certainly not the place either. Get a hold of yourself man.

                              “Alright you two, time to go,” a guard announced suddenly from behind them.

“What, but we just go here-” Wade protested.

“I don’t care,” he interrupted with a rand raised, “The prisoners have to go back to their cells, so either skedaddle or join them,” he gestured with his thumb to the other prisoners who were being escorted out.

“Fine,” Wade huffed at they all stood, “Who the fuck even says ‘skedaddle’ anymore?” he shook his head and then he hugged Hayden tightly and she smiled and squeezed him, “Okay, Hayden ouchie, remember your own strength-”

“Oh right,” she let go, “Sorry,” she smiled and Wade walked through the door, she turned to Nathan who stood rather awkwardly. “Uh, we don’t have to hug, I’m sure you have boundries that you need to uphold,”

“No, no it’s not- uh,” he stepped closer to her but he felt himself fumbling over his actions as he raised his hand to prepare for a handshake.

They awkwardly shook hands, a definite awkward tension hanging in the air between them, and Nathan left as well, Wade was going red in the face from holding back his laughter, but he released it as soon as they were out of earshot of Hayden.

  “I can’t believe you shook her fucking hand- oh man you guys are so adorable you know that?” he wiped a happy tear from his eye, “I can’t imagine what the hug would have been like, oh- but I can and it’s pure gold,” he burst into another fit of laughter. “Ah, precious, young love.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan held back his tongue in case he sounded too defensive.

“Oh come on, you two are totally crushing on each other like high school kids, why can’t either of you see that? And you said it yourself you like listening to her and enjoy her company, that’s what it’s all about man,” Wade playfully swatted him in the chest.

“You’re not going to let this go are you, you jabbering butt plug,” he sighed as they walked out of the main entrance before giving him an exasperated look.

“Hell no,” Wade grinned wickedly as he stopped by Nathan’s side.

  I wish he was wrong but he’s not, I feel like I’m fifteen years younger and pining for someone who’s out of my league all over again. Note to self: Never let Wade find that out. I’ll never hear the end of it if I admit that he’s right about something.

                                                           * * *

  The Next Morning

Hayden had been taken from the Ice Box and was to see with the judge on the verdict of her case. She was relieved that they had finally finished reviewing the evidence she had given to them.

   Nathan and Wade sat anxiously in the court room, the judge announced that the jury had reached its verdict and it was a unanimous voting, the transport for Hayden was running late only agitating the men further. Nathan found that he was tapping his foot once again, his jaw clenching up and his eye beginning to spark as his anxiety grew.

   Hayden was told that they would arrive shortly at the court house, as the streets were overcrowded with people protesting and the van did not want to cause anyone accidental injury, she felt herself feeling suddenly nervous, it was rare that any good came from protestors.

   She entered the court room without handcuffs this time and sat in the seat she had just five days ago, she felt her heart throb in her throat and the mutterings all around her became a single hum that she couldn’t make out clearly.

Judge Tillman banged her gavel from her seat and the court room silenced immediately.

“I know the court has been waiting anxiously for the accused to arrive, but the verdict needs to be given in absolute silence,” she scanned her eyes across the room, “Jurors,” she turned her head to the stand that they were seated in, “What is your final verdict?”

“The final verdict your honour,” an elderly man stood and unfolded the envelope carefully, “Hayden Jones is found,” he cleared his throat to speak louder and clearer, “Not Guilty on the accounts of aggravated murder, first degree murder, and all other charges held against her,”

She felt her heart stop for a moment.

  Not Guilty? How is that even possible?

  The court dissolved into chaos but the judge soon silenced them with her gavel once more.

“The Jury has made their final verdict, there is nothing more to discuss. Whether your personal opinions on the matter differ will not matter in the decision that they have made, they were chosen with absolute certainty of having no personal affiliations with the case,” she rose from her seat and the rest of the court room did as well, “Court dismissed. Hayden Jones, you are free to return home,”

  Everyone except Wade, Colossus and Nathan, Hayden and the judge and jurors had already left the room by the time Hayden had the reality kick in for her.

She stared briefly at the judge before standing up from her seat and managing to speak, “Thank you, your Honour,”

“It wasn’t my decision,” Judge Tillman gave a small smile, “But it would have been, you’ve been through a lot for someone so young.”

“I meant thank you for giving me a fair trial, I thought for sure you’d give me a life sentence without a trial,”

“Just doing what’s right and fair,” she smiled again before leaving.

Hayden turned to look at the jurors who had remained behind, “Thank you,”

“No, thank you. You stood up for us,” a woman spoke, as Hayden raised a brow the woman exposed the small horns that were covered by her bushy hair.

“You gave us a voice and exposed them for their hatred towards us that they always lied about and covered up, you told the truth and risked your life for a cause that the generations before us have been fighting for, for so long,” a young man spoke this time.

  “Well as I’m sure you all know it was a bit of personal experience on my side,” she gave a small smile, “How many of you are mutants?” The eleven that stood in the stands all raised their hands.

“Son of a bitch,” Wade smirked, “I bet they didn’t even know,”

“Wait, there were twelve of you, where did-” Hayden paused as she saw a man’s figure disappear out of the back door, “Hey, wait!” she ran after him, he seemed awfully familiar. “Wait-” she stopped, almost paralysed suddenly, as she exited the door.

                          An enormous crowd had gathered outside the court house, her heart beat wildly and she saw camouflage as well as civilians all mixed together, they cheered instantly upon seeing her. Wade, Colossus and Nathan came out from behind her quietly.

“What in the ass?” Wade asked. “It was barely a handful when we arrived here earlier,”

“What are they all doing here?” she asked nervously.

“It appears that they are welcoming your freedom,” Colossus said encouragingly with a nod.

She scanned the crowds, her jaw slacking, the man had long disappeared from her mind and within the crowd, she noted signs bearing the words ‘Mutant Rights = Human Rights’ and ‘Mutant and Proud’ amongst the dozens of others. All bore a similar message of mutants wanting to be treated fairly and for Hayden to be released; she looked to the others before returning her gaze to her apparent supporting masses.

________________________________________________________________

>> Chapter 24 << 

[silvergalaxyx7]

Friday Night Funkin Original Story (Corrupta Nigrum) [Part 1: Unwanted Knowledge]

Part 1: Unwanted Knowledge

Another day of rap battling different people and creatures, sometimes things in between the two, had passed in the city of Melo Dee within the world of Friday Night Funkin’ as Boyfriend and Girlfriend made their way down the decrepit streets of the city, melody and beats filling the air as the smell of char and asphalt was all that greeted them as they continued to make their way down the sidewalk, passing along locations that had once visited, foes and opponents that had turned into their allies.

From a living bomb to a friendly man with an unhealthy smoking habit, they had perhaps seen it all with there being a lot more to come in between Boyfriends fairly challenging endeavor to gain the respect needed in order to achieve Girlfriend’s love, though the girl he had adorned needed no such regulations or ranks in order to love the man of her dreams.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t very much liked in the romantic aspect of her life, though that was until Boyfriend had showed up, his affinity with words immediately melting her heart.

She liked the short and cute ones.

“Boop bebop skidoo? (Hey babe, what’s with the letter?)” Boyfriend asked, holding the girl’s hand as they turned another corner, Girlfriend having held onto a pretty degraded piece of paper that was folded around a red ribbon.

“Hmm, honestly, I don’t know,” the girl looked down at the paper, rubbing her thumb over the ribbon, “Daddy only told me to deliver it to some man living in 20 Etho Street, but that street is pretty far away from our house, so it’s pretty weird that he told both of us to deliver it when he could have done it alot faster.”

“Beep baaa, skebop… (Probably just another attempt at getting rid of me....)” Boyfriend scoffed as they turned what seemed to be another corner, the home they were looking for seeming to stand out from the array of similar homes along the street, it being a Victorian home with brown and gold outlines, an almost ancient outlook of the more modernized structures that dotted the city. 

“Oh, don’t be rude!” Girlfriend placed her head on Boyfriend’s shoulder, “He hasn’t tried to kill you in at least a month.”

“Beep bababa! (That doesn’t make me feel better!)” Boyfriend exclaimed, before sighing in frustration, “Beed bebo bada kpop. (Maybe he’s taking his time to plan something big so I can’t win against it.)”

“And has that stopped you so far?” Girlfriend gave a warm smile, her brunette hair glistening in the sunlight.

“Beep dooo… (I guess not…)” Boyfriend mumbled to himself, “Batta, beep bebop skidoo! (Honestly, how many inconveniently placed portals have to open before we decide to just stay home!)” 

Girlfriend simply giggled in response, shaking her head slowly as they neared the entrance of the address.

“Don’t worry Boyfriend, you’ll always be there to help me out whenever we get into unwanted trouble, right?” she held the boy’s hand tighter as Boyfriend sighed with a smile.

“Beep badoo… (Of course I will…)” the boy said as he kissed the girl on the cheek, “Beaa deep beep boop. (Now let’s get this mission over with so I can actually relax for the weekend.)”

With that, Girlfriend rung the doorbell of the home, a gargoyle seemingly carved onto the door holding a door knocker on its mouth before the inanimate creature opened its eyes, a red glow coming from what appeared to be two rubies that served as its pupils before a latch suddenly opened underneath them, the couple falling into the hole.

“BEEEEP BADAAA! (GODDAMNIT!)” Boyfriend yelled as both he and Girlfriend fell into the black abyss underneath them.

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The world around Boyfriend had gone dark, the boy laying suspended in what seemed to be ignite darkness in all directions, though as he looked down at his hands, they were still apparent against all levels of low light that surrounded him, the boy trying to call out to Girlfriend as he found himself incapable of speaking.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” a familiar, snobbish voice called out to the void, its words echoing all around the boy.

He looked below his feet to see some sort of figure rising up from the darkness beneath him and Boyfriend focused on the details of who hovered in front of him.

A teenage boy with some sort of school uniform, a pinkish sweater being hung around his shoulder as the boy had ocean eyes and golden hair, but his expression that would usually portray such beauty and elegance was instead represented with a pained and almost depressed look.

This was Senpai, an artificial character within a game that Girlfriend’s father, Daddy Dearest, an ex-rockstar/musician, had created, this being the virtual skin that held together a lost spirit of a boy that Boyfriend had never gotten a clear answer as to how he was trapped in the first place.

He had promised Senpai that he would find a way for him to escape his imprisonment, but what was he doing here?

Boyfriend tried to ask such a question, only to be reminded that he could not speak.

“Being trapped in a void, unable to do anything to escape the grapes of an invisible force keeping you in place, is truly horrifying, right?’ Senpai continued, opening his tired eyes as their usual blue color almost seemed desaturated into a gray hue, “Not being able to speak as if you're trapped behind a smiling shell of a body.”

What did he want from him?

“You promised me my freedom, did you not?” Senpai’s echoing voice momentarily grew louder, the man’s tone no longer its pixelated composite, but rather that of an actual person, as his eyes began shifting into a deep red, “You promised me that I could escape, that you would stop all of the dark arts that held me to this dimension, this prison, like a dog in a cage, and yet you still hang around her?” 

He needed more time, more options in how to go about his plan without breaking up with one of the only people who understood him in a capable, non-obsessive relationship.

He couldn’t simply stop seeing Girlfriend. 

“You…..promised….” Senpai began to softly sob, his tears a black, inky mess as his body began to slowly break apart.

No….not break apart, but more so begin to melt into itself, the boy’s legs extending down like melted wax as his arms soon followed, the man’s fibers and muscle pulling back to reveal a horrible burned and reddened corpse of what once was a normal person living a fairly average life, the corpse continuing to cry inky tears as it held onto Boyfriend's shirt tighter as it got close enough to whisper into his ears.

“Heed my warning,” it said in between sobs, “She is a monster like her father and mother, though neither she nor you are willing to except such a fact, but leave her side before you get raptured in a game that you cannot escape from, a game that I once tried to play, only to be trapped here.”

He promised, nodding his head although his expression was uncertain if he was capable of telling such a truth to Girlfriend at all.

As Senpai finished, the corpse let go of Boyfriend's body, falling into the darkness below as thousands of screams echoed the darkness around him, the boy covering his ears, begging for the calamity of noise to cease at once, but he had no control over his senses, only wishing for the screams to stop.

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“Boyfriend…?” Girlfriend’s voice entered Boyfriend’s ears as the boy struggled to open his eyes.

How deep was that fall?

“Boyfriend?” Girlfriend’s voice continued calling out to him as the boy turned, his vision slightly returning back to him, though his beloved’s voice seemed to become clearer.

He placed his hand behind his head, an aching sensation taking over.

