#and. and most importantly. several cops die

[thefirstpaleontologist]

you might think a show about 4 detectives solving a murder would be very pro cop but instead the show had all 4 detectives, individually and at different times, act outside of and go against the police institution in order to do what is right.

And they made all the other cop characters evil and corrupt.

[queen-beefcake-sqx]

Please do your Sanctifying Kim Take!

Perceiving that man through HDB coloured glasses put me off of most fandom depictions of him. Not to mention how absolutely tiny he's depicted when he's of completely average size. (2-3inches shorter than Harry who is above 6ft. Like I get people do be havin size kinks, but that man's not short)

Canon Kim is the most trigger happy cop depicted in the entire game. He shot 6 kids people between working in juvenile detention and processing, is a severely repressed speedfreak with unprocessed grief (still working Dom's cases) and a wild card (not above using Harry's amnesia to manipulate Joyce when he knows him for a couple of hours), who can maybe have 2 Auth over world soggiest superstar but let's be honest don't we all?

He is so petty that he will die in the tribunal if you give away his pen lmao. Like that man is literally two steps above Harry when it comes to being a weird cop, and that's being lovingly understanding. He needs Martinaise just as much as HDB does.

op I am holding your face gently and shaking like a wet chihuahua. you, you get it.

Here’s my thing — as a general theme, I’ve noticed fandom takes seem to lean into the belief that because Harry’s deification of Dora crashed and burned so spectacularly, that (1) deification of Kim would be just as unhealthy and (2) Kim would outright reject that kind of worship.

And like. Okay. I can see how you’d make a case for that, sure. Except as you pointed out Kim is actually really fucking weird, and damaged in his own way, and most importantly — Kim wants to be cool. There’s a purple check that outright states Kim values being perceived as cool FAR MORE than he lets on. I’ve already written a post that mentions how significant it is for Kim that Harry thinks he’s cool, and what I’m gonna say next is an extension of that:

I think, somewhere deep down and repressed, Kim would actually love being deified by someone, and if Harry put in the work to have a healthy relationship with religion, they could actually make that dynamic work.

Long thoughts and explanation under cut:

Alright a little background on me: I was raised Unitarian Universalist and have a history of deifying my lovers. Harry’s anguish over Dora was very heartbreakingly familiar (although I didn’t destroy my life quite as spectacularly), and the way Harry uses inquiry to engage with belief systems (personal, political, scientific, and religious) is VERY Unitarian. One of our precepts is literally the constant and continuous search for truth and meaning in the world, and that’s Harry’s whole MO. So a lot of this is personal experience coloring interpretation.

A few years ago I wrote a piece of meta about why Tian Guan Ci Fu, a novel about a worshiper’s love for a prince turned god, is better treated as a fairy tale instead of a typical character-driven novel. I bring this up because in the meta I set forth that there were three really big themes that the story teaches us about divinity:

Books Two and Four encapsulate Xie Lian’s biggest lesson - that no one person can hope to end all suffering, even a god, and that putting a person on a pedestal places unachievable expectations upon them.

The rest of the books deal with two different but tangential lessons — devotion means seeing the best in people, regardless of their flaws; devotion also means inevitable destruction when you are not valued to the same degree.

I bring this up because, incidentally, these are the EXACT same themes that Disco Elysium deals with in regards to deification and devotion. I firmly believe the rest of the text about Innocences corroborates this, but even just looking at Harry and Dora, these themes are SCREAMINGLY relevant. Harry destroyed himself when Dora, his Innocence and god, left him. Their relationship was never really equal — there was a class difference, the abortion and difference in want for parenthood, the fact she walked out on him at least one before. Harry placed Dora on such a high pedestal that he set her up to fail him when she couldn’t handle Harry’s addiction and deteriorating mental health at a job she encouraged him to pursue.

Because a really important caveat about those themes I didn’t elaborate on — “regardless of flaws” doesn’t mean never acknowledging them. I really think Harry got into his head that Dora could truly do no wrong and found himself increasingly hurt and floundering when she proved just how wrong that was, and instead of acknowledging things they BOTH needed to work on — to do better, to improve, to grow — Harry got angry, resentful, and depressed and Dora got out of there.

And I don’t blame her, nor anybody else who did the same. I don’t blame Jean’s anger with Harry’s carelessness with his life, even if the way he expresses it is actively harmful. But the problem is Harry is a vast, vast soul — he feels things very deeply and extremely. I like fics where he learns to work through it and love a person to a Normal(tm) degree, but there’s a part of me deep down that feels like that is impossible for him. There is vitriol or there is devotion and there is little to nothing in-between for him, and for him a healthy relationship isn’t less devotional/religious as much as it is reconceptualizing what it means to be divine — stealing from my TGCF meta, he needs to remember that deities were human before they were ever his god, and as someone who’s worked as a cop, he should KNOW how messy humans are.

And minus himself, fuck if there isn’t a human messier than Kim Kitsuragi.

I’ve written a bit about Kim’s self-image and the significance of Harry finding him cool before. Kim is honestly a mess. He’s implied to be still struggling with the death of his partner some time in the past, is trigger happy and hates it, and is also implied to be ostracized from his coworkers. Kim does his job because he genuinely thinks it’s one of the only ways he can do good under a military regime that’s got airships ready to attack at a moment’s sign of rebellion. He smokes one cigarette a way to challenge his own volition and give off an air of untouchability because he has to be cool, he has to, he has no power in his life if he doesn’t!

But I genuinely believe that cool is tested at every turn, and I think there’s very few people who see the cool without seeing everything else about him — all the things he’s ashamed of, that make him feel lesser or othered. And Harry sees all those things over time, with a thorough enough run — he learns about “Kimball” and the bad eyesight and his fierce protection of his status as a “true Revacholiere”.

But it’s day one that Harry can call Kim cool. Regardless of flaws you uncover or not, Harry can see Kim as someone to be admired. Because that’s what Harry does with people he likes. And when was the last time anyone called Kim cool and meant it genuinely?

I think it’s noteworthy that Kim tries to stay humble when Harry gets excited about Kim — he downplays himself or pulls Harry out of flights of fancy about the degree of his “coolness”. He reminds Harry that he’s human… even if inwardly he preens at praise and recognition. (I’m too lazy to go through the Fayde viewer right now to back myself up, but just really pay attention to his Empathy checks sometime). Kim keeps Harry from constantly putting him on a pedestal like he did to Dora.

It’s also noteworthy that regardless of what a hot mess you are re: addiction, Kim still respects you as a detective and will defend you to your precinct. Remember that third theme, about relational devotion? Devotion doesn’t work if you’re deifying someone who doesn’t respect you, and thus won’t hold you to the standard of their divinity. There’s a thing in teaching where teachers want to shy away from difficult or disruptive students, thinking we’re accommodating them when in reality we’re not challenging them and are disrespecting their right to learn. Respect also means setting boundaries and trust, and I don’t know how much of either Dora and Harry had by the end.

Kim sets boundaries right off — No, we will not talk about the pissing contest until the field autopsy is done, don’t even try asking again. Yes, I do think now is a bad time for a drink and you should stop being careless with your life. No I will not tell you a secret about myself. Kim isn’t afraid to draw lines in the sand with Harry, because not only does he respect himself, but he wants to see that Harry respects him, too.

And in exchange, Kim displays his respect openly in front of peers — in front of the organization he’s worked to protect his reputation within — to defend Harry. Known drunk, bad-cop-or-cop-with-bad-days, sad sack Harry Du Bois. It’s acknowledgement from the object of his devotion that he’s done good work and can do more, if he keeps putting in the work to get better.

The point is — I don’t think Harry can change how he loves people, I think its just inherent to who he is as a person, but devoting himself to the altar of Kim Kitsuragi might actually work, if only because Kim wants that worship and will hold Harry accountable for not letting it consume them both.

[petri808]

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Inukag modern AU

For the first few days Kagome was back at the home she’d shared with Inuyasha, it felt a little strange and familiar all mixed up together. Their friends had helped in moving her things back into the house, but Inuyasha had given her the main bedroom and took the spare saying it might help her memories since that’s where she would normally have slept. During the day, he would go to work leaving Kagome time to wander around unencumbered. So, she took the opportunity to look through photo albums, keepsakes, or simply absorbing the feel of the place. Inuyasha had told her that she was the one who’d decorated it, and from what she could see, that all made sense. Perhaps that did help her in feeling a little comfortable and yet still somewhat of a stranger. To dispel those odd energies, Kagome took it upon herself to be useful, cooking dinner or cleaning, even doing his laundry despite him telling her she didn’t have to… Okay that chore did make Kagome blush the first time she came across his underwear, but she reminded herself she was a grown ass woman who may not remember yet but has seen him naked before so it’s not a big deal unless she made it into one.

All the little normal behaviors seemed to really help her memory to improve rapidly. Several times a day, Kagome would be doing something in the home and flashbacks would hit her. Mostly good ones or embarrassing things that must have made an impact. For instance, finding a bottle of wine in the cupboard and remembering a night she got so drunk Inuyasha had to carry her to bed. Or another, while moving a chair in the living room she remembered a friskier romp and later finding her bra under the couch the next time she cleaned. She was so happy it hadn’t been discovered by a guest or something because Sango probably would have teased her mercilessly.

But with all the memories coming back quicker, and her sense of comfort increasing, so too did a feeling of loneliness. At night, as Kagome laid in bed things felt less foreign and emptier, like something was missing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that missing element was Inuyasha. This was their bed— their sharedbed, so it made sense that it wasn’t the same without him there. Kagome still felt nervous about it, but after three days of feeling that way and not getting a lot of sleep because of it, she’d asked him to move back into the room with her. Of course, even he was hesitant to do so, but she assured him it’ll be okay. She was certain he wouldn’t try to take advantage or anything. Even when after two days of this sleeping arrangement, she’d woken up to his arm casually around her, Kagome found she didn’t mind it at all… thankfully for his frantic relief.

Inuyasha popped his head into the bedroom. “Ready to go?” They had plans to go out for dinner that night to a favorite restaurant.

“Mmhmm,” Kagome replied as she did a quick check of her skirt and grabbed her purse.

The evening was an especially cherished one for two reasons. First, it was their sixth anniversary and second, but most importantly, Kagome was the one who’d remembered it. Three days earlier while going through her jewelry box, she’d picked up her promise ring and the memory of that event hit her like a ton of bricks. Before that moment the ring had just been another ring, but now, it was the latest trigger of a deluge of memories. So strong it was, that it had sent Inuyasha into quite a panic when he’d come home that day from work to find Kagome teary-eyed, but they’d been happy tears very much worth celebrating.

Things had been going so well, that Kagome almost felt back to normal. She was remembering more and more, her home felt like a home, and the hatchet was now buried between she and Inuyasha after they’d agreed to be honest about anything that was bothering them from now on. They talked out the bad and laughed through the good memories as they broke through. That day of coming clean had truly become a turning point for the couple and despite this whole situation starting off horribly, perhaps it will become the reason their relationship could last forever.

The restaurant was crowded that Saturday evening, as it was most days because of its popularity. Kagome and Inuyasha often chose it for special occasions due to the excellent food and service, as well as the reasonable prices. Dinner and dessert, with a glass of wine…

Kagome smiled at her husband from across the table. “You know what would be a nice way to end tonight? Taking a stroll in the park. The moon is really pretty.”

Inuyasha reached over the table and took her hand, smoothing his thumb gently over the skin. “That sounds like a perfect idea,” he smiled back. “Let me just go to the restroom first and we can check out of here.”

“Okay,” Kagome squeezed his hand back. “I’ll call the waiter for the check.”

He leaned down and kissed her hand, before standing up and walking away towards the restroom area, leaving Kagome at the table to watch for their waiter. She looked down and smiled as she rubbed her hand in the spot Inuyasha had kissed. It was silly, she knew, to feel the butterfly sensations over such a small yet sweet gesture, but it was fun to feel so in love again. To feel her skin, heat up when he kissed her or held her hand. The rush of excitement when he’d begun pulling her close at night… Kagome felt a blush blooming on her cheeks just thinking about the intimate moment they’d shared just a couple days ago. She’d finally felt comfortable enough to allow it, or rather had reached the point when her body could no longer resist the urge… and it was so much more than she could have ever hoped for. Inuyasha’s effects on her loins we’re simply supernatural.

A loud tap on the table suddenly jolted Kagome out of her thoughts, and her head shot up to see who was trying to gain her attention. She assumed it might be the waiter because she’d been so lost in thought, but oh… was she wrong!

Kagome’s eye’s flashed wide in a panic. “K-Kikyo?!”

The woman grabbed Kagome hard by the shoulder, digging her nails into the skin, her words seething in a controlled anger. “Get up. Don’t say a word and do exactly what I say if you don’t wanna get hurt.”

“No!” Kagome tried to shake the woman off, hitting at her hand as hard as she could. “Why can’t you leave me alone!” Her screams drew the attention of everyone around them, and the dining room instantly went silent. Her eyes searched frantically for an employee or Inuyasha, but all it found was the staff frozen in place unsure of what to do. “Somebody call the police!” She screamed.

But Kikyo was in too much of a blind rage to stop, knowing she only had seconds before Inuyasha or someone else might step in. So, she grabbed Kagome by the hair and twisted, yanking her with enough force to pull the screaming woman out of her seat or risk getting her hair pulled clean out. “You don’t deserve him!” Kikyo berated. “Why didn’t you just die that night! Why couldn’t you take the hint and just stay the fuck away, you stupid bitch!”

“Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting me! Inuyasha! INUYASHA!” Kagome fought desperately to free herself, but every time she tried, Kikyo would twist and yank harder. “Help me!!”

A couple of male patrons sitting nearby, finally stood up to intervene, but that’s when Kikyo pulled a knife out of her pocket and held it to Kagome’s throat. “Try anything and I will cut her,” she spat at the men.

“Ma’am,” a manager stepped forward as well with his hands up as a show of neutrality. “Please put the knife down and let her go. The police are already on their way. You don’t want to do anything rash.”

“Please…” Kagome was sobbing from all the pain. She could feel the cool steel of the knife against her skin. “Please let me go, Kikyo. This has gone too far!” ‘And where was Inuyasha??’ Her mind begged. Surely, he would have heard the commotion by now or had his behavior all been a ruse? What if he’d planned this with Kikyo to get back at her? Kagome’s heart said no, but her mind was such a mess it didn’t know what to think anymore. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, wishing this would all just end… “Inu…”

“Ahhhh!”

The loud guttural scream of a mad woman made Kagome flinch. Was this the end? Her body tensed up expecting to feel the blade slicing into her throat as the woman finished what she’d come there to do… but instead her body just dropped to the floor with a thud. She was— free?! Kagome’s eyes popped open, and as she lay there crumpled on the floor, could only watch in horror and shock for above her Inuyasha had Kikyo’s wrists in a solid lock. She instantly recognized his demon form too, the red eyes and purple stripes along his cheeks. The hanyo was furious!

The manager and another patron quickly pulled Kagome away from the struggle and out of harm’s way. Kikyo was screaming and kicking, fighting against Inuyasha’s restraint but he was too strong. One of the other male diners managed to get the knife safely out of Kikyo’s hand, at which time Inuyasha was able to adjust his grip on the woman and yanked her hands behind her back, keeping her from getting away without breaking her arms.

“It’s been over you jealous, heartless dark bitch! Get it through your head!” Inuyasha roared. “There is something wrong with you! Kagome is gonna be my wife and you’ll never compare to the light she’s brought to my life!!”

“She doesn’t deserve you!” Kikyo screamed. “You should be mine! Not hers, mine!”

“It’s I who doesn’t deserve her, not the other way around you dumb bitch,” Inuyasha growled back. “But you don’t deserve me either!” He tightened his hold around her wrists, purposely digging his claws in to drive his point home as he growled low enough so only Kikyo could hear him. “You ever— EVER come around again, I’ll make you disappear.”

The cops arrived quickly enough to take over and immediately started their investigation. With a room full of witnesses to interview, it would be an easy case to make, just a lot of evidence to process. Kagome had been whisked away by the manager into a back office, away from all the activity so that medical personnel could evaluate and treat her injuries and simply give the poor woman peace to collect herself. Inuyasha was allowed to stay with her, holding her hand while the EMT’s did their job.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” Inuyasha apologized. “I shouldn’t have left you alone at the table.”

