#and i saw that her characters all had multiple images even without alternate designs

[dyed-indigo]

y'know i intended to draw a bunch of refs for some of my characters that i haven't posted a ton of art of for artfight this year but i think i'm literally just gonna make crunch and wesker's refs, re-do reverie's ref (it's been bugging me since last year), format and upload horatio's preexisting ref, and update some character descriptions. that might just be all i have the energy for regarding artfight prep, at least if i wanna have some energy going into artfight too

[thelustrousyellowdiamond]

List of references and behind the scenes stuff for the latest arc

If there’s anything you’d like to know about or something I missed, please send an ask about anything that’s happened in the log if you need clarification, juicy details, etc.

- This whole storyline was supposed to be an alternate take on the events of Change Your Mind. I made it my goal to change and improve on things I didn’t like all that much. However, many of my plans for this arc were made before even Familiar aired on TV. I had always intended for Blue and Yellow to realize the truth by watching the videos that Rose made for Steven, and then for Steven to say, “Wait, you actually called me Steven!” I was rather taken aback in Familiar when Blue called Steven by his name in that episode because it didn’t seem like she was at the point of acceptance yet. I had Steven say that to Yellow instead so it wouldn’t feel too repetitive (that episode is canon to the events of the story) although I will point out that she did call him that while she was working at the Big Donut, but that was mainly to avoid suspicion.

-There’s a role reversal from Change Your Mind, with Yellow and the Crystal Gems fighting against Blue to get Steven out of the bubble, as opposed to Blue and Steven fighting against Yellow to get the Crystal Gems out of a bubble. 

- My goal here was to have all of the Crystal Gems play a role in saving Steven’s life. In Change Your Mind, the only thing that they really do that’s useful is fuse with Steven. I wanted to make sure that even though they were overpowered, they could still use their wits to save his life. Connie caught Steven while he was falling, Pearl stood up to Blue Diamond, Amethyst gave Garnet the idea of using her future vision powers, and Garnet was the one who pulled the whole plan off.

-One thing I did like in the Diamond Days arc was the fusion cameos, obviously I couldn’t do fusions with Steven, so I got those out of the way earlier (I’ll explain later why I needed to have him fuse then)

-One minor bit of character development I did was to show Pearl and Sugilitie working together to save Steven, and they have an improved relationship.

-Pearl being able to resist Blue’s aura is an improvement of the scene between Blue and Lapis. I wanted Pearl to stand up to Blue by empathizing with her rather than claiming that her pain is worse than hers. That was something that irritated me. I made a callback to Three Gems and a Baby and A Single Pale Rose to compare Pearl’s situation to Blue’s, and have Pearl explain how she got through it. Her motherly relationship also shows in “YOU WILL NOT HURT MY BABY!” To me, it just seemed truly more empowering.

-Garnet is very conflicted in the scene where she contemplates kissing Blue with future vision because Ruby sees it as scandalous to their relationship with Sapphire and with their shared enmity towards Blue. While Sapphire sees it as the only way to save Steven, while Ruby would rather just beat Blue up the old fashioned way. Let’s just say for now that it’s not a settled issue between the two of them… (Also, the future vision thing was an afterthought honestly, I needed Blue to fall into a trance that would change her mind but couldn’t figure out how it would play out, and then it just clicked)

-With that, I realize many people were confused as to what was happening to Blue. All of it was an illusion, and Blue was seeing multiple futures at the same time. One was Pink with a dead unrevivable Steven, another was Pink Steven, another was Rose with a resurrected Steven, and the last was one where nothing came back from the pink diamond gem at all. It’s fun coming up with all the possible ways that could have played out that I could actually include here in some capacity.

-The scene where Pink Diamond confronts Blue in future vision is a reference to Hans confronting Elsa over Anna’s frozen heart in the movie Frozen, down to the moment where Blue drops to the ground in grief while her aura of power subsides.

-Blue regretting her actions and desiring to return Steven’s gem is meant to be similar to what Pearl went through in Three Gems and a Baby, not understanding why Rose gave up her form, but accepting it nonetheless.

-Amethyst’s line, “We’re not the Crystal Gems without him” is a callback to her line in Gem Glow about the team not being complete without Steven.

-Garnet’s line “I wasn’t strong enough,” is a line she says when poofed in Attack the Light, though the dialogue from the game came from season 1 of the show since Estelle didn’t record for that game. I’m not sure which episode it was taken from.

-The music in both videos is taken from the track “The Tear Heals” from Tangled. It was a big giveaway, so I held off until now to specify which track it was.

-The whole death and resurrection scene is a reference to all those Disney Princess movies, but most especially to Tangled and Beauty and the Beast. Fitting, since many princess references were used in Diamond Days anyway.

-For the first video, I was originally going to do a zoom out on the last frame but my editor wouldn’t let me do that so I just did a fade effect instead.

-The way Steven rises from the ground while regenerating is mainly a reference to Beauty and the Beast, as well as the reaction shots. You could see it as a lowkey reference to Lars’ resurrection though.

-The flaming effect was a reference to the way Time Lords regenerate in Doctor Who, but animating those flames would have proven difficult so I just did simple fade effects.

-The rose blooming from Steven’s chest is a reference to the scene from Tangled where the image of the golden flower appears on Eugene’s wound. It’s also a reference to how Steven’s powers work, as well as to his mother, Rose Quartz.

-Speaking of which, I had the ghost of Pink Diamond appear for several significant reasons. For one, I hated the implication that she was completely and totally “gone,” and having Steven cry over and hug a clone of himself just seemed a little weird to me. I decided to go with a more compromising route, by having her ghost linger for a few moments. But rest assured, Steven is his own person and being. I did this as a bit of an improvement on the original scene.

-One reason I had Pink come back was to resolve aspects of her story, one of which was to reconcile with her fellow Diamonds. Originally it was just going to be a moment with Pink and Blue, but I decided on including Yellow too. That moment was to represent her forgiveness of everything they’ve done to her and Steven.

-I didn’t have her turn into Rose originally, but it made more sense for her to appear in that form to the Crystal Gems, because that is how they knew her. For those who are wondering, she was trying to say, “I’m sorry” but the words are inaudible.

-I really like the fading ghosts kind of trope, and even though I had this idea before it came out, this would be comparable to Solaria reconciling with her granddaughter Meteora and by extension her daughter in the last episode of Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

-Rose’s tear was supposed to fall on Steven but physically it didn’t seem to make sense while he was falling too so I decided not to do that. 

-I also decided that Steven needed to be aged up- it was pure coincidence that his teenage design was revealed while I was drawing the next comic panel. He’s still 14, so not as tall as he will be at 16, but his height is slightly taller than Amethyst and Connie. 

-He has bangs, Diamond eyes, and a rotated gem to resemble Pink more, but in a very Steven-y way. His partial reformation was made to reflect his character growth (both physically and in maturity) and his acceptance of his Diamond heritage. It’s not so much that he’s trying to take on the identity of his mother (though he’ll still have issues later down the line, that’s far from over) but more so that he’s embracing his connection with the Diamond Authority, Homeworld, and wants to forge a better and brighter future with them as his family.

-Also, how on Earth could a homage to Disney Princess movies be complete without a romantic kiss? I was sorely disappointed when there was no Connverse kiss in Together Alone. There was a royal ball and everything! Such a wasted opportunity! Like that episode, Steven is self conscious while Connie is more impulsive and overcome with joy. Poor Steven was just confused, but I wanted to make it clear that he did enjoy the kiss and it did end up being consentual even though Connie swept him off his feet (literally). I wanted to add the accidental falling into the water scene because it looked cool to draw and just adorably awkward.

-The scene with Steven asking about his hair is both a reference to Doctor Who (Am I ginger?) as well as his desire to have pink hair as revealed in Storm in the Room.

-Yellow Diamond telling Steven that he looks nice the way he is has significance to her character development for two reasons. The first thing she said to him when she saw him for the first time was “Is that Rose Quartz?!? Look at this hideous new form she’s taken! Forget the trial, we should shatter her just for looking like that!” Not only is she finally acknowledging Steven as his own individual, but in her relief that he’s alive, she has come to accept Steven as he is and loves him truly, half human and all.

-One thing I didn’t like about Change Your Mind was that Steven’s mother issues were kind of swept under the rug. Yeah he accepts himself, but so what? Pink’s story isn’t done, and I don’t think he has quite reached the point of being at peace what what she has done in the past. But even then, you don’t just “get over” growing up without your biological mom, no matter how many female role models you have in your life. And I had Steven share his unique kind of grief with the Diamonds and Crystal Gems, as a reminder that the one thing they have in common is that they’re all grieving Rose/Pink and they want to move on as a family. His grief is unique because he never knew her. It’s really touching and sad, but there was a scene in An Indirect Kiss where Steven implies that he’d rather have known Rose and be saddened by her memory than to never have known her at all. The closest he can get is having his loved ones share their memories of her with him, and the Diamonds knew this whole entire chapter of Pink’s life that the Crystal Gems didn’t know. (Even Pearl was not around for that entire time as she was a replacement.) I didn’t include this because it slipped my mind, but Steven’s intention was for everyone in his family to be able to bond over those memories of Rose/Pink. After all, the Diamonds did miss 5,000 years of Pink’s life while she was with the Crystal Gems.

-Amethyst’s line “Darn it! Now you’ve got me acting all sappy!” is a reference to Rainbow Dash from a My Little Pony episode called The Last Roundup.

Anything I’ve missed or want to know about? Just tell me! And thank you for taking the time to read all of this, I’ll get right back to working on the actual story as soon as I can! (Should be less than a week)

EDIT: Oh, and one last thing! Blue Diamond's monologue was supposed to be a reference to what Pearl said in Rose's Scabbard about not being able to understand how she feels, as well as what Blue said in Reunited. There's a ton of irony in that scene!

[achrisstevenson]

The Illustrious Wendy Van Camp Interview!

Author Interview: Chris J. Breedlove

October 23, 2019

Wendy Van Camp

2 Comments

I asked Author Chris Breedlove what his motto for being a writer was.  He answered:

A Writer is… A humble, receptive student and negotiator But the heart that beats within his/her breast Is a determined savage Unfamiliar with surrender

Please welcome this savvy science fiction author to No Wasted Ink.

My name is Chris Harold Stevenson and I’m 67 years young. I go by the pen name Christy J. Breedlove for my YA books and stories. Yes, I changed gender entirely. That’s another story.

My early writing accomplishment were multiple hits within a few years: In my first year of writing back in 1987, I wrote three SF short stories that were accepted by major slick magazines which qualified me for the Science Fiction Writers of America, and at the same time achieved a Finalist award in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. This recognition garnered me a top gun SF agent at the time, Richard Curtis Associates. My first novel went to John Badham (Director) and the producers, the Cohen Brothers. Only an option, but an extreme honor. The writer who beat me out of contention for a feature movie was Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. My book was called Dinothon.

A year after that I published two best-selling non-fiction books and landed on radio, TV, in every library in the U.S. and in hundreds of newspapers.

I have been trying to catch that lightning in a bottle ever since. My YA dystopian novel, The Girl They Sold to the Moon won the grand prize in a publisher’s YA novel writing contest, went to a small auction and got tagged for a film option. So, My latest release is Sceamcatcher: Web World, and it’s showing some promise. I’m getting there, I hope!

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I considered myself a writer when I published the two shorts in Amazing Stories magazine. I actually considered myself an author after my first non-fiction book was published and hit the media. It seems I had to have legitimate credits in order to claim such status.

Can you share a little about your current book with us?

I can give you the basic summary, or the extended blurb:

When seventeen-year-old Jory Pike cannot shake the hellish nightmares of her parent’s deaths, she turns to an old family heirloom, a dream catcher. Even though she’s half-blood Chippewa, Jory thinks old Native American lore is so yesterday, but she’s willing to give it a try. However, the dream catcher has had its fill of nightmares from an ancient and violent past. After a sleepover party, and during one of Jory’s most horrific dream episodes, the dream catcher implodes, sucking Jory and her three friends into its own world of trapped nightmares. They’re in an alternate universe—locked inside of an insane web world filled with murders, beasts, and thieves. How can they find the center of the web where all good things are allowed to pass? Where is the light of salvation? Are they in hell?