“Boyfriend!” Girlfriend’s voice pierced the blurry confusion as Boyfriend’s attention was placed on his beloved, her beautiful eyes staring back at him, “Boyfriend, are you alright?”

“Bee? Beop, bebed, bebed, beep strollo, badoo. Beep donofrio? (Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just a small headache is all. How deep was that fall?)” Girlfriend placed her hand out as Boyfriend looked at it, hesitation taking over his senses as Senpai’s warning struck him once again, the boy shaking his head of worries before grabbing ahold of his beloved’s hand, pulling himself up.

Patting away at his pants to clear an extreme amount of dust from it, the boy looked at where they were, amazement being an understatement of the extreme environment he was staring at.

To what they believed to be a home, a library stood underneath it, but it's bookshelves seemed to go on for dozens of feet into the air, though their tops still visible, the couple standing on an elegant carpet of sorts that had some sort of image ordained into it, though it was far too large for either of them, to see.

As both looked around them, they found that the location they were in wasn’t actually a library, but rather an extreme large room of sorts, the bookshelves serving as the walls of the rooms itself, a complex yet magnificent chandelier hanging from the center ceiling of the room, washing a warm orange light into its entire structure, candles hanging from the wooden spines of each shelf as the couple’s eyes finally looked back down onto their level, seeing what appeared to be a figure sitting on a chair in front of a desk that too was piled with books upon books. 

To the side of the desk lay what appeared to be a blackboard littered with writings in languages Boyfriend hadn’t understood in addition to diagrams and a few posters, one for a show featuring the picture of Daddy Dearest, another for a concert in which Starlight Mayhem were the main band playing, and another poster, this one being a wanted poster for none other than Ruv, a well known criminal and protector of the Holy Granda Church, with another belonging to Whitty, the living bomb Boyfriend and Girlfriend had faced before in the alleyway not too far from here actually.

On top of Whitty’s poster was a chalk interpretation of an eye with six lashes protruding from its center. 

“H-Hello there!” Girlfriend called out, digging into her hair to pull out the letter.

The figure sitting at the desk jolted up for a second, stopping what it was doing before turning around to simply be a man.

“O-Oh, Miss Dearest, I hadn’t known you would arrive this early!” the man quickly apologized, standing up as the couple got to take a good look at who they were dealing with.

The man was fairly tall, not as much as Whitty or Daddy Dearest, but obviously and sadly much higher than Boyfriend was, much to the boy’s disliking, wearing a cinnamon red tuxedo while sporting fairly short but curly brown hair, glasses with black rims, a red tie to go along with his suit, fancy black pants and shoes, light brown skin, and overall a careful but friendly smile.

“Oh, it was no problem, really!” Girlfriend passed the letter to the man who walked up to the couple, “Wait, do I know you?”

The man stopped with a warm smile, his eyes now close enough to the two that they could tell he was tired.

“No, unfortunately, but I did work fairly close with your father in terms of your family as a whole, the Dearests and the Gouge’s (go-shay) being fairly close in terms of the works of arcane studies and discovery,” the man stopped talking, placing the letter in his pocket, “Oh, my apologies again, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Geovanni Gouge, heralder of the tomes of magic and knowledge of this world and sorcery of reality and the arcane elements of this world.”

“I didn’t know you and my family were that close!” Girlfriend gave a small smile, “Though if Daddy’s recent obstacles are anything to look at, it would make sense that he would try and get the most powerful spells and portals he can. Oh, um, I’m-”

“Lucy “Girlfriend” Gearest Cameron Dearest, I know,” the man shook the girlfriend’s hand before turning to Boyfriend whose expression shifted from intrigue to shock at the mention of his beloved’s name being something other than what he had been calling her their entire relationship, “And you must be the prestigious, or perhaps now abhorred, Boyfriend.”

“Beep, deboo, brapap? (You’ve heard of me?” Boyfriend asked as Geovanni simply stood there, perplexed at the barrage of beeps and boops that Boyfriend was spouting.

“U-Um, pardon?” he said with a nervous smile.

“Oh, that’s just how he talks,” Girlfriend explained.

“Oh dear, how long have you spoken like that?” the man kneeled down to be at Boyfriend’s height, lifting the boy’s head up with one finger as he trailed two fingers down the boy’s throat.

“Beep depop, brabab. (I’ve had it ever since I was born, but it looks like only a few people like Girlfriend can really understand what I’m saying.)” Boyfriend explained as Girlfriend translated.

“Wait, he said all of that in just a couple of sounds?” Geovanni asked as Girlfriend nodded.

“Mhm! It makes communication a bit easier when it requires less words, but translation is a bit of a hassle,” Girlfriend explained. 

“Interesting indeed!” Geovanni’s eyes sparkled with excitement and curiosity, “So it seems as if the melody larynx of our biology and physiology can be converted into natural language through some unusual birthing process, which itself is fairly intriguing in general, but learning this can create a more communicable environment for people to live within.”

“Oh no…” Girlfriend quickly pulled Boyfriend away from the man, a look of concern on the girl’s face, “You’re not another Springheel, are you?”

“Doctor Springheel?” Geovanni tilted his head with a calm smile, “No, but he is a good friend of mine. I do wonder how he is doing nowadays, especially since the last time I had seen him, he was chasing after Carla Furrow in college, what he called the “next step in his life and career” having started with her at his side.”

“Beep bada, bop bop! (Yeah, the next step probably went along the lines of cutting people’s hearts out!)” Boyfriend exclaimed as the translation was made.

“He….he what?!” Geovanni looked at the couple with a look of concern on the man’s face before groaning and rubbing his temples, “Oh Jack, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“You’re….you’re not going to hurt us, are you?” Girlfriend asked, she and Boyfriend a few feet away from the man.

“What? No, of course not!” Geovanni frantically shook his head with a sheepish smile, “Sorry, I tend to get rather excited about new discoveries such as this one, though I apologize if I came off as a bit invading in nature.

I suppose a bit of Jack’s personality must have rubbed off on me when we studied together as partners, though while he searched for the complexity of romance and its applications to the world, I sparked an interest in the arcane world and I…...um, you know what, nevermind!”

“You, what?” Girlfriend asked, her curiosity leaking out a bit.

“No, it would only upset you further, so forget it!” Geovanni shook his head before returning to his desk.

“Beep bop dep skidoo! (How about we rap battle for your secret?)” Boyfriend suggested as Girlfriend simply gave a disapproving look.

“Honey, I know you usually use your funking awesome skills to win against people, but Geovanni isn’t hurting us, so I think it would be best if we-” though without getting another world in, Boyfriend ran up to the man, Girlfriend simply face palming in response before walking behind, “Of course you don’t listen to me.”

“Brap bada, beep bop! (Come on Mr. Gouge, let’s have a rap battle!)” Boyfriend exclaimed as Girlfriend simply translated, though at a much more irritated rate.

“What?” Geovanni turned around, having already opened the letter before promptly throwing it in the trash, “You want to rap battle me for my answers. Doesn’t that seem rather invading of you?”

Girlfriend and Boyfriend simply looked at the man with a knowing look, Geovanni giving a small laugh, scratching his head in defeat.

“Very well, though I am not that well when it comes to singing, though I should know enough if the rumours about you are true in nature, not to mention that if they are, this would be a bit unfair of a battle due to experience, but I am much older than you both so fine,” Geovanni sighs.

“Oh, wait, I forgot to bring-”

“Your speakers?” Geovanni smiled, tapping his shoes a couple of times against the floor as the carpet underneath them began to glow, a large circle with complex lines within it appearing to their side as Girlfriend’s speakers shot through it as  it acted like a portal, the musical piece landing on the floor with a thump as Girlfriend kissed Boyfriend on the cheek before sitting on them in her usual spot.

“Wow, how did you even-”

“Like I had mentioned, I am a master of the magical and arcane arts!” Geovanni snapped his fingers as glowing circles next to both him and Boyfriend which released the microphones needed for the battle, “Very well Mr. Boyfriend, let us see what skills you have!”

And so, the battle commences!

[If I had any skill, I would make a FNF mod about this encounter, but since I don’t, and because my only actual skill is writing, I’ll just describe what is occurring within the battle:

Battle Name - “Arcane Beats”

Geovanni Gouge’s Voice - Piano ( C piano key for up, D piano key for down, G piano key for left, and A piano key for right)

Battle Mode - Easy (Default)

Battle Style - Unlike most mods, this battle won’t include Boyfriend repeating any of Geovanni’s beats, as well as the fact that Geovanni himself is second to start the battle, but rather Boyfriend and Geovanni both sing their own beats in a calm and fairly slow rhythmic battle while only occasionally filling in each other’s melody (for example: Geovanni goes up down, up down, up down, and Boyfriend fills it in with left right, left right, left, right). The background are the rrom’s bookshelves and the latch where the couple had fallen from with the occasional book flying passed them both while Girlfriend sits in her normal position, the fluffy carpet underneath them being visible to the player as the image the couple couldn’t see is actually a large tree branching off into small circles (a reference to Yggdrasil, the world tree).

Geovanni’s Movements -

Up (Geovanni brings his microphone close to his mouth, small sparkles coming from the ground beneath him)

Down (Geovanni seems to sigh, a small cloud escaping his mouth)

Left (Geovanni brings his arms to the air, his right one pointing to the left of the screen as a magic circle forms at the tip of his finger, his eyes also seeming to become complex circles of magic akin to those of Marvel sorcerers)

Right (Geovanni turns so that his back faces the screen, pointing his right hand to the right of the screen as a magical circle forms from the tip of his finger, the man’s head only slightly looking at the screen as he winks).

It’s to also note that if this were a physical mod, rather than a script and literary retelling of it, Geovanni would sometimes be animated doing something during Boyfriend’s longer turns, this happening three times in this minute and a half long battle, the first where Geovanni catches a flying book from the background before tossing it offscreen, the second being where he just looks at the screen and gives a shy wave as small sparkles float around his face, and the third being him forming a magical circle under his microphone, levitating it slightly before catching it again, though his arrow movements may interrupt any one of these animated emotes. 

And that’s the first battle!]

“Goodness, these kinds of things take a lot out of you, don’t they?” Geovanni took a few breaths while Boyfriend remained perfectly fine.

“Beep bebop, beep bop. (You betcha homie, but I think it's time you complete your part of the deal.)” Boyfriend smiled with confidence as Girlfriend translated, Geovanni simply groaning.

“Right, well, I suppose I…..er, I probably, maybe, could have been spying on you and your boyfriend since you both got together,” Geovanni squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting an angry response, only to feel his hand being grabbed with gentle care.

The man opened his eyes to find Girlfriend and Boyfriend smiling back.

“Oh, is that all?” Girlfriend said nonchalantly.

“Wait, you’re not upset?” Geovanni asked as the couple simply broke out into laughter.

“Beep, skedo, bop beep beep boop, bap! (Dude, half of the people we meet on a regular basis are spying on us, but unlike a lot of them, you’re not pissed at Girlfriend’s dad or at me for that matter!)” Boyfriend explained.

“Heh, yeah, you’re a really nice guy, and those are really hard to come by, so don’t worry about it,” Girlfriend continued Boyfriend’s explanation, “We’re not mad at you.”

“Really?” Geovanni looked at the couple, both giving an affirmative nod as the man smiled back, some sense of happiness and hope restored in the man’s heart, “Well, that isn’t something that I expected from this encounter, though I am glad you aren’t feeling uncomfortable from that news

 In all honesty, Daddy Dearest assigned me to spy on you both, though from spying on your encounters it seems as if I am not the only hired watcher, though after a while it became a rather pleasurable hobby of mine, seeing the determination and confidence you derive from your recklessness when placed in rather difficult situations, especially with rifts that have been opening around the city in the past few weeks, hell months, which is the reason behind your sendoff to various realities and time periods.

Researching and paying attention to branching forms of our dimension, universe, reality, and timeline isn’t an easy task, but as long as it keeps everyone safe, it is a duty that I must perform to my full capabilities.

Seeing various versions of you fighting, losing, changing into various form, and becoming…….um, nevermind that, but you are extremely determined when it comes to gaining the approval of those that harm you, your goal and endeavour to be with the woman of your dreams a valuable one and one that I enjoy viewing, almost as if it were a story in some goofy video game or something along those lines.”

“Hang on, other versions of him?” Girlfriend asked as Geovanni nodded, pointing to his blackboard as a magical circle appeared from the tips of his fingers, bringing the object closer to both of them, its wheels floating above the carpet as it couldn’t roll, the man pointing to various branches that marked with the letters FNFD and a number after it.