“You couldn’t have known she’d attack me,” Kagome tried to reassure him that she didn’t blame him. By that point, she’d already learned how Inuyasha had snuck up from behind while Kikyo was distracted by the manager, and that’s how he was able to detain her so quickly.

“It’s still my fault she was in our lives to begin with.”

“Inu,” she sighed, “we can’t change the past, only the future.”

Once the medical team cleared Kagome with just some minor abrasions to her head and hands, a police detective stepped in and separated she and Inuyasha for their interviews. She did her best to recount everything that happened but talking about it also brought back all the emotions with it. Tears gathered in her eyes, and her head throbbed, almost as if re-living the fear of almost being killed. The adrenaline had finally worn down and her heart had stopped racing. Kagome hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but even though everything had transpired so suddenly, it had taken an enormous physical toll on her body and all it wanted to do now was sleep. At the same time, her mind hadn’t stopped working in overdrive, because seeing Kikyo… no, being attacked by the woman triggered an overwhelming flood of memories. It was like a locked door suddenly being flung wide open.

“Are you okay?” Was the first question Inuyasha posed the second he was allowed to return to his girlfriend. His voice carried with it a high level of concern. “Should I get the EMT’s, because you’ve gone pale.”

Kagome nodded as she turned to face him. “I’m okay, it’s just Inuyasha I…” she took hold of his hands in a tight grip. “I remember everything…”

Now it was Inuyasha’s turn to go ashen white. “You… do?”

Tears re-filled her eyes as she continued to nod unconsciously. “Yes… yes… all the things she did to me… all the fights over it… and that night— the accident, I remember everything…” her voice petered out like the ending credits of a movie. “But it’s so weird that… I’m not upset.” Kagome fixed Inuyasha with a confused look. “Shouldn’t I be upset?”

“I-I don’t know,” his voice cracked.

“It almost feels like a relief,” Kagome unconsciously exhaled loudly as if to accentuate how puzzled she felt. “It was such a bad fight… but I just feel relieved to remember it at all.”

“Is that a good thing?” Inuyasha questioned cautiously.

“Yeah— I… You know, it is,” she finally smiled. “I think the nightmare is finally over and that’s why I feel so relieved. But there is one thing I need to ask you about Inu.”

“Of course! Anything.”

“You told Kikyo I’m gonna be your wife.”

Inuyasha’s body stiffened as a smile bloomed on his face along with the coloring on his cheeks. “Oh, yeah that,” he scratched his head nervously, “it just popped out in the heat of the moment.”

“But…” Kagome leaned forward to stop his shaky hands. “Did you mean it?”

“Actually…” Inuyasha reached into his pocket...

**Question for my readers**

What ending would you prefer?

- A regular ending chapter that takes place right after the dinner scene?

- An epilogue of them finally getting married?

* Throw out some ideas in the notes and maybe one (or more) of the ideas) will make it into the final chapter :)

[constant-eggs]

Here are my thoughts on why Kara waited so long to tell Lena that she is Supergirl.

I know that Kara gave a lot of reasons, I think they were all partially true. The most consistent reason seems well intentioned enough: that it was to protect Lena. This is the one Lena ends up ultimately accepting. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Between Lena’s own enemies trying to assassinate her, and working closely with Alex and Kara as Supergirl, Lena’s life is always in jeopardy. In the 100th episode, the writers try to double down on this narrative when Kara tells Lena right at the beginning, she is kidnapped, Kara reveals her identity, and then all of the Superfriends die. Again, this doesn’t make much sense. It’s a possibility, of course, that Lena would be kidnapped and ransomed, but James and Winn were similarly vulnerable knowing Kara’s secret early on. They were lower profile than Lena, yes but they were also at that point less adept at saving themselves, as Lena has shown herself to be time and again. Also, had Lena known about Supergirl sooner, she could have gotten a watch to call Kara. If anything, Lena was in more jeapardy not knowing Kara’s identity.

Kara’s other go-to reason was that Lena was distrustful of Supergirl and loved Kara, so Kara wanted to separate the two parts of herself so she wouldn’t lose her best friend. This reason feels a little closer to the mark. As Supergirl, Kara was suspicious of Lena making Kryptonite and inadvertently put her in the villainous Luthor role. When I initially watched the scenes it gave me whiplash how Kara spoke to Lena as Supergirl vs. out of the suit. This isn’t a condemnation of Kara, it seems like in order to stay sane that Kara has had to compartmentalize her “Supergirl ego” and her “Kara” one. But then of course once Kara tells Lena who she is, Lena is baffled by the cognitive dissonance of Supergirl and Kara actually being the same person. She understandably fears that Kara saw her as a villain all along.

The other two major reasons Kara gives (one in a deleted scene) were that Kara felt like she had waited too long, and that a part of Kara didn’t actually trust Lena afterall. Because the scene was cut, who knows if the latter reason had any truth. But the first reason fits well enough with the others. Kara had good intentions, but time past, lies snowballed, and now the pair were three years into their friendship. And Kara knew that Lena had trust issues and didn’t do well with being lied to.

Here’s what I see as the missing part of the puzzle. Kara didn’t tell Lena because having one person, the person aside from her sister she is closest to, know her as just Kara, was Kara’s tie to feeling normal. Lena the-genius- CEO-Luthor knew Kara as a non-super journalist and loved her anyway. Most importantly though, Lena not knowing Kara had powers meant that Kara got to be vulnerable sometimes...sometimes Lena got to save her. And sure, Kara usually didn’t need it, and logistically would have to figure out how to save them without revealing herself (like landing the plane or stopping Mercy during her faceoff with Lena.) But still, Lena would put herself in front of Kara, take the reigns, and show Kara that she didn’t have to figure out everything on her own. This extends to not just during battles, but emotionally. Lena helped Kara up after altercations when Kara was used to propping herself up. Lena would specifically ask about Kara’s relationships with her other friends, family, and romantic partners, and in those moments Lena would treat those problems with the same level of importance as Lena taking down Lex or whatever issue of the week. Kara though has a tendency to put her “human” issues on the backburner to focus on the greater good, but Lena was her outlet to maintain that humanity, and have those other parts of her life remain priorities.

It’s too bad, because Lena also extended a lot of that grace and kindness to Kara as Supergirl. When one of Lillian’s henchman was harming Kara with Kryptonite, Lena still physically tried to intervene and said not to hurt her. Lena also knew that Supergirl wasn’t harming people (during the Red Daughter saga). There were plenty of other instances that Lena showed compassion for Supergirl and the only way I can wrap my brain around Kara not internalizing them are because Kara needed to maintain that separation for herself. I know that as an audience we’re past all of this now, but it still doesn’t sit entirely right with me that ultimately Lena apologized several times (when Kara made it seem like as long as Lena came back and apologized she would forgive her) but then she wasn’t initially forgiven. It also rubbed me the wrong way that Kara threatened to treat Lena “just like any other villain” even though Kara knew that being perceived as such was Lena’s greatest fear. It unsettled me further that Lena had to perform again and again in the finale. Between helping to save William, building Kara the suit, saving Kara’s life from Andrea etc. Kara said she kept waiting for Lena to let her down. But by that, did she mean by betraying Kara or by not performing and succeeding? (And again I think unintentionally Kara would feel that way.) But that line of dialogue really did leave me wondering because Lena could have done her best, and failed, and still very much have been sorry, but then would Kara have not forgiven her? I’d like to hope she would have, because if not, Lena performing for Kara’s validation isn’t too different than her trying to earn love from Lex and Lillian.

These are just ramblings. I know that Kara did her best, hell she tried to alter the timeline for Lena to salvage their relationship. But ultimately, Kara saw that because those instances failed that the takeaway was that she needed to play tough cop with Lena (and pretty much absolved herself of her own actions in the process) instead of holding onto the nuance of the situation. One of them didn’t have to be entirely right or wrong, and it would have been nice if after Lena’s third apology, if Kara would have said again, and “I’m sorry too. You deserved the truth. I know you’re not a monster.” Or hugged her. Or something. Oh well.

[malefiquinn]

My Cyberpunk 2077 review

I finished the game last night and I have Feelings™ about it, so here goes my review. While the heavy spoilers (ending related) will be hidden under Keep Reading, I might mention some minor ones here and there, so read at your own risk.

Let’s get the Big Thing out of the way first: yes, the game is buggy af. The good news is most of them are visual bugs, so while annoying, they don’t really matter gameplay wise. But I did have to reload an earlier save file two times to get rid of gamebreaking bugs, both messing with main story quests. It was frustrating. And nevermind the times my car got destroyed because the game suddenly realized there were two cars occupying the same space. However I did manage to finish the game and make the choices I wanted, so it wasn’t that bad either.

My biggest complain is the blantant transphobia shown in the character creator. I know Claire exists and she’s awesome and I love her, but the cc options are just not inclusive enough. What’s the point of having them if you can’t use them anyway? Linking V’s pronouns to voice types makes absolutely no sense. And not being able to remove breasts from the female body type (or put them in the male body type) rubs me the wrong way as well, though I understand that it would involve a lot more animation work. Lastly, having body type-dependant hair styles is just plain inexcusable when the devs took the time to design genitals that are just not shown past the character creator (unless V walks around naked, I suppose). So, why bother having all these ✨choices✨ when the player can’t get a good, accurate customization anyway?

And it gets worse if we talk about romances. Real people have specific tastes and that’s completely understandable, but real life has a lot more than 4 choices in total. More importantly, bisexual people are a thing? There should have been at least one female and one male bisexual romance options in game. So to make it al worse, the constraint in gay romance options is... awful. Why have 3 types of gender-related customization if you can’t use them if you want to romance someone? I’m a cishet female who plays as a cishet female first if given the option, but I’m still bothered for the queer community (which I’m still part of btw, since I’m in the ace spectrum). It feels like being trans is more of a fetish in Night City than a real trait.

Speaking of romances, I played River’s and I found it... bit of a lackluster. I don’t find him physically attractive (shaved head and no beard are not my thing) but his voice was pretty nice and I liked his personality despite being a cop. But the main downside was the way the game treats his romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get a BioWare-style romance, but V’s relationship with River was like a sidenote and once he’s romanced, there’s just no way to interact with him again. That perhaps is the same for the other romances but there’s no replayability, in a sense that there’s no way to talk to/kiss him again or replay the sex scene, for instance. It bothered me that the game forces V to say that “she’s too busy” and apologize to her boyfriend all the time, because *I* would’ve made time to visit if there was ingame acknowledgement of it. The worst bit is that I feel like River’s romance is the least polished of them all, because Panam and Judy play important roles in main quests and Kerry is pivotal to Johnny’s sidequests, while River is... just there (also more further on, regarding the ending). So the fact that he’s like the forgotten child in the romance section while being the only cishet female option is heartbreaking.

The silverlining is that, at least, the mistreated community was het females instead of gay females. Although, this is just another example of game devs thinking about male players first.

Now the good part: what I liked

The cars. I’m not a car enthusiast, I don’t enjoy driving in real life and I’m a terrible driver in games, but I fucking loved the cars in CP2077. The Caliburn was like my game baby, I had so much fun driving around and hearing the different engines for each car, and the differences in driving... it was awesome. I got and bought *all* the available cars for the sake of it, just because I liked them so much.

The story. I love games that get me invested and this one was definitely one of those. Falling for Jackie when I knew he was not gonna be around for long was an expected, but still perfectly excecuted punch to the gut. And Johnny’s guidance and company was something I was hyped about, but still played out even better than I though it would. So to my next point, Keanu Reeves. I was thrilled to play a game with Keanu in it and it blew my mind. Those reviews that pinpoint Keanu’s acting as the weak link in the game are fucking wrong, how else you expect to see (and hear) an angry, resentful man permanently stuck in time? Even worse, when he knows the people he hated the most managed to kill him? I wasn’t happy when I learned Johnny was not a romance option but after meeting him, I’m glad that’s the case. He’s the perfect antihero-turned-best-friend for V, if you can stand him.

Stealth and hacking. Most of the time I choose the option to play stealthy and this time it wasn’t just that, it was the option to use futuristic technology at the same time. I LOVED it. Quickhacking enemies instead of shooting them is so much fun. Enemy detection is a bit wonky at times but still, I enjoyed it much better than if it had been a plain shooter. And those guns with homing shots are so cool that I wanted to play them over sniper rifles, my usual go tos.

The characters. I got invested in V’s relationships, even if the romantic aspect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Friendship with Kerry and Panam, clousure for Judy and Rogue, mourning Jackie, being part of River’s family, so many the fixers in existance... and Johnny, my bff Johnny. Even Alt, with her somewhat little role, was great. I was promised a compelling story and deep characters, and I did get both.

The soundtrack. Overall it’s pretty great, but my favorite songs are those related to Samurai. And it’s not even because of my love for Johnny, I really do enjoy them for their musical content. Unironically my all time favorite is Johnny’s as well, Never Fade Away. I won’t exit a car or open the menu when that song is playing.

The easter eggs. From GlaDOS and Silence of the Lambs in the Delamain quests to the Matix-esque pills of the main storyline, to Hideo Kojima and the BB in a lab, “Harvest like a Reaper” and the many “You’re breathtaking!” references (Kerry’s take was my favorite), the game presents A LOT of pop culture nods and I’m here for it. Having real life content creators around for several levels of cameos was a nice touch as well.

So without mentioning the heavy spoilers (aka ending), in my opinion, Cyberpunk 2077 deserves a 9/10. Bugs are fixable and the story and characters carry the game on it’s own because they’re just too good. The main story is kinda short and I believe Johnny’s sidequests should be part of the main story, but I get why they are not mandatory if you want to roleplay a full on dislike towards the rockerboy. But still, there are some things related to gender and romance that are complete misfires. I hope that some of those will be fixed via patches (the character creator bits), but the lack of more romance options or at least bisexual NPCs obviously won’t be fixed and that’s what keeps CP2077 away from a perfect score in my book.

Now, regarding the endings:

The one thing that truly bothered me was that the Rogue one had no real goodbyes for V. She goes into a suicide mission in space and everyone’s post-credit messages complain she just disappeared without a trace? I get she’s dying and all, but, for fuck’s sake leave a message explaining it if you cared so much about them. The game *makes* you care about the characters but doesn’t give you an option to honor that love at the end.

Also, again, romances. I played both Rogue and Panam’s endings so I know there’s no way to have a happy ending with River, which is bittersweet and probably for the best that it happens with him since his romance seems to be the least engaging, but again that makes me feel cheated. Not that they parted ways in the Nomad ending (that was sad, but sad endings are not bad), but that there is no happy-ish ending romance wise for a cishet female. People who romanced Panam obviously stay together with her and those who romanced Judy do too from what I’ve read (and no idea about Kerry’s romance), but not getting that option if you choose to be female and go for a het romance takes away from the game. Sadly. Also my last interaction with River in Rogue’s ending was fucking terrible, I liked how poetic that ending was for Rogue and Johnny until I got to the rest of my V’s life.

(But I still headcanon that River eventually joined V with the Aldecaldos in my canon ending, aka the Nomads’, despite what he said. Since his post-credit message implies he might visit her and stuff.)

As for the rest of the ending... CP2077 clearly states that life isn’t happy and that there’re no happy endings for people who live in NC, so I like that no ending is completely happy since you are bound to die anyway, but. But. It’s somewhat disheartening that the overall arc can be resumed to “all that you did served for nothing, you’re still dying so your efforts were absolutely useless.” I really don’t see how to improve it without defaulting to a happy, sunshine-esque ending that fixes everything, so I don’t know. It still wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the end, so... I liked it but didn’t, at the same time. Ha.

And lastly, I hoped for endgame playability and there is none, you have to revert to an earlier save to keep playing. I get why it wasn’t done, to give a definitive end to V’s story in NC, but anyway. What I really liked about this choice was that no matter the ending, V becomes no one again. They will be forgotten by most people after a while either because they leave with the nomads or because they ‘disappear’, aka die in a blaze of glory in that casino in space. Or well, sell their soul to Arasaka or commit suicide on the rooftop.

So overall, I loved this game and critics are somewhat too harsh. But I agree there are some terrible design choices and a long way of bugfixing to get to the specific masterpiece that we were hoping for.

[mamusings]

Supernatural Season 1 Thoughts

So I'm rewatching mainly to distract myself from the dogs breakfast the show has descended into. But also because my feelings about the show as a whole are decidedly mixed. I come to it as a buffy fan. I've always been curious about spn as a successor show to buffy, but only watched thr first 13 seasons in 2020. Blame lockdown.