What inspired you to write this book?

It all started with a dream catcher. This iconic item, which is rightfully ingrained in Indian lore, is a dream symbol respected by the culture that created it. It is mystifying, an enigma that that prods the imagination. Legends about the dream catcher are passed down from multiple tribes. There are variations, but the one fact that can be agreed upon is that it is a nightmare entrapment device, designed to sift through evil thoughts and images and only allow pleasant and peaceful dreams to enter into the consciousness of the sleeper.

I wondered what would happen to a very ancient dream catcher that was topped off with dreams and nightmares. What if the nightmares became too sick or deathly? What if the web strings could not hold any more visions? Would the dream catcher melt, burst, vanish, implode? I reasoned that something would have to give if too much evil was allowed to congregate inside of its structure. I found nothing on the Internet that offered a solution to this problem—I might have missed a relevant story, but nothing stood out to me. Stephen King had a story called Dream Catcher, but I found nothing in it that was similar to what I had in mind. So I took it upon myself to answer such a burning question. Like too much death on a battlefield could inundate the immediate location with lost and angry spirits, so could a dream catcher hold no more of its fill of sheer terror without morphing into something else, or opening up a lost and forbidden existence. What would it be like to be caught up in another world inside the webs of a dream catcher, and how would you get out? What would this world look like? How could it be navigated? What was the source of the exit, and what was inside of it that threatened your existence? Screamcatcher: Web World, the first in the series, was my answer. I can only hope that I have done it justice.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I’m a fruit salad of other known writer’s influences. Oh, like what I consider stylists: Poul Anderson, Virgin Planet, Peter Benchley, The Island and Jaws, Joseph Wambaugh, The Onion Field and Black Marble, Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, Alan Dean Foster, Icerigger trilogy, and some Stephen King. Anne Rice impresses with just about anything she has written. I think it’s the humor and irony that attracts me the most–and it’s all character-related

How did you come up with the title of this book?

After I had the idea/premise for the book, having researched similar works, if any, I found that I had something very unique. It dawned on me to name the book Screamcatcher since it was a play on words and it sounded impactful. Again, I researched that word and only found that it was used in a short story about a kid having a tooth extraction. I knew then that I was home free. I was continuously complimented by all of the publishers and editors who saw the title. It’s the first book in the series, and I have sub-titles for the other two as well, which are sold and just about ready for editing.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I’m not very heavy-handed when it comes to delivering messages in my books. I want to avoid any preaching at all costs. I do include the basic/standard survival, loyalty, courage and persistence themes in my young characters, as well as emotional growth and cooperation. I did hide, or rather include, a very deep and subtle message in the story that I think most will gloss over or not recognize altogether. And that is my belief that sometimes the nice guy finishes first and gets the gal. I wanted something that swerved away from the controlling, domineering alpha male that is so often seen in other works of YA and romance. I wanted a slow burn sweet romance that was touching. Quite a few reviewers recognized this message and I got kudos for it. That was a RELIEF.

Are experiences in this book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

The main character Jorlene (Jory) is named after my sister. Although she does not resemble the FMC physically, she does so in an emotional sense. Her boyfriend, Choice Daniels, is named after my great-nephew. All of my books contain the names of my extended family members. And there are parts of them that show through in the personalities of the fictional characters.

What authors have most influenced your life? What about them do you find inspiring?

Other than those stylists mentioned above, I had direct contact with members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Alan Dean Foster, Richard Curtis, Robert Bloch, Bob Heinlein, Clive Barker, and others. From their Youtube instruction videos and articles, JK Rowling, Anne Rice, and Stephen King have inspired me tremendously with their no-nonsense attitude about hammering those keys in spite of depression, lack of motivation or pure laziness.

If you had to choose, is there a writer would you consider a mentor? Why?

That honor would go to Poul Anderson who wrote back to me habitually and gave me guidance in the industry when I needed it the most. He took out his valuable time to befriend me and answer so many questions. Can you tell I’m a dinosaur yet?

Who designed the cover of your book? Why did you select this illustrator?

Carlone Andrus of Melange Books, Fire & Ice YA division rendered the cover after reading the book. I had a different idea in mind, but she absolutely nailed it. The compliments have never stopped coming. Most of the plot is revealed on the cover but you would have to search very hard to put it all together.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Watch your spending on ads–they can be grossly ineffective. Use social media and generously interact with fellow writers and readers. Don’t abuse FB and Twitter solely for the purpose of “Buy My Book.” Join writing groups and learn from the pros. Ask politely for reviews–don’t pressure, harass or intimidate. Be creative. Target your genre readers. Offer incentives and freebies. Craft a newsletter and send it out bi-monthly. Don’t take critiques as personal attacks–learn from honest opinions. Don’t despair. Never give up. Revenge query. I run a writer’s advocate blog and I pull no punches.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

If you think that you’ve had it tough, I recommend you watch Magic Beyond Words, the life story of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Books just don’t happen. They are nurtured and raised from infancy, just like a budding writer is. This business might quit you, but you cannot quit the business. Stay active and attentively writing.

Chris J. Breedlove Sylvania, Alabama

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Screamcatcher: Web World

[littlefrostwrites]

Prompt: a group of boys find a dead body

for my writing challenge

Kell puts his phone down on his desk, having just finished a phone call with a client. He had good news for her today, happy he was able to let her know that the opposition had decided to settle [description of case here]. It had been nice to hear her happy and grateful voice when he call, but he admitted it had been far more satisfying to see the opposing lawyer’s face when he had executed the winning move. He shrugged his suit jacket back onto his shoulders, having removed it early when he felt warm. But now he wanted to feel put together, as he headed to his managing partner’s office to report the good news. 

He swept through the doors, not bothering to knock as he could see through the glass that she wasn’t busy.

“I settled the London case!” he declared, dropping the file on Astrid Athos’ desk and plopping into the seat across from her. She didn’t look up from where her eyes were fixed on the screen of her laptop.”

“That’s great,” she said. Kell frowned. “But it’s just pro bono. None of that money is going to the firm.” At this, she finally looked up and took off her glasses. She was unimpressed. 

“Yes, but it does make our firm look good, doesn’t it, to be taking on all these pro bono cases, and not only that, but also winning them. So spectacularly as well!” Kell laughed. “You should have seem opposing counsel’s faces-”

“Yes it’s all very well a good that we won, but it needn’t have been you.” Kell sighed as Astrid launched into a well trodden argument. “As a firm, I agree we have to do pro bono, but that’s what we have associates for. You don’t only don’t pass off your mandatory two cases per year to associates as most partners do, you’ve already taken on triple that number this year. And it’s only March.” 

“What can I say, I’m a benevolent guy,” Kell quipped. It was lighthearted in delivery, but they both knew it wasn’t truly. Astrid got up from behind the desk and walked over to where Kell was sitting. He stood up, uncomfortable with her looming over him. This way, he was taller and felt more in control, and so when she put a hand on his cheek gently, it didn’t sting as much. 

“Son, you are a good person. You don’t have to keep making up for the past.” She let her hand and her words linger for a few seconds, before retracting her arm and turning back to her side of her desk. “Besides, you left your silly dreams of civil law behind a long time ago and are a corporate lawyer. And in this field, you do what is best for the firm. What is best for this firm is for you, our highly skilled junior partner, to continue winning cases for paying clients. So I ask that you focus on that for the remainder of the quarter. Do you understand me?” Kell sighed and then nodded sharply.

“Yes.”

_____

Delilah is in the kitchen when Kell finally gets home around 8 PM, the table set and the food cold on top it. She’s not mad though, just greets him with a kiss, asking him how work was and chiming, “You work so hard!” when he told her briefly about his day. They eat dinner in silence, a simple pasta salad. Delly had grown up in a house with not one, but multiple maids to clean the large rooms and cook for her family of six. When they moved in together, Kell had refused Delly’s inquiry of hiring a maid for themselves, citing that two young professionals should be able to also keep the house clean and cook for themselves. When she had accepted his marriage proposal though, she had made him promise that they would at least get a nanny when they eventually had a child. He had agreed reluctantly, supposing that hiring on one staff wasn’t all that uncommon and would necessarily write them off as rich and out of touch. He hoped. 

He asked after Delly’s day as well, which had ended at 4 pm as it always did. She informed him that she had lunch with a number of sponsors, pitching to them the mission of the non-profit that she worked at rather successfully too. Delly was good at her job, and people instantly took to her, charmed by the story of the daughter of the CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world using her business degree to work for a non-profit that paid far less than reasonable to support the luxuries that she was accustomed to. What was often left out of the conversation was hefty trust fund that had be deposited into her account at the age of 25 and the company shares that her father had bought in her name since she was four years old. 

Image mattered though, and Delly was perfect for Kell, not only because she was genuinely kind and wanted to help people, but also because she was beautiful, well-connected and had a do-gooder reputation. And Kell was perfect for Delly, a lawyer at a firm that often took on high-profile pro-bono cases, showing they cared about the public, but also a corporate lawyer, with a salary that meant they and their children would never want for anything, even without any of Delly’s family money. 

“Dinner with your parents tomorrow,” Delly reminded him once they had finished dinner and gotten ready for bed. They were lying together in the center of the bed, with his arm around her and her head tucked against his chest. They felt perfect together like this, Kell thought to himself. The kind of couple you would see in a movie, the couple you would root for because they just seemed to fit. 

“Right, 6 pm yeah?” Delly hummed in agreement before extracting herself briefly from his arms to turn off the light on the nightstand. Then she was back again and Kell found himself drifting off to sleep. 

***

Delly and Kell have dinner with his parents once a month, and have dinner with her parents once a month as well, alternating every two weeks to be fair. Today is a Tuesday and they make the forty minute drive from their condo downtown to the very outskirts of the city, watching as the skyscrapers vanish and are replaced by highways, trees and hills, and grand mansions. They park on the driveway of the largest one on the block, a pure ivory two story with five garages and a lakefront view. The first time Kell had brought Delly over, she had spent most of the meeting gushing with his mother about interior design, complementing her exquisite and classy taste in decor, and gathering inspiration for their future house. Kell knew that Delly was already scoping out the market on top of her involvement in their wedding preparations, and had even gone to a couple of open houses with her mother. 

Astrid and Athos greeted Delly and Kell with hugs, before graciously accepting the cherry pie that Delly had baked, instructing the maids to take it to the kitchen to keep warm until it was time for dessert. 

They settled down for their meal and made idle small talk, before Athos spoke more purposefully.

“Kell, I heard that your highschool class is having their ten year reunion this weekend?” He looked pointedly at his son. “Are you planning to make an appearance?”

“Oh we should! It would be so nice to meet some of your old classmates!” Delly exclaimed before Kell could respond. 

“Yes, I think it’d be a good opportunity to touch base with them, reminisce on old times and also, show them your achievements, how much you’ve changed and grown since you all saw each other last.” Athos gives Kell a meaningful look and Kell understands what he’s getting at. He considers for a moment and then says,

“I’d forgotten that was coming up. Yes I agree, it’d be good to make an appearance.” Delly made an excited noise at that and they continued on with their meal.

Later, as they were getting ready to leave, Astrid took her son aside.

“I’m proud that you’ve decided to see your highschool classmates again. I know it must have been hard for you to make that decision.”

“I think it’s time to confront them, don’t you? I’m a different person now, and it’s time to show them all that.” Kell’s voice was steady with conviction, but inside he felt a bit uneasy, a ball of anxiety starting to unfurl. He tapped it down and smiled at his mother. “I’m sure it’ll go fine. And Delly’s so excited to meet everyone, I’m sure she’ll smooth over any awkward moments.” 