“Yes, our world of Friday Night Funkin is an intriguing one indeed, though it is obviously not the only one and new variations of your encounters and lives are being written everyday, some better than others in terms of their outcomes or overall themes in nature, though they are each unique to say the least,” Geovanni pointed to each branch before trailing over to a strangely anatomically correct interpretation of his own head, a circle around the throat area, “An interesting result of living in such a musically enhanced world would be our capabilities to transform of voices into those of instruments or sounds that can act as an instrument itself, mine, as you’ve seen, being that of a piano while yours and Girlfriend’s seems to be the second variation of sorts wherein you use your voices to implement some type of sound that can be repeatedly used to create a melody of sorts through that specific type of larynx in your throat regions, though Boyfriend's could be due to his short stature since body structure is also a factor in voices.”

“Beep bebop, bep bop, skedo bep. (Well, I have no idea what any of that means, but I think we should get going.)” Boyfriend explained as his beloved translated.

“Oh, before you go can you do me two favors?” Geovanni asked the couple as they stopped in their tracks to pay attention.

“Yes, what do you need?” Girlfriend asked before Boyfriend could protest.

“Well, first I want Boyfriend to accept this gift for understanding my actions and so I can see its effects on him, in a ethical manner mind you,” Geovanni took two of his fingers and began drawing an invisible circle on his throat before one of his magical circles appeared at that same spot as the man pulled his hand away, a projection of that smaller circle, this being a larger amber circle, the default color of the constructs, appearing on his palm as the man gestured the boy come forward.

Boyfriend looked over at Girlfriend who gave a nod of approval as the boy did as instructed, heading over to Georvanni as the man lifted the boy’s head again, this time shrinking the larger magical circle and retracing it on Boyfriend’s throat, a tickling sensation filling the boy’s body as he could barely contain his laughter, Geovanni laughing along with him before finishing his spell, waving his hand as the magical circles dissipated.

“Alright, all done,” Geovanni announced as Boyfriend opened his eyes, looking at his body in confusion.

“Um, what exactly did you do?” Boyfriend asked before placing his hands to his mouth in surprise, Girlfriend responded with a sudden gasp, “Woah, I can…..lalalala, macaroni, clouds, love, I love Girlfriend…...hahaha! Oh my god!”

“It’s a temporary spell, it should end in about a few days, but I do hope it helps with communication once in a while, so take it as a gift of appreciation from me to both of you-” Geovanni stopped, Boyfriend embracing the man in a hug as he stood perplexed before hugging ther boy back.

“Thank you so much!” Boyfriend grinned, placing his fist out for a fistbump, “You’re a really awesome dude!”

“It is my greatest pleasure,” Geovanni gave a warm smile, bumping his fist with Boyfriend’s, “As for my second favor, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to have one final battle with you both, no third battle necessary.”

“Absolutely dude!” Boyfriend grabbed hold of his microphone with a confident smile, Girlfriend sitting back on top of her speakers as she gave a nod of thanks to Geovanni who returned it, grabbing his microphone as well.

“Shall we commence?” Geovanni asked.

And so, the second battle commenced!

[This one is a bit easier to explain as it shares the same animation with the first, with slight differences that makes the end of this part rather interesting:

Battle Name - “Voiced Love”

Battle Style - Medium (Default)

Geovanni’s Movements - While the same as the first time, the music is a lot more faster but still lighthearted, actually matching the tempo of the song “Wife Forever” in the Sky mod, and both Geovanni and Boyfriend seem to have a closer friendship, the man’s icon at the bottom of the screen showing his face, when brought to the left, just seem to smile in happy defeat…...though things aren’t what they seem. At the end of a fairly fast up and down rhythm towards the end of the forty second song, right as Boyfriend is finishing the last few notes, Geovanni winces, his eye twitching as behind him a faint magical circle constructs turns gray then red before disappearing, the man standing in place, confused as to what just happened, as the song ends and the screen fades to black as the story continues.]

“Hold on,” Geovanni places one finger out in contemplation, “Something isn’t right.”

“Oh boy, here comes the magical transformation…” Girlfriend sighed in expecting disappointment.

“No, something is just wrong…...wrong with you,” he pointed slowly at Girlfriend who sat up, looking at both Boyfriend and Geovanni with a perplexed expression.

“Excuse me-”

“Oh, she’s a demon like her father and mother,” Boyfriend interjected as Girlfriend glares at the boy, the girl’s eyes momentarily glinting red.

“Yes, I know that, but something isn’t right…..something inside her,” Geovanni dropped his mic before placing his hands together, pulling them apart as a magical line formed, the sorcerer wrapping it around other lines until another magical construct circle was formed, this one moreso resembling a flower, as the man began to place it in front of Girlfriend before the girl sprouted her demon wings and flew over to Boyfriend who looked at her in equal confusion.

“H-Hey, cut that out!” Girlfriend snapped back, hiding behind Boyfriend who stepped in front of her protectively. 

“Please stand still…” Geovanni groaned, bringing the flower circle in front of Boyfriend before Girlfriend grabbed them both, bringing them to the air.

“Stop trying to view my essence!” Girlfriend shouted back.

“Ah, so you do know what this does,” Geovanni asked, his expression shifting into that of concern, “Then please, let me just-”

“No!” Girlfriend flew over to the corner of the room, holding Boyfriend up as a meat shield. 

“Woah, essence?” Boyfriend asked, “What’s that?”

Geovanni once again tried to move the circle toward their direction, but Girlfriend simply flew towards another corner, so the circle followed, then up and then down, until the man simple sighed, bringing the circle back towards him, though it did not dissipate like the others, instead going in front of him so that the couple could peer through it and see tha man’s own body.

“It’s a magic substance that all magical beings have within their body, like a soul type of x-ray that we use to ensure that a creature is in a healthy form of being and as you can see,” Geovanni waved his arm, the circle spinning before blackened like an x-ray screen, reappearing as a shadowy outline of the man was seen, a yellow glow serving as his blood and muscle as red lines represented his nervous system, his heart being outlined and surrounded by blue waves, “My soul is seen as health since many sorcerers have blue souls such as mine, representing purity and good health while demons and other creatures have purple souls due to a different form of magic, although I too am capable of performing the dark arts although I was born human so the appearance isn’t shown.”

“And why do you need Girlfriend’s scan?” Boyfriend asked.

“It would be easier to explain if she would stand still and allow me to scan her,” Geovanni moved the circle towards the couple as Girlfriend flew out of the way, now dropping Boyfriend on the ground as the man once again groaned in frustration, continuing to move the circle, “I have a large array of spells as I explained, but one of the spells that I placed on myself would alert me if a specific presence was nearby, an entity that would take me mere days to explain the danger of, but I must know if Girlfriend has it within her essence.”

“I don’t!” Girlfriend responded, dodging another attempt at being scanned.

“Then why are you flying away young lady?” Geovanni tapped his foot on the ground impatiently, trying to move his hand in order to transport the circle, but his tiredness took over as the man simply rubbed his temples, dispelling the circle away, Girlfriend flying back down before landing on the carpet which began to apparently rot under her mere presence, the girl’s purple skin, horns, wings, and red glistening eyes burning a bit brighter than Boyfriend had seen last time.

“Boyfriend, we’re leaving!” Girlfriend grabbed her beloved’s arm.

“W-Wait, shouldn’t we hear him out fir-”

“No!” Girlfriend snapped back, flying up to the latch until she realized that it was gone, a solid ceiling replacing it, “What the….?”

“You cannot leave this place, not if I’m right about what you hold,” Geovanni sat back down on his chair which he turned so that he was facing the couple.

“If you don’t let us out, I swear I will-”

“Call your parents?” Geovannit took a deep breath, “Lucy, I-”

“Girlfriend,” the girl corrected with a growing anger in her tone. 

“R-Right, Girlfriend, you don’t quite realize the danger that you are holding within your current physical form, and if it is what I fear it may be, I think it would be best you listen before something bad happens, like you hurting yourself and hurting Boyfriend of all people,” the man gestured to the boy who remained silent, unsure as to what was happening as he looked at Girlfriend for some answers.

Girlfriend simply stared back, her irritated expression now shifting to concern and a small hint of guilt, before scoffing and crossing her arms.

“How about we have one final rap battle?” she asked as the man tilted his head in confusion.

“A rap battle, now?” Geovanni stood up from his chair, now his irritation beginning to grow, “If you are aware of what you are holding, you’re balancing the lives of thousands, if not millions of lives on some friendly game of melody in order to hide away a secret you haven’t told your beloved boyfriend yet?! Don’t you remember what had occurred with Tabi-”

“One rap battle, take it or leave it,” Girlfriend restated her request.

“You’re serious…...aren’t you?” Geovanni gave a small laugh of disbelief, tapping his foot on the ground before sighing as he nodded his head in slow contemplation, “Very well, but here are the regulations. If I win, you will tell me everything you know about the creature inside of you and you will allow me to heal you and figure out a way to kill it…..if it’s even possible to do so…..and we will gather with your parents for additional assistance, but if you win, then I shall leave you be, though I do have to warn you that it is best of the former occurs for the sake of all life.”

“Alright, Boyfriend, get your mic and let’s end this already-”

“Upupup, I think you might have misheard me,” Geovanni crossed his arms before snapping, one microphone flying into his hands as the other bonked the back of Girlfriend’s head after flying from Boyfriend’s hand, “I said if you win, so I suggest you get to singing.”

“Argh, fine! I’m a little rusty, but if it keeps you from going into something you have no right in looking into, then it’s worth it!” Girlfriend retorted, grabbing ahold of her mic as a dark mist envelopes her, Geovanni waving his hand as a circle formed in front of him, this one thicker than the rest.

If both Boyfriend and Geovanni agreed on one thing, it was that you didn’t mess with Girlfriend when she unlocked her demon form…...and now the demon was out. 

The man would need all the protection he could get.

And so, the third battle commences.

[Oh boy, this one would be one of the hardest to animate, but thank god I don’t have to! 

So, here we go:

Battle Name - “Dark Resistance”

Battle Style - Hard (Default) Girlfriend’s Movements - So, in this final round of part one, we end up playing as Demon Girlfriend who has the voice of an electric guitar like Whitty and a new appearance which basically is the Girlfriend but with purple skin, two stubs for horns, red eyes like Daddy Dearest and Mommy Mearest, bat like wings, and a whole lot of f*** you!

Her movements would be as follows:

Up (Girlfriend’s whole body moves up, her wings as well, as her red eyes glow brighter than her other movements, where we can see a bit of her fangs.)

Down (Girlfriend moves her entire body down, her wings hiding above her body like an umbrella, her entire figure looking like a predator about to pounce on its victim.)

Left (Same as down, but Girlfriend’s wings are spread out in anger and she is slightly moved to the left.)

Right (Same as left but for the right, only Girlfriend’s hand is extended out, almost as if telling Boyfriend to stand back, her claws now showing.) 

Geovanni’s Movements - Same as with his others, but he now sports a more concerned expression and not having any animations, not wanting to do this, but Girlfriend had left him no choice. He’s going to have to fight through her resistance.

Behind Girlfriend is a magic circle similar to Geovanni’s, though it appears to be black with red outlines that seem to portray a pentagon with a single red eye at its center. 

Boyfriend isn’t seen on screen as the speakers radiate with a red energy.

As the battle continues on, Girlfriend begins to seemingly drip a black liquid from her eyes and mouth, though her movements stay the same.

It’s an extreme fast pace battle with one or two sets of full arrow sets thrown in by surprise, this song having a tempo mixture similar to “Manifest” from the Sky mod and “Genocide” from the Tabi mod. 

Something that I like is that if you intentionally try to lose, Girlfriend lowers her head for a moment before yelling into her microphone, the “Game Over” screen shattering as the battle continues, almost as if she won’t even let you, the player, stop her from hiding her own secret.

In any case Girlfriend wins the match with her default scown and crossing of arms whenever you don’t press any arrow keys as Geovanni stays in his own stance, one hand in his pocket as the other holds his microphone, though his default smile is now replaced with nervousness as the shield breaks.

The demon has won.]

“Urgh!” Geovanni falls onto the floor as Girlfriend throws her microphone at the man in anger, the man dodging as the microphone embeds itself into the floor, “Goddammit! Why won’t you listen to me?!”

“We had a deal…” Girlfriend crossed her arms, Boyfriend being seen in the background, his face concerned and justifiably afraid.

He hadn’t heard a voice that loud since Sunday last week.

“Girlfriend, that black liquid,” Geovanni stood up, waving his hand as a magical circle summons a handkerchief on the man’s hand as he leans it to wipe it, Girlfriend simply blinking and taking a deep breath as her demon form recedes, her normal appearance returning once again.

“See, I got it,” Girlfriend turns to walk towards Boyfriend before stopping, her head remaining unturned from the man as she says in a low voice, “You should really learn how to back off.”