Anyway s1. Blinding start, blinding finish. But the middle is just too many MOTW episodes without enough season arc development. I keep wondering who the show is for. It feels aesthetically very male. Lots of blood, guns and violence. Well-realised horror feel - although I think it's hard to really feel fear when you dont particularly care about who might die. It's only when you threaten a major character death that things hit harder. Also the genuflecting to realism by drawing on urban myths feels like something for stereotypically 'male' rather than 'female'. Probably reflects my preferences that I was never to into the MOTW format some buffy fans loved and that I was always more interested in the story telling than realism or even consistency. Monsters as metaphors works better for me. But Spn is a much more cloistered universe. Two guys and their absent father is what s1 is about. But it dits weirdly between being comfort viewing and needing attention. There's much that starts to feel formulaic with MOTW episodes: Impala on the road scene, some rock music, an opener that gives you a new mystery and people to go with it blah blah. You can practically set your watch by the final denouement happening in the final 8 mins. It feels like the show is diligently checking off every myth and monster going which gets tedious. I found the need for setting up yet another family in danger was something that gets hard to care about. "Oh look a couple, someone's gonna die, shall I fast forward until sam and dean show up." And yet there are some interesting undercutting of the white working class vibe the show has. Two that stand out to me are: the 'female gazing' of the camera work off Sam and Dean. There's a lot of panning - are we getting in the boys with the guns and hardware and then offering up the handsome male bodies for women? I felt a little cheap, but they they are v cute. The other is having a black/bi racial woman play Dean's only serious love interest. The ghost truck thing is terrible but putting attitudes to race at the centre of this particular storyline was intriguing. Perhaps a counter balance to the overall wwc feel of things. (Full disclosure I am a black woman and I enjoyed seeing this - even tho I did have several moments of wondering was the predominant female look so uniform back then. All the girls have the same build (and did we all wear such low rise jeans?) plus long, wavy/curly hair...except Meg who basically has Sam's hairstyle ha ha)

What's impressive? The first few episodes give us a cluster of core lines: bitch/jerk, no chick flick moments, and the sibling dynamic This show hits its stride right in the pilot and wendigo is still one of the scarier episodes. Thats a really good opening shot imo.

It's no surprise that what's really riveting is Sam and Dean. But on rewatching I saw a lot more on why this is so interesting. Basically when the characters are introduced you first get Sam. He's your archetypal nice guy whis hot everything though for him. Stanford, girlfriend, friends, great test score but also and crucially hes likeable. Then you get Dean and hes introduced as a dick. Breaks in, wrestles Sam, comes on to/is sleazy with Sams gf. So cocky bad boy: check.

In the pilot dean is the annoying big brother to a t. So they set up two contrasting personalities. Dean is disrespectful to cops, Sam is embarrassed by it. Dean is into hunting, Sam is unwillingly persuaded. Dean is insensitive, Sam kinder and sweet. Dean plays dumb, Sam's the academic achiever. But what we witness over the course of the season essentially reverses this. Sam's the real rebel defying his father, Dean the obedient son. Dean gets a lot of scenes showing him make swift emotional connections esp with children or people in caretaker roles. Dean's very adult 'I'm 26 of course I go on hunts alone' is unmasked by the fact he gets Sam to help him because hes lonely. And Dean (often clumsily) tries to help Sam move on about Jess and open up about his nightmares. While the explicit dialogue casts Sam as the geeky loser brother what we see in this season is that the loser is actually Dean. Sam has friends, Sam has a relationship, Sam has a life he wants to get back to. Dean has no one and some of the hardest emotional hits this season are when his mask is lifted to show us just that. For instance shape shifter Dean voices his jealousy in Skin. Also Azazel taunts Dean about how he needs Sam and John in a way that they dont need him.

The closing episodes really bring some of these contrasts home. Dead Mans Blood gives us a great bonding scene between Sam and John, for me that's a moment where it falls into place that they so much in common that it leaves Dean on the outside. They both loved women they lost to a demon. For both of them (at this stage) the mission, as in killing this demon, matters more than family. Its Dean who constantly prioritises family, even while his family deprioritise him. Both Sam in Salvation and John in Devils Trap put sacrificing themselves to kill the demon as their first priority. Whereas Dean consistently argues for family, first persuading John that they are stronger together, then telling Sam that the three of us 'is all I have' in Salvation. The point gets hammered home in Devils Trap where Dean says (in case the stupid viewer missed it "you and Dad are a lot more alike..cant wait to sacrifice yourselves, but I'm going to be the one to bury you").

Much of the rest of the relationship development is about showing us the partnership Sam and Dean are developing. You see increasing ease in working together - maybe most cliched in how they toss weapons back and forth in Hell House. Plus that interesting sibling dynamic when you love someone and find them intensely annoying that feels enjoyable even if your own sibling relationship is nothing like it.

But what's interesting is that while Dean's character is revealed throughout the season. You see through the episodes the difference between his Dean presents himself and hiw he is, but dean doesn't change. Hes immature and emotionally driven I'd also savvy and brave. Its Sam who changes. Not in how he is, but in his priorities. Sam realises the good bit about Dean among the stuff that irritates him. But most importantly the final episode shows us Sam moving from thinking the mission is what matters just like John. To thinking his family matters more. He doesnt shoot Azazel inside John and when John berates him for it his look at the bloodied-up Dean in the rearview mirror speaks volumes.

It's all the more striking because thus argument has been the core dilemma for the last 3 episodes. It's also the crux of how Dean, for all his obedience, sees himself as falling short of who his father wants him to be. He cant turn his heart off. Its Dean who calls his dad sounding like a tearful little boy in Home. It's when John approves of him making the heart choice and using the colt to save Sam, that Dean realises it's not his father but Azazel speaking. I find that painful to watch it's been so well set up. You get lots of preview of Dean really wanting approval and when it finally comes and you're all ahh fsmily bonding, Dean puts it together and goes you're not my father. Ouch.

Absent fathers and eventually I guess an absent God is a big spn theme. So there is something to say for looking at it in this season. John's absence is the driver of the whole season. But it's also the foundation stone of both Sam and Dean's character. What we get most of in s1 is a sense of the impact of his fathers absence on Dean. The childhood neglect, but also the absence of approval. My European background always makes it jarring when children address their father as sir so I hope I'm not over reading this. When John gets back the way it emasculates Dean is jarring. The jumping to attention with the yessirs and the following orders is such a distance from the cocky law breaker. Its interesting that the first scenes in which I recall the boys speaking in unison are these yessirs. But the scene I remember most is a trivial one, Dean offers John a machete out of Babys messy looking trunk - hes already been pulled up by dad for inadequate car maintenance. But John pulls a bigger, better, cleaner machete out of his high spec truck - Dead Mans Blood. Sums it up for me. Dean is so eager for approval, his father withholds it so casually. Sam is less like this, because he had Dean to parent him however ineptly. Sam did not have a hoid parent in Dean, but Dean showed up. Sam starts to make that realisation in season 1 and there are a few thank you moments. Contrast Dean's only outburst against his father when hes admonished to call when in trouble. He takes a leaf out of Sam's book and notes that they did call in Lawrence and they called when Dean was dying in Faith, hes angry and rightly so. John didn't show. But its interesting that Dean's fight with John sounds like a child fighting with a parent. It even ends with 'I dont care for your tone' from John even as he accepts Dean's point. Constrast Sam and John who have a much deeper ongoing disagreement. But Sam fights his father from an adult position. He's not looking for approval or acceptance, Sam claims his ground, argues his point. Dean still just needs to be loved.

But as well as the impact of the absent parent there is also having grown beyond the parent. I feel like the final few episodes show us that 'the boys' have surpassed their father. John's fake colt idea is lame and Dean calls it. By contrast the devils trap at Bobby's to catch Meg feels like a moment of brilliance particularly as the trap is sprung on the viewer so we feel surprised too.. Sure they call in help from Bobby, but what they do is well planned and they pull it off. And calling in helo when you need it us grown up.

Theres an element of fate vs character exploration when it comes to Sam and Dean. What happens to Sam is fate. It's not related to how he is or how he behaves. We find that out more fully soon. Whereas what happend to Dean relates to his character. IMO Dean actually has the option of walking away from hunting that Sam tried to exercise. Unlike Sam, hunting wouldn't have pursued Dean by killing his girlfriend. But Dean's character means he doesnt chose to walk away because family is important to him, in a way that it isn't for Sam until the end of this season. Its interesting that Sam perceives of himself as having choices he doesn't have. Whereas Dean sees himself as having no choice, when in fact he does. But I guess we don't know that yet so maybe the argument doesn't work?

#supernatural #sam #dean #winchester

[malcolmwhitly-bright]

Longing for Things Out of Reach

Chapter Two

No one wants to be friends with the cripple. 

It’s not completely true. His classmates could not care less about any of the many tools he needs to get around. His speech impediment isn’t that bad anymore and no one notices it except him. He’s pretty ‘ok’ in his classmates’ books. Everyone knows his story, every news station in America gave him his five minutes of fame for turning his father in. His lack of friends has nothing to do with him physically and everything to do with him mentally. 

“What do you want me to do, Jessica?”

Malcolm pretends like he can’t hear Gil and his mother arguing in the doorway. They blame one another for his failures but even Malcolm knows it’s all his fault. He’s slower than normal, more than taking his time as he walks to the steps. He doesn’t want to face Gil, doesn’t want to talk about another horrible week at school like next week will be any different. 

“Jackie said she’s making burritos,” Ainsley tells him. She’s hot on his heels and he’s expressed several times her doing so makes him feel self-conscious about the way he walks. She remembers this when he catches his foot on the carpet and curses angrily. “Sorry, Mal.”

Malcolm closes his eyes, breathing through his nose for ten seconds before opening them again. His voice is calm, his frustration melting away. “It’s not your fault, I-I wasn’t watching.” With more concentration, he manages to get his left leg over the carpet even if it means he leans heavily into the crutch at his side. 

Ainsley watches him falter at the top of the steps. The task is daunting. “Why don’t you move your bedroom downstairs,” she whispers, still worried her words will set him off like a ticking bomb. “No one would think any less of you.” It seemed to be a debate held monthly in their home. Staved off for when Malcolm had one of his severely worse days. Her mother would comfort him as best she can and asks if he’d like her to call Gil. That together they can move his things to the first-floor bedroom. 

His cold blue eyes find her and she can see he’s not mad. He shakes his head with a knowing smirk,” I would.” He takes the first step, leaning between the railing and the crutch. What he means is that he knows that his family would come at the drop of a hat to help move his room downstairs but he would feel awful if he moves it. It’s… It’s like being a kid again before his father was sent away. He’s a broken child all over again. 

“Hey my little G-man,” Gil rustles Malcolm’s hair and steps away from Jessica to take Malcolm’s overnight bag. Malcolm forces a smile for Jackie who waves at him from where Ainsley is now engaging her in conversation. “How was this week?”

Malcolm trusts his mother has already told the Lieutenant that he missed Tuesday and Wednesday. He forced himself out of bed Tuesday only to fall in the shower like a complete moron when his hip locked up and he was hit with such blinding pain in his knees that he had to army crawl out. He could live without the embarrassment of telling Gil that his mother had found him completely naked on the bathroom floor. 

He decides to smile through it, “I fell down the stairs yesterday morning but I aced my calc test.” He leaves out that he was home alone and that it took him ten minutes to find the strength to pull himself upright. His therapist calls this his ‘protective dome’. That only because it’s nicer to give deflections a different name. She doesn’t like his protective dome and he knows it’s because it’s not as protective as he likes to pretend it is. Lying to the people who care about him isn’t helpful for them or for him. 

“That’s one less fall than last week,” Ainsley supplies in their silence. She always wants him to appease the ground between Malcolm and others. She’ll smooth over his frustrated comments towards Gil or his mother. She’ll even brush off his mean comments. He doesn’t deserve it. 

He doesn’t deserve a lot of things. 

“Come on kid,” Gil sighs at Malcolm’s full plate. Malcolm hadn’t even bothered to pick up his fork. Jackie sends him a look from the kitchen, it’s a warning. Gil isn’t in a good mood and Malcolm’s disinterest in life is not going to make it better. “You’re not gonna eat your food? Have you eaten at all today?”

Protective Dome. Don’t tell him more than what he needs to know. 

Malcolm shrugs his shoulders, “... had a granola bar.” He can remember the day his life changed forever. One phone call. He wishes he’d never made the phone call. He didn’t save the woman in the basement with him so there was no point. He wishes… He wishes he would have died in that basement, in the teal room. 

There would be no crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. There would be no mornings where he’s too weak to stand or in too much pain to think. There’d be nothing. He’d be dead. Maybe he would have grown weaker, died in his sleep. Things probably would have escalated and it would be a slow, painful death but it would be a death. That’s more than he has now.

But he didn’t die. Gil saved him. 

Malcolm remembers that night perfectly. The way his father seemed warmer than normal as they made their way down the stairs. He can feel the gurney digging into his back and the needle piercing his flesh. The clouds over his eyes and in his skin. 

He can remember the banging as the cops filled the house. His mother and Ainsley’s crying as they realized they were looking for Martin. Better than anything else, he remembers Gil. Warm, strong arms that lifted him from the gurney, a soothing voice through the shouts and cries of the madness around. 

Gil. 

Gil with his spicy cologne.

Gil with his bear hugs and goatee.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm whispers, his eyes falling just short of where Gil’s are. “I… I-” he doesn’t know. There’s no good excuse for his behavior. A heavy hand finds his shoulder and Malcolm looks up to find Gil smiling down at him. 

Gil squeezes his shoulder and says nothing as he pulls the plate away. Jackie smiles at him from the kitchen and Malcolm bows his head. His therapist had suggested that perhaps his fear was misplaced. That he needs to stop worrying about freaking his family out and worry more about what’s freaking him out.

More importantly, what led to his attempt. 

He can’t remember most of it, his therapist explained that sort of thing can happen when a person is traumatized. It’s the way the brain protects itself. Too bad it didn’t happen to the first ten years of his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have a suicide attempt to remember. His therapist hadn’t found that quip as clever as he did. 

He remembers waking in the hospital and the way they looked at him. The way they’re still looking at him now, almost a week later. 

He meets Jackie’s eyes, those intuitive blue eyes. Just like his. She brushes past Gil as they switch positions. She settles into the kitchen chair closests to him and his hand in hers. “Is this okay?” She means a hundred things, he knows. That was Jackie, clever. He nods and she runs her finger over the bandage on his wrist. It covers the angry red skin. “What were you thinking?” He understands... She’s not here to criticize his choices. “I’m not your mother, Malcolm.” She wants to understand.

He shakes his head like he can’t fathom an answer. Her eyes don’t move away and her thumb on his pulse makes him tremble with vulnerability. “I’m-” his voice is a rasp of nerves as he looks at her for any indication that he doesn’t have to go on. “I’m not- I’m not normal.” His protective dome of careful half truths be damned.

They both know it’s bigger than that. He knows, right now, as he thinks back to climbing into that too warm water. The way it settled on his chest like the night he found the woman. The razor felt like the needle slipping into his veins and his knees wobbled and his head was fuzzy. 

She squeezes his fingers, shaking her head. “You’re seeing it all wrong,” she whispers, hand coming to the side of his head. “Think about the things you can do, the things you can control.” She looks over her shoulder, “if you’re so awful, why does your baby sister think you hung the moon and named stars?” She strokes his cheek, “who cares about normal. I like you better the way you are, dark humor and loud laugh.” She scoots closer, bringing their heads to touch. “You make life worth living, you silly boy.”

He struggles to keep his tears at bay, smiling and laughing oddly as a tear falls down his cheek. Jackie brushes it away and presses her warm palm to his cheek. He looks at her, lower lip trembling. “It-” he hasn’t talked about it. None of them have, not really. “It hurt,” he whispers. “It hurt so much.” She presses her lips to his forehead, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. The weight across his shoulders suddenly doesn’t feel as heavy, his heart light. 

She unwraps him and he’s suddenly too cool without her right there beside him. Two fingers press under his chin and he lifts his head, smiling when he looks up to Jackie. She smiles with a wink but says nothing, Malcolm already knows. He’s a fighter. He’s smart. He’s the boy who gets knocked down and who gets back up and with love he’s learning to take his time. 

“Eat,” Jackie fills the empty space where his plate had been with a peeled orange. She’s not leaving it up for debate. Gil watches him out of the corner of his eye but Jackie doesn’t. Normally, he might venture to say something about Gil’s attention but after everything he’s put the poor man through he doesn’t have the heart.