“Yes I’m sure it’ll go great, you’ll both impress everyone. Delly was such a good choice for you, she brightens your whole demeanor.” Kell sniffed at that remark, but gave his mother a kiss of the cheek goodbye and his father a hug, finally leaving with one last remark that he would see Astrid bright and early tomorrow at work. 

Scene 3 (unfinished): The reunion happens and goes well. Catches up with boys. No classmates approach them at first, but then slowly some people integrate. Main character repeatedly points out good deeds he has done. Gets internally angry when another classmate takes attention off him recounting his probono work. But halfway through, some of the classmates take the stage to commemorate the death of one of their classmates.  Fiance, “you never told me someone in your class died?”. The word “suicide” is explicitly used at one point. When getting refreshments, Fiance asks him if he knew the other boy well bc he seems “sad”. He mutters not really, is overhead by another classmate. They confront him about it, fiancé finds out.

The reunion is on Saturday, so Wednesday morning, Kell reaches out to his old crew from highschool, asking if any of them are planning on attending as well. When he’s 

“The people here are so rude.” Delly interrupts him and Holland with a sniff and a light stomp of the foot. Kell asks her what she’s on about. “We were chatting so nicely and then they asked who I was with, so I told them I was your fiance and then they suddenly made up some sort of excuse and left! I was just in the middle of convincing them to become donors too.” Delly tried to use every opportunity to promote her causes. As shallow and airheaded as Kell thought she could be, it was moments like this that reminded him why everyone else bought into her passion for making the world a better place. She put so much effort into it that how could anyone doubt her intentions?

“You never told me someone in your class died? Is that why you’ve been so off today? Did you know him well?” Her beautiful face turned inquisitively towards his, her face scrunched in empathy. Kelly adjusted his tie uncomfortably, lowering his voice. 

“Uh, no we weren’t close. I barely knew him,” he lied, trying to keep his voice down. But clearly someone heard him.  

“Excuse me?” Kell and Delly turned to face a red headed lady with a wine glass in her hand. She looked irate and her face was red, a juxtaposition against the cream white of her business casual dress. 

“I’ve heard you! Boasting about all your achievements, all your phony do-gooding. You’re trying to erase what you did in the past, but we all remember. No matter how many cases you win, how many donations you make to anti-bullying campaigns, how many[...] we won’t be fooled again. You’ll always be a cruel, hateful boy and someday, you’re going to trip up again and show those you’ve fooled who you really are - a mean, hateful man, and now a liar and phony.” Kell thought she was done speaking but then she turned to Delly and said, “I’m so sorry honey,” before turning to him again to finish off with, “Go home Dane. Nobody wants you here.” 

A crowd had gathered around them, and Kell could see in the eyes of his former classmates and just as they hadn’t wanted him at their school graduation, they didn’t want him at their reunions either. It didn’t matter that some of them had been genuinely interested in talking with him about the various non-profit initiatives he was invested in and the one he was setting up at his firm, now they were reminded of their shared past and everything he had done since was tinged with insincerity. So he lifted his glass in acknowledgement, set it half empty down onto a nearby table, before taking his leave, sweeping a slightly starstruck Delly against him and towards the exit. 

******

Delly was quiet in the car and didn’t speak until they got home. She took her heels off in the front entrance and then dropped onto the couch in their living now. Kell hovered into the kitchen, but could still hear her when she said,

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kell flipped the kettle on and let the sound of the water heating up fill the space between them for a few moments. 

“I didn’t want you to think any different of me.” He sighed as he walked towards her and then sat down on the coffee table in front of Delly, taking her hands in his. She didn’t look at him. “We were silly teenage boys back then, too caught up in our own worlds to understand the effect that we were having on him. If we had known how sensitive he was--” 

“Sensitive?” Delly interrupted, and the tone of her voice would have keyed him into the danger of the situation he was stepping into. He hurried to correct himself.

“My point is that I understand what we did wrong back then, I wouldn’t do it again. I regret it every day. I’ve changed.”

“Have you? Do you regret what happened because a boy died or do you regret it because your classmates think you’re a terrible person? You know I always did wonder if you truly wanted to do good why didn’t you go into civil law? Why corporate? It never did make sense to me. And now I know! You don’t really care about the less fortunate, you only care about your image! It’s not about helping your client out, it’s about winning, and showing the world how many pro bono cases you’ve done so that they’ll all say, Wow look at Kell Dane, such a champion for the voiceless! You’re a fraud!” Her voiced gradually got louder as she spoke, to the point where she nearly screamed her last accusation at him. 

“You’re one to talk! You’re always going on about new initiatives, and helping those more fortunate than you and then turn around and buy clothing that has been created in sweatshops by the very people you say you care about. I may be a fraud, but you’re a hypocrite!” He lashed out. Delly stared at him with wide eyes. Kell had never yelled at her before, had always made sure to never raise his voice, present himself as a soft hearted, but capable, man. She slowly crumpled, like a butterfly with a broken wing would, and he saw one tear start to fall, and then she slapped him. The force of it whipped his head to the right. Kell didn’t go after her when she ran off to the bedroom.

Delly cries herself to sleep and Kell waits until her tears subside before crawling into bed next to her. He wonders if this is the beginning of the end again. Everyone had been so quick to turn against him in high school, the students, the teachers, the administrative staff, and especially the school board who were only negotiated into allowing him to graduate with the contingency that he was homeschooled for the rest of the year, didn’t attend the ceremony and didn’t speak to the press. The other boys were treated the same way, and they barely talked to each other either, too shocked about what had happened and each ruminating on their own role in Rhy’s fate. Kell spent the next year, next few years, angry with everyone. He was angry with himself for being so stupid as to not have seen it coming, for his friends for the same, at his parents using their money to get him out of any consequences, at everyone at school for deeming him a villain. He vowed to prove them wrong, show them that he wasn’t bad, that he had just been a normal teenage boy, maybe with a bit of a mean streak, but really he was quite decent, good even. He would show them, he had thought.

But now it was clear that he had failed.

Kell tried not to think about Rhy before, because thinking about him made him sad and angry and hopeless, and Kell was trying to remake himself so he could not afford to feel sad and angry about hopeless. Maybe that’s why he never told Delly, because he didn’t want to believe that it had happened, choosing to remove those moments in highschool from his character. But now, after being rejected once again by his classmates and lying in his bed with his fiance turned away from him, he does think about Rhy. Specifically, he thinks about how Rhy had felt when it had happened, if he had been scared. Or if he felt all those years ago the way Kell does now, empty and hopeless, as he set the scene and pulled the trigger on himself. 

[hotelbones]

Deconstructing Scores

Flux Scores

Semiotics

  Understanding Flux scores:

“They are people who are really trying to turn you on to the superlative activities you do everyday.” – Allison Knowles  https://vimeo.com/36770983

“What I want people to see is how really simply things can be done if you concentrate on that’s what what you’re doing.” – Allison Knowles

Event scores were the dominant Fluxus work, which particularly was distributed in Fluxus Boxes. One of the first of these boxes was George Brect’s Water Yam.

Dick Higgins called Fluxus scores “intermedia”, “a dialectic between media”. Intermedia is not media supported by other media, but rather media that is at the same time another media.

Dick Higgins also published scores called “Danger Music”. These scores imply both visual and audible elements. Some of them are dangerous and pretty much impossible, while some others are mundane.

“How an event score should be performed depends on its notation it uses and the degree of freedom that the score offers. While some scores are so free that one could think that a performer could do anything, this freedom often compels the performer to restrict and edit their work.” – Virginia Anderson

What details can be understood by analyzing all aspects of the score? Does the title give more context to the score than the text?

Some of these pieces attempt to transcend the objects into music and theater. As Allison Knowles does with her performances of her salad piece.

From Virginia Anderson’s analysis of scores, it seems that event scores aren’t meant for the performer to experience, but simply as an alternative to performance. I’ll look for alternative takes.

As I go deeper into learning about fluxus scores, it seems that while these may parallel games in a sense that there are instructions to follow, they are not actually games. These are in fact performances that have play-like elements. How am I making this distinction? With event scores it appears that none of them were meant to be performed by a person for the sake of performing them, but they were meant to be performed for others as music or theatre would. For this reason it isn’t exactly helpful to state that these are forms of games, but it may be valuable to view them through the lens of games instead.

This also may change with later scores.

George Brecht – “a deeply personal, infinitely complex and essentially mysterious, exploration of experience. No words can ever touch.” (Project in Multiple Dimensions)

An aesthetic form that Brecht theorized was that of the “Chance-Image”. Chance being based off the latin words taken from dice falling.

“The word ‘chance’ (with a Latin root relating to the falling of dice) can conveniently be taken to mean the cause, or systems of causes, responsible for a given effect is unknown or unlooked-for or, at least, that we are unable to completely specify it. Of course, in the real world, causes are also effects, and effects causes.” – Brecht Chance Imagery

An appeal of chance-imagery is to place the artist’s images to be equal with that of nature’s images as the mind is capable of infinite image formation. Thus making the artist’s work nothing special.

“Words only permit us to handle a unified reality by maneuvering arbitrarily excised chunks.” – Brecht Chance Imagery

“In the event, everyday actions are framed as minimalistic performances, or, occasionally, as imaginary and impossible experiments with everyday situations.”  - Hannah Higgins Fluxus Experience

Kotz and Ouzounian point out that part of the problem with Fluxus scores all being put into a single category is that their process becomes homogenized and Brecht’s work becomes known as performance.

In George Brecht’s notebooks he saw the idea of scores in other musical pieces and took note of them as study material: Anton Webern’s Symphony Op. 21 (1928), Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke XI (1956), an unnamed composition by Christian Wolff for prepared piano (probably Duo II for Pianists), and Music of Changes (1951). Brecht saw the number of pitches as “events” in these pieces. In some ways this could be similar to looking at event scores as games.

“My life is devoted to research into ‘the structure of experience’” – Notebook entry January 1959

George Brecht saw a really really scientific view of the world. Looking at everything from the causal and physics level.

George Brecht’s first exhibition “Towards Events” is weirdly reminiscent of my own semi-exhibition I had inside of the Statens Museum for Kunst. Objects were accompanied by instructions to be performed. There is probably some interesting things to be found by comparing my Irrational Games exhibit to this one.

“Brecht’s model of the Event was arguably an attempt to realize such an enlightenment by pointing to the chanced form as an arbitrary subdivision of the ‘unified whole’ of the universe. An arrangement of an object or objects is a ‘performance’ of this whole in that it frames moments or subdivisions within it, i.e. ‘[gives] order (physically or conceptually) to a part of the continuum with which [a person] interacts’.” – Ouzounian

“Some Event scores illustrate this concept quite explicitly. Three Aqueous Events, for example, lists three momentary states that an aqueous ‘object’ may occupy over time: ice, water, steam.6 A realization of this score entails performing (arranging, observing, ordering) these objects/states and, through this performance, revealing their condition as arbitrary points within a continuous field, and indeed their existence within a continuous state of flux between these points. In making this observation, the performer ideally realizes, and more precisely experiences, his or her own place within this continuum. Such an experience entails a kind of transcendence in which any stable sense of self is at least momentarily undermined through its connection to this larger system of flux” – Ouzounian

“In this way, an Event score not only structures occurrences, but also experiences, ones that are ultimately transformative in nature.” – Ouzounian

These event scores seems to have come from George Brecht’s interest in the systems of a score interacting with the systems of the world. Or maybe more specifically, he was interested in designing a score so that the systems of the two became indistinguishable.

Something else to consider when using Event Scores as precedents, is a lot of it was response to the forms of art in the 60’s. If I am creating something that is relevant to the field of games, ideas and theory should be translated. Again, the idea that just because Event Scores have game-like elements, doesn’t mean we should take them as games.