“Girlfriend….” Geovanni sighs before shaking his head and sitting back down, snapping his fingers as the latch reopens, a circular staircase forming little by little until it was complete, Girlfriend reaching into her hair before taking out a rope and tying it around her speakers, placing them on her back as she continued along the staircase.

“Come on Boyfriend, Carol’s waiting for us at the coffee shop a few blocks back,” Girlfriend called out as Boyfriend gave a nod and a smile, turning to look at Geovanni with a frown as the man simply waved his hand with an understanding nod.

“Go on, I’ll be fine.”

“Thank you again,” Boyfriend gave a small nod before following Girlfriend. 

Geovanni looked up at the two, digging into his pocket before taking out some type of monocle, placing before his eye as he peered at the speakers behind Girlfriend, the peering spell embedded in the artifact allowing the man to see through the common disguise of the musical piece, the three speakers instead being three large crystals, but not any crystals, rather Amarok Crystals which can only be carried by demons through some enchantment making them hard to be wielded by other beings…….and the perfect source to drain the energy produced by the melodies that individuals sing throughout rap battles without hurting the individual in question.

All those factors, all those components, meant one thing, the very thing that Geovanni had feared…...Girlfriend held the Nigrum.

“Dammit….” the man sighed.

He slammed his fist onto the arms of his chair, knowing that were he to call Daddy Dearest or Mommy Mearest, the former probably the main reason behind placing his daughter under this unfair predicament, the demon would argue his own twisted reason for doing most of the things he does to others for the sake of either being the best or being the most well known demon in MeloDee city and the world.

The two would perhaps do to him as they do to all others who get in their way, trapping him in some pocket reality or prison, though Geovanni himself was powerful enough to evade their tactics, having researched them all, though then he would have no demonic leads into killing the being.

“What do I do now….?” Geovanni asked himself, turning his chair around to get back to reading until his eyes landed on a poster to his side.

The poster itself illustrated a church with a large amount of crappy photoshop art interpreting angels, crosses, puppies and for some reason napoleon ice cream, the main headline reading:

“JOIN SARVENTE’S CHURCH FOR THE ASCENDED AND THE BLESSED TODAY! BECOME ONE WITH GOD!” 

“Maybe…” Geovanni contemplated for a moment before lifting himself up from his chair, grabbing one of his books with him, and twirling his finger with a magic circle, his cloak from the clothes rack behind the staircase flying over to him as he placed it on, climbing up the staircase while staring into the address of the poster.

Perhaps it would be best to get some alternative demonic assistance. 

- End Of Part 1 - 

Friday Night Funkin' is an open-source donationware rhythm game developed by Cameron "ninjamuffin99" Taylor, David "PhantomArcade" Brown, Isaac "kawaisprite" Garcia, and evilsk8r.

[redjayson]

Imagine if jayson gets in trouble by something like he exploded something or told off a league member so they made bruce come and try to get him which only made them go on a wild goose chase but mostly imagine bruce gets like dad mad at him when Jason comes home and he looks over and sees the entire batfam recording them arguing, even dick from the kitchen table.

okay look this is totally not jason’s fault

it’s just that from the perspective of most outsiders, he and artemis and bizarro (or roy and kori, or donna and kyle, whichever beautiful trio you like best tho personally I’m most familiar with the sunshine trio of jay, artemis, and bizarro) – well, they look like they’re just indiscriminately causing chaos.

well. maybe indiscriminately is too strong a word. there are definitely way more explosions than a regular superhero ever needs to cause, though. 

point being, there are explosions. so many explosions. you’re saying y’all are the good guys?? why the fuck are there so many explosions then

so yeah eventually the team’s (or jason’s) luck runs out and they end up being arrested – or someone calls the league in – and oh man. ah, shit. technically the only thing that jason promised was that he wouldn’t kill people, but oh god. batman is going to be insufferable about this. 

obviously the best (funniest) way for this to go down is for someone to call down a league member to deal with these “supervillains” and it has to be someone who is unfamiliar with the (sunshine) trio and/or jason. (and let’s face it, if it’s just jason, then someone’s going to get called immediately, because who cares if red hood is known outside gotham or not, this guy looks like a villain.)

so. some jla member ends up taking custody of jason (and potentially the rest of the trio) and starts to cart them off to prison or to a trial or something–

except Batman Knows All

(and he set up an alert for red hood’s name within the jla database or whatever, so that he can keep track of his son’s movements and make sure that nothing untoward is happening and also so that he can make sure his kid’s okay because he worries, all right, jason’s died on him once and he couldn’t take it if it ever happened again)

batman comes down on this poor jla member like the wrath of a god

“what are you doing with red hood and his compatriots?” batman asks, staring intently.

“he’s…a villain…?” the poor jla member says, sweating nervously. 

“what are the crimes he’s accused of?” batman asks.

“a bunch of explosions in various nations, several connections to drug runners, and his friend–”

“the amazon or the kryptonian clone?”

the jla member sweats even more nervously, because obviously they were thick enough to not really take in all the details of hood’s colleagues (or maybe the other two were in disguise, we’ll give this poor jla member the benefit of the doubt. they’re probably super new to the jla. poor baby, what an introduction to the jla – fucking up in front of batman, who is Terrifying.) “….the…….Amazon……? Sir?”

batman stares.

“she…..set a lot of things on fire. and then hood….set off the explosions. and nobody died, but there was a lot of collateral structural damage and the governments of these countries are very annoyed, and also they’ve been moving through several countries, did I mention that, and they’re–”

batman holds up his hand and the Very New jla member shuts their mouth immediately and hopes that they’re not about to be kicked out of the jla because seriously, they just joined, they didn’t realize that apparently these three were in batman’s jurisdiction or they never would have gone after these three. 

“I will be taking custody of them,” batman says, and the jla member hands all responsibility over to batman and then fucking flees, because that was terrifying and they’re going to be triple checking their information from now on and making sure that they don’t accidentally infringe on batman’s territory again. they’d been warned about going into gotham, and oh god, if this is how batman acts when it’s just one of his villains, how bad is it when people enter his city?

jason just shakes his cuffed hands at batman like, are you going to let me out of these?

the answer is no, because they’re going back to gotham and batman is going to dress jason down. 

“come on!” jason complains. “I did exactly what you asked!”

“in point of fact, you did not,” bruce snaps. 

“I didn’t kill anyone!”

“the lowest possible bar,” bruce says, pulling up data on his computer. artemis is standing next to jason, watching this with a terribly amused expression on her face. bizarro is exploring the cave. he loves the giant t-rex. 

“that’s literally the only stricture you put on me,” jason protests. 

“while you were dealing with black mask,” bruce says. “and when you left gotham–”

“you said the exact same thing!” 

“jason, I expect you to–”

“you’re such a fucking hypocrite–”

“–not blow up every city you step foot in–”

“–I bet you were watching me just waiting for me to fuck up–”

“–and you need to be careful–”

“were you just waiting for an excuse–?”

“I can’t lose you again!”

and there’s a momentary pause in the argument. jason looks away. 

“I’m fine,” he says. 

bruce looks – tired. and old. older than jason’s ever thought of him. 

“just be careful,” he says again. “and please. stop it with the explosions. or at least tone them down. don’t get arrested by people who might think you’re a supervillain.”

“you are a life ruiner,” jason says. “you are ruining my life. first the legos–”

bruce rolls his eyes. it’s an old argument.

“– and now this?” jason continues, at an even louder volume. 

on the head of the t-rex, most of the batkids have been watching/filming this encounter – and making friends with bizarro – and at this, they all have to duck their heads and laugh into their hands because somehow batman and red hood have carried on this whole conversation without noticing them and really, parts of it are pure comedy gold. it’s been going on for so long. batman’s so annoyed about the explosions, like hood hasn’t toned it down since he left gotham. 

and oh man, the old arguments. 

“he’s still holding a grudge about the legos,” dick says, almost hiccuping with how hard he’s laughing. “it’s been eight years and he’s still so angry.”

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Extraction (11/16)

The chapter you’ve all been waiting for - Gold’s file is finally opened...

Summary: Intelligence Agent Belle French has been given her most challenging assignment yet – one that will provide her agency with absolutely vital information on a practically untouchable arms dealer.

In addition to all the usual dangers any assignment carries, Belle also faces the edifying task of convincing Rum Gold to return to help the agency one last time. Agent Gold left the world of international espionage years ago, after an assignment went terribly wrong and ended in his imprisonment and torture, and he vowed never to return, but the agency cannot complete their mission without him…

===

Read the previous chapters here on AO3.

===

Eleven

Belle tucked her feet up under her on the sofa, wondering what the best way of approaching the subject would be.

“I was thinking about the way you act around Regina,” she said. “I know it sounds silly, but you almost act as if you’ve met her before. Is it because she reminds you of Cora?”

Gold shook his head.

“No, I think I can safely say that Regina is nothing at all like her mother in anything apart from hair colour and bone structure, and I can assure you that today was the first time that I had ever met her.”

“Ok.” Belle reconsidered her line of questioning. “But still, the way you treat her… It’s different to the way that other people treat possible extractions. I know that we often have to use the soft kid glove approach, especially when they’re in tricky situations like Regina’s, but it’s not really that, because there’s a firmness in the way you handle her.”

“What any asset wants, ultimately, is the reassurance that they’re going to be safe,” Gold said. “That reassurance comes in different forms for different people. For Regina, this is the form that works. You’re no rookie in your field, Belle. You’ve done all of this training and I’m sure you must have done extractions before.”

“Yes, I know.” Belle gave a huff of frustration. “That’s not what I’m getting at. Your approach to Regina is familiarity, which is a perfectly valid approach, but it comes so effortlessly to you and I know from reading all your files that it is not your usual approach, and that familiarity is not something that comes second nature. I’ve been in close quarters with you for a while now and I can pick up on your tells. There is something about Regina that makes her different, and I think that’s why you agreed to help; not because she asked for you but because it’s her.”

Gold gave a long sigh. “I think I know what you’re driving at,” he said. “And I think that given our circumstances, you deserve the full story. You could have worked it all out yourself if you’d looked at that bloody confidential file that Blue sent me via you, but you’re lovely and you have honour and integrity so you didn’t peep.” He smiled. “I respect that.”

He put his half-finished plate down on the coffee table and limped over to his luggage, unlocking it and taking out the manila envelope, no longer plastered with confidential tape. He put it down on the sofa between them, but placed a hand over it to stop Belle picking it up.

“First, tell me honestly what you think is going on and why you think I came out here to extract Regina.”

Belle took a deep breath.

“I believe that Regina is your daughter.”

Gold inclined his head and removed his hand from the file, pushing it over the faded cushions towards her.

“In that belief you would be completely justified.”

Belle took the file, but didn’t open it, and Gold nodded towards it.

“Everything you need to know is in there, in black and white,” he said, but Belle shook her head.

“I think I’d rather hear your version of events than some sterile thing that Blue’s had typed up. I know that you were sent to extract Cora twenty years ago, and I know that you were close to her – what Mal said in the residency yesterday evening confirmed that. And the timings line up. It’s just over twenty years since you were here on your assignment, and Regina has just turned twenty.”

Gold nodded.

“You really know most of it all already,” he said. “It’s a good summing up. But yes. I was sent, just over twenty years ago, to extract Cora. Mal and I were already doing a lot of work in Avalon, we were about to set up the residency over here, we had each built up a good network of assets. As I said before, Mal was supposed to have come with me to extract Cora, but at the last moment, Control said that I was to go alone. I knew exactly what he had in mind, and at the time, I didn’t think anything of it, other than to wonder why I couldn’t have Mal as back-up. In a word, sex. I was to get close to Cora by any means necessary, up to and including getting her into bed.” He gave a self-deprecating snort. “Before I went out there, I’d just had my divorce finalised and I was on a very entertaining rebound period. It didn’t make a lot of difference to me. She was beautiful in that cold, dangerous way, and she was another man’s wife, and at the time that appealed because my own wife had run off with another man, so a primal part of me thought it was a weird kind of karmic payback that I’d then run off with someone else’s.” He sighed, and caught Belle’s expression, raising an eyebrow. Belle didn’t know what her facial features were doing, but she was evidently expressing some kind of disapproval.

“I regret the train of thought that went along with my actions,” Gold said coolly, “but I do not regret the actions themselves, except in as much as they ultimately led me to prison, but that could probably be said of the entire assignment whether I’d slept with her or not.”

“I’m not chastising you,” Belle said hastily. “I’m just trying to understand what it must be like to be in that position.”

“Well, just take a moment to think about it. If there was something that you wanted desperately, some piece of intelligence that would prove such a boon, you would do anything in your power to get it, wouldn’t you? You’d use any and every trick up your sleeve, including your body. Are you telling me you’ve never used your body to your advantage?”