Ainsley runs into the kitchen stopping when she realizes Gil can hear her. She smiles sheepishly and grins at him. They’re not supposed to run through the house, a problem mostly at Gil and Jackie’s because Ainsley gets so excited about being at their house.

“What is it, Ains?” Gil raises an eyebrow and puts a hand on her shoulder, stopping her twisting as she stands in place. His smile is soft as he regards her. It’s only been two weeks since he saw them and yet he missed them both unspeakably. It was weird, the house and station and the back of his car without one of them. No Malcolm to get picky over what station the radio played on or Ainsley to give him those sad little pouty eyes when he says no to stopping for sweets. 

She smiles, “I wanna play checkers. Will you play with me?” She can see his hesitation and pulls his hand off her shoulder, squeezing his fingers. “Please, Gil? Please?”

He caves, like always, and lets her pull him to the living room. 

Jackie watches the exchange with a smile, “he’s missed having you two around.” Malcolm knows she’s speaking to him but prefers placing another orange slice on his tongue so he doesn't have to engage in discussing exactly why it is they haven’t been over. “I have too.” 

It comes back to him, it always does. 

Ainsley can’t have horse riding lessons because Jessica doesn’t like missing Malcolm’s physical therapy. 

Gil missed two weeks from work because Malcolm decided to slit-

Right. He’s not supposed to think like that. Ainsley can’t have horse riding lessons because she’s already balancing ballet and school. Gil missed time because Malcolm was in the hospital and the station wrote it off because they know the relationship. 

Malcolm clears his throat, “she’s talked about it all week.” He can faintly remember on Tuesday when she crawled into his bed with him. Their mother had sent her up with a heated blanket and Ainsley had tucked it around the two of them before settling into his side. She had talked his ear off but hearing her excitement helped with some of the pain. 

“And you?” Jackie is the only person that pushes him to express his emotions. She tilts her head and watches him. Gil and Jessica always comment that when Malcolm and Jackie tilt their heads they look exactly alike. That heavy intuitive gaze in their blue eyes. 

Malcolm nods, “it’s…” He doesn’t want to say home but… This house is home more than his own could ever be. “It’s good to be home,” he looks down and realizes he’s finished the orange. His stomach rumbles, reminding him just how little he’s eating as of late.

Jackie smiles at the sound and she hands him a plate. This one has two sliced strawberries, half a banana, and another orange. He starts this one with a little more fever, smiling when the orange drips down his chin. She smiles too, “I love you, bright boy.” She rustles his hair.

He looks up at her and he knows she means it. He bites into a strawberry and smiles when he finds it to be sweet. He’ll spend his whole life wondering how it is that her love seeped into everything she made, even the fruits she cuts. “I love you too, Jackie.”

[obsidianarchives]

My Heaven is a Republic

I’m not a religious person. A huge reason why is my grandmother, a deeply critical woman who moved to Detroit during the Great Migration. She would often call out the Black churches in Detroit for their hypocrisy: always a poor congregation and a rich pastor. She was spiritual, though. She believed in God, and because of her I went to several Catholic elementary schools. And like many queer kids who went to religious schools, I left them as a self-proclaimed atheist, having experienced firsthand the disingenuousness of a religion that taught love and forgiveness but, in practice, hated difference. I was bullied mercilessly and had teachers who belittled me. I saw clearly that none of the lessons in chapel or religion class seemed to be practiced by anyone, save a few tender adults. 

Then I got older and noticed that queers and women were reviled by the people I knew who were church-going. I was the only teen in high school not in a church youth group, and the only one who spoke up loudly about reproductive rights, gay rights, and the dangers of capitalism.

It’s no wonder that I had my own spiritual texts. 

The first was Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which I read at 10 years old in a book club that my sister attended. We both loved reading, and as my mom was a comically neglectful parent, my sister looked after me, which is why I was the lone child at a book club of old Detroit radicals at Detroit’s Unitarian church. We both read Parable of the Sower in one night.

The book changed me. Detroit in the ’90s felt a little like the apocalyptic Oakland of the novel. Empty crumbling ruins. The yearly fear of homes ablaze on Devil’s Night. The puzzling undercurrent of why the suburbs had street lights but my neighborhood did not. 

For me, it was barely fantasy to imagine the world of Parable, a world of ecological and economic nightmares spun from greed and disregard of Black and brown neighborhoods. When Lauren, the main character, turns from her beloved father’s Christianity to a grassroots spiritual movement of her own, it struck a chord.

God is change

Pretentious little nerd that I was, I knew there was a reason people throughout history had religion. It could explain what happened around you, what happened to you, what happens after you die. As an anxious child, I fretted over death and the unknown. As a sensitive child, I fretted over the destruction of the rainforest, of the dwindling elephants killed for ivory. I knew that these were big feelings to grapple with, but also that saying it was God’s plan seemed like an empathy cop-out. I didn’t do drugs or drink as a teen (though I would later), but I deeply understand Marx’s assertion that “religion is the opium of the masses.” It’s so much easier to think that something or someone else will fix your woes and pain. Religion is a better drug than the shitty brick weed I smoked in college, but I imagine it results in the same numb feeling of “not my problem.” 

All that you touch

you change.

All that you change

changes you.

In high school, I was in a youth volunteer program that was heavily political. Because my sister attended, and she watched me and my brother, we would tag along. I owe my entire political education and radical mind frame to this time. I learned the history of my city and country, about the political power of art and gardening, about food and environmental justice, about gender and racial inequality. Nearly all the adults who ran the program were queer, as well as several of the older teens I admired. I started to notice homophobia more in the world, and was troubled. We were taught to be youth leaders, to advocate for social change, to think of a new way of living — as we saw all around us how capitalism failed my hometown, gutted its beauty and resources, mowed down its Black and Chinese neighborhoods to build freeways for white suburbanites to travel more easily through the city. Change is inevitable, and we learned to be the change we wished to see in the world. 

The only lasting truth 

is change

Empires fall. That’s what world history teaches us. What is perhaps less obvious is that change is slow. The US is still not post-segregation, post-lynching, or post-homophobia. It can be overwhelming, the cycle of two steps forward and one step back. But change happens regardless, it is constant, and, most importantly, it can be shaped communally and personally. 

I’m not immune to the fact that my other spiritual text — the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, like Parable of the Sower — also interrogates Christian-based teachings. The books are dense with Western art and religious imagery, allusions, and symbolism, but the most impactful part for me happens on the last page of the last book, The Amber Spyglass:

“We have to be all those difficult things, like cheerful and curious and brave and kind and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in our different worlds, and then we’ll build...the republic of heaven”

Lyra, the main character, is home from her adventure, having saved the multiverse. In doing so, she has preserved Dust, the physical manifestation of the intentional good things conscious beings create. Dust is not finite, it can be created, through hard work, through treating people kindly and patiently, through learning and growing. I use this as my moral (golden) compass to guide me every day. I maintain a calm, kind, public vibe, even when I'm angry or frustrated. I compliment people freely. I donate to strangers’ GoFundMes. I offer to drive for friends and coworkers. I practice active listening. I challenge people when they say fucked up things. I’ve become a Professional Mentally Ill Queer Weirdo through my podcast, The Gayly Prophet. This is hard work, especially for someone like me, with depression and anxiety, where it would be so very easy to be dismissive and apathetic and withdrawn from the world. But that’s not the kind of world I want other people to live in. I hear from listeners every day that my openness has changed their lives and their relationships with themselves — this is the kind of world I want to live in. 

I don’t do any of these things looking for some reward in a cartoon afterlife. The reason I try to live a moral and just life is that I believe the meaning of my life is to shape a better world. To build the republic of heaven.

We do not worship god.

We perceive and attend god.

With forethought and work

We shape god.

In the end, we yield to god.

We adopt and endure,

For we are Earthseed,

And god is change.

[exolovek]

Innocence Died Whispering

Title inspired by Hozier’s From Eden

This is how it stars:

The eyes of the citizens of Gotham City are turned towards the rich,  as the sons and daughters of the city are congregating on the steps of the city’s museum, waiting for the hour to strike so that the rich can disappear into the doors and behind the velvet rope that separates them. But while many of the sons and daughters of Gotham are walking into the museum, the Waynes are walking out of a movie theater in a place that is yet to be known as Crime Alley.

Thomas and Martha Wayne are out with their son, walking briskly to their car that is parked at the turn of the street, close to the theater but far enough that the walk is long, especially in the middle of the night, wearing some of their fanciest clothes hurrying because they are already late to an event they had helped plan.

The Waynes, for all their faults, are not stupid.  So they don’t enter any ill-illuminated alley and they don’t dally as they walk, and they make damn sure that that the street lights illuminate their path as they walk hand in hand with Bruce.

And they walk and listen to the boy in the middle of them as he tells them about his favorite parts of the movie they had just watched. About the famous “ Z ” carved on a tree, about the mask and the cape and the black boots.

And they walk until the car is in sight and a man is in front of them, and there is a gun glistering against a pale, blue-veined and shaking hand.

The Waynes aren’t stupid.

So, Martha takes off her pearl necklace, her bracelets, her rings, and her earrings and hands them to the man with the gun, she still looks beautiful, and the anger in her eyes is dangerous.

So, Thomas takes off his watch, his rings, and his cufflinks. He lets the mugger know that he is going to be reaching inside his pocket for his wallet (three credit cards, and $213.63 cash) and hands them over, and he is trying to look smaller than he really is so that the mugger isn’t treated by him.

So, Bruce takes his cufflinks and the small watch his father had gifted him with and hands them over as well as the five dollar bill he has scrunched up on his pants pockets.

The mugger says thanks in a weird show of manners and his hands are still shaking and he is walking away, and the Waynes are safe, they haven't lost anything worth more than their lives.

But they are still in the middle of the street and someone must have called the cops because there are sirens piercing the air and the red and blue lights are coming closer.

Thomas watches as the mugger startles and accidental fires his gun. He doesn’t see when the bullet hits his son, but he hears the impact and feels the hand on his hand go completely slack as his son drops down to the floor. Dead.

When Thomas turns to look down, his medical knowledge assaults his mind, the bullet had an exit wound, and after preliminary visual assessment, Thomas knows it had hit the C3 severing the cervical spine from the thoracic spine, and most importantly, severing the spinal cord from the brain. Putting a stop to all neuroactivity instantly.

Martha is also looking down at their son, and she drops to her knees and whispers, brokenly: “Bruce?”

Bruce.

There is a moment, were Thomas looks towards the mugger, the killer, and he is still there, hands shaking and something in Thomas snaps.

He is a doctor, he is supposed to help people heal, but at that moment that is the furthest thing from his mind. He is hitting the killer before he reacts, and he is hitting him and again and again and again. Until the man is on the floor, unconscious.  And his hands are red but he doesn’t care and he brushes his hair out of his eyes.

He turns around and thinks so, this is how my life ends.

Martha is still sitting with their boy, her hands are also red, and they are held against her mouth as she sobs and sobs and sobs And then a thought struck her, and no one would never know what it was because then Martha was laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing. And she was still laughing when the police finally arrived, so late in fact, that the blood on her hands and mouth had dried, so late in fact, that the blood on Thomas’s eyes and hands had dried. So late in fact, that it makes no sense.

The cops saw many things that day.

They didn’t know it yet, but they saw Martha Wayne die and the Joker being born. They saw Thomas Wayne break into pieces that one day were going to be forced together to form Batman. And they saw an eight-year-old boy dead. In a place that was yet to be known as Crime Alley.

Bruce Thomas Wayne was buried on the 20th of October on the Wayne’s Manor east garden. In attendance only close family friends: Alfred Pennyworth who didn’t cry. Zatanna Zatara who did. The Kanes and the Foxs and Jim Gordon who has been the cop that arrested the killer. Martha Wayne did not talk during the service and Thomas Wayne did not look anywhere but his hands, were he felt blood still tainted them.

Months passed and Martha still didn’t talk and Thomas still didn’t look.

Eventually, Thomas remembered the cave in which his son had fallen and the bats that had terrorized him and he went to his son grave and promised him that nothing like this would happen to anyone else.

He packed his bags and left, still not looking anywhere but his hands.

Martha Wayne did not talk, she roamed the rooms of her home and didn’t see anything but ghosts and she decided, talking to ghost was better than not talking at all. So she talked to the wall were Bruce had painted a masterpiece in crayon, the chair that had been ruined with spilled blue milk ('like the one in Star Wars mama!' the chair screamed at her.) She talked to the bed that had so recently cradled her son, to the tea set the boy preferred, to the books left bookmarked and unfinished, until her voice was hoarse.

The ghosts in the Manor were so loud they didn’t stop screaming at her. Screaming and screaming. The way her boy hadn’t because he had died in less than a second. The biggest love of her life, one of the only joys she had gone. Gone. Gone.

Alfred Pennyworth would watch his Mistress staring at empty spaces and she would laugh and laugh and laugh. He took a decision that didn’t correspond him, but Master Wayne had left the Manor in the night, without a word of goodbye or an address to locate him and his wife was lost in her grief. So, he called the Arkham Asylum and he sent the once proud Martha Wayne to receive treatment for her madness. She had gone where she was lead, passive in a way she had never been and was walking by herself when Alfred forged Thomas signature and admitted her on the Asylum.

Thomas found out way too late that his wife was gone.

Thomas throws his will into training, into fighting, into learning everything he can to war against injustice. Martha remains sitting on her room, rocking herself to sleep, singing the ghosts a lullaby until they quiet and let her sleep.

Months and months pass and Gotham forgets about the Waynes and their tragedy. Gotham still hosts Wayne Enterprises, that is being run by a combination of Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox and they are the ones that remember most.

Alfred visits Martha often and he talks to her, lets her know what is going on with the word, tells her that Thomas called once, on Bruce’s birthday and wanted to let Martha know that he was safe.

Martha makes no sign that she is listening as she hums. Hush little baby, don’t you cry.

A year after Bruce is killed, Martha escapes Arkham Asylum, killing two nurses and the man that had been on guard at the front door.  She laughed as she did, and once more her mouth was stained red with her own handprint. No one paid attention to the under-dressed woman that walked barefoot in Gotham that laughed at a joke no one understands.

She breaks into a warehouse because the ghost tells her that the name is funny, and it reminds the ghost of the roadrunner and coyote all it was missing is the m between the c and the e. Ace Chemicals the sign read.

Martha Wayne entered the room, walked on a walkway above tubs filled with green liquid, she put one foot over the handrail and then another one. And then the ghost that had been following her for a year disappeared. So Martha jumped. Because she really had nothing left to lose now that the ghost was gone gone gone.

There was already something damaged inside of her, the pain of the chemical on her skin only finished breaking it.

She came out of the tub and her skin was bleached white, her once dark brown and lush hair was now an ugly orange, her nails had fallen off, and there was now a twitch on her neck, her bloody handprint had been burned into her mouth, disfiguring her.  She laughed through it. This pain, this never-ending ache was nothing compared to when she lost her baby.

She walked towards a clothing store and stole a beautiful white dress, and the blood of the man that had been closing down the store contrasted beautifully against it.

No one would ever look at the Joker and think this woman once was named Martha Wayne.  

No one, except one person who was in the middle of the Himalayas, climbing a mountain with a broken wrist, training under a man named The Demon's Head.

Thomas was a different man from the one that left. He could no longer call himself a doctor, not with all the bones he had broken instead of a set, with all the bruises he had left on the stomach of untrained man. He didn’t know what to call himself, his name, that had been so important in Gotham, had no meaning in Pakistan, Russia or Nigeria, his money couldn’t solve the fights he was constantly getting into and his title of father had been taken as abruptly as it had been given. So for now, he was just called Detective by the Demon’s Head.

He trained for three and a half years and then packed his bags and returned home. The guilt of leaving eating him alive, but knowing that saying would have killed him too.

When he got home, the manor was deserted, full of dust, spiderwebs, and humidity and as full as it was, it was also empty, there was no Martha to welcome him home, no Alfred with tea, he should have expected it but he didn’t.

He walked inside the tomb that was his once vibrant home and went to visit his son. The tombstone was clean and there were two fresh roses lying against the grave. He took one with him and went to the garage to take on of his cars to town. But once he gets through his own threshold a voice stops him.