 What are the conditions that make an event possible? Events are produced in a chaos, in a chaotic multiplicity, but only under conditions that a sort of screen intervenes. --Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque

“Events are an extension of music” – Brecht interview by Irmeline Lebeer (1971)

“Arguing against the commonsense, mass-media idea of an event, Deleuze pinpoints two qualities which will be relevant in this context: "even a short or instantaneous event is something going on," "events always involve periods when nothing happens.” – Liz Kotz

 “The best Fluxus "composition" is a most non-personal, "ready-made" one like Brecht's "Exit"-it does not require any of us to perform it since it happens daily without any "special" performance of it. Thus our festivals will eliminate themselves (and our need to participate) when they become total readymades (like Brecht's exit)” – Maciunas in Fluxus etc./Addenda II

           Intervention I by Jennie Hahn and Cory Tamler

Intervention III

So looking at modern scores, how have they continued this practice, and why have they? These interventions above were created by Cory and Jennie to reframe humans and non-humans as characters and participants in a dialogue about the ecosystem.

Why scores though? It seems like these scores are more of a personal and accessible way for people to reframe their actions, body, and mind in relationship to the environment. In the same way that George Brecht’s Word Event triggers a multitude of thoughts related to the concept behind the word “exit”, In Kinship provokes thinking about communities, objects, and psychogeography. Also similar to something like Yoko Ono’s Watch Piece I these pieces ask the performer to do something that may be seemingly illogical, but upon performing reframes abstract concepts in a new way.

                      CAConrad – (SOMA)tic Poetry Exercise

Something about CAConrad’s work really puts me off. I think part of it feels like there is an air of trying to make work similar to Fluxus and also trying to maintain the artistic elements of poetry. For example, listening to Phillip Glass on the floor, feels like a very artsy thing to do. Which sounds stupid, but idk it just seems like a bit much. However, in contrast to that feeling what I find interesting about CAConrad’s work is the communication of a personal narrative through the score. This score isn’t just for the reader to see the world in a new way, but to understand CAConrad in a new way. Thinking about the score in this way, listening to Phillip Glass may be artsy, but that is because CAConrad is artsy and they want you to understand how they felt at this point in time. In this way it is fairly reminiscent of Mattie Bryce’s EAT.

[freudensteins-monster]

Full Metal Bitch

Whilst not directly inspired by it, if you’re interested in reading an Avengers x Edge of Tomorrow fic (set in the Avengers universe, featuring Mimics and time loops, starring Steve and featuring multiple ships) then I recommend When You Wake by sevenfoxes. It’s pretty devastating at times but I couldn’t put it down. I read it ages ago and this idea just popped into my head out of nowhere this morning [edit. the morning I started writing this… back in November], something about Barnes being a ‘full metal badass’ and then *click*

My fic has Avengers/MCU characters in an EoT-type universe, except I gave them Chitauri  to fight instead of Mimics  (no alphas, omegas, or time loops here) to go for a whole alternative version of the Battle of New York. And I gave them a pretty stupid weakness because I couldn’t help but put in a reference to Darcy and her taser.

Title from the nickname of Emily Blunt’s character in “Edge of Tomorrow”. Check out this link to see her / to get a mental picture of the exo-suits.

Darcy would be straight up lying if she said that the recruiting posters hadn’t influenced her decision to sign up with S.H.I.E.L.D., but she was far from the only one. She had yet to meet a single new recruit who didn’t say “I wanna be like the Avengers.”

The leader of the Avengers was Captain Steve Rogers. He started out as an actual poster boy, and with his all-American good looks and genial personality (even when battling hordes of Chitauri) he’d had been dubbed ‘Captain America’ by the world’s media. He was just some ridiculously handsome artist the PR department had discovered trying to sign up with S.H.I.E.L.D. after the Invasion. They convinced him he’d be doing more good helping to boost recruiting numbers, and if he did he’d be given his own squad to lead if he did his part, and he believed them, for a time. But as the war dragged on, and too many recruits came home in body bags, Rogers decided to put his up-til-then ornamental Captain’s rank to good use and snuck onto a transport to kick ass alongside his fellow soldiers. Rumour had it he had been forbidden from damaging that pretty face of his and when Rogers made it back from his first battle he had told the PR department where to stick their latest recruitment campaign. The powers that be weren’t going to let it go, and were ready to court martial Rogers for his insolence, until the story of the corporate pretty boy turned war hero started making news. He used the publicity to finally gain command over his own unit and hadn’t stopped flashing those pearly whites since.

His first official recruit had been the Iron Patriot, the most advanced exo-suit around (the damn thing flew!) originally piloted by a decorated army colonel, James Rhodes. He got the choicest tech because of his friendship with the creator of the exo-suits, Tony Stark, and he used the famed exo-suit on dozens of missions until a severe injury forced him to retire from the field. The PR guys wanted to keep the symbol alive so Colonel Rhodes selected the most promising candidate, Sam Wilson, a paratrooper who went by the call sign ‘Falcon,’ to take up the mantle.

The Black Widow and Hawkeye had managed to keep out of the public eye, even if soldiers had been telling stories about their amazing exploits around the barracks since the war started, until they took out a whole squadron of Chitauri in front of some quivering mess of a war correspondent.

The Black Widow had apparently gotten her moniker well before she even set foot on a battlefield - the Russian recruit utterly destroyed every sparring partner she ever stepped in the ring with – but the way she effortlessly dropped from a transport ship on a wire like a spider cemented it. Her suit was terrifyingly minimalist (the harness painted blood red) and lacking in protection, which allowed for smoother, faster movement. Watching her slaughter alien hordes was akin to watching a prima ballerina on centre stage.

Hawkeye, a rambling former carnie from Iowa, disliked guns and had jerry-rigged his exo-suit to shoot more vicious projectiles instead, and never missed a shot. When news of Hawkeye’s customisation reached Tony Stark he had been appalled at the craftsmanship but intrigued by the idea and had soon designed a new suit to accommodate the marksman’s more paleolithic interests.

The last member of the Avengers was Darcy’s favourite; Sergeant James Barnes. He was just a soldier drafted into doing his duty, but he was Steve Rogers’ best friend and one of the main reasons the poster boy had been so desperate to join the fray. They made an impressive pair, their fighting styles well synchronised after a lifetime together, until the Sergeant lost an arm during a skirmish somewhere in Europe. After an injury like that most soldiers would have accepted their pensions and retired, far away from the battlefield. But not Sergeant Barnes. He had Tony Stark design him a metal arm and then rebuild his exo-suit to accommodate it. If that wasn’t the hottest thing ever, Darcy didn’t know what was.

So, yes, it was because of her ridiculous crush on the legendary Sergeant Barnes that Darcy had enlisted and tried to be the best soldier she could be. She wanted to impress him and had imagined a thousand scenarios wherein the Sergeant saw her kicking ass and became instantly enamoured with her. It was stupid – she knew it was stupid – but she couldn’t help herself; she wanted him to notice her.

She’d once had the privilege of watching the Avengers walk out to their transport ship together – she swore everything moved in slow-motion - and her best friend had to hold her back lest she lick the shiny appendage attached to the dark and broody Sergeant Barnes. But it was the death of this same best friend that made Darcy finally see the war for the brutal battle for survival that it was, rather than a ‘bloody eye candy parade’ as she’d often joked.

They’d met in basic training and everyone in their squad agreed that Jane Foster was too smart to be crawling around in the mud with the rest of them. They made her their squad’s medic and tried to keep her out of the fighting as much as possible, but Jane was nothing if not determined, even if she freely admitted she’d rather be studying the alien invaders than killing them.

She’d thrown herself in harm’s way to protect their newest recruit, a barely legal kid named Peter without sense enough to take cover. Darcy hadn’t noticed until it was too late. She’d been too busy trying to catch a glimpse of the Avengers in action a few blocks over and would never forgive herself for letting her best friend die alone.

** *** **

Darcy woke with a start, the image of Jane’s blood as it left her body filling her dreams. She threw off her itchy standard-issue blanket, laced up her standard-issue boots, and wandered around the base until she found herself nearing the Avengers’ personal – and off limits – training area. It was barely 2am but there were noises coming from inside drawing her in. There, twisted into some ridiculous yoga pose in the middle of a room, surrounded by metal claws programmed to dart around violently to mimic Chitauri movements, was the Black Widow. Darcy watched on silently until the Avenger pressed a button on a remote strapped to her wrist to stop the training claws. She effortlessly unfurled from her complicated pose and levelled a cold stare at the interloper.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded in her lightly accented English.

“Would you spar with me?” Darcy looked as surprised as the Black Widow to hear the request. “I mean, I’m not really good, pretty terrible actually, but I want to get better.”

The Black Widow took in Darcy’s haunted expression and nodded just once, beckoning the green soldier closer. Darcy was on her back in three seconds flat, but she got back up and did it again, and came back every night for more punishment. By the end of the month it took the Black Widow a full ten seconds to get her opponent on her back.

** *** **

Darcy stepped into her exo-suit and went through the standard system checks, ignoring the furtive glances sent her way. It was going to be her sixth battle without Jane by her side, and each time it just got harder and harder to get strapped in as her squad was filled with new faces to replace her ever-growing list of dead friends.

Word of her midnight sparring sessions with the Black Widow had spread like wildfire through the base and her fellow cannon fodder now regarded her with a mix of respect and fear, so much so that they made her the unofficial leader of their squadron. Officially the title went to a Swede by the name of Thor, as he was the only one in their squad to serve before the war (and looked like the Scandinavian god of lumberjacks to boot), but he had been quietly nursing a crush on Jane since their first meeting and her death had hit him particularly hard.  

“A-Squad! The transport ship leaves in five minutes and you better be on it, or so help me you’ll all be on latrine duty for the rest of your lives.”

Darcy bit back a growl as an obnoxious Major by the name of Sitwell, who had never suffered more than a papercut in the name of his country, strode into their barracks demanding they march themselves to their deaths in an orderly fashion. Darcy stepped down off her prep station, the threatening whir of her exo-suit doing the talking for her.

“Lock and load,” Sitwell bellowed, breaking eye contact with Darcy first and hustling out of the room to go bother another squad.

“You heard the douche canoe,” Darcy called out with more confidence than she felt. “Lock and load!”

** *** **

They were dropped in the middle of a battlefield and Darcy got to work, her exo-suit spewing forth a hail of bullets as she pressed forward, trying to find some cover for her squad. They were doing well, all things considered, and had taken the high ground as they continued to push the Chitauri back, when Darcy did a quick head count and realised Thor was unaccounted for. She spied him half a city block away doing battle against a horde by himself. She ordered her squad to hold their positions and raced to Thor’s aid, cursing his stupid and inappropriately timed berserker rage. Darcy screamed out as Thor took a hit and the last standing Chitauri went in for the kill. Darcy riddled it with bullets but the damn thing kept coming back for more. In an act of desperation she reached down for a mostly empty exo-suit, hurling the sparking and bloodied tangled mess of metal at the alien. She continued shooting at the shrieking creature as she raced to Thor’s side, unable to process what she was seeing until well after the battle. In the moment she had been more concerned with dragging Thor back to their squad by his beard than checking out the fried corpse of one Chitauri.

** *** **

The Black Widow (“Call me Natasha”) was waiting for Darcy in her usual sparring room. As the minutes and yoga poses ticked by the Avenger started to worry that her new acquaintance wasn’t coming back, but then she heard the tell-tale shuffle of Darcy’s boots on the concrete flooring and let go of the breath she’d been holding. Darcy stood in the doorway, lost in thought.

“What is it, sestra?”

“You know Tony Stark, right?”

** *** **

Darcy strode through the weapons warehouse, forcibly ignoring the sight of mechanics hosing down bloodied exo-suits and welding the brokens pieces back together. She followed Natasha’s instructions and took a poorly marked freight elevator to a basement level.

The sounds of utter chaos coming from behind the bunker door would have scared off a less battle weary soldier, but if Darcy could face down swarms of Chitauri she could damn well talk to one eccentric scientist. She pushed opened the door and was felled first by a wall of sound (“Shoot to Thrill” – AC/DC) and then by a cloud of smoke.