Belle thought about it, sipping her juice.

“I’ve never slept with anyone for intel,” she said. “But yes, I have taken advantage of low cut tops and mini-skirts and the male gaze before now.”

“It’s on the same spectrum in a way,” Gold said. “It’s just higher up the scale. Some people aren’t comfortable with it. I don’t know that I would be now, but then, I’m a bit older and a lot less attractive than I was back then.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Belle said. “Older yes, obviously, twenty years have passed. But not necessarily less attractive.”

He raised his eyebrows again and gave a snort of laughter into his water glass. “I’ve got a limp and I’m going grey.”

“Silver foxes can be very sexy,” Belle said, and in spite of herself she had to giggle. “I’m beginning to think there might be something in this orange juice.” She knew that there wasn’t, it was a sealed bottle that she’d opened and poured herself, but all the same, she couldn’t remember ever feeling this relaxed in the middle of an assignment. Well, not relaxed, that was definitely the wrong word. Everything was still up in the air and fraught with tension and until she’d seen Zelena at the bottom of a well where she couldn’t throw any spanners into the works then Belle would not relax. But… vaguely at ease, and able to laugh. Considering the bleak subject matter that they were talking about, it was good to laugh for a moment before they returned to talking about the events of Foresight all those years ago and she was brought back down to earth with a jolt.

The jolt came a little sooner than expected.

“Sexy silver foxes aside, what’s under the clothes is not a pretty sight,” Gold continued, his tone matter of fact but his expression somewhat self-deprecating. Belle’s stomach churned uncomfortably, remembering the scars.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said.

“Belle, you haven’t seen…”

Belle cut him off. “I have. You left the bathroom door open when you were shaving this morning, remember? I got a peek in the mirror.”

Gold rubbed a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“There’s nothing ugly about your scarring,” Belle said. “It just shows all that you’ve survived.”

“Doc said that,” Gold mused. ‘Doc’ Forrest had been the chief medical officer for the House for as long as Belle could remember; certainly as long as Granny had been there “That was back when they were fresher and I had less tattoos to cover them up. I had a few already, you don’t really go to prison and come out unmarked. He said that there was no shame in them, and that I ought to be proud of having survived what I’d gone through, not ashamed of everything that I had gone through to cause them.”

“You obviously didn’t believe him then,” Belle remarked.

“Well, of course I didn’t,” Gold said. “I was, as Granny will tell you, the most bolshy, contrary and bloody-minded person in the country at that point and I didn’t believe anything that anyone told me. Especially anyone in the service. Apart from Granny. She always gave as good as she got and she did keep me stocked up in booze throughout my recovery. And it’s Doc’s job to make people feel better.”

“Well, I’m no doctor and I’m saying exactly the same thing.” She paused. She’d wondered if he had tattoos and she’d seen some of the evidence this morning, and she wanted to delve further into it, ask more about the meanings. She decided against it. They were already treading a very fine line.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore, please.” Gold gave her a pleading look. “I was telling you about Foresight and Cora and Regina, not me.”

Belle nodded. “Of course. Go ahead.”

Gold took a moment to collect himself and he continued.

“Well, I came out here and I started to work my way into Cora’s life. We knew that she had something to trade, she had already told us as much, but we wanted her to give it to us on our terms. We wanted to turn her. So I became her best friend. I became her solace from a loveless marriage and a tyrant father-in-law who looked down on her common roots – Henry and Xavier Mills are descended from the Misthaven royal line – and saw her only as a vessel to carry his grandchild and future heir.” He gave a bark of sarcastic laughter. “Oh, the tales she span me. It was only later that I realised just how much I’d been led up the garden path, and that although Xavier was indeed a terrifying specimen, he had more respect for Cora and her vicious business acumen than he did for his own son. And Henry, who had been presented to me as cruel and cold with no regard for his wife at all was a somewhat weak-willed man who would never hurt a fly. All the terrible things that she told me he’d done to her, she’d done to him instead. But she fed me these tales, and I had far less intelligence at my fingertips in those days; my networks weren’t as well established and weren’t working in the correct circles. Up until we’d had the offer of intel from Cora we’d mainly been focussed on the various rebel militias in Avalon that had sprung up during the war of independence and hadn’t quite quietened down, still claiming responsibility for bombings throughout Misthaven and indeed beyond. So she could tell me pretty much anything she wanted and because the intelligence that she was giving me was checking out as triple-A quality, naturally I assumed that everything else she was telling me had to be true as well.”

Gold gave a long sigh again and refilled his glass. “Are you sure I can’t have a whiskey?”

“I’ll buy you a crate of Glenfiddich when we get out of here,” Belle promised.

“You know I’ll hold you to that.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Gold shook his head in good-natured disbelief and continued his tale.

“In the end, we ended up in bed together as the natural conclusion to what we’d been carrying on. One thing led to another and we got sloppy.” He cringed. “Christ, talk about the wrong word. Complacent, that’s a better one. Anyway, not long after that, Cora put her master plan into action and bam. I was set up, the Avalon police caught me and threw me in the Mines, Blue and the Agency sold me down the river and Cora came to visit, gloating about how she’d just achieved everything she ever wanted and thank you for all my help but now she was going to leave me to rot.” He paused. “I noticed she was expecting then but wasn’t really in the right frame of mind for it to register. It was only after I got out and I was reading up on everything that had happened whilst I’d been inside, trying desperately to find out if Marco and the others were all right. That was when I saw about Regina and put two and two together. I’ve been wondering about her ever since.”

He nodded towards the file, and Belle opened it. Within, there were a few pictures of Regina taken at various points during her lifetime, and a few pages of medical paperwork filched from the Avalon central medical records database, showing all her statistics in plain numbers. There were also the results of a DNA test that had been undertaken shortly after Gold’s return to civilisation, confirming that Regina was indeed his daughter.

“I’d already failed one of my children,” Gold said softly. “As soon as Blue gave you that file, she knew that I would come with you, because she knew that I wouldn’t fail another. I got to watch Bae grow up and I was part of his life whilst he was a boy, but then I lost him before he became an adult. I was denied the chance to be part of Regina’s life whilst she was young, and I can’t lose her now that she’s an adult. Not now that this opportunity has presented itself to me.”

Belle nodded.

“I understand,” she said. “It explains everything.” His manner with Regina, the paternal fondness he showed for her, it was all genuine. It explained his vehemence about not turning her but extracting her fully and letting her live out her days in peace in a safe place. Why he’d said he’d set her up in a remote corner of Scotland – perhaps a remote corner like Lochdubh where he could make sure that she was safe. It explained why he was so committed to this assignment despite the pain, both mental and physical, that it was causing him.

And it also explained how come Regina had asked for him to be the one to come and get her.

“I take it that Regina knows?” Belle said.

Gold nodded. “As you know we haven’t exactly discussed the subject openly. But I think she knows. I can’t think of any other reason why she would want me over anyone else, especially knowing as she does my history with her mother, and her mother’s history with our agency. That’s not something that Cora would ever attempt to hide from Regina; her victory over us is something that she’s terribly proud of and likes to flaunt. People like us are weak, in Cora’s eyes, and people like her are made to rule over us. It’s something that she would have passed onto her daughter. The engagement to Leo White proves it. You don’t marry for love if you’re Cora or her daughter. You marry for power and once you’ve got the power you get someone to dispatch the husband for you.”

“Regina doesn’t subscribe to the theory though.”

“No, which is something I’m very grateful for. There’s been enough external influence in her life not to allow Cora’s twisted philosophy to take hold, and now she has Daniel to whom she’s clinging as much as she can as a lifeline. All I can do now is hope that we can get her out and she has some chance of a better life without her mother’s toxic influence, in a place where she’s loved and is free to love in return.”

It was an eloquent and beautiful philosophy, and Belle took a moment to let it sink in before she closed the file and returned it to Gold.

“I’m sure we’ll succeed. I don’t think it’s ever too late to bond with your children.”

“I hope not.” Gold sighed, and Belle worried her bottom lip between her teeth, wondering how, or if, she should approach her next question.

“I’ll understand if you don’t want to discuss it,” she began eventually, “but you mentioned losing your son. May I ask what happened?”

Gold looked at her confused for a moment, and then laughed out loud. Belle was startled by this reaction and wondered if she’d completely misunderstood something.

“Oh Fae, my dear,” Gold said. “No wonder you didn’t want that put in the case file. Oh, you know what you did, for the greater good, to try and cover your tracks when you hung me out to dry.”

“Gold?” Belle hedged. She was remembering the conversation between Gold and Blue back in headquarters when he had arrived so unceremoniously and put the cat among the pigeons. The cryptic exchange they’d had, about what Blue knew Gold wanted and what was impossible and what she’d done for the greater good. At the time and on reading the case file she’d assumed it related to the two extra years he’d spent in prison before they’d managed to swap him back, two years spent there ultimately on Blue’s orders. Now she was not so sure.

Gold turned back to Belle. “When I returned from Avalon, the first thing I wanted to do was see my son. Well, within reason. I wanted a good cup of tea and a bath and a bottle of whiskey, but that’s beside the point. I wanted to see my son, whom I hadn’t seen in six years and to whom I had no idea what kind of tale had been spun as to my disappearance, whether he knew I had been in prison in Avalon or not. Blue, however, informed me that in keeping with protocol, Bae and his mother and step-father had been placed in a protection program after I had been captured lest I reveal something about their location under torture and put them in danger. They’d been given entirely new identities. I wasn’t at all surprised by this and I was even grateful to Blue for organising it.”

“Something bad must have happened.”

“Blue refused to let me know the new identities,” Gold said coolly. “She said that whilst I was still under observation, I couldn’t know the information.”

After his release from the House following repatriation, Gold had been kept under observation for three years before he was no longer deemed potentially dangerous. Belle did the maths quickly, Bae would have been twenty-three at the time.

“And after observation?” she pressed.

“Once my observation period was up, I spoke to Blue again. Blue said that it would be impossible for me to see my son, because in the interest of his safety, when I had been blown, they had told him that I had been killed.”

Belle felt her jaw drop. “What?”

“The language I used was slightly stronger than that, but my reaction was very similar to yours.” Gold’s smile was bitter.

“Surely you could have looked him up anyway,” Belle said. “There was nothing stopping you from having the information.”

“I know there wasn’t,” Gold said. “But by the time I had digested the news that my family thought I was dead, I decided that I couldn’t go through with it. By that point I hadn’t been a part of Bae’s life for almost ten years. He thought I was dead, he had mourned me and gone on with his life. He was an adult, he might have a family of his own. I couldn’t in all good faith suddenly walk back into his life. Not in the state I was then, the state I’m still in now. Broken and battered and just a shadow of the man I was before. I couldn’t inflict that on Bae’s new life. So I gave my son up for lost and I retreated into my antique shop. Until you and Agent Swan arrived, and presented me with a second chance wrapped up in this deadly coating.”

Belle didn’t have the right words to express her sympathy in that moment. Everything that she could come up with in her mind sounded wrong and clichéd. She couldn’t begin to be able to know what Gold had been through, and the agony of having something to cling to throughout his torture, the thought of seeing his son again, only for it to be ripped away from him at the end, well, she couldn’t fathom it.

So she didn’t speak, but instead just reached across the sofa and took Gold’s hand in hers, squeezing gently.

He looked up at her, and she could see the understanding and gratitude in his eyes. After a moment, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles like a knight of old.

“Thank you, Belle,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

[inhumansforever]

Karnak #6 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The Flaw of All Things comes to its existential conclusion, by the creative team of Warren Ellis, Roland Boschi and Dan Brown.  Full recap and review following the jump.

Acted on the behest of the secret spy organization, Shield, Karnak has ventured out to track down a young new Inhuman named Adam Roderick who has been abducted by a shadowy terrorist organization.  In his pursuit of Adam, Karnak discovered that the young Inhuman had manifested incredible reality-warping powers.  Adam had made himself into a god, his former abductors becoming his loyal acolytes.   Adam’s powers enable him to grant onto his followers everything they wanted, a sense of purpose and utter contentment.  Yet Karnak knew that all that Adam created was illusion; the reality that Adam crafted was artificial and inauthentic, his followers were made cattle stripped of their humanity.  To this extent, Karnak has deemed Adam an effrontery to the fabric of truth; and he has pledged himself to destroy Adam and put an end to this existential threat.  