There is a short man with a gun raised, dressed in black, his silhouette illuminated by the blue and red of his car lights. And he questions Thomas and takes him to the precinct and Jim Gordon takes one look at him and tells him we thought you were dead.  And then Alfred comes and tells him Martha is gone. And then the Batman finishes setting. Thomas broken pieces finally coming together into a child's nightmare turned masked hero. El Zorro and the bats merging into one entity, a child’s hero and its worst fear being held together by what was left of Thomas Wayne.

The newspapers, over the years, read:

THE BATMAN DEFEATS THE PENGUIN  and then THE BATMAN: GOTHAM’S KNIGHT and THE BATMAN BUST DRUG DEAL and THE JOKER ATTACKS YET AGAIN and  THE JOKER KILLS 743 IN GAS ATTACK and THE BATMAN ARRESTS THE JOKER and THOMAS WAYNE IS BACK and FIVE YEARS SINCE THE DEATH OF BRUCE WAYNE and MARTHA WAYNE: STILL MISSING and WAYNE ENTERPRISES BUYS LEX CORP and LUCIUS FOX APPOINTED CEO OF WE and JOKER ESCAPES ARKHAM ASYLUM YET AGAIN and BATMAN AND JOKER ENGAGED IN BATTLE OF WITS and THE JOKER KILLS 43 and GCPD DENIES ASSOCIATION WITH GOTHAM’S BAT YET AGAIN.

The newspapers never read:

The Joker

Real Name: Martha Wayne née Kane

Sex: Female.

Blood Type: O-

Threat Level: Five.

Number of Kills: Unconfirmed.

Diagnosis: PTSD and DID.

Treatment: Cognitive Behavior Therapy and benzodiazepines (Valium and Klonopin)

Prognosis: Bad

Appearance: Joker is a five foot two woman with bleached white skin and orange hair that rest just above her shoulders. There is a chemical burn in the form of a handprint across her mouth. Her eyes are dark brown and the sclera of her eyes is a pale yellow. She has various scars all along her arms and legs, the scars from different letters more frequently are the letter B followed by the letter T and then the letter J. She has no nails and she is missing part of her helix on her left ear.

She is often seen wearing white, a pearl necklace and diamond earrings, she also often holds red flowers. More frequently, red roses.

Usual Hiding Spots: Crime Ally’s movie theater. Warehouse number 19 on Gotham Harbor. Wayne Manor east garden.

Known associates: None.

Personal Comment and/or Observation: I just want her to come home.

This is how it ends.

Batman is on what is known as Crime Ally, the movie theater is long gone and he is walking during the day on a street that is no longer illuminated by street lights because this part of the city has fallen into oblivion. He is wearing his usual black and red suit.

And he is walking until a woman is in front of him, and there is a red rose being held against a bleached white and shaking hand.

The Waynes are long gone.

But, Joker comes to stand next to Batman and she leaves the red rose on the floor, she isn’t laughing, she isn’t talking.

But, Batman takes a red rose from his utility belt and leaves the red rose on the floor, he isn’t fighting, he isn’t looking.

Bruce Wayne is long gone and he does nothing.

And they stay there, in the middle of the street and in this part of town no one calls the cops anymore and they remember the boy who was taken from them nine years ago.

Batman watches once more, like every year, and how he will watch for the years to come, as the Joker falls to her knees and in a moment of clarity whispers, brokenly: “Bruce?”  

Bruce

And then, it begins again.

The laughter.

ao3

[notforgottcn]

⧼    sophia bush, cis female, she/her   / when the bell tolls by anthony ramos   +   taking a leap even though you don’t know how far the fall is, hot coffee and ballet shoes, filling out late night paperwork because you don’t want to go home yet    ⧽   ━━   let me tell you a thing or two about ADELLA ROBBINS. the THIRTY SIX year old daughter of BRUCE WAYNE is a POLICE OFFICER in town, and has sometimes been referred to as THE PHOENIX. they’ve always seemed very DRIVEN & PHILANTHROPIC, though i’ve heard that they can be pretty ALOOF & UNFORGIVING, too. it’s common knowledge that they have NO ABILITY ; guess we shouldn’t get on their bad side, huh? 

tw: death, 

BIOGRAPHY ::

you’re more alike to your birthmother than you will ever know, you have her smile, her walk. that’s what bruce would tell you if you were to ever ask him. you don’t. you feel enough of her ghost on your shoulders without having more information about her. you know a name that is all you want from the woman who left you first.

you are left on the steps to wayne manor. sometimes when you’re sad you like to picture what alfred’s face looked like when he found you out there in january cold. you stay with there for two months. there are photos of you with your siblings. dick kept one for years it would seem. still even here where you’re supposed to be safe, you only last for so long before you’re sent away again.

mr and mrs robbins gave you the best childhood that they could, and for awhile the pain of your origins are tucked away neatly in a draw that you don’t open very much. instead you excel at your education, throwing yourself into dance lessons enjoying the moments you could snag with your parents (they were busy people, you learnt very quickly not to hold it against them).

still things become harder as you get older, you’re the odd one out at that fancy school  you attend. thought you’re not sure how they first found out. here is the first appearance of the fighter inside of you. it will be harder for you to ignore things now. your parents are called several times because you had lashed out at the people who had refused to leave you alone. you are told that were it not for your parents standing in the school community you would have likely been expelled. you are still incredibly proud of that black eye.

you take up martial arts as a compromise, with the understanding that you will behave in a manner more befitting your station in public. the fighting doesn’t really stop you just learn to mask your behaviour. a real sign that you are your fathers daughter.

at sixteen you’re sneaking into clubs making a name for yourself in the new york club scene. you only learn later that photos of you drunk and throwing up into a gutter are only going to undermine you later.

your parents passing in a mutant rights demonstration changes everything, throwing you into a world you’re not ready for. people want you to be an adult, but your nothing more than a child in your mother’s shoes. trying so hard but failing so fast. you easily see the bad sad of humanity, despite the fact that you come out relatively unscathed. it changes you, your angry and most importantly lonely. feelings that really wouldn’t go away.

the loneliness of being alone opens up things you had tidied away years ago. who were your birth parents? why did they give you up ? stupidly it would seem in hindsight you were trying to fill the space left by your parents with people you didn’t even know.

when the name on the test reads bruce wayne it stops everything. the first emotion you really remember is confusion. it was supposed to be someone you didn’t know, someone you could put behind you rather than someone who had been in the background for your entire life.

the first time you go to the mansion after the reveal you yell and scream as loud as your lungs could manage. how could he do this to you?? give you up to people who would manage to rip you apart. he hadn’t known, he couldn’t have, but you blame him for it anyway. him and them, the mutants that cause the accident, they’re the only ones you could, even as your brain tells you it’s stupid.

you remember telling him that you want nothing to do with him but even that doesn’t last too long. you move into the manor eventually, after digging your heels in and demanding to know everything. you find out about batman around the same time. the truth about your father, and as much as he knew about your mother.

that first year is hard, you are ripped from your life in new york and placed in a home that isn’t yours. the people in it are aching doing their best to heal from things that don’t involve you, and yet again you are unwanted by the majority a complication they don’t need.

still not everything in your life is bad, you are alive and for what it’s worth you have more family then you’ve ever had before. jason is the first to really make you feel at home. alfred assures you that the others will come around in time, you aren’t so sure.

taking up the cowl was technically dick’s idea, though you couldn’t become batgirl without permission from babs. just like everyone else in your family the bat becomes an outlet for your anger, a way to enact change and for a year you love it. you make the mantel your own and in some ways you’ve never felt more alive then you do in gotham at night.

just like everything else in life however it is possible to outgrow the hero antics and at nineteen you are more than ready to be something more than just batman’s sidekick. so you follow your heart and you leave. the next few years are a bit of lost time. you travel a lot (you parent’s money lets you) never really staying in one place for too long. still that doesn’t mean you don’t try for some form of stability. england is your favorite, grey skies and cups of tea, but somehow you always end up back in the states. especially after things there end badly. you get your heart broke and you can’t see the direction your pointing in anymore.

how predictable that you’d end up in new york again, some days feeling like you’d never even really left at all. still this time your not some wealthy girl. you’re enrolled in the police academy, you work your ass off and you’re on the streets by the time your twenty seven. it’s the perfect balance for you between the rush you used to get as batgirl but also working within the law. you can’t help but enjoy the fact you don’t need to cover your face.

still you’ve picked up a habit of moving on: new york, star city, gotham you’ve worked in each of them. paragon was an odder choice, after so long running from your family, your birth father’s legacy, but at the same time it feels like a good way of touching base for a while. besides, with everything that goes on in town, it’s probably a good idea to have a cop on hand who actually knows how the hero gig works.

FACTS ::

addy still dances but it’s more as a stress relief than anything close to professional.

her entire life goal (when it comes to the batkids) is to be considered the cool aunt though the extent to which that actually is questionable.

she has two cats toodles (x) and watson (x) and they’re her favorite thing in her whole world.

she functions entirely on caffeine, yes she knows it’s bad but it’s not a habit that she can see herself breaking.

a massive disney nerd!! she’s not sorry for it.

RELATIONSHIPS ::

family ;;

bruce wayne - father/ sperm donor. she doesn’t want this thanks.

alfred pennyworth - grandfather figure / secret keeper. they’re very close.

dick grayson - adopted brother / mentor. brings out the best in her.

jason todd - adopted brother / best friend. jason understands more than most.

tim drake - adopted brother / confidant. they go for coffee it’s cute.

cassandra cain - adopted sister / favorite batman. strong girls supporting strong girls

damian wayne - brother / terror. their dynamic is interesting at the best of times.

important ;;

adrian trevor - lost love / once in a lifetime. think luke and lorelai with extra angst.

friends ;;

andrea hill - close friend / ride or die. the person addy would call with a body.

ziva mizrahi - work friends / . someone addy trusts to have her back.

wanted connections ;;

travel buddies!! - anyone that she could have traveled with or met when travelling.

all the brotps: honestly give her friends.

anyone she could have interacted with as a cop good or bad.

league kids she’s keeping an eye on.

league kids her own age she likes to get a drink with.

any other kid she might feel protective of because lbr that’s all of them.

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Hypothetical question: in a YA/Umbrella Academy crossover, which team members bond most with each other? Potentially more importantly, what absolute disaster couples could form and what complete chaos would they bring forth?

What an EXCELLENT question my mysterious friend, because I have LOTs of inconclusive feelings about this.

So I’m sure we’re all thinking ohhh Kate and Diego are like a POWER COUPLE what with the aim and stuff but really they’re Besties who are highly competitive. I could see Diego pitching in sometimes with Kate’s PI work–close enough to cop-stuff but still giving him time to be a vigilante. Hell, I could see them actually being really grudging coworkers who show up at crime scenes all the time and irritate the shit out of their favorite cops. They brought coffee!!! What can you tell us about this highly suspicious death? :)

Kate is also friends with Vanya–they might practice playing their stringed instruments together, they might even play in the same orchestra for a while. Kate is one of the few people from Vanya’s childhood that she keeps in contact with. They get together a few times a month for coffee.

Billy and Vanya are close, too, but Billy doesn’t live in the same city so he and Vanya don’t see each other as much. Once Vanya taps into her powers, she and Billy work on controlling and accessing their powers. They are generally Not Freaked Out by the weird shit the other can do. “Vanya, I have a date with Teddy tonight and I swear to God that if you mess up my hair with your powers I’m going to throw you into a tree.”

I honestly don’t know if America winds up with Allison or Vanya. Because Vanya is so tiny, so easily picked up and carried around and America is NOT afraid of Vanya because she’s basically indestructible. So probably Vanya. Like, lbr, every member of the YA family has had a little bit of a crush on Allison at some point. 

Billy and Allison get along really well–it’s so nice for Allison to be around a guy who doesn’t want anything from her. He’s a designer and she wears him on the red carpet. Naturally, this lends itself to Billy and Klaus being friends. Like, Klaus is friends with all of them. 

Cassie and Luther are friends. She doesn’t really get his whole “loyalty to Hargreeves” thing but she doesn’t really need to. She always tried to get Luther to recognize that he can be angry. Cassie is one of the few people who can physically match him, which means she’s not afraid of him or intimidated by him. Like. At all. Cassie is, unfortunately, presumed dead.

Eli and Luther h888888 each other. So Much. Eli doesn’t follow orders well enough for Luther and Eli thinks Luther needs to learn to open his goddamn eyes??? You don’t need to respect Reginald, man! He turned you into a monkey without your permission!!! Kate you talk to him I can’t handle this joker.

Noh, on the other hand, gets along really well with Luther. No one really understands why.

Nate and Five both do time travel shenanigans. Five, Nate, and Cassie all work for the agency–Nate snagged Cassie out of her timeline right as she was about to die, and Cassie and Five come back to the present together when they learn about the apocalypse. Cassie looks older than Five but Five is older than Cassie. They’re both older than the rest of their families. 

Loki and Klaus…sort of like each other. They also really help each other tap into their worst impulses, so it’s really better if they don’t hang out. They probably slept together once. They absolutely raid each other’s closets. 

Speaking of sleeping together once, Diego and Tommy once had a terrible one night stand. They don’t speak of it. 

Noh hangs out with Klaus when he’s struggling with sobriety. 

Kate and Ben absolutely had crushes on one another when they were kids. You’d think being dead would put a damper on things but it actually doesn’t, because Kate’s almost-died so many times that she can actually see other dead people when Klaus is around. It has more to do with Klaus than with Kate. It also means she’s in a triad type thing with Klaus and Ben. 

Kate’s a pretend partygirl tastemaker type. She usually doesn’t actually drink but she goes to clubs and makes them popular for money and sometimes she takes Klaus with her. Stark’s Bishop and a Hargreeves? Cha-ching. Klaus and Kate have a really weird relationship, because half of it is them pretending to be drunk for the Money and the other half of it is breakfast for dinner sprawled on the couch watching Dog Cops and its spinoff, Dogstronaut, which is about dogs exploring space. And several ghost hunting shows, because Klaus and Ben like to make fun of them.  Like. Ben/Kate/Klaus is an absolute nightmare because Ben is the only one with sense and he??? is dead??? And Kate and Klaus have no sense of self-preservation--Klaus because he’s a mess and Kate because she doesn’t care. And perchance this leads to Loki/Klaus/Kate/Ben and it is TERRIBLE and CHAOTIC, KATE CAN NEVER FIND HER CLOTHES (which wasn’t part of the master plan but it is now)

David and Diego actually get along really well. They are pining for each other 5eva. Kate constantly teases David about it, like, is it because he’s like the guy version of me? Why don’t you love me David??? Do I need to wear more leather??? It literally takes Allison, Klaus, Ben, Kate, Eli, and America to get these two losers to go on a date. They go to a planetarium and stumble across a drug ring while going for pie. They move in together pretty quickly because Diego?? Lives in a gym??? and David makes really good money and Diego refuses Reginald’s money so what I’m saying is sugar daddy David and you can bet none of their siblings let it go but secretly they both LOVE it. DIEGO IS A BOTTOM.

I feel like Eli/Allison is really obvious but like? He’s solid and stable and she needs that, and she would be really good at helping Eli have fun, lighten up, etc. I think they’d inspire each other to be better siblings to their families. 

Nate and Five never dated (or DID they) and they are like...tweens who argue like an 80-year old married couple

I mean look ok you said “disaster couple” and clearly the biggest disaster couple is Kate/Allison with a side of Kate/Allison/America, because Allison and America would constantly just be like “!!!! NO KATE YOU ARE BREAKABLE AND DON’T HAVE POWERS COME BACK” i mean really there’s a lot of potential there

[lovemesomerafael]

EL AMOR TODO LO PUEDE Chapter 17:  Showtime

Chapters 1 - 10  Chapter 11  Chapter 12  Chapter 13  Chapter 14  Chapter 15  Chapter 16

The party at Molly’s was still going at closing time.  Although the Intelligence team tried to get him to keep the bar open and Otis was on their side, Hermann wasn’t budging.  He had no interest in paying a fine for staying open after hours. 

Plenty of Laura’s friends other than the Intelligence team were there, as well.  Maggie Lockwood and a couple of the other nurses she’d worked with at Med were there, along with Ethan Choi, Connor Rhodes, and most of Firehouse 51.  Even Sharon Goodwin and Peter Stone had stopped by for a drink.  Mostly they were just happy to have an excuse to party, but Laura was honored all the same. 

She could hardly believe this was happening.  After only a few years on patrol, she had just been promoted to Intelligence.  She had worked her ass off to get there, but she also knew Voight had pulled strings because he wanted to bring her into his unit.  She accepted that; she was realistic about how the world worked, and she knew it was ridiculously early in her police career to have such an opportunity.  She was grateful as hell.