“Did something explode?” Darcy coughed as she stepped inside the junkyard masquerading as a well-funded workshop.

A shock of black hair popped up like a meerkat from behind a huge exo-suit prototype, startling Darcy. She took in his hair, his singed clothes, and the fact that he was still carrying around a fire extinguisher, and declared the mystery solved.

“Dr Stark?” she called, trying in vain to be heard over the music. Oblivious to her presence he pulled down his industrial safety goggles and disappeared into the cavity of the suspended exo-suit. Darcy moved to where he had been standing and wondered how she was going to get his attention without scaring the life out of him. The music suddenly dropped in volume but before Darcy could say anything a hand shot out from within the mass of metal.

“Wrench – quarter inch. Now,” he added when the required tool didn’t appear instantaneously.

Darcy scrambled, located the required wrench, and passed it too him.

“Mallet.”

Darcy passed that over too, wincing as he put it to work.

“Donut.”

“There’s no donuts,” Darcy replied, looking around the lab frantically.

The inventor froze at the unfamiliar voice and backed out of the suit. He pulled his goggles off, leaving rings of soot around his eyes, and stared curiously at Darcy.

“You’re not Pepper.”

“Pepper quit last week, Tony.”

Stark turned to the new voice, a man with glasses, fluffy hair, and pristine white lab coat who greeted Darcy with a nervous smile as he stepped into the workshop.

“Huh… She’ll be back,” Stark shrugged. “Hey! Dum-E! No!” he shouted at a mechanical arm in the corner of the lab. “What did I tell you about playing with fire?” he grumbled, wrenching a blowtorch out of its grip. “Fire bad. You keep malfunctioning and I’m going to turn you into an exo-suit, I swear to God. Do you want that?” The machine whirled sarcastically, if such a thing was possible, and waved its arm in a way that suggested being an exo-suit was probably more desirable than the abuse Stark inflicted upon it daily. “Yeah, yeah, keep whining. And stay away from fire,” he ordered.

“Tony,” the scientist sighed, directing Tony’s attention back to Darcy.

“Oh, right. And you are?” he asked before promptly turning his attention to something more interesting.

“This is Private First Class Lewis. Romanoff sent her. Apparently she has a theory about the Chitauri.”

“Oh, a theory,” Stark cooed. “Banner and I love a good theory. Hit me.”

“I…” Darcy stammered, completely flabbergasted by the inventor. Chitauri were definitely easier. Right… Chitauri. “I got into a firefight with a particularly stubborn Chitauri yesterday. Bullets weren’t stopping it, and it was about to kill a friend of mine, so I picked up a short-circuiting exo-suit …”

“Hey! My suits do not short-circuit, alright? They are works of technological genius. And what do you mean you ‘picked up’ an exo-suit? What kind of idiot would disengage his suit in the middle of a warzone?”

“He didn’t disengage it exactly,” Darcy replied, biting back a sigh. “He was still inside it but missing most of his extremities. And his middle. The cause of which probably also caused the exo-suit to short-circuit.”

“…Continue,” Stark nodded, appearing as sheepish as a narcissist such as himself was capable of.

“Anyway, I threw the exo-suit at the Chitauri and it just sort of… freaked out,” Darcy said for lack of a better word. “Then the exo-suit started sparking even more – I might have helped it along by emptying the rest of my clip into it – and I think… I think it got electrocuted.”

The two men shared a look.

“Are you sure?” Banner asked over the rims of his glasses.

“Well, by the time it stopped twitching it looked like a piece of burnt calamari, and smelt half as appetising, so I’m pretty sure.”

“You didn’t happen to bring us back a sample of this burnt calamari, did you?”

“Sorry, I was busy making sure my squad got back in once piece.”

“Right, right… warzone…” Tony mused as his mind wandered.

“I know it’s not concrete evidence, and I don’t expect you act on half-assed intel, but I was wondering… I was hoping you might be able to make me something to test my theory.”

“Like?” Tony prodded.

“Some sort of flash grenade?” Darcy shrugged. “Or maybe, like, a military grade taser? Honestly, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be the genius. Do you have any ideas?”

“Of course. I’ve got a million of ‘em. I can even spare you a few,” Stark teased.

“Okay, then. My squad’s got to have boots on the ground at 0600 Thursday. Do you think you could put together something for me to test out by then?”

“Absolutely,” the inventor replied distractedly, already pulling up a holoscreen to start on a new blueprint.

“I’m in Building 12, across the compound.”

“Uhuh…”

Darcy rolled her eyes and turned to the more responsible looking scientist who gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Private First Class Lewis. Building 12. 0600 Thursday.”

“Thanks,” she muttered as the music returned to ear-splitting levels.  

She left the lab, leaving the two geniuses to argue over the specs, passing a familiar face as she stepped into the elevator. She tried not to react as her arm brushed against his metal one. She had more important things to do, like get her ass handed to her by Natasha.

** *** **

Sergeant Barnes meandered down to Stark’s lab to get his arm checked out, accidently brushing said appendage against a stony-faced female recruit when he stepped out of the elevator. He turned to watch her leave, almost stumbling into the lab.

“Who was that?” he asked in the silence that fell between two songs.

“Who was who?” Stark asked obliviously.

Barnes turned to Banner as he pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“That was Private First Class Lewis. A friend of Romanoff’s.”

“Romanoff has friends?”

** *** **

Darcy paced in front of her exo-suit, watching the minutes tick by. It would take her ten minutes at least to get suited up so if Stark, or the more reliable Banner, didn’t show up soon she was going to have to suited up in her old gear. A wave of hushed voices rolled through the building and Darcy stopped panicking.

“Private First Class Lewis!” Tony Stark called, strutting in like a damn peacock, revelling in the attention his appearance garnered. Behind him Dr Banner and a few mechanics were pushing two new exo-suit stations towards them. “I come bearing gifts,” he smirked.

Darcy walked over and examined the first exo-suit and couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed. It looked pretty much like her current one, at least like her exo-suit did when it first came off the production line.

“What changes did you make?” Darcy enquired, trying to keep from sounding unimpressed.

“Hop in, I’ll give you a tour.” Darcy did as requested, ignoring the dozens of eyes watching the scene unfold. “Okay, it’s pretty much your standard Mach 5 exo-suit,” he explained, strapping Darcy in and taking over her wrist mounted control panel. “But I shed some unnecessary weight and powered it with arc reactor tech, so no more lugging around extra battery packs. Now to your toys. For every standard weapon you’ve got an electrified version. Ten Nebula grenades, patent pending. They’ll light up everything in a five yard radius. And ten clips of Nebula bullets, patent also pending. Do not waste those by firing on automatic. Shoot one, give it a second for the charge to detonate, shoot another if you need to. Got it?”

“Got it,” Darcy nodded, testing the movement of her new suit. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” the inventor replied dismissively. “Now, where’s your Norse god?”

“Huh?” Darcy blinked.

“Sergeant Odinson!” Tony called out, reeling back when Thor stepped out of the line-up. “Sheesh, Romanoff wasn’t kidding. You’re a friggin’ giant. How do you even fit into the Mach 5?”

“With difficulty,” Thor replied, glancing at Darcy for answers.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about squeezing into that exo-suit anymore. I got you a new one. Step on in. Pretty much standard, but obviously it should fit you better,” Tony rambled as Thor tested the suit out, smiling to himself when he discovered he didn’t have to hunch over quite so much. “You’ve got your standard weapon on the left arm but on the right,” Tony drawled, pressing a few buttons and revelling in the surprised gasps from his captive audience as the enlarged right fist of the exo-suit shot out and landed with a loud thunk five feet in front of them. He pressed a few more buttons and the fist, connected to the suit by a several chains and wires, retracted quickly.

“Oh, I like this,” Thor beamed, raising his hammer shaped fist up to inspect it.

“You can also use it to electrocute the bastards. Hit your target then press this button right here to light ‘em up. But, and I can’t stress this enough, make sure you’re gripping these handles when you do. They act like grounding wires and stop the exo-suit from roasting you like a turkey. Got it?”

“I understand. Thank you, Dr Stark.”

“No big deal. A little spider said you were having some anger management issues. This should help you work through them.”

“Thank you,” Darcy repeated.

“Uhuh, just bring them back in once piece – I’m gonna want to retrieve all their hard drive data.”

“Sure thing, Stark.”

“And now that I’ve made my monthly public appearance, I’m going back to my lab to work on the Hulk.”

“The Hulk?” Darcy enquired, her mind flicking back to the oversized exo-suit the genius had been working on when she met him.

“Tony, the PR guys said you can’t call it that,” Bruce sighed wearily.

“It’s my baby, I can call it whatever I want,” he argued as they wandered back to the weapons warehouse.

The mechanics left but the silence remained as they were replaced by the Avengers themselves, all geared up and ready to go.

“Alright, A-hole-Squad!” Hawkeye shouted out, making Darcy roll her eyes. If she ever got her hands on Quill, the leader of L(oser)-Squad and coiner of her squad’s irritating moniker, he was going to end up in the infirmary. “You’re riding out with us today. Lock and load, we leave in five. Last one on does my laundry for a month.”

Darcy didn’t bother waiting for the Avenger to be out of earshot before she addressed her squad.

“You heard the douche canoe. Lock and load!” She ignored Hawkeye’s amused expression and fell in step with Natasha. “Not that I’m complaining, but what’s with the royal treatment?”

“We’re friends. The others seemed to think it was appropriate.”

“We’re friends?”

“Everyone says so.”

“So it must be true,” Darcy finished for her, flashing her a smile. “Stark pimp your ride too?” she asked, eyeing the new additions to the arms of the other woman’s exo-suit that seemed to glow blue at full charge.

Natasha pressed a button on her control panel and two short metal prongs appeared at the end of her fists, sparks flying between the two points.

“Stark dubbed them ‘Widow’s Bites.’ Patent pending,” she smirked.

Darcy just shook her head, “I’ll never understand why you’d wanna get up close and personal with these bastards.”

“What can I say?” Natasha purred as they got locked into the transport. “I’m a hugger.”

** *** **

The transport ships had barely crossed the Hudson before the proximity alerts went off and the bravado her squad had shown in the Avengers’ company started to falter.

“A-Squad!” Darcy shouted over the alarms. “You land clean, you stay together, and you work your way downtown. We’re gonna push those extra-terrestrial fuckers into the Bay, do you hear me?!”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” her squad shouted back.

** *** **

Sergeant Barnes couldn’t take his eyes off the avenging angel across the row, even as the bottom dropped out of the transport ship, wind and the sounds of battle whipping around them.

“What are you smiling about, jerk?” Rogers asked, shouting to be heard, glancing knowingly at Natasha’s friend.

“It’s just good to be home, punk,” Barnes shouted back, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey!” he pointed down at the familiar cityscape passing them by. “You always said you couldn’t wait to get back and for a run around the park,” he laughed.

“Yeah,” Rogers grumbled as the call to drop sounded. “This is exactly what I meant,” he said, pressing the release switch.

** *** **

The battle was already well underway when A-Squad landed. Darcy raised an arm to lay down some cover fire when bullets began to rain down from above. She risked a glance up to see Natasha swinging from her wire in a wide arc, not disconnecting until the immediate perimeter around her team was clear.

She landed gracefully next to Barton, smiling as she began emptying a clip into the next wave of Chitauri.

“Why do you gotta make us all look bad, Tasha?” Barton whined, before shooting a projectile behind him, smirking as it exploded on impact, taking five of the initial targets buddies with him.