In the previous issue, Karnak had interrogated one of Adam’s acolytes, a powerful being known as The Painter.  In this interrogation, The Painter was able to hone in on Karnak’s insecurities, highlighting that the false sense of meaning provided by Adam is truly no better nor worse than the abject nihilism entailed in Karnak’s philosophy.  Karnak didn’t take kindly to this challenge and slammed his fist down with such precise magnitude that it caused the Painter’s body to explode in a gory torrent.  Karnak claimed that the acolyte was a human improvised explosive device, but Shield sub-director, Coulson, remained unconvinced.  Indeed it was becoming clear to Coulson that this mission has caused Karnak to become increasingly unhinged.  

Karnak explains to Coulson what makes Adam such a threat.  Adam can see what people want and need and give it to them; and in so doing taking from them of something essential, making them less than human, turing them into monstrous slaves.  Coulson asks what it is that leaves Karnak immune to Adam’s powers and the reply is that it is his own selflessness and want for nothing that protects him.  

Coulson’s agents have identified Adam’s whereabouts, retrofitting a teleportation device to send Karnak to him.  Karnak arrives at a darkened cavern and is immediately attacked by a host of giant monstrous spiders.  These spiders are the remnants of Adam’s followers, transformed into mindless creatures.  

Karnak makes short work of these spiders, destroying them with a series of fault-finding kung fu chops and kicks.  Karnak then ventures further into the cavern, eventually finding Adam sitting alone in large room.  

Rather than fighting, Adam merely asked Karnak why he should take such exception to what he has done, why is it a bad thing?  He offers people purpose and contentment, the solace of meaning.   What is wrong with that?   Karnak notes that these dutiful followers have been transformed into spiders, yet Adam retorts that the life of a spider is actually quite rewarding and structured.  He has made them simple and this simplicity has taken away their pain.  

Karnak’s objection that it is all antithetical of truth.  He states that he helps people become free by accepting the absolute truth that they are nothing, they are meaningless.  It is harsh and it is painful, but it is the truth and is ultimately liberating.  To be a happy prisoner or be painfully free, these are the two poles from which Karnak and Adam argue.

In the midst of their discussion, Adam probes Karnak, seeking out his own flaw, determining how he can give Karnak what he wants and hence make him a slave.  Karnak may claim he has no wants, but of course this isn’t true.  Adam can see into Karnak’s mind and he can see that Karnak is not as egoless as he says and indeed possesses deeply seated feelings of anger and inadequacy.  His being denied Terrigenesis as a child appears to be at the root of his anguish.  

Honing in on this pain and weakness, Adam offers to fix him, make him feel whole.  He will give Karnak what he wants and make him like him, cherish him as a god and become his slave.  Boschi and Browns art really cut loose in this scene, offering an haunting image of what it might be like to accept Adam’s godhood...

Karnak is clearly shaken, but retains his wits in time to dodge Adam’s enchantment.  Adam’s probing of Karnak has gone both ways and now Karnak is also able to ascertain Adam’s weakness, the flaw in his godlike powers.  He swings with a keenly placed jab, striking Adam in the temple and destroying the area of Adam’s neurological structure that control and enables his powers. 

A second blow renders Adam a near vegetable, effectively resetting his neurological functioning to that of an infant.  

The narrative leaps forward to Karnak returning Adam to his parents’ care, promising them that Adam will be able to rehabilitate (it’s anyone’s guess whether or not Karnak is telling them the truth).  In return, Karnak asks for his payment.  This harkens back to the first issue in which Karnak agrees to rescue Mr. and Mrs. Roderick’s son in exchange for a simple request: that they offer to him the singular that enables them to see the world as a kind and meaningful place. 

Mr. Roderick had thought the matter over and hands to Karnak a photograph of his family.  It’s a picture that was taken on a day in which they told their son that anything was possible, that he is loved unconditionally and could be whatever he wanted to be.  He gives this photograph to Karnak as a gesture of letting go of that kind, gentle sentiment.  

Karnak receives his payment with cold detachment and makes his leave.  

A final scene shows Karnak kneeling before the great stone in his Tower of Wisdom.  He has placed the photograph of Adam’s family at the foot of the stone.  Alone and unseen, Karnak allows himself to give into his sorrow and covers his face.  And it is here that the series ends.  

In announcing the completion of the final script for his Karnak tale, writer Warren Ellis dryly referred to the whole matter as “just bad readings of philosophy, punching, and a character study of an absolute trashfire of a human being. But I like to think it was worth it.”

Well, it has been certainly worth it, there has been a lot of punching and Karnak himself is indeed something of a trash-fire… I agree with it all except for the ‘bad readings in philosophy.’  

I’m by no stretch an expert on the works of Nietzsche, or Kierkegaard, Baudrillard nor Sjöstedt-H. Yet I know the material well enough understand Ellis was not merely name-dropping the theories for the purposes of a pretentious backdrop for violent action.   Ellis uses the theories but doesn’t resort to longwinded exposition or esoteric references; it’s not pedantic.  It’s accessible, straight forward and unapologetically weird.  

Karnak and Adam’s battle is essentially a question: is it better to believe in a higher power and in so doing become trapped and blinded, be rendered as sheep (or in this case spiders); or is it better to deny this higher power, to be free of it and embrace the harsh truth of meaninglessness?  This question is posed, but an answer is not really given.  Karnak talks like he knows what’s what, that he is without flaw.  Yet it is made abundantly clear that he is quite flawed; that he is a sad and angry little man who is intent on enforcing his misery on everyone around him.  

Adam was indeed a threat… his godlike powers could have rendered all mankind into mindlessly content followers.  And Karnak is something of a threat as well.  His strict adherence to nihilism is cruel and dogmatic.  He and Adam are two sides of the same coin… I don’t want to buy what either of them are selling.

Karnak is by no means someone I would want to hang out with; I don’t agree with his philosophy and he’s a rather miserable bastard.  And yet he is just hugely fun to read about.  And the general tenner of this newer version of Karnak has been picked up by the other creators including Karnak in their tales.  Both Al Ewing and Charles Soule have done terrific work in running with the version of Karnak Ellis and company have created.  And it’s ended up making Karnak one of the most interesting and fun to read about characters in the entire Inhumans pantheon.    I can’t wait to see what Mathew Rosenberg does with Karnak in the upcoming Secret Warriors series.  The prospect of Karnak interacting with the likes of Kamala Khan and Lunella Lafayette fills me fearful excitement. 

The whole series has been a bizarre, thought-provoking, thoroughly unsettling and tremendously fun read.  It’s unequivocally recommended.  Five out of Five Lockjaws.

[hollowandeceptivephilosophy]

Chusingura and Punching Nazis

Some background here Since I’ve commented on the Nazi Punching debate, it seemed worthwhile to actually sketch my understanding of the action. Short version: I think punching nazis is not immoral, and in some cases is morally compulsory, however doing so and then endeavoring to avoid punishment if one’s society has a functional justice system is not morally blameworthy. 

For those disinclined to read what I posted above, the story of the 47-Ronin incident is as follows.  1: Member of the Japanese Court abuses his position to make a feudal lord miserable, when the feudal lord attacks him in anger, feudal lord is forced to commit suicide. His estates are confiscated and his men are forced to disband. 2. They, realizing that they cannot avenge their master, pretend to be utterly dissolute for several years until he lets his guard down, and then break into his compound and kill him. 3. After fulfilling their oath, they surrender to the government, which eventually decides to require them to commit suicide (instead of pardoning them or executing them, suicide was viewed as an honorable death). The reasoning of the Japanese government was that while the action, and the loyalty displayed in it were morally praiseworthy, the government had to sanction such actions to prevent a complete breakdown of law and order into a series of violent vendettas (and of course, failing to act against those Samurai would undermine the legitimacy of the government’s own earlier decision).  I think a similar rule should apply to vigilante actions generally: they are sometimes morally justified, and the government can even recognize that they are morally justified, but they should still be punished according to the law, and the participants in them should vountarily give themselves up in order that they may be justly punished.  My reasoning here is as follows: ultimately, I do not think that the right to decide the “state of exception” to laws can only rest with the government in a democratic system, there has to be some space for citizens to exercise this power as well. However, I would argue that each such act, however legitimate, is a wound against the entire society, and the society should punish it. The damage that society suffers from a broken law is not the harm inflicted upon one of its members, since obviously society as a whole might benefit enormously from some individual act of murder, thievery, blackmail etc. (imagine that we discovered that Bill Gates enormous generosity flowed from being blackmailed, such a crime should be punished, but it seems reasonable to think that society has benefited enormously from the blackmailers action). Rather, the problem is the gradual  dissolution of certain norms that enable the continued existence of society at all: thus, exceptional acts can, and might have to occur in a democratic state, whether by officials or private citizens, but such acts should be confessed to as soon as they are completed, and punishment should be administered.  If nothing else, such an understanding prevents people from engaging in exceptional actions without some grave matter, and decreases the slipperiness of the political violence slope. Ideally, we want a system where people can choose to rationally act in extrajudicial ways when this is absolutely necessary to protect society without said acts undermining the very society that they ostensibly want to protect.(the classical case being tyrannicide, at least arguably the assassination of Julius Caesar was justifiable insofar as he was subverting the structures of the Roman state, based on the model sketched above his assassins probably should have gone a bit farther and killed Antony as well, and then resigned their offices and submitted to the punishment of the law. One of the problems of the Roman Republic, was that faith in the system of laws was undermined with each alternating “state of exception’ established by dictators to remedy the ‘injustices’ of the previous administration. They never really submitted themselves to punishment to restore confidence in the institutions that they desperately tried to prop back up in the aftermath of their victory). Now, my personal belief is that whoever punched Spencer probably wouldn’t have done so if he would follow these rules, and thus he was probably unjustified (in addition to being a coward for being unwilling to face the consequences of his actions). However, the above is meant to provide an actual structure for determining whether or not one is in fact justified in engaging in political violence which goes a bit beyond the rather meaningless “Nazis are always a state of exception” that gets bandied about at the moment. For example, given Trump’s rhetoric, I would be far more worried about Asian-American and Hispanic populations, and groups that have expressed nativistic views directed against them as being more likely targets for ethnic cleansing in America. So, I find the willingness to engage in political violence against Nazis somewhat unimportant, because it is vanishingly unlikely that they will achieve any real power, some other movement with a name currently unknown to us is far more likely to be dangerous.  The reasons that the Nazis were so bad grew out of specific pathologies of the European Enlightenment and the European Christian tradition, and particular ways that both of those were intensified in Germany. I suspect that the pathologies of the American system are sufficiently different, including our preferred forms of political religion, that an American totalitarian movement would look substantially more inviting to most of us than Nazism, and in fact Nazis are likely to be a convenient “radical fringe” for whatever new right-wing totalitarianism emerges to define themselves against. “See, we are not Nazis, that’s what the alt-right is really like, just ignore us as we build walls, establish relocation camps for immigrants, and discover that the countries of origins will not accept relocation and another solution needs to be discovered.”  However, I fully expect that solution to be more like slave-labor on the model of the American prison system and surveillance in an increasingly East German fashion, and that American totalitarianism will be the continued growth and extension of that system of control rather than the implementation of anything that resembles Nazi Germany. The American system is much more efficient than mass slaughter, since it actually produces value for the ruling elite while giving them an effective means of control and extracting wealth from those who oppose them. Extending and modifying that in increasingly totalitarian ways, and using various crises to entangle more and more Americans within the extension of the correctional system (or making it increasingly explicit how exposed Americans are to being branded by being forced into that system) seems like a more plausible extension of current American trends.  (It should be pointed out that I can easily see this system continuing to develop regardless of which party is in power: Trump’s rhetoric might accelerate aspects of this future, but both parties advance ideas that will continue to extend the coercive power of the government over more and more of human life. )  It is certainly plausible to me that some situations even now might require ‘direct action’ in a more direct sense, that figures or movements might acquire the power such that more speech is not a sufficient counter. But I’m not convinced that is presently the case, though I’m willing to judge each instance on its own merits.  To give an example, I will say, that if Spencer had been giving a speech which contained some of his past rhetoric, I would be substantially sympathetic to a crowd or individual doing what was necessary to silence him, even if that involved some violence [say, throwing a shoe at him]. 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Titles Meta, Part 2

Good morning! I wanted to get the second part of my titles meta posted today before I post my thoughts about the MSF, because I think what I say in this post will help shed some light on my thoughts about the MSF.

Check out Part 1 of the Titles Meta HERE.

Remember that @thegloriouscollectorlady and I collaborated on these titles metas. While Part 1 was mostly my thoughts with a few of hers sprinkled in, this post is the opposite: mostly her thoughts with a few of mine sprinkled in.  

Today I want to focus on specific groupings of titles, including titles that begin with a similar letter.

In Part 1, I say that we always see a pattern of three or more episodes grouped in the middle of the season, which deal with something different than the first episodes dealt with, and often the back half of the season is about dealing with the fallout of these three episodes in the center. 