In the years since the attack, Laura had walked home from Molly’s alone many times.  She was stubborn enough to refuse to make a shrine out of the spot where she’d been abducted, or to allow that sick fuck to take any more from her than he had.  Tonight, however, several of the die-hards who still wanted to party were walking together, because everyone but Laura was wasted and her apartment was closest. She had to laugh; she was having the best time of anyone, and she was the only one who wouldn’t wake up with a hangover.  Who said alcoholism didn’t have an upside?

********

Two Years Later:

The two years Laura Parker had spent in Intelligence so far had been incredibly hard work.  She’d been partnered with Al Olinsky, which could not have suited her better.  He’d been a detective forever and seen it all.  He didn’t stint on praise when she did well, but he also wasn’t shy about chewing her ass when she made mistakes.  She learned more from him than she’d believed there was to know, including how to be a solid partner.

She had never experienced anything like the combination of highs and lows involved in being a Detective in CPD Intelligence.  She trained with firepower she’d never in her wildest dreams imagined she’d be carrying. She got to participate in getting good people out of horrible situations, and putting very, very bad people in prison.  She’d had the opportunity to go undercover on a number of occasions and found she had a talent for it, which Voight said was the natural extension of her generally being full of shit.  But she also saw the worst of the worst; the ugliest things one human could do to another. And the hours were hellish.

Laura and Eric Hernandez had developed a very satisfactory “Instructor/Student with benefits” relationship, which worked perfectly for her.  With the hours the Intelligence unit worked, she had little time for more than A.A. and the gym.  Eric didn’t ask for anything.  Whenever she had the time and inclination, he was happy to spend a few hours in bed with no expectations.  And her Spanish improved quite a bit.

Now she was about to get to meet the legendary Olivia Benson and Fin Tutuola from the Manhattan Special Victims Unit of the NYPD.  The Intelligence detectives who had worked with them before talked about them with respect bordering on reverence.  Even Voight seemed to feel Benson was something of a big deal.  Laura was actually fairly intimidated.  

The case was a rapist who had been on a nationwide spree, and was believed to currently be in Chicago, based upon the similar signature of a series of rapes there in the last month.  He preyed upon women in their 30s, brunettes exclusively, and the press had dubbed him the Gentleman Barber because he befriended his victims prior to raping them, then viciously hacked their hair off afterward.  

Fin Tutuola made Laura feel like the geeky, sixteen-year-old girl from Bloomington, Illinois she’d been years before.  He was so cool and quick with one-liners, and such an experienced cop, she found herself feeling shy and tongue-tied around him.  He didn’t seem to have much use for a rookie like her, anyway; he barely looked at her.  

It was clear from the beginning that the relationship between Voight and Lieutenant Benson was strained. Listening to her give a briefing, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.  She made a point of looking at Voight as, over and over, she stressed the importance of doing things by the book.  Not Voight’s strong suit.  Laura wondered what it would be like to work for someone like her, having worked for Voight for most of her police career.  Laura understood that reform in the CPD had significantly curtailed some of the excesses she’d heard about, but she had still seen enough to know that Voight had little use – or patience – for procedure.  Apparently, Olivia Benson was a very different breed.  

The Gentleman Barber struck the day after Tutuola and Benson arrived.  Voight had sent Olinski and Parker to the scene with them, and Laura was looking forward to seeing what differences there would be in the way they worked a scene.  

As they walked around the apartment, looking at the scene and discussing what had happened, something struck Laura.  As they studied and worked through the blood and semen stains on the carpet, she noticed a smudge low down on a nearby wall.  She cocked her head as she looked at it, then back to the stains, then back to the smudge again.  She went over to the wall to get a closer look at the smudge, surprised to find that it contained a few criss-cross marks.  

“Hey, how tall is this guy supposed to be?”

“Very,” Benson answered her.  “All the victims mention that.  Why?”

Laura caught the attention of a CSU tech who was still taking photographs.  “Did you get shots of that smudge?”  

“What smudge?” The tech asked, looking blank.  

Laura then did something really strange.  She moved close to the stains and stretched herself out over it, balancing on her hands and toes so she didn’t make any contact with the carpet near the stains.  She didn’t see Fin and Olivia exchange troubled looks, because she was looking backward, over her feet.  Directly at the smudge.

“That one,” Laura said. “It’s a shoe print.  Could be his.”

Sure enough, when CSU measured, the print could have been made by someone lying over the stained area, if they were about six foot eight.  They’d missed it because they hadn’t been thinking about someone that tall.

Fin and Olivia shared another look.  

The next time the rapist struck, they got a break.  The victim had been able to stab him in the upper arm with a scissors.  CPD announced this as widely as they could in the media, hoping that someone would come forward with a tip that could lead them to him. The tactic could have backfired; he could have left the city due to the publicity about his identifying injury, but Voight and Benson determined that it was worth the risk.  

It worked.  They got a tip from a maid at an older economy motel that one of the motel’s guests, an extremely tall man, had some kind of wound to his left upper arm.  The wound hadn’t been there when he’d checked in, and she’d noticed it on the day after the victim had stabbed the Gentleman Barber.  The maid reported that there was a lot of gauze, tape, and antibiotic ointment in his room.

Laura got another surprise about Olivia Benson when A.S.A. Stone told her that he couldn’t get a search warrant for the motel room based on the shoe print and the maid’s story alone.  She lit into him.  Apparently, she seemed to think that, if she was outraged and sanctimonious enough, he would – what?  Be shamed into requesting a search warrant they wouldn’t get?  Again Laura asked herself what it would be like to work for someone like that.  

As he passed Laura on his way out of the bullpen, Peter leaned over to her and said, softly enough so only she could hear, “Glad that one’s in New York and we’re in Chicago.”

“Testify, Brother,” she muttered back.

Little did either of them know what their futures held.

Knowing who and where they thought the Gentleman Barber was, however, allowed them to set up a sting to hopefully catch him.  They immediately staked out the motel and determined that he ate most of his meals at the diner next door.  

Unfortunately for Laura, she was the only brunette in her 30s on the team. For the next three days, she became a waitress at the diner.  The guy was calling himself Dwight Carson, and the team couldn’t prove otherwise, because the fingerprints they lifted from the glasses and silverware he used weren’t in the system.  The fingerprints also didn’t help because the Gentleman Barber hadn’t left fingerprints at the scene of any of his rapes.  

It wasn’t too difficult for Laura to develop a casual friendship with Dwight Carson.  He was friendly and actually chatty.  The next step was to give him the opportunity to attack. They accomplished that by a two-step process involving a very clumsy busboy at the diner and some creative maintenance to Laura’s car.

The busboy’s “accident” happened when Carson was pretty much finished with dinner.  Ruzek, pretending to be the busboy, did a masterful job of taking a pratfall with a tray loaded down with soup and milkshakes that Halstead and Upton, as customers, had made sure to leave half-full. Carson was covered.  Most importantly, his hair was full of soup, which meant he would need to shower.  

That allowed Fin and Olinsky to know where he was for the ten minutes they needed to safely install the tiny tracking device on Carson’s rental car, along with a camera and sound transmitter that were impossible to see even when you were looking right at them. If he was going to abduct Parker, he wasn’t going to get far.

After that, at closing time for the diner, Laura knocked on Carson’s door.  

With all the members of the team, along with several uniformed officers, stationed at strategic spots in both locations, she explained to Carson that her car wouldn’t start. Because she’d been the last to leave, there was no one left to give her a ride home.  He seemed like a good guy, so would he please just give her a quick lift? It wasn’t far.  He readily agreed.  

The drive to the little duplex was uneventful and, in fact, Carson didn’t even have much to say. Laura noticed that he seemed a little on edge.  She hoped that meant the hook was set.  He dropped her off, waited gallantly for her to wrestle the warped door open, and get safely inside.  Then he drove off.  

But he didn’t return to the motel.  Instead, Olinsky and Atwater tailed him to a Wal-Mart, where he purchased duct tape and a straight razor.

Got him.

The duplex was old and run-down, with sloping floors and windows that had either been painted closed or had been warped by heat and cold until they were all but impossible to open. It was stuffy as Laura waited inside, with nothing to do but listen to the step by step of Carson’s shopping trip on the tiny earpiece she wore.  The rest of the team was in position, too.  All of them were outside, because the duplex was simply too small to conceal another person inside.  They couldn’t take the chance that Carson would see something amiss before he made an undeniable move to attack Laura.

At last, Olinsky’s voice came through the earpiece, announcing that Carson had parked his rental car down the block from the duplex, and was now on foot, skulking from house to house in an effort to avoid being seen in the light of the streetlights. When he reached the duplex, Laura took out her earpiece and picked up the book next to her on the bed.  

She heard the faintest click and squeak as the back door of the duplex opened slowly.  Had she not known he was there, she doubted she would have noticed it.  She knew there were cameras recording everything that happened in the little house, even in the darkened kitchen where he now was.  

Correction.  He was now in the hallway outside the room she was in.  She could hear the quietest brush of feet slowly, slowly moving toward her.  Again, had she not known to listen for it, she wouldn’t have heard it.  No wonder his victims had been completely surprised when he was suddenly just there beside them.  

He entered the room so quickly she actually jumped in surprise, even though she’d expected him. He wore gloves and had torn strips of duct tape lightly stuck to the black sweatshirt he wore.  Clever.  He wasted no time pulling one off as he grabbed for Laura’s right wrist.  She struggled just enough to be convincing, yelling and swatting ineffectually at him.  She let him capture her wrist and tape it securely to the headboard of the bed,

When he had her right wrist secured and was working on the left, she began to wonder where the team was.  How far were they going to let this go?  

She started to hear banging and yelling, but it was still just her and Carson in the bedroom. She knew from the noise that the team was there, so she let him wrestle her left arm to the headboard and duct tape it securely.  Now it really was time for them to stop this. Even Peter Stone would be satisfied with what they had now, she thought.  

But still she could hear only banging and then glass breaking.  Carson seemed to be in some kind of world of his own, driven by a frenzy that blinded and deafened him to everything else, because he didn’t appear to register the noise of the team trying to enter.  He was absolutely focused on his task.

Laura decided when he roughly tore the sheets from her and shoved the nightgown she wore to her waist that she had had enough.  Whatever the team was doing, it wasn’t happening fast enough.  She wasn’t willing to actually let this asshole rape her to get a conviction.  

She bent both legs toward her torso and then thrust them as fast as she could to either side of his neck, slamming them together and twisting abruptly to her left.  In his surprise at being pulled down onto the bed, he didn’t escape in time to stop her from locking her feet behind his head and pulling his neck into the crook of her right knee, where she effectively locked him.  

When Olivia Benson and Fin Tutuola rushed into the room seconds later, they found Parker with her wrists securely duct taped to the headboard, and the rapist held by the neck between her legs, her left ankle hooked behind her right.  He might eventually have been able to break free, but not before help arrived.

As Voight cuffed the Gentleman Barber and led him from the room, Fin cut Laura free from the headboard.  

Now Fin looked at her and seemed to actually see her.  

“You got a future in the WWF,” he said, smiling.  

“What took you so long?” She asked.  

Apparently, the doors and windows in the old duplex weren’t the only things that no longer moved freely.  They had decided that she should lock the front door, but leave the back unlocked. They figured Carson would enter that way, and lots of people forgot to lock their back doors.  They didn’t want him to be discouraged by having to pick such an old, heavy lock.

The problem had been that he’d locked the door behind him.  Consistent with the rest of the house, the locks were rusty and corroded, and it had taken so long to get the doors open that Olivia and Fin had finally broken a window and entered that way.

Laura was thrilled to have been able to be a productive part of catching the Gentleman Barber. She wasn’t sure what she thought of Lieutenant Benson, but she definitely wanted her respect.  And she was especially glad that she’d been able to show Sergeant Tutuola that she deserved to be part of the Intelligence unit.  

When Voight told her she’d done a good job, she was so happy that, although it was after 2 a.m. and therefore rude as hell, she booty called Eric anyway.  He told her to come on over.

[dememarquette]

Season Finale

Jo killed the set.

The show fizzled, leaving the blank screen mirroring the town. It’s face reflected everyone. Friends, neighbors, family- all of their faces turning to Adria in empathetic horror-

Except Demetrius.

Silence fell like a guillotine. Energy warped as the deputy siphoned all power from the room, cultivating it into an oppressive force that hung over the diner at large. Her ire was a tsunami, and the subject of it kicked the leg of the stool, twisting his body her direction with a squeak.

Stone-faced, he was ready for the breach. His plastic, coiffed, red-carpet face stared down his nose at his co-star:

A stricken, destroyed Adria who’s life, all at once, was blasted before America as prime-time entertainment.

"You unbelievable bastard," Her voice trembled, severe. "You son of a bitch."

"Adria-” 

"Deputy," She snarled. "And I don’t want to hear it."

He rolled his eyes. “Deputy,” He indulged. “I can explain.”

"You're going to explain?” She jolted to her feet. Her hand jerked from her mother’s grip, and her sister ducked out of the way. A chair clattered between them. “You’re going to explain what? How you lied to my face? How you humiliated me in front of…of the whole fucking country? How you tricked me into thinking you gave a damn about anyone other than yourself? How you sat here, watching me watch you make a fool of me so you could get one more laugh at how stupid I am?"

“C’mon-”

"You swore to me!”

“I swore to you?” He blinked, awestruck. "I swore to you? ’Thanks for putting me through Hell’? That was my promise?”

"How could you do this?!" She seethed, bulldozing past his nonchalance. Her face was breaking. As her vision blurred, its pain chipped into a much deeper chasm. 

Predictably, Demetrius thought. Such audacity. She was serious. She was honestly serious and that was somehow more nauseating than her stage persona.

He shook his head, huffing a derisively impressed breath. In his eyes, this episode was a long time coming. With it, their cutesy charade would die and, for once, they would be on the same page. 

But alas, here she was. Continuing her role. Feigning hurt, faking a deep sort of betrayal so sickeningly trite that it should be saved for the cameras.

All of this was coming after everything she had been doing to tear down his career. After she destroyed his arm, after she blasted his integrity in front of the whole town, HE was the bad guy? Like the episode didn’t just prove she was the cause of the town’s misery? And that she wasn’t even capable of cleaning up her own mess without devolving into an emotional heap, a helpless bleeding wound oozing all over America’s heartstrings? 

This was a job for him, sure. But it was getting exhausting.

"I trusted you!” She wailed. “And I cared about- and I thought that you- that we were-" 

“NO.” Her cut her off. “You do not get to pull that shit. You lied. God, Adria. You can’t deny it, you were loving it!”

“What-?” Her furor doused under a wash of confusion. Everything she’d been planning to say came to a still.

Demetrius was a sociopath. He was a traitor, a bastard who put her on blast before all of America, yet knowing all this did not disarm the awful power he had to cast doubt.

‘You were loving it’  he said. 

She was. Honest to God she was, but the malicious look in his eyes said their contexts existed onto two different planes.

“What are you talking about?”

Demetri slid off the stool. Serpentine, he moved with purpose, stopping toe to toe in front of her face. At the same height he took in every detail. Every blood vessel about to break. Every tear that formed at the corners on the edge of her lashes, ambling to spill over.

“You live in the past. Always have. That’s been your schtick since the beginning. ‘Oh no, woe is me. I can’t handle the bare mention Cyrus.’ Like it was a keyword, a self-destruct button, but get real. He was your middle school crush.”

He moved into a slow prowl around her. Adria stood as a frozen totem in the center. 

“And all of that would make sense except you just happen to wear that cross around your neck? That the compound hurt too much to discuss yet you didn’t mind the cameras pouring over it? That it wasn’t your goddamn idea to investigate in the first place? Tell me, Adria.” He moved into the crook of her neck. His words, another secret to Ashwater. Wouldn’t that drive her wild? “Were you thrilled when I asked?” He whispered acidically. “Were you waiting for that moment? The chance to finally get it out? That this fabricated mystique you’ve been building for eleven. fucking. years was now free for the presses?”

Her head swam. Effortless, he hit every button. Every teeny insecurity, he ripped them to the surface. They were wounds overed but never healed. All that frantic, hysterical energy hardened. The betrayal locked her inside herself. Excruciating, his rant coursed through her body like a current, holding her prisoner.

But an underlying impulse was there. Her hands shook. One by one fingers curled into her palms.