“Avengers! Assemble!” their captain shouted over the noise of the battlefield. “Falcon! Clear a path to down towards Columbus Circle. Hawkeye, take to the rooftops and keep an eye on the park. Xavier and Lensher’s teams should be clearing it and I wanna know if any survivors come our way. We don’t want any surprises. The rest of you, follow me!” he called back, more to A-Squad than Natasha or Barnes. He pressed a few buttons on his wrist display and metal plates shifted on the left arm of his exo-suit to form a shield. He marched forward, protecting his now iconic American flag helmet from damage with his left arm and taking out Chitauri with his right. Barnes watched his back and Natasha kept an eye on both of them. Overhead Falcon made runs up and down the street, firing down on the Chitauri, never giving them a chance to regroup. They continued downtown for several minutes without too much trouble but then Falcon’s panicked voice came in over their comms.

“We’ve got skiffs incoming!”

“Shit,” Barnes spat, his eyes shifting to the skies.

“They are on my ass! I could really use a little help here!”

“Yeah, yeah… I got you covered,” Barton drawled, aiming his arm in Falcon’s direction. A projectile shot out of his customised barrel, right between Falcon’s wings, taking out the skiff behind him in a fiery explosion.

Free of his tail, Falcon landed in from of his team, his metal wings folding back.

“I’m a sitting duck up there, and I can’t get high enough to get the drop on them,” he advised as he caught his breath.

“You just need some back up,” Natasha smirked, eying an incoming skiff. “Cap?”

Rogers looked between Natasha and the skiff and sighed. “You sure about this?”

“It’ll be fun,” she assured him, getting a run up as Rogers planted his feet and held his shielded arm out. The rest of the Avengers covered them as Natasha used Rogers’ shield to launch herself at the skiff as it passed over them, swinging herself up and taking out the pilot with her Widow’s Bites.

“Remind me to thank Stark,” she said to no one in particular as she got a handle on the alien craft and turned it around. “Falcon, you coming or what?”

“How the hell do you make this look so easy?” Falcon grumbled as he took to the skies again, flying under Natasha like a Remora fish. Together, with Barton watching their six, they kept the skiffs occupied and away from the ground troops.

The Avengers were a finely tuned machine and any soldier would have felt honoured to watch them work, but Darcy had more pressing matters to worry about, namely not letting her squad get killed.

Upon landing and taking up the rear behind the Avengers her squad was joined by L-Squad. For all Quill annoyed the shit out of her, he was a decent soldier and cared about his squad as much as she cared about hers. Thor and Drax from L-Squad teamed up, going at groups of Chitauri like a goddamn battering ram. Crude but effective. Parker had miraculously survived their last few battles, and though he had become a better soldier since Jane’s sacrifice Darcy kept him close. He’d been making eyes as L-Squad’s Private Watson and Darcy wasn’t about to let Parker run off and make the ultimate sacrifice for some girl he’d never spoken too.

A pack of Chitauri were fleeing the park and making right for her squad so Darcy took the opportunity to test out one of Stark’s grenades. She lobbed the blue-glowing cylinder towards them and waited. Time slowed. Darcy could swear she could hear the soft tick-tick-tick of the timer over the battle. She watched anxiously as the Chitauri made to scatter, but then they were enveloped in blinding flash of blue light.

“That was amazing!” a dozen voices chimed as their eyes adjusted and the first thing they saw was the charred remains of the Chitauri.

“Use them sparingly!” Darcy shouted as she passed all of her remaining grenades but one off to the nearest soldiers.

A guy from L-Squad that Darcy only knew as Rocket (named for the homemade rocket launcher he took into every battle) made grabby hands for the last available one, a manic grin spreading across his face as he discovered it fit snuggly in the tube of his DIY weapon.

“Oh… Yeah…” he growled excitedly, running down the street and climbing up the customised exo-suit of L-Squad’s tallest recruit (a guy from parts unknown whose grasp of English was extremely limited). Rocket hauled his rocket launcher onto his shoulder, barking at his teammate to hold still as he took aim at group of Chitauri that were charging towards them from Columbus Avenue, cackling wildly as they writhed in the blue light.

Darcy ordered Parker and Maximoff, a new guy from Europe (his twin sister worked out of Medical and the kid did everything he could to avoid meeting her there), to her side, covering her as she tested out the Nebula bullets. It was a hell of a lot harder for her, shooting one bullet at a time. She had to make each shot count, had to hit her target, and accuracy wasn’t something her superiors worried about when their regular weapons can unload 625 rounds/min. And whist they were just as effective as the grenades it was frustrating and slow going using the bullets, so Darcy decided to take up the rear, picking off stragglers, trusting Thor and Quill to keep leading their teams forward.

And just when everything seemed to be going so well it all went to shit. A skiff got past Natasha and Falcon and distracted the ground troops from the horde spilling out of the park on their left. Rocket stole a Nebula grenade from one of his own squad and fired it towards the park. It took out a handful of them but the rest kept coming. Darcy switched back to regular bullets and practically cut them in half. Rocket loaded his bazooka with its standard projectiles but just as he was ready to fire his human tower took a bullet to the knee and they both fell backwards. Rocket’s finger hit the trigger as he hit the ground, sending the projectile straight into a burnout car on Darcy’s right.

Before she could even think to move someone was screaming her name, a blur of black and shining metal racing towards her. He made to tackle her to the ground but the ensuing blast sent the car sailing towards them, knocking the pair of them into the park. Voices called out them, Darcy could hear them as the ringing in her head subsided, but they were all too busy not dying to come to their aid. She staggered to her feet and almost fell on her ass again when she saw that her wannabe saviour was none other than Sergeant Barnes. As he came to and struggled to get to his feet Darcy moved to cover him as several Chitauri that had escaped X and M-Squad’s near surgical purge of the park made their way towards them.

“Shit,” she hissed, thumping one metal encased arm on the other, trying in vain to unjam her weapon. “Get up, Barnes!” she shouted. “My weapon’s jammed! Get up!” she ordered, practically dragging him to his feet by the scruff of his exo-suit.

She practically pointed him in the direction of the oncoming Chitauri and screamed at him to shoot until the fog in his head cleared and he was able to fight under his own power again.

“Quit yelling at me, Lewis. You ain’t my CO,” he growled as he mowed down the first wave.

Darcy’s retorted died on her tongue as the familiar, skin-crawlingly creepy sound of the Chitauri screeching was heard behind her.

“Shit! Barnes, we’ve got company,” she all but wailed, failing to keep her rising panic in check.

Barnes glanced over Darcy’s shoulder, swearing under his breath and he relieved her of a couple of clips, reloading before dragging her away.

“Come on, we gotta catch up with the rest of our squad. Barton!” he called, tapping on his ear. “Barton! Get your ass back here and watch our six. We’re coming in hot. ‘m fine, Steve. I’m fine,” he repeated aggressively. “You’re about two blocks ahead of us. We should be caught up in ten, if Barton can keep these assholes off our backs.” He jabbed at his ear, silencing his worried team leader, before turning back to Darcy. “Come on, we gotta get moving. It’s getting too hot, we’ve got meet up with everyone at the extraction point.”

Darcy stuck to Barnes’ back whilst he took out any threats from the park side, Barton and Falcon had them covered from the street side. Their squad was in sight and the incoming transport ships could be heard overhead when Darcy saw her life flash before her eyes. A lone Chitauri, injured and feral with rage, dropped out of tree right on top of her. She screamed and batted at it with her weaponless arms, and then it was gone, ripped off her exo-suit by Sergeant Barnes. He tried to throw it into the park but it latched on to his own exo-suit and tried to pry Barnes out of it. With the added weight riding him like a damn bronco he stumbled, falling into a pool of water caused by last week’s grenades and last night’s rain. He caught hold of the Chitauri, his metal hand wrapped around its throat, and threw it as far away as he could manage.

Darcy watched as it flailed in the knee-deep water before righting itself. Her hand straying to her last Nebula grenade as it made to charge at Barnes who was struggling to walk out of the muddy swamp. She raced forward into the water, transferring her all available power to her to arm joints before reaching for Barnes’s metal arm, throwing him over her shoulder like a rag doll before tossing the grenade at the advancing Chitauri. Darcy tried to get to get clear of the water and out of the blast radius before the grenade went off… she didn’t make it.

** *** **

It was dark. Darcy’s chest hurt. Then she felt lips on hers and air being pushed into her lungs and she came back to life with a cough.

She woke up in the mud, feeling naked and vulnerable without her exo-suit, with Sergeant Barnes leaning over her almost crying with relief.

“Thank Christ…” he murmured, pressing a hasty kiss on her forehead. “Almost lost you for a second there, doll.”

“Who you calling ‘doll’? You’re the pretty one,” she mumbled hazily.

“Is that so?” he chuckled, helping her to her feet. She made for her exo-suit, which looked like it had been pried apart by a metal arm, only for Barnes to stop her. “Your suit’s shot to shit, Lewis,” Barnes advised her, trying to pull her back towards the street. “Come on, we gotta get you back to the transport ship.”

“Can’t leave my suit,” she argued. “Stark’ll kill me if I don’t bring back his data.”

Barnes sighed and moved past her, ignoring Darcy’s protests as he ripped off the control panel with his metal hand.

“Here,” he said, pushing it into her arms. “You’ve got Stark’s data. Now let’s get you to safety.”

“Alright, Mr Bossy,” Darcy grumbled, following Barnes back to the transport ship as their teams cleared the area of the alien scourge.

** *** **

The war ended overnight, not with a bang, but with a tired sigh. One minute the Chitauri were attacking, the next they were retreating as fast as they could as one by one, literally dropping dead like someone had cut their strings. Nobody could say for sure what happened, none of the soldiers believed the nonsense the media was spouting, but they didn’t take their sudden good fortune for granted, burning all but a few corpses which were sent to Banner’s lab for dissection.

Stark regarded the remnants of Darcy’s exo-suit like it was a drool covered tennis ball his pet dog had laid at his feet.

“So, good news – my Nebula grenades work. Bad news – the war’s over.”

“I’m sure the world’s governments will be back at each others’ throats in no time, Tony,” Bruce offered helpfully.

“You’re right. There’ll always be a new war,” Tony sighed.

“But?”

“But they’re gonna want to take the exo-suits and give them to soldiers, who are going to fight other soldiers. I designed them to fight alien invaders, not to put kids in body bags,” he grumbled, slumping onto a stool.

“What are you thinking, Tony?” Bruce asked warily. It didn’t do to let Tony’s ideas wander around unsupervised.

“I was thinking of maybe channelling my energies into less violent areas. I was thinking about my arc reactor tech, and Sergeant Barnes’ arm,” he admitted.

“Clean energy and prosthetics?” Bruce clarified.

“I realise there’s miles between the two, but just think; I’d be helping build a better world, not just blowing up the old one,” he said, punctuating his sentence by hefting a screwdriver at the now defunct Hulk exo-suit. “You should come with me,” he blurted, avoiding Banner’s eyes. “If high tech, neural interfacing prosthetics doesn’t get your motor running, my tower’s got like, ten R and D floors. I’m sure I can find a place for you.”

“That sounds amazing, Tony,” Bruce beamed. “And you should give Dr Helen Cho out of Seoul a call. She was doing amazing things with cell regeneration before the war.”

“Will do, but first,” he said, pulling up a holoscreen. “I’ve got to delete all my files from multiple government servers, and then I’ve got to call Pepper. You might not want to be here for the treason… or the tearful begging.”

“I’ll go get us some coffee,” Bruce laughed.

** *** **

Darcy, fresh from the showers, was tidying up her bunk when a hush fell over the room.

“Holy shit! It’s the Full Metal Badass!” Private Wilson, the unluckiest/luckiest recruit ever (the guy had more holes in him than a block of Swiss cheese), shrieked excitedly.

“Can it, Wade,” Darcy ordered, throwing one of his obnoxious stuffed animals across the room to distract him. “Sergeant Barnes. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and that Medical gave you the all clear. And you know, war’s over. You could call me James,” he said, offering her a nervous smile.

“Oooh, James!”

Sergeant Barnes whipped around to glare at Captain Rogers and Senior Airman Wilson, who were batting their eyelashes and making kissey faces at each other.