So, for example, in S4, we had episodes 6-8, which were all about the Governor, and culminated in the downfall of the prison. Those three episodes were very different than episodes in the first part of the season, that dealt with the virus. Then, the back half of the season (4b) dealt with the fallout of the prison's loss. We've seen this pattern at least loosely in all the seasons since S4.

C-Titles:

I mentioned in Part 1 that in season 5, we have three C-Titles right around the MSF where Beth was shot: Consumed, Crossed, and Coda. And remember that Crossed was originally called Straight, but was changed for unknown reasons. I'm sure it was because they were trying to brand those three episodes around Beth's "death."

So while talking about this, we tried to figure out what the C stood for. My first thought was that it was "Christianity" because Beth is the Christ figure. I also considered the title Conquer, which was the final of S5, and the last time we saw the music box. So I thought maybe the C could stand for "conquer" or "victory, " because if Beth is alive, there's some kind of victory in each of those episodes.

Then after hearing @katkhaos's theory about Morgan being the coda, we realized we'd missed the most obvious meaning of C: Coda.  

So our working theory is that every episode that begins with C is directly related to or about the coda structure of the story. Of course there are other things going on in those episodes as well, but the episode is most focused, through symbolism, character development, and/or plot on the coda aspects.

So in S4, we have Claimed. In this episode, Rick escapes from the house where the Claimers come in. It's one of the biggest foreshadows of Grady we had in S4. He's imprisoned, has to go through a window, does so with scissors in his hand, then reunites "up the road" with his family (Carl and Michonne). There are also foreshadows of the wolves and the Alaska theme, which I'll talk more about next week.  

Then in S5, we have Consumed, Crossed, and Coda, which are obviously all related to Beth's arc and the coda. Conquer was interesting because it's specifically the episode where Morgan reunites with TF. I'll talk about Morgan more tomorrow, but he was kind of the "first" coda. The first character to disappear, first in S1 and then return in S3. But obviously his story wasn't over then. We were really left hanging in that episode. Now he's returned again. And when/if ever he dies, I'm sure it will be in a way that closes his arc entirely, just as they did with Sasha. Remember, everything gets a return. So if Morgan reuniting with TF in 5x16 is a template for Beth, obviously that has everything to do with the coda structure. We also saw wolves stuff in that episode, and hints at the Sasha/Tyreese stuff from the missing 17 days, all of which revolves around Beth.

The only other episode we may be able to relate to this is The Cell in season 7. That was obviously all about Daryl, but had major callbacks to Beth, especially through the music (X), and major development (in a negative way) for Daryl. Obviously that could be related to the whole coda structure.

Let's move on to A, I, and F titles.

First, though, check out this line that jumped out at me while re-watching 7x13 this summer:  

After Benjamin is shot, Gavin yells at Ezekiel saying that from now on he will deliver his offerings to the saviors on time and it will all be there, or else. He says, "It's As or Fs, no Is." I'm assuming that means letter grades. A would be the highest or top of the class. F would be failing. Is would be "incompletes" which the saviors won't accept. Just keep this in mind while we talk.

I-Titles:

All I titles without exception come from S4. Infected, Isolation, Indifference, Internment, and Inmates. There have been no other I titles since S4. At one point in 4a, Rick says to Hershel, "was that indifference?" When talking about how he'd stepped down from leadership and been a farmer. So I've always thought the I-titles meant having some kind of negative attitude toward the situation at hand. But based on Gavin's line in S7, maybe the I-titles represent something being incomplete. That's interesting because there are a lot of things from S4 that have never been explained.  

A-Titles:

Before we get started, check out this info @katkhaos found:

1. Atlanta used to be called Terminus.

2. There’s a phoenix statue in Atlanta.

3. Origin of the name, Slab Town (from wiki):

I didn't know most of this. I knew that Atlanta was originally called Terminus, as that was highly circulated back when S4 aired. But I didn't know the other details, especially about Slabtown. How many times have I said that Slabtown is a weird title? Obviously it was put in purposefully and with intent that makes sense, given what was going on at Grady.  

So we've gone over a lot of things we think the A in the titles might represent. A has been a big visual symbol in the show throughout the seasons, as well as a frequent letter for starting titles. 

We've talked about it meaning trials and death, because A block was where those sick with the virus were put. It was "death row." And every time we've seen As it's been in conjunction with major trials, such as the train car at Terminus, the A on FG's church, which was when Bob died and the Termites attacked. We saw it at Alexandria around Sam, who later died, and Carol saw it specifically after the wolf attack in 6x02. Then there's the A on the back of Daryl's shirt at the Sanctuary.  

We've also discussed it meaning "first" bc it's the first letter of the alphabet. So TF = the first family of the apocalypse. (Hey, it could just mean Apocalypse, right? ;D) I've also thought it might mean reunion, because in 4x16, the A train car WAS a reunion for most of TF. Beth wasn't there, but nearly everyone else was. And many of the As we've seen have been right after the group as a whole or specific characters came back together.

But given the info above, perhaps A means Atlanta. Perhaps all episodes that start with A point back toward Atlanta in some way.

So in S4, we have After, Alone, and A. Obviously the group was still just outside Atlanta at that point, but obviously Alone and A are very Beth-heavy. Alone: obviously. A because we had the sheriff's hate flashback in it. After is less obvious but we do have a lot of Beth/Carl parallels in that episode, including scissors and bats, and the fact that Carl goes off on his own and survives. So they do all point to stuff that happened in or around Atlanta, both literally and symbolically. 

The only other A title we have is in S6, Always Accountable. And that has SO much Beth symbolism in it, including the Cherokee Rose, so it's really interesting if this episode is meant to point us back to Atlanta.  

F-Titles:

I wanted to touch briefly on these bc of Gavin's line. If F = fail, then maybe all the F-Titles (and there aren't many) have something to do with a failure on TF's part. There are none in S4. In S5, we have Four Walls and a Roof. They conquered the Termites, but with a great deal of brutality. Plus Bob died in this episode. So where TF's humanity is concerned, it might be considered an epic fail.

In 5b, we have Forget. The fails are much smaller here, but I’m thinking of both Daryl and Sasha. They are two of the three characters from Them who were very lost at this point in the story. Daryl tried to go in to the dinner party, but couldn't bring himself to do so. Sasha went, but had a bit of a meltdown while there. So the Fs may stand for when TF or particular characters try to do things, but fail. (There's also the "try/trying" theme to consider, though we don't see that in the titles.)

In S6, we have First Time Again. I think that title is mostly about the beginning of the retellings, but we do have Operation Lead the Walkers Away to consider. Overall it was not a success. Half the herd broke off and went toward Alexandria, so you could call that an epic fail too.

There really aren't any other titles that start with F. There is "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life," but that actually begins with "the" and I'm going to talk about "the" titles in a minute, so I'll come back to that one.

S-Titles:

We have quite a few S-titles. @thegloriouscollectorlady noticed that, specifically in S7, the S Titles seemed to revolve around TF searching for guns for the war. So we have Service, where the guns were taken from Alexandria by Negan. Swear, where Tara finds Oceanside, which is where TF will eventually take a bunch of guns for the war. In Sing Me a Song, while Carl is at the Sanctuary, Rick and Aaron are out searching for supplies (to give the Saviors) and Michonne is on a mission of her own, searching for the Sanctuary. In Say Yes, Richonne is specifically looking for guns. In Something They Need, TF goes to Oceanside and filches all their guns.  

So while in S7, most of these revolved around guns, I'm going to make the assumption a little broader and say that S-Titles are about searching for something. Something they need. (S = search.) The reason is that there are other things besides guns they search for. And then let's look back at other S Titles:

S4: Still. Wow. I could really go down the rabbit hole with this one. I could go on and on about Daryl and Beth were emotionally searching for a lot of things. For each other. Freedom from their negative pasts. A way through their grief. A way to let go of the tragedy at the prison and move forward. In terms of plot, they spent a lot of the episode searching for supplies, and for booze.  

And @boltthrutheheart and I have had extensive convos about how interesting it is symbolically that the moonshine is a much stronger drink than the peach schnapps Of course Daryl was totally looking down his nose as the fruity drink, but even in terms of alcoholic percentage, moonshine has a MUCH higher proof than the schnapps did. And that's interesting because of Beth's, "I am strong." She COULD have drank the schnapps of course, but she needed to be stronger than that. And was. So moonshine was much more her drink symbolically. She held her liquor very well. Almost unrealistically well given that it was her first drink.  

Okay I'll stop. But definitely things being searched for in Still.  

In S5 we had Strangers, Slabtown, Self-Help, and Spend. In Strangers, TF looks for food at the food bank, you could argue FG is looking for redemption. But most important is Daryl looking for Beth. This is the episode where he and Carol take off for Atlanta (A). 

Slabtown was Beth's episode, so I doubt I have to explain it. In terms of searching, she's searching for a way out, searching for her own emotional strength, and searching for her family, though she doesn't get to do so very actively bc she's imprisoned at the hospital. 

In Self-Help, they're looking for D.C. in order to figure out the cure, which doesn't work so well. (You could also argue that in all of these S-Titled episodes, they hit major walls while searching for things.) 

Finally, there's Spend. Plot-wise, in Spend, they're looking for micro-converters for the power grid (Lamp Theory). And of course Noah dies, so we get a lot of phoenix symbolism from this episode.  

In S6, we have Start to Finish. Tons of Beth symbolism in Sam's room at the beginning. I almost need to re-watch this to figure out what's being searched for here. Sam's searching for his courage, which he never really finds. They're searching for a way out because they're surrounded by walkers. And I know Deanna talks to Michonne about figuring out what she wants out of life. (2 episodes later, Richonne happens, which is really NOT a coincidence.) 

I already went over S7 S-Titles. In S8, we have Some Guy, the most recent episode. In it, they are still trying to get a hold of the weapons/guns. Carol almost got them but let them go to save Ezekiel. In the end, it seems Rick and Daryl finally got them by running the jeep off the road.  

"The" Titles: 

We've noticed that any time a title starts with "the" it tends to focus on the development of one character. It's not always a bottle episode, but at some point it focuses on one character's reaction to things. 

So in S4, we had The Grove, which was obviously all about Carol's arc. Ty was there too, of course, but the focus was on Carol, and it affected her the most moving forward. 

In S5, The Distance. Again, most of the characters are in this, but it focused on Rick's eyes and what he heard before going into Alexandria. So it focused most on his development and whether he could accept this new community. 

In S6, there's The Next World and The Same Boat. Both of these, imo, focus on two characters. TNW was really about both Rick and Daryl, with slightly more emphasis on Daryl. But I think it was about both of them because in this episode, we saw a reversal. In 6x01, Daryl was advocating finding more people to bring in and Rick didn't want to. Here, we see Daryl saying Rick was right and Rick saying Daryl was right. But it also focused on Daryl staring forlornly out the window, so this was one episode where they showed us his sadness. 

Similarly, in The Same Boat, I think the episode was about both Maggie and Carol, but with more emphasis on Carol of the two. Also interesting to note that both episodes had a lot of Beth parallels.  

In S7, we have The Well (Carol episode) and The Cell (Daryl episode), and The Other Side. TOS focused on both Sasha and Rosita, with perhaps more emphasis on Rosita of the two. But it also led directly to Sasha's death, which included about a billion Beth parallels. Just saying.  

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life is harder to pin down. It's a "the" title, but I'm not sure who it focuses on in particular. Possibly Maggie because she got the final speech. Possibly Sasha because it was her death episode. It's kinda on it's own because it's so long. So many words. Much longer than just, "the well."  

So far in S8, we have The Damned. Again, hard to say who the focus was on in this episode until we see how the rest of these arcs play out. Overall, I'd say Daryl both because of the handcuffs and also because of the brutality we saw from him in this episode. Rick's reaction to his brutality put emphasis on it. But you could also argue the emphasis was on Rick because of Morales. Again, we'll just have to wait and see where it goes. 

There are other, smaller patterns in the titles. For one thing, the titles Last Day on Earth, The Day Will Come When You Won't Be, and First Day of the Rest of Your Life are all related. And all of them, I think have to do with the end of Glenn's arc. The beginning of the end, his death, and then a final homage to him in 7x16.

I'm sure there are others as well, but these are the major trends we are seeing. I'd love to hear if anyone else has picked up any other title patterns!  

[thesinglesjukebox]

THE 1975 - LOVE IT IF WE MADE IT [4.46] Get out your popcorn, it's time for another controversial One Nine Seven Five single...