“I mean, what do you guys think?” He spun on the crowd, determined to turn this into a real spectacle. It’s what they were vying for, wasn’t it?  “You were all there! Was it chance that the first person she happened to,” He pinched his fingers into airquotes, “‘TRUST‘ was a television celebrity? That I was more reliable than anyone else in her life? Even her own family-? It sounds like a big ‘fuck all of you guys,’  right? C’mon, let’s hear it-”

He clapped. His hands pounded into one another like the rest of the world was supposed to join in. 

Adria stood at the center. Humiliated.

She wasn’t even hearing him anymore. Or anything- not over her heart hammering in her ears. Her tears dried. The blood in her veins, once icy was now boiling. Under the intense pressure of her personal hell mutating, it metastasized. It became something far worse than what went on HBO, and that’s when it dawned on her: 

He was not completely wrong. He was right, if only about one thing: this was her fault. It was her mistake. Demetrius would not have had the power to destroy her if she hadn’t given it to him.

She always had one rule for herself: keep people away for a reason- to avoid this. And she'd broken it. She didn't get to cry about being hurt when she'd done it to herself. She had been too pathetically starved for companionship to remember that at his core, Demetrius was a liar. All the good she'd thought she'd seen was a front so that he could get what he wanted out of her. And she’d fallen for it- again.

“Congratulations Adria” He continued, ever oblivious to his limits. “You got what you wanted! Now everyone in the United States of America can see how miserable, and maudlin, and heartbroken their sweetheart deputy is. Now, if I can stop babysitting-”

She slugged him.

The priest crashed against into bar. Stools dropped as he barely caught himself. His good hand snagged the counter, palm screeching across its face like sneakers on linoleum before it got its purchase. As it did, his head jerked and lulled. His vision broke between images of a red-eyed Adria and a diner full of people alienated by his presence. 

No one said anything. No one raced to help, but wasn’t that his point? 

This hokey town, this community built on deceit, this fake brand compassion he was constantly subjected to- it was all over. None of their lives would have been in danger if she hadn’t ever loved that prick. If she hadn’t let him escape, there would be no monsters. No cult, no fake prime-time show romanticizing a fucking psychopath, and most importantly no can-do-no-wrong cop that was nonsensically still a bleeding heart.

It didn’t matter if they didn’t see it immediately. They would, eventually. He was sure of it.

“‘is doesn’ change an’ing.” He sucked blood off his lip. “Nothing.”

She took a step closer. Towering over him, Adria’s fist was a powerhouse ready for more but motivation behind it died. Her eyes were dull. The fire was put out. Forced to come to terms with the fact no one was left in her corner- and no one ever would be- soberly left her with a grim, apathetic resolve. Yes, trust was a mistake. And no, it would not happen again.

He wobbled- timid of the looming figure, but determined. He couldn’t defend himself. Not a chance, but when he looked up, he saw the glimmering moment she crashed to Earth. This wasn’t about trading barbs or blows anymore. They were past all that emotional nonsense. 

“Remember, Dep,” He yanked himself level with the counter, wild-eyed and teeth smeared red. “You and me have a date. Are we saving this town or not?”

[ladyofstardust]

Carol of the Goblins

Word Count: 2.7k

Rating: T

Summary: In which Jareth fights in the war against Christmas Wrapping and he and Sarah exchange gifts. A DVD player may or may not have gone back in time and a Goblin may or may not have been on fire. Whatever, the cops left in the end.

Notes: Apartment-verse fic.  Set after the events of Thursday Night.  I’m also posting them over at Ao3 in order if you’d prefer to read that way.

You took my dreams from me When I first found you I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can't make it all alone I've built my dreams around you

- Fairytale of New York by The Pogues

“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the apartment, there were several creatures stirring but most notably the Fae king currently in a duel with my wrapping paper,” Sarah said coming in through the front door.  Jareth was sitting crosslegged on the floor of her living room, hair sticking every which way and with several pieces of scotch tape in it. He was cursing in a language she didn’t know at her wrapping paper, while the Peanuts Christmas special played in the background.

“Sarah!” He said with a start.  “You weren’t supposed to be home for another hour!”

“Traffic was better than I expected,” she said with a smile, eyeing the nondescript box Jareth had half-wrapped.  “My family sends their love and more importantly, their gifts.”

Sarah held a bag of gifts up for him to see, but he only scowled at them.

“This holiday would be much improved without this patently impossible task.”

“If you don’t do it by hand how will I know you mean it though?” Sarah teased.  “If you can wrap my gift by hand I’ll show you my trick for next year.”

“I don’t need a trick I need magic,” he grumbled.  “I truly despise you for these ridiculous gift rules.”

“No you don’t,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and grabbing a stray piece of tape at the same time.  “You just need to be creative.”

“That wouldn’t be necessary if you’d just let me,” at this he gave a little hand wave and the lights on her tree all lit up.  He cocked an expectant eyebrow as if this proved his point.

“And I’ve seen what wonders and sparkly delights magic gets me for Christmas.  I want to see what my boyfriend gets me when he’s got the same limitations as the rest of us mortals.  My gift is also not made with magic I’ll remind you,” she said, retreating to the kitchen.  “Besides you’re the Goblin King. Stuff of nightmares and such. Is a bit of shiny paper really going to be your downfall?”

“Oh do go off,” he said bitterly.  “And do not come in here until I am done wrapping!”

“Babe, I will need my living room back before June,” she called from the kitchen.  

“I should really just return this and find a girlfriend who appreciates my magical abilities.”

“Probably!” She called back.  “In the meantime I’m going to start on dinner before the crew gets here.  Ludo doesn’t eat meat and Hoggle is currently on a weird Underground diet and can’t have ‘anything that flies’ and I’m not sure…if he counts chickens?”

“He does,” Jareth replied.  “Most of the Underground chickens can fly, they just choose not to because they’re disgusting, lazy vermin.”

“You’re in such a good mood that I’m going to put on Christmas carols so I don’t have to hear you shouting eldritch horrors at the scotch tape.”

Sarah spent the rest of the afternoon making Christmas cookies and a very large pot of spaghetti and cauliflower balls.  She wasn’t much in the kitchen, but one of the only skills she picked up from Karen was knowing how to make some kickass cookies.  

Her and Jareth had gotten into the habit of spending Christmas Eve together with their friends.  Sarah was less and less interested in driving for three hours to Irene’s place to hear about who was ruining the economy this year (her), what people needed to ‘get over’ (human rights usually), and when she was going to make something of her life (get married).  It was exhausting and compared to the idea of curling up with Jareth watching Die Hard…well she knew which one she was choosing.

Jareth had begged off the Underground’s Yule festivities as they were normally held at the Winter Court and he and the Winter Queen weren’t currently on the best of terms.  They had briefly debated decking the hell out of the castle’s halls and doing a very medieval style Christmas, but Sarah wasn’t up to it this year. She liked their low-key traditions of board games, mulled wine, and listening to Christmas music together.  It always made her feel at home, and it was the part of the holidays she looked forward to the most.

“Would my beautiful, lovely, and generous girlfriend be willing to come in here a moment?” Jareth called from the living room.

“Sure but she isn’t helping you any,” Sarah said, laying out the Christmas cookies on a plate.

“Well then nevermind!” he yelled.  

“You’ve got another half an hour and then you’ll need to give up and come play Settlers of Catan.  Hoggle won’t play Risk with both of us anymore,” Sarah said, reminding him of what Hoggle colloquially referred to as “the most scarring experience of his life.”

But it was not as though there was a lot of fire and really, he’d gotten out of there long before the cops showed up.

A few months ago, during a rainy day, they’d decided to play a game of Risk.  Things went well…for about the first hour or so. Then alliances and double dealings happened and it all culminated in Jareth creating a playable dragon that truly, under no circumstance, needed to breathe fire.  So she’d countered by setting up landmines of pudding for his troops to fall into because of Jareth’s hatred of sticky things. The dragon stepped in the pudding and a goblin came and ate the dragon, because of said pudding.  At which point the dragon started breathing fire out of the goblin’s mouth, the goblin started freaking out running all over her apartment breathing fire, lighting other goblins on fire as it went, as she was running behind it dropping pudding on the fire because well, it was what she had handy, while Jareth tried to turn off the building’s sprinkler system.  They’d managed to get the goblins back through the mirror before the cops showed up, but not before they cleaned up all the pudding and scorch marks.

So no, Hoggle was not down to play Risk.  Sir Didymus was still on board though.

Sarah went into her bedroom to grab Jareth’s gift.  She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what to get him, they’d never really done a traditional Christmas gift exchange so this was her first experience trying to buy for the man who could have anything he wanted.  The influx of ads pushing whiskey stones and artisanal shaving kits were all wrong for Jareth. She’d debated getting him a nice new pair of leather gloves, but realized she’d be really put out if he thought to buy her underwear, and he had a whole drawer full of specially designed gloves.  The mall likely didn’t carry gloves that were designed for spell casting anyways. The idea had come to her one afternoon while cleaning out her drawers. She’d found some old notes from the Goblins and she realized just the thing for her Goblin King.

She hung out flipping through Jane Eyre in her bedroom, waiting for Jareth to finish with her gift.  Finally, when she got to the scene where Rochester and Jane confess their love, Jareth walked in, looking somewhat worse for wear.  His hair had gained several more pieces of scotch tape and for some reason he had a cut across his cheek.

“I’ve brought you a gift,” he said quietly, extending the package towards her.  

In the end, he’d wrapped it perfectly.  There was a beautifully tied ribbon, with a bow on top, and the wrapping job looked professionally done.  Sarah let out an impressive whistle.

“You know, I gotta say, much like a hotdog, the process to get it may not be pretty, but the end product sure is.  Damn, now I want a hotdog.”

“Your gift is not a hotdog,” he said brows knitting together in annoyance.  

“Shame,” Sarah said with a pout.  “Guess we’ll just have to go back to the cart in the woods.”

“What is that,” he said, trying to change the subject by pointing to the gift bag Sarah had at the foot of the bed.  

“Well that would be your gift,” she said, patting the space next to her for him to sit down.

“But…it’s in a bag?” He said confused.

“Yeah that’s my trick.  I suck at wrapping so I always just get a nice bag instead,” she said with a wink, giving him a quick peck on the tip of his nose.

“So putting me through the torture of hand wrapping your gift was for…?”  He said, helplessly.

“Fun.  Namely, mine,” she grinned.

“I will get you back for this,” he grumbled.  

“I’m sure you’ll get me back for it before the night is over,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes.  “Now open your gift!”

Jareth glared at her one more time before grabbing the gift bag.  Slowly and deliberately he removed every piece of tissue paper as Sarah watched expectantly.  Finally, he pulled out her gift at the bottom of the bag.

Knit together with golds, greys, browns and black was a long scarf.  At the bottom of each tail was the pattern of his sigil, just like the amulet he wore.  

“I’m not a great knitter,” Sarah said taking a breath.  “So I know it’s not perfect or anything. I tried to get the sigil right, and I had Ludo help me a bit to make it even.  I wanted something really long so you could wrap it around your neck a bunch of times since you’re forever wearing those low-cut shirts.  But I chose this gift because eight or so years ago, I made Sir Didymus a scarf. It wasn’t very well made, but I spent about a month trying to get it ready for Christmas.  I gave Hoggle some marmalade, and Ludo a game of marbles. I didn’t realize that these were the first Christmas gifts my friends had ever received. I didn’t realize that in knitting that scarf I’d find myself and my life totally co-opted by Goblins, and Goblin Kings alike.  That the act of making that scarf might have been more powerful than that first wish. That scarf is coming apart, and filled with holes and probably quite a few pudding stains by now. Sir Didymus still wears it proudly. I didn’t know then, what I know now. About you, about the Underground, or about … anything really.  But I can honestly say, there’s no place I’d rather be, and no one I’d rather be with. So it seems only right that your first Christmas gift should be a scarf as well, since it was what brought you home to me. Merry Christmas Jareth, and I do love you very much.”

“Oh I do wish you hadn’t,” Jareth said, flopping backwards onto her bedspread. 

“Oh...why?” Sarah said, feeling her heart start to sink.

Jareth leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbow. “Because your gift is perfect Sarah.  It so far surpasses my gift that despite spending the better part of today attempting to wrap it, I’m not sure I want you to open it.”

“To be honest, half the gift was definitely watching you war with the wrapping paper,” Sarah said, grabbing Jareth’s gift to her.  

“I just want to take the opportunity to remind you that I once turned the Bog into your fondest ice skating dreams,” he said as she began to tear into the paper.

“I don’t have any ice skating dreams I can’t skate,” she said, not looking up from the box.

Sarah removed the gift from the plain brown box he’d placed it in.  Inside to her complete surprise, she found a new DVD player and every John Hughes movie Sarah could name.  She looked up at her very nervous looking Goblin King and bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“You...replaced my DVD player?  And got me The Breakfast Club?”

“If you’d allow me a few moments I’m sure I can provide something suitably magical,” he said quickly.  “Something that does not involve wrapping paper.”

“What after you conquered it?  Absolutely not!” She said clutching the DVDs to her chest.  “These are mine and I love them Jareth. Love them. Between this and the war on Christmas wrapping you staged, I honestly am … really charmed.”

“You are forever complaining about how I damaged your original device, I thought it a suitable gift to replace it for you even though I had nothing to do with the initial...malfunction,” he said, and Sarah saw the tenseness leave his shoulders.  

“Jareth, I think you may have sent that DVD player back in time.  It oozed noxious purple goop for a few minutes, lit off some more truly foul smelling purple smoke - seriously I don’t even think the bog smells that bad, and then poof!  Gone! Where did it go Jareth? Where did the DVD player and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off go?!”

“If I knew that I simply would have retrieved the old machine,” he grumbled.  “I replaced the film, along with several others by the same filmmaker. I was told he’s a favourite of yours.”

“You were told by me, many times, because I love John Hughes movies.  But that kinda proves my point about why I like it. Actually no, why I love it.  It’s thoughtful Jareth. I love it when you think about me. I love it even more when you think about me, and what I like, what I don’t like.  You even remembered not to include St. Elmo’s Fire because of my inability to watch a Demi Moore movie without getting unreasonably angry.”

“Because she reminds you of your mother,” he nodded.  “I remember.”

“Yeah...yeah that’s why I love it Jareth,” she said, giving him a smile.  “It’s a wonderfully human gift. It’s perfect. Or maybe imperfectly perfect.  Which makes it human, which makes it perfect.”

She leaned over and gave him a kiss and he took the opportunity to pull her down.  She snuggled up next to him, facing Jareth and her window, watching the snow lightly fall on her fire escape while he laid soft kisses on her cheeks and temples.

“Merry Christmas Sarah, I also love you very much.”

“Seem like that’s our lot in life, to love each other very much,” she sighed happily, nestling closer.  “I guess it’ll have to do.”

“Yes, I guess it will,” he said smiling.  “But I think I hear our friends arriving.”

“Mmm the Christmas cookies will keep them busy for a while,” she said, snuggling further into the crook of his neck.  

“Not busy enough for all the ways I’ll be celebrating with you tonight.”  

“Okay,” she said rolling over.  “First we settle, then we Catan, then we bang.  Deal?”

“An acceptable bargain,” he said offering his hand.  

She took it, giving it a firm shake, and they nodded at each other seriously, before Sarah started laughing.  

“Come on, grab the game and I’ll put on Christmas Vacation with my shiny, new, non-time travelling DVD player.”

“I’ll grab the board game.  Pour me a glass of mulled wine love,” he said giving her a quick peck before leaping off the bed.

“My lady?  Sire?” Sir Didymus called from the kitchen.  

“They’s in the bedroom bein’ gross,” Hoggle replied sourly.

“We’re just grabbing the board game!” Sarah shouted at him.

“Whatever yous say.” Hoggle muttered.

“Come on Rocket Man, Christmas awaits,” Sarah said, grabbing her new DVD player.

“As long as you don’t ask me to wrap anything else, I’m right behind you.  I think this is going to be an excellent year.” he replied.

The DVD player, unfortunately, was toast before the new year.

[sanctuaryforalluniverses]

Macgyver 2016: Why Reboot!Jack Dalton is WAAAY more messed up than he appears to be on the show (Updated to include up to the Season 2 finale)

At first, second and third glance, Reboot!Jack Dalton seems like the human version of a golden retriever - loud, fun, kind of dumb and incredibly persistent. The writers certainly like to play up that angle, sometimes to the point of parody.