“Quit it, assholes,” Sergeant Barnes hissed, turning a bright shade of red.

“Aw, come on Barnes. Don’t be like that,” the less crazy Wilson objected.

“We’re just teasin’, Buck,” Rogers continued to tease. “Lord knows you would have done worse to me if I’d been mooning over a girl the way you have.”

“I wasn’t mooning,” Barnes griped quietly, the blush in his cheeks deepening as Darcy watched on with amusement.

“’Buck’?” she asked with a quirk of her brow.

Barnes threw his head back and sighed as Rogers and Wilson laughed at his expense some more.

“Bucky,” he admitted with a huff. “Childhood nickname that the punk delights in sharin’ with everyone.”

“Cute,” Darcy replied doing her utmost not to contribute to the laughter.

“Well, if you like nickname you should get to know the rest of me,” Barnes smirked, watching carefully to gauge Darcy’s reaction. “Over drinks?”

Rogers howled with laughter, drowning out any response Darcy may have had. “Bucky, that was godawful. I can’t believe I ever thought you were smooth with women!”

Barnes turned to rip Roger’s throat out but Darcy’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“I, um, I could really use a drink actually.”

“Yeah?” Barnes beamed back.

“Yeah,” Darcy nodded before turning her attention to her squad who had been watching the entire exchange with interest. “A-Squad! Get dressed, double time. First round’s on Captain America!” she announced, smirking as her squadron cheered.

“What?!” Rogers squawked indignantly, moving to punch Wilson as he doubled over with laughter.

“You know,” Wilson chuckled, wiping away a tear. “I thought I was going to have to worry about the poor girl that fell for your so-called charms, but that girl is going to run circles around the both of you,” he laughed, slapping Rogers on the shoulder as he led the expedition to the nearest bar.

“You know, I could write you up for this Private Lewis,” Rogers grumbled as he counted heads and tried calculate the damage they’d do to this wallet.

“Whatever,” Darcy snorted. “I’m out of here tomorrow. I’m going back to college, getting my last six damn credits, and finally graduating. And then it will be Lieutenant Lewis, thank you very much.”

“Lieutenant Lewis?” Barnes smirked at the alliteration. “I like it. I think I’m gonna call you LuLu.”

“You most certainly are not!”

“Are too!” he teased.

“Fine. Then I’m calling you ‘Bucky’, since you like it so much.”

“Bucky and Lulu…” he mused, offering Darcy his flesh arm. “Sounds like a couple of cartoon characters.”

“Children’s cartoon characters,” Darcy snorted.

“Nah, they’d be badass superheros. Cutesy names to contradict their grim exteriors, tragic backstories, and their kickass skill sets.”

“Oh yeah? What would our superpowers be?” Darcy asked as he led her out of the barracks, paying no attention to the squadron trailing behind them.

“Well, I’d have my amazing strength - and my incredible good looks,” he smirked as Darcy snorted. “And you… you’d put men under your spell,” he said, gazing at her adoringly until she began to blush. “And then light the bastards up with your lightning powers,” he chuckled.

“Nice,” Darcy grinned. “Maybe we should retire from the military and go to Hollywood with our great idea.”

“Nah, you gotta build the groundwork with a comic book first. Stevie here was an artist before he joined up. He can draw the pictures for us.”

“I’m already buying half the barracks a drink, jerk,” Steve shouted over his shoulder. “I’m not doing another goddamn thing to help you get laid.”

“Oh please, Rogers. Like he needs the help,” Darcy shot back, pulling her favourite Avenger in for a kiss.

[chrisstevenson]

First Nations Tribes Matter Too.

After spellbinding the readers by his fabulous imagination in Screamcatcher: Web World, Chris Stevenson, who writes this series by a pen name (Christy J. Breedlove), released the second book of the Scremcatcher series, Screamcatcher – Dream Chasers. Both the books of the Screamcatcher series have created an alternate world that leaves the characters and the readers gasping for air. So, when I got a chance to pick the brains of the very talented Chris Stevenson, I knew it was an opportunity of a lifetime. Join the conversation and get ready to be amazed.

Screamcatcher is one of my favorite series. Nobody could have ever imagined using an innocent-looking dream-catcher as a source of unleashing havoc. How did you come up with this idea? Any interesting story behind the making of this mind-blowing series.

It all started with a dream catcher. This iconic item, which is rightfully ingrained in Indian lore, is a dream symbol respected by the culture that created it. It is mystifying, an enigma that that prods the imagination. Legends about the dream catcher are passed down from multiple tribes. There are variations, but the one fact that can be agreed upon is that it is a nightmare entrapment device, designed to sift through evil thoughts and images and only allow pleasant and peaceful dreams to enter into the consciousness of the sleeper.

I wondered what would happen to a very ancient dream catcher that was topped off with dreams and nightmares. What if the nightmares became too sick or deathly? What if the web strings could not hold any more visions? Would the dream catcher melt, burst, vanish, implode? I reasoned that something would have to give if too much evil was allowed to congregate inside of its structure. I found nothing on the Internet that offered a solution to this problem—I might have missed a relevant story, but nothing stood out to me. Stephen King had a story called Dream Catcher, but I found nothing in it that was similar to what I had in mind. So I took it upon myself to answer such a burning question.

Like too much death on a battlefield could inundate the immediate location with lost and angry spirits, so could a dream catcher hold no more of its fill of sheer terror without morphing into something else, or opening up a lost and forbidden existence. What would it be like to be caught up in another world inside the webs of a dream catcher, and how would you get out? What would this world look like? How could it be navigated? What was the source of the exit, and what was inside of it that threatened your existence? Screamcatcher: Web World, the first in the series, was my answer. I can only hope that I have done it justice.

Your knowledge of Native American Indian culture is evident in many instances. I am sure the readers would love to know more about the subject. How do you know so much about the culture? Is it personal experience or an inclination toward the culture?

It’s primarily researched, and not very much. I’ve always known about the emotional feelings that the First Nations Tribes has/had about their plight and contact with the white man. I knew about their reverent association with nature and the environment. I owe a lot of it to memories from the Boy Scouts of America–about signs, riddles, plants, hunting, and the environment. I’m Scotch/Irish and I’ve never had any tribal friends.

I DID research the construction of the Dream Catcher and what it was made out of. I winged the rest of it, hoping that I was at least on target with what I had to say about them. The Albert White Feather Pike speech at the beginning of the book (about the sad state of the world) were my words straight from my heart. Nothing was quoted. I did not want to ram Indian lore, heritage, and legend down the throat of the reader. There’s just enough to make it sympathetic and interesting.

While we are talking about Native American culture, do you have a favorite legend from any of their mythologies?

Obviously, the Dream Catcher Legend. It was just fascinating to me, filled with whimsy and magic. And the hand-crafted charms are so varied from one type to another; they are just gorgeous works of art, and I mean that by saying the originals that were crafted in the very beginning with gems, beads, and real Eagle feathers. And I’ll be honest, I have NO idea how far the Dream Catcher legend goes back in time. I’m also intrigued by the sweat lodge, and how it is supposed to purify the soul. The legend of the Skinwalker scares me, and I touch upon that just a tiny bit in the last book, Screamcatcher: The Shimmering Eye.

You can remove this question if you do not wish to discuss your pen name This one is for budding authors. Many of the first time authors struggle with the idea of using a pen name. While a majority considers using one only if they are writing a memoir and do not wish to be identified, a few others wish to use one to avoid prejudices based on gender or nationality. Regardless of their reasons, what is your opinion on using a pen name? Is there a formal procedure involved in registering a pen name against your legal name?

I’m a guy and I used a female pen name for my young adult books. I know, pretty strange. Why? Women, I believe, are more prone to writing about true emotions, with truth and accuracy, than men. Especially in romance and young adult, where sometimes a softer touch is needed. Women comprise 65% of all book purchases and they are also the majority of readers. Truly, women are more apt to buy a romance or young adult novel from a woman, in my experience. So I thought that if the “general reading public” saw a female pen name, they might make a spontaneous buy and trust the material. But I always admitted everywhere that the two authors were one and the same–Me. My fans, friends, and readership knew that.

The problem with adopting a pen name is that you have a brand new author out there making a debut, so it is hugely difficult to build a readership in that pen name. No legal problems, not even in contracts. But I must say that two author names have to be merged into one in places like Amazon, GoodReads, and other sites–it gets really tangled and confusing. For budding writers? If you are publishing 10 or more books per year and one genre is romance and the other is science fiction, then two authors just might work. It also depends on how many genres you write in and how many books you have out there. My advice is to go with one name–keep it simple just starting out.

Did you always want to be an author? How did you get into it?

I actually started late, reading, and writing when I was 26 years old. My early writing accomplishment were multiple hits within a few years: In my first year of writing back in 1987, I wrote three SF short stories that were accepted by major slick magazines which qualified me for the Science Fiction Writers of America, and at the same time achieved a Finalist award in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. This recognition garnered me a top gun SF agent at the time, Richard Curtis Associates. My first novel went to John Badham (Director) and the Producers, the Cohen Brothers. It was an extreme honor to be considered. The writer who beat me out of contention for a feature movie (as well as the book), was Michael Crichton’snJurassic Park. My book was called Dinothon.

A year after that I published two best-selling non-fiction books and landed on radio, TV, in every library in the U.S., and hundreds of newspapers. This was at a time when small and mid-sized press paid nice advances and had unlimited distribution.

I have been trying to catch that lightning in a bottle ever since. My YA dystopian novel, The Girl They Sold to the Moon won the grand prize in a publisher’s YA novel writing contest, went to a small auction, and got tagged for a film option. My latest release, Screamcatcher: Web World, just currently won Best YA title of 2019 in the N.N. Light Book Awards contest. I have 13 titles appearing on Amazon, with three more slated for publication. I guess I should stick to Young Adult, which I do love BTW

I have picked out your next book Earth Angel, and I am pretty excited about reading it. Would you like to share anything about the book: plot, character, inspiration?

Not much to tell really, and it’s not terribly original, but I’m guessing at that. I just wondered what would happen if a person had an eye transplant, and that eye came from a gifted medium who really saw a fourth dimension or alternate world through her vision? If that transplanted eye allowed you to see a different world, what in the heck could you possibly see and how would it affect you emotionally? You would either have a superpower, or you would end up going insane. How could a power like that possibly help you in catching a serial killer? Those were the questions I asked. Hey, glad you are looking forward to it!

Who is your favorite character in Screamcatcher series? Did any real-life person inspire this particular character?

My favorite character, modeled in name and personality after my sister, Jory Post, is Jory Pike. Jory Pike’s physical attributes are modeled after my last girlfriend in Las Vegas. I had many reviewers and some beta readers tell me, “Hey! You have Katniss here, in The Hunger Games!” I did not know who they were talking about until I just recently read the THG series. Then I thought, OMG! My girl is Katness!

And to top it off, I wrote my book before The Hunger Games came out, but mine was not published before hers. My gal IS native American, though. And I’m proud that the female side of me came out with an Indian teenage girl who takes the lead in a portal fantasy thriller. Rarely, if ever, do you see teenage, female North American Indians in a book, especially in the lead role. Talk about POC (people of color), well, I thought I’d give it to them in spades.

May we get a sneak peek into your next WIP?

The third and last book in the Screamcatcher series (The Shimmering Eye) is modeled after the true story of the most haunted property in the United States–Skinwalker Ranch. I devised my own version of the paranormal activity out there, and even contacted George Knapp, an investigative reporter out of Las Vegas, and host of Coast to Coast radio. I asked his permission to write my own fictional account of such a place, without busting his copyright or anything else. He is the documentary narrator and book author of The Hunt for the Skinwalker. George gave me the thumbs up and wished me well. So I tossed my teenage Badlands Paranormal Society into the ranch and brought hell and damnation down on them. The third book in the Screamcatcher series will be out sometime this summer.

Thank you so much for answering the questions. Can’t wait to see more of your work soon!