Will Adams: What? It's just an ordinary The 1975 s- *reads lyrics* OH MY GOODNESS! [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Matt Healy yelling Hot Takes™ in a wind tunnel as a warmed over INXS track plays is weirdly compelling, but not quite good. [5]

Claire Biddles: If anyone else tried this zeitgeist-quotes lyrical trick (it's barely a trick!) I would hate it, but a) I'm hugely predisposed to The 1975; and b) their inherent miraculousness somehow makes them the exception to every rule. The lyric tries to hold the enormity of the world and so does the music -- each electronic whoosh and whizz is a digital overspill from the heady whole, like even something this maximalist and ambitious isn't quite enough for them. [10]

Iain Mew: The sound is a great expansion of the omnivorous approach of the last album. Taking a beautiful twinkle and one shiny happy phrase and setting upon them with echo, reflections and a lot of noise, its sonic trip represents the overload of modernity in the compelling way that the lyrics resolutely don't. Maybe it's because I've been extremely online since way before The 1975 was a thing, but I'm already familiar with a great stream of context-free sourness and nonsense, and I'd rather not encounter any replications of it. If you're singing "poison me daddy" and "fuck your feelings" as slogans for satire, you're still singing "poison me daddy" and "fuck your feelings" as slogans. It's on a level with someone seeking out the most awful tweets to quote tweet them for clowning purposes, at best. [3]

Alfred Soto: Have these loudmouths gone and interpolated The Blue Nile? Sounds like it. "The Downtown Lights" relied on a steady pulse to put over its lovelorn message; "Love It If We Made It" relies on "The Downtown Lights" to pull a con job on fans born after 1985. I mean, why is this mix so crowded? [5]

Eleanor Graham: The 1975's music has this quality of dancing around your own mind in the stale air of Tory safe-seat mid-late teenhood in an endless cycle of UCAS and grey skies and girls and boys and club toilets with peeling paint. I don't expect anyone to be able to relate to that, but please don't equate my specificity with cosy familiarity. I'm talking about "Robbers" cutting straight to the core of everything that hurts about growing up within its first 30 seconds. Uncomfortable? Oh, god yeah! But when something so closely resembles the inside of your head, it is churlish to deny that you're a fan. All of this goes to say: I am incapable of being objective about "Love It If We Made It." Because it is essentially a dystopian "Robbers," with the same yearning indie thrum and a new urgency; because, well, you know, everything's decaying; because aren't we all thinking about the death of the republic on some level at all times, but don't we also need bangers? Of course, we should be cynical about pop songs that make half-hearted jabs at the administration and reference the deaths of children, which both 1975 singles have now done. In its defence, this one at least makes the statements "I moved on her like a bitch" and "thank you, Kanye, very cool" sound terrifying and surreal enough to remind me that "terrifying" and "surreal" should not have become platitudes. Is it toothless? Is it exploitative? Or will it be read in twenty years simply as addressing the elephant in the room? They've thrown the chorus in there -- raw, open, pleading, trailing off like a comet in the night sky -- to make all of those questions feel inconsequential. [8]

Juan F. Carruyo: A shocker in gloomtown, the song starts with a bang and it never lets up, swallowing everything in its path. The moody production suits the enveloping soundscape and it's worthy of mentioning how the bass plays against the keys in the refrain. By the time the song ends, it feels like this is the soundtrack for the rapture. [8]

Edward Okulicz: I'm massively fond of the 1975, but this is puddle-deep where it's trying to be ~meaningful~ and ~edgy~ and ~zeitgeisty~ and it's a hookless joy after the previous single's buzzy earworm. Big-name artists probably think they've earned the right to release indulgences, but we shouldn't pretend singles like this are anything more. [2]

Will Rivitz: Leave it to The 1975 to build off an earth-shatteringly good teaser single with a follow-up nearly as bad as the first was good. Look, I'm all for politically conscious songwriting, but these lyrics could have been written by any of the interchangeable and smugly ineffective liberal Facebook pages my high school friends repost material from. I can overlook the awful lyricism of "Give Yourself A Try" ("Like context in a modern debate, I just took it out," eurgh) because a) it's only occasional and b) is utterly drowned out by an ecstasy of electric guitars, but here Matty Healy's slacktivist garbage piles are given main billing. One point for the Lil Peep shoutout, one point for the glorious jangles after the second chorus reined in too soon in favor of a bridge that is somehow worse than the verses, and absolutely nothing else. [2]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I have to give credit where credit is due: this is an evil song that utilizes its structure as a means to elevate and justify its conceptual gambit. Matt Healy reads off a list of provocative phrases that act as a simulacrum of the discouraging news headlines, ironic shitposts and self-impressed hot takes that crowd numerous corners of the internet. The pulsating beat and claustrophobic mix amplify that particular dread, and the swirling harp is the only sound that feels unstuck from it all. It hints at a hope that is later projected in the chorus, but it turns out to be nothing more than a red herring. I don't expect Healy to provide answers -- I'd argue that he took the more effective route in providing a moment of release over anything concrete -- but I don't believe him at all when he says he'd "love it if we made it." This is the sort of dude who finds joy in crassly exploiting the tragedy of others for the sake of art, and it finds its roots in how he decided on the band's name. When the chorus finally breaks free from the monotony, his voice has a smugly arrogant tone that snaps everything into place: Healy is eager to be the source of relief for the trigger warning-necessary lyrics that he doled out in the first place. He can only be a savior for the bullshit he pushes on you, and he'll cover it up by touting we instead of I. As a political statement, this has virtually no worth. As a piece of music, the bridge makes exceedingly clear that this is just an edgy "We Didn't Start The Fire." As a depiction of narcissistic manipulation, this is excellent -- perhaps the best of the year. [0]

Vikram Joseph: Even without the viral billboard advertising campaign, "Love It If We Made It" is much larger than life, but offsets its pretensions with self-aware hyperbole and a streak of pitch-black humour. The genuine venom towards a society that permits Donald Trump and "a beach of drowning three year olds" is undercut by an awareness that we're all tied up in this mess -- they can get away with railing against modern existence without sounding aloof or curmudgeonly, because they're so self-evidently part of it, and, to some extent, in love with it too. The chorus is equal parts earnest optimism and grim humour, which just about epitomises their brand. There have been a lot of "We Didn't Start The Fire" comparisons, but it actually makes me think more of a half-speed, tongue-in-cheek "Ignoreland"; The 1975 feel better having screamed, don't you? [8]

Lauren Gilbert: See, I wrote an entire blurb about how this is "New Americana" v. 2018, and then promptly deleted it to write about what it means for modernity to have failed us. Spoiler alert: Modernity has not failed us, but the specific iteration of modernity of which Healy writes is certainly Not Great. Capital M Modernity is more (and less) than drugs and borders and Trump. At the risk of sounding like the pedantic graduate student I am, modernity is characterized by industrialization, market economies, nation states, individuality, and secularism (surely not the "Jesus save us!" Healy mentions). Healy's Modernity-as-characterized-by-this-song is not that. He's writing about the dissatisfactions of a left-leaning person in the Trump/May/dear-god-why-is-Boris-Johnson-still-around era, a modernity grounded in the specific sociocultural norms and events that shaped how certain rich English-speaking countries experienced in 2018. And if we consider that particular experience of modernity as the only possibility we have, it's pretty easy to conclude "modernity has failed us" and write a "We Didn't Start The Fire" of terrible things. And I'll give Healy some credit; "Love It If We Made It" does sound and feel like living in twenty-fucking-eighteen. But modernity the concept does not imply that we must live in our specific instance of modernity; we do not have to accept Trump and income inequality and in-the-future-everyone-will-be-famous-for-fifteen-minutes Modernity. And more than that, that specific (miserable) modernity is not even the only modernity happening right now. Around the world, people are living longer, healthier lives; fewer people live in extreme poverty; there are fewer wars. Healy's Modernity may feel like a prison, where we are trapped forever in endless cars on endless roads to places we don't want to go, but it is not the only game in town. I (and many others) am alive today because of modern(ity) medicine & honestly, I'll take Donald Trump and Brexit and "thank you, Kanye, very cool" as the price of being alive. Perhaps it's too much to ask for a band known for its cynicism to consider a fuller context, and the very real positives in the world we live in, but hey, why give themselves a try? [4]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[torontohypnotherapist]

MAY 7 — GEORGE GURDJIEFF QUOTES

ONE BEGAN TO FEEL THAT IT WAS GURDJIEFF AND NOTHING BUT GURDJIEFF

"I went to Fontainebleau alone. Mrs. Beaumont did not come because she felt an obligation to go to Dax, near Biarritz, to join her mother, who was taking a cure. As I wrote to her every day and she kept the letters, I am able to reconstruct my stay at the Prieure more exactly than some other parts of my life. So very much happened to me that, if I had relied on my memory alone, I could not believe that I was there only thirty-three days.

"I arrived tired and timid. Many stories were current in the London group of the hardships of life at the Prieuré. Orage, the journalist and critic, the intellectual par excellence who had never used his hands for labour, had developed powerful muscles and the hard skin of the peasant or fisherman. Maurice Nicoll, the psychoanalyst, abandoning his admiring following in Harley Street, had turned into a labourer and his wife into a housemaid. Wealthy and titled members of Ouspensky's group had gone over, and had been astonished to find themselves enjoying work as scullery maids. I felt myself singularly unfitted for such a life, but I felt an absolute need to break out of the spiritual prison into which I had fallen.

"The Prieuré had changed much in the eight months since my previous visit. The Study House had been completed, and work had been started on a Russian bath. The Study House had acquired an atmosphere that reminded me of the Mevlevi Tekke outside the Adrianople Gate of Istanbul. This was only the first impression: very soon one began to feel that it was Gurdjieff and nothing but Gurdjieff. About a hundred feet long and forty wide, it had a deep stage at one end and a low gallery ten or twelve feet broad surrounding a space where the pupils sat round on cushions on the earth floor. Facing the stage were two boxes partly hidden by curtains, in which Gurdjieff' s wife, Madame Ostrowska, used to sit and watch the 'exercises'. At the corners were fountains, and the windows were painted by hand to imitate stained glass. All through, the building had an impromptu air about it—more like a stage set than a permanent structure. And yet its character was so strong and so distinctive that no one who entered could withstand its influence."

~ JG Bennett “Witness” ...

HURRY UP AND EXPECT NOTHING OF THE WORK

Questioner: Sir, until several months ago, I tried to free myself from external influences and in particular in my relation with others. But I have run up against a rather grave obstacle, the difficulty of establishing a relationship with people. I see well what I ought to ask them, but when I am in contact with them, I do not see what they can ask me and I can never make other than a superficial contact.

Gurdjieff: Then, hurry up and expect nothing of the work. It is only after that you will be able to have results. Do everything without identifying yourself internally and, externally, play a role. This role is to be exactly as you were before. Act around each as you have done until now, without letting him know externally that you are working. No one must notice that you do something. Expect nothing. Do only your task. Do not identify internally with anyone or anything. This is your task. Be exactly as before, it is the role that you must play. Automatically you have changed and you cannot be as you were before; this will make you understand what this is and understand why I call this "to play a role." Do not let him see that you are doing something exceptional. Search not to enlighten, to send rays outside, you are not strong enough; you have not the possibility of doing it. One must never expect, leave things to be done as before. Your friend was idiotic? Let him be idiotic, and keep the same relationship. He was intelligent? Let him be intelligent. Show him that nothing has changed. This is called playing a role.

~ George Gurdjieff "Paris/Wartime Meetings" ...

YOU ARE HALLUCINATED

Question: You advised sincerity. I have discovered that I would rather be a happy fool than an unhappy philosopher.

Answer: You believe you are not satisfied with yourself. I push you. You are quite mechanical, you cannot do anything, you are hallucinated. When you look with one center you are entirely under hallucination; when with two you are half-free; but if you look with three centers you cannot be under hallucination at all. You must begin by collecting material. You can have no bread without baking; knowledge is water, body is flour, and emotion—suffering—is fire.

~ George Gurdjieff "Views From the Real World" ...

THE VALUE OF THIS THINKING IS—SIMPLY MATERIAL

“To those who have heard about density of intelligence I can say that the sex center and the moving center have a corresponding density of intelligence, whereas the formatory apparatus has not got this property. The action of these centers as well as their reaction are psychical, whereas in the formatory apparatus they are material. Consequently our thinking, our so-called thoughts—if the cause and effect of this thinking lie in the formatory apparatus - are material. No matter how highly varied our thinking may be, no matter what label it bears, what guise it assumes, what high-sounding name it has, the value of this thinking is—simply material. And material things are, for instance, bread, coffee, the fact that someone has trodden on my corn, looking sideways or straight, scratching my bark, and so on. If this material, such as pain in the com etc., were absent, there would be no thinking.”

~ “Gurdjieff's Early Talks 1914-1931”