But there’s also this vague, persistent sense throughout the show that Jack is convinced he’s Not A Good Person. He was convinced that the breakup with Sarah was his fault, though I don’t remember him ever being able to point to a specific reason why, and it’s straight-up canon that he actively fled from Riley and her mom because he was convinced they’d be horrified that he beat up her abusive dad. You don’t immediately jump to that extreme a reaction unless you’ve got a lot of shame you’re carrying around. They’ve tried to avoid bringing it up as much as possible in season 2, but even then the writers have never really been able to shake the feeling. You could even argue that the extremely weird on-again, off-again thing with the con is proof that’s all he thinks he’s good for. And that’s not even including the undertone in a lot of the action scenes, where despite his complaining it’s hard not to notice that he seems to think of himself as disposable on some level.

For the longest time, it completely baffled me. How could he POSSIBLY see himself as anything but the goofball he tries to hard to be?

But… well, think about just how hard he tries to be that goofball. He throws himself into it with a dedication you’d expect from a college-age stoner, which made me start thinking about WHY he tries that hard. We know from the high school reunion episode that Jack has a deep, fierce need to be liked, but a goofball isn’t the most generally accepted personality out there (and we have canon proof that he drives plenty of people absolutely nuts with it). Why not go for a more generally appealing persona, if he really wants to be liked that badly?

And then you think about his canon resume, which includes time in Delta and several years as a CIA agent. More importantly, he seemed to be pretty darn good at both. He joined the CIA after his stretch in Delta, aka Army Special Forces (the show hasn’t stated that specifically, but it’s not an uncommon jump. Also, he was older in the CIA, and recently enough that he wouldn’t have time to qualify for Delta). Delta might do black ops stuff, but it's not exactly the kind that would give you the exact skills the CIA would be looking for. He must have distinguished himself pretty hard, and in very specific non-traditionally Delta ways, to be considered a worthy candidate.

As for his CIA record, I look to the fact that Matty, who complains about every single other thing about him she can, has never questioned his ability to do his job. She yells about his recklessness, his unwillingness to follow rules, his impulsiveness, but she’s never once called him a bad agent. Since Matty was his supervising officer during the Incident that caused him to no longer be in the CIA, it suggests to me that whatever happened wasn’t because he screwed up. Also, he must have had a pretty darn good record for the higher ups to let Mac Sr. add him to the Phoenix Foundation in the first place. The government, just like everyone else, doesn’t like hiring people who already left their employ in a spectacular fashion. The only possible reason they’d have let him back in at all is that he’s darn good at his job.

(Also, I think Matty must trust his skills enough to be the one to have mentioned his name to Mac Sr. in the first place. No matter what Mac Sr. implied, he's coolly logical and efficient enough I can't IMAGINE someone like Jack was his first choice for Mac's partner, successes be darned. He probably only took the suggestion after two or three of his candidates all went bust, and only told himself it was his genius plan all along when Mac and Jack refused to leave each other's side.)

So all evidence points to the fact that Jack Dalton was a Good Spy. And there’s one thing all Good Spies are good at - pretending to be something they’re not.

Because there are a few things that just don’t fit in with the goofball persona. That trick in 2x20, where Ethan led all the bad guys into one room with that heartbroken “plea” to his Dad? That was elegant, manipulative and a little bit ruthless, and more importantly it was clever in an “I understand people” rather than an “I understand science” way. Though he knows the inside of Jack’s head pretty well, the show has never given us any sign that Mac has any sort of real insight into how the majority of humans work (if anything, it’s shown us the opposite). So that part of the plan… well, it probably wasn’t Mac’s.

Then there’s that time Mac got arrested for supposedly killing that guy, and Matty’s most immediate priority was making sure Jack didn’t do anything super dangerous? And it wasn’t even in a whole “Jack, don’t do anything stupid” way. It was more of a “Jack, you’re not allowed to cause an international incident IN OUR BACKYARD” kind of way. And the way Jack looked so ANGRY, like he was seriously considering that international incident. Like, in his head at that moment, there wasn’t a lot of difference between the local cops and enemy soldiers.

And remember when he essentially offered up Jill and Riley’s dad as sacrificial lambs because he needed to get into Matty’s safe? Yes, he was offering them up to Matty, which meant their actual lives weren’t on the line. But the destruction of Jill’s career and Riley’s dad going back to prison were very real options if things didn’t go EXACTLY the way Jack wanted them to, and that fact didn’t seem to bother Jack all that much. Given how fiercely protective he is of HIS team (and how much he worries about them), it stood out.

And then there’s the ending of that episode, where the ONE painting that wasn’t crooked was the one hiding the safe. (This did indeed turn out to be bad writing, because no one who’d been a spy as long as Jack had would make such a rookie mistake. Given how “stellar” the writing the show has been at various other points -- I’m looking at you, the completely logic-defying resolution of the Nikki and Patricia plot lines -- it didn’t even surprise me.)

But still, how did she know it was Jack? He can't be the only person who'd want to get at her secrets, and given the level of security she would no doubt have on her own secrets it makes no sense that her immediate assumption that it was him would be a comment on his lack of intelligence. The most logical conclusion, then, is that he was that she knew he was one of a very small number of people GOOD enough to pull it off, and the most likely on that list.

The most interesting moment in this category, however, came in the finale. Remember when Matty basically told Jack "Hey, you also need to make sure you save Mac Sr."? It doesn't make any sense for her to have meant "You need to make sure you also save people who aren't Mac," because Jack does that anyway -- he gets to Mac, and then together they get everyone else out. It's literally their standard plan, and Matty knows it. It goes without saying that these two will do every single thing in their power to get everyone else out of danger.

So all I can think is that what Matty was *actually* saying was "If you're tempted to let Mac Sr. die for everything he's put Mac through, you should not do that." And after mentioning that the world needs Mac Sr., and Jack absolutely not responding to that at ALL, she throws in that he also saved her life a bunch of times. And it's that last bit that finally does indeed respond to in the affirmative, like it's a good thing for Mac Sr.'s health that there's one person Jack likes who he hasn't screwed over. Yes, he didn't get the chance to do anything about it, but Matty's warning (and the fact that she felt she needed to give him a warning) was 100 percent serious.

And let’s take a closer look at Jack’s timeline. Though we haven’t gotten specific dates, the logical order of various incidents suggest that beating up Riley’s abusive Dad and the Incident that caused him to part ways with the CIA couldn’t have been more than five or so years apart. Riley and her mom came first, since he was definitely still working for the CIA when he was with them. We’ve also seen signs of some of the ops Jack used to run with Matty that were deep cover enough, and long-term enough, there’s no way he could have maintained a cover as a tile salesman or a relationship with a civilian. Since we know Matty was definitely his supervisor at the end of his CIA career, it’s not ludicrous to say that Jack fled Riley and her mom and immediately ran into deep cover gigs.

And let’s look at what happened AFTER the CIA incident. There, the timeline is more firm - Mac’s military career has been canonically stated as running from 2009-2012, which means Jack also had to be back in the army sometime in 2011 to 2012. Which is a weird place for him to end up, looking at his resume. He wasn’t even back in Delta - he was with a group babysitting bomb techs, which as far as I can tell seems to be the army’s version of busy work. And yet, he had enough pull that he could state “I’ll only come back if you permanently assign me to this one guy” and they LET him. Army officials do not, as a rule, like it when random underlings tell them what to do (even with the persuasion of a creepily manipulative spy dad).

If Jack could choose to keep working with Mac, he probably had some choice in getting dropped into babysitting duty in the first place. And it hit me that, if you were a career fighter looking to spend a couple of years in a job where you could 1) cause the least amount of damage and 2) be certain you were doing the morally right thing the majority of the time, then babysitting bomb techs is a pretty smart place to park yourself. The army’s full of moral grays and blacks, but keeping alive the people who are keeping bombs from hurting other people is a pretty solid Good Guy gig.

Also, he clearly wasn’t looking to make a career out of it. Looking at Riley’s age and a few other checkpoints, Jack couldn’t have been on babysitting duty pre-Mac for more than a few years at most. And once he got sprung, he was going HOME. He was going back to Texas, and he was going to be DONE with the army and the CIA and shooting people and everything. He’d been in since just after high school, and he was SICK OF IT. Like he’d maybe spent a couple of years in the army to find his feet and get his head back on straight, but that was all it was.

That smells like burnout to me. Not just general burnout, but the kind where the person who’s flamed out Absolutely Does Not Want to Hurt People Anymore. Jack had spent his entire career in the Army Special Forces and the CIA, which meant that he’d spent most of his adult life dropped directly into the shittiest, most violent situations possible. Decades of hurting people, by that point, and by then you’d have to build up some kind of tolerance if you wanted to function at all. And yet, somehow, it got so bad that he flamed out dramatically enough to cause the Incident. 

Given all that, I’m pretty sure I’d try like hell to convince everyone I was just a goofball, too. 

[dubsdeedubs]

An Outreached Hand [1/2]

Summary:  On a cold winter's day in 1982, Stan Pines shows up at his brother's door with two cats tucked in his jacket and no heartbeat in his chest.

Notes:  A sort-of Ghost Trick AU, but requires no previous knowledge of that whatsoever to read.  This will have two chapters, with one strange short interlude in the middle.

[Written for @stanuary Week 2: Trouble.  Late as hell but still working through it.]

[AO3]

Stan Pines has always been a sucker for bad decisions.

Not even the one-off mistakes that he could at least try to recover from, like splurging his last five bucks on diner pie, or denting his bumper on a terrible parallel park. Instead, he had made his brother hate him. That had lead to everything else that came afterwards - getting himself thrown out of his home and disowned from his family, getting banned from several major states, and involving himself with some people he really, really shouldn't have involved himself with.

The last one's the important bit.

Sure, there's been a whole slew of terrible choices and awful plans that have characterized the past two years of his life, he's not denying any of that. 

But the last one's what got him where he is now: kneeling in a secluded part of town with his hands crossed behind his head and a gun trained on the square of his back.

Stan just turned twenty a few days ago, and he hadn't had the chance to celebrate yet. Or to even let the fact sink in that he had officially entered the second decade of his life without achieving fame or riches - or even getting his brother to forgive him.

He thinks he probably never will. He's here instead, begging for his life from someone he couldn't even see.

It seems unfair in a way. He hadn't known he had been edging on another guy's territory. He didn't even know there were territories carved out around these parts. Most importantly, however, Stan had no idea people here would actually send someone after him.

Somehow, he figures, he doesn't think the guy about to shoot him cared much about any of that.

"You really don't have to do this," Stan begs, and every word burns on its way out. Despite his best efforts, he feels a wet prickling at the corners of his eyes. The rush of shame that comes with it just makes the feeling worse. He comforts himself with the knowledge that the people who find his body will notice that his blown out brains much more than any tears on his face.

The silence that falls after that is stifling. Despite it, despite everything, no reply comes.

Stan's grasping for straws at this point, and he knows it. "Tell Johnny I get it, alright?" He says all in a rush. "Or Willy. Ben. Whoever the hell sent you after me. I'll - I'll be outta here in an hour, just watch. You won't see me ever again."

Still nothing.

It's hard to breathe. "I've never done anything to ya," Stan stammers, and it sounds stupid even as he says it. But he has to try. "I've got nothing to do with this. Please."

The guy laughs. It sounds strange, high-pitched and shrill, not like anything that should come out of a human throat.

"Oh, Stanley Pines, you are hilarious!"

Stan jerks at that, and he instinctively turns to look at who the hell this was that knew the name he hadn't gone by since he was 18.

The click of the gun's safety stops him in his tracks.

Slowly, deliberately, he turns his head back around to look forward.

He's sweating hard, and when the night's wind blows over him, Stan feels it cold on his back. He doesn't know how this person knew his real name. He had been calling himself Steve Pinington for his entire time in this state, and he had actually been careful about keeping a low profile this time around.

But even Stanley Pines hadn't done anything that would make some crazy person want to actually kill him. Maybe just metaphorically. Maybe.

Just then, there's a rustle of movement behind a dumpster to the left. Stan hears the unmistakable irritable 'miaow' of a cat roused from its sleep.

The man behind him shoots it, almost casually.  The gunshot echoes deafeningly in the enclosed space, and Stan would be covering his ears if he's any less terrified of losing his life.

The dumpster goes quiet.

For a long moment, he doesn't know how to react.

"What the fuck," Stan says blankly, a cold numbness spreading in his veins. "Why - why the fuck did you do that?"

"That language is entirely uncalled for, pal! What if a kid heard?"

There's a grin in the maniac's voice. "Or two?"

He still can't make any sense of the trigger happy lunatic pointing a gun at him, but Stan feels a sudden indignant anger begin to mix with his numb disbelief. It's not really logical, and it isn't as if he didn't know the guy who was about to shoot him in a dark alleyway wasn't actually, y'know, a good person.

But there's just something about this that really, really pissed him off.

"You didn't have to do that," he says slowly. "You really didn't have to - that cat didn't do anything to you. It wasn't gonna do anything to you, you sonuvabitch. It was just a damn cat."

"What can I say?" The man with the gun says conversationally. "I just don't like it when stupid fleshbags blunder into places they shouldn't be."

His tone gets dark and somehow even more pants-shitting terrifying. "I mean, can you blame me after what happened last time?"

Stan doesn't think.  He really should have. 

"...What happened last time?" He asks stupidly.

The gun goes off with a sharp crack. Stan's whole body jolts forward with the impact.  For a split-second, he chokes on nothing.

He stumbles forwards a few steps, dazed and stumbling and suddenly, alarmingly tired. It feels like someone had hit him right in the shoulder with a baseball bat, but there's no pain at all.

Just a warm wetness on his hand, and a vivid crimson blossoming at the corner of his sight.

Maybe it's the shock, but it's only then that he puts the pieces together.

"Geez, woulda thought these things would be easier to aim, seeing how casually you all kill each other! Guess humans just can't do anything right, huh?"

When Stan turns around, still clenching the new hole in his body like he can stop it from bleeding out because he can't think of anything else to do, all his muddled mind can register is the man's yellow-slitted eyes.

"Just hang on tight, Fez!" The thing hollers, already raising the gun it held loosely in its hands.

Stan stumbles backwards a step, then two, because his legs feel too weak to run on. It's no use, that much is obvious. Nothing he's done has ever been of any use. He's going to die here, and there is nothing he can do to change that.

Over the loud thumping of his heart in his ears, he hears a hissing pop.  It comes from somewhere up in the sky, above all of their heads.

Stan looks heavenwards, and his heart stops at the sight of it.

Whatever it is, it's stunning. The light that's coming off of it is near blinding, and small glowing shards burst momentarily off from the main path before fading into the darkness of the night.

Stan has to blink, again and again, against the wetness in his eyes. He can't look away, it's so beautiful.

He thinks maybe it's a shooting star, and the thoughts that burst into his mind at that realization makes him want to tear up, maybe just have a good ol' cry. Right here, right now, with a dead cat in the dumpster behind him and a lunatic who isn't gonna miss shooting him again. Thinking about everything he's hoped for in the past two years, everything that he won't ever be getting.

Stan wonders if the cops will call his parents, when they find what's left of him. He wonders what Ford would say when he finds out. If he'd say anything at all.

He takes a wobbly step forward, towards the light. He knows he's getting closer to the gun and the monster in human skin that's wielding it. But it feels like he's in some kind of dream - the world just doesn't seem real the way it is now.  He just needs this.  

One of the lights that the star has left behind is getting bigger. There's a eerie whistling sound that's increasing in volume by the second, like something's whizzing through the air at high speeds.

Stan doesn't notice in time that it's coming at him. He doesn't think he would've moved even if he did.

Two things happen in very quick succession.

He hears a loud shriek of fury, and words that he cannot make out over the roar of his own blood in his ears.

Despite that, all of that cacophony of noise, he finds that he can hear a soft, plaintive mewing sound from the dumpster behind him. It's sad, kind of mournful.

Kittens, left behind. It makes a pretty horrifying amount of sense.

But at the same time, the sound comes strange, echoed. In some eerie kind of stereo. 

He's confused, for a moment. It's the last thing he thinks.

There's a sharp, cutting pain then, one that punches deep in his chest. Right to the core of him. If he was certain about anything at all related to anatomy, Stan would say he feels it right in his heart.

There isn't time to react. He lets out a breath he doesn't remember holding. And then, he's falling forward. 

Just before everything goes black, Stan gets it.

He thinks, oh.

They're twins.