More places where you can find Chris Stevenson:

Amazon Page:  https://www.amazon.com/Chris-Harold-Stevenson/e/B001K8UUBK

Christy’s Website:  https://christysyoungadultfabuliers.com/

Blog:  http://guerrillawarfareforwriters.blogspot.com/

[game-refraction]

Game Review: Marvel Heroes - Omega (Xbox One)

Marvel Heroes: Omega is the console version of Marvel Heroes, a PC isometric MMO in the style of the Marvel Alliance franchise. Whereas Marvel Heroes on the PC has changed much over the course of the past 4 years, with various updates to its content and increasing character roster, Marvel Heroes: Omega has finally released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with just over half of the characters already available on PC, and a completely revamped crafting system. The game, unfortunately, suffers from a multitude of technical problems and a framerate that borders on almost unplayable throughout several sections of the game, but despite these issues, Marvel Heroes: Omega is a blast to play solo or with a group of friends.

Gazillion has crafted a free-to-play game that it not shy about making you aware that much of what you want is behind a steep paywall, with even breakout character Spider-Gwen as a random Spider-man alternate costume variant. Characters will run you anywhere from around $5 for a less popular character to $10 to $15 for the more standout characters like Deadpool or Rocket Raccoon, with a few characters exclusive to certain bundles. These bundles do make it somewhat cheaper per character, but when you charge $60 for a 6-person Avengers team or $40 for 2 members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and their movie skins, it starts to get rather ridiculous, and that’s not even talking about the premium currency bundles that peak at the $100 mark.

The game does offer the ability to earn the currency needed to unlock new characters, but unlike the PC version, you can’t craft the alternative costumes and the ones here in Omega are via the pay model only. You can spend real money and earn characters with “G” dollars, or through Eternity Splinters, which are drip-fed in-game like a fully functional faucet, which is to say; they are somewhat rare. A cheap character like Majik is 500 Eternity Splinters and throughout my 16 hours with the game, I have only earned 208 out of the 500 I need to unlock her, and I was very thorough in my hacking and slashing. To own each and every character will either take thousands of hours within the game or hundreds of real-life dollars when you take in account all the extra costumes as well.

The same goes for purchasing costumes with Marvelous Essence, a currency that is given at random via the loot boxes that you pay for with real money. I opened 7 boxes and gained 63 of the 140 I needed for Spider-Gwen. 2 boxes were via the $20 Spider-Man pack, which came with the Homecoming movie outfits, as well as the default Spider-man character, and a 5 pack of Spider-Man themed loot boxes that ‘may’ contain the Spider-Gwen variant. Spoilers; they didn’t, but I did nab the Black Spider-Man costume in the process.

While you can test drive any character up until level 10, you’ll eventually have to make a choice and spend your initial 225 Eternity Splinters on a character that you may not even want, as many characters require a bit more than that to unlock. With my limited funds, I unlocked Angela, as I am a huge fan of the character and was pleased as punch to see her make her Marvel Comics debut just a short few years ago. Currently, the man without fear, Daredevil, is free on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 online stores. It’s expected that sometime in the near future we will see all the remaining characters from the PC version make their console debut, more than likely in very costly bundles.

Free-to-play shenanigans aside, how does Marvel Heroes: Omega play? Really fun, but with several caveats that I’ll get into later. If you’ve played any isometric hack and slash games like the Marvel titles it is trying to emulate or even a game like Diablo 3, then you’re going to feel right at home here. Your face buttons are your skill attacks and by holding the left trigger, you’ll gain access to four more. These skills are unlocked at set levels that you’ll work your way up to by earning experience and leveling up. There are booster items that you can use to give that leveling a much-needed kick in the pants should you want to skip most of the grind.

Some skills can be used back to back whereas many have a cooldown that requires you to wait a short while before you can use it again. As you defeat enemies and bosses, or by completing certain quests, you will earn loot. These are weapons, helmet’s, boots, rings, and a wide range of relics, artifacts, and medallions, all that grant stat boosts to a set variety of perks. The loot problem with Marvel Heroes: Omega, and even just that of regular Marvel Heroes, is that with so many people running around as the same character, none of this gear physically changes the appearance of your character, meaning that my level 60 Angela will look identical to that of a level 4 version. I strongly feel that this is a huge letdown in respects to making that character actually mean something to you when you’ve spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours with them.

The gear you earn by defeating enemies requires you to pop into your inventory to even check it out, meaning that you’ll need to stop moving around, find somewhere safe, and then check out what you got. This disrupts the fast paced nature of its combat and feels like a step back in game design rather than one forward. I often wouldn’t even check my spoils until my bag was full, which happened often since your ‘free’ space is extremely minimal and I didn’t feel like spending real money to boost my storage space. Thankfully, you can teleport to your headquarters to sell your goods with a tap of a button and then right back to where you were, and if you are quick about it, several of the items left on the ground may even remain there when you get back.

Characters range from being a bit more close combat to ranged attackers using gunfire or optic blasts. Most characters have a bit of both and there really isn’t a poor character across the whole roster. There are a few characters that I never saw running around, but that’s more likely due to the popularity of some of them. Gazillion also didn’t want to renew the license for the Fantastic Four, so Johnny, Ben, Sue, and Reed are nowhere to be found. In fact, there is a Marvel Heroes Museum in the game that has a blank section that used to feature the Fantastic family.

The story in the game is penned by Brian Michael Bendis and normally I adore his work, but the story here is so painfully mediocre that it seems very much as if they had the majority of the game built and then needed some loose narrative to string it all together. The story follows the events of Doctor Doom gaining control of the Cosmic Cube and then utilizing its powers to take over the world. The problem, apart from the awful dialogue and the story itself, is that the game lacks any real sense of presentation. Most of the story is told through voiceovers or animated cutscenes that are static images that feature some movement to small details or the camera just moves around on a single image. The cutscenes suffer from some really bad horizontal tearing that occurs quite frequently and several of my cutscenes were playing in multiple languages. I also have to point out that the art used in the cutscenes is wildly inconsistent in its quality and felt extremely subpar considering you literally have some of the best comic book artists in the world working for Marvel right now.

Overall, the story took me around 15 hours and the last chapter of the game felt tacked on. The final encounter to both Doom and the last chapter boss were far better fights than anything else in the game and I felt as if several of the boss fights throughout the game would have benefitted from this level of variety. Regardless of it being Venom, Juggernaut, or Living Laser, the bosses felt like the same encounters over and over again, and often I simply used the same tactics from one boss to the next. There are small changes to certain encounters like Bullseye, where the game will require to you hide behind cover, but other than that; rinse, recycle, repeat.

The boss encounters when playing with other players is a sight to behold, but not for the right reasons. Take a look at the above screenshot and tell me if you can even see the boss we are fighting, let alone my character. While the game is flashy and some of the attacks are wonderfully animated, when you have several characters wailing away on a single enemy, it can get so hectic and so chaotic that it can be hard to tell what is even going on. This can also lead to several areas of the game where the framerate will drop to maybe 10 or 15 fps, and this is especially apparent in Asgard as the fields are just filled with so many enemies that the game just barely chugs along. I’ve had the game crash when it got really bad, but that only happened two or three times. One of those times was after I had finally defeated Doctor Doom and as I was about to pick up my rewards, the game crashed. Thankfully, those items were still there when I loaded the game back up.

I also had a weird glitch when I was on the hunt for MODOK. As you enter the facility where MODOK is waiting for you, you have to destroy a few objects around the level as well as take on three villains that lay in wait for you. I missed one item but eventually found MODOK at the end of a long hallway. I killed MODOK and my objective marker did not update. The portal to HQ was there and when I entered it, my objective marker still indicated that I needed to defeat MODOK. I looked online for a fix to this and discovered that if you swap characters and then back, it will refresh that mission and thankfully, it worked.

The game will take you to a fairly impressive amount of Marvel staple locations; Hell’s Kitchen, Asgard, Midtown, and even to the Savage Land. While these locations are incredibly vast, each holding a variety of secrets areas and NPC’s to interact with, much of them suffer from severe cases of cut and paste. The city levels, for example, will have the same grocery store a block over, or the same park literally a short walk away. While it’s nice to have large and widespread levels, these feel a bit too artificial and lack variety.

Upon hitting level 60, which I seemed to have timed out perfectly upon completing the story, unlocked a few things privy to that level. Ultimate attacks, which are more powerful abilities that have a fairly lengthy cooldown will be added to your move list to unleash when things get dire. You also unlock Infinity stones, which are different groups of stat based categories that allow you to pick and choose certain stat upgrades to your character. You can also prestige your character which will see power and talents reset, but you will retain your Ultimate attack upgrades and Infinity points. You’ll also lose all items that cannot be used by level 1 characters. If you plan on getting a character to the best it can get, this transition is crucial.

Once you’ve completed the main story then you’ll be grinding out various activities on your journey to collect the best gear available for your character. You’ll gain access to Operations; small bite-sized missions that you can complete alone or with a group. Patrols, at least the ones that I did, almost felt like a boss hunt mode where a group of us toured midtown in search of timed released boss encounters. There are also Trials, which are tests of strength against hordes of various enemies that will unlock harder difficulties that allow you access to better grades of gear. There are also Danger Room missions that are short experiences that are fairly fun with a group. While these modes can offer a decent amount of fun, they feel very small in the grand scheme of things for content to do after you’ve already pushed through the story. Revisiting the same places gets a bit old even if they do toss in a few villains that didn’t make an appearance in the story.

Crafting has been rebuilt entirely for Omega and while you can craft during the main campaign, it will probably look to suit you better post game. You have four main sections to utilize crafting for; R&D, Science, Engineering, and Logistics. Each can be leveled up to 20, allowing you to make better items and have more access to better crafting services. This is where you will use the in-game money that drops alongside your loot. I attempted a few times to craft items but my crafting level was so low that I ended up wasting materials making items that were nowhere near as good as the stuff I was currently wearing. You’ll occasionally pick up items that are designed to be donated to increase your crafting level at each of the four crafting NPC’s, but regular items will work as well and several of them contribute a great deal of XP.

Character attacks, animations and the detail given to their models are fairly decent and in some cases, rather great. Some environments look fantastic and have some nice little details that can be missed in the chaos that comes with combat. The menus in-game are sadly poor and are not as intuitive as they could be. The item selection is via a circle menu that isn’t great for quick selecting on the fly during combat. The menus also feel sluggish when moving from page to page. Loading, however; is incredibly fast and it never takes more than a few seconds to load into a new area or back to HQ.

There are several instances where the game got incredibly glitchy, apart from the issues I have already talked about. Huge chunks of levels sometimes didn’t load (see picture to the left) and I had several times where the floor texture was staying low-res for almost 10-15 minutes. I’ve had my entire HUD disappear for almost an hour and didn’t even fix itself upon rebooting the game. I’ve mentioned a few times now that the framerate is awful and frankly, it’s hard to really convey that unless you see it in action. The game is a technical mess and Gazillion is already aware of this and is looking to patch several of the well-known issues soon. I hope that in a few short months that these issues are ironed out because it can really affect how much fun this game can actually be.

Marvel Heroes: Omega is plagued with vast technical problems, glitches, and some design choices that don’t quite work. The menus are slow, unresponsive and feel more like placeholders than anything finalized. Despite these issues, there is still quite a bit to enjoy here. Sure, the PC version still has a decent 25+ more characters than what we currently have here, and the paywall blocking costumes and characters is a bit steep, but you can easily enjoy much of the content here for free or by paying a few bucks to get the character you actually want. The game can be played solo, but the real enjoyment of the game is found in teaming up with a few friends and taking the fight to the numerous bosses you’ll encounter. It’s not perfect, far from it, but it’s still a great time.

Marvel Heroes: Omega was reviewed and played for Xbox One. All screenshots were taken and uploaded to the Windows 10 app.

Game Review: Marvel Heroes – Omega (Xbox One) was originally published on Game-Refraction